A Metro driver operating the Line 605 bus on Soto Street in Boyle Heights wears a mask bearing the logo of the Amalgamated Transit Union. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Coughing filled the bus as Metro's Line 33 rumbled down Venice Boulevard. The driver looked on, horrified, as a passenger hacked repeatedly into his hands and wiped his palms on the seat.

"I was disgusted and uneasy," said the driver. "Like, come on, man. What if someone sat there and they didn't know? That's how the virus spreads."

For thousands of Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus drivers, going to work during a pandemic means spending hours in a confined space with strangers, wondering whether this will be the day they get sick.

Ridership on Los Angeles County buses has fallen 65% since the coronavirus outbreak began. But some lines are still so full that social distancing is impossible, according to interviews with a dozen drivers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Too many riders are defying California's stay-at-home orders by making nonessential trips, drivers say. Those passengers are breathing the same recirculated air and touching the same surfaces as the janitors, grocery store clerks, line cooks and other workers on board who interact with strangers for a living.

Fears of contracting the disease have been exacerbated by periodic shortages of masks, hand sanitizer and other protective gear at Metro's bus yards, and a lack of hazard pay, drivers said.

"If I come to work, am I going to catch it today? Will I catch it tomorrow? Will I catch it next week?" said a driver from a bus yard in Boyle Heights. "Its always in the back of my head."

He added: "These elected officials are calling medical workers heroes and grocery workers heroes and firefighters heroes. Yes, they are. But bus operators are heroes, too. Literally, we are the front line.

The worst-case scenario, drivers say, is something like what happened to Jason Hargrove. In a video posted to Facebook, the Detroit bus driver said a passenger coughed on him several times without covering her mouth. As he wiped his face with a tissue, he said, he felt "violated." He died 11 days later of complications from COVID-19.

Story continues

Nationwide, the death toll for transit workers stands at more than 100, including more than 80 fatalities in New York. At least 30 of those workers drove buses, New York transit officials said.

At least one transit worker in Southern California, a bus driver in Santa Clarita, has died of complications from the disease.

Of Metro's 42 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 15 are bus drivers and seven are maintenance workers, the agency said. Eight bus yards, including in South L.A., Boyle Heights and West Hollywood, have had multiple cases confirmed. No drivers have died.

It has been impossible to know whether masks and hand sanitizer will be available until they clock in for their shifts, drivers said. Many have found their own: a neck gaiter from Amazon, a precious N95 respirator from a daughter who works at a dentist's office, a stack of papery masks from the lobby of a Kaiser Permanente hospital.

One driver in northeast Los Angeles said he was reusing his surgical masks for several days to save the fresh masks for his older co-workers with health problems. His calculus, he said, was that "if I get sick, I'd probably survive."

Nitrile gloves have been plentiful, but training on how to wear them and remove them has been scant, most drivers said.

Hand sanitizer has frequently been in short supply, drivers said. Workers at multiple yards said they were given a travel-size bottle of hand sanitizer and told to make it last a week or more. Some made their own, using aloe vera and rubbing alcohol. Dispensers installed at some depots are frequently empty, they said.

"It's like pulling teeth to get our supplies," said Art Aguilar, the president of the union that represents mechanics at Metro and drivers at three other Southern California transit agencies. "MTA was not prepared for this pandemic  though I don't think any agency was."

Metro is facing the same national mask shortages as hospitals, fire stations and other employers with front-line workers, officials said. Orders for more gear are being managed "literally minute to minute," Chief Operations Officer Jim Gallagher told directors in April.

The agency has ordered more than 1 million protective items, including more than 700,000 bottles of personal hand sanitizer and 10,000 face shields, spokesman Dave Sotero said. He said the wait time between an order and delivery can be two to four weeks.

Metro has distributed tens of thousands of surgical masks and bottles of hand sanitizer, and is doing "everything possible to ensure a safe work environment," Sotero said, calling the drivers "truly dedicated and heroic public servants."

He added: "Their concerns about safety are understandable given the grave threat this public health crisis poses."

Drivers are taking stringent precautions to avoid bringing the virus home. Some are changing at the bus yards and bundling their dirty clothes into trash bags. One driver said she strips off her uniform in the garage. Another uses a steam cleaner, meant for bus seats, to sanitize his shoes.

"It is very, very scary," said a driver who works on the Silver Line. "I have a big bump on my face because I'm wearing my mask so tight. I'm wearing long sleeves in the heat. My hands are cracked, I'm washing them so much. "

Metro passengers are now required to board through the back of the bus. Drivers have been told to close and fasten the clear plastic barrier that separates their seats from the fare box  but to accept any money that's offered.

Rather than interact with strangers, most drivers said they're waving money away. Some have taken it a step further, barricading the aisle leading to the fare box with bungee cords, twine or seat belts.

Metro has encouraged riders to wear masks but does not require them. The digital signs on the face of the buses now flash the line, the destination, and a new message: "Travel Safe: Wear a Face Mask on Board."

Not requiring masks "feels like a slap in the face," said a driver who works in Chatsworth. "If you have to wear a mask to go to Target or the grocery store, you should also need to do that when you get on a bus. Youre in a small, confined space with other people."

Enforcing a mandatory mask rule on every bus in the county would be "physically impractical," Sotero said.

In April, Metro reduced the number of hours that buses are on the street by about 29%. That means riders are facing longer waits between buses  and sometimes, more people on each bus.

One photo taken by a driver showed passengers standing in the aisles of a packed bus on Line 66 between Westlake and Montebello.

On busy lines, Metro can make adjustments quickly to address the "on-street reality," Chief Executive Phil Washington said last week during a telephone meeting of the Metro board. Officials have added longer buses, or more frequent service, on some routes to relieve crowding.

"Social distancing on a bus? It doesn't exist," said a driver who works in South L.A. "Lets say we board 15 people. How many of those are infected? Maybe its just one. Maybe it's no one. We honestly cannot know."

Sotero said drivers have "discretion to load their bus" to respect social distancing, because passenger loads can vary from line to line, and stop to stop.

The closures of nonessential businesses, and long lines at grocery stores, have presented their own problems. Before, if bus drivers needed to use the bathroom, they could pull over and run inside a fast-food restaurant or coffee shop. Drivers are now finding that there's nowhere to go.

A driver in the San Fernando Valley said she drove for five miles searching for one.

"Driving along with nothing open, it's the worst feeling in the world," she said. She finally wound up at a laundromat in Studio City.
Arizona News

Phoenix, Arizona - Governor Doug Ducey announced Monday that Turf Paradise Race Course owner Jerry Simms has personally donated $1 million to the AZ Coronavirus Relief Fund, established to provide financial support to organizations providing essential aid to those affected by COVID-19. Turf Paradise also recently donated $25,000 worth of food to St. Marys Food Bank.

Businesses throughout the state have done tremendous work to help ensure Arizona comes out on the other side of COVID-19 stronger than ever, said Governor Ducey. This generous contribution from Jerry Simms will help our medical professionals and vulnerable populations amid this health emergency. Thank you to Jerry and all our community partners who are stepping up to help others.



I recognize the importance of supporting the community, especially during this public health emergency, said Jerry Simms, owner of Turf Paradise. We understand a lot of Arizonans are going through tough times, and those who can help should help so Arizonans can bounce back from this crisis stronger than ever.



The $1 million donation brings the fund total to more than $8 million, which will be used to support various efforts to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. The fund will support the purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline medical personnel and organizations that care for Arizonas vulnerable population, including food banks, homeless shelters and domestic violence facilities. Funding has also supported technology access for low-income students practicing distance learning.



Other contributions to the AZ Coronavirus Relief Fund include a $5 million gift from the Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation; $1 million from Michael Bidwill, Chairman and President of the Arizona Cardinals; and contributions from Arizona Public Service (APS), Southwest Gas, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, Waymo, and VanTrust Real Estate.



The Governor established the AZ Coronavirus Relief Fund as part of the Arizona Together initiative, connecting individuals and businesses to resources, raising money for community organizations and providing information on volunteer opportunities. Arizona Together also highlights organizations, businesses and individuals stepping up to help one another and provide support wherever needed. Stories about Arizonans helping frontline workers, vulnerable populations and businesses in need of support can be found at ArizonaTogether.org/thearizonaway.



Individuals and organizations interested in supporting the AZ Coronavirus Relief Fund can learn more about how to contribute at ArizonaTogether.org.
The call for oil producers to further cut production has been made in order to maintain the price of "black gold" which is slipping to unprecedented lows. Worryingly, the commitment to cut production by both the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC members has not been implemented to bring oil prices out of the current "worst scenario", while oil export-dependent economies are on the brink of collapse.

Saudi Arabia, the Middle East's largest and leading oil exporter, is suffering from the impact of plummeting oil prices. Saudi Arabias central bank reserves in March fell at the fastest pace in 20 years and to their lowest level since 2011. The "oil king" fell into a state of budget deficit of US$9 billion in the first quarter of this year due to falling revenues from oil, compared to a surplus of US$7.4 billion in the same period in 2019. Record low oil prices and measures to cope with the raging COVID-19 pandemic have constrained the speed and scale of economic reforms launched by Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, its net foreign assets in March dropped to US$464 billion, the lowest level in 19 years.

The International Monetary Fund has forecast severe decline in oil exporting economies in the Gulf. In 2020, the region's economy is forecast to witness a decline of about 3.3%, the largest decline in 40 years. The "double shock" of COVID-19 and the sharp decline in oil prices have caused the Arab countries in the Gulf  which depend on oil exports  to lose about US$323 billion, equivalent to 12% of the economys size. It is forecast that this year, the public debt of Arab countries will also increase by 15%, equivalent to US$190 billion, to US$1.46 trillion.

While some Gulf countries may rely on foreign exchange reserves to "reduce shocks" to their economy, Iraq is expected to suffer the biggest shock as crude oil revenues contribute 90% to its budget revenue. In its 2020 budget draft, Iraq estimates oil revenues at US$56 per barrel, revenue which will be used for development projects and public spending. However, the current "plummeting" oil price forced Iraq to reconsider. It is planning to drastically reduce its social benefits, which are the life foundation for millions of government employees, to reduce the budget burden. The cuts in public spending have caused local people, who are struggling with interrupted livelihoods due to measures to limit the spread of COVID-19, to face further difficulties and may indeed lead to increased social instability.

Falling oil prices have caused many obstacles to investment and development plans for regional countries. Kuwait's foreign exchange reserves are forecast to decline, while Bahrain may have to assume debt of 105% of GDP in 2020 even though it has received a US$10 billion bailout from neighbouring countries.

The region's largest crude oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, plans to cut public spending by 5%, or US$13.3 billion. Saudi plans to build new cities and large-scale projects will have to be postponed as foreign business and investments decline.

The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, coupled with the sharp drop in oil prices, has also affected Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, countries that rely heavily on remittances from guest workers in oil-rich countries in the region. Remittances contribute 12.5% of total GDP for Lebanon, while in Egypt, the figure is 10%.

Warnings have been issued for many countries in the Middle East, including countries devastated by conflict and preparing to deal with the risk of "socio-economic upheaval". These countries are struggling to weather the "twin storms", mitigating the consequences of both falling oil prices and COVID-19 on their economy. If unable to control and prevent the downturn, the region that has always been a "hot spot" of conflict risks facing more serious crises.
Berks Heim Nursing and Rehabilitation has lost three more residents to COVID-19, Berks County officials announced Monday.

In the same announcement, the county said four more residents have tested positive for the virus. In all, 21 residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19, with 15 still at the facility and one hospitalized.

A total of five Berks Heim residents have now died from COVID-19, the county said.

It is heartbreaking to see three more Heim residents die. We continue to offer our condolences to the family and friends impacted by these deaths," County Commissioner Christian Leinbach said. "Dealing with death is never easy but dealing with death in these unprecedented times is made that much more difficult.

Following the most recent positive tests for COVID-19, family members of the positive patients were notified, as well as the other residents in their respective units, the county said. Employees and union leaders were also notified.

Berks County and Berks Heim Management are committed to protecting the health of both our residents and our employees especially during this unprecedented health crisis, the county said.

Berks Heim is providing care through their Infection Control program and is following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Berks County Department of Emergency Services and the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

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.

Read more on PennLive:
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
We have an obligation to do our best to make sure the community can continue to be a strong, vibrant, safe home when the crisis is over."

The Minneapolis Jewish Federation has awarded more than $800,000 to assist organizations and individuals in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

We have an obligation to do our best to make sure the community can continue to be a strong, vibrant, safe home when the crisis is over, says James A. Cohen, Minneapolis Jewish Federation CEO. We are committed to making sure that happens.

MJF began distributing funding on March 19, when it opened a fund for individuals in economic distress at Jewish Family and Childrens Service of Minneapolis. Shortly thereafter, MJF awarded morale grants of $50,360 to 40 schools, organizations, and synagogues in the Twin Cities area.

The MJF board quickly set aside $2 million in unrestricted assets to make immediate grants to help local agencies with urgent needs (tech needs, staffing support) and later, longer term needs like loss of income. Since that board vote on March 21, MJF has distributed funds to seven local schools, synagogues, and organizations, as well as its two overseas partners.

Funds have been used by schools to start distance learning programs from scratch and connect students without internet access, by the local Jewish senior living center to purchase personal protective equipment, and have provided emergency cash to organizations whose galas, fee-for-service activities, and other normal business operations are at a halt.

It is not only our privilege to provide this resource in a time of needwe see it as our responsibility, says Todd Leonard, Board President. And right now is a time of need.

Learn more about Minneapolis Jewish Federations response in the community.

###

About Minneapolis Jewish Federation: For 90 years, Minneapolis Jewish Federation has been building and sustaining Jewish community here in Minneapolis and around the globe. Through empowering, engaging, and inspiring the community, MJF promotes a culture of Jewish philanthropy, leverages resources to meet Jewish needs, and facilitates community planning to ensure a thriving and secure future. Learn more at jewishminneapolis.org.


T he number of people who have died after testing positive for coronavirus has risen by 288, to a total of 28,734.

The figure, announced by Health Secretary Matt Hancock at the daily Downing Street briefing, applies to those who have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community.

Mr Hancock said it was the lowest rise since the end of March, but that the country had to go "further and faster" to control the virus.

He also pointed out that reported figures "tend to be lower over the weekend", adding: "We do expect that number to rise.

Separately, the number of people to have died in UK hospitals after contracting coronavirus has increased by 229, the lowest jump since March 29, when 214 fatalities were recorded.

April 8 continues to have the highest number for the most hospital deaths occurring on a single day, with a current total of 867.

On Monday, NHS England announced another 204 deaths among people who tested positive for Covid-19, taking the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 21,384.

Public Health Wales confirmed a further 14 people had died after contracting coronavirus in Wales.

Loading....

First Minister Mark Drakeford said the numbers of coronavirus cases, deaths and people in hospital with Covid-19 in Wales are all decreasing.

Elsewhere in the UK, Northern Ireland reported an additional six deaths, while officials in Scotland recorded another five fatalities.

London NHS Nightingale hospital to stop admitting patients

The developments came as staff at London's Nightingale hospital were told the facility will be put on standby within days as a result of the capital passing the peak of coronavirus cases.

The Government is meanwhile weighing measures to get Britons back to work in a bid to restart the economy, according to a draft plan seen by the BBC.

Loading....

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to reveal his "roadmap" for exiting lockdown at the end of this week.

Listen to The Leader: Coronavirus Daily podcast

Mr Johnson said last week that the UK was "past the peak" in coronavirus cases.
HARRISBURG, Pa., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorney General Josh Shapiro today joined DoorDash CEO Tony Xu to announce that the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General and DoorDash, the largest food delivery network company in the U.S., have worked together in a landmark public-private collaboration to expand financial, health, and childcare-related support to DoorDash and Caviar gig workers (known as "Dashers").

"I commend the team at DoorDash for its strong leadership in setting a new standard, which I hope will inspire others to act," said Attorney General Shapiro. "We need other gig economy companies to step up and prioritize the health and safety of workersespecially those on the front lines still making deliveries and interacting with the public during the COVID-19 emergency."

In addition to these expanded worker protections, Attorney General Shapiro arranged to have DoorDash partner with the cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh through Project DASH to deliver groceries, meals, or supplies to low-income, home-bound seniors and vulnerable populations. The Attorney General worked with Mayor Kenney of Philadelphia and Mayor Peduto of Pittsburgh to coordinate this effort.

"We're proud to partner with Attorney General Shapiro to expand our support to Dashers who are doing so much to support their communities during this crisis," said Tony Xu, DoorDash CEO. "Helping Dashers keep themselves and their families safe, healthy and cared for is our priority, and we know it is important for companies like DoorDash to do our part."

DoorDash and the Office of Pennsylvania Attorney General are proud to announce that DoorDash will expand the support DoorDash has been providing to Dashers and the Pennsylvania community during the emergency:

DoorDash will expand COVID-19 Financial Assistance for Dashers who have tested positive or been diagnosed with a probable case of COVID-19, who have been instructed to self-quarantine, who are at higher risk for severe illness due to COVID-19, or who have a housemate who meets any of these criteria. Dashers will now qualify if they have been active on DoorDash or Caviar for 30 days and have completed at least 30 deliveries in the past 30 days. Previously, Dashers had to have been active for at least 60 days. Dashers can learn more and apply at https://help.doordash.com/dashers/s/article/COVID-19-Financial-Assistance-Program?language=en_US .

. DoorDash will provide subsidized telehealth access to any active Dasher for appointments related to COVID-19 concerns. https://help.doordash.com/dashers/s/article/DoorDash-Doctor-on-Demand?language=en_US

DoorDash will provide financial assistance to Top Dashers who have primary childcare responsibilities for children whose schools and daycare have been closed because of COVID-19. Applications for this program, which will provide a financial bridge to parents until Pandemic Unemployment Assistance becomes available, will be open for two weeks.

Through Project DASH, DoorDash will establish a fund to enable select social service organizations to provide last-mile delivery of food and/or supplies to vulnerable communities throughout Pittsburgh and Philadelphia during the COVID-19 emergency. https://blog.doordash.com/expanding-project-dash-to-serve-vulnerable-communities-in-the-face-of-covid-19-14bab3b3b199

and during the COVID-19 emergency. https://blog.doordash.com/expanding-project-dash-to-serve-vulnerable-communities-in-the-face-of-covid-19-14bab3b3b199 DoorDash will partner with Pennsylvania hospitals to donate DashPass subscriptions to healthcare workers for free for at least 60 days, offering unlimited $0 delivery fees from thousands of local restaurants to healthcare employees. Hospitals interested in participating in the program can sign up at https://get.doordash.com/dashpass-for-healthcare.

In addition to these new and expanded programs, DoorDash has provided free personal protective equipment to Dashers, no-contact delivery options to protect Pennsylvanians, and is supporting local Pennsylvania restaurants by among other things reducing the amount restaurants with five or fewer locations pay to offer delivery by 50% through the end of May.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Nancy Walker, Deputy Attorney General Catherine Twigg, and the Fair Labor Section worked on the landmark agreement protecting DoorDash workers on behalf of the Office of Attorney General.

SOURCE DoorDash

Related Links

http://www.doordash.com


Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has accused former President John Dramani Mahama of not only being an alarmist but seeking to project government untruthfully in his unbridled desire for power.



To him, it is unfortunate that a statesman could stoop to such lows for the sole reason of winning an election.



Because of his irrepressible hunger for power, he [former President Mahama] says things which are not even true hoping that Ghanaians might fail to cross-check or have a short memory, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie.



His comment follows on the heels of remarks by John Mahama during his tenure, the country was ranked first in Africa for promoting freedom of the press, and that Ghanas level of press freedom ranking in Africa currently, has dropped astronomically under the Nana Addo-led government.



Mr Mahama was all praise to his administration for setting a good standard for the country before leaving office, as Ghanaians marked World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2020.



According to Reporters Without Borders, during my Presidency, Ghana became the country with the highest levels of press freedom in Africa. At the time, we were ranked number one out of 54 countries in Africa. We placed 23rd on the global ranking among 180 countries.



Three and half years later, we have slumped seven places on the global ranking and lost the number one spot in Africa to Namibia and Cape Verde. We have unfortunately lost this priceless status that made all of us very proud.



This should worry us- not only journalists and media owners but all of us, as citizens and as Ghanaians.



As I said, when the freedom of the press is curtailed, democracy suffers. And all the other human rights that anchor our dignity as human beings are eroded.



Without freedom, our dignity is trampled. This is why we need a free press as much as we need fresh air to breathe. So, let us all protect the freedom of the press, Mr. Mahama said in a statement.



But the Information Minister fired back in a sharp riposte describing Mr. Mahamas claims are false -



He [Mahama] should tell us which year Ghana came first. What he is saying is a big lie. A former President doesnt speak this way. Considering the battle we are engaged in, we need not pollute the system with too much politics; that is not the way to go. Because when it happens that way, attention will be shifted away from the COVID-19 fight and our desire and mandate to educate Ghanaians; instead, we will be forced to correct the falsehoods they (NDC) propagate . . .



 . . during Mahama's tenure, Ghana saw a drop in rankings on the African press freedom index . . . my very friend Stan Dodge was cited as being a causative factor in all this . . . So why is he not trumpeting that? Name one journalist maltreated or assaulted by government? . . . It is true that Ahmed Suale met his untimely death during the NPP's administration . . . and we would all have wished that by now, the perpetrators of that dastardly act are facing punitive measures. But it is unfair to accuse government of masterminding his death because the security agencies have not gotten to the bottom of the matter yet . . . in that case, would it be fair if we also accuse the then NDC administration of orchestration the unfortunate death of George Kofi Abanga, PeaceFM's correspondent in Goaso a few years ago? . . . We shouldn't act in such manner that because of the desire to be President at all cost, we then seek to embellish the truth or peddle blatant falsehoods . . .  he chastised.





Listen to him in the video below





Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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
Traditionalist former Pope Benedict XVI accuses opponents of wanting to 'silence' him while attacking gay marriage in vehement terms in a new authorised biography published Monday in Germany.

Despite leaving office in 2013, the 93-year-old, whose original name is Joseph Ratzinger, has not given up intervening in social debates, and he offers a fresh attack against gay marriage in the new biography.

'A century ago, anyone would have thought it absurd to talk about homosexual marriage. Today those who oppose it are excommunicated from society,' Benedict XVI says.

'It's the same thing with abortion and creating human life in the laboratory,' he believes, adding that it's 'only natural' for people to 'fear the spiritual power of the Antichrist.'

Traditionalist former Pope Benedict XVI, whose original name is Joseph Ratzinger, pictured in The Vatican during his final audience as as pope in 2013

The ex-pope claims in 'Benedict XVI - A Life' that he has fallen victim to a 'malignant distortion of reality' in reactions to his interventions in theological debates, according to passages published by German media and news agency DPA.

'The spectacle of reactions coming from German theology is so misguided and ill-willed that I would prefer not to speak of it,' he says.

'I would rather not analyse the actual reasons why people want to silence my voice,' Benedict added.

The German branch of the Catholic Church has for years been led by clergy more inclined to reform than the stringent traditionalism associated with Ratzinger.

In office from 2005-13, he has frequently been criticised for his attitudes to Islam or to social questions, and is accused of attempting to undermine the modernisation drive of his successor Pope Francis.

Ratzinger attempts to counter such claims in the biography, saying his 'personal friendship with Pope Francis has not only endured, but grown'.

The current pope, Pope Francis, pictured today leading a Mass at Santa Marta in the Vatican City. Francis has been seen as a more progressive pope than his predecessor

In February, Benedict XVI was drawn into a Vatican intrigue when his private secretary was removed from Francis' entourage.

Some observers had accused the former pope of back-seat driving when a book defending the hot topic of priestly celibacy appeared, bearing his name alongside that of arch-conservative Guinean cardinal Robert Sarah.

After 48 hours of controversy, Benedict XVI asked that his name be removed from the book's cover, introduction and jointly signed conclusion.

In contrast, Benedict's replacement Pope Francis has widely been seen as a more unconventional pope during his time since becoming the global leader of the Catholic Church in 2013.

When he was first elected, he chose his own Papal name 'Francis', and has also been a more modern and public-facing Pope with his use of social media and stances on social issues.
Sona Koyo Steering Systems has been granted conditional permission by the concerned government authorities to resume operations for its Plants located at Gurugram, Dharuhera, Bawal and Sanand.

Accordingly, the Company will be resuming operations gradually based on customer demand after following all requisite guidelines to adhere to the National Directives for COVID-19 management, following the Standard Operating Procedure of social distancing, taking preventive measures for health, hygiene, sanitation etc. at workplace to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all workers and employees.

Further, the RHQ Office and Plant located at Chennai will resume operations once requisite approval is received from concerned authorities

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UK is to offer 388m to an international medical programme that is being established by European leaders to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a virtual pledging conference that aims to raise an initial funding of $8bn (6.3bn) from donors, Boris Johnson will urge countries to come together for a truly global effort to counter the disease.

The prime minister will stress that the race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries but the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes. Its humanity against the virus.

Heads of state and senior officials of the European Union, writing in The Independent, have unveiled the plan to work with scientists and international welfare organisations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.

The urgent need for international unity in the crisis, and the warning that no country can go it alone, is emphasised in the article signed by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel; the French president, Emmanuel Macron; the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte; the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Solberg; the European Council president, Charles Michel; and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

Mr Johnson has spoken of his personal experience with Covid-19, revealing that contingency plans were made for his death as his condition deteriorated. In an interview with The Sun on Sunday he said doctors gave him litres and litres of oxygen to keep him alive.

The amount pledged by Mr Johnson at the conference is part of a larger, existing 744m UK aid commitment to help end the pandemic and support the global economy through the crisis, the government said. The international development secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, said: It is only by working together that we will prevent future waves of infection and end this pandemic as quickly as possible.

The European leaders write in the article: The funds that we raise will kickstart an unprecedented global cooperation between scientists and regulators, industry and governments, international organisations, foundations and healthcare professionals
Specialty chemicals company LANXESS April 30, 2020 completed the sale of its 40 percent stake in chemical park operator Currenta to Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA). Both companies had reached an agreement to this effect in August 2019. LANXESS realized an equity value of EUR 780 million (after deduction of net debt and pensions) for the sale of its stake and received a profit participation of EUR 150 million pre tax.

The sale of Currenta provides us with substantial extraordinary proceeds in the second quarter. We are also strengthening our already good financial base. We are thus well prepared to meet the current challenges posed by the corona pandemic," said Michael Pontzen, Chief Financial Officer of LANXESS.

Moreover, LANXESS has reached an agreement with Currenta on service and supply contracts for the three sites in Leverkusen, Dormagen and Krefeld, all Germany, which will initially run for 10 years. LANXESS operates a significant portion of its global production facilities there.

Currenta manages and operates infrastructure, energy supply and other essential services in the chemical parks in the Lower Rhine region and was previously a joint venture between Bayer (60 percent) and LANXESS (40 percent). Bayer had already completed the sale of its Currenta stake to MIRA at the end of November 2019. LANXESS, one of Currenta's main customers, provided operational support to the new owner during the transition phase.

MIRA has been active in Germany for 30 years, and has extensive experience in Currentas core business areas including utilities, transport, logistics, storage, waste management and treatment services.
Businesses may have to pivot quickly. A support partner for businesses across all these areas will be vital to developing secure network/application access, along with the technology and tools for collaboration with a permanent remote workforce, McLaughlin says

A recent study of U.S. full-time employees shows 34% say their companies are not prepared to work from home, while a staggering 77% claim their companies havent implemented work-from-home protocols.(1) According to global IT solutions provider Technologent, establishing a remote workforce clearly poses significant challenges in demanding logistical and technical changes that companies are often unprepared for. Most SMBs lack the IT infrastructure and security protocols to ensure widespread and secure remote and mobile data access, says Mike McLaughlin, Technologents CIO. And thats only the first of many technical considerations to make work-from-home viable.

During one week in March, business app downloads increased by 45% compared to the previous weekamounting in 62 million downloads (dominated by Google Hangouts Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom Cloud Meetings).(2) While Zoom soared from 10 million users to 200 million in roughly three months, growing challenges related to installer, routing, encryption, and Zoombombing (hijacking a Zoom meeting to add content or commentary) have led to major security issues for users and companies.(3)(4)(5) Zooms example shows that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the need for security preparation for a permanent remote workforce.

Security Need for a Work-From-Home World

The average cost of a single business data breach increased to $8.64 million in 2019, which poses an even greater threat to companies without adequate remote workforce security infrastructure and protocols.(6) Avoiding that worst-case scenario means finding ways to deal with:



Application access; network, data center, cloud, and remote desktop and mobile device setup; security; and identity access management

Wi-Fi security setups and broadband (bandwidth) issues for remote workforce

Mobile/remote device data storage and security

Email and collaboration tool security/planning

Backup and disaster recovery

As company searches for security and hardware solutions for a remote workforce rise as high as 613% in search impressions, IT service desks grapple with how to deal with user ticket problems that risk straining the team or going unanswered.(7)(8) This includes tackling remote setup challenges, such as:

Corporate VPN

Software configurations

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (and other services)

Performance/bandwidth issues due to massive traffic needs

Maximum security of data both at rest and in transit is a bigger problem beyond the networkwith every remote user a potential vulnerability access point. Protecting that data via conventional means (like firewall and end-to-end encryption) takes on a whole new meaning when having to scale-up across an entire company. The goal is to develop systems and protocols for protecting data and application storage pathways as well as permissions between the network, data centers, the cloud, and desktops/mobile devices.(9) When bandwidth and Internet Service Provider (ISP) broadband challenges are also taken into consideration, businesses are ideally positioned to embrace remote workforce challenges and reap the benefits.(10)

Embracing Remote Workforce Challenges and Benefits

Remote access, security, communication, and collaboration are all intertwined in a comprehensive IT strategy for technological needs for a work-from-home solution. These aspects of the strategy require an integrated approach for a permanent remote workforce that is robust, flexible, resilient, and secure. Company IT teams will need to accelerate their use of public cloud, virtualization, and software-defined WAN to remove networking and data/storage complexities.(11) But beyond the challenges of a rapid redirection for remote workforces are just as many (if not arguably more) opportunities. For example, each office worker costs $22,000 more annually than a remote worker, and studies show that remote workers are happier and more productive when given the right framework.(12)

According to McLaughlin, businesses will need to take a comprehensive and holistic approach to solve these challenges, empower their remote workforce, and ultimately benefit from a work-from-home world:

Businesses may have to pivot quickly. A support partner for businesses across all these areas will be vital to developing secure network/application access, along with the technology and tools for collaboration with a permanent remote workforce, McLaughlin says. Theres also the introduction of software solutions to ensure that infrastructure is distributing workloads between data centers, the network, and beyond its edge into public clouds and back to adequate home remote setups for quick and secure access. Thats a tall orderbut with the right planning and support partner, businesses and their workforces can be positioned to grow, expand, and profit in a post-COVID-19 world.

About Technologent:

Technologent is a Global Provider of Edge-to-EdgeTM information technology solutions and services for Fortune 1000 companies. The company focuses on helping clients outpace the new digital economy by creating IT environments that are fast, flexible, efficient, transparent, and secure. Without these characteristics, companies miss the opportunity to optimally scale. Technologent mobilizes the power of technology to turn its clients vision into reality, enabling them to focus on driving innovation, increasing productivity, and outperforming the market. For more information, visit http://www.technologent.com.

1. Rebecca Corliss. Are Companies Prepared to Work From Home [New Report], OwlLabs, March 12, 2020, owllabs.com/blog/coronavirus-work-from-home-statistics

2. Sarah Perez. Videoconferencing apps saw a record 62M downloads during one week in March, TechCrunch, March 30, 2020, techcrunch.com/2020/03/30/video-conferencing-apps-saw-a-record-62m-downloads-during-one-week-in-march/

3. The CEO of the video conferencing platform company has apologized for the security holes that have allowed a rash of "Zoombombing" incidents. Motley Fool, April 2, 2020, fool.com/investing/2020/04/02/zoom-daily-active-users-surge-to-200-million-in-ma.aspx

4. Taylor Lorenz. Zoombombing: When Video Conferences Go Wrong, New York Times, April 7, 2020, nytimes.com/2020/03/20/style/zoombombing-zoom-trolling.html

5. Brian Feldman. Is It Safe to Use Zoom? New York Magazine, April 9, 2020, nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/the-zoom-app-has-a-lot-of-security-problems.html

6. The 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report, IBM/Ponemon Institute, digitalguardian.com/blog/whats-cost-data-breach-2019

7. COVID-19 Software Industry Statistics, Trust Radius, April 9th, 2020, trustradius.com/vendor-blog/covid-19-software-industry-data-and-statistics

8. J.R. Simmons. Adapting to the IT Challenges of Remote Work, No Jitter, March 18, 2020, nojitter.com/team-collaboration-tools-workspaces/adapting-it-challenges-remote-work

9. Jim Farnsworth 5 Technology Advances Creating a Secure WAH Model, Sykes, sykes.com/thought-leadership/5-technology-advances-creating-secure-work-home-business-model/

10. Rapid shift to working from home creates new IT challenges, Hewett Packard, March 19, 2020, hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/rapid-shift-to-working-from-home-creates-new-it-challenges-2003.html

11. Aryakas Fourth Annual State of the WAN Report Reveals 2020 Insights From 1000+ Global Enterprises Top Issues Include WAN Complexity, SD-WAN Adoption and Migration to Managed Services; Future Plans Include AI/ML, 5G and IoT Adoption, Aryaka, April 22, 2020,

aryaka.com/press/aryakas-fourth-annual-state-of-the-wan-report-reveals-2020-insights-from-1000-global-enterprises/

12. Chris Herd. Remote Work is the Next Operating System for Living, Thrive Global, April 15, 2020, thriveglobal.com/stories/remote-work-is-the-next-operating-system-for-living/
All offences have a maximum penalty of five years in jail, a $63,000 fine or both

Legislation would make it an offence to access the data without authorisation

Refusing to buy or sell goods and services to people without app will be illegal

It'll be illegal for anyone to refuse a person without the app entry to a public spot

The government released a draft of its legislative backing for the COVIDSafe app

Business owners who ban people from entry unless they have downloaded the government's coronavirus contact tracing app will face five years in jail and a $63,000 fine under proposed laws.

The government has released a draft of its legislative backing to privacy and data protections for the COVIDSafe tracing app.

It proposes to make it illegal for anyone to refuse a person without the app entry to a public place, ban them from an activity or refuse to buy or sell goods and services to them.

The legislation would also make it an offence to access the data without proper authorisation and for the data to be stored anywhere outside of Australia.

All offences could have a maximum penalty of five years in jail, a $63,000 fine or both.

Business owners who ban people from entry unless they have downloaded the government's coronavirus contact tracing app will face five years in jail and a $63,000 fine under proposed laws

New legislation proposes to make it illegal for anyone to refuse a person without the app entry to a public place, ban them from an activity or refuse to buy or sell goods and services to them

The proposed legislation also says records of the Bluetooth 'handshakes' a user's phone makes with people they come in close contact with must be deleted after 21 days or upon request.

And once the health minister and chief medical officer decide the app is no longer necessary on health grounds, all data must be erased from the server and people will be told to delete the app from their phones.

A sunset clause in the legislation says the privacy protections and offences will end 90 days after the minister determines the app is no longer needed.

The legislation, which will be put to parliament when it returns next week, backs up rules already laid out in a biosecurity determination.

Attorney-General Christian Porter described it as the final step in a 'triple lock of privacy protections'.

'The draft bill clarifies the enforcement mechanisms for the penalties that are already in place against misuse of data from the COVIDSafe app,' he said on Monday.

'In addition to the protections provided by the biosecurity determination, this bill puts in place a clear process outlining how the government will satisfy its obligation to delete all COVIDSafe data from the national COVIDSafe data store once the pandemic is over.'

Offences under the new law would be investigated by federal police and people could complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or their state privacy regulator if they were concerned their data had been misused.

More than 4.5 million Australians have registered for the COVIDSafe app since it became available on April 26.

But tech experts examining the app say they've discovered privacy flaws and multiple issues stopping people from signing up.

Software developer Geoff Huntley has led volunteer efforts over the past week to examine the COVIDSafe app and identify issues with the aim of helping the government improve it.

More than 4.5 million Australians have registered for the COVIDSafe app since it became available on April 26

'I still maintain the app is safe to install,' he told AAP.

'But one of the things we've found in there will require every country that has used the Bluetooth implementation from Singapore to update their privacy policies and release new versions of the application.'

Developers have also identified a number of issues preventing people from registering.

You can't register if your phone is connected to wifi, it's only available in Australian stores and roaming international numbers can't register - so foreign travellers can't use it - and there is no option for people using tablets to have a robot to call their landline with a registration PIN.

Mr Huntley points to hundreds of reviews in the Google and Apple app stores where people complain they haven't been able to register.

'Meanwhile, last night we had a tweet go out (from a minister) saying if you want to go to the footy, you need to download the app,' he said.

'I think the amount of downloads is a BS vanity metric and what we should be looking at is some sort of daily active users (figure).'

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

A spokesman for Government Services Minister Stuart Robert said the figures quoted reflected people who had both downloaded and registered.

'More than 4.5 million Australians have registered for the COVIDSafe app, which has received widespread support and endorsement from across the Australian community including public health officials, as well as information technology and cybersecurity experts,' the spokesman told AAP.

Mr Huntley also points out that anyone checking out all the areas of the app will easily end up on a page with the first line of text: 'You have tested positive for COVID-19.'

'It has caused public panic and it can still cause public panic,' he said.

But he says multiple attempts to contact government agencies to report issues went unacknowledged until he was interviewed in media on Monday morning.

He is puzzled by the lack of engagement on social media or replies to app store reviews and says the apparent lack of interest in having the wider tech community help via a commonly used 'bug bounty' system is unusual.

A spokesman for the Digital Transformation Agency says bugs should be reported via the app's 'report an issue' function or by emailing support@covidsafe.gov.au

'The app has received widespread support and endorsement from the information technology community,' he told said.
Advertisement

Motorists queued for hours to get a drink at Costa drive-throughs this morning, sparking fears people are ignoring lockdown measures as more high street chains reopen.

Tailbacks stretched around the block at takeaway chains in Edinburgh, Wakefield and Glasgow today as drivers waited to get their coffee fix.

At the weekend, eager customers queued for more than a mile to get a coffee at a branch in Snowhill Retail Park in Yorkshire as it reopened after more than a month on Saturday.

But it has led to a furious backlash from key workers, who claim people venturing out for takeaway food and drinks are ignoring warnings and pleas from the government and NHS staff to remain at home.

This comes as fast food giants including KFC, McDonald's, Five Guys and Burger King move to gradually opening restaurants, leading to a deluge of orders and lengthy queues as delivery drivers wait in line.



Drivers were seen queuing for a coffee at Costa Drive Thru, Cameron Toll, Edinburgh this morning

Staff members were face masks were serving customers trays of coffee at the Edinburgh branch

At the weekend 12 delivery only and 17 drive-through stores re-opened in towns and cities including Croydon, Edinburgh (pictured), Glasgow, Leeds, and Newcastle

Costa drive-throughs open across the UK Bodelwyddan Croydon Edinburgh Sharpdale Enterprise Swansea Faringdon Glasgow Braehead Harwich Ipswich Norwich Poole Sittingbourne St Ives Stowmarket Toddington North Toddington South Wakefield Snowhill Watford Arches Retail Park Advertisement

In other developments in the coronavirus crisis today:

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced a package of support worth almost 3billion to help universities weather the coronavirus crisis;

A smartphone app to trace the spread of coronavirus will be trialled on the Isle of Wight this week before being rolled out more widely later this month;

A new 'fast and accurate' coronavirus antibody test has been developed by scientists in Edinburgh, although the company fears the NHS could miss out amid interest in Europe for the machines;

Heathrow Airport has warned travellers could face queues a kilometre long to board flights;

Former Government chief scientific adviser Sir David King has assembled a group of experts to look at how the UK could work its way out of the lockdown in response to concerns over the 'lack of transparency' coming from the Sage group of advisers;

Rail unions have today been accused of trying to stymie Britain's recovery while holding the country to ransom after they said it was 'premature' to open up the country's public transport network when the lockdown eases

Four Costa Coffee branches re-opened in Manchester, Bristol, and Mansfield - two delivery only, two drive-through - on April 24, a month after the lockdown began.

And on April 2, a further 12 delivery only and 17 drive-through stores re-opened in towns and cities including Croydon, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, and Newcastle.

Some Costa Coffee branches have been open inside hospitals to serve NHS staff through the lockdown. But the decision to run a total 33 stores across Britain indicates that Costa Coffee is one of many chains seeking to kick-start trading.

But the move has sparked a row among social media users, who have been left divided over the push to open takeaways.

James Gallivan shared photos of the Wakefield branch on Facebook, writing: 'Just been up to Snow Hill for some shopping from Iceland.

'We had to Queue for 10 mins just to get onto the retail park to only see the whole queue was for Costa Coffee!! On way out the Queues had got even worse, right back to The Vine Tree (Capri) roundabout!!!

'The road was in chaos, a police car couldn't even get through at one point!

'Seriously people of Wakefield give your head a shake if a coffee is that important to you, WE ARE ON LOCKDOWN!!!!!

'Carrying on like this we will never get rid of this Virus, pure madness!!!!!'

Another social media user added: 'Costa should be shut down again. The lockdown has NOT been lifted.'

The UK Government pursued a lockdown after scientists produced models warning that half a million people could die with the coronavirus if no action was taken.

There are concerns that the decision to shut down a huge portion of the UK economy has brought the country to the edge of an economic crisis more severe than the 1930s Great Depression.

Economists have estimated that the lockdown is costing Britain around 2.4billion per day, while a Bank of England official recently warned that Britain could be facing the worst economic contraction since 1920-21 - and possibly for three centuries.

Other companies which have moved to limited store reopenings or delivery-only services include Five Guys, Nando's, KFC and Burger King.

KFC has launched an investigation after pictures emerged of delivery riders ignoring social distancing measures at its recently-opened Filton restaurant in Bristol

A member of staff wearing a face mask and gloves is seen directing cars at the Burger King drive-through in Havant, their first branch to reopen

Which businesses have started to reopen? Nandos - has opened six restaurants - four in London and two in Manchester - for delivery only. The restaurants to reopen are: London (Clink St, Camberwell, Canary Jubilee, Gloucester Road) Manchester (Fallowfield, Printworks). Burger King - has opened eight restaurants for delivery in Dundee, Aberdeen, Reading, Hillington (Norfolk), Southampton, Merto, (London) Springfield Quay (London).

- has opened eight restaurants for delivery in Dundee, Aberdeen, Reading, Hillington (Norfolk), Southampton, Merto, (London) Springfield Quay (London). Wagamama - is to reopen its kitchens to deliver food to customers' homes from Thursday from its kitchens in Peckham and Hackney.

- is to reopen its kitchens to deliver food to customers' homes from Thursday from its kitchens in Peckham and Hackney. Five Guys - the burger chain has opened 20 of its 104 restaurants. The stores open for delivery are: Cambridge Leisure Centre, Norwich, Colchester, Chelmsford, High St. Kensington, Reading, York, Southampton. Timpsons - will be slowly opening stores, starting with those located in supermarkets. KFC - the chicken chain is opening 100 branches for delivery only. Pret a Manger - has re-opened 10 London take-aways. Costa Coffee - has opened 12 delivery only and 17 drive-through stores in towns and cities including Croydon, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, and Newcastle Homebase - opened 20 of its stores at the weekend as part of a trial.

- opened 20 of its stores at the weekend as part of a trial. McDonald's - set to open 15 restaurants from May 13 Advertisement

Costa Coffee CEO Jill McDonald told the Daily Mirror: 'Last week we made the decision to reopen two Drive-Thru lanes and two stores for delivery only in line with the latest Government advice.

'The safety of our team members and customers is our number one priority and ahead of these stores re-opening, we put in place new social distancing guidelines, enhanced hygiene procedures and are providing teams with PPE.

'We have been really pleased with how well our stores teams have been able to adapt to our new ways working, allowing us to serve great coffee, as safely as possible.'

Ms McDonald continued: 'We have also received some great feedback from our customers and key workers taking advantage of enjoying a well-deserved coffee break whilst on essential journeys to and from work.

'We will be increasing the number of Drive-Thru lanes and stores open for delivery via Uber Eats from May 2.'

McDonald's said it will reopen 15 restaurants for delivery only on JustEat and UberEats, with the locations of restaurants being announced this week.

The fast food giant will not be serving breakfast and will return with a limited menu and shorter opening hours from 11am and 10pm.

McDonald's will bring in perspex screens and floor markings, non-medical grade face masks for staff and social distancing measures for delivery drivers.

All employees will be asked to confirm they are fit and able to work, and bosses will use contactless thermometers with temperatures taken on arrival at work for every shift.

McDonald's furloughed 135,000 staff when it shut up shop temporarily in March.

Under government rules, food firms are allowed to operate as takeaway and delivery outlets under lockdown.

Pret A Manger recently announced plans to partially reopen as pressure grows for an exit plan from the lockdown ravaging the economy. Their shops will open near hospitals and GP surgeries for delivery and takeaway services only.

But Greggs has postponed reopening 20 stores over fears of overcrowding.

The takeaway bakery chain temporarily shut all of its 2,050 branches last month to protect customers and staff after the Government ordered all non-essential shops to close.
Top stories from the western region at 1700 hrs. BOM10 GJ-LOCKDOWN-LD MIGRANTS



Lockdown: Migrant workers clash with police in Gujarat



Surat: Hundreds of migrant workers seeking to return home clashed with police and pelted stones at them near a village in Gujarat's Surat district on Monday, following which the security personnel lobbed teargas shells and baton-charged the agitated workers, an official said.

BOM1 MH-LOCKDOWN-MIGRANTS-THACKERAY CM asks Centre not to charge train fare from migrant workers



Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has requested the Centre not to charge any amount from migrant labourers for travelling by train to their native places during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown.

BOM9 MH-LOCKDOWN-LIQUOR SHOPS Maha: Queues outside liquor shops amid confusion on opening



Mumbai: Long queues were seen outside liquor outlets in Mumbai and Pune on Monday, a day after the state government said shops of non-essential items, including liquor, will be allowed to open in COVID-19 non-containment zones, but to the dismay of the customers, they remained shut.

BOM13 GJ-LOCKDOWN-RELAXATIONS Shops, markets open outside COVID-19 red zone in Gujarat



Ahmedabad: Barring six major cities and as many municipalities, shops, markets and other commercial and industrial establishments in Gujarat opened on Monday as per specific relaxations in coronavirus-induced lockdown announced by the Centre as well as the state government.

BOM4 MP-LOCKDOWN-SHOPS Lockdown: Shops open in 43 MP districts in green, orange zones



Bhopal: Shops and other commercial establishments opened on Monday in 43 out of the total 52 Madhya Pradesh districts, barring COVID-19 red zones, with some curbs in accordance with the Centre's guidelines, officials said.

BOM2 MH-LOCKDOWN-LIQUOR Lockdown: Five Maha districts not to allow liquor sale



Mumbai: A day after the Maharashtra government said shops selling non-essential commodities, including liquor, will be allowed to open from Monday in the COVID-19 non- containment zones, five districts in the state have decided not to permit liquor sale.

BOM3 CG-VIRUS-QUARANTINE Army, paramilitary staff to be quarantined on return to C'garh



Raipur: The Chhattisgarh health department has asked personnel of the paramilitary forces and Army to remain quarantined for 14 days after their return to the state on completion of training or duties in other parts of the country.

BOM5 CG-LOCKDOWN-LIQUOR SHOPS C'garh: People throng liquor shops, defy social distancing



Raipur: Shops of various non-essential items, including liquor, opened across Chhattisgarh on Monday, except those located in COVID-19 containment zones and malls, officials said.

BOM11 MH-LOCKDOWN-MIGRANTS-RETURN 35,000 migrant workers sent to hometowns so far: Maha official



Mumbai: Nearly 35,000 migrant labourers in Maharashtra have been sent back to their native places so far since the Centre allowed them to return home by train in the wake of the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, a senior state government official said on Monday.

BOM12 GA-LOCKDOWN-LIQUOR SHOPS Lockdown 3.0: Liquor shops open in Goa, people follow norms



Panaji: Liquor shops opened on Monday in Goa after more than a month on the first day of the third phase of the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

BES3 MH-LOCKDOWN-MIGRANTS-CONG Lockdown: Maha Cong says will bear migrants' rail travel cost



Mumbai: The Maharashtra Congress on Monday said it would bear the fare for people being transported to their native states on 'Shramik Special' trains amid the lockdown for the coronavirus outbreak, and accused the Narendra Modi government of leaving such stranded migrants and poor to fend for themselves.

BES4 MH-VIRUS-THANE-PALGHAR Maha: COVID-19 cases in Thane dist reach 1183, Palghar 177



Thane: While the number of cases in Thane and Navi Mumbai municipal corporation limits has crossed 300 each, Kalyan Dombivali area, the district's third major civic body, is close to 200 coronavirus positive cases, health officials said on Monday.

BES7 MH-VIRUS-NANDED-MISSING Maha: Search on for 4 missing COVID-19 patients in Nanded



Aurangabad: A search has been mounted in Nanded district in Maharashtra to trace four people who have gone missing after testing positive for novel coronavirus, officials said on Monday.

BES12 MH-VIRUS-LD-COP DEATH 57-year-old Pune police ASI dies of coronavirus



Pune: A 57-year-old assistant sub-inspector of Pune police on Monday died of coronavirus infection in a private hospital, officials said.

BES13 GA-LOCKDOWN-FOREIGNERS Lockdown: Over 2,000 foreigners still in Goa, says FRRO SP



Panaji: There are over 2,000 foreign nationals in Goa even after 6,000 were evacuated in the midst of the coronavirus-induced lockdown, a Foreigner Regional Registration official said on Monday.

LGB1 MH-HC-VIRUS-DETENTION-PLEA Plea against 'detention' of 1,408 people at quarantine centres



Nagpur: The Bombay High Court has sought response from the Maharashtra government and the Nagpur Municipal Corporation on a plea alleging that the civic authorities "illegally detained" 1,408 people from two coronavirus hotspots and put them in quarantine facilities.

BES2 MP-VIRUS-SANITATION WORKERS Sanitation staff don kin's role, perform last rites of victims



By Harshwardhan Prakash



Indore: Amid the coronavirus crisis, sanitation workers in Madhya Pradesh's Indore district are not only doing their cleaning job in hospitals, but have also come forward to perform the last rites of COVID-19 victims whose family members are unable to bid them a final adieu.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Photo credit: Disney

From Popular Mechanics

With its familiar S-foils and needle-nose cockpit design, the X-Wings influence is so vast, its existence defines our relationship with time. With a fleet of Rebel Alliance X-Wings attacking the Empires (first) Death Star, their heroic effort and sacrifice reset our calendar to 0 BBY.

Of course, everyone knows that the galaxys greatest heroLuke Skywalkersat in his red-striped X-Wing during that battle, donning the callsign Red 5. But other pilots, some even more impressive than the Jedi Master himself, have graced the X-Wings cockpit, like Wedge Antilles, Tycho Celchu, Corran Horn, Gavin Darklighter, and even later pilots like Poe Dameron.

The X-Wing served as the backbone of the Rebel Alliance and the subsequent Resistance against the tyranny of the First Order. But strangely, the X-Wing wasnt necessarily destined to be the small snubfighter that would slowly pick away at the sickly corpse of the Empire, like womp rats feasting on carrion.

In fact, the X-Wing could have easily become the Empires pre-eminent space weapon, exceeding even the Death Star itself.

Building on a Legacy

Photo credit: Disney

Genius engineering rarely sparks in a vacuum, and in the case of galaxy-altering starfightersit usually takes a war.

When the Galactic Republic and the Separatists, led by ex-Jedi Count Dooku, flared into open war after the Battle of Geonosis, the Republic needed a new fighter, and it needed it quickly. The Senate of the Galactic Republic turned to Incom Corporation and Subpro Corporation to create a new snubfighter that could prove capable against the Confederacy of Independent Systems' formidable army and prove adaptable against its fearsome Variable Geometry Self-Propelled Battle Droid, Mark I, also known as the Vulture-class droid starfighter.

The result was the legendary Z-95 Headhunter, and it doesnt take much imagination to see the early DNA of the venerable X-Wing. Unlike its famous ancestor, the Z-95 doesnt split its S-foils into an X attack configuration. Instead, the Headhunters sport only two stationary wings that cut vacuum and atmosphere equally with two pairs of Incoms 2a fission engines. The Z-95 also lacks an astromech socket, forcing pilots to rely on data chips for hyperspace jumps. That is if the snubfighter even had a hyperspace drive to begin with. Off the assembly line, most Z-95s couldnt make the lightspeed jumps, but could be retrofitted with one from parts from aftermarket specialists and junkyards.

Story continues

But what the Galactic Republics starring space fighter lacked in planet-hopping capabilities, it more than made up for when it came to firepower. For only a one-pilot cockpit, the Headhunter still packed in blaster cannons, concussion missile launchers, ion cannons, and deflector shields if the Headhunter got in a scrap. Incom/Subpro developed a clone variant for the Republic with a slightly altered design.

The Headhunter would be one of the greatest nuisances of the Separatists, participating in battles across the galaxy during the Clone Wars. Z-95s were the preferred starfighters of the Reaper Squadron, and even after the rise of the Galactic Empire, numerous Z-95s could be found throughout the galaxy, whether in the hands of the Alliance to Restore the Republic or various pirate bands throughout the galaxy (especially once the T-65 X-Wing made the Z-95 obsolete).

But the Z-95 greatest gift to the galaxy was not found within its cockpit, but in the designs that it inspired, including the Galactic Republic starfighter that would finish the Confederacy for good.

The Lovable Middle Child

In the X-Wings evolutionary line, the Aggressive ReConnaissance-170 starfighter is the missing link. Without Incom/Subpros sophomore effort for the Galactic Republic, the Z-95 Headhunter would have been a goodmaybe even greatsnubfighter. With the ARC-170, its lineage would become legendary.

The ARC-170 is different from its predecessor in some serious ways. One the second go around, Incom and Subpro decided to pack in a hyperdrive off the assembly line with an astromech socket included. It also had more room with space for a pilot, co-pilot, and tail gunner.

But its biggest departure from the Z-95 was its transforming wing structuring, forming an "X" profile that exposed heat sinks to help cool down its two engine units in atmospheric flight. This attack formation would become the most recognizable symbol of resistance for nearly three-quarters of a century.

Combine all this with some uncommonly impressive firepower (seriously, this thing could punch a whole in a capital ship), the ARC-170 was well-adept for the fierce battles that defined the Clone Wars as well as deep-space missions, thanks to its planet-hopping hyperdrive.

If the Z-95 took up the fight at the start of the war, the ARC-170 was the starfighter that finished it. It played a vital role in many major battles including the Battle of Sullust, Malastare, and the famous Battle of Coruscant, where clone troopersstrapped into the cockpits of ARC-170shelp rescue then Chancellor Palpatine from Separatist forces.

Photo credit: Disney

But the ARC-170 wasnt without flaws and a big one was hidden within its very name. The ARC-170 was certainly aggressive, having been adequately armed to the teeth, but it wasnt very good at reconnaissance. For one, the thing was enormously huge, not exactly something that screams secretive. Also, the spacecrafts enormous guns produced a huge amount of heat, not a great trait for special forces trying to stay quiet on any prying infrared defense systems.

It also didnt help that Vulture and Droid Tri-Fighters were faster and more maneuverable, best seen in the carnage that filled the upper atmosphere of Coruscant. One downside to the ARC-170s crowded cockpit was that every lost starfighter also meant losing the lives of three Republic pilots. Simply put, the ARC-170 was always happiest in a support role and not in the thick of things, guns blazing like a Jedi interceptor.

But there is a huge irony that lies at the heart of the ARC-170s story. The very ship that should have brought the Republic lasting peace in the final year of the war also became an instrument of its destructionand the end of the Jedi Order. Many ARC-170s participated in the assassination of Jedi after Palpatines now infamous Order 66.

The ARC-170 would find a spot in the ensuing Imperial Navy for a number of years, but its bulky size and costly hyperdrivesomething you dont need when youre flush with Star Destroyersspelled the end for the ARC-170 as a major galactic player. Within five years, the ARC-170 had nearly disappeared from the galaxy entirely.

But the lessons learned from the Z-95 Headhunter and ARC-170 would help form the ultimate starfighter that would change the galaxythe T-65 X-Wing. But there was only one problem: It was being built for the Empire.

A Heros Journey

The Clone Wars were over. The remaining leadership of the Confederacy of Independent Systems were massacred at Mustafar, and a new Galactic Empire had supplanted its democracy-loving forebear. To keep the galaxy's systems in line, Emperor Shreev Palpatine needed a new starfighter.

Two fighters aimed to claim the crown: Sienar Fleet Systems Twin-Ion Engine line and Incoms X-Wing. The two fighters were radically different. The single-seat X-Wing, equipped with an astromech and hyperdrive, was a true snubfighter, able to jump to star systems for a quick attack and retreat in a similar faster-than-light fashion. While the TIE fighter lacked this planet-traipsing ability, it was cheap to make. Designed by Raith Sienar, the TIE fighter could be produced on a massive scale, and since the Empire had enough hyperdrive-equipped capital ships to go around, a large fleet would be needed to keep order in the nascent Empire. (It also helped that Raith was a good friend of Moff Wilhuff Tarkin and Palpatine, whos pleasure craft Imperalis was likely designed by Sienar himself.)

Of course the Empire didnt want the powerful X-Wing falling into the wrong hands and tried to nationalize the company in service of the Empire. But a small group of Incom engineers defected, and flew the plans straight into the hands of the Rebellion.

Turns out Incoms past experience building civilian aircraft, like the T-16 Skyhopper airspeeder, would be a perfect fit for the growing band of rebels. Thats because the T-65 could be easily adapted into a fighting force composed of mostly civilian pilots and personnel who would feel at home in the cockpit. Several pilots who would lead the final assault against the Death Star came from various corners of the galaxy, including smugglers, ex-TIE pilots, and one very important moisture farmer from Tatooine.

The X-wing was the best of the Z-95 and ARC-170 packed into a single snubfighter. Incom created a heavily armored, maneuverable, and speedy starfighter that could hang tough with TIEs and get out quick when needed, which played perfectly with the Rebellion hit-and-run style of combat.

The single-seat T-65 came armed with two Krupx MG7 proton torpedo launchers, a Bertriak sensor jammer, four 4L4 fusial thrust engines, and an astromech socketall wrapped in a titanium armor alloy. But its most distinctive feature was its four Taim & Bak KX9 laser cannons mounted on its strike foils, also known as S-foils. These foils would fly in a two-wing formation when in transit, mimicking the look of the Z-95, but in battle, these wings would separate, creating the iconic "X" attack position. This weapons arrangement gave the X-Wings a deadlier rate of fire, which helped the red-stripped rebels hang tough with Sienars latest creations.



The T-65 X-Wing would be tested for the first time in 1 BBY. With rebels reportedly massing above Turkana, a planet located in the Outer Rim, Imperial-class Star Destroyers went to investigate and quickly a battle ensued. The Rebel Alliance and Admiral Gial Ackbar soon unleashed its newest weaponthe T-65 X-Wing.



Its reported that Imperial Captain Firmus Piett tried to warn Captain Xaumel Lennox of the X-Wings possible lethality, but Lennox, relying on the TIEs strength in numbers, dismissed the warningit would be a costly mistake. Because Lennoxs TIE fighters were busy fending off this new fearsome foe, other Alliance starfighters, like the formidable Y-Wing, were able to pick apart the remaining TIE bombers. Legendary pilot Wedge Antilles, who flew in the battle as part of the newly formed Red Squadron, accounts just how deadly these new X-Wings could be.

Red Squadron was piloting twelve of those X-Wings, stationed aboard Ackbars ship Independence, Antilles said after the battle. I notched three kills before I had to eject.

Without its starfighter defense obliterated, the Imperial capital ships were incredibly vulnerable to enemy fire and soon Lennox conducted a hyperspace retreat, notching one of the Alliances earliest victories. But more importantly, the X-Wing had more that proved its merit and would quickly become adapted across the entire war effort, figuring prominently in almost every major battle during the Galactic Civil War. The T-65 X-Wing would eventually supply the killing blow to both orbital Death Stars, resulting in the death of Grand Moff Tarkin and the Emperor himself.

Much like Lennox in that first battle above Turkana, Tarkin and Palpatine underestimated the power of the Rebellion and their new T-65 X-Wings.

The Story Continues

Photo credit: Getty Images

The X-Wing played a vital role in restoring the Republic, but it wouldnt enter an early retirement once the Empire finally admitted defeat with the Galactic Concordance in 5 ABY.

The X-Wing would again be called to serve against the rising First Order, this time as the new and improved T-70. Now named Incom-Freitek, the company improved upon its X-Wing design, creating a slightly smaller starfighter and packing in improved 5L5 fusial thrust engines, more laser cannons (including an aft-mounted cannon), and more proton torpedoes with the ability to to swap in other payloads. The T-70 also had an X attack position but it operated differently, opening in a scissor-like mechanism and splitting into four half-moon engines.

The result was an X-Wing faster, more durable, and more powerful than anything that had come before it, but that doesnt mean love was lost for the venerable T-65.

Compared to the Resistances current T-70 X-Wing squadrons, these stats still hold up pretty well, said ace Resistance pilot Poe Dameron. Im always happy to fly a T-65.

But the improved T-70 would have its work cut out for it because the First Order pulled a trick out of the Empires strategy book, constructing a planet-sized space weapon known as Starkiller Base. After using this massive weapon against Hosnian Prime, the capital of the New Republic, the X-Wing were asked once again to do what X-Wings do best. Starkiller Base never lived to fire its massive weapon again.

Even with Starkiller Base destroyed, the war was far from over, and the Resistance, torn asunder by the badly beaten New Republic, would see its forces dwindle to only a few dozen ships, with many X-Wings among them. In 35 ABY, more than a year after Hosnians destruction, the X-Wing would prove vital to the decisive Resistance victory at the mysterious planet of Exegol.

Despite this incredible legacy, the X-Wing story doesnt end there. In fact, rumors suggest that Incom-Freitek are hard at work on another X-Wing model called the T-85. Its anyones guess what this new fearsome weapon might look like. But whatever its particular weapon systems, engine layouts, or S-foil configurations, the X-Wing will continue to defend peace and freedom throughout the galaxy.



You Might Also Like
As restrictions lifted, social distancing measures enforced as masks preferred as way to try and limit more outbreaks.

Italy is leading Europe in easing lockdown measures aimed at containing the spread of the new coronavirus, almost two months after the epidemic hit the continent.

More than 4.4 million Italians went back to work on Monday after seven weeks of extraordinary restrictive measures.

In Italy, Europes worst-hit country in terms of deaths, almost 30,000 people have died amid more than 210,700 infections, according to the national Civil Protection Agency.

The return to work came as Italy tries to cushion the economic impact of the shutdowns.

Its economy, the euro zones third-largest last year, is expected to shrink more than in any year since the global depression of the 1930s.

Half of Italys workforce is receiving state support and the same number told a top pollster that they were afraid of becoming unemployed.

The long-awaited phase two includes resuming activities within factories, building sites and wholesale trade.

Italians are now also allowed to visit family members and people with whom they have an established emotional bond in the same region.

Parks are open for walking and running, and people can go for sport activities even far from home.

Social gatherings remain banned and it is mandatory to wear a mask on public transportation and in closed public spaces.

Restrictions on funerals have been relaxed, with a maximum of 15 mourners allowed to attend, but masses and weddings will have to wait.

Bars, hair salons and restaurants will be allowed to reopen only on June 1, if the rate of infection continues to lower.

People wearing protective masks walk on a street in Rome, as Italy begins a staged end to the nationwide lockdown [Remo Casilli/Reuters]

We can hear more noise now

As the lockdown eased, the sounds of banging and drilling echoed across Rome and a group of men drank espresso out of plastic cups in front of the Pantheon, the former Roman temple, as cafes reopened for takeaway services.

We can hear more noise now, Rome grocery store owner Daniela told the AFP news agency. Its better than this frightening silence.

Though decreasing, the number of cases reported each day is still in thousands.

On Sunday, 174 deaths were reported amid more than 13,000 new infections.

Feelings of Italians are mixed. There is glimpse of hope that the worst is passed, but many are concerned that this phase could bring a second wave of infections, journalist Francesco Giambertone told Al Jazeera from Milan.

These concerns stem from the lack of new measures addressed to prevent a further spread of the virus, Giambertone said. Many worry that little has changed since phase one.

Nothing has been said about new tests which in March and February were not enough for everyone who needed to be tested, said Giambertone, adding, its not easy now to understand why some regions are making [antibody] tests and some are not.

The government has been working on a contact tracing application but it is not ready yet.

Commuters wearing protective face masks exit the metro station on Syntagma square in Athens, on the first day of easing the nationwide lockdown [Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters]

Relaxing measures across Europe

Some other countries in Europe also lifted restrictions on Monday.

The streets of the Greek capital Athens resounded with the noise of car horns after weeks of movement restrictions.

Some businesses have also opened as part of what authorities say will be a staggered reopening of the economy.

Barbershops and stores selling books, sporting goods, stationery, and other items can now open, albeit with strict hygiene and social distancing measures in place.

Masks are now compulsory for staff and passengers on public transport and employees in shops selling fresh food. Violators face fines.

On Monday morning, Greek police carried out inspections on buses and at metro stations to make sure passengers were wearing the mandatory surgical masks, and in shops to check whether social distancing rules were being followed.

Business-to-business companies opened offices to employees again in Belgium, even though remote work is still encouraged. Those who work from offices need to respect social distancing or wear protective masks.

Textile shops selling cloth will open, too, because they are essential if people want to make their own protective masks. Those masks will also be mandatory on public transport, which will seek to reopen at full capacity. And people will be allowed to exercise and play sport with two others.

As Germany reported 76 new deaths on Sunday, its lowest number since March 31, children were allowed on Monday for the first time back to school. Barbershops were also set to open their doors after being closed for almost two months as part of the lockdown measures.

Slovenia, Poland and Hungary joined Germany in allowing public spaces and businesses to partially reopen.

Portugal allowed small shops, salons and car dealers to resume business as well, but ordered facemasks to be worn in stores and on public transport.
On Friday, May 1, Gibson Street became a walk of honor for Mary Jo LaRue to mark her graduation from Michigan State University. The formal graduation ceremony was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but LaRue was able to have her own series of celebrations thanks to the efforts of her friends, family and neighbors.

LaRue received her Master of Social Work from Michigan State University with plans to work in hospice care. She had an advanced standing, which meant it took her only a year instead of two to complete her master's degree.

"I called it academic boot camp," LaRue said. "This year was intense."

To help pay for her tuition, she earned over 20 academic scholarships which covered her undergrad and graduate degrees, three of which were given by PEO. LaRue has been a member of PEO Chapter CE in Midland since January 2019, but was an active participant before her initiation, donating items for the chapter's garage sales which in turn fund scholarships. Her fellow members - called sisters - were thrilled to hear of her accomplishments, though saddened she couldn't celebrate them in the traditional sense.

"She's really worked hard," said Cheryl Hunt, of Midland.

"We just want to honor her and let her know that her Chapter CE sisters love her," said Chapter President Mary Shaughnessy.

Just before 1 p.m. Shaughnessy delivered homemade signs to decorate LaRue's front yard. On the hour, LaRue appeared on the front lawn of her home, dressed in her cap, gown and hood and sporting an MSU face mask, under the pretense of taking graduation pictures. Seconds later, the air was filled with the sound of horns as LaRue's PEO sisters lined up to express their felicitations. No less than 14 cars lined up along Gibson Street, ceasing their honking so that strains of "Pomp and Circumstance," performed by John and Geri Anderson, could be heard.

"This was an awesome surprise, Mary. Thank you so much," LaRue said, turning to Shaughnessy, standing in her driveway.

The parade of PEO sisters was the first of three celebrations to honor LaRue. Neighbors arranged for another surprise procession an hour later. LaRue's family organized a third event which occurred later that day.

Mike Buller, one of LaRue's neighbors, explained that the neighborhood was discussing hosting their own drive by when they heard about PEO's event. They coordinated with PEO to make sure their times didn't overlap.

"It's such a momentous occasion in her life," said Mike Buller of Midland.
U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a live Fox News Channel virtual town hall called "America Together: Returning to Work" with hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum about the response to the coronaviru pandemic being broadcast from inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, U.S. May 3, 2020.

President Donald Trump said Sunday that he believed that a "mistake" in China was the cause of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, though he did not present any evidence for the claim.

"I think they made a horrible mistake and didn't want to admit it," Trump said.

The comments, which came during a Fox News town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that "a significant amount of evidence" suggested that the virus emerged from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan.

"My opinion is they made a mistake. They tried to cover it, they tried to put it out. It's like a fire," Trump said. "You know, it's really like trying to put out a fire. They couldn't put out the fire."

Trump said the government was putting together a report that will be "very conclusive."

The nation's top spy agency said Thursday that it had determined that the virus was not man made but was still investigating whether it was caused by "an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."

A Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated Friday, however, found that officials in China "intentionally concealed the severity" of the contagion, according to the Associated Press, which reported on the document Sunday. The report found that the country hid details about coronavirus in order to horde medical supplies.

China has rejected claims that the virus escaped a research center in Wuhan.

Attention has been focused on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research center located near where the coronavirus outbreak is thought to have emerged, though scientists have said for weeks that it is extremely unlikely that the virus was created in a lab setting.

Michael Morell, former acting director of the CIA, said last week that the U.S. had been funding the center's research on coronaviruses, the Associated Press reported.

"So if it did escape, we're all in this together," Morell said.

The U.S. and China, the world's two largest economies, have been waging competing propaganda battles amid the public health crisis, with leaders in each country seeking to pin the blame elsewhere and claim the mantle of global leadership.

Trump has had a complicated relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, whom he has long referred to as a friend, even as trade tensions have flared.
To examine the acceptance of "Latinx" our firm conducted a nationwide poll of Latinos using a 508-person sample that is demographically representative of Census figures, yielding a  5% margin of error with a 95% confidence interval. We presented our respondents with seven of the most common terms used to describe Latinos and asked them to select the one that best describes them.

Newspeak occurs whenever the primary purpose of language-which is to describe reality-is replaced by the rival purpose of asserting power over it... Newspeak sentences sound like assertions, but their underlying logic is that of a spell. They conjure the triumph of words over things, the futility of rational argument, and also the danger of resistance. As a result Newspeak develop[s] its own special syntax, which-while closely related to the syntax deployed in ordinary descriptions-carefully avoids any encounter with reality or any exposure to the logic of rational argument.

By now, most people who've attended a wealthy college-or those who tuned into the Democratic presidential debates -have likely heard or seen the word "Latinx." The anglicized Spanish term is the latest attempt of gender activists to impose their perverse ideology on the rest of the culture-and on Spanish speakers in particular.What is so significant about adding the letter "x" to the word "Latino?" To activists, it solves a confounding problem: There is no "gender-neutral" way to refer to individuals in the Spanish language. Someone, for example, may be described as a "Latino" writer (if a man) or a "Latina" writer (if a woman), but there is no phrasing for those who don't consider themselves male or female.But in the early 2000s, activists came up with a solution : Replace the "o" in masculine words like "Latino" and the "a" in feminine words like "Latina" with a gender-neutral "x" to create the inclusive term "Latinx."For a while, "Latinx" remained a niche term secluded to small circles of academics and activists. But not for long. Around 2014, eager to appear "inclusive," colleges and universities started to adopt the term.As a result, institutions such as Harvard University New York University , and the University of Florida began to relabel. For example, "Hispanic heritage month" became "Latinx heritage month," and "Latino Studies" was changed to "Latinx studies."The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is no exception to this trend. Although UNC-Chapel Hill administrators and faculty have used the term for the last few years, the label "Latinx" gained a new level of formal recognition in October when the university officially established the Carolina "Latinx" Center. For over a decade , students and activists have been pressuring the university to create a center dedicated to Latino students. In 2009, a university task force established a "Carolina Latina/o Collaborative," which was the first step in an effort to create a "full-fledged" center.In 2016, UNC-Chapel Hill students conducted a protest demanding that a "Latinx" center be established on campus, arguing that the three seminar rooms and residence hall dedicated to "Latinx" students was not enough space.That same year, the UNC Centers and Institutes Review Committee approved a proposal for the creation of a "UNC Carolina Latinx Center." In turn, UNC Provost Jim Dean approved the recommendation and recommended that chancellor Carol Folt and the Board of Trustees give the center final approval.The project was shelved for several years until finally, before her abrupt departure in January 2019, Folt granted final approval for a "Latinx" center to be established on campus. The center officially opened on October 4, 2019 with UNC's current chancellor, Kevin Guskiewicz, presiding over the ribbon-cutting ceremony Of the sixteen UNC universities, Chapel Hill and the four following UNC institutions use the word "Latinx" in an official capacity:Given the growing popularity of "Latinx," it is likely only a matter of time until the remaining UNC schools follow. Nevertheless, they should resist jumping on the bandwagon, and the institutions that have already adopted the confused term should swiftly abandon it, for several reasons.For one, according to a 2019 study by a progressive-leaning marketing firm, the overwhelming majority of Hispanics in the United States do not want to be referred to as "Latinx." According to Mario Carrasco, co-owner of the firm ThinkNow Research,While Carrasco describes himself and his colleagues asthey put their biases aside in order to get an accurate grasp of what terms people prefer. Carrasco details how he and his team conducted the study:The researchers found that 44 percent of respondents prefer the term "Hispanic" while 24 percent preferred "Latino/Latina." Only 2 percent said they prefer the term "Latinx."Even the Royal Academy of Spanish (RAE), widely considered an authoritative source on the Spanish language, refuses to accept the term . Only English-language dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary include the term.Perhaps one reason Spanish speakers do not want to be called "Latinx" is because it simply doesn't make linguistic sense. On a basic level, it is almost impossible to pronounce. The word, which originated in the United States, is pronounced "Latin-ex" (a pronunciation that doesn't exist in Spanish). Ironically, the Spanish pronunciation of the letter "x" ("ek-ees"), is not used. Additional problems arise when speaking in the plural. The plural form of "Latina" is "Latinas." But it's entirely unclear what the plural of "Latinx" would be. "Latinxs" or "Latinxes," for example, are impossible to pronounce in Spanish.Clearly, the label is of a world utterly divorced from ordinary Spanish speakers-a fact that proponents of the term openly acknowledge. Lourdes Torres, a Latino studies professor at DePaul University, noted that although a few activists there are trying out different terms.she said.And David Bowles, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande, said Apart from the lack of cultural awareness involved in the term's usage, the main problem with the word "Latinx" is that it embodies a gender ideology completely unmoored from reality. Absurd in its premise, it denies the fact that, apart from rare medical disorders of sex development, there are only men and women-male human beings and female human beings.While the change from "o" to "x" might seem minor to some, it is in fact an attempt by ideologues to impose a highly questionable theory of gender by distorting and policing language. On a practical level, university administrators' recent relabeling assists gender radicals in adding "Latinx" to the politically correct "Newspeak" lexicon and removes the obvious truth that there are only two genders from the list of officially approved opinions.Sir Roger Scruton elaborates on the Orwellian phenomenon of "Newspeak" in his book Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands Time and again, gender activists have employed Newspeak terms like "Latinx" to shut down rational debate, intimidate skeptics into ideological conformity, and conjure crowds into madness.For instance, when the Daily Wire podcast host Michael Knowles spoke at the University of Missouri-Kansas City to defend the seemingly uncontroversial proposition thatstudents repeatedly interrupted his speech with a chorus of screams. Police even had to tackle a student who sprayed an unidentified white substance on Knowles, which was followed by even louder protests and skirmishes with police.The more Newspeak terms like "Latinx" become accepted as legitimate linguistic items, the less activists' underlying ideology will be subject to scrutiny and the more hostile they will be toward those who hold common-sense views of gender.In the end, academics, activists, and progressive politicians often claim that they want to empower minorities, to give a voice to the voiceless. In their minds, they work tirelessly to liberate marginalized groups from the unjust constrictions imposed upon them by an oppressive white patriarchy.But as with many of the crusades progressive elitists engage inmarginalized groups, this attempt to pervert the Spanish language is just another example of how out of touch they are with the very people they claim to serve.Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Hispanics in the United States do not want to be referred to as "Latinx," elite academics are clearly less concerned about cultural sensitivity than promoting their currently fashionable-but highly confused-outlook on gender. Universities should refuse to endorse this incoherent ideology and discard the term "Latinx" altogether.
Sir,



It is an open secret that COVID-19 has forced many countries like Eswatini to declare a state of emergency that will last until the cure or vaccine is discovered. The state of emergency requires countries to roll out their crisis management plans in order to handle the crisis at hand effectively.



Ever since a state of emergency was declared in the country, there have been a number of questionable decisions and actions that prove that our crisis management plan needs to be fixed sooner than later. Here are some few examples of where we went wrong as country:



There were early signs that we were headed for a crisis, yet our government chose to ignore the red flag. Being reactive got us where we are today, with over 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases.



Restricted



Taiwan and Lesotho were quick to close their borders and restricted travelling to affected countries, and that is why they have been able to manage the spread of the virus. Waiting for the virus to hit our shores was proof that our crisis management plan had loopholes.



Not conducting a risk assessment in the first instance has led us to the dire situation we are in today. As a country, we should be able to spot possible crises that may cause havoc. This is a stage where government is supposed to create possible crisis scenarios in order to help us prepare for the worst.



Outbreak



The outbreak of Ebola in other parts of Africa should have been a wake-up call to countries like Eswatini despite it not reaching our shores. What would have happened if it reached our shores? What would happen if a gunman opened fire on unsuspecting citizens of the country? What would happen if locusts were to invade our country? What would happen if the country were to be hit by an earthquake? These are possible threats that may affect the country. With this in mind, we should have surely prepared ourselves better.



Not only did government fail to conduct a risk assessment but it also failed to train the most important stakeholder, employees. The training of personnel is very important when dealing with a crisis. After the breakout of COVID-19, people were looking for answers from nurses, doctors and other health workers, who were also clueless at first. During a crisis, employees act as information disseminators and they should be well-equipped. It was embarrassing to note that the frontline personnel were clueless yet the country has close ties with Taiwan, a country that has handled the virus with ease. No wonder we now have many health workers also testing positive with the virus.



Role



To add salt to the wound, some personnel tasked with fighting against COVID-19 do not know their role during this time. Bucopho and other traditional leaders were recently tasked with issuing travelling permits to people who wanted to travel from one place to another and they had to be stripped off their powers because they were giving the permits to every Tom, Dick and Harry. They did not know what their role was and had not been properly trained. When one party is not playing their part well, the crisis management plan is weakened.



Furthermore, the establishing of clear communication timelines is also lacking in governments crisis management plan. Government appears to be reactive in communicating with the public as they wait for a deadline to approach. Government should not have waited until the 11th hour to extend the lockdown period. The public was left guessing about governments next move, a thing that caused more confusion and panic. Planning ahead helps during a crisis as every stakeholder is always well-informed.



Plan



However, not everything is doomed in our crisis management plan, as there are certain things worth praising. Governments decision to take social media seriously during the crisis should be hailed. Long-established media is still the most popular media channels in the land but that doesnt mean that social media should be overlooked. Governments Twitter and Facebook accounts have been active.

This allows people to get updates about the latest statistics as they dont have to wait for the 7pm news. With this, government has an opportunity to crush and extinguish fake news.



PR fanatic
Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge recently celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary but they were together for years before they got hitched. One royal expert believes that Prince William took his time so that he wouldnt have the same pressures that his parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana faced when they got married.

Prince William and Kate Middleton | Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Prince William and Kate had a long courtship

Prince William and Kate had a very long courtship  after meeting at University in 2001, they didnt go public with their relationship until 2004. Their relationship hit a bumpy patch in 2007 when they broke up, though they reconciled later that year and went on to get engaged during a trip to Kenya in 2010. They were married at Westminster Abbey in 2011.

Prince William was in no hurry to rush into marriage, and when he finally proposed, he likely was very sure that he would be with Kate forever.

Prince William didnt want to repeat his parents mistakes

While some royal experts and fans thought it took Prince William and Kate too long before they walked down the aisle, one expert shared Williams thoughts on marriage.

When William was asked about settling down in 2005, royal author Katie Nicholl shared in her book The Making of a Royal Romance, he explained, Look, Im only 22 for Gods sake. Im too young to marry at my age. I dont want to get married until I am at least 28 or maybe 30.

Nicholl added how Prince William believed that Prince Harry might get married before him. If it hurt Kate when William hinted that his younger brother Harry was more likely to tie the knot before they would, she didnt show it, she shared.

The expert also claimed that Prince William was cautious about his relationship because his parents had gotten married too soon and Princess Diana was quite young. William didnt want any of the pressure and so he took his time.

He was aware his father had been pressured into marrying Diana because she was deemed the suitable bride, Nicholl shared. He was reluctant to bow to similar pressure and vowed not to be hurried at the altar.

She added, He made his feelings clear, telling a journalist in an off-guard moment that he had no plans of getting married any time soon.

The Cambridges relationship has been solid

Prince William and Kates relationship had a solid foundation and they have continued to have a successful marriage, with Nicholl telling OK! magazine, Kate and William are stronger than ever. Theyve been together nearly 20 years now and theyre very tuned into one another.

She continued, Their relationship is based on mutual respect. They know when to compromise, when to back down, and when to apologize.

Nicholl chalks some of that up to their temperaments, with the expert sharing that Kate is more even-tempered and Prince William is hot-headed.

The Duchess doesnt tend to lose her temper  shes usually pretty composed and measured, Nicholl explained. But William is famously quite hot-headed, so she knows when to give him space if he needs it.
Jigawa State government on Sunday announced yet another death from the novel coronavirus ravaging mankind across the globe.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how a Lagos returnee, a resident of Fanisau community in Dutse Local Government Area, died from the disease.

The states Commissioner for Health, Abba Zakari, told Freedom Radio late Sunday that the state recorded the second death from a female patient, a resident of Miga Local Government Area of the state.

Mr Zakari, who is also the chairman, Jigawa taskforce on COVID-19, said the deceased was initially admitted at two different health facilities in the state before she tested positive to COVID-19.

The deceased had other underlying medical history before she was said to be infected by her husband, also a Lagos returnee.

As part of efforts to fight the disease, the state government has taken samples of 679 deported Almajiris in the state to a private laboratory accredited by Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the official said.

Also, the state has identified 950 non indigene Almajiris in Kazaure Local Government Area whose movement have been restricted and the government has commenced free feeding.
The return of migrant labourers en masse from urban hubs of work to their villages is a primary area of concern, the Empowered Group, headed by Niti Aayog chairman Amitabh Kant, has noted in a progress report. Scores of NGOs are coordinating efforts and working closely with the district administrations and state governments so that measures of care, quarantine, and treatment go hand in hand, it added.

The group had directed all chief secretaries to appoint state-level nodal Officers to coordinate with all NGOs and resolve their issues apart from leveraging their resources and networks.

Almost all States have appointed Nodal Officers to liaise with NGOs/CSOs.All Chief Secretaries were requested to instruct the District Administrations to leverage the bandwidth of NGOs and CSOs; Nominate Nodal NGO for each district, or groups of Districts for coordinating with the District Nodal Officer; and identify areas and sectors to stop duplicity and overlaps, it said.

NGOs were also urged to lift and distribute rice and wheat from the Food Corporation of Indias godowns at the subsidized rate of Rs 21-22 per kg respectively so that no one in the country remains hungry, it added.

The empowered group committee is monitoring and coordinating with the NGO and Civil Society Organisations across all states and 700 districts on a real time basis to fight the spread of Covid-19. It has engaged with Civil Society Organisations, NGOs, development partners, UN Agencies, and industry associations in over 15 meetings.

In the Aspirational Districts Programme piloted by NITI Aayog, as of now there are about 610 cases in 112 aspirational districts which is considered fairly low at less than 2% of the national level of infections, the empowered group said. Of these, six districts have reported the first case after April 21. Major hotspots are Baramula (62), Nuh (57), Ranchi (55), YSR (55), Kupwara (47) and Jaisalmer(34) it added.

NITI Aayog has taken steps to ensure that these districts are able to contain the spread of the virus and has actively referred the requirements in testing kits, PPE and masks to the respective empowered groups for necessary action in order to address supply constraints, it noted.

Collaboration has been one of the guiding principles in Aspirational District Programme and these partnerships have enabled the District Administrations in ramping up isolation camps, setting up control rooms, door-to-door food supplies, distribution of cooked foods, mobilization of Self Help Groups for making home-made masks, sanitizers and re-usable & sterilizable protective gear while simultaneously sustaining their livelihoods during lockdown period. Osmanabad is one such district where a testing Centre has been established by utilizing the CSR corpus, it said.

The empowered group has also mobilised these 92,000 NGOs across districts for monitoring and coordinating. It is a record of sorts, to harness their strengths and resources, expertise in key social sectors-nutrition, health, sanitation, education, and extensive reach in the community, a Niti Aayog official said.

The group has involved them in identifying hotspots and deputing volunteers; delivering essential services to the vulnerable, including the homeless, daily wage workers, migrants, and urban poor families; and in creating awareness about prevention, social distancing, and isolation.

In the next phase, the group will mobilise CSOs and NGOs for movement against Covid-19 stigmatisation and in protecting the elderly and senior citizens. The UN in India has prepared a Joint Response Plan (JRP) with prevention, treatment and essential supplies as key components.

Skill building of 15,300 trainers, training for 3951 surveillance/ health officers on Integrated Health Information Platform, infection prevention and control training in 890 hospitals, support to ICMR for testing, strengthening risk communication and community engagement capabilities of healthcare workers, procurement of 2 lakh PPEs and 4 lakh N95 masks, have been initiated by WHO and UNICEF, the report said.

The UN is also engaged in the procurement of medical supplies including ventilators (initially 1000 units as per the current requests, but potentially higher based on future demand) for 25 States. Further, an order of 10,000 ventilators and 10 million PPE Kits to UNICEF was expedited by group, it said.

Niti Aayog has also engaged with the Indian Red Cross Society whose 40,000 volunteers are working with district administration in over 500 districts. It has created quarantine/isolation facilities at 33 locations, facilitated donation of ventilators, masks, PPEs, and test kits valued at Rs 5.50 crore, apart from relief and advocacy across the 500 districts, it added.

The group has also urged all CSOs, NGOs, International Organisations and Industry partners to effectively utilise the Arogya Setu app in their operations. According to Niti Aayog, 80 million people have installed the app thus far.
Ham radio operators have been



scanning the city round the clock during the ongoing lockdown to get medicines required by critically ill patients of West Bengal and outside.

With the help of police, these Good Samaritans have supplied medicines for cancer, hepatitis-B, HIV positive patients in several districts of West Bengal and a couple of Northeastern states, the apex body of Ham Radio operators said.

Two patients living in distant Aranghata in Nadia district and Gangasagar in South 24 Parganas district received hoomeopathic medicines from a reputed physician's chamber in Kolkata after these amateur radio operators came forward, said Ambarish Nag Biswas, secretary of the West Bengal Radio Club (WBRC).

"With the help of a top disaster management official of Kolkata Police, we could procure the medicine and passed it on to these families. The two are among more than 100 people whom we managed to help during the lockdown," he told PTI.

These people hail from districts such as East and West Midnapore, Murshidabad, Nadia, Hooghly and North and South 24 Parganas.

The WBRC, having 85 Ham Radio operators as members, has also come to the aid of an elderly cancer patient of Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, whose son in the USA could not send him a particular medicine like previous months because of the prevailing situation.

Around 30 orphaned children, all diagnosed as HIV positive, were given rice, dal, vegetables, salt, and cooking oil after an NGO at Behala in the southern fringes of Kolkata, that look after them sought help from the amateur radio operators.

Three patients of Northeastern states, including a 7- year-old child, also received their medicines after the WBRC was contacted by their counterparts there. "Our members literally combed the city and the neighbourhood to find the medicines," Nag Biswas said.

"We have always been on the side of people particularly during disasters and natural calamities. The coronavirus crisis has thrown up new challenges to us," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
YEREVAN.  The investigation of the criminal case into the kidnapping and shooting inside Erebuni Plaza business center in downtown Yerevan on January 23 is completed, and the case has been sent to the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction. We have learned this from the press service of the Prosecutor's Office.

The perpetrator, Artur Torosyan, had broken into Erebuni Plaza with a gun, fired shots, taken some people hostage, demanding to inform the location of second President Robert Kocharyan's office because he wanted to meet with Viktor Soghomonyan, the head of Kocharyan's office which is located in this business center. But he had surrendered sometime thereafter.

A criminal case was initiated in connection with this incident, and under the Criminal Code articles on taking hostages; committing violence dangerous to life or health; using weapons or objects used as weapons against persons; illegally acquiring, selling, store, keeping, transferring or carrying weapons, ammunition, explosives or explosive devices; and deliberately destroying or damaging property.

By a court order, Artur Torosyan, who fired shots inside Erebuni Plaza business, was taken to a psychiatric hospital for an inpatient forensic psychological evaluation, which concluded that Torosyan should be recognized as insane for the act he is accused of, and he poses a social danger.
President Hassan Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran has condoled with President Muhammadu Buhari over the demise of his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.

The Presidents Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, made this known in a statement in Abuja on Monday.

A condolence letter signed by the Iranian President, according to Mr Shehu, prayed for the good health of the Nigerian leader, the family of the deceased, as well as the well-being of the Nigerian people, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Surely, eradicating this dangerous virus, which has claimed the lives of many innocent people around the world and continues to threaten global health, requires the determination and cooperation of all members of the international community and the elimination of all kinds of discrimination, the Iranian leader said.

(NAN)
This big and powerful Nissan Armada offers lots of cabin space and towing capacity. The second-generation Nissan Armada is the auto-makers flagship SUV, offering a vast amount of interior space and towing capacity.

It is derived from Nissans globally-sold Patrol and has the tough and proven DNA of the Patrol. The traditional body-on-frame construction of the Armada is combined with a large V8 engine and four-wheel drive capabilities. It is assembled in Kyushu Japan and the 5.6-liter engine is built in Tennessee.

LIKES: The Armada makes no compromises as a big, heavy vehicle. With seating up to eight, it will certainly carry that number in comfort. It provides a quiet ride but the full-frame architecture is obvious in the ride, which can be a little choppy. Also obvious is the Armada cannot be driven like a performance car with its truck-like steering, brakes, and handling. But one does not buy an Armada for such whimsy.

WHATS BEST: The square body lines provide an enormous amount of cabin space, either for people or cargo. Its sight line are excellent. The naturally-aspirated V8 provides lots of grunt. The front seats are well-padded and comfortable. Controls and gauges are intuitive and easy to operate. The towing capacity is higher than a lot of vehicles in this segment. Interior amenities abound in the top level Platinum version, although the SL version offers a host of convenience and splash at about $6,000 less.

WHATS WORST: While this version of the Armada was introduced in 2016, it could use some updating in areas, such as its infotainment screens. The small square info screen between the two analogue dials in front of the driver are definitely due for a makeover. And while the engine certainly provides adequate power, the Armada will never win any mileage contests. The vehicles weight is a factor here, but the fuel consumption is in the ball park with similar vehicles.

OVERALL: For moving people, cargo, or towing, the Armada is a player. It makes no excuses about its size. It is not pretentious or flashy. While some of its aspects could be enhanced and updated, it is a sensible vehicle with proven technology where it counts.

Controls and functions are well-though out, but info screens could use updating.

DETAILS

2020 Nissan Armada Platinum

Price as tested: $75,148, base: $72,398

Engine: 5.6-liter V8

Power/Torque: 390 horsepower, 394 lb-ft

Fuel Mileage: 18L/100kms city, 13.06L/100kms highway, 15.6L/100 kms combined

Drivetrain: AWD, seven-speed automatic, final drive ratio 2.93 to 1. Brakes 13.8-inch ventilated discs, front and rear. Rack and pinion steering with 3.5 turns lock-to-lock. Front suspension double-wishbone with stabilizer bar, rear suspension double-wishbone, independent, with stabilizer bar.

Wheels, 20-inch, tires 275/60R/20.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Wheelbase: 3976-mm, 121.1-inches

Weight: 2705 kg, 5963 pounds

Fuel tank capacity: 98.4 liters

Cargo volume: 470 liters (16.6 cubic feet) behind third row of seats.

1404 liters (49.6 cubic feet) behind second row of seats.

2692 liters (95.1 cubic feet) behind first row of seats.

Towing capacity: 8500 pounds.
Infiniti Research is the world's leading independent provider of strategic market intelligence solutions. Our market intelligence services are designed to connect your organization's goals with global opportunities. Today's competitive business environment demands in-depth, accurate, and reliable business information to ensure that companies gain a strong foothold in domestic or foreign markets. Our global industry specialist teams ensure the international consistency of our research, enabling powerful access to the real story behind market changes. Request a free brochure for more insights into our solutions portfolio.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005537/en/

Engagement Overview:

The client is a medical device services provider in Canada, offering advanced CT scanners and diagnostic ECG machinery. It faced growing threats from competitors in both product development and go-to-market activities. Also, the medical devices market client faced difficulties in anticipating competitors' activities, understanding past market disruptions, and planning for future market opportunities and disruptions. The medical devices market client, therefore, approached the experts at Infiniti Research to leverage their expertise in offering competitive intelligence solution.

Other key objectives of the engagement were:

Objective 1: Understand the competitive landscape

Objective 2: Identify technologies and processes leveraged by competitors

Objective 3: Identify operational risks

During the COVID-19 crisis, it is critical for companies in the medical device market to take calculative and well-executed measures to ensure business continuity in the long run. Request a free proposal to know how industry experts at Infiniti Research can help you plan and create comprehensive action plans to navigate the crisis. Request a FREE proposal here.

Our Approach

By conducting competitive intelligence study, the experts at Infiniti Research were able to uncover the key strategies of relevant competitors, pricing tactics, relevant strategic partnerships, product sales strategy, and product development challenges. Also, by conducting customer intelligence study, we provided actionable insights to the client relating to the key criteria that drove medical devices vendor selection, how customers viewed various vendors and, other components of their purchase decisions.

Business impact of the competitive intelligence solution for the medical device market client

By partnering with Infiniti Research, the client was able to understand their competitors' investment into R&D and new technologies and make informed investment and commercial decisions for the dynamic market.

By leveraging Infiniti's competitive intelligence solution, the medical devices market client was also able to:

Acquire a baseline understanding of the competitive landscape

Establish an ongoing intelligence operation affording greater strategic agility in the face of rapid innovation

Identify technologies and processes leveraged by their competitors to tackle security and operational risks in the industry

Identify the top medical devices outsourcing companies to help them at the time of immediate requirements

Reduce operational cost by 23%

For an in-depth market analysis on how COVID-19 will impact the medical devices market and data-driven insights to plan your next moves, request more info here.

About Infiniti Research

Established in 2003, Infiniti Research, is a leading market intelligence company providing smart solutions to address your business challenges. Infiniti Research studies markets in more than 100 countries to help analyze competitive activity, see beyond market disruptions, and develop intelligent business strategies. To know more, visit: https://www.infinitiresearch.com/about-us

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005537/en/

Contacts:

Infiniti Research

Anirban Choudhury

Marketing Manager

US: +1 844 778 0600

UK: +44 203 893 3400

https://www.infinitiresearch.com/contact-us
YEREVAN, MAY 4, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Institute of Molecular Biology is awaiting a second batch of required materials to launch the production of coronavirus test kits, Director of the Institute Dr. Arsen Arakelyan told ARMENPRESS. He said they are ready to launch the production the next day after receiving the materials.

Arakelyan said the batch will arrive sometime within May.

The production isnt very difficult, the number of involved specialists can vary somewhere between 5 to 20, depending on the required daily amount of production, Arakelyan said.

The government allocated money for the institute to acquire the materials from China.

Reporting by Anna Grigoryan; Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
<! <img width="512" height="342" src="https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins.jpg" class="attachment-single-thumbnail size-single-thumbnail wp-post-image jetpack-lazy-image" alt="" data-attachment-id="161409" data-permalink="https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2013/04/27/ethiopia-airlines-first-to-resume-dreamliner-flights/attachment/161409/" data-orig-file="https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins.jpg" data-orig-size="512,342" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP","camera":"","caption":"Passengers board anEthiopian Airlines Dreamliner jet ahead of its take off on April 27, 2013, at Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport. The carrier became the first airline to resume flying the Boeing 787 that were grounded worldwide three months ago due to battery problems. Saturday's flight will travel from Addis Ababa to Nairobi and is expected to return in the evening. The remaining three of Ethiopia's Dreaminers will also be retrofitted with a new battery that is contained, ensuring the flight can continue in case of malfuntion. Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said he was very happy to be the first airline in the world to resume flight after a three month grounding of the 50-strong fleet. Ethiopian Airlines, Africa's fastest growing carrier, is the first airline in Africa to operate the 787 Dreamliner. AFP PHOTO\/JENNY VAUGHAN.","created_timestamp":"1367058556","copyright":"AFP ImageForum","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"-"}" data-image-title="Ethiopian airline Dreamliner" data-image-description="

Passengers board anEthiopian Airlines Dreamliner jet ahead of its take off on April 27, 2013, at Addis Ababas Bole International Airport. The carrier became the first airline to resume flying the Boeing 787 that were grounded worldwide three months ago due to battery problems. Saturdays flight will travel from Addis Ababa to Nairobi and is expected to return in the evening. The remaining three of Ethiopias Dreaminers will also be retrofitted with a new battery that is contained, ensuring the flight can continue in case of malfuntion. Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said he was very happy to be the first airline in the world to resume flight after a three month grounding of the 50-strong fleet. Ethiopian Airlines, Africas fastest growing carrier, is the first airline in Africa to operate the 787 Dreamliner. AFP PHOTO/JENNY VAUGHAN.

 data-medium-file=https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins.jpg data-large-file=https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-504336.jpg data-lazy-srcset=https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins.jpg 512w, https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins-1.jpg 75w, https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins-2.jpg 504w, https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins-3.jpg 495w, https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins-4.jpg 120w, https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins-5.jpg 165w, https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins-6.jpg 270w, https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins-7.jpg 480w data-lazy-sizes=(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px data-lazy-src=https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins.jpg?is-pending-load=1 srcset=data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 />Ethiopian airline to fly Nigerians stranded in U.S. >

Passengers board anEthiopian Airlines Dreamliner jet ahead of its take off on April 27, 2013, at Addis Ababas Bole International Airport. The carrier became the first airline to resume flying the Boeing 787 that were grounded worldwide three months ago due to battery problems. Saturdays flight will travel from Addis Ababa to Nairobi and is expected to return in the evening. The remaining three of Ethiopias Dreaminers will also be retrofitted with a new battery that is contained, ensuring the flight can continue in case of malfuntion. Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said he was very happy to be the first airline in the world to resume flight after a three month grounding of the 50-strong fleet. Ethiopian Airlines, Africas fastest growing carrier, is the first airline in Africa to operate the 787 Dreamliner. AFP PHOTO/JENNY VAUGHAN.  data-medium-file=https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins.jpg data-large-file=https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-504336.jpg class=wp-image-161409 src=https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins.jpg alt width=750 height=501 srcset=https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/evacuation-of-nigerians-stranded-in-covid-19-wracked-u-s-begins.jpg 512w , https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-7550.jpg 75w , https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-504336.jpg 504w , https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-495330.jpg 495w , https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-12080.jpg 120w , https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-165110.jpg 165w , https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-270180.jpg 270w , https://149366101.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/passengers-board-Ethiopia-airlines-dreamliner-480320.jpg 480w  sizes=(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px>

By Harrison Arubu/New York

The evacuation of Nigerians stranded in the U.S. due to the coronavirus pandemic is to begin on 10 May.

Mr Benaoyagha Okoyen, the consul-general of Nigeria in New York disclosed this on Sunday in a notice signed on behalf of the Nigerian Missions in the U.S.

No fewer than 700 Nigerians have registered with the missions for evacuation.

It will be done in batches.

Okoyen said that the first batch of 270 evacuees would be flown to Abuja through an Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 509.

The plane is expected to depart the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey at 9.15 p.m. and fly directly to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

As earlier announced by the Federal Government, the flight is at the expense of the evacuees, who will all fly economy class, according to the notice.

The projected cost for the one-way economy ticket is between 1,300 dollars (N488,800) and 1,700 dollars (N639,200) per adult.

Please note that over 700 Nigerian nationals have registered with our missions in the USA to be evacuated.

However, only 270 passengers shall be accommodated in this batch of evacuation.

Missions will, therefore, attend to applicants on a first-come, first-served basis and shall prioritise the list of evacuees according to their immigration status.

This includes the need to consider those stranded with proof of short-stay visas, the elderly, families with children and returning students, it said.

Okoyen told NAN that the dates for subsequent batches would be announced in due course.

To curb the spread of COVID-19, the Federal Government on March 18 imposed restrictions on travels from 13 countries with high burdens.

The countries are China, Iran, South Korea, Germany, Italy, the U.S., United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, France, Japan, Australia and Sweden.

Consequently, many Nigerians, who were on short-term visits to the affected countries, became stranded.
Making essential workforce environment as safe as possible

Non-essential manufacturing (toys, furniture, clothing, etc.)

Schools

Childcare facilities

Retail businesses for curbside pick-up

Offices where working remotely isn't possible, but can be modified to make the environment safer for employees

Hair salons

Nail salons

Gyms

Movie theaters

Sporting events without live audiences

In-person religious services (churches and weddings)

Concert venues

Convention centers

Sporting events with live audiences

It may be awhile longer before Washington, D.C. residents can return to their normal lives.Government officials in the district held a virtual town hall on Wednesday, where Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt, director of the D.C. Department of Health, explained in a slide show two plans for reopening the nation's capital: The "most-stringent" and "less-stringent."The most-stringent plan, considered the worst-case scenario, would keep D.C. residents in their homes and businesses shuttered for at least another three months, NBC Washington reported . The least-stringent plan, described as a best-case scenario, would still keep the city closed for another two months. Both plans involve a phased reopening.D.C.'s current stay-at-home order is in place until at least May 15. Nesbitt, according to NBC, said the city needed more data before making any decisions about reopening.The news comes as states across the country begin to look into reopening their economies, even as the novel coronavirus continues to spread. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) came under fire for becoming the first in the nation to reopen parts of the state's economy one week ago. Kemp allowed certain businesses such as hair salons and barbershops to reopen on April 24, with customers arriving at some businesses as early as 6:30 a.m., The Daily Wire previously reported . One salon, Studio 151, posted stringent policies to protect customers and staff, including waiting in vehicles until a staff member comes to get them for their appointment and taking temperatures at the door.Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had also outlined an ambitious timeline for reopening the state, yet Colleyville, Texas, still couldn't wait. The city reopened on April 24 with social distancing guidelines. Colleyville, too, was met with a backlash from people who think it is too soon to reopen, The Daily Wire reported . Of course, those who said the city was reopening too soon included people who never lost their jobs during the coronavirus shutdown.One county in California has also reopened , even as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) laid out a 4-stage plan to reopen the state. That plan will take months to get to the point where gyms and beauty salons can reopen. The four stages are, according to ABC7 And then there's Virginia, whose governor reflexively put in place a stay-at-home order that won't expire until June 10 - longer than most other states. An official with the Virginia Health Department initially said Phase One of the Virginia reopening planThe Health Department later clarified the official's remarks, saying he was referring to vaccine development and not Phase One.
Advertisement

Florida has now officially reopened with most coronavirus restrictions being lifted as of today as about half of all US states partially reopen their economies after the lockdown.

As part of the reopening in Florida, which has seen 1,300 deaths and 36,000 infections among its 21.5 million residents, retailers and restaurants across much of the state can open their doors at a 25 percent capacity.

While some beaches across parts of the state were allowed to reopen last month, Clearwater Beach in Tampa officially reopened to the public before sunrise on Monday morning.

Police removed 'closed' signs from barricades at 7am to the cheers of the 50 or so people waiting to step on the freshly groomed sand. Clearwater police have a large presence patrolling the beach and are urging people to socially distance.

Cafes along the beach also reopened with eateries allowed to resume dine-in services if they have outdoor seating and can ensure appropriate social distancing.

Cones are set up to help beachgoers keep a safe distance from one another after Clearwater Beach in Florida after the beach officially reopened on Monday amid the coronavirus pandmeic

Cafes along the beach also reopened with eateries allowed to resume dine-in services if they have outdoor seating and can ensure appropriate social distancing

While some beaches across parts of the state were allowed to reopen last month, Clearwater Beach officially reopened to the public before sunrise Monday morning

Medical practices can also resume elective surgeries and procedures as part of the state's phased reopening.

Movie theaters, bars and fitness clubs will remain closed for now.

Governor Rick DeSantis has left existing restrictions in place across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties - the three most highly populated in the state.

DeSantis had drawn criticism for waiting until April 2 to clamp down on commerce - after most other states had already done so - in part because of Florida's high proportion of elderly residents - more than a fifth are age 65 and over - who are especially vulnerable to the virus.

But Florida, a key swing electoral swing state, appears to have avoided the worst of the health crisis seen in other states such as New York and New Jersey.

The highest daily number of infections occurred on April 17 with just over 1,400 new cases. New daily infections have been considerably lower since then and only increased above 1,000 on April 23 and May 1. The highest daily deaths occurred on April 28 with 83 deaths and fatalities appear to be on the decline since then.

The state does not appear to have met all the White House's guidelines for reopening, which include 14 days of declining cases and contact tracers to track infections.

The number of US cases has now topped 1.1 million and the death toll has increased to more than 68,500.

Some beachgoers marked out the six feet surrounding them with seaweed to enforce social distancing. Photo courtesy of WFLA

Clearwater Police were at the beach to encourage and inform the public about social distancing rules which still apply despite restrictions being lifted

Families crowded the beach on Monday after it reopened following more than a month of being closed

Clearwater police have a large presence patrolling the beach and are urging people to socially distance

Police removed 'closed' signs from barricades at 7am to the cheers of the 50 or so people waiting to step on the freshly groomed sand

Beachgoers set up their chairs first thing Monday after the beach reopened to the public

Beachgoers walk on Clearwater Beach after it was officially reopened to the public on Monday morning

As part of the reopening in Florida, which has seen 1,300 deaths and 36,000 infections among its 21.5 million residents, retailers and restaurants across much of the state can open their doors from today at a 25 percent capacity

Crowds lined the shore at Clearwater Beach in Florida on the first day it reopened followng the lockdown

Clearwater police officers Lt. Nate Burnside, left, and Cpl. Jarred Stiff put out beach rules signs on Clearwater Beach before it officially reopened to the public

States, mostly in the South, the Midwest and mountain West, have moved to relax restrictions since Georgia led the way last month.

Georgia took another step toward a full restart by allowing all businesses to reopen from Friday. Large crowds of people were seen in Atlanta on Sunday as shelter-in-place orders expired and businesses reopened.

Health experts are now concerned that warmer weather could prove to be challenging to manage coronavirus as restaurants, hair salons and other businesses reopen across the country.

On Saturday, thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington to view a US Navy flyover to honor healthcare workers and others battling the pandemic.

In New York City, the warmest weather yet this spring caused picnickers and sunbathers to flock to green spaces in Manhattan, including crowded conditions at the Christopher Street Pier in Greenwich Village.

Last week, California ordered beaches in Orange County to close, after crowds defied public health guidelines to throng the popular shoreline. Police in the county's Huntington Beach said people were complying on Sunday.

Dr Deborah Birx, coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, said on Fox News Sunday that massing on beaches was not safe unless people kept at least six feet apart.

Floridians headed out fishing on Monday in Everglades National Park after it reopened

A boat heads out from the Flamingo boat ramp in Everglades National Park on Monday after it reopened following the lockdown

Georgia took another step toward a full restart by allowing all businesses to reopen from Friday. Large crowds were spotted in Atlanta on Sunday after restrictions were lifted

Large crowds of people were seen in Atlanta on Sunday as Georgia Governor Brian Kemp allowed shelter-in-place orders to expire

She also weighed in against allowing such businesses as beauty salons and spas to reopen in the first phase.

'We've made it clear that that is not a good phase one activity,' she said.

She said that rrotesters gathering, as they did last week in Michigan and other parts of the country to demonstrate against stay-at-home restrictions, posed a huge risk.

'It's devastatingly worrisome to me personally if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or a very - or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives,' Birx said.

Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner, said on Sunday the country was seeing a 'mixed bag' of results from coronavirus mitigation efforts.

He said there were about 20 states seeing a rising number of new cases including Illinois, Texas, Maryland, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Virginia reported a record number of deaths on Sunday.

'We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we're just not seeing that,' he said on CBS' Face the Nation.

'If we don't snuff this out more and you have this slow burn of infection, it can ignite at any time.'

Here's where each state is with current lockdown measures:

Alabama

Cases: 7,899 - Deaths: 292

Alabama's employers and retail stores are allowed to reopen from April 30 at a reduced 50 percent capacity.

Beaches will reopen but residents have to adhere to social distancing, including not gathering in groups of 10 or more.

High risk business including theaters, night clubs, fitness centers, barber shops, hair and nail salons will remain closed.

Bars and restaurants can only have takeaway or curbside pickup.

The updated order expires May 15.

Alaska

Cases: 368 - Deaths: 9

Reopening of restaurants, stores, hair and nail salons and other businesses started April 24.

Under the new rules in some Alaska territories, restaurants will reopen but are limited to 25 percent capacity and there must be 10 feet between tables and only family members can be seated at the same table.

Salons in Alaska may only accept customers by appointment.

Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, where some 40 percent of residents live, delayed easing restrictions until April 27.

Arkansas

Cases: 3,437 - Deaths: 76

There is no state-wide stay-at-home order.

Restaurants will open for limited dine-in services from May 1 but can only operate at a third of its normal capacity.

Gyms and indoor recreational facilities can resume operates from April 30. Restrictions will lift on hair salons and barber shops on May 1.

State parks will reopen from May 1.

Colorado

Cases 16,635 - Deaths 842

Elective surgeries and retail curbside delivery began April 27. Hair salons, dental offices and tattoo shops can also reopen that date with restrictions.

Other retail will be allowed to reopen from May 4 with social distancing restrictions. Large workplaces can reopen on May 4 at 50% capacity.

Restaurants and bars are still limited to takeout only.

The state's stay-at-home order expired April 26 but residents are still urged to stay home where possible.

Florida

Cases: 36,897 - Deaths: 1,399

The state will reopen some business on May 4 except for in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Restaurants can offer outdoor seating six-feet between tables and indoor seating at 25% capacity.

Retail can operate at 25% capacity.

Bars, gyms, movie theaters and personal services - like hair salons - are to remain closed.

Some beaches and parks reopened from April 17 if it could be done safely.

Georgia

Cases: 29,123 - Deaths: 1,210

Gyms, hair salons, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors can reopen from April 24 as long as owners follow strict social-distancing and hygiene requirements.

Elective medical procedures can also resume. Movie theaters may resume selling tickets and restaurants limited to takeout orders can return to limited dine-in service from April 27.

At-risk people are urged to remain home until May 13.

Bars, live performance venues and amusement parks will remain closed. Religious institutions are still urged to hold drive-thru or online services for now.

Idaho

Cases: 2,061 - Deaths: 64

Some business are allowed to offer curbside pick up, drive in and drive thru services.

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only.

Illinois

Cases: 61488 - Deaths: 2618

From May 1, nonessential retailers can reopen for delivery or offer online orders that can be picked up outside stores.

Face masks are required outdoors.

Iowa

Cases: 9,739 - Deaths: 187

There is no stay-at-home order.

From May 1, restaurants can open at 50 percent capacity but no more than six people at one table.

Malls, fitness centers, libraries and retail stores can open at 50 percent capacity.

Horse and dog racing tracks can reopen with no spectators.

All other businesses remain closed through May 15.

Kentucky

Cases: 5,130 - Deaths: 253

No stay-at-home order but anyone going out in public will have to wear a mask from May 11.

Dentists, chiropractors, optometrists allowed to start taking non-urgent patients from April 27. Prior to that, those services were only allowed to take urgent appointments.

Outpatient/ambulatory surgery and invasive procedures can begin May 7. Elective and non-urgent procedures can resume at 50 percent capacity from May 13.

Manufacturing, construction, car dealerships and professional services can start May 11 at 50% capacity.

Retail and houses of worship can begin May 20. Barber shops and salons can reopen from May 25.

Restaurants and bars can likely reopen for dining in June.

Louisiana

Cases: 29,340 - Deaths: 2,012

Bars and restaurants are limited to take-out only but from May 1 they will be allowed to let customers eat in outdoor areas as long as there's no table service.

Malls can also start operating curbside retail from May 1.

Stay-at-home order has been extended until May 15.

There's a 10 person limit on gatherings.

Maine

Cases: 1,185 - Deaths: 57

Businesses including drive-in theaters, barber shops and hair salons, dog groomers and car dealerships can reopen from May 1.

Some outdoor recreation like golf courses, marinas and state-owned public land trails will also be allowed to reopen.

Current restrictions, including no gatherings of more than 10 people and 14 day quarantine for out of state visitors, still apply.

If employees are able to work from home, they should continue to do so.

Restaurants and bars are still limited to take-out only.

Michigan

Cases: 43,801 - Deaths: 4,053

Stay-at-home order extended until May 15. Public gatherings prohibited - with religious exemptions.

Garden stores, nurseries, lawn-care, pest-control and landscaping operations were allowed to resume business from April 24.

The construction industry can return to work on May 7.

Nonessential businesses are still limited to minimum operations or remote work. Retailers that do not sell necessary supplies can reopen for curbside pickup and delivery.

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only.

Minnesota

Cases: 6,663 - Deaths: 418

In Minnesota, only businesses that don't interact with the public can reopen from April 27.

It includes those in industrial, manufacturing and office settings. Retail stores must remain closed.

The state's stay-at-home order still runs through to at least May 3.

Entertainment and performance venues remain closed and bars and restaurants are limited to take-out only.

Mississippi

Cases: 7,550 - Deaths: 303

In Mississippi, retail stores, including those in strip malls and shopping centers, are now allowed to reopen on April 27 if they reduce their customer capacity by 50 percent at any given time.

Businesses that can't avoid person-to-person contact, including gyms, cinemas and salons, are to remain closed.

Elective medical and dental procedures are now allowed.

The state's stay at home order has been extended until at least May 11.

Missouri

Cases: 8,706 - Deaths: 382

From May 4, all businesses will be allowed to reopen and social events can resume as long as residents and business owners continue social distancing and limit capacity.

Local governments can impose stricter limitations if their officials believe it is necessary.

Kansas City's stay-at-home order is scheduled to continue through May 15.

Montana

Cases: 455 - Deaths: 16

Churches resumed services on April 27.

Starting May 4, restaurants and bars can start providing some dine-in services.

Schools have the option to return to in-classroom instruction May 7.

Visitors from out of state still must self-quarantine for 14 day.

Nebraska

Cases: 5,891 - Deaths: 78

No stay-at-home order.

From May 4, people can dine-in at restaurants but they must remain six feet apart and everyone must wear masks.

Bars are still limited to take-out only.

Hair salons, tattoo parlors and strip clubs closed through May 31.

There's a 10 person limit on gatherings.

New Hampshire

Cases: 2,518 - Deaths: 86

Stay-at-home order extended until May 31.

Drive-in theaters, golf courses and hair salons will be allowed to start up again from May 11 with strict social distancing.

Restaurants that have outdoor seating can reopen from May 18 if tables can be spaced six feet apart.

Campgrounds, manufacturing services and state parks can open immediately if they follow the guidelines.

North Dakota

Cases: 1,191 - Deaths: 25

No stay-at-home order.

Bars and restaurants, recreational facilities, health clubs and athletic facilities, salons, and tattoo studios can reopen from May 1 with social distancing measures.

Movie theaters must limit admittance to 20% capacity.

Ohio

Cases: 19,914 - Deaths: 1,039

Non-essential surgeries that don't require an overnight hospital stay will start May 1.

Manufacturing, distribution and construction sectors will reopen May 4, following by consumer retail and services on May 12.

Companies will need to require employees and customers to wear face masks and follow social distancing guidelines.

Oklahoma

Cases: 3,972 - Deaths: 238

Some businesses that were closed in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus were allowed to reopen from April 24 and others can reopen within 10 days.

Barbershops, hair and nail salons, pet groomers and spas were allowed to reopen from April 24. The move is contingent on businesses practicing social distancing, and employees and customers must wear masks if they are within six feet of each other.

Restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and places of worship can reopen May 1. Nurseries tied to places of worship will remain closed.

South Carolina

Cases: 6,626 - Deaths: 275

Department stores, sporting goods stores and flea markets are among the businesses allowed to reopen in parts of the state from April 20.

Other stores selling furniture, books, music, flowers, clothing and accessories can also reopen. The businesses are allowed to open at 20 percent capacity, or five people per 1,000 square feet.

Beaches are also allowed to reopen April 21.

South Dakota

Cases: 2,631 - Deaths: 21

No stay-at-home order

Unnecessary gatherings of 10 or more prohibited

Tennessee

Cases: 13,177 - Deaths: 210

Businesses in most counties can reopen as early as April 27.

Retail stores, which can reopen from April 29, and restaurants will operate with a 50 percent customer capacity. Many of Tennessee's 56 parks will open on Friday.

Businesses can expect temperature checks, enforced mask wearing and social distancing.

Large cities including Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville can decide on their own when to reopen.

Texas

Cases 31,998 - Deaths 878

Retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls can reopen at a 25 percent reduced capacity from May 1.

State parks reopened on April 20 but people must wear face coverings and masks and adhere to social distancing. People also cannot visit in groups of five or more.

Hospitals could resumed surgeries on April 22 that had been postponed by coronavirus.

Schools and universities will remain closed for the rest of the year.

Utah

Cases: 5,175 - Deaths: 50

No stay-at-home order.

Restaurants can allow customers dine in again with precautions from May 1.

Gyms and personal services including hair salons can reopen May 1.

Vermont

Cases: 902 - Deaths: 53

Stay-at-home order through May 15.

Construction, home appraisers, property management and municipal clerks can reopen from April 27 with a maximum of five workers.

Farmers markets can operate from May 1.

Outdoor retail space can allow in-person shopping with a max of 10 people.

West Virginia

Cases: 1,195 - Deaths: 48

Elective surgeries can resume from April 30.

Small businesses with less than 10 employees can reopen next week, including hair and nail slaons, barber shops and pet grooming.

There is an indefinite stay-at-home order.

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only.

Wisconsin

Cases: 7,964 - Deaths: 339

The stay-at-home order has been extended to May 26.

Nonessential businesses and public libraries can have curbside pickup and delivery.

Groomers, engine repair shops are allowed to do curbside drops offs.

Golf courses are open.

Some state parks will reopen from May 1.

Not reopening

California

Cases: 54,972 - Deaths: 2,217

There is an indefinite stay-at-home order and gatherings in a single room or place are prohibited.

Nonessential businesses are limited to minimum operations or remote work, while restaurants and bars are limited to take-out only.

Essential surgeries are now being allowed in California.

Six counties in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, have extended its shelter-in-place order until mid-May but will allow construction to restart.

Connecticut

Cases: 29,287 - Deaths: 2,436

Stay-at-home order through May 20.

Five person limit on social gatherings, 50-person limit for religious services.

Non-essential businesses must suspend all in-person operations and bars and restaurants are limited to take-out only.

Out-of-state visitors strongly urged to self-quarantine.

If the state meets certain criteria by May 20, including 14 days of downward infections, increased testing availability and sufficient contact tracing methods, it will forge ahead with partial reopening.

If that criteria is met, restaurants with outdoor seating, offices, hair and nail salons and outdoor museums and zoos will be allowed to reopen.

Delaware

Cases: 5,208 - Deaths: 177

Stay-at-home order through May 15.

10 person limit on gatherings.

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work.

Visitors from out of state who aren't just passing through must self-quarantine for 14 days.

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only.

Hawaii

Cases: 620 - Deaths: 17

Stay-at-home order has been extended until May 31.

10 person limit on gatherings

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work

Visitors from out of state must self-quarantine for 14 days

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

Kansas

Cases: 5,195 - Deaths: 147

Stay-at-home order until May 3

10 person limit on gatherings - exempting funerals and religious services with social distancing

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work

Residents who traveled to California, Florida, New York or Washington state after March 14, or visited Illinois or New Jersey after March 22, must self-quarantine for 14 days

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only.

Maryland

Cases: 26,408 - Deaths: 1,352

Indefinite stay-at-home order

10 person limit on gatherings

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work

Visitors from out of state must self-quarantine for 14 days

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

Massachusetts

Cases: 68087 - Deaths: 4004

Non-essential businesses closed through May 4

10 person limit on gatherings

Visitors from out of state advised to self-quarantine for 14 days

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

New Jersey

Cases: 126,744 - Deaths: 7871

Indefinite stay-at-home order

10 person limit on gatherings

Nonessential retail businesses must close bricks-and-mortar premises. Recreational and entertainment businesses also closed

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

New Mexico

Cases: 3,850 - Deaths: 151

Stay-at-home order through April 30

Five person limit on gatherings in a single room

Nonessential businesses must suspend all in-person operations

Arriving air travelers must self-quarantine for 14 days

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

New York

Cases: 316,415 - Deaths: 19,415

Stay-at-home order through May 15.

Nonessential gatherings are prohibited.

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work.

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only.

Masks must be worn in situations where social distancing is not possible.

Elective surgeries can begin in parts of the state.

North Carolina

Cases 11,971 - Deaths 442

Stay-at-home order through May 8

10 person limit on gatherings

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

Oregon

Cases: 2,680 - Deaths: 109

Indefinite stay-at-home order

25 person limit on gatherings

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

Pennsylvania

Cases: 51,225 - Deaths: 2,720

Stay-at-home order through April 30

Gatherings prohibited

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

Rhode Island

Cases: 9,652 - Deaths: 341

Stay-at-home order through May 8

Five person limit on gatherings

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work

Visitors from out of state must self-quarantine for 14 days

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

Virginia

Cases 19,493 - Deaths 684

Stay-at-home order through June 10

Recreation and entertainment businesses closed through May 8

10 person limit on gatherings

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

Washington

Cases 15,768 - Deaths 834

Stay-at-home order through May 4

All gatherings for social, spiritual and recreational purposes are prohibited

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only

Not yet determined

Arizona

Cases 8,640 - Deaths 362

Hospitals that have sufficient PPE, capacity and ability to test healthcare workers can open for elective surgeries on May 1.

State's stay-at-home order currently runs until April 30.

10 person limit on gatherings

Nonessential businesses are limited to minimum operations or remote work

Restaurants and bars limited to take-out only

Indiana

Cases: 20,394 - Deaths: 1,132

Stay-at-home order runs through May 1.

There's a 10 person limit on gatherings.

Nonessential businesses limited to minimum operations or remote work and bars and restaurants limited to take-out only.

Hospitals, veterinarians, dentists and other health care providers were allowed to resume operations from April 27 if they had the appropriate PPE.

Nevada

Cases: 5,472 - Deaths: 259

Stay-at-home order through April 30.

10 person limit on gatherings

Recreational, entertainment and personal-care businesses closed, including casinos

Bars and restaurants limited to take-out only.
U K scientists have developed a new coronavirus antibody test which they say produces results in 35 minutes with 99.8 per cent accuracy.

Edinburgh researchers at blood-screening company Quotient have developed kit to see if people are immune to Covid-19 by spotting antibodies to the disease.

Each serological screening machine has capacity for up to 3,000 tests a day.

But there are fears the NHS could miss out on the test due to interest in Europe. It has 12 screening machines available, with a further 20 expected to be ready by the end of the year, but it has already had talks with interested parties across the continent.

However, with the new test developed by scientists in Edinburgh, the company, which has its headquarters in Switzerland, is calling for the UK and Scottish governments to begin talks so that the NHS might be able to benefit.

While the British Government says it has laboratory capability to test for coronavirus immunity, it is currently being used for survey testing of existing blood samples and the capacity is not known.

It is also attempting to develop home testing kits, rather than requiring analysis in laboratories, but so far these have proved unreliable.

A serological screening machine can deliver results with 99.8 per cent accuracy / PA

The tests aim to establish whether a person has developed antibodies to the Covid-19 virus, usually after being infected by the disease, and is therefore immune from being infected again.

On Friday, Quotient received European regulatory approval for the MosaiQ serological screening machines with 100 per cent sensitivity and 99.8 per cent specificity, meaning there is a low chance of a misread or false positive.

Chief executive Franz Walt  who was managing director of a laboratory that developed the first diagnostic test for Sars in 2003  said: We are truly proud to have developed such a fast and accurate test.

Loading....

This is an outstanding performance by our teams in both Edinburgh and Switzerland.

We now want to make sure that we can help as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

We have strong roots in the UK and want to speak to ministers there so MosaiQ can be used in the amazing national effort to tackle Coronavirus and relaunch the economy.

The machine tests of people have developed antibodies to coronavirus / AFP via Getty Images

We realise ministers and the NHS are incredibly busy but are keen to talk given the strong interest from across Europe in the product.

Ed Farrell, chief operating officer at the Edinburgh office, added: Were incredibly proud of all our work here in Scotland and Switzerland.

Weve got such a rich history here and we hope we can now make a difference at this challenging time.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: Health Protection Scotland, with key partners, explore all options around new antibody tests as they become available on the market.

The Scottish Government is working closely with the UK Government to ensure that everyone is able to access new antibody tests when they become available.

It is essential that any new tests are reliable, and time is needed to undertake rigorous evaluation so that there is confidence that tests are accurate.
The date 4 May was chosen as it is linked to the feast day of St Florian, the first known commander of a firefighting squad in the Roman Empire.

International Firefighters Day is observed on 4 May to recognise and honour the sacrifices of firemen.

People express their gratitude towards firefighters by wearing blue and red ribbons pinned together. They also participate in memorials and other events.

The colours in the ribbon signify the main elements firefighters work with  red for fire and blue for water. These two colours also used to signify the emergency services.

History and significance

International Firefighters Day was adopted after a tragic incident that occurred in Linton, Australia. On 2 December, 1998, five firemen were killed while fighters they were trying to douse a wildfire.

After the Linton incident, firefighter JJ Edmondson wrote an email to colleagues that they should have a day to honour firemen. Thus, International Firefighters Day came into being.

The date 4 May was chosen as it is linked to the feast day of St Florian, the first known commander of a firefighting squad in the Roman Empire.

According to International Firefighters Days website, St Florian and his colleagues lost their lives protecting the same humane ideas which firefighters all over the world share even today.

This day is also known as St Florians Day and has been observed for more than 150 years in Europe.

The fire and emergency services body of New Zealand released a video to honour their employees on International Firefighters Day.

This video is about showing that New Zealanders celebrate and acknowledge the important work our firefighters, Fire and Emergency CEO Rhys Jones was quoted as saying.
Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, says all oil workers coming into the state must show their COVID-19 test results before they are allo...





Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, says all oil workers coming into the state must show their COVID-19 test results before they are allowed in.





In a statement on Monday, Simeon Nwakaudu, media aide to Wike, quoted the governor as saying all waivers earlier granted to oil and gas companies have been reviewed.





The governor said his administration could not abandon residents to chances, alleging that some of the cases recorded in the state were flown into Port Harcourt by Bristow Helicopters from an offshore oilfield facility in Akwa Ibom state.





Given the threat posed to the state by oil and gas company workers, it has reviewed all entry waivers and permits earlier granted to oil and gas companies, he said.





From now on, requests for waivers and entry permits from oil and gas companies will be considered on a case by case basis;





All inward-bound vehicles and flights into Rivers State from oil and gas companies with workers for crew change or other essential operations must first submit details of their manifests to the States Taskforce on COVID-19 for proper vetting of their virus status before they can be allowed to enter the state.





All operators of chartered flights into Rivers State for oil and gas operations, especially Bristow and Caverton Helicopters, should please comply with this directive and refrain from jeopardizing the lives of our people for the sake of making profits.





As a government, we cannot abdicate this compelling responsibility and abandon our people to chances in the midst of this much dreaded and ravaging pandemic.





Wike had previously ordered the arrest of two Caverton Helicopters pilots and some staff of ExxonMobil for allegedly violating the restriction of movement in the state.





But the oil companies had said the federal government granted them waiver to fly into the state.





So far, Rivers has recorded 14 cases of the disease.




STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch called on the city Monday to end NYPD officers role in enforcing the states coronavirus social distancing mandates.

The statement comes after bystanders on Saturday videoed an officer approach a man in Manhattans East Village with his taser drawn, holster the taser, take the individual to the ground, repeatedly strike him, and proceed to detain him by kneeling on his neck.

In the video, the individual can be seen not following the officers order to back up from an ongoing arrest at East Ninth Street and Avenue D, which Police Commissioner Dermott Shea said began as a social distancing enforcement.

This situation is untenable: The NYPD needs to get cops out of the social distancing enforcement business altogether," Lynch said. The cowards who run this city have given us nothing but vague guidelines and mixed messages, leaving the cops on the street corners to fend for ourselves.

The NYPD, and the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio did not respond to requests for comment on Lynchs statement or information on the guidelines officers have received. A spokesperson for the department said the officer had been placed on modified duty, and that the matter is under internal review.

Under New Yorks current state of emergency, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has the authority to suspend or modify state and local statutes in the interest of public safety. Cuomo has issued multiple executive orders since the state began to address the COVID-19 outbreak on March 7.

A spokesperson for Gov. Andrew Cuomos office shared guidance around his New York on Pause mandates, which went into effect March 22, and will remain in place until at least May 15. The publicly-announced 10-point plan involved the shuttering of non-essential businesses and a stay on all social gatherings.

45 Photos of the pandemic in NYC: Our lives changed forever

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

Cuomos office has presented extensive guidance on what defines an essential business, and labeled all non-essential gatherings of individuals of any size for any reason" as violations of his mandates.

The guidance his office published April 1 offers a number of options on how to deal with people violating social distancing, ranging from verbal and written warnings to a misdemeanor violation of the public health law that can result in fines of $10,000 and one year in prison.

De Blaiso addressed the East Village incident during his Monday press briefing saying that he found the incident very troubling, and pointed to trainings that have focused on deescalation and neighborhood policing.

What I saw was absolutely unacceptable and obviously discipline was swift by the NYPD, but I want to note that that video is more and more of a rarity, he said. We still have work to do, unquestionably, but the progress is very clear to see; policing is changing and the city has been changing.

Shea said the incident resulted in three arrests, and echoed the mayors sentiment regarding changes to police training. Over the weekend, the NYPD issued at least 100 summonses related to social distancing.

I wish it was 100% effective, but thats not, unfortunately, the world that we live in, Shea said.
The Oregon Legislatures emergency board recently approved $12 million in housing assistance -- more than half of which will go to Oregonians who are on the edge of homelessness.

In all, $8.5 million is set aside for people who have lost their income due to COVID-19 and cant pay their rent. The money will pad existing housing assistance funds available to nonprofit and government agencies around the state.

State officials said that the money will pushed out to those agencies this week, and anyone who cant pay their rent should contact their local agency as soon as possible.

More money could be the offing. Nicole Stoenner, senior legislative and government relations coordinator with the Oregon Housing and Community Services department, said her agency has received notices from the federal government that $14.9 million is headed to Oregon to assist people in need with paying rental or utilities and to underwrite homeless shelter operations or put people without housing into hotels or motels.

Oregon lawmakers also set aside $3.5 million for shelters and motel vouchers from its latest infusion of emergency funds.

Stoenner said there is no timeline on distributing that money yet, because a large chunk will be dedicated to safely housing migrant and seasonal farmworkers, most of whom usually stay in dormitory-style housing provided by the farm.

The state has little experience with farmworker housing and so is trying to figure out how best to use those funds, Stoenner said.

The rest will be sent to agencies around the state that deliver homeless services. Each jurisdiction will get a share of the money based on a formula that includes population, estimated homeless counts and other factors.

The state is also advocating for additional federal funds for housing and homeless services.

Were hoping and anticipating for additional funds to continue to provide resources during this time, Stoenner said.

How do I learn more?

No matter where you live in Oregon, you can call 211 or use the 211 app.

Tell the operator where you live and that person will direct you to the nearest community action agency, as the organizations designated to disbursing the funds are called.

Multnomah County is the community action agency for Portland and Gresham residents. Neighbor Impact serves Prineville and La Pine. There are 17 across the state, and if you know yours, you can contact them directly.

How do I get the funds from them?

You need to prove that you are unable to pay rent because of coronavirus, so youll need letters from clients who canceled appointments, documents that prove you were laid off or pay stubs that show your pay was reduced because of COVID-19.

Then what?

If you are found eligible for the money, a one-time payment will be given directly to your landlord. This is a slight difference from similar state pots of money, which give the money to the tenant.

Lawmakers stipulated that the rent assistance from the coronavirus fund should go directly to landlords to make sure it isnt spent on other uses.

Do I have to pay it back?

Nope, this is no-strings-attached money. However, it will only cover that one month you applied for.

The state has also placed a moratorium on evictions during coronavirus, meaning that if you dont pay your rent, you cant rebe kicked out of your home. However, rent for the months you miss must be paid back within six months after the state emergency declaration ends.

-- Molly Harbarger

mharbarger@oregonian.com | 503-294-5923 | @MollyHarbarger

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
A plan to use a private firm at the centre of an outsourcing scandal to help run the test-and-trace system crucial to curbing Covid-19 has drawn criticism.

Labour hit out at ministers after it emerged that Serco  and probably other giant contractors such as G4S  will carry out most of the contact tracing work, by recruiting 15,000 call centre staff.

They will be given only about one days training in the principles of contact tracing, The Times reported, stating Serco was in advanced talks.

Last year, the outsourcing giant was fined 19.2m by the Serious Fraud Office as part of a settlement over an electronic tagging scandal, also paying 3.7m in costs.

Both Serco and G4S were accused of charging the government for electronically monitoring people who were either dead, in jail, or had left the country.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: We don't believe that the government are recruiting enough contact tracers and nobody will think they should be in the hands of private companies seeking to make a profit.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has given very few details of the 18,000-strong workforce who will carry out the South Korean-style testing-and-tracing programme.

Nevertheless, he has promised it will start by the middle of May  a move crucial to hopes that the government will be able to start easing aspects of the lockdown from the end of the month.

Only around 3,000 of the recruits will be doctors and nurses from the pool of retired NHS staff who volunteered to return to help when the pandemic broke out.

Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Show all 18 1 /18 Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, wearing PPE before going into rooms Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, speaks to a carer at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Carers working at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care worker wearing PPE opens a drink carton Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, sits with a carer Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care staff member wearing PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home looks after a resident SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE uses a speaker Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer helps Jack Dodsley, 79, from his chair Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE helps Jack Dodsley, 79 Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer brings food to a resident at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member puts on PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, puts on PPE before she enters a room SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A bench at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS

Their work will be bolstered by the NHS smartphone app that will alert people if they have been near someone known to have coronavirus, which begins trials in the Isle of Wight this week.

However, experts have warned it will require aa daunting 60 per cent take-up to be successful, which means much of the work will have to be done by physically contacting suspected victims.

Mr Hancock has been accused of a missed opportunity by failing to sign up around 5,000 local council environmental health workers  and thousands more in the private sector, now furloughed in the shutdown.

They have years of tracing the victims of salmonella, Legionnaires disease and even norovirus, but Public Health England made no effort to deploy them earlier in the crisis.

Talks are now taking place with local councils, but it is still unclear what role their experts will play  if any.

Staff could be redeployed from benefits helplines, NHS 111 and other phone banks operated for the government, it is understood.

Expert contact tracers working for Public Health England will be used to deal with complex cases, including outbreaks in care homes and hospitals.

The Independent has asked the department for health and social care to respond to the criticism.
Since Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI) announced he was forming an exploratory committee to pursue the Libertarian nomination for president, there has been plenty of chatter about such a move harming Joe Bidens chances of defeating President Trump in November. If Amash indeed gets on the ballot in a handful of swing states, he very well could siphon off some voters who otherwise would have opted for Biden. But whats more certain at this point is that Amashs decision hurts the former vice president in a different way.

By declining to defend his House seat, the former Republican is making it much more difficult for Democrats to obtain a majority of House delegations  the 50 groups of representatives who would choose the next president should there be an Electoral College tie.

There are 64 scenarios in which neither Trump nor Biden reaches the 270 electoral vote threshold. If no electors switch sides when they gather in the Capitol to formally elect the president  such a turn of events would be extremely unlikely given the magnitude of the occasion  the focus would then shift to the newly-elected House members. Each states delegation, no matter its size, would cast one vote, with a majority of votes needed for either Trump to win a second term or for Biden to become president-elect.

Republicans currently hold a slight edge in state delegations with 26; Democrats have 23, while one state  Pennsylvania  is split. When Amash defected from the GOP in 2019 and became an Independent, Michigans Democratic congressmen suddenly outnumbered their Republican colleagues, seven to six. By deciding not to run for reelection, Amash is essentially handing his seat back to his former party, as Michigans third congressional district is solidly Republican, with Amash having fought off his challenger in 2016 by more than 20 percentage points. If he defended his seat as a third-party incumbent, however, the likelihood of a Democrat winning because of a fractured conservative vote would be much greater.

The main takeaway here is that Michigans delegation is one of several that could flip blue, red, or become split all because of a single House race. Disregarding safe blue and red delegations like Vermont and North Dakota, there are a number of states which are each within one: Iowa, New Hampshire, Maine, Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Minnesota, Kansas and Wisconsin (depending on the result of a special election this month to fill former Rep. Sean Duffys seat). Some are more likely to change hands than others.

Democrats have an eye on Pennsylvania, for instance, where the Democratic Congressional Coordinating Committee has targeted three GOP seats. Rep. Scott Perry is trying to hold onto the tenth district  rated a toss-up by The Cook Political Report  after squeaking out a win in 2018 by fewer than 8,000 votes. In PA-01, a lean GOP district, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is seeking a third term after fighting off a Democratic challenger by about 9,000 votes out of nearly 180,000 cast.

Democrats also have their sights on a few districts in states they could win back, or at least settle for a split. In Florida, where Republicans hold a 14-13 edge, the DCCC is looking to wrestle away the 15th district from Rep. Ross Spano, a freshman who won the districts closest race since 1992. In Kansas, meanwhile, the party will likely make a run at the second district, which encompasses the state capital and the University of Kansas. Rep. Steve Watkins, another freshman, won the blue-trending district in 2018 by a mere 2,000 votes. If the GOP loses there, the Sunflower States delegation shifts from 3-1 to 2-2.

In most of the aforementioned states where the balance of power is slim, Democrats are defending their delegations. In Maines second district, where Trump earned an electoral vote in 2016, Rep. Jared Golden in 2018 became the first member of Congress to win a seat through a ranked choice voting system; the Republican incumbent he beat, however, initially received more votes. In Iowa, likewise, the party is looking to preserve two narrow midterm pickups in districts Trump carried four years ago.

In short, Democrats need all the help they can get. The University of Virginias Center for Politics considers it likely that the GOP hangs onto its slim delegation lead when the new House members take office in January. Another element working against Democrats is how the District of Columbia would not participate in the contingent election despite the fact that it  like six other states  has three electoral votes, none of which have gone to a Republican since it began voting for president in 1964. But thats an argument for another day.

It will be difficult for Democrats to pick up three delegations, and slightly less so to muster a 25-25 split. But it is not impossible. With half a year until the election, its hard to do anything more than speculate about the outcome of the key House races that would allow either to happen.

Many things will change in the coming months, but its undeniable that holding onto Michigan would be crucial for Democrats if neither partys candidate obtains a majority of electoral votes. Amash, who apparently abhors the prospect of another four years of Trump and of a Biden administration, isnt making it easy for them.
In his column Assessing my odds of COVID survival (April 26), Kevin Courtney betrayed exactly the most troublesome reality of the COVID-19 pandemic: the irrational fear of this disease. Regarding his belief that COVID-19 might have a death rate of as high as 1%, Courtney wrote that although that rate seems acceptable, if you told me I had a 1% chance of not coming home from work, Id call in sick.

You wouldnt be my choice for an employee, Kevin, since every day of the year when you leave the house, you have a 2% chance of not coming home from work just from heart disease alone.

You also have a greater chance of never coming home from cancer, stroke, Alzheimers, or just some accident, than you do of never passing through your front door again due to COVID-19. If I were paying you, I wouldnt be getting much for my money, now would I?

And lest you think I have rose-colored glasses on, think again. These ratios are not based upon current death rates for COVID-19 in California, but on the CDC's worst-case estimates, which would call for the death rate from COIVD-19 in California being 628% higher than it is as of right now.

This is the reality: The fear of COVID-19 has reached the point of being irrational. If we were to indefinitely continue to quarantine the entire state as we have been doing, we would never come anywhere near the CDCs worst-case projection.

And when would this fear of COVID-19 ever end? When we finally reach the point that the risk of dying from COVID-19 reaches the risk of dying from colo-rectal cancer? Because thats what the CDC worst-case scenario for COVID-19 is.

More to the point, according to those same CDC worst-case estimates, your risk of dying in California from COVID-19 is less than one-third of 1 percent. Do you feel brave enough to come to work now?

So, Kevin, if you call me to say I wont be into work today, because Im afraid I will die of colo-rectal cancer if I do, I would say to you, Youre fired.

Theres a reason this nation has never elected a scientist as president. Sooner or later, reality must balance our fear, and the risk of living at all must guide our behavior. If all of us insist on stopping indefinitely at every green light, we are going absolutely nowhere.

D. Michael Enfield

Napa
Maryland governor Larry Hogan on Sunday pushed back against pressure to lift his stay-home orders, saying that he respects the rights of demonstrators who gathered over the weekend to protest the restrictions, but that it is too soon to safely reopen the state.

Mr Hogan noted the crowds of people gathered at the National Mall in Washington and in other public spaces to enjoy the weekends weather as a cause for concern  an example of why he is reluctant to immediately lift measures designed to contain the novel coronavirus, which causes the deadly disease Covid-19.

You see this happening around the country as states try to open in a safe way, Mr Hogan said during an appearance on CNNs State of the Union.

He continued: Unfortunately, the pressure is to do it in a not-safe way, and thats something that were very concerned about and one of the reasons were being cautious, and trying to do things in a slow, safe and effective manner.

Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia reported 85 additional Covid-19 deaths, along with 2,148 new coronavirus infections. As of Sunday, the region had recorded a total of 2,192 deaths and 49,149 confirmed cases of the virus.

In Virginia, there were 44 new deaths reported overnight for a total of 660. Fairfax County saw its highest single-day increase, 31 fatalities, bringing its death toll from the virus to 184. More than 700 residents in the county have been hospitalised due to Covid-19.

John Silcox, a spokesman for the Fairfax County Health Department, said the spike reported Sunday was the result of deaths last month, but not confirmed as Covid-19-related until recently.

In a message to residents, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay, a Democrat, warned that the county is in the exponential growth phase of our epidemic curve and said residents could expect to see cases and deaths increase for several more weeks. He also noted that known infections in Fairfax, as in other jurisdictions, were growing because of increased testing.

DC officials reported 11 new deaths Sunday, bringing the toll in the nations capital to 251.

In Maryland, an additional 30 deaths were reported, including 13 in Montgomery County. Prince Georges County added eight new deaths. A total of 1,281 people statewide have died of the disease.

For the third consecutive day, the number of Covid-19 patients hospitalised in Maryland decreased. On Sunday, there were 1,635 patients in hospitals, the lowest number in five days.

Residents across the Washington region have been locked down since late March. Mr Hogan has released a plan to reopen the state in three stages and has estimated that the first phase could happen in early May.

Virginia governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, also is hearing from residents and businesses who want restrictions eased. Mr Northams order closing most nonessential businesses is set to expire Friday, and the governor said last week that he will have guidance Monday on whether he intends to extend the measure.

As of Friday, Northam had lifted a ban on non-emergency procedures for doctors, dentists and veterinarians.

Mr Hogan, Mr Northam and DC mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, have said any reopening of the region would be a coordinated effort. Hogan has said he will not consider lifting stay-home measures until the state sees either a consistent plateau or downward trend in new hospitalizations and new patients in intensive care units.

He and leaders in other states continue to face pressure from some corners to reopen more quickly. On Saturday, a modest crowd of residents frustrated by the prolonged social distancing restrictions held a rolling Reopen Maryland protest from Frederick to Salisbury.

Representative Andy Harris, R-Md., gave the keynote speech and likened Hogans restrictions on church gatherings to autocratic regimes of communist China and North Korea.

Everybody has a right to protest and express their feelings, Mr Hogan said in response, during his CNN appearance Sunday. Sadly, we had far more people die yesterday in Maryland than we had protesters.

Separately, a coalition of Maryland religious leaders, business owners and state lawmakers have filed a federal lawsuit, asking a judge in Baltimore to intervene to block Hogans restrictions on certain businesses and religious gatherings.

In the court filing, four Republican delegates say the governor is picking and choosing which businesses can continue to thrive during the pandemic, while violating the constitutional rights of individuals to gather to worship or engage in political speech.

Big-box stores such as Lowes and Walmart are permitted to have hundreds of cars and people because the Governor chose them to be essential businesses. However, under the same orders a church may not have anyone in its buildings with limited exceptions for virtual services, according to the filing from delegates Dan Cox of Frederick, Warren Miller of Howard, Neil Parrott of Washington, and Robin Grammer of Baltimore County.

The religious leaders involved in the lawsuit say that their congregations do not have the equipment to broadcast worship services online or to host drive-in services and that many of their members do not have the resources to watch online.

Among the businesses, Adventure Park USA in Frederick County said it will lose $700,000 (563,598) during the spring season if it cannot open in May and has taken out a $150,000 (120,771) loan to meet its tax obligations.

Mr Cox, a delegate who represents Frederick and Carroll counties, said in the court filing that he was told by Mr Hogans advisers that he could be arrested for attending and speaking at a rally protesting the stay-home orders.

Mr Hogans spokesman Michael Ricci said Sunday that Mr Cox was never told he could not speak.

We fully respect delegate Coxs right to protest and express his feelings, but that doesnt entitle him to make false and baseless claims.

The Washington Post
The government has decided to allow the reopening of parks, museums, libraries and other public facilities in areas with high coronavirus counts and to ease its request for slashing social contact, a senior official said Sunday.

As part of efforts to deal with public fatigue from the nationwide state of emergency, economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said at a news conference the government will permit such facilities to reopen if sufficient measures to slow the virusas spread are put in place.

The government will release guidelines on how to resume social activities on Monday, when it is expected to formally extend the state of emergency. A government source said Sunday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will extend the declaration until May 31. Abe will hold a news conference on the matter at 6 p.m. Monday.

The plan will even apply to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido, Fukuoka and eight other prefectures the government has singled out as needing stepped-up measures against the virus, said Nishimura, who is in charge of issues related to the emergency declaration.
Pompeo Claims There is 'Significant Amount of Evidence' Coronavirus Came from Wuhan Lab

Sputnik News

13:50 GMT 03.05.2020(updated 14:54 GMT 03.05.2020)

Earlier, the US national intelligence director's office said that they agreed with "the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified".

There is "enormous evidence" that the coronavirus came from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.

Despite his criticism of China's response to the outbreak, Pompeo did not say directly if he thought that the virus had been released on purpose, AFP reported.

This comes after the US national intelligence director's office said earlier this week that they agreed with the scientific consensus that the coronavirus was not genetically modified. They added, however, that they would continue their investigation into how the outbreak started.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that COVID-19 could have been released from a Wuhan laboratory. China rejected the allegation, with a top Wuhan laboratory official denying any role in spreading the deadly infection.

As of 3 May, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases globally has exceeded 3,349,786, with 238,628 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation.

Speaking during the same interview, Pompeo commented on the situation on the Korean Peninsula. The US State Secretary said that shots that were fired from North Korea towards the South in the demilitarized zone on Sunday were believed to be "accidental."

"Handful of shots came across from the north, we think those were accidental... South Koreans did return fire. There was no loss of life on either side," he told ABC's "This Week".

The incident comes following weeks of speculation in the media about the whereabouts and health of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. However, all the rumours were dispelled on 1 May when Kim reappeared in public at the opening of a new fertilizer plant in the city of Sunchon.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Exodus, Neon Demon, Twelve Monkeys.

A time travel trilogy, two biblical epics and at least one of the best films youve never seen are all on today as TopFilmTip brings you the best films on TV for Saturday, 25 April.

Head-banging classic rock, nutty ex-GFs, geeky friends, puerile puns and guitar worship in catchphrase comedy rhapsody in Wayne's World 10:00am Comedy Central

Time-traveling Oedipus woos his own mum, brutalises bully, invents rock n roll and befriends man thrice is age in flaming 88mph fun Back to the Future 11:00am Film 4

Unwilling to compromise, duty bound sheriff hunts murderers to morally grey ground of obsession in deconstructionist western Lawman 12:45pm ITV4

Teenage time traveler breaks history, visits hoverboarding future, idealised past and dystopian present in flawless sequel Back to the Future Part II 13:20pm Film 4

Christopher Lloyd and Thomas F Wilson in a scene from the film 'Back to the Future Part III', 1990. (Photo by Universal Pictures/Getty Images)

Crazy kid emulates Eastwood while mad scientist runs riot in old west, steals train and womans heart in anachronistic fun Back to the Future Part III 3:30pm Film 4

Read more: The best 4K TV deals

Helen Mirren stars as the monarch suddenly despised by media and public alike before finding redemption in a metaphorical stag The Queen 4:55pm ITV3

Raised as royal brothers, siblings' close bond breaks as one realises his true origins and must lead his people to freedom in biblical musical The Prince of Egypt 5:30pm Sky 1

A poster for DreamWorks' 1998 animated film The Prince of Egypt. (DreamWorks)

Deity doubting Prince Of Egypt leads his enslaved people to freedom in Ridley Scott's lavish, sprawling epic Exodus: Gods and Kings 6:00pm Film 4

Snowbound hulk and alcoholi-dad stave off ruthless drug dealers cabin assault in fiery-axe-wielding toxophilic exhilarator Braven 9:00pm Sony Movies Action

Repeatedly scrubbed time tumbler seeks apocalypse averting insight in Terry Gilliam's cyclical Cassandra complex 12 Monkeys 9:00pm SyFy Universal

Captain handsome and crew overcomes existential ennui by battling WMD wielding lunatic with bikes, beats and shouting Star Trek Beyond 9:15pm Channel 4

Railroaded into stealing a McGuffin, hackers find themselves subject to alphabetifistful-spaghetti government agency witchhunt Sneakers 10:00pm Sky Living

Story continues

Pulling no punches, loquacious force-of-will personified blazes trail through haters and humanity alike: intricate, intimate pugilistic powerhouse biopic Ali 10:10pm ITV4

Brain munching zombie brainiac, sexually slandered vampire and virginal human put aside differences to battle alien onslaught in Werner Herzog teen-comedy curio Freaks of Nature 11:00pm Horror Channel

Innocent and callow natural beauty is consumed by rapacious jealousy of LAs modelling culture in Hypnotic phantasmagoria The Neon Demon 11:15pm Film 4

Intravenous venom abusing death distributer and pet hyena outsmart and butcher mercs and aliens alike in delightfully dark sci-fi Riddick 11:40pm Channel 4

Mel Gibson discovers vast conspiracy after his daughter is murdered. Kills lots of people and uncovers the truth Edge of Darkness 11:45pm BBC One

A bounty hunter tracks down a bunch of lowlifes in Steve McQueen's final feature The Hunter 1:00am Talking Pictures TV

Just out of prison The Rock evades drug-withdrawn cop and philosophical killer whilst making good on his personal kill-list Faster 1:10am Sony Movies

Everything new on streaming in April:

Netflix UK: Aprils new releases

Everything coming to Now TV in April

Amazon Prime Video UK: The biggest April releases

Everything coming to Disney+ in April

Follow TopFilmTip on Twitter for daily film recommendations.

Some films may require a Sky subscription.
Market forces rained on the parade of Air China Limited (HKG:753) shareholders today, when the analysts downgraded their forecasts for this year. Both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) estimates were cut sharply as analysts factored in the latest outlook for the business, concluding that they were too optimistic previously.

Following the latest downgrade, the current consensus, from the 16 analysts covering Air China, is for revenues of CN90b in 2020, which would reflect a sizeable 26% reduction in Air China's sales over the past 12 months. Losses are supposed to balloon 560% to CN0.54 per share. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of CN106b and CN0.16 per share in losses. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a serious cut to their revenue forecasts while also expecting losses per share to increase.

See our latest analysis for Air China

SEHK:753 Past and Future Earnings May 4th 2020

The consensus price target was broadly unchanged at CN6.37, perhaps implicitly signalling that the weaker earnings outlook is not expected to have a long-term impact on the valuation. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. The most optimistic Air China analyst has a price target of CN8.93 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at CN4.50. Note the wide gap in analyst price targets? This implies to us that there is a fairly broad range of possible scenarios for the underlying business.

One way to get more context on these forecasts is to look at how they compare to both past performance, and how other companies in the same industry are performing. We would highlight that sales are expected to reverse, with the forecast 26% revenue decline a notable change from historical growth of 5.5% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 8.9% annually for the foreseeable future. It's pretty clear that Air China's revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.

Story continues

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that analysts increased their loss per share estimates for this year. Unfortunately analysts also downgraded their revenue estimates, and industry data suggests that Air China's revenues are expected to grow slower than the wider market. We're also surprised to see that the price target went unchanged. Still, deteriorating business conditions (assuming accurate forecasts!) can be a leading indicator for the stock price, so we wouldn't blame investors for being more cautious on Air China after the downgrade.

With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Air China going out to 2022, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are downgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks that insiders are buying.

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.
Speaking in a joint virtual news conference, the governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware said that by aggregating their orders, they expected to be able to purchase at lower prices and better stabilize the supply chain.

The governors of Massachusetts and Rhode Island were not present at the conference, but Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that their states would also be included. The same seven states agreed in April to coordinate their reopenings.

[Get the latest news and updates on the coronavirus in the New York region.]

Hospitals will be required to build a 90-day supply of protective gear.

Governor Cuomo said Sunday that New York hospitals would be required to build a supply of personal protective equipment that could last 90 days in the face of another outbreak.

He said the state could not undergo another mad scramble to send masks where they needed to go, for example.
It was once the case that aristocrats and women-about-town measured their social cache by the quality of private members' club to which they belonged.

But today's society beauties are far more likely to be overheard boasting about their well-connected book club, according to Tatler.

The British society bible noted that membership to one of these exclusive clubs has become the 'ultimate status symbol' as it serves as 'overt proof of popularity, not to mention cleverness'.

Today's society beauties are far more likely to be overheard boasting about their well-connected book club than a private members' club, according to Tatler. Elisabeth Murdoch, left, and De Beers diamond heiress Emily Oppenheimer, right, belong to the same club

As with any selective organisation, would-be members are only permitted to join if they have the right connections. The modern book club, explains Tatler, is 'cloaked in a graceful mist of snobbery, not only concerning who's in it, but what's read'.

'The truly smart will tackle Balzac... in French.'

At the centre of one ultra-exclusive 'super-maven' reading circle is Celia Dunstone, wife of Carphone Warehouse founder Sir Charles Dunstone, who had an estimated personal fortune of 927million in 2017.

Celia and her gang of influential women, including fashion designer Clare Hornby, founder of trendy label ME + EM, take turns to host each other at their homes in leafy London neighbourhoods like Notting Hill, Chelsea and Kensington.

In Derbyshire, the queen of book clubs is Lady Edward Manners, left, who once described her group as the 'scariest in England'. Right, with husband Lord Edward, who inherited Haddon Hall on the death of his father Charles Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland, in 1999

When it is her turn to host, Lady Edward invites her guests to Haddon Hall, pictured, the 11th century country pile she shares with her husband Lord Edward and their twin sons

Also in the group are Chipping Norton set stalwarts Elisabeth Murdoch, the 51-year-old daughter of Rupert, and De Beers diamond heiress Emily Oppenheimer.

Elsewhere in London there is the group attended by the likes of actress Joanna David and celebrity agents Celestia Fox and Lindy King.

This group, which also counts Sir Winston Churchill's editor granddaughter Emma Soames as a member, adds a personal touch to their meetings with homecooked meals. The host of each meeting serves dinner to their guests and chooses the book to be discussed.

In Derbyshire, the queen of book clubs is Lady Edward Manners, who once described her group as the 'scariest in England'.

Elsewhere in London there is the group attended by the likes of Sir Winston Churchill's editor granddaughter Emma Soames, pictured, and celebrity agents Celestia Fox and Lindy King

When it is her turn to host, Lady Edward invites her guests to Haddon Hall, the 11th century country pile she shares with her husband Lord Edward and their twin sons.

The home has featured featured in several film adaptations of Jane Eyre, as well as Elizabeth, Pride and Prejudice, The Other Boleyn Girl and the Princess Diaries.

Lord Edward inherited the property on the death of his father Charles Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland, in 1999. His older brother David Manners, 11th Duke of Rutland, is father of 'the Manners sisters', Lady Violet, Lady Eliza and Lady Alice, and lives at the family seat of Belvoir Castle.

Speaking on gaining membership to her book club, Lady Edward told Tatler: 'It's one in, one out'. Members are also expected to dress up for the occasion. 'It's a heels and lipstick affair,' she added.
Rosie ODonnell was a guest on Sundays Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen when she shared a disturbing story about comedian Bill Cosby. According to ODonnell, Cosby sexually harassed an unnamed staff member. Cosby is denying the allegation.

ODonnell hosted her own talk show, The Rosie ODonnell Show, from 1996 to 2002. During that time Cosby made seven guest appearances, but on this occasion, he was pretending to be a mystery guest.

A producer prepped Cosby just prior to going on stage, explaining, [Rosie ODonnell]'s not going to know it's you. ODonnell alleged that Cosby told the producer, All [ODonnell] has to do is put her hand right here  and he put his hand near his penis  and she'll know it's me.

ODonnell claims the staff member was so upset over the lewd comment that she began crying and left. She went on to say, I was one of those people who knew he was guilty from a long time ago and was not surprised by all of his  the charges against him.

In the time since this alleged incident, Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by at least 60 women. In 2018 he was convicted on three counts of sexual assault and sentenced to three to 10 years in a Pennsylvania prison.

ODonnell also revealed that she wanted to share the story during her time on The View, but was denied. On The View they would not discuss it every time I tried to bring it up, recalled ODonnell, it became a little fight.

A spokesperson for Cosby hit back at ODonnells claim on Monday, asking why she shared the story now.

The Rosie ODonnell Show first episode aired in 1996 and the show ended in 2002 but now she waits (24) years later to accuse Mr. Cosby of making lewd comments to a female producer, Andrew Wyatt told Yahoo Entertainment in a statement. This is just another attempt for a well-known celebrity like Rosie ODonnell and many others to create false allegations about Mr. Cosby, in-order to gain attention for themselves and their new projects that are not doing well. Remember, on March 23, 2020, Ms. ODonnell tried reviving The Rosie ODonnell Show for one night only and her efforts were catastrophic.

Story continues

ODonnell revived her talk show for one night amid the coronavirus pandemic to raise money for The Actors Fund, an organization that helps people in need in the performing arts and entertainment business. The evening raised more than $600,000.

Perhaps, if the media did a thorough investigation of Mr. Cosbys accusers as they have done of Tara Reade (VP Joe Bidens accuser)  Mr. Cosby would not be in prison today, Wyatt continued.

Editors note: This story was originally published on May 3, 2020, at 10:46 p.m. ET and has been updated to note Cosbys statement.

Watch What Happens With Andy Cohen airs Sunday-Thursday at 11 p.m. on Bravo.

Watch isolated 'American Idol' contestant's incredibly emotional moment in quarantine:

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Kylie Mar, on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
MONTREAL - Quebec's English-language school boards don't have the right to refuse to reopen their elementary schools, Education Minister Jean-Francois Roberge said Sunday on the eve of the province's gradual economic relaunch.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 3/5/2020 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Quebec Education Minister Jean-Francois Roberge, left, speaks at a news conference on the COVID-19 pandemic, Monday, April 27, 2020 at the legislature in Quebec City as Quebec Family Minister Mathieu Lacombe, right, looks on. Quebec's education minister is telling the province's English-language school boards that they don't have the right to refuse to reopen their elementary schools amid concern over COVID-19. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

MONTREAL - Quebec's English-language school boards don't have the right to refuse to reopen their elementary schools, Education Minister Jean-Francois Roberge said Sunday on the eve of the province's gradual economic relaunch.

Roberge said the government will decide when the school year resumes after a pause brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"English school boards don't have the legal power to push back the opening of school establishments," his office said in an email.

"It is an exclusive competence of the government of Quebec."

Quebec is moving forward with a plan to gradually reopen the economy, beginning with retail stores outside the Montreal area on Monday. But as the number of cases continues to climb, topping 30,000 on Sunday, some groups have questioned what they see as an aggressive timeline.

Last week, the province's English-language school boards association signalled to the minister that they would reopen "if and when" they believed the situation to be safe, regardless of the government's schedule.

While high schools are closed for the remainder of the school year, elementary schools and daycares outside Montreal are scheduled to reopen May 11, with those in the hard-hit city set to follow a week later.

On Sunday, Roberge made it clear that he expected school boards to respect the government's timeline.

"It is up to public health experts to judge if the health conditions for a gradual return to class are met, not elected school officials," he said, noting that an extended confinement could have negative mental health consequences for students.

The government has said classes will be limited to 15 students, and no parent will be required to send their child if they're not comfortable doing so.

Roberge added that health officials would not hesitate to push back the opening dates if the situation warrants.

Meanwhile, Quebec is moving forward with a plan to open retail stores outside Montreal on Monday, while those in the greater Montreal region are to reopen a week later, as long as they have their own dedicated entrance.

Malls will remain closed and most stores will close Sundays in May with the exception of convenience stores, pharmacies, gas stations, restaurant take-out counters and grocery deliveries.

Quebec's provincial elected officials will also be returning to work at the provincial legislature May 13, The Canadian Press has learned.

Sources have said parliamentary activities will resume gradually over several weeks, but will include three question periods by the week of May 25.

In order to ensure proper distancing, a rotation will be put in place so that no more than 40 people can be present at once.

The news came as Quebec registered another large jump in COVID-19 cases.

The province reported 892 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours, as well as 1,317 additional cases from April that were not previously included in the provincial tally.

In a statement, the province said those previous cases originated mostly from the Montreal, Laval and Monteregie areas, and were not counted due to a technical problem.

The province now has 31,865 cases and 2,205 deaths, the latter an increase of 69 over a day prior. More than 7,250 people have recovered.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 3, 2020
As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
Attackers continue to exploit people's fears about the COVID-19 pandemic to increase the success rate of their malicious campaigns, including in the enterprise space. New research from security companies shows that cybercriminals are focusing their attacks on countries and regions that were hit hardest by the coronavirus and on industry verticals that are under major economic pressure.

With many employees now working from home, often from personal devices, the risk of malware infections and credential compromises is significantly higher. Companies should take steps to ensure that remote access to their corporate applications and data is carefully monitored, follows least privilege principles and is done from secure devices using multi-factor authentication (MFA).

A surge in COVID-19-related domains

According to a new report from Palo Alto Networks, over 1.2 million domain names containing keywords related to the COVID-19 pandemic have been registered between March 9 and April 26. Of those, more than 86,600 were classified as risky or malicious with high concentrations hosted in the United States (29,007), Italy (2,877), Germany (2,564) and Russia (2,456). On average, 1,767 new malicious COVID-19 themed domains are being created every day.

"During our research, we noticed that some malicious domains resolve to multiple IP addresses, and some IP addresses are associated with multiple domains," the Palo Alto researchers said. "This many-to-many mapping often occurs in cloud environments due to the use of content delivery networks (CDNs) and can make IP-based firewalls ineffective."

CDNs reduce latency and improve website performance by directing website visitors to their nearest regional edge server. Those edge servers deliver cached versions of the sites, which takes the load off their origin servers. Attackers can take advantage of this performance enhancing behavior for cover, hiding their malicious websites among legitimate ones and making it harder for defenders to block them. That's because blacklisting the IP address of a CDN edge server in a firewall will also block non-malicious domain names that point to the same server.

Another consequence of using CDNs and cloud-based hosting services is that domain names are configured with multiple DNS A records that point to several IP addresses. This is done for redundancy but also to direct computers to the nearest server when they perform DNS lookups. This, too, makes it hard to block malicious websites by IP address, since they can point to different ones depending on the client's geolocation.

"A blacklisted IP in a layer 3 firewall may fail to block the traffic to/from a malicious domain while unintentionally making many other benign domains unreachable," the Palo Alto researchers said. "A more intelligent layer 7 firewall is necessary to inspect the domain names in the application layer and selectively pass or block sessions."

The company's data shows that 2,829 malicious COVID-19 domains were hosted in public clouds, or around 5% of the total. This number is relatively low, which could be because cloud providers have more rigorous screening, but it does show that some attackers are willing to take that risk for a better chance of not being blocked by corporate firewalls.

Cyberattacks follow the coronavirus infection trend

Security firm Bitdefender analyzed the evolution of coronavirus-themed threats throughout March and April and, based on its telemetry, found that attackers tend to focus their campaigns on countries and regions that were hit hardest by the virus.

"Countries that have the largest number of coronavirus-themed reports seem to have also been those hit hardest by the pandemic," the company said in its report. "For example, the top countries that reported the largest number of themed-malware reports include the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom."

When it comes to the most targeted industry verticals, attackers appear to focus on sectors that were heavily impacted by the pandemic or are trying to cope with a higher demand and a shortage of workers. During April, the most targeted verticals were retail, transportation, manufacturing, education and research, government, financial services, engineering, technology, chemicals and food and beverages. The reason why healthcare is not in the top 10 could be because the healthcare industry does not have as many players, and therefore targets, as the other sectors.

"Since this telemetry is strictly based on coronavirus-themed reports, it doesnt exclude the possibility that healthcare and other verticals may have seen an increase in other types of malware, such as ransomware," Bitdefender said.

The company's telemetry shows that cybercriminals followed the coronavirus infection trends by focusing on Europe for much of March and then turning their attention to the US in April as the number of new cases exploded there, which made it more likely for people to click on links and open attachments that offered more information about the pandemic. The phishing emails observed by Bitdefender often impersonated global organizations such as WHO, NATO and UNICEF.

"The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) global pandemic is not going away any time soon and its likely that cybercriminals will continue exploiting and leveraging the crisis to their own advantage," the company said. "Coronavirus-themed threats will likely continue under the form of spear phishing emails, fraudulent URLs and event malicious applications, all exploiting fear and misinformation in order to trick victims into unwillingly giving away personal, sensitive or financial information."
Britains financial watchdog said on Friday it would urgently ask the courts to clarify uncertainty over whether businesses can claim compensation for disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) also told all insurers to assess whether they should be giving partial policy refunds during the pandemic.

A national lockdown to fight the pandemic has forced many companies in the UK to temporarily suspend operations and furlough staff.

We have been clear that we believe in the majority of cases business interruption insurance was not purchased to, and is unlikely to, cover the current emergency, FCA interim chief executive Christopher Woolard said in a statement.

However, there remain a number of policies where it is clear that the firm has an obligation to pay out.

The FCA said it had written to a small number of firms to ask if they were declining business interruption claims. It said it would seek a response by May 15 and then consider which firms to ask to join the court process.

However, the FCA said the court action  which industry officials said was a first in insurance by the regulator and could save years of costly legal battles  would not determine how much could be payable under individual policies.

Lloyds of London insurer Hiscox is among firms that have come under pressure from small businesses to pay out for business interruption, along with, AXA, QBE and Zurich.

QBE said it had received a letter from the FCA on Friday. AXA said it would work closely with the FCA, while Zurich said the FCA move would provide clarity for customers. Hiscox and RSA did not respond to requests for comment.

Broker Willis Towers Watson estimates UK insured losses for business interruption, together with event cancellation, could total up to $14 billion in relation to the pandemic, depending on policy wordings.

Business interruption policies can be worded in 100 or more different ways, industry sources say.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) said it would support any process that will provide clarity and certainty for the minority of customers who are disputing whether they should be covered.

The ABI said most policies did not cover pandemics and noted that the UK government had confirmed it would not seek to retrospectively change contracts.

Eight U.S. states have introduced legislation which would require insurers to pay claims, mainly to small businesses, despite exclusions.

Mel Stride, chair of the UK parliaments Treasury Committee, welcomed the FCAs move and urged insurers to pay businesses that should be paid, or risk damaging the sectors reputation.

Alistair Handyside, executive chair of The Professional Association of Self-Caterers, said many members believed they were covered and he would be sending a report to the FCA.

Premium Refunds

In guidance that will come into effect in mid-May, the FCA suggested insurers could help struggling customers with premium payment holidays or the waiving of administration, cancellation and missed payment charges.

Insurers will also have six months to check whether their products still deliver the benefits promised, the FCA said.

For example, it said boiler cover insurers may not be able to offer the annual service included in many policies, while liability insurance may not currently be relevant to businesses such as hairdressers, bars and restaurants that are closed.

Insurers could refund some premiums or suspend monthly payments for a certain period of time, the FCA said.

Motor insurer Admiral last week said it would refund 110 million pounds to customers, following rebates made by top U.S. motor insurers.

Allianz-owned LV= said on Friday it would refund 30 million pounds ($38 million) to car and motorbike insurance customers in financial difficulties.

Hastings said it had made price reductions and was considering more, while Direct Line said it was being flexible with customers, including offering payment holidays for those in financial difficulties.
New corrections officer will monitor home-confinement program

The Brown County Sheriff's office will be able to hire a new full-time corrections officer to handle the oversight of the home-confinement work release program.
Hezbollah's leader hailed the Lebanese government's crisis plan as a "big, important step" on Monday and said any talks with the IMF must not blindly surrender the country to terms it can not bear.

In a televised speech, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the government should be given a chance as it tries to tackle a dire financial and economic crisis.

Nasrallah said local banks had made huge profits over the years and must now step in to help. He urged the government, which signed a request for IMF assistance last week, to find solutions for the weakening local currency and sky-rocketing prices.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


The Pope to donate 100,000 to help migrants on border of Belarus and Poland

Fourth vaccine against COVID-19 is not enough for Omicron

World is on verge of country defaults

French Foreign Ministry considers unacceptable Azerbaijan statements about Pecresse

US to return two valuable artifacts over 4,000 years old to Iraq

Germany may consider halting Nord Stream 2 if Russia attacks Ukraine

Israel successfully completes test of anti-ballistic missile system

Plane landing in Sochi struck by lightning

Putin and Aliyev discuss Ukraine situation

Greek PM Mitsotakis threatens Turkey with sanctions

Handelsblatt: US and EU abandon idea of disconnecting Russia from SWIFT international payment system

Artsakh President meets representatives of non-governmental organizations

Avalanche kills person in Iran

Erdogan says he is pleased with decline in volatility of lira

NEWS.am daily digest: 18.01.22

Turkey and Azerbaijan to start laying gas pipeline to supply Nakhichevan

UK begins to supply Ukraine with anti-tank weapons

Armenian PM holds meeting on Armenia's Transformation Strategy until 2050

Nagorno-Karabakh: Remains of another Armenian soldier found in Jrakan region

Tehran to not accept any border change in South Caucasus

Dollar holding relatively steady in Armenia

Armenia special representative: Future process depends on Turkeys constructiveness degree

Erdogan: Gas from Mediterranean to Europe can only be pumped through Turkey

Iranian Consul General discusses customs cooperation in Nakhijevan

Inecobank brings Apple Pay to customers

Parliament vice-speaker says he is familiar with Armenia proposals on border demarcation commission work

US Secretary of State to visit Kyiv

Russia, Iran and China to hold joint naval drills

OSCE Chairmanship on Aliyev statement: We reiterate our full support to Minsk Group Co-Chairs

Artsakh NSS denies rumors about penetration of Azerbaijanis into Karabakh villages

Indonesian parliament approves bill to relocate capital

Armenia PM to Bulgaria colleague: Our interstate relations are marked by continuous development of cooperation

Armenian President meets Abu Dhabi Crown Prince

Azerbaijan to ban foreigners from visiting Nagorno-Karabakh occupied part

European Parliament new speaker elected

Armenian National Interests Fund participates in Abu Dhabi Sustainable Development Week summit

North Korea fires missiles for fourth time this year

ECHR recognizes violation of Armenian PM's rights after 2008 elections

Turkey reveals plans to produce combat aircraft

Karabakh official: Azerbaijan presidents impudent behavior is due to OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs silence

Azerbaijan special services force Artsakh resident to intelligence work

Copper price is stable

Minister of State: OSCE MG Co-Chairs must accept exercise of Karabakh people's right to self-determination

Armenia President, UAE Minister of State discuss possibilities of cooperation in science and technology

Investigation into criminal case of several Armenia soldiers returned from Azerbaijan captivity is over

Canada sends detachment of special forces to Ukraine

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan, former deputy PM now MP Gevorgyan case trial resumes

2 more persons die of coronavirus in Artsakh

Armenia family has 10th child

Converse Bank brings Apple Pay to customers

Gold is getting weaker

Lacote: French institute to operate in Armenia (PHOTOS)

Ardshinbank Brings Apple Pay to Customers

Armenia President in UAE, meets with Emirati environment minister

Armenia legislature approves changes to several laws

Differences in data on coronavirus deaths in Armenia are corrected

360 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Norway to begin Breivik early release hearing

Economy minister to head Armenia side of commission on economic cooperation with Kazakhstan

Mexico crime photojournalist killed

Newspaper: Criminal case against Armenia archbishop dropped

Newspaper: Opposition Armenia Bloc in parliament to toughen its tactics

Scientists discover large breeding colony of icefish in southern Antarctica

China creates low-gravity artificial moon

Tehran welcomes normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations

Russian and Iranian Foreign Ministers discuss regional issues

UN Secretary-General: Vaccinate whole world to end pandemic

Giant asteroid to fly past our planet

Armenian President meets with Executive Director of Mubadala Investment Company

UAE counting on Turkey

Indonesia to move capital by 2024

Passenger traffic at Armenian airports decreased by 30%

Armenian Investigative Committee: Six soldiers captured in November arrested

Turkish government to discuss Rubinyan-Kilic meeting results

German FM threatens Russia in case of aggression against Ukraine

Armenian MFA senior staff meets with ambassadors to European countries

Turkish court acquits German journalist Mesale Tolu

Turkish UAV intercepted over Greek island

Protest in front of Armenian Health Ministry

France introduces vaccine passes

Bitcoin begins to lose out competitors

Exchange rates in Armenia

Safari browser caught leaking user data

Xi Jinping: Confrontation between major powers can have disastrous consequences

Lukashevich: Russia concerned that OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs may not be able to visit Nagorno-Karabakh

Court obligates Armenia ruling force MP to prove ex-President Sargsyan lost more than $100M in casinos

Ex-ruling party official: Armenia authorities may renounce Genocide, Karabakh

Armenian PM's party decides to provide free textbooks to non-state schools

Times: Johnson prepares cadre purge to save his own skin

Pecresse accuses French government of inaction after Aliyev's statements on her Karabakh visit

Armenia President attends Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week forum opening

Armenia legislature ruling majority member: It is possible for us to have neighborly relations with Azerbaijan

President approves Artsakh government decisions on provision of financial assistance

Armenia parliament opposition faction leader on canceling US visit: We must fulfill our international duties

Fire in Abu Dhabi kills three people

ANIF Anti-Crisis Fund to invest in Armenia cargo transportation

Azerbaijan to soon open bus routes to Artsakhs occupied Shushi

Armenia ruling force MP, businessman: Turks will be able to use our medical services in Gyumri, Yerevan

Erdogan wants to save Turkish economy with oil production in the Black Sea

Copper rises in price
Un uomo e una donna, residenti a Bolognetta, nel Palermitano, hanno descritto esattamente cio che hanno visto e filmato
The hatchet appears to be well and truly buried on Monday evening as Linda Carter and Phil Mitchell come face to face in the latest instalment of EastEnders  just days after coming to blows at an alcohol support group.

But Lindas hard-fought sobriety is put to the ultimate test as she finds common ground with the Albert Square hardman over their shared experiences with alcohol dependency  only to discover an enticing, unopened bottle of whiskey in her cupboard.

The Queen Vic landlady has endeavoured to stay on the wagon for sake of long-suffering husband Mick following a boat crash on the Thames - and after a difficult start she's successfully managed to stay sober.

Don't do it: Linda Carter's hard-fought sobriety will be put to the ultimate test on Monday evening's episode of EastEnders when she pours herself a drink during a meeting with Phil Mitchell

With Mick opting to sell their beloved pub in order to aid her recovery, and Phil the first to place a bid for the Albert Square landmark, she tests her own resolve by pouring herself a shot of the hard stuff  but viewers will have to wait and see if she relapses.

The character, played by Kellie Bright, uncovers the bottle during a chat with Phil, whose recent presence at the same AA group as Linda resulted in her begging him to find a new meeting.

Phil refused Linda's plea, but the incident quickly led to a mutual bonding, with the former garage owner attempting to guide her through the perilous early stages of recovery.

Face to face: The character, played by Kellie Bright, uncovers the bottle during a chat with Phil, whose recent presence at the same AA group as Linda resulted in her begging him to find a new meeting

Face to face with Linda once again, he reveals his true reason for wanting to purchase the Queen Vic is for ex Sharon, whose father Dennis Watts famously owned it before his initial disappearance in the 1980s.

However Linda harbours doubts that Phil has what it takes to win her back, resulting in a potentially awkward confrontation.

Phil made a move to take the pub off Mick's hands in April after discovering the landlord was keen to sell up.

Landmark: Phil is keen on purchasing the Queen Vic from Linda and husband Mick, and reveals his true reason for wanting the pub Monday night

The scenes come after EastEnders bosses reportedly held crisis talks about how they'll tackle coronavirus filming issues when production recommences.

In March filming on the BBC soap was suspended amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the social adhering to the government's social distancing guidelines.

But with reports the cast are set to return to work in June, show bosses have been trying to figure out how filming will take place while still abiding by the restrictions

Talks: The scenes come after EastEnders bosses reportedly held crisis talks about how they'll tackle coronavirus filming issues when production recommences

A source told The Sun: 'Filming will have to resume at some point and bosses say June is the benchmark.

'With strict social distancing and extra precautions on set they think EastEnders could make the transition.

'But they appreciate the health and safety of the cast and crew is paramount and should the lockdown restrictions be tightened, filming will, of course, not take place.'
An Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT), which visited West Bengal to assess the Covid-19 situation, has said that there are discrepancies in reporting of cases in the state.

In its final status report submitted to the West Bengal government, the IMCT also raised questions on state governments claim that it has surveyed 50 lakh people.

A BSF driver in Kolkata developed symptoms on May 1. He was tested and the result came positive on May 3. But there has been no effort from anyone in the state government to trace the contacts or get his family tested, an IMCT member told Hindustan Times.

In its report, accessed by HT, the central team said that the state government took an antagonistic view of the IMCT and did not support it in the performance of its duties. This is in contrast with the experience IMCT in other states, the team said in its report.

It further said that mortality rate in West Bengal is 12.8 per cent, the highest in country, which indicates low testing and weak surveillance and tracking.

It also said that a very robust system to collate and maintain the database of 50 lakh people. But the central team couldnt find evidence of any such thing in West Bengal.

It further pointed out major discrepancy in number of cases reported by the state in its medical bulletin and its communication with central government. The bulletin of April 30 showed active Covid cases as 572, discharged after treatment - 139 and expired due to Covid-19 - 33, making a total of 744. In a communication to union health secretary on the same day, total number of cases was indicated to be 931 leading to a discrepancy of 187 cases, the IMCT said.

The IMCT, however, commended the efforts of West Bengal health department in increasing the testing rate from 400 a day on April 20, to 2,410 on May 2.

The IMCT will submit its final report to the Union Home Ministry on Monday.

The IMCT had earlier asked the West Bengal government to explain the methodology used to ascertain Covid-19 deaths and if it is in line with the guidelines stipulated by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier lashed out at the visiting IMCT delegations for calling her officers indiscriminately, thereby hampering the fight against Covid-19.

Two central teams had visited West Bengal last month for assessing the ground-level implementation of lockdown and management of Covid-19 in the state.
Rishi Kapoor had been quite active on social media before April 2. Perhaps, that day onwards his health condition deteriorated. Days before he left us all for his heavenly abode, he had tweeted that he wanted the liquor shops to open up.

Twitter

Think. Government should for sometime in the evening open all licensed liquor stores. Dont get me wrong. Man will be at home only what with all this depression, uncertainty around. Cops,doctors,civilians etc need some release. Black mein to sell ho hi raha hai," he had written.



Think. Government should for sometime in the evening open all licensed liquor stores. Dont get me wrong. Man will be at home only what with all this depression, uncertainty around. Cops,doctors,civilians etc... need some release. Black mein to sell ho hi raha hai. ( cont. 2)  Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) March 28, 2020

In another tweet, he wrote, State governments desperately need the money from the excise. Frustration should not add up with depression. As it is pee to rahe hain legalize kar do no hypocrisy. My thoughts.



State governments desperately need the money from the excise. Frustration should not add up with depression. As it is pee to rahe hain legalize kar do no hypocrisy. My thoughts.  Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) March 28, 2020

Now six days after his death, fans say his last wish has been fulfilled as liquor stores have opened up across the country in green and orange zones.

Rishi Kapoor would have been very happy today with liquor shops re opening. I'm sure he's smiling and asking around how to tweet from up there. https://t.co/5ssQLDG8fu  Manav somaiya (@manav_somaiya) May 3, 2020

Sir @chintskap Rishi ji ki bhi yeh khwahish thi..jinko peena hai control tarike Se kharid k piye..ab ye Middle East thode hai ki ramzan me liquor hi naa mile  Vimarsh Srivastava (@vimarshsri) May 2, 2020

#RishiKapoor will be smiling from heaven now that liquor stores are open  Jagruti Potphode (@JagrutiPotphode) May 1, 2020

All we care now is Rishi Kapoor's#RishiKapoor last request is honored.



Liquor shops to be opened.#TASMAC



Occasional drinker & I m missing it now.

Cant say about regulars and people drinking shaving lotion & sanitizers ..

In interest of mango public of bananistan.  Manav Bagdi (@manav666) May 1, 2020

The best tribute the govt can give to #RishiKapoor is this. 'Liquor stores should open every evening: Cops, doctors, civilians need some release :) https://t.co/S3TWp9kHna  Rajesh Abraham (@pendown) April 30, 2020

#RIPRishiKapoor#Chintu was visionary on such issues. The consumption of liquor remains same or only slightly low and government is not receiving such revenues.https://t.co/sD6nG27Y6G  Suman Sagar (@sagarsuman) April 30, 2020

Meanwhile, hours after liquor stores re-opened across India, many shops in India were shut down as huge crowd gathered outside the outlets flouting the social distancing norms. People started queuing up as early as 7.30 am, even before the shops could open for sales. The shops had been close since March 24.
Capt. Ted Grady, 777X project pilot, and Capt. Van Chaney, 777/777X chief pilot, flew for 2 hours and 58 minutes over Washington state before landing at Seattle's Boeing Field at 2:02 p.m. Pacific.

Designated WH002, the aircraft is the second of four in a dedicated flight test fleet and will test handling characteristics and other aspects of airplane performance. An array of equipment, sensors and monitoring devices throughout the cabin allows the onboard team to document and evaluate the airplane's response to test conditions in real time.

The 777X test plan lays out a comprehensive series of tests and conditions on the ground and in the air to demonstrate the safety and reliability of the design. To date, crews have flown the first airplane nearly 100 hours at a variety of flap settings, speeds, altitudes and system settings as part of the initial evaluation of the flight envelope. With initial airworthiness now demonstrated, the team can safely add personnel to monitor testing onboard instead of relying solely on a ground-based telemetry station, unlocking testing at greater distances.
Tensions between the USA and China over the origins of the coronavirus caused shares to decline across financial markets today. There are growing fears that another trade war could erupt between the two countries.

The FTSE 100, however, performed better than its European counterparts, closing down just 9 points at at 5,753.78. Stock markets in Europe ended the day between 3 and 4 per cent lower.

The UK-focused FTSE 250 closed down 1.2 per cent, or 196 points, at 15,951.68.

In company news, Hotel Chocolat said it will reopen up to five stores next week for takeaway only after restarting production at its UK factory. The company also said it has agreed a 35million revolving credit facility with Lloyds Bank, replacing a 10million overdraft.

Food processing giant Tate & Lyle says it expects to beat its financial guidance despite being hit by falling US demand for its sugars and syrups last month as large numbers of businesses remained closed.

Meanwhile, Britain's largest companies expect the coronavirus to reduce their sales by more than a fifth this year and are gloomier than during the 2008-09 financial crisis, according to a survey by accountants Deloitte.

Elsewhere, the Chinese unit of Germany's Tui, the world's biggest tourism group, said it has resumed offering holiday packages in China and the group has urged the European Union to lift travel restrictions in place to curb the coronavirus.
Data and modelling by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows infections could rise to 200,000 by June.

The United States could see up to 3,000 deaths per day from the coronavirus by June 1, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

Chinas state broadcaster CCTV attacked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeos insane and evasive remarks over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Germanys health minister said developing a new vaccine for the coronavirus could take years after US President DonaldTrump predicted it could be achieved by the end of 2020.

Malaysia and India are among countries in Asia that will begin to ease parts of their lockdown on Monday.

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus exceeds 3.5 million. More than 247,000 people have died while about 1.1 million have recovered.

Here are the latest updates:

Monday, May 4

21:10 GMT  Trump to extend Buy America order to medical products

President Donald Trump plans an executive order soon to address the lack of medical product manufacturing in the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic, the White House has said.

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News in an interview on Monday that an order would soon require federal agencies to buy US-made medical products, saying the novel coronavirus outbreak had exposed the nations reliance on China.

Navarro gave no other details about the proposed order, which would extend Buy America requirements to medical products and pharmaceuticals. He said further steps were also needed, including deregulation to make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to operate in the US.

Read more here.

21:00 GMT  Bahrain may need more financial aid from Gulf Arab states

Bahrain may need more financial aid from fellow Gulf Arab states as soon as this year, but its wealthier neighbours could themselves be hamstrung by low oil prices and the economic impact of the new coronavirus, bankers and analysts said.

Bahrain, whose sovereign bonds have been rated junk by major credit rating agencies, in 2018 received a $10bn aid package over five years from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to help it avoid a credit crunch in a deal tied to fiscal reform.

But the US-allied island state, a small oil producer, could need a larger amount than allotted for 2020 to fill bigger financing needs with petroleum prices at $20 to $30 a barrel.

Read more here.

20:10: GMT  Brazil coronavirus cases rise by 4,075 to 105,222

There have been 4,075 new cases of the novel coronavirus in Brazil and 263 deaths over the last 24 hours in Brazil, the health ministry said.

The nation has now registered 105,222 confirmed cases of the virus and 7,288 deaths. New cases increased roughly 4 percent from the previous day, and deaths rose roughly 3.7 percent.

19:30 GMT  Will life ever return to normal after coronavirus lockdown?

It is now more than four months since the novel coronavirus started spreading from Wuhan in China.

Although the pandemic hasnt stopped, some countries with falling infection rates are slowly easing lockdown restrictions. Small shops and restaurants are reopening in a dozen countries across Asia, Europe and Africa.

Some schoolchildren are returning to class. A few more domestic flights are taking off, and train services are increasing in frequency.

What are the risks of a second wave of infections? And how should we adapt to life post lockdown?





19:05 GMT  Turkey death toll from coronavirus rises by 65 to 3,461

The number of people who have died from COVID-19 in Turkey rose by 65 to 3,461 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed, as a slowdown in deaths and confirmed cases continued.

The overall number of cases rose by 1,614 to 127,659, the data showed, the highest total outside Western Europe, the United States and Russia. A total of 68,166 people have so far recovered from the new coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19.

The number of tests conducted in Turkey in the past 24 hours stood at 35,771, raising the total number of tests during the outbreak to more than 1.170 million.

18:50 GMT  Frances coronavirus death toll surges past 25,000

Frances death toll from the coronavirus rose by 306 to 25,201, the sharpest rate of increase in four days, government data showed.

On Sunday, only 135 new deaths were reported, but on Sundays the data reporting from nursing homes is often delayed, leading to a catch-up during the week.

In a statement, the Health Ministry said the number of people in intensive care units fell to 3,696 from 3,819 on Sunday, down for a 26th consecutive day.





18:40 GMT  US could see 3,000 daily deaths by June as economy reopens: Report

The United States could see up to 3,000 deaths per day from the coronavirus by June 1, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

As the US governments pushes to reopen the crippled economy, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data and modelling shows 200,000 infections could be the reality at the start of next month, leading to thousands of daily deaths.

The White House disputed the findings. This is not a White House document nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting, said spokesman Judd Deere.

This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analysed.

18:10 GMT  IMF approves $226 million for Cameroon to help ease COVID-19 impact

The board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday approved a disbursement for Cameroon of around $226 million to help the central African nation meet urgent balance of payments needs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic and terms of trade shocks from a sharp fall in oil prices are having a significant impact on Cameroons economy, leading to a historic fall of real GDP growth, the IMF said in a statement.

Cameroon is facing serious challenges from the twin COVID-19 pandemic and terms of trade shocks, it said, adding the shocks have given rise to substantial fiscal pressures and an urgent balance of payments need.





18:05 GMT  US-China trade war: Trump admin takes aim at supply chains

The Trump administration is turbocharging an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, according to officials familiar with United States planning.

President Donald Trump, who has stepped up recent attacks on China before the November 3 US presidential election, has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas.

Now, economic destruction and the enormous US coronavirus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move US production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to other more friendly nations instead, current and former senior US administration officials said.

Read more here.

18:00 GMT  Turkey to start easing coronavirus restrictions: Erdogan

Turkey will start easing coronavirus containment measures as of Monday, President Tayyip Erdogan said, lifting intercity travel restriction in seven provinces and easing a curfew imposed for senior and youth citizens at the weekend after weeks.

Turkey has around 130,000 confirmed cases, the highest total outside Western Europe, the United States and Russia. Ankara has rolled out measures to contain the outbreak, but Erdogan said Turkey would start easing them in May, June and July as the spreading pace begun slowing over the past two weeks.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Erdogan said senior and youth citizens will be allowed outside for 4 hours for one day a week starting this weekend and that travel restrictions would be lifted for seven cities, excluding Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

He said shopping malls, barber shops and some stores will be allowed to open on May 11 as long as they abide by normalisation rules, adding that universities would return to their academic calendar as of June 15. But, Erdogan warned that the government would impose much harsher measures if the normalisation plan is not followed.





17:40 GMT  Finland to allow restaurants to reopen starting June 1

Finland will lift some coronavirus restrictions, allowing restaurants to reopen and public services including libraries and sports facilities to start operating again from June 1, the government has announced.

A ban on public meetings will be relaxed from a maximum of 10 people to 50 people from June 1 but emergency powers will be kept in place, it said.

Essential travel to countries in the Schengen area will be allowed from May 14, interior minister Maria Ohisalo said. Last week, the government decided to reopen schools from May 13.

17:35 GMT  Tyson Foods expects to keep idling meat plans citing coronavirus

plants and slowing production because of the coronavirus pandemic, the company said on Monday, signalling more disruptions to the United States food supply.

Tyson reported lower-than-expected earnings and revenue for the quarter ended on March 28, before meat processors began shutting plants as COVID-19 spread through slaughterhouses.

Shares of the Jimmy Dean sausages maker fell more than 7 percent after the company said increased demand for meat at grocery stores had not completely offset lost sales to restaurants.

Read more here.





17:25 GMT  Most COVID-19 patients develop antibodies but immunity unclear

Studies in Britain show that most people who have had COVID-19 develop antibodies, Englands deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said on Monday, but it was too early to say whether this gave them immunity.

The overwhelming majority of people so far called back whove had definite COVID-19 infection have got antibodies in their blood stream, Van-Tam said at daily news conference.

By and large the signal is that people get antibodies. The next question is, do those antibodies protect you from further infections. And we just havent had this disease around  for long enough to know the answers to that with any surety.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock added that the government was in discussions with Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche over antibody testing.

17:20 GMT  WHO chief urges unity in fight against coronavirus

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged the world to unite to defeat the new coronavirus.

This virus will be with us for a long time and we must come together to develop and share the tools to defeat it, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing in Geneva.

We will prevail through national unity and global solidarity, he added, praising pledges of $8 billion from world leaders for the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The Geneva-based body will launch this week its updated strategic preparedness and response plan, which will provide an update of its funding needs in order to support the international and national plans to fight the virus, Tedros said.

17:15 GMT  Coronavirus cases need to fall further before restrictions eased: UK health official

Britain needs new cases of COVID-19 to fall further, Englands deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said, even as data indicates that the peak of the coronavirus outbreak has passed.

Its now very clear in the data that we are past the peak, Van-Tam said at a daily news conference. New cases need to come down further  we have to get cases lower.

The British government has set five tests that need to be met before it will start easing a lockdown that has been in place since March 23. One of the five tests is that there has to be reliable data showing that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels across the board.

16:50 GMT  Syrias Assad warns of catastrophe if coronavirus cases spike

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned that his country could face a real catastrophe if coronavirus cases spike and overwhelm health services.

The current low level of infections did not mean Syria had gone out of the circle of danger, Assad said in an address to the government committee that oversees measures to curb the pandemic.

These figures could suddenly spike in a few days or few weeks and we would see in front of us real catastrophe, he said.

16:45 GMT  New York to allow construction, manufacturing to reopen first

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday outlined a phased reopening of business activity in the state hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, starting with select retailers, wholesale suppliers and the construction and manufacturing industries.

Cuomo, speaking at a daily briefing, did not put specific dates to the outline, which envisions allowing finance, insurance, retail, administrative support and real estate businesses to restart in a second phase of reopening.

16:40 GMT  UK coronavirus death toll rises by 288 to 28,734

Britains COVID-19 death toll has risen by 288 to 28,734, according to figures announced on Monday by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

The increase was the smallest since late March, Hancock said, adding that he expected it to rise in coming days as the numbers tended to be lower during the weekend.

16:30 GMT  World leaders pledge $8 billion to combat coronavirus: EU

World leaders promised $8 billion on Monday for the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said at the end of a pledging event that she chaired.

In the space of just few hours we have collectively pledged 7.4 billion euros ($8.07 billion) for vaccine, diagnostics and treatment against COVID-19, von der Leyen said.

This will help kick-start unprecedented global cooperation, she added.





16:10 GMT  Italys coronavirus death toll rises by 195 to 29,079

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 195, against 174 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, but the daily tally of new infections declined to 1,221 from 1,389 on Sunday.

Italys daily death toll in recent weeks has always fallen on Sundays and risen the following day, while the underlying trend has been steadily declining since a peak above 900 daily fatalities around the end of March.

The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on February 21 now stands at 29,079 the agency said, the second highest in the world after that of the United States.

The number of confirmed cases amounts to 211,938, the third highest global tally behind those of the United States and Spain.

Italys true death toll from the disease is much higher than is reported by the Civil Protection Agency in its daily bulletins, national statistics agency said in an analysis of nationwide mortalities from all causes released on Monday.

The Civil Protection Agency said people registered as currently carrying the illness fell to 99,980 from 100,179 on Sunday.

There were 1,479 people in intensive care on Monday against 1,501 the day before, maintaining a long-running decline. Of those originally infected, 82,879 were declared recovered against 81,654 on Sunday.

The agency said 1.480 million people had been tested for the virus against 1.457 million the day before, out of a population of around 60 million.

15:50 GMT  Yemen records two new coronavirus cases

Yemen has reported two new coronavirus infections in Hadhramout, the national emergency coronavirus committee said, raising the number of diagnosed infections in the war-town country to 12 with two deaths.

The province of Hadhramout was where Yemen recorded its first case of COVID-19 on April 10. The United Nations says it fears the coronavirus could be spreading undetected among an acutely malnourished population with inadequate testing capabilities.





15:25 GMT  Turkeys 3D-printing movement shields coronavirus workers

Turkeys 3 Boyutlu Destek is a collective production movement that started as the coronavirus pandemic hit in March.

The movement now boasts more than 3,500 volunteers spread across 81 cities in the country and about 4,500 3D printers. Their primary production is face-shields, printing more than 25,000 in one week and then distributing to more than 250 hospitals.

Read more here

15:15 GMT  Saudi Arabia dollar bonds pressured after Moodys downgrade

Saudi Arabian government dollar bonds posted losses on Monday after the finance minister said Riyadh would have to take painful measures to deal with the impact of the coronavirus and Moodys downgraded the countrys ratings outlook.

Moodys cut Saudi Arabias outlook to negative from stable on May 3, citing higher fiscal risks due to the crash in oil prices and uncertainty about the governments ability to offset oil revenue losses and stabilise its debt in the medium term.

Read more here

15:05 GMT  US stocks fall on US-China tensions and Buffett airline sell-off

United States stocks tumbled on Monday in early morning trading in New York on worries of growing US-China tensions over the coronavirus crisis and the state of the airline industry after billionaire investor Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway said it offloaded its entire stake in the top four US carriers.

Read more here

15:00 GMT  Chile coronavirus death toll reaches 270, total cases 20,643

Chile has reported 980 new coronavirus cases, bringing its total number of infections to 20,643, health authorities said.

Paula Daza, the health ministry subsecretary, said the death toll rose by 10 to 270.

14:50 GMT  EU to contribute 1 billion euros for global vaccine search

The European Union has pledged 1 billion euros ($1.09 billion) for the global search for vaccines and treatment for the novel coronavirus, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a pledging conference.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for any treatment developed to be available to everyone, something the World Health Organization said would be a challenge.





14:45 GMT  Macron: France pledges 500 million euros to global coronavirus vaccine hunt

President Emmanuel Macron has said France would contribute 500 million euros ($550 million) to a global fund-raising push to finance research into a vaccine and treatments against the novel coronavirus.

France will commit an additional 500 million euros for the ACT-A initiative, Macron said in a video call hosted by the European Commission during which world leaders are expected to raise at least 7.5 billion euros.

14:40 GMT  Netherlands coronavirus cases reach 40,770, total deaths 5,082

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Netherlands rose by 199 to 40,770, with 26 new deaths, health authorities said.

Total deaths in the country reached 5,082, the Netherlands Institute for Health said in its daily update.





14:35 GMT  Questions need to be answered about virus origin  UK PMs spokesman

Britain believes questions need to be answered about the origin of the coronavirus, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, declining to comment on a report that a US-led intelligence consortium had accused Beijing of a cover-up.

Clearly there are questions that need to be answered about the origin and spread of the virus, not least so we can ensure that we are better prepared for future global pandemics, the spokesman told reporters.

14:25 GMT  Germanys Merkel pledges 525 million euros to global coronavirus vaccine hunt

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that Germany would contribute 525 million euros ($573.51 million) to a global fund-raising push to search for vaccines and for a treatment for the novel coronavirus.

We will contribute 525 million euros directly to this pledging conference and we will also continue our obligations for global health overall with around 1.3 billion euros, Merkel said.

14:05 GMT  Zimbabwe pleads with foreign lenders to prevent catastrophe

Zimbabwe is headed for a health and economic catastrophe from the coronavirus pandemic because its debt arrears mean it cannot access foreign lenders, the finance minister warned in a letter to the IMF.

Mthuli Ncube said in the letter that Zimbabwe needed to start talks and normalise ties with foreign creditors to clear its decades-old arrears and unblock urgently needed funding.

The Zimbabwean authorities propose a high-level dialogue on mitigating the economic and social downfall from the COVID-19 pandemic through transformative arrears clearance  short of which the country will suffer a health and economic catastrophe, Ncube wrote.

13:50 GMT  Nigeria reopens main cities of Lagos and Abuja

Nigeria began easing restrictions in its capital Abuja and in largest city Lagos, heralding the reopening of Africas biggest economy after more than four weeks of lockdowns imposed to contain the new coronavirus.

The government has said a 24-hour stay-at-home order in place since March 30 in Abuja and the states of Lagos and Ogun  with exceptions only for food shopping and health-related trips  will be lifted gradually over a six-week period.

On Monday, the usually frenetic streets of the coastal megacity Lagos, largely empty during the lockdown, were busy again with cars, buses and motorised tricycle taxis. In a crucial difference to pre-lockdown life, most people on the streets of Lagos wore face masks.





13:40 GMT  Swiss environmentalists demand green recovery after coronavirus

Environmental activists delivered a petition to a special session of the Swiss parliament demanding a $64bn government aid package should promote a green recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

More than 22,000 people signed the petition demanding that support for companies in sectors with large greenhouse gas emissions, such as aviation, be tied to reducing their environmental impact.

We are here because we want to make it a green recovery. We need to foster measures that help us to quit fossil fuels now in the wake of corona, said Georg Klingler from Greenpeace Switzerland. We need to make our society more resilient for the crises to come.

13:35 GMT  Darth Vader enforces lockdown in Philippine village

Dressed as Star Wars characters, local officials in the Philippines are out and about to enforce strict quarantine measures while also handing out relief packages.

With Darth Vader and Stormtrooper outfits made from rubber mats and old plastic, the youth leaders catch the attention of villagers on the outskirts of Manila, who are then reminded to stay indoors.

We tell off residents who still go outdoors without the proper quarantine passes needed and also those who do not wear face masks. We make sure the government guidelines are properly followed, said Muriel Baldago, an elected official dressed in a Stormtrooper costume.

May 4 known as Star Wars Day and celebrated worldwide by fans.





13:25 GMT  China says USs Pompeo insane over coronavirus lab theory

Chinas state broadcaster CCTV attacked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeos insane and evasive remarks over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pompeo on Sunday said enormous evidence showed the virus originated in a lab in China, doubling down on previous claims that have been repeatedly denied by the World Health Organization and various scientific experts.

Titled Evil Pompeo is wantonly spewing poison and spreading lies, the harshly worded commentary cited WHO executive director Mike Ryan and Columbia University virologist W Ian Lipkin, who claimed the virus is natural in origin and was not man-made or leaked from a laboratory.

These flawed and unreasonable remarks by American politicians make it clear to more and more people that no evidence exists, the commentary said.

The so-called virus leaked from a Wuhan lab hype is a complete and utter lie. American politicians are rushing to shift the blame, cheat votes and suppress China when their own domestic anti-epidemic efforts are a mess.

13:20 GMT  Germany starts to reopen

Germany took a further step on the long road back to post-coronavirus normality with museums and hairdressers reopening under strict conditions, churches opening their doors for worshippers, and more car factories resuming work.

Germany has been more successful than other large European countries in slowing the virus spread  it estimates that every 100 carriers of the virus now infects only 74 others on average, well below the 100 mark where new restrictions must be imposed.

But there are fears complacency and a race to reopen between different regions could undo the successes achieved so far.

12:14 GMT  Italy leads Europe in easing measures

Italy is leading Europe in easing lockdown measures aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus, almost two months after the epidemic hit the continent.

More than 4.4 million Italians went back to work on Monday after seven weeks of extraordinary restrictive measures.

Read more here.

Workers wear protective face masks at Porta Palazzo market in Turin after it reopened with social distancing rules as Italy begins a staged end to a nationwide lockdown, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) [Massimo Pinca/Reuters]

12:11 GMT  Which Middle East states have begun easing restrictions?

In the Middle East, several Gulf states have now relaxed their restrictions, including reopening malls with limited capacity.

Precautionary measures, such as wearing face masks and gloves while maintaining social distancing remain in place.

Read more here.

11:59 GMT  Romania president will enforce state of alert from May 15

Romania will not extend a state of emergency past its May 15 expiry date, but will impose a state of alert allowing some modest relaxation of restrictions, President Klaus Iohannis said.

Unfortunately this epidemic has not yet passed. We need to be responsible and be very cautious further ahead, Iohannis said, adding that some travel restrictions were lifted but people wont be allowed to travel in groups larger than three.

Gatherings outdoor, indoor were still banned, he added.

11:51 GMT  Japans Abe extends state of emergency

The government of Japan has extended a state of emergency over the pandemic until the end of May, warning it was too soon to lift restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

I will extend the period of the state of emergency I declared on April 7 until May 31. The area covered is all prefectures in the nation, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after a meeting held to discuss the measures.

Read more here.

Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a press conference where he announced an extension of the nations state of emergency at the Prime Ministers Office in Tokyo [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]

10:38 GMT  Ukraine government agrees to partially ease lockdown

Ukraines government extended a nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic until May 22 but agreed to partially lift some restrictions from May 11, according to televised cabinet proceedings.

The partial lifting of the restrictions includes opening parks and recreation areas, as well as allowing some shops, such as those specialising in household goods or textiles, to open. Cafes can open for takeaway services.

10:03 GMT  Iran reports new cases, deaths

Iran reported 74 new fatalities in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 6,277.

Meanwhile, the total number of positive cases in the country stands at 98,647, according to a health ministry official.

Firefighters in protective masks disinfect the streets in Tehran, Iran [File: Ali Khara/Reuters]

09:34 GMT  Expo 2020 Dubai postponed to Oct 2021

The Expo 2020 Dubai has been postponed by a year because of the outbreak and will now be held from October 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, the Paris-based organiser said.

A two-thirds majority of member states of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) voted in favour of the delay, which allows all participants to safely navigate the impact of COVID-19, it said in a statement.

09:03 GMT  Bangladesh cases top 10,000

The number of coronavirus cases in Bangladesh surpassed 10,000, the countrys health ministry said, with infections increasing in pace over the past several days.

Bangladesh reported 688 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking its total to 10,143. The death toll rose to 182.

09:00 GMT  Indonesia reports 395 new cases

Indonesia reported 395 new infections, taking the total in the Southeast Asian country to 11,587, said health ministry official Achmad Yurianto.

Yurianto reported 19 new coronavirus-related deaths, taking the total to 864, while 1,954 have recovered.

These transparent face masks are helping Indonesias hearing impaired to communicate through lip reading amid the #coronavirus pandemic. pic.twitter.com/cRQ3UEtCOu  Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 3, 2020

08:54 GMT  South Africa GDP could shrink as much as 12 percent

South Africas economy could contract by as much 12 percent and unemployment balloon to more than one-third of the workforce due to the impact of the coronavirus, Director-General of the National Treasury Dondo Mogajane said in a radio interview.

Anything between minus 7 percent up to 12 percent could be the impact [on GDP]. We have to focus on the post-virus environment so we can contain the impact  Its gonna be huge, said the head of treasury on talk radio station 702.

We could even reach 40 percent unemployment if things go the way they are. The manufacturing industry is impacted. Mining is impacted. The services sector is impacted. Look at tourism for instance, its on its knees, Mogajane said.

08:35 GMT  South Korean students to go back to school

South Korea said it will reopen schools in stages starting from May 13, as the daily number of domestic cases has fallen close to zero over recent days.

But health authorities urged vigilance once some 5.5 million elementary, middle and high school students gather in classrooms and they are conducting mock drills and preparing guidelines in the event of a surge in infection.

Were now preparing for the opening of schools while managing the daily risks of the disease, Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae said in a televised briefing.

If a student turns out to be infected with the virus, health authorities will take the necessary action, and the school will switch to online classes.

08:08 GMT  Philippines reports 16 deaths, 262 infections

The Philippine health ministry reported 16 new coronavirus deaths and 262 additional cases.

The health ministry said total confirmed cases have risen to 9,485, while 623 people have died. But 101 more patients have recovered, bringing total recoveries to 1,315.

Philippine President Duterte has extended strict lockdown measures in the capital of Metro Manila to May 15 [Francis R. Malasig/EPA]

07:55 GMT  Russia reports 10,581 new cases

Russia reported 10,581 new cases in the past 24 hours, a slight decrease from the day before when it reported 10,633 cases.

07:27 GMT  FINA postpones 2021 Fukuoka world championships

The 2021 aquatics world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, will now be held from May 13-29, 2022, swimmings governing body FINA said in a statement.

The decision follows the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to 2021 due to the pandemic.

After liaising with the relevant stakeholders and receiving feedback from them, we have no doubt that the decision taken will provide the best possible conditions for all participants at the championships, said FINA president Julio Maglione.

At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, FINA hopes the announcement of these dates will allow for some clarity in planning for all concerned.

07:25 GMT  Singapore reports 573 new cases

Singapores health ministry said on Monday it confirmed 573 new cases, taking the city-states tally of infections to 18,778.

A woman walks along the promenade at Marina Bay in Singapore [Roslan Rahman/AFP]

07:14 GMT  Australia, New Zealand, discuss possible trans-Tasman travel bubble

New Zealand and Australia are discussing the potential creation of a travel bubble between the two.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she has accepted an invitation from Australian Premier Scott Morrison to take part in a meeting of Australias emergency coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday, stoking anticipation of a travel deal.

Still, Ardern warned that more health measures needed to be put in place before trans-Tasman travel could restart.

Both our countries strong record of fighting the virus has placed us in the enviable position of being able to plan the next stage in our economic rebuild and to include trans-Tasman travel and engagement in our strategy, Ardern said.

06:55 GMT  EU approves 7 billion euros in French state aid to Air France

The European Commission has given the green light to 7.0 billion euros ($7.7bn) in French state aid to national carrier Air France to cushion the economic fallout from the pandemic.

The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a EUR7 billion French aid measure consisting of a state guarantee on loans and a shareholder loan to Air France to provide urgent liquidity to the company in the context of the coronavirus outbreak, EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

A sign with physical distancing instrucitons at a deserted check-in desk at Nice airport [File: Eric Gaillard/Reuters]

06:31 GMT  Bloody awful: British defence minister on having COVID-19

Having COVID-19 was bloody awful, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said, adding that the virus had sapped his energy, reduced his will and temporarily taken away his sense of taste and smell for days.

Asked by Sky News how it was to have COVID-19, Wallace said: Bloody awful, if you want the honest truth.

It wasnt severe, but it mentally taps your will because it comes and goes, it ebbs and flows, said Wallace, who was infected with the virus at the end of March. I sat on my own in my flat in London for eight days, and I lost taste and smell, and its a sort of energy-sapping thing that reduces your will.

But it then disappeared, and I took some more precautions, but in the end, I went back to work, Wallace said.

06:22 GMT  Germany warns vaccine could take years

Germanys health minister said developing a vaccine for the coronavirus could take years, after US President Donald Trump predicted it could be achieved by the end of 2020.

I would be delighted if it was possible to achieve this in a few months, Jens Spahn said on ARD television.

But it can also take years as there can, of course, be setbacks, as we have seen some with other vaccines, he said.

The development of vaccines is one of the most challenging and difficult tasks in medicine.

Neal Browning receives a shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle [File: Ted S. Warren/AP Photo]

06:10 GMT  Japan to seek extension of state of emergency

Japans government will seek to extend the countrys nationwide state of emergency to May 31 later on Monday, Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said in parliament.

The government-issued state of emergency is due to expire on Wednesday, the last day of a week-long national holiday.

People walk past shops in a residential area in Tokyo [Charly Triballeau/AFP]

Hello, this is Farah Najjar taking over from my colleague Kate Mayberry.

04:50 GMT  US intelligence sources believe China covered up extent of outbreak: AP

US officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak  and how contagious the disease was  to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, according to intelligence documents.

Chinese leaders intentionally concealed the severity of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press news agency.

The revelation comes as the Trump administration intensifies its criticism of China over the pandemic.

Read more on the intelligence report here.

04:00 GMT  Coronavirus data: countries release latest updates

A round-up of some of the coronavirus data that has been released on Monday.

Germanys Robert Koch Institute reported 679 new cases, bringing the countrys total to 163,175. There were also 43 deaths. Some 6,692 people have now died from the disease in Germany.

China reported three new cases  all among people returning from overseas  bringing the total to 82,880. The National Health Commission also reported 13 new asymptomatic cases. There were no new deaths.

South Korea, which is planning to ease physical-distancing guidelines on Wednesday, reported eight new cases  all from overseas. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said total cases now stood at 10,801.

03:40 GMT  New Zealand reports no new cases for first time since mid-March

New Zealand reported no new cases of the coronavirus on Monday, marking the first time the country recorded zero cases since its outbreak took hold in mid-March.

The development comes less than a week after the Pacific nation began to ease a strict lockdown that was imposed to contain the outbreak.

It is symbolic of the effort everyone has put in, said Ashley Bloomfield, the director-general of health.

This is the first day that we had no new cases and we want to keep it that way.

Construction has resumed after New Zealand eased some restrictions last week. The country recorded no new cases of the disease on Monday [Marty Melville/AFP]

03:00 GMT  China develops extensive delivery network in coronavirus boom

Delivery services have boomed across China  and many other countries around the world  helping people get through strict coronavirus lockdowns that mean they can only go out to get food supplies or to see a doctor.

Al Jazeeras Katrina Yu in Beijing visited one distribution centre that is processing tens of thousands of packages every day with most of them delivered within 24 hours of ordering.





02:50 GMT  With coronavirus response under fire, Brazils Bolsonaro takes to streets

Brazils right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro appeared at a rally of hundreds of supporters on Sunday to attack Congress and the courts.

Bolsonaro is under fire and increasingly isolated over his response to the coronavirus with known cases now totalling more than 100,000.

Read more here.

02:00 GMT  Some coronavirus curbs eased in India

India is moving to ease some of its coronavirus restrictions, although the nationwide lockdown  the worlds biggest  remains in force until May 17.

Each state and city has been colour-coded  red, orange or green  according to the incidence of coronavirus. New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru have been named red zones. In these places, businesses can open at one-third capacity, construction can resume providing the workers live on-site, and standalone shops can reopen.

In orange zones, taxis can also operate, while green zones  areas where there has been no incidence of coronavirus in 21 days  can resume all activities unless they are prohibited under the nationwide lockdown.

At the national level, all travel remains suspended, while schools, shopping malls, hotels, restaurants and other places where people gather are to remain closed.

There is no restriction on manufacturing and the movement of goods between states.

Testing is a key part of Indias relaxation of its coronavirus lockdown [Yawar Nazir/Getty Images]

00:20 GMT  Malaysia eases restrictions on business, but some states hold back

Malaysian businesses, including restaurants, have been told they can reopen from Monday providing they adhere to requirements on social distancing, hygiene and contact tracing.

After a spike in cases over the weekend, some state governments have said they will not ease the restrictions. Federal authorities continue to encourage people to work from home.

Malaysia reported 122 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, the highest since the middle of April, and two more deaths.

Malaysia relaxes its Covid-19 partial lockdown today, so what can we expect? https://t.co/tB2oNaxGFu  Malay Mail (@malaymail) May 3, 2020

00:10 GMT  Trump claims there will be coronavirus vaccine by year-end

US President Donald Trump has told TV network Fox News that he believes that there will be a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. He also said he would like to see schools and universities open in September.

00:00 GMT  Australia debates opening of schools, as some restrictions eased

Australia is beginning to ease coronavirus restrictions, but a Sydney schoolboys positive test for coronavirus has added to the debate about whether schools should reopen.

The seven-year-olds diagnosis prompted the closure of his school, but it was the only new case in New South Wales (NSW), state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters.

NSW, home to nearly half the countrys roughly 6,800 confirmed cases of coronavirus, is reopening schools on a staggered basis, while neighbouring Victoria state has asked parents to keep children at home until the middle of the year.

The states are moving at different speeds to lift movement restrictions: NSW has allowed people to make house visits in groups of up to two, while Victoria has said it will consider relaxing its stay-home order on May 11.

-

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeeras continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Im Kate Mayberry in Kuala Lumpur.

Read the updates from yesterday (May 3) here.
In first-quarter 2020, gold prices rose 6% and crossed the threshold of $1,600 an ounce primarily on account of fears stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Apprehensions regarding the impact of the pandemic on the global economy made investors flock to safe-haven assets like gold.

The global uncertainty and financial market volatility led to the highest quarterly inflows in gold ETFs in four years. Global holdings of gold ETFs and similar products gained 298t in the quarter and attained a historical high of 3,185t at the end of the quarter. In value terms, assets under management (AUM) in these products increased by a record $23 billion on the back of a 10% improvement in flows and 6% quarterly rise in the gold price.

Meanwhile, jewelry demand slumped 39% year over year to a record low of 325.8t in the quarter under review as markets were shut down across various countries to stem the spread of the virus. This along with high local gold prices hindered demand for jewelry in the quarter. In value terms, global demand plunged 26% year over year to a 10-year low of $16.6 billion. Overall, total demand for gold increased1% year over year to 1,083t mainly driven by investment demand.

The pandemic has also impacted gold supply with mine production falling to a five-year low of 795.8t as miners had to suspend operations due to government mandates. Production in the quarter declined 3% year over year  the steepest decline since first-quarter 2017. Thus, concerns over a demand-supply imbalance also led to a rise in gold prices. Further, a low interest environment led to the rally.

The combination of higher gold prices and lower oil prices, which make up significant portion of a miners costs, is likely to have translated into improved operating margins and higher free cash flow for gold miners in the January-March quarter.

Per the Zacks classification, the gold mining industry comes under the broader Basic Materials sector. Per the latest Earnings Trends report, the sectors earnings are expected to decline 33.1% on 12% lower revenues. However, the slump is not restricted to this sector, as 11 of the 16 Zacks sectors are expected to log declines this earnings season.

Story continues

Picking Winners From the Gold Mining Space

It is wise to select gold stocks that are well positioned to beat earnings in their upcoming releases. Nonetheless, given the wide range of companies in this space, the task is by no means easy. One way to do it is by picking stocks, which have the combination of a Zacks Rank  Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold)  and a positive Earnings ESP.

You can the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Earnings ESP is our proprietary methodology for identifying stocks that have high chances of surprising in their upcoming earnings announcement. It shows the percentage difference between the Most Accurate Estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Our research shows that for stocks with this combination, the chance of a positive earnings surprise is as high as 70%.

You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

With the Zacks Stock Screener, three such gold stocks have been identified.

Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. WPM is a precious metal streaming company that generates revenues primarily from the sale of gold, silver and palladium. The Vancouver, Canada-based company has an Earnings ESP of +0.39% and a Zacks Rank #2. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for first-quarter 2020 earnings is pegged at 21 cents, indicating an improvement of 61% from the year-ago quarter. It is slated to release quarterly earnings on May 6, after the closing bell.



Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. Price and EPS Surprise

Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. Price and EPS Surprise

Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. price-eps-surprise | Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. Quote

Franco-Nevada Corporation FNV operates as a gold-focused royalty and stream company in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Europe, and Africa, and internationally. It is based in Toronto, Canada. The company has an Earnings ESP of +1.53% and a Zacks Rank #2. The company, set to release quarterly numbers on May 6 after market close, has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 18.77%, on average. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the companys first-quarter 2020 earnings is pegged at 55 cents, suggesting growth of 57% from the prior-year reported figure.



Franco-Nevada Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

Franco-Nevada Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

Franco-Nevada Corporation price-eps-surprise | Franco-Nevada Corporation Quote



Silver Standard Resources Inc. SSRM engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and operation of precious metal resource properties in the Americas. The company primarily explores for gold and silver deposits. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for first-quarter 2020earnings for this Vancouver, Canada-based company is currently pegged at 23 cents, indicating year-over-year growth of 65%. The company has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 77.7%, on average. The company has an Earnings ESP of +13.57% and a Zacks Rank #2. The company is scheduled to report results on May 14, after market close.



Silver Standard Resources Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Silver Standard Resources Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Silver Standard Resources Inc. price-eps-surprise | Silver Standard Resources Inc. Quote

Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?

Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.

Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.

See the pot trades we're targeting>>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



Franco-Nevada Corporation (FNV) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Silver Standard Resources Inc. (SSRM) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (WPM) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
Sokoto Gov Aminu Tambuwal has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to assist his state with logistics and technical support in containing the spread of coronavirus.

He made the call during a statewide broadcast on COVID-19 on Monday.

According to him, the state has so far recorded 66 cases of COVID-19 with eight deaths.

Due to the rising statistics in Sokoto State, I wish to appeal to Mr President and the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 to intervene in our state, through the provision of logistics and technical support, with a view to stemming the disturbing trend, he said.

The state reported its index case less than three weeks ago, and the fatalities have climbed up to 19, more than 50 percent of what Lagos, the epicentre of the pandemic reported since its first case in February.

Tambuwal is the first PDP governor to plead with Buhari for help.
One reason Crozier may have gotten in trouble is that his four-page memo was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle. The publicity apparently embarrassed Navy brass. Then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly flew to Guam to visit the carrier, where he used an address to the crew to insult and demean Crozier. Modlys rant reflected such bad judgment that he resigned. Notably, when Crozier left the ship he was cheered by his sailors.
A pair of bicyclists ride past closed businesses on Plumas Street in Yuba City on April 27. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

For Natalie Lambert, welcoming diners back into her Yuba City restaurant was an exciting but somewhat conflicting experience.

"You dont know if youre an outlaw or a pioneer at this point," the Lambert House Cafe owner said in a phone interview.

She, like other residents of Northern California's Yuba and Sutter counties, woke up to a host of new possibilities Monday after the local health officer relaxed some regulations that were imposed in response to the coronavirus outbreak  allowing some businesses to reopen.

The move puts the region at odds with Californias 6-week-old stay-at-home order and further exemplifies a growing conflict between local officials who are clamoring to lift restrictions that have hammered their economies and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who continues to preach patience amid the unfolding pandemic.

Yuba-Sutter Health Officer Dr. Phuong Luu acknowledged the contention in announcing her revised order Friday, saying businesses that plan to reopen "need to consult their private legal counsel in regards [to] if theres any differences between" the new local guidelines and the state's, which take precedence.

For Lambert, 34, the relaxation of the guidelines was welcome news. With dine-in service off the table since the state handed down its stay-at-home order in March, she had to revise her hours, lay off staff and press her husband into service as a delivery driver. But the cafe has remained open, and she feels fortunate that clientele support has kept her ledgers largely in the black.

"We just kind of lived on hope and prayer every day with our fingers crossed that we were going to get enough business to power on the lights and the gas for the oven, and we did," she said.

The revised Yuba-Sutter counties' order allows restaurants, retailers, shopping malls, gyms, salons, spas and tattoo parlors to operate once more "as long as appropriate business modifications are made to adhere to social distancing and other tenets of combating COVID-19," according to a statement.

Story continues

Those include regularly washing your hands, staying home when you're sick and wearing a facial covering when social distancing isn't possible, according to Luu.

Many other businesses remain ordered shut even under the revised order, though, including bars and nightclubs that dont serve food, museums, movie theaters, bowling alleys, arcades, live performance venues, places of worship and other mass gathering spaces, schools, community centers, beaches and piers, and summer camps and residence halls.

Marni Sanders, chief executive of the Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce, said the local business community "is thrilled that we are open."

"I can tell you driving around there are lots of businesses open that werent open yesterday, so its a really good sign," she said Monday.

Over the past few weeks, Sanders said there "was a lot of frustration and anxiety" but that the community "is very optimistic and has remained hopeful throughout this whole pandemic situation."

"We want to encourage people to shop and to dine and to get out there into our businesses and get money pumping into our economy, but we also are reminding people to be safe," she said. "And our businesses are being safe as well during this phased reopening."

Among the establishments that took advantage of the revised health order was the Lumberjacks Restaurant in Yuba City, which announced it would welcome diners back with restrictions including "constant sanitation, significantly reduced capacity, limited contact with customers, and more," according to a Facebook post.

"We understand some of you do not feel comfortable returning to dining rooms just yet," the post continued, "which is why we will be continuing our takeout and delivery options the same as we have been for the last few weeks."

A woman who answered the phone at the restaurant Monday declined to comment further.

Pete's Restaurant & Brewhouse, also in Yuba City, planned to reopen its dining area and patio Monday morning.

"We cant wait to have you join us," the restaurant wrote on Facebook. "We have missed you."

In recent weeks, some officials have grown increasingly vocal in lobbying Newsom to relax the stay-at-home order.

That's particularly been the case in California's more rural reaches, where coronavirus activity has been scant or nonexistent.

Modoc County, one of four California counties that have not reported a single case of coronavirus infection, allowed businesses, schools and churches to reopen starting Friday, so long as people stay six feet apart .

The remote Northern California county is home to fewer than 10,000 residents.

While comparatively crowded with their roughly 180,000 combined citizens, neither Yuba County nor Sutter County could be mistaken for the heavily urbanized areas where the coronavirus has hit hard.

In all, 50 coronavirus infections have been confirmed in the Yuba-Sutter region and three people have died. Statewide, there have been more than 54,000 cases and 2,200 deaths.

Newsom, for his part, has acknowledged the perspective of less-populous areas  "We hear you; were paying attention to you; we are engaging many, many of you very directly," he said Friday  and has hinted that significant modifications to the stay-at-home order could be right around the corner.

Luu said the revised order was based on an "evidence-based, grounded-in-science approach." She also issued another order Friday requiring the Yuba-Sutter counties' residents to wear face coverings in public when they aren't able to stay six feet away from people from other households.

"The evidence has shown us that nearly 20% of persons who are infectious with COVID-19 remain asymptomatic  meaning they dont even know that they have the infection and they could unwittingly give it to another person," she said. "So, my facial covering protects you, your facial covering protects me."

She also said vulnerable residents, such as seniors or those with underlying medical conditions, "should continue to stay at home as much as possible."

Times staff writers Rong-Gong Lin II, Anita Chabria, John Myers, Phil Willon and David Lauter contributed to this report.
Conservation of biodiversity, which plays an important role in sustainable development, is one of the central goals of the International Convention on Biological Diversity.

Natural resources, biodiversity, species composition and gene diversity are in decline. IUCN reports that in the past 25 years, the species extinction rate reached 10 percent.

Red shanked douc in Da Nang





According to the International Fund for Nature, the population of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish dropped by 60 percent between 1970 and 2014.



The report of an intergovernmental policy-science forum on biodiversity and ecosystem shows that in this century, at least 1 million species on earth will disappear if people do not take prompt action. This is an alarming figure because it accounts for one-eighth of known species on earth.



The IUCNs Red List also shows that the percentage of threatened species ranges from 7 to 63 percent.



In Vietnam, the efforts are still not enough to reverse the trend of species decline. The IUCNs Red List updated in July 2019 shows the number of threatened species is 700. After the species stock-taking in 2016, 1,211 species were added to the updated red book, including 600 plant and fungi species and 611 animal species, a significant increase compared to the 2007 assessment.

Natural resources, biodiversity, species composition and gene diversity are in decline. IUCN reports that in the past 25 years, the species extinction rate reached 10 percent.

Hoang Thi Thanh Nhan, deputy director of the Department of Nature Conservation and Biodiversity, said Vietnam has joined many regional and international initiatives and commitments, such as ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network; London Declaration and Kasane Statement on combating wildlife trade; Statement of the East Asia Summit and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum Summit on strengthening cooperation efforts to combat illegal trafficking and reduce demand for wildlife.



Vietnam has also been accelerating bilateral and multilateral cooperation with other countries in the field. It signed an MoU with South Africa on preventing rhino horn trade; Vietnam-US Joint Declaration, which considers wildlife-related crime a serious crime; and TPCPP trade agreement which says member countries should fully implement the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and take appropriate measures to combat illegal wildlife trade.



The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) is implementing a project on strengthening partnerships to protect globally endangered species in Vietnam in the 2019-2022 period.



Vietnam has also shown determination to ease wildlife trafficking by amending the law, stipulating higher punishments on violators.



The Civil Code amended in 2018 stipulates that the activities of trading, advertising and storing wildlife and wildlife products could be subject to 15-year imprisonment and fine of VND2 billion.



According to the Vietnam Wildlife Conservation Association, from January 2013 - December 2017, Vietnam discovered 1,504 violations and 1,461 violators, and tried 432 defendants in criminal cases related to wildlife.

Thien Nhien

Legal loopholes hinder Vietnams efforts in wildlife protection Despite strengthened law enforcement to protect wildlife, legal loopholes are hindering Vietnams efforts, activists have said.
Publisheror just Printer? Nonfiction Christian Publishing in the Digital Age

by John G. Stackhouse, Jr.

AUTHOR BIO: John Stackhouse (Ph.D., Chicago) holds the Samuel J. Mikolaski Chair of Religious Studies at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. He has published 10 books, co-authored four more, and edited four books. His publishers include Oxford University Press, the University of Toronto Press, Baker Academic, Zondervan, and InterVarsity Press. His latest book, Can I Believe? Christianity for the Hesitant, is due out in October from OUP.

As the shadows lengthen in my career, I field more and more inquiries from younger colleagues about the vagaries of publishing. For those who have a dissertation or other narrowly focused monograph to publish, there is certain advice I can give that hasnt changed much over my thirty-plus years in the guild. But for those who have aspirations for their book beyond selling several hundred copies aimed at libraries and fellow specialists, what do I say in 2020?

I reached out to several friends in the ranks of successful publishers. What follows is a set of emails and phone calls transformed into an ersatz conversation. Content has been edited for clarity and brevity. Each participant has had opportunity to vet his contribution before publication, but none of them purport to speak here officially for their respective houses, whose names are appended for identification purposes only.

Stan Gundry is Senior Vice President and Publisher for the Zondervan Academic and Zondervan Reflective imprints.

Jim Kinney is Executive Vice President of Academic Publishing at Baker Publishing Group.

Michael (Mickey) Maudlin was an editor at InterVarsity Press and Christianity Today magazine. He is Executive Editor and Senior Vice-President at HarperOne.

Niko Pfund was Director and Editor-in-Chief of New York University Press and is now President and Academic Publisher at Oxford University Press, USA.

Michael Thomson worked for over 20 years at Eerdmans and is now Acquisitions and Development Editor at Wipf & Stock.

* * * * *

John Stackhouse (JS): Why should authors nowadays bother paying so much for what increasingly looks like mere printing? By paying, I dont mean coming up with a subvention for a book aimed at a tiny audience. I appreciate that that might be necessary to get out a good, narrowly targeted book to a necessarily small audience at an affordable price.

I mean taking such a small percentage (10-15%) of revenue from book sales.

It used to be, and not so long ago, that authors were expected to write a good book. The publisher and, in the appropriate genres, agent, would take it from there. A launch. Maybe a tour. Publishers guided, edited, marketed, designedas well as printed.

More recently, however, authors were expected to help market the book by providing magazines with some excerpts or articles based on the book. And as magazines have faded, now authors are expected to blog and tweet and Facebook and Gram.

Even that can be understood as part of the new marketing demands among new media. But the word on the street is that authors are actually expected to provide customers. In trade publishing, one hears the magic number of 10,000 (10k) followers as one's platform. And that seems to some of us like publishers are saying, Bring us a ready-made audience."

But when publishers sell most of such books through Amazon anyhow, how important is distribution anymore? Besides basic copyediting, art, and printingwhich good vanity presses offerwhy are we authors paying so much to publishers?

Have publishers basically conceded that they dont know how to market books? Did they ever?

And is the dream of landing a contract with a big publishing house as an unknown author simply, indeed, a delusion?

Mickey Maudlin (HarperOne): Thanks for once more living up to your reputation for being provocativewhich, as you know, I enjoy.

For your first question, Why pay so much . . ., I dont think that applies to most publishersat least commercial ones. We tend to pay authors, not charge them.

Still, whenever there is an agreement between author and publisher, it is merely a question of expected return on investment for both parties. Either the author thinks there is a potential for gain or not. So if an author concludes that self-publishing has a better return for them, then I can see why that might be their choice, even if it costs them something. I think self-publishing has added an important dynamic to publishing, allowing new authors to come to the attention of traditional publishers as well as pushing publishers to make sure they really are adding value to their projects.

Jim Kinney (Baker): Working with a top-notch general contractor, attending a premier university, or publishing with a traditional publisher involves a bundle of services. Theirs are not the only ways to freshen a kitchen, get an education, or publish a book. They offer particular approaches to those tasks. And the three institutions will only stay in business for the long haul if their particular bundles of services work for enough people year after year.

Michael Thomson (Wipf & Stock): Like many other publishers, at Wipf & Stock we have multiple imprints to help authors in different situations.

For narrowly focused researchsuch as dissertations, Festschriften, conference proceedings, and the likewe have the Pickwick imprint, and the practices of some university presses and higher-end academic presses. Our fees for such do not at all cover the total cost of getting the book ready for publicationjust enough to keep the book cheap and allow us to break even somewhere around 300 copies. And if the books sell better than that, of course, as many do, both sides recoup their investment and then some.

Wipf & Stock is our trade imprint, which includes new authors and some that may not sell a lot. There is a range, but acceptance to the imprint is not based solely on the final sales numbers. Some of these are books whose authors dont yet have a big platform, and some of these do require fees as well to keep the purchase price within range of the target audience.

Cascade works like a typical academic and trade house, such as IVP or Baker. Here we spend time judging proposals, seeking authors, and developing projects and series. The imprint is careful to screen out what we doubt is the best of what is publishable in our field. Here, no fees are levied as we have an expectation the books in Cascade will, by and large, be successful projects.

Niko Pfund (OUP): OUP is a full-spectrum university press, by which I mean that we publish very specialized scholarship likely to be of interest primarily to a subset of scholars within a discipline on the one hand, and on the other we publish a significant list of general-interest titles, such as Jeffrey Stewarts biography of Alain Locke, The New Negro, which won both the Pulitzer Prize in Biography and the National Book Award in 2018. This gives me a particular vantage point from which to address most, if not all, of your concerns.

Authors in fact get a lot from a typical publishing house. Francine OSullivan over at Edward Elgar provides an extensive list of such services, which covers the waterfront well in addresses your printing/publishing binary.

For another perspective on the difference between printing and publishing, especially serious non-fiction publishing, have a look at Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyns recent tweet about the influx of books touting COVID-19-related cures.

Maudlin (HarperOne): Self-publishing involves a lot of headaches and costs: printing, designing, writing marketing copy, typesetting, shipping, selling, accepting returns, etc. Even successful authors often accept making less money per sale just to offload these duties.

Stan Gundry (Zondervan): If I were free to share the prepress costs with you as well as the sales and marketing costs, it would be obvious that publishing is not mere printing. And these costs are spread across both print and digital formats of books. But the costs of ppb (paper, printing, and binding) have also gone up in the last 2 or 3 years, especially the cost of paper. Are you aware that there have been paper shortages due to the fact that many paper mills shifted from producing paper to producing cardboard boxes because of the demand for boxes to meet Amazon shipping needs?
Imperial Valley News Center

President Donald J. Trump Remains Committed to Providing Critical Relief for American Small Businesses, Workers, and Healthcare Providers

Washington, DC - "Throughout this crisis, my Administration has taken unprecedented actions to rush economic relief to our citizens." ~ President Donald J. Trump

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR AMERICANS: President Donald J. Trump is signing new legislation to further assist American small businesses, workers, and healthcare providers.

President Trump is signing into law additional funding to support Americans impacted by the coronavirus.

This legislation provides $320 billion in additional funding for the incredibly successful Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which has already aided countless small businesses and millions of American workers. With this new round of funding, President Trump will have signed into law more than $670 billion for the program.

The bill also appropriates $60 billion more for the Small Business Administrations (SBA) Disaster Loan Program.

To aid our coronavirus response efforts, $75 billion in funding will be provided to hospitals and healthcare providers and $25 billion will support our Nations historic testing efforts, including support for State, local, and tribal governments.

PROTECTING JOBS AND SMALL BUSINESSES: The Presidents Paycheck Protection Program is providing critical relief for our small businesses and supporting millions of American workers.

The PPP has already experienced unprecedented success in protecting American jobs and small businesses, including Americas great nonprofit and faith-based organizations.

During its initial run, the SBA and Department of the Treasury were able to process more than 14 years worth of loans in less than 14 days.

All told, PPP was able to provide payroll assistance to more than 1.6 million small businesses in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and each territory.

Businesses that have accessed the program hail from a wide variety of industries, including retail, food and hospitality services, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and more.

Nearly 5,000 lenders participated in the program, including many community banks and credit unions.

With this new round of funding, additional small businesses across the Nation will be able to access this vital program.

UNPRECEDENTED RESPONSE: Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump has provided unprecedented relief to American families, workers, and businesses.
They saved money on limo and tux rentals, and maintaining distance on the dance floor took on a different meaning.

But a "virtual prom" hosted Saturday on Instagram Live gave more than 500 high school seniors a chance to celebrate the class of 2020 and participate in a rite of passage, albeit remotely.

The virtual WE ARE WELL PROM featured music and dancing, along with a digital red carpet complete with celebrity appearances from stars such as Netflix's Logan Allen and actor Max Jenkins; the event was DJed by DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Participants signed into Instagram and streamed the event on their phones and computers. Some groups of friends attended "together" via Zoom, but other than the hosts, brother and sister Hannah and Charlie Lucas, they participated individually.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Kiara Durbin, a senior at Twinsburg High School in Twinsburg, Ohio, was thankful that the event provided a "sense of normalcy" for students like her whose final year of high school was affected by school closures and quarantines because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The prom "gave teens an opportunity to pull themselves out of the gloom, put on some red lipstick and heels and dance the night away," Durbin said.

Alexis Lee, a senior at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, New Jersey, was grateful for the opportunity to wear her prom dress, which she bought in January, and take pre-prom photos with her family.

Image: Alexis Lee (Alexis Lee)

"I was really upset about losing prom," Lee told NBC News. "Being able to be given that back meant a lot to me," she added.

She encouraged some of her friends to attend, as well, and they set up a Zoom meeting so they could dance and talk to one another during the prom.

Regan Rudman, a senior at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, attended the virtual prom in a red dress complete with silver accents. She said she wanted her makeup to highlight her outfit.

Story continues

"I wanted my look to be classic and beautiful, and I wanted to feel good about myself, because in these times it's hard to feel good about yourself, and I did," she said. "I felt like a queen."

Abby McBee, a senior who is home-schooled in Rockford, Illinois, said: "I felt as if I was there. It was not even like I was not physically there. There was great music, and the whole environment was so encouraging."

Hannah Lucas, 18, a senior at South Forsyth High School in Forsyth County, Georgia, and her brother Charlie, 15, a freshman, previously founded the "notOK App" for mental health support, which offers young people suffering with mental health issues a way to reach out if they are "not OK."

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

The two realized that many young people were starting to feel frustrated and upset because of the COVID-19 outbreak, so they came up with the idea to hold the WE ARE WELL PROM to help seniors feel less alone.

The siblings reached out to celebrities on social media and were eventually contacted by Ivy McGregor, the CEO of IvyINK and Beyonce's director of social responsibility, who offered to help.

They also worked with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who helped with fundraising, so the two were able to give away more than $40,000 in cash grants that students could use toward tuition, books, laptops, internet access, therapy or other basics.

IMAGE: 'Virtual prom' accessories (Courtesy Alexis Lee)

"The money was being used for a really good cause. Kids will be able to afford college now, so I'm really happy about that," Hannah Lucas said.

One of the attendees, Eboni Bugg, a senior at Passaic County Technical Institute in Wayne, New Jersey, got one of the prom court grants.

"Through it all, they kept the main message of what you can do and how important it is to have positive mental health, especially during these difficult times," she said.

Other companies, such as Sebastian Professional and Pandora Jewelry, contributed by offering complementary virtual hair tutorials, as well as jewelry packages complete with earrings, rings and bracelets.

"I'm so incredibly thankful and grateful for that, having so many people support us during this time, so many big companies. I'm grateful," Hannah Lucas said.

"Just being able to help those teenagers, it's a dream come true. I am still on a high," she said.
Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release

SubCategory Select Sub-Category
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Victoria Waldersee (Reuters) Lisbon, Portugal  Mon, May 4, 2020 07:02 625 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5ad103 2 World Portugal,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,COVID-19-quarantine,pandemic,reopening Free

Portugal downgraded its state of emergency to a category of "calamity" on Sunday, as spring sunshine drew people outdoors and the rate of new coronavirus cases reached its lowest since the beginning of the outbreak.

"It's like being freed from prison," enthused Rodrigo Garcia, 40, on a walk to Lisbon's River Tagus with his wife, two sons and dog. "We've gone out here and there, but with the end of the state of emergency we feel much freer."

After a six-week state of emergency when people were urged to stay indoors except for brief exercise, and most non-essential services were shut, a three-phase reopening plan begins from Monday..

But the temptation of 30 degree Celsius temperatures and Mother's Day had some taking to beaches and parks before then with newfound confidence. On Lisbon's waterfront, runners and cyclists hopped out of each other's way on Sunday morning.

Beaches remain closed other than for water sports and exercise, but under the lesser state of calamity spending time in parks is no longer strictly forbidden.

Police watching

Still, police officers were out in force on Sunday urging people not to linger and to maintain social distancing.

"A state of calamity still means you should stay home as much as you can," officer Sofia Gordinho told Reuters, between speaking to groups picnicking in Lisbon's Campo Martires da Patria park about the new measures.

"If people want to sit in the sun for a bit, that's okay, but we are asking them to move on so others can come without it getting crowded."

Spared the huge tolls in neighboring Spain and some other Western European nations, Portugal reported 25,282 cases of the new coronavirus on Sunday, just 0.4% more than the day before, and 1,043 deaths - in a population of 10 million people.

A new fund reimbursing microbusinesses for 80% of up to 5,000 euros ($5,490) of expenses on personal protective equipment and cleaning costs would be made available from May 11, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said on Sunday.

Vending machines selling masks, hand gel and gloves were installed in Lisbon and Porto subways, which will reopen most lines on Monday but at two thirds capacity.

As small neighborhood shops open, masks will be obligatory in enclosed public spaces like supermarkets and on public transport from Monday onwards, with rule-breakers incurring fines of up to 350 euros.
Azerbaijans AzEcoConsulting company implemented more than 20 projects upon local entrepreneurs orders in 2019, Director of the company Ilkin Garayev told local media.

The orders on joint projects are often obtained from foreign companies, director of the company added.

"For example, we have recently received an order to explore the Azerbaijani market of milk and dairy products from a company headquartered in Australia and successfully fulfilled it, Garayev added. There are also interesting projects which are funded by such well-known international institutions as the World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and others."

The idea of creating a consulting company 23 years ago was taken from the foreign experience, director of the company said. AzEcoConsulting learns from the experience of developed countries in this sphere and tries to find interesting ideas for implementation in Azerbaijan.

"The large-scale economic reforms have been recently carried out in our country, Garayev said. The special attention is paid to the development of entrepreneurship. We previously received most of the orders on market research from foreign companies. Presently, we also obtain the orders from the local companies."

Most of the orders relate to the development of business plans and investment projects, as well as market research recently, director of the company said.

During the period of activity, we have developed hundreds of projects for the Entrepreneurship Development Fund, the Agrarian Credit and Development Agency and other structures, director of the company said. A lot of entrepreneurs with our business plans received soft loans from these and other organizations. We also have the projects that have been successfully applied in various countries, including Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and others."

The market has greatly changed during the company's activity, Garayev said. To be competitive, we constantly strive to apply new business technologies in our work and also use the innovative ideas, along with traditional methods of market promotion.

"AzEcoConsulting has recently become a partner in one of Austria's leading consulting companies implementing Quantrix special financial modeling program, director of the company said. This program is very popular in the world and many well-known companies use it in their business."
Woman (30s) is due to appear in court this morning after threatening staff with a pair of scissors at a shop in Dublin city yesterday.

She entered the retailer at Thomas Street in Dublin 8 at around 7.15pm yesterday and threatened staff with the scissors.

She then took the contents of the till and fled the scene.

Patrolling gardai in the area arrested the woman and she was taken to Kilmainham Garda Station, where she was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984.

"The woman has since been charged in relation to this incident and is due to appear before the Criminal Courts of Justice, Court 4, today at approximately 10:30am," said a garda spokesperson.
GREENWICH  The Board of Estimate and Taxations work on the embattled proposed municipal budget for 2020-21 is not quite done.

The BET will hold a special meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday to reconsider the budget plan, which it approved last week after a lengthy and at times contentious meeting.

However, whether the budget proposal will fundamentally change is unclear.

BET Democrats requested the special meeting last Friday. On Monday, BET Chair Michael Mason, a Republican, said he was honoring their request, which he must do by charter. If four BET members request a meeting, it must be held, he said.

I had no choice by charter but to honor their request, Mason said. They could do this every day if they want, I guess. We will listen to their motion.

There are six members in the BETs Democratic caucus. The BET Republicans hold the other six seats on the 12-member board, but the GOP also has the crucial tie-breaking vote because the party won the most total votes for he BET in last years municipal election.

The meeting comes amid continued community outcry against the BETs decision to reduce the budget plan, which its Budget Committee had endorsed in early March, before the coronavirus outbreak was so widespread.

At its meeting last week, the BET approved a budget proposal of $448 million, which was reduced from the $459 million moved forward by the Budget Committee.

The budget changes included pushing back $24 million in capital projects and reducing town departments operating budgets to the levels in the current 2019-20 fiscal year budget. The across-the-board cuts were made in response to the economic crisis created by the pandemic.

That meant a reduction of more than $3 million in the Board of Educations budget plan, which outraged many parents and sparked a protest last week at Town Hall, huge volumes of emails and phone calls as well as social media posts and petitions urging the BET to reconsider its position.

The decision to reduce the school budget also led to a divisive debate on the BET. Ultimately, the budget was approved by a 7-6 vote, with Mason using his tie-breaking vote. BET Democrats had called for a $700,000 cut to the school budget instead.

Last week, Mason said he had nothing indicating that any BET member would change their vote on the budget decisions.

BET member Leslie Moriarty, head of the Democratic caucus, did not offer any expectations for Tuesdays meeting.

We have heard from hundreds and hundreds of residents with major concerns about the impacts of reductions to the proposed school budget, Moriarty said. We requested the scheduling of a BET special meeting to try and achieve a better outcome for the students.

In a memo circulated before the BET held its budget vote, Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones said a $3 million cut could force sweeping impacts on staffing and programs and that an estimated 30 teachers, support staff and administrative positions would need to be eliminated.

But BET Republicans have said they believe options can be found that would have no classroom impact.

Last Thursday, Board of Education Chair Peter Bernstein and other school board members urged the BET to work with them to find places to apply those cuts. It will ultimately be up to the school districts administrators to make the decisions.

While I am cautiously optimistic to hear what they discuss at the special meeting, the Board of Education and superintendent will continue to work collaboratively with the BET to find an appropriate compromise that does not jeopardize the education of our students, Bernstein said on Monday.

Parkway School parent Sara Savov said she hopes that Tuesdays meeting results in a compromise. Ideally, the BET would restore the $3 million increase and add the $1.5 million projected to fill the hole project in special education budget overages.

But if BET members go through the budget and find ways to lessen the blow to schools, the group she and some friends started  now called Support Greenwich Schools  would be happy, she said.

Whatever happens tomorrow at 3 p.m., youre still going to have feedback, she said.

Already, Support Greenwich Schools has circulated a petition asking the BET to fund the schools. It had about 2,600 signatures as of 6 p.m. Monday.

The learning curve to understanding Greenwichs budget process over the last two weeks has been steep for Savov and other parents.

Two weeks ago, Savov started the Support Greenwich Schools Facebook group, where people are asking questions and getting a crash course in town governance, she said.

Members are Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters, but they leave their politics at the door and focus on funding their kids education and getting the BET back to the table, she said.

Nobody is there to vilify anyone or shout party lines, she said. Its abou t how can we get funding?

The Tuesday meeting comes as the BET faces a deadline of the end of the day Tuesday to send a finalized budget sent to the Representative Town Meeting. Tuesdays BET meeting can be watched via Zoom with a link available at www.greenwichct.gov/virtualBET.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
Last year, a consortium led by Mirae announced that it would buy the hotels across several US cities, such as New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, from Anbang, which was getting rid of numerous overseas assets after it was taken over by the Chinese government in 2018. Anbang has since been reformed as Dajia Insurance Group.

The report cited a statement from Mirae, which said Anbang did not correct several breaches of obligations stated in the September contract, leading to the termination of the deal.

Among other things, Anbang had failed to timely disclose and discharge various material encumbrances and liabilities impairing the hotels and failed to continue the operation of the hotels in accordance with contractual requirements, Mirae Asset said.

Anbang has yet to respond to Reuters request for comment, the report said.

Meanwhile, a source knowledgeable on the deal and close to Dajia, denied that Anbang did not breach any contract obligations. Dajia petitioned a US court last week to prevent Mirae from terminating the transaction.
With a record number of 427 new cases reported in a day, the total count of corona cases in Delhi reached 4,549 on Sunday, the Health Department said.

With no deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the toll remained at 64, it said.

At least 106 patients have recovered on Sunday, according to the Delhi Health Bulletin.

"At least 1,362 patients have recovered from coronavirus so far in Delhi while 3,123 cases are active," the Health Department said.

Among the 64 who died, 55 had other serious diseases.

This is so far the highest single day jump in the cases reported. On Saturday, 384 cases were reported.
Although Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire counties remain among the proportionately least affected regions in the state for contracting COVID-19, recent data shows the count has increased in Hampshire County.

Last week, Amherst had 33 confirmed cases, but as of Monday it had risen to 57.

Prior to the state releasing weekly COVID-19 counts each Wednesday afternoon, the town had already been posting, on a daily basis, this data and continues to do so. The Amherst Health Department does not release death counts.

Data from the Hampshire County cities of Northampton and Easthampton  via the state department of public health, also indicate a case spike.

Easthampton currently has 50 cases, compared to 37 the previous week, while Northamptons number went from 119 cases to 167.

The cities have declined to post these counts on their municipal websites, citing privacy concerns, and do not post death counts.

While some communities do not post the number COVID-19 cases that resulted in death, others do, such as Westfield, in Hampden County  much harder hit than the other three Western Massachusetts counties -- that currently total 38 deaths as of April 29. The city posts the number of positive cases daily; and the deaths once a week.

The tri-town Quabbin Health District also posts deaths counts each week.

In the Hampshire County town of Belchertown, there have been four deaths as of Friday, two in Ware, and none in Pelham.

Belchertowns COVID-19 case count of 61, reported on Friday by the health district, is 53 percent more than the previous week, according to state data.

In Ware, six new cases were reported bringing the total to 16.

Granby, which reported 22 cases as of Thursday, has 69 percent more cases than the 13 the state DPH reported the previous week.

South Hadley cases increase by five, to 51 as of April 29, or 11 percent. The town had been providing their community COVID-19 data on the website prior to the DPH doing so.

In Hadley, the week-to-week increase was 59 percent, from 17 to 27 cases, according to the DPH data. The towns health department had not been disclosing the count data, saying that decision was based on state guidelines at the time.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-03 17:59:52|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

People queue up to have a test for COVID-19 at a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on May 3, 2020. Bangladesh reported 665 new COVID-19 cases Sunday, the biggest daily jump in new cases since March 8 when confirmed cases were first reported in the country. The total number of positive cases in Bangladesh is 9,455 and death toll stands currently at 177. (Str/Xinhua)

DHAKA, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh reported 665 new COVID-19 cases Sunday, the biggest daily jump in new cases since March 8 when confirmed cases were first reported in the country.

A senior health ministry official, Professor Nasima Sultana, said during a briefing on Sunday afternoon that 665 new COVID-19 positive cases and two deaths were reported in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh.

"The total number of positive cases is 9,455 and death toll stands currently at 177," she added.

According to the official, 5,368 samples were tested in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh. Enditem
The Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, Ogun, says it will begin a three-day warning strike on Monday over non-implementation of its demands by the state government.

The doctors grievances were contained in a letter written to Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abeokuta.

The letter jointly signed by the ARD OOUTH President and the General Secretary, Mutiu Popoola and Tope Osundara respectively, stated that the association decided to down tools because of the noncommittal response to several letters written to the government on the matter.

Some of the doctors demands included non-implementation of the new minimum wage, hazard allowance, inappropriate remuneration, entry-level and absence of life insurance policy for its members.

According to the doctors, the alleged refusal of the state government to appropriately attend to previous warning letters has shown that the government was less concerned about their plight.

They described the purported increase in hazard allowance from N5,000 to N15,000 as a charade by the government.

The aggrieved doctors, however, said their members working at the COVID-19 Isolation Centre would be exempted from the strike action.

We were taken aback by the arbitrary change in only hazard allowance to be given as COVID-19 Special Hazard Allowance to all health workers.

The 200 per cent increase in hazard allowance is just an increase from N5000 to N15,000 for just the month of April.

We are in quandary about how the government will put up a charade without giving attention to what our concerns and the real issues are.

It is also unsettling to know that our members are without a life insurance or a tax rebate as seen with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Federal Government and Health Professional Associations and Unions, the letter stated in part. (NAN)
Syracuse, N.Y.  Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon said Monday the county will have no problem meeting the states 14,000-tests-a-month mandate to restart the economy on May 15.

RELATED: See which of Cuomos reopening requirements Central NY has met

The testing was cited by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as the biggest rub to Central New York reopening on the states earliest date. The economic restart will be done in four phases, with construction, manufacturing and some retail opening first. Which specific businesses are in Phase One is still being debated, McMahon indicated.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday released a phased plan to reopen businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Phase One wont be dine-in restaurants. Its still not clear when they will reopen, though theyll likely go as a group, McMahon said. Hes still pressing for hair and nail salons going early, noting those services can be done by appointment at stations eight feet apart.

There will likely be at least two weeks between Phase One and Phase Two. It could be longer if the virus surges.

When it comes to hair salons, I pray thats not Phase Three, McMahon said.

But first things first.

Before the debate over who restarts when, a region needs to meet state readiness standards to reopen at all. The Central New York region, comprised of Onondaga, Cayuga, Madison, Oswego and Cortland counties, scored satisfactorily on five of seven requirements.

A slide from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's press conference shows which reopening benchmarks regions are meeting.Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office

Testing was one of the shortfalls, according to the governors analysis. The last one, getting enough investigators to trace new infections, is still ramping up and appears to be on track locally.

RELATED: Hospitalizations jump 25% overnight as infections keep going up; 37th death

But Onondaga County has done fewer than 14,000 tests in the first seven weeks of this pandemic. How can we do that many in a month?

McMahon noted that weve been doing 500 tests a day  mostly proactively in senior living facilities  over the past few days. Doing that every day for a month would easily meet the governors requirement, he said. Doing 14,000 tests a month would be an average of 466 tests a day.

The only rub would be if the state requires that mandate in the month leading up to May 15: wed never reach that number in time, McMahon said, because weve only recently started doing proactive testing.

Thats especially true in the Central New York region outside Onondaga County: the surrounding counties all have to meet the metrics in their counties, too.

But if the testing is a requirement looking forward from May 15, that wont be a problem, McMahon said. All five counties will be able to ramp up testing before May 15, he vowed.

The rule is 30 tests a month per 1,000 residents. In Onondaga County, thats 14,000 tests a month. In Oswego, thats 3,500 tests. In Madison, thats 2,130. In Cayuga, 2,300. In Cortland, 1,425.

The state wants to grade success on a rolling seven-day average. And thats the real question: when does that average start?

Regardless, reaching that goal over the long haul will take a massive amount of proactive testing among the population at large, assuming there is no catastrophic outbreak in the coming days leading to unprecedented numbers of people showing symptoms.

Its believed the majority of people infected with coronavirus exhibit only mild symptoms or none whatsoever. However, those people can still spread the virus to others. And some percentage of those people will become very sick as a result.

McMahon braced the community for large numbers of infections going forward. The more you test, the more infections youll find, he said.

We have new cases everyday, as long as were testing the way were testing, he said.

When we reopen the economy, were going to see a spike in cases, McMahon warned. The question is whether we can contain those cases in real-time and handle the numbers who need to be hospitalized.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Coronavirus update: See which of Cuomos reopening requirements Central NY has met

What businesses might reopen this month amid coronavirus in NY? McMahon offers clues about restart

Syracuse family was poised for first graduate, a better neighborhood, a new career. Then coronavirus hit

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070.
BEIRUT - The leader of Lebanons Hezbollah threw his support Monday behind the government in seeking financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund but warned that the terms should be negotiated carefully.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallahs comments came four days after the countrys prime minister said Lebanon will seek a rescue deal from the IMF to help the nation find a way out of a crippling financial crisis.

Hezbollah has said that any IMF assistance should not infringe on Lebanons sovereignty or put in place policies harming the countrys poor. Opponents of the militant group say Hezbollah is more worried about protecting its political clout.

We are not against Lebanon requesting assistance from any side in the world, Nasrallah said in a one-hour televised speech adding that what is not acceptable is that we go hand over our necks to the International Monetary Fund or any other organization.

He added that the conditions of any IMF help should be dealt with great responsibility and strict caution.

The Lebanese governments decision to ask for assistance from the IMF came after the local currency crashed in recent weeks losing more than half its value and unemployment reached levels unseen in decades.

Hezbollahs support is widely seen as key for the current Cabinet.

Nasrallah also blasted Germany for last weeks raids by police of five sites linked to Hezbollah. German authorities announced that they were banning activities by the groups political wing there.

Nasrallah said his group has no organizational presence in Germany or any other European country, adding that the German move aims to please the militant groups archenemies Israel and the United States.

Those people have no links to Hezbollah, he said about those at the sites raided by German police. He added that any intelligence agency that has proof that these people are linked to Hezbollah should come forward with it.
WASHINGTON  As the country copes with the coronavirus pandemic, millions of Americans are following social distancing guidelines from the White House coronavirus task force to slow the spread of the infection: staying 6 feet away from other people, avoiding large gatherings and wearing masks or cloth face coverings.

But inside the White House, many of these rules are not being observed. There are regularly large events with unmasked attendees in close quarters  including inside the Oval Office, where some people have been allowed to enter without wearing masks or taking tests for the virus.

Asked about the steps being taken to guard against the spread of the virus, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said, The Presidents physician and White House Operations have been working closely to ensure every precaution is taken to keep the president, first family and the entire White House complex safe and healthy at all times.

Those in close proximity to the president and vice president are being tested for COVID-19. Temperature checks are occurring for all those entering the complex as well as an additional temperature check for those in close proximity to the president and vice president, Deere said.

President Trump prepares to sign the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act in the Oval Office on April 24. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

Temperature checks are indeed being conducted at multiple points in the White House complex. And some people who come close to the president have been given rapid coronavirus tests. Last week the governors of Florida and New Jersey came to the White House and met with President Trump in the Oval Office. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he was tested before the meeting. And a source who came with one of the visiting governors said staffers from the state delegation were also tested. While this testing regimen has been described as a cocoon of safety, there are clear holes in the system.

Not everyone who goes inside the Oval Office, the presidents inner sanctum and one of the most secure spaces in the West Wing, is being tested. For both governors visits, a pack of pool reporters and cameramen were brought in. Though their temperatures were rechecked before they entered Trumps office, the press pool, which stood feet away from the president, the governors and staff, were not given tests. And in the crowded confines of Oval Office press scrums, while Trump sits apart from most of the crowds, the 6-foot distancing rule is not observed, with reporters and top officials packed close together.

Story continues

Dr. Kavita Patel is a primary care physician who worked in the administration of President Barack Obama as director of policy for the White Houses Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement. Patel, who is a contributor to Yahoos coverage of COVID-19, said she believes the partial testing for those in the White House complex is not sufficient.

Having worked in the White House, theres a ton of people that come in and out of there, and they touch things, Patel said. So, unless you are literally testing every individual and then following up  even with wiping down those surfaces every night, its not foolproof.

Dr. Kavita Patel. (New America via Flickr)

Patel noted that someone exposed to the virus could test negative because they had been in an early incubation period where the test doesnt pick it up. Overall, she described the protocols at the White House as not adequate enough.

I work in a clinic. Its not safe enough for us in a clinic. Why would we have an even lower standard in the White House, of all places, just given the importance of  obviously the commander in chief, but think of all the other officials, Cabinet members, etc., going in and out. Its an incredible risk, Patel said.

Patel said she sees the White House in the same vein as a hospital where critical medical personnel are working during the pandemic. She argued that the White House should have a similar protocol to the standard set for critical hospitals, including testing for everyone in the complex, universal masking and more accurate infrared scans for temperature checks rather than just thermometers.

Reporters at the White House were tested for the coronavirus on April 9 in response to a suspected case in the press corps. The testing protocol did not continue beyond that. There have been three suspected cases of the coronavirus among members of the press corps who have been to the White House, though two tested negative.

Basic social distancing and face covering guidelines are not being followed by many at the White House. Trump himself regularly appears at briefings and other events unmasked and with other officials standing close by his side. At a press briefing on April 3, the day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its recommendation on face coverings, Trump was asked why he was not wearing a mask.

President Trump, flanked by HHS Secretary Alex Azar, left, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield, at the CDC in Atlanta on March 6. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)

I just dont want to wear one myself. Its a recommendation.  Im feeling good, Trump said, adding, I dont know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute desk  I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens  I dont see it for myself.

While the CDC guidelines are indeed a recommendation without legal force, they are not dependent on whether someone feels sick or not. They specifically note that the virus, which has killed more than 67,000 people in the U.S. so far, can be spread by those who are not exhibiting symptoms. The mask recommendation, staying 6 feet apart and the prohibitions on large gatherings are aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.

This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity  for example, speaking, coughing or sneezing  even if those people are not exhibiting symptoms, the guidelines say.

And Trump isnt the only one who isnt wearing a mask at the White House. Masks are not mandatory in the complex, and on multiple visits last week there were staffers, members of the Secret Service and the press who were not wearing them. Asked about the lack of masks, Deere echoed the presidents characterization of the CDC guidelines as a recommendation.

Per the CDC guidelines, the use of nonmedical face coverings is a voluntary measure. Face coverings are not required, but staff and press are welcome to follow that guidance, Deere said.

Reporters get a sticker from a Secret Service agent once they are cleared to cover the administrations daily coronavirus briefing at the White House after having their temperature checked, March 17. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Deere referred questions about Secret Service agents not wearing masks to that agency. Secret Service spokeswoman Justine Whelan responded to a question about why Secret Service agents and officers are not all wearing masks with a statement saying the agency is working with all of our public safety partners and the White House Medical Unit to ensure the safety and security of both our protected persons and our employees.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether any staffers at the complex have tested positive for the virus. Whelan declined to answer a question about how many members of the Secret Service have been diagnosed.

To protect the privacy of our employees health information and for operational security, the Secret Service is not releasing how many of its employees have tested positive for COVID-19, nor how many of its employees were, or currently are, quarantined, she said.

The White House Correspondents Association, which runs the press pool, has taken steps to minimize exposure to the press corps, including implementing a restricted rotation that allows for extra space in the briefing room and fewer people in the Oval Office. However, the Trump administration has repeatedly invited Chanel Rion, a reporter for the pro-Trump One America News network, to come into the briefing room for events in defiance of the limits the Correspondents Association has attempted to impose.

And access to the White House has even been expanded. Trump shifted away from his coronavirus task force press conferences in the White House briefing room in the past week and held two events in the East Room. Those events included unmasked guests whose seats were spaced. But behind them, reporters and cameramen who are part of the rotation that goes into the Oval Office for events were packed in nearly shoulder to shoulder.

Dr. Anthony Fauci makes remarks as President Trump and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards look on in the Oval Office, April 29. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via Getty Images)

The White Houses lax attitude toward masks and social distancing comes as there has been a stark partisan divide when it comes to coronavirus precautions. Conservative pundits and protesters have balked at the lockdowns in many states and suggested that normal activity must resume to avoid further economic damage. On Capitol Hill, as Congress has implemented revised procedures for safety, a group of Republican members pointedly refused to wear masks. Trump has suggested there is enough testing capacity for Congress to operate safely and has repeatedly admonished Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not reconvening.

There is tremendous CoronaVirus testing capacity in Washington for the Senators returning to Capital Hill on Monday. Likewise the House, which should return but isnt because of Crazy Nancy P., the president tweeted on Saturday.

Patel, the doctor who worked in the Obama administration, said that in addition to the concerns about the physical safety of Trump and other officials, it is important for the White House to model best practices in order to encourage the public to follow suit.

Its actually the symbolic nature of what it is for America. Its clear in our country, were not comfortable wearing masks.  Were not Asia. Its not something we do, she said, adding that at a minimum she would like to see the health professionals who appear with Trump at events wearing masks and maintaining proper distance.

The White Houses casual attitude toward masks also made headlines on April 28 when Vice President Mike Pence visited the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Pence did not wear a mask even though it is clinic policy for everyone in the building to wear one. His staff had been informed of the policy. After his visit, Pence said he did not need to wear a mask.

Vice President Mike Pence visits a patient who survived the coronavirus during a tour of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., April 28. (Jim Mone/AP)

As vice president of the United States Im tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis, and everyone who is around me is tested for the coronavirus, he said.

However, on April 30, when Pence toured a General Motors facility in Indiana, he opted to wear a mask. Yahoo News asked the vice presidents office if he would be wearing masks going forward. An official responded that his decision to wear a mask was due to General Motors policy and indicated it might not be necessary for Pence to wear one in the future.

Vice President Pence respects the GM policy, but the face covering guidelines were intended to prevent asymptotic [sic] spread, the official said in an email. Vice President Pence is continually tested to ensure he is negative and remains healthy.

_____

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:
Whether there is life elsewhere in the universe is a question people have pondered for millennia; and within the last few decades, great strides have been made in our search for signs of life outside of our solar system.

NASA missions like the space telescope Kepler have helped us document thousands of exoplanets - planets that orbit around other stars. And current NASA missions like Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) are expected to vastly increase the current number of known exoplanets. It is expected that dozens will be Earth-sized rocky planets orbiting in their stars' habitable zones, at distances where water could exist as a liquid on their surfaces. These are promising places to look for life.

This will be accomplished by missions like the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope, which will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope by observing at infrared wavelengths. It is expected to launch in 2021, and will allow scientists to determine if rocky exoplanets have oxygen in their atmospheres. Oxygen in Earth's atmosphere is due to photosynthesis by microbes and plants. To the extent that exoplanets resemble Earth, oxygen in their atmospheres may also be a sign of life.

Not all exoplanets will be Earth-like, though. Some will be, but others will differ from Earth enough that oxygen doesn't necessarily come from life. So with all of these current and future exoplanets to study, how do scientists narrow down the field to those for which oxygen is most indicative of life?

To answer this question, an interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Arizona State University (ASU), has provided a framework, called a "detectability index" which may help prioritize exoplanets that require additional study. The details of this index have recently been published in the Astrophysical Journal of the American Astronomical Society.

"The goal of the index is to provide scientists with a tool to select the very best targets for observation and to maximize the chances of detecting life," says lead author Donald Glaser of ASU's School of Molecular Sciences.

The oxygen detectability index for a planet like Earth is high, meaning that oxygen in Earth's atmosphere is definitely due to life and nothing else. Seeing oxygen means life. A surprising finding by the team is that the detectability index plummets for exoplanets not-too-different from Earth.

Although Earth's surface is largely covered in water, Earth's oceans are only a small percentage (0.025%) of Earth's mass. By comparison, moons in the outer solar system are typically close to 50% water ice.

"It's easy to imagine that in another solar system like ours, an Earth-like planet could be just 0.2% water," says co-author Steven Desch of ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration. "And that would be enough to change the detectability index. Oxygen would not be indicative of life on such planets, even if it were observed. That's because an Earth-like planet that was 0.2% water--about eight times what Earth has--would have no exposed continents or land."

Without land, rain would not weather rock and release important nutrients like phosphorus. Photosynthetic life could not produce oxygen at rates comparable to other non-biological sources.

"The detectability index tells us it's not enough to observe oxygen in an exoplanet's atmosphere. We must also observe oceans and land," says Desch. "That changes how we approach the search for life on exoplanets. It helps us interpret observations we've made of exoplanets. It helps us pick the best target exoplanets to look for life on. And it helps us design the next generation of space telescopes so that we get all the information we need to make a positive identification of life."

Scientists from diverse fields were brought together to create this index. The formation of the team was facilitated by NASA's Nexus for Exoplanetary System Science (NExSS) program, which funds interdisciplinary research to develop strategies for looking for life on exoplanets. Their disciplines include theoretical and observational astrophysics, geophysics, geochemistry, astrobiology, oceanography, and ecology.

"This kind of research needs diverse teams, we can't do it as individual scientists" says co-author Hilairy Hartnett who holds joint appointments at ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration and School of Molecular Sciences.

In addition to lead author Glaser and co-authors Harnett and Desch, the team includes co-authors Cayman Unterborn, Ariel Anbar, Steffen Buessecker, Theresa Fisher, Steven Glaser, Susanne Neuer, Camerian Millsaps, Joseph O'Rourke, Sara Imari Walker, and Mikhail Zolotov who collectively represent ASU's School of Molecular Sciences, School of Earth and Space Exploration, and School of Life Sciences. Additional scientists on the team include researchers from the University of California Riverside, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Porto (Portugal).

It is the hope of this team that this detectability index framework will be employed in the search for life. "The detection of life on a planet outside our solar system would change our entire understanding of our place in the universe," says Glaser. "NASA is deeply invested in searching for life, and it is our hope that this work will be used to maximize the chance of detecting life when we look for it."

###
Delta Government has issued strong warning to residents who will go out without wearing a facemask, threatening that such persons will be quarantined at isolation centres in the State.

The State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Charles Aniagwu, disclosed this while briefing newsmen after a meeting of the Technical Committee for the Prevention of Covid-19 in the state.

According to him, the measure was part of an effort to contain the spread of the dreaded coronavirus pandemic in the State.

He reiterated that the compulsory use of face mask by all individuals appearing in public has commenced across the state, adding that persons seen in public without the mask will be taken straight to the isolation centre, because it will mean that you have the virus and want to infect others.

Advertisement

Anybody saw in a tricycle, `Okada or taxi without face mask will lead to the impounding of the tricycle, okada or taxi, and any business centre that attends to a customer who is not putting on face mask risks being closed permanently.

The Technical Committee for the Prevention of Covid-19 in Delta met this afternoon and the meeting was presided by our Governor, and at the meeting, it was resolved that all health workers involved in the management of Covid-19 will receive their allowances before the end of the week.

Read Also: Lagos To Rollout 3 Million Facemasks As Sanwo-Olu Confirms Community Spread

Also, other support staff involved in the management of Covid-19 in the health sector will also be insured.

He explained that there will be curfew in the state remained between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., stressing that vehicles would not be allowed into the State during the period.

Aniagwu said: We have created more mobile courts for the issue of adjudication for those persons who will not obey the law because as a government, we are committed to applying the preventive approach in tackling Covid-19.

the use of face mask which must be worn properly to cover the mouth and nose must be implemented, and we must also know that there is no alternative to social distancing, regular washing of hands with soap and avoid touching of eyes, mouth, and ears.

We should adopt the mentality that every other person is a potential risk; assume that the other person is a carrier for you not to get close. 
Thousands of workers on their way home were stranded in Madhya Pradesh districts bordering Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, as UP sealed its borders to prevent further movement of stranded workers, throwing into disarray the social distancing norms, according to government officials.

As per police officials about 8,000 labourers, including women and children, gathered at Bijasan village in Barwani district and more than 5,000 at Pitol in Jhabua district since Saturday as they were not allowed to enter Madhya Pradesh. Similarly, thousands of labourers have gathered at Johariya village in Datia district on MP-UP border as Uttar Pradesh closed its borders to disallow movement of people.

Barwani on the MP-Maharastra border is 313 kilometres south west of Bhopal in Nimad region, while Jhabua on MP-Gujarat border is 341 kilometres south west of Bhopal in Malwa region. Datia on MP-UP border is situated 405 kilometres north of Bhopal.

Earlier, Barwani administration sent such labourers in about 200 buses to Uttar Pradesh on Thursday and Friday but they were stuck in Datia as UP had closed its border. This is why the administration in Datia didnt allow further movement of people since then, said an official.

Notably, on Sunday agitated labourers in Barwani pelted stones on police personnel at Bijasan village near Sendhwa on not being allowed to enter Madhya Pradesh resulting in injuries to a police sub-inspector and two constables.

Though at Bijasan the district the administration made arrangements for food for labourers, the increase in the count of labourers with each passing moment has thrown all the arrangements into disarray, said an official.

We had not anticipated that Uttar Pradesh would close its borders. Even otherwise, its not possible to provide basic facilities of stay and food to such a large number of people, that too while ensuring social distancing among them, said the official.

Activist Medha Patkar criticised the governments, both Central and the state, for not taking care of labourers.

People are coming through various modes, some even bare foot, but none is taking care of them, whether its the central government or the state governments of UP, MP, Maharashtra and Gujarat, said Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar.

Vishwadeep Singh Parihar, town inspector of police at Sendhwa, said, There are certain women in the crowd who are pregnant. There are several couples with kids. Hence, the administration has decided to arrange transport for such people to send them to UP border so that they dont have any problem in staying here and could reach their home early whenever UP border is opened for them.

A stranded migrant complained of lack of food and water for them and rued the arbitrary nature of decision making.

Our group reached here on Sunday morning and we want to go to Uttar Pradesh. The officials here say Yogi ji doesnt want us to get into Uttar Pradesh. The authorities are making decisions on their own about the opening and closing of the border. There has been no food and water for us since yesterday. There should be at least prior information when they are going to close or open the border, said Rohit, stranded at Gujarat border, from Faridpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Arvind Kumar from Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh alleged that people who belong to Madhya Pradesh are being allowed to enter.

Collector of Datia district Rohit Singh said, A number of labourers were allowed to get in, but then again the border was closed from the UP side.

Director general of police, Madhya Pradesh Vivek Johri said, We have no problem in allowing people to enter Madhya Pradesh but the states which are allowing people to leave and Uttar Pradesh which has to allow them to enter the state have to take a decision on the issue.
What the papers say- May 4

The nations papers are dominated by Boris Johnsons call for the world to unite behind the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

The Daily Telegraph, The Times and the Metro lead with the PMs rallying cry for global cooperation towards a Covid-19 vaccine, calling it the endeavour of our lives.

The front page of tomorrow's Daily Telegraph: 'Johnson: vaccine is endeavour of our lives' #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/PqSAmr4uTA  The Telegraph (@Telegraph) May 3, 2020

Vaccine is only way to beat virus, PM insists#TomorrowsPapersToday @hendopolis pic.twitter.com/GsFgViPyJ9  The Times Pictures (@TimesPictures) May 3, 2020

Meanwhile, the Daily Express says Mr Johnson is working with a number of countries including Canada, France and Germany to generate 6 billion to halt the pandemic.

EXPRESS: Boris leads 6bn global race for vaccine #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Wv0o5E7EAp  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) May 3, 2020

Not being alive to witness the birth of his son was the PMs biggest fear during his own battle with the virus, according to The Sun.

Tomorrow's front page: Boris Johnson says fear of never seeing his new son gave him strength to beat coronavirus https://t.co/veYyEp4aUm pic.twitter.com/yj8Sk4MyhP  The Sun (@TheSun) May 3, 2020

The Daily Mirror leads with a warning that healthy over-70s may rebel against lockdown rules if they are secluded from the rest of society.

The i says guidelines on return to workplaces have been sent to employers ahead of further measures to get Britain back to work being revealed later this week.

Monday's front page: Britain to get back to work #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/Fkse3hkqoR  i newspaper (@theipaper) May 3, 2020

And The Guardian says there are ongoing talks between technology firms and ministers towards the creation of health passports using coronavirus testing and facial recognition.

Guardian front page, Monday 4 May 2020: Ministers in talks over immunity passports to get UK back to work pic.twitter.com/i4D37q4MZZ  The Guardian (@guardian) May 3, 2020

The Independent reports the NHS contact tracing app will be trialled on the Isle of Wight this week, while the Daily Mail covers a group of Second World War veterans who have been supplied with personal protective equipment to celebrate VE Day together.

INDEPENDENT DIGITAL: NHS app trial starts as No10 plans next phase #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Ao99O0Ept1  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) May 3, 2020

MAIL: Mail force saves VE Day for heroes #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/YgNfRNR1Q8  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) May 3, 2020

Staggered start times and reduced capacity in elevators are among the proposed workplace rules in the PMs plan to ease the lockdown, according to the Financial Times.

Just published: front page of the Financial Times UK edition Monday May 4 https://t.co/kUYMCX1IcZ pic.twitter.com/vb1YnwTm1f  Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) May 3, 2020

And the Daily Star leads with town hall chiefs calling on NHS tribute-style mass clapping sessions to counter the nations nuisance seagulls.
Riots largely fuelled by anger over acquittal of four white police officers who beat black motorist Rodney King: Getty

John Lichfield did not have to go far to discover a page one story.

Dispatched by The Independent from Washington DC to cover the growing violence in Los Angeles sparked by the acquittal of four police officers who had savagely beaten a black motorist, he soon found himself in neighbourhoods seething with anger. Along with a photographer and her boyfriend, Lichfield began driving down streets dotted by petrol stations and shops ablaze.

Several black residents warned him and his colleagues, who were also white, that they were not safe and should turn around.

It was surreal scenes, driving down those big, wide Los Angeles boulevards and avenues, and traffic moving normally and then stopping at traffic lights, he says.

And then you come across a supermarket that was on fire or a petrol station on fire, and people were just driving past. There was a certain amount of looting and rioting going onAs you got further into the neighbourhood, various people sort of wound down their windows next to me and said you shouldnt be here.

On the citys Manchester Boulevard - Lichfield was born in the UK city which is one of the reasons he remembers the location - the journalists were stopped when he heard a knock on the car window right alongside him. There was a young man armed with a gun, pointing the weapon at his head and indicating he should wind down the window.

He wanted us to get out and, you know, there were all sorts of thoughts crossing your head at that moment. But if we got out of the car, there wasn't much chance for us. So I sort of shook my head and refused.

Lichfield, now aged 70 and long based in France where he continues to work as a journalist, says the young man then smashed the window with the heel of the pistol, and in panic he drove off, hitting the car in front but somehow managing to avoid other traffic.

The other cars must have seen what was was going on and they all pulled out of the way and I drove off and he didnt shoot me. He didnt shoot at the car.

Story continues

Lichfield, who had previously written about social justice, civil rights and the African American community in Washington DC and Chicago, likened the anger and outrage he and others witnessed to that on display during the Paris riots of 2005, when disenfranchised and marginalised residents of the outer suburbs took to the streets for three weeks of violence and destruction.

There he reported on young people, mainly of North African descent, setting fire to cars and public buildings.

It was very hit and run, and of groups of kids showing off to each other by attacking targets and so on, he says. That reminded me very much of the LA riots, but with one big difference - there were no guns in Paris.

Lichfield says during the week he spent in Los Angeles working with other Independent journalists, including Phil Reeves, he spoke to countless residents who outlined how the anger had built over years with black residents forced to live in squalor and deprivation. To this day, Los Angeles includes some of the wealthiest and some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the nation.

Over the course of several days of rioting, only ended by the dispatch of the National Guard, at least 63 people were killed. The cost of the damage caused by the violence was estimated at $1bn.

A sort of pressure cooker had to go off at some point. And that was brought about by the by very unfair [acquittal] of the police officers.

Lichfield says he returned to Los Angeles several times though was not able to find the precise location where the gun was pulled on him. He never met the young man carrying the weapon.

In all my long career in journalism that was the first time and and only time I've ever been in a situation like that, where I was threatened by a gun.

Lichfield says he had technically been dispatched to Los Angles by the Independent on Sunday. Yet he realised his first-hand insight into the hopelessness and anger that was fuelling the riots could not be sat on. He filed it for the daily paper which promptly put it on the next days front page under the headline For some reason the boy did not shoot me.

The [Sunday foreign editor] was furious that I did it for the daily, says Lichfield. But you could not sit on something like that for three or four days.
The states are preparing for sweeping tax reform including payroll and stamp duty relief as they attempt to grow their economies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that threatens to leave hundreds of thousands of Australians out of work.

The Victorian Labor government is set to reveal within weeks its vision of tax change with pressure coming from one of the nation's top tax experts to hold a post-coronavirus tax summit that would act as a blueprint to grow the post-pandemic economy.

Victoria would join with NSW in leading the states to find ways to lift economic growth while overhauling a string of taxes critics argue are inefficient and complex.

The federal government and the states have been told by Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe they need to embrace reforms to get the economy growing fast enough to help drive down an unemployment rate expected to reach 10 per cent by June.

On Monday, the ANZ's closely watched measure of job advertisements showed a record 53 per cent collapse in ads through April. The previous record one-month drop was 11 per cent fall recorded in January 2009.
In 1756, the Rev. Francis Alison, a prominent minister from Pennsylvania, urged people in the colonies of all religious persuasions to join together to help win the French and Indian War. In making a point about conscientious objectors, Alison argued that [a]ll  should have a free use of their religion, but so as not on that score to burden or oppress others. Alisons understanding of religious liberty would be reflected in the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, which freed conscientious objectors from having to fight but required them to pay for a substitute.

Advertisement

The story of how conscientious objector laws have safeguarded religious liberty, while also protecting the rights of otherslaid out in a brief filed by prominent military historiansshould be front and center on Wednesday when the Supreme Court hears Little Sisters v. Pennsylvania and Trump v. Pennsylvania. In those cases, a religiously affiliated employer known as the Little Sisters is urging the Supreme Court to bless the Trump administrations decision to give employers an unconditional religious exemption from the contraceptive coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act and declare the ACAs religious accommodation unlawful.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

In 2014, a bitterly divided Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores held that closely held corporations, whose owners had a religious objection to providing contraceptive coverage, were entitled to avail themselves of the religious accommodation contained in the ACAs regulations. Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, such businesses would be entitled to shift the obligation to provide contraceptive coverage to their insurance companies. For the first time in history the Supreme Court held that some business corporations were entitled to religious accommodations, sending the message that owners of companies could invoke their religious beliefs to skirt the law.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The silver lining in the 54 ruling was the majoritys recognition that the ACAs religious accommodation provided the key to taking account of the rights of all parties. The majority concluded that the accommodation is an alternative that achieves all of the governments aims while providing greater respect for religious liberty and guarantees that women would still be entitled to FDA-approved contraceptives without cost-sharing. Now, the Little Sisters and the Trump administration are asking the Supreme Court to shelve that part of the Hobby Lobby ruling and strike down the accommodation.

This is not the first time the Supreme Court has been asked to take this step. In 2016, in Zubik v. Burwell, the court heard a set of cases in which employers argued that the accommodation violated RFRA. But an eight-member court failed to resolve the issue. That is unlikely to happen this time around.

Advertisement

Advertisement

In more than two centuries, the Supreme Court has never struck down a religious accommodation on the ground that it substantially burdened the free exercise of religion. The Little Sisters, joined by the Trump administration, is urging the court to take that extreme step for the first time. Even though the ACAs religious accommodation eliminates any role for the employer in providing contraceptive services and shifts the burden of paying for contraceptive coverage to insurance companies, the Little Sisters argues that the accommodation still tramples on its religious beliefs. In its view, the government may not require it to do anythingeven a ministerial task as simple as filling out a piece of paperif the end result is that even one of its employees could enjoy the access to contraceptive coverage that the ACA requires.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

When the Supreme Court hears oral argument on Wednesdaywhich will be livestreamed for all to hear as part of the courts social distancing measures taken in response to COVID-19the questioning is likely to focus on RFRA and the courts precedent. But the court should not ignore centuries of historical practice that have given meaning to the guarantee of the free exercise of religion.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The sweeping arguments for a total religious exemption are profoundly inconsistent with the history of religious accommodation in this country and the backdrop against which the Framers crafted the First Amendment. Throughout American history, religious accommodations that have allowed objectors to opt out and to transfer their legal duties to others have been a crucial means of respecting religious liberty in a nation of diverse faiths.

Advertisement

From 1776 to the present, conscientious objector laws have exempted those with a religious objection to war from combat, while still requiring them to aid the nation during wartime. What the Little Sisters denounces as a violation of their freedom of conscience is what history shows is a common practice: accommodating religious objectors by shifting their obligations to third parties who do not share that objection.

In 1776, the people of Pennsylvania enacted a new Constitution, which relieved conscientious objectors of the duty to fight but required those opposed to war to pay such equivalent in order to find a substitute. The Keystone State was not alone in rejecting an unconditional exemption. In numerous states, conscientious objector laws enacted at the time of the American Revolution and the writing of the Constitution required individuals objecting to participation in military service on religious grounds to pay for a substitute.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Religious accommodations for military service also figured prominently in debates over the Bill of Rights. During debates in Congress over proposals to include a religious exemption from combat in the Second Amendment, members of the First Congress stressed that conscientious objectors had to do their part to ensure the safety of the nation. A religious exemption from combat would be unjust, unless the constitution secured an equivalent. Ultimately, the Second Amendment did not contain a religious accommodation, leaving matters to the states. In many states, a conscientious objector had to pay for a substitute.

Advertisement

Since the Civil War, federal draft laws have accommodated individuals with a religious objection to war, requiring them to perform alternative service. Under these laws, an individual who considers war sinful cannot refuse to participate in the war effort entirely. What is more, a conscientious objector cannot stop a draft in its tracks by insisting that calling up the next draftee makes him or her complicit in sin. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor commented during oral argument in Zubik, the logic of the argument for an unconditional exemption would wreak havoc with federal draft laws. Look for her to press this line of questioning again.

Advertisement

Our Constitution and laws place the highest of values on religious liberty, recognizing the right to practices ones religion as critical to freedom, dignity, and self-definition. But the Affordable Care Act has already accommodated the beliefs of those who have a religious objection to contraception. What the Little Sisters wantsto prevent insurance companies from assuming their legal dutywould pervert our cherished constitutional values of religious liberty. It would allow employers to impose their own religious beliefs on their employees and extinguish important federal rights secured by the Affordable Care Act. Women would be left without access to the most effective forms of contraception.

Advertisement

Advertisement

In Little Sisters and other cases on the docket both this term and next, the Supreme Courts conservative majority is poised to reshape the meaning of religious freedom in America. If the Supreme Court strikes down the ACAs religious accommodation, it will be casting aside centuries of history. As the history of conscientious objector laws shows, religious accommodations help, not harm, religious liberty. Religious accommodations, like those contained in the Affordable Care Act, ensure, as the Rev. Francis Alison explained more than 250 years ago, that all should have a free use of their religion, but so as not on that score to burden or oppress others.
YEREVAN, MAY 4, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan is in contact with a number of his foreign counterparts discussing the current global situation caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the response of the authorities of various countries to the pandemic, the Parliament told Armenpress.

Last week the Armenian Speaker of Parliament received letters from Chairwoman of the Federation Council of Russia Valentina Matviyenko, Chairman of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Roberto Fico, President of the Senate of Belgium Sabine Laruelle, Singapores Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin, etc.

All foreign colleagues in their letters highly valued the bilateral relations with Armenia, emphasized the importance of cooperation, exchange of information, experience and constant contact during the current pandemic, and highlighted the role of parliamentary diplomacy both during the COVID-19 and after that.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Rizki Fachriansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 14:11 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c9c9f 1 National KCI,commuter-line,public-transportation,West-Java,West-Java-Governor-Ridwan-Kamil,ridwan-kamil,COVID-19,coronavirus,virus-korona-indonesia Free

At least three passengers of the Greater Jakarta commuter line have tested positive for COVID-19 amid large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), raising concerns over transmission of the respiratory disease on public transportation.

West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil wrote on his official Twitter page that three commuters who traveled to Jakarta from Bogor, West Java, tested positive for the coronavirus disease.

Three of 325 passengers aboard the Bogor-Jakarta train that we tested using PCR [polymerase chain reaction] test swabs tested positive for COVID-19, @ridwankamil tweeted on Sunday.

3 positif covid dari 325 penumpang KRL Bogor-Jakarta yg kami sampling dgn test swab PCR. Ini artinya KRL yg masih padat bisa menjadi transportasi OTG pembawa virus. PSBB bisa gagal. Sdh dilaporkan ke gugus tugas pusat & kemenhub. Semoga ada respon terukur dari pihak operator KRL. pic.twitter.com/VYsUnTL9FT  ridwan kamil (@ridwankamil) May 3, 2020

Ridwan said he was concerned about the PSBB not being effective enough, as packed trains could transport the virus to other areas.

It means that crowded trains could move asymptomatic virus carriers [to other regions]. The PSBB could fail. We have reported the cases to the [COVID-19] task force and the Transportation Ministry, he said.

Train operator PT Kereta Commuter Indonesia (KCI) spokesperson Anne Purba confirmed that the company carried out swab tests on 325 passengers at Bogor Station in West Java last Monday. Of those tested, the results came back positive for three people, she said.

The results are in line with what the West Java Governor said, that three people or less than 1 percent of [commuters] tested positive, Anne said in a statement on Sunday, adding that the confirmed cases were asymptomatic.

Despite the low rate of infection among train passengers, the company would step up its efforts to enforce physical distancing among commuters, she said.

Read also: COVID-19: Jakarta satellite cities insist on suspension of commuter line services

KCI previously rolled out measures to prevent its customers from contracting COVID-19 by requiring that its passengers establish a safe distance from each other and cooperating with local police and military personnel to monitor 11 train stations, Anne said.

KCI is open to collaboration with the West Java administration and related municipalities [] to maximize physical distancing efforts, she added.

The number of commuter line passengers has plummeted 80 percent since Greater Jakarta imposed the PSBB. The company currently only serves up to 190 passengers per day in Bogor.
See full offer details at CenturyCommunities.com/NoPayments or CenturyCompleteHomes.com/Promotion.

"While homeownership remains in reach for so many, we understand that life looks a little different at the moment," said Greg Huff, President of Century Complete. "That's why we want to offer homebuyers additional peace of mind, allowing them to get settled into their new homes, save some cash, and enjoy a few months before having to think about payments."

About Century Communities

Century Communities, Inc. (NYSE: CCS) is a top 10 national homebuilder. Offering new homes under the Century Communities and Century Complete brands, Century is engaged in all aspects of homebuildingincluding the acquisition, entitlement and development of land, along with the construction, innovative marketing and sale of quality homes designed to appeal to a wide range of homebuyers. The Colorado-based company operates in 17 states across the U.S., and offers title, insurance and lending services in select markets through its Parkway Title, IHL Insurance Agency, and Inspire Home Loan subsidiaries. To learn more about Century Communities, please visit www.centurycommunities.com.

About Inspire Home Loans

Inspire Home Loans, Inc. NMLS#1564276. Additional license information available at NMLS Consumer Access: www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org.

SOURCE Century Communities, Inc.

Related Links

www.centurycommunities.com


The Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus cargo spacecraft lifts off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, the United States, on Feb. 15, 2020. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

"With these contract awards, America is moving forward with the final step needed to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024, including the incredible moment when we will see the first woman set foot on the lunar surface," NASA administrator said.

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- NASA has selected three U.S. companies to design and develop human landing systems for the agency's Artemis program, one of which will land the first woman and next man on the surface of the moon by 2024.

The three companies are Blue Origin of Kent, Washington; Dynetics of Huntsville, Alabama; and SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, according to a release of the agency on Thursday night.

The human landing system awards are firm-fixed price, milestone-based contracts, and the total combined value for all awarded contracts is 967 million U.S. dollars for the 10-month base period, the release said.

"With these contract awards, America is moving forward with the final step needed to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024, including the incredible moment when we will see the first woman set foot on the lunar surface," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

"This is the first time since the Apollo era that NASA has direct funding for a human landing system, and now we have companies on contract to do the work for the Artemis program," he said.

NASA's commercial partners will refine their lander concepts through the contract base period ending in February 2021. During that time, the agency will evaluate which of the contractors will perform initial demonstration missions.

NASA will later select firms for development and maturation of sustainable lander systems followed by sustainable demonstration missions. NASA intends to procure transportation to the lunar surface as commercial space transportation services after these demonstrations are complete, according to the release.

Charged with returning to the moon in the next four years, NASA's Artemis program will reveal new knowledge about the moon, Earth, and the origins in the solar system.

The human landing system is a vital part of NASA's deep space exploration plans, along with the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and Gateway.
Mumbai, May 4 : The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is likely to enquire into the several complaints of allegedly overcharging Covid-19 patients were raised against the prestigious Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital, official sources said.

A team of BMC is expected to visit the hospital soon to verify the charges.

The latest in the series of complaints concerns a Santacruz resident who was handed a staggering bill of Rs 16 lakh for the 15-day treatment of his 74-year-old father for Covid-19 at the hospital where he succumbed on April 15, roughly coming to Rs 100,000 per day.

At one point, the bill for treatment from March 31 to April 1 showed an amount of more than Rs 4.43 lakh payable, including Rs 2.5 lakh as 'miscellaneous charges'.

However, the hospital sources claimed that 'fake' copy of a provisional bill with miscellaneous charges was being circulated on social media.

There have been earlier complaints from patients being charged around Rs 2.25 lakh-plus for a five-day stay for Covid-19, while another patient was billed over Rs 5 lakh, and one nearly Rs 7 lakh for varying days of treatment.

On Monday evening, in an official statement, the hospital denied the allegations of overcharging, and assured that all the "bills are in line with standard charges for the duration and quality of clinical services, extended to the patients".

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kirit Somaiya and other activists have also sought action against the hospital for allegedly overcharging Covid-19 patients.

Incidentally, from May 1, the Maharashtra government has decided to offer free treatment to all Covid-19 patients in the state, whether being treated in government or private hospitals, under the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana insurance scheme.
Responsibility Nurse and volunteer Kim Daly brings hope and help to patients in makeshift COVID-19 hospital

On June 2, Boston Hope was able to proudly discharge its last COVID-19 patients with a celebratory clap out and close its doors.



The patients and staff were high-fiving and cheering on their way out and that is not how they came in a month ago, Kim says. We treated approximately 750 patients over those 12 weeks, and not one patient died. Those numbers could have been drastically different, but a lot of very dedicated people stepped up to help. It reminds you that there are always people willing to help and do whats right  and thats the best part of humanity.



Moving forward, patients who test positive will be treated at local area hospitals. The Boston Hope field hospital will remain prepared for operation if necessary.

In response to the pandemic, Merck has changed its volunteer policy to support employees like Kim with nursing and other medical backgrounds. Recognizing the need for additional health care professionals, including doctors, nurses and medical laboratory technicians, to assist in regions where COVID-19 is spreading, on March 21 the company deployed a new program to enable our medically trained employees to volunteer their time to aid their communities while maintaining their base pay.

Kim is a charge nurse at Boston Hope Medical Center, located in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

Its been 16 years since Kim Daly worked as a practicing nurse, but watching the news and hearing devastating stories about the COVID-19 pandemic called her back to the hospital. In April, Kim, regional medical director, vaccine implementation and scientific engagement, returned to nursing at Boston Hope hospital as part of Mercks COVID-19 medical volunteer program.

Kim, who is a licensed registered nurse and nurse practitioner, says she was somewhat worried about jumping back into inpatient work but immediately realized: Its a lot like riding a bike. You definitely dont lose the skills. Kim helped inaugurate Boston Hope hospital; she started working there the day after the Massachusetts National Guard opened the hospital on April 10 and quickly became charge nurse for her pod of 40 recovering COVID-19 patients. She works 12-hour shifts putting in IVs, administering EKGs, identifying appropriate services for patients, managing policies and more.

I put out little fires all over the place and act as a point person, she says. No shift is like the last. She walks as many as 10 miles a day in Boston Hope, located in Boston Convention & Exhibition Center  a venue that typically houses large-scale events like medical congresses and Comic-Con.

Today, Boston Hope is home to 1,000 beds for recovering COVID-19 patients and the local homeless, who need a safe space amid the pandemic. The COVID-19 patients are mostly not highly acute cases, but they cannot yet return home due to various risks factors such as comorbidities or living with immunocompromised family members.

Flexibility is key at Boston Hope. Kim manages nurses who come from a wide variety of backgrounds  including school nurses and another pharmaceutical professional  and they all bring different skillsets that need to be well-matched. Though Kim says the hospital is well-resourced, she still has moments when she does not have all of the resources to manage a particular situation.

You have to be creative and resourceful, she explains. She shares an example of a patient who was suffering from alcohol withdrawal; while she and her team did not have the necessary medications to solve the situation, they did their best to support the patient while waiting for EMS to arrive.

Kim says that her work at Merck helps her problem solve in her current role as a volunteer.

Were constantly in quality improvement here, she says. The organizations and experiences Ive had at Merck in how systems work and understanding what does or doesnt work, and providing those challenges back as solutions, has really helped in my role here.

Kims shifts at Boston Hope are chaotic, but she still makes time to remind patients that shes there for them  not just for medical assistance, but also for company. The day after Easter, with her childrens blessing, Kim took one of their plastic eggs filled with candy and brought it in for a patient she befriended, an elderly professor who was feeling isolated and alone in the hospital. I told him, I was telling my kids about you and they wanted to share this Easter egg, and he got a big smile on his face, with tears in his eyes and it was the only time I saw him smile, she says. Hes now home; I know he brought that egg home. To be able to bring something from the outside and make a connection and help patients living in an unusual situation  it made him feel human again, and that was really touching to me.

Mentoring in the Year of the Nurse

Kim says its a passion of hers to mentor others, and her time at Boston Hope is no different. Thats something I really pride myself on  to help support and mentor other nurses, she says.

Kim says at Boston Hope, she pushed her colleague, a student in nurse practitioner school, into a role as a charge nurse in one of the other pods.

I think she was questioning if she was really ready for it, but I had no doubts, says Kim. Not only did she do it, she really rose to the occasion. She didnt even know she would challenge herself to come into this situation as a COVID-19 volunteer, and now shes being put into leadership roles.

Kim also says she enjoys sharing her experience at Merck with her fellow Boston Hope nurses, to show them that there are alternative career paths for helping patients

The role that I play as a regional medical director is around vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases. Its exciting for them to think outside the box, to think, this is another thing a nurse can do  Im excited to share that with them, to think about having an impact by reducing vaccine preventable disease across the region and country.
By Trend





Export of Turkish cars to the US increased by 16.19 percent from January through March 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, exceeding $265.4 million, Trend reports citing the Turkish Trade Ministry.

In March 2020, Turkeys car export to the US decreased by 4.7 percent compared to March 2019, amounting to $82.8 million.

In 1Q2020, export of cars from Turkey to world markets dropped by 10 percent compared to the same period of 2019, and amounted to $6.9 billion. Meanwhile, Turkeys car export amounted to 16.3 percent of the country's total export.

In March 2020, Turkey exported cars worth $2 billion to world markets, which is 28.5 percent less compared to the same month in 2019. Turkeys export of cars amounted to 15.4 percent of the country's total exports.

From March 2019 through March 2020, Turkey exported cars in the amount of $29.8 billion.
Two physicians who are members of the General Assembly on Monday joined Gov. Ned Lamont in stressing the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic and the need for people to maintain safe distances in public, even as plans are being made to slowly reopen Connecticut after May 20.

State Sen. Saud Anwar, a South Windsor pulmonologist, and Rep. William Petit, a retired endocrinologist, who are both on the legislative Public Health Committee, said the virus is extremely contagious, and that there may be many people who are carrying the infection and can give it to others, but have no outward symptoms.

Anwar, a Democrat who is quarantined from his family in his efforts to treat COVID-19 patients in Manchester Memorial Hospital, said the virus makes patients oxygen-deprived and hinders their ability to expel carbon dioxide. That leads to multiple organ failure, including the lungs and kidneys.

Anwar warned of scare tactics among the minority of state residents who want to hurry back to a full reopening of business. Its quite disappointing, Anwar said, speaking as doctor and patient advocate.

In the midst of a pandemic the responsible thing to do, is do it based on science and not emotion, he said. Just because the number of deaths has decreased does not necessarily mean that were safe.

Another 61 COVID-19 related deaths were reported Monday, with a new statewide total of 2,556. But with a net decrease of 24 hospitalizations, the total of 1,464 statewide is equal to the number hospitalized back on April 9. There were 1,972 hospitalization on April 22, the last day there was a net increase.

Some people want to open the state tomorrow and I say you have to understand its incredibly dangerous, Petit said. He said that while most of the fatalities occur in people over 60, there have been many in their 20s and 30s who have also died with a couple weeks of showing symptoms.

We really dont understand the susceptibility and some of the genetic variations, in the virus, said Petit, a Republican.

For the state to seriously consider going forward with a May 20 reopening, social distancing, hand washing and banning customers and workers from places if they are ill or spiking a fever must be enforced. Businesses also need time to obtain protective equipment and even physical barriers for work areas.

Lamont, in reply to Petit, said that businesses should have enough planning time after the Reopen CT Advisory Group soon issues reopening guidelines.

The statewide decrease puts the hospitals in a slightly better position than several weeks ago, Anwar said.

Our ability to manage this disease is getting better because were getting far more experienced in managing it and the scientific component is actually kicking in, said Anwar, chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals. We are putting a lot of pieces of the puzzle together to be able to manage this based on scientific criteria.

He stressed the need for antibody testing in order to obtain donations of plasma from those who have overcome the infection to help hospitalized patients recover. Anwar said that all businesses should review their sanitation and disinfecting protocols as the state continues to plan for reopening some of the closed businesses, including retail and restaurants  but not tattoo shops  on May 20.

We are in the midst of a disaster, Anwar said. The best way to do this is to work together in a collaborative way and try to have feedback mechanisms and systems to make sure we make the best decisions.

Also on Monday, Lamont announced that over the next two weeks, more and more personal protective equipment will be arriving from the national stockpile. Lamont said Mondays meeting with the White House task force on the pandemic went satisfactorily, and a new seven-state effort to purchase equipment will help the states prepare for a possible second wave of the pandemic expected in the autumn.

We dont give up any of our freedom of movement, but it gives us a better base going forward to make sure were never stuck in the situation of two months ago, Lamont said. Ive heard a lot of different predictions from the experts. Thats why were being cautious about reopening and I want to be ready if there was another small surge later on this year.

Lamont said that during the latest round of the federal disaster relief for small businesses, more than 30,000 Connecticut companies were approved for $2.5 billion.

In other related pandemic news, high school kids could take summer jobs formerly held by senior citizen volunteers who are now vulnerable to the coronavirus, under ideas that municipal leaders want to explore as part of an effort to pay and educate youngsters in coming weeks.

The idea was floated last week during a conference call led by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, the non-profit Partnership for Connecticut during a teleconference with school leaders, mayors and first selectmen.

Among the first actions that were taken in response to COVID-19 was the shutting down of schools, said Joe DeLong, CCM executive director. Now municipalities and schools must look for innovative ways to bridge the gap to youth for summer school programs and summer employment.

Lamont said his administration will decide on Tuesday whether students will return to classrooms this academic season. It seems less likely, now that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced continuing school closures through the academic year.

DeLong credited the Partnership for CT and Dalio Philanthropies with focusing on the issue as summer creeps up within the next seven weeks, whether or not in-class instruction goes ahead during the traditional end-of-June period.

Local officials from Bethany, East Hartford, Hamden, Hartford, Milford, Naugatuck, New Haven, North Branford, Waterbury, West Hartford and Wolcott joined in on the Zoom videoconference calls.

Officials are concerned that under-served communities do not have extensive WiFi access needed for kids to participate in distanced learning, even with the 60,000 laptops worth $24 million that hve been ordered by the Partnership for CT.

Summer camps, team sports, public job programs and internships are likely to be cancelled in the pandemic. .

In reaction to the event, Donald E. Williams, Jr., executive director of the Connecticut Education Association, said the pandemic and school closures of Friday, March 17 underscores the dramatic inequities among school districts.

It is critical that the state and municipalities meet their responsibility to fund the resources students need when they return to the classroom  teachers, counselors, psychologists and strong academic programs, Williams said. Additional resources, including summer school, wellness programs, and smaller class sizes to accommodate social distancing, will be necessary in the next school year. In addition, students will require emotional and academic support as they transition back to school while the effects of the pandemic are still present.

Early Monday evening, Miguel Cardona, state education commissioner agreed that the inequities of public school have been further exposed in the pandemic.

We must keep at the forefront the current educational needs of our students, especially those whose access to quality education may face barriers due to the distance measures required in this pandemic, despite the herculean efforts by their teachers and district personnel, Cardona said. We cannot go backwards.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
Advertisement

A 23-year-old huntress who kills and then poses with brown bears has slammed the 'uneducated hypocrites' who eat meat but threaten her for shooting wild animals.

Alexandra Tyutcheva is a hunting manager from Serpukhov, Russia and has been travelling up to 300 miles away from home to track down deer, bears and rams with her father, 53, since she was 18 years old.

Online trolls have labelled Alexandra a 'cruel killer' and said, 'I wish it was you lying there instead of the bear' in a series of vicious messages online. Others said her future children 'will pay for that'.

But Alexandra revealed 'hunting is part of who I am now'. She's writing her bachelor degree thesis on the sport, and works to ensure hunts are 'sustainable' and 'for conservation'.

She said: 'There are many people that don't understand and throw hate at you whilst having zero knowledge on the topic.

Alexandra Tyutcheva, 23, is a hunting manager from Serpukhov, Russia. She's pictured with a Kamchatka brown bear she shot while on a hunt with her father, 53

Alexandra (pictured, left, and comparing her hand with the paw of a bear she killed, right) has been hunting with her father since she was 18 years old. Before that the pair went camping and fishing together

'It's hypocritical to eat meat and then also criticise people who work hard to provide their own meat for themselves. On Instagram, I share links to articles that educate people about sustainable and conservation hunting.'

Alexandra has been fishing and camping with her father since she was 12, but her mother and three sisters aren't interested in joining them.

'My father and I are very close. We spend a lot of time together hunting with our guests. My mum and three sisters don't enjoy hunting but they support us. Hunting isn't for everyone,' she added.

Properly managed hunting 'can increase the number of elephants in Africa by thousands or bighorn sheep in the US', Alexandra claimed.

She blasted her critics for not understanding the effect of hunting on ecology.

No part of the animals Alexandra and her father kill go to waste. She dries out the skin, eats the meat, and boils antlers and horns for taxidermy.

Online trolls have labelled Alexandra a 'cruel killer' and said, 'I wish it was you lying there instead of the bear' in a series of vicious messages online. Others said her future children 'will pay for that'

Alexandra (pictured as a child with her father) said her mother and three sisters are not as interested in hunting as her, but she added that it's 'not for everyone'

The hunting manager revealed hunting involves staying out in all weathers in an effort to track down the animals. Here she's pictured in the snow with a moose

The pair will travel up to 300 miles to go hunting. Here she is pictured as a teenager with the head of a ram. She revealed they would use the horns for taxidermy

Alexandra and her father pose alongside one of their kills. Alexandra revealed 'hunting is part of who I am now'. She's writing her bachelor degree thesis on the sport, and works to ensure hunts are 'sustainable' and 'for conservation'

Hunting is Alexandra's 'hobby, job and philosophy'. She said: ' I love the strong connection I have to nature and the understanding of how things work in life

During this hunt Alexandra took pictures with the head of a ram they had shot. Properly managed hunting 'can increase the number of elephants in Africa by thousands or bighorn sheep in the US', Alexandra explained

She added: 'In Russia, it's not unusual to drive five hundred kilometres to go hunting - especially if you live near a city - so you don't go very often.

'The biggest hunt I've had was a Kamchatka brown bear. We don't weigh them but it must've been around two hundred and fifty kilograms.'

Hunting is Alexandra's 'hobby, job and philosophy'. She said: 'I love the strong connection I have to nature and the understanding of how things work in life.

Going on a hunt involves camping, wearing head to toe camouflage gear and walking for miles as they track down an animal. Pictured left, posing on a tree and right, standing on the top of a mountain

No part of the animals Alexandra and her father kill go to waste. She dries out the skin (pictured), eats the meat, and boils antlers and horns for taxidermy

Alexandra is pictured with skulls and horns that she will boil and mount for decoration. Alexandra hopes to inspire others to embrace their passion as she does hers

Sometimes the hunt takes the father daughter pair onto the water as they track down the animal they want to shoot. Alexander is pictured as they prepare to go out onto a river

'You challenge yourself in harsh conditions - storms, rain, and snow - but that's just nature. You become more patient with experience.'

Alexandra hopes to inspire others to embrace their passion as she does hers. 'Hunters, do not hide your passion or apologise for being a hunter,' she added.

'As for other people, do not judge something you don't understand. Search for information and talk to people - try to learn. Curiosity and self-education is important.'
Since the middle of March, when the familiar rhythms of American life were upended by the coronavirus pandemic, Burton has felt determined to do something to help, to fill in some of the time while were all shut in here at home, he explains to his Twitter audience. He announced a new reading series, live-streaming three times each week  once for kids, once for young readers and once for adults. For all the time he had spent on sets and stages, in directors chairs and recording booths, it was at his familys home in the hills above Los Angeles, in the midst of a historic catastrophe, that his lifes work had been suddenly distilled to its fundamental essence.
Rounding up undocumented workers, migrant and refugees is part of a brutal order of things in Malaysia. When matters economic are going well, authorities turn the blindest of eyes. The money pours in; development goals are being met. During times of crisis, the eye sharpens in the search for scapegoats. With the enervating effects of the COVID-19 response, the vulnerable are easy fare.

Malaysia has deemed it unnecessary to ratify the Refugee Convention of 1951 and its relevant 1967 protocol, a situation that has given officials a misplaced sense of confidence. The writ of the universal right to asylum, they claim, does not run through the country. But for a time, an exception of sorts was made towards Rohingya refugees under the umbrella of Islamic solidarity. Malaysias previous Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamed, had called their treatment at the hands of Myanmars military as genocidal, a form of institutionalised terrorism involving mass killing, rape and other gross violations of human rights (that) resulted in Rohingya feeling the country en masse.

The milk of human kindness, however, is curdling. Last Friday, 586 undocumented migrants were arrested in Kuala Lumpur. Among them were members of the Rohingya community, who have become conspicuous in number. They were taken, under police guard, to detention facilities. While this seemed like dramatic, populist theatre, the official explanation given by police chief Abdul Hamid Bador was that the arrests were made to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. We cannot allow them to move freely  as it will be difficult for us to track them down if they leave identified locations.

The irony of these moves was not missed on Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch. Such detentions were bound to worsen outbreaks in the camps while also dissuading undocumented individuals from assisting authorities. In the words of a UN statement, The fear of arrest and detention may push these vulnerable population groups further into hiding and prevent them from seeking treatment, with negative consequences for their own health and creating further risks to the spreading of COVID-19 to others.

The Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin has been off-handed in his remarks on the Rohingya refugees, whom he considers, at best, to be a nuisance tolerated by Malaysian hospitality. He has taken particular umbrage at any society or body claiming to represent their welfare, including the Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation Malaysia (MEHROM). His response has been to consult the rule book with the keenness of a black letter administrator. The Home Ministry has made checks with the [Registrar of Societies] and found no organisations under the name Rohingya are registered in Malaysia. It followed that any such organisation claiming to represent the Rohingya ethnic group is illegal under the [Societies Act 1966].

Having dismissed their defenders as illegal and unworthy, Hamzahs conclusion was stark: any Rohingya national holding a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees card have no status, rights or basis to make any claims on the government. Such a card was paperwork without merit.

Flavouring the press conference with a touch of menace, Hamzah also noted that the Movement Control Order (MCO) phase had seen 19 reports submitted to the Royal Malaysia Police against members of the Rohingya community. Four investigations had also been opened.

The Rohingya situation is particularly perilous, having been exacerbated by the MCO imposed in targeting the spread of COVID-19. This has effectively prevented the earning of meagre wages and any form of income support. The President of MEHROM Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani has valiantly sought to publicise their plight, but such efforts have failed to inspire. Suspicions are rife that citizenship is being demanded, along with privileges even as they pose an epidemiological risk.

The pandemic has done its bit to encourage paranoia against low-income workers and Chinese tourists, and it is something the fragile political leadership in the country is pressing. But the Rohingya are now looming as prominent targets. Malaysians hear, as Tengku Emma Zuriana Tengku Azmi of the European Rohingya Council describes it, of boats filled with Rohingya refugees seeking to land potentially steal their resources.

Malaysian naval vessels have been tasked with preventing such boats from docking even after entering territorial waters. The universal right to seek asylum is been ignored with a degree of bog standard contempt, as is the right against non-refoulement. But the official line given is one of self-preservation and territorial integrity, despite Malaysias borders being, for the most part, strikingly pervious to undocumented arrivals. But officials are resolute in rhetoric: to permit such undocumented migrants to enter by either land or sea would risk bringing in COVID-19. To soften the blow, however, the Home Ministry has advertised their humanitarian credentials by supplying such vessels with food supplies before escorting them out of Malaysian waters.

Phelim Kine of Physicians for Human Rights remains unconvinced by the arguments favouring the taking of vessels back out to sea. Malaysian authorities could and should have tested the Rohingya refugees for coronavirus and then appropriately isolated or quarantined them to prevent a possible transmission of the virus.

This unsavoury picture has been helped by Malaysias own uneven response to the coronavirus and internal political instability. But when in doubt, point the finger elsewhere, and that elsewhere has presented itself, as in other countries, an alibi of distraction and persecution. The plague, as Albert Camus portrayed so convincingly in his novel by that name, stirs in all of us.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
PISCATAWAY, N.J., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- When alcohol bottles come with conspicuous labels providing information on the risks of alcohol consumption or drinking guidelines, people are better informed about alcohol's harms and may cut down their drinking, according to a series of studies in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Do alcohol warning labels work? Finding from a real-world experiment

"The results provide the first real-world evidence that relatively large, bright yellow alcohol labels with rotating health messages get noticed by consumers and can increase awareness of national drinking guidelines, improve knowledge of alcohol-related health risks, such as cancer, and reduce alcohol sales compared to control sites without the labels," says Erin Hobin, Ph.D., of the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and principal investigator on the studies in this series.

The Canadian research, called the Northern Territories Alcohol Label Study, involved placing bright-colored labels on bottles of beer, wine and liquor with one of three messages: one about the scientific evidence regarding the link between alcohol and cancer, a second with the Canadian government's low-risk drinking guidelines and a third with information about the number of standard drinks in the container.

One of the studies found that adding such labels to alcohol bottles (300,000 labels in all) decreased total sales of alcohol by 6.9% compared with sales in regions without the new labels.

In another article, among 2,049 participants, awareness of Canada's low-risk drinking guidelines increased nearly three times in the site in which the labels were placed compared with a control location. (Canada recommends no more than two drinks a day for women, no more than three for men and at least two alcohol-free days per week.)

A third study generated controversy. Here, Hobin and colleagues queried the same 2,049 participants about their knowledge of the link between alcohol consumption and cancer.

Before the study, roughly 25% of participants knew alcohol consumption can cause cancer. After the labeling, awareness in Yukon rose to 42%, a 10% greater increase in awareness of the alcohol-cancer link relative to the control site in neighboring Northwest Territories.

However, the cancer label part of these studies was cut short because the alcohol industry protested. The industry complained that the Yukon Government, who helped coordinate the study and is responsible for alcohol distribution and sales in the territory, did not have legal authority to place such labels, that the labels violated industry's freedom of expression and that the government was defaming alcohol manufacturers.

Under pressure, the Yukon Government shut down the cancer label research in December 2017, only one month after the study's launch.

After consultation with legal experts, the researchers conclude, "none of the industry's claims had any merit." In fact, they note that provincial and territorial governments in Canada could be held liable if they do not warn consumers about the link between alcohol and cancer. (The World Health Organization declared alcohol a human carcinogen over 30 years ago.)

Media contact:

Nicole Bodnar

289-259-5080

[email protected]

Related Files

media_legal infographic.jpg

Alcohol warning labels.jpg

Related Images

do-alcohol-warning-labels-work.jpg

Do alcohol warning labels work?

Do alcohol warning labels work? Finding from a real-world experiment

Related Links

Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs

SOURCE Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
[May 04, 2020] AMTD International and Singapore Exchange Join Forces to Enhance the Connectivity of Financial Markets

AMTD International (NYSE: HKIB; SGX: HKB) and Singapore Exchange ("SGX") have entered into a long-term strategic partnership to promote the development of Singapore's capital markets and strengthen connectivity between Singapore, ASEAN, the Greater Bay Area, the rest of China and the Middle East. Through this collaboration, AMTD International ("AMTD") and SGX will work together to meet the growing market needs for improved capital market access and connectivity to Singapore and beyond. AMTD Group, parent company of AMTD International, has built a multi-dimensional, cross-sector and ever-growing SpiderNet eco-system to connect and promote collaboration between its partners, including shareholders, clients, government bodies, academic institutions, and industry associations. AMTD's strategic alliance with SGX, a leading exchange in ASEAN with strong regional connections, would further empower and enable both organisations' corporate clients and partners in their capital raising activities, from private financing stages to connecting with public markets and expanding internationally. In addition to the collaboration agreement with SGX, AMTD International, together with its parent company AMTD Group and its affiliate AMTD Digital Inc. ("AMTD Digital"), (altogether known as "AMTD Group"), are also announcing a number of other initiatives today - all aimed at supporting entrepreneurs, start-ups and businesses in their growth journeys through AMTD Group's extensive global network, by enabling opportunities for efficient market access and fund raising. As one of its strategic initiatives, AMTD Group is joining forces with the Singapore FinTech Association ("SFA") to establish an AMTD Global FinTech Fellowship Programme in Singapore. The programme will connect local entrepreneurs with Singapore's capital markets and strengthen their long-term competitiveness. Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore ("MAS") commended on the initiative He said, "A fellowship programme that provides global connectivity for our local FinTech talents as well as enhances their career development by allowing direct sharing of experiences and know-how by industry leaders and experts is a crucial survival kit in today's environment."



Mr. Calvin Choi, Chairman and CEO of AMTD Group, and Founder and Chairman of AMTD Foundation, stated, "We are pleased to become one of SGX's long-term strategic partners. With the support of MAS and the various industry associations, we will propel the development of Singapore's capital markets and empower the connectivity between local FinTech entrepreneurs and the local capital markets and beyond." Mr. Chew Sutat, Senior Managing Director and Head of Global Sales and Origination at SGX commented, "SGX is excited to partner with AMTD for the benefit of our clients, potential clients and partners. It is clear from AMTD's listing in Singapore last month, as well as today's collaboration, that AMTD puts Singapore at the heart of its global strategy. We look forward to working with AMTD, MAS and the wider industry on supporting our home-grown entrepreneurs, start-ups and listed companies."

As part of the initiatives announced today, AMTD Digital will use its data analytics expertise to explore its existing vast data in the AMTD SpiderNet eco-system to offer advice and guidance that may help corporates make use of relevant data. SGX's connectivity will further support these organisations on their growth journey. AMTD Group will also establish an Abu Dhabi AMTD Investment Bank Academy (AAA) in Abu Dhabi to support the next generation of investment bankers and connect Abu Dhabi with Singapore and other global capital markets. SGX will be a supporting and knowledge partner of AAA by providing information and expert insight on the capital markets of Singapore and beyond. Finally, AMTD and SGX will jointly explore using distributed ledger technology for the issuance and servicing of fixed income securities in Singapore, as well as the wider adoption of blockchain in capital markets, international payments and settlements and trade finance. About AMTD Group AMTD Group is a leading comprehensive financial services conglomerate, with businesses in investment banking, asset management, digital financial solutions; and non-financial services areas including strategic investments, real estate and education. AMTD International (NYSE: HKIB; SGX: HKB), a subsidiary of AMTD Group, comprises the largest independent investment bank in Asia and one of Asia's largest independent asset management companies, and has been a leading investor in FinTech and the new economy sector. AMTD International successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019, representing the first Hong Kong headquartered financial institution listed on NYSE. On April 8 2020, AMTD International completed its successful listing on SGX-ST. AMTD Digital, the digital arm of AMTD Group headquartered in Singapore, is a digital technology platform, covering digital financial services, digital connectors and eco-systems, digital marketing and data intelligence, and digital investments. One of its principal subsidiaries, AMTD Risk Solutions is the largest local corporate insurance brokerage company in Hong Kong. For more information on AMTD, visit www.amtdgroup.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005652/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
On Sunday, I wrote that it's been fun watching Democrats struggle with the Biden conundrum: do they rally around him, or, because he's obviously mentally diminished and has significant corruption problems, do they use Tara Reade's accusation against him as an excuse to boot him out? By Sunday night, Elizabeth Bruenig, a New York Times opinion writer, had her verdict: it's time for Biden to go.

Bruenig is surprisingly sympathetic to Reade. She acknowledges that Reade's story has been inconsistent and that she's a somewhat eccentric character. However, unlike other Democrat journalists, she extends to Reade the same benefit of the doubt that Democrats routinely extend to politically correct victims:

Ms. Reade's account is not nearly as incredible as some have argued. In the course of my reporting, I have worked closely with many survivors of sexual assault. It isn't unusual, in my experience, for survivors to exhibit behavior that seems unstable or erratic to others. They may initially disclose to investigators or journalists only a fragment of what happened, and then reveal more over time  some even falsely recant, either because they sense the police don't believe them, or because they fear the consequences of pressing their claims. And victims often maintain relationships with their attackers or harbor mixed feelings about them. "It's not at all uncommon for someone to still have positive feelings about aspects of the person who assaulted them, or to admire or respect them," Scott Berkowitz, the founder and president of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) told me. "With people who work for politicians, there's usually a strong measure of loyalty or respect in that relationship. So it's not indicative that someone wasn't telling the truth."

Bruenig also has a dose of intellectual honesty for her fellow Democrats: you can't treat Christine Blasey Ford to one standard and then apply an entirely different one to Tara Reade. She notes, as well, that a few feminist groups are, however reluctantly, realizing that Biden cannot stop this train merely by insisting that he didn't assault Reade, especially because she's got some decent witnesses.

The allegation must be investigated, says Bruenig, if #MeToo is to mean anything. Even if the claim fades away, doing nothing about it will still betray the #MeToo movement, which was started to protect women from having their claims ignored.

Even worse, though, would be for Reade's claim to remain out there:

But it is also possible that this won't just go away, and that it will demoralize voters and place Mr. Biden at a disadvantage against Mr. Trump in the general election, despite the fact that Mr. Trump has a damning list of accusers alleging sexual offenses. For a candidate mainly favored for his presumed electability and the perception of empathy and decency, that's a serious liability.

Incidentally, regarding Trump's accusers, there's good reason to believe that many, if not all, of the accusations were politically motivated. Also, as anyone who watches the whole "grab 'em by the p----" video knows, Trump is not confessing to anything. He's simply stating a fact with which Bill Clinton would have to agree: if you're rich and powerful, women will acquiesce to aggressive sexual behavior they would reject from other people.

But back to Biden...

Having laid out the issues (Reade is at least somewhat credible, the #MeToo movement demands an investigation, and there'll always be a cloud hanging about Biden), Bruenig renders her verdict:

To preserve the strides made on behalf of victims of sexual assault in the era of #MeToo, and to maximize their chances in November, Democrats need to begin formulating an alternative strategy for 2020  one that does not include Mr. Biden.

Reading that, one can't help feeling that some Democrats are almost grateful that Reade came along. With every passing day, it's become more evident that Biden is in an accelerating state of mental decline. If he were on the campaign trail, the news would be filled with problematic gaffes, ranging from incoherent speech to stupid statements to completely inappropriate remarks. The longer the Democrats wait to acknowledge the obvious, the harder it will be for them to configure the rules to get someone else in place.

Bernie Sanders will feel entitled to the nomination because he was the big vote-getter up until Rep. Jim Clyburn tapped Biden as the candidate of choice for black voters. The establishment, however, dreads both Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, whose policies are consistent with core Fabian Marxist demands.

The big push will be for Michelle Obama. However, as more information comes out about Michael Flynn and the Russia hoax generally, Michelle might want to get herself and her husband as far away from Washington as possible.

I continue to believe that the final ticket will be stodgy Amy Klobuchar, who is a comforting, relatively soft leftist, and Pete Buttigieg, a cute and articulate leftist. I wouldn't bet money on it, though. Right now, the Democrat party nomination is anybody's guess.
The NSW Government is inviting community feedback on the second stage of its 24-hour economy liquor law reforms.

The draft Liquor Amendment (24-hour Economy) Bill 2020 aims to create risk-based liquor laws that support business.

Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello said, the proposals will help boost the states night time economy by removing outdated laws, simplifying licensing processes and creating a new incentives and sanctions system that rewards licence holders with a clear record.

We want pubs, bars and hotels to hit the ground running on the other side, but we are mindful of how rules such as social distancing may need to be accommodated.

Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney Stuart Ayres said the hospitality sector is a significant employer and lifeblood for many communities, but has been dealt a devastating blow and brought to its knees due to COVID-19.

COVID-19 has hit the hospitality industry hard and fast. We recognise the importance of streamlining the previously complicated legislation to make it easier for industry to get back on their feet as social distancing restrictions ease, Mr Ayres said.

There is now clearly a light at the end of the tunnel for our hospitality sector and this will give them hope for the future.

Key proposals include:

A new incentives and sanctions system with ongoing fee discounts for licensed venues that maintain a clear record;

Removal of outdated live music restrictions;

Allow small bars to offer more family friendly services to customers, by permitting minors in certain circumstances;

Reducing red tape by aligning liquor licensing and planning processes; and

Enhancing same day alcohol delivery regulations.
Saudi Arabia has welcomed the global call to action to fund a universally available and affordable Covid-19 vaccination, treatment and diagnostics programme.

As the holder of the G20 Presidency, Saudi Arabia will co-lead the Global Response Pledging on May 4 along with the European Union, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and Norway.

The pledging event aims to raise funds for the immediate need of $8 billion, which the Global Preparedness and Monitoring Board stated is urgently required to develop and deliver a Covid-19 vaccine, along with diagnostics and therapeutic resources.

The global pandemic requires a global response and international collaboration. Our priority, as an international community, is to safeguard people and their livelihoods and make sure the opportunities to recover from this pandemic exist for all, said a Saudi Press Agency report.

The G20 has been leading the global response and is committed to spare no effort in the fight against this pandemic. G20 members have taken unprecedented action at an unprecedented speed to address the major disruptions caused by the pandemic on public health and the global economy.

"The Saudi G20 Presidency is calling on global partners to support this funding campaign to ensure that we can say, for generations to come, that we defeated Covid-19 as a global community," the report said.

Saudi Arabia has already pledged $500 million to support the global fundraising efforts.
Illustration of a car factory (Photo: Shutterstock)

Speaking at a recent online briefing, he said that only 15,000 manufacturing companies were still operating at present out of a total of 40,000 as usual.

Meanwhile, 4.7 million workers in the manufacturing sector are still working out of the usual 17 million in the sector, which contributes around 20 percent of the countrys gross domestic product, the minister added.

He voiced his hope that companies will be back in operation when the situation returns to normal.

Many businesses in Indonesia have temporarily shut down or are functioning at minimum capacity to comply with the governments stay-at-home order to contain the fast-spreading pandemic.

The country's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) recorded a contraction to 45.3 from 51.9 between February and March, the steepest decline since the survey began in 2011.

Moreover, about 2.2 million people are out of work, according to Manpower Ministry data last updated on April 20.

The Indonesian government has launched tax incentives for the manufacturing industry, including individual income tax exemptions, import tax deferrals and corporate tax discounts.

Earlier in April, the government launched the pre-employment card programme, a mix of unemployment benefit and skill-training programme.

The government has also reduced employment insurance payments for companies that keep on their workers. Firms can get 90 percent reductions both for work accident and life insurance payments.
Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. But while the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse.

So should GME Resources (ASX:GME) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? For the purpose of this article, we'll define cash burn as the amount of cash the company is spending each year to fund its growth (also called its negative free cash flow). We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.

View our latest analysis for GME Resources

Does GME Resources Have A Long Cash Runway?

You can calculate a company's cash runway by dividing the amount of cash it has by the rate at which it is spending that cash. When GME Resources last reported its balance sheet in December 2019, it had zero debt and cash worth AU$568k. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$1.3m over the trailing twelve months. So it had a cash runway of approximately 5 months from December 2019. With a cash runway that short, we strongly believe that the company must raise cash or else douse its cash burn promptly. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

ASX:GME Historical Debt May 4th 2020

How Is GME Resources's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

While GME Resources did record statutory revenue of AU$100k over the last year, it didn't have any revenue from operations. To us, that makes it a pre-revenue company, so we'll look to its cash burn trajectory as an assessment of its cash burn situation. As it happens, the company's cash burn reduced by 42% over the last year, which suggests that management are mindful of the possibility of running out of cash. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of GME Resources due to its lack of significant operating revenues. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.

Story continues

How Hard Would It Be For GME Resources To Raise More Cash For Growth?

Even though it has reduced its cash burn recently, shareholders should still consider how easy it would be for GME Resources to raise more cash in the future. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

GME Resources's cash burn of AU$1.3m is about 6.7% of its AU$20m market capitalisation. That's a low proportion, so we figure the company would be able to raise more cash to fund growth, with a little dilution, or even to simply borrow some money.

How Risky Is GME Resources's Cash Burn Situation?

On this analysis of GME Resources's cash burn, we think its cash burn relative to its market cap was reassuring, while its cash runway has us a bit worried. Summing up, we think the GME Resources's cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. On another note, GME Resources has 6 warning signs (and 1 which is potentially serious) we think you should know about.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)

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 woman from Kayole in Nairobi reportedly killed her two children on Saturday night after an argument with her mother.

Winfred Nduku, 24, is said to have been infuriated after her mother asked her to prepare dinner for her kids who had slept hungry, Citizen TV reports.

According to reports, Ms Nduku returned home at about 7 pm and was on her phone, which forced her mother to ask why she was yet to prepare supper for the children aged 7 and 2 years.

Enraged, the young mother of two who sells shoes at Gikomba market reportedly dashed into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and started stabbing the children.

After stabbing the children, Ms Nduku allegedly attempted to stab her mother, Josephine Wambua, but was overpowered and thrown out of the house. The suspect also attempted to kill herself with the same knife, with her mother saying her daughter stabbed herself in the stomach.

The kids were rushed to a nearby hospital but were pronounced dead on arrival.

The suspects mother told police that her daughter had been threatening to kill the children before the incident.

Nairobi Police commander Philip Ndolo said Nduku was admitted to Mama Lucy Hospital for treatment and will face criminal charges once discharged.
BIRMINGHAM, Mich., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MacuHealth announced today, the signing of an agreement with MacuLearn.com, a transatlantic partnership between Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland and Salus University Pennsylvania, College of Optometry, Penn., U.S.A. The two learning institutions have partnered in the creation of an online educational learning resource, allowing optometrists and eye care technicians to complete certified training on the importance of nutrition for eye health at their desk or using a mobile device.

"At MacuHealth, our quest has always been to embrace the science and provide the best solutions to both ECPs, Technicians and Patients. MacuLearn is the perfect platform to assure this quest is completed and proper focus is given to improving visual performance and preserving vision."

MacuLearn.com is the brainchild of Prof John Nolan, Nutrition Research Centre Ireland, School of Health Science, Waterford Institute of Technology and Dr James Stringham, Visual Performance Laboratory, Duke University Medical School, North Carolina, and is set to become a valuable learning resource for busy professionals. The pair, who have both earned international reputations for their research on how nutrition impacts visual performance, see a significant opportunity to open global access to a range of video tutorials.

"This is a remarkable and crucially needed educational tool that has breached the gap between Doctors and Patients by offering a state of the art scientific accreditation for Optical Technicians and providing them the knowledge, confidence and certification to assist patients with their ocular nutritional needs," said Frederic J. Jouhet, Founder and CEO, MacuHealth LLC.

"At MacuHealth, our quest has always been to embrace the science and provide the best solutions to both ECPs, Technicians and Patients. MacuLearn is the perfect platform to assure this quest is completed and proper focus is given to improving visual performance and preserving vision. Therefore, I would invite all supplement companies to provide their ECPs and Technicians with MacuLearn. MacuHealth, will provide its customers with Partial Educational Grants to Assist practices in offering such certification to their staff."



Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act :

With the exception of the historical information contained in this release, the matters described herein contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties that may individually or mutually impact the matters herein described, including but not limited to, product acceptance, the ability to continually obtained increased orders of its products, the ability to meet installation goals, economic, competitive, governmental impacts, whether pending patents will be granted or defendable, validity of intellectual property and patents, the ability to license patents, the ability to commercialize developmental products, as well as technological and/or other factors.

MACULEARN MACUHEALTH Media Contact: Media Contact: Brian Nolan Sara Uffelman [email protected] [email protected] +353868191730 248-792-6204 EXT 3

SOURCE MacuHealth
Denise Richards was one of the hottest actresses of the late nineties and early 2000s. These days, she is best known as one of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, a reality TV star who regularly airs her dirty laundry on the Bravo network.

Still, there are limits to what Richards will discuss, and recently, she opened up about her relationship with her ex-husband, Charlie Sheen. Sheen and Richards share co-parenting duties, and in spite of what the media has to say about Sheens habits, Richards revealed that she is still guarded in what she says about her ex.

Charlie Sheen is a controversial celebrity

Sheen was one of the biggest stars to emerge from the eighties film scene. His movies Wall Street, Platoon, and Major League are all considered classics, and Sheen developed a reputation for his cool, confident persona. That wasnt the only reputation that Sheen cultivated: He became well-known for his excessive habits, and he frequently made headlines for his outrageous behavior.

In 2003, Sheen began starring on the sitcom Two and a Half Men. The series only heightened Sheens popularity, and he appeared on the show for eight years, until his substance abuse problems and behavioral antics derailed the show, and his contract was terminated.

In recent years, Sheen has become better known for his antics than for his acting, including three marriages and five children. His second marriage, to Richards, was likely the most high-profile of the three.

When did Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards start dating?

In the late nineties, Richards was one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood. She gained notoriety for a series of high-profile roles in movies like The World is Not Enough and Starship Troopers.

Richards first met Charlie Sheen in 2000, when they were both working on the film Good Advice. They didnt start dating until a few months later, but by late 2001, they were an item.

In June 2002, Sheen and Richards tied the knot. Over the next several years, Sheen and Richards were spotted at a wide variety of red-carpet events, and Richards even co-starred on a few episodes of Two and a Half Men.

In March 2004, Richards gave birth to the couples daughter, Sam, and in early 2005, they announced that they were expecting again. Sadly, the good news was about to get trumped by a series of painful tabloid headlines.

When did Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards divorce?

By the late spring of 2005, Richards and Sheen had decided to go their separate ways, and they announced that they would be divorcing. Richards was six months pregnant at the time of the split announcement. Although the birth of their daughter, Lola, in June 2005, was a period of happiness, the pair continued with their divorce proceedings.

In the years since their divorce, Sheen and Richards have weathered several reconciliation rumors  rumors that Richards has always been quick to dismiss. In 2017, Richards found a new romance, this time with Aaron Phypers. The two got married in late 2018.

What did Denise Richards recently say about Charlie Sheen?

Denise Richards visits Extra | Noel Vasquez/Getty Images

Although Richards and Sheens romance has been over for years, she doesnt harbor any ill will towards her famous ex and has every intention of protecting her daughters from hearing about the seedier parts of his personality. In a recent interview, Richards stated: Even though hes Charlie Sheen, that is still to them their dad. I never talk badly about him and I want him to be part of their lives because I met a lot of the women that Charlie entertained and a lot of them had father-daughter issues. And I do not want that to be our girls.

This isnt the first time Richards shared such a sentiment. In a recent episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she said: Theres a lot that the kids dont know about their dad and I want to keep it that way.

Richards is set to go to court over $450,000 that Sheen owes her for child support. I do not want to go through all of that. I just dont, she said. Its not just a one-time thing where you just show up to court. Its like an ongoing thing where you can have depositions, declarations from different people. And thats something, you know, the girls are going to be able to hear.

It is clear that Richards is able to put her childrens welfare ahead of any personal issues that she might have with Sheen  and that is something that many Hollywood exes should be able to admire.

That said, it might be too late. At some point, Richards and Sheens shared daughters will learn of their fathers past and have to reconcile with it. Simply put, their daughters are of the age where they have access to the Internet and can see their dads history.

For instance, Sheen accidentally shot his then-girlfriend Kelly Preston in 1990. In a 2011 20/20 interview, Sheen displayed erratic behavior and opened up about drug use. Sheen also sat down with Alex Jones of Today show and said he has tigers blood and cured himself of addiction while shading those who turned to Alcoholics Anonymous. Sheen even made headlines for faking a marriage to his girlfriend: adult film industry star Brett Rossi.

More recently, in 2014, Sheen reportedly attacked his dentist with a knife. He claimed to have a bad reaction to the gas he was given.

Whats more, Sheen has been accused of raping Corey Haim  a teen star who passed away in 2010  back in 1986. Sheen has denied the allegation.
Murder hornets, which are more commonly known as Asian giant hornets, captured the attention of the media and online worlds over the weekend, following a report by The New York Times that the insects had been found in North America for the first time.

The discovery of the insect, which can grow as large as two inches in length, came late last year in a couple locations in Washington state, along with speculation that the native of Asia arrived in the U.S. stowed away in international agricultural cargo or through intentional and illegal release here.

The sting of the insect is big and painful. It delivers a potent neurotoxin. Multiple stings can kill humans, even if they are not allergic.

According to the Times, which appears to have been the first to label the insect as the murder hornet, the insects kill as many as 50 people each year in Japan.

The bigger threat is the potential devastation the hornets bring to honeybees. The Asian giant hornet is a significant predator of honeybees, which already are suffering from pesticides, colony collapse disorder and other attacks in the U.S.

According to Washington State University entomologists, when attacking beehives, a single hornet can kill dozens of honeybees in minutes. A group of 30 hornets can destroy an entire hive of 30,000 bees in less than four hours.

None of the non-native murder hornets have been found anywhere east of Washington state, more than 1,800 miles from westernmost Pennsylvania.

But we do have a stinging insect that grows just as large as the murder hornet right here in the Keystone State.

Lucky for us, the cicada killer is not nearly aggressive as the Asian giant hornet, to honeybees or humans.

The cicada killer, a large solitary wasp that looks like an oversized, pale yellow jacket, is relatively harmless to humans. Males cannot sting, and females usually will sting only if they are grabbed in bare hands or stepped on with a bare foot.

The native insects will emerge late next month into July across Pennsylvania. Male cicada killers live only a couple weeks, time they spend patrolling their territories, battling with other males and mating. The females, which can grow to two inches in length, live about a month, each one capturing and paralyzing by stinging as many as 150 cicadas over her life.

She digs a burrow for each cicada she paralyzes, forces the cicada into the hole and lays an egg on it. The area she chooses for the burrow most often is a spot with sandy soil, little vegetation and full sun.

The cicada killer larva hatches from the egg a few days after it was laid, eats the cicada and then over-winters in a hard cocoon. Most will emerge as adults the following June or July.

Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.

Contact Marcus Schneck at mschneck@pennlive.com.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has called for areas and institutions with clusters of the coronavirus to be identified and for the widespread wearing of masks to prevent infection spreading.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Mr Martin also said there was huge anxiety about whether the Leaving Cert would go ahead or not and that predictive grades may have to be considered

He supported the exit strategy from lockdown published by the government before the weekend, and said stages could be brought forward if infection rates and hospital virus numbers decreased.

But the party leader has concerns about the transparency of where infection rates are running high.

My one concern is I do believe it is a time for transparency around the clusters. If there was, behaviour would be better in terms of firstly knowing where it is, secondly ending the rumour machine and anxiety and stress levels.

Some countries name districts, I would have thought the nursing homes would have been identified much earlier. Let's have full transparency and let families know, he said.

He noted that the World Health Organisation and the European Centre for Disease Prevention had advised the general public to wear masks.

Experts say it prevents carriers [of the virus] and the degree to which they can spread it. I would support the widespread wearing of masks after May 18.

And if we are to ever get public transport back, I think you will find that the wearing of masks will be linked with such transport. Whether we like it or not or some people believe it is effective, I think it is going to happen. They don't have to be masks worn in hospital. A lot of people have their own homemade masks.

While Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said on Friday that the Leaving Certificate exams would still go ahead, there is anxiety the lockdown exit strategy did not mention them.

Mr Martin said parents and students alike were in the dark. Party education spokesman Thomas Byrne also suggested the exams should now be cancelled.

Mr Martin said the latest medical advice was awaited and the government needed to be specific about the exams.

There is a nagging uncertainty. Predictive grades may be an alternative. I was surprised it wasn't in the roadmap.

Mr Martin also warned of the massive economic damage the virus had inflicted on the country and the need for a government to provide stability.

He noted the thousands of job losses at Ryanair and Aer Lingus and that state companies such as Bus Eireann, Dublin Bus and Irish Rail had not submitted performance indicators to transport chiefs.

All that has not been possible because of the Covid. Of course a government needs to be formed to deal with the enormous economic challenges.

He agreed with Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe that the introduction of new supports for businesses were dependent on a new government and parliamentary approval.

Meanwhile, the chair of the party's organisation in Co Clare says members are concerned they may not get a vote for any coalition deal involving Fianna Fail. A statement issued by Michael Enright, Cathaoirleach of Fianna Fail in Clare, said:

In the media, it is widely reported that Micheal Martin and the Fianna Fail negotiating team are going to consult with the membership in the absence of a special Ard Fheis. I cannot stress strongly enough, how shameful and disgraceful, circumventing the membership on the most important decision in the partys history is.

"Every organisation has checks and balances to ensure as an entity, its very existence is secure. In Fianna Fail, the members through One Member One Vote (OMOV), must have the final say in any programme for government.
Chinese paramilitary police wear protective masks as they guard the entrance to the Forbidden City in Beijing on May 2, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Leaked Documents: Chinas Lab Biosafety Concerns Point to Beijings Coverup of CCP Virus

A series of internal Chinese government documents on biosafety guidelines for research labs has revealed that Beijing issued guidelines on how to study the CCP virus and knew of its potential to spread among humans at least weeks before disclosing such risks with the public.

The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 and quickly spread across the country.

In early January, Chinese authorities initially instructed a genomics company to stop testing virus samples, and delayed informing the public that they mapped out the viruss entire genome, according to media reports.

Authorities also downplayed the viruss risk of spreadinguntil Jan. 20, when Chinas top respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan publicly announced that the virus could be transmitted between humans.

New internal documents provided to The Epoch Times have revealed more about the extent of Chinas coverup: officials knew of the viruss hazards weeks before Jan. 20, and prohibited labs from disclosing any research conducted on the virus.

Major Sudden Outbreak

On Jan. 3, Chinas National Health Commission issued a document to all regional health commissions and top-level biosafety labs in the country that may deal with pathogenic microorganisms that are infectious among people. The document was marked not to be disclosed.

A copy of the document issued by Chinas National Health Commission on Jan. 3, 2020. (Provided to The Epoch Times)

It set out guidelines to strengthen the management of biological samples and research activities with regard to the prevention and control of a major sudden outbreak of infectious diseases. However, the document did not specify the disease.

The document was issued just days after Wuhan authorities publicly confirmed the CCP virus outbreak on Dec. 31.

The document elaborated that such biological samples included blood samples, respiratory fluids, urine, and feces from patients.

Agencies under the supervision of provincial-level health commissions were prohibited from providing biological samples, pathogens, and culture samples to any other institutes or individuals.

Furthermore, it stated that during the spread of infectious diseases, agencies and individuals were not allowed to publish papers or information about their research without approval.

In another classified document on lab biosafety issued on Jan. 14, the health commission of Changping district in the capital Beijing stated that it was passing on guidelines from the Beijing municipal health commission in connection to the prevention and control of a major sudden outbreak of infectious diseases.

A copy of the document issued by the health commission of Changping district in the capital Beijing on Jan. 14, 2020. (Provided to The Epoch Times)

The Beijing commission asked the citys pathogenic microbiology labs, including those in health institutes, disease control institutes, third-party testing institutes, government customs departments, and companies that study pathogenic microorganisms, to conduct self-evaluations on Jan. 15 and 16, before health officials will begin random inspections of these facilities from Jan. 17 until 20.

Addressing the CCP Virus

During this time, Wuhan officials maintained that the CCP viruss risk of human-to-human transmission was low.

On Jan. 16, Chinas National Health Commission issued an internal notice, Novel Coronavirus Laboratory Biosafety Guidelines, addressed to regional health commissions and disease prevention and control centers about how to study the CCP virus.

A copy of the document issued by Chinas National Health Commission on Jan. 16, 2020. (Provided to The Epoch Times)

The Jan. 16 document was marked not to be disclosed and internal use only; cannot be distributed on the internet.

The guidelines showed that Chinese health officials were aware that the CCP virus had high risks. For example, lab researchers were instructed to adopt protective equipment in accordance with any level-three biosafety laboratories while handling uncultured samples (uncultured only contains the microorganism, as opposed to a cultured sample, where pathogen is placed in a lab culture so that it can grow).

Level three is the second-highest classification for labs studying dangerous pathogens, with level four being the highest.

Also, staff must be trained and equipped with protective gear to handle waste coming from these labs.

Finally, the guidelines stated that certain scientific procedures in studying the CCP virus, including separation, cultivation, titration, purification, and obtaining nucleic acids, must be performed at level-three biosafety laboratories.

These guidelines were made public on Jan. 23, three days after Zhongs public statement.

The Epoch Times also obtained an internal document issued by the Beijing Hospitals Authority on Jan. 16. Pointing to the aforementioned guidelines, the hospital authority said it would carry out an inspection of 22 local hospitals for six days until Jan. 21, to ensure lab biosafety.

A copy of the document issued by the Beijing Hospitals Authority on Jan. 16, 2020. (Provided to The Epoch Times)

These documentsalong with documents reported by The Epoch Times on April 30showed that Beijing concealed the viruss ability to spread among humans. Health authorities issued a notice on Jan. 15 instructing local hospitals and facilities on how to respond to a new form of pneumonia spreading among patients.

The Associated Press uncovered similar findingsthat Beijing knew of the viruss transmissibility for days before conceding it on Jan. 20in a recent report also based on the Chinese regimes internal memos.
U of T alumnus Tye Farrow is designing temporary ICUs that are quick and easy to build, and wrap health-promoting features like natural light and isolated logistics corridors into their design. Credit: Farrow Partners Architects

They went from a conversation on a Thursday morning to blueprints on Monday and a full-scale prototype built five days later. University of Toronto alumnus Tye Farrow, who graduated with a degree in architecture in 1987, and friend Ray Arbesman moved quickly to design temporary intensive care units in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Farrow, who is the senior partner at Farrow Partners Inc. and the current president of the U of T Alumni Association, is known for creating buildings that wrap health-promoting features into their design. Arbesman is the founder of Nucap Industries, a global technology company, and the inventor of a novel mechanical system that can bind building materials together.

Together, they've developed Solace Rapid AssemblyHigh Performance COVID-19 Inpatient Bed Solutions, and they're hoping the project could soon help hospitals around the world that are struggling to care for COVID-19 patients.

"Our goal has been to create solutions that are faster, cheaper, smarter, safer, more adaptable to individual hospital needs and importantlyhealthier," says Farrow.

Farrow founded the Cause Health movement to promote designs that nurture complete wellness, incorporating environmental sustainability, cultural sensitivity, a sense of purpose and health-boosting features such as natural materials, fractal shapes, and sunlight.

For example, Farrow designed the Credit Valley Cancer Centre in Mississauga with tree-like structures that evoke a person reaching to the sky.

Credit: Farrow Partners Architects

"Spaces can tune basic emotions and background bodily feelings from negative to positive," says Farrow. "Neurophysiologists call the principle 'neural mirroring'  we model, or feel into, feelings we observe in another person."

He adds that a building environment creates a similar response, so the reaching structures in the Mississauga hospital seek to generate optimism, as well as a sense of life and growth, and an uplifting feeling that you are somewhere special and purposeful.

Farrow is currently earning a master's degree in neuroscience applied to architecture and designa field so specialized "I believe I will be the only architect in Canada with this degree," he says.

"There is scientific evidence that space can be an accelerant or leave us numb. And the human dimension connecting space and performance for medical staff and patients alike is at the top of my mind."

Farrow's design for the ICU structures is based on an innovative, never-before used building technique: wood blocks laminated with metal instead of glue. Arbesman, a U of T donor, initially invented the fail-safe, velcro-like technology to build safer car brake pads, but began collaborating with Farrow on possible construction uses about five years ago.

The resulting blocks are as strong as concrete, but lighter and as easy to assemble as Lego. Even unskilled volunteers could build one of the 12-bed ICU units on a parking lot or vacant lot in a few hours, according to Farrow.

Credit: Farrow Partners Architects

Features such as clerestory windows to introduce natural light are designed to lower patient and staff stress, while the unit's wraparound logistics corridor is environmentally controlled so that workers who service mechanics, electricity and medical gases remain isolated from patient areas.

Farrow was inspired to improve on other temporary hospital solutions he'd seen on the news. "The environments we build to support our medical staff and patients need to be the meal equivalent to a fruit-, vegetable- and protein-enhanced energy drink smoothie," he says, "giving you mental energy and clarity, physical strength and resiliency and mind comfort; an accelerant that will help you succeed under stressed conditions."

Solace launched on April 23. "We already have interest from a range of different organizations in Canada, the U.S. and Israel," says Farrow. "People are looking at it for the COVID-19 ICU responses, but because it is permanent in character, yet can also be disassembled easily, jurisdictions are also looking at it for other related uses that will need a longer shelf-life solution as we move into the winter."

"I thought that the grip timber block solution was perfect as it could give a rapid response solution that could be designed to any medical special need, versus a fixed size as with shipping container structures," he says. "And we can create an enhanced environment for staff and patients alike.

"Working on the project has been very stimulating and it's satisfying that we will also be able to do our part."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak
New Delhi, May 4 : After announcing that it will bear the cost of railway tickets for migrant workers, the Congress has launched an all out attack on the government.

Taking a dig at the ruling dispensation, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi said that if the government can spent Rs 100 crore for the "Namaste Trump" event and the Railway Minister can donate Rs 151 crore to the PM-CARE fund, why the same reciprocity can't be shown for the distressed migrants.

She also said that people have been evacuated from foreign locations free of cost, so why charge the migrants for train tickets. "Labourers are nation builders, but today they are forced to stumble here and there which is causing pain," Priyanka Gandhi tweeted.

"When we can evacuate people from foreign lands using planes, spend Rs 100 crore in Namaste Trump and Rail Minister can donate Rs 151 crore to PM-CARE fund, then why in this distressed time labourers are not allowed to travel free," she added.

She said that the Congress has decided to take care of the expenses of those returning home.

Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi said in a statement, "The Congress has taken a decision that every Pradesh Congress Committee (state unit) shall bear the cost for the rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labourer and shall take necessary steps in this regard." "This will be the Congress' humble contribution to the service of our compatriots and to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them," she said.

Her remarks came amid the reports that the migrants were being charged for their travel by trains to their respective states.

The Railways has said earlier that it was charging the state governments for the 'Shramik' special train tickets.

The Railways also clarified that the Shramik special trains are meant for "nominated people" identified and registered by the state governments and the Railways will not issue ticket to any individual or entertain any request from any group.
A 24-year-old forest guard was on



Monday shot dead by a poacher in Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, police said.

The incident took place in a forest near Ghatigaon village, some 40 kilometres from here, and accused Ramkisan of Rampura is on the run, Sub Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) Praveen Ashtana said.

"Forest guard Deepu Rana was patrolling Sunken beat of the forest in Ghatigaon when he heard gunfire. When he reached the spot from where the sound emanated, he found a fowl lying dead and Ramkisan near it," he said.

"Ramkisan fired at Deepu and fled. Deepu was rushed to hospital where he died minutes after admission. Ramkisan has been charged with murder and efforts are on to nab him," the SDOP said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four Hungarian medical universities are launching a representative screening program to access information on the novel coronavirus infection among the general population, announced the rector of Semmelweis University Bela Merkely.

Having started on 1 May, the two-week research project will feature almost 18 000 people who will represent countrys citizens by age and place of residence. The program will include sampling and completion of a questionnaire.



According to Merkely, those selected for the study will be notified via phone calls and messages. The screening will be carried out by thousands of universities staff, including medical students.



The university rector added that participation should be taken seriously and he asked everyone chosen by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office to cooperate with medical workers.



MTI Photo: Zsolt Czegledi
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to expand, the importance of testing for the disease and providing public data to give as clear a picture as possible of the spread of the disease is greater than ever. However, it is becoming clear this critical information is being suppressed in the United States as state governments push forward with plans to reopen their economies.

Testing of both the living and dead for the virus is the only way to accurately determine the course of the pandemic and the success or failure of social distancing measures and other efforts to combat the disease. Both South Korea and China have shown how aggressive testing, mandatory shelter-in-place and maintaining social distance could identify and curb the spread of COVID-19.

We need to have the testing available because the big question now with COVID-19 is the denominator [the number representing a part of the whole]of anything, Dr. Alex Williamson of the College of American Pathologists told ABC News. How many people get it? How many people recover? How many are hospitalized? How many died? We dont know the true denominator. More testing is the most important thing we need to do.

President Donald J. Trump and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on April 30, 2020 (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

Other studies, including one from the Yale School of Public Health, indicates that some states may have missed as much as two to three times the number of COVID-19 deaths reported. Because the virus can attack various organs, the cause of an organ failure might be overlooked.

But in Tennessee, where residents face a greater risk of COVID-19 hospitalization or death than most other stateswith more than 13,000 confirmed infections and 200 deathsthe numbers are exactly what the states top health official doesnt want anyone to know.

Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey has refused to release figures on what she termed probable deaths from COVID-19 where symptoms were present but no test was done. These are termed by many health officials and researchers as epidemiologically-linked cases and defined as cases where public health epidemiologists have determined that infection is highly likely because a person exhibited symptoms and had close contact with someone who tested positive.

The CDC has urged states to look for, document and report just such cases. But Piercey apparently thinks releasing this data is a waste of time, characterizing probable cases as a mixed bag.

Some of those pan out to be actual cases or some of them dont, Piercey told reporters at a press conference last week. We collect that information and have actually had significant discussion on whether or not to post that information. Have no problem doing it. We just dont see that it adds a lot of value until we actually have a confirmed case or not. ... I dont have suspicion that our case count is off.

But health experts disagree.

Under-counting deaths in this particular epidemic is happening all over, Dr. Daniel Lopez-Acuna, an epidemiologist and former top World Health Organization official, who spent 30 years at the organization, told ABC News. Its almost inevitable.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has previously reported that in the seven states where COVID-19 hit the hardest, virus deaths were underreported by 9,000.

The CDCs National Vital Statistics System records deaths that might be related to COVID-19 in three different ways.

One is a death recorded only as caused by COVID-19 and a second attributes the fatality to pneumonia and COVID-19. Together those two figures equal the 206 deaths reported as of May 1 by the state of Tennessee. However, a third category records 119 Tennessee deaths as Influenza death counts (that) include deaths with pneumonia or COVID-19 also listed as a cause of death.

If all of the deaths in the third category were from COVID-19, it would raise the Tennessee death count by more than 50 percent.

Disregarding these figures, Piercey shows the same pig-headed resistance to reality as her boss.

Lee, a multi-millionaire businessman, first refused and then dragged his feet on requiring mandatory stay-at-home orders. He then pushed for quickly re-opening the states economy on May 1, a move which met with opposition from doctors and health care professionals, and will certainly mean a spread of COVID-19 and more needless deaths.

Piercey is a board-certified pediatrician specializing in abused children. But, like Lee, she has a distinctly business orientation which makes for bad medicine. She has a Masters of Business Administration (MBA), sits on a board that oversees the administration of three rural hospitals and is also on the boards of the Entrepreneur Development Center of Southwest Tennessee, rebranded as theCO, as well as the Jackson Downtown Development Corporation.

TheCO Facebook description of its work included the following: A key component of the development program will be an education series designed to address the issues facing entrepreneurial physicians, surgeons and clinicians who are interested in medical device development and commercialization.

The criminal response of state officials in downplaying possible deaths is all the more significant since Tennessee has been identified by the American Association of Retired People as among the top 10 states for adults considered at risk from severe COVID-19 cases, making accurate testing and reporting vital. At this point, there have been only 204,607 cases tested in Tennessee out of a population of 6.9 million

The other nine states identified by the AARP as vulnerable are West Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, Maine, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana.

Over 41 percent of adults 18 and older in South Carolina and Tennesseetwo states that have started the gradual process of returning to life as it once wasface an increased risk of hospitalization, even death, from COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, due to age (65 and older) or an underlying health condition, aarp.com reported.

Florida, with its reopened beaches, is putting 42 percent of residents at risk, while West Virginia residents face the greatest risk with almost 50 percent of the population facing the prospect of hospitalization or death due to age or underlying illnesses if they contract COVID-19.
The Sussex Royal's website is still up until now, and many are asking: is it a sign that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry still plan to go back to the royal family soon?

Many royal watchers are calling out Meghan and Prince Harry for keeping the website of their former brand, Sussex Royal, active one month after they officially left the monarchy. Some say that this is a direct blow to Queen Elizabeth II, who banned them from further using the word royal in their new engagements.

In addition, they ultimately agreed not to include their former royal title in any of their future endeavors. However, they still mentioned Sussex Royal when they unrolled their plans for their new non-profit organization, Archewell.

While both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex remain silent about the issue, their actions suggest that theyhave a reason for keeping the website.

In line with this, we came up with possible theories and reasons why Sussex Royal is still up.

Meghan Planning To Go Back?

The Duchess of Sussex has been wanting to be "Princess Diana 2.0" since she was still a child, so much so that she allegedly came up with a devious plan to win Prince Harry's heart in order to get her fairytale dream.

Although they are already in L.A. to live their Hollywood dreams, many royal watchers are claiming that this is just another tricky plan for the duchess to gain more attention so they can be THE "power couple" once they decide to go back.

This is something possible, especially if they use the LA media as another scapegoat to go back to U.K.

Moreover, returning will not be a problem at all since Queen Elizabeth II expressed that she will still welcome the two with open arms even after she supported their exit.

Sussex Royal Beneficial To Archewell

When people search for "Meghan and Prince Harry's organization" or something like that on the web, Sussex Royal will always be the first one to appear. Since their previous organization is well-known and established, they could still use it to promote Archewell.

Moreover, they included in their last post on their official Instagram account that they still want to reconnect with their supporters soon. In reality, there are only two things that can easily bridge them to their fans: the royal family or their official website where people can get all the information about them as former serving royals.

Meghan Only Wants 'Attention'

Meghan's toxic trait of being an attention-seeker has been an issue ever since she became part of the royal family, and keeping the website is probably her only way to keep the people's curiosity flowing about their plans.

She was previously being referred to as "Duchess Difficult" since she was allegedly trying so hard to live like Princess Diana. Prince Harry, on the other hand, let her do whatever she wanted to do because "whatever Meghan wants, Meghan gets."

Moreover, royal experts believe that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's decision not to engage themselves with the British tabloid media is their strategy to fish more attention.
Luxembourg only ranks 17th in the Global Index of Press Freedom.

Sunday 3 May marked World Press Freedom Day. The ALJP (Association of Luxembourgish Journalists) reminds the public that Luxembourg's journalists still do not obtain over the right to free access and information.

The ALJP speaks of the government's restricted and centralised information politics, greatly amplified by the current sanitary crisis. In the Global index of Press Freedom, Luxembourg only ranks 17th.

Government receives criticism for limited and centralised information policy.

Reporters Without Borders further lament the negative influence the health crisis is having on press freedom around the world. Governments withhold figures about positive corona cases and deaths, or attempt to manipulate numbers. Shut borders mean journalists cannot flee the country.

China's regime controlled journalists strongly at the beginning of the pandemic, which impeded swift decision-making and access to information by other countries. The universal right to information is quickly squashed if one imagines that even the World Health Organisation (WHO) expelled journalists from Taiwan as to not tread on China's toes, explains Christophe Deloire from Reports Without Borders.

He adds: "Hungary is placed 89th in the Index. The authoritarian Orban regime has entered a permanent state of emergency since 2015 due to the imaginary threat of migration." How long will the state of emergency last? What happens once the pandemic is over? All questions remain unanswered.

Some believe the state of emergency is no more than a political construct, a building block of a structure in an alternative reality. That alternative reality includes laws to counter the independence of the media.

Peter Erdelyi, independent journalist living in Budapest, talks to us on Skype: "It is complicated...the state of emergency can be used as a form of intimidation for all the independent journalists in the country. I don't think people are arrested now due to the state of emergency, that's not the goal. The aim is to intimidate without arrest."

"A year and a half ago we maybe received one email threat a month. Six months ago we had three a month. Now we're opening one every third or fourth day. Luckily there is no physical harm involved. No one has come to the office and threatened us face-to-face," says Erdelyi.

Video in Luxembourgish
Iran has criticized what it calls the "illegitimate" efforts by the United States to prolong the UN Security Council arms embargo on Tehran and said it would react to them with "proportionate" measures.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed on April 29 to use all means available to extend the ban on conventional arms sales to Iran beyond October and he was "hopeful" the UN Security Council would prolong the restriction before it expires.

"Iran is not seeking to exit the 2015 nuclear deal with six powers.... America's move is illegitimate and our reaction will be proportionate," Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Musavi said on May 4 in a televised weekly news conference, referring to an agreement with global powers that the United States left in 2018.

"The United States is not a member of the nuclear deal anymore.... Iran's reaction to America's illegal measures will be firm," Musavi said.

Security Council members China and Russia, which stand to win major new arms contracts with Iran, are certain to oppose an extension of the embargo.

After withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Tehran that have hit its economy hard.

Iran has gradually rolled back its commitments under the accord since the United States quit, arguing that Washington's actions justified such a course.

Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to halt its sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.

Washington believes the nuclear program is secretly working toward military capabilities, while Tehran claims it is solely for civilian purposes.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Iran Nuclear Deal Will 'Die Forever' If US Uses 'Sanctions Virus' to Extend Arms Embargo  Tehran

Sputnik News

10:03 GMT 03.05.2020

The Trump administration has been searching for options to try to extend the United Nations ban on the sale of conventional weapons to Iran beyond October, proposing sanctions and even considering making the argument that the US is still effectively a party to the Iran nuclear deal, despite its decision to walk out of the agreement in 2018.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal will "die forever" if the UN arms embargo against Tehran is not lifted, Ali Shamkhani, chief of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, has warned.

"#JCPOA will die forever by circumventing 2231 Resolution and continuing #Iran's illegal weapons sanctions," Shamkhani tweeted, referring to the UN Security Council document from 2015 which authorized the JCPOA.

"Sanctions' virus is the US tool for survival of its declining hegemony. What will #EU do: Save dignity and support multilateralism or Accept humiliation and help unilateralism," Shamkhani added, in an apparent dig against the JCPOA's European signatories' failure to circumvent crushing US sanctions and fulfill their obligations under the nuclear deal.

The United States recently stepped up efforts to try to extend the global arms embargo against Iran, despite the lack of a legal justification for doing so. On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested that the US had the power to extend the ban on conventional arms sales to Iran under Resolution 2231, despite abandoning the Iran nuclear deal to which it is linked two years ago. Days earlier, Pompeo similarly referred to Resolution 2231 following Iran's launch of a military satellite.

Also last week, US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook suggested that Russia and China had no reason to vote against or veto the prolongation of the arms embargo on Iran. On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Sputnik that there was no case to be made to extend the arms embargo, and as far as Moscow was concerned, the issue was "closed." He added that Washington had no right to talk about the provisions of Resolution 2231, given its own decision to stop adhering to the resolution and attempts to pressure other countries to stop complying with its provisions by introducing unilateral sanctions. Pompeo had earlier promised to "urge" Washington's European partners to "make sure" that Iran remains unable to purchase conventional weapons from abroad.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called on Pompeo to "stop dreaming" about extending the embargo, saying the US had no legal case for doing so.

The United States unilaterally scrapped its commitments to the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, slapping Iran with tough banking an energy sanctions. Amid the deal's European signatories' failure to create a package of measures to soften the economic blow caused by US actions, Iran has reneged on some of the nuclear deal's provisions, including limitations on its uranium stockpile and enrichment. Tehran has stressed however that it has no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction, claiming the pursuit of such weapons run counter to the country's Islamic faith.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






President of the Chamber of Freight forwarders and Trade (CFT), Dennis Amfo-Sefah, has stated that UNI-PASS will overcome the difficulties which led to the complete stall of goods clearance at the Ports.



While attributing the hitch to the sabotaging activities of some detractors, Amfo-Sefah, debunked the misinformation out that nothing was happening at the port; but rather explained that there were two sides to what was currently happening in Tema port.



A statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Friday said Freight forwarders and traders who have a bill of entries (BoE) already logged unto the system and were at various stages of the clearance systems could go ahead and clear.



The problem is with applications and entry of new declaration, which the system does not accept, hence the standstill at the Tema Port, the statement explained.



According to the statement, some of the stakeholders acted in bad faith, which resulted in the challenges, but gave the assurance that things would work.



Even though the Commissioner General wrote to all stakeholders announcing the implementation and deployment of the new national single window Integrated Customs Management System ICUMS it also directed GCNet to continue running their GICCS platform alongside the ICUMS-uni-pass platform, to enable all existing BoEs that are already logged in the GICCS-GCnet system to complete their clearance cycle whiles the ICUMS-Uni-pass receive New applications from UCR, CCVR stage to the final clearance cycle.



The directives, he said, were communicated to GCnet, West blue, ICUMS-Uni-pass, and all stakeholders per letters with reference numbers; CG/GRA/ICUMS-PN/04/20 of 24th April 2020; CG/GRA/ICUMS/04/20 of 24TH April 2020, and CG/GRA/ICUMS-3/04/20 of 27th April 2020.



This was to ensure that freight forwarders and traders who have already been issued with Customs Classification and Valuation Report CCVRs from the old Pre-Arrival Assessment Reporting System PAARS which is been managed by west blue utilize their CCVRs.



However, he said, the freight and trade community only to turn up to work on Tuesday to surprisingly find out that GcNet systems were down."



The statement called on all stakeholders that failed to play their roles to render an apology to traders and freight forwarders in Tema port and compensate them for the loss of time and money.



Activities at the Tema Port came to a standstill last Monday when it was realized that the new port management platform that Government contracted CUPIA Korea to install had been encumbered with difficulties.



The difficulties coming in the very early days of the implementation of UNIPAS, led to misinformation in the public that the UNIPAS system which has come to replace GCNets system with is not good.



UNI-PASS is a new port clearing system that processes documents and payments through one window.



The new system is a departure from the previous system where valuation and classification and risk management and payment were handled by different entities.



The single window project is aimed at coordinating all activities at the ports on one platform to reduce

time and cost in clearing and exporting goods.



The system, being spearheaded by Ghana Link Services Ltd, in collaboration with Customs UNIPASS International Agency (CUPIA) of the Korean Customs Service, the designer of the system, replaces the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAARS) and the Ghana Customs Management System (GCMS) jointly operated by the Customs Division, the Ghana Community Network Services (GCNet) Ltd and West Blue Consulting.

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
Universal Rolling (Unirol), Bahrains leading steel reinforcement bars manufacturer, will be leading the promotion of the steel sector at Gulf Construction Expo this year.

The Northern Gulfs leading showcase for the building and construction sector, will be held under the patronage of HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain, from October 5 to 7 at the Bahrain International Exhibition Centre.

Operations Director of Universal Rolling Ali Der comments: 2019 was a year of achievements and milestones for Unirol. The upgrading of our rolling mill automation increased mill efficiency and raised our annual production levels which has opened the door to the possible regional export of our rebars. We are looking to take advantage of the brand exposure, promotion and networking opportunities that Gulf Construction Expo gives to promote our Made in Bahrain products and increase the business opportunities for our company.

Jubran Abdulrahman, the Managing Director of HCE, adds: Unirol have established a reputation in the market for the rebars they produce. As the steel sector sponsors for Gulf Construction Expo they represent the industrial capabilities in the Kingdom of Bahrain and high standards that Made in Bahrain products have to offer.

The Gulf Construction Expo is considered the Kingdom of Bahrains flagship event to promote construction and building materials and services sector. The annual event features companies and products from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and 15 other countries. The strategic sponsors for the event are the Haji Hassan Group and Benayat, while the sponsors of the architectural aluminium sector is Arcall WLL.

Gulf Construction Expo is an annual showcase that delivers the Northern Gulfs specialist event to access the regions most influential architectural, engineering and design communities of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. TradeArabia News Service
If you dont believe me, or Lightfoot or Pritzker, listen to the doctor coordinating the White House coronavirus response, Deborah Birx, who addressed the anti-stay-at-home-order protesters Sunday: Its devastatingly worrisome to me, personally, because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a co-morbid condition and they have a serious or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives. So we need to protect each other at the same time were voicing our discontent.
New Delhi, May 4 : With the government easing restrictions in select zones across the country from May 4, Ola and Uber on Monday announced to resume their operations in green and orange zones across India.

Uber will provide rides in green zones like Daman, Kochi, Guwahati and more places while it will provide rides in orange zones like Amritsar, Udaipur, Mohali and Gurugram, among others.

"If you must travel, Uber is ready to serve residents in these zones from Monday, May 4. Riders will constantly be notified with further information and the status of specific cities through our app," the company said in a statement.

The company recommends no more than two passengers per vehicle, and no one should sit next to the driver.

In red zones, Uber will continue to offer Uber Essential and Uber Medic services in these zones, which it has been providing during the ongoing lockdown.

Similarly, Ola is also resuming services in over 100 cities across India, located in green and orange zones. The operations will be launched in a phased manner across these cities.

All rides will be driven only across the identified safe zones and to ensure every driver-partner adheres to the safety rules, a mandatory selfie authentication mechanism has been put into place before and after every ride.

Furthermore, all cars will be cleaned and sanitiaed after each ride and a flexible cancellation policy has also been introduced under which both the customer and driver-partner can cancel the ride if they feel the other party is not following the rules or not wearing a mask.

"Our fight against COVID-19 is a collective effort, and will be possible only with both our driver-partners and customers doing their bit to ensure that everyone has access to safe and high-quality mobility," said Anand Subramanian, Spokesperson and Head of Communications, Ola.
IRVING, Texas, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Darling Ingredients Inc. (NYSE: DAR) will hold a conference call and webcast on Thursday, May 7, 2020 to discuss the Company's first quarter 2020 financial results. The teleconference will begin at 8:30 a.m. ET and will be hosted by Mr. Randall Stuewe, CEO and Chairman of the Board, and Mr. Brad Phillips, EVP and Chief Financial Officer. Additionally, the Company will have a slide presentation available to augment management's formal remarks, which will be accessible via the investor relations section of the Company's website. The related press release will be issued after the market closes on May 6, 2020.

Due to historically high call volume, the company is offering participants the opportunity to register in advance for the conference through the following link: http://dpregister.com/10142656

Registered participants will receive an email with a calendar reminder and a dial-in number and PIN that will allow them immediate access to the call on May 7, 2020

Participants who do not wish to pre-register for the call may dial in using 844-868-8847 (U.S. callers), or 412-317-6593 (international callers), and ask for the "Darling Ingredients" call. A replay will be available two hours after completion of the call through May 14, 2020. To access the replay, please dial 877-344-7529 (U.S. callers), 855-669-9658 (Canada) and 412-317-0088 (International callers) and reference passcode 10142656. The live webcast and archived replay also can be accessed on the Company's web site at http://ir.darlingii.com.

About Darling

Darling Ingredients Inc. is a global developer and producer of sustainable natural ingredients from edible and inedible bio-nutrients, creating a wide range of ingredients and customized specialty solutions for customers in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, food, pet food, feed, industrial, fuel, bioenergy and fertilizer industries. With operations on five continents, the Company collects and transforms all aspects of animal by-product streams into useable and specialty ingredients, such as gelatin, edible fats, feed-grade fats, animal proteins and meals, plasma, pet food ingredients, organic fertilizers, yellow grease, fuel feedstocks, green energy, natural casings and hides. The Company also recovers and converts recycled oils (used cooking oil and animal fats) into valuable feed and fuel ingredients and collects and processes residual bakery products into feed ingredients. In addition, the Company provides environmental services, such as grease trap collection and disposal services to food service establishments and disposal services for waste solids from the wastewater treatment systems of industrial food processing plants. The Company sells its products domestically and internationally and operates within three industry segments: Feed Ingredients, Food Ingredients and Fuel Ingredients. For additional information, visit the Company's website at http://www.darlingii.com.



For More Information, contact: 5601 N. MacArthur Blvd Jim Stark, VP, Investor Relations Irving, Texas 75038 [email protected] Phone: 972-281-4823

SOURCE Darling Ingredients Inc.

Related Links

http://www.darlingii.com


The recently installed weather radar will provide farmers with more accurate and vital information.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has recently installed a weather radar at Rainbow, in western Victoria.

Wimmera, in Victoria, has long been considered a black hole for weather predictions as the nearest stations in Mildura and Mount Gambier are too far away to provide accurate data on approaching rain.

Work on the newly installed radar began in 2018, after years of campaigning by local farmers and the Wimmera Development Association.

Farmers needed to know about approaching rain in order to best judge when to spray and fertilise their crops.

Lack of a radar meant farmers in one of the countrys most productive farming regions were making costly decisions without the information they needed.

Marshall Rodda, a farmer at Tarranyurk, close to the new radar station, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that it had been extremely difficult trying to decide when to spray and fertilise without reliable information.

Until now, Roddas decision on whether to spread tens of thousands of dollars of fertiliser was based on information from a radar nearly 300km (186 miles) away.

The radar didnt give us accurate enough information, so it could have been raining in our area and the radar wouldnt have shown it at all, he said. Urea will only last for a certain amount of time without moisture, so therefore that urea would be totally wasted.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal holds first Cabinet meeting at the Delhi Secretariat today after government offices were allowed to open from today onwards. Image Source: IANS News

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal holds first Cabinet meeting at the Delhi Secretariat today after government offices were allowed to open from today onwards. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, May 4 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday holds first Cabinet meeting after his government allowed offices to open in the third extension of the lockdown.

Kejriwal, who was so far holding all the meetings through video-conferencing, held the meeting on Monday at the Delhi Secretariat, officials said.

Delhi Cabinet Ministers and officials were present in the meeting, currently underway.

From Monday, while the lockdown has been extended for another two weeks, a number of relaxations have been given by the city government.

While all the government and private offices were allowed to open, those under the non-essential category were only allowed to have 33 per cent attendance.

So far, more than 4,500 coronavirus cases have been reported in the city.
The global novel coronavirus pandemic has taken its toll on the world, with more than 3.5 million people infected and at least 247,000 deaths. The novel coronavirus, officially known as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a virulent pathogen that can cause severe respiratory illness. Besides knowing the source of the virus, a team of researchers believes it to be crucial to understand how the virus has changed over time, especially in terms of virulence and aggressiveness.

Understanding the varying aggressiveness of SARS-CoV-2 may provide valuable data to trace its spread across populations. In the study, published on the preprint server BioRxiv*, the researchers traced amino acid variants that possess high frequency in Europe, particularly in Italy, one of the hardest-hit countries. The team found that these variants were absent in the first outbreak that occurred in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, in China, where the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported.

Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (green) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (yellow), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID

Rising new variants

Knowing the emergence of continuous new variants, specifically in genes coding for structural proteins, may aid in the virus evading the immune response. The researchers conducted an extensive study of the SARS-CoV-2 genomes isolated from patients in Italy throughout the pandemic in the country.

The first European nation that felt the full wrath of SARS-CoV-2 was Italy. The first local transmission case was reported on Feb. 20, in a young man in the northern region of the country, Lombardy. However, over the next 24 hours, another 36 cases of pneumonia-like illness were then reported. Since then, the country has a staggering 210,717 confirmed cases and more than 28,000 deaths. The country has one of the highest case tolls in Europe and worldwide.

The SARS-CoV-2 strain in Italy was seen to be different from the original one in China. To have a better understanding of the COVID-19 spread in the country, the team identified six non-synonymous mutations that differentiate the SARS-CoV-2 strain in Italy, from those in China. To do this, the team used the GISAID database and traced the relative frequency in the global scenario and different countries.

To arrive at their findings, the researchers extracted coding sequences from complete and partial genomes. They translated nucleotide sequences, and those with a high fraction of gaps were removed. Further, they manually edited sequences not well aligned, leading in a different number of sequences per alignment.

Then, the sequences from the multi-alignments were utilized to build amino acid frequency profiles using the R-package. For each protein encoded in the SARS-CoV-2, two profiles were obtained - one for Italian strains and one for the whole set of sequences.

Six positions in coding sequences

The team studied the time profiles and performed phylogenetic analysis. The results of the study showed that there are six positions in three proteins, where amino acid frequencies changed radically. The coding sequences had different patterns of amino acids when comparing Italian sequences with those found across the globe.

Using this approach, we were able to follow the evolution of the virus over time among continents, showing that the different clades evolved in different moments and that their frequencies vary among continents, the researchers wrote in the paper.

The team also found that one particular variant, the D614G on the spike protein, has been characterized by an increase in frequency since the end of January in many countries.

Since then, it has overcome the original haplotype in most countries, suggesting it may indeed provide some advantage to the virus. However, to understand these issues, experimental data is required; for instance, in the form of Tn-insertion mutagenesis, as performed on other viruses in the past, the team concluded.

The team revealed that this variant, which appeared in Germany on Jan. 28, has overcome the wild-type variant that arrived from China, suggesting various strains spreading across the globe. As the pandemic grows bigger, new information about the virus emerges, which helps track its behavior and activity. This way, scientists may predict scenarios of viral activity, whether the pandemic will subside shortly, or a vaccine is needed immediately to halt its spread.

*Important Notice

bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
The coronavirus has become a rallying cry for white supremacists.

Sounds crazy, but a story in The New York Times makes that case. According to The Times story, extremists are using the pandemic to recruit via the internet and at state capitals by twisting the public health crisis to bolster their white supremacist, and government agenda.

No, not all protesters at all state capitals are white supremacists. But, according to The Times, the presence of extremists cannot be missed, with their anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic signs and coded messages aimed at inspiring the faithful, those who track the movement say. And, it said, there has been a definite of social media chatter from identified groups during the pandemic.

And, The Times said, April is typically a big month for white supremacists.

Who knew?

According to The Times, extremists used coronavirus disinformation to promote the idea that we are at the advent of a totalitarian state, in their recruiting efforts.

The good news is, The Times said, its not exactly clear what kind of success these groups have had yet. So, maybe not many folks are biting. But, it also reported that the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness said in March that white supremacists were encouraging followers to conduct attacks during the shutdown to incite fear and target ethnic minorities and immigrants.

It cites that organizations director, as saying the groups are passing COVID-19 off as a Jewish-run conspiracy, and, alternatively, described as a disease spread by non-white immigrants.

According to the piece, this is not new as these groups tend to turn events into recruiting tools.
In the first year the prestigious James Beard Awards have singled out the Lone Star State as its own category, San Antonios Steve McHugh of Cured at the Pearl has been named a finalist for Best Chef: Texas.

The nomination marks McHughs fifth year as a finalist. Before now, Texas had been lumped into the Best Chef: Southwest category.

Twenty Texas chefs were named in February as semifinalists for the award, including Esaul Ramos of the Southeast Side barbecue restaurant 2M Smokehouse, and Alex Paredes of the South Side taqueria Carnitas Lonja. The winners will be announced Sept. 25, later in the year than usual because of the coronavirus.

In an email, McHugh called the recognition of Texas chefs a bright spot, particularly amongst such uncertainty and an important reminder of the unity and hope that food can inspire  now, more than ever.

Ramos, a San Antonio native who started 2M with his childhood friend Joe Melig in 2016, remained upbeat despite missing out on the next round. Just being a James Beard nominee is amazing in itself, he said. It keeps us motivated to keep pushing it further.

On ExpressNews.com: 3 takeout stars: Sichuan House Chinese, Garcias Mexican Food and Cured

For Paredes, whose South Side taqueria thundered onto the scene in 2017 and was quickly named one of Esquire magazines top new restaurants in the country, the semifinalist nomination gave him something to shoot for.

I still have a lot more to give in order for me to feel like one of the best, he said. It feels great getting recognized for the super hard work that we do every day.

The other Texas finalists are Kevin Fink of Emmer & Rye in Austin, Michael Fojtasek of Olamaie in Austin, Anita Jaisinghani of Pondicheri in Houston and Trong Nguyen of Crawfish & Noodles in Houston.

San Antonio has come close to winning a James Beard Award several times in the past, but has yet to claim the big prize. Besides McHugh, chef finalists have included Bruce Auden of Biga on the Banks and Andrew Weissman of Le Reve and Il Sogno Osteria fame. Other San Antonio finalists have included cookbook writers Melissa Guerra and Terry Thompson-Anderson.

Mike Sutter is a food and drink reporter and restaurant critic in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Mike, become a subscriber. msutter@express-news.net | Twitter: @fedmanwalking | Instagram: @fedmanwalking
The nationwide lockdown has been extended again to contain the spread of coronavirus and break the transmission chain, thus making India the only country in the world to impose such a long lockdown covering the entire country. Now the total tenure of the nationwide lockdown, scheduled to end on May 17, is 54 days. And one can't rule out the possibility of yet another extension. Even China enforced a complete lockdown only in Wuhan, its fourth largest city from where the coronavirus outbreak started. In contrast, the lockdown in India, in force since March 25, covers the entire length and breadth of the country.

Lockdown 3.0

One thing that stood out in the latest extension of the lockdown by 14 days is that this time it was not Prime Minister Narendra Modi who announced the extension. It was left to the Union Home Ministry which announced the extension by way of a press note along with the list of red, orange and green zones. While the continuing battle against coronavirus shows no signs of ending any time soon and total number of confirmed cases as well as deaths continue to spike, the lockdown has definitely helped in containment of the virus. The enormity of the task ahead can be gauged by the fact that three months after the novel coronavirus reached India (the first Covid19 case in India was reported on January 30, a Kerala student who was studying in Wuhan, China), the total number of cases in India has surpassed 32,000 and the number of total deaths so far has reached the four-figure mark. The biggest concern for the Centre on whether the lockdown should be extended is the lives versus livelihood debate.

The question of lifting the lockdown completely was not even worth a consideration as it would have amounted to frittering away the advantages of the 40-day nationwide lockdown. Adopting the traffic colour coding of Red, Orange and Green for a staggered easing of the curbs formed the core and kernel of the government's exit strategy. The curbs have been partially eased in the orange zones and largely lifted in the green zone though curbs on all forms of public transport - road, rail and air - as well as interstate movement continue to be in place. Extending the nationwide lockdown by two weeks more was an easy solution as a large number of states favoured further extension of the lockdown, but it comes with a concomitant problem of hurting the economy. After all, what is the guarantee that even after Lockdown 3.0, the pandemic would loosen its grip? The current hard reality is that even after 40 days of the lockdown, the spread has continued. Many core sectors of the economy - including aviation, manufacturing, automobiles, infrastructure, construction, real estate - have been very badly hit. Moody's has already cut its projections on India's growth rate from 2.5% to 0.5% and further extension of the lockdown may push it into negative.

The easier option

Before announcing the second extension of the lockdown till May 3, PM Modi in his video-conferencing with the chief ministers had indicated his favoured approach of "Jaan bhi, jahaan bhi" (lives as well as livelihood). This remark was widely construed to mean that the PM was mindful of the need to kickstart the economy and he would go for a partial lifting of the lockdown. However, that did not happen and hours before the 21-day lockdown was to get over, he announced a further extension of the lockdown by another 19 days. The government has chosen to play safe and now extended it further by two weeks more. It evokes feelings of deja vu.

A similar situation may develop once again when Lockdown 3.0 comes to an end on May 17. The PM has had yet another meeting with the chief ministers, his fourth. At this meeting he made an extremely significant remark which did not get the attention it deserved. He asked the chief ministers to woo the MNCs relocating production out of China. It must be mentioned here that one important component of Japan's almost one trillion dollars package to fight the coronavirus pandemic is a $2.2 billion fund only to facilitate Japanese companies in China to relocate back home and elsewhere. The annual turnover of Japanese companies in China runs into billions of dollars. India can be fertile ground for these companies but for that to happen the lockdown has to end first.

Global precedent

Should the Centre consider a further extension of the lockdown, it won't come without huge economic costs. Even the hardest hit countries in terms of the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths have announced their plans to exit their respective lockdowns. France and Spain have already announced plans to ease their lockdowns to avert an economic collapse and start partial easing of curbs from May 11 in which public transport will be largely restored.

Even in the United States, the biggest victim of coronavirus with over 60,000 deaths, President Donald Trump had remarked a few days ago: "A nationwide closure cannot be a long-term solution... the country needs a functional economy." Obviously PM Modi wouldn't be oblivious to how the major world powers are dealing with their respective lockdowns when he reveals what he plans to do when the twice extended lockdown ends on May 17. It's time for the story of revival of the national economy to begin. Or else the five trillion dollar economy may just stay a pipe dream.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Also read: DailyOh! Trains finally taking migrants back home. Lockdown to stay till May 16
At the end of a weekend in which it appeared that all hope of a July holiday in France had vanished for British travellers, UK visitors have now been told they will escape 14 days of quarantine on arrival.

On Saturday the government in Paris published proposals that appeared to require everyone arriving in France up until 24 July 2020 to be kept in quarantine for two weeks.

Effectively, arriving travellers will be assumed to be coronavirus-positive. The national assembly is due to vote on the measures imminently.

France attracts more international tourists than any other country, but a universal quarantine rule would eliminate almost all travel until the end of July.

On Sunday evening, though, the French consulate tweeted: People entering French territory from European countries (EU/Schengen and United Kingdom) will not be affected by the quarantine measure announced in France, the terms of which will be specified shortly.

The response was a mix of alarm, relief and scorn.

Bloody hell 24 heures de stress pour ca? C'est de la communication a la Trump, was one tweet in response.

Some respondents said the exemption from the quarantine measure appeared illogical since the highest concentrations of Covid-19 are in the Schengen area and the UK.

Wilfrid Locatelli wrote: Another nonsense from our government; how can one put the health of the French in danger through European dogmatism?

We have to save our nation and stop doing geopolitics.

MattBatt69 speculated that travellers from outside the EU/Schengen/UK region to use the relaxation to circumvent quarantine: So if we want to avoid confinement, can we fly to London and take the Eurostar, infecting a lot of people?

Many respondents expressed relief that they would be able to visit loved ones without obligatory quarantine. Others were excited about the prospect of a French summer holiday.

How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Show all 6 1 /6 How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Milan, Italy REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities North Jakarta, Indonesia REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Jakarta, Indonesia REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Venice, Italy REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities New Delhi, India REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Islamabad, Pakistan REUTERS

For most of the weekend it seemed all planned holidays to France due to depart up to 24 July would have to be cancelled.

Super news! Can we now book our holidays in France in July or August? asked Sandrine Lombardo.

But before any tourists can travel to France, the countrys strict lockdown measures would need to be significantly eased. Only essential journeys are currently permitted.

Other European Union nations have imposed quarantine or mandatory self-isolation for 14 days on all arrivals.
The detainment of popular music video director and producer, Clarence Peters, by the Lagos State Police command has stirred heavily cr...





The detainment of popular music video director and producer, Clarence Peters, by the Lagos State Police command has stirred heavily criticism from his girlfriend of fourteen years, Jennifer Alegieuno.





This happened after Lagos State Police command announced that Clearance Peters was being investigated for murder over the death of professional dancer, Love Divine, known as Kodak.





The dancer was alleged to have died of electrocution while charging her phone at Peters house on April 30, 2020, but Lagos Police PRO, Bala Elkana said: It is a murder charge. We are probably looking at murder. We are not concluding at this stage. If she died of electrocution according to reports, it is left for us to find out.





Jennifer criticised the Lagos Police command for charging her boyfriend with murder without waiting for the autopsy report on the dancer.





Please read her post below:





It is SICKENING the corruption and laxity in the NIGERIAN POLICE FORCE!





But First, lemme start with you the ones who follow blogs and comment without thinking. That someone earns a living from breaking homes and destroying peoples reputation is something that should naturally be worrisome to you but NO, it refreshes you.





So, as Clarences 14yrs long girlfriend, Lemme state AUTHORITATIVELY that CLARENCE PETERS was invited to the police command, YABA and he went there willingly.





He was NOT arrested, neither was he CHARGED WITH MURDER as stated by the press statement from the police command through their spokesperson BALA ELKANA!





Just because we chose to keep quiet until the autopsy result comes out before addressing the press and of course the police report to exonerate him was signed and collected.





On Friday 2nd of May, 2020 an investigative team led by IPO, MR. POPOOLA, after the on-scene investigation was done, the body visited at the morgue, came to a conclusion they had no case with CLARENCE PETERS(who was not on the scene of the incident)





SEGUN the business manager, the 4dancers and two other members of staff of CAPITAL DREAMS PICTURES, (all referred to as witnesses), that it was a NATURAL ACCIDENT.





He wrote his report to that effect.





Events took a different turn when The DCP- YETUNDE LONGE, came in and asked that the report be torn, he wrote a second one that she tore again.





By the third report, then came in MR. OYE and his father Sir Shina Peters and she couldnt continue with her foul play.





She agreed they had NO CASE with him and the rest of the witnesses. So why are u still holding him.. everyone asked, she said she was waiting for the autopsy result so she can attach it. When she saw she had been caught, she sent them to put out a press statement that he was charged for murder. So thinking Nigerians, can someone be CHARGED without an autopsy conducted?





Backtrack a bit, after LD passed on, it took more than 24hrs to seek the consent from her family to conduct that autopsy. By the time the consent was gotten, due to the COVID-19 caused NIGERIAN COURTS CLOSURE, the autopsy was to start on Monday being tomorrow (today).





So again, how are we talking hes being charged for MURDER??? Since they decided to throw the first blow of negativity, lets go ALL OUT with the information. You have all been waiting for a response from him and because he chose to be law-abiding, someone who contributes positively to the Nigerian economy, they want yo tarnish his name? And artistes, everyone is quiet? Nobody is asking questions other than how can she be electrocuted??? Is it right? Who is going to charge PHCN to court for the SURGE?





Yetunde Alonge said if he was an ordinary person she would have let him go but because he and his parents are celebrities that is why.





Since u all seek to know of clarence murdered her if clarence raped her, why cant you all then march to PANTI and ask your police force questions? Dont sit on blogs spilling fallacies and stamp your imprint by commenting ignorantly.





We were going to wait for the results and her family but clearly, everyone is keeping quiet and dragging him in the mud.





I WONT! I have NEVER kept quiet in the face of ILLS, I wont start now.





And to CP, Biodun stay strong cos THIS TOO SHALL PASS!!!








When the call went out from New York for volunteers to travel to the epicenter of the pandemic in the fight against covid-19, from 1,800 miles away, Paul Cary raised his hand.

On March 28, the veteran paramedic got in an ambulance and drove for 27 hours straight from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to New York City, trading shifts at the wheel with his colleague. They were part of a fleet of 29 private ambulances and 72 medics from across the country, from the company Ambulnz, headed there to ease the burden on the city's overwhelmed EMS services.

And from the moment Cary arrived, before they had even gotten settled, "Paul just kept asking, when are we going out in the field?" said Ambulnz CEO Stan Vashovsky.

Cary would spend his final days in the field on the streets of New York, tending to coronavirus patients in the back of his ambulance as it raced from hospital to hospital.

He worked for nearly three weeks until he fell ill with the virus himself.

Cary, a 66-year-old father of two and grandfather of four, died of covid-19 on April 30 after spending several days on a ventilator at a New York hospital.

On Sunday, a procession of ambulances and firetrucks carried him home to his family in Colorado. After a long journey from New York, he arrived at a Denver funeral home in the back of an ambulance, his casket draped in an American flag. New York EMS workers and a state health official came to pay their respects to Cary's family in person.

His family said in a statement that they were devastated by his loss, but that they knew Cary "risked his own heath and safety to protect others and left this world a better place."

"We are at peace knowing that Paul did what he loved and what he believed in, right up until the very end," the family said.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking at a news conference in New York on Friday, vowed to erect a special memorial to honor Cary's sacrifice, saying he and the city would be forever grateful that Cary answered the call of duty from so far away.

He is among countless first responders and healthcare workers who have traveled to New York in one of its darkest hours, de Blasio said, but while "so many people came to help ... Paul gave his life for us, and we're going to honor him in a particular way."

"There's something particularly painful when someone does the right thing, when a fellow American comes from across the country to try and help the people in New York City, and while working to save lives here, gives his own life," the mayor said. "It's very painful, it's heroic, it's something we honor, but it's very, very painful that we've lost this good man."

Paul Cary, son of a Denver firefighter, was born on May 15, 1953 and spent his life in Colorado, his daughter-in-law, Gina Yeater-Cary, told The Washington Post. Inspired by his father's lifelong public service, Cary followed in his footsteps and served with the Aurora Fire Rescue for 32 years. He always "epitomized what it means to be a firefighter," serving the people of Aurora with empathy in their most dire moments until his retirement in 2010, his former captain, Ray Barnes, said during a ceremony Sunday night.

But Cary didn't really "retire," Yeater-Cary said. He just cut down his hours, trading the double duty of a firefighter-medic for ambulance work alone at private companies, she said.

"He never really took a break," she said. "I used to joke that he just went from working full time to part time. It's one of those things when you have the drive and you have the heart for it, you can't not answer it. It's just something you have to do."

That's why everyone in the family understood why he had to go to New York. He made the decision with little hesitation, undeterred by the risks, Yeater-Cary said, and his family fully supported him.

At the time he and his Ambulnz colleagues left Colorado for New York, the city was experiencing 911 call volume that rivaled or eclipsed that of 9/11 - "the highest number of 9-1-1 calls in the history of New York City," de Blasio said Friday. "We needed every hand on deck."

Ambulnz was part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency relief program for New York EMS workers and hospitals, transferring covid-19 patients from hospitals that were at capacity to other hospitals with more room. In between, they also answered 911 calls across the city; Cary and his crew from Colorado were based in the Bronx, his colleague, Royce Davis, told The Post.

Davis, 50, said that Cary was the elder and mentor figure of the group, with more experience than most of the paramedics who came out to New York. They shared dinners together after long hours in the throes of the crisis, preferring to talk about kids and grandchildren rather than the horrors of what they saw each day, Davis said. Cary was quiet compared to the younger crowd, he said, but his devotion radiated widely.

Just before he fell ill, on April 19 or 20, Cary signed up for a second deployment in New York with Ambulnz. "His love for this job, and his love for serving people, kept reminding me of why I'm doing it," Davis said.

On Sunday, Davis served as a pallbearer in Cary's procession - an astounding miles-long send-off organized by Cary's colleagues at Ambulnz and the New York City Fire Department, which treated the Coloradan as one of their own.

It started at a Staten Island funeral home, and as the procession of dozens of ambulances advanced through New York, people cheered from the sidewalks, while some stood at attention at the end of their driveways, Davis said.

Cary's ambulance pulled onto the tarmac at Newark International Airport, where at least three dozen EMS workers stood saluting. The bag pipes blared "Amazing Grace," while Davis and the other pallbearers carefully lifted Cary off the ambulance and toward his last flight, which would arrive by nightfall in Denver, where still dozens more EMS vehicles awaited him.

Around 10 p.m., the long procession finally arrived at its destination. Cary's family and dearest colleagues and friends stood outside the Denver funeral home silently, watching Cary's arrival.

On behalf of the state of New York, a state health department official, Steve Dziura, took the podium and said, "We could all be a little more like Paul."

"Paul raised his hand. At a time when the nation was in crisis, and the world was unknown, Paul raised his hand," he said, before presenting the state flag to Cary's son, Christopher Cary, who broke down in tears in a long embrace with the New Yorker.

The brief ceremony came to a close as a Colorado EMS worker held up a dispatch radio, paging all Colorado fire and EMS first responders.

"This is a last call for Paramedic Paul Cary," he said. "Dispatch will now show Paramedic Cary out of service but not out of our hearts and memories. He wished Cary godspeed on his final journey before promising, "We have the watch from here."
The Oyo state police command has arrested a single mum of 6, Kehinde Afolake, who was caught in a now-viral video slapping a police officer.

According to reports, the police officer, ASP Adeyemo Ogunyemi was said to have led his team to enforce the lockdown order in Eruwa area of the state before a heated argument escalated between the woman and the enforcement team.

While the woman was displaying in full glare of the public, the police officers were said to have insisted that she obeys the order before landing some hot slaps on the officer.

Read Also: BREAKING: Police Question Clarence Peters Over Dancers Death

Advertisement

Adeyemi, who displayed an uncommon restraint, was seen in the video enduring 13 slaps, from the woman.

Rather than retaliate, Adeyemi took the assault in his stride and was heard refraining his angry subordinates who attempted to lose him from the womans grip, apparently to avoid an escalation of the situation.

The woman was alleged to have also bitten a policewoman who went to effect her arrest, the next day. She was eventually whisked to the station.
The Madras High Court on Monday



issued notice to the Centre and Tamil Nadu government on a PIL by a former scientific advisor to late A P J Abdul Kalam which said the number of COVID-19 tests can be ramped up to 3.76 lakh per day if all PCR labs in educational institutions and research institutions are roped in.

The public interest litigation petition filed by scientist V Ponraj, associated with former president Kalam for 20 years, sought a direction to the Centre and the state government to submit an action plan to ramp up the testing for coronavirus.

The petitioner sought report on the number of RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) testing equipment available in labs in the universities and other research institutions in the country.

When the PIL came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices Vineet Kothari and Pushpa Sathyanarayana through video conference, the court issued notice to the Union and state governments directing them to file counter affidavits by and posted the matter for further hearing to May 12.

The petitioner submitted that at present only around 367 PCR labs under the Indian Council of Medical Research were being used for testing samples, with 1,814 samples each by them per day.

He said in Tamil Nadu alone there were about 126 RT- PCR/qPCR Labs where RNA/DNA research was pursued. The number of similar labs in the country and ICMR labs can add up to 1,000 in which case 3.76 lakh tests can be done per day.

The petitioner said the Tamil Nadu government need not wait for the Central government for the Rs 1,000 crore for purchase of PCR machines and can utilise the 126 labs, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
Physical exercise may not be top of mind for older adults during the COVID-19 outbreak. But according to one UBC Okanagan researcher, strength training can be an effective way to stay healthy while at home.

A recent study from UBCO professor Jenn Jakobi shows that strength training with free-weights that progresses in intensity is effective in combating declining health often observed with adult aging.

"Inactivity and social isolation are key contributors to age-related frailty," says Jakobi. "While social isolation is a complex challenge these days, there is absolutely some work we can do on enhancing exercise at home."

She adds that physical movement and exercise, inclusive of weight training, can be readily adapted for the home but advises that anyone looking to start a new exercise program should consult with their physician first.

Jakobi, a professor in UBC Okanagan's School of Health and Exercise Sciences, defines frailty as reduced function and health in older adults. Features include unintentional weight loss, slow walking speed, muscle weakness, fatigue and low activity levels. If left unchecked this may lead to declines in health and functional independence which might require longer-term care.

"Age isn't necessarily always associated with being frail, and frailty isn't reserved for just old age--it can occur at any point in adulthood," says Jakobi. "Yet, it is dynamic and can be reversed. Maintaining and building muscle strength is key."

Jakobi and her research team wanted to explore whether progressive-resistance exercises can be effective at altering the path to this vulnerability.

After an initial screening of 53 older adults, the lab-based study evaluated 21 pre-frail women over the age of 65, divided into two groups. One group participated in a progressively intense free weight exercise program three-times-a-week for 12 weeks. Their exercises mimicked movements of normal life, and which may become difficult for some as they age.

"For example, we asked participants to complete a series of squats, replicating sitting-down and standing up," explains Nick Bray, former UBCO graduate student and co-author of the study. "We also asked them to perform dead-lifts, which mimic picking-up groceries."

The other group simply maintained their normal routines.

Measurements of muscle strength and performance were compared between the groups after the 12-week session. Not only did the exercise group improve their muscle performance and become less frail, they did so without injury.

"The exercise group improved in all measures including walking speed, grip strength and sit-to-stand time," says Jakobi. "Also, these changes were seen as early as nine weeks into the program."

She adds that their findings dispel the myth of strength training being unsuitable for pre-frail older adults.

"Traditionally, older adults opt for low-intensity, and low-resistance exercise because they believe that heavy free-weight exercise isn't right for them. Our findings show the opposite."

Although the research into heavy resistance training is novel and in its early phases this style of exercise is showing great promise. None of the exercise participants opted-out of the program or reported negative events and all improved in functional movement.

To help those interested in using this new research in their home during this period of physical distancing, Jakobi and her team have created an exercise worksheet and other at-home resources that highlight beginning phases of these progressive movements.

"This type of activity is appropriate and can be enjoyable," says Jakobi. She suggests just going for it.

"Try something new and lift progressively more. You should feel a good healthy challenge."

###

This study was recently published in the Journal of Frailty and Aging and was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Having already tended to one burial, and with two more to arrange, Shanta Leake-Cherry was on the phone Friday, describing how the novel coronavirus came up like a foul wind and swept through her family. Her voice faltered, and she said wearily, "You'll have to excuse me if I get a little emotional."

Two months ago, her sister, Nicky Leake, and Nicky's fiance, who lived together in Charles County, Maryland, were looking forward to their destination wedding in Hawaii. And on Feb. 29, Nicky, 45, and a dozen friends ("the Sly Girls Posse") reunited for the first time since high school, laughing away on a Saturday night at the Bottom Line Bar & Grill in a District of Columbia suburb.

"They had plans to do so much this year, to continue their friendship," Shanta, 40, said.

Now Nicky is dead.

In March, before Nicky got sick, their 74-year-old mother, Leslie Leake, a retired postal clerk, was passing her golden days in contentment. She could be found assembling floral bouquets, singing softly to herself, and doting on her grandchildren and great-grandchildren when they visited Ma-Ma's immaculate old house in the District of Columbia.

Now Leslie is dead.

Her son John Leake Jr., 40, brother of Nicky and Shanta, moved into his parents' Washington home about a year ago - and what a cutup he was, always with the jokes. "The type of person, regardless of whether you're having a bad day, you can depend on him to make you laugh," Shanta said. "He was our clown. I mean, you just couldn't help but be happy around him."

Now John Jr. is dead.

Their 78-year-old father, John Leake Sr., a retired plumber and widower of Leslie, tested positive for the virus and is quarantined in their house. After some frightful nights, he is feeling better, but Shanta worries. Donte Leake, 34, a grandson who lives with John Sr., also is infected and holed up in the house, though so far he is asymptomatic. Shanta fears for him, too.

With Nicky hospitalized starting in late March, then Leslie and John Jr. beginning April 19, Shanta was the nexus of all family health news for weeks, the liaison between caregivers in scattered locales and loved ones desperate for updates. She works for a bank in commercial real estate. Suddenly she was fluent in nurse-speak.

After Nicky died April 11, just as John Jr. and Leslie were falling ill, it was Shanta and her brother Xavier who took charge of the stark, agonizingly perfunctory burial logistics in this awful season of socially distant mourning. On Monday, dead for 16 days, Nicky was laid to rest. On Tuesday, John Jr. succumbed. On Thursday, minutes past midnight, Leslie passed.

So two more interments to tend to.

I honestly believe the average person wouldn't be able to handle this," Shanta was saying on the phone, quietly. In the background, her husband, Eddie Cherry, gave an amen. "I'm a woman of faith, and I believe in God, and I rely on God as the source of my strength," said Shanta, and Eddie went, "Uh-huh, that's right."

As the weekend arrived, the pandemic death toll in Washington, Maryland and Virginia climbed above 2,000, and families throughout the region are mired in despair. But probably few, if any, have been more ravaged by the insidious contagion than the Leakes.

The tidy, two-story wood house that John and Leslie Leake shared for decades is painted pale green, with an elegant semi-turret on the front facade and a square of neatly trimmed grass. Relatives call it simply "the house," a nickname for the place where they invariably gathered on holidays and special occasions.

Birthdays, baptisms, graduations and the big cookout every Fourth of July: When the Leakes got together, it was almost always at the house. Last spring, Nicky's daughter Eniah finished high school, and, of course, Ma-Ma and Pa-Pa hosted a celebration, laying down a red carpet from the brick steps of the porch to the sidewalk. Folks loved it.

Amid growing concern nationwide that the coronavirus is disproportionately hurting African Americans, D.C.'s Ward 8 is a case in point.

Historically riven with social ills - drugs and crime, inadequate health care and high unemployment - the ward, nearly 90% black, has Washington's worst rate of contagion fatalities, six per every 10,000 residents. By the end of April, 677 confirmed infections had been recorded in the ward, up from 259 a few weeks earlier, health officials said.

As of Thursday, 51 people in Ward 8 had died of the virus. Although the Leakes don't fit the more dismal aspects of the ward's demographics, they are experiencing a full share of the precinct's outsize pain these days.

Nicky, a mother of three who worked in administration at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, spent a lot time visiting her parents at the house, until she developed a nagging cough and tested positive for the coronavirus.

That was mid-March.

She had no underlying health problem.

"She quarantined for about a week," Shanta said. "She had fevers and stuff like that. She was resting a lot, but at times, she was up, eating, trying to do her routines."

Then: "She just started having these chest pains." She drove herself to a hospital near her Charles County home. Shanta, who lives in Prince George's County, Maryland, spoke with her by cellphone. Nicky was in the emergency room. "She said: 'I'm good. My vitals are good. My oxygen is good.' So I said, 'Hang in there, you're going to be fine.' But her situation changed overnight."

On March 30, Nicky's condition grew so grave, so rapidly, that the suburban medical center transferred her to the larger MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. "We never got a chance to talk to her again," Shanta said. "She was on a ventilator for about two weeks, and the virus kept attacking and attacking her."

All the while, Shanta was on the phone daily, even hourly, with doctors and nurses, deciphering their jargon, Googling, jotting notes, then calling family members, including her parents, to fill them in and answer anxious questions - until April 11, when Nicky's ventilator was switched off, and there were no words.

At the house, where Leslie had begun struggling with shortness of breath, she and her husband were inconsolable.

"Heartbroken," Shanta said. "My mom wasn't eating. She couldn't sleep. I tried to encourage her; the whole family tried to lift her spirits, to let her know we were going to get through this with the grace of God. But she was devastated, period."

Leslie had asthma, as did John Jr., who also was having trouble breathing around the time of Nicky's death. They blamed it on pollen, on the allergies that aggravated their compromised respiratory functions every spring. Shanta wasn't sure. "Often we self-diagnose," she said by phone. "We shouldn't."

On April 19, they were wheezing, and ambulances were summoned to the house. One took Leslie to George Washington University Hospital, and the other carried John Jr. to Howard University Hospital. The mother and son both tested positive. Their illnesses followed different progressions in the days afterward but ended the same way, each with a flat line on a bedside monitor.

John Jr. worked in communications at the U.S. Postal Service headquarters and had part-time gigs at a grocery store and a hotel. He was a former culinary student, a foodie, and head chef for all events at the house. "His entire time in the hospital almost, he was alert and talking," and no doubt cracking jokes, Shanta said.

Leslie was another story. A day after her mother was admitted, Shanta got a call from the hospital, saying Leslie needed to be heavily sedated and intubated. From then on, she was never more than semiconscious as doctors tried hydroxychloroquine and, later, the experimental drug remdesivir. The treatments were halted after she developed an irregular heart rate, Shanta said.

Meanwhile, after days of searching in vain for a funeral parlor that would give Nicky a traditional service, Shanta had to settle for a pandemic version: closed casket, no wake and only a handful of people, including Nicky's fiance and grown children, allowed near the grave. Shanta and other mourners, gathered 500 feet away, were out of earshot of a pastor's parting words for the deceased.

"The absolute worst, most horrible thing ever," Shanta said.

That was Monday.

Early Tuesday morning, John Jr. crashed. "They called my husband at 3 o'clock," Shanta said. "They told us he coded, and they were trying to bring him back. Then they called back, 3:32 a.m., and said he didn't make it."

On Wednesday night, Leslie's caregivers phoned to say the end was near for her. "We did a Zoom visit," Shanta said, "and we were able to see her and pray. And then after the Zoom visit, they called a little after midnight and told us she was gone."

The house, that favorite place of the extended Leakes, will probably go on the market after the crisis, Shanta said. She doesn't want her father in there without her mother because bad things, once unimaginable, can happen, she now knows. She said she plans to downsize John Sr. in the interest of safety and her own peace of mind.

"He'll come live with us," she said. "I want to keep him close."

- - -

The Washington Post's Julie Tate contributed to this report.
President Trump will begin traveling in earnest on Tuesday, with a planned trip to a Honeywell plant in Phoenix, Arizona where masks are being made to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

N95 masks are being made at the facility to protect first responders and medical professionals on the front lines of the outbreak.

So far, Trump has never donned face protection in public. He's also not traveled extensively since March 9.

MARCH 9: President Trump returned from a trip to Mar-a-Lago and fundraising for his re-election campaign in the Orlando area on March 9 and has essentially been stuck at the White House since

MARCH 28: He did, however, take a day trip to Norfolk, Virginia to say good bye to the USNS Comfort before it made its way up to New York City to help with the coronavirus outbreak there

MAY 3: President Trump left for Camp David this past weekend, returning to the White House on Sunday. Later in the evening he also took a quick trip to the Lincoln Memorial to film a Fox News Channel virtual town hall

As the coronavirus crisis was becoming more serious at the beginning of March, the president spent the weekend away at his Mar-a-Lago resort and then stopped in Orlando to host fundraisers before returning to the White House.

He's essentially been there since.

The president took a day trip to Norfolk, Virginia on March 28 to see the USNS Comfort depart. The huge hospital ship spent the last few weeks in New York City.

This past weekend, Trump flew off the Camp David before returning Sunday.

He then participated in a Fox News Channel town hall at the nearby Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Vice President Mike Pence started traveling again before the president.

He made headlines last week when he went to the Mayo Clinic and didn't put on a mask.

The clinic had a policy requiring 'all patients, visitors and staff' to wear masks in order to decrease the chances of spreading COVID-19.

The vice president had been tested for COVID-19 so he said he didn't need to wear a mask during his tour.

'And since I don't have the coronavirus, I thought it'd be a good opportunity for me to be here, to be able to speak to these researchers, these incredible health care personnel, and look them in the eye and say "thank you,"' he told reporters.

APRIL 28: Vice President Mike Pence took some heat when he decided not to wear a mask during a tour of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota last week

APRIL 30: Vice President Mike Pence did wear a mask when he returned to his home state of Indiana to tour a General Motors plant that is manufacturing ventilators

Two days later, Pence toured a General Motors plant in his home state of Indiana and put a mask on.

On Sunday, during his appearance alongside the president at the Fox News Channel town hall, Pence admitted he was wrong.

'I didn't think it was necessary, but I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic,' Pence said.

Trump has expressed previously masks are not for him.

'I just don't want to be doing, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk, the great Resolute Desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don't know somehow I don't see it for myself. I just don't. Maybe I'll change my mind,' the president told reporters at a press briefing in early April.
India on Monday lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over a move to conduct elections in Gilgit Baltistan, with New Delhi saying the region is an integral part of the country that had been illegally and forcibly occupied.

A senior Pakistani diplomat was served a demarche or formal diplomatic representation over telephone to lodge Indias strong protest against the Pakistan supreme courts recent order allowing the setting up of a caretaker administration in Gilgit-Baltistan to hold fresh elections, people familiar with developments said.

It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession, the external affairs ministry said in a statement.

The Government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it, it said.

Later in the day, Pakistan responded by summoning a senior Indian diplomat in Islamabad to reject Indias baseless and fallacious contention regarding the supreme courts order on Gilgit-Baltistan.

India claims the whole of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, including Gilgit-Baltistan region, which was given near-provincial status by the Pakistan government in 2009.

On April 30, Pakistans supreme court allowed authorities to amend the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order 2018 to set up a caretaker administration in the region to conduct fresh elections. The order was issued in response to a petition filed by the Imran Khan government.

The term of the current government in Gilgit-Baltistan is set to end on June 24 and elections have to be held within 60 days.

However, the external affairs ministry said India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan-occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.

It was further conveyed that such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh by Pakistan nor the grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan-occupied territories for the past seven decades, the statement said.

The Indian governments position on Gilgit-Baltistan is reflected in the resolution passed by Parliament in 1994 by consensus, the statement added.

The resolution described Jammu & Kashmir as an integral part of India and demanded Pakistan must vacate areas of the state occupied through aggression.

The people cited above, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the demarche was read out over telephone in view of the Covid-19 lockdown. In normal circumstances, a diplomat can be summoned to the external affairs ministry to receive the demarche.

Several other recent demarches were read out to Pakistani diplomats over telephone, the people said.

A statement from Pakistans Foreign Office said the Indian diplomat was told the Indian claim to Jammu & Kashmir had no legal basis and the entire state was a disputed territory. It added, No subsequent illegal and unilateral Indian actions could or have altered the status of Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory.

The Pakistani side contended the Kashmir issue could be resolved only by implementing UN Security Council resolutions that recognise the Kashmiris right to self-determination through a plebiscite under UN auspices. It described the scrapping of Kashmirs special status by India as illegal and in clear violation of UN resolutions.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Michael Piro COO, Indochina Capital

COVID-19 is making its impact felt across all markets in Asia. For the real estate market, investors are still digesting the implications of the outbreak and how it will affect real estate assets in the long term.

Some investors are already feeling an immediate impact: hospitality and retail are the two sectors facing the most visible pressure with social distancing leaving shopping malls empty and travel bans leaving hotels without guests.

Companies have also been forced to implement remote working, and this could influence the future of the traditional office market. If employers learn from this unprecedented episode that they can operate efficiently without a fixed office, demand can decline, especially with the current economic slowdown forcing companies to find ways to cut costs.

As the largest hospitality conferences in the world  such as MIPIM in Cannes and the 2020 ULI Summit in Tokyo  have been postponed or cancelled across the globe, the gravity of the situation has become clear: real estate, in particular hospitality, will be one of the most impacted industries. A drop in transactions is also already happening in the region  initial data shows that deal volume in Asia-Pacific during the first two months of 2020 was down almost 50 per cent on-year.

Despite the country's macro-economic challenges and the current uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, the sentiment on Vietnam remains positive. The government has implemented strict outbreak control measures and efforts in stabilising the economy.

Though the virus has caused the hospitality sector to come to a complete halt, Vietnam has been supported by strong market fundamentals with high rental yields along with one of the lowest real estate prices in the region, on top of a high urbanisation rate, low labour costs, and a young population. The abundance in labour supply, new free trade agreements, and being arguably the biggest benefactor of the ongoing US-China trade conflict are helping Vietnam attract investors.

Before the outbreak, there was already abundant existing capital, both overseas and domestic, waiting to be dispatched in the Vietnamese real estate market. As real estate transactions are still one of the most common ways for foreign capital to flow into the local market, the outlook for real estate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Vietnam may not be as gloomy as some are saying.

For the majority of large institutional investors, the impact of the outbreak on real estate does not interfere with their long-term investment strategy, as current delays are only expected to be temporary. In times of economic uncertainty, performance of assets will be affected, thus the adjusted valuations will not be indicative of potential returns.

Asset owners who are looking to improve cash flow during this difficult economic period will give buyers the opportunity to buy at a discounted price. With these turbulent times, the number of distressed sales may be on the rise, and given the lower valuations, this could be an attractive proposition for investors with longer term investment strategies.

Once travel bans are progressively lifted, transactions, especially cross-border deals, will start to pick up, though in moderation as global financial markets will be in recovery mode. Assets in prime locations such as in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as premier hospitality projects, will still garner a good amount of interest if they are put on the market.

There are still many unknowns about the current situation, and the full impact of the outbreak on Vietnams real estate market cannot be quantified at this point. Nonetheless, the country will continue to be a real estate hotspot and capital inflow, as well as at the local level, will remain abundant.

In the midst of turmoil, there is opportunity. For businesses looking to sell or to raise capital, action plans need to be ready to be implemented once the pandemic is under control in order to take advantage of a fresh market and seek out those looking to invest in Vietnam.
Imperial Valley News Center

Providing Continued Federal Support for Governors Use of the National Guard to Respond to COVID-19 and to Facilitate Economic Recovery

Washington, DC - MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

SUBJECT: Providing Continued Federal Support for Governors Use of the National Guard to Respond to COVID-19 and to Facilitate Economic Recovery

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. 5121-5207 (the Stafford Act), and section 502 of title 32, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to take measures to assist State Governors under the Stafford Act in their responses to all threats and hazards to the American people in their respective States. On March 13, 2020, I declared a national emergency recognizing the threat that COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel (new) coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 (the virus), and the virus poses to the Nations healthcare systems. I also determined that same day that the COVID-19 outbreak constituted an emergency, of nationwide scope, pursuant to section 501(b) of the Stafford Act (42 U.S.C. 5191(b)). Considering the profound and unique public health risks posed by the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, the need for close cooperation and mutual assistance between the Federal Government and the States is greater than at any time in recent history. This need remains as the United States continues to battle the public health threat posed by the virus, while transitioning to a period of increased economic activity and recovery in those areas of the Nation where the threat posed by the virus has been sufficiently mitigated. To provide maximum support to the Governor of the State of North Dakota as he makes decisions about the responses required to address local conditions in his jurisdiction with respect to combatting the threat posed by the virus and, where appropriate, facilitating its economic recovery, I am taking the actions set forth in sections 2, 3, and 4 of this memorandum:

Sec. 2. One Hundred Percent Federal Cost Share. To maximize assistance to the Governor of the State of North Dakota to facilitate Federal support with respect to the use of National Guard units under State control, I am directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the Department of Homeland Security to fund 100 percent of the emergency assistance activities associated with preventing, mitigating, and responding to the threat to public health and safety posed by the virus that North Dakota undertakes using its National Guard forces, as authorized by sections 403 (42 U.S.C. 5170b) and 503 (42 U.S.C. 5193) of the Stafford Act.

Sec. 3. Support of Operations or Missions to Prevent and Respond to the Spread of COVID-19. I am directing the Secretary of Defense, to the maximum extent feasible and consistent with mission requirements (including geographic proximity), to request pursuant to 32 U.S.C. 502(f) that the Governor of the State of North Dakota order National Guard forces to perform duty to fulfill mission assignments, on a fully reimbursable basis, that FEMA issues to the Department of Defense for the purpose of supporting State and local emergency assistance efforts under the Stafford Act.

Sec. 4. Termination and Extension. The 100 percent Federal cost share for the State of North Dakotas use of National Guard forces authorized pursuant to this memorandum shall extend to, and shall be available for orders of any length authorizing duty through, May 31, 2020.

Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d) The Secretary of Defense is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

DONALD J. TRUMP
Sing Tao News Corporation Limited (HKG:1105) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 18% in the last quarter. But over three years, the returns would have left most investors smiling To wit, the share price did better than an index fund, climbing 13% during that period.

See our latest analysis for Sing Tao News

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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.

Over the last three years, Sing Tao News failed to grow earnings per share, which fell 63% (annualized).

The strong decline in earnings per share suggests the market isn't using EPS to judge the company. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.

You can only imagine how long term shareholders feel about the declining revenue trend (slipping at 7.1% per year). The only thing that's clear is there is low correlation between Sing Tao News's share price and its historic fundamental data. Further research may be required!

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

SEHK:1105 Income Statement May 4th 2020

Balance sheet strength is crucial. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.

What about the Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

We've already covered Sing Tao News's share price action, but we should also mention its total shareholder return (TSR). Arguably the TSR is a more complete return calculation because it accounts for the value of dividends (as if they were reinvested), along with the hypothetical value of any discounted capital that have been offered to shareholders. Its history of dividend payouts mean that Sing Tao News's TSR of 51% over the last 3 years is better than the share price return.

Story continues

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Sing Tao News shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 33% over the last year. That's better than the annualised return of 8.1% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Given the share price momentum remains strong, it might be worth taking a closer look at the stock, lest you miss an opportunity. 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. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Sing Tao News (1 is significant!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

But note: Sing Tao News may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on HK 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.
As of 3 May, new areas in Salt Lake, Rajarhat and a neighbourhood close to the Kolkata airport too have been turned into containment zones in the city.

West Bengal has seen 963 confirmed cases till now, of which the highest number of infections have come from the capital city Kolkata. According to data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 184 people have tested positive in Kolkata.

As of 3 May, new areas in Salt Lake, Rajarhat and a neighbourhood close to the Kolkata airport too have been turned into containment zones in the city. Parts of IB Block and HC Block in Salt Lake have been sealed after two residents of Mizoram House and a resident of the police housing estate were hospitalised with COVID-19 symptoms.

Kolkata is followed by Howrah in the number of COVID-19 positive cases registered. Both Kolkata and Howrah, along with 8 other districts, have been placed in the red zone by the Centre.

Here are the activities allowed in the city from 4 May, 2020

1. Individuals and vehicles can move about but only for permitted activities.

2. A four wheeler vehicle can carry only two passengers besides the driver; one cannot ride pillion on a two wheeler.

3. All industrial and construction activities are permitted in rural areas.

4. For urban regions, the following establishments can be opened: Special economic zones, export oriented units, industrial estates and industrial townships with access control; Manufacturing units of essential goods, including drugs, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, their raw material and intermediaries; Production units, which require continuous process, and their supply chain; Manufacturing of IT hardware; Jute industry with staggered shifts and social distancing; and, Manufacturing units of packaging material

5. For the urban regions, the following construction establishments can be opened: In situ construction, where workers are available on the sites, and construction of renewable energy projects

6. Shops selling essential goods in markets are permitted. All standalone shops (essential or non-essential) can be opened in urban areas.

7. For rural regions, all shops, except those in malls can be opened

8. Online shopping will remain limited to only essential goods

9. Private offices can function with 33 per cent strength in the office quarters and the rest working from home

10. All government offices will function with officers of the Deputy Secretary level and above to the extent of 100 per cent strength. Remaining staff can attend up to 33 per cent, based on the requirement.

According to the MHA order dated May 1, 2020, lockdown was extended for two weeks after 3 May with new guidelines under place. A total of 130 districts were placed in the red zone, 284 in orange and 319 in the green zone.

The guidelines specified that keeping in view the number of active cases, doubling rate of confirmed cases and extent of testing will determine which district is to be a hotspot or a red zone.
Faced with growing political opposition to the state of alarm implemented in mid-March to combat the spread of the coronavirus, the Spanish government is seeking to extend its emergency powers by framing an upcoming vote in Congress as a choice between the state of alarm or chaos.

Spains Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who heads a minority coalition government with junior partner Unidas Podemos, will seek another extension to the emergency declaration that underpins what has been one of the worlds strictest coronavirus lockdowns. The state of alarm must be approved by Congress every two weeks, and the current period ends on May 9. Sanchez will meet with his Cabinet on Tuesday to formalize his request for a fourth 15-day extension.

Casado has not offered an alternative plan because there is none Transportation Minister Jose Luis Abalos

The government has been easing some of the confinement measures in recent days as part of a gradual deescalation plan, and is now allowing citizens out for walks and exercise for limited periods of time. On Monday, small businesses reopened under certain conditions. Spain has been one of the worlds hardest hit countries during the pandemic so far, with Covid-19 claiming 25,428 lives according to the official count, which does not include people who died with symptoms but were not tested.

But the leader of the main opposition Popular Party (PP), Pablo Casado, said on Monday that prolonging the state of alarm beyond a 60-day period makes no sense. And the head of center-right group Ciudadanos (Citizens), Ines Arrimadas, wants to disassociate social and economic relief measures from a constitutional tool that facilitates the restriction of fundamental rights.

Yes, there are alternative legal mechanisms to contain [coronavirus] clusters and new outbreaks. To say that there are no legal mechanisms is to say that theres going to be a state of alarm until we have a vaccine, said Arrimadas on Tuesday morning on the state broadcaster TVE. The government does not have an absolute majority, and the state of alarm is an exceptional measure that cannot be prolonged until Mr Sanchez wants.

Meanwhile, regional leaders have also rejected the idea of prolonging a situation that temporarily increases central powers in a bid to deal with the coronavirus crisis. On Monday, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) announced that it will vote no in Congress, where before it had abstained, while the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) is making its support reliant on reaching a deescalation deal with regional authorities. The support or abstention of these two groups was key in forming the coalition government in the first place.

The executive needs a simple majority of more yes than no votes in Congress to get its decree passed on Wednesday. By Tuesday afternoon, the far-right Vox and the Catalan separatist parties Together for Catalonia (JxCat), ERC and Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) were planning to vote against. If the PP decides to join this group, there will be 164 no votes in the 350-strong chamber, although so far the conservatives have signaled that they might abstain. The 10 lawmakers for the center-right Ciudadanos have yet to say which way they will vote, but support seems possible.

Counter-attack

On Monday, the government went on the offensive with the message that if the PP does not vote in favor of a new extension to the state of alarm on Wednesday, it will be eluding its responsibility, since the PP holds power in several key regions such as Madrid, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

The state of alarm is indispensable. And it works, There are 22 countries with similar systems, said Health Minister Salvador Illa at a news conference on Monday afternoon. Lets not conduct experiments that could lead to chaos.

Health Minister Salvador Illa (l) and Transportation Minister Jose Luis Abalos at a joint press briefing on Monday. EFE

Transportation Minister Jose Luis Abalos went further. I ask the PP not to allow itself to get dragged down by those who rely on hoaxes, he said, alluding to the far-right party Vox, which is the third-largest force in the lower house of parliament. If it does, it will have to answer to citizens if there is greater contagion. For the PP to wash its hands of the decree of alarm is tantamount to condemning us all to chaos.

The executive still believes that the extension will pass through Congress despite opposition from several parties. Instead, the Sanchez administration is trying to turn the vote into an image problem for the PP.

The prime minister has explained to Casado that if the state of alarm is no longer in effect, some people will have to go back to work, others back to their studies, and the ERTEs [temporary layoff schemes that guarantee jobs will be maintained] will no longer have a force majeure reason to justify them, insisted Abalos. All efforts would be lost, because we would lack the legal framework. Casado has not offered an alternative plan because there is none.

Ambiguous position

Casado has not yet made it clear which way the PP will vote, but he has suggested that his party might abstain. At the present time, with the information in our power, we cannot support this extension, he said in a radio interview on Onda Cero on Monday.

The government is taking Spaniards hostage and we will not tolerate it. It is immoral, he added, alluding to the fact that the ERTE temporary layoff scheme will be state-funded as long as the state of alarm remains in place. Hundreds of companies have filed for ERTEs since the beginning of the pandemic, either sending home or reducing the working hours of their employees.

Ciudadanos leader Ines Arrimadas at a video appearance on Sunday. EFE

The PP leader feels it is possible to keep central power and mobility restrictions in place without the need for the state of alarm. Sanchez must adapt existing legislation on public health, civil protection and national security so that the single healthcare command and the mobility limits between provinces can be implemented without the limits to fundamental rights involved in a state of alarm.

Ciudadanos chief Ines Arrimadas has said she wants the aid package against the effects of the coronavirus to be independent from the emergency state currently in place. We have asked for a series of conditions. The first is to disassociate social aid from the state of alarm, said Arrimadas on TVE on Tuesday morning. The government has the legal mechanisms to change the royal decrees and disassociate them. Our vote will depend on whether the government wishes to rectify. We have every intention to cooperate, but the government has a lot of things to rectify.

English version by Susana Urra.
People who have recovered from Covid-19 are "very likely" to be immune to the virus, according to the CEO of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche.

CEO Severin Schwan told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday he believes those who had already had the coronavirus would now be immune to the illness  but he pointed out that more research was required.

"We know from other coronaviruses that it's very likely as soon as you have gone through an infection you will also acquire immunity," he said. "But this still, nevertheless, has to be proven over time. We need studies to really see whether those people who have been infected once are subject to reinfection. But there's a high likelihood that this will be the case."

Schwan's take on immunity to Covid-19 came after South Korean scientists concluded it was impossible for the virus to reinfect humans.

There had been concern that people were appearing to fall ill with the coronavirus a second time in Japan, China and South Korea  but researchers from the South Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that this phenomenon had resulted from testing failures.

However, the WHO said in late April that there was not enough evidence on reinfection to justify the issuance of so-called "immunity passports," which would allow those who had already had the virus to return to normal life.
Women loco-pilots in the Indian Railways, although few in number, face unique challenges as they negotiate with masculine forms of labour and technology in a male-dominated work environment. While, theoretically, they are treated at par with their male counterparts, new hierarchies are created on the job when they are expected to aspire to masculine standards of performance and discouraged from taking up the full range of tasks designated for loco-pilots. Thus, the entry of women in loco-piloting seems to reinforce its appearance as a masculine profession, and neither is the gendered nature of the system questioned, nor is it actively challenged.

Running a railway system not only requires trains, tracks, signals, stations and electricity but also people who are skilled to run this system. As of early 2020, there are 18 zones in Indian Railways, each further divided into divisions. The labour involved is also arranged in a hierarchy, with gang men and unskilled mechanical labour at the lowest rungs and the Railway Board in New Delhi at the top. Given its huge geographical expanse, Indian Railways has developed into a fragmented as well as hierarchical professional domain; the fragmented nature due to physical distances and the hierarchies as inherited from colonial times.

This article looks at one specific category of workers, namely women loco-pilots, or engine drivers, as they are known in common parlance. While the profession of engine driving is as old as the inception of the railways, womens entry into it is a fairly recent phenomenon, especially in the Indian context. Surekha Shankar Yadav is known as the first woman train driver in India, who joined the railways in the late 1980s (Think Change India 2018). Since then, several women have followed in her footsteps, in different zones across the country. However, the number of women loco-pilots is still low. In 2015, out of a total of 55,803 loco-pilots in India, only 291 were women.1
A prominent engineer and vice president of Amazons cloud computing arm said on Monday that he had quit in dismay over the recent firings of workers who had raised questions about workplace safety during the coronavirus pandemic.

Tim Bray, an engineer who had been a vice president of Amazon Web Services, wrote in a blog post that his last day at the company was on Friday. He criticized a number of recent firings by Amazon, including that of an employee in a Staten Island warehouse, Christian Smalls, who led a protest in March calling for the company to provide workers with more protections.

Mr. Smallss firing has drawn the scrutiny of New York States attorney general.

Mr. Bray also criticized the firing last month of two Amazon employees, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, who circulated a petition in March on internal email lists that called on Amazon to expand sick leave, hazard pay and child care for warehouse workers. They had also helped organize a virtual event for warehouse employees to speak to tech workers at the company about its workplace conditions and coronavirus response.

Image Tim Bray in 2007. Credit... Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

Mr. Bray, who had worked for the company for more than five years, called the fired workers whistle-blowers, and said that firing them was evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture.
 Flash

The coronavirus outbreak in France was not caused by cases imported from China, but from a locally circulating strain of unknown origin, according to a study by scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

The Pasteur Institute published the results of the study on the early spread of the virus in France on bioRxiv.org, according to its press release on April 28.

Also according to the press release, France strengthened surveillance of COVID-19 cases on Jan. 10, and made the Pasteur Institute and the National Reference Center for Respiratory Viruses (NRC) responsible for initiating a close watch on potential cases.

On Jan. 24, the first case of COVID-19 in Europe was identified in France. Two other imported cases from China were soon diagnosed and treated in hospital. The French government took quick and decisive steps to trace contacts of the infected people and block the spread of infection.

The coronavirus samples were collected from confirmed cases in France from Jan. 24 to March 24. During this period, the country reported 22,302 confirmed cases, including 1,100 deaths, and the outbreak was mainly occurring in the country's north.

The samples, mainly nasal swab and sputum, were stored at the NRC. The Pasteur Institute conducted gene sequencing and comparison on 97 samples, and included information in the comparison such as country of origin, travel history, time of onset, viral load, and sampling position. The study also included three samples from Algeria.

Ju Liya, chief scientist of the European precision medicine platform, gave her interpretations on the traceability study:



1. The virus strains (GE1583, B2340) from southeastern France with a history of travel to Italy are different from those of northern France and not prevalent in France, but similar to those prevalent in northern Italy;

2. The virus strain sampled from the first patient in France from Wuhan (IDF0372) has a unique single nucleic acid polymorphism (G22661T) different from all the others sampled in France;

3. The representative virus genes in northern France are GE1973, IDF2849, and N2223;

4. The representative gene of virus strains with European travel history is IDF2792;

5. The three virus strains were homologous with the prevalent strains from northern France.

The Pasteur Institute compared sequences of samples tested in France with the 338 COVID-19 sequences released by GISAID, and established the virus evolution tree map.

Genetic analysis shows that the dominant types of the viral strains in France belonged to a clade  or group with a common ancestor  that did not come from China or Italy, the earliest hotspot in Europe.

The earliest sample in the French clade was collected on Feb. 19 from a patient who had no history of travel and no known contact with returned travelers. The patient died on Feb. 25, followed by a major outbreak in France.

Ju said that the picture tells that:

1. Strains from the Asia-Pacific region (including Wuhan, Hubei) are not associated with those in France;

2. Strains from the U.S. have little association with those in France;

3. Prevalent strains in northern France (marked in different colors for different regions) are derived from the same original strain.

The researchers concluded that the virus was silently circulating in France and other European countries before the virus broke out in February, and a large proportion of those patients might have had mild symptoms or none at all without being detected by health authorities.

They also pointed out that it is not possible to nail down the origin or the import time of the virus in France yet, since the virus sampling in many countries is still incomplete.

One of the research leaders said that the sequencing of the coronavirus from different regions is important for understanding the outbreak in France.

(The article was published in Chinese on Science and Technology Daily and translated by Zhang Jiaqi from China.org.cn.)
France urges working from home until summer Minister calls for accord with unions to prevent misuse

(ANSAmed) - PARIS, MAY 4 - France intends to encourage its citizens to work from home if possible at least until summer.



Labour Minister Muriel Penicaud said on Franceinfo radio that some five million people working from home now should continue as long as possible.



In order to prevent misuse, Penicaud said that it would be necessary to draw up an agreement between employers and unions. She warned that working from home did not mean that employees would be available 24 hours a day, every day. ''You cannot be on your phone or computer the entire time,'' she stressed. ''This is a cause of overwork and stress.'' (ANSAmed).




Indian National Congress Party has asked its State committees to foot the travel bill of every needy migrant labourer who is availing the special train facility being organised by the central government. In a statement, Party President Sonia Gandhi said it will be her party's "contribution in service of our compatriots and to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them".

The politically significant move was taken after the Railways Ministry decided to charge lakhs of workers and migrant labourers who want to return to their homes and families in the wake of extended lockdown to prevent COVID-19 outbreak."There is neither adequate money nor provision for free transport. What is particularly disturbing is that the Central Government and the Rail Ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis", the Congress statement said.

In a scathing attack, Gandhi said the Government was spending nearly Rs 100 crores on transport and food for just one public programme in Gujarat. She also added that the Rail Ministry had donated Rs 151 crore to the PM's Corona fund, but was not ensuring free rail travel to the needy.

She blamed the central government's short notice of just four hours prior to the lockdown for the current plight of workers and migrant labourers. "Post the partition of 1947, this is the first time India witnessed a tragedy with such a massive human cost as thousands of migrant workers and labourers were forced to walk home several hundred kilometres on foot- without food, without medicines, without money, without transportation, without anything except for the desire to return to their families and loved ones", Gandhi said.

The statement claimed that the Congress Party has been raising this issue from the outset of the lockdown. "There needs to be provisions for the safe and free rail travel of migrant workers and labourers to their home-towns. However, despite our repeated demands, the Central Government and the Rail Ministry have chosen to completely ignore the same", she added.

Also read: Coronavirus India live updates: People queue up outside liquor shops amid lockdown 3.0; 42,533 total cases

Also read: Coronavirus crisis: 7 UP labourers who returned from Maharashtra test positive
Job portal Indeed has partnered with Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) to help showcase current employment opportunities, a move that will help job seekers get easy access to roles requiring urgent fulfillment.

Amidst concerns and uncertainty arising from the COVID-19 outbreak, SHRM and Indeed have created a resource pool with current employment opportunities in the country, a company release said.

Through this partnership, Indeed and SHRM will help job seekers who are ready to work, access roles requiring urgent fulfillment.

To reassure talent that they can confidently apply for work in the current environment, a platform with a series of short videos have also been created by the heads of recruitment of featured employers, highlighting how their companies are adapting to COVID-19.

"As the effects of the pandemic continue to impact the labour market, we are doing what we can to keep the economy moving, leveraging the resources we have at our disposal and partnering with those who are on the same mission - to help Indians find safe work," Indeed India Managing Director Sashi Kumar said.

In the face of an overall downturn, some services are bucking the trend and experiencing increased consumer demand and subsequently need to significantly ramp-up supply to meet this requirement.

"During this uncertain time, it is important to ensure that job seekers are motivated and make the best of the opportunities that are still available for them to leverage. Positive job seeker sentiment is vital to providing the much-needed stimulus to hiring that organizations are relying on, in order to put their best foot forward and meet challenges of the new normal," said Achal Khanna, CEO SHRM APAC & Middle East and Head Global Business Development SHRM.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US' double-standard game with JCPOA not justifiable by any criterion

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Sun / 3 May 2020 / 11:50

Tehran (ISNA)  Iran's ambassador to France Bahram Qassemi stressed that the US' roguish and double-standard game with the JCPOA is not justifiable by any logic and criterion.

Referring to US' attempts for using the 2015 nuclear deal and UN Security Council Resolution 2231 to extend Iran' arms embargo, Qassemi wrote on his official Twitter account, "By withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the United States both violated its JCPOA obligations and the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 and moved toward undermining the UN and even other partners to the Iran nuclear deal. It is not acceptable for a country to both breach its commitments and seek fabricated and selective interests in a deal by withdrawing from it".

"Playing a roguish and double-standard game with the JCPOA using UN resolutions as a tool to ratchet up the pressure and restrictions and violate the natural rights of Iran and any other independent country is not justifiable by any logic and criterion. Even the international community is against this interpretation and logic which defies globally recognized norms," he added.

End Item

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






FILE PHOTO: The sun is seen behind a crude oil pump jack in the Permian Basin in Loving County

By Ron Bousso

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil and gas output from some of the world's top oil companies is set to drop by nearly 11% in the second quarter of 2020 to levels not seen in at least 17 years, according to Reuters calculations.

The output cuts are driven by an unprecedented drop in oil consumption due to coronavirus-related movement restrictions that have led to a surge in supplies and a collapse in crude prices to levels not seen in more than two decades.

Five of the top publicly-traded oil and gas producers, known as oil majors, have in recent weeks outlined plans to sharply reduce production from Iraq to the shale basins in the United States.

Oil majors production cuts 2020 https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/ygdpzymobvw/Pasted%20image%201588670977338.png

The cumulative output for Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total will drop to the lowest since at least 2003, based on Refinitiv data.

"Our output will be down in the second quarter, and it is very uncertain how the rest of year will unfold," BP Chief Executive Officer Bernard Looney told Reuters last week.

BP said it will reduce its U.S. shale oil output by 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 2020, around 14% lower than its 2019 output of 499,000 boepd.

It is also cutting in other countries, including in OPEC nations and other major producers including Russia and Azerbaijan that agreed in March to cut output by an unprecedented 23%, Looney said.

Shell Chief Financial Officer Jessica Uhl said that in some cases the production cuts are due to logistical problems such as lack of storage.

Exxon and Chevron are slamming the brakes on oil output, with plans for combined global shut-ins of 800,000 barrels per day in response to plunging crude prices.

Total said on Tuesday its production will be at least 5% lower on average in 2020 at 2.95 to 3 million boed, driven by voluntary reductions in Canada and the OPEC+ quotas.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Kirsten Donovan)
Students and staff without coronavirus symptoms at 80 West Australian public schools, education support centres and residential colleges will start getting voluntarily tested for the virus in coming weeks.

Swab testing of school-aged children in WA to start.

No student-to-student or student-to-teacher transmission of COVID-19 has been recorded in WA and schools have been deemed safe, but for this to continue the state government has enlisted medical researchers to test asymptomatic members of key community sectors.

In partnership with the Telethon Kids Institute, the state governments DETECT program will start randomised testing of school students and staff without symptoms before moving on to include fly-in, fly-out workers and frontline healthcare workers.

The study will start this week but swab testing of school staff and students will begin in the coming weeks, according to the state government, as student attendance is expected to increase from the average 60 per cent recorded at public schools on Friday. Swab testing of children will be less invasive and is reflected in the above picture.
Lifting the restrictions ahead of time is in conflict with the Ukrainian government's decision.

Cherkasy Regional State Administration is set to rescind a decision passed by the Cherkasy mayor's office to ease the COVID-19 quarantine and has prepared a claim for submitting to a court.

"The claim says that the decision should be canceled as it is in conflict with Cabinet decision No. 211 dated March 11, 2020, resolution No. 14 dated April 27, 2020, and protocol No. 21 issued by the regional commission on industrial, environmental safety and emergencies on April 30, 2020 (Part 1 of Article 325 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)," the regional administration said on its website.

Read alsoUkraine's MFA: 160 Ukrainians undergoing COVID-19 treatment abroad

The administration also demands that the decision to lift certain lockdown restrictions be suspended until the claim is considered to "prevent the spread of COVID-19."

As UNIAN reported earlier, the quarantine-related restrictions were eased in Cherkasy on May 1. Shops, parks and restaurants' outdoor facilities reopened in Cherkasy. Limitations on public transportation in the city were also lifted.

Speaking in one of his regular video messages, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Cherkasy Mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko against easing the quarantine ahead of schedule, yet, the mayor responded via social media that he would not give up the idea and offered resistance.

Such a decision passed by the mayor's office caused a disagreement between the central and local governments.

Members of Cherkasy City Council, which voted for lifting a number of the said restrictions, reportedly started to get subpoenas. Cherkasy police opened a criminal case for the violation of sanitary measures.
Jaipur, May 4 : With the joint efforts of state Congress government and BJP-led Centre, over one crore students in Rajasthan shall be able to attend regular lessons on Aakashwani.

Prakash Javadekar, Union I&B Minister on Monday accepted the request made by state education minister Govind Singh Dotasara to make a few slots available on radio platform so that students of rural areas can also learn their regular school lessons, who unlike the private school students, were deprived from accessing online classes.

Prasar Bharati gave a nod to run 51 classes which shall run till June 30. Each class shall run for 55 minutes, Dotasara told IANS adding "It's a new beginning where the politics has taken a backseat for the sake of students' future. We are thankful to the central government for accepting this request which will benefit over one crore students in the state." Dotasara further opined that central government will also permit slots on Doordarshan too. "I have requested for the slot on DD also and am hoping to get permission on same grounds," he told IANS.

Dotasara, a few days back, had written a letter to Javadekar requesting him for a few slots on Akashwani and Doordarshan to ensure rural students too can learn their lessons during lockdown as they have been unable to do so due to lack of broadband connectivity and electronic gadgets.

Unlike the private school students, these students can't attend online classes as they don't have required infrastructure including high speed internet and gadgets like smartphones and computers. Now, this decision comes as a blessing for them, he said.

BJP state president Satish Poonia also supported Congress government in this cause. He had also written a letter to Javadekar pushing for the facility.

"Dotasara also requested me to speak to Javadekar in this content. Hence I wrote a letter to him and also spoke to him. As a result, the central government took this decision in favour of the students who are future citizens of India. I thank Javadekar for paying heed to my request," he added.

Meanwhile, Prasar Bharati has written to State Education Training and Research Centre to share the school syllabus which needs to be aired on Aakashwani. An MoU shall also be signed with state body in context of uploading the content on online platforms, said officials.
Our seemingly ignorant and obtuse president tweeted, in no uncertain words, his support for insurrections against Democratic governors in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota. I'm wondering if President Donald Trump's supporters in Congress, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, countenance his tweets. If she finds them as abhorrent as most reasonable people would, will she speak out against them?

Some 160 years ago, the Civil War proved that armed insurrection is no solution. In a time of crisis and pandemic, the consequences will be even worse. Do our elected representatives have the moral compass to speak out against it?
DSR Corporation announces that Rafael Micro, a fabless IC/IP design company in Taiwan focusing on high-end RF technology and wireless IoT connectivity, has officially joined the ZBOSS Open Initiative (ZOI), a first of its kind community of companies working on a common Zigbee PRO software platform, ZBOSS, with a goal to overcome, together, the challenges around interoperability, security, testing, and optimization of Zigbee-enabled products and solutions.

ZOI membership aims to further the development of a unified software platform for Zigbee-enabled smart devices and make it the most interoperable solution on the market, allowing the participating companies to focus on their product features and not the support and new feature development of the underlying protocol stack.

We are very excited to welcome Rafael Micro to the ZOI community, says Anatoli Pechkov, CEO of DSR Corporation. Taiwan has always been a pioneer in hardware design and manufacturing and Rafael Micro is a great example of that. Rafael Micros strong R&D expertise is a great addition to the ZOI community and we are looking forward to collaborating together on ZBOSS.

Rafael Micro's CEO, Ted Sun, said: Zigbee protocol is an important new addition to our wireless communication technology offerings for the IoT connectivity market. It strengthens us to address the growing number of opportunities from our rapidly expanding customer base in Home Automation, Industrial Control, Lighting Control and Electronic Shelf Labeling segments. We are both pleased and honored to join the talented high-tech software community of ZOI.

For additional information on the ZBOSS Open Initiative (ZOI), including membership details and frequently asked questions, visit http://www.dsr-zoi.com.

About Rafael Micro

Rafael Micro is a fabless IC/IP design company in Taiwan focusing on high-end RF technology and wireless IoT connectivity. As one of the top-3 TV tuner IC vendors worldwide, Rafael Micros products also cover TV/STB RF tuners, satellite broadcast LNBs, Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0/5.1, Sub-GHz and Zigbee 3.0 communication chips. Rafael Micro brings more than a decade of leading-edge RF IC design experience along with many aspects of communication talent to the IoT market place. Rafael Micro is proud to offer best-in-class RF design techniques to the fast-growing consumer and industrial electronics markets.

http://www.rafaelmicro.com/

About DSR Corporation

DSR Corporation (DSR) is a professional products and services software development firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado. DSR Corporation has been developing products in wireless technology since 2001, releasing cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) systems since 2006. DSR is the ultimate end-to-end IoT partner for many companies around the world and within different IoT verticals. DSR has delivered solutions in enabling wireless communications in products, embedded software for gateways and sensors, application integration layer, cloud backend, end-user apps (mobile and web), and general technology consulting with niche expertise. DSR is one of a handful of companies around the world that develops solutions covering the entire product spectrum - from the lowest level (hardware layer) to the top-level user apps. DSR is a big supporter of open standards and flexible development, making us technology and vendor agnostic because we understand that not all solutions fit all use cases and business models. We are able to do this because of our extensive experience in different areas and our commitment to quality, recognized by our work in the Japanese market.

http://www.dsr-iot.com | http://www.dsr-corporation.com

About ZBOSS

ZBOSS is a Zigbee Alliance certified, hardware agnostic, cross-platform, high-performance Zigbee software protocol stack developed by DSR Corporation. ZBOSS features cross-platform support, multi-tasking, fixed memory footprint, OS-less configuration, and easy-to-use API. It is an official Zigbee stack for Nordic Semiconductor and ON Semiconductor and also supports multiple SoCs, MCUs and transceivers from Texas Instruments, Silicon Labs, Qorvo, ARM, Telink, UBEC, Microchip, and other chip vendors. Moreover, multiple Zigbee 3.0 certified products are powered by ZBOSS. Over 200 smart devices from more than 40 vendors were tested successfully for interoperability with ZBOSS.

http://www.dsr-zboss.com
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's Supreme Court began a two-day hearing on Sunday to determine whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's indictment on criminal charges disqualifies him from forming a new government. A ruling against Netanyahu would likely trigger a snap election, the fourth since April 2019, as the country grapples with the coronavirus crisis and its economic fallout.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's Supreme Court began a two-day hearing on Sunday to determine whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's indictment on criminal charges disqualifies him from forming a new government.

A ruling against Netanyahu would likely trigger a snap election, the fourth since April 2019, as the country grapples with the coronavirus crisis and its economic fallout.

Netanyahu and his main rival Benny Gantz signed an agreement last month to form a unity government under which they would take turns leading Israel after three elections that neither of them won.

In power for more than a decade and currently head of a caretaker government, right-wing Netanyahu will serve as prime minister of a new administration for 18 months before handing the reins to centrist Gantz, according to the unity deal.

The pact has support from a majority in parliament. But several groups, including opposition parties and democracy watchdogs, have petitioned Israel's highest court to nullify the deal and bar Netanyahu from leading the government, citing the criminal proceedings against him.

Responding to the petition, Israel's Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit wrote to the court saying that there was no sufficient legal ground to disqualify Netanyahu.

He described the case as a "head-on collision" between "on one side the most basic democratic principle of honouring the will of the majority ... (and) on the other integrity in public service, specifically among elected officials."

Eleven justices, wearing face masks and separated by screens as coronavirus precautions, presided over the discussion.

A small group outside the court, also following social distancing guidelines, carried signs and Israeli flags to protest against government corruption.

Some Israeli analysts have said the court, cast by Netanyahu loyalists as liberal and interventionist, was unlikely to bar the premier from heading a new government.

A ruling is expected to be announced by Thursday.

Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, was indicted in January on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He denies any wrongdoing in all three cases against him and says he is a victim of a political witch-hunt.

Netanyahu's trial is due to start on May 24.

Israeli law says a prime minister under indictment is not obligated to step down until a final conviction. But legal some experts say there are legal precedents suggesting elected officials indicted with charges that carry moral turpitude should resign.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Maayan Lubell and Edmund Blair)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison (C) with (L-R) Minister for Health Greg Hunt, Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert and Minister for Aged Care Richard Colbeck speak to media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on Nov. 25, 2019. (Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images)

Australian PMs Office Sends Formal Complaint to ABC

The prime ministers office has delivered an official complaint to Australias national broadcaster, the ABC, over a story it ran online and on TV about the governments COVIDSafe app on April 24.

The Australian reported that Chief Media Adviser Nick Creevey wrote to the ABCs head of news Gaven Morris about journalist Dylan Welchs reporting on the governments COVIDSafe virus contact tracing app. According to The Australian, the prime ministers office said the reporting was unnecessarily alarmist.

Welch had noted in his reporting that there was a possibility the COVIDSafe apps data could be obtainable by U.S. law enforcement under the 2018 United States CLOUD Act.

Can the US obtain COVIDSafe data? The answer, for the moment, appears to be yes. @lb_online https://t.co/WThKCMnMBq  Dylan Welch (@dylanwelch) April 27, 2020

The Australian government awarded the contract for COVIDSafe data storage to Americas Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon. The information is being held on a cloud-based platform that the federal government has assured Australians will be safe.

However, the CLOUD Act mandates that all American cloud service providers are required to produce, under subpoena, to any U.S. law enforcement agency, data held by them regardless of where in the world that data is stored.

Salinger Privacy, advisors to the federal government on privacy law and practice, said in a recent newsletter that the question over Australias data sovereignty with the CLOUD Act needed some clarity.

The newsletter said that although Minister for Health Greg Hunt said the health departments Biosecurity Determination overruled the international law, the determination does not actually reflect that.

According to Salinger Privacy, the health ministers Biosecurity Determination only applies to any provision of any other Australian law, and there is no mention of trumping the laws of other nations.

Australias peak legal body, the Law Council of Australia, has also said that they have some concerns with the Biosecurity Determination.

Law Council of Australia President Pauline Wright said on April 26 that there was ambiguity around whether other laws authorising the issuing of law enforcement and intelligence warrants could override the prohibition on access, provided by the Biosecurity Determination.

Wright called on the government to make a firm commitment to introduce legislation on the first sitting day in May that will replace the Determination.
WASHINGTON - As the world anxiously awaits a coronavirus vaccine, a Maryland biotechnology company already has signed deals to do initial production of three candidates. If one of them works, the firm has a factory in place to manufacture hundreds of millions of doses a year.

Emergent BioSolutions of Gaithersburg has long been preparing for a global disease outbreak. The firm got started making a vaccine against anthrax, and since then has produced candidates for the Ebola and Zika viruses.

"The covid pandemic is shining a spotlight on a capability we've had for years," Executive Vice President Sean Kirk said. "We have infrastructure here in Maryland that basically supports the entire [vaccine] product development continuum."

Emergent's readiness illustrates the outsize role that Maryland is playing in the battle against the novel coronavirus. In Montgomery County's biotech corridor along Interstate 270, multiple companies have pivoted to work on possible vaccines and cures, and to expand testing. At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, 260 scientists are working on 25 projects for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The nation's best-known expert on the disease, Anthony S. Fauci, works at the Bethesda-based National Institutes of Health.

"This is the place to be," said Luis Branco, managing director of Germantown's Zalgen Labs, which is working to develop an improved diagnostic test for the coronavirus. "There are very few places in the world that can really gather all these resources in a small geographical area. Maryland is definitely one of them."

There is plenty of competition. Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and North Carolina's "Research Triangle" all have robust biotechnology sectors, along with many cities abroad. According to the World Health Organization, more than 100 possible vaccines are already being studied, and it will take months, at least, before one is found to be safe, effective and able to be produced in large numbers.

That said, Maryland may have an advantage because it has so much experience in gene and cell therapies, and in vaccines, all of which will be critical in fighting the coronavirus, according to Martin Rosendale, chief executive of the Maryland Tech Council.

A private company in Montgomery County and NIH played key roles in mapping the human genome. Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has a large vaccine research unit in Rockville, and other local companies such as Novavax and Altimmune produce vaccines.

Maryland has a strong presence in the health sciences largely because it is home to federal institutions such as NIH, the Food and Drug Administration and the Army's biological defense center at Fort Detrick.

In addition, Johns Hopkins is the nation's largest research university, as measured by spending. The University of Maryland at Baltimore did one of the first Ebola vaccine tests on human subjects and is now conducting federally sponsored clinical trials related to covid-19.

The federal and academic research centers have attracted private companies to the region, as well as being a source of scientists and doctors who move to the private sector in hope of making money.

For area biotech companies, the fight against covid-19 offers opportunity both to help humanity and reap financial rewards. Many are start-ups yet to earn a profit, and new covid-19 business could change that.

"This might be enough to push them over that [profitability] threshold," Rosendale said. "I don't think anyone is going to get extraordinarily wealthy, but they will get paid for their vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics."

The tech council has formed a Maryland Covid-19 Coalition with 40 companies, including some in Virginia, to share information about where to locate supplies, find lab space and encourage cooperation. Here are examples of what they're doing:

- Novavax of Gaithersburg began working on a covid-19 vaccine on Jan. 11, and it said its candidate has had positive results in trials on mice. After tests on monkeys, it hopes to have initial findings on human tests by the end of May.

"We have a high level of optimism, confidence, that the vaccine will work in humans," Chief Executive Stanley Erck said.

"The truth is, this is an unprecedented market for vaccines," Erck said. "We, the industry, are trying to get 6 [billion] to 8 billion doses made in the next couple of years."

Nearly all of Novavax's 200 employees are working on the coronavirus effort.

- Emergent BioSolutions would manufacture Novavax's vaccine candidate in large quantities at a facility near Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Emergent signed a partnership in 2012 with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to build the plant to deal with a possible future pandemic.

Emergent also has a $135 million partnership agreement with a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, and with a third company, to manufacture their vaccine candidates.

"It's to be expected in pandemic response that the government and society would want multiple shots on goal, multiple horses in the race," Kirk said.

- Vigene of Rockville is also preparing to manufacture vaccine candidates.

"We are in active discussions with half a dozen companies," said Jeffrey Hung, chief commercial officer. "Every project is pretty urgent, because everybody wants to develop something for the public good and the competitive edge."

Vigene previously produced vaccine candidates for human papillomavirus and HIV.

- GeneDx of Gaithersburg reconfigured part of its laboratory to do up to 5,000 tests a day for the coronavirus. It is a subsidiary of BioReference Laboratories, which has 4,000 employees and now has about 70 percent of them working on covid-19.

- U.S. Pharmacopeia of Rockville is a 200-year-old nonprofit that ensures that drugs and other products approved by the FDA conform to quality standards. It has issued guidance on how to produce hand sanitizers and how to protect pharmacy staff if safety equipment is in short supply.

"We have pivoted so more than 50 percent of what we are doing is covid-related," Chief Science Officer Jaap Zenema said.

- In Virginia, Aperiomics of Sterling is running tests to identify coronavirus in swab samples. It's also working with a Maryland company to develop a rapid antibody test.

- In Charlottesville, Caretaker Medical has enjoyed a boom in demand for its wrist-worn devices that measure vital signs. It provides continuous blood-pressure readings, which help doctors and nurses monitor patients without having to enter their rooms.

"Our normal run rate was dozens of caretakers per month to now hundreds per month," President Jeff Pompeo said. Each sells for between $2,000 and $4,000.

"We're in the right place at the right time," he said.

Biotech executives said they were setting aside some of their normal competitive habits in the interest of moving quickly to fight the coronavirus. Zalgen's Branco said that even though his company is working on an improved diagnostic test, it agreed to make available some of its lab space to an independent researcher working on a similar product when asked by the tech council.

"We opened up our resources and lent a hand," Branco said. "Everybody will gain."

At the same time, he acknowledged that he hoped his test would be profitable.

"I don't want to sound totally altruistic," Branco said. "If we commercialize it and it sells, then yes, there will be a good economic windfall."

But he added, "Our focus going into it was using our core competency to do good, which we knew we could."
When a person dies, someone must pull together everything they owned and pass it on to the beneficiaries named in their will, under a process known as probate.

Sadly, the coronavirus outbreak means more people will have to arrange this for their loved ones - with the ONS reporting 184,950 deaths in the first 15 weeks of 2020, some 10,000 more than the five-year average.

With the country in lockdown, we've adapted our lifestyles, perhaps working from home and swapping the gym for a run. However, complicated tasks such as probate will be less practical with social distancing rules and many businesses temporarily closed or running reduced services.

It is still possible to start or do probate, however, and we look at the options available to you if you have been appointed an executor in somebody's will, or a loved one has died without one.

But probate isn't always needed and there are ways to save money, even during lockdown

What's probate?

Probate is the official process of sorting out someone's financial affairs after their death.

Probate is the process of sorting out someone's financial affairs after their death.

It involves locating and valuing all their assets - money in savings and bank accounts, investments and their home and its contents, for example - and paying any outstanding debts they may have owed, such as a credit card balance or mortgage.

The money and value of assets left after debts have been paid forms their estate and must be distributed according to the terms of their will.

If a person died without a will they are considered intestate and the estate must be distributed according to rules set by the government.

Probate is the same for everyone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. If you live in Scotland it's called confirmation.

Do you need to apply for probate?

Not everyone has to go through probate. When one spouse in a marriage, or a civil partner dies, and passes their entire estate to the surviving husband, wife or partner, probate is not always needed.

This may be the case as long as they only had jointly-owned land, property, shares or money, which will automatically pass to the surviving owners.

It can also be the case if someone only owned savings or premium bonds.

For others obtaining a grant of probate is necessary, in order to get what's known as a 'grant of probate' for someone who left a will, or 'letters of administration' for someone who died without one.

If you are named as an executor it is possible to apply for probate yourself, or appoint a solicitor or probate specialist to do it for you.

Where someone dies without a will, the person who deals with their estate is known as the administrator and a spouse, civil partner, or child can apply to do this and follow the same steps as probate.

You can check with HM Revenue & Customs whether you need to start probate here.

It's possible to do most of the probate process by phone while social distancing is in force

Should you appoint someone to do probate?

Some people name a solicitor or probate specialists as an executor in their will, but many opt for family or friends instead.

If you have been named as an executor in someone's will then they should have asked you about this when they wrote it, although there are times when it may come as a surprise.

You are responsible for either completing probate or paying someone to do it out of the estate.

Sponsor's message At Farewill, our probate specialists are trained to handle cases over the phone, helping you to get your application sorted as quickly and safely as possible. If you think you need probate, call 020 3966 4885 for personalised advice.

Probate can be time consuming, but lots of people choose to do it themselves in order to save money.

However, losing a loved one is emotionally overwhelming and for other people having to dig through financial statements and make phone calls or write to banks, pension providers and insurance companies is the last thing they want to be doing.

This is why some executors appoint a bank or solicitor to manage probate for them.

Where the estate is particularly large or complex - for example there is a business involved - or where a will might be contested, it may seem necessary to appoint solicitors.

This can be expensive, however, as solicitors typically charge either an hourly rate, or a fee between 1 and 5 per cent of the value of the estate plus VAT. Banks also charge a percentage fee in most cases, usually 2 to 3 per cent of the estate value.

For a 450,000 estate, with a home worth 350,000 and savings, investments and belongings worth 100,000, a fairly standard 2.5 per cent fee would mean a bill of 11,250.

Some independent specialists will carry out probate for you for a fixed fee of a few hundred pounds.

If the estate is straightforward, many people therefore opt to carry out probate themselves.

At the moment, doing it this way means you'll pay an application fee of 215 to the Government if the value of the estate is 5,000 or over. Theres no fee if the estate is under 5,000.

It's worth noting that huge hikes in probate fees were proposed by the Government and were due to come into force this April. They have been put on hold for the time being.

Another option is to appoint an independent specialist - this can be a good middle way, with some offering to manage probate for you for a fixed fee that is typically in the hundreds of pounds not the thousands or tens of thousands.

A reduced government fee of 155 is payable on top.

When should you start probate?

You don't need to start immediately, but it is important not to leave things too long.

During lockdown many will be wondering whether they should defer probate, but experts are recommending that you start to apply for probate online or by phone where possible to avoid getting caught in a backlog later.

Government is warning that probate is already taking longer than usual as a result of coronavirus.

Time is of the essence in any scenario where beneficiaries need to get money or assets quickly and will suffer hardship if they must wait a long time.

How should I do probate during lockdown?

You will need to register the death with your local registry office within five days. Most registry offices are now offering telephone appointments in line with the social distancing rules.

Find your local registry office by checking the government website here.

The appointment itself is free, but youll need to pay 11 for each death certificate, which will then be sent out to you in the post. If you are doing probate yourself, you will need multiple certificates to send to banks, investment firms and other places where assets may be held.

Documents you need to sign can be sent to you in the post while lockdown is in force

To value someones estate you need to identify all their assets.

This means any bank and building society accounts, investments, properties, their belongings, car and anything else they may have owned. You also need to identify any pensions and life insurance policies.

For savings and investments and other financial assets you need to write to the provider and ask for a valuation on the date of death.

You also need to know about any debts, such as mortgages, credit cards, loans and personal debts and you can deduct the cost of their funeral expenses, so get this figure too.

Inheritance tax forms may need to be completed even if no tax is going to be owed.

Probate often means getting a property valued, this is possible without a visit

If there is a property in the estate, it will need to be valued. While lockdown is in force, valuers are not able to carry out physical inspections, but it's possible in most circumstances to get an online valuation done.

This may not be suitable if the value of the estate youre dealing with is close to the inheritance tax threshold.

This is 325,000 for 2020/21, but if your loved one previously inherited all of their deceased spouses estate and they used none or only some of their allowance, the inheritance tax threshold can be doubled up to 650,000.

A separate own residence nil-rate band of up to 175,000 per person applies to those who leave their home to children or grandchildren.

Anyone whose property puts them near these thresholds is likely to need a physical valuation.

If you are an executor carrying out probate it is your responsibility to do all of this. If you appoint a probate specialist, then they will do it for you.

After receiving your grant of probate or grant of letters of administration, youre free to close accounts, sell property and collect funds from the estate in one place.

You should be able to deal with banks and building societies over the phone, but youll probably need to send them the grant by post.

If you plan to sell any property, you could find it tricky during lockdown as most estate agents are closed.
A former senior North Korean diplomat apologised on Monday after saying leader Kim Jong Un was likely so ill he could not stand, days before he emerged in state media chain smoking and walking briskly at an event attended by hundreds of officials.

Kim disappeared from state media for weeks, sparking a flurry of speculation about his health and whereabouts, and worry about prospects for the nuclear-armed state in the event of an unexpected succession.

But on Saturday, North Korean media published photographs of Kim at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the inauguration of a fertiliser plant.

His re-emergence came as a blow to the credibility of some high-profile defectors from the North who had speculated that Kim was suffering from a grave illness or could even be dead.

One of the defectors, Thae Yong Ho, was North Korea`s deputy ambassador to Britain, where he managed secret funds for Kim. Thae fled to South Korea in 2016 and was one of a pair of defectors elected to parliament last month.

"I am aware that one of the reasons why many of you voted for me as a lawmaker is with the expectations of an accurate analysis and projections on North Korean issues," Thae said in a statement. "I feel the blame and heavy responsibility."

"Whatever the reasons, I apologise to everyone."

The other prominent defector elected to parliament, Ji Seong-ho, had said in a media interview he was 99% certain that Kim had died after cardiovascular surgery and an official announcement would come as soon as Saturday.

Ji, who was invited to attend US President Donald Trump`s State of the Union address in 2018, could not be reached on Monday.

Ji told Reuters on Friday he had received information about Kim`s death from a source he could not disclose. He added he ran for office to bring attention to human rights abuse in the North.

South Korea`s ruling Democratic Party criticised the pair for carelessness that it said could do more serious than just misinforming the public. One party member said they should be excluded from the intelligence and defence committees.

Daily NK, a South Korean news outlet run by North Korean defectors, reported in April that Kim was recovering from a cardiovascular procedure, sparking international speculation about his health.
Jammu, May 4 : The Pakistan army on Monday violated the bilateral ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Defence Ministry spokesman, Colonel Devender Anand, told IANS, "At about 4 p.m. today, Pakistan army resorted to unprovoked firing with small arms and shelling with mortars in Mendhar sector of Rajouri district. At around 4.30 p.m. they resorted to firing and shelling in Sunderbani sector of the same district. At both places, our positions are retaliating befittingly." Earlier on Monday, Pakistan also breached the ceasefire on the LoC in Uri sector of Baramulla district by firing and shelling, which was strongly retaliated to by the Indian army using similar weapons.

Since the last fortnight, Pakistan has been violating ceasefire on the LoC in J&K with impunity.

Senior army officers said that since snows have started melting along the LoC, Pakistan is planning to violate ceasefire to provide cover fire to help infiltration into J&K.

"We are ready to give them a hot reception. For anybody trying to infiltrate into J&K, it is a one-way road," a senior army officer told IANS.
As if 2020 weren't terrifying enough, now we have to worry about "murder hornets."

The world's largest hornet - the size of a matchbox - is known for invading honeybee hives, decapitating all the bees in a matter of hours and carrying the mangled thoraxes back to feed their young.

And now they're in the United States.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture is trying to track down the fearsome insects, also nicknamed "yak-killer hornets" or "giant sparrow bees," after officials received and verified four reports of them in December in the northwestern part of the state. They were also spotted in two sites in the Canadian province of British Columbia in the fall.

In a New York Times story that made the term "murder hornets" trend on Twitter on Saturday, Conrad Berube, a beekeeper and entomologist in Nanaimo, Canada, described being stung by an Asian giant hornet as "like having red-hot thumbtacks being driven into my flesh."

The hornets primarily attack insects but will direct their aggression toward people if they're threatened. Their quarter-inch stingers, which can penetrate beekeeping suits, deploy a venom potent enough to dissolve human flesh.

Absorbing multiple stings can be deadly. The nervous system can shut down, and an allergic reaction may occur and cause anaphylactic shock. The insects kill 30 to 40 people each year in Japan, where they're most common.

But the giant hornets are primarily a danger to bees. Scientists are now hunting for the insects, whose queens can grow to two inches long, in hopes of rounding them up before they become rooted in the United States and destroy bee populations that are crucial to crop pollination.

"This is our window to keep it from establishing," Chris Looney, an entomologist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, told The Times. "If we can't do it in the next couple of years, it probably can't be done."

Some insects native to the northwestern United States have been confused for the invasive hornets, but real Asian giant hornets have distinctive qualities: large orange and yellow heads with teardrop eyes, black and yellow striped abdomens and papery wings that span up to three inches.

A colony of Asian giant hornets can kill nearly 30,000 bees in a few hours. The attack begins when a scout finds a new hive and marks it with a pheromone secreted from glands in its back legs, signaling to other hornets that they should gather.

As the bees try to defend their colonies, worker hornets use powerful mandibles - appendages near their mouths - to chop up the bees and chew them into gooey "meatballs" before carrying the protein-heavy remains back to their young.

Asian giant hornets mostly fly under the radar in the winter, when queen hornets hibernate in soil or other covered places. Mated queens emerge when the temperature warms between mid-March and May and eat sap for energy to start a new colony. The hornets launch most of their attacks on bees in the late summer and early fall.

Scientists don't know how Asian giant hornets found their way to the United States, but Looney said in a video presentation that they may have been hibernating in a ship's ballast or in a product that was transported from Asia to North America.

In a less likely scenario, Looney said, someone might have transported the hornets here to cultivate them as a food source. Some people in Asian countries eat the meaty hornets, and their juice is sometimes used as a performance-enhancing supplement.

Washington state employees plan to try to trap hornets and destroy their nests this spring and summer before the population gets out of hand.
EDITOR's NOTE: This story has been changed from the original version. When it was published, the story cited a traffic safety expert who said the push bar would have given the gunman a "massive advantage" and likely made a critical difference in the head-on collision with the vehicle of RCMP Const. Heidi Stevenson. CBC has since spoken to other collision experts who dispute this, and they are now included in the story.

The replica police car that the gunman drove on his killing rampage through rural Nova Scotia last month was distinct from most other RCMP patrol vehicles in at least one key and specific way.

In video surveillance footage and images released by the RCMP Tuesday, Gabriel Wortman's mocked-up patrol car appears to be equipped with a black push bar on the front bumper.

But road safety experts differ in their assessments of whether or not the push bar on Wortman's car could have made a difference in the head-on collision with the vehicle of RCMP Const. Heidi Stevenson, who died at the scene after confronting him on the morning of April 19 on a Nova Scotia highway.

The RCMP have not provided details of the injuries Stevenson sustained in the collision. The Mounties said after the two cars collided, "Stevenson engaged the gunman."

"The gunman took Const. Stevenson's life. He also took Const. Stevenson's gun and mags," the RCMP said.

Less than an hour later, Wortman, 51, was shot dead by police.

The RCMP confirmed to CBC News that Stevenson's patrol car was not equipped with a push bar.

RCMP

When Wortman and Stevenson's vehicles collided, the gunman would have had an advantage, according to Barry Wellar, professor emeritus in the department of geography, environment and geomatics at the University of Ottawa, who is a pedestrian advocate and road safety expert.

"Both cars are going to suffer some damage, but the point is that the one with the push bar rams that right into the front end of the engine compartment, and everything just gets pushed back," he said.

Story continues

'Similar levels of crushing'

Other collision experts. however, have suggested to CBC News that the push bar might not have given Wortman an advantage at all.

"Where you get a head-on collision with two very similar types of sedans with similar front-end structures, generally, they're going to share the collision energy relatively evenly," said Mark Fabbroni, a forensic engineer with 30 Forensic Engineering in Toronto who reconstructs motor vehicle accidents.

"You're going to see them have similar levels of crushing of the front of the vehicles."

In low-speed crashes, a push bar can prevent light damage to the front of the vehicle it's attached to, collision experts told CBC News.

"Head on, there's not going to be any big difference in the collision severity," said Jim Graham, an engineer who has investigated collisions involving push bars.

"The push bar is really just window dressing bolted on to the bumper. It doesn't add any strength to the unibody. It doesn't add any strength to the frame rails."

The RCMP has not disclosed who rammed whom or the speed at which the vehicles were travelling.

The cars came to rest on the shoulder of the northbound lane at the mouth of an on-ramp. There appeared to be damage on the front end of both vehicles.

Serve various functions

Push bars, or push bumpers, on police vehicles can serve a number of functions, including as equipment mounts, as protection for the front bumper and as a battering ram to push vehicles off the road.

Former RCMP deputy commissioner Pierre-Yves Bourduas says the gunman came prepared.

"Because he outfitted his vehicle with a push bar, stands to reason that he might have expected any type of roadblocks or having to go through fences," he said.

Push bars are legal on civilian vehicles in Nova Scotia but not common on police patrol cars in the province.

The RCMP told CBC News they operate 588 vehicles in the province, and that "some vehicles are equipped with external equipment guards, sometimes referred to as push bars or push bumpers," but they did not have an exact count.

WATCH | Video shows N.S. shooting suspect shortly before he was caught

In an emailed response to questions from CBC News, the RCMP said they believe Wortman attached the push bar to his replica vehicle after he purchased it at an auction last fall.

Wortman was on the move in Shubenacadie, N.S., that Sunday when he pulled up alongside the car of RCMP Const. Chad Morrison and shot at him. Morrison was injured but managed to get away. Shortly after, Stevenson was travelling northbound on Highway 2 when she encountered Wortman's car travelling south. The RCMP said the two cars collided head-on.

Unclear if RCMP warned others of push bar

The RCMP said they confirmed that Wortman was driving a replica RCMP patrol car after a female witness emerged from hiding at 6:30 a.m. that Sunday.

"When this was confirmed, we issued a BOLO [be on the lookout] bulletin that included a description of the suspect and vehicle to all police officers in Nova Scotia," the Mounties told CBC News in an email.

But it is still unclear if they included the push bar in their description.

In a tweet posted at 10:17 a.m. AT on April 19, alerting the public to the gunman's replica car, the RCMP noted only that the suspect's vehicle could be distinguished from a real police vehicle by the decal of a number on the side.

Retired Nova Scotia RCMP officer Mike Gregory said seeing a push bar on a patrol car in the area would be a red flag.

Gregory was a Mountie in the province for 25 years, including seven years as detachment commander in Tatamagouche. He is now a municipal councillor in Colchester County, where Wortman's rampage started on the evening of April 18 in the rural community of Portapique.

"As far as I know, there are no police cars in Colchester County with push bars," Gregory told CBC News.

Nearby Truro Police are located 43 kilometres east of Portapique. Chief David MacNeil told CBC News that his department was not informed during the rampage that Wortman's replica car had a push bar.

MacNeil says push bars on patrol cars are uncommon in the province.

"We're probably one of the few in the province that have them," he said.

Truro Police Service

Truro Police have 10 marked vehicles in their fleet. Of those, four patrol cars and three SUVs are equipped with push bars. But MacNeil said their patrol cars  Dodge Chargers  are different models than the RCMP cars in the province.

He said the primary purpose of the push bars on Truro Police vehicles is not to push cars off the road, but to mount auxiliary red and blue lights and position the siren speaker on the front of the vehicle, where it's more effective.

Could be used as a battering ram

The use of push bars on police cars could be potentially dangerous, said Wellar.

"If somebody steals a police car, then that person has himself a battering ram," he said. "So, they're actually dangerous if they're not used properly."

RCMP

CBC News found use of push bars by police services varies across the country:

Halifax Regional Police does not have them on any of their 80 marked patrol cars.

Montreal police also do not use them on any of their vehicles.

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary said they have push bars on all their marked patrol vehicles.

The Ontario Provincial Police said their 1,252 front-line vehicles all have them.

Saskatoon Police have eight vehicles in their fleet with push bars. Last August, a provincial coroner's inquest recommended that more Saskatoon police vehicles be equipped with push bars. The inquest was reviewing the 2017 death of Austin Eaglechief, who died when a stolen truck he was driving collided with another vehicle. Earlier in the pursuit, Eaglechief rammed a police car. Saskatoon police testified that having a push bar on their patrol car could have stopped Eaglechief sooner.
TDT | Manama

The Kingdom of Bahrain joined countries across the globe in marking World Press Freedom Day yesterday. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) chose Journalism Without Fear or Favour as this years theme.

The theme asserts the importance of maintaining independent and professional journalism standards. It also addresses political, ideological or economic control and defamatory attacks on journalists, as stated in the message by UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay.

Bahrain takes pride in the history of its press through the decades. The constitutional guarantees for the freedom of press and expression are in line with the limitless support afforded by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, and His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister.

The vibrant scene of the press in Bahrain has seen the adaptation of tools to enhance information delivery in a professional and responsible manner. Modern technological trends have allowed more timely and diverse methods to achieve this.

The role of the local press has been further emphasised during the current times of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Journalists and other men and women in the media are supporting the national efforts by amplifying messages bearing factual and unbiased information and awareness to the public.

Local media has also been actively involved in countering what UNSECSOs message described as the infodemic of rumours and disinformation and in highlighting the tireless efforts exerted by Bahrain in managing the situation.

The comprehensive development process launched by His Majesty the King has given room for free and responsible media to run in parallel with ever-widening political, economic and social openness.

This golden era, unprecedented in the history of the Bahraini media, has provided a conducive environment for the press to assume its role as the fourth estate, supported by the principles of the National Action Charter and the Constitution of 2002.

HM the King has fully supported the Bahraini press and appreciated its contributions to serving the community and preserving Bahrains development and civilisational gains. HM the King has dedicated a day to celebrate the achievements of Bahraini press and honour journalists in recognition of their status, noble messages and enhancement of Bahrains position on the Arab and international media map.

It is during this era that Bahrain has had its first association of journalists. The establishment of the association was part of a boom in the active involvement of civil society organisations in public affairs.

The Bahrain Journalists Association (BJA) takes upon the role of protecting journalists rights as well as providing them with training opportunities to empower their career development.

Bahraini women are strongly represented in the field of journalism, and media overall. They hold several senior and executive roles as well as 40 per cent of specialised jobs, off and on-screen and in other media-related services.
NEWTOWN TOWNSHIP >> In the wake of several pedestrian fatalities, the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors is moving forward with a multi-pronged plan to improve safety along Sycamore Street, the townships downtown commercial corridor. At its Jan. 13 meeting, the board voted unanimously to follow the short term and long term recommendations of its traffic engineer, Derek Kennedy, who was...
Coronavirus deaths in care homes are not inevitable, a report has warned amid fears the killer virus has claimed the lives of thousands of Britain's most vulnerable.

Researchers at the London School of Economics have highlighted exactly where the UK has fallen short of protecting some 400,000 care home residents and staff.

More than 5,000 care home residents have died from COVID-19. Official data shows care home deaths account for more than a third of all fatalities.

The LSE report highlights how the UK Government's response has been different to other countries, taking a reactive approach rather than precautionary measures to prevent an outbreak.

In contrast, Hong Kong - which took action to prevent a crisis early on - has recorded no official deaths in care homes.

In some cases, swab tests have been limited to six residents with symptoms per care home, forcing staff to make assumptions on who may have the killer infection.

Carers are allowed to continue working even if they have had contact with a positive case, while in Germany a 14-day self isolation period is compulsory.

In South Korea, where total and care home deaths have been relatively low, regular temperature checks are taken of residents. A fever is one of the tell-tale symptoms.

Similarly in Hong Kong, residents are self-isolating even if there is no outbreak and must wear a face mask if they leave their room.

Adelina Comas-Herrera, an author of the report, said she expects the UK number of deaths of care home residents to amount to half of all deaths, as is happening in France, Belgium and Canada.

The pattern has been reported in Spain and Italy - where governments were slow to act and were underprepared for the pandemic with low levels of PPE - but the data is not as reliable.

More than 4,000 care home residents in England and Wales have died during the pandemic up until April 17, official data shows, 19 per cent of the total on that date. This compares to Germany's 2,401. A third of its total deaths have been in care homes, but that includes prisons and other community settings

Carers are allowed to continue working even if they have had contact with a positive case Pictured: Careworker Fabiana Connors visits client Jack Hornsby at his home during the coronavirus pandemic on May 3, 2020 in Elstree, England

There have been large numbers of deaths in care homes in Italy, Spain, the UK and the US but official data for these countries is either incomplete or difficult to interpret, LSE say. Pictured: A care home in France

Ms Comas-Herrera, an assistant professorial research fellow in the Department of Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has been gathering resources worldwide to create LTCcovid.

LTCcovid (Long-Term Care responses to COVID-19) will document the impact of COVID-19 in care settings over the course of the pandemic.

Its most recent report said: 'While it is early to come to firm conclusions and there are many difficulties with data, these differences suggest that having large numbers of deaths as result of COVID-19 is not inevitable and that appropriate measures to prevent and control infections in care homes can save lives.'

LTCcovid collection of information finds that countries that appear to have had relative success in preventing COVID-19 entering care homes have very strict processes to isolate and test all care home residents and staff.

They don't just focus on those who have symptoms, but anyone who may have had contact with people who have tested positive for COVID-19.

At least in the UK, timely and systematic testing of care home residents and staff has been lacking.

It has come to light that testing was initially done on the first five symptomatic residents, meaning potentially several more would have gone untested.

Testing capacity has been and is still very limited since the start, so priorities lie with people in hospitals and NHS workers.

HOW HAVE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES CONTROLLED COVID-19 IN CARE HOMES? UK Admission to care homes, including from hospital, are as normal. But residents are tested prior to admission.

If patients show suspected COVID-19 symptoms, they should be isolated in their room. If there are two or more suspected cases, public health officials should be notified.

It has come to light that testing was initially done on the first five symptomatic residents. This has been accelerated to include all symptomatic residents.

Residents and staff isolation guidance continues to be based on symptoms, not on potential contact with people with COVID-19.

Care home should implement daily monitoring for COVID19 symptoms among residents.

Care home staff who come into contact with a COVID-19 resident while not wearing PPE can remain at work, but individual risk assessments should be conducted. Germany If there is a confirmed COVID-19 case, all residents and staff must be tested, sometimes repeatedly such as in Hamburg.

Strict self-isolation rules for staff who have had face-to-face contact with confirmed cases.

When a patient is discharged from hospital after having two negative COVID-19 tests, they must isolate for two weeks, have no symptoms for at least 48 hours.

In Lower Saxony, patients discharged must go to rehabilitation hospitals to receive short-term care.

Some states have frozen new admissions to care homes entirely.

Some states ban visitors while others still allow adults who are close relatives.

All staff who have direct contact with vulnerable people must cover their noses and mouths to protect patients, even if the person does not have symptoms.

The Robert Koch Institute, the public health institute in Germany (RKI), recommends daily documentation of health of residents and staff.

The Government raised care workers' wages on April 23. Hong Kong All residents must stay in their room whether or not there is an outbreak. They must wear a surgical face mask if they have to leave, it was reported on March 27.

Families have only been allowed to visit on compassionate grounds since March 27.

Staff who have been overseas are subject to compulsory quarantine for 14 days. South Korea Started restricting visitors on March 7.

Regular temperature checks.

Anyone who needs to isolate must go to quarantine facilities such as the Human Resources Development Institute.

Exclusion of workers who had recently been to China or other risky countries.

All staff were provided with PPE on March 27. Italy Many Regions banned new admissions to nursing homes. When this was not the case, nursing homes managers themselves opted for the freezing of new admission if isolation was not possible.

Suspended visits on March 9 until May 4. Three weeks at the start of the outbreak had no restrictions.

Shortage of PPE supplies in care homes. Workers have not been sufficiently protected and nursing home providers are buying their own PPE.

Nursing homes are following their own initiatives of checking residents' symptoms regularly because formal guidelines have been implemented.

Testing needs to be allowed by Local Health Authorities in a case by case basis. Some Nursing Homes are starting buying testing services on their own. Spain 'Mass purchasing' of PPE to try and protect workers.

Use of adapted hotels and other facilities as quarantine and rehabilitation facilities following hospital discharge.

New guidance issued on 24th March extends isolation measures for residents and staff who are asymptomatic but may have been in contact with positive cases. But many care homes report that if they adhered to this they would need to send all staff home.

Recruitment of staff by relaxing accreditation requirements US Guidance for testing long term residents was issued on April 27 by the CDC.

Restricted visitors from March 13.

Isolation of residents varies by state. Some states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Indiana are also creating new COVID-only skilled nursing facilities in underused homes. But the proposal to move residents testing positive to new locations has largely been abandoned because of an outcry from the public.

Rapid response teams ready to reach out and assess nursing homes as the fight outbreaks  but this is reportedly an ad-hoc basis.

Nursing homes are eligible to receive accelerated Medicare Payments. Some private firms are giving bonuses.

On the April 30, the federal government announced it will begin sending a seven-day supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) to over 15,400 nursing homes. Until this point it has been priority access Source: LTCcovid Advertisement

Care homes have to decide who to isolate based on assumptions of who has the illness, leaving others to mingle with each other while following social distancing rules.

But 'there is also growing evidence of asymptomatic transmission in care homes, which highlights the importance of regular testing in care homes instead of relying on symptoms to identify people with potential COVID-19 infections', Ms Comas-Herreras writes.

'Geriatricians are also raising concerns that, among care home residents, the symptoms of COVID-19 may not be the typical cough and fever that is covered in the guidance documents for care homes in many countries, but that a range of other symptoms (such as delirium, diarrhoea, lethargy, falls and reduced appetite) are more frequent among care home residents with COVID-19.'

Current guidelines in the UK only require the isolation of residents and staff who are symptomatic. Similar guidelines were in place in Spain until the 24th of March.

But the World Health Organization's guidelines insist on isolation of residents and staff who are suspected to have COVID-19.

The Government has been slated for its lack of support to nursing homes, with no routine testing available, no up-to-date records of the number of people infected or dead, and 'paltry' attempts to deliver adequate protective clothing for staff.

The South Korean approach has been robust, albeit potentially distressing for care home residents.

Any resident that displays symptoms of COVID-19 enter quarantine facilities such as the Human Resources Development Institute and the English Learning Campus, both in Seoul.

Care workers clean their room and the resident can only return once they have tested negative after a two-week isolation period.

Authorities acted fast to prevent outbreaks if there were a spike in cases in the community.

In Gyungsang-do, the region with the second highest recorded rate of COVID-19 cases in South Korea, 564 care homes were quarantined to prevent the virus entering the home, local media report.

Staff were stopped from leaving the facility for two weeks with financial incentives to keep them going.

Ms Comas-Herrera said Germany was 'an outlier' in Europe owing to its proactive stance on testing and stricter guidelines on discharging elderly patients from hospital, The Times reports.

States across Germany have reacted differently to control infection in care homes, with measures ranging from quarantining COVID-19 patients at separate facilities to compulsory wearing of face masks by staff when entering residents' rooms.

Meanwhile the Italian government acted late on the COVID-19 outbreak management in nursing homes, restricting visitations after the lockdown when thousands were already infected in the population.

It's difficult to compare death rates of COVID-19 in care homes because there are differences in how deaths are recorded, how data is published and testing.

There have been large numbers of deaths in care homes in Italy, Spain, the UK and the US but official data for these countries is either incomplete or difficult to interpret, LSE say.

The percentage of COVID-related deaths - suspected or confirmed - among care home residents ranges from 19 per cent in the UK to 62 per cent in Canada, where care homes have been hard hit.

The lower total deaths a country has, the lower the care home deaths tends to be. For example in Singapore, two per cent of its 18 deaths have been in care homes.

There have been no infections or deaths in care homes in Hong Kong - only four deaths in total and 1,040 cases of infections in the total population.

Singapore, where there are 18,700 cases, there has been relative success at preventing infection from reaching care homes, LTC Covid report.

Data for Germany suggests that 36 per cent of deaths would have happened in communal establishments. This includes care homes, prisons and other group living settings.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) provides weekly updates of deaths registered in England and Wales.

But there is a delay in reporting because the ONS figures are slower to prepare. They have to be certified by a doctor, registered and processed.

The most recent report said there were 22,351 deaths registered in England and Wales involving COVID-19 up until April 17.

Three quarters (75 per cent) occurred in hospitals, 19 per cent (4,168) in care homes and five per cent (1,083) in private homes.

Deaths in the week April 11-17 were double the five year average, according to an ONS analysis showed.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) publishes a weekly analysis of death registrations which mention COVID-19 on the death certificate.

Of the 2,272 deaths that occurred in all settings up until April 26, 886 COVID-19 deaths occurred in care homes - a rate of 39 per cent.

Thousands of care home deaths are reported weeks after they occur, according to ONS data.

Experts fear that because of this, the sheer scale of the problem in UK homes is misunderstood.

Ms Comas-Herrera said it is currently complicated to understand how many COVID-19 deaths have occurred among care home residents because they might also be included in hospital death data, if that is where they died.

But Ms Comas-Herrera said she expects the UK will see care home deaths reach 50 per cent, similar to France where official data records 51 per cent, and Canada.

Although it seems we have reached a peak in hospital deaths, she is not sure whether we have reached the peak in care homes deaths. Her thoughts echo other experts.

Last week, Sir David Spiegelhalter, a highly regarded statistics expert and an OBE recipient, said he believes the numbers of care home deaths are still climbing as Government statistics show hospital fatalities are trailing off.

The UK's total fatalities has reached 28,446. The Government added deaths outside hospital, such as in care homes, in their tallies only until April 30

HIDDEN EPIDEMIC OF CORONAVIRUS IN CARE HOMES MAY HAVE KILLED THOUSANDS ALREADY, EXPERTS WARN A 'hidden epidemic' of coronavirus in care homes may have already cost more than 4,000 lives, experts warned earlier this month. They believe deaths are being hugely under-reported because of a lack of testing. GPs may also have been reluctant to write COVID-19 on death certificates in the outbreak's early stages and figures from care homes are not included in the official daily toll. By the time official sources had confirmed 217 care homes deaths, up to April 3, industry figures were saying the true count was much higher  potentially 4,000 between that date and the start of the outbreak. Campaigners and MPs warned of an 'unfolding horror' that could end up with tens of thousands of forgotten victims. Ministers faced urgent calls to get a grip and get virus tests for all staff and residents with symptoms, more protection gear and a Cabinet minister to deal with the crisis. Care home operators complained they were being overlooked, left desperate by shortages of testing and staff safety equipment, which made it difficult to stop the disease. Advertisement

He spoke of a 'massive, unprecedented spikes' in the number of people dying in nursing homes.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) reports suggest care homes are now seeing around 400 coronavirus deaths each day, on average - a number on par with hospitals in England.

Government ministers, pressured on claims they didn't do enough to help care homes, insist they were 'not overlooked' while they scrambled to protect the NHS from collapsing.

While warnings about hospitals sparked a 'protect the NHS' mantra and a rush to buy ventilators and free up beds, nursing homes saw no such efforts.

Britain's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, revealed he and other senior scientists warned politicians 'very early on' about the risk COVID-19 posed to care homes.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has been meeting approximately twice a week since its first coronavirus discussion on January 22.

Sir Patrick, who chairs the group along with Professor Chris Whitty, said they had 'flagged' the risk of care home and hospital outbreaks at the start of the epidemic.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said on April 29 'we have always recognised there was more vulnerability there'. He denied that more testing would have saved lives.

The number of residents dying of any cause has almost tripled in a month, from around 2,500 per week in March to 7,300 in a single week in April - more than 2,000 of the latter were confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Australian recruiters have shared their best performing job candidates who left a lasting impression after walking out of the interview room.

Nathalie Lynton, director at Shared and Halved Consulting in Sydney, said a candidate she interviewed for a helpdesk role stood out from the crowded job market after he answered her questions with a 'beginning, middle and end'.

'He took care to answer the questions that I asked, not a version of what I asked, not information that he felt was important for me to know, but exactly what I asked. Being able to demonstrate that is itself a skill,' she told Seek.

Australian recruiters have shared their best performing job candidates who left a lasting impression after walking out of the interview room (stock image)

The 10 resume mistakes that could cost you a job: 1. Spelling and grammatical errors 2. Incorrect or missing contact information 3. Using an unprofessional email address 4. Including outdated or irrelevant information 5. Failure to demonstrate and quantify results 6. Annoying buzzwords or obvious keyword stuffing 7. Not customising your resume to match the job listing itself 8. Including a headshot 9. Repeating words in multiple job descriptions 10. The design of the resume is too elaborate or decorative Advertisement

She said avoid changing the 'script to suit what you want to say' and practice your active listening skills until can you can answer all parts of a question.

Simon Bennett, principal consultant of Glide Outplacement, said one candidate who impressed him had done an extensive research on both the role and the company.

'But crucially, as well as knowing why she wanted the job, she also understood the value she offered as a candidate. She had even identified her shortcomings and could explain how she was overcoming them,' he said.

It might seem straightforward but Mr Bennett said it's always important to identify your strengths and weaknesses when preparing for a job interview.

With hundreds of thousands of people applying for jobs every year, he said it's crucial to know what 'differentiates you from similar candidates and how this will benefit employers'.

Peter Acheson, CEO of Peoplebank, said he interviewed a candidate for a role as a chief information officer after he was referred by another recruiter company that didn't specialise in this area.

The person who gave the referral had also given the candidate a glowing review, saying: 'He's the best IT candidate I've seen, but equally one of the best executive candidates I've seen.'

During the interview, Mr Acheson said the candidate's reputation and track record lived up to his expectations because he 'oozed passion and enthusiasm'.

He said he 'could see he was an absolute expert in his field and had strong track record of career progression and an evident thirst for professional development'.

'What's more, he was also incredibly pleasant to deal with and despite his impressive achievements showed no air of arrogance or hubris.'
Taiwan thanks global supporters, blasts China over WHO remarks

ROC Central News Agency

05/03/2020 03:37 PM

Geneva, May 2 (CNA) Taiwan's representative office in Geneva on Saturday expressed gratitude to countries that have voiced support for its participation in World Health Organization (WHO) events, following a statement by China reiterating its long-held stance that Taiwan is part of its territory.

In a press statement, the office thanked foreign governments, congresspersons and friends for supporting Taiwan's participation in WHO events and attendance at the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the WHO.

It also refuted a statement issued by the Chinese mission earlier Saturday to the United Nations, which reiterated that Taiwan's participation in international organizations, including the WHO, must be arranged with the consent of Beijing, as Taiwan is part of China.

The statement was released in the wake of a number of world powers, including the U.S. and Japan, recently renewed their support for Taiwan's participation in the WHA.

The U.S. has strongly supported Taiwan's WHA bid and during a teleconference between U.S. health minister Alex Azar and Taiwan's health minister Chen Shih-chung () last week Azar noted Washington's support for Taiwan's WHA participation.

In a strong-worded statement, China's Permanent Mission to the U.N. Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland on Saturday criticized the U.S.-Taiwan teleconference, which the mission said was a clear violation of Beijing's "one-China principle." that sees Taiwan as part of China.

"This is a serious violation of the one-China principle and the provisions of the three joint communiques between the United States and China, as well as the one-China principle affirmed in United Nations General Assembly resolution 2758 and World Health Assembly resolution 25.1.," the statement said.

"By doing so, the U.S. politicizes the epidemic prevention and sends a very wrong signal to secessionist forces in Taiwan, China. China firmly opposes it," the statement continued.

The mission reiterated that Taiwan is part of China and as such its participation in international organizations, including the activities of the WHO, "must be handled in accordance with the one-China principle."

It continued to say Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has "stubbornly insisted on its separatist position and refused to recognize the 1992 Consensus, which embodies the one-China principle," that serves as the political basis for the participation of "Taiwan province in WHA."

In response, Taiwan's office in Geneva said "U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2758 and World Health Assembly Resolution 25.1 only deal with the issue of China's representation and do not say Taiwan is part of China."

The office stressed that the two resolutions do not settle the issue of the participation of Taiwan in the U.N. and do not authorize the People's Republic of China to represent Taiwan in the U.N.

The WHA is scheduled to hold its 73rd session in May 17-21, though it may need to be conducted virtually due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 2009-2016, Taiwan participated in the WHA as an observer under the name Chinese Taipei amid better relations with China during the then-Kuomintang administration.

However, since 2017 China has persuaded the WHO not to invite Taiwan, in line with Beijing's hardline stance on cross-strait relations since President Tsai Ing-wen () of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party took office in May 2016.

(By Tang Pei-chun and Joseph Yeh)

Enditem/AW

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Ask Cauvery Madhavan if she enjoys doing research for her novels, and she starts to giggle softly. "My family would fall around the place laughing at that question," she says.

"Research" is probably understating the case somewhat. For a decade before the publication of The Tainted, her latest novel, every book she read and every film she watched was about Ireland and India in the 1920s and '30s.

"I could have researched forever, and never written the book," says the writer, who was born in India and lives in Straffan, Co Kildare. "I researched the military chaplaincy for six months alone."

For a chapter on a tiger hunt, Madhavan took a six-month break to get her head around the details of big game hunting. The army and navy catalogue from 1915 - from which many Europeans and well-off Indians bought their possessions - became habitual bedtime reading.

Her extensive research is writ large across The Tainted, a novel set in Ireland and India in the 1920s, '40s and '80s. Based on the aftermath of the 1920 mutiny of the Connaught Rangers in India, Madhavan's third novel has been compared with Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way. Her book deftly explores the social mores, politics, class structures and sexual values in India and Ireland, and finds plenty of similarities.

"The book I started off writing was about the actual Connaught Rangers, but a third of the way into the book I realised that there are descendants of the Connaught Rangers still alive, and I was putting words into the mouths of people I didn't know," Madhavan says. "So when I went to rejig the manuscript, I decided to make the regiment fictional, and they became the Kildare Rangers. The mutiny originally took place in Punjab, but I relocated the story to south India.

"I didn't know the extent of the involvement of the Irish in the British Raj," she says. "They were the second rung of administrators - part of the railways and the post and the telegraph (services). They were often the second, third, fourth or fifth sons in Irish families. They had to find their fortunes elsewhere because the first son inherited the farm. They often made huge fortunes in India, compared to the one landed with the farm."

Madhavan's sense of place, too, is solid, and she transports the reader to a gloriously colourful and atmospheric south-east Indian town, Nadagiri.

"The town is fictional but based on a small garrison town called Coonoor," she says. "My own father was in the army, so I had a lot of history with that place."

Whether it's the Irish-Catholic soldiers in the British army, the Anglo-Irish officers who commanded them or the Anglo-Indians, many of whom had fathers or grandfathers in the Raj, Madhavan writes about their lives after the mutiny, and their extraordinary circumstances, with both empathy and authority.

Video of the Day

"I was going to write about the mutiny itself, but then I started to see what happened when the soldiers came back to Ireland. They were so badly treated when they came home," Madhavan notes. "They weren't entitled to pensions, and because they had served the Crown, several [people] made sure they didn't get a job in Ireland."

Amid the vivid historical and political account, there lies a beguiling love story: Michael, a private in the Kildare Rangers, falls for Rose, an Anglo-Indian maid. Anglo-Indians tended to be seen as "evidence of sexual transgression within the ranks", because they were often the result of illicit love affairs between local Indian woman and soldiers of the Raj. It's a society in which female sexuality is seen as a disgrace: the 'shamed' are sent away out of sight, so as not to bring dishonour. Madhavan knows all too well the parallels between Ireland and India in that regard.

Even now, she observes similarities between Ireland and India: "The obsession with family is pretty much the same in both countries," she says. "The other big commonality is the idea of 'don't make a holy show of yourself' - that is so Indian."

A self-confessed 'army brat', Madhavan attended seven schools across India, all of them staffed by Irish nuns.

"The religious orders that came from Ireland to India, whether they were brothers or nuns, had a really secular outlook. They ran schools which were fee-paying, private schools - these were usually for middle-class or upper-middle-class girls - and they used the money in turn in the poorer parts of India to convert people. The nuns never spoke about Ireland, but we were taught a lot of Irish ballads."

When Madhavan moved to Sligo from India in 1982, she expected to arrive in the liberal, progressive West. Instead, she landed in the West of Ireland, going from a conservative society to an ultra-conservative one.

"I couldn't get over the culture shock, or rather the reverse culture shock," she laughs. "When you think of the West, you think sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, but you couldn't even buy a feckin' condom."

With her husband (whom she began dating at 15) rising through the medical ranks in Ireland, eventually becoming a vascular surgeon, Madhavan raised the couple's three children, and soon began to write a novel based on her earliest experiences of living in Ireland. The result, the darkly funny Paddy Indian, was published in 2001.

"I'd been writing as an ad agency copywriter in India before we got married, and I suppose there's no copywriter that doesn't have notions of writing a book," she says. "Oddly, I started writing when the children were very little. I'd been talking about it for so long that I think my husband turned around and said, 'look, just start that bloody book, will you?'. Luckily, I do find I'm constantly thinking of my writing now. My next book is half written in my head, so I can't wait to get it all down on the page."

'The Tainted' by Cauvery Madhavan is published by Hope Road Publishing and priced 11.99
I write as a former chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon to urge my fellow voters in House District 33 (Northwest Portland and Beaverton north of the Sunset Highway) to vote for Serin Bussell as their next state representative. We have been ably represented for 16 years by Mitch Greenlick. One of his strengths was his scientific background. Serin also is a scientist, and that training will serve us well in this time of COVID-19 and for years to come. She is a strong progressive and knows what it means to have to stretch a paycheck. She has spent years working on issues important to Oregonians, including wildfire prevention, open and accountable elections and climate change. Serin is a proud union activist who will fight for affordable health care, a clean environment and affordable housing. I have spoken with all the candidates in this races. They are all good and honorable people. But Serins commitment to these values and her devotion to working families stands out as unique. I ask you to join me in supporting Serin Bussell for House District 33.

Marc Abrams, Portland
MBABANE - Over 5 000 peoples jobs and salaries have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and among these are employees of Bandag Tyres.



At the end of April, Bandag employees salaries were affected as some of them had to take pay cuts due to the ongoing partial lockdown which was implemented by government in order to try and minimise the spread of the virus.

According to a staff memo dated April 22, 2020, the tyre company stated that in order to stop workers from being laid off, they had resorted to unprecedented measures.



Memo



According to the memo, which is in this newspapers possession, employees who earned a salary of more than E10 000 would receive 65 per cent of their gross salary. It was further stated that those who earned more than E8 500 would receive 70 per cent of their gross salary while those who earned more than E7 000 would receive 75 per cent.



The low earners who are paid less than E7 000 were spared from any cuts for the month of April as it was reported that they received 100 per cent of their salary. The memo to employees, which was from the human resources and directors, stated that the strategy was purely implemented to protect the financial health of the company and that it was everyones responsibility to play their part in order for the business to survive.



The company stated that due to the lockdown, many employers were faced with a financial challenge, which dwindled production orders and closed businesses.

The employees were urged to use their money wisely and also alerted that the situation may worsen or change on a day to day basis.



The Bandag salary pay adjustments come just after it was reported that SwaziSpa employees had also received only 60 per cent of their salaries while it was indicated to them that they would not be getting their pay for the months of May and June 2020.



Lay-off



Meanwhile, the Acting Commissioner of Labour Mthunzi Shabangu last week reported that there were over 20 companies which had reported that they would be forced to layoff workers because of the COVID-19 pandemic.



Shabangu said over 5 000 workers had been affected and their predictions were to the effect that the figures could double.

While speaking on Eswatini TV, Shabangu said more companies had further written to his office which was an indication that job losses thus far were inevitable if the situation continued like this.
Singapore reported 573 new COVID-19 cases, mostly migrant workers, on Monday, taking the country's total count to 18,778, as the government extended for another week the strict restrictions imposed to stem the spread of the deadly virus.

According to the Health Ministry, only five were the citizens and permanent residents (foreigners) of Singapore while the migrant workers living in dormitories continue to make up the bulk of the remaining cases.

Over the weekend, the government announced that some of the tighter restrictions put in place during Singapore's circuit breaker will continue for another week. They were to be eased as of Monday.

Some businesses, such as barbers, home-based businesses and laundry services, will be allowed to progressively open from May 12, although they still have to abide by precautions put in place earlier, The Straits Times reported.

The Health Ministry said 15,833 of the 323,000 migrant workers living in dormitories, or 4.9 per cent, have tested positive for the virus.

In contrast, 569 migrant workers not living in dorms, as well as 1,224 Singapore citizens and permanent residents (foreigners), have been diagnosed with the virus.

The virus' prevalence rates for migrant workers not living in dorms, and that for Singaporeans and permanent residents are 0.09 per cent and 0.03 per cent, respectively.

The ministry said on Sunday that the new community cases among the Singaporeans and PRs, as well as long-term pass and work pass holders, fell from an average of 21 daily cases two weeks ago to 11 in the past week. This excludes work permit holders who are not living in dormitories.

A total of 18 people have died due to the disease in the country.

Globally, 247,531 people have died and over 3.5 million have been infected due to the novel coronavirus that first originated in December last year in Wuhan, China.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Twenty-eight years ago, the iconic city of Los Angeles fell into a state of historic unrest after four police officers were acquitted in the savage beating of an African-American man named Rodney King.

King suffered skull fractures, permanent brain damage and broken bones during the vicious attack, which was captured on video and sparked a national conversation about police brutality and racial inequality that continues to this day.

The trial drew worldwide media attention after a man named George Holliday filmed the beating from the balcony of his apartment and sent the recording to KTLA, a local news station, in 1991. King, who was on parole for robbery at the time, led police on a high-speed chase before the incident occurred. He was later released without charge.

Four white LAPD officers, including one sergeant, were subsequently charged with assault and use of excessive force. The seventeen officers who were reported to have stood by and watched were never indicted.

But almost a year later, on 29 April 1992, the police officers were acquitted, sparking the worst race riots in US history.

LA Riots Anniversary Show all 10 1 /10 LA Riots Anniversary LA Riots Anniversary A member of the National Guard stands near burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April of 1992, after a jury acquitted the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, riots broke out throughout South Central Los Angeles, killing 55 people, injuring another 2,000, and causing more than $1 billion in damag Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Smoke Billowing from Burning Buildings During Los Angeles Riot Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary A car burns as looters take to the streets at the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues, April 29, 1992, This intersection is considered the flashpoint of the Los Angeles riots WireImage LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. Mother and child amidst mayhem, businesses burning, bystanders watching raging fires, pedestrian walking in the street drinking from a 40-ounce at intersection of Pico Boulevard and Hayworth Avenue in West Hollywood, the sky black with smoke in daylight on April 30, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Korean grocer Soon Ja Du fatally shot Latasha Harlins after a scuffle an Soon's store. 1992 Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag LA Riots Anniversary Harlins Family LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. A view of homeless person sleeping at bus stop on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, graffiti stating FUCK THE POLICE, also graffiti referencing Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, 15-year-old girl shot in the head by Korean shopkeeper 13 days after videotaped beating of Rodney King, killed for suspected shoplifting orange juice though the girl had money in her hand to pay. The jury recommended maximum sentence of 16 years for manslaughter, but the judge instead sentenced the shopkeeper to 5 years probation. When the riot broke out, Korean businesses were targeted early to be looted and burned in response. Graffiti remaining at bus stop after the Rodney King Riots the night of May 2 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Los Angeles police officer Laurence Powell (L), one of the four defendants in the Rodney King case, waits for the start of his hearing 15 May 1992 in Los Angeles, CA. Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled in favor of a second trial for Powell on brutality charges. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey Koon grins during a press conference 04 August, 1993 following his sentencing to a two and a half year prison term. Koon and former police officer Laurence Powell were found guilty of violating Rodney King's civil rights. Powell also was sentenced to two and a half years. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King arives at EsoWon bookstore to sign copies of his new book, "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption," on April 30, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. King is best known as the victim of a brutal police beating that took place in Los Angeles. Itas been 20 years since the Rodney King verdict that sparked infamous L.A. Riots. Getty Images

The verdict led to five days of violent protests in which 50 people died and over 2,000 were injured. Nearly 1,000 buildings throughout the city that were damaged or totally destroyed, causing more than $1bn in damages. Almost 12,000 people were arrested.

Demonstrators were enraged over the trial, which featured nine white jurors and just three people of colour, arguing that it evidenced the systemic racism within the criminal justice system.

It also followed the recent killing of Latasha Harlins, who was fatally shot in southern Los Angeles in 1991 while going to the grocery store to buy orange juice. Harlins was just 15-years-old.

The riots were also the culmination of decades of anger surrounding racial and economic inequalities in southern California and throughout the US.

As people took to the streets, King called for calm in an emotional plea. 

People, I just want to say, can we all get along? Can we get along? he asked. Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?"

Kings beating was one of the first instances of police brutality against an unarmed black man in the US to have been recorded and seen all over the world. Twenty-eight years on, similar disturbing videos of police brutality against unarmed black men continue to garner widespread media attention as people continue to demand criminal justice reform.
Unorthodox debuted last month on Netflix. Esty, the main character played by actress Shira Haas (who is originally from Israel), is a woman raised in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. While the subject matter is intense, reactions to the show from critics and viewers alike have been incredibly positive. The Unorthodox star says its everything shes been looking for as an actress.

[Spoiler alert: a few spoilers for Unorthodox below].

Shira Haas talks about the new Netflix series in an ever-changing world

Shira Haas in. 2015 | Larry Busacca/Getty Images

IndieWire interviewed Haas this month about achieving success on an American viewing platformdespite not being American herself. The Unorthodox actress thinks its a good sign. She shared:

You see so many series on Netflix that are international, and its beautiful because I think people really want to see something that is different from them to understand and to say, Huh, maybe its not so different. The world is much more open now.

While Estys community in Unorthodox is insular and has little contact with the mainstream world, the narrative is what stands out. Also, its what Netflix viewers can understand and connect to.

This is a story about a woman trying to find herself, and part of the series is also finding yourself as a woman, Haas told IndieWire.

Unorthodox star says the highest form of connecting is art

Actress Beanie Feldstein, known for her work in the movies Lady Bird and Booksmart, also did an interview with Haas recently for Vogue magazine. The world is falling in love with you right now, Feldstein told Haas. How does it feel? The Unorthodox star replied:

Anika Molnar/Netflix

It is really amazing and it was a surprise. I can really feel the love. you can never tell what is going to happen with the thing that you are doing. I cant take it for granted that so many people all around the world, no matter what their religion is, not necessarily Jewish, or secular, connected to the show and to Esty.

The most significant thing for Haas was many viewers related emotionally to Unorthodox.

The fact that it is has touched so many people and that it is universal is such an amazing thing, she told Feldstein. It is everything you could ask for as an artist. The highest form of connecting is art.

For many people who might not know much about Hasidic Jewish communities, Unorthodox might be their first experience relating to and sympathizing with such a character. Haas explained in Vogue:

If you just heard about the show or a story about someone like Esty on the news, maybe some people would say, Oh, those people, but once you see the show youre like, She is like menot only Esty but also different people as well.

Unorthodox lead cast member Shira Haas says people have been way more open in recent years

Feldstein gushed over the Netflix series in the interview. She said about Unorthodox:

I loved the shows commitment to detail and authenticity and honoring the traditions and the rituals and the language of the Satmar people  Your show is a beautiful example of  not shying away from the specifics and not watering them down actually makes it so much more universal because there is an instant connection to feeling that is so powerful in the show.

It is a new thing for many people, Haas responded. Unorthodox was groundbreaking in that it was not only made, but not done in English. Maybe a few years ago maybe the show would have been done, but not in Yiddish, for example. Haas continued:
key benchmarks extended losses and hit the day's low in mid-afternoon trade. The Nifty descended towards the 9300 mark. Negative global cues, dismal domestic economic data and weak earnings impacted trading sentiment.

At 14:26 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 1903.93 points or 5.65% at 31,813.69. The Nifty 50 index was down 537.35 points or 5.45% at 9,322.55.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 3.96% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index shed 2.92%.

There were more sellers than buyers. On the BSE, 522 shares rose and 1818 shares fell. A total of 162 shares were unchanged. In the Nifty 50 index, 4 shares advanced while 46 shares declined.

Buzzing Segment:

Shares of liquor makers jumped after the Centre's lockdown 3.0 that came into effect from Monday allows opening of liquor shops with strict social distancing norms. Associated Alcohols & Breweries (up 17.59%), G. M. Breweries (up 13.47%), Radico Khaitan (up 6.48%), United Breweries (up 5.95%), Globus Spirits (up 4.98%) and United Spirits (up 2.33%) spurted.

The Maharashtra government on Sunday allowed the functioning of standalone liquor shops even in Covid-19 affected Mumbai and Pune - both in red zones.

Shops selling liquor as well as non-essential goods will have to ensure six-feet distance between two people and not allow more than five people at a time.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Polycab India (PIL) fell 4.11%. PIL on 2 May 2020 said that it has signed an agreement with Trafigura, Singapore, to acquire 50% stake in Ryker Base thereby terminating the existing joint venture. The company had entered into a 50:50 JV with Trafigura in 2016 to incorporate Ryker with an aim to strengthen backward integration of its operations and improve quality of its key input i.e., copper.

Post Trafigura's global strategic decision to exit from value-add manufacturing businesses in India where it is a JV partner, PIL decided to acquire balance 50% stake in Ryker from Trafigura making Ryker a wholly owned subsidiary of PIL. The purchase consideration is likely to be around $4 Million (Rs 300 million).

State-run MOIL rose 3.35% to Rs 134.05 after the company said it raised product prices by 45% effective 1 May 2020. The company said prices of all grades of ferro, SMGR grades (Mn 30% & Mn 25%), fines and chemical grades have been increased with effect from Friday, 1 May 2020 by 45% on the prices prevailing since 1 April 2020. The announcement was made on Saturday, 2 May 2020.

Aurobindo Pharma added 5.01% to Rs 657.30 after the pharmaceutical major received the final approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to manufacture and market Flucytosine capsules. The company said the product will be launched in June 2020.

Alembic Pharmaceuticals gained 2.37% to Rs 763.60 after the US drug regulator classified the company's Panelav facility as Voluntary Action Indicated (VAI). Inspection at the said facility was conducted by USFDA from 9 March 2020 to 13 March 2020. VAI means USFDA accepted the company's response to its observations. The announcement was made during market hours today, 4 May 2020.

Numbers to Track:

In the foreign exchange market, the partially convertible rupee edged lower to 75.73 compared with its previous closing of 75.092.

The yield on 10-year benchmark federal paper fell to 6.084% as compared with 6.11% in the previous trading session.

In the commodities market, Brent crude for June 2020 settlement was down 64 cents to $25.8 a barrel. The contract fell 0.15% to settle at $26.44 a barrel in the previous trading session

MCX Gold futures for 5 June 2020 settlement added 0.64% to Rs 45,819.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Michael Jordan's ten-part docu-series focusing of the Chicago Bulls 1997-98 season was released on April 19 (April 20). Currently, the most viewed documentary in ESPN history, The Last Dance's next two episodes will air this Sunday (Monday IST). Here is The Last Dance episode 5 and 6 live streaming information for Netflix.

Also read | What time does The Last Dance air on Netflix? Michael Jordan the Last Dance episode 3 & 4 and The Last Dance timing

What time does The Last Dance air on Netflix?

The Last Dance episodes are available for international fans on Netflix a few hours after their broadcast on ESPN and ESPN2 in the USA. The episodes are available approximately four hours after the broadcast. Fans in the USA can watch the Michael Jordan documentary online on ESPN.com and the ESPN app. Viewers who have paid subscriptions of services like Sling and Hulu will also be able to stream The Last Dance. US fans will not have to wait after the broadcast to watch the episodes and can stream immediately.

Also read | Michael Jordan the Last Dance timing and live streaming, What time does The Last Dance air on Netflix?

The Last Dance Episode 5 & 6 will coming on Sunday i.e. May 3rd, 2020 and will air at 9:00 PM EST on ESPN. The Netflix broadcast will start after 5 hours of main broadcast i.e. 3:01 AM EST next day.#TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/Ws7QOqyY7e  Watch The Last Dance Live Stream Reddit (@lastdance_docu) May 1, 2020

What time does The Last Dance air on Netflix?: The Last Dance episode 5 and 6 live streaming details

Episodes 5 and 6  Monday, May 4, 12:30 PM IST (Netflix)

Episodes 7 and 8: Monday, May 11, 12:30 PM IST (Netflix)

Episodes 9 and 10: Monday, May 18, 12:30 PM IST (Netflix)

Also read | How many episodes Michael Jordan The Last Dance have aired till now? The Last Dance schedule

Michael Jordan The Last Dance broadcast schedule: The Last Dance episode 5 and 6 live streaming

Episodes 5 and 6  Sunday, May 3, 9 PM EST ( May 4, 6:30 AM IST)

Episodes 7 and 8  Sunday, May 10, 9 PM EST ( May 11, 6:30 AM IST)

Episodes 9 and 10  Sunday, May 17, 9 PM EST ( May 18, 6:30 AM IST)

Also read | What time does The Last Dance air on Netflix? Michael Jordan The Last Dance streaming details
Prince Harry is reportedly having a difficult time adjusting to his new life outside of the royal spotlight. Harry recently moved to Los Angeles with his wife, Meghan Markle, and son, Archie Harrison, to set up a new base of operation. Although Harry is committed to his family, an inside source claims that he cannot believe his life has been turned upside down over Megxit.

Prince Harry | Joe Giddins  WPA Pool/Getty Images

Prince Harry reportedly misses the Army

Harrys exit from the royal family went into effect on March 31. The Duke of Sussex agreed not to use his royal titles and lost several of his military appointments as a result of his departure. This includes his position as Honorary Air Commandant of RAF Honington and Captain of the Royal Marines.

Harry did, however, keep his rank of major and stated that he will continue to support the military community in a non-official capacity. He did not reveal any specifics about his future plans, but he is expected to continue projects like the Invictus Games, which supports wounded veterans.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Deliver Meals for Project Angel Food https://t.co/DbLT1UP819  ProjAngelFood (@ProjAngelFood) April 30, 2020

According to Daily Mail, an insider says that Harry told his friends that he misses the Army life and that he regrets losing his military appointments. The source added that Harry believes things would have worked out differently if he had still been in the armed forces this past year.

Harry has told friends he is really missing the Army as well his military appointments, the source stated. He misses the camaraderie of being in the forces.

Harrys life is turned upside down over Megxit

Apart from missing the military, the insider said that Prince Harry is in disbelief by how much his life has changed in the past few months. Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, announced their exit at the beginning of the year and spent months living in Canada before their move to LA.

He has been telling friends he still cant believe this has happened. He cant believe his life has been turned upside down, the insider dished.

The source noted that Harry was in a happy place during his Army days and that his first two years of marriage have been great. But the Duke of Sussex had no idea things would turn out this way.

Spill all the tea, Meghan! https://t.co/Sxc7znRb2d  Brooke Obie (@BrookeObie) May 3, 2020

The insider also emphasized that Prince Harry does not blame Meghan for any of his troubles. Instead, he just believes he would have been better protected if he was still in the military.

Harry left the Army back in the spring of 2015. He spent 10 years in the military before retiring from duty. At the time, Harry said that he was eager to start the next chapter of his life and that leaving the Army was a really tough decision.

Are Harry and Meghan about to buy a home?

Harry has not commented on the reports surrounding Megxit. He and Meghan moved to LA at the end of March and sources say they are busy hunting for a lavish new home.

An insider told NY Post that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are looking at multi-million dollar mansions in several areas around LA, including Brentwood and Beverly Hills. The couple wants a home that will offer plenty of privacy so that they can raise their son in peace.

They are quietly looking at mansions in the $15 million to $20 million range that are both beautiful and secluded, offering the privacy they need, the insider stated.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle look to buy $13 million LA mansion https://t.co/zFJAPblGgf  Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) May 3, 2020

Both of the homes Prince Harry and Meghan are interested in are not technically on the market. The more expensive one was previously listed at $60 million but sold back in February for just under $40 million.

It is unclear where Harry and Meghan are currently staying, but the insider revealed that they are both eager to find a place they can call home.

Prince Harry turns to television

While we wait to see where Harry and Meghan settle down, the Duke of Sussex will be appearing in the front of the cameras for a Thomas and Friends installment titled The Royal Engine.

The acting gig is more like a traditional royal cameo and will feature Prince Harry introducing the episode. Fans can watch the episode on Netflix and on Milkshake for those in the United Kingdom.

Archie Harrison: 21 Adorable Photos Of Meghan Markle And Prince Harry's Baby Archie https://t.co/mkQaVIwYCI  ELLEUK (@ELLEUK) May 1, 2020

The acting gig comes shortly after the release of Meghans new Disney documentary, Elephant. The former Suits star narrated the movie last fall and donated her entire salary to a charity called Elephants Without Borders.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are set to release a new photo of Archie this week to mark his first birthday.
Small businesses around the United States are struggling to get by amid CCP virus lockdowns.

While a few have remained open, defying government executive orders, some have adjusted their business models to keep going, even as their communities battle with death and economic loss.

David Smith (not his real name), who runs a home decor business in a neighborhood in Los Angeles, decided to remain open because he believes the lockdown infringes on his civil liberties.

I never closed my business, I take custom orders, Smith, 48, told The Epoch Times, adding that his business is down by 95 percent and hes using his savings to pay his utility bills. But I handle only one person at a time. The door is closed, people knock at the door, and then I allow only one person at a time and we follow adequate protective measures.

Like Smith, Eliot Rabin, owner of the Upper East Side boutique Peter Elliot in New York City, decided to keep his store open, selling boys and mens apparel, despite an executive order that deems his business non-essential and requires him to close. He says he doesnt want the lockdown to disrupt what he calls the soul of his business.

Rabin, 78, has suffered substantial financial losses but wants to remain open because it sustains hope. Small businesses such as Smiths and Rabins across the United States are losing $255 billion to $431 billion each month due to the CCP virus lockdown, according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

Keeping their doors open, they say, is more about belief than sustaining an income.

Im not going to allow this to disrupt the soul of my business or the soul of my employees or the soul of my country, Rabin told The Epoch Times, adding that ever since leaving the doors of his business open to clean it, people just started coming in.

Tolerance is the key. Civility is luck. Thats the soul of my business, said Rabin. People are coming in because theyre human beings and because Im a human being.

Jeffrey Selden, managing partner of Marcia Selden Catering, which operates in New York City and Connecticut, decided to remain open but in a different way.

Second week of March, we were at a big conference in Las Vegas for Catersource when the world came to a halt. That weekend, we went back to our office on Saturday and created our Party in a Box and Fill your Fridge Menus, Selden said in an email.

We pivoted our business, furloughed 60 percent of our team, and opened our home delivery service and party in a box!

Selden says business hasnt been the same financially as before the lockdown, but they have kept it relevant and positive.

Waiting for the Loans

The immediate challenge that every small business faced as it became non-operational amid the lockdown was the inability to pay rent and utility bills. Getting loans hasnt been easy for most.

Kate Fryer, 33, established her businessA Bead Just Sothrough seven years of hard work and patience in the village of Ballston Spa, New York.

Fryer has a full-service bead store that supplies handcrafted jewelry, jewelry repair, and hosts birthday parties and ladies nights. While her business model was her retail store, because of the lockdown, she had to make a quick transition.

My retail store is closed and I switched over to online sales, Fryer told The Epoch Times.

Its very scary because my business, people want to come in and see and touch and feel what they are buying, she said. Its the idea of losing 100 percent of your business because people cant shop how they are used to.

Fryer, who is financially struggling, has applied for a paycheck protection program (PPP) loan but hasnt heard back from the bank. Thats also been the case with Rabin, according to an earlier interview with The New York Post.

The PPP loans are given under the U.S. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which provides $349 billion in assistance to small businesses facing difficulties due to social distancing, shelter-in-place orders, and other measures designed to control the pandemic.

Small business owners such as Fryer were encouraged to apply for these loans through their banks, credit unions, and other institutions under the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) rules beginning April 3.

However, the demand for these loans is high. The SBA said May 4 that it had successfully processed more than 100,000 loans from more than 4,000 lenders, and Marcia Selden Catering was one of them.

We have been lucky enough to apply for the PPP loans and were granted that this week! Our business is a fraction of what it was, but are hanging on nicely doing all of our deliveries, and creating virtual parties for clients, Jeffrey Selden said.

Smith says he disagrees with the approach of imposing the lockdown, and declined to apply for a loan.

I refuse to take loans from the government because I dont believe in what they are doing, he said.

Essential Versus Non-Essential

When state governments imposed lockdowns to control the CCP virus pandemic, they closed all businesses that were determined to be non-essential while others, deemed to be essential, such as health care services, grocery stores, and gas stations, remained open

Rabin said he cant understand why a liquor store would be considered an essential business in New York, while his business is considered non-essential.

I am just as essential, if not more so because I supply, I give from our staff, our people, and have bright colors, emotional support, cheerfulness after youve been cooped up for weeks and weeks, he said.

Smith said he finds the division of society into essential and non-essential businesses as unfair and discriminatory.

We cant distort the economy and destroy peoples livelihoods, we all are essential. We are all responsible for our families, to our children, to our partners, he said.

Rabin said his hope is sustained by the overwhelming response he received after reopening; he said hes received over 10,000 emails of support from all over the world since being interviewed by Fox News.

The phone doesnt stop. People are literally walking in, [saying] dont want to buy, heres $50 to help you out, said Rabin, adding that his store has become symbolic of goodwill and isnt just a business.

Fryer says going online has helped her sustain hope; she believes her business will survive because of the support from her customers.

I actually had a customer, right when this happened, she and I got very close and she called me and said, Kate if you need something, whatever you need, you call me and Ill make sure that you and your family dont suffer and that your business doesnt suffer.'

CNN Newswire contributed to this report.

From The Epoch Times
Konrad Frost was stabbed and remains in ICU at Royal Perth Hospital.

The devastated family of South Hedland stabbing rampage victim Konrad Frost have told how they will be forever grateful to the people who saved the life of the "gentle giant".

Construction worker Ashley Fildes went on a rampage in South Hedland on Friday, injuring seven people including Mr Frost, before he was shot and killed by police.

Police sources said Mr Fildes suffered from serious mental health issues and had been noticeably deteriorating at work in the months leading up to Fridays horrific attacks.

Mr Frost, 39, was the fifth victim, attacked while waiting outside the South Hedland Shopping Centre. He remains in ICU at Royal Perth Hospital in a critical but stable condition, but his family revealed in a statement on Monday that he was now awake and communicating.
"Patient 166," a 25-year-old woman receives a health certificate from doctors of the Ninh Binh General Hospital in Ninh Binh Province after recovering from Covid-19, May 4, 2020. Photo courtesy of the Ninh Binh General Hospital.

A woman and a man being treated in Ninh Binh Province were declared Covid-19 free Monday, bringing Vietnams number of active cases down to 52.

"Patient 166," a 25-year-old woman from the northern province of Bac Ninh, had returned to Vietnam from Thailand on March 20. She was confirmed positive for the novel coronavirus on March 28, and treated at the Ninh Binh General Hospital.

"Patient 170," a 27-year-old man from the province's Kim Son District, was confirmed positive on March 25, five days after he visited Bach Mai Hospital, a Covid-19 hotspot in Hanoi. He was treated at Kim Son District General Hospital.

"Patient 170" (L), a 27-year-old man, receives a health certificate from a doctor of the Kim Son District General Hospital in Ninh Binh Province after recovering from Covid-19, May 4, 2020. Photo courtesy of the Kim Son District General Hospital.

The two are the last to be discharged among 13 Covid-19 patients in Ninh Binh.

Vietnam has confirmed 271 Covid-19 cases in total, of which 219 have recovered. Of the 52 active cases, 14 are relapses.

The countrys last recorded case is a 37-year-old British oil expert who arrived in HCMC on April 28 to work on a Petrovietnam project. He was confirmed positive Sunday.

Vietnam has recorded no community transmission in the last 18 days. More than 261,000 Covid-19 tests have been conducted in the country.

The Covid-19 pandemic has spread to 212 countries and territories, and reported deaths have topped 248,300.
A Russian professional military newspaper recently published an article listing the lessons learned from Russian participation in the Syrian civil war. This war began in 2011 and is still not over. Among the lessons offered were that wars against irregulars, especially religious zealots, cannot be won from the air and requires well equipped ground forces using armor and other modern weapons. It was also believed that the United States did not attack and drive the Russians out of Syria for fear of starting a nuclear war. This was also believed to be the reason why other NATO countries did not support Turkey in Syria for fear of angering Russia. In general Russian leaders, if not the majority of Russians, believe their nuclear weapons prevented Western nations from getting involved in Syria other than by using airpower against ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and in support of Kurds. Or something like that. The Russians appear to be ignoring local politics in the West and the Western aversion to wars like this in general.

Russia also dismissed the advantages of an air force using just smart bombs and guided missiles while at the same time bemoaning the fact that Russia had few of these smart weapons to use. It was recognized that the proliferation of modern portable anti-aircraft weapons (heat-seeking missiles) made low flying aircraft delivering unguided bombs prohibitively expensive in terms of aircraft losses. Thus many of the Russian airstrikes were in areas where there were few anti-aircraft weapons, like residential areas inhabited by pro-rebel civilians. For this reason, Russia believes artillery is still crucial in supporting ground forces fighting irregulars. Russia dismissed the ability of American cruise missiles to have a decisive impact on enemy forces. The Russian attitude was that low flying aircraft dropping unguided bombs was still effective if air defenses could be destroyed or otherwise neutralized. Russia believes numerous and effective air defense systems play a crucial role in neutralizing the effectiveness of enemy air attacks. This was a key Cold War doctrine that Russia still considers valid even though its air defense systems still prove vulnerable in practice. This has been happening in Syria but Russia believes somehow they will solve these problems.

Russia believes that EW (Electronic Warfare) can provide an effective defense against guided bombs but does not mention the improved effectiveness of INS (inertial navigation system) tech. INS has always been the backup system in GPS guided bombs. INS cannot be jammed or interfered with unless you apply a massive electrical signal to the smart bomb and disable INS. This has not yet been demonstrated in practice. Russia also recognizes their lack of radars or other sensors to detect low-flying (under 100 or even 25 meters) UAVs or missiles makes it difficult to detect much less destroy these low-altitude attackers. At the same time, Russia has already developed effective defenses against low flying armed UAVs, which have frequently been used to attack the main Russian airbase in Syria. Also not mentioned is the lack of defenses against Israeli missiles that go very high and then approach the target at a high (ballistic missile grade) speed. Russia also notes that Turkish use of armed (with laser-guided missiles) UAVs in Syria was very effective against ground targets. Russia believes airborne EW aircraft can neutralize many air defense systems, except for the manual (heavy machine-guns and portable heat-seeking missiles) carried by irregulars. Russia still believes its tanks and other armored vehicles are useful on the battlefield but not as dominant as during World War II and the Cold War.

The remaining lessons covered current problems. Russia can no longer afford a large, organized, trained and equipped reserve force. Russia has sought to organize traditional militias, like the Cossacks and believes this might be the way to go. Another difficult problem is the lack of large stockpiles of ammunition and heavy weapons. These were present during the Cold War but are gone now. A large reserve army, without a lot of heavy weapons stockpiles, was crucial in winning World War II but even that is more than Russian can afford now. Nor will the population tolerate compulsory reserve service.

Russia also noted the usefulness of aircraft carriers for distant operations. Russia had only one carrier and it was only sent to the Syrian coast a few times. The 14 carrier aircraft onboard flew 420 combat sorties but their effectiveness was limited by pilots lacking sufficient experience to be as effective as land-based aircraft pilots. Russia also noted the importance of pilot training and skills development, which many Russian pilots acquired in Syria, not before they arrived. Russia cannot afford the cost of sufficient training flights and paying for all those combat sorties in Syria has been a strain on the defense budget.

The article also noted the lack of Russian shipping or air transport reserves. Many Western nations have such capabilities and the Western air reserve fleet is particularly formidable. With these systems, legal and financial arrangements are made in peacetime to mobilize and use commercial shipping and air transport for military use in an emergency.

The article includes a number of instances where Russian conclusions differ from Western ones. Some of those differences are self-serving. Russia cannot afford the quality and quantity of military tech developed and used in the West. The article did not discuss the fact that China was emulating Western practices, not Russian ones and was the more immediate threat to Russia. That lesson is ancient and more imminent than ever before. But it is an official policy in Russian to ignore the threat in the east and concentrate on the imagined threat in the west (NATO).
We were five in number and we slept with the girl before we killed her last. We killed the boy first, killed the second and the girl last. We used gun brought by Bright.

With this statement, one of the suspected abductors of three undergraduates of University of Port Harcourt, Friday Akpan (aka Trouble), narrated how he and his four other colleagues killed their victims.

The suspected abductors are in the custody of Rivers State Police Command after they were arrested last week.

Operatives last week exhumed the remains of the victims from shallow graves where they had been buried after being killed by their abductors.



We gang-r.a.p.e.d the girl

One of the arrested suspects, Akpan, disclosed that the five-man gang r.a.p.e.d the female victim before killing her.

Akpan narrated: I am a trailer conductor. It is Bright that called us that somebody he worked with refused to pay him when the woman they worked for paid the money. He said the person took the money to buy a car. He called the boy and the boy said he was coming. When he came to Brights house, we picked them. Bright took over the car and drove us to this sand forest.

Bright said we should kill the boy otherwise he will expose us. Bright said his bags were in the boys house. We were five in number and we slept with the girl before we killed her last. We killed the first boy, killed the second and the girl, last. We used a gun brought by Bright.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
The trade agreement President Donald Trump signed with China less than four months ago has gone from a cornerstone of his re-election bid to a potential political liability as the pandemic sours the relationship between the world's two biggest economies.

The phase-one pact, which took effect in mid-February, is falling short on a number of fronts, including Beijing's promises of large agriculture and energy purchases. But the Trump administration so far has been hesitant to ramp up the pressure or back away from the deal altogether, even as the rhetoric on both sides heats up.

In a Fox News interview on Sunday night, Trump raised concerns of a resumption economic hostilities with China, calling tariffs "the ultimate punishment" for its response to the pandemic and threatening to withdraw from the trade deal if Beijing's purchase pledges come up short.

As the U.S. economy craters, the death toll from covid-19 nears 68,000 and some 30 million Americans join the ranks of the unemployed, Trump now finds himself boxed in. Respond too forcefully amid a growing public outcry to punish China -- with his favorite economic weapon of tariffs -- and he risks hurting consumers and businesses already facing the deepest recession since the 1930s.

"The trade war was launched in good economic times, when additional tariffs could be absorbed," said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Reimposing or expanding tariffs right now, in the midst of a global pandemic and U.S. unemployment at over 20%, would be far harder to justify economically or defend politically."

Campaign advisers to former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, are trying to exploit what they see as a glaring weakness in Trump's approach.

"China at the moment has all the leverage," said Jake Sullivan, former Biden national security aide who advises his campaign.

In a recent TV ad, the Biden campaign said "Trump rolled over for the Chinese" because "he took their word for it" when President Xi Jinping told him earlier this year that the virus was contained. Biden advisers argue that the economic and health catastrophe could have been averted or contained if the president had been tougher on China earlier this year instead of praising the trade deal.

"The timing of the deal could not have been worse from a public health perspective because it was precisely during this period in January and February when what we most needed was a demand for transparency, a demand of cooperation, a demand for answers from the Chinese," said Ned Price, a former National Security Council official in the Obama administration.

Trump said Sunday night, in a televised town hall from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, that he was tougher on China than past administrations and achieved an "incredible" trade deal.

"China ripped off our country and I've told this to President Xi directly, in a nice manner and in a not-so-nice manner," Trump said in the interview on Fox News. "President Obama and Joe Biden didn't do anything. China just had a field day with our country."

The political pressure to do something, however, is mounting within his own party. While Trump denied reports last week that his administration is planning to cancel part of the U.S.'s debt obligations to China, he said he had many other ways to punish the country.

On Sunday, he called tariffs the "greatest negotiating tool" but didn't directly answer a question on whether he'd use them now against China for the country's failure to limit the spread of the virus.

Over the past two years, Trump imposed duties on roughly $360 billion in Chinese goods, and China retaliated by hitting more than half of America's exports. The agreement signed Jan. 15 served as a cease fire in the trade war, and it was supposed to usher in a new era of commercial partnership.

"A cooperative economic and trade relationship is the propeller of the overall China-U.S. relations," Vice Premier Liu He said at the White House signing ceremony.

But the warmth is fading rapidly as the countries feud over who's to blame for a U.S. public-health crisis and an economy in a steep decline. With the Republican caucus calling for China to pay a price, Trump could be convinced to take action before the election.

"Trump will be both emboldened and compelled to take strong action against the Chinese as he realizes American voters, and in particular his political base, want accountability," said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign.

Whichever route the president takes, continuing to praise what he lauded as "the biggest deal anybody has ever seen" could backfire.

Two-thirds of Americans have a negative opinion of the country where the virus originated, a recent poll from the Pew Research Center found. That's the most since Pew began asking the question in 2003. Seventy-two percent of Republicans say they see China unfavorably compared with 62% of Democrats.

Trump's messaging on China's handling of the virus, which first emerged in the city of Wuhan in December, has recently become more aggressive though he's been careful to distinguish his displeasure with the country from harsh comments about President Xi.

Critics of the deal said its terms, especially the promises on purchases, were unrealistic from the get-go. That's only been exacerbated by the slump in demand caused by the virus outbreak.

China committed to spend $52.4 billion buying U.S. energy over two years. The American Exploration and Production Council said last month that China had purchased "a de minimis amount of U.S. crude in the first months of 2020, while it has increased purchases of crude oil from Saudi Arabia and Russia."

A senior USTR official, on a call with reporters last week, acknowledged that there have been hiccups related to purchases and that the Trump administration has been talking to China to make sure the country stays on track with its commitments. A required action plan on changes to China's intellectual-property rights regime was published later than expected, and some U.S. officials view it as falling short on specifics.

The Trump campaign has long said Biden has a track record of being too soft on China. A recent TV ad by Trump's Super PAC America First Action labeled him "Beijing Biden."

The big question this fall is whose anti-China message resonates more with voters, especially in battleground states like Wisconsin.

Trump might have an edge because he has the power to act, said Nick Everhart, a Republican strategist in Ohio. "Unlike Biden, Trump can start doing things in real time to be aggressive," he said. "Politically, he is in position to dictate the terms of engagement."

Trump in 2016 narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin by just under 23,000 votes, and with agriculture being an important part of the state's economy, Democrats are hoping to seize on what they see as his failed trade policies that have exposed farmers to retaliation and resulted in more than $20 billion in subsidies for the sector.

With six months to go until election day, Real Clear Politics's polling average shows Biden leading Trump by about five points in national surveys. Biden also holds narrow leads in battleground states: He's three points ahead of Trump in Wisconsin, five points ahead in Michigan and six points ahead in Pennsylvania.

"Coronavirus will be the focus for the remainder of the election. No voter will say he made the right choice to pick a hollow trade deal over the American people's health," Sullivan said. "We think this will resonate across the country."
An Instagram group with the name 'Bois Locker Room' has recently come to light, raising questions about the safety and security of women and underage girls on the photo and video sharing platform.

The group is allegedly run by a group of young boys from South Delhi who share images of women, many of them minors, without their permission on the group. These photos are further subjected to lewd comments, slut-shaming and body shaming. Private chats accessed by certain users also showed members joking about violence against women and ways to rape minors.

The group was exposed by some women on Instagram who have for the past two days taken up the issue with members of the group, lawyers as well as security agencies.

An Instagram user by the name of Niska Nagpal was one of the first to expose the group on Instagram. Nagpal pointed out that the group has been active for quite some time and was full of images of underage women, many of whom had no idea that their images were being used. None of the photos or images in possession of the group were given to them by consent. When certain women began to threaten the members of the group with action, some allegedly threatened to "leak" their nude photos and even threatened them with violence and rape. 'Bois Locker Room' also had a second support group containing women members as well. Many of the latter made attempts to shield the perpetrators. Nevertheless, the posts about the group went viral and many joined the outrage against the group, which critics claimed was propagating and normalising rape culture apart from being downright illegal due to its child-pornographic undertones is also invasive of privacy.

Following the outrage, Shubham Singh, a cyber cell investigator who is on Instagram under the name @Shubhamcybercop started an investigation and managed to find the contact information of some of the members and admin of the groups in question.

As per latest updates, some members of the group have been arrested under Section 66A of the IT Act for cyberbullying.

View this post on Instagram

Finally . #boislockerroom #rapeculture #rapeawareness #objectification #report #boysgc #rapistmindset #antirapeculture

A post shared by   (@radhika.shekhawat) on May 3, 2020 at 10:54pm PDT

This is not the first time rape culture has been a widely discussed issue in India. In fact, several women and feminists on social media often complain about the toxic masculinity and inherent misogyny on display in various forms across social media. Critics have also complained against films, songs, and pop culture that propagates the objectification of women as a building block for such online communities.

Following outrage, the Delhi Commission for Women took cognisance of the matter and has issued a statement, calling for strict action against the members and admins of the group.

DCW chief Swati Maliwal took to Instagram and wrote, "DCW has issued notice to Instagram and Delhi Police in the matter of a group named "boys locker room" being used by some miscreants to share objectionable pictures of minor girls and planning illegal acts such as gangrape of minor girls. All the people involved in this act should be immediately arrested and a strong message needs to be given out."
HOUSTON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- McDermott International, Inc. with its partners, Chiyoda International Corporation and Zachry Group, today announced the beginning of commercial operation of Train 3 of the Freeport LNG project, owned by Freeport LNG Development, L.P.

"Congratulations to the entire team for upholding the high safety and quality standards for which we're known," said Mark Coscio, McDermott's Senior Vice President for North, Central and South America. "We have previously achieved substantial completion of Trains 1 and 2, and Train 3 now brings our joint venture project to full commercial operation."

Zachry Group, as the joint venture lead, partnered with McDermott for the Pre-FEED in 2011, followed by FEED works to support the early development stage of the project as a one-stop shop solution provider for Trains 1 and 2. Later Chiyoda joined the joint venture partnership for work related to Train 3. The project scope includes three pre-treatment trains, a liquefaction facility with three trains, a second loading berth and a 165,000 m3 full containment LNG storage tank.

The Freeport LNG facility incorporates the largest electric motor-driven refrigeration compressors in the world and, now with full commercial operations, will significantly improve North America's energy export capabilities.

About McDermott

McDermott is a premier, fully integrated provider of technology, engineering and construction solutions to the energy industry. For more than a century, customers have trusted McDermott to design and build end-to-end infrastructure and technology solutions to transport and transform oil and gas into the products the world needs today. Our proprietary technologies, integrated expertise and comprehensive solutions deliver certainty, innovation and added value to energy projects around the world. Customers rely on McDermott to deliver certainty to the most complex projects, from concept to commissioning. It is called the "One McDermott Way." Operating in over 54 countries, McDermott's locally focused and globally integrated resources include more than 42,000 employees, a diversified fleet of specialty marine construction vessels and fabrication facilities around the world. To learn more, visit www.mcdermott.com.

About Zachry Group

Zachry Group is North America's pacesetter in turnkey construction, engineering, maintenance, turnaround and fabrication services to the power, energy, chemicals, manufacturing and industrial sectors.

We work with customers to plan, build and renew their most critical facilities, so they can achieve their immediate and long-term goals, all at the highest safety standards. We operate in more than 30 offices, and our 20,000 employees work in more than 400 locations nationwide, united by a shared set of values and the desire to deliver the very best outcome for our customers.

Visit www.zachrygroup.com for more information.

About Chiyoda

Chiyoda Corporation, headquartered in Yokohama, Japan provides services in the fields of engineering, procurement and construction on a global basis for petroleum refineries, petrochemical complexes, other hydrocarbon or industrial plants, particularly LNG plants in the USA, South East Asia, the Oceania regions, the Middle East and Russia.

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Scott Lamb

Vice President, Investor Relations

+1 832 513 1068

[email protected]

Global Media Relations

Gentry Brann

Senior Vice President, Communications, Marketing and Administration

+1 281 870 5269

[email protected]

Local Area Media Relations:

Kristi Krupala

Manager, North, Central and South America (NCSA) Area Communications & Marketing

+1 281 870 5447

[email protected]

SOURCE McDermott International, Inc.

Related Links

www.mcdermott.com


Photo: (Photo : From Melanie Waltemyer's Facebook Account)

The coronavirus has put a hold on most activities, including family gatherings and parties. Even for expecting parents, baby showers had to be put on hold because of the pandemic.

However, other families are not stopped by the pandemic in having the baby showers for their first-time moms; instead, they chose to be creative!

Families all over the world tried having mobile gatherings, or in the case of others, "drive-thru" baby showers. Some are done as a surprise while other parents themselves prepare their baby showers. Here are some of them:

Six-weeks in the making

In Cumberland County, Central Pennsylvania, the Whitmer couple, who are first-time parents, did not want to miss out on the opportunity of sharing their preparations for the coming of their baby. For them, to not miss the fun of having a baby shower, they decided to join the drive-thru bandwagon.

Their parents helped prepare the shower and invited some of their friends. However, instead of gathering in one area, cars are lined up waiting to greet the couple and hand in their gifts for the baby.

They even have souvenirs for everyone who attended.

On June 1, the couple, Brian and Kristen, are expecting their first baby. They plan to name the baby Jace Brian.

According to Kristen, this was something they never expected they would be having for their first child. She said that they are very thankful that their friends and family went out of their way to spend a special way with them. The couple is happy that even with the pandemic there are people who chose to be part of their milestone.

Surprise Drive-Thru Shower

The first child of Alicia and Derek is also the first grandchild of their parents. That is why preparing for the baby shower has been on both family's calendar for the past months. But a sudden change with the plans happened because of the continuous spread of the coronavirus.

According to Derek Lethman, Alicia's partner, they decided to keep the same date for the baby shower but had to make changes to the venue.

Lethman shared that they already have a venue picked, but they are left with friends who can still spend time outside even with the pandemic and the rain during that day. They decided to gather at the parking lot of Christ Lutheran Church in Machester.

Alicia was very surprised when she saw around 20 cars decorated for her baby shower. Alicia said she thought the commotion was not for her and that someone was hurt at the street where they were.

The couple's baby girl is expected to arrive on May 26. They plan to name her Raelynn.

Stay-At-Home Baby Shower

Because staying at home is the encouragement of most health experts to avoid the spread of the pandemic, Amy Litz decided to cancel her baby shower.

Her family, on the other hand, decided to improvise by inviting their friends to bring their car and pass by their houses.

Litz was very surprised by the effort of their friends and family. She was even crying the whole time. Litz and her fiance, Micah Harmon, are from California. They are expecting their baby girl on May 8.
Coronavirus lockdown: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has warned that his government would be forced to seal and revoke relaxations in areas where social distancing norms are flouted.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has criticised the flagrant violations of social distancing norms in queues outside liquor shops that opened after nearly 40 days today. In his address to the citizens of Delhi today, Kejriwal said it was unfortunate to see chaos in some of the shops of Delhi today. If it continues, the government would be forced to seal the area and revoke the relaxations.

Calling the shop owners to action, Arvind Kejriwal said that they would have to take the responsibility of ensuring that social distancing is followed. Otherwise, their shops will be shut. He also appealed the people of Delhi to ensure that they are wearing masks when stepping out, practicing social distancing and sanitising/washing their hands regularly.

Long queues were observed outside Liquor shops in India today as the shops finally opened under revised MHA guidelines in Lockdown 3.0. While there is excitement among the people, it has also levelled up difficulties for authorities in ensuring that the guidelines of social distancing are being followed. More than a kilometer-long queue was observed outside liquor shops in Delhi. As a result, some of the shops had to be closed. In Delhis Kashmere Gate and Narela, police had to resort to lathi charge to make people follow the norms of social distancing.

#WATCH It was unfortunate that chaos was seen at some shops today in DelhiIf we come to know about violations of social distancing and other norms from any area, then we will have to seal the area and revoke the relaxations there: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pic.twitter.com/0eFgaqrKsB  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Shop owners will have to take the responsibility, if the norms of social distancing are violated outside a shop then the shop will be shut: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal https://t.co/GaeSDiXmCD  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Also Read: COVID-19 update: Total positive cases in India soars to 42,533, toll at 1373

#WATCH Delhi: Long queue seen outside a liquor shop in C-Block, Vasant Vihar. Govt has allowed sale of liquor in standalone shops, neighbourhood (colony) shops or shops in residential complexes. #CoronavirusLockdown pic.twitter.com/WPWdaC6Q1c  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

People were not maintaining social distancing at this liquor store, therefore, we have closed it: Maninder Singh, SHO, Karol Bagh #Delhi https://t.co/qqa1VlM8l3 pic.twitter.com/seCTAUkAgV  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Even in Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka, people gathered in huge numbers outside liquor shops and flouted the norms of social distancing. People in Karnataka started queuing even before the shutters of liquor shops went up. The state government has allowed the liquor shops to remain open between 9 am to 7 pm with restrictions on the sale of snacks and water. Ensuring social distancing and wearing masks are made mandatory for people selling and buying the liquor.

Also Read: Coronavirus Lockdown: Congress to pay for train tickets of migrant workers, slams Centre for turning a blind eye to their demands

In Maharashtra, only a few shops in non-containment zones have been permitted to open. Maharastra Principal Secretary Bhushan Gagrani said that there are some areas in the red zone that has not reported a single coronavirus case in over a month. Those areas will be allowed to open shops selling non-essential commodities, like clothes, footwear, liquor and stationary.

Chhattisgarh: Social distancing norms being flouted as people in large numbers queue outside a liquor shop in Rajnandgaon. The state govt has allowed liquor shops to open in the state from today except for the containment zones. #CoronavirusLockdown pic.twitter.com/GfTzQP86Ip  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Karnataka: People line up at a liquor shop in Bengaluru as state government permits the sale of liquor between 9 am to 7 pm from today. pic.twitter.com/3SmTwlO1w1  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

The areas where the sale of liquor has not started include Puducherry, Haryana and Punjab among many others. In Lockdown 3.0, the government has permitted standalone liquor shops, barring those in containment zones, markets and malls, to re-open across the country. It has been emphasised that people must adhere to the norms of social distancing by maintaining a distance of at least six feet and no more than five people should gather inside the shop at one time.

Also Read: No relief for six cities of Gujarat amid pandemic

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
By Akbar Mammadov

Israel's Embassy in Azerbaijan has sent food aid packages to low-income families in Baku and Masalli amid the COVID-19 crisis in the country and worldwide.

"Israel cares for the people of Azerbaijan. When the elderly have to stay at home, we decided to contribute to the effort", Ambassador George Deek said in a video posted in the embassys Facebook page on 30 April.

The video showed food aid packages with the script "From Israel, to the people of Azerbaijan" being delivered to elderly people in the city of Baku and Masalli district.

"In these difficult times, our friendship counts not just in words, but also in deeds. Israel contributed to joint efforts of the Government of Azerbaijan in supporting people who are in need during the pandemic", the embassy noted in its Facebook post.

Crisis is the time to stand together as friends. When the pandemic drives us apart, our global humanity brings us together", the video post reads.

Azerbaijans Foreign Affairs Ministry has expressed its gratitude for the contribution made by the embassy of Israel.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan has banned people over the age of 65 leave their homes as of March 24 when the special quarantine regime was imposed in the country. Azerbaijan has extended until May 31 the special quarantine regime to curb the spread of the virus.

Azerbaijan has registered 1,932 COVID-19 cases and 25 coronavirus-related deaths so far.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Coronavirus testing numbers are running below 100,000 a day again despite a massive expansion of capacity, it was revealed tonight.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said there were 85,186 tests in the 24 hours to 9am - up slightly from the 76,000 recorded yesterday but well short of the goal.

Mr Hancock claimed victory in the race to hit the goal on Friday, saying that there had been 122,000 on the last day of April.

However, it emerged that around 40,000 of those had been counted when they were posted out, rather than when they were actually processed.

The government has furiously denied fixing the numbers to avoid embarrassing failure, pointing out that the tests do not feature in the figures when they are returned.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said there were 85,186 tests in the 24 hours to 9am - up slightly from the 76,000 recorded yesterday but well short of the goal

Mr Hancock (pictured at the Downing Street briefing tonight) claimed victory in the race to hit the goal on Friday, saying that there had been 122,000 on the last day of April

But the numbers fell sharply to 105,000 the day after the goal was achieved, and have now been below the level for two days running.

Downing Street insists capacity is still above 100,000 and insisted demand tends to be lower over the weekend.

At the press conference this evening, Mr Hancock confirmed plans to use the higher test capacity to pilot a 'track and trace' system for coronavirus on the Isle of Wight.

Some 140,000 people will be asked to download an NHS app that will deploy bluetooth to detect if they have been near anyone who gets diagnosed with the disease.

The NHSX app will be launched for health workers on the Isle of Wight tomorrow

They will then be contacted for screening and isolation to control the spread.

Setting out details of the trial, Mr Hancock said: 'Last week we put in place the testing capability on the island, from tonight the contact tracing capability will go live and from tomorrow NHS staff on the island will be able to download the app.

'From Thursday, each one of the 80,000 households on the island will get a letter from the chief nurse with comprehensive information about the trial.

'Islanders will then be able to install the app.'

Mr Hancock told Isle of Wight residents: 'By downloading the app you are protecting your own health, you are protecting the health of your loved ones and the health of your community.

'I know that the people of the Isle of Wight will embrace this with enthusiasm because by embarking on this project and by embracing test, track and trace you will be saving lives.'

Setting out the new test, track and trace programme he said it would 'hunt down and isolate the virus so it is unable to reproduce'.

'Crucially, test, track and trace allows us to take a more targeted approach to lockdown while still safely containing the disease,' he said.

'Creating this system is a huge national undertaking of unprecedented scale and complexity.'

It would involve an 'army' of human contact tracers and the new app which is being trialled in the Isle of Wight.

But he stressed the trial of the app did not mean the end of social distancing measures.

Mr Hancock said today's death toll of 288 was 'lower than at any point since the end of March' but he pointed out that 'reported figures tend to be lower over the weekend so we do expect that number to rise'.
People in face masks seen along the Ulu Pandan park connector on 2 May, the 26th day of Singapore's partial lockdown. (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)

SINGAPORE  Three indicators will need to be looked at in considering when to lift Singapores circuit breaker measures, said Health Minister Gan Kim Yong in Parliament on Monday (4 May).

First, there needs to be an assurance that local community transmission of COVID-19 has been stemmed or is very low.

Community cases should ideally fall to zero or single-digits daily, with very low numbers of unlinked cases, not just for one day, but sustained over a period of time, said Gan while delivering his Ministerial Statement.

We also need to see a decrease in migrant worker cases, he added, noting that the current high number of cases is partly due to proactive case-finding.

Gan noted that it may take a while longer to bring reduce the number of migrant worker cases, it is still important to reduce these numbers. Otherwise we will continue to be at risk of a spillover from the dormitories into the wider population, he added.

Second, the authorities will need to make an assessment of the global situation and for individual countries before reopening Singapores borders. This will include reviewing the rate of transmissions in other countries as well as their measures to contain the pandemic.

For any re-opening of our borders, we are likely to start small and selectively, and to continue to impose a mix of isolation and test requirements, to protect ourselves from new imported cases leading to community spread, said Gan.

Third, a system will need to be put in place to allow Singapore to open up safely. Gan noted that the risk of virus transmission will rise as more business and social activities resume.

Therefore we need to step up our capability and capacity to test and detect cases early, contact trace quickly, promptly ring-fence close contacts, and establish the original source of the infection to stop other undetected transmission chains if any, he said.

These are the key enablers which give us confidence to re-open, Gan added.

Story continues

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

More Singapore stories:

About 40 instances of COVID-19 'fake news' debunked since January: S Iswaran

COVID-19: Migrant workers were on MOM's radar since January  Josephine Teo

Nearly 300 rough sleepers have sought help during circuit breaker period: MSF

COVID-19: Singapore to expand testing capacity, 'strategically' deploy resources

COVID-19: All MPs required to wear face masks in Parliament
The group holds a working meeting to evaluate the measures within the framework of the state of emergency to prevent the pandemic from further spreading in Peru.

According to Ministerial Resolution No. 083-2020-PCM, this working group is chaired by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and composed of the heads of the Health, Defense, Interior, Foreign Trade-Tourism, Transport-Communications, Economy-Finance, as well as Education portfolios.

In addition, it is also made up of the Social Health Insurance System (EsSalud) executive-president, the national superintendent of Migrations, the head of the National Civil Defense Institute, and a representative of the National Assembly of Regional Governments.

Among its functions is to lead the coordination and articulation of actions for prevention, protection, and control of the coronavirus (COVID-19) by the various entities linked to the matter.

AHORA | Miembros de la Comision Multisectorial de Alto Nivel contra el Coronavirus se reunen bajo la direccion del presidente del Consejo de Ministros, @VicAZeballos, donde vienen evaluando las medidas en el marco de la emergencia por el #COVID?19.#PeruEstaEnNuestrasManos pic.twitter.com/4CgRcfP8gM
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - U.K. stocks edged lower on Monday as rising tensions between the U.S. and China over the origin of coronavirus weighed on sentiment. The pound continued to trade weak, helping limit the downside to some extent after steep losses in the previous session. The benchmark FTSE 100 was down 15 points, or 0.26 percent, at 5,748 after falling as much as 2.3 percent on Friday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged a 'comprehensive plan' to lift the lockdown. Airlines and suppliers of aerospace parts were sharply lower after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sold all stakes in four major U.S. airlines, noting that the airline industry has changed due to coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic. Jet engine maker Rolls-Royce Holdings lost 7.7 percent, low-cost airline easyJet slumped 8.4 percent and Melrose Industries, parent of aerospace engineer GKN Group, gave up nearly 6 percent. Defensive stocks were rising, with online grocer Ocado rising nearly 4 percent. In economic news, a private survey released earlier today showed that finance directors of largest companies expect corporate revenues to drop 22 percent in 2020 from what was planned before the Covid-19 outbreak. The Bank of England will assess the economic damage wreaked by Covid-19 on Thursday, although expectations are low for further stimulus. Asia-focused lender HSBC Holdings dropped 1.3 percent. The bank announced that its indirect unit HSBC Insurance (Asia) Limited has entered into an agreement to acquire the remaining 50 percent equity interest in Chinese life insurance joint venture HSBC Life Insurance Co. Ltd. from The National Trust Limited. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

The global Agricultural Robots market is anticipated to reach around USD 19,378.5 million by 2026 according to a new research published by Polaris Market Research. In 2017, the milking robots segment dominated the global market, in terms of revenue. North America is expected to be the leading contributor to the global market in 2017.

There has been an increasing adoption of agricultural robots across the world owing to growing agricultural industry, and high-demand for food crops. The growing population, and increasing automation of farm operations further supports the Agricultural Robots market growth. The global agricultural robots market is driven by the increasing need to improve the quality of crops produced, maximize crop production, and enhance productivity.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/agricultural-robots-market/request-for-sample

Other factors driving the growth of this market include growth in the global agricultural industry, reducing availability of labors, and increasing labor costs. Increasing need of agricultural robots in farming, dairy production, and green plantation operations has created the need to develop new innovative products for diversified application areas in these sectors. However, high initial investment restricts the growth of the agricultural robots market. Growing demand from emerging economies, and technological advancements are factors expected to provide numerous growth opportunities during the forecast period.

The leading players in the Agricultural Robots market are introducing advanced products to cater to the growing demand of consumers. Agrobot SW 6010 is a harvester robot used for fruit picking and sorting. The Hortibot is a self-propelled robotic system, which works in coordination with global positioning system (GPS) system and can be managed by smartphone application. It has the capability to recognize and cut 25 various types of weeds. Asterix Project, a robot by Adigo is used for spraying herbicides in fields.

The North America Agricultural Robots Market generated the highest revenue in the market in 2017. The increasing population, and growing demand for high quality crops drives the growth of this market. Growing cost of labor, and increasing automation in agricultural practices further support market growth. Increasing investments and subsidies in the agriculture sector by governments are expected to boost the adoption of robots for increased productivity in farms. Increasing need to improve food quality and productivity along with increased industrialization and automation of farming equipment further supplements the growth of Agricultural Robots Market.

Browse for full research summary: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/agricultural-robots-market

The different types of agricultural robots include milking robots, harvesting robots, drones, driverless tractors, and others. In 2017, milking robots accounted for the largest share in the global market. Milking robots are used as an automated milking system in the dairy sector. Lely Astronaut A4 milking machine by Lely is one of the popular products available in the market for milking applications. An innovative product available in this category is Voyager robotic fencer, which is developed by Lely. This robot is used as an automated grazing control system for dairy cows.

The leading companies profiled in the Agricultural Robots Market report include AG Leader Technology, AGCO Corporation, Harvest Automation, Inc., Drone Deploy, Agribotix LLC, Deere & Company, Boumatic Robotics, B.V., Topcon Positioning Systems, Inc., Autonomous Solutions, Inc., GEA Group, CLAAS KGaA mbH, and CNH Industrial. These companies launch new products and collaborate with other market leaders to innovate and launch new products to meet the increasing needs and requirements of consumers.

Agricultural Robots Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by Region

North America US. Canada Mexico

Europe Germany UK France Italy Rest of Europe

Asia-Pacific China India Japan Rest of Asia-Pacific

Latin America Brazil Middle East & Africa



Avail discount on this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/agricultural-robots-market/request-for-discount-pricing

About Polaris Market Research

Polaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world.

Contact us-

Polaris Market Research

Phone: 1-646-568-9980

Email: sales@polarismarketresearch.com

Web: www.polarismarketresearch.com
The procession of emergency vehicles for paramedic Paul Cary made its way out of Denver International Airport on Sunday. Cary died from coronavirus after volunteering to help combat the pandemic in New York City. Read more

When the call went out from New York for volunteers to travel to the epicenter of the pandemic in the fight against COVID-19, from 1,800 miles away, Paul Cary raised his hand.

On March 28, the veteran paramedic got in an ambulance and drove for 27 hours straight from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to New York City, trading shifts at the wheel with his colleague. They were part of a fleet of 29 private ambulances and 72 medics from across the country, from the company Ambulnz, headed there to ease the burden on the city's overwhelmed EMS services.

And from the moment Cary arrived, before they had even gotten settled, "Paul just kept asking, when are we going out in the field?" said Ambulnz CEO Stan Vashovsky.

Cary would spend his final days in the field on the streets of New York, tending to coronavirus patients in the back of his ambulance as it raced from hospital to hospital.

He worked until he fell ill with the virus himself.

Cary, a 66-year-old father of two and grandfather of four, died of COVID-19 on April 30 after spending several days on a ventilator at a New York hospital.

On Sunday, a procession of ambulances and firetrucks carried him home to his family in Colorado. After a long journey from New York, he arrived at a Denver funeral home in the back of an ambulance, his casket draped in an American flag. New York EMS workers and a state health official came to pay their respects to Cary's family in person.

His family said in a statement that they were devastated by his loss, but that they knew Cary "risked his own heath and safety to protect others and left this world a better place."

"We are at peace knowing that Paul did what he loved and what he believed in, right up until the very end," the family said.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking at a news conference in New York on Friday, vowed to erect a special memorial to honor Cary's sacrifice, saying he and the city would be forever grateful that Cary answered the call of duty from so far away.

He is among countless first responders and health care workers who have traveled to New York in one of its darkest hours, de Blasio said, but while "so many people came to help ... Paul gave his life for us, and we're going to honor him in a particular way."

"There's something particularly painful when someone does the right thing, when a fellow American comes from across the country to try and help the people in New York City, and while working to save lives here, gives his own life," the mayor said. "It's very painful, it's heroic, it's something we honor, but it's very, very painful that we've lost this good man."

Paul Cary, son of a Denver firefighter, was born on May 15, 1953 and spent his life in Colorado, his daughter-in-law, Gina Yeater-Cary, told The Washington Post. Inspired by his father's lifelong public service, Cary followed in his footsteps and served with the Aurora Fire Rescue for 32 years. He always "epitomized what it means to be a firefighter," serving the people of Aurora with empathy in their most dire moments until his retirement in 2010, his former captain, Ray Barnes, said during a ceremony Sunday night.

But Cary didn't really "retire," Yeater-Cary said. He just cut down his hours, trading the double duty of a firefighter-medic for ambulance work alone at private companies, she said.

"He never really took a break," she said. "I used to joke that he just went from working full time to part time. It's one of those things when you have the drive and you have the heart for it, you can't not answer it. It's just something you have to do."

That's why everyone in the family understood why he had to go to New York. He made the decision with little hesitation, undeterred by the risks, Yeater-Cary said, and his family fully supported him.

At the time he and his Ambulnz colleagues left Colorado for New York, the city was experiencing 911 call volume that rivaled or eclipsed that of 9/11  "the highest number of 9-1-1 calls in the history of New York City," de Blasio said Friday. "We needed every hand on deck."

Ambulnz was part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency relief program for New York EMS workers and hospitals, transferring COVID-19 patients from hospitals that were at capacity to other hospitals with more room. In between, they also answered 911 calls across the city; Cary and his crew from Colorado were based in the Bronx, his colleague, Royce Davis, told The Post.

Davis, 50, said that Cary was the elder and mentor figure of the group, with more experience than most of the paramedics who came out to New York. They shared dinners together after long hours in the throes of the crisis, preferring to talk about kids and grandchildren rather than the horrors of what they saw each day, Davis said. Cary was quiet compared to the younger crowd, he said, but his devotion radiated widely.

"His love for this job, and his love for serving people, kept reminding me of why I'm doing it," Davis said.

On Sunday, Davis served as a pallbearer in Carys procession  an astounding miles-long send-off organized by Carys colleagues at Ambulnz and the New York City Fire Department, which treated the Coloradan as one of their own.

It started at a Staten Island funeral home, and as the procession of dozens of ambulances advanced through New York, people cheered from the sidewalks, while some stood at attention at the end of their driveways, Davis said.

Cary's ambulance pulled onto the tarmac at Newark International Airport, where at least three dozen EMS workers stood saluting. The bag pipes blared "Amazing Grace," while Davis and the other pallbearers carefully lifted Cary off the ambulance and toward his last flight, which would arrive by nightfall in Denver, where still dozens more EMS vehicles awaited him.

Around 10 p.m., the long procession finally arrived at its destination. Cary's family and dearest colleagues and friends stood outside the Denver funeral home silently, watching Cary's arrival.

On behalf of the state of New York, a state health department official, Steve Dziura, took the podium and said, "We could all be a little more like Paul."

"Paul raised his hand. At a time when the nation was in crisis, and the world was unknown, Paul raised his hand," he said, before presenting the state flag to Cary's son, Christopher Cary, who broke down in tears in a long embrace with the New Yorker.

The brief ceremony came to a close as a Colorado EMS worker held up a dispatch radio, paging all Colorado fire and EMS first responders.

This is a last call for Paramedic Paul Cary, he said. "Dispatch will now show Paramedic Cary out of service but not out of our hearts and memories. He wished Cary godspeed on his final journey before promising, We have the watch from here.
New Delhi: The convalescent plasma therapy is no "magic bullet" to deal with coronavirus, and only large-scale controlled trials can ascertain its efficacy as part of the treatment strategy, top medical experts said on Monday, even as several states are considering the use of the therapy to treat critically-ill COVID-19 patients.

The therapy involves taking antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 and transfusing those antibodies into an active coronavirus patient to help kickstart the immune system to fight the infection.

The Health Ministry last week warned against its use, saying that the plasma therapy for treatment of coronavirus patients is at an experimental stage and has the potential to cause life-threatening complications.

However, some state governments, including Rajasthan, Punjab, Maharashtra and Delhi have shown keenness for plasma therapy treatment, and the Centre has permitted few states to perform plasma therapy on a limited number of COVID-19 patients.

Top medical experts feel it should not be looked upon as something that could make a "huge difference" in the treatment of COVID-19 and only randomised controlled trials can prove its efficacy as an important treatment strategy.

Director of AIIMS, Delhi, Randeep Guleria said there have been very few convalescent plasma therapy trials as far as COVID-19 is concerned, and only in very few patients it has shown some benefit.

"It is just one part of the treatment strategy. It helps improve the person's own immunity by giving what we call passive immunity because the antibodies in the plasma enter the blood and try to help fight the virus in the afflicted individual. It is not something which will dramatically make a difference," Guleria told PTI.

There is no study to suggest that "it is a magic bullet" or it will make a dramatic difference, but it is part of the armamentarium of treatment that physicians have along with other drugs, the senior pulmonologist said.

ICMR has already called for a proposal and a large number of institutes have enrolled for the convalescent plasma therapy trials, he said.

"Important issue to remember is that not everyone's plasma can be given, you also have to test the blood  whether it is safe and also has enough antibodies. So, you have to have an antibody testing mechanism which is being done by NIV (National Institute of Virology), Pune, to show that the plasma you are giving has enough antibodies" Guleria said.

Research should be done on a multi-pronged treatment strategy and should not be focused on only one strategy, the AIIMS Director said.

"You will need to give it to a large number of individuals, more than 200 or 300 people and then analyse the data...We should go ahead in research mode giving it to more people and do a proper well conducted study so as to know one way or the other," Guleria said.

Dr Vivek Nangia, Director Pulmonology, MICU and Sleep Disorders, Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj, said the therapy is only in the experimental stage, but it is promising as there is a clinical knowledge involved, and also some experiments and past experience behind it having been used for SARS and H1N1 epidemics in a limited manner.

"Dire circumstances require desperate measures, you need to have an out of the box thinking and this is one of those measures, when nothing else is working you want to try this, there is no harm. It has its pros and cons," he told PTI.

Backing Guleria, Nangia also said, "larger randomized placebo-controlled trials are very essential only then we can make it a standard of therapy."

These expert views come amid lack of definitive evidence in favour of or against the use of the convalescent plasma therapy.

As per reports, a patient who was administered plasma therapy for the first time at a private hospital here was discharged last week after being cured, while the first person to undergo plasma therapy in Maharashtra had died in Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had said last week that the Delhi government will not stop clinical trials of plasma therapy to treat severally-ill COVID-19 patients as its initial results are good.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday said that with the ICMR nod, SMS hospital in Jaipur will start convalescent plasma therapy on COVID-19 patients from Monday, while Maharashtra, which had started the trials last month after a nod from the ICMR, is considering to continue with it despite the Union health ministry warning.

Professor Rajesh Malhotra, Chief Trauma Centre AIIMS, said as of now, there is no concrete evidence of convalescent plasma therapy's usefulness.

"It essentially relies on the assumption that the body fires up its resistance in the form of chemicals called antibodies to fight the infection and those who have recovered have sufficient numbers in their convalescent plasma to fight the infection," Malhotra said.

However, the degree of antibody response that a person throws and the timing are variables, making it difficult to have a predictable standard protocol, he said.

It is too early to say if plasma treatment is the only way and it has its own risks also, the AIIMS professor said, adding that at present it is at best an experimental therapy and definitive answers cannot be obtained without large-scale trials.

Dr Pankaj Kumar, Head of Critical Care Unit Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, echoed similar views, saying trials till now are too small to clear doubts about the therapy and large-scale trials should be done.

"Theoretically speaking it should be helpful because we are taking the antibodies from a person who has had the infection. But it is still experimental... we have to weigh the risks and benefits," he told PTI.

Dr Atul Kakar, Vice-Chairman, Department of Medicine, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said it is very important to pick the right patient for being the donor as he has to have a very severe infection so that the antibodies are quite high and should be free from other viruses.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Makara Mining Corp. (CSE:MAKA) ("Makara" or the "Company") is pleased to announce its intention to carry out a non-brokered private placement (the "Offering") of up to 6,000,000 units of the Company (each, a "Unit") at a price of $0.25 per Unit, for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $1,500,000. Each Unit will be composed of one (1) common share of the Company (a "Common Share") and one (1) Common Share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"), each Warrant to be exercisable at $0.50 for a period of three (3) years from the date of issuance.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering towards exploration expenditures, for marketing and general working capital and towards the acquisition of additional mineral projects, if such opportunities arise. On closing, the Company may pay a finder's fee in respect of a portion of the Offering in accordance with the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange. All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a four-month and one day hold period under applicable securities laws.

The securities offered have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or in any other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About the Company

The Company is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition, exploration and development of gold properties. The Company is based in Vancouver, B.C. and holds an option over the Kenora Gold Property located in Northwestern Ontario. For more information, investors should review the Company's filings that are available at www.sedar.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations or beliefs of future performance, including statements regarding the Offering and the expected use of proceeds therefrom are "forward-looking statements". These forward-looking statements reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company based on information currently available to it. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those detailed from time to time in filings made by the Company with securities regulatory authorities, which may cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws.

Contact Information

Grant Hendrickson

Director and Chief Executive Officer

Telephone: 604-372-3707

Email: grant@makaramining.com

SOURCE: Makara Mining Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/588189/Makara-Mining-Announces-Non-Brokered-Private-Placement
San Franciscos police chief said the citys rank and file will wear neutral face coverings to defuse a controversy after officers sent to patrol a May Day protest wore masks adorned with the thin blue line flag.

The police union ordered and distributed the masks emblazoned with black-and-white American flag with a blue stripe across the middle. The symbol is associated with the Blue Lives Matter movement, a display of unity among police officers in response to the national Black Lives Matter movement.

In an email obtained by KTVU-TV, Chief Bill Scott told his officers Friday he considered the blue flag and stripe a meaningful expression to honour fallen officers. However, he worried that some may perceive the symbol as divisive and disrespectful.

A retired civil rights lawyer told the San Francisco Examiner that the masks, which also include the logo for the San Francisco Police Officers Association, violate a long-standing policy that bars police from expressing political opinions while wearing their uniforms.

The definition of a uniform is that its uniform, Crew said. There is no option to add your own statements, affiliations, whatever.

The police union president, Tony Montoya, said the union showed the masks to Scotts command staff and several of them had asked for more. The blue line represents law enforcements separation of order and chaos, he said.
The judges, judicial officers and



other staff of Jharkhand High Court and other courts across the state have contributed Rs 1,50,13,816 to the PM CARES fund to fight coronavirus pandemic in the country.

The judges, registry members and officers and staff of the High Court as well as judicial officers and officers and staff of different judgeships of the state, have contributed to the PM CARES, a high court official said on Monday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Egyptian embassy in Kuwait announced operating this week the first flight for bringing home Egyptians violating residency permits in Kuwait.

In a statement - a copy of which MENA received - the embassy said it had followed up the acts of riots in makeshift camps yesterday, hailing Kuwait's wise handling of the situation.

The embassy said officials from the consulate were sent to the makeshift camp to call on Egyptian expats to avoid being engaged in any problems.

The Kuwaiti interior ministry said on Monday that authorities broke up riots by a group of Egyptian workers demanding repatriation back home at shelters designated for those who had violated their residency. Several people were arrested according to the statement.

The officials asserted that Egyptian Ambassador in Kuwait Tareq el Qoni is ready to receive any of the Egyptians violating residency permits at any time.

The embassy is preparing flights to send home residency violators, the statement said.

Two flights will be operated this week to bring women, children and elderly people back home, the embassy said, noting that all returnees will be quarantined.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


T he Isle of Wight was the much-loved holiday home of Queen Victoria. Its farmers grow beautiful tomatoes. Its less well-known as the sharp end of the tech race to crack Covid, but thats about to change.

The island has been chosen as the place to test Britains new app to track and trace the virus. Downloads are set to start this week.

This is good news: the app is the essential second part of a double-headed fight to break Britain out of lockdown.

The first part is mass testing with rapid results: that shows who might be infectious. The apps job is then to track people who have come into contact with people who test positive, so that they can isolate while they see if they develop symptoms, too.

Today, Tim Spector writes about the role for an app which allows people to report early symptoms of coronavirus, to check the spread of the disease in people who havent yet been tested. The Governments new app takes a different approach: its job is to warn healthy people that they might have been infected. Its an impressive piece of work by the new NHSX digital team who are also part of the front-line fight.

But before it happens there are three hurdles to overcome.

The first is privacy. In normal times, a government app which monitored where you go on your phone would be the last thing people wanted to install. But these arent normal times. Lockdown is the biggest invasion of civil liberty of all. If an app can help end it, it will be adding to our freedoms, not taking them away.

Different countries have taken different approaches. In South Korea, which doesnt use an app, the government monitors where everyone is all the time by tracking their phones. That wouldnt be tolerated here.

Some countries are trying to guarantee privacy by building apps which dont require a central database  thats the model being followed by systems developed by Apple and Google.

Britains version does use one, which should make it more effective, although also harder to run. The data collected will be anonymous and only used to fight Covid. Given how much tracking data is already collected from our phones, most people are likely to accept the need for it.

False positives

The second hurdle is getting the app to work.

The system depends on Bluetooth, the local signal on your phone which allows it to link to similar devices nearby. If two phones both running the app come close, they will record it automatically.

But that might not be reliable: what if a phone in the pocket of a pedestrian connects with one passing by in a nearby car held by someone who later flags up as positive for coronavirus? Theres no actual risk of infection. But the system might report one.

Managing all this will be a massive job, which is why a reported 18,000 people are being recruited to deal with people identified as possibly infected. They will help them to decide what the risk is and what they should do about it.

The third hurdle is getting people to use the app.

If the Government can reassure people about privacy, and the system works, then it will still only function if enough people use the app.

Researchers at Oxford estimate that if 56 per cent of the population download and run it, the outbreak will be halted  but thats an ambitious target.

Its the same as 80 per cent of smartphone users. Even if fewer people than that use the app when it goes nationwide  soon, says the Government, although no date has been set  researchers estimate that one new case of infection will be stopped for every one or two people who use the system.

But Singapore, which developed an app early, found that lots of people didnt use it  one big concern being battery life, which dropped fast, especially on iPhones.

Australias app, Covidsafe, is now a week old and 4.5 million people have installed it  a lot, but still under a quarter of the population. Australias PM is telling people that using the app will get pubs open sooner.

Listen to The Leader: Coronavirus Daily podcast

Boris Johnson rang him for tips last night. Expect a similar big sell here too.
A prolific burglar has been arrested after breaking into a man's home and assaulting him before cutting his hair with scissors.

Gardai are still hunting for the second suspect following the bizarre crime in the Carrickmines area of Dublin.

The aggravated burglary happened at around 5.15pm last Monday, April 27, when two burglars forced their way into a house along the Ballyogan Road.

Two men, aged in their 60s and 20s, were in the house at the time of the break-in.

One of the raiders was armed with scissors and both victims were threatened before the older man was punched several times.

It is understood the older man's hair was then cut by the raider armed with the scissors, although he was not stabbed or slashed with the knife.

The younger man, aged in his 20s, was then taken from the house and forced into the passenger seat of his own car which was parked outside.

The burglar driving the car then intentionally drove it into a curb nearby several times causing damage to the vehicle.

Both suspects then fled the scene and gardai were alerted. Detectives based at Blackrock garda station launched an investigation and a suspect was identified.

The 23-year-old male from the Sandyford area is a suspected serial burglar who is known to gardai in south Dublin.

He was arrested over the weekend and quizzed in relation to the aggravated burglary before being charged in relation to the investigation.

A source told the Irish Independent: "This individual would be known to gardai since he was only 11 or 12 years old and was quickly identified in this inquiry.

"The circumstances surrounding the burglary are unusual and the exact reason for the older male's hair being cut aren't completely clear at this stage.

"Gardai are trying to definitively determine if this was a random incident or if it was in fact a targeted break-in."

The suspect arrested as part of the probe is expected to appear before the Dublin District Court at the Criminal Courts of Justice this morning.

Gardai are continuing to search for the second male involved in the aggravated burglary.

A spokesman said: "Gardai are appealing for anyone who may have information relation to this incident to contact them in Blackrock on 01 666 5200 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111. Investigations are continuing."

Meanwhile, a separate investigation is under way into an unrelated assault in north Dublin over the weekend.

A man, aged in his 50s and originally from the Finglas area, was injured after being attacked at an apartment complex along Kilmore Road in Coolock.

Gardai initially received reports of a male being fatally stabbed but when they arrived at the scene they found the victim with non-life threatening head injuries consistent with an assault.

A short time later a male, who is in his 30s and originally from the Artane area, was arrested on suspicion of assault.

It is believed both men are known to each other.
WASHINGTON  President Trump first picked Representative John Ratcliffe of Texas to be the nations intelligence chief last summer, but resistance in the Republican Senate was so firm that Mr. Ratcliffes name was withdrawn before his nomination ever became official.

Eight months later, Mr. Ratcliffe is back. On Tuesday, he will step before many of those same lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee for a confirmation hearing to be the director of national intelligence  this time as a full-fledged nominee whose prospects have vastly improved as Republican opposition has softened.

Democrats are still preparing to challenge his credentials and will resurface instances in which he appears to have exaggerated his law enforcement and national security experience as a federal prosecutor in Texas. And they will argue that Mr. Ratcliffes reputation as one of Mr. Trumps most vocal defenders in the House and on Fox News, where he has offered blistering accusations of rampant anti-Trump bias in some of the agencies he wants to lead, disqualifies him for a position that has historically been apart from politics.

Trump administration officials are confident that Mr. Ratcliffe can smooth over lingering unease with assurances that he will set aside his own political views and refocus intelligence agencies on emerging global threats.
TRUMBULL  Donald A. Browne, the first states attorney for the Fairfield Judicial District, died Sunday of natural causes. He was 86.

Donald Browne was a towering figure in the Bridgeport legal community, said newly appointed States Attorney Joseph Corradino. His impact continues to this day with the people he chose to work as prosecutors in this district. While it is a great loss to his family and the community, his legacy endures.

In 1972, Browne was appointed top prosecutor for the newly established judicial district with the official end of county government in Connecticut. The district initially extended north to Danbury, west to the New York line and east to the Housatonic River.

Browne went on to serve as states attorney for 25 years during which time Danbury and Stamford were broken off as their own judicial districts.

As states attorney, Browne prosecuted numerous murder trials and supervised the prosecutions of many cases that were the sensation of the day including Edward Falby, convicted of the murder of a 9-year-old Westport girl, and Gordon Burge, convicted of killing a 13-year-old Darien boy.

His ability to think quickly on his feet and fire questions rapidly at witnesses earned him the nickname Machine gun Browne.

Criminal defense lawyer John R. Gulash said despite the fact that he and Browne were on opposite sides and vehemently disagreed on a number of occasions, he had the highest regard for him.

You can certainly say the citizens got more than their moneys worth with Donald Browne, Gulash said. He literally knew everything about every case that was pending in one of the busiest judicial districts in Connecticut and had a tireless work ethic.

Browne jumpstarted the investigation into the 1975 murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley in Greenwich, appointing a team of investigators to go over the case. He retired several years before Kennedy-cousin Michael Skakel was convicted of that crime.

He argued 38 cases before the state Supreme Court and 19 before the state Appellate Court but was most proud of the 1972 case Adams v. Williams which he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Bridgeport police officer, acting on a tip, approached a car driven by Robert Williams and arrested him after discovering Williams had a gun in his waistband. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the informants tip permitted the officer to do a limited search of Williams.

He loved the law and he loved the people he worked with, said Brownes daughter, Bridgeport lawyer Maribeth Browne-Goulden.

Browne also loved the city of Bridgeport, where he grew up and lived most of his life.

He graduated from Harding High School and Fairfield University and earned his law degree from the University of Connecticut Law School. He went on to get an advanced law degree from New York University.

Browne is survived by his wife of 61 years, Lillian D. Browne; their four children, Maribeth Browne-Goulden, Donna Lynn Ford, Kevin P. Browne and John Browne, and eight grandchildren.

The funeral service is going to be private with a memorial mass held in the future.
Three teenage girls face 25 years in jail if convicted over a vicious alleged attack on a 14-year-old in a shopping centre bathroom.

The girl was allegedly ambushed by the group, one aged 17 and two aged 15, in a parents' room at Figtree Grove shopping centre in Wollongong, south of Sydney, just before 5.30pm on Friday.

The 'girl gang' allegedly kneed and hit the victim in the head so many times she had a seizure, before running off and leaving her to convulse on the floor.

Police documents read out in Port Kembla Court House on Monday said the alleged attackers had 'no remorse' and were 'like a pack of dogs'.

A 14-year-old girl (pictured left) was allegedly ambushed by the girls, one aged 17 and two aged 15, in a parents' room at Figtree Grove shopping centre in Wollongong, south of Sydney, just before 5.30pm on Friday

'She lay defenceless on the ground to the group who were attacking her like a pack of dogs,' the documents read, as reported by ABC.

'The young offenders showed no remorse and continually kicked, stomped, and threw the victim's head into a wall.'

The three girls were arrested and taken to Wollongong Police Station over their alleged involvement in the attack on Sunday.

One of the alleged attackers was also charged with common assault for a separate alleged attack on the same girl at Woonona train station earlier this year.

Footage shows the teenager allegedly kneeing and punching the victim before throwing her onto the train tracks.

One of the accused attackers was charged with a second alleged assault after allegedly throwing her on the train tracks at Woonona train station

The alleged victim said she was relentlessly kicked and punched on Friday.

'They were hitting me until the point I had a seizure... I'm still scared,' the young victim told The Illawarra Mercury.

She suffered bruises and soft tissue damage to her body and face and was rushed to Wollongong Hospital at 7pm on Friday.

The alleged attackers are accused of grabbing the girl's hair, before throwing her to the ground and kicking and punching her.

The alleged victim claimed she knew the girls through mutual friends and that her phone was damaged during the incident.

The 'girl gang' allegedly kneed and hit the victim (pictured left) in the head so many times that she had a seizure, before running off and leaving her to convulse on the floor

One 15-year-old was charged with take/detain in company with intent to get advantage occasion actual bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company of other(s) and destroy or damage property.

The second 15-year-old was hit with the same charges, along with common assault.

Only one of the 15-year-old alleged attackers applied for bail, which was refused.

The 17-year-old was charged with take/detain in company with intent to get advantage occasion actual bodily harm and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company of other(s).

She will face a bail hearing on Tuesday.

The 14-year-old alleged victim has since been released from Wollongong Hospital to recover at home.
Derick Almena, the lone remaining defendant charged in the deaths of 36 people killed in Oaklands Ghost Ship warehouse fire, has been released from Santa Rita Jail on $150,000 bail.

Almena, 50, has remained behind bars as prosecutors prepared to retry him after last years five-month trial. While the jury deadlocked on a verdict for Almena, the panel on Sept. 5 acquitted his co-defendant, Max Harris, who walked out of the Dublin jail that evening.

Both men faced up to 39 years in prison if convicted of all charges stemming from the inferno Dec. 2, 2016, during an electronic music party in Oaklands Fruitvale neighborhood. Each was charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter for every person who died in the blaze.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson indicated last month that she was willing to release Almena while he awaited the next trial, and to place him in a community monitoring program.

Thompsons statement came days after California judicial leaders eliminated bail for defendants charged with misdemeanors and most nonviolent felonies, in an effort to combat the spread of the coronavirus behind bars.

While Thompson didnt release Almena outright, she did lower his bail from $750,000 to $150,000. Thompson has since placed a gag order in the case, meaning neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys were able to comment on Almenas release on Monday.

Online jail records indicate that Almena was no longer in custody shortly before 4 p.m., and the Alameda County Sheriffs Office confirmed the release on the departments official Twitter page shortly thereafter.

Almena, who was the artist collectives master tenant, had been incarcerated for nearly three years, ever since his June 2017 arrest.

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.

Prosecutors during last years trial painted Almena as arrogant and reckless, and introduced witnesses who testified that he had scoffed at suggestions to bring the warehouse up to fire code. Defense attorneys, meanwhile, placed blame on city officials, saying they had plenty of opportunities to shut down the operation if they believed it was dangerous.

After weighing a verdict for over a month, jurors ultimately found Harris not guilty, while only 10 of the 12 jurors could agree Almena was guilty of negligence in turning the warehouse into a deadly firetrap.

A new trial was originally scheduled for April but, because of coronavirus concerns, has been postponed until July 6.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Humeyra Pamuk and Andrea Shalal (Reuters) Washington, United States  Mon, May 4, 2020 12:27 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c11cb 2 Business Donald-Trump,US-China,global-supply-chain,US-China-trade-war,coronavirus,economic-impact,COVID-19,virus-corona,pandemic Free

The Trump administration is "turbocharging" an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, according to officials familiar with US planning.

President Donald Trump, who has stepped up recent attacks on China ahead of the Nov. 3 US presidential election, has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas.

Now, economic destruction and the massive US coronavirus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move US production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to other more friendly nations instead, current and former senior US administration officials said.

"Weve been working on [reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China] over the last few years but we are now turbo-charging that initiative," Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the US State Department told Reuters.

"I think it is essential to understand where the critical areas are and where critical bottlenecks exist," Krach said, adding that the matter was key to US security and one the government could announce new action on soon.

The US Commerce Department, State and other agencies are looking for ways to push companies to move both sourcing and manufacturing out of China. Tax incentives and potential re-shoring subsidies are among measures being considered to spur changes, the current and former officials told Reuters.

There is a whole of government push on this, said one. Agencies are probing which manufacturing should be deemed "essential" and how to produce these goods outside of China.

Trump's China policy has been defined by behind-the-scenes tussles between pro-trade advisers and China hawks; now the latter say their time has come.

"This moment is a perfect storm; the pandemic has crystallized all the worries that people have had about doing business with China," said another senior US official.

"All the money that people think they made by making deals with China before, now theyve been eclipsed many fold by the economic damage" from the coronavirus, the official said.

Economic prosperity network

Trump has said repeatedly that he could put new tariffs on top of the up to 25% tax on $370 billion in Chinese goods currently in place.

US companies, which pay the tariffs, are already groaning under the existing ones, especially as sales plummet during coronavirus lockdowns.

But that does not mean Trump will balk at new ones, officials say. Other ways to punish China may include sanctions on officials or companies, and closer relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island China considers a province.

But discussions about moving supply chains are concrete, robust, and, unusually for the Trump administration, multi-lateral.

The United States is pushing to create an alliance of "trusted partners" dubbed the "Economic Prosperity Network," one official said. It would include companies and civil society groups operating under the same set of standards on everything from digital business, energy and infrastructure to research, trade, education and commerce, he said.

The US government is working with Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam to "move the global economy forward," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said April 29.

These discussions include how we restructure ... supply chains to prevent something like this from ever happening again," Pompeo said.

Latin America may play a role, too.

Colombian Ambassador Francisco Santos last month said he was in discussions with the White House, National Security Council, US Treasury Department and US Chamber of Commerce about a drive to encourage US companies to move some supply chains out of China and bring them closer to home.

China overtook the United States as the world's top manufacturing country in 2010, and was responsible for 28% of global output in 2018, according to United Nations data.

The pandemic has highlighted China's key role in the supply chain for generic drugs that account for the majority of prescriptions in the United States. It has also shown China's dominance in goods like the thermal cameras needed to test workers for fevers, and its importance in food supplies.

Hard sell for companies

Many US companies have invested heavily in Chinese manufacturing and rely on China's 1.4 billion people for a big chunk of their sales.

"Diversification and some redundancy in supply chains will make sense given the level of risk that the pandemic has uncovered," said Doug Barry, spokesman for the US-China Business Council. "But we dont see a wholesale rush for the exits by companies doing business in China."

John Murphy, senior vice president for international policy at the US Chamber of Commerce, said that US manufacturers already meet 70% of current pharmaceutical demand.

Building new facilities in the United States could take five to eight years, he said. "We're concerned that officials need to get the right fact sets before they start looking at alternatives," Murphy said.

Trump White House pledges to punish China have not always been followed by action.

A move to block global exports of chips to blacklisted Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, for example, favored by hawks in the administration and under consideration since November, has not yet been finalized.
Many government-run liquor shops which opened after a gap of over 40 days in the national capital on Monday had to be shut as people who gathered outside the outlets did not follow social distancing norms, and the police had to use mild force in some cases to disperse the unruly crowd.

People queued up in large numbers in the morning at the liquor shops.

According to an official, about 150 government-run liquor shops have been allowed to open from 9 am to 6.30 pm in accordance with the latest lockdown relaxations given by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Many people were not aware that only government shops were allowed to open.

In most areas including Burari, Mayur Vihar, Gandhi Vihar, Rohini and Janakpuri, a large number of people had lined up outside outlets.

An official said an alcohol vend had to be be closed in Mayur Vihar in east Delhi as people failed to maintain social distancing norms. Similar cases were reported from north and central Delhi.

With people gathering in large numbers, the police had to resort to mild force.

"Shops were asked to shut in places where social distancing norms were violated. At some places, mild force was also used to disperse the crowd," a senior police official said.

Liquor shops in Karol Bagh, Daryagang and DB Gupta road in central Delhi were shut by the police after crowds, gathered to purchase liquor, did not maintain social distancing norms, said another senior police official.

While liquor shops in Anand Parbat and Ranjeet Nagar did not open, liquor vends in Paharganj area which opened at around 9 am was closed by 12 noon as people gathered there failed to maintain social distancing norms, said another senior official from Central district.

In northeast Delhi, liquor outlets in Jyoti Nagar and Dayalpur were also closed within an hour after it opened due to overcrowding and violation of social distancing norms, the police official.

"According to an order issued by the government, liquor shops were directed to deploy marshals at the outlets to maintain social distancing. However, a liquor shop near Apsara Border was asked to close since they did not deploy a marshal at their outlet nor were they able to maintain social distancing norms.

"A large number of people gathered even before the shop opened at around 10 am and within minutes, we asked the liquor shop to shut," said a senior police official from Shahdara district.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Jasmeet Singh said, "Two liquor shops opened in Kotla village, Mayur Vihar and Khichripur in east Delhi between 9 to 10 am. However, they were closed within 15 minutes after people did not follow police instructions. No marshal was deployed in these shops."



In Khichadipur, people barged inside one of the shops to buy liquor, he said.

There were many who waited outside liquor shops but were not lucky enough.

Amit, in his late forties, had come all the way from Paharganj to buy liquor from a vend in Gole Market, but without any luck. The area has three alcohol shops. With a large number of people gathering, the police dispersed the crowd.

"They (liquor shops) have said they will open the shop after 12 noon. I will wait until then," an unrelenting Amit said, refusing to go as he sought refugee in a lane.

Outside another liquor shop behind the Regal Cinema, a police volunteer pasted a notice 'The shop will not be opened until further notice'.

Atul Gupta, who had come there from the trans Yamuna area, said he had come in the hope of buying alcohol, but with no luck.

A police constable waiting outside the shop said they had to disperse people as a large number had queued outside, without heeding to the social distancing norms.

Delhi government earns revenue of Rs 5,000 crore from the sale of liquor.

The government has directed four state-run agencies, which are responsible to sell liquor, to deploy adequate marshals at these shops.

There are around 850 liquor shops in the city including those run by government agencies and private individuals. In an order on Sunday night, the excise department also directed officials to identify liquor shops, which are being run by private individuals (L-7 licensee) and fulfil conditions laid down by the MHA.

The officials have been asked to submit a report within three days. The government has so far allowed only those liquor shops (L-6 and L-8) to operate which are being run by four state-run agencies.

"All liquor shops in malls and markets will remain closed. The government-run shops allowed will operate from 9 am to 6.30 pm. The four agencies will deploy marshals to ensure that not more than 5 people are present at one time at the shop," the official said.

The department has asked agencies to coordinate with the local administration and police to maintain law and order. According to the order, bonded warehouses have also been allowed to resume operation from 7 am to 6.30 pm.

The Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation, the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation, the Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited and the Delhi Consumers Cooperative Wholesale Store have been given the permission to open liquor shops in public places, except malls and market complexes.

The agencies will have to give an undertaking stating that liquor shops being allowed to open will fulfil all MHA guidelines, according to the excise department.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AJC Advocacy Anywhere programs are attracting hundreds of thousands of viewers from more than 45 countries worldwide every week. Since the programming began on March 20, more than 1.2 million viewers in total have logged on to watch.

"Our virtual programming is informing and engaging Jewish communities, and others, across the United States and around the world at a time when so many are looking to connect in meaningful ways," said AJC CEO David Harris.

Registration for AJC Advocacy Anywhere is free and programs can be viewed via Zoom and Facebook. Previous programs are available for viewing on the AJC Facebook page.

Programs last week included:

Coronavirus, Conspiracy Theories, and the Current State of Global Antisemitism, April 27, has garnered more than 71,000 viewers on Facebook. The program featured Katharina von Schnurbein, EU Commission Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism; Nikita Malik, Director of the Centre on Radicalisation and Terrorism at the Henry Jackson Society; and Holly Huffnagle, AJC U.S. Director for Combating Antisemitism, in conversation with AJC Transatlantic Institute Director Daniel Schwammenthal.

A Conversation with H.E. Philippe Etienne, Ambassador of France to the United States, April 28. France is a key transatlantic partner and a crucial player in EU-Middle East relations. Ambassador Etienne discussed with AJC CEO David Harris these issues, as well as France's handling of the coronavirus pandemic crisis. AJC has long maintained an office in Paris. The illuminating program has been viewed by more than 39,000 on Facebook.

A Conversation with H.E. Emily Haber, German Ambassador to the United States, April 30, has been seen by more than 39,000 on Facebook. Only hours after Germany announced that it will ban all Hezbollah activities, which AJC immediately praised, Ambassador Haber discussed with AJC CEO David Harris that landmark decision, as well as Germany's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. As a central player in the transatlantic relationship, a key ally of Israel, and an economic powerhouse, Germany plays a critical role on the global stage. AJC has a longstanding, close relationship with Germany, spanning more than 70 years, and has maintained an office in Berlin since 1998.

Hebrew 101, April 30, with Avi Mayer, AJC Global Director of Communications, and Myra Clark-Siegel, Director of Communications and Senior Strategic Counsel for AJC Project Interchange, has been seen by nearly 27,000 on Facebook.

AJC Diplomacy and the Arab World , May 1, has been seen by more than 40,000 on Facebook. Jason Isaacson, AJC Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer, and Benjamin Rogers, who works closely with Isaacson, explore the changing dynamics of the region and warming ties between Israel and Arab states. Both Isaacson and Rogers regularly visit countries in the Arab world on AJC's behalf.

AJC Advocacy Anywhere programs for this week are:

Monday, May 4, 12:00 PM (ET)  A Conversation with Natan Sharansky . Widely regarded as one of the most notable Jewish figures of the past century, Natan Sharansky's name was a rallying cry for the Soviet Jewry movement. Jailed for his human rights activism and efforts to immigrate to Israel, Sharansky spent nine indescribably difficult years in the Soviet Gulag. He was released in 1986 and went on to serve as a minister in several Israeli governments, as Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, andmost recentlyas Chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel. He is the only living non-American to have received both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation with this human rights icon and Jewish hero, who was honored by AJC in 1987.

Monday, May 4, 4:00 PM (ET)  National Politics on Campus...from a Distance: An AJC Town Hall with College Democrats and College Republicans Students will hear directly from the top campus leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties. Mikaela Guido, President of College Democrats of America, and Chandler Thornton, Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, will share their parties' views on a range of issues important to students: from student loan debt, to antisemitism on college campuses, to the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Join Mikaela and Chandler and learn how YOU can make a difference at this critical moment. AJC is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. AJC neither supports nor opposes candidates for elective office.

Tuesday, May 5, 12:00 PM (ET)  The United Arab Emirates and the Coronavirus , a special webinar with UAE Ambassador to the UN Lana Nusseibeh, in conversation with Jason Isaacson, AJC Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer. As the United Arab Emirates approaches the 50th anniversary of its 1971 founding, the country is confronting the twin threats of the coronavirus pandemic and its strategic consequences for diplomacy, geopolitics, the economy, and beyond  while continuing to invest in alternative energy, adapting its international affairs agenda to current realities, extending aid to states in need, and maintaining its commitment to interfaith outreach.

Wednesday, May 6, 12:00 PM (ET)  Transatlantic Dialogues: Cong. Ted Deutch and MEP Lukas Mandl . Relations between the United States and European Union have experienced unprecedented strain in recent years. Can the two powers overcome their differences on Iran, Russia, Israel and other key issues? U.S. Congressman Ted Deutch, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and International Terrorism; and Lukas Mandl, Member of the European Parliament from Austria and Chair of the Transatlantic Friends of Israel (TFI) will discuss.

Thursday, May 7, 12:00 PM (ET)  Combating Hate and Misinformation Online . As social media eclipses traditional media in influence, the reliability of the information that the public receives has come under scrutiny. Conspiracy theories  many of them antisemitic  mingle online with inaccurate health guidance, finger-pointing, and blame, with no end in sight. Facebook and Twitter representatives will discuss what their platforms are doing to counter hate speech and address the ever-present misinformation around the coronavirus.

Friday, May 8, 12:00 PM (ET)  From Tragedy to Triumph . 75 years ago, on May 8,1945, the Second World War in Europe ended. The joy was tempered by the knowledge that the greatest mass atrocity in human history had befallen the Jewish people. 1,102 days later, the greatest moment in modern Jewish history occurred with the rebirth of the State of Israel. AJC CEO David Harris will discuss this remarkable journey from the depths of despair to the joy of redemption.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


Houstons top cop had a message for a fresh class of police cadets: Be like Officer Jason Knox.

At times raising his voice to a shout, Chief Art Acevedo on Monday told rows of police officer hopefuls at a Houston Police Academy auditorium to emulate the eight-year career Knox had with the Houston police force. Knox, whose worked in patrol and public affairs before joining the helicopter unit, died Saturday when the police helicopter he was in careened into a Greenspoint apartment complex.

The man was a caring, thoughtful individual with the highest level of integrity, Acevedo told the mask-clad cadets.

The 35-year-old officer, whose father is Houston Councilman Mike Knox, endeared himself to history buffs and the law enforcement community for restoring retro police cruisers.

He built those cars not for himself, Acevedo said. He built those cars because his dad, who is our council member, was part of our history and he wanted to honor the history of the department.

The cadets first day arrived as funeral arrangements were still being finalized and as the federal and local investigation continued into the cause of the crash, and whether gunfire that erupted around the same time was a factor.

Acevedo said that his investigators had not uncovered any evidence of hostile action or gunfire on the aircraft, and the National Transportation Safety Board mirrored that statement. Should evidence of criminal activity be found, the FBI would enter the investigation, said Eric Weiss, NTSB spokesman. Investigators are waiting to look over maintenance and inspection records.

Weiss said electronic data, such a photos and video, from the crash would be welcomed  including a flight data recorder.

Houston police spokesman Kese Smith was unable to say if the helicopter that crashed was equipped with a flight data recorder, citing the ongoing investigation.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, flight recorders are not required on helicopters. Such a device was absent from the helicopter that crashed in January, killing NBA star Kobe Bryant. NTSB officials at the time said the lack of a video and data recorder hindered their investigation.

Now Playing: The body of fallen Houston police officer Jason Knox was escorted to the Pat H. Foley and Company Funeral Home on Monday morning. Video: Chron

Last year, New York lawmakers called on the FAA to require helicopters to carry the so-called black box after a helicopter crashed into a Manhattan skyscraper. A data recorder was not on that aircraft either.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, NTSB investigators were not dispatched to the HPD crash site and have not yet started a physical inspection of the wreckage, Weiss said. He expects a preliminary report on the crash to be published within two weeks, while the final report can take up to two years, he said.

The crash happened around 2 a.m. as Knox and his pilot Chase Cormier were searching for a possible body in a bayou. The aircraft spiraled out of control and crashed into the side of an apartment clubhouse, next to the pool.

Cormier, also 35, survived the crash but was injured with a broken back, ribs and a concussion. In a Facebook post, the pilot described the chaotic moments leading up to the crash. The helicopter started spinning and he tried desperately to stabilize the aircraft.

I could see the ground approaching as well as a building, Cormier wrote. I attempted to maneuver away as well as pull aft cyclic (sic) to regain control and (altitude). At that time, we impacted.

He said gunfire was heard at the time of the crash and after, when they were loading me up into (the) ambulance. There was no damage to the tail rotor, Cormier continued.

Cormier has been conscious and talking to investigators about the crash. He asked friends and family to think of Knoxs family, including his wife and two children.

Jason was my responsibility and I want to make sure his family is always taken care of, the pilot wrote.

After meeting with cadets, Acevedo was with Knox's parents, the councilman and his wife, Nancy, as dozens of police officers escorted their son's body from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science to the Pat H. Foley & Company Funeral Home on West 34th Street .

Knox's body arrived in a Cy-Fair EMS ambulance. His wife, Keira, is a Cypress-Fairbanks Fire Department dispatcher.

A handful of passersby gathered across the street from the funeral home to greet the procession and pay their respects. Among them was Tyrone Brimzy, who witnessed the helicopter crash from his work at a nearby convenience store.

The light from the helicopter got dark, Brimzy said. I thought it was make believe at first. I watched the helicopter drop from the sky.

He said he flagged down two patrol vehicles at the intersection about the crash. Meanwhile, many residents at the apartment complex rushed to help the officers trapped in the wreckage.

nicole.hensley@chron.com
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

A detailed analysis report of the Global Ablation Technologies Market has been covered in the report coupled with a thorough description of each company profile with information on the H.Q, future capabilities, key mergers & acquisitions, financial outline, partnerships and new product launches and developments.

Ablation is a surgical procedure of removing the damaged tissue or terminating it during the treatment process. These devices are used in cancer, cardiovascular diseases, urological diseases etc. Technological developments, growing cancer and cardiovascular diseases are factors that have augmented the growth of this market. Rise in hospitals, surgical and ablation centers and growing awareness of reimbursement schemes have developed this market. In addition, adoption of minimally invasion treatments have propelled the growth of this market. However, reuse of the ablation devices has hampered the growth of this market.

Developing countries such as China, Japan, India, Brazil have experienced the highest growth owing to growing economic development, rising disposal income, urbanization are factors that have propelled the growth of this market. Growing government initiatives taken to provide better healthcare facilities to all remote locations, increase in the players of the market, better healthcare infrastructural facilities have been major drivers of this market. Expansion, partnerships, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions are the marketing strategies adopted by the companies in this market to gain maximum market share.

Browse the complete Global Ablation Technologies Market Research Report  Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast Till 2026 @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/4722-ablation-technologies-market-report

The report also offers a competitive landscape of the overall market with company profiles of players such as:

Medtronic PLC

Biosense Webster, Inc.

St. Jude Medical, Inc.

Boston Scientific Corporation

Angiodynamics, Inc.

Atricure, Inc.

Conmed Corporation

Olympus Corporation

Smith & Nephew

Galil Medical Inc.

SEGMENTATIONS IN REPORT:

Ablation Technologies Market Analysis By Product Types:

Light/Laser Ablators

Radiofrequency (RF) Ablators

Electrical Ablators

Ultrasound Ablators

Microwave Ablators

Cryoablation Devices

Hydrothermal Ablators

Ablation Technologies Market Analysis By Applications:

Cardiovascular Disease Treatment

Cancer Treatment

Ophthalmologic Treatment

Gynecologic Treatment

Pain Management

Urologic Treatment

Orthopedic Treatment

Cosmetic Surgery

Others Treatment (Fecal Incontinence, Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), Tonsillectomy, Psoriasis, Wound Management, Obstructive Sleep Apnea, And Port-Wine Stain)

Ablation Technologies Market Analysis By Geography:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Rest of the world

Download Free Sample Report of Global Ablation Technologies Market @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/download-sample-4722

The Global Ablation Technologies Market has been exhibited in detail in the following chapters 

Chapter 1 Ablation Technologies Market Preface

Chapter 2 Executive Summary

Chapter 3 Ablation Technologies Industry Analysis

Chapter 4 Ablation Technologies Market Value Chain Analysis

Chapter 5 Ablation Technologies Market Analysis By Product Types

Chapter 6 Ablation Technologies Market Analysis By Applications

Chapter 7 Ablation Technologies Market Analysis By Geography

Chapter 8 Competitive Landscape Of Ablation Technologies Companies

Chapter 9 Company Profiles Of Ablation Technologies Industry

Purchase the complete Global Ablation Technologies Market Research Report @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/buy-now-4722

Other Reports by DecisionDatabases.com:

Global Telemedicine Technologies And Services Market Research Report  Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast Till 2026

Global Forensic Technologies Market Research Report  Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast Till 2026

Global Photomedicine Devices And Technologies Market Research Report  Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast Till 2026

About-Us:

DecisionDatabases.com is a global business research reports provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research report, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains.

Our expert research analysts have been trained to map clients research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed.

For more details:

DecisionDatabases.com

E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.com

Phone: +91 9028057900

Web: https://www.decisiondatabases.com/
He revealed a month ago that he had tested positive for COVID-19 after going to the emergency room for symptoms of pneumonia.

And on Monday, PageSix.com reported that Jim Edmonds has now donated his plasma at Mercy Hospital in St.Louis, Missouri, in the hope it will help others.

A spokesperson for the former MLB star told the outlet: 'After Jim got well he asked his doctor if there was anything he could do to help and his doctor suggested he donate antibodies to help people who had serious cases of the virus.'

Doing his bit: Jim Edmonds has donated plasma after recovering from COVID-19 in the hope his antibodies will help others with the virus, his spokesperson told PageSix.com Monday

In late March, Edmonds, 49, had shared photos on social media showing him in the hospital and wearing a face mask.

He explained that he had resisted seeking medical care despite feeling unwell.

'Held off as long as I could,' he posted on his Instagram Story. 'I thought I was tough enough to get through.'

He then added: 'This virus is no joke.'

No joke: In late March, Edmonds, 49, had shared photos on social media showing him in the hospital and wearing a face mask after seeking treatment for pneumonia symptoms

Confirmed case: On April 2, the former MLB player and sportscaster shared that his coronavirus test had come back positive

Edmonds, 49, is currently in quarantine at his home in Missouri with his new girlfriend Kortnie OConnor.

He filed for divorce from wife Meghan King in October and are now locked in a bitter court battle.

The former couple are parents to daughter Aspen, three, and twin sons, Hart and Hayes, who will turn two in June.

Last week, King lashed out at her estranged husband last week saying the child support payments he sends her barely cover her grocery bills for herself and their children.

Split: Edmonds is currently locked in a bitter divorce battle with Meghan King, with whom he shares daughter Aspen, three, and twin sons Hart and Hayes, who turn two in June

Not happy: Last week, King lashed out at her estranged husband last week saying the child support payments he sends her barely cover her grocery bills for herself and their children

But on Thursday his rep pushed back on his behalf, telling Page Six that the money the former athlete gives her is plenty.

'Were not going to give numbers because its no ones business, but if what Jim is giving to Meghan each month for child support doesnt cover her groceries, she must be getting her eggs from Faberge,' the rep Steve Honig said.

'Jim also pays every single bill for both of her homes, all the medical bills and practically every other expense related to the kids and the houses. Jim continually goes above-and-beyond what he is required to do,' the rep added.

King, who is Edmonds' second wife, has said that 'she did sign a prenup but it doesnt pertain to child support or custody.'

Edmonds recently confirmed that he is in a new romance with O'Connor, with whom he and King had a threesome during their marriage.

He shared images of the two of them working out together in his home gym and called her his 'quarantined workout partner'.
The police in Lagos State on Monday confirmed that a popular music video director, Clarence Peters, is still in detention.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the arrest of Clarence Peters as part of police investigation into the death of a Nigerian dancer and video vixen, Love Divine aka Kodak.

The embattled music video director is the son of veteran musician, Shina Peters, and actress Clarion Chukwura.

The dancer was alleged to have died of electrocution while charging her phone at Peters house on Wednesday.

Bala Elkana, the Lagos State police spokesperson, told PREMIUM TIMES Monday that the music video director is still being detained.

My response has been clear. Do we have him in custody, I say we do. Why do you have him in custody? We are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of the dancer.

We are also waiting for the autopsy result. Investigation is a natural cause. It is important for him and it is also good for any other person who was there. If nobody has a hand in it, the report will clear everybody. If the result says it is a murder case, the law will take its cause. That is exactly why we have him, that is exactly what we are doing, the police spokesperson said.

Clarence speaks out

Peters has however debunked his arrest speculations, saying that he willingly made himself available to the police as he has pledged to render his full support in the course of the investigation.

His statement is coming in a lengthy Instagram post on Monday five days after Kodak reportedly died in his house.

He said he was not in the same building with the late dancer when the unfortunate accident occurred.

He said his attention was called only after Kodak collapsed.

He said, I was not physically in the same room as her when the incident occurred, when I inquired, I was told by those present at the scene that Love Divine, while taking a break from the dance session, was sitting on one of the metal sliding door rails, charging and using her phone plugged to an extension box.

She was said to be electrocuted, her phone was found on her chest, with severe burn marks, and the phones imprint on her chest, he wrote.

He added also that Love Divine was a huge part of Capital Dreams Pictures, and losing her hurts his entire team.

She was an exemplary person and a legend in her own rights. We will miss her very much, his statement read.

Words will never be enough to describe what her family is going through in these things trying times. My thoughts and prayers are with them, and I ask God to grant them all the strength & fortitude at this time.

His girlfriend speaks

Jennifer Alegieuno, Peters girlfriend of 14 years, has also spoken out in his defense.

The makeup artist said her boyfriend was neither arrested nor charged with murder as contained in the police statement released by police spokesperson, Mr Elkana.

She said the investigation carried out by the IPO in charge of the case after the on-scene investigation was done and the body visited at the morgue, concluded that the death was a result of a natural accident.

Events took a different turn when The DCP- YETUNDE LONGE, came in and asked that the report be torn, he wrote a second one that she tore again. By the third report, then came in MR. OYE and his father Sir Shina Peters and she couldnt continue with her foul play, she wrote.

She agreed they had NO CASE with him and the rest of the witnesses. So why are u still holding him.. everyone asked, she said she was waiting for the autopsy result so she can attach it. When she saw she had been caught, she sent them to put out a press statement that he was charged for murder. So thinking Nigerians, can someone be CHARGED without an autopsy conducted?, she said.

Advertisements



Until her death, the late dancer worked with a number of top artistes like Olamide, Burna Boy, Korra Obidi and ace dancer, Kaffy among others.

Her last dance video was with a fast-rising Nigeria dancer, Poco Lee.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_wp4LzDAFG/?igshid=16enxzk5h9i8b

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_wqWz1j6Js/?igshid=112jj8hmccu3
Press freedom in Cambodia, in decline since the 2017 crackdown on independent reporting, has taken a turn for the worse, with an increase in arrests and harassment of media outlets during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Cambodia 144th out of 180 countries in its 2020 press freedom index, citing Prime Minister Hun Sen's enhanced "system for cracking down on dissent.

But top officials in Phnom Penh paint a different picture.

Cambodia has taken a big step toward what we call a free press regime in the context of an open and democratic nation, where we need journalists who have freedom, said Phay Siphan, Cambodia's top government spokesperson.

But at the same time, journalists need to be responsible for what they speak and write, he warned in a recent interview with VOA's Khmer service.

Whatever you want to report, do it, he said. But it must be within a basis of truth, neither terrifying nor creating misunderstanding that leads to an uprising.

Asked about reporting on sensitive topics, such as state corruption and illegal logging, he said, I observe that journalists, if they are professional, can report on that because there is no reason [not to do that], he said, adding a caveat.

At the same time, we urge [journalists] to respect the dignity of privacy, to avoid [violating] privacy, he said. For example, if your reporting involves mentioning exact names and displaying exact portrait photographs of the person, such that they cannot defend their reputation, then that would violate Phnom Penh's official definition of "professional" journalism.

Why?

Because journalists are not judges.

International condemnation

Local journalists and media organizations say the government's assault on free and independent media is ongoing.

Threats to press freedom, intimidation and harassment against journalists, including lawsuits, [criminal] charges and arrests, remain as reflected in the RSF report, said Nop Vy, the outgoing media director of Cambodian Center for Independent Media.

The center is one of the few remaining independent media organizations still operating in the country.

The media have not been pluralistic, with mostly one-sided reporting, said Vy, who now leads a new Cambodian Journalists Alliance, established to promote and protect press freedom and journalists working in Cambodia.

Despite constitutional guarantees of press freedom, the media are tightly controlled by the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) and its allies.

Tightening restrictions

As the CPP sought to consolidate its power ahead of the 2017 local and 2018 national elections, there was a rise in independent journalists and political and civic activists being charged, threatened or attacked.

Radio Free Asia (RFA), one of VOAs sister broadcast outlets funded by the U.S. Congress, closed its Phnom Penh bureau in September 2017, citing unprecedented government intimidation of the media. By the end of 2017, Cambodias government had closed more than two dozen local radio stations, some of which had rebroadcast VOA and RFA programming.

The Cambodia Daily, an award-winning English-language newspaper that had helped train journalists and strengthen the countrys fragile democracy for over 20 years, was also forced to close.

Two of its former reporters, one of whom is now a VOA contributor, were charged with incitement, and two former RFA reporters are on trial for espionage  charges the journalists and some media observers have said are an attempt to silence them.

More recently, authorities have detained journalists and revoked outlets licenses.

The latest crackdown on the media, especially the revocation of some media licenses, is part of the clampdown on the practicing of journalistic roles of the media that do not have any tendency to broadcast only the governments activities, said Vy.

Authorities on April 7 arrested Sovann Rithy, director of the news site TVFB, for quoting the prime minister in a Facebook post.

'More than absurd'

Imprisoning a journalist for quoting a statement by the prime minister word for word is more than absurd, Daniel Bastard, head of the RSFs Asia-Pacific desk, said in a statement.

The Information Ministry also ordered the revocation of TVFBs media license following his arrest, saying the editor had selected the prime ministers quote.

On Monday, the ministry revoked the license of another news site, CKV TV Online, saying news reporting by the owner of the outlet was in severe violation of journalism that affects public order.

CKV TV, which received two ministerial warnings prior to cancellation, had also been subject to similar complaints by citizens and local journalists.

Yeang Sothearin, who was arrested along with former RFA colleague Uon Chhin, said their case was pending.

Even though we can now live with our families, we have no freedom as anybody else does, Sothearin told VOA Khmer.

He has become more cautious since his arrest, especially when posting to social media, in case those ideas could be deemed affecting the government or any governmental agencies.

Sometimes, because of those concerns, I am refraining from expressing my opinions on social media," said Sothearin, who is now working on a short-term project with a local organization. "This is one form of my self-restriction.

Questioning 'professionalism'

Information Ministry spokesperson Ouk Kimseng denies that the government has restricted press freedom or harassed journalists.

[RSF] has never seen anything positive in press freedom or freedom of expression the government has provided so far in Cambodia, he told VOA, adding that de-licensing measures were justified.

Those [reporters] did not follow the [professional] journalistic roles and responsibilities, he said. He declined to comment on the earlier arrests of the RFA and Daily reporters, saying the cases were in the hands of the courts.

Echoing the government view that Cambodia has greater press freedom than at any other time, Pen Bona, top editor of PNN TV  owned by business tycoon and ruling CPP party Senator Ly Yong Phat  said authorities need a better grasp of journalistic roles and responsibilities.

In some cases, authorities have taken too strong measures, like the arrests and lawsuits [against journalists], said Bona, adding that both journalists and state officials should try harder to understand each other.

A veteran journalist and president of the independent Club of Cambodian Journalists, which is widely viewed as a government-aligned organization, Bona also said some journalists arent actual professionals, but just self-proclaimed journalists who practice the profession incorrectly.

So, its both ways, he said.
TORONTO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Trulieve Cannabis Corp. ("Trulieve" or the "Company") (CSE: TRUL) (OTC: TCNNF), a leading and top-performing cannabis company in the United States, will release its first quarter 2020 financial results on Wednesday, May 20, 2020, before markets open. Following the earnings release, management will host a conference call at 8:30 AM Eastern Time to review the financial results.

All interested parties can join the conference call by dialing 1-888-231-8191 or 1-647-427-7450, conference ID: 3582877. Please dial in 15 minutes prior to the call to secure a line. The conference call will be archived for replay until May 27, 2020. To access the archived conference call, please dial 1-855-859-2056 and enter the encore code 3582877.

A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available at: https://produceredition.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1290780&tp_key=167d2603ba

Please connect at least 15 minutes prior to the conference call to ensure adequate time for any software download that may be required to join the webcast. An archived replay of the webcast will be available for 90 days by clicking the link above.

About Trulieve

Trulieve is a vertically integrated "seed-to-sale" company and is the first and largest fully licensed medical cannabis company in the State of Florida. Trulieve cultivates and produces all of its products in-house and distributes those products to Trulieve-branded stores (dispensaries) throughout the State of Florida, as well as directly to patients via home delivery. Trulieve also operates in California, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Trulieve is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol TRUL and trades on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol TCNNF.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or the securities laws of any state of the United States and may not be offered or sold within the United States (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to an exemption from such registration requirements.

To learn more about Trulieve, visit www.Trulieve.com.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this news release.

SOURCE Trulieve Cannabis Corp.
North, South Korea Exchange Fire in DMZ; No Casualties Reported

By William Gallo May 03, 2020

North Korea fired multiple gunshots that struck a South Korean guard post in the heavily fortified border region separating the two countries, Seoul's military said Sunday.

There were no casualties or damage on the South Korean side, but the South's military returned fire and made a warning broadcast across the border, according to South Korea's joint chiefs of staff.

It is not clear what led to the North Korean gunfire, which the South said began at 7:41 a.m. local time. North Korea has not commented on the incident.

Several hours after the incident, South Korean military officials said they believe the North Korean gunfire was not intentional. It was not immediately clear how they came to that conclusion.

The U.S.-led United Nations Command, the military body that oversees DMZ affairs, told VOA it is "aware of a reported incident occurring in the vicinity of the Demilitarized Zone this morning."

"UNC is cooperating closely with ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff to assess and continues to monitor the situation," said Col. Lee Peters, UNC Public Affairs Director, using the abbreviation for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's formal name. "UNC will conduct a thorough investigation as early as tomorrow [Monday, May 4] to determine if there was an Armistice Agreement violation, and will provide the report to the appropriate authorities once completed."

Speaking on ABC's This Week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the shots were thought to be "accidental," adding that "so far as we can tell there was no loss of life on either side."

The U.S. military has about 28,000 troops in South Korea, a remnant of the 1950s Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a formal peace treaty.

A peace zone?

Though the DMZ has not seen large-scale violence in decades, North and South Korean soldiers have engaged in many small-scale skirmishes. One of the most recent notable incidents was in November 2017, when soldiers from the North fired dozens of gunshots at a North Korean soldier who had sprinted into the South at the Panmunjom border village.

The latest border skirmish is a reminder of the obstacles faced by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has proposed transforming the DMZ into a so-called "peace zone" that is meant to facilitate economic and other engagement between the two Koreas.

"North Korea firing on a South Korean guard post is a violation of the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War and a violation of the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement that came out of the Moon-Kim summit in Pyongyang," says Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. "With this provocation, North Korea appears to be showing little interest in the South Korean proposal of turning the DMZ into a 'peace zone.'"

South Korea's Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met three times in 2018, agreeing to improve relations and undertake a series of joint projects. But implementation has been held up in large part by international sanctions in place over North Korea's nuclear program.

Kim reemerges

Sunday's exchange of fire comes a day after North Korea's leader appeared in state media for the first time in about three weeks, amid intense speculation about his health.

The 36-year-old Kim, who toured a fertilizer factory north of Pyongyang, did not show any obvious signs of new illnesses, although his appearance did little to stop the speculation about his health.

Rumors about Kim's health emerged after he skipped a major North Korean political anniversary last month. The Daily NK, a South Korean website, reported that Kim was recovering after undergoing a heart procedure. Several other outlets then reported that Kim was in grave condition or had died.

Health questions remain

Many of the extreme rumors were put to rest Saturday after Kim's reemergence. Some Korea watchers, though, focused on state television footage of the event, which revealed a small, dark spot just above Kim's right wrist.

Medical experts quoted by the NK News, a website that focuses on North Korea, said that the mark may be consistent with a "right radial artery puncture," which it said was "often used for access to the coronary arteries for stent placement."

But South Korea's presidential office on Sunday said it does not believe that Kim had surgery, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Kim has gained a significant amount of weight since taking power in 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. He is thought to have myriad health problems.

In 2014, Kim disappeared for about 40 days, eventually reemerging with a cane. State media at the time said only that he had experienced "discomfort."

"I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well!" said U.S. President Donald Trump in a tweet late Saturday. Trump has suggested he knows what is happening with Kim, but says it is not appropriate for him to say.

Stalled talks

Trump and Kim have met three times, including in June 2018, when they signed a vague statement about nuclear weapons in the Korean peninsula. Talks broke down last year, however, after the two sides could not agree on what North Korea should offer in exchange for relaxed sanctions.

Although North Korea has regularly launched short-range missiles in recent months, tensions have been under control, partly because of the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. and South Korea this spring postponed joint military exercises that the North has long opposed.

However, with the talks stalled, some analysts fear North Korea could eventually lash out - perhaps through some sort of military provocation.

At the beginning of the year, Kim warned that his country is no longer bound by its self-imposed suspension of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, vowing the world would soon witness a "new strategic weapon."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Householders have been warned about the risks of leaving a kitchen appliance such as a dishwasher turned on before going to bed.

Dublin Fire Brigade shared a photo of a dishwasher in the aftermath of a recent fire.

The image shows normally white crockery turned black and charred from the blaze.

A Dublin Fire Brigade spokesperson said: "Never leave washing machines or dishwashers on if you're going out or heading to bed

"A working smoke alarm gives you enough time to escape safely."

A lot of electrical items are being used in the home more regularly these days due to the Covid-19 restrictions and firefighters have warned to never leave them unattended.

Last week Wicklow Fire Service was called to an incident in which a clothes tumble dryer burst into flames.

Some tumble dryer models have a 30 minute setting which can generate intense heat if the appliance is located in a small utility room.

Firefighters said: "It is extra important at this time, check your smoke alarm and dont trust electrical appliances such as tumble dryers, crimpers, hairdryers, and chargers of all kinds.

"Carnew Fire Crew were just in time to stop this fire from spreading."

Wicklow Fire Service officers reiterated that electrical items should not be turned on unattended.

A spokesperson said: "We only trust fridges.

"All other electrical items should not operate unattended.

"Never overload, always clean lint filter.

"Always have a working smoke alarm."

Last year firefighters were called to a tumble drier fire at 2am in the morning.

It's believed the appliance was turned on and left unattended.

The incident happened in the Ashford area off the M11 in Co Wicklow.








The American University of Bahrain (AUBH) has announced that the admission process has opened and is proceeding as normal for the 2020-2021 academic year.

The university also communicated that measures are in place to assist GCC students who have decided not to return to their international studies due to the Covid-19 pandemic, having also previously waived the seat reservation fee for them. In light of the current situation, AUBH communicated that it is evaluating applications on a case-by-case basis. Students are able to begin the application process in the absence of supporting documentation. The university will accept those documents once they are ready. The admissions team is also assisting students on their applications by substituting certain exam requirements.

AUBH Provost, Dr Mark. D. Shermis, commented: We understand that exam schedules have been disrupted, and many students from the region studying in the US and abroad have returned to their home countries. During this unprecedented time, we would like to reassure students with regards to their educational journey  we are here to support you. We are evaluating individual applications while pending required documents or results, all with the ultimate goal of reassuring potential students. Our applications are continuing as normal for the next academic year, and we will substitute certain tests, for example IELTs with our own Linguaskills exam, as we are an official testing centre for Cambridge English Assessment Tests.

This announcement follows the reassurance that the current semesters courses will be graded normally, as both AUBHs student body and faculty have seamlessly transitioned to online learning, and are using leading technologies to ensure continuation of classes from the first day of isolation. The university is ensuring the continuation of learning from a distance, with zero teaching days missed on the academic calendar. As previously announced, midterm examinations will be administered through ProctorU, a US-based, AI-enabled secure online assessment platform which protects the integrity and credibility of high-stakes exams. ProctorU is respected and used by more than 1,000 institutions and universities in the US.

AUBH offers programs in Colleges of Business and Management, Engineering, and Architecture and Design. - TradeArabia News Service
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Financial leasing as financial service is a direct way to stimulate real economy and help companies tap idle assets and reduce liabilities. In recent years, the boom of the industry was accompanied by the growing number of entrants. By the end of 2019, financial leasing companies had numbered 12,130 in China, an increase of 353 or 2.91% on a like-on-like basis and sustaining CAGR of 51.6% compared with 80 in 2006; financial leasing contract balance had inched up RMB4 billion or 0.06% to roughly RMB6,654 billion as compared with RMB6,650 billion in late 2018. The ramp-down from early high growth showed that the industry has leveled off. The upcoming implementation of unified oversight on financial leasing industry is bound to hit leasing industry, especially commercial lease which was free from unified regulation before, as China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission asked for public comment on the Interim Measures for Regulation on Financial Leasing Companies (Exposure Draft) on January 8, 2020. On one estimate, the number of financial leasing companies in China will plummet but the ever standardized market will favor steady growth in related business. It is predicted that China's financial leasing transactions will amount to RMB13.16 trillion or so in 2026.







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05779380/?utm_source=PRN







By the regulator, financial leasing institutions in China fall in to three types: financial lease, domestic-funded, and foreign-funded, which differ greatly in time of debut and development, approval authority, nature of company, level of regulation, and business scope.



Financial lease: in 2019 China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) approved just one new companyCRRC Financial Leasing Co., Ltd.. By the end of December, there had been 70 companies approved in China, 1 or 1.43% more than the number in the previous year.



Domestic-funded: in 2019, free trade zones (excluding Tianjin) almost suspended approval of domestic companies running financial leasing pilot business due to changes in regulatory system and adjustment of authorities approving domestic pilots. By the end of December, China had boasted a total of 403 domestic-funded financial leasing companies, an addition of 6 or 1.51% versus 397 in 2018.



Foreign-funded: in 2019, the number of foreign-funded financial leasing companies increased just in Tianjin, Guangdong, Shanghai, Liaoning and Shaanxi. By the end of December, there had been 11,657 companies of such type in China, increasing by 346 or 2.97% as compared with 11,311 at the end of 2018.



As of December 2019, there had been 108 companies on the list of top fifty financial leasing companies by registered capital in China, among which Tianjin Bohai Leasing Co., Ltd. topped the list with RMB22.101 billion; ICBC Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. and Ping An International Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. jumped to the second and third places, thanks to capital increase to RMB18 billion and RMB13.241 billion, respectively.



Global and China Financial Leasing Industry Report, 2020-2026 highlights the following:

Development of financial leasing worldwide and in major countries;

China financial leasing industry (policy climate, economic environment);

China financial leasing industry (development history, market size, competitive pattern, financing channels, profit models and development trends);

Development of financial leasing in main sectors in China (aviation, shipping, construction machinery, medical equipment, printing equipment, railway transport equipment, vehicle, agricultural machinery, electricity, etc.);

Development of financial leasing in main areas of China (Tianjin, Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, etc.);

Financial leasing companies in China (including 10 financial lease, 8 domestic-funded and 10 foreign-funded companies) (operation, financial leasing business, financing channels, development strategy, etc.).



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05779380/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

www.reportlinker.com


Amazon vice president Tim Bray has resigned in response to the company sacking Covid-19 whistleblowers and protesters.

Mr Bray wrote a lengthy open letter to Amazon staff, saying the sackings were designed to create a climate of fear in the warehouses.

I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19, said Mr Bray, who had worked for Amazon for more than five years before his resignation.

A number of Amazon employees have been sacked for protesting and criticising working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.

In March, Christian Smalls, a supervisor at an Amazon facility in Staten Island, was fired after he organised a walk-out in protest over working conditions.

Amazon said he was fired for putting the health and safety of others at risk and violations of his terms of his employment and violating social-distancing guidelines.

In April, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, who both worked for Amazon in Seattle, were fired after they tweeted criticism of working conditions for warehouse workers.

Amazon told The Washington Post that it was every employees right to criticise their employers working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies.

Mr Bray said that after two employees were fired last month for planning another protest and criticising the company on climate issues, he snapped, and internally raised his concerns about the firings.

Recommended What the Amazon worker fired after raising safety concerns did next

He was unable to change the decisions, and said: That done, remaining an Amazon [vice president] would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned.

He said that resigning has cost him financially and that he is disappointed to be leaving a job he loved.

What with big-tech salaries and share vestings, this will probably cost me over a million (pre-tax) dollars, not to mention the best job Ive ever had, working with awfully good people. So Im pretty blue, he wrote.

Recommended Retail workers and nurses plan massive protest over workplace safety

However, Mr Bray was clear that he believes he made the right decision by resigning.

Firing whistleblowers isnt just a side-effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets.

Its evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison.

On 1 May, employees of Amazon, Fedex, Target and many more corporations, went on strike in protest of what they think is a lack of protection for workers against the outbreak.

Last month, in statements to Motherboard, Amazon said protesters are spreading misinformation and making false claims about Amazon, and added that the company objects to the irresponsible actions of labour groups.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, there are now upwards of one million people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached at least 67,710.

Amazon declined to comment on Mr Brays letter.
The airport's quarantine team carried out medical checkups on passengers and the disinfection and sterilisation of their luggage

A special flight operated by EgyptAir to repatriate 339 Egyptians from Washington amid the coronavirus pandemic landed in Egypts Marsa Alam on Sunday, state-run MENA agency reported.

An informed source at the airport said in statements to MENA that the airport's quarantine team carried out medical checkups on passengers and the disinfection and sterilisation of their luggage.

Upon their arrival, the passengers checked in at a hotel in Marsa Alam selected by authorities where they will spend 14 days in quarantine.

The government is requiring returnees to sign before boarding their flights a written acknowledgement that they agree to be quarantined.

The repatriated Egyptians will bear the cost of the hotel quarantine, estimated at a minimum of EGP 10,500 ($666.7), despite a previous decision by the state to cover the cost of the stay.

Egypt began repatriating its citizens in March, bringing back hundreds of its nationals stranded in various countries due to the pandemic.

The country is keeping its airspace open to inbound charter and special flights to transport outbound passengers, and to cargo and domestic flights, during the suspension of air traffic that has been in place since mid-March.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed in earlier statements that Egypt is committed to repatriating an estimated 3,500 Egyptians stranded abroad at the earliest opportunity.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Today, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Cytosurge AG, a company manufacturing unique high-precision nanotechnology instruments, announced that they will collaboratively investigate CRISPR-based approaches to more effectively introduce multiple edits into the genome of single cells, while minimizing CRISPR-related toxicity. This capability could become instrumental in driving forward diverse large-scale efforts such as the engineering of cell lines for pharmaceutical, clinical and biotechnological applications, transplantable immune-compatible pig organs, and the resurrection of extinct species.

The CRISPR system with its ability to precisely manipulate the DNA sequences of cells to repair dysfunctional genes, and alter the fates of cells and traits of entire organisms, has tremendous potential for curing diseases and understanding the biology underlying normal and disease-related traits. However, key challenges such as cell toxicity caused by damage to the cell's DNA due to unspecific activity of the CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme, and the stress and toxicity caused by the intracellular delivery of the editing reagents, remain to be solved. These problems are amplified in cases where multiple changes need to be edited into a single cell's genome to engineer transplantable tissues or model complex diseases and stand in the way of harnessing the CRISPR system's full potential.

Especially when it comes to the manipulation of cells with entire sets of genome edits in more comprehensive approaches, we still have to improve our ability to maintain the viability and health of cells, and read out the success and effects that every individual edit has. Cytosurge's cell manipulation platform with its cell injection and sampling capabilities that themselves don't harm cells offers us an entry point into this complex analysis and could help us dramatically expand the multiplexing potential of the CRISPR system longer-term." George Church, Ph.D., Founding Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and Lead of its Synthetic Biology focus area

Church also is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The development of CRISPR technology has long been a focus in his research group at the Wyss Institute and HMS with multiple key breakthroughs in the genome editing field that also led to the formation of several startup companies, including Editas Medicine and eGenesis, which are now developing gene therapy and organ transplant solutions for unmet medical problems.

In CRISPR-mediated genome editing, the programmable CRISPR-Cas9 and related enzymes are guided to specific sequences in the genome by short "guide RNAs" (gRNAs) and use their DNA endonuclease activity to cut the DNA double strand with surgical precision. In the presence of a partially homologous "DNA repair template," the natural "homology-directed repair" mechanism of the cell then can write the changes contained in the template into the genome. Although work in a number of research labs has dramatically enhanced the efficacy and fidelity of CRISPR-mediated genome editing at individual target sequences, the introduction of large numbers of edits into the cells remains a difficult obstacle. Highly multiplexed genome editing poses distinct challenges, arising from the toxicity due to DNA damage (genotoxicity) during multiple edits, and the toxicity to other parts of the cells caused by current CRISPR delivery methods (cytotoxicity). This practical limit prevents researchers today from engineering cells with highly multiplexed gRNAs, for example, to develop a complex trait that is under the control of many genes, or model a complex genetic disease.

The research collaboration between the Wyss Institute and Cytosurge, spearheaded by Soufiane Aboulhouda, a Ph.D. candidate working with Church, and Wyss Institute Technology Development Fellow David Thompson, Ph.D., at the Wyss Institute, will investigate the consequences of introducing entire collections of gRNAs into single cells by leveraging Cytosurge's FluidFM technology.

The FluidFM BIO Series combines the world's smallest syringe with sensitive force feedback and easy point & click operation. This allows it to reliably and gently inject material into either cell plasma or nucleus while keeping the cells alive and intact. FluidFM will enable researchers to precisely inject the enzymatic CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme and multiple gRNAs at defined concentrations - and at measurable volumes - into the cytoplasm or nuclei of single cells. Multiple gRNAs can either be introduced simultaneously or stacked over several cycles. At a later step the resulting cell lines can be analyzed, or cell material can be extracted from individual cells for single cell analysis, including mRNAs that are transcribed from edited genes.

Cytosurge's CEO, Pascal Behr, Ph.D., is looking forward to the collaboration: "We take great pride in this new collaboration with the Wyss Institute and the group of George Church. As a Switzerland-based university spin-off company, we share the same mindset as the Wyss institute with respect to its highly application-focused research strategy. The opportunity to further push the boundaries of genetic engineering and the CRISPR system is very exciting and motivating for us as a company. We are therefore looking forward to enabling new scientific discoveries and ultimately benefiting patients' well-being in the future by combining the capabilities of our FluidFM technology and the expertise and vision of our partners at the Wyss institute."

Thus, by performing a systematic analysis of markers for cell viability and gene expression changes caused by gRNAs nano-injected into single cells, the collaboration aims to develop enhanced delivery strategies for multiple gRNAs, and to discover rules that help minimize toxicity related to the CRISPR system and cell manipulation methods, while at the same time enabling effective multiplexed gene editing.

"This collaboration between George Church and his team at the Wyss Institute's Synthetic Biology platform and Cytosurge could help remove a major roadblock in the CRISPR genome engineering field and, if successful, allow researchers to reengineer cells and tissues in ways that up to now have been impossible," said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at HMS and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital, as well as Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
A member of the armed forces takes a swab to test for the novel coronavirus COVID-19 from a visitor to a drive-in testing facility at the Chessington World of Adventures Resort, in Chessington, southwest of London, on May 2, 2020.

The U.K. government is coming under increasing pressure to set out how and when it will reopen schools and shuttered parts of the economy, especially as its European counterparts lift further lockdown restrictions.

The U.K.'s death toll from the coronavirus is set to overtake that seen in Italy: As of Sunday, the U.K. has seen 28,446 deaths as a result of Covid-19, closely behind Italy's 28,884 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

When it does overtake Italy, the U.K. will become the worst-hit country in Europe in terms of coronavirus fatalities. Given that the U.K. is seen to be a week or two behind Italy in its stage of the outbreak too, the death toll could be much higher. Italy reported 174 further deaths on Sunday, from the previous day, while the U.K. reported 315 new deaths.

Despite the grim death toll, calls are growing in the U.K. for the government to publish an exit strategy to lockdown, and a plan on how and when it will reopen schools. This comes as much of Europe and the U.S. start to lift restrictions and cautiously send children back to their classrooms.

There is growing speculation in the British media that the government is aiming to reopen primary schools in England by June 1.

Speaking at the government's daily coronavirus press conference on Sunday, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out "how we will get back to work later this week."

"His comprehensive plan will explain how we can get our economy moving, how we can get our children back to school, how we can travel to work more safely, and how we can make life in the workplace safer.'

He emphasized the government's oft-repeated message that it wants to see that it's "five tests" are met  that is, that the number of coronavirus cases are falling, that there is a sustained fall in the number of daily deaths, that the rate of infection is at a manageable level and that the NHS has the equipment it needs and that there is no risk of a second peak.

The government has already come under fire for its response to the coronavirus outbreak with criticism over its testing regime, and personal protective equipment for health service workers.

The U.K. was slower to shutter its economy and lockdown public life than its European neighbors, imposing a lockdown several weeks after Italy, on March 23. But as countries hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic have started to re-open, pressure is now on the U.K. government to follow suit. Or to at least to set out its plan.

Measures being considered to allow workplaces to reopen were reported by the BBC on Monday. It said that a draft government plan it had seen urged employers to minimize the number of employees using equipment, stagger shift times and maximize home-working. Additional hygiene procedures, physical screens and the use of protective equipment should be considered where maintaining a distance of 2 meters between workers is impossible, the document reportedly said.

Speculation and leaked reports regarding the U.K.'s exit strategy come as the rest of Europe gradually reopens its economy,

In Germany, for example, smaller shops were allowed to re-open several weeks ago, as long as strict hygiene and social distancing measures were in place, and some schools were allowed to reopen Monday. Spain has allowed children and adults outside to exercise this past weekend after weeks of home confinement, although schools will stay closed until September.

Italy has allowed some smaller stores to reopen and has also lifted further restrictions Monday, allowing visits to relatives and parks. It also reopened parts of its manufacturing and construction sectors Monday and is now letting restaurants provide a takeaway service. Italy is also only allowing children back to school in September, however.
PITTSBURGH, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- "While I was attending a picnic on a windy day the food was never at the proper serving temperature," said an inventor from Decatur, Georgia. "This inspired me to develop a skirt for chafing dishes which may block the wind for more effective heating."

He developed the CHAFER SKIRT to ensure that food housed in a chafing dish is hot and delicious. This could provide users with peace of mind. Additionally, this invention could leave the chafing dish with a professional appearance due to the placement of the decorative covering.

The original design was submitted to the Atlanta sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 18-AAT-4384, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com.

SOURCE InventHelp

Related Links

http://www.inventhelp.com


The resident welfare associations (RWAs) across the national capital are in a fix over allowing domestic helps to resume work in their respective areas amid the COVID-19 crisis, and want the Delhi government to come up with a policy directive on this.

The government has asked the RWAs to take a decision on allowing movement of outsiders, without considering that domestic helps need public transport to commute, said Atul Goyal, the president of an umbrella body of RWAs in the city.

"With no public transport, how can you expect these people to reach their workplace? Most of the domestic helps live in clusters and travel 6-7 kilometres to reach the residential societies they work in," the United Residents Joint Action (URJA) president said.

In some pockets, where there are a large number of senior citizens, people want the domestic helps to resume work. They are taking steps in that direction, he said.

"The Delhi government should come up with a policy on the movement of such workers. How are they going to ensure the overall safety of domestic helps and their employers? Goyal asked.

He also alleged that the Delhi government has not taken the RWAs on board to formulate guidelines on this issue and it is a matter of concern.

H C Gupta, the president of the Federation of Ashok Vihar Resident Welfare Association which includes 45 RWAs, said with reports that 80-85 per cent of the coronavirus positive patients are asymptomatic, people are scared to allow the domestic helps in their homes.

"With such high asymptomatic cases, measuring body temperature before allowing a person to enter a residential society doesn't serve any purpose. Domestic helps work in several houses and there is a big risk of them contracting the virus and spreading it," he said, adding they live in crowded places where it is hard to contain the virus.

URJA's South Delhi coordinator Amit Aggarwal said the RWAs are undecided on allowing domestic helps to resume work.

"Some people do not want the workers to enter the residential society, fearing they may spread the infection. Others are asking how can the RWAs stop someone from coming to their house? This issue is causing leading to friction among people," he said.

Ideally, the government should have suggested measures that need to be followed while allowing domestic helps to work, Aggarwal said, adding, "The government did not discuss this with us. They should have given us clear directions."



The South Delhi chapter of URJA has around 200 RWAs registered under it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The last rites of late Naik Shankar Singh Mehra were performed here in Nali village of Gangolihat on Sunday. He was killed in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the Line of Control in Rampur Sector of Kashmir's Baramulla district on Friday.

Wrapped in tri-colour, the fallen soldier's body was brought to his native place on Sunday by the Indian Army personnel. Army officials, state government representatives and local residents were seen consoling the family members.

Father of the slain soldier, who has himself served in the Army, said that he is proud of his son who lost his life while serving the nation.

"I had spoken to my son on May 1 and he informed that there was a ceasefire violation by Pakistan. Later in the evening, we got to know that he was killed," he said.

Uttarakhand Education Minister Arvind Pandey was present during the ceremony.

"I am here to pay tributes to our courageous soldier on behalf of Uttarakhand government. His valour and sacrifice will never be forgotten. I express my condolences to his family and friends," Pandey said.

Naik Mehra was accorded full state honour during his cremation. Scores of villagers joined the family members in paying tribute to the braveheart in his final journey.

(ANI)

Also Read: Coronavirus: Madhya Pradesh reports 2837 cases
George Poikayil By

Express News Service

KASARGOD: A COVID-affected family has accused the Melparamba police of being spiteful and inconsiderate as their daughter-in-law gave birth to a girl in their house at Kalnad.

On Sunday, the wife of COVID patient no. 2 of Kasaragod gave birth at Kalnad in Chemnad panchayat, a hotspot.

Both the wife and the husband recovered from the viral disease and returned home on April 9 and 10 and even completed the post-recovery quarantine period of 14 days.

On Sunday morning, when the woman's labour pain started, the husband called the beat police officer to allow him to take his wife to the hospital. "But the Melparamba inspector snatched the phone from the officer and taunted me, saying you are the same person who infected 23 persons and now you want to roam around again," the man said.

The officer reportedly told the man that he had done the "drama" last week, too. "The officer dared me to take our car out if we can," he said.

FOLLOW CORONAVIRUS LIVE UPDATES HERE

The man's aged father said he was shocked to hear that.

Nine days ago, the woman developed pain and was rushed to Kannur Medical College Hospital in Pariyaram. "But her pain was due to an infection and we returned home after two days," said the father-in-law.

"I saw my daughter-in-law in pain, running to the bathroom. She slipped and fell. It shattered my heart," he said.

He immediately called in his sister who stayed in the same locality. "She rushed in her prayer attire. By then the child was born," he said.

The family said they contacted Narcotics Cell DySP Assainar. "He was very helpful. In 30 minutes, our house was turned to a medical centre. Nurses and health officials arrived, police officers too came. And the ambulance also reached," he said.

DySP Assainar said he was contacted by his co-brother, who is a neighbour of the family. "I immediately contacted the Kasaragod DySP, the additional SI of Melparamba and health officials. They all reached the house. They responded quickly," the officer said.

The husband and father-in-law said that the Melparamba police officers were always helpful and guiding them through the quarantine period. "But what the inspector said and did today is shocking," said the father-in-law on Sunday.

Later, the mother and child were taken to E K Nayanar Memorial Cooperative Hospital in Chengala, which is now the maternity wing of the General Hospital.

Doctors had to stitch up the new mother, and later shifted her and the child to the General Hospital in Kasaragod for observation. "We shifted her there because we did not have space here," said a doctor.

On May 1, 15 children were born in the congested hospital; on May 2, 10 children were born, and by Sunday afternoon, six children were born in the hospital.
We are living in a difficult time. Our country and its communities are deeply polarized; many Americans distrust one another as well as the government and other institutions. The novel coronavirus has deepened our problems in a way none of us imagined.

The number of Americans who have contracted COVID-19 has surpassed a million. Tens of thousands have died, and record numbers have lost their jobs. No wonder, then, people are disheartened, even discouraged. This is a stressful and challenging period, when we and our representative democracy are being tested.

But there are reasons to be hopeful. I think of a speech the Rev. Jesse Jackson gave with the theme of keep hope alive, and thats what we must do. Hope is a precious commodity in human endeavors, including government and politics. We need it now as much as ever.

What gives us hope today? First, the United States remains the worlds preeminent power. We may not stand astride the world as we once did, but we are still a global leader. People in other nations look to us for leadership. Ive experienced this scores of times, in international meetings where delegates looked to see what the U.S. would do.
Indian markets have opened Monday's trade on a negative note and are in deep red. Both benchmark indices -- Sensex and Nifty -- have crashed over 5% in the early morning trade.

DH spoke to three analysts on why markets are tanking. Here are the reasons:

Track how markets are performing today here

Global cues: The global equity markets on Friday traded in red after concerns over the reopening of the US economy. US President Donald Trumps threats to reignite the US-China trade war over coronavirus added fuel to the fire. On Monday as well, far eastern markets opened on a negative note with Nikkei 225 down 2.84%. Weighed by the foreign fund sell-off Indian equities tanked on Monday.

Profit booking: On Thursday, the previous trading session for the Indian markets, there was a high level of short-covering in the domestic equities. It is the buying in of stocks or other securities or commodities that have been sold short, typically to avoid loss when prices move upwards. That caused Sensex to jump by 997.46 points. So, today, there would be a lot of profit booking as well.

Muted earning: The previous quarter -- earnings season for which is still going on -- has been marred with muted and decline in the corporate earnings. In the present quarter, there are hardly any earnings. So that reality seems to have sunk in as well, analysts on street say.

Meanwhile, the numbers suggest that the investors are moving their funds towards more secure government bonds, as yields on 10-years bonds tanked to 6.082% in early morning trade.
On May 3, North Korean soldiers fired gunshots at a South Korean guard post in the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ and the South fired back, according to its military. The DMZ is a buffer area that separates the two countries.

Accidental or intentional?

The gunfire from North Korea hit the wall but did not injure anyone or cause any damage to the guard post or its equipment according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff or JCS. There were several bullets from the North that were fired into the DMZ on May 3 at 7:41 a.m.

After the gunshots were fired, the South Korean military responded by broadcasting a verbal warning and firing twice. The JCS stated that it is a protocol outline in the response manual and on the judgment of the field commander.

According to the South Korean military, they are in the process of identifying situations over the military communication line with the North and they are preventing any gunshot incidents in the future.

Also Read: South Korea's 'Reinfected' COVID-19 Patients May Have Been Results of Faulty Test Kits

On May 3, the U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in his interview with ABC's "This Week" that initial reports indicated the gunfire from the North was accidental. He said that he had seen the report about the gunshot exchange and he had seen internal information about the incident as well.

The initial reports are right, but they believe it was accidental. Although the South Korean military returned the fire, there was no loss of life on either side. The North and the South demolished 11 guard posts along the DMZ, but dozens of guard posts remain since September 2019 under the accord signed by North and South Korea.

Gunshot exchange

This is not the first time that an incident of gunshots fired from both sides happened. Back in 2017, there have been exchanges of fire between North and South Korea when a North Korean soldier defected at the JSA or the Joint Security Area. In 2014, when a North Korean defector organization launched balloons of leaflets criticizing the country's reclusive regime.

U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not release any statement regarding North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who had not been seen in public for weeks before images of him at a fertilizer factory were shown on May 2. During his disappearance, Kim missed an annual event held on April 15 honoring the birthday of his late grandfather and found of North Korea, Kim Il-Sung.

Pompeo added that they do not know why he chose to miss his grandfather's birthday celebration. Kim Jong Un has been out of public eye numerous times and the U.S government has seen the images from May 2 suggesting that Kim is alive and well.

Pompeo added that regardless of any health issues or personal issues, their mission is to convince the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons and to create a better life for the North Korean people.

When asked whether Kim Jong Un was ill during his disappearance, Pompeo stated that he can't say anything about that. He also refused to say whether the U.S had any information about whether Kim tested positive for COVID-19 or if he suffered any heart issue.

This past week, the U.S was monitoring the news that suggested Kim Jong Un was in danger after an alleged botched heart surgery.



Related Article: Kim Jong-un Makes First Public Appearance After Weeks of Evading Public Eye

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Centres decision to charge fares from migrants, which include a surcharge of Rs 50  one a superfast levy of Rs 30 and the additional charge of Rs 20  has attracted, not surprisingly, condemnation across the board.

The Congress on Monday has taken a decision that every Pradesh Congress Committee [PCC] will bear the cost of the rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labourer. This is a very apposite humanitarian gesture and politically clued move.

As we all know, millions of migrant workers had been stuck in their places of work, almost universally without jobs and wages, for close to five weeks: from 25 March to 1 May, when the first trains started rolling to transport them back to their homes. Many are awaiting their turn, but unforeseen circumstances may yet ambush them.

After the lockdown was announced, many migrants managed to make the perilous journey back home usually on foot, but when luck favoured on assorted modes of transport, including buses, trucks and, in one case, on a goods train, which took them farther away from home, following some miscommunication. Most never made it out of their host states and many others were intercepted en route and sheltered in transit camps set up for that very purpose.

Those in the camps got food and shelter, though not always of the kind that would be deemed ideal, while those who couldnt, or didnt, leave have not only had to feed themselves from steadily diminishing funds, but have also had to pay rents or face eviction. Their families deprived of financial support, too, suffered. It was reported on 4 May that some migrant workers from West Bengal, stuck in Noida and Secunderabad were not being able to leave because they owed rents they did not have the wherewithal to pay.

The decision to pay the fares of migrant workers taken by Congress is a big gesture. It was presaged by the Karnataka PCCs decision to give a Rs 1 crore cheque on Sunday to the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) to foot the bill for bus rides within the state for returning migrants. The provocation for this gesture was the Karnatakas decision to charge migrants double the normal fare, one presumes to budget for a two-way passage one of which would not have passengers.

On Saturday, the Karnataka government had countermanded this decision after a barrage of all-round criticism. On Sunday, it announced that all intra-state rides would be free. Though the government claims this decision was announced before the Congress delegation reached the KSRTC office with the cheque, which was refused, the near simultaneity was remarkable. A Karnataka minister described Congress gesture as condemnable, though he did not quite make clear why he thought so.

The Centres decision to charge fares from migrants, which include a surcharge of Rs 50  one a superfast levy of Rs 30 and the additional charge of Rs 20  has attracted, not surprisingly, condemnation across the board. National Conference leader Omar Abdullahs response was particularly apropos. He tweeted on Sunday, "If you are stuck abroad during this COVID crisis this government will fly you back for free but if you are a migrant worker stranded in another state be prepared to cough up the cost of travel (with social distancing cost added). Where did PM CARES go?"

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy echoed Abdullahs sentiments, in a more scathing vein. "How moronic of the Government of India to charge steep rail fares from the half-starved migrant labourers! Indians stranded abroad were brought back free by Air India. If Railways refuse to budge then why not make PM CARES pay instead?" he tweeted.

An Indian Railways official has been quoted in The Times of India (Special trains fare burden on states, oppn slams govt, 4 May 2020) as saying that it was up to the sending states to decide how to pay the fares due and the two state governments involved could work out the modalities.

Like Swamy and Abdullah, a host of Opposition has condemned the decision to charge already indigent people who have already suffered the worst of the rigours of the hastily announced lockdown. On Monday, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi expressed bewilderment in a tweet: "On the one hand, the Railways is charging ticket fare from migrant workers stranded in various states of the country, on the other hand, the Ministry of Railways is donating Rs 151 crore in PM-CARES Fund. Solve this puzzle!" For the record, media reports have pointed out that the railways had, indeed, given this sum to the Prime Ministers Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund).

Click here to read the complete series

Whether or not the Indian Railways did make such a donation is strictly speaking irrelevant in the current situation. It was, surely, incumbent on the Central government to allow the migrant workers free passage, given that many of them, and their families, are on the brink of endemic hunger, if not starvation.

The fact that state governments moved to bring back students from Kota in Rajasthan, to their home states, across the board, with many state governments footing the bill for these trips, while migrant workers languished, has not exactly burnished Indias credentials as a democracy committed to the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens.

As for the matter at hand, there can be little to quibble at over the criticism that money from the PM CARES Fund, or elsewhere, has not been, or is not being used, to finance the fairly trifling cost of ferrying migrant labourers back home. The finances of many states are already parlous, given the additional burdens, they are facing, combined with precipitate losses of revenue.

Imposing costs upon them, including the onus of bilateral negotiations to work out cost-sharing formulae, is unfair on them and the migrants, who might find themselves stuck while negotiations proceed between sending and receiving states. It is also unclear at the moment, notwithstanding the Congress decision, who will pay the fare at the time of entrainment. If this is not a fit case for citizens assistance and relief in emergency situations it is truly difficult to imagine what would fit the bill.
Ireland Baldwin has been all over Instagram while giving her 588,000 followers a glimpse of her quarantine.

And the model has managed to master a useful skill as she misses out on basic luxuries during isolation.

She posted a video Sunday to her Instagram story as she showed off her stylish new hairdo after successfully giving herself a DIY haircut from home.

Hair goals: Ireland Baldwin posted a video Sunday to her Instagram story as she showed off her stylish new hairdo after successfully giving herself a DIY haircut from home

The 24-year-old dazzled with a textured lob, which she wore parted to one side while running her fingers through.

She modeled the look in a video, which was captioned: 'I cut my own hair.'

Ireland followed it up with a selfie as she smiled while holding a bottle of cranberry juice.

She also posted a video to TikTok of herself battling a UTI with the help of her trusty cranberry juice.

DIY chic: The 24-year-old dazzled with a textured lob, which she wore parted to one side while running her fingers through

Duckface vibes: She modeled the look in the video, which was captioned: 'I cut my own hair'

Thirst quenching: Ireland followed it up with a selfie as she smiled while holding a bottle of cranberry juice

Urinary health: She also posted a video to TikTok of herself battling a UTI with the help of her trusty cranberry juice

Trusty sidekick: The native Angeleno bobbed her head to some music, nodding over to herself in a beanie, labeled 'cranberry juice'

UTI battle: She then pointed to herself making a weird face, labeled 'UTI,' before the cranberry juice defeated her and started dancing again

The native Angeleno bobbed her head to some music, nodding over to herself in a beanie, labeled 'cranberry juice.'

She then pointed to herself making a weird face, labeled 'UTI,' before the cranberry juice defeated her and started dancing again.

Ireland has served plenty of content during quarantine, captioning the video: 'I love tik tok. I dont care who knows it.'

She recently debuted an Instagram Live series last month, in which she discusses mental health with special guests.

The Grudge Match actress has also been fostering an adorable pup during isolation, which has made a few appearances on her feed.
Is there an acceptable level of sickness and death tacitly underlying Government policy in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic? In Northern Ireland, the expression "an acceptable level" has actually been used officially within living memory.

In December 1971, Reginald Maudling, then Home Secretary, publicly stated that the situation in Northern Ireland at that time amounted to "an acceptable level of violence". As the mayhem continued, unionist politicians, in particular, asserted that this term was describing the security policy of British governments prepared to tolerate paramilitary outrage, so long as it remained within manageable limits.

Maudling's comment was made during, arguably, the worst period of the Troubles. By the end of 1972, when he left office, over 500 lay dead here. So far, Covid-19 has not equalled that. And let's hope it never does.

However, Maudling's remark perhaps let slip that lurking within Government policy huddles, whether Sage or Cobra, or the Cabinet itself, there was then - and may be now - a wispy administrative culture of an acceptable national level of anything, from austerity to viral massacre, as long as it was deemed within manageable limits.

If so, this concept did not begin with the Troubles in Northern Ireland. For governments, an acceptable level of deaths may be as old as governments themselves.

This should not surprise. Within the military, which is an arm of government, there exists the concept of acceptable loss, meaning death and injury.

Napoleon once said, "You cannot stop me, I spend 30,000 men a month." For him, that was acceptable in the pursuit of victory, remembering that he was in the end only narrowly beaten at Waterloo by Wellington, a Dubliner, who almost certainly had his own acceptable level of loss.

However, in the 19th century, it is largely unnoticed that the majority of deaths in campaigns were not from flying metal, but from disease.

That extraordinary statistic, quite remarkable to us, made imperceptible impact at the time in any capital of Europe.

One reason was that the ravages of disease were accepted as part of normal life then, military and civilian.

Belfast has its own temple to historic disease disaster. Friars Bush graveyard in Stranmillis, regarded as Belfast's oldest Christian graveyard, contains the mass graves of hundreds who died in the cholera epidemic of the 1830s. It is a mound known as Plaguey Hill.

Rudimentary surgery, incomplete knowledge of how disease spread and too few treatments engendered a fatalistic outlook.

How many are in the mound is guesswork, because statistics, as we see them night after night on TV relating to the present pandemic, had barely been invented in 1815.

Of course, there had always been statistics. The Doomsday Book of 1086 is a rudimentary statistical survey of much of England and parts of Wales to tell William the Conquerer how much money he had to play with and, for the next seven centuries or so, that's how governments used statistics.

That brings us to Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp. Florence gained the nickname Lady with the Lamp during her work at Scutari during the Crimean War.

The Times reported that, at night, she would walk among the beds, checking the wounded men holding a light in her hand. Her work in nursing is the stuff of legend. That lamp did not illuminate her work as a statistician.

Much of Nightingale's published work, which is considerable, was concerned with spreading medical knowledge, with the idea of making it understood by ordinary people.

When you watch the daily Government coronavirus briefings, newscasts and print reports, you will bombarded with infographics.

Raise a hat to Nightingale, uncelebrated pioneer in data visualisation using infographics, the technique of using graphical presentations of statistical data.

Infographics make complex information easy to digest. They can provide a quick overview of a topic, explain a complex process, summarise a long report, compare and contrast multiple options and display survey data (the Doomsday Book could really have used them). That's what those charts, graphs, histograms and, yes, cartoons are all about.

The success of lockdown depends on those infographics working. In their modern iteration, we have Scotsman William Playfair to thank and Nightingale may have known of his work.

Playfair worked with James Watt, the steam power manufacturer, by making technical drawings of his engines. He realised that his illustration skills could make dry data and statistics in any field come alive. For example, he invented the circular pie chart.

Nightingale was a pioneer in infographics, but not the only one. By the middle of the 19th century, when Nightingale was in Crimea, infographics were used against epidemics.

When cholera ravaged London in 1854, physician John Snow mapped out where it was happening. He noticed a large cluster around a particular water pump.

The authorities closed the pump, the epidemic subsided and Snow's map helped advance the critical notion that diseases could be caused by contact with an unknown contagion - bacteria. Note that all maps are infographics.

Florence Nightingale was intrigued by numbers and, therefore, data. Data told her that too many were dying both on and off the battlefield and prompted her to do something about it.

She must also, therefore, have been wittingly, or unwittingly, familiar with the concept of acceptable levels - and what she was learning through statistics and data was unacceptable.

The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has confirmed that mass testing and contract tracing is the strategy once more, a strategy the Government abandoned on March 12, when it decided, albeit for a few days only, to let the virus spread through society.

Statistics quickly told him that depending upon "herd immunity" could lead to an unacceptable level of deaths. Infographics would soon have made that very plain to the rest of us.

Herd immunity is a euphemism. It is really the outcome of herd culling and older people, like me, are the ones most likely to be culled.

Infographics helped tell me that. Thank you, William Playfair and Florence Nightingale.

A level of pandemic deaths is unavoidable. Above that unavoidable level should be unacceptable.

But what is the unavoidable level?

Don Anderson is a writer and broadcaster
It has been announced that a grain feed program is set to be implemented in New England this week.

The idea, which was spawned close to a month ago, will be coming to fruition this week.

Bill Ellis, president of the Western New England Harness Horsemens Association, called his board of directors when the pandemic started and said that the Standardbreds in New England would have to be helped during the COVID-19 dilemma. The directors of the WNEHHA backed the recommendation and they discussed the logistics of how they would like to see the task accomplished.

The plans of Scarborough Downs in Maine and Plainridge Racecourse in Massachusetts opening the first week of April were scrapped due to the quarantine, and the members of the harness racing community were getting nervous since many hadnt raced since the end of 2019.

Alice Tisbert, managing director of Harness Horsemens Association of New England, and Mike Cushing, president of the Maine Harness Horsemens Association, were called by Ellis to let them know that the WNEHHA would like to work in conjunction with them to help the members of their respective associations. It was determined that a grain feed program would be best and Cushing felt that Poulin Grain would be a good partner in this venture. Ellis contacted Mike Tetrault, senior vice president/general manager and discussed how this grain feed program could be established.

Assembling a list of all those in need was then in order. In Massachusetts, Tisbert worked to gather the information of the HHANE members and she was assisted by her board of directors. In Maine, Cushing and his board of directors called upon Deb Patterson, the office administrator for the MHHA, to work on their list.

Many hours were spent garnering those people who were eligible, and there was much telephone time between the three horsepeoples groups and Poulin Grain, which led to the finishing touches being put on the grain feed program.

The week of May 4 will see the dispersing, via mail, of feed certificates to the trainers of the 750 horses who were eligible. Each horse will receive an $80 certificate to be used at one of the 126 Poulin Grain dealers in New England.

This is a bright moment in what has become a very dark hour. Special recognition and thanks should be offered to the following: Poulin Grain: Mike Tetrault and Mark Christman; Western New England Harness Horsemens Association: Bill Ellis, David McDuffee, Ralph Andersen, Stephen LaCasse, David Ingraham and Paul Rounds; Maine Harness Horsemens Association: Deb Patterson, Mike Cushing, David Crochere, Bethany Graffam, Aaron Hall, Rep. Donald Marean, Jim Dunn, Bill Phipps, Ron Cushing and Mike McGee; Harness Horsemens Association of New England: Alice Tisbert, Paul London, Paul McHugh, Frank Antonacci, Joe Therrien, Jim Hardy, Joe Flynn, Paul Silva and Bob Bogigian.

(WNEHHA)
Bengaluru, May 4 : Hours after Congress president Sonia Gandhi said in New Delhi that her party would pay the travel cost of migrant workers to their native places, its Karnataka unit offered to bear the train fare of Kannadigas stranded in other states, an official said here on Monday.

"Our state unit president D.K. Shivakumar has written to Chief Secretary T.M. Vijay Bhaskar that the Congress would pay for the train tickets of Kannadiga migrants stranded in other states, as their welfare is as of equal concern as that of migrants from other states in our state," party spokesman Ravi Gowda told IANS.

Though the BJP government on Sunday started sending migrants in special trains from Bengaluru in coordination with other states, Shivakumar said thousands of Kannadigas were waiting for special trains to return early to Bengaluru and other cities.

"The state government should arrange special trains for return of Kannadigas as they too are stranded in different states over the last 40 days since the lockdown was enforced on March 25 and extended twice on April 15 and May 4 up to May 17. With no jobs, wages and work, they are desperate to come back at the earliest," Shivakumar said.

"The plight of Kannadigas in other states is no different from their counterparts in our state as all of them have been left to fend for themselves, with no support from the state governments. Most are in the informal or unorganised sectors as migrant workers, struggling to make a living," Shivakumar said.

As there was no response from the state government to the pleas of Kannadigas, Gowda said many of them called up Congress leaders, including Shivakumar, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and former Industry Minister R.V. Deshpande, seeking intervention.

Shivakumar personally handed the letter to Bhaskar for making arrangements to get Kannadigas back home. "Most Kannadigas have been living away from families and are desperate to return to their villages or towns," said Shivakumar in the letter.

The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) also donated Rs 1 crore on Sunday to the state-run transport corporation (KSRT) for the cost of providing free bus ride to thousands of local migrants to their native place across the state.
Azad Nagar in Indore, Ramganj Bazar in Jaipur, Dharavi in Mumbai and Master Plan Road in Agra may be divided by geography, but they have one thing in common. All four neighbourhoods are Covid-19 containment zones, cut off from the rest of their cities, all residents confined indoors and no outsider allowed in.

Life wouldnt have been easy for the residents of these neighbourhoods, which have been under whats called a hard lockdown -- a state in which a particular area is completely sealed and residents have no freedom of movement -- after a significant number of cases surfaced within their municipal limits.

Everyday essentials are home-delivered so that residents dont need to step out and the heavily barricaded localities are sanitised everyday. They have been isolated in the run-up to and after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a three-week nationwide lockdown that took effect on March 25, and has since been extended twice, until May 17.

It isnt easy either for government officials deputed to these areas, classified as highly contagious, who have to spend most of the day visiting homes to trace the contact history of locals,ensure no one is breaching the quarantine, and gathering information about the health of residents that goes into the framing of national policies to combat Covid-19. There have been instances of abuse of officials, some of whom have even been spat at.

Mamta Patel, 42, doesnt let that deter her. A mother of two, Patel is a revenue department official tasked with ensuring compliance with lockdown restrictions in Indores Azad Nagar, from where the most number of Covid cases in the Madhya Pradesh city have been reported.

Every day, Patel confronts people who exhibit a mixture of fear and apprehension, pain and distrust. She takes each case as a challenge as she goes about doing her duty in what she calls these tragic times.

Recently a woman and her three-year-old child tested positive. The woman, who has a three-month-old baby, wanted a family member to come with her to hospital. It took us lot of time and energy to convince her that it will not be possible, Patel said.

There have been instances of women not willing to go to hospital leaving their children behind. Some who tested positive wanted to remain in home quarantine, which is not possible, she said.

Patel has been on the job since the first case was reported on March 23 from the neighbourhood of 100,000 people, and hasnt taken a single days leave. She is tasked with surveying the area, screening residents, collecting samples, hospitalising positive cases, and following up with recovered patients.

In the beginning, people were hostile. Gradually we won the faith of the people and they are now cooperating, she said.

Patels husband, too, is on Covide-19-related duties in Indore. I am at the locality at 9am every day after finishing work at my house as the maid is not coming in because of Covid, Patel said. My children -- one in Class 12 and the other in Class 8 -- often ask me how long this will go on. I assure them that life will be normal soon, she said.

A few hundred kilometers away in Mumbais Dharavi, Asias biggest slum, Nazish Shaikh, 33, has been attending to Covid-19 patients for over a month with no leave. The health care worker is among 2,500 people deployed in the containment zone. All of them work wearing protective suits in Mumbais sweltering weather.

Dharavi, a densely-populated slum of 850,000 people, has already recorded 496 Covid-19 cases with 18 deaths. Screening slum dwellers dressed in full personal protective equipment (PPE) kit isnt easy. People cant see the faces of health care workers attending to them; it creates trust issues and impedes communication.

With the rising temperatures, walking around in PPE leads to dehydration. And we cant even drink water in the suit. The N95 masks make it tougher to breathe, Shaikh said.

She works for up to 10 hours daily despite keeping a fast for Ramzan, and has to be extra careful to make sure she doesnt catch the infection herself because she has to take care of two elderly parents at home.

My parents wait outside the home for me. I dont even look at them and go directly into the bathroom. Then I take a bath in warm water with Dettol and soak my clothes in detergent in a separate bucket. Only after this do I allow them to come inside. I cant take risks with their health, said Shaikh, who has been on duty since March 19.

Equally tough is the job of Chaitali Choudhary, 38, a mother of two, who has to convince people suspected of being infected by the Sars-Cov-2 virus to go into and remain in home quarantine.

As many remain asymptomatic, they dont agree to go for institutional quarantine. Some behave as if they will be put in jail, she said.

Because she interacts with Covid-19 patients daily, she keeps a safe distance from her two children at home. My parents who live in Nagpur are very worried about us as my husband is also a doctor and deployed to take care of Covid patients, she said.

In Agras Master Plan road, RK Dixit, 58, the district malaria officer, has the job of sanitising the locality every day as the head of a 60-member team. We have been working since mid-March, Dixit said. Sanitiser is sprayed in target areas and at the quarantine centres.

His team hasnt been spared the frustration of residents, some of whom even spat on them. There were a few such incidents initially but now locals cooperate, he said.

Dixit said he has never in his career as a health officer seen such fear among people as that inspired by the coronavirus disease. At the fag end of my career, I have learnt a lot, said Dixit, who will retire in two years

Ajitabh Sharma, the nodal officer for Ramganj Bazar road in Jaipur, has experienced the pain of people who have been without work and living with the fear of Covid-19 for almost two months . There is no much pain and anguish, which words cannot explain..More than corona, fear is killing people. This has been the toughest job of my career, he said.

Suresh Kumar, 32, who responsible for distribution of food in the slums in Mumbai, compares the situation to a science fiction movie that is all too real. The fear on the faces of people is so real, he said.
RACINE  Remote and virtual learning experiences during the shutdown of school buildings vary greatly from district to district. According to some Racine Unified parents, the same is true within the district.

While some RUSD parents say theyve had regular communication with teachers and have received enough work to keep their kids engaged, others say there was virtual radio silence for weeks, and they worry their children are falling behind those in other districts.

In a Facebook post, Lucia Johnson said that so far her children have had a good remote learning experience.

Johnson has two sixth-grade students at Starbuck Middle School and a senior at Case High School.

I feel their teachers have been great, she said.

She receives weekly emails and calls regarding her sixth-graders, and they are given detailed assignments via Google Classroom, an online teaching and learning platform.

The for-credit core class packets for high school students that Unified began distributing this week were not applicable to the classes that Johnsons senior daughter is taking, but shes been in contact with her teachers through Google Classroom and they have sent her assignments to complete.

Some students have had markedly different experiences with remote learning, even within the same school.

Rebecca Terry has two daughters who attend Fratt Elementary School. Terrys older daughter, a fifth-grader, is only receiving enough work to keep her occupied for 20 to 30 minutes per day, and most of the work has been in one subject, math. Terry would like her to receive more assignments, especially in other subjects like geography or writing.

On the other hand, her daughter in first grade participates in classroom-wide live video meetings, reads online stories, receives interactive math lessons from her teacher and receives a list of sight words to memorize each week. Her teacher also asks the students a couple of questions to answer via Google Classroom each day.

Janelle Smith, whose daughter is a freshman at Horlick High School, said her daughter received no contact from the district until the week of April 6 when a few teachers reached out, telling her they hoped she was staying safe and that she would be getting some work to complete soon.

Racine Unifieds last day of in-person classes was March 13.

Smith received a phone call April 20, telling her that she could pick up for-credit packets for her high school student at the districts free meal distribution sites.

Smith said she and her husband are both essential-business employees who work during the day, when the meal sites are open.

Its too far for her to walk, so shes not going and we really dont need the meal site anyway, Smith said.

After emailing several days in a row to find another way to get her hands on a packet, Smith was sent a link to the Unified site where she could download the schoolwork for her daughter. The Smiths do not have a printer at home, so with her bosss permission, she printed out five subjects at work with a total of 222 pages.

Smith said since her daughter began working on the packet she has had no interaction with any teachers except her German teacher. German is not one of the subjects in the packet.

Im kind of disappointed, Smith said. I like that they got them some work to do, theyre not sitting home watching TV for 24 hours a day. But if theyre going to be doing the school work, then we need the school teachers to teach them the schoolwork.

Smith said her daughter is a straight-A student, and believes shes mostly capable of teaching herself, mostly by Googling things she doesnt know. However, Smith said, she wondered what was happening with students who need more help, or who dont have a place to print out the packets. She also wondered why her daughters teachers were not reaching out to ask if she needed help.

All Unified teachers are supposed to be checking in with their students once a week, Superintendent Eric Gallien said.

Cate Sabol has a fourth-grade daughter and a sixth-grade son who attend Gifford K-8. She was frustrated that Unified did not get schoolwork out to the students sooner.

The first three weeks were very stressful as we were trying to create curriculum from thin air with no direction from the district, Sabol said.

Her family had no contact with the district regarding schoolwork until April 6. Now her daughters fourth-grade teacher and her specialist for her Individualized Education Program post assignments for her on Google Classroom, and her sons sixth-grade team sends emails with assignments, links and helpful videos.

Even with the assignments from teachers, Sabol said, helping her children complete their schoolwork from home has been tough.

My daughter is dyslexic, my son autistic and (they are) in two different grades, Sabol said. Trying to keep them both focused and supported, and work full time has become a non-starter.

Sabol, who is working from home, and her husband, who is disabled, have been coping by trying to keep learning fun and low-stress.

I really hope the district is doing what they say they are and are proactively strategizing for fall so all our children in the community have the resources they need, Sabol said.

In her eyes, those resources should include a clear plan for virtually supporting IEPs for students with disabilities and other learning difficulties.

District plans for the future

The district is in the process of procuring 500 internet hot spots to supply to students who have no access, or unreliable access, to internet at home. The cost of these hot spots for a year, with 3 gigabytes of data each, is $250,000. The district also is planning to possibly go one to one, meaning to provide one device for each student to use to complete schoolwork.

Unified is already planning to distribute Chromebooks to students who need them over the summer for summer school and credit recovery. The district has 11,000 Chromebooks, typically kept in individual classrooms for student use at school. It has more than 17,000 students.

Unified also announced last week that it is dedicated to training all of its teachers and educational assistants in Google Classroom. Gallien said this will help the district transition to blended learning, which includes a mix of virtual and face to face instruction. This approach would help the district in the future if schools must continue to stay closed or close again for an extended period.

The district estimates that 20 to 30% of students do not have at-home internet access; in addition, many students do not have a personal device to use to complete schoolwork.

Nearby districts

Kenosha Unified began non-graded virtual learning on March 30 and plans to continue through June 10.

Kenosha Unified parents were asked to complete a survey by April 3, informing the district if they needed help with devices or internet access to participate in virtual learning.

Kenosha Unified has more students than Racine at 20,759, but a lower poverty rate, with 57% of its students economically disadvantaged. Racine Unified has 17,529 students and 67% are economically disadvantaged.

According to a letter from Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Keith P. Posley sent to families on April 26: The MPS website offers online learning to help reinforce academic skills, minimize instructional loss, and provide routine to help students stay engaged and connected during the school closure.

MPS began distributing Chromebooks to high school students in need of devices to participate in online learning on April 16.

MPS is the largest district in the state, with 74,683 students, and about 84% of them are economically disadvantaged.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Carol Park was aged 12 and worked as a cashier in a bullet-proof booth at her mothers petrol station in Compton when the Los Angeles riots erupted.

After her father died and her mother decided to sell a number of his franchises, she decided to hold onto the one in the historic black neighbourhood, south of the city centre. It survived, but only narrowly.

The racism and the events leading up to the riots were multi-faceted, says Park, now aged 40. The riots were Americas first multi-ethnic riots. Prior to this we were always looking at things from a black-white paradigm.

While the role on the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King in triggering the riots is well known, less widely appreciated was the impact of the shooting dead of a black teenager, Latasha Harlins, by a Korean-American storekeeper on 16 March, 1991, less than two weeks after video was broadcast of the beating of King.

Tensions between the Korean-American and black communities had been worsening for decades, says Park. The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act made it much easier for people from Asia to move to the US, resulting in many cities seeing large demographic shifts.

LA Riots Anniversary Show all 10 1 /10 LA Riots Anniversary LA Riots Anniversary A member of the National Guard stands near burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April of 1992, after a jury acquitted the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, riots broke out throughout South Central Los Angeles, killing 55 people, injuring another 2,000, and causing more than $1 billion in damag Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Smoke Billowing from Burning Buildings During Los Angeles Riot Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary A car burns as looters take to the streets at the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues, April 29, 1992, This intersection is considered the flashpoint of the Los Angeles riots WireImage LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. Mother and child amidst mayhem, businesses burning, bystanders watching raging fires, pedestrian walking in the street drinking from a 40-ounce at intersection of Pico Boulevard and Hayworth Avenue in West Hollywood, the sky black with smoke in daylight on April 30, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Korean grocer Soon Ja Du fatally shot Latasha Harlins after a scuffle an Soon's store. 1992 Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag LA Riots Anniversary Harlins Family LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. A view of homeless person sleeping at bus stop on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, graffiti stating FUCK THE POLICE, also graffiti referencing Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, 15-year-old girl shot in the head by Korean shopkeeper 13 days after videotaped beating of Rodney King, killed for suspected shoplifting orange juice though the girl had money in her hand to pay. The jury recommended maximum sentence of 16 years for manslaughter, but the judge instead sentenced the shopkeeper to 5 years probation. When the riot broke out, Korean businesses were targeted early to be looted and burned in response. Graffiti remaining at bus stop after the Rodney King Riots the night of May 2 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Los Angeles police officer Laurence Powell (L), one of the four defendants in the Rodney King case, waits for the start of his hearing 15 May 1992 in Los Angeles, CA. Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled in favor of a second trial for Powell on brutality charges. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey Koon grins during a press conference 04 August, 1993 following his sentencing to a two and a half year prison term. Koon and former police officer Laurence Powell were found guilty of violating Rodney King's civil rights. Powell also was sentenced to two and a half years. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King arives at EsoWon bookstore to sign copies of his new book, "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption," on April 30, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. King is best known as the victim of a brutal police beating that took place in Los Angeles. Itas been 20 years since the Rodney King verdict that sparked infamous L.A. Riots. Getty Images

In Los Angeles, as Park details in her 2017 book Memoir of a Cashier: Korean Americans, Racism, and Riots, Korean-Americans had faced discrimination from African Americans because they were seen as a buffer between blacks and the hegemonic white community.

She says the racism that prevented African-Americans rising in the corporate sector also stopped Korean-Americans. Instead, pressured to pursue the American dream, many opened businesses as an alternative, including in a number of traditionally black neighbourhoods. They come in and they set up their shops and there are cultural differences and theres miscommunication, she says.

She adds: They were being basically blamed. And they took the brunt of this blame. And when the LA riots broke out, this was the frustration that was vented towards the Korean community, whose businesses were targeted and torched and burnt down and damaged.

In the violence that ensured after the April 29 court ruling, says Park, 2,300 businesses owned by Korean-Americans were damaged or destroyed. Of the estimated $1bn of damage perpetrated, 40 per cent was inflicted on Korean-Americans, who armed themselves and formed self-help groups as the police failed for days to stop the killing and looting.

Edward Chang, professor of ethnic studies and founding director of the Young Oak Kim Centre for Korean American studies at the University of California, Riverside, says Korean-Americans suffered disproportionately high economic losses.

 1992 LA riots: Please, nothing has changed' says Henry Keith Watson in 2012

Park, herself a researcher at the University of California, says among her most powerful memories of the period was phoning a friend one night who lived near their petrol station to see if it was still standing.

She was like, Well, let me look out the window.And I could see her being very cautious because you know, you dont want to get hit by a random bullet or draw attention to yourself. And she looked out the window and she said Its still there, but it looks like something across the street is burning.

Park says the relationship with African-Americans has altered as the demographics of Compton and other neighbourhoods have shifted and become more Latino. Another reason is that Korean Americans have become more politically active.

Prior to the LA riots, Korean-Americans were not as visible. They were not as politically active. He did not have a voice. But after the riots, we realised we must have that voice. And that meant getting involved with politics, coalition building, she says.

Today if you look at the Korean-American community, we are visible. We are in politics. David Ryu is the fist person of Korean descent on the LA city council.

Other things, she say, remain unaltered.

When we come to talk about racial strife, has that changed? I would say, in general, no, we have not learned the lessons of racism. Structural racism, institutionalised racism, and all these various things within our communities, she says.

If you look at our current climate, especially given the pandemic, and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, that gives us all the answers we need. We are just going back to the days of yellow peril, when we viewed Asian-Americans as a threat. So has racism changed? No. I think its still an issue and we have a long way to go before we can actually fix this.
Fifteen members of the Tablighi Jamaat, including Bangladesh nationals, were produced in a court here, which sent them to 14-day judicial custody, an official said on Monday.

While 12 of them belonged to the neighbouring country, two were from Assam and one from UP's Moradabad.

They were booked for the violation of the Foreigners Act and the Epidemic Diseases Act after they failed to tell the authorities about their stay at a mosque in Shamli's Bhesani Islampur village.

SP Vinit Jaiswal told mediapersosn that police had registered a case against them after they were found residing in a mosque on April 1.

They were sent to quarantine facilities and arrested after the completion of their isolation period on Sunday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China share market closed on Monday, 04 May 2020, for a Golden Week national holiday.

Asian stock markets fell sharply on Monday, 04 May 2020, as risk sentiment turned sour on reigniting tensions between the world's top two economies after U. S. officials tried to pin blame for the coronavirus pandemic on China.

The tensions between world's top two economies reignited after U. S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he believed that a mistake in China was the cause of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, though he did not present any evidence for the claim.

U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday there was "a significant amount of evidence" that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, doubling down on Washington's pressure on China over the virus' origin as U.

S. deaths and economic damage mount. The accusation came after Donald Trump's threat late last week of retaliatory measures against China as punishment for the outbreak, once again sparking tariff fears that rattled markets through much of the last two years.

The US top spy agency said on Thursday that it had determined that the virus was not manmade but was still investigating whether it was caused by an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan. The separate reports stated that U. S. intelligence documents accused China of concealing the severity of the coronavirus outbreak to hoard medical supplies.

Crude oil prices fell in the afternoon of Asian trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures down 1.2% to $26.13 per barrel. U. S. crude futures also dropped 5.6% to $18.68 per barrel.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Please register or log in to keep reading. No credit card required!

Stay logged in to skip the surveys.
T here have now been over 1.8 million claims for Universal Credit amid the coronavirus outbreak, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has confirmed.

Updating MPs on her departments efforts, Ms Coffey said: Since 16 March to the end of April we have received over 1.8 million claims to Universal Credit, over 250,000 claims for Jobseekers Allowance and over 20,000 claims for Employment Support Allowance.

Overall, this is six times the volume that we would typically experience and in one week we had a tenfold increase.

The rate for UC claims appears to have stabilised at about 20-25,000 per day, which is double that of a standard week pre-Covid-19.

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

Ms Coffey added: Weve also issued almost 700,000 advances to claimants who felt that they could not wait for their routine payment and the vast majority of these claimants received money within 72 hours.

Any claim made under the special rules for terminal illness continues to be fast-tracked, taking an average of six days to process these claim."

The Work and Pensions Secretary also said a new website has been set up to advertise job vacancies.

On the criteria for a claimant to be looking for work being paused for three months, Ms Coffey said: We do however want claimants to continue to look for work wherever they are able to do so.

She added: Weve created a new website to guide people, it is called jobhelp.dwp.gov.uk and we have 58,200 vacancies advertised.

Ms Coffey also said that average wait times for calls to DWP helplines are now below five minutes.

Universal credit changes explained

On Universal Credit, she added: We will continue to look at issues that arise, like we are assuring that maternity pay is based on the standard pay not furlough pay levels and see what we can do quickly and straightforwardly to fix either unintended consequences or unforeseen issues.

But it is not my intention to change the fundamental principles or application of Universal Credit.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Reynolds challenged the Government to widen the social security net to support as many people as possible during the coronavirus pandemic.

He said Universal Credit has been significantly increased but people on legacy benefits  such as Jobseekers Allowance and Employment Support Allowance  have not seen a corresponding increase.

Loading....

Mr Reynolds told the Commons: Over 100 charities have pointed out that this discriminates against disabled people in particular. When will these benefits be uprated?

He highlighted calls to temporarily suspend the benefit cap and said the two-child limit should be lifted, stating: People three years ago could not have been expected to make family choices based on the likelihood of a global pandemic shutting down our economy.

The Government has suspended sanctions during the crisis but the two-child limit is effectively an 18-year sanction on the third and fourth child in a family and surely it should go too.

Mr Reynolds also said the five-week wait for the first payment of Universal Credit should not exist at all and raised concerns over the impact of UC on maternity allowance, warning it could result in a low-paid pregnant woman being as much as 4,000 a year worse off.

Europe takes it's first steps out of Coronavirus lockdown 1 /25 Europe takes it's first steps out of Coronavirus lockdown People queue at a hardware store during a partial reopening after the Austrian government eased lockdown restrictions Reuters A worker checks the temperature of a customer at the entrance of a supermarket in Itay Reuters Customers hold flowers in front of a DIY store in Graz, Austria, after it re-opened on April 14, 2020, following a "shutdown" in a measure to limit the spread of the new coronavirus APA/AFP via Getty Images People wearing protective face masks and gloves walk in the streets as the Italian government allows the reopening of some shops while a nationwide lockdown continues following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Venice, Italy, Reuters People queue to enter a hardware store during a partial reopening after the Austrian government eased restrictions following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Eisenstadt, Austria Reuters Camilla Cocchi wears a face mask and gloves as she sorts out clothing in her children's clothes shop after it was allowed to reopen following lockdown measures to contain the spread of Covid-19, in Rome AP A man wearing a face mask shops in a hardware store during a partial reopening after the Austrian government eased restrictions following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Eisenstadt, Austria Reuters "Respect the 2 meters distance" banner is seen at a fish stand as the Italian government allows the reopening of some shops while a nationwide lockdown continues following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Venice, Italy, Reuters Customers wearing face masks push shopping carts in front of a DIY store in Vienna, Austria, after it re-opened on April 14, 2020, following a "shutdown" in a measure to limit the spread of the new coronavirus APA/AFP via Getty Images A worker checks the temperature of a customer at the entrance of a supermarket, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Turin, Italy Reuters Customers line up in front of a DIY store in Graz, Austria APA/AFP via Getty Images Gianfranco Mandas wears a face mask as he sorts out clothing in his children's clothes shop after it was allowed to opens following restriction measures to contain the spread of Covid-19, in Rome AP Customers wearing face masks push shopping carts in front of a DIY store in Vienna, Austria, after it re-opened on April 14, 2020, following a "shutdown" in a measure to limit the spread of the new coronavirus APA/AFP via Getty Images Customers queue at the Trastevere market, as new restrictions for open-air markets are implemented to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Rome, Italy, Reuters Customers wearing face masks push shopping carts in front of a DIY store in Vienna, Austria, after it re-opened on April 14, 2020, following a "shutdown" in a measure to limit the spread of the new coronavirus APA/AFP via Getty Images A man wears a protective face mask and gloves at the newsstand as the Italian government allows the reopening of some shops while a nationwide lockdown continues following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Venice, Italy Reuters People wearing face masks work in a hardware store during a partial reopening after the Austrian government eased restrictions following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Eisenstadt, Austria Reuters Customers queue at the Trastevere market, as new restrictions for open-air markets are implemented to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Rome, Italy Reuters A general view of the parking area of a hardware store during the partial reopening of shops after the Austrian government loosens its lockdown restrictions during the global coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Vienna Reuters

Replying to Labours questions, Ms Coffey said it is far more straightforward and quick to change Universal Credit and working tax credits in response to Covid-19 compared to legacy benefits.

She told MPs: "Our older systems, the legacy benefit systems itd take, I understand, quite some time  and Im talking about several months to get this to change in the process that we have.

"Thats indicative, if I can give an analogy, of when we make changes to benefits, that tends to happen about four or five months before the actual changes come through because that is how long it takes our computer systems to work."

On the benefit cap, Ms Coffey repeated she does not intend to change the fundamental principles or application of the scheme before adding: I am conscious that for the benefit cap we are still talking outside London about an income of potentially 20,000 over the year being given to benefits claimants or 23,000 in London  Im conscious that that could be something like a 25,000 to 30,000 take-home salary effectively after youve taken into account taxation and similar.

So I do think its not necessary to be changing the benefit cap.

On the five-week wait, Ms Coffey said: Theres no intention to change that.
A 3D printing firm in Belfast specialising in medical devices has sent tens of thousands of swabs for testing for coronavirus to the US.

Axial3D, which employs 25 people, has pivoted away from its usual work of providing 3D models for surgeons into making items for the fight against Covid-19. That has involved making parts for test kits, masks, face shields and ventilators.

And as well as sending swabs for nasal testing for the virus to the US, it's distributed 30,000 face shields made though its 3D printing technology.

To help with distribution it joined forces with Locate a Locum, which works with pharmacies, and taxi service FonaCab.

Axial3D chief technology officer Niall Haslam said: "Our core expertise is in medical visualisation, using two-dimensional images in the making of 3D printed objects and anatomical models for surgeons."

Most of the company's staff are from a biomedical engineering or medical devices background, he said.

"We're quite a small company and we're really quite dynamic, quick and agile. We turn out one-off, patient-bespoke models for surgeons. We're used to working under tight timelines and making sure things are of high quality so it's been really interesting going through making things to help against Covid-19."

The face shields have been used around the UK.

"We work with the NHS across the UK, with our face shields going out as far as Hampshire. Other bits have been used locally, then we've also sent parts including tens of thousands of nasal swabs all over the US, though mostly the East Coast," added Mr Haslam.

He said companies in the biosciences sector had responded well to the crisis. "It's shown that we are very dynamic here. A number of companies really have risen to the challenge and shown great agility. A strong connection to the US has helped, and it's also been really quite collaborative, which is encouraging."

But he said the company was looking forward to returning to its core work.

"Our anatomical models can help speed up operations. A lot of elective surgeries have been cancelled due to Covid-19 so you'll see real pent-up demand afterwards so we'll be able to help increase the pace of catching-up," he said.
It was announced by Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmygal during an extraordinary session of the government

Prime Minister of Ukraine Reuters

Ukraines Cabinet of Ministers has extended the lockdown in Ukraine until May 22. However, some easing is expected. Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmygal announced this during an extraordinary session of the government. The broadcast was provided by 112 Ukraine TV channel.

"The lockdown will be extended until May 22. We will continue looking at how the situation with the pandemic will develop worldwide and how the things with fluctuation of the morbidity curve will go on," Shmygal said.

At the same time, there may be some easing for businesses if sanitary measures are taken.

So, that is what should be expected to start from May 11: the opening of parks, squares, recreation areas, beauty salons, summer venues of food establishments, libraries, museums.

As we reported earlier, on May 3, on Independence Square in Kyiv, representatives of small businesses gathered for a protest rally, demanding permission to work during the quarantine period.

The action was attended by entrepreneurs from six regions of Ukraine: Vinnytsia, Zakarpattia, Lviv, Kharkiv, Khmelnytsky, and Chernihiv regions.
Prosecutors who allege Bradley Edwards is the Claremont serial killer will wrap up their case this week, ending with the playing of his 6 hour police interview from the day of his arrest.

As the trial enters its seventh month, lead prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo said the video would show the 51-year-old Telstra technician was a blatant liar.

Bradley Edwards.

It will be the first time the Supreme Court trial will hear Mr Edwards speak, with the accused only ever uttering a few words while in the dock to confirm his name, or enter a plea.

During the course of the interview the accused provided an overview of his life including his family life, friendships, sexual relationships and employment history, Ms Barbagallo said.
By Akbar Mammadov

The Prosecutor Generals Office in Azerbaijan has carried out operations in three districts to reveal irregularities related to the violation of the special quarantine regime in the country as well as irregularities during the distribution of food aid.

In a statement published in its official website on May 4, the Prosecutor General's Office reported that it has revealed irregularities by six administrative territorial representations in Sabirabad, Agjabadi and Tartar districts after receiving appeals from the district executive authorities.

The violations were related to embezzlements of aid sent to low-income families as well as issuing fake permits to go outside for certain individuals.

The Prosecutor Generals Office has revealed that Mehman Jafarov, a representative of the Sabirabad District Executive Power in Ulacali village administrative territory, and Igbal Aliyev, a representative of the district in Guruzma village administrative territory, made violations while distributing food aid sent by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and also illegally issued certificates to those who wanted to move freely, violating the rules of the quarantine regime.

Furthermore, it has been revealed that Imran Hasanov, the representative of the head of the Executive Power of Agjabadi region in Pariogullar village, Mazahir Amirahov, the representative of Aran village and his deputy Allahverdi Huseynov, knowingly added false information in the references and created conditions for different persons to leave the district area, violating the rules of special quarantine regime, by committing the fraud by abuse of position.

Shahid Mammadov, the representative of the Head of the Executive Power of Tartar region in Mamirli village, committed a similar violation.

All six officials have been dismissed and criminal proceedings have been launched in the Sabirabad, Agjabadi and Tartar district prosecutor's offices under Article 313 (fraud by abuse of position) of the Criminal Code.

In the meantime, the Prosecutor General's Office urged citizens to report similar illegal situations via "Call Center" number "961".

Azerbaijan first introduced special quarantine regime on March 24 and since April 5, residents are required to obtain SMS permits to leave their homes.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan appointed Kamran Aliyev as a new prosecutor general was appointed in Azerbaijan on May 1 after Zakir Garalovs term for service expired. President Ilham Aliyev held a video conference with the newly-elected prosecutor general on the same day, urging fight against corruption, especially those in the districts amid the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

Earlier, on April 30, head of Executive Authorities of Bilasuvar District Mahir Guliyev was arrested for four months on embezzlement, abuse of power and bribery charges, consequently. Mahir Guliyev was dismissed from the post of head of the Bilasuvar district Executive Power upon presidential decree on the same day.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
A policeman looks over the scene where police in Kansas say a shootout has left both a police officer and a hit-and-run suspect dead, in Overland Park, Kan., on May 3, 2020. (Tammy Ljungblad/The Kansas City Star via AP)

Kansas Police Officer Killed in Shootout With Hit-And-Run Suspect

An off-duty police officer in Kansas who died after exchanging gunfire with a suspect in a hit-and-run crash on his way to work on April 3 has died, officials confirmed.

A statement from the Overland Park Police Department identified the officer as Mike Mosher, a 14-year decorated veteran of the department. The president of the Overland Park Fraternal Order of Police, he was also Overland Parks Officer of the Year in 2019.

Mosher, 37, is survived by his wife and daughter.

Its a difficult, difficult thing to know that one of our officers is no longer with us, Overland Park Police Chief Frank Donchez said. He was proud to be a police officer. He loved what he did and he was damn good at it.

Overland Park Police Officer Mike Mosher. (Overland Park Police Department via AP)

The shooting occurred near West 123rd and Mackey streets shortly before 6 p.m, officer John Lacy, an Overland Park police spokesman, told The Kansas City Star. Officers responded to a call of shots fired about 5:53 p.m. in the area.

Prior to the shootout, Mosher had radioed to dispatch about a hit-and-run crash he witnessed at West 143rd Street and Antioch Road, and followed the suspect north on Antioch Road before the suspect stopped near West 123rd Street.

Mosher, who had a firearm, approached the vehicle and an altercation occurred with the suspect, who also had a firearm. Gunshots were exchanged and both the officer and the suspect were hit.

The suspect, who hasnt yet been identified, died at the scene, while the critically wounded officer was taken to a hospital, where he died.

Lacy, who was also a personal friend of Mosher, described him as a good officer, a good friend, and a firecracker who did his job all the way up to the end and was a true gentleman.

Police investigate at the scene where police in Kansas say a shootout has left both a police officer and a hit-and-run suspect dead, in Overland Park, Kan., on May 3, 2020. (Tammy Ljungblad/The Kansas City Star via AP)

On May 4, Mayor Carl Gerlach expressed his sympathy for the fallen officer.

His tragic death this evening is a reminder that Mike, and our police officers, who pledge to serve and protect Overland Park, face great dangers and continue to serve with honor and commitment, he said.

The incident is under review by Johnson County investigators.

Mosher is the second Overland Park Police Department officer to be killed in the line of duty. Deanna Rose, after which Deanna Rose Childrens Farmstead was named, was killed during a traffic stop in 1985.
The Delaware Department of Insurance has announced that many consumer-friendly automobile insurer actions are being implemented due to reduced vehicle use throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

As filed with the department, these actions represent millions of dollars being returned to or saved by policyholders throughout the state, according to the announcement.

The department has urged individuals who are experiencing financial hardship due to income changes related to COVID-19 and are unable to pay their premium to contact their insurance company to discuss assistance.

Delawares insurance carriers are required to freeze cancellations and nonrenewal of policies that might have otherwise occurred due to non-payment of premiums throughout the duration of the Delaware state of emergency. This is to assist individuals who have been laid off or fired due to the state of emergency.

Residents may be using personal vehicles to augment income through commercial use as well, such as delivering food or other goods, the press release stated. At the request of Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro, many auto insurers are temporarily allowing this activity. The department has encouraged residents to review their insurance companys COVID-19 policies prior to beginning to provide delivery services.

Source: The Delaware Department of Insurance

Topics Carriers COVID-19 Auto Pricing Trends
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 19:47:26|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Students of the Guiyang No. 16 Middle School have a class in Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 4, 2020. After students in their last year at junior and senior high schools returned to schools on March 16, all the other high school students in Guiyang resumed classes on campus on Monday. (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)
I was woken by the silence. That is when I should have known the world was about to change. Usually, the planes start flying out of London City airport at 6am, but I am so used to them I dont hear them. I mean, I was so used to them I didnt hear them. That morning, 10 March, was before anything had really happened. The government had told us to wash our hands, and some people had stopped shaking each others. Offices, including The Independent, were getting ready for staff to work from home, although we werent sure that would be necessary. And people were travelling less, hence the lack of planes.

Even so, I didnt think any of it applied to me. It being Tuesday, I went to the House of Commons as normal. I travelled by Tube, and thought nothing of it. I did a days work and came home. It was the last time I was there. The next day was Budget day. I expected to watch from the press gallery as Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn went through the motions of prime ministers questions  likely to be an even lower-key encounter than usual just before the main event. Then I would be writing about Rishi Sunaks big speech.

But the first news of the day was that Nadine Dorries, the junior health minister, had tested positive for the coronavirus. I can do the Budget from home, I thought. It is not as good, because part of the political intelligence about a big event comes from the buzz of ideas and conversations in the press gallery offices. But one of the things about my job is that it is perfectly possible to do it remotely.
Madagascars Coronavirus medicine Covid-Organics has been ordered by Congo, Guinea Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. Madagascar is also set to supply them to Comoros Islands.

Madagascars Coronavirus medicine has now been ordered by Congo, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea. Madagascar is also set to supply them to Comoros Islands.  Africa Facts Zone (@AfricaFactsZone) May 3, 2020

Madagascars President Andry Rajoelina had offered to transport the medicine to hospitals across Africa during an online meeting with 9 other African Presidents; Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa), Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya), Ali Bongo (Gabon), Idriss Deby (Chad), Felix Tshisekedi (Congo Republic), Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egypt), Kata and Mahamadou Issoufou (Niger).

Dr. Jerome Munyangi is the man behind the drafting of a protocol which led to the manufacture of Covid-organics, miracle remedy of the Malagasy government for the prevention and the treatment of #COVID-19.

I am the author of the proposal for the protocol on all African governments of Covid Artemisia, Dr. Munyangi told a Congolese journalist during an exclusive interview.

For the past six years, Dr. Jerome Munyangi has been working on an alternative malaria treatment based on Artemisia, a tropical plant also found in East Africa and already marketed for its medicinal properties.

Dr. Jerome Munyangi obtained his medical degree from the University of Kinshasa. After his Masters at Paris Diderot University and another at the University of Otawa, he was recruited in 2011 by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a researcher on neglected tropical diseases.

As other countries across the globe are baffled on how to get a vaccine or cure for the deadly #COVID-19, Madagascar announced recently that it had a herbal concoction that was successful against coronavirus in a span of seven days.

Indeed, the President of Madagascar, Rajoelina, officially introduced the bottled herb saying it will be a preventative measure against the disease.

Schoolchildren should be given this to drink little by little throughout the day, President Rajoelina told the diplomats and dignitaries gathered for the launch of Covid-Organics at the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research (Imra), which developed the tonic.

Tests have been carried out. Two people have now been cured by this treatment. Schoolchildren should be given this to drink little by little throughout the day, the President said.

The herbal drink has not been scientifically tested and theres no proof it works against COVID-19, but the President is enthusiastically promoting it.

Medical experts are critical of the drink, pointing out that no scientific tests have been done on it.

There are no approved drugs for COVID-19 and numerous treatments and vaccines are currently being tested around the world.

Mr Rajoelinas comments come in the same week that US President Donald Trump talked about injecting disinfectant to fight coronavirus, a comment he later said was sarcastic.

Madagascar, an Indian Ocean island nation of 26 million people, currently has 149 recorded cases of COVID-19 and no deaths.
Paul Fineman has been the CEO of IG Design Group plc (LON:IGR) since 2009. First, this article will compare CEO compensation with compensation at similar sized companies. Then we'll look at a snap shot of the business growth. And finally we will reflect on how common stockholders have fared in the last few years, as a secondary measure of performance. This method should give us information to assess how appropriately the company pays the CEO.

See our latest analysis for IG Design Group

How Does Paul Fineman's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

At the time of writing, our data says that IG Design Group plc has a market cap of UK511m, and reported total annual CEO compensation of UK753k for the year to March 2019. While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at UK448k. We examined companies with market caps from UK319m to UK1.3b, and discovered that the median CEO total compensation of that group was UK975k.

Next, let's break down remuneration compositions to understand how the industry and company compare with each other. On a sector level, around 44% of total compensation represents salary and 56% is other remuneration. According to our research, IG Design Group has allocated a higher percentage of pay to salary in comparison to the broader sector.

So Paul Fineman receives a similar amount to the median CEO pay, amongst the companies we looked at. Although this fact alone doesn't tell us a great deal, it becomes more relevant when considered against the business performance. You can see, below, how CEO compensation at IG Design Group has changed over time.

AIM:IGR CEO Compensation May 4th 2020

Is IG Design Group plc Growing?

IG Design Group plc has seen earnings per share (EPS) move positively by an average of 7.7% a year, over the last three years (using a line of best fit). In the last year, its revenue is up 34%.

I like the look of the strong year-on-year improvement in revenue. And in that context, the modest EPS improvement certainly isn't shabby. I wouldn't say this is necessarily top notch growth, but it is certainly promising. Shareholders might be interested in this free visualization of analyst forecasts.

Story continues

Has IG Design Group plc Been A Good Investment?

Boasting a total shareholder return of 59% over three years, IG Design 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...

Remuneration for Paul Fineman is close enough to the median pay for a CEO of a similar sized company .

While we would like to see improved growth metrics, there is no doubt that the total returns have been great, over the last three years. So we can conclude that on this analysis the CEO compensation seems pretty sound. Shifting gears from CEO pay for a second, we've spotted 5 warning signs for IG Design Group you should be aware of, and 1 of them is a bit concerning.

Important note: IG Design Group may not be the best stock to buy. You might find something better in this list of interesting companies with high ROE 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.
(Natural News) One of the most devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic has been the fact that families are not able to support their loved ones by being with them in hospital when they are gravely ill or dying. The very nature of the disease means that people are separated at the end, leaving families who have lost loved ones without a sense of closure.

With strict restrictions on funerals, it is incredibly difficult for the loved ones of COVID-19 victims to say goodbye. To a large extent, it is up to the funeral homes that receive the bodies of such victims to provide the families with a sense of closure and the knowledge that their loved ones were treated kindly and with dignity at the end.

Sadly, crematoriums in New York state are under immense pressure from the overwhelming number of COVID-19 victims, and the result is that funeral homes have to wait between four and six weeks before a cremation can be performed.

As bodies build up, funeral home directors become desperate, and some resort to unconscionable solutions. This was the case recently with the Cleckley Funeral Home in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, when operator Andrew Cleckley resorted to storing up to 100 decomposing bodies in unrefrigerated rental trucks. (Related: Dead coronavirus victims found stacked in U-haul trucks in front of New York City funeral home.)

Neighbors could smell death

As reported by the U.K.s Daily Mail, police officers were called on to investigate the funeral home by neighbors who had been complaining for weeks about the foul smell. Some neighbors also reported having seen the funeral homes employees loading body bags into the rental trucks.

Cleckley claims that a combination of the backlog at state crematoriums and the fact that the homes freezer had stopped working forced them to start using the trucks while the bodies awaited cremation or burial. (Related: Health authorities arent certain 17-year-old CA boy died from coronavirus, but his funeral may have spread it.)

But New York Mayor Bill de Blasio refuses to accept his explanation, insisting that the state would have stepped in if authorities had been notified.

Why on Earth did they not either alert the state who regulates them or go to their NYPD Precinct and ask for help, de Blasio said. Do something rather than leave the bodies there. Its unconscionable to me.

One wonders if the state really would have been quick to render assistance, however, considering it took weeks of constant complaints from distraught neighbors before the authorities even came to investigate the situation. And Cleckley reportedly told authorities that he had been waiting for weeks for the bodies to be collected and taken to the crematorium.

There are some who empathize with the incredibly difficult position that Cleckley found himself in.

This funeral home is over-capacitated with human remains and that is true, said Dr. David Penepent, a funeral director brought in by the state to help. He got overwhelmed with the number of remains that he had and he didnt know what to do and Im here to assist him in this operation.

Nonetheless, no matter what the reasons might be for this tragic situation, the families of the deceased piled in those rental trucks are understandably absolutely distraught.

I expected to lay my mother down properly and with respect and at a reasonable time, said Tamisha Covington, the daughter of a woman who was supposed to receive full funeral services from Cleckley.

Clearly, the state will have to implement the necessary changes to ensure that all New York families who lose loved ones to coronavirus can be sure that their friends and family will be treated with the care and respect they deserve at the end.

Stay informed, stay alive. Bookmark Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

NewYork.CBSLlocal.com

DailyMail.co.uk
Security forces on Sunday carried out a massive search operation along the International Border (IB) in Hiaranagar sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district following information about movement of suspected persons, officials said.

The Army, BSF, CRPF and Police launched the joint search operation in the sector, including areas along Jammu-Pathankot highway, the officials said.

This was for the third time in a week that security forces searched the area which has been witnessing intermittent shelling from Pakistan.

Last week, security forces carried out a massive combing operation in the entire border belt along the IB in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts but no one was arrested.

"Local residents have reported suspicious movement, prompting the searches. We are maintaining our guard to scuttle any attempt by terrorists to enter into this side from across the border, a senior security official said.
Slate is making its essential coronavirus coverage free for all readers. Subscribe to support our journalism.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claims there is enormous evidence to indicate the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab. In an interview on ABCs This Week on Sunday, Pompeo didnt provide any evidence for his claim.

There is enormous evidence that thats where this began, Pompeo said when ABCs Martha Raddatz asked whether he had seen anything that gave him high confidence that it originated in that Wuhan lab. Pompeo went on to say that China has a history of infecting the world and it also has a history of running substandard laboratories.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Pompeo then appeared to contradict the nations top spy agency, which recently said the coronavirus was not manmade or genetically modified. Pompeo said that the best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point. But he later backtracked when Raddatz made clear that was not what the U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded. Ive seen what the intelligence community has said. I have no reason to believe that theyve got it wrong, Pompeo said. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Thursday in a rare public statement that the intelligence community concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.

Advertisement

Advertisement

President Donald Trump had made a similar claim that there was evidence to say that the virus originated in a Chinese lab but said he was not allowed to elaborate on what that might be. On that same day, Pompeo said in an interview that we dont know if it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But Pompeos claims Sunday once again demonstrate how the secretary of state has emerged as the face of the administrations hard-line China strategy, as Foreign Policy said recently.

NEW: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells @MarthaRaddatz China did all that it could to make sure the world didnt learn in a timely fashion about COVID-19.



"It was a classic communist disinformation effort," he adds and they will be held "accountable." https://t.co/EKV20Fhx2H pic.twitter.com/YrQRGkeYNk  This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 3, 2020

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Beyond the origins of the virus, Pompeo went further to criticize Beijing. China behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and confuse, Pompeo said. It employed the World Health Organization as a tool to do the same. These latest talking points come at a time when White House officials are increasingly blasting Chinese officials and blaming them for the current crisis. Trump, for example, tweeted Friday that some news outlets are Chinese puppets.

Concast (@NBCNews) and Fake News @CNN are going out of their way to say GREAT things about China. They are Chinese puppets who want to do business there. They use USA airwaves to help China. The Enemy of the People!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 1, 2020

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Those familiar with the available intelligence pretty much unanimously say that there is no evidence to suggest Chinese scientists developed the coronavirus in a biological weapons lab. Experts agree that while its possible that the coronavirus outbreak began at a Wuhan lab, the most likely scenario is that it was natural. As Axios summarizes, there are two general theories that link the Wuhan Institute of Virology with the outbreak, one of which is unlikely, while the other is plausible but unverified:


South Korea reported eight more cases of the new coronavirus on Monday, all of which came from overseas, as the country is set to further relax its months-long social distancing guidelines amid a marked slowdown in new infections.



The newly added COVID-19 cases brought the nation's total infections to 10,801, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).



The country had reported fewer than 10 new infections for five days in a row through Sunday.



The slowdown in new infections prompted the country to end its 45-day long social distancing campaign and shift toward so-called everyday life quarantine scheme from Wednesday.



The country believes it has virtually contained the domestic COVID-19 outbreak, although imported cases linger as a threat.




RALEIGH, N.C., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation (NCFB) and the NC Chamber are disappointed by the decision of the Department of Environmental Quality and the Attorney General to file suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR).

"The NWPR provides clarity and commonsense oversight to ensure clean water. The NWPR very clearly protects lakes, rivers and streams," said NCFB President Shawn Harding. "The NWPR corrects previous versions of the rule by specifying that most ditches and areas where water just collects after rain are excluded, which is the appropriate level of protection under the Clean Water Act. Farmers all over the state are conserving resources and protecting our water better than ever before by installing conservation practices, buffer strips and using precision technology. During these unprecedented and uncertain times, farmers are facing a fragile future saddled with low commodity, livestock, dairy and poultry prices. They cannot absorb even more uncompensated regulatory burdens."

Gary Salamido, President and CEO of the NC Chamber said, "In these difficult economic times, farmers and business owners need regulatory certainty. The NWPR provides clarity about the level of regulation under the Clean Water Act. Under the NWPR, landowners will not need teams of lawyers to determine whether a regulated waterbody exists on their property. This allows farming and economic development activities to take place in a timely manner, while still protecting water quality."

Clean water is a top priority for farmers and business owners in North Carolina and nationwide. However, previous rules that defined waters under federal jurisdiction far exceeded the authority granted under the Clean Water Act. In fact, the 2015 version of the rule never went into effect in North Carolina due to court decisions ruling that EPA went too far. The NWPR will strike the appropriate balance of protecting the nation's waters and respecting the role that states play in clean water protections.

*DEQ oversees the rules for waste handling, and those rules remain in effect.

SOURCE North Carolina Farm Bureau; NC Chamber of Commerce
Indian police were forced to baton-charge crowds outside liquor stores on Monday as the first sales of alcohol were allowed since a national lockdown began almost six weeks ago.

A trickle of activity returned to the streets of Delhi as people were allowed to venture out of their homes for exercise and some non-essential shops were reopened, though many restrictions remain in place.

Shops in large markets or malls are still shuttered, meaning only around 130 licensed standalone liquor stores opened  hardly enough to meet demand.

By 9.30am queues of hundreds of people had already started to form outside shops, with posts on social media showing lines of masked customers snaking around buildings in the 35C heat. By midday, #LiquorShops was the top trend on Twitter in India.

A witness told Reuters that more than 500 people were waiting to be served at a store in the Kalyan Puri neighbourhood in the east of the city when the shop had to be closed, and police charged the crowd wielding lathis  wooden sticks  to disperse it.

The government should just keep the liquor shops shut if such crowds are going to gather, said Neeraj Mehta, a would-be customer at another store in east Delhi who was put off by the queues.

According to the Associated Press, there were similar scenes at a store in Old Delhi, the crowded central neighbourhood around the citys Red Fort landmark. More than 200 people were vying to reach the counter when pushing and shoving broke out, and police were forced to break up the crowd.

Delhi, like other metropolises such as Mumbai and Bengaluru, has been designated as a red zone under a new traffic light system for the nationwide lockdown that will be in place from Monday until at least 17 May.

All air traffic, trains and interstate buses remain suspended, and schools, hotels, restaurants, bars, shopping malls, cinemas and places of worship will remain shut regardless of a districts colour coding.

In urban red zones, offices are being allowed to restart operations with staffing at 33 per cent capacity, and construction projects can resume as long as workers dont have to travel far to reach the site. Green zones, where there have been no new coronavirus cases recorded for 21 days, will be allowed to resume all activities except those that remain banned nationally.

India has seen more than 42,500 Covid-19 cases so far and 1,300 deaths, numbers which have risen steadily as testing has become more widely available. Experts say the outbreak is yet to peak, although government health officials told a daily briefing on Monday that the country was now seeing cases doubling every 12 days, compared to every 3.4 days before the lockdown began.

State leaders have generally been supportive of the central governments stance throughout the crisis, and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal told reporters on Sunday that it was the right time to start opening up the capital. We have to get prepared to live alongside corona, we have to get used to it, he said.

Ajay Kumar, a Delhi official in charge of liquor stores, admitted that police were being forced to shut premises after a chaotic first day back in business, but said it was the governments intention to persevere. We want to keep the shops open, he told Reuters.

Indias lockdown, one of the strictest in the world, has taken a heavy toll on the countrys economy, and on no group of people more so than the millions of internal migrant workers who, before the pandemic, had left their villages in search of employment in cities.

The central government has faced mounting pressure to provide more support for these stranded workers, and over the weekend announced a special rail service to take those who wanted to go back to their home villages.

But there was a backlash on Monday after it emerged that the workers would be charge up to 800 rupees (8.50) for the privilege. A daily manual labourer in India typically earns between 200 and 600 rupees.

The government insisted it was charging a heavily subsidised rate, but the main opposition Congress party called it a disturbing development, and its leader Sonia Gandhi said the party would cover the cost in this hour of crisis.
The following deaths have occurred in the wider Leitrim area:

Paddy Flynn, Gorvagh, Mohill, Leitrim

Paddy passed away peacefully at his home in Selton, surrounded by his devoted family. He will be sadly missed by his loving wife Margaret his sons Padraig, Niall and Brendan, daughters-in-law Stephanie, Mary and Deidre, grandchildren, nephew, nieces, extended family, friends and neighbours. House and church are strictly private due to current government restrictions around Covid-19. The funeral cortege will leave St. Josephs Church Gorvagh at 11:45 on Monday the 4th of May, for burial in Mohill Cemetery. Your prayers and thoughts are gratefully appreciated by the family at this time. Communication with the family can be made via message, phonecall, letter or mass card. Heartfelt thanks to all the medical staff and carers who have been of such great support to Paddy and family throughout. A memorial mass will be held at a later date to celebrate Paddys life. Any donations if desired to Irish Cancer Society.



Gus (Augustine) Mullarkey, Rathfarnham, Dublin / Boyle, Roscommon

Mullarkey  Gus ( Augustine) Rathfarnham, Dublin, formerly Abbeytown, Boyle, Co. Roscommon (01/05/20), peacefully, in the excellent care of Rosewood Kiltipper Woods Care Centre. Beloved husband of Ann (nee McNally), devoted father of Roger, Bernard, Sharon (McGuinness) Ballyshannon & Grainne (Phelps) Newport RI, USA. Sadly missed by his family, sons in law Aiden & Nate, daughter in law Aileen, grandchildren Aogan (Skirmante), David (Ciara), Rachel, Sam, Anna, Eamon, Michael & Margaret, great-grandsons Rian & Keelan, brother Tom, sisters Mary & Monica, sisters in law, brother in law, nieces, nephews and a wide circle of relatives and friends. Donations, if desired, to SVDP/Kiltipper Woods Care Centre. As per Guss wishes, body donated to medical science. Memorial Mass at a later date.

May they all Rest in Peace.
Highlights The OnePlus Z is said to be coming with a Snapdragon 765G chip.

OnePlus could be looking to get a lower starting price of less than Rs 25,000.

The OnePlus Z is expected to launch in July 2020.

This year's OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro are a power-packed pair of smartphones for power users. That said, these phones are competing in the flagship phone category now and those looking for a "flagship killer" are waiting for the rumoured OnePlus Z, another OnePlus phone that's looking to serve the masses. We have known a lot about the OnePlus Z but a recent revelation reveals a striking decision OnePlus made regarding its specification.

Max J., who has been quite consistent is leaking information regarding OnePlus devices in the past, has confirmed that the OnePlus Z is probably going to be the first OnePlus phone that's not using a flagship-grade Qualcomm chip. Max writes in his latest tweet that the OnePlus Z will rely on Qualcomm's midrange Snapdragon 765G chip, which is the second most capable chip in Qualcomm's lineup this year.

This goes in stark contrast to the previous leaks that suggested a flagship-grade MediaTek Dimensity 1000 chip. The Dimensity 1000 has comparable performance with the Snapdragon 865 and unlike the latter, it has a built-in 5G modem. OnePlus' decision not to go for the MediaTek chipset is weird, given that the Dimensity 1000 is more affordable than its Qualcomm counterpart.

It seems that OnePlus wants to achieve a very low starting price with the OnePlus Z and that could have made it move to the Snapdragon 765G. Qualcomm's brand image as a chip manufacturer is considered superior to MediaTek in most countries where OnePlus sells its devices. OnePlus has so far relied on Qualcomm's name to sell the performance tag on its phones and with the OnePlus Z, it looks to do the same.

The Snapdragon 765G is not a bad chip by any means. In fact, with Oxygen OS and the countless optimisations OnePlus makes, the OnePlus Z with the Snapdragon 765G could offer similar levels of user experience as the more premium OnePlus 8. Rumours has it that OnePlus will still offer a 6.5-inch AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, UFS 3.0 storage and a big 4000mAh battery with 30W wired fast charging.

That said, don't assume the OnePlus Z to be cheap. Despite using the Snapdragon 765G, the OnePlus Z could retain a price somewhere between Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000. The reason behind that is the higher cost. The Snapdragon 765G is a 5G-enabled chipset and as 5G infrastructure is extremely expensive, the prices are going to be high. This is also the reason India is yet to see any smartphone using the Snapdragon 765G.

What are your thoughts on the OnePlus Z using the Snapdragon 765G? Would you buy it or rather spend more on the OnePlus 7T?
Reliance Industries today said that private equity firm Silver Lake will invest Rs 5,655.75 crore in Reliance Jio Platforms, giving the technology subsidiary an equity value of Rs 4.9 lakh crore.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is going through things in a very structured way, not just in its businesses, but also strengthen its balance sheet, Jal Irani, Senior Vice President, Edelweiss Financial Services, told CNBC-TV18 in an interview.

"They are systematically bringing down debt," Irani said.

Reliance Industries today said that private equity firm Silver Lake will invest Rs 5,655.75 crore in Reliance Jio Platforms, giving the technology subsidiary an equity value of Rs 4.9 lakh crore.

The week before last Facebook said it would invest Rs 43,574 crore in Jio Platforms for a 9.99 percent stake.

Mukesh Ambani says hes delighted to welcome silver lake as a valued partner in continuing to grow & transform Indian digital ecosystem. He adds, Reliance is excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian digital societys transformation pic.twitter.com/96A6Tkr9sr  CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) May 4, 2020

"What they are doing is getting strategic partners in the key businesses, in the Jio Platforms business  and they have categorically said that the Saudi Aramco due diligence is on. So this is a part of a very structured bigger game plan to bring in strategic partners, to reduce the debt, trigger value release as well in their business, in difficult times, doing fairly healthy and coming out stronger," he said.

Irani said that the plan was well thought out and was also being executed well.

(Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd which publishes Firstpost)
Back on March 21st, NYC-based stand-up comedian, Katie Finn, was adjusting to the new normal of working her day job from home. Finn was well aware that many out there did not have the same luxury  like her sister Kelly, an ICU nurse at a hospital in the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

Finn wanted to find a way to help her sister and the other nurses working tirelessly on the frontlines, as the virus peak loomed on the horizon. Finn says that after accepting the fact that she could not build a ventilator or uncover a hoarded stockpile of N95 masks, she thought of a simple way she could help: buying lunch.

That day Katie bought lunch for her sister and the other nurses in her ICU unit. The staff thanked her and said having the food waiting for them during their long, draining shifts treating COVID-19 patients was a blessing.

Thats when Finn decided to start Feeding Our Frontlines. She put out a call to friends, family and followers from the NYC comedy community to donate whatever they could so that she could continue to deliver food to frontline workers during the pandemic. She had no idea at the time how much of an impact her call to action would make.

Now, six weeks later, her organization has raised over $34,000 and counting, while Finn continues to feed thousands of healthcare workers in hospitals throughout New York City and Connecticut.

Katie Finn dropping off food to nurses in NYC

Week 1: Getting help from local businesses

Just days after her announcement, donations helped Finn provide meals for multiple shifts of nurses at two NYC hospitals. Finn is further supporting her community by purchasing meals from local restaurants only, and tells donors that no meals provided for hospital workers throughout this movement would be purchased from a chain restaurant.

Many local NYC restaurants that were forced to close their doors following stay-at-home orders are struggling to stay in business. Restaurants that Finn has grown to know and love while living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan have joined her cause, and are taking on the challenge of cooking hundreds of meals at a time  with some even volunteering delivery help to get meals to hospitals across the city.

Story continues

Week 2: More meals for more frontline workers

By her second week of delivering meals to frontline workers, Finn announced on March 30th that she was able to collect enough donations to feed 15 shifts of healthcare professionals in the ICU and emergency rooms at two NYC hospitals. Rather than just nurses, donations were now allowing her to feed doctors, paramedics, respiratory therapists, technicians, and custodial staff.

Week 3: From meals to fanny packs

After getting well acquainted with the struggles of frontline workers, Finn learned that the staff needed a way to hold PPE on their person during their shifts. Protective equipment could not be set down on tables or countertops and needed to be kept secure and easily accessible. Nurses said fanny packs would be the best way to do that.

Finn announced that she partnered with several major fashion labels who wanted to help her cause. Sarah Leff, CEO of the fashion brand Jonathan Cohen, helped Finn source donations for enough fanny packs to supply the entire emergency room staff at New York Presbyterian hospital.

NYC frontline workers wear donated fanny packs for PPE storage

Week 4: Feeding thousands on the frontline

Four weeks after Finn put out a call for donations, she announced that they have fed over 3,000 frontline workers in total, spanning three hospitals. They have also used donations to buy coffee, which Finn says is extremely appreciated during long, grueling hospital shifts.

Week 5: Good news from the frontline

On week five, Finn announced that 500 healthcare workers had been fed in one week, and that her sister Kelly was slowly but surely seeing a change for the better in critical coronavirus case loads during her shift.

In footage filmed by Finn during food drop-offs, nurses shout their gratitude for those who have stepped up to support them during this trying time. Finns sister Kelly shares, I think most of us wouldnt have even eaten if it hadnt been for Katie and so many wonderful people buying us food.

Finn says, These workers are so appreciative of the food, they say to me Katie, thank you, please tell everyone thank you. And I say no, thank you.

NYC frontline workers enjoy donated meals

Donations are still being collected for Feeding Our Frontline, and Finn says that she and her thoughtful volunteers will continue to deliver food to hospitals while the pandemic continues.

For the latest coronavirus news and updates, follow along at https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please reference the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

Read more from Yahoo Life
President Donald Trump says his administration will soon release a COVID-19 report that will be very conclusive about the origins of the pandemic and how the Chinese government handled its spread.

Well have a very strong report as to exactly what we think happened, Trump said during a Sunday night town hall on Fox News at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

While the U.S. intelligence community concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified, according to the office of the Director of National Intelligence, Trump has claimed to see evidence the virus started in a Wuhan lab.

The virus has been linked to a wet market in Wuhan, where it reportedly spread from animals to humans.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in an interview with ABC News on Sunday, said that while he has no reason to doubt the intelligence communitys conclusion, hes also seen unspecified evidence linking the pandemic to a lab in Wuhan.

Neither Trump nor Pompeo hinted that the virus was created as a biological weapon; no scientists recently interviewed by The Washington Post believed the virus was created as a weapon.

Trump on Sunday was unwilling to say the virus was created through any nefarious means. But he said the Chinese government made grave mistakes and suggested that Chinese leaders then let the virus spread around the globe.

I think they made a horrible mistake and they didnt want to admit it, Trump said. We wanted to go in ... they didnt want us there. They tried to cover it. They tried to put it out. They couldnt put out the fire.

Trump added that China really treated the world badly by stopping travel from Wuhan to other parts of the country but they didnt stop people going into the United States or all over the world.

Trump, citing a strengthened U.S. economy that had weakened China, said the case could be made that Chinese officials realized this is going to have a huge impact on China, we might as well let the rest of the world be affected too.

Pompeo told ABC that "the Chinese Communist Party did all that it could to make sure that the world didnt learn in a timely fashion about what was taking place. He confirmed that the Chinese government stockpiled medical gear in the meantime.

Asked about his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said he still has a very good relationship with him.

But this never should have happened, he said. The virus should not have spread all over the world. They should have let us and other countries go in and put it out.

On Jan. 22, Trump told a reporter that the disease was totally under control in the U.S.

He said on Sunday night that he was only told by intelligence officials on Jan. 23 that there could be a virus coming in, but it was of no real import. In other words, it wasnt, Oh weve got to do something, weve got to do something. It was a brief conversation.

On Jan. 24, Trump praised China for working very hard to contain the Coronavirus.

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

On Jan. 30, Trump banned all travel from China, a move he claims saved tens of thousands of lives.

But he did not implement nationwide social distancing and stay-at-home recommendations until mid-March, while multiple outlets say the intelligence community shared warnings with the president in early January that the virus could severely impact the U.S.

More than 67,000 people have died across the U.S. and more than 1.15 million Americans have contracted COVID-19. More than 180,000 Americans have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Related Content:

 President Donald Trump ponders disinfectant, light, heat as coronavirus treatments

 Dr. Deborah Birx: disinfectant not a treatment for coronavirus; President Donald Trump was musing

 Coronavirus stimulus package: How the $2.2 trillion bill will help boost small businesses

 Coronavirus: President Donald Trump extends stay-at-home, social distancing guidelines to April 30

 Coronavirus stimulus package: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says checks from COVID-19 bill to come within 3 weeks
Before award-winning entrepreneur Kareem Elmashad thought of I am Dubai, he spent 6 years slogging hard in the hospitality industry and observing the trends. Armed with the knowledge about restaurants networking with popular models and social media influencers, he found I am Dubai  a social media agency/app that is making waves already on the social scene in Dubai.

However, 26-year-old Kareem went a step ahead and joined hands with successful businesses operating in sectors like food & beverage, fitness, health & beauty, etc. So far, i.amdubai has enlisted 14 dining restaurants and has more than 4,000 models to connect with. The app offers a complete package connecting famous influencers and models with luxury establishments, including top restaurants. The patrons have to follow a simple process  register on the website www.iamdubai.co or instagram i.amdubai , fill in their details, including their Instagram profile, after a review, they get access to use the platform.

With this business, Kareem has become an overnight sensation among aspiring start-up owners. He has really given it all, including working at nightlife venues, studying marketing and social media management online and spending weeks observing the social media trends. From handling every job on the hospitality circuit, Kareem Elmashad today knows how to maximize the use of social media and I am Dubai is a result of that insight! His Instagram page, kareemelmashad, is proof of his growing fan following as well as influence.

One may argue that there is no dearth of social media marketing agencies associated with some of the famous names in the world of glamour. No doubt, social media influencers everywhere are using internet to boost their business, but Kareem is a cut above the rest in that he has successfully married the virtual world with the physical world. His app and company website are a case study in how well-organized the whole process is. In fact, the transparency of business that Kareem presents to his clients is what has made this app a darling already! He seeks to popularize both the establishment as well as the influencer it connects with, both at the same time.

In addition, Kareem picks up models already associated with a reputed modeling agency as he believes that it means his models are well-known and experienced.

His suave personality, no-nonsense work ethic and open mind have endeared him to his clients! Today, he is a well-known face in Dubai and has also been named Influencer of the Year thrice by three different publications. As for the future, Kareem has made up his mind about spreading his wings over the Middle East and beyond! His service is the best and he wants the world to enjoy it!

With his business well-established in Dubai, he is planning to go global with Saudi Arabia and Ukraine. For Saudi Arabia, it will be @i.amsaudi while for Ukraine, it is going to be @i.amkyiv Well, I am Dubai agency is grabbing eyeballs today for its app version and, more than that, for its business format. And Kareem Elmashad is a happier man because of that!

Disclaimer: This is a company press release. No HT journalist is involved in creation of this content.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
A truck-bomb attack at a military center in Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province has killed at least five people and wounded several others.

The May 4 attack came as U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said attacks by the Taliban were increasing, despite the United States and the militant group having signed a peace deal in February.

The Taliban, claiming responsibility for the bombing in Helmand, said it attacked a center where at least 150 members of the Afghan army and intelligence wing were stationed.

"Five members of the Afghan security forces and intelligence services were killed and seven others were wounded in a truck-bomb explosion in Grishk district," Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the regional governor, told RFE/RL.

The Taliban claimed the toll was much higher, saying that "dozens" of Afghan soldiers had been killed and wounded in the attack, which occurred late on May 3.

"Dozens of members belonging to the enemy forces have been killed and wounded in the attack," Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmedi said in a statement.



The Afghan Defense Ministry had earlier said only one member of the army was wounded.

In a separate incident, at least 20 people were injured when suspected Taliban militants threw a hand grenade into a mosque in the Khayerkot district of the southeastern Paktika Province late on May 3, police said.

Afghan security forces have suffered heavy losses across the country over the past two months.

The violence threatens to unravel a February peace deal between the United States and the Taliban, as the Afghan army is forced to fight the militants with less U.S. backup.

Esper did not mention the bombing on May 4, but acknowledged an increase in violence by the Taliban, although he noted that the militant group had not attacked U.S. forces.

Speaking during an online question-and-answer session hosted by a Washington think tank, Esper said a tentative power-sharing agreement announced last week between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and rival Abdullah Abdullah was encouraging.

The Afghan government needed to organize itself, and then the peace process needed to get back on track, he said.

He said the peace deal remained "the best path forward."

With reporting by Reuters and Tolo News
A Big Comeback for a Little Switch

May 04, 2020

Electrical switches, mechanical devices that make and break the connection in an electric circuit, are used everywhere. They turn on and off our lights, dishwashers, and dryers. In circuit breakers, they interrupt dangerous levels of current. A different type of switch, in solid state form, is at the core of the digital logic that underlies computer technology. While these devices are in fact transistors that can operate as amplifiers like in a radio, in digital logic they act as switches to hold an on or off state, also known as 1 or 0.

Digital switch technology has had such a transformational impact on society that its benefits transcend economists ability to quantify its value. Without transistor technology, we wouldnt have computers, the internet, digital cameras, smart phones, or monitoring devices for vital signs or poisonous gases.

Wall light switches are the same size and have been manufactured in the same way as they were 50 years ago. But, solid state switches have shrunk by a factor of one million over the same time period, allowing billions of them to be used on computer chips.

Although solid state switches are extremely reliable, they cant get much smaller. And, they tend to leak current, even when they are supposed to be off. Consequently, energy efficiency has decreased as solid state switches have gotten smaller. Because digital logic is so ubiquitous, a huge amount of energy is being wasted.

A possible solution to this problem is to go back to a mechanical switch, in which a gap physically opens so that there is no leakage of current. However, mechanical switches are still about 10,000 times bigger than transistors, even when similar manufacturing processes as those of solid state batteries are used. Also problematic is their tendency to be much less reliable than solid state switches.

Researchers Maarten de Boer and Gianluca Piazza in Carnegie Mellon Universitys College of Engineering are investigating how to overcome these challenges to develop reliable, nanoscale mechanical switches, also called nanorelays. Their work has been funded by a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundations Leading Engineering for Americas Prosperity, Health, and Infrastructure (LEAP-HI) program.

The LEAP-HI program challenges the engineering research community to take a leadership role in addressing demanding, urgent, and consequential challenges for advancing Americas prosperity, health, and infrastructure.

Because the problem is so complex, the researchers are breaking down the project into separate components. Piazza, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, is working on developing mechanical switches as small as modern solid state switches.

Our goal is to build mechanical switches that are the size of a DNA molecule, Piazza said. To do so, we are using a solid state material that, when heated, undergoes a phase transformation and expands by 10%. That is approximately the same volume change that occurs when water freezes. This transformation results in enormous forces and sufficiently large displacements to bridge nanometer-scale gaps and form good electrical contacts as in wall light switches.

De Boer, a professor of mechanical engineering, will focus on improving the switches reliability. He is collaborating with the University of Pennsylvanias Robert Carpick who has expertise in examining nanometer-scale point contact behavior and the City University of Hong Kongs David Srolovitz, an expert in materials theory.

Although simple in concept, the physics in a mechanical switch interface is complex, and interdisciplinary challenges must be addressed, de Boer said. Due to a small degree of surface roughness, the mechanical stress levels at the contacting surfaces are near the limit of what materials can tolerate.

Hydrocarbons from the atmosphere can accumulate at the interface and increase electrical resistance, he added. The surfaces can become sticky and the switch may no longer open. Solid state switches circumvent these problems but now are reaching their own limits, so the mechanical switch is now back in play. We will investigate conducting oxide materials as a way to address the issues.

De Boer and Piazza are optimistic about an important, preliminary result where they demonstrated a scalable device architecture at the microscale. They presented the operation of this Phase Change NEMS Relay (PCNR) device at the IEEE 65th International Electron Devices Meeting in December, 2019.

The next steps are to extend this architecture to the nanoscale and to increase the cycle counts. If successful, the team expects the results to impact a range of electronic devices used for data storage, computing, and the Internet of Things.

Our hope is that nanorelays can complement and enhance solid-state switches, which are now manufactured by some of the most advanced techniques known to society, de Boer said. We look forward to facing the challenges with a great team.

The team has also earned funding from Carnegie Mellons Kavcic -Moura Endowment Fund.
Tim Bray, a senior software engineer at Amazon, has stepped down from office citing the company's decision to fire protesting employees who called out its labour practices. In an open letter titled 'Bye, Amazon' on his website, he declared that May 1 was his last day as the Vice President and distinguished engineer at Amazon Web Services after five years and five months.

Calling his stint at Amazon rewarding fun, Bray said that he is quitting "in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of COVID-19". Bray, known as the father of XML, said the breaking point came after Amazon fired on spot Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, who were vocal critics of Amazon's climate stance as prominent members of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, and recently spoke out against its labour practices amid coronavirus pandemic.

ALSO READ:Lockdown 3.0: Flipkart, Amazon, other e-tailers get nod to sell non-essentials in green, orange zones

"VPs shouldn't go publicly rogue, so I escalated through the proper channels and by the book. I'm not at liberty to disclose those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay. I think I made them to the appropriate people," Bray wrote in his letter. "That done, remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned."

Calling Amazon "chickenshit" for firing activist employees, Bray said these actions indicated that the company is 'either guilty or has something to hide'. He said that the firings were "Like painting a sign on your forehead saying 'Either guilty, or has something to hide'".

Amazon's tech and warehouse workers have been speaking out against the company's alleged apathy towards worker safety when a pandemic is rampaging around the world. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the virus has claimed almost 2.40 lakh lives around the world.

ALSO READ:US lawmakers ask Amazon boss Jeff Bezos to testify in antitrust probe

"Firing whistleblowers isn't just a side-effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets. It's evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison," Bray stated.

Amazon has assured that it is focussing on keeping its workers safe. In a letter to shareholders last month, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that the company has consulted medical experts and health authorities to implement 150 process changes in our operations network and Whole Foods Market stores to protect workers and contractors. He added that the company has distributed face masks and implemented temperature checks at sites around the world to protect employees and support staff, and work areas are being thoroughly sanitised. He further added Amazon will hire 75,000 employees to respond to customer demand.

ALSO READ:Coronavirus update: Amazon profit falls as pandemic-related costs rise
The High Commission of Ghana to South Africa, Mr. George Ayisi Boateng has donated an undisclosed amount to Ghanaian communities in South Africa amidst the coronavirus lockdown.

The donation was made to only registered associations who have bank accounts.

The donations come from the COVID-19 fund established by the mission to support Ghanaian communities whiles observing a nationwide lockdown.

Speaking in an interview with thepressradio.com Mr. Ayisi Boateng stated that A friend in need is a friend indeed. It is imperative to support our people in this difficult time. We all know that about 90% of Ghanaian nationals in South Africa are hairdressers, and due to the lockdown they are unable to open their salons so we are giving them these amounts so that they can buy something to eat.

According to him, the mission is working assiduously to support Ghanaian nationals with their little resources.

He urged them to adhere to the precautionary measures as prescribed by the government.

He, therefore, appealed to Ghanaians who have not registered their names and addresses at the mission to go and register after the lockdown for the government to get accurate data of Ghanaian nationals in South Africa.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa is now 6 783, with a further eight COVID-19 related deaths.

This is an increase of 447 cases from Saturdays 6 336 COVID-19 cases.

Source: Thepressradio.com
(Alliance News) - Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica SA confirmed Monday that it is in talks with broadband provider Liberty Global PLC for a potential merger of their UK operations.

Telefonica said, in response to press reports, the process is currently in "a negotiation phase", and it is not able to guarantee the precise terms or probability of the success of the talks.

On Friday last week, Bloomberg News reported that the potential deal would unite Telefonica's O2 wireless unit and Liberty Global's Virgin Media business.

This could produce a stronger rival to Vodafone Group PLC and BT Group PLC's EE.

Shares in Telefonica were up 4.3% at EUR4.36 on Thursday in Madrid.

By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Sunday, directed the police to arrest all the suspects, who kidnapped and murdered three students of the University of Port Harcourt.

Joy Adoki, Nelson Nwafor and Fortune Obemba were kidnapped on April 7, 2020, and were later murdered by their abductors.

UNIPORT, however, said only Adoki was recognised as an undergraduate of the institution.

The Rivers State Police Command had stated that the deceased were killed and buried in a shallow grave in the Etio community, Eleme Local Government Area of the state.

One of the suspected kidnappers, Friday Akpan, was arrested on Thursday and upon interrogation, he made confession that led to the apprehension of two others.

The police also recovered one AK-47 rifle, three magazines and 72 rounds of ammunition from the suspected kidnappers.

Akpan, from Akwa Ibom State, confessed that two of his accomplices gang-raped Adoki before eventually killing all the victims.

We held the three persons at the sand field. All of us, five in number, killed them, he had stated.

Buhari asked the police to intensify the search for the remaining suspects in a bid to bring them to justice.

A statement by Buharis media aide, Mr Garba Shehu, said the President commiserated with the families of the students.

He said his regime was determined to end kidnapping.

This administration will continue to equip the law enforcement and security agencies to bring to an end the evil activities of kidnappers in the country, Buhari was quoted to have said.

The statement added that the President further directs the police authorities to intensify the search for the remaining suspects and bring them to justice.

He also extended condolences to the universitys management and the Rivers State Government over the unfortunate incident.

Buhari described the incident as sad and heinous, regretting that the evil perpetrators have cut short the prospectively bright journey of these youths.

The President prayed that God would comfort all those mourning the young students and grant the souls of the deceased eternal rest.
Paris/London, May 4 : France and the UK will start the trials of the their respective COVID-19 tracing apps from next week, the two governments have confirmed.

French Minister for Digital Affairs Cedric O said on Sunday the testing of the "StopCOVID" contact tracing app will begin on May 11 when the country starts to ease lockdown measures, Xinhua news agency.

The Minister presented the state-supported app as a key element of France's strategy to stave off thepandemic, as authorities grapple with the prospect of mass testing.

"There's nothing magical about this app, but it's not technological coquetry either," he wrote on online publishing platform Medium.

"It's only useful if it's integrated into a global health system." Meanwhile, the UK will begin the trial its own coronavirus contact tracing app next week on the Isle of Wight, according to Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove.

"This week we will be piloting new test, track and trace procedures on the Isle of Wight, with a view to having that in place more widely later this month," Gove told a news conference Sunday.

As of Monday, France reported 168,925 COVID-19 cases, with 24,900 deaths, while the UK registered 187,842 infections and 28,520 fatalities.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4 2020

The congregation body of the Ar-Rahmah Mosque in Ujung district of Parepare city, South Sulawesi, reported district head Ulfa Lanto to the police for blasphemy after she dispersed a Friday prayer gathering.

On April 17, Ulfa and a number of COVID-19 task force personnel as well as local authorities conducted checks on mosques in the district to ensure Muslims in the area did not congregate for Friday prayers and thereby complying with the governments appeal for physical distancing.

However, residents reportedly thronged the Ar-Rahmah Mosque as usual, prompting Ulfa to ask local figures to stop the mass prayer while the sermon was ongoing.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login
President Trump was asked by a supporter Sunday night why he didn't comport himself in a more professional fashion when having his back and forths with the press.

A woman who identified herself as Carolyn Perkins asked the president at the Sunday night Fox News Channel town hall 'why do you not directly answer the questions asked by the press and instead speak of past success and generally ramble?'

'Look, I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen. The closest would be that gentleman right up there,' Trump said, pointing to the huge statue of Abraham Lincoln, as the town hall was being filmed at the Lincoln Memorial. 'I believe I am treated worse,' he stated.

President Trump was under the shadow of Abraham Lincoln during Sunday night's Fox News Channel

Carolyn Perkins, a Trump supporter, asked him about his 'manner and presentation,' mentioning that he often won't address reporters' questions head-on and will 'instead speak of past success and generally ramble'

President Trump said that he acted the way he did, because he was dealing with a 'hostile' press. He pointed to Abraham Lincoln and said 'the closest would be that gentleman right up there. I believe I am treated worse,' Trump added

Perkins, a retired nurse and elementary school guidance counselor, had gone out of her way to show Trump that she and her family were supporters.

'We pray for you every day,' the said.

But then she told the president she had a question about his 'manner and presentation.'

'Why do you use descriptive words that could be classified as bullying?' she said, before also asking him about ignoring reporters' questions.

'The USA needs you, please let go of those behaviors that are turning people away from you,' she encouraged Trump, praising the other 'wonderful' attributes he had. 'Let go of other characteristics that don't serve you.'

The president laughed when he heard it.

President Trump can be seen underneath the large statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

'I think I like that question,' he said, thanking Perkins for her prayers.

Trump then explained that he needed to be combative against a 'hostile' media.

'They come at me with questions that are disgraceful,' Trump said.

'And if I was kind of them, I would be walked off stage,' the president said.

Trump pointed to the 'tremendous' support he had from Americans across the country.

On Sunday, specifically, he mentioned some pro-Trump boaters that were photographed out on Florida waters, as some of the COVID-19 related restrictions had been dropped in that state.

'But the media, they might as well be in the Democrat party,' Trump complained.

The president started his day - which also happened to be World Press Freedom Day - by launching attacks on the press.

He tweeted Sunday morning, 'The Fake News doesnt show real polls. Lamestream Media is totally CORRUPT, the Enemy of the People!' while boasting that his poll numbers among Republican Party members were at 96 per cent approval.
Health experts have reported that over a quarter of coronavirus patients on ventilation suffer kidney failure. This is one of the causes of the shortage of vital equipment. Experts have warned that coronavirus can lead to acute kidney injury or AKI which is a sudden serious condition that can cause death if it is not treated immediately.

There are currently thousands of people in intensive care that need special renal support that takes over the role of the kidneys so that they can recover. The Government has warned about disruption to supplies because of the sudden increase in the number of patients, but they assure that those who are already receiving dialysis will not be affected.

What is AKI?

AKI is the sudden failure of kidney function and it can be dangerous and life-threatening. The good news is that it can be reversed with treatment. According to the Renal Association, 25% of COVID-19 patients who require treatment in an ICU and are on ventilators develop severe AKI. Meanwhile, Kidney Care UK reported that the number of patients is as high as 28%.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, around 3% to 9% of patients with confirmed COVID-19 develop an AKI. There are more than 2,000 patients admitted to intensive care with COVID-19 in Wales, England, and Northern Ireland have suffered kidney failure.

Even though COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, it still has deadly complications on a patient's vital organs. A consultant kidney specialist and president of The Renal Association, Dr. Graham Lipkin, told the BBC that the virus can be seen within the very fine structures of the kidneys.

Also Read: 'COVID Toes' and Other Peculiar Skin Conditions May Be Symptoms of Coronavirus

AKI also happens when the kidneys are damaged suddenly, usually because there is not enough blood flowing through the organs. Those who are at risk of kidney failure are those who are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19, including patients over the age of 65 and patients with preexisting health conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and liver disease.

How the virus attacks the kidneys

Scientists have a theory that the virus attacks the kidneys by latching onto them. The coronavirus enters the cells of those who are infected by latching onto the ACE2 receptor, which coat cell surfaces. ACE2 is present in the lungs, which are affected by the virus. However, scientists have found high expression in parts of the kidneys, suggesting susceptibility for infection.

Dr. Josef Penninger from the University of British Columbia leads a team of international scientists and they looked at how the virus can infect blood vessels and kidneys using organoids, which are small, engineered mini-organs that replicate the real thing. The virus can infect and duplicate itself in the tissues, according to the study in the journal Cell.

The study shows the reason why severe cases of COVID-19 suffer from multi-organ failure. Even in Wuhan, where the virus originated, have found high numbers of deaths that involved kidney failure. Treatment of kidney failures requires machines that need sterile tubing sets, filters, and fluids in order to work.

Patients with severe AKI is treated with either haemofiltration or hemodialysis in the ICU, which both do the work the kidneys should be doing until they can fully recover. However, there is now a critical shortage of the material needed due to the increase in COVID-19 patients in the ICU, and the government is looking for ways to solve the ongoing problem.



Related Article: Can You Get COVID-19 from Food? Experts Weigh In

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Lee Jong-min (The Korea Herald/Asia News Network)  Mon, May 4, 2020 21:03 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5eaa05 2 Food Belgium,potato,food,coronavirus,COVID-19,pommes-frites Free

Belgians are well known for their love of french fries, or "pommes frites," topped with plenty of mayonnaise.

In March, the Belgian government spared french fry vendors from its order to lockdown schools, bars and all cultural and sporting facilities. However, potato farmers hit by the COVID-19 crisis have claimed that their livelihoods are at stake despite the states efforts.

Belgapom, the association for the Belgian potato trade and processing industry, noted that some 750,000 tons of potatoes are piled up in warehouses due to a plunge in exports.

Romain Cools, secretary-general of Belgapom, urged Belgians to "eat french fries twice a week."

Read also: Coronavirus boosted cocaine traffic in March says Belgium

In the past few months, Koreans have rallied to support local farmers by purchasing groceries from online stores.

Gangwon Province Gov. Choi Moon-soon is known as the "governor who sells potatoes." Demand soared when Choi posted a deal to sell a 10-kilogram box of potatoes for just 5,000 won (US$4.10).

Further plans on how Belgium will cope with the potato surplus are yet to be announced.
HRD Minister Ramesh Pokriyal will go live on Twitter and Facebook at 12 noon on Tuesday, May 5 and address education-related concerns of students amid Covid-19 crisis. In a Tweet shared on microblogging site Twitter on May 1, Friday, the Education Minister had urged students to send their education-related queries to him through the comment section of his tweet using #Educationministergoeslive.

A number of students raised their concerns in response to the education ministers invitation on Twitter.

Some students suggested the minister to cancel all the board exams and asked him to promote the students on the basis of their internal marks. Some raised concern regarding the NEET UG entrance exam. When are CBSE 12th boards and NEET 2020 going to happen? Will NEET be offline or online and will it be in phases?, wrote a user. Some students from overseas also raised their concerns regarding the pending NIOS senior secondary examination.

Here are some queries raised by the students for the HRD minister:

Respected @HRDMinistry @DrRPNishank.

When are Cbse 12th boards and Neet2020 going to happen?

Will neet be offline or online and will it be in phases?#EducationMinisterGoesLive  Priyanshu (@Priyans19953886) May 3, 2020

Respected Sir,

Please give assurance that NIOS senior secondary exams will be conducted, especially for OVERSEAS students also. Sir, we in QATAR under lot of tension after full year of preparation. Thnx.  Bh dev (@bhdev411) May 3, 2020

Respected Sir, Please sir please cancel our remaining class 12 board exams and give promotion to all the students based on internal assessment. Please sir we can bear this day to day frustration any more. Please sir please care for us and cancel the exams and promote all. Please  Shounak Chatterjee (@ShounakChatter1) May 3, 2020

Respected sir i request you to please cancel the remaning board exams and follow the average marks scheme because since 1month we are not able to focous on study sir we suffer from network problem ,private space for study is also not avilable and family is also very depressed  Aditya Rai (@AdityaR56583496) May 3, 2020

Sir in 2016 too Neet was conducted In July ....so please do not take exam soon now we are facing crisis due to lockdown and Covid 19 .....we need ample time to be mentally prepared for Iit JEE and neet exams so pls conduct it In July or August ....  Aadi@speaks (@AadityaHarishc1) May 3, 2020
Grange Insurance Co., based in Columbus, Ohio, and AmeriTrust Group Inc. in Southfield, Michigan, are offering relief plans to business insurance customers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grange Insurance has launched Businessowner Policy (BOP) payback, which will return 20% of April and May premiums to its BOP customers. This support is an expansion of the customer relief the company recently unveiled for its personal auto customers.

AmeriTrust has created an Economic Relief Payment Plan, offering a zero-down payment relief plan for qualifying new business accounts.

Grange Insurance

Grange Insurances BOP customers will receive a 20% payback for the months of April and May for policies in-force as of March 31, pending regulatory approval. Paybacks will be issued by check and mailed to customers in May. The payments will happen automatically, and customers do not need to do anything to receive the payback.

The small business paybacks announced today are in addition to the relief Grange is already providing to customers during this pandemic. This includes:

Personal Auto Payback: Providing a 25% premium payback for April and May for personal auto customers related to the various COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders, with an estimated $25 million impact in relief.

Billing Flexibility: Offering a grace period to pay premiums and waiving late fees for personal and commercial policyholders directly impacted by the circumstances surrounding COVID-19.

Food Delivery: Supporting our commercial restaurant insureds and our personal auto policyholders who work in the restaurant industry by temporarily adjusting coverages to provide flexibility for food delivery exposure.

Grange has been and will continue to work with agents and customers on a case-by-case basis to reflect the exposure changes our customers are experiencing during these stay-at-home orders for their Commercial Package, general liability and workers compensation policies, which are easily adjusted for changes in exposures and reduction in business. The company is also working with agents and customers to adjust or suspend certain coverages on insured commercial vehicles that are not being used as a result of stay-at-home orders.

AmeriTrust

Under AmeriTrusts plan, beginning May 1, 2020, new qualifying admitted commercial property/casualty insurance accounts on a direct-billing basis will not be required to make any down payments or first month payments on their insurance policies. Instead, AmeriTrust will offer qualifying accounts a convenient 11-installment payment plan.

The annual policy premium will be split equally across the 11 monthly installments with the first payment due 30 days after their policy effective date and monthly thereafter.

The Economic Relief Payment Plan is available from AmeriTrusts admitted insurance company subsidiaries. The Economic Relief Payment Plan will initially be offered for a 60-day period.

The plan does not apply to program business, trucking business, excess workers compensation business, or monoline pay-as-you-go workers compensation policies.

Guaranteed Policy Renewals: AmeriTrust has extended its guaranteed policy renewals program through July 31. The company previously informed its contracted retail insurance agencies that AmeriTrusts admitted insurance carriers will guarantee renewal of all general business policies for accounts renewing up until July 1, 2020. AmeriTrust has extended its guaranteed renewals through July 31, 2020.

Renewals will not be re-underwritten in most circumstances. Depending on line of business, policies will be renewed as-is and may receive a nominal premium increase between 0  5%. As always, specific renewal guidance, such as policy endorsements and other changes, will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

The guaranteed admitted lines renewals do not apply to program business, trucking business, or excess workers compensation business.

AmeriTrust carriers reserve the right to cancel or non-renew any policy for fraud or material misrepresentation, as allowed by applicable law. AmeriTrust carriers also reserve the right to cancel or non-renew any policy upon discovery of a material change in risk, as allowed by applicable law.

Established in 1935, Grange Insurance and its affiliate Integrity Insurance Co. serve policyholders in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Founded in 1955, AmeriTrust Group is a nationally recognized commercial insurance underwriter and insurance administration services provider in the commercial property and casualty insurance industry. AmeriTrust is comprised of four distribution segments of the insurance marketplace: admitted carrier operations, excess & surplus lines carrier operations, wholesale MGU/MGA and third-party administration operations, and retail insurance agency operations.

Related:

Topics Carriers COVID-19 Workers' Compensation Personal Auto New Markets
Originally Posted by watercooled Originally Posted by

Do you mean lost landline as in moved to their VoIP system where the phone connects to the router? This is the case in some areas now where they're phasing out the old phone networks, but they're not the only ones and even BT/Openreach are moving towards a VoIP-only service over the next few years which should allow them to free up a fair bit of space in the exchange.



Regarding support, if you've had no joy on the phone it can help to post on their forums. It's a community forum but after a while a moderator should take a look and in general I've found them to be quite helpful. Obviously the current situation might affect response times regardless though.
By Express News Service

PATNA: Putting an end to the controversy over migrant workers' train fares, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday announced that the state government will bear all the travel costs of both migrants and the students from the state.

Kumar said: "The migrant workers and the students coming from Kota now will not have to pay for their tickets as the state government is bearing all the travel costs".

The chief minister said that the state government has also decided to give Rs 500 to each migrant workers after they are discharged from the quarantine centres.

The CM's move came a day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi attacked the NDA government for charging the migrants for their train travel back home in the wake of lockdown and said her party will fund their tickets.

So far, 1178 migrants from Jaipur and 2,194 students from Kota have reached the state in special trains.
ChangeGear provides real-time visibility of incidents enabling ramp up of response times and business communication during the peak of our global pandemic.

TAMPA, Fla., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SunView Software, provider of the ChangeGear IT Service Management (ITSM) platform, was instrumental in supporting the IT departments of Skagit County, Washington to effectively prioritize tasks, collaborate, and scale processes to manage the rapid demand for IT support on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Government of Skagit County needed to act quickly to manage the sudden 55% increase in IT requests while addressing the challenges of keeping critical services operational, supporting a remote workforce, and informing their community by way of constant communication.

ChangeGear provided the organization with real-time visibility over staff workload so it could take immediate action to maximize support efficiency and streamline business communication.

"In this time of crisis, ChangeGear has been an invaluable resource in helping me to see what's going on with my team as it's happening so I can make the quick actions necessary to get things done," Said Mike Almvig, Director of Information Services for Skagit County. "Often my team didn't have the time afforded to them to let me know when they had a problem. ChangeGear provided our department the visibility needed to prioritize and allocate resources; resolving issues immediately as they came in."

"We at SunView Software are dedicated to delivering comprehensive solutions that are flexible, innovative, and easy to use," said Seng Sun, CEO of SunView Software. "I'm thrilled that through our product ChangeGear, SunView was able to contribute to Skagit County's efforts in supporting their community during this unprecedented crisis."

Visit the SunView Software website to learn more about Skagit County's ChangeGear success story.

About Skagit County : Skagit County is located in the northwest portion of Washington State, USA, between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, B.C. Canada. It is a healthy, safe, and vibrant community, economy, and environment that embraces the diversity of its people, and is distinguished by its extraordinary landscapes, ecosystems, and natural resources. Skagit County government serves its residents by providing high-quality, efficient services to protect and strengthen its communities and environment.

About SunView Software : SunView Software, Inc. is a Service Management software company that provides the foundation for digital automation processes in the enterprise. By providing an amazing user experience combined with innovative AI/Machine Learning technologies, SunView is helping organizations to drive employee engagement, increase productivity, and improve customer satisfaction.

SunView Software, Inc. is a privately held company based in Tampa, Florida.

Contact: Jaime Spector, [email protected]

SOURCE Sunview Software, Inc.

Related Links

www.sunviewsoftware.com


President Hassan Rouhanis spokesman says Tehran will show a "hard reaction" to the extension of the arms embargo against Iran due to end in October.

The spokesman said signatories of the 2015 nuclear agreement and the UN Security Council members know that extending the arms embargo against Iran will entail "serious consequences not only for the nuclear agreement with Iran, but also for the security and stability of the region", Ali Rabiei told local media.

Iranian news agencies on Saturday May 2 have quoted Rabiei, the as saying that Tehran has sent a clear message in this regard to the United States and other world powers.

President Donald Trumps administration started an initiative last week to convince the UN Security Council to extend an arms embargo against Iran in place since 2015 when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and six world powers (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) was signed.

The move announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was later welcomed by a majority of U.S. lawmakers in the House of Representatives.

Rabiei charged that U.S. foreign policy was "imbalanced" and "not thoughtful."

He said U.S. officials should know that international agreements are not their toys. "They have been playing with the world. One day they say they withdraw from the JCPOA and another day they want to exert their influence as initial participants in the nuclear agreement."

Rabiei was referring to the United States pull-out from the nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018. Germany, UK, France, Russia and China remain parties to the agreement and Iran is hoping that they would prevent the extension of the arms embargo.

Addressing U.S. officials, Rabiei said: "You are making a mistake. Other countries are not your toys. They will remain committed to their obligations," The IRGC-linked Tasnim news agency quoted him as saying on Saturday.

Rabiei added: "Not only Iran, but no other JCPOA member state will accept this. We believe the call for extending the arms embargo against Iran is yet another sign of the United States' arrogance and bullying as Washington is taking unilateral advantage of international treaties."

He accused the U.S. of following a "bullying approach" adding that "There is no room in the international arena for such behavior." Rabiei reiterated: "We believe that JCPOA member states and the permanent members of the UN Security Council will certainly oppose this act of law evasion by the United States."

"We will continue our consultations with our friends and other JCPOA members and based on our consultations with them, we know that they do not support this approach by the United States and will not accept it. A majority of JCPOA member states and UN Security Council members reject the U.S. view on this matter," the Iranian spokesman said.

Meanwhile, he stressed that "the United States cannot benefit from the rights stipulated in the JCPOA and UN Security Council resolution 2231 which was meant to protect the nuclear deal."

He said: "The United States has pulled out of the JCPOA, so it cannot use its provisions. They can express their views only if they return to the obligations under the agreement and lift the sanctions on Iran. Otherwise, their claims are not acceptable from a legal point of view."

Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote in a tweet on Saturday that "The United States has long been the world's top military spender, arms seller, war initiator and instigator and conflict profiteer, yet Secretary Pompeo is apparently so worried about Iran  a huge US arms customer till 1979  that he is pouring weapons all over the globe."

Based on the nuclear accord with Tehran, Iran is entitled to buy or sell weapons after October 2020. However, reporters in Washington say that the Trump administration has been lobbying at the UN Security Council to pass a new resolution that would bar other countries from selling weapons to Iran after October.

There are international concerns in the region and the world about Iran's regional military ambitions . Politicians and analysts suspect that if the arms embargo is lifted in October, Iran will purchase equipment to develop ballistic missiles to threaten its neighbors and countries beyond the region and will supply arms to terrorist groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and insurgents elsewhere in the region.
In the history of Vietnam, there was a unique unit that contributed a great deal to the war against the Americans. Consisting entirely of females, the force, known as 'Long-Haired Army', was formed in the Dong Khoi (General Uprising)

that started throughout the South in the 1960s, after the Party Central Committees Resolution No15 was issued, combining political and armed struggles.

UPRISING: The Dong Khoi Movement, which originated from Mo Cay District, flowed across Ben Tre Province and then throughout the south, to the Central Highlands and other central provinces. VNA/VNS File Photo

After the great victory of the Spring Offensive 1975, this Long-Haired Army continued to contribute to building the armed forces, protecting the nation that had recently been reunified.

Such female fighters, despite their small and slender figures, faced immense danger to stop the destruction of villages. They also launched the insurgence of the Dong Khoi Movement throughout the southern region that became widely known beyond the borders of Vietnam.

VISIONARY: Commander Nguyen Thi Dinh (centre) was one of the leaders of the Dong Khoi Movement. VNA/VNS File Photo

Breaking the enemys grip

Vietnam has now been reunified for 45 years, but 86-year-old Ca Le Du in Tan Thanh Binh Commune in the southern province of Ben Tre is still overwhelmed when she recalls the Dong Khoi Movement and the Long-Haired Army.

The movement that broke out in Ben Tre before spreading throughout the South was a consequence of accumulated resent, she said.

The US and the US-backed administration of the Republic of Vietnam under its head Ngo Dinh Diem broke the 1954 Geneva Agreement, making South Vietnam a new-typed colony and a military base for the American empire. Diem issued Law 10-59, publicly placing the communists outside the law, resulting in the executions of thousands and the imprisonment of even more who were suspected to have communist affiliations, which led to the uprising to break the shackles of the regime.

In Dus memories, both Vietnamese in the North and the South felt great anguish that the country was divided though peace had been established for about five or six years. Many in the South saw their houses destroyed, were separated from their relatives and resistance activists were killed by the Sai Gon administration.

RESISTANCE: The Long-Haired Army of Ben Tre Province fought the US-aided and abetted Sai Gon regime. VNA/VNS File Photo

One day, the enemy troops raided and killed 10 young men in the hamlet. Other female neighbours in the commune secretly and hurriedly took the bodies across the river to reach Ben Tre Market by boats before dawn. When the market opened, we critically demanded the enemy stop raiding and killing innocent people, the female veteran recalled.

The revolutionary movement in Ben Tre and the South in general was hampered by the brutality of the enemy. From 1957 to 1959, 17,000 villagers in Ben Tre were arrested, imprisoned and tortured while hundreds of Communist Party officials and members were killed. From more than 2,000 members, Ben Tre Party Committee then had only about 160 left.

With the revolution in the South drowned in a sea of blood, the anger of the locals reached its climax. A movement to fight terrorism, oppression and anti-communist policy took place across the South, demanding democracy and social welfare.

HEROINE: National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan (second right, first row) is pictured with a veteran of the Long-Haired Army of Ben Tre Province. VNA/VNS Photo Trong Duc

In this context, Ben Tre Provincial Party Committee decided to start a week under the motto 'Unanimity, Concerted Movement', calling for the villagers to fight against local tyrants, destroy their grip, liberate the countryside and take control of the farms.

Following a plan and under the leadership of female commander Nguyen Thi Dinh, who later became the the first female general of Vietnam Peoples Army, the Dong Khoi Movement began in Dinh Thuy, Phuoc Hiep and Binh Khanh communes of Mo Cay District in Ben Tre on January 17, 1960 before diverting to nearby Giong Trom, Chau Thanh, Ba Tri and Thanh Phu communes.

About 10 days later, the enemy counter-attacked and mobilised thousands of soldiers to raid Dinh Thuy, Phuoc Hiep and Binh Khanh communes. They burned down houses, looted, raped, shot and killed villagers.

In responding to the enemy's plot, Ben Tre Provincial Party Committee gathered forces to organise a political struggle, the core of which was an all-female army, or the Long-Haired Army, of about 5,000 women, travelling to town in hundreds of boats," Du recalled.

Recalling her war memories, Nguyen Thi Khao, alias Nguyen Thi Thang and aka Ut Thang, the former secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, head of the Women's Union of Ben Tre Province, said she was tormented by witnessing the devastation caused by the enemys raids on local islets the night before the Dong Khoi Movement.

My hometown that used to be a peaceful land of endless rows of coconut and mangrove apple trees along the rivers was then covered in the smoke of war. The peaceful Ham Luong River that used to be thronged with local boats was scoured by the enemys patrol boats running back and forth regardless of time.

However, during those dark and hard days, many local mothers and sisters were still secretly supporting the revolutionaries, fearing no guillotine from the Law 10-59, she said.

At that time, I was an officer specialising in public relations and in charge of womens affair in Ben Tre Provincial Party Committee. I was responsible for directing and launching the women's political struggles against the enemys policies of terrorism and oppression, protecting the remaining revolutionary bases. In mid-1959, I was assigned to work in Mo Cay District Party Committee to prepare for the Dong Khoi Movement, Khao added.

Upheaval

Under the leadership of Nguyen Thi Dinh  one of the leaders and the soul of the Dong Khoi Movement  the Long-Haired Army with thousands of female members like Du and Khao fought the enemy, demanding an end to massacres and compensation for the deaths of innocents.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: The Long-Haired Army of Ben Tre Province went on strike, demanding fair treatment from the puppet government. VNA/VNS File Photo

The Long-Haired Army didn't fear guns, imprisonment, torture or even death.

Not only a political struggle, but they also fought with weapons. By the end of 1961, the number of female guerrillas in Ben Tre had reached 3,086, accounting for 1/9 of all female guerrillas in the South at that time.

In 1964, the first all-female armed unit C710 was established, the first female army force on the battlefield of Zone 8, Military Region 9.

Veteran Nguyen Thi Khich (alias Minh Tam), former deputy commander of C710 who joined the unit at the age of 18, recalled that the duties of the unit were to be disguised to scout the enemy's movement, encourage youngsters to join the liberation army.

The unit operated in Ben Tre from 1964 to 1974, accomplishing many excellent tasks and winning major battles in the middle of the enemys territory.

The unit is the womens highlight in the history of the resistance war against American and Sai Gon troops in Ben Tre Province, Khich said.

The Dong Khoi Movement originated from Mo Cay District and flowed across Ben Tre Province and then throughout the South, to the Central Highlands and other central provinces. It created a turning point and changed the whole revolutionary situation in the South. From simply maintaining forces, the revolution in the South turned into a strong, widespread and constant offensive.

The Dong Khoi Movement, the core of which was the Long-Haired Army, was a typical example of an uprising of the masses that creatively and effectively fought the enemy by combining three elements  politics, armed forces and military proselyting.

The success of the movement in Ben Tre and then throughout the South led to the establishment of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam on December 20, 1960.

In early 1961, The People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF) was also founded by uniting guerrilla forces in each locality and establishing new concentrated infantry battalions.

The spread of the movement in Ben Tre surprised, confused and terrified the enemy. In a report sent to US President John F Kennedy, the US Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that tough times for Ngo Dinh Diems regime were ahead.

The Long-Haired Army is a special military unit that showcased the creativity of Ben Tre Province in particular and southern Vietnam in general in the political struggle against the enemy during the American War in Vietnam, said National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

It is a vivid symbol of the tradition of the whole national unity in fighting against the invaders  women also fight back when the enemy comes to their house, she added.

The legendary Long-Haired Army of Ben Tre has honourably been presented with eight golden words by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam: Anh dung ong Khoi, thang My, diet Nguy that means "Heroic Dong Khoi Movement, defeating the US and Sai Gon troops".

The all-female force and the women's anti-war movement in Ben Tre Province were also granted with the title of the Hero of the People's Armed Forces as recognition of their outstanding contributions in August 2018. VNS

By Phuc Hau, Hanh Quynh and Hien Hanh

Intellectuals respond for Southern Liberation The 1970s was a time of huge significance in Vietnamese history, not least for the generation who responded to the movement 'Putting away pens to go to the battle'.
South Coast AQMD unveils online tool to track permit applications

First air agency in California to produce this type of digital tool

ADVERTISEMENT

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) unveiled a new online Permit Application Status tool where businesses and organizations can now track submitted permit applications from start to finish. South Coast AQMD is the first air agency in California to provide an online tool that provides this type of information clearly and easily to the public.

We are excited to launch this digital permitting tool to the public, said Wayne Nastri, Executive Officer of South Coast AQMD. This improves our ability to be transparent and responsive to both businesses and the community by keeping them clearly informed on the status of permits.

Once a permit application is submitted, applicants and the public can check its current status as well as additional details including:

A full timeline of the permit process from start to finish;

If information or action is still needed from the facility such as data, reports, fees, or source tests; and,

If the permit is being processed or has triggered additional evaluation steps from South Coast AQMD.

The new online tool will be integrated into South Coast AQMDs existing Facility Information Detail ( FIND ) system where the public can search for information about regulated facilities. More information regarding the new online tool and instructions on its use can be accessed on the South Coast AQMDs Permits page at www.aqmd.gov/home/permits .
With the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) citing swim lessons as a beneficial way to help lower drowning rates among children, Goldfish Swim School remains determined not to let the pandemic prevent its ability to provide important swim lesson exercises and activities. 'Goldfish At Home' is designed to teach important water safety skills, develop confidence with swimming techniques, maintain momentum on progress made at lessons, and help kids stay active while learning something new. To access 'Goldfish At Home,' members and non-members alike can simply visit the Goldfish Swim School YouTube page and choose the level that matches their child's age and progress.

As drowning remains the number one cause of unintentional injury-related death among children ages 1 to 4, taking the lives of three children in the United States every day, Goldfish Swim School remains committed to making a positive impact to help lower these staggering statistics. With the support of franchise owners across the system, brand ambassador and three-time Olympic Gold Medalist Ryan Murphy, and Founder of Water Guardians: Levi's Legacy - Nicole Hughes, the brand is rolling out a variety of fun and engaging virtual initiatives that bring communities together in the name of water safety awareness.

Virtual Storytime With Bubbles  On Wednesday, May 13 , at 12 p.m. ET , Goldfish Swim School brand mascot Bubbles will be hosting a special story-time reading via Facebook Live , premiering his newly animated book while sharing how he learned to swim.

On , at , Goldfish Swim School brand mascot Bubbles will be hosting a special story-time reading via , premiering his newly animated book while sharing how he learned to swim. Waves for Water Safety  On International Water Safety Day, May 15 , Goldfish Swim School is challenging its social media followers and beyond to update their Facebook and Instagram profile pictures to reflect Water Safety Waves to bring greater awareness to the importance of water safety and drowning prevention.

 On International Water Safety Day, , Goldfish Swim School is challenging its social media followers and beyond to update their Facebook and Instagram profile pictures to reflect Water Safety Waves to bring greater awareness to the importance of water safety and drowning prevention. Live Water Safety Q&A  Hosted via Goldfish Swim School's Instagram Live on Wednesday, May 20 at 12 p.m. ET , Goldfish Swim School Co-Founder Jenny McCuiston , and Nicole Hughes , who tragically lost her son Levi to a drowning incident in 2018, will join forces to provide parents and their children water safety education. Those who tune-in will have the chance to ask real-time questions and hear from two mothers who have dedicated their lives to water safety.

 Hosted via on at , Goldfish Swim School Co-Founder , and , who tragically lost her son Levi to a drowning incident in 2018, will join forces to provide parents and their children water safety education. Those who tune-in will have the chance to ask real-time questions and hear from two mothers who have dedicated their lives to water safety. 'Recess with Ryan'  Every Monday at 3 p.m. ET , three-time Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist Ryan Murphy is hosting an interactive social media series via Facebook Live where kids can participate in a water safety exercise challenge while Murphy provides inspiration, answers real-time questions, and virtually interacts with families across the nation. Those who participate and complete the exercise challenge are entered to win prizes from Goldfish Swim School, the USA Swimming Foundation and more!

"Even while our schools are closed, we know there is still so much we can do to ensure more children learn the importance of water safety," said Chris McCuiston, CEO & Co-Founder of Goldfish Swim School. "As stay-at-home orders continue to extend and social distancing becomes the new norm, we have been working to debut creative ways to connect our communities and stay true to our mission of educating children on water safety while teaching them how to be safer in and around the water. It is our hope all these virtual initiatives help make a true impact."

To help families adjust to new lifestyles amid the pandemic, Goldfish Swim School has rolled out various at-home activities , like coloring sheets and memory games, for parents to download and enjoy with their kids, along with fun play-time ideas such as practicing swim technique in the bathtub. Additionally, with the majority of school districts having adjusted to virtual platforms, Goldfish Swim School is now offering its free W.A.T.E.R. Safety Presentations virtually.

Traditionally during National Water Safety Month, Goldfish Swim School launches its annual ' Float It Forward' campaign that encourages its network of 100+ schools to execute fundraising initiatives in their local communities, such as donation-based family swims, raffles, competitions, donation drives and more to aid in its commitment to raise $1 million for the USA Swimming Foundation's Make a Splash initiative . While community giveback remains a top priority, Goldfish owners and team members have been stepping up to support their communities amid COVID-19 by donating snacks and drinks to local hospitals, sewing facemasks for the community, launching fundraising efforts such as 'Swimming for Superheroes' to honor healthcare workers, and more.

For more information on Goldfish Swim School, please visit https://www.goldfishswimschool.com/ .

About Goldfish Swim School

Founded by husband and wife team Chris and Jenny McCuiston, Goldfish Swim School provides swim lessons and water safety instruction to infants and children ages four months to 12 years. Classes are offered by specially trained instructors in a safe, child-friendly and fun environment using their research-based philosophy called The Science of SwimPlay. Goldfish currently teaches more than 138,000 students per week to swim and be safer in and around the water. Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, Goldfish Swim School was established in Birmingham, Michigan in 2006, and opened its first franchise location in 2009. Recently, the brand was recognized by Entrepreneur in its Franchise 500 ranking, Franchise Times' 2020 Fast & Serious List, and Inc. Magazine's 2019 Top 5000. Goldfish Swim School is currently in the process of expanding franchise opportunities throughout North America, with more than 100 schools open, and an additional 100+ in development in more than 34 states and Canada.

Media Contact: Kelly McNamara, Fishman Public Relations, (847) 945-1300, [email protected]

SOURCE Goldfish Swim School

Related Links

https://www.goldfishswimschool.com


WASHINGTON - Swinerton Renewable Energy had everything it needed to build a promising new wind farm in Texas. It lined up more than 2,000 acres for the $109 million project estimated to generate 400 jobs while under construction. By its August completion date, the wind farm was expected to produce 200 megawatts of energy - enough to power about 25,000 homes - and generate big tax breaks for its investors as part of a government program to incentivize clean energy.

But the coronavirus pandemic put everything on hold. The wind farm's backers aren't sure they will make enough money from other investments during the pandemic-fueled downturn for those tax breaks to be worth it. So the project has been delayed at least six months.

"This is not a shortage of materials. It is not a pricing issue," said George Hershman, president of Swinerton Renewable Energy. "Everything was pointing to successful projects."

The coronavirus crisis is not only battering the oil and gas industry. It's drying up capital and disrupting supply chains for businesses trying to move the country toward cleaner sources of energy.

While President Donald Trump has promised lifelines for airlines and oil companies struggling with a drastic decrease in demand as Americans remain under stay-at-home orders, there is little focus in Washington on economic relief for this sector - unlike during the Great Recession a decade ago, when Congress and the Obama administration earmarked an unprecedented sum for renewable energy and more efficient automobiles in a stimulus bill.

"We don't want to lose our great oil companies," Trump said during an April 1 news briefing. He so far has not made a similar promise to help wind and solar firms, and none of the four economic rescue and stimulus packages that Congress has passed to respond to the coronavirus crisis set aside any money for renewable energy specifically.

The impact of the crisis is already clear: About 106,000 clean-energy workers have already filed for unemployment in March alone, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Environmental Entrepreneurs, an advocacy group.

The layoffs are a blow to a sector that has prided itself on official projections that solar installers and wind turbine technicians would be the two fastest growing occupations over the next decade.

The job losses include not just wind and solar construction workers, but also those assembling electric cars and installing energy-efficient appliances, lighting, heating and air conditioning.

"These aren't left-wing coastal hippies," said Bob Keefe, executive director of Environmental Entrepreneurs. "These are construction workers who get up every day and lace up their boots and pull on their gloves and go to work putting insulation in our attics."

Despite the economic turmoil, climate experts say the coronavirus pandemic could be an opportunity to make drastic shifts in the energy landscape. They say governments around the world should help fund renewable energy and use the turmoil in energy markets to remake the industry and slash carbon dioxide emissions, which will tumble 8 percent this year, according to the International Energy Agency.

The agency said that while global energy demand fell 3.8 percent in the first quarter, renewables were the only source to post an increase in demand, rising 1.5 percent thanks to new renewable power plants, low operating costs and priority on some electricity grids.

But many investors, who rely on a broad mix of investments, are spooked. "Everything is quiet because people want to see where we land with the current crisis, and people are holding on to cash," said Daniel Klier, the global head of sustainable finance at HSBC bank. "As soon as people have a bit of confidence that the market is recovering, they can get projects going."

Social distancing and the country's stay-at-home orders are also having a deep effect on daily operations. The areas hardest hit are installing solar panels on rooftops and adding energy-efficiency measures inside homes - work that often requires face-to-face interactions. Sungevity, once one of the nation's leading solar-installation companies, laid off 377 workers, most of its workforce, in late March, according to filings with California's Employment Development Department. The company, which had emerged from a 2017 bankruptcy, cited economic conditions.

The push to promote a more fuel-efficient automobile fleet has also veered off track. The electric carmaker Tesla was forced to shut down its factory in Fremont, California, just as it was turning up production on its new crossover vehicle, the Model Y.

Lockdown orders across the country led Tesla's outspoken chief executive, Elon Musk, to launch into an expletive-laden rant during an earnings call last week in which Tesla posted a lukewarm profit of $16 million.

"To say that they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do," Musk said, "this is fascist."

Sungevity and Tesla represent only a sliver of the economic pain in this sector across the country. The Solar Energy Industries Association had anticipated a growth in solar jobs, from 250,000 to 300,000, over the course of the year, said the group's president, Abigail Ross Hopper. Now, she said, half the workforce is at risk.

"Shelter in place puts limitations on how people can work," she said. "Literally, people don't want other people inside their houses to fix electrical boxes. And there are no door-to-door sales."

Bigger projects are also grappling with the pandemic economy, though not as severely. Hopper said the industry was geared up to increase the number of new solar farms, in part to take advantage of federal tax credits. "We were on track to do almost 20 gigawatts, which would have been the highest year yet," Hopper said. That would have been enough to power about 3.7 million homes. Now she expects new projects will come closer to last year's 13.27 gigawatts' worth of new construction, enough to run approximately 2.5 million homes.

Wind energy companies, too, are bracing for lost progress unless the federal government steps in. The American Wind Energy Association said projects that would add 25 gigawatts of wind power to the U.S. grid are at risk of being scaled back or canceled outright over the next two years because of the pandemic. Altogether, that work represents about 35,000 jobs.

"2019 was a good year for the wind industry," said Tom Kiernan, the association's chief executive. "We were expecting 2020 to be an even stronger year."

One project put on the back burner: the enormous 9 gigawatt offshore wind project led by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority set to be completed by 2035.

With New York City besieged by coronavirus cases, the authority said it would comply with an executive order from Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, "pausing" all work on the project until at least May 15. Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania also delayed wind turbine projects by deeming construction on them nonessential.

The Danish offshore wind firm Orsted said that plans for offshore U.S. wind installations would move "at a slower pace than originally expected due to a combination of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's prolonged analysis of the cumulative impacts from the build-out of US offshore wind projects, and now also COVID-19 effects." The company told investors it expects delays on projects off the coasts of New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island totaling almost 3 gigawatts.

The supply chains have also taken a hit during the pandemic: Even if contractors can get the money to erect wind turbines or lay solar arrays, that doesn't mean they will have the parts. At least two factories that make wind turbine parts - one in North Dakota and another in Iowa - were forced to pause production because of coronavirus outbreaks. Factory shutdowns in China have constrained solar supplies, too.

The key reason for delaying most big solar and wind projects is the use of tax credits known as "tax equity." These allow investors, such as banks, to use the credits to directly offset their overall tax burdens. But if an investor doesn't have enough profit to offset the credits, the tax equity could become worthless.

"If your profitability is going down, you don't have the same appetite," Hopper said.

Solar and wind industry leaders are pressing Congress and the Trump administration to extend the tax credits that are due to expire and to make the tax credits refundable, meaning the government would issue a check to investors who do not have enough profit to justify their investments.

Currently, big wind turbines get a 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour tax credit if construction begins before the end of this year. Tax credits for residential renewable energy - solar panels and small wind - phase out by the end of 2021.

The lack of attention to renewables in Congress's relief efforts so far is in stark contrast to 2009, when the United States spent $112 billion to boost "green" energy, according to the World Resources Institute. The government's package then provided a mixture of grants and loans for a variety of renewable energy ventures - including a $465 million loan Tesla used to get its Fremont factory off the ground.

This year, a handful of clean-energy firms, including a Connecticut-based manufacturer of fuel cells and an Ohio-based maker of energy-efficient lighting systems, took money from a federal small-business lending program, before funds ran dry in the middle of last month. Broadwind Energy, a maker of steel wind energy towers based outside Chicago, received $9.5 million in small-business loans, one of the biggest totals in the program.

So far, the Trump administration has shown far more eagerness to help American petroleum producers that the president said were "ravaged" by a sharp drop in energy demand. Last week, Trump met with oil executives at the White House, and Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette has floated the idea of bridge loans for struggling oil firms.

During negotiations for the last relief package, congressional Democrats tried to strike a deal to refill the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve in exchange for extending the clean-energy incentives, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rebuffed those calls.

"Democrats won't let us fund hospitals or save small businesses unless they get to dust off the Green New Deal," McConnell said in March.

Already, Democrats are signaling they will make a push again in the next round of stimulus spending.

"Relief and recovery legislation will shape our society for years to come," said Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-Va., vice chair of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, a caucus that supports renewable energy resources. "We must use these bills to build in a climate-smart way."

But it remains unclear how much appetite the GOP will have for a deal. "I just don't know how to handicap that at this point," said Grant Carlisle, an analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a major environmental group.

Kiernan, the head of the American Wind Energy Association, said his group has "gotten a very good reception with the administration and with the Hill" when it comes to coronavirus relief, but he declined to go into specifics.

In other parts of the world, governments have been providing support for renewables. The European Union has its own Green New Deal, and China is expected to support wind and solar to get the economy moving more quickly.

Some energy analysts note that big oil companies don't have to wait for government stimulus. The price of oil is so low that they would be better off investing in wind and solar, they say.

"For all these oil companies, the returns on these renewable projects are better than what they can do in the oil and gas industry," said Sarah Ladislaw, director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Now is a good time to do that and tell their investors."

This fits in with their broader goals, analysts contend. After all, Royal Dutch Shell recently matched BP's earlier promise to aim to be net-zero for carbon emissions by 2050.

Shell's chief executive Ben van Beurden has said the company would try to protect its low-carbon Integrated Gas and New Energies division from the largest spending cuts as it sought to weather the pandemic. "We must maintain focus on the long term," he said in a video message. "Society expects nothing less."
(Photo : ESA - European Space Agency & Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research for OSIRIS Team ESA/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA/WIKI Commons) True color image of Mars taken by the OSIRIS instrument on the ESA Rosetta spacecraft during its February 2007 flyby of the planet. The image was generated using the OSIRIS orange (red), green, and blue filters. Alternative description: The first true-colour image generated using the OSIRIS orange (red), green and blue colour filters. The image was acquired on 24 February 2007 at 19:28 CET from a distance of about 240 000 km; image resolution is about 5 km/pixel.

Another country will soon join the elite group of nations that have sent a space probe to Mars as the United Arab Emirates attempts to launch its first-ever space mission to the Red Planet.

The Middle East nation prepares to send its Mars orbiter, which they called Hope Mars Mission or Hope by late July or early August this year, according to a report in Space.com. The orbiter will study the Martian atmosphere and climate. It will investigate the daily and seasonal weather cycles, weather events in the lower atmosphere, and the weather patterns in the different regions of the Red Planet.

If successful, the UAE will become only the fifth nation to send a space probe to orbit Mars. Thus, the country is looking forward that by February next year, their orbiter will be circling Mars. The Mars orbiter will be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on board a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA rocket.

Omran Sharaf, the mission lead for the Hope spacecraft, said that more than that of going to Mars, the mission's bigger goal is to expedite the development in their educational sector and academic sector. Sharaf added that the mission began as an instruction from UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to send a UAE-built science probe to Mars before the country's 50th anniversary in December 2021.

Sarah Al Amiri, who is the UAE minister of state for advanced sciences, said that the Hope mission would provide a mindset the youth will play a crucial role in the country's post-oil economy. Al Amiri added that it is about broadening their horizon and taking on the challenge at a time when the Arab state is relatively comfortable as a nation.

The Goal of the Mars Mission

"The science needs to be unique. Whatever you do, it should not be something that's been done before." That was the directive that Sharaf received from the prime minister.

The team of the Hope mission reached out to many Mars scientists around the world to mold the objective of the Mars orbiter. The UAE space agency linked with the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group to determine the scientific investigation that the Mars orbiter can do in its mission.

From that discussion with scientists, they finally found a mission for Hope orbiter. There is a significant gap in our understanding of the Martian atmosphere. Al Amiri said that "we don't have a full understanding of the weather system of Mars throughout an entire year."

Al Miri said that earlier and present missions collected observations on the Martian weather for only a couple of times throughout a day. Most measurements come from surface missions, and the observations are only limited to a particular location. The limited data on Martian weather does not offer much explanation of how it works. Hope Mars orbiter aims to fill up the gap and provide valuable information about the Martian weather. The space probe will track the events within the Martian atmosphere for a year. It will also study the connections between layers of the Martian atmosphere. Scientists can use the data from the Mars orbiter to understand the Martian weather and find an explanation of how the Red Planet Mars lost some of its atmospheres over time.

The Hope spacecraft carries a camera sensitive to optical and ultraviolet wavelengths and spectrometers tuned to infrared and to ultraviolet light. The three instruments must take simultaneous measurements to collect data across the different layers of the Martian atmosphere and allow scientists to stack the data together.

Al Amiri shared that to conduct its measurements, the Mars orbiter Hope carries all its instruments on the same arm. Also, the space probe has a precisely tuned 55 hour-long orbit that enables us to capture two different views of the planet. "One in which the planet rotates beneath the spacecraft, and one in which the spacecraft keeps pace and watches the same spot over time," Al Amiri said. She added that these views would allow scientists to put together a complete map of the Martian atmosphere.

Launch Date

The UAE space agency said that the spacecraft has already arrived in Japan last April to ensure it did not get caught in the lockdown due to the pandemic.

Sharaf admitted that if everything goes according to plan, the Mars orbiter will arrive in the Red Planet in February. The spacecraft will spend its two years learning more about the Martian atmosphere. Sharaf added that after a year in orbit, they would evaluate if there is a need to extend the mission.

Sharaf shared that he terrified since other countries like the US and China are also eyeing to send their spacecraft to Mars.

Also Read: China Names Mars Mission 'Tianwen;' Will Start Its Quest Soon

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Spanish government is turning up pressure on opposition parties to approve another extension of the country's state of emergency.

The government says a failure to do so could "bring chaos".

Transport and Mobility Minister Jose Luis Abalos anticipates a tough debate in Parliament on the issue on Wednesday.

He says the measure is the most effective legal instrument to fight the new coronavirus because it grants authorities the exceptional power to restrict freedom of movement.

Abalos says that without it all the sacrifices made so far will have been pointless. There's no Plan B, no alternative to the state of emergency, Abalos told a conference in Madrid on Monday.

Health Minister Salvador Illa said it was "indispensable".

Spain has managed to reduce the daily increase in the number of coronavirus infections from around 35% in mid-March to 0.16% because of a strict lockdown.

More than 25,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
MISGAV, Israel and SINGAPORE, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Trendlines Group Ltd. ("Trendlines") (SGX: 42T) (OTCQX: TRNLY), is pleased to announce that its fund, Trendlines Agrifood Fund Pte. Ltd. ("the Fund"), has made its second investment, investing in Insectta Pte. Ltd. ("Insectta"), an early-stage Singaporean start-up focused on the extraction of valuable biomaterials from insects.

Founded in 2017, Insectta originally started as an insect farm focused on producing alternative proteins for animal feeds, but recently pivoted to the extraction of biomaterials from insects. Insectta produces high value, novel materials which can be applied across multiple industries such as agrifood, pharmaceutical and electronics. Insectta's first innovative technology offers an efficient, sustainable and cost-effective means of producing chitosan that surpasses all existing technologies currently available.

Chitosan, first registered as an active ingredient in 1986, has physiochemical properties such as bioadhesive, biocompatible, and biodegradable, making it particularly suitable for applications related to biomedical engineering, food and biodegradable plastics. The market for chitosan is expected to grow dramatically as new applications are developed and mass-produced.

Chitosan is typically derived from crustaceans, but the current extraction process is highly unsustainable due to the amount of chemicals required for the process. Insectta's technology allows extraction of chitosan from insects without the use of harsh chemicals, thus setting a new industry standard for purer, traceable, and high-quality chitosan. Using byproducts created by insect farms as the raw materials required for the extraction process, Insectta's technology builds on the circular economy within the insect farming industry. Through a biorefinery process, Insectta can produce chitosan, protein and probiotics, products estimated to triple the larvae's final product value.

Trendlines Agrifood Fund CEO Nitza Kardish, PhD., commented, "Insectta brings a unique technology for producing high-value materials from the insect industry's waste. Our investment represents the fund's commitment to investing in technologies developed and implemented in Singapore; and addressing food and other issues in a sustainable way, using innovative knowledge and a team with proven capabilities. Insectta works in cooperation with research bodies in Singapore and has commercial relationships with various entities in East Asia. The Company will operate from our AFIC incubator offices in the new complex we have established. We expect the commercialization of the company's first products at the end of its first year of operation."

"The Fund's mission to improve food systems around the world aligns closely with Insectta's. Trendlines' focus on innovative, technology-driven solutions is exactly what we are looking for in a strategic partner. With their help, we aim to increase the value and diversify the products attained from food waste valorization," said Ms Chua Kai-Ning, co-founder of Insectta.

About The Trendlines Group

Trendlines is an innovation commercialization company that invents, discovers, invests in, and incubates innovation-based medical and agrifood technologies to fulfill its mission to improve the human condition. As intensely hands-on investors, Trendlines is involved in all aspects of its portfolio companies from technology development to business building. Trendlines' shares are traded on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX: 42T) and in the United States as an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) on the OTCQX (OTCQX: TRNLY).

Investor Contact Information

Israel:

Shira Zimmerman, The Trendlines Group

[email protected]

Tel: +972.72.260.7000

SOURCE The Trendlines Group
When the coronavirus outbreak shuttered school buildings, teachers were asked to quickly transition to remote instruction, while also trying to meet the social-emotional needs of their students during scary, uncertain times.

It has been tough, exhausting work , many teachers say. Even so, there have been many inspiring examples of teachers making sure their students are engaged and feel safe and secure. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week on May 4-8, here are three stories of teachers doing whatever they can to help students during the coronavirus pandemic.

See: In Unprecedented Times, These Principals Are Going All Out on Teacher Appreciation

1. An Alabama teacher is using his stimulus check to pay for some of his students utility bills.

Kent Chambers, a math teacher at Bob Jones High School in Madison, Ala., donated half of his $1,200 stimulus check to pay the utility bills for the families of three of his students. He knew those families were struggling financially, and he wanted to help.

Im actually in better shape because Im not having to pay for gas to drive to work and Im still getting paid the exact same amount, he told CNN . Theres no need for me to take the money and splurge and do something reckless with the money. Lets help somebody that really needs it.

Chambers made the payments anonymously, so the families would see they had zero balance when they checked their account, according to CNN. The money should cover their bills for about two months, he said. He donated the remaining $600 from his stimulus check to the burn care center at Shriners Hospital for Children in Cincinnati.

2. A Connecticut teacher is taking care of her students newborn brother while his family recovers from COVID-19.

Luciana Lira, a bilingual and English-as-a-second-language teacher at Hart Magnet Elementary School in Stamford, Conn., received a phone call on April 4 from her students mother, who is an immigrant from Guatemala. She had just been diagnosed with COVID-19, the woman said, and she was in the hospital, about to give birth. Her husband doesnt speak English. Could Lira come to the hospital?

Lira rushed to the hospital, her friend, Joy Colon, wrote on Facebook. Once she got there, the husband told her that he suspected that heand his stepson, Liras 7-year-old studentalso had COVID-19. He was terrified that the newborn baby would contract the illness as well. Could Lira take the baby home with her?

Lira agreed. And a week later, the test results came backthe father and her student tested positive for COVID-19. The babys pediatrician said that if the baby had gone home with them, the outcome could surely have been tragic, Colon wrote.







The baby, named Neysel, is healthy and has been at Liras house for about a month. His mother, who had been placed on a ventilator after delivery, was released from the hospital on April 26. Lira wrote on Facebook that she would keep caring for Neysel until his parents and brother all tested negative for COVID-19. The nurses at the hospital asked my friend if she was the mothers sister, or perhaps, a cousin as she was listed as the primary contact, Colon wrote. Luciana Lira responded, Im just a teacher. 3. A Florida teacher paid a visit to her student who was having a bad day.

Katie Ricca, a 1st grade teacher at North Bay Haven Charter Academy in Panama City, Fla., has been reading to her students on a livestream every night. But one night, early in April, she noticed that 7-year-old Hannah was withdrawn and not her usual cheerful self.

Our class tried talking to her but you could tell something was bothering her, Ricca told Good Morning America . She left the meeting early so I texted her mom to check in. My sweet student told her mom she was sad but didnt know why.

The next day, Ricca surprised Hannah by showing up at her house. The two sat on the driveway, six feet apart, and read books together and talked about their feelings.







She reminded Hannah that its OK to get bummed out every now and then, its OK to chill out, and its even OK to cry about it if we need to, Kelley Close, Hannahs mom, told Good Morning America. She reminded Hannah that even though were separated, were all going through the same thing at the same time.

Ricca has five kids of her own, in addition to teaching and running a cake business with her husband. But when she saw Hannah was upset, she wanted to show her that she cares.

She didnt need more math practice; she needed me to show her I understood her feelings and that she wasnt alone, Ricca told Good Morning America.

Do you have a story to tell about a teachers life during the pandemic? Email mwill@educationweek.org, and the teacher could be featured in Education Week.

More Inspiring Teachers:

Image via Getty
Burma In Myanmars Chin State, Rain and Attack on WFP Convoy Force Aid Deliveries by Boat

A boat in Paletwa. / Aung Kyaw Thet / The Irrawaddy

NAYPYITAWThe Myanmar government plans to ship food supplies to Chin States Paletwa Township by boat after a World Food Programme (WFP) aid convoy was recently unable to reach the area by road due to bad weather, government spokesman U Zaw Htay told reporters in an online press conference on Saturday.

Last Wednesday, a WFP aid convoy loaded with rice and other basic foodstuffs was also attacked by the Arakan Army (AA) between Samee and Paletwa towns in Chin State and a driver with the convoy was injured, according to the Myanmar military.

As it is raining and the road route is not convenient, we are planning to ship by water, said government spokesman U Zaw Htay.

The WFP convoy consisted of five trucks loaded with 2,000 rice sacks and necessities.

The driver was reportedly injured by broken glass from the front windshield of his truck. Other trucks were also damaged in the attack. The trucks were repaired and arrived at Seint San Wa Village near Paletwa the following day, said Myanmar military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun.

We have taken security measures along the route. As [the AA] could not attack with a large force, it carried out sneak attacks as the convoy passed beyond Samee, and it appears that they targeted the WFP trucks, said the military spokesman.

Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun added that the deliberate attacks on UN vehicles aimed to attract international attention to Rakhine issues, tarnish the images of the government and the military and bring greater international pressure on the country.

On April 20, a World Health Organization (WHO) vehicle traveling from Rakhine State to Yangon with swabs taken from 20 suspected COVID-19 patients was attacked. A driver, U Pyae Sone Win Maung, was fatally wounded and U Aung Myo Oo, a medical officer, was injured.

Both the Myanmar military and the AA denied responsibility for the fatal attack. When asked by the reporters at Saturdays press conference about the attack, U Zaw Htay answer was short. It was done by the AA.

The AA has said that they must be informed in advance if food will be transported into Paletwa for civilians, warning that they will shoot any escorted aid convoy.

The AA released a statement and said that rice could be transported [into Paletwa] only if they are informed in advance. But in reality, they did not allow transportation, said Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun.

The AA said in its statement on April 20 that it would not interfere but would assist as it could with local and foreign organizations and UN aid agencies that provide humanitarian assistance in Rakhine and Paletwa.

Fierce clashes near Paletwa since February between the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, and the AA had effectively blocked transport between Paletwa and the neighboring Rakhine township of Kyauktaw until recently, leaving Paletwa isolated and short of food. The clashes around Meewa Hill, near Paletwa, had blocked transport by water on the Kaladan River.

The first shipment of rice, basic foods and medicines donated by the Chin State government and non-governmental organizations arrived in Paletwa on April 19.

According to the Chin State government, Paletwa is made up of over 400 urban wards and villages and is home to some 100,000 people who are either ethnic Chin or Rakhine. Over 3,600 civilians from rural areas of Paletwa have been taking shelter in urban areas of the town due to clashes between the Tatmadaw and the AA.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

You may also like these stories:

Shan State Militia, AA Deny Links Through Lucrative Drug Trade

New Mon State Party Agrees to Close Thai-Myanmar Border Crossings to Curb COVID-19

Suu Kyis Backing for Myanmar Military in Rakhine State Conflict Draws Criticism
From upskilling to bonding with clients, millennial-led PR firms are taking all the necessary steps to ensure work goes on as usual even during these trying times

Public relations industry has emerged as the silver lining for firms in these dark times of the pandemic. But with reduced corporate budget allocation on the PR services, the job has become more demanding than ever before. The nascent agencies are not leaving any stone unturned to beat these odds. Led by highly enthusiastic millennials, these young agencies are ensuring that work goes on as usual.

E4m interacted with some of the key players in the category to understand the challenges. Bushra Ismail-Founder at Confiance Communications said, "Some of our clients have requested to temporarily modify the terms of engagement and for trimming off of the PR budgets, as they'd still like to maintain continuity in the brand's communication while also being mindful of the spends."

She informed: There are also a few others who have taken a PR hiatus for a period of 3 months to recover from the COVID-19 aftermath, especially the clientele based in Singapore and the Middle East. However, Ismail also said that the agency has so far not witnessed a single termination of contract.

Jai Kewalramani, the founder of Jaibo, also agreed that the lockdown period has impacted the business. He said, Many of our clients have had to pause their marketing activities given a halt in their businesses, leading to a significant loss in revenue.

Independent PR consultants have also been coping with the changing times. Reva Malhotra- Independent PR Consultant for The Dialogue said, Like every other professional, we learnt to make peace with work from home is the new normal. Our approach to the communications industry, media and client has changed, we have substituted in-person meetings with Zoom calls and mails.

She added,  Though the industry has seen a re-calibration in terms of the pay scale, KPIs and the industry, which requires PR at the moment, there has unarguably been an increase in best internal and external communication practices and the need for PR people to step in and help their clients/ organisations.

The cascading effect of the pandemic is palpable, with less influx of business and operations being temporarily shut. The extension of the nationwide lockdown being repeatedly imposed in the country has added to the attrition and will continue to bear the brunt post the lockdown too. Corporate budget allocations for public relations have reportedly been reduced owing to the unprecedented losses in businesses.

On being asked whether the PR budget has been reduced by clients during this period, Kewalramani replied, At Jaibo, we havent really witnessed a change in budgets. Either clients businesses are operational or they have been forced to pause. The ones that are operational continue on existing budgets, while the latter has had to pause their marketing activities. 

Some of our clients have requested to trim the budgets by 25-40% for the next 2-3 months, and we have managed to work this out in a way that is truly symbiotic, informed Bushra Ismail. She added, I also feel that during these past few weeks that have been challenging for all of us on different levels, we have developed an even stronger bond with each of our clients and the essence of partnership is so much greater now. 

Apart from keeping their businesses running, these young entrepreneurs have the responsibility of keeping their employees motivated to bring out the best in them. From fun virtual meetings to exchanging OTT watchlists, these millennials are optimally utilizing the lockdown period to keep their colleagues and employees boosted up.

Komal Lath, Founder, Tute Consult strongly believes in the saying "When a fisherman is not in the sea, he mends his nets". She said, As a team, we're using this time to acquire new skills, improve our industry relationships, evaluate & improve our delivery models, relook at measurements matrics, and build new client relationships. Lath added, Apart from the hygiene video calls to Friday fun virtual meetings, we are focusing on the emotional health of our teams. Right from knowing how they manage their daily chores to being a part of their lives to help, assess and reach out, we covering these on a daily basis.

Ismail informs that being a relatively smaller bunch of people, they discuss with each about their feelings on different days of the lockdown, and the conversations run deep. We make sure that we regularly exchange our OTT watch lists and the list of books to read. She added, "We are using this time to introduce some training modules that the team members can benefit from and things that will help them better their individual skill-sets. We are also actively collaborating with clients to have team members join different sessions on mental health, personal development, etc, on a regular basis.

Public relations has never enjoyed greater prominence as it does in todays times. To survive the crisis, these novel agencies are articulating strategies that will help tide over these unprecedented times. At Jaibo, we are adopting greater team co-ordination practices like video calls on Zoom and advising clients to not try to benefit from a meaningless attempt to join Coronavirus narratives in hopes of increasing brand visibility, affirmed Jai Kewalramani. He urged to create a value proposition that either enables the public or supports government authorities and essential workers who are working tirelessly to combat this virus.

Malhotra also advised taking an empathetic approach in times of a paradigmatic shift in the industry landscape like the COVID situation. She added, We are suggesting brands to use their clout to send out positive messages rather than focusing on the immediate sale of your product or service and attempt to encash the COVID situation in any manner because that can backfire.

Lath concluded by recommending the "Start, Stop and Continue" model towards our business and identify what the agencies were doing in the pre-COVID times that they would like to STOP and CONTINUE.

Read more news about (internet advertising India, internet advertising, advertising India, digital advertising India, media advertising India)
Chris Oliver-Taylor

Channel 10s Head of Popular Factual, Sarah Thornton and Fremantle CEO Chris Oliver-Taylor will discuss how Production is dealing with the impact of COVID-10, including Neighbours and The Project.

Running Free Live : Pivoting Production will discuss fast turn-around commissions and how the industry is rethinking production and development during the current restrictions.

Channel 10s Head of Popular Factual, Sarah Thornton, will be talking about her productions  including The Project  and what shows she would be interested in commissioning in the current climate. Producer Dan Brown will discuss how he worked with Sarah to turn Coronavirus Australia: Our Story around in 16 days. Fremantle Australia CEO Chris Oliver Taylor will tackle re-thinking development and production  including rebooting Neighbours for 10.

All guests will be available for live virtual networking following the discussion.

Running Free Live will be held on the second Thursday of every month. Each panel includes established makers from across the screen industries sharing their knowledge and advice on topical issues, while digging into their careers, past and present, to reveal what theyve done to get where they are now. Following each panel discussion, viewers will be invited to join breakout sessions and take part in virtual networking.

Running Free Live: Pivoting Production

Thursday 7 May

Live: 7pm-8.30pm

Featuring Channel 10s Head of Popular Factual, Sarah Thornton, Producer Dan Brown, and Fremantle CEO Chris Oliver Taylor and MC Denise Eriksen from Media Mentors Australia.

Running Free Live will be held on the second Thursday of every month. More at acmi.net.au

Running Free Live is presented in partnership by ACMI, Film Victoria and Media Mentors Australia.

Note: Running Free Live is a strictly online-only series available to view via the ACMI Youtube channel.

youtube.com/acmionline
Just less than two months ago, life was still relatively tolerable for someone like me. I was still able to visit any one of the few day centres run by charities who provided hot meals for migrants, and they serve as our lifeline.

To be eligible to enjoy such privilege, an asylum seeker like me must show a recent refusal letter from the Home Office, which most of the charities that support us recognise as evidence of our destitution. Once I registered, the support would come by way of about two meals per week  often the only hot meals I would eat for an entire week. Most of us find ways to survive the rest of the time dependent on unsold sandwiches donated by food shops such as Pret a Manger or Tesco.

People like me really cannot do much to improve our lives without immigration status  we are unable to take up employment, rent an accommodation or apply for any benefits, and we certainly cannot open a UK bank account. Even more damaging to our wellbeing is the fact that we belong to a rather unfortunate category of immigrants whose lack of status actually means we have no recourse to public funds. This simply means we can only rely on charitable organisations for basic subsistence.

But since all such charitable organisations have been forced to shut down or scale back on certain services due to the coronavirus pandemic, it also means that numerous migrants like us are left very vulnerable in increasingly desperate circumstances.

Over the past 16 years, Ive frequented countless day centres and met some incredible people. One man I met, a Christian from Pakistan, is also a failed asylum seeker. He has no access to public funds but was promised a phone credit top-up by a charity that has been very helpful and supportive. But for about five weeks he has been waiting for what really should be this simple promise to keep him connected. Unfortunately, this credit has not arrived in recent weeks  and probably never will. It is now impossible for him to keep in contact with his children who reside with his ex-partner.

Recommended Asylum seekers unable to social distance in Home Office housing

I also came to know a Congolese woman. She is a failed asylum seeker hosted by a British family in London. As part of her stay with the host family, she would sweep, wash and generally tidy up around the house, just to show her appreciation to the host family. But just a few days before the month-old lockdown began, the two adult sons of her host family decided it was best to come back to their parents house to sit-out the looming crises. Suddenly the dynamics in the house changed and she feels a desperate need to move on.

Unfortunately, her English is not yet good enough to find her own support, and most of the charities helping her can only do so much under the present circumstances. Her host family has already bent over backwards to accommodate her but it is now clear that she needs to allow them their privacy. She feels utterly distraught about her helplessness in such a situation.

Sadly, stories like these demonstrate not just the vulnerability of these class of migrants, but how it can equally impact their community. Surely it cannot be right to force adult human beings to lead a life of complete dependence upon other people whom they must rely upon to provide all their basic needs, especially in a time of crisis?

How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Show all 6 1 /6 How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Milan, Italy REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities North Jakarta, Indonesia REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Jakarta, Indonesia REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Venice, Italy REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities New Delhi, India REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Islamabad, Pakistan REUTERS

As we all keep a wary eye on the daily Covid-19 news, a clear pattern has emerged: as many as 70 per cent of the fatalities among the NHS frontline staff are from the Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (Bame) community. There is also a higher proportion from the Bame migrant community who face a bleak existence as they grapple with the harsh effects of the hostile environment in the UK  particularly those who still have no access to public funds.

To further compound the suffering and misery of this minority group are other socioeconomic and health factors, such as overcrowded housing, which raise the risk of exposure to Covid-19. The Bame community already has higher numbers of people with underlying health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and diagnosed mental health conditions. This means that people in the UK without immigration status are not only more susceptible to, and more likely to be exposed to, the Covid-19 virus, but are more likely to endure a more damaging legacy from the pandemic with regards to their economic, social and physical wellbeing in future.

Some human rights organisations are making the government more aware of the havoc being wreaked upon lives like mine as the full extent of the damage caused by this pandemic unfolds. There is now a call to action led by frontline charities such as the Jesuit Refugee Service, calling for a grant of leave for migrants. Similar moves have already been made by governments in countries such as Portugal and New Zealand, and the result has been brilliant in terms of the display of humanity and common sense.

Surely, there is no reason why the UK should not follow this noble example by ending a repressive policy that not only continues to cost lives but may be putting the entire society at risk? It certainly will ensure that everyone  including those like me who are so often ignored  will be carried along in the campaign to stop coronavirus and rebuild the country and its economy.

The author is a destitute asylum seeker living in London. He has lived in the UK with insecure immigration status for 16 years. He considers the UK his home and is involved in advocating for change on policies affecting those in situations like his own. He is a member of Refugees Call for Change
EAST ALTON  Several Metro East labor groups have teamed up to help provide local hospital workers with snacks.

The Greater Madison County of Labor, the Southwestern Illinois Building Trades Council and the Southwest Illinois Central Labor Council have collected money and supplies for grab and go snacks for the hospital workers.

Over the weekend the councils went shopping and then put the donations together. Dean Webb, president of the Greater Madison County Federation of Labor, said Mondays deliveries included Barnes in St. Louis and Alton Memorial and St. Anthonys in Alton. Next week they plan to hit Gateway Regional Medical Center in Granite City, Anderson Hospital in Maryville and Jerseyville Community Hospital.

Other labor councils will provide snacks for hospitals in their areas.

Webb said he got the idea from his mother, Ann Webb. He said his niece, Meghan Hudock, a nurse at Barnes, had talked to her about her inability to have regular meals.

Apparently theyre always on the go, and dont have time to sit down for meals, Dean Webb said.

Hudock asked if the councils knew anybody who could donate fresh fruit or snacks for them. Webb decided to take the idea to the labor groups.

So far they have collected about $10,000 through direct donations, a GoFundMe page and other fundraisers. Webb said they intend to continue the effort at least through May 8 and may extend it.

Hopefully we can keep this thing going, he said. Weve all been kind of standing around doing nothing. When mom called, I thought this was a perfect opportunity to reach out to the community.

Monetary donations can be made at www.gofundme.com/f/AFL-CIO-snacks-to-goto-fight-covid-19.

The councils also are accepting individually wrapped nonperishable snacks 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 5, and Thursday, May 7, at the Machinists Union Hall Lodge 666, 161 N. Shamrock St., East Alton, or at the Laborers Union Hall Local 459, 100 N. 17th St. Belleville.

Donated items can include cookies, peanut packs, trail mix, protein bars, granola bars, dried fruit, chocolate, gum, candy, potato chips, bottled water and Gatorade drink packets.

For more information call Webb at 618-259-8558.
WASHINGTON  When all this started  when the coronavirus began stalking humanity like an animal hunting prey, when she and her husband lost their restaurant jobs overnight as the world shut down to hide, when she feared not being able to feed her family  Janeth went outside with a red kitchen towel.

It was Passover. Her pastor had told her about the roots of the Jewish holiday, about Israelites smearing a lamb's blood on their doors as a sign for the plagues to pass them by. So Janeth, an immigrant from Honduras, reached up to hang the red towel over the door of her family's apartment on the edge of the nation's capital. It was close enough, she figured, "to show the angel of death to pass over our home."

Pass us by, coronavirus.

And pass us by, hunger.

At night now, it's the worry over food that keeps Janeth's mind racing, and her heart, she says, hurting. "I spend hours thinking, thinking, about what we will do the next day, where we will find food the next day," she says weeks into the coronavirus outbreak, her family's food and cash both dwindling.

Janeth and her husband, Roberto, are part of the greatest surge in unemployment in the U.S. since the Depression, setting off a wave of hunger that is swamping food programs nationwide. The couple and every adult member of their extended family in the U.S. have lost their jobs in the economic lockdown prompted by the pandemic.

They are among the tens of millions in America  more than 1 out of every 6 workers  abruptly cut off from paychecks.

Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter

The Associated Press is withholding the couple's full names because they are in the country illegally and could face deportation. Their immigration status, their problems with English and scanty access to the Internet all combine to block them from accessing the U.S. government benefit programs that millions more newly jobless citizens are able to turn to during the outbreak.

Before the pandemic, food policy experts say, roughly one out of every eight or nine Americans struggled to stay fed. Now as many as one out of every four are projected to join the ranks of the hungry, said Giridhar Mallya, senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for public health.

Immigrants, African Americans, Native Americans, households with young children and newly jobless gig workers are among those most at risk, said Joelle Johnson, senior policy associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

"They're more vulnerable to begin with and this situation has just exacerbated that situation," she said.

When the global economy clamped down, Roberto, a cook in his mid-30s, and Janeth, who keeps water glasses filled at another restaurant and is in her mid-40s, spent $450 out of their final paychecks to stock up. Weeks later, their diminished cache includes two half-full five-pound bags of rice, an assortment of ramen noodles, a half-eaten bag of pasta, two boxes of cornbread mix, four boxes of raisins and cans of beans, pineapple, tuna, corn and soup.

"Cookies?" Roberto and Janeth's 5-year-old, gap-toothed daughter Allison still asks them, always getting a gentle "no" back. "Ice cream?"

Janeth and Roberto have cut down to one meal a day themselves, skipping meals to keep their daughter fed.

On a good day recently, after Roberto landed four hours of work preparing take-home meals for a grocery store, they had enough for what constitutes a feast these days  a can of refried beans split three ways and two eggs each, scrambled. Janeth also made tortillas from their last half-bag of masa flour.

Janeth placed aluminum foil over two of the plates; she and Roberto would eat later. Tears sprang from her eyes as she watched her daughter wolf down the meal.

"Where can we get enough food? How can we pay our bills?" she asked. Then she repeated something she and her husband emphasized again and again over the course of several days: They are hard-working people.

"We have never had to ask for help before," she said.

Janeth and Roberto also have three adult children and, as the oldest of three sisters here, she and Roberto are trying to keep a half-dozen households in the United States and Honduras fed.

By day, they race in their second-hand pickup truck from food pantries and churches to relatives' houses. They chase tips about food giveaways or temporary jobs. They share their painstakingly acquired cartons of food with her two sisters, who themselves have a total of five young children to feed, and call their grown children with leads on food lines.

And they fight off despair. "We don't have help. We don't know how it will end," Janeth said.

On a recent day, Janet and Roberto's breakfast is coffee and a few crackers. Allison eats cereal, a favorite provided by a food bank.

Soon after, Roberto and Allison, who is sporting pink sparkly sneakers, are among the first in line outside a DC food pantry. In line with them: a young African American man newly unemployed and seeking aid for the first time and two foreign-born nannies with their clients' children in tow. The women now are only intermittently used  and paid  by their employers and need help feeding their own children at home.

Roberto is happy to leave with a bag of bananas, some spaghetti, tomato sauce and other staples.

Another day, Roberto and Allison stay inside the truck while Janeth heads out in a cold drizzle to approach a church said to be providing food. She struggles to read the sign in English posted on the door, then calls the numbers listed. No one answers.

Later, loading their pickup truck to take food to Janeth's sisters, husband and wife dip into the pockets of their jeans to display the cash they have left  $110 total.

That's gas money. Without that, living on the outskirts of town, there's no getting to food banks, to one-day cash jobs, to stranded relatives facing eviction and hoping for food.

On the drive to Janeth's sisters in Baltimore, Janeth hands Allison a small container of applesauce. The girl savors each taste, dipping in her finger, licking every last bit. "More?" she asks hopefully, tilting the container toward her mother.

Janeth answers regretfully, tenderly. No more.

 The Associated Press

Subscribe to our Oregon coronavirus newsletter:
OLYMPIA, WA  Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday formally signed a plan to reopen Washington's economy in phases, allowing for the gradual return of certain businesses and activities in the weeks ahead. The governor previewed his updated approach in a news conference last Friday.

Inslee's stay-at-home order is in place through the end of May, but his newly-named "Safe Start" order will allow some restrictions to be modified as conditions allow. Smaller counties may be eligible to resume certain activities on a much faster timeline.

Phase 1 of the governor's plan will be fully implemented Tuesday, May 5, allowing for drive-in faith services, vehicle sales, curbside retail, car washes, landscaping, and dog-walking. Restrictions on outdoor recreation will also ease, restoring access to most public lands for day-use.

County and city parks are also eligible to reopen, with certain guidelines in place. Pierce County announced all parks would reopen Tuesday, and King County officials said a plan was in the works to reopen trails and parks to visitors in phases.

In Seattle, Mayor Jenny Durkan said all four of the city's golf courses would reopen Tuesday with limited hours, following the new guidelines established in the governor's plan.

Inslee said at least three weeks will separate each phase, meaning the earliest timeline for implementing the second step will be during the last week of May. According to the Seattle Times, the state is tentatively planning to enact phase 2 on June 1.

We will not move to a new phase until it is responsible to do so. Our risk-assessment dashboard will help us make data-driven decisions that protect Washingtonians: https://t.co/ocFtjJCBny 3/4 pic.twitter.com/7RLI4aDyvS

 Governor Jay Inslee (@GovInslee) May 4, 2020





Story continues

Phase 2 will allow restaurants, salons and barber shops to welcome back some customers and restores gatherings among small groups of people. Phase 3 allows for gatherings for up to 50 people, including recreational sports, and permits bars and gyms to operate with limited capacity. The final phase fully restores public interactions, with physical distancing in place, removing the cap on gatherings and other remaining restrictions.

Read the governor's complete "Safe Start" plan here.



Upcoming Phases



Conditions: "When COVID-19 disease burden is low and decreasing and the four capabilities (health care system readiness; testing capacity and availability; case and contact investigations; and ability to protect high-risk populations) are met, the governor will issue an order for the state to move into [the next phase]."

Phase 2



What gets restored:



Remaining manufacturing and construction phases

Restaurants/taverns less than 50% capacity/table size no larger than 5 people and no bar area seating

Hair and nail salons

Retail (in-store purchases allowed with restrictions)

Real estate

Professional services/office-based businesses (telework remains strongly encouraged)

In-home/domestic services (i.e., nannies, housecleaning)

Pet grooming

Essential travel and limited non-essential travel to engage in Phase 1 and Phase 2 activities is permitted.

Phase 3

What gets restored:

Outdoor group recreational sports activities (50 or fewer people)

Recreational facilities at less than 50% capacity (gyms, public pools, etc.)

Professional sports (horse racing, baseball, etc.) without audience participation

Restaurants and taverns at less than 75% capacity with table size no larger than 10

Bar areas in restaurants and taverns at less than 25% capacity

Indoor gyms at less than 50% capacity; theaters at less than 50% capacity

Customer facing government services (telework remains strongly encouraged where possible)

Libraries

Museums

All other business activities not yet listed except for nightclubs and events with no more than 50 people.

Phase 4

What gets restored:



All public interactions (with physical distancing)

All recreational activity

Gatherings with more than 50 people

Nightclubs

Concert venues

Large sporting events

Unrestricted staffing of worksites (with physical distancing and good hygiene)

Smaller counties may apply to reopen sooner

Under the governor's plan, counties with a population below 75,000 can apply to activate phase 2 early, if they have not reported a new COVID-19 case within the past three weeks. Inslee said 10 Washington counties currently meet the criteria and can request a variance from the state.



(Office of the Governor)

This article originally appeared on the Seattle Patch
Gilead Sciences antiviral drug remdesivir has shown promise in treating patients suffering from COVID-19, and the companys chief executive says it will be in the hands of doctors and patients as early as this week.

Appearing on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, CEO Daniel ODay said Gilead donated 1.5 million vials to the U.S. government - enough to treat 150,000 to 200,000 patients.

(SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) GILEAD SCIENCES CEO DANIEL O'DAY SAYING:

"We are now firmly focused on getting this medicine to the- the most urgent patients around the country here in the United States. And, Margaret, we intend to get that to patients in the early part of this next week, beginning to work with the government, which will determine which cities are most vulnerable and- and where the patients are that need this medicine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week granted authorization for the emergency use of remdesivir to treat patients with severe COVID-19, following preliminary results from a study conducted by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which found that patients given remdesivir recovered 31% faster than those given a placebo.

While the data will need more analysis to know just how well the drug might work and for which patients, it was hailed Dr. Anthony Fauci - the United States' top infectious disease specialist - as highly significant since it clearly had an effect on the disease for which there are currently no approved treatments or vaccines.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 5 2020

House of Representatives Commission IV, which oversees agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food production, has demanded an explanation from the Agriculture Ministry over its high budget allocation for chicken procurement this year.

Commission IV chairman Sudin, a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the commission would hold a follow-up meeting with the Agriculture Ministry on Monday to discuss the matter.

[We will hold the meeting] so that this issue can be clarified, he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Pac Roots Cannabis Corp. ("PacRoots" or the "Company") (CSE:PACR), a British Columbia based Cannabis Act license applicant, dedicated to producing premium quality cannabis products, founded on high-end selectively bred genetics. Further to its news release on April 29, 2020, PacRoots is proud to announce the start of trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") under the stock symbol "PACR".

About PacRoots

PacRoots Cannabis is the future of genetics. By focusing on elite genetic development, the company expects to maximize the quality of its products, while keeping yields and profit margins high. PacRoots has formed a strategic partnership with Phenome One, giving the Company complete access to one of the largest live genetic libraries in Canada composed of the finest cultivars. The Company will use these genetics to develop unique strains with various beneficial characteristics. The 350+ licensed live cultivars and over 1800 seed varieties are the result of a meticulous gene selection process, whereby Phenome One filters through as many as 600 individual plants to lock in a specific phenotype for a single strain. Tailored elite cultivars are then selected for indoor or outdoor cultivation based on various environmental, biological, medical and market driven factors. Visit www.pacroots.ca.

ON BEHALF OF PAC ROOTS CANNABIS CORP.

(signed) "Patrick Elliott"

Chief Executive Officer

For further information, please contact:

Pac Roots Cannabis Corp.

www.pacroots.ca

Telephone: 604-609-6171

Not for distribution to United States wire services or dissemination in the United States. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

Story continues

Certain statements included in this press release constitute forward-looking information or statements (collectively, "forward-looking statements"), including those identified by the expressions "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may", "should" and similar expressions to the extent they relate to the Company or its management. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but reflect current expectations regarding future results or events. This press release contains forward looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and various estimates, factors and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors.

Statements about the the Company's future facility expansion plans or Cannabis Act license application are all forward-looking information.

Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions which are difficult to predict. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include failure to obtain a Cannabis Act license in a timely manner or at all, the continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions, including the effects of COVID-19. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that the statements will prove to be accurate or that management's expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances or results will materialize. The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. Readers should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Pac Roots Cannabis Corp.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/588226/Pac-Roots-Cannabis-Corp-Starts-Trading-on-the-CSE-Under-the-Symbol-PACR




Eight police officers have been spotted appearing to question a homeless woman who was sitting alone on a park bench in Melbourne.

One photo showed the group of officers surrounding the middle-aged woman at Fawkner Park in South Yarra on Sunday around 4pm.

The woman had a trolley full of belongings by her side when she was approached by the officers.

Victoria is still in stage three of its coronavirus lockdown, meaning residents are banned from leaving their home unless for essential travel.

One photo showed the group of officers surrounding the middle-aged woman at Fawkner Park in South Yarra on Sunday around 4pm

'At first the cops were very serious but before they left they seemed more jovial and were having a laugh,' a bystander who captured the photos told Daily Mail Australia.

'One thing thing that got under my skin is they weren't social distancing.'

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said there are 'occasions when it is not practical for police to maintain' social distancing measures.

'This could be when they are making an arrest or responding to a public order incident.

'Where possible, police will make every effort to maintain social distancing measures.'

Victorians can only leave home for essential shopping, medical requirements, to care for a loved one or to exercise.

The state recorded another 22 coronavirus cases on Sunday as community-wide testing ramps up.

The jump is Victoria's biggest spike in new daily cases since April 11 when 24 people were diagnosed.

Victoria is still in stage three of its coronavirus lockdown, meaning residents are banned from leaving their home unless for essential travel. Pictured: People practise social distancing as they wait for their coffee at a cafe in Richmond in Melbourne on Sunday

Nineteen of the new cases are connected to an outbreak at Cedar Meats abattoir in Brooklyn, Melbourne.

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

The facility is linked with 34 cases in total.

'All workers are self-quarantining and we are working closely with the Victorian health authorities,' Cedar Meats General Manager Tony Kairouz said.

Two of the new cases are returned travellers while one other case still being investigated.

There were 13,000 tests on Sunday alone, the largest amount of any state in one day.

There are now 1,406 cases in total in Victoria.

Victoria's state of alarm is set to finish on May 11, the earliest date the government will consider relaxing current social distancing restrictions.
JACKSON, MI  A Springport man sent to prison for killing two teens trespassing on his property during an apparent crime spree wont get a new trial.

The Michigan Court of Appeals upheld Thursday, April 30, the conviction of Tracy Lawrence who was found guilty of the murder of Hunter Lentz and Matthew McMillen, both 18. The pair were shot and killed on June 8, 2016 on his property off Town Road in Springport Township.

Lawrence, 57, was sentenced, Sept. 19, 2018, to serve 19 to 40 years on two counts of second-degree murder and one count of felony firearms, more than two years after the pairs deaths.

McMillen and Lentz were shot and killed in the 13000 block of Town Road in Springport Township while they were allegedly breaking into a vehicle at Lawrence's home.

According to documents obtained by the Citizen Patriot through a Freedom of Information Act request, police suspect McMillen and Lentz were in the middle of a string of break-ins and larcenies, starting in Napoleon Township and ending at Lawrence's home.

The prosecution has said that about 6:30 a.m., Lawrence saw the two teens in his backyard, retrieved his .22-caliber long rifle, stepped out on the back porch, yelled at them to get off his property and opened fire.

Lawrence told police he felt his life was being threatened and believed the two were running toward him. He only wanted to scare them off, he said.

Based on testimony from investigators at Lawrence's preliminary examination, a judge found it was reasonable to believe the two were fleeing Lawrence at the time of the shooting, allowing the second-degree murder case to proceed.

In his appeal, defense attorneys argued Lawrence was not given a fair trial as jurors were barred from hearing testimony about the pairs crime spree at trial, a decision which was made by the appellate court itself in 2018, and that the evidence supported he was justified in shooting the pair.

Evidence of slain Michigan teens' alleged crime spree rejected by higher court

The appellate court disagreed on both arguments.

In Lawrences most recent appeal, the court stated that jurors were shown, as part of his attorneys fleeing felon defense, evidence found at the scene supporting the theory that the pair were on his property to commit a felony.

Though some evidence was allowed, evidence of the pairs alleged crime spree the morning of their deaths was not allowed as it was impossible for Lawrence to have known what the two had already done prior to shooting them.

Our review of defendants argument that he was denied the constitutional right to present a defense leads us to conclude that defendant has mislabeled his argument, the court wrote. At its core, defendants arguments reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the fleeing-felon defense.

Michigan case law instructs that the justification to use deadly force in the context of the fleeing felon defense is tied to the right of a citizen to make a citizens arrest, according to the court.

As Lawrence did not testify that he attempted to detain McMillen and Lentz, arrest them or otherwise prevent them from escaping custody or being brought to justice for their alleged criminal acts, it was highly probable jurors would have reached the same decision regardless of hearing about alleged crime spree, the court ruled.

The common law in Michigan recognizes (using deadly force during a citizen arrest) but stops far short of granting the private citizen a license to hunt down and kill those suspected of committing a felony, the court wrote.

In reviewing the total evidence used at trial, the court found nothing to support Lawrences claim and upheld the jurys guilty verdict.

The evidence overwhelmingly supported the jurys verdict. Thus, the evidence certainly did not preponderate heavily against the verdict such that a serious miscarriage of justice would result by allowing it to stand, the court wrote.

Lawrence is eligible for parole in 2039.

Read more stories about this incident here.
Reach key decision makers with sales-ready leads that shorten your sales process. Move the needle by delivering funnel qualified leads to your sales team. Learn more

Google is integrating its Google Meet videoconferencing application with Gmail, and it already appears as an option in some users accounts.

Google last week announced that it was making the service free for everyone.

It will be available to everyone in the coming weeks,on the Web and through mobile apps for iOS and Android. Users will be able to start or join Meet videoconferences from within Google Calendar as well.

Users who cant access Meet yet can sign up to be notified when its available.

Meet will be available to anyone with an email address, said Javier Soltero, general manager of G Suite. Users will need a Google account to join meetings created by individuals.

Among the new features Google announced are tiled layout for up to 16 simultaneous participants, higher-quality video content with audio, low-light mode, and noise cancellation for filtering out background noises

The noise cancellation feature will roll out in the coming weeks to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.

Google Meet has been playing catch-up to some degree with the features and functions users came to expect, thanks to experiences in Zoom and in Microsoft Teams, remarked Liz Miller, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

By addressing the issues users had been requesting, including the Brady Bunch tile view and noise cancellation, Zoom has proven they are listening to users and trying to move fast to close the gap on the enterprise side, she told the E-Commerce Times.

Meetings are limited to 60 minutes for the free version of Meet, but the time limit will not be enforced until after Sept. 30, Soltero said.

Meet is competing with the current king of the hill, Zoom, as well as with Microsoft Teams and the recently announced Facebook Messenger Rooms.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Google Meet is business class, meaning Google has done decent work to secure the platform, observed Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

Google Meet will work with many of the cross-standard conferencing sites like those from Polycom and Cisco, he told the E-Commerce Times. As a result, it should rank towards the top of the set and be safer than more consumer-focused products like Zoom, FaceTime and Facebooks Messenger Rooms.

Google launched Meet in February 2017 as the enterprise version of Google Hangouts.

Safety and Security

Meet has various default safety-on measures, including host controls, complex meeting codes, encryption of video meetings in transit, and recordings both in transit and at rest.

Further, users can enroll their account in Googles Advanced Protection Program.

Meet data is not used for advertising and Google does not sell Meet users data to third parties, Soltero said.

Ill take Googles promise of not selling data to a third party more seriously than a similar pledge from Facebook, but that isnt saying much, Miller said. Googles greatest consumers of data are their first party properties  so lots of flags and questions there.

Meet in the G Suite

G Suite users already have access to Meet, which admins can enable by following instructions in the Meet Help Center.

Through Sept. 30, new and current enterprise G Suite customers get free access to Meets advanced features, such as the ability to livestream to up to 100,000 viewers within their domain.

Also through Sept. 30, existing G Suite customers will get free additional Meet licenses without any amendments to their current contract.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Meet is included in G Suite for Education for free.

Google last week also announced G Suite Essentials, which offers advanced features such as dial-in phone numbers, meeting recording, and access to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides.

G Suite Essentials will be available free to Enterprise G Suite customers and at no cost to other organizations through Sept. 30.

User Love for Meet

Meets peak usage has grown by 30x since January, according to Soltero. As of last week, Meets daily meeting participants surpassed 1 million.

The application is hosting 3 billion minutes of video meetings and adding roughly 3 million users every day, he said. However, its not clear when the influx began.

Its also not clear how Google defines a user.

Competitors to Meet

Zoom is currently the videoconferencing application to beat, in terms of daily meeting participants.

It recently released v5.0 with a slew of security and privacy improvements.

Oracle last week announced Zoom had selected it as a cloud infrastructure provider.

This will let Zoom scale to meet demand, and ensure reliability and security.

Zoom has gained traction as the preferred videoconferencing solution for many small and mid-sized businesses.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been beefing up its Teams application. Teams now offers instant translation, and access to more than 400 third-party apps in the Microsoft Teams app store.

Microsoft has released an end meeting feature for meeting organizers, and this month globally rolls out its raise hand feature as well as participant reports that include join and leave times for participants. Later this year, it will launch real-time noise suppression, similar to the Google Meet feature.

Facebook introduced Messenger Rooms last week.

Meet has more potential and actual features than Teams or Facebook, said Mike Jude, research director at IDC.

Its chief problem is that its from Google and theres a trust issue associated with Google and potentially sensitive information, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Meets transcribe ability is especially problematic since the output is machine readable and might be used inappropriately, Jude noted.

Zoom and Facebook Rooms are basically toys right now, while Team is a business tool, he added. The verdicts out on Meet, but it will likely resonate with some businesses and may get some currency in the consumer space.

Microsoft Teams is best for internal meeting between working groups where its widely used and well distributed, and where security is very high, Enderle said.

Facebook Messenger Rooms is for families and friends wanting to stay in touch, he continued. Zoom is for small firms where security isnt a big concern, and Meet would be best for most companies, but especially for those that use G Suite.

Google Meet and Microsoft Teams will be favored most strongly by users of their respective productivity suites, suggested Dion Hinchcliffe, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

Zoom is the egalitarian choice and is arguably the best-of-breed solution in the industry, while Facebook Messenger Rooms is a personal video meeting tool thats not intended for business and lacks key features enterprises require, he told the E-Commerce Times. Its at best an SMB solution where enterprise features like session recording are not necessary or wanted.
The president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe was arrested Saturday but officials said Monday they wont disclose why unless formal charges are filed.

Julian Bear Runner was booked into jail on May 2, according to the Community Information Portal website of the tribe's departments of public safety and corrections. His name was removed from the roster by May 3.

Police Chief Robert Ecoffey said he wont comment on the circumstances of the arrest and what police charged Bear Runner with since the tribe's attorney general said to refer questions to him.

Ecoffey usually shares initial charges or reasons for arrest with the Journal, which typically reports on major crimes and those allegedly committed by public officials or those in positions of leadership and responsibility.

Attorney General Scott James also said he wont share the details of the arrest and what police charged Bear Runner with. He said he will decide Tuesday if hes filing formal charges, and if so, what they will be.

We need to decide whether there are facts, evidence to support the elements of any crime, James said.

James shared that Bear Runner bonded out of jail after posting a scheduled bond, which is a set amount of bond required for lower-level crimes. He said people accused of more serious crimes must wait in jail until a judge sets the bond.

If Bear Runner is formally charged, he will be arraigned in June, said James.

Jail officials would also not comment on the charges or when Bear Runner was booked in and out of the facility.

Bear Runner acknowledged in a Sunday news release that he was arrested the day before by tribal police officers. But he said he cant yet comment on anything alleged against me since he hasnt been arraigned.

"As a tribal member I am afforded due process through the courts that every one of us is entitled to," Bear Runner said in the release. "At this time, I am not able to comment on anything alleged against me. However, as president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe I do want to inform our Oyate," of the arrest and other information.

The government "is still fully functioning" and COVID-19 prevention measures are still in place, said Bear Runner. "I remain committed to the work that I have taken on to keep the Oglala Oyate safe and prosperous. I will continue to move forward with the health and well being of my Oyate and the best interest in my heart.

"I want to encourage everyone to continue to remain unified with our efforts in strengthening our communities, defending our sovereignty and standing shoulder to shoulder in the face of adversity," he said.

 Contact Arielle Zionts at arielle.zionts@rapidcityjournal.com.

You must be logged in to react.

Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 3 Wow 2 Sad 6 Angry 2

Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Its been seven weeks since the Bay Area began to shelter in place in an attempt to stem the rising tide of novel coronavirus infections, and its clear that the world has changed irrevocably. The way we eat has shifted to something more private and more fraught. (Though maybe less private in some regards, from all the bread photos Im seeing on social media.) The restaurant industry is reeling, with many scrambling to adapt to a world without dine-in serviceor just going silent for now.

What Im reading and hearing is that the initial adrenaline rush has subsided: We can start to look forward, to articulate how and where wed like to see things shift in the future. Theres a lot thats up in the air with regard to the future of restaurants, and Id like to hear from you if you have theories about whats to come. (You can also submit answers in our reader poll about the future!)

But today Im wondering about how food writing should change for the better, which is a question Ive been ruminating on ever since Los Angeles journalist Tien Nguyen posed the question last week. Food sections and publications have pivoted to meet the world-shaking shifts sparked by the novel coronavirus outbreak, and I think that, largely, these are positive shifts. For example, our section has had more coverage of frugal home cooking, more discussion of the business side of restaurants and more conversations with wage workers, not just chefs and owners.

Heres a snapshot of what Id like to see, both as an avid reader and lover of the genre.

The end of celebrity

Our insistence on only asking restaurant chefs and owners for their opinions needs to end. Yes, theyre the easiest to get on the phone and often the most media-trained and articulate, but theyre not the only ones who have testimony and perspectives that matter. I want to read more op-eds and features that center on dishwashers, cooks, taqueros and delivery drivers, who by and large represent a much more diverse slice of the food industry.

Class awareness

A side effect of grocery stores and restaurants becoming less accessible is that recipe writing has become more accessible in turn. Its great that more writers are helping readers strategize how to stretch dollars and get the most out of a can of beans. For many people, those are behaviors that have been an integral part of their daily lives even before the pandemic, and shame-free, pleasure-centered writing about frugal cooking was hard to find in newspapers and magazines. (I highly recommend the book Good and Cheap for this.) I hope recipe writers can keep writing about food waste and frugality, and thus make service journalism serve more than just people with money.

Transparent cost coverage

Talking about the value of food can be challenging, whether youre looking at a $300 tab or a $6 coffee. Theres been so much great work about the financial pressures on restaurants and how they manage to chug along. Frankly, restaurant meals are probably going to cost more, as establishments struggle to pay rent and loans that had been deferred during the outbreak. I think itll be even more important to continue the work of explaining the hows and whys of thatand to discontinue the glorification of cheap eats that we only value because of their affordability. Thats not to say that Im going to go all-out on gold flake-covered hot dogs, though.

So Im curious to know what you think! Are there other big takeaways that you think the genre should take to heart from all of this?

What Im eating

Soleil Ho

A car rolled up to my apartment, and I was handed a paper bag filled with containers. (A pretty typical experience these days.) This one, by pop-up Makan Place, was filled with orders of curry laksa ($22), a popular Southeast Asian soup in which noodles swim in a heady cauldron of coconut and pure seafood essence. The prawns were fat and juicy, and fingers of fried tofu were thoroughly imbued with the gravy-like broth; flavorful enough to send me back to the tender memory of being a surly teen visiting family in Bangkok, slurping down pungent noodle soups and wishing for French fries. (What a waste.) Makan Place delivers throughout SF and parts of the East Bay.

Another pop-up, the Secret Lab, sent me home with a weeks worth of beautiful Argentinian empanadasa dozen for $35. Made for reheating in your oven, the palm-size empanadas are easy to snack upon. The variety pack (corn and cheese, mushroom and ricotta, traditional beef) is the way to goif you forget which is which, it adds the welcome spice of surprise to your meals. The Secret Lab offers delivery and takeout in San Francisco.

Based on Esther Mobleys excellent profile of a local fishing family, I signed up for Sea Forager, which delivers sustainably procured fish and seafood to you every week. (Like a CSA, but for fish.) One night, dinner was a bag of fresh Marin Miyagi oysters from Tomales Bay. I grabbed a lemon and a bottle of Secret Aardvark hot sauce and immediately got to shucking. The oysters were briny and so full of liquor: a welcome dose of raw food. Sea Forager serves pick-up locations throughout the Bay Area.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

When dine-in service isnt really a factor, hospitality tends to start and end on the phone line. I had a great experience calling in my order with Montesacro Pinseria, the Roman restaurant off Sixth Street in SoMa. Owner Gianluca Legrottaglie picked up and speculated about my orderarugula salad ($10), two pinsas and drinks. Sounds like youve got a movie on your future, eh? he asked. Oh yeah, I joked, date night in my apartment. Pro tip: The Maranella ($19), a pinsa with gooey stracciatella di burrata, spicy pork sausage and broccolini, makes an excellent companion to the Korean zombie show, Kingdom.

Recommended reading

 Since the majority of restaurants have reduced their hours, quite a few food workers have started side projects and pop-ups to make ends meet. On her blog, my friend Adahlia Cole has put together a running list of what she calls pandemic side hustles: from an Oakland pie pop-up by a local butcher to Filipino home cooking delivered to your home by a sommelier.

 Jonathan Kauffmans profile of Beowulf Thorne, who in the 90s wrote a cooking column for people with AIDS in Diseased Pariah News, is a riot. Thorne fought back against the plague that branded him and his loved ones as untouchables with his own brand of sick humor, and Kauffman patiently walks the reader through the disease and the ideologies that the late writer resisted in his work.

 Despite being some of the most contentious materials in world history, we dont often wonder where our spices come from these days. Janelle Bitker talks to some Bay Area companies that are trying to change that and transplant the farm-to-table mindset to the spice trade.

 Just the headline to Mayukh Sens latest story, on the death of Jersey City chef Garima Kothari, is a gut-puncher: Even in a pandemic, death is a popularity contest. Sen notes that Kothari, who died in an alleged murder-suicide, received little acknowledgment, not even a proper obituary, in the food media. Id never heard of her myselfand I wish that I had before she died.

Bite Curious is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicles restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, delivered to inboxes on Monday mornings. Follow along on Twitter: @Hooleil
Benchmark Sensex on Monday crashed nearly 6 per cent or over 2,000 points in line with massive selloffs on global bourses as a flare-up in US-China tensions and a further extension of nationwide lockdown dampened investor sentiment.

Posting its biggest single-day drop in over a month, the 30-share BSE index settled at 31,715.35, plunging 2,002.27 points, or 5.94 per cent.

Likewise, the the broader NSE Nifty suffered a heavy loss of 566.40 points, or 5.74 per cent, to settle at 9,293.50.

On the Sensex chart, ICICI Bank was the top laggard, sinking over 10 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance, HDFC, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank and Maruti.

Only 2 out of the 30 Sensex constituents managed to register gains at the close of trade. Bharti Airtel and Sun Pharma were the gainers.

Shares of Reliance Industries fell over 2 per cent after the oil-to-telecom conglomerate on Thursday posted its biggest ever drop in quarterly net profit.

Its net profit in January-March dropped 37 per cent to Rs 6,546 crore, the lowest in three years.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Silver Lake - one of the world's largest tech investors - agreed to invest Rs 5,655.75 crore to buy a 1.15 per cent stake in Jio Platforms.

Sectorally, BSE finance, bankex, metal, consumer durables, realty and auto indices plunged up to 8.26 per cent, while telecom and healthcare indices rose up to 2.39 per cent.

In the broader market, midcap and smallcap cracked up to 4.25 per cent.

In a fresh jolt to global economic recovery hope, claims by the US with regard to COVID-19 sparked fears of a renewed trade war with China over its role in the pandemic spread.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said there was a significant amount of evidence that the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory.

Pompeo's comments came after US President Donald Trump last week threatened that he will slap new tariffs on China over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Back home, the extension of nationwide lockdown until May 17 kept investors edgy as they fear that the economy and businesses will take longer to get back on track once the curbs are completely lifted.

Sentiments also remained downbeat after the country's manufacturing activity growth declined sharply in the month of April 2020, amid national lockdown restrictions to help stem the spread of coronavirus infections.

The headline seasonally adjusted IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 27.4 in April, from 51.8 in March, reflecting the sharpest deterioration in business conditions across the sector since data collection began over 15 years ago.

"In sync with global markets, the Indian benchmark indices lost around 5.6 per cent with an increase in the volatility index by around 28 per cent. Globally, rising trade war tensions between US and China and domestically, dire economic added to the negativity, Vinod Nair, head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said.

The extension of the lockdown and the fear that the economy and businesses will take longer to get back on track also impacted the markets, he said adding that the Indian market will continue to be driven by global flow and domestic earnings commentary ".

On the global markets front, bourses in Japan and China were closed for holidays.

While, Hong Kong and Seoul plunged up to 4 per cent, Europe opened with significant losses.

Meanwhile, the rupee depreciated by 64 paise to provisionally settle at 75.73 against the US dollar.

International oil benchmark Brent crude futures were trading 2.95 per cent lower at USD 25.66 per barrel.

The death toll due to COVID-19 in India rose to 1,373 and the number of cases climbed to 42,533 in the country, according to the health ministry.

The global tally of coronavirus infections was over 35 lakh, with around 2.47 lakh deaths.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chroma Color Corp. is shutting down the Plastics Color Corp. of Illinois plant that's been a mainstay of Calumet City for nearly four decades.

McHenry, Illinois-based Chroma, a supplier of specialty color and additive concentrates, acquired Plastics Color in January for an undisclosed sum. Long headquartered in Calumet City, the company had been a global provider of polymer technologies and other products to plastic processors serving industries like the pharmaceutical, consumer goods, medical and health and beauty.

The company had factories in North Carolina and China.

Chroma Chief Human Resources Officer Cassandra Birchbauer said 30 jobs will be lost by the end of the year, but everyone will receive severance. She said production will stop in July.

"Some employees will stay until December to close use plant," she said. "We will consider transfer of employees to our McHenry, Illinois plant and two North Carolina facilities."

The new owners are transferring all production to other manufacturing sites, since the Cal City plant was deemed outdated and obsolete.
Actor Irrfan Khan was a unique talent who broke class, caste and religious barriers to reach out to people and make a space for himself in their hearts through his distinct and alive acting style.

This is why, his passing away feels like a personal tragedy for his fans across the globe.

Irrfan, known for "The Warrior", "Maqbool", "Paan Singh Tomar", "The Namesake", passed away on Wednesday after losing his battle with a rare form of cancer at the age of 54.

I met Irrfan in my third year at National School of Drama (NSD). We soon became friends and remained friends till his death.

Irrfan was known in his friend circles as a Sufi-esque man who was never detached from any incident, person or situation. On the contrary, he would try to live through whatever he was confronted with, often seeking out the meaning behind the same.

He was someone who believed in drawing the reality of the man and community through his portrayals.

When one would ask him about his process of picking up his projects, he would thoughtfully say, "A film with a tight structure and characters that are both interesting and highlight the complexities of the society."

London-based filmmaker Asif Kapadia's "The Warrior" and Tigmanshu Dhulia's feature directorial debut "Haasil", established Irrfan as a prolific actor in India as well as world cinema.

In his NSD days, Irrfan was known for striking a balance between the acting techniques of Russian theatre legend Konstantin Stanislavski and German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht.

While Stainislavski emphasised on method acting, Brecht believed in imbibing the mental and emotional statement of the character and develop a relationship with it.

Irrfan's friends, including Tigmanshu, believe he had gone beyond method acting and had developed his own technique, which could resonate with the public. They believe it is impossible to learn what Irrfan could do.

Tigmanshu said Irrfan stood out because other than his passion for acting, he never behaved like a star.

"The most special thing about Irrfan was that apart from his passion for acting he had no other quality of a star. He was like any other normal person around. He was free from the shackles of the glitz and glamour of movie business."

For the actor, social objective was more important than money but he was also someone who didn't believe that cinema is 'pure art'.

Some 'artistes', he thought, made films on social issues for their own satisfaction and when such movies get acclaim from a handful of people, they felt content. But these films never reach their target audience.

The National Award winner, who went on star in Bollywood films and world cinema such as "The Lunchbox", "Life of Pi", "Piku", "Hindi Medium", believed a good film is over and above the boundaries of language, country and cultures and speaks to the audience as someone their own.

Talking about the time when he was selected in NSD, the actor said his family members were not supportive but they had to bend before his passion.

"With a lot of arrogance and a belief that 'I'm embarking on a new journey of my life', I sat in the rickshaw with a holdall to catch a bus from Jaipur. I lied to my mother, I said I will become a professor after graduating from drama school," he once said.

Irrfan's father Shahzade Yaseen Ali Khan belonged to the respected Nawab family of Tonk, Rajasthan and his mother Saeeda Begum was also from a Nawab family. Irrfan has elder sister Rukhsana Begum and brothers Imran Khan and Salman Khan.

During an interview, I had asked him about the moment acting drew him in. Irrfan said he realised the power of acting as a teenager after watching a film featuring Hollywood icon Marlon Brando.

"There were scenes in the film in which he had no dialogues. But as an audience I could understand his feelings and confusion. I was shocked to see this magic, where without even saying a single word, he could explain everything.

"This was the first step towards falling in love with acting. Looking at Brando I felt as if there was electricity in the air around him. There was an energy which made it possible for him to touch the heart of the audience."

Once I quizzed if NSD made him an actor, to which he replied, "An organisation can never make anyone an actor as acting is like meditation. An actor has to work a lot on himself and needs to build a relationship with anything in front of him without any preconceived notion.

"But every actor should develop his own definition of acting. To be a good actor, one needs to be a good person first. When you sink into the details of a character, then even your silence starts speaking, which connects the audience with you on a spiritual level."

Follow @News18Movies for more

.
Beauty fans have voted for their top five face masks for DIY home facials - including a $9 mask created by Zoe Foster Blake that promises 'glowing skin in an instant'.

Australian beauty retailer Mecca shared a poll on Facebook asking customers to rank the top five face masks they've been using at home since salons shut on March 25 under social distancing laws designed to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The winner was Go-To's 'Transformazing Mask', a $9 treatment made with natural ingredients like lime and plum which claims to hydrate, brighten and enhance skin's natural radiance, making your face appear tauter and younger.

A $19 anti-ageing mask from cult Japanese brand Tatcha came second, followed by a $40 sheet infused with silk and 24 carat gold from luxury label 111Skin.

Scroll down for video

A customer showcases her radiant complexion after wearing the $40 Rose Gold face mask from upscale skincare line, 111Skin

1. Go-To 'Transformazing' Mask

Voted best in Australia by hundreds of Mecca shoppers, Go-To's $9 Transformazing Mask took the top spot for its unrivalled hydrating, radiance enhancing and tautness boosting benefits.

The $9 'Transformazing' Mask from Go-To, the skincare line founded by Zoe Foster Blake

Promising 'glowing, brighter skin in an instant', the affordable sheet mask is laced with natural ingredients like lime and Kakadu plum, packed with vitamin C which supports the skin's natural regeneration by quickly repairing damaged cells and hydrating healthy ones.

It also contains soothing niacinamide and hyadisine, an alternative to better known hyaluronic acid which deeply moisturises skin, reducing the severity of lines and wrinkles by making your complexion look plumper.

Mecca reviewers recommend running a jade roller over the mask for optimum absorption of moisture and nutrients, which reduces puffiness around the eyes and smooths out uneven skin tone.

A Brisbane customer said she used the mask on the morning of her wedding day and was delighted with the glow it left beneath her makeup.

Go-To skincare founder Zoe Foster Blake has been using products from her own range for weekly home facials to transform her skin, which has been going through 'a bit of a s***y patch' in isolation.

Go-To skincare founder Zoe Foster Blake smiles half-way through her weekly home facial routine in April

2. Tatcha Luminous Dewy Skin Mask

Tatcha's $19 Luminous Dewy Skin Mask, which leave skin plump, dewy and glowing

Tatcha's $19 Luminous Dewy Skin Mask was the second most popular face mask among Mecca reviewers, thanks to its nourishing ingredients that leave skin plump, dewy and glowing for days afterward.

The mask is enriched with a serum of Japanese fermented green tea, rice and algae, all of which deeply penetrate the surface of the skin to prevent dehydration and reduce signs of ageing.

Reviewers recommend dampening skin with a facial mist or damp cloth before applying the mask for maximum absorption.

And with four sheets in every pack, it works out at less than $5 per home facial.

3. 111SKIN Rose Gold Mask

The $40 Rose Gold mask from 111Skin

The Rose Gold hydro-gel mask from upscale line 111Skin was rated third by reviewers, who loved the soothing effect it had on irritated and inflamed complexions.

Infused with ingredients like 24 carat gold, silk amino acids and damask rose, the indulgent mask replenishes damaged skin, making it appear younger and clearer.

It comes with five star ratings and glowing reviews from customers including fashion designer Olivia Palermo, who uses 111Skin face masks and its $260 'Meso Infusion Overnight Mask' to prep her skin ahead of premieres and runway shows.

Mecca reviewers recommend applying the mask straight from fridge for a soothing, cooling sensation that reduces redness and draws out angry blemishes.

4. Patchology 'Get Dewy With It' Mega Moisture Sheet Mask

Patchology's $8 Get Dewy With It sheet mask

Designed for young, acne-prone skin, Patchologys $8 Get Dewy With It sheet mask was voted fourth by customers who loved how deeply hydrated their face looked, days after using it.

The mask works its magic in just 10 minutes, plumping skin with hyaluronic acid and sealing pores with rose of Jericho, a natural extract known as 'the resurrection plant' for its unparalleled ability to revive dull, dry skin to its original lustre.

Reviewers recommend prepping skin with an exfoliant or gentle peel before using the mask to ensure every bit of serum is soaked into pores.

HOW TO PROTECT SKIN WHILE WEARING A COVID-19 FACE MASK As a growing number of Australians don protective face masks amid the intensifying COVID-19 pandemic, cosmetic chemist and founder of Synergie Skin Terri Vinson has revealed what face masks are really doing to your skin, and what you can do to cleanse, nourish and rejuvenate your complexion under these extraordinary conditions. 'With the increased use of face masks many of you may notice congestion and break outs around the nose and chin,' Ms Vinson said. 'This is because the skin is a barrier that must allow itself to absorb water and remove excess oil and skin toxins. Wearing a face mask reduces this natural process and acts like a block to the skin's natural processes. The humid environment created by the mask is a breeding ground for bad bacteria and the sweat if not able to evaporate off the skin naturally. 'There is also the issue of the material used to make the mask, if there are synthetic additives used in manufacturing. They may include bleaching agents, perfumes or certain materials added to the manufacturing process. Some of you may be allergic to these additives and others may just be irritated by them and notice flaking and redness. Be diligent with your skincare at this time, stay safe and take care,' she added. STEPS TO COMBAT CONGESTION AND BREAKOUTS 1. CLEANSE: Ensure you thoroughly clean your face morning and night with a cleanser to remove surface build up on the skin surface. Opt for a cleanser that is free from sodium laureth sulphate, parabens, artificial colours and fragrances. 2. BALANCE: Apply a few drops of a pre-serum elixir morning and night on a freshly cleansed face to boost the skin's resistance to physical and chemical aggressors. Synergie Skin's Dermiotic assists in relieiving symptoms of skin stress and is a substitute for a traditional toner. The probiotic lysate, together with the prebiotic skin nutrition, restores skin balance of beneficial and harmful bacteria, and prevents the triggers of skin inflammation. 3. SERUM: The most important serum to use is Vitamin B to strengthen the skin, prevent dryness and control excess sebum. This multitasking vitamin serum will also support the immunity of the skin. If you are noticing an increase in blackheads and whiteheads from wearing face masks, use one pump of an advanced alcohol-free exfoliation serum to your morning routine until the outbreak subsides. The salicylic acid in Reveal will help to 'unplug' the congested pores of oil and debris. Otherwise, use Vitamin B morning and night for a more simplified routine. 4. MOISTURISE: If you are experiencing dry, red or sensitive skin opt for an anti-inflammatory moisturiser such as Dermacalm in the morning and a soothing facial oil in the evening to reduce irritation. Source: Terri Vinson, Founder of Synergie Skin Advertisement

5. Karuna Hydrating Face Mask

Rounding out the top five was Karuna's $13 Hydrating Face Mask, specially designed for sensitive skin.

Karuna's $13 Hydrating Face Mask made from wood pulp, aloe vera and niacinamide

The material is held together with a natural wood pulp that holds twice as much moisture as the synthetic materials typically used to bind sheet masks.

This allows moisture to seep deeper and faster into pores, hydrating skin to make it appear brighter and younger.

The mask gently exfoliates dead skin cells with ingredients like aloe vera and niacinamide, a form of vitamin B which soothes inflammation and irritation, balances uneven skin tone and softens the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

Mecca reviewers recommend leaving the mask in the fridge overnight before applying to cool and draw out every drop of moisture, making your home facial a truly revitalising treat.

For extra absorption, soak the sheet in its sealed packet in a bowl of hot water for three to five minutes.
[May 04, 2020] Trenton Systems announces release date for ION Rugged Mini PC

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Trenton Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of rugged servers, workstations, processor boards and PCIe backplanes, has announced the official release date for its made-in-the-USA ION Mini PC, purposefully designed for military, commercial and industrial applications in need of a rugged, affordable, high-performance computer in a small form factor. The ION Mini PC, weighing in at just 3.2 pounds, is set for release on Monday, May 18. This compact yet undeniably powerful juggernaut supports some of the latest, fastest Intel Coffee Lake processors and up to 32GB of unbuffered DDR4-2666 RAM across two SODIMM slots, perfect for slicing through those extremely demanding applications. That's right. With the ION Mini PC, customers can expect: Up to 8 cores and 16 threads for expeditious, whirlwind-like processing

ECC-registered and non-registered options to reduce cost and increase performance

35W TDP to ensure thermal output is minimal, an amazing bonus for military, industrial and commercial deployments and environments "Trenton Systems struck a balance of cost and performance with the new ION Mini PC," said Michael Bowling, CEO of Trenton Systems. "Customers can expect seven-plus years of availability, revision control, customization and reliability, which is unique in the industry, while our engineers focused on packing as many features as possible into this small, low-cost product." Not only is the ION Mini PC unrelenting in speed and performance, it's truly unstoppable when it comes to storage as well. Its internal 2.5" SATA SSD and M.2 NVMe PCIe card offer an abundance of drive space and breakneck read and write speeds, no doubt the makings of a seamless, worry-free storage experience. Concerned about peripherals, ports and Ethernet capability? No worries. The ION Mini PC is equipped with: 3 USB 3.0 ports 1 DisplayPort 1 VGA port 2 RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports and 1 RJ-45 dedicated IPMI LAN port.



Additionally, the ION Mini PC comes with a standard five-year warranty, far surpassing the two-year industry standard, as well as limited lifetime support at no additional cost. It's also available through Trenton Systems' Loaner Program, which allows customers to borrow our products free for 45 days. There's no credit agreement, no interest and no hidden fees. Feel free to contact Trenton Systems at any time with questions, comments or concerns.

Best of all, every ION Mini PC component, from the internal board to the case, is designed, manufactured, assembled and supported in the USA. Take a look at Trenton's full product line to learn more about its 30 years of experience in the rugged computing industry, and be sure to subscribe to our blog. You won't want to miss a thing. About Trenton Systems, Inc.

Trenton Systems, Inc., a US-made ruggedized computer hardware manufacturer specializing in the design, manufacture, assembly, integration and support of rugged servers and workstations, processor boards, PCIe backplanes, storage servers, blade servers, PCIe expansion, mini PCs and custom high-performance computers for environmentally extreme applications worldwide. Founded in 1989, Trenton Systems provides the defense/military, government, industrial and commercial markets with in-house engineering, testing and support services, computer life cycle planning, revision control, warranty and customization/configuration support. Trenton Systems' rugged computers and components meet or exceed UL, CE, FCC and military standards (MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461, MIL-S-901, DO-160), are backed by a five-year warranty and limited lifetime in-house support, as well as manufactured in the company's Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA facility, which is certified to ISO 9001:2015 quality management standards. Learn more about how we're changing the rugged computing industry at trentonsystems.com.  2020 Trenton Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. All marks are the property of their respective owners. Design and specifications are subject to change. CONTACT: Yazz Krdzalic, (678) 971-5518, [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trenton-systems-announces-release-date-for-ion-rugged-mini-pc-301051994.html SOURCE Trenton Systems, Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The stock market has staged a strong recovery from its March lows, but there are likely to be more tough days ahead.

This has been highlighted by falls after the UK's FTSE 100 broke back above the 6,000 mark briefly.

In the US, the bounce-back has been led by strong sentiment around the tech giants, particularly the FAANGs of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google.

In the UK, big name companies have led the way, with housebuilders, some retailers and even cruise firm Carnival enjoying a rebound.

But which are the sectors and companies that can navigate their way through the difficult days as the world tries to get back on its feet after the coronavirus crisis and lockdowns?

Will the same companies that have gained in the past month continue to do well?

And is this the start of recovery or is the market due another fall, as the bad coporate news really starts to hit?

Simon Lambert and Richard Hunter discuss which firms could do well - and those that might be able to hold onto some or all of their prized dividends.
The U.K. risks failing to recruit the 50,000 customs agents the logistics industry says are needed before Britain's final parting with the European Union, spelling potential chaos at the country's busiest border.

The coronavirus has hampered efforts to train staff to handle the extra paperwork firms will need to complete after the U.K. exits the EU's customs union at the year-end, according to industry bodies involved with the process. One lobby group says its offer to help plug the shortage of recruits has met with silence from Whitehall.

Without enough agents, goods traveling to and from the EU, the U.K.'s single biggest trading partner, risk being delayed at ports, disrupting supply chains and heaping more pain on companies reeling from coronavirus. Even if the two sides strike a trade deal by December, agents will still be needed to process an additional 200 million customs declarations, according to estimates by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

"This is all blown out the water by the virus," said Robert Keen, director-general of the British International Freight Association, which is helping to train workers to process the new paperwork with funding from a 34 million-pound ($43 million) government program. "Everybody is fighting to keep their businesses going."

Keen's industry group has postponed its classroom training until at least June. The number of monthly registrations for its online learning course has dropped by 80% since February.

Asked by lawmakers on April 27 how many agents have been recruited so far, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said he didn't know.

He told members of Parliament the government had been in talks with the logistics industry about creating a training school. Such an initiative already exists -- the U.K. Customs Academy was started in September with the Institute of Export. 876 courses have been initiated or completed since the academy opened, according to KGH Customs, which helps run the program.

"There is a significantly long way to go," said Marco Forgione, director-general of the Institute for Export. According to him, the 50,000 figure is almost certainly a conservative estimate of how many agents will be needed. He is calling on the government to encourage people who have lost their jobs because of the virus to re-train as customs officials.

In a sign of how the virus has sapped attention away from Brexit in Whitehall, the Freight Transport Association submitted a proposal to the Treasury on March 17 about how to set up a mass education program to train up agents. More than a month later, the lobby group hasn't received a reply.

"My impression is it has come to a full stop," said Rod McKenzie, managing director of policy and public affairs at the Road Haulage Association. He expressed surprised he hadn't seen any job ads for customs agents. "Nothing is happening."

Talks to seal a trade deal between Britain and the EU have been disrupted by the virus. The U.K. is seeking a Canada-style accord which would eliminate tariffs on goods but create new non-tariff barriers like customs declarations and rules-of-origin paperwork. Without a deal, the U.K. would trade with the EU on terms set by the World Trade Organization, meaning steep duties on products from cars to beef.

The two sides have until the end of June to extend the standstill period Britain entered after Brexit on Jan. 31 -- but the government has repeatedly ruled out seeking a delay. Business groups such as BIFA and the FTA have called for an extension, arguing firms shouldn't have to face the double whammy of higher trade costs while still recovering from the negative effects of coronavirus.

A government spokesman said thousands of agents, freight forwarders and parcel operators had used the 34 million-pound fund to improve their IT hardware and train staff.

"The U.K. has a well-established industry of customs intermediaries who serve British businesses trading outside the EU," the spokesman added.

Even if firms are able to divert resources into training later in the year, by when the virus might have abated, companies will still need time to prepare, said Arne Mielken, founder of Customs Manager, an advisory firm for importers and exporters.

"You can't hammer in customs knowledge overnight," he said. "We urge companies not to neglect the fact that Brexit is still happening."
The Government was told by the UK's intelligence community from the outset that China had concealed the true scale of the pandemic, sources claim.

A senior former MI6 official says that Ministers were told 'not to believe Beijing's claims' and to pour cold water on all information coming out of China.

Britain's intelligence agencies knew what was 'really happening' from the beginning and had made London 'fully aware', according to The Daily Telegraph.

An unnamed MI6 source told the paper: 'The idea that the UK would have taken Chinese figures at face value is frankly ridiculous.

'If the Chinese are lying, the role of the intelligence community is to know what the real figures might be if they are being hidden.

'We didn't believe these figures coming from China. The Government would have been fully aware of the true scale of the virus in China at that time.'

Britain's intelligence agencies knew what was 'really happening' from the beginning and had made London 'fully aware', according to former senior MI6 sources

The new allegations imply that Mr Johnson sat on his hands before March 23, raising further concerns over his competence as Prime Minister (pictured, Covid-associated deaths)

It is likely that Boris Johnson received intelligence briefings on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei, before ordering the lockdown.

However, the Prime Minister already faces accusations of failing to treat the virus as a sufficient threat to public health in the months before March 23.

A Sunday Times investigation in April reported that Mr Johnson had not chaired five Cobra meetings concerning the outbreak in early 2020.

Combined with his failure to visit badly flooded regions of the UK after successive storms, he was taunted by Jeremy Corbyn as a 'part-time Prime Minister'.

If true, the new allegations imply that Mr Johnson sat on his hands despite early warnings from Britain's intelligence community.

They raise further concerns over his competence as Prime Minister.

The dossier, which has been circulated between Western governments, cites evidence that the virus was passed to humans via a Wuhan lab (pictured, group handling bats)

The new claims have emerged during a major diplomatic row between Western powers and China over Beijing's alleged cover-up of the outbreak.

International pressure is building on the Chinese regime to come clean after a bombshell intelligence dossier accusing Beijing of lying was leaked.

The dossier, which has been circulated between Western governments including Britain, cites evidence that the virus was passed to humans via a Wuhan lab.

It also claims that China persecuted whistleblowers as part of the cover-up, and obstructed efforts by other countries to develop a vaccine.

The classified document, from the Five Eyes security alliance of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, risks shattering the fragile consensus which has held among the nations - with the exception of President Trump - to avoid direct accusations against the Chinese government over the pandemic.

Leaked to Australia's Saturday Telegraph, the dossier makes scathing criticism of the alleged cover-ups and persecution mounted by the Chinese since the outbreak.

Mr Trump's Five Eyes allies have been reluctant to join in with his criticisms of Beijing - despite having access to the same intelligence briefings - particularly when China is providing vital protective equipment and ventilators to countries such as the UK.

It is likely that Boris Johnson received intelligence briefings on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei, before ordering the lockdown (pictured, January 24, 2020)

Mr Trump's Five Eyes allies have been reluctant to join in with his criticisms of Beijing (right, President Xi Jinping) - despite having access to the same intelligence briefings

US Secretary of State says there is 'enormous evidence' that the pandemic originated in Wuhan laboratory Mike Pompeo said there was 'enormous evidence' that the coronavirus pandemic originated in a laboratory in Wuhan By Valerie Edwards for DailyMail.com Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was 'enormous evidence' that the coronavirus pandemic originated in a laboratory in Wuhan. 'There's enormous evidence that that's where this began. We've said from the beginning that this was a virus that originated in Wuhan, China,' Pompeo said on ABC's This Week . 'We took a lot of grief for that from the outset. But I think the whole world can see now. Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories,' he added. Experts believe the virus started spreading as early as February in the United States before it forced states to issue lockdown directives for millions of Americans beginning in mid-March. There are more than 1.1 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the US with at least 68,000 deaths. Advertisement

It is also likely to increase calls for China to pay reparations to other countries if the claims are substantiated with Trump already demanding $1trillion.

The dossier says China moved to cover up the seriousness of the outbreak from early December, claiming: 'Despite evidence of human-human transmission from early December, PRC authorities deny it until January 20.'

It called Beijing's secrecy over the pandemic an 'assault on international transparency', and pointed out that China imposed travel bans on people travelling inside its borders as it told the world that travel bans were unnecessary.

Addressing the possibility that the virus had leaked from the Wuhan Institute, the report cites several studies led by scientist Dr Shi Zhengli as concerns.

It highlights the fact that Dr Zhengli - dubbed Bat Woman - and her team have conducted research in the lab into deadly bat-derived coronaviruses - with at least one of the virus samples being a 96 per cent genetic match for Covid-19.

UK security sources said that they were 'checking out' the details in the report.

Xiong Jun, from the Chinese Embassy in London, said: 'The head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology stressed in an interview that the institute is run on a set of strict management rules. High-level bioresearch safety labs have sophisticated protective facilities and strict measures to ensure the safety of laboratory staff and protect the environment from contamination.

'There is zero infection within the institute. It is the established general opinion of [the World Health Organisation], and scientists and professionals in the field of public health in the vast majority of countries including the US that there is no evidence showing the virus came from a lab. As the pandemic is spreading, the international community should co-operate on fighting against the virus.

'This is the only way to defeat Covid-19. Rumour-mongering as well as slander and smear will only damage international solidarity.'
Berlin: Ten times more people than previously thought may have already acquired immunity to the new coronavirus, according to a groundbreaking study in Germany.

Hairdressers work at a salon that opened on May 4 for the first time since March, in Berlin, Germany. Credit:Getty Images

Scientists from the University of Bonn claim their findings show that 1.8 million people across Germany have already been infected with the virus.

That is more than 10 times as many as have tested positive so far, and would mean more than 1.6 million may have been infected and recovered without knowing it.

The findings are based on the first comprehensive study of the effects of the virus on a single community in Gangelt, the town at the epicentre of Germany's first major outbreak. The study's initial findings last month suggested the fatality rate in Gangelt was much lower than previously thought, at just 0.37 per cent.
Eric Johnson and his family were asleep March 3 when Bella, the family's 6-year-old miniature Australian shepherd, woke him up. Bella was behaving extremely erratically, giving Johnson a sense that "something just didn't feel right."

After turning on the TV, Johnson learned a tornado was headed toward their town. So, Johnson grabbed his wife and their children and hid them in a bathtub.

The father of three was looking for Bella when the tornado hit their house, tearing it into pieces and throwing him into his backyard. In a CNN story, Johnson said that Bella had been hiding under his bed when the tornado hit the hours.

She was thrown into our yard and survived and was missing after that. It was hard for us knowing she had survived but we couldnt find her. She was the piece of our family that was missing.

Johnson and his wife had left pieces of clothing around their neighborhood hoping Bella would recognize the scent and find her way back. A church friend and dog tracker, Sarah Lang Romeyn set up cameras borrowed from a local animal rescue group in areas where people reported spotting her.

Eventually, using the footage, Romeyn discovered the spot where Bella was hiding. Bella was found April 26 in an alley 4-miles from home.

Johnson, his brother-in-law and their pastor retrieved Bella. After 54 days of living on her own, the beloved pet and heroine was reunited with her family.

"The whole situation was incredible. I am so very grateful that I was position to be able to help him out." Romeyn told CNN. "

While Johnson suffered a head injury and his wife had broken ribs from the tornado, along with the loss of their home, he says the family is just grateful that they are finally together again.

In an update reported by the Tennessean on April 30, Bella has been honored with a national award for her heroism.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is honoring Bella with its Heroic Dog Award and a treat basket after learning how she woke her family minutes before the deadly tornado flattened Hensley Street in Cookeville.

Johnson told The Tennessean that if Bella hadnt woken him, giving him time to usher his family into the bathroom for refuge, he didnt think his family wouldve survived the catastrophic EF-4 tornado.
The study "The environmental costs of water transfers", published in Nature Sustaintability, studies the proposals for water roads to face the water crisis that affects Chile. Researchers from Universidad de Concepcion, Universidad de Chile, Universidad del Desarrollo, and Universidad del Biobio participated, with an interdisciplinary perspective.

The working group included academics from areas such as oceanography, climatology, ecotoxicology, economics, and limnology, to seek the possible impacts that the implementation of water transfer or waterway projects could have. Considering for this the problems that Chile has faced in the last 30 years in the administration of water resources.

Added to this scenario, there is the prolonged dry period known as mega-drought, which since 2010 has exacerbated the water deficit and anticipated the scenario imposed by climate change in much of the national territory, where rains will be increasingly scarce.

For Cristian A. Vargas, director of the MUSELS Center, who led this analysis, "Chile is entering a phase where it must reconcile the growing demand for water supply by productive sectors such as agriculture, mining and electricity generation, with the provision for human consumption and the health of ecosystems ".

Under ever-intensifying water scarcity across much of the presently semi-arid regions of the world, water transfers may become inevitable to ease regional water deficits. However, to assure water sustainability, the design and enforcement of future water-use regulations must consider their long-term implications, recognizing the connections between inland and marine ecosystems, and understanding their socio-ecological consequences under future climate change. Chile, a country where large-scale hydraulic roads are presently under consideration, may raise the bar with the development of stringent regulations and standards.

###
After many years of pursuing scientific research, Dr Le Thi Xuan Thuy, lecturer on the Environment Faculty at Da Nang University of Technology, has two patents on solutions to treat polluted water.

Since my high school years, I have been passionate about applied chemistry, especially in the field of environment. Later, when I have the chances to go to many places and see the environmental problems in industrial parks which affect workers health, I have been cherishing the idea that I need to find solutions to settle the problems, she said.





After tireless research efforts, Thuys two research works on treating waste water contaminated with heavy metal ion with magnetic materials coated with gamapolyglutamide (Gama-PGM), and multi-layer groundwater purifier were granted protective certificates by the National Office of Intellectual Property in 2018.



With the use of Gama-PGM, a material successfully developed by a professor from Tokushima University, she suggested solutions suitable to Vietnams conditions to help factories treat waste water.

Research results show that magnetic particles have high ability to absorb heavy metals, and that using Gama-PGM as an absorbent material in the magnetic filtration model can bring high processing efficiency, which can meet the requirements.

Research results show that magnetic particles have high ability to absorb heavy metals, and that using Gama-PGM as an absorbent material in the magnetic filtration model can bring high processing efficiency, which can meet the requirements.



The solution has been applied at a plating plant in Da Nang City. This is an industry which releases waste water with high heavy metal concentration. However, the situation has improved with the solution.



Another topic that Thuy spends time on is treating alum and polluted water in rural, mountainous and remote areas, where underground water cannot meet quality standards.



Thuy is the chair of respected research projects including research on water treatment and heavy metal recovery at South Lake at Da Nang Airport with a flotation process using Gama-PGM; the assessment of underground water quality and proposed solutions to treat underground water in Tam Hai island, in Nui Thanh district of Quang Nam province; and the treatment of Cu2+ and Zn2+ in plating waste water with magnetic separation method.



According to Thuy, the multi-layer underground water filter is compactly designed in a cylindrical shape, including eight sections containing underground water, gravel, sea sand, activated carbon, manganese sand and filtered water, divided into separate compartments. It is easy to replace the materials and is economical.



The solution can fix the disadvantages of conventional water filtration methods, and is suitable to all families.



The underground water filtration experiments in Cam Thanh commune in Hoi An City found that the NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Unit), Fe and Mn concentrations are all below Vietnamese standards QCVN 01:2009. From the invention, Thuy has developed a filtration equipment for family use.

Mai Lan

The talents of Vietnam's two female mathematics professors Vietnams mathematics community has only two female professors  Hoang Xuan Sinh and Le Thi Thanh Nhan.
Staff at the Mater Hospital in Belfast, during a minute's silence to pay tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak

A frontline NHS worker has spoken of her frustration at what she called 'negative thoughts, views and spins' about hospitals being 'quiet' during the Covid-19 emergency.

Kiara McElroy took to social media yesterday to share her first-hand experience.

"First of all, that was the bloody aim of lockdown - to not overwhelm hospitals," she posted. "Have you ever been in A&E normally these days where you can't be seen for hours on end?

"What that means is Covid patients get access to fast proper care. Anyone who has had it will vouch for that."

And she spoke movingly of the way in which healthcare workers care for dying patients - and their grief-stricken families.

"We try our hardest that no Covid patient dies alone," she added. "They often can't have family because of the risk to family. But they have us.

"We may have masks, aprons gloves on, but we hold their hands and we pray with them if they would want that, we talk about their families . We have time these days to ring families every day and get to know them too.

"When they do die, they aren't alone and then they aren't left alone until after they leave us.

"We take our time, we wash them slowly, we dress them in clean new PJs (we have actually got these for patients ourselves, for families can't provide them).

"We brush their hair, shave them if they are men and would like that, provide mouthcare, talk to them the whole time.

"We either sit with families who wish to come to the ward, make them tea, let them cry, comfort them from a distance or we phone them privately, again take our time, answer any questions.

"So yes the hospitals are 'quieter' - but how about you all stop for a second and put it into perspective?"
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 13:28:39|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

SYDNEY, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Australians affected by COVID-19 travel restrictions have been encouraged to join legal action against airlines which exchanged tickets on disrupted flights for vouchers.

On Monday, law firm Slater and Gordon said they believe leading Australian airlines including Qantas and Jetstar may have been unlawful in offering vouchers rather than cash exchanges.

The firm reported being in contact with Australians who said they were thousands of dollars out of pocket after receiving vouchers which could be used for future flights that they may never be able to redeem.

"We understand that everyone is doing it tough at present, including the major airlines and travel companies, but that doesn't give them an excuse to take advantage of their customers," Practice Group Leader Andrew Paull said.

"We believe cash refunds should be returned to customers, who almost certainly need that money right now ... If they won't do so, then it's only reasonable for those customers to look at recovering their money through a class action."

The firm also questioned the airlines continuing to offer tickets on international flights as early as June 1, 2020, despite warnings from the government that travel bans could stay in place for much longer. Enditem
Brendan J. Lyons, Times Union, Albany

Albany, N.Y.  State corrections officials, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, said they will begin releasing incarcerated women who are pregnant or postpartum, if they have not committed a violent felony or sex offense and are within six months of release.

"The department will conduct an individualized review and re-entry plan for each eligible person to ensure suitable housing and health care for these expectant and current mothers, as well as their children," the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said in a statement.

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a women's prison in Westchester County, has had 38 inmates test positive for COVID-19. One of those women died and 23 others have recovered.

The decision by DOCCS to release pregnant inmates came after 40 New York legislators signed a letter sent to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo this week urging him and top state corrections officials to improve conditions in prisons and release more inmates whose poor health may put them at risk if they contract COVID-19.

The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision on Thursday listed that 211 of its more than 41,100 inmates are currently positive for the infectious disease, and that there have been 10 fatalities. More than 1,000 of the department's 29,000 employees have tested positive, and two have died, the agency reported.

The figures from DOCCS place the rate of infection and deaths among inmates below the general population of New York.

But Dave George, associate director of Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, who helped organize the lawmakers' letter-writing effort, said there is not enough testing of inmates to present an accurate assessment and that the information they are receiving from inmates indicates it is a much more serious situation behind prison walls.

"Way more people have it than they are saying," George said, noting that prison infrastructure makes it difficult to quarantine and contain the spread of the virus. "We are really really scared  really nervous that that number jumps to hundreds, if not thousands. ... It's going to hurt a lot a lot of people if the governor doesnt act swiftly."

The letter's signatories include Assembly Majority Leader Crystal People-Stokes, Albany Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, Manhattan Sen. Brad Hoylman and Queens Sen. Jessica Ramos.

"Deplorable, unsanitary and inhumane conditions in our state correctional facilities guarantee that the spread of coronavirus will be rapid and lethal," the letter asserts. "Practices like frequent hand-washing, social distancing and self-quarantine are nearly impossible inside our prisons."

Cuomo has resisted calls for him to grant clemencies although he has been pressured by inmate advocates to consider using that power to release inmates at higher risk of complications from infection, including those who are elderly, pregnant or that have compromised immune systems.

A 2017 state comptrollers report confirmed that New Yorks prison population, like other states, is aging rapidly. From 2007 through 2016, the inmate population fell 17%  11,000  but the number of inmates aged 50 or older rose 46 percent.

Inmate visitations were suspended in mid-March, when Cuomo's administration announced that inmates would be provided with five free postage stamps per week, two free secure messages via electronic tablets, and one free telephone call.

The letter signed by the lawmakers says that's not enough. They called on Cuomo to make coronavirus testing and medical treatment more readily available to all inmates, end solitary confinement, and to provide inmates unlimited access to phone calls, emails and mail, among other measures.

Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol, D-Brooklyn, said New York should be doing everything we can to protect New Yorkers  and that includes our most vulnerable in prison.

"It is difficult to think of any place more susceptible to the spread of COVID-19 than within our prisons where we know that social distancing can be particularly difficult," Lentol said. "These measures will go a long way to protect our vulnerable in addition to prison staff and their families."

DOCCS officials, in response to the pandemic, have taken steps to release parolees incarcerated on technical violations and granted early release to inmates age 55 and over who are within 90 days of release and do not pose a danger to the public.

Hes been the national leader on the response to this virus, George said of Cuomo. But he is doing far, far less than many other governors have done in other states.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

What businesses might reopen this month amid coronavirus in NY? McMahon offers clues about restart

Cuomo set at least 12 tests for CNY economy to reopen. Heres how we check the boxes

As he struggled to breathe, CNY nursing home wouldnt test for coronavirus, family says

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com
Her tagline for RHOBH season 10 is: 'Dance like everyone's watching.'

And Lisa Rinna did just that on Sunday in another one of her signature dance videos.

The 56-year-old took to social media where she busted out her moves in an 'Apres Corona' T-shirt.

Dancing like everyone's watching! Lisa Rinna was back to her dancing ways on Sunday when she busted her moves to the 1978 hit, Born to Be Alive

Lisa danced and lip synced to the 1978 Patrick Hernandez hit, Born to Be Alive.

She wore a white Apres Corona T-shirt which read: 'Cannot wait for this s*** to end.' Lisa captioned the video with the same slogan.

The shirt from Sol Angeles retails for $58 with proceeds being donated to the World Health Organization amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the virus: She wore a white Apres Corona T-shirt which read: 'Cannot wait for this sh*t to end'

Comfortable: Lisa teamed the look with black activewear tights and a complimentary bandanna told hold back her hair

Lisa teamed the look with black activewear tights and a complimentary bandanna told hold back her hair.

And the reality star was happy as always to answer fans' burning questions in the comments section.

One user asked: 'Does your family crack up over you?' to which she replied, 'They are just plain over me.'

Another asked if her husband Harry Hamlin, 68, enjoyed watching her bust out her moves.

Lisa simply responded with: 'Naked.'

Busting out the moves: Lisa isn't shy when dancing, regularly showcasing her skills on social media

The beauty took to social media earlier in the day to praise her husband of 23-years.

'This is a Harry Hamlin appreciation post,' she captioned of a red carpet photo with him.

Harry met Lisa before her acting career had taken off at a restaurant in Los Angeles.

'We met in a restaurant. She was working at an eyeglass store doing the night shift selling sunglasses,' Harry recalled recently on The Jess Cagle Show.

'This is a Harry Hamlin appreciation post': The beauty took to social media earlier in the day to praise her husband of 23-years

Girls: Harry and Lisa are parents to daughters, Delilah Belle, 21, and Amelia Gray, 18. The sisters also share dance videos like their mom

'I happened to know the owner of the store, I was having dinner with him and she came in to deliver the keys when she closed the store at 10. That's how I met her.'

The pair went on to marry at the end of March in 1997 in Beverly Hills. Together they share daughters, Delilah Belle, 21, and Amelia Gray, 18.

Harry is also the father to son Dimitri Alexander, 39, from his previous relationship with actress, Ursula Andress.

Besides Lisa, he was also married to Laura Johnson between 1985 to 1989 and Nicolette Sheridan between 1991 and 1992.
SPRINGFIELD  Two city councilors have raised concerns about a proposed 16.9% increase in the water and sewer rates, which is being blamed in part on the coronavirus.

Ward 1 Councilor Adam Gomez and At-large Councilor Sean Curran issued separate statements criticizing the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission proposed hike, which they say would be a hardship on the public.

The commissions executive director, Joshua Schimmel, said Friday that water usage was down approximately 15 to 20% during the coronavirus pandemic, triggered by the closure of many businesses and schools. That was creating a major loss in water and sewer rate revenues that fund the annual commission budgets.

Under the proposed rate increase, the typical household water and sewer bill would increase by an estimated $140.88 annually, the commission said. A public hearing is scheduled June 2, prior to the new rates being set for July 1.

"Springfield Water and Sewer are passing the burden on the the consumer, Gomez said Working families that now are on unemployment, furloughed from their jobs, struggling with prescription payments, and the elders/others living on fixed incomes trying to make ends meet.

An increase of $140 per year is a month supply of food for some of our residents, Gomez said.

When the rate increase takes effect, July 1, "our tax payers have to pick and choose over paying for prescriptions and/or essential necessities."

From two months of lack of usage our rates skyrocket? Gomez said.

Rates are set by the three-member commission, not by the City Council.

Gomez is proposing the creation of an economic regional task force to look at the Covid-19 impacts, not just by individual communities. With a Hampden County task force, all stake holders have a clear direction on how we are going to get through this crisis. Gomez said.

Curran said the residential and small business customers need relief from the commissions continuously rising water and sewer rates over the past decade.

Imposing a 17 percent rate increase at a time when many residents have been out of work and many small businesses shuttered due the Corona Virus lock-down, is going to slow the Citys economic recovery, Curran said.

Curran said he is also concerned that having a public hearing conducted online will result in the majority of residents not being able to voice their opposition.

I am well aware of the costs of delivering water to the residents of Springfield and Western Massachusetts, Curran said. However, placing that burden squarely on the residents of Springfield and surrounding communities in the form of sky-high rates is not the solution.

Curran urged the commission to reconsider the 16.9% increase at a time when residents and small businesses in Springfield are facing unprecedented economic and healthcare burdens,"

The June 2 hearing is scheduled at 6 p.m., by calling the telephone number, (413) 261-6430, and using the conference identification number 566 881 166#

Computer live vieo streaming is also available at: https://bit.ly/2YfIUnK
What was clear during the Great Depression, the financial crisis of 2008 and now the pandemic of 2020 is that our safety net is neither perfect nor partisan; it does not distinguish between red states and blue states. Despite the division that has dominated our politics for the past decade or more, the public health and economic needs born of the pandemic create an opportunity to strengthen the working families that are the real bedrock of the United States.
(Photo : Photo by Andi Rieger on Unsplash) A simple sniffing test could aid in pinpointing the level of consciousness in severely brain damaged patients, scientists say.

Researchers have found that the sense of smell could be a reliable tool in determining the rate of recovery and the survival of patients with severe brain injury.

A study, published on April 29 in the journal Nature, exposes how a conventional and cheap 'sniff test' could help doctors diagnose and treat patients with ailments regarding consciousness.

In the study, all of the patients who initially had little to no awareness of the outside world regained consciousness after reacting to the sniff test. Ninety-one percent of these patients have been found to survive their brain injuries even after three and a half years later.

Anat Arzi, the lead researcher from the University of Cambridge's Department of Psychology and the Weizmann Institute of Science Israel, said that the accuracy of the sniff test is exceptional. Arzi and the rest of the team hope that it would help in the treatment of patients with brain injuries all around the world.

In the study, Arzi worked together with Professor Noam Sobel from the Weizmann Institute of Science Israel and Dr. Yaron Sacher from the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital Israel.

The research was funded by the Royal Society, the Blavatnik Family Foundation, the Rob and Cheryl McEwen Fund for Brain Research, and the European Molecular Biology Organisation.

Also Read: Oncology Breakthrough: Researchers Unveil New Blood Test Cancer Screening Before Symptoms Appear

Brain Injury and Level of Consciousness

According to Brainline, a traumatic brain injury can lead to five abnormal states regarding a person's level of consciousness. These are stupor, coma, persistent vegetative state, locked-in syndrome, and brain death.

After a severe brain injury, doctors often find it hard to determine a person's level of consciousness exactly. Errors in diagnosis are made in up to 40% of cases. A precise diagnosis is crucial because it guides physicians in arranging their treatment plans such as pain management and can control decisions regarding the patient's long term survival.

According to Noam Sobel, if you approach an unconscious patient and present them with a particular scent to sniff, they will resume consciousness at some stage and probably live for at least three years.

Scientists say that the sense of smell is a fundamental mechanism that relies on structures deep within the brain. The brain automatically changes the way we sniff in response to different scents. In healthy people, the sniff-response occurs in both waking and sleeping states of consciousness.

Scents of Shampoo and Rotten Fish

The research was done on 43 severely brain-injured patients. They were presented with different jars containing different items with various scents and would be smelling them through a nasal cannula. The facilitator explained the procedure and the contents of each jar, without any indication of comprehension coming from the patients.

The researchers found that slightly conscious patients naturally inhaled less in response to smells. However, they did not show prejudice between pleasant and awful smells. These patients also adjusted their nasal airflow in response to the jar with no scent. This behavior indicates an awareness of the jar or learned expectancy of a smell.

In vegetative state patients, some patients changed their breathing in response to either of the smells, while others did. Arzi said that they found that if patients in this state had a sniff response, they, later on, transitioned to at least slightly conscious state. He added that in some cases, it was the only sign that hinted that the patient's brain was going to recover.

Dr. Tristan Bekinschtein from the University of Cambridge's Department of Psychology said that when the sniff response is functioning normally, it may indicate that the patient could still be conscious at some point, even when other signs are not apparent.

Read Also: New Research Reveals Compound That Eliminates Chronic Pain in Mice; Promising Development for Medicine
Artificial intelligence (AI) may be an aid to interpreting ECG results, helping healthcare staff to diagnose diseases that affect the heart. Researchers at Uppsala University and heart specialists in Brazil have developed an AI that automatically diagnoses atrial fibrillation and five other common ECG abnormalities just as well as a cardiologist. The study has been published in Nature Communications.

An electrocardiogram (ECG) is a simple test that can be used to check the heart's rhythm and electrical activity. The results are shown on a graph that can reveal various conditions that affect the heart. The tool is routinely used in healthcare and each ECG needs to be interpreted manually by a cardiologist.

The new study demonstrates that an AI is capable of automatically diagnosing the abnormalities indicated by an ECG. The AI was initially trained on a database comprising over two million ECGs that had already been diagnosed manually. In this way, it can learn to recognize typical patterns for the six most common ECG abnormalities and then make a diagnosis of another patient with one of these conditions - with the same precision as a cardiologist.

The method is currently not ready for use in clinics and hospitals; however, the researchers believe that it offers great potential for improved cardiovascular care in low and middle-income countries where large parts of the population lack the same level of access to specialists who are able to interpret ECG results as we enjoy here in Sweden.

This is the first result of a collaboration that we have built up over the past two years. I have great confidence that in the future this type of deep collaboration between AI researchers and medical researchers will be able to create new knowledge that can help people enjoy a better quality of life." Thomas Schon, Professor of Automatic Control, Uppsala University

Thomas Schon works in machine learning and AI at Uppsala University and was responsible for the technical part of the study.

The mathematical model (known as a deep artificial neural network) on which the study is based is a good example of the basic concept behind machine learning, where computers build their own model and then use it to learn to solve tasks based on collected data. The method differs from the classic method of working with a computer where the computer is manually programmed to perform a very specific task. The results for many problems have proved to be better when machine learning is used and the computer itself is allowed to identify patterns from gathered figures, texts, diagrams and images.
A major Chinese propaganda outlet has accused the US of launching 'unprecedented propaganda warfare' as Beijing sharpens its rhetoric against Washington amid a diplomatic war over the new coronavirus.

The Global Times, a state-backed newspaper, also blamed Trump for 'trying to impede global efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic'.

The fresh editorial attack came as Trump yesterday said that China had made a 'horrible mistake' and tried to cover-up the coronavirus outbreak.

Hours before Trump's remarks, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed there was 'enormous evidence' to show that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, where the pandemic first emerged in December.

China's President Xi (left, pictured on January 17) is facing widespread doubts that his government has covered up the true scale of the outbreak. Trump (right, pictured on January 15) yesterday said that China had made a 'horrible mistake' and tried to cover-up the crisis

The US has become the country worst-hit by the deadly disease, with more than 68,000 recorded COVID-19 deaths. Pictured, people wear protective face masks as they wait in line to receive free food at a curbside pantry for needy residents in Brooklyn, NYC, on April 24

China's President Xi is facing widespread doubts that his government has covered up the true scale of the outbreak.

As many as 232,000 people may have contracted the disease in China during the epidemic, experts in Hong Kong believe. The figure is nearly three times the official tally released by Beijing.

World leaders, including Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, have hinted their disapproval of Chinese tactics of false information amid the ongoing pandemic.

An internal report from China reveals that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The backlash, led by the US, needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to sources familiar with the document.

'We've said from the beginning that this was a virus that originated in Wuhan, China,' Pompeo said on ABC. 'We took a lot of grief for that from the outset. Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories,' he added

Chinese officials have denied there is any connection between the outbreak and the Institute of Virology in Wuhan. The picture shows researchers working in the lab in February, 2017

The Global Times was blasting Pompeo's claims over the virus's origin when it escalated its war of words against the Trump administration.

The harsh column accused Pompeo of 'bluffing' and continuing to 'fool' the American public.

It said: 'Since Pompeo said his claims are supported by "enormous evidence," then he should present this so-called evidence to the world, and especially to the American public who he continually tries to fool.

'The truth is that Pompeo does not have any evidence, and during Sunday's interview, he was bluffing.

It continued: 'The Trump administration continues to engage in unprecedented propaganda warfare while trying to impede global efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

'The most urgent tasks for international communities are to prevent the virus from spreading and to save lives while restarting the world economy.

'Ironically, Washington has put forth the weakest efforts in accomplishing the aforementioned tasks.'

Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, last Friday accused Trump of 'publicly lying about China'. He wrote in a column 'Why is the American public so easily fooled?'

Trump (pictured on April 30) last week made the explosive charge that the coronavirus - which has killed more than 247,000 worldwide and wreaked havoc on the global economy - might have been created in a Chinese lab. He also threatened to impose new tariffs on China

The article then suggested that Trump and his team were trying to divert the public's attention from their 'incompetent' in the hope of winning the election this year.

It wrote: 'As the US presidential election campaigns are underway, the Trump administration has implemented a strategy designed to divert attention from the incompetence it has displayed in fighting the pandemic.

'It is clear that their goal is to blame China for the pandemic by pinpointing the country as the source of COVID-19.'

Last week Trump told reporters that he had seen proof that suggests the virus originated in the lab, but he did not go into detail.

'If Washington has solid evidence, then it should let research institutes and scientists examine and verify it,' the Global Times asserted in today's commentary.

'Another option would be to have intelligence agencies release a detailed report on the origin of the virus, which would help the White House keep its fabrications moving forward.'

Beijing insists the WHO has found no evidence that the novel coronavirus was manmade.

The pandemic has killed more than 247,000 people and infected over 3.5 million worldwide

A video released by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV in February shows virologists donning spacesuit-like protective gears as they work in the P4 lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Billed as China's 'most belligerent tabloid', the Global Times has been at the forefront of defending Beijing's actions and denouncing the West over its criticism against the Community Party.

It slams the Trump administration nearly every day amid the global outbreak.

The paper's editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, last Friday launched an astonishing attack on Trump, accusing him of 'publicly lying about China'.

Hu admitted that 'some Chinese experts made some misjudgments at the early stage of the outbreak' before quickly pointing his finger at Trump, saying that the US President 'had repeatedly downplayed the risk of the outbreak and brushed aside warnings'.

He continued: 'Then there is the fact that Trump can boost himself in the US and shirk his responsibility for failing to fight the epidemic by publicly lying about China.

'Why is the American public so easily fooled?'

Beijing and Washington have been locking horns in a tit-for-tat diplomatic dispute over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chinese state media intensifies anti-US propaganda campaigns Various other Chinese state media outlets have also intensified their campaigns in stirring up anti-US sentiment. China's state broadcaster on Monday branded Pompeo's remarks over the virus's origin as 'insane and evasive'. Titled 'Evil Pompeo is wantonly spewing poison and spreading lies', the scathing commentary cited WHO executive director Mike Ryan and Columbia University virologist W. Ian Lipkin, who claimed that the virus is natural in origin and was not man-made or leaked from a laboratory. China's CCTV branded Pompeo's remarks over the virus's origin as 'insane and evasive' in a commentary titled 'evil Pompeo is wantonly spewing poison and spreading lies' Pompeo has said there is 'enormous evidence' showing the virus originated in a lab 'These flawed and unreasonable remarks by American politicians make it clear to more and more people that no "evidence" exists,' the commentary said. 'The so-called 'virus leaked from a Wuhan lab' hype is a complete and utter lie. American politicians are rushing to shift the blame, cheat votes and suppress China when their own domestic anti-epidemic efforts are a mess.' Two further commentaries published on Monday by state newspaper People's Daily attacked Pompeo and former White House strategist Steve Bannon as a "pair of lying clowns", and blasted Bannon as a "Cold War living fossil". Bannon last week said on a US far-right talk show that China had committed a "biological Chernobyl" against America and advocated the theory that the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, echoing recent White House rhetoric. Advertisement

The US accuses China of covering up the outbreak, hiding its real origin and taking advantage of the crisis to push its territorial ambitions.

China accuses the US of carrying out 'smear campaigns' and avoiding its responsibilities in containing the disease. A spokesperson has also suggested that the virus might have been brought to Wuhan by US troops.

Trump suggested last night that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe was the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China and that Chinese officials tried to cover it up.

The president continued to point the finger at Beijing and fuelled growing suggestions that COVID-19 spread from a Wuhan laboratory before snowballing into a worldwide pandemic.

His fiery remarks at Sunday's Fox News virtual town hall meeting at Washington's Lincoln Memorial came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was a 'significant amount of evidence' the virus had escaped.

President Donald Trump suggested that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe is the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China

Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the world. The Chinese leader is pictured during a visit to the province of Shaanxi on April 20

Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the global community.

'Well, I don't think there's any question about it. We wanted to go in; they didn't want us to go in. Things are coming out that are pretty compelling. I don't think there's any question,' the president said Sunday.

'Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn't want to admit it,' he added.

His comments came as a Department of Homeland Security report shared on Sunday revealed US officials believe China' intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic in early January and hoarded medical supplies.

The four-page report dated May 1 that was obtained by the Associated Press notes that China downplayed the virus publicly but increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.

The document accuses China of covering their tracks by 'denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data.'

It lends weight to a leaked dossier drawn up by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance which describes how Beijing made whistleblowers' disappear', destroyed virus samples in the early days and scrubbed the internet of any mention of the disease in the early stages.

Dr Yuan Zhiming (pictured), the deputy head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, told CGTN 'there's no way this virus came from us'. He also refuted claims that the virus was man-made

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured) is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Earlier on Sunday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that 'a significant amount of evidence' suggested the virus came from the Wuhan lab.

'I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.

'These are not the first time that we've had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab,' Pompeo said on ABC's This Week.

The US intelligence community said it believes that COVID-19 was not 'manmade or genetically modified' but was investigating whether it was caused by 'an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan'.

However, Chinese officials and scientists have denied that there is any connection between the outbreak and the Institute of Virology in Wuhan that studies infectious diseases, including coronavirus.

Dr Yuan Zhiming, the deputy head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, hit back at the accusations in an interview with state media last month.

'There's no way this virus came from us,' Dr Yuan told CGTN, the English-language arm of CCTV.

'I know it's impossible,' he added.

Dr Yuan said that a manmade coronavirus would be beyond human intelligence as he rejected claims that the virus was artificially engineered.
In Nigeria's commercial hub Lagos, the notorious traffic jams were on Monday absent as most people chose to remain indoors.



Most bus stops, normally bustling with commuters, had a few stranded passengers and the popular yellow minibuses were missing.



With increasing numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths that have climbed more than 20-fold since the lockdown was announced, there are concerns that the decision to ease restrictions in Nigeria has come too soon.



The countrys medical associations have warned that there could be consequences and most people were not eager to leave their houses on Monday.



For many, the decision to ease restrictions was more an economic one that had little to do with health reasons.



Many employers in Lagos have asked their workers to continue working from home and some business owners, unsure about the government's decision, say they are in no rush to reopen their doors.



But as President Muhammadu Buhari said, the lockdown had come "at a very heavy economic cost" and that many citizens have lost their means of livelihoods.



No country can afford the full impact of a sustained lockdown while awaiting the development of vaccines or cures," he said.



This was a tussle between saving Nigerias fragile economy and an ailing health sector battling a deadly virus.



It seems the government has hedged its bets on the economy.

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.

Featured Video
GLADWIN, MI - A 47-year-old man is dead and an 18-year-old man was injured after a two-vehicle crash in Gladwin County.

Troopers from the Michigan State Police West Branch responded around 6:15 p.m. Sunday, May 3, to the intersection of Wildwood and School roads in Clement Township for a personal injury crash.

An initial investigation has revealed a 2004 Chevrolet Silverado driven by an 18-year-old from Goodrich was headed south on Wildwood Road toward School Road.

A 2007 Dodge Charger driven by 47-year-old Keith Preston, of Milan, was headed east on School Road and stopped at the signed intersection.

Prestons vehicle then proceeded into the intersection and collided with the Silverado, police said.

Both vehicles sustained major damage.

Preston suffered extensive trauma and was pronounced deceased at the scene.

The 18-year-old, whose name has not been released, suffered minor injuries and was treated at a local hospital.

The fatal crash remains under investigation.

Gladwin County Sheriffs Department, Gladwin City Police Department, Clement Township Fire Department, and the Michigan State Police 3rd District Traffic Reconstruction Unit assisted troopers at the scene.
A smart patch could catch early symptoms of the coronavirus and alert healthcare staff before symptoms emerge.

About the size of a postage stamp, the soft, flexible device sits at the base of the throat and uses sensors to measure factors associated with the virus, such as heart rate and cough.

The device transmits the data to a private server where algorithms create graphical summaries for healthcare authorities to analyze.

Hospitals can use the technology for patients at the facility and at home for continuous care.

Scroll down for video

About the size of a postage stamp, the soft, flexible device sits at the base of the throat and uses sensors to measure factors, such as heart rate and cough, associated with the virus

More than two dozen affected individuals are currently using the patch developed by a team at Northwestern University.

John Rogers, an engineer at Northwestern and lead of the technology development said: 'The most recent studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggest that the earliest signs of a COVID-19 infection are fever, coughing, and difficulty in breathing.

'Our device sits at the perfect location on the body  the suprasternal notch  to measure respiratory rate, sounds, and activity because that's where airflow occurs near the surface of the skin.'

Rogers and his team aims to use the patch to help healthcare workers monitor patients both in a hospital and while they are home  allowing for 24/7 supervision without putting staff at risk.

The device transmits the data to a private server where algorithms create graphical summaries for healthcare authorities to analyze

Hospitals can use the technology for patients at the facility and at home for continuous care

The device offers the potential to identify symptoms and to pick up trends before the workers notice them, thereby providing an opportunity to engage in appropriate precautionary measures and to seek further testing as quickly as possible.

It measures a person's cough, breathing patterns, heart rate, and body temperature, along with other factors associated with the coronavirus.

This data is then transmitted to what the researches call a 'HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act )-protected cloud' for monitoring.

'Nobody has ever collected this type of data before,' Rogers said.

'Earlier detection is always better and our devices provide important and unique capabilities in that context.

The device offers the potential to identify symptoms and to pick up trends before the workers notice them, thereby providing an opportunity to engage in appropriate precautionary measures and to seek further testing as quickly as possible

More than two dozen affected individuals are currently using the patch developed by a team at Northwestern University

'For patients who have contracted the disease, the value is even more clear, as the data represent quantitative information on respiratory behavior, as a mechanism to track the progression and/or the effects of treatments.'

Rogers and his team hopes the device will not just tell physicians how to best treat the illness, but also inform researchers about the nature of the virus itself.

'The growing amount of information and understanding around COVID-19 as a disease will be critically important to containing and treating the current outbreak as well as those that might occur in the future,' said Rogers.

'We hope, and we believe, that these devices may help in these efforts by identifying and quantifying characteristics and essential features of cough and respiratory activity associated with this disease.'

The team is developing dozens of devices every week at a facility in Chicago, Illinois and hopes to expand operations in order to meet the need as the outbreak continues to spread.
Good Morning Britains Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid wished Kate Garraway an emotional happy 53rd birthday live on air on Monday as her husband continues to battle COVID-19.

Derek Draper, who Garraway married in 2005, has been in hospital since the end of March.

The 52-year-old is still in a critical condition, according to Shephard, who is standing in for usual host Piers Morgan while he awaits the results of a coronavirus test.

Read more: Kate Garraway having 'hardest' few weeks of her life as husband battles COVID-19

Shephard said: We want to say happy birthday to Kate who turns 40/13 today.

Shes with her family, of course, keeping everything crossed because Derek is still critically ill.

Kate Garraway and husband Derek Draper arrive at the Galaxy British Book Awards in 2009 in London, England. (Jon Furniss/WireImage)

But we just want to say happy birthday, Kate. However you can celebrate today, were sending you lots and lots of love.

Reid added: Huge love to all of you and the family of course.

Garraway has described recent weeks as the hardest of her life.

Latest coronavirus news, updates and advice

Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the world

Fact-checker: The number of COVID-19 cases in your local area

Explained: Symptoms, latest advice and how it compares to the flu

She wrote on her personal blog last month: You may have seen over the last few [weeks] that my husband Derek has been seriously ill in hospital with COVID-19. I am afraid that he remains in a deeply critical condition and is very ill, but he's still alive so there is hope.

"It remains an extremely worrying time for us all and the last couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life."

Garraway has received a host of messages and best wishes on social media.

Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway attends the National Television Awards on January 25, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. (Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

One person tagged Garraway last week on Twitter, writing: Theres a story on BBC News just now about a 30+ student nurse who has been in ICU for ages, and just recovered and got home  be positive, keep trying to get verbal messages to him, the subconscious can sometimes hear.

Another fan tweeted: My mum (whos 80 next week and not a Twitter user!) has asked if I could let you know she lights a candle every day for Derek and for all those suffering from this horrendous virus.

We send you and your family lots of love.
The central team reports that West Bengal has the highest mortality rate for coronavirus cases in India. It also accused the state government for not maintaining transparency in COVID-19 data.

Inter-Ministerial Central Team in its letter informed the state chief secretary that the mortality rate of West Bengal is the highest at 12.8%. Not just this, ICMT, which was on a two-week visit to the state to inspect the cases of COVID-19, accused the Trinamool Congress regime of not cooperating with the central team. The team accused the Mamata Banerjee government of having discrepancies in reporting the number of COVID-19 cases in its medical bulletins to the central government.

IMCT leader Apoorva Chandra wrote in his final observations that the high mortality rate in the state is a clear proof of low testing, slow tracking and surveillance by the government in the state. All these reports have come after Mamata Banerjee formed a special audit committee to find out whether the deaths in the state are due to coronavirus or pre-existing ailment.

Inter-Ministerial Central Team is returning back to Delhi after a two-week inspection in Kolkata. During the stay, IMCT wrote seven letters to Bengal Chief Secretary Sinha and four-letter to Principal Secretaries of Home, Urban Development, Municipal Affairs, Health, Food and Supplies.

Also Read: Coronavirus India: 1074 cured in last 24 hours, highest till date in one day; recovery rate now at 27.52%, says Union Health ministry

The letter contains specific information given by the state government and the major observations of IMCT based on their field visits and inspections. IMCT reported that they could only interact with Principal Secretary (Health) through video conferencing and sought support from the state to conduct more visits as they were not allowed enough field visits.

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
Scenes of chaos outside liquor stores that opened after 40 days, confusion over the reopening of other commercial establishments, the return of traffic, albeit thin, onto the roads and a small section of office-goers braving it back to work -- that just about summarises how the first day of lockdown 3.0 went on Monday.

A semblance of normality returned for the first time since March 25, when the lockdown took hold, as the central and state governments loosened some of the tough restrictions they put in place to curb the spread of Covid-19. The loosening of the curbs is part of a a government strategy aimed at a graded lifting of the worlds biggest lockdown.

The government has allowed the resumption of standalone stores, neighbourhood shops and outlets in residential complexes to reopen for business. The central government has also allowed private offices with up to 33% staff strength and private vehicles with two persons besides the driver even in urban areas classified as red zones

Standalone liquor shops have been allowed to open in all three zones  red, orange and green  in the country subject to the condition that strict social-distancing rules are observed. These shops are, however, not allowed in containment zones.

From West Bengal to Rajasthan and Karnataka to Uttar Pradesh, law enforcement officials faced a tough challenge on Monday in controlling crowds and maintaining social distancing in front of liquor shops.

Extraordinary scenes were seen across Indian cities where people formed serpentine queues, waited for hours and jostled with each other to reach the sales counters. Many celebrated by lighting the traditional lamp and incense sticks.

Such was the rush in Kolkata that most shops had to down their shutters hours after opening for business. The government will not allow violation of social distancing norms outside liquor stores, chief secretary Rajiva Sinha said at the state secretariat in the afternoon.

In Rajasthan, which too closed some shops as the day progressed, people formed long queues. What to do, sir? This day has come after a long wait, said Shyam Sundar Sharma, a consumer waiting for his turn.

Sanjay Bhoosreddy, the principal secretary of the excise department in Uttar Pradesh, said: There is an estimate that on the first day itself, the government is likely to earn Rs 100 crore as revenue. In Indias most populous state, officials in some places put in place a one bottle, one person limit.

We want our alcohol at any cost, said Sooraj Pawar from Mumbais suburb Santacruz.

In the morning, confusion prevailed in Mumbai over the opening of liquor shops with traders waiting for the final word from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which gave its go-ahead in the afternoon. Liquor shops in Mumbai and Mumbai Suburban opened after that.

Some states such as Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana kept liquor shops closed. So did Puducherry.

The Tamil Nadu government announced the resumption of liquor sales from May 7. The decision to open state-run retail outlets was taken after people in districts bordering Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh started making a beeline to liquor stores there, posing a challenge in controlling interstate movement, the government said in a statement.

Shops in Madhya Pradesh will reopen on Tuesday, excluding Bhopal, Indore and Ujjain  all under the red zone.

Also on Monday, with area-specific relaxations coming into force, several manufacturing firms across auto, textiles, breweries and fertilizers segments resumed operations. But some retailers complained of chaos due to different interpretation of orders by local authorities.

Traders body CAIT (The Confederation of All India Traders) said just 20% of its member shops in permitted categories could open in different states due to confusion and lack of clarity over interpretation of neighbourhood shops and standalone shops at the local level.

CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal said: In states like Punjab and Uttarakhand, over 50% shops were allowed to open but in many states either the shops could not open or those which opened were asked to close down by the local authorities.

The countrys largest two-wheeler maker, Hero MotoCorp, said it resumed operations in a graded manner across three of its manufacturing plants in Gurugram, Dharuhera (both in Haryana) and Haridwar (Uttarakhand), with actual product rollout expected to begin from Wednesday.

Commercial vehicle maker SML Isuzu said it received permission from the Punjab government to start its manufacturing plant situated in district Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar, but emphasised that the work from home policy will continue.

In line with the federal guidelines, the West Bengal government said private buses are allowed intra-district travel with 20 passengers in green zones, while standalone shops will be allowed to open in all zones.

Business activities and movement of people resumed mainly in green and orange zones of Odisha as the state government considerably relaxed the lockdown curbs. The situation remained largely unchanged in the red zones where roads were deserted look.

In Assam, a police patrol party was attacked by a group of people while enforcing curfew as part of the lockdown. An officer in Sonitpur district was injured.

In Uttar Pradesh, long queues were seen at banks, though many private offices were closed. Haldwani in Uttarakhands Nainital district reported traffic jams in the first half of the day with people coming out on their two-wheelers and four-wheelers to visit markets. Small traffic jams were seen in Bengaluru as well.

While Pune mayor Murlidhar Mohol expressed his disapproval of the decision to give relaxations in non-containment zones in the city, Chandigarh administrator VP Singh Badnore said it was necessary to ease lockdown restrictions in the Union territory.

After 41 days of the lockdown, it was necessary to ease out restrictions for bringing the economy on track and also for giving relief to daily (wage) earners. Hence, as per guidelines of home ministry, the Chandigarh administration provided certain exemptions in the lockout, Badnore said in a statement.
Pregnant women are among those at high risk of developing COVID-19, as confirmed in Wuhan early in the pandemic. A new study from Portugal published on the preprint server medRxiv* in May 2020 analyses the data on the impact of COVID-19 on pregnancy and disease outcomes, using published cases of pregnant women diagnosed with the illness.

COVID-19 can occur at any age, but infections in children make up less than 1% of the total.

How was the study done?

The research team searched PubMed, a medical research database, to find original published studies on pregnant women. They were diagnosed with COVID-19 at any stage of their pregnancy, at any date and in all languages up to April 8, 2020.

Researchers did not exclude any papers based on the assumed quality of the study. All Portuguese cases were verified, and information was collected from their health professionals.

In total, 30 original studies concerning 212 pregnant women with COVID-19 were chosen for the study. Of these, 200 were from China and 12 from other countries. Among these, 30 were discharged during pregnancy. The ages ranged from 22 to 41.

Most women were in the third trimester of pregnancy.

What Were the Study Results?

There were 182 published deliveries with four twin pregnancies, resulting in one stillbirth and 185 live births. Most of the deliveries were by Cesarean section. Four of the women with severe symptoms required intensive care, but there were no cases of maternal death.

Nearly 30 percent of cases were preterm births; however, the researchers stated that there was insufficient evidence to link these to COVID-19. Only one neonatal death was reported.

All the cases in which amniotic fluid, placenta or cord blood was analyzed for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reported that the samples tested negative. Breast milk samples from 13 mothers described in seven studies showed no evidence for the presence of SARS-CoV-2. However, four newborns in China were positive for SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal and anal swabs collected on the second and fourth days after delivery, constituting about 2.2 percent of the study.

In another study reporting six babies, with blood tests after delivery, three of them had high levels of IgM antibodies, and three had high IgG levels. Similar case studies have been described in other papers, but none of these have isolated the virus itself.

What Were the Pregnancy Complications?

The most common conditions reported were fetal distress, gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, premature rupture of membranes, anemia, placenta bleeding in the third semester. Other complications with less frequency include pre-eclampsia, hypothyroidism, chronic hypertension, thalassemia, polycystic ovary syndrome, cholecystitis, asthma, and type 2 diabetes.

However, the study stated that there was no significant difference in the occurrence of most of these complications in pregnant women with or without COVID-19.

What is the Risk of COVID-19 in Pregnancy?

"There is no evidence that the risk of infection with COVID-19 in pregnant women is greater than in the general population. However, the incidence of infection in pregnant women is unknown, as screening tests were not generally used, except in the presence of symptoms," the researchers said.

A New York hospital with universal screening, almost 16% of pregnancies tested positive, but 88% of these had no symptoms of COVID-19.

Most published cases do not support a high risk of antenatal or intrapartum transmission. However, there is "emerging evidence" that SARS-CoV-2 may be present in a small proportion of cases. Pregnant women with co-morbidities were stated to be at the highest risk of this infection.

There were no cases of congenital malformation, and the evidence against intrauterine infection makes the chances of fetal malformation unlikely, the researchers added.

"It is essential to prevent the infection of COVID-19 and any other viral respiratory infection, as these infections represent an increased risk for the pregnant woman and for the pregnancy itself," researchers said, advising pregnant women to take preventive action to avoid contracting the virus.

In view of the very small evidence base, pregnant women and newborns should be retained as a "vulnerable" population.

Researchers conclude that fetal distress and preterm delivery seem to be more frequent among pregnant women with COVID-19.

Researchers also concluded that there was no place for Cesarean deliveries without a clear medical indication, or only because of a COVID-19 diagnosis. The paper states that there is "no obstetric contraindication to any mode of delivery" unless in the presence of a medical emergency.

"The decision on the type of delivery in pregnant women with suspected or confirmed infection with COVID-19 should take into account the maternal and fetal clinical characteristics, as is normal practice, and not the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection per se," the paper said.

The paper also stated that there was insufficient evidence to show that the virus cannot be transmitted through breast milk. However, it stated that the scientific knowledge relating to the topic was "limited." However, the benefits to both mother and child obtained through breastfeeding balanced the risk of transmission, it added.

"Considering the benefits of breastfeeding and the fact that the transmission of other respiratory viruses is insignificant through breast milk, there is no indication to stop breastfeeding," researchers said.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released two Cuban asylum seekers from IAH Secure Adult Detention Center, an ICE detention facility in Livingston, on Thursday after Lambda Legal and Immigration Equality, two LGTBQ legal national organizations, sent letters demanding they be released because of underlying health conditions that increase the risk of contracting coronavirus.

The two men, identified as Ivan and Ramon, are living with HIV and seeking refuge in the United States after being persecuted for their political activism, sexual orientation and HIV status.

We are thrilled that Ivan and Ramon can pursue their asylum claims without the fear of unnecessary and inevitable exposure to the coronavirus in ICE detention facilities, Lambda Legal staff attorney Puneet Cheema said in a press release. There are too many people who continue to be detained in detention centers, prisons and jails who are not being given sufficient means and ability to protect themselves.

Lambda Legal and Immigration Equality staff attorneys along with with co-counsel Vinson & Elkins in the letter referred to a preliminary injunction granted by the U.S. District Court Central District of California on April 20 requiring ICE to take steps to protect detainees who are medically compromised from the coronavirus.

The ruling certified two subclasses of individuals who have one or more of the risk factors placing them at heightened risk of severe illness and death upon contracting the COVID-19 virus and to be classified to be released. One of those risk factors is HIV.

According to the ruling, ICE must determine in 10 days of the original ruling date or five days of detention  whichever is later  which of its detainees is eligible to be released on humanitarian parole or habeus relief.

It took just four days for Ivan and Ramon to be released after their legal teams letter was submitted. The two men were identified with aliases because of the risk of political or other persecution, according to the press release.

Both Ivan and Ramon had been in ICE custody since October 2019 at the La Palma Detention Center in Eloy, Arizona, before being transferred to IAH Secure Adult Detention Center in early March.

Cheema said that Ivan and Ramon were transferred from La Palma to IAH after confirmed cases of coronavirus occurred in the detention center. The first Texas ICE detainee tested positive for coronavirus on April 14, according to Houston Public Media.

Its impossible to follow social distancing guidelines. Its impossible to maintain 6 feet when youre next to people in a small cell, Cheema said of the conditions in ICE detention centers. Things like hand washing, the cleaning of frequently touched surfaces and hand sanitizer are prohibited.

Ivan and Ramon will live with sponsors until their asylum cases are heard. Cheema said that cases like theirs are not unique and there are still many people in ICE custody who have underlying health conditions.

ICE is just not moving fast enough, Cheema said. These facilities have a responsibility to release as many people as they can, and keep those in their custody safe.

jorge.ramos@beaumontenterprise.com

https://twitter.com/byjorgeramos
Monday, May 4

Data Snapshot

9,703 total lab confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Iowa (05/03/2020).

14 total lab confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Cerro Gordo (05/03/2020).



Age Ranges of lab confirmed cases: (18-40) = 2 cases, (41-60) = 6 cases, (61-80) = 6 cases

188 deaths in Iowa

0 deaths in Cerro Gordo

1,613 COVID-19 tests administered at the mobile testing unit (05/03/2020).

A status report of monitoring and testing of COVID-19 in Iowa provided by Iowa Department of Public Health can be found at https://coronavirus.iowa.gov/#CurrentStatus. For Cerro Gordo County data, visit https://cghealth.com/?page_id=3754.

MercyOne North Iowa Enhances Safety by Requiring Face Masks

As the positive impact of social distancing begins to flatten the curve for COVID-19 cases in north Iowa, MercyOne is resuming select critical services and elective surgeries to provide clinically necessary care for the health and well-being of area patients. One noticeable change is the additional safety requirement that anyone entering a MercyOne facility will wear a mask. In addition, all patients scheduled for a surgery or procedure will be tested for COVID-19 within 24 hours before their procedure.

"We want people to know it is safe to seek essential treatment. MercyOne North Iowa is enhancing safety precautions already in place in order to resume select surgeries, procedures and other critical services as we remain committed to providing the safe, excellent care we know our patients and communities need, said Rod Schlader, President of MercyOne North Iowa. We are taking a thoughtful, phased approach to resuming select services and are following CDC and state COVID-19 guidance to provide a safe environment for patients and colleagues."

Enhanced safety measures at MercyOne include:

Pre-appointment phone screening for all patients.

Everyone entering the building must be wearing a mask before being screened for symptoms.

No visitors are permitted in any area of the hospital, clinics, outpatient areas or emergency department.

MercyOne continues to provide Virtual Visits as an option for receiving care. Learn more at https://www.mercyone.org/northiowa/for-patients/virtual-visits.

DIA Adds More Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Restaurants Reopening

The FAQs sheet created by the DIA was recently updated to better guide restaurants as they reopen. Previously, there were 27 questions. Since Friday, an additional 25 questions have been added. The newly added FAQs include more guidance for hotels serving breakfast, scenarios for seating arrangements for individual and group dining, and the use of plexiglass partitions. Restaurants can call CG Public Health at 641-421-9300 to receive specific guidance and assistance virtually from their staff. To view the FAQs, visit https://dia.iowa.gov/document/covid-19-frequently-asked-questions-may-1-2020-restaurant-reopening.

NIACC Pappajohn Center and SBDC Hosts Free Webinars for Businesses Reopening

The first webinar that the NIACC Pappajohn Center & Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is hosting is called Iowa Hospitality Promise: Getting Your Business Ready to Reopen on Wednesday May 6th, at 9 a.m. Jessica Dunker, President/CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, will share insight and tips for restaurants and retailers getting ready to welcome back customers. Please register in advance, this call is limited to 100 participants. The webinar will also be livestreamed on the Pappajohn Center Facebook page. https://niacc.zoom.us/meeting/register/v5IsdeyqqzIuveBtjglNeoo0pehTI8zlzA.

For the second webinar, Americas SBDC Iowa is holding a free webinar Bringing Restaurants Back on Tuesday May 5th, at 8:30 a.m. Featured panelists include Jessica Dunker from the Iowa Restaurant Association, Mark Speltz from the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals (DIA), and Dr. Naig from Iowa State University. Register today to hear from professionals on the reopening of restaurants safely. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UvOC2iLrTR2kuKd25keJpw.
Kim Kardashian got caught out by fans over an apparent Photoshop fail on Monday, after she posted a series of new shots for 168M Instagram followers.

The wife of Kanye West showed off long dark hair with a snake print pattern and matching nails that went perfectly with her beige and black snakeprint micro outfit that barely covered her body.

However, some eagle-eyed fans noticed that in one snap that you can see one of her fingers still in her hair while both of her hands are resting up against the wall, suggesting that there had been some post-production work done on the image.

Busted! Kim Kardashian posted this snake-skin look on Monday, but can you spot the apparent Photoshop fail to the right of her head?

Oops: There appears to be one of Kim's snakeskin print nails poking through her hair - despite the fact she has both hands on the wall

'You left an extra hand in your hair,' one use wrote on Twitter, which was then shared on Instagram.

The 39-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star had captioned the photos: 'venemoussss.'

Kim listed off all the credits, including photographer Greg Swales and nails by Modern Pamper Salon.

Ssssssizzling: Kim Kardashian treated her 168M Instagram followers to two new glamour shots on Monday afternoon

She also went to Instagram Stories to show all the prep work and how she had to pose against a wall.

Fans were divided on the look.

Dylanvuitton said, 'Uh oh snakeskin hair about to be a thing' while Natsyo.xo said, 'The hair is rly pretty.'

The KKW Beauty owner said the shoot was from late February before she went into self-isolation with Kanye and her four kids: North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm.

'Pre quarantine shoot vibezzzzzz,' said the Vogue cover girl.

Video was taken where a man moves her stiff, painted hair and she lays on the floor.

'Oh wow, this is beautiful,' says the shutterbug.

Venom fever: The 39-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star wrote in her caption 'venemoussss'

Back story: Kim listed off all the credits, including photographer Greg Swales and nails by Modern Pamper Salon. She also went to Instagram Stories to show all the prep work and how she had to pose against a wall

Last week the TV star and entrepreneur showed fans how she keeps up her challenging workout routine.

Kim shared what her morning workouts are like with her trainer.

They seem far from easy with three sets of '60 ab crunches and 20 dumbbell hammer curls,' among other repetitions.

Mixed reaction: Fans were divided on the look. Dylanvuitton said, 'Uh oh snakeskin hair about to be a thing' while Natsyo.xo said, 'The hair is rly pretty'

Helpers everywhere: The KKW Beauty owner said the shoot was from late February before she went into self-isolation with Kanye and her four kids: North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm

Hard work: 'Pre quarantine shoot vibezzzzzz,' said the Vogue cover girl. Video was taken where a man moves her stiff, painted hair and she lays on the floor. 'Oh wow, this is beautiful,' says the shutterbug

She does '3 rounds of 30 barbell bicep curls, 20 dumbbell hammer curls, 20 barbell skull crushers, 20 dumbbell skull crushers and 60 ab crunches,' according to one Instagram Stories snap.

In two images Kim's feet can be seen as she wears sneakers for her workout.

There is workout equipment on the floor like dumbbells. Kim has a gym in her Hidden Hills, California mansion and also one at the Wyoming ranch.

So much to this look: The mogul had on heavy eye makeup and a very glossy lip

She has been working out via FaceTime with her personal trainer Melissa Alcantara.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star also shared a look at the new fitness book Alcantara has come out with.

The TV star even wrote the foreword.

'We really connected when I saw her before and after pictures on Instagram,' said Kim.

The petite wonder also called her 'open and motivating.'

Tough stuff: She does '3 rounds of 30 barbell bicep curls, 20 dumbbell hammer curls, 20 barbell skull crushers, 20 dumbbell skull crushers and 60 ab crunches,' according to one Instagram Stories snap

'She has been here at my house every morning at 5:45 am ready for workouts,' added the Selfish author.

'This book gives you a while workout plan, a whole calendar, with food options and her whole story on where she got to now and I am so proud of her. I cannot wait to read this and for you guys to read it, go get it.'

Meanwhile, Kim shares another image from her SKIMS collection where she had on beige lingerie while in her walk in closet.
Italy is easing its covid-19 lockdown after eight weeks.

Some four million people are expected to return to work.

Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, told residents in a Facebook post on Sunday, that a new page is beginning, and we will have to write it together with faith and responsibility.

Italy has recorded some 211,000 confirmed cases, 81,654 recoveries and 28,884 deaths.

Factories and construction sites are reportedly reopening in Italy.

---Daily Guide
The Senate has kicked off its first full work week in more than a month with a canyon separating the leaders of both parties on how to approach the next piece of legislation responding to the coronavirus pandemic, judicial nominations, and other pieces of business that have lain dormant since March.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has drawn a red line for negotiations on the next coronavirus package, saying it must include litigation protection for hospitals and businesses as many states prepare to re-open their economies even as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to mount.

Democrats, meanwhile, are demanding that the federal government send billions of more dollars to states and local governments, which Mr McConnell and, at times, Donald Trump, have scorned.

Other outstanding issues on the negotiating table for the next coronavirus package include another round of direct cash payments to Americans; more money for overstretched hospitals and nursing homes; more funding for popular small business relief programmes; more money for states to secure their elections; infrastructure investments and broadband internet expansion; and a loosening of the criminal justice system to allow some non-violent inmates out of prisons with a high potential for being compromised by Covid-19.

In the background of the fight over the next coronavirus package, Senate committees will finally have the chance to address a backlog of business that has been neglected over the last five weeks.

Republican gavel-holders have already teed up a slate of 10 hearings for this, including a high-stakes public hearing on Tuesday for Donald Trumps nominee to be the next director of national intelligence, Texas congressman John Ratcliffe.

Mr Ratcliffe withdrew his name from consideration for the same post last August after several senators openly questioned whether the notoriously conservative congressman could serve in the post in a non-partisan manner and after many in the GOP ranks internally grumbled about Mr Trumps choice of him.

True to form, the Senate Judiciary Committee is ploughing ahead with a hearing on Wednesday to examine some of Mr Trumps court nominees. Mr McConnell has prioritised remaking the federal judiciary in his conservative image during Mr Trumps first term.

While Senate judiciary committee chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has not disclosed which nominees the panel will consider on Wednesday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Monday panned the committee for holding a hearing for a manifestly unqualified, totally divisive right wing judicial nominee. That nominee is believed to be federal district judge Justin Walker, a McConnell family friend who was nominated recently for the powerful DC Circuit Court.

Obstacles for coronavirus bill

Foremost on everyones minds is the next coronavirus relief package.

The federal government has already passed four bills to the tune of more than $2.7trn, nearly 13 per cent of US GDP in 2019.

Mr McConnell has insisted since last Monday that if Democrats want to secure Republicans support for more money for states and local governments, theyll have to agree to some revisions of tort law to protect business owners from liability lawsuits related to Covid-19.

Imagine you are a businessman thinking about reopening, and youve heard that the trial lawyers all over the country are sharpening their pencils getting ready to sue you, claiming that you didnt engage in proper distancing or other issues related to health and safety, Mr McConnell said in a Fox News interview last week.

We cant pass another bill unless we have liability protections. Thats the only way were going to be able to get past this and that is to begin to open up the economy again.

Mr Schumer has taken a firm stance against Mr McConnell, saying his proposal doesnt make sense.

Instead of making sure businesses have [personal protective equipment] for their employees, McConnell wants to make it harder for workers to show up at their jobs and to hold their employers accountable for providing safe working conditions, Mr Schumer told reporters last week. Instead of fighting for more testing to help everyone working on the front lines, Sen. McConnell is fighting to protect corporate executives.

House Democrats, who have delayed the peoples chambers previously scheduled return to the Capitol on Monday by another week, also have a host of issues they want to address in the next package.

Last Thursday they unveiled an $80bn plan to provide universal broadband internet access, part of their larger overall ambition for a sweeping new infrastructure deal, an elusive item that theyve flirted about with the Trump administration for years.

Mr Trumps closest advisers who have led negotiations on previous coronavirus packages  Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, and others  projected a narrower vision for any follow-up legislation in recent days.

There may well be additional legislation. Theres kind of a pause period right now, director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow said in an interview with CNN on Sunday, adding that negotiators should revisit the topic in a couple of weeks.

Mr Kudlow and Mr Mnuchin have been laser-focused on keeping funding coming for programmes aimed at shielding small businesses from the coronavirus economic fallout, such as the Treasury Departments so-called Paycheck Protection Programme (PPP).

More funding for PPP and other small business relief programmes is something both parties agree needs to remain a top priority, though there remain ongoing talks about certain guardrails for how to distribute that funding.

Strange times at the Capitol

While the Senate is in session this week, its not business as usual.

This will be one of the strangest sessions of the United States Senate in modern history, Mr Schumer said, noting that senators offices would be mostly empty with their staffs working from home.

Democrats do not plan to hold in-person caucus meetings.

Anyone who approaches the Senate well for a speech will wipe down the microphone and podium with disinfectant and hold onto their speeches instead of handing them over, as is customary, to the Senate recorders.

Senators will be wearing masks, as Mr McConnell did on the way from his office in the Capitol to the Senate cloakroom.

But, the majority leader insisted on Monday, if it is essential that brave healthcare workers, grocery-store workers, truck drivers, and many other Americans continue to carefully show up for work, then it is essential that their US senators carefully show up ourselves and support them.
Sorry!

This content is not available in your region
The Delhi Cabinet on Monday approved Rs 1 crore compensation to the family members of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma, who was killed in the riots on February 26. Besides this, the Cabinet approved ration for the month of May to 38 lakh non-PDS cardholders.

The Cabinet also decided to extend its existing scheme of providing one-time financial assistance of Rs 5,000 to every permit holder of para-transit vehicle in Delhi as well as owners of e-rickshaws registered in Delhi. Earlier the scheme was limited to only those drivers of para-transit vehicles who have PSV badge.

With this decision, more than 60,000 permit holders of para-transit vehicles and owners of e-rickshaws registered in Delhi, shall be benefitted, the government said in a press statement.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal chaired the first Cabinet meeting after the opening of government offices, as part of new lockdown guidelines effective from May 3, on Monday. Among other major decisions taken was regarding approval of the process of home isolation of mild and asymptomatic Covid-19 positive patients.

A training manual has been designed which will be given to all patients and their caregivers. A team of health workers will call each patient personally, and educate them on best practices for home isolation. This will be followed by a daily call that will track all the important vitals of the patient and answer all their queries. The patients would also get automatic SMS alerts for patients testing to be done after 14 days of isolation, the statement said.

Decisions regarding ex-gratia and ration for non-PDS cardholders were already announced by the government but had been awaiting Cabinet nod due to lockdown amid coronavirus pandemic.

The government said that 38 lakh non-PDS cardholders, who registered for ration e-coupons through an online process, will be given ration. In April also the government had distributed ration to non-PDS cardholders. Each individual will be given 4kg wheat and 1 kg rice, and every family will receive the Corona Relief kit that is being given to PDS cardholders. The Corona relief kit consists of 1 litre of refined oil, 1kg Chhole chana, 1kg sugar, 1kg salt, 200gm Haldi powder, 200gm Dhania powder, 200gms chili powder and 2 bars of soap, the statement said.
Irish start-ups will face difficulties securing investment and won't see the kinds of valuations witnessed in the market just weeks ago as the coronavirus pandemic affects the venture capital (VC) world, they've been warned.

KPMG's latest Venture Pulse report shows Irish companies raised $123m (111m) in venture capital funding in the first quarter of the year, with the bulk of it - $80m (72.1m) - secured by Dublin-based fintech firm Fenergo.

Founded in 2009 by Marc Murphy, the investment valued the company at about $800m (721m).

Cubic, a telecoms company whose technology is used by 65 mobile companies in more than 180 countries, raised $12.4m (11.2m) in the period. The company was founded by tech entrepreneur Pat Phelan and is now headed by Barry Napier. The fundraising came just months after it secured more than 23m in backing from the European Investment Bank.

Smart energy company GridBeyond raised $11.7m (10.5m) in the first quarter. It will use the money to boost its market share and expand into new territories.

"It's likely that Q1 figures show the calm before the storm in terms of the impact the global Covid-19 pandemic is having here in Ireland," said Anna Scally, a partner and head of technology and media at KPMG in Ireland.

"Irish companies raising funds in Q2 will likely find it more difficult to achieve the valuations they might have expected only a short time ago," she added. "Equally, while VC investors may have a substantial amount of dry powder, they will be under pressure to hold that money for a number of months to see how the situation plays out."

She predicted that young start-ups will be hit particularly hard.

"They're more high risk and come with a much longer lead time before we can see their products and services coming to the market," said Ms Scally.

"It's important these companies stay focused on their survival for now, to ensure they are in the strongest possible position when we reach more stable times."

Global VC investment in the first quarter fell to $61bn (55bn) from $65.6bn in the final quarter of 2019.

The number of VC deals in Europe fell to 923 in the first quarter from 1,262 in the final quarter of 2019.

But the amount of VC money invested in the last quarter in the region hit $8.8bn (7.9bn), compared to $7.9bn in the previous three months.

KPMG said Europe's strength continued to be driven by the growing geographic diversity of investment.

It noted that the top five deals in the first quarter of this year included companies in four European countries - the UK, Germany, Sweden and France. Israel, which is also included in European deals by KPMG, was also counted as one of the five countries.
Donald Trump pushed back on Sunday against reporting that intelligence officials were issuing classified reports to his administration as early as November 2019 warning about the early outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China.

The President also claimed the restrictions he placed on travel to the US from China in January have saved "tens of thousands" of American lives, which he has used as a data point to defend against criticism that he did not take the threat of the coronavirus seriously.

"Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S.," Mr Trump tweeted. "Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner," the president added.

Mr Trump appeared to be responding to recent reporting by ABC News and other outlets that his administration had been warned for weeks, and even months, about the budding health crisis in China, even as White House officials and congressional Republicans downplayed the severity of the coronavirus through much of the first three months of 2020.

The US military's National Center for Medical Intelligence compiled a classified report on the spreading contagion in November 2019 through analysis of wire and computer intercepts in the Wuhan region, ABC News reported in April.

"Fake News got it wrong again, as always, and tens of thousands of lives were saved by my EARLY BAN of China into our Country. The people that were [sic] allowed were heavily scrutinized and tested U.S. citizens, and as such, I welcome them with open arms!" the president tweeted, without providing any evidence that ABC News or other outlets' reporting was erroneous.

ABC News' reporting also contradicts the president's tweet on Sunday that the early intelligence briefings he received about Covid-19 were "very non-threatening."

"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," one of ABC News' sources told the outlet of the military intel report from November.

The Pentagon issued a statement at the time that said such an intel report did not exist.

Mr Trump has faced intense criticism for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic after dismissing it for weeks as no more dangerous than the common flu and claiming Democrats' public concerns about Covid-19 were a plot to undermine the strong economy in order to hamper his re-election in the fall.

He first publicly commented on the coronavirus pandemic on 22 January, when he was asked in an interview with CNBC whether he was worried about a potential pandemic.

"No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. Its one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. Its going to be just fine," the president said at the time.

His administration  and Capitol Hill Republicans  have since pivoted to scolding China for suppressing information about the severity of the contagion during its initial outbreak in Wuhan.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday he believes the virus was "man-made" and came from a lab in Wuhan, theories Mr Trump has also suggested.

Mr Pompeo's comments contradict the assessment of the US intelligence community, whose director said in a rare public statement last week that intel officials believe the virus was not man-made.
The Actors Fund, which provides financial assistance, health care, housing and career planning, is facing surging requests for its services at the same time that it had to cancel its annual fund-raising gala and a planned Ragtime concert fund-raiser. The organization has become dependent on virtual fund-raising  it has been the beneficiary of an online talk show hosted by Rosie ODonnell and of a daily interview show, Stars in the House, hosted by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley.

The demand has increased so dramatically because people are not working, Joseph Benincasa, the organizations president, said. Were doing everything we can to try to figure out how to support our organization when we cant do in-person fund-raising.

The artists involved  none of whom are being paid  said they were happy to have a way to contribute. Its essential, right? Cranston said. We see these restrictions in place, and so how do we continue to be creative within these restrictions? Hopefully this will provide a little distraction, a little comfort, and make some money for the Actors Fund.

LuPone and Malkovich said they had seen the Broadway production of November and were intrigued by the opportunity to read the material. I always love to do a Mamet play, said LuPone, who has done three on Broadway. But both wondered about the long-term effect of the pandemic on the appetite for live performance. If people say, I really want to hear Schumann, but Im too nervous to go sit in a theater with 1,200 people coughing their brains out, all bets are off, Malkovich said.

For Glick and Cullman this is a third crack at Significant Other, which they also did Off Broadway. Its a project thats very close to my heart, Glick said, and Im interested in the message of the show, which is somewhat about isolation and alienation. And I was curious about what the process would be like. Its had so many lives, and here we are, five years later, all together on our computers, doing it again.

This is Cullmans third such pandemic project  he also directed benefit readings of Terrence McNallys Lips Together, Teeth Apart and Bess Wohls Barcelona.

Everyone that I know who is in the theater is in the same boat, Cullman said. What do we do with ourselves in this indeterminate amount of time when we are barred from doing what we do? This is an interesting experiment, and theres something I appreciate about its rough-hewn nature.
(Newser)  The US Navy says Russian submarine activity in the Arctic has risen to Cold War levelsand, for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Navy surface vessels have entered the Barents Sea. The 6th Fleet said four American destroyers and a British Royal Navy vessel were in the area Monday for maritime security operations, believed to be anti-submarine exercises, NBC News reports. The Navy says its ships haven't entered the sea between Russia and Norway's Arctic coast since the mid-1980s. The sea is considered international waters. During World War II, American and British ships on the treacherous "Murmansk run" escorted shipping convoys delivering essential supplies to the Soviets.

story continues below

"In these challenging times, it is more important than ever that we maintain our steady drumbeat of operations across the European theater, while taking prudent measures to protect the health of our force," the 6th Fleet said in a statement, per the Barents Observer. Russia's Northern Fleet is based in the area, and the Navy says it notified the country's defense ministry May 1 "in an effort to avoid misperceptions, reduce risk, and prevent inadvertent escalation," reports Reuters. Russia, which has been building up its forces in the Arctic, said Monday it is tracking the US and British vessels. A defense ministry statement noted that the American ships are armed with the missile defense systems Moscow wants to include in arms cuts. (Read more Navy stories.)
iStock/traffic_analyzer By BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC News



(SAN FRANCISCO) -- Face masks emblazoned with a "thin blue line" flag associated with the pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement have ignited controversy in San Francisco after some officers showed up wearing them at a May Day protest, prompting the chief to ban the face coverings to avoid what he described as a perception of being "divisive or disrespectful."



Police Chief Bill Scott ordered officers to wear only "neutral" face masks to comply with citywide coronavirus orders requiring everyone to wear face coverings when in public. The police union, which handed out the masks, blasted Scott for caving in "to the haters who have made a cottage industry out of carping, complaining, and stereotyping the police."



"The San Francisco Police Department stands for safety with respect for all, and in consideration of concerns some community members have expressed that 'thin blue line' symbolism on some of our officers face masks may be perceived as divisive or disrespectful, we are taking steps with our officers and the Police Officers Association to provide an alternative, neutral personal protective equipment," Scott said in a statement.



Complaints poured in on Friday after officers were called to a protest staged by the housing advocacy group Reclaim SF at an abandoned home in the city's Castro neighborhood. Video of the protest posted on Twitter by Reclaim SF showed the officers wearing masks adorned with a black-and-white American flag with a thin blue stripe across the middle, officials said.



A statement on the Reclaim SF website said the demonstration amidst the pandemic stemmed from two homeless women who moved into a home that had sat vacant for years. Police were called to the scene and forced the women to leave the home just hours after they moved in "despite an outpouring of support from community members and some of their new neighbors," the group wrote.



"Hundreds of people in vehicles welcomed the women while dozens chanted and played instruments," according to the Reclaim SF statement.



Shamann Walton, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, told the San Francisco Examiner that when he viewed video of the officers at the demonstration, it reminded him of something you see below the Mason Dixon Line.



The thin blue line symbol is associated with the decades-old Blue Lives Matter pro-police movement, which re-surfaced in 2016 following a series of ambush murders of police officers in New York City, Dallas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The movement also emerged as a response to Black Lives Matter protests over alleged police brutality and officer-involved shootings of black men across the country.



In addition to the thin blue line symbolism, the masks also carried the police officers' union logo. The San Francisco Police Officers Association ordered about 2,200 masks and distributed them to officers now required to wear face coverings when on the job, a spokesman for the organization told ABC News on Monday. The union, according to the spokesman, paid for the masks because the SFPD hadn't supplied officers with an adequate supply.



Police union president Tony Montoya said in a letter to union members that prior to distributing the masks to the force, they were shown to Scott's command staff. He said several members of the command staff requested the masks for themselves.



"We absolutely reject any correlation between our face coverings and any group that promotes racism, hate, or bigotry," Montoya said in the letter. "It is a fact that extremist groups attempt to use well-known symbols to mainstream their repugnant ideas. We repudiate their beliefs and refuse to let them win."



Montoya said he thought the union was doing a good thing by supplying the masks to officers as a show of support.



"Sadly, the Chief's folly comes at a time when thousands of officers throughout the United States have contracted COVID-19, and many have died in the days leading up to National Police Week. It is demoralizing that the Chief is oblivious to the need for solidarity among the ranks during this devastating pandemic," Montoya wrote.



"Traditionally, the 'thin blue line' represents law enforcement's separation of order and chaos," Montoya wrote. "To most officers today, it represents a recognition that we willingly put our lives on the line during trying times to continue doing the job. It is human to give in to thoughts of survival and call in sick to stay home, but our members have and will continue to show up to work and risk their personal health to keep our city safe during the COVID-19 pandemic."



Scott acknowledged in his statement that the thin blue line was adopted more than three decades ago as a symbol of the National Law Enforcement Officers' Memorial, in Washington, D.C. And while he was banning the thin-blue-line face masks, he did express his support for what they represent.



"It was developed -- and for most of us in law enforcement, remains -- a meaningful expression to honor fallen police officers. Parallel symbolism, the 'thin red line,' was also adopted by firefighters many years ago to similarly honor those whove given their lives while serving in the line of duty," Scott said in his statement. "In the midst of a global pandemic that has seen far too many first responders lose their lives, across the nation and around the world, its important to remember that the masks our officers wear were meant to honor all who make the ultimate sacrifice for the people we serve."

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
French English

BONDUELLE

A French SCA (Limited Partnership by Shares) with a capital of 56,942,095 Euros

Head Office: La Woestyne 59173 Renescure, France

Registration number: Dunkerque B 447 250 044





Quarter 3 FY 2019-2020 Revenue

(January 1 - March 31, 2020)

Atypical acceleration of the retail canned and frozen food business activity in Q3

and suspension of objectives related to the Covid-19 pandemic

On the occasion of the publication of Q3 FY 2019-2020 revenue, Christophe Bonduelle, Chairman, and Guillaume Debrosse, Chief Executive Officer, of the Bonduelle Group said:

"The health crisis should not have been coupled with a food crisis, the premises of which have been measured at the start of containment, and which could have degenerated into a panic.

Our employees were present in all of the group's plants, with flawless collaboration from employee representative bodies to put in place appropriate health protection measures.

Their main drivers of engagement have been Responsibility and Pride in assuming a rediscovered role as essential after years of food bashing against them... hoping, moreover, that this crisis will have been an opportunity for consumers to rediscover the quality, safety, diversity, accessibility and virtues of ready-to-eat vegetables!

We would like to congratulate and thank the teams for their professional conscience which encouraged them not to "stay at home", unless it is impossible."

The Bonduelle Group's revenue stands for Q3 of financial year 2019-2020 at  761.2 million, an increase of +12.7% on reported figures and +10.6% on a like for like basis* after taking into account exchange rate variations, mainly the appreciation of the U.S. and Canadian dollars and, to a lesser extent, the Russian ruble. No change in the group's scope of consolidation occurred over the quarter.

Over the first 9 months of this FY, the revenue stands at  2,203.5 million, an increase of 5.8% on reported figures and 3.8% on a like for like basis* as a result of favorable exchange rate movements.

Activity by Geographic Region

Total consolidated revenue

(in  millions) 9 months

2019-2020 9 months

2018-2019 Variation

Reported figures Variation

Like for like basis* 3rd quarter 2019-2020 3rd quarter 2018-2019 Variation

Reported figures Variation

Like for like basis* Europe Zone 990.2 956.2 +3.6% +3.6% 349.8 313.9 +11.5% +11.6% Non-Europe Zone 1,213.3 1,126.1 +7.7% +4.-% 411.4 361.7 +13.7% +9.9% Total 2,203.5 2,082.2 +5.8% +3.8% 761.2 675.6 +12.7% +10.6%

Activity by Operating Segments

Total consolidated revenue

(in  millions) 9 months

2019-2020 9 months

2018-2019 Variation

Reported figures Variation

Like for like basis* 3rd quarter 2019-2020 3rd quarter 2018-2019 Variation

Reported figures Variation

Like for like basis* Canned 856.1 774.9 +10.5% +9.1% 296.9 241.6 +22.9% +21.3% Frozen 538.3 497.5 +8.2% +5.7% 198.- 175.- +13.2% +10.6% Fresh processed 809.1 809.9 -0.1% -2.4% 266.3 259.- +2.8% +0.8% Total 2,203.5 2,082.2 +5.8% +3.8% 761.2 675.6 +12.7% +10.6%

Zone Europe

The revenue of the Europe Zone, representing 44.9% of the group's revenue over the first 9 months, recorded an overall aggregated growth of +3.6% both on reported figures and like for like basis*.

Over quarter 3 revenue rose +11.5% on reported figures and +11.6% on a like for like basis*. At the end of February 2020, i.e. over the first two months, third quarter revenue remained virtually stable compared with last FY year, both on reported figures and like for like basis*.

This strong growth is therefore largely explained by the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and linked to precautionary purchases made in mass retail in March by consumers of canned and, to a lesser extent, frozen food. On the latter technology, the abrupt shutdown of food service activities as of mid-March in many countries has started to weigh on the segment and should impact it even more strongly in quarter 4. Finally, the fresh segment (fresh-cut bagged salads, ready-to-eat prepared salads) also suffers in this context from the decline in food service activity but also from a lack of attendance at points of sale and a reduced consumer appetite for products with a shorter shelf life.

Non-Europe Zone

The revenue of the Non-Europe Zone, representing 55.1% of the group's revenue, over the first 9 months, recorded an overall growth of +7.7% on reported figures and +4.-% on a like for like basis*.

Over quarter 3 revenue rose +13.7% on reported figures and +9.9% on a like for like basis*. At the end of February 2020, i.e. over the first two months, third quarter revenue was up by 8.3% on reported figures and by 4.7% on a like for like basis* compared with last FY year.

While precautionary purchases were also made, particularly in canned food in Russia, Canada and the United States in March, a delayed effect of the Covid-19 pandemic was generally observed in countries outside Europe in which the Bonduelle Group operates. Thus, in Canada and the United States, containment measures, which happened later on and are less strict than in Europe, had a more limited effect on the period, but expected to strengthen in quarter 4, particularly for food service products. The group is noticing the beginning of a downturn in Bonduelle Fresh Americas activities for the "ready-to-eat" (bowls and "on the go" offer,) phenomenon expected to increase in quarter 4, depending on the containment measures implemented.

Highlights

Acquisition of a joint minority stake in the Russian start-up Elementaree

Bonduelle announces that it has participated in a funding round in partnership with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the sovereign wealth fund of the Russian Federation, and took a minority stake in the capital of Elementaree, a company that manufactures and delivers ready-to-cook meal kits, one of the leaders in the fast-growing market for meal kits in the Moscow and St. Petersburg conurbations. This operation, of a limited financial amount, illustrates the Bonduelle Group's ambitions to be the world reference in "well-living" through vegetable products, illustrated here via direct marketing to consumers through innovative channels.

2019-2020 Outlooks

As mentioned in its press release of April 8, the Bonduelle Group's business trends varied from one business segment to the next - strong demand in canned and frozen food retailing and high volatility of the fresh segment, collapse of the food service business activity - and geographical areas, and is subject to additional costs, some of which cannot be passed on.

Given the uncertainties generated by the Covid-19 health crisis, the lack of visibility on its evolution, and therefore the inability to anticipate its impacts, the Bonduelle Group suspended on that date the objectives indicated on the occasion of the publication of the 2019-2020 half-year results which, as mentioned, did not include the effects of the health crisis.

While the group took immediate action to limit the adverse economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis, it also took steps to ensure the protection of its employees and business continuity, the scale and duration of the crisis is now likely to prevent the achievement of the annual objectives set, particularly in terms of profitability.

The group reiterates its sound financial structure and its ongoing strategy of long-term, secured financing to enable it to cope with the potential consequences of the pandemic on its business.

Preparing for the 2020 crops

The group has begun preparations with its agricultural partners for the 2020 crops, which at this stage do not show any difficulties, and looks forward to this one with confidence.

* at constant currency exchange rate and scope of consolidation basis. The revenues in foreign currency over the given period are translated into the rate of exchange for the comparable period. The impact of business acquisitions (or gain of control) and divestments is restated as follows

For businesses acquired (or gain of control) during the current period, revenue generated since the acquisition date is excluded from the organic growth calculation;

For businesses acquired (or gain of control) during the prior fiscal year, revenue generated during the current period up until the first anniversary date of the acquisition is excluded;

For businesses divested (or loss of control) during the prior fiscal year, revenue generated in the comparative period of the prior fiscal year until the divestment date is excluded;

For businesses divested (or loss of control) during the current fiscal year, revenue generated in the period commencing 12 months before the divestment date up to the end of the comparative period of the prior fiscal year is excluded.

Alternative performance indicators : the group presents in its financial notices performance indicators not defined by accounting standards. The main performance indicators are detailed in the financial reports available on www.bonduelle.com.

Next financial events:

- 2019-2020 Financial Year Revenue: August 3, 2020 (after stock exchange trading session)

- 2019-2020 Annual Results: September 28, 2020 (prior to stock exchange trading session)

About Bonduelle

Bonduelle, a family business, was established in 1853. Its mission is to be the world reference in "well-living" through plant-based food. Prioritizing innovation and long-term vision, the group is diversifying its operations and geographical presence. Its vegetables, grown over almost 120,000 hectares all over the world, are sold in 100 countries under various brand names and through various distribution channels and technologies. An expert in agro-industry with 56 industrial sites or owned agricultural production sites, Bonduelle produces quality products by selecting the best crop areas close to its customers.

Bonduelle is listed on Euronext compartment A

Euronext indices: CAC MID & SMALL - CAC FOOD PRODUCERS - CAC ALL SHARES

Bonduelle is part of the Gaia non-financial performance index and employee shareholder index (I.A.S.)

Code ISIN : FR0000063935 - Code Reuters : BOND.PA - Code Bloomberg : BON FP

Find out about the groups current events and news on Twitter @Bonduelle_Group, and its financial news on @BonduelleCFO

Attachment
" " NASA astronauts Bob Behnken, left, and Doug Hurley, wearing SpaceX spacesuits, walk through the Crew Access Arm connecting the launch tower to the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft during a dress rehearsal at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 17, 2020. SpaceX

For the first time since 2011, NASA astronauts will once again return to space from U.S. soil. Veteran astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will rendezvous with the International Space Station after they lift off May 27, 2020, from the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida.

To get there, they'll ride a Crew Dragon spacecraft propelled into orbit by a Falcon 9 rocket, both designed and manufactured by SpaceX, the organization founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk. If all goes well, this mission will make SpaceX the first private company to put astronauts into space.

Advertisement

A Legacy Interrupted

News of the flight was broken in April by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. During a series of virtual press conferences held Friday, May 1, Bridenstine  and other key figures representing both NASA and SpaceX  spoke about the Crew Dragon's unprecedented task.

"This is a high-priority mission for the United States of America," Bridenstine told the media. "We as a nation have not had our own access to the International Space Station for nine years. At the same time, we've had American astronauts on the [International Space Station] for 20 years in a row."

Stretching 357 feet (109 meters) long, the International Space Station is the largest man-made object in Earth's orbit. Crews stationed at the vessel perform a wide range of experiments in low gravity.

The International Space Station owes a great deal to NASA's Space Shuttle program. Green-lit by then-President Richard M. Nixon in 1972, this initiative gave the world its first reusable spacecraft. From 1981 to 2011, NASA sent astronauts into orbit on American-made shuttles. These were often used to transport portions of the International Space Station during its construction.

On July 21, 2011, the space shuttle era came to an end as the Atlantis orbiter returned from its final mission. With the program discontinued, ISS-bound astronauts grew dependent on Russian Soyuz rockets.

Then the law of supply and demand took over. For nearly a decade, no other rockets were capable of sending people to the International Space Station. All astronauts bound for that station had to be launched out of Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, a spaceport leased to the Russian government. And by April 2020, the Russians were charging $86 million to include foreign astronauts in their Soyuz missions.

Another Soyuz rocket launch is scheduled for October, and Bridenstine says NASA is currently in negotiations to book a seat. Nevertheless, it's hoped the SpaceX Crew Dragon will end this spaceflight monopoly.

"We want the [Russian-American] relationship in space exploration to remain strong," Bridenstine explained. "We see a day when Russian cosmonauts can launch on American rockets and American astronauts can launch on Russian rockets."

" " Illustration of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 rocket during the companys uncrewed In-Flight Abort Test for NASAs Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX

Advertisement

Dragons in Space

By now, SpaceX and the International Space Station have a fair bit of history. Using unmanned crafts, the company's delivered supplies to the orbiting laboratory since 2012.

The Crew Dragon aced a dress rehearsal in March 2019  when it left Merritt Island on the nose of a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket and autonomously docked with the International Space Station. Five days after its departure, the Crew Dragon returned to Earth, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean some 142.9 miles (230 kilometers) off Florida's eastern coastline.

But that trip's only passengers were an Earth-shaped plush toy and a dummy named "Ripley." This time we'll get to see how the Crew Dragon fares when real, live astronauts are onboard.

"Dragon will be fully autonomous" said SpaceX crew mission director Benjamin Reed at the May 1 conference. "The expectation is [that] it can carry the crew safely to the station and bring them home without direct intervention."

Even so, Hurley and Behnken are set to take control for a short period and  as explained by NASA deputy manager Steve Stich  "do a little bit of manual flying" before the Crew Dragon docks. They'll be able to guide the vessel using touch screens or physical switches (both options are available) for certain portions of the journey. While aboard, the crew's expected to test out such components as the maneuvering thrusters and environmental control system.

And then we have the spacesuits. Designed by SpaceX, Reed says these wearable wonders are one-piece outfits built to supply the astronauts with oxygen, provide the appropriate temperature and maintain pressure. "The suits also have an integrated communications system so that the crew can communicate through their helmets," he added. The spacesuits plug into the Crew Dragon's chairs when their wearers sit down.

" " NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley (front) are seen here in SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft flight simulator. SpaceX

Advertisement

Prepping for COVID-19 and Beyond

Neither Behnken nor Hurley are strangers to low-Earth orbit. Behnken's logged more than 708 hours in space, and Hurley was a member of NASA's last shuttle-era crew back in 2011. But every mission presents its own, unique challenges. Like the rest of the world, NASA, SpaceX and these two astronauts have had to make adjustments during the coronavirus outbreak.

"Obviously with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are taking extra precautions for all teams supporting the launch and all phases of flight," Stich said. Both SpaceX and NASA have implemented social distancing protocols (like keeping the work desks 6 feet, or 1.82 meters, apart) at their respective control rooms.

Meanwhile, the crew's getting a wide berth. "We have minimized contact with [Hurley and Behnken] for weeks now ... a lot of training events have been done virtually," Stich explained. The astronauts will also observe a preflight quarantine from May 16 until the launch May 27.

"It's really about not only Bob and Doug's safety, but it's also about the safety of the crew aboard the International Space Station," said NASA Commercial Crew program manager Kathy Lueders at the conference.

Right now, there are three spacefarers  two Americans and a Russian  living and working aboard the International Space Station. The length of Behnken and Hurley's stay at the facility will be determined at a later date; it could last anywhere from five to 30 days.

When the time to head home arrives, the Crew Dragon should undock autonomously and deliver its human charges to Florida (by way of the Atlantic).

There's a long, proud tradition of civilians gathering near the Kennedy Space Center to witness rocket launches. Unfortunately, NASA is discouraging people from following suit this time, lest they spread or contract COVID-19.

Still, you might want to tune in and watch the launch online. For just the fifth time in history, NASA astronauts will be test-flying a new type of spacecraft. Should Behnken and Hurley complete their mission objectives, we may yet see a golden age of space tourism and innovation  with private industry taking on development roles long adopted by governments.

"This really is the next major step in commercializing low-Earth orbit and having a really vital low-Earth orbit economy in which NASA is one of many customers," said Bridenstine.

" " A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida Jan. 19, 2020, carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft on the company's uncrewed In-Flight Abort Test. NASA/Tony Gray

Now That's Fun Ripley, the dummy who took flight on last year's unmanned Crew Dragon demo mission, was named after Ellen Ripley from the "Alien" franchise. Sigourney Weaver's portrayal of the sci-fi heroine earned her an Oscar nod in 1987.
(Photo : REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji) People wearing masks to avoid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) arrive at Gimpo international airport in Seoul, South Korea, May 1, 2020.

A Japanese company has created a robot that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to disinfect contaminated surfaces. The device has been shown to destroy the coronavirus in only two minutes, reports claim.

UV light robot can destroy the coronavirus in 2 minutes; Here's how it works

Texas-based Xenex Disinfection Services recently announced the successful launch of its LightStrike robot. The robot, sold in Japan by medical equipment maker Terumo, emits light of wavelengths between 200 and 315 nanometers to decontaminate beds, doorknobs, and different surfaces.

Two or three five-minute rounds of ultraviolet radiation leave pathogens too damaged to function. The device has been tested to work against multidrug-resistant microorganisms and the Ebola virus, Xenex said.

The LightStrike robot was also proven to be 99.99% effective in eliminating the coronavirus from N95 masks. The machines have been brought in approximately 500 health care facilities worldwide.

Dr. Mark Stibich, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Xenex, told AFP that disinfecting public spaces is a significant priority to reduce transmitting the diseases. "Putting an effective infection prevention infrastructure in place now is essential," Stibich said.

Terumo was granted exclusive distribution rights in 2017 of the device. The devices, which cost around 15 million yen ($140,000), had been deployed in 11 facilities by the end of April. However, interest has been growing from hospitals in search of a way to avoiding spreadind the virus.

"Between March and April, we had inquiries from more than 100 medical institutions," a Terumo representative told Nikkei.

ALSO READ: COVID-19 Update: Summer, UV Lights Won't Likely Save People From Coronavirus - Experts Say

COVID-19 UV light treatment is being studied

Researchers had already been studying ultraviolet light treatment, USA Today reported. UV light, according to researchers, could be a life-saving weapon against the spread of viruses.

UV light has long been used as a disinfectant in wastewater treatment, health facility rooms, and different settings. It also has a few scientific treatment applications, such as the use of fluorescent lamps to administer managed doses of UV light to pores and skin lymphoma patients.

UV light works as a disinfectant because it prevents cells from reproducing. No microorganisms have shown immunity to UV at certain levels, International Ultraviolet Association told USA Today.

ALSO READ: How Weird Coronavirus Would Get? Here Are Some of The Quirky Inventions Brought by COVID-19

However, medical experts have been brief to caution against the usage of disinfectant injections or UV light as a potential treatment for COVID-19.

Among the experts were from corporations made up of device vendors, scientists, engineers and clinical professionals who deal with ultraviolet light.

"We would like to inform the public that there are no protocols to advise or permit the safe use of UV light directly on the human body at the wavelengths and exposures proven to efficiently kill viruses such as SARS-CoV-2," a joint news release from the groups said.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, said in a video posted on April 24 in that UV radiation is risky and has to be taken seriously.

According to Lichtenfeld, there is no evidence whatsoever that ultraviolet radiation has any impact in any way on preventing or treating COVID-19. "And we have to understand that we rely on evidence -- there is no evidence," he added.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Sonitrol, globally renowned provider of verified electronic security solutions, has announced the launch of TotalGuard Smart Hub and additional wireless devices that together offer a more robust security solution to the small and medium business markets.

This new offering includes a variety of wireless sensors that connect to the new TotalGuard Smart Hub, expanding reach and alarm capabilities.

TotalGuard solution

Sonitrols TotalGuard solution, launched in 2018, targets the small to medium business market by offering affordable, professional security. TotalGuard is an all-in-one, edge-based device that acts as a standalone IoT panel.

Each TotalGuard device includes Sonitrol impact activated audio detection, glass break analytics, video verification and surveillance, motion and wireless connectivity, all professionally monitored by a Sonitrol Central Station.

TotalGuard Smart Hub and Wireless Devices

The TotalGuard Smart Hub and Wireless Devices are simple, scalable and secure

In addition to its many powerful features, the solution was needed for the ability to easily connect with other alarm points as each business has different security needs.

The TotalGuard Smart Hub & Wireless Devices are simple, scalable and secure. They consist of a motion sensor, door/window sensor, water sensor, temperature sensor, universal transmitter, and a panic button.

Easy deployment, smart infrastructure

These devices are easy to deploy and have a streamlined infrastructure, which reduces wire pulls and terminations and can easily be set up with a Mobile App by the installer.

With the TotalGuard Smart Hub, users can enroll up to 32 wireless devices. These Zigbee devices operate over AES 128-bit encryption, are supervised and tamper protected.

Integration with Sonitrol Cloud Access Control

TotalGuard can also be paired with exterior thermal imagers for added outside protection, as well as exterior cameras and Sonitrol Cloud Access Control. Working to meet a wide range of customer needs, Sonitrol offers integrated security solutions and is a one stop shop for small to medium businesses.

In addition to now offering security solutions to the small to medium business market, Sonitrol is the also a recognised security solutions company in verified electronic security, offering Impact Activated Audio Detection, Video Verification, Managed and Cloud Access Control, Video Surveillance, and Fire.

Law enforcement applications

Sonitrols ability to verify intrusion, through patented technologies in real-time, offers unrivaled credibility with law enforcement. Sonitrol provides for fast police response times, low false alarm rates and the best apprehension record - over 181,000 across the security industry.
Women Jan Dhan bank account holders started getting the second instalment of Rs 500 from Monday as part of the Rs 1.7 lakh crore Prime Minister Jan Kalyan Yojana package announced by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on March 26.

The transfer has been staggered over five days to avoid a rush at the bank branches to help in ensuring social distancing and avoid overcrowding in banks.

The 2nd instalment of ex-gratia announced for women Jan Dhan Yojana account holders under the PMGKY package will be disbursed as per the following schedule. Beneficiaries can withdraw the amount from branches, ATMs or CSPs, the State Bank of India (SBI) had tweeted earlier.

Women account holders under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) with account numbers ending with 0 and 1 will get the money in their account on May 4, and those whose accounts end with 2 or 3 can go to the bank on May 5.

Beneficiaries with account numbers ending with 4 or 5 can collect their money on May 6 and those whose accounts end with 6 or 7 may withdraw on May 8. The last tranche would be remitted on May 11 for account numbers ending with 8 or 9, the tweet said.

An account holder can withdraw the money immediately in case of emergency and beneficiaries may withdraw any day at their convenience after May 11, SBI has said.

Beneficiaries have been asked to use neighbourhood ATMs with RuPay cards, Bank Mitras and customer service points (CSPs) as much as possible to avoid crowding at the branches, it said.

Please note that there will be no charges for withdrawing money from other bank ATMs, at present, as per the government directives, it said.

As many as 20.05 crore women Jan Dhan account holders received Rs 500 each in their accounts as the first instalment in April. The total disbursement under the head was Rs 10,025 crore as on April 22.
Antibody tests were supposed to play a critical role in restarting our economy, until a slew of scientists and public health officials began questioning the reliability of these tests.

This almost seems like deja vu from a month ago, when the public was told that masks were not necessary, only until the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(and soon after the Public Health Agency of Canada) reverted course and encouraged the use of face coverings.

How could a discipline that has prided itself on precision and accuracy relay such seemingly paradoxical messages? As two student scientists who work with biological systems in the lab, this comes as no surprise. In fact, we see contradicting evidence everyday: whether it is in conferences, peer-reviewed articles, or even in our own experiments.

These contradictory disputes are often worked slowly behind the scenes  away from the eye of the public  as researchers pen articles in journals to debate different hypotheses, present different experimental techniques, and bicker furiously until a consensus is reached within the community.

With the COVID-19 research unfolding in front of our eyes, the behind the scene messiness is now displayed in full force to the public. Indeed, the publics engagement in science has never been higher. But it has also created different silos where people expound their version of scientific truth  look no further to the American president and his allies in the media, who have heavily touted the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 based on a promising laboratory study.

The messiness is only amplified by the plethora of COVID-19-related scientific preprints  first drafts of research  that have been flooding the public without going through the exhaustive peer-review process. This process, which traditionally takes months, usually involves scientists who are experts in the particular field to find flaws in the experimental design or poke holes in the conclusion. Without these safeguards, research can easily be taken out of context and would only sow more confusion.

While its tempting to demonstrate sciences certainty in a global pandemic, scientists must admit that this is far from the truth. We need to emphasize that science, unlike the way most of us have been taught, cannot be neatly contained in a single answer  a single research study may give us a small part of the puzzle, but even thats not certain.

Finally, we should shift the conversation from flaunting sciences speed and efficiency to a call for patience. This doesnt mean that scientists should refrain from publishing research; instead, authors must clearly communicate the shortcomings of their research and properly outline the uncertainties and unanswered questions that still lingers ahead.

The importance of scientific research and expertise is clearer than ever. But if we fail to be transparent about the uncertainties and messiness of the scientific process, we could risk a collapse in the public trust of science that will haunt us in the present and future crises.
NEW YORK  The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize in public service Monday for illuminating the sparse policing of remote Alaska villages, as a delayed awards ceremony recognized writing, photos and  for the first time  audio reporting on topics ranging from climate change to the legacy of slavery.

The public service winners contacted 600 village, tribal and other local governments and traveled by plane, sled and snowmobile to reveal that a third of rural Alaska communities had no local police protection, among other findings.

The riveting series spurred legislative changes and an influx of spending, the judges noted in an announcement postponed several weeks and held online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Anchorage Daily News Editor David Hulen said the series called attention to some really serious problems in Alaska that have needed attention for a long time.

Theres more to be done, and the paper will keep pursuing the issue, he said in a phone interview.

The New York Times won the investigative reporting prize for an expose of predatory lending in the New York City taxi industry and also took the international reporting award for what the judges called enthralling stories, reported at great risk, about Russian President Vladimir Putins government.

The Times also was awarded the commentary prize for an essay that Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote as part of the papers ambitious 1619 Project, which followed the throughlines of slavery in American life to this day.

Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet told the staff  in a virtual meeting  that this years prizes were particularly meaningful because they come as we are managing our lives under great difficulty even as we produce great journalism.

The Washington Posts work on global warming was recognized for explanatory reporting. The newspaper tracked nearly 170 years of temperature records to show that 10% of the planets surface has already exceeded a rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times, the threshold world leaders have agreed theyd try not to exceed.

While the country is now focused on the coronavirus, another worldwide public-health crisis is upon us as the world warms, Executive Editor Martin Baron said.

Mondays awards recognized reporting last year, before the virus sparked a pandemic.

In a development that recognized how podcasting has brought new attention to reporting aimed at listeners rather than readers or viewers, a first-ever award for audio reporting went to This American Life, the Los Angeles Times and Vice News for The Out Crowd, an examination of the Trump administrations remain in Mexico immigration policy.

In another prize for the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Knight won the criticism award for what the judges called extraordinary community service by a critic in examining a proposal to overhaul of the L.A. County Museum of Art.

The staff of The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, took the breaking news reporting award for unpacking racial disparities and other issues in a spate of governors pardons.

Two different projects won the national reporting award: ProPublicas look at deadly accidents in the U.S. Navy and The Seattle Times examination of design flaws in the troubled Boeing 737 MAX jet.

ProPublica Managing Editor Robin Fields said its reporting laid bare the avoidance of responsibility by the militarys most senior leaders.

The local reporting award went to The Baltimore Sun for shedding light on a previously undisclosed financial relationship between the mayor and the public hospital system, which she helped oversee.

The New Yorker took the feature reporting prize for Ben Taubs piece on a detainee at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. New Yorker contributor Barry Blitt got the editorial cartooning award for work that skewers the personalities and policies emanating from the Trump White House, as the judges saw it.

The Associated Press won the feature photography prize for images made during Indias clampdown on Kashmir, where a sweeping curfew and shutdowns of phone and internet service added to the challenges of showing the world what was happening in the region.

AP photographers Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand snaked around roadblocks, sometimes took cover in strangers homes and hid cameras in vegetable bags to capture images of protests, police and paramilitary action and daily life. Then they headed to an airport to persuade travelers to carry the photo files out with them and get them to the APs office in New Delhi.

These journalists courage and compelling storytelling show the absolute best of what we do, AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said.

Reuters won the breaking news photography award for its coverage of protests that shook Hong Kong. Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler said the photos brilliantly captured the magnitude of the protests.

While big outlets and collaborations got plenty of recognition, the small Palestine Herald-Press, in East Texas, got a Pulitzer for Jeffery Gerritts editorials on the deaths of jail inmates awaiting trial.

In the arts categories, Michael R. Jacksons musical A Strange Loop won the drama prize. And Colson Whiteheads The Nickel Boys won the fiction prize; he also won in 2017 for The Underground Railroad.

The Pulitzer board also issued a special citation Monday to the trailblazing African American journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, noting her outstanding and courageous reporting on lynchings.

Wells was a journalist and publisher in the late 1800s and later helped found civil rights and womens suffrage groups; she died in 1931. The board said the citation comes with a bequest of at least $50,000 in support of Wells mission, with recipients to be announced.

The initial Pulitzer ceremony, which had been scheduled for April 20, was pushed to give Pulitzer Board members who were busy covering the pandemic more time to evaluate the finalists.

The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism were first awarded in 1917 and are considered the fields most prestigious honor in the U.S.

___

Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela contributed to this report.
A senior police officer, who was injured during clashes between two groups over CAA in northeast Delhi's Gokalpuri area in February, resumed his duty on Monday after recovery amid the COVID-19 outbreak, officials said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Amit Sharma, a 2010-batch IPS officer, underwent surgery and was treated at Max Hospital in Patparganj after he suffered serious injuries during the violence on February 24 over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

In his absence, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Dinesh Kumar Gupta was given the charge of Shahdara district.

He was applauded and welcomed by his staff at his office on Monday.

The officer's vehicle had also been set afire by protesters.

At least 11 police personnel, including DCP Sharma and ACP (Gokalpuri) Anuj Kumar, were injured while trying to quell the protests in northeast Delhi.

Two Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) police personnel were also injured while Ratan Lal, 42, a head constable attached to the office of the ACP Gokalpuri, died after he sustained injuries during stone pelting at Gokalpuri.

At least 53 people were killed and over 250 injured in the communal violence in northeast Delhi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
LAGUNA BEACH, CA - MAY 05: People stroll along Laguna Beach on Tuesday morning as city with State's blessings reopened its beaches for active use only. The first phase of the reopening includes 6-10 a.m. hours Mondays through Fridays. in Laguna Beach on Tuesday, May 5, 2020 in Laguna Beach, CA. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) (Irfan Khan/Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

Days after Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all Orange County beaches to close to stem the spread of the coronavirus, state officials announced Monday that two beach cities will be permitted to reopen their stretches of coastline this week  with certain limitations.

Laguna Beach and San Clemente last week submitted plans to Sacramento that would allow the public to immediately access the coastline for active recreation such as swimming, surfing and running on the sand. The plans, approved Monday, include a range of measures to avoid overcrowding and to allow safe physical distancing.

We appreciate the governors willingness to work with us to provide a responsible, gradual approach to reopening all beaches in Laguna Beach for active recreation, Mayor Bob Whalen said in a prepared statement. This will allow people the opportunity to walk, jog, swim and surf and get some fresh air and exercise on a limited basis, but not congregate or gather in large groups.

News of the reopening comes less than a week after Newsom ordered a "hard closure" of all Orange County beaches. The order came after an April heat wave sent thousands to the sand in some beach communities. Newsom called the images circulating of people congregating on Orange Countys shores disturbing.

My job as governor is to keep you safe, he said Thursday. And when our health folks tell me they cant promise that if we promote another weekend like what we had, then I have to make this adjustment. I hope its only a very short-term adjustment.

The move prompted a legal showdown between cities and the state, as well as outrage from the public. Some have argued that the governor was targeting Orange County based on photographs that they say did not show the full scope of what was happening on the beach.

That led Laguna Beach city officials to submit a four-phase plan to the state to eventually reopen their beaches entirely. Under Phase 1, which begins Tuesday, the public will be permitted to use the beach for active purposes on weekdays only from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Story continues

Under San Clemente's plan, the city will allow only active usage of the beach and keep restrooms and parking lots closed. Prior to the governor's mandatory closure, San Clemente had reopened its beaches for active use only  a situation that officials say was working well.

State officials said they also are working with other Orange County cities that are developing plans to restore beach access. It is not clear what other cities have submitted plans.

On Tuesday, Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett plans to put forth a proposal to reopen all of the county's 42 miles of coastline for active recreational use.

Last month, ahead of a heat wave that drew crowds to some city beaches, Bartlett had proposed temporarily closing county operated stretches of sand to stave off a flood of outsiders from Los Angeles and San Diego counties where beaches had been closed for weeks. However, the proposal did not gain traction from the rest of the board.

Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach) said the reopening of beaches in Laguna Beach was being done in a responsible way that will ensure public safety.

"I commend Mayor Whalen and the City Council for their thoughtful, judicious and strategic response, now and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic," she said in a prepared statement. "As we navigate this unprecedented crisis, we will continue to be led by science and facts  not by politics and not by fear.
Australians must get back to their offices and job sites kick-start the economy, with lockdown costing the country $4billion every week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will say today.

'We must get people back into jobs and back into work,' Mr Frydenberg will tell the National Press Club, as he confirms Australia is on track to enter its first recession since the early 1990s.

'Some of the hardest hit sectors like retail and hospitality are among the biggest employers, accounting for more than two million employees between them.

'History shows the longer people are unemployed, the harder it is to get a job.'

A closed Donut King store in western Melbourne on Monday. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will on Tuesday say Australians must get back to work to kick-start economic productivity

Treasury estimates predict the country's GDP will fall by 10 to 12 per cent by the end of June - a fall which would represent a $50billion drop-off in economic activity in the space of a single quarter.

But Mr Frydenberg said that number would double if Australia's restrictions mirrored the strict eight-week lockdowns like the one introduced in Italy.

'This was the cliff we were standing on,' he said. 'This would have seen enormous stress on our financial system as a result of increased balance sheet impairments, widespread firm closures, higher unemployment and household debt.

'If these restrictions were increased even further, akin to the eight-week lockdown in Europe, then the adverse impact on GDP could double to 24 per cent, or $120 billion, in the June quarter.'

Mr Frydenberg will also credit the $130billion JobKeeper program with mitigating the impact to the economy.

He will point to figures from the early 1990s - when it took seven years for unemployment levels to fall back to pre-recession levels - as underlining the need to minimise the long-term economic impact of the pandemic.

A deserted entrance to a David Jones store in Melbourne's western suburbs pictured on Monday. Australia is on track to enter its first recession since the early 1990s, the treasurer will confirm on Tuesday

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will tell reporters on Tuesday overall consumption is down 19.5 per cent since the beginning of the year

In Tuesday's speech, the treasurer will give his backing to the National Cabinet's decision to bring forward its decision to relax its coronavirus restrictions by a week to this Friday.

'For every extra week the current restrictions remain in place, Treasury estimates that we will see close to a $4 billion reduction in economic activity from a combination of reduced workforce participation, productivity, and consumption,' Mr Frydenberg will say.

He will also say total spending in the recreational, accommodation and food industries is down by as much as 70 per cent.

A woman wearing a protective mask on George Street in Sydney on Monday due to the coronavirus outbreak

Overall consumption is also down 19.5 per cent since the beginning of the year according to data from the National Australia Bank, his speech reads.

It comes as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern meets with the Australian National Cabinet on Tuesday to discuss allowing travel to resume between the two countries.

Ms Ardern is also keen to discuss the COVIDSafe app as New Zealand plans to develop a similar version of the contact tracing platform.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will join Australia's national cabinet meeting on Tuesday

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

As well as hearing from Ms Ardern, the meeting of state and territory leaders will consider how to relax coronavirus rules before the national baseline restrictions are expected to be eased on Friday.

New Zealand and Australia have seen similar success in tackling coronavirus - even though New Zealand enforced harsher restrictions.

On March 25 the country went into a full lockdown which shut all restaurants and construction businesses and prevented online deliveries except for essential goods.

On April 27 that was eased to a level similar to Australia's eastern states.

On 27 April, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton floated the idea of opening Australia's borders to New Zealand as the 'logical first step'.

But when it comes to opening the borders to other parts of the world such as the US or UK he warned 'that will be sometime off.
Coronavirus test kits used in Tanzania were dismissed as faulty by President John Magufuli. This is because they returned positive results on samples taken from a goat and a pawpaw.

Magufuli asked Tanzanians to pray the coronavirus away and said the kits had "technical errors", as per a Reuters report.



The COVID-19 testing kits had been imported from abroad, Magufuli said during an event in Chato in the north west of Tanzania, although he did not give further details.



Getty

The president said he had instructed Tanzanian security forces to check the quality of the kits. They had randomly obtained several non-human samples, including from a pawpaw, a goat and a sheep, but had assigned them human names and ages.



These samples were then submitted to Tanzania's laboratory to test for the coronavirus, with the lab technicians left deliberately unaware of their origins.



Samples from the pawpaw and the goat tested positive for COVID-19, the president said, adding this meant it was likely that some people were being tested positive when in fact they were not infected by the coronavirus.



Reuters

"There is something happening. I said before we should not accept that every aid is meant to be good for this nation," Magufuli said, adding the kits should be investigated.



As of Sunday, Tanzania had recorded 480 cases of COVID-19 and 17 deaths but unlike most other African countries, Dar es Salaam sometimes goes for days without offering updates, with the last bulletin on cases on Wednesday.



Magufuli also said that he was sending a plane to collect a cure being promoted by Madagascar's president. The herbal mix has not yet undergone internationally recognised scientific testing.



"I'm communicating with Madagascar," he said during a speech, adding: "They have got a medicine. We will send a flight there and the medicine will be brought in the country so that Tanzanians too can benefit."



Getty

COVID-19 infections and fatalities reported across Africa have been relatively low compared with the United States, parts of Asia and Europe. But Africa also has extremely low levels of testing, with rates of only around 500 per million people.


Lunchbox had created quite a stir when it released and even now, it is one of the best movies of actor Irrfan Khan. However, fans were left dissatisfied with the ending as the fate of the two lovers remained a mystery. Ila had let Saajan know in her letter that she was leaving for Bhutan. But did Saajan manage to meet her? Did they leave together? For all those who did not understand it, here's Lunchbox ending explained.

The ending of Lunchbox explained

Image credit: Nimrat Kaur Instagram

Ila writes in her letter to Saajan that after her daughter returned from school, they would leave for Bhutan by train. Saajan returned to Mumbai from Nasik intending to catch her before she slips out from his hands forever. However, whether they met or not was shown in the movie. The ending sequence showed Saajan riding a train car with the dabbawalas while Ila was also on a train, albeit a different one, with her daughter.

Also Read: 'Dark' Ending Explained | Here Is What Happened In The Finale Of Season 2

The director, Ritesh Batra left an open ending for his viewers to ponder on and make their own conclusion. It might be that Ila never met Saajan and the latter returned home disappointed but in the company of Mumbai's famous dabbawalas. However, they might have met and decided they would not be able to stay together and Saajan returned home while Ila carried on with her journey to Bhutan.

Thus, the ending of Lunchbox has an open ending allowing the audience to imagine whatever fate they would like for the unusual lovers.

Also Read: Den Of Thieves Ending Explained: Who Is The Guy At The End? What Did 50 Cent Say?

What is the story of Lunchbox movie?

A regular housewife, Ila forms an irregular friendship with a stranger after her husband's tiffin gets exchanged by mistake by the dabbawalas. They talked through exchanging notes through the tiffin box. However, their friendship slowly takes the turn of romance while Ila finds out her husband has been cheating on her. Illa and Saajan decide to meet but do they? That is where the question lies in Lunchbox.

Also Read: 'Thappad' Ending Explained: Taapsee Pannu Starrer Highlights A Woman's Dilemma

Lunchbox featured Irrfan Khan in the role of Saajan Fernandez. Nimrat Kaur made her debut in the movie with the role of Ila. The cast also included Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Nakul Vaid in important roles. The movie garnered a lot of attention and collected heaps of praises and awards.

Also Read: 'Mrs Serial Killer' Ending Explained | Is Dr Mrityunjoy Really The Serial Killer?

Also Read: 'Stree' Ending Explained | Netizens Feel That Shraddha Kapoor Is The Real 'Stree'

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.
No other police leaders have been called to testify at the public hearings, even though many of the police supervisors and commanders who oversaw the officers over the years remain with the department. A leaked Internal Affairs report from 2016, which focused on the GTTFs supervision, described task force ringleader Sgt. Wayne Jenkins as a top asset for the force but difficult to supervise and someone who often went over the heads of his immediate supervisors to higher-ups in the department.
Two days after celebrating his 10th birthday, a young boy playing in the water with his father drowned at Crystal Beach.

On Monday, officials identified the victim on Saturdays drowning as Micach Batson from Little Rock, Ark. The child and his family were vacationing in the area, Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said.

While swimming in waist-deep water, a crashing wave separated the boy from his father and Batson was pulled away by a current, Trochesset said. The father was able to swim to shore.

A call for the missing boy came in just before noon. The U.S. Coast Guard was notified and launched a helicopter and two boats to assist in the search.

His body was found just after 3 p.m..

Any area of the beach, depending on the circumstances or the weather, can have that type of event, Trochesset said.

There is at least one drowning a year at Crystal Beach, he added.

Anyone that comes down, try your best to be safe, the sheriff said. Be careful. If you get caught in one of those currents, try your best not to panic. Usually, they bring you several hundred yards, maybe even half a mile, but you will eventually come out of the current and be able to swim to shore.

Batsons family set up a Gofundme account to help with funeral expenses. By Monday evening, the fundraiser had surpassed its goal of $10,000.

He was a beautiful, smart boy with a big heart and a mischievous side and boundless energy, the post reads. He loved his brothers and sisters and had big plans for his future he shared with his father.
A critically-ill coronavirus patient was saved after getting a promising arthritis drug that is being trialled by doctors worldwide.

Leonard Whitehurst was admitted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital on March 16 with a confirmed case of COVID-19.

Over the course of his stay, his condition deteriorated until his prognosis was 'very grim', according to medics who treated him.

One of the 72-year-old's doctors decided to give him tocilizumab on compassionate grounds, after it showed promise in treating COVID-19 patients in Italy.

Tocilizumab, marketed as RoActemra or Actemra, is used to suppress the immune system of rheumatoid arthritis patients.

For COVID-19, it has the potential to stop the 'cytokine storm' that happens when the immune system goes into overdrive and starts attacking the body.

As soon as Mr Whitehurst was given the drug as a last-ditch attempt, his condition began improving. He is now recovering at home.

Dr Giorgio Gentile believes he is the first to have tried the arthritis drug in the UK back in March following the advice of worldwide doctors.

Now, tocilizumab is part of three major trials involving British patients - with the first results expected by June or July.

As soon as Leonard Whitehurst was given the drug tocilizumab, his condition began improving. He is now recovering at home (pictured with the nursing team at Royal Cornwall Hospital)

A critically-ill coronavirus patient was saved by a quick-thinking doctor, Dr Giorgio Gentile (pictured), who gave him an arthritis drug being trialled by doctors worldwide

Tocilizumab, marketed as Actemra and made by Roche, is used to suppress the immune system of rheumatoid arthritis patients. But it may have potential for COVID-19

Dr Gentile, a consultant nephrologist from Italy, has worked at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust since 2015, having moved here with his family.

He revealed that Mr Whitehurst needed 19 litres of oxygen but had not been put on a ventilator.

Dr Gentile said: 'Leonard was deteriorating quickly and escalation to intensive care for ventilation was not an option.

'As the patient wasn't prepared to be artificially ventilated, the outlook was very grim.

'I was desperate to try to save the patient. To me, tocilizumab seemed like the only viable option left to try and save his life.'

Dr Gentile had been regularly reviewing the medical literature of COVID-19 that was coming out from countries which battled the peak of their outbreaks before the UK.

He also maintained regular contacts with his network of colleagues involved on the frontline against COVID-19 in Italy - the only European country to record more deaths than the UK.

WHAT IS TOCILUZUMAB? Tocilizumab is used to treat adults with rheumatoid arthritis, as well as certain types of childhood arthritis. It is typically marketed under the names of RoActemra and Actemra, produced by the Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche. RoActemra was hailed as the first innovation in the field of treating rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for ten years when it was approved by the NHS in 2012 after a long battle over pricing. The prescription medicine works by reducing levels of IL-6 protein in the body, which people with rheumatoid arthritis or another autoimmune conditions have too much of. If there is too much IL-6, it can cause inflammation and damage. Tocilizumab blocks the effects, and has become a go-to for inflammatory disease treatment. Doubts have been raised about the safety of tocilizumab, which has a long list of side effects including a cough or sore throat, blocked or runny nose, headaches or dizziness, mouth ulcers, high blood pressure, weight gain and stomach problems. Tocilizumab has been shown to increase the risk of infections in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, including pneumonia and upper respiratory tract infections, according to Versus Arthritis. Trials on patients with RA before approval were not designed to assess long-term efficacy and safety. The Food and Drug Administration has received reports on 1,128 people who died after taking Actemra, according to a report by Stat News in 2017. It said the FDA declined to comment about Actemra. Advertisement

Dr Gentile had become aware of multiple anecdotal reports of people in very severe conditions who had dramatically improved after treatment with tocilizumab.

'The AIFA, which is the Italian equivalent of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, had just approved a large trial with tocilizumab and was actively recruiting people,' added Dr Gentile.

'The Italian experience seemed to mirror a preliminary yet promising experience from Chinese scientists, who used tocilizumab in 21 patients with very encouraging results.'

Another promising study of 20 patients in China, published in mid-March, claimed tocilizumab cured 95 per cent of critically ill patients.

The prescription medicine works by reducing levels of IL-6 protein in the body, which people with rheumatoid arthritis or another autoimmune conditions have too much of.

If there is too much IL-6, it can cause inflammation and damage. Tocilizumab blocks the effects, and has become a go-to for inflammatory disease treatment.

It is hoped that tocilizumab will work to prevent an overreaction of the immune system seen in some coronavirus patients.

Called a 'cytokine storm', the body's immune response can go into overdrive and produce inflammation and attack healthy tissue, which could be fatal.

It's thought to play a role in a large majority of deaths - especially the elderly whose immune systems have aged.

Dr Gentile said: 'Our patient had all the laboratory signs of the so-called "cytokine storm", which I was aware of thanks to a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal, The Lancet.

'The same paper speculated that tocilizumab could be used to treat patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia and hyper-inflammation, who are at high risk of progression towards acute respiratory distress syndrome and death.

'Luckily, we have brave, compassionate and open-minded leadership here at the RCHT. They gave me the green light to use tocilizumab on compassionate grounds.

'The patient agreed to receive the treatment, which was then quickly administered.'

WHAT IS THE RECOVERY TRIAL? More than 6,000 coronavirus patients in the UK have volunteered to take part in a drug trial run by the University of Oxford to find a treatment for COVID-19. The programme is called the RECOVERY Trial (The Randomised Evaluation of COV-id19 thERapY) and is the world's biggest single trial of drugs to treat the coronavirus. The university got the support of Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty and put out a plea to doctors around the country to enrol patients in the voluntary trial. Volunteers have since joined the trial from more than 160 NHS trusts around the country and scientists are hopeful more people will continue to sign up. Medics have not put a number on the amount of people the trial needs in order to be successful but has said the more participants the trial has, the more likely it will be the team will find answers. Participants will receive one of five drugs currently on the market  including the anti-malaria drug touted by Donald Trump, known as hydroxychloroquine. The other drugs being looked at as a treatment for COVID-19 include a combination of Lopinavir and Ritonavir (known by the brand name Kaletra), which is used to treat HIV; low-dose Dexamethasone,a steroid used to reduce inflammation; azithromycin, a commonly used antibiotic which may have antiviral properties; and the steroid Tocilizumab. Similar trials are being set up around the world, which run independently to the Recovery Trial, but none have garnered as many participants as the UK programme. Advertisement

Mr Whitehurst received two infusions of tocilizumab 12 hours apart from nurses.

Before the infusion, his oxygen saturation was 75 per cent. A normal reading should be between 80 and 100.

After the infusion, Mr Whitehurst's clinical conditions and his oxygen saturation improved very quickly, and then kept improving gradually and steadily over the subsequent days.

His oxygen requirement decreased gradually over time.

'At the time, we were at the very beginning of the COVID-19 crisis in the UK and the national lockdown had just been declared. So, it is quite possible that the RCHT has been the first NHS trust in the UK to successfully treat a patient with tocilizumab,' added Dr Gentile.

'We're certainly among the first. This kind of innovation and collaborative learning would not be possible without such a dedicated staff and our colleagues going above and beyond to provide the best care for our patients.'

Mr Whitehurst was discharged from hospital last week 'smiling and overjoyed', having spent more than a month in the hospital.

Mr Whitehurst said: 'I would like you to pass on my heartfelt thanks to all the staff on Wheal Prosper ward.

'I was quite overwhelmed on leaving the hospital, and I am truly grateful for everything the teams have done for me.'

Dr Gentile stressed that although tocilizumab worked for his patient, further evidence from rigorous randomised controlled trials is necessary to fully establish the role of the drug in COVID-19 pneumonia.

Tocilizumab is part of three major trials involving British patients - with the first results expected by June or July.

One of those is the Recovery trial, which is also testing four promising treatments, including HIV, malaria and antibiotic medications.

It has recruited about 6,000 NHS patients, making it the largest study looking at repurposing existing therapies to treat the incurable virus.

Patients from almost every NHS trust in the country are taking part in the trial, which is being run by Oxford University.

The drug will be administered to patients whose lungs have become severely inflamed due to a dangerous immune reaction caused by the virus.

Roche is also conducting a Phase III clinical trial of a targeted 330 hospitalised patients worldwide with severe COVID-19 pneumonia.

The pharma giant says that it is working with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to initiate the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the drug in combo with standard of care.

Overall fifteen registered trials in China, Europe and the US are testing it on COVID-19 patients, alone or in comparison to other therapies.

Doctors in China were the first to try tocilizumab against the deadly coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in early February. Some patients in the trial were diagnosed at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University. Medics are pictured on an intensive care ward there

CT scans also showed damage to the lungs reduced significantly around the fourth and fifth day of treatment. Pictured left, the lungs of a 55-year-old man, centre, a 82-year-old man and right, a 32-year-old patient

Doctors in China were the first to try tocilizumab against the deadly coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in early February.

Patients, who were given routine therapies along with the drug, were diagnosed as severe or critical.

They were being treated at two separate hospitals in the eastern province of Anhui in China - The First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China and Anhui Fuyang Second People's Hospital.

Within a few days, patients' fever returned to normal and all other symptoms improved remarkably, Dr Xiaoling Xu and colleagues report.

Fifteen of the 20 patients involved in the trial were able to have their oxygen intake lowered, while one patient was taken off completely.

Seventeen of the patients had seen levels of their white blood cells, called lymphocytes, drop. But on the fifth day, this returned to normal in ten of the patients.

Nineteen patients (95 per cent) were discharged after 13 and a half days. The other patient is recovering well, the study said.

CT scans also showed damage to the lungs reduced significantly around the fourth and fifth day of treatment.

The authors concludes: 'Tocilizumab is an effective treatment in severe patients of COVID-19, which provided a new therapeutic strategy for this fatal infectious disease.'

The researchers did not compare the drug to a placebo or any other drugs in the small study. The paper was published on ChinaXiv, a website which hosts scientific research which has not been peer-reviewed.

Speaking on behalf of the Trust, chief executive Kate Shields said: 'This brave clinical leadership helped to save a patient's life. We are proud of Dr Gentile and everyone involved in making this innovative treatment possible and overwhelmed by the care, compassion and dedication of our colleagues during this difficult time.'

The MHRA said: 'There is no licensed treatment for (COVID-19) related symptoms or to prevent infection.

'Clinicians and prescribers may prescribe an unlicensed medicine for an individual patient outside of the clinical trials setting, where they consider that the possible benefits of treatment may outweigh any risks of using the unlicensed medicine.'
Business groups warned such a move could worsen shortages of medical equipment and drugs, and delay a vaccine.

President Donald Trump plans an executive order soon to address the lack of medical product manufacturing in the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic, the White House has said.

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News in an interview on Monday that an order would soon require federal agencies to buy US-made medical products, saying the novel coronavirus outbreak had exposed the nations reliance on China.

Navarro gave no other details about the proposed order, which would extend Buy America requirements to medical products and pharmaceuticals. He said further steps were also needed, including deregulation to make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to operate in the US.

Navarros proposed order has met strong resistance from business leaders and current and former officials, who argued that acting to curb imports could prompt China to curb urgently needed shipments of N95 masks and other protective equipment. The initial proposal was revised slightly but is still going through an interagency review process, according to the officials.

The issue has divided the White House and some of Trumps key advisers, with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trumps economic adviser Larry Kudlow pushing back against the proposed order, according to current and former officials.

In March, more than 80 business groups warned such an order could worsen shortages of medical equipment and drugs, and delay discovery of a vaccine for the new coronavirus.

US-China tensions have spiked in recent months over the coronavirus pandemic, fuelling a long-standing push by Trump and China hawks like Navarro to bring manufacturing back from overseas.





The administration is weighing new tariffs and efforts are under way across the government to reduce the US reliance on industrial components produced in China.

Security risks to the nations electric infrastructure over components were also an issue, Navarro said, lauding an executive order signed on Friday by Trump that he said would extend a Buy America approach to the power grid.

The order seeks to protect the US electricity system from cyberattacks and other attacks in a move that could lead to barriers on some imports from China and Russia.

The bulk power system which provides basically the lifeblood of our economy  is now at risk because certain components of that are from abroad and foreign adversaries that can hurt us with both hardware problems and software problems, Navarro said.
Midwest Insurance Agency Alliance Inc. (MIAA) has hired Clayton Gravatt as regional vice president for Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.

Gravatt will be responsible for overall business development, membership service, and insurance company relations for all MIAA member agencies in this territory.

He is an experienced sales professional who joins MIAA with a 16-year history in business, sales and sales management in the property & casualty insurance industry. As an agency owner with the Farm Bureau for the last four years and district sales manager and producer prior to that, he is uniquely qualified to provide leadership and develop new business within this tri-state territory.

Gravatt will work closely with Ross Hoppe, Rebekah Siegfried, and Sam Stallard, MIAAs agency development field specialists. Together, they will be a resource for agencies facing start-up challenges, growing personal and commercial lines, technology adoption and usage, as well as new business and retention strategies.

Gravatt is licensed in property/casualty, life/health, and holds securities licenses: Series 6, Series 63, and Series 26 in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Arizona and South Dakota.

Founded in 2001, MIAA is comprised of more than 200 independent agency members spanning across the states of Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. MIAA is a wholly owned subsidiary of SIAA (Strategic Insurance Agency Alliance, Inc.) and one of its 48 regional master agencies.

Source: MIAA

Topics Kansas Nebraska
By Express News Service

Dakota Fanning and Elle Fannings upcoming movie, The Nightingale has been postponed by a year due to the coronavirus outbreak. It is now expected to release in December 2021.

The film, directed by actor Melanie Laurent, was expected to debut this year but its production was halted in the wake of the pandemic.

Based on Kristin Hannahs 2015 novel of the same name, The Nightingale is about two sisters coming-of-age in France on the eve of World War II and their struggle to survive and resist the German occupation of France.It was inspired by the courageous women of the French Resistance who helped downed Allied airmen escape Nazi-occupied territory and hid Jewish children.


>>> Hai Phong inaugurates key transport project

At a working session with leading officials in the city, he assigned ministries and authorities to study and help the Government work out such a mechanism at an early date.

The PM highlighted that Hai Phong achieved the highest Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) growth in Vietnam with 14.9% while that of the whole country was only 3.82%. He also spoke highly of the citys creative and resolute measures in the COVID-19 fight.

The leader also stressed that authorities must not be subjective in the fight which must be carried out along with the socio-economic development.

About strategic development strategies for Hai Phong, PM Phuc pointed out that sea-based economy, high-level industry and tourism must be the three strategic pillars of the city from now to 2045, adding that it must become a smart and modern city.

As for the tasks for the city in the rest of this year, the leader said Hai Phong must shoulder the heavy responsibility of the pioneer and an important growth extreme of the country. The citys development goals are not changed even in the context of the pandemic, he stressed.

PM Phuc recommended that Hai Phong implement concerted measures so as to create a more favourable business environment and push up the private economic sector. He also expressed his belief that with its firm determination and creativeness, Hai Phong will achieve the goal of fighting the COVID-19 and boosting socio-economic development at the same time.

The city should also pay attention to the organisation of the Party congresses at various levels towards the 13th National Congress of the Party, he leader concluded.
When the Queen's Wharf casino and resort development finally opens in late 2022 or 2023, two centuries of colonial history will come to the fore.

It is all linked to a tiny timber wharf (marked in green below), which poked out into the Brisbane River in 1824 to receive stores for the fledgling Moreton Bay Penal Colony.

This 1930 photograph of Brisbane's Queen's Wharf area shows the original King's Wharf (1824) in the green circle. It became known as Queen's Wharf when Queen Victoria assumed the throne. The red circle shows a larger timber wharf, (built post 1870) which was still there before the Riverside Expressway was built in the 1970s. Credit:National Trust of Queensland

That spot is where developers are now building The Landing, underneath the Riverside Expressway.

Aboriginal tribes had already lived in south-east Queensland for tens of thousands of years in 1824. Between 6000 and 10,000 Turrbal and Jagera people were in the area when the colonists moved in, according to historian Archibald Meston.
Burma ARSA Insurgents Shoot, Injure Two Myanmar Border Guard Police Officers

Myanmar Border Guard Police on patrol on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. / Thaw Hein Htet

NAYPYITAWTwo policemen were wounded in a sneak attack by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents on a Border Guard Police patrol on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border in Rakhine State on Saturday, according to the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw).

The Border Guard Police were conducting a patrol along the border fence when they were shot by ARSA members from the Bangladesh side around 400 meters southeast of border post No. 41. A police lieutenant and a constable were injured in the incident.

The ARSA members retreated after military troops came to the rescue of the Border Guard Police officers, military spokesperson Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun said.

As Ive said before, as Myanmar is due to submit a report to the ICJ [the International Court of Justice] this month, [ARSA] have become more active in the meantime, he said.

The Myanmar military said it seized ammunition and military equipment from a temporary ARSA camp near the village of Kha Maung Seik in Rakhine States Maungdaw Township on April 8.

It also said that two policemen transporting important documents were killed in a sneak attack by ARSA near Kha Maung Seik on April 15, and two ARSA fighters were found dead along with improvised landmines, related materials and drugs on April 29.

ARSAwhich the government has labeled a terrorist organizationlaunched a series of attacks on security outposts in northern Rakhine on Aug. 25, 2017, killing 12 security personnel.

The attacks prompted the Myanmar military to carry out clearance operations in the area that have driven nearly 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

The Gambia, a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, filed a case accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya at the ICJ. The UN court in January ordered Myanmar to comply with four provisional measures as requested by The Gambia.

The measures require that Myanmar take steps to prevent genocide from occurring in the future; ensure that the military and its affiliates do not commit further acts of genocide; preserve all evidence of genocide; and provide regular updates on its progress on these measures.

The first report is due by the end of this month, with subsequent reports to be filed every six months thereafter until the case is completed.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko

You may also like these stories:

Myanmar Sees Insurgents Behind Rohingya Killings in Northwest

Four Civilians Including Two Children Killed in Shelling of Myanmar State-Owned Bank
Her release, said Soltan, may have been motivated in part by the death of Mustafa Kassem, a 54-year-old Egyptian American national who died in January after being held in prison on flimsy charges for six years with poor medical care. His death touched off a rare period of tension between Sissi and the Trump administration, which has remained largely silent, at least in public, about the regimes growing abuses.
S teven Carter-Bailey, the Bake Off star, who made a cake for Colonel Tom Moores 100th birthday, was so nervous he needed help from his brother-in-law to deliver it. The cake featured an edible tank on top of layers with medals.

Carter-Bailey told us: On the morning of his birthday [last week], my sister burst in saying, Theyve made him a bloody colonel. The whole time I was making the cake, I was singing David Bowies song but Id changed the words to ground control to Captain Tom.

I ran downstairs to the kitchen in a panic. But then Id remembered that we had decided to put walk with Tom. My brother-in-law had to drive me there because I was shaking too much.

But Colonel Moore loved Carter-Baileys cake, calling it incredible and said it was a a shame to cut into it, adding he was looking forward to a slice with a nice cup of tea.

Carter-Bailey, who was runner up on the 2017 Bake-Off and won the Great New Year Bake Off in 2019 says though hes made cakes for Sir Ian McKellen, Russell Tovey and the Derry Girls, this was my greatest baking honour. A piece of cake, really.

---

Natural look: Ricky Gervais (Photo: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Ricky GERVAIS says theres a realism to his show After Life that means people sometimes think the characters are all freaks. But, Gervais tells Edith Bowmans podcast: Theyre normal, ER is a bunch of freaks, people dont look that good ... No, lets walk round England. More people look like me and David Earl than look like George Clooney.

---

THE Catholic Herald explains an obscure dimension to the Prime Minister and Carrie Symondss choice of baby name: Wilfred is of course a profoundly Catholic name. Saint Wilfred is best known for evangelising the people of Sussex in the late 660s ... and was a pilgrim on the first known Christian pilgrimage to Rome by English natives. Back to Rome it is...

SW1A

Interesting choice: Michael Gove (Photo: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images) / Getty Images

Sarah Vine, Michael Goves wife, posted pictures of their bookshelves as he led yesterdays No 10 briefing. Among the weighty political tomes we spotted a lesser known work: How Michael Gove Saves the World. Quick, quick, please.

---

LABOUR leader Keir Starmer has hired one of Alistair Darlings former aides to advise on Labours response to Covid-19. Sam White was with the former chancellor during the financial crisis and is good in hot water. Plenty of that around.

How to jump-start your day and keep in a sunny mood

Jennifer Lopez tells her followers: I make it a habit to say three things Im grateful for as soon as I open my eyes and then at night when Im lying in bed I list three good things out loud that happened that day. Whatever shes doing, it looks like its working. Model Bella Hadid took a more relaxed approach and basked in the sun, while Vogue publishing director Vanessa Kingori revealed that though were still in lockdown the fro is free. 2020, the year of big hair.
- A man in Nandi county visited his wife at her shop in Kapkeringon shopping center where an argument ensued

- The woman was heard crying for help and the landlord and the NIS officer responded

- The man became hostile and started stabbing anyone who came near, he stabbed five people

- The NIS officer and landlord succumbed to the stab wounds at Mosoriot hospital

A man in Nandi county has stabbed to death a National Intelligence Service (NIS) officer and a landlord who intervened to save his estranged wife from beatings.

Benjamin Sugut, 58, who is based in Kisumu, and the landlord, Edwin Cheruiyot Kogo, succumbed to injuries at Mosoriot hospital where they had been taken for medical attention.

READ ALSO: Comedian Jalang'o's luxurious Mercedes-Benz ride vandalised on Mombasa road

The suspect was taken to Kabiyet sub-county hospital for medical attention. Photo: K24

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Coronavirus: UN warns of severe food shortage due to COVID-19

According to police report, the suspect, Elikana Kiplimo Sitini, had gone to his wife's shop at Kapkeringon shopping center where an argument ensued between the two.

A scuffle ensued and the woman was heard screaming for help.

It was at that point that the two, landlord and NIS officer, responded to rescue the woman but the man became hostile and started stabbing anyone who came near.

By the time police officers from Kabiyet Police Station arrived at the scene, the assailant had already stabbed five people and locked himself up in his wifes room.

The other survivor was taken to Kapsabet referral hospital for medical attention. Photo: The Star

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Break up?: TV anchor Willis Raburu, wife Marya Prude reportedly separate months after losing newborn

Amid crowd of locals that was baying for the suspect's blood, the police managed to break into the house and arrested the man.

He was taken to Kabiyet sub-county hospital for medical attention and discharged in a stable condition but was taken to police station.

The other three victims were also taken to Mosoriot hospital where they were treated and two of them discharged.

Of the two who were discharged, one had his thumb chopped off while the other had a minor head injury.

The third victim was referred to Kapsabet hospital for specialised treatment of his stab wound sustained on the left side of his back.

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
A health and safety report commissioned as part of a review of the Houses of the Oireachtas due to Covid-19 has recommended that a compliance officer be nominated to ensure social distancing and hygiene rules are being maintained within the chamber.

The report, carried out by chartered fire engineers and event safety experts Eamon OBoyle and Associates, states that the nominated officer should be aware of the symptoms of the coronavirus and inform management and first aid if they suspect anyone within the chamber of having them.

They should assist in isolating the individual, while not putting themselves at risk, the report said, adding that any such response must be quick and dealt with in a private and confidential manner. Its unclear as to whether or not that compliance officer would be drawn from the ranks of elected TDs.

The report further confirmed that the Dail chamber is too small to host a full sitting of parliament under social distancing guidelines.

That news had not been unexpected, with the Dails business committee approving in early April the use of Dublins Convention Centre, situated on the quays in the north inner city, as an alternate venue for those occasions, such as the election of a Taoiseach, on which all members of the house would be required to attend.

Hiring that venue is expected to cost 50,000 per day, with an additional one-off expense of 110,000 to install the microphone system necessary to facilitate a Dail sitting.

In a letter to TDs, Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail said it is vitally important that Dail Eireann continues to sit during the Covid-19 emergency but we must also ensure that all appropriate health and safety measures are in place to protect the health and welfare of members and staff.

He added that additional health and safety measures, with an emphasis on sanitation, would be implemented across the Leinster House complex this week.

The report confirms the restricted sitting limit of 45 TDs (plus the Ceann Comhairle himself) under which the Dail has been operating since the onset of the crisis.

It recommends that any TD who has chosen a particular seat for a sitting should keep to the same seat while they are in attendance to prevent cross-contamination.

Meanwhile, a full sanitation of the chamber should be carried out prior to each sitting, the report said, with a recommendation that consideration be given to pausing sittings every two to three hours to allow cleaning staff to sanitise the chamber.
Mark on Kim Jong-un's Arm a Possible Sign of Heart Surgery, Medical Experts Claim

Sputnik News

06:29 GMT 03.05.2020(updated 06:31 GMT 03.05.2020)

According to North Korean state media, the country's leader has appeared in public for the first time in weeks after a smattering of unconfirmed reports that he was on the brink of death after a failed heart surgery.

A fresh mark on Kim Jong-un's arm corroborates earlier reports about his alleged heart surgery, some medical experts suggested after footage of the North Korean leader's most recent public outing was published by local media.

On Friday, the Korean Central News Agency reported that the 38-year-old on Friday had inspected a fertiliser plant in Sunchon, providing photos and videos of the visit which brought an end to his almost three-week absence from public functions.

Health professionals who examined the footage told South Korea-based NK News that Kim showed what appeared to be a mark on the inner side of his right wrist, a possible sign of cardiovascular surgery.

One US medic stated that the mark "looks like a right radial artery puncture  [which is] often used for access to the coronary arteries for stent placement", adding that it appeared to be "about a week old".

"It is hard to tell from the foreshortening of the photograph, but it seems a bit medial. It is not an IV [intravenous], which wouldn't leave such a mark," they said.

A South Korea surgeon told the outlet that the dot on Kim's arm "looks more plausible to be a procedure or check-up mark from a procedure on a heart-related issue".

However, a third expert, Harvard Medical School's Jason H. Wasfy, said that the placement of the mark was off for it to be a sign of a radial puncture, which is typically performed closer to a thumb and causes a hematoma.

Kim Jong-un's health drew international interest after he missed out on the 15 April anniversary of the birthday of his grandfather and state founder, Kim Il Sung, one of the biggest days on North Korea's calendar.

Daily NK, a South Korean website which bases its stories on accounts by defectors from the North, cited an unidentified source inside DPRK on 20 April as claiming that Kim was recovering from a heart surgery allegedly conducted a week prior because of his "excessive smoking, obesity, and fatigue".

The following day, CNN reported that the US was monitoring intelligence that Kim was in "grave danger", according to a government source, but South Korea played down the claims about Kim's health. Another news report from Japan then speculated that the North Korean leader was in a "vegetative state", and a few outlets reported that he had died.

Pyongyang has not commented on the rumours, but Friday's footage from the factory visit came in apparent rebuttal of the claims.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






The crisis has been decades in the making, as the political system born in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion became riddled with corruption while politicians grew rich on the spoils. But the epidemic has accelerated the crisis, tanking global oil prices and the oil revenue that keeps Iraq afloat  while forcing a lockdown that is ruining livelihoods and forcing families to go hungry.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Monday warned about the accuracy of antibody tests for the coronavirus, telling CNBC that people should not trust the results of only one test.

"If you do go out and get an antibody test, and you get a positive result, meaning you have the antibodies, I would suggest you repeat it," the former head of the Food and Drug Administration said on "Squawk Box."

Gottlieb said the tests have a high false positive rate, making it difficult to know whether a single result is credible. He said the likely accuracy of the test increases if the same person gets two positive determinations in a row.

"Quite frankly, if it was me, I would repeat it three times," said Gottlieb, a CNBC contributor who sits on the boards of Pfizer and biotech company Illumina. "I know they're expensive, but I wouldn't put confidence in any one test."

However, a person who is certain they have antibodies for Covid-19 could be "reasonably confident" that they have some immunity to the virus, he said. This applies to people who were sick and diagnosed with Covid-19 and then recovered, he said, as well as individuals who never developed symptoms and learned of the presence of antibodies through a test.

Gottlieb reiterated that there is uncertainty about how long, or how strong, that immunity is. "It's probably going to be months. It might be a year or more," he said Monday.

"But I think for the next six months, you could be reasonably confident that you're not going to get reinfected and if you do, you're going to have a mild case," he added. "I wouldn't go out and do crazy things, but I'd feel more confident going around, if it was me."

There are more than 1.1 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University data on Monday morning. At least 67,686 people have died.

Gottlieb is not the only person warning about the accuracy of antibody tests, many of which were able to get on the market without approval from the FDA, according to The Washington Post.

Roche CEO Severin Schwan last month called some antibody tests "a disaster." The Swiss pharmaceutical giant announced Sunday that its antibody test received emergency use authorization from the FDA.

"It's highly reliable, it's a very precise test, and indeed that has been an issue with the first generation of tests," Schwan told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday. "So now, patients and societies can rely on a highly, highly precise test."

Schwan said he believes it is "very likely" people who have recovered from Covid-19 develop some immunity.

"We need studies to really see whether those people who have been infected once are subject to reinfection. But there's a high likelihood" that they will develop some immunity, he said.
Police used batons to beat Indians when queues to buy alcohol broke out of control today.

Liquor stores reopened for the first time in Indian states and cities including New Delhi following a slight relaxing of rules after 40 days of strict coronavirus lockdown.

Despite carefully drawn chalk circles showing shoppers where to stand to maintain social distancing the queues soon snaked along the road and people were pushed closer together.

The Indian Government's harsh shutdown saw almost all activity banned from March 24 in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly virus. The country has since reported just 42,500 cases and around 1,400 deaths.

A policeman beat a shopper with a baton outside a wine shop in New Delhi, India, as a crowd grew out of control

One shopper, Asit Banerjee, 55, said he needed alcohol to 'energise' him as the coronavirus lockdown continued.

He said: 'We have been in solitude for over a month. Alcohol will energise us to maintain social distancing during the pandemic.'

Mr Banerjee had joined a queue in Kolkata where police used lathi batons to control the crowds.

Elsewhere, including in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, state police were forced to close down shops soon after they had opened as long queues of men in face masks snaked around the block.

'One of the shops had opened in the morning but clashes broke out as a lot of crowd had gathered,' a police officer said.

Police disperse people lining up to buy alcohol near a liquor shop in New Delhi using a lathi baton (pictured)

Despite carefully drawn chalk circles showing shoppers where to stand to maintain social distancing the queues soon grew out of control

Hundreds continued to loiter in neighbouring streets in the hope the shops would be allowed to reopen.

'It's not like I have anything to do at home,' Deepak Kumar, 30, said as he waited patiently across the street from one outlet in New Delhi.

One lucky customer who managed to buy some wine, 25-year-old Sagar, said he went to a store in Delhi at 7.30am and found it had opened early.

'There were about 20 to 25 people in the morning and the shop was open for about two hours,' he told AFP.

'People in rows of five were being allowed in. Now they've shut it.'

As police used force to stop people breaking social distancing rules the crowds started running (pictured)

In some states, including Maharashtra, certain liquor stores remained shut amid confusion over which outlets were allowed to open. While in others such as Assam they opened several days earlier.

Although illegal in some areas, including teetotaller Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state Gujarat, alcohol consumption has risen strongly in recent years as the country's middle class has grown.

This is particularly true of spirits, with the country of 1.3 billion people reportedly guzzling almost half the world's whisky, although much of it in reality is rum according to purists.

Lockdown caused misery for millions of workers in India's vast informal sector. They have been left suddenly jobless as Covis-19 dealt a major blow to Asia's third-biggest economy.

People lined up to buy alcohol outside a liquor shop after the government eased a nationwide lockdown imposed as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus

Queues snaked along the road as people waited to get into the shop to buy alcohol when strict lockdown measures were finally eased after 40 days

Shoppers stayed on the white markings and formed an orderly queue as they waited outside the Model Wine Shop in Allahabad

Adding to some relaxations for industry and agriculture last month, on Monday offices could operate with one-third capacity as well as some cars and motorbikes and certain shops.

On May 1 the Indian government announced they were extending lockdown for two more weeks, until May 28.

The home ministry said in a statement that in view of 'significant gains in the COVID-19 situation', areas with few or no cases would see 'considerable relaxations'.

The government will continue stricter measures in places classified 'red zones', such as New Delhi and Mumbai, and 'orange zones', which have some cases. In 'green zones' or low risk areas, some movement of people and economic activities will be allowed, India's home ministry says.

Air travel and passenger trains ground to a halt because of the lockdown and only the transport of 'essential goods' was allowed, causing major problems as well as considerable confusion for industry and agriculture.

A bird's-eye view of New Delhi today from a high-rise building as the government-imposed nationwide lockdown was extended for another two weeks

Hundreds of thousands of migrant labourers were left jobless when India's lockdown was put in place, prompting a huge exodus of people back to their home villages

In particular hundreds of thousands of migrant labourers were left jobless overnight, prompting a huge exodus of people back to their home villages, many on foot, and leaving many dependent on handouts.

However the stringent restrictions, currently running until today, have been credited with keeping confirmed cases of coronavirus so low.

But some experts have said the vast country of 1.3 billion, home to some of the most congested cities in the world where 'social distancing' is virtually impossible, is not testing enough.

In addition, there are concerns that if the virus catches hold in a big way, India's health care system - poorly funded by international comparison - will be severely stretched.

The government said Friday that many activities will remain prohibited nationwide including air and rail travel - except for 'select purposes' - schools, restaurants and large gatherings such as places of worship.

Indian police officers wearing face masks during a nationwide lockdown in Bangalore today

The Red Fort from a high-rise building in New Delhi today. The Indian government will continue stricter measures in places classified 'red zones', such as New Delhi and Mumbai, and 'orange zones', which have some cases

Restrictions are being lifted largely according to what colour an area has been assigned in a government rating system.

India is split into red zones with 'significant risk of spread of the infection'; green zones with zero cases or no confirmed cases in the past 21 days; and those in between as orange.

This reflects a high concentration of cases in many urban areas such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad but very few or none in many rural areas of the country.

Red and orange zones will continue to have intensified contact tracing, house-to-house surveillance, and no movement in or out except for medical emergencies and the supply of essential goods and services, the home ministry statement said.

Authorities have also been told to ensure in these areas '100 per cent coverage' of the government tracing app Aarogya Setu, which has been criticised for potential security flaws and practical drawbacks and which has alarmed privacy campaigners.

Homeless people standing in a queue to get food during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown in New Delhi today

Exceptions in red zones include certain industrial activities and government offices, and in rural zones designated as red, agricultural activities and brick kilns.

In orange zones taxis are allowed as well as private cars and motorbikes conducting permitted activities with limited passenger numbers.

In green zones all activities are permitted except those banned nationally.

For the first time since late March, shops in green zones selling alcohol and chewing tobacco can open - but with six feet (two metres) between customers and only with no more than five people present.

Officials say the nation has bolstered its domestic production for key medical supplies like ventilators, oxygen and personal protective equipment.

The government says it currently had almost 20,000 ventilators and 43.8 million oxygen cylinders.

But with an expected surge in cases following the relaxation of some lockdown measures, officials estimated a demand of 75,000 ventilators and in the coming weeks. Of this, 60,000 will be manufactured in India.

Indias low testing rates is partly due to the unavailability of testing kits. The government estimates needing 3.5 million standard kits for its 1.3 billion people, who have been under a five-week lockdown.

India has recorded more than 35,000 coronavirus cases and 1,147 deaths.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Nearly 1,000 migrant labourers gathered at the Tolichowki labour adda under the flyover on Sunday morning, demanding that the Telangana government make arrangements for them to go back home. Though the police had placed barricades around the feeder roads in the area, the workers, mostly from Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Bihar and working in the unorganised sector, surged forward.

We are starving as we have no work. I used to work in a hotel, but many others who stayed with me worked at construction sites. Now, with everything closed, there is no way for us to earn and survive here, rued a worker.

"The workers live across a couple of slums around Banjara Hills, Tolichowki, and Humayunagar. They all have been going back to their hometowns in small batches on foot after the lockdown extended. But with the summer being so hard, they were sent back from the checkposts, which caused them to come out and protest," noted Mohammed Faiz, a local. Approximately 4,500 workers have now registered with local police stations in the vicinity to be sent back to their homes.

Meanwhile, the police had to be called in to quell the upsurge as the aggravated workers refused to leave unless transport was arranged for them, as it was done in Lingampally. We convinced them that they cannot travel and must stay here. We have taken down their names and details and will send them home as and when arrangements are made,said DCP West Zone AR Srinivas.

Throng Secunderabad railway station too

A large number of migrant workers thronged the Secunderabad railway station on Sunday after a rumour about the government providing them special trains to travel to their native places was circulated on the social media. However, the railway police dispersed them. But before doing so, the police collected their details and promised them to send out communication if they arrange for special trains for them to return to their native places
Dave 'Hughesy' Hughes has put his sprawling $3million pad in Elsternwick, Melbourne, on the rental market.

The comedian, 49, purchased the five-bedroom home from The Block's Elyse Knowles and Josh Barker in 2017, and is asking for $2,000 per week.

On top of the weekly payments, the tenant will need to lodge a $10,000 bond and be ready to move into the fully-furnished property from May 23.

Want a piece of The Block history? Comedian Dave Hughes (centre) has listed his $3million home in Elsternwick, Melbourne, on the rental market for $2,000 per week, after admitting he regretted buying it from The Block 2017 winners Elyse Knowles (right) and Josh Barker (left)

'Within 24 hours, we had six inquiries. The rental market isn't that hot right now, so that's pretty positive,' Belle Property St Kilda agent Nicholas Horswood told Realestate.com.au.

Hughesy had previously rented out the property for a rumoured $3,000 per week in early 2018.

At the time, he was 'having trouble' finding an occupant and joked that he was so desperate for tenants he would be willing to let drug dealers use the property as 'a meth lab' as long as they paid the rent.

Got a spare $10K? On top of the weekly payments, the tenant will need to lodge a $10,000 bond and be ready to move into the fully-furnished property (pictured) from May 23

'The Block house has been rented. We've found someone to move in. We're very happy about that,' he told Triple M's Hot Breakfast in January 2018.

The funnyman said: 'I emailed my real estate agent last night about 11pm saying, "When's this month's rent coming into my bank? I haven't seen it for a while."

'I had trouble renting it. It took a while.'

Luxury living: The lavish home boasts five bedrooms, state-of-the-art appliances and is furnished with $200,000 worth of furniture

He added: 'At one point, the real estate agent rang me and said, "Someone wants to move in but they've got a dog." I felt like saying, "I don't care whether they've got a meth lab!"

'It's a little dog and it's fine. They put in their own doggie door.'

Dave had purchased Josh and Elyse's house at auction for $3.067million during The Block 2017 finale - the highest bid in the show's history.

Swanky: One of the living spaces features plush leather sofas and a wood-burning stove

Inner-city oasis: The property's online listing calls it 'one of Elsternwick's finest homes'

Hey, big spender! Dave had purchased Josh and Elyse's house at auction for $3.067million during The Block 2017 finale - the highest bid in the show's history

The sale price was $447,000 over Josh and Elyse's reserve of $2.62million, giving them the win and an extra $100,000 in prize money.

However, Hughesy later admitted he regretted buying the home after finding out it wasn't worth the price tag.

He told Stellar magazine in February 2018 he was 'annoyed' after the bank valued the property at 'much less' than the hefty $3million he'd paid.

Regrets: Hughesy later admitted he regretted buying the home after finding out it wasn't worth the price tag

'I went to get a bank loan the other day and they haven't valued it the same as I paid for it, which is fine, but annoying because there were five bidders,' he said.

Although Hughesy didn't disclose how vast the difference in price was, he said it was enough to leave him frustrated.

'Enough less that it made me annoyed. For f**k's sake!' he raged.
387 Shares Share

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to expose shortcomings in our health care system, an outdated law in many states limits the ability of specific health care workers, physician assistants (PAs), to deploy and provide emergency care. In Washington State, a PA must have a delegation agreement filed with the Department of Health, which identifies a supervisory physician for that PA. The scope of practice of each PA is defined by their supervisory physician. For example, if a PA is working under the supervision of a cardiology physician, the scope of practice for that PA is cardiology and related procedures. That PA cannot venture into another specialty, even if they have significant experience or training.

The PA profession was born in post-Vietnam War America when single physician practices wanted to extend their ability to provide care to remote areas with limited health care. These health care extenders, many former military medics, attended a shorter version of medical school and were trained under these supervisory physicians to provide care. At the time, this system worked well. More recently, however, this model has proven difficult. As a pandemic sweeps the nation, this model is now woefully inadequate. I personally know PAs working in specialty medicine, but with prior training and work experience in emergency medicine or intensive care that cannot provide care in areas needed most due to the needless restrictions in place.

On March 26th, Governor Jay Inslee signed a one-month emergency proclamation allowing PAs to work independently from their delegation agreements to support medical surge staffing planning for COVID-19. However, this proclamation expired on April 26th. Without legislative changes, highly trained medical professionals will be unable to provide care in areas needed most as the coronavirus pandemic continues through the fall and the coming year. In some cases, these medical professionals are furloughed and collecting unemployment. It is unconscionable to keep these highly trained health care providers at home during a pandemic that is shaking the United States health care system to its core.

Other states have removed the supervisory language in their legislation surrounding COVID response, including Maine, Michigan, New York, and Louisiana, while others, like Michigan, have done away entirely with supervisory language. Instead, they require collaborative relationships to define the PA and physician practice.

Ultimately, no medical provider is fully independent. The practice of medicine occurs in the context of other health care providers and in constant collaboration so that the best and safest decisions are made for and with patients. PAs merely desire the same opportunity to collaborate and to optimize their ability to practice medicine. If Washingtons policymakers fail to modernize PA practice laws soon, a vital and important member of the medical team will not be utilized, and patients will suffer.

Leah Hampson Yoke is a physician assistant.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) has been issued an operating licence by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ).

This makes it the first telecommunications provider to be issued a licence by POTRAZ in 10 years, DFA said.

The granting of the Internet Access Provider Class B licence follows the successful launch of a proof-of-concept phase for DFAs Zimbabwe operations.

DFA said this was the first step in allowing DFA to build a nationwide network for the provision of licensed telecommunications services in Zimbabwe.

From the beginning, we have favoured a measured approach in our expansion to nations outside of South Africa, said DFA Group CEO Thinus Mulder.

We believe in the potential of Zimbabwes telecommunications industry, and therefore, we have identified it as a good place to invest in.

The awarding of the licence further builds our confidence in this particular market, he said.

Bringing new offerings to the market

DFA Zimbabwe CEO Simon Chimutsotso said the company was ready to offer premium open-access services to the market.

We look forward to partnering with our targeted customer base to enhance their efficiency and competitiveness, Chimutsotso said.

By fulfilling their physical fibre-network-infrastructure requirements and taking on the maintenance responsibilities, we enable them to focus on their core business of providing excellent value-added telecommunication services to their customers.

DFA Zimbabwe has also used the licensing period to deploy more resources in the market and prepare its infrastructure and business model to address customers in Zimbabwe.

We are ready to fulfil our promise to the ICT sector and help bring about new, innovative offerings to the market, Chimutsotso added.

We would like to thank our shareholders, POTRAZ, the Ministry of ICT, the government of Zimbabwe, and all our key stakeholders for the unwavering support as we sought to realise our vision for Zimbabwe.

It has been a long journey and we are excited on the new opportunities that lie ahead, he added.
Mevasseret Tsion (Israel) (AFP) - The protective mask covering half her face could not hide the broad smile of little Mayaan Ben Itzhak as she reunited with her classmates after two long months of lockdown.

The seven-year-old carrying a big pink schoolbag was thrilled to see her friends Sunday at her school near Jerusalem, after weeks of distance learning imposed in Israel's fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

"She couldn't sleep all night," said her mother Lilia Ben Itzhak.

"My children go crazy at home, they needed to go back to school," said the mother of three.

As part of a strategy aimed at getting Israel's battered economy back on track, the government has announced the gradual reopening of schools from Sunday, the first day of the week in Israel.

Preschool and some primary classes have reopened, except in communities considered to still be at exceptionally high risk of COVID-19.

A country of about nine million people, Israel has officially recorded over 16,000 cases since it began testing, including around 230 deaths -- one of the lowest mortality rates among countries hit by the pandemic.

More than 9,000 of those known to have been infected have since recovered.

Strict closure measures are now being eased as figures show a decline in the number of new cases.

- Arms outstretched -

"What a pleasure to see you children!" exclaimed Sigal Bar, principal of the school in Mevasseret Zion, a leafy community about 10 kilometres (six miles) west of Jerusalem, as she opened the gate.

Before letting the children in, she asked them to stretch out their arms to each side, to ensure sufficient social distancing, and to listen carefully to her instructions.

Each child must bring to school a face mask and written confirmation from their parents stating that they have no fever.

They may only sit one to a desk and will take their breaks separately from other groups.

"The parents really cooperate with us, we feel that they are grateful for our efforts to make everything go well," Bar said, adding that she too had slept very little before the "unusual return".

Story continues

About 150 of the school's 260 pupils returned to their classrooms, the walls papered with letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

According to the education ministry, schools have reopened in 80 percent of local districts, with the exception of some cities, including Tel Aviv, Haifa and Netanya as well as Arab communities.

- Not everyone agrees -

There were also many parents who preferred to keep their children at home even though local schools reopened.

Shirel Benoliel did not want to send her nine-year-old son to school in central Jerusalem, and intends to keep him and four siblings at home until the start of the new school year in September.

"Either there is no danger and everyone goes back to school, or it is dangerous and everyone stays at home," she told AFP, saying that young children "are unable to stick to the rules".

The authorities "say that schools must be reopened so that people can go to work but it is ridiculous to take the slightest risk to our children for economic reasons," she said.

The Israeli economy was booming before the pandemic with an unemployment rate of just 3.4 percent.

The outbreak led to the closure of businesses, schools and universities and unemployment has spiralled to 27 percent.

- Roses and chocolates -

With the infection curve flattening out, the government last week authorised the reopening of many high street stores along with restaurants offering takeout, subject to strict social distancing and other regulations.

"I can understand the fears of some parents, but we have to get back to normal life," said Assaf Shamir, head of the parents' association for the Mevasseret shool.

"They have to go back to work and the kids have to go back to school, the economy needs it," he said.

His daughter Shira, 10, is not yet back in class as children in her age group are only expected to return around June 1.

But on this sunny Sunday, she still came to school to offer a rose and a chocolate to each teacher who entered.

A little further, two children who were beside themselves with joy were finding it a challenge to respect the required personal distance.

From their school bags, each took out a small bottle in an encounter that showed how times have changed.

Each boasted of having the better brand of hand sanitiser.
President Trump retweeted an evidence-free claim that President Obama was involved in the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign's Russia ties.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump retweeted a podcaster's tweet Sunday claiming that 'Evidence has surfaced that indicates Barack Obama was the one running the Russian hoax.'

The retweet incorrectly listed the FBI's code name for the Russia investigation as Operation Hurricane. It is actually Crossfire Hurricane.

The tweet linked to a blog post written on David Harris Jr.'s website speculating about the implications of a recently unsealed FBI document about the bureau's investigation into one-time Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

President Trump (pictured Sunday) retweeted a 'baseless' tweet claiming that there's evidence President Obama ran the 'Russian hoax' investigation

Trump retweeted the tweet on Sunday, despite the fact that there appears to be no actual proof that Obama was involved in the intelligence operation

The post included a screengrab of a portion of a recently unsealed, redacted FBI document from January 2017 tied to Crossfire Razor - the FBI's code name for the Flynn investigation.

Next to the Crossfire Razor code name, the document states: 'We need to discuss what happens if DOJ directs us, or directly tells, VPOTUS or anyone else about the [redacted] specifically w/r/t [with regards to] what we do directly with him. I think it will be very difficult not to do some sort of overt step with him, a defensive briefing or interview under light 'defensive briefing' pretext unless WH specifically directs us not to.'

It's unclear whether the document's reference to 'WH' refers to Obama himself or to someone in his administration.

The evidence claim is based on a redacted FBI document involving the investigation that does not actually mention Obama (pictured)

CNN White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond took to Twitter shortly after Trump did to note: 'No, there is no evidence pointing to President Obama running the counterintelligence investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia. But the President just retweeted that baseless claim about his predecessor.'

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on Fox News that he intends to launch an investigation into Obama's 'surveillance' of Flynn.

'I want to know why Flynn was being surveilled by the Obama administration to begin with. You know, the Obama administration is surveilling the National Security Adviser of the president-elect. What the hell was that all about?' Graham said.

Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI regarding conversations he had with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2017.
Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged Sunday night that he should have worn a face mask during a visit last week to the Mayo Clinic, a rare admission of a mistake by a senior Trump administration official.

Pence's comments followed an uproar over his appearance Tuesday at the Rochester, Minnesota, facility, where news footage showed him speaking to staff members and patients without the face coverings that everyone else around him wore and that Mayo Clinic officials said were required under their policies.

Pence initially defended his decision, saying he and those around him are tested regularly for the coronavirus and he thought it would be a good opportunity to "look them in the eye" and thank researchers and health-care personnel at the clinic.

On Sunday night, however, Pence took a different tack while appearing alongside President Donald Trump at a Fox News virtual town hall broadcast from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

Asked about his decision, Pence reiterated that he is tested often and does not have covid-19. But he added: "I didn't think it was necessary, but I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic."

He noted that he had donned a face covering two days later when visiting a General Motors facility in Indiana that has ramped up production of ventilators during the pandemic. And he then praised average Americans for taking similar steps.

"It really is a statement about the American people, the way people have been willing to step forward, practice social distancing, wear masks in settings where they can't do that," Pence said. "As we continue to practice those principles, all of us together, I know we'll get through this."

In a since-deleted tweet, the Mayo Clinic said that Pence and his team were aware of the mask policy ahead of Tuesday's tour.

Pence's wife, Karen Pence, continued to defend him later in the week, saying during a television interview that it wasn't until "after he left Mayo Clinic that he found out that they had a policy of asking everyone to wear a mask."

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance states that masks are helpful for preventing the transmission of covid-19 because even people who do not show symptoms can still spread the virus, particularly in "public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain." The agency does not address whether someone who has recently been tested should wear a mask.

In a notice posted on its website last month, the Mayo Clinic said that as of April 13, it was "requiring all patients and visitors to wear a face covering or mask to help slow the spread of COVID-19."

"Patients and visitors are asked to bring their own face covering or mask to wear," the clinic said in the notice. "If a patient or visitor does not have a mask, Mayo Clinic will provide one."

- - -

The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.
Thousands of labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have gathered along Madhya Pradeshs borders with Gujarat and Maharasthra as they seek to return to their states even as inter-state borders remained closed as part of the national lockdown imposed to check the Covid-19 spread, multiple officials said on Monday.

The officials said about 8,000 people, including women and children, have gathered at Bijasan in Barwani along the states border with Maharashtra and over 5000 at Pitol in Jhabua that borders Gujarat since Saturday as they were not allowed to enter Madhya Pradesh. Similarly, thousands of labourers gathered at Johariya in Datia district along the Madhya Pradesh-Uttar Pradesh border as it remained closed.

Rohit, a labourer from Uttar Pradeshs Faridpur stranded along the Gujarat border, said their group reached Pitol on Sunday. We want to go to Uttar Pradesh. The officials here say [chief minister] Yogi [Yogi Adityanath] does not want us to enter Uttar Pradesh. The authorities are opening and closing the border. There is no food and water for us since yesterday [Sunday]. There should be prior information when they are going to close or open the border.

Arvind Kumar from Uttar Pradeshs Pratapgarh said people from Madhya Pradesh were being allowed to enter the state while they were not.

Datia collector Rohit Singh said a number of labourers were allowed to get in but then the border was closed from the Uttar Pradesh side.

Madhya Pradesh police chief Vivek Johri said they have no problem in allowing people to enter the state but Uttar Pradesh has to allow them.

The Barwani administration arranged 200 buses for labourers to go to Uttar Pradesh on Thursday and Friday but they were stuck in Datia as the border remained closed. An official said this is why they did not allow further movement of people.

State governments have been scrambling to arrange buses and trains to send migrant workers home after the Centre made an exception for people stranded because of the lockdown and allowed them to travel.

Vishwadeep Singh Parihar, a police inspector in Barwani, said there are pregnant women and couples with kids among the stranded people. Hence, the administration has decided to arrange transport for such people to send them to the Uttar Pradesh border so that they do not have any problem in staying here and could reach their homes early whenever the border is opened for them.

A police sub-inspector and two constables were injured on Sunday when angry labourers in Barwani threw stones at police personnel when they were not allowed to enter Madhya Pradesh.

Another official said even though the administration arranged food for labourers at Bijasan, their numbers have swelled and made the arrangements inadequate. We had not anticipated that Uttar Pradesh will close its borders. Even otherwise it is not possible to provide basic facilities for the stay and food for such a large number of people that too while ensuring social distancing.

Activists Medha Patkar said people are coming even as the mercury has shot up to 42 degree Celsius using various modes of transport and even barefooted but no one is taking care of them whether it is the Centre or state governments of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Mahrashtra and Gujarat.

The lockdown was imposed first in March and triggered an exodus of jobless migrant workers from big cities. Many of them left for their homes on foot and forced the Centre to ask the states to seal their borders and take care of the workers.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Over 300 of Mayors in the Ile-de-France region of France which includes Paris and its suburbs, have written a letter to President Emmaunel Macron requesting the postponement of school openings after 11 May, describing the lack of preparation and concertation on the procedure.

As France attempts to put in place a calendar to emerge from confinement and kickstart the economy after two months of lockdown due to the coronavirus crisis, the delicate question of how and when to send children back to school is proving difficult to answer.

316 mayors, including Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, wrote in an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron in La Tribune on Sunday that the calendar proposed by the government for re-opening schools from 11 May is "untenable and unrealistic."

They are calling for the re-opening of schools to be pushed back after the 11 May so that they can better organise the logistics of such an undertaking in light of the stringent sanitary procedures which must be followed.

Education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has maintained that re-opening schools is important to the social fabric of the country, and preventing inequalities from emerging. He insists the re-opening will be progressive, with only 15 children per class to begin with.

Ile-de-France most affected by covid-19

The mayors in their letter point to the fact that the Ile-de-France region is the most populated and has the highest number of cases of covid-19 and the highest death toll so far, and thus needs more time to put into place a deconfinement plan.

"The preparation for deconfinement is being forced ahead despite the fact that we don't have enough information to prepare the population and the directives keep changing."

The association of Mayors in Ile-de-France also accuse the state of offloading its responsibilities by leaving it up to individual Mayors to decide when and how they will re-open schools across their towns.

"The legal, political and moral responsibility should not weigh on the shoulders of the Mayors, they should be included in a collaborative process with the local police department. For the State to disengage itself from managing this kind of educational and health crisis is unimaginable."

Voluntary basis

The other unpredictable element to the back to school plan is the fact that it is not mandatory  the ultimate decision lies with parents who may or may not be under equal financial pressure to resume work.

The letter details the key issues and problems facing the mayors such as how many staff members will be available and are willing, or which classes will have priority over others.

The logistical questions over how the canteen will run, if at all, and how to manage the cleaning of the schools which will require more time and staff.

They pointed out that they would need 4 to 5 weeks minimum to order the number of masks needed, and organising canteen meals would take at least a week, depending on the number of meals needed.

Red or Green or in between?

"We will only know on the 7 May, three days before, if our departments will be in a red zone," the letter points out, referring to the colour-coded map of France introduced last week which will show which areas of the countries will apply less strict lockdown measures.

How to choose between children who need extra help ? Or those with parents who absolutely need to return to work ?

"How can we possibly make decisions in the midst of an extremely serious health crisis when we don't have the competence, the means or the responsibility?"

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is due to further outline the lifting of lockdown measures in ministerial meeting later today as well as address the extension of the health state of emergency.
(Bloomberg) -- Israels largest institutional investors manage a hoard of more than 1.9 trillion shekels ($538.5 billion) that has long drawn interest from government officials looking for ways to support the local technology industry. With the coronavirus pandemic battering money-starved startups, the funds could aid the sectors survival.

Since financing is increasingly difficult to come by, particularly for smaller companies, the government is making available its own money, while at the same time pushing local institutional investors to allocate their funds. As an incentive, the government plans to provide guarantees as protection against potential downside.

The world has changed, said Sagi Dagan, head of the growth division at Israels Innovation Authority. We see this crisis as an opportunity both for the institutional investors, and for the Israeli high-tech sector -- and for the people saving money in their pension funds to have a bigger portfolio.

Israels tech sector -- including more than 6,000 startups -- is a critical component for the country, accounting for about 10% of all jobs. And with lucrative salaries and high productivity, the industry is disproportionately vital for the fate of the overall economy.

Funding has dried up as foreign investors, who provide the majority of financing in the industry, grow more cautious and travel less. Government officials expect both tech sales and private investment to take a 25% hit, a potentially debilitating blow for smaller firms with little sales and cash reserves. Data from the IVC Research Center already showed a slowdown in venture capital deals in the first quarter.

A relatively weak recovery for Israels tech sector could hurt the industrys attractiveness to the worlds biggest companies and venture capital firms, which for years have plowed billions into the country to get an edge in research and development, according to Eugene Kandel, who is advising the government on its economic response to the pandemic.

Story continues

That could unravel fairly quickly, said Kandel, the former chief economic adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and now chief executive officer of Start-Up Nation Central, a non-profit organization that advocates for the industry.

To avert a broad collapse, Israels government is planning to step into that void with a multi-faceted support plan, amplified by private sector co-investment. The smallest firms will have access to 500 million shekels in government investment, while companies with more than 200 employees will be able to secure guaranteed loans. Israel will also put in place tax incentives for seed investments, and mergers and acquisitions.

In addition, officials will coax Israels institutional investors into putting 2 billion shekels into mid-stage tech companies. The co-investment model is aimed at shortening due diligence and bridging the knowledge gap. If successful, the mid-tier program could support about 100 startups, while hundreds of smaller outfits would benefit from the early-stage fund, Dagan said.

It may be difficult to actually bring the money managers on board. Last November, the countrys Innovation Authority rolled out a grant program to develop tech expertise among institutional investors so they could expand investment in the sector and eliminate a market failure, but progress is slow going. And this time around, investment houses are wary of the risk that comes with the market rout.

Understanding The Risk

For example, less than 0.5% of assets at Meitav Dash Investments Ltd. are invested in startups.

Well need to check it and then to understand what is the risk and what the guarantee is for us, said Guy Mani, who manages roughly $15 billion at Meitav Dash. Startups are a very dangerous sector because its hard to know what will fail and what will succeed.

Along with the potential for downside, some investors see an opportunity amid the crisis. While the industry may slim down, overall adoption of technology will accelerate and deals may be more attractive to investors still looking to spend.

Its very hard to raise new funds in this environment, said Gilad Shany, a managing partner and co-founder of ION Crossover Partners, which has invested in some of Israels biggest startups. If were really able help these companies growth in this environment, they can take market share globally.

(Updates with comments from adviser to Israels economic recovery plan starting in sixth paragraph)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
A West Australian principal was stood down by the states education department before the scheduled resumption of classes on April 29, after informing parents that her school was not prepared for a mass influx of students amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The disciplinary action, overseen by the state Labor government, is a warning of the repressive measures being taken to force teachers and students back to schools, despite concerns over health and safety. Governments across the country, and the corporate elite, view the reopening of schools as the essential precondition to herding workers back onto the job, as COVID-19 continues to circulate.

Bronwyn White is the principal of Halls Head secondary college near Mandurah, south of Perth. She had written a four-page letter to parents, outlining a detailed three-week plan to gradually reintegrate students to ensure a safe learning environment for all.

White pointed to the dangers of a full return to classes at the beginning of the term, noting: We cannot adequately apply physical distancing and safety requirements if we have the entire College community recommencing Week 1. We simply do not have the physical space required with 1,450 students.

The principal reported a short supply of critical cleaning products, with an order placed by the school not likely to arrive in time.

White said face-to-face teaching would be available from week one for all children of essential workers. Year 11 and 12 students would be encouraged to attend in week two and three, after the school had arranged extra spaces to allow for social distancing. Years 710 would continue online learning until week three, when all measures would be reassessed.

The education departments immediate response was to take disciplinary action, standing White down, appointing an acting replacement and ordering an investigation. White was instructed to write a letter apologising for the previous correspondence and retracting her statements.

The bullying coincided with an escalation of the national drive to reopen schools. This is why, despite the relatively tepid character of Whites proposals, the state government immediately jumped on her.

A week earlier, the national cabinet of the federal Liberal-National Coalition government and the state and territory government leaders reversed its previous policy and declared that social distancing measures in schools were no longer required or appropriate.

WA Labor Premier Mark McGowan dropped earlier calls for a soft opening of schools, demanding a hasty reintroduction of face-to-face teaching.

Whites letter articulated broad opposition among teachers, school officials and parents. Thousands came to her defence, signing an online petition titled Reinstate Ms Bronwyn White to her position at Halls Head Community College on change.org. There are currently more than 4,200 comments voicing support for the principal.

One states: [S]he called for the sensible thing to be done. No one should have to risk fatal illness just so you can say you were the first to have schools back in classrooms. Peoples lives are far more important than you or your states reputation.

Another supporter wrote: Shes absolutely done the right thing in expressing her concerns for lack of supplies and appropriate distancing concerns to actually help keep the students and teachers safe. She cannot be reprimanded for her very valid safety concerns! Right speech, which is her duty of care, should be validated!!

By contrast, the State Schools Teachers Union of West Australia (SSTUWA) has said virtually nothing. Its president Pat Byrne said the union would provide advice to White. In other words, it accepts the entire framework of the disciplinary proceedings and will seek to demobilise the widespread support for the victimised principal.

This is of a piece with the role of the education trade unions throughout the country in collaborating with governments to ensure the reopening of the schools.

At the end of term one, parents in WA withdrew children from schools en masse, fearing that schools lacked the resources to protect their children. Absenteeism at some schools reportedly averaged about 73 percent. Teachers, aware of inadequate resources and lack of safety, threatened walkouts.

One teacher, interviewed anonymously in the West Australian, explained: I walked away today because we are being socially irresponsible allowing that large groups of people come together and then disperse into the greater community. This is a recipe for disaster. Many children are asymptomatic carriers of this disease, which means that they can easily infect others without knowing that they even have this disease.

Despite the McGowan government announcing a fund of just $43 million to supposedly enhance safety and cleaning regimes in schools during the holiday break, teachers continued to express opposition on social media and in daily newspapers.

In a bid to contain this opposition, the SSTUWA bought a full-page advertisement in the West Australian, days before schools were scheduled to resume, appealing to parents to keep students at home. This was a desperate attempt to defuse anger among teachers over the unions refusal to mount any struggle, and to shift responsibility for the school reopenings onto individual parents, instead of the state Labor government.

In an indication of ongoing opposition, a third of teachers who responded to a union survey this week said they did not feel safe at school. Attendance rates are reportedly around 60 percent.

Despite this, McGowans government, with the assistance of the unions, is pressing ahead. It announced a population study, testing students and staff in just 80 schools for COVID-19. In other words, teacher and students will be used as guinea pigs to alert the government to spikes of the virus.

McGowan continues to claim that schools are safe. These assertions are not backed by any evidence. They are contradicted by a large cluster at a school in Auckland, New Zealand and recent research from France indicating that mass transmission is possible among pupils in schools.

The disciplinary action against White is a warning of the draconian measures that inevitably accompany this dangerous agenda. The logic of the government attacks on educators was spelt out by Andrew Laming, a federal government MP. He claimed without any proof that some principals were seeking to bully essential workers into keeping their children at home, and called for the police to be involved in such supposed cases.

Teachers must carefully examine the experiences through which they are passing. They demonstrate that the defence of White, and the struggle for a safe working environment, requires a political fight against the Labor and Coalition governments and the unions.

The positive response from parents and teachers to Whites honest, principled and thoughtful stand demonstrates that there is a basis for mass independent action by educators and the general school community.

The Committee for Public Education (CFPE) calls on teachers to take the next step by organising Action Committees at each school to coordinate a genuine industrial and political offensive against the dangerous school reopenings and to ensure the health and safety of all educators, students and the working people as a whole.

Teachers and education workers can contact the CFPE via email or via our Facebook page. The CFPE Twitter account is @CFPE_Australia.
Coronavirus: Lebanon begins phase 2 in 5 steps Beirut airport to open 8/6

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, MAY 4 - Lebanon on Monday began its Phase 2 for dealing with COVID-19, loosening the restrictions brought in to contain the spread of the virus. Restaurants are reopening but need to keep customers under 30% of total capacity and barbers will reopen until Wednesday, while hairdressers and beauty parlours will be open from Thursday to Saturday. Car dealerships and clothing stores also opened on Monday. The government has provided restaurant owners, professionals and shopkeepers with instructions on security measures that must be complied with on the premises Access to the beachfront has reopened but frequenters are asked to wear masks and comply with social distancing rules. Phase 2 is divided into five steps from Monday until June 8, when - unless the situation changes - the Beirut airport is expected to reopen. (ANSAmed).




Some officials are backing off requirements that people wear masks inside businesses as cities, counties and states - left to devise their own guidelines - run into limits on their ability to maintain public health precautions with stay-home orders easing during the coronavirus pandemic.

The issue pushed a small Oklahoma city into the national spotlight this weekend, after leaders withdrew a mandate to don masks inside stores and restaurants, citing threats of violence and physical abuse directed at employees. The mayor of Stillwater apologized to businesses for putting them in a dangerous position after some people responded virulently to the new rules.

"We don't have the kind of police force that can go out and try to deal with every single one of the people who may not be willing to wear the masks," Mayor Will Joyce said Sunday on MSNBC. "And so it's been a struggle [to] make people understand that wearing that face covering is an easy and an effective way to help slow the spread of this virus."

Joyce's comments came the same day that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, an early proponent of statewide social distancing, said he'd reversed course on requiring Ohioans to wear masks because people "were not going to accept the government telling them what to do."

"It just wasn't going to work," the Republican governor said on ABC News' "This Week." "You got to know what you can do and what you can't do."

Federal messaging on masks has been changing and at times contradictory. Health authorities began recommending last month that all Americans cover their faces in public, after previously calling it unnecessary. White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx on Sunday called protesters who defy stay-home orders and crowd together without masks "devastatingly worrisome."

But while some cities and counties mandate masks and threaten $1,000 fines amid a patchwork of reopening strategies, leaders including President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have not worn them in public appearances. (Pence said Sunday that he should have worn a mask to the Mayo Clinic.) And mask requirements are stirring the same kind of politically charged resistance to broad restrictions on Americans' lives that has popped up in angry rallies at state capitols and governors' residences, sometimes encouraged by the president.

"There are a lot of mixed messages out there," Joyce said Sunday on MSNBC, adding that his city reopened along with the rest of Oklahoma to keep people "on the same page" despite reservations about whether the timing was right for Stillwater.

"I think it would be best from a nationwide perspective," he added, "if we could have . . . a unified message."

For some, defiance to mask-wearing has a conservative bent. To many Trump supporters, declining to wear a mask is a visible way to demonstrate "that 'I'm a Republican,' or 'I want businesses to start up again,' or 'I support the president,' " Robert Kahn, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis who has studied Americans' attitudes toward masks, told The Washington Post last month.

"Masks will quickly become the new normal in blue states, but if social distancing continues through 2022, the mentality among Republicans could well change, too," he predicted. "If I can go to work and the cost of marginal improvement in my life is wearing a mask, maybe Americans of both parties do accommodate ourselves to it."

The mayor of Stillwater, an independent, said the city has encouraged mask-wearing in public for weeks. But havoc broke out the moment officials tried to make doing so mandatory.

Joyce amended his emergency declaration on the same day it took effect "in response to concerns voiced by business proprietors and citizens," according to a news release. The anger directed toward store employees started in the first three hours businesses were open and included a threat of gun violence, the release said.

"I hate that our businesses and their employees had to deal with abuse today, and I apologize for putting them in that position," Joyce said in a statement. "I am not the kind of person who backs down from bullies, but I also will not send someone else to fight the battle for me."

In Stillwater, many people objecting to the mask requirement cited their belief that the rule is unconstitutional, City Manager Norman McNickle said in the news release first reported by the Stillwater News Press. McNickle said wearing a mask is a minor inconvenience that protects the person wearing it and anyone they encounter.

"It is unfortunate and distressing that those who refuse and threaten violence are so self-absorbed as to not follow what is a simple show of respect and kindness to others," McNickle wrote, saying that officials could not in good conscience put store and restaurant employees in danger.

Stillwater's stores are still asked to at least encourage customers to wear masks, and businesses can choose to have more restrictive requirements.

Stillwater Police Chief Jeff Watts said in a statement that his department was not pulling over drivers for not wearing masks, responding to complaints about people not wearing face coverings in businesses, or ticketing residents who are not wearing masks in public. Watts said customers and employees of certain kinds of businesses, including salons, barbershops and tattoo parlors, must still wear masks.

On Sunday, Joyce - whose Twitter account features a picture of him in a cloth face covering - posted photos of vitriolic messages he has received criticizing him both for the original mask requirement and for backing off of it. "You didn't think we would react to your TYRANT behavior with threats?" one message reads.

"This is a hard time for everyone," he wrote in a tweet thread, offering his email address to anyone who wants to talk. "We may not agree on the way forward. But we can be thoughtful and compassionate to our neighbors. We can try to see and understand their perspective."

- - -

The Washington Post's Aaron Gregg contributed to this report.
When the strange and sweaty little bank robber Sonny cries Attica! Attica! both to troll the police and to rally a Brooklyn crowd around him, it reverses the polarity of Dog Day Afternoon. Suddenly its the police who are on defense. The boys in blue seem surrounded and trapped, in their case by public opinion. Now the hostage-taking jerk theyre dealing with is a folk hero. Sonny is also claiming his share of one of Hollywoods richest old seams: the Warner Bros. crime picture.

Dog Day Afternoon is possibly the most perfect entry among the dozens of great gritty Seventies movies that provided me with a durable memory library of cinematic brilliance. (Its streaming on the TCM app through May 10.) Al Pacinos Sonny is the scion of a long line of antiheroes reaching back to Paul Munis James Allen, who explains, heartbreakingly, I steal at the end of 1932s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, a film that showed us why he stole, with great tender sympathy for the plight of criminals. Sonny has a touch of Warren Beattys cute confusion Hey! is his last word, one shirttail hanging out, one lens missing from his sunglasses  before Clyde Barrow gets gunned down without a word of warning by a hidden squad of cowardly riflemen at the end of Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Too, Sonny exhibits some of the shamelessness and peacockery of ultra-criminal Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange (1971), whose felonious acts are an assertion of human free will. All of these are Warner Bros. productions, the crime movies that plumbed the humanity of malefactors.

Sonny was also one of the lone, usually doomed truthtellers who fight the system  director Sidney Lumets great subject, from Twelve Angry Men (1957) to Serpico (1973), Network (1976), Prince of the City (1981), and The Verdict (1982). Thats how Lumet guides the audience to consider the situation, anyway: His and Pacinos Sonny (who in real life was named John Wojtowicz) is an adorable, sensitive soul who obviously means no harm. Who among us has not fretted over how to pay for his lovers sex-change operation and been forced to rob a bank as the only available means of funding? Sonny gets harangued by his shrewish wife, pleads for calm from his histrionic boyfriend, and sadly informs his moronic junior partner that Wyoming is not a country. These scenes go beyond humanizing Sonny. We actually love the poor guy and want him to survive his nutty ordeal. Dont cops do a lot of awful things too, by the way? Attica! How exhilarating to side with the rebels.

Story continues

Decades later, though, it became obvious that Warner Bros. was one of the cultures leading retailers of an idea that was simply wrong: that criminals, being victims of circumstance, should enjoy wide latitude, even indulgence. The New York City of 1972, when the film takes place, was coming to the end of the first decade of a three-decade experiment with lawlessness as its ruling ethos. Lumet enacted an amused, sporting attitude toward crime and criminals at the cost of ordinary citizens. The bank tellers Sonny and Sal terrorized for 14 hours did absolutely nothing wrong, unless you consider working for Chase Manhattan to be an act of oppression, and a proportion of the films 1975 audience probably did. What kind of lasting psychic damage was done to these hostages? John Wojtowicz served a mere five years in federal prison for his crime, and when he got out, he committed more crimes. He wasnt a lovable scamp, just another dirtbag who made life miserable for ordinary working New Yorkers and deserved to be behind bars. Having a soft spot for criminals institutionally proved nearly to be the ruination of Americas greatest city until the mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani seized on the counterrevolutionary idea of disrupting and punishing crime instead of shrugging at it.

The future of Dog Day Afternoon, though, may lie in a third reading: that the 1972 bank robbery was a kind of LGBTQ Battle of Bunker Hill. Warner Bros. has shown a lot of interest in adapting its film library to the stage, and for years there have been plans to bring Dog Day Afternoon to Broadway, which is perhaps the most gay- and transgender-friendly major institution in our culture. The talk so far has been to do it as a play, but the story is so outre it might work well as a musical  a bleak and desperate one. Lumet treated the gay and transsexual themes with a sort of amused condescension  a comedy sideshow at the circus  but a Broadway director might find the story to be a tale of a heroic gay man, just three years after the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village (the Lexington and Concord of the gay revolution), literally taking up arms against the cis-normative community represented by butch cops, housewifey bank tellers, and the Mafia, which used Sonny and Sal as their pawns. If the story Wojtowicz told a friend who wrote for the Village Voice is true, the robbery had its roots in an act of anti-capitalist resistance from within the machine: a gay Chase Manhattan executive set up the robbery by giving Wojtowicz a tip at a gay bar. What did the gay banker know about the practices of the Chase Manhattan bank? A morally alert filmmaker might be interested in speculating. Maybe he or she will go poking around and declare that Chase was guilty of nefarious anti-gay deeds and it served them right to get robbed.

Truly great films rarely get remade, but its easy to picture a gay-friendly Warner Bros. executive greenlighting a remake someday on the reasoning that Lumet was either mildly homophobic or missed the real story. A detail that was apparently too crazy for Lumet to include in the movie is that Wojtowicz kissed his other male lover (not the transsexual one) smack on the mouth in the doorway of the bank during the heist, and the crowd loved it. Maybe Attica wasnt the most galvanizing piece of recent history informing the events of Dog Day Afternoon. Maybe it was Stonewall.

More from National Review
The Office of the Inspector General, US Department of Defense (DoD IG) is determining if it should allocate more funds to hypersonic development programs as it seems the US is behind the hypersonic curve.

The DoD IG's review began in April and is centered around the future allocation of funds for new weapons that can travel five times the speed of sound. The Pentagon's emphasis on hypersonic technology started in 2017 as Russia and China ramped up their efforts.

The Pentagon's fiscal 2021 budget earmarks approximately $3.2 billion, up from $400 million approved in 2020. Planned spending on hypersonics could reach upwards of $12.6 billion by 2025, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Carver, a Pentagon spokesman, told Bloomberg in an email.

Senator James Inhofe, a senior Republican from oil-producing Oklahoma and Senate Armed Services Chairman, explained in a Defense News op-ed in December how the military's hypersonic testing labs were inadequate, writing "dilapidated testing infrastructure is holding us back from catching up to our enemies. Just look at hypersonic weapons: Beijing is parading around dozens of its newest weapons, and we have yet to build one."

Mark Lewis, the DoD's director of research and engineering for modernization, who oversees the military's hypersonic effort, recently said a "balanced approach" to testing is needed.

"We can test something into oblivion and you never wind up building it, you never wind up using it but at the same time there are clearly tests you want to do, you have to do before you build a system," Lewis said.

We've noted on several occasions that hypersonic development and testing has been a high priority by the military. In March, the DoD launched a common hypersonic glide body missile from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii.

U.S. Navy and U.S. Army jointly tests hypersonic glide body pic.twitter.com/9Fr8YvlBUS  Dylan Malyasov (@DylanMalyasov) March 21, 2020

The Air The Air Force Global Strike Command made mention in April that it wants to mount hypersonic AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapons externally on the Rockwell B-1 Lancer supersonic bomber.

With hypersonics now becoming a top priority for the DoD, here is the breakdown of spending on development programs regarding the new missiles.

Breaking Defense outlines four of the hypersonic program the DoD is working on:

Air-launched boost-glide: Air Force ARRW (Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon). The Air Force also had another program in this category, HCSW (Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon), but they canceled it to focus on ARRW, which the service considers more innovative and promising.

Air Force ARRW (Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon). The Air Force also had another program in this category, HCSW (Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon), but they canceled it to focus on ARRW, which the service considers more innovative and promising. Surface-launched boost-glide: Army LRHW (Long Range Hypersonic Weapon) and Navy CPS (Conventional Prompt Strike). Both weapons share the same rocket booster, built by the Navy, and the same Common Hypersonic Glide Body, built by the Army, but one tailors the package to launch from a wheeled vehicle and the other from a submarine.

Army LRHW (Long Range Hypersonic Weapon) and Navy CPS (Conventional Prompt Strike). Both weapons share the same rocket booster, built by the Navy, and the same Common Hypersonic Glide Body, built by the Army, but one tailors the package to launch from a wheeled vehicle and the other from a submarine. Air-launched air-breathing: HAWC (Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept) and HSW-ab (Hypersonic Strike Weapon-air breathing). Arguably the most challenging and cutting-edge technology, these programs are both currently run by DARPA, which specializes in high-risk, high-return research, but they'll be handed over to the Air Force when they mature.

HAWC (Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept) and HSW-ab (Hypersonic Strike Weapon-air breathing). Arguably the most challenging and cutting-edge technology, these programs are both currently run by DARPA, which specializes in high-risk, high-return research, but they'll be handed over to the Air Force when they mature. Surface-launched air-breathing: This is the one category not in development  at least not in the unclassified world. But Lewis said, "eventually, you could see some ground-launched air breathers as well. I personally think those are very promising."

Some of the first hypersonic weapons could be deployed with the Army in 2023. Though, as we've previously noted, Russia has already deployed hypersonic missiles, and China has been doing many live-fire tests.
Sitting inside the cavernous Lincoln Memorial on Sunday for Fox News's virtual town hall, President Donald Trump appeared to draw inspiration from his surroundings when asked about why he uses divisive language and dodges questions during White House coronavirus briefings.

"I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen. The closest would be that gentleman right up there," Trump said from his perch on a high-backed stool, pointing at the imposing marble statue of martyred president Abraham Lincoln in the background. Lincoln was assassinated in April, 1865.

"They always said, 'Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln,'" Trump continued. "I believe I am treated worse."

Trump's invocation of Lincoln was prompted by a pointed question from a retired nurse and elementary school guidance counselor who began her comments by praising Trump for his "great dedication to our country."

"The question I have is about your manner of presentation," the woman said in a video clip broadcast during the town hall. "Why do you use descriptive words that could be classified as bullying and why do you not directly answer the questions asked by the press, but instead speak of past successes and generally ramble?"

She went on to urge Trump to "let go of those behaviors that are turning people away from you."

"The USA needs you," she said. "Please hold on to your wonderful attributes that make you our great leader and let go other characteristics that do not serve you."

When the camera cut back to Trump, a hint of a smile played on his lips. He did not dispute the premise of the question, about bullying and boasting.

"I'm not sure, but I think I like that question," he said, his grin widening. "I appreciate it."

Then Trump's mood seemed to shift. His gaze turned steely and the smile vanished as he name-dropped Lincoln and launched into a familiar script: criticizing journalists for asking him "disgraceful" questions at the briefings and suggesting that a majority of the media "might as well be in the Democrat party."

"I feel that if I was kind to them, I'd be walked off the stage," Trump said. "They come at you with the most horrible, horrendous, biased questions."

Though the town hall lasted for more than an hour, with Trump fielding a wide range of questions about his administration's coronavirus response, his comment about Lincoln emerged as one of the most talked about moments of the night. By early Monday, "Lincoln" and "Lincoln Memorial" were still trending on Twitter. Some critics of Trump interpreted him to be likening his situation to the martyrdom of one of the nation's most revered leaders and rushed to ridicule him.

As one of the few leaders admired by both parties, Lincoln's name has been used and/or abused by every president and presidential candidate since. Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who once cited the 16th president known as "Honest Abe" to justify politicians being "two-faced."

Sunday also wasn't the first time Trump has compared himself to Lincoln and specifically to the treatment of Lincoln by the media of the era.

Since the beginning of his presidency, Trump and his base have turned to Lincoln for superlatives about the Trump presidency, ranging from general likability to the support of African Americans. The comparison, as The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten wrote, is largely expected given that Trump once said, "Nobody's ever done a better job than I'm doing as president."

In 2018, for example, Trump tweeted that he had the "highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party," adding, "That includes Honest Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan." Trump did not name the poll he was citing and many pointed out that presidential polling did not begin until decades after Lincoln's death.

A survey conducted in November 2019 by the Economist magazine and the polling firm YouGov.com, found that 53 percent of Republican respondents that Trump was a better president than Lincoln.

A recent poll of historians, on the other hand, ranked Lincoln in the top five of all U.S. presidents with Trump coming in at 42nd, according to findings from the Siena College Research Institute.

Trump has almost nothing in common with Lincoln, apart from Lincoln having his own struggles with the media.

"No president ever cracked down on the press more than Abraham Lincoln did," Harold Holzer, author of "Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion," told the Springfield, Ill., State Journal-Register in 2017. Lincoln shut down several newspapers during the Civil War, accusing them of publishing treasonous statements.

Trump has called the news media "the enemy of the people" and has come under fire for banning reporters from events and suspending press passes following contentious exchanges.

Holzer, a prominent Lincoln scholar, noted that the 16th president "followed the Republican press with the same intensity with which Donald Trump watches Fox News and Breitbart," and would manipulate news coverage with leaked stories while currying favor with editors and releasing private letters to the media.

"Not that I like Donald Trump's tweets particularly, but his tweets are similarly revolutionary in that they bypass traditional media, and then traditional media is obliged to cover the tweets just like they had to cover Lincoln's public letters," Holzer said, according to the Journal-Register. "You have to give both of these people credit where credit is due, and that is in mastering the art of communication."

On the subject of Lincoln, Trump appears to have been influenced by, among others, Newt Gingrich.

In one tweet from January 2019, Trump quoted Gingrich, noting that the former Republican House speaker "just stated that there has been no president since Abraham Lincoln who has been treated worse or more unfairly by the media than your favorite President, me!"

A few days later, Gingrich published a column in Newsweek drawing the same comparison between Trump and Lincoln and included several quotes from prominent newspapers disparaging the 16th president.

"I called President Trump and told him no president since Abraham Lincoln had faced the kind of unending bias and hostility that he is living through," Gingrich wrote.

Trump has since seemed to adopt that talking point, but with a slight adjustment.

"Abraham Lincoln was treated supposedly very badly," Trump told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos in June last year. "But nobody's been treated badly like me."

On Sunday, with Lincoln's likeness looming over his head, Trump repeated that assertion while defending his approach to handling reporters at the coronavirus briefings.

"Nobody's ever seen anything like this," he said. "I really appreciate the question and I very much appreciate the sentiment behind the question, but I'm standing up there and instead of asking me a normal question, the level of anger and hatred, I'll look at them, I'll say, 'What's your problem?'"
Failure to vaccinate everyone will give rise to new variants, says UN chief

Faith vs safety in burials: COVID-19 remains in dead bodies for 9 days says Centre

Rising demand for PPE products a huge opportunity for domestic exporters

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, May 04: The increasing demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in local as well as global markets provides a huge opportunity for domestic exporters, industry body AEPC.

The Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) said the sector is gearing up to start producing these goods, which comes under the medical textiles segment, with a view to making India a hub for sourcing of PPE kits over the next few years.

20 flights with COVID-19 medical equipment from China to reach India this week

The council had recently organised a webinar on 'Manufacturing of PPE Products under Medical Textiles', which saw about 2,000 participants, mainly apparel exporters from across the country.

"According to a study, there will be domestic demand of Rs 10,000 crore for the next one year and internationally there will be a USD 60 billion business in 2025, whereas India has done only USD 260 million so far last year," AEPC Chairman A Sakthivel said.

Though many of the PPE products needed for frontline health workers are banned for exports currently, he said once the local manufacturers meet the Indian demand, they should be allowed to export. AEPC has already submitted a request for this to the government.

"I believe all the apparel manufacturers can enter into the coverall garments (segment) provided they have a seam sealing machine. That's the one machine we need for our factories. We will have to import this machine if we want to go for PPE kits," he added.

Sakthivel further said AEPC will have a separate cell for PPE as its immediate task is to provide sufficient kits domestically to prevent their further imports.

Indian Technical Textiles Association (ITTA) Chairman K S Sundararaman said there is a strong anti-China sourcing sentiment right now and this presents an opportunity for India.

"We have a vibrant Indian and global market. Please reach out to doctors who are near you and understand these medical professionals who will wear these PPE.

"Connect with them and understand the practical aspects of breathability, wearability issues that they are having and create garments for that. If you are able to satisfy that customer then the world is at our feet," Sundararaman said.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, May 4, 2020, 9:48 [IST]
Earlier this year, on 10 February 2020, the United States announced changes to the way in which it would conduct aspects of its trade remedy investigations, including that South Africa (and others) would now be classified as developed countries for such purposes. These changes were notified through the Federal Register.

Specifically, the US updated some of the relevant criteria and thresholds that would trigger remedial action on its part, and in particular also the conditions that could exempt countries exports under certain circumstances. In the process, the US updated the rules and criteria it uses for designating a country as a developed country (developed countries face stricter conditions in some trade remedy / import injury investigations); this resulted in over twenty countries  including South Africa  no longer being considered developing countries (and from now, developed) for purposes of US trade remedies legislation and specifically, countervailing duty investigations or CVDs.

In the aftermath of these developments, various local media headlines and associated articles went as far as proclaiming that South Africa had now effectively lost its access to the US market as a result of these developments, with serious repercussions. In reality, the situation is quite different. There are essentially two separate  and fundamentally unrelated  recent developments that appear to have been conflated. While the common theme indeed involves South Africa-US trade, the one relates to non-reciprocal trade preferences (the GSP eligibility / copyright legislation review), and the other to an aspect of trade remedies. This article unpacks some of these latest developments relating to the latter, and establishes to what extent the recent changes to US trade remedy laws are likely to impact South Africa.

Media headlines in February 2020

What is important to note is that the changes to the US trade remedies legislation have no direct effect on how the US treats (that) WTO Member State with respect to other laws. In other words, it does not have a direct bearing on, for example, trade preferences extended under the US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) or indeed the AGOA program, or any other dispensation relating to developing countries.

Under WTO rules, countries have the right to invoke different trade remedies pertaining to imports from other countries, under certain conditions. These WTO rules broadly relate to three main levers of trade measures, namely safeguards, anti-dumping measures and subsidies/countervailing duties. While the recent changes to US trade legislation relate primarily to subsidies and countervailing measures, for context and to better frame these developments, key aspects of each of the three types of measures are discussed briefly below.

Trade remedies 1: Safeguards

Safeguards relate to scenarios where a product is imported into a country in such increased quantities (surge) such that serious injury is caused  or threatens to be caused  to the domestic industry producing like or directly competitive products. Such increased quantities can be either in nominal, absolute terms, or relative to current local production volumes (the relative measure can also entail static imports within a declining local market). Unlike anti-dumping and countervailing measures, safeguards should be applied on a MFN basis, in other words, relate non-selectively to all imports of a product rather than target specific countries. It is also not necessary to first establish unfair business or trade practices (as in the other types of trade remedies).

The WTO Agreement on Safeguards establishes the guidelines on whether serious injury is being caused (or threatened), but also stipulates the factors to be considered in determining what impacts the relevant imports are having on the domestic industry. For example, the threat of serious injury relates to the threat of injury that is clearly imminent (Art. 4); however, before any action may be taken by the importing country, an investigation based on all relevant and available facts must be conducted. On completion of an inquiry, the importing country may impose safeguards, in the form of special duties (i.e. import tariffs, and which may exceed a countrys WTO bound rates) or quantitative restrictions (i.e. quotas), or even a combination of the two (e.g. tariff quota).

Safeguards may remain in place for up to 4 years, but can potentially be extended for a combined period not exceeding 8 years. Under the special and differentiated treatment rules developing countries may however apply safeguard measures for up to 10 years. Developing and least developing countries are subject to more favourable de minimis and import volume thresholds, before action can be taken by the importing country.

Trade remedies 2: Anti-dumping

Anti-dumping is another key lever in the trio of trade defense measures. Dumping essentially arises in situations where an exporter sells products into a foreign market at a lower price than that product (or a like product) would be sold by that exporter in the domestic market. The WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement disciplines how governments may react to imports of goods that meet the dumping standard; in other words, the WTO regulates anti-dumping measures rather than dumping per se.

Anti-dumping measures may be imposed when a number of criteria are met, namely

a determination is made that confirms the presence of dumping; material injury is suffered by the domestic industry of the importing country as a result of this dumping action; and a causal link between the two can be established.

For each of these, a determination of the presence of dumping, of material injury, and causality between the two, detailed procedures exist in the WTO agreement. Where the presence of dumping has been established according to the relevant guidelines, remedial action would typically involve the imposition of anti-dumping duties on the product involved, usually for up to 5 years, albeit renewable following a review.

WTO Member States are required to notify the WTO of any anti-dumping action taken; 79 of the 5,833 notified anti-dumping cases represent cases taken against South African exports, with the US accounting for 19 of these (out of 715 reported cases initiated by the US). South Africa has clearly not been a big player in this respect.

Trade remedies 3: Subsidies and countervailing measures

The WTO Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Agreement (SCM) disciplines the use of subsidies, along with the use of countervailing measures that are used to offset injury caused by subsidised imports. Per the SCM, countries that have not yet reached developed country status are entitled to special (more lenient) treatment in relation to their (possibly) subsidised exports, as well as the related measures that an importing country can take against such subsidised imports.

It defines two categories of subsidies, namely prohibited subsidies and actionable subsidies (more on these later).

The intention of countervailing measures is to protect a country by countering subsidies by governments or any public body within the territory of other countries that unfairly enables their own companies to export at a lower price to another WTO Member State. There are of course different measures that can unfairly lower the price of an imported product, and result in different action (i.e. anti-dumping and countervailing); and while there are some similarities between the two, the key difference is that dumping is the action of a company while subsidies are the action of a government or government agency (incl. a state-owned company), such as the payment of subsidies or requiring firms to subsidise certain customers.

A subsidy can is one that meets all three of the following criteria,being a (1) financial contribution (2) by a government or public body, or income or price support, that (3) results in a benefit being conferred. There are two categories of subsidies  prohibited subsidies and actionable subsidies. The former is a subsidy that is dependent on one of several conditions, such as export performance (so-called export subsidies), or contingent on the use of local content (so-called local content subsidies). Actionable subsidies are those that are specific to one or more enterprises or industries or limited in its geographic application, and while such subsidies are not prohibited, they can be challenged through the multilateral system (dispute settlement) or through national action (countervailing duties).

The key aspects of the WTO SCM Agreement therefore relate to the presence of a financial contribution (giving rise to a covered subsidy), which can lead to countervailing action on the part of the country importing such subsidized goods.

This graphic below summarises these key points:

Following completion of a detailed investigation around the use and impacts of subsidized imports, WTO regulations permit a country to impose a provisional countervailing duty (if required), followed by a definitive countervailing duty, and which may be imposed for a number of years (an initial 5 years, and renewable).

US legislation

The relevant US legislation relating to trade remedies (in the broader context of the WTO/multilateral system) was enacted in December 1994 by the 103rd Congress as the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, and enacted as Public Law 103-465 (see congressional passage and legislation here). It repealed certain provisions of the US Tariff Act of 1930 relating to countervailing duties, in order to align the US obligations with respect to the WTO SCM Agreement imminent at the time. The US Trade Representative (USTR  equivalent to trade and industry ministry in many countries) has the delegated authority under US law to determine countries development status in terms of this legislation.

Title II of that legislation  Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Provisions  Subtitle A: General Provisions as well as Subtitle B: Subsidies Provisions sets the triggers and relevant thresholds that would activate a trade remedies investigation on the part of the US government or its institutions.

Application (and changes) in the way that the US applies CVD thresholds

How do the changes announced on 10 February change the status quo and how does this (potentially) affect South Africa?

Primarily, the US has revised a decades old (1998) working rule used to determine the development status of countries under the relevant countervailing duty legislation, and now considering this rule obsolete. New country designations (development status) have been decided based on these revised criteria.

The SCM Agreement provides for special and differentiated treatment to WTO Member States that are developing and least developed; this is more lenient than the standard for developed countries. It does so in two categories:

>> De Minimis thresholds:

Under Article 11.9 of the SCM Agreement, a countervailing duty investigation relating to subsidies should be terminated when the amount of the subsidy is de minimis, defined as under 1% ad valorem, or in the case of developing countries, is less than 2% (Article 27.10(a)). The US now applies this threshold to both developing and also to least-developed countries.

>> Negligible Import Volumes:

Article 11.9 of the SCM Agreement also requires that a country terminates a countervailing duty investigation in cases where there is a negligible volume of subsidised imports entering from a country; the US considers such imports (from an individual country) as negligible if such imports account for less than 3% of total imports of a product (imported into the US), unless the aggregate volume of such imports from all countries exceeds 7% of that merchandise. For imports from developing or least-developed countries, the negligibility threshold (per US legislation) is higher, at 4% of total imports, or the aggregate volume of such imports from all countries exceeds 9% of (that) merchandise (Article 27.10(b)).

With respect to its least developed country list, the US continues to rely on the criteria of Annex VII of the SCM Agreement. While the change in its methodology has resulted in a number of countries being re-classified as developed, this has not impacted any country with LDC status. The US has updated its list with appropriate economic, trade, and other factors for the country designations; this revision amends the distinction between developed countries and others, who qualify for the more lenient 2% de minimis standard.

In devising new criteria for the developed country distinction, the following criteria are used: per capita GNI, the (national) share of world trade, and (a number of) other factors such as OECD and G20 membership.

o Per capita GNI

The US differentiates between developed countries and others based on per capita GNI (gross domestic income), a change from per capita GDP (gross domestic product) previously. The World Bank considers countries with a GNI exceeding $12,375 (up from $12,055 in 2018) based on the Atlas method as high income countries. Based on this methodology, for example, Argentina is now no longer classified as a high income country, but met the US criteria in other ways under the new rules (see section on G20 membership below, along with reference to South Africa).

o Share of World Trade

A countrys share of world trade is a further criterion used in the revised list, having been used previously in the 1998 list albeit on a far more lenient basis. Previously, countries whose trade exceeded 2% of world trade were considered as ineligible for the higher (2%) de minimis threshold, but in the revised criteria, the US has reduced this threshold by three quarters to 0.5% of world trade. As a consequence, a number of countries with low per capita GNI (in terms of the first criteria) yet with a share of world trade in excess of 0.5% now become classified as developed countries for purposes of trade remedy legislation and are no longer subject to the higher 2% de minimis standard. The countries impacted are Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

o Other Factors

Apart from the per capita GNI and world trade share criteria, the US has also considered a range of additional criteria in the revised country list (the USTR is empowered to consider other factors in terms of its legislation...In determining whether a country is a developing country under subparagraph (A), the Trade Representative shall consider such economic, trade, and other factors which the Trade Representative considers appropriate .With this in mind, the USTR has considered or updated the following factors:

(i) EU Membership:

The US treats the EU as a single country for purposes of its countervailing duty practices, arguing that membership of the body is indicative of relatively high levels of development and its own track record of trade remedy investigations against the EU as a collective. Arguing that it would be anomalous to treat an individual EU Member as eligible for that [higher de minimis threshold] standard... As a result, Bulgaria and Romania are now classified as developed despite being below the GNI per capita threshold for that classification criteria.

(ii) OECD Membership:

This relates to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), whose stated goal is to to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all. The USTR goes on to state that the OECD consistently has been viewed as, and acts itself in the capacity of, the principal organization of developed economies worldwide and consequently (the US) considers a countrys membership, including the act of applying to join, as a de facto self-declaration of a countrys development status. In 1998, only membership rather than the act of applying to join was considered in US criteria. Consequently, Columbia and Costa Rica are now both ineligible for the 2% de minimis rule despite their respective per capita GNI falling short of the World Bank developed country threshold.

(iii) G20 Membership:

The G20 brings together governments and central bank governors representing nineteen individual countries, plus the European Union, and therefore represents a mix of the worlds largest advanced and emerging countries, 85% of the worlds GDP and 75% of its global trade. The individual member countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the US. Given the G20s establishment in 1999 it could not be considered for the 1998 list, the US considers this collaborative group influential enough  and representative through the collective economic weight of its membership  to consider its members to be developed countries and thus also ineligible for the 2% de minimis standard. This is irrespective of a countrys actual development indicators, per capita GNI and so forth. As a result, Africas sole G20 member  South Africa  is no longer considered a developing country for purposes of US countervailing duty investigations. Other G20 countries in a similar situation are Argentina, Brazil, India and Indonesia.

(iv) Development status under WTO disciplines:

The US also looked at the self-declared (or indeed un-declared) development status of WTO Member Countries (with respect to their WTO membership) and now considers countries that have self-declared themselves as developed countries, or who have omitted declaring their status in their WTO membership process, as developed countries for purposes of CVD purposes. WTO rules do not define what constitutes a developed or developing country; developing countries however obtain additional rights relative to developed countries, for example through longer transition periods in relation to tariff liberalisation measures, etc. The US now considers Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Ukraine as developed countries for purposes of the de minimis rule.

United States CVD procedures, and how does this link to the changes in February 2020?

The US Tariff Act of 1930, and specifically Title VII, provides some of the legal guidance on the way that the US conducts countervailing duty (and anti-dumping) investigations. US industries may petition the US government for relief from imports that are sold at below fair value (dumping / anti-dumping) or whose price is impacted by subsidies paid by foreign governments (subsidies / CVDs). The WTO requires that a country has an investigating authority; in the US, the institutions dealing with injury investigations are the US Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission (USITC).

The Commerce department is responsible for the initial determination of whether there is dumping or subsidisation, and the amount of the subsidy (or dumping margin). The USITC then assesses the presence of material injury (or threat thereof).

Once a petition has been received, a preliminary investigation is undertaken; during the preliminary investigation, the USITC makes a determination based on two factors: (1) a reasonable indication of material injury (or threat thereof) and (2) whether the establishment of an industry is materially retarded due to imports under investigation being dumped or subsidised and thus sold at a lower price.

Investigations continue based on evidence pointing to subsidised imports; however if import volumes fall below the de minimis thresholds, then an investigation is terminated. This is essentially the backstop that has now been changed, as of 10 February, with South Africa and more than twenty other countries no longer benefiting from the higher and more lenient thresholds, since for purposes of these subsidy and countervailing duty investigations, they are now considered developed countries.

A dumping (AD investigation) or CVD (subsidy investigation) order is issued by the Commerce Secretary in cases of a positive/affirmative finding, or terminated on the basis of a negative finding, and when negligible import volume thresholds come into play.

Where does South Africa feature in US import injury investigations?

South Africa has been the subject of approximately twenty import injury investigations (anti-dumping and countervailing duty) by the US since 2003. These, along with the related remedial action, are listed by the USITC in its register of investigations (or this link  already with South Africa filter applied). While most of these investigations feature two countries or more (including South Africa), a small number relate to imports from South Africa only.

However, almost all investigations relate to dumping rather than subsidised imports , and most pertain to products such as steel, manganese, ferro-vanadium, aluminium, and most recently, acetone. One long-standing investigation that does involve subsidy investigations against South Africa and brings into play countervailing duties is stainless steel plate in coils which under further sunset reviews (see for example here and here) led to a continuation of the countervailing duty rates (of 3.95%) against imports from South Africa.

No record was found showing any investigation against (allegedly) subsidised imports from South Africa having been terminated on the grounds of any de minimis or import volume thresholds being breached, which may be reflective of low risk exposure for South African exports to the US following the revised CVD rules recently implemented. South Africa is not generally a candidate for CVD investigations against its exports, and according to a source [Perscom. Dr Gustav Brink 22 April 2020] has not had such measures imposed against it in the last 18 years.

United States imports from South Africa: are any products at risk?

An analysis of the United States imports (full year 2019) from South Africa indicates that the (import market) share of South African-made goods with respect to certain tariff lines into the US, is substantial. Many of these significantly exceed the 4% Negligible Import Volumes threshold that could potentially come into play (now revised downward to 3% for South Africa as a developed country for purposes of CVDs).

Different factors are considered when launching and investigating subsidised imports, the damage to local equivalent products, and so forth. There is also no set standard for which disaggregated level of tariff classification is used, for different reasons, including presumably the fact that industrial activity and production uses different classification codes which do not necessarily overlap. Indeed, domestic like products that face injury in the US or any other domestic market could also be identified based on the raw materials used, the physical characteristics, substitutability, production processes and so on. But for the purposes of this illustration, the following tables show US import data at the HTS8-digit sub-heading level, similar to what has been used in various US anti-dumping investigations and findings.

The trade data is broadly divided into agricultural products (from HS chapters 1-25), minerals and metals, and others (i.e. manufactured and industrial goods etc.), and shows leading US product imports from South Africa for each category. Imports from South Africa are compared to the US global imports in the same products. The percentage value is a simple share of US imports sourced from South Africa, as a proportion of total US imports (global) for that specific tariff line (i.e. the HTS8 sub-heading).

The trade data shows that South Africa accounts for a significant share of US imports in a number of agricultural, resource and industrial tariff subheadings. In agriculture, leading product lines (macadamias, raisins, onion seeds, pimientos, and oranges) show high import concentrations in the US, with many over 15% of total US imports in 2019. Only two of the top 15 agricultural tariff lines are below the 3% threshold (the revised negligible import volumes exemption threshold), being wine, other cane sugar and undenatured ethyl alcohol.

For mineral and metal products, the situation is similar, if not more amplified. While those in the table are obviously only a small number of the total number of possible tariff lines, they do provide some indication of import concentration relating to products sourced from South Africa. All but one of these tariff lines (South Africas top 15 exports to the US in this broad category) were below the 3% threshold in 2019.

The other, mainly industrial products, also show a number of significant import concentrations. For example, industrial fatty alcohols are one of South Africas key exports to the US and account for almost 80% of total US imports globally. For phenols not elsewhere specified or included, South Africas share of the US import market is much higher at 99%.

Concluding remarks

The changes to the way that the US will conduct CVD investigations, and the revised classification criteria that resulted in South Africa and more than twenty other countries losing their developing country status for purposes of these investigations, caused significant concern in South Africa and elsewhere. Some of the reaction by sections of the local media was particularly strong, if not always accurate or indeed correct (some resulting from a clear conflation of entirely separate ongoing developments, i.e. the separate review of South Africas GSP eligibility status).

South Africas trade ministry, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic), framed its reaction to these US trade remedy developments within the broader context of developments at the WTO, where the US has for some time taken issue with some aspects of the application of the principle of special and differentiated treatment (also see White House memorandum here), especially where this was linked to some countries that (it felt) should in reality not be classified as developing or least developed countries (and thereby shield themselves from making greater commitments, or obtain benefits and concessions, reserved for perhaps more vulnerable countries). A particular sorepoint revolves around the self-declared (or indeed un-declared) development status in the WTO context, impacting trade-related negotiations and concessions. The decision by the US to tighten its own trade remedies rules must also be seen in this context. It is worth noting that South Africa negotiated its GATT tariff commitments (and others) as a self-declared developed country, and made concessions that some, including the DTI, consider as having had damaging impacts on the countrys industry and indeed broader economy and unemployment levels.

What is also clear is that South Africa is essentially caught up in much broader global political-economic developments, in this respect perhaps also the US somewhat fraught relationship with the WTO and the multilateral system in general, and related to this, the imbalance in global trade (whether perceived, actual, justified or not justified) with respect to the US and its main trade partners, including China and others.

With South Africa now considered a developed country by the US for purposes of CVD investigations, a review of the history of that countrys CVD and anti-dumping investigations involving South Africa revealed that almost all of these related to anti-dumping (and thus penalises primarily certain companies), rather than CVD investigations based on the payment by the South African government of illegal (and injurious to local operators in the US market) subsidies. This would indicate that the issue is clearly not a widespread and broadly prevailing one, exposing future exports to excessive new risks. The DTI response implied that South Africa does not pay subsidies, certainly not in a WTO-incompatible manner, and therefore the risk exposure from its perspective should be limited. The general record of (alack of) CVD investigations against South Africa supports this.

Drawing on the trade data (US imports from South Africa versus its global imports), it is clear that the US sources large percentage shares of its global imports of a number of products from South Africa, and based on the trade data alone (and with reference to the negligible import volume exemption / CVD investigations), the change from 4% (developing countries) to the slightly more restrictive 3% threshold (developed country classification) would seem to be largely inconsequential from a South African perspective. Many of South Africas exports to the US are at much higher import concentrations already.

It is probably fair to conclude then that any issue of illegal subsidies as it pertains to SA-US trade is in any case not a significant worry, or one that is of much current relevance. Going forward, could economic support measures by the South African government, in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, have possible future consequences and impacts on how South Africas exports are viewed by the US? At least for now, there appears little need for concern about negative impacts for South Africas exports to the US following the revised US CVD rules.

Selected references and sources:

Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute. [Online]

G20. Membership [Online]

OECD. [Online]

The White House. Memorandum on reforming developing country status [Online]

The World Bank. Income level classifications [Online]

USITC. Import injury investigations register [Online]

US Department of Commerce, Countervailing Division. [Online]

United States. Federal Register (2020). [Online]

United States Congress. CVD Legislation [Online]

United States International Trade Commission (USITC). [Online]

WTO. Communication from the United States [Online]

WTO. Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures [Online]

WTO. Trade Topics: Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures [Online]

WTO Anti-dumping initiations: Reporting member vs exporting country 01/01/1995 - 30/06/2019 [Online]

WTO. Technical information on safeguard measures. [Online]
Re: Gun ban misguided



You are absolutely correct in your agreement with Trudeau and the Liberal party that some and actually many of the types of firearms banned last week by them are not needed to bring down a deer. Even though some of them are very capable and some would be much more efficient and humane to the deer than a number of "hunting" rifles currently used and not included in this unjust and completely ineffective gun ban.

I completely agree with you on all your valid points but would just like to correct you on one thing. This is your use in the incorrect terminology that is and has always has been used by this biased uninformed "leader", his spineless party and the leftist Canadian media funded by them.

You may or may not be aware but there are NO legally owned "Assault Rifles" in this country by regular citizens apart from a very few exceptions that have been classified as prohibited for decades and only legally allowed to be owned by people that have been grandfathered at the time they were classified as such. I would just ask that you and any of my fellow gun owners use the correct terminology which is a SEMI-AUTOMATIC rifle not the incorrect sensationalized language used by Justin and party to insight fear into the average citizen who is not aware of the differences.

Encyclopedia Britannica and the US Army define 'assault rifle' as "a military firearm that is chambered for ammunition of reduced size or propellant charge and that has the capacity to switch between semiautomatic and fully automatic fire.

So for the general public who may be unaware of the correct terminology and function of some of these now banned rifles I'll use the AR-15 as an example as this seems to be the pet rifle for Justin and his puppets like Bill Blair to sensationalize in the media as an "assault rifle".

An AR-15, in Canada, is a SEMI-AUTOMATIC rifle only capable of firing with every pull of the trigger no different than many of the non banned and non restricted rifles like a Ruger 1022, a .22 calibre semi-automatic rifle used by kids to adults to target practice, compete in accuracy competitions or hunt small game.One of the difference being that an AR-15 is legally only allowed to hold 5 rounds in it's magazine at a time. Where the Ruger 1022 can hold 10 or more in the different magazines available for it.

The AR-15, up until May 1st and since 1979, was legally only allowed to be discharged at a registered shooting range and the owners were required to have a permit to transfer to and from their home to the range. Whereas I can take my Ruger 1022, with no additional authorization other than my firearms license, drive anywhere in Canada to a safe location and shoot to my hearts content. Both semi-automatic rifles by definition and functioning exactly the same.

As you so correctly point out Mr. Thomsen the banning of firearms from law abiding citizens is not the answer and by not addressing the real issues behind the criminal elements in this Country nothing will change. The Liberal government has yet to announce their buy-back program for these now banned weapons but have said will cost an estimated $250 million and if history is any indication just like the previous liberal estimate on gun registration this number will probably be multiples of this.

So can anyone with a reasonable thought process not see that this money would be put to much better use actually catching and prosecuting the actual criminals and preventing the illegal guns from entering this Country as opposed to forcefully buying the legally owned property from citizens who have never broken the law?

Jeff Kraus, Lake Country


The single biggest threat to closed small businesses is rent.

This obligation can deplete cash reserves in a matter of weeks or months, leaving no funds to rehire and restock.

Landlords and tenants must both take the long view. Temporary accommodations are possible, if both parties are willing.

One useful online resource is the Open for Small Business Initiative, which has partnered with 2017 Economic Sciences Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler to simplify the process of renegotiating leases. It provides a simple template for temporary amendments, which can be negotiated without the expense of lawyers.

Solutions may range from rent reductions to full or partial deferral during closures. Normal rent would ideally resume after a 30-day grace period, allowing reopened businesses to generate income. Deferred amounts could be paid back over amortization periods ranging from six months to the remaining lifetime of the lease.

For tenants, this new debt could be a heavy cloud in the months to come. Thus, terms should be sufficiently flexible for businesses to avoid bankruptcy during the unknown economic climate expected for the remainder of the year. Some landlords may offer to extend the lifetime of lease by the number of months in default during COVID-19.

It is only fair that landlords also take cost-cutting measures that can form a basis for rent reduction, such as interest-only mortgage payments and trims to overhead.

A worthy goal for the upcoming legislative special session could be to amend the Uniform Landlord-Tenant Act, giving the New Mexico Supreme Court the authority to prohibit commercial evictions that stem from the inability of tenants to make rent due to COVID-19 restrictions. This action, similar to the moratorium on March 24 for residential evictions during the public health emergency, could give recalcitrant landlords pause and a reason to come to the negotiating table.

Legal opinions are also needed on whether personal guarantor clauses, which protect landlords for the term of the lease, will be upheld in the courts if business failure is demonstrably linked to government measures during COVID-19.

The next challenge faced by the small business owner is how to acquire and use federal disaster funding to survive the downturn.

The first dose of reality is this: The Paycheck Protection Program is not about saving businesses. It is about restoring a business workforce for just eight weeks.

In the PPP program, the forgivable portion of rent and other fixed costs cannot exceed 25% of the total converted to a grant. Moreover, the total amount forgiven is prorated based upon the extent to which your business can restore payroll to a defined pre-disaster period.

The U.S. Treasury and Small Business Administration have not released adequate guidelines at this point, leaving small businesses to use their best judgment in interpreting the provisions of Section 1106 of the CARES Act. Businesses should consult immediately with a CPA to build a spreadsheet that will maximize the amount of your PPP loan that can be forgiven and converted to a grant. A safe practice may be to keep the PPP funds in a separate checking account, used solely to pay allowable costs.

In the strictest interpretation, the PPP timer starts ticking on the day of funding. In the rush to process, lenders may provide little or no notice.

Relaunching a closed business is not instantaneous. Nonessential businesses await approval to reopen from the governor. Suppliers may not be fully prepared to deliver critical goods. It may take time to reach and rehire staff, which is the key factor in the PPP formula.

All of these complications will limit the amount of forgiveness that can be earned over eight weeks, as well as the ability to make productive use of staff hired. Awareness is the best way to avoid amassing an unexpected amount of debt. Even at 1%, payments will be due over months 6-24 of the loan period  regardless of whether sales return to past performance. There is a lot of speculation that the landscape will be changed for the long term for dining out and retail shopping.

This brings us back to the original topic: landlord-tenant relations. PPP loans, while helpful, offer temporary solutions and significant challenges. They are unlikely to be a panacea for small businesses, that would justify short-term gain to landlords at the expense of joint strategies for long-term survival.

Bridget Wilson, Ph.D., is a retired UNM professor with more than two decades experience managing multi-million-dollar grant portfolios. She is an owner of two family-run Slapfish restaurants in Albuquerque and a member of SW Writers. The executives desk is a guest column providing advice or information about resources available to the business community in New Mexico.

the executives desk
MUMBAI, India and BALTIMORE, Maryland, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Lupin) today announced positive top-line results from its pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial to assess efficacy and safety of single-dose Solosec (secnidazole) 2g oral granules in 147 female patients with trichomoniasis. Trichomoniasis is the most common non-viral, curable sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the U.S. The trial demonstrated a clinically and statistically significant response rate, or microbiological cure, in patients dosed with Solosec as compared to placebo (p<0.001). Based on the data, Lupin plans to submit a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Solosec for the treatment of trichomoniasis in the second half of 2020. Solosec is approved by the FDA to treat bacterial vaginosis (BV) in adult women.

The trial met its primary endpoint of microbiological cure at the test-of-cure (TOC) visit on study Day 6-12, defined as a negative Trichomonas vaginalis culture. The predefined primary efficacy endpoint, defined as Microbiological Cure (i.e., InPouch TV test negative for T. vaginalis) at the Test-Of-Cure visit (Day 6-12) in the modified Intent-To-Treat (mITT) population (all randomized subjects who were culture positive for T. vaginalis and negative for gonorrhea and chlamydia at baseline), was 92.2% (59/64) for Solosec (secnidazole) versus 1.5% (1/67) for placebo ( p<0.001). In the Per-Protocol population, the cure rate was 94.9% (56/59) for Solosec (secnidazole) versus 1.7% (1/60) for placebo (p<0.001). Solosec (secnidazole) was generally well-tolerated with the most commonly reported adverse events being vulvovaginal candidiasis (2.7%) and nausea (2.7%). No serious adverse events were observed.

"Trichomoniasis impacts an estimated 3 to 5 million people in the U.S.," Gregory Kaufman, M.D., Senior Vice President, Global Clinical and Medical Affairs, Specialty at Lupin said. "We are encouraged by the topline results of our clinical trial, look forward to finalizing the analysis, and working with the FDA to provide a new single-dose therapy option to physicians and patients, to treat this disease."

About the Phase 3 Study

The Phase 3 trial is a multicenter, randomized, delayed treatment, placebo-controlled, double-blind study to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a single oral dose of Solosec (secnidazole) granules for the treatment of trichomoniasis in adult women. Subjects included female patients with a diagnosis of trichomoniasis at the screening visit (Visit 1, baseline) that was confirmed by a positive culture for T. vaginalis. At Visit 1, subjects were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to either Solosec or matching placebo. Subjects were evaluated for TOC at the second visit (Visit 2, Day 6 -12), at which (following sampling for the TOC culture), subjects also received active treatment if they had received placebo at baseline, and subjects received placebo if they had received active treatment at baseline. Subjects were then followed at subsequent visits for resolution of trichomoniasis as well as any need for additional therapy.

About Trichomoniasis

Trichomoniasis is the most common non-viral sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the U.S., and is caused by a protozoan parasite called Trichomonas vaginalis.1 An estimated 3 to 5 million people have the infection,2 with African American women having a nearly ten times higher risk of being affected compared with non-Hispanic white women.3 Trichomoniasis is four-to-five times more prevalent in women compared to men.3 Signs and symptoms in women can include itching, burning, redness or soreness of the genitals, discomfort with urination and vaginal discharge.1 However, most infected persons (70%-85%) have minimal or no symptoms, and untreated infections might last for months to year.1.4.8 Trichomoniasis is associated with a two- to three-fold increased risk of HIV infection,5.6 as well as adverse reproductive health outcomes, including infertility and preterm birth.7 Up to 53% of women with HIV infection also have T. vaginalis, which is associated with a significantly increased risk of contracting pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).8 Routine screening of asymptomatic women with HIV infection for T. vaginalis is recommended because of the adverse events associated with asymptomatic trichomoniasis and HIV infection.8 Patients receiving care in high-prevalence settings (e.g. STD clinics) and asymptomatic patients at high risk for infection (e.g., persons with multiple sex partners, history of STDs) may also be considered for screening.8

About Solosec

Solosec (secnidazole) 2g oral granules is the first and only single-dose oral prescription treatment option to treat bacterial vaginosis (BV), a common vaginal infection, in adult women.9 Solosec is easy to take, and one oral dose contains a full course of treatment.9.10 Women who are prescribed Solosec sprinkle the entire packet of granules onto applesauce, yogurt, or pudding and eat the entire mixture without chewing the granules within 30 minutes. One dose delivers a complete treatment and Solosec can be taken at any time of day, without regard to the timing of meals.9 There is no need to avoid any foods or drinks, including alcohol, with Solosec. Laboratory studies show Solosec does not inhibit the enzyme that processes alcohol in the body.9 Because Solosec is taken in one oral dose, it may be preferred by women who wish to avoid a multi-day treatment regimen.11

INDICATION

SOLOSEC (secnidazole) 2 g oral granules is a 5-nitroimidazole antimicrobial agent indicated for the treatment of bacterial vaginosis in adult women.

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

SOLOSEC is a single-dose therapy for oral use. The entire contents of SOLOSEC packet should be sprinkled onto applesauce, yogurt or pudding and consumed once within 30 minutes without chewing or crunching the granules. SOLOSEC is not intended to be dissolved in any liquid.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

SOLOSEC  is contraindicated in patients with a history of hypersensitivity to secnidazole, other ingredients of the formulation, or other nitroimidazole derivatives.

is contraindicated in patients with a history of hypersensitivity to secnidazole, other ingredients of the formulation, or other nitroimidazole derivatives. Vulvo-vaginal candidiasis may develop with SOLOSEC  and require treatment with an antifungal agent.

and require treatment with an antifungal agent. Potential risk of carcinogenicity is unknown and has not been studied. Carcinogenicity has been seen in rodents chronically treated with nitroimidazole derivatives, which are structurally related to secnidazole. Chronic use should be avoided.

Breastfeeding is not recommended. Patients should discontinue breastfeeding for 96 hours after administration of SOLOSEC  .

. Most common adverse reactions observed in clinical trials (incidence  2%) were vulvovaginal candidiasis, headache, nausea, dysgeusia, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and vulvovaginal pruritus.

To report SUSPECTED ADVERSE REACTIONS, contact Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. at 1-844-SOLOSEC (1-844-765-6732) or FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 or www.fda.gov/medwatch

Please see accompanying full Prescribing Information.

Or

Please click here for full Prescribing Information.

Solosec is a registered trademark owned by Lupin Inc.

About Lupin Pharmaceuticals

Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is the U.S. based wholly owned subsidiary of Lupin Limited, and is the 3rd largest pharmaceutical company in the U.S. based on total prescriptions. Together, all Lupin-owned entities combine to make up the 8th largest generic pharmaceutical company in the world by revenue size. Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is dedicated to delivering high-quality medications across many treatment areas. Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s branded pharmaceuticals division, is the provider of products designed to help prevent and manage women's health conditions with serious health consequences.

 2020 Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. All rights reserved.

Safe Harbor Statement under the U.S. private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995

This release contains forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Many of these risks, uncertainties and other factors include failure of clinical trials, delays in development, registration and product approvals, changes in the competitive environment, increased government control over pricing, fluctuations in the capital and foreign exchange markets and the ability to maintain patent and other intellectual property protection. The information presented in this release represents Management's expectations and intentions as of this date. Lupin expressly disavows any obligation to update the information presented in this release.

References:

1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trichomoniasis - CDC Fact Sheet. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/std/trichomonas/stdfact-trichomoniasis.htm. Accessed April 21, 2020.

2 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Vaginitis in Nonpregnant Patients. ACOG Practice Bulletin No. 215. Obstet Gynecol 2020;135(1):e1-17.

3 Flagg EW, Meites E, Phillips C, Papp J, Torrone EA. Prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis Among Civilian, Noninstitutionalized Male and Female Population Aged 14 to 59 Years: United States, 2013 to 2016. Sex Transm Dis. 2019;46(10):e93e96. doi:10.1097/OLQ.0000000000001013.

4 Daugherty M. Prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis Infection Among US Males, 2013-2016. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2019 Feb.; 68(3): 46046.

5 McClelland, RS. Infection with Trichomonas vaginalis increases the risk of HIV-1 acquisition. Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2007 Mar 1;195(5):698-702.

6 Van Der Pol, B. Trichomonas vaginalis infection and human immunodeficiency virus acquisition in African women. Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2008 Feb;197(4):548-54.

7 Sobel JD, Mitchell C. Trichomoniasis. UpToDate. Available at: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/trichomoniasis. Accessed April 22, 2020.

8 Centers for Disease Control and Infection. 2015 Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines. Trichomoniasis. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/std/tg2015/trichomoniasis.htm. Accessed April 28, 2020.

9 SOLOSEC [prescribing information]. Baltimore, MD: Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc; 2017.

10 Data on File, Physician Research. Advantage Healthcare, Inc. Prepared December 23, 2014

11 Broumas AG, Basara LA. Potential patient preference for 3-day treatment of bacterial vaginosis: responses to new suppository form of clindamycin. Adv Ther. 2000;17(3):159-166.

SOURCE Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
87 Shares Share

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, medical education is receiving unprecedented attention. By and large, the focus has been on the immediate problem of what to do with medical students. The answer has hinged on medical students being designated as non-essential to patient care, and has (for the most part) entailed avoiding clinical activities. A long-term problem that has received less attention is, why are medical students non-essential in the first place? And can we envision a future where we are considered essential? The answer lies in our willingness to focus on training as opposed to distinguishing medical students, through establishing Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) as the norm. Steps that would help us get there include preclinical curricular reform and shifting clerkship grading to pass/fail.

More than two years should be sufficient to teach medical students the skills necessary to contribute in times like these. Physicians assistants and nurse practitioners are essential after two and three years of training, respectively. Simply put, medical school is not designed to make clinical students essential members of the team. While no trainee should ever be given responsibilities they are not ready for, the vast majority of us want responsibility and quality training, including in the time of COVID-19. So why isnt our training better?

As a nearly graduated medical student, I have come to the conclusion that the focus of medical school is split between training and distinguishing medical students. Modern pedagogy has not found its way into the modern medical school classroom. Some have argued that medical education has not significantly advanced from when the Wright brothers were tinkering at Kitty Hawk. In theory, the preclinical phase should be spent in preparation for the clinical phase, which in turn should be about preparation for residency. However, preclinical students spend mounds of time on impossible tasks, like memorizing First Aid for the USMLE Step 1, without learning concrete skills that can be applied to clerkships. As for clerkships, the quality of teaching is highly dependent on the attendings or residents level of commitment to education. Oftentimes, we feel like flies on the wall rather than active participants in patient care.

Meanwhile, medical education is efficient at distinguishing medical students for the purpose of residency selection. Of course, the overwhelming focus of the preclinical phase is on Step 1 preparation (though this soon will change). Then come clerkships, where the focus turns to grades and hopes of gaining Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) membership. Both Step 1 scores and clerkship grades provide a false sense of objectivity, and distinguishing students through these means creates unfortunate racial disparities. For Step 1, black and Latino students receive markedly lower scores than white students; we should also remember that Step 1 was designed as a pass/fail exam, and beyond the pass/fail designation scores were not meant to have much meaning. When it comes to AOA membershipa reflection of clerkship gradingone study found the odds of gaining membership were stacked 6 to 1 in white students favor compared to black students. Granted, evaluation is an important and necessary part of medical training. The danger is when it is misused, inequitable, and at odds with the purpose of training medical students. Its time for training to take the front seat.

In the tug of war between training and distinction, there are plenty of leaders who prioritize the former. The last twenty years have seen the rise of Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) and the implementation of the ACGMEs six Core Competencies. Schools have designed curricula around Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), which are well-defined tasks medical students can perform within a CBME framework. Focusing more on EPAs is the sort of thing that would make medical students essential.

While the focus on CBME is promising, we still need to actively address the obstacles of preclinical curricular reform and clerkship grading. For the preclinical phase, Step 1 has long been the tail that wags the dog, receiving far more time and attention than the institutional curriculum. Fortunately, the cessation of score reporting will finally make an overhaul for the preclinical curriculum possible, paving the way for critical changes such as the steps I have previously outlined. In a nutshell, the preclinical curriculum should become tighter and more efficient in order to reduce the time and energy we devote to Step 1. This would open up time for learning the other things that a well-rounded doctor would be expected to know. For the clinical phase, the University of California, San Francisco has taken the important step of making core clerkships pass/fail, which will undoubtedly improve things like equity and learning. Though it may be easier for top-tier universities such as UCSF to have pass/fail core clerkships and still produce competitive residency applicants, the benefits cannot be ignored. When Step 1 scores go away, there will still be Step 2 CK scores; and if core clerkship grades go away, there will still be subinternship grades. Given that such scores and grades are arbitrary and unfair, is it really that big of a loss to delay doling them out until the home stretch of medical school? And would we be willing to sacrifice a degree of distinguishing students in order to improve our training? Of course, these are merely obstacles to CBME, and once removed, there will still be the challenging task of implementing it. Nonetheless, without the pressure such scores and grades create, we could focus on what we went to medical school to dolearning medicine.

In the era of COVID-19, it seems as though the world is flipping upside down. While we certainly need to find immediate solutions for medical students, we should also be exploring why medical students are non-essential, and we should strive to create a future where we are essential. What we need more than ever is for national organizations like the National Board of Medical Examiners, the Association of American Medical Colleges, residency program directors, and individual institutions to take bold steps to improve the quality of our trainingboth short-and long-term. Maybe medical education flipping upside down is not such a bad thing.

David Chen is a medical student.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
At a time when schools are closed, parks and playgrounds are off limits, and everyone is hunkered down at home, what are kids to do? A project in Toronto is attempting to offer a creative opportunity.

Ahead of this years Mothers Day celebrations, children aged 12 and under can participate in a drawing competition in which they can submit original images reflecting messages of positivity and hope during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Its part of a childrens art contest called A Big Picture, which will reward the top three contestants and donate money to a charity of their choice that is helping people in dire need during the pandemic.

Carolyn Poirier, a competition organizer and the director of sales and marketing at real estate agency Devron Developments, said the idea to organize something for kids came from a brainstorming session with colleagues in the early days of the lockdown.

A problem with a lot of our employees has been that theres so many young kids at home, and theyre all in the background of our conference calls and everything, said Poirier. So we thought, how can we keep them excited and engaged?

Creative arts have been on display in various forms all over the streets of Toronto since stay-home measures came into effect. Poirier and her colleagues had already started seeing great pieces of art in their neighbourhoods  from chalk on sidewalks to paintings in peoples windows to thank front-line workers.

The discussions evolved from creating an online gallery for the public to view these artistic pieces to challenging young people stuck at home to exercise their creativity while sending messages of support and hope.

Poirier said the project has already received about 50 entries from kids across the city, with submissions open until May 10. The best 10 pieces of arts will be posted on the competitions website, www.abigpicture.ca, and a public vote will determine the three winners.

The effort has already raised some $45,000 from Devron industry partners Constantine Enterprises, as well as organizations like Milborne Group, Vanderbrand, Harris Sheaffer LLP and Toro Aluminum.

The first prize winners art will also be displayed on a billboard atop the Staples building at 1140 Yonge St. in midtown Toronto.

Poirier said the overall objective of the campaign is to help kids bring positive inspiration to a community that is in need of a smile.

Were all finding ourselves stuck inside, some days are dark and grey, and some days are bright and sunny, she said.

The drawings and messages the children have submitted have the power to lift peoples spirits, she added.

Bright colours and notes of being happy, for this too will pass, thats something that I think everyone needs to hear right now.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 15:49:16|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

by Xinhua writer Chen Chen

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Steve Bannon has long been a proven far-right fringe extremist. Yet the ideologue's recent China-smearing remarks have suggested that few around the world could fathom just how cold-blooded, brazen and ignorant he can be.

During an appearance on U.S. television network CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday, Bannon accused China of not caring about the novel coronavirus spreading across the rest of the world.

It is crystal clear that the alt-right extremist seeks to sow discord between China and the international community and sell his outdated Cold War zero-sum game theories, but he will surely fail because his words lack logic, facts and even humanity.

Bannon is absurd in his logic. He tried to make others believe that China's fight against the disease and that of the world can be separated entirely. The truth is that in this age of globalization, no one can pull through this unprecedented public health challenge alone, and an ultimate victory is only possible when all countries fight as one. That is how China has handled this pandemic from the very beginning.

The former White House chief strategist also built his arguments on fiction instead of facts.

Since the outbreak, China has made enormous efforts and sacrifices in a timely, responsible and transparent manner. Domestically, it boldly locked down the city of Wuhan with over 10 million residents, and implemented rigorous social-distancing measures nationwide, many of which have been put into place by other countries.

Internationally, the Chinese government has been constantly sharing critical information with the World Health Organization (WHO) and countries worldwide, and sending urgently needed medical supplies and dispatching teams of experts to those in need.

Those strong measures have effectively helped contain the spread of the virus to other parts of the nation and the wider world at the earliest time possible, and therefore bought the world time to prepare.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has praised China's contributions to the global fight against COVID-19, saying the Chinese are making efforts for humanity. What's more, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the decisive, effective and timely measures taken by the Chinese government have prevented the infection of tens of thousands of people.

During the program, Bannon also attempted to use the pandemic as an excuse to hold China accountable. However, the COVID-19 outbreak is a natural disaster as is shown by a sea of evidence, and China is also a victim like everyone else. Therefore, China will never succumb to blackmail of all kinds under any circumstances.

Bannon is known for his fanatic right-wing oratory. Whenever he opens his mouth, he just talks on and on in his particular aggressive way. But when he speaks, you can not feel a human heart beating, but a ruthless geo-political calculating machine humming. His latest CNBC baloney follows the same inhuman style.

At the moment when the COVID-19 infections have surpassed 3.5 million globally with the death toll topping 240,000, Bannon, instead of urging Washington to do a better job to battle the virus with the rest of the world, is seeking to manipulate this global public health crisis as an opportunity to mislead the public with his divisive and hate-based nationalist agenda.

The ongoing fight against the pandemic has already been extremely difficult. The international community should guard against such ultra-extremist plots, and make sure that people like Bannon do not make it harder. Enditem
A diabetic Qantas passenger is suing the airline for at least $200,000, alleging staff failed to stow his insulin on a flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne, leading to a diabetic episode and heart attack.

Eighty-year-old Perth man Robert Rowan, who had been living in the US for decades, was flying to Australia to visit his brother and sister in May 2018.

Set to board a flight at Los Angeles airport, the type 2 diabetic had his insulin with him in a cooler box on his lap while he was in a wheelchair, his lawyer Barrie Woollacott said.

Diabetic Robert Rowan couldnt find his medication on board during the 16-hour flight. Credit:Jason South

Mr Woollacott, Slater and Gordons principal lawyer, alleged a Qantas staff member told the then 78-year-old they would take his medication and ensure it went on the plane.
Logistics platform Loadshare Networks has raised Rs 100 crore in Series-B funding from investors led by Beenext, with participation from the CDC Group of Britain and existing investors like Matrix Partners India, Stellaris Venture Partners and Alteria Capital

Mumbai: Logistics platform Loadshare Networks has raised Rs 100 crore in Series-B funding from investors led by Beenext, with participation from the CDC Group of Britain and existing investors like Matrix Partners India, Stellaris Venture Partners and Alteria Capital.

The startup will utilise the funds to expand its network and make a foray into new sectors like pharmaceuticals, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and groceries, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The funding will help us deepen our engagement with clients and continue building capabilities through investments in technology, attracting talent, geographical expansion and entering hyperlocal delivery and groceries," Raghu Talluri, chief executive of Loadshare said.

Over the past two years, Bengaluru-based Loadshare has increased its regional footprint beyond the north-east, where it first started operations, to over 400 towns across 18 states now with a focus on the eastern states.

The CDC Group of Britain has co-invested in Loadshare alongside Stellaris Venture Partners, which has been an early investor in the startup launched in 2017.

Loadshare focuses on e-commerce logistics to serve small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in non-e-commerce businesses such as regional trucking and distributor/brand to store logistics.

Logistics is a major cost of the business in India and this investment demonstrates our continued goal to support increased market access for small businesses and provide economic opportunities for low-income workers in some of the most remote regions," said Srini Nagarajan, head of CDC Group Asia.

Stellaris has been an early investor in Loadshare. Their model of building a country-wide logistics network by enrolling smaller, regional logistics service providers as franchisee partners is unique, and allows them to build a highly capital-efficient, asset less logistics company, Alok Goyal, Partner, Stellaris Venture Partners said.

According to Rajinder Balaraman, a director at Matrix India, LoadShare is playing a very significant role in ensuring supply chain continuity. With their model of working with SMEs, they provide customers flexibility and reach at lower cost. These are important differentiators especially in small towns.
[May 04, 2020] Semiconductor Downturn to Continue Into 2020 Due to COVID-19 Impact; IDC Forecasts Worldwide Non-Memory Semiconductor Revenue to Decline 7.2% in 2020

Ahead of the COVID-19 virus, worldwide semiconductor revenue declined 12.2% in 2019 to $418 billion, according to the latest update to the Semiconductor Applications Forecaster (SAF) from International Data Corporation (IDC). The global economy in 2019 grew at its slowest pace since the global financial crisis in 2008 and US-China trade disputes grounded semiconductor sentiment and demand. Higher levels of inventory in specific areas like mobile phones and cloud infrastructure brought pricing pressure and negatively impacted semiconductor sales. Driving the downturn were declines of 37.3% and 27.7% in the DRAM and NAND markets, respectively, after more than two years of strong growth. While most companies witnessed revenue declines in 2019 a few outperformed the market. Intel (News - Alert) regained its leadership in the market becoming once again the largest company in terms of revenues due to a more diversified business seeing solid returns and better than expected PC demand from the Windows refresh in enterprise. MediaTek and AMD (News - Alert) also grew revenues significantly last year as both companies began to see strong traction in their respective core businesses and gained market share. Sony achieved the highest growth among the largest semiconductor companies with its image sensor business taking advantage of the adoption and growth in the number of cameras on flagship smartphones. Instead of an anticipated bottom and gradual recovery in 2020, the emergence of COVID-19 will drive another contraction in the overall semiconductor market. "The strength in demand in March and early April have made computing, connectivity, and memory products more resilient. However, the global shelter in place orders and ongoing shift in buying behavior toward essential goods and services will negatively impact consumer and business spending in the second quarter and second half of the year," said Mario Morales, program vice president, Semiconductors at IDC (News - Alert). "The nature of the recovery will in large part depend upon how quickly government stimulus plans stabilize the global macroeconomy and consumer confidence. As we reopen across the globe, including our borders, how long will it take us to get back to normal and start rebuilding our lives from shock of the pandemic?" Based on the latest information available, IDC expects the overall semiconductor market to decline 4.2% as the global economy fights to recover from this unprecedented crisis in 2020. Excluding the DRAM and flash markets, semiconductors are expected to decline by 7.2%. The demand for semiconductors will be very uneven across the different industry markets. Smartphones will continue to be the largest demand driver and will remain weak overall given the concentration in volumes being 4G. A large Chinese OEM will need to work down inventories after stuffing the channel over the past couple of quarters. This will drive the rest of the OEMs in China to concentrate on launching 5G devices to leverage potential subsidies by carriers later this year. IDC expects 5G volumes will grow this year despite the demand uncertainty, driving strong semiconductor content as OEMs position 5G in lower tiers to broaden the reach. There are 5G phones that have started selling for under $300 in China. Every percent drop in smartphone unit volume expectations will have a couple percentage points of impact on overall semiconductor revenues for the year. See Table 1 for smartphone unit scenarios and potential impact to semiconductor revenue growth.







Smartphone Unit Volume Scenarios; Impact on Semiconductor Revenue Growth UNITS/VALUE Current Scenario Pessimistic Scenario Down 10% Down 15% Down 20% Millions of Units 1,614 1,525 1,435 Total Mobile Semi Value ($B) $111 $105 $99 Year-Over-Year Growth (%) -1% -6% -12% Overall Semiconductor Value ($B) $401 $394 $388 Year-Over-Year Growth (%) -4% -6% -7% Source (News - Alert): IDC Semiconductor Applications Forecaster, May 4, 2020

The impact of COVID-19 and the subsequent shelter in place orders and shutdowns have had an uneven impact on the semiconductor markets. "The work from home, home schooling, and shelter in place mandates have enabled the computing, communications infrastructure, and connectivity markets to outperform other areas," said Shane Rau, research vice president, Semiconductors at IDC. "While some consumer areas will initially benefit from the adjustment to new situations, we expect reductions in consumer spending lasting deep into 2021, given never seen before unemployment levels," said Michael Palma, research director, Semiconductors and Enabling Technologies at IDC. "We also expect reduced spending on industry-specific verticals and digital transformation efforts among a wide range of enterprises, especially those dependent on consumer spending, such as the hospitality, retailing, and manufacturing sectors." For the year, IDC expects the consumer segment to see non-memory consumer semiconductor revenues decline 11.5% year over year in 2020. The automotive and industrial semiconductor markets, which in the past were projected to outperform the other segments, have been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 mandates. Automobile sales including light commercial vehicles in 2019 declined 5.6% to 81.4 million vehicles, resulting in a decline in automotive semiconductor growth by 2.7% to $38.4 billion. "With the shelter in place orders and shutdowns of non-essential businesses, automobile sales will continue to decline significantly in 2020. Recovery depends on the length of these shutdowns and how fast consumers can recover from their economic losses. Government economic and stimulus policy will also have an impact on how fast automobile sales and automotive semiconductors can recover," said Nina Turner, research manager for Automotive Semiconductors at IDC. For 2020, non-memory automotive semiconductors are forecast to decline another 14% and are not expected to return to growth until 2022. Industrial semiconductors also experienced a downturn in 2019, down 6.6% year over year to $37.8 billion. Previously forecast to recover slightly in 2020, IDC's new forecast projects a decline of 11.4% for 2020. As companies reduce manufacturing in response to the global economic slowdown and changes in consumer spending, the impact on the industrial market will negatively affect industrial semiconductor revenue through 2021. IDC's Worldwide Semiconductor Applications Forecaster database serves as the basis for IDC semiconductor supply-side research, including our market forecasts and custom market models. This database contains revenue data collected from over 150 of the top semiconductor companies for 2015-2019 and forecasts for 2015-2024. Revenue for over twenty semiconductor device areas, four geographic regions, seven industry segments, and more than 65 end-device applications are included in the database and pivot tables. For more information about the SAF, please contact Nina Turner at [email protected]. Click here to learn about IDC's full suite of data products and how you can leverage them to grow your business. About IDC International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter (News - Alert) at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights: http://bit.ly/IDCBlog_Subscribe. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005178/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro risked fanning political tensions by nominating another ally to head the federal police, a day after participating in a protest against nation's top court and Congress amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The president on Monday tapped Rolando Alexandre de Souza as police chief, according to a government decree. He is a friend of Bolsonaro's family and a close aide to his previous nominee, Alexandre Ramagem, whose appointment was blocked by a top court justice last week amid accusations that the president tried to influence police operations.

Federal police are currently carrying out a number of investigations that could potentially implicate the president's family. Brazil's presidency declined to comment further on the nomination when contacted by Bloomberg. Brazil's real dropped 1.8% while the benchmark Ibovespa stock exchange tumbled 3% in late morning as traders said domestic political tensions added to market losses overseas.

Bolsonaro's decision come as his administration faces crises on multiple fronts. On Saturday, former Justice Minister Sergio Moro testified to law enforcement in detail about Bolsonaro's alleged wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the local coronavirus death toll is showing no signs of slowing, and the pandemic has delivered a devastating blow to the economy which, by some estimates, will shrink by more than 5% this year.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro waved to crowds of chanting supporters who gathered in front of the presidential palace in defiance of social distancing recommendations, according to a video lasting more than one hour posted on his Facebook page. They set off fireworks and, at one point, draped a large Brazilian flag over the ramp leading down to the street.

The president, who wasn't wearing a face mask, said the protest was "spontaneous" and showed support for liberty and democracy. He said the population wants a government that can work for Brazil's future without interference.

"You know that the people are with us," Bolsonaro said. "The Armed Forces, who are on the side of law, order, democracy and liberty, are also on our side."

Some of Sunday's protesters railed against Moro, while others called for the ouster of lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia. National newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo reported that one of its photographers and his driver were attacked by demonstrators, and that they had to leave under police escort. Two of its reporters covering the event were verbally insulted, but not attacked.

The aggression prompted widespread condemnation from authorities including Supreme Court judges, Maia and Sao Paulo state Governor Joao Doria. On Twitter, Maia called for the perpetrators to be punished.

"In Brazil, unfortunately, we are fighting against coronavirus and the virus of extremism, which has the worst effect of ignoring science and denying reality," Maia wrote. "The path will be more difficult but democracy and Brazilians who want peace will win."

Bolsonaro, who also condemned the violence on Monday morning, had come under criticism after attending an April 19 protest against social distancing measures where some people also demanded military intervention. As part of measures to fight the virus, the Federal District, where the presidential palace is located, has since made it mandatory for all people outside to wear face masks.

Newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported Bolsonaro was considering removing Armed Forces head Edson Leal Pujol as part of the shakeup.

Moro's testimony involving the president lasted more than eight hours, and he turned over his phone including texts and audio from Bolsonaro and other ministers, according to local media.

His deposition is part of a probe into whether Bolsonaro committed crimes including corruption and identity fraud related to his decision to fire the federal police chief last month. The president has called the accusations unfounded.

Read more: Bolsonaro in the Crosshairs of Brazil's Top Court: A Quick Guide

"I pray to God that we don't have any problems this week because we've reached the limit. There's no more talking," Bolsonaro said on Sunday. "From now on, we won't just demand, but we will also make sure the Constitution is upheld. It will be upheld at all cost."

Brazil's total number of confirmed deaths from coronavirus reached 7,025 while the number of cases rose to 101,147, according to Health Ministry data released on Sunday.
London: British Sikh doctors are campaigning for a better procurement strategy by the National Health Service for personal protective equipment required on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic in hospitals after a number of them were forced away from key roles due to their beards.

The Sikh Doctors Association had reports of at least five Sikhs being moved out of their usual shift rota at the NHS hospitals for refusing to shave their beards and failing a so-called fit test of critical facial protective gear.

"These doctors got in touch with us in some distress for being forced out of their usual roles, which was causing tension among colleagues as they had to cover their work," said Dr Sukhdev Singh, chairperson of the Sikh Doctors Association.

The problem arose due to a shortage of specialist facial protective masks called Powdered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPRs), which is a hood respirator required in critical areas such as intensive care units. The fit tests' and equipment need to be geared towards all staff needs, including orthodox Sikhs with turbans and beards, he said.

All the individual cases of the five British Sikh doctors have since been resolved through acquisition of PAPRs, a more expensive but reusable kit costing around GBP 1,000.

The association is now working with individual NHS Trusts and more widely with the NHS England to ensure there is greater awareness around procuring such specialist protective gear in sufficient quantities well in time. The regular cloth FFP3 masks would not work with beards, a factor that could impact other communities such as Muslims as well.

The system of procurement cannot continue blindly. There has to be greater interaction and surveys done to ensure that specific staff requirements are taken on board so that there is sufficient stock of the right kind of PPE available in times of crisis such as a pandemic, added Singh.

Sikh Council UK has also been liaising with the NHS England alongside the association over the issue and had written to Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive officer of NHS England, last month seeking his intervention over greater clarity on fit tests and taking religious sensitivities into account.

"It has come to our attention that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NHS Trusts around the United Kingdom will be carrying out 'fit tests' in which certain medical staff could be asked to remove facial hair," the council said.

For Sikhs, their duty of care is intrinsically interlinked with their faith. Therefore, we ask that no Sikh healthcare professional is forcibly made to choose between breaking their faith or breaking their frontline NHS role, it noted.

NHS England has since confirmed that reasonable adjustments would be made.

"I wholeheartedly agree that reasonable adjustments should be made by providers in this area. As such, in my weekly discussions with trust medical directors and chief nurses from NHS trusts I will state this clearly as a reminder," Stephen Powis, the National Medical Director of the NHS England, said in response.

The short supply of PPE has been a major issue for NHS hospitals tackling the highly infectious coronavirus, with the government under considerable pressure over the lack of enough protective gear for frontline staff.

Several private fundraising efforts have also been launched to raise enough funds to produce and procure required facial masks and aprons.
A new clinical trial at the University of Virginia Medical Center is testing the plasma of people who have recovered from COVID-19 to see if it could be a potential treatment for inpatients with the disease, the university announced Monday.

Plasma from recovered patients, also known as convalescent plasma, has antibodies that potentially could aid in treatment and will be provided by the American Red Cross. The trial is the universitys second that has looked into virus treatments.

Inpatients who have tested positive for the virus will have the opportunity to participate in the trial. UVa physicians will call patients who tested positive and are recovering from COVID-19 to ask if they would be screened by the Red Cross as a potential plasma donor. Other community members who have tested positive also are encouraged to contact the Red Cross to see if they are eligible to donate plasma. More information can be found at redcrossblood.org.

Convalescent plasma has been used with success in other serious coronavirus infections such as SARS and MERS, and even in the recent Ebola virus outbreak, said Dr. Scott Heysell, an infectious disease specialist at UVa and one of the lead investigators for the trial. This option may boost the bodys own ability to coordinate an effective immune response to clearing the virus and preventing severe COVID-19 disease.

I am pleased that we are exploring another avenue in a search for an effective treatment against COVID-19, said Dr. Craig Kent, the universitys executive vice president for health affairs. Clinical trials like this are a valuable part of the work accomplished at academic health systems.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Staff at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, cheer as little Aaron, a ten-month-old boy, finishes his chemotherapy treatment in this video, posted by Aarons mother, Gabby Rodriguez, on April 18.

The ten-month-old can be seen making his way down the hospital corridor in a baby walker as medical staff throw confetti and cheer.

Rodriguez told Storyful that her son has been receiving treatment since he was diagnosed with acute megakaryoblastic leukemia at four-months-old.

Sharing the video to her Instagram page, she described it as one of the best days of my life. Credit: Gabby Rodriguez via Storyful
US Ambassador James Jeffrey has discussed the relationship between Syria and Russia and the future of America's involvement in Syria writes Asharq Al-Awsat.

US Ambassador James Jeffrey, the State Departments special representative for the Syrian war and the fight against ISIS, said the US supports in every possible way, diplomatically and logistically, Israeli raids on Iranian sites in Syria.

In an exclusive interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Jeffrey said that Iran has very established footholds in the Syrian state and within Syrian society, noting that many Arab countries will never be in harmony with a man like (President Bashar) Assad. They can claim that they can distance him from the Iranian orbit, but I see that this is absolutely not possible.

The American envoy emphasized that his country will continue to impose sanctions on Damascus, and we support the entry into force of sanctions on the Syrian regime until its acceptance of a political solution, explaining: Economic sanctions make the situation worse for the circle of people very close to the head of the regime, and this is what we are always trying to reach.

And we want to make it clear to these figures that there is no clear future for them if they continue to support Assad. They should rather press for political transition.  He pointed out that the recent Russian media campaign against Damascus is evidence that Moscow is also aware of what kind of ally they have in Syria today. He said that Idlib is the citadel of opposition and will not return to Damascus soon.

Here is the text of the exclusive interview that Asharq Al-Awsat did by Phone Thursday:

Lets start with Covid-19. Could you give me your assessment? Also, yesterday in the Security Council the Russians once again rejected reopening Yarobiyeh, the crossing between Iraq and Syria. What is your assessment on that as well?

First of all, were following the situation of the coronavirus throughout Syria. We have to look at it in three different areas; the northeast where we have the best eyes on, the northwest where we rely on Turkish information, and of course the regime areas which are totally under-reported and under-represented. We have only notional information from the regime areas. We think that theres a considerable amount of cases there, but we cant measure it. We do not see at the moment a significant outbreak of the virus in the northwest, but of course with so many people jammed together and with such bad medical support, particularly as the Russians and Syrians have bombed most of the hospitals and other medical facilities there, that would be of great concern.

In the northeast, there have been one or two reports of infections but we are yet to see a significant outbreak.

To some degree the few reported cases are due to the limit on travel in and out of the country, other than for the Iranians who we think spread it initially in regime areas. So the effects of it have been limited but that can change at any time. The UN is worried about this, the WHO is worried about this, and we are as well.

The Russians and the regime by blocking the transfer of medical supplies to those areas where Assad does not hold sway of course have made the situation worse. Its Assads fault. Its his fault in his own areas for having devastated his own country and not caring about its people. He is even more at fault in those areas not under his control that he denies assistance to, even though that is his responsibility as the sovereign entity in Syria.

Do you think being in this pandemic paves the way for renewal or updating of the UN Security Council resolution regarding the humanitarian border crossing? Because I think were supposed to be in June/July, and directions in December?

In July, UNSC 2504 has to be renewed. It is our hope that Russia will renew at a minimum the two crossings in the northwest. We are very, very insistent on that, and we would also like to see a new crossing to service the northeast. As you know the crossing there, the Rabia crossing, was blocked from being included in the new resolution by the Russians and Chinese so that is where we are.

As you may know in the last few weeks, even months, since the beginning of the pandemic the Russians and the regime twisted the whole argument. Theyre saying now that theyre blaming the US and the European sanctions. What is your reaction to that?

The collapse of the Lebanon monetary and financial system has nothing to do with our sanctions, and that is perhaps the biggest impact on Assad. Frankly his own bad management is the second reason he is in such dire economic shape, and then thirdly, its the fact that this country is still at war and important areas, including agriculture and energy-producing areas, are not under his control, nor should they be until he accepts a compromise political settlement. That is why he is faced with great economic difficulties that are impacting all of the people. Our sanctions do not include sanctions on humanitarian or medical goods, those items can flow freely. And the sanctions are carefully selected and packaged to target regime figures and not the average person.

In May/June I think the Europeans, the EU are supposed to renew their sanctions, so what is your view on that?

We are very much in favor of these sanctions staying in place until the Regime accepts a political solution. We see the glimmer of hope in the longer-term ceasefire in Idlib and the regimes acquiescence in a common agenda for the constitutional committee in Geneva. These things would not have happened without the tough position of the international community, be it the Turks in Idlib or all of our efforts maintaining our sanctions. So we are really happy that the EU is maintaining them.

What would you tell some Syrians who buy the narrative of the regime and blame the US for their suffering?

I cannot help anyone if after almost a decade of Assads terror, they still believe Assad over the international community.

In this regard, we saw some new developments by some Arab countries who reconnected with Damascus and they took the pandemic as a pretext. Did you speak with those Arab countries? And if you did, what did you tell them?

Thats kind of vague without identifying which Arab countries. The Arab countries I am thinking of, and I do not want to disclose them publicly but we know who they are, we are talking to them constantly.

We think two things. First of all they will have no impact. They will not win any prizes from Assad. We saw when one of them, and this one I can name because it has been discussed in the media, the UAE extended diplomatic recognition and they got nothing from Assad. I think they barely got a thank you. We know as well that theyre not going to change his policies nor are they going to undercut our policy.

We think that some people in the region have the mistaken idea, even though I am in media all the time, and Secretary Pompeo and President Trump speak out frequently on Syria, that maybe there is another American policy that allows us to be friends with Assad. There is no such American policy. There will never be such an American policy. There wasnt even such a policy under the Obama administration.

In this regard what do you expect from the Arab Summit that is due in June but might be delayed a little bit. The Algerians are now working hard to bring the Syrians back to the Arab League.

Our question to the Arab League is: What has changed from when you took the decision (to freeze Syria membership in 2012)? Have fewer people died now had died then? We think the number now is almost 500,000 Arab citizens of Syria. That is not a very encouraging thing to invite them back. Has the Regime complied with any of the UN calls for reconciliation? No.

What percent of the population has been ridden from their homes or fled their homes due to the regime in 2012 when the Arab League took the decision? Perhaps 5-10 percent of the population. What percentage of that population today? 50 percent.

The Arab League has to ask itself: Does it just have as an interlocutor states or does it also have as an interlocutor people of those states? Because the people of this state, Syria, have shown repeatedly their courage and their commitment by half the population fleeing Assads rule.

Some Arab countries believe that by bringing the regime back to the League, maybe they would distance it away from Iran. What do you think?

Its a crazy idea. First of all, Iran is deeply embedded in the Syrian state and society. Its not as bad as Hezbullah in Lebanon or with the Militias in Iraq, and I know both situations, particularly Iraq, very well. But it is very concerning, not just to us, we know it is also concerning to the regime and the Russians. You have militias that are created and paid for by the Iranian government and reports to the Iranian government.

But the other thing is, and people really need to think about this, Syria is a state where Assads brutality to his own people is unique in the world, even faced with Venezuela or North Korea. Assad only knows one tool, butchering his population, particularly the Sunni Arab population.

Now, does anybody think hes going to change his ways? It is one thing to think he is going to change his alliance with Iran, I dont think he can but at least theoretically it is possible. But does anyone think he is going to change the way he rules and the population is going to accept this mass murderer, this uber torturer as leader? No. He has to run an absolutely horrific brutal totalitarian state.

What country is willing to accept a partnership with a brute like that? We only know of two, Russia and Iran. We do not think the decent countries of the Gulf and the Arab World would be in the same bed with someone like him. They can claim they can wean him away from Iran, I doubt that very much. Will these countries provide the ground forces, the Hizbullah troops, and the Shia from Afghanistan and other countries to keep the Sunni Arab and many other ethnic groups in the opposition from attacking Assad? No, they wont go that far and I dont think they will sign up to support a government as terrible as Assads. They wont bear the responsibility. That is something Iran and Russia will have to do.

Recently, there were a lot of Israeli airstrikes around Damascus, Damascus  Beirut highway, and in Palmyra. What is your view on this?

The US supports Israels efforts to secure its self-defense. Israel is facing an existential threat from Iran, as they have said a thousand times that their mission is to destroy Israel. The Iranians are in Syria in large numbers, passing on long-range weapon systems to Hezbullah that threaten Israel. We know probably two elements associated with the Iranians, also in Syria, and Israel has the right to take whatever action it needs, being careful about Syrian casualties which the Israelis are, for the goal of saving Israel. Therefore, we are supportive of them in any way we can.

What kind of support? Political or Logistical? Through the Tanf military base?

We give the support that is needed for effective Israeli actions to protect itself, and in protecting itself it is protecting all neighbors of Assad: Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Lebanon.

The Israeli Minister of Defense said recently that this is to finish, not limit, the Iranian influence on Syria. Do you think that is possible?

Our policy is that all Iranian-commanded forces have to leave Syria, along with frankly all other military forces that entered after 2011. This includes the United States, if all of the reports are correct about the Israeli Air Force that would include the Israelis, and it would include the Turks.

And the Russians?

The Russians entered before 2011, therefore they are exempt. Everyone else came after the war had begun. If there is a political solution to the war, and neighbors such as Israel and Turkey no longer feel threatened by the situation in Syria, we think they would be willing to let the country return to normal. As far as we are concerned, returning to normal is our goal and that means, among others, all Iranian-commanded forces have to leave.

You said earlier that the sanctions are working, and that there are indications proving that. What are they?

Given the incompetence of the Assad administration, who is good at sucking the blood, literally and figuratively, in terms of money, goods, and property from its own people and in running a corrupt financial and economic system, but are not good at holding the country together and attracting foreign investments, they have done much of the damage themselves. Who would invest in a country Assad runs? They have also destroyed much of their own infrastructure, driven away a large percentage of the countrys doctors, and on and on.

Its hard to say if you look at the unlimited fall of the Syrian pound (now 1300 to the US dollar) and the claims by people who are trying to support the regime that they have lost $244 billion, four times the GDP of the country, in the last few years because of the war, it is very hard to say what is due to the Regimes own actions and what part of it is due to the sanctions. I would say that in general, in terms of the economy, it is mainly what the Regime has done to itself. Sanctions make life hard for those people in the inner circle, and that is what we are trying to get at. To make it clear to them that they dont have an economic future by supporting Assad. They need to push for a political transition in Syria.

You say the sanctions will push the regime to change its behavior?

We think it is a combination of everything. The 50 percent of the population thats fled, stripping the country of most of its demographic resources, or much of it. The major swaths of territory that are not under Assads hand and unlikely to come into his hands because significant outside powers, including the US, who are on the ground. The pummeling (attacks) that the Iranians and the Syrians are getting from the air (Israeli Strikes) with ever more aggressive and effective airstrikes. The lack of reconstruction assistance. The ostracism of the Regime by the Arab League and by the Europeans.

We think that at the end of the day this formula will push the regime to eventually seek a negotiated settlement rather than claim a military victory and no compromise, which is what they have been doing up until now.

You just said that keeping regime out of Idlib is a strategic thing. Right?

Yes. That is correct

And you said that you want Turkey to fight extremists in Idlib?

Yes, we do. And we see signs that they are, more effectively.

How can you combine those two goals, keep Idlib out of the regimes control and fight terrorism? And what do you think of the Turkish Russian deal over Idlib?

I think the deal will maintain as long as Turkey continues pressure on HTS. We do not see HTS as a serious threat to Russian forces, as they claim. It is a threat to all of us because it is a terrorist organization, and it is a threat to the more moderate and armed opposition in Idlib, which is of concern to us.

We see no reason, no excuse, no justification for this offensive (regime in Idlib) to start up again. By the same token, we are happy that the Turks are dealing independently with HTS. They committed to that in September 2018 and in the most recent agreement and that is a good thing.

And you think that deal is holding?

I think that it will hold for the next few months, at least.

Let move to North East of Syria which is where the American forces are. Recently we have noticed the Russians sending more military enforcement and they took a Qamshli military base and are getting closer and closer to the Americans. What is your assessment of the situation?

The Russians have some lightly armed military police units, they travel around in three, four, five vehicles, and sometimes theyre here, sometimes theyre there, but there is no Russian significant military force on the ground. There is no Russian occupation. Frankly, the Syrian government, other than in a few bases in Qamishli and the city of Deir El Zoor, has no real presence either. There are a few outposts and a few patrols. The people with the large, tens of thousands forces on the ground is the SDF, our partner against ISIS.

In December, President Trump spoke of withdrawing from the North East of Syria and the Americans are there now. How long will they remain?

We will remain there until we have completed our military mission of the enduring the defeat of ISIS.

Can we say it is an open-ended presence there?

I would never say the word open-ended. I would say only what I have just said.

What would you tell your allies, the SDF, in advance before pulling out?

Pulling out of northeast Syria is not on the agenda, as we have not seen yet the enduring defeat of ISIS.

Back to the current relationship between Washington and Moscow. There were some talks between some American officials and Russian officials in Washington, Moscow, and Vienna. Where are we in that regard? Is the step-by-step approach still valid?

As you know, we have various levels of talks with the Russians. We maintain generally our radio silence on these talks. One exception was when Mike Pompeo traveled to Sochi to meet with FM Lavrov and President Putin to talk about Syria and to talk about our efforts to get a compromised solution. We laid the whole thing out to both Putin and Lavrov and we did a joint press conference with Lavrov. Its all on the record.

What do you make of the Russian media criticism of Assad?

We think that Russia knows very well whats going on in the country. We think Russia knows what sort of ally they have in the Syrian President. And we think those articles speak for themselves.

Do you think the Russians are upset with Damascus?

I think the articles speak for themselves. You are a journalist and when you write your articles, you want us to read what you write. Right? Then, believe what is printed in the papers.

Did the Russians convey the same thing with you?

We do not share the details of diplomatic exchanges with our valued Russian interlocutors.

We Know the OPCW report blamed Damascus for Ltamneh (Hamah) chemical attack in 2017 and we know that Damascus dined that. What is the next step?

The OPCW is reporting its findings to the UN Security Council, which were dramatic, and talk not just about Regime forces using chemical weapons but that the decisions were taken at the highest levels of the government to do so.

Meanwhile, the Security Council is also dealing with the UN Board of inquiry that foundhe regime, and to some degree the Russians, culpable for exploiting the UNs passing of coordinates of humanitarian installations that should be on a no strike list, but in fact were deliberately struck.

We see the UN, from OCHA Chief Mark Lowcock to Secretary-General Guterres himself, speaking out in very clear and tough terms of the humanitarian risks of closing these border crossings from Iraq and eventually Turkey and the failure of the regime to allow crossline transfers of humanitarian goods to those areas. We see German courts pursuing Assads torturers who had gone after Syrian citizens. These citizens and their torturers now find themselves in Germany with cases open against them.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of all of the accountability efforts that we, the UN, the international community, and the media are doing to expose, thats the word I would use, expose the absolute moral bankruptcy of that regime and those who are associated with it.

What about the UN peace process? We hear UN special Envoy Mr. Gier Pederson saying that he made a deal between regime and opposition about agenda of the constitutional committee?

Pederson has this account and we support him 150 percent, including his call for a nationwide ceasefire. We support his efforts to build on the agreement on the agenda. That is a small, but important step forward.

Do you think that it is realistic to talk about presidential elections under UN auspices in 2021?

We think the elections are the right way to go. If Assad holds his elections, this year or next year, they will have none, zero international credibility. They will be dismissed by the international community. The international community will redouble its efforts to pursue real elections monitored by the UN. That is the way forward. That is what the US supports.

The policy that we are pursuing is not going to change. We look very much forward to working with the media and the voices and people of the entire Middle East in speaking as one to call for a political solution and an end to the fighting.

It this realistic?

Some people think it is not realistic. I dont know but two years ago people thought that it was unrealistic to think that the last citadel of the armed opposition in Idlib would hold out for very long. Two years later there it is. Some people thought it was impossible for the Syrian Opposition and representatives of the Syrian government could meet together in Geneva, they have done so. Trust us that we are not only pursuing this policy, we think it has had some limited success and we think it has the potential to have a great deal more success.

The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
MANCHESTER, Conn., May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lydall, Inc. (LDL) announced today that it will release its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020 on Monday, May 11, 2020 after the market closes. A conference call will be held on Tuesday, May 12, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time and be hosted by:



Sara A. Greenstein, President and Chief Executive Officer;



Randall B. Gonzales, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and



Brendan Moynihan, Vice President, Financial Planning and Investor Relations.

Those interested may listen or participate in the conference call by calling 888-338-7142 or 412-902-4181, internationally. In addition, the audio of the call will be webcast live and will be available for replay at http://www.lydall.com in the Investor Relations Section.

A recording of the call will be available from 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time on May 12, 2020 through 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on May 19, 2020 at 877-344-7529 or 412-317-0088, internationally; passcode 10143431.

Lydall, Inc. is a New York Stock Exchange listed company, headquartered in Manchester, Connecticut with global manufacturing operations producing specialty engineered products for the thermal/acoustical and filtration/separation markets. For more information, visit http://www.lydall.com. Lydall is a registered trademark of Lydall, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.

For further information contact:

Brendan Moynihan

Vice President, Financial Planning and Investor Relations

Telephone 860-646-1233

Facsimile 860-646-8847

www.lydall.com

info@lydall.com
Fewer bridges in New Jersey are in need of major repairs, according to two annual reports that show that the states higher gasoline tax may be having an impact.

The most recent figures from the Federal Highway Administrations annual report found 529 bridges in the state rated as structurally deficient, or in poor condition, the lowest number in more than a decade. That was 7.7 percent of New Jerseys 6,786 bridges, 21st among the 50 states.

A year ago, 8.1 percent of the states bridges were rated in poor condition, or 544 of 6,746.

As the report indicates, New Jersey has continued its trend over several years of reducing the number of structurally deficient bridges in the state, said Stephen Schapiro, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

Three of the states 10 most heavily traveled bridges that are structurally deficit as compiled by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association are all under repair  Route 495 over U.S. Routes 1 and 9, built in 1939; Interstate 80 over the Rockaway River, built in 1959; and the Route 3 bridge over the Northern Secondary Railroad and the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway, built in 1929.

Even though a bridge may be rated as structurally deficient, or poor, it does not mean that the structure is unsafe or in danger of collapsing. It means the bridge needs to be repaired or rehabilitated.

Thousands of other bridges in the state also need repairs, especially in a state where the average age of those structures is 55 years old, but they are not in as severe condition.

The state had 2,357 bridges in need of repairs at an estimated cost of $9.9 billion, according to ARTBA. That was up from 2,305 bridges in 2018 at an estimated cost of $7 billion.

Nationally, 231,000 U.S. bridges in the 50 states, District of Columbia and territories needed repairs, with 46,163 in poor condition, according to FHWA and ARTBA.

To keep smaller spans from deteriorating to the point where they would be rated poor, New Jersey has a $47.3 million program program for county-owned bridges. That money is coming from the transportation trust fund fueled by the states gasoline tax of 41.4 cents per gallon.

New Jersey had one of the lowest gasoline taxes in the country until Gov. Chris Christie signed a 23-cent a gallon increase in 2016.

The state also may get some new funds from Washington. Congress is drafting a transportation policy bill to replace the Fixing Americas Surface Transportation Act, which authorized federal funding for transportation programs that cover roads, bridges and transit through 2020.

President Donald Trump has suggested that infrastructure funding could be part of the new coronavirus stimulus bill now being discussed to address the pandemic.

Well, were going to be talking about that," Trump said last month. And that has to do with infrastructure  hopefully infrastructure, because this country needs infrastructure.

Still, Rep. Albio Sires, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he didnt think public works funding would make it into the next measure.

Things have to stabilize before there is real talk about infrastructure and putting people back to work, said Sires, D-8th Dist. I dont think the next stimulus bill will have infrastructure. The president says he wants it but you know how that is with the president. He changes his mind on a dime."

Here are the 10 most heavily traveled New Jersey bridges that need structural repairs, according to ARTBA:

-- Route 4 over the Hackensack River, built in 1931.

-- Interstate 80 over the Passaic River, built in 1969.

-- Route 495 over U.S. Routes 1 and 9 and Paterson Plank Road, built in 1939.

-- U.S. 46 over Lower Notch Road, built in 1939.

-- New Jersey Turnpike over the Passaic River, built in 1970.

-- Route 17 over Central Avenue, built in 1931.

-- Route 17 over the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway spur, built in 1932.

-- Route 17 over the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway, built in 1931.

-- Interstate 80 over the Rockaway River, built in 1959.

-- Route 3 over the Northern Secondary Railroad, built in 1929.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.
At the end of the day, people wont remember what you said or did, they remember how you made them feel. Michael Battat continues to hear his mother repeat those famous words from Maya Angelou  advice he has not only carried throughout his time at Emory, but that he plans to follow as he looks past his graduation.

I hope to be remembered as someone who interacted respectfully and with integrity, was available to help others and made them feel supported, Battat says as he finishes his undergraduate degree from Goizueta Business School. Perhaps more importantly, I hope that I inspired at least one other person to do the same. Succinctly, I hope to leave behind the precedent that the nice guy does not always finish last.

Well-rounded experience

Studying at Goizueta exposed the Connecticut native to a diverse student body with a variety of opinions, backgrounds and majors.

I am fortunate to graduate with a BBA while maintaining a firm foundation in the liberal arts due to Emorys requirement of two years of undergraduate liberal arts study, Battat says. Not only do Goizueta students participate in a rigorous business curriculum, but they get to survey multiple disciplines that give them inspiration for ways in which they can apply it.



His desire for a well-rounded education also stretched over to his extracurricular activities. He was active in several organizations across campus, including serving as president of the Goizueta Finance Group and Goizueta Investment Management Group. He also was involved in the Sophomore Finance Academy, the BBA Career Management Center, the Emory Student Ambassadors and was a teaching assistant and a member of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.

Michael Battat is the living embodiment of the qualities we hope to find in a BBA student, says Andrea Hershatter, Goizuetas senior associate dean of undergraduate education and BBA program director. He is a serious scholar who stands in the top 5 percent of the class, a dedicated leader who serves as president of the largest club in the school and a consummate professional who has made the most of every opportunity while simultaneously adding enormous value to the organizations he serves.

Fostering strong connections

Among many skills and values Battat acquired while attending Emory was the importance of building and maintaining relationships.

I have learned from studying business the link between the ways in which we interact, motivate and respect each other and an organizations success, he says. I think it is vital to recognize that hard skills can only get you so far. It is equally as important to maintain strong relationships and to treat others with respect as it is to be proficient in Excel.

While many relationships are built with fellow students and connected alumni, one of Battats most valued relationships was with his favorite professor, Jeffrey Rosensweig.

I have taught at Emory, and briefly at MIT and Yale, for 32 years, says Rosensweig, associate professor of international business and finance. Michael Battat is the first BBA I have chosen as my teaching assistant. Why? He has truly exceptional IQ and EQ, exhibiting technical brilliance, teamwork, integrity, maturity, communication skills and a can-do spirit.

While Battat will take the hard skills he learned to his full-time job as an analyst at Perella Weinberg Partners in New York after graduation, he also will carry the priorities of treating others with respect and fostering strong connections.

Looking back, I realize now that successes have the wonderful tendency to build upon themselves and can snowball into fantastic achievements, Battat says. This bleeds into adjacent advice, which is to surround yourself with people who share similar goals. I am so fortunate to have met people who shared a similar drive to be studious and to seek opportunities within campus organizations. They shaped my entire trajectory throughout college.
Photos of a man wearing a home-made Ku Klux Klan hood as he shopped at a suburban San Diego grocery store caused an uproar on social media over the weekend.

The unidentified middle-aged man, dressed in a camo T-shirt and cargo pants, was photographed Saturday evening in the produce section of a Vons store in Santee. Employees told him to remove the pointy hood, which he was ostensibly using to comply with face-mask requirements in San Diego County.

Several members of our team asked the customer to remove it, and all requests were ignored until the customer was in the checkout area, said a spokeswoman for Vons  a Fullerton-based unit of Albertsons.

Several shoppers took photos of the man and posted them on Twitter and Facebook, causing a swift response.

WHY WAS THIS PERSON NOT REMOVED FROM THE STORE IMMEDIATELY??? IS @vons DOWN WITH THE KLAN??? tweeted journalist and TV host Toure.



Santee Mayor John Minto and the City Council released a joint statement Sunday night denouncing the attire that depicted a symbol of hatred. The mayor also said the county Sheriffs Office was investigating the incident.

East County Supervisor Dianne Jacob called the photos abhorrent.

This blatant racism has no place in Santee or any part of San Diego County, she said in a statement Sunday. It is not who we are. It is not what we stand for and cant be tolerated.

A photographer who asked to be identified only as Melissa S. told the Times of San Diego she was shocked by the display.

I was in disbelief, Melissa said. He was behind me in line. Standing quietly. A man in a wheelchair [went] past and saluted him and he laughed. I took the photo because I couldnt believe what I was witnessing. Ive grown up in Santee and have never seen such racism right before my eyes.

The incident wont help Santees efforts to shed an decades-old reputation as a center of white supremacist activity. That unsavory history has led to the East County city of about 60,000 being nicknamed Klantee and Santucky."

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on coronavirus here.



Mike Moffitt is an SFGATE Digital Reporter. Email: moffitt@sfgate.com. Twitter: @Mike_at_SFGate
<! Oshiomhole and Obaseki >

By Jethro lbileke

The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki has accused the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, of violating directives to halt the spread of coronavirus disease in the state.

The governor, in a statement by the Special Adviser to the state Governor on Media and Communication Strategy, Mr. Crusoe Osagie and the Commissioner for Communication and Orientation, Paul Ohonbamu, accused the former governor of the state of organizing political gatherings through the Edo Peoples Movement (EPM).

The statement noted that the illegal meeting termed APC faction mock primary allegedly organized by Comrade Oshiomhole did not only go against the directives of the state and federal government, but also jeopardised efforts to contain COVID-19, thereby endangering the lives of Edo people.

The governor said the former governors actions were not only reprehensible but callous and selfish, as he had continued his quest to cause crisis in the state and destabilise the states chapter of the APC amid COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the statement, It is not surprising that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has continued his doom-fated attempt to destabilise the Edo State chapter of the APC. But what is most unconscionable is that he is propagating this move at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of Edo people.

By organizing the supposed mock primary on April 30, 2020, with more than 50 persons in attendance, he is undermining efforts of different stakeholders in containing the spread of the virus and also dishonouring all those who have died from this virus. Those who organised the political gathering initially held at Lucky Imasuens residence in Benin City later moved to different locations to continue their inglorious show of shame, in perpetuation of the wishes of their puppet master.

The antics of Comrade Oshiomhole are well-known, but it bears repeating that he is on a mission to re-enact what happened in Rivers, Zamfara and Bayelsa in Edo State. He has continued to perpetuate the factionalising of the party in the state, with an intent to cause the party to lose its opportunity to participate in the forthcoming gubernatorial election.

Noting that the actions of the former labour leader have compromised governments efforts to halt the spread of coronavirus in the state, the statement urged the Presidency and the leadership of the APC at the National level to reign in Oshiomhole from destabilizing the Edo State chapter of the party.

The statement therefore urged President Muhammadu Buhari to as a matter of urgency, call the national chairman of the APC to order.

The President should know that Oshiomholes orchestrated disharmony is a testimony of his desire to re-enact Rivers and Zamfara in Edo State.

The action is not only anti-party, but a confirmation in some circles of a deliberate decimation of our great Party for clandestine ambitions.

It must be said that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, not shown remorse for the persons lost to this invisible enemy.

While Nigeria was losing eminent sons and daughters to the pandemic, for instance, he released videos of himself in a gym house, performing aerobics, as if mocking the dead.

This was at a time the entire country was mourning the death of the Chief of Staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari.

This, among other, indiscretions have painted Comrade Oshiomhole in the most despicable light and leaves much to be desired of his humanity, the statement said.
A lifeguard has urged others not to resort to violence after he pleaded guilty to a riot charge over the anti-government protests that rocked Hong Kong last year.

Sin Ka-ho expressed his remorse on Monday as he admitted to pushing police barricades, hurling two umbrellas, a helmet and other unknown objects at officers outside the public entrance of the Legislative Council complex on June 12.

The 21-year-old was the first person to plead guilty to a riot charge in connection with the civil unrest sparked by an extradition bill that has since been withdrawn.

Defence counsel Fiona Nam said there was not a day her client hasnt looked back in regret at the events that led to his arrest.

In a letter to the court, Sin wrote: If I had a chance to talk to young people, I would urge them not to resort to violence.

Sin Ka-ho pleaded guilty at District Court in Wan Chai. Photo: Winson Wong

The District Court heard he was among thousands of protesters who surrounded the Legislative Council Complex when the legislature was supposed to resume the second reading of the controversial Fugitive Offenders Bill.

If passed, the legislation would have allowed Hong Kong to send suspects on a case-by-case basis to jurisdictions it did not have an extradition agreement with, including mainland China and Taiwan.

Officials have called this protest a riot. But that categorisation quickly became one of the contentious points fuelling what would become months of anti-government demonstrations, with protesters naming the retraction of that label as one of their five demands.

A week after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor met another one of the five demands to withdraw the bill on September 4, Sin was charged with one count of rioting and two of resisting a police officer.

On Monday, he pleaded guilty to the rioting charge, which is punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison, but capped at seven years at the District Court.

He denied two other charges, alleging he resisted two unnamed officers on the same day. These two counts were kept on court file, meaning they cannot be pursued without the order of this court or the Court of Appeal.

Story continues

Acting senior public prosecutor Karen Ng Ka-yuet said the rally organised by Civil Human Rights Front and attended by some 8,000 to 10,000 protesters initially began as an authorised protest, but it escalated into a riot when protesters persistently charged police cordons and hurled objects at officers.

Eight officers were injured during the riot and 39 people were arrested over the events on the entire day.

The court heard Sin stood at the forefront of the crowd and did not retreat even after tear gas was fired. He was subdued and arrested at the scene after two officers saw him pick up an unknown object from the floor and hurl it at police.

In terms of sentencing, Ng said the court could consider the case of localist leader Edward Leung Tin-kei, who was jailed for six years on a single count of riot over the Mong Kok unrest on Lunar New Year in 2016, or that of Yeung Ka-lun, who was given 57 months on the same charge plus arson for setting a taxi on fire that night.

Nam accepted that public order was breached on the day and her clients actions were violent.

But she said such conduct was completely out of character for her client, whom family, friends and colleagues had described as an honest, kind-hearted, loving, polite and responsible young man.

He had dreams about his future, Nam said. He was arrested and his life was forever changed. His family was astonished  There has never been a day he hasnt looked back in regret.

Nam said her client owed an apology to those who loved him, as well as to those who shared the same beliefs because he had set a bad example by resorting to violence when he was caught by an outburst of emotions in a heated confrontation with police.

Protesters gather outside the Legislative Council Complex on June 12. Photo: Martin Chan

But the counsel also noted his involvement in the riot was spontaneous and limited to three to five minutes.

He had no intention to cause damage or physical harm, and there was no evidence he had brought the items he hurled at police to the scene, she added.

I submit this case is not the most serious in the spectrum of cases, Nam said. You have a young man before you who is extremely remorseful.

The defendant had no prior convictions. District judge Amanda Woodcock will sentence Sin on May 15.

Help us understand what you are interested in so that we can improve SCMP and provide a better experience for you. We would like to invite you to take this five-minute survey on how you engage with SCMP and the news.

This article Hong Kong protests: first defendant to plead guilty to riot charge urges others to not resort to violence first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020.
The Bombay High Court has sought



response from the Maharashtra government and the Nagpur Municipal Corporation on a plea alleging that the civic authorities "illegally detained" 1,408 people from two coronavirus hotspots and put them in quarantine facilities.

Justice A S Kilor of the Nagpur bench on Sunday took up for urgent hearing the petition filed by local resident Mohammad Nishat, alleging that the city civic authorities illegally detained 1,408 people from Satranjipura and Mominpura areas on the ground that they were high-risk contacts of those who tested positive for COVID-19.

According to the petitioners advocate Tushar Mandlekar, the authorities randomly picked 1,408 people and thus, violated the prescribed protocols and guidelines issued by the Union government and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Mandlekar argued that only persons found to be coronavirus positive or their high-risk contacts can be detained and quarantined for 14 days.

The 1,408 people detained by authorities do not fall under these categories and hence, detaining them amounts to infringement of their fundamental rights, he said.

However, the Nagpur civic body's advocate Sudhir Puranik told the court that as per preliminary information obtained from the authorities concerned, only the persons who are identified as high-risk contacts have been taken to the quarantine facilities.

Puranik further told the court that all guidelines issued in respect of COVID-19 were being strictly followed.

Mandlekar then told the court that these people have been sent to quarantine facilities set up in the MLA Hostel and Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), which are located in crowded areas.

As per guidelines issued by ICMR and the Union government, the quarantine facility should preferably be on the outskirts of a city, Mandlekar argued.

The court posted the matter for further hearing on May 5, and directed the government and the Nagpur civic body to file their affidavits.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)








Web Toolbar by Wibiya

The on-going 5G Auto-Immune Disease shutdown has adversely affected everyones economic standing. Its no secret that by the time this health crisis comes to an end, the world will be left grappling with an unprecedented economic crisis.

Faced with this ugly truth, Business2community maintains that businesses can choose one of two ways to deal with the present reality. For one they can curl up in fear, resign themselves to fate and wait to rebuild whatever is left of their business by the end of this health crisis. Alternatively, businesses can fight to keep their head above water by restrategizing and formulating new policies that are more suited for a period such as this.

Many business owners have already adapted their business strategies by working with firms such as AgoraPublishing.com and Starpage.ca to set up their online businesses. Others are still having a hard to adapting their business strategies to suit the internet.

Business2community reached out to several business owners asking for tips and advice on how businesses can emerge from this storm bigger and stronger. The following are tried and tested solutions suggested by business owners:

Keep clients informed on whatever youre doing.

According to serial entrepreneur, Enstine Muki, if you have taken measures to protect your employees such as working from home or closing your doors to walk-in customers, then you must let your customers know about these measures.

If your business can afford it, offer free services, discounts and other special considerations to potential and existing customers who might be going through rough times at the moment.

Pay attention to your emails as you can expect to get a flood of enquiries from new and existing clients who cannot leave the house. Delays in responding to customer queries might have them going to your competitors.

In everything you do, ensure that your business is following the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and that Government regulations are closely followed.

Use this opportunity to market your business while competition is low

According to Chad Hill, CMO of Hill and Ponton law, now is the time to market, market, market. Hill says that because the competition is currently low, you must use this time to sell yourself to the customer.

Dont market by shoving your products down customers throat; rather you should give your customers exactly what they need to get through these tough times which is some encouragement and ways to cope with the shutdown.

Finally, he advises business owners to utilize online collaboration tools like Monday.com, Google Docs, Zoom, and the likes to keep your business running despite social distancing.

Organize Events

Stefan Debois, CEO and Founder of Survey Anyplace says the best way to keep your teams spirits up is by organizing digital events to spark the team spirit of the whole company.

This could be an after-work drinking event thatd be held behind your computer screen rather than in the local bar or you could organize an online game, a pop quiz, a game to get to know your colleagues better, the list is endless. Of course, while organizing virtual social events, you should ensure they dont clash with business hours so thatyour teams stay on top of your business.

Finally

Many businesses who had earlier on stood up to the task of tackling this shutdown situation are already starting to see some success for instance, educational institutions and training centres, even gyms, all of which quickly switched to offering online classes, have started to reap the benefits of their wisdom. Theres no use waiting to see what happens tomorrow, do what you can right now, to ensure your business remains alive once this virus has been defeated for good.
The nationwide lockdown 3.0 to curb the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 in the country kicks in on Monday (May 4), giving an opporutnity to several states to relax lockdown rules areas that are in green zone and orange zone. The movement of people and opening of businesses in containment zones will continue to remain restricted.

On Sunday, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said the national capital is ready to "reopen" and people "have to be ready to live with coronavirus". In some states, liquor sales by standalone shops will be allowed but liquor shops will not open up in market areas.

In green zones or areas with no coronavirus cases, you can drive in a car with two passengers or ride a two-wheeler without pillion from 7 am to 7 pm. As per the Ministry of Home Affairs' guidelines only emergency and essential services will be allowed to move beyond these hours.

In Delhi, stationery shops, standalone and neighbourhood shops and residential lane shops for both essential and non-essential services will be allowed to function. The governmentr has also decided to allow technicians, plumbers, electricians and household to resume their work.

Maharashtra government has also allowed some economic activities in all the coronavirus zones except containment areas. As per the state government, standalone liquor shops, cabs with maximum two passengers and e-commerce deliveries only for essential items will be permitted in the state.

In Uttar Pradesh, the government in its revised guidelines said liquor sales are allowed, industries can open but must have one-hour gap between shifts, and buses and cabs can run with 50 per cent occupancy in green zones.

The Odisha government said 100 per cent coverage of the coronavirus tracker app Aarogya Setu must be ensured by local authorities in all containment zones. The state also said that anyone caught violating quarantine guidelines could get arrested.

Kerala government has said that offices can function with 50 per cent attendance of Group A and B employees, and 33 per cent attendance in Group C and D category staff. In green zones, shops will be allowed to remain open between 7 am and 7.30 pm for six days of the week, except Sunday.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Sunday appealed to the the people to observe the extended two-week lockdown "in letter and spirit". "We are on the path of success and we will win this war against COVID-19," he said.

What's open in red zone in lockdown 3.0:

-All industrial and construction activities in rural areas, including MNREGA works, food-processing units and brick-kilns are permitted; besides, in rural areas, without distinction to the nature of goods, all shops, except in shopping malls are permitted.

-All agriculture activities, e.g., sowing, harvesting, procurement and marketing operations in the agricultural supply chain.

-Animal husbandry activities are fully permitted, including inland and marine fisheries.

-All health services (including AYUSH) are to remain functional

- Banks, non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), insurance and capital market activities, and credit co-operative societies to remian functional.

- Operation of homes for children, senior citizens, destitutes, women and widows etc.; and operation of Anganwadis

- Public utilities, e.g., utilities in power, water, sanitation, waste management, telecommunications and internet will remain open, and courier and postal services will be allowed to operate.

- Print and electronic media, IT and IT enabled services, data and call centres, cold storage and warehousing services, private security and facility management services, and services provided by self-employed persons, except for barbers etc.

- Manufacturing units of essential goods, including drugs, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, their raw material and intermediates; production units, which require continuous process, and their supply chain; Jute industry with staggered shifts and social distancing; and manufacturing of IT hardware and manufacturing units of packaging material will continue to be permitted.
From the early days of the Trump administration, Stephen Miller, the presidents chief adviser on immigration, has repeatedly tried to use an obscure law designed to protect the nation from diseases overseas as a way to tighten the borders.

The question was, which disease?

Mr Miller pushed for invoking the presidents broad public health powers in 2019 when an outbreak of mumps spread through immigration detention facilities in six states. He tried again that year when Border Patrol stations were hit with the flu.

When vast caravans of migrants surged towards the border in 2018, Mr Miller looked for evidence that they carried illnesses. He asked for updates on US communities that received migrants to see if new disease was spreading there.

In 2018, dozens of migrants became seriously ill in federal custody, and two under the age of 10 died within three weeks of each other. While many viewed the incidents as resulting from negligence on the part of border authorities, Mr Miller instead argued that they supported his argument that Donald Trump should use his public health powers to justify sealing the borders.

On some occasions, Mr Miller and the president, who also embraced these ideas, were talked down by Cabinet secretaries and lawyers who argued that the public health situation at the time did not provide sufficient legal basis for such a proclamation.

That changed with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.

Within days of the confirmation of the first case in the United States, the White House shut US land borders to nonessential travel, closing the door to almost all migrants, including children and teenagers who arrived at the border with no parent or other adult guardian. Other international travel restrictions were introduced as well as a pause on green card processing at US consular offices, which Mr Miller told conservative allies in a recent private phone call was only the first step in a broader plan to restrict legal immigration.

But what has been billed by the White House as an urgent response to the coronavirus pandemic was in large part repurposed from old draft executive orders and policy discussions that have taken place repeatedly since Trump took office and have now gained new legitimacy, three former officials who were involved in the earlier deliberations said.

One official said the ideas about invoking public health and other emergency powers had been on a wish list of about 50 ideas to curtail immigration that Mr Miller crafted within the first six months of the administration.

He had come up with the proposals, the official said, by poring through not just existing immigration laws but the entire federal code to look for provisions that would allow the president to halt the flow of migrants into the United States.

Administration officials have repeatedly said the latest measures are needed to prevent new cases of infection from entering the country.

This is a public health order that were operating under right now, Mark Morgan, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told reporters earlier this month. This is not about immigration. Whats transpiring right now is purely about infectious disease and public health.

The White House declined to comment on the matter, but a senior administration official confirmed details of the past discussions.

Miller ( R ) has previously been criticised for citing white nationalist websites and magazines, promoting theories popular with white nationalist groups (Getty)

The architect of the presidents assault on immigration and one of Trumps closest advisers inside the White House, Mr Miller has relentlessly pushed for tough restrictions on legal and illegal immigration, including policies that sought to separate families crossing the southwest border, force migrants seeking asylum to wait in squalid camps in Mexico and deny green cards to poor immigrants.

Mr Miller argues that reducing immigration will protect jobs for American workers and keep communities safe from criminals. But critics accuse him of targeting nonwhite immigrants, pointing in part to leaked emails from his time before entering the White House in which he cited white nationalist websites and magazines and promoted theories popular with white nationalist groups.

The idea that immigrants carry infections into the country echoes a racist notion with a long history in the United States that associates minorities with disease.

The federal law on public health that Mr Miller has long wanted to use grants power to the surgeon general and president to block people from entering the United States when it is necessary to avert a serious danger posed by the presence of a communicable disease in foreign countries.

The administration, in adopting the latest restrictions on immigration, has relied not only on that public health authority but also on another provision of federal law that allows the president to deny entry to foreigners whose presence would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.

The provision, section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, grants broad power to the president but sets a high legal bar for its use. The Reagan administration invoked it to block large numbers of Haitians travelling by sea to seek asylum in the United States, and during the Obama administration, it was used to enforce sanctions against Iran.

The Trump administration has made use of the authority on occasion, including the sanctions imposed on Iran and a travel ban directed at six predominantly Muslim countries in 2017 as a purported defence against terrorism. But the president has often expressed frustration at being discouraged from using the authority more often and in policies that are more sweeping in scope, including when record numbers of migrant families surged across the southern border.

He seemed to discount the stringent standards required to invoke it, often referring to it as his magical authority to restrict immigration, one of the former officials who was present for the discussions said.

Mr Miller also frequently expressed interest in using the 212(f) authority. On more than one occasion, the official said, he discussed it as a backup option in case the courts blocked a policy such as the administrations public charge rule, which prevents people who have used public benefits from obtaining green cards.

During the mumps outbreak in 2019, after other White House advisers disagreed with the use of the public health authority to halt immigration, Mr Miller ordered federal immigration officials to begin generating reports on the level of infection among detained migrants for White House review.

In the meantime, he encouraged the State Department to step up medical screenings of migrants and crafted a presidential proclamation barring entry for immigrants who could not afford to purchase health insurance, a measure that was blocked by a federal judge.

The coronavirus pandemic has created an opening for some of Mr Millers other long-standing policy goals, such as finding a way to quickly deport children who travel to the United States without a parent or other adult. Mr Miller considered that category of migrants among the most difficult to stop, said one official who had discussed it with him, because the young people are protected legally by substantial due process requirements designed to ensure that deportation would not place them in harms way.

Since border crossings were scaled back under the coronavirus restrictions, even unaccompanied children and teenagers have been turned away.

New York Times
CLOVIS  Different carrier, different planes, different direction.

A quick transition was made Friday at Clovis Municipal Airport, with Denver Air Connection taking over Essential Air Service operations at the facility.

The U.S. Department of Transportation selected Key Lime Air in February for a two-year order to take over for Boutique Air, which had offered Clovis residents service to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport since 2014.

Denver Air Connection, a subsidiary of Key Lime Air, now offers a dozen round trips weekly between Clovis Municipal Airport and Denver International Airport.

The selection of Key Lime Air came as a shock to a task force and a Clovis city commission that had recommended to part ways with Boutique, but keep DFW as the connecting hub through another provider. The Department of Transportation makes the final call.

Flights will take place aboard DACs 30-seat Dornier 328 jets, and a flight attendant is required for every trip.

The service will include the following daily departures, except where otherwise noted:

 Clovis to Denver, 7:45 a.m.

 Denver to Clovis, 11:50 a.m. (no Tuesday or Wednesday flight)

 Clovis to Denver, 2 p.m. (no Tuesday or Wednesday flight)

 Denver to Clovis, 6:30 p.m.

Flights to Denver are scheduled for 90 minutes and flights to Clovis are scheduled for 80 minutes. One-way fares range from $89 to $149.
Gentle giants: Tom Gillespie with one of the group of basking sharks he and friend Ray OFoghlu came across on a magical encounter off the coast of Co Clare

Two surfers have captured a "magical" moment on camera after swimming alongside up to 20 basking sharks off the coast of Kilkee in Co Clare.

Friends Tom Gillespie (34) and Ray O'Foghlu (36) were surfing early on Saturday morning when they swam alongside the basking sharks.

The pair managed to capture amazing video footage which has since been viewed more than 80,000 times on Tom's Instagram account.

Tom, a PhD student in environmental economics in NUIG, said: "It was magical. I've swam with dolphins a couple of times but this was unlike anything I've experienced before.

"We are so lucky living so close to the sea, that we see wildlife in the ocean.

"But I've never been so close to basking sharks and I've never seen so many in the sea together.

"It's something that will stay with me for the rest of my life."

Tom and Ray, who works for An Taisce, made sure to keep back from the basking sharks.

Expand Close Their GoPro video has now been watched 80,000 times on Instagram / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Their GoPro video has now been watched 80,000 times on Instagram

"We got close enough to see them but we wanted to keep a distance too, to not disturb them," Tom said.

"We managed to get a good shot with the GoPro but we ensured social distancing," he joked.

The friends estimated there were around 20 basking sharks in the water at the time, though they swam apart.

The creatures are the second largest living shark after the whale shark. They can range in size from six to eight metres.

Despite their appearance, the sharks only have small, hooked teeth of around 5mm to 6mm.

They are not threatening to humans and feast on crustaceans with their mouths wide open as they slowly swim through the ocean at around 2mph.

"They don't have any teeth, they eat plankton, so unless you look like those, you're OK," said Tom.

"We're surfers, so we know the coast like the back of our hands and we just took a notion to see if we could get close enough to see the sharks.

"You'd see a basking shark occasionally but it was just so rare to see so many together.

"It sounds intimidating, but it wasn't."
This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.

Theres a stereotype that tech start-ups are focused on trivial things. And while there are plenty of pizza-delivery and dog walking apps, there also are technologists working on serious problems.

At a time when tens of millions of Americans have lost jobs, it is important to highlight how companies are using technology to help others.

Propel, as I mentioned last week, started in 2014 to help food stamp recipients access benefits on their phones, clip coupons and apply for jobs.

Now that more people are struggling, Propel is also offering its customers practical guides to pandemic-related government services, and its directing $1,000 cash payments, funded by charities, to individuals.
Marty Moore Im incredibly excited to work with the talented people at CSWR as we examine capitalization opportunities, accelerate growth and further build out our team

As part of its continued growth efforts, St. Louis-based Central States Water Resources (CSWR) today announced the addition of former Gardner Capital and BW Forsyth Partners executive Marty Moore as chief financial officer (CFO).

Were thrilled to add an executive leader of Martys caliber, said CSWR President Josiah Cox. Our growth in recent years has been rapid. His addition will enhance our efforts in fundamentally addressing one of our countrys greatest infrastructure needs.

Moore most recently led finance and corporate services as CFO of Gardner Capital, a national affordable housing and renewable energy developer, investor and tax credit syndicator. He has an extensive background in mergers and acquisitions and will work alongside Cox in accelerating the companys already rapid growth trajectory.

Im honored to join an organization that is working across the country to help so many communities gain access to clean, safe and reliable water resources, said Moore. Its thrilling to work with a chief executive like Josiah and our board of directors. And as someone who believes in the value of strong organizational cultures, Im incredibly excited to work with the talented people at CSWR as we examine capitalization opportunities, accelerate growth and further build out our team.

Moores extensive senior-level finance and operational experience includes serving as CFO of international automation equipment manufacturer Baldwin Technology Co., a company he helped Barry-Wehmiller/Forsyth Capital take private in 2012. Prior, Moore held senior leadership positions with Summit Marketing, Consolidated Terminals, Barnhills Buffet Inc., and Global Materials Services. He began his career at Arthur Andersen.

Moore is past-Board President of the Association for Corporate Growth, past-Board Chairman of Gateway to Hope and serves on other Boards in the St Louis community. He is a graduate of Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas.

ABOUT CENTRAL STATES WATER RESOURCES

Central States Water Resources (CSWR) is transforming how water utilities work by using technology and innovation to bring safe, reliable and environmentally responsible water resources to every community in the U.S. The company has water and wastewater operations or pending acquisitions across the nation, including in Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas. Learn more about CSWR at CentralStatesWaterResources.com.
Highlights The Ministry of Home Affairs had given a nod to the e-commerce platforms to start selling non-essential items during the third lockdown

The government has allowed e-commerce sites to operate in only orange and green zones.

The government has also given permission to ride-hailing apps to start operating in Orange and Green Zones

With the government of India extending the lockdown till May 17, there is no escape from the quarantine life but the lockdown 3.0 does bring some respite. The Ministry of Home Affairs had given a nod to the e-commerce platforms to start selling non-essential items during the third lockdown, which means that customers can now buy smartphones, laptops and other gadgets. The government has also given permission to ride-hailing apps to start operating but there are limitations.

As per the MHA guidelines, e-commerce platforms like Flipkart, Amazon and others that were only delivering essential items till now, can now start selling non-essential items in areas where there are no COVID-19 cases. The government has allowed e-commerce sites to operate in only orange and green zones. The platforms will not deliver in red zones.

In India, 733 districts will be classified into three zones such as the Red Zones, Orange Zones, and Green Zones. These zones are classified on the basis of the number of novel coronavirus cases, for instance, the Red Zones have a high number of cases, Orange Zones have fewer cases as compared to the red zones while the Green Zones have not had nay coronavirus cases in the last 21 days. Delhi falls under the red zone which means that none of the e-commerce platforms will deliver non-essential items in the city.

Ride-haling giant Uber on Sunday announced that it would resume services in specific cities in compliance with the government regulations. The company said that it will currently operate in Orange and Green zones.

Uber shared the list of cities failing under Green zones. The cities include Cuttack, Daman, Jamshedpur, Thrissur, Silvassa, Guwahati and Kochi while the list or orange zone cities is a bit longer. It includes Amritsar, Asansol, Durgapur, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Rohtak, Prayagraj, Udaipur among others.

Uber had also issued a set of guidelines for users in these areas. The company will allow only two riders at a time, apart from the driver, and it has also advised the riders to not sit next to the driver. The riders are expected to wear masks during their ride and at any given moment, if the drivers or riders don't feel comfortable due to safety reasons, they can cancel the trips. The company will provide a full refund of cancellation charges if a request is made through the app.

Uber said that its services will remain suspended in all the cities that fall under Red Zone. However, UberEssential and UberMedic will continue to operate in the cities.

Uber's rival, Ola is also likely to start operations in cities falling under the Orange and Green zones. However, an official confirmation about the same is awaited.

Service provider Urban Company formerly known as Urban Clap has also resumed services in some cities. Announcing the same on Twitter, the company wrote, "As we gear up for providing services, we will carry out daily temperature checks for all partners before they serve you. Anyone registering a temperature over 99F will be asked to stay home and consult a doctor."
Subscriber content preview

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP)  Nearly 70% of this summer's Alaska cruise ship voyages have been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with hundreds of thousands of expected passengers staying away from the staple of the state's tourism industry.

Alaska cruise industry representatives delivered the disheartening update to the state's Board of Marine Pilots, CoastAlaska reported Wednesday.





. . .
Women are waiting to call domestic abuse helplines in the middle of the night because they are trapped in isolation all day with their attackers.

Women's Aid said there had been around a 60pc increase in calls to its helpline this month, and that there had been a notable trend in calls from women feeling suicidal.

Last month, the Government launched a campaign to remind victims that domestic abuse supports are still running during Covid-19, amid fears that the lockdown could cause an increase in emotional, sexual or financial abuse.

Linda Smith, the Women's Aid national helpline manager, told the Irish Independent there had been "quite a significant increase in contacts to the helpline" this month.

In an average week, Women's Aid would get about 500 calls. Last week, there were more than 800.

"The team are reporting that there are a lot of women feeling very isolated, very trapped - these are the words that the women are using themselves," Ms Smith said. "They feel that there is no hope of them getting away or no opportunity for them to get out of the situation because they're locked in. They can't move, there is nowhere to go."

She said the fact couples were now spending all of their time at home together had "intensified" domestic abuse, and created more opportunities for abusers to harass their victims.

Women now had fewer opportunities to call for help.

"Where it might not have been as busy before, women are now calling in the middle of the night. Every single hour of the night, there is contact now. Women are waiting until the whole house is quiet and she's finding that space to call," she said.

"The team are talking to me about the extreme sense of sadness in all the calls."

Ms Smith, who has worked at Women's Aid for seven years, said the service noticed an increase in women who talked about feeling suicidal.

"Women are presenting as being very suicidal. They're talking about the abuse, the isolation of it, feeling trapped or even having flashbacks to abuse they just escaped, and are now feeling very alone."

There appeared to her more reports of women who were being abused by their children while in isolation, and anecdotal evidence of women who were calling the domestic abuse service for the first time.

There are nine people running the Women's Aid phone line, with some working remotely.

A team of 20 volunteers are also running an instant messaging service for victims.

Laura Brennan, a volunteer co-ordinator for the text service, said it had also seen an increase in victims getting in touch.

The service was previously run only three days a week, but is now running Monday to Friday with some hours at the weekend as well.

"It's a medium that's silent, it doesn't have to be a voice. Some women are really using that," Ms Brennan said.

"All you need is your phone in your hand, or your laptop."

She said there was a sense of fear from some women, who weren't sure if they were allowed to break the 2km travel restriction to get help from domestic abuse services.
Several colleagues had told her they also disliked the legislation, but it was not until right before the vote that she realized she would be by herself. Passage was never in doubt, but to be the lone member of a caucus to vote a certain way carries its own stigma.

Our brains are just designed to experience a lot of excruciating pain at the idea of being alone, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. When you cast those lonely votes, you feel like your colleagues respect you less, and that you are choosing to marginalize yourself. It can be difficult to appreciate the powerful psychology of the House floor, she said, along with the overall social pressures of Congress.

I walked home in the rain, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, describing her mood after the bill passed. I was very in my feelings, big time, and I felt very discouraged. She said she would have appreciated, at least, a heads-up from the colleagues who had said they were probably no votes but then flipped at the last minute.

I was just, like, heartbroken, she said.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs colleagues are, for the most part, farther removed from the viruss daily toll, which has only heightened the alienation she felt when she arrived on Capitol Hill last year. I have, like, existential crises over it, she said.

At the root of this has been the hardship the pathogen has imposed on where she lives, something that can be difficult to appreciate from the sanctuary of the Capitol. New Yorks 14th Congressional District comprises a patchwork of diverse, vibrant and vulnerable urban communities covering the eastern part of the Bronx and north-central Queens. Roughly half of the predominantly working-class population is of Hispanic descent. They make up many of the citys grocery workers, transit operators, custodians and child care providers, 75 percent of whom are minorities.

Nearly everyone in the district has had some personal connection to someone lost to the virus. They include Lorena Borjas, a 59-year-old transgender immigrant activist in Queens and Mohammad Gias Uddin, a 64-year-old Bangladeshi community leader who ran A&A Double Discount in the Bronx. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez knew both of them, as well as others she called strong anchors in the community.

Just this morning, we were just talking to our landlord here who had just lost his brother, she said. Both of his children are hospital workers. She speaks all the time to people who cannot afford food, rent and burials. The catastrophe is woven tightly into her day-to-day fabric.
Just a day after the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) closed its headquarters in New Delhi, for sanitization after two staffers tested positive, another paramilitary troop has taken a similar action.

AFP

The Border Security Force (BSF) on Monday decided to close its two floors after a staff tested COVID-19 positive.



"A head constable of BSF working in BSF Force Headquarters Block 10 CGO complex, has been found COVID-19 positive late night on May 3. He last attended the office on Friday (May 1). He was working in the office on the second floor of BSF Headquarter. All persons came in his contact have been identified and quarantined. They will also be tested for COVID 19. Offices on first and second floors of FHQ have been closed as a precaution," BSF said.

The force headquarters was already closed as a special precautionary measure.

BCCL/ FILE

"Prior to the detection of the case on Friday, as a special precautionary measure, BSF Force Headquarters was closed early by 4pm. All attending staff vacated offices and the entire office complex was thoroughly sanitised with prescribed solutions of disinfectants. For Saturday and Sunday -- May 2 and 3, the Force Headquarters was closed. No staff other than the security personnel and the control room members in limited numbers worked in the headquarter," BSF said.



The disinfection of the complete BSF Headquarters will be done again in the afternoon today in light of the latest COVID-19 positive case. Identification of secondary and tertiary contacts as per protocol is being carried out. All protocols are being followed, BSF stated.

In a related development, a BSF jawan deployed in the entourage of the Centre's inter-ministerial central team (IMCT) to West Bengal has tested positive for COVID-19, following which over 50 personnel of the force were quarantined.

BCCL/ FILE

The infected personnel is working as a driver (constable rank) and was attached with the IMCT that was touring Kolkata and other places to review and suggest measures to the state government for containment of coronavirus. The jawan was tested positive on Sunday. He has now been admitted to an isolation facility of the state government.

Over 50 personnel who were in touch with the infected BSF jawan have been quarantined and about 20 have been tested till now and their reports are awaited. Kolkata is the headquarters for the south Bengal frontier of the BSF that guards over 930 km of the India-Bangladesh border.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 02:22:24|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ROME, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The first day of easing Italy's national coronavirus lockdown was marked by a mix of nervousness and optimism.

Italy's lockdown, imposed on March 10 to contain the pandemic, was partly lifted on Monday, as the country entered into the so-called "Phase Two," involving the gradual resumption of social, economic and productive activities.

Traffic on the avenues of the Italian capital was noticeably busier than in recent weeks and more people were on foot in the city's labyrinth of streets and alleyways. But the tenor of those cautiously leaving their homes after eight weeks of mandatory quarantine was decidedly mixed.

"I feel unsafe on the streets even though there's no reason to," Kate Nichols, a British author and homeschool teacher who has lived in Rome for nearly four years, said in an interview. "Everyone has been sensible, but I still felt vulnerable."

Rita Rivelli, the technical director of Forme, a restoration studio in Rome, held a similar view. Workers returned to Forme on Monday for the first time since the lockdown entered into force, preparing to formally reopen later this month.

"I'm very happy to see my co-workers after two months," Rivelli told Xinhua. "But I'm a little scared as well."

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the terms of the gradual lifting of the national quarantine a little over a week ago. As of Monday, Italians are allowed to visit family members in small numbers, and parks are reopened. Bars and restaurants previously limited to delivery services now have the option to begin offering takeaway services.

In two weeks, starting May 18, thousands of shops -- like Rivelli's Forme studio and others -- can open to the public. A further two weeks down the line, starting June 1, bars and restaurants can offer dine-in options.

At every stage, special rules requiring disinfecting common areas and keeping social distancing among customers must be observed.

On the eve of Monday's reopening, Conte said that some stages could be moved up or delayed depending on whether the current trends relating to the infection rate and the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak continue to show that progress has been made in slowing the spread of the virus.

The Italian media was mixed in its take on the start of what has been dubbed "Phase 2" of Italy's reopening strategy. Some said the government was rushing too fast to reopen businesses, while others said this latest step should have come earlier. Like Conte, almost every review of the latest steps urged caution going forward.

Francesco Scutari, a retired mathematics teacher who was walking his dog along the Tiber River in Rome Monday, said he understood the confusion.

"Personally, I am in favor of being cautious," Scutari told Xinhua, agreeing to speak only if he could keep a distance of at least two meters. "That is my nature. But the truth is nobody knows what we should be doing. It's a guessing game. Nobody alive has been through anything like this. What we should have done won't be clear until we look back when this is all over."

Massimiliano Fabrizio, co-owner of Rome's Bar dei Cerchi, noted a big difference between the government's decision to allow some businesses to reopen and what is being cast as a reopening of the economy.

"We opened today for takeaway coffee and food, but only a few people have come by," Fabrizio said in an interview. "It's good to be open and to see some of our regular customers. But there aren't many people in the streets and the offices nearby that we depend on are closed. We'll continue and hope for the best, but things won't really be open until everything is open." Enditem
New Delhi: Actor Ishaan Khatter's father Rajesh Khattar, who welcomed a baby boy with second wife Vandana Sajnani last August, introduced their son on Instagram recently. Rajesh, an actor, has occupied the trends list since Sunday with congratulatory messages are pouring in for the couple continuously.

Rajesh and Vandana chose to reveal their baby son Vanrajs face on the occasion of their 12th wedding anniversary. Rajesh took to Instagram to share photos with the little munchkin and wrote, Hello Everyone (my first hello to all you wonderful people). Dad says the world is going through trying times but this too shall pass & for us children, you all are going to make this world more beautiful than it ever was. We kids believe & thank all of you for this promise stay home, stay safe and keep us safe - Vanraj Khattar (Happy anniversary mom and dad, though your 12th but its a special one as your first with me).

Take a look at the pictures below.

Vanraj was born to Rajesh and Vandana after 11 years of marriage. Both are actors and work in TV predominantly.

Ishaan is Rajeshs son with actress Neelima Azeem. She and Rajesh were married from 1990 to 2001. Meanwhile, actor Shahid Kapoor is Neelimas son with actor Pankaj Kapur.
Across America, people realize two important things: (1) the Wuhan Virus in America is not a mass killer, and (2) if they don't get back to work, they'll go from middle- or working-class to the poverty line. Also, across America, politicians in Democrat-run states and cities are clamping down even harder on citizens' ability to get out of their homes; enjoy the fresh air; and, most importantly, earn a living.

Wait. That's not quite correct. Three classes of citizen are having a bonanza of work right now: leftist politicians, law enforcement officers, and journalists. Even as they're telling everyone else to stay home, they're out and about, lecturing people, arresting people, reporting on people, and drawing paychecks. The continued lockdowns are a kind of jobs program.

In Oregon, 109 people have died from the Wuhan virus out of a population of 4,300,000 (i.e., 0.002% of Oregonians have died from the virus). Fifty-seven of the deaths occurred within long-term care facilities, the average age was 79, and all but one had underlying medical conditions. Nevertheless, the Democrat governor, Kate Brown, has extended the state's lockdown to July 6. She draws a paycheck; the people she governs can't.

In Illinois, the government has released 4,000 inmates from prison, 146 of whom are sex offenders and 64 of whom are convicted murderers. Chicago released 1,300 inmates just from its Cook County Jail. These prison release programs haven't been working out so well for some ordinary citizens. In New York, a released rapist instantly raped a woman. In California, just days after his early release, a sex offender exposed himself...at his parole resource center.

Even as the criminals are running wild, Democrat Chicago mayor Lori "I take my personal hygiene seriously" Lightfoot was openly and aggressively threatening Chicago citizens with prison for daring to leave their homes or get anywhere near each other. "We will shut you down, we will cite you and, if we need to, we will arrest you and take you to jail," she insisted, after having taken off her mask.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to people breaking social distancing orders:



We will shut you down, we will cite you and if we need to, we will arrest you and take you to jail.pic.twitter.com/BVX2ntIY14  Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 3, 2020

Social distancing and staying home don't apply to Lightfoot and her posse, though. Immediately after threatening Chicago residents for social distancing fails, Lightfoot, along with at least ten people, crossed the street to scold some teenagers hanging out in a schoolyard. One kid had the perfect response: "Y'all need to find a cure, you're talking about go home. You go home."

After a news conference decrying house parties and telling people to stay home, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot crossed the street to tell youth outside a school to go home.



One young man responded: Yall need to find a cure, youre talking about go home. You go home. pic.twitter.com/uZHhNbcS0U  Gregory Pratt (@royalpratt) May 2, 2020

In Elizabeth, New Jersey, another Democrat-run city, the police assured people that drones are necessary to surveil their every move "if it saves one life." As Daniel Greenfield says, "Lock up every single violent offender for life; if it saves 1 life, its worth it."

Lock up every single violent offender for life



if it saves 1 life, it's worth it https://t.co/KPUhy1pLMF  Daniel Greenfield #SaferWithTheConstitution (@Sultanknish) May 3, 2020

In Apex, North Carolina, a Democrat-run city, a tattoo artist trying to earn a living was arrested. The short video shows at least six people, including journalists and the police, all earning paychecks as they drag the guy to prison for going to work:

Seems like everyone else in the pic is allowed to earn a paycheck. https://t.co/TqrWST9zjn  cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander) May 3, 2020

In Virginia, a Democrat-run state, Attorney General Bill Barr has had to intervene because of Governor Northam's aggressive attack on First Amendment rights, something that the police (all drawing a paycheck, of course) have enforced:

The Justice Department on Sunday intervened on behalf of a church fighting Virginia Gov. Ralph Northman's virus restrictions in a federal court case that may determine whether religion is an essential service. The department filed a Statement of Interest in federal court in support of Lighthouse Fellowship Church, a congregation in Chincoteague Island, Virginia, that serves, among others, recovering drug addicts and former prostitutes. The church says it held a 16-person worship service in its 225-seat sanctuary on Palm Sunday while maintaining rigorous social distancing. At the end of the service, Chincoteague police issued Lighthouse's pastor a criminal citation and summons, based on the Northam's executive order.

Federal, state, and local governments are still taxing us and still paying themselves, while their journalist flunkies get paid to record it, all the while making it impossible for anyone to earn a living.

In Sacramento, California, however, something interesting happened. The Highway Patrol (all getting paid) denied people their constitutional right to assemble. People came to protest anyway, only to be met with at least one sniper and a wall of riot police stripped of all humanity in their protective gear.

Cordie Lee Williams, a chiropractor and former Marine, took the bullhorn and talked to the police about their constitutional obligation to behave lawfully. When he was done, the police had carefully backed away from the crowd. The music on the video is awful, but you'll find the video heartening:

The 14th Amendment means that the First Amendment applies to local governments as well as the federal government. States and cities cannot tyrannize citizens, and they cannot use that tyranny as a jobs program for themselves and their cronies. This constitutional abuse needs to stop now.
The Washington Post is providing this news free to all readers as a public service.

Follow this story and more by signing up for national breaking news email alerts.
N ormal People has firmly established itself as one of 2020s best dramas and, with the series coming to a close on BBC One, viewers are looking for their next hit.

With breath-taking performances from stars including Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, gorgeous cinematography and an electrifying soundtrack, the adaptation of Sally Rooneys beloved novel has tapped into the millennial zeitgeist while also covering themes that appeal across generations.

If youve been left wondering what else to watch next, look no further...

If you want another coming of age drama

Never Have I Ever follows Devi as she tries to make herself more popular / Netflix

Normal People follows Marianne and Connell throughout school and as they become accustomed to university life  with Marianne becoming popular while Connell struggles. For those of you looking for a drama about the trials and tribulations of teen life, Netflixs fresh offering Never Have I Ever tackles many of the same themes albeit with a very different tone. The Mindy Kaling-created series centres around 15-year-old Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who tries to make herself more popular at school  with mixed results.

If you want to really immerse yourself in the light and the shade of teenage life  from the highs of drug-fuelled parties to the lows of having your mate die of a brain tumour (it gets bleak, OK?), than Channel 4 series Skins (Netflix) is a fair choice.

The first two series are by far the most superior of the drama, following borderline sociopath Tony Stonem (Nicholas Holt) and his friends while in sixth form college.

If youre watching Normal People and reminiscing about your own time at university, Fresh Meat (All 4) is another solid choice  following a house of students living off-campus as they get to grips with university life.

If you need a good cry

Going strong: Kerry Godliman and Ricky Gervais in season two of After Life, Netflixs second most watched show of 2019

Normal People wasnt without its tear-jerking moments, with many fans finding themselves getting weepy when Connell didn't ask Marianne to the Debs or when he unexpectedly dumped her to hide his money struggles. Ricky Gervaiss tragi-comedy After Life (Netflix) is similarly emotional, as it follows acerbic and at times suicidal journalist Tony who struggles to get to grips with the death of his wife.

This is Us (Amazon Prime) is also known for making its fans dissolve into tears. The drama, made by the team behind 2011 film Crazy Stupid Love, follows the lives of two parents and three children, and explores love and relationships in a similar manner to Normal People.

A more left-field choice to sink your teeth into is BoJack Horseman  a show about a cartoon horse may seem to bear little resemblance to Sally Rooneys romantic second novel, but the powerful themes of addiction, friendship and grappling with your mental health are all explored in great and touching detail in the Netflix animated series.

If you want a great love story

Marianne and Connell may seem like an ideal fit, but their relationship is persistently hampered by their own anxieties and perceived differences.

Netflix's three-part series Love, which follows nice guy Gus (Paul Rust) as he moves into a new flat complex, explores similar themes of opposites attracting. Meek Gus finds himself increasingly attracted to the rebellious Mickey (Gillian Jacobs), with the two finding themselves discovering just what love is together.

British sitcom Lovesick (also Netflix) is a fresh take on love and romance. Following a group of friends living in Glasgow, the show (fuelled by its own cheekiness) follows Dylan (Johnny Flynn) as he tries to get back in touch with all his sexual conquests after he discovers hes contracted chlamydia.

Catastrophe (All 4) is another great love story worth investing your time in  although its not necessarily as romantic as Normal People. When Sharon (Sharon Horgan) meets Rob (Rob Delaney) on a night out, the pairs incredible chemistry leads to an unexpected pregnancy, seeing them fall into some sort of relationship. The late Carrie Fisher's glorious star turn as Rob's mother is well worth tuning in for.

If you want to tune into a good soundtrack

Stranger Things season three: brand new teaser images released 1 /8 Stranger Things season three: brand new teaser images released Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) enjoys an ice cream on a bus with Maxine (Sadie Sink) Netflix Things don't stay quiet in Hawkins for long... Netflix Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery) hangs out at the pool Netflix The gang are pictured outside a hospital emergency room Netflix Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) look puzzled Netflix Steve (Joe Keery) appears to have a new summer job Netflix

As well as its fantastic depiction of love, Normal People overjoyed viewers with its stellar soundtrack, featuring an eclectic mix of Elliot Smith, Nick Drake and Carly Rae Jepsen. For those wanting to watch a show which has its best moments punctuated by punchy beats, look no further than Stranger Things (Netflix) which features Duran Duran, The Clash and Tears for Fears amongst its paranormal activities.

GLOW (also Netflix) has a superb track list from the 80s, with Madonna, Earth, Wind and Fire and Cyndi Lauper all bringing bangers to this female-wrestling comedy drama from the Orange is the New Black team.

A more subdued, but equally as listenable, offering is Peaky Blinders (BBC iPlayer) featuring Joy Division, David Bowie and The White Stripes.

If you fancy another literary adaptation

Books similar to Normal People by Sally Rooney - in pictures 1 /10 Books similar to Normal People by Sally Rooney - in pictures Click through the gallery to see books with similar themes to Normal People by Sally Rooney ... The Secret History by Donna Tartt If you never have, do try The Secret History. Donna Tartts superb 1992 novel may be set in New England rather than Ireland at an elite Vermont college, but it lays bare the same apparent contradictions between arrogance and insecurity common to young adults. Its also a rippingly good thriller. - Katie Law, Deputy Literary Editor Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner Its easy to find echoes of Anita Brookner in Rooneys novels, where wry, introspective female protagonists take the lead. She won the Booker Prize in 1984 for Hotel du Lac, which follows romantic novelist Edith Hopes sojourn to Lake Geneva after an affair with a married man leads to social humiliation. - Jessie Thompson, Deputy Arts Editor Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan Exciting Times follows the nihilistic 22-year old Ava, a teacher struggling to make ends meet in the gaudy, moneyed expat banker playground of Hong Kong  offering a penetrating look at class, gender and wealth. Dolans smart, acerbic writing will remind you of Rooneys  as will her exquisite portraits of twisted millennial relationships. - Phoebe Luckhurst, Acting Features Editor Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Two teenagers from different walks of life fall in love but end up following very different paths. Sound familiar? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Americanah is set between the US and Lagos, Nigeria and tells the story of Ifemelu and Obinze. When Ifemelu moves to the US, Obinze follows but is denied a visa following 9/11. A poignant and compulsive tale. - Laura Hampson, Digital Lifestyle Writer Emma by Jane Austen Sally Rooney has been called a millennial novelist but actually a lot of the themes in Normal People are timeless. The intense relationship between Connell and Marianne and their struggles to know how to articulate and act on their feelings reminded me of the relationship between Emma and Mr. Knightley in Emma by Jane Austen. Like Connell, Knightley is a study of a man who is on the whole a good person but occasionally goes astray  and is unsure how to admit to that. The influence of the community is strong in both books and both authors have a knack for dialogue, tension and capturing how power dynamics can shift. - Susannah Butter, Comment Editor and Features Writer The Group by Mary McCarthy Id recommend The Group by Mary McCarthy, written in the 1960s and the inspiration for Candace Bushnells Sex and the City. Its 1933, and a group of women have just graduated from Vassar College. McCarthy explores how they think and talk to about sex, men, marriage, relationships, work and more. So, whats new? - KL The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy It had not occurred to him that she might not consider herself to be the minor character and him the major character, writes Deborah Levy in the opening pages of the second in her living autobiography series. Its a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between writing and womanhood. - JT

Books have always been ripe for televisual adaptations, but more recent years have seen books become the basis for some of televisions best dramas. The high-concept Westworld (Amazon Prime) which features an all-star cast, was originally based on Michael Crichtons novel which depicts how the rich develop a technologically advanced, Western-themed amusement park which soon goes horribly wrong.

The dystopian classic The Handmaids Tale, written by Margaret Attwood, sees women subjugated in a patriarchal society forced to bear children. Elizabeth Moss stars as June in the Golden Globe-winning series (All 4).

A more radical adaptation comes in the form of Masters of Sex, which is based on a biography of Thomas Maiers. Starring Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan, the series follows William Masters as he engages in sexual experiments with Virginia Johnson.

Normal People is available to watch on BBC Three and a double bill airs every Monday from 9pm on BBC One
17:42

Army Chief General MM Naravane on Monday said India is proud of Col Ashutosh Sharma, the Commanding Officer of 21 Rashtriya Rifles battalion, and four other security personnel who laid down their lives while saving civilians from terrorists at a village in Handwara in north Kashmir.

In a warning to Pakistan, Gen Naravane said the Indian Army will give "proportionate response" to all acts of terrorism and infringement of ceasefire violations.

"We lost five brave officers and jawans of Indian Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police while saving civilians from terrorists at a village in Handwara. I wish to convey my heartfelt condolences and gratitude to these valiant braves," the Army Chief told PTI in an interview.

"The nation is proud of their actions especially of the Commanding Officer who led from the front and ensured that there were no civilian casualties or collateral damage during the entire operation," he said.

Apart from Col Sharma, a decorated Army officer, the others who fell to the bullets of terrorists were Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh, Lance Naik Dinesh and Sub-Inspector of Jammu and Kashmir Police Sageer Ahmad Pathan alias Qazi.

"I also take this opportunity to tell the families of our brave-hearts that, we, the entire Army fraternity, is immensely proud of their gallantry and assure you that we stand in solidarity with you during this extremely difficult time," the Chief of the Army Staff said.

The operation was launched following inputs that a number of civilians were being held hostage in a house in Chanjmulla locality of Handwara. Two terrorists were killed in the operation.

The killing of Col Sharma was a major loss to the Army as he had led several successful anti-terror operations in the Valley in recent months. He was conferred with Sena Medal, a prestigious peace-time gallantry award, twice.

There have been frequent incidents of ceasefire violation by Pakistani side since India announced its decision to withdraw special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two union territories in August last year.

Pakistan often resorts to ceasefire violations to push militants into the Indian side. Indian troops have also been retaliating to Pakistani actions under its policy of hot pursuit.

According to official figures, Pakistani troops resorted to 3,200 instances of ceasefire violations in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, which was the highest in the last 16 years.

Of these, 1,565 ceasefire violations took place between August and December after the India reorganised Jammu and Kashmir.

In 2018, Jammu and Kashmir recorded 2,936 instances of ceasefire violations by Pakistan.
Two sisters and their parents have been arrested in Yatta, Machakos County, Kenya for allegedly killing their close relative over a dowry payment row.

According to the police report, Francis Mulwa Muthama, aged 25, was attacked by his parents and two sisters after demanding a share of the dowry paid for his sisters from his mother.

The murder incident took place at Kamweani village in Kithimani Location in Machakos County.

Yatta Sub-County police boss, Mary Njoki, said that Francis arrived home drunk on Saturday night, May 3, and first demanded supper.



After downing his supper, the belligerent man accused his mother, Monica Muthama, 62, of denying him access to the dowry paid for his sisters.

The quarrel that ensued between mother and son, woke up his two sisters and father who allegedly assailed him with crude weapons, injuring him.

Police said the man was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Yatta.

His body has been taken to a mortuary in Matuu as police launch investigations.

The incident was reported by the mans mother and led to the arrest of the father, Bernard Muthama Kilundo, and his sisters Mary Nduku and Teresia Nthenya.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Kim Yong-ik, president of National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), speaks during an interview with the Korea Times at the NHIS office in Yeouido, Seoul, Feb.20. /Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Bahk Eun-ji, Kim Eil-chul



Kim Yong-ik, president of the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), is known to be the Moon Jae-in administration's healthcare policymaker. Dubbed "Mooncare," the government's goal is to expand the coverage ratio of the national health insurance to 70 percent of all medical expenses within the President's five-year term.



The basic concept of Mooncare is expanding the coverage of the state-run health insurance. As Koreans have a strong desire for equality, and equal access to healthcare, Mooncare has been regarded as a policy supported by the majority. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare last November, 63 percent responded in favor of the policy.



"Korea has been setting a successful example with its national health insurance system, which many countries such as Iran, Vietnam and Philippines are trying to follow. But the problem is the Korean system cannot cover all medical expenses," Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times at his office on Yeouido, Seoul.



However, concerns over the system remain after the coverage rate of Korea's national health insurance program inched up by 1.1 percentage points last year. According to data from the NHIS, the country's health insurance service covered 63.8 percent of all medical expenses last year, compared with 62.7 percent in 2017.



In response to the concerns over the relatively lower increase rate, Kim said it was too early to evaluate the policy as it was only introduced in August 2017, and implemented in 2018.



"This year's outcome can be checked only after the first half of 2020 through the process of organizing and analyzing all medical care expenses," he said. "In the early stages, Mooncare was more focused on expanding the treatments covered by the program."



There are many treatments that have not been covered by the national insurance program because of high costs, yet the government is aiming to provide insurance for all medical treatments. To reduce the burden of health spending by the public, the government has expanded the scope of insurance-covered diseases significantly, and has taken measures to improve the sustainability of the health insurance system.






Brandi Glanville is returning to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in season 10. The former full-time housewife will be making a guest appearance on the Bravo reality series and causing drama. All the controversy seems to be around a bombshell that she dropped on the group of ladies. Glanville alleges to have hooked up with Denise Richards and has talked about it on Twitter. All the revelations shes made online supposedly got the cable network upset. Glanville was allegedly served with a gag order to make her stop.

Brandi Glanville | Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Brandi Glanville says she hooked up with Denise Richards

After rumors took social media by storm, Glanville alleges that she did hook up with Richards and brought the claims up during the filming of RHOBH.

Yeah we made out, we hooked up, she said during an Instagram Live interview, according to Hollywood Life.

The hooking up between the Bravo stars was not a one-time thing according to Glanville. A fan asked if her encounter with Richards happened indoors our outdoors and Glanville teased saying, Which one? Which time?

Glanville assured on the Everything Iconic podcast that she was not lying about what happened between her and the Wild Things actress.

Lets just say were standing and not laying down anywhere, Glanville dished. We dont have a relationship, unfortunately. I would love to be her friend. All I can tell you is I dont lie.

Bravo shuts her down

Glanville is a chatty person and loves to interact with fans online. Shes an open book and takes the time to answer her fans queries on social media. After she first brought up the allegations against Richards, the latter took legal action in order to have her stop speaking on the matter.

She sent me a cease-and-desist I will not talk about her, Glanville replied to the fan.

The RHOBH star has hinted in various interviews and on social media about her alleged encounter with Richards. Bravo has been teasing the saucy storyline for the current season. With Glanville continuing to talk about the drama, she takes the shock effect away and the cable network asked her to stop.

Ive been asked by Bravo to stay off social media talking about Housewives, she tweeted. That is the ONLY reason I am not replying to you fu**ing hater cu***! Cu** wait for open season.

Did Brandi Glanville get a gag order by Bravo?

After Glanvilles tweet, the rumor blogs went haywire speculating that she had received a gag order from Bravo. However, the best-selling author shut down those claims on the May 1st episode of the Brandi Glanville Unfiltered podcast.

I wrote one night on Twitter that people were asking me all these questions about Denise, she said. So I get a text from one of the producers at Bravo and he sweetly asked me hes like, Babe, could you kind of not talk about the Denise situation because its preempting the show. And because Im a nice person, I said, Sure, I wont do that.'

Glanville clarified that it was a producer that asked her kindly not to continue talking about her drama with Richards and no legal action was involved.

No one sent me a gag order, no one owns me. If I want to talk, I will talk but I dont want to preempt something, she added. I dont want to ruin other peoples work. I am choosing not to speak about it, thats it.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.
As the rest of the province dusts off the cobwebs that have accumulated over the past few weeks and prepares to re-open for business, Genevieve Funk-Unrau is still trying to make sense of the mess COVID-19 has made in her life.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 3/5/2020 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the rest of the province dusts off the cobwebs that have accumulated over the past few weeks and prepares to re-open for business, Genevieve Funk-Unrau is still trying to make sense of the mess COVID-19 has made in her life.

Her husband Neil, 66, just emerged from a month-long medically-induced coma. Doctors believed it was his best chance to beat the novel coronavirus as he wrestled with it in the intensive care ward of St. Boniface Hospital.

The couple had returned from a vacation in Cuba on March 15. It was their first winter vacation as Neil is normally tied up with the classes he teaches on conflict resolution at Menno Simmons College, but he'd started cutting back ahead of retirement.

Shortly after their return, each had tested positive. On March 27, Neil was admitted to hospital with significant respiratory symptoms. Genevieve has since made a full recovery.

He was among the first in the province to be hospitalized with COVID-19. After he was admitted to hospital but before he was put into the coma, Funk-Unrau remembers talking to Neil on the phone and he joked that he was lucky to have the doctor with the most experience with COVID-19 in Manitoba treating him  he was the doctors third patient.

But the window where Neil could handle phone calls was brief and after he had set foot in the hospital, his wife was unable to visit him  even after she had recovered.

The month dragged on for her. All she had to verify that this was all really happening were short video-conference visits where she could see him hooked up to the wide array of machines keeping him alive.

"Ive been describing the hospital as this black hole where people went in and possibly didnt come out," Funk-Unrau told the Free Press.

There were no guarantees, and there were multiple occasions where Neil took turns for the worse and she had to contemplate the prospect of him dying, never having had the chance to say goodbye.

"There were many scary times where that was very much there," Funk-Unrau said. "I think the lack of control was the hardest." Even after withdrawing the medications that put Neil into the coma, it took much longer for him to wake up than expected.

Funk-Unrau tends toward being a private person, but when things became too much, she reached out to her church community on social media.

"Things had been going downhill for about two days, so I just thought, You know what, he needs more than just my prayers, than just my familys prayers. So I put out a call for that on my Facebook page," Funk-Unrau said.

Within 12 hours things were looking up again.

Neil did wake, but it was a slow process and it became evident that he had suffered a series of strokes. His speech is mumbled and garbled, but he is interactive with nods and shakes of the head, she says.

"We have quite a good support system, but its going to drag on a lot longer now. You can prepare for a week or two of something, but now  especially since Neil is out of his coma  and seeing that he will have a long road ahead of him, of recovery, then it puts us in a different place. And it is going to be more difficult," she said.

Funk-Unrau wants to be there to help with his recovery in hospital, but she is still not permitted to visit, even though he has now been moved out of intensive care. She knows doctors and nurses are taking good care of him, but they wont ever devote the time that a wife would.

"Im still really hopeful for Neil, future-wise, and I really need that hope. I think the piece that makes me really a bit scared is the fact that Im not there to help with his recovery. I dont think hes going to recover as well without me, because the staff, they just cant spend enough time to really engage with him, to help him come out of this," she said. "So its a bit of hope and a bit of dread."

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.

She understands the need for caution but believes that the potential negative impact on her husbands health if he doesnt have her support needs to be recognized.

So, with all of this going on, to ask Funk-Unrau what she thinks of loosening restrictions coming into effect starting Monday, she urges caution because she knows the damage this virus can cause.

"It has to be done very carefully because this virus is so unknown. And I dont necessarily want to see it opened just for economic reasons but I think there is a need for it for emotional, mental health reasons," Funk-Unrau said.

She also hopes to see more widespread testing in Manitoba as restrictions are lifted.

sarah.lawrynuik@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @SarahLawrynuik
W hat is the bounceback scheme and who is it for?

The Bounce Back Loan Scheme was launched by chancellor Rushi Sunak after complaints his previous scheme, the Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme, was not accessible to too many businesses who needed loans to get over their immediate cash flow problems. The scheme offers loans of 2000 to 50,000 to small businesses and should provide money within days. Loans are 100% backed by the government, unlike the CBILS loans which were only 80% backed. This should make it less risky for the banks, who are administering the scheme.

So who qualifies and who doesnt?

Your business must be small (around 10 or fewer), based in the UK and have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus.

The scheme is not available to banks, insurers and reinsurers (although insurance brokers may apply), or any body in the public sector.

How much interest do I have to pay?

As with the CBILS scheme, the first year is interest free. The Bounce Back loan then goes up to 2.5% and runs for a term of six years. There are no set up or application fees and no fees for early repayment. Nobody is looking to make a profit out of these.

Can anyone apply for the top level of 50,000?

No, you can only apply for up to 25% of the turnover you had in the 2019 calendar year.

I already got approval for a CBIL loan but I'm paying more than 2.5%. Can I switch to a bounce back loan?

Yes, until November you can switch from one to the other. In fact, if it's under 50,000, you should. But banks are asking that if you do decide to switch, dont apply straight away because they are already swamped with thousands of applications from new customers in desperate need.

Can I keep my CBIL loan and add a Bounce Back Loan to it?

No! Nor can you get a Bounce Back Loan if youve already got a Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan, or the Bank of Englands Covid Corporate Finance Facility Scheme unless youre using it to repay the other covid loan.

Im going through a bankruptcy scheme at the moment. Can I still apply and try and save my business?

No, you wont qualify for a Bounce Back Loan if youve already started down that route. Likewise, if youre going through a debt restructuring process.

Ive heard its 100 state guaranteed. What does that mean for me?

Not much. The state guarantee is there to cover any losses the banks may make from borrowers who cant pay the loan back.

What are the pitfalls?

The biggest factor to consider is that this is a loan, not a grant. If you are in financial difficulties as a result of coronavirus, you have to ask yourself if you honestly want to be taking on more debt at this time. You will have to repay the money and make the interest payments, even the cost of borrowing is low. Have you exhausted all other avenues for finance and cut your overheads as far as possible before getting further into debt?

Do I have to give a personal guarantee?

No, banks are not allowed to take personal guarantees or send in the bailiffs for your main home, personal car or other personal assets.

How do I apply?

Go to the website of any one of the accredited lenders. They are: Bank of Scotland, Barclyas, Clydesdale/Yorkshire Bank, Danske Bank, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Santander, RBS and Ulster Bank.

Your own bank should be your first port of call. You will then need to fill in a short self-certification form. Banks aren't allowed to ask you to provide forward looking projections - unlike with the CBILS loans. But do bear in mind that your business will be checked for anti-moneylaundering and Know Your Customer checks  hence why it may be quicker to use your own bank, which will already have done these checks before.

What if I get turned down?

You can still apply to other banks if your first approach fails.

Im hoping I can scrape through without a loan now but its so uncertain at the moment. Can I wait and see how my business gets on over the summer before applying?

Yes, the Bounce Back Loan is available until November 4 and the time period may be extended thereafter. In fact, as with the CBILS loan, banks are expecting second wave of applications over the summer as and when the governments furlough scheme ends.

I got turned down for a CBIL loan. Can I try for a Bounce Back loan?

Yes of course.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GOLDMINING INC (GLDLF: OTCQX | GOLD: TSX) a public mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of gold assets in the Americas, invites individual and institutional investors, financial advisors and analysts, to attend a real-time, interactive presentation and live Q&A session with GoldMining's Executive Vice President, Mr. Jeff Wright, on May 6th, 2020 (10:00-10:30AM EST).

GoldMining's resource project portfolio includes 15 gold and gold-copper projects in 5 countries in the Americas: Canada, U.S.A., Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

Please register HERE and access the conference online. Learn more about the event at www.VirtualInvestorConferences.com

LIVE WEBCAST PRESENTATION

DATE: Wednesday, May 6th, 2020

TIME: 10:00  10:30AM EST

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/MayResourceVIC-PR

Visit GoldMining Inc Virtual Booth: https://bit.ly/2VSNvuc

Recent Company Highlights:

About GoldMining Inc.

GoldMining Inc. (GLDLF: OTCQX | GOLD: TSX) is a public mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of gold assets in the Americas. Through its disciplined acquisition strategy, GoldMining controls a diversified portfolio of resource-stage gold and gold-copper projects in Canada, U.S.A., Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Additionally, GoldMining owns a 75% interest in the Rea Uranium Project, located in the Western Athabasca Basin of Alberta, Canada. *See technical reports on www.sedar.com

The Company's long-term growth strategy is premised on pursuing accretive acquisitions of resource projects, together with maintaining and advancing its existing projects in a prudent manner. This strategy is focused on identifying and acquiring projects that present compelling value for the Company's shareholders. Visit www.GoldMining.com

Organized by Virtual Investor ConferencesSM, this live, interactive-online webcast provides opportunities for investors to engage in the conversation directly with the company executives to discuss the Company's development, market opportunity, and investment highlights. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.

About Virtual Investor ConferencesSM

Virtual Investor Conferences is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly-traded companies to meet and present directly with investors. A real-time solution for investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences is part of OTC Market Group's suite of investor relations services specifically designed for more efficient Investor Access. Replicating the look and feel of on-site investor conferences, Virtual Investor Conferences combine leading-edge conferencing and investor communications capabilities with a comprehensive global investor audience network.

SOURCE VirtualInvestorConferences.com

Related Links

http://www.VirtualInvestorConferences.com


Students, faculty and staff at schools across New Jersey are expected to learn Monday whether the coronavirus pandemic will keep buildings shuttered for the rest of the academic year or if theres still some hope to salvage part of the school year.

Schools in the three states that border New Jersey  Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania  have already announced that in-person instruction has been halted through the end of the academic year.

Gov. Phil Murphy ordered all public and private schools closed on March 18 and has twice extended the closure. The latest extension expires May 15 and schools have been conducting online learning in the interim.

Department of Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet will be among the officials joining Murphy at the daily coronavirus press conference in Trenton.

Murphy didnt hold a public briefing Sunday, when the states Department of Health announced the death toll in New Jersey increased to 7,871 with 126,744 total cases, both second highest in the nation after New York.

Coronavirus news roundup:

Many New Jersey state parks hit capacity on first weekend of reopening: Eight state parks were overrun Saturday  the first day coronavirus closures that lasted nearly a month were lifted across New Jersey, according state officials. Another six parks had to stop accepting visitors on Sunday, though two of them reopened later in the day. Murphy put a cap at 50% parking capacity as one of the conditions to reopening the parks.

Trump pushes for economic reopening, vaccine by years end during televised town hall: Anxious to spur an economic recovery without risking lives, President Donald Trump on Sunday insisted that "you can satisfy both  see some states gradually lift lockdowns while also protecting people from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 60,000 Americans.

The president, fielding questions from Americans in a virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial, acknowledged valid fears on both sides of the issue. Some people are worried about getting sick. Others are reeling from lost jobs and livelihoods.

Free masks and hand sanitizer stations. What malls could look like when they reopen: Simon Properties Group, one of the largest mall owners in New Jersey and nation, started a process to reopen 82 of its properties across 10 states between May 1 to May 16. None of them were in New Jersey, where Simon owns 13, including Gloucester Premium Outlets, Quaker Bridge and Menlo Park malls. The company operates 200 malls nationwide and in Puerto Rico.

Some of Simons new measures include frequent recordings on speakers reminding shoppers to maintain a safe distance and every other sink in bathrooms taped off to avoid use, according to a 10 page document of COVID-19 protocols the company released. The protocols also include decals on mall floors to show safe distancing, separating entrance and exit doors and requiring all employees to wear face masks and encouraging customers to, as well.

Community pools in N.J. face murky summer fate due to coronavirus lockdowns: Instead of cannon balling into the summer, New Jersey community pools face an uncertain future as changing regulations and public health forecasts during the coronavirus pandemic make planning to reopen on schedule a challenge.

The future is murky as pools, beaches, and other summer mainstays try to plan for whatever an opening might have to look like. Many community pools could be left dry and empty during the peak heat of the summer months. Private pool operators also must await guidance.

Jersey Shore nightclub thats been partying 75 years wont open this summer. Blame coronavirus: A legendary Jersey Shore nightclub that served Bruce Springsteen his first legal drink and rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy is not opening up this summer due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The Osprey nightclub, a summertime staple in Manasquan since 1946, broke the news to patrons via Facebook Sunday, citing the expected reduction in capacity and the restrictions already in place as to social distancing.

N.J. says state websites are back online: Heavy traffic caused New Jersey state websites - including the states unemployment site - to be unreachable on Sunday.

The State of New Jersey network experienced unusually high traffic beginning at approximately 11AM until 1:30 PM EST," said Chris Rein, the states chief technology officer, in a statement. This traffic resulted in some State services becoming unavailable.

Did Murphy have the constitutional power to lock down N.J.? Heres what the experts say: Decisions by Murphy and other governors to put their states in near-lockdowns to combat COVID-19 pandemic have sparked debates across America over whether their orders square with the U.S. Constitution or violate freedoms promised in the Bill of Rights.

N.J. joins other 6 states to coordinate buying medical equipment for coronavirus outbreak: New Jersey will join six other states in the region to pool resources for buying for personal protective equipment and other medical supplies as the area continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, officials announced Sunday. New Jersey will join New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the regional effort.

Worldwide coronavirus cases: As of 7 a.m. Monday, nearly 248,000 of the approximately 3.52 million cases have resulted in deaths, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. At least 1.3 million have recovered.

U.S. cases: Nearly 67,700 people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19 related causes as of 7 a.m. Monday, the center said. There have been about 1.16 million cases.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

The Associated Press and NJ Advance Media staff writer Matt Arco, Noah Cohen, Rob Jennings, Brent Johnson and Katie Kausch and Karin Price Mueller contributed to this report.
The Monday, May 4 update for coronavirus cases and deaths in Michigan has been delayed.

Michigan health officials have released new data every day at 3 p.m., looking at COVID-19 cases and deaths by county. The data won't be updated until sometime this evening due to a software issue, said Michigan Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Lynn Sutfin.

As of Sunday, May 3, Michigan had 43,754 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,049 deaths.

The state's software that processes test result submissions malfunctioned Sunday evening, although no information was lost, a MDHHS news release said. The malfunction has been resolved, but needs time to process the backlog of messages.

Therefore, todays data will be delayed and information will not be reported out until this evening and may not represent all data being processed, the news release said.

Sorry, but your browser does not support frames.

For more statewide data, visit MLives coronavirus data page, here.

COVID-19 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

Monday, May 4: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Gretchen Whitmer is a national figure now. What you need to know about The woman in Michigan'

From closing restaurants to requiring masks, Gov. Whitmer has issued 69 executive orders in 56 days

Michigan districts are meeting students where they are as schools adapt to remote learning

Gov. Whitmer says protest 'depicted some of the worst racism and doesnt represent Michigan

SNL star blown away by Michigan care package from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Country

United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
A British couple travelling the world with pet pug Pebbles have been stranded in Costa Rica for seven weeks after they refused a repatriation flight in case they would need to leave their beloved dog behind.

Travellers Abbey Walsh, 25, and Hugh Thomas, also 25, flew into the Central American country on March 12 for a three-week trip but quickly found themselves marooned when flights were grounded and lockdown policies were triggered.

The pair, from Newport, South Wales, contacted the British Embassy and were offered a trip home via Germany - but staff said they weren't sure if Pebbles could join them. They refused and have remained in San Jose ever since.

The couple had been planning a two-year world trip with their dog - which they would chronicle with pictures on Instagram. However, they only got two months in before the global shutdown began.

Abbey Walsh, 25, and Hugh Thomas, also 25, flew into Costa Rica on March 12 with their beloved pug Pebbles. They have been stranded in the capital, San Jose, ever since

The pair travel the world with Pebbles and take adorable pictures for the dog's Instagram account. The dog is pictured above on a trip to Flam, Norway

Embassy officials indicated that Pebbles wouldn't be allowed on the repatriation flight - prompting the couple to stay in San Jose. The dog is shown in Mykonos, Greece

Ms Walsh, who runs a marketing firm with Mr Thomas, said she initially thought the Embassy was 'joking' when they suggested leaving the dog behind.

'We would never abandon Pebbles - she is a member of our family, shes like our child,' she said.

'We are all in this together, and we wont go home until we can all go together.'

She said the borders closed alongside parks and beaches a few days after they arrived in Costa Rica, and that curfews were put in place.

'We have been watching the daily updates from the UK and as soon as it was announced that citizens would start to be repatriated, I emailed the British Embassy in Costa Rica.

'They called me the same day to let me know they had a flight to Germany and from there they would help us arrive into the UK but it was the following day.

They had got two months into a world trip with the dog when the lockdown struck. Pebbles is pictured above at the start of the trip in Canada

Pebbles squints at the camera at a fountain in Oslo, Norway. The couple took their treasured pet on a practice trip around Europe before the world tour

Pebbles is pictured above beaming at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, and sticking her tongue out while visiting windmills in Mykonos, Greece

'It can take three to ten days to get pet export documents anyways but the Embassy wasnt sure if pets were allowed in the first place so we said no.

'We are lucky the owner of the Airbnb we are staying in has allowed us to stay for as long as we need and gave us a discount.'

The pair got Pebbles when she was only 10 weeks old, in September 2015 and since then they have travelled together in 28 countries all over the world.

Nations they have visited with the adorable pug include Mexico, Canada, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Lithuania, Spain, France Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria and Hungary.

They left the UK on January 18 heading to Canada for a fortnight, then Mexico, planning to travel for two years all over the Americas but after arriving in Costa Rica their trip was put on hold due to the virus outbreak.

And although they admit things for them could have been much worse, they are waiting for the lockdown to be lifted and either continue their travels or come back to the UK.

Abbey added: 'We decided we wanted to travel long-term with Pebbles so we first did a test run in Europe to see how she coped.

'When we got home after our trip, at the end of October she was depressed to be back at home - she absolutely loved travelling.

Ms Walsh said she thought it was a 'joke' when the embassy first called to say they weren't sure whether Pebbles could join them. The trio are pictured above in San Jose

Pebbles smiles at the departure lounge in Rotterdam airport. Pugs are allowed on most flights. German carrier Lufthansa allows them to travel in the main cabin

The trio pictured smiling together during their travels. They did a trip around Europe before embarking on the two-year world tour - which they have chronicled on Instagram

Pebbles shivers on an icy bench in Canada at the beginning of their tour around the world

'She was just sitting bored, she didnt want to do the same route on our walk every day so I was taking her with the car to different places to keep her occupied.

'She loves swimming, she loves going to the beach, she likes getting dog treats from strangers.

'If we didnt have Pebbles we would have left before they closed the borders, we would have got one of the last flights to Europe.

'Ideally if we can, wed like to keep travelling, maybe not the original route we had in mind- we are thinking of the West coast of Canada.

'If travel changes significantly and we wont be able to travel freely, wed choose to go back home.'

Pugs are allowed to fly inside the cabin of planes by many airlines. Norwegian, Iberia and Lufthansa are three major airlines that allow the dogs onto flights.

On its website, German carrier Lufthansa says pugs can be transported as 'excess paggage' in the air-conditioned hold. They also offer tickets for the animals.
An illuminated Indian Navy warship release a flare as a signal of gratitude to frontline medical staff fighting the COVID-19 pandemic off the Ramakrishna beach in Visakhapatnam on Sunday, May 3, 2020. (DC Photo: K Murali Krishna)

Hyderabad: The Indian armed forces's tribute to frontline workers battling the coronavirus outbreak was an expensive affair, considering that the poor state of the economy.

Going by conservative estimates, the drill by the Army, Navy and Air Force would have cost the Centre around Rs 50 crore, if not more. Criticism has come from various quarters over the need for this exercise in these difficult times when migrant workers are undergoing untold hardships, even death in some cases, and hospital staff not having personal protection equipment.

If hush-hush discussions within the rank and file of the armed forces are any indication, many of them too felt that the exercise was avoidable.

Sources in the defence establishment told Deccan Chronicle that the operating cost to fly the bigger fighter planes for an hour is between Rs 6.5 and Rs 7 crore. 'Operating costs means fuel, maintenance, man hours and all other expenditure, they said. The cost of flying smaller aircraft like trainers and helicopters is around Rs 2 lakh per hour per aircraft.

For operating a military transport aircraft such as the C-130J Super Hercules, the cost is three times that of a fighter plane. As part of Sundays exercise, two C-130J Super Hercules aircraft flew over Srinagar and Chandigarh. These aircraft were also part of the flypast over Rajpath in New Delhi.

Similarly, the IAF's Su-30 aircraft flew over Marine Drive in Mumbai. ''These three aircraft took off from Pune. This itself cost between Rs 45 and Rs 50 lakh,'' sources said.

Across the country, including Telangana state, IAF choppers showered petals on hospitals while in Kochi, surveillance aircraft conducted a fly-past. ''For the whole of yesterday, trial runs were conducted which involved a lot of flying across all states,'' sources said.

In many hospitals, including Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad, the armed forces distributed soft drinks and snacks, which were ferried in several trucks.

While thanking the armed forces for the tribute, general secretary of the Resident Doctors Association, AIIMS, Delhi, Dr Srinivas Raj Kumar said that the government should also pay attention to shortcomings in preparedness which will decide the final outcome of the battle against Covid-19.

Here is a WhatsApp post that was in circulation among the armed forces for most part of Sunday following the killing of five security personnel, including a colonel and major, during an operation in Handwara, in Kashmir:

Home they brought her warrior dead

No helicopter petal shower,

No band to show military power

The flypast all over.

Navy lights the evening will shower

And while the nation goes to bed

Home will reach these warriors dead...
Sacramento, CA  Needing to a approve a new budget, and review several proposed bills, some California lawmakers are returning to the state capitol today.

The coronavirus pandemic caused the first extended unplanned work stoppage for the legislature in 158 years. Assembly speaker Anthony Rendon is calling fellow Assembly members back today to restart the session. However, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins has decided to wait until May 11 to reconvene the other legislative branch.

In both houses, lawmakers will be limited to having just one person with them, and nurses will be on hand to check temperatures at the door.

Assemblyman Rendon says some members have decided to stay at home out of fears of contracting or spreading the virus, and he encourages anyone uncomfortable to continue to home isolate. Both the Senate and Assembly are looking into the possibility of allowing members to vote remotely, however, they are concerns that those votes could be challenged in court.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, there was a proposal being debated to borrow up to $4-billion to protect against fires, flooding and climate impacts. However, the discussion is expected to shift now towards jump starting the economy. Other issues of high priority are battling homelessness and increasing affordable housing.
The Supreme Court on Monday was told that migrant workers who have been stranded for no fault of their own, with zero earnings and no financial support are being charged very high train fares for their journey to native places and railways and the States should not charge them.

The petitioners Jagdeep S Chhokar, former director in-charge of IIM, Ahmedabad, and lawyer Gaurav Jain, who have sought direction to authorities to allow migrant workers across the country to return home after conducting coronavirus tests, filed an affidavit saying railways and the states should not be charging them for the train and bus travel being arranged for them for journey to their native places.

That migrant are being required to pay around Rs. 800 as train fares and the same is highly unjustifiedIt is submitted that migrants have been stranded for no fault of their own, with zero earnings and not financial support. Therefore, it must be made clear that the Railways and the states would not be charging the migrant workers for the train and bus travel being arranged for them, the supplementary affidavit filed on Monday said.

It said that on May 3, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in a letter to Chief Secretaries and Administrators, clarified about the movement of distressed stranded persons, in which the ministry has given a very narrow definition of stranded migrants by including only those who had moved from their native places just before the lockdown period but could not return to their native places on account of restrictions placed on movement of persons and vehicles as part of lockdown measures.

It is common knowledge that a very large number of migrants, including labourers, street vendors, maids, factory workers etc., stay in their cities of migration for months and thus, such a narrow definition would exclude millions who have lost all income and savings and wish to go back to their native villages. Thus, it is submitted by the Petitioners herein that this Court may direct the Centre that all migrants should be allowed to travel back to their native hometowns and villages, it said.

The petitioners said that all the migrant workers who wish to go back to their hometown/villages, including those who are living in shelter homes/relief camps as well as those who might be stuck in rented accommodations, must be treated as stranded' and their travel by trains or buses should consequently be facilitated free of cost by the central government.

It has come to light that the Centre is taking a narrow view of the category of people who are eligible for travel under Home Ministry's order dated April 29 and resultantly, many migrant workers who may not be living in shelter homes/relief camps and might be stuck in rented accommodations may be excluded from the Centre's definition of the word stranded' qua the order dated April 29, it said.

The affidavit, while referring to media reports said that some states have already started sending the migrants to their native places and the MHA by its order of April 29 has left it upon the States to allow the travel of migrants to/from other states after both the states agree.

It is submitted that all the migrant workers who wish to go back to their native hometowns and villages should be allowed to go back after screening as a matter of right and no migrant desirous of travelling back to his/her home should be left behindthe right of migrants to go back to the native places should not be dependent on the States' willingness and it should be the centre's obligation to allow their travel, it said.

The affidavit while referring to a report published by Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN), based on the interaction with 1,531 groups of workers (around 16,863 people), said that around 50 per cent workers had rations left for less than one day which has remained unchanged since the first phase of the lockdown.

Further, since the national lockdown began, 4 out of 5 workers who reached out do not have access to government rations while 68 per cent still do not have access to cooked food. The report further states that with no cash relief for migrants, 64 per cent have less than Rs. 100 left with them and that more than 97 per cent (out of 0,383) have not received any cash relief from the government, it said.

On April 27, the apex court had said, This institution is not hostage of government, after advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioners alleged that the government's view is being blindly considered by the courts without verifying it, while fundamental rights of people especially migrant workers are not being enforced.

Chhokar and Jain in their plea had said that in wake of the extension of the nationwide lockdown, the migrant workers who are among the worst affected category of people must be allowed to go back to their homes after being tested for COVID-19.

The apex court on April 27 had sough response of the Centre on their plea.

It said that those migrant workers who test negative for COVID-19 must not be forcefully kept in shelters or away from their homes and families against their wishes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Queen Maxima of the Netherlands cut a stylish figure today in a sombre all black ensemble as she and her husband King Willem-Alexander attended a World War II memorial - in a rare public appearance during lockdown.

The royal couple, who have isolated themselves after their annual trip to Austria, both donned all black in a mark of respect for their visit to the National Monument on Dam Square in Amsterdam.

They followed strict social distancing and were not met by an audience as part of the nation's efforts to halt the spread of coronavirus, which has already claimed the lives of 5,082 people in the Netherlands.

The country imposed less stringent lockdown measures than other European regions in March.

Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands (pictured) attended a World War II memorial event today in Amsterdam

The royals (pictured) laid a wreath during the National Remembrance Day, at Dam Square in Amsterdam

Queen Maxima, 48, (pictured) appeared in good spirits as she waved at the few representatives that attended the memorial

Mother-of-three Maxima appeared in good spirits as she waved at the few representatives that joined the Remembrance Day commemoration.

The 48-year-old donned an ankle-grazing black skirt with a matching top cinched at the waist with a belt, paired with a wide brimmed trilby hat and a shawl.

Maxima swept her hair into a stylish low bun, accessorised with a pair of dazzling diamond studs, and drew attention to her eyes with bold black eyeliner.

King Willem-Alexander, 53, appeared equally well groomed in a black striped suit, grey tie and white shirt.

As part of the ceremony, a wreath was laid by the royals in commemoration.

In a heartfelt speech shared by the royal couple, King Willem-Alexander said: 'In these exceptional months, we have all had to give up some of our freedom. Our country has not known anything like it since the war.

The royal couple coordinated in black attire, with mother-of-three Maxima accessorising with dazzling studded earrings

The memorial took place without an audience or invitees as part of the nation's efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus. Pictured: Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander preparing to lay a wreath

King Willem-Alexander gave a speech explaining that he's thinking of those who fought for freedom during World War II

'Now we make our own choice. For the sake of life and health. Then the choice was made for us. By an occupier with an ideology without mercy that killed many millions of people. How did the ultimate freedom feel?'

He explained that at this time he's thinking of the civilians and soldiers who fought for the freedom of the Dutch nation in the war.

King Willem-Alexander added: 'War spans generations. Now, 75 years after our liberation, the war is still in us. The least we can do is not look away. Don't justify it. Do not erase. Do not set aside.

'Not making "normal" what is not normal. And, nurturing and defending our free, democratic constitutional state. Because only it offers protection against arbitrariness and madness.

King Willem-Alexander (pictured centre) called on the nation not to erase the memory of war, claiming that it spans generations

Queen Maxima wore an ankle-grazing black skirt and top with a matching shawl and wide brimmed trilby hat for an effortlessly stylish look

'Jules Schelvis endured hell and managed to make something of life as a free person. Much more than that. "I have kept faith in humanity," he said. If he could do it, so can we. We can do it, we do it together. In freedom.'

King Willem-Alexander's speech follows weeks of the royals communicating with the public using social media and making visits to those who are fighting coronavirus.

Photos from the memorial shared on Instagram were positively received by their supporters.

Queen Maxima opted for minimal make-up with the addition of bold black eyeliner to draw attention

King Willem-Alexander appeared dapper in a striped black suit, teamed with a white shirt and grey tie
(Reuters) - The United States has made over $500 billion in loans to small businesses hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, and about $145 billion remains in the congressionally approved fund, the U.S. Small Business Administration and Treasury Department said Sunday.

The SBA has processed about 2.2 million loans worth more than $175 billion since Congress last month authorized more funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, part of almost $3 trillion in spending to fight the heavy economic toll of the pandemic, which has thrown about 30 million Americans out of work.

The second round of funding was launched on Monday, allowing lenders to issue forgivable, government-guaranteed loans to small businesses shuttered by the outbreak.

The average loan size in the second round of the PPP loan processing has been $79,000, according to the statement released on Sunday.

The U.S. government's $660 billion small business rescue program has stumbled on missing paperwork, technology failure, and the misdirection of funds to big corporations. It also faces the hurdle of forgiving those hastily arranged loans.

The latest data released by the government does not address complaints around the transparency of the program. For example, it not include a breakdown of industries that have received loans.

The pandemic, which has killed more than 66,000 people in the United States, has shuttered wide swaths of American life, closing many businesses and schools and leaving hundreds of millions largely sheltering at home. Over the past week some U.S. states have begun to allow some businesses to reopen.
Minister of Health of Armenia Arsen Torosyan, Governor of Ararat Province Garik Sargsyan and Deputy Minister Artyom Smbatyan today visited Artashat Medical Center to learn about the conditions for providing medical aid to the patients with COVID-19 and the course of implementation of activities once again, as reported on the Facebook page of Artashat Medical Center.

The medical centers director and the coordinator for clinical activities for COVID-19 thoroughly presented the health conditions of the 120 patients undergoing treatment at the medical center and emphasized that the personnel are doing everything they can to provide quality medical aid and psychological support.

Minister Torosyan expressed his satisfaction with the high-class medical aid. In his turn, the director of the medical center expressed gratitude to Mr. Torosyan and Mr. Sargsyan for always supporting the medical center.
Over 500 medical staff and 40 journalists in Pakistan have been infected by the novel coronavirus so far, according to a government report on Monday.

According to the official data, "503 medics including 250 doctors and 110 nurses contacted the deadly virus while treating COVID-19 patients in hospitals. Most of the infected medics belong to Punjab province of Pakistan."



It said five doctors are among 13 medics who lost their lives to the virus.

Dr Furqanul Haq is the third doctor in Karachi who fell victim to the disease on Sunday. Dr Haq allegedly died because of non-availability of ventilator. The government has announced launching investigation into the matter.

Doctors across the country have been complaining for weeks that they are not being provided with the personal protective equipment, making them vulnerable to the virus.

They have also urged the federal and provincial governments to impose a strict lockdown as if the number of coronavirus patients increases manifold the country's healthcare system cannot accommodate them.

Similarly, as many as 40 journalists have tested coronavirus positive in the country, said a government official.

"Three of them have fallen victim to it, he added.

Mohsin Naqvi, the owner of the 24 News, confirmed that more than 30 members of his staff including journalists contracted the virus.

"We have decided to close down the head office from Monday onwards till further notice. We have moved all necessary operations to some other place to keep our screen up. Nearly 90 per cent of our staff will be working from home, Naqvi said in a tweet.

The confirmed COVID-19 cases have crossed 20,000 in Pakistan with 476 deaths.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
WASHINGTON - Canada is keeping a safe distance  for now  from the theory that the COVID-19 outbreak began by accident in a virology laboratory in China  a narrative that's gaining traction by the day, thanks to the White House, American intelligence agencies and media outlets friendly to President Donald Trump.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, arrives at a press conference on Parliament Hill during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ottawa on Monday, May 4, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

WASHINGTON - Canada is keeping a safe distance  for now  from the theory that the COVID-19 outbreak began by accident in a virology laboratory in China  a narrative that's gaining traction by the day, thanks to the White House, American intelligence agencies and media outlets friendly to President Donald Trump.

It will be important to one day learn the true origin story of the global pandemic to defend against similar outbreaks in the future, Health Minister Patty Hajdu acknowledged Monday.

But for now, she said, the federal government is focused the health and safety of its citizens.

"There will be time and a lot of interest and importance (in understanding) how this virus became prevalent in the human species," Hajdu told a news conference.

"Although those questions are important, because they will help us prevent future outbreaks and understand what we can learn from this particular virus, what's even more important right now is to stay focused on Canadians' health and helping Canadians get through the outbreak that we're in now."

The theory  that the virus came from a Level 4 microbiology facility at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in the same city where the outbreak originated last December  has been making the rounds in blog posts, social-media missives and conspiracy-theory Reddit threads for months, long before COVID-19 became a household name.

But Trump, beset by electoral anxiety and his hot-and-cold relationship with China, has given it new life, aided by credulous media reports and an intelligence community now willing to give it credence, all at a time when clear answers about the worst global health crisis in a century are in maddeningly short supply.

"We're going to be given a very strong report as to exactly what we think happened, and I think it'll be very conclusive," Trump said Sunday during a Fox News town hall from the Lincoln Memorial.

"My opinion is they made a mistake. They tried to cover it. They tried to put it out. It's like a fire. You know, it's really like trying to put out a fire. They couldn't put out the fire."

Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was even more direct.

"There's enormous evidence that that's where this began," Pompeo said in an interview on ABC's politics show "This Week." "While the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that and verify so that we are certain. I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan."

All of that followed a remarkable statement last week from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which said U.S. agencies were actively investigating "whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."

It added, importantly: the U.S. agrees with the "wide scientific consensus" that the virus is neither man-made nor genetically modified.

Still, the notion of the lab being the source of the pandemic  a tempting one, given the lab's relative proximity to the so-called "wet markets" for food and animals long presumed to be ground zero  dovetails nicely with Trump's blame-China narrative, which has been buttressed by credible reports that the country waited until it was too late to tell the world about the danger it faced.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, said she's not seen any specific evidence to point to the lab as the culprit, but she acknowledged the world has more questions than answers at this point about outbreak's true origins.

"I don't think we've seen any specific information to say this is a laboratory accident or release, but at the same time we don't know the exact origins of this virus," Tam said.

Though the novel coronavirus is widely believed to have originated with bats, a different animal would likely have had to be involved as an "intermediate host" to allow the virus to jump to humans, she noted. The identity of a likely host hasn't been confirmed, but preliminary research has pointed to snakes as well as pangolins, scaly, nocturnal creatures that live in Asia and Africa.

Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

"The natural history, the evolution of the virus may be found in the upcoming months, but sometimes you may actually not find that until many months later."

A Fox News report Sunday, citing anonymous senior U.S. officials, pointed to a research dossier by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance  the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand  that accuses China of hiding or destroying evidence, and suggests a strong majority of U.S. agencies believe the virus came from a lab.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, when asked whether Canada had formed an opinion based on what it has learned through the Five Eyes, demurred.

"At this point," he said Sunday, "we are not drawing any firm conclusions."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2020.

 Follow James McCarten on Twitter @CdnPressStyle
File image

The coronavirus outbreak is undoubtedly the biggest challenge faced by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. At the forefront of India's battle against the deadly COVID-19, he faces an arduous task of ensuring that India's health infrastructure holds up against the pandemic.

In an interview with CNN-News18, he outlines the steps taken by the government to combat the spread of the virus and the impact of lockdown.

Edited excerpts:

Q. As lockdown 3.0 begins, how would you describe India's fight against COVID-19?

A. India's fight against COVID-19 has been exemplary and it has been acknowledged across the globe. Indians have shown determination and discipline.

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

Q. How are you planning to bring down the rate of daily infection?

A. COVID-19 spreads fast but we should not have unwanted mortalities. Our data shows that 10,000 patients have recovered and majority are recovering as well.

Track this blog for latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak

A. Our graph has been steady. We have tested over million people and only 3 percent have tested positive. Our guidelines say that we have to test all symptomatic patients. I am content with the data.

Q. Why has the number of deaths in the past one week gone up? Is it because of the stigma that is associated with the disease?

A. It has nothing to do with stigma. Anybody who falls sick because of the disease is reporting to the health system with symptoms because of mass awareness. As far as deaths are concerned, most deaths are amongst co-morbid condition patients. Our endevaour has been early diagnosis and early transfer to hospitals. I want to ensure that no one dies because they couldn't avail facilities.

Q. Though we are ramping up our testing capacity, many argue that it is much less compared to other countries. What is your view on this?

A. Our testing strategy is devised by ICMR. We have kept on revising and modifying strategy as per the need of the hour. From one lab in the country, we now have 420 labs. We are testing 75,000 people and we have done a million tests till now. We are testing in a judicious manner. Results speak for themselves and this is a well- crafted strategy.

Q. Given the size of our country, is the government looking at community-based random testing?

A. We are doing it regularly across districts. Some states like Karnataka and Odisha are doing it more aggressively. The National Centre for Disease Control is monitoring these tests.

Q. What is the thinking behind classifications into various zones?

A. To fight a disease, you need to have a well-defined strategy. With two stages of lockdown gone, people have made huge sacrifices. In India, 319 districts are unaffected while 130 are hotspots. Well-defined containment strategies must be there for areas with high infected numbers. We need to have house-to-house survey. Affected houses must be sealed with relaxations. We must take care of the disease in a scientific manner and open economy is a graded manner.

Q. The Health Ministry has said that that case doubling rate for many states like Karnataka, Assam, Telangana, Haryana and UP are much higher than the national average of 12 days doubling rate. But the fact is that we have states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh where it is below the national average. Is it a cause of concern and what is your ministry doing at this front? Also, are some states under reporting?

A. The situation is a cause of concern for us and we are monitoring them at all levels. I have been personally talking to their health ministers. We had central teams for all these states. We feel they also have to start performing well.. We expect that everyone will report every case or mortality in their state.

Q. Which stage of the infection India is currently passing through? How confident are you of India avoiding Stage-3 infection?

A. I have said this repeatedly and WHO has also endorsed what I have said. In India, we have checked at number of places at number of occasions, done random samplings and we did not find significant number of people who got the disease whose contact tracing we couldn't do successfully. I am again reiterating, we have saved the country from going into stage 3 of transmission.

Q. Another area of concern is our urban centres like Mumbai, Delhi and Indore. These places have dense population and are centres of country's economic activities. What according to you went wrong in these cities? Also, what's the assessment of rural India now that migrants are returning home too?

A. It is very difficult to pin-pointedly establish the cause of these cities not performing well even at this stage. But some of these bore the maximum brunt of the international travellers. They have huge slums where it is not practically possible to implement the guidelines of social distancing and lockdown principles in a perfect manner. I also have feeling that people in these cities have not followed lockdown principles quite adequately and that is the reason that these cities are not performing well compared to the rest of the cities in the country. The good thing for India is that rural India behaved much more responsibly that urban India. We saw some of the best examples from panchayats and village heads training and motivating people. I have a feeling these migrant labourers are not so much as a cause of concern because they probably never got in contact with those who got the disease from foreign countries.

Q. There has been a lot of misinformation and confusion around rapid testing kits. What exactly is the government planning to do? And, do you have the sufficient quantity of these kits?

A. RTPCR test is confirmation for the diagnosis of COVID-19. These tests are used for surveillance purposes, epidemological studies and research purposes. To asses the extent of infection in the community, we had plans to use them in our hotspot areas. We procured kits for the whole country and distributed to the states. But when we got reports from the states that their efficacy was under doubt, we withdrew them after testing them in our own labs. As soon as we get good quality kits, we can think about restarting these antibody tests.

Q. Who is responsible for this entire fiasco around testing kits?

A. I think ICMR or the empowered committee have adopted the exact procedure for procurement of the kits and they had given the contract to the lowest bidder. Unfortunately, kits by china were ineffective and as soon as we came to know about it, we ensured that we are no longer using them. Also, we have not paid anything to china for these kits.

Q. In US, FDA has allowed use of Gilead's Remdesivir for emergency cases. Many are calling it biggest hope for treatment. Now, the debate is how to bring it to India. Gilead has today said that it is open to partnering with an Indian company. How soon can we expect that to happen and is your ministry involved in the process?

A. It is being discussed at highest level at government also. Scientists at ICMR and CSIR are also deliberating upon this issue. Right now, we are in the position to participate in the WHO solidarity trial also. We have got some 1,000-odd doses given by WHO. We will be able to use them in clinical trials in some patients in some states in India.

Q. India's supply of HCQs to the world when it needed them the most stood out. Some foreign policy observers called it 'HCQ diplomacy'. What are we doing to ensure mass manufacturing?

A. We have always been very large-hearted. There is strong push from the government to support the industry. We have been supplying HCQ to 97 countries of the world and now saving some for us. We are also supplying paracetamol to 103 countries. The government in its exit plan for the lockdown is supporting the industry to improve its production of various drugs because large number of drugs are exported to some of the less developed countries by India.

Q. Even though India is among the leaders in manufacturing of generic drugs, we are heavily dependent on China for import of APIs. What can be done to become self-reliant vis-a-vis APIs and how are we planning to do that?

A. India has done well in the pharma sector. We have been exporting drugs to some developed countries also. Are only drawback had been that we have been importing these APIs from countries like China. But now endeavour is to attain self sufficiency in APIs also and is is a significant reform that is taking place in this industry at this moment.

Q. Many economists are making the argument that since our mortality rate is so low, probably we should open up the economy in one go and treat people as much as cases come. The view is quite contrary to most of public health experts' advice to flatten the curve like South Korea, etc. What is the way forward for India?

A. Our government's thinking is very clear and has been elaborated by PM himself when he said that 'jaan' is also important and 'jaahan' is also important. For me as Health Minister, my foremost duty is to save every life from succumbing to COVID-19. We are into a dynamic strategy to mitigate covid but you have seen yourself we are now opening up lockdown also. and thats been done by the Home ministry is to make sure that we are able to take care of the economy also and we are able to help people who have suffered because of the economic slowdown post-lockdown.

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
WASHINGTON  U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak  and how contagious the disease is  to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.

Chinese leaders intentionally concealed the severity of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.

The sharper rhetoric coincides with administration critics saying the governments response to the virus was slow and inadequate. President Donald Trumps political opponents have accused him of lashing out at China, a geopolitical foe but critical U.S. trade partner, in an attempt to deflect criticism at home.

Not classified but marked for official use only, the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data, the analysis states.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus was a contagion for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad  and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

Those conclusions are based on the 95% probability that Chinas changes in imports and export behavior were not within normal range, according to the report.

China informed the WHO of the outbreak on Dec. 31. It contacted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Jan. 3 and publicly identified the pathogen as a novel coronavirus on Jan. 8.

Chinese officials muffled doctors who warned about the virus early on and repeatedly downplayed the threat of the outbreak. However, many of the Chinese governments missteps appear to have been due to bureaucratic hurdles, tight controls on information and officials hesitant to report bad news. There is no public evidence to suggest it was an intentional plot to buy up the worlds medical supplies.

In a tweet on Sunday, the president appeared to blame U.S. intelligence officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential coronavirus outbreak could be. Trump has been defensive over whether he failed to act after receiving early warnings from intelligence officials and others about the coronavirus and its potential impact.

Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S., Trump wrote without citing specifics. Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner.

Trump had previously speculated that China may have unleashed the coronavirus due to some kind of horrible mistake. His intelligence agencies say they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.

Speaking Sunday on ABCs This Week, Pompeo said he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories.

These are not the first times that weve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab, Pompeo said. And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.

The secretary of state appeared to be referring to previous outbreaks of respiratory viruses, like SARS, which started in China. Pompeo repeated the same assertion hours later, via a tweet Sunday afternoon.

On Monday, Chinas official Global Times newspaper said Pompeo was making groundless accusations against Beijing by suggesting the coronavirus was released from a Chinese laboratory.

The populist tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party mouthpiece Peoples Daily said the claims were a politically-motivated attempt to preserve Donald Trumps presidency and divert attention from the U.S. administrations own failures in dealing with the outbreak.

As the U.S. presidential election campaigns are underway, the Trump administration has implemented a strategy designed to divert attention from the incompetence it has displayed in fighting the pandemic, the paper said in an editorial.

The paper has made the U.S. top diplomat a main target of its attacks, in recent weeks describing him as despicable and of having evil intentions by blaming China for having caused the pandemic.

While the virus is believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, most scientists say it was most likely transmitted from bats to humans via an intermediary animal such as the armadillo-like pangolin. That has placed the focus on a wet market in the city where wildlife was sold for food.

The theories about a possible human release have centered on the Wuhan Institute of Virology which undertook research into the transmission of pathogens from animals to people.

Beijing has repeatedly pushed back on U.S. accusations that the outbreak was Chinas fault, pointing to many missteps made by American officials in their own fight against the outbreak. Chinas public announcement on Jan. 20 that the virus was transmissible from person to person left the U.S. nearly two months to prepare for the pandemic, during which the U.S. government failed to bolster medical supplies and deployed flawed testing kits.
A former Argentina cop will go on trial for the 2019 execution of a retired married couple she befriended in order to rob them and pay for her daughter's Disney World birthday bash.

Sonia Rebeca Soloaga, 35, who has been relegated to pre-trial confinement at her Buenos Aires home, is accused of killing Alberto Antonio Chirico, 71, and Maria Delia Speranza, 63, inside their home afternoon of June 11, 2019.

Soloaga's boyfriend and fellow police officer Diego Alberto Pachilo, 36, is facing cover-up charges.

Both worked at the same police station and were immediately fired after their arrests on July 16.

According to lead prosecutor Estela Andrades, Soloaga could face life in prison for aggravated robbery with a firearm, double homicide and false denunciation.

A trial date has not been set yet, Argentine newspaper Cronica reported.

Former Buenos Aires, Argentina, police officer Sonia Rebeca Soloaga will be put on trial for the June 2019 murder of an elderly couple she stole $80,000 from to pay for her daughter's 15th birthday celebration in Disney World

Alberto Antonio Chirico (left) and Maria Delia Speranza (right) were allegedly executed inside their home June 2019 by a police officer who they befriended while on patrol in their Buenos Aires neighborhood of Flores

Andrades said Soloaga plotted the elderly's couple death so that she could steal the considerable sum, part of which would have been used to cover a $9,000 bill for her daughter's upcoming 15th birthday celebration, or quiceanera, at the Florida amusement park.

Soloaga developed a close relationship with the Chirico and Speranza, who often invited her inside their home to use the bathroom and to enjoy the couple's meals while patrolling the Flores neighborhood.

During the home invasion, Chirico and Speranza were beaten in the head by the cop they had grown fond of as they were forced to reveal the location of their savings, which were hidden inside a milk container, a cornstarch box, a plastic tube and a shoe box.

Maria Delia Speranza (left) and her husband Alberto Antonio Chirico (right) were each shot in the head during a June 2019 home invasion allegedly carried out by a police officer in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Forensic reports revealed that Chirico and Speranza were forced to lie face down and had a pillow placed over their heads before they were each shot with Soloaga's 9mm service weapon.

Authorities became suspicious of Soloaga after she filed a report which indicated her gun and a bag with 300,000 Argentine pesos - approximately $4,486 - had been taken from her by armed robbers.

Investigators accessed surveillance cameras but could not corroborate Soloaga's story that she had been shot at during the mugging.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
EDWARDSVILLE  The Regional Disaster Mental Health Volunteer response team has created a new Support Line to respond to stressors experienced by local medical professionals and first responders.

The team was announced Monday as Madison County residents head into their sixth week under a stay-at-home order with another four to come.

As the pandemic wears on, it is likely the mental health burden will increase as measures taken to slow the spread of the virus lead to greater isolation and potential financial distress, Deborah Humphrey, director of Madison County Mental Health Board, said. Lives have now been lost which has had a deeper emotional impact on families, friends and medical professionals.

The support line  at 618-381-5173  is designed to help medical professionals, first responders, licensed professionals and people who work in long term care and assisted living centers.

We want them to know, people are here to support your heroic efforts, Humphrey said. Our mental health providers have done a tremendous job in moving quickly to adapt services to be responsive to the impact of the pandemic and ensure is help is available to any individual feeling distressed.

Humphrey said the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn have affected many peoples mental health, creating new barriers for people already suffering from mental illness and substance abuse disorders.

Touchette Regional Hospital, now providing outpatient behavioral health services in Madison County, has begun a Mental Health Support and Resource Line answered by trained therapy staff. Its nuber is 618-482-7158.

In April, state officials announced a text line program, Call4Calm, allowing residents to talk to a mental health professional free of charge. People can text TALK to 552020.

There has been a movement toward telehealth in the mental health field for a number of years, and this technology is increasing, Humphrey said. There is a lack of psychiatry/psychiatrists in the United States and many areas have to rely on this now, particularly rural areas who are even more under-resourced.

She said mental health stigma may prevent people from seeking treatment. Others may find it difficult to seek treatment if they live in a rural area with fewer services.

Telehealth is more private, she said. It can be done in the persons home where they feel safe and removes barriers to access.

Telehealth-Virtual Mental Health Services are available in Madison County at Centerstone of Illinois, Inc. through the Open Access services at 618-462-2331 and Chestnut Health Systems, Central Access, at 618-877-4420.

Social distancing and social isolation can create a high level of stress, anxiety, sleep difficulties, agitation-anger and depression, Humphrey said For individuals who have an existing mental health disorder this may have an even greater impact. The longer the duration, there is greater risk of deterioration of ones coping mechanisms.

She said the extension of Gov. J.B. Pritzkers stay-at-home order through May 30 has prompted greater concerns for those who suffer from mental health issues.

Individuals are cut off from their support systems, Humphrey said. It puts someone at a higher risk of depression that can lead to suicidal ideations, intent or attempt and is further complicated by the economic issues.

In Madison County, a number of support sessions are available for mental health and addictions. Virtual meetings are available through Narcotics and Alcoholic Anonymous; call 618-398-9409 or email metroeastnapr@gmail.com.

The Madison County Mental Health Board funds 14 mental health agencies. For more info visit Facebook.com/co.madison.il.us.
New Delhi: India has conveyed its strong protest to Pakistan over an order by that country's supreme court allowing the conduct of general elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The Ministry of External Affairs said Pakistan was told that entire Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India and that Islamabad should immediately vacate the areas under its illegal occupation.

In a recent order, the Pakistan Supreme Court allowed the amendment to the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 to conduct the general elections in the region.

"India demarched senior Pakistan diplomat and lodged a strong protest to Pakistan against Supreme Court of Pakistan order on the so-called 'Gilgit-Baltistan'," the MEA said in a statement.

"It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession," it said.

The MEA said the government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories "illegally and forcibly" occupied by it.

"India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir," it said.

"Instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation," it added.

The MEA said Pakistan's recent actions can neither hide the "illegal occupation" of parts of union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh by it nor the "grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom" to the people residing in these areas for the past seven decades.
Representatives in Derry have welcomed the announcement from the NI Executive of match funding which will see an economic boost of 210m into the North West.

Speaking in Westminster in November 2014 Mark Durkan made the case for a City Deal for Derry.

"In my own constituency, people would love to see city deal status even within our devolved settlement for the city of Derry.

"We need to look at this in a more fluid way and to get away from the politics and find the democracy," he said.

Today, SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has welcomed the announcement of Executive match-funding for City Deals after the party first raised the proposals over five years ago.

Mr Eastwood said that Derrys City Deal has the potential to transform the North West economy, driving new investment and attracting new jobs.

Colum Eastwood MP said: The SDLP has been fighting hard for fully charged City Deals with the power and potential to transform the Norths economy for over five years. Despite the initial disinterest from the Executive, we have always maintained that these deals would have a significant impact on our ability to reimagine infrastructure, attract new jobs and stimulate economic growth.

In the talks that restored the Executive, I made it a personal priority to secure resource for university expansion in Derry. Investing in skills and providing our talented young people with the opportunity to live, work and set down roots here is essential to building sustainable communities that thrive.

This has been a long time coming. We have been forced to wait for far too long for the chance to build more for our people and our communities. Now that weve secured the potential of the City Deal, we cant take our foot off the pedal. We need to turn the page on the years of neglect and underinvestment by expanding our university, investing in our young people and delivering new opportunities.

Executive confirmation of a multi-million package for Derry has been warmly welcomed by Sinn Fein MLA Martina Anderson as transformative for the entire north west region.

The Foyle MLA was commenting after the Stormont Executive today confirmed match-funding for Derrys planned City Deal and Inclusive Growth Deal.

This is a hugely positive day for the north west and represents the culmination of a great deal of work over the last number of years, Martina Anderson said.

Confirmation of the match funding means we now have a package of 210 million between the City Deal and Inclusive Growth Deal.

This package will be transformative for the entire North West region and required the collective attention and action of the Executive, both governments and other partners.

Following years of unrelenting Tory austerity which has deprived Derry, Strabane and the wider region of much-needed public services and investment, we can see the clear benefits of having a local Executive in place.

Crucial to this has been the role of Sinn Fein Finance Minister Conor Murphy and his determination to ensure that this administration redresses regional inequalities by investing where it is required.

While we will always have much to do, particularly in the face of a global pandemic crisis, this funding and last weeks rescue package for City of Derry Airport will be central to our economic recovery when the crisis has ended.

It will also be fundamental to ensuring we realise the vast economic potential of the entire north west region in the longer term.

Meanwhile, Foyle DUP MLA Gary Middleton also welcomed the approval of match funding for the City Deal and Inclusive Future funding package by Executive Ministers this afternoon.



Mr Middleton said, I wholeheartedly welcome the announcement today of match funding for the Londonderry and Strabane City Deal and Inclusive Future Funds. This doubles the total funding pot to over 200million, adding to the funding already secured through the UK Government.



This will allow for progress on some of the key projects such as the Maritime Museum at Ebrington, the Walled City Experience and the redevelopment of Queens Quay.



The DUP ensured that City Deals were part of the Confidence and Supply agreement in 2017 with the aim of ensuring that all of Northern Ireland benefited. The additional funding for all City Deals announced today is welcome news during this difficult time.



I particularly want to put on record my thanks to my party colleagues within the executive and all parties who worked collectively with all of the key stakeholders over the past few years to get this over the line. This is a significant step forward.
Comments on the revelations about the FBI's effort to put Michael Flynn in a fork whereby he either admitted to a crime or lied to the agents have been vague about exactly what crime he was suspected of.

The answer is a violation of the Logan Act, and understanding this makes the FBI's actions even more despicable than one might have thought.

The Logan Act, passed in 1799, says:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

The Encyclopedia Britannica provides the background, which involved the volatile relations between the U.S. and France during the Napoleonic era. Four facts about the law are crucial:

First, it has never been used. One indictment was filed over 200 years ago, but no one has ever been convicted, and no one else even charged.

Second, it is an impossible law. Anyone who communicates with a foreign official for any purpose could be accused of a violation.

Third, taking the words at face value, this must be one of the most violated laws on the books, given the number of U.S. citizens who have communicated with foreign officials during the past 221 years. In particular, all incoming U.S. administrations quickly establish channels to smooth the transition and avoid drift during the interregnum. And the mind boggles when considering how many congressmen violate it all the time.

Fourth, because of these realities, everyone has simply ignored the existence of the law. But this means that it has never been cabined by sensible judges and has never bitten deeply enough to incentivize any serious effort at repeal.

To the Democrats and the Deep State, this spelled opportunity.

Flynn was interviewed by the FBI on Jan. 24, 2017 and pushed out as national security adviser a few weeks later, after conversations between White House counsel and acting A.G. Sally Yates. Yates, apparently, hinted that Flynn might be subject to blackmail by the Russians over an earlier telephone call with Soviet ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The exact nature of his offense was not spelled out, but later Yates said he was suspected of violating the Logan Act because he had discussed with the ambassador the U.S. sanctions against Russia. During the rest of 2017, as documented by Byron York, the Democratic/MSM echo chamber resounded with dark ruminations about the Logan Act and horror that it might have been violated. York confirmed that the Logan Act was at the heart of Yates's representations to the White House.

So when the FBI agents went to interview Flynn, they had the transcript of his call, and they must have expected him to admit that, yes, he had talked substantive matters, sanctions in particular. Or he might deny it. Flynn is an intelligence professional, and need-to-know is in his DNA; what need did two random FBI agents have to know about his talk with Kislyak? Either way, they had him.

In the event, Flynn denied such a discussion with Kislyak, but in a way that convinced the interviewing agents of his veracity. Subsequently, he has said he simply does not recall any discussion of sanctions but cannot swear that there was none.

The best guess is that it was too early in the administration for hard policy discussions. Flynn and Kislyak probably traded mutual expressions of goodwill and desire for improved relations, and both men would have understood perfectly that the sanctions were going to get a serious review. This would be consistent with what Flynn told VP Pence at the time.

The DOJ has refused to release the transcript, which creates a suspicion that its assertion that sanctions were discussed is untrue or is at best an implication based on the general expressions of goodwill. If this interpretation is correct, they wanted Flynn to admit discussing sanctions precisely because he had not in fact directly discussed them.

One might wonder how Yates and her minions could have thought a Logan Act charge would stick, given the history of the statute, even if Flynn admitted to substantive discussions. Well, they had excellent reasons. The MSM echo chamber would tut-tut about the seriousness of it all, and a Progressive judge would exclude any evidence of selective prosecution so the jury would never know. A conviction would probably be reversed on appeal for any of several constitutional defects, but that would be two or three years down the road.

If this scenario seems dubious, look at the fate of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, convicted on a way-out legal theory that was reversed by the Supreme Court only after he was politically and financially ruined.

In the event, the FBI and DOJ decided that the charge of "lying to the FBI" was a better way to go, and they then brought extreme pressure on Flynn to plead guilty and to avoid any need to disclose the transcript that would (probably) show that he was in fact not guilty of any Logan Act offense.

As the case against Flynn has fallen apart, the Logan Act has receded into the background. But vague statutes selectively enforced for political reasons are the stuff of tyranny, and the law stays on the books as a weapon, ready to the hand of some future Deep-Stater with a political grudge.

James V DeLong is a retired lawyer, government official, and think-tank analyst.
CIA Watchdog Sitting on Secret House Report Allegedly Critical of Brennans Role in Russian Meddling Assessment

The CIA inspector general has taken more than a year to clear the release of a House Intelligence Committee report that contradicts the key conclusion of the intelligence communitys assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the former chief of staff of the National Security Council.

The January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), prepared at the behest of President Barack Obama, claimed that Russia interfered in the presidential election in order to help candidate Donald Trump. The House Intelligence Committees public report (pdf) on Russia had already challenged the analytic tradecraft behind this central claim and suggested that the process of arriving at the assessment wasnt free of political interference.

A separate, classified report holed up at the Office of the CIA Inspector General (IG) sheds damning light on the role then-CIA Director John Brennan played in the preparation of the report, former National Security Council Chief of Staff Fred Fleitz learned from House Intelligence Committee staff. A source familiar with the reports fate would not deny that the report went to the office of the CIA IG.

The report states that Brennan overruled agency analysts who wanted to include strong intelligence in the assessment to show that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted Hillary Clinton to win the election, Fleitz says, citing conversations with House Intelligence Committee staffers. Brennan had also rejected analysts who wanted to strike weak intelligence from the report that suggested that Russia favored Trump, Fleitz said.

So Brennan actually slanted this analysis, choosing anti-Trump intelligence and excluding anti-Clinton intelligence, Fleitz told The Epoch Times.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee issued the report in August 2018 and submitted it to the CIA IG in the fall of 2018 to be cleared for public release, according to Fleitz. The former NSC chief of staff says that only the limited circle of GOP members on the intelligence committee had read the report.

In the section of the House Intelligence Committees public Russia report, which challenged the analytic tradecraft underlying the assessment that Russia favored Trump, the committee stated that it was planning additional action regarding this information in early spring 2018. A source familiar with the report told The Epoch Times, We did do a classified report on the ICA.

The existence of the House report on the ICA, which hasnt been previously reported, comes to light less than one month after newly declassified documents revealed that the FBI was aware that a key part of the infamous Steele dossier could have been the product of disinformation by Russian intelligence services. The dossiera compilation of unverified allegations against Trumpplayed a key role in the FBIs decision to obtain a surveillance warrant to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page. The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the dossier.

A summary of the dossier was included in a top-secret attachment to the ICAAnnex A. The FBI pushed to include the dossier in the ICA, according to a Senate intelligence committee report (pdf) on the assessment released last month. The FBI told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) that they would have had a major problem if Annex A had not been included. Former FBI Director James Comey told the SSCI that he personally insisted that the dossier be included.

I insisted that we bring it to the party, and I was agnostic as to whether it was footnoted in the document itself, put as an annex, Comey told SSCI. I have some recollection of talking to John Brennan, maybe at some point saying: I dont really care, but I think it is relevant and so ought to be part of the consideration.

The Senate reports conclusions about the ICA clash with those reportedly in the classified House report. The SSCI found no issues with the process that led to the issuance of the ICA and found no witnesses to support the claim that the process was politicized.

Every witness interviewed by the Committee stated that he or she saw no attempts or pressure to politicize the findings, the SSCI report states.

The CIA IG office is currently led by acting Inspector General Christopher Sharpley, a holdover from the Obama administration who was reappointed by President Donald Trump. Sharpley withdrew his nomination after allegations surfaced that he misled the Senate about his awareness of whistleblower reprisal complaints against him.

Fleitz said he had personally reached out to acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell about releasing the House report. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence didnt respond to a request for comment.
VILLANOVA, Pa.  The U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board has announced the Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards for 2020-21, with 17 Villanova University students and alumni winning the prestigious awards. In addition to the 17 award recipients, 8 other Villanovans were selected as alternates and 21 earned recognition as semi-finalists. Villanova has been listed among the nations top producers of Fulbright Students for more than a decade, and the University has had at least one student selected for the coveted award each year since 1994.

The Fulbright Student Program gives Villanova students and alumni the opportunity to bring our Augustinian Catholic values to life by using the knowledge, experiences and skills gained at the University to ignite change around the world, said University Provost Patrick G. Maggitti, PhD. Through study, research, teaching and engagement with communities across the globe, these remarkable individuals use their talents to make a positive impact on society. Congratulations to each of the Villanova students and alumni recognized by this prestigious program and to the dedicated faculty and staff who support our talented students throughout this process.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. governments flagship international educational exchange program, offering students grants to conduct research, study and teach abroad. Top-producing institutions are highlighted annually in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Fulbright recipients meet, work with and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. The program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction in the classroom, field, home, and in daily tasks. These experiences allow the grantee to gain an appreciation of others viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. Visit the Fulbright U.S. Student Program website to learn more.

The Fulbright competition at Villanova is open to all current undergraduate, graduate, professional students and alumni, and is administered by the Universitys Center for Research and Fellowships (CRF). Students and alumni create an application for the fellowship program under the direction of the CRF teamwhich provides both one-on-one consultations and group support throughout the application process, including conceptualization of projects, writing and revising proposals, and interview preparation and practice.

These amazing Villanovans have dedicated themselves to becoming globally-connected leaders, joining the lengthy list of alumni who are using their gifts to serve others, said Michael T. Westrate, PhD, Director of CRF. The Fulbright program has once again provided validation of Villanovas exceptional students and alumniand by extension, our world-class academic and research enterprise, including our outstanding faculty and staff mentors.

Villanova students and alumni interested in applying for external awards, including the Fulbright, should visit the CRF website for more information.

The 17 Villanovans awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Grants are:



Mark Brady 20 CLAS , History, Economics, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain

, History, Economics, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain Amanda Burau 19 CLAS-Masters , Human Resource Development, English Teaching Assistantship in Bulgaria

, Human Resource Development, English Teaching Assistantship in Bulgaria Christa Cook 20 COE-Masters , Sustainable Engineering, Study-Research in Brazil

, Sustainable Engineering, Study-Research in Brazil Nora Cowley 20 CLAS , Communication, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain

, Communication, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain Christopher Deucher 20 CLAS , Political Science, Economics, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic

, Political Science, Economics, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic Elizabeth Einig 16 VSB , Marketing, English Teaching Assistantship in Poland

, Marketing, English Teaching Assistantship in Poland Isabel Forward 19 CLAS , English, Education, English Teaching Assistantship in Colombia

, English, Education, English Teaching Assistantship in Colombia Caraline Gammons 20 CLAS , Biology, Royal Veterinary College Award in United Kingdom

, Biology, Royal Veterinary College Award in United Kingdom Jillian Haggard 20 CLAS , Spanish Literature & Language, Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain

, Spanish Literature & Language, Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain Michelle Kimura 20 CLAS , Peace and Justice, Study-Research in Kenya

, Peace and Justice, Study-Research in Kenya Nathalie Leonardo 20 CLAS , Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain

, Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain Caleigh Manyak 20 CLAS , Global Interdisciplinary Studies: Arab and Islamic Studies, English Teaching Assistantship in Brazil

, Global Interdisciplinary Studies: Arab and Islamic Studies, English Teaching Assistantship in Brazil Benjamin Moy 20 CLAS , Environmental Science, Study-Research in Indonesia

, Environmental Science, Study-Research in Indonesia Christina Prinssen 20 CLAS , Global Interdisciplinary Studies: Asian Studies, Political Science, English Teaching Assistantship in South Korea

, Global Interdisciplinary Studies: Asian Studies, Political Science, English Teaching Assistantship in South Korea Clare Reckner 20 CLAS , English, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic

, English, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic Nkiambi Sokolo 18 CLAS , Mathematics, English Teaching Assistantship in Taiwan

, Mathematics, English Teaching Assistantship in Taiwan Jasmine Thornton 20 CLAS, Political Science, English Teaching Assistantship in Greece

For bios of Villanovas 17 Fulbright winners, click here.

Villanovans recognized as Fulbright U.S. Student Alternates are:

Kylie Brinson 20 CLAS , Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Malaysia

, Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Malaysia Caitlin Donahue 20 CLAS , Philosophy, Political Science, Study-Research in Netherlands

, Philosophy, Political Science, Study-Research in Netherlands Ryan Harkin 20 CLAS-Master's , Mathematics, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain

, Mathematics, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain Erin O'Shea 20 COE , Civil Engineering, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain

, Civil Engineering, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain Christiaan Reynolds 21 CLAS-Doctorate , Philosophy, Study-Research in Netherlands

, Philosophy, Study-Research in Netherlands Julianna Ricigliano 20 CLAS , Communication, Political Science, English Teaching Assistantship in Bulgaria

, Communication, Political Science, English Teaching Assistantship in Bulgaria Sarah Santorum 20 CLAS , Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Ukraine

, Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Ukraine Anna Yoo 20 CLAS, Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in South Korea

Villanovans recognized as Fulbright U.S. Student Semi-Finalists are:

Jadyn Anczarski 20 CLAS-Master's , Physics, English Teaching Assistantship in Netherlands

, Physics, English Teaching Assistantship in Netherlands Katherine Costanza 20 CLAS , Communication, English Teaching Assistantship in Malaysia

, Communication, English Teaching Assistantship in Malaysia Kimberly Dawes 19 CLAS , Individually Designed Major, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Study-Research in China

, Individually Designed Major, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Study-Research in China Bailee Deshler 20 CLAS , Biochemistry, Study-Research in Philippines

, Biochemistry, Study-Research in Philippines Emily Ellis 20 CLAS , Biology, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic

, Biology, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic Emily Gilmore 19 VSB , Economics, Study-Research in Italy

, Economics, Study-Research in Italy Blake Leonard 20 CLAS , Global Interdisciplinary Studies: Arab and Islamic Studies, English Teaching Assistantship in Indonesia

, Global Interdisciplinary Studies: Arab and Islamic Studies, English Teaching Assistantship in Indonesia Cali Loblundo 20 CLAS , Biochemistry, Study-Research in Sweden

, Biochemistry, Study-Research in Sweden Sureatha Longstreet 20 CLAS , Liberal Arts, English Teaching Assistantship in Indonesia

, Liberal Arts, English Teaching Assistantship in Indonesia Claudia Macpherson 19 CLAS , Biochemistry, English Teaching Assistantship in Brazil

, Biochemistry, English Teaching Assistantship in Brazil Leanna Marciano 20 CLAS , Economics, English Teaching Assistantship in Laos

, Economics, English Teaching Assistantship in Laos Katherine McMahon 20 CLAS , Education, History, English Teaching Assistantship in Netherlands

, Education, History, English Teaching Assistantship in Netherlands Gregory Morrison 20 VSB , International Business, Economics, Study-Research in Mexico

, International Business, Economics, Study-Research in Mexico Felicity Petruzzi 20 CLAS , Humanities, Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic

, Humanities, Psychology, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic Michael Podgorski 20 CLAS-Master's , Public Administration, English Teaching Assistantship in Germany

, Public Administration, English Teaching Assistantship in Germany Ammy Rodriguez-Quizi 19 CLAS , Communication, English Teaching Assistantship in South Korea

, Communication, English Teaching Assistantship in South Korea Arman Salem 20 VSB , Accountancy, Finance, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain

, Accountancy, Finance, English Teaching Assistantship in Spain Paul Sarles 20 COE , Chemical Engineering, Study-Research in Taiwan

, Chemical Engineering, Study-Research in Taiwan Brett Schratz 20 CLAS , Political Science, Philosophy, Study-Research in United Kingdom

, Political Science, Philosophy, Study-Research in United Kingdom John Shindelar 20 CLAS-Master's, Political Science, English Teaching Assistantship in Czech Republic

About the Fulbright Program: Since its establishment in 1946, the program has given more than 390,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and professionals of all backgrounds and fields the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. Fulbrighters address critical global challenges in all disciplines while building relationships, knowledge, and leadership in support of the long-term interests of the United States and the world. Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 59 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 84 who have received Pulitzer Prizes and 37 who have served as a head of state or government.

About Villanova University: Since 1842, Villanova Universitys Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition has been the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. There are more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and law students in the University's six collegesthe College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Villanova School of Business, the College of Engineering, the M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing, the College of Professional Studies and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. Ranked among the nations top universities, Villanova supports its students intellectual growth and prepares them to become ethical leaders who create positive change everywhere life takes them. For more, visit www.villanova.edu.
Levine, who has worked for the past three years at the African School network Nova Pioneer in Johannesburg, South Africa, said he aspires to a career in global service, leading organizations across the private and public sectors that are focused on unlocking human potential, empowering local leaders, and bridging the economic gap for underserved people worldwide.

I'm unbelievably humbled by my selection as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, and excited to seize the opportunity and to do BC proud, said Levine. The scholarship frees me up to enter the experience more selflessly, enabling me to think about how I can use this opportunity to pay back my privilege and create opportunity for others.

There's an obvious through-line from BC, grounded as it is in the liberal arts and a spirit of service, to a program like Knight-Hennessy. Both aspire to produce well-rounded servant leaders. BC encouraged me to engage with a wide range of disciplines, perspectives, and peoples, guided by amazing professors and alongside inspiring classmates. I couldn't be more grateful for the academic and personal foundation that BC provided and confident that it prepared me for what lies ahead.

Levine cites many outstanding professors in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences whose influence helped him to find his calling in the field of international relations, including Ken Kersch and Peter Krause in political science, and Susan Michalczyk in the Morrissey College Honors program, whom he cites as a mentor and friend.

Ive known Lucas since the start of his sophomore year when he was a student in my Honors Program seminar, said Michalczyk. He was A-plus then, as a young scholar and gentleman, remains A-plus in all he does, and no doubt will excel in his graduate studies at Stanford, as he continues to focus on thoughtful innovation and education to improve the lives of future generations.

Lucas has followed an interdisciplinary approach in his academic, professional, and personal life, building upon his undergraduate studies and looking for connections so as to better understand himself and others. He is intelligent, mature, compassionate, self-aware, and humble. He is other-centered, not self-centereda very rare qualityand one more reason that he deserves this honor as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford.

Added Morrissey College Dean Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., At Boston College we aspire to help our students become well-educated, whole people of solidarity ready to take responsibility in the world and well prepared to lead lives oriented toward service of the common good. Lucas embodies that ideal, and we are proud that his outstanding academic achievement and commitment to service have been recognized through Stanford's selection of him for this prestigious graduate fellowship."
South Korea's recent experience has shown that "it is possible to run a safe and smooth election" amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said Minister-in-Charge of the Public Service Chan Chun Sing. (Yahoo News Singapore file photos)

SINGAPORE  The Singapore parliament passed a Bill on Monday (4 May) to allow voters who are subject to movement control orders, to cast their ballots in the upcoming general election.

Dubbed the Parliamentary Elections (COVID-19 Special Arrangements) Bill, it will also allow aspiring election candidates to submit their nomination papers through a representative if they are subject to movement control orders  such as Stay-Home Notices (SHNs) or quarantine orders  or are hospitalised or in ill health.

During the Bills second reading on Monday, Minister-in-Charge of the Public Service Chan Chun Sing said the new law would allow voters who are serving their SHNs at designated facilities, usually hotels, to either vote at their place of stay or at special polling stations. This means that such voters would cast their ballots outside of their electoral divisions.

The Bill aims to protect voters, candidates and election officials at the next general election by providing the Elections Department and the Returning Officer with additional powers to make special arrangements to deal with running a general election under the COVID-19 situation, said Chan.

Replying to a question from Nominated Member of Parliament Anthea Ong, he said that fewer than 1,000 Singaporeans who are of voting age are currently serving quarantine orders.

Akin to voting overseas

Chan, who is also Minister for Trade and Industry, noted that voting at the special polling stations would be akin to that at overseas polling stations but with a few modifications.

Instead of the usual voting hours from 8am to 8pm, the Returning Officer can set the voting hours at the special polling stations differently, as long as they are at least four hours and end by close of polls at all the other polling stations in Singapore, that is, by 8 pm on Polling Day, he said.

At the special polling stations, each political party, independent candidate or group of independent candidates will only be allowed one polling agent.

Story continues

Election officials at these stations will also have to call out the electoral division and polling district code of the voter before issuing a ballot paper. This will be done because each special polling station would have voters from many electoral divisions casting their votes there, said Chan.

Should there be no dedicated ballot boxes provided for voting in different electoral divisions at these stations, the election officials will be required to sort the ballot papers from the opened ballot boxes according to electoral divisions first before beginning to count the votes.

Chan noted that one of the Bills clauses also excuses those who are issued with quarantine orders, serving SHNs at home or are on medical leave due to ARI for not voting.

Their names will be restored to the electoral registers without penalty, he said. Chan added that there will be auto-restoration for those on quarantine orders and are serving their SHN at home, as we have the information for this group.

For those on medical leave for ARI, they can apply to restore their names to the registers after the election and their names will be restored without a need to pay the $50 penalty, said Chan.

In terms of additional manpower resources required, he added the Elections Department (ELD) will work with the relevant agencies in order to minimise the number of special polling stations to be set up.

Based on the current numbers, we do not expect more than a few polling stations to be set up in the designated facilities, said Chan.

Responding to questions raised about the prospect of online voting, he noted that has not been implemented as it is difficult to prevent impersonation and ensure voting secrecy.

Present day (internet protocol) verification systems will require the system to also retain information on the voters choice, which will compromise voting secrecy. In addition, there are system reliability issues and security risks, such as vulnerability to hacking and cyber attacks, said Chan.

He added that it is also not possible to have polling agents present during online voting.

Provisions for aspiring election candidates

In terms of allowing for aspiring election candidates to file their nomination papers via a representative, Chan noted that these representatives must have the Power of Attorney to do so.

The authorised representative will be able to file objections and make amendments to the nomination papers on the candidates behalf during the nomination proceedings, he said.

Other requirements for successful nomination, such as having the Political Donation Certificate and the required number of subscribers, must still be fulfilled.

Chan added that the Bill does not allow for alternative representation for subscribers; for example, proposers, seconders and assentors.

As subscribers can be anyone whose name is in the relevant register of electors, aspiring candidates should find a replacement if any of their subscribers is subject to movement control orders... or is having a fever or showing ARI symptoms on the day of nomination, he said.

Safety precautions

Replying to concerns from several Members of Parliament, Chan said the ELD will put in place the necessary measures to protect candidates, voters and election officials, and would abide by the prevailing advisories issue by the Ministry of Health, for health, and Ministry of Home Affairs, for security.

He added that the ELD is also studying the experiences of countries that have held elections during the pandemic, such as South Korea.

In the case of South Korea, they implemented precautionary measures, such as temperature screening safe distancing and requiring voters to wear masks and plastic gloves, said Chan.

Another useful observation from the South Korea elections is the wide use of collaterals, such as videos and infographics, to assure voters of the precautionary measures being put in place. As a result, they had a record turnout, at the elections, he added.

Noting that South Koreas health authorities had recently concluded that there were no local transmission cases arising from the elections, Chan said that this showed that it is possible to run a safe and smooth election during the pandemic, provided that the right measures are in place.

Prime Minister will decide on election timing

Chan said that the Bill is not related to the timing of the general election.

It will be for the Prime Minister to consider what is in the best interest of Singapore and Singaporeans, and make the decision on when to call the next general election, he added.

He noted that the ELD would share its guidelines for election campaigning, which would take into account prevailing advisories from the Ministry of Health, in due course.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

More Singapore stories:

COVID-19: Migrant workers were on MOM's radar since January  Josephine Teo

COVID-19: Singapore to expand testing capacity, 'strategically' deploy resources

COVID-19: Gan Kim Yong outlines 3 indicators for easing circuit breaker measures

COVID-19: Singapore confirms 573 more cases, total at 18,778

COVID-19: All MPs required to wear face masks in Parliament
President of the Ghana Journalists Association Affail Monney said in an increasingly complex media landscape ignited by citizens' right to the use of social media, the importance of the traditional media and the need for an all absorbing attention to reliable and accurate information become more paramount.

As the virus rages, we couldn't but agree more with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that the second pandemic of misinformation from harmful health advice to wild conspiracy theories that have unfortunately accompanied the global fight against the virus can only be waged effectively by the media with 'verified, scientific , fact-based news and analysis', Mr Monney stated at a flagraising ceremony to mark World Press Freedom Day in Accra.

While we all feel the devastating impact of the pandemic, UNESCO offers a glimmer of hope to the media. It says the unprecedented health crisis has the potential to rebuild trust in the profession.

He intimate that the GJA intends to capitalize on this to strategize with its constituents and partners on how best to recalibrate and reinvigorate the post Covid-19 media system in Ghana.

The event, which was organised by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) in collaboration with the UNESCO, was on the Journalism Without Fear or Favour'.

The annual celebration, which fell on Sunday, May 3rd, serves as an occasion to inform citizens of the violations of press freedom.

In 1993, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 3 May as World Press Freedom Day, following a recommendation adopted at the 26th session of UNESCO's General Conference in 1991.

Mr Monney noted that the theme for the event reinforces the point that journalism was not a profession for timid, timorous souls but one for brave and uncompromising characters.

He said this tough, indomitable streak enables some leading journalists to talk true to power, expose acts of corruption and hold the powerful to account; declaring that the GJA specially salutes such special stalwarts on this special Day.

In the same vein, we take umbrage over the breezy disregard for ethical values by certain media men and women who are consumed with incontinent ego and surfeited with prideful arrogance, he said.

Press freedom is a liberty and not a license - liberty to perform and not license to destroy. The offenders must take note and repent.

With regards to the global league table of free media systems to examine quickly the causal factors of Ghana's decline - 23rd in 2018, 27th in 2019 and 30th in 2020.

The common thread which runs through our backsliding is impunity. Impunity, if not checked, ignites a self-propelling and re- energizing cycle which then becomes hellishly difficult to uproot, Mr Monney said.

A pesky call, therefore, goes to the authorities to deal surgically with the calcifying cancer of impunity by prosecuting and punishing, to the fullest extent within the law, perpetrators of attacks against journalists regardless of their material wealth, social status or political links.

He said this was the least action expected in a country touted for its fidelity to the rule of law and not the rule of men.

He said the GJA further urges the government to give birth, with urgent promptitude, to the Monitoring Mechanism on the Safety of Journalists which had been incubating since last year.

He said even at the 30th position, Ghana's media system was well at the optimistic end of the spectrum- adjudged as satisfactory by global benchmark and outranking paragons of journalism like United States, the United Kingdom and France.

This, however, should not give room for any narcotic feeling of complacency. Rather, we must take all steps and move all out to salvage our achievements in media freedom and functional democracy.

Madam Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah-Adjei, a Deputy Minister of Information, hailed the impeccable role the media was playing in informing, educating and sensitizing the Ghanaians on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh, Chairman, National Media Commission, cautioned journalists not to allow themselves to be used as conduits for the propagation of fake news.

Mr Abdourahamane Diallo, UNESCO Country Representative to Ghana said: UNESCO believes that a free and independent press is essential at all times, but is particularly important during a health crisis such as the one we are currently experiencing.

---GNA
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

By Nargiz Ismayilova  Trend:

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) has received $1.9 billion from the project on development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea from January 1 through May 1, 2020, Trend reports citing SOFAZ.

Income from the sale of gas condensate produced at the Shah Deniz field from January 1 through May 1, 2020, amounted to $112 million, the report said.

Income from the sale of gas produced at the Shah Deniz field from January 1 to May 1, 2020, amounted to $59 million.

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) was created in 1999. At that time, its assets amounted to $271 million.

According to the regulations on SOFAZ, its funds can be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as for solving important national problems.

The main objectives of SOFAZ are the accumulation of funds and the placement of the funds assets abroad in order to minimize the negative impact on the economy, the accumulation of funds for future generations and the maintenance of current socio-economic processes in the country.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @IsmailovaNargis
The penny finally dropped last Friday about the nightmare logistical challenges that would have to be overcome for the Leaving Certificate to start on July 29.

An advisory group of stakeholders was given what was called a "sobering presentation" of the massive problems ahead if the exams go ahead.

That's now becoming an increasingly big 'if' following Fianna Fail's dramatic weekend call for the cancellation of the exam in order to ease the "already heightened anxiety" among students.

Given that Fianna Fail wants the education portfolio in the next government, the call by education spokesman Thomas Byrne carries particular political weight.

Surprisingly, the Taoiseach made no reference to a national rite of passage - the Leaving Cert - when he gave details of the phased reopening of the country. He simply announced schools and colleges would reopen in September/October for the new academic year.

Later in his chat with Ryan Tubridy, he said it was still the plan to begin the exams on July 29 but then added the idea of predicted grades was also a possible alternative.

The political word in recent weeks was the Government should give itself some wriggle room just in case the exams could not go ahead as scheduled and that's clearly what he was doing.

Some but not all of the stakeholders who had attended the online advisory group meeting on Friday think it's only a matter of time before the political decision is taken to cancel the exam.

They spent the weekend mulling over the presentation given by the State Examination Commission (SEC) and will give their feedback at another meeting on Wednesday.

The presentation was not distributed online to those at the meeting but they were left with many troubling questions to worry them.

How do you shepherd 60,000 stressed students into exam centres in 730 schools so they are safely set apart for the most important exam of their lives; how do you get them to avoid congregating immediately afterwards to discuss the papers and how do you manage those with underlying health conditions?

These are just some of the issues that would have to be fully teased out before the exams could go ahead.

The stresses on young people, particularly those who are vulnerable, is a major worry. A practical question is what happens if someone is coughing or sneezing in the middle of an exam - how will the other candidates react and if the sneezing persists, what then?

Would some parents refuse to let their children sit the exam for health reasons?

Shorter papers and technical issues about practical tests in art as well as project work and the Leaving Certificate Applied are all being discussed by the stakeholders.

The advisory group includes representatives of students, parents, teachers, school leadership and management bodies, the SEC, the National Educational Psychological Service, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and the Department of Education and Skills.

There is no representative from the further or higher education colleges even though these colleges will be enrolling the vast majority of this year's Leaving Cert students.

However, Dr Alan Wall, chief executive of the Higher Education Authority, attends as an observer for the third-level sector.

A former assistant secretary general in the department, he is familiar with the complexity of running the State exams in a normal year, never mind trying to do so when the coronavirus may still be lingering. He also appreciates the difficulty in coming up with an alternative to the Leaving Cert that is seen as fair and equitable.

It's an issue the advisory group will discuss at Wednesday's meeting as doubts persist about the viability of holding the Leaving Cert in July/August.

Michael Healy-Rae is the latest in a growing number of politicians to call for cancelling this year's Leaving Cert.

The first was former minister Ruairi Quinn in an article in the Irish Independent last month.

Predicted grades, perhaps using mocks and house exams, would need the active support of teachers and managers, but many students who have put in a special effort this school year may feel cheated by the grades they get.

Offering a choice to students between written exams or predicted grades has been suggested with legally binding opt-in or opt-out arrangements to prevent a flood of appeals and legal actions.

Many remember the Co Wexford student Rebecca Carter who successfully took the Examinations Commission to court when she was initially deprived of a place on the veterinary course in UCD because it took too long to recheck her Leaving Cert results.

The High Court ruled that the appeals system was not fit for purpose.

The question haunting the education authorities is whether are there many more Rebecca Carters out there.
(Alliance News) - Virgin Money UK PLC on Monday said it has promoted Deputy Chair David Bennett to the role of chair, replacing outgoing Jim Pettigrew, effective from Wednesday.

Bennett will also replace Pettigrew as chair of the bank's units Clydesdale Bank PLC and Virgin Money plc. Pettigrew in January confirmed his intention to retire as chair once a successor was found and following an orderly handover.

The challenger bank, which was formed following a merger of Clydesdale & Yorkshire Bank and Virgin Money, said Bennett's appointment as chair follows the completion of a "thorough search and selection process". Bennett has been deputy chair and a non-executive director of the company since October 2015 and senior independent director since January 2017.

Shares in Virgin Money were down 2.9% at 71.26 pence each in London on Monday afternoon.

The high street lender has been forced to halt its branch closure and job-cutting plans due to the UK government advise to banks and building societies to keep branches open wherever possible amid the coronavirus lockdown.

At the end of March, Virgin Money had said it would be pausing plans to axe around 500 jobs and shut or merge more than 50 branches across the UK due to the virus crisis.

The lender had been due to close 22 branches and consolidate another 30 while also rebranding the entire network as Virgin Money by October 2020.

By Tapan Panchal; tapanpanchal@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
In recent times, news about corona heroes has been a silver lining to the dark Covid-19 cloud. People all-around are trying to motivate and cheer on those fighting on the frontlines against the novel coronavirus. On May 3, Indian Air Force helicopters dropped flower petals on hospitals across different locations in the country. Earlier, Delhi Police performed sirened parikrama on bikes to thank AIIMS medical workers for their hard work. Now we have another Delhi Police officer who is doing his bit to thank our beloved corona heroes in a melodious manner.

This little over a minute-long video was posted on Rajat Rathors Facebook account on April 26. It shows Rathor singing Teri Mitti from the 2019 film Kesari starring Akshay Kumar. Viewers are graced not just by Rathors amazing voice but also his impeccable guitar skills as he performs an acoustic version of the track to honour corona heroes. He does all this while donning his police uniform.

The recording is sweetly captioned, A tribute from my side for all the heroes who are fighting with this pandemic. Doctors and force members salute to all of you. This song is one of my fave songs. Rathor also used multiple hashtags, including #DelhiPolice. The Facebook post currently has nearly 700 shares and over 125 comments. You can watch the full video here:

Heres how Facebook users reacted to this heartwarming musical performance. One person said, Very very nice. While another wrote, Superb. The comment section was also filled with appreciative emojis.

What are your thoughts on this touching gesture by a Delhi policeman who is going above and beyond to serve others during the Covid-19 crises?

Also read: Woman celebrates fathers 100th birthday with him, all thanks to Delhi Police
Accra, Ghana (PANA) - Domestic flights have resumed in Ghana as the country slowly eases some restrictions imposed to contain the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic
WAIKOLOA, Hawaii, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- There are many speculations out there regarding how COVID-19 will ultimately affect tourism in Hawaii, but there are few with regards to the Big Island specifically. Waikoloa Vacation Rentals has looked at what has happened thus far and how this will affect the Big Island of Hawaii in the coming months. Rob Dalton, owner of Waikoloa Vacation Rentals, states, "In order for tourism to bounce back in Hawaii in 2020, the plan to reopen tourism has to be well thought out and done in a timely manner."

Waikoloa Vacation Rentals

First, when Hawaii began to attempt to shut down vacationers coming into the state, they were successful. Most hotels shut down and almost all vacation rental business or hotels that are open will more than likely have an occupancy of less than 10% for the months of April and May. Most vacation industry executives agreed with this move. While this was Hawaii's move, many other countries have limited their citizens from leaving the country through the rest of the summer, ultimately causing out-of-country travelers to cancel through August.

The shutting down of tourism in April and May caused the airlines to adjust. This is currently the most influential factor affecting tourism once travel opens back up. Currently, Delta is the only larger airline that flies into Kona International Airport. Due to this, properties such as Kolea at Waikoloa Beach Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii have seen cancellations in the summer due to the lack of direct flights into Kona International Airport. Due to this, they are choosing to go to Oahu or Maui since there are still direct flights there.

Due to these factors, there are a lot of things that have to happen in order for tourism to bounce back on the Big Island of Hawaii in 2020. First, the State has to remove the quarantine. Second, the airlines have to open back up to offer more flights and more direct flights. All of this will have to happen rapidly in order for the Big Island of Hawaii to have a chance at having a decent summer in relation to tourism.

Media Contact:

Rob Dalton

Waikoloa Vacation Rentals

[email protected]

Related Images

image1.jpg

Related Links

Waikoloa Vacation Rentals

Kolea Vacation Rentals

SOURCE Waikoloa Vacation Rentals

Related Links

https://www.waikoloavacationrentals.com


DANBURY  Two people, including a firefighter, sustained minor injuries following an early Monday morning crash on Main Street.

Police, fire and EMS responded to the area of 120 Main Street around 12 a.m. after a car crashed in front of the Connecticut Institute for Communities and caught fire, according to dispatch reports.

First responders initially thought the car had struck the 39,828 square-foot medical office, but it turned out that it just landed at (the) front door, a firefighter on scene said.

The car was up against the building but didnt really do any damage, said Danbury Fire Department spokesperson Jamie Gagliardo.

The driver was on the sidewalk when first responders arrived. Gagliardo said the man removed himself from the vehicle and had been the only person in the car.

He was transported to Danbury Hospital with minor injuries, Gagliardo said.

Around 12:07 a.m., a second ambulance was requested for a firefighter who got injured on the call.

He was bumped by a vehicle and sustained a minor foot injury. He was transported to Danbury Hospital, evaluated and released shortly after, Gagliardo said.

The citys fire marshal was called to the scene, as well as the president and CEO of the Connecticut Institute for Communities, James Maloney.
Walk in the new Decade of Non invasive Aesthetic medicine Swiss Made. In 2020 the company celebrates 18 years of innovation and brand leadership: Sygmalift 3D, Ultracontour NG, Mesomega, S.Shape. MEDIXSYSTEME, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of the international top 8 medical aesthetic equipment based in Liechtenstein. The company offers products manufacturing, services and research in Medical Aesthetic. Innovative solutions in body contouring and skin rejuvenation result from a close 
Most people who got to hear about Henry Kiki Watson was when they watched aerial footage of the Los Angeles riots showing a white van driver being pulled from his construction vehicle and attacked.

Or else it was when the former marine, then aged 27, was arrested and mug-shotted, along with five other young black men and agreed a plea deal to only a modest charge. Or when he appeared with that driver, Reginald Denny, on The Phil Donahue Show after being released from jail, shook his hand and apologised for my participation in the injuries you suffered.

Today, Watson, who was involved in one of the most notorious incidents in the riots and civil unrest that followed the acquittal of four white police officers over the beating a year earlier of black motorist Rodney King, says he has no regrets about what he did. Asked if the 55-year-old Watson would have responded in the same way as his younger self, he says he would have.

The reason, he says, is that the structural racism that helped fuel the anger and riots following the beating of King, has not gone away.

Come on. Racism is racism. You know how Americans feel about black people. You know how British feel about black people. Its worldwide. Its not just an American problem, its a worldwide problem, he tells The Independent from Los Angeles.

Attack on white trucker Reginald Denny Show all 5 1 /5 Attack on white trucker Reginald Denny Attack on white trucker Reginald Denny Antoine Miller (C), a defendant in the beating case of trucker Reginald Denny during the April 1992 riots, listens to his attorneys James Gilliam (L) and Patrick Maginnis (R) 15 March, 1993 in Los Angeles, CA. Plea bargaining negotiations were discussed at the pre-trial hearing. The trial was recently delayed a month while the Rodney King civil rights case was in progress AFP via Getty Images Attack on white trucker Reginald Denny Defendant Damian Williams listens as his 10-year sentence for beating trucker Reginald Denny at the beginning of the Los Angeles riots is read 07 December 1993. Williams received the maximum sentence for his one felony and four misdemeanor convictions. AFP via Getty Images Attack on white trucker Reginald Denny Henry Watson (3rd from R) looks on during a panel discussion after the screening of VH1 Rock Docs "Uprising" at The GRAMMY Museum on April 26, 2012 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images Attack on white trucker Reginald Denny US Archive Attack on white trucker Reginald Denny Trucker Reginald Denny arrives at the Federal Building 27 September 1993 in Los Angeles, California. A judge indicated he will dismiss Denny's 40 million USD lawsuit against the city for police failure to protect him during rioting 29 April 1992. AFP via Getty Images

S*** aint right. The way that black people are treated in the United States is not right. Youre asking if Im still upset, if Im still angry. F***, yes. Nothing changed. What has changed? Its so funny, people like yourself, journalists, every year they want to know whats changed. Aint nothing changed.

Throughout the 28 years since the riots, Watson has continued to live close to the intersection of Normandie Ave and Florence Ave, where the attack on Denny, then aged 36, was carried out.

The construction worker was ultimately saved after the intervention of four black people  two women and two men  who went to his aid, and managed to drive the truck away from the junction, with him in it. They managed to get the red-coloured rig to the Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, with Denny reportedly coughing up blood.

Those people didnt even know him and risked their lives to aid him, Don Kelley, Dennys roommate, told the Los Angeles Times at the time. If no one had helped him, he would be dead.

Denny would later appear with Watson on Donohues show. Reviews said both the formers willingness to forgive, and the latters readiness to apologise, felt less than overwhelming.

 News footage shows 1992's LA riots as Los Angeles marks 28th anniversary

This is a civil war, said Denny, who needed intensive hospital treatment and later moved to Arizona where he maintains a low profile. This is not me against Mr Watsonits not a personal vendetta. The problems were happening before Mr Watson and I were born.

Watson, who was only convicted of a minor offence and served less than six months, said he had no regrets for his actions. He points to widespread incidents around the country of young black men dying at the hands of police  Eric Garner in New York, or Michael Brown in Ferguson  as proof that the criminal justice system remained overwhelmingly weighted against people of colour.

No, I dont. Theres no regrets. No remorse. No nothing. That was just an ass-whipping. Black people, they get beat up for years. Weve been getting killed for years. So one ass-whipping? No.

He adds: You guys write this stuff I dont have to. I dont make this up. Aint nothing change? Do you think, Im gonna sit here and tell you Oh, your race relations and everything is wonderful in the United States. Its not. So, Im gonna give you what you need to hear.

For a number of years, a mural could be seen on the side of side of Watsons home, documenting a piece of history in which at least 63 people were killed and which the city appears unable to shed. Last year, the mural was removed when he had his work done to his home. For at the past 20 years, he has run a limousine car business.

Watson says the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that data suggests African Americans have been disproportionately infected and killed, underscored the plight of people of colour in the United States. He says he is unsure about the origins of the disease, but feels that the elites of China and the United States, are looking out for each other.

Im not going to tell you Oh, everything is wonderful. Were holding hands and singing Kumbaya. No.

Everything that happens to a black man, woman or child upset to to the utmost. I feel it all as though it was me myself, he says.

That lets you know, they have not changed. You know, theyve been killing us, theyre still killing us. Its ridiculous. Theyre getting away with murder.
Postal workers in Illinois are among those calling for swift action by Congress to save the U.S. Postal Service.

Jackie Engelhart, president of Northwest Illinois Area Local 194 of the American Postal Workers Union, says postal workers have been crucial in serving the public during the COVID-19 crisis  delivering absentee ballots, medical supplies and other necessities to people sheltering in place.

However, she explains, mail volume is down 50%, which could have a major impact on revenues.

The only thing thats really continuing to come in is mainly the parcels, so the post office is caught in between a double whammy, as far as a loss of volume and increased expenses for dealing with keeping the employees safe, she said.

The union is calling on Congress to provide one-time funding of at least $25 billion to cover immediate revenue loss, as well as ongoing support for the duration of the crisis.

The postal service has been left out of federal COVID-19 financial relief, while private corporate and other business interests have received almost $1 trillion in assistance.

By some estimates, the postal service could run out of money by the end of summer.

Engelhart says should the postal service collapse, rural customers would have to rely on private shipping companies that dont have as much infrastructure in smaller communities.

Right now, the postal service is obviously mandated to serve every mailbox in the United States, she said, but what would happen if there was no post office, and that mandate went away? I have no idea. There probably isnt much of a plan, except to sell the profitable part.

President Donald Trump and some Republicans have questioned the sustainability of the postal service and have at times called for it to be privatized.

The most recent census data estimates there are roughly 30,000 U.S. Postal Service employees in Illinois.
(FILES) In this file photo taken May 4, 2019, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, speaks in Omaha, Nebraska; the celebrated investor ranked as the world's fourth richest man, said he had made a mistake by investing in the four biggest US airlines, including Southwest (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

Washington (AFP) - Billionaire investor Warren Buffet said Saturday he's confident the US economy will bounce back from its pummeling by the coronavirus pandemic because "American magic has always prevailed."

The 89-year-old made the sanguine prediction about the world's largest economy as his holding company Berkshire Hathaway reported first-quarter net losses of nearly $50 billion.

Buffett also announced Saturday that his company had sold all its stakes in four major US airlines last month, as the pandemic clobbered the travel industry.

"It turns out I was wrong," he said of his acquisitions of 10 percent stakes in American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines.

Berkshire Hathaway had paid $7 billion to $8 billion, and "we did not take out anything like that," he said.

Between the purchases that took place over months, and the sale, "the airlines business I think changed in a very major way" and could no longer meet Berkshire criteria for profitability, he said.

Buffett's announcement may further hurt airlines already pushed to the brink by coronavirus lockdown measures, now looking to the US government for $25 billion in relief funds.

- 'American miracles, American magic' -

Berkshire Hathaway, based in Omaha, Nebraska, called its first-quarter setback "temporary" but said it could not reliably predict when its many businesses would return to normal or when consumers would resume their former buying habits.

"We've faced great problems in the past, haven't faced this exact problem -- in fact we haven't really faced anything that quite resembles this problem," Buffett said in a lengthy speech on the country's economic history.

"But we faced tougher problems, and the American miracles, American magic has always prevailed and it will do so again."

"We are now a better country, as well as an incredibly more wealthy country, than we were in 1789... We got a long ways to go but we moved in the right direction," he said, referencing the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage.

Story continues

"Never bet against America."

Buffett is considered one of the savviest investors anywhere. His fortune of $72 billion is the fourth-largest in the world, according to Forbes, and in normal years, the company's annual gathering in Omaha is a high-point of the calendar for investors, a "Woodstock for capitalists."

But the devastating economic impact of the pandemic has hit hard at Berkshire Hathaway's wide range of investments, and the need for social distancing forced it to hold the annual meeting online.

Buffett addressed his shareholders in a livestream flanked only by Gregory Abel, who is in charge of Berkshire's non-insurance operations.

His business partner for six decades, 96-year-old Charlie Munger, did not appear.

- Growth by one measure -

Buffett, in a statement, played down his company's bleak-looking net figure. He said a better measure of the company's performance was its operating earnings, which exclude investments and are less subject to sharp fluctuations.

By that measure, Berkshire Hathaway saw growth to $5.9 billion from $5.55 billion a year earlier.

The brutal drop in the net -- to a loss of $49.75 billion from a profit last year of $21.7 billion -- resulted primarily from the virus-related decline in value of its broad investment portfolio, which ranges from energy to transport to insurance and technology.

The annual meeting often has an almost carnival atmosphere, as thousands of fans and investors flock to Nebraska to hear from the celebrated "Oracle of Omaha." Buffett, famous for his relatively modest lifestyle, turns 90 on August 30.

In documents filed Saturday, Berkshire noted that until mid-March many of its companies were posting "comparative revenue and earnings increases" over the same 2019 period.

Many of its companies -- including in rail transport, energy production and some manufacturing and service businesses -- are deemed essential and are able to continue working amid the far-reaching confinement orders.

But their turnover slowed considerably in April, the company statement said.

Moves taken by those companies such as employee furloughs, salary cuts and reductions, and capital spending reductions are "necessary actions" and "temporary," it said.
The Spokesman of Iran's Foreign Ministry on Monday said Iran is still prepared for prisoner exchange with the United States and European countries.

"We had announced our readiness both officially and through messages [relayed by third parties] and even proposed to exchange certain prisoners some of which took place," Seyed Abbas Mousavi told reporters on Monday.

He added that nearly 20 Iranians are in detention in the United States "on false charges of trying to circumvent sanctions" and said Iran is prepared to work for resolving the situation.

In October 2019 Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said Iran had made an offer of prisoner exchange with the United States through the Swiss embassy in Tehran and submitted a list of Iranian prisoners in the United States for the exchange. The Swiss embassy represents U.S. interests in the Islamic Republic. Zarif, however, said the talks had reached a dead-end.

Commenting on the circumstances of Dr. Sirous Asgari, an Iranian scientist in prison in the United States, Mousavi said he has reportedly contracted the coronavirus in prison. "He will be tested again. Everything is ready for his return to the country and if his test result is negative he will come back to Iran soon".

Asgari was not found guilty in a U.S. sanctions trial but is held on U.S. federal charges of stealing trade secrets since November.

Speaking to reporters on Monday Ali Rabiei, the Spokesman of the Rouhani administration, alleged that Iranian prisoners are held in "shameful" unsanitary conditions in U.S. prisons. Rabiei also said Iran that is expecting the return of an Iranian prisoner, presumably Sirous Agari, from the United States soon.

Iran is holding several dual-nationals who have been arrested and convicted in closed-door, unfair trials. Western officials regard these arrests as an attempt to gain bargaining chips by Iran.

Iranian officials have repeatedly demanded the release of Iranian prisoners held in the United States and European countries on charges of breaching the U.S. sanctions.

"The U.S. even refuses medical furlough, amid COVID-19, for innocent men jailed in horrific facilities. Release our men." Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said in a tweet on March 27.
Hyderabad, May 4 : Opposition Congress party in Telangana on Monday slammed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government for doing fewer Covid-19 tests and sought Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan's intervention in the matter.

State Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy called on the Governor at the Raj Bhavan and complained to her about the state government's shortcomings in tackling Covid-19 situation.

Reddy wanted to know why the government is not conducting an adequate number of tests. He alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao is taking unilateral decisions without consulting the opposition.

He told reporters that conducting more tests would help in checking the spread of Covid-19. He wanted to know why the government is not allowing Covid-19 tests in the hospitals which received the nod from Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for the same.

Reddy, who is also a Member of Parliament, claimed that states smaller than Telangana were conducting more tests.

The Congress leader also wondered why the government is not releasing the details of those who died of Covid-19 in the state. In his representation to the Governor, he demanded that the government should pay Rs 10 lakh as ex-gratia each to the families of the dead.

He alleged that the government is threatening the media questioning it and totally ignoring the suggestions and advises of the opposition.

Reddy also complained that despite 40 days of the lockdown, the poor have not received Rs 1,500 financial aid announced by the state government.

He also targeted the government for not having correct statistics with regard to the migrant labourers in the state.

Alleging the shortcomings in procurement of paddy, he said farmers were suffering due to the faulty policies of the government.

Earlier, Reddy distributed five lakh eggs and 40,000 sanitisers in Miryalaguda along with senior party colleague K. Jana Reddy. Each family will get 12 eggs and 1 sanitizer irrespective of caste, religion or party.

Telangana has so far recorded 1,082 Covid-19 cases, of which 545 have recovered and 29 have died.

According to officials, the number of active cases in the state is now at 508.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday said some of the state's retail businesses could begin reopening with modifications by the end of this week if certain criteria are met.

Newsom said state officials will issue further guidance Thursday on the state's next phase of reopening, which will include specific guidelines that low-risk businesses must meet in order to reopen with modifications as soon as Friday.

He said retailers of such items as clothing, books, music, toys and sporting goods, as well as florists, would be allowed to offer curbside pickup services if they institute guidelines set forth by the state. Associated manufacturers that support the retail industry would also be allowed to begin production, Newsom added.

"We are entering into the next phase this week ... with modifications, we will allow retail to start operating across the spectrum," Newsom said at his daily press briefing. "This is a very positive sign, and it has happened only for one reason: The data says it can happen."

His office later tweeted that the order does not include office spaces, restaurants and shopping malls.

https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1257392907826483202

Newsom said the state would also allow some counties to begin easing social distancing restrictions even further if they can prove they have the ability to institute proper sanitation practices, ensure adequate testing and tracing and provide security to those who are most vulnerable, including the homeless community, older citizens and the incarcerated.

"We will allow additional movement through phase two, and that includes the prospect of restaurants with modifications opening, hospitality more broadly opening, again, with modification," Newsom said.

Phase three of the state's reopening plan includes businesses such as hair and nail salons, movie theaters and events with live audiences, although the state is not at that phase yet.
Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds delivered a virtual commencement speech to the class of 2020 from his alma mater, Kitsilano Secondary School in Vancouver, and gifted every student a pizza from his favourite local pizza place, as the novel coronavirus prevented graduating students from donning their cap.

The Vancouver-born actor, who graduated from the West Side secondary school in 1994, uploaded an inspiring speech on YouTube over the weekend for the class of 2020.

If I can pass on this one little chestnut of wisdom, it's something that you might want to start if you're not already doing it. Totally up to you, no pressure but one thing that's worked for me is practicing some form of compassion every day whether it's for yourself or someone, especially for someone else, is good, Reynolds said in the video.

The actor encouraged students to be empathetic.

"Some of you may consider me successful. I don't know, some of you may have seen Green Lantern'. But I'll tell you this -- empathy has gotten me so much farther in not only in my life but in my career To my surprise, (empathy) has made me money, friends, priceless memories.

It's allowed me to fully accept and provide love. It's helped me recognise the mistakes I've made and learn from them. And above all, it made me happy. And it's something I'll probably be working on my whole life," he added.

The video ended with congratulatory message for the graduating class, as Reynolds announced that "every grad gets one large pizza on me from his favourite local pizza shop, Nat's Pizzeria.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A brown bear has been spotted in a national park in northwest Spain for the first time in 150 years.

Footage of the bear was captured by camera traps set up by a crew shooting a film in the Invernadeiro national park, in the sparsely populated Ourense province in Galicia.

In it, the male bear can be seen foraging for food, engaging in a night-time back-scratching session, and running away from what he clearly considered an overly threatening bush.

The movies production company, Zeitun Films, said the bear was aged between three and five, and it was likely the first to have crossed the area since 1870.

According to rangers advising the filmmakers, the bear probably spend the entire winter in the region, after heading south from the Sierra de Caurel mountains.

European nature photographer of the year 2020 Show all 19 1 /19 European nature photographer of the year 2020 European nature photographer of the year 2020 A hares dream Overall winner Peter Lindel European nature photographer of the year 2020 Danger in the mud (crocodile) Winner in Other Animals category Jens Cullmann European nature photographer of the year 2020 New life in a dead forest Winner in Plants and Fungi category Radomir Jakubowski European nature photographer of the year 2020 Take off Winner in Birds category Flurin Leugger European nature photographer of the year 2020 Magic Light Winner in Landscapes category Benjamin Waldmann European nature photographer of the year 2020 Curious glances (raccoons) Finalist Jan Piecha European nature photographer of the year 2020 The white coastline Finalist Stephan Furnrohr European nature photographer of the year 2020 Arabian red fox, Kuwait City Finalist Mohammad Murad European nature photographer of the year 2020 Iceland going abstract Finalist Uwe Hasubek European nature photographer of the year 2020 School of jackfish, Costa Rica Finalist Henry Jager European nature photographer of the year 2020 Flooded with light Finalist Jan Piecha European nature photographer of the year 2020 Refraction Finalist Burkard Hillert European nature photographer of the year 2020 Poseidons wrath Finalist Christian Wappl European nature photographer of the year 2020 Stony dipper Finalist Hermann Hirsch European nature photographer of the year 2020 Milk and honey Finalist Sandra Bartocha European nature photographer of the year 2020 Water feature Finalist Britta Strack European nature photographer of the year 2020 Masai Mara, Kenya Finalist Jose Fragozo European nature photographer of the year 2020 Marchenwelt Finalist Florian Smit European nature photographer of the year 2020 Ducks Finalist Christoph Kaula

Though lacking bears in recent decades, Invernadeiro is already home to many wild species of animal, including wolves, deer, boar and otters.

Zeitun Films said the bear footage would form part of the as yet unfinished movie, titled Montana ou Morte (Mountain or Death).

In an effort to protect brown bears, the species has received protected status in Spain since 1973. This, though, has not stopped local farmers in the Pyrenees complaining about their presence.

In 2018, a group of them organised a blockade in an attempt to stop a female bear arriving from Slovenia.

She was eventually released into the wild by conservationists, who hoped she would mate with male bears in the region.
MagneGas Welding Supply Launches New Fort Wayne Location

PHOENIX, AZ, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Taronis Fuels, Inc., (Taronis or the Company)(OTC: TRNF), a global producer of renewable and socially responsible fuel products, today announced the expansion of its retail operations into the Midwest with its new location in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Company currently operates twenty-four industrial gas supply locations in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, California, and now Indiana.

The Company assumed control of the assets and operations of a small independent industrial gas distributor in the Fort Wayne market for zero upfront consideration. The key sales personnel approached the Company in March of 2020 with a client book of business in excess of $5 million in annual spending but lacking the necessary assets and resources to support their clients growth potential. The key sales personnel became employees of MagneGas Welding Supply, the Companys domestic retail operations, effective May 1, 2020.

This was a very fortunate development for the Company, commented Scott Mahoney, CEO of Taronis. We had a legacy relationship with the key sales staff at their prior company for a number of years. They had acted as a highly successful distributor of MagneGas to some of the marquee manufacturing names in the industry, including several Fortune 500 companies. We see enormous growth potential with this team leading our Midwestern growth strategy.

This is a fundamentally solid growth opportunity that speaks volumes with regards to the progress we have made in the US industrial gas industry. We were considered a partner of choice and a highly desirable place of employment for an experienced sales team with a world class clientele that they have served for many years. For them to approach us and to ultimately join our team is a strong endorsement of our reputation in the industry. We are excited to enter into a new and promising market, and we are honored to expand our team of excellent industry professionals to include our new Fort Wayne employees, concluded Mr. Mahoney.

About Taronis Fuels, Inc.

Taronis Fuels, Inc. is a global producer of renewable and socially responsible fuel products. Our goal is to deliver environmentally sustainable, technology driven alternatives to traditional fossil fuel and carbon-based economy products. We believe our products offer a vastly cleaner solution to legacy acetylene and propane alternatives.

Taronis is also dedicated to providing fundamentally safer solutions to meet the industrial, commercial and residential needs of tomorrows global economy. Our products have been rigorously tested and independently validated by global gas authorities as vastly safer than acetylene, the most dangerous industrial gas in use today.

Lastly, we strive to deliver products that offer significant function superiority at a reduced cost to the end consumer. Through these efforts, we support 9 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. For more information, please visit our website at www.taronisfuels.com/



FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements relate to future events, including our ability to raise capital, or to our future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond our control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects our current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to our operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. We assume no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our public filings with the SEC are available from commercial document retrieval services and at the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov.
A mother beat staggering odds of 200 million to one to give birth to naturally conceived identical triplets - doubling the size of her family overnight.

Shocked Katie Craw, 26, from Pentre Maelor, Wales, said she and partner Rob Ellis almost fainted when they were told their second child was actually three at their 12-week scan.

Usually triplets are non identical and are created when two eggs are fertilised and one goes on to grow into twins.

But Katie is one of just a handful of women in Britain to have identical triplets - known as monozygotic - where the fertilised egg splits into three after conception.

It makes miracle tots Tommy, Joshua and Eddie - born by emergency cesarean on February 9 - genetically identical.

Katie and Rob initially had to leave the tots' hospital tags on in order to tell them apart.

Katie Craw, 26, from Pentre Maelor, Wales, staggering odds of 200million to one to give birth to naturally conceived identical triplets

Katie and partner Rob Ellis almost fainted when they were told their second child was actually three at their 12-week scan. Pictured are the identical triplet boys, Tommy, Joshua and Eddie

She said: 'When I found out I was pregnant with three I thought "We can't afford a big car or a bigger house." It was a lot to take in.

'But my nanna said to me things happen for a reason and these are the cards life has dealt you.

'And now they're here, I just feel like I'm in a bubble of happiness. They're absolutely smashing.'

The couple already had a four-year-old son Jacob, born in 2015, and wanted him to be at school when they started trying for their second.

Luckily Katie got pregnant the second month of trying and they excitedly prepared to welcome a new baby brother or sister.

But Katie is one of just a handful of women in Britain to have identical triplets - known as monozygotic - where the fertilised egg splits into three after conception. She is pictured with partner Rob, the triplets, and their first son Jacob

The couple already had a four-year-old son Jacob, born in 2015, and wanted him to be at school when they started trying for their second. He is pictured with his younger brother's scans

But going in for their 12-week scan at their local hospital, the Wrexham Maelor Hospital, they were about to get the shock of their lives.

Katie wasn't as far along as she thought and was only actually at eight weeks' gestation with not one but three babies.

Katie explained: 'I'd started to fit into my old maternity clothes and was getting a bit of a podge so we thought I was a lot further along.

'Within five seconds of the sonographer having the scanner on my tummy she asked me to take a deep breath in.

Katie got pregnant the second month of trying and they excitedly prepared to welcome a new baby brother or sister - but ended up with four little brothers. Jacob, Katie and the triplets are pictured

'I thought she was going to tell me some bad news but she just came out with 'I can see three heartbeats.'

'I just knew she wasn't joking. They kept saying to me you are taking this really well and I thought 'I am not taking this really well!'

Katie added: 'We were taken to a side room. I was crying and Rob was as white as a sheet.

The pregnancy went swimmingly, with Katie seeing her midwife weekly and being scanned every fortnight to make sure the little ones were developing properly. The triplets are pictured with Jacob

Miracle tots Tommy, Joshua and Eddie were born by emergency cesarean on February 9 - genetically identical

'They said how rare it was but they didn't know how rare at that point. They thought it was two eggs where one had split.

'They told us about all the complications but they said you can still have three healthy babies.'

Two weeks later the couple returned for another scan where it was discovered that the babies each had their own sac of fluid.

Katie and Rob (pictured) were told there are often complications with triplet pregnancies, but the pregnancy went well. Rob is pictured with his four sons

The pregnancy went swimmingly, with Katie seeing her midwife weekly and being scanned every fortnight to make sure the little ones were developing properly.

But at 26 weeks, the consultants in Wrexham began to worry.

Tommy, who was the presenting triplet closest to the birth canal, looked like he wasn't gaining weight.

Katie was given a steroid injection and booked in to see an expert in multiple births at Liverpool Womens' Hospital 35 miles away.

Katie was told it was rare

Multiple birth experts told Katie it was unlikely the triplets would be identical and thought the Welsh hospital had made an error - but the boys were identical when they were born in February

There, docs said they thought it was unlikely the triplets would be identical and thought the Welsh hospital had made an error.

Katie added: 'Before the doctor scanned me he had a look at my notes and he said 'I don't want to rain on your parade but the chances of you being pregnant with identical triplets is miniscule - I've never seen it myself - so the team in Wrexham have probably got it wrong.'

'He was convinced he'd find two separate placentas that had fused together. We were resigned to the fact we were having triplets by this point so I wasn't really bothered about how they got there - we'd already got over the shock.

The triplets (one, pictured) were born via emergency cesarean at 30 weeks and one day

Katie was discharged after a week in hospital and spent a further fortnight in parent accommodation, but it was then shut as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold across Britain. Pictured are the triplets, happy and healthy

'When he realised they were identical, even he was amazed.

'He said he'd eat his words as it was something he'd never seen before. He said it was textbook stuff that he was seeing.'

The babies carried on growing at brilliant rates and Katie was booked in for a cesarean at 32 weeks - normal practice with multiple births.

But at 28 weeks, Katie, a former prison worker, began suffering contractions.

How rare are identical triplets? One hundred and thirty two sets of triplets were born in England and Wales in 2018, although most were non identical. Usually with triplets, two eggs are fertilised and one then splits into two, making twins. Rosie Phelps-Goggin, 40, and husband Brad, 45, of Pylle, Somerset, had identical triplets - Genevieve, Constance and Avangeline - last year. Just this week Becky Sefton, 29, and partner Adam Balduckie, 33, had three 3lb girls conceived naturally, although they were not identical. The triplet rate in the UK used to be about 1 in 10,000 maternities but more than quadrupled between 1970 and 1998 following the introduction of ovulation induction and multiple embryo transfer in fertility treatment. Advertisement

She spent five days back in Liverpool as they tried to stop them and was then sent home for bed rest.

However at 30 weeks and one day, they started up again and she was rushed by ambulance to hospital in Wrexham.

The plan was for her to undergo surgery in Liverpool, but there wasn't enough time to get her there.

Welder Rob, 29, was at her bedside as she had an emergency cesarean on February 9, with Tommy born at 17.50 weighing 2lbs 11.5oz, Joshua at 17.51 weighing 3lbs 4.5oz and Eddie at 17.52 at 3lbs 3.5oz.

'The whole team at the Maelor dealt with it so unbelievably well, I can't thank them enough,' Katie said.

'I was so scared but it was like a bubble of excitement, people were making jokes, making me smile, the whole team were amazing.

'Tommy came out and took a big breath and screamed and the whole of the theatre cheered. And it was the same with Joshua and Eddie. I was full of adrenaline.'

Tommy and Joshua were transferred that night to Glan Clwyd Hospital in Bodelwyddan, while Eddie followed a day later.

Katie had an emergency cesarean on February 9, with Tommy born at 17.50 weighing 2lbs 11.5oz, Joshua at 17.51 weighing 3lbs 4.5oz and Eddie at 17.52 at 3lbs 3.5oz

Thankfully Josh and Eddie only spent almost seven weeks in hospital and Tommy came home ten days after them on April 10 - with the family together for the first time. The family are pictured in hospital

Katie was discharged after a week and spent a further fortnight in parent accommodation, but it was then shut as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold across Britain.

It meant she and Rob had to spend the next eight weeks juggling work and childcare for Jacob while visiting the tots.

Thankfully Josh and Eddie only spent almost seven weeks in hospital and Tommy came home ten days after them on April 10 - with the family together for the first time.

Pictured are the scans of the babies, Katie said the couple got the shock of their life when they found out they're having triplets

Katie and Rob say the birth of their babies has been a ray of sunshine amid the gloom of Covid-19. Pictured is their scan

Overjoyed Katie added: 'It was difficult not having us all together. There were times when I felt really lonely and I could never see this day.

'None of them have really had any issues and a lot of other mums do so I feel really lucky.

'I keep thinking I'm going to crash or have an emotional day but I'm just so happy we're all home and cracking on.'

And she says the new family-of-six have been bowled over by the kindness they have received from members of their community.

Neighbours have even left packs of nappies and other supplies on their doorstep anonymously to help the young couple financially.

Katie and Rob say the birth of their babies has been a ray of sunshine amid the gloom of Covid-19.

'We really do feel so lucky. They say it takes a village to raise a child and it's so true,' Katie added.
The Cambridge Police Department apologized to U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III on Sunday after an officer posted a profane tweet about the congressman to the departments official Twitter account thinking it was their personal account.

Though the tweet was quickly deleted, a screenshot of the officers post was taken. The tweet read, Another liberal (expletive) jerk who just happens to be better then the clown hes running against. Sad for us.

The officer was commenting on an article from WCVB in which Kennedy criticized the Trump administrations handling of the coronavirus outbreak. He told the news outlet the situation governors are in trying to secure personal protective equipment during the pandemic is embarrassing."

Earlier this afternoon, a member of the Cambridge Police, who has access to the Departments Twitter account, inadvertently posted political commentary on the department account rather than their personal account, that was inappropriate, unprofessional and disrespectful, the department tweeted.

The department apologized to to Kennedy and the individuals the statement was directed at," calling the incident regrettable." It also noted the officers actions did not reflect the professionalism of the department.

Appropriate action will be taken in response to the incident, the department tweeted, though it did not specify what action this might include.

Kennedy, a Democrat, represents Massachusettss 4th District, which includes much of Bristol and Norfolk counties.
A few days ago, reports were floating on the Internet stating that Telugu actress Payal Ghosh is diagnosed with Coronavirus. After the news went viral on social media, the young Bengali actress' fans got worried about her health. However, the latest report suggests that Payal is not diagnosed with COVID-19, but some other deadly disease.

In a media interaction, Payal Ghosh laughed off the reports of her getting infected with COVID-19. The Prayanam actress revealed that she is down with malaria and requested the media to publish articles after knowing the truth. She also addressed fans that her spirits are high and she'll be fine soon.

The 30-year-old Payal Ghosh said, "I felt uneasy a couple of days ago. My head started hurting and I had a slight fever later in the night. I was sure that it wasn't COVID-19 as I had taken all the measures. But my family was worried. We got the tests done and it was malaria."

Payal further said, "I would be fine soon and my spirit is high. It's nothing like what the less fortunate are suffering right now. I hope this pandemic ends soon and we all can resume the normal life."

For those who are unversed, apart from Tollywood, Payal Ghosh was also seen in the Rishi Kapoor-starrer Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi. She also shared a few kind words after the veteran actor's demise. She said, "Thank you for launching me, Rishi uncle. And I would never forget the beautiful lines he said 'Maine bohot ladkiyo ko launch kiya hai aur aapka bhi swagat hai' (I have launched many girls in the movies. You are welcome, too)."

Also Read : Sisters Malavika and Sonakshi Raaj Flouting Coronavirus Lockdown?

On a related note, Payal Ghosh made her debut in Tollywood with the film Prayanam (2009) opposite Manchu Manoj. The film is directed by Chandra Sekhar Yeleti and produced by Seeta Yeleti. She was last seen in Oosaravelli and Mr Rascal. Payal is also a part of Bollywood film Koi Jaane Na, which is yet to be released.
An elderly Malian refugee and his family at Mentao camp in the Sahel region shortly after arriving in May, 2018.  UNHCR/Moussa Bougma

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, condemns violence against Malian refugees, reportedly by the country's security forces on May 2, housed in the Mentao refugee camp during which at least 32 people were injured, some seriously.

The camp is located in Burkina Fasos volatile Sahel region close to the border with Mali and hosts some 6,500 refugees.

According to refugee accounts, security forces burst into the camp in search of armed elements involved in an attack on soldiers earlier that day on nearby Djibo-Ouagadougou road. The incident had left one security personnel dead and another missing.

Security forces undertook house-to-house searches in the camp and allegedly forced refugee men and boys out of their homes, beating them with sticks, belts and ropes.

Refugees were accused of complicity with the unidentified gunmen and given an ultimatum to leave the camp within the next 72 hours or face death.

The actions of the security forces as reported to us are totally unacceptable, said Millicent Mutuli, UNHCRs Director for the Regional Bureau for West and Central Africa. Refugees living in Mentao camp should be protected, she added.

UNHCR has called for an urgent investigation into the incident in a letter addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, while expressing grave concern for the safety of refugees.

All injured refugees are currently receiving treatment in the Djibo health centre, among them four with fractured limbs.

UNHCR reiterates its call on the Government of Burkina Faso to allow moving refugees from the camp to a safer location and has offered support to the authorities.

Violence had forced UNHCR to relocate its staff out of the camp in November 2019. Since then, access is sporadic to refugees, mostly women and children, living in dire conditions with schools, health centre and security post been forced to close.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
: The Tamil Nadu government on Monday



informed the Madras High Court that it has decided to stop a move of utilizing Surplus fund lying with the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department for COVID-19 mitigation efforts and also to withdraw the circular in this regard.

M Karthikeyan, counsel for the HR&CE department made this submission when the plea moved by the publisher of a Tamil daily and others, challenging the April 24 circular, came up before the special bench of Justices Vineet Kothari and Pushpa Sathyanarayana.

"The circular is likely to be withdrawn and the department is not insisting on any such contribution from such temples," Karthikeyan said to the bench, which conducted the hearing through video conference.

Recording the submission, the bench adjourned the matter to May 8 and directed Karthikeyan to produce the relevant order passed by the commissioner of the department, withdrawing the circular.

"In the meanwhile, the department shall not act upon the circular, against the temples included in the said circular," the bench said.

The petitioners submitted that the HR&CE commissioner had illegally issued a circular directing temples in the categories specified to mandatorily contribute substantial amount from their surplus fund to the Chief Minister's public relief fund to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

They contended that the Commissioner has no authority to issue such a circular, particularly when these temples, "which are under the orders of the government", have remained closed for two months due to the lockdown.

"...And therefore there is no current flow of revenue in these temples and such a circular is contrary to the applicable law about surplus (funds) in temples, " the petitioners said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
TDT | Manama

Electronic payment service BenefitPay can now be used by Sadeem customers to pay for fuel. This was announced yesterday by Benefit company, following its partnership with Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) in cooperation with Bapco Retail Company.

Sadeem users can now pay for fuel and recharge their accounts using BenefitPay. The move is in line with government directives to encourage electronic payments, in addition to the publics demand for such services.

This partnership opens a new enrollment channel for Sadeem card through BenefitPay and eliminates the need for Sadeem existing users to carry their plastic cards with them. Sadeem cardholders will be able to recharge their accounts through Fawateer on the BenefitPay application, where their cards will digitally appear to them.

This partnership strengthens efforts to reduce the use of cash, especially at fuel stations, and move to cashless transactions, in line with national directives and precautionary measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Kingdom.

Benefit is offering an exclusive offer of 10 per cent cashback for service users purchasing fuel at Bapco Retail Stations, and a five per cent cashback for service users purchasing fuel at any other fuel station amongst the 52 participating stations located throughout Bahrain, to be deposited directly into the balance of their Sadeem account.

We are pleased to announce such a quantum leap with Bapco and Bapco Retail Company, enabling the public to use the BenefitPay application to access Sadeem, Benefit CE Abdulwahed Al Janahi said.

This initiative is in line with our continuous efforts to provide a fully integrated electronic-payments solution that meets the requirements of individuals and companies. We would like to express our thanks to the Central Bank of Bahrain for their continuous support.

Bapco general manager marketing Khalid Buhazza said the partnership provides the option of using electronic payments at refueling stations and protecting users and employees on-site, in addition to contributing to achieving the national plans to encourage electronic financial payments and transitioning into a cashless society.

The initiative is in line with the governments plans and the directives of Minister of Oil Shaikh Mohamed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa as fueling stations are amongst the most businesses that use cash, he added.

Sadeem users can enjoy recharging and using their accounts without the need of carrying a physical card, which in return provides our valued customers with a higher level of customer satisfaction, said Buhazza.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Life in the Seychelles began returning to normal on Monday as authorities relaxed confinement measures, with no new coronavirus cases recorded in almost a month and only 11 people infected in the island nation.

The archipelago went into lockdown on April 8, two days after the last case of the virus was recorded, shutting non-essential services and banning all movement aside from grocery shopping.

A few days later a nighttime curfew was added to the measures.

The restrictions were applied to Mahe, the main island as well as the second and third most-populated islands Praslin and La Digue.

On Monday most businesses were allowed to re-open and people were once again moving freely and going to workfew of whom wore a mask.

Authorities have called on citizens to nevertheless maintain social distancing measures and remain vigilant.

"We have won the battle but we have not won the war. We must remain vigilant and prevent the spread of the virus in the Seychelles at all cost," said Public Health Commissioner Jude Gedeon.

Only three of the original patients remain ill.

Some restrictions will remain in place. Schools will not open until mid-May and bars and restaurants in June. Gatherings of more than four people are still banned.

The Indian Ocean archipelago of 115 islands is a paradise for luxury tourism, and welcomed more than 360,000 visitors in 2018a figure four times its population.

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on global tourism has hit the islands hard. The government banned cruise ships and shut its international airport when the first cases were announced on March 14.

The airport is due to re-open on June 1, although borders will remain closed to countries which still count active cases of the virus.

Authorities do not expect tourists to return until September.

The absence of tourists has led the Seychellois rupee to drop 30 percent to the US dollar and the euro in recent weeks.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
Carnival Cruise Line will "phase in" some of its North American cruises beginning 1 August, following coronavirus outbreaks on several Carnival ships with more than 1,500 confirmed infections as the pandemic spread earlier this year.

Eight ships will depart from Galveston, Texas and Miami and Port Canaveral in Florida.

"In connection with this plan, our pause in operations will be extended in all other North American and Australian markets" through the end of August, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The company's re-opening date arrives one week after a no-sail order from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is set to expire.

Health officials extended the order from 24 April through 24 July as the CDC warned that cruise travel "exacerbates the global spread" of the virus.

"We are committed to supporting all public health efforts to manage the Covid-19 situation," the company said. "We are taking a measured approach, focusing our return to service on a select number of homeports where we have more significant operations that are easily accessible by car for the majority of our guests."

Cruises scheduled from 27 June to 31 July have been cancelled.

Beginning on 1 August, Carnival Dream, Carnival Freedom and Carnival Vista ships will depart from Galveston, and the Carnival Horizon, Carnival Magic and Carnival Sensation will leave from Miami.

Carnival Breeze and Carnival Elation will leave from Port Canaveral.

All other cruises are cancelled through 31 August, along with all Carnival Spirit Alaskan cruises from Seattle and the Carnival Spirit Vancouver-Honolulu cruise on 25 September and the Honolulu-Brisbane transpacific cruise on 6 October.

All Carnival Splendor cruises in Australia from 19 June 19 to 31 August 31 will also be cancelled.

The company said it will "use this additional time to continue to engage experts, government officials and stakeholders on additional protocols and procedures to protect the health and safety of our guests, crew and the communities we serve."

Carnival's announcement follows a congressional investigation into the company over its handling of the outbreak on board the Diamond Princess, on which more than 800 people were infected with Covid-19, including 10 people who died.

Several of the company's ships became Covid-19 hotspots, resulting in more than 1,500 positive infections and at least 39 fatalities, according to Bloomberg.

The chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has asked Carnival to submit documents to the committee alleging that it did not heed advisories from the World Health Organisation.
WASHINGTON - The Senate reopened Monday in a Capitol largely shuttered by the coronavirus, but prospects for quick action on a new aid package are uncertain with a deepening debate over how best to confront the deadly pandemic and its economic devastation.

The 100 senators are convening for the first time since March, while the House is staying away due to the health risks, as the conflicted Congress reflects an uneasy nation. The Washington area remains a virus hot spot under stay-home rules.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opened the session, defending his decision to focus the agenda on confirming President Donald Trumps nominees rather than the virus outbreak.

We have important work to do for the nation, McConnell said. He said the Senate would show up for work like the essential workers that we are.

Senate Republicans are trying to set the terms of debate, frustrated that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was able to fill up earlier aid bills with Democratic priorities. Theyre reluctant to unleash federal funds beyond the nearly $3 trillion Congress already approved in virus relief and hope Trumps push to kick-start the economy will reduce the need for more aid. But Pelosi is marching ahead without them, assembling a new aid package that Democrats expect to unveil soon.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer decried bringing senators and staff back without confronting the crisis. He called it one of the strangest sessions of the United States Senate in modern history.

For more than five weeks, the COVID-19 crisis has all but closed Congress, a longer absence than during the 1918 Spanish flu.

Senators returned to a changed place with new guidelines, including the recommendation that senators wear masks  blue face coverings were available for free, and being worn by staff. Senators were also told to keep their distance and leave most staff at home. Public access is limited, including at public hearings. The Capitol itself remains closed to visitors and tours.

Its not just lawmakers at risk. Reopening part of Capitol Hill poses health risks for the cooks, cleaners, police officers and other workers who keep the Capitol complex functioning.

Capitol Hill erupted late last week after the attending physician informed top GOP officials the health office did not have the means to perform instant virus tests on returning lawmakers or staff.

Over the weekend, Trump himself offered Congress access to 1,000 instant virus tests similar to a system used to screen visitors to the White House.

But in an extraordinary rebuff, McConnell and Pelosi said in a rare joint statement Saturday that they would respectfully decline, directing resources to the front lines. Lawmakers were wary of preferential treatment amid a national shortage of tests.

Trump huffed in a tweet Monday that Congress was essentially saying that they are not essential.

Democrats are eyeing a new aid package as states and cities seek as much as $1 trillion to prevent local layoffs and keep paying nurses, police, firefighters and other front-line workers as local revenues tank during the stay-home shutdown.

Pelosi said they may look at guaranteed income for those out of work, according to a person unauthorized to discuss a private Democratic conference call and granted anonymity.

But Republicans are counting on a reopened economy to reduce the need for more aid.

We have to reopen our country, Trump said during a town hall on the eve of the Senates return, even as he revised upward his projection for the total U.S. death total to as much as 100,000.

Trump said any new package must have a payroll-tax holiday and McConnell insisted it also include liability protections for health care providers and reopened businesses.

As Congress struggles to fully resume during the pandemic, the top House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, proposed a new hybrid system for the still-shuttered chamber.

Under his plan, the full House should remain closed, but its committees could convene to craft legislation. He calls it the crawl, walk, run plan.

But the White House in seeking to limit administration officials time at COVID-related hearings indicated in a memo Monday that any appearances by members of its coronavirus task force must be approved by Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.

House Democrats proposed a new system of proxy voting. It would be a historic first for Congress, which under the Constitution expects lawmakers to be present. But without Republican support the plans were shelved for more debate. The Houses return date is not yet set.

In the Senate, McConnell has loaded up the schedule with hearings for Trumps nominees, including Justin Walker, a conservative, McConnell-backed pick to be a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit, which is seen as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court.

A nomination hearing also is scheduled for John Ratcliffe, the Texas Republican congressman who is Trumps choice to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

On Monday, senators confirmed Robert J. Feitel to be inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Kevin Freking and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
Travel stocks have been hit hard by the coronavirus. Airlines have suffered significant losses, as highlighted by Air Canada losing a whopping 62% for the year to date. Cruise lines have suffered even worse. The worlds largest cruise operator Carnival (NYSE:CCL) saw its stock plunge a whopping 72%. That considerable loss, and with talk of bailouts and insider buying, has sparked speculation that now is the time to buy Carnival. While it appears cheap and is a tempting investment opportunity, there are signs that Carnival is not as attractive as it initially appears.

Poor outlook for travel

Global tourism and travel wont return to anything vaguely resembling what existed prior to the coronavirus pandemic. Many countries have closed their borders and restricted internal travel. There are signs that many nations will remain closed to international travel for months to come.

Australia indicated its borders could be closed beyond the end of 2020, while Argentina recently banned all international flights into and out of the country. Ottawa has banned all foreign nationals, except those from the U.S., from entering Canada until the end of June.

More telling for cruise lines is the CDCs no-sail order, which bans cruise vessels from waters under U.S. jurisdiction at least until late July 2020. That saw Carnival suspend operations until the end of June for most of its vessels and July 31 for Cunard.

There is a significant groundswell of distrust regarding cruise ships. The handling of the contagion by cruise operators has been brought into question. There were even voyages being launched after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic.

Scientists and medical professionals have stated for decades that there is a greater risk of contracting respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases on ships. The coronavirus has proven no different. Vessels provided an ideal environment for spreading the virus and proved to be petri dishes for the coronavirus.

Story continues

Increased scrutiny

For these reasons, it is difficult to see the cruise industry emerging unscathed from the pandemic. Government scrutiny and regulation of cruise lines will increase significantly in a post-coronavirus world. That will impact margins and profitability in an industry long known for doing its best to avoid regulation.

Many cruise companies, including Carnival, are incorporated in jurisdictions such as Panama, which have extremely lax legal and regulatory oversight while operating in profitable developed markets like the U.S. and Canada. That has allowed Carnival and its peers to flout relevant laws and regulations to boost profitability.

Those factors dont bode well for Carnivals future.

Weak financial position

Carnival has added around US$6 billion in long-term debt to an already bloated balance sheet, plus it drew down US$3 billion from a credit facility. That will strain an already delicate financial position, which includes US$11 billion in existing long-term debt and leases at the end of the first quarter 2020.

An immediate lack of cash flow, extreme operational uncertainty, and the tremendous costs associated with that debt will weigh on Carnivals financial performance. For these reasons, Carnival is a stock to avoid.

Buy this Canadian REIT instead

A superior investment is leading Canadian real estate investment trust (REIT) Dream Industrial REIT (TSX:DIR.UN). It was one of the best-performing REITs of 2019, and after losing 25% for the year to date it appears extremely attractively valued. Dream Industrial is trading at a 19% discount to its net asset value per unit, highlighting the upside available and why now is the time to buy.

The REIT possesses considerable growth prospects, which, when coupled with a wide economic moat, makes it an attractive stock to own in the current uncertain environment. Dream Industrial finished 2019 with an impressive 95.8% occupancy rate and a weighted average lease term of just over four years. That bodes well for the certainty of Dream Industrials earnings, although the coronavirus pandemic will have a sharp short-term impact.

Dream Industrial is in a strong financial position ending 2019 with a net debt-to-assets ratio of 23.7%. That is exceptionally low for a REIT, underscoring the strength of its balance sheet. Dream Industrials foray into Western Europe boosts its long-term growth prospects. When coupled with growing demand for industrial real estate because of the rapid expansion of internet retailing, Dream Industrials asset value and earnings will expand at a solid clip.

The post Avoid Carnival: Buy This Canadian REIT Instead appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

More reading

Fool contributor Matt Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Carnival and DREAM INDUSTRIAL REIT.

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
Minor league pitcher Blake Bivens was checking Facebook on his phone in September of 2019 when he learned that his wife, child, and mother-in-law had been brutally murdered in his native Danville, Virginia.

In a video that has gone viral on social media, Bivens shared the heartbreaking experience of learning that his family had been shot to death by his brother-in-law, who had spent the previous month on suicide watch.

Bivens, 24, already knew something was wrong last September because he had been urgently summoned home from Chattanooga, where he had been playing a road game for the Montgomery Biscuits, a Double-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

In a video that has gone viral on social media, Bivens shared the heartbreaking experience of learning that his family had been shot to death by his brother-in-law, who had spent the previous month on suicide watch

(Left) Bivens is pictured with his wife Emily and their boy Cullen. (Right), Emily Bivens, Cullen and Joan Bernard, Bivens's mother-in-law, are pictured

Blake Bivens pictured with his son Cullen, who was tragically killed in September

'First headline I see is two females and a small child were gone,' Bivens said on a Facebook Live stream from the River Church in Danville, Virginia. 'I immediately knew that was them. I found out my family was gone over a Facebook headline. I just immediately began to scream in the middle of the airport.

'I think the hardest moment for me was when I got home and I walked in my son's bedroom for the first time and realized I was never going to see him on this Earth again,' he continued. 'That was the worst moment in my life. Nothing ever will come to being, to feeling the way I felt at that moment. Then again, I know I will see him again one day, and it won't be long.'

Police attempt to corral a naked Matthew Bernard near the scene of a triple homicide

Matthew Bernard, 19, has been charged with three counts of first-degree homicide

Bivens's brother-in-law Matthew Thomas Bernard, 19, has since been charged with three counts of first-degree homicide for allegedly killing his mother Joan Bernard, 62, his sister and Bivens's wife Emily, 25, and their 14-month-old son Cullen.

Bernard was seen running around naked near the scene of the crime and led the police on a brief foot chase before trying to strangle a church worker.

In September, a judge ordered a psychological evaluation for Bernard, who police say 'was operating under religious motivation,' according to the Danville Register & Bee. A hearing will be held next week to determine if he's competent to stand trial.

Bivens's 2020 season has been put on hold by the coronavirus, but he did pitch winter ball in Australia following the tragedy.

'It's unbelievable how much I can vividly remember from the day,' he said, explaining how he has relied on his religion during the last few months. 'And it's kind of unbelievable to see how far things have come from that day also.'

Bivens and wife Emily pictured while he pitched for the Princeton Rays

In January Bivens shared photographs of his late wife on Instagram to mark their anniversary

Three crosses sit on a hill overlooking a parking lot filled to capacity during funeral services for Emily and Cullen at the Central Boulevard Church of God in Danville, VA on Aug. 31, 2019

Bivens singled out one Bible verse, John 16:33, that he says helped give him strength during the ordeal.

'And when I read, "Take heart, for I have overcome the world," it changed, it completely flipped a switch in my heart,' he said. 'And from that moment on I knew that this was not going to beat me, this was not going to beat family. I was going to live in victory the rest of my life, and I was going to use this as a testimony to show what he has done for me he can also do for others.

'That moment for me was one of the biggest moments where I just knew God was with me, and the only thing I knew to do was just laugh in the enemy's face, because he thought he had won. But all he's done is awoken a sleeping giant.'

Following the murders, Bivens eventually broke his silence on Instagram: 'Two days ago my heart was turned to ash. My life as I knew it is destroyed. The pain my family and I feel is unbearable and cannot be put into words. I shake and tremble at the thought of our future without them,' he wrote.

Bivens and Emily were married in January 2016 after being high school sweethearts.

The couple welcomed their first child, Cullen, in June 2018.
Stormonts deputy first minister has raised concern about setting milestone dates in Northern Irelands coronavirus exit strategy.

Michelle ONeill said marking recovery phases on a calendar would lead to people focusing on certain dates and would result in disappointment if restrictions were not lifted on those days, due to scientific advice about the viruss spread.

First Minister Arlene Foster said Northern Irelands plan had to be science-led, proportionate and designed to ensure the region avoided a second spike in cases.

The Executive is working on our plan to emerge from lockdown. The plan must be science led, proportionate, and above all, won't expose our society to another spike in infection. pic.twitter.com/VvUFdAX0Yf  Arlene Foster #WellMeetAgain (@DUPleader) May 4, 2020

The Irish governments recovery blueprint sets out a five-stage process with linked timelines and provisional dates.

Starting on May 18, the Republic will move from one phase to another every three weeks, as long as health experts deem it safe to do so.

Stormont ministers continue to work on a plan north of the border.

Irelands health minister Simon Harris has said it makes scientific sense for the two recovery plans to be as closely aligned as possible.

At Mondays Covid 19 briefing, Mrs Foster said the powersharing executive in Belfast did not receive advance sight of the Irish Republics plan before it was published on Friday evening.

The number of people who have died after testing positive for coronavirus in Northern Ireland rose to 387 on Monday, after another six deaths were reported.

There were another 69 confirmed cases of the disease, taking the total to 3,836.

Ms ONeill said the Stormont plan could be published later this week, but warned it should not be viewed as a green light for people to return to normal.

Story continues

(PA Graphics)

Asked if businesses could expect projected dates for when they might be able to reopen  something the Irish plan includes  the deputy first minister said: I think there are difficulties presented by putting down dates, the reason being people then work to that.

And what if something happens, because we know that we have to monitor every action and see what that means in terms of the virus spread.

So every action will have an impact in terms of virus spread, so we have to be able to do certain things, allow enough time in order for us to be able to assess the impact of that and then perhaps move on to do other things.

So you perhaps can look at blocks of time, but I think that its difficult to go into calendar-led announcements, given that people then make their plans based on that and then theyll be very disappointed if thats not the case.

So thats one of the things that were actually discussing at the executive about what is the right approach.

Leo Varadkar outlined Irelands recovery plan in Dublin on Friday evening (Leon Farrell/PA)

Mrs Foster said ministers from both jurisdictions met last week to discuss issues but confirmed the Stormont executive was not given advance sight of the Irish strategy.

The (north/south) memorandum of understanding which is in place is in relation to sharing information in terms of the health piece, she said.

Of course its always for a government to put in place their own staging posts, way forward and thats exactly what happened.

We didnt have a comprehensive view as to what was coming in relation to that plan on Friday evening.

Mrs Foster said Northern Irelands plan would be guided by the requirement to keep the regions R0 (the number of people an infected person infects in turn) below one and ensuring the pressures on the health care system remain manageable.

She said work was ongoing on drawing up the document.

Whilst I appreciate many of you are anxious for us to produce the plan immediately, it is important that the executive remains focused on getting it right in the light of the latest medical and scientific advice, she said.

The DUP leader cautioned that talk of a recovery plan could prompt people to start disregarding existing restrictions.

We in the executive are very conscious that theres a real danger of members of the public becoming distracted and assuming its OK to resume what they might have been doing before, she said.

Mrs Foster was asked if she could give an indication on when schools might open again, given the Irish government has made clear the general school population will not return to class until September.

The First Minister said it was not possible to give a commitment as schools opening impacted so many other sectors of society, such as childcare, transport and the workplace.

I cant give you a straight answer today, she said. Im being entirely open and honest with you around that because it is part of the whole plan that the executive is working on.
The leaders of nations, banks and organizations gathered Monday via video conference for a European Union-led summit, collectively pledging 7.4 billion euros ($8 billion) toward research for a coronavirus vaccine, AP reports.

Why it matters: The U.S. was noticeably absent, despite appearances from the "heads of state and government from Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Jordan, South Africa and Turkey spoke at the event, along with Chinas EU ambassador" among the many European participants.

A senior administration official said on a State Department press call that the administration's "cooperation with European partners continues to be extremely robust, as it is with partners around the world."

The official also added that the U.S. "[welcomes] EU efforts to secure pledges for additional contributions to combat this pandemic. Many of the organizations and programs this pledging conference seeks to support already received very significant funding and support from the U.S. government and private sector."

The big picture: A coronavirus vaccine isn't likely to be available until mid-2021, at the earliest. But even if a viable vaccine is developed under the quickest timeline, there isn't expected to be enough doses for all individuals at the outset
1. Yes. Too many kids are staying home. They need a virtual learning option to keep up.

2. Yes. Teachers are out sick and subs cant handle the load. Online learning is needed.

3. No. Its too late in the school year to make a wholesale switch in teaching platforms.

4.No. Many parents arent in a position to stay home while their kids learn virtually.

5. Unsure. It may seem like a good idea from a health standpoint, but it has shortcomings.

Vote

View Results
A Northern Ireland-born MP has resigned as trade minister after he tried to "intimidate a member of the public" over a financial dispute with his father, a Commons investigation found.

Conservative MP Conor Burns was found to have breached the code of conduct for MPs.

Downing Street announced he had stood down from the Department of International Trade after the Commons standards committee recommended he should be suspended from Parliament for seven days.

The committee's report published on Monday morning said he had used his position as an MP to "attempt to intimidate" a member of the public into doing as he wished over a financial dispute involving his father.

The dispute related to private family interests and he "persisted in making veiled threats" to use parliamentary privilege to "further his family's interests" during the course of the investigation, the committee said.

Mr Burns was born in Belfast before his family moved to Hertfordshire at a very young age where he went to school. He has been Bournemouth West MP since 2010.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "Conor Burns has resigned as minister of state for international trade following a report from the Parliamentary commissioner for standards. A replacement will be announced in due course."

The complaint into the MP for Bournemouth West alleged he had attempted to secure a payment to his father by suggesting he may use parliamentary privilege to raise the case in the Commons unless he secured the payment to his father.

"The committee considers that Mr Burns' abuse of his privileged status in an attempt to intimidate a member of the public calls for a sanction more severe than apology," the committee said.

"It recommends that Mr Burns should be suspended from the service of the House for seven days."
Foxtel have axed Channel [V], Max and CMC (Country Music Channel).

The network announced the closure of their three internally produced music channels on Monday, after partnering with global media conglomerate ViacomCBS.

They'll be replaced by a new line-up of outsourced MTV branded content.

Axed: Foxtel have axed Channel [V], Max and CMC after partnering with media company ViacomCBS. They'll be replaced by a new line-up of outsourced MTV branded content

The news prompted an emotional response from The Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg, who launched his TV career as a live presenter on Channel [V] in 1999.

'It is with a heavy heart that I learned Foxtel is closing their Australian based music channels in a few weeks. 70 jobs are gone, and 25 years of supporting the music industry in this country,' Osher wrote on Monday night.

'Not to mention incubating and launching a massive wave of TV talent both on camera and off camera, people who have taken their careers far and wide since.'

'70 jobs are gone': The news prompted an emotional response from The Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg, who launched his TV career as a live presenter on Channel [V] in 1999

Osher, who went by the stage name 'Andrew G' during his seven year tenure at Channel [V], went on to share a handwritten letter from Tim Daley, the former executive producer of By Demand - the show he launched his live broadcasting career on.

Dated 1999, the letter outlined Tim's vision for the interactive music show and passion for the project after welcoming 'Andrew G' to the launch team.

'Sometimes the right combination of people come together under the right leaders and magical things happen,' he said, reflecting on By Demand's success.

'I'm honoured to be a small part of the legacy that those leaders built.'

'Honoured to be a small part of the legacy': Osher went by the stage name Andrew G on Channel [V]. He worked for the network from 1999 to 2006. Pictured: Andrew G in 2000

Discussing the new partnership with ViacomCBS, Foxtel Chief Commercial Officer Amanda Laing shared a statement with TV Blackbox on Monday.

She said: 'We are delighted to forge this new partnership with ViacomCBS which reaffirms Foxtel's commitment to music television designed for Australian audiences. The agreement continues the refresh of Foxtel's channel line-up and provides our customers with an even greater choice of music genres.

'ViacomCBS are global leaders in music television with a long-standing commitment to Australian music and we are pleased to continue building on our relationship with them with this historic new arrangement.'
After liquor shops failed to maintain the social distancing norm, the Delhi Police's Special Branch on Monday prepared a report and suggested that the timing for sale of alcohol be extended to avoid crowding at the outlets.

Many government-run liquor shops which opened after over 40 days in the national capital on Monday had to be shut as people who gathered outside the outlets did not follow social distancing norms, forcing the police to use mild force to disperse the unruly crowd.

The timing for sale of wine may be extended to avoid the crowd and sufficient stock of liquor should be available in shops as people will purchase more than their requirement, the report prepared by the Special Branch said.

The management of the wine shop is required to ensure social distancing by making proper markings on the ground for the public to stand with a distance of more than a metre while waiting for their turn. They must also have staff for proper crowd management and for making announcements through public announcement systems, the report said.

It also suggested that a close watch to be maintained over the communities involved in the illegal sale of liquor and other bootleggers.

"The management must ensure regular sanitisation of the premises and install cautionary board. The QR code should be promoted for payment. They must ensure regular and proper health checkup of the staff, it stated.

The report added that on the first day of the opening of wine shops, there may be crowd at the shops and the chances of lockdown violation and law and order problem cannot be ruled out.

Hence, arrangements may be made accordingly by local police and PCR. More deployment and alertness will be required during the first few days of reopening of the shops, the report suggested.

According to an official, about 150 government-run liquor shops have been allowed to open from 9 am to 6.30 pm in accordance with the latest lockdown relaxations given by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Many people were not aware that only government shops were allowed to open.

In most areas, including Burari, Mayur Vihar, Gandhi Vihar, Rohini and Janakpuri, a large number of people had lined up outside outlets.

An official said an alcohol vend had to be be closed in Mayur Vihar in east Delhi as people failed to maintain social distancing norms. Similar cases were reported from north and central Delhi.

"Two liquor shops opened in Kotla village, Mayur Vihar and Khichripur in east Delhi between 9 to 10 am. However, they were closed within 15 minutes after people did not follow police instructions. No marshal was deployed in these shops, Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Jasmeet Singh said.

In Khichadipur, people barged inside one of the shops to buy liquor, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A pair of F-16 fighter jets will fly over Opelika, Auburn, much of Lee County, Notasulga and Macon County on Tuesday as part of a salute to frontline heroes fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The jets are expected to fly over the Opelika-Auburn area, including over East Alabama Medical Center, between noon and 12:15 p.m. Tuesday.

They are scheduled to fly from Montgomery eastward over Tuskegee, southwest Lee County as they make their way toward EAMC in Opelika, northward over the hospital, turn back west and then south over The Bottle area of U.S. 280, Auburn, and then east toward Notasulga.

It is a distinct honor to express our gratitude and that of our fellow Alabamians for the heroes on the front lines of COVID-19 with this showcase of American air power, said Col. Ed Casey, 187th Fighter Wing commander.

Its our hope that these F-16 flyovers will offer residents and workers in these communities pride in our state, hope for our country and resolve in our fight against the coronavirus, Casey said.
Mumbai, May 4 : Amid the lockdown, superstar Salman Khan is spending his time away away from the city at his farmhouse in Panvel, and is doing all he can do to aid the fight against coronavirus. Now, he has helped local villagers by donating large quantities of food supplies.

In a video shared on his Instagram account, Salman is seen loading trucks with food ration with the help of Iulia Vantur, Jacqueline Fernandez among others.

"Thanks for the contribution... thank you all @jacquelinef143 @vanturiulia @rahulnarainkanal @imkamaalkhan @niketan_m @waluschaa @abhiraj88," the "Sultan" star wrote along with the video.

The clip also shows several carts and trucks moving out from the farmhouse, with the superstar himself guiding them out. The video comes after he urged people to take up the 'Anna Daan' challenge.

While many of his fans hailed the actor for the generous act, going on to call him a "man with a golden heart" and "Bhaijaan of Bollywood", there was a section of users who pointed out how Salman and his close associates were not wearing any mask, or gloves -- flouting a very basic preventive measure to safeguard oneself against the highly contagious virus.

Meanwhile, Salman recently showcased his singing skills as he sang "Pyaar karona", a song aimed at cheering up people amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Written by Salman and Hussain Dalal, "Pyaar karona" released on Salman's YouTube channel. Apart from this, Salman has been seen creating COVID-19 awareness among people through his videos on social media. Recently, he came out with a very serious message for those who have violated the COVID-19 lockdown. He called the violators "jokers".

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said he plans to look into a May 1 incident involving the Bristol County sheriff and immigrant detainees, but he cautioned people against drawing quick conclusions about what happened.

What I would say is there is a whole series of back and forth with respect to what happened there, and people need to be careful about drawing conclusions one way or another, Baker said Monday during his briefing at the Massachusetts State House.

We have run into situations in a number of nursing homes where we have not been able to get people who we would think we would want to get tested, tested, the Republican governor said.

Three detainees were hospitalized after a Friday night clash over COVID-19 testing: one for symptoms of a panic attack, one for a pre-existing medical condition and another for a medical incident after being removed from the B wing in the C. Carlos Carreiro Immigration Detention Center in North Dartmouth.

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson said he and correction officers were violently rushed by detainees who refused to be tested for COVID-19. Hodgsons office said the detainees ripped washing machines and pipes off the wall, broke windows and trashed their unit. Hodgsons office estimates the incident led to $25,000 worth of damages.

Advocates and lawyers representing ICE detainees, who are suing the federal government for their release during the pandemic, said detainees were pepper sprayed after requesting to be tested in their unit because they feared that they would be exposed to the virus and put in solitary confinement if they were brought to another facility. They denied that detainees rushed the correction officers.

Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a motion to compel Hodgson to testify about the incident

According to the lawyers version of events, Hodgsons staff decided to test 10 people Friday night after performing almost no tests on individual detainees over the last six weeks.

This raised significant concern among the individuals, given substantial concerns about cross-contamination in the medical unit, which sees not only civil immigration detainees but also sick individuals from state custody," the motion states.

Attorneys had raised concerns in Boston federal court about detainees being in close quarters and not having access to protective gear despite more than two dozen detainees having pre-existing medical conditions.

Nearly four dozen detainees have been released as a result of the lawsuit, according to Commonwealth Magazine.

During a news conference Saturday, Hodgson said he approached a detainee who was on the phone and asked him to go get tested for COVID-19. Hodgson said he reached out to grab the detainee and that the detainee started to yell, stop hitting me, stop touching me" like a con man.

Hodgson said ICE would investigate the incident.

In a statement, Todd M. Lyons, acting field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, applauded Hodgsons response.

We thank the BCSO staff for quickly restoring order at risk to their own safety and for protecting other detainees and correctional staff whose safety was put at risk by the hostile actions of this small group of detainees, Lyons said.

Marco Battistotti, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, issued a statement Saturday that was recorded and shared by the Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network asking Baker to intervene. The Italian national raised concerns about overcrowding in his unit and the lack of communication about correction officers who present coronavirus symptoms.

He called for the release of ICE detainees who have serious medical conditions, noting that 28 detainees have conditions that should qualify them for release; the release of low-risk detainees who are awaiting bond hearings; the ability for detainees whose hearings were rescheduled to qualify for immediate bond hearings and release; the ability to deport detainees who have signed travel documents and want to be removed from the country; and an end to bringing new detainees to the unit.

Three more detainees have been brought in our facility in our unit in the past 10 days, one as recent as last evening. Yes, last evening, Battistotti said in a recording that was published Saturday. We are in fear for our lives. Mr. Governor, please listen to us. Please help.

The death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 4,000 on Sunday, according to the state Department of Public Health. Massachusetts has recorded 68,087 coronavirus cases as of Sunday.

Plaintiffs in a Boston federal court lawsuit, including Battistotti, argue they are at higher risk of COVID-19 infection in congregate settings, such as the detention center.

When asked if he had discussed the incident with anyone involved, Baker said he planned to discuss what happened but did not specify with whom.

I have not spoken to anybody about this issue. Its one of those items thats on the to do list for today, he said.

Baker went on to say the state has run into trouble with people who do not want to be tested, including disciplining some government employees who refused COVID-19 testing. He declined to name who was disciplined.

Related Content:
On Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, Calif., five artists gathered recently, with appropriate social distancing. They painted "Togetherness" in huge letters vibrantly embellished across the plywood panels protecting the windows of shuttered kitchenware store Sur La Table.

Far from being a renegade action or unlawful act of graffiti, the team was working under the auspices of Beautify, a technology company created last year to facilitate mural paintings on blighted city walls.

The Sur La Table painting was commissioned by Downtown Santa Monica Inc., after its chief executive, Kathleen Rawson, disheartened by the closed businesses in her district, contacted Evan Meyer, chief executive of Beautify and a street artist himself. "Can we do something that can give people some hope?" she asked him. Rawson pulled together a small budget for several "COVID-19 response murals," as she called them, on the city's newest canvases.

"It really adds a layer of color and inspiration in these grim times," she said.

Museums and galleries around the world have locked their doors as people wait out the coronavirus pandemic in isolation. But works of street art, cropping up on bare walls and boarded-up storefronts across urban landscapes, are offering images of beauty and hope to those venturing out for exercise.

Now Beautify wants to help ease the economic effect of the crisis on artists and on city streets. It is taking its community-minded approach nationwide with a new campaign enlisting corporate brands to sponsor public artworks at $10,000 apiece. Called "Back to the Streets," the effort goes "live" Friday on Beautify's website, where artists, wall owners and sponsors can sign up directly. Its creators are aiming for 1,000 murals by 1,000 artists in 100 cities to be painted as neighborhoods begin to open up in the coming weeks and months.

"This is an opportunity to keep the streets alive and reduce recovery time," said Meyer, envisioning the murals anchoring block-party celebrations. "Brands can save our communities."

Beautify was founded as a sister company to Beautify Earth, a nonprofit based in Santa Monica and conceived by Meyer seven years ago to clean up Lincoln Boulevard, a commercial street in Santa Monica referred to at the time as "stinkin' Lincoln."

"I got some friends, and we started getting approvals to paint the walls," he said. "It was all volunteer in the beginning."

Sgt. Scott McGee of the Santa Monica Police Department recalls driving past a gigantic mural spelling "Gratitude" and parking his car. "It really made an impact on me," said the officer, who joined the board of Beautify Earth last year. (To date Beautify Earth has placed more than 120 murals in Santa Monica.)

"This type of art has the tendency to reduce vandalism, break-ins, looting and all forms of crimes that may result from abandoned, neglected or boarded-up buildings," McGee said, referring to a best-practices approach called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design.

Over time, the nonprofit built a huge worldwide network comprising artists, landlords, business owners and sponsors, including Zappos, American Express and Lexus, interested in commissioning public artworks to enhance their property and draw foot traffic or social media attention to their businesses. (Street art gets more shares as a category on Instagram than hashtags for concerts, cooking or sports.)

"Evan's nonprofit had all the ingredients to create a street art explosion, but no technology," said Paul Shustak, a software entrepreneur. He joined forces last year with Meyer to build the Beautify platform that now can match all the various players with a few clicks.
Despite the commands for social distancing, city dwellers still want to be out in the world, and people are out along the Schuylkill River Trail on March 15, 2020. Read more

As the number of COVID-19 cases in the country climbed past one million last week, people in Philadelphia and New Jersey were overcrowding beaches and parks, largely ignoring social distancing and masks  apparently proving that many still cannot accept the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic.

Blame psychology. First off, foresight is not a particular skill for most of us, experts say. And live free or die is more than a slogan; its an apt description for the mindset of many Americans. Finally, it is hard to assess the threat of an enemy you cant see.

For all the public health models, charts, and predictions this pandemic has brought us, people are not particularly good at estimating whats going to happen next, said Thomas F. Tim Shipley, a psychology professor at Temple University.

Part of the reason why people found the onset of the pandemic disconcerting was that they may not have had a mental model of why things were accelerating, he said.

In our era of vaccines and other public health advances, infectious disease is not the threat it once was. Most Americans die of chronic conditions that can take years to develop. But in a pandemic, Shipley notes, one infected person can expose numerous other individuals, sending cases and deaths soaring.

That is what scientists call a positive feedback loop  when the product of a reaction leads to an increase in that reaction. Health experts saw that out-of-control situation happening in China, and knew it could spread. The rest of us? Not so much.

Helping people recognize that early action will be important in future pandemics means that we have to have an effective early warning system, Shipley said. We need to pay attention to people studying the earliest signs and increase understanding of how feedback loops work in these types of situations."

Shipley said the virus invisibility may also be causing many people to underestimate it. People are not as responsive to threats they cannot see, and may experience a false sense of security, he said.

Plus, its also possible to be a carrier without symptoms  adding to the air of unreality.

Even Mayor Jim Kenney remarked Monday that lot of people who appeared to be 30 years old or younger are not wearing masks. Young people for some reason or another refuse to put the mask on.  These young folks dont think of their parents or their grandparents or themselves when they do this, Kenney said at a virtual news conference.

Natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes occur with some frequency. But the last worldwide pandemic  the 1918 flu  happened more than a century ago. Hardly anybody remembers it, much less what led up to it.

Robert Hicks, former director of the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, said the American mindset is another reason its so hard to enforce strict public health measures. Americans are independent-minded, he said, meaning we dont willingly sacrifice personal freedom for the sake of the wider society. Thats especially so for people who distrust science, detest government regulations, and have never seen a situation like this pandemic with their own eyes.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered.

Demonstrations in Harrisburg and other state capitals against stay-at-home orders have made the news lately, but its also individuals pushing against restrictions. A recent Inquirer analysis of cellphone tracking data across the United States last month found that fewer residents are staying home as the weather gets warmer, the outbreak lasts longer, and the number of new cases flattens. Even if cases arent dropping and are just leveling off, thats been enough encouragement for some.

Syon Bhanot, a behavioral economist and assistant professor at Swarthmore College, noted that public health measures in Asian countries were more successful because people there are more willing to follow government orders.

In the United States, people really push back against authorities, he said. When you feel like someones going after you, you try to defend your ground.

A disjointed political response has in some ways encouraged people to take social distancing measures less seriously.

All over the country, politicians have repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus. And even in cities that closed businesses to keep the virus from spreading, there was disagreement between health experts and political leaders on how best to proceed. In New York City, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, Mayor Bill de Blasio instated social distancing rules only after two top leaders in the citys Department of Health and Mental Hygiene threatened to resign.

Compared with other countries that managed COVID, the U.S. seems to be a disaster at the moment, said Hicks. Its because of the difficulty of aligning the political authorities, from the president on down, with what people in the medical community are telling us, with the publics mood.

Hicks said that when all three of those factors align, an effective public health response is possible. He cited the 1886 cholera outbreak in New York City as an example. After two outbreaks in 1832 and 1849, a group of physicians formed a task force in 1864 to conduct a survey that linked unsanitary conditions to the spread of the disease. The city acted upon the physicians recommendations, and the death toll was much lower than expected.

Thats the model that would still work today, Hicks said.

In contrast, the federal governments COVID-19 plan has at times been at odds with health officials accounts. President Donald Trump claimed that the U.S. is the best in the world at testing, saying that U.S. health officials have tested more than every country combined, frustrating experts who have identified the lack of tests as a key failure in the governments response to the pandemic.

Trump has also been repeatedly criticized for dismantling the National Security Councils global health security office, which was responsible for overseeing the U.S. response to a deadly pandemic, in 2018, even as experts warned that the country was woefully underprepared for dealing with one.

Hicks said he hopes the COVID-19 pandemic will change future conversations about what needs to be done to stop a disease from spreading.

The worlds population has increased, he said. Pandemics are real. Theyre going to happen, and we need to allocate resources in advance and expect that sometimes, those resources can be outstripped. The scientific mentality is that we have to get to a point where we are prepared, and politicians need to get that.

Staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aerojet Rocketdyne announced today that Amy Gowder will join the company on May 4, 2020, as Chief Operating Officer (COO). Gowder will report directly to CEO and President Eileen Drake and will serve as one of the officers of parent company Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (AJRD). Gowder will replace current COO Mark Tucker who has decided to retire at the end of this year. Mark will work with Amy to ensure a seamless transition and continue to work with Eileen on enterprise-wide initiatives.



I am delighted that Amy will join Aerojet Rocketdyne as our new Chief Operating Officer. She is a proven leader with broad experience across our industry, said Drake. Amy will play an important role in executing our growth strategy, optimizing performance and increasing customer and shareholder value as Aerojet Rocketdyne continues to push the boundaries of space exploration and expands our nations defense capabilities.

Gowder brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in the aerospace and technology sector. She most recently served as vice president and general manager for Lockheed Martins Training and Logistics Solutions line of business within the Rotary and Mission Systems business area.

In her new role with Aerojet Rocketdyne, Gowder will lead the companys Centers of Excellence with a focus on ensuring that they deliver value to customers and shareholders, continuously improve, and strengthen Aerojet Rocketdynes world-class operations.

Gowder is a proven leader who was named a Top 40-Under-40 Aviation Executive by Aviation Week in 2012 and was inducted into the San Antonio Womens Hall of Fame in 2015. Amy has served on multiple advisory boards, committees and task forces in the states of Texas and Florida, advising on aerospace and defense as well as economic development topics. She is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan Fellows Program with a Master of Business Administration. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering from Arizona State University.

Story continues

I would like to thank Mark for his tremendous contribution to Aerojet Rocketdyne and congratulate him on his upcoming retirement after nearly 40 years in the aerospace industry, said Drake. Mark played a pivotal role in ensuring the successful execution of our business and leading the implementation of our successful Competitive Improvement Program (CIP). Tucker joined the company in 2013 as senior vice president of Enterprise Operations and Engineering and was named COO in 2015.

About Aerojet Rocketdyne: Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (AJRD), is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion systems and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, and tactical systems areas, in support of domestic and international customers. For more information, visit www.Rocket.com and www.AerojetRocketdyne.com . Follow Aerojet Rocketdyne and CEO Eileen Drake on Twitter at @AerojetRdyne and @DrakeEileen .

Media Contact:

Steve Warren, Aerojet Rocketdyne, 703-650-0278

Steven.Warren@Rocket.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2ebecf80-9fd4-4bdc-a25d-77a5f9c9f6a7
Uddhav Thackeray asks Centre not to charge train fare from migrant workers

India

pti-PTI

Mumbai, May 4: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has requested the Centre not to charge any amount from migrant labourers for travelling by train to their native places during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown.

Nearly five lakh migrant labourers have been given food and shelter for 40 days in various state facilities, and now they have expressed the desire to go back home in view of the current situation, Thackeray said in a communication to the Centre late Sunday night.

"These people have no source of income since last some weeks. Hence, on humanitarian ground, the Centre should not charge them for travelling," the chief minister said. Many NGOs, social workers and individuals have come forward to bear the cost of train tickets for migrant labourers, he said.

Thackeray also asked the state officials concerned to be ready to handle large scale groups of migrant workers, if the Centre decides to run trains from cities like Mumbai, Thane and Pune to take them to their hometowns. Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut has already requested the Railway Ministry to bear the cost of transportation of the migrant labourers to their destinations.
Hamilton County Clerk Bill Knowles announced Friday that the Clerks Bonny Oaks Tag and Title office located at 6135 Heritage Park Dr. will reopen with controlled access on Monday.

The County Courthouse Tag and Title office will remain closed until further notice. All motor vehicle applications will be processed at the Bonny Oaks branch office.

Due to COVID-19 concerns and Governor Bill Lees Stay-at-Home recommendation, the Clerks office has been closed to the public, and offered limited services online and by appointment.

Mr. Knowles said, The Monday opening will also include the Miscellaneous Tax Courthouse Office located at the County Courthouse, 625 Georgia Ave., Room 201. Citizens needing to visit the courthouse Miscellaneous Tax Office with licensing needs, other than tag and title, must schedule an appointment by calling 423-209-6500. Services needing an appointment include driver license, REAL ID, marriage, notary, boat, game and fish and business licenses.

We respectfully request anyone experiencing illness or having a fever refrain from visiting the Clerks office until completely recovered. Social distancing will be adhered to by clerk personnel. Authorities will be directing traffic and control access per local health department guidelines. Contagion barriers have been installed at all locations and Hamilton County residents are encouraged to wear masks and gloves while visiting the office.

To avoid a visit to the office, motorists needing to simply renew a vehicle registration should consider visiting www.countyclerkanytime.com. Tag renewal applications are also accepted by mail. The address for applying is: County Clerk, PO Box 24868, Chattanooga, TN 37422-4868. These orders are processed and mailed the same day.

The urgency to apply for a REAL ID by October 1, 2020 has been extended a full year by the Department of Homeland Security now delaying the requirement to October 1, 2021.

Standard driver license renewal and duplicate applicants can avoid visiting the office by utilizing the Department of Safetys e-Services portal .

Because of the distancing requirements, we expect longer lines and waiting periods contrary to the service we have always endeavored to provide.

"Weve been advised by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation that administers the states Air Pollution Testing Program, that emission centers will tentatively reopen May 11. We anticipate the State providing updated emission information in the near future.

"We appreciate the publics understanding during these unprecedented times.
A $22 billion-plus wind and solar renewable energy project in the Pilbara, the largest proposed such hybrid project in the world, has been recommended for environmental approval.

WAs proposed Asian Renewable Energy Hub wind and solar hybrid plant would have a 15-gigawatt capacity, supply the Pilbara power network, and develop a green hydrogen manufacturing hub for Asian export and domestic sale.

The proposed site of the Asian Renewable Energy Hub and onshore cables. Credit:NW Interconnected Power

NW Interconnected Powers proposal features solar panel arrays dotted through lines of wind turbines, about 1700 in total, across a vast 6500 square kilometres of land 220 kilometres east of Port Hedland.

An above and below-ground transmission cable corridor would carry the energy to the coast near Eighty Mile Beach, where four subsea cables would run through the marine park.
The ION Mini PC, weighing in at just 3.2 pounds, is set for release on Monday, May 18. This compact yet undeniably powerful juggernaut supports some of the latest, fastest Intel Coffee Lake processors and up to 32GB of unbuffered DDR4-2666 RAM across two SODIMM slots, perfect for slicing through those extremely demanding applications.

That's right. With the ION Mini PC, customers can expect:

Up to 8 cores and 16 threads for expeditious, whirlwind-like processing

ECC-registered and non-registered options to reduce cost and increase performance

35W TDP to ensure thermal output is minimal, an amazing bonus for military, industrial and commercial deployments and environments

"Trenton Systems struck a balance of cost and performance with the new ION Mini PC," said Michael Bowling, CEO of Trenton Systems. "Customers can expect seven-plus years of availability, revision control, customization and reliability, which is unique in the industry, while our engineers focused on packing as many features as possible into this small, low-cost product."

Not only is the ION Mini PC unrelenting in speed and performance, it's truly unstoppable when it comes to storage as well. Its internal 2.5" SATA SSD and M.2 NVMe PCIe card offer an abundance of drive space and breakneck read and write speeds, no doubt the makings of a seamless, worry-free storage experience.

Concerned about peripherals, ports and Ethernet capability? No worries. The ION Mini PC is equipped with:

3 USB 3.0 ports

1 DisplayPort

1 VGA port

2 RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports and

1 RJ-45 dedicated IPMI LAN port.

Looking for a trustworthy and dependable computer with an infinitesimal risk of dying, malfunctioning, sustaining environmental damage or succumbing to a cyberattack when you need it most? Durability, reliability and security are at the bedrock of the ION Mini PC. Its hardened, ruggedized components ensure that it powers through some of the harshest conditions on the planet, not to mention its on-board TPM 2.0 and configurable BIOS settings, which protect against both hardware and software attacks.

Additionally, the ION Mini PC comes with a standard five-year warranty, far surpassing the two-year industry standard, as well as limited lifetime support at no additional cost. It's also available through Trenton Systems' Loaner Program, which allows customers to borrow our products free for 45 days. There's no credit agreement, no interest and no hidden fees. Feel free to contact Trenton Systems at any time with questions, comments or concerns.

Best of all, every ION Mini PC component, from the internal board to the case, is designed, manufactured, assembled and supported in the USA.

Take a look at Trenton's full product line to learn more about its 30 years of experience in the rugged computing industry, and be sure to subscribe to our blog. You won't want to miss a thing.

About Trenton Systems, Inc.

Trenton Systems, Inc., a US-made ruggedized computer hardware manufacturer specializing in the design, manufacture, assembly, integration and support of rugged servers and workstations, processor boards, PCIe backplanes, storage servers, blade servers, PCIe expansion, mini PCs and custom high-performance computers for environmentally extreme applications worldwide.

Founded in 1989, Trenton Systems provides the defense/military, government, industrial and commercial markets with in-house engineering, testing and support services, computer life cycle planning, revision control, warranty and customization/configuration support.

Trenton Systems' rugged computers and components meet or exceed UL, CE, FCC and military standards (MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461, MIL-S-901, DO-160), are backed by a five-year warranty and limited lifetime in-house support, as well as manufactured in the company's Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA facility, which is certified to ISO 9001:2015 quality management standards. Learn more about how we're changing the rugged computing industry at trentonsystems.com.

 2020 Trenton Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. All marks are the property of their respective owners. Design and specifications are subject to change.

CONTACT: Yazz Krdzalic, (678) 971-5518, [email protected]

SOURCE Trenton Systems, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.trentonsystems.com


Killing Eve fans were left concerned over the future of Eve and Villanelle's relationship after the assassin was framed for murder in last night's episode.

Assassin Dasha (Dame Harriet Walker) was tasked with driving a wedge between the two women because Villanelle's 'employers' were growing increasingly concerned over her erratic behaviour.

She came up with the plan to stab Niko (Owen McDonnell) to death in front of Eve (Sandra Oh), after luring her to the Polish farm where he was working.

Killing Eve fans were left concerned over the future of Eve and Villanelle's relationship after the assassin was framed for murder in last night's episode. Assassin Dasha left a note at a murder scene (left) in a bid to point the finger at Villanelle. However eagle-eyed fans hope Eve will spot the handwriting does not match that on previous notes she's received from Villanelle (right)

Viewers protective over Villanelle and Eve's relationship were devastated that Eve might not be able to forgive the assassin for the crime and hoped for a positive resolution (pictured)

To make it seem like Villanelle (Jodie Comer) was responsible, Dasha copied one of the assassin's signature moves and left a note on the murder weapon before fleeing the scene.

The note, tied to the end of the pitchfork with ribbon, read: 'Still got it'.

Viewers protective over Villanelle and Eve's relationship were devastated that Eve might not be able to forgive the assassin for the crime.

Assassin Dasha (Dame Harriet Walker), pictured, was tasked with driving a wedge between Eve and Villanelle and came up with the plan to murder Niko

Dasha stabbed Niko (Owen McDonnell), left, to death in front of Eve (Sandra Oh), right, after luring her to the Polish farm where he was working

Eve (Sandra Oh) was left devastated after watching Niko be murdered in front of her, pictured

However other eagle-eyed fans suggested Eve will be able to spot the ploy as the handwriting does not match Villanelle's.

They pointed out Eve has already received similar notes from Villanelle, which were written in a far more elegant script than the one found at the murder scene.

One fan wrote on Twitter: 'Of course, Eve will know that V's not the one who did that because obviously, she'll notice that the handwriting's different, and V will not write "I still got it" to a note. She's way too smart for that. She always leaves hints subtly.'

Fans are hopeful Eve will be able to spot the note left at the scene was a fake, pictured

Another fan posted: 'If Eve falls for that note Im done because this woman was able to work out that a random nurse who told her to wear it down in the hospital toilets committed a bunch of murders and thats all Im saying #KillingEve.'

A third added: 'Ill say this, eve should know Villanelle better than to think thats the note shed leave. Villanelle makes statements. A note and a ribbon? Nah. #KillingEve.'

Others suggested Dasha's note might have been a message to Villanelle, proving that she's 'still got it' even though she is facing retirement.
Blacks and Hispanics lost their homes at a far higher rate than whites in the 2007 housing crash, forcing many into rental units. Now, in the latest crisis, it's renters who are the hardest hit  and that's threatening to widen the country's already staggering racial wealth gap.

While congressional relief has allowed homeowners to delay payments on federally guaranteed mortgages  more than 60 percent of the market  renters are more vulnerable. The CARES Act banned evictions in federally backed apartment buildings, but that applies to only one in four rental units, and eviction protection doesn't help apartment dwellers pay the rent.

As a result, one of the next big battles on Capitol Hill will be over a push by leading Democrats, such as House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters and Sen. Sherrod Brown, to include billions of dollars in direct rental assistance in the next economic relief package.

Waters, of California, is lobbying hard to get the rescue package to include her legislation banning evictions and directing $100 billion in rental assistance to tenants in unsubsidized housing.

Ive warned everyone we must include my $100 [billion] plan to protect renters from evictions, Waters tweeted on April 24. Im prepared to fight till hell freezes over to get it done!

Immediate relief could head off a long-term danger for many renters: Struggling tenants  including a disproportionate number of minorities whose jobs have been wiped out by the crisis  will be unable to stay current on their rent, meaning they could be slammed with massive payments when the emergency ends. They will then face not only eviction but also a major hit to their credit scores, which would hurt their ability to build wealth for years to come.

House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, takes her mask off to speak during a signing ceremony for the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, H.R. 266, after it passed the House on Capitol Hill, Thursday, April 23, 2020, in Washington. The almost $500 billion package will head to President Donald Trump for his signature. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) is seeking an immediate moratorium on evictions for all types of rentals, not just those that are federally subsidized.

We haven't recovered from the last recession in terms of the loss of one's home, Lee said in an interview. In communities of color, we have a pandemic upon a pandemic.

Story continues

The growing frustration among tenants resulted in a series of rent strikes across the nation on Friday, with protesters from California to New York calling on state officials to freeze rents during the pandemic.

But getting federal help to apartment dwellers won't be easy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi failed in her attempts to include rental assistance and forgiveness in the last relief package, with Republicans arguing that direct cash payments the government is already offering to millions of Americans could go toward rent.

And merely canceling rent payments  as progressives like freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have advocated  would cripple many landlords who pay property taxes to fund things like schools. Even the moratorium on evictions is raising concerns that landlords will be unable to make basic payments, and housing advocates are worried that there will be a wave of evictions once the crisis passes.

Some Senate Republicans like Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, are starting to raise objections to the growing price tag of government relief, setting the stage for more fights over the costs of every assistance provision going forward.

Yet for black and Latino populations the situation is dire, since they are suffering higher rates of hospitalization and death because of the virus. It's a disparity that National Fair Housing Alliance President and CEO Lisa Rice says points to multilayered systemic inequality that has long linked race with location in America, with the legacy of decades of redlining, which is the practice of denying home loans to those in minority neighborhoods.

What's more, its easier to tailor government assistance for people who own their homes because we already have this huge housing financial apparatus set up around homeowners, said Zillow senior principal economist Skylar Olsen.

That gives a large advantage to whites: While about 74 percent of white households live in homes they own, only about 44 percent of black households and 49 percent of Hispanic households do, according to Census data.

White residents are getting a better deal because theyre disproportionately homeowners, Rice said.

And since owning a home is the primary way most Americans build wealth, the disparity in homeownership exacerbates the gap between the races. The median net worth of a white family was nearly 10 times the net worth of a black family and a little over eight times the wealth of a Latino family in 2016, according to Federal Reserve data.

It does become self-reinforcing, Olsen said. If I have a barrier to homeownership, I dont have that source to pass on that wealth, I dont have that equity to draw on during bad times,  it really was kind of primed for a lot of reasons to get worse.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that own or guarantee half of the nations $11 trillion mortgage market, were created to encourage homeownership. Government support for renters  such as low-income housing vouchers administered by HUD  is paltry by comparison.

Its also easier to tack missed payments onto the end of a mortgage, Olsen said, to avoid hitting people with massive bills when the emergency has passed.

The real pain will come back when you have to start paying this back, she said, since homeowners can modify their loans. For the homeowner theres more options  they can design it so that you can pay it back at the end of the term,  but with rent, how would that work?

National Low Income Housing Coalition President and CEO Diane Yentel also warned that policymakers may be creating a financial cliff for renters to fall off when eviction moratoriums are lifted and back-rent is owed.

The black homeownership rate peaked at 46.5 percent in 2007, before a wave of foreclosures from the subprime meltdown sent the rate plummeting to pre-1970 lows. Hispanic homeownership also has failed to return to pre-crisis levels over the last 12 years.

Latinos have made gains since the 2008 recession but those who are U.S.-born  and make up 52 percent of the Hispanic workforce  have not fully recovered, according to a Pew analysis .

Latinos were the hardest hit of any racial ethnic group in terms of wealth loss during the Great Recession, said Sonja Diaz, director of UCLAs Latino Policy and Politics Initiative. Over the course of the last five years, Latinos have had targeted increases in their share of home ownership in the United States and in fact have been instrumental in increasing the national share of home ownership, [but] any recession associated with the coronavirus threatens that.

Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) said she is pushing for all of the above regarding rental assistance and eviction halts for the next relief package. And Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), who represents parts of Detroit, is pushing to include a moratorium on utility shutoffs.

Part of the problem with the existing eviction moratorium, according to housing advocates, is that its nearly impossible for most renters to figure out if the protection applies to them because they don't know whether their landlord has a federally backed mortgage. Waters bill includes $10 million for HUD to carry out a national media campaign to educate the public of increased housing rights during the pandemic.

Black and Latino households pay a higher share of their income on rent than white households in most major metropolitan areas, according to Zillow, which found that recent mass layoffs are already hurting minorities housing security, in an analysis released this week .

While any economic shock would slam those communities, this crisis has been particularly brutal. Racial minorities have been walloped by job losses and furloughs, economic data show, largely because they make up a significant portion of workers in the industries, like retail and food service, hit early and hard by shutdowns.

In the most recent monthly jobs report from the Department of Labor, the unemployment rate jumped by 0.9 percentage point from February to March, to 4.4 percent  a period that barely begins to take in the worst of the pandemic shock. While white and black workers both saw the same 0.9 percentage point increase, Hispanic or Latino workers saw a rise of 1.6 percentage point.

That exacerbated a gap in the overall unemployment rate by race. The unemployment rate for white workers stood at 4.0 percent in March, compared with 6.7 percent for black workers and 6.0 percent for Latino workers.

Weve had these racial unemployment gaps, and theyve persisted through good economies and poor economies, said Olugbenga Ajilore, a senior economist at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Once this epidemic hit, it just basically showed these cracks in the structure.

Its likely those gaps will be larger in the April jobs report, due May 8. Hispanic workers account for 18 percent of employment in the economy, but 21 percent in higher-risk industries, according to a recent Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Black workers account for 12 percent of employment overall but 14 percent in higher-risk industries.

At the same time, other data show minorities are less likely than white workers to be able to work remotely. A Labor Department analysis from late last year showed 16 percent of Hispanic workers said they were able to work from home  barely half of the 31.4 percent of non-Hispanic workers who reported the same.

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed in our country the disparate way in which people live, CBC member Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said. It's going to take a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of reflection so that we don't find ourselves basically in a vicious cycle.
The groundbreaking solar chimney at the Mentone Reserve Pavilion. Credit: City of Kingston

A must-have in green building design, solar chimneys can slash energy costs up to 50%. Now research reveals they could also help save lives in a building fire.

In a world-first, researchers designed a solar chimney optimized for both energy saving and fire safety, as part of the sustainable features of a new building in Melbourne, Australia.

Modelling shows the specially-designed solar chimney radically increases the amount of time people have to escape the building during a fireextending the safe evacuation time from about two minutes to over 14 minutes.

A solar chimney is a passive solar heating and cooling system that harnesses natural ventilation to regulate the temperature of a building.

With an estimated 19% of the world's energy resources going to heating, ventilating and cooling buildings, integrating solar chimneys into new builds and retrofitting to existing structures offers great potential for reducing this massive environmental cost.

In the new project, a collaboration between RMIT University and the City of Kingston, researchers designed a solar chimney to maximize its efficiency for both ventilating fresh air and sucking smoke out of a building in case of fire.

Researcher Dr. Long Shi said solar chimneys have well established environmental credentials, but their potential for improving fire safety had not been explored.

"In an emergency situation where every second counts, giving people more time to escape safely is critical," Shi said.

"Our research demonstrates that solar chimneys offer powerful benefits for both people's safety and the environment.

"Delivering on two important functions could boosts the already strong cost-effectiveness of this sustainable technology.

"We hope our findings will inspire more investment and development of solar chimneys in Australia, and around the world."

Kingston Mayor Georgina Oxley said Council was excited to be a part of the groundbreaking project.

"Creating new and innovative ways of reducing energy consumption in our building design is something that is a priority for Council," Oxley said.

"The solar-chimney that has been installed at the new state-of-the-art Mentone Reserve Pavilion not only allows us to harness clean green energy to heat and cool the building, helping Council achieve its environmental goals, but it also has the potential to save lives in the event of a fire. This is a truly remarkable design."

While calculations around the 6-fold increase in safe evacuation time were specific to the new building, previous research by the team from RMIT's School of Engineering has confirmed solar chimneys can successfully achieve both functionsventilation and smoke exhaustion.

Credit: RMIT University

Hot air rises: how a solar chimney works

The passive design approach behind solar chimneys operates on the well-known principle that hot air always rises.

Modern solar chimneys usually feature a wall of glass next to a wall that is painted black, to maximize the absorption of solar radiation. Vents at the top and bottom control the airflow in and out of the chimney for heating or cooling.

As the sun warms the chimney, this heats the air inside it.

The hot air rises and is vented out of the top of the chimney, which draws more air in at the bottom, driving ventilation through a building to naturally cool it down.

When it's cold outside, the chimney can be closed, to direct the absorbed heat back into the building and keep it warm.

It's an ingeniously simple concept that is relatively cheap to retrofit and adds almost no extra cost to a new build, but can drive energy consumption down.

Reducing smoke, increasing safety

During a fire, the same principlehot air risesenables the solar chimney to suck smoke out of the building.

Less smoke means better visibility, lower temperatures and reduced carbon monoxideall of which contribute to increasing the amount of time people have to safely evacuate.

To understand exactly how much evacuation time a solar chimney could deliver for a specific building, you need to model for that exact design, Shi said.

"This will differ from building to building, but we know that any extra time is precious and improves fire safety, which could ultimately help to save lives," he said.

The new research offers a technical guide for optimizing the design and engineering of solar chimneys in real buildings, to expand their application across the two functions.

The research, "Solar chimney for a real building considering both functions of energy saving and fire safetya case study," with co-authors Anthony Ziem, Jie Li, Professor Kevin Zhang and Professor Sujeeva Setunge, is published in Energy and Buildings

Explore further Solar chimneys meet fuel cells for power generation

More information: Long Shi et al. SOLAR CHIMNEY FOR A REAL BUILDING CONSIDERING BOTH ENERGY-SAVING AND FIRE SAFETY  A CASE STUDY, Energy and Buildings (2020). Long Shi et al. SOLAR CHIMNEY FOR A REAL BUILDING CONSIDERING BOTH ENERGY-SAVING AND FIRE SAFETY  A CASE STUDY,(2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110016
Time is running out for oil-dependent nations. The world is transforming quickly and climate change is accelerating oils demise even faster. Despite fossil fuels so-called imminent fall of grace with buyers, most consumers will require oil and gas in the foreseeable future. Before the Coronavirus devasted the global economy, oil consumption was slated to grow slightly until 2030 and remain stable for the next couple of decades. Although it is unclear how demand will develop after the current crisis, certain energy-dependent nations are using the opportunity to create a modern economy and reduce dependence.

Especially Saudi Arabia has been vocal on this point during the past couple of years. Ever since the reform-minded crown prince became the de facto leader of the oil-rich kingdom, Riyadh has laid out plans to transform the country's economy. This includes social transformation as well as physical investments in technology and infrastructure. In order to increase economic activity, Saudi women should participate more in the workforce which stands at 23 percent currently (the global average is 48 percent).

In order to finance the ambitious 'vision 2030' program, a partial IPO of Saudi Aramco the country's economic crown jewel is supposed to produce the necessary funds for modernization. However, just $25.6 billion was offered and the stocks were listed on Saudis local exchange Tadawul instead of London and New York as international buyers failed to live up to expectations.

Despite the IPOs failure, there is some hope that the natural cycle of oil prices will give Saudi reformers a second, and most likely last, chance.

According to rumors, Aramco is eyeing a potential sale of its pipeline business that could produce billions of dollars. The Saudi energy giant is working with JPMorgan Chase and Mitsubishi Financial Group to prepare a potential deal. However, a formal procedure hasnt been started yet as the current environment is far from ideal. Instead, international bankers and consultants will prepare a deal in order to put it on the market when oil prices are on the rise again. Related: A Major Bull Run Is Forming In Oil Markets

Source: www.ogj.com

The Saudi's are betting on what could become the last big oil-price cycle to generate the needed funds for modernization. The history of the oil sector has shown that every two or three decades a cycle occurs where prices rise and fall. The past cycle ended when the Coronavirus devasted markets and reduced demand by approximately 30 million barrels or 30 percent in May. Assuming cycles run for 20 or 30 years, the coming round would end somewhere between 2040 and 2050. Although much is uncertain when it comes to price development predictions, it is fair to assume that demand will substantially decrease at the end of this period.

The Saudis are betting on a combination of favorable circumstances to maximize the benefit of having the second-largest proven oil reserve and some of the lowest production costs in the world. It remains highly uncertain whether crown prince Muhammad bin Salmans (MBS) ambitious goals can be achieved during the next and last cycle.

Multiple foreign policy blunders such as the war in Yemen, the murder of journalist Khashoggi and the alienation of Qatar from the GCC present a serious challenge to the Saudi plans.

As stated before, Saudi Arabias modernization plans have a physical and social component. The vast majority of the financial resources are intended for investments in technology and infrastructure. The social aspects, however, are much more difficult to attain due to religious and cultural reasons.

Legitimacy for the reign of the house of Saud (Saudi Arabias ruling family) is solidified by the support of conservative Wahhabi clerics, a branch of Islam. Social changes such as more women in the workforce are not supported by imams who have openly spoken out against these measures.

Also, the Saudi society is largely dependent on subsidies and direct cash handouts to maintain the relatively high standard of living. When income from energy decreases over the decades, major behavioral changes should enforce a workforce that is more efficient and dynamic. Social aspects of modernization are difficult to attain and take many years to achieve under normal circumstance.

Considering the herculean challenges and the poor track record of Saudi leaders, it seems that the odds are not in their favor.

By Vanand Meliksetian for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
When it comes to the food industry in the United States, there is no higher honor than a James Beard Award. Theyre like the Oscars of the culinary world, with winners selected by restauranteurs, chefs, food writers, restaurant critics and culinary teachers. A James Beard award thus signifies that ones peers thinks youre among the best in the country.

Five Philadelphia restaurants are currently in the running to win a James Beard Award in 2020, a number thats been narrowed down from the 15 who were named semi-finalists in February. They were revealed to all be finalists for their awards through the James Beard Foundations Twitter livestream announcement on May 4. Well have to wait until September 25 to find out if theyre victorious.

Here are the 2020 James Beard Award nominees from Pennsylvania.

Best New Restaurant

Kalaya Thai Kitchen

Outstanding Chef

Marc Vetri of Vetri Cucina

Best Chef Mid-Atlantic

Nicholas Elmi of Laurel

Rich Landau of Vedge

Cristina Martinez of South Philly Barbacoa

READ MORE: The best secret menu items in Philadelphia

You can learn more about the James Beard Awards and see the full list of finalists at jamesbeard.org.

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.
By Gina Lee

Investing.com  Asian stocks suffered losses on Monday morning as tensions escalated between the United States and China, prompting investor fears of a further obstacle to the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said overnight that there was enormous evidence showing that the COVID-19 outbreak began in a Wuhan laboratory, but he did not elaborate on what the evidence was.

Pompeos comment came after U.S. President Donald Trump demanded answers from China about the viruss origin, even hinting at possible retaliation last Thursday. Trump added overnight that he believed that a Chinese mistake was the cause of the COVID-19 outbreak, though he also did not present any evidence for the claim.

Beijing has denied the accusations.

The U.S.-China tensions dampened investors moods even as some countries loosened their lockdowns, raising hopes for a start to the global economic recovery.

Hong Kongs Hang Seng Index dived 3.77% by 10:47 PM ET (3:47 AM GMT) as the U.S. -China tensions flared.

Down Under, the ASX 200 was the sole bright spot. It rose 0.51% as the Reserve Bank of Australia is expected to maintain its three-year yield target at 0.25% and the cash rate at the same level at its meeting on Tuesday.

South Koreas KOSPI is down by 1.91%.

Meanwhile, investors moods were further dampened over fears of a second wave of COVID-19 cases even as some countries loosen lockdown measures implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Even as growth-stifling containment measures are set to be phased out in May, the global downturn looks to deepen in Q2. If prospects of hard-to-reverse job losses overwhelm, alongside Trumps anti-China threats, Mayday type of fear dynamics may rule the day. Mizuho Bank economists said in a note.

Related Articles

Dollar up, Asian stocks slip as U.S. pins blame for virus on China

Mirae Asset scraps $5.8 billion deal to buy U.S. hotels from China's Anbang

Hong Kongs Exchange Fund Sees Record $11 Billion Quarterly Loss
Britain needs better than this as it faces the most petrifying, unpredictable, multifaceted calamity in three generations. The breadth of the problem demands as much wisdom, competence and insight as can be brought into Downing Street. Last week, Mr. Johnson promised to consult widely, even with the opposition. He should extend that to where it counts, to a temporary cabinet and government of all the best and tested Tory talents.

Instead of contriving an obedient cabinet, he should model himself on those previous prime ministers who included rivals and ex-leaders in their governments, knowing that the vexations of resistance, argument and persuasion were a price worth paying for averting errors, clarifying problems, and learning from those who had been scalded by earlier crises.

Many ex-ministers would respond to a call to serve for a short time in the national interest. Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, could help expand the National Health Service. The former chancellors Kenneth Clarke and Philip Hammond and former prime ministers John Major and David Cameron could deploy their knowledge of financial crises and banks that wont lend. Mr. Javid would be an infinitely better home secretary than the inadequate Priti Patel, and the critical backbencher Tom Tugendhat could run the Foreign Office. Mr. Johnsons predecessor as prime minister, Theresa May, could use her best quality, her famed attention to detail, to oversee food and support for the shielded and vulnerable or the delivery of personal protective equipment.

Would this even be legal? Yes, easily: Technically, a member of the cabinet must be in the Parliament. Those who arent currently M.P.s could be appointed to the House of Lords, a step the prime minister is empowered to take. If the most anonymous and mediocre half of the cabinet were replaced by names like these, the caliber of the executive would soar overnight. Notable former politicians who didnt wish to join  or were from other parties  say, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or William Hague  could form an advisory panel. If Mr. Johnson worried that his temporary coronavirus cabinet would impede Brexit, its members could agree not to interfere with that.

None of this, of course, is likely to happen. Mr. Johnson dislikes sharing the limelight. Thats one reason the most experienced member of his cabinet, Michael Gove, wasnt picked to deputize for him while he was out sick. But it is in Mr. Johnsons self-interest, as well as the countrys, to act, for one notable reason.

His path to the top has been based on a simple strategy: Hes not a knowledgeable, able, policy-driven leader. Hes an optimistic figurehead who prefers an easy life and gets competent people beneath him to do the actual work. That strategy risks falling apart now because neither Mr. Johnsons narrow group of advisers nor the ministers he appointed for their loyalty are the people best qualified to handle the grave perils ahead. He should broaden his base and stop his chief adviser, Mr. Cummings, ruling by fear. Britain doesnt require a lion in this moment; it needs a leader with the humility and confidence to recruit every necessary talent to this fight.

Jenni Russell (@jennirsl) is a columnist for The Times of London and a contributing Opinion writer.
Memorial Park is somewhat walkable, is very bikeable and offers many nearby public transportation options, according to Walk Score's rating system.

So what does the low-end pricing on a rental in Memorial Park look like these days  and what might you get for your money?

We took a look at local listings in Memorial Park via rental sites Zumper and Apartment Guide to find out what price-conscious apartment seekers can expect to find in this Houston neighborhood.

Take a look at the cheapest listings available right now, below. (Note: Prices and availability are subject to change.)

Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions.

1659 Dart St.

This one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo, situated at 1659 Dart St., is listed for $1,001/month.

The condo features a dishwasher and hardwood flooring. Amenities offered in the building include a swimming pool and an elevator. For those with furry friends in tow, this property is pet-friendly. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee.

(See the complete listing here.)

505 Jackson Hill St.

Here's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo at 505 Jackson Hill St., which is going for $1,100/month.

Expect to see a walk-in closet, a dishwasher, hardwood flooring and a balcony in the condo. Pet owners, take heed: This property is both dog-friendly and cat-friendly. The rental doesn't require a leasing fee.

(See the full listing here.)

401 S. Heights Blvd.

Then there's this condo with one bedroom and one bathroom at 401 S. Heights Blvd., also listed at $1,100/month.

The condo features hardwood flooring and a dishwasher. Pet owners, take heed: This property is both dog-friendly and cat-friendly. The building offers a swimming pool and garage parking. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee.

(See the listing here.)

7100 Old Katy Road

Check out this one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at 7100 Old Katy Road, listed at $1,134/month.

The building features garage parking and secured entry. The unit also has a dishwasher, a walk-in closet, hardwood flooring and in-unit laundry. Neither cats nor dogs are welcome.

(Here's the listing.)

This story was created automatically using local real estate data from Zumper and Apartment Guide, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Additionally, read on for five marketing tips for real estate agents to showcase local market expertise.

Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.
While COVID-19 dealt a blow to the retail market in the first quarter, e-commerce, online shopping, and delivery services emerged as clear beneficiaries.

Vo Thi Phuong Mai, associate director and head of retail services at CBRE Vietnam claims COVID-19 has negatively impacted offline traffic but at the same time created many opportunities for growth for small- and medium-sized models such as convenience stores, pharmacies, and especially e-commerce.

E-commerce is the bright spot and is emerging as a lifeline helping physical stores during the outbreak. The omni-channel capability will be more resilient and may even outperform other channels, Mai said.

The slowdown in retail has accelerated e-commerce and online shopping which play an important role in sustaining many stores during the outbreak

In Vietnam, among the big names in the field of e-commerce, Tiki has grown at the fastest pace and has reached a record of 4,000 orders per minute, while SpeedL and Saigon Co.op have also reported exponential growth in online sales. Grab has also activated a new platform called "GrabMart" to serve customers' shopping needs while staying at home.

In the Asia-Pacific market, omni-channel and online retail performed well during the outbreak, from consumer products and cosmetics to luxury goods such as cars, or services such as sightseeing, museums, real estate tours offered online.

In the long term, the growth of e-commerce will be a solid foundation for any future development in the retail market.

Vo Thi Khanh Trang, head of research at the Ho Chi Minh City branch of Savills Vietnam, also agreed that COVID-19 has accelerated the switch to online shopping.

Online shopping will have a negative impact on brick-and-mortal stores in shopping centres as well as in shophouses. Some impacts may be longer-term, accelerating technology-driven changes in the ways we live, work, and shop, while other effects are likely to be only temporary. Rents will vary based on market conditions. Hence, developers and landlords will need to consider short-term support for tenants, Trang said.

In the first months of 2020, together with the impact of Decree No.100/2019/ ND-CP setting huge fines for drink driving from January 2020, COVID-19 has added to the hit to the F&B industry.

A recent survey by Savills Research found that the revenue of some restaurants dropped by 50 per cent in February compared to previous months.

The COVID-19 outbreak is a turning point forcing F&B owners to set new business directions and landlords to consider adjusting rental rates. Recently, many restaurant tenants, after looking through their financial statements, have decided to terminate when their lease contracts expired, while some who want to keep good locations have either closed temporarily or negotiated a reduction in rent with landlords.

At leased shophouses, many landlords have also begun to support tenants in rent, with some exempting a month of rent for restaurants or giving 30-50 per cent rent reductions for the next couple of months for convenience stores.

According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, sales in F&B, hotel services, and tourism services decreased by 9.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2020 and by 27.8 per cent on-year, respectively. VIR

Bich Ngoc

Vietnamese businesses go online to survive pandemic Technology firms in the past have had to spend big money to attract users to online transactions, but because of the pandemic, e-commerce has taken off.
Residents of a South Coast community are resorting to roadside yoga and other lockdown-appropriate protests in a bid to save their last patch of unburnt bushland from being flattened for a housing estate.

Planning compliance officials were due to inspect the proposed construction site for about 180 homes at Manyana on Tuesday, although Planning Minister Rob Stokes has said he had few powers to stop the work.

To get around COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, protesters took to yoga in a bid to stop the housing development.

Project developer Ozy Homes, which also owns the land, wants to turn the area into a residential development with 182 lots. The site is near Conjola National Park, which remains shut "due to fire damage and hazardous conditions".

The company was in the process of starting construction late last year, but it was delayed for three months as bushfires devastated the area over December and January. The delay expires this week.
TASHKENT -- Uzbekistan's Interior Ministry has taken the unusual step of promising to investigate the temporary detainment of two independent journalists while they were covering the aftermath of a dam burst that forced tens of thousands of people from their homes in the Sirdaryo region and neighboring Kazakhstan.

The ministry said on Telegram that it will "assess the legality" of the actions taken by officers in holding the reporters on May 3.

"The Interior Ministry is always open to media outlets and does not meddle in their operations," the ministry statement said.

The statement came less than two hours after the independent online news organization Human.uz wrote on Telegram that police detained its reporter, Mavjuda Mirzaeva, and her cameraman while they were interviewing residents who were being temporarily housed at a college in the regional capital, Guliston, because of the accident.

In the video, posted by Human.uz, law enforcement officers, some of whom are in plainclothes, force the cameraman, whose name was not disclosed, into a minibus, while Mirzaeva films the situation and demands an explanation from an officer for the arrest.

The officer finally says, "You refused to follow lawful demands," but does not respond to Mirzaeva's request to clarify which "lawful demands" she and her cameraman refused to follow.

The officer then instructs one of his colleagues inside the vehicle to "delete all their video records after looking through them."

Until recently, the Interior Ministry investigating such an incident would have been seen as unthinkable.

Until 2016, Uzbekistan was under the iron fist of President Islam Karimov, who ruled the Central Asian state from before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until his death in 2016.

Since President Shavkat Mirziyoev took over, many imprisoned political opposition figures and journalists, some of whom were held for almost 20 years, have been released, while websites that were censored for years have become accessible.

Still, the watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in its assessment of press freedom in Uzbekistan that "the road is still long" for the country "to fully restore press freedom without political pluralism and without justice for the dictatorship's crimes."
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Marchio Irfan Gorbiano (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 17:22 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5e0024 1 National #Defense,defense-industry,Pindad,#Pindad,PT-DI,PT-Dirgantara-Indonesia,COVID-19,#COVID19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia Free

The domestic defense industry is feeling the pinch from COVID-19 as it struggles to maintain manufacturing output amid disruption to supply chains and a decline in productivity as a result of the governments stay-at-home measures.

Defense firms said they were trying to fulfill existing contracts with buyers, while also shifting some of their operations to produce essential medical products, such as personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators, following a Defense Ministry instruction to support the government in tackling the outbreak.

State-owned aircraft manufacturer PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PT DI) president director Elfien Goentoro said the pandemic had affected around 40 of the companys current contracts with its buyers.

Not all of [PT DIs current contracts] will be delayed and [we] will strive to fulfill some of them on time, Elfien said.

With the global pandemic having forced most countries to impose lockdowns, Elfien said supply chains had been disrupted affecting the daily operations of PT DI, which is heavily reliant on imported goods.

Our supply chains are disrupted [] we are depending on imports of some components such as engine and avionic [parts], Elfien said.

Its day-to-day operations were already trimmed down following Indonesia's social distancing orders that forced between 50 and 60 percent of the companys workforce to work from home.

Read also: Government turns to domestic industry to modernize defense sector

The companys manufacturing plant is still operating at limited capacity given its status as one of the strategic sectors allowed to continue operating during the pandemic, according to Elfien.

PT DI is currently producing two CN235-220 military transport aircraft -- ordered by the Senegalese and Indonesian air forces -- and a multipurpose light transport aircraft NC212i for the Indonesian Air Force.

The CN235-220 is a twin-engined turboprop plane, while the NC212i is an upgraded version of the NC212-400, a variant of the NC212 medium cargo aircraft series that PT DI manufactured under license from Spanish aircraft maker CASA through a cooperation agreement that dated back to 1976.

CASA is now a part of Airbus Defense and Space, while PT DI was formerly known as PT Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantata (IPTN).

PT DI has now become the sole producer of the NC212 series and the NC212i being produced will be the 117th such aircraft that the company has manufactured since the series entered into mass production.

The aircraft can carry a 3-ton payload and has a range of 207 nautical miles with the maximum payload. It also has the capability of taking off and landing on unpaved runways, making it suitable as a transport and logistics aircraft serving remote areas.

The CN235-220 aircraft, meanwhile, is a variant of the CN235-10, which was jointly developed by PT DI with CASA in 1979. It was first mass-produced in 1986.

In total, PT DI has manufactured 70 units of CN235-220, including the two latest orders, since it entered mass production, Elfien said.

The military variant of the CN235-220 can carry a 5.2-ton payload with a range of 414 nautical miles carrying a maximum payload. The aircraft can accommodate 49 passengers or 34 paratroopers.

Another defense firm that has scaled down production and delivery because of the pandemic is state-owned arms manufacturer PT Pindad.

The contracts are not canceled, but delayed, Pindad president director Abraham Mose said. Some delays, for example, the ones related to purchase orders from the Defense Ministry, have occurred because of changes in [the ministrys] budget allocations, from being intended for arms and ammunition purchases to covering expenses to tackle COVID-19.

The Defense Ministry is among the state institutions whose budget has been slashed because the government is prioritizing its spending mainly for health care and social assistance programs to handle the COVID-19 crisis in the country. The ministry has seen its 2020 budget cut from Rp 131.18 trillion (US$8.6 billion) to Rp 122.44 trillion.

Amid the global pandemic that had also led to shortages of essential medical supplies, Pindad has diverted some of its resources from its subsidiaries to produce ventilators, disinfectant and PPE to support health workers, Abraham said.

"At first it was driven by the needs of Pindads own hospitals in Bandung [West Java] and Malang [East Java] for ventilators and PPE," he said.

Read also: COVID-19: Weapons maker Pindad develops ventilators, protective gear

The company, which has the capacity to produce 280 ventilators per week, is waiting for ventilator certification from the Health Ministry.

Abraham said Pindad would return to its core business after the outbreak ended.

PT DI is also lending its manufacturing capacity to produce ventilators in collaboration with the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), with an expectation of producing up to 500 ventilators per week, Elfien said.

The ventilators have yet to be mass-produced pending certification from the Health Ministry. The ventilators will offer a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) function for noninvasive treatment of COVID-19 patients that have moderate difficulty in breathing.

The impact of COVID-19 on Indonesia's defense industry will be far-reaching, particularly since foreign buyers will shift their spending to handle the pandemic, said Anton Aliabbas from security reform and human rights watchdog Imparsial.

We are in uncertain [territory]. Will defense spending next year be in line with projections? Or should it be adjusted? If it is adjusted then it will affect the defense industry [as well], he said.

He predicted that the uncertainties in the global defense industry would remain until 2021 as many countries, including Indonesia, would continue to focus on ways to accommodate a post-pandemic scenario.

Shifting some resources to produce essential medical supplies might help state-owned defense firms cope with the COVID-19 pain, particularly to avoid laying off some of their workforce, he said.
Saginaw Valley State University President Donald Bachand announced plans to freeze tuition for the upcoming academic year in a message to the campus community on Friday, May 1.

"I am recommending to our Board of Control that we freeze tuition for the 2020-21 academic year," Bachand said. "Many families are facing financial challenges. This is one way in which we can assist students and families and provide some reassurance to them. Online fees will be removed to ensure that an SVSU degree remains affordable and within reach. While this decision ultimately rests with our Board, it is important to make our intentions clear so that students and families can plan."

Bachand also announced that he and other SVSU executives will be taking pay cuts.

"I will be taking a pay cut of 10%, effective immediately. Our other senior executive and leadership teams will be taking pay cuts of 5% to 10%, as well. It is the right and responsible thing to do as we build a budget that still contains many variables," he said.

All SVSU classes for the spring and summer have been moved online, and online fees have been waived. The spring term begins May 11, and the summer term begins June 29.

Currently, more than 100 SVSU staff members are on temporary COVID-19 leave. Some are on full-time leave, while others are on partial leave and working reduced hours. The university is continuing health insurance coverage for all affected employees.

University preparations continue to welcome faculty, staff and students back to campus in phases, once this can be done safely. Several internal teams have been established to develop plans for reopening campus activity, both in the short-term and for the fall semester.

"Our students want to return to their university in the fall," Bachand said. "They are showing this through their actions. We have received more housing deposits from returning students than had been received than at this time last year. This is truly remarkable, given how many questions remain unanswered and how many families are in financial distress. It demonstrates a show of faith from our students, and it should renew faith in all of us."

SVSU's scheduled commencement exercises for Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9 have been postponed. The university will be honoring May and August graduates in a virtual celebration Friday, May 8 at 5 p.m. Information will be posted at www.svsu.edu/commencement.

- Processed by Victoria Ritter, vritter@mdn.net
Hyderabad, May 4 : The Telangana government announced on Monday that 40 special trains will be operated from the state every day over the next one week to send migrant workers back to their respective states.

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao announced the trains will be operated from Tuesday from various stations in Hyderabad, Warangal, Khammam, Ramagundam, Damaracharla and other places to Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and other states.

According to the Chief Minister's Office on Monday night, he spoke to South Central Railway General Manager Gajanan Mallya and requested him to arrange for 40 special trains from Tuesday.

Rao held a review meeting on the problems being faced by the migrant labourers in the state due to lockdown. Medical and Health Minister Etela Rajender, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Director General of Police (DGP) Mahender Reddy and others attended the meeting.

The meeting discussed the transport arrangements for the migrant workers expressing their desire to go back to their native places.

The state government had appointed senior IAS officer Sandeep Sultania and senior IPS officer Jitendra Reddy as special officers to oversee the travel of migrant workers to their native states.

The migrant workers have already registered their names with the local police stations to leave for their native places. Migrant workers who have registered their names with the police stations would be allowed to travel by the special trains. The details of the travel will be given at the police stations.

The Chief Minister said no migrant labour should feel anxious as the government had made arrangements for their travel to their native destinations. He instructed the police officers concerned to inform the migrant workers about the travel details and coordinate with them.

The first special train for the migrant workers was operated from Telangana on Friday last. The train with over 1,200 workers left from Lingampalli railway station near Hyderabad for Hatia in Jharkhand. All the workers were working on a construction site at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad campus at Kandi in Sangareddy district.

Since then, there have been demands from migrant workers across the state for special trains to send them back to their respective states.

Migrant workers staged protests in Hyderabad and Ramagundam, urging the authorities to immediately arrange transport for them.
Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business.
In 1954, a young cartoonist named Bal Thackeray sketched a caricature of Morarji Desai, the chief minister of the erstwhile Bombay State, on the front page of a magazine named Mumbai'. Morarji, who was despised for his rejection of Marathi aspirations over the city of Mumbai, was depicted as a narabhakshak (cannibal) standing on a heap of human skulls.

This represented the state repression of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, which called for the creation of a Marathi-speaking state of Maharashtra, with Mumbai as its capital. The movement opposed claims of Gujarat on Mumbai and the demand for the integration of the city into their proposed state.

After a long and arduous struggle, Mumbai remained with Maharashtra and the Maharashtrians, and the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra were born on May 1, 1960.

However, in 1954, Thackeray, whose fathersocial reformer and journalist Prabodhankar Keshav Sitaram Thackeray was among the doyens of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, found himself on the wrong side of the law because of this cartoon. A case was registered, forcing Thackeray, who would later rise to become the founder of the nativist Shiv Sena (1966), and a later-day Hindutva demagogue, to go underground, though the arrest never happened.

Interestingly, a story that broke just around Maharashtra Day (May 1) this year, said that the central government had put paid to Maharashtras long-pending dreams of establishing an International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Mumbai.

The Centres gazette notification, dated April 27, said the IFSC Authority would be based at Gandhinagar, in Prime Minister Narendra Modis home-state, where the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) is located, instead of Mumbai, which was a claimant for the status.

With Gujarats gain turning out to be Maharashtras loss, this has predictably led to an uproar from the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi government, led by Shiv Sena president and Bal Thackerays son Uddhav. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, which are part of the ruling alliance, have also jumped into the fray, while the BJP, whose Devendra Fadnavis was the Chief Minister from 2014 to 2019, is being forced into the defensive.

The Shiv Sena has gone for the jugular, with party MP and former union minister Arvind Sawant arguing that the decision was not in line with the Prime Ministers sabka saath, sabka vikas slogan. He called for the decision to be reconsidered, while raising concerns about Mumbais position as Indias financial capital being dismantled.

NCP chief and former union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has written to Modi about this erroneous and unwarranted decision to establish the IFSC in Gujarat. He pointed to how this may be perceived as a move to shift financial institutions and business houses away from Mumbai, thus causing unnecessary political disturbances.

The veteran politician, who is seen as the glue keeping the unlikely allies in the MVA together, has advised the Prime Minister to take a rational decision, keeping aside state politics.

The Shiv Sena, which was born as a nativist party, is gradually framing a narrative about how the Centre, which is led by another man from Morarji Desais state, is chipping away at Mumbais status as the financial capital.

Apart from an emotional appeal, the issue of the gradual decline of Mumbai as a centre of commerce and trade will also resonate with the masses due to the obvious impact on direct and indirect employment.

Faced with rising majoritarian assertion, the Shiv Sena, which reinvented itself as a Hindutva force in the 1980s, may return to its nativist, Marathi roots to frame a larger sub-nationalist agenda about the Centres injustice against Maharashtra. In this, issues like the IFSC will figure prominently, as will the old grouse about Maharashtra getting a poor share in the devolution of taxes, despite being the largest contributor to the national exchequer, something that will become more relevant in the age of the lockdown-induced resource crunch.

To emerge as a regional force on the lines of political formations in the South, the party may use an agenda built around regional assertion and pride to counter the BJPs Hindutva card.

The Shiv Senas break with the BJP, to ally with the secular Congress and NCP in Maharashtra, has restricted its ability to take up issues linked to hardline Hindutva, though it will have to strike a careful balance between the Marathi and Hindutva agendas.

In this move, it may be aided by the NCP, which like the Sena, is a regional party, with little stakes outside Maharashtra, though the Congress will have to play its cards carefully.

The Maharashtra government had earmarked a 50-acre plot in Mumbais Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) business district for the IFSC project, which has been on the drawing board for almost a decade-and-half. During the Devendra Fadnavis regime, the Centres insistence had led to the state conceding some of this IFSC land for a bullet train terminal.

Soon after coming to power in 2004, the erstwhile Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had established a committee under investment banker Percy Mistry to develop Mumbai as an IFSC. The committee submitted its report in 2007.

However, though the Centre received proposals from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka for setting up the IFSC, the global financial crisis in 2008 and a series of political upheavals delayed the final decision and roll-out.

Congress leaders like former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan have asked why Fadnavis did not question the Centres 2015 decision to approve the GIFT city as the location of the IFSC, overruling the claims of Mumbai, for which the concept was floated.

In 2017, then union finance minister Arun Jaitley had ruled out the possibility of another IFSC as the one at Gandhinagar was not being optimally utilised.

However, despite this, the Fadnavis government had maintained that the Mumbai IFSC plan was still on. It also established a task force under then union minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha to conceptualise the IFSC and collaborate with the GIFT. This also included BJP MP from Mumbai North Central Poonam Mahajan. The state also nominated superstar Amitabh Bachchan to the task force.

The Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MICA) was also established to create a strong legal and regulatory framework and institutional dispute resolution mechanism to boost the proposed IFSC.

However, the notification for establishing the IFSC authority at Gandhinagar may have officially sealed the fate of the plans for the centre in Mumbai.

But Fadnavis, who faces the not-so-easy task of justifying the Centres decision, has claimed that the erstwhile Congress-led governments in Maharashtra, had not followed up on the IFSC with the central government between 2007 and 2014.

Fadnavis said efforts should be made to ensure that the IFSC was also established at Mumbai, like in other countries, which had two such centres. The GIFT and BKC IFSCs could also complement each other. The Centre has also not rejected the Mumbai IFSC proposal, he added.

(Dhaval Kulkarni is a Mumbai-based journalist and author of The Cousins Thackeray: Uddhav, Raj and the Shadow of their Senas. Views are personal.)
I told Laurie Garrett that she might as well change her name to Cassandra. Everyone is calling her that anyway.

She and I were Zooming  thats a verb now, right?  and she pulled out a 2017 book, Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes. It notes that Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was prescient not only about the impact of HIV but also about the emergence and global spread of more contagious pathogens.

Im a double Cassandra, Garrett said.

Shes also prominently mentioned in a recent Vanity Fair article by David Ewing Duncan about the Coronavirus Cassandras.

Cassandra, of course, was the Greek prophetess doomed to issue unheeded warnings. What Garrett has been warning most direly about  in her 1994 bestseller, The Coming Plague, and in subsequent books and speeches, including TED Talks  is a pandemic like the current one.

She saw it coming. So a big part of what I wanted to ask her about was what she sees coming next. Steady yourself. Her crystal ball is dark.

Despite the stock markets swoon for it, remdesivir probably isnt our ticket out, she told me. Its not curative, she said, pointing out that the strongest claims so far are that it merely shortens the recovery of COVID-19 patients. We need either a cure or a vaccine.

But she cant envision that vaccine anytime in the next year, while COVID-19 will remain a crisis much longer than that.

Ive been telling everybody that my event horizon is about 36 months, and thats my best-case scenario, she said.

Im quite certain that this is going to go in waves, she added. It wont be a tsunami that comes across America all at once and then retreats all at once. It will be micro-waves that shoot up in Des Moines and then in New Orleans and then in Houston and so on, and its going to affect how people think about all kinds of things.

Theyll reevaluate the importance of travel. Theyll reassess their use of mass transit. Theyll revisit the need for face-to-face business meetings. Theyll reappraise having their kids go to college out of state.

So, I asked, is back to normal, a phrase that so many people cling to, a fantasy?

This is history right in front of us, Garrett said. Did we go back to normal after 9/11? No. We created a whole new normal. We securitized the United States. We turned into an anti-terror state. And it affected everything. We couldnt go into a building without showing ID and walking through a metal detector, and couldnt get on airplanes the same way ever again. Thats whats going to happen with this.

Not the metal detectors, but a seismic shift in what we expect, in what we endure, in how we adapt.

Maybe in political engagement, too, Garrett said.

If America enters the next wave of coronavirus infections with the wealthy having gotten somehow wealthier off this pandemic by hedging, by shorting, by doing all the nasty things that they do, and we come out of our rabbit holes and realize, Oh, my God, its not just that everyone I love is unemployed or underemployed and cant make their maintenance or their mortgage payments or their rent payments, but now all of a sudden those jerks that were flying around in private helicopters are now flying on private personal jets, and they own an island that they go to, and they dont care whether or not our streets are safe, then I think we could have massive political disruption.

Just as we come out of our holes and see what 25% unemployment looks like, she said, we may also see what collective rage looks like.

Garrett has been on my radar since the early 1990s, when she worked for Newsday and did some of the best reporting anywhere on AIDS. Her Pulitzer, in 1996, was for coverage of Ebola in Zaire. She has been a fellow at Harvards School of Public Health, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and consulted on the 2011 movie Contagion.

Her expertise, in other words, has long been in demand. But not like now.

Each morning when she opens her email, theres the Argentina request, Hong Kong request, Taiwan request, South Africa request, Morocco, Turkey, she told me. Not to mention all of the American requests. It made me feel bad about taking more than an hour of her time on April 27. But not so bad that I didnt cadge another 30 minutes on April 30.

She said she wasnt surprised that a coronavirus wrought this devastation, that China minimized what was going on or that the response in many places was sloppy and sluggish. Shes Cassandra, after all.

But there is one part of the story she couldnt have predicted: that the paragon of sloppiness and sluggishness would be the United States.

I never imagined that, she said. Ever.

The highlights  or, rather, lowlights  include President Donald Trumps initial acceptance of the assurances by President Xi Jinping of China that all would be well; his scandalous complacency from late January through early March; his cheerleading for unproven treatments; his musings about cockamamie ones; his abdication of muscular federal guidance for the states; and his failure, even now, to sketch out a detailed, long-range strategy for containing the coronavirus.

Having long followed Garretts work, I can attest that its not driven by partisanship. She praised George W. Bush for fighting HIV in Africa.

But she called Trump the most incompetent, foolhardy buffoon imaginable.

And shes shocked that America isnt in a position to lead the global response to this crisis, in part because science and scientists have been so degraded under Trump.

Referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and its analogues abroad, she told me, Ive heard from every CDC in the world  the European CDC, the African CDC, China CDC  and they say, Normally, our first call is to Atlanta, but we aint hearing back. Theres nothing going on down there. Theyve gutted that place. Theyve gagged that place. I cant get calls returned anymore. Nobody down there is feeling like its safe to talk. Have you even seen anything important and vital coming out of the CDC?

The problem, Garrett added, is bigger than Trump and older than his presidency. America has never been sufficiently invested in public health. The riches and renown go mostly to physicians who find new and better ways to treat heart disease, cancer and the like. The big political conversation is about individuals access to health care.

But what about the work to keep our air and water safe for everyone; to design policies and systems for quickly detecting outbreaks, containing them and protecting entire populations? Where are the rewards for the architects of that?

Garrett recounted her time at Harvard. The medical school is all marble, with these grand columns, she said. The school of public health is this funky building, the ugliest possible architecture, with the ceilings falling in.

Thats America? I asked.

Thats America, she said.

And what America needs most right now, she said, isnt this drumbeat of testing, testing, testing, because there will never be enough superfast, superreliable tests to determine on the spot who can safely enter a crowded workplace or venue, which is the scenario that some people seem to have in mind. America needs good information, from many rigorously designed studies, about the prevalence and deadliness of coronavirus infections in given subsets of people so that governors and mayors can develop rules for social distancing and reopening that are sensible, sustainable and tailored to the situation at hand.

America needs a federal government that assertively promotes and helps to coordinate that, not one in which experts like Tony Fauci and Deborah Birx tiptoe around a presidents tender ego.

I can sit here with you for three hours listing  boom, boom, boom  what good leadership would look like and how many more lives would be saved if we followed that path, and its just incredibly upsetting, Garrett said. I feel like Im just coming out of maybe three weeks of being in a funk because of the profound disappointment that theres not a whisper of it.

Instead of that whisper, she hears wailing: the sirens of ambulances carrying coronavirus patients to hospitals near her apartment in Brooklyn Heights, New York, where she has been home alone, in lockdown, since early March. If I dont get hugged soon, Im going to go bananas, she told me. Im desperate to be hugged.

Me, too. Especially after her omens.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 15:26:59

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 703 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Pac Roots Cannabis Corp. ("PacRoots" or the "Company") (CSE:PACR), a British Columbia based Cannabis Act license applicant, dedicated to producing premium quality cannabis products, founded on high-end selectively bred genetics. Further to its news release on April 29, 2020, PacRoots is proud to announce the start of trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") under the stock symbol "PACR".About PacRootsPacRoots Cannabis is the future of genetics. By focusing on elite genetic development, the company expects to maximize the quality of its products, while keeping yields and profit margins high. PacRoots has formed a strategic partnership with Phenome One, giving the Company complete access to one of the largest live genetic libraries in Canada composed of the finest cultivars. The Company will use these genetics to develop unique strains with various beneficial characteristics. The 350+ licensed live cultivars and over 1800 seed varieties are the result of a meticulous gene selection process, whereby Phenome One filters through as many as 600 individual plants to lock in a specific phenotype for a single strain. Tailored elite cultivars are then selected for indoor or outdoor cultivation based on various environmental, biological, medical and market driven factors. Visit www.pacroots.ca ON BEHALF OF PAC ROOTS CANNABIS CORP.(signed) "Patrick Elliott"Chief Executive OfficerFor further information, please contact:Pac Roots Cannabis Corp.Telephone: 604-609-6171Not for distribution to United States wire services or dissemination in the United States. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.Certain statements included in this press release constitute forward-looking information or statements (collectively, "forward-looking statements"), including those identified by the expressions "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may", "should" and similar expressions to the extent they relate to the Company or its management. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but reflect current expectations regarding future results or events. This press release contains forward looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and various estimates, factors and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors.Statements about the the Company's future facility expansion plans or Cannabis Act license application are all forward-looking information.Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions which are difficult to predict. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include failure to obtain a Cannabis Act license in a timely manner or at all, the continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions, including the effects of COVID-19. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that the statements will prove to be accurate or that management's expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances or results will materialize. The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. Readers should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements.Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: Pac Roots Cannabis Corp.
A view from Wrexhams Member of Parliament

This article is old - Published: Monday, May 4th, 2020

Wrexham.com has invited Wrexham & Clwyd South Members of Parliament and Assembly Members to write a monthly article with updates on their work in Parliament and the Senedd, and closer to home  you can find them all here. This feature has been interrupted due to the pandemic but is restarting.

Today, Wrexhams MP Sarah Atherton writes

The coronavirus outbreak has disrupted our lives in ways that we have not seen for generations.

We find ourselves having to stay home to help slow and prevent the spread of this invisible killer. For many, that means working from home, seeing friends and family via facetime and zoom rather than meeting face to face, and cancelling of upcoming events.

It has also had a profound effect on the way in which parliament operates. Last month the speaker of the House of Commons passed a motion to allow MPs to participate virtually in proceedings of the House for the first time in the 700-year history of the House of Commons. As I am writing this column, I am due to vote electronically for the first time this afternoon.

For the first time ever, MPs are able to ask questions in the chamber and participate in committee inquiries from home using zoom.

Last week I asked my first virtual question in the house on incentivising smaller legal firms to take up pro bono work during the coronavirus outbreak.

We should incentivise smaller legal firms to take on pro bono work during the #COVID19 crisis pic.twitter.com/lexKbmjxdE  Sarah Atherton MP #StayHomeSaveLives (@AthertonNWales) April 29, 2020

I along with my colleagues have been meeting regularly via zoom, I met with The Secretary of State for International trade, Liz Truss, to discuss the future of trading in Wales post coronavirus. Additionally, I have had multiple calls with the Defence Select Committee as part of our inquiry into the security of the UKs 5G network.

https://twitter.com/AthertonNWales/status/1255404124776120326?s=20

I continue to work collaboratively with my welsh colleagues to ensure that Welsh residents are afforded the same opportunities as their counterparts over the boarder in England. Last week my colleagues and I wrote to the Welsh Government urging them to take rapid action to ensure that covid-19 testing availability in Wales matches that of the rest of the UK.

We must develop additional testing sites across #Wales to ensure that the people of Wales are not let down in our fight against this pandemic https://t.co/8p2UKa08Rm  Sarah Atherton MP #StayHomeSaveLives (@AthertonNWales) April 30, 2020

I have been holding advice surgeries via skype and zoom and I continue to highlight with both the Welsh and UK Government issues being raised with me by Wrexham residents, workers and businesses.

https://twitter.com/AthertonNWales/status/1253635550503931905?s=20

Locally, there has been a tremendous sense of community spirit. Businesses, such as Moneypenny, have offered their digital switchboard services free of charge to help companies cover their reception teams who are struggling with staff sickness and dont have the technology to work remotely. Ysgol Clywedog has been transformed into a 3D printing hub, with a team of volunteers working 24/7 overseeing the operation, to produce face shields for frontline NHS staff and care workers.

https://twitter.com/AthertonNWales/status/1251251923040325632?s=20

I couldnt end this article without paying thanks to all of the keyworkers who have been working tirelessly over the past few weeks; delivering vital food and medicine supplies; caring for us when were ill; and keeping our country moving forwards.

https://twitter.com/AthertonNWales/status/1255524889966018563?s=20

Id also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Prime Minister and his fiance on the birth of their son, it is nice to receive some good news during these trying times.

If you need my assistance, please dont hesitate to contact me on the details below:

Phone: 020 7217 4885 | 01978 291742

Email: sarah.atherton.mp@parliament.uk

Post: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

https://twitter.com/AthertonNWales/status/1251135894603644930?s=20

Wrexham.com has invited Wrexham & Clwyd South Members of Parliament and Assembly Members to write a monthly article with updates on their work in Parliament and the Senedd, and closer to home  you can find them all here.
First and foremost, thank you to everyone for the overwhelming show of support through the tough time, Bear Runner said in a statement released on Sunday night.

As a tribal member I am afforded due process through the courts that every one of us is entitled to," he continued. "At this time I am not able to comment on anything alleged against me.

Statement from President Julian Bear Runner of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, issued May 4, 2020.

Bear Runner acknowledged being arrested on Saturday by Oglala Sioux tribal police.

As of today I have not been arraigned and so I am not able to speak to any charges made against me," he said in the statement the following day.

He assured citizens that the tribes government will continue functioning as usual, including continuing COVID-19 response efforts on the second-largest largest reservation in South Dakota.

Rapid Result COVID-19 Antibody Testing for President Julian Bear Runner. The tribe is developing a plant that allow the tribes to conduct these tests with the assistance of professional healthcare personnel at approved sites around the reservation. Posted by Oglala Sioux Tribe - OST on Friday, May 1, 2020

Oglala Sioux Tribe: Rapid Result COVID-19 Antibody Testing for President Julian Bear Runner

I want to assure the Oyate that I remain committed to the work that I have taken on to keep the Oglala Oyate safe and prosperous, Bear Runner said. Oyate is the Lakota word for people.

I will continue to move forward with the health and wellbeing of my Oyate and your best interest in my heart, he said.

Most importantly, I want to encourage everyone to continue to remain unified with our efforts in strengthening our communities, defending our sovereignty and standing shoulder to shoulder in the face of adversity. Wopila, he said, using the Lakota phrase for thank you.

A May 2, 2020, screen shot of the Oglala Sioux Tribe Department of Corrections and Department of Public Safety website showed Julian Bear Runner in the system on that day. His name no longer appears in the online portal.

This weekend, social media was abuzz with reports of Bear Runners arrest.

A woman who described herself as his aunt offered words of support to him.

We are all human. You dont know the backstory, she said. But please dont forget no one is perfect. Even Leaders.

Officials at the tribes jail and police department declined to comment about his arrest, however.

A man who answered the phone at the tribes Justice Center on Saturday and declined to identify himself confirmed Bear Runner was at the jail but wouldnt say why he was incarcerated.

I cant release that information, he said. At this time, he is awaiting to be arraigned or bonded out.

"When our people vote on whether to allow alcohol onto our homelands, my vote will be NO" Thank you to the Horse Nation, riders and support. No to Alcohol on March 10, 2020 (7am-7pm mst) Posted by Julian Bear Runner, Oglala Sioux Tribe President on Monday, February 24, 2020

Clem Crazy Thunder, an Oglala Sioux tribal citizen and former drug and alcohol counselor who lives on the Pine Ridge Reservation, said Bear Runner deserves a second chance.

People make mistakes, he told Indianz.Com. This coronavirus epidemic has made everybody live on the edge. Before you make any assumptions, let the process play out."

"Everybody is entitled to a fair and just legal system," Crazy Thunder said. "Some jobs are stressful and there arent a lot of options to cope in a healthy manner. Pray for those who are suffering, including those in our leadership.

But Oglala Sioux artist Patrick Joel Pulliam, who lives in Pine Ridge, said the tribe must hold its leaders to a higher standard. He said the lack of accountability within the tribes leadership impedes any real social and economic progress on the reservation.

Its very, very disturbing and even heartbreaking, he said. Theres a moral standard we have to have for our leaders, and a legal one, too.

Join the Conversation
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 16:58:53|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

CAPE TOWN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- President Cyril Ramaphosa warned on Monday that the COVID-19 infection rate in South Africa will continue to rise at a much faster rate in the next few months.

"We have not nearly reached the peak of infections in South Africa," the president said, citing scientific models.

He was speaking in his weekly address one day after the country reported a sharp surge in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and two days after the easing of restrictions following a five-week hard lockdown.

On Sunday, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country stood at 6,783, up by 447 from Saturday's figure, the highest single-day rise since March 5, when the country reported its first case.

Meanwhile, the country reported eight more related deaths, bringing the total to 131.

Ramaphosa said that although the pandemic continued to spread in South Africa, "other countries had far more infections than we do."

As of now - which is 46 days since South Africa recorded its 100th cases, the country has 6,783 confirmed cases, while Italy, which has a similar size population as that of South Africa, had more than 140,000 cases and the United States had around 700,000 confirmed cases at the 46-day mark, according to Ramaphosa.

This has been possible because most South Africans have adhered to the lockdown provisions, practicing social distancing and wearing face masks, he said.

The measures taken by the government, which included a nation-wide lockdown and the closure of the borders, have proved to be effective in delaying the spread of the disease, the president said.

The speed with which the virus spreads and the number of people who are ultimately infected will be determined by what they do now, he said.

"That is why the easing of the lockdown needs to be gradual and cautious. It is for this reason that many regulations need to remain in place and why it is absolutely essential that people observe them," said Ramaphosa.

South Africa moved to level-four restrictions on May 1, down from level-five.

Under level-four restrictions, businesses can partially resume operations, allowing 1.5 million people to return to work.

Social distancing and proper hygiene are still the best and only defenses in this struggle, Ramaphosa said.

"This is what informs the regulations we have put in place for level-four of our response," he said. Enditem
Virginia could move on to the first phase of the states reopening by the end of next week, if current COVID-19 trends hold, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Monday.

Nonessential businesses required to close until May 8 will now remain shuttered until May 14, at which point Northam expects the state will be ready to kick off a phased reopening, he said.

All of our efforts have slowed our spread, but not cured the disease. Even when we ease some restrictions, we must continue to behave more cautiously than before, Northam said during a briefing with reporters.

We are not entering phase one today, or this week. I expect we may be able to enter it next week.

Northam and public health officials pointed to data showing a decline in the daily share of positive cases among total tests performed over the last week  data they said would be made available to the public Tuesday.

They also said hospitalizations for COVID-19 cases remain far below the states emergency capacity, while fewer hospitals report shortages of personal protective equipment.

On Monday, the Virginia Department of Health reported 821 new COVID-19 cases, increasing the states total to 19,492 cases.

The 19,492 cases include 18,640 confirmed cases and 852 probable cases. The agency also reported 24 new deaths on Monday, pushing the death toll of COVID-19 in Virginia to 684.

Phase one of the states reopening, which could last two to four weeks, or longer, according to the Northam administration, will still carry notable public restrictions.

Northam said the state will swap the current stay-at-home order for a more subdued message: safer at home.

At the same time, the state will limit social gatherings to 10 or fewer people. Social distancing will still be encouraged, as well as teleworking for nonessential employees. The state also will still recommend the use of masks in public.

Northam said businesses will be allowed to reopen, albeit with industry-specific restrictions that will be made public in the coming week.

Heres the bottom line: Youll be able to get your hair cut, but youll need an appointment. And youll see new safety measures in the salon, Northam said. It means you can go out to eat again. But restaurants will use less of their seating, so to spread people out. Employees will wear face coverings.

Urging unity, Northam said Monday that all businesses across the state will follow the same timeline and guidelines, straying from the regional approach that GOP leaders in the state have called for.

We hope the Governor is serious about reopening next Friday. Virginians need a light at the end of this tunnel, said House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, in a statement. The Governors decision to use a one size fits all approach is going to negatively impact certain parts of Virginia worse than others. The potential for division the Governor mentioned is already a reality, as citizens across Virginia watch their livelihoods wither.

Also Monday, the Northam administration said it was planning for the coming recovery phases.

Phase two, which could last two to four weeks, will carry a stay-at-home directive for vulnerable populations and will limit social gatherings to 50 or fewer people.

During that phase, the state will also encourage continued social distancing, teleworking and masks. Restrictions on businesses will ease further.

Phase three, which will start if COVID-19 cases do not rebound in Virginia, will carry a safer at home recommendation for vulnerable populations, but no bans on social gatherings for the broader public.
The prudential regulator has contacted the board of ME Bank to obtain more information about changes to its redraw policy in a bid to determine if an investigation into the lender would fall under its remit.

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have been told the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority approached ME Bank on Monday seeking information about its decision to remove access to money in redraw facilities linked to home loans. But the enquires were preliminary and further action is far from certain.

ME Bank chief executive Jamie McPhee has written to shareholders after "negative publicity" for the bank. Credit:Louise Kennerley

It comes as the trustees and chief executives of major super funds that are shareholders in ME Bank continue to press the lender for answers after it was revealed borrowers had been cut off from personal funds without their consent or knowledge. ME Bank is owned by 26 industry super funds linked to big unions.

The trustee of an industry fund that is a major shareholder in the bank requested anonymity but said he and other super fund executives had contacted ME Bank for more information.
Actors Akshay Kumar and Aamir Khan recited a poem and sang a song, respectively, in the I for India concert for coronavirus relief, streamed on Facebook on Sunday. They were joined by their wives, Twinkle Khanna and Kiran Rao respectively.

Akshay Kumar kick-started the concert with a poem penned by lyricist Manoj Muntashir, titled Tumse Ho Nahi Payega. It was followed by Aamir and his director-wife Kiran Rao, who said it was important in current times to extend support to the needy. "But most importantly, to not leave hope," Aamir said, urging people to donate for the frontline work. The duo then sang classics such as Aa Chalke Tujhe Main Leke Chalun and Jeena Isika Naam Hai.

Both actors allowed their greys to show. While Akshay appeared with a thick grey beard, Aamir showed off his salt-and-pepper hair. Others who participated in the concert were Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Will Smith and Mick Jagger.

Akshay had previously pledged to contribute Rs 25 crores to Prime Minister Narendra Modis coronavirus relief fund. He also pledged Rs 3 crore to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to assist the making of personal protection equipment, masks and rapid testing kits to help the battle against Covid-19.

Also read: Shah Rukh Khans son AbRam steals the show in live performance, tells dad to stop singing: Papa enough now

And although Aamir didnt make his contributions public, it was reported that he donated towards the PM-Cares fund, Maharashtra chief ministers relief fund as well as film workers association and a few NGOs. Aamir has also extended support to the daily wage workers of his next film, Lal Singh Chaddha, during the lockdown.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
TRIBUTES have been paid to former director general of RTE Tom Hardiman, who died on Saturday.

Mr Hardiman led the State broadcaster from 1968 until 1975. He enjoyed a long career with RTE, starting out on Radio eireann, following his graduation from UCD in 1952.

Mr Hardiman moved to RTE TV, where he was the engineer responsible for the inaugural broadcast of Telefis eireann from the Gresham Hotel in 1961.

He rose through the ranks of technical and programme management, to take over at the helm of the broadcaster aged just 39 in 1968.

Current Director General Dee Forbes told RTE: We were greatly saddened to learn of the passing of Tom Hardiman, who served Radio Eireann and RTE with such distinction, becoming the third Director General of the organisation at such a young age.

Daire Keogh, the deputy president of DCU, tweeted: Sad news of the death of Tom Hardiman. A great patriot and champion of education, science and the arts. He served as the first chancellor of DCU.

He is survived by his wife, Rosaleen Thornton, his three daughters and his two sons.
One of the most talked-about Korean dramas today is "The World of The Married." This drama tells the story about Ji Sun Woo, portrayed by Kim Hee-ae, a family doctor. She has a great career, and she's happily married to her husband, Lee Tae Oh, played by Park Hae Joon. The couple is blessed with a good son Lee Joon Young, played by Jeon Jin Seo. Sun Woo is living a picture-perfect life - or so she thought. He world began to fall apart when she discovers that her husband is cheating on her.

"The World of The Married" aired on March 27, 2020, at South Korea's cable TV channel JTBC. It overlapped the ratings of the hit drama series, "Itaewon Class," starring Park Seo Joon.

Since everyone is on the hype about the infidelity-themed dramas, we have jotted down some shows with the same theme that you might also be interested in.

Temptation of Wife

"Temptation of Wife" tells the story about a woman who tries her best to be an excellent wife to her husband even though their marriage is lacking joy and happiness. She takes good care of her in-laws since it is her responsibility as the wife to do so. Unfortunately, she soon finds out that her married life is full of lies and betrayals. And to top it off, she experienced an unexpected miscarriage, which made her life a lot worse.

Temptation of an Angel

The SBS television series "Temptation of an Angel" tells the story of an innocent man named Shin Hyun Woo, who suddenly discovered that his wife plotted a plan to murder him. He swore to have his vengeance, and he went under a knife to be able to change his physical appearance. For Shin Hyun Woo to carry out his revenge, he changed his identity and went on with a new name as Ahn Jae Sung, with the help of Yoon Jae Hee. This story is a male version of "Temptation of Wife."

Still You

"Still you" centers its story on a married couple Soon-Young (Shin Eun-Kyung) and Han-Joon (Kim Seung-Su), where the wife filed a divorce to her husband because his business is in deep trouble. However, they still carried the impression that they are married. Then, Han-Joon met his ex-girlfriend and began to feel attracted to her financial success. Sad to say, the married couple's divorce became a reality. Soon-Young then made an impression that she is dating Han-Joon's rival, Woo-Jin (Song Jae-Hee), to bring her husband and family back. Eventually, Soon-Young and Woo-Jin begin to develop feelings for each other.

Wife Returns

"Wife Returns" tells the story about Jung Yoo Hee, who married the love of her life, Yoon Sang Woo. As typical as it sounds, Yoon Sang Woo's mother despised Yoo Hee and forced her to leave her husband and daughter. Years passed, Yoo Hee, comes back and meets her daughter. However, Sang Woo's new wife, Seo Hyun, is not willing to be pushed aside. Then, Yoo Hee disappeared, leaving no trace. Her younger sister, who was adopted abroad, is set on to uncover what happened to her sister and keeps up an act and pretends to be Yoo Hee.
Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Pennridge to vote on one textbook; further review on other one
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - This morning, at approximately 12:27 a.m., the Yuma Police Department responded to the 2000 block of S. 11th Avenue for a report of an aggravated assault.

Upon arrival, officers located a 42 year old male with multiple gunshot wounds. The victim was transported to Yuma Regional Medical Center with serious injuries.

The suspect, a Hispanic male approximately 5 6, heavy build, brown hair and wearing a white shirt is still outstanding.

The Yuma Police Department encourages anyone with any information about this case to please contact the Yuma Police Department at (928) 373-4700 or 78-Crime at (928) 782-7463 to remain anonymous.
Mass at St. Martha Catholic Church began with organs that were soon cut short by an excited priest.

I want to make an announcement, the Rev. T.J. Dolce said as the music faded. Good morning, everybody, and welcome home. Its good to see everybody in the church again. Welcome back.

The 250 or so congregants seated before him at the Kingwood church on Sunday agreed and responded with applause.

Christine Price could hear the clapping from outside. There, she and about a dozen other parishioners sat in lawn chairs under the few spots of shade, listening to the sermon broadcast over speaker from behind the closed doors a few hundred feet away.

It was the closest to a live Mass that Price had been since the outbreak of COVID-19. The 73-year-old opted against going inside the church Sunday because of health concerns, but she was still overcome with emotion multiple times throughout the service.

Its felt strange  empty, she said of worshipping in quarantine at home. You can listen to the Mass on television, but its just not the same.

Across Southeast Texas this weekend, many of the faithful shared in Prices joy as some churches held scaled-back worship services.

Such events are allowed to resume at 25 percent capacity under Gov. Greg Abbotts order to slowly reopen Texas economy, provided that congregants wear masks and practice social distancing.

The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston also said last week that Catholic churches could hold services on a limited basis. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo also said that priests should give communion only by hand to prevent the spread of the virus.

That was a godsend for Price, who sat outside of St. Marthas specifically to receive communion after weeks in isolation.

She lives alone and recently retired after decades of working as a funeral director, a job she said reminded her every day that nothing is permanent.

Still, the difficulty of the last few weeks became clear a few minutes later, when the priest walked outside to give communion to the more cautious.

As a dozen or so more emerged from cars to receive the blessing, Price slowly approached her priest and received communion. She sat back down afterward and spent the next few minutes quietly wiping her eyes and alternating between staring at the ground and the horizon.

This just got really emotional for me, she said as she walked to her car.

Everything is fluid

Abiding by those rules has forced some creativity: At St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in The Woodlands, parishioners were asked to reserve spots for services ahead of this weekend so that church leaders could coordinate their entrances and exits from the sanctuary with social distancing.

Were kind of treating it like boarding an airplane, Stephen Lenahan, the churchs director of communications, said earlier in the week.

Parishioners did not seem to mind: 7 a.m. Mass was full, with several people on standby, and the 9 a.m. Mass brought about 190 people into worship at the church, which normally has a capacity of 1,500.

Among those in attendance was Judy Blasingame. She said shes gone to church every Sunday that she could remember  until COVID-19.

It was really hard, she said. This is the longest I have ever gone in my life without being inside a church.

Neither she or her husband had concerns about attending church, especially given the numerous precautions in place. Attending church with all of the limitations was strange.

But it was worth it, Blasingame said. Like even wearing a mask to the grocery store feels weird to me, and not going out, doing what we normally do, feels weird.

After this weekend, Lenahan said that the church will re-evaluate and is taking the crisis week by week. If St. Anthony feels that it is not safe to continue holding Mass in the church with its members, it will close again. For weeks, the church has been livestreaming its services and continues to do so even as members are back in the pews.

Everything about this is a fluid situation, and we understand that, Lenahan said.

A lot of risk

Most other churches and religious groups are taking a slower approach.

Lakewood Church said earlier this week that it will remain closed, and Second Baptist Church of Houston, which has tens of thousands of local members, is resuming limited services at its various campuses next weekend.

Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, in downtown Houston, is also planning to slowly reopen in the coming days. The massive church allowed parishioners to re-enter the building for private prayers and confessions earlier this week at the request of archdiocese leaders.

Most mosques will also remain empty in the coming weeks  even as Muslims across the globe celebrate Ramadan, a 30-day period of fasts that are typically broken with community prayers and meals in the evening.

We have no plan to open until we hear from the medical experts and health care agencies, Sohail Syed, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, said Tuesday. The order says you do not have to open and ... once you open it up, everyone wants to go in, and it would be very difficult for us to turn people away.

Many health experts would advise as much. As the spread of COVID-19 escalated earlier this year, multiple outbreaks were linked to church gatherings, including one Washington state church choir in which nearly every person contracted or died from the virus.

Dr. Peter Hotez, an expert on vaccines at Baylor College of Medicine, said people should be weary of any large gatherings until at least mid-June.

Doing otherwise, Hotez said, could spark a second uptick in confirmed coronavirus cases that wouldnt be measurable until much later.

Things will seem OK for a few weeks and then rise precipitously, he said. There is a lot of risk.

For some, the risk was worth taking. Many who attended Masses this weekend said that the return to church and their communities  even if briefly, in masks and separated  was rejuvenating after weeks in quarantine.

It was hard not being able to come here, Michelle Bitolas said as she left Mass at St. Marthas. It was like being kicked out of your home. So this feels like Im coming home.

Nearby, her priest, Dolce, wished parishioners well as they walked to their cars, sometimes stopping members to ask about their mothers or, at one point, blessing a 2-week-old baby in a car seat.

He, too, was re-energized. This feels like a family reunion, he said. It makes me think that theres a light at the end of this tunnel.

Jamie Swinnerton contributed to this report.

robert.downen@chron.com
Rebutting the Congress' criticism, the BJP said on Monday that the railways has subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for special trains being run for migrant workers and the state governments have to pay the remaining 15 per cent.

The ruling party also accused the Congress of promoting indiscriminate movement of people which, it said, would lead to "faster spread" of coronavirus infection "just like we saw in Italy", and asked if this is what Sonia Gandhi wants.

The counter-charge from BJP leaders, including its spokesperson Sambit Patra and information technology department in-charge Amit Malviya, came after Congress president Sonia Gandhi hit out at the central government for making migrants pay for their train fare and asked her party's state units to pick the tab.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also took a swipe at the railways, saying on one hand it is seeking ticket fare from people stranded in various states while on the other it is donating Rs 151 crore to the PM-CARES Fund.

Responding to him, Patra said, "Rahul Gandhi ji, I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly state that 'No tickets to be sold at any station'. Railways has subsidised 85% & state govt to pay 15%. The state govt can pay for the tickets (Madhya Pradesh's BJP govt is paying). Ask Cong state govts to follow suit," Patra tweeted.

The BJP leader further clarified that for each 'Shramik Express', special trains being run for migrants to take them back to their native places during the lockdown, about 1,200 tickets to the destination are handed by the railways to the state government concerned.

State governments are supposed to clear the ticket price and hand over the tickets to workers, he said.

He said the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh is doing so and asked Rahul Gandhi to tell the Congress-ruled states to follow suit.

Hitting out at Sonia Gandhi, Malviya tweeted, "Congress is obviously upset at how well India has handled Covid. They would have ideally wanted a lot more people to suffer and die. Promoting indiscriminate movement of people would lead to faster spread of infection, just like we saw in Italy. Is this what Sonia Gandhi wants?"



BJP MP Subramanian Swamy claimed that migrant workers returning home will not have to pay money as the rail travel will be free from now onwards.

"Talked to Piyush Goyal office. Govt will pay 85% and State Govt 15%. Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement," he tweeted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Glass Foundation, a private family foundation based in Asheville, has awarded Southmountain Children and Family Services a $48,900 grant to renovate bathrooms in the homes at its Foster Community.

The homes were built in the mid 1990s and were in desperate need of repair after having housed hundreds of children over the last 25 years. Located in western Burke County near Lake James, the Foster Community provides residential care for up to 50 children who are in out-of-home placement as a result of abuse, neglect or parental substance abuse. The program is a unique, hybrid model combining the best aspects of foster care and group care.

Southmountain would like to express our sincere appreciation to the Glass Foundation for their continued generosity and support, said Wendy Jodry, MA, grants manager with Southmountain Children and Family Services.

In addition to the Foster Community, Southmountain operates ten Childrens Advocacy Centers and evidence-based treatment centers that serve 16 counties across North Carolina, including Ashe, Avery, Burke, Carteret, Craven, Edgecombe, Harnett, McDowell, Mitchell, Moore, Nash, Pamlico, Transylvania, Watauga, Wilson and Yancey Counties. The main purpose of the Childrens Advocacy Center is to coordinate the efforts of the agencies that intercede in child abuse investigations, including social services, law enforcement, the district attorneys office, medical and mental health services. Additionally, Southmountain provides clinical services and evidence-based mental health treatment for children and families in the communities it serves. To make a donation to Southmountain Children and Family Services or to donate specifically toward renovations of the foster community homes, send gifts to Southmountain Children and Family Services, P.O. Box 3387, Morganton, NC 28680.
Congress president Sonia Gandhis offensive over the railways charging stranded migrants for their return trip has drawn a strong rebuttal from the Centre. The railways ministry said they were charging state governments just 15% of the calculated train fare for the special trains and it was for the states to bear this cost or get the migrant workers to pay.

It is the stated position of the government that this facility has only been extended so that migrant workers who were stranded due to the lockdown could reach their destination. It was a limited relaxation to ease sufferings during the lockdown to help save lives, not spread the disease, a senior railway board official said.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday surprised the government and the BJP on Monday with a sharp attack that accused the Centre of forcing migrant workers to pay for tickets in this hour of crisis. She has asked Congress workers across the country to raise funds to pay for these trains.

That call, one BJP leader said, appeared to be a desperate attempt to revive the fortunes of the party rather than help the migrants. There are at least two states - Nitish Kumar-ruled Bihar and Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh - that have decided to fund rail travel of its workers. Kumar said the state had funded the travel of students who had returned from Kota in Rajasthan and will do the same for migrant workers as well. They wont have to pay anything, he said.

In a string of tweets, Chouhan also hit back at Gandhi declaring that she had been ill-advised. MP already has been paying for the trains, he said, asking the Congress to check what states ruled by her party were doing.

Officials said the decision to charge 15% fare also was taken so that state governments did not end up incentivising travel of migrants.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The railways are bearing the 85% cost of running these migrant trains, the official said. In addition to the basic subsidies built into passenger fare, these trains only carry 60 per cent of the capacity due to social distancing norms, have accompanying teams of paramedics and railway security officers to ensure no one gets off midway and returns without passengers on the way back. Besides, there are costs incurred at the receiving and sending stations.

Central government officials have, for days, been telling state governments not to encourage migrant workers to travel. It would not only slow down the economic revival process and make the recovery process longer but also could, as the World Bank had also warned south Asian countries, spread the vector across the region.

On Friday, the Centre, however, gave in to pressure from state governments which had been demanding special trains to take the stranded workers home and operated the first train between Telangana and Jharkhand.

Officials said the Covid-19 lockdown, however painful, was part of the containment process to check the spread of the Covid-19. This strategy has so far shielded the rural areas from the disease.

The government had mandated that migrant workers returning home should be placed under home quarantine to protect the local population.

But there have been several reports where villages have not allowed the migrant workers to return, insisting that they first go through the quarantine process at a facility on the outskirts.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 17:16:40|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

TEHRAN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Iran will export indigenous diagnostic test kits to Germany and Turkey for identification of patients with novel coronavirus symptoms, Iranian vice president for science and technology said on Monday.

The test kits will be used for identifying antibodies in serum, Sourena Sattari was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency.

The test kits have been developed by the Iranian science-based companies, he said, adding that Iran's health ministry has issued license for their exports.

As of Sunday, Iran has registered 97,424 confirmed novel coronavirus cases, of whom 6,203 people have died. Enditem
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Market Overview

Global chemical and materials market is witnessing a complete transformation due to the pandemic COVID-19 and its rapid speed to take over various regions. Market Research Future (MRFR) makes a detailed analysis of the situation in their latest report and finds high demand for protective gears and disinfectants, rising traction for antimicrobial additives, and a surge in intake of plastic and glass for manufacturing PPE as major factors. However, the market may suffer in the coming days for economic restraints, disruptions of supply chains, changes in petrochemical prices, and others.

The market could get better opportunities with increased demand for textile fabrics to maintain various health and hygiene measures. Better performance from new entrants can boost global market growth.

Industry News

In April 2020, Nippon Shokubai and Sanyo Chemical Industries announced that they would delay their merger agreement and postpone their joint ventures due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This will also postpone the review of the share transfer ratio. This is primarily due to the impact on performance, economic, financial, and other business factors.

In April 2020, Bengal Chemicals got the nod to increase its production of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, as its demand is rising across the globe to fight COVID-19.

Segmentation

The COVID-19 Outbreak Impact on Chemicals & Materials Market is getting heavily impacted by COVID-19. This has triggered a closer analysis of these markets and the process has segmented it by type. The intent is to understand what will be the outcome of the impact in the coming days.

By type, the global market for chemicals and materials has been segmented into basic chemicals, specialty chemicals, material & advanced material, polymers & plastics, renewable chemicals, and metals & alloys. These segments are expected to be impacted in several ways. The chemicals segment can proceed at a rapid pace as the demand for various medicines and sanitizers are growing due to the rising demand from several sectors and governments.

Regional Analysis

The global impact of COVID-19 on countries are clearly visible. It began in China, where several companies have their chemical and manufacturing units. Most of these companies had been shut down following the outbreak. In Europe, Italy and Spain have become the epicentres owing to which governments are taking several strict measures to contain the virus and prevent the spreading of it at a rapid rate. Countries like Germany and Switzerland are helping others by extending their healthcare support to others. This demands a constant influx of essential chemicals to counter coronavirus.

In North America, the US is emerging as the epicentre owing to which chemical and material sectors are getting affected. However, several companies have increased their productions to support the fight against COVID-19. But the production is getting channelized. This can impact the outcome of other segments in the coming years.

Access Full Report Details and Order this Premium Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/covid-19-analysis/covid-19-impact-chemicals-materials-market-9548

Impact on Companies

The impact of COVID-19 on chemicals and materials market is influencing several companies in taking steps that are different from their regular procedures. This will also influence the outcome of the market in the coming days. Arkema of France increased its production of alcohol-based solutions for the healthcare industry. Lanxess from Germany increased their production of high-level disinfectant, Tata Chemicals of India made a decision to shut down their productions in three plants in India, Milliken & Co. decided to scale up their production of antimicrobial fabrics, Air Liquide S.A. from the US increased their production of medical gases. Eastman Chemical Company announced a shutdown of its facilities at Wuhan.
Mapping coronavirus numbers across the USA reveals stark variations in reported cases between counties separated by state lines.

Take Minnehaha County in South Dakota, where more than 2,100 positive cases have made it a hot spot for the novel coronavirus. Just east, across the border into Minnesota, Rock and Pipestone counties report only a handful of cases.

Along Louisianas western border, De Soto and Caddo parishes report hundreds of COVID-19 patients. Yet numbers suggest the virus has barely crossed into counties over the Texas line.

A USA TODAY Network analysis of COVID-19 case counts found similar disparities along Pennsylvanias northeast border with New York, at the corner connecting Wyoming and Utah and where Mississippi meets Louisiana. The analysis underscores the reality that flaws with testing and accurate case reporting has resulted in unreliable data that can give the false impression that certain areas are less affected by the virus.

Government officials cite the case counts as one of the factors in weighing a state's ability to safely reopen against the risk of creating a spike in infections. Those decisions will be based, at least in part, on the faulty premise that each state tests and tracks the virus with the same diligence.

USA TODAY's analysis of counties along state borders shows that's not always happening.

Health officials reported dozens of cases of the coronavirus at the Smithfield pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Disparities in rates, literally across state lines, are not the work of magic shields, said Jay Wolfson, senior associate dean of the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Its about the dearth of standardized, accurate and consistent reporting by local and state governments.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said areas should make decisions about loosening restrictions based on a data-driven, county-by-county approach. Texas, Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma are among the states that started to allow nonessential business to reopen.

Each states reporting standards and test capabilities vary, and even counties within the same state can differ.

Story continues

Public health officials warn the virus has probably swept into many of these communities where numbers indicate otherwise. They fear artificially low counts will give government officials and residents a false sense of security about reopening and venturing out of self-quarantine.

We dont have a good sense of how many people are affected, said Jorge Salinas, epidemiologist and clinical assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Iowa. There are more cases than what is officially reported."

Data dive: Spike in US deaths and cases flagged as pneumonia suggests even greater COVID-19 impact

The test that wasn't: How federal officials misled state scientists and derailed the best chance at containment

Testing lags in East Texas

The differences in reported coronavirus activity along the Texas and Louisiana line were among the widest in the country.

One Louisiana parish had more reported cases than the combined 250-mile stretch of Texas from Cass County south through Jefferson County.

Including an outbreak last month at a Tyson chicken processing facility in East Texas, those nine Texas counties hugging the Louisiana line reported a total of 813 positive cases May 3.

On the Louisiana side of the state border, Calcasieu Parish had 455, De Soto Parish had 198 and Caddo Parish had 1,610 confirmed cases. Although the seven parishes along the Louisiana line have about a 12% higher population than their nine neighboring counties in Texas, the Louisiana side reported nearly five times the coronavirus activity, according to the USA TODAY Network analysis.

More than a dozen highways and other roads connect the two states. To limit travel back and forth, Texas started screening vehicles in early April on all major roads leading to Louisiana. Those travel restrictions were lifted Friday.

Dayana Solia takes menus from customers Lexie Belche, left, and Aleza Ruiz at Juan in a Million on East Cesar Chavez Street in Austin, Texas, on May 1. Ruiz called the restaurant at 7 a.m. to see if it was open after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the gradual reopening of Texas businesses amid the coronavirus outbreak. All retail stores, malls, restaurants, movie theaters, libraries and museums must limit customers to 25% of their listed occupancy.

East Texas health officials could not explain why their COVID-19 counts were so much lower than Louisianas, which shares many of the same dynamics as their neighbors.

Is it the rural area? Or are we just doing a good job? Its hard to know, said Jerry Howell, administrator of Sabine County Hospital in East Texas. Were doing a lot of what every county is.

One reason for Louisianas higher counts is that the state tests at more than twice the rate per capita, according to a USA TODAY collection of data from the COVID Tracking Project. Texas has the second-lowestrate in the nation, trailing Kansas. That means potential carriers are more likely to be missed in official state counts.

The nine East Texas counties administered 5,764 tests, according to state records. The seven parishes in Louisiana that border them administered 23,810 tests, or about four times as many.

Of Texas' 254 counties, nearly one in five have not confirmed a single coronavirus case, according to state data.

It boils down to testing, said Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston. There are cases that just arent being tested and reported. It just points out why testing is so important. Its the eyes of epidemiologists.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, flanked by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, left, and Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, announces he'll relax restrictions imposed on businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic on April 27 in Austin, Texas.

The state reopened restaurants, retailers and theaters with limited capacity Friday. Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts office did not respond to calls for comment.

East Texas health providers assumed it would travel over state lines, and theyd be overwhelmed by now, said John Henderson, president and CEO of the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals. And aside from a few hot spot areas, we dont seem to be seeing that.

Between two hot spots

Minnesota's Rock County is a farm community of almost 10,000 people living among fields of flax, corn and soy. By the numbers, the county is among the quietest in the nation for coronavirus activity.

Directly to the west, COVID-19 spread through a Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Minnehaha County, South Dakota. More than 2,100 people tested positive for the virus, and the meatpacking facility shuttered this month. The governor declared a public health emergency in the county, asking the CDC to bring in a team to help with mitigation.

Though much of the initial spread came from Smithfield workers, the virus is affecting other areas of the community, including people with no direct ties to the plant, South Dakota state epidemiologist Joshua Clayton said during a media conference call Thursday.

Experts said it would have been no surprise to see the virus leak across the border into Rock County, where some residents commute over the state line into South Dakota to work in the Smithfield plant. Others work at another meat processing facility in nearby Worthington, Minnesota, which is also grappling with an outbreak.

Official counts show just 19 positive cases in Rock and Pipestone counties. But officials in the southwest corner of Minnesota said residents in the two areas are getting sick with COVID-like symptoms.

Theres spread, theres transmission, said Jason Kloss, environmental health manager with Southwest Health and Human Services, a multi-county agency in Minnesota. Thats just the reality of being between two hot spots. Theres no magic barrier that separates us.

Providers said more testing is the best way to track and curb the spread of the virus. Minnesota faces shortages of diagnostic tests, and priority is given to residents of long-term care facilities, health care workers, vulnerable populations, those with underlying conditions and meat workers, state Department of Health spokeswoman Julie Bartkey said.

As of May 3, South Dakotas per capita testing rate was 42% higher than Minnesotas, according to the USA TODAY Network analysis.

We felt the best way to mitigate the outbreak no matter where is to test everybody, regardless of symptoms, said Mike Wilde, vice president and chief medical officer for Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls. That way, any positives can be identified and isolated.

Virus more active in New York

Wayne County confirmed the first diagnosed case of coronavirus in Pennsylvania in early March, tracked back to a traveler from Europe.

Since then, the countys numbers have grown to 109 cases but never reached the level of nearby communities in New York or even other areas of Pennsylvania.

For comparison, neighboring Sullivan County in New York reported 951 cases  which equals more than five times the COVID-19 rates per capita than Wayne County. Officials there cite its closer proximity to New York City and Sullivan Countys Orthodox Jewish community, which has been hit harder by the virus.

Orange County in New York  just on the other side of Sullivan  has more than 9,000 confirmed cases.

Were not a New York City suburb, but were New York Citys playground in many ways, said John Liddle, Sullivans deputy county manager. This is where people left the city to get away from yellow fever hundreds of years ago.  The virus goes where the people go, and thats what were seeing.

Experts said Wayne Countys proximity to bigger metropolitan areas such as New York City and Philadelphia should make it more susceptible to a COVID-19 outbreak than numbers suggest.

Many wealthy New Yorkers have weekend homes in that part of Pennsylvania, and they fled to these second homes to get away from the hot spot in the city. Because the data tracks county of residence, those New Yorkers are not counted toward Wayne Countys numbers, skewing the totals.

We were really concerned that we could be hit hard, but we really havent been, said James Cruse, medical director of Wayne Memorial Community Health. We didnt get this big influx like the other counties did.

New York is testing at more than double the rate per capita as Pennsylvania. Cruse said access to testing is not a problem in Wayne County, where 18% of the COVID-19 tests are positive. Theres a mobile test site, and the hospital can return some rapid-response tests within an hour.

Weve been a little lucky here, Cruse said. Were just far enough out (from New York City) that we werent hit that hard.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus cases vary by state, showing problems with reopening plans
Announcing Streaming Media East Connect

We can't meet in Boston as planned for Streaming Media East, so we're bringing the conference to you online June 2-5 with Streaming Media East Connect, a series of 10 webinars covering everything from encoding and latency to live streaming and a look at the challenges and opportunities our industry has faced in light of the coronavirus pandemic. We'll also be taking Streaming Media University online with deep-dive workshops May 26-29, and presenting a full day of content-delivery discussion with the Content Delivery Summit on June 1.

We know your time is more valuable than ever, and so we've selected some of the highlights from the original Streaming Media East program for Streaming Media East Connect, and added a couple of new panels based on current events:

AV1: A Reality Check

Latency Still Sucks (And What You Can Do About It)

Is Too Much Choice No Choice at All? What Consumers Want in the Era of Peak TV

OTT Workflow Integration Best Practices

The Inside Scoop: Talk Tech with Industry Leaders

Education Video Takes Center Stage

Live Streaming in a Changing World

Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Crisis

We've still got a few openings for panelists, so if you're interested in joining us as a speaker, contact me at erics@streamingmedia.com. These panels also have spots set aside for vendor participation; contact Joel Unickow at joel@streamingmedia.com for more information.

In addition to the above panels, we are including two presentations:

How to Fine-Tune Your Encoding with Objective Quality Metrics

How to Optimize Your Live Streaming Workflow

All of these sessions are free to attend. For more information, check out the full program; to register, click here.

The Content Delivery Summit is also free to attend. Chair Dom Robinson has put together what amounts to a day-long discussion that highlights every element of the content delivery ecosystem, from energy, submarine, and fiber interconnect to edge compute. You can find the full program here; scroll down to Monday, June 1 for the Content Delivery Summit agenda.

The Streaming Media University workshops are three-hour presentations from Jan Ozer, Robert Reinhardt, and Nadine Krefetz, and are $199 each:

Introduction to ABR Production and Delivery

Cloud Streaming Media Tools

Key Encoding Skills, Technologies, and Techniques

A Beginner's Guide to FFmpeg

FFmpeg Advanced: Working with Multiple Sources, Inputs, and Outputs

We hope you can join us online for some or all of these sessions, and we look forward to meeting again in person for Streaming Media West, which is set for October 5-7 in Huntington Beach, Calif. You can register risk-free until August 1.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Related Articles
Press Release

May 4, 2020 Teleconferencing a go The Senate on Monday, May 4, 2020, adopted a resolution allowing teleconferencing during plenary sessions and committee hearings, removing any question on the legality of the outcome of the meetings. With all 15 senators present approving Senate Resolution No. 372, the output on the conduct of plenary sessions and committee hearings through teleconference, video conference or other reliable forms of remote or electronic means could now withstand any courts of law. All senators were made co-author of the resolution. SRN 372 amends Rule XI, Section 22 and Rule XIV, Section 41 of the Rules of the Senate to allow the conduct of plenary sessions and committee hearings through teleconference, video conference, or other reliable forms of remote or electronic means The proposal came in the wake of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, mandating all citizen to be at home during the enhance community quarantine. The resolution stated that the imposition and extension of an enhanced community quarantine in Metro Manila and specified provinces until May 15 should not prevent Congress from exercising its Constitutional mandate to enact laws and authorize appropriations, especially those necessary for the national government to respond to this national emergency while ensuring the safety and well-being of the affected population. Under the proposed amendment on Rule XI, the committee may conduct meetings or hearings, except during investigations in aid of legislation, through teleconference, video conference or other reliable forms of remote or electronic means , using appropriate information and communications technology systems due to force majeure or occurrence of an emergency as determined by the majority of all the members of the Senate which may prevent the senators from physically attending the committee meetings or hearings. Under the proposed amendment on Rule XIV, the Senate President may postpone the holding of the session on a day to day adjournment, or convene and hold the session through teleconference, video conference, or other reliable forms of remote or electronic means, using appropriate information and communications technology systems, due to force majeure or the occurrence of a national emergency as determined by the majority of all the members of the Senate which may prevent the convening of the senate or the physical presence of its members in the session hall." The move came after President Rodrigo Duterte declared on March 8, 2020 a state of public health emergency throughout the Philippines due to the outbreak of the Corona Virus Disease (Covid-19) and enjoining all government agencies and local government units to "render full assistance and cooperation, and mobilize the necessary resources to undertake critical, urgent, and appropriate response and measures in a timely manner to curtail and eliminate the Covid-19 threat." The President, on March 16, also issued Proclamation No. 929 declaring a state of calamity throughout the Philippines for a period of six months, "unless earlier lifted or extended as circumstances may warrant. Through the inquiry of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, the conduct of teleconferencing could only be done during national emergency or man-made calamities such as war or breakdown of peace and order. The resolution also mandated the Senate Secretary to recommend the appropriate information and communications technology system and, upon the Senate President's approval, oversee the setting up thereof. The Secretary of the Senate shall provide for relevant safety measures to protect the integrity of the plenary session and committee hearings, the security and reliability of the technology used, and the proper archiving of the audio- visual or electronic recording of the sessions and hearings as part of the records of the Senate.
Abuja, Nigeria (PANA)  At least 27 persons have been arrested for illegal mining by the Joint Task Force recently inaugurated by the Osun State Government in southwest Nigeria
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is increasing its digital network after experiencing a 750 per cent spike in virtual mental health calls during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Toronto-based hospital has partnered with Cisco Canada to use its Webex technology across the organization, resulting in training of upwards of 400 CAMH clinicians  from 50 in February  to deliver virtual care.

Last year, the hospital provided virtual care to more than 3,000 patients from more than 550 communities across Ontario.

From March to April 2020 alone, CAMHs virtual care visits increased from approximately 350 per month to almost 3,000 per month, an increase of more than 750 per cent.

While we are apart right now, no one is alone and technology is helping to keep populations and patients connected during this difficult time, said Dr. Catherine Zahn, president and CEO of CAMH, in a news release.

The adoption of virtual health platforms will be a permanent and growing fixture of the health care system, and be offered as an accessible, flexible and secure mental health care option for patient care going forward.

Over a two-year partnership, Cisco has contributed nearly $2 million in technology, funding and services to support CAMH research and develop and build new models of care, the release added.
When a mysterious sourdough kiosk containing a 100-year-old starter appeared in Walnut Creek a few weeks ago, it didnt take long for word to spread outside of the neighborhood.

The pandemic project quickly became a nearly-every-waking-hour mission for the man who has been handing out hundreds of small cups of the starter, and insists he remain anonymous even as his project comes to an end.

There are people driving in from Santa Cruz, Sacramento. Theres a bunch of people coming out from (San Francisco) today, he said on Sunday, as he added 20 more 2-ounce containers to the bin. To the point where its become a full-time job for me to keep this up, and I cant do it anymore. Im exhausted. Theres flour all over my house. My house smells like a big sourdough pancake.

Neighborhoods throughout the Bay Area have been lifted by gifts big and small since the shelter-in-place started March 16, including sourdough starter on random San Francisco telephone poles, Little Free Libraries turned into food pantries, neighborhood newspapers written by children, and a bagpiper who performs from a Castro neighborhood rooftop.

But it would be hard to find an altruist who is more on-point than the so-called Phantom Baker, who has taken one of the cliches of the coronavirus era  finally getting around to making homemade sourdough bread with fermenting dough  and turned it into a pick-me-up for neighbors near and far.

The starter has a wild history, dating to Alaska in the early 19th century, according to the true California sourdough history flyer thats available at the kiosk. The starter was brought to the lower 48 states by gold miner Frank Biggerstaff, who in 1953 gave it to Frank Smith Jr., who passed it on to his son Frank Smith III of Napa. The Walnut Creek man received a batch from the younger Smith in 1999, and has kept it alive since  a process that involves a monthly reactivation.

Peter Hartlaub / The Chronicle

After the sourdough starter came up while talking with some neighbors, the man decided to put the kiosk on a telephone pole in front of Buena Vista Elementary School. News was spread on Nextdoor, and later the News24-680 local blog, which gave the sourdough man the name Phantom Baker.

The first time it got on Nextdoor was level one, and then when it got picked up by 24-680, thats when it went Kardashian viral, and I couldnt keep the bin full to save my life, he said. Ive been refilling it about every two hours ever since.

A.J. Leone of Pleasant Hill saw the kiosk on a morning run and brought her 7-year-old daughter, Amelia, back on Sunday morning to get some starter, which turned into an impromptu science and history lesson as they started reading the handout.

Leone, who loves the sourdough idea, said shes seen free seeds in several places and found free lemon and grapefruit stands in their neighborhood.

You would never do that before, Leone said. Nobody cared about sharing and doing stuff for a friend. Its just really nice. Its kind of heartwarming in a cold time.

Peter Hartlaub / The Chronicle

The Phantom Baker confirmed his identity to The Chronicle, but wont identify himself to passersby, even as hes filling the kiosk, which he does several times every day. He insists on remaining anonymous so the act remains selfless, but distributes an email and phone number to text with questions. Hes a tall and jovial presence, even with a bandanna masking half his face.

Are you the sourdough person? a man pulling up on a motorcycle asks.

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.

Maaay-be, the kiosk-keeper responds, before giving a minute-long sourdough tutorial.

Peter Hartlaub / The Chronicle

The busiest day so far was Friday, when 200 people came to the kiosk. He expected to give away more than 650 containers of sourdough starter total before the weekend was over, and then it would end. The Phantom Baker, who is not a baker at all, runs a design/build contracting business and will resume full-time work Monday, when restrictions are eased.

I didnt intend for this to become what it has, he said. I just wanted it to be a fun thing for the neighborhood, to help bring everybody together, and give them something to do. Its taken on a life of its own.

Before the pandemic, the Phantom Baker and Frank Smith III were the last two people with the century-old recipe. Now he knows there are many hundreds. The recipe can live on for another century, he said, maybe even after the worst memories of the coronavirus pandemic are forgotten.

Im not trying to feed the world, he said. Im just trying to make everybody feel good.

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicles pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub
The Hyderabad based Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) has synthesised the key starting materials (KSMs) for Remdesivir, the first step to develop the active pharmaceutical ingredient in a drug.

IICT has also begun so-called technology demonstrations for drug manufacturers such as Cipla so that manufacturing can begin in India, if needed. Remdesivir, manufactured by Gilead Sciences, is the first drug to treat Covid-19 approved for emergency use in the US based on clinical data .

Gilead Sciences has a patent on the drug but patent laws allow for the drug to be developed solely for research purposes and not for commercial manufacturing. Remdesivir, when administered by an intravenous infusion helped patients recover on an average in 11 days, compared to 15 days taken by those on placebo according to US clinical trial results.

India is part of the World Health Organisations Solidarity Trials for the cure of Covid-19 and has received 1000 doses of the drug for testing.

Harsh Vardhan, science and technology and health minister said in a statement on Monday that synthesis of KSMs has been achieved by CSIR-IICT and that technology demonstrations to Indian industry are happening. For Favipiravir, another promising drug to treat Covid19, CSIR is working with the private sector for clinical trials and a possible launch in India.

Remdesivir has three KSMs, Pyrrole, Furan and a Phosphate intermediate. Dr Srivari Chandrasekhar, director of IICT said over phone from Hyderabad that synthesis of KSMs is an important stage in drug development.

The synthesis of key starting materials (KSM) for any drug is the first step to develop an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). These key starting materials for Remdesivir are available in India and chemical companies can manufacture these. Other reagents can be sourced from other countries. We started working on KSM for Remdesivir in January end, when trials had begun in China, he said.

Gilead Sciences CEO, Daniel O Day in an open letter on April 29 said: On the supply side, we are working to build a global consortium of pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturers to expand global capacity and production. It will be essential for countries to work together to create enough supply for people all over the world and we look forward to these collaborative efforts.

Experts said the Indian government could request Gilead Sciences for grant of voluntary licenses to Indian private companies for a royalty. If not, India could use the compulsory licence option, under which it, or a generics manufacturer can manufacture patented drugs so as to protect the health of its citizens. The patent hlder, however, gets paid for this.

Because it is a patented drug, there are two options. One is that manufacturers obtain permission from the patent holder for a license to manufacture. The other option is that the Indian government allows two to three manufacturers to manufacture the drug on a compulsory license or a government use license. The manufacturers will need regulatory clearances which will be available only when more clinical data is available on the efficacy of the drug, said KM Gopakumar, an intellectual property rights expert.
Primeste notificari pe email

Contractare si Achizitie Bunuri Anunturi de Angajare (Premium) Granturi - Finantari (Premium) Burse de studiu Stagii Profesionale Oportunitati de voluntariat Toate Articolele
Rebecca kindly agreed to answer a few questions for On Politics about how the Federalist Society has become such a force in American politics, and what implications such a rule might have for the federal judiciary.

The Federalist Society is hardly a new phenomenon in American politics. For readers who may not be familiar with it, how has the group become so influential in conservative circles?

Youre right: The organization has been around since 1982, when conservative law students created what they saw as an antidote to the mainstream legal establishment. Advocating some of the ideas that President Reagan was bringing to Washington and a strict interpretation of the Constitution as written, the group gradually gave similar constituencies scattered across the country strength in numbers and became a breeding ground for conservative judges. Republican presidents like George W. Bush certainly drew from the membership roster in making judicial appointments, but Trump has accorded even more influence to the organization. More than 80 percent of the judges he has named to the nations appeals courts have ties to the group.

An ethics panel within the federal judiciary is proposing to ban judges from belonging to the Federalist Society, as well as from the liberal American Constitution Society. Can you explain why the panel is doing this? Many judges have long had ties to both organizations, right? Why change course now?

The judicial ethics committee has justified its suggestion by pointing to public perceptions, explaining its view that a reasonable and informed public might view judges affiliated with either group as being advocates for conservative or liberal interests. While there has long been debate about the appropriateness of a judges belonging to either the Federalist Society or the younger American Constitution Society, the proposal cited changing circumstances and noted that the conduct committee continues to receive inquiries regarding these organizations. Over the past three years, as Trump has appointed judges at a record pace, the Federalist Society has regularly figured into confirmation hearings and news media reports.
Los Angeles

As the youngest member of his family, Brad Bird would often get dragged along to films that may have been a little out of his depth for a child, like "2001: A Space Odyssey." But even if he didn't understand exactly what he was watching, it helped the future director of films like "Ratatouille" and "The Incredibles" form his own aesthetic as a filmmaker.

"It opened my eyes to the cinematic technique, because even when you're drawing an animated film, you're drawing camera angles," Bird said. "And when you become aware of that, you start to see that certain filmmakers are always making great decisions."

Now Bird is getting to share some of his favorite classic films from childhood and beyond as the curator of Turner Classic Movies' "The Essentials," which debuts Saturday at 8 p.m. with "Singin' in the Rain" and runs for 20 weeks.

Bird spoke to The Associated Press about his choices, an eclectic array of films including epics like "Lawrence of Arabia" (June 6), Stanley Kubrick masterpieces, Westerns ("The Searchers," Aug. 22), Buster Keaton ("The General," May 16) and Charlie Chaplin ("City Lights," Aug. 8) fundamentals, and more.

Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: Did you have any overriding philosophy for the list?

Bird: It's films that re-seeing them doesn't diminish their power. There's a bulletproof quality to the things that I would call essentials. It's just like listening to a piece of music. If you listen to anything from The Beatles to Beethoven, hearing them again doesn't diminish their ability to dazzle you. All these movies are like that for me.

AP: You've chosen a few musicals. Is that because you're working on a musical now? Have you always loved the form?

Bird: It's funny because I don't love them in general because I consider most of them really bad. When they are good, which is not very often, they burrow their way into your brain in a way that a lot of other kinds of films do not. The bar is set really high. And the degree of difficulty is also really high, which attracts me as a filmmaker knowing that my chances of succeeding are small. It's a really enticing thing to try to be one of those great ones.

AP: I appreciate that you included "The Music Man," (July 4) which doesn't seem to make many of these lists.

Bird: It's not on anyone's list because it's plain. It's not artistic the way that "West Side Story" is. But the story is fantastic. And the style of the music, it's deliberately kind of corny because it's about Iowa and at the turn of the century and it's about a con man coming in and dazzling everybody. And then he winds up getting dazzled himself. And every song's a winner.

AP: Why did you choose "Ace in the Hole" (May 9)?

Bird: I love Billy Wilder, of course, and I reached for "The Apartment" and "Sunset Boulevard," and then I kind of pulled back and went, wait a minute, I can't be so obvious. How about if I take one that I'll bet a lot of people haven't seen? And "Ace in the Hole" came to mind. It's a really nasty movie about opportunistic journalism.

AP: You have both "The Red Shoes" (May 30) and "A Matter of Life and Death" (June 20). Are you a big Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger fan?

Bird: Those are ones that I didn't really get to until I was well into film. Once I was channel surfing and it was like 2 in the morning. I wasn't married and didn't have kids or anything. I say, "I'll just glance at what's on before I go to bed." And I bumped into the opening of "A Matter of Life and Death." I got hooked. I was wanting to go to bed! The movie kind of overwhelmed whatever I wanted and demanded that I stay until the end. It's a wonderful film and they're fantastic filmmakers and people don't talk about them enough.

AP: How do you recommend people watch these films on the small screen?

Bird: Unplug the phone, turn down the lights and turn up the sound and then make sure all the other business is taken care of. Sit down and make an appointment with it.
[May 04, 2020] Media Shower Receives Small Business Grant from Citizens Bank for Coronavirus Communication

Media Shower, the Massachusetts-based media and communications company, has received a generous $15,000 grant from Citizens Bank in recognition of its work on the Coronavirus Communication (CoCo) campaign. Media Shower is one of just 32 Massachusetts companies to receive the award from Citizens Bank's Small Business Recovery grant program, which will help it continue to spread positive, helpful messages about Coronavirus across Boston, Massachusetts -- and the world. "In just over a month, our CoCo project has already been seen by over 175 million people worldwide," said John Hargrave, Media Shower's founder and CEO. "It is a huge vote of confidence that Citizens Bank has recognized the work our team is doing to benefit our local community, on a global stage." The CoCo project was launched at the outset of the CoronaCrisis, as a way of communicating public service announcements about COVID-19. The company created a "firehose of content" -- from tweets to videos to social media banners -- reinforcing messages like #SlowTheSpread and #HealthcareHeroes. Our goal was to help the public understand this was a crisis like no other," said Cliff Robinson, Media Shower's director of social media. "The challenge was to package very complicated scientific messages into bite-sized nuggets of content that would  well, go viral."



The team rigorously tracks the "viral spread" of each hashtag across social media, monitoring which ideas are trending. "We like to say that we're trying to spread these ideas faster than the virus itself," says Hargrave. "If COVID-19 is the virus, CoCo is the antivirus." As businesses need to adapt quickly to the #NewNormal, many CoCo messages enforce that mindset, such as #LearnToLearn (be a lifelong learner), #BestPracticesBestPeople (share "best practices"), and #HumansHelpingHumans (don't forget to help others).

See the website at https://coco.mediashower.com. About Media Shower



We're the global media company that makes complicated communications simple, and spreads them using the power of the crowd. Follow us @TheMediaShower on Twitter (News - Alert), or visit www.mediashower.com to learn more. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005436/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Want this in your inbox each morning? Sign up here.

Warren Buffett is more worried than usual

The Oracle of Omaha initially exhibited his usual optimism on Saturday during Berkshire Hathaways annual meeting, held online for the first time. But, Andrew writes in his latest column, Mr. Buffett appears fairly gloomy if you dig deeper:

It was unsettling on Saturday to hear him repeatedly say I dont know. He was careful to say the markets would improve in the long term  though his time frame for certainty was decades, not months or not even necessarily years from now. About the current climate, he said, You can bet on America, but you kind of have to be careful about how you bet.

The clearest sign of hesitation was his closed wallet, Andrew notes. Mr. Buffett didnt buy up stocks during the recent market plunge, unlike his spending spree amid the carnage of the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times a month after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy: In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary. So  Ive been buying American stocks.

 Mr. Buffett missed his chance to strike the type of high-priced rescue deals like the one he offered to G.E. in 2008, Bloomberg notes, because the Fed quickly stepped in with a slew of bailout programs. Berkshire is now sitting on $137 billion in cash.

Mr. Buffett sold his holdings in the four biggest U.S. airlines, saying that the airline business changed in a very major way.

 All told, Berkshire sold $6.5 billion worth of stocks last month, putting most of the money into Treasury bills.
WikiLeaks says its founder Julian Assange will have to wait at least until September before a British judge will hear a US request for his extradition.

Assange, who faces espionage charges over the activities of WikiLeaks, is currently in Belmarsh Prison in London and is fighting the allegations.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief, said in a video posted on social media on Monday that it was completely unacceptable that Assange has to spend another four months and potentially longer in prison.

By the time any hearing begins in September, Assange will have spent a year in remand after he was dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Hrafnsson said Assange did not attend Monday's hearing via video link because he was unwell.

Assange's lawyers have been seeking to get him released on bail over fears for his health during the coronavirus pandemic.

A further administrative hearing is scheduled to take place on June 1.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A former sacristan was sentenced to



life by a court here on Monday for killing a senior Catholic priest and rector of a famous Christian pilgrim centre at nearby Malayattoor two years ago.

"The sacristan is sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life for the offence punishable under section 302 of IPC and has to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh," Ernakulam Principal Sessions and District Judge Dr Kauser Edappagath said in the order.

If he fails to pay the fine amount, he shall suffer simple imprisonment for one year, the court said.

Fr Xavier Thelakkat was stabbed to death by Johnny, former sacristan of the parish, on March 1, 2018 when the 52 -year-old priest was climbing the Kurisumudy in Malayattoor, a holy place near here believed to have visited by St Thomas, one of the Apostles of Jesus Christ.

Johnny, who was removed from the post of sacristan for dereliction of duty, had attacked the priest with a sharp- edged weapon.

The priest who suffered injuries on his left thigh had died as he was taken to a private hospital in nearby Angamaly.

Johnny, who went absconding soon after the incident, was nabbed by the police from a forest near the Church.

Kurisumudy is a hill at Malayattoor.

According to Syro-Malabar Christians, St Thomas had visited Kurisumudy after landing at Kodungalloor in AD 52.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)








According to Amaro, the agro-export sector in the South American nation is working to be considered an essential part of the food supply chain.





"This is significant, as agriculture, agribusiness and exports are considered essential sectors worldwide. The entire chain is working to supply both local and international markets," he stated.





In conclusion, this has been a very difficult situation, especially during the first days. "What matters now is that we can gradually overcome it, with the support of different government agencies, which are working to ensure the continuity of the food supply chain," he added.





"We can see that the operation of ports and some airports, as well as the logistics that allowed us to continue exporting have been maintained," the official commented.





As for the impact of the state of emergency and the global health situation on the agro-export sector, he explained that a positive aspect of this pandemic is the fact that Peru is cementing its position as one of the main food suppliers in the world



(END) DOP/WRR/RMB/MVB

Loading...

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries to improve their production chains, as well as the industrialization and commercialization of food products, mainly agricultural ones, thus favoring their economies, and Peru is not exempt from this, which cements its position as food supplier worldwide.Publicado: 4/5/2020
Kamafushi.com scored 40 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 2/5.0 Stars by Social Team

This CoolSocial report was updated on 13 Nov 2012, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.

This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the kamafushi homepage on Twitter + the total number of kamafushi followers (if kamafushi has a Twitter account). The total number of people who shared the kamafushi homepage on StumbleUpon. The total number of people who shared the kamafushi homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the kamafushi homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if kamafushi has a Facebook fan page). The total number of people who shared the kamafushi homepage on Delicious.

Basic Information

PAGE TITLE -KAMA/--- DESCRIPTION KAMAKAMAKAMA KEYWORDS , kama,  OTHER KEYWORDS



The keywords meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. The title found in the head section of the homepage. CoolSocial advanced keyword analysis tool is able to detect and analyze every keyword on each page of a site. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of the site. The description meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage.

Domain and Server

DOCTYPE XHTML 1.0 Transitional CHARSET AND LANGUAGE GB2312 DETECTED LANGUAGE SERVER Microsoft-IIS/6.0 (ASP.NET) OPERATIVE SYSTEM Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003

Operative System running on the server. Character set and language of the site. The language of kamafushi.com as detected by CoolSocial algorithms. Represents HTML declared type (e.g.: XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.0, the new HTML 5.0) Type of server and offered services.

Site Traffic trend during the last year. Only available for sites ranked <= 100000 in the world.

Referring domains for kamafushi.com by MajesticSeo. High values are a sign of site importance over the web and on web engines.

Facebook link

FACEBOOK PAGE LINK NOT FOUND

The total number of people who tagged or talked about website Facebook page in the last 7-10 days. The URL of the found Facebook page. Facebook Timeline is the new layout of Facebook pages. A Facebook page link can be found in the homepage or in the robots.txt file. The total number of people who like website Facebook page. The type of Facebook page. The description of the Facebook page describes website and its services to the social media users.

Twitter account link

TWITTER PAGE LINK NOT FOUND
Workers at some of the country's largest fast food chains will face reduced shifts and forced leave as part of a temporary change to workplace rules that aims to save their jobs.

The changes to the default fast food industry's pay and conditions rules were negotiated between unions and employer groups to ensure workers who cannot access JobKeeper do not slip through the cracks.

Fast food outlets are still open for takeaway during the pandemic. Credit:AAP

But they have sparked dissent in the union movement, with the activist Retail and Fast Food Workers Union accusing the larger Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) of "attacking" workers' job security by agreeing to the arrangement.

Under the deal, part-time workers can agree on a minimum number of hours with their employer and then be rostered hours above that on an ad-hoc basis rather than having the same set of hours each week. Employers will not have to pay overtime on those extra hours.
Senior Producers, Larger-Cap Near-Term Production

Royalty & Streaming Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Altius Minerals Corp ALS 1.8 C$8.62 42 $258 0.55 0.29 0.38 30.2 22.6 1.03 0.77 0.92 11.3 9.4 -- 1.6%

Anglo Pacific Group PLC (UK) APF 1.6 GBP$1.57 181 $358 0.20 0.21 0.24 7.4 6.6 0.26 0.22 0.24 7.3 6.6 20.1 4.8%

Franco-Nevada FNV 2.5 US$138.11 189 $26,429 1.82 2.21 2.46 62.5 56.2 3.29 3.77 4.14 36.6 33.3 53.9 1.0%

Maverix Metals (CA) MMX 2.3 C$6.10 120 $524 0.09 0.12 0.17 53.0 36.7 0.25 0.31 0.35 19.7 17.2 -- 0.2%

Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd OR 2.0 C$13.16 157 $1,480 0.28 0.30 0.44 43.2 29.7 0.61 0.69 0.87 19.2 15.1 54.8 1.6%

Royal Gold Inc RGLD 3.0 US$125.86 66 $8,253 1.99 2.82 3.18 44.6 39.6 4.50 5.44 5.87 23.1 21.5 30.3 0.9%

Sandstorm Gold Ltd (CA) SAND 2.2 US$8.07 189 $1,543 0.06 0.11 0.16 72.7 50.9 0.30 0.35 0.40 23.1 20.1 38.4 0.0%

Wheaton Precious Metals WPM 1.9 US$41.09 448 $18,579 0.56 0.88 1.05 46.5 39.0 1.12 1.48 1.71 27.8 24.0 32.1 1.2%

Average 45.0 35.2 21.0 18.4 38.3

Gold

Large-Cap Gold

Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd AEM 2.1 US$61.20 241 $14,738 0.96 1.31 2.30 46.9 26.6 3.70 4.25 6.08 14.4 10.1 18.5 0.9%

AngloGold Ashanti Ltd AU 2.7 US$25.10 416 $10,671 0.91 2.10 2.64 11.9 9.5 2.50 3.56 4.16 7.0 6.0 8.0 0.5%

Barrick Gold Corp ABX 2.2 US$26.89 1778 $47,809 0.51 0.78 0.91 34.4 29.6 1.61 2.40 2.54 11.2 10.6 15.3 1.1%

Kirkland Lake Gold (CA) KL 1.8 US$41.74 287 $11,963 2.74 2.97 3.52 14.1 11.8 4.38 4.61 5.46 9.1 7.6 63.9 0.4%

Newcrest Mining Ltd (AU) NCM 2.7 US$16.14 769 $12,594 0.79 0.91 0.97 17.7 16.7 1.75 1.78 1.91 9.1 8.4 10.4 1.1%

Newmont Goldcorp NEM 2.1 US$60.99 808 $49,267 1.32 2.29 3.14 26.6 19.4 3.89 4.99 5.97 12.2 10.2 23.1 1.3%

Polyus Gold International (UK) PGIL 1.7 RU$12,110.0 134 $22,288 769.61 1120.10 1222.06 10.8 9.9 1054.82 1278.73 1433.60 9.5 8.4 -- 2.3%

Zijin Mining Group (HK) 2899 1.9 CNY$2.92 25377 $13,246 0.18 0.26 0.41 11.4 7.1 0.45 0.45 0.52 6.5 5.6 23.2 3.7%

Average 21.7 16.3 9.9 8.4 23.2

Mid-Cap Gold Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Alamos Gold AGI 2.2 US$8.39 391 $3,281 0.21 0.32 0.55 26.4 15.1 0.66 0.78 1.13 10.7 7.4 21.2 0.9%

B2Gold Corp BTG 1.6 US$5.15 1030 $5,304 0.23 0.45 0.41 11.6 12.5 0.49 0.73 0.69 7.0 7.4 16.8 0.2%

Buenaventura (ADR) BVN 2.9 US$7.89 254 $2,070 (0.05) 0.10 0.53 77.4 14.9 0.20 0.47 0.83 16.9 9.5 8.8 0.6%

Centamin PLC (CA) CEE 2.0 US$1.93 1156 $2,247 0.07 0.14 0.12 13.5 16.4 0.16 0.21 0.20 9.4 9.6 4.9 4.8%

Centerra Gold (CA) CG 2.1 US$8.32 294 $2,445 0.62 1.04 1.37 8.0 6.1 1.14 2.14 2.46 3.9 3.4 7.2 0.5%

Endeavour Mining Corp (CA) EDV 1.8 US$18.53 110 $2,058 0.67 1.46 1.81 12.7 10.2 2.75 3.71 4.38 5.0 4.2 11.5 0.0%

Equinox Gold Corp (CA) EQX 2.1 US$8.62 216 $1,880 (0.16) 0.83 1.25 10.4 6.9 0.53 1.42 2.03 6.1 4.3 -- 0.0%

Evolution Mining Ltd (AU) EVN 2.5 AUD$4.72 1704 $5,237 0.18 0.28 0.30 17.0 15.7 0.45 0.58 0.58 8.1 8.1 12.0 3.4%

Gold Fields Ltd (ADR) GFI 2.4 US$7.75 883 $6,910 0.20 0.49 0.94 16.0 8.2 1.08 1.31 1.81 5.9 4.3 7.1 0.8%

Harmony Gold Mining Ltd HAR 2.5 ZAR$68.82 543 $2,060 3.76 7.22 9.36 9.5 7.4 10.05 15.22 17.70 4.5 3.9 9.4 0.0%

Kinross Gold Corp KGC 2.3 US$6.83 1257 $8,684 0.34 0.49 0.56 13.9 12.2 0.97 1.14 1.27 6.0 5.4 11.7 0.0%

Lundin Gold Inc (CA) LUG 2.2 US$8.00 224 $1,814 (0.10) 0.31 0.66 26.2 12.2 (0.10) 0.61 1.07 13.1 7.5 -- 0.0%

Northern Star Resources (AU) NST 2.6 AUD$11.75 740 $5,661 0.41 0.81 1.03 14.5 11.4 0.81 1.31 1.59 9.0 7.4 18.4 1.3%

NovaGold Resources Inc NG 2.0 US$11.40 329 $3,727 (0.09) (0.08) -- -- -- -- -- (0.03) -- -- -- 0.0%

Polymetal International PLC (UK) POLY 2.0 US$20.26 470 $9,598 1.25 1.73 1.95 11.7 10.4 1.46 2.17 2.20 9.4 9.2 14.7 3.9%

Saracen Mineral Holdings (AU) SAR 2.3 AUD$3.97 1103 $2,850 0.18 0.32 0.38 12.3 10.4 0.34 0.52 0.61 7.7 6.5 49.7 0.0%

Sibanye Gold Ltd (SA) SGL -- ZAR$44.33 2670 $7,646 -- (0.40) 9.55 -- 4.6 -- -- -- -- -- -- --

SSR Mining SSRM 2.0 US$17.96 123 $2,213 0.81 1.23 1.76 14.6 10.2 1.10 2.09 2.56 8.6 7.0 9.7 0.0%

Yamana Gold Inc AUY 2.4 US$4.86 952 $4,628 0.35 0.17 0.24 27.9 20.0 0.55 0.66 0.76 7.4 6.4 8.8 1.4%

Zhaojin Mining Industry Co Ltd (HK) 1818 1.9 CNY$8.00 3270 $3,697 0.15 0.28 0.34 28.3 23.3 0.78 0.60 0.74 13.4 10.9 20.9 0.5%

Average 19.5 12.0 8.4 6.8 14.5

Note: Currency shown is that used by the company for financial reporting. Currency does not always reflect the country/market in which the company/stock symbol trades. GAAP may differ between stocks due to countries and markets.

The tables are compiled from the Thomson Reuters database of consensus Ratings & Estimates of equity analysts. The historicals and estimates of earnings and cash flows exclude non-operating, special items.

Thomson Reuters Rating System: Buy (1.0), Buy/Hold (2.0), Hold (3.0), Sell/Hold (4.0), Sell (5.0) Source: Thomson Reuters.

Small-Cap Gold Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Alacer Gold Corp (CA) ASR 2.1 US$5.45 295 $1,605 0.37 0.51 0.56 10.7 9.6 0.86 1.06 1.08 5.2 5.1 55.2 0.0%

DRDGold Ltd (ADR) DROOY 5.0 ZAR$17.26 865 $823 0.49 0.94 0.50 18.5 34.5 1.17 1.26 -- 13.7 -- 37.0 0.0%

Dundee Precious Metals (CA) DPM 1.8 US$4.93 181 $891 0.19 0.57 0.64 8.6 7.7 0.55 1.01 1.29 4.9 3.8 12.1 0.0%

Eldorado Gold Corp EGO 2.8 US$9.27 165 $1,532 0.04 0.87 0.59 10.7 15.7 0.93 2.17 1.69 4.3 5.5 11.8 0.0%

Gold Resource Corp GORO 2.0 US$4.20 70 $294 0.09 0.18 0.19 24.0 22.7 -- -- -- -- 0.4%

Gold Road Resources Ltd (AU) GOR 2.4 AUD$1.47 880 $842 0.01 0.11 0.11 14.0 14.0 0.04 0.16 0.16 9.1 9.3 -- 0.0%

Golden Star Resources GSS 2.6 US$2.33 161 $256 0.16 0.23 0.39 9.9 5.9 0.21 0.73 0.83 3.2 2.8 6.5 0.0%

Gran Colombia Gold Corp (CA) GCM 2.0 US$4.33 61 $266 0.73 1.33 1.22 3.3 3.6 1.24 1.57 1.65 2.8 2.6 -- 0.0%

Great Bear Resources (CA) GBR 1.7 C$10.09 47 $340 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.0%

Hecla Mining Co HL 3.1 US$2.70 523 $1,413 (0.13) (0.02) 0.10 -- 26.5 0.25 0.27 0.40 10.2 6.8 7.8 0.3%

Highland Gold Mining Ltd (UK) HGM 1.7 US$2.90 364 $1,063 0.45 0.32 0.38 9.1 7.6 0.38 0.49 0.51 6.0 5.7 8.6 6.2%

Hochschild Mining PLC (UK) HOC 2.4 US$1.63 514 $845 0.09 0.09 0.17 18.7 9.5 0.55 0.39 0.61 4.2 2.7 2.9 0.9%

Iamgold Corp IAG 2.6 US$3.62 470 $1,724 (0.04) 0.24 0.37 15.3 9.9 0.78 0.83 0.99 4.3 3.7 4.5 0.0%

K92 Mining (CA) KNT 1.4 US$2.41 213 $518 0.12 0.24 0.35 10.0 6.8 0.13 0.29 0.42 8.2 5.7 -- 0.0%

McEwen Mining Inc. MUX 2.0 US$0.96 400 $385 (0.17) (0.03) 0.04 -- 22.9 (0.11) (0.03) 0.01 -- NM -- 0.0%

New Gold Inc NGD 2.7 US$0.83 676 $562 (0.08) (0.07) 0.03 -- 24.0 0.43 0.32 0.44 2.6 1.9 3.1 0.0%

Oceanagold Corp (AU) OGC 2.2 US$1.50 622 $985 0.05 0.07 0.26 21.2 5.8 0.32 0.34 0.58 4.5 2.6 4.1 0.0%

Orla Mining Ltd (CA) OLA 2.0 C$3.15 224 $501 (0.16) (0.09) 0.02 -- NM (0.14) (0.06) 0.00 -- NM -- 0.0%

Osisko Mining Corp (CA) OSK 1.8 C$3.47 291 $724 (0.17) (0.05) (0.05) -- -- (0.01) (0.04) (0.04) -- -- -- 0.0%

Pan African Resources (UK) PAF 1.0 US$0.17 1928 $328 0.02 0.04 0.05 4.1 3.5 0.03 0.04 -- 4.2 -- 11.9 1.0%

Perseus Mining Ltd (AU) PRU 2.0 AUD$0.90 1168 $684 0.03 0.06 0.12 14.8 7.7 0.15 0.19 0.26 4.7 3.4 84.4 0.0%

Petropavlovsk PLC (UK) POG 1.5 US$0.30 3310 $1,005 0.02 0.05 0.06 6.3 5.5 0.02 0.05 0.08 6.7 3.8 7.9 0.0%

Premier Gold Mines Ltd (CA) PG 1.9 US$1.23 237 $291 (0.10) (0.04) 0.10 -- 12.5 0.11 0.06 0.31 20.2 3.9 5.9 0.0%

Pretium Resources PVG 2.4 US$8.44 185 $1,565 0.55 0.55 0.66 15.4 12.7 1.21 1.22 1.33 6.9 6.3 -- 0.0%

Ramelius Resources Ltd (AU) RMS 1.8 AUD$1.31 770 $645 0.06 0.10 0.14 13.5 9.5 0.23 0.25 0.29 5.2 4.5 11.9 0.8%

Regis Resources Ltd (AU) RRL 2.3 AUD$4.25 508 $1,406 0.38 0.48 0.53 8.8 8.0 0.60 0.68 0.72 6.2 5.9 8.3 3.7%

Resolute Mining Ltd (AU) RSG 2.0 AUD$0.88 1095 $624 0.02 0.13 0.18 6.9 4.7 0.15 0.22 0.30 4.0 2.9 -- 0.0%

Roxgold Inc (CA) ROXG 2.0 US$0.91 372 $338 0.05 0.08 0.12 10.8 7.5 0.27 0.21 0.23 4.3 4.0 32.3 0.0%

St Barbara Ltd (AU) SBM 2.1 AUD$2.41 703 $1,103 0.24 0.29 0.34 8.4 7.1 0.42 0.51 0.60 4.8 4.0 5.8 2.9%

Sabina Gold & Silver Corp (CA) SBB 2.3 C$2.00 297 $422 (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) -- -- (0.01) (0.01) 0.01 -- NM -- 0.0%

Seabridge Gold SA 2.0 C$20.07 64 $910 (0.19) (0.16) (0.12) -- -- (0.17) (1.40) (0.11) -- -- -- 0.0%

Semafo (CA) SMF 2.0 US$2.61 334 $883 0.22 0.32 0.50 8.3 5.2 0.66 0.77 0.96 3.4 2.7 6.2 0.0%

Silver Lake Resources (AU) SLR 2.4 AUD$1.81 880 $1,034 0.07 0.13 0.15 14.2 11.7 0.18 0.25 0.27 7.3 6.6 22.7 0.0%

Silvercrest Metals Inc SILV 1.8 C$9.48 109 $743 (0.67) (0.13) (0.14) -- -- (0.62) (0.13) (0.10) -- -- -- 0.0%

Teranga Gold Corp (CA) TGZ 1.6 US$7.15 168 $1,198 0.01 0.44 0.81 16.2 8.9 0.93 1.25 1.75 5.7 4.1 13.0 0.0%

Torex Gold Resources (CA) TXG 2.4 US$14.52 86 $1,254 0.79 0.57 0.83 25.4 17.4 3.51 3.11 3.76 4.7 3.9 7.8 0.0%

Victoria Gold Corp (CA) VIT 2.0 C$8.19 58 $339 -- -- -- -- -- -- (0.40) 0.18 -- 46.8 -- 0.0%

Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd (CA) WDO 1.8 C$10.75 138 $1,057 0.29 0.48 0.95 22.4 11.3 0.51 0.74 1.16 14.5 9.2 85.7 0.0%

West African Resources Ltd (CA) WAF -- AUD$0.26 871 $391 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.04 -- 7.1 -- --

Westgold Resources Ltd (AU) WGX 2.0 AUD$1.93 400 $502 0.07 0.24 0.43 7.9 4.5 0.31 0.54 0.72 3.6 2.7 -- 0.0%

Average 12.8 11.4 6.3 6.0 19.1

Select (Gold >US$20MM Mkt Cap)

Gold Springs Resource Corp (CA)* GRC 2.0 US$0.06 249 $14 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.0%

Lion One Metals Ltd (CA)* LIO 1.5 C$1.25 107 $95 (0.02) (0.02) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.0%

Minera Alamos Inc (CA) MAI 2.0 C$0.41 407 $118 (0.02) 0.01 0.05 40.5 8.1 0.03 0.05 -- 8.1 -- -- 0.0%

Northern Vertex Mining Corp (CA)* NEE 2.0 US$0.16 251 $41 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.0%

Paramount Gold Nevada Corp* PZG 1.8 US$1.28 28 $35 (0.21) (0.17) -- -- -- (0.19) (0.16) -- -- -- 0.0%

Average 40.5 8.1 8.1

*includes research coverage by Scarsdale Equities.

Note: Currency shown is that used by the company for financial reporting. Currency does not always reflect the country/market in which the company/stock symbol trades. GAAP may differ between stocks due to countries and markets.

The tables are compiled from the Thomson Reuters database of consensus Ratings & Estimates of equity analysts. The historicals and estimates of earnings and cash flows exclude non-operating, special items.

Thomson Reuters Rating System: Buy (1.0), Buy/Hold (2.0), Hold (3.0), Sell/Hold (4.0), Sell (5.0) Source: Thomson Reuters.

Silver Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Alexco Resource Corp* AXU 2.5 C$2.31 125 $207 (0.08) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.0%

Americas Gold & Silver Corp (CA) USA 1.8 US$2.22 95 $213 (0.46) 0.12 0.25 18.5 9.0 0.20 0.42 0.81 5.3 2.8 50.7 0.0%

Coeur Mining Corp CDE 2.6 US$3.90 244 $950 (0.25) (0.01) 0.19 -- 20.2 0.42 0.55 0.84 7.0 4.7 5.8 0.0%

Endeavour Silver Corp EXK 3.2 US$1.63 142 $233 (0.36) (0.01) 0.04 -- 38.7 (0.07) 0.18 0.24 9.0 6.8 6.6 0.0%

First Majestic Silver Corp AG 2.8 US$8.31 210 $1,761 0.04 0.15 0.23 53.8 35.8 0.69 0.40 0.81 20.8 10.3 15.7 0.0%

Fortuna Silver Mines FSM 2.4 US$3.12 160 $505 0.17 0.21 0.50 14.8 6.3 0.63 0.45 1.00 6.9 3.1 7.2 0.0%

Fresnillo (UK) FRES 2.9 US$8.78 737 $6,514 0.23 0.26 0.43 33.9 20.3 0.59 0.93 0.99 9.4 8.9 7.0 1.8%

MAG Silver Corp MAG 1.8 US$11.45 87 $1,001 (0.05) 0.01 0.46 NM 24.9 (0.04) 0.16 0.59 71.5 19.6 -- 0.0%

New Pacific Metals Corp (CA) NUAG 2.7 C$6.38 148 $676 (0.02) (0.02) (0.03) -- -- (0.02) (0.02) (0.03) -- -- -- 0.0%

Pan American Silver PAAS 2.3 US$21.79 210 $4,574 0.78 0.69 1.44 31.7 15.2 1.40 1.86 2.83 11.7 7.7 17.1 0.6%

Silvercorp Metals Inc SVM 2.0 US$3.92 173 $687 0.21 0.18 0.20 21.3 19.2 0.43 0.37 0.39 10.6 9.9 -- 0.4%

Average 29.0 21.1 16.9 8.2 15.7

*includes research coverage by Scarsdale Equities.

Platinum Group Metals

African Rainbow Minerals (SA) ARI 2.1 ZAR$136.33 223 $1,679 27.53 26.86 23.04 5.1 5.9 16.23 18.19 23.92 7.5 5.7 27.9 8.6%

Anglo American Platinum Ltd (SA) AMS 2.9 ZAR$976.53 270 $14,525 70.61 98.77 106.69 9.9 9.2 107.94 74.81 169.31 13.1 5.8 27.1 2.2%

Impala Platinum (SA) IMP 2.1 ZAR$112.20 799 $5,372 10.82 20.85 22.08 5.4 5.1 16.32 34.34 42.62 3.3 2.6 32.6 0.9%

Northam Platinum Ltd (SA) NHM 1.7 ZAR$92.45 510 $2,599 5.39 13.70 14.56 6.7 6.3 11.79 22.47 31.28 4.1 3.0 68.3 0.0%

Average 6.8 6.6 7.0 4.3 39.0

Base Metals & Diversified

Large-Cap Base Metals Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Anglo American PLC (UK) AAL 2.3 US$17.03 1363 $23,377 2.70 1.85 2.43 9.2 7.0 5.97 4.36 5.62 3.9 3.0 5.7 3.8%

Antofagasta PLC (UK) ANTO 2.9 US$9.75 986 $9,678 0.51 0.15 0.44 63.7 21.9 2.12 1.38 1.47 7.0 6.6 8.2 2.8%

BHP Billiton Ltd BHP 2.3 US$19.15 5058 $91,538 1.82 1.73 1.65 11.1 11.6 3.23 2.98 2.97 6.4 6.5 6.6 5.5%

China Molybdenum Co Ltd (HK) 3993 2.5 CNY$2.14 21599 $9,895 0.09 0.08 0.11 27.5 18.7 0.08 0.16 (0.10) 13.1 -- 41.7 1.4%

Freeport McMoran C&G FCX 2.1 US$8.46 1452 $12,284 0.02 (0.10) 0.93 -- 9.1 1.02 1.06 2.45 8.0 3.5 6.2 1.5%

Glencore International PLC (UK) GLEN 2.2 US$1.75 13324 $23,452 0.18 0.08 0.16 21.3 10.7 0.63 0.61 0.58 2.9 3.0 5.6 0.0%

Grupo Mexico (MX) GMEXICOB 2.4 US$2.13 7785 $16,569 0.29 0.15 0.22 13.8 9.7 0.51 0.29 0.32 7.2 6.7 7.5 8.6%

Hindustan Zinc (IN) HZ 2.1 INR$174.60 4225 $9,778 17.38 16.45 17.29 10.6 10.1 21.02 21.27 22.95 8.2 7.6 5.1 0.0%

MMC Norilsk Nickel (RU) GMKN 2.0 RU$5,429.84 158 $44,421 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 16.7 10.7%

Rio Tinto PLC (UK) RIO 2.6 US$45.19 1618 $76,700 6.36 4.89 4.51 9.2 10.0 9.15 7.58 7.21 6.0 6.3 6.8 2.7%

Southern Copper Corp SCCO 2.4 US$31.76 773 $24,552 1.92 1.49 2.00 21.3 15.9 2.47 2.49 2.88 12.8 11.0 13.3 5.7%

Vale SA (ADR) VALE 2.0 BRL$43.78 5284 $43,214 5.01 6.78 7.66 6.5 5.7 10.56 10.33 10.52 4.2 4.2 8.4 3.2%

Average 19.4 11.9 7.2 5.8 11.0

Note: Currency shown is that used by the company for financial reporting. Currency does not always reflect the country/market in which the company/stock symbol trades. GAAP may differ between stocks due to countries and markets.

The tables are compiled from the Thomson Reuters database of consensus Ratings & Estimates of equity analysts. The historicals and estimates of earnings and cash flows exclude non-operating, special items.

Thomson Reuters Rating System: Buy (1.0), Buy/Hold (2.0), Hold (3.0), Sell/Hold (4.0), Sell (5.0) Source: Thomson Reuters.

Mid-Cap Base Metals Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Assore Ltd (SA) ASR 3.3 ZAR$316.04 140 $2,434 51.82 41.18 35.62 7.7 8.9 -- 18.27 27.33 17.3 11.6 12.2 7.7%

Aurubis AG (GR) NDA 2.5 EUR$47.74 45 $2,334 3.14 3.51 4.14 13.6 11.5 5.58 5.86 6.66 8.1 7.2 6.2 2.3%

Boliden AB (SW) BOL 2.4 SEK$200.30 274 $5,615 21.15 17.23 20.63 11.6 9.7 34.52 37.25 39.06 5.4 5.1 6.1 3.9%

Exxaro Resources Ltd (SA) EXX 1.8 ZAR$107.81 359 $2,089 29.62 24.05 22.75 4.5 4.7 (9.28) 23.52 25.68 4.6 4.2 6.8 10.9%

First Quantum Minerals (CA) FM 2.0 US$5.86 689 $4,043 0.36 (0.44) 0.12 -- 49.0 1.29 1.79 2.07 3.3 2.8 13.4 0.1%

Iluka Resources Ltd (AU) ILU 2.3 AUD$7.55 423 $2,078 0.66 0.64 0.87 11.7 8.7 0.76 1.05 1.20 7.2 6.3 -- 1.4%

Independence Group NL (AU) IGO 2.2 AUD$4.41 591 $1,696 0.21 0.32 0.35 13.9 12.6 0.71 0.81 0.79 5.4 5.6 15.1 2.2%

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd (CA) IVP 2.1 US$1.99 1198 $2,406 0.02 (0.59) 0.59 -- 3.4 (0.01) (0.04) 0.20 -- 9.8 -- 0.0%

Jiangxi Copper Co "H" (HK) 358 2.6 CNY$6.92 3463 $5,120 0.70 0.59 0.78 11.8 8.9 1.75 1.15 1.28 6.0 5.4 12.8 1.0%

Kazakhmys PLC (UK) KAZ 2.3 US$4.99 472 $2,374 1.17 0.72 0.87 7.0 5.7 1.04 1.27 1.20 3.9 4.2 22.1 1.7%

KGHM Polska Miedz (PO) KGH 3.5 PLN$76.98 200 $3,687 7.11 5.47 8.84 14.1 8.7 25.24 14.99 17.01 5.1 4.5 4.7 0.0%

Lundin Mining Corp (CA) LUN 2.0 US$4.71 734 $3,453 0.22 0.11 0.43 43.9 10.9 0.77 0.67 1.09 7.0 4.3 6.8 0.0%

Mineral Resources Ltd (AU) MIN 1.8 AUD$16.46 188 $2,020 1.36 1.69 1.53 9.8 10.8 1.43 2.05 2.20 8.0 7.5 7.8 3.3%

Oz Minerals (AU) OZL 1.9 AUD$8.50 324 $1,794 0.51 0.30 0.76 28.3 11.2 1.58 1.11 1.72 7.6 4.9 7.5 2.2%

Sesa Sterlite Ltd (ADR) SSLT 2.4 INR$89.55 3089 $3,666 15.20 12.49 14.86 7.2 6.0 52.20 45.04 48.54 2.0 1.8 3.5 3.8%

South32 Ltd (AU) S32 2.1 US$1.21 4846 $5,947 0.12 0.07 0.12 17.1 10.0 0.29 0.24 0.28 5.0 4.3 3.2 2.2%

Sumitomo Metal Mining (JP) 5713 2.0 JPY$2,614 291 $7,093 199.73 166.91 227.71 15.7 11.5 378.82 392.01 442.91 6.7 5.9 9.9 1.7%

Teck Resources Ltd TCK 2.2 C$12.03 531 $4,561 2.75 0.71 2.09 16.9 5.8 6.16 3.62 5.83 3.3 2.1 4.0 1.9%

Vale Indonesia Tbk PT (ID) INCO 2.2 US$0.17 9936 $1,723 0.01 0.01 0.01 28.5 17.2 0.01 0.02 0.02 8.7 7.2 10.0 0.0%

Vedanta Resources PLC (UK) VED -- US$10.85 285 $3,089 -- 0.87 1.24 12.5 8.7 -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Average 15.3 11.2 6.4 5.5 8.9

Small-Cap Base Metals

Adriatic Metals PLC (AU) ADT 1.7 GBP$0.63 309 $240 (0.02) 0.01 0.31 92.4 2.0 (0.02) 0.01 NM -- -- 0.0%

Atalaya Mining PLC (UK) ATYM 1.3 EUR$1.27 137 $193 0.27 0.11 0.45 11.9 2.8 0.27 0.12 0.30 11.0 4.3 12.1 0.0%

Eramet (FR) ERA 2.2 EUR$29.00 27 $840 (6.93) (3.78) 3.25 -- 8.9 3.24 8.63 13.56 3.4 2.1 6.2 0.0%

Ero Copper Corp (CA) ERO 2.1 US$11.02 86 $945 0.94 0.77 1.23 14.4 9.0 1.40 1.42 1.91 7.8 5.8 -- 0.0%

Hudbay Minerals HBM 2.6 US$2.35 261 $620 (0.20) (0.50) 0.02 -- NM 1.19 0.79 1.24 3.0 1.9 2.7 0.4%

Kenmare Resources (UK) KMR 1.8 US$2.59 110 $286 0.40 0.29 0.85 8.9 3.1 0.69 0.32 6.10 8.1 0.4 51.4 2.6%

Mitsui Mining & Smelting (JP) 5706 2.6 JPY$2,012 57 $1,076 88.59 157.01 231.89 12.8 8.7 622.22 698.89 776.60 2.9 2.6 5.7 2.4%

MMG Ltd (HK) 1208 2.7 US$0.18 8055 $1,414 (0.01) (0.00) 0.01 -- 21.6 0.14 0.09 0.14 1.9 1.2 11.2 0.0%

Nexa Resources NA NEXA 3.0 US$4.01 133 $535 (0.03) (0.86) (0.12) -- -- 0.93 1.06 2.23 3.8 1.8 -- 6.5%

Outokumpu (FN) OUT1V 2.8 EUR$2.46 416 $1,112 (0.20) (0.10) 0.28 -- 8.9 0.90 0.53 0.65 4.6 3.8 6.5 0.0%

PolyMet Mining Corp PLM -- US$0.26 1006 $264 (0.08) (0.01) 0.03 -- 8.8 -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.0%

Sandfire Resources NL (AU) SFR 2.1 AUD$4.19 178 $486 0.55 0.54 0.59 7.7 7.1 1.46 1.68 1.47 2.5 2.8 2.8 3.5%

SolGold PLC (UK) SOLG 1.6 US$0.32 1923 $612 (0.01) (0.00) (0.01) -- -- (0.00) 0.00 0.00 -- -- -- 0.0%

Trilogy Metals Inc TMQ 2.2 US$1.61 141 $226 (0.20) (0.09) -- -- -- (0.16) -- -- -- -- 0.0%

Turquoise Hill Resources TRQ 3.0 US$0.47 2012 $967 0.23 (0.01) 0.13 -- 3.6 (0.01) (0.08) 0.17 -- 2.8 5.9 0.0%

Volcan Cia Ninera VOLABC1 3.0 US$0.09 4077 $1,832 (0.02) 0.01 0.01 6.6 6.9 -- -- -- -- -- 9.1 0.0%

Western Areas NL (AU) WSA 2.1 AUD$2.04 274 $364 0.11 0.19 0.20 10.7 10.0 0.41 0.46 0.45 4.4 4.5 6.1 1.0%

Average 20.7 7.8 4.9 2.8 10.9

Note: Currency shown is that used by the company for financial reporting. Currency does not always reflect the country/market in which the company/stock symbol trades. GAAP may differ between stocks due to countries and markets.

The tables are compiled from the Thomson Reuters database of consensus Ratings & Estimates of equity analysts. The historicals and estimates of earnings and cash flows exclude non-operating, special items.

Thomson Consensus Rating System: Buy (1.0), Buy/Hold (2.0), Hold (3.0), Sell/Hold (4.0), Sell (5.0) Source: Thomson Reuters.

Aluminum Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Alcoa Inc AA 2.6 US$7.69 186 $1,430 (0.99) (1.25) (0.24) -- -- 3.70 2.57 2.72 3.0 2.8 3.6 0.0%

Alumina Ltd AWC 2.3 US$1.04 2880 $3,047 0.11 0.06 0.07 16.4 14.3 0.13 0.09 0.07 11.6 14.8 4.1 5.3%

Aluminum Corp China Ltd (ADR) ACH 2.5 CNY$1.51 17023 $6,119 0.04 0.04 0.08 36.6 18.3 0.73 0.69 0.64 2.2 2.4 13.3 0.0%

Century Aluminum CENX 2.8 US$4.55 89 $407 (1.35) (0.49) (0.24) -- -- 0.20 0.13 0.63 35.0 7.3 21.6 0.0%

United Company Rusal Ltd (HK) 486 2.2 US$0.35 15193 $5,352 0.08 0.10 0.10 3.7 3.4 0.11 0.08 0.08 4.2 4.3 7.8 0.0%

Average 18.9 12.0 11.2 6.3 10.1

Iron Ore

Cliffs Natural Resources CLF 2.9 US$4.18 399 $1,666 1.05 (0.52) 0.32 -- 13.0 1.98 0.06 1.34 65.0 3.1 10.1 2.7%

Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (AU) FMG 2.8 US$7.05 3079 $22,008 1.21 1.15 0.78 6.1 9.1 1.62 1.57 1.19 4.5 5.9 5.7 9.4%

Kumba Iron Ore Ltd (SA) KIO 3.4 ZAR$352.71 322 $6,266 50.73 42.78 34.60 8.2 10.2 85.20 64.52 55.43 5.5 6.4 6.2 11.2%

Labrador Iron Ore Royalty (CA) LIF 2.1 C$19.26 64 $884 3.21 2.44 2.38 7.9 8.1 3.51 2.38 2.30 8.1 8.4 13.0 5.1%

Mount Gibson Iron Limited (AU) MGX 2.7 AUD$0.60 1158 $452 0.10 0.10 0.10 6.0 5.7 0.09 0.16 0.21 3.7 2.9 14.8 4.2%

Average 7.1 9.2 17.3 5.3 10.0

Fertilizers

CF Industries CF 2.5 US$26.61 214 $5,689 2.31 1.63 2.06 16.3 12.9 6.79 5.80 5.95 4.6 4.5 14.1 2.5%

Compass Minerals CMP 2.2 US$46.32 34 $1,570 1.90 3.01 3.72 15.4 12.5 4.71 6.89 9.51 6.7 4.9 10.8 4.7%

Incitec Pivot Ltd (AU) IPL 2.5 AUD$2.32 1613 $2,437 0.11 0.16 0.20 14.4 11.7 0.29 0.39 0.41 6.0 5.6 8.3 1.4%

Intrepid Potash IPI 3.0 US$1.00 131 $131 0.10 0.03 0.06 30.8 17.4 0.38 0.30 0.32 3.3 3.1 -- 0.0%

Israel Chemical (IS) ICL 2.4 US$3.49 1280 $4,454 0.37 0.30 0.40 11.6 8.8 0.77 0.45 0.55 7.8 6.4 6.7 3.9%

K & S Aktiengesellschaft (GR) SDF 2.9 EUR$6.15 191 $1,280 0.46 (0.10) 0.51 -- 12.1 3.34 2.40 2.31 2.6 2.7 7.9 1.3%

Mosaic Co MOS 2.4 US$11.15 379 $4,226 0.19 0.34 1.03 33.1 10.8 2.85 2.93 3.39 3.8 3.3 7.6 0.8%

Nutrien Ltd NTR 2.0 US$34.68 573 $19,836 2.17 2.02 2.49 17.2 13.9 6.29 4.96 5.24 7.0 6.6 -- 3.7%

Sociedad Quimica Minera (ADR) SQM 3.2 US$21.60 263 $6,071 1.06 1.14 1.42 19.0 15.2 1.62 1.83 2.00 11.8 10.8 9.0 4.6%

Yara International ASA (NO) YAR 1.8 US$34.11 272 $9,291 3.09 3.17 3.79 10.8 9.0 7.00 6.37 6.93 5.4 4.9 7.9 5.4%

Average 18.7 12.4 5.9 5.3 9.0

Coal

Large - Mid Cap Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Adaro Energy TBK (ID) ADRO 3.2 US$0.06 31986 $1,928 0.01 0.01 0.01 5.8 5.9 0.03 0.02 0.02 3.0 3.0 3.2 4.2%

China Coal Energy Co (HK) 1898 2.3 CNY$1.89 13259 $6,049 0.47 0.40 0.41 4.8 4.6 1.55 1.01 1.36 1.9 1.4 10.7 4.6%

China Shenhua Energy Co (HK) 1088 2.2 CNY$12.65 19890 $43,288 2.10 1.87 1.90 6.8 6.7 3.17 3.07 3.31 4.1 3.8 4.4 9.3%

Consol Energy CNX 2.0 US$10.15 187 $1,899 0.60 0.37 0.40 27.3 25.7 5.12 3.85 3.83 2.6 2.7 7.8 0.0%

Yancoal Australia Ltd YAL 3.0 AUD$2.17 1320 $1,857 0.69 0.29 0.33 7.5 6.6 -- -- -- -- -- -- 11.4%

Yanzhou Coal Mining Co Ltd (HK) 1171 2.7 CNY$5.37 4912 $4,957 1.91 1.44 1.44 3.7 3.7 3.58 2.56 3.28 2.1 1.6 16.3 9.3%

Average 9.3 8.9 2.8 2.5 8.5

Small Cap

Alliance Resource Partners LP ARLP 2.3 US$3.62 127 $460 3.07 0.07 0.41 51.7 8.8 1.22 1.37 1.90 2.6 1.9 1.8 19.8%

Arch Coal Inc ARCH 2.2 US$26.82 15 $406 12.58 (0.63) 9.04 -- 3.0 24.26 9.84 20.28 2.7 1.3 -- 6.4%

Banpu Public Co Ltd (TH) BANPU 3.1 US$0.18 5162 $932 0.01 0.02 0.03 9.1 6.6 0.08 0.05 0.06 3.4 3.0 14.5 5.0%

Fushan Int'l Energy Group (HK) 639 2.3 HK$1.54 5302 $1,054 0.22 0.23 0.22 6.8 6.9 0.37 0.38 0.42 4.1 3.7 5.8 10.2%

Natural Resource Partners LP NRP 2.0 US$12.75 12 $156 6.40 6.25 6.45 2.0 2.0 10.69 10.58 5.28 1.2 2.4 2.9 9.0%

New Hope Corp Ltd (AU) NHC 2.0 AUD$1.44 832 $780 0.27 0.18 0.18 7.8 8.2 0.35 0.31 0.27 4.6 5.3 10.3 8.0%

PT Tambang Batubara Bukit (ID) PTBA 2.8 IDR$1,875 11521 $1,416 371.00 300.26 302.60 6.2 6.2 383.90 330.18 330.66 5.7 5.7 5.9 --

Whitehaven Coal Ltd (AU) WHC 2.3 AUD$1.71 1026 $1,139 0.32 0.14 0.21 12.6 8.3 0.60 0.36 0.46 4.7 3.7 5.2 5.5%

Average 13.8 6.2 3.6 3.4 6.6

Note: Currency shown is that used by the company for financial reporting. Currency does not always reflect the country/market in which the company/stock symbol trades. GAAP may differ between stocks due to countries and markets.

The tables are compiled from the Thomson Reuters database of consensus Ratings & Estimates of equity analysts. The historicals and estimates of earnings and cash flows exclude non-operating, special items.

Thomson Reuters Rating System: Buy (1.0), Buy/Hold (2.0), Hold (3.0), Sell/Hold (4.0), Sell (5.0) Source: Thomson Reuters.

Uranium Price Shrs O/S Mkt Cap Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Cash Flow Per Share Price/Cash Flow EV/EBITDA Div Yld

Symbol Rating 1-May-20 (MM) (US$MM) 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2019 2020E 2021E 2020E 2021E 2020E %

Cameco Corp CCJ 2.3 C$14.42 396 $4,052 0.10 0.02 0.02 NM NM 1.33 0.66 0.72 21.8 20.0 9.7 0.7%

Denison Mines DNN 2.3 C$0.62 597 $266 (0.03) (0.02) (0.01) -- -- (0.03) (0.02) (0.02) -- -- -- 0.0%

Energy Resources Australia (AU) ERA 4.0 AUD$0.17 3691 $397 0.01 0.00 0.00 -- -- (0.19) 0.02 0.00 8.3 -- 23.6 0.0%

Nexgen Energy Ltd (CA) NXE 1.7 C$1.88 360 $486 (0.04) (0.08) (0.06) -- -- (0.04) (0.04) (0.03) -- -- -- 0.0%

Uranium Participation Corp (CA) U 2.1 C$4.86 138 $481 0.01 0.15 0.08 31.7 57.7 (0.03) (0.05) (0.03) -- -- -- 0.0%

Average 31.7 57.7 15.0 20.0 16.6

Note: Currency shown is that used by the company for financial reporting. Currency does not always reflect the country/market in which the company/stock symbol trades. GAAP may differ between stocks due to countries and markets.

The tables are compiled from the Thomson Reuters database of consensus Ratings & Estimates of equity analysts. The historicals and estimates of earnings and cash flows exclude non-operating, special items.

Thomson Reuters Rating System: Buy (1.0), Buy/Hold (2.0), Hold (3.0), Sell/Hold (4.0), Sell (5.0) Source: Thomson Reuters.

Commodity Prices

Cash Price (1-May-20)

Silver ($14.94 / oz)

Palladium ($1820 / oz)

Platinum ($759 / oz)

Aluminum ($0.65 / lb)

Cobalt ($13.38 / lb)

Copper ($2.30 / lb)

Lead ($0.72 / lb)

Molybdenum ($9.05 / lb)

Nickel ($5.38 / lb)

Tin ($6.88 / lb)

Zinc ($0.86 / lb)

Uranium ($32.75 / lb)
LIMA, May 3 (Reuters) - Peru will gradually ease restrictions on key sectors including mining and construction in May, the government said in a decree on Sunday, after activity had been virtually paralyzed since mid-March by the coronavirus pandemic and a nationwide lockdown.

In the decree published in the official newspaper El Peruano, the government said the exploitation, storage and transportation of large-scale mining could be restarted, as well as key construction projects, some related to hydrocarbons.

Peru is the world's second largest producer of copper and is heavily dependent on the sector for economic growth. The decree said that to restart activities, companies must implement rigorous health protocols to avoid infections.

These will be set by local governments within the next five days and will be supervised by health authorities. The country's mining sector and wider economy has been hit hard by the pandemic, which has seen 42,534 confirmed cases of the virus in the country - the second most in Latin America.

The death toll from the disease in Peru is now around 1,200. "It is necessary to begin the social and economic recovery," the government said in the decree.

"Therefore, it is a priority to address the transition to a resumption of activities that incorporates precautions and protective measures to prevent infections and minimize the risk of a rebound in the disease."

Major local mine Antamina, controlled by global firms BHP Group Ltd and Glencore , reported over the last week that some 210 company workers had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, of which 87% were asymptomatic.

The government of President Martin Vizcarra had previously said it would restart key activities in four phases starting this month, but without specifying which sectors. The supreme decree on Sunday also included resumptions of production in the agricultural industry, industrial fishing, some areas of construction and the metal-mechanical sector.
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (HKG:2318) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 3 days. You can purchase shares before the 8th of May in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 8th of June.

Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China's next dividend payment will be HK$1.42 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed HK$2.05 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China stock has a trailing yield of around 2.8% on the current share price of HK$79.7. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.

View our latest analysis for Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China

Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China paid out a comfortable 28% of its profit last year.

When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

SEHK:2318 Historical Dividend Yield May 4th 2020

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. That's why it's comforting to see Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China's earnings have been skyrocketing, up 24% per annum for the past five years.

The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the last ten years, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China has lifted its dividend by approximately 30% a year on average. It's great to see earnings per share growing rapidly over several years, and dividends per share growing right along with it.

Story continues

The Bottom Line

Has Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China got what it takes to maintain its dividend payments? When companies are growing rapidly and retaining a majority of the profits within the business, it's usually a sign that reinvesting earnings creates more value than paying dividends to shareholders. Perhaps even more importantly - this can sometimes signal management is focused on the long term future of the business. Overall, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China looks like a promising dividend stock in this analysis, and we think it would be worth investigating further.

On that note, you'll want to research what risks Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China is facing. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China (of which 1 is significant!) you should know about.

We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

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.
Australias First Weekend With Eased Restrictions

Australians across a number of states and territories have enjoyed a taste of normality during the first weekend of eased COVID-19 restrictions.

Prompted by declining COVID-19 figures, some state governments decided to ease restrictions ahead of schedule. Additional state police will be deployed to ensure residents are following social distancing rules that remain.

Northern Territory

Restrictions will be lifted at Recreational grounds and national parks. Northern Territory Police have applauded the behavior of Territorians following the ease of virus restrictions. A total of 115 compliance checks were conducted by police across NT. Despite eased restrictions, police increased visibility in public spaces.



Were happy to say those attending these areas have been well behaved and following physical distancing, said Incident Controller Acting Commander Shaun Gill.

Northern Territory (NT) was the first to lift major restrictions after recording zero deaths. The NT went 25 consecutive days without new virus cases until May 3 when two people tested positive for the CCP virus.

Popular sites such as Howard Springs Nature Park and Litchfield National Park reopened attracting high numbers of people.

Its all fun and games at Litchfield National Park, until the car park is full and social distancing gets difficult Swimming spots were pretty packed this morning, but police on the ground said people have been well behaved and well separated. @abcdarwin pic.twitter.com/La5wPPSP2N  Melissa Mackay (@_melissamackay) May 2, 2020

Queensland

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk eased travel restrictions allowing residents to travel up to 50 kilometers from their homes for recreational purposes. A considerable amount of Queenslanders were present in parks and beaches, and along hiking tracks.

The Gold Coast was one of the busiest areas, where police were called out to intervene at a number of house parties. Seven men were handed police infringement notices (PIN) of $1,334 (US$853) at one party, and a further 18 at another.

Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler said he was frustrated at the disregard for restrictions.

Its especially disappointing considering the vast majority of Gold Coast residents [were] doing the right thing and following the rules in line with the easing of restrictions across the weekend, he said.

Queensland Police issued more than 140 fines over the weekend, with police commissioner Katarina Carroll labeling some beachgoers behavior disappointing.

New South Wales

Despite New South Wales experiencing the highest amount of CCP virus cases, the state lifted restrictions on May 1, allowing families (consisting of two adults and their children) to visit other households for the first time in weeks. Bondi beach extended its opening period from Monday to Friday, to include weekends.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was so far pleased with how the states residents had followed the eased restrictions.

Australian Capital Territory

In the Australian Capital Territory restrictions were lifted allowing people to enjoy small dinner parties and two families were allowed under one roof for the first time.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr also said residents could enjoy non-essential shopping if they kept up good hygiene and social distancing practices.

Western Australia

Outdoor activities in WA edged closer to normality with restrictions eased on fishing, camping, and hiking, as well as boot camps, and picnics. The state has increased social gathering limits from 2 to 10 people.

South Australia

Border patrol checks will be lifted in South Australia allowing interstate travel. The state has 438 confirmed cases, and 428 have recovered.

Tasmania

On May 4, Tasmania will lift restrictions on non-essential retail in the north-west region, where a significant outbreak was reported on April 13. Two-thirds of all the islands cases have come from the north-west cluster. Of the states 221 confirmed cases so far, 158 people have recovered.

Victoria

Victoria has opted for a blitz of testing before lifting any restrictions. As of May 3, around 55,000 Victorians have been tested for the COVID-19 disease. It is reported that 13,000 were tested on May 3 alone.

The total number of national cases is 6,801, with 86 percent recovering and 1.4 percent dying (as of May 3).
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4)  Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo floated Monday a novel  and likely controversial  legal theory that President Rodrigo Duterte can declare martial law on the basis of invasion of the novel coronavirus.

He said during his commentary show on state broadcaster Peoples Television that the term invasion has changed throughout the years and can also mean the entry of a disease and the transfer from one area to another.

There is an actual invasion of the coronavirus disease, which is pandemic. It threatens, in fact, the entire country, so may aktwal na invasion (there is an actual invasion), Panelo said.

While saying that the definition of invasion evolved over time, Panelo conceded that the framers of the Constitution only considered it to mean the forced entry of foreign military forces into the country.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra also cited this definition of invasion, adding that it, along with rebellion, refers to armed actions by human beings, not by non-living things like viruses.

The Constitution provides that the president may only declare martial law in case of invasion or rebellion, when the public safety requires it.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier threatened to declare martial law due to the supposed lawlessness of communist rebels.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- With his poll numbers looking wobbly, President Donald Trump wants the Lincoln Memorial as backdrop for a Made-for-Fox-News event today intended to portray him as the kind of leader he is not. It wont work  not just because the juxtaposition of Trump with Abraham Lincoln is so spectacularly unflattering to the current president.

When historians rank American presidents, the Civil War features prominently in their deliberations. Nearly all historians consider Lincoln one of the paramount examples of presidential leadership. Lincoln presided over a nation broken in two; his chief competitor for the top ranking, George Washington, guided a messy quasi-nation that included loyalists who had opposed the rebellion Washington had led. Both presidents made great efforts to realize the American ideal of E Pluribus Unum.

The lowest-ranked presidents likewise cluster ominously around the edges of the Civil War. Whereas unity is a mark of Lincoln and Washington, divisiveness is a recurring trait among the least admired executives. Its a key reason why Donald Trump has already joined their club.

In a 2017 C-Span survey of 91 historians who ranked the presidents (not including Trump) on measures such as crisis management and international relations, the bottom five includes three presidents whose administrations greased the skids into the Civil War  John Tyler, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan  along with the president most responsible for squandering the wars gains, Andrew Johnson. Only one president from outside the Civil War era, the notoriously unindustrious Warren G. Harding, whose administration is best known for corruption, made the bottom five.

Rankings are bound to have a subjective element, and the favor of historians is not constant over time. The top and bottom rankings, however, seem pretty durable. A Siena College survey of 157 presidential scholars, released in 2019, produced a similar roll call of failure  with one notable change. In this poll, Tyler loses his spot among the cellar dwellers to Trump, who is ranked third from the bottom, with only Johnson and Buchanan rated as worse presidents. That was before the coronavirus pandemic opened a new window on Trumps breathtaking crisis management.

Story continues

Andrew Johnson was a uniquely vile president. He betrayed the promise of emancipation, snatching defeat from victory and brutal servitude, for millions, from hard-won freedom. His swing around the circle, a series of Trump-like rallies he held mostly in the Midwest in 1866, was so divisive that his intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues became the basis of one of the articles of impeachment against him.

So Johnson may be hard to topple from last place. But what earned James Buchanan the second-to-last spot ahead of Trump?

Buchanan had seemed eminently prepared for office. He had served in the Pennsylvania state legislature and the U.S. Congress. He was in President James Polks cabinet and had been ambassador to Russia and Great Britain. He was elected in 1856, in an era of bitter sectional politics, with a plurality of the vote.

Like Trump, however, Buchanan never sought to expand his base. An admirer of the chivalrous race of white Southern men, the Democrat was a persistent partisan for Southern causes. He quietly sought to influence the Supreme Courts Dred Scott ruling, which it handed down during his first days in office, by encouraging a justice from his home state to side with the pro-slavery faction. On the viciously contested issue of whether Kansas would be free or a slave state, he appeared uninterested in stemming political violence in the territory and supported a pro-slavery minority government based in Lecompton, Kansas, along with the pro-slavery constitution it tried to foist on Kansass anti-slavery majority.

Buchanan did little to halt the nations precipitous slide toward Civil War, and may have accelerated it. In his years as President, writes Buchanan biographer Jean H. Baker, Buchanan did a great deal to popularize the view that the Republicans were a threat to the South, thereby encouraging its secession from the Union when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860.

Division and dithering: These are the chief reasons why Buchanan ranks near the bottom, and the reasons why Trump, post coronavirus, is poised to sink beneath him. Of course, some believe Trump, encumbered by corruption, has already sunk to the lowest depth of presidential history. Yet his catastrophic inaction amid the pandemic suggests he has more room to descend. I wrote Eric Foner, an expert on Reconstruction, to ask what he makes of the competition at the bottom of the presidential pile. It seems fitting to give the last word to one of Americas greatest historians.

Buchanans involvement in the infamous Dred Scott decision and then support for the fraudulent Lecompton Constitution certainly push him toward the bottom, Foner wrote back. On the other hand he refused Southern demands to recognize the legality of secession and ironically ended up as head of a northern, pro-Union administration. His annual message to Congress made a strong argument that secession is unconstitutional. I rank Andrew Johnson below him as well as our current president. Buchanan did not recommend drinking Lysol.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or 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

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
To determine Trumps highest and lowest approval ratings by state, Stacker mined data from The State of the Nation: A 50-state COVID-19 Survey and The COVID Tracking Project.

This article was first published on Stacker
A northern Oklahoma town rescinded an order requiring residents to wear face masks just three hours after it was passed because employees of several stores reportedly received violent threats - including one angry customer who threatened to use a gun.

The town of Stillwater, which lies about 65 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, began to reopen businesses on Friday that had been shuttered due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The reopenings were part of a phased plan to jump-start economic activity announced by Governor Kevin Stitt.

The local government mandated that employees and customers entering stores and restaurants wear face masks.

But within three hours, several businesses reported that their employees were being threatened with violence by those who refused to wear the face masks.

Employees of shops and restaurants in Stillwater, Oklahoma, reported being threatened with violence after the local government ordered employees and shoppers to wear facial coverings on Friday

Just three hours after the facial covering order went into effect, it was rescinded in response to the threats

The City of Stillwater has attempted to keep people safe by the simple requirement to wear a face covering to protect others, city manager Norman McNickle said in a statement.

It is unfortunate and distressing that those who refuse and threaten violence are so self-absorbed as to not follow what is a simple show of respect and kindness to others.

McNickle told KFOR-TV that those who objected to wearing face masks claimed that the requirement was unconstitutional.

Last week, a federal judge in Oklahoma dismissed a lawsuit filed by a resident of the town of Guthrie who claimed that a requirement to wear a face mask in public was illegal.

The image above shows cars lining the north and south bound lanes of Lincoln Blvd during the Let's Get Oklahoma Open For Business rally at the Oklahoma State Capitol on April 15

The image above shows Bryan Hall carrying a sign as he walks along drivers during the Let's Get Oklahoma Open For Business rally in Oklahoma City on April 15

A protester displaying a sign out of a car window during the Let's Get Oklahoma Open For Business rally

Officials in Guthrie relaxed the COVID-19 lockdown rules, but did keep in place the face mask requirement as well as a ban on certain gatherings of more than 10 people, KOCO-TV reported.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the Oklahoma health officials recommend wearing face coverings to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.

As of Monday, Oklahoma authorities reported that Stillwater had 22 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and no deaths.

More than 4,000 residents have been infected statewide and 238 have died, according to the latest figures.

Last month, Oklahoma State Capitol saw lines of cars and protesters demonstrating against businesses being forced to close during the pandemic.

Will Joyce, the mayor of Stillwater, angrily blasted those making threats, tweeting: Shame on you.

Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce (seen left with a face covering and right without a mask) denounced those making threats, tweeting 'Shame on you'

Joyce on Friday posted a lengthy explanation on Twitter after his town rescinded the face covering order

As Ive noted before, I am still concerned that were not truly on the downhill side of this crisis, Joyce wrote on Twitter.

But Stillwater is not an island, and we are moving forward in coordination with the state and the larger community around us.

Joyce wrote that we had a bit of false start today on face coverings.

He tweete: Masks are an easy and effective way to slow the spread and keep our recovery on track.

Its a tricky issue, not because a mask rule is unconstitutional (its clearly not), but because its so difficult to enforce.

Rather than make a blanket rule for everyone, we decided to require businesses to tell their patrons to wear them while on the premises, which seemed like the middle ground of dozens of different versions from around the country.

It wasnt the right approach for Stillwater.

I knew there would be some objections, but I did not expect physical confrontations with employees and threatening phone calls to city hall.

I hate that our businesses and their employees had to deal with abuse today, and I apologize for putting them in that position.

I am not the kind of person who backs down from bullies, but I also will not send someone else to fight the battle for me.

I issued a revised order this afternoon to correct this problem, and we will continue to reevaluate our approach to face coverings.

The mayor tweeted: Masks are currently required for employees in most public-facing businesses, and strongly recommended for everyone whenever you are around other people.

We should all get used to the idea of wearing a face covering to protect one another.

'People are not going to accept the government telling them what to do': Ohio governor says he went back on his order requiring customers to wear face masks in stores because it was 'a bridge too far'

Stillwater isn't the only place to reverse their decision on face masks. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Sunday that he backed down from his mandate that all state residents who walk into retail stores wear face masks to combat the spread of the coronavirus because it was a bridge too far.

People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do, DeWine told ABC News This Week on Sunday.

DeWine, who was one of the first governors to order his state to shut down due to the ongoing pandemic, has been under pressure from protesters to restart economic activity in the Buckeye State.

On Tuesday, he rescinded a statewide order requiring customers wear masks at all retail locations.

DeWine acknowledged on Twitter that some found the face-mask directive offensive.

He said that while the state will not make face masks mandatory, wearing them is still strongly encouraged.

Face masks are very important and our business group came back and said every employee, for example, should wear a face mask, the governor said.

So were continuing that, whether its retail or wholesale, whatever it is, manufacturing, every employees going to have the face mask.

The governor on Sunday said that supporters of the Republican Party were more likely to support restarting the economy while Democrats were concerned with the spread of the virus.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Sunday said his order for customers to wear masks in retail locations in the state went 'too far'

DeWine has been under pressure from protesters to allow businesses in the state to reopen. The image above shows protesters in front of the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday

I think generally Republicans are less inclined to have the government tell them what to do, DeWine said.

And thats generally how I am. Im a conservative Republican.

I think were better off not having the government tell us what to do.

Dozens of protesters of Ohios stay-at-home orders returned to the Statehouse in Columbus on Friday, pounding on windows and shouting.

Reopen all Ohio businesses now read one protesters sign. State troopers in riot gear stood by.

The number of confirmed and probable deaths associated with the coronavirus has reached 1,038, state health officials said. The Ohio health department posted figures Sunday indicating 957 confirmed deaths and another 81 probable deaths associated with the virus.

The department noted more than 19,000 confirmed cases of the virus and a probable total of more than 19,900.

For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in a couple of weeks.

Older adults and people with existing health problems are at higher risk of more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (above) on Sunday condemned protesters in her state who brandished arms and waved racist and anti-Semitic placards earlier this week

One protester likened the governor to Hitler during a protest in Lansing on Thursday

Several protesters tried to enter the Michigan House of Representatives chamber in Lansing on Thursday. Many were not wearing face coverings

A militia group with no political affiliation from Michigan stands in front of the governor's office after protesters occupied the state capitol building in Lansing on Thursday

We have to listen to the epidemiologist and health experts and displays like the one we saw at our capitol is not representative of who we are. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer reacts to protesters descending on her states capitol, including some who were armed #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/nz7kV3mHQU  CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 3, 2020

DeWine announced that the state would gradually begin to reactivate the economy though critics warn that encouraging people to leave quarantine too fast could once again lead to another massive outbreak.

I told Ohioans Friday, I said we can do two things at once, DeWine told ABC News.

When asked what would happen in the event of another major outbreak in his state, DeWine said: Well have to take action.

We got to bring the economy back, but we also have to continue to protect people, the governor said.

On Friday, DeWine extended the state shutdown until May 29, dubbed the Stay Safe Ohio Order.

We can stay safe, we can protect each other, we can protect our most vulnerable, and at the same time get people back to work, the Republican governor said.

Consistent with DeWines earlier announcements, health care offices were allowed to reopen on Friday, followed by construction companies, distributors, manufacturers and offices on Monday.

Bars and movie theaters remain closed, along with in-person dining at restaurants.

Sporting events and concerts are still prohibited.

Multiple working groups are being formed to come up with the best and safest way to restart activities, including hair care, dining out, going to the gym, visiting libraries and participating in sporting events, DeWine said.

Anti-lockdown protests in Ohio and Michigan have generated headlines in recent days after several demonstrators were seen waving racist and anti-Semitic placards.

A large number of demonstrators were also seen not wearing any face coverings.

In Michigan, several demonstrators armed with automatic rifles were seen gathering just outside the office of Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

White House coronavirus coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx on Sunday said it was devastatingly worrisome to see protesters in Michigan and elsewhere not wear masks or practice social distancing as they demonstrate against stay-at-home orders.

Birx was responding to the hundreds of protesters who crowded the Michigan statehouse last week to push for a reopening of businesses.

She told Fox News Sunday that people 'will feel guilty for the rest of our lives' if they pick up the virus because they didnt take precautions and then unwittingly spread it to family members who are especially vulnerable to severe illness due to preexisting conditions or older age.

Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force said it was 'devastatingly worrisome' to see protesters not wear face coverings

Protests took place in several states over the weekend amid growing frustration over the economic impact from stay at home orders during the coronavirus outbreak.

Birx says: 'We need to protect each other at the same time were voicing our discontent.'

Michigans governor says gun-carrying protesters who demonstrated inside her states Capitol 'depicted some of the worst racism' and 'awful parts' of US history.

Whitmer, a Democrat, told CNN that the protests featured 'Confederate flags, and nooses,' as well as swastikas.

Members of the Michigan Liberty Militia protested the states stay-at-home orders this week, some with weapons and tactical gear and their faces partially covered.

They went inside the Capitol, where being armed is allowed, then demanded access to the House floor, which is prohibited.

Some went to the Senate gallery, where a senator said armed men shouted at her.

Michigans Republican-controlled Legislature has questioned Whitmers authority to extend stay-at-home orders amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But the governor used an executive order to extend a state of emergency declaration and has directed most businesses statewide to remain closed.

Mentioned as a possible running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Whitmer said Sunday, 'This isnt something we just negotiate ourselves out of and its a political matter.'

'This is a public health crisis,' she said.

As of Monday, Michigan had reported 43,754 confirmed COVID-19 virus cases and 4,049 deaths due to complications from the disease.
YEREVAN, 4 MAY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 4 May, USD exchange rate is up by 0.72 drams to 480.00 drams. EUR exchange rate is up by 4.19 drams to 524.93 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate is down by 0.20 drams to 6.36 drams. GBP exchange rate is down by 2.46 drams to 596.74 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price is down by 224.46 drams to 26022.81 drams. Silver price is down by 4.59 drams to 229.09 drams. Platinum price is down by 213.43 drams to 11805.75 drams.
Press Release

May 4, 2020 Senate adopts resolution honoring the late Sen. Heherson Alvarez The Senate today adopted a resolution commending and honoring the late Sen. Heherson Alvarez for his exemplary work as a legislator, statesman, human rights and environmental advocate. Alvarez had succumbed to Covid-19 at the age of 80 last April 20. Senate President Vicente Sotto III said Senate Resolution No. 363, taking into consideration Senate Resolution Nos. 371, 366 and 382 would be presented to Alvarez's family on a later date. The Senate had adopted a skeletal workforce scheme and limited the entry of officials and employees inside its premises. Earlier, Sotto lamented that the Senate would not be able to accord Alvarez the proper recognition due him as a former member of the institution. Traditionally, the Senate would hold a necrological service for the deceased senator and present his or her family with a resolution honoring him or her. The resolution was introduced by Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Sen. Francis Tolentino (SRN 363), Senate Majority Leader Migz Zubiri and Senators Richard Gordon, Sonny Angara, Sherwin Gatchalian, Nancy Binay, Joel Villanueva and Leila de Lima (366). "This young political activist from Isabela commenced his political career when he served as one of the youngest delegates to the 1971 Constitutional Convention (CONCON) as an oppositionist who refused to sign the charter produced by the convention and publicly criticize the Marcos administration resulting to his forced self-exile to the U. S.," Sotto said in his resolution. Sotto said Alvarez served his country for more than four decades as a Member of the House of Representatives, Minister of Agrarian Reform, Secretary of Agrarian Reform, Ambassador Extraordinary Plenipotentiary to the U. S.,Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, Delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention, Presidential Adviser on Overseas Filipino Communities, Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change, Commissioner of Climate Change Commission, Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Climate Institute, Presidential Adviser on Agrarian Reform, and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Philippine Mining Development Corporation. Zubiri said Alvarez was a distinguished legislator, dedicated public servant and a loving husband and father. He said the late senator was a visionary leader who received numerous awards and citations from various institutions including: International Public Policy Achievement Award by the Climate Institute in Washington, D.C., making him the first Asian recipient of said award, EDSA People Power Freedom Award by the People Power Commission, Most Outstanding Senate Lawmaker in Environmental Protection by the UP Institute for Strategic Development Studies, Outstanding Alumnus Award by the University of the Philippines, Gusi Peace Prize for Public Service by the Gusi Peace Prize Foundation, and the Outstanding Human Rights Award by the Fund for Free Expression in New York, among many others. "We mourn the loss of an exceptional leader and visionary, who dedicated his life for the good of his country and the Filipino people, fighting for what is right and just, and championing issues for the benefit of our future generations," Zubiri said.
Resumption of liquor sale after a six-week break in Uttar Pradesh bared the plight of the poor as Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and beer outnumbered the sale of desi (as country liquor is known) by a decent margin.

However, excise department officials werent complaining. They claimed the distinction was temporary.

The larger picture is that sales worth nearly 200 crores were reported on day one across the state. Of course, these sales dont mean excise revenue which is lesser but in the end the badly needed revenue has started flowing in again, an official said.

Country liquor contributes nearly 60 per cent revenue of the total revenue from liquor sale to the states kitty, with foreign liquor and beer contributing the rest. However, day one of the resumption of sale indicated a reverse trend.

While the business and service class rushed to stock their choicest brands, the poor, who prior to the lockdown mostly preferred the powwa or the quarter, of country liquor priced at 75, largely stayed out of desi vends.

Its true that country liquor sales were unimpressive throughout the state though IMFL and beer recorded brisk sales, said UP Sharab Vikreta Welfare Association secretary Kanhaiya Lal Maurya, who also runs a country liquor vend.

The labour class, our top consumer of country liquor, is missing from desi outlets. Mostly out of work, they hardly have any money to consume as most are more caught up with a desire to make two ends meet, said Pragalbh Lavaniya, district excise officer in Bahraich, bordering Nepal. Bahraich has about 193 country liquor shops.

Another likely reason is that unlike the rich who flouted social distancing protocols at various places, the poor were more conscious and mostly stayed indoors. Many villages have shut themselves up and that too may have affected the sales, said Akhilesh Pratap Singh from Latifpur village adjoining the state capital.

In pre-lockdown days desi would outperform the IMFL and beer sale in Kanpur but today the 341 country liquor outlets that are among total 811 liquor vends in the district did average business, said Arvind Maurya, district excise officer in Kanpur.

District excise officer of Lucknow Sudarshan Singh, senior excise inspector in Varanasi Vishnu Pratap Singh and excise inspector in Noida Pramod Sonkar also confirmed a similar trend.

The labour have left Noida for their villages as the construction activity has come to a standstill due to lockdown. Once construction resumes, the country liquor sale would pick up, said Sonkar.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
[May 04, 2020] Global and China Li-ion Power Battery Industry Report, 2019-2025

NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Amid the thriving development of new energy vehicles, a total of 2,209,831 electric vehicles were sold globally in 2019, a year-on-year spurt of 14.5% and as a percentage of 2.5% in total automobile sales. Especially, Tesla surpassed BYD to rank first in the world with the highest sales up to 367,820 new energy vehicles in 2019, a 16.6% share of the global total.







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p04700217/?utm_source=PRN







China, the world's largest new energy vehicle producer and seller, sold 1.206 million NEVs in 2019, dipping by 4% year on year with the ramp-down in subsidies for new energy vehicle and occupying 4.68% of the global total, including 972,000 battery electric vehicles with a year-on-year decrease of 1.2% and 232,000 PHEVs with an annualized drop of 14.4%.



In 2019, a total of 1,059,733 new energy passenger cars were sold in China, encompassing 853,492 battery electric cars and 206,241 plug-in hybrid cars. In this field, the sales champion BYD contributed 227,232 units or 21.4% of the total in 2019.



The boom of global new energy vehicles gives impetus to lithium-ion power battery industry whose shipments swelled 16.6% over the previous year to 116.6GWh in 2019.



Five Chinese companies, namely CATL, BYD, AESC (acquired by Envision), Guoxuan Hih-tech (Gotion) and Lishen Battery rank among top the 10 battery companies by shipments. CATL has become the global champion by power battery shipments for three consecutive years, with its shipments posting 32.5GWh in 2019 with an upsurge of 30.5% year on year, and sweeping 27.9 percent of global shipments.







In 2019, 62.28GWh power lithium batteries were installed in China , rising by 9.3% from a year earlier. Assuming the output of new energy vehicles is 5.9 million units in 2025, the demand for power batteries will reach 330.6GWh with a CAGR of 32.1% from 62.28GWh in 2019.



In China , power batteries are led by ternary battery. The installed capacity of ternary batteries offered by 64 companies for the Chinese new energy vehicle market escalated 22.4% year on year to 40.92GWh in 2019, accounting for 65.7% of the total installed capacity (nearly 7 percentage points higher than that in 2018). The installed capacity of LiFePO4 power batteries provided by 38 companies fell by 6.4% to 20.26GWh, occupying 32.5% of the total installed capacity (down about 6 percentage points from 2018). The installed capacity of other types of power batteries was 1.11GWh, making up 1.8% of the total.





Highlights in the report:

Economic environment and policy climate for lithium power battery industry;

Lithium power battery industry chain (key materials, battery cells, packaging and BMS);

Global and China new energy vehicle industry;

Global and China lithium power battery industry (demand, price, market size and competitive pattern);

5 global and 11 Chinese lithium power battery companies (technology, customers, lithium power battery business, capacity and production & sales).



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p04700217/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-and-china-li-ion-power-battery-industry-report-2019-2025-301051757.html SOURCE Reportlinker

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Then-national security adviser to President Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, arrives to a swearing in ceremony of White House senior staff in the East Room of the White House on Jan. 22, 2017. (Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images)

Without Plea, Allegation Against Flynn Rests on Unseen Evidence

News Analysis

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynns assertion of innocence highlights the fact that the public, his lawyers, and even his judge have yet to see the foundational evidence of the crime hes been accused of.

Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to one count of lying to FBI agents during a Jan. 24, 2017, interview.

The charge has been that he didnt disclose to the FBI agents two requests he made of Sergei Kislyak, then-Russian Ambassador to the United States, in December 2016. One request was for Russia to delay a vote in the United Nations on Israeli settlements. The other was for Russia to only respond reciprocally to new sanctions imposed in late December 2016 by President Barack Obama.

The basis for the allegation rests on the assumption that we know exactly what Flynn told Kislyak.

Yet, even after more than three years, the scant publicly available evidence on this account has in fact weakened.

After the 2016 election, Flynn, as part of Trumps transition team, was tasked with laying the groundwork for the incoming administrations relationships with foreign governments.

As such, he said, he talked over the phone to officials of possibly dozens of countries, including to Kislyak.

What did Flynn specifically say to him? Ultimately, we dont know.

It has been widely reported that the U.S. intelligence and national security apparatus, including the FBI, has recordings and transcripts of the calls due to routine spying on Russian diplomats.

Yet not a single sentence of the transcripts has been released publicly. Flynns defense has been fighting for months to obtain them, to no avail.

No attorney for General Flynn has heard the recordings of the calls or seen the transcript, Flynns lawyer, Sidney Powell, told The Epoch Times.

Not even the court has had the privilege of a peek.

District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presides over Flynns case, noted in December (pdf) that the existence or nonexistence of the transcripts and recordings have neither been confirmed nor denied by the government.

With direct evidence missing, the only evidence that Flynn actually lied comes from Flynns own statement of offense, a document attached to his plea.

However, that document has been shown to contain a number of inaccuracies. Rather than a faithful and full account of what occurred, its a product of negotiations made in 2017 between prosecutors of then-special counsel Robert Mueller and Flynns former lawyers, whom Flynn in recent months accused of ineffective counsel.

Flynn is now openly saying the statement of offense is false and was signed under false representation and undue pressure. He has since formally asked Sullivan to allow him to withdraw his plea.

When FBI agents came to the White House on January 24, 2017, I did not lie to them. I believed I was honest with them to the best of my recollection at the time, Flynn said in a Jan. 29 sworn declaration to court (pdf).

I still dont remember if I discussed sanctions on a phone call with Ambassador Kislyak, nor do I remember if we discussed the details of a UN vote on Israel.

He said he acknowledged to the agents that the topic of sanctions could have been raised.

But he also said the calls are still events of which I do not have a clear memory.

If Sullivan allows Flynn to withdraw his plea and the case goes to trial, the prosecutors may be forced to finally disclose whether their case has a leg to stand on.

They would have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that not only did Flynns recollection during the FBI interview materially differ from the actual calls, but also that Flynn withheld the truth intentionally.

That may be a problem, since one of the two agents who interviewed Flynn, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, told one of Muellers prosecutors (pdf) that he and the other agent both had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying.
Kiyomi Locker, feeling cooped up, took a drive Saturday afternoon to the newly reopened Batsto in New Jerseys Wharton State Forest, but what she found was unsettling: Lines of cars, and many people out without wearing masks and not practicing social distancing  the same behaviors that forced the state to shut down the parks in April to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

I didnt even get out of the car, because it was just unsafe, said Locker, who lives in Ocean County and posted a video on a Facebook group about the experience.

I entirely understand that everyone is fatigued from quarantine. I am as well, said Locker, who works for the Whitesbog Preservation Trust, which supports historic Whitesbog Village, which is still closed, except for trails, because of the coronavirus. I would love to be able to go back to work at Whitesbog, but if situations like that continue, it wont be for a long while.

 READ MORE: Some Shore beaches reopened this weekend. But police shut down access to two state-run beaches.

Overall, it wasnt just Locker who worried about the overcrowding during the COVID-19 pandemic, though official reaction was largely positive about how people handled themselves in parks after Gov. Phil Murphy announced they could reopen Saturday.

Remember, COVID-19 is not gone, officials from the state Department of Environmental Protections Division of Parks and Forestry wrote in an email blast on Sunday, saying multiple locations were overrun: Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, Bulls Island Recreation Area, Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park, Hacklebarney State Park, Round Valley Recreation Area, Wharton State Forest, Wawayanda State Park, and Worthington State Forest.

It posted a video on how to social distance at parks and sent messages on social media cautioning park goers that picnics are forbidden, visits should be kept to two hours, visitors should wear masks when near others and should not park along roads, all of which Locker said she saw being violated. Others on social media noted the issues cropping up, while some said they saw no problems.

The issues were similar at the Shore. At Corsons Inlet, a state beach at the southern end of Ocean City, officials said they would no longer allow beachgoers, only boat-launchers. A state parks employee guarded the entrance because too many people crowded into the parking lot Saturday.

Murphy closed all state and county parks April 7 amid the coronavirus outbreak because too many people failed to practice social distancing outdoors.

Still, there were reports of parks where crowding was not an issue and people seemed to be complying with guidelines.

 READ MORE: How to clean and disinfect your home or business to protect against the coronavirus, according to the EPA

During a briefing Monday, and despite the DEPs email, Murphy portrayed the opening of the parks as largely successful and said the overwhelming majority of park-goers took precautions, with few incidents of knucklehead behavior that would require him to reverse course and close the parks again.

I know many of our parks filled up early in the day, and I dont blame you one bit for wanting to get out, said Murphy, who went for a run with his wife, Tammy, at a park, which he called generally a very, very positive experience.

But he said a number of people were not wearing masks. Social distancing is the best known way to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, he said, but I would add face masks to that.

The New Jersey Sierra Club lauded the opening, calling it a wonderful weekend and a great success for people to enjoy New Jerseys parks. People and their families were enjoying nature.

The organization noted that most parks had reached their capacities by 10 a.m.

Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club, said that the pandemic has helped many people more fully understand the importance of the outdoors, and that there is now a need for more funding to expand open space and fix existing facilities.

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal, along with state police, said there were no significant enforcement issues, and the reopening of recreational areas came off largely without incident.

Some parks were forced to close, Grewal reported, after quickly reaching capacity. And officials said people had to be reminded that picnicking, team sports, and use of playgrounds within the parks are all prohibited under the emergency orders, to lessen the spread of the coronavirus.

The agencies said the vast majority of people were compliant once they were told what was permissible.

Staff writer Pranshu Verma contributed to this article.
Lagos State commenced phased easing of the coronavirus lockdown order on Monday with specific guidelines. The state government acknowledged that the battle to contain coronavirus is not yet over, but the movement restrictions had to be minimized to enable people resume activities for survival while the government continues finding solutions to the health crisis.

The Lagos State government warned against the abuse or breach of the phased easing of lockdown directives. The government, therefore, released telephone numbers for whistleblowers so people can call or report when they notice any evidence of flouting of social distancing or breach of other Covid-19 rules and regulations.

The numbers are:

09010513197

09010513198

09010513199

Lagos State has been on lockdown in the past five weeks since the outbreak of coronavirus in Nigeria. The state recorded substantial compliance by citizens with the lockdown order. The roads were empty, shops and offices were locked up and public places deserted.

Though, the number of coronavirus infected persons has continue to increase, the state government has succeeded on isolation, treatment and discharge of coronavirus victims after a period of intervention.
NAIROBI, Kenya - Distinguished Kenyan journalist Chege Mbitiru, whose career included work in North America and Kenya, has died at 77 of cardiac arrest.

Mbitiru was influential in Kenya as many people read his weekly column in Kenyas largest circulation newspaper, The Sunday Nation.

He worked at The Associated Press as an East Africa correspondent from 1985 until 2001. At AP he helped cover the spread of extremist violence in Somalia, the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath, and the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Mbitiru was born in Kijabe on the edge of the Great Rift Valley, about 30 miles northwest of Nairobi, that had been founded in 1903 by American missionaries of the Africa Inland Mission.

When Mbitiru finished high school he went to the U.S. to attend the World Youth Forum. He studied in the U.S. and after graduating from Ohio University he worked for the Sandusky Register in Ohio and the Saginaw News in Michigan.

Returning to Kenya he worked for the Kenya News Agency and later for the Daily Nation newspaper as foreign editor and then managing editor before joining the AP.

During his time at AP he is remembered for his humour and friendly way of sharing his deep knowledge of East Africa and the continent.

Chege was a good friend and colleague who, with a wry sense of humour, taught the rest of us about Africa. We worked closely together during the intervention in Somalia and the genocide in Rwanda. His calm demeanour and charm was always an anchor in trying times, said Terry Leonard, who was an AP correspondent in Nairobi from 1994 to 1996.

He would always mix his smart, many times sarcastic, comments about the news with a chat that would connect the extraordinary events that raged across Africa in the mid-90s with conflicts in Latin America, said Ricardo Mazalan, the East Africa chief photographer in the mid-1990s. Some of the best books on my Africa bookshelf were recommended by him.

Mbitiru was an invaluable member of APs Nairobi team, said Reid G. Miller, former East African bureau chief. He was the go-to guy for background information about Kenya, its politics, history, customs and more, said Miller. More than that, he was one of the sweetest, most tolerant men I have ever known.

Andrew Selsky, who had worked on APs international desk and later was Africa Editor, said that Mbitiru had kindly sent him a Swahili-English dictionary. That gesture showed what a truly nice man he was, said Selsky.

APs chief correspondent at the United Nations, Edith Lederer, recalls flying to Nairobi from London immediately after the U.S. Embassy bombing on August 7, 1998 and arriving the following morning, just before Mbitiru came in from the bombed-out site where survivors and victims were being pulled from the debris.

It was a very emotional time, but Lederer said Mbitiru was a reporter first and foremost  describing the scene vividly, with great quotes and colour.

Lederer said she worked with Mbitiru that week to put together a story on the timeline of how the bombing unfolded. It was a story I know we were both proud of, said Lederer. It showed not only Cheges talents as a reporter and writer but his great love for his country and the pain its people were suffering.

Mbitiru leaves behind a widow, Wanja and two sons, Njihia and Nyaga.
Sure, it might be warm Wednesday, but what about the rest of the week?
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 14:06:27|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

TRIPOLI, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on Libyan authorities to remain vigilant against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Now is not the time to lower our guard. The low numbers being reported must not lull us into a false sense of security. Libya is in the early stages of the pandemic and has not yet reached the peak of infection," Elizabeth Hoff, WHO representative in Libya, said in a statement released Sunday.

The WHO also recommended health authorities in Libya to increase testing capacity by establishing an additional laboratory in southern Libya and expand testing range to patients with influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infections.

"Adequate, regular supplies of testing kits will be essential. Improved disease surveillance and investigation -- including in migrant populations -- and contact tracing are also important tools to inform and drive the outbreak response," the agency said.

Ahmed Al-Marghani, awareness programs official of the Libyan National Center for Disease Control, said on Saturday that home quarantines and curfews in Libya are aiming to control the coronavirus, explaining that the country is still faced with risks in the spread of the pandemic.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Libya so far is 63, including 22 recoveries and three deaths, according to the center.

Libyan authorities have imposed a curfew, banned public gatherings and travel between cities, and closed borders in order to fight the pandemic. Enditem
By Akbar Mammadov

The Agrarian Credit and Development Agency (ACDA) under Azerbaijans Agriculture Ministry has been authorized to monitor the effectiveness of the subsidy mechanism allocated to the agricultural sector, to assess the impact of subsidy services on agricultural production.

According to the amendment to the regulations of ACDA dating May 1, 2020, this authority is entrusted with the provision of subsidies for the production of agricultural products, as well as the organization and coordination of activities in this area, the organization said on its website on May 4.

"Our new powers will allow us to study the short-term and long-term effects of subsidies on the agricultural sector and make improvements to increase their efficiency," said ACDA Chairman Mirza Aliyev.

"The main goal of the agency is to ensure the real impact of subsidies on the development of the agricultural sector", he added. The chairman also noted that for this, it is important that subsidies reach the right address.

"It should be noted that from January 2020, subsidy applications to the agricultural sector are received electronically and some of them are transferred to farmers' cards in the form of non-cash funds, which can be paid only for production costs through POS-terminals. Firstly, the sowing subsidy for last year's autumn sowing and the crop subsidy for cotton were paid in this way", the organization said.

Agrarian Credit and Development Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture was set up in 2004 in line with the presidential decree "On Measures to Improve Management in the Agrarian Division". In 2018, ACDA completed its formation on the basis of the State Service on Management of Agricultural Projects and Credits under the Ministry of Agriculture.

The agency is engaged in issuance of soft agricultural loans, issuance of discounts for equipment and breeding animals, issuance of preferential loans, provision of security, delivery of subsidies, project management and involvement of investment in agriculture.

Azerbaijan has been developing its agricultural sector in recent years and the agricultural production increased by 7.2%, including 11.7% for crop products and 3.5% for livestock products year-on-year in 2019.

Last year, the value of gross agricultural output in actual prices amounted to AZN 78,3 million (over $46 milion) and the share of this sector in the country's GDP increased from 5.3% in 2018 to 5.7%.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
According to the European Antibiotic Resistance Organization (AMR), 700,000 people die every year from resistant infections, and if no significant improvement is made in the field, that number will rise to 10 million by 2050. For patients in hospitals with weakened immune systems, such as those with COVID-19, the danger is acute. Moreover, the intensive use in antibiotics during this pandemic is expected to increase this problem even further.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the leading threats to global health, according to the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control. Prof. Yechezkel Barenholz, the chief researcher behind the study, said, "The ability to take an existing drug and alter the way it works can have a significant impact on the problem of antibiotic resistance and secondary bacterial infections related to COVID-19 and may pave the way for a new treatment regimen. We have had very strong results from relevant animal models, and are looking forward to moving into clinical trials with Nano-mupirocin (the nano-liposomal formulation of mupirocin), as we believe the potential of this discovery is immense." A toxicity study conducted with Nano-mupirocin demonstrated a very good safety profile enabling human trials.

The innovative treatment, which was advanced through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), was chiefly developed by Prof. Barenholz, who heads the Laboratory of Membrane and Liposome Research at Hadassah Medical School and Dr. Ahuva Cern in collaboration with Prof. Amiram Goldblum, all of whom hail from the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine. The research received support from the National Institute of Health (NIH).

"Our study demonstrates how nano-liposomes have enabled the creation of a novel injectable antibiotic, and how we have overcome the limitations of existing antibiotics by using nano-technology approaches," said Dr. Cern. "This drug, if approved, fundamentally enhances arsenal of antibiotics available to treat resistant infections, including those associated with COVID-19."

The Hebrew University researchers developed the treatment as part of a groundbreaking study conducted with their German colleagues at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI).

Prof. Barenholz, a world-renowned expert in liposome based drug development also played a leading role in developing Doxil, a chemotherapy drug based on nano-delivery used to fight cancer through which was commercialized by Yissum, the tech transfer company of the Hebrew University.

About Hebrew University

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) is Israel's leading academic and research institution, serving 23,000 students from 80 countries. Founded in 1918 by visionaries including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, HU is ranked among the world's 100 leading universities. To date, HU faculty and alumni have won 8 Nobel Prizes, 1 Fields Medal and 1 Abel Prize. For more information, visit http://new.huji.ac.il/en

About Yissum

Yissum is the technology transfer company of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Founded in 1964, it is the third company of its kind to be established and serves as a bridge between cutting-edge academic research and a global community of entrepreneurs, investors, and industry. Yissum's mission is to benefit society by converting extraordinary innovations and transformational technologies into commercial solutions that address our most urgent global challenges. Yissum has registered over 10,000 patents covering 2,800 inventions; licensed over 900 technologies and has spun out more than 135 companies. Yissum's business partners span the globe and include companies such as Boston Scientific, Google, ICL, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Microsoft, Novartis and many more. For further information please visit www.yissum.co.il

Contact: Estee Yaari, [email protected]

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1163456/Yissum.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1163458/Hebrew_University_of_Jerusalem.jpg

SOURCE Yissum

Related Links

http://www.yissum.co.il


Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 02:28:10|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A man wearing a face mask walks on an overpass during a curfew in Ankara, Turkey, May 3, 2020. Turkey's total confirmed cases of COVID-19 reached 126,045, with 1,670 new patients reported in the last 24 hours, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Sunday. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier said the government would continue to impose curfews on 31 provinces on weekends until the end of May. (Photo by Mustafa Kaya/Xinhua)

ANKARA, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's total confirmed cases of COVID-19 reached 126,045, with 1,670 new patients reported in the last 24 hours, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Sunday.

The death toll from the novel coronavirus in Turkey reached 3,397 after 61 more lost their lives over the past 24 hours, Koca tweeted.

Turkey conducted a total of 24,001 tests in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of tests carried out to 1,135,367, the minister noted.

A total of 63,151 patients have recovered, and 1,424 patients are still being treated at intensive care units, and 766 are intubated, the minister said.

"For the first time today, the number of healed patients has exceeded our current number of coronavirus patients since March 11," Koca stated.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case in the country on March 11.

The number of new cases and the daily death figures have been in decline in Turkey nearly in the past two weeks. Enditem
Philippines cops arrest labor leaders keeping distance during Labor Day protest

by Aika Rey

May 01,2020 | Source: Rappler

The coronavirus lockdown has pushed millions to stay at home, but Filipino workers staged Labor Day protests on Friday, May 1, while maintaining distance from each other.



Several small protests pushed through without any problems, but two members of the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) were arrested by the police Friday for allegedly breaking enhanced quarantine rules.



BMP vice president Lito Rastica and labor leader Renaldo Dulay led a protest with 6 other people in a subdivision in Rodriguez, Rizal. Cops arrested them before noon.



Since it's a holiday, the workers cannot post bail. BMP said that the labor leaders' inquest proceedings will be on Monday, May 3, yet, which means the two will be detained until then.



In other parts of the country, BMP members and communities held noise barrage outside their homes.



Women in Cavite, meanwhile, took to the streets to protest their dire condition. "Kung kulang noon ang ating pagkain, mas kulang pa ang pakain kasulukuyang nangyayari dulot ng COVID19 na ito. (If our food lacked before, now it's even lacking because of this COVID-19)," a woman said in a video.



Organized by various labor groups, the workers' main call this year revolves around job security and better social protection.



On early Friday morning, unionists from the Samahan ng Manggagawa sa Philippine Span Asia Carrier Corporation with the Kilusang Mayo Uno-Pier gathered at the Port of Manila.



Those who joined the protest wore red shirts and face masks, while others donned face shields. All of them brought placards, calling for mass testing, a faster disbursement of cash aid, and hazard pay increase.



Fishermen under the fisheries group PAMALAKAYA Pilipinas, meanwhile, called for immediate government aid to agricultural workers.



KMU, BMP, and the Nagkaisa Labor Coalition and its member organizations organized separate virtual rallies as part of their call for "deep systemic change" post-lockdown.



More than two million Filipinos have lost their jobs or under a "No Work, No Pay" scheme in 87,301 establishments nationwide, according to the Department of Labor and Employment.



But those who have received aid so far is just a small fraction of the reported job displacement. Some 600,000 private and informal sector workers have received the P5,000 cash aid from the government, which is just 26% of the affected workers.

Theme(s): Others.
This past fall when Gratiot Isabella Technical Education Center electronics students began building 3-D printers, they had no idea that in just a few short months their work would be utilized to produce life-saving medical equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During our first trimester this school year our students assembled, calibrated and utilized these 3D printers to solve a configuration challenge we had in class, explained Andrew Keson, M.A., Electronics teacher at GI-TEC. Now, the work those students did enables us to make face masks for our local healthcare professionals serving on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The endeavor began after GI-TEC Director Mary Kay Voeks approached Keson about the feasibility of producing face masks with the 3D printers that the electronic students built in class. With the approval of Mount Pleasant Public Schools Superintendent Jennifer Verleger, Keson immediately began research and quickly developed a mask prototype based on the popular Montana Mask.

The Montana Mask is a (healthcare) industry-recognized product developed by physicians, said Keson. Our mask follows that model and while the effectiveness is ultimately up to the end-user, this mask is in line with the N95 standard of mask. These masks can be sanitized, are reusable and house a replaceable filter.

The GI-TEC 3D print farm can produce 12 masks in a 6 1/2 hour period. The first 40 masks are being utilized by medical staff at Isabella Citizens for Health, Inc. located in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Isabella Citizens for Health, Inc., is a federally qualified health center that follows the patient-centered medical home care model and provides comprehensive primary care to people of all ages and insurance status.

We have so few medical-grade N95 masks, and we are not able to get anymore at this time, so these masks produced by the GI-TEC really give us peace of mind, said Jennifer White, CEO for Isabella Citizens for Health, Inc.

With the GI-TEC masks, we can now provide an N95 mask to every staff member here that might encounter a patient. The masks are also reusable because they can be cleaned and the filters can be swapped out, said White.

I really think it is amazing that we can help our health care providers during this pandemic crisis, added Verleger. First, it allows us to give back to the community that is so supportive of our schools. Second, it mirrors a real-life experience for our students. Many small businesses are reinventing themselves to make the supplies that are so critical now. It proves that creativity in the workplace will create a more sustainable workforce too. It is a huge win for everyone involved.

Verleger added that she is grateful for the support from the Gratiot Isabella Regional Educational School District who committed to exploring additional funding sources should the need arise.

I was in support of this project for several reasons, explained Dr. Jan Amsterburg, GIRESD Superintendent. Number one is that there is a need for these masks that are being created. We have the equipment and expertise so it was imperative that we lent our support.

We can build on this experience with the students as we move forward with our CTE programs. This is a teachable moment where a school learning experience interacts with a real life need, Amsterburg added. While I sincerely hope that there wont be a repeat of this virus, if there is, we will be even more ready the next time. Thanks to our talented GI-TEC staff, we now know how to do this.

Voeks and Denise Arnold, B.S.N., Certified Nursing Assistant Instructor at GI-TEC, are also constructing custom ear straps and a cushioned seal that attach to the masks that can help prevent abrasions for healthcare providers who must don masks for long periods of time. Arnold, who has taught the GI-TEC CNA class for 11 years, is also a veteran healthcare worker with more than two decades of experience working in hospitals and emergency medicine.

I am so grateful to be able to contribute to this project for my fellow local healthcare professionals because it is a way for me to give back during the pandemic. said Arnold. When I was last in class face-to-face with my CNA students I had just reinforced to them the absolute necessity of wearing PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for safety.

The collaboration on this project has been simply amazing, Voeks added. Our students and teachers at GI-TEC, (MPPS) Superintendent Jennifer Verleger and Jan Amsterburg, GIRESD Superintendent, have joined resources and talents to serve our community during this historical time.

Keson agrees.

This is career and technical education (CTE) at its finest. We have hands-on learning by students who built and calibrated those 3D printers earlier this year, and now those students can see their immediate impact as their skills are utilized to potentially save the lives of our local healthcare professionals and the patients they serve during this pandemic. The collaboration between students, teachers, administrators and the end-user is what technical education is all about.

For more information, visit gi-tec.com or the GI-TEC Facebook page.
The leader of a New York City motorcycle gang was reportedly shot dead by two masked men in what is believed to be a targeted hit.

Francisco Rosado, head of the Bronx chapter of the Pagan Motorcycle Club, was gunned down in the borough's Allerton neighborhood at around 3.20pm on Saturday, law enforcement sources told the New York Post.

The sources said Rosado, 51, died on the scene on Holland Avenue near Mace Avenue after he was struck in the head and chest.

Francisco Rosado, head of the Bronx chapter of the Pagan Motorcycle Club, was shot and killed by two masked men in the borough's Allerton neighborhood on Saturday afternoon, according to law enforcement sources. Police are pictured at the scene

Police have not officially named the victim but sources confirmed it was Rosado, the purported leader of the Bronx chapter of the Pagan Motorcycle Club. Members of the club are seen wearing official jackets in the file photo above

The shooters are said to have fled the scene in a blue Jeep Cherokee with stolen license plates.

No arrests have been made as of Sunday night, and the NYPD has released very few details about the shooting.

In a press release to DailyMail.com, detectives said officers responding to a 911 call about a male shot arrived to find the victim unconscious and unresponsive before medics declared him dead on the scene.

Detectives did not disclose the victim's identity, but sources confirmed to the Post that it was Rosado.

Photos taken at the scene by a DailyMail.com photographer showed a massive police presence around a body covered with a white sheet - as well as people consoling each other.

Medics were seen loading a woman into an ambulance, but it is unclear how she was involved in the incident.

Bystanders said that she may be a relative of Rosado and that she had collapsed at the scene.

Police said they responded to a 911 call about a shooting on Holland Avenue (pictured) and found the victim unresponsive and unconscious with bullet wounds to the head and chest

People believed to be relatives of Rosado are seen consoling each other at the scene

A body sits under a white sheet at the scene of the shooting on Saturday afternoon

Medics were seen loading a woman into an ambulance, but it is unclear how she was involved in the incident

The Pagan Motorcycle Club has more than 1,300 members across at least 100 chapters in several states along the East Coast.

The gang has been linked to the production and smuggling of illicit drugs including meth, cocaine, heroin and PCP and is also believed to have deep ties to organized crime.

The Pagans are one of four major motorcycle gangs in the US - with rivals being the Hells Angels, the Bandidos and the Outlaws.

Rosado's murder has sparked fears among law enforcement that a gang war could be brewing, should his assailants be linked to a rival group.
Here's a stunner: Apparently it's hard to burn firefighting foam.

A study has found PFAS compounds  the same class of chemicals responsible for a public health crisis in Hoosick Falls  in soil and water downwind from the Norlite plant in Cohoes, which has been incinerating PFAS-containing firefighting foam since at least 2018.

If you're thinking, "Yeah, someone should've guessed that," you're not alone. This situation is a mess of "should'ves": Norlite should have had to notify the city of plans to burn the chemicals in their kilns, which are next to a public housing complex. Tests should have been run to determine whether the foam could safely be incinerated. The Environmental Protection Agency should have long ago tightened restrictions on PFAS  which have been linked to cancer, liver damage and thyroid problems.

Last week Cohoes' Common Council wisely passed a one-year burn moratorium. But it's not the end of it: The next step is community testing. The people of Cohoes need to know if they've been exposed to these hazardous chemicals, and soon  before we're looking at Hoosick Falls all over again.

Unanswered questions

What, exactly, is so urgent about getting Tom Spargo on the Berne Planning Board?

Since the beginning of the year, the Town Board has been contorting itself to get Mr. Spargo a Planning Board seat. They demoted a current member to make room for Mr. Spargo  and named him chairman, no less. Now that a judge has deemed that maneuver illegal, the Town Board wants to change the law to expand the planning body from five seats to seven.

The new Republican majority hasn't explained why Mr. Spargo is so essential, other than to say he's a "really good fit" and "more in line to our goals."

There are two issues here. First, there's Mr. Spargo, a former state Supreme Court justice who went to prison for soliciting bribes. Yes, he paid his debt to society, but that doesn't entitle him to a post so ripe for corruption. Why him?

Second, there's the question of why town Republicans so urgently want to stack the Planning Board. Why can't they wait till the end of the year, when there'll be a vacancy, to appoint Mr. Spargo? What is it about their vision for the town's development that they fear the current board might not buy?

A public Zoom hearing last week on the proposed board expansion was roiled by technical problems, shouting, and insults; it ultimately had to be adjourned to another date. In the meantime, the residents of Berne should keep demanding answers.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

"This is a great success story."

That's the word from the White House in a week when the number of confirmed U.S. COVID-19 infections topped 1 million, as people waited for food in lines a mile long, as the number of Americans filing for unemployment topped 30 million, and as our country's COVID-19 death toll surpassed the tally of Americans killed in Vietnam.

This comment from Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser, is just the latest attempt to make Americans forget what a devastating mess the president has made of his pandemic response. We will not forget.

To call this "a success" is an insult to the suffering, the strain, and the loss endured by millions of Americans. This attempt at revisionist history is an affront to the nation.
Highlights The Motorola Razr is now up for pre-orders on Flipkart.

Motorola will start selling it from May 8.

The Razr comes in at a price of Rs 1,24,999.

Do you remember the 2020 Motorola Razr? Yes, that flip phone with a folding OLED display and stunning looks? Well, that's going on sale finally after numerous delays. The Razr has finally gone up for pre-orders on Flipkart and you can expect the deliveries to begin starting May 8. The Razr was the first flip phone with a folding display and is Motorola's flagship model for the Indian market at the moment.

Motorola announced the Razr for India on March 16 but ever since then, the company has seen countless delays while putting it on sale due to the COVID-19 lockdown. It originally supposed to go on sale in late March. However, with the Indian government lifting the restriction in safe zones, the company is now ready to sell the Razr in India.

The Razr was announced at a price of Rs 1,24,999 and surprisingly, the price has remained unchanged. The Indian government increased the GST rates from 12 per cent to 18 per cent from the new financial year but Motorola has so far retained the original pricing. This makes the Razr a better deal than before as Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip saw a price increase up to Rs 1,15,840.

At India Today Tech, I got a chance to play with a pre-production Razr prior to the launch and it impressed us highly. The Razr is the first folding phone that has a water-repellent coating. The Razr also makes use of a clever hinge system that prevents the plastic OLED display from developing a crease. The display, in fact, slides under the chin while folded to prevent the crease.

Motorola Razr

The Razr is also both high on style and function. The device gets that iconic shape from the 2004 model but it has a more useable 2.7-inch Quick View display. Unlike the Samsung Z Flip, the Razr's outer display allows you to read messages and even interact with a few, use it as a viewfinder for selfies via the main camera, control music playback and check time.

The 6.3-inch plastic OLED display inside has a cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio that makes for a more immersive viewing experience. The Razr also has a 5-megapixel inner camera to do video calls.

The Razr loses out to the Samsung Z Flip in terms of specifications. You only get a Snapdragon 710 chip paired to 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. That said, it runs on stock Android 9 Pie with no bloat or pre-installed apps. Motorola also says that it will upgrade the Razr to Android 10 as well.

The Razr is currently available in Noir Black only. Motorola is offering a few launch-offers, including a free screen replacement as well other benefits.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Global passenger security equipment market was valued US$ 45.85 Bn in 2017 and is expected to reach US$ 91.43 Bn by 2026, at a CAGR of 9.01% during a forecast period.

The objective of the report is to present a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, industry-validated market data and projections with a suitable set of assumptions and methodology. The report also helps in understanding passenger security equipment market dynamics, structure by identifying and analyzing the market segments by transport infrastructure, type, and Region and, project the global market size. Further, report also focuses on competitive analysis of key players by product, price, financial position, product portfolio, growth strategies, and regional presence. The report also provides PEST analysis, PORTERas analysis, SWOT analysis to address question of shareholders to prioritizing the efforts and investment in near future to particular market segment.

Request For Report sample @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/4028

The passenger security equipment is used to protect passengers from accidentals injuries, crimes, and other threats. The governments have started investing high on the protection and security products and solutions owing to the growth in safety and security concerns.

Terrorism threats and security standards set by international authorities containing IATA, ICAO, and ACI remain two of the most influential drivers supporting the global passenger security equipment market. The rise in the terror attacks on public transport infrastructures, increasing concerns about safety and security among consumers are driving the growth of the market. Moreover, the growing demand for biometrics technologies for identity verification by governments boosts the growth of the passenger security equipment market. However, the high installation cost of such equipment is expected to hamper the market growth.

People screening systems segment has led the market in 2017 and is estimated to maintain this trend for the forecast period. People screening systems are used to detect concealed weapons, explosives or other contraband without requiring physical contact between the security screener and the person being screened. Airports segment is expected to grow at highest CAGR during the forecast period owing to improvement of airport infrastructure and growing in security threats.

Request For Report Discounts @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/4028

North America is projected to largest market share of the global passenger security equipment marketdue to expenditure on the passenger security equipment by governments. The increasing investment is marked due to illegal and unethical activities at the train stations, airports, bus stands, and seaports apart from the security threats. Growth in terrorist activities in North America, the Canadian government approved a bill to provide security awareness in June 2017.

Some of the key players in the global passenger security equipment market are Honeywell International, Orbocomm, Rapiscan Systems,L-3 Communications, Kapsch, Siemens AG, Rockwell Collins, Safran Group, Raytheon Group, and Smiths Group.



Scope of the Global Passenger Security Equipment Market



Global Passenger Security Equipment Market by Transport Infrastructure



Bus Stations

Airports

Seaports

Train Station



Global Passenger Security Equipment Market by Type



Fire Safety & Detection System

Baggage Inspection System

Intrusion Detection and Prevention System

Explosive Detection System

People Screening Systems

Video Surveillance

Others



Global Passenger Security Equipment Market by Geography

North America

Europe

Asia-Pacific

Middle East & Africa

South America



Key Players operating in the Global Passenger Security Equipment Market



Honeywell International, Inc.

Orbocomm

L3 Technologies, Inc.

Kapsch

Siemens AG

OSI Systems

Rockwell Collins

Safran Group

Raytheon Group

Smith Group, Plc.

Anixter

Avigilon

Harris

HID Global

Lockheed Martin

Northrop Grumman

Rapiscan Systems

Make an Inquiry before Buying@ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/checkout/4028/Single
Former first lady Michelle Obama during "Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama," in Atlanta on May 11, 2019. (Paul R. Giunta/Invision/AP)

Democrats Launch Committee to Draft Michelle Obama for Vice President

A new committee is pushing to have presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden choose Michelle Obama, the former first lady, as his running mate.

Michelle Obama is the most trusted and most well-liked woman in America. Shes seen as politically above the fray and would be tremendous asset to Democrats up and down the ballot this November, Clyde Lederman, campaign manager for the Committee to Draft Michelle Obama, told The Epoch Times on Monday.

Biden, 77, twice in recent weeks said he would love to have Obama as a running mate but noted that he doubts she would be interested. His wife Jill Biden said during an appearance on CNNs New Day in late April that she would also love to have Obama join the campaign.

I think shes had it with politics, Biden said, adding: Shes so good at everything she does. That would be wonderful.

Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said around the same time that Michelle Obama has never expressed interest in running for office and doesnt want the job.

Biden recently launched a panel that will vet candidates for vice president. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), and Cynthia Hogan, Bidens former counsel, will lead the selection process.

The Committee to Draft Michelle Obama hopes to create media buzz while the panel is looking at possible running mates for Biden, Lederman said. They also hope to encourage Obama to run.

First Lady Michelle Obama (L) greets. Vice President Joe Biden on the reviewing stand as the presidential inaugural parade winds through the nations capital in Washington on Jan. 21, 2013. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The aim of this campaign is to build on the substantial grassroots support for a potential Michelle Obama candidacy and help garner media attention for a vice-presidential nominee who has the power to beat Donald Trump, the group said in a press release.

The committee is sponsored by or receiving support from Mack Wilbourn, president of Mack II; Sidney Topol, board member of WGBH-TV; Bill Batson, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union; and Tito Jackson, a former Boston mayoral candidate. Some other prominent Democrats will be joining the effort soon, according to Lederman.

The push could pay dividends even if Biden doesnt choose Obama.

Even if we dont secure her spot as the VP nominee, it would be incredibly helpful for her and Barack Obama to come out of their four-year political hiatus to help elect Democrats this November, he said.

Biden has committed to choosing a woman who is younger than him as his running mate.

Biden said over the weekend during an interview on MSNBCs PoliticsNation that hes looking at more than a dozen candidates, a group that includes significantly more than one black woman.

Some women reportedly being considered include Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).
It's no surprise that auto sales and production are down for many manufacturers as no company is immune to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Honda is feeling the brunt of it after their sales and production rally came to a halt due to lockdowns.

From April 2019 to March 2020, Honda's total production tally was at 4,773,527 units, 10.6% down from last year. During the same time last year, the Japanese automaker rolled out 5,337,621 vehicles from their assembly lines around the world. The company reports that global production is down for the first time in eight years.

The region taking the biggest hit was Europe which is down by a significant 36.8%. That's due to the Swindon plant in England winding down production and shutting their doors come 2021. Most European-market Hondas will be exported from Japan by then. On the flip side, North American production was not as greatly affected, reporting a decrease of 3.7%. United States, Canada, and Mexico account for Honda's North American production.
At Least 7 Injured in Blast Near Site of Counter-Terror Operation in Handwara, Kashmir

Sputnik News

11:45 GMT 03.05.2020

New Delhi (Sputnik): Earlier in the day, five security personnel were killed by terrorists in Handwara, a town in India's Jammu and Kashmir union territory. India has accused Pakistan of instigating terror activities in Kashmir; Pakistan has denied the charges and insisted the local Kashmiris are fighting for their independence.

At least seven people have been injured in a mysterious blast which took place near the site of an anti-terrorist operation in the town of Handwara in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. Local media reported that the blast took place while civilians were cleaning a drain in the village of Ahgam.

All the injured were taken to the sub-district hospital in Handwara for treatment.

Earlier in the day, five security personnel and two terrorists were killed in the area after overnight encounter.

Police Inspector-General Vijay Kumar has claimed that top Lashkar-e Taiba commander Haider from Pakistan was killed in the encounter. Also during the anti-terrorism operation, a team of five, including two officers from the 21 Rashtriya Rifles, two soldiers, and a Jammu and Kashmir police entered a house to evacuate civilians on Saturday afternoon and were killed.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that the loss of Indian soldiers and security personnel in Handwara is deeply disturbing and painful.

"They showed exemplary courage in their fight against the terrorists and made supreme sacrifice while serving the country. We will never forget their bravery and sacrifice," Singh said.

Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat said that Commanding Officer Ashutosh Sharma leading from the front along with other personnel of the unit and Jammu and Kashmir Police have laid down their lives, "living upto the motto; Service Before Self".

While peace prevailed for several months following August 2019, when India divided Jammu and Kashmir, revoking its statehood and quasi-independent constitutional status, terrorists activities increased in April 2020. According to police records, at least 17 terror incidents took place in April alone, in which 29 terrorists were killed and 11 security personnel lost their lives.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Aizawl, May 4 : After Rajasthan, Mizoram has promulgated an ordinance to tackle violations of personal and public safety, public hygiene, lockdown measures with stringent punishment. It gives broader powers to officials in a bid to curb the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a top official, here on Monday.

Mizoram is the first state in the northeastern region to promulgate the Mizoram (Containment and Prevention of COVID-19) Ordinance, 2020 on Sunday, stipulating imprisonment up to three months and a fine of Rs 5,000 for violations of personal and public safety norms.

Law and Judicial Department Secretary Marli Vankung said the provisions would be in addition to provisions of any other law in force.

"According to the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the IPC (Indian Penal Code), the authorities have to follow certain procedures and legal formalities and these takes some time. The ordinance would give wider power to the authorities to take quick and immediate action against violators," she told IANS over phone.

The ordinance comes a week after eight teenagers were beaten by some people for violating the lockdown.

The ordinance, approved by the cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Zoramthanga on Saturday, said, "no suit, prosecution or other legal proceedings shall lie against any person authorised under this ordinance for anything, which is done or intended to be done in good faith under this ordinance." According to the ordinance, the offences include, entering or staying at any public place without mask, failing to maintain social distancing protocols in public places, spitting in public, organising any social or religious event without permission from the competent authority, crossing borders by exiting or entering the state without permission, avoiding or attempting to evade quarantine and or isolation at designated quarantine facility.

The ordinance also barred the exposure and display of the identity of Covid-19 patients and suspected persons by sharing their biodata and or photo in the print, electronic and social media without permission from the competent authority. "The offences shall be non-cognizable, non-compoundable and bailable, triable by any judicial magistrate," the ordinance said.

For violations of the provisions of ordinance, the minimum punishment will be Rs 100 fine and the upper limit will be imprisonment up to three months and a Rs 5,000 fine or both.

Mizoram, which shares an unfenced 404 km international border with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh, has only one Covid-19 patient. A 50-year-old Christian pastor from Mizoram had tested positive for coronavirus on March 24 after he returned to Aizawl from Amsterdam, the Netharland, via Delhi and Guwahati on March 16.

He is undergoing treatment at the Zoram Medical College and Hospital in Aizawl while his wife and two children's swab samples tested negative and they are staying at home.

Health officials said four people, including two women, from Mizoram tested positive for Covid-19 in Maharashtra in the third week of April. All the four people, three of them cancer patients, along with their relatives had been living at Mizoram House in Mumbai.

A doctor from Mizoram, who worked at a in a Meghalaya hospital, also tested positive for coronavirus in Shillong on April 14.
Actor Aamir Khan has humorously shot down rumours that he had secretly donated money to daily wage earners during the coronavirus pandemic. It was reported that sacks with rations were actually hidden with 15000 each, handed out to unsuspecting families, arranged by Aamir.

The actor took to Twitter to dismiss the claims, and wrote, Guys, I am not the person putting money in wheat bags. Its either a fake story completely, or Robin Hood doesnt want to reveal himself! Stay safe. Love. a.

The rumour began after a viral video claimed that Aamir sent a truck to a slum area with wheat bags and the area residents were told that they could only take one bag each. People who returned homes after taking wheat found 15000 in the wheat sacks. However, the video was unclear where the incident occurred.

Guys, I am not the person putting money in wheat bags. Its either a fake story completely, or Robin Hood doesn't want to reveal himself!

Stay safe.

Love.

a.  Aamir Khan (@aamir_khan) May 4, 2020

Aamir on Sunday appeared with wife, director-producer Kiran Rao, at the I for India concert. The couple sang classics such as Aa Chalke Tujhe Main Leke Chalun and Jeena Isika Naam Hai, and urged people to contribute towards helping frontline workers during the pandemic.

While Aamir hasnt announced his charitable efforts, it was reported that he has made contributions towards Prime Minister Narendra Modis PM-Cares fund, Maharashtra chief ministers relief fund as well as film workers association and a few NGOs. Aamir has also extended support to the daily wage workers of his next film, Lal Singh Chaddha, during the lockdown.

Also read: Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan show off their greys at I for India concert, sing songs and recite poem with wives Twinkle, Kiran

Aamir has been monitoring the coronavirus for weeks. When the virus was spreading across China, the actor, who has a huge fan following in the Middle Kingdom had said in a special video message, A very warm hello to all my friends in China. Since I read about the outbreak of coronavirus over there, I have been extremely concerned. I have been in touch with a few of my friends and I have been following this tragedy with a lot of pain in my heart. My heartfelt condolences to those who have lost somebody close.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations

By Robert Bryce

PublicAffairs

HC, 352 pgs. US$35

ISBN: 1-6103-9749-5 Meeting the terawatt challenge By Duggan Flanakin

In his latest seminal book, A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations, Austin, Texas-based energy analyst and futurist Robert Bryce declares that electricity has become a human right. Its not an endowed by our Creator human right, nor one enunciated by a constitution or UN charter. Its not akin to freedom of religion or speech. Its not some entitlement we get for free. But it is definitely a fundamental right of access to this all-empowering energy source; a right for all human lives to be improved and blessed the way ours have been; a right to never be denied access to sufficient, reliable, affordable electricity, on a phony claim that letting you have it would hurt the environment or climate. Try to imagine your home, school, healthcare, business, community or world  your life  without this amazing energy source, and you will wholeheartedly agree with Bryce. In chapter 16, Bryce speaks of the Terawatt Challenge. Its a term coined by the late Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley, who posited that, if we can provide sufficient electricity to all peoples of the world, we can largely eliminate the massive problems of poverty, polluted environments, unsafe water and food insecurity. Bryce solemnly notes that our world is still far from that goal. But we can get there. Bryce traces the history of harnessed electricity, from Benjamin Franklin through Tesla, Edison and Westinghouse  to the much less well known but equally important Frank Julian Sprague, who developed electric elevator motors (enabling skyscrapers) and the nations first electric rail system. He illustrates how Franklin Roosevelt brought affordable electricity to rural America and oversaw construction of massive dams that provided cheap electricity to every corner of America. It was FDR, Bryce notes, who in 1932 proclaimed that Electricity is no longer a luxury; it is a definite necessity. Bryce then hits us with the horrific reality that roughly 3.3 billion people (45% of humanity!) still live today in places where annual per capita electricity consumption is less than 1,000 kilowatt-hours per year (kWh/yr)  about what his home refrigerator uses. These people barely survive in Unplugged countries. Another 2.7 billion people (37%) scrape by in Low-Watt countries. Only 19% of all people on Planet Earth live in High-Watt nations (more than 4,000 kWh/yr)  the bottom threshold, says Dr. Alan Pasternak, the key dividing line below which countries cannot improve their Human Development Index. A major barrier, therefore, to electricity sufficiency for the Unplugged  and even the Low-Watt  nations is the lack of societal integrity, capital investment and affordable energy. Yet, to ensure that all humanity can reach its full potential  to liberate women from endless drudgery, enabling them to develop their innate skills and talents  requires that the human right to electricity be recognized and made reality. How do we reach this lofty but essential goal? An essential component of societal integrity is that governments enforce the rule of law. The freest and wealthiest countries are those where factions share political and economic power. In the poorest countries elites organize society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Capital  and energy  are much easier to obtain in a free society. To illustrate the magnitude of the gap between Unplugged and High-Watt nations, Bryce chronicles the meteoric rise of the Giant Five  Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft  each of which consumes more electricity each year than many entire countries. Financial services, from Visa to Bitcoin, also have giant electricity appetites, as does the marijuana industry. These businesses all know from experience the cost that electricity blackouts impose on them  and their customers. Both weather and sabotage threaten the integrity of the electric grid, but the greater threat is the folly of those who believe that wind and solar alone can provide sufficient electric energy for a high-tech society, let alone the worlds billions. Bryce chronicles how four factors  cost, storage, scale, and land use  prevent renewables from taking over our energy and power systems. Electricity prices are soaring in countries like Germany, which panicked after Fukushima and began shuttering its nuclear power plants. A third of German businesses, including automotive, see high electricity costs as threats to their viability, Bryce notes. Rising electricity costs following enactment of Ontarios Green Energy Act led to political defeat for the Liberal Party and the rescission of 758 renewable energy contracts. Even in California, civil rights leaders have filed a lawsuit, decrying how the states climate policies discriminate against minority and low-income consumers; it is now working its way through the legal system. Bryces reporting suggests that the elitists who are pushing renewable energy  like despots in broken (Low-Watt or Unplugged) countries  ignore the poor and middle class and treat rural areas as if they were uninhabited or just irrelevant, as they pursue unattainable goals that heavily burden taxpayers while threatening electricity reliability. Meeting Californias 80% renewable mandate, for example, will require massive increases in costly electric storage because of seasonal variation in wind and solar electricity generation. Green energy growth today cannot even keep up with the annual increase in global electricity demand, let alone replace all conventional power. But the final nail in the renewables coffin is land use. Bryce cites multiple studies showing that an all-wind grid would mean turbine farms would cover a tenth of the nations total land. Frustrated by the indifference of urban elites to the real-world impacts on human health and wildlife, rural counties are fighting wind farms with renewed vengeance. Giant solar arrays also present a choice between vanishing ecosystems and clean energy that is actually highly polluting. Mining for metals and minerals to build wind and solar systems would also be monumental. Despite opposition by environmentalists, developing nations are rapidly turning to nuclear as a fuel for the future. But, Bryce notes, it takes national commitments akin to the New Deal to provide both the political stability and financial backing to construct and operate large nuclear power plants economically. High-Watt countries have imposed exorbitant permitting and regulatory costs on themselves and poor countries; together with antinuclear zeal, this greatly limits the prospects for nuclear energy. Thanks to fracking, natural gas has become abundant and cheap. It must be a major part of the worlds electricity generation future. Yet governments in High-Watt countries are already banning fracking, blocking new pipelines, and even demanding that citizens mothball their gas-burning appliances. Despite all the attacks on affordable, reliable fuels, Bryce is optimistic about the worlds ability and willingness to meet the Terawatt Challenge and provide electricity to a hungry world, without wrecking the biosphere. Indeed, in little over a century, a fifth of the world has gone from no electricity to High-Watt usage and another three-eighths is somewhat electrified  and their environments are better for it. The humanist response to the Terawatt Challenge, Bryce asserts, is to empower the billions who are living in the dark to come into the bright light of modernity, progress, and better, longer, healthier lives. This will require societal integrity, massive infusions of capital, and the right choices of fuels. Bryce admits that electrifying the world will take time. But it can  and must  be done. Government regulation of these entities has become increasingly bloated and corrupt, Bryce notes. We must significantly change our standards for both fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, to acknowledge technological improvements, the falsity of many environmentalist claims, and the fact that not having more of those power plants imposes enormous costs on lands, wildlife, human health and human rights. Duggan Flanakin is director of policy research for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of many articles on energy, climate change and environmentalism. Home
In February 2015, four years before he was arrested and accused of complicity in crimes against humanity, Anwar Raslan went to a police station in Berlin to file a complaint. He suspected that he was being followed, perhaps by someone from the Syrian intelligence, and wanted protection. He told the police that he might be a target, as he was a former military colonel who had defected in 2012. Little did he know then that by seeking protection he had outed himself as a potential perpetrator of 4,000 acts of torture and 58 killings.

Department 251, alias Al-Khatib

The first trial worldwide against two alleged members of the Syrian intelligence started in the western German city of Koblenz on April 23rd. It revealed, first of all, that the investigations that led to it are as old as the war in Syria itself. In September 2011, the German Federal Prosecutor started collecting evidence about crimes committed by the Syrian regime as well as the opposition. The so called Strukturermittlungsverfahren (structural investigation procedure) was meant to provide a basis for future investigations against individuals. The criminal records of Raslan and his distant colleague Eyad Al-Gharib were built on that basis. Their arrests, however, were prompted by the two men themselves, who spoke a bit too openly about their past.

In the courtroom, they are seated next to each other, surrounded by translators and defence attorneys. But at first the two cases were not connected, says an official from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), who testified on the second day of the trial. He led the investigation against Raslan that began in 2017. In March 2019, Raslans case and Al-Gharibs were combined, after it had become clear that both were connected to the same department of the general secret service in Damascus: number 251, often referred to as Al-Khatib after the area it is located in.

Raslan was allegedly head of investigations at Department 251, where investigation meant forced confessions under torture and inhumane detention conditions. This would make him responsible for at least 4,000 cases of torture, 58 deaths and two cases of rape or sexual assault between 2011 and 2012, according to the German prosecutor, who brings the charges under universal jurisdiction.

Raslan, a member of the Syrian opposition

But before torture victims and former prisoners give their testimonies to the judges in Koblenz, the first days of trial are dedicated to the hearing of German police, foreign and migration officers that tell their story of the events that have led up to the this unprecedented trial.

Unwittingly, Raslan started by filing against himself. In 2015, when turning to the German police for protection, he gave a detailed account of the violence that happened during his years at Department 251. He must have felt completely safe, not knowing that he was about to open a closed chapter of his past that would soon be used against him.

No wonder he had such trust: after all, the German authorities had invited him into the country in the first place. He and his family entered Germany with the national programme for receiving refugees, recounts a foreign office agent, who testified last Wednesday. In 2013, the German interior ministry decided to give out 5,000 humanitarian visas to Syrian refugees. Candidates had to apply at the UN Refugee Agency in Lebanon. However, exceptions were made for individuals already known to the German foreign representation. And Raslan was known, says the witness, not as an intelligence officer, but as a member of the Syrian opposition.

 and a peace negotiator

The foreign office confirms Anwar Raslans active and visible role in the Syrian opposition, the same witness confirmed she wrote in an e-mail in 2015 to a police officer in charge of Raslans case. It appears that in 2012, after deserting the General Intelligence Directorate, Raslan took his family to Jordan, where he became a prominent member of the Syrian opposition  so prominent that he was even part of their delegation to the peace negotiations in Geneva in 2014. There was a core negotiation team surrounded by a broader consulting team that he was part of, says the foreign office witness. His standing in the opposition paved his way to Germany where he, his wife and five children were granted asylum in 2014.

When the BKA raided the familys apartment during their investigations, the objects they found retraced Raslans unusual route: a calendar with phone numbers of high-ranking Syrian regime members, a copy of his secret service ID. There were also documents from the Syrian opposition connected to the Geneva 2 negotiations and a UN badge from 2014 with his name and picture on it.

The man who had led two completely opposite lives was finally arrested in Berlin in February 2019, a few days after his 56th birthday.

Recommended reading "For the first time, torture committed by the Assad regime will be discussed in a court"

Al-Gharib exposes himself when applying for asylum

At the same time Al-Gharib, 42, was arrested in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which is why the trial is taking place in its Higher Regional Court in Koblenz. Whether or not the two knew each other is unclear. Al-Gharib was a low-ranking member of a subdivision that arrested civilians during protests or at checkpoints and brought them to Department 251. He is accused of having rounded up 30 protesters in the fall of 2011 and thereby having facilitated torture against them.

The story of his arrest is much simpler. During his asylum hearing at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) he talked about his position in the Syrian intelligence directorate and what he witnessed there. As soon as an asylum-seeker makes statements about being a victim or perpetrator in the context of Syria, this information is automatically forwarded to the BKA, explains a federal criminal police investigator. If there is any connection to crimes against international law, the file goes to his department, as it did in the case of Al-Gharib.

The BKA then started to investigate the same way they did in Raslans case: they looked at satellite images of Department 251, consulted reports by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, and looked into the large database of official documents smuggled out of Syria by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). CIJA provided two documents from Department 251 dated to the period in which the crimes supposedly took place. They were signed by Anwar Raslan, says the BKA investigator.

70 prosecution witnesses expected

The most important evidence came from questioning witnesses, about 70 altogether, he adds. Some told harrowing details of their abuse and of torture methods. The BKA asked witnesses to sketch out the interior of Department 251. Many of the details matched, and there was no shortage of torture survivors to ask. In almost every questioning the names of further witnesses came up, says the BKA agent. But at some point, we just had to conclude our investigation.

His work is done, and the trial has just begun. It could take at least a year, if not longer. Next hearings are scheduled for May 18 and 19.
The Kardashian-Jenners have their seasons of closeness with each other and while they are, as a family, forever tight-knit, at times some of the sisters have had a closer bond. Fans have been discussing how theyve missed how close Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian once were.

Khloe Kardashian, Kim Kardashian West, and Kourtney Kardashian | Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Fans miss how close Khloe and Kourtney were

In a Reddit post titled Khloe and Kourtneys relationship, one Redditor expressed how the sisters arent as close as they used to be.

I hate how their relationship changed so much now its like either fighting or plain awkward. I miss their old bond like it was a huge part of the show and the reason why I loved the show, the Reddit user explained. Back in the day Kim was solo and doing her own thing and Khloe and Kourt were always together. Specially in Miami and everything but I feel like Khloe changed when she gave birth to True and became closer to Kim, but somehow I feel like Khloe became worse and less relatable and Kourtney is becoming a better person and working on her self, but they are so distant.

Has Khloe been insensitive to Kourtney?

Fans debated how things have cooled between the sisters, with some discussion about how Kourtney wanted off the show so she could spend more time with her kids and less time in the spotlight.

When Kourtney expressed wanting to establish boundaries on Keeping Up With the Kardashians and share less of her personal life with the cameras, Khloe seemed irritated because it meant that she had to work more on the reality show.

One Redditor agreed with the original poster, sharing, I know. I am watching Kourtney & Khloe Take The Hamptons and Khloe was really different then. She seemed more fun and carefree. Even when Kourtney would annoy her, she didnt lash out or put her down like she does now. It makes me sad how much theyve all changed

The Redditor also shared how they had fun then but now it seems like theyre trying too hard & it seems forced and fake.

Another Reddit user pointed out how Kourtney sacrificed her relationship for TV and views and that took its toll on her, noting that Kim and Khloe are insensitive about how Kourtney wanted more privacy.

Did Khloe lose fans?

Others discussed how the women have changed over the span of the show and one Redditor who said I used to love Khloe believes that she lost a lot of fans over the whole Tristan drama. The Reddit user added, I found it strange that Kourtney didnt seem to be supportive during Khloes pregnancy though It seems like Kourt also distanced herself when she started dating Younes. When they went on that sisters trip, Kourt was just on the phone dealing with Younes drama the whole time.

Is it time for the show to end? They just need to realize that theres a time and place for everything. They had insane amounts of fame and fortune, and now its OK to take a step back from the spotlight and focus on other things, one Reddit user expressed. Theyre not going to fade into nothing overnight, I just think they love the spotlight too much to walk away from the show (especially Kim).
Three Qantas flights will this week rescue more than 500 Australians stranded in India by coronavirus travel restrictions but hundreds more remain in limbo.

The three flights, costing $2300 a ticket and each carrying 188 passengers, sold out within about 20 minutes.

This week's rescue flights are the first to India organised by the Australian government and operated by Qantas.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has previously said 6660 Australians in India had registered for assistance. More than 2700 Australians have so far returned home on nine flights organised by private groups through airlines including Lion Air, with help from DFAT officials and the Indian government.

This week's rescue flights are the first to India organised by the Australian government and operated by Qantas. Two will leave Delhi on Thursday and arrive in Melbourne and Sydney on Friday morning, while a third will leave on Saturday and arrive in Sydney on Sunday morning.
Students from at least 26 universities are filing lawsuits against their schools demanding partial refunds on tuition and campus fees, saying they're not getting the caliber of education they were promised.

The suits say students should pay lower rates for the portion of the term that was offered online, arguing that the quality of instruction is far below the classroom experience after the coronavirus forced campuses across the nation to close last month.

Class-action lawsuits target prestigious private universities, including Brown, Columbia and Cornell, along with big public schools, including Michigan State, Purdue and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Along with tuition, the cases also seek refunds for fees that students paid to access gyms, libraries, labs and other buildings that are now closed. All told, the complaints seek refunds that could add up to several thousand dollars per student at some schools.

Grainger Rickenbaker, a freshman who filed a class action lawsuit against Drexel University in Philadelphia, said the online classes he's been taking are 'poor substitutes'

The class action lawsuits argues that student will not have access to on-site facilities such as libraries. The College Avenue Stone Arch Bridge at Cornell is pictured

The lawsuits ask courts to answer a thorny question that has come to the fore as universities shift classes online: whether there's a difference in value between online instruction and the traditional classroom.

Proponents of online education say it can be just as effective, and universities say they've done everything they can to create rigorous online classes in a matter of weeks.

COLLEGES SUED AMID CORONAVIRUS SHUTDOWNS Arizona State Brown Columbia Cornell Drexel East Carolina University Grand Canyon University Johns Hopkins University Michigan State Northern Arizona University Northwestern Liberty University Long Island University Pace Purdue University of Arizona University of California University of Pennsylvania University of Phoenix University of Vermont UNC Asheville UNC Charlotte UNC Wilmington University of Colorado, Boulder University of Miami Advertisement

But some of the complaints maintain that the college experience is about more than course credits. They say there's value to the personal interaction students get with faculty and classmates, both in the classroom and out. Willey adds that colleges themselves often charge lower rates for online classes, which he says is a reflection of their value.

Grainger Rickenbaker, 20, a freshman who filed a class-action lawsuit against Drexel University in Philadelphia, said the online classes he's been taking are poor substitutes for classroom learning. There's little interaction with students or professors, he said, and some classes are being taught almost entirely through recorded videos, with no live lecture or discussion.

Drexel closed mid-March and the semester is set to continue online until June 13.

'You just feel a little bit diminished,' said Rickenbaker, 21, of Charleston, South Carolina. 'It's just not the same experience I would be getting if I was at the campus.'

University of Miami undergrad, Adelaide Dixon, is also named in the suit. They argue that they picked the colleges out of 'hundreds, if not thousands' of options for their on-campus experience.

At Drexel it costs $2,405 for access to experiences that require in-person interaction.

'This additional fee was a required charge to cover the costs of opportunities and services that can only be made available to students while the students are physically present on campus,' the lawsuit argues. 'In addition to the tuition and mandatory fees, Defendant charges optional fees for other activities and services that can only benefit students while students are on campus. Examples include but are not limited to room and board, parking fees, intramural and extra-curricular fees, etc.'

'The value of any degree issued on the basis of online or pass/fail classes will be diminished for the rest of the students lives,' they state in the lawsuit.

They are suing for 'breach of contract' and 'unjust enrichment'.

Rickenberger says he is filing on behalf of the 13,490 undergrads at Drexel and Dixon is doing the same for the 11,117 at Miami.

The average tuition at each school is $51,930 and $54,516 respectively.

Brown University is one of the institutions targeted by class action lawsuits. Students state that online courses don't offer the same value as networking onsite

Along with tuition, the cases seek refunds for fees that students paid to access that are now closed due to coronavirus

Other students report similar experiences elsewhere. A complaint against the University of California, Berkeley, says some professors are simply uploading assignments, with no video instruction at all. A case against Vanderbilt University says class discussion has been stymied and the 'quality and academic rigor of courses has significantly decreased.'

In a case against Purdue University, a senior engineering student said the closure has prevented him from finishing his senior project, building an airplane. 'No online course can simulate the applicable, real-world experience' he hoped to gain from the project, the complaint says.

A lawsuit references that only $750 of the annual boarding fee of $10,030 was credited back to students.

Some of the suits draw attention to schools' large financial reserves, saying colleges are unfairly withholding refunds even while they rest on endowments that often surpass $1 billion.

'You cannot keep money for services and access if you aren't actually providing it,' said Roy Willey, a lawyer for the Anastopoulo Law Firm in South Carolina, which is representing students in more than a dozen cases. 'If we're truly going to be all in this together, the universities have to tighten their belts and refund the money back to students and families who really need it.'

Willey said his office has received hundreds of inquiries from students looking to file suits, and his firm is looking into dozens of possible cases. Other firms taking on similar cases say they're also seeing a wave of demand from students and parents who say they deserve refunds.

Some online university courses are around $15,000 while in-person tuition is approximately $50,000.

A lawsuit against Michigan State University states that the college charges approximately $5,250 per semester in room and board fees but the school only offered students a room and board credit worth $1,120

The lawsuit references research from Brookings that found taking a course online reduces students average grades and increases the probability that a student will drop out of school

'The tuition price speaks for itself,' he said. 'These students decided to go to in-person, on-campus universities. They could have chosen to go to online colleges and earn their degree that way, but they didn't.'

Even before the first lawsuits were filed, demands for tuition refunds had been spreading. Students at dozens of schools have started petitions calling for refunds as online classes left them underwhelmed. Scores of schools have returned portions of housing and dining fees, but few if any have agreed to return any share of tuition.

At the University of Chicago, hundreds of students signed a letter saying they will refuse to pay this term's tuition, which was due April 29, unless the school reduces tuition by 50% and keeps it at that level during the crisis.

A lawsuit against Michigan State University states that the college charges approximately $5,250 per semester in room and board fees but the school only offered students a room and board credit worth $1,120.

Tuition at the college is $14,524 per semester for students from inside the state and $39,830 for those based out-of-state. The lawsuit references research from Brookings that found taking a course online reduces students average grades and increases the probability that a student will drop out of school.

Colleges, though, reject the idea that refunds are in order. Students are learning from the same professors who teach on campus, officials have said, and they're still earning credits toward their degrees. Schools insist that, after being forced to close by their states, they're still offering students a quality education.

Several colleges declined to comment on the lawsuits, but some said students have continued to get what they paid for.

Ken McConnellogue, a spokesman for the University of Colorado, said it's disappointing that people have been so quick to file lawsuits only weeks into the pandemic. He said the suits appear to be driven by a small number of 'opportunistic' law firms.

'Our faculty have been working extremely hard to deliver an academic product that's got the same high standards, high-quality academic rigor as what they would deliver in the classroom,' he said. 'It's different, no doubt. And it's not ideal. We all would prefer to have students on our campuses, but at the same time, were in the middle of a global pandemic here.'

Officials at Michigan State said students are still taking classes taught by qualified faculty, and the school is still offering tutoring services, academic advising, faculty office hours and library services.

'We don't negate that this has been a difficult time for our university, especially for our students,' Emily Guerrant, a Michigan State spokeswoman, said in a statement. The school has taken on new costs to move instruction online, she added, but 'we have maintained our commitment to providing meaningful and robust learning experiences at no additional cost to our Spartans.'

Officials at Drexel University said the school has continued to provide a 'broad spectrum of academic offerings and support' while students learn remotely.

Colleges counter that the coronavirus has put them under sharp financial strain, too. Some estimate that they could lose up to $1 billion this year as they brace for downturns in student enrollment, state funding and research grants. Some have already announced layoffs and furloughs as they work to offset losses.

But the lawsuits say it's not fair to pass those losses on to students. Jennifer Kraus-Czeisler, a lawyer for the New York firm Milberg Phillips Grossman, which is representing several students, said colleges have a duty to return fees for services they aren't providing.

'We're not disparaging the schools for closing. They did what was appropriate,' she said. 'But they're profiting at the expense of students. It just seems unconscionable.'
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Pakistan is still following its "myopic" and "limited" agenda of pushing terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir, and India will respond appropriately with precision unless the neighbouring country gives up its policy of state sponsored terrorism, Army Chief Gen MM Naravane said here.

In an exclusive interview to PTI, the chief of the 1.3 million-strong Army said India will give "proportionate response" to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and support to terrorism by Pakistan.

On the Handwara encounter, Gen.Naravane said India is proud of the five security personnel who laid down their lives saving civilians from terrorists at a village in the North Kashmir locality and particularly complimented Col Ashutosh Sharma who led the operation.

"I would like to emphasise that Indian Army will give proportionate response to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and its (Pakistan's) support to terrorism. The onus remains with Pakistan to bring peace in the region," the Chief of Army Staff said.

"Unless Pakistan gives up its policy of state sponsored terrorism, we will continue to respond appropriately and with precision," he added.

Gen Naravane said the recent infiltration attempts by Pakistan along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir showed that Pakistan is not interested in battling the coronavirus pandemic and is still following its "own myopic and limited agenda of pushing terrorists inside India."

"The low priority given to the Pakistani citizens by its own government and the army is apparent by the exponential rise in cases and massive shortages of medical equipment and supplies in Pakistan," he said.

The Army Chief said even during the SAARC video conference, Pakistan's narrow-mindedness was on full display when it used the platform to complain about "non-existent" violations of human rights in Kashmir instead of finding ways to keep its citizens safe from the pandemic.

"The increased intensity of ceasefire violations by the Pakistan army, where its targets innocent civilians on the LoC, just shows that the country is a global risk and is not interested in providing relief to its own citizens," he said.

"In fact, Pakistan's removal of names of hardcore terrorists from the terror watch list just proves that it still believes in exporting terrorism as an instrument of state policy," he added.

On implementation of recommendations of terror anti-terror watchdog FATF, Gen Naravane said Pakistan has sought to "blindside" the international community by making superficial changes and amendments to its "non-existent" checks on terror financing and money laundering.

"It still continues to employ proxies to inflict terror and violence not only inside India but also in Afghanistan where it supports the Taliban militarily and financially," he said.

"The sudden spurts in violence against Afghan security forces are indicative of the illegal and illicit drug and money laundering networks that fuel the conflict," Gen Naravane added.
Industries New stainless half-shell metal bellows coupling EWR

Metal bellows coupling EWR

04.05.2020 11:29:39 - NEW stainless shaft connection in hygienic design from ENEMAC



(live-PR.com) - ENEMAC has a new stainless steel product in the shaft connection range, the metal bellows coupling EWR!



The hygienic designed metal bellows coupling EWR with half-shell hubs made of stainless steel is new in the range of couplings specialist Enemac from Kleinwallstadt in GERMANY. The use of A4 or A2 stainless steels in all parts makes it suitable for use in - ENEMAC has a new stainless steel product in the shaft connection range, the metal bellows coupling EWR!The hygienic designed metal bellows coupling EWR with half-shell hubs made of stainless steel is new in the range of couplings specialist Enemac from Kleinwallstadt in GERMANY. The use of A4 or A2 stainless steels in all parts makes it suitable for use in demanding environments and in sterile or even acidic applications, as well as in the food and medical sectors.



It is particularly suitable for use in systems that are difficult to access, where space is very limited and the drive and output units are rigid or cannot be moved in axial direction, because of its easy to mount half-shell hubs.



With type EWR, the two lower halves of the hub can be removed and the coupling placed radially on the shaft ends. Afterwards the loose hub halves are placed on the opposite side of the shaft and connected using stainless steel clamping screws.



Disassembly is also possible with little effort and requires no further aids such as pullers or other tools. The hygienic design metal bellows coupling is available in 7 sizes for nominal torques of 10 Nm up to 1,200 Nm and for shaft diameters from 7 to 85 mm.



It can be used in a temperature range of up to 623 K. Its free from wear and maintenance as of course free of clearance.



For further informations, don't hesitate to contact ENEMAC.



Founded in 1981 in Kleinwallstadt am Main, the ENEMAC GmbH (Society for Energy and Mechanical Engineering) looks back on almost 40-year history. Steady progress and recent developments have extended and modified the product range of ENEMAC over the decades.

In the early years focusing on the topic of machine safety for feed drives. With the safety clutch type ECT-R ENEMAC entered the market in the machine tool industry. Further series followed to service the needs of this market segment.



During the 1990s, the focus shifted towards food and packaging industry. ENEMAC specialized on rust-free safety couplings made of stainless steel to accomodate the high hygiene and production requirements in this area. In parallel, lower cost versions of safety couplings, the so-called overload clutches have been developed. To complete the product range, shaft couplings in different variants and versions have been integrated into the offer.



In recent years, the company ventured a step above the usual "clutch plate" addition in the direction of clamping technology. Mechanical clamping screws and clamping nuts and hydromechanical spring clamping cylinders provide an alternative to simple workholding equipment such as clamps or clamping claws as well as to semi or fully automatic clamping devices.



ENEMAC clamping technology is very versatile. Whether for tool or workpiece clamping, in materials handling, bending and welding engineering - either as original equipment or aftermarket item.



What value this new product line in the company's development will take, the future will tell. The company will face the new challenges of the market and be constantly striving to meet customer needs individually and in highest quality.

demanding environments and in sterile or even acidic applications, as well as in the food and medical sectors.It is particularly suitable for use in systems that are difficult to access, where space is very limited and the drive and output units are rigid or cannot be moved in axial direction, because of its easy to mount half-shell hubs.With type EWR, the two lower halves of the hub can be removed and the coupling placed radially on the shaft ends. Afterwards the loose hub halves are placed on the opposite side of the shaft and connected using stainless steel clamping screws.Disassembly is also possible with little effort and requires no further aids such as pullers or other tools. The hygienic design metal bellows coupling is available in 7 sizes for nominal torques of 10 Nm up to 1,200 Nm and for shaft diameters from 7 to 85 mm.It can be used in a temperature range of up to 623 K. Its free from wear and maintenance as of course free of clearance.For further informations, don't hesitate to contact ENEMAC.Founded in 1981 in Kleinwallstadt am Main, the ENEMAC GmbH (Society for Energy and Mechanical Engineering) looks back on almost 40-year history. Steady progress and recent developments have extended and modified the product range of ENEMAC over the decades.In the early years focusing on the topic of machine safety for feed drives. With the safety clutch type ECT-R ENEMAC entered the market in the machine tool industry. Further series followed to service the needs of this market segment.During the 1990s, the focus shifted towards food and packaging industry. ENEMAC specialized on rust-free safety couplings made of stainless steel to accomodate the high hygiene and production requirements in this area. In parallel, lower cost versions of safety couplings, the so-called overload clutches have been developed. To complete the product range, shaft couplings in different variants and versions have been integrated into the offer.In recent years, the company ventured a step above the usual "clutch plate" addition in the direction of clamping technology. Mechanical clamping screws and clamping nuts and hydromechanical spring clamping cylinders provide an alternative to simple workholding equipment such as clamps or clamping claws as well as to semi or fully automatic clamping devices.ENEMAC clamping technology is very versatile. Whether for tool or workpiece clamping, in materials handling, bending and welding engineering - either as original equipment or aftermarket item.What value this new product line in the company's development will take, the future will tell. The company will face the new challenges of the market and be constantly striving to meet customer needs individually and in highest quality. Press Information:

ENEMAC GmbH



Daimler Ring 42

63839 Kleinwallstadt

GERMANY



Contact Person:

Mr. Domzalski

Sales

Phone: 0049/6022/7107-0

eMail: eMail



Web: http://www.enemac.de





04.05.2020 11:29:39 -

Disclaimer: If you have any questions regarding information in this article please contact the author. Please do not contact Live-PR.com. We are not able to assist you. Live-PR.com disclaims content contained in this article. Live-PR.com is not authorized to give any information about content and not responsible for content posted by third party.
Life was limping back to



normalcyin most parts of Karnataka with easing of COVID-19 inducedrestrictions on Monday as the State headed into the third phase oflockdown started since March 24.

According to the guidelines issued by the Centre, industrialactivities, construction works, essential, non-essential shops,delivery of essential goods through e- commerce, courier and postalservices, Banking and agriculture activities, four-wheelers,two-wheelers, plying of buses, along with inter-state movement of goods vehicles, were allowed in the green and yellow zone districts.

This apart, sale of liquor was also allowed at the designated shops.

Police said vehicular movement is allowed only from7 am to 7 pm for ordinary citizens.

Clarifying about the movement of people, Bengaluru policecommissioner Bhaskar Rao tweeted, "From tomorrow (Monday) you dontneed a pass to move in Bengaluru between 7 am and 7pm.

After 7 pm andup to 7 am the following morning, even if you have a pass you are notallowed to move except medical and essential service.Checkpoints willremain and your ID may be asked.Please be responsible."



After the restrictions were lifted, heavy vehicular movementwas witnessed in parts of Bengaluru leading to traffic jam in someareas.

Chikpet, which is the main trade area in Bengaluru, saw someactivities.

With restrictions on public transport continuing, thisunusually crowded place had very less footfall.

"Movement of public is limited due to ban on public transportsuch as city buses and Metro Rail.

The trade activities are takingplace between retailers," trade activist and joint secretary of JainInternational Trade Organisation Sajjanraj Mehta told PTI.

Select liquor shops in the city and other parts of the Statepulled up shutters after being closed for about six weeks due to the lockdown with tipplers thronging them in huge numbers at many places.

Some traders in the city complained that they received noticesregarding the Tax Deduction at Source for the month of April "thoughthere were no trading activities."



Meanwhile, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa announced on Mondaythat free bus service for migrant labourers, which is operatingsmoothly, has been extended till Thursday.

On Sunday, 951 Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buseswere provided and around 30,000 people have travelled to their townsand villages, a government statement said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 72-year-old Co Antrim man is recovering at home after spending over a month in hospital battling Covid-19 - the first time he has ever been separated from his wife of 52 years.

Tommy O'Neill from Ballymena spent 21 days on a ventilator and a total of 33 days between the Antrim Area and NHS Nightingale Hospital in Belfast after he and wife Shirley contracted the virus while holidaying in Spain.

A week after his discharge, his granddaughter Rebeka Law said the family are amazed by the speed of his recovery after fearing the worst when he was first admitted to intensive care.

The ordeal was particularly hard on his wife Shirley, who he met aged 13 and has never spent even one day away from.

"They've never been apart from each other, so she was heartbroken when he was in hospital," Rebeka said.

"They will be 53 years married in August. Granny always said she would promise heaven and earth to bring Granda back again. We're just so grateful."

Tommy underwent major heart surgery at the age of 35, which Rebeka said added to the anxiety that her grandfather would never make it home. Now he is back on his feet doing tasks around the house, has returned his Zimmer frame and is attempting to claim back his life.

"There's still a long way to go but he's doing fantastic," Rebeka said.

"They told us he would have to learn to walk again due to his age and how long he spent on a ventilator but even a week since he returned home, he's walking about by himself and is back to normal as much as possible."

Speaking of her family's ordeal, the Ballymena woman said the lack of communication with her grandfather, paired with the fact that no one could visit, made things particularly agonising.

"His hospital stay was a scary time. As a family we had no communication whatsoever and relied on a phone call once a day from a doctor with a basic update," she said.

"The hardest part was the 24 hour waits, your whole life is on hold until you get that call."

Now over the moon that her grandfather is on the mend, Rebeka paid tribute to the healthcare professionals who cared for Tommy and said her family was touched by the efforts of medics to keep in touch.

"Our gratitude for the staff is unbelievable. Every single member of staff that has been involved in Granddad's care, whether it be domestic, nursing staff, doctors or those bringing dinner. The humanity shown by the doctors was very touching. When we were on the phone crying, they were on the phone crying back to us. It's hard for them as well. The care was outstanding and I know Granddad wouldn't be recovering now if it hadn't have been for them."

The wider O'Neill family believe they have been given a second chance to enjoy life with Tommy.

Rebeka continued: "The only thing the virus hasn't taken from us is our love. It's bonded us a family - all the quarrels that we've ever had disappeared.

"There's a long journey to recovery when people get out of hospital - he was a very active man before this. We're relieved and amazed."
SANTA CRUZ (BCN)

A carjacking suspect was arrested Saturday night after leading police on a chase from Santa Cruz to Capitola and back before crashing the stolen vehicle and fleeing on foot.

The vehicle was seen traveling at a high rate of speed about 10:18 p.m. by Santa Cruz officers, who learned the car had been reported stolen earlier in the day.

The solo driver was pursued through Santa Cruz and onto state Highway 1 to Capitola, then back via the highway to the Beach Flats neighborhood in Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office and the California Highway Patrol assisted police during the 10.25-mile chase, which ended when the suspect crashed at Cliff and Second streets and ran from the car.

A perimeter was set up in the area and suspect Albert Blanco, a 38-year-old San Jose resident, was taken into custody without incident.

Police say Blanco gave a statement about how he stole the car.

He was booked for carjacking and felony reckless evading.

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.
New Delhi, May 4 : Amid pandemic and targeting of the Muslim community by certain sections of the society and the media, Congress Treasurer Ahmed Patel has opened up and has questioned the "silence" of the National Human Rights Commission, an apex body on the human rights.

The Congress leader said on Monday that the NHRC's silence on the "Stigmatisation of a community" referring the blame of the spread of the COVID-19 attributed to the community by various quarters in the BJP and even by some chief ministers. However, he did not take the name of the Muslims, but he was apparently referring to the harassment of the Muslim vendors through various means.

Ahmed Patel said that it's "contrary" to the WHO guidelines.

The Tablighi Jamaat after the Nizamuddin fiasco has been blamed by a political party and the media for the spread of the virus and consequence to it the community has been stigmatised by the people. Even two BJP MLAs in Uttsr Pradesh have reportedly coaxed people not to buy vegetables from the Muslim vendors, and in Madhya Pradesh a poster was put out in a village that Muslim traders are not allowed. The MP government has taken action by loding an FIR, and the BJP unit in Uttar Pradesh has also issued a notice to the said MLA.

The AICC treasurer has also questioned the silence of the NHRC on the forced exodus of the poor migrants on foot.

He in his tweet said, "The near silence of the NHRC is surprising. Two major human rights abuses have occurred during this pandemic and we are yet to hear from this constitutional body -- Forced exodus of poor migrants on foot And Stigmatisation of a community contrary to WHO guidelines." The Congress has been raising the issue of mass exodus during the lockdown and has alleged that it has brought suffering to people as it had been announced in haste without any strategy.

Sonia Gandhi in her statement on Monday said that the Central government barely gave a four-hour notice of the lockdown, workers and migrant labourers were denied the opportunity to return to their homes. "Post the partition of 1947, this is the first time India witnessed a tragedy with such a massive human cost as thousands of migrant workers and labourers were forced to walk home several hundred kilometres on foot - without food, without medicines, without money, without transportation, without anything except for the desire to return to their families and loved ones," she said.

--IANS miz/dpb

Miz
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the expansion of telemedicine, and as part of that expansion, faculty at the University of Louisville are piloting new smart glasses for advanced delivery of health care.

"There is both an urgent and widespread need to not only treat patients but deliver expertise and training remotely and safely to both professionals and medical learners," said R. Brent Wright, MD, associate dean for rural health innovation at the UofL School of Medicine, who has been working with various companies to explore a smart glasses solution for telemedicine since 2014.

Long-term care facilities and emergency departments represent two of the areas with greatest need for the glasses for direct physician care during the pandemic. The UofL Trager Institute, emergency medicine and psychiatry are part of a feasibility study to test the Vuzix M400 smart glasses.

"It is imperative that we find solutions for health care to continue for the vulnerable nursing home population in Kentucky," said Anna Faul, PhD, executive director and professor, UofL Trager Institute. "The use of smart glasses to provide real-time, expert geriatric care to residents of long-term care facilities is a huge step in increasing access to care, particularly during COVID-19. Each nursing home in our study will receive smart glasses that will allow for remote video consults with specialized medical providers and behavioral health experts without the need for the providers to enter the facilities and expose themselves and other patients to COVID-19."

The concept is fairly straightforward. An advanced practice nurse practitioner or other health care professional working at a LTC facility will put on the web-connected glasses and dial-in with an attending physician through the Zoom conference platform. A camera and microphone are attached to the glasses, and the technology has the potential to display and obtain information for the physician to access remotely. The physician can see and interact directly with the LTC resident, providing immediate consultation and evaluation.

The glasses allow for ease of mobility and hands-free interaction for the on-site provider, an advantage over current standard telehealth delivery which requires computers and monitors to be transported from bed-to-bed on large carts. Additionally, data can be input into medical records hands-free, and can be controlled by voice-commands.

Smart glasses will support health care workers at five LTC facilities and one emergency department in Kentucky. UofL researchers will conduct a brief feasibility study related to the use of these six pairs of smart glasses. If the data is promising, the study will be extended. Once the pandemic has subsided, researchers hope to investigate the utility of usage for medical education.

"This technology holds great promise. UofL faculty are exploring how to transform health care and this is part of an innovative solution as we provide care and educate the next generation of physicians," said Toni Ganzel, MD, dean of the UofL School of Medicine, and vice president for academic medical affairs.

"The pandemic has served as the catalyst for changing delivery of care. When you have to do things so rapidly and emergently, there is a call to be creative and innovative. Telemedicine allows us to share expertise while keeping a safe distance, and the smart glasses are very high-fidelity.

"The timing had to be right for this technology to become more accepted," Wright said. "It will be big part of health care moving forward, even after this swell with the COVID-19 pandemic, and it will be exciting to see some of our current medical residents incorporate telemedicine into their future practices."

###
Venezuela's government has said it foiled a marine incursion by "terrorist mercenaries" who attempted to enter the country on speedboats from neighbouring Colombia, adding security forces killed eight of the fighters.

The group landed early on Sunday on a beach in the port city of La Guaira, about 20 miles (32km) from the capital Caracas, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in a televised address.

"They tried to carry out an invasion by sea, a group of terrorist mercenaries from Colombia, in order to commit terrorist acts in the country, murdering leaders of the revolutionary government," he said.

Socialist Party leader Diosdado Cabello said eight people were killed and two were detained.

"We have deactivated an attempted incursion of our territory, thanks to intelligence efforts," Cabello told reporters.

President Nicolas Maduro frequently accuses political adversaries of attempting to overthrow his administration with the support of the United States, which has promised to force him from office through sanctions that have crippled the OPEC nations' oil exports.

Critics of the governing Socialist Party often dismiss such accusations as stunts used as an excuse to detain opponents of the government.

Maduro has overseen a six-year economic crisis that has left many citizens unable to obtain basic food and medicine and forced nearly five million people to emigrate.

Tough sanctions

The US and more than 50 other countries disavowed Maduro after his disputed 2018 election, which they say was rigged, and instead have recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the nation's legitimate interim leader.

But Maduro retains the backing of the country's armed forces as well as countries including China and Russia, which have harshly criticised the US sanctions.

The US has led a campaign to remove Maduro, increasing pressure in recent weeks by indicting the socialist leader as a drug trafficker and offering a $15m reward for his arrest.

The US has also increased sanctions, cutting off Venezuela's oil sector to choke Maduro from a key source of hard cash.

In addition to that pressure, Maduro's government has faced several small-scale military threats, including an attempt to assassinate Maduro with a drone and Guaido's call for a military uprising, which was joined by few soldiers.

Maduro and his allies say the Trump administration is determined to end Venezuela's socialist government to exploit the South American nation's vast underground oil reserves.
On March 6, 1987, a ferry traveling from England to Belgium capsized, causing the death of 193 people. In the months after the disaster, many of the approximately 300 survivors suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including upsetting dreams; anxiety; emotional detachment and numbness; and difficulties with sleep and concentration.

However, in time, some of the survivors reported some surprising positive effects. Three years after the disaster, psychologist Stephen Joseph, then a Ph.D. student, carried out a survey which found that, although PTSD was still common (albeit with diminished symptoms), 43 percent of the survivors reported that their view of life had changed for the better. They reported that they no longer took life for granted, that they valued their relationships more, that they lived each day to the full, that they felt more experienced about life, and so on.

This was one of the first studies of a concept which has become very important in psychology in recent years: post-traumatic growth.

Post-traumatic growth (or PTG) is the idea that, in the long run, traumatic events and experienceslike illness, accidents, bereavement, addiction and divorcecan have beneficial effects. Often, after the initial shock and pain of a traumatic situation has faded away, people report feeling more appreciative of their lives, and sensing a new inner strength and confidence. They feel that their relationships are more intimate and authentic, and that they have a new sense of meaning and purpose. They often become less materialistic and more altruistic, more concerned with the well-being of others than with their own success and status. They develop a more philosophical or spiritual attitude to life, within the words of Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun, two of the pioneers of the theory of PTGa deeper level of awareness.

Overall, it appears that nearly half of people who experience such traumatic events are likely to experience PTG in the aftermath.



When a crisis occurs in a community (such as a war or a natural disaster), people often react by becoming more interconnected. They become friendlier, more cooperative and altruistic. People feel a common sense of purpose, and a spirit of cooperation begins to replace normal competitiveness. For the community, this often equates to a kind of post-traumatic growth. The whole community shifts into a higher level of integration. Its as if, rather than existing as isolated individuals, people fuse together into a whole. One study showed evidence of collective post-traumatic growth after natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. In these situations, people developed communal coping strategies and had more collective gatherings.



Read the whole story: Scientific American
Tech & Science, Local News, Business & Finance, Arts & Culture

By Ls Cohen Published: May 04 2020

The iconic jet fighter was designed, built and tested on Long Island by Grumman Aerospace Corp.

One of the most famous and recognizable American fighter jets has got to be the F-14 Tomcat. Featured in the classic movie Top Gun and serving 36 years in the Navy protecting the United States, this powerhouse of a plane is still missed by airpower affecianos and the pilots and Radar Intercept Officers (RIO) - the flight officers in the aft seat of the jet - who flew it.

We enlisted the help of the Cradle of Aviation Museum curator, Joshua Stoff, and the F-14 Tomcat Association historian, Willian Barto, to provide us with some great F-14 stories and vet our Tomcat facts! (These two know their stuff when it comes to F-14 and Long Island aviation history.)

Read about five times Long Island made aviation history here.

Below we present some historical and crazy facts about the F-14 Tomcat fighter jet.

At sea aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Dec. 11, 2002 -- A plane director positions an F-14 Tomcat assigned to the "Black Lions" of Fighter Squadron Two One Three (VF-213) into launch position on one of four steam driven catapults on the ships flight deck. Roosevelt and her embarked Carrier Air Wing Eight (CVW-8) are underway for Tailored Ship Training Availability (TSTA). U.S. Navy photo by Photographers Mate 2nd Class James K. McNeil. Date: 11 December 2002. Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Photographers Mate 2nd Class James K. McNeil. / Public domain.

Specs

The F-14 is a two-seat, twin-engine jet fighter

It was the first U.S. jet fighter with twin tails, a distinctive feature

The wings sweep for optimal performance depending on speed and altitude

The wingspan of the F-14 is 64 feet forward swept and 38 feet fully swept

The aircraft is over 62 feet long

An F-14 can reach an altitude of more than 56,000 feet

Its systems could track 24 enemy aircraft as far away as 195 miles

The original life of a F-14 was 6,000 hours of flying time but was later extended to 7,200 hours

The cost per unit for an F-14 was $38 million (airframe and powerplant only)

The F-14 could reach speeds of Mach 2+

The F-14 could carry up to 6 Phoenix, or 6 Sparrow and 2 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles

A complement of six Phoenix missiles (radar-guided air-to-air missiles) was dubbed The John Wayne Loadout

F-14s could refuel in flight

The F-14 came in three models - the A, B, and D

The F-14A was the original model

The F-14B and F-14D both represented upgrades to the original

Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Photographers Mate 2nd Class Jason Scarborough. / Public domain

History

The F-14 was developed to replace the F-4 Phantom fighter in the 1960s

Before the F-14, Grumman was testing the F-111B, a Navy version of the General Dynamics

F-111A but it proved to be an inferior aircraft

Grumman had in mind an alternative design, and the Navy gave the go ahead for 12 preproduction aircraft.

The designs went through 9,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing on about 2,000 different configurations of the jet.

The F-14 first flew on December 21, 1970 in Grummans facility in Calverton

Initial testing of the fighter was done at Calverton and flight tested over Long Island Sound.

The pilot was Grumman Chief test pilot Robert Smythe

Test pilot William Miller rode in the back seat

A second test flight on December 30 resulted in the loss of the aircraft due to failure of a hydraulic pump resulting in a loss of flight control

The crew ejected safely, and the aircraft crashed

Watch a video of that test flight and crash below

It was first deployed in 1974 with the U.S. Navy aboard USS Enterprise (CVN-65)

The F-14 took part in air cover for the Evacuation of Saigon, Vietnam and saw action in many major skirmishes including Libya, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and during the Cold War

In the late 1970s Iran ordered 80 jets, but only secured the delivery of 79 F-14s from the US government to gain air superiority over Soviet MiG fighters before the 1979 revolution

F-14s would intercept Soviet bombers that got too close to a US carrier group and escort them away from our forces

During the first Gulf of Sidra incident in 1981 F-14 Tomcats of VF-41 Black Aces aboard USS Nimitz shot down two Libyan Su-22 aircraft

In 1989, during the second Gulf of Sidra incident, two Tomcats from the VF-32 Swordsmen aboard USS John F. Kennedy shot down two Libyan MiG-23s

In total, 712 F-14 Tomcats were built. (632 for the USN and 80 for Iran)

After it was retired the US destroyed its stockpile of F-14s to avoid having parts get into the hands of Iran whose fleet is aging and decrepit. Several jets survived and are in museums today

The F-14 has been replaced in service on Navy aircraft carriers by the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

A U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A Tomcat of Fighter Squadron 33 (VF-33) "Starfighters" is launched from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) in the Atlantic Ocean on 30 September 1987. VF-33 was assigned to Carrier Air Wing 1 (CVW-1) aboard the USS America (CV-66). In 1987, CVW-1 was regularly deployed aboard the newly commissioned Theodore Roosevelt, as America was in overhaul at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Virginia (USA), Date: Between 20 November 1986 and 11 February 1988. Photo: PH1 Gerwien, U.S. Navy / Public domain.

The nickname - Tomcat

All Grumman fighters were named after cats beginning with Wildcat, Hellcat, etc.

The F-14 is named after two Admirals who championed the design after the F-111B (the Navy version of General Dynamics F-111A) failed

The nickname Tomcat was inspired by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Thomas F. Connolly Chief of Naval Operations, two of the major supporters of the F-14 within the Navy

While landing, the F-14 had a lot of parts that moved around like its flaps, rudders, brakes, spoilers and stabilizers earning it another nickname, Turkey, because of the flapping of all those parts when it landed

F-14 Tomcat logo created by Dick Milligan. Signed by Milligan. Photo: Provided by Willian Barto.

The famous Tomcat logo

Jim Rodriguez from Grummans Presentations Department went out to find the perfect cat to use as a model for their inspiration

He searched around and ended up photographing a mackerel tabby that he found in the parking lot of a Bayshore animal pound

Rodriguez went through multiple iterations but did not hit on the right look

Dick Milligan, another employee in the Grumman Presentations Department ended up drawing the final cartoon illustration that we know today

Milligan said that the idea for the logo was to find a simple tomcat with a "smart aleck" face

According to Rodriguez , the "Anytime Baby" slogan came about as a challenge to the U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagle

F-14 Tomcat with wings showing asymmetric sweep. Photo: SDASM / Public domain

Cool stuff
Prince William has granted permission for air ambulances to land and refuel at Kensington Palace during the pandemic.

The Duke of Cambridge, 37, who was made patron of the London Air Ambulance Charity in March, has offered up a patch of grassland normally used for Royal Family helicopters.

It is hoped the move will help save lives as it means paramedics will no longer have to waste time flying to Watford - the nearest fuelling base - to refuel, reports the Evening Standard.

The arrangement enables pilots to land and take off from Perks Field, a section of grassland next to the palace, which is the London home and office of Prince William and his wife Kate, 38.

The Duke of Cambridge, 37, who was made patron of the London Air Ambulance Charity in March, has offered up a patch of grassland normally used for Royal Family helicopters at Kensington Palace to the London Air Ambulance. Pictured arriving at the Royal London Hospital aboard a London Air Ambulance helicopter in January 2019

A royal source told the publication: 'Perks Field has been made available to the London Air Ambulance. The palaces are happy to help in these times.'

The Cambridges are currently on lockdown at their Norfolk residence, Anmer Hall, with their three children Prince George, six, Princess Charlotte, five, and Prince Louis, two.

The prince is a former search and rescue helicopter pilot and flew as a medic for two years with the East Anglian Air Ambulance until 2017, before stepping down to take on more royal roles on behalf of the Queen.

Prior to that he was known as Flight Lieutenant Wales when he served with the RAF in Angelsey, North Wales.

A royal source said: 'Perks Field has been made available to the London Air Ambulance. The palaces are happy to help in these times.' Pictured: the Queen Victoria statue and Kensington Palace

During his three-year tour, the duke took part in 156 search and rescue operations - during which 149 people were rescued.

Last year, the father-of-three was patron of London Air Ambulance's 30th anniversary campaign for the duration of 2019.

In January 2019, he visited the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, where he met with clinicians, paramedics, pilots and crew members and piloted the helicopter the London Air Ambulance kept there on stand-by.

In November of the same year, he attended the charity's gala and was hailed 'one of their own' by the staff in attendance.

Prince William is a former search and rescue helicopter pilot and flew as a medic for two years with the East Anglian Air Ambulance until 2017, before stepping down to take on more royal roles on behalf of the Queen. Pictured beginning his new job with the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) at Cambridge Airport on July 13, 2015

Jonathan Jenkins, the CEO of London's Air Ambulance Charity, said: 'We are honoured that The Duke of Cambridge has chosen to become Patron of London's Air Ambulance charity after getting to know us last year. The Duke truly understands our work and knows that every second counts in an emergency.'

He added: 'We know that with his help as well as the continued support of the public, our crews can reach those who need them most  serving the people of London 24 hours a day, every day of the year.'

In March it was reported that the prince was keen to return to the NHS as an air ambulance pilot to do his bit in the fight against the deadly coronavirus.

In March it was reported that the prince (pictured in 2015 while working for the East Anglian Air Ambulance) was keen to return to the NHS as an air ambulance pilot to do his bit in the fight against the deadly coronavirus

He is understood to have made the confession during a visit to a NHS call centre in Croydon, south London.

A source told The Sun: 'William has been seriously considering returning as an air ambulance pilot to help in the current pandemic.

'He knows the whole country is doing its bit and he wants to help. But it's complicated as he was originally grounded from the job so that he could become a senior working royal.

'That role is even more important now given that Charles has been ill, Harry has walked away with Meghan and Andrew has been effectively barred from public life. But William is very keen to do anything he can to help.'
(CNN)Spaniards soaked up the sun this weekend as figures released by the country's Ministry of Health on Sunday revealed just 164 new deaths from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, the lowest number in six weeks.

The number of deaths since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the country stands at 25,264, while there have been 217,466 cases.

"As sad as it is to speak about the deaths, the increase of 0.7% from the previous day is a good number," said Fernando Simon, Spain's Director for Health Emergencies.

Speaking at the government's daily coronavirus technical briefing, Simon noted a "clear decrease" in hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and just a 0.39% rise in new infections since Saturday.

Spain is gradually beginning its de-escalation from the strictest lockdown rules in Europe, with adults allowed outside for solo exercise near their homes for the first time since the confinement began on March 15.

Four islands in the Canaries and the Balearics will be the first to transition to so-called "Phase One" on Monday, which will see a further opening up of small businesses and lifting of restrictions on movement.

A woman exercises in a park in Barcelona on Saturday as people were given permission to exercise outside after seven weeks of confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A woman exercises in a park in Barcelona on Saturday as people were given permission to exercise outside after seven weeks of confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Simon said this was because the islands "have not had any new cases in many days, and very few, or no new infections," adding, "it will be a first step, but a small step."

The rest of the Spain will be in "Phase Zero" on Monday as part of the country's "Transition to

New Normal," with restricted opening of some small businesses. The transition to "Phase One" is expected to start a week later on May 11 for the majority of the country.

Runners, cyclists and walkers spilled from city sidewalks into the roads this weekend after over-14s were given permission to take walks of half a mile with one other person in the morning and evening. For the past seven weeks, adults have only able to leave their homes to visit grocery stores or pharmacies, with children allowed to take daily exercise with an adult from last week.

Simon, the country's point person for coronavirus response, cautioned that Sunday's markedly improved numbers could be influenced by delayed reporting from Spain's 17 regions during the long weekend holiday.

"The evolution [of the virus] is good, very good," he said, adding that among the seven European countries with more than 100,000 cumulative infections, Spain has the lowest numbers of new infections.

Simon said the number of cases has dropped to 54 per 100,000 residents in the last two-week period, compared to 125 per 100,000 in a two-week period a month ago.

A total of 42,111 health workers have been infected by coronavirus to date, Spain's health ministry reported Sunday, representing nearly one fifth of all cases at 19%.

Runners spilled into the roads outside Madrid's Retiro Park, which remains closed, on Saturday morning.

Runners spilled into the roads outside Madrid's Retiro Park, which remains closed, on Saturday morning.

Asked whether there is a likelihood of new recurrences of the virus, Simon said "there is a high probability of that happening. We have no guarantees, that is clear, but we have to be prepared for that situation, and we have to keep that in mind in the coming months." He stressed "we must ensure our [health] systems are not overwhelmed to the levels we reached."

Asked about the possibility of higher immunity levels in the coming months offering some protections, Simon said, "immunity will not get us out of this."

Spain has the second highest number of cases in the world after the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country's death toll is one of the highest per capita worldwide.
About 200 people have been quarantined after they came in contact with 14 coronavirus positive migrant workers who came from five states to Chhattisgarh on Sunday. Three more migrants were detected positive in Surajpur four days ago, taking the total to 17.

Out of those 14, eight tested positive for Covid-19 in Durg district, while the six others are from Kabirdham district. All are migrant workers and are admitted to the AIIMS in Raipur.

As per the officials, all these workers got to their respective districts in the last ten days by hitchhiking.

About 200 people who came into direct and indirect contact with the Covid-19 positive migrant labourers are quarantined. We are scanning all the other details of these patients and more people would be quarantined in a couple of days, Ajay Yadav, superintendent of police, told Hindustan Times.

The SP further said that the eight labourers who were found in Durg district came from Nagpur, Mumbai, Gondia, Ahmedabad and from the cities in West Bengal and Odisha.

They came from four states - including Maharashtra, Odisha , Gujarat and West Bengal - through various means in the last seven days. On May 1, samples of these labourers were collected by the health department and they tested positive on Sunday, said Durg SP.

The state health ministers office said that about 900 migrants have been tested, out which 17 are Covid-19 positive.

The district administration claimed that they are keeping a tab on movement of each and every labourer. All labourers who are coming from outside are quarantined and they are being tested, said the SP.

Chhattisgarh health department has given instructions to all collectors of 28 districts to conduct health tests on each and every migrant entering the district.

Out of the six persons who tested positive in Kabirdham district, five came from Hyderabad where they used to work as labourers. They claimed they reached Kabirdham on foot and were quarantined at the border while one person came from Nagpur, said collector Kabirdham Avanish Sharan.

He further said that for the last 15 days, anyone entering in the district was quarantined.

In these camps we were conducting random testing. All the patients who are tested positive in my district are asymptomatic, said the officer, adding that migrants are being tested continuously.

As per the data of the health department, the total number of Covid-19 cases has risen to 57 in the state till Sunday, of which, 36 were discharged following their recovery.

Out of these 56 patients, total 17 are migrant labourers who reached in the state from different states. All these migrant labourers were found positive in the last seven days, said a senior health official, adding that all are admitted in AIIMS Raipur.
Vijayawada: Defying chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddys instructions on fair tendering, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) has invited bids for a Rs 95-crore drinking water pipeline project with conditions allegedly tailor-made to favour one particular contractor.

The changes made to the tender process were allegedly aimed at hoodwinking judicial scrutiny, which was introduced by the chief minister to ensure transparency in contracts.

Inquiries by Deccan Chronicle revealed that an influential YSR Congress leader, considered a de facto authority over Visakhapatnam as well as the north coastal Andhra Pradesh, was behind the formation of a cartel to corner the tender.

As per the shadowy agreement, of all the companies which evince an interest in the bid, only three would qualify in the technical round; and thanks to the formation of a cartel, the contractor chosen by the ruling party leader would get the tender in spite of the reverse tendering process followed for the contract.

The state's Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department accorded administrative sanction for the project in December last year. The project involves laying drinking water pipelines in different areas in three packages worth Rs 45 crore, Rs 32.4 crore and Rs 39 crore.

The GVMC, however, decided to combine all packages and called for a single tender, though there was neither any contiguity of the work areas nor administrative convenience.

The value of the tender was initially estimated to be worth Rs 116 crore. But it was pegged at Rs 94.41 crore because it would have come under judicial scrutiny if the cost was over Rs 100 crore.

As part of the reforms brought about to the tendering process through GO Ms No. 67, the Jagan Mohan Reddy government had said that the restriction clause like registration in Andhra Pradesh may be relaxed. Joint venture as well as a memorandum of understanding [between civil contractors or contracting firms] with combined bid capacity may be encouraged to ensure larger participation.

However, as per the tender document of GVMC, civil contractors/contracting firms having registration with the government of Andhra Pradesh are only eligible to bid and bids from joint ventures are not allowed.

The document containing clarifications issued for pre-bid queries by GVMC is self-explanatory. A company requested the civic body to allow joint ventures as per GO Ms 67, while another company wanted it to consider companies registered anywhere in the country for better competition. But the civic body rejected both requests.

The civic body also allegedly manipulated other tender conditions.

It wanted the contractor to have experience of laying different sizes of pipes for a particular length or distance to meet the technical eligibility criteria. For all components, GVMC insisted that the agency should have the experience of laying the exact size of the pipe which is to be laid in the proposed project. But when it came to laying of 1500 mm and 1000 mm dia pipes at railway, road and canal crossings using trenchless technology, the GVMC was fine with the contractors experience of laying 800 mm dia pipe.

The GVMC was also selective in accepting requests made by contractors to relax bid conditions. Three companies asked GVMC to remove the clause of previous experience of black-top pavements to encourage more companies to participate. The GVMC agreed to all their requests.

When contacted, municipal administration and urban development minister Botcha Satyanarayana said he would bring the discrepancies, if any, to the notice of GVMC and ask them to make changes accordingly.

GVMC commissioner Srijana chose to not respond to the queries of Deccan Chronicle. So too chief engineer Venkateswara Rao.
A Galveston police officer has been indefinitely suspended after being arrested four times this year, including three times last week, on charges related to family violence and stalking accusations, police said Monday.

Justin Popovich, 38, was arrested on April 27 and 29 for allegedly violating bond conditions in a family violence case and on April 30 for stalking, police said in a news release.

The 17-year-department veteran was being held without bond Monday in the Galveston County Jail.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: Get your Houston breaking news alerts delivered to your Inbox

Popovich was placed on paid administrative leave last October after he was accused of possible criminal conduct, according to the release.

On Jan. 23, a grand jury indicted Popovich for continuous family violence, a third-degree felony, police said. Court documents show he was accused of causing bodily injury to a person he was dating by grabbing her by the neck and throwing or pushing her to the ground in separate incidents last year.

The officer was arrested Jan. 24 and placed on unpaid administrative leave; he was freed on $10,000 bond.

On April 27, Popovich was arrested again, for allegedly violating two bond conditions related to the domestic violence charge when he was found inside the house of the woman he was ordered to stay away from and in possession of two firearms, court records show. The two firearms were found in his truck parked across the street, according to court records. The offense is a Class A misdemeanor and he was released on bond that day, Galveston police Sgt. Xavier Hancock said.

On April 29, a felony arrest warrant was served on Popovich for alleged violations of court orders in a family violence case  this investigation was initiated prior to the April 27 arrest  and he was arrested again. His bond on the third-degree felony was set at $50,000 and he bonded out the same day.

On Thursday April 30, Popovich was arrested on a felony warrant and was charged with stalking in regard to the same person.

He was indefinitely suspended on Friday.

Popovich started work with the Galveston Police Department in 2003 and was most recently assigned to the Operations Bureau.

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
Mike Nesbitt has quit his role in a top Stormont committee after flouting lockdown rules by travelling to the north coast to stay with a "female friend".

The former Ulster Unionist Party leader admitted he had made some "very poor decisions" and confirmed he had been living apart from wife, Lynda Bryans, since January.

Mr Nesbitt (62) said it had been a "stressful and difficult period" and apologised over revelations he had made a number of recent trips to stay at a property in Portballintrae, Co Antrim.

Read More

Lockdown regulations, outlined by his party colleague, Health Minister Robin Swann, advise against unnecessary journeys in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly and highly contagious coronavirus, which has killed hundreds of people across Northern Ireland.

Mr Nesbitt had tweeted his support for the health service throughout the course of the Covid-19 crisis, and his Twitter profile picture has featured the NHS logo.

Read More

"This has been a stressful and difficult period for me and unfortunately I have made some very poor decisions," said Mr Nesbitt. "I am remorseful and apologise. I shall not return during lockdown."

Speaking to the Sunday World newspaper, the MLA for Strangford told how he had tendered his resignation as Deputy Chair of the Committee for The Executive Office, which advises government ministers.

His party leader, Steve Aiken, accepted his resignation and criticised the former broadcaster in a statement.

"Breaking the lockdown regulations is totally unacceptable, no matter who you are," he said. "The rules are there to help save lives. Mike has made a huge mistake and he has accepted what he did was wrong.

"I have accepted his resignation as Deputy Chair of the Committee for the Executive Office. The lockdown rules are there to help save lives and the message remains the same. Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives."

It is understood Mr Nesbitt will continue in his role as an MLA.

Confirming he was no longer based at the east Belfast home he had shared with wife of 28 years, former UTV presenter Ms Bryans, Mr Nesbitt said he had been living alone in rented accommodation since "well before lockdown".

Last Tuesday, Mr Nesbitt had told Radio Ulster's Talkback programme he had been clearing out his attic.

But he told the Sunday World: "Since late January, well before lockdown, I have been living alone in a rented room in accommodation far north of Belfast. Recently I have stayed occasionally in a three-bedroom property occupied full time by a female friend."

Since lockdown measures were announced across the UK on March 23, the message from government has advised strongly against any unnecessary travel.

Last month, Health Minister Mr Swann said: "It is essential that these tight restrictions are rigorously maintained in the weeks ahead. Quite simply, lives depend on it. So, let me appeal to everyone not to slip back into old habits. Any signs of complacency and impatience must be strongly resisted."

According to the Sunday World, Mr Nesbitt was in Portballintrae on the weekend Belfast-born Scottish Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood was caught visiting her holiday home in Earlsferry in Fife, more than an hour's drive from her main Edinburgh home. She later resigned.

The Sunday World claimed Mr Nesbitt did not return to the north coast the following weekend, but was back a week later and has returned several times since.

On Sunday night, he said he did not want to make further comment.

Earlier this year, Mr Nesbitt told of his loss after his mother, Brenda Nesbitt, known as Paddy, passed away in February, just short of her 94th birthday. "Mum was a people person and no people were more important than her family," he said last month.
As Cape May opened its beaches for walking, jogging and fishing this weekend, even statues weren't taking any chances amid the coronavirus pandemic. Read more

There was salted caramel pretzel ice cream to be had Sunday across from the newly reopened beach in Cape May. Dom and Gina DiGiacomo of Gloucester Township (and Sea Isle) werent complaining.

There was an uncrowded beach where John and Jennifer Tomac of Cherry Hill put down chairs and ate sandwiches from a cooler, felt the breeze and sun, and felt better for having done so.

Its amazing, said Kristy Pellicano, of Hudson County, as she walked the waters edge. I didnt realize how much I missed it until I was able to get back out here.

But day two of dipping New Jerseys toes into the waters of a few tentative beach and state parks reopenings began with a reproach.

Corsons Inlet, a state beach at the southern end of Ocean City, would no longer allow beachgoers, only boat-launchers, the parks department announced. A state parks employee guarded the entrance, trying to keep the gnats out of her mask.

Too many people crowded into the parking lot on Saturday, including reports of some who sneaked back over the border into adjacent Ocean City, where beaches are still closed. In fact, several state parks were declared overrun on Saturday, leading to warnings and parking lot shutdowns.

Over at Malibu Beach, a dog beach at the base of the Ocean City-Longport Bridge, enforcement was swift on Sunday. The area is a wildlife management area, not a state park, and is still closed, despite the fact that a dozen people and their dogs were happily playing Sunday morning.

It fell to New Jersey Conservation Police Officer Daniel Faith to deliver the bad news to Murphy, the yellow lab puppy, Jesse, the chocolate lab, and all the other dogs and their owners. Faith also had to replace the Closed sign, which he said had been ripped down. Bad dog owners!

Faith led a sad band of owners and dogs off the beach, then sat in his truck, flashing lights on, blocking the parking lot. Most people were OK with it, though disappointed. Nobody wanted to fail the knucklehead test, Gov. Phil Murphys name for anyone messing up a chance at a slight easing of restrictions.

It was fun while it lasted, though.

Its fantastic, said Chris Shannon, of Gloucester Township, minutes before being told to leave by Officer Faith. It was his yellow lab puppy Murphys first time on the beach, he said. As for masks, We have them if we need them, Shannon said. Seeing as its not that crowded, with social distancing, we figured we wouldnt need it.

In Cape May, where beaches were newly opened for walking and running, but not for sitting, an afternoon sun broke through a drizzly morning and brought out bike riders, dog walkers, bench chatterers, motorcycle riders, masked strollers sipping Starbucks on the promenade, and even a few ocean swimmers.

Some had masks on, some didnt. Others interviewed said they had masks with them if they thought they needed them.

 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.

On the beach, there was plenty of room to spread out. The city had announced that beaches were opening for walking and jogging only, no sitting. (The Tomacs of Cherry Hill said they were unaware of that restriction when they plopped their chairs down.)

Things were tighter in places where people parked bicycles and cars and entered and exited the beach. On Saturday, some beaches in Atlantic City and Island Beach State Park saw modest crowds, some groups of young people congregating, but mostly compliance with distancing.

On Long Beach Island, where beaches are open but only for walking and running, two teenage girls lying on the beach were struck by a Ship Bottom Beach Patrol truck Saturday afternoon. The driver, John Purdon, of Barnegat, was charged with reckless driving, according to a post from Ship Bottom police. The girls, from Berks County, Pa., were treated at Jersey Shore Medical Center and released.

Even as they played at some tentative beach rituals, it was hard for many people to totally imagine what a true summer day might look like under a continued, or modified, coronavirus shutdown. Most people interviewed said they would attempt social distancing on the beach, and hoped others would comply.

Im nervous about it," said Pellicano, who had a mask with her ready to put on if anyone came near her family as they walked near the oceans edge. Weve been really careful about the social distancing. Its a little weird to be back out. Im a little nervous we wont be able to do this on a weekend. I dont know what that will look like.

Allison Morgan, an interior designer from West Cape May, was out in a wet suit to do some ocean swimming in Cape May. But she urged continued restrictions as the true summer season approaches.

If the weather is good, and you just open the beaches, its going to be a floodgate, she said. I come early in the morning, so Im usually out of here by the time people come.

Perhaps summing up the oddness of Jerseys slight attempt at normalcy, she said her ocean swim was going to feel numb, but its going to feel good.

Out on Beach Avenue, with her ice cream cone, meanwhile, Gina DiGiacomo said that because they had a house in Sea Isle, they wouldnt have to worry about renting or otherwise figuring out how to enjoy the summer. They could just come to their house.

Whether we leave that house is another story, said Dom.

At the Cove in Cape May as the weather brightened, people parked bicycles and took their kids to (finally) play on the beach, or sat on benches to chat and wave to a few lifeguards leaving the beach in a truck.

Bob Schultz and Laura Bell sat on a prime bench at the tip of Cape May, talking to people on another bench, arguably six feet away, give or take. Schultz had left his mask on his bike, but had a towel to use as a face covering. He said hes been diligent. Still, on Sunday, he became inadvertently in the middle of a lot of people going by him.

As long as they pull together and do social distancing, he said, considering the scene around him. Thats what concerns me, if they kind of give up on that. Where else is a better place to get fresh air than a beach? But were all in it together.
Maharashtra minister Eknath Shinde



on Monday asked Thane district authorities to set up a 1000- bed hospital in the next three weeks on the lines of a facility coming up in BKC in Mumbai to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

An official said Shinde, the state's Urban Development minister and MLA from the district, chaired a review meeting after which it was decided to convert the Thane Municipal Corporation's 'Global Impact Hub' into a temporary 1000-bed hospital to treat COVID-19 patients.

Among those who attended were Mayor Naresh Mhaske, TMC commissioner Vijay Singhal, senior civic health officials and representatives of Jupiter Hospital, which will provide technical assistance to set up the facility, and Indian Medical Association.

"The temporary facility will have 500 beds with oxygen, 500 without oxygen, as well as ICU, path lab, X-ray centre, fever clinic etc," he added.

The Global Impact Hub is a proposed co-working and start-up ecosystem venture of the civic body spread over several thousand square feet.

As on Monday, Thane district has 1183 COVID-19 cases.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
All School Budgets Will Be Voted on by Mail, Delayed to June 9

School & Education

By Ls Cohen Published: May 04 2020

Governor Andrew Cuomos executive order delays all school board elections and budget voting.

Long Islanders will have a chance to vote on their next school budget but that will happen by mail, according to a statement issued on Friday by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

School board elections will also be similarly affected.

Cuomos executive order delays school board elections and budget votes statewide until June 9, 2020. According to the governors office, all qualified voters will be sent an absentee ballot with return postage paid to vote.

In his announcement Cuomo also said that local special district and village elections will be delayed until September 15.

Many school districts were in the middle of putting together their annual budgets when the Coronavirus hit and forced shutdowns. One looming question for school boards is if New York State will cut school aid, making budget season a little more uncertain.

Cuomo said the decision was based on a concern for the health of community members..

"We don't want to put New Yorkers in a situation where they are possibly putting their health at risk, so we are delaying school board elections and conducting them by mail and delaying all local special district and village elections to help limit any unnecessary exposure to this virus among both voters and poll workers, said Cuomo.
The government has not talked about charging anything from migrant labourers as 85 per cent of the transportation cost is being borne by the railways and 15 per cent by the state government, the Centre said on Monday amid a row over the national transporter allegedly charging the workers for ferrying them home during the COVID-19-induced lockdown.

The government also said the process of transporting the stranded migrant labourers was being coordinated by states "except for one or two states".

Asked if the migrant labourers were being charged for being ferried home, Joint Secretary at the health ministry Lav Agarwal said that as far as migrant labourers are concerned, the guidelines have clearly stated that under the infectious disease management, one should stay where he or she is.

"Based on the request given from states for particular cases, permission was given to run special trains. Be it the government of India or the Railways, we have not talked about charging from workers. Eighty-five per cent of the transportation cost is borne by the Railways, while the state has to bear 15 per cent of the cost," he told reporters.

"Based on the request of the states the process that started, under which limited number of stranded migrant labourers have to be transported for a particular reason, is being coordinated by the state governments, except for one or two states," Agarwal said.

The restrictions in the country after May 3 should not be seen as "lockdown 3.0" but as "easing 2.0", he said.

A political slugfest broke out on Monday over the issue of 'homecoming' of migrants with opposition Congress offering to pay for the travel of the stranded workers, and the BJP hitting back, saying the railwayswas already bearing 85 per cent of the travel cost and only 15 per cent was being taken from the state governments..

At the daily briefing on the COVID-19 situation, he also said that in the last 24 hours, 1,074 COVID-19 patients have recovered, the highest number of recoveries in one day.

The recovery rate stands at 27.52 per cent with 11,706 COVID-19 patients cured till now, he said.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 1,389 and the total number of cases climbed to 42,836 in the country on Monday, registering an increase of 83 deaths and a record jump of 2,573 cases in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 29,685, while 11,761 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said.

However, according to a PTI tally based on reports from the states, the total number of cases was 43,658 and the death toll stood at 1,413 on Monday.

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.

Agarwal said that the COVID-19 curve is relatively flat as of now and it was not right to talk in terms of when the peak would come.

"If we collectively work then the peak might not ever come, while if we fail in any way we might experience a spike in cases," he said.

Amitabh Kant, Chairman of the Empowered Group dealing with civil society, NGOs, industries and international partners, said in 112 aspirational districts, "we worked with the collectors and in these 112 districts only 610 cases have been reported which is two per cent of the national level infection".

In these 112 districts, 22 per cent of India's population resides, he said.

In a few districts like Baramulla, Nuh, Ranchi, Kupwara and Jaisalmer more than 30 cases have been reported, while in the rest of the places very few cases are there, Kant, who is also the CEO of NITI Aayog, said.

Kant said the telemedicine service is now available on the Aarogya Setu application.

He said 90 million people have installed the Aarogya Setu app till now.

"Arogya Setu Mitra which has telemedicine features is also there," he said.

The mobile application helps users identify whether they are at risk of the COVID-19 infection. It also provides people with important information, including ways to avoid coronavirus infection and its symptoms.

"The application enables people to assess the risk of exposure to COVID-19 infection based on their interaction with others, using cutting edge bluetooth technology, and artificial Intelligence enabled algorithms," he said.

Kant said the Empowered Group 6 has mobilised over 92,000 NGOs and CSOs and appealed them to assist state governments and district administrations in identifying hotspots and delivering essential services to the vulnerable including the homeless, daily wagers and migrant workers.

Agarwal said the outcome ratio of COVID-19 -- the ratio of recoveries and deaths of closed cases -- was recorded at 90:10.

"The outcome ratio on April 17 was 80:20 which is now 90:10 which can be seen as an improvement," Agarwal said.

He also assured that there is no shortage of testing kits.

"On Sunday, 57,474 tests were conducted. We have progressively increased our testing capacity as per need," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As the world reels under the ongoing pandemic situation, technology has once again come to the rescue. We have seen a fair share of contact tracing apps designed to combat coronavirus and this includes the exposure notifications developed by Apple and Google. A newly developed wireless sensor sticks to your skin like a band-aid and checks the onslaught of COVID-19. The wireless sensor is capable of monitoring signs of coronavirus and the stage of the illness.

The wireless sensor is developed by Northwestern University and is using algorithms created by Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. The sensor is flexible, resembles a band-aid, and needs to be placed in a strategic position. Strategic because this is the point where your throat and chest converge and is perfect to detect coughing or breathing issues.

The most recent studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggest that the earliest signs of a COVID-19 infection are fever, coughing, and difficulty in breathing. Our device sits at the perfect location on the body  the suprasternal notch  to measure respiratory rate, sounds and activity because thats where airflow occurs near the surface of the skin

Furthermore, the sensor automatically syncs to an iPad while it is charged and the data can be accessed via a companion app.

Once a day you peel it off and place it on a wireless charger, which triggers the patch to sync its stored data with a nearby iPad. From there the data is uploaded to a HIPAA-compliant cloud where a proprietary AI algorithm examines it for anomalies related to COVID-19. The device has no external ports for power or connectivity, making it easier to disinfect.

Thats not all, the sensor also detects heart rate and temperature. Interestingly the setup uses digital filtering algorithms that are trained to look for certain signs in the data. As far as reliability is concerned, the sensor is already tested on twenty-five test subjects across two weeks. The researchers claim that 1,500 hours of history is a good start.

Our Take

Early diagnosis of COVID-19 is very important. It not only helps the patients recover faster but also helps stop the virus from spreading further. The wireless sensor might not be entirely accurate. However, it will still serve the purpose of diagnosing symptoms that are similar to coronavirus. In other words, continuous patient monitoring is key.

[via Northwestern
A man who left his job as an insurance broker to train camels and explore Australia with the animals was rescued at Mount Buller on Sunday after one of his five camels fell off a ridge, pulling the others with it.

Perth man John Arthur Elliott, who since 2018 has been travelling the country with his animal crew, which also includes a dog, sent an emergency beacon to authorities on Sunday afternoon when one camel became stuck down an embankment.

Mr Elliott gave a brief update on his Instagram on Monday evening and said he would post something more substantial on the incident when he had better phone reception.

"We made it through with minor injuries," he said. "I am a bit sore, a bit bruised [and] busted up. The camels are mainly OK."
Shatrughan Sinha Remembers His Naseeb Co-Star

The Kalicharan actor recalled Rishi Kapoor as the most charismatic actor of his time. "After Rajendra Kumar and Rajesh Khanna, he became the poster boy of romance with his style," he told the leading daily.

'Baap Baap Hota Hai', Says Shatrughan Sinha

Further, speaking about why Rishi's son Ranbir cannot be compared to the late actor, he said, "Ranbir has big shoes to fill because baap baap hota hai. One can't compare the two at the moment." However, he added that Ranbir is a worthy son of a worthy father and a brilliant actor.

On Irrfan Khan's Death

Shotgun Sinha also spoke about Irrfan Khan's death and told the tabloid, "Irrfan was a combination of struggle, determination and conviction. He made his dream come true through hard work. I watched Hindi Medium and Angrezi Medium and his acting will be a textbook experience for younger generation of actors."

Shatrughan Sinha Was Last Seen In A Cameo In Yamla Pagla Deewana: Phir Se

"I can't say no to Dharamji, he is a senior and an elder brother. I did that role out of respect for him. I was also supposed to make an appearance in a song, which featured the Deols with Salman Khan and Sonakshi. Unfortunately, I was in London and couldn't be a part of the song," he told Mumbai Mirror.
A former Northern California business executive and his companies will pay $1.8million to settle a lawsuit accusing him of sexually harassing a female employee.

Lee William 'Bill' McNutt - who co-founded the firms Silicon Valley Growth Syndicate and International Direct Mail Consultants - has also been prohibited from hiring students from the Southern Methodist University in Texas, as part of the agreement.

The state Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleged in its lawsuit from last July that McNutt took the woman, the companies' vice president for operations and communications, on trips in 2017 where he touched her under her clothes without her consent.

According to the lawsuit, McNutt, 65, took the woman to a nudist beach without notice and removed his bathing suit.

California officials announced the settlement last week with Lee William 'Bill' McNutt (pictured) and the firms Silicon Valley Growth Syndicate and International Direct Mail Consultants

Two other men were named in the lawsuit, accused of not doing anything to stop McNutt.

In a text message from court records, McNutt allegedly sent an image and a video to another male who wrote back: 'She is hot. Need to work it with her. Is it OK if I fly her back out here for Labor Day weekend?'

According to the lawsuit, McNutt replied: 'Yes  offer to fly her out to CA.'

During a mandatory business trip to La Jolla, near San Diego in April 2017, he allegedly disrobed in their accommodation and gave her massage while sliding his hands beneath her shorts.

The woman said that when he told her it was her turn to give him a massage she went to her room in the Airbnb property, 'locked the door, and pushed the night table in front of the door'.

The plaintiff claimed that she discovered close-up images of herself in a bathing suit on his phone but she was unaware the images were being captured. She claimed she saw similar images of other women that were taken from angles that suggest they were captured without consent.

The lawsuit's Jane Doe also details turning down the offer of joining McNutt on a January 2018 business trip to Florida after he allegedly said she could only come if she shared a one-bedroom place with him.

The woman's lawyer sent McNutt a complaint in March 2018 alleging violations of California laws and suggesting she be put on paid leave.

Instead she was dismissed in June 2018, according to court papers.

In a text message from court records, McNutt allegedly sent an image and a video to another male who wrote back: 'She is hot. Need to work it with her. Is it OK if I fly her back out here for Labor Day weekend?'

David Oates, a spokesman for McNutt, told the San Francisco Chronicle that McNutt and his companies consider the California lawsuit 'baseless.'

'However, in light of the current gender discrimination environment, they ultimately opted to spare their family and friends from the ongoing stress that defending the suit brought and agreed to this settlement,' Oates said.

In addition to the $1.8million, the settlement prohibits McNutt from hiring students from Southern Methodist University, where the alleged victim had been a student, was hired as an intern in January 2017 and had a full-time job as Chief of Operations by June 2017.

The accuser said he approached her at children's soccer games and offered her work as a dog walker and modeling.

She was 21 at the time and was promoted to VP by September 2019.

McNutt also attended SMU, and the Dallas Morning News has reported that the university barred him from campus in 2009 after complaints from female students.

At the time a report said there were 'multiple student complaints against Mr. McNutt alleging behavior that violates University policy, such as offering alcohol to minors'.

Then in 2010 he was arrested for trespassing on the grounds of the school.

The settlement prohibits McNutt from hiring students from Southern Methodist University, where the alleged victim had been a student where he also attended. In 2010 he was arrested for trespassing on the grounds of the school

He ended up resigning from his position as Texas Commission on the Arts chair. McNutt was also a deacon at Highland Park Presbyterian Church and resigned.

The lawsuit also references a July 2007 email from Texas-based investment group Transition Capital Partners, where McNutt was a partner, with the subject line Problems must stop.

The firms president wrote to McNutt: 'I am concerned about your involvement with our interns' after one complained she felt uncomfortable at his house.

The president told McNutt 'I have heard a similar report' and said there was to be 'no further involvement with any TCPIP employees at your house or anywhere else without permission from me or Harold'.

McNutt lives in Dallas, and the Silicon Valley Growth Syndicate, formerly based in San Francisco, is now located in Little Rock, Arkansas, where it invests in startup businesses. The company moved locations March 2019.

According to his LinkedIn profile, from 1989 to 1990 he worked under the Bush Administration as a Political Appointee who 'created the first in-depth Department of Labor study of the 1992 European Single Integrated Market and its effect on the US'.
Today and as sea level continues to rise in the future, extreme high tide events cause Honolulu, Hawai'i's primary urban center to experience flooding not just from water washing directly over the shoreline, but also from groundwater inundation as the water table is pushed toward the surface, and reverse flow through the municipal drainage system. In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, found in the next few decades, sea level rise will likely cause large and increasing percentages of land area to be impacted simultaneously by the three flood mechanisms.

Further, they found that groundwater inundation represents the most extensive flood source, while direct marine inundation represents the least extensive--only three percent of the predicted flooding.

"This is significant because many people think that sea level rise can be mitigated by seawalls," said Shellie Habel, lead author of the study and coastal geologist and extension agent with the University of Hawai'i Sea Grant College Program and UH Coastal Geology Group. "But a seawall will not stop groundwater inundation. Our results highlight the need to readjust our thinking regarding the flooding that accompanies sea level rise. We want to be sure to implement flood management strategies that will be effective at mitigating flooding."

This requires that all types of flooding be thoroughly assessed.

Identifying vulnerable locations, infrastructure

Habel and co-authors developed a method that identified the various flood types and their extent. Flood maps were produced by simulating flood locations and depths generated by each of the three mechanisms and by overlapping the simulations to identify areas vulnerable to combined flooding over the coming decades.

Colleagues at the UH Sea Level Center then developed a statistical model that considers predicted tide and projected magnitudes of local sea level rise to establish the frequency with which flooding is likely to occur in given locations.

With these flood simulations, the research team assessed critical infrastructure that is likely to fail and cause direct impacts, such as dangerous or impassable roadways, storm drainage inlets likely to fail or act as pathways for additional flooding, and non-functional or flooded cesspools.

The impacts were found to be widespread among Honolulu's heavily densified primary urban center.

Planning for the future

"Because each type of flooding infiltrates through unique pathways, they will require unique engineering strategies to manage," said Habel. "The design of flood management strategies required to mitigate these impacts necessitate site-specific consideration of each mechanism to avoid being ineffective."

In partnership with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, the University of Hawai'i, Hawai'i Sea Grant, and other stakeholders, the authors plan to develop a real-time coastal groundwater monitoring network. Data collected through the monitoring network will help improve the capabilities of the modeling such as the ability to incorporate the effects of extreme rainfall. The network would also provide information that could inform the development of short, mid and long-term flood management strategies.

###








Web Toolbar by Wibiya

Residents of Guayaquil, Ecuadors largest city and home of the countrys 5G towers are falling dead on this street as shown on this video on Infowars.

Dead bodies wrapped in plastic, litter the streets, and authorities appear too overwhelmed by the death rates to be able to effectively remove dead bodies on the streets and even from homes.

Sebastian Barahona, the coordinator of the National Federation of Funeral Homes, quoted on Reuters, said Guayaquil was seeing around five times more deaths in March than a normal month.

The response capacity is not prepared for what this emergency requires, Barahona said.

Mike Adams, owner of Natural News insists that the recent deaths in Guayaquil are directly connected with the presence of 5G towers in the city. According to Adams speaking in an interview with Alex Jones on Infowars, Wuhan was the first city to install the 5G technology and look what happened there.

As soon as Huwei-owned 5G towers were activated in Guayaquil there was instant death in the city including signs of instant death on citys beaches as if they were struck down by some kind of death ray from the skies.

Adams likens the one-going pandemic to the ancient Roman Empire who accidentally poisoned citizens by having water pipes lined with lead which they thought was safe and embraced as a part of the citys infrastructure. Now the world has 5G towers that are blasting citizens with electromagnetic pollution. People are told that its safe but evidence suggests that its not.

This doesnt mean people cant get infected with the coronavirus without being exposed to the 5G technology. It just means that its more difficult to get infected with the virus without the electroporation effect of 5G in your body.

Adams describes the duo of 5G technologies and the coronavirus as a binary weapon system that combines these two factors making it extra dangerous and extra real. This doesn't mean that the virus isn't real, in itself; however, it is potentiated by this voltage exposure that permeates your skin.

The 5G works by sending a beam to track you, this beam follows you, goes to your phone and penetrates your body. Its not an Omni signal thats being dialled everywhere, it goes with you, making you more susceptible to diseases, even viruses like COVID-19 which should be more accurately referred to as '5G autoimmune disease'.

Adams mentions that rather than uninstall 5G towers, the government is focused on carrying out antibody tests on people who have survived the virus, trying to find a vaccine. He describes this as a way for the government to secretly track and steal citizen's DNA without permission. The same goes for the nasal swabs for testing for the coronavirus which is a deep cavity swab that extracts DNA. This is a way for the government to create a DNA database of everybody without their consent.

Adams advocates that rather than position vaccines as the hero, the government should promote the wearing of masks in public places, consumption of zinc, vitamin C and D to reduce infections by 99%. He describes Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Faucis plan to vaccinate America is a suicide plan stating that malnutrition is what kills people. If citizens kept eating all vital vitamins and minerals, especially zinc, vitamin C & D then theres a better chance of defeating the virus.
The Odisha government on Monday said 8,830 Odia people have so far returned from other states while around 4.90 lakh more are expected to arrive within a month.

This was stated by the state government's COVID-19 spokesperson, Subroto Bagchi, here during a daily briefing.

While 6,381 people have returned to the state in buses, 2,409 people arrived in trains and the remaining 39 used other means, he said.

"We are expecting the return of 4.90 lakh more people as they have already registered their names in the government portal and are keen to return due to the nationwide lockdown," Bagchi said, adding it was noticed that the behaviour of some of the returnees was irking the local people.

Citing an instance, he said while coming to Ganjam in a bus, some people stopped near Boudh and behaved irrationally, prompting the locals to lodge a complaint with the police.

Bagchi also cited quarantine norm violations by some of those who have already reached the state.

"Do not lose sympathy of 4.45 crore people of Odisha who have accepted the returnees as their own people," he said.

"The rest of the Odisha may lose sympathy on all the returnees due to carelessness and indiscipline by a handful of people out of the 8,830 returnees," the official said, adding that reports have been received on some returnees escaping from quarantine centres.

"By escaping from the quarantine centres, you are not only putting yourself and your family in danger, but also the community," he said, adding that the people had agreed to abide by the quarantine norms before returning.

"Now, after arrival in the state, some people are violating the norms and therefore may face stringent action from the government," Bagchi cautioned, adding that all people, including returnees, need to make certain sacrifices in order to win the fight against COVID-19.

He said thousands of people, including government officials, volunteers, panchayat functionaries and others, were working day in and day out for 45 days to protect the state from the pandemic. Therefore, migrant workers who return to the state should also get ready to sacrifice to a certain extent and cooperate with the administration, he added.

He said Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has advised the Odia people returning from other states to undergo quarantine and strictly follow all protocols and advisories issued by the government.

"In case of any violation, the sarpanch shall bring the same to the notice of the administration. Stringent action will be taken against the violators," Patnaik has said.

Meanwhile, Union Petroleum and Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has also appealed to the people returning to the state to cooperate with the administration in its fight against the pandemic.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A political slugfest broke out on Monday over the issue of 'homecoming' of migrants with the Congress offering to pay for the travel of the stranded workers, and the BJP hitting back, saying the railwayswas already bearing 85 percent of the travel cost and only 15 percent was being taken from the state governments.

Apart from the Congress, other opposition parties, including theCPI-M, the National Conference and the Loktantrik Janata Dal have criticised the Centre amidst reports that migrant workers are not able to afford to travel back to their native places.

Accusing the Central government and the Indian Railways of ignoring the demands made by the Congress for ensuring safe and free travel of migrant workers and labourers to their homes, party president Sonia Gandhi on Monday announced that party's state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrants stranded at various places across the country as its "humble contribution" to show solidarity with these workers, who have contributed to nation's development.

Other Congress leaders also joined Gandhi to attack the government, saying it brought back those stranded abroad free of cost while making these poor people pay. They also demanded that the 'PMCares Fund' should be used for migrants.

"On one hand, the railways is charging ticket fares from labourers stranded in other states while on the other, the railway ministry is donating Rs 151 crore to the PM-Cares Fund. Just resolve this puzzle," Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

The BJP hit back saying the railways has subsidised 85 percent of ticket fare for Shramik special trains being run to ferry migrant workers and the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent.

"Rahul Gandhiji, I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that 'no tickets to be sold at any station'. The railways has subsidised 85 percent and state governments have to pay 15 percent. The state government can pay for the tickets (Madhya Pradesh's BJP govt is paying). Ask Congress state governments to follow suit," Patra tweeted.

The BJP leader further clarified that for each 'Shramik Express', about 1,200 tickets are given by the railways to the state government concerned.

The state governments are supposed to clear the ticket price and hand over the tickets to workers, he added.

There was no official reaction from the Indian Railways on the issue, while, off the record, sources dubbed the controversy as "political".

Criticising the government,CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury on Sunday said,"as the name shows, the new fund is exclusively for those whom Modi cares for. The poor and the vulnerable, the value creators, he clearly doesn't care for. Callous. Cruel. Criminal," he tweeted along with a cartoon showing a poor migrant saying they were also NRIs (not required Indians)."



"Good that the Centre paid for the return of Indians stranded abroad. Why does it not also pay for the return of our hungry and miserable workers within India? It is criminal to charge them. Where are the thousands of crores being collected by Modi going," he tweeted on Sunday.

NC president Omar Abdullah also tweeted on Sunday, "If you are stuck abroad during this COVID crisis this government will fly you back for free but if you are a migrant worker stranded in another state be prepared to cough up the cost of travel (with social distancing cost added). Where did 'PM Cares' go?".

Opposition leader Sharad Yadav said migrant workers should not have been asked to pay the train fare in this hour of crisis for them.

All sections of society are paying a price for the government's apathy, he said, adding this would not have happened if the lockdown had been imposed in a planned manner.

Yadav also urged the railways to pay the fare for migrants, saying the revenue of states has already fallen down a lot.

The railways rolled out the Shramikspecial trains on Friday to ferry migrants, stranded due to the COVID-19 lockdown, to their respective states.

The government came in for criticism after a circular from the railways said,"the local state government authority shall handover tickets to passengers cleared by them and collect the ticket fare and hand over the total amount to the railways."



Terming the Congress president's decision as "historic", AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to shed his "false prestige" and come forward in paying for travel of migrants seeking to return home.

They alleged that the Congress had taken the decision after many workers and labourers did not have the money to pay for their tickets.

Congress leader P Chidambaram said the party's decision puts the government to shame.

On BJP's criticism, Venugopal said, "we do not want to play in this. This is not the time to play Those who are having no money are unable to travel in these trains, that is why our Karnataka PCC has paid for them. This is there in Kerala, where migrants do not have money to pay."



"Even today we call upon the PM to leave the false prestige and utilise thousands of crores in COVID-19 PM Care Fund. We urge Railways to withdraw its order issued earlier to ensure travel of every migrant labour and workers is made free," he said.

Meanwhile, in a tweetBJP MP Subramanian Swamy claimed that migrant workers returning home will not have to pay money as the rail travel will be free from now onwards.

"Talked to Piyush Goel's office. The government will pay 85 percent and the state government 15 percent. Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement," Swamy tweeted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Total recoveries from coronavirus infection in Lagos State now stand at 261 as 14 more patients were discharged on Monday.

The states Ministry of Health gave the update on Monday, saying the patients were discharged following their full recovery from the infection.

The patients tested negative to COVID-19 two consecutive times, and are no longer contagious.

14 more COVID19Lagos patients; 6 females & 8 males, all Nigerians were today discharged from our Isolation facilities at Yaba, Onikan, LUTH & Eti-Osa (Landmark) to reunite with the society.

The patients; 7 from Onikan, 2 from IDH, Yaba, 4 from LUTH & 1 from the Eti-Osa (LandMark)Isolation Centres have fully recovered & tested negative twice consecutively to COVID19.

With this, the number of patients successfully managed & discharged in Lagos is now 261, the ministry wrote

The state recorded more than 100 recoveries within one week.

READ ALSO:

As of Monday, Lagos has 1,123 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 814 active cases, 261 discharged cases, two evacuated cases, 16 transferred cases and 30 deaths.

The ministry urged Lagos residents to keep practising good personal hygiene, adequate washing of hands and safe physical distance.

Residents with COVID-19 complaints are encouraged to inform the state through the toll-free line; 08000CORONA.
Buffett's big investment dump. Source: Getty

Billionaire investing mogul and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett has dumped all four major US airlines after purchasing a 10 per cent stake in them prior to coronavirus.

During a virtual address to shareholders on Sunday, Buffett revealed that the company had sold its entire interest in the airlines, worth a minimum of US$4 billion (AU$6.3 billion), and called the companys initial investment an understandable mistake.

The world changed for airlines, Buffett said.

It turned out that I was wrong about that business because of something that was not in any way the fault of four excellent CEOs, Buffett said of the impact of coronavirus on air travel.

Buffett added that the companies were well-managed, but the future of airlines was less clear.

I dont know whether two or three years from now that as many people will fly as many passenger miles as they did last year, the CEO told shareholders.

They may and they may not. But the future is much less clear to me, on how the businesses will turn out, through absolutely no fault of their airlines themselves.

The airlines will need to borrow billions to recover, Buffett added.

The four companies are each going to borrow an average of at least US$10 or US$12 billion each, he said. Well, youre going to have to pay that back at some stage  youre $10 or $12 billion worse off if that happens.

And if business returns at less than 100 per cent capacity, airlines will need to deal with the excess of aircrafts.

Youve got too many planes, and it didnt look that way when the orders were placed a few months ago when arrangements were made, Buffett said.

I wish them well.

Berkshire Hathaway took a US$50 billion (AU$77 billion) hit this quarter, with Buffett indicating coronavirus had a large role to play.

The virus will cost Berkshire money, he said.

Story continues

However, Berkshire managers told shareholders this quarterly result was meaningless.

The amount of investment gains/losses in any given quarter is usually meaningless and delivers figures for net earnings per share that can be extremely misleading to investors who have little or no knowledge of accounting rules, they stated.

Whats next for stocks?

The billionaire, dubbed the Oracle of Omaha, doesnt know whats in store for the global share market.

I dont know  and perhaps with a bias  I dont believe anybody knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, Buffett said.

I know America is going to move forward over time, he said. But, I dont know for sure  and we learned this on September 10th, 2001, and we learned this a few months ago in terms of the virus  anything can happen in terms of markets.

Buffett told investors to never, ever bet against America, as historically the nation has persisted through difficult times.

However, he acknowledged the US was far from where it should be, and advised shareholders to be cautious.

When I bought my first stock when I was eleven, I caught a huge, huge, huge tailwind in America, he said. But, it wasnt going to blow in my direction every single day, and you dont know whats going to happen tomorrow.

Yahoo Finance Breakfast Club.

Follow Yahoo Finance Australia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
A pregnant New York City woman died during childbirth just four days after she threatened to expose the 'incompetent doctors' at a local hospital for alleged mistreatment.

Amber Rose Isaac, 26, first tweeted her outrage against medical staff at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx on April 17.

'Cant wait to write a tell all about my experience during my last two trimesters dealing with incompetent doctors at Montefiore,' she wrote.

That would be Isaac's final tweet before she unexpectedly died after a caesarean section gone wrong just after midnight on April 21.

She never got a chance to meet her newborn son, Elias, before she bled out after her platelet levels - which help blood clot - dropped dangerously low.

She died alone, away from family and her partner, as hospitals in New York have restricted access amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Amber Rose Isaac (pictured) expressed fears that she would die during childbirth before she passed away on April 21

In her last tweet, she lambasted the 'incompetent doctors' who allegedly mistreated her throughout her last two trimesters

Montefiore Medical Center is the same hospital her mother worked at for 25 years, but Isaac switched facilities after she felt continuously slighted and mishandled by staff at her original branch.

Although her allegations against Montefiore Medical Center have recently surfaced, Isaac had feared for months that she wouldn't make it out of childbirth.

She told her partner and father of their child, Bruce McIntyre III, that she had a dream that she didn't survive surgery.

'She had mentioned to me that she feels like shes not gonna make it,' McIntyre, 28, told The City.

'And I would try my best to cheer her up. She would tell her mom shes really glad the baby is healthy, but shes scared that shes not gonna make it.'

A mother's pregnancy is supposed to be a beautiful time, by McIntyre said Isaac's was marred by negligent, unprofessional and rude hospital staff.

Staff allegedly ignored Isaac - a black, Puerto Rican woman - even as she contacted them in her final weeks.

'All of this was 100% preventable. All of it,' he toldThe Guardian.

'I feel like she would have got more attentive care if she was a white mother, to be completely honest with you.'

Bruce McIntyre III (irght) said Amber Rose Isaac's (left) death was '100% preventable'

Isaac (pictured) switched facilities at Montefiore Medical Center after she felt mistreated by staff

When Isaac learned she was pregnant with her first child last year, she spent several months diving into information about maternal death.

While maternal mortality rates in the US continues to lag behind other. similarly wealth countries, black mothers have taken the brunt of mistreatment.

WHAT IS HELLP SYNDROME? HELLP syndrome is a life-threatening pregnancy complication that causes the breakdown of red blood cells, elevated liver enzymes and a low platelet count. The most common symptoms of HELLP syndrome include severe headaches, nausea, upper right abdominal pain or tenderness, fatigue, swelling and high blood pressure. HELLP syndrome can be difficult to diagnose and its symptoms are sometimes mistaken for gastritis, flu, acute hepatitis or gall bladder disease. HELLP syndrome affects less than 1 per cent of pregnancies and rarely occurs before the third trimester. It may also occur within 48 hours of delivery. Delivery of the baby is the best way to stop this condition from causing any serious complications for mother and baby. Some experts believe HELLP syndrome is related to pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy complication which causes high blood pressure. Advertisement

Black mothers died at a rate three to four times high than their white counterparts.

And fears over Isaac's safety were exacerbated when her platelet levels began falling in February.

Isaac, who at the time was seven months pregnant, 'knew she needed to be seen' but did not receive any in-person treatment from doctors throughout part of February and all of March.

Instead, she was redirected to video meetings online in place of office visits as the COVID-19 pandemic savaged New York City.

McIntyre, who often drove Isaac to her appointments, wasn't sure if she underwent any bloodwork in March.

After Isaac sent follow up calls and emails asking to see a doctor, she finally secured an in-person appointment in April.

At least five weeks had passed since she first noticed issues with her platelets and had reached out to medical staff.

On April 17, Isaac was admitted into Montefiore Medical Center after learning her platelet count had dropped once again.

She sent out the heartbreaking tweet aimed at hospital staff that morning.

On April 20, Isaac discovered that day she developed HELLP syndrome, a serious condition of high blood pressure and low platelet count that can complicate pregnancy.

Pictured: Montefiore Medical Center where Isaac died on April 21 after giving birth to her first son

McIntyre (left) said doctors didn't allow him inside the delivery room during Isaac's child birth because they administered general anesthesia

Doctors induced labor for Isaac that same day.

McIntyre said he was barred from being by her side during the C-section because doctors had administered general anesthetic.

Some hospitals only allow medical staff in delivery rooms where general anesthetic is used.

'They wouldnt let me hug or kiss her because I had masks and stuff on. So I told her I loved her and we were gonna get through this,' he said.

Nearby, McIntyre heard the sound of PA announcements calling doctors to report to the delivery room and staffers dashing around.

'As soon as they took the baby out, her heart stopped,' said McIntyre. 'And she bled out. Her platelet levels were so low that her blood was like water, so nothing was clotting.'

Baby Elias, who was born more than a month early, is doing well but still in the hospital.

'Its very hard being in this home and imagining her here with us,' said McIntyre.

'She never got to even meet him. She never got to see him. And she was just so thrilled about having him.'

The family created a GoFundMe to cover the expenses for Elias's care and Isaac's funeral.

McIntyre created the campaign 'JusticeforAmber' to bring awareness to maternal deaths

McIntyre said he and Isaac eventually wanted to open a daycare to serve low income families with limited options and income.

Isaac, who was studying business development at Concordia College, hoped to graduate in May.

'She was treated very unfairly and she died because of that,' he said.

The unfair treatment Isaac reportedly endured is indicative of a larger problem regarding black women and the health care system.

'In New York City, more than 3,000 women experience a life-threatening event during childbirth, and about 30 women die from a pregnancy-related cause each year,' said a 2018 press release from Mayor Bill de Blasio's office.

JeanBaptiste: 'Theres always been so much to say about birthing while black, and then now youve got the whole birthing while black during a pandemic scenario that is unfolding'

'Preliminary data shows that in New York City, Black non-Hispanic women are eight times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than White women, much higher than the national average.'

Evelyn Alvarez, a Brooklyn resident and co-founder of Black Magic Doulas, told The City that the disparities black women face in public health appeared long before the current pandemic.

'Being a person walking into the hospital, you should be guaranteed a certain standard of care,' she said.

'You should feel comfortable with being able to feel like "I have confidence that my provider is caring for me optimally".'

But that is not always the case, experts said.

'Theres always been so much to say about birthing while black, and then now youve got the whole birthing while black during a pandemic scenario that is unfolding,' Nicole JeanBaptiste, lead doula and founder of Sese Doula Services, said.

'COVID-19 is absolutely exacerbating  and going to be exacerbating  this crisis,' she added.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists told doctors to 'be aware of the unintended effect they may have, including limiting access to routine prenatal care.'

Medical staff was advised to 'maximize the use of telehealth across as many aspects of prenatal care as possible.'

Dr. Aimee Mankodi, a maternal care director at the Institute for Family Health, told The City that telehealth was a 'wonderful option.'

But she added: 'When you have high-risk pregnancies, you have to double down and try to really move fast, especially during COVID.'

'You cant sit on a patient, because of all the distractions and everything thats happening.'

On April 20 - the day Elias was born - New York state announced a COVID-19 maternity task force was coming together.

This pandemic strained our hospital system in a way no one could have ever imagined,' a statement read.

The task force will figure out how to launch centers dedicated to childbirth as an alternative to delivering in overwhelmed hospitals.
US Navy destroyers USS Donald Cook and USS Porter conduct a connected replenishment with the USNS Supply to receive fuel and stores in the North Atlantic, April 28, 2020.

US Navy

US and British warships conducted operations in the Barents Sea on Monday in what the US Navy said was the first trip by its surface ships to the waters since the mid-1980s.

The Barents is above northwest Russia, and the US-British operation there comes amid heightened tensions between NATO and Russia.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US and British navies sailed into the Barents Sea to conduct maritime security operations in the Arctic Ocean, US Naval Forces Europe-Africa said in a release Monday.

US Navy destroyers USS Donald Cook, USS Porter, and USS Roosevelt and the British Royal Navy frigate HMS Kent, supported by fast combat support ship USNS Supply, sailed into the Barents "to assert freedom of navigation and demonstrate seamless integration among allies," the release said.

The Barents, part of the Arctic Ocean, is north of Norway and Russia. Russia's Northern Fleet, which maintains the country's naval strategic nuclear forces, has its headquarters at Severomorsk on the Barents.

The US Navy said its surface ships haven't operated in the Barents since the mid-1980s and that it notified Russia's Ministry of Defense of the operation on May 1 "to avoid misperceptions, reduce risk, and prevent inadvertent escalation."

Severomorsk is the headquarters for the Russian navy's Northern Fleet.

Google Maps

Russia said at noon in Moscow on Monday that its Northern Fleet had begun monitoring the US and British ships, which it said entered the Barents Sea at 7 a.m. in Moscow, or midnight on the US East Coast.

The exercise comes amid heightened tensions with Russia after its 2014 seizure of Crimea and intervention in Ukraine.

"In these challenging times, it is more important than ever that we maintain our steady drumbeat of operations across the European theater, while taking prudent measures to protect the health of our force," Vice Adm. Lisa Franchetti, head of the US Navy's 6th Fleet, said in the release.

On May 1, HMS Kent partnered with USS Donald Cook, USS Porter, USNS Supply, a US Navy submarine, and a US Navy P8-A Poseidon aircraft for an anti-submarine exercise above the Arctic Circle in the Norwegian Sea.

Story continues

Some 1,200 US and British sailors took part in the exercise, testing "the crews in high-end training while enhancing regional stability and security," US Naval Forces Europe-Africa said in a release.

"The challenges of working in this extreme environment should not be underestimated, but HMS Kent's presence here continues to demonstrate the UK's commitment to the North Atlantic and high north," Cmdr. Matt Sykes, commanding officer of the Kent, said in a release.

HMS Kent's Merlin helicopter takes part in a small arms firing at sea during maritime security patrols in British waters, April 2020.

British Royal Navy

The Arctic has been an area of renewed attention for NATO amid tensions with Russia. The US Navy has been spending more time there to gain experience with the unique challenges it poses to naval operations.

NATO conducted exercise Trident Juncture, the first of its kind in decades, in late 2018. Focusing on Arctic warfare, Trident Juncture saw the first US aircraft carrier to sail above the Arctic Circle since the 1990s.

Other US Navy ships, including USS Donald Cook, have sailed into the Arctic since, and in September, the Navy's recently reestablished 2nd Fleet sent personnel to Iceland to practice command and control of warships in the Arctic.

The Norwegian Sea has particular strategic importance, as Russian ships sailing from the Arctic to the Atlantic would pass through it and what's known as the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap, which NATO monitored during the Cold War.

"Allied and partner navies must remain proficient in all operating environments to ensure the continued security and access to the seas," the Navy said in the release announcing the Barents Sea exercise.

'They're not as good as us'

British Royal Navy frigate HMS Kent takes part in a replenishment-at-sea with Supply-class fast combat support ship USNS Supply during exercise with the US Navy in the Arctic Circle, May 2020.

Dan Rosenbaum/HMS Kent

Russia has spent more than a decade rebuilding its navy, which deteriorated after the Cold War, though it remains smaller than its Soviet predecessor.

Adm. James Foggo, head of US Naval Forces Europe-Africa, has warned repeatedly about Russia's increasing naval activity, describing rising tension at sea as the "fourth battle of the Atlantic," after the world wars and the Cold War.

Foggo, a submarine officer by training, has pointed to increasingly sophisticated Russian submarines as a concern, citing their new ability to launch missiles as a potential threat to European cities and infrastructure.

"The Russians are operating first-rate submarines, but let there be no doubt ... we still have the competitive advantage in the undersea domain," Foggo said at the US Naval Institute's annual meeting on April 30.

Foggo said his command was seeing increasing operations by Russian ships and subs, "particularly in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean."

"The Russians have realized that there is an asymmetric advantage in the undersea domain, and they're putting a lot of resources into it," Foggo said. "They're pretty good, but they're not as good as us."

HMS Kent's helicopter takes part in a vertical replenishment during maritime security patrols in the North Sea, April 2020.

British Royal Navy

The US Navy and its NATO counterparts have also been spending more time on anti-submarine warfare, known as ASW, a capability that many of those forces let wither after the Cold War.

"One of the greatest things that happened when I was here as the 6th Fleet commander is they brought out the new P-8 Poseidon aircraft. That is the Cadillac of anti-submarine warfare, and we've got about six of those aircraft flying all over the theater all the time," Foggo said Thursday.

The P-8A entered service with the US Navy in 2013 and has been sold to the UK and Norway, among others. Poseidons can scan above and below the ocean using an array of sophisticated sensors as well as air-dropped sonobuoys.

P-8s carry torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, and the Navy is considering equipping it with other weapons. The Pentagon's Inspector General also wants to make sure the P-8 is suited for its mission, announcing in mid-April that it would review the aircraft to make sure it "meets the anti-submarine warfare requirements of US European Command."

Foggo on Thursday emphasized that ASW can't be done by just one platform or force.

"It can't just be a single element of the air arm or the surface Navy or the submarine force that's conducting this battle," Foggo said. "ASW is a team sport, and we've all got to work together, along with the intelligence communities and along with reach-back to the United States."

This post has been updated with Russian comment on the US and British ships in the Barents Sea.

Read the original article on Business Insider
(Alliance News) - Online trading platform provider IG Group Holdings PLC on Monday said it has hired Charlie Rozes as its new chief financial officer.

Rozes joins the contract-for-difference provider on June 1 as CFO, and current CFO Paul Mainwaring will retire after a month handover. Rozes was finance director at insurer Jardine Lloyd Thompson plc from September 2015 until April 2019 when it was acquired by Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc.

IG Group Chief Executive June Felix said: "I am thrilled that Charlie is joining the executive team of IG. He brings extensive international experience of leading and working with UK and overseas operations and has successfully driven a number of substantial growth programmes throughout his career. Charlie's UK PLC and executive director experience will further support IG as it continues to grow its sustainable and diversified global business and in achieving its strategic growth ambitions".

Shares in IG Group were up 0.5% at 752.00 pence each in London on Monday morning.

By Tapan Panchal; tapanpanchal@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
A councilwoman in Trenton, New Jersey, has been caught making homophobic slurs against the citys mayor during an expletitive-laden conference call, officials have said.

The apparent 10-minute rant by Councilwoman Robin Vaughn, who represents Trenton, New Jersey, was recorded and released by city officials.

Ms Vaughn could be heard calling Reed Gusciora, who is Trentons first openly gay Mayor, a pedophile during the rant on Saturday.

She also accused another city official of performing a sexual act on the mayor and called the mayor a woman and a bitch a**.

The audio of the call was first obtained by NJ Advance Media from the city and was confirmed to be authentic by two city officials who were on the call.

This is pretty much par for the course, unfortunately, for the councilwoman, Mayor Gusciora told the newspaper afterwards. She went on a complete meltdown, a tirade.

The exchange began 20-minutes into the meeting when Ms Vaughn expressed concern about the level of engagement of non-profit organisations in a $3m (2.4m) federal grant community development programme.

The mayor said that he brought up comments the councilwoman had made on social media in regards to funding a bunch of do-nothing organisations, Gusciora told the newspaper.

She just spews out her hatred when she disagrees with what you have to say, Mayor Gusciora said on the call on Saturday.

Ms Vaughn, at one point on the call, also tells the mayor to get the f***k out of office and get the f**k out of Trenton.

Trenton councilman Joe Harrison, attempted to intervene but instead found himself in a shouting match alongside Mayor Gusciora and Ms Vaughn, who he called a crazy person.

Ms Vaughn was then heard on the call asking Mr Harrison, in an apparent reference to his absent father, why he didnt go find his father.

Mr Harrison replied: Be careful what you say, ugly.

He later added that his use of the word ugly was to describe Ms Vaughs behaviour, which he called embarrassing in comments made to the newspaper.

The councilman added: To me personally, I take offense that you go after the mayor and make comments like that. Politicians should be working for the benefit of the community and not cursing people out. Its totally crossing the line.

According to Trentonian news, Ms Vaughn is alleged to have told Mr Harrison to Continue to suck Reed Guscioras d**k all you want to, motherf****r.

According to officials, it had been the first meeting in weeks following a similar argument last month. Trenton City Council had been using daily conference calls to discuss the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms Vaughn, who has been the subject of other controversies in the past, has been called on to resign following the outburst.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy released a statement condemning Ms Vaughn on Sunday and said she needed to resign, a spokesperson said.
By Tong Kim





On May 1, Kim Jong-un attended the completion ceremony for the Suncheon Phosphate Fertilizer Plant near Pyongyang. His reappearance effectively put to sleep three weeks of swirling speculation on his health, his whereabouts, and even the discussion of a succession prospect in anticipation of his death.







This time the news was real. It was televised May 2 by the Korea Central Broadcast, and published by the Korea Central News Agency and the Rodong Shinmun for both foreign and domestic audiences with photographs of Chairman Kim and his entourage including his sister Kim Yo-jong and other top ranking members of the party and the cabinet.







Kim cut a ribbon for the completion of the fertilizer plant. He looked in good spirits, smiling, and said, "the great leaders (his grandfather and his father) who worked so hard to resolve the food issue for the people would be very pleased to see the erection of this phosphate fertilizer plant."







While his performance at the ceremony appeared as normal, he may still have potential health problems, given the medical history of his family and his own for cardiovascular trouble, obesity, diabetics, and smoking. Kim's reappearance was reassuring to remove uncertainty and security concerns likely to follow if he had been incapacitated. For now, the stability of Kim's regime is desirable for the sake of peace.







In theory, the U.S. and South Korean alliance is ready to cope with any security challenges that would occur from a collapse of the regime, as they would carry out a contingency plan called OPLAN 5029. However, this plan probably requires updating and fine-tuning, in consideration of what China might do if the regime collapses. It is not a good time now to consult the Chinese on this issue due to a strained relationship between Washington and Beijing.







There were discussions of a few succession scenarios with respect to who will rule the country after Kim Jong-un. There will likely be a fourth family succession within the Kim dynasty, maintaining the same political system. However, nobody knows which member of the family will be the next ruler at this point.







It was Kim's absence from the April 15 birthday ceremony of his grandfather Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, that had triggered a flood of unconfirmed reports and fake news that Kim was either incapacitated or dead from complications after undergoing cardiovascular surgery. Ji Seong-ho, a defector who has been elected to the National Assembly as a proportionate member of the conservative opposition party, said he was 99 percent sure that Kim was dead.







Rampaging rumors included claims that he was hiding from the coronavirus or he was injured from shrapnel while attending a live fire weapons training demonstration. The 38 North, a Washington website on North Korea, reported that a commercial satellite spotted Kim's train near Wonsan twice, but it did not say that Kim was staying in the area. Some argued the train was parked there for deflection or deception of Kim's whereabouts.







The latest episode of Kim's 20-day disappearance reminds us again, how little we know what's happening to the leadership of the regime, until Pyongyang makes an announcement. Kim had been unseen for two weeks and 40 days at a time before. North Korea is an impregnable intelligence back hole. We don't need Deja vu the next time Kim disappears.







The technical means of intelligence gathering  from signals, communications, or images  did not help due to their intrinsic limits. And, it is almost impossible to collect confidential information about the North Korean leader through spies  human intelligence. The regime has been effective in protecting the secrecy of its leader.



Most prominent defectors, who weighed in on the state of Kim's health, including Thae Yong-ho, who served as a minister to the DPRK mission in London, were way off the mark. Many reputable news outlets too made errors in their reports. Nobody knew the truth. We still don't know what Kim did during those 20 days.







Seoul stood firm on its take on Kim Jong-un, saying it had detected nothing to raise suspicions that something was wrong with him. Surrogates of the government were betting that Kim was alive and well. Some of them conceded that maybe Kim was distancing himself from potential coronavirus infection.







Fortunately, the Moon government dealt cautiously with Kim's absence from public events, and so did President Trump, although Trump's words are often inconclusive and inconsistent. Now we are back on the fight against the pandemic and the search for a peaceful Korean Peninsula.









Tong Kim (

) is a visiting professor with the University of North Korean Studies, a visiting scholar with Korea University, a fellow at the Institute of Corean-American Studies, and a columnist for The Korea Times.


SAN ANTONIO and DALLAS, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Little Spurs Pediatric Urgent Care, a pediatric urgent care provider with 13 clinics around San Antonio, New Braunfels, and Dallas, was notified this past week by Centene/Superior that it will no longer honor their contract after 90 days and will cut their payment rate by 50%.

"I have dedicated most of my medical career to caring for the medically underserved," said Dr. Thomas Spurgat, CEO of the company. "And I think it's sad that a multi-billion-dollar company would try to make our group take a lower rate when they know we are hurting just like all other pediatric practices in the area during this very trying time."

Last year, Little Spurs had over 70,000 Medicaid visits. Over a period of 18 months prior to March they saw approximately 67,000 Superior patient visits. Most visits are because parents cannot get in to see their primary care doctor.

Centene generated over $18 billion of income in 2019 and is now forcing Little Spurs to take a lower rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the only accredited pediatric urgent care group in Bexar County, they offer quality care to their patients with only one out of ten patients being referred to the emergency room, and a 14% antibiotic utilization rate. Little Spurs has multiple clinics located in low income areas that are in need of pediatric care.

By losing the Superior contract, a large void is going to be left for many economically disadvantaged communities in the Bexar County area. It also leaves very few choices for the foster care population. The health care crisis that is going to come next is the flu/RSV season. The lack of physicians and providers that accept Superior is going to force many patients to go to the emergency room. The State of Texas has one of the lowest immunization rates (ranked 49th) and a known history of providing poor care to children (ranked 47th), in part due to many pediatricians refusing to sign up to care for Medicaid patients due to poor reimbursement rates.

The staff at Little Spurs will work closely with Superior enrollees to guide them on what their options are if they want to continue to receive quality medical care. Little Spurs is dedicated to helping those most in need of healthcare and will continue in their mission going forward.

SOURCE Little Spurs Pediatric Urgent Care

Related Links

http://littlespurspedi.com


The two men arrested, both aged in their 20s, have been charged in relation to an alleged aggravated burglary which took place in Dundalk early on Sunday morning.

They are due to appear before the Criminal Courts of Justice, Court 2, today, at approximately 10:30am.

Gardai are continuing to investigate the incident which took place at a house in the Dublin Road area of Dundalk at around 1am on Sunday.

At approximately 1am two men forced entry to the house. They proceeded to assault a resident of the house, a 17-year-old boy. The injured youth was taken to hospital for assessment of his injuries. Two men left the scene, stealing an undisclosed amount of cash and other items.

After looking at CCTV Gardai arrested two men a short time later. They were detained at Dundalk Garda Station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984.

Gardai are appealing for anyone who may have information in relation to this incident to contact them at Dundalk on 042 938 8400 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111.
With several lockdown restrictions being lifted in the country today after a 40-day period, businesses are gearing up to gain lost grounds. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tremendous upheavals in the global economy, the reverberations of which will be felt over the next several months. Business shutting down, job losses, salary cuts are some of the harsh market realities that businesses have to face.

In India, too, the 40-day lockdown (which has been further extended by two weeks till May 17, but with zone-based easing of several restrictions) has derailed the economy as manufacturing and production, as well as the whole supply chain function has come to a standstill. Writing in a report on COVID-19: Impact on the financial services sector, Charanjit S Attra, EY India Financial Services and Financial Accounting Advisory Services (FAAS) Partner, stated, COVID-19 would impact the financial statements of the entities in the financial services in the areas of ECL, business model assessment, post balance sheet events and certain other key areas.

Tata Capital, the flagship financial services company of the Tata Group, has been increasingly leveraging digital to reach out to customers and staying relevant. In conversation with Adgully, Abonty Banerjee, Chief Digital & Marketing Officer, Tata Capital, on their approach and their roadmap to face these challenging times and still keep their customers happy and satisfied.

The COVID-19 crisis and nation-wide lockdown has caused severe disruption and has confined people to their homes. In such a scenario, how are you leveraging digital and technology to engage with customers?



These are unprecedented times for the country and we are part of this tough situation. We continue to stay connected with our customers through various digital channels and platforms to ensure that we are able to service their needs and deliver as per expectations. Most of our services are online, and we are creating more awareness around our digital offerings.

What is the strategy you are adopting to stay connected with your audience and what kind of message is being delivered?



Voice as a service offering:

Currently, over 30 per cent of our customers are serviced through Voice, through our VoiceBot TIA. Taking this astep further, we recently launched TIA on Alexa and we do expect to gain more traction through this medium as well. Currently, our customers are serviced through Tata Capitals website, TIA, which is a chatbot and a VoiceBot and through Mobile Apps.

To connect with the digitally savvy customer, we recently launched Moneyfy, Tata Capitals very first Wealth Management App, an easy and convenient way to invest in Mutual funds, select an insurance or even apply for a loan. The App is suited for even new-to-investment customers who can choose to start with an amount which is as low as Rs 100. We have created communication in the digital and social media space to enhance the reach of Moneyfy.

As a financial services brand, the customer connect will remain high even in this situation. So, there is no key shift in strategy except to remain empathetic to customer needs and ensure that our services are available to the extent possible. As far as media is concerned, most options other than outdoor remain available and consumption is naturally increased. We are largely using social and digital media at the moment. This is not a big departure from our regular strategy, where we use social and digital as medium for continuous engagement, and other media for larger campaigns.

How are you using your digital channels to spread awareness?



We have done campaigns around social distancing on our social handles as well as on email and SMS channels. Further, we have placed a robust communication strategy internally. Which means our employees who are also customers for various products, have accurate and real time information on the developments of the situation.

What kind of technology and support is Tata Capital using to stay connected with its employees, business partners and vendors?



The partners and customers were proactively communicated about posting their queries on digital channels, which were always functioning earlier too, but they would be helpful for those who are now not able to visit the branches. Productivity wise, the operations, technology are doing better. They are working as usual.

Tata Capital has exclusive digital offerings for different businesses. There are dedicated platforms, already operational for various businesses. For example, the online working capital platform which approves loans of up to Rs 2 crore in under 24 hours; a separate digital platform for MSMEs is also registering good numbers. Further, Data and Analytics continue to play an important role at Tata Capital and are used across the lending process including for creation of pre-approved offers and propensity models, marketing decisions, underwriting decisions and to enhance collection efficiencies.

Considering that Tata Capitals IT infrastructure is cloud-based, activating the BCP plan was not so much of a challenge. Remote log-in functionalities were set and even for employees, access was provided. Currently, Work from Home is seamless and one is able to service customers, resolve customer queries or even adhere to regulatory processes.

What kind of a new normal do you see emerging in the post-COVID-19 world? How is the company gearing for that?



The current norms have accelerated consumption of digital media and use of digital platforms. We will continue to stay invested in these and build our brand and market the products online. Social media will continue to play a key role.
A deputy will be appointed to the country's envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group.

Ukraine advocates increasing the level of representation in the Tripartite Contact Group (TCG) on Donbas settlement in Minsk by introducing to the negotiation process Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Oleksiy Reznikov.

He will become deputy to Ukraine's top envoy Leonid Kuchma, an UNIAN correspondent reported citing Head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak, who spoke at an online discussion "Pandemic, reform, war and peace: The view from Ukraine's White House," organized by the Atlantic Council.

Yermak emphasized that it is very important today to give the Minsk process a new impetus.

Read alsoUkraine at Minsk talks categorically rejects idea of fixing special status of occupied Donbas in Constitution

"And Ukraine is doing this: today we took the initiative to increase the level of representation of delegations in Minsk to the Trilateral Contact Group," he said. "That is, now, next to the head of our delegation, Leonid Kuchma [second president of Ukraine], Deputy Prime Minister Reznikov becomes his deputy. Also, we add to each subgroup representatives of the relevant ministries at a level no lower than deputy minister, as well as Parliament representatives. So, several committee chiefs will also be involved."

Yermak says Ukraine is ready and will do everything to fulfill its obligations undertaken during the latest summit of Normandy Four leaders held in Paris.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine at the TCG talks categorically rejected the possibility of granting any special status to certain areas of its Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The three additional bells will join the 50 that were already part of the Netherlands Carillon. Last October, those bells were carefully removed, packed up and sent home to be refurbished. While theyre out, the carillons 127-foot-tall structure is being restored. (I hope we take better care of it this time, since it seems that every other decade we act surprised that its gotten rusty and derelict and in need of emergency support.)
Babies around the world love baby-talk and it can help them learn language too. Credit: Richard Sagredo/Unsplash

Has anyone ever told you: "Don't baby talk to your baby?" Parents of young infants often tell us that they have heard this advice from friends, family and even health care professionals.

As the lead researchers in a study of over 2,200 infants across 67 laboratories in 16 countries, we have good reason to give you the opposite advice. Our findings confirm that babies around the world love baby talkor what baby researchers call "infant-directed speech." What's more, because babies prefer to listen to infant-directed speech, baby talking to them is good for their language development.

What is infant-directed speech? Imagine saying "look at the ball" to a cute, cuddly six-month-old. Now think about how you would say that same phrase to a co-worker or friend.

What you are most likely to notice is that the melody of your speech when you are talking to a baby is very different from when you talk to other adultsyour pitch is higher, and it's also more animated, with lots of ups and downs. The rhythm changes toowe speak in shorter bursts with longer pauses when talking with babies, and also exaggerate certain words, especially when naming things for them.

People talking to babies also use simpler words, ask more questions, and even change the way sounds in some words are pronounced.

Establishing a bond with your baby

How does all the baby talk benefit your baby? The most obvious way is simply by getting your baby's attentionall those melodic and rhythmic properties are great attention-getters for babies (and for adults too, for that matter, though they might give you a funny look). Getting a baby's attention is good!

The more language a child hears directed towards them, the more language they learn, and the faster they process the language they hear. Plus, infant-directed speech communicates emotions effectively and helps establish a bond between caregiver and infant.

Other characteristics of infant-directed speech are argued to be more directly helpful for language development. Because it's typically simpler than grown-up language, infant-directed speech gives babies a clear starting point from which to build up to more sophisticated vocabulary and grammatical structures.

Global variations?

The fact that North American caregivers use infant-directed speech, and that babies really like it, has been known for a long time. But while baby talk has been studied in dozens of languages, most of the research has been done on English speakers in North America. And we've had a nagging question about cultural variations.

Do babies around the world also love baby talk? Or have researchers been studying something that mostly applies to babies from college towns in North America? In one small study, North American parents were the biggest baby-talkers in the six languages tested. We've even heard Europeans say that they find our North American baby talk downright embarrassing!

There are some communities where very little of the language infants hear is directed toward them, for example Tsimane communities in Bolivia and some Mayan communities in Mexico. In those places, parents aren't talking to babies much, let alone baby talking with them. Instead, most of what they hear comes from adults talking to each other. But these babies learn their language just fine.

Our project brought together researchers from 16 countries around the world to explore this question. Each lab ran the same study, using similar methods to measure infants' preferences. Our first objective was to confirm, in a much larger sample than had ever been tested before, that the preference for infant-directed speech was real.

We found babies in our sample robustly preferred the clips of moms talking to their young infants compared with hearing that same women talking to another adult.

Moreover, this held true both for infants learning North American English and those learning other languages, telling us that this preference is not something unique to North American culture.

A companion study that looked at bilingual infants, headed by Krista Byers-Heinlein at Concordia University, found similar results. Even though they have richer, more diverse linguistic experiences, babies that grow up hearing multiple languages also preferred hearing baby talk.

Talk to your baby

Does this mean that caregivers should be encouraged to baby talk to their baby? Absolutely yes! Babies prefer baby talk in the many communities we tested, and other research robustly supports how this is beneficial for babies.

There is still more work to do. We couldn't test babies in every community. Two continents weren't represented in our study: South America and Africa. We are currently working on new projects, collaborating with labs in those places.

Our findings tell us a lot of different factors affect infants' preferences for how we talk to them. Caregivers talk differently to babies in different communities and even different contexts in the same community.

There is no one "right way" to talk to your baby. But be assured that baby talk is a positive part of supporting your infant's language development.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Delhi government offices, including those of the transport, tourism and excise departments and the sub-registrar, opened on Monday after over 40 days as authorities implemented the latest lockdown relaxations permitted by the Centre amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, several employees could not reach their offices due to unavailability of public transport and neighbouring cities sealing their borders with the national capital to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were those among the cabinet members who went to the Delhi Secretariat. The secretariat building houses offices of several ministers and top bureaucrats.

An official said the chief minister held the first Cabinet meeting in the Delhi Secretariat on Monday after government offices were allowed to open after over 40 days.

According to the decision, government offices engaged in non-essential services were allowed to open with 33 per cent staff after 40 days. Also, private offices opened with the same strength of staff.

Umesh Batra, general secretary of the Delhi Goverment Employees Welfare Association, said that all state-run offices opened on Monday, but several employees could not come due to restrictions on Delhi's borders.

In sub-registrar offices in West Delhi, there was no registration of properties while there was also not much activity at offices of the Motor Licensing Officers (MLOs) and other department offices.

"Several government employees could not attend their offices due to restrictions. Those having their own vehicles attended offices, but those who don't have vehicles faced difficulties in wake of suspension of public transport," Batra said.

There are around two lakh employees of the Delhi government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Loading

Prosecutors have completed their read-ins for the day.

They have one read-in remaining, which is that of the undercover police officer who trailed Mr Edwards' in the days before his arrest and covertly acquired his DNA profile from a discarded Sprite bottle while he was at the movies with his step-daughter.

Detective Senior Sergeant Joseph Marrapodi will then be called as the state's final witness and will take the court through Mr Edwards' video-recorded police interview from the day of his arrest.

To catch up on today's proceedings, scroll to the bottom of this blog.

For a full catalogue of WAtoday's coverage of the trial, click here.
The next generation Galaxy Z Flip might pack significant upgrades over its predecessor. Samsung has filed a couple of design patents for the Galaxy Z Flip 2 and both of them showcase a triple-camera setup on the outside. The original Galaxy Z Flip only has two cameras on the back.

The South Korean giant also appears to be considering putting a larger cover display on its next clamshell folding phone.

Galaxy Z Flip 2 design patent

Dutch tech site LetsGoDigital have discovered two design patents Samsung has filed with the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO). The accompanying sketches reveal that the next-gen Galaxy Z Flip doesnt look too different than its predecessor from the inside.

Advertisement

However, Samsung is seemingly making some changes to its outer appearance. The company is looking to pack three cameras on the back of this phone but is undecided about whether to arrange them vertically or horizontally.

The Model A has a horizontally-arranged triple-camera setup with an LED flash on the side, similar to the original Galaxy Z Flip. This is a tried and tested design but it doesnt leave enough space for Samsung to place a larger cover display.

Hence, the company is mulling a second design with a vertically-arranged triple-camera setup. In the Model B, the vertical arrangement of the cameras makes room for a bigger cover display. A bigger display on the outside could add greatly to the devices functionality.

Advertisement

Its unclear what type of sensor the third lens would be. The Galaxy Z Flip features a 12-megapixel primary camera and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera.

Sketches in Samsungs design patents showcase circular-shaped camera lenses. So it could either be a depth sensor or a macro camera. Or maybe Samsung would make the camera setup a little more flagship-grade by adding a zoom lens.

After all, the Galaxy Z Flip, despite its hefty price tag of $1,400, does not offer the greatest of specs. Samsung would want to improve things with the next-gen model. Do not expect a periscope zoom camera like on the Galaxy S20 Ultra, though.

Advertisement

As for the rest of the design, the Galaxy Z Flip 2 still has a centered-punch hole cut-out which houses the selfie camera, a side-mounted capacitive fingerprint sensor, and a USB Type-C port.

While a patent filing does not confirm that Samsung will actually go ahead with this design, it seems highly likely in this case. It remains to be seen if the company goes with the Model A or the Model B design.
SHELTON  John Belden Jr. broke party lines Friday to provide the Board of Apportionment and Taxation at least one more week to review the mayors proposed budget.

Belden, a Republican, joined Democrats Michelle Laubin and Steve Guralnick in the virtual A&T meeting Friday afternoon in voting to table A&T Chair Jay Francino-Quinn's motion to vote on sending Mayor Mark Laurettis budget as presented to the Board of Aldermen.

Democrat Joe Knapik, who was on the phone for the virtual meeting, was asked for his vote but did not respond. Republican John Boyko joined fellow GOP member Francino-Quinn in voting against Laubins motion to table the vote.

The budget is the same (as this fiscal year)  it is status quo, said Francino-Quinn, so I think it behooves us to go ahead and just move it on.

Francino-Quinn then motioned for a vote on the budget as presented. Laurettis proposed 2020-21 fiscal year budget stands at $128,182,039, a $610,565 increase from the present years spending plan and which maintains the 22.42 mill rate.

Laubin opened the meeting asking for budget documents and department head backup, which none of the members had received before Fridays meeting. She also asked that department heads be available for questions virtually if necessary.

There is no reason why we cant schedule workshops, said Laubin, adding that A&T has one month before it is required to submit a budget proposal to the aldermen. I am prepared to use the next month productively  to find out where modifications can be made to the budget proposal.

The workshops, Laubin said, would allow A&T members to fulfill their responsibility on behalf of the public to get this information out to the public.

The Board of Aldermen, in its vote on April 21 establishing the budget schedule, stated that meetings with department heads would be suspended. But Laubin called the aldermens ruling a substantial overreach.

Lauretti asked that A&T members send any questions to Finance Director Paul Hiller by Wednesday. Lauretti said that would allow enough time for answers prior to another budget workshop tentatively set for May 8.

Lauretti, who was in the City Hall auditorium for the meeting which was live streamed, told all A&T members he would have the budget and all necessary documents sent to their homes this weekend. At that point, Laubin motioned to table Francino-Quinn's motion to vote.

With the vote 2-2, Belden was asked for his vote and sided with the Democrats, saying the board should be able to examine the budget requests before making a final decision.

Keep in mind, the numbers are the same numbers  99 percent the same  as this year, said Lauretti of his budget proposal. There is a lot of uncertainty on my part on the revenues to be received.

The Board of Aldermen earlier this month approved a new budget calendar which does not include a public hearing as in years past. The Board of A&T must submit a recommended budget to the Board of Aldermen by June 1. The aldermen will complete their review by June 14, with a budget adoption no later than June 30.

Residents can submit comments via email to boaclerk@cityofshelton.org. Board of Aldermen President John Anglace Jr. said residents can email comments through May 28. The comments will be posted online as well.

This could be the last time the Board of A&T deliberates a city budget, with the Charter Revision Commission considering eliminating the board. The charter commission has not yet completed final recommendations, which will then be sent to the Board of Aldermen.

The commission, during its April 6 virtual meeting, unanimously rejected suggestions to expand A&Ts financial authority and oversight of the all-Republican aldermanic board and mayor, instead proposing to abolish the board altogether and shift the budget line-item transfer power to the Board of Aldermens Finance Committee.

The commission is composed of four Republicans, two unaffiliated voters and one Democrat.

Charter Revision Commission Chair Dan Debicella said the final revision proposals will go before voters this November.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
Members of the British royal family are no stranger when it comes to photographers. In fact, they have a long and complicated relationship with the paparazzi.

Despite this, they remained unbothered, most especially Queen Elizabeth II who always exudes grace and composure when out in public.

However, according to a U.K tabloid, there was one instance when the Queen was caught off-guard which caused her to lose her temper.

During his interview to promote his new book "'The Royal Family Operations Manual" with ITV's Royal Rota podcast, Royal Editor Chris Ship and royal expert Lizzie Robinson, London Evening Standard's Royal Editor Robert Jobson was asked about what was the "most surprising nugget of information" he has gathered on his recent project.

"What the Hell," Says Queen Elizabeth II

Jobson recalled his experience with the 94-year-old monarch after her summer trip from Sandringham Castle in Norfolk.

"One fun thing that did jump out: there were a few pictures I took in it. On a day when the Queen had come back from Sandringham on her summer break, a friend of mine had brought his son along who was about ten," Jobson recalled.

The kid was "being a pain" so he gave him his camera and instructed him to "go and take pictures of the Queen."

"So he was running around all over the place with this huge camera getting on everyone's nerves. And the Queen obviously wondered what the hell he was doing!" the Royal Editor added. "He was taking these pictures and she was staring right down the barrel!"

The podcast host asked if the kid's behavior had caused outburst among other photographers. "Well, they were all sweet to him... at first..." he replied.

BBC Apoligized To The Queen

Although it is rare to see a member of the family snap because of paparazzi, this is not the first time that the longest-reigning monarch addressed the media regarding misleading footage.

In 2007, BBC was forced to apologize to the Queen after airing a controversial video during her portrait session with renowned American celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz.

In the documentary "A Year With The Queen," the footage was cut together in a way that it appeared that Queen Elizabeth II had walked out of their session as she complained to her aide, which apparently never happened.

"The BBC would like to apologize to both the Queen and Annie Leibovitz for any upset this may have caused," the news agency mentioned in a statement.

No To Intrusive Photos

Aside from this, in 2009, the 94-year-old monarch also warned the press regarding unauthorized paparazzi photos of the royal family and prohibited them from releasing intrusive shots inside their home.

A lawyer from the monarchy reached out to newspaper editors and informed them about privacy obligations under their code of practice.

According to Buckingham Palace, the action was "in response to many years of the royal family being hounded by photographers on the queen's private property."
Reach key decision makers with sales-ready leads that shorten your sales process. Move the needle by delivering funnel qualified leads to your sales team. Learn more

Consumers were becoming increasingly comfortable with the idea of ordering food online, either for pick up or home delivery, even before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Now many more shoppers are turning to online grocery shopping for the first time.

People have been comfortable ordering food such as pizza for delivery for years, noted Commercetools Vice President of Americas Marketing Margaret Rea.

Companies like Grubhub have helped expand options and expand peoples thinking about what they can order for meal delivery. Its not a stretch to consider ordering meals from your favorite restaurant or even a DIY meal kit service, she told the E-Commerce Times. People are more willing to try these things based on positive experiences with early food delivery.

Food Solutions

Getting food is a stress point for many people, and online ordering and creative fulfillment strategies can be time-saving, anxiety-relieving solutions.

Online shopping has become a lifestyle versus an isolated activity, driven in large part by people looking for more balance in their lives, said Rea.

Ordering from the office or the car for curbside pickup on the way home is one way technology  especially online commerce  is helping people manage their busy lifestyles.

The advent of new technologies and strategies is helping to make online food shopping convenient and stress-free, and perhaps even enjoyable.

The customer experience is improving in both food and grocery delivery, said Rea. In Germany, for example, food giant REWE has a mobile app that allows people to add precise amounts of ingredients into their shopping cart based on a recipe they are making and the number of guests they are serving. This and other positive customer experiences make online grocery shopping seamless  and even a fun and social part of life.

The availability of fast and reliable delivery options is another factor driving the growth of e-commerce food sales.

One of the main reasons for the increase in online grocery purchases is convenience and being able to find what you are looking for quickly and easily, observed Markus Stripf, CEO of Spoon Guru.

Delivery times coming down rapidly is, of course, a major advantage, he told the E-Commerce Times.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Delivered by Technology

A number of new, behind-the-scene technologies also are helping to drive the boom in online food and grocery sales, pick-up and delivery. Walmart, for instance, has invested heavily in the technologies supporting its grocery pick-up and delivery services.

Behind the scenes, Walmart has built a robust e-commerce engine and new operational processes that are all powered by customer data and insights, said Bobby Greenberg, senior vice president of consulting for Kobie.

Walmart has managed to marry humans and robots, so to speak, by providing Walmart+ users the ability to order groceries via text message, giving the ordering experience a personal touch and making it as seamless as possible, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Its a strategy that ultimately can build a lasting bond between consumers and particular brands and retailers.

Many consumers are emotionally motivated to choose brands based on convenience and ease, noted Greenberg. Home delivery transforms the grocery-buying experience to the touch of a few buttons and can motivate people to develop new long-term habits with Walmart.

Providing a curated grocery experience, along with targeted recommendations, can be an important part of selling consumers on the value of online food shopping.

Spoon Guru makes it easy for shoppers to find the right foods for their specific needs and health objectives by removing the friction from the search and discovery process and providing highly tailored recommendations based on their preferences and propensity, said Stripf. The advantages to the retailer are twofold: We drive customer value and loyalty.

Using technology to fit together the many aspects of online food retailing  from inventory management to delivery  helps give consumers a sense of engagement and confidence.

Commercetools APIs connect commerce capability  like cart, check-out and product catalog  to any front-end as well as back-end systems, like inventory and fulfillment, said Rea.

Because each API is designed for a specific task, IT teams can build, create, experiment and iterate at about four times the speed of older monolithic commerce platforms, she explained, enabling the tech team to respond faster to the needs and requests of the business. If, for example, customers want to purchase food for delivery via a social media channel like Facebook or an in-store IoT-based kiosk, the tech team can build out that functionality rapidly using Commercetools APIs.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

How consumers ultimately get their food  and how easy that process is made for them  is a key component to a successful food and e-commerce strategy.

Food e-commerce companies understand the importance of delivery and increasingly let consumers choose a convenient delivery scenario, said Tanya Yablonskaya, e-commerce industry analyst at ScienceSoft.

Among the variants, which are the most popular with shoppers, are same-day or scheduled door-to-door delivery, click-and-pick, express delivery, and automatic subscription, she told the E-Commerce Times.

Future Food

The food and e-commerce industry is expanding and evolving rapidly, changing the way people think about everything from restaurants to grocery stores.

For decades, the food distribution and fulfillment industry stagnated with little innovation, forcing consumers to shop for food in the same old ways, said Rea.

The good news is that the future is bright. With advancements in e-commerce technology and the increasing acceptance of online food purchasing, delivery and innovative pick-up options, consumers will have more choices than ever  not only in how they buy and receive their food, but also in sources of locally grown foods like fruits, vegetables, dairy, eggs and even flour, she pointed out.

Rural and urban consumers will be able to buy more food from local growers who offer seasonal harvests through an online shop or mobile app for delivery or pick-up, Rea said.

Innovations in mobile technologies and creative ways of matching people with the food they want are likely to continue transforming the industry.

In large metropolitan areas, improved customer experiences on mobile apps, shopping sites and even in-car marketplaces  including real-time updates, flash sales on limited supply items and loyalty programs  will continue to increase the adoption of online food buying and disrupt the entire food distribution industry, said Rea.

Evolving along with the market and with consumer demand ultimately will be key to the survival of food retailers.

More than one in three Americans now buy groceries online, and retailers are racing to grab a bigger slice of that pie, so expect some significant developments from the big players as well as the smaller ones over the next few years, said Stripf. Those who innovate will thrive, but those who stand still will not be able to compete for much longer.
Drug overdoses have spiked in central Pennsylvania, with the rise coinciding with the stay-at-home order brought on by the new coronavirus.

In Cumberland County, 24 people have died of overdoses so far this year, with most deaths occurring after March 1, Coroner Charley Hall said Wednesday. He said almost all involved fentanyl, an opioid.

York County has seen 65 overdoses 22 more than during the same period last year, Coroner Pam Gay said. Overdoses had declined for two consecutive years in both York and Cumberland. Now both counties are on pace to top their 2019 death tolls by large margins. Perry County, which normally has 12 to 15 overdoses in a year, has had three likely overdoses within the past month, although official determinations are still pending, Coroner Bob Ressler said.

Unfortunately, I see some of the progress weve made slipping away, said Jack Carroll, who directs county-run drug and alcohol treatment programs for Cumberland and Perry. For those in recovery, this is a high-risk time.

Carroll said Cumberland is on track to exceed its 2019 total of 46 overdose deaths by about 10.

Treatment experts say the explanations are obvious: Isolation. Stress and financial worries brought on by the coronavirus. Cancelation of most group support meetings. Loss of close contact with people who have been in recovery longer to lean on for support. Temptation that can arise after cashing a $1,200 stimulus check.

Now they have money in their pocket and nothing to do. The drug dealers are open. They didnt shut down for the coronavirus, said Steve Barndt, director of JFT Recovery Services in Lemoyne.

Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick said he didnt have final numbers, but my gut tells me were going to have somewhat of an increase.

He said work with two charities has shown him the pressure and hardship some people are facing. Were seeing people just being blasted by the financial side of things, he said.

Drug treatment programs are considered life-sustaining services and remain largely available, Carroll said. This includes hotlines for getting help, detox, medication-assisted treatment, inpatient and outpatient care and half-way houses. But group meetings where people in recovery gather to provide and receive support have been pared back or canceled altogether, he said.

Also, random drug testing commonly given to people in court-ordered treatment and some treatment programs has been scaled back, Carroll said, further chipping away at the structure that can help people stay clean and hold them accountable.

Some counseling and meetings are taking place virtually or by phone, he said. Carroll sees some good in that, since its causing treatment providers to embrace telemedicine, which will have value after the coronavirus crisis or if theres a second wave. Still, someone battling temptation who participates in a meeting via a platform such as Zoom still winds up alone, which can be especially dangerous for someone in early recovery, Carroll said.

Methadone clinics have received federal permission to allow more take-home doses to people who are more advanced in their recovery to reduce the number of daily visits, he said.

Barndts organization has a role in warm hand-offs, where peer support specialists meet with overdose victims with the goal of steering them into treatment. So far, hospitals are allowing the peer specialists to come into ERs, even as other visitors and non-patients are banned. Thats a relief to Barndt, who initially feared handoffs would be disrupted. Instead, theres been an uptick, he said.

His organization hosts two recovery meetings daily, which he said are providing a lifeline for people who fear they would relapse without them.

Barndt said hes been trying unsuccessfully to reach Gov. Tom Wolf. He wants to stress that local overdoses outnumber COVID-19 deaths, and make sure Wolf fully understands the impact of not going to work or to church-based support groups on people in recovery. He hopes the shutdown orders can be tweaked to allow them to have more contact with peers, counselors and church-based meetings.

You can buy booze but you cant go to a church if you want to, he said. Thats frustrating.

We have heard anecdotally from several counties of an increase in drug overdoses and drug overdose deaths during the last several weeks. We know that this time of social distancing has been difficult, and has reduced access to recovery meetings and some other events that assist those suffering with the disease of addiction. The majority of recovery meetings have moved to secure online platforms as a way to comply with social distancing while still interacting, said Pennsylvania Department of Health spokesman Nate Wardle.

He also said group meetings are an essential service and can be held as long as people adhere to social distancing, including staying at least six feet apart and wearing masks.

Cumberland County officials urged people struggling with addiction to call the states Get Help Now hotline at 1-800-662-4357. People can also find help here. Residents of Cumberland and Perry can reach county case managers at 717-240-6300 or 866-240-6300.

Wardle said help for mental health crises is available by calling 1-855-284-2494.

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.
Bear, a five-year-old high-energy dog tasked with finding Koalas injured in Australia's devastating bushfires, has rescued 100 such marsupials in the affected areas of New South Wales and Queensland.

The Australian Koolie is a part of Queensland's University of Sunshine Coast's (USC) 'Detection Dogs for Conservation' team which has been working with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and local wildlife groups to rescue koalas living in the bushfire-ravaged areas.

Bear has been on the ground since November 2019 and has so far found 100 sick or injured Koalas in the affected areas of New South Wales and Queensland, Australia's national agency Australian Associated Press said in a report.

The USC with a help of drone mounted with a thermal camera locate the koalas in trees and then the dog is sent in to use his sense of smell to find them.

"We've worked in areas post-fire with other dogs, and they were able to smell their target odours, so it didn't surprise me that Bear could do it," said team member Romane Cristescu.

"The catastrophic landscape is really hard for us, but for Bear it's an opportunity for him to be out and play and do what he likes doing," she said.

Most of the koalas which suffered a blow during the severe bushfire conditions this summer were found near the Two Thumbs Wildlife Sanctuary in the NSW alpine region, Nerriga in the southern tablelands and Kandanga in Queensland's Gympie region, the report said.

"We're still finding animals that are struggling to find food. They're on the edge of starvation. If we find them, wildlife carers can plump them up. Their goal is to release them when and where they have a better chance of having food available to them," Cristescu said.

The bushfire emergency might be out of people's minds, but for koalas, it is not over, she said, adding that many areas of land which were badly burnt have not recovered and vegetation has not grown back.

"Some places have burnt so much for such a wide area, some species may take decades to recover," Cristescu said.

IFAW wildlife campaigner Josey Sharrad said Bear brought the team hope during the devastation due to the bushfires starting from September 2019 until March 2020.

"He found koalas despite all those harrowing conditions. That brought us hope," she said.

Calls for koalas to be classified as endangered are growing following one of the worst bushfire seasons on record where thousands of koalas are believed to have perished.

"We don't want people to move on so quickly from the bushfire emergency. Every koala we can track, rescue and rehab counts to the future survival of species," Sharrad said.

Over one billion animals are estimated to have perished in the last bushfires season, prompting the Australian government to give wildlife and environmental groups an initial cash injection of USD 50 million.

The IFAW and the USC are also working on a research looking into how resilient the species are in the hope they can help more koalas survive in the next fire season.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A member of staff hands over a Randox laboratories Covid-19 self test kit to a member of the public at a drive-through test centre at the SSE Arena in Belfast. PA

Randox Laboratories in Co Antrim is recruiting 200 new staff, including 160 mechanical, electrical and manufacturing engineers as it ramps up Covid-19 testing, Business Telegraph can reveal.

The engineers, who will start at the Randox Science Park in Massereene later this month, will work on the fast-track development of specialist molecular analysers used to detect the presence of Covid-19.

It wants to build 200 testing platforms over the next six weeks to boost the UK government's national testing scheme for key workers, as well as to carry out testing across the population.

The company is now filling roles across science, manufacturing and engineering.

Dr Peter FitzGerald, managing director of Randox Laboratories, said the firm's priority was to help the UK effort to test at scale.

"We know that this is the most effective way to both save lives and promote a timely return to a more normal society," he said.

"We continue to ramp up our Covid-19 testing capabilities - not only by increasing our production of testing kits, but also by accelerating the build schedule for the testing analysers.

"We are aiming, by working at maximum efficiency in a greatly accelerated time frame of six to seven weeks, to manufacture 200 of our most state-of-the-art testing platforms, which will greatly enhance our testing capacity."

Randox is one of the biggest biotech firms in Northern Ireland. At the start of April it announced it had stopped selling its coronavirus home-testing kits directly to the public due to its role in helping the UK Government with testing.

That UK-wide arrangement had also hindered it from supplying directly to Northern Ireland, Health Minister Robin Swann said last month. However, the company said tests have now been made directly available within Northern Ireland.

But yesterday it said it still does not have capacity to sell tests to the public. "At present we can register interest for when additional capacity becomes available. Until then we're not in a position to accept new orders," it stated.

"The national testing programme is our absolute priority."

Expand Close Opportunity: Dr Peter FitzGerald / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Opportunity: Dr Peter FitzGerald

Dr FitzGerald said the company had redeployed some of its own personnel to Covid-19 departments to meet the demand.

It has also set up new teams for the development, manufacturing and distribution of testing kits for the national testing programme.

Dr FitzGerald said: "Everyone at Randox has a vital role to play in the practical application of Covid-19 testing, and for engineers in particular, this is a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in the fight against Covid-19, by directly contributing in no small part to the national testing programme."

Now it's keen to speak to anyone with experience in mechanical, electrical or manufacturing engineering, and said it is working with economic development agency Invest NI to find potential candidates.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock had set a target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day - which was reached last week but included 40,000 tests which had been sent out to people's homes but had not necessarily been taken. Randox is one of a number of companies in the testing programme.

But it said it hoped to have more tests available for wider consumption. "As additional capacity becomes available then we will aim to provide Covid-19 testing more broadly, and will advise accordingly," the company said.

Randox employs around 1,400 people.
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he now believes as many as 100,000 Americans could die in the coronavirus pandemic, after the death toll passed his earlier estimates, but said he was confident a vaccine would be developed by the years end.

Trump alternated during a two-hour virtual town hall broadcast by FOX News between forecasting a rapid recovery for the U.S. economy and casting blame for the pandemics spread on China, where the disease is believed to have originated.

The COVID-19 illness, caused by the new coronavirus, has sickened more than 1.1 million in the United States and killed more than 67,000 Americans, shut wide swaths of society, including most schools and many businesses.

Were going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. Thats a horrible thing, said Trump, who as recently on Friday had said he hoped fewer than 100,000 Americans would die and earlier in the week had talked about 60,000 to 70,000 deaths.

About half the states have now moved toward at least partial lifting of shutdowns as the number of new cases of the COVID-19 illness has begun to drop or level off and as citizens agitate for relief from restrictions that have sent the economy into a tailspin.

We cant stay closed as a country [or] were not gonna have a country left, Trump said.

Trump has criticized FOX recently, casting the conservative-leaning network as insufficiently supportive.

He faced few tough questions in the event, which gave him a new format to reach the public while he is unable to hold campaign rallies and after he faced widespread criticism for his combative daily briefings.

In an assessment that clashes with those of some public health experts, Trump said he believed that by the end of the year there would be a vaccine against COVID-19.

I think were going to have a vaccine by the end of the year. The doctors would say, well you shouldnt say that, Trump said. Ill say what I think ... I think well have a vaccine sooner than later.

U.S. President Donald Trump adjusts his suit at the start of a live Fox News Channel virtual town hall called 'America Together: Returning to Work' about the response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic being broadcast from inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, U.S. May 3, 2020. Photo: Reuters

Many health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, have cautioned that a vaccine is likely a year to 18 months away.

There is an incredibly small chance of having a highly effective vaccine or treatment for the coronavirus within the next year, Englands Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on April 22.

Trump also said he wanted students to return to schools and colleges in the autumn, even as he acknowledged the possibility of a resurgence of the disease.

Well put out the embers, well put out whatever it may be. We may have to put out a fire, he said.

Speaking the day before the Senate returns to Washington, Trump said it was possible that federal coronavirus aid could rise to $6 trillion from the nearly $3 trillion Congress has already passed to try to ease the heavy economic toll of the crisis.

There is more help coming. There has to be, he said.

Democrats have made clear they want to provide a sizable rescue package for state and local governments as part of a broader bill - one that could total over $2 trillion - while some Republicans criticized the idea as unreasonably expensive.

We will be doing infrastructure and I told Steve [Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin] just today we are not doing anything unless we get a payroll tax cut, Trump said.

Trump, who has been criticized for not moving faster early in the year to stop the spread of the disease, sought to blunt the criticism by blaming China.

Trump said China had made a horrible mistake without saying precisely what this was or providing specific evidence for his assertion.

Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was a significant amount of evidence that COVID-19 emerged from a Chinese laboratory, but did not dispute U.S. intelligence agencies conclusion that it was not man-made.
Regarding  Amid rising coronavirus death toll, nursing homes told to improve reporting (April 21): Due to a ruling from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, residents of nursing and assisted living facilities are being denied visitors, except in end-of-life situations. While this ban protects residents from the coronavirus, it doesnt take into account the very real risks of social isolation. Most engaging activities at these facilities have been suspended, thus leaving residents confined to their rooms. They are deprived of the emotional support that they would normally get from visits of their loved ones.

At high risk of deterioration are dementia residents, who are particularly dependent on the attention and support from their relatives. Spouses are no longer able to see, hug, or hold their life-long partners. Adult children are cut off from their parents. Surely there is a compromise. Allow one relative, following the same safety protocols as staff regarding temperature-taking, masks, etc., to visit with their loved one in a chosen location of the facility. Let us not say, when this is all over, that we hastened the demise of our most vulnerable population. After all, retirement homes may well be one of the last places released from lockdown.
Colleague actors of the late Bishop Bernard Nyarko have paid glowing tribute to him describing him as one great actor who was dedicated to his work.



Bishop Bernard Nyarko reportedly died of colon cancer on Saturday, May 2 at the Ridge Hospital in Accra.



In an interview with Graphic Showbiz on Sunday, May 3, actor Bill Asamoah, who worked with Bishop Nyarko on several movies, described him as a principled man.



"He was one serious guy who did not play with his roles and it reflected in his acting. He made sure he got everything right and no one had issues with him on set. May his soul rest in peace, he said.



According to Bill Asamoah, Bishop Nyarko tried to reason with everyone on set and also made sure the right things were done for everyone to benefit.



He disclosed that he was yet to meet the other actors in Kumasi so they could visit the late actor's family.



Movie producer Frederick Kojo Opoku who was working on a movie titled Mothers on Vacation with Bishop Nyarko said he was one of the best actors he had worked with.



Bishop Nyarko was so principled and so far the best actor I have worked with. He took his roles seriously and always executed his roles well. I never had an issue with him since I started working with him about three years ago. I personally miss him especially how he was always giving advice to anyone who came to him, he said.



Actor, Salinco also described the actor a noble man full of wisdom. "That man was something else and I miss will his acting and the way he went about doing things. Anyone who was close to him will side with me that he was a good man and shouldnt have died this way," he said.



According to him, Bishop Nyarko was unique when it comes to acting and he cannot be replaced by anyone.



I will put him in the first five top actors in Ghana. He played his roles so well that producers I know tell me he was the best actor to work with. Kumawood has lost something big, he added.



Producer, Paul Adjei Of Paul Gee Films, said Bishops death was a serious blow to him knowing how much he was worth.



"He worked tirelessly and was full of wisdom. Kumawood has lost a legend and it is sad for us all," he said.



When Graphic Showbiz contacted actress Emelia Brobbey, who has also acted with Bishop in many movies, she was in tears and all she could say was "rest in peace, my friend and colleague."

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
Two trains will depart from



here on Monday to take workers and people stranded in Karnataka due to the COVID-19 lockdown, while Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said free bus services for labourers stuck within the state to reach their native places will be extended for two days.

The trains will depart on Monday to Jaipur in Rajasthan and Patna in Bihar, the government said in a statement, adding food and water arrangements have been made for passengers before the travel.

Also sharing details about the labourers and people traveling to other states, the statement said, on Sunday two trains left for Patna in Bihar, and one each to Ranchi in Jharkhand and Bhubaneswar in Odisha.

Four trains carrying 4,800 people have left for their destination on Sunday, it said.

Trains have been operated from Kerala and Telangana in the past few days to various destinations for the benefit of guest workers stranded there.

In a bid to help people, including large number of labourers from Karnataka stranded within the state due to the lockdown, the Chief Minister said free bus services will be extended for two days.

The Chief Minister had on Sunday said, free bus services will be available for three days till Tuesday, and the expenses will be borne by the government.

"The free bus service announced for migrant workers is going on smoothly and it has been extended for two more days," he said in a statement today.

The free bus facility was supposed to end on Tuesday, but for the benefit of labourers and people it has been extended till Thursday, he said.

Labourers and people should not congregate at bus stands and should peacefully travel to their native places, he added.

An estimated 30,000 people travelled to their native places on Sunday as 951 Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) buses were were pressed into service.

On Monday already 1,500 people have begun their journey in 50 buses, the statement said adding in Bengaluru 550 and in other cities of the state 400 buses have be/en reserved for this purpose.

On Saturday, an estimated 16,500 passengers have travelled to their native in 550 buses, it said.

Allowing one-time inter state and inter district movement of those stranded, the government had earlier said, those wanting to travel will have to bear the travel expenses, and buses will be made available if required.

However, following the criticism that bus fare was too high and with thousands of labourers expressing their inability to pay, Yediyurappa on Saturday had decided to charge single fare tariff for workers travelling by KSRTC buses within the state, and in further relief he issued orders on Sunday making it free travel.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China should not squash Taiwan's aspirations to play global role: KMT

ROC Central News Agency

05/03/2020 08:54 PM

Taipei, May 3 (CNA) Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT) has called for policymakers in Beijing not to ignore the aspirations of Taiwanese people to participate in the international community because of political disagreements.

It is the hope of the majority of people in Taiwan to take part in or return to the World Health Organization (WHO) and this expectation has never changed since Taiwan first applied to become an observer at the organization's decision making body -- the World Health Assembly (WHA) -- in 1997, the KMT said in a statement released Sunday.

The statement came after a strong response on Saturday from China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva and other International Organizations in Switzerland, rejecting the United States' support of Taiwan's participation in WHO events and the upcoming WHA.

The KMT reiterated that the Chinese mission's statement should not be the final decision on the matter. It emphasized that policymakers in Beijing need to abandon their traditional thinking when dealing with Taiwan because it ignores the genuine aspirations of Taiwanese people to take part in and contribute to the world.

Citing the fact that Taiwan attended the WHA as an observer from 2009-2016, even after it lost power to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2016, the KMT said the ruling DPP should also try harder to deal with the current stalemate across the Taiwan Strait and seek to take part in WHO events in acceptable ways.

Leaders on both sides should put the interests of the Taiwanese people first so Taiwan, China and the world all emerge as winners from the current impasse, the statement concluded.

(By Liu Kuan-ting and Kay Liu)

Enditem/AW

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Vials of investigational COVID-19 treatment drug remdesivir are capped at a Gilead Sciences facility in La Verne, Calif., on March 18, 2020. (Gilead Sciences via Reuters)

Government Researchers Changed Endpoint During Remdesivir Trial

Researchers changed the primary endpoint for a clinical trial testing remdesivir against COVID-19, a shift that provoked concerns among some scientists.

The endpoint is the main result measured at the end of a study. The endpoint for the remdesivir trial was originally focused on counting how many patients died after two weeks. After the trial began, it was changed to time to recovery, or how quickly patients were discharged after receiving the experimental drug.

Remdesivir is produced by California-based Gilead Sciences. The clinical trial was run by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Little was known regarding the natural course of COVID-19 when the trial was initially designed, and the initial endpoint chosen specified a single time point for evaluation, namely day 14, a spokesperson for the agency told The Epoch Times.

However, with the growing knowledge during the epidemic, we learned that COVID-19 had a more protracted course than previously known. Further concerns were raised about the reliance on a single time point for evaluating treatment effects.

The Gilead Sciences headquarters in Foster City, Calif., on April 29, 2020. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Statisticians modeled to see what would happen if the right day wasnt picked for assessing the trial. Models showed that meaningful effects could be missed.

Time to recovery avoids this issue, and the change in primary endpoint seemed appropriate given the evolving clinical data. This change in primary endpoint was made without any knowledge of data from ACTT, before any interim data was available, the spokesperson said. ACTT is an acronym for the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial.

Under the new endpoint, the trial found remdesivir helped patients recover faster when compared to the control group.

What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of NIAID, told reporters at the White House.

Results indicate the group that received the drug had a lower mortality rate, but the number hasnt yet reached statistical significance.

The change was announced on the trial listing last month but received renewed attention after NIAID championed remdesivir last week. Researchers said the trial proved the drug worked against COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

A vial of the drug Remdesivir held by a researcher at a facility in Hamburg, Germany, on April 8, 2020. (Ulrich Perey/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

The positive results prompted the Food and Drug Administration to approve emergency use of remdesivir against COVID-19. Unlike other drugs being tested against the new disease, remdesivir hasnt received official approval for any use in normal conditions anywhere in the world against any illness.

The change in endpoint, though, drew concern from some scientists.

I think that they thought they werent going to win, and they wanted to change it to something they could win on, Steven Nissen, a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist who has led drug trials, told The Washington Post. I prefer the original outcome. Its harder. Its a more meaningful endpoint.

Getting out of the hospital early is useful, but its not a game-changer, he added.

The move has been described as unusual, but does happen. Dr. Todd Lee, a clinician-scientist at McGill University, said the change makes sense.

There were also calls for the data to be released and questions about why it hasnt been.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, left, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks next to response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force Dr. Deborah Birx, during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on April 29, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

The full results still havent been published. The NIAID spokesperson said theres no firm date yet for the release. Fauci said the results are undergoing peer review.

As much as people respect and admire and trust Dr. Fauci, theyd prefer not to take his word for it that this is promising, but to see the data themselves, Holly Fernandez Lynch, a medical ethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told Quartz. Even Tony Fauci needs peer review.

NIAID announced the data several days earlier than it normally would have because of ethical considerations, Fauci said.

Whenever you have clear cut evidence that a drug works, you have an ethical obligation to immediately let the people who are in the placebo group know so that they can have access, he said.

Fauci dismissed results from another study that published full results the same day.

Chinese researchers found remdesivir wasnt linked to a difference in time to clinical improvement. They also found signs of clinical improvement in patients given the drug earlier in the illness.
Have you ever wondered what a perfect storm looks like? If so, just take a look at Britains universities.

Only a few years ago our higher education institutions were among the best in the world.

But now, crippled by political mismanagement, institutional corruption and shameless greed, they stand on the brink of disaster.

The Government rejected the universities request for a 2.2 billion bailout to help them cope with the coronavirus lockdown (file image)

Yesterday, the Government rejected the universities request for a 2.2 billion bailout to help them cope with the coronavirus lockdown.

Instead, ministers told them to carry on charging students a full 9,250 a year for online tuition.

Predictably, many students were not impressed.

I pay tuition fees to go to my university in person, to be taught at my university in person, one young man told the BBC. Expecting students to pay full fees for a service that they arent receiving is frankly insulting.

You can, of course, see what he means. Other institutions, such as private schools, are also offering online lessons, but have cut their fees.

So its hardly unreasonable to expect the universities to follow suit.

The problem, though, is that without those tuition fees, the universities are facing financial meltdown  and the impact of the coronavirus is only part of the story.

Disastrous

Ive been writing about the higher education sector in the Mail for years. On every occasion I receive dozens of anguished letters, not just from parents who feel their children are being cheated, but from academics sickened by their own institutions gluttony and ineptitude.

The truth is that the virus crisis has ignited a bonfire fuelled not just by greedy vice-chancellors, but by decades of disgraceful political meddling.

Thirty or forty years ago, Britains top universities, such as Oxford, Cambridge and various London institutions, represented the international gold standard. They stood for excellence and an elite, in the best sense of the word.

Ministers told universities to charge students a full 9,250 a year for online tuition. Pictured is London Metropolitan University, who closed its doors on Friday March 20

But then successive governments, Tory and Labour alike, introduced three innovations with disastrous consequences.

First, they launched a misguided campaign to push more youngsters into full-time education, whether they were suitable for it or not.

Teenagers who would once have done manufacturing apprenticeships or other vocational qualifications were encouraged to disappear to university for three years, even though their degrees (such as the infamous Media Studies) were rarely worth the paper they were written on.

But did Whitehall want to pay for the expansion? It did not.

Instead, it asked students to carry some of the financial burden themselves, in the form of tuition fees. (Actually, they arent really fees, because students dont pay until they are earning more than 26,575 a year. But thats another issue.)

What few people realise is that tuition fees dont remotely cover the cost of a university education.

So successive governments have put the universities under unrelenting pressure to cram their lecture halls with foreign students who pay two or three times more because  to put it bluntly  we need their money.

Its impossible to exaggerate just how cynical this has been. I once met a senior academic at a leading red-brick university who told me, without a hint of shame, that his job was to find out which poverty-stricken, war-torn countries had just been given aid funding, and to make sure they handed it over to his university in student fees.

Other institutions, such as private schools, are also offering online lessons and have cut their fees but many universities have not followed suit (file image)

This is why the coronavirus has been such a particular disaster for Britains universities.

Their entire business model is based on packing in more and more students  not just British students with all those unconditional offers, but foreign students, no matter how unsuited they might be to our higher education system.

Last year, for example, our universities attracted more than 120,000 Chinese students.

At Liverpool, one in five students is Chinese. The truth is universities have become completely dependent on their overseas customers.

But now the foreign students have gone home. Many may never return  especially the Chinese.

And so our universities, which had already borrowed more than 10 billion to pay for swanky new buildings to attract new custom, are staring bankruptcy in the face.

Compounding all this, of course, is the public relations catastrophe of the vice-chancellors, who are widely seen as personifications of incompetence and self-interest.

Students are taking their exams at home and many are open book as young people have missed teaching, first due to strikes and then due to the coronavirus pandemic (file image)

To take merely one example, it may be that George Holmes, the Bentley-driving and yacht-owning vice-chancellor of the University of Bolton, deserves every penny of his 290,000 salary, as well as a 1 million loan for his Edwardian house.

But with his university ranked 125th out of 131 institutions, I cant help having my doubts.

Flagrant

Indeed, to get a sense of some university leaders narcissistic greed and flagrant social irresponsibility, just look at their response to the coronavirus crisis.

Only under pressure from the media have some vice-chancellors  the heads of Bristol, Nottingham and Edinburgh for example agreed to trifling cuts in their huge six-figure pay packets.

Yet many vice-chancellors, such as Oxfords Louise Richardson (425,000 a year), have refused to accept any pay cut.

At the same time, hundreds of junior academics have been furloughed (ie the taxpayer will meet the bill), part-timers have been pushed out of the door and staff on temporary contracts have been brutally jettisoned.

Yet as anyone involved with universities knows very well, these are the people who do most of the real work, while their bloated superiors luxuriate in their grace and favour mansions.

I could fill every page of todays paper with other symptoms of decline, from lecture halls so crowded that students listen in the corridors, to overpaid professors who spend most of their time at international conferences and therefore hardly teach.

And sadly, I dont have the space to get into the intolerant culture fostered by juvenile hard-Left activists, such as the fools at Oxford who have just demanded censorship of ableist, classist and misogynist books on their reading lists.

Graduations have been cancelled or postponed for students due to graduate this year due to social distancing rules amid the coronavirus pandemic (file image)

Reform

So whats the answer? In the short term, I think the Government is probably right. Since the universities finances are so dire, they have no choice but to keep charging full fees.

And for some students, online learning may actually be a blessing in disguise, teaching them to work independently and think for themselves.

In truth, though, the entire sector needs root and branch reform. For example, the antiquated admissions system, with students applying before they get their results, has no equivalent anywhere in Europe and should be entirely revamped.

There are too many universities, too many degrees and lets be honest  far too many students.

The current market system, in which universities compete to attract students with fancy campuses, inflated grades and dumbed-down degrees, is beyond a joke.

The cult of political correctness has become a poisonous betrayal of the principle of free speech.

And the obsession with attracting foreign money is a travesty of everything higher education is supposed to represent.

So the Government should grasp this opportunity. Clear out the top layer of corrupt, greedy management. Close down some universities, and force others to merge.

Change the admissions system and revamp degree classifications. Stop ripping off our youngsters with worthless degrees.

Sort out the tuition fees shambles and stop importing so many foreign students, and put British teenagers first for a change.

And above all, return to the relentless pursuit of academic excellence.
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: Citing personal safety on government duty as a reason, a 2014 batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre resigned on Monday.

Rani Nagar, presently posted as Additional Director, Social Justice and Empowerment, and Additional Director, Archives, has sent her resignation to the Haryana Chief Secretary Keshani Anand Arora with a request to forward it to the competent authority in the Union Government for acceptance. The copies of the resignation were also sent to the President, prime minister, governor and chief minister.

In her letter she states, "I, herby, most humbly submit to you my resignation from the post of Indian Administrative Service with immediate effect that is effective from May 4, 2020 forenoon. The reason for submitting the reason for submitting this resignation is personal safety on government duty."

"This is to most humbly request you to kindly do the needful as per applicable laws and forward this resignation letter to the competent authority in the government of India. I shall be very thankful for your kind gesture," the letter reads.

Last month in her Facebook post she had expressed her desire to resign from the service after the lockdown and go back to Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh which is her native place. Nagar is living with her sister in Chandigarh at present.

It may be recalled that in June 2018 Nagar had levelled harassment charges against a senior IAS officer, who was then posted as additional chief secretary, animal husbandry and dairying. She was working as an additional secretary, animal husbandry and dairying at the time. However, the senior officer had vehemently denied the charges.
Traffic in Northern Ireland has not dropped as much as in other parts of the UK or the Republic of Ireland during the coronavirus pandemic, new data suggests.

Data from tech giant Apple detailing the mobility levels of Apple Maps users shows that traffic levels in Northern Ireland last week were 47% of the levels seen in the week beginning Sunday, January 19.

This is compared with less than 40% in England and less than 30% in the Republic.

In Europe, traffic levels in Spain are only 24% of those seen in January.

Since lockdown was put into force in March, the public has been urged to stay at home and only travel for essential purposes, such as to buy food or attend a medical appointment.

Apple data suggests people may be relaxing their travel habits as the weeks of lockdown go on.

Traffic levels have increased 10.2% in Northern Ireland compared to the peak of the lockdown at the end of March, while traffic and England and the Republic of Ireland has increased by 8.7% and 7% over the same period, respectively.

Two weeks ago, the Department for Infrastructure said it was continuing to closely monitor the volume of traffic, following reports of scores of people making unnecessary journeys and pictures circulating of cars parked outside country parks - despite them only being reopened for pedestrians.

Expand Close A major maintenance scheme on the M2 Bellevue Bridge will begin next Monday and is expected to last 20 weeks. Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp A major maintenance scheme on the M2 Bellevue Bridge will begin next Monday and is expected to last 20 weeks.

It said that since lockdown on March 23, on average there has been a reduction in traffic flows by about 62% from Monday to Friday and by about 70% at weekends compared to the same period in previous years.

At the beginning of April Google data suggested a significant drop in activity across Northern Ireland.

Some areas, such as on public transport, shopping and at workplaces had seen a near total drop off in activity.

Read More

The Executive is set to discuss a phased pathway out of the lockdown, which deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill stressed will be criteria-led, not calendar-led.

Last week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar set out a five-stage plan for easing the lockdown in the Republic. Under the plan, from June 8 people will be able to travel up to 20km, however non-essential journeys will still be advised against.

This restriction will remain in place until July 20, when people will be permitted to travel as they please.
Hearst Connecticut Media Group

Less crime and fewer arrests? An opportunity to better serve school children? A sacrifice of privacy for better health?

Experts in the fields of health, education, criminal justice, the economy and more shared with Hearst Connecticut Media Group what they think the future could hold in our innovative special Sunday edition. Now theyll be taking your questions about what lies ahead for Connecticut residents.
Zelensky let the genie (Saakashvili) out of the bottle and will regret it many times, Ukrainian media - GeorgianJournal
Uber Eats operations to be closed down in Ukraine early in June

16:50, 04.05.20 4505

However, the company plans to continue its core rides business.
FIGHT FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST RECOVERY

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg continue to talk the economy up with plans for a rapid post-COVID-19 economic recovery in 2021. But the recovery they are referring to is one for big business, not one for the people or the planet we need for survival.

At the same time the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that before any recovery occurs, the global economy will experience the worst recession since the Great Depression, and far worse than the Global Financial Crisis.

In a report released last month, the IMFs chief economist Gita Gopinath said, The magnitude and speed of collapse in activity that has followed [COVID-19] is unlike anything experienced in our lifetimes.

Australia is no exception, with business closures, stand-downs, sackings, wage reductions, and charities stretched beyond their limits. The number of homeless people is on the rise. Millions of Australians are unemployed or underemployed, and their ranks continue to swell by the day.

GOVT AGENDA

The government is delusional if it thinks the economy can bounce back overnight. It certainly wont for working people and the unemployed. What it is proposing is a full-on neo-liberal assault on workers, the unemployed, pensioners, and other recipients of government payments  all with the aim of restoring and increasing the profits of its mates in big business as quickly as possible.

In particular, the government has plans for the removal of red tape (read deregulation), billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts, and a new round of anti-union, anti-worker legislation. This is just a continuation of its agenda, but instead of pushing it openly, it will use the excuse of COVID-19.

Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe, also representing the interests of the corporate sector, told cabinet last month that, if we thought we could just grow the economy under the old settings, then we need to think again. He is correct, but not in the pro-big business way he meant. There is another way  one that is in the interests of working people, their families, and the planet.

Capitalism is incapable of bringing about a recovery for the people. Deregulation, attacks on workers rights and reliance on the markets will not work for the people. This is evidenced by the present situation where farmers are destroying crops they cannot sell, and charities cannot meet the massive increase in the demand for food.

Workers did not cause the economic crisis, and they must not be made to pay for it.

PUBLIC SECTOR-LED RECOVERY

A multi-faceted, planned program is required which redirects the Australian economy to job creation, higher living standards, environmentally sustainable development, and to world peace. It must also reverse decades of deregulation and privatisation, with a program for full public ownership of public services and strategic enterprises, including transport, health, education, social welfare, telecommunications, banking, insurance, water and electricity.

The repeal of all anti-union, anti-worker legislation is central to the achievement of such a program that puts people first.

Jobs can be generated by increasing wages and social security payments. The current JobSeeker payments must NOT revert back to the inhumane level of $40 a day. Pensions and other government payments must NOT be reduced or undermined with tougher eligibility tests. Early childhood education MUST remain free. NO reversals post-pandemic or during the pandemic.

Since mid-2016 corporate profits have risen forty-three per cent but wages improved by just eight per cent. Penalty rates must be restored in full, and the minimum wage increased to a liveable wage.

Cuts to penalty rates were meant to create jobs, but a recent survey of over 1,800 employees and 200 owner-managers in retail and hospitality was unable to establish any evidence of growth. On the contrary, some of the analysis suggested the Sunday and public holiday employment outcomes were worse for those affected by the penalty cuts compared to those on enterprise agreements and individual contracts.

Such measures will increase the capacity of people to consume and hence demand for goods and services. In turn, this results in job creation.

PATH TO RECOVERY

On May Day, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) issued a call for a shorter working week. The WFTU believes that the profits should be given for the improvement of working conditions of all workers of the planet. We should work fewer hours with better wages and conditions that promote cultural, humanitarian and environmental progress.

The Communist Party of Australia supports a thirty-hour week without loss of income to create more jobs, address the impact of technology and improve the quality of life of workers.

An extensive public housing program would have the double benefit of providing much needed affordable housing as well as jobs.

At the same time, a job creation program must be backed by the necessary education and training. Education is a right and should be free and easily accessible from early childhood to tertiary levels with provision of student allowances. The apprenticeship system has been decimated, and extensive deskilling has taken place. This must be reversed with medium to large companies obliged to hire apprentices.

Decades of funding cuts and privatisation have resulted in under-resourced and understaffed public hospitals. The government should nationalise the private hospitals and other private elements of the health sector. Health is a right, not a commodity for those who can afford it. Adequate funding should be injected into the system for staffing and resources, the expansion of preventative health care, including dental, along with the necessary training.

The major insurance companies need to be returned to public hands. They cannot be left to continue ripping off customers, likewise the banks. If any evidence is needed, the banking inquiry says it all, and the treatment of drought and bush fire victims says even more.

Nationalisation of energy, water, communications, and other strategic services could when democratically run, see lower prices and better services. They could facilitate investment in renewable energy sources.

Land management is critical for wildlife and the survival of the human species. National parks should be handed over to Indigenous communities to manage, with the necessary financial support.

There is so much that could be done by the government that puts people before profits, including in such areas as the arts, culture, and recreational sport.

FUNDING THE RECOVERY

It wont be long before the government cries poor, pointing to a gaping hole in its budget, and seeking to impose austerity measures. After all, it will have spent billions on its stimulus packages and its income from personal and corporate income tax will have suffered considerably.

A government which puts people before profits could finance the above program with the following additional sources of annual income and savings:

Halve the $40 billion a year spent on military to fight US wars  $20 billion;

Abolish fossil fuel and other subsidies to mining corporations  $25 billion;

Abolish negative gearing  around $5 billion;

Abolish the capital gains tax exemption for the family home  $40 billion;

Abolish capital gains tax discount  $6 billion;

Phase-out private health insurance rebate  $6 billion;

Reverse income tax cuts for highest earners  $4 billion;

End superannuation, trust and other tax rorts by the rich  $15 billion;

Reverse corporate tax cuts  raise an extra $4.8 billion.

The total for such measures is well over $125 billion, and that is without including the recent tax cuts for the wealthy and impending corporate tax cuts. Add to that the possible billions of dollars that could be collected with the introduction of measures that force the largest corporations like Apple, Google, Chevron and others to pay tax.

Redirected to socially desirable projects, these funds could go a long way towards fully funding a people-first recovery and a better life. But we will have to fight for them as never before, with trade unions and the community united in the struggle.

Start now! Write to your MPs and Senators. Write letters to newspapers. Speak out on talk-back radio. Use social media to fight for a people-first agenda.

We cannot wait until state and federal governments to cry poor and start their cuts. We MUST stop them. Act now!
Vehicle importers in the Philippines have resumed dealership operations in General Community Quarantine (GCQ) areas.

However, the Association of Vehicle Importers and Distributors (AVID) made sure that they have "all bases covered" with the release and full implementation of stringent health and safety measures.

AVID President Ma. Fe Agudo assured that their 21 company-strong group are set to follow the guidelines they have made.

The said group has been suffering from the brunt of the situation since the start of the year.

Sales went down as far as the end of first quarter this year, and all efforts were of challenge due to Covid-19 and the eruption of Taal Volcano in Batangas, back in January.

"While we understand that people will not easily jump back into their usual routines, we want to assure the public that during the lock down, AVID members have been busy developing COVID-ready processes, structures, and organizations. We are now set to implement these general safety guidelines at our facilities as a primary step toward adapting to the next normal' in business. We envision these protocols as guide posts for our industry to hurdle current and future challenges in a timely and well-coordinated manner," Agudo said.

Agudo

The guidelineswhich are based on global and national standards for risk assessment and protocolsare designed to give utmost priority to the health and safety of employees, customers, suppliers, and the community at large, covering the mandated physical distancing, wearing of face masks and other protective gear, temperature screening, proper hand washing and sanitizing, respiratory etiquette, and other regulations and best practices.

Further, the AVID leadership said that its members are upgrading and mobilizing their online resources to continue providing customers quick, efficient, and "no-contact" service in the comfort and safety of their homes.

To ensure that safer environment for its employees, a number of AVID members have already pledged support for Project ARK (Antibody Rapid Test Kits). Project ARK is a private-sector led initiative that will make FDA-approved antibody rapid test kits available at the community level.

Story continues

Project ARK brings together medical experts, specialists, and business advisers to develop a test protocol that will identify infected individuals and determine their treatment while ensuring the safety of communities.

As of recent count, over a hundred leading local firms have signed up for Project ARK.

"Mobility is the lifeblood that drives the nations economy and this has been further underscored by this pandemic. The 'new normal' entails that we operate in an uncertain business environment, hence, the need for strict monitoring of the industrys value chain and the community. We shall do so in the spirit of collaboration with the national and local government. This is how AVID will emerge stronger within and beyond the pandemic: we navigate the crisis together, so that we all heal together," Agudo noted.

AVID members have actively bolstered the nations battle against COVID-19 by providing free transport for front liners and delivery services of medical supplies, personal protective equipment (PPEs), and essential goods across the country. Others are supporting their home communities and LGUs.

AVID is composed of 21 member companies representing 26 global brands such as Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BYD, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Ferrari, Ford, GAC Motor, Geely, Hyundai, JAC passenger cars, JAC commercial vehicles, Jeep, Lamborghini, Lotus, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, Piaggio, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Subaru, Suzuki, and Volvo.

The AVID Guidelines on Safety and Protection is available here.

Also read:

AVID Vehicle Sales on Downtrend in January 2020

Vehicle Importers Group Sales Drop by 34 Percent
In recognition of the spirit of service that they have demonstrated in their communities, Micah and Alexis  along with 100 other top youth volunteers from across the country  were also each given $2,500 to donate toward the local COVID-19 response efforts of a nonprofit organization of their choice. These funds come in addition to the $1,000 scholarship and engraved silver medallion they earned as North Dakota's top youth volunteers of 2020.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, sponsored by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), named Micah and Alexis North Dakota's top high school and middle level youth volunteers in February.

"Over the past 25 years, this program has honored students spanning three generations, and the common thread between them has been the determination of young people to respond to the challenges of the moment," said Charles Lowrey, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial. "Who better than this group of young leaders from all over the country to help identify and direct resources to community needs arising from COVID-19?"

As State Honorees, Micah and Alexis also earned an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the program's annual national recognition events; the trip, however, was canceled due to COVID-19 and changed to a three-day online celebration this past weekend. In addition to remarks and congratulations from actress Kristen Bell, honorees had opportunities to connect with each other through online project-sharing sessions, learn about service and advocacy from accomplished past Spirit of Community honorees, hear congratulatory remarks from Lowrey and NASSP Executive Director and CEO JoAnn Bartoletti, and more.

"We admire these young leaders for their ability to assess the needs of the communities they serve and find meaningful ways to address them," said Bartoletti. "At a time when everyone is looking for optimism, these students are a bright light for their peers and the adults in their lives."

About the Honorees

Micah (pictured left), a junior at Legacy High School, spent more than 150 hours raising awareness across North Dakota about the benefits of dance for people with Parkinson's disease, while also raising funds for dance lessons, support groups and research. When Micah was 12, her best friend's father had to quit his job when his Parkinson's symptoms progressed. "The impact this disease had on her family left an impression on me that I will never forget," said Micah. Coincidentally, she had been involved in fundraising to enable her ballet studio to offer free dance classes for people with Parkinson's. The two experiences made it clear what her volunteer mission should be.

In addition to her own observations, Micah found studies that showed how dancing improves the cognition, motor skills, mood and confidence of people with Parkinson's. But many health care professionals are unaware of the therapy, patients themselves don't understand the benefits, and dance instructors lack funding to become certified in the techniques. So Micah began spreading the word, arranging demonstrations for people with the disease, speaking to Parkinson's support groups and at state conferences, developing informational fliers for health care professionals and writing a magazine article on the subject, which led to several radio and television interviews. In addition, Micah teamed up with a bakery to create a special donut resembling the Parkinson's logo; $3,000 of the sales have been donated to train North Dakota's first American Dance Therapy Association Certified Dance-for-Parkinson's instructor, to help fund Parkinson's support groups, and to advance research into the disease.

Alexis (pictured right), a sixth-grader at Horizon Middle School, started an ongoing toy drive that has provided gifts for more than 450 adolescent hospital patients, launched a campaign to increase scoliosis awareness and screening, and organized a support group for girls with curvature of the spine. A couple of years ago, Alexis was having a dress altered when her seamstress mentioned that her shoulders looked uneven. When she was evaluated at Shriners Healthcare for Children  Twin Cities, doctors found three curves in her neck and spine. After all her tests, she was allowed to pick out a toy from a collection intended to distract patients from uncomfortable or scary procedures. But most of the toys, Alexis noticed, were for younger kids. So she decided to organize a drive to provide toys for kids her age.

She sent out donation request letters to businesses and individuals and posted information on social media. After three drives, Alexis has collected toys and more than $1,500 in cash from donors across North Dakota and even in other states; she delivers toys to the hospital every three months. Realizing that many schools in her state no longer routinely screen children for scoliosis, she contacted media outlets and gave interviews explaining the importance of early detection, and then partnered with a local chiropractor to provide free screenings and information about scoliosis. Alexis also started North Dakota's first chapter of Curvy Girls, an international support group for girls with scoliosis, in addition to her own organization called "Embrace You" that raises awareness of scoliosis and provides support to patients. "I want girls to know they are not alone and they will get through this," Alexis said.

About The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program was created in 1995 to identify and recognize young people for outstanding volunteer service  and, in so doing, inspire others to volunteer, too. In the past 25 years, the program has honored more than 130,000 young volunteers at the local, state and national level. For more information about The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and this year's honorees, visit http://spirit.prudential.com. For more information about the National Association of Secondary School Principals, visit www.nassp.org. For more information about Prudential Financial, visit www.news.prudential.com.

Learn more at spirit.prudential.com

SOURCE Prudential Financial, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.prudential.com


More than 100,000 homes in Tennessee were without power on Monday and a firefighter was killed by a falling tree branch as thunderstorms battered the state and the surrounding area.

In Topeka, Kansas a home surveillance camera captured just how brutal the gusts were as trash cans were thrashed about down the street.

Authorities received 242 reports of wind damage Sunday from southeast Missouri, northeast Arkansas and the west and middle of Tennessee after a 72-mph gust of wind Nashville International Airport was the fifth-fastest measured in the city's history.

The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) had warned to treat Severe Thunderstorm Warnings the 'same way you would Tornado Warnings and JUST TAKE SHELTER'.

A video from Topeka, Kansas showed the strong gusts of wind as trash cans were thrown around

Kittrell Fire Department received significant storm damage during the Tennessee storms, with over 60% of the roof missing

Firefighter Mitchell Earwood was fatally injured by a tree branch while he was off-duty in Tennessee on Sunday

'70 mph is 70 mph whether it's spinning around in a circle or blowing in a straight line,' the NWS tweeted.

Videos showed the storm rolling into the Orlinda area on Sunday and another striking shot captured the dark clouds over West Wilson County, Lebanon.

Firefighter Mitchell Earwood was fatally injured by a tree branch while he was off-duty. Earwood served the city for 10 years.

'Mitchell was a dear friend and a true public servant giving his all. He will be sadly missed. Our prayers go out to all his family and friends as we stand with our brothers and sisters of Spring Hill Fire Department,' local police said.

Brentwood Fire and Rescue 'deployed a crew to Spring Hill to help provide coverage while their personnel begin to deal with this horrible loss.'

'Mitchell served the WCRS proudly as a Tech II and committed many hours as a professional volunteer firefighter with both Station 14 and 23,' the local police department said.

Kittrell Fire Department in Rutherford County received significant storm damage during the storms.

'With over 60% of our roof missing, we are lucky to have sustained no injuries, and we are still able to respond to calls as needed,' they reported.

The roof of the Times Gazette building was ripped off by the strong winds amid the storms in Shelbyville

The wind was so strong in the area where Earwood died that a metal pole was bent over

'I am saddened to announce the loss of our 200 year old majestic oak tree' one Tennessee resident tweeted. 'This tree witnessed Civil War battles and countless children growing up. Farewell old friend and sentry of JT Moore Middle School'

130,000 people were initially without power on Sunday as trees fell and powers lines were cut

In places winds were travelling at 70 mph, causing trees to fall through roofs of homes

Approximately 80 reports of fallen trees were reported in Davidson County.

Other Tennesseans were moved to tears after the destruction of a special oak tree.

'I am saddened to announce the loss of our 200 year old majestic oak tree,' one Tennessee resident tweeted. 'This tree witnessed Civil War battles and countless children growing up. Farewell old friend and sentry of JT Moore Middle School.'

In the Columbia area a highway sign at the intersection of James Campbell Boulevard and Trotwood Avenue was twisted and the 60mph winds combined with the heavy rain caused a five-vehicle pile-up at Columbia Mall.

The initial number of people without power was more than 130,000 according to Nashville Electric but by Monday it had been reduced to 100,000.

'Sunday's night thunderstorm was one of the largest power outages on record for @NESpower,' Mayor John Cooper tweeted. 'It also coincided with the two month anniversary of Nashville's deadly tornado. Crews are working diligently to restore power and clear any debris in neighborhoods.

'I'm grateful there have not been any reported fatalities in our county. My thoughts are with the Spring Hill community and Earwood family who lost firefighter Mitchell Earwood  a true public servant - during the storm.'

He added that it was especially tough to deal with during the coronavirus pandemic.

Cooper continued: 'This is an unfortunate time for many who continue to additionally deal with the tornado aftermath and COVID19.'

Brentwood Fire and Rescue deployed a crew to Spring Hill in Tennessee to help provide coverage while their personnel began to deal with the loss of a firefighter

Citizens and Public Works helped remove trees that had fallen in the paths on Sunday

A striking shot captured the dark clouds over West Wilson County, Lebanon in Tennessee

Wicked view of the storms as they rolled into Orlinda,TN earlier today.

Video: Jennifer Goostree.@WSMV #tnwx pic.twitter.com/l6KNK7RivC  Cody Murphy  (@CodyMurphyWx) May 3, 2020

There was a Tornado Watch in Oklahoma on Monday while parts of Tennessee and Missouri had Thunderstorm Watches and Warnings
Donald Trump commented Sunday night during a televised town hall sponsored by Fox News channel.

Washington: President Donald Trump says he believes a vaccine for COVID-19 will be available by the end of the year.

Trump also says the US government is putting its full power and might behind Remdesivir, a drug that has shown early promise as a treatment for the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Trump commented Sunday night during a televised town hall sponsored by Fox News channel.

Trump sat inside the Lincoln Memorial and fielded questions from two Fox hosts, as well as from people who submitted questions over Fox's social media platforms.

Trump responded to a Nebraska man who recovered from COVID-19 by saying: We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year. He also said his administration was pushing hard for Remdesivir.

US public health officials have said a vaccine is probably a year to 18 months away. But Dr Anthony Fauci said in late April that it's conceivable, if a vaccine is developed soon, it could be in wide distribution as soon as January.
Kyle Sandilands congratulated his friend Karl Stefanovic on the birth of his daughter on Friday in characteristically abrasive style.

The straight-talking KIIS FM radio presenter, 48, texted the Today show host a bawdy joke about the two vasectomy reversals he had required in order to conceive a child with his wife, Jasmine Yarbrough.

His lewd message was in stark contrast to the kind and thoughtful text his co-host, Jackie 'O' Henderson, had sent Karl as Jasmine went into labour on Friday.

Er, thanks! Kyle Sandilands (pictured) congratulated his friend Karl Stefanovic on the birth of his fourth child on Friday in characteristically abrasive style

Kyle's text read: 'My spies tell me now is the time to say congratulations: Your c*m still works! Probably [censored] like s**t but works nonetheless. Kisses to the family.'

His joke was in reference to the fact Karl had undergone two vasectomy reversals in order to have a child with his second wife.

While the text may seem insensitive, the pair are actually good friends. Karl recently interviewed the shock jock for a 60 Minutes special that will air later this year.

Cheeky! The straight-talking radio host texted Karl (left) a rude joke about the two vasectomy reversals he had required in order to conceive the child with wife Jasmine Yarbrough (right)

The Channel Nine host, 45, had previously 'had the snip' during his first marriage to Cassandra Thorburn. At the time, he did not foresee having any need to reverse the vasectomy, but in 2016, the couple split after 21 years of marriage.

The initial reversal procedure reportedly took place shortly after his wedding to Jasmine in December 2018, and the second was in early April last year.

Vasectomy reversals are not always successful and it can take months before fertility resumes for the patient, but fortunately things worked out for Karl.

Couldn't be more different! His lewd message was in stark contrast to the thoughtful text his co-host, Jackie 'O' Henderson (right), had sent Karl as Jasmine went into labour on Friday

Meanwhile, Jackie O's congratulatory text was far more good-natured.

She wrote: 'Just wanted to send my love to you guys and hope all is going well. This is such an exciting and beautiful time for you both. Sending you lots of love and happiness.'

After the Stefanovics announced the name of their daughter, Harper May, Jackie sent another text.

'Oh, my god. My daughter's middle name is May, too. How exciting!' she wrote.

The first photo: Jasmine gave birth to a 'beautiful baby girl' named Harper May Stefanovic (pictured) on Friday at Sydney's North Shore Private Hospital

Jasmine, 36, gave birth to a 'beautiful baby girl' named Harper May Stefanovic on Friday at Sydney's North Shore Private Hospital.

In a statement to the Today show the following day, Karl said: 'Harper and Jasmine are doing well and dad had a great night's sleep.

He added: 'I am in awe. Harper is absolutely perfect.'

'Mum and bub are doing well': The news was announced on air by Karl's colleague and friend Richard Wilkins (left). Pictured with Rebecca Maddern (centre) and Jayne Azzopardi (right)

The news was announced on air by Karl's colleague and close friend Richard Wilkins.

Richard confirmed that Harper was born weighing 2.9kg just after midday on Friday.

'Mum and bub are both doing very well,' he said proudly.

'To Karl and Jas, you guys are really going to love this special time in your life. They deserve all the happiness that's coming their way.'

Style and comfort: Karl made sure his wife was as comfortable as possible, organising her a luxury maternity suite at the private hospital (pictured)

The couple had been spotted driving at speed to North Shore Private Hospital on Friday morning in exclusive photos obtained by Daily Mail Australia.

The breakfast TV anchor 'raced' in his $140,000 Toyota Land Cruiser Sahara after finishing his daily broadcast of the Today show.

Karl had a serious expression on his face, while shoe designer Jasmine sat in the front passenger seat looking uncomfortable.

When they arrived at the hospital, Karl appeared nervous as he walked through the parking lot. He also reminded paparazzi outside the entrance to keep away due to social distancing restrictions.

Karl made sure his wife was as comfortable as possible, organising her a luxury maternity suite at the private hospital.

Fabulous: The bathroom is worlds away from the cramped spaces most hospital patients have come to expect, with a waterfall shower, large bath and wood-inspired finishings

The spacious suite looks more like a modern hotel than a hospital room, with a plush couch for Karl and other visitors to relax and meet baby Harper.

The bathroom is worlds away from the cramped spaces most hospital patients have come to expect, with a waterfall shower, large bath and wood-inspired finishings.

The newly-renovated suites were opened in February last year.

Baby on board: Jasmine last shared a photo of herself to Instagram on Tuesday. She posed in a black dress while cradling her baby bump alongside the caption: 'Countdown is on'

Jasmine last shared a photo of herself to Instagram on Tuesday. She posed in a black dress while cradling her baby bump alongside the caption: 'Countdown is on.'

Her pregnancy was mostly kept private, with only a few photos surfacing of her visible bump over her three trimesters.

In April, the Stefanovics moved into a $7.3million waterfront mansion in Sydney as they prepared to become parents.

The lavish property on Sydney's lower north shore has plenty of space for a growing family, with a total of four bedrooms across four levels.

Proud mum: Jasmine showed off a rare glimpse of her baby bump in a TikTok video in January

Jasmine, who is the co-founder of shoe brand Mara & Mine, had been preparing for her daughter's arrival by decorating a nursery in the home.

She also installed a child's car seat in her and Karl's family vehicle.

Karl told Daily Mail Australia last month that he was looking forward to becoming a father again.

'We're slowly getting a nursery together,' he said. 'I've had a fair few boxes arrive at the door and I've had to get the allen keys out.

'My snoo has arrived!' Jasmine, who is the co-founder of shoe brand Mara & Mine, had been preparing for her daughter's arrival by decorating a nursery in the home

'Car's all ready!' Jasmine also recently installed a child's car seat in her and Karl's family vehicle

'I've helped build the cot, they've got this breast-feeding chair thing that I've put together. This is not easy stuff for a guy like me. But we are all ready to roll now.'

The birth was tinged with sadness for Karl, whose mother, Jenny, lives in Cairns and was unable to meet the child due to coronavirus travel restrictions.

It was previously reported that Jasmine's parents, Bob and Cheryl Yarbrough, would be coming down from Brisbane so they could spend a fortnight in quarantine then help care for the baby girl.

Happily ever after: In December, Karl and Jasmine celebrated their one-year anniversary after tying the knot in Los Cabos, Mexico, in late 2018. Pictured on their wedding day

Karl said: 'For a while there it looked like I may not even be able to be in the birthing suite. Fortunately it looks like I'll be able to do that which is a wonderful thing.'

The couple began dating in late 2016, five months after he had separated from his first wife, Cassandra, following 21 years of marriage.

The former couple share three children: Jackson, 20, River, 12, and Ava, 15.

In December, Karl and Jasmine celebrated their one-year anniversary after tying the knot at Mexico's five-star One&Only Palmilla resort in late 2018.
By the end of May, 10,000 cases of coronavirus infection are a likely number for Armenia. The Minister of Health, Arsen Torosyan, said this in a conversation with journalists on Monday.

When asked about the reason for such large number of cases of COVID-19 in the country in recent days, the Minister said. "For example, 34 of them are citizens from quarantine, 58 are contacts with the confirmed case, we still have medical staff, there are people who attended the funeral, and employees of several operating economic entities. There are many hotbeds that suggest that we should all follow the rules and not hope that there is no infected person, for example, in the National Assembly. The case of the burial shows that we ourselves violate the rules, and the goals that are important are subordinated to the less important ones.

Torosyan said that the number of 500,000 infections announced by him in the National Assembly was simply not a number. "It was the assessment of the World Health Organization about a month ago for Armenia: 500,000 cases, tens of thousands of hospitalizations, and thousands of deaths, he said. "Fortunately, this has not happened so far because, in any case, we have been able to curb the spread of the outbreak.

We see that the numbers are rising [in Armenia], but it is difficult to say whether it will be 500 thousand or 100 thousand; our behavior will determine that number. We will have 10,000 cases or 50,000 cases by the end of May. If we have 10,000 cases, that's bad, but it's better than 50,000, which we can't control."
China is publicly handing out money and equipment to help fight the spread of coronavirus in Zimbabwe. But Beijing's generosity has made some very wary.

Until now most in Zimbabwe have accepted that China's aid and investment strategy in the country is usually tied to infrastructure development.

The partnership announced this week between the China Gezhouba Group and a Zimbabwean company to build a new coal-fired power station worth three billion US dollars fits much better into the business mould Zimbabweans and Zimbabwe business watchers have come to expect.

Critics call the new trend, replicated in several African countries, of shipping medical supplies and offering financial support for primary health care China's coronavirus diplomacy.

China has been extremely active in pushing out support to a host of countries needing assistance to tackle Covid-19, Piers Pigou, southern Africa consultant with the International Crisis Group, tells RFI.

It may well be expending more energy on profiling these contributions in the face of bad press relating to its responsibilities around managing and communicating around the initial stages of the pandemic.

The suspicious list

Here are some of what's been supplied to Zimbabwe so far by the Chinese embassy and the Chinese private sector:

An upgrade worth US$500,000 to Harare's main Covid-19 centre, the Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital.

A donation of 50,000 masks, one thousand goggles and 510 protective suits by two Chinese firms to First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa's charity

Equipment including 166,000 face masks, 7,600 protective suits, 20,000 test kits, 12,000 pairs of gloves and five ventilators from the Chinese embassy

Two donations from China's richest man, Jack Ma, including tens of thousands of test kits, protective suits, face masks and shields

A US$3million donation from the China International Development Cooperation Agency to UNICEF Zimbabwe. China is also supporting the United Nations Population Fund in refurbishing neonatal clinics in southern and eastern Zimbabwe.

Shielded from criticism

Suspicion among Zimbabweans is rife. It was strongest among government critics to begin with.

Indeed, Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo in early April called on Zimbabweans not to blame one group of people for the origin of the coronavirus in a clear attempt to shield China from criticism.

The late Robert Mugabe used to call China Zimbabwe's all-weather friend, a gratitude sparked no doubt in part by China's willingness to turn a blind eye to the country's rights abuses.

But local thought leaders have resisted, using hashtags like #ChineseColony. Videos posted online showing the mistreatment of African migrant workers and traders, mostly Nigerians, in the city of Guangzhou last week haven't helped.

Attempts by Chinese diplomats in Harare to downplay the incidents only stirred anger.

You think that Zimbabweans are so foolish that they would buy into your pathetic explanations when the whole world knows what is going on? journalist Hopewell Chinono said in a tweeted remark to top embassy official, Zhao Baogang.

Chinono, who has more than 134,000 followers accused some Chinese firms operating in Zimbabwe of having pillaged the country and not paying taxes.

If companies like Huawei were paying taxes, Zimbabwe would not need donations, he said, referring to the opaque 2014 investment agreement under which the Chinese tech giant has been exempted from paying tax.

Snakes and bats

The remarks by Chinono reflect growing anti-Chinese sentiment in Zimbabwe, at least on social media. This may gain further traction, says Pigou.

China's support is intended for all Zimbabweans, but there is a strong sense that beneficiation remains mediated by state and Zanu-PF (the ruling party) interests, he said.

Lately even a member of Zanu-PF has let slip some frustration. In a tweet last week, Deputy Information Minister Energy Mutodi said the consumption of dogs, cats, snakes, bats, monkeys in China and other Asian countries had left us all at risk of contracting the Covid-19.

Said Mutodi: We hope to up our game on beef exports to China, Indonesia & others soon.
Inside a greenhouse off Champagne Boulevard north of Escondido, lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes are being grown in an aquaponic research facility designed to teach others about sustainable farming.

The ultimate goal of the center is far loftier: to save the world.

The small greenhouse, dubbed the Auqaponics Innovation Center, contains a sophisticated system that uses fish, water and numerous filtration systems. Its run by Ecolife Conservation, a nonprofit headquartered in Escondido, whose director is Bill Toone, a conservation biologist by training.

Years ago, while working a conservation project in a national park in Madagascar, Toone lived with villagers near a rain forest for three years. Two months after leaving, the village was wiped out in a massive typhoon.

Advertisement

So I reached out to all the conservation groups that for the past four years had funded me, Toone said. I asked for money to go back to look for people and help put things back together. And everyone said no. They said we do animals. We dont do people.

It pissed me off and broke my heart.

Toone said he took some time off to contemplate whether all the conservation work he had spent his life doing was making any difference.

A few years later, in 2003, he established Ecolife and began a quest to address huge ecological and human problems.

Extinction is caused by loss of habitat. Animals die because they dont have anywhere to live, he said. And the single largest cause of habitat destruction is expanding agriculture production. We use up more land to grow food than any other thing we do. We drive more species to extinction by agriculture.

It became very clear to me if you wanted to save the world, you better learn how to farm more sustainably.

The aquaponic center, built just a few months ago, is designed as a research and training facility that people can visit who wish to learn how to grow vegetables and fruit using far less water and land.

This place is about giving us the opportunity to bring some attention to it, to demonstrate it at scale, he said.

Last week, a couple farmers from Murrieta toured the facility to learn the process as did a gentleman representing a restaurant consortium that is interested in building rooftop aquaponic facilities atop the businesses.

The idea is to save water, save land, reduce our carbon footprint and make a real conservation impact, Toone said.

California produces 78 percent of the lettuce consumed in the United States.

We export 55 billion gallons of water in California every year hidden in the heads of lettuce, Toone said, And we dont have any water, yet were sending it all over the country.

Though a very small operation, what is being done at the innovation center can be reproduced on a far larger scale, he said.

This system uses 10 percent of the water, Toone said. We could reduce that 55 billion gallons of water in lettuce to about 5 billion by growing produce this way.

All of the vegetables grown at the center are donated to nonprofits such as Interfaith Community Services in Escondido.

In the past month, we donated 400 pounds of cucumbers, for example, said Connor Leone, the centers education coordinator.

On Thursday morning, a half-dozen volunteers with Senior Gleaners, a nonprofit that picks fruit and vegetables for the hungry, were at the innovation center to harvest about 40 pounds of lettuce.

They contacted us. Its wonderful, said Karen Clay, a scheduler for the Gleaners. I think its amazing the work they have done here and the work they are doing in different areas to help people.

Leone said the lettuce and other vegetables grow in about two-thirds the time they would in the ground and they can be planted in far greater densities using aquaponics.

Simply put, the self-contained system uses fish  Mozambique Tilapia -- in a tank that produces waste which is then turned into plant nutrients and added to water that the plants sit atop of on floating racks.

Various filtration systems designed to catch solid waste, maintain pH levels and biofilters for nitrifying bacteria to colonize, all connected through PVC piping, complete the system.

The center is located on land donated by one of several of Ecolifes angels, as Toone calls them  large donors who support the goals and operations of the company.

Those goals include building and supplying wood-burning stoves to people in Mexico and Africa.

The fifth-leading cause of deforestation in the world, and the No. 1 killer of human beings in the world, is harvesting of wood for cooking fires, Toone said.

Those cooking fires kill an estimated 4.3 million people every year from either burns or smoke inhalation-related diseases.

He said three billion people still cook over an open fire, often indoors where smoke grows thick.

Its the equivalent of smoking 400 cigarettes a day, according to the World Health Organization, Toone said. Ecolife builds stoves with chimneys to vent smoke out of the dwellings.

For more information about Ecolife and its work go to ecolifeconservation.org on the web.

jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjones
Many Local Restaurants Continue To Wait It Out The local response to Governor Greg Abbott's announcement allowing certain businesses, libraries and museums to reopen Friday, May 1, has been mixed, with many choosing to continue providing curbside and takeout service.



The governor announced Monday, April 27, that he would let his stay-at-home order expire at the end of April without renewing it and follow it with phase one of reopening the economy.



On May 1, retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, malls, libraries and museums were allowed to reopen with additional safety precautions in place and occupancy limited to 25 percent.



Throughout the state, restaurants are navigating the new rules and weighing their options.



Under phase one of the governor's plan to reopen the state's economy, restaurants must limit their occupancy to 25 percent, avoid seating tables of more than six and maintain a six-foot distance between tables and those waiting in line.



They are also to provide hand sanitizing stations, use disposable menus, serve condiments upon request in single-use portions, avoid allowing diners to serve themselves at a buffet, and implement extra disinfecting measures.



Bars remain closed under phase one of the plan, even if they offer food.



While a few have welcomed the chance to reopen dining rooms in any capacity, many restaurants locally seemed to be waiting the situation out a little longer as of Friday.



Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce Director Wendy Ellis said that while she could not confirm what every restaurant in town is doing, several have announced that they will continue with curbside pickup and delivery options only for now.



"Many are citing the health and safety of their employees and customers as primary reasons for their decisions," she said.



Ellis added that the chamber is monitoring social media and other information outlets for changes in business operations and sharing them to the Raising Hill Local Business Support Group Facebook page.



Many downtown Hillsboro restaurants that are still open were planning to stick with the curbside and takeout model for the time being, according to Hillsboro Main Street Manager Chris Moore.



Lake Whitney Chamber of Commerce Director Janice Sanders also said Thursday that the majority of the restaurant owners she had spoken to in the Whitney area were opting to stay with curbside and takeout for now.



County Judge Justin Lewis urged the public to continue taking precautions as businesses begin to reopen.



We are encouraging everyone to support our local businesses by maintaining social distancing guidelines, wearing face masks when out in public and washing hands on a frequent basis," Lewis said. "By doing these things while participating in more of our daily activities, we will help ensure that phase one of reopening Texas is successful, and we will create the opportunity to move to phase two."



The judge added, "If we get careless in our safety procedures, we will allow the spread to increase and potentially halt our ability to move forward. We might even have to take some steps back, and none of us want that."



Lewis continued, "Please take this seriously and protect yourself, your loved ones, your neighbors and our businesses that are working so hard to provide you with important services and build a strong economy."



The Texas Restaurant Association released an open letter to restaurants and their customers Thursday, April 30. President and CEO Emily Williams Knight said that the focus on what the new model will look like, whether restaurants should open and if 25-percent occupancy will work has led to the creation of two "camps."



"Camp one are those that choose to reopen safely tomorrow, and camp two are those that will choose to sit on the sidelines and look for the right opportunity for them. Neither camp is wrong in their choice," Knight wrote.



Public libraries and museums were also allowed to reopen at 25 percent capacity with restrictions in place Friday, but representatives from both the Hillsboro City Library and the Lake Whitney Public Library said they would continue curbside and online services only for now.



While many area retailers were considered "essential" by the state and have been allowed to remain open throughout the restrictions, small retail shops are utilizing both retail-to-go and opening stores as allowed under the new guidelines.



Movie theaters were also allowed to reopen, but The Texas Tribune reported last week that some of the state's largest movie theater chains have announced that they will not reopen until summer.



Movie theaters that do open will be required to maintain two empty seats between moviegoers who do not live in the same household.



When he announced phase one, Governor Abbott said that more openings and loosened restrictions could come as soon as May 18, but that is based on the state seeing two weeks of data that confirm no "flare up" of COVID-19.



In phase two, hair salons, bars and gyms could possibly open, and restrictions for restaurants, retailers and others opened in phase one could be further loosened.



Business owners seeking information on how they can begin to restart more normal operations can reference Governor Abbotts report, Texans Helping Texans: The Governors Report to Open Texas. The report can be found at gov.texas.gov and provides guidelines for businesses and their customers on safe practices to best protect themselves from the spread of COVID-19.


Insurers have introduced support packages for customers unable to pay their car insurance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For CTP insurance, insurers such as Suncorp Insurance are offering an Eftpos card from March 30, 2020, to support customers who have lost jobs, business closure or reduced household income, a SIRA spokesperson told Insurance Business Australia.

SIRA encourages all customers to discuss any request for support with their insurer and encourages customers to shop around for the best price to meet their personal circumstances by visiting SIRAs online Green Slip Check, which is available 24/7.

However, the regulator admits complexities exist when trying to establish the full impact the pandemic has had on CTP because of the way it is delivered.

CTP is long tailed insurance. This means that it takes several years to know with certainty the true claims costs arising from injuries or fatalities to people involved in motor vehicle crashes, the spokesperson added.

SIRA is actively monitoring claims data, traffic volumes and accident rates and engaging with insurers. SIRA is reviewing the CTP premium parameters and if claims and injuries are reducing, SIRA will use its regulatory powers to reduce premiums.

The regulator says, despite receiving less than five COVID-19 related inquiries per day, it is monitoring the situation and expects insurers to remain flexible and supportive of impacted people.

To date, there has been a small decline in the volume of claims being lodged. SIRAs CTP Assist service is receiving less than five COVID-19 related enquiries per day, mostly related to accessing treatment, the spokesperson said.

SIRA expects insurers to be flexible to ensure that injured people can continue to access benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. SIRA has confirmed that all CTP insurers have robust business continuity plans in place, including increasing online customer support to maintain business as close to usual as is practical in the current environment.

Despite the unforeseen circumstances brought on by the pandemic, SIRA says there has been no significant changes in CTP policy purchases.

SIRA has not seen any significant changes in people purchasing CTP policies. For CTP, injured people can lodge claims up to three years following an accident, it said. SIRA is actively monitoring policy and claims data, traffic volumes and accident rates.

But the regulator admits that the current data on claims is unreliable at this time because April data was not yet complete at the time contacted.

Given that, claims reported in April 2020 appear lower than other months, however reporting is not yet complete for April. SIRA is monitoring this data to determine whether Aprils lodged claims data is lower due to fewer accidents or delays in people submitting their claim forms, which will become clearer over the next few weeks, the spokesperson said.

Among calls to support customers, SIRA also advocates digital communication methods between injured parties and insurers to avoid face-to-face contact.

For people that have been injured in a motor vehicle accident, SIRA is encouraging the use of telehealth services for consultations between injured people and treatment providers to avoid face to face contact, the spokesperson continued.

If people are unable to see their general practitioner, they can now obtain a certificate of fitness to continue to receive benefits from their treating physiotherapist or psychologist.

This isnt the first time CTP and Green Slip insurance have faced industrial-sized changes  in 2017, prices were subject to significant drops after the reform scheme, seeing the average price of Green Slip reduce by around $146.

In addition to reduced premiums, customers were also refunded over $215 million between December 01, 2017 and September 30, 2019.
Yes, expand Medicaid

Re: Medicaid expansion needed  now, Another View, Wednesday:

Many kudos to the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus for its column about the now-compounded need to expand Medicaid in this state, yet another shortfall the coronavirus has pulled the curtain back on. These caucus members demonstrate the big-picture economic benefits, which we see in the 37 states that have adopted Medicaid expansion.

But the smaller, in-your-face sort of need is now in full focus. In lieu of affordable treatment for chronic diseases are emergency room visits. Many times these happen after simple, affordable and easy access to treatment likely would have prevented that heart attack, stroke, cancer or embolism, which now will cost many thousands of dollars to treat, assuming that person survives.

This is a ground-level view of the billions of dollars in savings these senators are speaking of in medical costs and income loss  all of which equals massive loss of productivity. So, long story short, its pay less now or pay much more later when it comes to medical care for the masses.

Keep in mind this does not even consider the moral aspect of denying affordable access to simple measures that could save and/or extend the lives of millions of Texans  an immeasurable aspect. We literally have that choice. Perhaps a text, phone call or email to Gov. Greg Abbott supporting this commonsense measure could help convince him of the need.

Jerry Kempe, New Braunfels

On ExpressNews.com: Texas Democrats: Medicaid is a necessity; expand it now

Their talk is cheap

Re: U.S. Rep. Garcia hits level of testing in state, Metro, April 23:

I suggest Rep. Sylvia Garcia, along with her Democrat colleague Rep. Al Green, corral House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and immediately return to Washington to do the peoples work by supporting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in his effort to vanquish the COVID-19 scourge.

Standing on the sidelines voicing their displeasure against their governor for political posturing only serves to divide us even further. Nothing good can come out of their should of, would of, could of criticism. It serves no useful purpose.

Talk is cheap. Having to make tough decisions is not for the faint of heart. Give the governor credit for operating under enormous pressure. Now, stop grandstanding and put Texas interest first by supporting Abbott.

Mike Gonzales

Voice of reason

I am writing to thank Mayor Ron Nirenberg for putting the welfare of San Antonio residents over the hasty decision to get Texas up and running while it is still unsafe to do so. It takes courage to stand up for ones convictions, but to stand up for those for whom one feels responsibility  courage only scratches the surface.

I told a friend who expressed deep anger over Gov. Greg Abbotts decision that I cannot let anger dictate my feelings. All I can do is continue social distancing and self-quarantine until our state and our nation is out of danger. I was extremely happy to hear Nirenberg express the same. I can accept his cautionary approach to bringing ourselves back to where we were before COVID-19 reared its ugly head.

I will continue to follow the mayors leadership as he sounds more like the voice of reason than does the present government.

Cherryl A. Sagan

Fixing inequities

Re: What to do about citys inequalities, by Christine Drennon, Other Views, April 24:

This column lays out a starting agenda for city and county leaders to begin immediately. These inequalities have been addressed ad infinitum, but the virus has put them in the spotlight.

I hope our elected leaders take a strong lead. I especially appreciate imagining the redistribution of wealth in the other direction and how that would look.

Rebecca Flores

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio mayor says its too soon to start opening so many businesses

Grateful for paper

Of all my experiences with social distancing, the most comforting is to reach out on my front door and find your paper there, just like before! Thank you.

Wayne Roberts

Setting it straight: Due to editing errors, several inaccuracies were inserted into a letter we published Tuesday. Below is the letter as the author intended.

Thankful for trail

Despite endless days of hibernation and solitude, the brightest spot is our near daily hike/bike on the beautiful Salado Creek Greenway.

Over time we have traveled the whole trail, from near Eisenhower Park to beyond Austin Highway. The wide trails, luscious greenery, bright spring flowers and occasional deer sighting offer a soothing respite to break up long days and gives us strength of mind to continue our quarantine.

Special thanks to Mayor Howard Peak, the city and Bexar County for this amazing and timely gift.

Marcie Ince
Decrease Font Size Font Size Increase Font Size

Article body

Heather Floyd was helping her two oldest children with homework last spring when her daughter, Haylee, blurted  Mom, I want to be a veterinarian. Fully understanding the academic rigor involved, Heather challenged her daughter with the truth. Vet school is really difficult to get into, she said. You have to make good grades, work really hard and push yourself to do well.

At that moment, Heather Floyd realized she was not just talking to a 7-year-old girl, but also to herself. I was pushing her to reach her full potential and Im not reaching my own! she said.

Heather, now a mother of five, was just 25 credit hours short of earning a bachelors degree in management with a concentration in human resources in Auburn Universitys Harbert College of Business. But marriage and family paused those academic pursuits in 2010.

I had always wanted to finish my undergraduate [degree] and it was one of those deals where I felt like too much time had passed for me to go back, she said. I felt like I had missed that opportunity. My husband really encouraged me and said, You ought to go back. Wed talk about it from time to time and I told him, I dont know if I can juggle being a mom and a student. I said, Our kids are all still really young. Theyre demanding of my time and energy. I just dont know that I could give school the time that I need to study and do well.

But Heathers veterinary school speech to Haylee, and ultimately herself, changed everything.

That day I decided, Im going to pursue this thing. Im going to reach out and contact Auburn and see if its possible for me to pick up where I left off, Heather said. I talked with my advisor, Satrina Kelley-Jordan, and she was just great in helping me get transitioned back in. I knew that this was my opportunity to pick up where I left off.

Last week, Heather completed the very degree she began pursuing in 2006 and was scheduled to graduate with other Harbert College seniors on May 2. COVID-19 changed that. Instead, she plans to walk at the joint spring-summer Auburn commencement in August.

Heather Floyd is an Auburn alumnus.

Theres just a lot going on

The former Heather Meadows grew up in Opelika, Alabama, with her childhood and high school sweetheart, David. Heather graduated from Opelika High School in 2003, earned an associates degree at nearby Southern Union State Community College and climbed to the ranks of executive director at the Lee County Humane Society by the time she enrolled at Auburn in 2006.

The job at the humane society  thats what made me want to pursue human resource management  just being responsible for the group of people there and really investing in them, she said. I enjoyed the business side of it so much.

She and David were married in the spring of 2010. When we got married, I left the shelter to focus on our home and family, Heather said. I carried my time at Auburn a little bit further until I was getting ready to give birth to our first, Haylee.

Heather stepped away from classes at Lowder Hall and Auburn just three semesters shy of finishing.

I intended to go back to school after Haylee, and then life just happened, she said. At the time I thought, Theres just a lot going on. We ended up having five children over a seven-year period.

FamilyHaylee, now 8, David, 7, James, 5, Claire, 4, and Emily, 1is the centerpiece of the Floyd household.

When we started having our other children, I really put all of my time and energy into staying at home with them and keeping them home and being a stay-at-home mom, she added. I was content with where I was. I had always wanted to be a mom, so when we started having children, I just knew that I had a great responsibility to them.

Whereas Heather has been busy working as a full-time mother, and most recently a student, David serves as a community heroan Opelika firefighter. David has worked with the Opelika Fire Department now for 10 years, Heather said. He was going through rookie school when we got engaged and graduated from rookie school right after we got married. But for as long as weve been married, hes also had two or three other jobs at a time.

Who was going to sit with my kids?

Heather resumed college at Auburn last summer, splitting the summer into two mini-mesters. It didnt come without hesitancy.

My biggest concern was who was going to sit with my kids because my husbands job is so demanding, she said. But my sister-in-law [Hannah Floyd] volunteered and said, Ill watch them while you go to class. My mother [Terri Meadows] volunteered to watch the kids in the fall and spring. Without them, I couldnt have done it.

That part was challenging, but then because I dont live on campus, I thought Whats the parking situation like? How am I going to get to class every day? How has that changed since the last time I was there?

It had. The Village dormitories and Auburn Arena now consumes much of the space where ample commuter parking was once available. Fortunately, Heather managed to park off-campus and use the convenient Tiger Transit shuttle system to school.

There was another potential challengea generation gap.

I was nervous about being a non-traditional student, how I would fit back into the campus life and what would be expected of me and if I would be able to keep up, Heather admitted. It turned out that Auburn was really welcoming and I was able to pick up right where I left off.

Everything was going well and the finish linethe last week of Aprilwas in sight. Then COVID-19 changed the way we lived, worked and studied. Auburn announced it was moving to remote instruction on March 12. Suddenly, classes were online and Heather found herself taking classes at home  with five children.

That was definitely a challenge because with me being at home they definitely wanted my attention, she said. I would do my best to watch the online classes, write papers, or whatever, while they were taking naps. I tried to keep them occupied and do my best to explain to them, Momma needs a little bit of time right now.

And then there were Zoom sessions  where everyone was live on the web.

There were some times when my kids would pop up in my meetings with my teachers, Heather said. Im sure they completely understood though because a lot of them had children of their own and were in the same boat. It was a different kind of challenge because they expected me to pay attention to them the whole time, too.

College is hard, so its been said. Heather admits struggles, but tenacity mixed with encouragement won the day.

When I was frustrated I would just look at my kids and think, I cant quit, she said. What kind of example would that be setting for them? Would I be showing them that when it gets hard that its OK to give up? That was my motivation, and David, he was great. I would come home and he would tutor me and quiz me. He was so supportive. He really wanted me to succeed as much as I did.

Keep pressing forward

Classes are finished. No more Tiger Transits. No more group projects. No more business analytics exams.

Heather and her family can look forward to the August commencement and her long-awaited walk across the stage at Auburn Arena.

Itll be a time to celebrate with all of those who supported me, she added. I couldnt have done it by myself and there are so many people who played an important role in my success. Ill have that sense of accomplishment, but Ill also be humbled by the fact that theres just so many people that care about my success and were willing to put things in their lives on hold so that I could be there on that special day.

If there is someone out there interested in completing their degree but is hesitant like I was, because maybe they feel like they have allowed too much time to pass, go for it. It is worth it and they won't regret it. For those who have already made the decision to go back to school, I would say, Congratulations! You have already overcome the biggest hurdle of the process. Keep pressing forward towards your goal and when you look back in the rear-view mirror, you will be glad you did.
Salina, N.Y.  A small group listening to a DJ perform at a club in Mattydale got booted Friday night for violating a state order banning large gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ten people, who had brought their own alcohol, were watching a DJ play music inside Club 11 when a town code enforcement official, Onondaga County deputies and New York State Police showed up.

Officials sent the group home and told the clubs operator, Richie Sposato, he was violating an order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo that prohibits social gatherings across New York state.

A noise complaint was made just before 10:30 p.m. Friday, county 911 dispatch logs show. A Salina code enforcement official, joined by law enforcement, arrived.

Cars were in the parking lot and music could be heard coming from inside, said Ed Cusato, the Salina code enforcement officer who helped bust the gathering.

Officers banged on the doors but no one opened, Cusato said. A key to Club 11, which the business is required to supply to the town, didnt work on the door, he said. It later turned out someone affiliated with the club changed the locks, Cusato said.

An officer pried the front door open and unlatched a deadbolt to open the door, Cusato said.

Sposato said he had locked the clubs doors and didnt know how police got inside.

Once inside the club, troopers and deputies told everyone to leave. The only person who gave police trouble, according to Cusato, was Sposato.

He has his own views of what his constitutional rights are and he kept expressing that to the troopers and sheriffs, Cusato said. He was quite arrogant.

Police have responded to numerous, numerous, numerous complaints  specifically noise complaints  at the bar, Cusato said. In August, gunshots fired outside the club led to a police chase and three arrests.

This establishment and Mr. Sposato have been a major problem, Cusato said.

Sposato opposes the state shutdown meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus. He was one of the more than 100 people that rallied outside Syracuse City Hall Friday to protest the governor and policies that have closed businesses across the state.

He speaks out often on his Facebook page about social distancing and the governments response to the coronavirus. One sample: LATEST NEWS: Looks like Covid-19 is turning out to be acute pneumonia, treatable with antibiotics, never needing to shut down the economy/country/world. We will keep you updated as information comes in.

The idea for Fridays show came from a DJ who has performed at Club 11, Sposato said. The DJ spent a few hours live-streaming the performance. Sposato also live-streamed the show on his Facebook page.

As the performance played out on Facebook Live, someone commented on the video: Isnt this illegal?

Nope, Sposato replied. Learn your law and your rights.

Then code enforcement, police and deputies arrived.

It was meant to be just a small little closed event to liven things up for the people at home, Sposato said.

The DJ brought a few friends to watch his performance, Sposato said. The clubs doors were locked to keep people out and the front windows were covered so no one could see inside, he said.

The club currently does not have a liquor license in place and nothing was sold, Sposato said. The 10 people brought their own liquor to drink and hang out, giving the DJ some energy and a good vibe.

The town will not pursue any penalties against Sposato or the club, Cusato said.

We have enough problems with just trying to survive with the coronavirus, he said.

Sposato, of Solvay, was a noted Central New York bowler who competed on a Professional Bowlers Association tour.

He was also convicted of rape in 1999 after he pleaded guilty to being one of five men to have sex with a 16-year-old girl.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

As he struggled to breathe, CNY nursing home wouldnt test for coronavirus, family says

Gov. Cuomo closes NY schools for rest of academic year due to coronavirus

Protesters gather in downtown Syracuse, demanding Cuomo reopen New York

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Staff writer Samantha House covers breaking news, crime and public safety for Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard. Have a tip or a story idea? Contact her at shouse@syracuse.com.
Your Colleagues

Jacobs School physician spends 11 days at COVID-19 hospital in Brooklyn

David Holmes (right) with (from left) Steve Short, a volunteer pulmonologist who is the only pulmonologist in the entire hospital, and Kuru Paran, a volunteer assisting Short.

By ELLEN GOLDBAUM

The needs are so great and I feel that anything I do is just a drop in the bucket. However, Im learning to be content, knowing that we may have different types of training and skill sets, but we all have a part to play. If everyone is putting their drop in the bucket, then soon it will be full and the need will be met.  David Holmes, clinical associate professor of family medicine Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

David Holmes was supposed to be in Sierra Leone this month on a global health trip with UB medical students. But when the trip was cancelled because of the pandemic, he decided to fill out an application to volunteer to care for COVID-19 patients in New York City. Holmes is a clinical associate professor of family medicine and director of global health education in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, and a physician with UBMD Family Medicine. For decades, he has led medical missions of UB students and practitioners all over the world. This month, his lifelong commitment to providing holistic, patient-centered care took him not to a remote village in an underdeveloped country, but rather to Woodhull Hospital in downtown Brooklyn, a designated COVID-19 facility. Holmes is not unique among UB faculty-physicians: Hundreds of faculty and medical residents are working on the front lines of the pandemic, caring for COVID-19 patients in Buffalo hospitals. I know I speak for our entire community in expressing deep gratitude to our dedicated health care workers and our UB faculty physicians and medical residents who are providing care to our communitys most vulnerable members during this pandemic, said Michael E. Cain, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School. More than 500 faculty physicians and more than 700 medical residents from the Jacobs School provide care to patients in UBs affiliated teaching hospitals throughout Western New York. Many are treating COVID-19 patients in the region.

Upon his arrival in New York in April, Holmes was struck by the quietness. The city is a peaceful place to be right now, he told UBNow. Unlike the streets, however, the hospitals are not peaceful. Because it was designated a COVID-19 hospital, Woodhull had transferred many of its non-COVID-19 patients to other hospitals. When Holmes arrived April 13, about 200 of the hospitals 240 beds were filled with COVID-19 patients, with about 70 on ventilators. Woodhull normally has two intensive care units (ICU), but it turned three additional medical floors into ICUs with ventilators to meet the need. In addition, Holmes said, many patients, including those on ventilators, were backed up in the ER, requiring the ER to have a medicine service and a mini-ICU until beds opened up on the floors.

Tragic consequence

Holmes said the hospital was lucky to get old, but functional ventilators from the Federal Emergency Management Administration, but, he explained, COVID-19 also can cause kidney failure, so many patients required dialysis. Unfortunately, there werent enough dialysis machines. A tragic consequence, Holmes said, is that some patients died simply because they couldnt get dialysis in time. The hospital has had an all-hands-on-deck response to the crisis, he said. Ambulatory clinics are closed and outpatient physicians, subspecialists and surgeons are now working as general medicine hospitalists. Volunteer physicians from various specialties have been working as hospitalists to help meet the need.

David Holmes speaks with one of the internal medicine residents in the ER about a patient they admitted, who they believe has COVID-19 -- lab results are pending.

Normally, the hospital has five in-patient medicine teams, but there were 13 when Holmes was there. All medicine residents were pulled from electives to help out on the in-patient services. Residents from other specialties, including pediatrics and oral and maxillofacial surgery, were assigned to in-patient medicine teams. Temp agencies also sent mid-level practitioners and nurses to help with the crisis. A few weeks ago, at the peak of the COVID crisis, there were about 40 patients dying each day in this hospital, Holmes said. Then it went down to 20, and lately there have been about 10 patient deaths a day, so it seems things are getting better, but we still have a long way to go. Normally, pre-COVID, he said about 15 patients die each month in the hospital.

Between a rock and a hard place

Woodhull Hospital in downtown Brooklyn, where UB faculty member David Holmes spent 11 days treating COVID-19 patients.

Once a COVID-19 patient is intubated and placed on a ventilator, its very difficult for them to get off the ventilator and breathe on their own again, Holmes observed. Therefore, doctors do everything they can with high-flow oxygen to avoid using the vent, he said. However, eventually, it gets to the point where many patients will die from respiratory failure if they dont go on the vent, so were between a rock and a hard place. But some patients do manage to get off the vent and start breathing on their own, and when they do, its a celebration. At Woodhull, whenever a patient was weaned off the vent, they played rock music throughout the hospital. Hearing that music would always bring a smile to my face. The hospital had sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) and vents, but other critical supplies were lacking, such as tubing for high-flow oxygen, medications, catheters and central line kits that are badly needed in the ICUs.

David Holmes with two other volunteers doctors. When they weren't treating patients, the three spent time talking, eating pizza and praying together.

At first, most COVID-19 patients were given hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug thats also used to treat some autoimmune diseases. Holmes was told by the hospitals full-time attending physicians that they gave this medicine because it was standard of care, even though most didnt think it did much good. By the time he left the hospital, some research had confirmed that it wasnt effective treatment for COVID-19 and may be doing harm by increasing the risk of cardiac arrhythmias, so hydroxycholoroquine is being used much less often now. On the other hand, some of the critically ill patients were given plasma donations from recovered COVID-19 patients, and in some of them it seemed to make a difference in helping wean them of the ventilator. But here, too, Holmes noted, it isnt entirely clear that the plasma antibodies are whats making the difference. The jury is still out on this one, he said. Proning, where patients with respiratory distress and hypoxia are placed on their stomachs, rather than their backs, to help improve oxygenation, seemed to make a positive difference, he said.

David Holmes (left) talks to an internal medicine resident and a nurse practitioner.



During his 11-day volunteer stint at Woodhull, Holmes cared for approximately 30 COVID-19 patients. He treated a 77-year-old woman with Parkinsons dementia, whose husband, her caregiver, was hospitalized with COVID-19. She also tested positive but was asymptomatic. She was going to be placed in a nursing home until her husband recovered; however, as Holmes noted, there is no guarantee. One of the hardest parts about treating COVID-19, Holmes said, was the no-visitor policy. The no-visitor policy is understandable and needed, but I still feel badly that so many people are seriously ill and cant be visited by family or friends. Too often, when people bring their loved one to the ER, thats the last time they ever see them alive. During the day, when I had time, I would try to check in on a few patients whom I had seen in the ER to see how theyre doing and just listen to what they wanted to talk about. One patient I saw in the ER was a woman in her 60s with a beautiful Caribbean accent. At home, she felt weak, had a cough and was short of breath. Her children, who live out of town, tried calling several times. She didnt answer because she didnt have the energy. When they couldnt reach her, they called the police, who checked on her. They called the ambulance. Not surprisingly, her COVID test came back positive.

The importance of social visits

David Holmes (center, rear) with other volunteer physicians at Woodhull Hospital.


[May 04, 2020] Hewlett Packard Enterprise Delivers the Cloud Experience Everywhere with the General Availability of HPE GreenLake Central

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) today announced that HPE GreenLake Central, unveiled in December 2019, is now generally available for HPE GreenLake customers. This advanced software platform provides customers with a consistent cloud experience for all their applications and data, through an online operations console that runs, manages and optimizes their entire hybrid cloud estate. In addition, HPE is introducing enhancements to its as-a-Service portfolio with support for data management and file storage, and an enhanced co-location offering through partnerships with Cohesity, Qumulo, and CyrusOne (News - Alert), respectively. HPE GreenLake brings the modern cloud experience to customers' applications, data and workloads in their locations in a self-serve, pay-per-use, scale up-and-down way and managed as-a-Service by HPE. This allows customers to free up capital, boost operational and financial flexibility and enable talent to accelerate what's next for their business. HPE GreenLake is the market leading platform for delivering on-premises IT as-a-Service, and one of the fastest-growing businesses in HPE with more than 800 enterprise customers worldwide and over 500 partners selling today. HPE GreenLake's unique metering, cost control, software IP, and backing from HPE Financial Services and HPE Pointnext Services provide a differentiated solution on top of HPE's industry leading hardware portfolio that competitors cannot match. HPE GreenLake Central is the only platform on the market which enables customers to: Manage their entire hybrid estate, provisioning instances and redeploying resources in on-premises environments with the same speed and agility as off-premises.

Monitor and run off-premises costs and compliance in AWS, Microsoft (News - Alert) Azure, and Google Cloud, as well as on-premises environments. The platform suggests ways to prioritize spend through integration with Azure Access Manager and AWS Access Manager. Achieve better business outcomes for developers, IT operations, and line of business leaders with the platform's unique insights and recommended actions for security, capacity, cost, compliance, and resource utilization across the hybrid estate.

Access their own consumption metrics and analytics in order to dynamically optimize the placement of workloads based on the factors most important to them - such as cost, governance, security, or interdependence with other systems. "The transformation to digital healthcare is accelerating like never before. Our mission is to empower our clinicians with the right technological support and access to tools that they need in order to act fast, gain insights and deliver meaningful patient outcomes," said Stella Ward, Chief Digital Officer at Canterbury District Health Board in New Zealand. "HPE GreenLake Central gives us a simple-to-use single point of access to dashboards and reports which help us ensure regulatory compliance in our hybrid estateas well as optimize our cloud spend so we can deliver new features and functionality to our staff much faster."



Today, over 250 early adopter customers are using HPE GreenLake Central to drive their digital transformation initiatives and achieve better business outcomes. "HPE GreenLake has gained universal appeal as it uniquely addresses what the market requires for in an ideal as-a-Service experience," said Keith White, Senior Vice President and General Manager of HPE GreenLake. "With continued high demand for hybrid offerings from our customers, HPE GreenLake Central is an innovative leap forward that enables our customers to choose the cloud destination that makes the most sense based on cost, performance, governance and compliance. It gives developers and line of business decision-makers ways to create and innovate at the speed they need to compete in today's market."

Expanded HPE GreenLake Services for Data Management and File Storage Building on its robust portfolio of on-premises pay-per-use services1, HPE is introducing new HPE GreenLake converged data management and modern file storage service offerings with Cohesity (News - Alert) and Qumulo, respectively. The exponential growth in backup and unstructured data has made it increasingly difficult for enterprises to protect, manage, and gain insights from their data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. HPE GreenLake with Cohesity allows businesses to leverage Cohesity's enterprise-class converged data management platform together with HPE GreenLake's flexible, pay-per-use consumption model2. This offering builds on the OEM partnership between HPE and Cohesity, allowing customers to eliminate mass data fragmentation, simplify management of data across locations, and do more with their data, so they can leverage it for business intelligence. Organizations are also increasingly challenged to get value out of their data to drive business decisions, build products, and remain competitive. Qumulo's hybrid file software enables active workloads to securely create, analyze, and collaborate with applications in the datacenter and in the cloud. Qumulo's software, delivered through HPE GreenLake, enables data-driven innovations while containing costs. Qumulo's built-in, real-time data analytics available through HPE GreenLake's on-demand model, helps customers deliver results while significantly saving costs. To access the Cohesity and Qumulo services, customers can work with HPE or HPE's value-added partners to define the right solutions. Expanded HPE GreenLake Services for Co-location Facilities HPE GreenLake with co-location offers the benefits of a public cloud experience while letting customers keep full control of the IT with the advantages of co-location. This relieves customers from the capital expenditures and the burden of running a datacenter in their own premises. HPE first announced its partnership with CyrusOne in June 2019, addressing customers who wished to leverage an external datacenter facility for their HPE GreenLake applications. Building on this momentum, HPE and CyrusOne are now expanding their partnership to enable faster end-to-end service delivery and one place billing: HPE GreenLake is now delivered with the simplicity of a single contract, invoice, and point of contact with CyrusOne. Furthermore, the two companies are offering customers the option of co-location for any HPE GreenLake solution, hosted in any CyrusOne datacenter globally, giving customers additional geographic flexibility to meet the specific requirements of their business. CyrusOne's datacenter architecture offers services designed to support the diversity of client workloads regardless of scale or density, delivering capabilities previously only available to the largest cloud providers and Fortune 1000 companies. To learn more about HPE GreenLake, visit hpe.com/greenlake. About Hewlett Packard Enterprise Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service company that helps organizations accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all of their data, everywhere. Built on decades of reimagining the future and innovating to advance the way we live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions, with a consistent experience across all clouds and edges, to help customers develop new business models, engage in new ways, and increase operational performance. For more information, visit: www.hpe.com. 1 As above 2 As above View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005268/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
BOISE, Idaho, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions, today announced the recipients of its 2020 Partner Awards at this year's North American Partner Summit held as a virtual event on April 21-22, 2020.



The annual Cradlepoint Partner Awards honor exceptional North American service provider and reseller partners who demonstrate significant contributions and commitment to Cradlepoint under its Global Partner Program.

"We are honored and proud of all our partners and their ability to help customers solve pressing business challenges with Cradlepoint wireless edge solutions, especially in this unprecedented time," said Eric Purcell, SVP of Partner Sales at Cradlepoint. "This is why we are pleased to recognize our top-performing partners in North America and celebrate their achievements as they work alongside us to create a Wireless WAN future."

The 2020 Cradlepoint Partner Award winners are:

Enterprise Partner of the Year: Presidio

Mobile Partner of the Year: AXON

IoT Partner of the Year: Source Inc.

Strategic Service Provider (SSP) Partner of the Year: Comcast Business

National Solution Provider (NSP) Partner of the Year: SHI International Corp.

Canada Partner of the Year: INSO

Emerging Partner of the Year: Complete Tablet Solutions Mobility

The two-day North American Partner Summit virtual event drew hundreds of attendees. It provided an opportunity to hear from company executives about Cradlepoint's Wireless WAN vision and strategy, enhancements to its Global Partner Program, and its 2020 solution roadmap, which includes the recently announced 5G Wideband Adapters. The event also included numerous breakout sessions that allowed partners to receive extensive insights and training on the market, products, and technology topics.

Cradlepoint's Global Partner Program helps resale, technology, and service provider partners develop highly effective wireless and service-oriented practices. To find out more about the program, please visit: https://cradlepoint.com/partners/partner-program

Story continues

About Cradlepoint

Cradlepoint is a global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions for branch, mobile, and IoT networks. NetCloud, a subscription-based network service with purpose-built endpoints, embodies our Elastic Edge vision and delivers a pervasive, secure, and software-defined Wireless WAN edge to connect people, places, and things over LTE and 5G cellular networks. More than 20,000 organizations around the world  including 75 percent of the world's top retailers, 50 percent of the Fortune 100, and first responder agencies in 25 of the largest US cities  rely on Cradlepoint to keep critical branches, points of commerce, field forces, vehicles, and IoT devices always connected and protected. Major service providers use Cradlepoint solutions as the foundation for innovative managed services. Founded in 2006, Cradlepoint is a privately held company headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with a development center in Silicon Valley and international offices in the UK and Australia.

Cradlepoint Media Inquiries

Holly Langbein

Highwire PR

cradlepoint@highwirepr.com

+1 (916) 769-2199
The appointment in February of Richard Grenell, a political operative and Donald Trump loyalist, as acting director of national intelligence after the renomination of former Congressman John Ratcliffe to permanently fill the position once he is confirmed, has many current and former intelligence professionals deeply concerned.

I am among them, if only because we cannot trust the judgments of a president who so often overrides the wisdom of professional intelligence analysts, prosecutors and medical authorities, even during a calamity.

Last week, for example, on the same day that the office of the director of national intelligence (D.N.I. for short) released a public statement affirming the scientific communitys consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration was pressing intelligence officials to look for evidence to prove otherwise  perhaps that it originated in a Chinese laboratory. Not coincidentally, acting director Grenell, a prolific Twitter user, failed to sign his own intelligence communitys official position.

I take solace in my confidence that Mr. Trump will learn, even after the Senate confirms Mr. Ratcliffe and the president replaces still more professionals with less capable political loyalists, that gagging the intelligence community will be far more difficult than hushing the Justice Department or overriding the wisdom of our medical institutions.
Ampex Data Systems (Ampex), a Delta Information Systems Company, is proud to announce the award of an indefinite-delivery / indefinite-quantity contract on April, 15, 2020 in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) located in Patuxent River, MD. Ampexs Full Rate Production Multiple Award Contract provides NAWCAD, and other United States Department of Defense organizations, production of mission system avionics, mission system computers/processors, displays, and signal distribution systems among other avionics.

Known for the fastest ruggedized mission systems in the industry, Ampex has supported United States Navy mission avionics and flight test instrumentation since 1950. Today, Ampex supports several United States Air Force and United States Navy programs to include the F-15, F-16, F-18, MQ-1, MQ-8, MQ-25, RQ-4, P-3, and P-8 among many others. Most notably, Ampex provides the network file servers and boot computers that are the digital backbone of the United States Navys E-2 C/D Hawkeye fleet. Ampex will complete work in its Hayward, CA and in Colorado Springs, CO facilities.

Other United States Department of Defense organizations can use this new contract vehicle, but we especially look forward to leveraging our decades of experience in direct support to the warfighter. This will expand our already deep ties with the United States Navy as we build upon our ongoing success in providing the fleet the best-in-class mission avionics systems, stated Jim Orahood, Vice President and General Manager of Ampex Data Systems.

About Ampex Data Systems

Since 1944, Ampex has been an industry leader in cutting edge technologies to solve the toughest data management and data storage challenges. With its lineage as one of the first Silicon Valley companies, Ampex continues to innovate its ruggedized avionics and ground-based data systems with applied research in onboard cyber security, advanced encryption, and machine learning for onboard data analytics. Ampex is headquartered in Hayward, California and has offices in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Tokyo, Japan. For more information visit http://www.ampex.com or follow @AmpexData on Twitter.
On May 3, President Donald Trump said that he was confident that a vaccine for the coronavirus will be available by the end of the year. President Trump's timeline is advance from the projections laid out by his administration's public health advisors who all stated that the vaccine may take up to 18 months to develop.

Vaccine by the end of 2020

Trump stated during Fox News town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington that they are confident that they are going to have a vaccine at the end of the year. He added that they are pushing very hard to have the vaccine developed as fast as possible. However, public health officials said that vaccines take many years to develop and distribute around the world.

President Trump said that he thinks pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson are close to creating a vaccine for the virus. Johnson & Johnson has partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services to create a vaccine and they are hoping for approval in early 2021.

The researchers at Oxford University are also working on a vaccine, and if it gets approved, it could be widely used and distributed by September of this year. According to the World Health Organization, there are currently dozens of coronavirus vaccines in development.

Also read: COVID-19 Pandemic May Last for At Least 18 More Months, Experts Predict

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that a vaccine could take 18 months to develop, though he added that it was possible to speed the process up.

Affecting the reelection chances

President Donald Trump is up for reelection this year, and because of the economic toll done by the virus, his path is growing steeper. All of the job losses in America since the start of the pandemic have already wiped out all of the gains made during the economic recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.

Economists have stated that businesses will only return if consumers are already confident enough to step outside and return to the routines. That scenario would require a vaccine or an effective treatment for the virus.

In January 2020, Trump stated that he had the virus under control, however, numerous sources claim that he ignored the warnings of health experts. Now that Trump is in the hot seat and his reelection chances are slim, he has tasked his administration to create an "Operation Warp Speed" to cut down the time that it takes to develop a vaccine. The said project has a goal of having 300 million doses of a vaccine ready by January 2021.

COVID-19 has now infected more than 3 million people worldwide and 1 million people in the U.S. It has killed more than 65,000 Americans. The U.S has also suffered its deadliest day since the outbreak began, with almost 3,000 dead in just 24 hours.

President Trump said that his forecast for the number of Americans who will die from the virus has increased. He said that even at the upper end of his projections, millions of people will be saved by government measures, compared to the outcome that would have been had there been no lockdown.

Related article: Pres. Donald Trump Says He's Seen Evidence That COVID-19 Started in Wuhan Lab

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Alice G Wells, the Trump administration's point person for South and Central Asia and a votary for strong US-India strategic ties, will retire this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced, as he thanked the senior diplomat for her "wise counsel and dedicated efforts" to bolster America's bilateral relations with the countries in the region.

Wells, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, has also served as a political officer at the US Embassy in India and Pakistan. She has studied Hindi and Urdu.

Secretary of State Pompeo on Sunday took to Twitter to announce her retirement as he praised the veteran career foreign service officer for rendering her valuable services.

"After 31 years of dedicated service, Ambassador Alice Wells will retire from @StateDept this month. I will miss Alice's wise counsel and dedicated efforts to build relationships and address challenges across South and Central Asia, he said.

I personally came to admire Ambassador Wells' dedication to our team's mission and her dogged pursuit of American excellence. We commend her service and wish her the best, Pompeo said in another tweet.

She will be succeeded by new acting assistant secretary Tom Vajda, a seasoned American diplomat on South Asia who has earlier been the US consul general in Mumbai, a media report quoted the State Department as saying.

In January, Wells visited India for a series of bilateral meetings and the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi and met senior government officials to advance the US-India strategic global partnership following the success of the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in December in Washington.

A votary of strong US-India ties, including enhanced military cooperation amidst China flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific and in the Indian Ocean, Wells has frequently highlighted the commonalities between the world's biggest democracy and the world's oldest democracy.

She has said that the quality and frequency of India-US naval cooperation, especially the information sharing, have reached unprecedented levels with continued progress on defence cooperation, peacekeeping operations, space, counterterrorism, trade, people-to-people initiatives, and more.

Terming the ties between India and the US "unshakeable", she said that the US and India enjoy a close partnership that grows stronger day by day.

Her significant travel to New Delhi happened a month ahead of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump's state visit to India on February 24 and 25 at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Wells has also been wary of some of the Indian government's decisions on Jammu and Kashmir and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and has publicly raised them.

New Delhi has defended its move, saying Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and the issue was strictly internal to the country, and the special status provisions only gave rise to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Indian government has maintained that the CAA, which was passed by Parliament, is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.

Wells has also been putting pressure on Pakistan to rein-in the terror groups on its soil and help lower tensions with India.

During her tenure, she has expressed concern over terrorist groups continuing to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan and asked the country to do more against "externally oriented" extremist outfits.

"We have expressed our concern over the fact that terrorist proxy groups continue to be able to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan. We are urging the government to do more to bring pressure to bear against these organisations, externally oriented terrorist groups," Wells said in August 2018.

She has been critical of the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's Xinjiang province with Pakistan's Gwadar Port, saying there was no transparency and the firms blacklisted by the World Bank have got contracts which will increase the cash-strapped country's debt burden.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Relaxing of lockdowns, even if in phases, is still very premature and capable of triggering a catastrophic rise in new coronavirus, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has warned.

The warning is coming as many residents of Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States returned to their duty posts early Monday after being away from work for five weeks.

Last Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari reacted to the pressure to reopen the economy amid widespread hunger and uneven disbursement of palliatives by ordering a phased and gradual easing of the lockdown in the three states from May 4 to 17.

This, he said, was to ease the hardship of lockdown on Nigerians and prevent layoffs as well as reawaken economic activities, although under strict restrictions.

A national guideline issued for relaxing the lockdowns, mandates anyone in public spaces to use non-medical face masks. It also prohibits interstate travels  save for essential travel services  as well as gathering of more than 20 people outside of a workplace.

Daily curfew from 8 pm to 6 am is imposed while commercial vehicles are mandated to carry only four passengers at a time including the driver.

But Nigerian doctors believe the move could bear a catastrophic outcome, raising concern over the spike in infections in the past week.

Nigeria has recorded almost 1000 confirmed cases in the last five days, raising the countrys total to over 2, 558, including over a hundred health workers and 87 deaths.

Lagos remains the epicentre of the disease with 1,107 cases, followed by Kano  343 which have long displaced Abuja  278 and Ogun state  80.

Health experts attributed the spike in infections to ongoing community transmission phase and improved testing capacity, warning that the country is yet to reach the peak of the curve.

Nigeria hitting over 2, 000 cases in just seven days after reaching 1, 000 figuratively tilts the epidemiological curve towards an upward spike, the NMA said in a statement signed by its President, Francis Faduyile.

Nigeria should learn from her neighbour Ghana where the same action produced a 100% increase in infection rate in just a week.

Within days of easing its lockdown, West African neighbour Ghana confirmed coronavirus cases surged to over 2,000, a 24 per cent increase.

The NMA warned that unless testing is expanded dramatically amid the relaxing of lockdowns, infections could rise exponentially.

Instead of relaxing lockdowns, the Nigerian doctors advised the government to intensify efforts through mass enlightenment campaigns beyond current attempts to explain the dangers inherent in easing the lockdown prematurely in the face of rising infection rates; and also for the palliatives to reach the needy.

The NMA said the concern raised by the countrys infectious disease agency, NCDC, that the number of bed spaces for patients could be overwhelmed if the confirmed cases continue to rise is an indication for the government to tread with caution.

The country has about 3,500-bed spaces identified as available for COVID-19 patients but with the rapid spike in infections, the NCDC said it is considering the option of home care treatment if bed spaces are no longer available for patients.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had warned that rushing to ease coronavirus restrictions would likely lead to a resurgence of the illness.

Meanwhile, the Lagos state government has ordered civil servants not to resume work yet due to the rapid increase in infections in the state.
Love to cuddle up? It might bring a 'mind meld,' too, new research shows.

People in close physical contact appear to have synchronized brain patterns, a revolutionary new MRI technique has revealed.

A functional MRI scan of two people cuddling under a blanket showed that their brains appeared to be falling into similar patterns of action and response, as they took turns gently tapping the other's lips, a Finnish research team reports.

"In general terms, it shows how the brains of two individuals become 'tuned in' together during this kind of elementary human interaction," said senior researcher Lauri Nummenmaa, head of the Human Emotion Systems laboratory at the University of Turku in Finland.

Research of this sort could be valuable in dealing with conditions where people have trouble with social interactions, he said.

"Such processes are disrupted in numerous conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder, and understanding the elementary mechanisms of sociability will help us in understanding these conditions better," Nummenmaa said.

Here's how participants were positioned in the scanner:

It's not surprising that the 10 couples in the studyeither friends or romantic partnersappeared to have had synchronized brain responses, said Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami.

"There's this intimacy that generates similar patterns of physiological and biochemical responses, and this is a good demonstration of that," she said. "That's been shown in everything from heart rates to brain waves, and other measures like cortisol levels."

For example, prior studies have shown blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol differ in partners when they are working and not together much, but fall into synch on the weekends when they're hanging out all day with each other, Field said.

"I expect that if they pursue these studies, they're going to find very similar regions of the brain are being activated at similar times as these people are cuddling or wrapped around each other," she said.

But Field added that the real value of this initial study lies in the fact that two human brains were scanned at the same time using a single MRI machine.

"This establishes you can take MRIs in two people at the same time," Field said. "It shows the technology is possible."

In this experimental MRI, the head coil used for regular brain scans was split into two separate coils, allowing for simultaneous scanning of two brains when people are positioned close together inside the machine.

"The main goal of this study was to benchmark the new two-person brain imaging setup," Nummenmaa said.

"We found that our setup could reliably pick brain signals from both participants, and we saw a clear alteration in the motor (in the person who was doing the touching) and somatosensory (in the person who was feeling the touching) cortices in the subjects," Nummenmaa said. "However, both cortical sites were always activated to some extent in both participants."

The research team said there are countless ways to use this technology to investigate how the brain processes social interaction, now that the MRI technique has been shown to work.

"For example, during a conversation or problem solving, people's brain functions become flexibly linked with each other," said researcher Riitta Hari, a retired professor of neuroscience at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland.

"However, we cannot understand the brain basis of real-time social interaction if we cannot simultaneously scan the brain functions of both persons involved in social interaction," Hari explained in a university news release.

The new study was published online April 28 in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Explore further Two-person-together MRI scans of couples reveal how the brain perceives touch

More information: The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about MRI scanning

Copyright  2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
A French doctor claimed the country saw its first coronavirus patient in December, weeks before its first officially recorded case.

Dr Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at several hospitals in Ile-de-France, Paris, said new patient sample testing has confirmed the virus was in France just after Christmas.

His team revisited negative tests for coronavirus and flu of 24 patients who were admitted to hospital with respiratory symptoms in December and January, he told French channel BFMTV.

Dr Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at several hospitals in Ile-de-France, Paris, said new patient sample testing has confirmed a patient in France had coronavirus on December 27

A man, now in good health, was identified as carrying coronavirus but Dr Cohen said the man was 'surprised' as he did not understand how he was infected.

He said: Of the 24 patients, we had one positive result for Covid-19 on 27 December when he was in hospital with us.'

He said his team repeated the tests to confirm the results, Metro reported.

This would make the country's first case a month earlier than they initially thought.

Dr Cohen is calling for other negative test samples from around the same time to be reviewed and he has reported the case to the regional health authorities.

This comes as France announced it is planning to lift lockdown on May 11, when children will gradually return to schools in phases and some businesses will be allowed to reopen.

People queue outside a supermarket in Paris on May 4 as France said it will gradually begin to lift lockdown on May 11

A woman stands on her balcony in Paris behind signs which read 'thank you carers' and 'together we are stronger'

People will be allowed to travel within 100km (60 miles) of their homes without giving a reason for their movement.

But Health Minister Olivier Veran said it would depend on further falls in infection rates, particularly in the worst-affected areas like Paris and northeast France.

Video cameras will be used to spy on people to check they are wearing face masks and complying with social distancing in France, it was revealed today.

The city of Cannes on the southern Cote d'Azur has trialled the monitoring software, installed at outdoor markets and on buses.

Video cameras will be used to spy on people to check they are wearing face masks and complying with social distancing when France eases its lockdown next week (file image)

People wearing masks keep their distance on a metro train in Paris today, where people are still required to fill out certificates to justify their need to travel

It is not currently clear how many other cities will adopt this digital surveillance but the French firm Datakalab - a startup launched in 2017 - says its software does not violate EU data privacy law.

'No image is stored or transmitted, ensuring that personal information is protected,' Datakalab told The BBC, announcing its collaboration with Cannes city hall.

The French surveillance system includes an automatic alert to city authorities and police where breaches of the mask and distancing rules are spotted.

Datakalab says it is 'not facial recognition', as the system does not store identifying data, unlike surveillance common in China.

The Bassin de l'Arsenal, normally a thriving part of the French capital, is almost empty on Monday

People queue outside a supermarket in Paris today. France has been on lockdown for two months but restrictions are set to be eased on May 11

It added that its algorithms can be incorporated into existing surveillance systems in other public spaces, such as hospitals, stations, airports and shopping centres.

The number of new deaths from COVID-19 in France has been declining in recent days, with 135 fatalities reported over the past 24 hours on Sunday.

But there was a spike for the first time in days on Monday, with 306 more deaths attributed to the virus.

French authorities have confirmed it will not be quarantining travellers arriving from the European Union and Britain.

This clarified their conflicting statement from Saturday, when the government said it was planning to impose a 14-day mandatory quarantine on all travellers entering France.

When lockdown begins to be lifted, people will be allowed to travel within 100km (60 miles) of their homes without giving a reason for their movement

Eurostar travellers wearing face masks arrive at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris today. All passengers must now wear a face mask

They have now said the quarantine won't apply to people coming from Europe's border-free area, including Switzerland, Norway, Lichtenstein and Iceland.

More quarantine rules for those arriving from other places will be released in the next few days.

France are also debating a new bill to extend a 'state of health emergency' until July 24 to stop the spread of coronavirus.

France has had more than 131,000 confirmed cases and 24,895 deaths, but the number of new cases has dramatically dropped since the middle of April.
Sure, my feeds are full of friends requests for shows that will take their minds off troubled times. This list is not for them.

Spurred by AMCs television premiere on Monday of the streaming series Creepshow, its a list for those of us who take comfort in being creeped out: seven current or recent horror anthology shows, in order of creativity, for those nights when you cant sleep without a good scare.

While they dont get the attention devoted to more socially acceptable dramas and comedies, horror anthologies and their close cousins, science-fiction anthologies (some shows inextricably combine the two), are experiencing a renaissance. Its probably driven by nostalgia  several of the new shows are based on notable forerunners like The Twilight Zone and Amazing Stories  and by the success, beginning in 2011, of the unsettling British anthology Black Mirror.

Add a tradition of incorporating social-justice themes that dates back to the original Twilight Zone, the attraction of bite-size bingeing  the best shows keep episodes to a half-hour or less  and our primal love of a twist ending, and youve got an indestructible genre.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 14:35 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c9ed6 1 Politics Jokowi,omnibus-bill,omnibus-bill-on-job-creation,omnibus-law,protest,house-of-representatives,labor-issues,labor-union Free

Civil society groups have filed a lawsuit against a presidential letter (Surpres) that President Joko Jokowi Widodo sent to the House of Representatives to resume deliberation on the controversial omnibus bill on job creation.

The letter also listed the names of ministers the President had appointed to represent the government in the bill's deliberation.

Arguing that the bill was made without public involvement, the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), environmental group Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) and the All-Indonesia United Workers Confederation (KPBI) as the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit on April 30 with the Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN).

The groups demanded in the lawsuit that the court declare the letter as legally flawed in both substance and procedure. The groups also asked the judicial panel to order the government to revoke the letter from the House and end any ongoing deliberations on the bill.

Lawyer Arif Maulana from the plaintiffs legal team said that the focus of the lawsuit was the Surpres that green-lighted the House to resume deliberating the job creation bill.

"We demand that the court annul the Surpres because it was made without [reference to] the principles of good governance, prudence and public participation," Arif told a virtual press conference on Sunday.

He noted specifically that the groups that were likely to be affected by the bill, such as workers, fishermen, farmers and indigenous communities, were not involved in drafting the bill.

Arif said that if the court granted the lawsuit and annulled the letter, any deliberations on the bill must cease automatically, as the legal basis for the process would be proved legally flawed.

KPBI deputy chairwoman Jumisih said that labor unions were not invited to participate in drafting the bill with the task force, despite the governments claim that the unions had been involved and had agreed to the contents of the bill.

A task force consisting of businesspeople and experts and headed by Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) chairman Rosan P. Roeslani had been set up to consult the public, inventory problems and input suggestions in drafting the bill.

Read also: Omnibus bill on job creation: Labor articles to be discussed last amid public protests

The government had previously planned to set up a separate team comprising state officials, businesspeople and union representatives to coordinate deliberations and public consultations on the bill. However, the labor unions had declined to join the coordination team, as they were not permitted to make changes to the existing draft bill.

The draft bill was completed suddenly and the government submitted it to the House along with the Surpres. We [workers] are not allowed to provide any input [to the draft bill], she said.

The House resumed deliberation of the problematic bill in early April despite the public outcry, that it neglected workers' protection, and during the COVID-19 epidemic that had additionally strained the peoples lives, especially workers.

Students, workers, activists and experts lambasted the government and the House for pushing ahead with their intent to endorse it, saying that the bill would harm Indonesian democracy, the environment and workers, particularly when the world was battling a pandemic.

House Legislative Gody (Baleg) chairman Supratman Andi Agtas said that he would respect the rights of civil society to sue the Surpres, but he questioned whether such a lawsuit was permissible.

Im not sure that the letter [can] be sued at the PTUN, but we are waiting for a decision from the judges," said the Gerindra Party politician.

Baleg is scheduled on Tuesday to resume its series of expert hearings on the bill.
A student has her temperature checked before entering school in the central province of Khanh Hoa, May 4, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Xuan Ngoc.

The Health Ministry confirmed no fresh Covid-19 case Monday evening, ending the country's 18th day without any community transmission.

The country has recorded 271 coronavirus cases to date, of which 50 are active. The active cases include 14 relapses.

On Monday, the northern province of Ninh Binh's Ninh Binh General Hospital discharged its last two Covid-19 patients, and two relapsed patients were confirmed by the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi to have recovered.

The Health Ministry said three of the active cases continued to be in critical condition.

An 88-year-old woman of Hung Yen Province under treatment in Hanoi, Vietnams oldest patient, has tested negative once. "Patient 161" did not have a fever on Monday, but is on ventilator support.

Doctors have been helping her to practice breathing normally again. Her communication is slow and the left side of her body remains paralyzed. The edema on her left arm and eyelids have reduced. She gets physical therapy twice a day.

The condition of a 64-year-old Hanoi woman, "Patient 20", has improved slightly. She still needs the support of a ventilator, but did not have a fever on Monday. She has been Vietnams longest-standing Covid-19 patient, undergoing treatment for almost 60 days, 54 of them in intensive care unit.

"Patient 91", a 43-year-old British man in Ho Chi Minh City remains "a very critical case," the ministry said. He did not have a fever on Monday and is still sedated. Doctors have had to drain pneumothorax from his lungs. He has had a mix of test results, both negative and positive. His latest result on April 30 came out negative for the novel coronavirus.

The country had stayed clear of new Covid-19 patients nine days in a row as of Sunday morning. In the evening, a 37-year-old British oil expert who had arrived in HCMC April 28 to work on a Petrovietnam project was confirmed infected.

"Patient 271" is a relapse case, who had tested Covid-19 positive in the U.K., then negative after 14 days of isolating himself at home, before coming to HCMC and testing positive again. He is currently under treatment in the city's Cu Chi field hospital.

After his case was confirmed, HCMC authorities have decided that everyone arriving in the city from abroad will be quarantined for 14 days and tested on the first, fifth, 10th and last days of isolation, two times more than the protocol prescribed by the ministry.

Vietnam has gone through 18 days without a community transmission case. As of Monday, most students in the country had started attending classes at school after an unprecedented, prolonged break due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has spread to 212 countries and territories, with more than 244,500 deaths reported so far.
Sheikhul Islam issues edict for return to Friday prayers

PHUKET: The Office of the Sheikhul Islam, the leading Muslim cleric in the country, has issued an edict announcing that Muslims may now attend Friday mass prayers at mosques, but must follow measures to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

COVID-19Coronavirushealthreligion

By The Phuket News

Monday 4 May 2020, 06:33PM

The edict by Aziz Phitakkumpon, the Sheikhul lslam of Thailand, was issued yesterday (May 3). Image: Office of the Sheikhul lslam of Thailand

The new edict was issued yesterday (May 3).

Chatchai Promlert, Permanent Secretary for Interior Office of the Permanent Secretary, issued a notice marked urgent yesterday (May 3) informing people of the Sheikhul Islams re-issued edict.

Mr Chatchais notice, calling for all Muslims to observe the measures as given by the Sheikhul Islam, known in Thai as the Chula Ratchamontri, was shared by the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department today (May 4).

In the notice issued yesterday, Aziz Phitakkumpon, the Sheikhul Islam of Thailand, pointed out that an edict issued by his office on March 25 had instructed Muslims to refrain from observing Friday prayers at mosques from March 27 onwards to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Pray at home instead, said that notice.

However, the edict issued yesterday (May 3) noted, Right now, the number of infected people is decreasing because there is a government policy that is proactive and cooperates with people and is relevant. This includes Muslim people, who are to follow the measures in every area.

So it is reasonable to relax the requirement [and allow people] to attend prayers on Fridays, which is still in accordance with the [measures issued under the] state of emergency declared on May 1, it added.

Provincial Islamic committees are to discuss this with Imams at local mosques and with provincial governors in order to disseminate this information to the public, along with a request for cooperation from Muslims in every province, the edict said.

If mosques are to resume their Friday prayers, the prayers are to be no more than 20 minutes long, and mosque administrators or health officials are to check every person entering the mosque for elevated body temperatures.

All people entering the mosque are to cleanse their hands with alcohol-based sanitiser at the door, the edict issued yesterday added.

Also, no waters are to be shared during ceremonies and the mosque floor must be cleaned every time after people have finished their Friday prayers.

Do not turn on the air conditioning, or open the window or curtains to allow for airflow. Mark spaces 1.5 to 2 meters apart [for people to use when praying]. And, control the flow of people when they enter and leave.

People who join [mass prayers], must be clean from the house, use a private prayer mat brought from their home, use alcohol gel to clean their hands, wear a facial mask at all times while they are praying.

Under the guideline, Muslims are advised to avoid touching, hugging and cheek kisses during religious rites and instead use the greeting of raising their hands.

Women and children are banned from praying at the mosque. Anyone who has fever, cough or runny nose, do not come to join the prayers.

Muslims are also advised to avoid attending any gatherings of many people in the same place. Also, it is also advised to avoid holding any special Ramadan gatherings.

These measures are suitable to prevent harm to peoples lives and to avoid harm to the community. The presidents of provincial islamic committees are to inform the leaders of mosques of these measures, the edict added.

People should also follow announcements by the Sheikhul Islam Office regarding COVID-19 preventive measures until the situation returns to normal or until otherwise informed, said the notice issued by Permanent Secretary Mr Chatchai.
SETL joins forces with SWIFT for digital assets pilot

UK

Reporter Jenna Lomax

SETL is to work with SWIFT on an innovation pilot as part of a wider effort to support interoperability in the development of the tokenised asset market
The latest:



Nike announced on Monday that it will donate 30,000 pairs of Air Zoom Pulse  a shoe specifically designed for health care workers  to health systems and hospitals in Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis and New York City, and within the Veterans Health Administration, according to a company statement.

"The effort is led by messages of gratitude to healthcare professionals. From one athlete to another, Nike athletes recognize the physical and mental resilience of healthcare athletes," the company said.

Hospitals across Europe  including Barcelona, Berlin, London, Milan, Paris and Belgium  will receive an additional 2,500 pairs, according to the statement.

About 95,000 pairs of soccer socks will also be delivered to health care workers in Los Angeles and New York City, the company said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted his appreciation, saying, "Thank you so much for supporting our front line health care heroes."

Mississippi governor to allow outdoor gatherings of up to 20 people

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said outdoor gatherings for up to 20 people will be allowed. I dont want to wait if there are steps that we believe we can safely take now to ease the burden on Mississippians fighting this virus," he said. I dont want to wait if there are steps that we believe we can safely take now to ease the burden on Mississippians fighting this virus," he said.





He will also allow dining in restaurants subject to strict guidelines. The guidelines include that servers wear masks and there be no more than 50% capacity in the restaurants. "Hopefully it will help overcrowding in grocery stores," he said.



More research is needed to identify coronavirus source, WHO says

Officials at the World Health Organization say they have no evidence of the novel coronavirus originating in a lab and suspect the virus likely originated from an animal source.

More research is needed to identify the specific host, WHO officials said during a media briefing in Geneva on Monday.

Last week, President Trump claimed he has seen evidence that gives him a "high degree of confidence" the coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but declined to provide details around his assertion. His claim contradicted a rare on-the-record statement from his own intelligence community.

We have not received any data or specific evidence from the U.S. government relating to the reported origin of the virus. So from our perspective, this remains speculative," Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO executive director of health emergencies programme, said during Monday's media briefing.

Ryan added that WHO "will be very willing to receive any information" about the origin of the coronavirus.

"If that data and evidence is available then it will be for the United States government to decide where and when it can be shared but its difficult for WHO to operate in an information vacuum in that specific regard. So we focus on what we know. We focus on the evidence we have," Ryan said.

Bats are the suspected source of both Covid-19 and MERS, but scientists also think that bats infected some other mammal that then infected people  an intermediate host.



FDA to require antibody test makers to get emergency use authorization



The Food and Drug Administration will now require antibody test makers to promptly seek FDA authorization, as the agency aims to rein in unproven and fraudulent tests that have flooded the market.

The new policy, announced Monday, requires commercial manufacturers to submit emergency authorization requests, along with validation data for their antibody tests, within 10 business days. The FDA is also setting specific performance recommendations for all test developers.

The agency also said it has the capability, working with the National Cancer Institute, to independently validate antibody tests on the market.

The move to require authorization reverses a policy the FDA put in place in mid-March, which loosened approval standards and allowed companies to sell antibody tests, also known as serological tests, without providing evidence that the tests worked. It quickly became clear that many of the tests were unreliable and some companies marketed tests that they falsely claimed were FDA-approved or FDA-authorized or claimed the antibody tests could be used to diagnose COVID-19.

Antibody tests are used to check for prior COVID-19 infection and can provide a better sense of how much of the population has already been infected and might have some immunity to the virus. Its still not clear whether the presence of antibodies means someone is immune or how long that immunity might last.

To date, at least 10 antibody tests have been authorized under an individual emergency use authorization, most within just the past few days, and over 200 antibody tests are currently the subject of a pre-EUA or EUA review.



Restrictions continue to loosen after weekend of recreation and protests

The new week brings more reopenings across the U.S. after a weekend many Americans spent outside, from protesting coronavirus restrictions to enjoying spring days in the park.



Life is taking another step toward normalcy for many states Monday. Restaurants, salons, spas, tattoo parlors, shopping malls and gyms will all be open to residents of Yuba and Sutter Counties in Northern California.

Groups of up to 25 people can once again gather in Indiana, and Kansas is lifting its stay at home order  and beginning the first phase of reopening.

But even as the pandemic continues, many people found a spot of positivity over the weekend.

On Sunday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio thanked the New York Police Department and the Parks Department for enforcing social distancing guidelines as well as the agencies that handed out face masks over the weekend as people flocked to reopened parks. Outdoor spaces were also open to residents of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

But some would like to see reopenings happen faster. Thousands gathered in California over the weekend to protest coronavirus restrictions, leading to 32 arrests at the state's capitol.

Numbers improve, but a backlash could be coming

For many states, the numbers around the coronavirus pandemic look optimistic.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told reporters Sunday that the state's coronavirus cases were "at the worst" plateauing. He thanked residents for their social distancing efforts.

"You are saving thousands of lives," he said. "I'm very proud to be your governor."

Cuomo reported that the number of intubations in the state hit hardest by coronavirus is down, and the total number of hospitalizations is below 10,000 for the first time since March. The Javits Convention Center field hospital in New York City discharged at least eight patients on Friday, including its last, Northwell Health spokesman Terry Lynam told CNN.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted Sunday that the state also saw its lowest day for ventilator usage since April 8.

But the improvement does not mean the nation can completely let down its guard.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said numbers in his city are going up, and he is concerned about relaxing restrictions.

"We're still very much in the beginning days of coronavirus," Walsh said.

White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci also warned that lifting measures prematurely could lead to a rebound of the virus that could put the U.S. in the "same boat that we were a few weeks ago."

And a second round of the virus, he said, is inevitable. Its severity will depend on how prepared the nation is, he said.

Fed will begin shipping 'tens of thousands' of courses of experimental drug

While Fauci and other doctors predict a second wave of coronavirus, there is hope the U.S. will be armed with a new tool in that fight.

The FDA approved the experimental drug remdesivir as treatment for hospitalized patients with severe coronavirus.

In an emergency-use authorization Friday, the agency said the benefits of using the drug outweighed the risks.

Remdesivir is the first authorized therapy for the virus in the country, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said.

"This is an important clinical advance that showed a statistically significant reduction in time to recovery for patients with COVID-19 and is the first authorized therapy for COVID-19." Hahn said.

The drug was approved just days after researchers said it might help patients recover more quickly from the infection.

The federal government will begin shipping "tens of thousands" of courses of remdesivir early this week and will decide where the medicine goes, according to Daniel O'Day, chairman and CEO of Gilead Sciences, the maker of the investigational drug.

"We intend to get (remdesivir) to patients in the early part of this next week, beginning to work with the government, which will determine which cities are most vulnerable and where the patients are that need this medicine," O'Day said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

CNN has reached out to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for comment on how the drugs will be distributed.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Sunday conducted flypast across India and its jets as well as transport planes and choppers showered petals on hospitals and places of national importance to express honour and gratitude towards the coronavirus warriors who are battling the pandemic.

It was part of the nationwide thanksgiving effort by the armed forces to honour doctors, paramedics, sanitation staff, police and other frontline workers battling coronavirus in the country.



The IAF choppers and jets, including MiG-29, Sukhoi-30 and Jaguar, conducted flypasts and Army bands played patriotic tunes outside medical buildings in most districts across the country from east to west and north to south.





The armed forces showered petals at the Goa medical college, SNM hospital in Leh, Jaipur in Rajasthan, Rajpath and police memorial in Delhi, Sukhna lake in Chandigarh, Srinagar's Dal Lake, Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, Panchkula hospitals in Haryana and the Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhubaneswar.



In Mumbai, military aircraft dropped petals at the King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital and Kasturba Gandhi Hospital, among others. The IAF choppers showered flower petals on the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai to pay tribute to healthcare workers fighting Covid-19 pandemic.



This was the third major display of gratitude to health workers across the country, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's request to countrymen to clap, ring bells and beat utensils to support the Covid-19 warriors from their balconies, and later by people switching off their lights and lighting candles and 'diya'.



The medical fraternity and other corona warriors were seen assembled outside the COVID-19 hospitals and other government buildings putting hands on their chest to show honour to the respect to the efforts of armed forces.



The gesture of expresssing thanks started with laying of flowers by the three Service Chiefs at the police memorial in Delhi in the morning to honour police personnel deployed for enforcement of the nationwide lockdown. Sukhoi-30 MKI, MiG-29 and Jaguars, Chetak did a flypast over Rajpath and circled over Delhi and showered petals over India Gate and Red Fort.



Besides, C-130 transport aircraft followed a similar route. The aircraft flew at an approximate height of 500 meters to 1,000 meters. IAF's MI-17 V5 flew over Port Blair. The IAF fighter jets from the Western Air Command dropped petals at Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital and Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, AIIMS, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, GTB Hospital, Loknayak Hospital, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Safdarjung Hospital, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, Max Saket, Rohini Hospital, Apollo Indraprastha Hospital and Army Hospital Research and Referral.



The gesture of gratitude was expressed at a time when 1,301 people have died and nearly 40,000 are infected with the deadly novel coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic across the country. South Western Air Command aircraft showered petals at Doon Hospital, AIIMS Rishikesh, Government Hospital Saharanpur in Dehradun; BJ Medical college in Ahmedabad, GMERS Civil Hospital Gandhinagar and MH Ahmedabad; Central Air Command choppers showered petals at BHU Trauma Centre and Deen Dayal Hospital in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh; IGI in Patna (Bihar), KGMC in Lucknow; Chirayu Hospital and AIIMS in Madhya Pradesh.



Rose petals were showered by the aircraft of Eastern Air Command in Dispur, Itanagar, Shillong and Kolkata hospitals that include M.M. Chaudhary Hospital and Guwahati Medical College, Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Science, Civil Hospital Shillong, and ID & BG hospital Kolkata.



The petals were showered at Jalmahal in Rajasthan, Bada Talab in Madhya Pradesh, Hussain Sagar in Hyderabad, Vidhan Soudha in Karnataka; Vivekananda Rock and Secretariat in Kerala, and Sulur in Tamil Nadu.



Indian Navy personnel at INS Hansa in Goa expressed their appreciation by forming a 'human chain' and thanked the corona warriors in their unwavering commitment to fighting against the dreaded disease.



INS Jalashwa in Bay of Bengal saluted the COVID-19 warriors. Senior Indian Naval officers visited and thanked the Kasturba Gandhi Hospital at Mumbai. Navy Helicopter Chetak also carried out a flypast with showers in the petals over Kasturba Gandhi Hospital and Ashwini Naval hospital Colaba in Mumbai.



The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) also actively took part in the 'India Thanks COVID-19 Warriors' initiative by illuminating ships and showering petals at hospitals treating Corona patients.



In addition, ICG 10 helicopters showered petals on COVID-19 hospitals at five locations in Daman, Mumbai, Goa, Chennai, Port Blair where total of 46 ships will appreciate appreciate the efforts of the COVID-19 warriors by illuminating the ships in the evening around 7 p.m. at 25 locations covering the entire coastline of the country including the remote sites and island territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep and Minicoy islands.
KAMPALA, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Ugandan military on Sunday said it has issued measure to stop the spread of COVID-19 among its troops in Somalia and Equatorial Guinea after one of them tested positive for the virus.

Richard Karemire, Ugandan military spokesperson, told Xinhua by telephone that guidelines for prevention, surveillance, case management and treatment for COVID-19 have been established to protect the troops serving under African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and capacity building in Equatorial Guinea.

He said the military medical teams will handle and treat any confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the Horn of African nation and western African country respectively.

"Should we get any additional cases, medical teams will handle (them) as per now established procedure. There is no need to worry," said Karemire.

The army on Thursday said one of its troops in Somalia tested positive for the disease.

As a result, UPDF high command, according to Karemire, with immediate effect suspended the rotation of its peacekeeping troops to Somalia and capacity building in Equatorial Guinea.

Uganda has some 6,000 troops serving under AMISOM and over 100 officers in Equatorial Guinea helping to build capacity and professionalization of the west African nation's army.

The east African country deploys troops to Somalia and Equatorial Guinea on a one year rotational basis.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Every year during Teacher Appreciation Week, a Staten Island principal makes sure his educators know how much he appreciates the work they do.

And this year -- Teacher Appreciation Week is Monday, May 4 through May 8 -- Elmer Myers, principal of PS 3 in Pleasant Plains, wanted to make sure the schools teachers, paraprofessionals, and other staff knew how much they are appreciated for the work they are doing with remote learning during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Myers didnt tell anyone he would leave his New Jersey home on Saturday to hand-deliver gifts to each of his educators to thank them. His hope was to put a smile on each of their faces when they unexpectedly opened the door to find a surprise gift. He gave educators a lunch box/cooler with candy and a letter thanking his staff.

Elmer Myers, principal of PS 3 in Pleasant Plains, delivered gifts to his teacher's homes as a surprise for Teacher Appreciation Week. (Courtesy/ Debra Donovan)

Mr. Myers is the type of person you enjoy working for, said Debra Donovan, a first-grade teacher at PS 3. He leads by example and is very well respected by all PS 3 staff, students and parents. Being acknowledged for your hard work as a teacher is wonderful, but having a principal who goes out of his way to hand-deliver gifts to his staff is priceless.

Myers, along with assistant principals Danielle McDonagh and Danka Amtzis, ordered the staff appreciation gifts before Christmas with the intention of delivering them for Teacher Appreciation Week this year in person, as they normally did every year, Donovan said.

Christine Masella, a teacher a PS 3, said Myers, McDonagh and Amtzis always let the teachers know how appreciated they are.

...But during this difficult time when we are all stressed out, worried if we are doing a good job, missing our students and co-workers, it was so heartwarming to get this special gift and letter hand-delivered by Mr. Myers, said teacher Chrissy Masella. I already know how lucky I am to work for such a great principal, but this gesture was so uplifting. He is a principal who truly cares about his staff and makes a hard time like this a little easier.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

McDonagh initially thought Myers would mail the gifts to educators, but Myers had the better idea of delivering them in a special way.

Mr. Myers is a wonderful principal to work with, said McDonagh. He is supportive and makes you feel like your ideas and voice matters.

Donovan said the gifts were an absolute surprise.

LIKE SANTA

He asked his secretary to make sure all our addresses were updated, but no one knew why, Donovan said. He always delivers our gifts to our classroom. Obviously, he couldnt do that this year. He just dropped them off. He didnt want to bring attention to himself, which is normal for him. He was like Santa. Drop and go.

Paraprofessional Elizabeth Katz said Myers is a wonderful principal to work for, and was surprised to find the lunch bag and letter on her doorstep.

His door is always open to staff, students and parents, she said. He is a down to earth, understanding principal and person. When I viewed my front door camera, I found out that Mr. Myers personally delivered my staff appreciation gift. It just shows what a caring person he is to take the time out and do something wonderful for all of us.

Teacher Shari Levy Delfino said the gift put a smile on her face, especially because she is going through a difficult time as her father-in-law died and the funeral was held on Friday.

So this brought some happiness into a dark period for my family, she said. "I never heard of a principal doing such a thing during this crisis or any other crisis for that matter. We at PS 3 are so blessed beyond words to have this amazing leader, he truly has made PS 3 my second home. Some say hes like Santa Claus. I say hes a remarkable man. PS 3 is the place to be.

TEACHERS THANK PRINCIPAL FOR APPRECIATION

Many PS 3 teachers also shared kind words about Myers. Dorothy Cabello, a second-grade teacher said Myers has been a reliable constant for our school, during this time of instability. Another second-grade teacher, Rosanne Aliberti, said Myers has a good heart.

He believes in his staff and he shows kindness to everyone in his school, Aliberti said. He went above and beyond delivering a gift for every staff member, which shows the kind of man he is --dedicated, caring and selfless. He truly appreciates his staff and school community!

Kindergarten teacher Christie Rivera said everything Myers does is for the children at PS 3.

He made sure every child got a device who needed one, and keeps staff and parents updated with his informative and supportive weekly emails," said Rivera. He went above and beyond with this staff appreciation gift and letter.

Said Kindergarten teacher Lynette Giammarino: It was a beautiful surprise when I opened my door and saw a letter of appreciation and a teacher appreciation gift from my Principal Mr. Myers. He has thanked the staff several times during this transition of remote learning about how we are doing a wonderful job for our school community. Knowing that he personally went to each staff member to show his appreciation is just amazing."

Teachers Danielle Capece and Vicky Serecin echoed the remarks of her colleagues and said he has the "utmost respect for the whole school community, including teachers, parents and administration.

They say the 'principal sets the tone and it is true," the pair said. "We are all glad to come to school and work hard every day because he is professional, respectful, and understanding of students, families and teachers. We are proud to know him and work for him.

Some said there were not enough words to express their gratitiude.

Mr. Myers has been our principal and leader through all of this change," said Ciara Fazio, IEP/SETSS teacher. "He has shown that with true strength, diligence and support, great teaching is more than possible, its indispensable. There are not enough words to describe the gratitude we each feel towards him during this time.

Said teacher Katie Kilgannon: Mr. Myers is always there for students, parents and staff. Mr. Myers acknowledges our dedication to the students on a day to day basis. ...Mr. Myers is one of a kind, and we are lucky to call him our principal.

45 Photos of the pandemic in NYC: Our lives changed forever

FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER.
In a stern warning to Pakistan, Army Chief Gen MM Naravane said India will respond appropriately and with "precision" to any acts of cross-border misadventure unless Islamabad gives up its policy of state-sponsored terrorism and coercing people in Kashmir to follow its "Azadi narrative".

In an exclusive interview to PTI, the chief of the 1.3 million-strong Army said Pakistan is still following a "myopic" and "limited" agenda of pushing terrorists into Kashmir and called the country a "global risk" to peace and stability.

Referring to the Handwara encounter, Gen. Naravane said India is proud of Col Ashutosh Sharma, the Commanding Officer of 21 Rashtriya Rifles battalion, and four other security personnel who laid down their lives saving civilians from terrorists at a village in Handwara in north Kashmir on Saturday night.

"I would like to emphasise that Indian Army will give proportionate response to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and its (Pakistan's) support to terrorism. The onus remains with Pakistan to bring peace in the region," the Chief of Army Staff said.

"Unless Pakistan gives up its policy of state sponsored terrorism, we will continue to respond appropriately and with precision," he added. After the Pulwama attack, India effected a doctrinal shift in its counter-terror policy by bombing a Jaish-e-Mohammad facility deep inside Pakistan.

Gen Naravane said the recent infiltration attempts by Pakistan along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir showed that Pakistan is not interested in battling the coronavirus pandemic and is still following its "own myopic and limited agenda of pushing terrorists inside India."



"Even in the hinterland, Pakistan backed terrorists are resorting to targeting innocent civilians with an aim to coerce them into following their Azadi narrative. Pakistan claims to be a friend of Kashmiris; I want to ask what sort of friend resorts to killing and spreads terror," he asked.

There have been frequent incidents of ceasefire violation by Pakistani side since India announced its decision to withdraw special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two Union Territories in August last year.

On implementation of recommendations of anti-terror watchdog FATF by Pakistan, Gen Naravane said the country has sought to "blindside" the international community by making superficial changes and amendments to its "non-existent" checks on terror financing and money laundering.

"It still continues to employ proxies to inflict terror and violence not only inside India but also in Afghanistan where it supports the Taliban militarily and financially," he said.

"The sudden spurts in violence against Afghan security forces are indicative of the illegal and illicit drug and money laundering networks that fuel the conflict," Gen Naravane added.

He also referred to Pakistan removing names of "hardcore terrorists from the terror watch list", saying it proves that Islamabad still believes in exporting terrorism as an instrument of state policy.

"The low priority given to the Pakistani citizens by its own government and the army is apparent by the exponential rise in cases and massive shortages of medical equipment and supplies in Pakistan," he said.

Gen Naravane said even during an India-initiated SAARC video conference, Pakistan's "narrow-mindedness" was on full display when it used the platform to complain about "non-existent" violations of human rights in Kashmir instead of finding ways to keep its citizens safe from the pandemic.

"The increased intensity of ceasefire violations by the Pakistan army, where its targets innocent civilians on the LoC, just shows that the country is a global risk and is not interested in providing relief to its own citizens," he said.

The Army Chief also said that Pakistan has been trying to mislead the international community on the situation in Kashmir. "It is unfortunate that while the world has got together to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Pakistan has resorted to firing heavy calibre artillery and killing of innocent Kashmiris to garner international attention," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
One of the five temporary Nightingale hospitals could be mothballed within days under plans ministers will consider this week.

The health centre was built in nine days to expand the NHSs intensive care capacity to handle an expected surge in coronavirus cases.

The facility at the ExCel Centre in east London, which opened on April 3, has the capacity for 4,000 beds.

But it faces closure after remaining largely empty, with just 51 patients treated in its first three weeks.

The facility at the ExCel Centre in east London, which opened on April 3, has the capacity for 4,000 beds. Pictured: Chief Executive of the National Health Service Simon Stevens meets with a staff member during a visit to the ExCel Centre

But it faces closure after remaining largely empty, with just 51 patients treated in its first three weeks. Pictured: Military personnel working inside the ExCel Centre, in London

Staff at the hospital were told at a meeting on Friday that a decision on its future was expected to be made early this week.

A leaked internal email, obtained by the Daily Mail, said that while the hospital remained open and in theory accepting admissions it now looked likely the initial peak of the virus outbreak had passed.

It added: One possible outcome is for this site to be put into hibernation  ready to come out of hibernation, but not requiring staffing. Central Government will make a decision, we hope, early [this] week.

It is understood all staff and volunteers that have worked at the site will be given a thank you item, such as a lanyard or T-shirt, when it closes down.

One possible outcome is for this site to be put into hibernation'. Pictured: A general view outside the NHS Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre, in London

There were also plans for two more in Exeter and Tyne and Wear, but it is believed these may now be scrapped. Pictured: An ambulance outside the NHS Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre, in London

Five Nightingale hospitals have been opened in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate, but they have received very few patients.

It is unclear whether the Government is planning to put the other four hospitals into hibernation or keep them open in the short term.

There were also plans for two more in Exeter and Tyne and Wear, but it is believed these may now be scrapped.

NHS Englands national medical director yesterday said it would have been foolish not to plan for extra capacity to tackle the coronavirus.

Professor Stephen Powis said the extra capacity provided by the Nightingale hospitals may still be needed in the future.

He added: We need to maintain that extra capacity until we have more certainty.
The national economy will be left struggling unless Sydney can quickly bounce back from a forecast double-digit decline in activity in the CBD once coronavirus restrictions are eased.

Analysis by SGS Economics & Planning shows the extent of the economic damage wrought by the pandemic, with city and outer suburbs around the south and south-west that rely on retail and manufacturing hurt most by the shutdowns.

The virus has left city streets, like George Street in Sydney, empty. Credit:Louise Kennerley

Retail and hospitality-driven city centres across the nation have been ravaged by restrictions introduced in March, with economic activity in Sydney's CBD and the Bayside Council area, which includes the Mascot airport and Botany industrial park, forecast to fall by 10 to 12.5 per cent in 2019-20. This compares to a forecast 6.5 per cent decline nationally.

The City of Sydney generated about $130 billion in economic activity in 2018-19, council data shows, and contributes more than a third of the Greater Sydney economy and 20 per cent of the state's GDP. This represents more than 7 per cent of the Australian economy.
A CISF jawan was injured in a grenade attack on a security forces' camp at Nowgam area of Srinagar on Monday, officials said.

Militants hurled a grenade at the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) camp guarding a power installation at Wagoora area under Nowgam police station area, the officials said.

A CISF jawan was injured in the attack. Security forces have launched search operations to track down the assailants.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Boris Johnson today hosted a global summit as he urged countries around the world to unite and help pay for the development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments - but the US and China chose not to attend.

The Prime Minister said the world needed to come together 'against our common enemy' as he boasted of the UK's 744 million commitment to a global response war chest.

He said every nation needed to help create an 'impregnable shield around all our people' in the form of a vaccine.

The virtual summit was attended by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the European Commission.

But neither Washington nor Beijing opted to take part as the Coronavirus Global Response International Pledging Conference missed out on the initial support of the world's two biggest economic powers.

Boris Johnson today urged the world to unite to fund the development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments - but the US and China did not attend a virtual summit hosted by the PM

The UK is already the biggest donor to the global fund to find a coronavirus vaccine and Mr Johnson urged other countries to join the 'truly global effort' to defeat the disease.

Today's pledging event represents the start of a month-long drive for investment before a Global Vaccine Summit is hosted by the UK on June 4.

In his message to the summit, Mr Johnson said: 'Im delighted that the UK is co-hosting this summit and joining forces with all of you against our common enemy, the coronavirus.

'In our own countries, we have taken extraordinary measures, asking our people to accept sweeping restrictions on their way of life, and by doing so, we have formed a human shield around our health systems, enabling our heroic health workers to save many lives - including my own.

'But the truth is that none of us can succeed alone.

'To win this battle, we must work together to build an impregnable shield around all our people, and that can only be achieved by developing and mass producing a vaccine.'

Mr Johnson said 'the more we pull together and share our expertise, the faster our scientists will succeed' in developing vaccines and treatments.

'The UK is the biggest donor to the efforts of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to find a vaccine,' he said.

'We have committed up to 744 million for the global response to coronavirus, including our pledge of 388 million for the vital research and development of vaccines, treatments and tests, and that is the focus of todays conference.'

The PM insisted the 'race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries but the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes'.

The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman was asked at lunchtime if Mr Johnson was disappointed that the US and China did not take part in the summit.

The spokesman replied: 'The UK continues to work closely with all of our international partners including the US and China to stop the spread of the virus. It is a truly global effort and no one will be able to do this alone.

'Today's summit is just the start of a pledging progress where states can commit vital funds to the global efforts to development vaccines, treatments and tests.

'We are encouraging all countries, businesses and institutions to join forces to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.'
Local stocks opened on a weak note as trading resumed after a long weekend. At 9:21 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 1451.71 points or 4.31% at 32,265.91. The Nifty 50 index was down 410.10 points or 4.16% at 9,449.80. Weak global stocks weighed on domestic bourses.

Domestic stock markets were closed on Friday, 1 May 2020 on account of Maharashtra Day.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was off 3.28%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was down 2.82%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was weak. On the BSE, 293 shares rose and 1094 shares fell. A total of 57 shares were unchanged.

On May 1, the government announced extension of nationwide lockdown for two more weeks starting from May 4. However, several relaxations will be allowed as per zones. Apart from zone-wise restriction, there is a limited number of activities that will remain prohibited throughout the country, irrespective of zones

On the macro front, Markit Manufacturing PMI for April will be declared today, 4 May 2020.

The output of eight Core Industries comprise 40.27% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) dipped by 6.5% in March 2020. The cumulative output rose marginally by 0.6% in April-March FY2020.

Stocks in news:

Reliance Industries (RIL) fell 1.17%. On a consolidated basis, Reliance Industries (RIL)'s net profit fell 38.74% to Rs 6,348 crore on 2.5% decline in revenue to Rs 151,209 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

EBITDA increased 7.6% to Rs 25,886 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019. Decrease in Q4 revenue is primarily on account of 10.1% decline in refining and petrochemicals business revenues. Sharp fall of 20.5% Y-o-Y in average Brent oil price led to lower product price realization across the hydrocarbon chain. This was partially offset by continuing growth in consumer businesses, even amidst the operational issues posed by the pandemic. Digital services and retail business recorded an increase of 30% and 4.2% Y-o-Y respectively, in revenue during the quarter.

RIL after market hours on Thursday (30 April 2020) announced that its board approved the issuance of equity shares of Rs 10 each of the company on rights basis to eligible equity shareholders of the company as on the record date (to be notified later), of an issue size of Rs 53,125 crore. Shareholders can subscribe to one equity share for every 15 equity shares held as on the record date. The issue is priced at Rs 1,257.

Tech Mahindra lost 7.47%. On a consolidated basis, Tech Mahindra's profit after tax (PAT) fell 29.9% to Rs 804 crore on 1.7% decline in revenue to Rs 9,490 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q3 December 2019. EBITDA fell 13.8% to Rs 1,348 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q3 December 2019. EBITDA margins fell 200 bps to 14.2% in Q4 March 2020 over Q3 December 2019.

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) dropped 3.27%. The company's net profit declined 1.24% to Rs 1519 crore on a 9.4% decline in net sales to Rs 8,885 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019. EBITDA for Q4 March 2020 stood at Rs 2065 crore, declining 11% year on year from Rs 2321 crore in Q4 March 2019. HUL said the spread of COVID-19 impacted the business from mid-March, which culminated into scaling down of operations post the national lockdown. Domestic Consumer Growth declined by 9% with a decline of 7% in underlying volume growth.

Maruti Suzuki India fell 5.36%. Maruti Suzuki India had zero sales in the domestic market, (including sales to OEM), in April 2020. This was because in compliance with the Government orders all production facilities were closed. Meanwhile, following resumption of port operations, the first export shipment of 632 units was undertaken from the Mundra port, ensuring that all guidelines for safety were followed.

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) slipped 5.55%. M&M announced that the company sold 733 vehicles in the export market during April 2020. Domestic sales of vehicles during the month was completely impacted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and resulting national lockdown.

Mahindra & Mahindra's Farm Equipment Sector (FES) announced its tractor sales numbers for April 2020. Domestic sales in April 2020 were at 4,716 units, as against 27,495 units during April 2019. Total tractor sales (Domestic + Exports) during April 2020 were at 4,772 units, as against 28,552 units for the same period last year. Exports for the month stood at 56 units.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company dropped 3.59%. The company's net profit rose 23.8% to Rs 281.93 crore on 11.7% rise in total income to Rs 2,968.55 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

AU Small Finance Bank fell 4.99%. AU Small Finance Bank's net profit rose 3.45% to Rs 122.32 crore on 35.65% rise in total income to Rs 1,366.60 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

Global Markets:

Overseas, Asian stocks were trading lower as US-China tensions weigh on investor sentiment. Markets in China, Japan and Thailand are closed on Monday for holidays.

Meanwhile, tensions are rising between Washington and Beijing, as U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly said Sunday that he believed that a mistake in China was the cause of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, though he did not present any evidence for the claim.

In US, Wall Street sold off sharply on Friday after President Donald Trump revived a threat of new tariffs against China in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought global economies to a grinding halt.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Shocking footage has revealed the blood-curdling moment air ambulance crew straightened a climber's leg after it was crushed by a fridge-sized boulder.

In tonight's episode of Helicopter ER, veterinary surgeon and experienced climber Becky, from the UK, can be heard screaming in pain after falling victim to a freak climbing accident while enjoying her favourite pass time.

'An enormous boulder fell on top of me and crushed my leg,' she says, as the air ambulance rushes to her aid.

The boulder that hit Becky weighed more than tonne, and the damage to her leg is extensive. As such, getting her off the stony scree quickly is top priority.

Becky (pictured shortly after the freak accident), from the UK, recalls the moment her leg is straightened by ambulance crew after it was crushed by a fridge-sized boulder in tonight's episode of Really's Helicopter ER

The experienced climber (pictured) says she was 'lucky' to still be wearing her helmet when she rolled down the hill, so she got a black eye but didn't hurt her head at all

The rock faces of Yorkshire are a playground for climbers and, in more usual circumstances, hundreds of people around the country spend their weekend pitting their skills against the terrain of the peak district and dales.

But every year, an unlucky few need the assistance of the air ambulance - and in this instance, it was Becky.

'In the north of Yorkshire, we've got huge areas of sparse hills and moorland that people love to explore,' pilot Mark explains. 'But it's quite easy to lose your footing, fall, and break a leg or worse.'

As Becky finds herself lying at the foot of the cliff with a severely broken leg, the air ambulance crew hatch a plan to get her into the helicopter and off to hospital as soon as possible.

The boulder that hit Becky weighed more than tonne, and the damage to her leg is extensive (pictured, being carried off the moorland)

Becky later learns that she suffered a staggering eight spiral fractures in her right leg. Pictured, shortly after the freak accident

Giving her some ketamine to ease the pain, the crew set about straightening her leg and moving her onto a stretcher.

Mountain rescue are also quickly on the scene to offer assistance and, with Becky a regular climber in the area, the Rescue team also know their patient.

Keeping her talking as the paramedics work, one team member quips 'next time you're treating one of your cattle now, you'll know the feeling won't you?'

Still in good spirits, Becky jokes 'well I'd just shoot them if they did this!' After a short while, the drugs quickly take effect, and Becky becomes drowsy.

'Oh wow, I feel like I'm totally high, oh my goodness!' she exclaims.

Then, as the paramedics straighten Becky's broken leg, she lets out an almighty, blood-curdling scream as the pain becomes too much to for her to bear.

Thankfully, the relief once her leg is straight is almost immediate and once Becky's on the stretcher, the ambulance and Mountain Rescue crew expertly negotiate the tricky terrain and get her aboard the helicopter.

They then fly across the county border to Preston's Major Trauma Unit where a surgeon is on standby.

The ambulance and Mountain Rescue crew (pictured) fly Becky across the county border to Preston's Major Trauma Unit where a surgeon is on standby

X-rays reveal that Becky suffered a staggering eight spiral fractures in her right leg. Surgeons are forced to insert a titanium rod into the bone, and it's three months before she is fit to return to work.

It's been a traumatic experience for Becky, and speaking after returning to work, she recounts the events of that day.

'A big square section of rock just fell towards me and I don't really remember falling, but I remember rolling like a ragdoll down this stony hill,' she says. 'I just kept rolling.'

'I remember getting faster when I was rolling, and I also remember being really acutely aware of this massive, loud fridge-sized boulder coming behind me.'

Reflecting on what happened, Becky is grateful to have only sustained a broken leg.

'I was so lucky. I was lucky I was still wearing my helmet when I rolled down the hill, so I got a black eye but I didn't hurt my head at all,' she says. 'If it had hit a child or anyone else it could have easily have killed someone it was so big.'

The brand new series of Helicopter ER premieres tonight at 9pm exclusively on Really and dplay
Stephenie Meyer has announced that a new Twilight book will come out this summer, 12 years after the last volume in the original book series.

Midnight Sun will be released on 4 August by Hachettes Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

The book tells the same story that unfolded in the four original instalments, ie that of the love story between high school student Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen  but while the previous Twilight books unfolded from Bellas perspectives, Midnight Sun will be told in Edwards voice.

A description released by the publisher teases the upcoming book as such: This unforgettable tale as told through Edwards eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting beautiful, mysterious Bella is both the most intriguing and unnerving event he has experienced in his long life as a vampire.

As we learn more fascinating details about Edwards past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he let himself fall in love with Bella when he knows that he is endangering her life?

Meyer announced the release in a video message broadcast on Good Morning America on Monday morning in the US.

I am very excited to finally, finally announce the release of Midnight Sun on 4 August, the author said.

Its a crazy time right now and I wasnt sure if it was the right time to put this book out, but some of you have been waiting for just so, so long. It didnt seem fair to make you wait anymore.

Meyer told USA Today that Midnight Sun is definitely darker and more desperate than its predecessors.

'Midnight Sun' will be released on 4 August by Hachette's Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

The stakes are way higher from [Edwards] perspective, she added.

The news comes days after a mysterious countdown appeared on Meyers website, sparking speculation that Midnight Suns release might be on the horizon.

Midnight Sun came to a halt after a draft of the novel was leaked in 2008. The project had remained on hold ever since.
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not undergo surgery during almost three weeks of absence from public life, a South Korean official said on Sunday, as the two Koreas exchanged gunfire at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two sides.

The government official declined to provide reasons, but said speculative reports that Kim had had an operation, citing some differences in his leg movements, were untrue.

Our assessment is that (Kim) did not undergo surgery, the official, who declined to be identified, told reporters. Asked if media reports of Kim having undergone a simple medical treatment were also untrue, the official simply said: Yes.

North and South Korea exchanged gunfire around a rural guard post, raising tension a day after North Korean state media showed Kim visiting a factory, the first report of him making a public appearance since April 11.

Multiple gunshots were fired from North Korea towards a guard post in South Korea, the Souths Joint Chiefs of Staffs (JCS) said in a statement.

South Korea responded by firing two shots towards North Korea, the JCS said. No casualties were reported.

After weeks of intense speculation about Kims health and whereabouts, which included one report he had undergone cardiovascular surgery, North Koreas official media published photographs and a report on Saturday that Kim had attended the completion of a fertiliser plant.

Kim was seen in photographs smiling and talking to aides at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and touring the plant. State TV footage showed Kims leg movements appearing stiff and jerky.

The authenticity of the photos, published on the website of the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, could not be verified.

Reclusive North Korea for years pursued nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions. Talks between North Korea and the United States, highlighted by three meetings between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump, are at a standstill.

The exchange of gunshots on Sunday was the latest confrontation between the rival Koreas that technically remain still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty.

In a lengthy briefing held later on Sunday, an official at South Koreas JCS said the gunshots did not seem a planned provocation.

The U.S.-led U.N. Command, which oversees affairs in the heavily fortified DMZ, said it was working with the JCS to assess the situation.

The UNC will conduct a thorough investigation tomorrow to determine if there was an Armistice Agreement violation, and will provide the report to the appropriate authorities once completed.

Choi Kang, vice president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said he believed the timing of the provocation shows it could have been planned to show that Kim was still in charge of the North Korean military.

Yesterday, Kim was trying to show he is perfectly healthy, and today, Kim is trying to mute all kinds of speculation that he may not have full control over the military, Choi said.

Rather than going all the way by firing missiles and supervising a missile launch, Kim could be reminding us, yes Im healthy and Im still in power.

Ewha University international affairs professor Leif-Eric Easley in Seoul said the shooting could be aimed at boosting morale in the North Korean military.
Investment addresses company's expectation that gummies will become a top selling product in Canadian edibles market

TORONTO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Canopy Rivers Inc. ("Canopy Rivers" or the "Company") (TSX: RIV, OTC: CNPOF) today announced a C$2 million investment in Dynaleo Inc. ("Dynaleo"), an Edmonton-based company focused on white-label manufacturing edible cannabis gummies for the Canadian market. Through this investment in what the Company anticipates may become a leading industrial scale Canadian gummies manufacturer, Canopy Rivers believes it is capitalizing on a significant opportunity in what is currently an underserved and underdeveloped segment of the cannabis market. Once Dynaleo receives the required licencing from Health Canada, it expects to begin operating its 27,000 sq. ft. purpose-built facility with the goal of producing enough gummies to take a sizable bite out of the projected edibles market.

"We believe that Dynaleo is positioned to become a market leader in cannabis edibles manufacturing in Canada," said Narbe Alexandrian, President & CEO, Canopy Rivers. "In the gummies market specifically, we see a significant supply and demand imbalance and a move towards outsourcing products to leading manufacturers. We think Dynaleo's manufacturing capabilities, combined with its capable management team, position it to help close this supply gap in the short term and become a trusted manufacturer of cannabis edibles in the long term."

When Cannabis 2.0 launched in Canada, regulatory uncertainties around the gummy format led many license holders to focus on other edible cannabis formats, with only some licensed producers investing in the infrastructure to produce gummies. As a result of this, initial market observations suggest that the demand for edibles is significantly ahead of supply, with limited product availability and consistently high out-of-stock rates relative to other products.

Headset data from mature U.S. markets, combined with Deloitte's projection that Canada's edibles market could be worth $1.6 billion annually, indicates that there is an opportunity for increased gummy production in Canada. In Colorado and California, Headset reports that gummies were the top selling edible product, accounting for 55% and 56% of edible cannabis sales respectively in 2019. Assuming that Canadians emulate these consumption habits, Canadian licensed producers may not yet have the production capacity or partnerships to fulfill this demand.

"On top of helping Canada's licensed producers close the supply gap, we also believe that Dynaleo will play a role in expanding the total addressable market for cannabis products, with market research indicating that new consumers are more likely to enter the cannabis market through edibles than other products," added Alexandrian.

"I am extremely proud of the Dynaleo team, our manufacturing facility, and the path that is ahead of us," said Michael Krestell, Executive Chairman, Dynaleo. "We welcome Canopy Rivers' investment, and the expertise and relationships with established industry players that comes with it."

Dynaleo has completed construction of its purpose-built facility and has submitted all supporting documentation for a standard processing licence to Health Canada. Once licensed, Dynaleo expects it will develop a customer pipeline that includes both licensed producers as well as traditional consumer packaged goods companies.

Investment Overview

Canopy Rivers' investment is part of a larger C$7 million round. Canopy Rivers' investment in Dynaleo is structured as a C$2 million unsecured convertible debenture (the "Debenture") with additional warrant coverage (the "Warrants"). The Debenture is convertible at the Company's option into common shares of Dynaleo. Upon conversion of the Debenture and exercise of the Warrants, and assuming no further changes in Dynaleo's capitalization table, Canopy Rivers' ownership interest will be 12.2%.

About Canopy Rivers

Canopy Rivers is a venture capital firm specializing in cannabis. Its unique investment and operating platform is structured to pursue investment opportunities in the emerging global cannabis sector. Canopy Rivers identifies strategic counterparties seeking financial and/or operating support. Canopy Rivers has developed an investment ecosystem of complementary cannabis operating companies that represent various segments of the value chain across the emerging cannabis sector. As the portfolio continues to develop, constituents will be provided with opportunities to work with Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX: WEED,NYSE: CGC) and collaborate among themselves, which Canopy Rivers believes will maximize value for its shareholders and foster an environment of innovation, synergy and value creation for the entire portfolio.

About Dynaleo

Dynaleo is an Edmonton, Alberta-based licence applicant that is focused on manufacturing cannabis-infused adult chews. Dynaleo's purpose-built manufacturing plant contains specialized production equipment that it intends to use to produce CBD and THC edibles for the Canadian market that can be customized in a wide range of flavours, textures, colours, shapes and sizes to meet customer's needs and regulatory requirements.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains statements which constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements regarding the plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of Canopy Rivers and its portfolio companies with respect to future business activities and operating performance. Forward-looking information is often identified by the words "may", "would", "could", "should", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" or similar expressions and includes information regarding: the expectation that gummies will become a top selling product in Canada; the expected size of the Canadian edibles and gummies markets; management's belief that the Company's investment in Dynaleo capitalizes on a significant opportunity; Dynaleo's manufacturing plans and expected production capacity; management's belief that Dynaleo may become a leading industrial scale gummies manufacturer and a market leader in cannabis edibles manufacturing in Canada; management's belief that there is a significant supply and demand imbalance and their expectation that there will be a move towards outsourcing products to manufacturers and that Dynaleo is positioned to help close this gap and become a trusted manufacturer of cannabis edibles; management's belief that Dynaleo will play a role in expanding the total addressable market for cannabis products; the assumption that Canadians will emulate the consumption habits of consumers in Colorado and California; Dynaleo's expected customer pipeline; Canopy Rivers' ownership interest in Dynaleo; and expectations for other economic, regulatory, business, and/or competitive factors.

Investors are cautioned that forward-looking information is not based on historical fact but instead reflects management's expectations, estimates or projections concerning future results or events based on the opinions, assumptions and estimates of management considered reasonable at the date the statements are made. Although Canopy Rivers believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking information are reasonable, such information involves risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such information, as unknown or unpredictable factors could have material adverse effects on future results, performance or achievements of Canopy Rivers. Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information are the following: regulatory and licensing risks; Dynaleo's ability to obtain a licence from Health Canada in a timely manner or at all; changes in Dynaleo's plans and its actual production capacity and ability to build and maintain a customer pipeline; changes in cannabis industry growth and trends; changes in the anticipated or actual market size for cannabis products, edibles and gummies; changes in consumer preferences and demands; varying consumption habits between U.S. and Canadian cannabis consumers; changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; the global regulatory landscape and enforcement related to cannabis, including political risks and risks relating to regulatory change; risks relating to anti-money laundering laws; compliance with extensive government regulation, including Canopy Rivers' interpretation of such regulation; public opinion and perception of the cannabis industry; divestiture risks; competition risks; and the risk factors set out in Canopy Rivers' annual information form dated July 15, 2019, filed with the Canadian securities regulators and available on Canopy Rivers' profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com .

Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking information prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Although Canopy Rivers has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Canopy Rivers does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update this forward-looking information except as otherwise required by applicable law.

SOURCE Canopy Rivers Inc.

Related Links

www.canopyrivers.com


After introducing the A52 and A72 last month, Oppo went ahead and reveled yet another member of its midrange A-series in Malaysia dubbed the A92. Taking a dive through the specs reveals the device is identical to the A72 with an FHD+ 6.5-inch IPS LCD, Snapdragon 665 chipset and 5,000 mAh battery.

It comes with a quad-camera setup including a 48MP primary shooter alongside an 8MP ultrawide snapper and two 2MP modules  one for monochrome shots and another for depth data. The selfie cam comes in at 16MP.

The A92 also comes with stereo speakers, a headphone jack, side-mounted fingerprint reader and 18W fast wired charging. It runs on Color OS 7.1 on top of Android 10 and is offered in white and black colors.



Oppo A92 in white and black

The Oppo A92 retails for MYR 1,200 ($280/255) in its sole 8GB RAM and 128GB storage configuration. Its already available for pre-order on Oppos official site as well as several Malaysian retailers. Official sales are scheduled to begin on May 9.

Source
By PTI

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court Monday dismissed an application of former JNU student and anti-CAA activist Sharjeel Imam, booked under stringent anti-terror law -- Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act -- seeking bail on the ground that the investigation was not concluded within the statutory period of 90 days.

Imam was arrested on January 28 from Bihar in the case related to violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act near the Jamia Millia Islamia University in December last year.

The statutory period 90 days would have concluded on April 27.

In the application, he contended that the trial court's April 25 order extending the period of investigation in the case to 90 days more is bad in law.

Rejecting the contention, Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana, said the order extending the period of investigation was passed before expiry of the statutory time period of 90 days.

"Since the time period to conclude investigation has already been extended as per section 43 D (2) of UAPA, I am of the considered opinion that application for release of the accused on statutory bail is bereft of merits and the same is accordingly dismissed," the court said.

Section 43-D (2) of UAPA provides that if it is not possible to complete the investigation within the 90 days period, then upon the report of the public prosecutor indicating the progress of the probe and the specific reasons for the detention of the accused beyond the 90 days period, after satisfaction, the court can extend the period of the probe to 180 days.

Imam is currently lodged in Guwahati jail in a case related to UAPA registered by the Assam police.

The counsel for Imam argued that the investigating agency did not conclude the probe within the specified time limit and hence the accused has an indefeasible right to be released on statutory bail.

The lawyer submitted that although on April 25, a period of investigation was extended for a further period of 90 days by a Roster Judge, that order is not in consonance with the statutory provisions.

The counsel further contended that the court which passed the order for extension of probe period was not competent enough and no report was filed by the public prosecutor and thus the order was non-est (does not exist) in the eyes of law.

"Even no notice was served upon the accused before the extension of time and in the absence of any notice, the court could not have extended the statutory time period," he submitted.

Additional Public Prosecutor opposed the application saying the Roster Judge was empowered to deal with the application under the UAPA and was well within his powers to entertain and dispose of the application of the prosecutor for extension of time.

The prosecutor argued that the counsel for the accused was duly intimated by way of WhatsApp about the application and despite intimation, the council opted not to appear before the court and now the accused cannot cry foul.

The trial court had on April 25 given 90 days more to the police to complete their investigation in the case.

The order was passed after the police had told the court that due to the global COVID-19 pandemic in the country and the ongoing lockdown, the pace of investigation was seriously disrupted.

The police further informed the court that they are yet to interrogate the members of WhatsApp group 'Muslim students of JNU', persons who provided their accounts to arrange for money to get printed the pamphlets and Imam's friends and persons who initially video recorded the speech at Jamia are yet to be identified.

It said that results in respect of hard disk of laptop and the mobile phone and the alleged videos are yet to be received from the forensic lab and the replies from Facebook, Twitter, and Cert-In are yet to be received and analyzed and the requisite sanctions are also to be obtained.

Initially, a case under section 124 A (sedition) and 153 A IPC (promoting enmity between classes) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at the Crime Branch, New Delhi, pursuant to the alleged speeches addressed by Imam, allegedly instigating a particular religious section of the society to disrupt/block the access to North East region of India from rest of India, police claimed.

The police had earlier charged Imam with sedition, alleging his speech promoted enmity between people that led to riots.

The mob indulged in large-scale rioting, stone-pelting, and arson, and in the process destroyed several public and private properties while a number of police personnel and people were injured in the riots, the police had told the court.

Imam was arrested from Bihar''s Jehanabad on January 28.

He was involved in organizing 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.

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.
COVID-19 has slammed into Colorado's prison system, which already was struggling to keep corrections officers from quitting amid rising chaos according to state data, interviews and legislative reports.
Venezuelan officials said they foiled an early morning attempt by a group of armed 'mercenaries' to invade the country in a beach landing using speedboats Sunday, killing eight attackers and arresting two more.

Socialist party chief Diosdado Cabello said that two of the attackers were interrogated by authorities.

Cabello said it was carried out by neighboring Colombia with the United States backing the plot to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro - a claim dismissed by U.S. and Colombian officials.

Security forces patrol near the shore in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela on Sunday

Security forces guard the shore area and a boat in which authorities claim a group of armed men landed in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela

A spokesman for Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro claimed the attack was carried out by neighboring Colombia with the U.S. backing the plot to overthrow Maduro

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro walks next to Venezuela's Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez and military members during his visit to a military training center in El Pao

Opposition leaders dismissed the entire incident as staged.

'Those who assume they can attack the institutional framework in Venezuela will have to assume the consequences of their action,' said Cabello, adding that one of the detained claimed to be an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Authorities said they found Peruvian documents, high-caliber weapons, satellite phones, uniforms and helmets adorned with the U.S. flag.

The group landed early on Sunday on the coast of La Guaira, about 20 miles from the capital Caracas, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in a televised address.

'They tried to carry out an invasion by sea, a group of terrorist mercenaries from Colombia, in order to commit terrorist acts in the country, murdering leaders of the revolutionary government,' he said.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, recognized by many members of the international community as the country's rightful interim ruler, said the government was seeking to distract from recent violent events including a deadly prison riot on Friday and bloody Caracas gang battle on Saturday night

Interior Nestor Reverol said on state television that security forces overcame before dawn Sunday an armed maritime incursion with speedboats from neighboring Colombia

Security forces guard the shore area and a boat in which authorities claim a group of armed men landed in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela

Both Colombia and the United States have repeatedly denied previous Venezuelan allegations of backing military plots against the socialist government.

'We have little reason to believe anything that comes out of the former regime,' said a spokesperson with the State Department Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, speaking Sunday on condition of anonymity, referring to Maduros government.

'The Maduro regime has been consistent in its use of misinformation in order to shift focus from its mismanagement of Venezuela.'

Colombia's Foreign Affairs Ministry also rejected the claims made by what it called 'Maduro's dictatorial regime.'

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino is pictured as he speaks next to armed forces in Caracas, Venezuela, on Sunday. Padrino expressed absolute loyalty to President Nicolas Maduro, and rejected the incursion of a group of 'terrorist mercenaries' that, according to the Government, intended to invade the country through the coasts near Caracas

Security forces, back, leave a facility in the Macuto area in La Guiara, Venezuela

It claimed the supposed attack was an attempt to distract attention from 'the true problems that the Venezuelan people are living.'

Venezuelan Interior Minister Nestor Reverol described the attackers as 'mercenary terrorists' bent on destabilizing Venezuela's institutions and creating 'chaos.'

Authorities say the attackers had vehicles and heavy arms waiting for them in the port city.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido said the government was seeking to distract from recent violent events including a deadly prison riot on Friday and bloody Caracas gang battle on Saturday night.

A police officer blocks a street in the Macuto area in La Guiara. Several attackers were killed and others detained

'The regime is seeking to divert attention with a supposed incident in La Guaira plagued with inconsistencies, doubts and contradictions,' the press team for Guaido, who is recognized by more than 50 countries as Venezuela's legitimate leader, said in a statement.

Socialist Party leader Diosdado Cabello said eight people were killed and two detained.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said one of the speedboats had sunk, and that military vessels were searching the coast for survivors.

Venezuela has been in a deepening political and economic crisis in recent years under Maduro's rule. Crumbling public services such as running water, electricity and medical care has driven nearly 5 million to migrate.

A coalition of nearly 60 nations backs opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelas legitimate leader, saying Maduro's 2018 election was a sham because the most popular opposition candidates were banned from running.

The United States has led a campaign to oust Maduro, increasing pressure in recent weeks by indicting the socialist leader as a narco-trafficker and offering a $15 million reward for his arrest.

Security forces guard the shore. The group landed early on Sunday on the coast of La Guaira, about 20 miles from the capital Caracas, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in an address

The U.S. also has increased stiff sanctions, cutting off Venezuela's oil sector to choke Maduro from a key source of hard cash.

Ivan Simonovis, a former high-ranking Venezuelan police official who now advises opposition leaders on intelligence strategy from Washington, speculated on Twitter that there might have been a clash between security forces on Sunday and suggested Maduro's government created the story of a plot to justify 'repression against the interim government and any Venezuelan who opposes the dictatorship.'

But in addition to U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure, Maduros government has faced several small-scale military threats, including an attempt to assassinate Maduro with a drone and Guaidos call for a military uprising, which was joined by few soldiers.

Maduro has overseen a six-year economic crisis that has left many citizens unable to obtain basic food and medicine and forced nearly five million people to emigrate.

The United States and dozens of other countries disavowed Maduro after his disputed 2018 election, which they say was rigged. They instead recognize Guaido, who is head of the country's legislature.

Security forces investigate near the shore in the port city of La Guaira

But Maduro retains the backing of the country's armed forces as well as countries including China and Russia, which have harshly criticized the U.S. sanctions.

The Associated Press reported on Friday that an apparently ill-funded attempt to amass an invasion force of 300 men in Colombia involving a former Venezuelan military officer and an ex-Green Beret, suffered setbacks in March when a main organizer was arrested, an arms cache was seized and some participants abandoned its camps.

Jordan Goudreau, the ex-Green Beret, said in a video posted Sunday on Twitter from an undisclosed location that forces had entered Venezuela from other points and were 'deep inside Caracas.' He didnt take credit for the alleged pre-dawn beach invasion, but said 'our units have been activated,' although no other signs of unrest surfaced throughout the day.

Retired Venezuelan National Guard Capt. Javier Nieto Quintero appeared in the video with Goudreau, urging members of the armed forces to help liberate the nation in an action he called 'Operation Gideon.'

The Venezuelan government said the attack was carried out by neighboring Colombia with the United States backing the plot to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro - a claim dismissed by U.S. and Colombian officials

Nieto, when contacted by AP on a Miami telephone, declined to comment and hung up. Goudreau also declined to comment in a call from Caracas.

Cabello linked Sunday's attack to key players in that alleged plot. One of the men he said was killed, a man nicknamed 'the Panther,' had been identified as involved in obtaining weapons for the force in Colombia.

Maduro and his allies say the Trump administration is determined to end Venezuelas socialist government to exploit the South American nations vast underground oil reserves. Maduro remains in power, backed by the military and with international support from Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, speaking on state TV Sunday backed by armed soldiers and tanks units, called the attackers mercenaries who 'don't have souls. They're cowards.'

Guaido accused Maduros government of seizing on this example of unrest to draw the worlds attention away from embarrassing bloodshed in other parts of the country, including a prison riot days earlier that left at least 40 dead.

'Of course, there are patriotic members of the military willing to fight for Venezuela,' Guaido said. 'But its clear that what happened in Vargas is another distraction ploy.'
President Trump participates in a live May 3 Fox News Channel virtual town hall called "America Together: Returning to Work" about response to the coronavirus pandemic, broadcast from inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he was confident that there will be a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year, a timeline that's even speedier than the optimistic projections laid out by his administration's public health advisors.

"We are very confident that we are going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year," Trump said. "We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year, and we are pushing very hard."

The comments came during a Fox News town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Public health officials have said a coronavirus vaccine could take a year to 18 months. Vaccines often take many years to develop and distribute.

"We are pushing supply lines. We don't even have the final vaccine," Trump said. He said "many companies are, I think, close," citing pharmaceutical maker Johnson & Johnson by name.

Johnson & Johnson, which has partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services to manufacture a vaccine, has said it is hoping to get approval for one in early 2021.

Researchers at Oxford University working on vaccine development have said that theirs, if it proves effective, could be widely distributed by September.

The World Health Organization has said there are currently dozens of coronavirus vaccines in development.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said a vaccine could take 18 months to develop, though he noted in a CBS News interview last month that it was possible "to shave a couple of months off that."

"But, you know, you don't want to over-promise. We'll just have to see how it goes," Fauci told CBS.

Trump has seen his path to reelection in November grow steeper as the economic toll from the spreading coronavirus continues to mount. U.S. job losses since the start of the coronavirus pandemic have already wiped out all of the gains made during the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.

Economists have warned that business is unlikely to return until consumers are confident that they can safely return to their pre-Covid-19 routines, which would likely require a vaccine or effective treatment for the flu-like contagion to be widely available.

Trump, who in January said he had coronavirus "totally under control," has in recent weeks acknowledged the scope of the crisis. Bloomberg News reported last month that the administration's "Operation Warp Speed" is seeking to rapidly cut down the time it takes to develop a vaccine.

The project has a goal of having 300 million doses of a vaccine ready by January, in part by pooling private and government resources, including the military, the outlet reported. There is no precedent for such an effort.

Covid-19 has spread to more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. and killed more than 65,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. suffered its deadliest day since the outbreak began last week, according to WHO, with nearly 3,000 dead in 24 hours.

Trump said on Sunday that his forecast for the number of Americans who will die from the disease has increased.

"I used to say 65,000 and now I'm saying 80 or 90, and it goes up, it goes up rapidly," Trump said. He said that even at the upper end of his projections, millions of people will be saved by government measures, compared to the outcome that would have been had the public carried on like normal.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance states that masks are helpful for preventing the transmission of covid-19 because even people who do not show symptoms can still spread the virus, particularly in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain. The agency does not address whether someone who has recently been tested should wear a mask.
STANFORD, Calif., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program (https://kh.stanford.edu/) at Stanford University has announced its 2020 cohort of 76 scholars, with students from 26 countries (including the US), pursuing degrees in 39 programs at Stanford. Short profiles of the 2020 Knight-Hennessy Scholars are available here ( https://kh.stanford.edu/program/scholars ).

The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program cultivates a diverse multidisciplinary community of emerging leaders from around the world and guides them to collaborate, innovate, and communicate as they prepare to address the complex challenges facing society. Knight-Hennessy Scholars participate in an experiential leadership development platform, become part of a supportive community of fellow scholars, and receive funding for graduate study at Stanford. Knight-Hennessy Scholars broaden knowledge, develop skills, and strengthen character through the King Global Leadership Program, which provides a collection of community experiences, workshops, meetings with leaders, domestic and global study trips, and personal development opportunities.

The 2020 Knight-Hennessy Scholars earned undergraduate degrees at 16 international and 34 U.S. institutions. They will pursue graduate degrees across the university at all seven of Stanford's schools, with 26 percent earning degrees in Humanities and Sciences; 22 percent in Engineering; 17 percent in Business; 16 percent in Medicine; 13 percent in Law; 3 percent in Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences; and 3 percent in Education. Eight percent are serving in the U.S. Military and 18 percent were the first members of their families to attend colleges.

"Their intellectual ability, diversity of backgrounds and experiences, and commitment to a better world give me much-needed hope in this challenging time, as the world faces its first true pandemic in 100 years," said John L. Hennessy, president emeritus and the Shriram Family Director of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program.

The third cohort brings the total scholar count to 190 after the first five scholars graduate in June. The program plans to increase the annual intake of scholars to 100 in the long term.

The application for the 2021 cohort of Knight-Hennessy Scholars is available at (https://kh.stanford.edu/apply). The application deadline is October 14, 2020 at 1:00 pm Pacific Time.

The program frequently offers online information sessions to describe the community, program, and admission process, and hopes to resume in-person outreach in 2021 domestically and around the world.

About Knight-Hennessy Scholars

Announced in 2016, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program is named for Phil Knight, MBA '62, philanthropist and co-founder of Nike Inc., and John Hennessy, chairman of Alphabet Inc. and president of Stanford (2000-2016).

SOURCE Knight-Hennessy Scholars

Related Links

https://knight-hennessy.stanford.edu/


Army Chief General MM Naravane on Monday said India is proud of Col Ashutosh Sharma, the Commanding Officer of 21 Rashtriya Rifles battalion, and four other security personnel who laid down their lives while saving civilians from terrorists at a village in Handwara in north Kashmir.

In a warning to Pakistan, Gen Naravane said the Indian Army will give "proportionate response" to all acts of terrorism and infringement of ceasefire violations.

"We lost five brave officers and jawans of Indian Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police while saving civilians from terrorists at a village in Handwara. I wish to convey my heartfelt condolences and gratitude to these valiant braves," the Army Chief told PTI in an interview.

"The nation is proud of their actions especially of the Commanding Officer who led from the front and ensured that there were no civilian casualties or collateral damage during the entire operation," he said.

Apart from Col Sharma, a decorated Army officer, the others who fell to the bullets of terrorists were Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh, Lance Naik Dinesh and Sub-Inspector of Jammu and Kashmir Police Sageer Ahmad Pathan alias Qazi.

"I also take this opportunity to tell the families of our brave-hearts that, we, the entire Army fraternity, is immensely proud of their gallantry and assure you that we stand in solidarity with you during this extremely difficult time," the Chief of the Army Staff said.

The operation was launched following inputs that a number of civilians were being held hostage in a house in Chanjmulla locality of Handwara. Two terrorists were killed in the operation.

The killing of Col Sharma was a major loss to the Army as he had led several successful anti-terror operations in the Valley in recent months. He was conferred with Sena Medal, a prestigious peace-time gallantry award, twice.

There have been frequent incidents of ceasefire violation by Pakistani side since India announced its decision to withdraw special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two union territories in August last year.

Pakistan often resorts to ceasefire violations to push militants into the Indian side. Indian troops have also been retaliating to Pakistani actions under its policy of hot pursuit.

According to official figures, Pakistani troops resorted to 3,200 instances of ceasefire violations in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, which was the highest in the last 16 years.

Of these, 1,565 ceasefire violations took place between August and December after the India reorganised Jammu and Kashmir.

In 2018, Jammu and Kashmir recorded 2,936 instances of ceasefire violations by Pakistan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Union Home Ministry on Sunday made it clear that the relaxations given for the inter-state movement of people during the lockdown was available only to distressed migrant workers, stranded tourists, pilgrims and students only. The government had last week allowed their movement through trains and buses with certain conditions that include consent of both sending and receiving states, maintenance of social distancing norms besides others.

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
B ank of England lending to large companies ballooned to a whopping 16 billion last week but little is known about who is borrowing the cash and what they are doing with it, prompting the obvious question: shouldnt we know more about them?

The scheme, known as the Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF), was launched by Chancellor Rishi Sunak on 23 March to relieve cash flow pressures on blue chip companies who the Bank deems to make a material contribution to the UK economy.

The facility does this by using taxpayer cash to buy short-term IOUs, known in the trade as commercial paper, issued by the struggling company which are due to be repaid back within 12 months.

So far 16 billion has been raised by 50 companies, meaning each company is borrowing on average 320 million. Another 43 have been approved for the scheme but have not tapped the facility yet.

Yet finding out who they are, and what they are doing with the cash, is difficult because the Bank does not disclose the identity of the firms.

That raises questions over whether more disclosure is needed to ensure taxpayer cash is being used well.

Some public companies have admittedly put their hand up and given details, with varying degrees of disclosure.

According to AJ Bell, six FTSE listed firms have so far revealed how much they have drawn from the scheme.

Intercontinental Hotels, Compass, easyJet, and National Express said in recent weeks they have each tapped 600 million. Train operator FirstGroup took 300 million and bakery chain Greggs accessed 150 million. That totals about 2.9 billion.

Three other firms - Rentokil, Ferguson and SSP Group - all said they accessed the CCFF but have not disclosed how much they borrowed.

A further 22 companies, including Next and Whitbread, have told investors they are eligible for the scheme but have not disclosed whether they have used the scheme or not.

AJ Bells Russ Mould said some companies may be little coy about how much they have sold due to commercial sensitivities but more disclosure was desirable.

Its understandable in some way as they will not want to give suppliers, creditors or customers any grounds for concern and dent their confidence in doing business with those who have tapped the CCFF facility.

Equally, it is surely desirable that companies declare the amount of assistance they have received, if only to ensure the CCFF does not become a boondoggle at the taxpayers expense, or at least a means for companies to return to paying our dividends or buying back stock more quickly than would have been otherwise the case.

Some shareholders are more relaxed about the lack of disclosure and say companies should be trusted to use the funds responsibly.

Merian head of UK equities Richard Buxton said last week that most companies had been very open about the CCFF but some had been hesitant about using the facility in the first place.

We have certainly talked to companies who have said they dont want to access any company schemes whether its furloughing or CCFF because it means then perhaps that the government can influence future dividend payments and future exec remuneration, he told an online event held by PR firm Smithfield.

Head of UK equities at Lazard Alan Custis added: Theres no stigma attached with accessing the CCFF. A lot of companies have used the CCFF to pay down more expensive debt but the quid pro quo of that is they wont return to dividend until they have repaid the CCFF.

If we can identify the 30 or so public listed companies making use of the CCFF, who are the 60 others outside the public gaze tapping the facility?

Only Bank and government officials know for sure but the 13 banking giant who act as a conduit for the CCFF may offer a clue.

As they are all multinational investment banks, like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citi, HSBC and Barclays, it suggests those using the scheme are likely to have substantial international muscle.

They could include private equity-backed companies or UK subsidiaries of large multinationals. Housing Associations are also eligible to tap the CCFF.

With CCFF lending jumping 50% last week - from 10 billion to 16 billion - the size of the funding pot is likely to grow even more substantial.
Londons Nightingale Hospital is to stop taking patients this week, according to a leaked email to staff from its chief executive.

In the message sent this morning, Professor Charles Knight said: It is likely that in the coming days we will not need to be admitting patients to the London Nightingale, especially if Covid-19 in the capital continues to come under control.

As a result, after the last of our first group of patients leaves, the hospital will be placed on standby, ready to resume operations as and when needed in the weeks and, potentially, months to come.

His comments come after The Independent reported on Friday that the hospital, built in the former ExCel conference centre, had taken no new patients in the past week and had just 19 patients on Friday. More have been discharged since.

Similar field hospitals in Birmingham, Manchester and Harrogate are also not currently treating patients.

Downing Street confirmed that the hospital was being put on standby, while others in Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Harrogate will remain open. Hospitals in Sunderland and Exeter are due to open shortly.

Boris Johnsons official spokesperson said: It is not likely that in the coming days we will need to be admitting patients to London Nightingale while coronavirus in the capital remains under control. Thats obviously a very positive thing and we are grateful to everybody in London for following the governments advice to protect the NHS.

The Nightingale will effectively be placed on standby. It will be ready to receive patients should that be required, but we are not anticipating that will be the case.

The spokesperson said it was absolutely not the case that the Nightingale hospitals had been a waste of money, adding: We view the fact that the Nightingales have not had to be used in a significant way as something that is positive.

In his message to staff, Professor Knight said the decision to stop taking patients did not mean the role of the field hospital was over.

He said: We must be ready for the possibility that the number of Covid-19 cases start to rise, if and when the government eases social distancing rules. That is why the London Nightingale, including our staff and volunteers, will stand ready should we again be needed. Work is also under way to consider how the Nightingales role may further adapt as the NHS seeks to resume activity that had to be paused in the first phase of our response to the pandemic.

As the prime minister has said, we are now moving past the first peak of coronavirus cases, and the NHS is therefore moving into the second phase of its response to Covid-19.

Last month, The Independent revealed the Nightingale had struggled to take more patients from stretched intensive care units in London because of a lack of enough staff to care for patients.

Hospitals were told they would need to release staff from their own units to care for patients transferred to the Nightingale. The field hospital, which was built in just nine days, was designed to care for up to 4,000 patients who may need critical care and ventilators.

But due to limits on the services the hospital could provide, the sickest Covid-19 patients had to stay in overstretched London hospitals.

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy has warned against using the Nightingale hospitals for rehab and recovery because of concerns they are the wrong environment for patients.

Professor Knight told staff he was proud of the culture we have developed among clinicians and other staff brought together from across the NHS in London and beyond to mobilise this new type of hospital.

He said: A special thanks to the board of Barts Health NHS Trust who agreed to host our new hospital built in less than two weeks only five weeks ago. It has been an incredibly humbling experience to see so many people from so many disciplines unite for this mission. It is a privilege to be part of this Nightingale story.

We are proud of you, and you should be proud of yourselves. Thanks to the determination and sacrifice of Londoners in following the expert advice to stay home and save lives we have fortunately not needed to expand the Nightingales capacity beyond the first ward.
For working royals or those who make it their full-time jobs to serve Queen Elizabeth II and the monarchy, royal tours are something they know very well. Often with jam-packed schedules and lots of public appearances, royal tours can be both exhausting and exciting. On one hand, royals might be meeting members of the British Commonwealth but, on the other hand, nearly their every move is captured on camera or video and scrutinized by the press.

For newlywed couples, their first royal tour is a chance for the world to get to know them better following their wedding. Its also a time for the couple to highlight the causes they want to champion in their roles. Not only that but the couples get a taste of whats to come; more royal tours.

Princess Diana and Prince Charles | Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

Tours typically happen a few months after royal wedding

Traditionally, couples have a transition period before they fully immerse themselves in royal life complete with traveling and royal tours. After a royal wedding, couples are usually eased into the process. That means attending a few engagements to get used to the spotlight. From there, official visits ramp up in the lead up to a big royal tour. While it may vary couple to couple, most newlywed working royals have followed a similar timeline.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana went to Wales on their first royal tour

On their first royal tour as a married couple in October 1981, nearly three months after their royal wedding on July 29, 1981, Princess Diana and Charles, Prince of Wales embarked on a three-day royal tour of Wales, according to the British royal familys website.

They went on a traditional walkabout where they greeted well-wishers.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana | Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

Clearly, all eyes were on them.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana | John Shelley Collection/Avalon/Getty Images

Here they are standing outside Caernarfon Castle

Prince Charles and Princess Diana | Hulton Archive/Getty Images

While everything appeared to go smoothly for the couple in Wales, things didnt go well for them on their first overseas royal tour in 1983 when a photographer saw Diana burst into tears.

A little more than a decade after their first royal tour, Charles and Diana didnt want to be forced together on an official outing if they could help it. According to royal biographers, with the state of their marriage in shambles, the queen had to force Diana and Charles to go on a royal tour of Korea in 1992. It ended up being their last before news of their separation went public in December of the same year.

Kate Middleton and Prince William went to Canada and the U.S. in 2011

After their royal wedding on April 29, 2011, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge headed to Canada as part of their North American tour, according to Hello. It marked the couples first overseas royal tour together.

They werent afraid of a public display of affection, something they typically shy away from because theyre technically working.

Prince William and Kate Middleton | Samir Hussein / Contributor

The newlyweds wore matching sweatshirts.

Kate Middleton and Prince William | Arthur Edwards  Pool/GettyImages

And they were all smiles nearly the entire trip.

Prince William and Kate Middleton | Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Having been married for nine years, the couple has been on many royal tours since.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle first royal tour lasted 16 days

On their first royal tour following their wedding in May 2018, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited Australia, Fiji, Tonga, and New Zealand over the course of 16 days, according to Marie Claire. On the tour that kicked off in October 2018, the couple announced they were expecting their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, and completed 76 engagements.

They visited Tonga.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in Australia | Phil Noble  Pool/Getty Images

And went for a walk in New Zealands Redwood Forest.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in Australia | Kirsty Wigglesworth  Pool/Getty Images

And sat on the beach in Australia.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry | Chris Jackson  Pool/Getty Images

Heres hoping for more royal tours soon!
Two Arizona sheriffs refused to enforce an extended stay-at-home order recommended by Governor Doug Ducey as coronavirus cases in the state hit 8,640.

Sheriff Doug Schuster of Mohave County and Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County said they would both speak with citizens who step out of their homes. Still, they would not hand out penalties, citations, or arrest people.

In an interview with a local TV station, Schuster said he refuses to issue citations or arrest people for not following social distancing protocols.

"I'm not going to make criminals out of law-abiding citizens," he said.

Pinal County's Sheriff Lamb believes the current COVID-19 situation is unfortunate but claims he "needs to stand for the people and freedom." He echoed Schuster's stand in refusing to cite, fine, or arrest residents.

Governor Doug Ducey announced the consequences for violating his self-isolation orders would include a $2,500 fine and up to half a year in prison.

The two sheriffs clarified they are not encouraging the people to go against the order. They only "feel compelled" to protect people's rights and uphold the constitution.

Mohave County is located in the northwestern part of Arizona. Pinal County is just south of Phoenix. Maricopa and Pima, the state's most populous counties, have the most reported COVID-19 cases.

Petition

A group of residents calling themselves Arizonans for Liberty filed a petition with the office of the Arizona Secretary of State following Governor Ducey's extended coronavirus mitigation protocol. Josh Barnett, a Republican congressional candidate, also supported the filing of the recall petition.

According to the recall petition, the activists claimed the governor violated his oath by issuing an unconstitutional order. He allegedly enforced unequal laws on the state's citizens and businesses. He was also unable to address the residents' concerns.

Petitioners would need a total of 594,000 signatures within 120 days to hold a special recall election.

Ducey's recent mandate extended the lockdown protocols until May 15. Some retail establishments are allowed to resume operations. Restaurants are also allowed to reopen with a limited seating capacity partially.

Ducey defended his decision to extend the quarantine measures, saying the medical data did not support reopening the state's economy. "It's 15 more days," he said. "I'm asking for some patience."

Coronavirus Tally

The state surpassed the 8,500 marks on Sunday after health officials recorded 276 new COVID-19 cases and 14 fatalities. The state now has 8,640 cases and 362 deaths caused by the global pandemic.

The state has given out 81,119 tests-nine percent came back positive. More than 76 percent of all fatalities involved residents ages 65 and older.

The state is ramping up its testing using a program called Arizona Testing Blitz. The program aims to test over 20,000 residents for COVID-19 within the next three weekends. All residents who suspect they may have been infected will be attended to under the plan.

The coronavirus testing program will be available in six counties-including Maricopa, Pima, Yuma, Yavapai, Coconino, and Mohave. Residents are required to pre-register to avoid crowds and long waiting lines. Select local clinics will also open testing for their current patients.

Get up-to-date news from the U.S. and Latin America:
Millions of people in the UK are to be asked to use a phone app to help stop the spread of coronavirus.

The Government is optimistic people will download the app to allow better contact tracing  a key factor in beating Covid-19 and helping the country out of lockdown.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said he thought the vast majority of people would download the app and play their part  but insisted it was just one element of the plan to stop the spread.

The app would use Bluetooth to log each time it comes into close range of other devices also running the app.

If someone develops symptoms of Covid-19, they can use the app to inform the NHS, which will then trigger an anonymous alert to any other app users the infected person came into contact with by analysing the collected logs.

Here, the PA news agency looks at how other countries have been using mobile technology in the fight against Covid-19:

 Australia

The COVIDSafe app speeds up contacting people potentially exposed to coronavirus (COVID-19). This helps health officials support and protect you, your friends and family. Learn more about the #COVIDSafe app at https://t.co/mXCSjHFRDO#coronavirusaustralia #covid19 pic.twitter.com/9yMMff6b36  Australian Government (@ausgov) May 1, 2020

Australia released COVIDSafe last Sunday evening and more than four million people have started using the app.

Use of the app is voluntary, but the government said 40% of Australians, or 10 million people, need to use it for the program to be a success.

Story continues

Speaking ahead of the weekend, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said more people downloading the app would speed up the reopening of pubs, adding: If that isnt an incentive for Australians to download COVIDSafe on a Friday, I dont know what is.

 New Zealand

Across the Tasman Sea and New Zealand is also planning an app to help with contact tracing, but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it would have to be part of a number of measures.

She told reporters: We are working on it but I have to say our big focus has been getting our in-person contact tracing right, because we will all still be relying on that.

 Singapore

Developers of the TraceTogether app estimate around one in five people in the city state have downloaded the app, the first Bluetooth contact tracing app in the world.

Half of the 1.1 million downloads of the app came in the first 24 hours.

Look behind the scenes of how #TraceTogether was built, and the challenges faced from ideation to implementation. #TechforGoodhttps://t.co/pIlL6fLk0k pic.twitter.com/FamCcTXu7a  GovTech (Singapore) (@GovTechSG) March 31, 2020

 India

The Aarogya Setu app uses both GPS location and Bluetooth to track users and has been downloaded 50 million times. It is voluntary for Indian citizens, but the government made it mandatory for all of its employees to download to app and use it last week.

 China

Chinas app gives users a colour based on a traffic light system  green for clear, red for a coronavirus contact  and it is reportedly needed to move about as widespread restrictions are lifted.

 South Korea

South Korea sits apart from others on the list as it has not used an app-based solution to trace potential contacts. Instead, authorities have tracked people using a number of sources including mobile device tracking and financial transaction information to alert potential contacts.

 Elsewhere

The Czech Republic has released an app similar to the one from Singapore, while North Macedonias StopKorona! app uses Bluetooth. Smittestopp in Norway uses both GPS and Bluetooth, while apps are also in development in Italy, Austria and Germany.
It is very likely the coronavirus lockdown will be extended when it is reviewed on Thursday, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The UK-wide lockdown will be reviewed by the government on Thursday, six weeks after it came into force. Boris Johnson is then expected to outline to the public the road map out of lockdown this Sunday.

Sturgeons warning came on the same day Johnson warned that lifting lockdown restrictions too soon would be the worst thing we could do.

In a video message on Twitter, the Prime Minister said: We will only be able to move onto the second phase of this conflict if our five tests have been met. The worst thing we could do now is ease up too soon and allow a second peak of coronavirus.

The government also indicated on Monday that people could be allowed closer than two metres apart when lockdown measures are eased.

Nicola Sturgeon has said the coronavirus lockdown is likely to be extended when it is reviewed this week. (PA Images)

The Scottish first minister told a press conference the virus infection rate is still too high to safely ease restrictions. She said: Let me stress, decisions are yet to formally be taken, it is very likely that on Thursday I will asking you to stick with lockdown for a bit longer.

She added that real and significant progress has been made, and that some work on a potential transition from lockdown will be published in the coming days.

Sturgeon said work would be done to ensure there was alignment with the rest of the UK, but divergence in measures could still be possible.

Latest coronavirus news, updates and advice

Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the world

Fact-checker: The number of COVID-19 cases in your local area

6 charts and maps that explain how COVID-19 is spreading

She said that some work on a potential transition from lockdown will be published in the coming days.

The government has said five tests need to be met before lockdown can be eased:

the NHS must have sufficient critical care capacity

there must be a sustained and consistent fall in daily deaths

the infection rate must be decreasing to manageable levels

there must be enough PPE and testing supply

any adjustments must not lead to a second peak which could overwhelm the health service.

Story continues

Sturgeon said a total of 1,576 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, up by five from 1,571 on Sunday.

The first minister said 12,226 people have now tested positive for the virus in Scotland, up by 169 from 12,097 the day before.

Sturgeon also outlined the Scottish government's test, trace, isolate (TTI) strategy, which she said would aid the easing of the lockdown measures.

She said the strategy would only work if the public adheres to it, adding it was not a "quick fix or magic solution" and would need to be done alongside current hygiene guidance.

Watch the video below

Sturgeon said moves were being made to deliver a TTI strategy by the end of May, with testing capacity expected to have to rise to 15,500 per day to support the approach.

Discussing the possibility of a proximity app, Sturgeon said it would work using Bluetooth technology, telling anyone who has been in contact with someone showing symptoms through an alert.

She insisted the Scottish government was not building its strategy around the app.

She added that the use of the app would need the confidence of the public, both in the use of data and in the ability of the technology to work.

Sturgeon added that the strategy was "for the future", asking people to continue to adhere to the current lockdown measures.

She added that she wanted to be delivering a daily briefing "in a few weeks", saying that the measures are being eased.

She added: "My big worry is that if we ease up now then I won't be able to do that."

Coronavirus: what happened today
A vaccine for Covid-19 will not be ready until the end of next year, according to Dale Fisher, chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.

That timeline would be a "very reasonable" expectation because of the necessary Phase 2 and 3 trials of any vaccine to guarantee both safety and efficacy, Fisher explained. There would also need to be a ramp up in production and distribution, as well as actually administering the vaccine, he said.

Fisher said "we are currently on target" for a vaccine in 2021 with five Phase 1 studies currently underway.

"We've always felt that by about April, May, we would be in Phase 1 studies, so this means a potential vaccine has been invented if you like; we're now trying it on individuals, basically to see if it's safe," Fisher told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia" on Monday.

The current trials would allow "early collection of data" to assess whether the potential vaccine "actually works," before larger trials on safety and efficacy could be carried out, said Fisher, who is also a senior consultant at the infectious disease division at the National University Hospital in Singapore.

Fisher also said President Donald Trump's comments on Sunday  that he was confident a coronavirus vaccine would be developed by the end of 2020  were "a bit premature."

Meanwhile, Severin Schwan, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Roche, also expressed some skepticism over the president's proposed time frame, saying the end of this year was "certainly an ambitious goal."

"I have no doubt that as so many companies are working on a vaccine in parallel, and as we see such great collaboration with regulators including the FDA, we can actually speed up the approval of vaccines," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday.

"But still, typically it would take years to develop a new medicine. Most experts agree that it will take at least 12 to 18 months until we see a vaccine which is available in the necessary quantities for patients."
A rmed police officers and a helicopter launched an urgent response to reports of a tiger on the loose, only to discover that it was a life-size model.

Officers responding to the call in Underriver, Kent, on Saturday had a "good laugh" after the sculptor, Juliet Simpson showed them to her creation near a footpath in some woodlands.

Her granddaughter, Martha Simpson posted a photo on Twitter showing a group of armed guards surrounded by the tiger model.

She wrote: "My Granny is a sculptress. Today 10 armed police and a helicopter were called to her house after walkers reported a tiger in the woods. This is the tiger."

After the incident, Kent Police said it found there was "no animal and no risk to the public".

Artist Juliet Simpson, 85, told BBC Radio Kent: "I took them down to the sculpture where they all had a good laugh and took a lot of photographs."

She told the broadcaster that she had set off up the lane near her home after a neighbour told her police were investigating reports of a big cat on the loose.

The tiger turned out to be a life-sized model by artist Juliet Simpson / Juliet Simpson

"Out of the field opposite came a whole crowd of armed police, who by then knew that it was all a false alarm and I said 'would they like to be introduced to my real live tiger?'" she said.

"It looks quite real, it's meant to look real and it is about 30 metres from the footpath so you can't see it very closely."

The wire and resin artwork has been in those woodlands near a public path for at least 20 years, she added.

Kent Police told the BBC that officers were sent to Mote Road in Ightham, near Underriver, "following a report from a member of the public that a large wild cat had been seen in the area".

"Officers, including armed officers, attended as a precaution and, following a search of the area, have established there was no animal and no risk to the public."

A helicopter from the National Police Air Service also briefly attended.

The Evening Standard has contacted Kent Police for comment.
Give a man a mask and he'll become his true self, this line and the idea behind it got engraved in my mind the very first time I saw Heath Ledger be the best version of the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008).

There were actors before him and actors after his unfortunate demise who tried to bring life to the character of the Clown Prince of Crime and even though Joaquin Phoenix was great, nobody can touch the kind of work Ledger did for Christopher Nolan over a decade ago.

 Warner Bros

But what made the Australian actor become such a disturbing yet breathtaking Joker?



Other than some brilliant screen-writing and exceptional directing by one of the best, Ledger himself went forward and made some significant sacrifices which came to fruition and got him acknowledged by the critics and fans alike.

Here are four sacrifices made by the Heath Ledger which established his version of the Joker as the best:

1. Self Isolation For Six Weeks

Heath Ledger, few months to the set of Batman had to isolate himself in a hotel in London with a diary & experimented his laughing, imagined voices & talked to himself for weeks so he'd properly lose his mind while getting bare hours of sleep to perfect The Joker role. pic.twitter.com/Yww4kKQxDM  W On Screens (@WhatsOnScreens) August 24, 2019

Arguably the biggest known fact about how Ledger got into the character of the Agent of Chaos, was him completely cutting himself off from the rest of the world and limiting himself to a hotel room for six weeks.

During this time, he also created a famous Joker diary which described what went on inside the actors mind. Pictures of hyenas and comic book clippings were also pasted inside the sheets.

2. Unnatural Voice Leading To Dry Mouth

Heath Ledger had a very deep voice and while playing the role of the Joker, he went with an unnatural voice and ended up with a dry mouth in between takes.

That is why he introduced licking his lips while delivering his lines to keep them moist, which became a very significant part of his character as a whole.

Later in his 2017 biopic, I Am Heath Ledger, it was also mentioned that he did it in order to keep the prosthetics of his scar wet and stuck to his face.

3. Threw Himself On Walls To Get Hurt For Real

During the interrogation scene from the movie, Ledger wanted Christian Bale to actually hit him as hard as possible and but when the latter declined his offer, he began to throw himself against the walls in order to make the contact look genuine.

He was slamming himself around, and there were tiled walls inside of that set which were cracked and dented from him hurling himself into them. His commitment was total," Bale had said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

4. Extreme Insomnia Because of Playing The Joker

Although Ledger suffered from insomnia for years, his sleep troubles got worse while he was shooting for The Dark Knight as the Joker.

According to Looper, the kind of physical and mental exhaustion he went through for the role took a massive toll on his body.

In an interview with the New York Times while the movie was in production, Ledger opened up about how he could only sleep for a couple of hours every day before he would wake up, with his mind racing with the thoughts of the character.

Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night, he said. I couldnt stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.

Eventually, it was his sleep deprivation which led to his untimely death of the actor before the films release due to an accidental overdose of prescribed sleeping medication, and the artist didnt live long enough to see his art.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The Pentagon has reported three percent increase in the number of sexual assaults in the US military. In fiscal 2019, there were 6,236 reports from service members on sexual assaults, up from 6,053 in fiscal 2018.



Although the number of sexual assaults has risen, the rate of increase was lower than that was reported in the previous year. The number of assaults and sexual crimes had spiked by 13 percent in 2018.



Announcing the release of the Defense Department's Fiscal Year 2019 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, officials said they are encouraged because the rate of reporting sexual assaults has risen by 3 percent. This may seem counterintutitive, but it does indicate progress, according to Nate Galbreath, the acting director of DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.



Galbreath said he cannot say that the rate of the crime in U.S. military has dropped, because the department did not conduct a survey this year to assess the prevalence of sexual assault, and the crimes tend to be underreported. 'That survey is happening now'.



'Sexual assault remains an underreported crime, both in the military and in the U.S. population writ large,' he said. The department uses the 2018 data to estimate that just under 15,000 instances of sexual assault take place in the military over a year.



Among the three branches of defense, the Air Force saw the highest rate (nine per cent) of rise in sexual assault cases.



Navy reported five per cent increase in cases, while the Army witnessed an increase of two per cent in sexual assaults.



As per the data, 73 per cent of these crimes were committed by a superior.



The progress report, which is required by Congress annually, contains reporting information, feedback from focus groups and updates on the DoD's efforts to prevent and respond to sexual assault throughout Fiscal Year 2019.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
U-Haul is celebrating 75 years of service in 2020. WWII Navy veteran L.S. "Sam" Shoen and his wife, Anna Mary Carty Shoen, conceived U-Haul in June 1945 when they recognized a basic need while moving up the West Coast, having abandoned most of their belongings since one-way trailer rentals did not yet exist.

From that idea, an industry was born and a new level of mobility became attainable for every American family.

To commemorate both anniversaries, U-Haul is celebrating former Team Members who served in WWII, such as Wilsondale native Homer Williamson.

Ready to Serve

Williamson was born in January 1924 to Aley and Rebecca Perry Williamson. He graduated from Man High School in 1943 and joined the Army in 1944.

After 17 weeks of basic and field training, Williamson, along with 20,000 other troops, was transported to Europe on the Queen Mary  which had been converted from a luxury ocean liner to a troop transport ship.

Williamson served with the 83rd Infantry "The Thunderbolt" Division L. Co. 330th, part of Gen. George Patton's 3rd Army. Williamson served with the 83rd during the Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland and Central Europe Campaigns. He received a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three stars.

Rocket Man

Williamson carried a bazooka for most of the war, and found himself the main target of Germans. "The enemy was looking for bazooka men," he recalled. "I took that thing from foxhole to foxhole. I guess I was one of the fortunate ones who got to come home."

During one Ardennes engagement, however, he was not so lucky. He was wounded and sustained head injuries and a concussion during a "rifle match" between eight men of his company and the same number of Germans. Williamson was treated for his wounds, and in less than two weeks he was back on the front line.

By early March 1945, the 83rd crossed the Rhine River. In a 14-day dash across Germany in mid-April, the 83rd set an infantry speed record while crossing four rivers, liberating more than 75,000 Allied prisoners, and capturing almost 34,000 Germans. They climaxed the drive by establishing and holding the only American bridgehead on the Elbe River, the last natural barrier before Berlin, just 34 miles away.

Germany formally surrendered on May 7, and the next day was pronounced Victory in Europe Day. Williamson was assigned to U.S. occupational forces keeping the peace in Linz, Austria, and served through 1946.

U-Haul Dealer of 25 Years

After the war, Williamson came home, got married and started working for his father's business. He and his wife, Opal, raised two boys and two girls. As his family grew, so did the family business. Williamson became a U-Haul neighborhood dealer in 1970, serving DIY moving customers in Man, W.V., for more than 25 years.

Williamson passed away in April 2016.

The Shoens started U-Haul upon Sam's discharge with $4,000 of accumulated Navy pay and the courage formed by the cauldron of WWII. With the help of other veterans, the young couple forged their new enterprise from the freedom that victory produced.

Veteran Initiative

Today, U-Haul serves all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces, helping an estimated 11 million families move every year. Williamson is one of the many veterans who laid the foundation for the present prosperity U-Haul enjoys.

U-Haul continues to aggressively recruit veterans and gives them preference in the hiring process, having been recognized repeatedly as one of the nation's top veteran-friendly employers. U-Haul is also committed to honoring veterans and supporting veteran causes. This is accomplished through direct assistance to veteran groups, as well as participation and sponsorship of Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades, and Pearl Harbor tributes.

These 2020 tributes will peak triumphantly with the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum's dedication of the renovated Ford Island Control Tower on Aug. 29. U-Haul Pacific Theater veterans' bios and photos will be displayed in the tower lobby. The tower will offer a new elevator, gifted by U-Haul CEO Joe Shoen, providing public access to the observation deck where America's lone WWII aviation battlefield can be revered and our heroes remembered.

U-Haul is one of a myriad of companies built by these incredible veterans, who are to be saluted and remembered during this 75th anniversary celebration. Thank you, Homer.

Find more veteran tributes in the History and Culture section of myuhaulstory.com.

About U-Haul

Since 1945, U-Haul has been the No. 1 choice of do-it-yourself movers, with a network of 22,000 locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. U-Haul Truck Share 24/7 offers secure access to U-Haul trucks every hour of every day through the customer dispatch option on their smartphones and our proprietary Live Verify technology. Our customers' patronage has enabled the U-Haul fleet to grow to approximately 167,000 trucks, 120,000 trailers and 43,000 towing devices. U-Haul offers nearly 697,000 rooms and 60.7 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities throughout North America. U-Haul is the largest installer of permanent trailer hitches in the automotive aftermarket industry, and is the largest retailer of propane in the U.S.

For our COVID-19 information page, click on uhaul.com/announcement.

Contact:

Jeff Lockridge

Sebastien Reyes

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: 602-760-4941

Website: uhaul.com

SOURCE U-Haul

Related Links

www.uhaul.com


Customers make their way through CoolSprings Galleria shopping mall despite many retail locations inside the mall remaining closed on May 2, 2020 in Franklin, Tenn. (Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)

Americans Begin to Surface From Isolation as States Ease Clampdowns

HOUSTONAmericans in about half of U.S. states, led by Texas and Georgia, began emerging on May 1 from home confinement while California and New York held fast to business closures and other restrictions imposed in the face of the CCP virus pandemic.

Texas on May 1 began a phased-in reopening of businesses shuttered more than a month ago, with restaurants, retail stores, and malls allowed to open at 25 percent capacity. A second phase is planned for May 18 if infection rates continue to decline.

Its a fraction of a typical Friday crowd, but compared to the last couple months, its better than zero, said Omid Rafiei, co-owner of the Wakefield Crow Bar in Houston, which reopened for dine-in customers with a limited menu.

I feel comfortable with the protocols we have in place, Rafiei said, referring to required face masks for staff and greater separation between tables.

Across Texas, major employers were putting plans in place to bring staff back to their offices.

Chevron Corp. has not yet made decisions on timing or locations, spokesman Sean Comey said, but the oil company is working on guidelines for the restart.

Some workers are eager to get back to the office, said ConocoPhillips spokesman John Roper. Conoco alerted its 2,500 Houston-area workers on April 31 it will reopen its corporate headquarters in phases beginning May 11.

Governors Under Pressure

About half of U.S. states, joined by some local jurisdictions, have moved toward at least partial lifting of shutdowns as the number of new COVID-19 cases began to drop or level off. Governors have been under pressure from citizens agitating for relief from the restrictions as U.S. Department of Labor data this week showed some 30 million Americans have sought unemployment benefits since March 21.

As of May 1, the number of known infections nationwide had climbed to more than 1 million, including nearly 64,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

President Donald Trump added to the pressure on governors on May 1, urging Michigans Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, to compromise with activists who have protested her request to extend emergency powers to combat COVID-19.

The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal, Trump tweeted.

California has also seen protests over Governor Gavin Newsoms sweeping stay-at-home orders, which remain fully in place, and a crack-down on beachgoers who have defied those restrictions.

Newsom struck a conciliatory tone during his daily remarks on the pandemic on May 1, telling Californians for the first time that the state may be only days away from lifting some of the rules but that residents needed to stay strong in the meantime.

If we can hold the line and continue to do good work, well get there much sooner, the Democratic governor said.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, which has led the country in CCP virus deaths, said on May 1 that all state schools, colleges, and universities would remain closed for the remainder of the academic year due to the pandemic.

Washington State, where Seattle was an early hotspot for the virus, extended its lockdown to May 31, Governor Jay Inslee announced.

Georgia Watched Closely

Georgia has so far gone farthest toward reopening its economy, with nearly every business in the state free to reopen on May 1. The move by Republican Governor Brian Kemp is being watched by the federal government and other states to see if the number of cases in Georgia surges.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top pandemic adviser to Trump, said earlier this week he was concerned about states and communities reopening ahead of a timeline recommended by the White House.

But in Atlanta on May 1, Kemps decision was cheered by Michael Bowers, who co-owns Bowers Watch & Clock Repair in the citys tony Buckhead neighborhood.

We need to reopen, Bowers, 55, said of the small business his grandfather started in the 1940s. We couldnt stay alive with doors shut. We need that money stream, or we fail.

With stores shut, Americans have relied heavily on home deliveries of everything from food to clothes and office equipment, giving online retailers like Amazon.com Inc. a heavy workload.

Some workers at Amazon, Target, and Instacart staged protests and sick-outs in New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and other states on May 1 to demand a safer work environment and better pay during the outbreak.

In Los Angeles, street vendors drove around City Hall in a caravan pleading for rent relief in a May Day demonstration, saying they have been unable to collect unemployment benefits because of the informal nature of their work or because of their immigration status.

Im trying to get help from food banks and donations, said Francisca Salgado, 36, who sat in a minivan with her three children. Were not qualified for unemployment.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on May 1 ordered a lockdown of the town of Gallup after its mayor requested the measure to control the states worst CCP virus outbreak.

All roads into the town of 22,000 people were to close and businesses shut nightly from 5 p.m. Gallup is the county seat of McKinley County, which forms part of the hard-hit Navajo Nation reservation. The county has 1,027 CCP virus cases, the highest of any in New Mexico, and 19 deaths.

By Gary McWilliams & Liz Hampton

The Epoch Times contributed to this report.
Donald Trump

Donald Trump has threatened to axe the first phase of the US-China trade deal if Beijing misses import targets agreed before the pandemic hit amid growing tensions between the two superpowers.

The US President said he would cancel the agreement struck after lengthy negotiations if China failed to buy an additional $200bn (161bn) of American goods and services over the next two years as tensions rise about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak. He said: If they don't buy, we'll terminate the deal. Very simple.

Mr Trump had hinted he could impose new tariffs on China, claiming he had seen evidence linking a Wuhan disease research laboratory to the coronavirus pandemic - a theory many scientists see as unlikely.

The president said: I think they made a horrible mistake and they didn't want to admit it. We wanted to go in, but they didn't want us there."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said there was enormous evidence for the claim without providing any detail.

China denies the accusations.

Fears that the US-China trade spat will be reignited weighed on investors hopes of a recovery from the crisis. Seoul's Kopsi dropped 2.7pc on Monday and Hong Kongs Hang lost 4.2pc, while markets on the Continent also fell sharply after being closed on Friday.

Meanwhile, formal trade talks between the US and UK will start by video conference on Tuesday.

The first round will last a fortnight and involve 200 officials, with the British side led by senior Department of International Trade mandarin Oliver Griffiths. Talks will be overseen by Crawford Falconer, the department's chief trade negotiation adviser. Future rounds are expected to take place every six weeks.

Ahead of the negotiations, Trade Secretary Liz Truss said: "Increasing transatlantic trade can help our economies bounce back from the economic challenge posed by coronavirus. As we sit down at the negotiating table, be assured that we will drive a hard bargain to secure a deal that benefits individuals and businesses in every region and nation of the UK."

Adam Marshall, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: Companies will welcome the focus on helping more UK small and medium-sized enterprises grow their trade with partners in the US, and on finding ways to move goods, people and data across borders between the two countries more smoothly.
An Amazon executive has quit his job 'in dismay' at the firing of whistleblowers who raised concerns about unsafe warehouse working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Engineer Tim Bray announced he was leaving the online retail giant after more than five years, citing the 'vein of toxicity running through the company culture'. He also slammed the tech giant's actions as 'chickens**t'.

The VP at Amazon Web Services says at least six of his colleagues have been fired for speaking out; Courtney Bowden, Gerald Bryson, Maren Costa, Emily Cunningham, Bashir Mohammed, and Chris Smalls.

In a blog post, Bray says the move will 'probably cost me over a million (pre-tax) dollars' but adds: 'Firing whistleblowers...is evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison'

He adds: 'The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker, what with mass unemployment and (in the US) job-linked health insurance.

'So they're gonna get treated like crap, because capitalism. Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective strength.'

DailyMail.com has contacted Amazon for comment.

Tim Bray, pictured, announced he has quit his job 'in dismay' at the firing of whistleblowers who raised concerns about unsafe warehouse working conditions amid coronavirus

Workers protest against the failure from their employers to provide adequate protections in the workplace of the Amazon delivery hub on National May Day Walkout/Sickout by workers in Hawthorne, California

A message is painted by activists on the street outside of one of homes of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease in Washington on April 29

Amazon has been facing intense scrutiny by lawmakers and unions over whether it is doing enough to protect staff from the coronavirus.

And former Google employee Bray, who has already spoken out about Amazon's response to climate change, said he 'snapped' after the firing of Cunningham and Costa.

He says he escalated his concerns 'through the proper channels and by the book' but argues Amazon's actions reflect a 'corresponding lack of vision about the human costs of the relentless growth and accumulation of wealth and power'.

Fired Cunningham thanked Bray for his resignation, writing: 'Amazon VP @timbray resigns over #covid firings of me, @marencosta, and others.

'Says Amazon "firing whistleblowers" is "evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison."

'Thank you, Tim.'

'The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker, what with mass unemployment and (in the US) job-linked health insurance. So they're gonna get treated like crap, because capitalism', Bray writes.

'Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective strength.'

Amazon say they have provided millions of masks and gloves to workers and installed more than 2,200 hand washing stations

A spokesman told DailyMail.com: 'We expect to spend more than $800 million in the first half of the year on COVID-19 safety measures.'

'Were also spending over $85 million redeploying team members from their typical roles to perform safety related tasks and audits at sites around the world like social distancing ambassadors to team members helping with temperature checks.'

'Nothing is more important than the safety of our teams.'

Former Amazon employee, Christian Smalls, stands with fellow demonstrators during a protest outside of an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island

Designers Emily Cunningham, left, and Maren Costa, right, both critics of the online retail giant's working conditions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, were fired from Amazon

Bray also noted that a number of Attorney Generals have raised concerns about the working conditions in Amazon facilities.

The New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote the retail giant slamming the health and safety measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as 'inadequate'.

Her office says Amazon may have acted illegally in firing a whistleblower warehouse worker 'to silence his complaints'.

Amazon terminated Christian Smalls on grounds that he put others at risk by violating his paid quarantine when he joined a demonstration at Amazon's Staten Island fulfillment center.

But the letter, sent to the company on April 22, adds that preliminary findings 'raise serious concern that Amazon may have discharged (Smalls) in order to silence his complaints and send a threatening message to other employees that they should also keep quiet about any health and safety concerns'.

'Amazon's health and safety measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are so inadequate that they may violate several provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act,' James's office wrote in the letter.

Amazon, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, said it has taken 'extreme measures' to keep its employees safe, according here to a company statement cited by NPR, which first reported on the letter.

The Seattle-based firm has been facing public scrutiny over safety and working conditions of warehouse, delivery and retail gig workers in the United States after cases of COVID-19 were reported in some of its facilities.

Workers across the U.S. have protested at what they say are unsafe working conditions. As well as the walkouts in Staten Island and Minnesota, staff have protested in Chicago and Detroit.

But the company itself last week warned that it could post a loss in the second quarter as it tacked on about $4 billion in costs related to the coronavirus pandemic.

For the quarter ended in March, Amazon's revenue rose by 26 percent from last year, to $75.45 billion, as the retail giant recorded a surge in demand for online orders of essential goods during pandemic.

However, profits were down 30 percent from the same period last year amid higher spending, with earnings per share of $5.01 missing Wall Street expectations of $6.25 per share.

The e-commerce giant has been spending heavily to keep up with a surge in online orders. Amazon had earlier said it would hire about 175,000 workers and raise wages by $2 for hourly workers as well as overtime pay, which would increase expenses by nearly $700 million.

'If you're a shareowner in Amazon, you may want to take a seat, because we're not thinking small,' CEO Jeff Bezos said in a press release.

'Under normal circumstances, in this coming Q2, we'd expect to make some $4 billion or more in operating profit,' Bezos continued.

'But these aren't normal circumstances. Instead, we expect to spend the entirety of that $4 billion, and perhaps a bit more, on COVID-related expenses getting products to customers and keeping employees safe.'

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and girlfriend Lauren Sanchez. Bezos is once again the richest person in the world. Whereas many companies have suffered during business shutdowns, Amazon has thrived and has even hired 100,000 new employees to cope with the surge in demand

The economic damage from the outbreak has been widespread and severe but for Amazon a surge in demand from those under lockdown that has seen it's stock price rise

Amazon tells its office staff they can keep working from home until at least OCTOBER Amazon has told staff whose job can be done from home that they can do so until at least October 2, pushing out the timeline on a return to work for many employees as it faces scrutiny over conditions in its warehouses. 'Employees who work in a role that can effectively be done from home are welcome to do so until at least October 2,' an Amazon spokesman said in an emailed statement on Friday, adding it was applicable to such roles globally. The statement did not specify how much of the company's overall workforce that covered and which roles. It said the company is investing funds in safety measures for employees who wish to come to the office 'through physical distancing, deep cleaning, temperature checks, and the availability of face coverings and hand sanitizer.' New York Attorney General Letitia James told Amazon last week it may have violated safety measures and labor practices amid the virus outbreak as the company fired a warehouse protest leader in March. Workers at warehouses and other facilities have stayed operational to keep deliveries flowing to customers stuck at home in government-mandated lockdowns. Other employees have been working from home since March. The company has raised overtime pay for warehouse workers and hired 175,000 people last month while rival brick-and-mortar retailers had to shut stores. It had 798,000 full and part-time workers globally as of Dec. 31. Advertisement

Bashir Mohamed was let go from the Minnesota plant where had worked for three years last week after protests there, Buzzfeed reports.

Designers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, both critics of the online retail giant's working conditions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, were also let go.

Amazon say Mohamed was fired because he refused to speak to a supervisor; Cunningham and Costa for 'repeatedly violating internal policies'.

In March, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he ordered the city's human rights commission to open an investigation into the dismissal of Smalls.

A spokesman has previously said: 'We encourage anyone to compare the health and safety measures Amazon has taken, and the speed of their implementation, during this crisis with other retailers.'

But James' office is also said to looking into 'other cases of potential illegal retaliation' against workers.

The letter adds: 'This Office has learned that many workers are fearful about speaking out about their concerns following the termination of Mr. Smalls' employment.

'This is a particularly dangerous message to send during a pandemic, when chilling worker speech about health and safety practices could literally be a matter of life and death.'

It also calls on the e-commerce giant to close some warehouses for 'adequate sanitization and disinfection'.

Leaked notes previously revealed the trillion dollar company's plans to vilify Smalls.

Top bosses referred to Smalls as 'not smart' and discussed placing him as the face of the workers' walkout.

'He's not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we're trying to protect workers,' wrote Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky.

'They pretty much retaliated against me for speaking out,' Smalls had told The New York Post. 'I don't know how they sleep at night.'

Workers from Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, Target and Walmart stage a mass sick-out and plan nationwide protests calling for hazard pay, paid leave and protective equipment amid the COVID-19 crisis

Employees at some of America's biggest companies on Friday coordinated a 'mass sick-out' to protest unsafe working conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Hundreds of workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, Target and Walmart either called out sick or are walked off the job Friday afternoon in a push for hazard pay, sick leave, protective gear and additional cleaning supplies.

The employees have become essential workers during the COVID-19 outbreak, but say bosses aren't doing enough to keep them mitigate their chances of contracting the virus.

While small groups from each of the companies have been petitioning for safer working conditions since the middle of March, Friday's sick-out marks the first time they have combined efforts to create a large-scale 'movement'.

The sickout falls on International Worker's Day, and organizers are also calling for customers to boycott buying products from the listed companies for the entire day.

Pictures taken outside an Amazon fulfillment center on Friday afternoon, showed workers brandishing placards which read 'Capitalism Is The Virus' and 'Capitalism Kills'.

Amazon say: 'We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so, but these rights do not provide blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, well-being or safety of their colleagues.

'While we respect peoples right to express themselves, we object to the irresponsible actions of labor groups in spreading misinformation and making false claims about Amazon during this unprecedented health and economic crisis.

'Whats true is that masks, temperature checks, hand sanitizer, increased time off, increased pay, and more are standard across our Amazon and Whole Food Market networks already.'

Hundreds of workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, Target and Walmart have either called out sick or are planning to walk off the job Friday afternoon in a push for hazard pay, sick leave, protective gear and additional cleaning supplies. A protester is seen outside Whole Foods earlier this month

Protesters outside Amazin's fulfillment centerin Staten Island, New York are pictured Friday

The protest outside Amazon's Staten Island warehouse was one of many scheduled to take place in front of large retailers across the country Friday

Christian Smalls helped to organize Friday's sickout.

He had told The Washington Post that workers at about 25 Amazon warehouses are 'expected to walk out at midday and petition in front of the facilities'.

'The virus is killing some of our employees - this is a matter of life or death,' Smalls stated.

Workers in more than a dozen Amazon factories have tested positive to COVID-19, and at least one worker has died.

However, Amazon - which also owns Whole Foods - has hit back, claiming labor groups are 'spreading misinformation and making false claims' about the company.

'The statements made are not supported by facts or representative of the majority of the 500,000 Amazon operations employees in the U.S. who are showing up to work to support their communities,' spokeswoman Rachael Lighty told The Post.

Christian Smalls, a former Amazon worker who was fired from the company in March after organizing a strike over safety conditions, helped organize Friday's sickout. He is pictured at right

Supporters of the ex-Amazon employee turned out in force and called upon the online retail giant to provide their frontline workers with hazard pay, sick leave, protective gear and additional cleaning supplies

Healthcare workers also turned out to show their solidarity with frontline employees in the retail sector

Dozens of workers were seen keeping six feet apart from one another as they stood outside the Staten Island warehouse

One masked protester brandished a sign which read: 'Treat your workers like your customers!'

The daughter of one essential worker was seen at the New York protest

Police were on hand during the protests, but there was no reports of misbehavior after workers at the warehouse walked off the job Friday lunchtime

One protester took aim at Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with her sign

Meanwhile, Target says they are 'distributing protective equipment, deep-cleaning checkout lanes, limiting customer traffic and adding plexiglass partitions' to keep their employees safe.

They say only a small number of their 340,000 frontline workforce is likely to partake in the sickout.

However, one Target employee in Virginia told NBC News that he and his co-workers would be participating in the sickout.

Despite the protests, Amazon - which also owns Whole Foods - has hit back, claiming labor groups are 'spreading misinformation and making false claims' about the company

Workers in more than a dozen Amazon factories have tested positive to COVID-19, and at least one worker has died. Protesters are calling for more adequate safety protocols

'As workers, we have agency, we have the ability to change things, and we don't have to be passive spectators in our political and social lives,' they stated.

And it appears that they have public sentiment on their side.

Hundreds of posts shared on social media Friday came from consumers saying they would not be purchasing products from the companies until employee demands are met.

Charles Booker, who is running for Congress, wrote on Twitter: Our lives are not commodities. Our labor does not define our humanity. This is why we organize. When necessary, this is why we strike. On#MayDay2020 and everyday, I stand in solidarity with workers and organized labor. Proud to be on the line with you.'

Another Twitter user stated: 'It's my birthday. Please boycott @amazon'.

One public policy expert predicts a public relations disaster of companies do not yield to some of the demands - given public sentiment is on the side of the workers

Posters in support of the customer boycott have been shared widely on Twitter

One public policy expert predicts a public relations disaster of companies do not yield to some of the demands - particularly given that Amazon and Instacart have seen demands soar amid nationwide stay-at-home orders.

'If their sales are going up, but they are not passing any reasonable pay on to workers, it could be a huge PR disaster for some of these companies,' a Molly Kinder, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Post.

On Wednesday, activists protested outside the Washington, DC home of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, calling on him to increase safety protocols for workers.

More than one million Americans have tested positive to COVID-19, and more than 63,000 have died.
A family have been stuck in isolation for over six weeks after they came down with five cases of coronavirus after returning from a trip of a lifetime in Hawaii.

Mother-of-four Amanda Tindall said they returned to the Gold Coast on March 19 and were automatically placed into isolation in line with government rules.

Mrs Tindall told Daily Mail Australia she soon became increasingly unwell with what she thought was a mild sinus infection.

'I was laughing going "I've only got a cold I don't have it [COVID-19]" and 24 hours later I got a call to say I had it,' she said.

Her husband Adam then tested positive to the virus followed by three of their four children - Brandon ,15, Teagan, 12, and Zac, 10.

Amanda Tindall said she returned from Hawaii on March 19 with her husband Adam and four children Brandon ,15, Teagan, 12, Zac, 10 and Brittney, five, (all pictured) and were forced into isolation for six weeks. Also pictured is her mother and step father Bev and Stephen Kerr

The family only developed mild cases of the virus but it still took each of them at least three weeks to completely recover, with Mrs Tindall only being cleared of the disease on Sunday after 40 days of suffering.

'I remember watching the news and going "oh my god I hope we don't die from this please don't let me die" and then I found out the kids had it,' she said.

'It was really scary because at the time it (coronavirus) was all very new and it was getting very bad overseas.'

While the rest of the family is now allowed outside their youngest child Brittney, five, will need to stay in isolation despite testing negative multiple times.

'Now Brittney has to restart her 14 days again so once she is out of it she would have been in isolation for eight weeks,' she said.

Mrs Tindall said three of her four children had caught the coronavirus and each family member took up to 40 days to full recovery

Despite keeping social distancing and constantly washing their hands in Hawaii Mrs Tindall said there was no escaping the virus

Despite both parents suffering from the disease they still needed to care for, educate and entertain their energetic children.

'When they were sick they didn't want to do anything but now they are very active playing Oztag in the backyard and making obstacle courses,' Mrs Tindall said.

The parents also kept the kids busy with various arts and craft, backyard camping and even a hat parade for their family and friends on Facebook.

'It was just to let people known that yeah we were sick but we're one of the lucky one's and we didn't want people to worry,' Mrs Tindall said.

Despite both parents suffering from the disease they still needed to care for, educate and entertain their energetic children

Mrs Tindall said she was lucky their friends and family were able to drop off essential supplies and gifts for all the children during isolation

Mrs Tindall said she was lucky their friends and family were able to drop off essential supplies and gifts for all the children during isolation.

She encouraged others to stay home unless necessary and said despite being thorough with hand washing and social distancing there was no escaping the virus.

'When we were in Hawaii and we were constantly doing everything right and we still contracted it you just never know who have it,' she said.
MasterChef star Poh Ling Yeow has come under fire once again - this time for making Afghan rice, better known as Afghani Kabli Pulao, in an endorsement for the popular slow cooker, Crock-Pot.

After revealing the stunning meal on Instagram, the 47-year-old attracted a slew of angry comments from fans who accused her of preparing it incorrectly.

It seems Adelaide culinary sensation opted to put the carrots and currants as toppings, rather than mixing it into the rice.

Can YOU tell what's wrong with this? MasterChef star Poh Ling Yeow has come under fire once again - this time for preparing Afghan rice, better known as Afghani Kabli Pulao, in an endorsement for the popular slow cooker, Crock-Pot

'Seriously that is not Afghan style. Plz do research,' one fan wrote, thinking her mistake was hilarious and adding crying emojis.

Another added: 'Where did you get the recipe from it's clearly not an Afghan dish.'

'This is not an Afghani dish, the carrots and the currents are for the rice which is called Qabili palaw,' one fan remarked.

However, not everyone was upset at the home chef, with plenty of people in support of the delicious-looking meal.

Poor Poh! After revealing the stunning meal on Instagram, the 47-year-old attracted a slew of angry comments from fans who accused her of preparing it incorrectly

Not happy: It seems Adelaide culinary sensation opted to put the carrots and currants as toppings, rather than mixing it into the rice

'People are getting their knickers in a twist! No one said it's a traditional Afghan dish! It is inspired with a couple of ingredients usually used in Afghan meals. I would be proud,' one commented.

Another wrote: 'Looks amazing, will def try.'

Poh is now appearing on MasterChef: Back To Win, an all-stars season for the revamped reality show.

She got some support! However, not everyone was upset at the home chef, with plenty of people in support of the delicious-looking meal

Speaking to Freedom Hunters with Suzanne Delahunty on the weekend, Poh admitted she has always been obsessed with being famous.

'I fantasised a lot about being some kind of entertainer. There was a lot of singing into hair brushes and doing accents to myself,' she said of her formative years.

When it came to auditioning for scripts, Poh said she 'sought out anything she could get her hands on' in the hopes of landing her big role.

She went on to say she once tried to be a makeup artist to the stars, so she could get herself in close proximity to celebrities.

'I really liked to dream, and being close to people in these kinds of fields made me feel that something magical was possible for me,' she confessed.

MasterChef: Back To Win continues on Channel Ten, Monday, 7.30pm




By Jun Ji-hye



The government began offering emergency disaster relief funds to some 2.8 million households, Monday, as part of efforts to minimize the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic by boosting consumption, according to the Ministry of Interior and Safety.



Eligible households include those living off the government's livelihood support, the basic pension or disability programs.



Those households can receive cash payouts up to 1 million won ($816) without going through a separate application process.





The amount depends on the number of family members  400,000 won for single-person households, 600,000 won for two-member households, 800,000 won for three-member households and 1 million won for households with four or more family members.



The cash payments are made into the same bank accounts they use to receive the government assistance, the ministry said, noting that the time of receipt could vary according to region.



The National Assembly passed a supplementary budget bill, April 30, to fund coronavirus relief payouts for all households regardless of income.



The remaining households that are not subject to the cash payouts can choose either credit or debit card points, gift cards or prepaid cards to receive the relief funds, with a separate application process required.



The heads of those households that chose credit or debit card points can apply for the payout starting May 11 online and May 18 offline.



Those who chose gift cards or prepaid cards can apply for the payout at community service centers or local banks, starting May 18.



Relief funds offered in the form of credit or debit card points, gift cards or prepaid cards will be available until Aug. 31, according to the ministry.



The ministry added that people should be cautious about possible phishing attempts through text messages, in which swindlers could scam the public by pretending to be credit card or government officials in charge of the relief funds.




The University of Alabama at Birmingham will furlough employees and UAB Medicine will cut salaries of some employees in response to massive monetary losses brought on by the coronavirus outbreak. UAB Medicine alone estimates a $230 million shortfall by September 30.

The extent of these cuts includes salary reductions for at least the remainder of the fiscal year for UAB Medicine and temporary furloughs taken May 10 to July 31 for approximately 325 university staff who cannot work effectively in a remote setting, according to the UAB website.

The salary reductions vary, according to the statement from UAB, but executive cuts are across the board. Effective May 1, the presidents salary will decrease by 15%, the Senior Vice Presidents salary by 10%, and Deans and Vice Presidents will decrease by 7%. In UAB Medicine, senior leaders and cabinet members will receive a 10% reduction in annual compensation and the Health System Executive Cabinet will see a 15% reduction in annual compensation.

Furloughs will impact university employees in Workgroup A, outlined here, and as of the most recent release, pay cuts will only impact those in the UAB Medical system.

The UAB Medical system will experience different cost-cutting measures than the university. Clinical staff, clarified here, will have their pay cut starting May 10 through Dec. 31, 2020. The School of Medicines clinical department faculty salary reductions will average 7%, and other salary reductions are outlined in the statement from the university. For more information on the sliding scale of percentage wage decreases, click here.

The cuts come just weeks after UAB announced it was losing $70 million monthly because of the loss of elective surgeries in the health system. UAB Medicine has projected a possible $230 million budget shortfall by the end of September, according to the website. In addition to trouble in the health system, each of the UA system campuses - the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, UAH and UAB - have lost around $40-$50 million, said Finis E. St. John IV, UA System Chancellor, last week.

The chancellor told AL.com last week that the losses would probably result in more financial cuts. We want to have the least impact on peoples lives, but we have to be good stewards of our financial situation, St. John told AL.com April 29.

On April 30, all three universities announced that employer-matched/contributions to voluntary 403(b) retirement plans would be temporarily suspended or reduced. " For university employees, this will start in May and last through September 2020. Because the health system has a larger budget shortfall than the university, it will also start this action in May but will extend it through December 2020," according to the UAB website.

University of Alabama system planning to reopen for fall: We fully expect to have on-campus instruction

For updates from UA, click here. Updates from UAB, click here. Updates from UAH, click here.
Ben Wallace blasted China today, saying warning Beijing it has serious questions to answer over its initial handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Defence Secretary reignited a war of words over whether China suppressed information about the virus - whose first cases were reported in Wuhan - which prevented other countries from taking steps to save more lives.

It came as Donald Trump's US administration scaled up its rhetoric over Chinese culpability, with the president last night accused the communist state of a cover-up after making a 'horrible mistake'.

The president continued to point the finger at Beijing and fueled growing suggestions that COVID-19 spread from a Wuhan laboratory before snowballing into a worldwide pandemic.

US intelligence agencies have concluding the virus was not man-made or genetically modified. Washington has so far presented no evidence publicly that the virus came from a lab, which Beijing strongly denies.

But the Australian Telegraph reported the US-led Five Eyes intelligence consortium, in a 15-page dossier, that said that China had deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak in an 'assault on international transparency' that cost tens of thousands of lives.

Speaking to LBC radio this morning, Mr Wallace refused to comment on the report, but said: 'Every day I get intelligence bulletins from our agencies around the world. I don't comment on individual bulletins, what I have and haven't seen. That would be wrong.'

Asked if China had questions to answer over how quickly it made the world aware of the extent of the crisis, he added: 'I think it does.'

'China needs to be open and transparent about what it learnt, its short comings but also its successes,'

The Defence Secretary reignited a war of words over whether China suppressed information about the virus - whose first cases were reported in Wuhan - which prevented other countries from taking steps to save more lives

President Donald Trump suggested that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe is the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China

Diplomats had complained about the slack safety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the years prior to the coronavirus outbreak

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday there was 'a significant amount of evidence' that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, although he also said he did not dispute U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusion that it was not man-made.

China has repeatedly denied that it covered up any details about the novel coronavirus outbreak, and says Washington is pointing the finger because of its own flawed response. The United States has the most cases and the most fatalities in the world.

China's ambassador to London last month said the United States should not seek to bully the People's Republic in a manner reminiscent of the 19th century European colonial war.

But Mr Wallace was critical of its role in letting the rest of the world know what might be heading its way, telling LBC: 'If we had known from the outset about the virus, of course more lives could have been saved. But I don't think it is a country-by-country problem.

'I think it is a massive problem around how we share intelligence on viruses and learning at pace.'
New Zealand has reported zero new coronavirus cases for the first time since its lockdown began.

The countrys health ministry on Monday announced no new infections had been recorded in the preceding 24 hours for the first time since mid-March.

However Ashley Bloomfield, the director general of health, said it was not a cause for celebration, noting the death toll remained at 20 with no additional virus-related fatalities.

It is symbolic of the effort everyone has put in, he told reporters at a press conference.

This is the first day that we had no new cases and we want to keep it that way.

Mr Bloomfield cautioned that people must continue social distancing measures to ensure Covid-19 does not return.

Clearly these are encouraging figures today, but it is just one moment in time, he said.

The real test is later this week when we factor in the incubation period for the virus and the time it takes for people to display symptoms which is generally five to six days after exposure.

The total number of confirmed cases in New Zealand is 1,137, while the vast majority have recovered.

The last time there were no new cases on a single day was on 16 March, before a strict month-long national lockdown was brought in nine days later.

New Zealand closed its borders and shut offices, schools, shopping centres, restaurants, playgrounds and other public areas once the outbreak began.

The government eased its level four lockdown last week, downgrading to level three. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, will decide whether to lift restrictions further next week.

However, several social restrictions remain in place with millions of New Zealanders still working and studying from home, although some economic activity was allowed to resume.

Ms Ardern, who has won praise across the globe for her handling of the crisis, warned: We cannot afford to squander the good work to date when our end goal is so close and within reach.

Winston Peters, the foreign minister, on Monday backed calls for a so-called trans-Tasman bubble that would allow movement of people between New Zealand and Australia, saying such an arrangement could work seriously well.

Australia has so far escaped the high numbers of casualties seen in other countries, with about 6,800 infections and 95 deaths.

The country had 26 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, including a seven-year-old boy, across three states in the biggest daily jump in two weeks.

A New Zealand rugby team was given the green light to fly to Australia and start training for a tournament while undergoing 14 days of quarantine.

Officials in both countries are considering all aspects of the trans-Tasman concept, and planning how this could happen more broadly, said Mr Peters.

Additional reporting by Reuters
One of Netflix's 'diamond in the rough' series Medici debuted their third season back on May 1, 2020. The series is an Italian-English drama which became a raging hit in Italy when it debuted on the Rai 1 network back in 2016. Now that season 3 of Medici has released on Netflix, fans of the series are reportedly asking whether a Medici season 4 is on the cards?

Also read: What time does Medici Season 3 release on Netflix and other details about show

Medici Season 4 details

The Nicholas Meyer and Frank Spotnitz created series Medici on Netflix is undoubtedly turning out to be a sleeper hit for the streaming service. Though the show is lesser-known in the USA, which comprises a major customer base for Netflix, it can be slowly seeing catching up with audiences across the globe besides just the UK and Italy. Whether Medici on Netflix will get a season 4 is actually out of the question as the series has wrapped up with its third season.

Also read: 'Extraction' to become biggest-ever film premier on Netflix, says Chris Hemsworth

It was already known that Medici season 4 will not debut on Netflix as Medici season 3 i.e Medici: The Magnificient was announced to be the final story in the chapter. Medici season 4 plans have not been revealed by Netflix but it is expected that a spin-off series or a prequel series will be under the work soon. Medici Season 4 was not scheduled by Netflix as the titular character of Lorenzo de' Medici was expected to avenge his brother's death in the third season itself.

Also read: 'Rick and Morty' co-creator Roiland shares failed character sketches ahead of S4 part 2

The third and final season of the groundbreaking historical drama is here. #Medici: The Magnificent is streaming NOW on @Netflix!  Medici is coming to Netflix on May 1st (@MediciSeries) May 1, 2020

Also read: When is 'Hollywood' releasing on Netflix? Here's everything you need to know

One of the many great things about @MediciSeries is, that you feel like youre in there. You learn from them,you cry with them...



Ill be forever grateful to every single person who made this show so AMAZING,so special!



Thank you for everything, it was hell of a ride!#Medici pic.twitter.com/nXZFIP4QWj  Veronika Dobesova (@VeronikaDobeov2) May 3, 2020

Also read: When is 'Half of It' releasing on Netflix? Here's everything you need to know
Maintaining a downward trend, only



three fresh cases of COVID-19 were reported in Telangana on Monday, taking the total to 1,085 while 40 people returned home following recovery with the government attributing the dip to the effectiveness of the lockdown.

The state cabinet is set to meet on Tuesday to discuss issues related to easing norms for some sectors as part of lockdown exit plan.

The earlier lockdown extension by the state government is in force till May 7 in Telangana.

According to a media bulletin on COVID-19, all the three new cases were reported from Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits.

It said as many as 40 COVID-19 patients were discharged after treatment taking the total number of discharged to 585.

No deaths were reported in the state on Monday and the toll remained at 29.

"There is a dip in the number of new cases which denotes that the lockdown was very effective in containing the outbreak and prevented the impending surge of new cases. Social distancing along with all the non-pharmacological interventions are very essential and effective in containing the spread of infection, it said.

On the cabinet meet, a senior official said it would also deliberate on whether to allow liquor sales from standalone wine shops from May 8.

Even before the Centre extended the lockdown till May 17, the state government had announced the restrictions will continue till May 7.

The cabinet will discuss some of the relaxations announced by the Centre from May 4... the cabinet will discuss the new guidelines and relaxations, a senior official told PTI.

Liquor shops remain closed in the state ever since the lockdown was announced in March.

As per the guidelines issued by the Centre, sale of liquor in standalone shops will be allowed with certain conditions in all zones -green, orange and red -- barring containment areas.

On the second consecutive day, scores of people were stopped at Telangana-Andhra Pradesh border by the police of the neighbouring state despite having passes to return to their native places.

A police official from Nalgonda district in Telangana said the passes issued by the state police to the people who applied to go to their native places in the neighbouring state were not "accepted" by the AP counterparts.

According to the police official many of them have come back as AP did not allow them to proceed.

However, some of them, including children and women, decided to stay put at the border.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hon. Bapooh Lipot, Debt Recovery Corporation Board Chairman WhatsApp

Hon. Bapooh Lipot Robert, Secretary General of the opposition Union of the Peoples of Cameroon known in French as lUnion des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) has been elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of the countrys Debt Recovery Corporation , SRC.

This is the outcome of an extra ordinary board meeting of the Debt Recovery Corporation chaired by Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze in Yaounde Monday, May 4, 2020. Bapooh Lipot replaces Professor Joseph Owona appointed member of the Constitutional Council following Presidential Decree No. 2020 / 194 of April 15, 2020.

President Paul Biya had on Thursday, April 30, 2020, appointed Bapooh Lipot Member of the Board of Directors of the Debt Recovery Corporation for a three-year mandate renewable once.

The third class traditional ruler in the country's Center Region and former UPC Member of the National Assembly for Nyong and Nkelle had his ambition to renew his stay at the law-making house squashed when the Constitutional Council disqualified his list for the February 9, 2020 parliamentary elections as UPC factions battling for supremacy presented parallel lists for the said election.

Leaving the Constitutional Council after the verdict last December, Lipot said he remains respectful of state institutions and those who incarnate them.

Hear Lipot: I am respectful of the institutions of the Republic and of those who embody them. I inherited from Augustin Frederick Kodock, a political testament that is not easy to assume. But I was trained to assume it. It is in this sense that when the Constitutional Council takes decisions that can, and even, infringe the rights of the individual that I am, I have a thought for Augustin Frederick Kodock who would never have realized great works for the UPC if he was interested in his political bruises; just as I have a thought for Ruben Um Nyobe who could never have fulfilled this great destiny for Cameroon if he had at any one moment been concerned with his own political bruises. I am a Republican;I remain entirely at the service of the cause of the UPC as Secretary General, but also in the service of the higher interests of my nation. "

Lipot's appointment last week and his election today as Board Chairman of the Debt Recovery Corporation may well be in a bid to take him out of the political wilderness, given that the UPC is an ally of the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) where President Biya is National Chairman.

Created in 1989, the Cameroon Debt Recovery Corporation (SRC) was reorganized by Presidential Decree No. 2020/016 of January 9, 2020. Same day, decree no. 2020/017 approved its statutes. The structure has its place as the operational instrument of political restructuring in Cameroon's banking sector.
Army chief General MM Naravane has said that India is proud of five security personnel who laid down lives saving civilians from terrorists at Handwara. He also said that the army will give proportionate response to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and support to terrorism.

I wish to convey my heartfelt condolences and gratitude to valiant braves of our Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police. Commanding Officer Col Ashutosh Sharma led from front and ensured there was no collateral damage during operation, General Naravane told news agency PTI.

He also lashed out at Pakistan, saying onus remains on Islamabad to bring peace in the region.

Pakistan is still following its own myopic and limited agenda of pushing terrorists inside India. Unless Pakistan gives up its policy of state-sponsored terrorism, we will continue to respond appropriately and with precision, General Naravane said.

Infiltration attempts show that Pakistan is not interested in battling Covid-19, he added.

A Colonel, a Major and three other security forces personnel were killed in an encounter with terrorists in north Kashmirs Handwara on Sunday. This was the biggest loss to the Army in recent years.

Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh Kumar, Lance Naik Dinesh Singh and sub-inspector of Jammu-Kashmir police Shakeel Qazi were martyred in the line of duty while rescuing civilians held hostage by the terrorists.

Two terrorists were also shot dead by the security forces in the Handwara encounter.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and other leaders paid tribute to the brave soldiers.

Tributes to our courageous soldiers and security personnel martyred in Handwara. Their valour and sacrifice will never be forgotten. They served the nation with utmost dedication and worked tirelessly to protect our citizens. Condolences to their families and friends, PM Modi said on Twitter.

The army said a joint operation was launched by the army and state police based on the intelligence input that terrorists were taking hostage some civilians in a house.
Egypt has called on UN Women and member countries to boost international cooperation in the fight against coronavirus

Egypt has led an international action at the United Nations to tackle the negative impact of the coronavirus outbreak on women and girls, the foreign ministry said.

The move is aimed at mitigating the negative social repercussions of the spread of the pandemic and taking preventive measures to reduce its effects on the most vulnerable social groups, the ministry said in a statement late on Sunday.

Egypt's Permanent Representative at the UN, ambassador Mohamed Idris, said the Egyptian delegation addressed UN Women, the UN body in charge of promoting gender equality, and member countries to work to boost international cooperation and the exchange of expertise and information to overcome the emergency challenge facing humanity.

The Egyptian delegation has circulated a report drawn up by Egypt's National Council for Women on proposed policies and programs tackling the conditions of women in the face of the global pandemic.

Egypt, along with a number of other member states, has submitted a draft resolution to the General Assembly of the United Nations calling for supporting local and international efforts meant to quickly deal with the pandemic's repercussions on women, Idris said.

Egypt was also among the signatories of a joint statement by the 63-member Group of Friends of Children and the SDGs calling for giving priority to childrens education, nutrition, health, and safety in the fight against coronavirus, he added.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Every year, on the first Monday of May one of the most significant events in the fashion calendar takes place  the Met Gala.

Last March, it was announced that 2020's Met Gala had been postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, having previously been scheduled to take place on Monday 4 May. It was later cancelled.

Despite the fact that this years Met Gala was also postponed, it will now take place on Monday 13 September.

While in the past the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit  as the Met Gala is officially known  has attracted the likes of supermodels, Hollywood A-listers and fashion royalty, it has also seen a number of real royals grace its famous grand entrance stairs.

Princess Beatrice  the elder daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York  joined the likes of Kim Kardashian West, Rihanna and Blake Lively at 2018s event, which had the theme Heavenly Bodies: Fashion And The Catholic Imagination.

For the occasion, 30-year-old Beatrice wore a violet Grecian-style ball gown courtesy of Alberta Ferretti.

10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Show all 10 1 /10 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Princess Diana, 1996



Princess Diana attended the 1996 Met Gala alongside friend and former Harper's Bazaar editor Liz Tilberis. The royal wore a navy blue camisole dress from John Gallianos debut couture collection for Dior and a pearl, diamond and sapphire choker around her neck. AFP/Getty Images 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Princess Lee Radziwill, 2001



Lee Radziwil, the younger sister of Jackie Kennedy, attended the Met Gala in 2001 wearing a flowy white gown with intricate embroidery. Getty Images 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Andrea Casiraghi, 2006



Andrea Casiraghi - the elder son of Caroline, Princess of Hanover - attended the Met Gala in 2006 with his now wife, Tatiana Santo Domingo. Getty Images 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Queen Rania of Jordan, 2007



Queen Rania of Jordan made an appearance at the Met Gala in 2007 wearing a navy silk gown featuring a wide black belt. Getty Images 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Charlotte Casiraghi, 2016



Charlotte Casiraghi - the daughter of Caroline, Princess of Hanover - attended the event in 2016 wearing a tiered floor-length dress by Gucci. The colourful gown featured an ombre effect from canary yellow to fuschia pink and purple. Getty Images 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece, 2016



Socialite Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece attended the Met Gala in 2016 wearing a cream strapless mini-dress by Balmain with pointed thigh-high boots. 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Queen Rania of Jordan, 2016



In 2016, Queen Rania of Jordan was the definition of elegance as she attended the Met Gala in a black and white feathered Valentino gown. Getty Images 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Princess Elisabeth Von Thurn Und Taxis, 2016



Princess Elisabeth Von Thurn Und Taxis - the daughter of Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis - attended the Met Gala in 2016 wearing a gold mini-dress by Mary Katrantzou. The royal accessorised her look with a metallic choker, matching handbag and feather ear piece. Rex Features 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Princess Elisabeth Von Thurn Und Taxis, 2017



Princess Elisabeth Von Thurn Und Taxis also attended the Met Gala the following year wearing a pale pink overcoat designed by Simone Rocha. The garment was covered in 3D floral embellishment and paired with red square toe heels. Rex Features 10 times the royals attending the Met Gala Princess Beatrice, 2018



For her first time attending the Met Gala in 2018, Princess Beatrice wore a purple floor-length gown designed by Alberta Ferretti. The dress featured sheer sleeves, a high neck and embellishments across the bodice. Beatrice accessorised the look with a beaded headband and gunmetal silver clutch bag. Getty Images

But she wasnt the first royal to attend the glamorous event. In 1996, Princess Diana made her mark at the Met Gala wearing a navy slip dress designed by John Galliano for Dior and a seven-strand pearl necklace with sapphires and diamonds.

Other royals from across the globe have also attended the gala over the years, including Queen Rania of Jordan, Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Monacos Charlotte Casiraghi.

Click through our gallery to see all the royals who have attended the Met Gala.
NASA has planned to launch its Perseverance rover towards Mars this coming summer. The brand-new machine is equipped with powerful 3D zooming cameras that will allow its operators to view the footage in fantastic quality and detail.

The Mastcam-Z will be used in the rover's mission on Mars while the team that controls it will plan out the routes and movements the robot and its arm will take. Specialized 3D goggles will be used to view the contours of the landscape.

The new addition where the "Z" stands for "zoom," will be placed on the robot's head and is an upgraded version of the previous Mastcam which was equipped on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover that produced amazingly beautiful photographs of Mars' surface.

Modern-day features

The camera will do more than zoom and capture images, however, as it will also be capable of providing critical data to engineers with its daily discoveries and give the public a view of the wonders and beauty of space.

The predecessor's Mastcam was initially designed to have zoom capabilities but was too much of an obstacle at the time for a robot as small as the Mars rover.

Arizona State University's Jim Bell said the Curiosity was initially planned to utilize a zoom camera with extreme wide-angle features. Bell is Mastcam-Z's and predecessor Mastcam's principal investigator. He also said that the opportunity would have provided a beautiful panoramic perspective and view but proved to be just too much of an endeavour.

The Perseverance's camera simplifies things by zooming both lenses until they match which can then be used to create a single 3D image which is more comfortable and more efficient due to requiring fewer images to be sent to Earth, leading to less data as well.

Read Also: [VIDEO] Two Black Holes Dancing In Space Caught By NASA's Spitzer Telescope Shows Remarkable Pattern Of Fluidity

Not just 'eyes'

Another feature the Mastcam-Z will provide is helping geologists choose appropriate targets better to understand the surface of the red hot planet.

The upgraded camera will provide enhanced vision, recording the landscape in vivid colours and captures even those that are invisible to the naked eye. It also scans the environment with ultraviolet or infrared rays which enable it to reveal metal meteorites spread across the land and compositions that are worth looking into further by experts.

The Mastcam-Z will also monitor the Sun and sky observing the moons of Mars and detailing how the dust storms and cloud formations vary over time.

Plans to share the images captured by the rover to the public are to be placed on a public website. Bell said that it is imperative to show the world of the discoveries of science across the galaxies and that the rover belongs to the world along with all of its findings and observations.

The massive robot weighs in at about 1,025 kilograms and will journey on a mission to search for signs of life past microbial systems. It will collect samples and data from the planet that it will store until its set to return to Earth, paving the way for exploration of the red planet.

Read Also: NASA Picks Lunar Lander Makers Bezo's Blue Origin, Musk's SpaceX, And Dynetics For Future Moon Landing
There were only two options available to Westpac, ANZ and National Australia Bank as they sought to preserve capital amid the coronavirus crisis. Behind door one was the policy of deferring dividends, while door two involved raising fresh equity. ANZ and Westpac took the first option, but NAB went through the second door.

Neither choice was popular with small shareholders.

Westpac's newly appointed CEO Peter King delivered a disappointing set of results and deferred a decision on dividends. Credit:Peter Braig

While NAB slashed its dividend by around two-thirds, it would have been unable to pay any dividend but for the fact it raised $3.5 billion in equity to bolster its balance sheet.

And it would have been difficult for NAB to undertake a raising of this size absent some dividend. Without it, the discount on the new shares issued would have been even steeper.
CREMA, Italy  The first country outside Asia to experience the coronavirus pandemic on a large scale was Italy. It was the first to go into lockdown and impose a national quarantine, on March 9. And it is the part of Europe that suffered most. As of May 3, 29,000 people were known to have lost their lives because of Covid-19. The actual figures are likely to be higher, as they will be everywhere else. My northern region  Lombardy, Italys economic powerhouse  has registered half of the countrys deaths. Army truck convoys carried coffins to crematories around the country from Bergamo  where the death rate in March and April rose to more than four times what it was last year. Brescia, Lodi, Cremona and Crema  where I live  were also deeply affected. My hometown has been a ghost town for two months. People moaned but stayed at home.

On Monday, Italy started reopening, but cautiously. Limited outdoor activity will be allowed, and visits to relatives, partners and lovers (affetti stabili, the government called them, opening a national debate about what makes your affections stable). Factories and construction companies are allowed to go back to work. On May 18, it will be the turn of shops. On June 1, if the contagion rate stays down, bars and restaurants will reopen. Schools, stadiums, theaters and churches will remain closed. Face masks will be compulsory on public transportation and in confined public spaces. More coronavirus tests are available, and a contact-tracing app, based on Bluetooth technology, should be near distribution.

The path that Italy strode before getting to this point has repeated itself in every coronavira-stricken country. First, the underestimation; then the disbelief, the shock, the lockdown. Next, jokes shared on smartphones, mood swings, the reassurance of the national anthem. At that point, after two weeks of lockdown, reality kicked in. We realized that the challenge was a long-distance run, and we started running.
RAYMOND  A man and woman from Milwaukee were arrested early Friday after they reportedly broke into Zarates Auto Sales and stole items from the business.

At 3:36 a.m. Friday, an alarm company notified the Racine County Communications Center of an intrusion alarm at Zarates Auto Sales, 355 27th St., Raymond, according to a Racine County Sheriffs Office news release.

Deputies were dispatched to the business and determined there was forced entry into the businesss garage area. The suspects entered by removing a screen on a window and forcing the window open.

As additional deputies responded, they saw a man and woman walking south on 27th Street near Manheim Auto Auction. One of them was carrying a gas can. The two were walking about 25 yards apart.

The woman said she ran out of gas and did not know the man, who she said was following her. The man, Demarcio D. Robinson, 28, identified the woman as Ceceila R. Hall. He said they they ran out of gas and left their car in the Zarates parking lot.

Hall and Robinson, both of Milwaukee, were detained and brought back to the business. An investigation revealed that Hall and Robinson had broken down and pushed the car into the parking lot of the business. Robinson then forced the window open, and then Hall and Robinson climbed inside.

The two are reportedly seen on video inside the business taking various items, putting them outside the window and then climbing back out of the building to put the stolen items into their vehicle. They were also reportedly seen looking through several other vehicles on the property, including a trailer they forced open.

Hall and Robinson were arrested for burglary, theft of movable property, criminal damage to property and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The investigation into the incident was ongoing as of Friday. The Sheriffs Office said additional charges could be brought pending the investigations outcome.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0

Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
French Company ECA Group has been awarded a significant export contract to modernize robots dedicated to naval mine warfare. The ECA Group is renowned for its expertise in robotics, automated systems, simulation and industrial processes. Ever since 1936 it has been developing complete innovative technological solutions to perform complex missions in hostile or restrictive environments.

French Company ECA Group has been awarded a significant export contract to modernize robots dedicated to naval mine warfare. The ECA Group is renowned for its expertise in robotics, automated systems, simulation and industrial processes. Ever since 1936 it has been developing complete innovative technological solutions to perform complex missions in hostile or restrictive environments. (Press Release ECA Group)

ECA Group has developed a full range of naval warfare equipment specially designed for modern naval forces. (Picture source ECA Group)

This contract, worth around  20 million will last over 48 months and will allow modernizing the mine clearance capacities of the customer, a Navy, in order to improve their performance against sea mines. The evolution of the mine threat in maritime areas is a current and growing concern for many countries.

For 50 years, ECA Group has been supplying navies all around the world with unmanned systems for underwater mine clearance. The contract awarded in 2019 by the Belgian and Netherlands navies, for the renewal of their mine countermeasure capacities with innovative drone systems, has confirmed ECA Group's innovation capacity over the decades.

This new modernization contract confirms ECA Group's capacity to push forward existing underwater mine clearance systems and bring them closer to the performance of the most recent ones. ECA Group is particularly proud of the trust placed in its expertise and solutions by navies worldwide. A trust renewed by this client already equipped with ECA Group drones for several decades.



More specifically for underwater Mine Warfare, ECA Group offers mission driven interoperable systems capable of tackling the most demanding Mine Warfare missions. ECA Group systems can detect, classify, locate, identify and neutralize the underwater threat. ECA Group Mine Counter Measure (MCM) unmanned system UMISTM is able to perform any MCM mission, using a collaborative system of surface and underwater robots, thanks to an advanced Command & Control System. Deployed either stand alone or from manned and unmanned platforms they can carry a broad range of payloads, provide complete sensor choice and benefit from common operating systems and training.
'Desperation pies,' rooted in old-fashioned American ingenuity, turn simple ingredients into rich and comforting treats

Desperation pies, make-do pies, Depression piesnothing about the names sounds particularly enticing. And yet, these desserts can be amazingly delicious.

Theyre made from humble ingredients that, when combined, evoke the richness of loftier creations. They also make a perfect balm for these difficult times, when embracing whats already in the house may be the best move. Vinegar, molasses, canned milk, eggs, unripe produce, and crackers can each star as the secret ingredient in a little wedge of comfort.

Desperate Measures

Although generally credited to clever, cash-strapped cooks of the Great Depression, theres evidence to suggest desperation pies evolved long before that historical marker.

The first desperation had more to do with a dearth of seasonal ingredients than with an inability to afford food. Before refrigeration and global supply lines, home cooks baked fruit pies only when the fruit was in season. No apples, no apple pie. Likewise, other ingredients may have been scarce at various times due to poor harvests, blight, illness, and migration.

As early as 1740, historical archives of George and Martha Washington show recipes and references to chess pie, a now-favorite Southern creation that may have begun as an homage to cheese pie, aka cheesecake. A basic chess pie brings together eggs, butter, sugar, cornmeal, and flour in a crispy crust. No cream cheese or other fresh cheese, no fruit, and very little fuss.

In the Midwest, cooks added apple cider vinegar, or even white vinegar, to sugary custard pies to give the them a slightly tart flavor, reminiscent of lemons.

Indianas unofficial state pie, called Hoosier pie, sugar cream pie, or even milk pie, appeared in the recipe collections of Shaker settlers in the early 1800s. The primary ingredients appear in the name of the dessert.

In Pennsylvania, Amish oatmeal piepopularized during the Civil War era when pecans were scarceand the molasses-rich shoofly pie were similarly made with household staples.

Farther south, its thought that an abundance of late-season green tomatoes, which were unlikely to ripen before cooler weather arrived, inspired thrifty cooks to add sugar and spices to tart tomato slices and bake them into a green tomato pie that pays homage to green apples.

While these early desperation piesand morewere trotted out again during the Depression years, there is one pie that absolutely is a product of the 1930s. The mock-apple pie, made with butter-flavored Ritz crackers, was a Depression-era recipe that lived on the back of cracker boxes for a couple of decades.

Victory Pies

During World War II, desperation pies and other adaptations took on a patriotic edge.

Many items were rationed, so that foodstuffs could be sent to fuel the troops or so manufacturing facilities could focus on the war effort, and households thus often had to do without staple ingredients. Cooks were encouraged to support the war effort and ensure victory by adapting. Wartime cookbooks are filled with victory recipes that boasted little to no sugar, eggs, fats, or other ingredients.

In the small-town South, people often raised chicken or had rural relatives who had flocks. For us, that meant eggs werent that hard to come by, said Ruth Coe Chambers, a novelist who writes tales set in the Florida panhandle. We could make custard-based pies. Likewise, we might be able to get animal fats from someone with a farm to use in crusts.

Other ingredients were more difficult. Sugar was very scarce and I remember women in town trading ration coupons. Someone might be willing to give you some of their sugar coupons in exchange for your coffee coupons, Chambers said. She noted that cakes and pies of the time often used soaked dried fruit, syrups, and honey for sweetening.

And while no one speaks fondly of wartime food rationing, some do associate the desperation recipes applied with homey comfort.

Desserts were a very special treat during that time, said Chambers. If a woman could put a pie on the table, she felt shed accomplished something for her family. It was a way to make things seem normal during a scary time.

Sugar cream pie, made primarily from sugar, milk or cream, and flour or cornstarch, is a classic example of a desperation pie, dating back to the early 1800s. (Annieseats via Flickr/CC BY-ND 2.0)

Regional Heritage

Some make-do pies are so rooted in a particular region or culture, people forget that theyre actually subsistence fare.

Sweet potato pies, made from plentiful and inexpensive sweet potatoes, are essential to African-American celebrations and potlucks. Southern slaves grew the cropwhich was similar to African yamsand developed the recipes. The recipes followed families into freedom and ultimately influenced the broader American menu. Today, the pies are widely considered a Southern alternative to pumpkin pie.

Likewise, shoofly pie, made with shelf-stable molasses, is considered an Amish treat. The precursor of the pie, a molasses-laced single-layer cake, made its debut in Philadelphia at the centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. As the recipe moved west, Pennsylvania Dutch cooks turned it into a pie.

Cindy Oyler Stavely, executive director of the Colonial Quarter and St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum in St. Augustine, Florida, grew up in central Pennsylvania. She has fond memories of the pies made by her grandmother, Mary Mumperwhom she called Mimiof Newville.

She made shoofly and Amish vanilla pie often, said Stavely. I remember helping her roll out the pie crust and she always had a small pie pan for the leftover crust. She would make a sugar milk pie in the little panshe called it Poor Mans Pie. It was a sweet little extra treat!

Stavely added that her grandmother never needed an excuse to start baking. The fact that we were all at her home for the weekend was enough, she said. I miss those pies!

A Modern Role

Modern desperation pies have two reasons for being. The firstharkening back centuriesis because ingredients are unavailable. Whether your personal larder is being affected by a world-wide health crisis, or more frequently, by the green-kitchen admonition to eat locally produced, seasonal ingredients, its quite possible that you may be trying to find substitutes for recipes that call for fresh berries, apples, or eggs.

The second reason is convenience. The post-WWII 20th century saw manufacturers rush to produce a plethora of processed, shelf-stable convenience foods. Though often maligned by purists, theres many a child today whose dessert memories will be studded with treats based on ready-made pie crusts, cake mixes, and instant puddings, among other quick and tasty distractions.

My favorite of these is a lime freezer pie that makes very good use of ingredients on hand, said novelist Chambers. Its primarily just a pack of Jell-O, evaporated milk, and a few other things from around the house. Whip it up and youve got a quick, refreshing dessert for unexpected guests.

The following recipes include some modern make-do recipes, as well as a treasury of dishes that have put households in good stead, dating from the 17th century to the present. You probably have the ingredients on hand for at least one of these modest, marvelous treats.

Louisiana native Belinda Hulin Crissman writes cookbooks and food articles from her adopted hometown of Atlantic Beach, Fla. Shes the author of five cookbooks, including Roux Memories: A Cajun-Creole Love Story with Recipes. When shes not writing, youll find her scoping out old and new culinary delights.

RECIPE: Shoofly Pie

RECIPE: Chess Pie

RECIPE: Sugar Cream Pie (Hoosier Pie)

RECIPE: Amish Vanilla Pie
A former US Army Special Forces member has claimed responsibility for an alleged attempt to overthrow Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

The ex-Green Beret named Jordan Goudreau has reportedly taken responsibility for the attack, which took place on Sunday night and was said to have led to eight deaths.

The men were allegedly training dozens of deserters from Venezuelas security forces at secret camps inside neighbouring Colombia.

The attempt was said to have began with a predawn sea-to-land raid near the South American countrys heavily guarded capital, with the intention of the cross border raid leading to the presidents arrest.

However, the fighters purportedly did not have enough funding or government support to sustain a victory against Mr Maduros larger army and intelligence networks.

Youre not going to take out Mr Maduro with 300 hungry, untrained men, said Ephraim Mattos, a former US Navy SEAL.

There was no chance they were going to succeed without direct US military intervention.

An Associated Press investigation found that Mr Goudreau had allegedly been working with a retired Venezuelan army general now facing US narcotics charges.

A daring amphibious raid was launched from the border of Colombia deep into the heart of Caracas, Mr Goudreau said alongside retired Venezuelan Captain Javier Nieto in a video from an undisclosed location.

Our units have been activated in the south, west and east of Venezuela.

Mr Goudreau claimed that 60 men were still on the ground and that calls were being activated inside Venezuela, however, none of their claims of an ongoing operation could be independently verified.

The US has long had a strained relationship with Venezuela, and imposed sanctions in 2019 as a hardening of its efforts to undermine Mr Maduro, who replaced Hugo Chavez, after his death in 2013. Donald Trump was among dozens of western leaders ho have recognised opposition politician Juan Guaido as the legitimate president.

Supporters of Mr Maduro, who has failed to reverse economic decline and shortages in his country, accuse the US of interference and attempted regime change.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.
Niftys movement this week will be driven by the way forward for resumption of business after lockdown, an announcement of any stimulus package, and stock-specific earnings results, Gaurav Garg, Head of Research at CapitalVia Global Research Limited- Investment Advisor, said in an interview with Moneycontrols Kshitij Anand.

Edited excerpt:



Q) Sensex and Nifty rallied over 14% each in April. The Sensex is back above 33,000 while NIFTY reclaimed 9800. What is fuelling market rally on D Street?

A) The Indian benchmarks jumped nearly 3 percent on the closing of the long weekend for the market. The investors are still in hope for the stimulus package by the government.

The positive results of Covid-19 treatment trails by Gileads drug have added to the positive sentiment to the market. Sectors like metal, auto, IT and tech have majorly contributed to the rally.

The indications of easing of lockdown and partially giving permission to the manufacturing companies in the green zone to operate have added more value to the market.

Q) As we close the month of April on a positive note after a massacre in March how is May likely to pan out for investors. There is a very popular Wall Street adage sell in May and Go away? Do you think we could hold onto gain if not why?

A) The indices have closed in the positive note for the fourth consecutive session and posted the second-biggest weekly gain which rose nearly 8 percent in the week. The ongoing positive developments like plasma treatment, Gileads drug which is showing some promising results, and Oxford efforts for a vaccine will be the keynotes to the market in May.

The month of May will be crucial for India as cases surpassed 35,000 marks, although the doubling rate is quite good as compared to the earlier weeks.

Officially the lockdown will end on 3rd May, and the government is taking various steps for easing the lockdown and focusing on improving the economic conditions. So any stimulus package or confirmed vaccine is the key things to watch out in May.

Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy (MSEPP) had published a paper studying the infection pattern of different countries like China, Australia, and New Zealand said that most of the states in India might stop reporting the new cases by 7th May and a whole country by 21st May.



If the market continued the rally and sustains above 9,750, we can expect it to break the next resistance level at 10,000 which is the crucial resistance level for Nifty and next level at 10,300, and on the downside, the support levels will be 9,700 and 9,500. Q) What is your call on banking and auto stocks which have run up quite sharply in the week gone by? A) The domestic markets settled positive on 30th April, which was supported by buying in financial, IT, auto and metal stocks. On the sectoral front, the Nifty Auto index was up 6.45 percent. Investors took positives from the news that India may attract $1.3 billion in passive flows as the country has moved into a new regime in which the FPI limit has been increased to the sector foreign limit. Indications of easing of lockdown measures and stimulus hopes helped drive the markets. Short covering and roll-overs in the market also contributed to the gains. Global markets today rallied after early results from US-listed Gilead's trial of its drug Remdesivir showed on 30th April, it helped speedy recovery from the illness caused by the Coronavirus. The risk of a correction has increased in the near term after the strong rally this week. Investors should keep this in mind and trade accordingly. Nifty has good resistance near the 10,000 mark. Close 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 Related stories BSE Realty Index clocks 204% growth amid COVID-19; outperforms other sectoral indices

An Island Nation Covered in Ash Now Worries About a COVID Intrusion

Oxfam | Key takeaways from the new report on economic equality The Nifty50 has support near 9500  9600 zones. The Nifty Banks resistance is coming near 22000 - 22300 zones, and it has support in the 20250  20700 zones. Q) What are the important factors which investors could track in this week and in the month of May which could dictate the trend for markets? A) Niftys movement this week will be driven by the way forward for resumption of business after lockdown, an announcement of any stimulus package, and stock-specific earnings results. India is expected to roll out a stimulus package to help mitigate the damage from the crisis. The market has rallied 25 percent in a straight line and the future outlook is not going to be the same and things will not start improving in a straight line even after the lock-down is removed. So one needs to be careful about his positions and the sectors he/she has invested in. Q) What is your view on Tech Mahindra and HUL which came out with results on Thursday? What should investors do- buy, sell or hold? A) Tech Mahindra posted nearly 29 percent less profit than Q4 last year mostly owing to environmental changes and disruption due to COVID-19. A dividend of 5 rupees per share has been declared and therefore sending positive vibes on the street. The slowdown in economic activity is bound to impact IT industry however it could be seen that firm reported increased revenue than quarter ending March 19 which is a good sign and with the current trend of remote working and growing reliance on digital operations it is expected to see growing business opportunities for IT sector.
In the race to provide the ventilators needed to treat COVID-19, several companies have developed new devices. But there may be a simpler approach. Formlabs has received an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA to 3D-print small adapters that can turn existing sleep apnea machines into ventilators. Formlabs is now shipping the adapters throughout the US and hospitals can print their own.

The small, plastic T-shaped adapters were developed by Northwell Health, New York's largest healthcare provider. They were used to provide life-saving care to COVID-19 patients in New York City. Thanks to this EUA, other hospitals can now 3D-print the adapters and use them with existing bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP) machines.

Formlabs' 3D-printed adapters convert sleep apnea machines into ventilators.

For hospitals that might not be able to print their own, Formlabs is using 150 3D printers at its Massachusetts headquarters to print the adapters. Once production is fully ramped up, the company expects to print up to 3,000 parts per day.

Formlabs EUA for BiPAP adapters signifies the need for these components and 3D printings' unique ability to fill that need. 3D printing enables rapid iteration and prototyping of new, innovative medical equipment, while expediting the production process, shortening supply chains, and allowing for localized manufacturing, said Max Lobovsky, Formlabs CEO and co-founder.

Lobovsky noted that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA had only authorized a handful of EUAs. In March, Abbott received the rush-approval for its toaster-sized lab-in-a-box, and recently, NASAs ventilator design was approved through the fast-track authorization.

While companies from Tesla to Dyson and NVIDIA have explored new ways to manufacture ventilators, pivoting manufacturing to make the devices is difficult and requires a lot of expertise. Plus, all ventilators have to clear regulatory hurdles and require creating new supply chains. Solutions like Formlabs adapter and right-to-repair efforts to prolong the life of existing equipment may be more practical.
The latest order from Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which makes it compulsory for all private and public sector employees to use the Aarogya Setu app, has raised red flags on not just privacy protection but also on the legality of the order. The order puts onus on employers to ensure 100 per cent compliance among employees. Any violation of the directive is penalised under Disaster Management Act, provisions of IPC and other legal provisions (including Epidemic Diseases Act in the current context).

Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital liberties organisation, recently sent a representation to the Prime Minister's Office co-signed by 45 organisations and over 100 individuals expressing concerns over violation of privacy of workers and transparency, among other issues. The letter was also sent to Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Electronics and IT.

Backed by the government, the Aarogya Setu app has been rolled out by the National Informatics Centre. It has over 50 million downloads so far, according to Google Play Store .

Legality of the order

Legal experts believe that the move to make the app mandatory has no legislative backing. "The Union Government's attempt to make Aarogya Setu mandatory has not been done in any way that is legally known," says Alok Prasanna Kumar, Senior Resident Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. While the instructions to employers are vague and unclear, the same cannot be a base to impose criminal or civil liability on employers or employees for non-compliance. Further, given that Aarogya Setu is available only on smartphones and 60 per cent Indians do not have one, it is unclear on whom the obligation is being imposed, he adds.

While privacy concerns around data collection and data management are important, the provision to make it mandatory can only be imposed by an authority of law. "These aspects can be addressed once it's clear what is the legal base behind making the app mandatory for citizens," says Kumar.

Internet For Freedom points out the same concern, especially in the context of health data, while citing Supreme Court's verdict on right to privacy in 2017. "The judgement in Puttaswamy (Privacy) emphasised on the need for a data protection legislation to ensure that personal data was not used to discriminate against individuals on the basis of their health status. The Court further went on to note that the government may collect and process health data of individuals during epidemics to design appropriate policy interventions but such data must be anonymised."

With neither a data protection law in place nor a legislative backing to make the app mandatory, the corollary to it is again the concerns around transparency and security and data management.

Lack of transparency and security concerns

Minister for Information and Technology Ravishankar Prasad took to twitter, saying that the app was globally appreciated. "Aarogya Setu is a powerful companion, which protects people. It has a robust data security architecture."

While the government says the intention of the Bluetooth-based app is to protect and prevent the spread of COVID-19, Bengaluru-based advocate and a signatory to IFF representation, Vinay K Sreenivasa points out that the self-assessment feature defeats the purpose and is 'counter-productive'. "The app relies on users to update symptoms if a carrier is asymptomatic. It gives a false sense of security . From a public health point of view, it is disastrous," he says. He further adds that people might bring their guard down in public places with the false sense of security that app might provide, which is dangerous.

Data researches point out that 'consent mechanism', a crucial part of data protection, has been thrown out of the window. IFF representation makes an important mention around the lack of algorithmic liability. "The Terms of Service for Aarogya Setu exempt the government from any liability arising out of mis-identification of an individual's COVID-19 status. Therefore, individuals are left at the mercy of opaque algorithms which perform risk assessment and do not have any remedy in case of false positives. If gig and platform workers were falsely identified as high risk individuals by Aarogya Setu's algorithm, they would be required to self-isolate and lose their income and freedom of movement," reads the representation.

Srinivas Kodali, an independent researcher working on data and governance, points out that since the source code of the app is not publically available, it is difficult to verify the purpose for which the app is used. "Countries like Singapore have done it, where the app, its source code and the protocols that they are using have been made publicly available. Why can it not happen in India?" he questions.

Also read: Coronavirus: Aarogya Setu-like solution for feature phones in pipeline, says govt

Also read: Coronavirus crisis: Aarogya Setu app now mandatory for all central govt employees
Today is #GivingTuesdayNow, and I will observe it by pledging to be a Taker. Let me explain.

Giving Tuesday is typically the first weekday back at work after the long Thanksgiving weekend, and it feels a little strange to move it to today. But even though we may not have the holidays on the horizon, I believe that moving Giving Tuesday to address the COVID-19 crisis is a brilliant idea. It adapts an existing system to respond to a crisis, something we will need to do a lot of in the coming months. Bend, dont break. Use what you have, change what you can.

An important system that needs to adapt by using what we have is our food supply. I am privileged to serve on the board of the new Kenosha County Food Bank (https://www.kenoshacountyfoodbank.org), born from an alliance between UW Extension and our local food pantries.

Food banks help communities address the twin problems of meeting needs and minimizing waste, and we are facing a chapter in which the problem of waste is going to be harder to solve than the problem of need. Normal supply chains have been disrupted. Massive quantities of food are flooding warehouses and rotting in fields, the result of a system that, among many challenges, has trouble repackaging for individuals the food that would normally go to restaurants and schools.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has instituted a new Farmers to Families program to support farmers as demand shifts; part of the federal funding package will be used to pay warehouse workers to package boxes of food, in consumer portions, to be given free to individual households. Locally, I am pleased to know that our Wisconsin products are targeted too as our partner from Milwaukee County, Hunger Task Force, is working to redirect the flow of Wisconsin farms to Wisconsin families.

These boxes of free food will not be tied to government commodity programs that require proof of income; they will be provided both through the existing pantry system and also at other locations in a trailer-to-trunk delivery method. They will be provided to all of us, regardless of income, in quantities that ensure that many more people are fed than can typically be fed by our food pantry system.

These new sources of free food have not arrived in Kenosha yet, but they are coming soon; and through our partnership with Gordon Food Service, we may begin to see free boxes of meat, dairy, and produce arriving within a couple of weeks. How can we as a broader community get ready to accept it on a very large scale? Thats where being a Taker comes in!

Beyond minimizing waste, just imagine the impact if thousands of people accepted the free food that pandemic disruptions will soon make available? And for Giving Tuesday, what if these same Takers use the money they saved on food purchases to contribute to non-profits or small businesses in crisis? Thats adapting an existing system for everyones good. Bending without breaking. Using what we have.

If youre ready to decide to accept free food, then you have some available funds to donate today! The #GivingTuesdayNow website allows you to enter city and state to find organizations receiving donations. (https://www.givingtuesday.org/whats-happening-near-me) The United Way of Kenosha County (https://www.kenoshaunitedway.org) has links to the regional 2-1-1 relief system and a Forum for local mutual aid that they are preparing for #GivingTuesdayNow.

This year has given us the chance to do our civic duty in ways we never considered before, so watch for and take the free food! Use it before it goes to waste! For once, there is such a thing as a free lunch!

Join me and pledge to become a Taker so that we can be better, more thoughtful, and more targeted Givers for GivingTuesdayNow and beyond.

Cameron Swallow, a former school teacher, is married to John Swallow, president of Carthage College in Kenosha.
The first known patient of a cluster of 34 confirmed coronavirus cases at an abattoir in Melbourne's west wasn't aware he was infected until he had emergency surgery on a severed thumb.

Two dozen staff at Sunshine Hospital were sent home after the worker from Cedar Meats in Brooklyn tested positive for COVID-19 in the days following his admission for the workplace injury on April 23.

Cedar Meats in Brooklyn. Credit:Simon Schluter

It is one of the largest clusters of COVID-19 in Victoria, which reported a total of 1406 cases as of Monday  a single-day increase of 22.

In a strange twist, Cedar Meats had recently exported 35 tonnes of mutton to Wuhan in China, where it is believed the virus originated.
A small grocery store in Toronto's west end, owned by a couple in their 70s, has been helping residents cope during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing in the process that they're most definitely essential.

The owners of St. John's Variety  Tina and Kostas Bottis  have kept their doors open throughout the pandemic, making it possible for residents to get much needed supplies without venturing out of their neighbourhood. The store is located at 431 St Johns Rd, near Jane St. and Runnymede Road.

Residents have noticed. On Sunday, they plastered the windows of the store with signs that read: "Thank you for being there for your neighbours," and "You are the Best."

"I think in this particular situation we're just that more thankful for them keeping their store open," said Heidi Hunter, who has lived in the area for 10 years.

"They're in a higher risk category themselves and they continue to serve the community."

CBC

The Bottis's are both in their 70s and have been operating the store for more than 38 years.

"When we moved here 10 years ago I remember the people who sold the house to us, on the list of things to kind of look out for, [they had] Tina and Kostas on that list," Hunter told CBC News.

"[They said] 'here are some gems in the neighbourhood' and they've been such a support to us ever since."

'We're just forever grateful'

Hunter recalls the couple giving out "massive chocolate bars" at Halloween, and always keeping their store stocked with anything residents need.

"Both my husband and I are on immunosuppressant drugs, so having the basic groceries at Tina and Kosta's store is wonderful," Hunter said, adding that the joke in the community is that the couple will have whatever you need.

And if they don't have it they go out and get it for you.

"One of their wholesale vendors closed their doors during this pandemic, so instead of closing their doors so Tina and Kosta went out themselves to get the products that that wholesaler had provided to them," Hunter said.

Story continues

"On a personal note, it's a huge value to my husband and I, and we have a family of three young children, and we're just forever grateful."

Mark Bochsler/CBC

After posting several handmade posters on the store Sunday, the residents gathered on the opposite side of the street and cheered for several minutes after Tina and Kostas emerged from the store.

"It's very emotional and I thank everybody for the love and support given to us," Tina Bottis told CBC News.

"[The people] are like family to us  I love them like my family, my kids."

'We go through it together'

Tina Bottis said she and her husband have watched children from the neighbourhood grow into adults. Even if they move away, she said they always come by to say hello.

She is aware they are in a vulnerable category for the virus because of their age, but added it was more important to them to keep the store open.

One area resident, who asked to remain anonymous, paid for a Plexiglass shield for the cashier area to protect the elderly owners.

"We try to support the community for the difficult times. We go through it together, and [stay] open [so] they can buy milk, bread and anything," Tina Bottis said.

"They support us and we support them. The nice cards, they make us happy."

The couple's daughter, Angela Bottis, said her parents, who are originally from Greece where they were farmers, moved to Canada in the 1960s.

She said her parents worked many jobs before purchasing the store in the early 1980s. "It was their dream to come here and have a better life and provide a better life for myself and my brother," she told CBC News.

"So, a day like today makes me extremely emotional because I see all of their hard work come to light [because of] their kindness and their dedication to this community.

"The warmth and the compassion from this community, the families here are just so supportive. It's very much like family," Angela Bottis added.
Le Khanh Lam - Partner and head of Tax and Consulting Services RSM Vietnam

In order to establish how to measure this, you have to start with agreement among the head of the function (the chief audit executive or CAE) and stakeholders (primarily the audit committee) on the role and the objectives of the audit.

According to the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the definition of internal auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve operations. It helps an organisation accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes.

Internal auditing is effective if it provides the audit committee and executive management with the assurance they need, namely that they can rely on the organisation's processes and systems to manage risks to the achievement of its objectives. That means providing assurance on the risks that matter to the company today, in a form and timeframe that is useful. Additional value is provided through the role of internal auditing as a change agent, making recommendations for improvement that are embraced and acted on by management.

How do you put a value on assurance? You will be less worried about the difference in quality and taste of the food at King BBQ restaurants in different places because you know that each restaurant must strictly follow the quality process and ensure the consistency of the taste of food when joining the franchise of the King BBQ restaurant chain.

How much would you then pay, as a board member or top executive, for assurance that the processes and systems that you rely on to run the business are working properly  assurance that is so reliable that you dont even think about it?

It is hard to put a value on peace of mind, but that is the greatest value an effective internal audit function can provide. The only way to determine whether an internal audit is effective is to ask the stakeholders whether they are comfortable that they are receiving the assurance they need on the risks that matter to them and to the organisation. Then you start looking at additional value that is provided.

Lets examine some traditional measures and discuss their value and relevance for a hypothetical group (see table). At first glance, this looks like an effective internal audit department.

This department completed 95 per cent of the engagements in its audit plan. But, if that was an annual audit plan then this may be an indication that they continued to remain glued to their plan even when risks changed. They failed to audit what matters now. Instead they blindly continued to audit what used to matter.

When you have a flexible audit planning process that adjusts to changes in the organisations risk profile, percentage completion is meaningless.

An increase in audit findings does not indicate productivity. An effective internal audit department will, over time, contribute to the improved maturity of governance, risk management, and internal control systems  such that exceptions and so-called findings will diminish.

When 80 per cent of recommendations are accepted and implemented, 20 per cent are not. A 20 per cent defect rate is abysmal. Was the audit getting the recommendations wrong? Were they not accepted because they didnt make good business sense? Or was the internal audit not able to persuade management to effect the change?

When you have a defect rate of 20 per cent, the quality of the audits and reports are called into question. Frankly, the acceptance rate should be above 99 per cent.

Cost savings of VND5 billion (nearly $217,400) are excellent, but only if they are not delivered by diverting resources from essential assurance activities to efforts to demonstrate that the internal audit adds value. Too many businesses have focused on the latter but failed to address critical risk areas such as ineffective risk management, poor information to support decision-making, and governance issues.

Staying within budget is very good. But, internal audits should be prepared to go to the audit committee for additional funds if new or changed risks emerge. Budget limitations are not a valid excuse for failing to engage and address unanticipated high risk areas.

Passing the IIAs quality assurance review (QAR) is all well and good, but it is not a guarantee that the department has delivered the necessary assurance and consulting services. Many departments have passed the QAR but failed to audit risk management, or to report the lack of risk management to the audit committee.

The CAE should propose measures and metrics that support an assessment by the audit committee and top management that internal audit has been effective.

There are several questions that should be asked to stakeholders at least annually:

* Do you believe the internal audit has provided you with the assurance you need?

* Has the internal audit been sufficiently responsive to changes in risk, ensuring it remains relevant?

* Has it been a positive agent for change, improving business efficiency and effectiveness?

* Are you satisfied that the cost of the internal audit is less than the value of the assurance and consulting services it provides?

* Are there activities that the audit should stop performing and have there been activities you would have preferred not to pay for?

* How can an internal audit improve its services to the audit committee, management, and the organisation as a whole?

In general, assessing the effectiveness of internal auditing should not only focus on the figures achieved and the key performance indicators set; you need to review, consider the changes and maturity of the business, and take into account the needs of stakeholders.
They are the most simple of pleasures: visiting family, suburban sport on the weekend, the backyard barbecue with friends. For weeks, such pastimes have been curtailed by social distancing but there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel. The curve has been flattened, the pandemic suppressed at least for the time being.

But the easing of restrictions is no simple matter. While states and territories were in lock step going into lockdown, it has splintered on the other side. Some have already taken the foot off the pedal, easing restrictions on travel and the ability to socialise. Victoria has opted for a more cautious approach. It has not been without friction. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan lashing out at Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews for not opening schools quick enough was a case in point.

The national cabinet will meet this week in an effort to find some consensus. There is no shortage of real-world experiences to draw from. While infection rates are spiking in nations such as Russia and Brazil, others such as South Korea, China and Denmark are experiencing some real relief after weeks in lockdown. There are lessons to be learnt.

While some younger people are celebrating with gusto, taking the chance to fully enjoy the new-found freedoms, many are taking a more cautious approach. A possible second wave is a real possibility. Still others are struggling to stay within the new limits, wanting to stretch their new freedoms.

Australia has seen glimpses of this when some restrictions have eased. Opening beaches is sure to attract a crowd, although hopefully less so with the arrival of cooler weather. Shopping centres are starting to fill again. A sunny day makes the stay home message harder to hear. But that seems to be the exception, not the rule. The weeks ahead will test that resolve.
Scientists have called for labeling to warn the public about levels of arsenic in rice, after their research found half of rice varieties studied exceeded maximum limits on the deadly toxin.

In a study published in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (open access), a team at the University of Sheffield's Institute for Sustainable Food found 28 out of 55 rice samples sold in the UK contained levels of arsenic that exceeded European Commission regulations for rice meant for the consumption for infants or young children.

The research is the first to measure differences in human health risks from arsenic using a substantial number of rice varieties marketed in the UK.

The results showed that brown rice contained higher levels of the carcinogen than white or wild rice because it contains the bran - the outer layer of the grain. Meanwhile, organically grown rice was found to contain significantly higher levels than non-organically grown rice. White rice contained the lowest levels of arsenic.

Considering the health implications, the researchers concluded that babies under the age of one must be restricted to a maximum of 20g per day of the 28 rice varieties that breached regulations, in order to avoid risks of developing cancer in later life.

They have recommended that the UK government and European Commission introduce labelling to clarify whether rice is safe for consumption by babies and children under five.

Up to 90 per cent of UK households buy rice, with the average person consuming around 100g per week. Rice and rice-based products are widely used for weaning and as baby food, due to their nutritional benefits and relatively low allergic potential - but, according to the European Food Safety Authority, children are two-three times more susceptible to arsenic risks than adults due to their lower body weight.

Arsenic, which is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, is water-soluble - so it accumulates in rice, which is grown in flooded fields more than other cereals. Arsenic exposure affects almost every organ in the body and can cause skin lesions, cancer, diabetes and lung diseases.

Dr Manoj Menon, Environmental Soil Scientist in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield and lead author of the study, said:

Brown and wild rice are healthy foods full of fibre and vitamins, and there is no need for grown-ups to avoid them - but it is concerning to see so many varieties sold in the UK breaching food safety regulations." Dr Manoj Menon, Study Lead Author and Environmental Soil Scientist, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield

"Rice products are often considered a safe option for babies and young children, but our research suggests that for more than half of the rice we sampled, infants should be limited to just 20g per day to avoid risks associated with arsenic.

The government and the European Commission must introduce labelling to warn people of arsenic levels in rice to enable families to make informed food choices."

The research was funded as part of the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Food Network+.

The network brings together more than 750 international and multidisciplinary researchers from across the agri-food sector to work with experts from STFC's research facilities, all with the aim of solving some of the world's greatest food sustainability challenges.

Until April this year, the network was led by the University of Manchester. This is now being led by academics at the Institute for Sustainable Food.

The Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield brings together multidisciplinary expertise and world-class research facilities to help achieve food security and protect the natural resources we all depend on.
At Rockland, like at other hospitals, supplies of personal protective equipment have been a flashpoint. On March 27, the executive director of the facility, Janet Monroe, emailed the staff: We had a call from our central office where now we are required to account for PPE inventory and use daily, she wrote, adding that the center will not be giving out masks as a daily routine. Instead, infection control nurses would guide how such equipment would be used.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

FMCG company Marico on May 4 reported a massive 50.6 percent year-on-year fall in consolidated profit to Rs 199 crore, impacted by a coronavirus-led shutdown of operations in the last week of March and higher base in a year-ago period.

Profit in the corresponding period last year was at Rs 403 crore. There was an exceptional loss of Rs 10 crore during the quarter and tax writeback of Rs 188 crore in year-ago quarter.

Therefore, on a like-to-like basis, the consolidated (adjusted) profit stood at Rs 209 crore for the quarter, down 2.8 percent compared to Rs 215 crore in Q4FY19.

During the March quarter, the company said it had recognised an impairment loss of Rs 10 crore towards goodwill arising out of South African Hair styling brand ISO Plus acquired through its subsidiary Marico South Africa (PTY) which was disclosed under exceptional items.

Consolidated revenue from operations in Q4FY20 dropped 7 percent to Rs 1,496 crore compared to the same quarter previous fiscal, with volume degrowth of 3 percent in domestic business.

Domestic revenue in Q4 declined 7.6 percent to Rs 1,146 crore and international business degrew by 5.1 percent to Rs 350 crore YoY.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) declined 4.1 percent year-on-year to Rs 282 crore in the quarter ended March 2020.

But EBITDA margin expanded to 18.85 percent in Q4FY20 from 18.27 percent in Q4FY19 due to lower raw material cost, advertising and sales promotion expenses, and lower employee cost.

"As a result of COVID-19 outbreak, the operations were temporarily disrupted at manufacturing, warehouse and distribution locations of Marico India. Further, International businesses were also temporarily disrupted with many of the territories experiencing partial or complete lockdown in the last week of March 2020," Marico said in its BSE filing.

Find All Earnings Related News Here

During the last week of March, the group could register sales largely in the edible oils and foods portfolio, which fall under the essential goods category, it added.

"Impacted by rural slowdown, saturation in hair oil and intensified competition in edible oil category, Marico has been witnessing de-growth in sales over last two quarters," ICICI Direct said.

"With lockdown into effect from March 22, these problems seem to have escalated for the company further impacting its financials. Though Saffola has managed to post robust growth during the quarter, we believe with lockdown situation prevalent in May 2020 in many parts of India, Q1FY21E would also remain negatively impacted for the company," it added.
(TNS)  North Dakota has emerged as a top state for coronavirus contact tracing -- a key component in states' public health strategies to combat the pandemic.reported last week that North Dakota -- population 762,000 -- is the only state to meet an estimated need of 30 contact tracers per 100,000 people. North Dakota contact tracing administrator Vern Dosch said 352 people have been trained on the techniques of finding people who have been close to someone with COVID-19.Of those, 77 contact tracers are active in North Dakota. As many as 500 total could be trained, including 100 North Dakota State University health professions and emergency management students in coming weeks."Robust contact tracing" is one of eight priorities of the governor's "ND Smart Restart" for rebuilding economic activity."It's better that we have the most contract tracers and not need them, than not have them and need them," said Gino Jose, regional field epidemiologist with the state Department of Health, which assigns cases for contact tracing.Local public health nurses and public health and nursing students are doing tracing, aided by a new database to quicken the process."It can take several hours to get through everybodys contacts if there are several of them," Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health Director Renae Moch said. Sometimes the work goes late into the night.About 15-20 registered nurses and environmental health specialists have been involved with the health unit's contact tracing for Burleigh County and other communities when help is needed.Custer Health in Mandan has six staff who are doing contact tracing and case investigations, Director of Nursing Jodie Fetsch said. They've recently been assisting Fargo and Grand Forks cases as Morton County's new cases have slowed.Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health has been in touch with more than 100 people in the process, Moch said.By phone, tracers interview people who have tested positive and then find their close contacts, or people who were within 6 feet of them for more than 10 minutes. Interviews can take 45-60 minutes as they walk through the onset of symptoms and their activities for the previous 14 days and provide guidance on isolation and quarantine, Moch said.People reached by contact tracers can be surprised or scared or expecting the call, she said. Each person on average has two to five close contacts, who are told to monitor themselves for symptoms and contact a health care provider if any appear.Interviewees have been mostly cooperative, Moch said. To aid their efforts, tracers have reached out to employers, family and friends of people who have tested positive, she said."Just trying to remember everywhere they've been, if they've been to the grocery store, work, child care, different things like that," Moch said.More than 29,600 smartphone users have downloaded the Care19 app to log their presence at locations for 10 minutes or longer, which also will aid contact tracing. The voluntary, anonymous app has not yet been utilized for location data.Dosch said the app's developer is working on "the functionality" to use location data, which could be implemented by Tuesday or Wednesday. North Dakota's Information Technology Department is working on an interface for the data to come into the new database.In the meantime, people can still use the app to keep track of their whereabouts, Dosch said.Users must consent to releasing their tracing data with a randomized ID. The app will be a time-saver for contact tracers' inquiries of people's whereabouts, Moch said.Contact tracing "is very time-intensive," Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health community health nurse manager Theresa Schmidt said. People can make a difference by practicing social distancing and being aware of where they've been, she said.Household members of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 must quarantine for 14 days or face a class B misdemeanor, which carries a fine of up to $1,500. Additionally, COVID-19-positive people "must cooperate with the efforts of state or local health authorities to contact other exposed people," by order of State Health Officer Mylynn Tufte.North Dakota's priority on contact tracing has been so successful because of time dedicated to training and daily meetings with tracers and case managers, Jose said.Contact tracers undergo five to six hours of training, including software programming, sign a nondisclosure agreement and must adhere to federal health privacy laws.Good relationships among local public health units and health care facilities across the state also have helped boost contact tracing efforts, said Kelly Nagel, director of systems and performance at the state Department of Health and lead contingency planner for the state's Unified Command during the crisis.People have wanted to help, she said, from local public health staff to volunteers of the Medical Reserve Corps, who raise their hand to assist in emergencies.Lutheran Social Services is assisting health department officials with contact tracing efforts for people who speak English as a second language. Refugee resettlement staff with the nonprofit were trained last week to provide translation for workers during interviews with health officials, according to Shirley Dykshoorn, vice president for senior and humanitarian services for LSS.Gov. Doug Burgum said a goal of contact tracing is speed, to call people who have tested positive within four hours. He called thestory a good piece of national reinforcement for North Dakota."We're managing for capacity, not headcount," the governor said.
As schools reopen in the fall, they should have clear procedures for closing again if the coronavirus re-emerges in their area, a new report says. And they should be prepared to cooperate with local health authorities to track factors like student absenteeism, fevers, and family health conditions to help trace the path of the pandemic and stop its spread.

The Blueprint for Back to School, released Monday by the American Enterprise Institute, says state and federal leaders should also be prepared for another atypical school year, quickly providing regulatory flexibility around issues like seat time, graduation requirements, and procurement rules to allow schools to continue operations in unpredictable circumstances.

And, because a coronavirus vaccine may not be available for at least 18 months, schools reopening plans should also prepare for changes to the 2021-22 academic year, the report warns.

We understand the enormity of these burdens, the report says. This is a moment when all of useducators, families, and communitiesmust find ways to ensure that children get back the schools and connections so important to their young lives. When schools get the green light to go, they must be ready. That work starts now.

As nearly every state in the country closed its schools for the remainder of the school year, the right-leaning think tank worked with former state education chiefs, federal policymakers, superintendents, and charter school network leaders to make recommendations about how and when those buildings should reopen.

The blueprint was coauthored by AEI visiting fellow John Bailey, a former policy aide in the George W. Bush White House, and Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies, who also writes an opinion blog for Education Week . It builds on some underlying assumptions:

Schools will remain closed until the 2020-21 school year with potential two- to four-week rolling closures after classes start to slow the spread of the virus.

Reopened schools will work with local health officials to take new precautionary measures, like physical distancing in classrooms and student temperature checks to screen for illness.

One in five teachers and one in four principals are over 55, which means they are at higher risk from the virus and in greater need of accomodations to protect their health. Others with underlying conditions may also need such accommodations. [See a separate recent analysis of this issue here .]

.] Policymakers and educators need to think long-term, preparing for possible changes to operations for the next two academic years.

When to Reopen

The plan links to existing guidance on when schools should reopen and when they should consider closing, compiling documents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a previous report from AEI, and the White House.

The White House guidelines include gating criteria to govern reopening, like consistently 14 consecutive days of declining rates of flu-like symptoms and documented cases of the coronavirus, and adequate hospital capacity. The guidelines call for three phases of reopening for businesses, schools, and workplaces, with school buildings that have been shut down remaining closed in the first phase. That means states would have to see 28 days of declining virus rates for schools to reopen, and even then, they would have to take some extra precautions.

Governors, who ultimately make decisions about closures , should consult education leaders and the public in those decisions, the AEI report urges. And school reopening should be considered in the context of greater easing of virus mitigation efforts so that it makes sense amid relaxed rules for businesses and other organizations.

Because the closure decisions are ultimately out of schools hands, states should help pay for the fallout, providing resources to help them continue instruction, the report says. That urging comes as states project dramatic drops in revenue and schools brace for accompanying budget cuts.

Coordinating With Health Officials

Schools should plan to work with local health officials to help trace the path of the virus and determine which teachers and students might need to be isolated or tested, the report says.

Schools should also prepare for possible reporting of other health indicators, such as student absenteeism, students who present a fever, or students whose parents or guardians have been diagnosed with COVID-19, it recommends.

Those protocols should be clearly communicated to the public with student privacy in mind, it says, urging more federal guidance on privacy laws and coordindation between agencies. [Read about March guidance from the U.S. Department of Education on the coronavirus and student privacy .]

Meeting New Needs

Schools should use the lessons they learned through remote learning in the spring to prepare for possible future uses when they resume in the fall, the report says, even completing drills to prepare for sudden shifts to remote learning. And those plans should accommodate students with various needs, like English-language learners and students with disabilities, to ensure equity.

Education leaders need to create plans to assess students learning loss, the report says. It suggests administering canceled spring tests from the current school year in the fall to gauge students needs. And it urges the continuation of state testing next school year.

Schools should also prepare for logistical challenges in areas like transportation, meal service, and operations to accomodate new social distancing protocols, the report says. And they should be prepared to face new social and emotional needs students may face after extended time away, even considering one-on-one screenings to measure the effects.

The report has specific recommendations for a range of other issues, including staffing, attendance, and academic supports. You can read the complete Blueprint for Back to School here.

Contributors to the recommendations include former District of Columbia schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson; Carrie Conaway, a lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Education and former chief strategy and research officer at the Massachusetts education department; former Kentucky Education Commissioner Wayne D. Lewis Jr.; former New Mexico Education Secretary Hanna Skandera; Nina Rees, the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools; and former Louisiana State Superintendent John White.

Image: IStock Photo/Education Week

Follow us on Twitter @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Politics K-12 reporters @EvieBlad @Daarel and @AndrewUjifusa .


An Iowa man's search for a Laredoan's family is over after a viral Facebook post circulating social media reached the Gateway City.

On Friday, Waterloo, Iowa's Zach Medhaug posted a message on social media searching for the family of a good friend and co-worker, Jose Ayala. According to an Associated Press report, Ayala, who hails from Laredo, is currently on a ventilator at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics after catching the virus a month ago. He is currently medically paralyzed, but may still be able to hear.

Medhuag said that every morning, the doctors don't expect Ayala to live another day.

"But every day he makes it to the next day, defying everyone's expectations," he said.

Over 1,200 miles separate Waterloo, Iowa and Laredo, Texas, but it only took a day for the message to reach Laredo's ears.

Within hours of the post, Medhaug began getting calls on his cell phone, with Laredoans reaching out, eager to help. Before too long, the Laredo Police Department would also reach out to him, giving him valuable information that would help him get in contact with Jose's brothers, sisters, father and more. According to Medhaug, the Facebook post has over 15,000 shares.

"I did not expect this response," Medhaug said. " It was awesome to see how tight knit the community is down there; to see how much support poured in to help Jose."

Medhaug met Ayala through their workplace at the Tyson meat plant in Waterloo. According an April 23 report from CNN, 182 cases of the novel coronavirus have been linked to the plant.

While Jose was known throughout the Waterloo plant for being a private person, Medhaug and Ayala struck up a friendship that endured. It was through this friendship that Medhaug learned about his family in Laredo.

When Ayala was stricken with COVID-19, it was up to Medhaug to try to enlist the help of social media to get him in contact with his family.

"I want to send out a huge thank you for the heartfelt support that Laredo has given to Jose and his family," Medhaug said. "During hard times, it makes you feel good that so many people are willing to reach out."

Ayala's family has shown appreciation for Medhaug's search. According to the Iowa man, they are currently making plans to travel to Iowa to meet Ayala's best friend in person. Due to coronavirus restrictions in place at the hospital, it's hard to say if they'll be able to see Ayala himself.

Medhaug said that he'll continue posting updates on his personal Facebook page on Ayala's status. Those who'd like to follow him on Facebook can visit his personal page at https://www.facebook.com/zachmedhaug.
KENT, OH  It has now been 50 years since the date some have said the Vietnam War came home. It was May 4, 1970 when four students at Kent State University were shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard during a protest of the war on campus.

"We were gathering in the center of the campus by the student union building and chanting '1, 2, 3, 4 we don't want your f***ing war,'" remembers Steve English, who was a junior theater major at Kent State that year. English was part of a number of groups on campus protesting both the war and the National Guard's presence on the campus.

"We were chanting. No one was doing anything violent, but all of a sudden out of the blue there were gunshots. And everyone scattered," English, who is now a flower shop owner in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood and uses the "she/her" pronouns, said.

"I was in a state of shock," she said. "I ran, and the shots stopped very quickly. I was standing 10 feet away from one of the kids (who was killed) and you could see bodies everywhere. The professors were hysterical, telling us all to go to our dorms."

Steve English, owner of The Blossom Boys flower shop in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood, was at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 and witnessed the shootings. Photo by Diego Martirena

The Kent State campus is a hilly one, and with the large group of about 3,000 scattering from the gunshots English said the scene "looked like a bunch of ants scattering, running as fast as they could, up and down the rolling hills."



What looked like "ants" were people. As the thousands gathered that day, four people were killed by the barrage of what's been estimated to have been nearly 70 shots fired in less than 20 seconds. Alison Krause and Jeffrey Miller were protesting, while Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder were bystanders, a History.com description of the event states. Nine others were wounded by the guardsmen who used M1 rifles.

English, now 70, said she did not know any of the students killed or wounded. But at the time of the shooting and immediate aftermath, there was no way to have known for sure.

Story continues

"I could have been shot like everyone else," she said. "But someone with a car picked me up right away. Everyone was getting off campus as fast as they could."

The accounts of why the shots were fired remain in question a half-century later. A spokesman for the National Guard then said there was a sniper who fired at them, but that has not been corroborated.

The May 4 shooting was the culmination of several days of unrest on the campus. A few days earlier, protesters burned down the campus ROTC building. War protests during this week were specifically in response to President Richard Nixon's April 30 announcement of the United States' "Cambodian incursion," an invasion by American troops during a time some were under the impression the war was winding down.

"We believed this was an unnecessary war based on money," English said.

Her visual memory of the crowd of students scattering like ants is accompanied by an iconic image connected to the historical event. A photo taken by John Filo of a 14-year-old runaway girl screaming and crying over Miller's body after he was shot and killed is the signature image of the Kent State massacre.

"That famous photo of the girl screaming, I was six feet away from that" when it happened, English said.

English, who went on to earn a degree in speech and theater from Kent State in 1972, had an art minor in the works at the time of the massacre. The native of Ashtabula, Ohio was in her first year at the main campus after attending a satellite school in her hometown for her first two years of college.

"In those days, in art, everything was very political," she said. "The artists were very outspoken. Many of us wore Army fatigue in protest."

But Kent State, prior to 1970, was "a very conservative teachers' college not known for politics at all," English said.

Massive protests erupted at other colleges and universities across Ohio as well. English remembers hearing about one "incredible" effort at Ohio State University when the students "timed it so that all the toilets on campus were flushed at the same moment so it flooded their sewage system."

"We were a bunch of hippies," she said. "Kids would do subtle protests. Wearing Army gear, holding a tooth brush. Things like that."

After the shooting, the Kent State campus closed for months. And English returned to her home some 80 miles away in Ashtabula.

"I remember going to church back home one day and hearing someone make a comment that 'they should have shot all those communists.'"

But English herself delivered a sermon about what happened at Kent State at the same church another day and remembers "some people walking out."

"Although many did not agree with me, I made people think," she said.

Fifty years later, English is described as a "social entrepreneur," having for many years been a voice for marginalized groups. She's a vocal supporter of animal rights and before the coronavirus pandemic hosted monthly meetings for an LGBTQ group for teen artists and writers.

She says it was the Kent State massacre, more than anything else, that led to that social entrepreneurship.

"I think nothing else in my life has so created my political stance," she said. "I believe that has influenced me more than anything in the world, and probably why I'm a little more outspoken."

During the summer after the shooting, English remembers working at an Ashtabula jewelry store when she received a call from her father.

"He said, 'Stephen English: the FBI just called, and they want to meet with you. What did you do?'"

It turns out the FBI was interviewing anyone they found out was at the scene that day and were "pleasant" to speak to, English said.

Eventually, English and other students returned to school. But the atmosphere would never be the same after May 4, 1970. A memorial at the campus commons remembers the date.

"It was mixed... some were more conservative about their positions but some were more outspoken after it happened," English said, adding that outspoken national political speakers began to take notice of the northeast Ohio school.

"I was home the weekend Jane Fonda came to the campus to talk, and I was so mad that I missed it," she said.

The four who lost their lives 50 years ago were all younger than 21 years of age at the time. But they will forever be remembered in history.

"It was a horrible day, but an important piece of history," English said, citing a song that encompasses the day more than anything else.

Here's "Ohio," by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

This article originally appeared on the Kent Patch
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro accused the United States and Colombia of orchestrating a plan with members of the opposition to have him killed before authorities foiled a maritime invasion and killed eight suspects.

The incident reportedly took place early Sunday morning when the armed group of ten individuals used speedboats to land on a beach in the Caribbean port city of La Guaira.

'The main objective was to kill the President of Venezuela,' Maduro said Monday during a televised speech on state television. 'A terrorist attack in the middle of a pandemic while our people rested one night.'

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro said the United States, Colombia and the opposition plotted to assassinate him Sunday before authorities in the Caribbean port city of La Guaira

Eight more suspects were arrested Monday in Chuao, a village on the northern coast of the state of Aragua. The Venezuelan government announced they individuals were part of a foiled plan to remove President Maduro

Venezuelan security forces escort one of eight individuals arrested Monday in Chuao, a village on the northern coast of the state of Aragua, who were participants of a plot to reportedly overthrow President Nicolas Maduro

According to socialist party chief Diosdado Cabello, two of the attackers were arrested and interrogated by authorities.

Maduro charged that the failed plot, 'Operation Gedeon,' was the latest attempt by the United States and neighbor Colombia to overthrow his government - a claim that has been denied by Washington and Colombian officials.

'We have proof that this group trained in Colombian territory. We have the places where they were trained,' he said.

Maduro accused ex-Green Beret Jordan Goudreau of leading the incursion 'with terrorist mercenaries trained in Colombia to assault Venezuela and try to kill me.'

Juan Guaido, recognized by many members of the international community as the country's interim president, dismissed accusations that the opposition along with Colombia and the United States participated in a plot to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday

Eight members of a group that was reportedly planning to overthrow Venezuela's president were arrested Monday in Chuao, a village on the northern coast of the state of Aragua.

Venezuelan security forces lead one of the eight men arrested Monday for reportedly participating in a plan to kill President Maduro and topple his socialist government with help from the United States and Colombia

On Monday, authorities arrested eight men, who allegedly were also part of the unsuccessful attack, after they were alerted by fishermen in Chuao, a village on the northern coast of the state of Aragua.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Monday denied having anything to do with Goudreau, who claimed responsibility for a deadly beach invasion aimed at arresting Maduro.

The government, meanwhile, said it has mobilized more than 25,000 troops to hunt for other rebel cells.

Guaido said in a statement that he has 'no relationship nor responsibility for any actions' taken by Goudreau, who repeated assertions that Guaido had a contract with Silvercorp USA, the war veteran's Florida-based security company, though he said he was paid only a tiny share of the amount agreed upon.

Security forces patrol near the shore in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela on Sunday

Security forces guard the shore area and a boat in which authorities claim a group of armed men landed in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela

That claim could pose a danger for Guaido, who has been harassed but not arrested in the year since he declared himself Venezuela's legitimate leader, a role recognized by the U.S. and some 60 other nations.

The three-time Bronze Star U.S. combat veteran claims to have helped organize a seaborne raid from Colombia early Sunday on the Venezuelan coast, which the government said it foiled, killing eight insurgents and arresting two others. He said the operation had received no aid from Guaido or the U.S. or Colombian governments.

Goudreau said by telephone Monday that 52 other fighters - including two U.S. veterans - had infiltrated Venezuelan territory and were in the first stage of a mission to recruit members of the security forces to join their cause.

'That's going to take time,' Goudreau told The Associated Press in a phone interview. 'The ultimate goal has never changed - it's to liberate Venezuela.

'Those who assume they can attack the institutional framework in Venezuela will have to assume the consequences of their action,' said Cabello, adding that one of the two men detained Sunday claimed to be an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Authorities said they found Peruvian documents, high-caliber weapons, satellite phones, uniforms and helmets adorned with the U.S. flag.

'They tried to carry out an invasion by sea, a group of terrorist mercenaries from Colombia, in order to commit terrorist acts in the country, murdering leaders of the revolutionary government,' Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in a televised address.

Interior Nestor Reverol said on state television that security forces overcame before dawn Sunday an armed maritime incursion with speedboats from neighboring Colombia

Security forces guard the shore area and a boat in which authorities claim a group of armed men landed in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela

Both Colombia and the United States have repeatedly denied previous Venezuelan allegations of backing military plots against the socialist government.

'We have little reason to believe anything that comes out of the former regime,' said a spokesperson with the State Department Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, speaking Sunday on condition of anonymity, referring to Maduro's government.

'The Maduro regime has been consistent in its use of misinformation in order to shift focus from its mismanagement of Venezuela.'

Colombia's Foreign Affairs Ministry also rejected the claims made by what it called 'Maduro's dictatorial regime.'

Security forces, back, leave a facility in the Macuto, a neighborhood in La Guaira

It claimed the supposed attack was an attempt to distract attention from 'the true problems that the Venezuelan people are living.'

Venezuelan Interior Minister Nestor Reverol described the attackers as 'mercenary terrorists' bent on destabilizing Venezuela's institutions and creating 'chaos.'

Authorities say the attackers had vehicles and heavy arms waiting for them in the port city.

Guaido said the government was seeking to distract from recent violent events including a deadly prison riot on Friday and bloody Caracas gang battle on Saturday night.

A police officer blocks a street in Macuto, a neighborhood in the Venezuelan Caribbean port city of La Guaira. Several attackers were killed and others detained

'The regime is seeking to divert attention with a supposed incident in La Guaira plagued with inconsistencies, doubts and contradictions,' Guaido's press team said in a statement.

Venezuela has been in a deepening political and economic crisis in recent years under Maduro's rule. Crumbling public services such as running water, electricity and medical care has driven nearly 5 million to migrate.

A coalition of nearly 60 nations backs opposition leader Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader, saying Maduro's 2018 election was a sham because the most popular opposition candidates were banned from running.

The United States has led a campaign to oust Maduro, increasing pressure in recent weeks by indicting the socialist leader as a narco-trafficker and offering a $15 million reward for his arrest.

Security forces guard the shore. The group landed early on Sunday on the coast of La Guaira, about 20 miles from the capital Caracas, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in an address

The U.S. also has increased stiff sanctions, cutting off Venezuela's oil sector to choke Maduro from a key source of hard cash.

Ivan Simonovis, a former high-ranking Venezuelan police official who now advises opposition leaders on intelligence strategy from Washington, speculated on Twitter that there might have been a clash between security forces on Sunday and suggested Maduro's government created the story of a plot to justify 'repression against the interim government and any Venezuelan who opposes the dictatorship.'

But in addition to U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure, Maduro's government has faced several small-scale military threats, including an attempt to assassinate Maduro with a drone and Guaido's call for a military uprising, which was joined by few soldiers.

Maduro has overseen a six-year economic crisis that has left many citizens unable to obtain basic food and medicine and forced nearly five million people to emigrate.

The United States and dozens of other countries disavowed Maduro after his disputed 2018 election, which they say was rigged. They instead recognize Guaido, who is head of the country's legislature.

But Maduro retains the backing of the country's armed forces as well as countries including China and Russia, which have harshly criticized the U.S. sanctions.

The Associated Press reported on Friday that an apparently ill-funded attempt to amass an invasion force of 300 men in Colombia involving a former Venezuelan military officer and Goudreau, suffered setbacks in March when a main organizer was arrested, an arms cache was seized and some participants abandoned its camps.

Retired Venezuelan National Guard Capt. Javier Nieto Quintero appeared in a video with Goudreau, urging members of the armed forces to help liberate the nation in an action he called 'Operation Gedeon.'

Nieto, when contacted by AP on a Miami telephone, declined to comment and hung up. Goudreau also declined to comment in a call from Caracas.

Cabello linked Sunday's attack to key players in that alleged plot.

One of the men he said was killed, a man nicknamed 'the Panther,' had been identified as involved in obtaining weapons for the force in Colombia.

Maduro and his allies say the Trump administration is determined to end Venezuela's socialist government to exploit the South American nation's vast underground oil reserves. Maduro remains in power, backed by the military and with international support from Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, speaking on state TV Sunday backed by armed soldiers and tanks units, called the attackers mercenaries who 'don't have souls. They're cowards.'

Guaido accused Maduro's government of seizing on this example of unrest to draw the world's attention away from embarrassing bloodshed in other parts of the country, including a prison riot days earlier that left at least 40 dead.

'Of course, there are patriotic members of the military willing to fight for Venezuela,' Guaido said. 'But it's clear that what happened in Vargas is another distraction ploy.'
Howard Silverman helped found Bristols Spike Island nearly 50 years ago  and now a new board has told him he must pack up his studio and go, in the middle of the coronavirus lockdown. Fellow studio holders and artists from around the world are backing Silvermans fight to overturn the decision, with some suggesting the organisation is intent on squeezing out older, established tenants in favour of younger ones.  The Guardian (UK)
Back in November 1918, the San Francisco authorities thought they had beaten the deadly Spanish flu pandemic that had spread across the globe in only a matter of months. Infection levels in the city had peaked, then dwindled to apparent insignificance.

At the centre of the city a whistle blew, signalling the official end of four weeks of lockdown. Thousands of people tore off their gauze face masks and trampled them as they poured into the streets. Bars and theatres threw open their doors. The revellers ignored official calls to retain those masks.

Then a further wave of flu infections broke out that was far deadlier than what had come before. Ultimately, it left San Francisco with one of the highest death rates in the U.S. by the spring of 1919.

History shows how lethal disease pandemics have a habit of seeming to shrink away  but then returning suddenly in subsequent waves. Chillingly, these latter waves can prove far deadlier.

History shows how lethal disease pandemics have a habit of seeming to shrink away  but then returning suddenly in subsequent waves. Chillingly, these latter waves can prove far deadlier (file photo)

As British authorities try to plot a map for exiting lockdown from Covid-19, infectious disease experts are trying to fathom the deadly coronavirus's next move. Almost all agree on one stark reality: that the infection is bound to re-emerge in a second wave.

Last week, for example, Professor Jonathan Van Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, warned at the Government's daily briefing that the virus will 'absolutely come back'.

But what will that second wave be like? When will it strike? And is there anything we can do to blunt its lethal edge? As one expert  Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading  told Good Health: 'All these vital questions are at best the subject of educated guesswork.'

History does, however, provide us with fearsome lessons, in the form of the pandemics of the Spanish flu and before that, Russian flu, which swept the world at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

Last week, for example, Professor Jonathan Van Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, warned at the Government's daily briefing that the virus will 'absolutely come back'

Most notorious is the Spanish flu in 1918 that infected a third of humanity  500 million people worldwide  and killed some 50 million.

Yet the first wave in spring 1918 seemed like only a more contagious and virulent form of seasonal flu. It spread rapidly through England, France, Spain and Italy.

Mercifully, symptoms such as high fever and sickness tended to last only three days. The mortality rate was similar to seasonal flu, at less than 1 per cent.

Cases fell off during the summer. By August, it seemed the infection had run its course. Instead, the flu mutated into a vicious strain that could kill healthy young men and women within 24 hours of symptoms starting.

As the war drew to a close, thousands of British Empire and U.S. troops returned home, carrying the lethal contagion with them. The Spanish flu pandemic's second wave began.

The global death toll from the second wave is still disputed, though experts generally agree that it claimed around ten times more victims than the first.

The infection was characterised by pneumonia that filled their lungs with suffocating fluid.

Decades later, doctors realised that these symptoms can be caused by a cytokine storm  a vast overreaction in the patient's immune system that wreaks disastrous inflammatory damage to their lungs. Such storms are now considered to be a common cause of death with Covid-19 infection.

The same symptoms had also killed more than 130,000 Britons a quarter of a century previously, in the Russian flu pandemic. The infections also came in waves.

The first wave arrived in Britain in December 1889, killing around 27,000 people  and confining the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, to his sickbed for a fortnight. This wave began to dwindle in February 1890.

The second wave, a year later, proved far deadlier, killing 80,000. Worryingly, there was a third outbreak in 1892, which killed 25,000.

The idea that herd immunity might protect us against a second wave of Covid-19 is dismissed by Mark Honigsbaum, a medical historian at City, University of London, and the author of The Pandemic Century, who says evidence from these flu pandemics indicates that it's not achievable.

SOCIAL MEDIA MYTH BUSTER We debunk the Covid-19 hoaxes circulating online. This week: Using mouthwash will prevent coronavirus One social media post circulating claims 'you can gargle with disinfectant solutions [such as those in mouthwash] that eliminate or minimise the amount of virus that can enter the throat. Doing so removes the virus before it goes down to the trachea and then to the lungs.' This, however, is nonsense, says dentist Sunny Sihra, of Simply Teeth in Essex. 'Mouthwash is an antibacterial  there is no mouthwash I know of out there that is known to kill a virus,' he says. 'Viruses and bacteria behave in completely different ways. Mouthwash is good for oral hygiene in general, but using mouthwash is not going to help with coronavirus  as crucially, it is generally breathed in through your nose into your lungs.' Advertisement

It's currently thought that to achieve herd immunity, where enough people in a community have resistance to a virus or bacterium that it stops spreading. Some 60 to 80 per cent of the population have to have been exposed to the virus and thus developed a natural immunity. But that may simply not be possible with Covid-19, says Mr Honigsbaum. 'Historically in flu pandemics a substantial population of people will already have had some immunity, because they had previously been exposed to influenza viruses that share enough similarities with the pandemic virus for their immune systems to recognise it as an enemy,' he says.

'However, no one has any previous immunity from this new coronavirus because it's not been around before. What's more, we don't know whether people who have recently recovered from it are immune now.'

And as seen in previous flu pandemics, even when large numbers of people are infected, that is still not enough to stop the virus returning in a second wave.

He adds: 'While up to 80 per cent of the population will need to have been exposed to the coronavirus for herd immunity to develop, no more than a third of the UK population has ever fallen ill in a pandemic.' This means that herd immunity seems statist- ically impossible.

Dr Shovonlal Roy, an associate professor of ecosystem modelling at the University of Reading, is equally sceptical about herd immunity to Covid-19 being built up  not least because it appears that the lockdown has stopped most people being exposed to the virus.

'Although we have no confirmed idea of how many people have developed immunity, the numbers seem far too low for any kind of community-level of resistance to have been developed,' he told Good Health.

Indeed, the World Health Organisation reported earlier this month that studies indicate only about 3 per cent of people have been infected so far with Covid-19.

'Lockdown does not eradicate the virus from the population,' warns Dr Roy. 'The moment you lift the lockdown, virus transmission returns. My statistical modelling suggests that a second wave will be more serious, because while the first wave was brought in by only a few travellers from abroad, for the second there will be significant numbers of already-infected people in the UK to spread it in the population.'

As for when that second wave will strike, Professor Carl Heneghan, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, told Good Health he's now certain that it will come this winter.

As for when that second wave will strike, Professor Carl Heneghan, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, told Good Health he's now certain that it will come this winter

'We know that other coronaviruses tend to be seasonal and that respiratory infections in general tend to be seasonal,' he says.

'Moreover, the available evidence suggests that warm temperatures and humidity suppress the virus.

'You can see this by comparing the low infection levels in warm Australia and New Zealand [which last week declared it had almost eliminated Covid-19], with spiralling ones in cold New York and London.

'Some 75 per cent of Covid-19 deaths are in Northern Hemisphere countries at the moment,' adds Professor Heneghan. 'The most plausible explanation is that the contagion is operating in a seasonal way. This was also noted in 2002 with the outbreak of SARS [a similar virus].

'This means that the virus may disappear in July in the Northern hemisphere. As with Spanish flu, it may flip-flop between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere  going south in our summer and coming back again in winter, following the pattern of the cold seasons.'

Professor Heneghan is urging UK authorities to begin opening up the economy as soon as possible to help fight a second wave.

'We should be responding with speed to get society going,' he says. 'I would be opening up sooner rather than later. If our economy is failing as we go into winter, we will have fiscal and logistical problems fighting the virus's resurgence.'

To facilitate an early exit from lockdown, Professor Heneghan stresses that the Government must rapidly increase its rates of testing and contact tracing (which starts by contacting anyone who tests positive for Covid-19, then following up everyone that person was in contact with, and then testing them, too).

An NHS app to do the job is to be tried out initially in the Isle of Wight, with every resident there to be asked to download it this week before it is launched nationally. However, it is not without issues  some have concerns that it may breach people's right to personal privacy, as the Government will have a database on every user's whereabouts.

The app works by automatically creating a list of the people we come into contact with, using the signal on our smartphones to identify other phones nearby. If one of the people on that list becomes identified as infected, the app should notify us immediately.

Meanwhile, the prospect of a winter second wave brings another peril: that it may coincide with the flu season. Both epidemics occurring simultaneously could put 'unimaginable strains' on healthcare systems, Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. health protection agency, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, has said.

Professor Heneghan says that while NHS leaders must urgently plan for the second wave of Covid-19, he adds: 'We must also acknowledge that it is very hard to predict what the second wave will be like. Viruses can attenuate and become much less serious.

'The best thing for us to do is concentrate on what is happening, and what we can do to help victims of the present wave.' Similar advice  that we must accept the deep uncertainty about the second wave and work within it  comes from Professor Clarke.

'The lockdown has not put us into a different place,' he says. 'The virus is just as likely to spread through the population as it was three months ago.

'You need to suppress the opportunities for the virus to spread from person to person. How that is done can only involve educated guesswork.

'The virus has been around for only four or five months, which is a blink of the eye in infectious disease research,' says Professor Clarke. 'The decision to lift the lockdown can't be evidence-based. Instead there will have to be a series of educated guesses.'

Relief from the threat of further waves of Covid-19 infection will only come in the shape of a vaccine. Until it arrives, all we can do in the shadow of the threat of the second wave of Covid-19, should this re-emerge early this winter, is to hope for the best  and prepare for the worst.

As Professor Clarke says: 'It needs to be understood that whatever the outcomes are of leaving lockdown, they are nobody's fault. This is what we are dealing with.'
Harry and Meghan, pictured here in March, stepped back from their roles as senior royals last month. (Getty Images)

Yahoo Lifestyle is committed to finding you the best products at the best prices. We may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are the subject of a new royal biography that promises to let readers into the couples real world.

While Finding Freedom: Harry And Meghan And The Making Of A Modern Royal Family isnt the first royal biography about the couple, it could be somewhat different in that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have reportedly given permission for the book and co-operated with its authors.

The tell-all tome is set for release this summer.

Its no secret that stepping down as senior royals has not come without challenges for the couple, not to mention plenty of rumour and speculation, so the book could provide a platform for them to set the record straight.

Read more: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle volunteer in LA

Harry and Meghan during their marriage in May 2018. (Getty Images)

Though it has not been officially confirmed whether the couple actually sat down for an interview, Harry and Meghan are believed to have cooperated with royal reporters Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand to offer an insight into their side of the story.

Scobie, Bazaar.com royal editor at large, and Durand, a royal contributor to Elle.com and OprahMag.com, are releasing the 320-page book on 11 August.

Scobie, who hosted Yahoo UKs The Royal Story, was one of the journalists invited to Meghans secret final event at the palace, when she met some of the Commonwealth young ambassadors before the Commonwealth Day service.

Publishing house HarperCollins, which owns Dey Street Books, publisher of the biography, released a brief description of the book and what readers can expect.

Read more: Meghan Markles wedding designer reflects on creating the 'secret dress'

The couple pictured at an official visit to Sussex in 2017.(Getty Images)

The books description explains that despite the headlines the couple have clocked up since the start of their relationship, few know the true story of Harry and Meghan.

Story continues

It promises to go beyond the headlines to reveal unknown details of Harry and Meghan's life together, dispelling the many rumours and misconceptions that plague the couple on both sides of the pond.

The description continues: With unique access and written with the participation of those closest to the couple, Finding Freedom is an honest, up-close, and disarming portrait of a confident, influential, and forward-thinking couple who are unafraid to break with tradition, determined to create a new path away from the spotlight, and dedicated to building a humanitarian legacy that will make a profound difference in the world.

Describing the books authors, the book details that as members of the select group of reporters that cover the British Royal Family and their engagements, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand have witnessed the young couples lives as few outsiders can.

Yahoo Style has contacted Dey Street for more details about the book.

Read more: Meghan Markles first post-Megxit interview

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their son, Archie in September last year in South Africa. (Getty Images)

The news comes after the couple stepped down as senior royals last month, and are currently isolating due to the spread of coronavirus at their new home in Los Angeles with their 11-month-old son Archie.

Harry recently confessing to spending the lockdown rolling around in hysterics as he spends time with his son.

The couple have also volunteered to deliver meals to people with critical illness as they settle into life in LA.

According to ET Online, the couple offered their services to Project Angel Food which helps those who are most at risk if they caught coronavirus.

Pre-order the book
China's new supersonic stealth bomber could be ready later this year.

The feared Xian H-20, which doubles China's strike range and completes its nuclear triad, puts Australia, Japan and Korea all within range.

It would mean China would join the US and Russia is possessing a three-pronged military force that can launch nuclear missiles from air, land and sea.

China's new supersonic bomber, the Xian H-20, could be ready later this year, completing the country's nuclear triad (artist's impression)

Beijing has been weighing up when to roll out the bomber amid escalating tensions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Military sources told the South China Morning Post the bomber could make its first public appearance at this year's Zhuhai Airshow in November.

The sources said: 'The Zhuhai Airshow is expected to become a platform to promote China's image and its success in pandemic control  telling the outside world that the contagion did not have any big impacts on Chinese defence industry enterprises.'

Amid an escalating war of words between Washington and Beijing over COVID-19, the bomber could further ramp up tensions by exposing US bases and fleets in the Pacific.

Both countries have increased naval patrols in the Taiwan Strait and the South and East China seas.

The H-20 is a strategic bomber similar to the B-2 or B-21, according to the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

Tensions have been escalating between the US and China over coronavirus which is believed to have started in Wuhan

The US defence department has estimated a cruising distance of more than 5,300 miles for the H-20.

The bomber will be equipped with nuclear and conventional missiles with a maximum take-off weight of more than 200 tonnes.

Another source said: 'Like intercontinental ballistic missiles, all strategic bombers can be used for delivering nuclear weapons  if China claimed it had pursued a national defence policy which is purely defensive in nature, why would it need such an offensive weapon?'

They also revealed that if the US deploys more F-35 supersonic fighter jets, it would push China to bring forward the unveiling of the bomber.

The US has already sold around 200 of the fighter jets to Japan and South Korea.

The H-20 is believed to have been in development since the early 2000s, but the project was first publicly announced in 2016.

China accuses the US of launching 'unprecedented propaganda warfare' and even blames Trump for 'impeding global efforts to fight COVID-19' after the president accused Beijing of cover-up

By Billie Thomson for MailOnline

A major Chinese propaganda outlet has accused the US of launching 'unprecedented propaganda warfare' as Beijing sharpens its rhetoric against Washington amid a diplomatic war over the new coronavirus.

The Global Times, a state-backed newspaper, also blamed Trump for 'trying to impede global efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic'.

The fresh editorial attack came as Trump yesterday said that China had made a 'horrible mistake' and tried to cover-up the coronavirus outbreak.

Hours before Trump's remarks, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed there was 'enormous evidence' to show that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, where the pandemic first emerged in December.

China's President Xi (left, pictured on January 17) is facing widespread doubts that his government has covered up the true scale of the outbreak. Trump (right, pictured on January 15) yesterday said that China had made a 'horrible mistake' and tried to cover-up the crisis

The US has become the country worst-hit by the deadly disease, with more than 68,000 recorded COVID-19 deaths. Pictured, people wear protective face masks as they wait in line to receive free food at a curbside pantry for needy residents in Brooklyn, NYC, on April 24

China's President Xi is facing widespread doubts that his government has covered up the true scale of the outbreak.

As many as 232,000 people may have contracted the disease in China during the epidemic, experts in Hong Kong believe. The figure is four times the official tally released by Beijing.

World leaders, including Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, have hinted their disapproval of Chinese tactics of false information amid the ongoing pandemic.

An internal report from China reveals that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The backlash, led by the US, needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to sources familiar with the document.

'We've said from the beginning that this was a virus that originated in Wuhan, China,' Pompeo said on ABC. 'We took a lot of grief for that from the outset. Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories,' he added

Chinese officials have denied there is any connection between the outbreak and the Institute of Virology in Wuhan. The picture shows researchers working in the lab in February, 2017

The Global Times was blasting Pompeo's claims over the virus's origin when it escalated its war of words against the Trump administration.

The harsh column accused Pompeo of 'bluffing' and continuing to 'fool' the American public.

It said: 'Since Pompeo said his claims are supported by "enormous evidence," then he should present this so-called evidence to the world, and especially to the American public who he continually tries to fool.

'The truth is that Pompeo does not have any evidence, and during Sunday's interview, he was bluffing.

It continued: 'The Trump administration continues to engage in unprecedented propaganda warfare while trying to impede global efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

'The most urgent tasks for international communities are to prevent the virus from spreading and to save lives while restarting the world economy.

'Ironically, Washington has put forth the weakest efforts in accomplishing the aforementioned tasks.'

Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, last Friday accused Trump of 'publicly lying about China'. He wrote in a column 'Why is the American public so easily fooled?'

Trump (pictured on April 30) last week made the explosive charge that the coronavirus - which has killed more than 247,000 worldwide and wreaked havoc on the global economy - might have been created in a Chinese lab. He also threatened to impose new tariffs on China

The article then suggested that Trump and his team were trying to divert the public's attention from their 'incompetent' in the hope of winning the election this year.

It wrote: 'As the US presidential election campaigns are underway, the Trump administration has implemented a strategy designed to divert attention from the incompetence it has displayed in fighting the pandemic.

'It is clear that their goal is to blame China for the pandemic by pinpointing the country as the source of COVID-19.'

Last week Trump told reporters that he had seen proof that suggests the virus originated in the lab, but he did not go into detail.

'If Washington has solid evidence, then it should let research institutes and scientists examine and verify it,' the Global Times asserted in today's commentary.

'Another option would be to have intelligence agencies release a detailed report on the origin of the virus, which would help the White House keep its fabrications moving forward.'

Beijing insists the WHO has found no evidence that the novel coronavirus was manmade.

The pandemic has killed more than 247,000 people and infected over 3.5 million worldwide

A video released by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV in February shows virologists donning spacesuit-like protective gears as they work in the P4 lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Billed as China's 'most belligerent tabloid', the Global Times has been at the forefront of defending Beijing's actions and denouncing the West over its criticism against the Community Party.

It slams the Trump administration nearly every day amid the global outbreak.

The paper's editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, last Friday launched an astonishing attack on Trump, accusing him of 'publicly lying about China'.

Hu admitted that 'some Chinese experts made some misjudgments at the early stage of the outbreak' before quickly pointing his finger at Trump, saying that the US President 'had repeatedly downplayed the risk of the outbreak and brushed aside warnings'.

He continued: 'Then there is the fact that Trump can boost himself in the US and shirk his responsibility for failing to fight the epidemic by publicly lying about China.

'Why is the American public so easily fooled?'

Beijing and Washington have been locking horns in a tit-for-tat diplomatic dispute over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chinese state media intensifies anti-US propaganda campaigns Various other Chinese state media outlets have also intensified their campaigns in stirring up anti-US sentiment. China's state broadcaster on Monday branded Pompeo's remarks over the virus's origin as 'insane and evasive'. Titled 'Evil Pompeo is wantonly spewing poison and spreading lies', the scathing commentary cited WHO executive director Mike Ryan and Columbia University virologist W. Ian Lipkin, who claimed that the virus is natural in origin and was not man-made or leaked from a laboratory. China's CCTV branded Pompeo's remarks over the virus's origin as 'insane and evasive' in a commentary titled 'evil Pompeo is wantonly spewing poison and spreading lies' Pompeo has said there is 'enormous evidence' showing the virus originated in a lab 'These flawed and unreasonable remarks by American politicians make it clear to more and more people that no "evidence" exists,' the commentary said. 'The so-called 'virus leaked from a Wuhan lab' hype is a complete and utter lie. American politicians are rushing to shift the blame, cheat votes and suppress China when their own domestic anti-epidemic efforts are a mess.' Two further commentaries published on Monday by state newspaper People's Daily attacked Pompeo and former White House strategist Steve Bannon as a "pair of lying clowns", and blasted Bannon as a "Cold War living fossil". Bannon last week said on a US far-right talk show that China had committed a "biological Chernobyl" against America and advocated the theory that the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, echoing recent White House rhetoric. Advertisement

The US accuses China of covering up the outbreak, hiding its real origin and taking advantage of the crisis to push its territorial ambitions.

China accuses the US of carrying out 'smear campaigns' and avoiding its responsibilities in containing the disease. A spokesperson has also suggested that the virus might have been brought to Wuhan by US troops.

Trump suggested last night that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe was the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China and that Chinese officials tried to cover it up.

The president continued to point the finger at Beijing and fuelled growing suggestions that COVID-19 spread from a Wuhan laboratory before snowballing into a worldwide pandemic.

His fiery remarks at Sunday's Fox News virtual town hall meeting at Washington's Lincoln Memorial came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was a 'significant amount of evidence' the virus had escaped.

President Donald Trump suggested that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe is the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China

Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the world. The Chinese leader is pictured during a visit to the province of Shaanxi on April 20

Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the global community.

'Well, I don't think there's any question about it. We wanted to go in; they didn't want us to go in. Things are coming out that are pretty compelling. I don't think there's any question,' the president said Sunday.

'Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn't want to admit it,' he added.

His comments came as a Department of Homeland Security report shared on Sunday revealed US officials believe China' intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic in early January and hoarded medical supplies.

The four-page report dated May 1 that was obtained by the Associated Press notes that China downplayed the virus publicly but increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.

The document accuses China of covering their tracks by 'denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data.'

It lends weight to a leaked dossier drawn up by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance which describes how Beijing made whistleblowers' disappear', destroyed virus samples in the early days and scrubbed the internet of any mention of the disease in the early stages.

Dr Yuan Zhiming (pictured), the deputy head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, told CGTN 'there's no way this virus came from us'. He also refuted claims that the virus was man-made

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured) is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Earlier on Sunday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that 'a significant amount of evidence' suggested the virus came from the Wuhan lab.

'I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.

'These are not the first time that we've had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab,' Pompeo said on ABC's This Week.

The US intelligence community said it believes that COVID-19 was not 'manmade or genetically modified' but was investigating whether it was caused by 'an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan'.

However, Chinese officials and scientists have denied that there is any connection between the outbreak and the Institute of Virology in Wuhan that studies infectious diseases, including coronavirus.

Dr Yuan Zhiming, the deputy head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, hit back at the accusations in an interview with state media last month.

'There's no way this virus came from us,' Dr Yuan told CGTN, the English-language arm of CCTV.

'I know it's impossible,' he added.

Dr Yuan said that a manmade coronavirus would be beyond human intelligence as he rejected claims that the virus was artificially engineered.
FILE PHOTO: Logo of Air France KLM Group is pictured on the first Air France airliner's Airbus A350 during a ceremony at the aircraft builder's headquarters of Airbus in Colomiers

By Laurence Frost and Toby Sterling

PARIS/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Air France-KLM's <AIRF.PA> French unions on Monday criticised calls by their Dutch counterparts for KLM to be given greater autonomy, amid signs that a multibillion-euro coronavirus bailout is increasing tensions within the airline group.

"It's an illusion to think KLM would fare better without Air France," the French carrier's unions said in an open letter responding to comments last week by Dario Fucci, head of the KLM works council.

France agreed last month to issue or guarantee 7 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in loans to Air France, with another 2-4 billion pledged to KLM by the Dutch government.

But the rescue package, designed to see the group through the virus pandemic that has crippled the global airline sector, also stoked concern in the Netherlands over possible French nationalisation in a later capital increase.

The French and Dutch governments each own close to 14% of Air France-KLM, which declined to comment on the exchange of barbs between its unions.

In Dutch media interviews, the KLM union chief suggested the relationship between the airlines and the combined Air France-KLM holding company should be loosened in response to the "exploding" debt on the Air France side.

"The prenuptial agreement will have to change," Fucci was quoted as saying in De Telegraaf newspaper. "We want to buy fuel and sell tickets together, but that's the end of it."

The response from Air France colleagues was backed by nine of their unions including the main SNPL pilots' grouping.

"When Air France bought KLM in 2004, KLM was nearly bankrupt," their open letter said on Monday.

Since then, it added, "KLM has experienced exponential growth, taking full advantage of access to the French market, which ... remains one of the largest, most attractive and most lucrative in the world."

The riposte came as Dutch lawmakers were preparing on Tuesday to discuss government plans to contribute up to 4 billion euros in direct and state-guaranteed loans for KLM.

The bailout was announced after Air France-KLM Chief Executive Ben Smith, who has pushed in vain for closer integration between the two airlines, gave up his 2020 bonus under Dutch government pressure.

(Reporting by Laurence Frost, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 5)  President Rodrigo Duterte apologized to businessmen Manny Pangilinan and the Ayala clan for his harsh words that he said to them during his administration.

The COVID humbled me... I am ready to talk and I would be reasonable, to the Ayalas and to Pangilinan, I apologize for the hurting words. If you can find in your heart to forgive me, because if you do not then if you do not want to forgive me I will undercut you I will go direct to God, said Duterte in his taped weekly message that aired late Monday night

Duterte also thanked the business sector in the country for helping them during the COVID-19 crisis.

Id like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping us provide the necessities of the moment, he added.

Shares in Ayala Corporation and Metro Pacific Investments Corporation both rallied on Tuesday, hours after President Rodrigo Duterte's public apology to the two conglomerates after months of tirades over their water concession deals with government.

The AC share price surged by 14.73 percent to close at 642.50, while MPIC enjoyed a 13.55 percent lift that boosted its share price to 2.85 by the closing bell, according to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

READ: Duterte unlikely to sue water firms after apology to Ayala, Pangilinan business groups  Roque

In a tweet early Tuesday morning, Pangilinan acknowledged the sincerity and kindness of Duterte's apology to him.

"I wish to assure him that our group is fully committed to being a partner of the government in addressing the heartbreaking moments of COVID-19 on our people, in building a better tomorrow for them. We are, and have always been here, for the country," said Pangilinan in his tweet.

Pangilinan is the head of the Metro Pacific Group of Companies, where Maynilad is one of its companies.

While Fernando Zobel de Ayala is the chairman of the Manila Water board and his brother, Jaime, is the vice chairman of the water utility company of the Ayala Corporation. The Zobel brothers thanked the President for acknowledging the Ayala Corporations' efforts to support the government's COVID-19 response, vowing continuous help.

"We are committed to help the President tackle the many challenges he has to deal with and are confident that by working together, our country can overcome each challenge, save lives and gradually put the country back on a path of growth," they said in a statement.

Early December last year, Duterte threatened to file a plunder case against Metro Manila water concessionaire companies Manila Water and Maynilad for supposedly entering into onerous agreements with the government.

READ: Duterte to file plunder charges vs. Maynilad, Manila Water

The Permanent Court of Arbitration ordered the government last year to pay 7.39 billion to Manila Water due to the losses incurred by the company stemming from rejected water rate hikes back in 2015.

The PCA also ruled the government in 2016 to pay 3.4 billion for Maynilad's losses from March 2015 to August 2016.

READ: Arbitral court tells PH gov't to pay 7.4B to Manila Water

Nilaro niyo yung Pilipino sa pera... I will pursue this if this is only thing I can achieve in this administration, said Duterte.

[Translation: You fooled the Filipinos with money...I will pursue this if this is only thing I can achieve in this administration.]

Last March 11, the President expressed his willingness to resolve their conflicts with the two main water concessionaires in the country.

Aside from water, both the Ayala clan and Pangilinan have business interests in the energy and infrastructure sectors.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
Researchers found out that a Chinese company called Xiaomi is actually using a web browser loaded into their phones to log in and share users' private data!

According Forbes' recent report, researchers studied a particular web browser loaded into Xiaomi phones and found out that it was actually tracking users' web-behavior.

The web browser tracked down the websites visited and search queries in Google along with everything that pops up on the phones' news feed feature.

To make things worse, Forbes even reported that the researchers discovered that Xiaomi tracks access your private data even if the incognito mode is turned on.

Xiaomi gathers sensitive data

On top of everything, researchers found out that the phone even records what folders do users open as well as what screens users swiped through.

All of the hijacked data Xiaomi gathered from its users proceeds to remote servers that the company owns in Singapore and in Russia. According to the researchers, the collected data in total is more than those gathered from just Xiaomi devices.

The data collection also reached beyond those just who use Xiaomi devices, according to researchers. In fact, Forbes reports that Xiaomi extracts data from everyone using their two web browsers called the Mi Browser Pro and the Mint Browser.

The danger is that Google Play Store actually provides access to both the Mi Browser Pro and the Mint Browser. It is very easy to download these two web browsers and this is quite an uneasy thought.

Forbes reports that the Mi Browser Pro and Mint Browser already have 15 million downloads in total according to Google Play statistics.

Read Also: Microsoft's Surface Book 3 Additional Specs Revealed: Intel Core i7, 32GB of RAM, and Possible Intel Ice Lake-U Processor

Xiaomi's statement on the matter

Xiaomi claims that the data is encrypted but researchers say that the encryption is very weak and that it is very easy to track specific users. Forbes reported that researchers took only a few seconds to decode the encrypted data.

The encrypted data was encoded using a method called base 64. Xiaomi has tried to rebut all the claims by researchers.

Xiaomi still claims that the research claims are not true and that the company provides proper security and privacy because these two matters are at the top of their concerns.

The company also stated that they follow strict laws and regulations when it comes to user data privacy matters. This claim by Xiaomi persisted even when researchers sent a video showing the device recording as well as transmitting browsing data to remote services.

In the demonstration, researchers easily queried the word "p*rn" using the incognito mode and found out that company servers actually transmitted this data.

Huawei experienced the same heat Xiaomi is getting and maybe even more. Huawei is currently silent about the whole matter while Xiaomi is grabbing the spotlight. Could Xiaomi devices be safe to use? Is your data safe?

Read Also: $400 Apple iPhone SE and iPhone 8 Share the Same Parts? Cameras, SIM Trays, and More!
As alcohol shops across the country opened their shutters and saw the light of day for the first time in 41 days since the government imposed a national lockdown, guzzlers across cities broke all social distancing norms and thronged to shops in hordes.

The government's decision to open alcohol shops across red, orange and green zones was met with an overflow of enthusiasm as Indians braved the hot sun and threat of coronavirus to stand in long queues outside shops. Within just a few hours of shops opening, scenes of mass hysteria outside liquor shops flooded social media and news outlets.

The rush for alcohol was such in Delhi that four districts in the national capital had to be shut down within hours of opening to contain the chaos and panic created by crowds baying for booze.

While the Ministry of Home Affairs released a detailed list of rules alcohol shops needed to follow in order to function amid Phase three of the lockdown, it was perhaps naive of the government to assume billions of Indians would follow the advisory.

In all the photos and videos of the mad rush, however, women remained missing from the picture. Hardly a surprise. But let's get to that later.

Home delivering liquor

With respect to the ongoing pandemic, one begs to ask the question - why were liquor shops opened in the first place? If the tanking economy is your answer then consider this - why not home deliver alcohol like other essential items? If governments allow home delivery of liquor instead of opening shops, those queuing up on streets could make the same purchase from inside their homes rather than risking themselves and others with COVID-19.

The idea is not novel. States like West Bengal and Chhattisgarh are already implementing a home delivery system for delivering alcohol to people's doorsteps. Bengal's Excise department on Monday issued an order in which it said the state would encourage home delivery of alcohol in every way possible to facilitate social distancing while allowing the sale of liquor.

Earlier in April, the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC) had also written to several ministers including state heads and health as well as commerce minister to allow the online sale of liquor.

As videos of customers thronging shops across India went viral, many on social media also asked the same question. Why not make alcohol available through home delivery?

Governments can set a limit to weekly or monthly consumption and maintain a tab for each ordering customer to ensure they don't exceed the permitted limit. E-commerce sites, third party delivery services, and state-regulated apps could be used to order alcohol online, even helplines can be set up for the quick and easy delivery of alcohol.

Since the government thinks the best way to revive the economy amid the coronavirus lockdown is to reopen alcohol shops, online delivery of stipulated quantities of alcohol could help avert a potential health crisis.

Alcohol and women

While the end of India's own version of "Prohibition" saw many, many men rejoicing on streets after buying alcohol, or simply standing in long queues to wait their turn, women remained missing from the queues. With a growing number of domestic violence cases amid lockdown, the opening of liquor stores could lead to further aggression and violence against women at home.

Several studies have linked substance abuse to an increase in intensity and/or frequency of violence. Data from the 2004 Global Burden of Disease project showed that over 248,000 deaths annually were attributable to alcohol in some way or other.

India is not new to the women's agitation against the problem of alcoholism in their husbands. The anti-arrak movement in Andhra Pradesh led by rural women led to several regulations and temporary prohibition of alcohol as well.

But one need not go as far back to trace the link between alcohol consumption and domestic violence amid lockdown. The State Commission for Women in Punjab has already raised the issue where the state government has allowed the sale of liquor. The Police helpline in Punjab registered over 700 complaints of domestic violence.

As per the latest figures, cases of domestic violence between February and April 20 increased from 3,287 to 3,993 and daily calls received on the police helpline registered an increase of 34 percent. Gender expert Dr Ritu Lethal from Punjabi University told The Telegraph that at a time when people are "jobless and frustrated, alcohol consumption will only worsen things". She wondered why the government would not delay the opening of liquor stores until the end of the lockdown.

The answer might lie in the Rs 2.48 trillion that state governments together earn every year from excise duty revenues across states. As sales resumed, most state governments have announced tall hikes in excise duties to cope with economic losses caused by the lockdown. In a country that repeatedly puts women in its lowest list of priorities, hoping that state governments would forego revenues to enhance women's safety at home is a far cry.

While home delivery of alcohol and state-controlled limitation on sale could serve as short term measures to curb overcrowding in shops and violence caused due to overconsumption, the government needs to find more permanent solutions that not only ensure social distancing but also take into account the human cost that women must pay to help the economy get back on track.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 18:39:43|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Youth representatives who were on a medical team dispatched to Hubei Province during the COVID-19 pandemic attend a poem recital event held to mark the Chinese Youth Day at Peking University in Beijing, capital of China, May 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping attaches great importance to the growth of young people. Over the years, he has talked with them, exchanged letters and participated in youth events. The following are some highlights of his quotes concerning Chinese youth:

-- Youth shines through hardships; life is elevated through hard work.

-- Young people, together with courageous frontline workers, are risking your lives to fight the COVID-19 epidemic at the forefront despite difficulties and dangers, demonstrating the youthful strength and vigor.

Nurses Liu Guangyao (R) and Qiao Bing take care of a patient at an ICU ward of the Third People's Hospital of Henan in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, April 26, 2020. Liu Guangyao and Qiao Bing are both the hospital's ICU nurses, who are a pair of lovers born in 1990s. (Xinhua/Li An)

-- Chinese youth of the new era should carry on the spirit of the May Fourth Movement and shoulder their responsibility for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

-- The right direction for China's young people today is to work hard with the people and forge ahead with the nation, and to serve the people and contribute to the motherland.

-- The Chinese Dream is a dream of the nation and every Chinese citizen, including young people. Only by integrating individual dreams into the national cause can one finally make great achievements.

People take part in a tree planting activity marking the Chinese Youth Day in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, May 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu)

-- Young people should study hard and absorb knowledge like a sponge.

-- As the most dynamic and creative group of our society, young people should stand at the forefront of innovation and creation.

-- Everybody is young once in their life. Now is the time for you to make the most of your youth; and the future is a time for you to look back on it. 
Gogglebox has been praised for taking the Prime Minister to task over the Government response to the coronavirus crisis.

Contributors on the Channel 4 show mocked Boris Johnson's description of COVID-19 as 'a silent and unexpected mugger', with several pointing out it was 'no surprise' and that 'we could see it coming from China'.

The straight-talking comments were praised by viewers on Twitter, who said the TV stars had their 'fingers on the pulse of the nation' and were speaking for the public by holding the government to account.

It comes after polls published over the weekend indicated the majority of people would not feel safe returning to work or resuming 'normal life', even if the government announces plans to ease the lockdown restrictions.

Boris Johnson's press conference on his return to Downing Street last Monday was among the clips shown to the contributors ahead of last Friday night's episode. Mr Johnson raised eyebrows with viewers when he described COVID-19 as a 'silent and unexpected mugger'

Sophie Sandiford, who appears on the show with her brother Pete, said: 'It wasn't really that unexpected though, was it?' She was among the contributors who questioned Mr Johnson

Twitter users praised the contributors for asking the questions others are thinking

Boris Johnson's press conference last Monday, his first after returning to Downing Street following his recovery from COVID-19, was among the clips shown to the contributors ahead of last Friday night's episode.

Mr Johnson described COVID-19 as an 'assailant' and a 'silent and unexpected mugger' while speaking to press outside No 10.

The comments did not get past the contributors, with Sophie Sandiford, who appears on the show with her brother Pete, saying: 'It wasn't really that unexpected though, was it?'

Izzi Warner, of Leeds, added: 'We saw this coming over the hill from China. So I didn't think it was that much of a surprise.'

Baasit Siddiqui, of Derby, said: 'If we were going to use that simile, that is like a mugger skipping down the street, doing a little dance number and a twirl [saying], "I'm going to mug you!"'

Izzi Warner, of Leeds, pictured with her sister Ellie, added: 'We saw this coming over the hill from China. So I didn't think it was that much of a surprise'

The Siddiqui brothers, of Derby, mocked Mr Johnson for saying it was 'unexpected'

Brother Umar agreed: 'That's like saying Jack the Ripper was unexpected after he murdered his fifth prostitute.'

Twitter users praised the contributors for holding the government to account, with one tweeting: 'It always make me feel hopeful when I see this stuff on Gogglebox.'

Another wrote: 'Love #Gogglebox - showing just what the public are really thinking.'

However other viewers claimed the response was too one-sided against the Prime Minister and criticised some contributors for making personal attacks on Mr Johnson.

The comments were met with praise by viewers who said contributors had their 'finger on the pulse'

It comes after Britain's death toll rose to 28,466 over the weekend. It is now bound to overtake Italy (28,884 deaths) this week, making the UK the new sick man of Europe and the second worst-hit country in the world, behind only the US (65,173).

The outbreak in the UK is two weeks behind Italy's, meaning its daily death and infection jumps are decreasing at a slower rate.

Meanwhile the debate rumbles on about the best way to ease the lockdown restrictions and send the country back to work.

In the Sunday Times, a YouGov poll found that just 25 per cent of adults would feel safe returning to work and oppose reopening schools by 48 per cent to 28 per cent.

And 59 per cent of people polled by the Sunday Express said they would not feel comfortable going out and do not plan to resume a normal life next month.
Apple and Google have warned that different contact-tracing app systems in neighbouring countries may lead to functionality problems.

Company representatives today said that if every country deploys their own app based on different underlying technology, it will make it difficult for interoperability when roaming.

Ireland and the UK are currently adopting different contact-tracing app systems, with Ireland basing its decentralised approach on technology provided by Apple and Google.

The UK, by contrast, says that it will store data centrally.

While it is not yet clear how much the two national apps will differ, Apple and Google are setting out a warning to those who live in border areas or who might need to travel to and from the UK in the near future.

Company representatives today also said that governments which build their own systems are going to have extra challenges in keeping the contact-tracing apps stable and from draining battery life.

The technology enables contact-tracing apps to work using Bluetooth connections to log 14 days worth of contact with other phones that also use the same app. If someone tests positive for Covid-19, they can consent to uploading their anonymous connection list to a health authoritys system, which can then automatically notify the phones that were in proximity through the app.

Users will be able to consent or withdraw consent at any time at multiple stages of the process. The system will not use location data. The HSE has not yet said whether the Irish app will ask for phone numbers.

Last week, Health Minister Simon Harris confirmed that Irelands contact-tracing app would be based on the Apple-Google technology.

The head of the HSE, Paul Reid, has said that the contact-tracing app, being built by Waterford-based Nearform, would be ready by the end of May. It has undergone a series of delays.

Apple and Google say that they will not allow targeted advertising or location services to be used through their technology for a contact-tracing app.

They are also limiting allowance to one app per country, except in the case of countries with regional or state governance levels, to try to maximise the chance of an app getting mass adoption.

Last week, Health Minister Simon Harris said: this will only work if the people of Ireland download it. Otherwise it wont make a blind bit of difference.

Experts say that over 50pc of the population, which means over 60pc of smartphone owners, need to download the app for it to be effective.

Apple and Google also said today that they are working in the long term for smartphones to be able to notify people about possible exposure to Covid-19 without having to download a standalone contact-tracing app.

The two giants say they will add the capability into their operating systems in a later phase, with the companies concentrating first on providing underlying technology that national health authorities might use in their own contact-tracing apps.

It means that people might get alerts automatically as long as they agree to turn on the feature on their phones.
3 1 of 3 Contributed photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Contributed photo / Show More Show Less 3 of 3





LITCHFIELD  Cabot Creamery, part of the Agri-Mark Milk Cooperative, which is owned by dairy farmers from Connecticut, New York and the other New England states, has delivered quantities of yogurt, milk and other dairy products to food pantries throughout Connecticut.

Members of the Litchfield County 4-H and other volunteers distributed the donations. The effort, organizers said, is an expansion of an initial donation on April 22 and has continued, thanks to local volunteers.
Grandparents in Rome embrace their granddaughter for the first time in two months after Italy allowed families to see each other again within the same region on May 4, 2020.

Yara Nardi/Reuters

Italy, France and Spain are all beginning to loosen their stringent, weekslong coronavirus lockdowns.

It comes as all three countries on Sunday reported their lowest coronavirus death and new infection rates in weeks.

These countries are among the hardest-hit in Europe, with Italy being the world's coronavirus epicenter for much of March. All three countries have imposed strict lockdown measures since mid-March.

Now, many aspects of normal life are being eased back in. Restrictions to travel, exercise, shopping, dining, funerals, and working patterns are all being reconsidered or partially lifted.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Italy, France, and Spain  among the worst-hit countries in Europe's coronavirus outbreak  are gradually and cautiously moving toward a return to normal life after weeks of lockdown.

All three countries are going ahead with, or setting dates for, significant easing of some of the world's strictest lockdown measures, which have been ongoing since mid-March.

The relaxation of measures come as all three countries report their lowest death rates and new infection rates in weeks.

A woman exercises in a newly reopened park in Rome, Italy, May 4, 2020.

Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

On the return in Italy: Factory workers, intra-regional rail travel, and bike shops

Italian authorities on Sunday reported a death toll of 174  the lowest ever since the start of its lockdown on March 10, according to statistics website Worldometer.

The country also recorded 1,389 new cases on Sunday, having reported more than 6,550 daily new cases at its peak on March 21.

On Monday, the country also entered "Phase 2" of its coronavirus strategy  a new, more relaxed set of lockdown rules that had been planned since last week.

People in face masks arrive at Cadorna railway station, Milan, Italy, as travel within the same region is allowed without documentation on May 4.

Flavio Lo Scaldo/Reuters

From Monday, people are allowed to:

Visit relatives within the same region  previously impossible in a lockdown that had required paperwork to prove the journey was essential.

Exercise outdoors as long as they practice social distancing, according to the BBC.

Partake in funerals as long as it has a maximum of 15 attendees, according to CNN. (Funerals were previously only allowed the presence of an undertaker and a priest.)

Visit shops selling bikes and scooters, per La Repubblica. (The government allowed these shops to reopen to alleviate high demand on public transport systems.)

Story continues

Four and a half million people  mostly in manufacturing  also returned to work on Monday, according to La Repubblica.

However, schools, cinemas, and most shops will stay shut, the BBC reported.

The government also plans to reopen bars and restaurants by June, according to the BBC.

Shortly before the easing of lockdown Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte urged Italians not to relax too much. "A phase of coexistence with the virus begins, responsibility is needed," he wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday.

A funeral takes place in Catania after Italy's new lockdown easing allows up to 15 people on funerals, on May 4, 2020.

Antonio Parrinello/Reuters

Spanish restrictions eased on elite sports, transport, small businesses, and holiday islands

Spain also started lifting its stringent lockdown on Monday.

It came as health authorities there reported 1,533 new coronavirus cases and 164 new deaths on Sunday, according to Worldometer, marking its lowest-ever number of daily new coronavirus cases and deaths since its lockdown began on March 14.

Here are the new lockdown rules from Monday:

Public transport will start running under strict social distancing rules, with all passengers required to wear a face mask, according to El Pais. (The government is handing out 14 million face masks to help, the newspaper reported.)

Some small businesses are allowed to reopen under strict rules. They can only take one customer per employee, and in some cases, shoppers have to book time slots to enter, El Pais reported.

Restaurants, which previously were only allowed home delivery, can now allow order pickups with a plexiglass barrier, according to the newspaper.

"High-performance" athletes are allowed to train outdoors at any time, while other sportspeople affiliated with clubs are given time slots, the paper reported.

Three of the Canary Islands  a chain of Spanish island territories off the northwestern African coast, which are popular among tourists  have been allowed to ease restrictions even further.

The government has from Monday allowed gatherings of up to ten people to take place, and shops are allowed to open to 30% capacity, El Pais reported.

A hairdresser wearing a protective mask and gloves cuts the hair of a customer at Madrid's oldest barber's shop on May 4, the day Spain eased some of its coronavirus lockdown.

Sergio Perez/Reuters

France to reopen schools, transport and some businesses within a week  if all goes well

The French government is planning to ease restrictions from May 11 if the current encouraging signs continue, according to the BBC.

On Sunday the country reported its lowest daily death toll  135  since March 22, according to Worldometer. The country has been under lockdown for almost seven weeks.

Though the number of daily new coronavirus cases have increased and decreased over the past few weeks, this too is on an overall downward trend. The country recorded 297 new cases on Sunday, according to Worldometer.

A sticker reading "For our common health, leave this seat empty" at Gare de Lyon metro station in Paris on May 2, 2020.

Benoit Tessier

Assuming this continues by May 11, children will return to schools, some businesses will reopen, and people will be allowed to travel within 60 miles, the BBC reported.

Under the current rules, people have to produce a form explaining why they need to leave the house every time they do so.

However, many office workers will likely have to continue working from home well into the summer, labor minister Muriel Penicaud told Franceinfo.

The government will also announce plans for the reopening of restaurants at the end of May, Le Monde reported, citing finance minister Bruno Le Maire.

Read the original article on Business Insider
As many as 1,074 COVID-19 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours, the highest number of recoveries recorded in one day, the health ministry said on Monday.

IMAGE: Health workers clap as COVID 19 patients released after recovery, amid nationwide lockdown at a hospital, in Agartala. Photograph: ANI Photo

Addressing a press briefing, Joint Secretary at the health ministry Lav Agarwal said the recovery rate stands at 27.52 per cent with 11,761 COVID-19 patients cured till now.

In the last 24 hours, 1,074 COVID-19 patients have recovered, the highest number of recoveries in one day, Agarwal said.

He further said the outcome ratio of COVID-19 -- the ratio of recoveries and deaths of closed cases -- was recorded at 90:20.

"The outcome ratio on April 17 was 80:20 which is now 90:10 which can be seen as an improvement," Agarwal said.

Agarwal also said that the COVID-19 curve is relatively flat as of now and it was not right to talk in terms of when the peak would come.

"If we collectively work then peak might not ever come while if we fail in any way we might experience a spike in cases," he said.

Agarwal assured that there is no shortage of testing kits.

"On Sunday, 57,474 tests were conducted. We have progressively increased our testing capacity as per need," he said.

Amitabh Kant, Chairman Empowered Group dealing with civil society, NGOs, industries and international partners, said in 112 aspirational districts, "we worked with the collectors and in these 112 districts only 610 cases have been reported which is 2 per cent of the national level infection".

In these 112 districts, 22 per cent of India's population resides, he said.

In a few districts like Baramulla, Nuh Rachi, YSR, Kupwara and Jaisalmer more than 30 cases have been reported, while in the rest of the places very few cases are there, Kant, who is also the CEO of NITI Aayog, said.

Kant said the telemedicine service is now available on the Aarogya Setu application.

He said 90 million people have installed the Aarogya Setu app till now. "Arogya Setu Mitra which has telemedicine features is also there," he said.

The mobile application helps users identify whether they are at risk of the COVID-19 infection. It also provides people with important information, including ways to avoid coronavirus infection and its symptoms.

"The application enables people to assess the risk of exposure to COVID-19 infection based on their interaction with others, using cutting edge bluetooth technology, and artificial intelligence enabled algorithms," he said.

Kant said the Empowered Group 6 has mobilised over 92,000 NGOs and CSOs and appealed them to assist state governments and district administrations in identifying hotspots and delivering

essential services to the vulnerable including the homeless, daily wagers and migrant workers.
(Photo : Louis Reed on Unsplash) (Photo : Screenshot from: Unsplash Official Website)

A new study on antibodies found in the blood of the South American animal, the llamas, offered some clues on how to fight the dreadful COVID-19.

According to a report on CNET.com, the blood from llamas could potentially unravel new ways of treating COVID-19. Discovering a treatment for the viral disease could reduce the anxiety being felt by people around the world due to the pandemic. The results of the scientific investigation will appear on the upcoming issue of the peer-reviewed journal Cell.

Antibody Bind with the Spike Protein

The researchers provided a detailed description of how unique antibodies found in the blood of a llama can be fused to create a new antibody. The new antibody can bind the spike protein that the coronavirus used to infect cells. They explained that through this method, the antibody could prevent the coronavirus from infecting other cells.

Jason McLellan, a molecular biologist from the University of Texas at Austin, told CNET that it was one of the first antibodies that can neutralize SARS-CoV-2. McLellan is one of the authors of the study.

The discovery was made possible through the help of a four-year-old llama named Winter, who is currently living on a rural farm in Belgium. In 2016, the researchers injected active spike proteins in Winter for several weeks to learn more about the coronaviruses, which are the same virus that causes COVID-19, SARS, and MERS.

ALSO READ: [BREAKING] COVID-19 Update: Japanese Company Claims UV Light Robot Can Destroy Coronavirus in 2 Minutes

ALSO READ: COVID-19 Effect: 'Happy Hypoxia' in Coronavirus Patients Concerns Doctors; Causes 50% Oxygen Drop

With the help of Winter, researchers pinpointed the antibodies that move toward these spike proteins, and they were able to isolate the ones that showed potential in neutralizing the virus. After four years, the llama was still doing well. The study offered is a step closer to neutralizing COVID-19.

Daniel Wrapp, a co-author of the study, described the results of the research as exciting. Wrapp added that they have been working on coronaviruses for years. Wrapp said that back then, it was just basic research since there was no significant need for a coronavirus treatment. But now, he sees that the result of their work could have "some translational implications." In March, Wrapp was also part of the group that created a 3D map of the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

Camelids such as llamas, guanacos, and camels are being used to produce different kinds of antibodies to humans. And a specific type of these is only a quarter of the size of the antibodies found in humans. The researchers believed that these tiny antibodies could be nebulized and used in inhalers.

Findings Not Yet Conclusive

However, the researchers said that the positive result of the study on Winter's blood should be treated with caution. It is not yet conclusive that antibodies are immediately viable as a preventative or cure against COVID-19.

At present, the researchers from the University of Texas in Austin are eyeing to conduct more preclinical studies in other animals such as hamsters or monkeys, to test the result of their llama study further and eventually paved the way to the development of a COVID-19 treatment for humans.

About 3,349,786 people around the world got infected by COVID-19, and a total of 238,628 people have already died due to the pandemic, according to the World Health Organization.

Also Read: COVID-19 Update: Study Shows People With Positive Antibody Tests Are Still Vulnerable To Coronavirus

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 21:37:32|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ISLAMABAD, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said Monday that the government has decided to gradually ease the COVID-19 related lockdown in the coming days as laborers and daily wagers are suffering due to economic hardship.

"Safety-based standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been designed for all the sectors in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 while resuming business activities in the country," the prime minister said while talking to the members of national and provincial assemblies here.

He added that the elected representatives should play their role for implementation of the SOPs.

Khan said the government is providing succor to the downtrodden and underprivileged classes amidst the challenge posed by the novel coronavirus. "Despite many challenges, the government has given an economic package to help the poor segment of the society."

He said the deserving families are getting cash assistance of 12,000 rupees in the most transparent manner.

Pakistani Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar said that about 18 million people in Pakistan are feared to lose their jobs amid lockdown, according to local media.

About 70 million people in the country might fall below the poverty line, and over 1 million small businesses might be wiped out due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, local daily the Express Tribune quoted Umar as having said on Monday.

Umar said the lockdown is also hitting the country's economy hard and the government has suffered a loss of 119 billion rupees due to the restrictions on business activities, in April alone, putting an extra burden on the government that has to run all its sectors including healthcare besides providing relief to the poor, according to the report. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 00:37:53|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

TIANJIN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- With discounts for customers and medics, Renato Pegoraro's restaurant in north China's port city of Tianjin has seen business recovering during the holiday for International Labor Day.

The daily number of diners has grown to 150 to 200 thanks to the holiday tourism, five times the figure in April, said Yang Yue, general manager of Venezia Club Italian Restaurant and Winery, run by 71-year-old Italian Renato Pegoraro and his son.

"The business is much better compared with last month, though it is far from the level of the same period last year," Yang said.

Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the restaurant was closed in late January. It reopened in mid-March as the country worked to resume production along with the effective control of the contagion nationwide.

To attract clients, the restaurant offers 10 percent discount on all dishes for clients and special discounts for medics during the five-day holiday.

"After reopening, we clean everything every day. I think protecting customers is also protecting my business and my family," said Pegoraro.

The restaurant provides sanitizer for customers. All customers need to have their temperature taken, register their personal information, sit a certain distance apart and use serving chopsticks and spoons.

Over the past months, Pegoraro has got used to showing his pass before entering his neighborhood and having his temperature taken in public places.

"These prevention measures are necessary and China has done good work," he said.

Pegoraro and his son Gabriele Pegoraro read news on the internet every day to get useful information. "Here in China the government and the media tell very clearly and very fast about what people must do to stay safe," said the son.

With clear information and strict prevention measures, Pegoraro's family eased their anxiety and concentrated on preparing a new menu. "I worked at home and thought what I can do after we open again and how to attract more customers. I worked with my father on new dishes that Chinese customers probably like in this moment," he said. "I hope we can have as many customers as before."

Pegoraro receives support from the local government. According to a local policy offering rent exemptions to certain small and medium-sized enterprises and individual businesses, they enjoy free rent for three months and a 50-percent discount for another three months.

"Rent is a main part of my business cost and the cut helps me a lot," said Pegoraro.

In the area where Pegoraro's restaurant is located, more than 20 stores and restaurants have reopened.

"My business is here. My family is here," said Pegoraro. Enditem
After a year-long review by the Justice Department, educational publishing giants McGraw-Hill and Cengage have called off their merger.

In separate statements, M-H and Cengage both cited the inability to agree with the government on what assets the companies needed to divest to allow the merger to move forward as the reason for terminating the deal. The companies had hoped to find $300 million in annual cost savings once the deal was done.

Because the required divestitures would have made the merger uneconomical, McGraw-Hill and Cengage have decided to terminate the merger agreement, M-H said. Cengage noted that the deal had been called off due to a prolonged regulatory review process and the inability to agree to a divestitures package with the U.S. Department of Justice. Both companies said neither company will face a break-up fee.

The proposed merger was announced last May 1, and would have created an educational publishing and technology company that publishes materials for the K-12, higher education, English Language Teaching, professional, medical, and library reference markets. Annual sales from the combined companies would have topped $3 billion. The deal had been expected to be completed in early 2020, but had been delayed twice.

In its announcement, Cengage stressed its investments in digital content make it well-suited to meet the growing interest in digital learning, which has been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. On a standalone basis, Cengage is very well-positioned to continue to support the transition to digital and help students save significant money, the company said.

In a statement M-H CEO Simon Allen noted that as a standalone company, M-H will continue to help educators make the transition to online learning.
Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) on Monday said it will launch a digital platform that will educate stakeholders in the small and medium enterprises (SME) ecosystem and have information on coronavirus-related initiatives for the sector.

The platform, 'India SME Services Platform', designed by Sidbi, will give micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) information about starting operations, getting finance or credit enhancement and other support services.

The government can also monitor actions on policies, schemes and programmes for the sector.

Even the regulators can tap macroeconomic trends, compliances, risk management and systemic aspects through the platform.

"It shall have all MSMEs, stakeholders of the MSME ecosystem, financiers, corporates, government, regulators, employees and associations converging on an interactive platform. This will be all at one place and one place for all kinds of initiative," Sidbi Chairman and Managing Director Mohammad Mustafa said in a release.

The platform will have a webpage encompassing a dashboard of all schemes being implemented by the central government, state governments, banks and industry associations.

It will give financiers an opportunity to look for marketplace, documentation support and loan management.

Even industry associations can avail of window for insights and analytics, partnerships and directory, the release said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to India Saud bin Mohammed Al Sati said the Kingdoms investments in India will not be affected despite a fall in Aramco's profits. In an interview with The Hindu, the envoy said that Saudi Arabias plans concerning the investments in India are on track and added that meetings of ministerial committees regarding investment, energy, trade, political and security cooperation would be called soon.

India is one of the fastest growing economies today and also one of the largest. We will continue to invest in India as our strategic partnership continues to deepen in all sectors, Sati was quoted as saying.

In March, Saudi Aramco had reported a 20.6 per cent drop in its net profit for 2019 due to low oil prices and production levels. The energy giant posted net profits of $88.2 billion last year compared to $111.1 billion in 2018, the company said in the statement to the Saudi Stock Market.

On the issue of huge retrenchments in Saudi Arabia in view of the crashing revenues and the possibility of Indian migrants losing their jobs, Sati said that though the country is focusing its efforts on fighting Covid-19, efforts are also being undertaken to ensure that people dont lose their jobs.

It should be noted though, that even in this environment the Kingdom did not announce any intentions to delay any projects. Activities will resume to what they were before the pandemic hit, Sati said.

He added that this would be done throughout all economic sectors as the condition stabilises and the markets slowly open.

On the involvement of Indian medical teams in managing the coronavirus situation in Saudi Arabia, Sati said that is a huge number of expatriates residing in Saudi Arabia, which also includes about three million Indians and added that the Kingdom is offering coronavirus treatment free of cost to all residents in the country, even those who are living illegally.

As for the Indian medical professionals, some of them were on leave when the Covid pandemic hit. We have been working closely with the government of India to ensure that they are able to return to Saudi Arabia, he told The Hindu.

He added that there is a continuation of the medical exports from India to the Kingdom.

Saudi Arabias General Directorate of Passports has also decided to extend the validity of exit and return visas that expire between February 25 and May 24, 2020, at no charge. The extension will continue for an additional three months for them, Sati added.
Social factors drive use of Juul and other e-cigarette products, text-based survey shows, despite widespread understanding by young people of the risks of vaping

They know it's addictive. They know it's linked to dangerous and even fatal lung diseases. And they know it delivers far more nicotine than the cigarettes it's supposed to replace.

But the social aspects of vaping drives young people to use Juul and other e-cigarettes, according to nearly two-thirds of teens and young adults in a new study. Less than 5% say the availability of fruity flavors drives use of e-cigarettes by members of their generation, and only 10% say that addiction does.

The findings, published in a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics, come from a text-message-based survey of teens and young adults between the ages of 14 and 24 conducted by the University of Michigan's MyVoice study.

The survey was conducted before the 2019 epidemic of vaping-associated lung injury, and long before suggestions that COVID-19 might pose a greater risk to people who smoke or vape. It was also conducted before the federal ban on sales of all vaping products to people under the age of 21, and on the sale of fruit-flavored vaping pods, but not vaping liquids.

But it still sheds light on what kinds of messaging and interventions might be needed to reduce e-cigarette use in in youths, says senior author Tammy Chang, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., an assistant professor of family medicine at Michigan Medicine, U-M's academic medical center.

"It's not just about the flavors, it's about understanding the motivations for using these products, and their attitudes toward risk," says Chang, a member of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. "They're more savvy than we think they are, and they're using it because it's about being cool and about the experimentation that happens naturally in adolescence. Reducing teen and young adult use of these products, especially under current policies, will require an evidence-based approach."

Assessing knowledge and attitudes

The survey used "juuling" as the term for the activity of using Juul and other e-cigarettes. It asked a nationally representative sample of teens and young adults four questions, and allowed them to answer however they liked. In all, 1,129 young people answered - 92% of those who have volunteered to receive occasional text surveys from the MyVoice study.

In all, 79% of the respondents said they think juuling is dangerous, and another 7% said it might be. Nearly 72% believe it can lead to use of other substances, including cigarettes and other drugs, and one in four of the rest of the respondents said that people who juul already use other substances.

Georgia Wood, the lead author and undergraduate student at U-M, said: "These findings are critically important because it describes the lived experiences of youth related to Juul, which has been missing. This is the kind of information we need to create policies and programs that work. Youth are depending on us to do that."

"For policymakers and public health officials who want to focus prevention and cessation messages on the health risks, or who think that bans on flavors will be the answer, these data show that ship has sailed," says Chang. "We need to use what we now know about what drives youth behavior, and put teeth behind the enforcement of sales bans as we have with alcohol."

Chang notes that other research has shown that vaping spiked among young people in the past few years, just as smoking of cigarettes had gone down to record low levels. "The message about the dangers of smoking tobacco was just getting through, and then vaping came along and we may now have a whole new generation addicted to nicotine," she says.

Younger vs. older youths

The study broke respondents up by age group. While 14- to 17-year olds were somewhat more likely to have heard of Juul, 84% of the 18-24-year-olds also had heard of it. Young respondents were also somewhat more likely to say that social factors were the main reason that people their age use e-cigarettes, but 58% of older respondents also said this.

The two age groups were about the same in their perceptions of danger from vaping, including nicotine intake, physical health effects and addiction. The same was true for their opinions about whether vaping leads to use of other substances.

Chang notes that more research needs to be done on how to help young people cut down on or stop using e-cigarettes, especially given the fact that nicotine replacement products like gums and patches are not approved for people under 18. In the meantime, young people can talk to health providers about whether those products are right for them.

Future directions

More research is needed on the effects of bans on sales of vaping products to people under 21, and sales of flavored pods, Chang says -- as well as on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to vape shops that sell the bulk liquids used in non-pod devices. So is more research on patterns of cigarette use by young people, after these changes, she adds.

Meanwhile, enforcement of those new rules will become more important, she says.

"As a society, we need to do the baseline job of cutting back on the potential supply of nicotine in all its forms to young people, while allowing adults who use vaping as a means of reducing cigarette use to continue to have access," she says. "We need to focus on penalizing those who sell these products to people under 21, in any setting and any form, so that we can keep an addictive drug out of the hands of adolescents who are naturally seeking to experiment as part of their development."

At the same time, vaping-related messaging to young people as early as middle school should focus on social factors, Chang says. This could include positive identity development that focuses on individual strengths instead of the need to be cool or belong to a social group that emphasizes vaping.

"We need to start our conversations with youth from this perspective - and start it early," she says.

###

In addition to Wood and Chang, the study's authors are Marika E. Waselewski, MPH, of the Department of Family Medicine; medical student Arrice C. Bryant, BA, and Kendrin R. Sonneville, ScD, RD of the U-M School of Public Health. The study is funded by the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research, the U-M MCubed program, and the U-M Department of Family Medicine.

Study: JAMA Pediatrics, doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.0491
New leadership in engineering school

The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has named Rajan Batta associate dean for faculty affairs and diversity, and appointed Francine Battaglia as chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Batta, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, returns to the position after serving as interim dean of the school. He will oversee faculty reappointments, promotion and tenure, as well as growth of the schools diversity initiatives.

I am excited to take on the role of faculty affairs, especially in the exploration of awards and recognition for our excellent faculty, Batta says. I am also excited to help spearhead diversity initiatives, especially in helping improve our women and underrepresented minority numbers for students and faculty.

Kemper Lewis, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, says hes grateful that Batta will return to the role of associate dean for faculty affairs and diversity.

He has done a fantastic job as interim dean in leading the school through unprecedented times, Lewis says. Because of his leadership and vision, I am confident that we stand ready to emerge from this challenging season with renewed strength and momentum, and I look forward to working with him.

An internationally recognized researcher who focuses on using industrial engineering techniques to solve complex logistical problems that benefit society as a whole, Batta has been a UB faculty member since 1984. He has a sustained record of research funding, with more than $13 million in grants from federal and state agencies and private industry, and has published more than 140 articles in the top journals in his field.

An excellent teacher and mentor, Batta has supervised or co-supervised 100 doctoral and masters students. In recognition of his exceptional work, he has received many awards and honors, including the Dr. David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award, the Award for Technical Innovation in Industrial Engineering, and the Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award from the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, the largest professional society in his field.

Batta previously served as acting/interim dean from 2011-12, as well as associate dean for research and graduate education, and chair of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Francine Battaglia, who was serving as acting associate dean for faculty affairs in the school, will now lead the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

It is a great privilege to be appointed the MAE department chair and follow Dean Lewis successes as he led the department towards excellence. He has left an indelible footprint and served as a role model from whom I have had the pleasure of learning these last few years, says Battaglia.

I think a successful department will embrace change and cultivate existing strengths. As chair, I will endeavor to listen, assist, support and make decisions for the department so that everyone can successfully reach their goals with a shared vision of the program and future.

Francine brings outstanding leadership experience and dedication to excellence to the role of chair. Lewis says. I am confident that the department will continue to excel in the years ahead under her leadership.

A professor and expert in fluid thermal sciences, Battaglia joined the UB faculty in 2017 after 10 years at Virginia Tech and eight years at Iowa State University.

Her research explores issues related to the thermal sciences, such as building energy utilization, alternate energy, and turbulent multiphase and reacting flows. She has received $8 million in federal and state research funding, primarily from the Department of Energy.

She is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society of Thermal and Fluids Engineers. She currently serves as editor for the ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering and is a 2019-20 fellow in the Mid-American Conference Academic Leadership Development Program. She has co-authored 130 refereed journal and conference papers, and supervised more than 40 MS and PhD students.

She received her PhD from Pennsylvania State University in mechanical engineering, and her BS (mechanical) and MS (aerospace) degrees from UB.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 22:42:34|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

NAIROBI, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's tea exports hit 44.28 million kilograms in March, the agriculture sector regulator said on Monday.

Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) said in a statement that Kenyan tea was shipped to 46 export destinations compared to 43 markets in March 2019.

"Pakistan was the leading export destination for Kenyan tea, having imported 14.27 million kilograms, accounting for 32 percent of the total export volume," AFA said.

Tea is Kenya's second leading foreign exchange earner after horticulture. Tea exports hit about 113.6 billion shillings (about 1.1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019, according to an annual economic survey published by the government last week.

The agriculture authority noted that other key export destinations for Kenyan tea included Egypt, Britain, Russia, and Poland.

The top ten export destinations, most of which are traditional markets for Kenyan tea, accounted for 86 percent of Kenya's tea export volume.

AFA said the total export volume for the first three months of 2020 was 128.87 million kilograms, compared to 137.21 million kilograms recorded for the same period last year.

AFA added that tea production in March reached 55.73 million kilograms against 26.46 million kilograms during the corresponding month last year.

"Higher production was largely attributed to the onset of the long rain season characterized by high precipitation and sunny intervals that were experienced across the tea growing region areas in the west and east of the rift regions," AFA said. Enditem
Venezuela's leftist government said Sunday it foiled an incursion from the sea, killing eight members of a group of alleged mercenaries bent on "terrorist acts" aimed at overthrowing President Nicolas Maduro. Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the group, which he said originated in Colombia, tried to land aboard fast boats before dawn in the northern coastal state of La Guaira but were intercepted by the military and special police units. "Thanks to the opportune, effective action of our Bolivarian Armed Forces and special police action forces of the National Bolivarian Police, some were shot down and some were detained," said Reverol, speaking on state television. Colombia denied any involvement. Reverol said the group attempted to land on a beach at Macuto, about an hour north of the capital Caracas. A massive air, sea and land search was underway for remnants of the attackers, he said. Diosdado Cabello, deputy leader of the ruling Socialist Party, said later that clashes had so far resulted in "eight people dead and two detained." Cabello said the operation was "orchestrated" by the United States and its Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), with support from its staunch South American ally, Colombia. He said one of those killed was Roberto Colina, a former Venezuelan army officer linked to retired general Cliver Alcala. Alcala, a Maduro critic, hit the headlines in March when he surrendered to DEA agents in Colombia and was flown to New York after he was indicted along with a dozen others, including the president, on drug-trafficking charges. One of the two people detained is a DEA agent, he said. - 'Use of Force' - "We are going to confront this with all the instruments the Constitution guarantees us....with the use of force when necessary to preserve internal order," said Cabello, who is also the speaker of the country's all-powerful Constituent Assembly. Speaking beside him on the steps of the Legislative Palace in Caracas, Reverol said a speedboat used in the raid, as well as 10 rifles and two machines guns, had been stolen from a Venezuelan army depot in April 2019. Venezuela frequently accuses Colombia of fomenting plots to overthrow the Maduro government, and of allowing "mercenaries" to train in its territory. Bogota's foreign ministry dismissed the accusation as an "unfounded attempt to involve the government of Colombia in a speculative plot." The Colombian government of President Ivan Duque has denounced Maduro as a "dictator." The two broke off diplomatic relations between their countries last year. Under Maduro, the once oil-rich South American country has spiraled into the deepest economic crisis in its history, one accentuated by US sanctions and now the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of its citizens have migrated abroad -- many of them to neighboring Colombia -- to escape deepening poverty and repression. But so far, Maduro has weathered challenges to his rule, notably from opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself acting president in January 2019 with the backing of the United States and more than 50 other countries. Guaido claimed the affair was "staged" by the government, to be used as an excuse to "continue the persecution" of opposition figures. According to Reverol, the group planned to carry out "terrorist attacks," including assassination of regime leaders. The plan aimed "to increase the spiral of violence, generate chaos and confusion ... and with that lead to a new attempt at a coup d'etat," he said. The Venezuelan military is undertaking a massive air, sea and land search for remnants of attackers the government described as "mercenaries" Venezuelan Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the "mercenaries" originated in Colombia and attempted to land aboard with fast boats before dawn Diosdado Cabello (R), Venezuela's most powerful politician after President Nicolas Maduro (L), said that clashes with the "mercenaries" had so far resulted in eight dead and two people detained Defense Minister Vladmir Padrino Lopez (c) is heading a military operation to uncover any supporters that the "mercenaries" may have had in Venezuela
We couldnt be more excited to offer our previously planned face-to-face Symposium in a virtual format, said Bonnie Harken, Managing Director at the iaedp Foundation.

For 33 consecutive years, the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (iaedp) has delivered its annual conference, the iaedp Symposium, to provide the field of eating disorders treatment professionals with an innovative and diverse offering of the latest research, education and training, and networking opportunities. 2020 will prove no different with the iaedp Virtual Symposium, but with an added benefit. Since it is a virtual offering, participants who attend online can view and experience every presentation.

From May 15  July 31, 2020, those who have registered for the iaedp Virtual Symposium have the opportunity to earn the maximum 28 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and see and experience all of the Symposium presentations.

We couldnt be more excited to offer our previously planned face-to-face Symposium in a virtual format, said Bonnie Harken, Managing Director at the iaedp Foundation.

One of greatest benefits of the virtual format is that the schedule of previous in-person Symposiums dont apply. That gives all those who register and attend online the opportunity to see and experience every session, continued Harken.

Of course, the Exhibit Hall also will be available virtually, said Harken. So participants have many opportunities through online attendance. It is possible to move at your own pace, and theres no need to stop viewing when CEUs are complete.

The 2020 Virtual Symposium presented by iaedp provides healthcare professionals the same CEUs opportunity that the original in-person Symposium offered, but safely and conveniently online.

About the iaedp Foundation: Since 1985, the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals has provided education and training standards to an international and multidisciplinary group of various healthcare treatment providers and helping professions. MemberSHARE.iaedp.com is an iaedp business journal and online member resource to learn about noteworthy member achievements, continuing education webinars and U.S. and international chapter activity and events; for more information, visit MemberSHARE.

The Presidents Council provides iaedp support and includes: Center for Change; Center for Hope of the Sierras; Center for Discovery; Eating Recovery Center; Willow Place; Laureate Eating Disorders Program; The Meadows Ranch; Rogers Behavioral Health; Rosewood Centers for Eating Disorders; Selah House; The Renfrew Center; Timberline Knolls; Veritas Collaborative; Alsana Eating Disorder Treatment & Recovery Centers; Silver Hill Hospital, Walden Behavioral Care and KIPU.

The 2020 iaedp Symposium is proud to announce Bronze Sponsors: Eating Disorder Recovery Specialists and Transcend ED.
For over five weeks, places of worship have been conducting live services on multiple social media platforms due to closures regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. On Friday, Texas rolled out a soft opening of businesses statewide, and some churches will choose between continuing the virtual services or reopening their doors.

According to the Laredo Stay Home/Work Safe mandate, they will be allowed to conduct their service, but the city recommends to move as many activities to an online/remote platform as possible. Places of worship that do reopen will still need to adhere to the health protocols and guidance from the White House and CDC.

Dr. Benjamin Karner, Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church, said that they are currently looking into the wisest plan of action. While the church still making plans on when to reopen the church to people, it will continue to provide online worship on its platforms.

According to Karner, the First Baptist Church does not want to be responsible for any upticks to the virus curve and is looking for what is best for its congregation, community and gospel witness.

If we are responsible, I think we will find the right solutions on moving forward, Karner said. We are cautioning people that we dont need to rush, and we need to act wisely.

The church has a phased approach plan for reopening which may include an expansion to the online presence and a drive-in church, where people can park their car and listen in to the service, Karner said.

Regardless of when it reopens, the First Baptist Church will continue to provide online worship as it has had an increased reach around the world. Karner said that he has received letters from Oregon and seen French residents tune into the livestreams.

Pastor Norman Howell said the Laredo Church of the Crossroads has no plans to open on Sunday and will remain virtual in order to keep the congregation safe from the COVID-19 virus. He also said that a reason is the difficulty of turning away members after a 25% capacity is reached and would like to see at least 50% of the congregation before considering opening the church.

The body of Christ is not a building, its all of us working together, Howell said. Weve been closer in some ways than we have ever been in prayer chains, groups of men and women connecting through zoom, online prayer, they are doing the work.

Despite the longing for a time without the COVID-19 virus, Howell said that there is an opportunity to create a new normal in a post-COVID-19 world. He hopes for a better society that avoids being self-centered and cares about all the people once the pandemic is over.

He said that he has seen families be together on the regular for the first time, and there is now a bigger concern for teachers and schools.

Howell said that the church celebrated its 36th anniversary in October, and they had never missed a single Sunday. But in 2020, the streak has ended. This proves God has a sense of humor and has laid an interesting season for worshipers, but there is no rush to get back as long as everyone is safe, he said.

St. Patricks Catholic Church stated that the church will not open its doors but will continue to livestream all their masses and adoration on their regular schedule. The church hosts their videos on their Facebook page where it also has additional information about the pandemic at its schedule.

On Friday, Bishop James Tamayo published a letter on Facebook stating that the diocese and its 15 priests of the Presbyterial Council is still in the process of creating of plan to reopen the parishes. Until then, people are still obligated to attend virtual mass from the safety of ones home, Tamayo said.

We are obligated to consider the health and well-being of all in our community; and a special concern are people over 65 years of age, children and persons with underlying health conditions, Tamayo stated.

Christian Ocampo may be reached at cocampo@lmtonline.com
At about 2:40pm of April 17th, a fishing boat from Hoai Nhon district of Binh Dinh found the 52-year-old Filipino, Anding Repil, adrift in a coracle about 180 nautical miles to the east of the provinces Quy Nhon city.



He was later brought to the fishing boat but became exhausted and unconscious.

After being cared, he regained his consciousness and was handed over to the Tam Quan Nam border guard post of Binh Dinh in the mainland.

There, he and the crew of the Vietnamese fishing boat received check-ups. COVID-19 prevention and control measures were also implemented.

Local authorities are carrying out procedures to transfer the Filipino to the Philippine Embassy in Vietnam./.
Increase in profitability and industry-beating performance can be essential considerations in a stock for some investors. In this article, I will take a look at Vishay Precision Group, Inc.'s (NYSE:VPG) track record on a high level, to give you some insight into how the company has been performing against its historical trend and its industry peers.

See our latest analysis for Vishay Precision Group

How Did VPG's Recent Performance Stack Up Against Its Past?

VPG's trailing twelve-month earnings (from 31 December 2019) of US$22m has declined by -6.2% compared to the previous year.

Furthermore, this one-year growth rate has been lower than its average earnings growth rate over the past 5 years of 53%, indicating the rate at which VPG is growing has slowed down. Why is this? Well, lets take a look at whats transpiring with margins and if the whole industry is feeling the heat.

NYSE:VPG Income Statement May 4th 2020

In terms of returns from investment, Vishay Precision Group has fallen short of achieving a 20% return on equity (ROE), recording 9.2% instead. However, its return on assets (ROA) of 6.2% exceeds the US Electronic industry of 5.9%, indicating Vishay Precision Group has used its assets more efficiently. And finally, its return on capital (ROC), which also accounts for Vishay Precision Groups debt level, has increased over the past 3 years from 6.5% to 12%.

What does this mean?

Though Vishay Precision Group's past data is helpful, it is only one aspect of my investment thesis. Companies that are profitable, but have capricious earnings, can have many factors impacting its business. You should continue to research Vishay Precision Group to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for VPGs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for VPGs outlook. Financial Health: Are VPGs operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why weve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the trailing twelve months from 31 December 2019. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

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.
W ith the chance of a summer holiday looking increasingly unlikely this year, were already thinking about our 2021 holidays.

Next year will be the best year for an adventure yet: think ticking off big bucket list items , or simply choosing our vacations more consciously and remembering how lucky we are to be travelling again.

The average UK worker gets around 25 days of annual leave, this means we have plenty of time to play with for holidays next year. But, by booking some strategic days off in 2021, you could more than double 15 of your annual leave days to have 35 days off.

Below is a guide for how to make the most of your annual leave days in 2021.

Easter weekend

Days to book off: March 29, 30, 31 and April 1, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Easter falls early next year, with Good Friday on April 2 and Easter Monday on April 5. Utilising the days around the Easter weekend, Brits can get 16 days holiday by taking just eight days of annual leave - meaning its the ideal time to book your bucket list trip .

Any bank holiday weekend

Days to book off: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after the bank holiday weekend.

Take your pick of the Early May, Spring or August bank holiday and turn it into a week-long jaunt to someplace new. By taking four days off following the bank holiday, you can turn these four days annual leave into a nine-day vacation.

Christmas 2021

Days to book off: December 29, 30, 31.

To get 10 days and two weekends off work next year, youll need to use just three days of annual leave. Christmas falls on a Saturday next year meaning youll just need to take three days off the following week (December 27, 28 and 29) in order to get the full 10 days off - and you wont be back at work until Tuesday, January 4 as the New Years Day holiday falls on a Saturday. If you dont want to work right up until Christmas, consider taking a couple of days off before the festive holiday as well.

For more travel inspiration follow @eslifeandstyle on Instagram or check out the Evening Standard's travel section.
Imperial Valley News Center

Proclamation on World Intellectual Property Day, 2020

Washington, DC - Our Nations history is defined by discovery, ingenuity, and innovation. Americans are known for their resourcefulness and ability to find solutions to a wide range of challenges, including the development of technologies that advance our security, health, and prosperity. This resourcefulness has been a driving force of economic growth and human development since the founding of our Nation, and our future depends on the continued protection of our intellectual property. On World Intellectual Property Day, we renew our resolve to protect and secure the works and innovations of American artists, inventors, and other creators who continually push the boundaries of human knowledge and understanding.

Our Founding Fathers recognized the vital role that intellectual property plays in society and in supporting a robust economy. The Intellectual Property Clause of the Constitution reflects their understanding that laws must be in place to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. More than two centuries later, we remain committed to this idea, upholding and strengthening an intellectual property system that encourages greater American innovation and advances our global competitiveness.

My Administration is building on our Nations history of securing intellectual property rights. In the United States, intellectual property-intensive industries account for nearly one-third of all employment and approximately 40 percent of our countrys gross domestic product, an estimated $6.6 trillion. To support these industries, in January of this year I signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) into law, replacing the outdated and unbalanced North American Free Trade Agreement. USMCA furthers my Administrations pro-growth agenda by establishing ground-breaking protections for trade secrets, strengthening border security, and enhancing trademark, copyright, and patent provisions. These are the most comprehensive intellectual property standards ever included in a free trade agreement. Additionally, earlier this year I signed an Executive Order on Ensuring Safe and Lawful E-Commerce for United States Consumers, Businesses, Government Supply Chains, and Intellectual Property Rights Holders, which is aimed at finding improved ways to protect intellectual property rights holders from an increasing amount of counterfeit and pirated goods marketed online.

The importance of intellectual property has never been more apparent than it is now, as we continue the ongoing battle against the coronavirus. To respond to this national and international emergency, the Federal, State, and local Governments have partnered with the private sector to develop new and powerful tools to combat the spread of the virus and provide care to those in need, focusing every available resource on the fight against the invisible enemy. Relying on strong intellectual property protections, these industries are able to act boldly to invent new tests, begin developing experimental treatments and vaccines, and rapidly produce and reengineer medical equipment to help win this war. These efforts are saving tens of thousands of lives and reflect the unrivaled power of American industry and innovation.

This month, we pay tribute to our Nations long history of ingenuity and advancement, and we recommit to protecting, promoting, and prioritizing a business and economic environment that supports those who carry on this legacy. The pioneering spirit of these artists, authors, inventors, and other creators has improved our lives and the lives of millions of people around the world, and will continue to propel us toward a better future.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 26, 2020, as World Intellectual Property Day. I encourage Americans to observe this day to celebrate the benefits of intellectual property to our economy and our country.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this

twenty-fourth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fourth.

DONALD J. TRUMP
Leading Egyptian developer City Edge Developments has awarded a major contract to Gama Engineering and Construction Services for the development of Phase Two of Etapa project, reported Daily News Egypt.

The project, located in the Sheikh Zayed area of West Cairo, was launched two years ago by City Edge. It is located near The Pyramids and The New Egyptian Museum, and 28 km away from the heart of the Egyptian capital. The city, which includes a large number of residential complexes, most of which are luxurious neighborhoods, provide housing units that vary in type, area and price.



The construction work is likely to start soon and will be completed within a year, stated the report, citing its CEO Mohamed El Mikawi.

"We have been progressing very rapidly with our construction schedule, and the tender issued for Phase Two attracted a large number of leading construction companies in the bidding process," he added.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Anxious to spur an economic recovery without risking lives, President Donald Trump on Sunday insisted that "you can satisfy both"  see some states gradually lift lockdowns while also protecting people from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 60,000 Americans.

The president, fielding questions from Americans in a virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial, acknowledged valid fears on both sides of the issue. Some people are worried about getting sick; others are reeling from lost jobs and livelihoods.

But while Trump increased his projection for the total U.S. death total to 80,000 or 90,000  up by more than 20,000 fatalities from what he had suggested just a few weeks ago  he struck a note of urgency to restart the nation's economy, declaring "we have to reopen our country."

"We have to get it back open safely but as quickly as possible," Trump said.

After more than a month of being cooped up at the White House, Trump returned from a weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for the virtual town hall hosted by Fox News Channel.

The president said of his backdrop: "We never had a more beautiful set than this."

As concerns mount about his reelection bid, Trump stuck to his relentlessly optimistic view of the nation's ability to rebound soon.

"It is all working out," Trump said. "It is horrible to go through, but it is working out."

Many public health experts believe the nation cannot safely reopen fully until a vaccine is developed. Trump declared Sunday that he believed one could be available by year's end.

U.S. public health officials have said a vaccine is probably a year to 18 months away. But Dr. Anthony Fauci said in late April that it is conceivable, if a vaccine is soon developed, that it could be in wide distribution as early as January.

Though the administration's handling of the pandemic, particularly its ability to conduct widespread testing, has come under fierce scrutiny, the president defended the response and said the nation was ready to begin reopening.

"I'll tell you one thing. We did the right thing and I really believe we saved a million and a half lives," the president said. But he also broke with the assessment of his senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, saying it was "too soon to say" the federal government had overseen a "success story."

Trump's impatience also flashed. While noting that states would go at their own pace in returning to normal, with ones harder hit by the coronavirus going slower, he said that "some states, frankly, I think aren't going fast enough." He singled out Virginia, which has a Democratic governor and legislature. And he urged the nation's schools and universities to return to classes this fall.

President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial, Sunday, May 3, 2020, in Washington, co-moderated by FOX News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)AP

Federal guidelines that encouraged people to stay at home and practice social distancing expired late last week.

Debate continued over moves by governors to start reopening state economies that tanked after shopping malls, salons and other nonessential businesses were ordered closed in attempt to slow a virus that has killed more than 66,000 Americans, according to a tally of reported deaths by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. economy has suffered, shrinking at a 4.8% annual rate from January through March, the government estimated last week. It was the sharpest quarterly drop since the 2008 financial crisis.

Roughly 30.3 million people have filed for unemployment aid in the six weeks since the outbreak forced employers to shut down and slash their workforces. It was the worst string of layoffs on record.

The president's advisers have nervously watched Trump's support slip in a number of battleground states and he was presented with polls late last month that, if the election were held that day, had him losing to Democrat Joe Biden. The president's aides believe restarting the economy, even with its health risks, is essential to a victory in November and are pushing for him to pivot away from discussions about the pandemic and onto an American comeback story.

To that, he will begin traveling again, with a trip to a mask factory in Arizona planned for Tuesday. And the grand setting of Sunday night's town hall was meant to evoke patriotism and overcoming national adversity.

Larry Kudlow, Trump's top economic adviser, said on CNN's "State of the Union" that the administration would "pause" to review the effectiveness of trillions in economic relief spending before making any decision on whether additional aid is needed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that state and local governments are seeking up to $1 trillion for coronavirus costs,

The Senate planned to reopen Monday, despite the Washington area's continued status as a virus hot spot and with the region still under stay-at-home orders. The House remains shuttered. The pandemic is forcing big changes at the tradition-bound Supreme Court: The justices will hear arguments, beginning Monday, by telephone for the first time since Alexander Graham Bell patented his invention in 1876.

The leaders of California and Michigan are among governors under public pressure over lockdowns still in effect while states such as Florida, Georgia and Ohio are reopening.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said Sunday that the armed protesters who demonstrated inside her state's Capitol "depicted some of the worst racism" and "awful parts" of U.S. history by showing up with Confederate flags, nooses and swastikas.

Despite the opposition of Michigan's Republican-controlled Legislature, Whitmer has extended a state of emergency declaration and directed most businesses statewide to remain closed. Trump on Sunday night singled out her and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, also a Democrat, for criticism even as he praised the federal coordination with most governors.

Some people participating in other public protests across the U.S. have not kept their distance from one another and have rallied without masks, not heeding public health recommendations.

Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, called that behavior "devastatingly worrisome." She said people will feel guilty for the rest of their lives if they end up infected and unwittingly spread the virus to vulnerable family members.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE and JONATHAN LEMIRE Associated Press
U-Haul is celebrating 75 years of service in 2020. WWII Navy veteran L.S. "Sam" Shoen and his wife, Anna Mary Carty Shoen, conceived U-Haul in June 1945 when they recognized a basic need while moving up the West Coast, having abandoned most of their belongings since one-way trailer rentals did not yet exist.

From that idea, an industry was born and a new level of mobility became attainable for every American family.

To commemorate both anniversaries, U-Haul is celebrating former Team Members and U-Haul neighborhood dealers who served in WWII, such as Alkabo native Vern Olson.

Tank Commander

Olson was born on Aug. 22, 1918, to Harold and Esther Olson. He lived in Alkabo until his teenage years, when his family moved to Aberdeen, Wash. There he attended J.M. Weatherwax High School, and afterward, went to Grays Harbor College.

Olson enlisted in the Army in October 1940. He served in Europe in an armored infantry unit as a tank commander, as well as in the Transportation Corps. As a tank commander, Olson survived three tanks shot out from under him.

One of the greatest feats of the Transportation Corps was the rebuilding of France's shattered railroad network after D-Day. It was also responsible for the transportation of 1,500 locomotives and 20,000 railway cars built specifically for the lighter French track system starting with D-Day+38.

U-Haul Career

Olson's military training in the Transportation Corps proved to be good experience for his later life. After coming out of the Army, he spent four years as branch manager of a truck rental outfit in Los Angeles.

In 1952, Olson joined U-Haul. He served for more than 17 years in many capacities, including traffic and merchandising manager, rental company president, and regional director. Olson passed away in July 1982.

The Shoens started U-Haul upon Sam's discharge with $4,000 of accumulated Navy pay and the courage formed by the cauldron of WWII. With the help of other veterans, the young couple forged their new enterprise from the freedom that victory produced.

Veteran Initiative

Today, U-Haul serves all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces, helping an estimated 11 million families move every year. Olson is one of the many veterans who laid the foundation for the present prosperity U-Haul enjoys.

U-Haul continues to aggressively recruit veterans and gives them preference in the hiring process, having been recognized repeatedly as one of the nation's top veteran-friendly employers. U-Haul is also committed to honoring veterans and supporting veteran causes. This is accomplished through direct assistance to veteran groups, as well as participation and sponsorship of Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades, and Pearl Harbor tributes.

These 2020 tributes will peak triumphantly with the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum's dedication of the renovated Ford Island Control Tower on Aug. 29. U-Haul Pacific Theater veterans' bios and photos will be displayed in the tower lobby. The tower will offer a new elevator, gifted by U-Haul CEO Joe Shoen, providing public access to the observation deck where America's lone WWII aviation battlefield can be revered and our heroes remembered.

U-Haul is one of a myriad of companies built by these incredible veterans, who are to be saluted and remembered during this 75th anniversary celebration. Thank you, Vern.

Find more veteran tributes in the History and Culture section of myuhaulstory.com.

About U-Haul

Since 1945, U-Haul has been the No. 1 choice of do-it-yourself movers, with a network of 22,000 locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. U-Haul Truck Share 24/7 offers secure access to U-Haul trucks every hour of every day through the customer dispatch option on their smartphones and our proprietary Live Verify technology. Our customers' patronage has enabled the U-Haul fleet to grow to approximately 167,000 trucks, 120,000 trailers and 43,000 towing devices. U-Haul offers nearly 697,000 rooms and 60.7 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities throughout North America. U-Haul is the largest installer of permanent trailer hitches in the automotive aftermarket industry, and is the largest retailer of propane in the U.S.

For our COVID-19 information page, click on uhaul.com/announcement.

Contact:

Jeff Lockridge

Sebastien Reyes

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: 602-760-4941

Website: uhaul.com

SOURCE U-Haul

Related Links

https://www.uhaul.com


An employee found guilty in disciplinary proceedings cannot be treated equally with other employees having an unblemished track record, the Bombay high court said on Thursday while upholding the validity of a government resolution (GR) issued by the general administration department (GAD) keeping those punished for misconduct from the purview of consideration for promotion.

To qualify for a promotion, what is least expected of an employee is to have an unblemished record, said the bench of justice SV Gangapurwala and justice Shrikant Kulkarni. An employee found guilty of misconduct cannot be placed at par with other employees and his/her case has to be treated differently, the court added and dismissed a petition filed by Mohan Sangvikar, a sub-divisional engineer with the public works department.

Also read: Conduct RT-PCR tests for Covid-19 frontline warriors, says Bombay HC

Sangvikar had approached Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT) challenging the validity of a clause in a GR issued by the GAD on December 15, 2017, based on which he was declared unfit for promotion to the post of execution engineer. In April 2018, the departmental promotion committee has held him eligible as he was found guilty in a disciplinary proceeding. In November 2017, his increment was ordered to be withheld without any cumulative effect on his future increments.

Sangvikar moved the high court after the MAT rejected his plea in March 2019. He challenged the validity of the GR contending that it was arbitrary, illegal and violative of the constitutional mandate of equality. It was also argued on his behalf that he could not have been denied a promotion, as no disciplinary proceeding was pending against him at the relevant time.

The high court, however, rejected the argument. It said when an officer is found guilty in a departmental proceeding, the imposition of punishment is with an object to improve his conduct and to enforce discipline. Denial of promotion in such circumstance is not a penalty but a necessary consequence of his conduct, said the bench.

The bench noted that the DLC took into consideration that at the relevant time, his punishment was not over. Besides, he had not been debarred for promotion and could be considered after the period of punishment is over in June 2020.

There is, therefore, no discrimination found in the matter of promotion of the present petitioner, said the bench. It cannot be expected from any administration to reward an employee with a promotion during his period of sentence. As such, we do not find any arbitrariness in the decision taken by the departmental promotion committee (DPC).

The bench also held that the policy contained in the GR was in larger public interest, keeping in mind difficulties faced by various departments dealing with such employees.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4) - President Rodrigo Duterte has signed an executive order temporarily raising tariffs on petroleum products to increase funding for the government's fight against COVID-19.

Executive Order No. 113 was signed by the President on May 2 according to the document released Monday.

Under the executive order, imported crude oil and refined petroleum products "shall be subject to a temporary additional import duty of 10 percent, on top of their existing Most Favored Nation and preferential import duties."

"There is an urgent need to augment the governments resources to sufficiently finance the programs and measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 situation and launch the country towards recovery and rehabilitation," the order said.

"This Order shall take effect immediately after its publication, and shall remain enforceable until such time that RA No. 11469 ceases to take effect, or upon the reversion of the modified rates of import duty to zero percent," it added.

The Bayanihan to Heal as One law granted President Duterte temporary special powers, among them the power to realign funds within the national budget for the government's COVID-19 response.

Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado earlier said they are exploring all possible funding opportunities pursuant to the authority granted by Congress to the President.

RELATED: DBM chief assures govt can fund cash aid program

The President ordered the Department of Budget and Management to ensure that the proceeds from the temporary additional import duty are used to fund measures to address the COVID-19 situation, including the cash assistance program and other forms of assistance for all those affected by the crisis.

Meanwhile, Republic Act No. 10863, otherwise known as the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, states that in the interest of the general welfare and national security, and upon the recommendation of the National Economic and Development Authority, the President has the power to increase existing rates of import duty and impose additional duty on all imports not exceeding ten percent.

The coronavirus pandemic has created a global oil crisis, with demand for gasoline and jet fuel stunted as billions of people around the world are forced to stay home.

Under the executive order, the modified rates on petroleum products will revert to zero percent, as international oil prices increase, based on the trigger prices indexed to oil prices in the world market.

"Upon a certification by the The Department of Energy that a trigger price has been reached, and the Department of Finance has been notified about the same, the Bureau of Customs shall then issue the corresponding Customs Memorandum Order to effect the said reversion," the order stated.

The said agencies with the National Economic and Development Authority and Department of Trade and Industry will implement the guidelines for effective implementation, according to the order.
WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - The White House on Monday named three nominees to sit on a board that oversees federal employee pension funds, a move that could see the reversal of a decision to allow one of the funds to invest in Chinese companies under scrutiny from Washington.

If confirmed by the Senate, the three individuals would sit on the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB) which administers the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), a retirement savings fund similar to a 401(k) for federal employees and members of the military.

The three men - Frank Dunlevy, Christopher Bancroft Burnham, and John M. Barger - would join the five-member board where they would serve two to four years, the White House said. The new appointees would replace three members whose terms have expired.

With its own appointees now forming a majority, the White House could potentially win a reversal of the board's 2017 decision to allow the TSP's $50 billion international fund to track an index that includes some China-based stocks of companies accused of human rights abuses, violating sanctions, and aiding the Chinese military.

Among the Chinese companies in the index that have drawn the ire of some in Washington is surveillance firm Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, which was placed on a trade blacklist last year because its technology is used in detention camps for China's Uigher Muslim minorities.

The fund would also invest in telecoms equipment company ZTE , which was penalized by the U.S. government for violating sanctions, as well as aircraft and avionics company Aviation Industry Corporation of China, which provides weapons for the Chinese military.

The move to track the fund was slated to take place in the second half of 2020, but Reuters reported last month that lawmakers and former officials were making a last-ditch push to persuade the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to halt those plans.

When a consultant cited higher returns were possible, the FRTIB decided in 2017 to switch the benchmark for its international stock fund in 2020 to the MSCI All Country World ex-U.S.A. Investable Market Index, which represents 99% of world equities, including Canada, China and other emerging markets.

The board, which has already begun opening custodial accounts for the change, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
MEXICO CITY - Mexicos president said Monday that the U.S. government should investigate its own officials who had ties to Mexicos former top security official, who is currently facing trial accused of taking tens of millions of dollars in bribes to protect the Sinaloa cartel.

Former Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna was known for his close co-operation with U.S. law enforcement during his tenure from 2006-2012.

I think the U.S. government should, now that the investigation has started, get to the bottom of this and also investigate officials from the DEA, the CIA, the FBI who were involved at the time, because there was without doubt co-operation, they worked together, said President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

This isnt just corruption, Lopez Obrador said. This is criminal association between governments, or between government officials, he said, referring to the administration of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon. Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018.

A federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn recently denied bail to Garcia Luna, saying the $1 million bond that the defence proposed would not ensure his appearance on charges he conspired to traffic cocaine and made false statements.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Robotti said Garcia Luna could spend the rest of his life in a U.S. prison if convicted of shielding Joaquin El Chapo Guzmans drug-trafficking syndicate.

Garcia Luna denies the charges and says he intends to fight them at trial.
To ensure that local fashion businesses continue to operate during the Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa, African Fashion International (AFI) has partnered with local designers in the production of facemasks.

The partnership will help fashion designers, and their respective employees (i.e. seamstresses and patternmakers) and fabrics distributors, maintain employment by receiving payment for the production of needed public facemasks. Additionally, all production resources will be sourced from local suppliers.

The project commenced in April 2020 and production will continue depending on the demand and support from corporate South Africa and the general public, said Roshnee Pillay AFI marketing manager.





The mask is produced under the guidelines issued by the Department of Trade and Industry. The mask is a three-ply mask with double polyester fabric on the outside and a mesh backing for moisture absorption, along with a filter. The design elements accommodate both adults and children, as the mask uses adjustable ties at the back.

Bulk purchases of the masks have been made available on the AFI online campaign page. We encourage corporates to support this initiative and procure these general public masks for their employees, as well as their respective CSI initiatives such as youth care centres, elderly homes, schools, universities, creches, or shelters, said AFI in a statement.



Papy Kaluw from Urban Zulu said: What motivated Urban Zulu and I is that the fashion industry is very much in need of being part of the interventions for our country. We can provide some of the essential goods required to fight the pandemic which are the masks. For years we've pleaded for people to buy locally, and now that the country needs the masks it is an opportunity for us to bring in the change that has been spoken about. We as the textile industry and the fashion industry would also be contributing and doing something to aid the pandemic. My biggest motivation is to be at the forefront and help to minimise the spread of the disease for our country locally.





NGOs, that urgently require masks, are also listed on the campaign page for the public to make a donation to and AFI will manage all deliveries to these NGOs. Considering sustainability, this mask is reusable and washable and maintenance directions are provided on the wash care label of the masks.

For all enquiries to place an order or pledge to donate masks, kindly contact moc.az.ifa@eenhsor or moc.az.ifa@gnitekram.


The future of a program aimed at protecting land over San Antonios source of clean water hangs in the balance as COVID-19 forces a delay in seeking expanded public transit and drains dollars earmarked for aquifer protection.

Before the novel coronavirus upended daily and political life in San Antonio, Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff had pushed to reroute $40 million in sales taxes that help pay for the citys Edwards Aquifer Protection Program to instead fund more bus service and other transportation initiatives.

Nirenberg spent months looking for a new home for the popular aquifer program  voters have approved the tax that pays for it four times since 2000  to assure environmentalists and the programs supporters that it would continue in some form should voters decide in November to use those sales tax dollars for public transit.

But the pandemic has put the transit push on hold. Nirenberg told the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board last week that its unlikely the sales tax initiative would be on the November ballot.

With that effort now on pause, the future of the aquifer program is unclear. Advocates had wanted voters to see a proposition on the ballot that would have extended the one-eighth-cent sales tax for the aquifer protection program and linear parks.

The focus on fighting the coronavirus put off a planned City Council vote in April on a Nirenberg-backed proposal to keep the program going with other city money, a move that would have cleared the way for the November vote on the transportation tax.

But the coronavirus-caused downturn in the economy has put a dent in the funds collected for the aquifer program, meaning it wont expire as soon as expected.

Nirenberg is reticent to discuss the future of the transit push or the aquifer program amid the health crisis and its ensuing economic fallout.

We are in the middle of a pandemic response, Nirenberg said in a statement. Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic is an urgent priority. Well address the normal order of business in due time.

Others still have questions.

Im dying to know, said Francine Romero, chair of the citys Conservation Advisory Board, which oversees the aquifer program. It just doesnt seem to me like anybodys been talking about it.

On ExpressNews.com: Push for expanded public transit in San Antonio hits another potential roadblock: COVID-19

The voter-approved one-eighth-cent sales tax generates about $40 million a year to finance the aquifer program as well as linear parks and creekways. About half goes to pay for conservation easements that prevent development over sensitive areas in and around Bexar County that feed into the aquifer.

Since 2000, the program has protected about 160,000 acres to the tune of $260 million.

But coronavirus restrictions on businesses and on residents movements have put a chokehold on retail sales and caused city sales taxes to plummet. City staff projects that San Antonio will lose up to $53 million in sales tax revenue out of the $313 million it expected to collect for the citys current $1.29 billion spending plan.

Separately, San Antonio budget writers expect to lose $6.7 million in sales taxes that fund aquifer protection and linear parks and creekways. Before the crisis, they expected to see $39.6 million in this years budget for the two programs. So far, the city has collected $19.1 million.

Deputy City Manager Maria Villagomez said she expects those losses to extend into next years budget.

In a rather macabre way, the deadly virus has extended the life of the aquifer program, albeit slightly.

Though residents have voted to renew the tax that funds the program every five years, the tax expires only when the city collects whatever set amount of money voters approve. In 2015, voters authorized the city to take in $100 million for aquifer protection and $80 million for linear parks and creekways.

Before the crisis, the city expected to hit those amounts by February 2021, Villagomez said. Now, it likely wont do so until June 2021, she said.

On ExpressNews.com: Troubled Waters: San Antonio weighs the cost of preserving its water supply

Nirenberg had sought another way to pay for aquifer protection before the crisis. He tried to get city-owned San Antonio Water System to take on the program  an idea the utilitys CEO, Robert Puente, was open to if it was done at significantly lower funding levels. SAWS board members raised questions about how much land the utility would have to pay to protect and when the program would end.

Nirenberg then backed a city proposal to continue the program with money it already receives from the water utility. This year, the city expected to get $29.2 million from SAWS for its budget.

The proposal called for spending $109 million on operations and conservation easements over 10 years, about half the current funding. But a city-commissioned study showed that it was enough to meet the citys water needs through 2070.

The City Council was set to vote on the proposal in April  but that was before the pandemic hit.

Henry Cisneros, tri-chair of the ConnectSA transportation plan and a former San Antonio mayor, raised the possibility that the SAWS money that might have been used to continue aquifer protection might not be available, given the pandemic.

It may be that the city feels the water system revenue needs to be used for other purposes, Cisneros said.

The city now expects $600,000 less in revenue from SAWS for this years budget, Villagomez said. But she noted that SAWS dollars wouldnt have gone toward aquifer protection until October 2022.

On ExpressNews.com: Officials: San Antonio should continue managing Edwards Aquifer program, not give it to SAWS

The proposal to continue the aquifer program with SAWS spurred a mini-revolt from environmental groups and backers of the program.

A coalition including members of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance and the Sierra Club put forth their own proposal to allow voters to decide whether to extend the sales tax for two years. That, they said, could generate $36 million a year to be split between aquifer protection and linear parks and creekways.

Doing so would also buy time for Nirenberg and other officials to find a way to pay for aquifer protection at its current levels.

These days, the mood of aquifer advocates is more serene.

Im not really bugging them about it, said Annalisa Peace, executive director of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance. I feel like the city probably has their hands full with the health crisis.

Joshua Fechter is a staff writer covering San Antonio government and politics. To read more from Joshua, become a subscriber. jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports
The main reason why Sanjay Bhagat has carved a niche for himself in the digital world is his consistent performance. Otherwise, it wouldnt have been so easy for someone hailing from a small town, Katra, near Jammu city, to stay in business for the past 6 years and work with such big names in business. Sanjay is a Digital Marketer and Front-End Developer. And he has big dreams for his future.

It was his field expertise that got Sanjay his job with the Line Messenger, a known brand in itself. He had to promote their products and services with such reputed platforms like Ali Express, CarDekho, WeChat, Myntra, UC News, etc. Thus began his long and tedious journey into sales promotion. Along with that, Sanjay also worked on website designing for different businesses like travel, hotel, interior designers.

But as they say Consistent actions create consistent results, Sanjays consistent performance helped him in making the shift from being a computer programmer to digital marketer. And he is enjoying this new phase in professional life.

Unfortunately, in 2013, Sanjay met with an accident and remained bed-ridden for 2 months afterwards. While lying in the bed for so long, Sanjay began to explore the digital world, especially the digital marketing, and stumbled upon his passion for life. He made good use of those 60 days and became an expert in digital marketing.

Today, this digital promotion expert loves to travel and has visited cities all over India and the world. Apart from a number of cities in India, Sanjay has visited outside to places like Malaysia, Indonesia, Dubai, Thailand and Abu Dhabi.

You would be surprised to know that, however, this is not the final career destination for Sanjay. He wants to branch into e-commerce business with setting up his own company by the end of 2020.

He is planning to venture into e-commerce business and by the end of 2020, he will come up with his own company. His website, which is going to go live in a matter of days, Sanjay plans to put everything about his work and his life in one place.

Till then, we wish him all the best!

Disclaimer: This is a company press release. No HT Journalist is involved in creation of this content.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4)  President Rodrigo Duterte blames politicking as among the reasons for the slow distribution of cash aid, in his sixth report to Congress on his special powers to address the COVID-19 crisis.

Duterte said some Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) personnel in some areas have even received threats from local government officials.

Only 64.5 percent of target beneficiaries have received cash aid ranging from 5,000 to 8,000, more than a month since the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act mandated the government to provide financial relief to some 18,000 poor families to cushion the impact of quarantine measures.

Duterte said that aside from politics, there have also been reports of inaccurate lists of eligible beneficiaries, which slowed down local government units in processing cash aid.

Adding to the considerable delay was the postponement of payouts after the exposure of some DSWD staff members to COVID-19 patients and the failure of recipients to observe measures against infection, Duterte added.

The DSWD earlier committed to finish distributing cash aid by the end of April. But as of Saturday, it had only succeeded in distributing financial assistance to around 11.6 million families.

In his report, Duterte said a total of 98.05 billion of the initial 100-billion allocation to the DSWD for cash aid has been released, 54.65 billion of which had already been given to target beneficiaries.
NHLANGANO  A judicial officers duties involve applying the law and to oversee the legal processes in court.



But this particular magistrate based in Nhlangano almost swapped roles in court, after police were tipped off about a gathering around Nhlangano despite the current coronavirus restrictions.

The judicial officer was reportedly picked up alongside the other people he was found with after police officers stormed the place they were at, shortly after 6pm last Thursday.

The officers were deployed to the place after being called by concerned members of the public who heard noise coming from that direction.



Gathered



Information gathered was that the officers bundled everyone into a police van and drove off to the local police station.

It could not be ascertained how many they were.



It is understood that at the police station, the officers spoke with the affected people about what they had been made to believe was a disregard of the rules by government meant to curb the spread of COVID-19 as they had a gathering. Apparently, the group argued that social distancing measures had been observed and that the event was not a party, as the police officers had been made to believe.



It is not clear what was eventually done to the people involved, but sources disclosed that they were let off the hook after paying the admission of guilt fine of E60 per individual. This was reportedly after they were advised to keep to the COVID-19 guidelines, and go to their respective places of abode.



Deputy Police Information and communications Officer Inspector Nosipho Mnguni confirmed that police were, over the weekend, forced to break up some gatherings in separate incidences and from different houses around Nhlangano. She said one particular host was charged after police were able to get hold of 11 people, who had gathered at his place of abode, where they were reportedly enjoying themselves.



According to the police deputy spokesperson, it was discovered that there were others who were able to escape upon the arrival of the police.



Identified



The host, who was later identified as a teacher in one of the schools around Nhlangano, was subsequently charged for breaching the COVID-19 regulations. He appeared at the Nhlangano Magistrates Court, where he was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of E1 000, with the alternative to spend a period of 10 months at a correctional facility. Handing down the sentence was Nhlangano Senior Magistrate Sihle Dludlu.



The educator was able to pay the fine.

Both gatherings came at a time when government had ordered everybody to stay at home, and avoid gatherings of over 20 people. However, police officers continue to be called to attend to reports of parties at different locations across the country as people keep on flouting the rules meant to tame the spread of the dreaded coronavirus pandemic.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 15:57:32|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

- Global COVID-19 cases top 3.5 mln

- Mideast, Europe witness continued slowdown

- Russia sees no signs of abatement in COVID-19 infections



BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Global COVID-19 infections topped 3.5 million on Sunday as Mideast and Europe witnessed a continued slowdown in new cases.

Global cases of COVID-19 climbed to 3,502,126 with 247,107 deaths as of 7 p.m. (2300 GMT), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Some countries have reported new lows for deaths as they tend to ease restrictions, while the situation in other countries remains grim.





INFECTION SLOWDOWN

A health worker checks a man's temperature at a market at Ulus Hali, in Ankara, capital of Turkey, on April 17, 2020. (Photo by Mustafa Kaya/Xinhua)

Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced 61 new deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, the lowest number in over a month. The country's total death toll stands at 3,397. About 1,670 more cases have been confirmed with the total number of infections reaching 126,045.

"For the first time today, the number of healed patients has exceeded our current number of coronavirus patients since March 11," Koca said.

A total of 63,151 patients have recovered, including 4,892 patients who were discharged from hospitals on Sunday.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case on March 11. Over the past two weeks, both the number of new cases and daily death figures have declined.

Some Turkish business owners are planning to resume operations, especially after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the government will ease its curfew and other lockdown measures at the end of May.

Iran, the second hardest-hit country in the Middle East, has also witnessed a downward trend of infection cases and death toll.

Women wearing face masks walk at a bazaar in Tehran, Iran, April 24, 2020. (Photo by Ahmad Halabisaz/Xinhua)

In the past 24 hours, the country reported 976 new infections, bringing the total tally to 97,424, according to the Iranian Health Ministry.

Iran has so far recorded 97,424 coronavirus infections with 6,203 deaths. The country announced its first case of COVID-19 on Feb. 19.

The Iranian government did not impose a total lockdown as seen in many other countries, but did close schools and banned public gatherings.

The authorities have approved the reopening of businesses in phases since April 11. Mosques will reopen in 132 Iranian towns designated as low-risk areas on Monday, President Hassan Rouhani has said.





EASING OF LOCKDOWN

Italy's daily new deaths from COVID-19 dropped to 174 on Sunday, the lowest since the start of the lockdown on March 10. Both the number of new infections and patients in intensive care has continued to fall.

Domenico prepares pizzas for delivery orders at Ivo Pizzeria in Trastevere district in Rome, Italy, on May 2, 2020.(Photo by Alberto Lingria/Xinhua)

Starting from Monday, the country is relaxing its lockdown. People will be allowed to visit family members living in the same region, and bars and restaurants will provide takeaway options instead of only delivery. However, schools, cinemas and most shops will remain shut.

The lockdown will be eased in further stages at two-week increments, on May 18 and June 1, provided the data related to the outbreak continue to improve.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned that the easing did not mean "everyone was free" to do as they pleased, saying that if Italians did not obey the rules, they risked reversing the dramatic gains reached so far.

Italy's death toll stands at 28,884, second only to the United States where more than 68,000 people have died.

Similarly, France is planning to lift the two-month lockdown on May 11 by gradually opening schools and shops and unwinding restrictions on people's movement as the spread of COVID-19 slowed down in the last three weeks.

The government will extend the state of health emergency it declared on March 24 by another two months to stem the outbreak and address a possible resurgence of the virus.

"We must not relax our collective efforts which are bearing fruit and which are effectively curbing the epidemic. To succeed in the gradual lifting of containment, it is more than ever necessary to scrupulously apply all barrier gestures, respect the minimum physical distance of one meter and reduce contacts," the Health Ministry said.

Figures released on Sunday showed that coronavirus-linked fatalities in France rose by 135 to 24,895, the lowest daily toll since March 22.

Among the 25,815 hospitalized patients, 3,819 were in intensive care, down from 3,827 on Saturday, confirming a continued slowdown for the third running week.





CONTINUED SURGE

In Russia, COVID-19 infections showed no signs of abatement. The country reported a new single-day record with 10,633 cases confirmed over the last 24 hours, raising its total number of infections to 134,687.

Medical workers are busy in an intensive care unit for patients with coronavirus infection in the hospital of the National Medical Research Center for Cardiovascular Surgery of the Russian Ministry of Health in Moscow, Russia, May 2, 2020. (Sputnik via Xinhua)

The death toll from the pandemic increased by 58 to 1,280 on Sunday, while 16,639 people have recovered, including 1,626 over the last 24 hours, the country's coronavirus response center said in a statement.

Moscow, Russia's worst-hit region, confirmed 5,948 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing its total to 68,606.

About 2 percent of Moscow residents, or more than 250,000 people, may have the coronavirus, said Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, citing test results.

There is no reason to think that the pandemic situation has stabilized in the country and safety rules can be ignored, the Russian Health Ministry said in a statement.

Thousands of miles away, South Africa reported on Sunday a sharp surge in new cases, two days after the easing of restrictions following a five-week lockdown. It was the highest daily surge since March 5, when the country recorded its first case.

The total COVID-19 infections climbed to 6,783, up 447 from Saturday, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.

"Regrettably, we report a further eight COVID-19 related deaths: two from the Western Cape, four from the Eastern Cape and two from Gauteng," Mkhize said, adding that this brought the national death count to 131.

Amid the partial resumption of business activities, the government announced strict measures to stem the spread of the virus at workplaces.

These measures include setting up physical barriers at workplaces to ensure social distancing, free provision of appropriate personal protective equipment, screening of workers for COVID-19 symptoms, and isolation and quarantine of workers with related symptoms. 
The amount of farmland around the world that will need to be irrigated in order to feed an estimated global population of 9 billion people by 2050 could be up to several billion acres, far higher than scientists currently project, according to new research. The result would be a far greater strain on aquifers, as well as the likely expansion of agriculture into natural ecosystems as farmers search for water.

Existing irrigation models -- which are widely used to define policies on water and food security, environmental sustainability, and climate change -- suggest that the amount of agricultural land requiring irrigation could extend between 240 million and 450 million hectares (590 million to 1.1 billion acres) during the next 30 years.

But those projections likely underestimate population growth and too confidently assume how much land and water will be available for agriculture without having to find new sources, according to researchers from Princeton University, the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, and the University of Bergen in Norway.

The amount of irrigated land could in fact increase to as high as 1.8 billion hectares (4.4 billion acres), the study authors reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, writing, "Policymakers should acknowledge that irrigated areas can grow much more than previously thought in order to avoid underestimating potential environmental costs."

First author Arnald Puy, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton, said that an expansion of irrigation of this magnitude would have dramatic effects on the environment and other sectors of society. Puy, who is affiliated with the Center for BioComplexity administered by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI), worked with co-authors Samuele Lo Piano of the University of Reading and Andrea Saltelli of the University of Bergen.

Irrigation is currently responsible for about 70% of freshwater withdrawals worldwide. About 90% of water taken for residential and industrial uses eventually returns to the aquifer, but only about one-half of the water used for irrigation is reusable. Evaporation, evapotranspiration from plants, and delivery losses such as from leaky pipes forever remove the rest from the water cycle.

"Much larger irrigated areas might mean extending agricultural land toward new ecosystems or non-cultivated areas with the consequent loss of biodiversity, which might also be larger than expected," Puy said. "At the same time, needing more water for irrigation means less water for other sectors and therefore more stress on water resources than expected."

There also could be a much higher amplification of climate change, which current climate models do not account for, Puy said. Previous research has shown that irrigation may influence climate by altering surface temperatures and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, both of which are critical components of climate modeling. These factors have an impact on cloud formation and the amount of solar radiation that is either contained within the atmosphere or reflected back into space.

The climate effects of irrigation also include greenhouse gases released through producing and operating irrigation machinery. The most common modern equipment consists of center-pivot systems consisting of wheeled tubes outfitted with spray guns or dripping faucet heads that rotate around a central water source.

"Much larger irrigated areas means that predictions of agricultural gas emissions might also be much lower than they will be in reality," Puy said "More irrigated areas means investing on irrigation machinery and energy consumption, leading to the consumption of fossil-energy reservoirs and the release of CO2."

Finally, irrigated agriculture also increases soil total nitrogen and carbon due to the addition of fertilizers and manure. Nitrate leaching can taint groundwater and ammonia can be volatilized from fertilizers, limiting the availability of potable water, Puy said.

By drawing attention to the underestimation of irrigated land by current models, Puy, Lo Piano and Saltelli hoped to increase the accuracy of all studies that rely on those estimates to project how the climate and environment could be affected by the very real challenge of feeding everyone on Earth -- and how the state of the environment could shape the outcome of that effort.

###

The paper, "Current models underestimate future irrigated areas," was published in the April 28 edition of Geophysical Research Letters. The work was supported by a Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Global Fellowship (grant no. 792178) from the European Commission.
Nelly Bosire is a gynaecologist and specialist obstetrician who chairs the Hospital Advisory Board of St Francis Community Hospital. She previously served on the board of the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council and continues to serve as a co-opted member of its disciplinary committee.

She talked to myNetwork:

What would you be if you were not a doctor?

An anthropologist. Travelling to new places and learning other peoples cultures excites me. It is interesting how peoples backgrounds and societies influence their approach to everything, including health.

We have about 500 obstetrician and gynaecologists in Kenya for a population of 25 million women, 15 million of who need regular gynaecological services.

Unfortunately, only a small fraction of women seek these services, and mostly it is those in the most desperate situations.

Women in rural areas have always held the short end of the stick in healthcare matters. The deeper a woman is in the village, the more difficult it is for her to access quality healthcare.

Sometimes, by the time she is seen by an obstetrician, her condition has severely deteriorated. Our country has also failed to appreciate that highly specialised personnel are almost useless if the required tools of trade are not made available.

An obstetrician or gynaecologist in a hospital without a functional lab, access to blood transfusion services, a functioning ICU, an operating theatre and the appropriate complementary staff is a fish out of water.

What has been your greatest challenge so far?

Handling patients who are cash-strapped. Sometimes I agree to see a patient after waiving consultation fees, but they end up going back home because they cannot afford to pay for the required tests.

Imagine you diagnose a patient with stage one cancer of the cervix; then she disappears for months before showing up at the emergency department with stage four cancer, when nothing can be done to help except palliative care.

What is your most cherished memory from your days in college?

The regular visits to the paediatrics ward while I was in fourth year. I loved caring for the sick babies and the amazing cancer patients who could pronounce the difficult names of their cancer drugs better than us!

But what I loved most was minding abandoned babies. They all had interesting stories to tell. I remember caring for a set of twins who loved everything on wheels.

One afternoon, they snuck out of their cot and into the corridor and made away with the morticians trolley. They didnt know there was a little girls body inside, covered with a white bed sheet. Lets just say the mortician nearly suffered a heart attack.

What would you tell a young doctor looking to specialise as a gynaecologist?

It is all about passion. At any one time, youll be required to handle two lives. Within the blink of an eye, things in the delivery room can change from merry to utterly chaotic, so youll need to think on your feet always, and be very decisive.

But this passion must be accompanied by great communication skills. In Kenya, one in every four medical negligence suits filed at the KMPDU involve obstetricians and gynaecologists.

Therefore, you must be very cautious and ethical at all times. Communicate with your patients and their kin effectively and involve them in every step of the decision making process if possible.

What should be done to make conversations about reproductive health more palatable?

Parents and guardians need to begin having such conversations with their children early so that the topic becomes normalised as the children grow up.

One way of doing this is to take young children on visits to the gynaecologists. This will encourage them to develop the confidence required to discuss their reproductive health issues.

Unfortunately, we have equated reproductive health conversations to discussions about sex only.

Why did you choose to join advocacy?

Every time I sit down with a patient, even the most educated, I find out that they lack crucial information.

Many patients still do not understand their right to health as envisioned in the constitution, the right to information, to confidentiality, to informed consent, to a second opinion, or to the best available quality of healthcare.

We complain about our failing health systems yet, as patients, we do not know the powerful role we can play in abetting this failure.

Additionally, patients are usually very vulnerable when sick and this is when many of their rights get violated. The reality is, we are all just a step away from being in a three by six hospital bed.

What is the most common health issue afflicting young women today?

Menstrual problems. This does not mean this problem is more common in this age group, rather, women at this age can seek care on their own for problems they have endured for years, usually since teenagehood.

To begin with, at this age, there is the freedom to seek medical care as an individual rather than under the care of a guardian. Further, there is a lot more access to information, enabling these women to understand that menstrual health issues are actually treatable.

What cringe-worthy mistake did you make as a greenhorn?

I was on night duty in a busy maternity theatre, and I was unwell. We did 11 C-sections that night. I was so exhausted.

After the final operation, I closed the cervix and stepped back from the table. I was light-headed and felt hot in the scrubs. The assisting nurse took one look at me and made me drink glucose water straight out of the IV bottle, yet this is meant to be administered intravenously.

I managed to hang on long enough to complete the surgery but I could not get myself home. The theatre-in-charge had to get the hospital driver to take me home.

I stayed in bed for three days nursing a bad flu. I should have called for help that day but I was so young and naive.
Along with the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is today seeing a dangerous outbreak of misinformation about harmful health advice, hate speech and wild conspiracy theories, and antidote to this pandemic of misinformation is fact-based and analysis, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

"This year on World Press Freedom Day, the world, including the media, faces an entirely new challenge: COVID-19, which is affecting everyone, everywhere. Along with the pandemic, we are seeing a dangerous outbreak of misinformation, from harmful health advice and hate speech to wild conspiracy theories, Guterres said.

He made the remarks during an online high-level dialogue on Press Freedom and Tackling Disinformation in the COVID-19 context.

He said blatant lies are spreading online at a terrifying rate and a recent analysis found that more than 40 per cent of posts about COVID-19 on one major social media platform were posted by bots automated programmes disguised as people.

"The antidote to this pandemic of misinformation is fact-based and analysis. It depends on media freedom and independent reporting, he said, underscoring that press freedom is rooted in a fundamental tenet of journalism without fear or favour.

Guterres underlined that when journalists are attacked, societies as a whole pay a price. No democracy can function without press freedom, which is the cornerstone of trust between people and their institutions, he said.

The UN chief expressed concern that media has come under increasing pressure in recent years, with many journalists facing threats, harassment and violent attacks. Last year, 57 journalists were killed around the world and women are often targeted for attack.

He noted that the winner of this year's World Press Freedom Day award, the Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya Lima, is a courageous woman reporter.

Paying tribute to all journalists working under hazardous and difficult conditions around the world, Guterres said he has seen how journalists risk their lives to make sure people's stories are heard.

"I could not do my job without the courageous, creative and often deeply moving work of the media, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Eleven more people, including four minors, tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, taking the total number of coronavirus cases in Bihar to 528 so far, a top official said.

Among the fresh cases, seven are male and four female from five districts.

While five of the patients hail from Jhanjhapur in Madhubani district, two each belong to Begusarai and Kaimur and one each are from West Champaran and Samastipur, Health Department's Principal Secretary, Sanjay Kumar, said in a tweet.

We are ascertaining their infection trail, Kumar said.

Those infected includes an eight-year-old boy and two girls of 12 and 18 years from Jhanjharpur and a 14-year-old boy from Chainpur in Kaimur district, he added.

With Samastipur reporting its first COVID-19 positive patient from Vidyapati Nagar, the outbreak has spread to 32 out of 38 districts of the state.

A 25-year-old man had reached his home at Vidyapati Nagar from New Delhi on April 26 by a truck, District Magistrate Shashank Shubhankar said, adding that he was shifted to a quarantine centre soon after the authorities got information about him.

His sample which was sent earlier has been found positive, the DM added.

The state has reported four fatalities so far, one each from Munger, Vaishali, East Champaran and Sitamarhi and is now left with 400 active cases while 124 have recovered.

A 45-year-old COVID-19 patient, who hailed from Sitamarhi district, breathed his last at NMCH, Patna on May 2, which was the fourth COVID-19 casualty in the state. He had been suffering from terminal stage lung cancer and died of cardiac arrest.

A 54-year-old resident from East Champaran, who was suffering from cancer of mouth and throat, had died at NMCH on May 1 while a 38-year-old resident from Munger was the first COVID-19 patient who died on March 21 at AIIMS, Patna where he was admitted for renal failure and respiratory distress.

Another man from Vaishali, the second casualty, died at AIIMS, Patna on April 17.

The number of samples tested till date is 29,254.

Among the COVID-19 affected districts, Munger topped the list with 102 cases so far while Buxar stood second with 56 infected persons followed by Rohtas (52), Patna (44), Nalanda (36), Siwan (31), Kaimur (30), Madhubani (23) Gopalganj and Bhojpur (18 each), Aurangabad and Begusarai (13 each), West Champaran and Bhagalpur (11 each) accounted for positive cases in double digit.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Company has successfully developed the API and the formulations for the product through its in-house R&D team

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has announced that it has received approval from the DCGI (Drug Controller General of India), the regulator in India to conduct clinical trials on Favipiravir Antiviral tablets on COVID-19 patients.

The product is a generic version of Avigan of Fujifilm Toyama Chemical Co. Ltd., Japan, a subsidiary of Fujifilm Corporation. Favipiravir has demonstrated activity against influenza viruses and has been approved in Japan for the treatment of novel influenza virus infections. Recently in the past few months, post the outbreak of COVID-19, multiple clinical trials have been initiated on COVID-19 patients in China, Japan and in the US.

Having internally developed the API and the formulations for the product, Glenmark filed the product for clinical trials with the DCGI and has received approval for conducting the trial on mild to moderate patients. As on date, Glenmark is the first pharmaceutical company in India to be given an approval by the regulator to start the trial on COVID-19 patients in India.

Sushrut Kulkarni, Executive Vice President  Global R&D, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Limited said, After having successfully developed the API and the formulations through its in-house R&D team, Glenmark is all geared to immediately begin clinical trials on Favipiravir on COVID-19 patients in India. The clinical trial will let us know the efficacy of this molecule on COVID-19 patients.

He also added, If the clinical trials are successful, Favipiravir could become a potential treatment for COVID-19 patients.

As per the clinical trial protocol approved, 150 subjects with mild to moderate COVID-19 will be randomized in the study in a 1:1 ratio to Favipiravir with standard supportive care or standalone standard supportive care. Treatment duration is a maximum of 14 days and the total study duration will be maximum for 28 days from randomization.
European Leaders Unite Against COVID-19

By VOA News May 03, 2020

European leaders are establishing an international medical organization to mount a united battle against the coronavirus.

In their announcement in The Independent, a British newspaper, they said they are following in the footsteps of "Louis Pasteur, one of the world's greatest scientists and a mastermind behind vaccines and breakthroughs which have saved millions of lives spanning three centuries."

"Our aim is simple," the group said, about its goal of raising $8 billion Monday in an online pledging campaign to finance finding a COVID-19 vaccine and treatment.

The leaders listed as being responsible for The Independent article are: Giuseppe Conte, prime minister of Italy; Emmanuel Macron, president of France; Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany; Charles Michel, president of the European Council; Erna Solberg, prime minister of Norway; and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

"We will all put our own pledges on the table and we are glad to be joined by partners from the world over," they said. "We support the WHO and we are delighted to join forces with experienced organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust."

U.S. President Donald Trump has suspended payments to the World Health Organization, saying that WHO did not act swiftly enough in alerting the world about the deadly virus.

The European leaders said, "Every single euro or dollar that we raise together will be channeled primarily through recognized global health organizations such as CEPI, Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance, the Global Fund and Unitaid into developing and deploying as quickly as possible, for as many as possible the diagnostics, treatments and vaccines that will help the world overcome the pandemic."

"If we can develop a vaccine that is produced by the world, for the whole world, this will be a unique global public good of the 21st century," the alliance said. "Together with our partners, we commit to making it available, accessible and affordable to all."

There are more than 3.4 million global cases of COVID-19 worldwide, and nearly 244,000 deaths.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






LONDON  When Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced journalists last week for the first time since recovering from the coronavirus, he took his leadoff question from a member of the public, Michelle from Cornwall, who asked him about the dangers of infected tourists coming to her seaside region after the lockdown is lifted.

Michelle, the short answer is youre dead right, Mr. Johnson replied. Weve got to get tourism going again, but we cant allow such a big influx of tourists as to create a second wave of the disease.

He went on to take questions from reporters at the BBC and national newspapers, though he did not voice the same hearty agreement with those interrogators. The Johnson governments relations with much of the news media have never been warm, but as the death toll has risen and the governments handling of the crisis has come under harsher scrutiny, the mood has turned openly contentious.

Britains culture minister recently accused the BBC of bias in reporting on the shortage of protective gear in hospitals; the health secretary heatedly claimed that The Times of London misstated policy on shielding older people; and Downing Street posted lengthy rebuttals, by unnamed officials, of newspaper articles that detailed its missteps in dealing with the outbreak.
V odafone was left looking out in the cold today as Telefonica confirmed it was in talks to merge its O2 business with Virgin Media.

The UK giant Vodafone was about to take over all Virgin's mobile phone customer base from late next year, running its 3 million phone users on its network. It won the five-year contract in November from EE in a victory for the company which was to have finished a 20 year relationship between Virgin Mobile and BT-owned EE.

The deal would have involved the transfer of more than 3 million customers and, if the EE deal is a decent guide - revenues of around 200 million a year.

However, if John Malone's Liberty Media decides to merge his Virgin Media business with O2, it would almost certainly be scuppered, with the customers moving onto O2's network.

The so-called mobile virtual network operator deal was seen as a big shift in strategy for Vodafone which had never before done such outsourced contracts, unlike O2, which operates Tesco's mobile service.

It was also likely to expand in later years as demand for 5G services become more popular.

Analysts said the impact on Vodafone's UK finances would be entirely down to what kind of compensation it manages to wrest from Liberty for breaking the deal.

BT would also suffer as a result of the deal, if it goes ahead. Not only would it be losing the remaining term of its wholesaling agreement with Virgin Media, but it would, for the first time, face a rival offering both fixed line and mobile services. In fact, Exane analysts believe BT would be worst affected than Vodafone.

Mirabaud bank analyst Neil Campling said BT could be seriously threatened by content deals that a combined Liberty-Virgin and Telefonica-O2 could wrest from media companies.

However, it still remains to be seen whether Malone and Telefonica can reach an agreement, and whether competition regulators, who rejected Telefonica's attempt to merge O2 and Three, would allow it

Vodafone shares fell 1p to 109.3p, BT fell 2p to 111p.
After taking a week off from working in his great white void, John Oliver returned to Last Week Tonight on Sunday with a fresh arsenal of insults against his favorite human puppet, Jared Kushner. The newest gripe? Kushner repeatedly saying that the federal governments response to the coronavirus has been nothing short of extraordinary, even if more than 68,000 Americans are dead and testing is still a rarity. No it fucking isnt, Jared, Oliver taunted. Taking months to do what other countries did in weeks is not extraordinary. The only thing thats extraordinary here is that the most punchable face in America somehow looks like its never been touched by human hands. Does it just absorb fists like a bowl of heavy cream? Whats your secret, you translucent sociopath? Maybe its as simple as having the skin of a newborn baby birthed in a tub of Neutrogena talk like a middle-aged dad desperately trying to connect with his teenage son.

Oliver noted that while some confusion is inevitable when a new disease spreads around the world, America shouldnt be on the same scale for testing and preparedness as, say, Belarus. Again and again the people in charge failed to prepare for the worst-case scenario and have been slow in fixing mistakes, he explained. In May, we are still playing catch-up in the middle of a pandemic, which in turn means thousands upon thousands of people dying preventable deaths. If this is a great success story for anyone, its for the fucking coronavirus. Just dont tell it congratulations from us.
Wyoming WWAMI Welcomes New Clinical Dean for Medical Education Program

Dr. Robert Monger

Cheyenne physician Dr. Robert Monger has been named the new clinical dean for the WWAMI Medical Education Program at the University of Wyoming and will begin his duties Aug. 1.

Monger, an internist with the Cheyenne Regional Medical Group, has been active in medical education for more than 20 years -- and specifically with the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) since the mid-2000s. He currently serves as an instructor/lecturer for UWSOMs Wyoming WWAMI foundations curriculum.

Current clinical dean, Dr. Larry Kirven, will retire at the end of July. Kirven will continue working with the WRITE program (WWAMI Rural Integrated Training Experience) across the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) region.

We are excited to have Dr. Monger join us as the new Wyoming WWAMI clinical dean, says Suzanne Allen, vice dean for academic, rural and regional affairs for UWSOM. Dr. Monger has been an integral part of Wyoming WWAMI for a number of years, and we anticipate a seamless transition from Dr. Kirven to Dr. Monger.

In the past, Monger has been a UWSOM clerkship director and a clinical preceptor for UWSOMs Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program. Monger also is a member of the Wyoming Medical Society-WWAMI Advisory Committee and is a former chair of UWSOMs Wyoming WWAMI Medical School Admissions Committee.

Dr. Monger brings a terrific amount of experience with him as he takes on this position. With his previous experience serving on the WWAMI admissions committee, his current service on the WWAMI advisory council, and as an instructor in our foundations phase, Dr. Monger has a broad understanding of how WWAMI works in Wyoming, says Tim Robinson, foundations dean for the Wyoming WWAMI Medical Education Program. Dr. Monger is a terrific teacher and is passionate about medical education.

A 1984 graduate of East High School in Cheyenne, Monger went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., in 1988 and, in 1992, a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City.

Mongers postgraduate training includes an internal medicine residency at Michigan State University and a rheumatology fellowship at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver.

Monger has served in various leadership roles throughout his medical career, most notably as the current governor for the American College of Physicians Wyoming chapter and the former president of the Wyoming Medical Society. He also is editor-in-chief of Wyoming Medicine magazine, a position he has held since 2009.

"Im very excited about my new position and the opportunity to help advance medical education in Wyoming, Monger says. The 25-year partnership between the University of Washington, the University of Wyoming and the state of Wyoming is of great benefit to the state -- helping train Wyoming doctors for Wyoming -- and I feel fortunate to have been given a larger role in the education of our future physicians.
As the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the country, there are growing concerns about whether in-person voting can be conducted safely in the months ahead, including for the November presidential election. A huge expansion of mail voting is one way to ensure that participating in democracy wont undermine public health.

The idea of all-mail voting is straightforward: Every registered voter gets sent a ballot via mail to their home address, then after making their choices, voters mail it back; and those who want to still travel to vote in person can do so. In the midst of this pandemic, its an adjustment that every state legislature should try to make.

But should we expand mail voting beyond the Covid-19 crisis?

Nathaniel Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School, and Charles Stewart III, a professor of political science at M.I.T., argue in a recent article, States should approach this situation as an emergency, not as an opportunity to make long-term changes to election policy. We disagree.

Our new research, published yesterday, shows that elections with all-mail voting increase turnout among everyone, especially groups that tend to vote less frequently. Those results merit permanent, wide-scale shifts. Currently, registered voters automatically get a ballot by mail in five states: Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado and Hawaii. A few other states have all-mail voting in small jurisdictions, and California has been gradually rolling it out.
(London/New York, May 2020) Glam Holdings, owner of ex-billion-dollar Mode Media, BrideClick, and Glam Inc, has acquired data management platform Carbon from Havas owned Clicksco to create a new powerful AI & Data platform for publishers trading under the Carbon brand, to be launched In July 2020. The acquisition comes as the latest step in Glam Holding's vision of creating a technology offering to revolutionize the current publishing landscape: Glam Holdings 
To the editor:

The Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network held its fifth mobile food pantry of the year in the parking lot of Dow Diamond, home of the Great Lakes Loons on Friday, April 3. The food giveaway was provided free-of-charge by the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan in Flint.

Thirty volunteers served 273 families (815 individuals) with 16,984 pounds of food. The free distribution included milk, cabbage, sliced apples, honeydew melons, potatoes, cereals and boxed and canned items.

Because of the vital pandemic guidelines, recipients of food remained in their vehicles for registration and for food delivery. (This process will be the standard for upcoming mobile events.)

The network is also very grateful to the many donors of food, money and time throughout the year to the network's mission of "Always food in every home."

Midland County residents in (financial) need of food and personal care items during the year may call the network at 989-486-9393 to leave your name and phone number. Thanks again to the Great Lakes Loons and to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan for their generous partnership with EFPN in this ministry.

SALLY ANN SUTTON

Midland County EFPN
KENT, Ohio (AP)  The Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed college students during a war protest at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Four students were killed, and nine others were injured. Not all of those hurt or killed were involved in the demonstration, which opposed the U.S. bombing of neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

The confrontation, sometimes referred to as the May 4 massacre, was a defining moment for a nation sharply divided over the protracted war, in which more than 58,000 Americans died. It sparked a strike of 4 million students across the U.S., temporarily closing some 900 colleges and universities. The events also played a pivotal role, historians argue, in turning public opinion against the conflicts in Southeast Asia.

In the hours immediately after the shootings, reporters at the chaotic scene struggled to determine who had fired the shots and why. Among the theories was that Guard members shot after spotting a sniper, a theory later proved untrue.

Kent States campus, about 30 miles southeast of downtown Cleveland, will be still on the 50th anniversary Monday. An elaborate multi-day commemoration was canceled because of social distancing restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic. Some events, activities and resources are being made available online.

Fifty years after the events, the AP is making some of its photos and a version of its text coverage from the time available.

____

An official of the Ohio Highway Patrol today disputed reports from the Ohio National Guard that a sniper was spotted by police helicopter before Guardsmen shot four Kent State University students to death Monday during an antiwar demonstration.

The university, ordered evacuated after the shooting, was virtually deserted this morning and under heavy police and military guard.

Earlier, fire destroyed a barn and several farm tractors in one corner of the campus, and fire officials said they believed the blaze was deliberately set.

Sgt. Michael Delaney of the guard public relations staff said after the shootings that, At the approximate time of the firing on the campus, the Ohio Highway Patrol-via a helicopter-spotted a sniper on a nearby building.

Today, a patrol official, Maj. D. E. Manly, said, There is nothing on the log on the sighting. Manly said if patrolmen in the helicopter circling the campus had seen a gunman it would have been recorded.

Guard officials claimed Monday and again today that the Guardsmen were returning the fire of a small caliber weapon in defense of their lives. A student crowd had surrounded some 30 Guardsmen and were throwing rocks and chunks of concrete at them.

The Justice Department and officials of the National Guard launched separate investigations of the gunfire outburst which took the lives of two girls and two young men.

The dead were:

Miss Allison Krause, 19, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Miss Sandy Lee Scheuer, 20, Youngstown, Ohio; Jeffrey G. Miller, 20, Plainview, N.Y., and William K. Schroeder, 19, Lorain, Ohio.

Portage County Coroner Dr. Robert Sybert said all four had been shot from the side, left to right. All died of a single bullet wound, he said.

Miss Krause was hit in the left shoulder, Miss Scheurer in the neck, Schroeder in the left underside of the chest and Miller in the head.

Dr. Sybert said the final autopsy report wouldnt be completed for about a week.

Three students remained in critical condition today. One of them, Dean Kahler, of East Canton, Ohio, was paralyzed from the waist down, according to Paul Jacobs, administrator at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna.

Eight other persons, including two guardsmen were hospitalized. One of the two guardsmen was treated for shock and the other had collapsed from exhaustion.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohios largest newspaper, called editorially for an immediate investigation and prompt steps to prevent a recurrence of the most tragic campus violence ever in the United States.

Many questions will have to be answered: Why were these people shot? Who shot first? How could these deaths have been avoided?

President Nixon deplored the campus deaths. In a White House statement, he said:

This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy. It is my hope that this tragic and unfortunate incident will strengthen the determination of all the nations campuses, administrators, faculty and students alike to stand firmly for the right which exists in this country of peaceful dissent and just as strongly against the resort to violence as a means of such expression.

The campus and the City of Kent were sealed off following the shootings.

School officials ordered the faculty, staff and 19,000 students to leave. Classes were suspended indefinitely by University President Robert I. White.

Later, Portage County Prosecutor Ronald Kane, armed with a court injunction, officially closed the university until further notice.

Patrols of guardsmen and state patrolmen roamed the campus and blocked all entrances Monday night.

Businesses in the City of Kent and the approaches to the city were cordoned by police and guardsmen.

Nixon said that he would order a Justice Department investigation if the state so requested and Gov. James A. Rhodes then asked for the FBI to carry out an inquiry.

The governor had ordered the Ohio National Guard to the campus Saturday night following a demonstration by some 1,000 students during which the Army ROTC building was destroyed by fire.

Jerry Stoklas, 20, a campus newspaper photographer, said he witnessed the shootings from a rooftop.

He said about 400 students were harassing the guardsmen and they turned and opened fire. I saw five people go down.

Other witnesses said the demonstrators were pelting the guardsmen with rocks and chunks of concrete.

Stoklas said the troops had backed away, but the demonstrators followed. He said the guardsmen had turned around several times, apparently trying to scare them.

Sgt. Michael Delaney of the guard public relations staff said 20 to 30 rounds of MI rifle ammunition were fired.

At the approximate time of the firing on the campus, he added. the Ohio Highway Patrol-via a helicopter-spotted a sniper on a nearby building.

Some students contended the sniper actually was one of several student photographers atop Taylor Hall.

Guard spokesmen said 900 to 1,000 persons had been involved in the demonstration at the universitys Commons and that guardsmen had exhausted their tear gas supply in dispersing the crowd.

The states National Guard commander, Adj. Gen. Sylvester T. Del Corso, said the troops began firing from semiautomatic rifles after a rooftop sniper had shot at them.

Gene Williams, a member of the student newspaper staff, said he saw the troops turn in unison, as if responding to a command, and fire into the crowd.

Brig. Gen. Robert H. Canterbury, who was in direct command of the guard contingent on the campus, said no order was given to shoot.

A military man always has the option to fire if he feels his life is in danger, he said. The crowd was moving in on the men on three sides.

The shooting lasted about two or three seconds. Officers at the scene immediately called for a cease-fire.

Canterbury said an investigation into the shooting would attempt to determine which guardsmen fired first, what others fired and actually hit students, and how many rounds of ammunition they expended.

The shooting climaxed student demonstration and disturbances on the campus and in the city that began Friday in the wake of President Nixons address to the nation Thursday night on sending U.S. troops into Cambodia.

About 500 students attended a peaceful demonstration on the campus at noon Friday but late that night about 500 persons, most of them students, went on a rampage downtown. Bonfires were set in the streets and several windows of stores and cars were broken.

About 1,000 students demonstrated on the campus Saturday night and some of them set fire to the ROTC building with railroad flares. That was when the National Guard, which had been on standby at Akron, was ordered to the city.

About 1,200 students staged a sit-in at a street intersection Sunday night in defiance of an emergency order from Rhodes banning any outdoor meetings in the city or on the campus. They were driven back to the campus by guardsmen with bayonets on their rifles.

Earlier Sunday night the guard used tear gas in breaking up a march on the campus by an estimated 1,500 students who were violating the governors emergency order.
YEREVAN, MAY 4, ARMENPRESS. The retaliation of the Defense Army of Artsakh to the recent cease-fire violations of Azerbaijani army in the contact line seemed to be quite painful for the military-political leadership of official Baku, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the defense ministry of Artsakh.

''The retaliation of the Artsakh Army to the ceasefire violations of the recent weeks by the Azerbaijani side in different sections of the contact line seemed to be rather painful for the military-political leadership of official Baku.

In all probability this is the reason why the leadership of the armed forces of Azerbaijan and particularly the defense minister visits different sections of the front line during the last few days, trying to somehow encourage their demoralized and disabled soldiers.

The defense minister of Azerbaijan paid a similar visit to the north-eastern and eastern sections of the contact line on May 4, which was detected by relevant services of the Defense Army of Artsakh.

The Command Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Artsakh, remaining faithful to the commitments to preserve ceasefire during the pandemic in line with the call of the UN Secretary-General, informs that any movement of the adversary at the front line, including at the top level, is monitored by the relevant bodies of the Defense Army, while the border-guards are ready to take necessary measures at any time based on the situation of the given period'', reads the statement.



Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
Luis Sepulveda was a Chilean communist militant turned award-winning author who wrote poetry, short stories, bestselling novels and childrens books. He was one of the thousands of victims of the political struggle that shook Chile in the 1970s, where he was jailed, tortured and exiled under Augusto Pinochets dictatorship.

Condemned to a life of exile from his mid-twenties for his political affiliations and militancy, Sepulveda  who has died of coronavirus aged 70  also became an avid traveller who often wrote political and environmentally conscious works, including his most famous work, The Old Man Who Read Love Novels.

Sepulveda was born in Ovalle, a small city in the centre of Chile, in 1949, the son of a young runaway couple fleeing family disapproval of his mothers pregnancy. His father Luis was a communist militant and restaurant owner and his mother, Irma Calfucura, was a nurse of Mapuche descent, a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile.

After being chased away from Ovalle, the couple relocated in Santiago de Chile, where Sepulveda grew up. Following his fathers example, Sepulveda made his first political incursion at 15 by joining Las Juventudes Comunistas, the communist youth group, quickly becoming a leader of the student movement.

He would go on to study theatre production in the University de Chile and worked in the department of cultural affairs in the administration of the president, Salvador Allende, Latin Americas first Marxist politician to be elected to high office.

On 11 September 1973 Allende was ousted in a US-backed coup, and died that day (officially suicide by gunshot, though claims of assassination persist). Shortly afterwards, Sepulveda was jailed. It was the start of a 17-year-long dictatorship in the country, during which at least 3,200 people died and 38,000 were tortured, Sepulveda being among the torture victims.

Amnesty International campaigned for his release, and in 1977 he was freed and placed under house arrest. With political persecution at its height, he escaped and went underground for almost a year, during which he founded and led a resistance theatre troupe.

However, with the visibility of the troupe came his second arrest. This time he was sentenced to life in prison, subsequently reduced to 28 years. The German branch of Amnesty intervened on his behalf again, successfully negotiating a seven-year exile from Chile. He and wife Carmen Yanez were divorced around this time, and he later married a German woman, Margarita, although this also ended in divorce.

Sepulveda was due to go to Sweden to teach Spanish literature, but in a layover stop in Buenos Aires he fled and began a journey travelling in Latin America, passing through Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay and Ecuador. In 1978, he found himself in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador under a Unesco study programme, living with the indigenous Shuar people  a year-long stay which would later inspire his most famous novel.

A year later he travelled to Nicaragua to join the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which was leading the revolution to overthrow the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. After the revolutions success in 1979, he left for Germany.

In Hamburg he began his career as a journalist, continuing his many travels to Latin America and Africa. In 1982 Sepulveda became affiliated with Greenpeace and until 1987 served as a crew member of the Rainbow Warrior. He wrote his novel The World at the End of the World (1989) based on his experience on board.

In Germany he also wrote The Old Man Who Read Love Stories, an ecologically conscious novel set in the Ecuadorian Amazon, which was dedicated to the memory of murdered ecological activist Chico Mendes and was published in 1989. The novel was translated into 35 languages and won the Spanish literary prize Tigre Juan that year. It was later made into a 2001 movie starring American actor Richard Dreyfuss.

He went on to write dozens of other novels where, aside from politics, nature would become the central character of his stories. In 2002 he wrote and directed a film called Nowhere, about an ex-marines plans to liberate five dissidents from a South American prison camp.

In the 1990s he reunited with his ex-wife Carmen Yanez. She had also been detained and tortured by Pinochets police, but eventually was granted political asylum in Sweden, where she had been living ever since.

In 1997 the remarried couple settled in Spain, where Sepulveda wrote more novels as well as childrens books. He continued to participate in political discussions through his blog and involvement with the monthly newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique.

He received distinctions for his writing including the Order of the Arts and Letters of France, which recognises significant contributions to the arts and literature.

He never returned to live in Chile: he had been stripped of his nationality, although it was restored in 2017. He continued to speak out about events in the country, such as the protests that began in October last year. These began over the rise in public transport costs, but became a protest against wider inequality. He continued to demand for the reversal of the privatisation of sea and water, which he called an inhuman economic model. He wrote: No rebellion is more just and democratic than that of the Chileans. And no repression, however harsh or criminal, can hold back a people rising up against it.

He is survived by Yanez and his five children.

Luis Sepulveda, writer, born 4 October 1949, died 16 April 2020
ABC NewsBy JACK ARNHOLZ, ABC News



(WASHINGTON) -- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Sunday that a statewide order mandating face masks be worn in stores went "too far."



"It became clear to me that that was just a bridge too far. People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do," he said on ABC's This Week.



Appearing from Cedarville, Ohio, Dewine told Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz, "that was just one (order) that went too far."



While DeWine was one of the first governors to implement statewide closures amid the novel coronavirus outbreak -- closing schools on March 12 and postponing state primaries on March 17 -- he rescinded a statewide order on Tuesday requiring face masks be worn in stores, writing on Twitter that it became clear to him some Ohioans found it offensive.



While Americans across the partisan divide agree that state coronavirus restrictions on businesses are appropriate, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll shows Democrats are more concerned about contracting the virus while Republican respondents would be more likely to get out if and when the rules change.



I think generally Republicans are less inclined to have the government tell them what to do. And thats generally how I am. Im a conservative Republican. I think were better off not having the government tell us what to do, DeWine said.



As states across the country have started to relax stay-at-home orders, governors have had to balance public health with economic considerations.



Ohios Department of Health reported 19,000 cases of COVID-19 with over 1,000 related deaths in the state and the Department of Jobs and Family Services has announced that over one million residents have lost their jobs since the beginning of the crisis.



I told Ohioans Friday, I said we can do two things at once, DeWine told Raddatz.



He announced a phased approach to reopening Ohio last week. The state will allow manufacturing and construction businesses to resume work Monday. On May 12, consumer and retail stores will also be allowed to reopen.



Despite cancelling the face mask order, DeWine still urged his constituents to wear coverings.



"Face masks are very important and our business group came back and said every employee, for example, should wear a face mask. So were continuing that, whether its retail or wholesale, whatever it is, manufacturing, every employees going to have the face mask," he said Sunday.



When pressed by Raddatz whether he would revert to stricter social distancing orders if the outbreak worsened again in his state he said, "well have to take action."



"We got to bring the economy back, but we also have to continue to protect people," he said.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 20:17:59|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A span is being placed on pillars of the Padma Bridge at a construction site in Munshiganj, Bangladesh, on May 4, 2020. The 29th span of Bangladesh's largest Chinese-built Padma Bridge has been installed amid the country's nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, making 4.35 km of the main structure of the bridge visible. (Str/Xinhua)

DHAKA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The 29th span of Bangladesh's largest Chinese-built Padma bridge has been installed amid the country's nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, making 4.35 km of the main structure of the bridge visible.

Dewan Abdul Quader, a senior Bangladeshi engineer of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project, told journalists that engineers of China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Co., Ltd (MBEC) on Monday morning successfully installed the span.

The around 3,200-ton span was placed on the pillars 19 and 20 of the bridge, he said.

With the installation of the 150-meter long span, the 29th span among the 41 spans has been installed on the 6.15-km bridge and 4.35 km of the bridge is now visible.

Despite the COVID-19 outbreak, many Chinese-built major projects including Padma Bridge are still under regular construction in the country.

According to the project engineer, the next span of the bridge is likely to be installed later this month as MBEC continued efforts to ensure timely completion of the core structure of the bridge despite the COVID-19 outbreak that has kept Bangladesh under the lockdown since March 26.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the main works of Padma Bridge project, the biggest of its kind in the country, in December 2015.

Apart from connecting nearly 30 million people in Bangladesh's southwest region to the rest of the country, the bridge will enhance regional trade and collaboration along the Asian highway No. 1 and the Trans-Asian railway network.
Every day, MySA.com compiles the latest headlines and helpful links on the COVID-19 pandemic in the San Antonio area.

Cases dropping in S.A.: More inmates at Bexar County Jail have tested positive for COVID-19, pushing the overall total for Bexar County to 1,613, Mayor Ron Nirenberg reported Sunday.
Anyone who lived through the Soviet experience remembers the compulsory-voluntary celebrations of May Day, as ordinary citizens were handed banners with bland or sometimes incomprehensible slogans and forced to parade in front of waving and smiling Communist Party officials.

It was a stunning annual display of political theater.



Inspired by such memories, Novosibirsk-based performance artist Artyom Loskutov in 2004 set up Monstratsia (a play on the Russian words for "monster" and "demonstration"), a May Day street festival of costumes, spontaneity, and humor that revels in and spoofs the absurdity of the Soviet May Day traditions.



Each year, a growing number of people in a growing list of Russian cities takes to the streets carrying banners with slogans like "Racoons are people too" and "I'm a simple Martian -- I see something and I attack it."

The event is now marked in more than 30 cities, with participation ranging from dozens of people to several thousand.

This year, although the country is under lockdown orders to combat the spread of COVID-19, organizers took the event into cyberspace, launching the #2020 hashtag and encouraging self-isolating people to post absurdist slogans and images on social media. Thousands of responses demonstrated that weeks of lockdown have only increased the appetite for the absurd.

An Instagram user in the Siberian city of Irkutsk posted a sign with the slogan, "We were born to make Kafka come true," referring to the surrealist writer Franz Kafka and playing on the well-known Soviet May Day slogan, "We were born to make fairytales come true."

Another slogan from Irkutsk read "That which burns will not rot."



Schopenhauer, Sartre, Buckwheat, Raccoons



Another user posted, from Sydney, Australia , a photograph of herself against a clear blue sky with a placard reading, "It is cloudy today."

Another photograph showed a complex arrangement of children's toys organized to spell the slogan, "Let me go outside."

A user in Novosibirsk photographed a package of buckwheat, which has the reputation of being Russia's go-to staple for emergency hoarding, emblazoned with the slogan, "There is no money, but you hang in there."

Those words were made famous in 2016 by then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Continuing the buckwheat theme, another Novosibirsk denizen posted a photograph of a roll of toilet paper with the words, "I'm selling buckwheat" written on it in black marker.

And picking up on Medvedev's infamous words, one user posted an image showing German philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche together with Kafka and French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre with the slogan, "There is no meaning, but you hang in there."

A user on Twitter posted the slogan, "The dinosaurs did not die -- they are just self-isolating very well."



Playing on the fact that some monstration festivities in the past have been broken up by police because they had not been approved in advance by the authorities, one user held a sign with slogan, "They won't disperse us."

Another user doctored a photo from a previous monstration parade to add the slogan, "Enough of putting up with this! Let's put up with something else!"

One Instagram user got up before 5 a.m. to photograph herself in the middle of a major street that in Soviet times hosted May Day demonstrations of tens of thousands of marchers. This year, however, the street was eerily empty, except for a masked woman holding a sign reading, "Where is everyone?"

With reporting by the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL's Russian Service
Mumbai: With 678 persons testing positive on Saturday, the number of coronavirus patients in Maharashtra reached 12,974, while the death toll due to the pandemic reached 548 with 27 new deaths. However, 115 patients recovered and were discharged from hospital during the day, taking the number of recovered patients to 2,115, a statement from the state health department said.

Out of the total deaths, 21 were recorded in Mumbai, four in Pune city and one each was recorded in Bhiwandi and Navi Mumbai. According to reports, 16 were men and 11 women. Thirteen out of 27 patients had high-risk comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, etc.

Dharavi, the Covid-19 hotspot in the city also saw a whopping 94 new cases, the highest single-day toll so far; while two people lost their lives. In some relief, 100 more patients also recovered.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and Maharashtra energy minister Nitin Raut wrote a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah and railway minister Piyush Goyal demanding to stop collecting travel fare from the migrant labourers. Besides, Mr Raut has also asked Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to take responsibility for the travel expenses of migrant labourers. The migrants, stuck in Maharashtra, are being sent to their respective states through railways but have been charged for the railway tickets.

Maharashtra NCP general secretary Parasnath Tiwari too demanded free of cost travel for migrant labourers. He wrote a letter to the railway minister and chief minister in this regard. Meanwhile, the railway officials said that they are charging the state government for the superfast trains as the trains are running at a speed of 100 km/hour with few halts.

Speaking with this paper, Mr Raut said, The Central government should have burnt the expenditure of the migrant labourers tickets. The labourers are facing hardship since past 40 days owing to the lockdown. They dont have enough money as they are daily wage workers. The government should have allowed them to travel for free. I have requested the Centre to make arrangements from the PM CARES fund.

A senior railway official said that the service has been provided only on the state governments request. They are selling tickets to the state as per the policy of the railway board. We are giving the tickets in bulk to the respective district collector, who pays to the railway for the same. We are not charging them extra. However, we are providing food and water for free with the help of IRCTC to every migrant labourer, the railway official said. The state of Jharkhand has been paying the fare of tickets for special trains.

A 23-year-old traveller Mithilesh Gaud (23) boarded a special train from Vasai to Gorakhpur on Saturday night. He said, I met a representative of the state government in Buddha Bazaar in Vasai and paid `740 for the railway ticket. However, I was provided water, breakfast and a meal for free by the railways.
The Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa), has established a $1 million solidarity fund to help startups that are under strain due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The fund will be distributed through equity-free grants and commissioned projects, Sheraa said in a statement today (May 4), adding that the fund will aid startups ensuring they remain afloat, and tide over these uncertain times.

The $1 milion Solidarity Fund reflects Sheraas ongoing commitment to supporting our entrepreneurs, especially those struggling to cope with the challenges that Cocid-19 imposes, Najla Al Midfa, CEO of Sheraa, said.

We believe that the entrepreneurial community will play a critical role in the recovery of our society, and so these grants will be used not only to help our startups survive, but also to enable founders to develop solutions that will create a better future for our world, she added.

This grant has been set up in place of Sheraas annual events, which will not be taking place this year keeping in view the safety, health and wellbeing of the community.

Instead, all allocated resources are being used towards the solidarity fund. Grants will be awarded to entrepreneurs committed to creating real impact and building a future we, and the generations to come, deserve, it said.

The initiation of the fund is in honour of the #UbuntuLoveChallenge, a global initiative spearheaded by HE Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi and thought leader, Mamadou Kwidjim Toure, founder of the Africa 2.0 Foundation, the statement said.

The #UbuntuLoveChallenge is a global movement where change-makers and experts from around the world are encouraged to share projects, initiatives and knowledge that makes a global positive impact, thus providing hope in the face of hardship. Millions of people from across the globe are seen collaborating and addressing current problems while offering solutions for the future on the platform.

Sheraa, a non-profit government organisation, is headquartered at the American University of Sharjah and hosts a community of ambitious entrepreneurs. The second Sheraa hub, launched in September 2018, is located at the University of Sharjah.

Since its inception, Sheraa said, it has built a community of over 10,000 entrepreneurs and ecosystem players. Over 100 startups have graduated from Sheraas programmes, generating over $35 million in revenue and raising over $50 million in investment. In addition, Sheraa startups have created over 600 jobs, it added. TradeArabia News Service
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 23:18:19|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

People enjoy their time at a cafe's terrace in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on May 4, 2020. More services are available to Slovenians on Monday as Slovenian government announced further relaxation of restriction measures imposed to contain the COVID-19 epidemic. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun)

LJUBLJANA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- More services are available to Slovenians on Monday as Slovenian government announced further relaxation of restriction measures imposed to contain the coronavirus epidemic.

According to a statement issued by the government, stores under 400 quare meters could reopen on Monday, except for those in shopping malls that do not have their own entrance.

Bars and restaurants are also re-opened, but serving guests only at outdoor facilities. Safety measures still apply.

Hair and massage salons and beauty parlours serve one customer at a time, and face masks are required. Those working in salons and beauty parlours also have to wear visor and gloves.

Starting this week, people again are able to visit museums, libraries and go to church. Moreover, professional athletes are allowed to train.

Repair services for textile products, footwear and leather products are also available, along with key cutting, photography, watchmaking and photocopying services. Seamstresses and jewelers may also open their doors.

The Slovenian government imposed a temporary suspension of most retail activities in mid March.

Slovenia reported no new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours for the second consecutive day, according to latest government data released on Monday. The total number of infections confirmed so far remains at 1,439. One person died of COVID-19 on May 3, bringing the death toll to 97.

In Slovenia, 56,136 tests have been conducted since the first coronavirus infection was confirmed in the country on March 4.
One of the former NBC staffers in contact with state investigators was Rich McHugh, a producer who worked with Farrow, who said he spoke to them last fall. The other was Linda Vester, a former correspondent who has said that Tom Brokaw made a sexual advance towards her two decades ago. Vester said the investigators asked her in January if she knew if Lack was involved in any effort to have a story on her allegations against Brokaw killed.
This evening, the first monday in May, should have played host to one of fashion's most awe-inspiring events, the Met Gala.

Due to the ongoing crisis surrounding Covid-19 however, the annual fundraising event has been postponed 'indefinitely,' and the Costume Institute's exhibition, About Time: Fashion and Duration - which the Gala marks the opening of - is now scheduled to open at the later date of October 29.

Sensing the disappointment that the Gala's absence will have on fashion fans and pop-culture enthusiasts, American Vogue's editor-in-chief and Met Gala co-chair Anna Wintour has revealed that Vogue will host a virtual Met Gala on YouTube this evening.

A Moment with the Met will feature an address from Wintour, a performance by Florence + The Machine and a DJ set by Virgil Abloh and will mark the first time that the event has been "hosted" virtually.

Wintour attending last year's event, wearing Chanel(Getty Images ) / Getty Images

"It would be impossible to recreate the gala on Monday evening, though I have loved hearing how so many are marking the occasion in their own ways, Wintour commented. So instead, I asked a few friends to join me for a simple momentone that I hope will bring us all a bit of joy."

In fact, Wintour has endeavoured to virtually continue the legacy of the Met Gala throughout these unprecedented times. American Vogue teamed up with Pose actor Billy Porter to announce the Met Gala Challenge, which asked fans to re-create their favourite looks from over the years and post them to Instagram. The winners, in fact, will be unveiled today, as the competition ended yesterday.

This year's exhibition was set to showcase archive pieces originating from 1870 to 2020, with an official theme of "About Time: Fashion and Duration."

The Met Gala was established by publicist and founder of the CFDA Eleanor Lambert in 1948 as a way to raise money for the newly-founded Costume Institute and mark the opening of its annual exhibit. The first-ever Gala was a midnight dinner at Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria.

A Moment with the Met will begin streaming at 6pm EST - 11pm BST - this evening on Vogues YouTube channel.
Photo: (Photo : Instagram/amberheard)

On Sunday, Amber Heard shared on her Instagram that her mother, Paige Heard, 63, died.

The 34-year-old actress shared a throwback photo of her with her mom. She added a caption, saying that she is both heartbroken and devastated by the death of her mom. As she clasps onto the memory of her mom's beautiful and gentle soul, Heard said that her mom died young, and she will surely be missed from the bottom of their hearts.

The "Aquaman" actress added that Paige is the most beautiful woman she has ever known because of her unflinching, open heart. It was hard for the actress to imagine, and it gave her a hard time to say, but she felt fortunate to have been Paige's daughter. Heard also said that she is fortunate to receive the light her mom has shown on everyone and to her for 34 years.

Amber Heard also wrote that despite the unbelievably painful time that she is experiencing right now, she is reminded that love still survives in the people that Paige has left. She added that both she and her sister, Whit, appreciate the kindness, support, and generosity that they have received from friends and family.

The first photo that "Her Smell" actress shared was when she was in her younger years as she laid her head on Paige's shoulders, and the next photo from the series was a toddler photo of Heard being cradled by her mom with her dad in the background.

Amber Heard went against the state's conservative social codes then moved to New York City, where she pursued her modeling career. Later on, she went to Los Angeles and changed her career to the film industry.

On March 8, Heard posted a photo of her, her mom, Paige, and her sister, Whit, to celebrate International Women's Day. In 2018, she also shared a photo of Paige and David, both kissing her cheeks as she scrunched her face for the embarrassment that she felt during that time.

On May 13, 2019, the actress shared a photo with her mom's head resting on her shoulder, and she captioned the photo greeting her mom a "Happy Mother's Day" and extending to all the mamas out there. At the same time, Heard described her mom as the most beautiful, strong, patient, and loving woman that she knows. Heard thanked her mom for teaching her what it means to be a woman.

In December 2016, Paige sent a text message to Johnny Depp, saying that the recommendation of Heard's lawyers initiated the restraining order filed by her daughter against Depp. She also told the "Pirates of Caribbean" actor that she loves him despite her daughter's allegation against Depp of domestic violence.

Amber Heard grew up in Austin, Texas.
New Delhi, May 4 : The young scientists of the National Center For Biological Sciences (NCBS) have initiated a series of videos on social media to create awareness about COVID-19 in regional languages after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed young scientists.

Modi had addressed the youth scientists of the nation regarding the creation of a COVID-19 vaccine. NCBS accepted this challenge immediately.

They also launched an initiative to release a video series in all Indian languages to inform people about ways to prevent the spread of this disease.

Manal Shakeel, a young research student who explained about the disease in Urdu, said "We scientists explain what the virus is and how to stay safe from it in the videos. We also encouraged people to ask any questions regarding it and also welcomed suggestions. We have tried to bust many myths and false information being spread concerning this virus." Aditya Asopa, who is from Bikaner started this idea with a series in Marwari, said "We are trying to build a way to do that. A source that can provide information in regional languages and understandable non technical manner. In the grand scheme, this may become a source for popularizing and communicating science."
Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi province, will set up 25,000 5G base stations by 2022 to comprehensively promote the integrated and innovative application of 5G in the city.

Xi'an will build 9,000 new 5G base stations, totaling 13,000, this year, achieving high-quality coverage of the 5G network in its core urban areas and key areas including industrial parks, transportation lines and tourist attractions, said a guideline unveiled by the city's government.

The city is scheduled to build 7,000 and 5,000 new 5G base stations in 2021 and 2022, respectively, bringing the total number in the city to 25,000 and covering the major urban areas and key areas in outlying districts. By the end of 2022, the scale of its 5G industry will exceed 30 billion yuan (about 4.23 billion U.S. dollars), said the guideline.

Xi'an also plans to create 20 to 30 innovative applications of 5G in fields such as advanced manufacturing, smart cities and artificial intelligence by the end of 2022.
Border guards in Lao Cai Province receive 30 illegal Vietnamese workers from Chinese authorities, May 2 2020. Photo courtesy of Lao Cai Border Guards.

China has sent back 30 illegal Vietnamese farm workers, and they have been quarantined for 14 days to ensure they do not have Covid-19.

Border forces in Chinas Yunnan Province last Saturday handed over the eight men and 22 women to their counterparts in Lao Cai Province.

The workers, many of them ethnic HMong people, had reportedly crossed into China through open paths looking for jobs on banana and rubber farms in Yunnan since November last year.

When the Covid-19 pandemic began in December Chinese authorities sought to identify foreign workers to contain the spread of the virus and found these Vietnamese had entered illegally.

They placed them in detention for more than three months before sending them home.

At the Lao Cai border, the returnees had to make health declarations and were then sent to a quarantine center for 14 days.

Lao Cai has set up 13 quarantine centers.

Last month it received 500 workers returning from China, border authorities said. They went to that country legally, but had to return since Chinese factories have been laying off workers due to the impact of the pandemic.

China, where Covid-19 first broke out in Wuhan City last December before spreading to 211 other countries and territories around the world, has reported more than 82,000 cases of infection and 4,633 deaths.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 02:10:26|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

RAMALLAH, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday warned Israel against implementing its plans of annexing Palestinian lands in the West Bank.

Abbas's warning was made in an online speech he addressed before the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit that was held online on Monday, according to the WAFA news agency report.

"If the occupation (Israel) implements its plans of annexing Palestinian lands, we will disengage from all our commitments and agreements," Abbas told the members of the NAM.

In his online speech, Abbas called on NAM members, the international community and the United Nations Security Council to bear their responsibilities towards ensuring the enforcement of the international law. Enditem
The great coronavirus restaurant purge is already upon us. Over the past two months, an estimated 4% of Oregon restaurants had already closed permanently by late April, according to a survey from the National Restaurant Association. That number could climb to 10% by the end of May.

Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that restaurants can only expect to have about a 30% chance of staying open if the coronavirus crisis lasts four months. Federal loans designed to support small businesses present Catch 22s for both restaurants and their workers alike. In a letter to congress, the newly formed Independent Restaurant Coalition has asked for a further $120 billion in restaurant stabilization funds to help small businesses.

So far, only a handful of Oregon restaurants and bars have publicly announced plans to shut for good, though that number is expected to grow quickly as Oregonians continue to stay home and our food businesses are limited to takeout and delivery. Heard of a restaurant or bar that has decided not to reopen? Send us an email and well add them to the list.

PORTLAND

Opened in 2004, Helser's was a Northeast Alberta Street neighborhood standby. The restaurant announced in March that it would close for good due to the coronavirus crisis.The Oregonian/file

Abyssinian Kitchen: One of Portlands most critically acclaimed Ethiopian restaurants announced it was resigned to the fact that it would be nearly impossible for us to operate safely and successfully in the current space we occupy. The restaurant hopes to reopen in a new location after the pandemic. We plan to reopen in a different setting at a different location on the other side of this pandemic, the post reads.

Alma Chocolate: The home of elaborate confections started by Sarah Hart in 2006 announced the permanent closure of its Northeast Portland cafe on July 2. As a parting gift, the shop posted its signature chocolate chip recipe.

Altabira City Tavern: Longtime chef and restaurateur David Machado said hes shutting down all five of his Portland establishments permanently because the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked irreversible damage on his industry.

Arleta Library Bakery & Cafe: The neighborhood breakfast favorite once co-owned by mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone will close permanently, The Oregonian was first to report. In announcing the closure, chef-owner Nick Iannarone pointed to the difficulties involved in enforcing social distancing measures at a small restaurant such as his.

Aviary: One of Portlands most creative finer dining restaurants announced it would close after service on August 29, ending a nine-year run on Northeast Alberta Street.

Back to Eden Bakery & Cafe: The vegan bakery announced its closure July 4. Nothing has brought us more joy than to serve this community for the past 13 years, the announcement reads at backtoedenbakery.com. The companys baking mixes continue to be available online and at New Seasons locations.

Beast: Naomi Pomeroys flagship restaurant will transform into Ripe Cooperative, a new market, this November.

Blackheart: This punk-rock loving all-day breakfast spot will not reopen after the coronavirus crisis is over, according to an Instagram post first by Eater PDX. "Like many businesses across Portland and around the world, were not able to come up with a viable way to stay open, given the new guidelines being set for reopening, the post reads. The post leaves the door open for a Blackheart revivial in another location.

Bluehour: The upscale restaurant in the Pearl Districts Wieden+Kennedy building will not reopen after COVID-19, owner Bruce Carey announced on Facebook. The prospects for a profitable relaunch have dimmed considerably in the context of a far-off, post-COVID future where casual service, social-distancing, to-go service and delivery are all key to any viable restaurant business plan, he wrote.

Blue Star Donuts: Portlands signature purveyors of high-end brioche doughnuts announced the permanent closure of three locations, one each in Multnomah Village, Progress Ridge and the downtown Portland flagship, which opened in 2018.

Canton Grill: On Aug. 26, the Louis family announced that the Chinese restaurant was closing after 76 years in Southeast Portland. The announcement on Facebook ended with this: Thank you to all of you, our staff and our customers, for imbuing the Canton Grill with 76 years of magic.

Cardinal Club: The Northeast 28th Avenue cocktail bar will not reopen after the pandemic. In December, the space is expected to become home to Nightingale, a new bar with creative drinks and seasonal Mexican street food from former San Francisco chef Luna Contreras.

Citizen Baker: Longtime chef and restaurateur David Machado said hes shutting down all five of his Portland establishments permanently because the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked irreversible damage on his industry.

Giraffe: The Japanese cafe and pantry inside Southeast Portland import store Cargo has called it quits, according to an Instagram post first spotted by Eater PDX.

Helsers: This Scotch egg-slinging corner cafe, which served as a welcome alternative to nearby Tin Shed, announced on Facebook it would close after more than 15 years on Northeast Alberta Street, Eater PDX was first to report. Fans can reach out for Helsers recipe tips at helserspdx@gmail.com.

Ichidai Sushi: Chef owner Akihiro Hirakiuchi announced a permanent end to this longtime Southeast Powell Boulevard sushi spot on the restaurants website. Hirakiuchis statement does indicate that there be a next venture in the future.

Imperial: This Southwest Broadway restaurant closed permanently in September, followed by its sister pizzeria, The Crown. In an interview with The Oregonian, chef Vitaly Paley said his other downtown Portland hotel restaurants, Rosa Rosa and Headwaters, are also in peril.

Irving Street Kitchen: The swanky Pearl District restaurant known for its Southern-inflected menu and dramatic decor has closed for good, according to an email from general manager Anna Caporael.

Kargi Gogo: This former food cart turned brick-and-mortar Georgian restaurant will close on Nov. 22, according to an Instagram announcement. Even though the restaurant is closing, my love for Georgia remains strong. I will continue to make Georgian wine available to you online in the Portland area and beyond," co-owner Sean Fredericks wrote.

Ladd Taphouse: The former Blitz Ladd, which rebranded a year and a half ago, has closed for good, taking the go-to hangout for Ohio State Buckeyes and Cleveland Browns fans away with it, according to general manager Ron Cummings.

Le Bistro Montage: The classic Portland late-night restaurant known for an epic mac and cheese menu and extravagant to-go tin foil creatures, is closing permanently, The Oregonian reported June 24.

Liberty Glass: After raising $5,120 in a GoFundMe to Help Secure Liberty Glass Bars Future," this 12-year-old neighborhood bar, found in a converted Victorian home just over the hill from North Mississippi Avenues popular shopping strip, closed permanently at the start of May, according to an Instagram post first spotted by Eater PDX.

Lovejoy Bakers: The Uptown shopping center location of this bakery mini chain formerly owned by Pizzicatos Marc and Tracy Frankel has closed.

Mi Mero Mole: The Old Town/Chinatown restaurant, which specialized in guisados, or Mexico City-inspired stewed meats, has closed permanently, owner Nick Zukin wrote on social media, blaming the City of Portland for not doing more to help. All too often this city puts a knee to the back of its businesses necks while smiling and telling them to relax and that theyre fine, Zukin wrote.

Nel Centro: Longtime chef and restaurateur David Machado said hes shutting down all five of his Portland establishments permanently because the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked irreversible damage on his industry.

Off the Waffle: The Register Guard newspaper reports that the Portland location of this Eugene-based waffle chain has called it quits because of COVID-19. A location in downtown Eugene remains open with a new burger concept, Theseburgers.

Ping Yang Pow: This 24-seat supper club devoted to the charcoal-fired cooking talents of chef Thanyawan Thanya Kaewket was hidden above Pok Pok NW, which has closed permanently, chef Andy Ricker announced in June.

Pizzicato: Three location of this 30-year-old Portland pizza chain have closed, including the pizzerias near Portland State University, the Uptown shopping center and OHSUs waterfront campus in South Portland.

Pok Pok: The nationally recognized Thai restaurant has permanently closed, chef Andy Ricker said. In addition to the flagship location on Southeast Division Street, the restaurant has closed its bar/waiting area, Whiskey Soda Lounge; its sister restaurant in Northwest, Pok Pok NW; as well as Pok Pok Wing locations in Northeast, Southeast and Southwest Portland.

Prosperity Pie Shoppe: This Multnomah Village bakery, which relied on community support to reopen after a fire last year, launched a successful GoFundMe in March to help pay their final payroll.

Pullman Winebar & Merchant: Longtime chef and restaurateur David Machado said hes shutting down all five of his Portland establishments permanently because the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked irreversible damage on his industry.

Rain or Shine Coffee House: The shop on Southeast Division announced on Facebook that Aug. 23 would be its last day in business after 9 years 2 months and 20 days of being the bright and cozy coffee shop at the foot of Mt. Tabor, Rain OR Shine will permanently close its doors.

Revelry: Southeast Portlands late-night fried chicken and cocktail destination from Seattles Relay Restaurant Group has closed permanently, according to an Instagram post from the restaurant.

River Parkway Bistro: This South Waterfront cafe and restaurant, found in the space previously home to the Portland location of Cannon Beachs Pizza afetta, has closed for good, according to a sign posted on the door.

Sanborns: The breakfast spot in Southeast Portland that made The Oregonian/OregonLives second-highest ranked corned beef hash in town announced June 23 that it would shut its doors for good.

Shift Drinks: The downtown Portland cocktail and wine bar has closed permanently. According to an Eater PDX report on June 30, co-owner Anthony Garcia said the bars setup wouldnt work with Oregons coronavirus restrictions on bars.

Sparrows Coffee: This Westmoreland cafe and coffee roaster announced it would not be reopening its doors after the dust settles in a Facebook post on April 14.

Stella Taco: This Austin-style restaurant, a Peoples Choice favorite of The Oregonian/OregonLive readers in 2017, closed the Southeast Division location for good July 18.

Sweet Tomatoes: The San Diego-based buffet chain announced in May that it would not reopen its doors once the coronavirus closure is over, a move that affects 4,400 employees across 97 locations, including four in the Portland metro area.

Tanker Bar: This spirited Southeast Hawthorne Street bar, known for once hosting Project Runway viewing parties with Portlands own contestants in attendance, announced its permanent closure on Instagram on March 17.

Tanner Creek Tavern: Longtime chef and restaurateur David Machado said hes shutting down all five of his Portland establishments permanently because the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked irreversible damage on his industry.

The Toffee Club: Portlands premier soccer bar will close its doors after service on Sunday, August 23, the day of the Champions League final. The Toffee Club relies on us filling our space with a lot of happy, cheering fans and that currently just isnt possible, the bar wrote on Instagram.

Trinket: This cozy Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard restaurant, known for its veggie hash and duck eggs Benedict, has closed for good, owner Gina Helvie announced. Trinket took over the short-lived Kingdom of Roosevelt space in 2013.

Uno Mas Northeast: The Northeast Glisan Street location of chef Oswaldo Bibianos taco joint will not reopen after the pandemic. In its place, mobile pina colada king Alfredo Climaco is opening a cocktail bar. Uno Mas West Burnside location remains open.

Verde Cocina en la Perla: This health-focused Mexican restaurant with farmers market roots closed its Pearl District location after its last takeout service Sunday, May 24. The mini chain will continue to operate farmers market booths and brick-and-mortar locations in Sylvan Highlands and the eight-year-old original in Hillsdales former Caffe Autogrille space.

Wongs King Seafood: The restaurant that rewrote the map for Chinese food in Portland has closed after 15 years on Southeast Division Street, a family friend of chef Fulai Wong confirmed.

ASTORIA

Baked Alaska: The venerable fine dining landmark, located on a pier along the Astoria Riverwalk, has permanently closed after 20 years.

BEND

Pilot Butte Drive-In: This nearly 40-year-old Bend restaurant has closed permanently, and the building is on the market for $1.75 million, The Bulletin reports. Owner William Falconer has been trying to sell the business since 2018.

CANNON BEACH

Sweet Basil: The beloved Cajun and Creole restaurant that was set to celebrate its 14th anniversary at the end of June has closed for good.

ESTACADA

Mason Jar Cafe: This rustic Estacada cafe and coffee shop will not reopen after the coronavirus crisis is over, the restaurant announced March 15. The cafes furniture and equipment is for sale. Call 971-404-8877 or reach out via Facebook for more information.

GALES CREEK

Colemans 9N Shady Rest: Better known simply as Colemans, this 14-year-old roadside diner at the junction of Oregon Highways 6 and 8 announced it would close for good in April, the Gales Creek Journal reports. The closure leaves Gales Creek with just one restaurant, OutAzaBlue, which is testing out local take-out and delivery.

GEARHART

Pacific Way Cafe: This 32-year-old Gearhart standby will close permanently, just months after owners Lisa and John Allen spent $10,000 on a dining room renovation, according to the Seaside Signal.

MILWAUKIE

The Bomber: This former gas station and restaurant, which opened in the late 1940s, was best known for the B-17G bomber that hung above the building. The plane was removed for restoration in 2014. According to a voice mail, The Bomber hopes to continue its catering service.

OREGON CITY

Singer Hill Cafe: COVID-19 is pushing owners Phil and Vicki Yates into an early retirement. The husband and wife, who have ran the central Oregon City cafe and restaurant for 14 years, hope a new owner might come along to preserve the space and its signature vertical gardens.

Yvonnes: The popular Oregon City brunch spot and its 818 Lounge announced its permanent closure on June 3. But there could be a glimmer of hope. In a GoFundMe launched June 16, owner Yvonne Haney announced that the restaurant had secured a new location, but needed $10,000 to make the move. The COVID-19 shutdown cost us everything  our staff, our savings, our space, our equipment, our licensing, etc., Haney wrote. We have the menu, the recipes, the people and the willpower to make this happen, but we do not have the funds.

SEASIDE

Tokyo Teriyaki: The Seaside location of this mini teriyaki chain will closed permanently, according to a Facebook post. A sister restaurant in Astoria remains open.

TIGARD

Well & Good Coffee House: The nonprofit business that shared its profits with agencies serving Tigard announced May 26 that it has closed permanently.

TUALATIN

Village Inn: The Tualatin location of this casual chain announced Monday morning that it will close its doors for a final time, according to a Facebook announcement first spotted by KATU news.

VANCOUVER, WASH.

808 Sunrise Deli: On June 5, this downtown Vancouvers bagel shop, deli and Hawaiian restaurant announced on Facebook that it had closed for good.

Joes Crab Shack: The seafood-focused restaurant known for its crab legs, brightly colored drinks and dramatic views of the Interstate bridge will not reopen its location on the Vancouver waterfront, parent company Landrys Inc. announced.

Lapellah: One of the best-reviewed restaurants in Southwest Washington, Lapellah opened in 2008 as part of chef Brad Roots mini group of Vancouver strip-mall restaurants. Lapellah closed for good in June.

Low Bar: This eight-year-old brewpub, part of an early wave of restaurant and bar development in downtown Vancouver, is set to close permanently due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Columbian newspaper reports.

Three Sixty Kitchen: The pizza-focused restaurant originally came from chef Brad Root of Roots Restaurant & Bar. Along with sister restaurant Lapellah, it closed permanently in June.

-- Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
The Coast Guard is increasing its presence in the Caribbean in an attempt to forestall a potential COVID-19-inspired surge in illegal migration and human smuggling from the region, according to the admiral in charge of forces protecting the coastlines of the Florida peninsula, Georgia and South Carolina.

Any time theres a crisis in the southeast U.S.  theres always the risk of increased migration, said Rear Adm. Eric Jones, commander of the Coast Guards 7th District, which is headquartered in Miami. Smugglers will look for an opportunity, whether its post-hurricane, post-earthquake or amidst political turmoil, to try and smuggle folks out of Haiti, out of the Dominican Republic, from the Bahamas or out of Cuba.

Joness 3,600 active-duty Coast Guardsmen have been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 fight since mid-March, when the pandemic forced the cruise ship industry to grind to a halt. Because so much of that industry is based in Miami, many cruise lines chose to send their ships to Florida, where 7th District personnel worked around the clock to facilitate the offloading of passengers and to arrange medical support and resupply for the crews that remained aboard.

As of April 4, the Coast Guard had disembarked more than a quarter of a million cruise ship passengers, a spokesperson for the service told Yahoo News in a statement.

A lifeboat from the Costa cruise ship Magica is escorted by the U.S. Coast Guard on March 30 in Miami. (TNS via ZUMA Wire)

The 120 cruise ships that remain in U.S. waters, with about 82,400 crew members onboard, have now settled into a cycle of remaining offshore for a set number of days before coming in to get provisions, refuel and offload waste, according to Jones. Weve got to make sure that as ships come and go, we minimize the chance that those ships crews could infect port workers, harbor pilots and Coast Guard crews while at the same time we keep those ships moving, he said.

Indeed, because almost half the cruise ships have some sort of illness onboard, the Coast Guard has facilitated the delivery of medical equipment and personnel to those liners, as well as medical evacuations or consultations ashore for critically ill crew members, Jones said.

Story continues

With the cruise liner situation somewhat stable, Jones and his Coast Guardsmen are turning their attention south, to the waters of the Caribbean, where the full force of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has yet to strike. Some of these Caribbean countries, theyre just in the opening chapters in the pandemic, Jones said, adding that as COVID-19 sweeps through the island nations, the Coast Guard must be prepared to deal with both opportunists who might believe were not watching the southeast coastline and also people driven to flee those countries by potential breakdowns in their health care and political systems.

Jones stressed that while the Coast Guard was not seeing an increase in people-smuggling efforts, it was trying to preempt any such efforts by increasing its presence in Caribbean waters so folks know that were down there so they dont even attempt to take to the seas. For desperate would-be emigres, putting to sea a boat chock-full of migrants is dangerous enough normally but during a pandemic would represent an extraordinary risk, according to Jones. What a chance for transmission of the disease among those migrants [that] would be, he said.

The remains of the National Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images)

In recent years, the devastation wrought by 2019s Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas prompted several thousand Bahamians to flee to the United States. However, when a powerful earthquake rocked Haiti in 2010, a firm stance from the administration of President Barack Obama dissuaded what might otherwise have been a large wave of immigrants from that country, according to Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

The administration was very stern and stiff in its messaging that they would be returned and that there was no relief in the U.S. for people trying to leave, Mittelstadt said. That message was not just circulated to Haitian-American communities in the United States but was also strongly sent back to Haiti and Haitian communities, and I think that the numbers that were anticipated were never seen, she added.

However, any significant increase in migration efforts from Caribbean countries would place a strain on the 7th Districts limited supply of personal protective equipment (PPE), according to Jones.

We are very closely watching PPE, he said. We are not short at this point, but as you can imagine, if we did have a serious uptick of migration  maritime  then that could create a challenge, so weve gone to great lengths to very carefully keep track of the PPE we have.

To preserve its limited supply of N95 masks, the 7th Districts personnel are wearing cloth face coverings during their day-to-day activities, because that has been determined to be good basic protection if youre not in a high-risk situation, Jones said. If we think were going to be in close contact with someone, and theres a reasonable chance of infection, then we go ahead and use the PPE.

So far, he added, the 7th District had not reached the point where were having to reuse PPE.

Costa Favolosa cruise ship lifeboats arrive at the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Miami Beach on March 26 with crew members showing COVID-19 symptoms. (David Santiago/Miami Herald/TNS via Getty Images)

The Coast Guard is fully aware of the perils inherent in its missions, according to Jones. Nearly every Coast Guard mission involves interacting with other people, other mariners, and so the COVID risk exists everywhere, he said. Were approaching all of our operations with the presumed possibility that someone we encounter out on the water could be infected.

For that reason, following guidance from Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz, Coast Guardsmen in the 7th District and elsewhere, Coast Guardsmen are changing how they operate on the water and on land, not adjusting the amount of what were doing, typically, but perhaps adjusting how were doing it, Jones said.

This wasnt initially the case, according to another Coast Guard official. At first, he said, Coast Guardsmen didnt know what approach to take in order to minimize exposure when presented with situations in which they would otherwise have boarded a vessel. It was a nightmare, the Coast Guard official said.

But now, according to Jones, whether confronted by a suspicious boat in the Caribbean, a commercial ship headed to Florida or a pleasure craft floating off Miami, the Coast Guard is communicating more with boat crews before deciding whether to board them than would usually be the case.

Another Coast Guard official summed up the change in tactics this way: Were talking to more boats, but boarding less.

If Coast Guardsmen decide they do need to board a ship and they have concerns over the health of those onboard, they will don PPE, according to Jones.

The Coast Guard is being very aggressive in its approach to keep the number of cases in its ranks as low as possible, the Coast Guard official said.

So far, those efforts appear to have succeeded. As of April 29, the Coast Guards force of about 41,500 active-duty members, 6,000 reservists and 9,000 civilians had suffered 86 cases of COVID-19; 54 had recovered and none had died. There have been no concentrated outbreaks among ship crews or other units, according to a Coast Guard spokesman.

But the risks continue. Were still putting people in harms way, said a Coast Guard official. Were still doing our job.

_____

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:
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 21:00:27|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

KUWAIT CITY, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait on Monday reported 295 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths, bringing the total infections in the country to 5,278 and the death toll to 40, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The new cases included two Kuwaiti citizens who returned from Britain and France, the statement said.

Currently, 3,291 patients are receiving treatment, including 79 in ICU, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, Kuwaiti Minister of Health Bassel Al-Sabah announced the recovery of 171 patients from the coronavirus, raising the total number of recoveries in the country to 1,947.

A Chinese medical team has wrapped up its visit to the Arab country.

During the visit, the team members discussed with their Kuwaiti counterparts China's experience in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, and exchanged detailed information on the prevention and treatment of the disease.

The Kuwaiti government has imposed a nationwide curfew to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

On March 13, Kuwait suspended all commercial flights. The government also closed stores, malls and barbershops in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. Enditem
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate New Jersey, the state has been left without key information.

Namely, who, exactly, is getting sick and dying. Although the state Department of Health has begun releasing some demographic data, full data on the race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity of people who have tested positive for or died from the coronavirus doesnt yet exist.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

That could change this month.

On Monday, state Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle (D-Bergen) plans to introduce legislation mandating hospitals in the state to collect and report more demographic information about COVID-19 cases and deaths to the state health department. The measure follows a similar one mandating hospitals to report race and ethnicity data of coronavirus patients to the state which Gov. Phil Murphy signed last week.

If passed, all licensed hospitals in the state that admit or treat coronavirus patients will be required to ask a persons sexual orientation and gender identity, including if a person identifies as non-binary. Once the data is reported to the health department, officials will have to publish the data on the states website each day, like they do with other demographic data.

I think its important because during a public health crisis its important to have the information to understand which marginalized communities are hit, Huttle said. (Is the LGBT community) being disproportionately impacted? We have no way of knowing.

Huttle said she hopes the state Assembly and the Senate will vote on the measure in May and it will reach Murphys desk by the end of the month.

Christian Fuscarino, executive director of Garden State Equality, said in a statement that collecting the data was urgent.

Its critical that we immediately begin reporting demographic data for sexual orientation and gender identity among COVID-19 cases, so that we can effectively direct state and community resources and funding, Fuscarino said.

By the time the measure could be enacted, well be through nearly three months of COVID-19 cases and deaths. On Saturday, the states totals included more than 126,000 COVID-19 cases and 7,871 deaths.

Jackie Baras, a registered nurse and director of LGBT programs at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, said its better to collect the data late than not at all. She noted, however, that it would have been best for the state to have collected the data from the beginning.

I think it has a lot of advantages, I just dont know why its only happening now, she said.

But with the data, Baras and Huttle both said, the state can begin to get a picture of how COVID-19 is affecting LGBTQ New Jerseyans. Baras said that can lead to healthcare providers making different choices when treating patients, and can help direct health policy for the state.

For example, she said, the data could show where in the state LGBTQ people are getting sick and could help direct resources. The data could also lead to a conversation about establishing more private spaces for transgender people to be treated.

And on the personal level, if healthcare providers knows COVID-19 patient is LGBTQ, they might ask additional questions about their support systems. Research has shown, for example, that transgender people face unemployment at three times the rate of cisgendered people, a dynamic that could be worse during a pandemic.

"These are things that because of having sexual orientation and gender identity data, it will give you an idea of, Hmm, I know how to better care for this patient, Baras said. Thats how we can address these disparities.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

J. Dale Shoemaker can be reached at jshoemaker@njadvancemedia.com.
NEW YORK, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Biz2Credit, a leading digital platform and technology company that helps small businesses access capital, today announced that its funding affiliate was approved last Friday as a lender for the SBA Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) established under the recently-enacted CARES Act.



This makes the company one of the few fintechs approved by the SBA as a non-bank lender under the PPP. Following this approval, Biz2Credit will continue to use its online lending platform to help small businesses apply for government-backed PPP loans.

The Paycheck Protection Program was established by Congress under the CARES Act to stabilize the economy by providing low interest financing to small businesses and help them keep their employees on payroll. If businesses maintain their pre-COVID staffing levels, these SBA-guaranteed loans can be forgiven.

Biz2Credit has helped its customers secure PPP loans since the program started last month, and now can do so directly through its funding affiliate. The company estimates upwards of $1.5 billion in demand for PPP loans from its customers, who are concentrated in industries that have been hardest-hit by coronavirus lockdowns, including many minority-owned businesses located in the New York City metropolitan and tri-state area.

We are thrilled by the designation as an SBA Approved Lender, as now we can start providing these loans directly to small businesses across the country as PPP funding availability permits, said Rohit Arora, CEO of Biz2Credit and one of the nations leading experts in small business finance and fintech. Many of the smallest businesses  often women-owned and minority-owned companies that are chronically underserved by banks  have encountered tremendous difficulty in securing PPP funding.

We will leverage our technology and more than a decades worth of experience in small business lending to help companies that desperately need this money, Arora added. We are ready to help.

Biz2Credits digital funding platform lets business owners complete their PPP loan applications quickly, and verifies a borrowers revenue streams and expenses, including payroll. Biz2Credit can now further assist eligible small business customers in applying for government-backed loans through the companys funding affiliate to keep their businesses solvent.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fact that countless small businesses do not have either the cash reserves to operate for more than a few weeks on their own without assistance or ready access to desperately-needed working capital, Arora said. The ability to directly offer forgivable, low-cost PPP loans to our customers will enable us to help thousands of small businesses at this critical time.

About Biz2Credit

Founded in 2007, Biz2Credit has arranged more than $3 billion in small business financing. The company is expanding its industry-leading technology in custom digital platform solutions for banks and other financial institutions, vendors and service providers. Visit www.biz2credit.com or Twitter @Biz2Credit, Facebook , and LinkedIn .
A Georgia man is facing a manslaughter charge in the death of his girlfriend after police say he ran over her foot with his car and then failed to get her medical help.

William Kinsey, 46, was initially arrested in early March on charges of serious injury by motor vehicle and reckless driving.

Barrow County sheriff's deputies took Kinsey into custody after a trail of blood led them to Brittnie Patterson's body inside her Statham home.

William Kinsey (left), from Georgia, now faces an additional charge of involuntary manslaughter in connection to the March 8 death of his girlfriend, Brittnie Patterson, 36 (right)

Deputies following a trail of blood in Patterson's driveway in Statham, Georgia (pictured) found the woman dead inside her home after allegedly having her foot run over by Kinsey

Investigators said at the time that on March 8, Kinsey injured his girlfriend with his car and 'failed to summon emergency medical aid' for the 36-year-old victim, reported Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The following morning, Patterson's neighbor called 911 to report seeing a trail of blood in her driveway on Goldenshore Way.

Officials said Kinsey, 46, had failed to seek medical attention for his girlfriend, leaving her to die

Responding deputies followed dark stains of gore on the ground, which included what looked like bloody footprints, to the front door. They looked through the window and saw more blood inside the home.

When deputies entered the residence, they found the woman's lifeless body laying on the floor.

Nearly two months after his arrest, Kinsey was hit with an additional charge of involuntary manslaughter stemming from Patterson's death.

DailyMail.com reached out to the sheriff's office seeking comment on the upgraded charge and was awaiting a reply.

The 46-year-old suspect remains in the county jail without bond.
Doctors in Punjab say that apart from testing their endurance, PPE kits, if faulty, pose a grave danger of exposure. Returning home amid a lack of accommodation facility at GMCH Amritsar also causes worries about their families' safety

Editor's note: This series will focus on the difficulties faced by the medical fraternity at COVID-19 hospitals, their duty hours, access to protective gear, facilities they get during quarantine, how are their families coping with this new reality across different states in the country. This is the eighth part of the series.

***

Every time Dr Jagdeep Dhillon (name changed) doffs his PPE kit after finishing a COVID-19 duty at Government Medical College, Amritsar, he takes back two concerns -- the exposure in case PPE kits were substandard and the likely effects on his elderly parents back home.

His concerns assume significance with 3,500 pilgrims returning to the state from Maharashtras Nanded, 173 of them testing positive for coronavirus, taking the states total cases to 585 on Friday. Seventy-six of these pilgrims are in Amritsar, a city where 75 new cases were reported on Sunday.

Dhillon says some PPE kits being provided were substandard and did not comply with the guidelines prescribed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Some doctors complained that the kits were not impermeable and others found that the equipment did not fully cover their bodies, he said. A local level fund used to procure equipment as and when needed does not quell the worry over the quality. Its like sending doctors on a suicide mission.

Dr Surinder Bakshi (name changed), a resident doctor at Amritsars Guru Nanak Dev Hospital, echoes Dhillons concern. There is no shortage of PPE kits and other equipment, but there have been instances of a quality deficit. During a weeks dealing with those admitted with symptoms of COVID-19, he said he received kits on some days through which air blown on it was passing through.

Wearing a PPE kit, Dhillon says, tests the limits of the medical workers endurance. For the eight hours of duty, the kit cannot be removed, despite profuse sweating and dehydration. The protective equipment cannot be touched from outside or removed under any circumstance. On the day of my first COVID duty, I felt headache, dizziness and with the heat, it became a challenge to not reach out to a water bottle and drink from it, he adds.

Moreover, doctors don and doff the PPE kit in the doctors room within the ward, in the absence of a demarcated area to do the same, increasing the time of exposure while having no equipment on for protection. Imagine wearing a plastic bag all over your body, Bakshi says, adding that staff can feel nausea and wearing a PPE kit for such long periods may not even be possible for those suffering from claustrophobia.

Click here to read the complete series

Bakshi lamented the risks that a haphazard roster posed, under which doctors are posted in COVID-19 wards and their respective departments. He cited a case at GMCH-32 Chandigarh in which an operation theatre attendant tested positive and so did three women resident doctors from the anaesthesia department.

Our college posted doctors from all departments on COVID duty, be it medicine, surgery, orthopaedic, etc. And after serving there, doctors serve in other departments and are not given PPE kits or N95 masks. Arent doctors in non-COVID wards also at risk? Bakshi too said that often doctors outside the coronavirus wards are only given FFPS-1 or FFPs-2 masks, meant to be used in case of high air pollution and dust.

This assumes significance even as a Supreme Court ruling asked the government on Thursday to update guidelines on the rational use of PPE to ensure that all healthcare staff involved in working in non-COVID areas also be provided full PPE kits.

Dhillon added that a new roster requires doctors from various departments to serve for seven days each in the green zone, emergency and flu corner and blue areas. Another combined period of seven days in the yellow, orange and red zones came into effect on 28 April.

Earlier, we had to serve in the isolation ward at least once a week and then go to the emergency or OPD the next day, he said. A roster demarcating zones and duties was being followed in GMCH Faridkot and GMC Patiala from the time that they had only one patient each. We are implementing it now after we put up a fight and approached health authorities, the resident doctor says.

The new rules that came into effect on Thursday also required that those serving in COVID wards should undergo a 14-day quarantine. Before this, there was no isolation facility for the medical staff. Dhillon, who lives with elderly parents suffering from diabetes and hypertension, feels like he is living alone even when he goes back home.

I rigorously sanitise myself on reaching home, wash my own clothes and use different utensils. I enter my house through a separate entrance and stay in my room, hardly interacting with my parents, he says. In the self-imposed isolation, Dhillon continues to read books, work on his thesis and keep in touch with colleagues from other parts of the state to stay updated about the situation at other hospitals in Punjab.

Bakshi, however, was lucky to get a place in a friends room in the college hostel, where he stayed during the week-long duration of his duty. I isolated myself in that room, did my chores and food was brought from the mess and kept at the entrance. I have my wife and toddler son back home and I could not go back and risk their safety, he says.

At the Gian Sagar Hospital, doctors and other medical staff are sent to the hostel for mandatory quarantine after serving in the COVID ward. It has been a month since Ive gone home. At the hostel too, people dont meet each other and only interact from a distance, senior surgery resident at SAS Nagars Gian Sagar Hospital Dr Sameer Singla said, adding that he bides his time by reading books and watching television.

Doctors tend to get homesick and he often motivates them over video calls. He added that apart from his duty hours, he remains available for help during the rest of the day and even hands out his contact details to discharged patients.

Four staffers of GMC Amritsar were given showcause notices on 24 April for releasing statements on the shortage of PPE kits earlier this month, The Print reported. Later, Amritsar MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla asked the deputy commissioner to probe the allegations, while the Punjab Nursing Association also said that the 2,000 PPE kits procured from the fund provided by Aujla and Rajya Sabha MP Shawait Malik were of sub-standard material and not safe for staff.

Sources had told Times of India that the hospital had ordered 2,000 PPE kits and 2,500 N95 masks from a Delhi-based company and that 650 of these kits had already been used.

I have lost faith in the system. Medical workers are not heard and then letters of complaint are lost in the system. If we talk to the media, we are given showcause notices. Our attention should be on treating patients and not writing letters or worrying about faulty equipment and schedules. Imagine if while dealing with the outbreak, our safety is compromised and doctors are lost, Bakshi says.

In SAS Nagar, a shortage of equipment was not faced as of Thursday. However, four people posted from surgery and some medicine residents gave letters about faulty kits their respective department heads, Singla said. SAS Nagar was among the five industrial districts, apart from Jalandhar, Patiala, Ludhiana and Amritsar, that accounted for 73 percent of the total confirmed cases as on Wednesday.

Moreover, MBBS interns and resident doctors assisting the efforts to contain the coronavirus infection also faced the issue of a meagre stipend of Rs 9,000 a month, whereas states like Assam pay as much as Rs 21,000 monthly. Only on 24 April did the state government announce that the stipend was increased to Rs 15,000.

Even as the coronavirus outbreak continues to have dire consequences, doctors continue their attempts to keep the patients morale high.

The first time I was posted, a 65-year-old diabetic patient came with breathing problems. He asked me if COVID-19 patients survived at GMC Amritsar and told me, please save my life. I have only one son and I want to see him again. The patient was later put on a ventilator, revived after a cardiac arrest, but he ultimately died. Our profession is such that we have been trained to cope with death, but this scenario is a different and a very stressful one, Dhillon recounts. At the COVID ward at Gian Sagar, Singla recently distributed toys and chocolates sent by the government amid the 6-7 children admitted there.

Despite authorities action and no signs of abatement of the coronavirus, Dhillon and the 53 medicine department resident doctors at GMC, Amritsar continue to report to duty with enthusiasm.

We work despite such demoralising notices and actions of authorities. There is no one to tell us that were doing a good job. But we have taken the Hippocratic oath and the thought to betray it even in such trying times does not cross my mind, he adds.

According to Singla, who took the duty of the COVID-19 ward in-charge, the question of not attending to patients will never come to his mind irrespective of how long it takes for the outbreak to abate. People have to help us and each other out by following the lockdown and social distancing guidelines. The disease is highly contagious, but not untreatable. So panic needs to be avoided, he says.

So far, 1,102 confirmed cases have been reported from all the 22 districts in Punjab. As of Sunday, the districts which have the most number of cases include 218 from Amritsar, 124 from Jalandhar, 111 from Ludhiana and 95 from SAS Nagar.
Slate is making its essential coronavirus coverage free for all readers. Subscribe to support our journalism.

With each passing week, America sets a painful new record: the largest number of job losses since the Great Depression. As of last week, more than 30 million claims had been filed. And while communities across the country are suffering, our leaders in Washington seem stuck on discussing the possibility of insufficient stimulus measures as metaphor and model.

As it stands, the primary federal response has been to provide unemployment insurance for those out of work, to give incentives to small businesses to retain employees, and to rely ever more on the Federal Reserve as an instrument of social policy. While valuable, these policy moves leave our republic in the very dire state that COVID-19 has mercilessly exposed: publicly unprepared, socially frayed, economically unjust, and structurally withered. As we outline in a new policy paper, there is a better way.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

The current recession is steep and severe, and even under optimistic scenarios, millions of the jobs now lost are not coming back. Meanwhile, any successful test-fueled rush to reopen the country and get back to the America of January 2020 will only return us to a world in which, despite low official unemployment rates, four in 10 Americans reported that they could not readily meet an emergency $400 expense, millions were reliant upon gig work without benefits, our infrastructure crumbled, and our government was caught flat-footed in the face of a public health crisis. Such a rush will also likely lead to mass death on a scale beyond what weve already seen and is most likely simply impossible to succeed in returning us to the old normal. January 2020 is not a status quo to which we can or should try blindly to return.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Instead, like President Franklin Roosevelt did in the 1940s, we call for a federal job guarantee that would create millions of jobs, end involuntary unemployment, and build out necessary and resilient public infrastructure. Unlike the stimulus ideas that have dominated Washington to date, a direct government hiring initiative would address inequality; build robust capacity in public health, conservation, education, and infrastructure; and provide not just stable jobs, but government capacity to meet the current pandemic and economic crisis as well as the next one.

Advertisement

Other countries have not shed jobs as quickly as America has, in part because those countries directly support businesses, but also because their governments directly employ a greater share of workers. If America boosted its public sector employment ratecurrently about 15 percent of the labor forceto the level of Great Britain, about 17 percent, we would create 4 million jobs. Augmenting to Canadas level, 19 percent, would bring another 4 million.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

And the benefits would go well beyond jobs. Public sector hiring would create government capacity to help us in times both lean and fat. European governments can funnel money directly to businesses because the administrative capacity has already been established. America has nothing like this because we dont systematically employ anyone to do it. Meanwhile, calls to unemployment offices go unanswered, there arent enough workers to test Americans en masse or monitor Americans health, and state and local governments are laying off critical workers.

By building on the model of the New Deal, Washington could target millions of new jobs directly toward the working-class Americans left behind in the uneven growth of the past decadesespecially black, brown, and rural Americans.

There are many ways these jobs could be created. Shoring up our unemployment offices and job training centers while extending vocational and professional training into Grades 13 and 14 would create hundreds of thousands of new positions. Constructing and staffing new health clinics and creating comprehensive testing for COVID-19 and subsequent pandemics would bring another 500,000 or more jobs. Transforming the energy infrastructure of the U.S. through a Green New Dealemploying people in conservation work, refitting urban and suburban buildings, and installing solar panels and white roofswould provide millions of jobs. And transforming the American postal system by attaching banking and election registration services to each post office would provide a lifeline for a critical American institution in crisis, better connect our urban and rural citizens to one another and the rest of the nation, and create thousands of new jobs already distributed via the approximately 35,000 post offices across the U.S. Finally, direct grants to state and local governments would enable communities to address their public health, economic, and infrastructure needs in the ways they know best.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

The current focus on stimulus is deeply flawed, reproducing inequality by cutting taxes for businesses and thereby conveying billions to the already wealthy. As stimulus funds work their way through corporations, contractors, and small-business lenders, workers get an ever-smaller share of the pie. Stimulus programs are also beset by lobbying, in part because the benefits flow disproportionately to those at the top of the income distribution. Communities of color are already being left out of the stimulus or will benefit little from the short-term cash infusion.

Government jobs programs, on the other hand, deliver the benefit directly to workers; are subject to less lobbying than corporate bailouts; and would extend a job guarantee, more stable finances, and meaningful work to millions of Americans. By reinvesting in the strong and energetic government to which Alexander Hamilton aspired, America can fashion a more just and robust society.

For more on the impact of the coronavirus, listen to The Gist.
Lebanon police on Monday identified 20-year-old Kenneth Santiago as the man found dead in the Quittapahilla Creek canal on Friday.

They further announced the investigation of his death led to the body of Alexander Hernandez, 21, who was found Sunday in the Quittapahilla Creek in North Cornwall Township.

Both men are from Lebanon, police said.

Police said they had learned that Santiago was last seen in the company of Hernandez.

Police said they don't know the cause of death of either man and autopsies will be performed.

Police are asking anyone with information to call the Lebanon City Police Department at 717-272-2054 or Crime Stoppers at 717-270-9800.
Imperial Valley News Center

President Trump on Armenian Remembrance Day

Washington, DC - Friday, we join the global community in memorializing the lives lost during the Meds Yeghern, one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century. Beginning in 1915, 1 and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. On this day of remembrance, we pay respect to those who suffered and lost their lives, while also renewing our commitment to fostering a more humane and peaceful world.

Every year on April 24, we reflect on the strong and enduring ties between the American and Armenian peoples. We are proud of the founders of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, a ground-breaking effort established in 1915 that provided crucial humanitarian support to Armenian refugees, and grateful for the thousands of Americans who contributed or volunteered to help Armenians expelled from their homes.

On this day, we bear witness to the strength and resiliency of the Armenian people in the face of tragedy. We are fortunate that so many Armenians have brought their rich culture to our shores and contributed so much to our country, including decorated soldiers, celebrated entertainers, renowned architects, and successful businesspeople.

We welcome efforts by the Armenians and Turks to acknowledge and reckon with their painful history. On this day, we believe it is our obligation to remember those who suffered and perished and reaffirm our commitment to protecting vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities around the world.
(Reuters)  Hedge funds recorded gains in April when stocks posted their biggest monthly return in decades thanks largely to government rescue packages designed to fuel growth stalled by lockdowns to fight the coronavirus pandemic, managers and investors said. Citadel, the Chicago-based hedge fund giant which relies on teams of traders to make bets on stocks, bonds, commodities and other securities, earned a 4% return in its flagship Wellington hedge fund last month, according to a performance estimate.

To read this article:


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European markets ended sharply lower on Monday as an escalation in U.S.-China tensions over the origin of the coronavirus outbreak hurt sentiment and triggered heavy selling across the board.



Trade war fears returned to the fore after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday there was 'a significant amount of evidence' that the new coronavirus originated in China.



U.S. President Donald Trump, who had threatened earlier last week that he would impose fresh tariffs on China over the coronavirus outbreak, said again on Sunday that he believed that a 'mistake' in China was the cause of the virus pandemic. However, he did not provide any evidence for the claim.



China's Global Times said in an editorial that Pompeo was 'bluffing' and called on the United States to present its evidence.



Warnings from Apple Inc. and Amazo.Com Inc. about uncertain conditions due to the virus pandemic, and new that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc has completely exited its stakes in the four major U.S. airlines added to the woes.



The pan European Stoxx 600 tumbled 2.65%. Germany's DAX declined 3.64% and France's CAC 40 plunged 4.24%, Switzerland's SMI went down by 2.48%, while the U.K.'s FTSE, which had suffered a sharp setback on Friday, ended with a marginal loss of 0.16% today.



Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden declined 3 to 5%.



Portugal and Turkey lost more than 2%, while Czech Republic, Denmark and Russia ended with moderate losses.



Airlines and suppliers of aerospace parts were sharply lower after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sold all stakes in four major U.S. airlines, noting that the airline industry has changed due to coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic.



Thyssenkrupp, which tumbled nearly 14%, was the biggest loser in Germany's DAX index. According to the Financial Times, private equity firms Cinven and Advent are seeking other investors for the 17.2 billion euro deal for Thysenkrupp's elevators business.



Infineon Technologies and Adidas both closed lower by a little over 7%. Daimler, Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, BMW, Continental, Siemens, Fresenius, Merck, Bayer, Allianz, HeidelbergCement and Beiersdorf lost 3 to 6%.



In France, Technip, Societe Generale, Safran, Bouygues, Sodexo, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Airbus Group, ArcelorMittal, STMicroElectronics, Capgemini and Publicis Groupe lost 4 to 9%.



In the U.K. market, EasyJet declined 7.6%. Rolls-Royce Holdings and Informa lost nearly 7% and 6.5%, respectively. IAG, ITV, Standard Chartered, M&G and Royal Bank lost 3 to 4.5%.



On the other hand, Hikma Pharmaceutical gained about 6% and Ocado Group moved up 4.5%. TUI, GlaxoSmithKline, Royal Dutch Shell, 3i Group, AstraZeneca and Admiral Group gained 2 to 3.5%.



On the data front, the euro area manufacturing sector contracted at a record pace in April as government restrictions to limit the spread of the global coronavirus weighed on activity, final survey results from IHS Markit showed.



The final Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 33.4 from 44.5 in March. The score was also below the flash estimate of 33.6. The score was the lowest ever recorded by the series, surpassing readings seen during the depths of the global financial crisis.



Meanwhile, Eurozone investor confidence rose marginally in May but the current situation fell to a record low due to coronavirus pandemic, survey data from the behavioral research firm Sentix revealed.



The headline Sentix investor confidence index rose to -41.8 in May from -42.9 in the previous month. Nonetheless, this was below economists' forecast of -33.5.



The current situation index declined to a record low 73.0 from -66.0 in April, while the expectations index rose to -3.0 from -15.8 a month ago.



The Bank of England will assess the economic damage wreaked by Covid-19 on Thursday, although expectations are low for further stimulus.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
2020 Toyota RAV4 Auto Channel Review by Chicago Car Guy Larry Nutson

Five generations and holding strong

By Larry Nutson

Executive Editor and Bureau Chief

Chicago Bureau

The Auto Channel

It seems like the RAV4 has been around forever. Actually, its been around since 1995.

It was the first of the compact crossover SUVs to come onto the U.S. automotive scene. Last year the RAV4 was the best selling compact crossover SUV in the U.S. Toyotas Recreational Activity Vehicle is its best-selling model and the best-selling non-pickup small SUV vehicle in America for the past two years.

For 2019 it got a complete redesign. Now for 2020 a new TRD Off-Road model has been added for the adventurous type. Android Auto had been added to Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa compatibility across all trims.

The RAV4 2020 lineup includes an array of different trims with a choice of a conventional gasoline engine or a hybrid powertrain, as well as both front-wheel or all- wheel drive. Seating is for five. Around 181 inches long with 37.5 cu.ft. of cargo space, the RAV4 is a versatile SUV suitable for urban and, of course, suburban use. RAV4s capabilities can be pushed a bit further with a max. cargo room of 69.8 cu.ft. with the rear set folded, a ground clearance of around 8.5 inches for occasional unpaved road excursions, and a towing capacity of 1,500 lbs., with two trims capable of 3,500 lbs.

A 203-horsepower 2.5-liter 4-cylinder with an 8-speed automatic transmission powers the conventional gasoline engine models. The RAV4 Hybrid uses a 176-horsepower 2.5-L engine paired with an electric motor for a combined system 219-horsepower. The Hybrid is offered in AWD only and a CVT automatic transmission gets the power to the wheels. Of note, the Hybrid is both the better performing and better fuel economy RAV4 and can tow up to 1,750 bs.

EPA test cycle ratings for gasoline engine models range from 25 to 28 city mpg and 32 to 35 highway mpg depending on FWD or AWD as well as trim level. The Hybrid is rated at 41 mpg city and 38 mpg highway.

Trim levels with the conventional gasoline engine are LE, XLE, XLE Premium, Adventure, TRD Off-Road and Limited. Hybrids are offered in LE, XLE, XSE and Limited trims. Base prices start at $25,950 and run up to $36,880 plus a $1,120 destination and handling charge.

For my Chicagoland RAV4 experience I drove a Limited AWD model with a base price of $35,780. A Weather package for $1,015 added heated front and rear outboard seats, a heated leather-trimmed steering wheel, and rain sensing wipers with de-ice function. An Advanced Technology package for $1,025 added smart key system, hands free liftgate, wireless smartphone charging, and 360-degree camera. Panoramic glass roof was another $200, plus there were a few more options. Running boards for $549 caught my attention, since even at 8.5 inches of ground clearance the step-in and -out is not that high. Although, for someone with mobility challenges they may help out. The bottom line on this Limited AWD totaled $40,385.

Toyotas Safety Sense suite of advanced driver-assist safety (ADAS) features is standard across the board. More information and details can be found at www.toyota.com.

I liked the looks of the RAV4 in its latest iteration. The bolder, more distinctive styling is pleasing. The interior is more refined and exudes a bit of elegance in look and feel., especially with the Nutmeg trim of my test car. Theres an abundant use of soft-touch materials on the dash and armrest. I really liked the entire center stack set up. Theres plenty of room inside, both front and rear, along with decent cargo space. The 11- speaker JBL audio in the Limited cranked out some nice sounds.

A bit more get-up-and-go than the 203-horsepower engine provides would be nice to have, making the Hybrid a consideration from this point alone. Overall noise level inside the cabin is not objectionable, except the engine does become a bit more noticeable when pushed hard.

Im interested to drive the new for 2020 TRD Off-Road model that has specific upgrades to its suspension, wheels and tires designed for off-roading. It also has an enhanced all- wheel drive system with dynamic torque vectoring and driveline disconnect.

Coming back to that first model RAV4 from 25 years ago. I remember driving that as part of a strategic analysis program I was a part of doing work for another automaker.

Weve come a long way. SUVs have evolved to crossover SUVs (XSUV) with more car like and refined design and features along with lower fuel consumption. The RAV4 of today certainly is a good example of a competent entry in the marketplace. No wonder its a best seller.

And, a bit more excitement is coming in the form of the 302-horspeower Toyota RAV4 Prime, a 2021 model that will arrive in summer 2020. Itll be the most powerful and quickest RAV4 ever while also being the most fuel-efficient.  2020 Larry Nutson, the Chicago Car Guy
Unknown gunmen killed nine Syrian policemen on Monday in a southern village close to the border with Jordan, state media and an opposition war monitor said.

The attack occurred in the province of Daraa where Syria's anti-government uprising began in March 2011 before morphing into a civil war that has killed more than 400,000 people and displaced half the country's population.

Daraa has become rife with assassinations and attacks targeting government troops who retook the area from rebels in July 2018.

Syria's state agency SANA said that the nine policemen were killed in the village of Muzayreeb by armed gunmen who attacked them while they were on duty.

It listed the names of the dead policemen without giving further details.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that a group of unknown gunmen kidnapped the nine policemen before shooting them dead and leaving their bodies in one of the village's streets.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack. Sleeper cells of the Islamic State group have been recently increasing their attacks in eastern Syria.

Last month IS claimed responsibility for the killing of two Syrian army officers in the same province.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In late April, American Airlines Flight 2669 took off nearly full from Miami for LaGuardia with only half the passengers wearing masks. An alarmed passenger described the experience on social media, which yielded stories in print and on television. Shortly thereafter, more such stories appeared: JFK to Charlotte on American Airlines, Fort Myers to Pittsburgh on Southwest, and West Palm Beach to Islip on Southwest. Many a would-be air traveler must have shuddered at such news, and been further convinced to stay off airplanes for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps it was no coincidence that most US airlines have since announced that, starting in early May, all passengers have to wear face masks while in flight. That is better than nothing, but it leaves unchanged a huge shortcoming in current arrangements: As of now, the airlines offer only an enormously-adulterated version of social distancing.

Social-distancing guidelines specify that people should stay six feet apart. But at most the airlines are blocking off the middle seat among three. And the middle seat is only 17 inches wide. Thus, the passenger could wind up seated just over two feet from a stranger who carries the virus. For that matter, people in adjacent aisle seats are far less than six feet apart.

Actually, even the middle-seat rule is often something of a mirage. American Airlines inexplicably blocks off only half the middle seats, and will fill those seats when passenger loads so require. United Airlines too views the middle-seat rule as aspirational rather than binding. Some other airlines are quite unclear about what they do.

But if all passengers are wearing masks, why should it matter if they are close together? Exact statistics are hard to come by, but the expert consensus is that the masks offer marginal protection to a healthy passenger and partially block an infected passenger from spreading disease. Virtually all experts believe that masks are less effective than social distancing.

Indeed, recent developments make clear that no one considers the masks a panacea. General Motors requires masks in its newly-reopened plants, but also imposes six-foot social distancing and other measures. Those planning how offices can reopen assume mask-usage, but they would also impose a ban on communal areas, further separation of desks, and curtailed elevator use. At California beaches and New York funerals, police who have broken up crowds treated face masks as irrelevant.

What would real-life social distancing look like on an airplane? In an Embraer 175 jet with an A-B and C-D-E seat configuration, a passenger in seat 16A should be alone (unless traveling with someone who would sit in seat 16B). No passengers would sit in A-B seats in rows 15 or 17, while the D or E seat could be occupied in each of the odd-numbered rows. The 16A passenger would be a bit less than six feet from a traveler in seat 18A but, given two seatbacks separating the two rows, the rule could be viewed as effectively in force.

Under this arrangement, only about 25% of the seats would be available to passengers. That obviously sounds low, but that level of occupancy is quite common in this pandemic: as business is reopening in Texas, for example, restaurants, theaters, malls, and museums are restricted to 25% capacity. US flights are now on average less than 15% full, so implementing real social-distancing would rarely pose a problem.

But what of the minority of flights where demand exceeds 25% of seats, perhaps considerably? Here the airlines could offer back-up flights rather than set the policy aside. For several reasons, the marginal cost of adding such flights is exceptionally low. Right now, after all, the airlines must pay their full workforces as a condition of government grants, while the price of fuel is rock-bottom and there are lots of idle aircraft.

As new Covid-19 cases and deaths get rarer, the rule could progressively be loosened (e.g., as a first step, one A-B seat could be filled in each row rather than every other row). An emergency measure today is not a commitment that must last for years.

US airlines have been astoundingly safe: before the pandemic, the statistics meant that a youth at a US airport would have been far more likely to win a Nobel Prize in Physics than to perish on her forthcoming flight. But it is not certain that these statistics apply today. The bitter truth isthat we can expect more passenger deaths from covid-19 if the airlines persist in a deeply diluted version of social distancing rather than the real thing. To airlines that are suffering so greatly, cordoning off most of their seats would be deeply painful. But to be true to their highest values, they should accept the torment and literally go the distance.

Arnold Barnett is the George Eastman Professor of Management Science/Professor of Statistics, MIT Sloan School of Management.
South African Airways administrators extended a deadline for workers to agree to severance packages after Minister for Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan said he needs time to explore funding options for the bankrupt state-owned carrier.

The business-rescue team led by Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana are trying to persuade labor groups to sign off on retrenchment deals as a possible alternative to liquidation proceedings, which could see the near 5,000-strong workforce made unemployed without compensation.

The plan is opposed by Gordhan, who wants to build a new airline instead.

Unions now have until May 8 to agree to the offer to workers, according to a letter signed by the administrators and seen by Bloomberg News. If they refuse, all employees  whether represented or not  may be given a further three days to make up their own minds.

The Department of Public Enterprises said Friday it wants to create a national carrier thats both publicly and privately owned, profitable and able to serve South Africas trade connections.

The government last month refused a bailout request that SAAs administrators say is needed to keep the carrier running through the coronavirus crisis.

SAAs entire fleet is currently grounded as governments around the world close borders to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
After Lockdown

The makers are reportedly trying to launch Bigg Boss Telugu Season 4 after the lockdown. If the situation gets better and the makers air the controversial show, it'll be one of the first shows to be aired on Indian television post lockdown.

Nagarjuna As The Host

Reports are stating that Nagarjuna Akkineni will probably host the fourth season of Bigg Boss Telugu. Well, the actor has already hosted the third season of the show, and the audience loved him. The Bigg Boss Telugu Season 1 was hosted by Jr NTR while the second one was done by Nani. Nagarjuna is still in talks with the makers and if the remuneration talks are sorted out, he will eventually be the host of Bigg Boss Telugu 4.

Tentative Contestants List

As per the primary information, Allari Naresh, Anchor Jhansi,Sudigali Sudheer, Rashmi Gautam, Actor Nandu, Thagubothu Ramesh and Karthika Deepam fame Deepa are in talks with the makers. If everything goes well, they can be seen in Bigg Boss Telugu 4 house.

Other Celebrities

As per reports, the managers have contacted some anchors, comedians, an adult star and even some social workers. The official confirmation about the same is yet to come.
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 22:46:04

Colorado Springs, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Gold Resource Corporation (NYSE American: GORO) (the Company) today announced the timing of its first quarter earnings conference call scheduled for Wednesday, May 6, 2020. Gold Resource Corporation is a gold and silver producer, developer and explorer with operations in Oaxaca, Mexico and Nevada, USA. The Company has returned $114 million to its shareholders in consecutive monthly dividends since July 2010 and offers its shareholders the option to convert their cash dividends into physical gold and silver and take delivery.



Conference Call

Gold Resource Corporations CEO Mr. Jason Reid will host the conference call Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Topics of discussion will include first quarter results and an update on current operations. The conference call will be recorded and posted to the Companys website in three to five business days from recording.

Q&A

Following Mr. Reids opening remarks, the Company will answer questions during a live Q&A period.

Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Time: 11:00 AM Eastern (9:00 AM Mountain)

There are two ways to join the conference call; one option is a listen-only mode (no Q&A access), while the second dial-in option gives the listener access to the Q&A:

Listen-only mode:

To join the conference in a listen-only mode via webcast, please click on the following link: https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/2361/34642.

Listen-mode with Q&A access by dial-in:

Any attendee who may wish to ask a question during the Q&A, please join the call by teleconference using the following dial-in details:

Toll Free: 844-407-9500

International: 862-298-0850

Please connect to the conference call at least 10 minutes prior to the start time using one of the connection options listed above.

About GRC:

Gold Resource Corporation is a gold and silver producer, developer and explorer with operations in Oaxaca, Mexico and Nevada, USA. The Company targets low capital expenditure projects with potential for generating high returns on capital. The Company has returned $114 million back to its shareholders in consecutive monthly dividends since July 2010 and offers its shareholders the option to convert their cash dividends into physical gold and silver and take delivery. For more information, please visit GRCs website, located at www.goldresourcecorp.com and read the Companys 10-K for an understanding of the risk factors involved.

Cautionary Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. When used in this press release, the words plan, target, "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend" and "expect" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the statements regarding Gold Resource Corporations strategy, future plans for production, future expenses and costs, future liquidity and capital resources, and estimates of mineralized material. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon information available to Gold Resource Corporation on the date of this press release, and the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those discussed in this press release. In particular, the scope, duration, and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mining operations, Company employees, and supply chains as well as the scope, duration and impact of government action aimed at mitigating the pandemic may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Also, there can be no assurance that production will continue at any specific rate. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the Companys 10-K filed with the SEC.

Contacts:

Corporate Development

Greg Patterson

303-320-7708

www.goldresourcecorp.com
A former Kogi senator, Dino Melaye, on Monday filed a suit against the National Assembly over the consideration of the infectious diseases bill sponsored by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila.

Mr Melaye filed the suit FHC/ABJ/CS/463/2020, citing alleged breach of his right to freedom and life before the Federal High Court in Abuja.

Joined as defendants in the suit are Clerk of the National Assembly, Clerk and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Attorney-General of the Federation and the Inspector-General of Police.

In a tweet by the former senator, who lost a bye-election after being sacked from the Senate by the court, said the clerks of the National Assembly and the House of Representatives had been served the court filing.

COVID-19 VACCINE: I have just filed a court action against the Speaker and House of Representatives on the wicked bill initiated by Hon Femi Gbajabiamila this morning at the Federal High Court Abuja. We shall overcome.

READ ALSO:

COVID-19 VACCINE: I have just filed a court action against the Speaker and House of Representatives on the wicked bill initiated by Hon Femi Gbajabiamila this morning at the Federal High Court Abuja. We shall overcome.

-Distinguished Senator Dino Melaye pic.twitter.com/qilvghpdYM  Senator Dino Melaye. (SDM) (@dino_melaye) May 4, 2020

Since its introduction last week, the infectious diseases bill has drawn a wide range of controversies.

Sponsored by Mr Gbajabiamila, the bill seeks to, among other things, make possession of health card mandatory for international travellers leaving or arriving in Nigeria  just like yellow fever card.

Adapted from a similar law in Singapore, some Nigerians have labelled it as draconian and unfit for a democratic Nigeria.

Some of the opposition to the bill also questioned the powers it vested in the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and the health minister.

Some lawmakers who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES also said they will back the bill only if the draconian provisions are reviewed.
Sensex, Nifty Updates: Domestic indices closed sharply bearish on Monday and fell over 5.5% each, tracking weak cues from overseas. BSE Sensex closed 2002 points lower at 31,175 and NSE Nifty lost 566 points to 9,293. Globally markets traded in red, amid rising US-China tensions over the coronavirus. This came after US President Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed China for creating the new coronavirus in a Chinese laboratory.

Investors will also be taking cues from the latest released March quarter earnings. Companies that recently announced their March quarter earnings are Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, Apollo Tricoat Tubes, Laurus Labs, Aditya Birla Money, ICICI Lombard, AU Small Finance Bank among others.

Here's a look at the updates of the market action on BSE and NSE today

3. 50 PM: Closing Bell

Domestic indices closed sharply bearish on Monday and fell over 5.5% each, tracking weak cues from overseas. BSE Sensex closed 2002 points lower at 31,175 and NSE Nifty lost 566 points to 9,293.

3. 40 PM: Maruti Suzuki share price drops 10%

Maruti Suzuki share price opened with a loss of 4.35% and later touched an intraday low of Rs 4842.45, falling 9.66% on BSE after the company informed the exchanges that it saw zero sales in the domestic market in the month of April as all production was closed.

3.36 PM: Mahindra Logistics share price falls 9.3%

Mahindra Logistics share price opened with a loss of 4.37% today and later touched an intraday low of Rs 150.4, falling 9.37% on BSE after the company said its board has approved borrowing upto Rs 250 crore.

3. 29 PM: Blue Star share price slips 6%

Blue Star share price fell 5.99% to an intraday low of Rs 502.3 on BSE after the company said its board plans to raise Rs 300 crore through the issuance of non-convertible debentures.

3. 21 PM: PNB Housing share price

PNB Housing share price fell 4.87% to an intraday low of Rs 186.65 on BSE after the rating firm CRISIL revised the company's outlook to negative from stable.

3.14 PM: Asian Paints share price down 5%

Asian Paints share price touched an intraday low of Rs 1672.2, on BSE after the company announced its foray into the hand sanitizer category with the launch of the Viroprotek range of hand and surface sanitizers.

3. 08 PM: HDFC Asset Management share price

HDFC Asset Management shares opened with a loss of 2.23% today and later fell 4.29% to an intraday low of Rs 2422.8 on BSE after the company said its board plans to announce Q4, FY20 results, dividend on May 9, 2020.

3.01 PM: Hindalco share price drops 12%

Hindalco Industries shares opened with a loss of 4.41% today and later fell 11.94% to an intraday low of Rs 114.7 on BSE. The stock has fallen after 4 days of consecutive gain.

2.52 PM: Cadila share price rises 4%

Cadila Healthcare share price today touched an intraday high of Rs 33, rising 4.03% on BSE after the company's subsidiary Zydus Cadila said it has received tentative approval from USFDA for Empagliflozin and Metformin Hydrochloride tablets.

2. 49 PM: NHPC share price declines 2.8%

NHPC share price fell 2.8% intraday after the company said its board plans to consider borrowing upto Rs 2,000 crore.

2.46 PM: Bajaj Auto share price drops 8%

Bajaj Auto share price fell 7.99% to the intraday low of Rs 2417.85 on BSE after the company posted 100% drop in domestic sales in April 20 compared to 2.05 lakh units recorded in April 19, while the exports fell 80% to 32,009 units as against 3.66 lakh units in the same month in a year ago period. Its total sales fell 91% to 0.37 lakh units as against 4.23 lakh units on a yearly basis.

2.34 PM: Edelweiss Financial share price drops 4.9%

Edelweiss Financial Services share price opened with a loss of 4.91% today and fell touched an intraday low of Rs 37.8 on BSE after the CARE reaffirmed Commercial Paper Programme rating worth Rs 6,350 crore of company to CARE A1+ (A One Plus).

The rating firm has also re-affirmed convertible Debentures Programme of Rs 284 crores to CARE AA- (Double A Minus).

2.29 AM: IDFC First Bank share price drops 7.5%

IDFC First Bank share price fell 7.53% to an intraday low of Rs 20.25 on BSE after the lender's board approved raising Rs 2,000 cr through preferential basis.

2. 13 PM: April Manufacturing PMI

April Manufacturing PMI stood at 27.4 against 51.8 on a month-on-month basis, pointing to the sharpest deterioration in business conditions across the sector since data collection began 15 years ago.

Coronavirus corrodes India's manufacturing; factory activity reaches record lows in April

2.03 PM: Polycab India share price falls 4.6%

Polycab India share price fell 4.62% to day's low of Rs 690.3 after the company announced it has signed an agreement with Trafigura Pte, Singapore to acquire 50% stake in Ryker Base Private, thereby terminating the existing joint venture (JV). The purchase consideration is likely to be around US $ 4 Million (Rs 300 million), the filing added.

1.54 PM: Alembic Pharmaceuticals' share price rose 3.8%

The share price of Alembic Pharmaceuticals touched an intraday high of Rs 775, rising 3.89% on BSE today after the pharma major announced it has recieved Voluntary Action Indicated (VAI) approval from drug regular USFDA for its General Oral Solid Formulation Facility located at Panelav.

Alembic Pharma is trading higher than 5 day, 20 day, 50 day, 100 day and 200 day moving averages.

1.42 PM: RBL Bank share price drops over 10%

RBL Bank share price opened with a loss of 3.86% today and later dropped 10.94% to an intraday low of Rs 117.6 after the compnay said its board has appointed Deepak Kumar as the Chief Risk Officer of the bank for a period of two years.

1.36 PM: Healthcare Global Enterprise share price rises over 11%

Healthcare Global Enterprises share price opened with a gain of 2.2% today and later climbed 11.48% to an intraday high of Rs 78.65 after the company said its board plans to consider raising capital through preferntial basis.

1.31 PM: Welspun Enterprise share price declines almost 5%

Welspun Enterprise stock price opened with a loss of 2% today and fell 4.96% to an intraday low of Rs 49.85 on BSE after the company announced that its board plans to consider NCD issue on May 6, 2020

1.25 PM: ICICI Bank share price falls almost 10%

ICICI Bank share price opened with a loss of 4.87% today and later fell 9.96% to the intraday low of Rs 342.05 on BSE after the company said its board plans to announce Q4, FY2020 results on May 9, 2020.

1.16 PM: Hero MotoCorp share price drops over 8%

Hero MotoCorp shares opened with a loss of 4.01% today and later fell 8.3% intraday to Rs 1,985 on BSE after the auto major announced in a press release today it is set to recommence operations. As per the filing, company is commencing operations in a graded manner at three of its manufacturing plants- Gurugram and Dharuhera (both in Haryana), Haridwar (Uttarakhand) and additionally the Global Parts Center (GPC) at Neemrana in Rajasthan.

1.03 PM: Globall virus toll

Globally, there are over 35 lakh coronavirus infections spread across the world, including around 2.47 lakh deaths, as of today.

12.52 PM: Global stocks under pressure

Oil prices and global stocks came under pressure in today's session amid rising US-China tensions over the coronavirus. US President Donald Trump has threatened China to impose new tariffs and blamed the country for creating the new coronavirus in a Chinese laboratory.

Where Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.17% lower, S&P 500 lost 0.92% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.28%. Asian markets also started the week on a bearish note, tracking weak cues. Contrary to the weak trend, Shanghai and Set Composite were rising 1.5% today.

Sensex slides to 31K, Nifty loses 500 points: 5 factors behind market crash today

12.46 PM: Expert quote on market trend today

Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking said,"Much to everyone's surprise, the government announced a further extension of lockdown for 2 weeks from May 4 with some easing in select green zones. Above all, the news of US president contemplating fresh tariffs on China over its mishandling of the pandemic triggered a sharp decline in the US markets which further worsened with the warning from Apple and Amazon. While our markets were closed on Friday, the SGX Nifty futures slipped nearly 5% and trading closer to 9300 levels."

On Nifty's technical outlook he further added,"The sharp cut in the index in early trade on Monday could be a shock for many and that might result in erratic swings. We advise traders to let the market stabilise before making any fresh bets. Technically, 9200 would be a critical support zone for the Nifty index. "

12.32 PM: FPIs ouflow in April

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) pulled out a sum of Rs 15,403 crore from the Indian capital markets in the month of April, due to the coronavirus crisis.

FPIs net sold Rs 6,884 crore from equities and Rs 8,519 crore from the debt segment between April 1-30, 2020. The total net outflows during the month of April stood at Rs 15,403 crore.

FPIs remain in sell-off mode, withdraw Rs 15,403 crore in April

12.15 PM: Expert quote on lockdown extension

Commenting over the lockdown extension, V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said," Extension of the lockdown, though necessary from the public health perspective, can seriously impair the economy, particularly the MSME sector. Government's relief measures are getting delayed further aggravating the crisis. The government should quickly decide on the quantum of the relief, maximum fiscal deficit possible and monetisation of a part of the deficit. Otherwise it will be a case of relief delayed becoming relief denied. Otherwise it will be a case of relief delayed becoming relief denied."

12.07 AM: Dollar today

The dollar index rose by 0.31% to 99.38.

11.59 AM: Sectors in red today

Sectorally, barring pharma, all the other sectors were declining today. While metal, banking and financial dropped over 7% each, realty and auto were down 6.5% each, followed by 5% fall in media and PSU Banking index.

11.47 am: Top losers and Gainers

UPL, GAIL, Vedanta, Hindalco, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank were among the top losers today, while Cipla, Sun Pharma, Dr. Reddy were among the top gainers on NSE Nifty.

11.45 AM: Tata Motors share price falls over 12%

Tata Motors share declined over 12% to Rs 81.5 compared to the previous close of Rs 93.10. Stock opened 6% lower at Rs 87.45. It has fallen after four days of consecutive gains. On Thursday, share price of Tata Motors gained 20% to Rs 93.75 compared to the previous close of Rs 78.15 on BSE.

11.30 AM: ICICI Bank share price falls 10%

ICICI Bank share price falls 9.96% to Rs 342 compared to the previous close of Rs 379.90 on BSE. ICICI Bank stock has fallen after 4 days of consecutive gain.

The bank plans to announce Q4, FY2020 results on May 9, 2020.

11.20 AM: Market update

Of 30 Sensex stocks, 29 were trading in the red. Sun Pharma was the sole gainer rising 1% to Rs 469.40. Market breadth was negative with 424 stocks rising against 1,694 stocks losing on BSE.

11.11 am: BSE gainers

Top gainers on BSE were Cipla (3.91%), Swan Energy (6.10%), and Radico (4.75%).

11.03 AM: Rupee opens 61 paise lower

The Indian currency opened 61 paise lower at 75.71 to the dollar . On Thursday, rupee closed at 75.10. The currency market was closed on Friday, May 1 on account of Maharashtra Day. On April 30, the rupee closed 57 paise higher at 75.10 per dollar, amid strong buying in the domestic equity market.

Rupee vs Dollar: Rupee plunges 71 paise to 75.80 amid strengthening of US currency

10.52 AM: Adani Enterprises share price declines 7.6%

Adani Enterprises share price fell 7.6% intraday to Rs 130.65 asa agisnt tthe last close of Rs 141.45 after the company announced that its board plans to announce Q4, FY20 results, fund raising on May 6, 2020

10.47 AM: AU Small Finance Bank share price falls 5% post Q4 results

AU Small Finance Bank share price fell to the intraday low of Rs 516.55 on BSE, falling 4.99% after the company reported its March quarterly results.

The company reported 3.4% rise (YoY) in consolidated net profit to Rs 122 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020 as against Rs 118 crore, recorded in a year-ago period.

Total income rose 35% (YoY) to Rs 1,366 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 1,007 crore in the same period last financial year.

10.43 AM: Jumbo Bag share price up 4.5%

Jumbo Bag share price gainsed 4.73% intraday after the company said it has partially resumed manufacturing operations.

10.39 AM: JSW Steel share price drops almost 10% post production figures

Shares of JSW Steel fell 9.99% intraday to the day's low of Rs 162.85 as against Rs 180.90 on BSE after the compay reported Crude Steel production at 5.63 lakh tonnes for April 2020, clocking an average capacity utilisation of 38% for the month. Company also produced 3.44 lakh tonnes of rolled products flat and 0.89 lakh tonnes rolled products long.

10.28 AM: ICICI Lombard General Insurance share price drops 6.6% post Q4 results

ICICI Lombard General Insurance share price fell 6.6% intraday to the day's low of Rs 1202.90 on BSE as agsinst last closing of Rs 1288.40 on BSE.

The company reported 23.8% rise (YoY) in consolidated net profit to Rs 281 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020 as against Rs 227 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Total income rose 12% (YoY) to Rs 2,850 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 2,543 crore in the same period last financial year.

10.16 AM: Apollo Pipes share price slips 7.5%

Apollo Pipes share price slipped 7.5% intraday to the day's low of Rs 295.05 on BSE as compared to the last closing of Rs 319.30 on BSE.

Company's reported 16.6% rise (YoY) in consolidated net profit to Rs 6.18 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020 as against Rs 5.30 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Total income rose 4.75% (YoY) to Rs 96 crore in the January- March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 92 crore in the same period last financial year.

10.09 AM: Hindustan Unilever share price drops 5.26% post Q4 earnings

Hindustan Unilever share price dropped5.26% to the intraday low of Rs 2,075 as against the last closing value of Rs 2195.70 on BSE after the company reported its March earnings.

The company has reported 3.63% drop in its net profit of Rs 1,515 crore in March 2020 as against Rs 1,572 crore in March FY 2019.

Its total income fell 8.13% to Rs 9,475 crore during the period ended March 31, 2020 as compared to Rs 10,314 crore during the period ended March 31, 2019.

Company's board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 14 per share.

10.03 AM: Tech Mahindra share price drops 7.8% after Q4 results

Tech Mahindra share price fell 7.8% intraday to Rs 503.45 on BSE as compared to its previous closing value of Rs 503.45.

The IT major's net profit stood at Rs 803.9 cr, dropping 29% as against Rs 1132.5 crore on a yearly basis.

Company's total income rose 7.9% yearly to Rs 9775 crore as compared to Rs 9059 crore.

Company's board has also approved a final dividend of Rs 5 per share.

9.55 AM: Why globally markets are falling today

Asian stocks fell today as US-China tensions weighted on investors' sentiment. US-China political uncertainty and China currency devaluation against US Dollar also has kept the trend cautious overseas. This came after US president Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed China for creating the new coronavirus in a Chinese laboratory.

9.45AM: Crude oil declines

Brent Crude fell to $25.8 per barrel, down 2.27%.

9.40 AM: RIL share price falls 3.22%

Share price of Reliance Industries fell 3.22% intraday to the day's low of Rs 1419.75 as against its previous close of Rs 1467.05 on BSE, after the company posted its quarterly results.

RIL reported 0.59% fall(YoY) in consolidated net profit to Rs 39,354 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020 as against Rs 39,588 crore, recorded in a year-ago period.

Total income rose 5.7% (YoY) to Rs 6,25,601 crore in the January- March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 5,91,480 crore in the same period last financial year.

Company has said it is set to achieve net zero debt status ahead of its own aggressive timeline.

Company's board has recommended a dividend of Rs 6.50 per share. Conglomerate's board has also approved rights issues for up to Rs 53,125 cr at Rs 1,257 per share.

RIL share price slides 3% on fall in Q4 net profit

In another update, tech investor Silver Lake has invested Rs 5,655.75 crore in Reliance Industries Jio Platforms.

"In the wake of the severe economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, globally and especially within India, this partnership with one of the most renowned tech-investors globally, Silver Lake, has special significance," the RIL statement said.

Silver Lake to invest Rs 5,655 cr in Jio Platforms at higher valuation than Facebook deal

9.30 AM: News Alert

PM Modi will be addressing in the virtual Non Aligned Movement Summit at 4:30PM today

The NAM represents the biggest grouping of countries outside the United Nations, comprising 120 developing countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Leaders of the Non Aligned Movement grouping will discuss measures to jointly fight COVID19.

In local cues, India has extended of the nationwide lockdown till 17 May, 2020. The nation has reported a total of 42,533 coronavirus cases, including 11,706 cured or discharged and 1,373 deaths.

Coronavirus India live updates: Lockdown 3.0 begins today, some relaxations eased, total COVID-19 cases 42,533

9.25 AM: Opening session

Domestic indices started off the week sharply bearish on Monday, tracking weak cues from overseas, that fell on fresh cues of US-China trade war. BSE Sensex traded 969 points lower at 32,768 and NSE Nifty was falling 326 points lower to 9,553.

9.15 AM: Stocks to watch today on May 4

RIL, Tech Mahindra, HUL, ICICI Lombard, IDFC First Bank, AU Small Finance Bank among others are the top stocks to watch out for in Monday's trading session.

Investors will also be taking cues from the latest released March quarter earnings. Companies that recently announced their March quarter earnings are Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, Apollo Tricoat Tubes, Laurus Labs, Aditya Birla Money, ICICI Lombard, AU Small Finance Bank among others.

Stocks in news: RIL, Tech Mahindra, HUL, ICICI Lombard, IDFC First Bank, AU Small Finance Bank and more

9.10 AM: Pre-open session today

Benchmarks Sensex and Nifty have opened sharply lower on Monday, backed by weak global cues. BSE Sensex traded 969 points lower at 32,768 and NSE Nifty was falling 326 points lower to 9,553.

8.55 AM: Quote on Extension lockdown and its impact by Geojit Financial Services

Expressing views over the lockdown extension and it's impact, Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said," It is not a big surprise for the market since it was expecting phase-wise reopening of the economy which is mostly in-line with the latest protocol. The extension will have a mere impact since the main thesis of the market that the economy will open effectively post June 2020 is largely maintained.

But more than that the market has realized a concern, based on latest economic & corporate data, that the cascading effect on the domestic economy & corporate earnings is much more than anticipated. While the global market is worried about deglobalization and trade war which will impact further the economy, unemployment and possible bankruptcies in the future."

8.50 AM: Nifty outlook

In the last week, NSE-NIFTY gained in all four trading sessions and finally, ended holiday truncated week on a strong note.

For today's outlook, support is placed at around 9,235 and then at 9,100 levels, while resistance is observed at 9,740 and then at 9,900 levels. In case of decline, the index will initially find support around its 20-day EMA (placed around 9,235 level) and then around 8,800 mark. On the higher side, NIFTY will face major hurdle around 10,000 level.

8.45 AM: Global cues today

Oil prices and global stocks came under pressure in today's session amid rising US-China tensions over the coronavirus. This came after US president Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed China for creating the new coronavirus in a Chinese laboratory.

Meanwhile, SGX Nifty was bucking the trend in trade today, rising 60 points higher at 9,375. Shanghai and Set Composite were rising 1.5% today.

8.40 AM: Recent March earnings

Companies that recently announced their March quarter earnings are Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, Apollo Tricoat Tubes, Laurus Labs, Aditya Birla Money, ICICI Lombard, AU Small Finance Bank among others

8.35 AM: Market expectations

Benchmarks Sensex and Nifty are likely to open on a negative note on Thursday, backed by weak global cues. Meanwhile, SGX Nifty was bucking the trend in trade today, rising 60 points higher at 9,375.

In local cues, India has extended of the nationwide lockdown till 17 May, 2020. The nation has reported a total of 2,644 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the toll of total coronavirus cases to 39,980, including 10,632 recoveries and 1,301 deaths. In important global news, USFDA has granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to investigational antiviral remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients.

8.30 AM: 8 core industries

March eight core industries growth came in at a fall of 6.5% as compared to 7.1% on a monthly basis.

8.20 AM Coronavirus toll

India has reported a total of 2,644 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the toll of total coronavirus cases to 39,980, including 10,632 recoveries and 1,301 deaths.

8. 10 AM: Rupee

The currency benchmark rupee settled at 75.12 per dollar as compared to its last close of 75.68 per US dollar.

8.00 AM: Closing Bell

Benchmark Sensex and Nifty closed higher on the last day of the month, led by firm global cues amid heavy buying in index heavyweights. On the April F&O expiry day, BSE Sensex ended 997 points higher at 33,717 and NSE Nifty climbed306 points to 9,859. News about positive trial results of an experimental COVID-19 treatment helped investors shrug off weak economic data. Financial markets remained closed on Friday on account of Maharashtra Day
For the last week, in absence of any new shows to clamour about (Jack Absolute Flies Again was meant to be premiering at the National, Level Up beginning previews at the Bush), it seems that the whole WhatsOnStage Twitter feed has been packed with posts about the TV version of Normal People.

Sally Rooney's award-winning novel about an on-off couple is masterfully, agonisingly replicated in an irresistibly binge-able 12-part series  you can watch the full thing now on BBC iPlayer. It's penned by the author herself alongside Alice Birch and Mark O'Rowe, with direction by Hettie Macdonald and Lenny Abrahamson.

There's a lot of stage talent in that team. Brit Birch joined the Royal Court Theatre's young writers program at the age of 18, her first full-length play Many Moons had its world premiere at Theatre503 in 2011, picking up a Susan Smith Blackburn Award nomination in the process. Irish playwright O'Rowe's background is similar  his George Devine Award-winning Howie the Rookie premiered at the Bush Theatre in 1999, four years before his first feature film.

McDonald, for her part, trained at the Royal Court and was an associate director at the Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich (worth noting she also directed one of the best Doctor Who episodes in its recent history  "Blink" with Carey Mulligan).

Behind-the-scenes on Normal People

 BBC/Element Pictures/Hulu/Enda Bowe

The pattern continues. Just after Easter it was Quiz, a three-part national sensation based on the Who Wants to be A Millionaire? scandal that playwright James Graham steered from stage to screen with great success.

Graham's script, excellent performances from Matthew Macfadyen, Sian Clifford, Michael Jibson, and, of course, Michael Sheen's uncanny Tarrant, were a complete tonic for the Covid blues. In a gesture of goodwill, Graham donated his fee to help freelancers in need.

The Mansfield-raised writer cut his teeth at the Finborough Theatre in west London, his career was later propelled into the mainstream with shows at the likes of the Bush, Theatr Clwyd and the Soho. Quiz was originally commissioned by Chichester Festival Theatre (it was a rocking fit in the venue's Minerva auditorium) and a refreshing novelty in the West End, well before it was trending on a nightly basis while the Ingrams' guilt was mulled over.

All of the theatres above, vital stepping stones in Graham's career, have warned of the long-term impacts of lockdown. If costs have to be saved then there's a chance that commissioning may be scaled back or stopped completely.

TV has long relied on smash-hit theatre to thrive and, in turn, a playwright's success on screen shines a light on their stage origins. Want to find the next Phoebe Waller-Bridge? It's likely they'll be performing in a dripping disused vault at the Edinburgh Fringe.

It keeps coming  Nicole Lecky's brilliant Superhoe is headed for the BBC after a storming opening run at the Royal Court (after being developed with The Yard and Talawa Theatre). Lecky's career has been helped along by the likes of the Lyric Theatre, the Soho and Tamasha. Central grad Vinay Patel, who is now a regular Who writer and responsible for Murdered by My Father, made waves alongside new writing company HighTide with his True Brits at the Fringe in 2014. Mischief Theatre had north London audiences roaring with laughter at the Old Red Lion or the Pleasance long before they were doing the same on the BBC.

Waller-Bridge has supported hundreds of freelance artists by releasing Fleabag for charity, while Killing Eve, for which she is now executive producer after bringing it to life in 2018, is in the middle of its third season. It would be no surprise if the multi-award-winner Jasmine Lee-Jones ended up wowing screen audiences in the next few years.

Theatre has played an instrumental part in ushering in form-shifting, epoch-defining TV. Writers begin their careers in venues whose livelihoods are in a constant state of uncertainty, regardless of quarantines. It's a sad reality that many now won't be able to survive without generous support  the loss of Italia Conti's Juniors is a sign of what might be coming.

Playwrights deprived of opportunities in 2020 have to have them to come back to in 2021. If you can, donate to grassroots venues and companies. Shout about your favourite new writers online. Buy their plays and find some escapism in powerful new voices. Voices that will only flourish if institutions have the means to support them.
Six Army soldiers who were injured in a ballistic missile attack in Iraq in January have been awarded Purple Hearts, and 23 others have been approved for the award and will get them later this week, US Central Command said Monday.

Navy Capt Bill Urban said the awards were approved by Lt. Gen Pat White, the top US commander in Iraq, following a review.

About 110 US service members were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries after the Iranian ballistic missile attack at al-Asad Air Base in Iraq on January 8.

Initially, commanders and President Donald Trump said there were no injuries during the attack.

But after several days, troops began exhibiting concussion-like symptoms and the military started evacuating some from Iraq.

Trump triggered criticism when he dismissed the injuries as not very serious and described them as headaches and other things.

Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, became a bigger concern for the military in recent years as more and more troops in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars began suffering from head injuries from bombings and other explosions.

Medical science improved its understanding of its causes and effects on brain function.

It can involve varying degrees of impairment of thinking, memory, vision, hearing and other functions. The severity and duration of the injury can vary widely.

According to Urban, the first six Purple Hearts were given to soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait. The other soldiers are in the United States and will get their awards in the coming days.

He said 80 service members were considered for the awards, and each recommendation package submitted by unit leaders was evaluated by a review board based on Army and Air Force regulations.

Urban said that a TBI diagnosis doesn't automatically qualify a service member for a Purple Heart.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A man, his dog and five pet camels have been rescued after a tense four hour rescue operation.

The group were connected by a rope and walking through bushland in Jamieson, 200km northeast of Melbourne near Victoria's Great Dividing Range on Sunday.

One of the camels lost his footing and slipped from the track into the steep and rugged terrain below, dragging the rest of the pack down with him.

The group were connected by a rope and walking through bushland in Jamieson, 200km northeast of Melbourne near Victoria's Great Dividing Range on Sunday

The 38-year-old owner of the animals was wearing an emergency radio beacon and activated it after the fall.

A signal was sent to an organisation in the United States, which forwarded it onto Canberra and eventually Victorian authorities, which sent a helicopter to investigate.

Country Fire Authority district commander Paul Horton told BBC the 'chap was out with his camels... One fell, dragged some others, and that's led to the whole ship going down.'

He said police were expecting a simple rescue operation - if any - involving one person, and were shocked when they made the discovery.

One of the camels lost his footing and slipped from the track into the steep and rugged terrain below, dragging the rest of the pack down with him (stock image)

The 38-year-old and all his animals escaped serious injury.

The rescue operation took four hours and proved more difficult than anticipated.

Rescuers had to coax the animals to climb back up the steep slope, including one of the camels which suffered a minor injury.

A veterinarian was on site and authorities were prepared to hoist the animal to safety before it eventually scrambled up the reserve itself.

"They were all safely walked back to a safe place to stay last night. Long story short - we're just glad it ended well," Mr Horton said.

Police are currently investigating the circumstances of the incident.
Realme X3 SuperZoom recent leak reveals some of the key specifications of the phone

Realme X3( 24990 at Tatacliq) SuperZoom has been in the news ever since it was spotted on certification websites in Thailand and India, but a recent leak reveals some of the key specifications of the phone. The X3 SuperZoom also has a regular variant thats been leaked through a TENAA listing.

According to a tweet posted by leakster Sudhanshu Ambhore, the Realme X3 SuperZoom could come with a 4,200mAh battery with 30W fast charging support. The phone will feature an AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of at least 90Hz similar to the previous generation.

Realme X3 SuperZoom leaked specifications

The Realme X3 SuperZoom has been rumoured to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ chipset with upto 12GB RAM and Android 10 based RealmeUI out of the box. Notably, the companys Realme X2 Pro from last year did come with an 855+ chip onboard.

The name SuperZoom indicates that the phone could come with a telephoto lens that offers more than 20x digital zoom. This is similar to what the company did with the X2 and X2 Pro. While the latter features a 13MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom, the regular X2 has a macro lens instead.

The phone was allegedly spotted on Weibo with a carbon-fibre finish on the back and an accented strip that runs down the middle of the rear panel. The design looks reminiscent of Oppos Reno range of smartphones but isnt a direct rip-off.

The X3 SuperZoom could feature a 64MP primary camera or maybe go ahead with Samsungs 108MP sensor. The X2 Pro was packed with a 64MP camera setup. Having said that, nothing is known about the camera capabilities of the X3 SuperZoom yet.

Realme X3, on the other hand, could feature a 6.5-inch Full HD+ display with dual punch-hole notch cutout and has been listed to be powered by Snapdragon 765G chipset with upto 12GB RAM and 256GB storage options to choose from.

The rear camera array consists of a primary 48MP camera, an 8MP ultra-wide camera and two 2MP cameras, possibly a macro and a depth sensor. On the front, theres a 16MP and a 2MP camera housed within the notch cutout.

It is rumoured to pack a 4,100mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging like the SuperZoom variant.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: After 44 dry days, TASMAC shops will be opened in non-containment areas across Tamil Nadu from May 7. However, bars will not be allowed. The shops can function only between 10 am and 5 pm.

In an official release, the Tamil Nadu government said, "Since neighbouring states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have already ordered functioning of liquor shops, a large number of people living in the border areas are going to the liquor shops in the neighbouring states. A lot of difficulty is being faced in controlling the movement of such people. Considering this, Tamil Nadu government has decided to open the TASMAC shops from May 7."

The release also pointed out that the Centre has allowed certain relaxations for the current phase of lockdown which includes permission for opening liquor shops without bars.

The state government clarified that TASMAC shops in containment zones will not be open.

Shops in non-containment areas will be allowed to function with the following conditions: Gathering of a large number of people at the shops should not be allowed and six feet distance should be maintained between the persons on queue; not more than five persons should be allowed to gather at a time and necessary security arrangements should be made at all the shops. Additional employees should be employed to avoid crowding at these shops.
Stinger Chemical Corporation donated hand sanitizers to the Houston Fire Department as they switched gears to produce a line of sanitizing products.

On a normal day you would find Stinger Chemicals producing auto detailing chemicals.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Houstons businesses tentatively reopen as stay-at-home order expires

On Friday May 1, they showcased their new line of sanitizing products.

We see the sacrifices that our first responders make daily, said Warren Davis, CEO of Stinger Chemical, then to hear that many of them were diagnosed with COVID 19, we felt we needed to provide some hand sanitizers to help keep them safe.

Despite a shortage of raw material and great demand globally, Stinger Chemical said the company managed to produce thousands of gallons of sanitizing products in April.

CELEBRATING NURSES WEEK: Houston hospitals plan appreciative gestures for health care workers during National Nurses Week

We are very grateful and are very thankful to Stinger Products for this donation," said Houston Fire Chief Sam Pena. "Its heartwarming to know that we have businesses in our community that care so much for their first responders and demonstrate it through these generous gestures.

STAY INFORMED: Sign up to receive breaking news alerts delivered to your email here.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has revealed that doctors at a London hospital where he was admitted after contracting Covid-19 had made arrangements to announce his death. Johnson, 55, was rushed to St Thomas Hospital on April 5 when his condition had worsened a few days after he had tested positive for the coronavirus. After spending a few days in intensive care, he emerged on April 12.

Recalling his near-death experience in an interview to The Sun published on Sunday, an emotional Johnson said he was administered litres and litres of oxygen, but ICU monitors were showing little progress, compelling doctors to make plans to announce his death.

It was a tough old moment, I wont deny it. They had a strategy to deal with a death-of-Stalin type scenario. I was not in particularly brilliant shape and I was aware there were contingency plans in place. The doctors had all sorts of arrangements for what to do if things went wrong.

It was hard to believe that in just a few days, my health had deteriorated to this extent... The bad moment came when it was 50-50 whether they were going to have to put a tube down my windpipe. That was when it got a bit... they were starting to think about how to handle it presentationally.

The report said the UK PMs voice faltered and eyes reddened during the interview in Downing Street. Ive broken my nose, Ive broken my finger, Ive broken my wrist, Ive broken my rib. Ive broken just about everything. Ive broken all sorts of things. But Ive never had anything as serious as this, he said. The indicators kept going in the wrong direction and I thought, Theres no medicine for this thing and theres no cure. That was the stage when I was thinking, How am I going to get out of this?

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 00:17:30|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Representatives from Huawei and Sri Lankan government attend a hand-over ceremony of hi-tech equipment donated by Huawei in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on May 4, 2020. Chinese tech giant Huawei on Monday donated hi-tech equipment to the Sri Lankan government as part of its efforts to support Sri Lanka's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, a statement from Huawei Sri Lanka said. The donation, handed over to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa here, included five sets of high definition video conference system and six high precision thermal cameras. (Xinhua)

COLOMBO, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese tech giant Huawei on Monday donated hi-tech equipment to the Sri Lankan government as part of its efforts to support Sri Lanka's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, a statement from Huawei Sri Lanka said.

The donation, handed over to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa here, included five sets of high definition video conference system and six high precision thermal cameras.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said at the hand-over ceremony that he was glad to see ICT sectors contribute unique values during this challenging time, and the Sri Lankan government appreciated Huawei's timely support.

Liang Yi, chief executive officer of Huawei Sri Lanka, said Huawei believed emerging ICT technologies would play important roles under the current situation.

"Huawei will continuously support Sri Lanka with cutting-edge technologies, to help this beautiful island to win this epidemic battle and bring joy and contentment back to people's life," Liang said.

Over 700 people have been infected with the COVID-19 in Sri Lanka to date while eight deaths have been reported, figures showed. Enditem
A senior scientist has said government experts are not free to speak their minds in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser to prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has set up his own shadow group of experts as an alternative to the governments Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).

He said his new panel, which will stream its meetings on YouTube, was necessary because he feared experts were deferring to ministers. Sir David has previously criticised the government for delaying its lockdown.

The prime minister's chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, has sat in on Sage meetings (Getty Images)

Asked on BBC Radio 4s Today programme on Monday if government experts were not free to speak their minds, he said: I believe thats the case, yes.

He added: I think theres a very big difference between the situation today and the situation as it was in 2010-11, that is, quite simply, the permission to speak in the public domain has been changed.

I think the main point Im making is that an independent science advisory group really needs to be dominated by people whose income is not determined by the fact they are working for the government.

Sir David said he created the new shadow group to emphasise the "importance of transparency, after concerns were raised about how Sage was informing ministers response to the COVID-19 crisis.

He said the presence of Boris Johnsons chief adviser Dominic Cummings at Sage meetings could cause confusion.

Latest coronavirus news, updates and advice

Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the world

Fact-checker: The number of COVID-19 cases in your local area

6 charts and maps that explain how COVID-19 is spreading

Sir David told the PA news agency: "I know this is a controversial point, but I certainly think that I would never have had the prime minister's chief strategy adviser on board, because I think that it is perfectly feasible to provide clear scientific advice and then for the strategy and the politics to be determined separately."

Story continues

He said he was concerned Cummings's presence had given Johnson "two advisers" on coronavirus, with "a chief scientific adviser giving the advice from Sage and at the same time a strategy adviser who, frankly, is not a scientist and isn't in a position to summarise that advice".

Watch the video below

Sir David's new 12-strong committee of academics will convene for the first time on Monday and is keen to investigate seven key points, including how successful testing and tracing can be achieved, and what social distancing measures will be needed in the future.

Sir David said he will share their findings and workings with the public by streaming meetings on YouTube.

He said: "If we're not given access to the science advice it's very difficult to evaluate that, and by given access I mean, when I was chief scientific adviser I explained to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that every bit of advice I put into them I would put into the public domain as well."

He added: "I recognised I was giving advice, but they were making the political decision; they would bring in strategy advisers and other advisers, but the advice was purely scientific."

Last week, current chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said a partial list of Sage members would be issued "shortly".

Sage member Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of research charity Wellcome Trust, told Today he backed publishing the membership of Sage, as well as the groups advice and the minutes of its meetings.

He said: I think transparency is right. Im all in favour that the names of people on that group are made available to everybody, and indeed I would push very clearly for that advice to be made public from the start.

Personally, I would make the minutes transparently available after a certain time.

Transparency helps people to understand the uncertainty, the difficulty, the fact that the advice does have to change as the facts change.

Coronavirus: what happened today
The decision not to wear a mask has, for some, become a rebellion against what they regard as an incursion on their personal liberties. For many others, the choice is a casual one more about convenience than politics. The choice can also be a reflection of vanity, or of not understanding when or where to wear one. Some people said they found masks uncomfortable, and thus a nuisance they were unwilling to tolerate. Others were skeptical how much difference they made outside on a sunny day.
Christina Sunley hasnt set foot in a store in almost two months. Neither has her husband, Oliver Kay.

No, they werent stocked up to ride out the coronavirus pandemic. Theyve had help.

The couple registered for oaklandatrisk.com, the website for Oakland at Risk Match, which was opened March 15 by a group of working moms. The website pairs seniors and high-risk people with low-risk volunteers, matching them by ZIP code. Basically, the low-risk volunteers act as outdoor surrogates for the folks who shouldnt leave their homes.

There are similar efforts elsewhere in the Bay Area. I wrote about the launch in March, and Ive been following it because I was curious how matching services would perform as online grocery deliveries and local food banks buckled under intense food demand.

The need is greater than I imagined.

Within an hour of registering on March 18, Sunley says she was matched with David Quintanilla, a videographer who lives in the same Piedmont Avenue neighborhood. Three days later, Quintanilla had a gigantic grocery list with some items, such as flour and yeast, marked as urgent.

We have to cook every single thing from scratch, said Sunley, who has an intense sodium restriction related to Menieres disease, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the inner ear and causes vertigo.

Sunley also has an autoimmune lung condition. She and Kay dont eat frozen or takeout food. Kay, whose father was a baker, has learned to cook without using salt.

It makes what David is doing even more important, because we have to have the ingredients in the house to make all of our meals, Sunley said. Its not just about grocery shopping. They can help with other needs, too.

Sunley has trusted Quintanilla, who shops with his girlfriend, Joycie Hunter, to pick up her prescriptions. Theyve developed a shorthand, as when Sunley sometimes writes WTA next to a grocery item. Translation: Well take anything.

Kay is a librarian at UC Berkeleys Law Library. Sunley quit her job in August to start a grant consulting business. Theyre both 58 and from Long Island, N.Y., but they didnt meet until sitting next to each other on a flight from Seattle to San Francisco in 2002. Theyve been together since.

It was really simple for me to be able to add a list to our shopping, because we go grocery shopping every week, said Quintanilla, 32, who heard about Oakland at Risk through work. I got to meet a neighbor that lives right down the street from me. I can see her house from my balcony, pretty much.

Oakland at Risk has matched 280 people with volunteers. But as food insecurity issues have worsened during the pandemic, Paige Wheeler Fleury, an Oakland at Risk co-founder, has leaned into social work. Oakland at Risk has helped more than 150 people sign up for CalFresh, which provides monthly food benefits to low-income individuals and families.

Since early April, Fleury has been helping a blind man in his late 70s who has survived for years without power in his home in the San Antonio neighborhood of East Oakland. Before the pandemic, he went to the YMCA to take hot showers. Then hed go to a senior center for lunch. Hed get sent home with food for dinner. When the senior center is closed, he called Oakland at Risk, which is raising money for the folks who have fallen through the cracks and whom local, state and federal government agencies simply arent reaching.

Fleurys still trying to get PG&E to install the power. Shes hoping to pass a city inspection Tuesday. Shes already spent $1,000 of her own money, she said.

What started out as a lovely idea of matching neighbor to neighbor has become much bigger, Fleury said. Its revealed all of these holes in this fabric we call society. Its overwhelming, because the holes are so massive.

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.

Oakland at Risk has registered more that 1,400 volunteers, but it needs more people to fill requests for help in Chinatown, Fruitvale and other East Oakland neighborhoods.

Heres something to appreciate: The need isnt going to magically end when stay-home orders are eased. Lost in the conversation of opening cities and states is that at-risk people are still going to need help until there is a coronavirus vaccine. Will volunteers still be around once people go back to work?

About six weeks ago, Brian Jaffe and Nora Grossman, the co-founders of Voca, a Redwood City civic engagement platform that uses text messaging to gather public opinion, decided to use their software to create COVID Assist. The new organization matches neighbors nationwide.

Its actually doing something pretty ordinary, but that nevertheless is meaningful to someone else, because if they were to do it themselves they would be putting themselves at risk, Jaffe told me. How do we sustain that into the long tail of this experience and even into the post-COVID world?

I dont have an answer, so my search continues.

Before leaving the store, Quintanilla sends a photo of the receipt to Sunley and Kay, who tape a check to the door. Sometimes they chat with Quintanilla and Hunter from their deck.

Ive never let him leave without throwing some of my home-baked cookies at him, Kay said.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
Imperial Valley News Center

Deregulation Sparks Dramatic Telehealth Increase During the COVID-19 Response

Washington, DC - Encouraging private-sector solutions through targeted deregulation and public-private partnerships is a critical part of the Trump Administrations COVID-19 response. This approach has successfully expanded testing development, healthcare capacity, and the use of telehealth. Telehealth has grown as the United States continues responding to COVID-19s challenges, leading to public health benefits.

Telehealth allows patients to connect remotely with medical professionals. Because of advances in smartphones and remote diagnostic testing capabilities, its use recently started to increase. But more comprehensive telehealth adoption was limited due in part to issues with internet access, HIPAA requirements, State licensing laws, provider liability, quality standards, and reimbursement arrangements.

This dynamic changed at the Federal level under President Trumps deregulatory healthcare agenda. To allow for reforms that support the governments response to COVID-19, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared a public health emergency on January 31, 2020. Because of this declaration, and shortly after the President declared a national emergency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released guidance on March 17 that allows Medicare to pay for telehealth services provided across the country. And just last week, CMS released a new toolkit to help States bring this important benefit to other vulnerable populations through Medicaid.

Concurrently with CMSs Medicare guidance, the HHS Office for Civil Rights announced it will exercise its enforcement discretion and not impose penalties against covered healthcare providers for noncompliance with the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules in connection with the good-faith provision of telehealth. This change allows patients and providers for all types of healthcare to connect over non-public facing video platforms such as Skype, Zoom, and FaceTime during the national emergency. These policy changes followed a 2018 Department of Veterans Affairs regulation that expanded veterans healthcare access to include telehealth and earlier CMS policies to allow virtual check-ins.

Data show that telehealth utilization is increasing because of new flexibilities for the provision of Medicare telehealth services and potentially because of HHSs policy change that allows providers to use popular video platforms to connect with patients. Additionally, the recently enacted Families First Coronavirus Response Act, as amended by the CARES Act, requires group health plans and health insurers to waive cost sharing for COVID-19 testing and any related provider visits to administer such testing, including telehealth visits. Furthermore, the recent increase in telehealth utilization makes sense, as Federal policies have encouraged alternatives to in-person interaction and there is a need to decrease demands on the healthcare system. While it is difficult to separate whether the surge in telehealth is primarily driven by patients and providers shifting preferences due to COVID-19, the CARES Act, or private insurance reimbursement policies echoing Medicares change, all of these factors more than likely contributed to telehealths growth.

As the figure below shows, from March 14 to April 1, daily telehealth claims for upper respiratory infections using ICD-10 diagnosis codes from private insurance increased nearly 12 times from the daily average over the previous month. Upper respiratory infections were chosen for examination because this diagnosis label best represented COVID-19-related illnesses prior to the introduction of a diagnosis code for COVID-19 on April 1.

Telehealths recent growth coincides with a significant reduction in urgent care and hospital outpatient services utilization since March. Although data are not available to clearly demonstrate that patients who would have sought care in urgent care and hospital outpatient departments used telehealth services instead of in-person care, additional options can help patients meet their healthcare needs in a time when public health officials are recommending social distancing, including avoiding crowded healthcare waiting rooms, and when many people may feel unsafe receiving in-person care. In other words, telehealth may have helped slow the spread of COVID-19 by facilitating social distancing.

The figure also shows that the use of hospital emergency room and hospital inpatient care for upper respiratory illnesses has remained relatively steady, even with an increase in COVID-19-related upper respiratory illnesses. By lowering demand for in-person care, telehealth has helped the United States healthcare system avoid exceeding capacity during this national emergency. Importantly, telehealth can also reduce the negative health outcomes that come from delaying non-COVID-19 care for conditions that require urgent attention.

Beyond aiding the Administrations COVID-19 response, telehealth has the potential to expand quality healthcare to individuals with limited access to physical services, including some rural Americans, those who are disabled, and elderly patients who have difficulty traveling. Additionally, telehealth can cut overhead costs and reduce the overall time it takes to seek medical expertise for diagnoses and treatments. With many States temporarily waiving or permanently repealing restrictions on the practice of telehealth across State lines, the benefits of this type of care will likely continue after the COVID-19 pandemic.

HHS continues prioritizing further telehealth adoption, and launched a government portal on April 22 that gives information to providers seeking to deliver telehealth and patients searching for these services. That same day, HHS, through the Health Resources and Services Administration, awarded $150 million to rural hospitals to support, in part, the expansion of telehealth. Another $11.5 million was awarded to the Nations 14 Telehealth Resource Centers (TRCs) to provide expertise and customized telehealth technical assistance throughout the United States and its territories, while also acting as a clearinghouse for telehealth research. With these new funds, TRCs will be able to provide hands-on technical support in areas such as equipment acquisition, payment policy, system design, and licensing and credentialing.

The rapid increase in telehealth likely benefited public health during COVID-19. However, this and other hypotheses need further analysis so that policymakers can design the best telehealth framework for post-COVID-19 healthcare. Further analyses should examine clinical and insurance data to determine if certain treatments are not appropriate for telehealth and instead require in-person evaluation. Other topics for future evaluation include determining what problems telehealth poses to combating fraud and promoting program integrity, along with the economic and budget ramifications from increased telehealth use.

Regardless of these remaining important questions, President Trumps embrace of telehealth is one example of using targeted deregulation to allow the private sector to complement the Federal Governments COVID-19 responses. The rapid growth in telehealth shows how this technology can help the American healthcare system meet patients needs during a national emergency. While telehealths immediate benefits are clear, it may also offer long-term promise by increasing healthcare access and providing higher-value care.
Rabiu Musa, the chief press secretary to former President Umaru Yaradua, is dead.

He was aged 60.

Mr Musa was the press secretary to Mr Yaradua when he was the governor of Katsina State.

Before his death he was the head of communication at UNICEFs office in Kano.

His son, Musa Rabiu, told PREMIUM TIMES that he died on Saturday following a brief illness.

He said his late father died at about 3: a.m. on Saturday at the National Orthopedic Hospital after battling with a sickness for a few days.

He died while awaiting a coronavirus test result because he had shown symptoms of the disease, his son said.

A week ago, he complained of sore throat and malaria, but after few days of medication, he became normal, also days later, he complained that he was finding it difficult to breath, he added.

READ ALSO:

He also complained about difficulty in breathing especially when he is tired.

There has been a rise in cases of coronavirus in Kano in the last two weeks and several deaths have been recorded.

The state is only behind Lagos in the number of cases confirmed across the country.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during his daily news conference on the COVID-19 pandemic outside his residence at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa, on May 3, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Justin Tang)

Trudeau Aiming to Ban Handguns

OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau defended his assault-rifle ban on Sunday and promised to go even further by targeting handguns and tightening border security with new legislation introduced in the Parliament.

Yet he stopped short of providing a timeline for when such measures would be introduced, saying only that the federal Liberal government would move forward with legislation when Parliament allows.

The comments came during the prime ministers daily COVID-19 news conference after the government on Friday outlawed a wide range of assault-style weapons. The ban did not require parliamentary approval and was instead published in regulations in the Canada Gazette.

Some have said the ban doesnt go far enough and should include handguns while others have argued that it targets legal gun owners and that Ottawa should instead focus on the smuggling of illegal weapons at the border and stronger jail sentences.

Trudeau acknowledged his government has more work to do when it comes to guns in Canada, which was why it was working on legislation that will deal with the border, gun storage, and handguns.

Exactly when will that legislation be introduced, however, appears to be anyones guess.

We know there is more to do on strengthening gun control in this country which is why were going to be moving forward when Parliament allows it with stronger measures around borders, stronger measures around safe storage, Trudeau said.

Measures around handguns to permit municipalities to ban handguns within their city limits.

Legislation will also need to be introduced around a two-year amnesty and a buyback program that will allow the current owners of assault rifles covered by Fridays ban to receive compensation for turning in the designated firearms or keep them through a grandfathering process.

The Liberal government will move forward on that front at the first opportunity when the House turns its attention to things other than COVID-19, Trudeau said.

The House of Commons has limited its sitting to one in-person and two virtual per week due to the pandemic.

The assault-rifle ban came only weeks after one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history, when a man dressed as an RCMP officer killed 22 people in Nova Scotia on April 18 and 19. Police have indicated the man had two rifles and several handguns on his possession at the time.

Some have accused the prime minister of using the tragedy to instigate a ban while Parliament is largely consumed with the COVID-19 pandemic, while others have questioned why the government waited so long.

The Liberals promised in the last election campaign to ban assault rifles and introduce legislation allowing cities to ban handguns.

Trudeau refused to apologize for the ban after Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Saturday said it targeted legal gun owners. He suggested Ottawa should instead focus on smuggling of illegal weapons at the border and strengthening jail sentences for gun crimes.

Weve seen far too many mass shootings in which military-style-assault weapons were used to kill innocent Canadians. In Sainte-Foy. Recently in Nova Scotia. Back at lEcole Polytechnique 30 years ago, Trudeau said.

Weve seen far too many cases in which these guns have caused devastation to families and communities. Thats why it was time to ban them. This is something that we were able to do through regulations so it didnt require legislation.

By Lee Berthiaume
Researchers say the world has lost more than one fourth of its land-based insects over the past 30 years.

The finding comes from a major study of insect populations worldwide. The researchers noted the loss of such bugs suggests a more complex problem than earlier research has shown.

Ants, bees, butterflies and other land-based bugs have been suffering population drops of about nine percent every 10 years or so. But freshwater insects, such as dragonflies and mosquitoes, have been growing in number over the years.

The researchers found that different areas have experienced different rates of insect decline. They reported their findings in Science magazine.

For the study, researchers examined 166 sets of records from a total of 1,676 sites in 41 countries. Some of the information dated as far back as 1925.

Overall, bugs are disappearing at a rate of just under one percent a year, with the strongest declines reported in the United States and Germany. That is a much smaller population decline than noted in some smaller localized studies, but it adds up to something "awfully alarming," said Roel van Klink. He is with the German Centre for Integrative Biology and was the lead author of the report.

"The decline across insect orders on land is jaw dropping," said Nick Haddad, an expert on butterflies at Michigan State University. He was not involved in the study.

Ongoing decline on land at this rate will be extremely damaging for ecological systems and for humans, Haddad told The Associated Press. He noted that insects are pollinators. They move pollen from part of the flower of a plant to another part. This causes the plant to produce fruit or seeds. Insects also help to break down dead plants and animals.

Van Klink added that insects also serve as food to many animals, making them very important to all Earth's ecosystems. But at the same time, insects transmit terrible diseases like malaria, Zika and West Nile virus, they eat our crops and damage tree plantations, he told the Reuters news agency.

The researchers also studied insects that spend at least part of their lives in freshwater. These bugs were found to have experienced a population increase of about 11 percent every 10 years. Freshwater covers only about 2.5 percent of the Earths surface, so the majority of insects live on land.

The number of insects on average has declined in the air, in the grass and soil, but not in trees or underground, the researchers found. Some estimates show that land-based insects would face a population drop of 24 percent over the next 30 years. Freshwater bugs would experience a 38 percent increase over the same period.

Insect declines are worst in North America and in parts of Europe. But the decline appears to be leveling off in the United States.

The U.S. Midwest lost 4 percent of its bugs a year. Van Klink noted that the big international losses seem to be around cities and surrounding areas as well as cropland, where bugs are losing their food and habitat.

Other scientists said the findings made sense. But they worried that the study had limited data from some large areas, such as the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.

Van Klink did not find a link to climate change in the loss of insects. But he did note the widespread effects of growing cities and loss of undeveloped areas to agriculture. The researchers said clean-water policies established in recent years were responsible for the increase in freshwater bugs.

Ann Swengel has studied butterflies for over 30 years. Swengel is a citizen scientist and a co-author of the report. She said she saw a sign of hope on a cloudy day last year in Wisconsin. She and her husband counted 3,848 monarch butterflies, providing evidence of recent efforts to improve habitats for the colorful, flying insects.

"It was absolutely magnificent," she said. "It's not too late."

Im Pete Musto.

The Associated Press and Reuters news agency reported on this story. Pete Musto adapted the reports for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

decline  n. a change to a lower number or amount

site(s)  n. a place that is used for a particular activity

awfully  adv. very or extremely

alarming  adj. describing something that causes worry

author  n. a person who has written something

order(s)  n. a group of related plants or animals that is larger than a family

jaw dropping  adj. shocking

ecological  adj. describing the relationships between a group of living things and their environment

habitat - n. the place or type of place where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives or grows

magnificent  adj. very beautiful or impressive
India has lodged a strong protest with Islamabad against Pakistan Supreme Courts order allowing general elections in the so-called Gilgit-Baltistan region and asked it to immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.

The Pakistani court had last week allowed the amendment to the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 to conduct the general elections in September as well as for setting up a caretaker government during the interregnum period.

Also read: Eye on Gulf countries, Pak ups Twitter campaign to target India over Islamophobia

The ministry of external affairs (MEA) said India made a demarche, formal diplomatic representations, to a senior Pakistani diplomat to protest Pakistans efforts to bring material change in Pakistan-occupied territories.

It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession, MEA has said.

The government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it. India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of J-K, it said.

Also read: Cant locate UNSC listed terrorists in Pak, Imran Khan govt tells UNSC panel

Indias position in the matter is reflected in the resolution passed by Parliament in 1994 by consensus, it said.

It was further conveyed that such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh by Pakistan nor the grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan occupied territories for the past seven decades, it said.
4th May 2020

Runtime 17:41





Three years ago Columbus Energy took over LGO and now has four oil fields on the South West Trinidad peninsula and interests in onshore Suriname in South America. The latest and largest oil find to date is the Saffron Field.

In an in-depth interview with London South East, Executive Chairman Leo Koot tells us the Saffron find is 'transformational' - despite the operational difficulties posed by Covid-19 and the oil price crash.

"We have identified multiple prospects and Saffron is the first prospect to be drilled" explained Leo, "and I'm really happy to report its a discovery in both horizons, both the Lower and the Middle Cruse geology's".

"Our field development plan is still being matured, but the Lower Cruse reservoir has a value of 90M dollars NPV (Net Present Value). (Columbus has a ) market cap of 15M so this is material. We drilled to 4,500 feet and found reservoirs with very beautiful crude at 40 API in them" said Leo.

Columbus remain hopeful of drilling Saffron 2 in Q3 2020, subject to a minimum oil price of $35.

16: 08 Leo talks about Suriname. "We have entered into Suriname by signing a production sharing agreement or PSC with Staatsolie Maattschappik Suriname N.V. WE. We are extremely excited by Suriname. We are going to try and re-enter two wells and bring them into production by the end of this year. If we can't re-enter, we may drill one well this and another next year. "
Education

Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu.

Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu.

Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events:

International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu.

EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu.

Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale  an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s  will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets  June Homecoming: Participant  $18 per person; Sustainer  $25 per person; Benefactor  $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler  Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events:

SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available  for information call 610-275-1960

Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above)

SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m.

Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.

Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.  4 p.m.  computers are available during those hours.

Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863.

Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376.

Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com.

The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes:

Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at

other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020.

CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313.

The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events:

Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m.

Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m.

Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30.

Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301.

For Kids & Families

The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443.

Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950.

Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required.

The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950.

Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus.

Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage.

Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun.

Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train.

Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world!

Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class.

Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org.

Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583.

Community Events at the Ambler Y:

-YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register.

Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org.

Health

Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot.

The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information.

Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245.

Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net.

Spring Aquatic Programs  UDHS Pool:

-Summer is just around the corner  Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required.

 Shallow Water Aerobics  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR.

 Adult Swim Instructions  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR

-Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21.

-Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday  Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m.

-Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons.

-Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates.

Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994.

SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com.

Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org.

Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs:

FITNESS CLASSES

Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month.

Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30  9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000.

Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30  7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047.

New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m.  12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30  4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931.

Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325.

Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes.

Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com.

Librarytalk

Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744

www.upperdublinlibrary.org

APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS:

Storytimes: Please register in the library.

o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m.

o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m.

o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m.

o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6.

APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS:

North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee

APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS:

NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org.

One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register  contact info above.

Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744.

o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register.

Meetings:

Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m.

Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m.

Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org.

For children and teens at Blue Bell:

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m.

* May 14  Despicable Me

* June 11  Alpha and Omega

* Special Events

* April  watch for date of spring/Easter events

* April 14 at 4:30 p.m.  Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children.

* April 14 at 7 p.m.  Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided.

* April 16 at 1 p.m.  Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King.

* April 16 at 1:30 p.m.  Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes?

* April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button.

* April 30 through May 3  Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults.

* May  sign up for Science in the Summer

* June  sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children

* June  sign up for Summer Reading, all ages

For adults at Blue Bell:

* Daytime Book Discussion Group  fourth Tuesday, Jan  April at 1:30 p.m.

* April 26  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Night-time Book Discussion Group  third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

o April 19  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges

o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked?

*Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs

* Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class.

* Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class.

* Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m.

* Giant Book Sale, April 29  May 3

o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults!

o Held during library hours.

o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m.

o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join.

* Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series

o May 11 at 1 p.m.  Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society

* Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room.

* Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read.

* Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome.

* Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome.

*Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older.

* Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours

* Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours

* Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday!

Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library.

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* For adults:

* Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn.

* Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net

* Special Events:

* April 14 at 1:30 p.m.  Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.

* April 19 at 7 p.m.  Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m.

* April 21 at 7 p.m.  Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades.

*May 2 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

*May 10  Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*May 12 at 1:30p.m.  Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman.

*May 17  Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*June 13 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

Meetings and Lectures

The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833.

The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200.

The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/.

LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings.

Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org.

Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org)

-Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them.

The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter.

For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps.

Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin.

Special Events

The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County.

The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065.

Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members.

Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex.

The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com.

The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348.

The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org.

Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163.

The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu.

The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com.

The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net.

Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages.

13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries.

Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family.

The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler.

JPRN  Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them  Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike.

Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies.

Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately.

Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways.

Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table.

Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp  Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall:

-Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store.

Music and Theater

The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220.

Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html.

Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free.

The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org

Religious News

The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276.

Reunions

St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net.

Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572.

Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779.

Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net

Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net

The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411.

Support

New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149.

PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931.

The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296.

Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656.

Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group  every other Wednesday, 7  8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support  second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner  Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers  Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information.

CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7  8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich,
By Rozanna Latiff and Krishna N. Das

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Migrant workers in Malaysia are now required to be tested for the new coronavirus, a senior minister said, as the government eased six-week long curbs on movement and businesses.

Thousands of Malaysians joined Monday's morning rush hour as businesses resumed for the first time since the imposition on March 18 of restrictions to contain the spread of the virus.

Senior security minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob told reporters foreign workers in all sectors must now undergo mandatory screening for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, after an outbreak was reported among migrants working at a Kuala Lumpur construction site last week.

"The costs for testing must be borne by the employer," Ismail Sabri said.

The announcement comes after Malaysia detained hundreds of undocumented migrants over the weekend, sparking criticism from the United Nations and rights groups. Ismail Sabri had earlier defended the arrests, saying that all of those detained had tested negative for the virus.

Migrant workers have been a particularly vulnerable community during the pandemic. In neighbouring Singapore, thousands of infections have been linked to migrant worker dormitories.

There are about two million registered foreign workers in Malaysia but authorities say many more are living there without proper documents. The migrant workers are mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

RESERVATIONS

Malaysia, which until mid-April had the highest number of infections in Southeast Asia, has defended its decision to relax curbs despite a recent climb in cases. On Sunday, it reported 122 new cases, the highest since April 14, for a total of nearly 6,300 infections.

Nine of its 13 states have expressed reservations over the easing move, opting to delay it or toughen restrictions for fear of a surge in infections.

The largest palm producing state of Sabah, on Borneo island, said it would stick to a previous shutdown order that runs until May 12, to ensure people "are not exposed" to the virus, Chief Minister Shafie Apdal said in a statement on Sunday.

Story continues

But manufacturers are keen to get back to work, with some, such as tech firm Qdos Group, aiming to ramp up production.

Chief Executive Jeffrey Hwang said his company was focused on clearing a backlog in demand for its products, used to make medical equipment, while maintaining "absolute safety" at its facility.

"Got to turn on more overtime in May and June to cope with that," Hwang added.

The government has estimated losses of 63 billion ringgit (11.6 billion) and for the economy to turn in its worst performance in more than a decade due to the curbs.

(Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: click https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-MAP/0100B59S39E/index.html)

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff and Krishna N. Das; Additional reporting by Lim Huey Teng, Ebrahim Harris and Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Gareth Jones)
New Delhi: Airline major SpiceJet on Saturday said that it has operated its maiden freighter flight carrying around 17 tons of critical medical essentials from Mumbai to Bahrain.

Accordingly, the airline deployed its Boeing 737 freighter aircraft for the assignment which departed for Bahrain late Friday night.
Two men will be brought before the courts in connection with an aggravated burglary in Co Louth.

The incident happened in the early hours of yesterday morning when two people forced their way into a home in the Dublin Road area of Dundalk.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has floated the idea of eliminating the cap on state and local tax deductions as part of the next round of economic stimulus to respond to the coronavirus crisis. This would be a mistake, both economically and politically.

In 2017, Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a sweeping rewrite of the tax code that gave more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations, through Congress. In order to pay for some of their tax cuts, they decided to put a $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes that individuals can deduct on their federal tax return.

Some saw this as partisan targeting, because it disproportionately affected taxpayers in blue states like New York and California with higher state and local taxes. There's probably some truth to that, but capping the SALT deduction didn't just target blue states  it also targeted rich people like me. Because wealthy taxpayers are much more likely to itemize their deductions, they're much more likely to take the SALT deduction, and much more likely to go over that $10,000 cap.

It's drastically outweighed by other cuts for rich people in the TCJA, but in their attempt to stick it to blue states, Republicans fell backward into making the tax code slightly more progressive. For Pelosi, getting rid of this cap would mean that the leader of the Democratic Party in the House would be effectively calling for tax cuts for the rich, even if they happen to live in blue states.

There is no economic justification for eliminating the cap right now. In this time of crisis, our lawmakers should be focused on sending help directly to the people who need it most  Americans who work for a living, whose economic security is most threatened by the coronavirus economic shutdown. Millions of Americans have filed for unemployment over the last two weeks. Send aid to them, not to wealthy New Yorkers like myself. They need the help, but they're also the ones who are most likely to spend it  helping their local businesses too. People who take the SALT deduction are more likely to put that money into their savings, resulting in a much smaller economic stimulus.

Eliminating the SALT cap is even worse from a political perspective.

If Democrats want to be the party of working people, they need to put working people at the center of their agenda. Advocating for tax cuts for rich people, even rich Democrats, makes it that much harder to win the trust and votes of working people who have been burned time and time again by politicians more concerned about their donors than their voters. We already have too many politicians in Washington whose answer to every problem is to cut taxes for the rich; we don't need any more on the Democratic side.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

Fighting to repeal the cap on SALT deductions gives conservatives significant cover for their own regressive tax policies. Any policy stance that allows Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to credibly claim to be on your left is one that every Democrat should avoid like the plague.

The Trump administration's targeted attack on blue states is unfair, but cutting taxes for the wealthy residents of those states is not the way to make things right. We need Democrats to stand up for working people in this time of crisis, for the sake of not only the vulnerable but also our entire economy.

As a wealthy New Yorker, I'm not worried about my ability to deduct my state and local taxes.

More Information Morris Pearl is the chairman of Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director at BlackRock, one of the world's largest investment firms. See More Collapse

I'm worried about all the people who have lost their jobs or had their hours cut as a result of this crisis and how that will affect my state, my city, and my family in the long run. Those people, not the rich, are the ones who need help.
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 14:01:31

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 670 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Route1 Inc. (OTCQB:ROIUF)(TSXV:ROI) (the "Company" or "Route1"), an advanced North American provider of data-centric business empowerment solutions, today reported that the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange") has approved an amendment to the Company's current normal course issuer bid ("NCIB") to increase the maximum purchase price per common share purchased under the NCIB to $0.75 from $0.60. All other terms and conditions of the NCIB remain the same.Since commencement of the current NCIB, Route1 has purchased for cancellation 487,500 common shares for an aggregate purchase price of $178,461. The current NCIB commenced on September 27, 2019. The amended NCIB will commence on May 4, 2020 and will continue to September 26, 2020, or such earlier date as the Company has acquired the maximum number of common shares permitted under the NCIB being 1,816,855 common shares.Purchases under the NCIB will continue to be made through the facilities of the Exchange at the prevailing market price at the time of the acquisition. All purchased common shares will be cancelled.About Route1 Inc.Route1 Inc., also operating under the tradenames GroupMobile and PCS Mobile, is an advanced North American technology company that empowers their clients with data-centric solutions necessary to drive greater profitability, improve operational efficiency and gain sustainable competitive advantages, while always emphasizing a strong cybersecurity and information assurance posture. Route1 delivers exceptional client outcomes through real-time secure delivery of actionable intelligence to decision makers, whether it be in a manufacturing plant, in-theater or in a university parking lot. Route1 is listed on the OTCQB in the United States under the symbol ROIUF and in Canada on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol ROI. For more information, visit: www.route1.com For More Information, Contact:Peter ChodosEVP and CFO, Route1 Inc.+1 416 814-2619This news release, required by applicable Canadian laws, does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. 2020 Route1 Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, transmitted or otherwise used in whole or in part or by any means without prior written consent of Route1 Inc. See https://www.route1.com/terms-of-use/ for notice of Route1's intellectual property.This news release may contain statements that are not current or historical factual statements that may constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are based on certain factors and assumptions, including, price and liquidity of the common shares, expected financial performance, business prospects, technological developments, and development activities and like matters. While Route1 considers these factors and assumptions to be reasonable, based on information currently available, they may prove to be incorrect. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to the risk factors described in reporting documents filed by the Company. Actual results could differ materially from those projected as a result of these and other risks and should not be relied upon as a prediction of future events. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. Estimates used in this presentation are from Company sources. Past performance is not guarantee of future performance and readers should not rely on historical results as an indication of future results.SOURCE: Route1 Inc.
Digital transformation in the healthcare sector is expected to move faster than ever on the back of new milestones and upcoming legal foundations, illustrating bright future prospects for ventures.

Health-tech multinationals are arriving in Vietnam or expanding further to help solve remaining challenges, Le Toan

Just several days after launch this month, Bluezone, a tracing app developed by technology firm Bkav to help determine if a person has come into contact with a coronavirus patient, is receiving strong interest among locals.

Nguyen Phuong Nam, a 40-year-old white-collar worker said, This app is meaningful as it comes at the right time when the healthcare sector is fighting against COVID-19. Myself, my friends, and my relatives are eager to learn about this technology to protect ourselves.

Nam added that living in a digital age means healthcare should not be an exception. The sector needs to develop more technology services and software to increase its quality and healthcare access for all, he noted.

New starting milestone

Empty streets, no opened shops, and no gatherings  this has been the image of Hanoi during social distancing in the past few weeks. Instead, people increasingly were forced to use more online communication and information exchanges.

During the current pandemic, Vietnamese people are aware that there is not yet enough digitalised technologies, especially in terms of healthcare software for locals.

In the wake of this, tech giant Viettel this month has developed a remote medical examination and treatment platform which can provide services such as remote medical and surgery consultation, remote training, telemedicine consultation, and remote tech transfer among others.

The availability of Bluezone and the Viettel platform has marked a new milestone in digital transformation of the healthcare sector, with more mindsets being changed. Thousands of healthcare units and millions of locals will benefit from this evolution.

Telemedicine consultation is accompanied by simple medical devices such as thermometers, blood pressure meters, heart rate meters, diabetes meters, and COVID-19 tests that will be strongly developed in the near future. With technology advancements, these medical devices will become cheaper and so will facilitate healthcare development at home, said Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung.

Vietnam has the advantages such as powerful telecoms and IT groups, nationwide infrastructure, and resources which can develop platform infrastructure to speed up digital transformation in important sectors like education and healthcare, Hung elaborated. The country needs more platforms, and so we call on the business community to join the development.

Online hospitals and telemedicine, electronic medical records, and family healthcare have developed rapidly over the years. However, they are still in relatively early stages of development. The pandemic is accelerating this process.

Addressing the Bluezone app launch, the prime minister asked the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) and the Ministry of Health to develop technology platforms for healthcare such as those for telemedicine and smart health management, to build national databases for healthcare, and to complete a legal framework along with common and technical standards in order to encourage digital transformation in the sector.

More players in race

Vietnams current bed capacity is the second-best in Southeast Asia (22 beds per 10,000 people) and investment in healthcare is seeing double-digit growth on-year. However, there are still challenges that need to be overcome as the healthcare demand grows. With 4.5 doctors per 10,000 people and mainly located in the main cities of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, technology is one way to bridge this gap.

Multinational health-tech giants and health-tech startups are aware of this, and are expanding in the country to tap into its rising smartphone penetration rate at 84 per cent (one of the highest amongst Southeast Asian countries), and a young population with heightened technology adoption.

Hanoi French Hospital, one of the most famous foreign-invested health facilities in northern Vietnam, has just expanded its tele-medicine capability to help patient follow-up on convalesce after a procedure, or on a chronic condition.

Meanwhile, Hanoi Medical University Hospital is a successful example of the transformation into digital operations which helps ease overloads and increases efficiency.

On the business front, GE Healthcare is set on empowering healthcare delivery in Vietnam through innovation-led solutions.

Seeing the potential, healthcare-tech startups are also increasingly joining the race. Singapore-headquartered Doctor Anywhere, a regional tech-led health and wellness company, made its official entrance in the Vietnamese market in mid-2019, and is already developing strongly in the country.

Meanwhile, eDoctor is expanding with its digital platform, seeing demand for its online consultancy increasing by at least 200 per cent in the past few weeks, with the trend to continue to grow further.

As expected, the MIC and the Government Office are promptly finalising and submitting to the government a national digital transformation programme for issuance within this month, thus giving a big push in digital transformation in healthcare and across sectors, and new chances to tech firms in the time to come.

Nguyen Xuan Phuc - Vietnamese Prime Minister The launch of a remote medical examination and treatment platform and Bluezone app is considered a starting milestone in digital transformation in the healthcare sector, and a step forward to realising the goal of turning the country into a digital nation. I expect this kind of platform will be developed successfully at 14,000 healthcare facilities nationwide. Never-before-seen digital applications are now booming in the healthcare sector. Telehealth remains a new service in Vietnam, but this will contribute to promoting digital transformation in the sector, thus helping increase the quality of healthcare services for people. Roeland Roelofs- Country president, Novartis Vietnam Passionate startups are the vanguard of health tech. In Vietnam, we are working with Hello Bacsi, Docquity, Cisco, and others to translate innovation into real solutions for patients. The Biome is also about investing in building the ecosystem for better solutions tomorrow. Through the Biome, we plan to host events to bring the external and Novartis community together and facilitate networking opportunities. We will issue challenges to the ecosystem and recognise new ideas that solve real-world business challenges. Our company will provide various support services to companies that participate in the Biome programme to accelerate their development and demonstrate viability. Novartis first digital innovation hub in Asia, Novartis Biome India, is a digital innovation hub aimed at boosting the connection and interaction between Novartis and partners across the digital ecosystem. Apart from workspace, Biome will also provide state-of-the-art IT sandbox infrastructure that will host a series of emerging technologies to promote collaboration and innovation. Biome aims to scale up, complement, and enhance the progress made by startups and health innovators in India. Nguyen Thanh Phan- CEO, Doctor Anywhere Vietnam Vietnams huge population and high number of smartphone users promise blooming growth for healthcare services. Besides that, the Vietnamese government is encouraging digitalisation through a circular outlining guidelines for telemedicine, which sets the foundation for health-tech services to take off. 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 thanks to Singaporean technology. Apart from our three traditional markets of Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand, we are also planning to venture into Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Philippines. As we soon venture into these markets, we will continue to personalise and localise our healthcare services to bring optimal experience to each countrys users. VIR

Bich Thuy
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Ahmedabad, India  Mon, May 4, 2020 06:02 625 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5ac10b 2 World India,migrant-workers,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-in-India,COVID-19-lockdown,pandemic Free

More than 2,000 rural migrant workers blocked from returning home pelted Indian police with stones, officials in Gujarat said, as millions more stranded in the state readied to return to villages.

Poor migrant workers across the country lost their jobs during the world's biggest pandemic lockdown, which began in late March to guard against the spread of new coronavirus.

Saturday's clash in western India's Gujarat is the latest in a spate of such protests across India.

It happened when officials stopped the workers, who had rented vehicles, from crossing into neighboring Madhaya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh states, because they did not have sufficient paperwork for entry, officials told AFP.

Gujarat is one of India's main industrial hubs, and authorities there were bracing for a logistical "nightmare" after about two million migrant labourers and their families signed up for permission to return home, an official in the state said.

They are clamoring to get back to their villages despite the fact that some might have the opportunity to work again. The government is pushing for factories to reopen and has eased some restrictions in the lockdown which will extend for two more weeks from Monday.

"Making arrangements for even half of the registered people would be a nightmare for the district administrations," the official, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP.

In Indore, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, 14 migrant workers and four others were found by police on Saturday crammed into a cement mixer, local media reported. The migrants had been trying to return home from western Maharashtra state to northern Uttar Pradesh state -- a 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) journey.

In a vast exodus, many migrant already managed to return to their villages, mostly on foot, but local media reported that some died on their long journeys. Others have been stranded at crowded shelters in cities.

The government late last week allowed special cross-border trains and buses to operate to bring those who wanted to return to their villages in other states.

Inter-state public transport is still barred.
Aurea Montes-Rodriguez was a 17-year-old student and preparing for a school trip to Washington DC when the verdicts came back on four white officers charged with beating black motorist Rodney King.

Almost immediately, her neighbourhood in south central Los Angeles was convulsed by the not guilty verdicts, delivered by a jury that contained several people of colour but no African-American, and with the trial having been moved far from where the beating occurred.

The riots, events she considers a societal uprising, and their aftermath, convinced her of the need to work for her community, something she has been doing for several decades with the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles, a publicly-funded body that works to mentor students, lobby on policy, and work to improve better communication between the police and other groups  particularly people of colour.

She is now its executive vice president.

On the 28th anniversary of the riots, Montes-Rodriguez says she is struck more than ever by the racial inequalities in society as as result of the coronavirus pandemic.

LA Riots Anniversary Show all 10 1 /10 LA Riots Anniversary LA Riots Anniversary A member of the National Guard stands near burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April of 1992, after a jury acquitted the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, riots broke out throughout South Central Los Angeles, killing 55 people, injuring another 2,000, and causing more than $1 billion in damag Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Smoke Billowing from Burning Buildings During Los Angeles Riot Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary A car burns as looters take to the streets at the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues, April 29, 1992, This intersection is considered the flashpoint of the Los Angeles riots WireImage LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. Mother and child amidst mayhem, businesses burning, bystanders watching raging fires, pedestrian walking in the street drinking from a 40-ounce at intersection of Pico Boulevard and Hayworth Avenue in West Hollywood, the sky black with smoke in daylight on April 30, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Korean grocer Soon Ja Du fatally shot Latasha Harlins after a scuffle an Soon's store. 1992 Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag LA Riots Anniversary Harlins Family LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. A view of homeless person sleeping at bus stop on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, graffiti stating FUCK THE POLICE, also graffiti referencing Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, 15-year-old girl shot in the head by Korean shopkeeper 13 days after videotaped beating of Rodney King, killed for suspected shoplifting orange juice though the girl had money in her hand to pay. The jury recommended maximum sentence of 16 years for manslaughter, but the judge instead sentenced the shopkeeper to 5 years probation. When the riot broke out, Korean businesses were targeted early to be looted and burned in response. Graffiti remaining at bus stop after the Rodney King Riots the night of May 2 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Los Angeles police officer Laurence Powell (L), one of the four defendants in the Rodney King case, waits for the start of his hearing 15 May 1992 in Los Angeles, CA. Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled in favor of a second trial for Powell on brutality charges. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey Koon grins during a press conference 04 August, 1993 following his sentencing to a two and a half year prison term. Koon and former police officer Laurence Powell were found guilty of violating Rodney King's civil rights. Powell also was sentenced to two and a half years. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King arives at EsoWon bookstore to sign copies of his new book, "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption," on April 30, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. King is best known as the victim of a brutal police beating that took place in Los Angeles. Itas been 20 years since the Rodney King verdict that sparked infamous L.A. Riots. Getty Images

All of the anniversaries are important. But this 28th anniversary is really present in my mind because of the pandemic, she says.

I think that what became really important to us was connecting with everyone that we work with through our organising work. Thats a lesson we learned in the 92 uprising that is still true and even more critical today.

Aurea Montes-Rodriguez was 17 when the riots struck (AP)

A number of reports have highlighted how people of colour have been disproportionately infected and killed by the coronavirus, partly because of pre-existing bad health, or because of lack of easy access to healthcare once the virus struck.

She also draws a parallel to the large number of people of colour  again hugely disproportionate  who had been incarcerated at the time of the riots. Now, authorities in cities such as Los Angeles are failing to respond quickly to help release into the community those in jail and at high risk of becoming infected.

We started calling on the county to de-incarcerate vulnerable residents who had underlying health conditions or are over 60, who didnt have serious offences who are really there because they cannot afford to pay bail, she says.

 1992 LA riots: Please, nothing has changed' says Henry Keith Watson in 2012

Asked about the structural racism that remains in place in 2020, she says: It troubles me that the structural racism that existed before the 1992 civil unrest and still exists, is alive and well during this pandemic.

She says even though the pandemic has shown societys interconnectedness, it is overwhelmingly the poor and people of colour who work on the front lines, on public transportation systems, at grocery stores or delivering items to people who have the privilege of staying in their homes.

And so it troubles me that this surge and the devastation to black and brown people during the pandemic is going to be disproportionate, she says.

Five days after the riots, Montes-Rodriguez joined her classmates on that trip to the nations capital. When she returned, the National Guard was already on the streets of her home.

It was that experience that resulted in me working as a community organiser, doing social justice work three decades later, right in my community. I am grateful I get to do the work that I do. Yet, I am both troubled and alarmed by what this pandemic and economic downturn will do for families in Los Angeles, for black and brown families in South Los Angeles. I am worried its going to take years and decades for us to rebuild.

She says race and equality have to be at the centre of any conversations taking place about the response to the virus, and the longer-term recovery.

She adds: The lesson we learned that is that residents have to be engaged, they have to be at the forefront of any decisions that are made by public leaders.
Micah Schwartzman, a professor with the University of Virginia Law School, said he doesnt think the statement of interest will have much impact on the judges in the case. Schwartzman said he would wait for a full filing from the state before rendering a legal opinion on the merits of the case, but he saw a hole in the churchs argument.
French Minister for Solidarity and Health Olivier Veran, and French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner attend a news conference after a cabinet meeting, as the spread of COVID-19 continues, at the Elysee Palace in Paris on May 2, 2020. (Francois Mori/Pool via Reuters)

France Extends CCP Virus Health Emergency, Travelers Face 2-Week Quarantine

France has extended its state of health emergency, put in place to curb the transmission of the CCP virus, by two months, Health Minister Olivier Veran said on May 2, adding that most travelers entering the country will be quarantined for 14 days.

Veran said the countrys health emergency will be extended through July 24, as part of updated measures proposed to limit the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

The state of emergency allows the government to restrict freedom of movement, business, and gathering by decree.

The announcement from the health minister follows a proposal from Prime Minister Edouard Philippe last week that on May 11, France would gradually ease out of its six-week lockdown due to damage to the economy.

Veran said it would be premature to lift the public health emergency, adding that the country could see a risk of the outbreak intensifying, France 24 reported.

We are going to have to perform a long-distance run, he told reporters at a press briefing after the weekly cabinet meeting.

A deserted Nice international airport, as a lockdown is imposed to slow the rate of the CCP virus, in Nice, France, on April 13, 2020. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)

As part of the measures, most travelers to France, including returning citizens, will face a compulsory two-week quarantine and possible isolation upon arrival to help slow the spread of the virus, the health minister said.

This quarantine will be imposed on any person returning on French soil, Veran told reporters.

The French consulate in Britain said on May 3 that travelers to France who arrive from a country in Europes Schengen open-border area or Britain will be exempt from the quarantine measures.

The proposals will be sent to Parliament this week, and further details are expected in the coming days, AFP reported. Its expected to become law by the end of the week.

The health minister said the duration and conditions of both quarantine for asymptomatic people and isolation for those showing symptoms of COVID-19 would be defined in a decree to be published.

Decisions to isolate people would be scrutinized by judges to ensure they are justified and fair, he said.

It wasnt immediately clear whether those arriving in the country would need to self-isolate at home or in hotels, or for how long the measures would be in place.

Franceone of the countries hardest-hit by the pandemichas reported more than 168,900 cases of the CCP virus, with at least 24,900 deaths, according to a tracking map by Johns Hopkins University that collates official government data.

As of May 11, people in France will no longer be required to carry a written justification explaining why they have left their homes. Masks must be worn when using public transport.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Oxford University's student union have voted to ban 'ableist, classist and misogynist' readings lists, leading to academics hitting out at the body.

Students from the prestigious university voted to prohibit reading lists containing the aforementioned themes, claiming that they should not be made to engage with any 'harmful material'.

A policy adopted by the student union went on to state that students should not be required to take part in lectures, tutorials or seminars or undertake exams that involve 'hate speech'.

Oxford University's student union have voted to ban 'harmful' reading material from its studies

As first reported by The Telegraph, the student union also requested for the university to produce guidelines to faculties asking them to consider any material they include on reading lists 'amounts to hate speech'.

The policy, titled Protection of Transgender, Non-binary, Disabled, Working Class and Women Students from Hatred in University Contexts', was put forward by Alex Illsley, co-chairman of Oxford's LGBTQ+ campaign.

Oxford University's current guidelines protect all free speech that falls within the realms of the law. Mr Illsley has argued that readings lists contain 'ableist, transphobic, classist and misogynistic content' however.

Richard Dawkins, a professor at Oxford, said: 'So history students can't read up on women's suffrage, or the rise of Nazism or Apartheid, theology students can't read [the] Bible or Koran? The racism of just about everyone who ever lived before these privileged juveniles were born?'

He added: 'If you don't know what a university is for, please leave Oxford and make way for those who do'

The policy states that students should not be required to read 'hateful' material at university

Academics from the university have hit out at the latest motion, reasoning that the policy was an attempt to censor free speech.

Richard Dawkins, a professor at Oxford, said: 'So history students can't read up on women's suffrage, or the rise of Nazism or Apartheid, theology students can't read [the] Bible or Koran? The racism of just about everyone who ever lived before these privileged juveniles were born?

'If you don't know what a university is for, please leave Oxford and make way for those who do.'

An Oxford spokesperson told The Telegraph that the university have made no plans to censor free speech.
By Peter Nurse

Investing.com - The U.S. dollar has seen some buying in early European trade Monday, with the escalating war of words between U.S. and China over the origin of the coronavirus causing a flight to safety.

At 3:00 AM ET (0700 GMT), the U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, stood at 99.377, up 0.3%, while EUR/USD fell 0.4% to 1.0938. GBP/USD dropped 0.3% to 1.2462 and USD/JPY fell 0.1% to 106.81.

The latest move from U.S. officials to pin the blame on China for the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic came from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Sunday, who stated there was "a significant amount of evidence" that the virus emerged from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, without providing any details.

This followed on from President Donald Trumps threats Friday of fresh trade-war hostilities between the world's two biggest economies, as Washington continued to pile the pressure on Beijing.

This comes as the evidence of the economic damage caused by the outbreak mounts - China has reported its first quarterly GDP contraction since such records began, while some 30 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment in the last six weeks.

Trumps weapon of choice (to win over the workers again) could be China-bashing in combination with renewed isolationism, said analysts at Nordea, in a research note.

The corona virus may have offered Trump a chance to reveal that the trade deal is 100% off, and to take a renewed China aggressive stance into the election instead, Nordea added.

The comments are at odds with the administration's actual actions in recent weeks. It has temporarily suspended levying import tariffs on a range of Chinese products since the pandemic erupted in an effort to avoid raising prices for hard-pressed U.S. consumers.

Worries that this spat may turn into another trade war, just a few months after the first round of the trade deal between the two powers was signed ending the last damaging conflict, are hitting risk appetite.

Story continues

The price of crude has also turned lower as a consequence, hitting the petrocurrencies, and the Norwegian krone in particular.

At 3:00 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 5.7% lower at $18.66 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract fell 1% to $26.18.

The big event of the week for Norways currency is Thursdays Norges Bank meeting, but ahead of this the primary drivers of the krone remain global prospects for the reopening of the economy, physical oil demand recovery, global asset prices and continued NOK buying by Norges Bank on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, said analysts at Danske Bank, in a research note.

The krone weakened on Friday in the absence of Norges Banks purchases--there was a holiday in Norway--and that has continued Monday.

At 3:00 AM ET, USD/NOK traded 1.9% higher at 10.40 and EUR/NOK gained 1.5% to 11.36.

Related Articles

Dollar Up With Escalation of U.S.-China Tensions

Euro stays quiet on Europe's day off; Australian dollar sinks

Stampede to Buy Euros at End-of-Month Fix Rattles FX Trading
There cant be language of threats in the negotiations. This is what Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan told reporters during a briefing in parliament today, touching upon Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan Zakar Hasanovs statement that Azerbaijan is ready for large-scale military operations and that there might be escalation.

Asked if it is likely that something will be imposed on the Armenian side during the negotiations over the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and if Armenia has the potential and resoluteness to be able to resist the pressures, the foreign minister said the following: As a government official, I have the mandate to advance the efforts, the Prime Minister has the mandate from the people, and we are guided by the mandates during the negotiations. We cant create a situation where the security system becomes vulnerable for our people. We are constructive, but being constructive doesnt mean working in a situation where our national interests are at risk and we find ourselves in an unacceptable situation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the virtual summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on Monday, for the first time since taking the helm of affairs in India, to discuss ways to fight the coronavirus pandemic together.

Reports said the meeting will take place at around 4.30pm India time and will also be attended by external affairs minister S Jaishankar.

This will be the first time Modi will take part in a NAM meeting since becoming the Prime minister in 2014. Modi became the first full-time Indian prime minister to skip the NAM summit in 2016 and again in 2019.

India was represented by the vice president in the last two summits in 2016 in Venezuela and 2019 in Azerbaijan. Manmohan Singh had participated at the Tehran NAM meet in 2012.

Azerbaijan is the president of the grouping till 2022 and the meet is being organised under the leadership of its president Ilham Aliyev.

Other blocs like G20, BRICS and regional groupings like SAARC have also held video conferences to discuss a coordinated approach to tackle the coronavirus disease, which has affected more than 3.5 million people across the world and killed 274,431.

NAM represents the biggest grouping of countries outside the United Nations and has 120 developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America under its fold.
Jacksonville City Council is scheduled to meet in special session today via teleconferencing.

There will be a an executive session at 5:45 p.m. to discuss personnel and collective bargaining, followed by a workshop at 6 p.m. and the council meeting no later than 7 p.m.

The call-in number is 217-479-3599. Access code is 8004.

Among the items on the agenda are:

 A resolution authorizing payments from the Capital Improvement Fund for improvement projects.

 A resolution approving transfer of 2020 Home Rule Volume Cap to Western Illinois Economic Development Authority.

 A motion requesting the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners hire one probationary hoseman for the Jacksonville

Fire Department.

 A motion requesting the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners make promotions in the Jacksonville Fire Department of hoseman to driver, driver to lieutenant and lieutenant to captain.

 A resolution awarding a bid for the Jones Place Lift Station force main replacement project to Rouland for $190,998.

 David C.L. Bauer
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday said that Indian Railways will pay 85 per cent train fares of migrant workers. The remaining 15 per cent, state governments will have to pay.

The move has come after the centre faced a backlash from Congress party, and other opposition leaders for charging migrant labourers during the lockdown.

BJP leader Sambit Patra stated that that for each 'Shramik Express' (special trains being run for migrants) about 1,200 tickets to the destination were handed by the railways to the state government concerned.



Rahul Gandhi ji,

I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that No tickets to be sold at any station

Railways has subsidised 85% & State govt to pay 15%

The State govt can pay for the tickets(Madhya Pradeshs BJP govt is paying)

Ask Cong state govts to follow suit https://t.co/Hc9pQzy8kQ pic.twitter.com/2RIAMyQyjs Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) May 4, 2020 On Monday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attacked the Railways' Ministry for charging money from poor migrant labourers. Rahul Gandhi said, " On the one hand, the railways charging tickets from migrants workers in various states, on the other hand, Ministry of Railways is donating Rs 151 crore in PM-CARES Fund. Solve this puzzle!". BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy also condemned the centre for not subsidising train fares of migrant workers. Swamy wrote: "How moronic of the Government of India to charge steep rail fares from the half-starved migrant labourers! Indians stranded abroad were brought back free by Air India. If Railways refuse to budge then why not make PM CARES pay instead?" How moronic of the Government of India to charge steep rail fares from the half starved migrant labourers! Indians stranded abroad were brought back free by Air India. If Railways refuse to budge then why not make PM CARES pay instead? Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) May 4, 2020 Swamy later informed that he had a talk with Railways Minister Piyush Goyal and clarified that migrant workers returning home will not have to pay any money from now onwards. "Talked Piyush Goel office. Govt will pay 85% and State Govt 15% . Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement". Talked Piyush Goel office. Govt will pay 85% and State Govt 15% . Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) May 4, 2020

On May 2, the Ministry of Railways laid out a detailed plan on sale of rain tickets. In the release, the railway ministry asked states to collect money from migrants for tickets and hand over to it.

"Railways will print tickets to the specified destination, as per the number of passengers indicated by originating state and hand them over to local state government authority. Thereafter, the local state government will hand over the tickets to the passengers and collect the ticket fare. The state government will hand over the total amount to Railways," the railway ministry said in a release.

Meanwhile, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has announced that party's state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrant workers and labourers stranded at their workplaces.

Sonia said, "This would be the Congress' humble contribution in standing shoulder to shoulder with these workers, who are the backbone of the country's economy".

She also accused the central government and the Railways of completely ignoring the demands made by Congress for ensuring the safe and free travel of migrant workers to their homes.

The Ministry of Railways, recently launched special trains across various destinations in the country to ferry migrant labourers during the coronavirus lockdown. The railways started running special service under the name 'Shramik Express'.

Also read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: Railways to pay 85% fare of migrant workers; tally surges to 42,533

Also read: Congress offers to sponsor lakhs of stranded migrant labourers' train tickets
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: With the number of COVID-19 cases advancing past 2600 in Uttar Pradesh, a team of experts from the Centre will be visiting districts in the state with a heavy virus load. To begin with, the team will visit the state capital Lucknow and Agra to assess the COVID-19 situation.

Agra and Lucknow are the two districts topping the tally of COVID-19 cases in the state. Agra has breached the figure of 600 and has the highest number of deaths in the state, with 15.

The district has one in every five COVID-19 patients in Uttar Pradesh. The number of hotspots has gone up to 44 in the district and the local administration has given no relaxation whatsoever in the city of the Taj during lockdown 3.0.

Lucknow has a total of 239 positive cases with 13 hotspots. The city makes up about 8.5 % of the total virus burden of UP. However, the state capital has registered only a single death so far. In Lucknow, the rise in the number of infections is mainly attributed to members of the Tablighi Jamat and their contacts.

As per official sources, 20 teams from the Centre would evaluate the COVID-19 situation in 20 high burden districts across the country.

However, compared to other state capitals like Bhopal, Jaipur and Ahmedabad, Lucknow has been able to keep the number of infections quite low, claimed health authorities.

Moreover, the UP CM also issued directives to senior officers to keep the districts of Agra, Lucknow, Meerut, Saharanpur, Firozabad and Kanpur on continuous surveillance as they have been the worst affected.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the state tally of total active COVID-19 cases rose to 1939 while the overall tally reached 2742. While 64 of the 75 districts of the state have come under the grip of the deadly virus, 758 persons have been discharged after recovery. The state has so far seen the loss of 44 lives.

Moreover, UP has allowed the facility of one nation, one card or national portability of ration cards. Those coming to UP with the ration card of other states are being given ration in different districts. A person with a ration card of Maharshtra got the ration in Sultanpur. Similarly, those belonging to UP are getting ration in other states, said Additional Chief Secretary, home, Awanis Awasthi. He added that two persons from UP got ration in Goa.
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI  A phased reopening of the Muskegon County courthouse will begin once a local state of emergency is lifted on May 18.

Thats according to a press release from the 14th Circuit, 60th District and Muskegon County probate courts.

Criminal bench trials  those that go before a judge -- will begin May 18 while jury trials are adjourned until at least June 22, according to the press release. Thats in accordance with a Michigan Supreme Court administrative order.

In the meantime, some court proceedings are being held via Zoom video conferencing.

Essential matters, such as authorization of criminal search and arrest warrants, processing of personal protection orders, juvenile delinquency, neglect and abuse complaints, mental health commitment hearings and emergency guardianships will continue to be processed.

Those continuing to enter the courthouse  including employees, attorneys and subpoenaed witnesses -- must wear a mask or face covering and undergo a health screening and temperature check before being allowed inside.

High priority matters, such as criminal arraignments, preliminary examinations and probation violation hearings, will be conducted using Zoom video conferencing.

The courthouse has been closed since March 13 in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19.

MLive has complete coverage on coronavirus COVID-19, including maps of known cases, at mlive.com/coronavirus.

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.

Also on MLive:

Muskegon County offices are closing for several weeks due to coronavirus

Details of paid parking at Muskegons beach this summer

Grand Haven asks public to stay away from beach after crowds ignore social distancing
New Delhi, May 4 : The Union Ministry for Health and Family Welfare said on Monday that the Centre never asked the migrant workers returning to their native places amid the lockdown to pay any money.

Speaking at a press conference, Joint Secretary at the Health Ministry, Lav Agarwal, said that the Centre never asked anyone to pay for their travel.

"Our guidelines have clearly said that as part of infectious disease management, people should continue to stay where they are. But based on the requests made by the states to the Government of India, permission was granted to run special trains. We have never asked for money from anyone," Agarwal said.

He also said that the travel expenses were borne by both the Railways as well as the states in order to facilitate the safe return of the migrant labourers and stranded people, but a few states were not cooperating.

"As much as 85 per cent of the travel expense is borne by the Railways and the states have to bear only 15 per cent of the cost. The state governments are also coordinating in order to take back the limited number of passengers and migrant labourers (without charging money), except a few states," Agarwal told the media.
James Harris has always maintained his innocence: He wasnt one of the men police saw fleeing a drug house in northeast Houston in 2009, and the stash inside wasnt his.

He told the police they had the wrong guy. He told them it was someone else. He refused plea deals, including one for two years. But prosecutors and police didnt believe him, and neither did a jury that sentenced him to 25 years.

Turns out they did have the wrong guy, authorities now say, a man who looked remarkably like Harris, who had similar tattoos, and was from the same neighborhood. A judge late last week agreed to recommend the states highest criminal court declare Harris innocent and overturn his conviction.

In an interview, a defiant Harris said he was looking forward to getting his life back on track.

Its like starting all over, the 45-year-old northeast Houston man said. Its been hell.

Annie Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Contributor

GOINES CASE REVERSED: Conviction for $10 crack buy, based on casework of disgraced ex-HPD cop Goines, is overturned

The convoluted case dates back to June 2009, when Houston police officer Chris Aranda and his partner tried to arrest two men they found at a suspected drug house.

The men got away after Aranda spotted them. Inside the house, police found guns, crack cocaine, scales and marijuana.

Two women police stopped at the house identified the two men who had been there as Man and E.

Court records show police identified Harris as Man after officers brought the husband of one of the women to the drug house and told him they were going to pin all the drugs they found on her.

The husband began calling friends and identified Man as James Harris. After seeing Harris photograph, Aranda identified him as the man hed seen but been unable to chase down.

Officers also found a car at the house that was registered to Harris sister.

After he learned that police had a warrant out for his arrest, he called them several times, protesting his innocence.

I told them from the jump, if you can tie me to one thing in this house -- fingerprint, a cigarette butt, anything -- then I wont fight you all anymore, he said.

NARC INVESTIGATION: Key Houston police narcotics officers at center of fatal Harding Street drug raid tallied few arrests, low-level busts

Annie Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Contributor

He told them he wasnt the guy they were looking for, court records show. He told them he wanted to clear his name and give a narcotics officer investigating the case the names of the dealer and suppliers associated with the house.

Harris has served time before after other run-ins with the law  district clerk records show an earlier drug conviction in 2009, a 2003 conviction for evading arrest, a minor drug conviction in 1999 and several incidents in 1994. He acknowledges those, but said he couldnt tolerate the idea of spending time behind bars for something he hadnt done.

After police arrested Harris, prosecutors offered him four separate plea deals: 25 years. Then 12, then five, then two.

He refused them all.

That would still make me look bad down the line, he said. It wasnt an option.

After conviction, Harris appealed but was denied in 2011. He filed a writ, seeking to overturn his conviction. That also failed.

Finally, he asked for DNA testing -- which was granted -- and the Harris County District Attorneys Offices Conviction Integrity Unit began reviewing the case.

The testing showed that his DNA was not on any of the evidence.

And the conviction integrity unit  using the citys gang database  identified another possible suspect: Orlando Noble. Noble resembled Harris, had similar tattoos and his middle name was Mann.

A car registered to Nobles brother was one of two police observed at the house the day of the attempted arrest.

During a court hearing last year, Aranda said he hadnt known about Noble, and acknowledged he could have been mistaken.

The case is the second actual innocence case District Attorney Kim Ogg has filed in the last year that hinged in part on faulty eyewitness testimony.

We have a duty to get it right no matter when an injustice has occurred, she said.

RELATED: Years of anguish end with arrest of new suspect in 2010 Montrose murder

Last year, prosecutors asked another judge to overturn the conviction of Lydell Grant, who was arrested and charged after a fatal stabbing in 2010 where several eyewittnesses to the killing wrongly identified him as the attacker.

In December  a month after Grant was freed from jail  police arrested another man who confessed to that murder.

Harris attorney Celeste Blackburn said that in her clients case, the investigation suffered because of missing information. And she said police erred by not showing the two women they interviewed photos of Harris and that the case highlights the problems with eyewitness testimony.

This is the hurdle you have to overcome when you are misidentified, she said.

We see this a lot, where a police officer develops a suspect and thats where their focus begins, she said. They took the word of someone not at the scene -- who they didnt know who it was to make an identification -- with no followup with the witnesses at the scene.

Neither Noble nor Ernest Modeste -- the man police believe was E -- were charged in the case. The statute of limitations has long since run out, Blackburn said.

Now, James Harris is trying to get his life together. He spent more than three years in prison before being released. The prospect of another decade on parole, he said, had him constantly on edge.

They can call you at any moment, he said. You cant close them out. You gotta think of them as your second family.
Upon learning last month that prisoners made up 23% of Ohio COVID-19 cases (Almost one in four Ohio coronavirus cases now come from the states prisons, cleveland.com April 19), I found that the health risks affecting incarcerated populations were missing from the conversation. As a science, technology, and international affairs major at Georgetown University, I study the intersection of environment and health, including environmental injustice in prisons.

Prisoners are at risk of exposure to environmental health hazards, making them more susceptible to developing serious cases of COVID-19. Primarily, poor air quality in prisons often caused by poor ventilation and mold exacerbates respiratory conditions like asthma. In order to protect our incarcerated communities, state and federal leadership must consider these health threats and take immediate steps to release more prisoners who are at high risk of dying from COVID-19, nearing the end of their sentences, or charged with nonviolent crimes. These actions will not only protect prisoners and staff with health conditions, but also reduce overcrowding in prisons, making social distancing easier.

Elizabeth McDermott,

Cleveland Heights
JOHNS CREEK, GA  Patch wants to provide a way to share the achievements of our high school graduates, even if it's in a small way. With in-person instruction canceled through the rest of the 2019-20 school year due to the coronavirus in Georgia public schools, seniors are missing out on the last moments of what should be a celebratory time.

We know many high school seniors are missing milestone high school events, and we hope that this will give the community a way to share their pride in our class of 2020 high school graduates.

If you'd like to add your graduate, fill out the form here.

Here are the class of 2020 high school graduates our readers wanted to recognize:



Graduating from Johns Creek High School

William Coy Watson, studying biomedical engineering at the University of Georgia



From the family: "Congrats, Will, on a job well done!"

Cole Quidley, attending Georgia College State University



From the family: "We are so proud of Cole for his accomplishments in high school and on the track. Many exciting events and records that will stand for many years! We love you Cole!"

Trey Sentell, attending Washington and Lee University, majoring in business and political science



From the family: "Dad, Mom and Sister we are very proud of all your achievements."

Charlie Butler, attending Auburn University majoring in business administration



From the family: "Charlie- we are extremely proud of the young man you have become and all your accomplishments. Your family could not be more proud of you! We know you will thrive in your next chapter of life. Sky is the limit. You are one amazing individual! Congratulations! Much Love, Mom, Dad, Hank, Sara, Max and all your family!"





Cole Carter, attending Miami University of Ohio



From the family: "We are so proud of you Cole! We can't wait to see what your future holds.One thing we do know is you will make a difference in this world due to your passion for community and others. Love, Mom, Dad, Alex, Declan and Brynn Carter."

Story continues





Kelsey Sullivan, attending Lee University as a communications major with a youth ministry minor



From the family: "Congratulations Kelsey on your graduation from JCHS! We are so proud of you and excited for your next chapter at Lee University!"

Harrison Torbush, attending University of North Georgia



From the family: "I know this is not how you wanted the school year to end but you have taken it with stride. You always have had a positive attitude. I am so proud of you and cant wait to see what your future holds! Keep being you!!! We love you to the moon & back!!"





Sandy Salit, attending and playing lacrosse for Mercer University



From the family: "Congratulations Sandy! We love you and are so proud of you...looking forward to your next adventure!"

Timmy Salit, attending and playing lacrosse for St. John Fisher College



From the family: "Timmy, we love you and are so proud of you! Cannot wait to share in this next adventure!"

Graduating from Chattahoochee High School

Levi Cleaveland, attending University of Alabama, studying psychology and music

From the family: "Levi--we are so proud of you! --Auburn Grad/Bama Dad and Julia"





Caroline McDanel, attending the University of Alabama



From the family: "Caroline is a supreme make-up artist and was an avid school volleyball player"

Hunter Tetley, working at ITC2



From the family: "Congratulations Hunter! We are so proud of you and your accomplishments! Love, mom and dad"

Henry Casement, earned a D2 lacrosse scholarship to the University of Montevallo. He plans to study health science.

From the family: "We are so very proud of his hard work and unlimited talent. Henry has been a pleasure to watch grow up. There has not been a goal or obstacle that he has not been able to overcome. His Dad and brothers Will, Brandon and I are looking forward to all that he will accomplish in the future!"







Walter Foster Michaelis, attending Oglethorpe University, majoring in history



From the family: "So proud of your accomplishments, Foster! Love Mom, Dad, Luke and Nora"

Sydney Jo Williams, attending GSU/Perimeter, majoring in fine arts



From the family: "So happy for your accomplishments so far Sydney and cant wait to see what you do next. Love you! Mom and Dad"





Briahna "Bree" Stabler, attending Kennesaw University, majoring in biology and minor in business marketing



From the family: "Bree, We are so proud of you. Love, Mom and Dad"





Graduating from Northview High School

Ashton McDanel, attending the University of Tennessee

From the family: "Ashton was a 4 year varsity women's lacrosse standout at NHS!!!"

TJ Brown, attending Kennesaw State as a marketing major



From the family: "Congratulations TJ! We are so proud of you and wish you all the best. I know youll go on to do great things. Love you son!"





Alice Ware, majoring in statistics and theatre production at the University of Georgia

From the family: "We are so proud of you!"







Caroline Riechel, studying film at Georgia State University



From the family: "'This is a dream that Ive hadsince lunchand Im not giving it up now.'  Michael Scott Cant wait to see what you create Caroline! We Love You, Mom, Dad & Stephen"





Jaurius Williams, attending Georgia State University



From the family: "I'm so proud of your accomplishments! Keep God first, your goals in front of you and you will lack nothing."

Jaylen P. Stewart, undecided on which school he is attending after high school

From the family: "Congratulations Jaylen Stewart. May God bless you on your next endeavors."



Did we miss your grad? Fill out the form here. Patch will be updating this post until May 31.

See also: Join Georgia Patch In Honoring The High School Class Of 2020

This article originally appeared on the Johns Creek Patch
Olivia Jackson was gravely injured on a Resident Evil set in South Africa in 2015. But who should pay?. Jacksons ordeal highlights the vulnerabilities of performers on sets, especially on international productions, where it can be challenging to recover damages for injuries. Although film and TV-related fatalities have declined since the 1980s and 1990s, the number of catastrophic injuries has increased in recent years as production has expanded globally.  Los Angeles Times
Advertisement

Road map for exiting coronavirus lockdown A leaked draft has revealed more details of the shape of the next phase of coronavirus curbs - due to be unveiled by Boris Johnson on Sunday. Key points include: More flexibility around the two metre 'social distancing' rule as long as firms are taking other steps to protect workers.

Installing screens, strict hygiene procedures, and ensuring people are not close together very long are touted as alternative safeguards.

Offices will be ordered to overhaul their rotas, staggering start, finish and break times.

Hot desking will need to end and sharing equipment kept to an absolute minimum.

Staff considered vulnerable who cannot work from home should be put in the 'safest possible roles'. Advertisement

Britain has only met two of the Government's five key tests that must be passed before the coronavirus lockdown can be lifted, a top advisor admitted today.

The deputy chief medical officer for England, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, said there remained 'challenges' to be overcome before the tick list could be completed.

His announcement came just days before the lockdown is due to be reviewed, and Boris Johnson pushed back the timing of his exit plan by days.

Speaking at the daily Downing Street news conference Prof Van-Tamm said that the first two tests, making sure the NHS is not overwhelmed and a sustained fall in deaths, had been achieved.

Britain's daily coronavirus death toll today rose by 288 - the lowest 24-hour jump since the end of March, as figures show the UK's crisis is continuing to slow down after peaking in mid-April.

But the news on the final three was less reassuring.

He said: 'The next one is solid information that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels right across the board. This is an indicator that we need to keep a close eye on over the next few days and weeks.

'The fourth one is around operational challenges around testing and PPE and being able to meet future demand.

'There are continuing challenges on PPE. It's an absolute priority to keep pushing on this, to get it right in the long-run. But of course on testing .... we are in a very good position.'

On the fifth, being confident the NHS can withstand a second peak of cases, he added: 'This is really a matter of deep scientific discussion - very, very close following and absorbing of the evidence and one that we are keeping under detailed scientific review as the days and the weeks go by.'

His analysis came as Nicola Sturgeon today dismissed the prospect of any 'meaningful' change to lockdown this week.

The deputy chief medical officer for England, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam , said there remained 'challenges' to be overcome before the ticklist could be completed

The Scottish First Minister declared at a briefing in Edinburgh that the situation is so delicate the curbs cannot be significantly eased.

She also promised to set out her own proposals for how to ease the curbs tomorrow - nearly a week before the PM is expected to unveil his strategy.

The latest brazen example of Ms Sturgeon gazumping the Westminster government came amid signs the two-metre social distancing rules could be softened to help revive the economy.

The shape of the 'road map' has started to emerge, with a leaked draft suggesting it will recognise that keeping gaps between workers is not always possible.

Instead companies will be advised they can take other precautions such as installing screens and imposing strict hygiene procedures.

Meanwhile, offices will be told to overhaul their rotas to minimise risks by staggering arrival, break and departure times, ending hot desking and avoiding sharing equipment.

Ministers confirmed this morning that the government has started stockpiling face masks for public use.

The PM is expected to unveil the exit strategy in an address to the nation on Sunday, having delayed the announcement by three days as frantic work continues in Whitehall. The law requires that a decision on extending the lockdown measures be taken by Thursday, but ministers could have initial results from a huge surveillance project to assess the prevalence of the disease by the end of the week.

In a video posted on the Downing Street Twitter feed today, Mr Johnson warned that the 'worst thing' the country could do right now is 'ease up too soon' while there is still a threat of a 'second peak'.

'We will only be able to move onto the second phase of this conflict if our five tests have been met,' he said.

The tests are: that the NHS must have sufficient critical care capacity; there must be a sustained and consistent fall in daily deaths; the infection rate must be decreasing to 'manageable levels'; there must be enough PPE and testing supply; and any adjustments must not lead to a second peak which could overwhelm the health service.

Mr Johnson said: 'The worst thing we could do now is ease up too soon and allow a second peak of coronavirus.'

Ministers have been under massive pressure to set out the way forward, with the draconian current curbs estimated to be costing the country 2billion a day.

The obstacles have been underlined with unions threatening to block plans to get rail services up to 85 per cent of usual levels within a fortnight. Furious Tory MPs accused the RMT of trying to exploit the situation to get more money for their members.

Downing Street stressed that current guidance was for people to maintain the two metres gap 'where possible'.

In other developments in the coronavirus crisis

Another 288 people in the UK have died, it was revealed today, taking the total to 28,734;

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced a package of support worth almost 3billion to help universities weather the coronavirus crisis;

A smartphone app to trace the spread of coronavirus will be trialled on the Isle of Wight this week before being rolled out more widely later this month;

A new 'fast and accurate' coronavirus antibody test has been developed by scientists in Edinburgh, although the company fears the NHS could miss out amid interest in Europe for the machines;

Heathrow Airport has warned travellers could face queues a kilometre long to board flights;

SAGE member Jeremy Farrar has dismissed claims ministers tried to influence the group, as former chief scientific adviser Sir David King assembles an 'independent' rival group to plot a way out of the lockdown;

The membership of SAGE has finally been published, although a handful of participants have refused to have their identities revealed.

Boris Johnson (pictured arriving at Downing Street this morning) is expected to unveil the exit strategy in an address to the nation on Sunday, having delayed the announcement from Thursday as frantic work continues in Whitehall

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon today dismissed the prospect of any 'meaningful' change to lockdown this week

The Tube was still busy today despite the strict lockdown rules in force - amid claims from unions that the government wants services back up to at least 85 per cent by May 18

In a video posted on the Downing Street Twitter feed today, the PM warned that the 'worst thing' the country could do right now is 'ease up too soon' while there is still a threat of a 'second peak'

Ministers 'in talks over immunity certificates for workers' amid hopes of antibody test Ministers are in discussions over coronavirus 'immunity certificates' for workers amid rising hopes of an antibody test. Paperwork that could show people are clear of the disease and unlikely to get it again could be deployed as part of efforts to get the economy up and running. The plans emerged amid suggestions an accurate antibody test could start being rolled out across the UK within a fortnight. Testing giant Roche Diagnostics says that it has created a kit that is accurate enough to be used at scale - and the firm says it has enough stock to provide hundreds of thousands to the NHS every week. It comes after weeks of disappointments regarding antibody tests, which are designed to tell someone if they have contracted the virus in the past and indicate whether they may now be immune. Roche claims its lab-based 'Elecsys' test can spot 100 per cent of people who have had the virus - with no 'false negatives' at all. The test is important because it gives the clearest possible picture of how widespread the coronavirus is in the UK. If many more people have had the illness than currently believed, fears of a second peak will diminish. Advertisement

At her daily briefing in Edinburgh today, Ms Sturgeon said that, although 'real and significant progress' was being made, the rate of reproduction of the virus was still too high to alleviate lockdown measures.

She said it is 'likely' that lockdown measures will continue without any 'meaningful' changes.

'Although we are making real and significant progress ... the numbers still eing infected by the virus and the all-importnat R number remain too high right now to make any meaningful change without risking the virus running out of control again,' she said.

Saying she expected to unveil her own exit plan tomorrow, Ms Sturgeon said work would be done to ensure there was alignment with the rest of the UK, but divergence in measures could still be possible.

The First Minister also outlined the Scottish Government's test, trace, isolate (TTI) strategy, which she said would aid the easing of the lockdown measures.

Ms Sturgeon said the strategy would only work if the public adheres to it, adding it was not a 'quick fix or magic solution' and would need to be done alongside current hygiene guidance.

Ms Sturgeon said moves were being made to deliver a TTI strategy by the end of May, with testing capacity expected to have to rise to 15,500 per day to support the approach.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace hinted that social distancing advice will be fleshed out, telling Sky News that that protective screens and ensuring people were not close together for very long could reduce the need for strict distancing.

'You can look at shielding, you can look at how long you stay near people. The two-metre rule reduces the possibility of infection by a certain amount of time,' he said.

'If you halve that it still keeps people away from being infected but for a lesser time. The probability of being infected is much less.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock took the Downing Street briefing on coronavirus this evening, confirming plans for trial contact tracing on the Isle of Wight this week

'I think there are options about how we can do it. You can wear PPE, that could be a possibility if you have to be in close proximity or indeed you could find other ways of doing it.'

He pointed towards supermarket workers working behind 'shields'.

Mr Wallace also confirmed that the government is stockpiling face masks in case it decides to change its advice - something that has already happened in Scotland. Mr Johnson has said they will be 'useful' in the next phase of lockdown but the Westminster guidance has not been updated,

Ministers are stockpiling face masks as they admit human nature means people will want to wear them Defence Secretary Ben Wallace today confirmed the government is stockpiling face masks for the public - saying human nature means people will want to wear them. Mr Wallace said supplies were being put in place in case the government decides to change its advice - something that has already happened in Scotland. Mr Johnson said last week they will be 'useful' in the next phase of lockdown but the Westminster guidance has not been updated. 'It's not the amazing thing if you wear a mask that no one's going to get it but there is obviously this issue about human nature and interactions if you go on public transport and wear a mask will you feel able to go back to work,' Mr Wallace said. 'At the same time, to anticipate should different rules be made around masks we're trying to source as many masks as possible as we speak and have been for the last few weeks.' Advertisement

'It's not the amazing thing if you wear a mask that no one's going to get it but there is obviously this issue about human nature and interactions if you go on public transport and wear a mask will you feel able to go back to work,' Mr Wallace said.

'At the same time, to anticipate should different rules be made around masks we're trying to source as many masks as possible as we speak and have been for the last few weeks.'

Sir Jeremy Farrar, a SAGE member and head of the Wellcome Trust, said there was 'nothing magical' about the two metre advice, and it was based on long-standing evidence about how far coughs and sneezes were likely to travel.

'There is nothing magical about two metres,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'Perhaps more importantly is the time you spend near someone else.'

The draft guidance, a version of which has been leaked to the BBC and Financial Times.

It suggested vulnerable staff - such as those aged over 70, pregnant, with underlying health conditions or pregnant - should be put in the 'safest possible roles'.

The guidance is clear that anyone who can work from home should continue to do so - meaning many staff will be out of the office for months to come.

But the draft does not spell out what action should be taken on PPE - saying merely that more information will follow. Some businesses fear they might be open to legal action from staff if they loosen the rules without clear direction from the government.

Mr Wallace played down concerns that 'coronaphobia' could hamper efforts to get the economy running again, with polls showing significant numbers would be nervous about returning to work.

The Defence Secretary said: 'I strongly believe the public aren't stupid. They read advice, they listen to the media.

'They took on board the Government's advice... and I think they will be perfectly able to read the Government's next stage when we get to it.

'I'm totally confident when it comes to the next step we will all together be able to move forward.'

Mr Johnson will describe the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine as the 'most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes' later as he calls on nations to 'pull together' in response to the pandemic.

Unions are accused of holding country to ransom by refusing to step up services Rail unions have today been accused of trying to stymie Britain's recovery while holding the country to ransom after they said it was 'premature' to open up the country's public transport network when the lockdown eases. RMT's Assistant General Secretary Mick Lynch said today that ministers want to be running 85%-100% of train and Tube services within a fortnight despite it not being 'safe' - days after they demanded a new pay deal for workers during the coronavirus crisis. Mr Lynch also admitted 'most' of their members are working despite Mayor of London Sadiq Khan slashing Tube and bus services to 15 per cent and 12 per cent respectively compared with normal levels and closing 40 stations. Yet tens of thousands of key workers are cramming on to buses and trains because they have no choice but to travel to work every day. Mr Khan has also claims that Transport for London needs four weeks to prepare for lockdown easing - because it has furloughed 7,000 staff and up to a third of workers have been self-isolation through the crisis. The country's three biggest rail unions have written to Mr Johnson warning that increasing train services to normal levels from May 18 will be 'dangerous and lead to the public flouting the rules'. But Tory MP Andrew Bridgen told MailOnline today: 'This is absolutely typical of the militant transport unions  they are trying to exploit the crisis and hold the Government to ransom for more money.' Advertisement

The Prime Minister is expected to tell an online pledging conference - co-hosted by the UK and eight other countries and organisations - that the sooner states share their expertise the faster scientists will succeed in defeating the disease.

It comes as Mr Johnson revealed he feared he would not live to see his baby son Wilfred born when he battled Covid-19 in intensive care last month.

The PM will tell the conference, which aims to bring in more than 6.6billion in funding, that the race to develop a vaccine is 'not a competition between countries but the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes'.

'It's humanity against the virus - we are in this together and together we will prevail,' he is expected to say.

Coronavirus has claimed more than 246,000 lives around the world, according to analysis by John Hopkins University.

A total of 28,446 people have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the government is facing fresh pressure over testing, after the daily number slumped to 76,496 - below the 100,000 target.

Cabinet minister Michael Gove told the daily Downing Street press conference last night: 'Ultimately, unless and until we have a vaccine then I suspect that we are going to have to live with some degree of constraint because of the nature of the virus.

'But we obviously want to, wherever possible, and consistent with the measures on public health, restore people's lives to as close to normal as possible.'

He said the Government will pursue a 'phased approach' to removing lockdown restrictions rather than a sudden return to 'the old normal' - and that the easing had to be done in a 'cautious fashion'.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnson faces a backbench rebellion over his Government's 'absurd, dystopian and tyrannical' coronavirus lockdown today.

Furious Tory MPs including 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady and ex-Brexit ministers David Davis and Steve Baker are preparing to voice anger over the extent of the enforced shut-down.

They will argue that the economic, social and health costs of the self-imposed paralysis of UK PLC is so great that it must be eased.

They will use a debate on the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations brought in in March, which gave ministers and police the greatest swathe of restrictive powers ever granted in peacetime.

As well as measures to unclog the stagnant economy there are civil liberties concerns about the new NHS contact tracing app and the way it tracks the public.

PM faces Tory revolt over lockdown measures Boris Johnson will face a backbench rebellion over his Government's 'absurd, dystopian and tyrannical' coronavirus lockdown today. Furious Tory MPs including 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady and ex-Brexit ministers David Davis and Steve Baker are preparing to voice anger over the extent of the enforced shut-down. They will argue that the economic, social and health costs of the self-imposed paralysis of UK PLC is so great that it must be eased. They will use a debate on the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations brought in in March, which gave ministers and police the greatest swathe of restrictive powers ever granted in peacetime. As well as measures to unclog the stagnant economy there are civil liberties concerns about the new NHS contact tracing app and the way it tracks the public. Mr Johnson is expected to announce measures to allow the lockdown to be eased in an address to the nation on Sunday, after it is officially extended for three more weeks on Thursday. But Mr Baker, a former Brexit 'Spartan' who is no stranger to going contrary to his front bench, said 'whatever the necessities, that the rule of law should have been overthrown in this period is extraordinary and deeply troubling,' in an article for the Daily Telegraph. Advertisement

Mr Johnson is expected to announce measures to allow the lockdown to be eased in an address to the nation on Sunday, after it is officially extended for three more weeks on Thursday.

But Mr Baker, a former Brexit 'Spartan' who is no stranger to going contrary to his front bench, said 'whatever the necessities, that the rule of law should have been overthrown in this period is extraordinary and deeply troubling,' in an article for the Daily Telegraph.

'Millions of people in our country have been plunged into idleness at public expense and unemployment, facing financial and psychological hardship on a scale never seen before,' he added.

''Thousands of people have missed life-prolonging health appointments. Vulnerable people are isolated and domestic violence has soared. Soon will come the full economic impact on all our lives.'

He went on: 'This is absurd, dystopian and tyrannical. The sooner it is ended, the better.'

Mr Johnson today warned that lifting lockdown restrictions too soon would be 'the worst thing we could do'.

In a video message on Twitter, the Prime Minister said it was important to meet the five tests set by the Government before easing the lockdown.

Mr Davis, who has a long history of speaking out on civil liberties issues, is preparing to challenge the Government over its new contact tracing app, which is due to start trials on the Isle of Wight this week.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News that the two metre rule could be more flexible

Boris Johnson says the fear of never seeing his new son gave him the will to beat coronavirus

Boris Johnson has revealed that the fear of never seeing his newborn son drove him in his battle against coronavirus.

The Prime Minister, 55, spent a week in April at St Thomas's Hospital in London fighting the virus, including three days in intensive care, and admitted yesterday that doctors had prepared to announce his death.

Now, in an interview with the Sun, he has opened up further on his fight against the virus, saying he focused on 'positive thoughts' about pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds and the impending birth of their child.

He said: 'We've all got a lot to live for, a lot to do, and I won't hide it from you, I was thinking about that, yes.'

His son, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, was born last Wednesday, just over two weeks after the Prime Minister was released from hospital.

Mr Johnson added in the interview that he was 'thrilled' with the birth and also described his hospital experience in greater detail.

Boris Johnson (pictured arriving back at Downing Street after the birth of his son) has admitted he thought about his unborn child as he battled coronavirus in intensive care

The PM said he focused on 'positive thoughts' about pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds and the impending birth of their child (pictured is Ms Symonds with baby Wilfred)

A heart-warming caption revealed the boy's full name as Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, with Lawrie a reference to Ms Symond's grandfather and Nicholas a tribute to the two doctors that 'saved Boris' life'

He said he jumped on his hospital bed wearing only his boxer shorts to 'clap like crazy' for the NHS  just two hours after leaving intensive care.

He added: 'It was a Thursday when I came out of ICU and with me I had a nurse called Becky and a nurse called, I think, Angel.

'I was just in my boxers, nothing else. We stood up and there was this big window looking out on the Thames and we saw the Met and the Fire Brigade do this display with their boats.

'It was just fantastic.'

He also praised the NHS staff who treated him at St Thomas' Hospital, saying they 'pulled my chestnuts out of the fire, no question'.

Speaking today, Donald Trump revealed that he and Mr Johnson had discussed the latter's battle with the virus.

He told Fox News: 'He [Mr Johnson] was a victim (of this thing). He thought it was all over.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 00:55:05|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BISHKEK, May 4 (Xinhua) -- President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbai Jeenbekov discussed joint measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 with his Kazakh and Uzbek counterparts in phone talks, the press service of the Kyrgyz president reported Monday.

During a conversation with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Jeenbekov discussed issues of Kyrgyz-Kazakh bilateral cooperation, cooperation within multilateral organizations and associations, and outlined plans for the near future.

Meanwhile, during a conversation with President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Jeenbekov expressed his support for the Uzbek leader in connection with the flood and the breakthrough of the dam on the Sardoba reservoir of Uzbekistan.

The two leaders of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan emphasized that in difficult moments, the two fraternal peoples always provided all kinds of support to each other, based on the friendly and good-neighborly relations between the countries. Enditem
Editor's Note: With so much market volatility, stay on top of daily news! Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news and expert opinions. Sign up here!

(Kitco News) - West African miner Cora Gold said Monday it appointed international environmental consultants Digby Wells Environmental to undertake the environmental and social impact assessment for its Sanankoro Gold Project in the Yanfolila Gold Belt, Southern Mali.

The company is working towards a definitive feasibility study for Sanankoro.

"The ESIA is critical to the success of the DFS, which we are focused on completing before the end of next year, following further exploration in 2020, and, as we look further ahead to transitioning from explorer to developer, will support our future Exploitation Permit application. We look forward to providing further updates on our progress in the future," said Bert Monro, CEO of Cora Gold, in a news release.
It is one of the Amazon rain forests most elusive and enigmatic mammals. Experts call the species shy or even a ghost.

Its a dog.

Or at least a type of dog. The short-eared dog is the only member of the canine genus Atelocynus, and the only such species unique to the Amazon rainforest. In a study published last month in Royal Society Open Science, 50 researchers chipped away at the creatures mysteries by putting together a large location data set gleaned mostly from camera trap cameos. By mapping the speciess range and determining its preferred habitat, the scientists, many of whom have never encountered the animal in person, hope to help protect it.

Daniel Rocha, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, and the studys lead author, became interested in the short-eared dog in 2015, when he began working in the southern part of the Amazon. He and his colleagues set up camera traps to study the local mammal community. As they looked through the footage, these dogs would appear, he said. With pricked ears and furrowed brows, they almost look surprised to be caught on camera.

It surprised him, too. Even locals who spend a lot of time in the Amazon dont often see short-eared dogs, which were assumed to be quite rare. They also evade career researchers focused on this region: Mr. Rocha, who spent years leading this study, said, Ive never seen the dog in the jungle, ever.
[This article was originally published by The Independent on 4 May, 1992. The author was John Lichfield.]

He was about 15 years old. A good-looking black boy in a blue woollen hat, He had jumped out of a yellow Cadillac next to my rental car at a traffic light. Now he was standing at my window pointing a shiny, new-looking revolver at my head. Open the door, he said.

The car radio had just announced: Its a bright, breezy day in Los Angeles, apart from the smoke drifting over the Hollywood Hills.

I mumbled the first foolish thing that came into my mind. I cant open the door.

This was Manchester Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue in the epicentre of the riots. On every second corner a building burned. But the cars were still stopping for red lights. We were hopelessly boxed In. All over town white motorists were being dragged from cars and beaten or shot.

The boy, looking puzzled and scared, smashed the window with the gun butt, covering me in glass splinters. My companions shouted Get out of here, which is exactly what you should not do when a scared child points a gun at your head.

LA Riots Anniversary Show all 10 1 /10 LA Riots Anniversary LA Riots Anniversary A member of the National Guard stands near burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April of 1992, after a jury acquitted the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, riots broke out throughout South Central Los Angeles, killing 55 people, injuring another 2,000, and causing more than $1 billion in damag Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Smoke Billowing from Burning Buildings During Los Angeles Riot Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary A car burns as looters take to the streets at the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues, April 29, 1992, This intersection is considered the flashpoint of the Los Angeles riots WireImage LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. Mother and child amidst mayhem, businesses burning, bystanders watching raging fires, pedestrian walking in the street drinking from a 40-ounce at intersection of Pico Boulevard and Hayworth Avenue in West Hollywood, the sky black with smoke in daylight on April 30, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Korean grocer Soon Ja Du fatally shot Latasha Harlins after a scuffle an Soon's store. 1992 Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag LA Riots Anniversary Harlins Family LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. A view of homeless person sleeping at bus stop on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, graffiti stating FUCK THE POLICE, also graffiti referencing Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, 15-year-old girl shot in the head by Korean shopkeeper 13 days after videotaped beating of Rodney King, killed for suspected shoplifting orange juice though the girl had money in her hand to pay. The jury recommended maximum sentence of 16 years for manslaughter, but the judge instead sentenced the shopkeeper to 5 years probation. When the riot broke out, Korean businesses were targeted early to be looted and burned in response. Graffiti remaining at bus stop after the Rodney King Riots the night of May 2 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Los Angeles police officer Laurence Powell (L), one of the four defendants in the Rodney King case, waits for the start of his hearing 15 May 1992 in Los Angeles, CA. Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled in favor of a second trial for Powell on brutality charges. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey Koon grins during a press conference 04 August, 1993 following his sentencing to a two and a half year prison term. Koon and former police officer Laurence Powell were found guilty of violating Rodney King's civil rights. Powell also was sentenced to two and a half years. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King arives at EsoWon bookstore to sign copies of his new book, "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption," on April 30, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. King is best known as the victim of a brutal police beating that took place in Los Angeles. Itas been 20 years since the Rodney King verdict that sparked infamous L.A. Riots. Getty Images

I pressed the accelerator and rammed the car in front, turned the wheel and, bumping another car, jerked forward into the oncoming traffic. For some reason  nerves, surprise, he was only kidding?  the boy did not shoot me. We ran through the first red light, then another. The yellow Cadillac gave chase.

Racing through the red lights I was thinking (insanely) I hope there are no police cart around. My companions were more practical, saying. Look for a police car. We did, and it escorted us between burning strip malls to the freeway.

Recommended What it was like covering the LA riots of 1992

South-Central LA ls the heart of the inner-city black community, the place where the worst US urban riots in 20 years began on Wednesday. By late Thursday night the looting and fire-bombing and random shooting had spread scattered, senseless, self-destructive violence and opportunistic pillaging across the immense LA conurbation. Many friendly black people, concerned for our safety, warned us to leave the area.

Youre never going down Crenshaw, said a large lady, leaning out of her car door. Five hundred yards later a bottle was thrown at our car and we retreated.

It is easy to be misled into a sense of security. This is a desperately poor and desperately violent area. But the streets are broad and tree-lined and the bungalows well kept. Compared with the dreary, ruined ghettos of Detroit and New York, this could at first glance be an upwardly mobile suburb. Deeper into the neighbourhood, a few police officers huddled behind cars, parked like circled wagons. Every street corner business, every fast-food restaurant and store was burning, burnt or being looted before being set alight. Still, a kind of bizarre normality reigned. Traffic was busy, whole families cruising through drifting smoke, at if going shopping.

 1992 LA riots: Please, nothing has changed' says Henry Keith Watson in 2012

The LA riots are not set-piece affairs, with properly drawn battle-lines. They are guerrilla riots: small bands of 10 to 100 youths, mostly black but not all, attacking buildings or motorists at random. In one example, 20 youths stop a pair of white motor-cyclists in Long Beach and drag them from their machines. One is shot dead; the other severely beaten.

In another, a stolen van, captured on film from a TV helicopter, repeatedly rams the iron grille defending a jewellery and pawn shop in east Hollywood. The grille breaks and the crowd pours in.

Many rioters undoubtedly feel a sincere rage at the acquittal of the white police officers in the Rodney King beating case. But for others there is a cynical opportunity to bring the daily, deadening violence of their lives to a wider audience.

The looters trail along afterwards. At one big intersection, a supermarket was being systematically stripped bare. Human chains led from the store, across a broad car park to waiting vans and supermarket trolleys, loaded with clothes, shoes, bed-quilts.

Only a tiny part of the black community is involved in the violence, but a sizeable part of the community joins joyously In the looting. In some areas, local people have turned out to protect neighbourhood stores. But more typical was the attitude of a well- dressed, middle-aged woman who said: Its not stealing. The jury did us wrong.

With me in the car was Karen Willie, a photographer, who was in LA on her way back from a trip which included covering the last days of the Afghanistan civil war. Asked which experience was the more terrifying, Afghanistan or Los Angeles, she said: This afternoon. Without question.
The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents most beef and pork workers and about one-third of poultry workers nationwide, has called for stricter measures than the CDCs, including mandating that workers be spaced 6 feet apart on production lines. It has appealed to governors for help enforcing worker safety rules. The union also wants to get rid of waivers that allow some plants to operate at faster speeds.
Karl Stefanovic is smitten with his newborn daughter, Harper May.

In a post on Instagram on Monday night, the 45-year-old Today show host shared a sweet photo of his baby girl lying against his chest.

'Harper May. May your life be filled with as much love as I feel. My children. My family. My wife. My life,' he captioned the heartfelt image.

Baby love: Karl Stefanovic is smitten with his newborn daughter, Harper May. In a post on Instagram on Monday night, the 45-year-old Today show host shared a sweet photo of his baby girl lying against his chest

Karl welcomed the baby girl with his wife-of-17-months, Jasmine Yarbrough, on Friday at Sydney's North Shore Private Hospital.

In a statement to the Today show, Karl said: 'Harper and Jasmine are doing well and Dad had a great night's sleep.

He added: 'I am in awe. Harper is absolutely perfect.'

New parents: Karl welcomed the baby girl with his wife-of-17 months, Jasmine Yarbrough, on Friday at Sydney's North Shore Private Hospital

The happy news was announced on the Today show on Saturday morning by Karl's colleague and close friend, Richard Wilkins.

Richard confirmed that Harper weighs 2.9kg and was born on Friday, just after midday.

'Mum and bub are both doing very well,' he said proudly.

'Harper May. May your life be filled with as much love as I feel. My children. My family. My wife. My life,' he wrote on Instagram

'To Karl and Jas, you guys are really going to love this special time in your life. They deserve all the happiness that's coming their way,' he added.

The couple were spotted driving at speed to Sydney's North Shore Private Hospital on Friday morning in exclusive photos obtained by Daily Mail Australia.

The breakfast TV anchor 'raced' in his $140,000 Toyota Land Cruiser Sahara after finishing his daily broadcast of the Today show.

Big news: The happy news was announced on the Today show on Saturday morning by Karl's colleague and close friend, Richard Wilkins (far left)

Karl had a serious expression on his face, while shoe designer Jasmine, 36, sat in the front passenger seat looking uncomfortable.

When they arrived at the hospital, Karl appeared nervous as he walked through the parking lot.

It's the first child for the couple, while Karl has three children from his previous marriage to Cassandra Thorburn, sons Jackson, 20, and River, 12, and daughter Ava, 15.
Civil Defence volunteers in the fight against Covid 19. Volunteer Colm Quinn sanitises the patient transport ambulance after bringing a patient from and to their home for testing Picture; Gerry Mooney

Independent.ie reporters keeping you up to date with the latest coronavirus news in Ireland and across the world.





22:20 04/05/2020

Waiting lists worsen as 20pc of hospital beds kept empty during crisis

One in five public hospital beds will have to be kept free during the coronavirus crisis - adding pressure to already overburdened waiting lists for essential treatment.

HSE chief Paul Reid said the plan is to use private hospitals, which have been taken over temporarily by the State, to treat public patients, many of whom are now at the centre of serious medical concern as thousands of procedures have been put on hold since March.

However, he said public hospitals - which are normally crowded - will have to run at only 80pc capacity because of the fear of a second virus surge.

Around 600 consultants in private hospitals who up to now only treated private patients are being asked to switch to a temporary HSE contract. So far 241 have signed up.

Read More





21:40 04/05/2020

Fears young mothers will be forced out of work as many creches go to the wall

A childcare shortage looms as creches close down and others will not reopen after the Covid-19 crisis.

Children's Minister Katherine Zappone said the Government is doing all it can to avoid widespread closures.

But in an internal department briefing document, she warns that capacity will be lost in the sector due to the coronavirus crisis.

Ms Zappone said the current crisis was a blow to parents, providers, educators and children who use early years and education services.

Read More





21:20 04/05/2020

Pieta House cuts staff salaries by up to 30pc and announces 28 redundancies for clinical support workers

Charity Pieta House has cut staff salaries by up to 30pc and announced 28 redundancies for clinical support workers as it has been left with a very significant funding gap due to the loss of its annual Darkness into Light fundraiser.

The charity said that the cancellation of the fundraiser has seen Pieta House lose out on 6.5m due to the pandemic.

Cost-cutting measures and salary reductions of up to 30pc have been implemented across the organisation, including 28 full-time equivalent compulsory redundancies for clinical support workers.

Pieta House will also see further reductions in a number of areas, including temporary lay-off and non-renewal of contracts.

Read More





20:40 04/05/2020

Trump says coronavirus vaccine will be developed by the end of this year

US President Donald Trump has told a town hall meeting that he thinks a coronavirus vaccine will be developed by the end of this year.

Mr Trump also said during the event sponsored by Fox News Channel that his government was putting its full power and might behind remdesivir, a drug that has shown early promise as a treatment for the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

In response to a question from a Nebraska man who has recovered from Covid-19, Mr Trump said: We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year.

US health experts have repeatedly said a vaccine is probably a year to 18 months away, though the White House coronavirus task forces doctor Anthony Fauci said late last month that a vaccine could conceivably be in wide distribution as early as January.





20:00 04/05/2020

Lord Mayor of Belfast proposes freedom of the city for frontline workers

The Lord Mayor has proposed that frontline workers should receive the Freedom of the City of Belfast.

Daniel Baker said he has written to all the party group leaders on Belfast City Council to canvass support for the move.

He said frontline workers should include all those providing essential services through the coronavirus pandemic, such as those working in food production, transport and refuse collection as well as health staff.





19:20 04/05/2020

Care home workers like lambs to the slaughter without proper access to PPE

Care home workers say employers are playing Russian roulette with their lives as personal protective equipment (PPE) is withheld or rationed amid unclear guidance, according to a union.

In some homes PPE is being locked away, Unison said, while in others staff are being told they only need to wear it once a resident has confirmed coronavirus.

Care workers have told the union they are being forced to use bin bags to protect themselves from potentially contracting or spreading Covid-19.

Other staff said they have asked for PPE such as masks and visors, but were told head office is following Government guidelines and will only give them out when they suspect someone might have Covid-19.

PHE guidance states that staff should have access to the PPE that protects them for the appropriate setting and context.





19:00 04/05/2020

No live music or DJs, no standing and no dancing - Pubs propose 'radical changes' to secure earlier opening

The pub experience will be dramatically different after reopening according to pub representatives as they have published a new set of social distancing strict guidelines which may allow for pubs to reopen sooner.

Visit our Covid-19 vaccine dashboard for updates on the roll out of the vaccination program and the rate of Coronavirus cases Ireland

Pub representatives will urge Government officials to allow bars to reopen at the same time as restaurants and cafes, with a series of strict social distancing guidelines in place.

According to the Governments roadmap to reopening the country, pubs are to reopen in phase five on August 10.

However, cafes and restaurants will reopen under phase three, commencing June 29.

Read More





18:20 04/05/2020

Still no hugs for granny: Over-70s warned to 'avoid other people' in new guide

Expand Close An elderly woman wearing a face mask strolls along in San Sebastia. (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA / AFP) (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA/AFP via Getty Images) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp An elderly woman wearing a face mask strolls along in San Sebastia. (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA / AFP) (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA/AFP via Getty Images)





Over-70s are being told to avoid other people and not to touch anyone in new guidelines on exercising while cocooning.

They will also be told to keep their distance and avoid touching family and friends when rules on visiting are lifted next month.

People who have been asked to cocoon for the past three weeks can from tomorrow leave their homes for daily exercise.

However, new regulations on how older people should act when they are in public insist they "avoid touching people or surfaces".

They are also told to "strictly adhere" to the two-metre social distancing measures and "avoid other people as much as possible".

Read More





18:00 04/05/2020

Queens University Belfast given funding to develop rapid test for Covid-19

Queens University Belfast has received funding to develop a rapid diagnostic test for Covid-19.

The trial is aimed at finding a highly accurate test which can show results within an hour, eliminating the need to send tests to a laboratory.

Professor Cliff Taggart, lead researcher from the Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine at Queens University, said: The local availability, speed and accuracy of the test will help inform public health preparedness and response in the ongoing pandemic.

The study is in partnership with HiberGene Diagnostics Ltd, Medcaptain in China, and Italian Hospital IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, which along with Queens, has been awarded 930,000 from EU H2020 for the project.





17:40 04/05/2020

Susanna Reid on best behaviour as Piers Morgan misses GMB over Covid-19 test

Susanna Reid has quipped that she will be on her best behaviour while her Good Morning Britain co-host Piers Morgan temporarily steps back from the programme after developing a mild coronavirus symptom.

Morgan has been tested for the virus and will not return to the programme until he receives his results, which are due on Monday.

ITV presenter Ben Shephard, standing in for Morgan, introduced Mondays show, saying: Its just gone six oclock. Welcome to the programme. As you can see, I am not Piers.

Reid added: No, its therapeutic Monday, before showing viewers a tweet from Morgan.

It read: On medical advice, and out of an abundance of caution for a mild symptom that arose in the past 48 hours, Ive had a test for Covid-19 and so wont be working on Good Morning Britain until I get the result back, which should be tomorrow.

Reid added: That was tweeted yesterday so the results should be back today. We send our very best wishes to you, Piers, and we will be on our best behaviour while you are not here.





17:26 04/05/2020

Breakdown of latest figures

Latest data from the HPSC, as of midnight on Saturday (21,437 cases), reveals:

58pc are female and 42pc are male

The median age of confirmed cases is 49 years

2,840 cases (13pc) have been hospitalised

Of those hospitalised, 364 cases have been admitted to ICU

6,211 cases are associated with healthcare workers

Dublin has the highest number of cases at 10,561 (49pc of all cases) followed by Kildare with 1,268 cases (6pc) and then Cork with 1,175 cases (6pc)

Of those for whom transmission status is known: community transmission accounts for 63pc, close contact accounts for 34pc, travel abroad accounts for 3pc





17:24 04/05/2020

266 cases of Covid-19 confirmed as 16 more people die from the virus

Another 16 people with Covid-19 have died, according to the latest figures this evening.

There have now been a total 1,319 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland.

There have also been 266 new confirmed cases of the virus bringing the total to 21,772 cases 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.







17:00 04/05/2020

Dogs Trust: A dog is for life, not just for lockdown

A charity fearing a puppy crisis is urging the public to remember that a dog is for life, not just for lockdown.

Dogs Trust is asking people to weigh up if they are ready for the responsibilities of dog ownership, with online searches about getting a puppy surging by 120pc.

The dog welfare charity is concerned there may be a spike in people giving up their dog when normality resumes, adding this is the reality that often follows Christmas when people also get dogs on a whim

Dogs Trust is temporarily tweaking its famous slogan to a dog is for life, not just for lockdown to get everyone to think twice before going ahead with a puppy purchase.

The charity said Google searches for buy a puppy increased by 120pc in the month after lockdown was announced, adding that adopt a puppy saw an even bigger rise of 133pc in online searches, according to data from Propellernet.





16:40 04/05/2020

One in five students unsure about starting university this year  survey

Nearly one in five prospective students have changed their mind about going to university this autumn, or they are now uncertain, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, a survey suggests.

Almost half (48pc) of university applicants think that the coronavirus crisis will damage their chances of getting into their first-choice institution, according to a poll from the Sutton Trust.

Students from working-class backgrounds (51pc) are more likely to think it will have a negative impact on them than their peers from middle-class backgrounds (43pc).

The majority of would-be students (72pc) think the new calculated grade system is less fair than in previous years  and more than two in five (43pc) think their A-level grades will be worse as a result of the plans.

The poll, of 511 university applicants aged 17 to 19, shows that 19pc have changed their mind about their university attendance this autumn, or they have yet to decide whether to go.





16:20 04/05/2020

'Trapped' women waiting until middle of night to seek domestic abuse help

Women are waiting to call domestic abuse helplines in the middle of the night because they are trapped in isolation all day with their attackers.

Women's Aid said there had been around a 60pc increase in calls to its helpline this month, and that there had been a notable trend in calls from women feeling suicidal.

Last month, the Government launched a campaign to remind victims that domestic abuse supports are still running during Covid-19, amid fears that the lockdown could cause an increase in emotional, sexual or financial abuse.

Linda Smith, the Women's Aid national helpline manager, told the Irish Independent there had been "quite a significant increase in contacts to the helpline" this month.

In an average week, Women's Aid would get about 500 calls. Last week, there were more than 800.

Read More





16:00 04/05/2020

French care home where staff locked themselves in with residents defies Covid-19

Expand Close Residents at the Vilanova care home in Corbas, central France (Valerie Martin via AP) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Residents at the Vilanova care home in Corbas, central France (Valerie Martin via AP)





A care home in France which took a novel approach to warding off coronavirus has emerged with a clean bill of health.

As coronavirus cut a deadly path through care homes across the country, Valerie Martin vowed that the story would be different in the home she runs.

To keep Covid-19 at bay and stop it from infecting and killing the vulnerable older adults in her care, Ms Martin and her staff locked themselves in with the 106 residents.

For 47 days and nights, staff and residents of the Vilanova care home on the outskirts of the east-central city of Lyon waited out the coronavirus storm together, while the illness killed more than 9,000 people in other homes in France.

On Monday, Ms Martin and 12 other colleagues who stayed in the home for the full duration were planning to end their quarantine.

They were coming out with an uplifting victory: coronavirus tests conducted on the residents and staff all came back negative.





15:40 04/05/2020

More than 300,000 people in Briton quit smoking over Covid-19 fears  survey

More than 300,000 Britons have quit smoking during the coronavirus crisis as evidence mounts that the habit leaves them more vulnerable to Covid-19, a survey suggests.

A further 550,000 Britons have tried to quit, while 2.4 million have cut down, according to the joint study by the UK arm of YouGovs international Covid-19 tracker in conjunction with anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

The survey, of 1,004 people, suggested 2pc of smokers had now quit due to Covid-19 concerns.

In addition, 8% of smokers said they were trying to quit, 36pc said they had cut down, and 27pc said they were now more likely to quit.





15:20 04/05/2020

Fast and accurate antibody test developed by Edinburgh researchers

A new fast and accurate coronavirus antibody test has been developed by scientists in Edinburgh, although the company fears the NHS could miss out amid interest in Europe for the machines.

Researchers for blood-screening company Quotient have developed a new test for whether people are immune to Covid-19 by spotting whether a person has developed antibodies to the disease.

Each serological screening machine has capacity for up to 3,000 tests a day and produces results in 35 minutes with 99.8pc accuracy, the firm said.

The company behind the new tests says it has 12 screening machines available, with a further 20 expected to be ready by the end of the year, but it has already had talks with interested parties across Europe.





15:00 04/05/2020

Larger retailers may be required to give customers face masks under reopening plan

Major retail outlets will be required to give customers face masks under Government plans to reopen the country.

Guidelines for the public on using face masks or coverings are still being drafted by health officials.

However, it has emerged plans for reopening the economy may involve large supermarket chains and department stores being told to provide their customers with face masks.

There are no plans to make face masks mandatory, but businesses may be asked to provide them to limit the spread of the virus, according to senior figures in the Department of Health.

Read More





14.34 04/05/2020

Don't wear gloves shopping or out and about - HSE infection control experts warn

HSE infection control experts said they are not recommending using gloves while doing shopping or when you are out and about.

If there are bugs on your gloves those bugs often end up on your hands when you take the gloves off and from there they can very easily end up in your mouth, nose and eyes.

Prof Martin Cormican, HSE lead on infection control and antibiotic use, said : A lot of people are using disposable gloves in everyday life. So, one of our key messages this year for hand hygiene day is that we do not recommend using gloves while doing your shopping or when you are out and about.

If there are bugs on your gloves those bugs often end up on your hands when you take the gloves off and from there they can very easily end up in your mouth, nose and eyes.

Read More

WATCH: One of Dublin's oldest pubs launches drive-thru off licence in response to Covid-19 pandemic

Byrnes of Galloping Green in Stillorgan has adapted to having to close its doors, by launching a new click and collect drive-thru off licence. Original owner Philip Byrne also offered an off sale trade to locals by delivering beverages by horse and cart around Dublin in the early 1900s.

Original owner Philip Byrne also offered an off sale trade to locals by delivering beverages by horse and cart around Dublin in the early 1900s.

Future of pubs in a socially distanced world - no live music or DJs, no standing and no dancing

Expand Close A woman walks past a boarded up pub in north London (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp A woman walks past a boarded up pub in north London (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The pub experience will be dramatically different after reopening according to pub representatives as they have published a new set of social distancing strict guidelines which may allow for pubs to reopen sooner.

Pub representatives will urge government officials for bars to reopen at the same time as restaurants and cafes, with a series of strict social distancing guidelines in place

According to the governments roadmap to reopening the country, pubs are to reopen in phase five on August 10.

However, cafes and restaurants will reopen under phase three, commencing June 29.

Read More





11.54 04/05/2020

Seventh series of ITV's Love Island postponed until 2021

Expand Close Laura Whitmore hosts the ITV2 show (Lia Toby/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Laura Whitmore hosts the ITV2 show (Lia Toby/PA)

The upcoming seventh series of Love Island will move to 2021, due to the coronavirus outbreak, ITV said.

Kevin Lygo, director of television at ITV, said: "We have tried every which way to make Love Island this summer but logistically it's just not possible to produce it in a way that safeguards the wellbeing of everyone involved and that for us is the priority."

"In normal circumstances we would be preparing very soon to travel out to the location in Mallorca to get the villa ready but clearly that's now out of the question."

Laura Whitmore, who hosted the winter series of Love Island, tweeted: "Like with a lot of things because of restrictions with travel, social distancing and unable to plan ahead, Love Island is postponed until 2021. Great news is that there have been more applications then any other series! Next year is going to be BIG. Stay safe".





Universities warn cost of funding lost to pandemic is 374m

Universities want the Government to fund more places for Irish students in the autumn to help cover their Covid-19 losses.

The cost of the pandemic to the seven traditional universities will run to 374m over 2020 and 2021, according to an initial assessment.

The predicted losses include 181m in international student fees, 86m in commercial revenues from the closure of facilities such as the The Helix in DCU, 34m in rental income from on-campus accommodation, particularly during the summer, and 37m arising from disruption to research activities.

The financial consequences to the sector of Covid-19 are set out in a document from the Irish Universities Association (IUA), called 'Partners in the Recovery'.

Read More





10.41 04/05/2020

Medical expert warns against treating over 70s differently when easing restrictions

Expand Close The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on the lives of older people worldwide. Photo: REUTERS / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on the lives of older people worldwide. Photo: REUTERS

A medical expert in the UK has warned against treating age groups differently when easing lockdown measures.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of the British government's scientific advisory group Sage, said he does not support giving different rules to over-70s, who are considered a clinically vulnerable group by the Government.

It comes after NHS England's national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said on Friday that officials will be studying whether stricter measures will or will not have to continue to apply to the elderly when restrictions are relaxed.

Sir Jeremy, who is also director of the Wellcome Trust research charity, has warned this risked treating members of society differently to one another.

Read More

Japan PM extends state of emergency until end of May

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday that he has decided to extend the country's national state of emergency to the end of the month.

Abe will consider lifting the nationwide state of emergency without waiting for its May 31 expiration if expert advisors decide that is possible based on detailed analysis of regional infection trends, he said at a meeting of the government's coronavirus task force.

He said his advisors said that Japan had not seen the explosive surge in infections seen in some countries overseas, but the number of new infection cases had not fallen enough and there were regions where the medical system was facing strains.

For the 13 prefectures including Tokyo and Osaka that have been hardest hit, a target of reducing person-to-person contacts by 80pc would remain in place, Abe said.

Japan will move gradually to a framework that will combine prevention of the spread of infections with maintaining social and economic activities, he added.





08.18 04/05/2020

Alarm as several of world's biggest nations show new peaks of infection

Expand Close A man wearing PPE (personal protective equipment), including a face mask and gloves as a precautionary measure in London. (Photo by Tolga AKMEN / AFP) (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp A man wearing PPE (personal protective equipment), including a face mask and gloves as a precautionary measure in London. (Photo by Tolga AKMEN / AFP) (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Several of the world's most populous countries reported worrying new peaks in infections yesterday, including India, which recorded its biggest single-day jump yet.

India, second in population only to China, reported more than 2,600 new infections. And in Russia, new coronavirus cases exceeded 10,000 for the first time. The confirmed death toll in Britain climbed near that of Italy, the epicentre of Europe's outbreak, even though the UK population is younger than Italy's and Britain had more time to prepare before the pandemic hit.

The US continues to experience tens of thousands of new infections each day, with more than 1,400 new deaths reported on Saturday.

Health experts warn a second wave of infections could hit unless testing is expanded dramatically after lockdowns are eased.

Read More





WATCH: 'It's devastating for family pubs' - Publican calls for pubs to reopen along with cafes and restaurants

It has been reported that restrictions on the operating of cafes and restaurants will be loosened in the coming weeks however, Simon Harries previously told Independent.ie that "I can't see people in packed pubs again as long as this virus is with us".





08.18 04/05/2020

Waiting lists worsen as 20pc of hospital beds kept empty during crisis

Expand Close Beds at Beacon Hospital in Sandyford, Dublin (Julien Behal/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Beds at Beacon Hospital in Sandyford, Dublin (Julien Behal/PA)

One in five public hospital beds will have to be kept free during the coronavirus crisis - adding pressure to already overburdened waiting lists for essential treatment.

HSE chief Paul Reid said the plan is to use private hospitals, which have been taken over temporarily by the State, to treat public patients, many of whom are now at the centre of serious medical concern as thousands of procedures have been put on hold since March.

However, he said public hospitals - which are normally crowded - will have to run at only 80pc capacity because of the fear of a second virus surge.

Around 600 consultants in private hospitals who up to now only treated private patients are being asked to switch to a temporary HSE contract. So far 241 have signed up.

Read More

London stocks retreat as U.S.-China coronavirus spat grows

UK stock markets dipped on Monday as U.S.-China tensions flared up again over the origin of the coronavirus, while Rolls Royce tumbled on reports it was considering job cuts to ride out an economic slump.

The British aero-engine maker fell 4.2pc to the bottom of the FTSE 100 after a source told Reuters it was mulling cutting up to 15pc of its workforce as customers cut production and airlines parked planes due to a halt in global travel.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 was down 0.7pc, deepening a 2.3pc slide on Friday, when U.S. President Donald Trump pinned the blame for the pandemic on China and threatened new tariffs.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo compounded those fears on Sunday by saying there was "a significant amount of evidence" the virus emerged from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. An editorial in China's Global Times said he was "bluffing".

European stock markets, several of which were closed for a May 1 holiday on Friday, tumbled as much as 3pc in early trading on Monday.

The domestically focussed mid-cap index was down 1.7pc at 0705 GMT.

Reuters: Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva





07.10 04/05/2020

Miracle man: Patrick's praise for medics after he beats virus

Expand Close Thumbs up: Patrick with his wife Marie and their grandson Riley / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Thumbs up: Patrick with his wife Marie and their grandson Riley

A 72-year-old who beat the coronavirus, despite having serious underlying health conditions and being on a ventilator for a week, has been called "a miracle man" by his relieved family.

Patrick Bedford spent 26 days in hospital, including seven days in an induced coma while he was ventilated.

He said he was "at death's door" and his life was saved by the frontline staff in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth.

Patrick said they "treated me like royalty", and told how Dr Adam O'Brien held his hand while he was put into a coma.

Read More

Europe relaxes, but Russia numbers spike

Expand Close OUTSIDE AGAIN: An elderly man and woman in face masks sit on benches in Barcelona as lockdown restrictions eased in Spain. Photo: David Ramos/Getty / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp OUTSIDE AGAIN: An elderly man and woman in face masks sit on benches in Barcelona as lockdown restrictions eased in Spain. Photo: David Ramos/Getty

Spaniards filled the streets yesterday to exercise outside in gorgeous spring weather for the first time in seven weeks, while German children rushed to playgrounds as countries in western Europe moved ahead with the gradual relaxation of lockdown restrictions.

Russia and Pakistan, however, reported their biggest one-day spikes in new infections, in a sign the pandemic is far from over.

Concern was growing in Moscow about the possibility that hospitals might become overwhelmed after Russia recorded a new one-day high of 9,633 new infections, a 20pc increase over last Friday's count which, itself, was a new daily record.

Russia has now reported 124,054 total cases, with 15,013 recoveries and 1,222 fatalities. True numbers are believed to be higher because not everyone is tested and Russian tests are reported to be only 70pc to 80pc accurate.

Read More

Over-70s warned to 'avoid other people' in new guide

Expand Close An elderly woman wearing a face mask strolls along in San Sebastia. (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA / AFP) (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA/AFP via Getty Images) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp An elderly woman wearing a face mask strolls along in San Sebastia. (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA / AFP) (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA/AFP via Getty Images)

Over-70s are being told to avoid other people and not to touch anyone in new guidelines on exercising while cocooning.

They will also be told to keep their distance and avoid touching family and friends when rules on visiting are lifted next month.

People who have been asked to cocoon for the past three weeks can from tomorrow leave their homes for daily exercise.

However, new regulations on how older people should act when they are in public insist they "avoid touching people or surfaces".
A medic staff records information on samples taken for Covid-19 testing at Ha Vy wholesale market in Hanoi, April 18, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh.

Vietnam began day 18 without community transmission of the Covid-19 virus, with the Health Ministry reporting no new cases Monday morning.

The country had stayed clear of new Covid-19 patients nine days in a row as of Sunday morning. In the evening, a 37-year-old British oil expert who had arrived in HCMC April 28 to work on a Petrovietnam project was confirmed infected.

"Patient 271" had landed along with 12 other experts on a private jet at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport.

All of them tested negative on arrival and were quarantined in Can Gio District. On May 2, they were tested again and one of them was confirmed positive. He has been moved for treatment to the city's Cu Chi Field Hospital.

Of the nations 271 Covid-19 patients, 217 have been discharged. Of the 54 active cases, 14 are relapses. Twelve of these have tested negative once and nine have done so twice.

More than 261,000 Covid-19 tests have been conducted in the country, including at wholesale markets in Hanoi and industrial parks in HCMC.

Vietnam has 27,409 people in quarantine at present  those who have returned from abroad and those whod come in contact with infected patients. Of these, 238 suspected patients are quarantined at hospitals specialized for Covid-19 treatment, 5,871 are in centralized facilities and 21,300 are quarantined at home.

The Covid-19 pandemic has spread to 212 countries and territories, and reported deaths have topped 248,000.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 01:05:32|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

VIENNA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- After closing for seven weeks due to the COVID-19, Austrian schools reopened to graduating classes on Monday, with teachers and students trying to adapt to the new routine of wearing masks, washing hands frequently and keeping social distance.

In many schools, to guarantee social distancing, lessons were not held in the normal classroom, but in the gymnasium - for example in the Goethe Gymnasium, a general high school in Vienna, according to local media.

There, among other things, handrails on the stairs were glued with barrier tape, and strips for distance control were found on the floor. The hygiene rules and instructions for correct movement in the school building were clearly visible at the entrance.

"Today we only had two classes with 48 pupils, and two colleagues agreed to act as hygiene teachers to monitor hand washing," director Hubert Kopeszki told the Austria Press Agency (APA).

In two weeks it would be much more difficult with the return of the younger students, he said.

From May 15, all pupils in the six to 14 age group will return to school, followed by the remaining pupils from June 3, the government announced in late April.

Apart from the lack of physical space, there is also the problem of personnel bottlenecks. Kopeszki said that 22 percent of the teachers would not be able to show up because they belong to the risk group or have someone to look after at home.

In an interview with the Swiss daily Blick, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that a second coronavirus wave could occur in Austria as a "realistic scenario."

"The question is whether it will be possible to keep the situation under control, in other words, to limit the contagion regionally and isolate infected people quickly, or whether there will be an exponential increase again," Kurz told the Blick in a telephone interview on Sunday. "In between there is a full grayscale range that makes a big difference."

So far, the reopening of stores has not increased the number of infections in the Alpine country, according to the chancellor, as the daily number of new cases reported has still been under 100. Enditem
Former Bachelor star Matthew 'Matty J' Johnson is one of the country's best known reality stars.

But the 31-year-old says he does not want that much-coveted verified blue tick on Instagram.

Speaking on his The Babble podcast, Matty said he has chosen not to get 'verified' because he believes the blue tick is 'obnoxious'.

'I don't want to be a celebrity': Former Bachelor star Matthew 'Matty J' Johnson is one of the country's best known reality stars, but the 31-year-old says he does not want that much-coveted verified blue tick on Instagram

'I think the blue ticks looks a little obnoxious,' the reality star said.

Matty's co-host Ruby Teys said she wondered if he was scared of being rejected, which Matty laughed off.

'I have 251,000 followers, I'm not getting rejected from anybody,' he said.

'I think it looks obnoxious with the blue tick. I don't want to be a celebrity. I am a man of the people,' he insisted

'I think it looks obnoxious with the blue tick. I don't want to be a celebrity. I am a man of the people,' he added.

That blue tick is technically called a 'verified badge'. It means that Instagram has confirmed that the said person's account is an authentic account for a public figure.

No! Meanwhile, Matty J recently issued a chilling warning to young people who are selling raunchy content on the subscription-based website OnlyFans

Meanwhile, Matty J recently issued a chilling warning to young people who are selling raunchy content on the subscription-based website OnlyFans.

He said: 'I think the problem here is that OnlyFans could become a stepping stone into the porn industry.'

'Which, hey, if that's your jam and if that's how you want to make money - then that's absolutely fine,' he clarified.

Postponed: Matty J confirmed he and Laura had postponed their upcoming nuptials during an interview on Studio 10 on Thursday

He added that it can be a slippery slope for young people who can become desensitised to sharing naked pictures.

Matty J confirmed he and Laura had postponed their upcoming nuptials during an interview on Studio 10 on Thursday.

'We're working towards 2021, maybe Spring... a spring wedding I think could be on the cards,' Matty explained alongside Laura and their daughter Marlie-Mae, 10 months.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 08:56:09|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese health authority said Monday that no new domestically transmitted cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported on the Chinese mainland on Sunday.

The National Health Commission received reports of three new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on Sunday, all of which were imported.

One suspected case arriving from overseas was reported in Shanghai, the commission said in its daily report.

No deaths related to the disease were reported, according to the commission. Enditem
Late last month, Xiaomi was accused of collecting browser data even from incognito sessions. Xiaomi responded with a detailed blog post explaining its privacy policies and data collection practices.

A Forbes article claimed Xiaomi smartphones are collecting browser data including from incognito sessions and sending it to servers in Russia and Singapore. While rampant data collection is indeed an unfortunate status quo of internet companies, its the nature of encoding that Xiaomi is using that has alarmed cybersecurity experts. Xiaomi released a detailed blog explaining their privacy policies and data collection practices with Manu Kumar Jain even recording a video to debunk the ghastly claims made by the Forbes article

While the response is listed out in full detail on Xiaomis blog, it can all seem a little too technical. To help you understand it, we have broken down each claim made on the Forbes piece and Xiaomis response to it 

Claim 1: Mi Browser and Mint Browser tracking all activity, even when in incognito

Gabriel Cirlig, the cybersecurity expert quoted in the Forbes piece was the first to discover this. He found the Mi browser (installed by default in all Xiaomi phones), as well as Mint Browser (available on Google Play Store with thousands of installs), were tracking the URLs you visited as well as the search terms you used on DuckDuckGo as well as Google Search. The browser tracked the URL even when users were in private or incognito mode. This data is being sent to servers owned by Alibaba in Russia and Singapore and rented by Xiaomi.

Xiaomis response

Xiaomi admits to collecting data such as system information, preferences, user interface feature usage, responsiveness, performance, memory usage, and crash reports. These are anonymised and aggregated and cannot be used to identify an individual. Xiaomi also admits that URLs are collected to identify slow-loading web-pages but doesnt mention whether it also looks at what the user is searching on search engine websites. Furthermore, Xiaomi states the data collection is done with user consent which the user permits when they agree to the terms and conditions when setting up a Xiaomi smartphone.

The company further confirmed that it collects usage stats while in incognito mode as well, and usage stats also includes URLs which is ironic considering incognito mode is enabled so that such data is not collected.

Counter Response from cybersecurity researchers

So, Xiaiomi have published a blog, which I think aims to refute what myself, @hookgab and @iblametom

are presenting.https://t.co/b8YH1pa2xo



Let's tear it down.  Cybergibbons (@cybergibbons) May 1, 2020

Another cybersecurity expert who Forbes spoke to, Andrew Tierney (goes by the alias @Cybergibbons) tweeted out a proof of concept which countered Xiaomis response. While most of it is too technical to explain in simple terms, the video basically shows that the data collected has a UUID or a universally unique identifier which easily lets someone identify where the data came from.

Claim 2: Sending data to remote servers using sub-standard encoding

The researchers also claimed Xiaomi is storing the data in foreign servers based on Russia and Singapore. These servers are owned by Alibaba and rented by Xiaomi. They have web domains registered in Beijing. Furthermore, it was found Xiaomi is using base64 encoding which the researchers claimed can be easily decoded on the client-side, once again potentially revealing individual identities.

Xiaomis response

Xiaomi hosts information on a public cloud infrastructure that is common and well known in the industry. All information from our overseas services and users is stored on servers in various overseas markets where local user privacy protection laws and regulations are strictly followed and with which we fully comply.

Indeed, this is a standard practice among many software companies. Collecting aggregated and anonymised data is performed by the largest internet giants like Google and Facebook. And this is one place where Xiaomi alone cant be taken to task.

Xiaomi also claimed the data sent to overseas servers are all anonymised and theres no way it can be traced back to an individual. However, the researchers found Xiaomi is using base64 encoding which is easily trackable, at least from the client-side.

Xiaomis response didnt really touch this part of the claim. It did, however, state that they use TLS 1.2 encryption standard. As a result, while it may be difficult to intercept the data in transit, theres no way to tell how the data is treated once it reaches it destination.

Claim 3: User data collected isnt anonymous, as claimed by Xiaomi. The UUID is specific for each user for 24 hours and not randomly assigned as suggested by Xiaomi

Gabi and other researchers found that the data shared from the Mi Browser and Mint Browser all carry unique identifiers which are specific for individual devices. For instance, two sets of data sent from the same smartphone within 24 hours will carry the same UUID, which again potentially allows server clients to identify the origin of the data.

Xiaomis response:

This screenshot shows the code for how we create randomly generated unique tokens to append to aggregate usage statistics, and these tokens do not correspond to any individuals.

Counter response by the researchers:

The POC video released by Andrew clearly shows that the UUID is the same for data sent within 24 hours, debunking Xiaomis claim of using randomised tokens. He even debunked the screenshot shared by Xiaomi on Twitter.

They present this as evidence that they "create randomly generated unique tokens" that "do not correspond to any individuals".



This code shows nothing of the sort. pic.twitter.com/B4mkhU7ZKH  Cybergibbons (@cybergibbons) May 1, 2020

Is it fair for Xiaomi to collected private browser data?

Xiaomi took a day to jot down its side of the story which maintained that the research done by Forbes for the story is flawed. The company further stated that collecting usage data is a standard industry practice. Almost every web browser in the world collects user data. However, its the nature of collecting data by Xiaomi that is under scrutiny.

For instance, while Chrome and Firefox are known to keep track of the URLs you visit, collecting data generate during an incognito session isnt heard of, and cant be considered normal or an industry practice which can be accepted.

The private mode exists specifically to prevent URLs being listed on browser history and to prevent cookies and other trackers to be inserted. Including search terms is even more alarming.

Furthermore, which its proven that the data stays encrypted while in transit, having an UUID means the data can potentially be traced back to the individual.

Xiaomis response of calling out the research as flawed without substantiating the claim with relevant evidence and pointers isnt right. The company needs to come clean of its data collection practices in light of the recent revelations.
The third phase of the national lockdown has come into effect from Monday with "considerable relaxations" in several districts but curbs will continue in containment areas across the country.

REUTERS

The lockdown was imposed on March 25 and is slated to last till May 17 after two extensions. The total duration of the lockdown period will now be 54 days. Read more

After Criticism, Railways Says It Is Only Getting 15% Cost From States To Ferry Stranded Migrant Workers

The Indian Railways have come under heavy criticism for its decision to charge ticket fees for 'Shramik special trains'.

.

The migrant workers had to pay regular sleeper class tickets plus superfast charges of Rs 30 and an additional charge of Rs 20, which was collected by the states and then handed over to the railways. Read more

Despite The Highest Single Day Spike In COVID-19 Cases, Delhi Opens Up

On Sunday Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the time has come to re-open Delhi and people will have to be ready to live with the novel coronavirus.

BCCL

Kejriwal said the Delhi government will suggest to the Centre that only containment areas in the city be declared as red zones and not the entire district. Read more

Mother And Uncle Allegedly Murder 16-Year-Old Girl Over Love Affair

In a grotesque case of a possible honour killing, a 16-year-old girl was allegedly murdered by her mother and uncle in a village in Rajasthans Pali district. The police have confirmed the incident.

.

She was allegedly strangulated, burnt and buried by the accused. Read more

Male COVID-19 Patient Sexually Assaulted By Doctor Who Joined The Hospital Just A Day Before

In a shocking incident, a 44-year-old male was sexually abused by a doctor inside a hospital ICU where he was admitted with the deadly viral infection.

AFP

The incident happened at the Wockhardt hospital in Mumbai on May 1, a day after the patient was admitted there. Read more
The mortal remains of Army officer Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, who was martyred in Kashmir in an encounter with terrorists, arrived here by a special aircraft on Monday.

His funeral will take place on Tuesday, a defence spokesperson said.

The mortal remains were taken to the military hospital, Jaipur in a decorated army truck.

"The wreath laying ceremony and paying of last respects will be held at 61 Cavalry location, Jaipur Military Station on Tuesday morning," the spokesperson said.

Colonel Sharma, who was among the five security personnel killed during an encounter with terrorists in north Kashmir on Sunday, is the second Commanding Officer of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles who lost his life while combating terrorism.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
'Nazi-like measures': Kansas City policy requires lists be kept of people attending in-person church services A new order in Kansas City, Missouri, requires churches to record the names of congregants who attend in-person services. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas issued the 10/10/10 rule last week so the city could have a "soft opening" of the economy but enforce social distancing practices meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Horrific national news mention explains a lot of the rhetoric hitting the mayor and an example of how his efforts are playing out on the national stage . . . Take a look:
WASHINGTON  Two-thirds of Americans support voting by mail as an alternative to voting in person on Election Day during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll from USA TODAY and Suffolk University.

But while Democrats and independent voters overwhelmingly back vote-by-mail, the majority of Republican voters oppose it.

The poll found 65% of Americans support vote-by-mail as an alternative, a greater than 2-to-1 margin over the 32% of Americans who oppose the option. Three percent said they were undecided.

Findings differ dramatically by party. Eighty-four percent of Democratic voters said they support voting by mail and just 14% said they oppose it. Less than half of Republicans polled, 43%, said they support vote-by-mail as an alternative while more than half, 53%, were opposed.

Self-identified independent voters said they back vote-by-mail during the pandemic by a 66%-31% margin.

"I think it shows that people are open to alternative methods of voting, provided that they're safe, and they don't want to see democracy jeopardized in any way by the virus," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.

More: 'Do-or-die moment' to boost vote-by-mail for November election. But the politics is getting harder

A person wears a mask to protect against the coronavirus, votes in the Ohio primary election at the Hamilton County Board of Elections on Tuesday, April 28, 2020, in Norwood, a suburb of Cincinnati.

The poll, taken April 21-25, was based on responses from 1,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The findings come as Democrats, from the party's presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden to former First Lady Michelle Obama, have rallied behind a rapid expansion of vote-by-mail to prepare for COVID-19 still posing health concerns during the November election.

But President Donald Trump has said he opposes vote-by-mail expansion, alleging it leads to voter fraud and favors Democratic candidates. Vote-by-mail advocates dispute both claims. Although some Republican governors and secretaries of state favor more absentee voting, others have said a large-scale expansion in six months is unrealistic.

Story continues

"Because Trump is in power, his M.O. has to be, let's replicate as closely as possible the conditions under which he was elected. That stands by the methods by which people will cast ballots," Paleologos said. "Anything that varies from that template, he's going to oppose vehemently.

He added: "The question is whether or not people who understand how widespread this problem is and how it's impacting so many different aspects of people's lives, are they willing to be flexible so that democracy isn't impacted adversely in any way?"

More: Michelle Obama-backed initiative calls to make voting easier amid coronavirus pandemic

An election worker sorts vote-by-mail ballots for the presidential primary at King County Elections in Renton, Washington on March 10, 2020.

Thirty-four states already have "no-excuse" absentee voting laws under which citizens either automatically receive ballots at home or can get them upon request.

Voting by mail is most prevalent in the West. Five states  Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington  hold all-mail elections in which all registered voters are mailed ballots. More than two-thirds of voting in three other states  Arizona, California and Montana  is conducted by mail.

In 16 states, voters can receive mail ballots but only if they meet certain exceptions such as being 65 years or older, having a disability, or being out of the county on Election Day and during the early voting period.

Leaders in some of these 16 states, including Delaware and Connecticut, have taken steps toward expanded vote-by-mail or pledged support. But other states led by Republicans, particularly in the South, have expressed concerns about changes

The state of Tennessee was sued on Friday by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Campaign Legal Center  on behalf of two voters and five organizations, including Tennessees NAACP chapter  over its absentee voting law, which the plaintiffs said is among the nation's most restrictive.

The groups argue the U.S. Constitution does not allow Tennessee to require voters to "jeopardize their health and safety" in order to exercise their fundamental right to vote.

More: Amid vote-by-mail push, civil rights groups say in-person voting still needed during pandemic

A man uses hand sanitizer after voting in the presidential primary election at the the Summit View Church of the Nazarene on March 10 in Kansas City, Mo. The polling place served two precincts as voters who were scheduled to vote at a nearby senior living facility were directed to vote at the church after the facility backed out due to coronavirus concerns.

The poll found even greater support for absentee voting as an alternative during the pandemic 74% of Americans in favor and 21% in opposition  and in-person early voting, 74%-24%. Americans are split on online voting, with 48% opposing and 47% supporting.

Voting rights advocates, including the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York School of Law, have sounded the alarm about the urgency for quick action to build the necessary infrastructure for vote-by-mail on a national scale.

Their fear is a nationwide repeat of last month's Wisconsin primary when voters were forced to weigh safety with exercising their democratic rights. Many stood in line for hours wearing face masks to brave their way to the polls, particularly in the state's largest city, Milwaukee.

But the estimated price-tag needed to pay for everything from postage stamps to signature-identification software is at least $2 billion The CARES Act, approved by Congress last month, allocated $400 million to election security amid the pandemic, but states aren't required to use the money on vote-by-mail.

Senate Democrats, led by Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ron Wyden of Oregon, introduced the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act in March that seeks to ensure all voters nationwide can vote absentee and at least 20 days of early voting. The bill, which lacks any Republican co-sponsors, is a long shot to pass in the GOP-led Senate.

"Politicians follow all of the polls very closely," Paleologos said. "It's not the pollsters talking here. It's people. And people are sending a clear message about how willing they are to expand the opportunities to vote such that they don't jeopardize their own health or well-being or their family's health and well-being."

Contributing: Associated Press

Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus: Americans overwhelmingly support vote-by-mail push
More than 300,000 people have quit smoking over Covid-19 concerns, according to a new survey (Jonathan Brady/PA)

More than 300,000 Britons have quit smoking during the coronavirus crisis as evidence mounts that the habit leaves them more vulnerable to Covid-19, a survey suggests.

A further 550,000 Britons have tried to quit, while 2.4 million have cut down, according to the joint study by the UK arm of YouGovs international Covid-19 tracker in conjunction with anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

The survey, of 1,004 people, suggested 2% of smokers had now quit due to Covid-19 concerns.

In addition, 8% of smokers said they were trying to quit, 36% said they had cut down, and 27% said they were now more likely to quit.

Evidence is growing that smoking is associated with worse outcomes in those admitted to hospital with Covid-19 ASH chairman Nick Hopkinson

A quarter of ex-smokers said they were now less likely to resume smoking, although 4% say the pandemic had made them more likely to relapse.

The figures were welcomed by several health and anti-smoking bodies in a statement issued by the #QuitforCOVID Twitter campaign.

ASH chairman Nick Hopkinson, a respiratory specialist at Imperial College London, said: Smoking harms the immune system and our ability to fight off infections.

Evidence is growing that smoking is associated with worse outcomes in those admitted to hospital with Covid-19.

Expand Close Growing evidence shows worse outcomes for coronavirus patients who smoke (Andrew Milligan/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Growing evidence shows worse outcomes for coronavirus patients who smoke (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Quitting smoking also rapidly reduces peoples risk of other health problems such as heart attacks and strokes  those are bad whenever they happen, so preventing them is an end in itself, but its especially important at a time like now when everyone is keen to stay out of hospital.

Ruth Tennant, tobacco lead for the Association of Directors of Public Health, said: There are so many reasons to quit smoking but never a more important time than right now during the coronavirus pandemic.

The founder of the #QuitforCOVID campaign on Twitter, Bristol GP Charlie Kenward, encouraged more people to stop smoking amid the pandemic and beyond.

Stopping smoking remains the single biggest thing people can do to improve their overall health, he said.

There has never been a better time to quit #QuitforCOVID founder Charlie Kenward

It will improve heart and lung health as well as reducing the chances of developing cancer and even improve wound healing after surgery.

There has never been a better time to quit.

The government is aiming to end smoking in England by 2030 as part of a range of measures to address preventable ill health.

And the Local Government Association said councils will play a role in helping this happen.

Community Wellbeing Board chairman Ian Hudspeth said: Smokers are at particular risk of Covid-19 and it is encouraging that so many have quit the habit for good.

Councils can help the Government to achieve its ambition of eliminating smoking in England by 2030, through their tobacco control and other public health and support services, but need certainty over their long-term funding to help do so.
A management consultant paid almost 2,000 a day to cut costs at a struggling NHS trust while living in Marbella has himself been axed  to help it save money.

Phillip Burns, 45, had been hired as a recovery director for a health board with a budget deficit of 40million.

Under his contract, he could spend one day a week working from Marbella, on the Costa del Sol, where he has a duplex penthouse. At the time of his appointment, Irish-born Mr Burns  nicknamed the Costa Cutter  also had a 1million home in Enfield, north London.

Phillip Burns, a management consultant who was paid 2,000 a day to cut costs at a struggling NHS clinic and spent most of his time at his luxury penthouse in Marbella (pictured) has been axed by his health board

Mr Burnss social media pages were filled with images of him enjoying the good life in Spain with his wife, Lynsey Cade Davies, 39, a divorce barrister.

But it has emerged that he had his contract with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, in North Wales, terminated two months early as it battles the financial impact of coronavirus.

The boards projected deficit to the end of the 2020/21 year is expected to be around 40million  identical to when he was hired.

The cash-strapped board is controlled by the Labour-run Welsh government.

A Freedom of Information request by Plaid Cymru revealed the board had spent 2million on 37 management consultants since 2018.

Llyr Gruffydd, a Plaid Cymru member of the Welsh Assembly, said: So the positive news is the board has saved 70,000, but theyve paid him almost 300,000 in eight months to achieve what exactly?

The money that was spent on Mr Burns cutting the NHS costs for nine months, while he spent time in his Marbella home, could have paid for 14 nurses in that time

He said the board had to focus on the virus in the short term, but that we must have answers about the money spent on consultants. Details of any savings plans proposed by Mr Burns have never been revealed.

The board confirmed Mr Burns contract had been terminated without being paid in full. Mr Burns had been due to earn more than 360,000 for nine months in the role  1,990 a day. This could have paid 14 nurses over the same period.

Mr Burnss fee was paid to a third party company for his services. He previously worked for two years at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals as a turnaround consultant and spent 11 months as turnaround director at Londons Kings College Hospital in 2016.

John OConnell, of the TaxPayers Alliance, said at the time of his appointment: The fastest way for Mr Burns to save money would be to sign his own P45.
The mortal remains of Major Anuj Sood, who was killed in an encounter with terrorists in Kashmir, arrived on Monday at the Air Force station here where floral tributes were paid to the martyr.

The mortal remains of the Army officer who was from the Brigade of the Guards regiment, part of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles and deployed to counter terrorism in the Kashmir valley, arrived at the 12 Wing Air Force station, Chandigarh. The last rites will be conducted on Tuesday with full military honours at the cremation ground at Mani Majra here, officials said. The 30-year-old officer was among the five security personnel killed in the encounter with terrorists at a village in Rajwar forests of north Kashmir on Sunday.

Major Sood's father Brigadier Chandrakant Sood (retd) is a resident of Panchkula, Haryana.

Brigadier Chandrakant told the media at his Panchkula residence that the of his son's demise had left him shocked, but at the same time he was proud of the supreme sacrifice he had made for his motherland.

"He was a true son of the nation," he said.

Major Anuj, who was married, also has two sisters one of whom lives in Australia while the other one is serving in the Army, his father said.

An alumnus of Punjab Public School, Nabha, he had joined the National Defence Academy in 2008. He had one dream, which was to join the Army, according to his family.

His family said he was scheduled to return home after a gap of six months and having finished his two-year stint in Jammu and Kashmir, he was to join the 12 Guards unit in Gurdaspur.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi: After 40 days of strict lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) through it fresh guidelines has permitted the government-run liquor shops to open with certain conditions but people across the country were seen flouting the social distancing norms on the very first day of the relaxation.

The liquor shops became the most visited places on the first day. About 150 government-run liquor shops were allowed to open in the national capital in accordance with the lockdown norms, while reports from Karnataka stated that the state earned about Rs 45 crore from the liquor sales on the first day.



These reports show the economic relevance of liquor trade for states and the reason they were putting pressure on the Centre to allow these shops to open amid ongoing COVID-19 lockdown. The Centre had prohibited the sale of liquor in the wake of COVID-19 lockdown on March 24, causing a revenue loss of Rs 30,000 crore for states in the past month and a half.

The ban on liquor sales across the board is hitting the government to the tune of Rs 700 crore a day in terms of loss of revenue, according to industry representatives.

In the financial year 2019-20, different states budgeted for Rs 1.70 lakh crore through tax on sale of liquor. The taxes from liquor sale accounted for 15-25% of the state's own tax revenue.

In states like Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttarakhand, tax from liquor sale accounted for over 20% of their tax revenue, while the income of state excise in West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Telangana comprised 15-20% of the states' tax revenue.

However, excise tax on liquor in Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu accounted for less than 10% of these states' total collection of tax revenue.

The overall proportion of taxes from liquor sale in states' total tax revenue come to single-digit primarily because bigger states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu get lower tax collection from the sale of liquor while Gujarat and Bihar earn no revenue due to a ban on liquor in their territory.

Delhi, a Union Territory with higher than national per capita income, earns over Rs 5,000 crore annually from liquor sales. Karnataka too earned Rs 21,400 crore from liquor sales in 2019.

These states were hit hard

1. Maharashtra: The state government has announced that shops selling non-essential commodities, including liquor, will be allowed to open in the non-containment zones in the state but it will allowed only in standalone shops with social distancing norms. The sale of alcohol, however, will not be allowed in five districts of Maharashtra including Solapur, Aurangabad, Jalna, Buldhana and Amravati.

2. Delhi: The AAP-led government has allowed the opening of abound 150 liquor shops in the capital. These state-run liquor shops will operate from 9 am to 6.30 pm. The government has directed to deploy marshals at these outlets to maintain social distancing norms.

3. Uttar Pradesh: The liquor shops, which are not located in shopping malls, can be opened from 10 am to 7 pm with social distancing norms to ensure that not over five persons are there at a time, an official said. The state government clarified that alcohol sale will not be permitted at hotels and restaurants.

4. West Bengal has allowed the opening of liquor shops only in the green zones, stating that it will not allow liquor shops to reopen in the red zones and has so far not decided on those shops located in the orange zones.

5. Chhattisgarh government has also allowed reopening of liquor shops in non-restricted areas from May 4, from 8 am to 7 pm. The state excise department has also planned to start home delivery of alcohol at some places to discourage the crowd at wine shops.

6. Karnataka: Excise Commissioner in the state has ordered that only retail shops and state-run retail shops like Mysore Sales International Limited will open from May 4, between 9 am and 7 pm in the areas that are outside containment zones. Barricades have also been erected to ensure that people stand in line and boxes or circles drawn in front of shops to maintain social distancing.

7. Assam government has allowed the reopening of liquor outlets across the state. Earlier, the state government allowed the sale of liquor from April 12 but had to stop it after three days following a directive from the Centre.

8. Himachal Pradesh government has allowed liquor shops to operate from May 4, but will shy away from charging any licence fee from liquor vends for the period (March 22 to May 3) as they remained closed due to coronavirus lockdown.

9. Kerala has not allowed the opening of liquor shops as CM Vijayan had earlier made it clear that liquor shops, malls, beauty parlours and barbershops will continue to remain shut in the state.

10. Punjab government has allowed the opening of liquor shops in a staggered way on rotation for four hours every morning after May 3, otherwise, the sale of liquor will continue to be prohibited.

11. Meghalaya has also allowed the opening of liquor shops partially.

12. Haryana: Alcohol shops in Haryana remained shut because the shopkeepers denied buying the quota of alcohol bottles and the payment of licence fee.

13. Andhra Pradesh government has also allowed the sale of liquor with a 25 per cent hike in prices.

14. Goa government has made wearing of masks mandatory to those who go to buy alcohol from retail and wholesale stores in the state.

Liquor ban in these states

1. Mizoram: The Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition) Bill, 2019 was passed unanimously in the state assembly on March 20. The bill, that received Governor Jagdish Mukhi's assent before the Parliamentary elections, replacing the four-year-old Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition and Control) or MLPC Act, 2014

2. Gujarat is the only Indian state with a death penalty for the manufacturing and sale of homemade liquor that causes fatalities. The legislation is titled the Bombay Prohibition (Gujarat Amendment) Bill, 2009.

3. Bihar became a dry state in 2015 when the then Chief Minister Nitish Kumar prohibited the sale of alcohol across the state.

4. Nagaland became a dry state in 1989 when the Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition Act (NLTP) put a ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol.

5. Lakshadweep is the only Union Territory in India to have put a ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol. Except for the island of Bangaram, which is an inhabited island with a bar, alcohol is banned in the rest of Lakshadweep.
Brazilian photojournalist Sebastiao Salgado has sent an open letter to far-right President Jair Bolsonaro -- signed by celebrities like Brad Pitt and Madonna -- calling for "urgent measures" to save the indigenous peoples of the Amazon from the coronavirus pandemic. "The indigenous peoples of Brazil face a serious threat to their own survival with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic," said the letter, backed by an online petition which has so far gathered around 50,000 signatures. The 76-year-old photographer has won numerous international awards for his portrayal of the poor across the world, most recently turning his focus on the peoples of the Amazon rainforest basin. "Five centuries ago, these ethnic groups were decimated by diseases brought by European colonizers," said the letter, signed by a list of celebrities including Paul McCartney, Richard Gere and Meryl Streep. "Today with this new scourge spreading rapidly throughout Brazil," the Amazon's indigenous people "may disappear completely since they have no means of combating COVID-19." The stars appear in a video by Brazilian director Fernando Meireles, which features Salgado calling on Bolsonaro to put an end to economic intrusion into the lives of the Amazon peoples, and to "guarantee their protection." "Brazil owes a debt to its first inhabitants. It is time to do what should have been done a long time ago," says Salgado. The Brazilian state of Amazonas, home to most of the country's indigenous people, is one of the regions worst affected by the pandemic, with more than 500 deaths to date according to the health ministry. "The indigenous peoples of Brazil face a serious threat to their own survival with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic," read the open letter signed by celebrities and sent to President Jair Bolsonaro Sebastiao Salgado, 76, has won numerous international awards for his photographs of the poor across the world, most recently turning his focus on the peoples of the Amazon Brazilian Amazon rainforest tribal leaders held a protest demanding the demarcation of indigenous lands in Brasilia in March 2020
Chennai, May 4 : Reports of migrant labourers in Telangana, Kerala and elsewhere returning to their home states, is leading to similar demands in Tamil Nadu too.

About 1,100 migrant workers at a construction site at Alappakkam near here are demanding they be sent back home whereas the company officials are pressuring them to stay back and start work, said migrant workers and non-governmental organisations (NGO).

"We are about 1,100 workers here from Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and other places. We want to go back to our home state first. The company officials collected our identity cards like aadhar/voter ID and others saying that they needed it for arranging transport," Habib a migrant worker told IANS from the construction site.

According to him, on Sunday the company officials collected the cards and on Monday there were police personnel at the site.

"We are not allowed to go out to purchase our medicine and other items. The police are asking us for the prescription papers which are not there," Habib said.

Agreeing that availability of rations was not a major problem, Habib said all that the workers want is to go back home.

"The workers want to go back to their home state. While food is being provided by NGOs social distancing at their staying place is not being maintained," Jayaram Venkatesan, Convenor, Arappor Iyakkam, told IANS.

Venkatesan said the Arappor Iyakkam will be sending a representation to the government to help the migrant workers to go back to their home state.

"Workers at the construction site told us that the construction company had collected their identity cards on Sunday. Later police arrived at the site. On Monday too police have been deployed at the site," Balaji Sampath, Founder, Aid India, told IANS.

"They are just migrant workers and not bonded labourers. If they want to go back to their home state the Tamil Nadu government has to take necessary action towards that," Sampath added.

Earlier, on Sunday, several migrant workers took to the streets, demanding that they be sent back to their respective states.
Ah, the empty skies. Climate campaigners may celebrate the 41% decline in air traffic since the onset of the coronavirus - the air is purer, the birdies are singing louder - but it's sad all the same.

We may reflect that many of us have probably lived through a golden age of air travel, ever since Dublin Airport was opened 80 years ago, in January 1940.

Some may recall it was once called 'Collinstown' and that children were taken there for their a First Communion treat, just to watch planes take off.

I was brought to Shannon, aged about 10, as a special treat, and I thought it was the most exciting place in the world. I resolved there and then to be an air hostess, deviating from my previous aspiration to be a prima ballerina.

Ireland's geographical position made it a natural for the development of aviation. Alcock and Brown's famed first transatlantic flight came to land at Clifden in 1919, and the sight of the islands off the west coast of Ireland from their open cockpit was a signal that they had made it. Charles Lindbergh said that to glimpse Ireland coming into view from the air was an epiphany confirming success in flight.

James Fitzmaurice, a noted air ace and a Clongowes boy, pioneered the first east-west Atlantic flight (along with a German co-pilot) from Baldonnell in 1928. Fitzmaurice subsequently became involved in the development of Aer Lingus, which was established in 1936.

By 2020, Ireland was a key hub for aviation and a lead nation in the financing and leasing of the global aviation business.

Ireland had a very high rate of flights per capita - more than twice that of America and three times that of Canada - and it was expected to grow exponentially this year. Alas for predictions.

Aer Lingus was important in the development of Irish aviation because it was the national flag carrier and a visible symbol of Ireland's identity and status. But it was Tony Ryan - born in a modest Limerick cottage - who started the airline-leasing business and, of course, subsequently launched Ryanair.

This became the leading European budget carrier and the fifth-biggest airline on the planet. Quite an achievement.

Norwegian airlines carry portraits of famous Scandinavians on the tail fins - Ibsen, Alfred Nobel, Kirsten Flagstad - but Aer Lingus aircraft have long been named after Irish saints.

The aviation historian Eamon Power, who has an archival memory of Aer Lingus' story, has furnished me with an impressive list of the saints honoured by Boeing, Viking, Fokker, Saab, Airbus, etc. Many saints were honoured twice or thrice as one airplane replaced another. Obviously, St Brendan the Navigator is popular; Patrick has always made an appearance, but Brigid, Ciara, Columba, Columbanus, Conleth, Colman, Finnian, Finbar, Fintan, Jarlath, Eithne, Malachy, Fergus, Davnet and Maeve are among the extended roll call.

Maeve? According to Padraig O Riain's A Dictionary of Irish Saints, there is no St Maeve. Ah well, I'm sure there have been saintly Maeves, so let's stretch a point.

Aer Lingus also launched with a ceremony blessing the aircraft - the first blessing of the fleet, Eamon Power notes, took place on July 23, 1947, performed by the Rev W Kenry, from Swords. Hundreds of people sometimes attended aircraft blessing ceremonies, which was another great day out at the airport. The practice ended in 1967, not because anyone thought it was sectarian - people accepted it as a national ceremonial - but because there were too many aircraft on the runways. There is still an annual, and ecumenical, general fleet blessing at Christmas.

Times continually change and air travel evolved from a luxurious and glamorous pursuit by an elite to mass travel for millions. Granted, it became less enjoyable, especially after September 11, 2001, when draconian security measures had to be implemented to deter air terrorism. But though the security measures are vexatious - the endless queues, the intrusive body searches - air travel also became increasingly safe, helped by computerised science and precision engineering.

Irish aviation was also driven by brilliant, modernising, dynamic personalities - Jeremiah Dempsey, Tim O'Driscoll, Michael Dargan - who came from small beginnings (and big families!) where you had to strive to self-improve. Sean Lemass, Taoiseach from 1959 to 1966, was always a huge supporter of developing Irish aviation. Like Jerry Dempsey, and Tony Ryan, he was a CBS alumnus. Fair play to (Clongowes-educated) Michael O'Leary, who had that same burning, entrepreneurial energy - as well as to Peter Sutherland (Gonzaga), who opened up the skies to fair competition via the EU.

I only mention schools as they can be the key to motivational achievement.

Yes, I look up at the empty skies ruefully. With the greatest respect to our friends in the climate change lobby, I hope it won't be too long before we hear that "fasten your seatbelts" announcement again.

It has been our pleasure flying with you, ladies and gentlemen of the aviation industry, and it should be our national duty to support the return of the big bird of the skies.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 05:29:07|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Medical workers treat a patient at the Sancaktepe Sehit Prof.Dr. Ilhan Varank Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, May 4, 2020. (Photo by Yasin Akgul/Xinhua)

by Zeynep Cermen, Yasin Akgul

ISTANBUL, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Mehmet Kuyumcu, an orthopedist of a state hospital in Istanbul, wore three layers of protective suits, two pairs of gloves, a facial mask, a goggle, and a face shield with maximum caution before he entered the operating room.

Following a series of precise rules for disinfection and sterilization, Kuyumcu and three other medical staff were finally ready to operate a COVID-19 patient with a femur fracture at the Sancaktepe Sehit Prof.Dr. Ilhan Varank Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul.

With a death rate below one percent, the hospital has been considered as one of the most successful health care facilities in Turkey in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

For Nurettin Yiyit, the chief physician of the hospital, the success is based on the fact that the hospital starts the treatments of COVID-19 patients at an early stage in the quickest way possible.

After the pandemic started to be seen in Turkey in mid-March, the hospital has received a total of 58,000 applications. Nearly 12,000 of them were found as suspicious and further tests were conducted.

"So far, 2,500 COVID-19 patients have been treated at the hospital, and the mortality rate is below one percent," the chief doctor told Xinhua.

"All patients with the moderate and severe clinical condition and those with additional diseases were hospitalized, and mild cases were followed up on an outpatient basis," he said, adding that contacts of positive cases have been constantly screened in the field and tested.

In a move to better cope with the pandemic, the hospital established 16 clinics for COVID-19 patients at its two compounds located on the Asian side of the city.

"We categorized 10 of these clinics, according to additional diseases of patients from the virus, such as COVID-19 neurology, COVID-19 gynecology or COVID-19 orthopedics," Yiyit told Xinhua. "Every clinic also has a chest disease specialist and internal medicine specialist."

The ultimate protection of health care workers is the red line of the hospital. The number of infected personnel is 1.2 percent, according to Yiyit.

The sterilization rules are tighter in the intensive care unit, which has 75 isolated rooms with negative pressure.

"This intensive care setup is very important for the protection of health personnel," Yiyit continued, noting that the medical personnel use their regular intensive care clothing on the common area, but wear extra protective suits before entering negative pressure rooms.

"They change their suits from top to the bottom each time they go in and out," Yiyit continued.

Altun Yarligan, a COVID-19 pregnant patient, has been staying in one of the negative pressure rooms at the intensive care for almost 12 days, but on Monday she received the good news.

The doctor said she would be moved to a regular room soon as her condition is getting better each day.

"As soon as I reach my phone, I will call my son," she told her doctor. "I haven't heard his voice for almost two weeks," Yaligan added emotionally.

Kuyumcu and his team, meanwhile, completed the surgery of the COVID-19 patient in almost two hours.

"Everybody did their job very well," he told Xinhua as he was taking his protective suits off. "We will follow our patient in the intensive care unit for a while," he said. "Hopefully, we will take him to a regular room soon."

Turkey has reported 1,614 new COVID-19 cases and 64 more deaths on Monday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 127,659 and the death toll to 3,461.
In a video doing rounds on the Internet, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi can be seen lashing out at a reporter who asked the Minister why he is not following physical distancing amid Covid scare. The video was shared by Pakistani journalist Naila Inayat on Twitter. Qureshi, when questioned by the reporter, got angry and asked him, "Are you following social distancing?"

'This is negative thinking'

He added, "You shouldn't have come here, did I invite you? This is negative thinking. I have come to provide a service and you are doing your job. You do your work and let me do mine."

At a presser reporter asks foreign minister why he's not following physical distancing. Qureshi gets angry, tells the reporter: You shouldn't have come, did I invite you? pic.twitter.com/ZJWv6Mtmrp  Naila Inayat   (@nailainayat) May 3, 2020

Last month, in another similar incident, the Foreign Minister was seen taking on a Station House Officer (SHO) in Multan. According to Pakistan media reports, the SHO had complaints of misbehaviour with masses against him and therefore, Qureshi directed him to change his attitude towards the public, though in doing so, he issued physical threats.

'Kaam karna hai toh karo'

However, in a video of the incident, Mahmood Qureshi can be seen scolding the officer and heard saying "kaam karna hai toh karo warna na karo" in Hindi which translates to "If you want to work then do it or else stop" According to Inayat, Qureshi also said, "Gardan se park ke nikal du ga" (I will catch you by your neck and throw you out) "If you misbehave, I will come to the police station to catch you even if IG interferes, Qureshi can be heard as he warned the officer.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi threatening a SHO in Multan: "Gardan se pakr k nikal du ga", "kaam karna hai karo warna na karo".



This man is the foreign minister of Pakistan and a PM-aspirant forever. pic.twitter.com/BkMbKOr05j  Naila Inayat   (@nailainayat) April 20, 2020

READ | India's COVID-19 cases near 40,000 mark; death toll at 1,301; 10,632 recoveries so far

READ | 'No request received for evacuation of Indians stranded in Gulf nations due to Covid': IAF

Pakistan's Ministry of National Health Services on Sunday said that out of 20,078 Coronavirus cases in the country, Punjab reported 7,494 cases, Sindh 7,465, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 3,129, Balochistan 1,172, Islamabad 393, Gilgit-Baltistan 364 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 67 cases. It said that 17 more patients also died on Sunday, taking the total death toll to 457. Another 5,114 people have recovered so far. The authorities so far had conducted 203,025 tests, including 8,716 in the last 24 hours.

Indian Air Force conducts booming flypast over Delhi's Rajpath for Covid warriors; WATCH

WATCH | Indian Navy helicopter showers flowers on health workers of INHS Asvini in Mumbai
This photo shows high school seniors who attended a virtual prom via Zoom on April 16 hosted by the Baton Rouge Youth Coalition. With the Class of 2020 missing out on so many traditions due to the coronavirus pandemic, many have gone online to participate in virtual proms. (Baton Rouge Youth Coalition via AP)

Associated Press

With much of the country under stay-at-home orders, some high schoolers are recreating milestones like prom over Zoom.

Students have been getting creative with ways to make guests feel involved, even if they can't actually be there in person.

Others have virtually recreated big moments canceled because of coronavirus, including weddings and graduations, on Zoom.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus is canceling plans, grounding planes, and closing schools, but some high schoolers are determined not to miss out on prom.

For people across the country, videoconferencing tool Zoom has emerged as a solution to singing and dancing with friends, and showing off a new outfit, while still maintaining social distancing guidance and preventing possible COVID-19 exposure.

The US now has the largest coronavirus outbreak of any country, and a third of the world is under some kind of lockdown. Once schools closed, high school juniors and seniors realized that they'd miss out on some big milestones they'd been looking forward to for the year, like prom and graduation.

One group of students in Japan gained attention for hosting virtual graduation in Minecraft, but being able to see each other and socialize is key to the prom experience.

Here's what it's like to have a Zoom prom, according to teens who did it.

17-year-old Zain Gregg from Florida attended a Zoom prom for "theater kids" after his school's prom was cancelled, which he told Business Insider would have been a big deal for him and his friends. His friend Shelby and her parents threw a virtual Prom over Zoom, where friends could call in or get together from a safe distance outside. Their prom even had a photo booth for people to take pictures, while ensuring they maintained social distance.

Zoom prom photo booth.

Zain Gregg

Gregg told Business Insider that although it wasn't the typical prom experience, it was "a moment to feel like we were normal again." They chatted and played multiplayer games online, like Cards Against Humanity.

Story continues

We "all had a chance to laugh again and see each other, even if it wasn't in person. We're like that one big annoying family that has so many different members," he said of his friend group.

Alyssa Calderon, a senior in high school, also attended a Zoom prom. Her prom was hosted by her school, though she told Business Insider that only about 80 people out of her 900-person class joined the call. Calderon said the best part of the event was being able to see her friends, but " the worst part was that we couldn't really dance and hang out with everyone like we used to. It really made me miss everyone."

The idea of a Zoom prom came up soon after the regular prom was cancelled, and seniors were sad about missing one of their final milestones. Still, the Zoom prom couldn't really compare to the real thing, which Calderon attended last year. "It was quite awkward at first and no one really knew how to break the ice" she said.

Zoom prom karaoke.

Alyssa Calderon

It got better, though; the host played music over her speakers so everyone could dance on their own, and later everyone sang karaoke, which Calderon said brought together members of the class who didn't ordinarily hang out together.

Rylee Jasnowski in Kansas went to a Zoom prom organized by her English teacher. This version of a virtual prom was about each student getting to show off their outfit and have their moment in the spotlight. "The best part actually getting dressed up and putting on my dress and seeing other people in their dresses" Jasnowski said, though it was somewhat of a disappointing replacement for a night of dancing with friends and a fancy dinner.

"My teacher gave everyone the spot light and we got to talk about and do a full view of our outfits," she told Business Insider. Instead of renting tuxes, some of the boys dressed up in cowboys hats or other costumes. Even girls who hadn't bought prom dresses came, with full hair and makeup.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider for more details. (18)
Intro

In Variable Onset, (available now) a standalone m/m romantic mystery, a prickly FBI instructor meets his matchand undercover husbandin the brash, flirtatious former student who made his early professor days hell and who always had the hots for teacher. With their cold case suddenly heating up, will things get too hot to handle, in their fake relationship and in their investigation? Read on for a sexy excerpt!

Sexy Excerpt

Im sorry, Lincoln said, slumping back in his chair. I should have asked before I said we wanted to stay.

You did ask, and I didnt object, because youre right. Were too close.

You up for playing Mr. Polk a bit longer? Lincoln asked, his grin a little fuller, a little looser after three shots of tequila.

Carter returned the smile. I think I could suffer it.

Lincoln scoffed, full of mock outrage as he shifted in his chair, sideways and forward, toward Carter. You have to suffer? What about me?

Carter matched him, in affected ire and position, knees bumping as he narrowed the already scant distance between them. What about you? Or rather, what about me is so insufferable?

Youre cocky, and you have an aversion to putting things in their place. He flung an arm out to the side, toward the kitchen. Like dishes in the dishwasher.

Carter grabbed his arm. You want me to put things in their place?

Heat flashed in Lincolns eyes, and he didnt try to wrench free. Instead, he used his wrist in Carters grip to drag him closer, to the end of his chair with his legs spread, thighs on either side of Lincolns. Faces so close Carter could feel the warmth of Lincolns breath and the timbre of Lincolns words. Youre insufferably handsome, and its all I can do not to kiss you.

Carter prayed to all that was holy that the fucking phone didnt ring this time, didnt interrupt his fantasy that was so close to finally becoming reality. He slid closer, cheek to cheek. I can make you suffer, in other, more pleasurable ways, but Id prefer you do that to me. Lincolns gasp made his dick throb, and the heat that bloomed against his cheek and thighs was scalding, enough to make him draw back, wanting to see all of Lincoln in his turned-on glorypupils blown out, lips parted, erection tenting the front of his pants. Carter lifted his eyes to Lincolns molten honey ones. But holding out for a kiss, you dont have to suffer that, L, if you dont want to.

I dont want to, Lincoln said, zero hesitation.

Carter held his gaze as he shifted their positions, lifting one then the other of Lincolns thighs over his own. What do you want, L?

Taking the cue, Lincoln grabbed hold of Carters shoulders and levered himself onto Carters lap. He half groaned, half growled, as he rolled his hips, magnifying the suffering tenfold. I want you to fucking kiss me.

As much as he wanted to stretch up and capture Lincolns lips, to end their suffering, Carter couldnt resist one last needling. Say ple

Lincolns mouth crashed down onto his, and it was entreaty enough. More than. Carter groaned as he opened for everything Lincoln had to givetongue, teeth, lipswanting and craving it all. Delayed gratification at its finest. Lincoln rolling his hips and rutting his arousal against Carters abs as his hands raked through his hair. Cradling his scalp while holding him hostage. Carter ran his hands up Lincolns thighs and around to grasp his perfect ass, holding tight as he thrust up against him. Lincoln moaned down his throat and tugged Carters head back farther, deepening the kiss. Carter surrendered, to anything and everything Lincoln wanted. Just as long as he got to keep him here, in his lap, devouring each other.

Neither of them protested, but eventually the chair did, a creak that forewarned of imminent collapse under their combined weight. Carter made to move, to stand and transfer Lincoln from his lap to the table, hoping the latter would be sturdier than the chair, but Lincoln shifted first, sliding off to stand between Carters spread legs. Hands still in Carters hair, he gentled the hold and kiss, fingers playing with his curls as they wound down to light pecks.

Fuck, Carter panted, still catching his breath. Ive suffered years waiting for that kiss.

I suffered weeks with you in class, and those were the worst weeks of my teaching career.

I wasnt that bad.

Lincoln trailed his hands down his neck and around to the hollow of his throat, making Carter shiver. Yeah, you were.

Carter hooked his arms around the backs of Lincolns thighs and eyed the erection straining toward him. I can show you bad.

Lincoln slipped a hand beneath his chin and tipped up his face for a hard, fast kiss. All those years, you can appreciate a slow burn.

In other words, youre gonna make me suffer some more.

Trust me when I say were both going to be suffering.

About the Book

Variable Onset by Layla Reyne

Book Description: To catch a killer, a special agent and his former student will need to get closeto their target, and each other. Layla Reyne returns with a stand-alone romantic mystery.

When the serial killer known as Dr. Fear seemingly reemerges after a cooling-off period, Special Agent Lincoln Monroe wants on the case. He knows his research on the calculating criminal, who targets couples and uses their worst fears to kill them, could prove invaluable. But nothing can prepare Lincoln for the agent waiting for him in Apex, Virginia: a brash and cocky former student. Carter Warren is everything Lincoln is not, and somehow everything he wants. And theyll be going undercover. As newlyweds.

For Carter, seeing Lincoln againand flustered to bootpokes his raging bear of a crush something fierce. He thinks posing as lovers will provide the perfect bait for Dr. Fear. But pretending to be married forces them to confront fears of their ownlike giving in to the very real chemistry between them.

With evidence pointing to the possibility of a copycat killer, Lincoln and Carter will have to race to separate truth from fiction. But when another couple goes missing, finding the killer will test every ounce of their training, skills and the strength of their bond like never before.

One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance youre looking for with an HEA/HFN. Its a promise!

And dont miss any of these books from Layla Reyne and Carina Press:

Dine with Me

Single Malt (Agents Irish & Whiskey #1)

Cask Strength (Agents Irish & Whiskey #2)

Barrel Proof (Agents Irish & Whiskey #3)

Tequila Sunrise (An Agents Irish & Whiskey novella)

Imperial Stout (Trouble Brewing #1)

Craft Brew (Trouble Brewing #2)

Noble Hops (Trouble Brewing #3)

Buy Links

Amazon

B&N

iTunes

Kobo

Google

Author Bio

RITA Finalist Layla Reyne is the author of the Agents Irish and Whiskey, Fog City, and Changing Lanes series. A Carolina Tar Heel who now calls the San Francisco Bay Area home, Layla enjoys weaving her bi-coastal experiences into her stories, along with adrenaline-fueled suspense and heart-pounding romance. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and its Kiss of Death and Rainbow Romance Writers chapters. Layla is a RWA RITA Finalist in Contemporary Romance (Mid-Length) and Golden Heart Finalist in Romantic Suspense.

Author Links

Website: https://www.laylareyne.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LaylaReyne

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laylareyne/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laylareyne/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16173105.Layla_Reyne



Like this: Like Loading...
Syrian has condemned the recent comments by Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the annexation of Palestine land in the West Bank writes SANA.

On Sunday, Syria expressed its strong condemnation and absolute rejection of the statements of the Israeli Prime Minister to annex more Palestinian lands in the West Bank.

An official source at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said that these statements come in the context of the aggressive expansionist behavior of the usurping Zionist entity and its continuous violations and contempt for international legitimacy and its decisions regarding the legal status of the occupied lands especially after the Israeli decision regarding al-Quds and the occupied Syrian Golan.

Syria demands, according to the source, that the international community take action and put an end to the Israeli and American arrogance and disdain of international legitimacy, which constitutes a serious threat to security and stability in the region and the world.

Syria affirms that the Israeli aggression targets the entire nation, which requires everyone to take a responsible historical position for defending the nations issues and interests and rejecting any form of normalization with this usurping entity, the source concluded.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
(Natural News) If you ever needed another example of why its foolish to rely on big government to solve our problems, this should do the trick.

As most readers know, in late March Congress passed a coronavirus stimulus package worth some $2.2 trillion, and part of that money was supposed to be spent keeping small businesses afloat that were closed as non-essential by governors as part of their stay-at-home effort to slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

As National Review reported:

The bill, the third coronavirus-related spending bill passed by Congress, provides $367 billion in loans to help small businesses hit hard by the outbreak to keep making payroll, $100 billion for hospitals, and $150 billion for state and local governments. The plan also provides for Americans who make up to $75,000 to receive a one-time payment of $1,200. A $500 billion fund earmarked for corporations that have been economically damaged by the pandemic will be overseen by an inspector general and a congressional panel, in accordance with Democrats demands.

As it turns out, the government is a lousy steward of taxpayer funds  again.

The Washington Post reports that publicly traded companies scooped up $1 billion of the funds that were earmarked for small businesses, and while that may not seem like a lot of money when compared to the overall spending package, consider that several small businesses that did not get any funds would not have needed more than $20,000 or so to continue making payroll for their small staff of employees.

And now, those businesses are either on the brink of closure or are permanently shut down, bankrupting owners.

Nearly 300 public companies have reported received money from the fund, called the Paycheck Protection Program, according to the data compiled by The Post, the paper noted. Recipients include 43 companies with more than 500 workers, the maximum typically allowed by the program. Several other recipients were prosperous enough to pay executives $2 million or more.

Government helicoptering of money to the country is not wise

The initial pool of money  $349 billion  vanished quickly. The Post found that around 80 percent of businesses that applied for loans did not get one because funding ran out so quickly. So, as you can imagine, those business owners were extremely upset when they found out how many public companies did get money when they didnt need it (and it wasnt meant for them in the first place).

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin nevertheless proclaimed the program a success, noting that three-quarters of the loans handed out were for under $150,000.

The Post notes that the Trump administration is urging the publicly traded companies that have access to other capital to return the money they got by May 7. Mnuchin added that all loans of more than $2 million are going to be audited and there could be penalties levied against companies that do not comply.

Now, before we blame this big government fail on the Trump administration, lets recall the last time big government gave out around $1 trillion in relief funds and failed  it was at the beginning of President Obamas regime.

In response to the tanking of the economy as the Great Recession began and pushed nationwide unemployment to double digits, Congress passed, and the Obama administration distributed, almost $1 trillion in funding.

The former administration promised the money would keep unemployment below 8 percent but it didnt; it rose to more than 10 percent. Also, Obama himself said the funds would have an immediate impact on job creation, but of course, it didnt. His pledge of having shovel-ready projects across the country simply did not materialize.

And several loans went to green companies like Solyndra, only to see those firms go bankrupt.

The fact is, government helicoptering of money to the country is not wise, its never efficient, it doesnt accomplish what was intended to accomplish, and all that happens is the debt our kids and their kids will have to pay off gets bigger.

Sources include:

USNews.com

NationalReview.com

SeattleTimes.com
A disturbing surveillance video has emerged showing the moment two men wearing face masks jumped out of a Jeep brandishing guns topped with silencers and opened fire at a biker gang leader, killing him on a Bronx street in the middle of the day.

The suspected execution took place on Hollard Avenue near Boston Road in the Allerton section of The Bronx at around 3.20pm on Sunday.

The victim has been identified by unnamed law enforcement sources as Francisco Rosado, the 51-year-old leader of the Bronx chapter of the notorious Pagan Motorcycle Club.

Surveillance video from The Bronx show a blue Jeep Cherokee carrying at least two men parked in the Allerton section on Sunday afternoon

The men dressed in blue surgical face masks emerge from the vehicle with guns drawn

The video shows that the suspects' pistols are equipped with silencers

They sprint across the street with guns drawn. The video does not show the moment biker gang leader Francisco Rosado, 51, is fatally shot in the head

Moments later, the alleged assassins return to the car, having purportedly executed the victim off camera

The armed suspects get back in the blue Jeep Cherokee and speed off

The newly released video begins with a pair of men dressed in all black and wearing blue surgical masks getting out of a dark-blue Jeep and drawing pistols equipped with silencers to muffle the sounds of gunfire.

They sprint across the street aiming their guns, then return just moments later, jump back in the Jeep Cherokee and speed away.

The video has no audio and does not show the victim getting shot.

According to police, Rosado was talking to someone in a parking lot when he was struck in the head and torso. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

As of Monday afternoon, no arrests have been made.

Rosado, head of the Bronx chapter of the Pagan Motorcycle Club, was shot and killed by two masked men in the borough's Allerton neighborhood on Saturday afternoon, according to law enforcement sources. Police are pictured at the scene

Police have not officially named the victim but sources confirmed it was Rosado, the purported leader of the Bronx chapter of the Pagan Motorcycle Club. Members of the club are seen wearing official jackets in the file photo above

In a press release to DailyMail.com, NYPD detectives said officers responding to a 911 call about a male shot arrived to find the victim unconscious and unresponsive before medics declared him dead on the scene.

Detectives did not disclose the victim's identity, but sources confirmed to the New York Post that it was Rosado.

Photos taken at the scene by a DailyMail.com photographer showed a massive police presence around a body covered with a white sheet - as well as people consoling each other.

Medics were seen loading a woman into an ambulance, but it is unclear how she was involved in the incident.

Bystanders said that she may be a relative of Rosado and that she had collapsed at the scene.

Police said they responded to a 911 call about a shooting on Holland Avenue (pictured) and found the victim unresponsive and unconscious with bullet wounds to the head and chest

People believed to be relatives of Rosado are seen consoling each other at the scene

A body sits under a white sheet at the scene of the shooting on Saturday afternoon

Medics were seen loading a woman into an ambulance, but it is unclear how she was involved in the incident

The Pagan Motorcycle Club has more than 1,300 members across at least 100 chapters in several states along the East Coast.

The gang has been linked to the production and smuggling of illicit drugs including meth, cocaine, heroin and PCP and is also believed to have deep ties to organized crime.

The Pagans are one of four major outlaw motorcycle gangs in the US - with rivals being the Hells Angels, the Bandidos and the Outlaws.

Rosado's murder has sparked fears among law enforcement that a gang war could be brewing, should his assailants be linked to a rival group.

Law enforcement officials have speculated that the hit could be linked to the Pagans' aggressive expansion efforts in New Jersey, where the bike gang now has 17 clubs, or its long-standing feud with Hells Angels, reported Bronx Justice News.

The Angels had recently moved their headquarters from Manhattan to The Bronx, which traditionally has been the Pagans' sphere of influence.

The Pagan Motorcycle Club has more than 1,300 members across at least 100 chapters in several states along the East Coast. Patches worn by gang members are shown above

The new Hells Angels headquarters in The Bronx was hit by a hail of bullets on Thursday night. No one was injured, and police have not yet made any arrests

On January 2, the Angels' clubhouse in the Throggs Neck section of The Bronx was shot up by multiple gunmen on motorcycles, who have not been arrested to this day.

The building sustained some damage after being hit by more than a dozen bullets, but no injuries were reported.

The Hell's Angels are easily the world's most famous biker gangs with an estimated 2,500 members. Many members have a hand in criminal enterprises ranging from drug running and production to racketeering.

They are notoriously aggressive when defending their turf and have long-simmering feuds with many other clubs including the Pagans, Outlaws and Bandidos.

The Pagan's, who exclude black members, are widely believed to have ties to the Aryan Brotherhood and the Italian Mafia.

They were formed in the 1950s but reportedly didn'y enter the criminal underworld until John 'Satan' Marron took control in the late 60s and 70s. They have since grown to become one of big four motorbike gangs in the US. They're implictaed in producing and selling drugs, as well as working as arms dealers and bombing plots.

The gang has a long rivalry with the Hell's Angels and Complex reported that in 2010, 19 members of the group were arrested in New York for allegedly plotting to bomb Hells Angels.

Another rival, Bandidos Motorcycle Club, began in the South focusing on smuggling drugs across the Mexican border into the US. They were also involved in the Waco gun battle. They are rumored to have around 5,000 members worldwide. While their strongest base is in the South, they also have chapters on the East Coast, including New York.

The last of the Big Four are the Outlaws. Founded in 1936, they're believed to be the world's oldest outlaw motorcycle club and the Hell's Angels fiercest rivals.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP)  An airport in Alaska has reopened Saturday after a bomb threat regarding a cargo plane heading to Asia forced the aircraft to divert to Anchorage and officials closed the air space.

The China Air cargo plane en route to Taipei, Taiwan, had been diverted after taking off from Seattle after a bomb threat was called in to the Port of Seattle, Anchorage police said in a statement. No explosive device was located.

Inbound flights to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport were temporarily halted Saturday morning, KTUU reported. Flights bound for Anchorage had been told to divert to Fairbanks International Airport.

The cargo plane was searched in a secure, remote section of the airport, Anchorage airport spokesman Eland Conway said.

The FBI and Anchorage police were leading the investigation.

The investigation at the airport has been completed, Anchorage police said, but the investigation into the source of the threat is ongoing.

No other information was immediately released.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A city program working to increase diversity in New York Citys specialized high schools continued to show small gains in the number of black and Latino students offered admission, according to data released last week by education officials.

The Department of Education (DOE) sent 1,349 invitations to students citywide -- up from 922 last year -- to join the Discovery Program, which is a decades-old program that offers admission to students who scored just below the cutoff for entry to specialized high schools if they successfully complete a summer program.

While the number of invitations increased this year, only about 35% of total invitations, or 470, were sent to black and Latino students citywide, compared to 30%, or 278, last year.

Data shows that 15.2% of invitations went to black students this year, compared to 11.8% last year. Latino students made up 19.6% of Discovery Program invitations this year, compared to 18.3% last year.

Most invitations were offered to Asian students through the Discovery Program again  with 49.7% invitations sent this year compared to 54% last year. Nearly 14% of invitations were sent to white students, compared to 15% in 2019.

When including the Discovery Program invitations, 16.7% of all specialized high school offers for the 2020 freshman class will go to black and Latino students, compared to 14% last year, according to the DOE.

The number of Discovery Program seats has increased to about 800 this year -- up from 500 last year  as part of the citys two-part plan to increase diversity at specialized high schools. In 2018, there were about 250 seats.

The DOE also announced it achieved its goal of reserving 20% of seats at each specialized high school for students in the program this year.

Consistent with last year, students had to meet eligibility criteria for the program  which means students have to be considered disadvantaged or attend a school with an economic need index of at least 60%. The economic need index determines the likelihood that students at the school are in poverty.

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza echoed previous statements he made regarding how students are admitted into specialized high schools.

In a Daily News report last year, Carranza said he opposed the 1971 state law that mandates a test-based entrance to a specialized high school. He said he wants to eliminate and replace the test with a plan to take the top students from all city intermediate schools.

While were pleased to hit our initial goal of offering 20% of seats to students from the Discovery program, this initiative alone does not move the needle enough for our students, said Carranza in a statement. As weve continued to say, a single test does not capture a students abilities and until we change the approach, we will see the same results.

While 1,349 invitations were sent to students, the DOE expects to fill 800 seats for the fall 2020 freshman class. This is because some students may decline the invitation and go to other high schools, cannot verify they are eligible for the program, or may not successfully complete the summer program.

Students have until May 15 to accept their Discovery Program invitation, and it is scheduled to begin in July. The DOE said its working with schools to explore how the coronavirus (COVID-19) may impact how the program is held.

OFFERS TO SPECIALIZED SCHOOLS

There are eight specialized high schools in New York City that offer admission to students based on the score on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT).

These schools are: Staten Island Technical High School in New Dorp; Stuyvesant High School; Bronx High School of Science; Brooklyn Latin School; Brooklyn Technical High School; High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College; High School for American Studies at Lehman College; and Queens High School for Sciences at York College.

There were 27,831 students across the city who competed for seats at the citys specialized high schools this year, according to DOE numbers. Citywide, 4,265 students received offers.

Out of those citywide offers, only 4.5% went to black students, and 6.6% went to Latino students. Fifty-four percent of offers went to Asian students, 2.3% went to multi-racial students, 0.9% went to Native American students, and 25.1% went to white students.

Only one black student and eight Latino students received an offer for admission to the fall 2020 freshman class at Staten Island Technical High School, New Dorp. Admissions offers were sent to 286 students, including 185 Asian students and 81 white students.
SEN. JOE BOLKCOM

D-Iowa City

IOWA CITY -- Governor Reynolds has put Iowa on the map, and not in a good way. Sioux City and Waterloo/Cedar Falls are now on the top 10 list of communities in America with exploding cases of COVID 19.

Both communities are now fighting to protect meatpacking plant workers and the community because company efforts to protect their workers have failed. Packing plants Tama and Columbus Junction closed on April 6 due to rampant worker sickness from the deadly virus. Now, after repeated complaints, state OSHA inspectors were finally forced last week to visit Tysons plant in Waterloo. Sadly, however, they still have not conducted a single in-person inspection of any other Iowa plants to make sure that workers have protective equipment and are practicing effective infectious disease control.

Instead, Governor Reynolds has repeatedly praised company executives for their efforts. Trusting packing plant CEOs without independently verifying what they were doing is now causing sickness, death and supply chain calamity.

The presiden says all packing plants must remain open. This is a disaster. Forcing Iowa workers to work in unsafe conditions without state enforceable protections is cruel and will make all Iowans unsafe while further delaying our economic recovery.

Iowans deserve better.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 15:48:04|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

by Pankaj Yadav

NEW DELHI, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Long queues were witnessed outside liquor shops in the Indian capital since early Monday morning as the shops opened after 40 days of Lockdown which has been imposed since March 25 to control the COVID-19 spread.

As a result of the Lockdown all shops, business establishments, manufacturing activities, school, colleges, government offices were shut.

Lockdown restrictions were, however, relaxed a couple of days ago by the country's Ministry of Home (Internal Security) Affairs.

The two-week long third phase of the ongoing countrywide Lockdown began Monday. The Lockdown was initially imposed in the country for 21 days by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 25. It was subsequently extended for 19 days with effect from April 15, and then again for two weeks beyond May 3.

While announcing extension of the Lockdown on May 1, an official statement issued by the country's Ministry of Home (Internal Security) Affairs said that some relaxations would be allowed, like reopening of standalone shops selling essential goods.

Following the Centre's fresh guidelines concerning Lockdown, a few of the state governments, including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, decided to reopen liquor shops. Excise duty collected on sale of liquor is one of the primary and biggest sources of revenue for the state governments in India.

As per estimates, Delhi's budget documents showed that it expected 5,980 crore Indian Rupees (797 million U.S. dollars) in the form of Excise Duty to be collected on sale of country-made as well as foreign liquor in the Financial Year 2019-20 (April-March), which was around 14.1 percent of the 42,500 crore Indian Rupees (around 5.7 billion U.S. dollars) of the state's total annual tax revenue.

Speaking to Xinhua, a manager of a liquor shop in North Delhi said that though the government has ordered for reopening of shops, "we are waiting for adequate police personnel to be deployed outside our shop as there is a huge crowd waiting to buy booze."

In an official order issued a short while earlier, Delhi's Excise Commissioner Ravi Dhawan said, "It is suggested to direct the local police to assist the liquor vends in enforcing the social distancing norms and other protocols as prescribed in the national directives for COVID-19 management of guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs."

Another manager of a liquor shop told Xinhua that his shop in West Delhi could not be opened as it was located inside a shopping mall.

There was a huge rush of liquor customers outside the liquor shops as people have been waiting in queues since early morning, he said, adding "The Delhi government has decided to open only some liquor shops, as those shops which are located inside shopping malls or in the middle of big markets, are not allowed to open."

According to media reports, people in huge numbers started queuing up outside liquor shops from early morning. The queues were seen as early as 7.30 a. m. in some parts of the national capital where around 150 liquor shops were reopened, said a TV report by "India Today".

The TV report quoted a prospective buyer standing in queue in South Delhi's Vasant Vihar area as saying "I have been standing in queue since 7.00 a.m. waiting for my turn to buy booze.

Delhi Police personnel were forced to shut down one such liquor shop in "Jheel Chowk" area due to overcrowding. Crowds gathered in huge numbers and refused to abide by the social distancing norms.

According to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report, in Karnataka people crowded the liquor shops while some even offered special prayers with flowers, coconuts, incense sticks in front of the stores. People outside the shops in Karnataka were seen in a celebratory mood since early morning, added the report.

As per latest figures issued by the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there have been a total of 1,373 deaths from the COVID-19 and total confirmed cases of 42,533 in the country so far.

Delhi has been one of the worst-affected states in the country, with a total of 64 deaths and a 4,549 positive cases. Enditem
The Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom has hit the wall with new European projects  Nord Stream 2 will be finished at some point in the second half of 2021, the exact route of TurkStreams second line remains veiled in ambiguity and no other major gas importer voiced their interest in carrying out a new project. Thus, the only remaining prospect for growth lies in Eastern Asia and primarily China. Apart from a tangible gas market saturation in Europe, there are two main premises for a second-phase Gazprom expansion into China: its largely untapped Eastern Siberian gas reserves that would be very costly to move all across Russia onto European markets and the competitiveness of Russian pipeline gas on the Chinese market.

Gazproms current China-bound project, the 38 BCm per year Power of Siberia (PoS) pipeline, started up in December 2019. Surprisingly, the Russian firm halted gas exports via PoS mid-March for a (previously non-indicated) two-week maintenance which turned out to be an elegant way of circumventing the massive demand drop in China. Even with another round of maintenance announced for autumn, Gazprom should be able to meet its export target for 2020  5 BCm, rising steadily to 10 BCm per year in 2021 and 15 BCm in 2022. By 2025 Power of Siberia should reach its nominal capacity and it is the next step after that currently exercises the minds of Russian policy makers and gas traders alike.

The contours of the next major project have been emerging for some time already  the idea to construct Power of Siberia-2 (PoS-2) was flaunted already in the early 2010s, its purpose being of meeting the gas requirements of Western Chinese provinces via Mongolia. This late March Gazproms request of conducting a feasibility study for PoS-2 has found President Putins approval. The projected pipeline would have a throughput capacity of 50 BCm per year and would be traversing Russias Altay region before crossing over to Mongolia and Western China. The first thing that struck market observers was that at some point in early 2020 the capacity of Power of Siberia-2 was upgraded from a preliminary estimate of 30 BCm per year to an officially presented volume of 50 BCm per year.

Story continues

Premium: 2 Stocks To Consider As Oil Nears $15

The framework for Power of Siberia-2 (also known as the Altai pipeline) was laid down in 2015 when Gazprom and the Chinese state-owned company CNPC signed a preliminary gas supply deal, without specifying the technicalities of pricing. Given that Pos-1 pricing talks took a decade to conclude, the tardiness of PoS-2 negotiations is hardly surprising. Yet at the same time Russian authorities are betting heavily on it happening  the recently issued Energy strategy-2035 sees pipeline gas exports reaching 300 BCm per year by 2035, of which 80 BCm per year will go to China, with European pipeline exports effectively stalling for the next decade and half. It has to be noted that the Energy Strategy also surmises a pessimistic scenario, whereby Gazproms gas exports increase from 220 BCm in the base year of 2018 to 255 BCm per year in 2035, meaning a slight decline in European demand and Power of Siberia-1 remaining the only China-bound gas conduit, with no Pos-2 construction taking place.

Graph 1. Russias 2035 Gas Strategy.

(Click to enlarge)

Source: Authors data.

Gazprom needs Power of Siberia-2 for many reasons. First of all, its immense 2P reserve base of 24.3 TCm (which keeps on increasing with time by 0.1-0.2 TCm in the last couple of years) compels it to act upon it whilst Eurasian economies still perceive natural gas as a bridging energy source and do not penalize its utilization. Second, China is the only easy-to-access market outlet whose demand for natural gas has still not peaked  once China reaches that stage, there remain only more adventurous and technologically complex variants (eg.: constructing a pipeline to South Korea, subsea or transiting North Korea). Thirdly, Gazprom might dovetail Pos-2 with one of its long-time ambitions  linking the gas transmission system of Russias Far East to the ones in Western Siberia and Europe. Given that still only 69 percent are connected to the federal gas transmission system, this would be a politically very useful objective.

Graph 2. Map of Power of Siberia-2.



(Click to enlarge)

There is one additional novelty in how Power of Siberia-2 would look like  namely, the inclusion of Mongolia as a transiting country. Heretofore Mongolia has neither produced nor imported natural gas, hence Gazprom could potentially enter a completely new market. This being said, as of today the main reason for including Mongolia lies in the possible bifurcation of the pipeline so that at least some part of it heads towards northeast China. In addition to the above listed commercial rationale, the agreement, as indicated during President Putins meeting with Mongolian Prime Minister Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh in December 2019, might also turn out to be a stepping stone to something much more politically complex. Despite all the benefits that Russia might garner from Power of Siberia-2, Gazprom has to face an array of challenges that will seriously jeopardize its viability.

Above all others, there is the question of Chinese pipeline gas demand  the Western route (from the Chinese point of view) pits Gazprom against Central Asian producers, namely Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, who already have a separate conduit to supply the Chinese market. The 55 BCm/year capacity Central Asia Gas Pipeline was utilized last year to the extent of 87 percent (47.9 BCm), with most of the delivered gas coming from Turkmenistan. China remains the main market outlet for Galkynysh production, therefore unwanted competition in the form of Gazprom vying for a place under the sun would be hardly welcome news for Ashgabat. Thus, it is not only competition against LNG that Gazprom ought to win but also deal with a China-dependent Turkmenistan, all this against the background of tough-as-usual Chinese price negotiations. At least things have started moving after a prolonged lull.

By Viktor Katona for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

Read this article on OilPrice.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 14:24:30|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Global COVID-19 infections topped 3.5 million on Sunday as Mideast and Europe witnessed a continued slowdown in new cases.

Global cases of COVID-19 climbed to 3,502,126 with 247,107 deaths as of 7 p.m. (2300 GMT), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Some countries have reported new lows for deaths as they tend to ease restrictions, while the situation in other countries remains grim.

INFECTION SLOWDOWN

Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced 61 new deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, the lowest number in over a month. The country's total death toll stands at 3,397. About 1,670 more cases have been confirmed with the total number of infections reaching 126,045.

"For the first time today, the number of healed patients has exceeded our current number of coronavirus patients since March 11," Koca said.

A total of 63,151 patients have recovered, including 4,892 patients who were discharged from hospitals on Sunday.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case on March 11. Over the past two weeks, both the number of new cases and daily death figures have declined.

Some Turkish business owners are planning to resume operations, especially after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the government will ease its curfew and other lockdown measures at the end of May.

Iran, the second hardest-hit country in the Middle East, has also witnessed a downward trend of infection cases and death toll.

In the past 24 hours, the country reported 976 new infections, bringing the total tally to 97,424, according to the Iranian Health Ministry.

Iran has so far recorded 97,424 coronavirus infections with 6,203 deaths. The country announced its first case of COVID-19 on Feb. 19.

The Iranian government did not impose a total lockdown as seen in many other countries, but did close schools and banned public gatherings.

The authorities have approved the reopening of businesses in phases since April 11. Mosques will reopen in 132 Iranian towns designated as low-risk areas on Monday, President Hassan Rouhani has said.

EASING OF LOCKDOWN

Italy's daily new deaths from COVID-19 dropped to 174 on Sunday, the lowest since the start of the lockdown on March 10. Both the number of new infections and patients in intensive care has continued to fall.

Starting from Monday, the country is relaxing its lockdown. People will be allowed to visit family members living in the same region, and bars and restaurants will provide takeaway options instead of only delivery. However, schools, cinemas and most shops will remain shut.

The lockdown will be eased in further stages at two-week increments, on May 18 and June 1, provided the data related to the outbreak continue to improve.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned that the easing did not mean "everyone was free" to do as they pleased, saying that if Italians did not obey the rules, they risked reversing the dramatic gains reached so far.

Italy's death toll stands at 28,884, second only to the United States where more than 68,000 people have died.

Similarly, France is planning to lift the two-month lockdown on May 11 by gradually opening schools and shops and unwinding restrictions on people's movement as the spread of COVID-19 slowed down in the last three weeks.

The government will extend the state of health emergency it declared on March 24 by another two months to stem the outbreak and address a possible resurgence of the virus.

"We must not relax our collective efforts which are bearing fruit and which are effectively curbing the epidemic. To succeed in the gradual lifting of containment, it is more than ever necessary to scrupulously apply all barrier gestures, respect the minimum physical distance of one meter and reduce contacts," the Health Ministry said.

Figures released on Sunday showed that coronavirus-linked fatalities in France rose by 135 to 24,895, the lowest daily toll since March 22.

Among the 25,815 hospitalized patients, 3,819 were in intensive care, down from 3,827 on Saturday, confirming a continued slowdown for the third running week.

CONTINUED SURGE

In Russia, COVID-19 infections showed no signs of abatement. The country reported a new single-day record with 10,633 cases confirmed over the last 24 hours, raising its total number of infections to 134,687.

The death toll from the pandemic increased by 58 to 1,280 on Sunday, while 16,639 people have recovered, including 1,626 over the last 24 hours, the country's coronavirus response center said in a statement.

Moscow, Russia's worst-hit region, confirmed 5,948 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing its total to 68,606.

About 2 percent of Moscow residents, or more than 250,000 people, may have the coronavirus, said Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, citing test results.

There is no reason to think that the pandemic situation has stabilized in the country and safety rules can be ignored, the Russian Health Ministry said in a statement.

Thousands of miles away, South Africa reported on Sunday a sharp surge in new cases, two days after the easing of restrictions following a five-week lockdown. It was the highest daily surge since March 5, when the country recorded its first case.

The total COVID-19 infections climbed to 6,783, up 447 from Saturday, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.

"Regrettably, we report a further eight COVID-19 related deaths: two from the Western Cape, four from the Eastern Cape and two from Gauteng," Mkhize said, adding that this brought the national death count to 131.

Amid the partial resumption of business activities, the government announced strict measures to stem the spread of the virus at workplaces.

These measures include setting up physical barriers at workplaces to ensure social distancing, free provision of appropriate personal protective equipment, screening of workers for COVID-19 symptoms, and isolation and quarantine of workers with related symptoms. Enditem
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Graham Keeley and Nathan Allen (Reuters) Gava, Madrid/Spain  Mon, May 4, 2020 08:32 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5b0554 2 World Spain,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,COVID-19-quarantine,pandemic,virus-corona Free

Spaniards reveled in a second day of freedom on Sunday, heading outside in time-slots for age groups on the first weekend adults were allowed out since one of the world's strictest coronavirus lockdowns was imposed in mid-March.

Though Spain's appalling COVID-19 outbreak has shrouded the nation in mourning for more than 25,000 dead, there was much-needed relief on a sunny spring day as people at last headed back to the streets, hills and sea.

Surfer Sigrid Cervera, 44, yelled for joy as she jumped into the waves with her board in Gava, a town on the Mediterranean coast outside Barcelona. "I have not been able to go surfing for ages so I am very excited," she said.

Joggers ruled the streets early on, before it was the elderly and then children's turn - all under orders to stay two meters apart under continued social distancing guidelines.

"We can breathe," exulted one elderly resident of Madrid, Maria Jesus, enjoying a walk in the city center.

"At home, all you can do is open a window, and you open them every day, but it is not the same as being outdoors."

One of the worst-hit nations, Spain's death toll climbed by 164 in the previous 24 hours to 25,264, while cases reached 217,466, according to latest health ministry data on Sunday.

But the declining pace of deaths and infections has led Spain to start unwinding its stay-at-home order, with children allowed out under supervision from last weekend, and adults given permission to exercise outdoors from Saturday.

Wife hidden in car boot

Walks and sports are allowed from 6-10 a.m. and 8-11 p.m., while children have the afternoons, and the elderly are given late morning and early evening windows.

"This is a great relief to me to get out and run again," said musician Jordi Jornet, 45, who went jogging along the shore in Gava on Sunday after a run in the mountains the previous evening.

Not all were following the rules though: in Logrono, northwestern Spain, police stopped a car driven by a man whose wife was hiding under a blanket in the boot, according to the Interior Ministry. He had said he was taking tools to an allotment.

To prevent overcrowding, Barcelona's city council barred entry to its urban beaches, so thousands converged instead on the beachfront boardwalk.

In the capital Madrid, where parks and other large public spaces remain closed, runners and walkers shared narrow pavements and walkways.

Government spokeswoman Maria Jesus Montero described the population's behavior as "exemplary".

But newspaper ABC said Madrid police broke up 29 groups of teenagers drinking on Saturday night, and Cadena Ser radio cited police sources as saying a record number of arrests were made for breaking confinement rules on Sunday.

Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The relaxation of exercise restrictions is one of the first steps in a four-phase plan to reopen Spain by the end of June.

From Monday, businesses that operate by appointment, such as hairdressers and beauty salons, will resume limited services.

In the next stage, outdoor areas of bars and restaurants can open at 50% occupancy, while groups of up to 10 people will be allowed in public places and in homes.
We live in an age where the idiot box on your wall can do more than just play content from your set-top-box. TVs have become smarter with the ability to connect to the internet, play content from streaming services without the need to connect to an external device and also boast of voice control capabilities. Some TVs also have the ability to control your smart home appliances. If you are one looking to pick up the best smart TV in India that money can buy, then this is the list of best smart TVs for you. This list comprises TVs that we have reviewed along with some that we think deserve to be on the list based on their specifications. A lot of the TVs on this list are premium TVs and rightfully so. This is a list of the Best smart TVs in India and while there are some great options for those on a budget, this list aims to offer the creme de la creme from the world of TVs. Since a lot of the TVs run on Android, you can consider this as the list of best Smart Android TVs as well. Some of these TVs even offer an 8K resolution making them futureproof for when 8K content is available to stream via OTT and other mediums. Some of these TVs also bring with them HDMI 2.1 compatibility making them ideal for those looking for a new premium TV to play games on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. So here is a list of the top smart LED TVs to buy in India.

85 Screen Size (inch)

Full Array LED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

8K Screen Resolution Full specs Other Sony TV

The Sony Z9J is an 8K TV from Sony and brings with it a full-array LED backlighting. The TV runs on Google TV bringing with it access to the Google Play Store and all popular streaming services built-in. You can also control the TV using your Assistant or Alexa enabled smart speaker. The TV also supports Apple AirPlay. The TV has Sonys XR Cognitive processor for picture processing. The TV also boasts of XR Contrast and XR Clarity to help the TV give better picture performance. The TV also boasts of Sonys Acoustic Multi-Audio Frame Tweeter and comes with two mid range drivers, four tweeters and four Subwoofers. In addition to 8K, the TV also supports HDR 10 and Dolby Vision along with Dolby Atmos. The TV also has an embedded light sensor that optimises the picture brightness based on the room's conditions. The TV also supports HDMI 2.1 enabling 4K at 120Hz and 8K at 60Hz for compatible devices. For your connectivity, the TV has 4 HDMI ports and 2 USB ports. SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 85 Display Type : Full Array LED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 8K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : NA HDMI Ports : 4 Wifi : Yes Price : 1,499,900

88 Screen Size (inch)

OLED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

8K Screen Resolution Full specs Other LG TV

The LG Z1 is LGs flagship offering of 2021. Not only is it an OLED TV, it has a resolution of 8K. You could stand an inch from the display and still be hard pressed to make out the pixels. That's how immersive this TV looks. Since it is an OLED TV, you can expect it to deliver inky blacks, vivid colours and great viewing angles. The TV runs on LGs alpha 9 Gen 4 AI Processor. It also has AI upscaling to ensure your 4K content looks the best on this TV. The TV runs on LGs WebOS platform and brings support for all popular streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+ and more.It also has a home dashboard letting you control your smart home appliances from the comfort of the TV. The TV supports HDR 10, HLG, Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Atmos. All the HDMI ports on this TV support HDMI 2.1 full bandwidth. This means they support VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) and 4K at 120Hz. It also supports eARC for your soundbars and home theatres. The TV supports AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-Sync as well. The TV comes with LGs Magic Remote which is easy to use. Needless to say, if you are looking for the best TV money can buy, the LG ZX can definitely be at the top of your wishlist. SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 88 Display Type : OLED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 8K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : NA HDMI Ports : 4 Wifi : Yes

85 Screen Size (inch)

QLED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

8K Screen Resolution Full specs Other Samsung TV

Sticking with 8K, we have the Samsung Q900A. This TV has Mini LED backlighting. With Mini LEDs the TV can have many more dimming zones and deliver performance comparable to OLED TVs. Since this is a QLED TV, it has the quantum dot layer between the backlighting and the display to enhance the viewing experience. The TV is powered by Samsungs Neo Quantum Processor 8K to help upscale the content you are consuming on the TV. The TV supports HDR 10+ but does not support Dolby Vision. The TV has almost no bezels. The TV has all the ports housed in the one connect box, so you don't need to worry about cable management when you connect your devices to the TV. The TV also boasts of Object Tracking Sound Pro and also adjusts the sound based on the content playing on the TV. The TV also supports HDMI 2.1 bringing features like ALLM, VRR and 4K at 120Hz on this TV. SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 85 Display Type : QLED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 8K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : 520 W HDMI Ports : 4 Wifi : Yes Price : 1,349,990

Advertisements

65 Screen Size (inch)

OLED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

4K Screen Resolution Read Review Full specs Other Sony TV

The A80J OLED TV is Sonys 2021 flagship 4K TV. While Sony has the A90J available internationally, we sadly will not see that TV come to India. But the A80J is no slouch if you are looking for an OLED TV to make content pop. The TV is powered by Sonys XR Cognitive processor and put simply, it processes pictures the same way our eyes perceive content. The XR processor is a step up from the X1 Ultimate that we saw in past Sony OLED models. The TV runs on the new Google TV UI which is a visual update from what Android TV offers. The TV comes with four HDMI ports of which only HDMI 3 and 4 support HDMI 2.1 with support for VRR, ALLM and 4K at 120Hz. The TV supports all HDR formats like HDR 10, Dolby Vision and also Dolby Atmos. Pros Great colour reproduction for both HDR and SDR content

Bright panel for HDR content

Good upscaling for SD content

Good TV for gaming

Functional and well-built remote control

Good channel separation with the speakers Cons Only two ports support HDMI 2.1 of which, one is eARC enabled

No VRR support yet SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 65 Display Type : OLED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 4K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : NA HDMI Ports : 4 Wifi : Yes Available  264,049 Buy Now

65 Screen Size (inch)

OLED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

4K Screen Resolution Full specs Other LG TV

LGs new 2021 OLEDs are here in India. The LG G1 is a successor to the LG GX we saw in 2020. It has LGs EVO panel that claims to address the low brightness on OLED TVs. Expect this TV to pack some stellar picture performance. Under the hood the TV is powered by Alpha 9 Gen 4 AI Processor 4K. It supports all HDR formats including HDR 10, HLG and Dolby Vision. It also supports Dolby Atmos. The TV also supports Dolby Vision IQ which changes the settings of the TV based on the lighting in the room. Till now we have seen settings like Dolby Vision bright and Dolby Vision dark on Tvs and it will be interesting to see how Dolby Vision IQ changes the game. All four HDMI ports on the TV support HDMI 2.1 and bring features like ALLM, VRR and 4K at 120Hz. The TV also supports G-Sync and Freesync. The TV also has a very slim design making it look like a picture frame on the wall. The TV is available in 55,65 and 77-inch screen sizes. SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 65 Display Type : OLED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 4K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : 100~240V HDMI Ports : 4 Wifi : Yes Price : 399,990 rk

55 Screen Size (inch)

Full Array LED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

4K Screen Resolution Read Review Full specs Other Sony TV

The Sony X90J houses Sonys latest XR processor. Put simply, the XR processor is the next generation processor after Sonys X1 family of processors. The X1 Ultimate is the highest tier processor in the X1 family. The XR processor enhances the content consumption experience on the TV. The X90J has full-array backlighting with dimming zones. The TV supports all popular HDR formats including Dolby Vision, HDR and HLG. The TV also supports Dolby Atmos. The TV runs on Android 10 but has the all new Google TV UI experience. Google TV is a redesigned UI experience. The TV has 4 HDMI ports of which HDMI 3 and 4 support HDMI 2.1 including 4K at 120Hz, VRR and ALLM. The TV also has 2 USB ports. Pros Accurate colour reproduction for both HDR and SDR content out of the box.

Bright panel for HDR content.

Great TV for gaming.

Functional and well-built remote control.

Good sound output.

Good build and design. Cons Only two ports support HDMI 2.1

VRR support will come as an update later this year.

Google TV UI needs some improvement. SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 55 Display Type : Full Array LED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 4K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : NA HDMI Ports : 4 Wifi : Yes Available  128,990 Buy Now

Advertisements

55 Screen Size (inch)

OLED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

4K Screen Resolution Read Review Full specs Other LG TV

Under the hood, the specifications of the LG C1 and G1 are the same. The biggest difference between the 2 is the OLED panel. While the G1 has the Evo OLED panel, we get the traditional OLED panel on the C1, which by the way, is no slouch. The C1 also has the Alpha 9 Gen 4 AI Processor 4K processor and supports HDR 10, Dolby Vision IQ and also Dolby Atmos. The design of the TV is the same as the LG C9. The TV comes with all four HDMI 2.1 ports with support for ALLM, VRR and 4K at 120Hz. The TV also supports NVIDIA G-Sync and Freesync. The TV also has a cool UI when in game mode. The TV comes with LGs redesigned WebOS UI and also the new remote control. The LG C1 is available in 48, 55 and 65-inch screen sizes. Pros Bright panel for HDR content

Good SDR performance

Quite accurate colours out of the box

New gaming UI is a welcome change

Four HDMI 2.1 ports

New UI and remote control work well Cons Panel gets quite reflective in a bright room

Audio output could have been better SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 55 Display Type : OLED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 4K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : AC 100~240V HDMI Ports : 4 Wifi : Yes Available  149,300 Buy Now

65 Screen Size (inch)

QLED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

4K Screen Resolution Full specs Other Samsung TV

The Samsung Q90A is Samsung 4K Neo QLED TV. It runs on Samsungs Tizen OS and gives users access to all popular streaming services from the comfort of the UI. The TV has almost no bezels on three sides of the TV. The TV also supports HDR formats including HDR 10, HDR 10+ and HLG. It does not support Dolby Vision. The TV has an extremely slim form factor. The TV also supports HDMI 2.1 features such as ALLM, VRR and 4K at 120Hz. A unique thing about the TV is that it comes with Samsung TV Plus giving users access to free channels to consume content. The reason the channels are free is that they are ad-supported. There is no need to plug in any external device like a set-top box to consume this free content. The free channels are available from the comfort of the UI. Users can control the TV using an Alexa or Google Assistant enabled speaker. The TV comes with 60W of sound output with a 4.2.2 channel setup. SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 65 Display Type : QLED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 4K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : 285 W HDMI Ports : 4 Wifi : Yes Price : 249,990 rk

75 Screen Size (inch)

QLED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

4K Screen Resolution Read Review Full specs Other Mi TV

The Mi QLED TV 75, as the name suggests is a 75-inch QLED TV. It has Full Array backlighting and comes with 192 dimming zones. The TV has a premium build and runs on the Android TV UI. The Mi QLED TV brings with it a 4K resolution. In addition to the Android TV UI, it gives users the option of the PatchWall UI. PatchWall is Xiaomis own UI and brings with it content before the streaming service. One of the highlighting features of the TV is HDMI 2.1. All three HDMI ports on the TV are HDMI 2.1 enabled. One of the ports supports eARC while all three of them support ALLM to take advantage of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Sadly, the TV does not support VRR nor does it support 4K at 120Hz. The TV supports HDR, HDR 10+, and Dolby Vision and supports Dolby Atmos when connected to a Dolby Atmos enabled soundbar or home theatre via eARC. The TV comes with a Google Assistant enabled remote control. Pros Good SDR and Dolby Vision performance.

HDMI 2.1 features - ALLM and eARC.

Good gaming performance at 60Hz.

PatchWall is a good UI.

Well built.

Hands-free voice controls work well. Cons No true 4K at 120Hz.

No VRR.

TV speakers lack channel separation. SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 75 Display Type : QLED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 4K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : 360 W HDMI Ports : 3 Wifi : Yes Available  127,999 Buy Now

Advertisements

55 Screen Size (inch)

LED Display Type



Smart TV Smart Tv

4K Screen Resolution Full specs Other TCL TV

TCLs latest offering, the Mini LED TV, C825 has finally launched in India. While we are yet to review this TV, it brings an interesting set of specifications and features. It supports HDMI 2.1 for your gaming needs including 4K at 120Hz. Thanks to the Mini LED backlighting, the TV has many dimming zones and can also get pretty bright for HDR content. This is one TV we are really looking forward to reviewing. The TV also supports Dolby Vision IQ and comes with an Onkyo 2.1 system built-in for sound. The TV also supports a webcam for video conferencing. SPECIFICATION Screen Size (inch) : 55 Display Type : LED Smart Tv : Smart TV Screen Resolution : 4K 4K HDR Support : Yes Power Consumption : 230 W HDMI Ports : 3 Wifi : Yes Available  109,990 Buy Now

Sameer Mitha Email Sameer Mitha Follow Us About Me: Sameer Mitha lives for gaming and technology is his muse. When he isnt busy playing with gadgets or video games he delves into the world of fantasy novels. Read More about Sameer Mitha

List Of Best Smart TVs In India (Jan 2022) Product Name Seller Price Sony Z9J N/A  1,499,900 LG Z1 N/A N/A Samsung Q900A N/A  1,349,990 Sony A80J Amazon  264,049 LG G1 N/A  399,990 Sony X90J Amazon  128,990 LG C1 Amazon  149,300 Samsung Q90A N/A  249,990 Mi QLED TV Flipkart  127,999 TCL C825 Amazon  109,990
As some Houston offices that closed due to coronavirus are asking employees to get back to work, the state allows some workers to choose not to, while collecting unemployment.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott announced new Texas Workforce Commission guidelines for Texans receiving unemployment benefits.
Beijing could face a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into 'armed confrontation', an internal Chinese report has warned.

The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said.

As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report's content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.

US President Donald Trump is pictured meeting with China's President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019

The Tiananmen Square crackdown is immortalised by the above picture called the 'Tank Man', which shows a student standing in front of a row of tanks to protest at the clampdown by the armies against its own people. The picture was taken by AP photographer Jeff Widener from a sixth-floor balcony of the Beijing Hotel near Tiananmen

The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China's top intelligence body.

Although the briefing paper remains disclosed, the content of the document was described to Reuters by people who had direct knowledge of its findings.

'I don't have relevant information,' the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson's office said in a statement responding to questions from Reuters on the report.

China's Ministry of State Security has no public contact details and could not be reached for comment.

CICIR, an influential think tank that until 1980 was within the Ministry of State Security and advises the Chinese government on foreign and security policy, did not reply to a request for comment.

A man is seen takes off his protective face mask to take a selfie in front of the Tiananmen Gate

Beijing could face a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into 'armed confrontation', an internal Chinese report has warned. The picture taken in 1989 shows a demonstrator being surrounded by Chinese army

But the presentation of the report shows how seriously Beijing takes the threat of a building backlash that could threaten what China sees as its strategic investments overseas and its view of its security standing, according to Reuters.

Relations between China and the United States are widely seen to be at their worst point in decades, with deepening mistrust and friction points from US allegations of unfair trade and technology practices to disputes over Hong Kong, Taiwan and contested territories in the South China Sea.

In recent days, US President Donald Trump, facing a more difficult re-election campaign as the coronavirus has claimed tens of thousands of American lives and ravaged the U.S. economy, has been ramping up his criticism of Beijing and threatening new tariffs on China. His administration, meanwhile, is considering retaliatory measures against China over the outbreak, officials said.

It is widely believed in Beijing that the United States wants to contain a rising China, which has become more assertive globally as its economy has grown.

It is widely believed in Beijing that the United States wants to contain a rising China, which has become more assertive globally as its economy has grown. The picture shows protesters hold a banner during a Sing with you rally on April 26 in Hong Kong

The report also said the United States was aiming to undercut the ruling Communist Party by undermining public confidence. A painting of US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, wearing protective masks kissing is seen on April 26 in Berlin

The paper concluded that Washington views China's rise as an economic and national security threat and a challenge to Western democracies, the people said.

The report also said the United States was aiming to undercut the ruling Communist Party by undermining public confidence.

Chinese officials had a 'special responsibility' to inform their people and the world of the threat posed by the coronavirus 'since they were the first to learn of it,' US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in response to questions from Reuters.

Without directly addressing the assessment made in the Chinese report, Ortagus added: 'Beijing's efforts to silence scientists, journalists, and citizens and spread disinformation exacerbated the dangers of this health crisis.'

A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council declined to comment.

The report also warned that anti-China sentiment sparked by the coronavirus could fuel resistance to China's Belt and Road infrastructure investment projects, and that Washington could step up financial and military support for regional allies, making the security situation in Asia more volatile.

Three decades ago, in the aftermath of Tiananmen, the United States and many Western governments imposed sanctions against China including banning or restricting arms sales and technology transfers.

China is far more powerful nowadays.

Xi has revamped China's military strategy to create a fighting force equipped to win modern wars. He is expanding China's air and naval reach in a challenge to more than 70 years of U.S. military dominance in Asia.

Xi has revamped China's military strategy to create a fighting force equipped to win modern wars. The file photo shows President Xi reviewing the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy fleet in the South China Sea

Chinese paramilitary police wear protective masks as they march by the entrance to the Forbidden City as it re-opened to limited visitors for the May holiday, on May 1

In its statement, China's foreign ministry called for cooperation, saying, 'the sound and steady development of China-U.S. relations' serve the interests of both countries and the international community.

It added: 'any words or actions that engage in political manipulation or stigmatisation under the pretext of the pandemic, including taking the opportunity to sow discord between countries, are not conducive to international cooperation against the pandemic.'

One of those with knowledge of the report said it was regarded by some in the Chinese intelligence community as China's version of the 'Novikov Telegram', a 1946 dispatch by the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Nikolai Novikov, that stressed the dangers of U.S. economic and military ambition in the wake of World War Two.

Novikov's missive was a response to U.S. diplomat George Kennan's 'Long Telegram' from Moscow that said the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for peaceful coexistence with the West, and that containment was the best long-term strategy.

China has been accused by the United States of suppressing early information on the virus, which was first detected in the central city of Wuhan, and downplaying its risks. This photo taken on February 16 shows a doctor looking at an image as he checks a patient in Wuhan

The two documents helped set the stage for the strategic thinking that defined both sides of the Cold War.

China has been accused by the United States of suppressing early information on the virus, which was first detected in the central city of Wuhan, and downplaying its risks.

Beijing has repeatedly denied that it covered up the extent or severity of the virus outbreak.

China has managed to contain domestic spread of the virus and has been trying to assert a leading role in the global battle against COVID-19. That has included a propaganda push around its donations and sale of medical supplies to the United States and other countries and sharing of expertise.

But China faces a growing backlash from critics who have called to hold Beijing accountable for its role in the pandemic.

Trump has said he will cut off funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), which he called 'very China-centric,' something WHO officials have denied.

Australia's government has called for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the virus.

Last month, France summoned China's ambassador to protest a publication on the website of China's embassy that criticised Western handling of coronavirus.

The virus has so far infected more than 3 million people globally and caused more than 200,000 deaths.
The launch earlier this month of an Amazon Web Services (AWS) region in Cape Town ratchets up the competition among the hyperscale cloud providers in Africa, providing enterprise tech leaders with more services to choose from and different pricing options.

The presence of AWS also helps ensure that rival vendors that have not yet opened their own facilities will rush to do so, for fear of missing out on a growing market, thus providing businesses with even more choice.

The main benefits of in-region hyperscale data centres include lower latencies between the central hosting environment and local end users, since the data centres are closer to the users; the ability to store data locally and thus adhere to data sovereignty rules; and advanced services for technology such as AI, IoT, and mobile applications. The hyperscale cloud facilities in South Africa also serve other markets in sub-Saharan Africa.

Businesses can leverage these services, eliminating the need for to start from scratch building their own applications, which can require hard-to-find talent. As cloud providers strengthen their offerings in Africa, new services are cropping up.

Cloud technology supports new services

Were seeing more and more interesting use cases in AI-driven data analytics especially in the financial services industry, said Julia Nill, enterprise solutions director at Meltwater Africa, a SaaS company that develops media monitoring and business intelligence software. For example, AI and big data is being leveraged to detect fraud or potential money laundering; and also being used to improve credit scoring and investment strategy. Weve also seen a lot of interest in implementing big data to improve supply chain monitoring.

The new AWS cloud region in Cape Town, the 23rd AWS region globally, consists of three Availability Zones, essentially data centres with redundant power, networking, and connectivity within the region. These zones are meant to provide customers the capability to run production applications and databases that are more scalable and fault tolerant than what a single data centre would be able to offer.

Amazons expansion and investment into Africa started more than 15 years ago. With a development centre in Cape Town  where the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), which provides scalabale computing capacity, was first created  and AWS corporate offices in Johannesburg, the launch of the Africa (Cape Town) region was something the company had always made clear was on their expansion roadmap.

The launch of the new region means that customers with data residency requirements and those expected to be in compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), are now able to use cloud services while storing their content in South Africa.

AWS offers a range of data services

The AWS region offers pay-as-you-go options, and enterprises can now take advantage of the availability of the af-south-1 API to plug their own data into services including the Amazon Relational Database Services, Amazon Redshift cloud data warehouse, and Amazon Elastic MapReduce for big data processing and analysis. AWS provides data migration services and EC2 allows businesses to run their own applications in the cloud and add virtual servers as their applications, data and user base grow.

Among other benefits, the services can speed the ability of enterprises to test proof-of-concept applications and launch new products and services to market.

The new AWS region joins other cloud services, notably Microsoft Azure cloud regions in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Huawei and Google also offer services for the region but have not yet built their own data centres, and Oracle has said it would enter the local market later this year.

There are fundamental similarities among the providers. For example, Microsoft and Azure regions are architected to comprise mutliple availability zones. They share other basic features (also with Google) such as self-service, instant provisioning, and identity management.

Comparison shopping is complicated

As competition among the cloud providers heats up, pricing has generally declined, and Microsoft, AWS and Google all offer by-the-second for compute services. But comparison shopping can get complicated since the pricing models differ slightly, different companies can get various discounts, and though basic services are similar, the providers have different strengths and advanced services.

Among the notable AWS services are:

App integration

Machine learning and predictive analytics

Databases and storage solutions

Developer, engagement, and management tools

Business productivity tools

Compute

Azure on the other hand is most popular for services such as

Big data and predictive analytics

IoT integration

Blockchain technology

Scalable data warehousing

DevOps

Game and app development

Another complication is that not all services are offered immediately, when a new region is launched. Athough Microsoft launched its region in the first quarter of 2019, offering Azure cloud infrastructure, it took the rest of the year to roll out the Office 365 office productivity application suite and Dynamics 365 business applications.

Meanwhile, a look at the latest list of features offered by AWS in South Africa shows that Amazon Managed Blockchain, Machine Learning, and various IoT services are not yet available.

Enterprises use multiple providers

Some businesses use a mix of services from different providers. Sage has been serving small and medium businesses in Africa and the Middle East for over 20 years, and we have a mix of technologies ranging from traditional desktop to the latest cloud solutions, said Michelle Bisset, vice president, Customer Success: Sage Africa & Middle East. Sage provides ERP and other business applications, with a focus on small and medium-size enterpirses. From a hosting point of view, we are standardising on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure and we have dedicated Live Services Management (DevOps) and security teams focused on ensuring we have best-of-breed cloud operations, she explained.

The uptake of enterprise cloud solutions in Africa reflect a keen interest and relatively slow but steady progress. It is reality that infrastructure problems are holding back cloud usage in many African markets, but senior tech execs are accepting that cloud technology is a necessary ingredient for business growth. Even though African marketplaces are in the early stages of development in terms of the uptake of enterprise cloud solutions, the impact of cloud services is already far-reaching, said Elaine Wang, the cloud and software solutions director at Rectron. For the African marketplace, cloud, virtualisation and the broader evolution towards serverless computing are the most disruptive technology developments since the advent of the mobile payment revolution. Cloud technology is seen as the best way to optimise IT costs, speed time to market and grow businesses.

In the near-to-mid future, it is clear that cloud will play a crucial role in driving growth, across the technology sector as well as general economic growth, particularly in countries such as South Africa. The entrance of the AWS cloud region in the local market is sure to put pressure on Google Huawei and Oracle to bolster their own presence.

According to World Banks 20th Issue of the Africa Pulse report, the IT sector will grow at 1 percent in 2020, in spite of an anticipated decline in sales of devices this year, as well as a general slowdown in the South African economy.

As businesses start to move workloads into the cloud, their appetite for cloud services increases and this brings about great opportunities for the reseller channel to make money through their service offerings, said Wang. We will continue to see growth in SaaS and IaaS workloads. AWSs recent launch is a positive sign for our regions ability to grow cloud consumption, she explained.
Lithuanian English

Siauliu Bankas AB, company code 112025254, address: Tilzes str. 149, 76348 Siauliai, Lithuania.

Please be informed that on 4 May 2020 Siauliu Bankas AB received a decision of the Bank of Lithuania stating that, taking into account the COVID-19 situation, among all measures applied by the Bank of Lithuania, it was decided to postpone the entry into force of yet not effective buffer of other systemically important institutions. Therefore, the capital buffer of 1% of other systemically important institutions (the so-called O-SII buffer) previously established by Siauliu Bankas AB will enter into force on 31 December 2021 and not on 31 December 2020 as established by the previous resolution.

The Bank is currently subject to a 9.4% gross capital adequacy ratio requirement. At the end of 2019, the actual gross capital adequacy ratio of Siauliu bankas Group, which did not include the profit earned in 2019, amounted to 16.2%.
Thiruvananthapuram, May 4 : On Monday, across most Kerala districts it was like a curtain raiser for the new normal, as the good old days of absolute freedom will now go down into history as the old normal.

Barring public transport and auto-rickshaws, roads in Kerala witnessed traffic as markets and shops opened. Also opened offices in the government and the private sector.

But barber shops, liquor vends, beauty parlours, cinema theatres, malls and gymnasiums are closed.

Shops can open from 7 a.m. to 7.30 p.m, while restaurants can only provide packed food.

"We have to continue like this for some more time, if not the gains that we have made might disappear. The lockdown norms set by the state government on the basis of the Centre's guideline will continue," said Law Minister A.K. Balan.

Kerala has 95 coronavirus cases now after 410 people tested negative.

It was on January 30 that the first case of Covid-19 was registered in Thrissur. It was also the first case in the country.

Like in other parts of the country, districts have been classified into green, orange and red zones.

While Alappuzha, Ernakulam and Thrissur districts are in the green zone, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Idukki, Kasargode, Thiruvananthapuram, and Wayanad are in orange zone. Kannur and Kottayam districts aare in red zone.

For the first time since the lockdown became a reality in the state on March 23 and people were locked up, things have changed in most parts -- but Kannur and Kottayamof the state. Though most parts of the state are getting back to normal, strict conditions apply.

"Hitherto we have only seen masks being worn by medical professionals at their clinics or in hospitals. But from now on, everyone who steps out of home has to wear it and violation will invite fine. Since life is precious, I am yet to find anyone without a mask," said a staff at a leading supermarket in the state capital.

At Kottayam, though a red zone area, the market has started functioning, but with lot of restriction.

"The lorries coming from outside have to get unloaded between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m. Every shop have been asked to keep a register of people who come and maintain social distancing norms. Sanitizers are also a must," said a shopkeeper.

The banks in the state started operating as normal. "Today we are working like any day before the lockdown. It's being the first day, there was a good rush. We are following all the safety norms," said a manager of a public sector bank, here.

Hospitals too saw an increase in out-patients against the lockdown period.

Peter Pittilapally, owner of a leading brand of home appliances chain in the state, said normally April and May accounted for almost 50 per cent of the year's business.

"The home appliances showrooms must have easily lost Rs 2,000 crore business due to the lockdown. It's during these months, we have the maximum sales of AC, coolers and fans. But even though we are open, customers are not coming. Things are not rosy," said Pittilapally.
As President Donald Trump for the second time in two weeks conceded his prior COVID-19 death toll projections have proven too optimistic, draft government projections forecast steadily growing rates of deaths and cases even while the president presses to reopen the country.

Trump on Sunday again revised upward his estimate of how many Americans will die from the coronavirus -- now saying it could be as many as 100,000 people -- even as he sought to take credit for the estimate not being worse than it is.

We're going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. That's a horrible thing, Trump acknowledged in a Fox News town hall. We shouldn't lose one person over this. This should have been stopped in China. It should have been stopped. But, If we didn't do it, the minimum we would have lost is a million, two million, four million five. That's the minimum. We would have lost probably higher than, its possible, higher than 2.2. He was referring to an estimate, endorsed by the White House, that 2.2 million Americans would die without any social distancing or other mitigation, compared to a much smaller number if precautions were taken.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News virtual town hall 'America Together: Returning to Work,' event, with anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on May 3, 2020. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

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.

Just last Monday, the president had said he expected 60,000 to 70,000 deaths.

If you look at what original projections were -- 2.2 million, we are probably heading to 60,000-70,000, Trump said. "Its far too many. One person is too many for this. And I think we've made a lot of really good decisions."

But one week later, the presidents estimate is on track to be surpassed, with the current death toll now at more than 67,000 and climbing by the day.

On Monday, The New York Times published a draft document that projected a constant rise in daily rates of coronavirus cases and deaths throughout May.

Story continues

The document warned that if social distancing was lifted too early that the United States would see about 200,000 new cases and 3,000 deaths per day by June 1  eight times and nearly double the current rates, respectively  and was based on preliminary analyses that researchers at Johns Hopkins University had provided to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its consideration.

"These preliminary analyses were provided to FEMA to aid in scenario planningnot to be used as forecastsand the version published is not a final version," the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said in a statement. "These preliminary results are not forecasts, and it is not accurate to present them as forecasts."

The White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not endorse the documents conclusions; the White House said other federal agencies had not properly vetted it.

"This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed," White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said in a statement.

Late last week, the CDC predicted the COVID-19 death rate in the United States would rise, although it did not provide specific numbers.

"National-level forecasts continue to indicate that deaths are likely to rise in the coming weeks," it said in an update posted to its website on Friday.

It was just two weeks ago, on April 20, that Trump said he didn't anticipate the death toll to surpass 60,000.

Were going toward 50- or 60,000 people. That's at the lower -- as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. We -- we could end up at 50 to 60. Okay? Its horrible, Trump said.

In late March, Trump and the White House coronavirus task force said their modeling suggested 100,000 to 240,000 would die in the U.S. even with aggressive social distancing measures in place across much of the country. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, said Sunday that estimate remained in place even though the president's own public projections have proven prone to fluctuation.

Our projections have always been between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives lost, and thats with full mitigation and us learning from each other of how to social distance, Birx said in an interview with "Fox News Sunday."

PHOTO: President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House after stepping off Marine One, May 3, 2020. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Trump has also changed his frame of reference for the virus. Initially, he repeatedly compared it to the 2009-2010 H1N1 pandemic, which killed an estimated 12,469 Americans; but then, when the coronvirus's death toll jumped higher, he took to juxtaposing it with the 1918 influenza pandemic that left around 675,000 Americans dead.

The presidents shifting assessments of the public health crisis come as he seeks to redirect focus toward the economic reopening of the country, assuring the country that you can satisfy both public health and economic concerns in staking out a path for the country to resume more normal economic functions into the summer, even as the virus is expected to persist.

From the start, he has tried to downplay concerns over the coronavirus's impact, seeking to allay fears as he seeks re-election. In late February, he predicted the number of cases in the United States "within a couple days is going to be down to close to zero."

PHOTO:People rest and enjoy the day at Central Park while maintaining social distancing during the outbreak coronavirus in New York, May 2, 2020. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

I really believe you can go to parks, you can go to beaches, you keep it -- you know, keep the spread, you keep -- you stay away a certain amount, Trump said, crediting the public for doing an incredible job in social distancing. That's one of the reasons -- if you call losing 80 or 90,000 people successful, but it's one of the reasons that we're not at that high end of the plane as opposed to the low end of the plane.

MORE:Coronavirus updates: COVID-19 was present in Europe in December, doctor claims

But while the president speaks of striking the right balance in championing a resumption of normal life, he does so from the sidelines, since he has left state and local authorities in control of making their own decisions.

The president has been critical of strict measures adopted by Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and has sought to sympathize with demonstrators who have protested stay-at-home orders across the country.

I think a lot of people want to go back. They just want to go back. You see it every day. You see demonstrations all over the country and those are meaningful demonstrations, Trump said.

PHOTO: Protesters try to enter the Michigan House of Representative chamber after the American Patriot Rally for the reopening of businesses on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., April 30, 2020. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

But Birx has struck a far more somber tone in response to demonstrations like those in Michigan, where hundreds crowded into the Capitol building, some without masks and still others carrying weapons, warning that their actions could have deadly consequences.

Its devastatingly worrisome to me personally, because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives, Birx said.

MORE:President Donald Trump to start traveling again amid coronavirus pandemic

As the president calls for the country to get back to work, he too is set to resume some sense of normalcy with the resumption of official travel.

On Tuesday, Trump is set to travel to Phoenix, Arizona, to tour a Honeywell plant that has employed 500 people to manufacture N95 masks that have been in short supply and serve as a critical piece of personal protective gear for frontline healthcare workers.

The president traveled to Camp David this past weekend, but prior to that, hadnt set foot of the White House grounds since March 28, when he traveled to Norfolk, Virginia, to see off a military hospital ship bound for New York City.

ABC News' Anne Flaherty contributed reporting.

This report was featured in the Tuesday, May 5, 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

Trump's reopening push at odds with new 100K death toll prediction, new draft projections originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
In a significant development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in a video conference meeting of non-alignment movement (NAM) on coronavirus COVID-19 crisis. The meeting that will happen at around 4.30 pm IST will also be attended by Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

This is the first time PM Modi is taking part in a NAM meeting since becoming the prime minister for the first time in 2014. The last time any Indian PM participated at Tehran NAM meet was in 2012 when Manmohan Singh was the PM of the country.

Both in 2016, 2019 summits of NAM, India was represented by Vice President. The last NAM Summit happened in 2019 in Azerbaijan, before that it was 2016 in Venezuela.

Azerbaijan is the president of the grouping till 2022 and the meet is being organised under the leadership of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. The title of the summit is "We stand together against COVID-19".

"We hope that the Non-Aligned Movement Contact Group's Summit will make a significant contribution to the mobilization of NAM member states in the fight against coronavirus, strengthening of solidarity and multilateralism," Hikmat Hajiyev, Head of the Department for Foreign Policy Affairs of Azerbaijans Presidential Administration said as quoted by Azerbaijan State News Agency or azertac.

The meet on COVID-19 comes even as other multilateral groupings like G20, BRICS and regional groupings like SAARC are having video conferences to come out with a coordinated approach to tackle the pandemic.

Non-Aligned Movement is an idea that emerged in 1950 and the initiative was led by the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Present of erstwhile Yugoslav Josip Broz Tito.

NAM is the second-largest platform globally in terms of country membership after the UN. While it currently has 120 member states, 17 states which are observers in the last few years the grouping has lost the main rationale of the existence of remaining equidistant to 2 powers--US and Soviet Union, after the disintegration of the latter.
(Newser)  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVIwho spoke of staying "hidden from the world" when he became the first pontiff to resign in almost 600 yearsis in the news once again. In an interview for a new biography out Monday in Germany, he accuses critics of seeking to "silence" him and links gay marriage and abortion to the Antichrist, the AFP reports. In Benedict XVI - A Life, Benedict accuses his critics of a "malignant distortion of reality" and denies there is a rift with his less conservative successor. My "personal friendship with Pope Francis has not only endured, but grown," he says.

story continues below

The 93-year-old made waves earlier this year when he broke his silence to speak out against lifting the Catholic Church's insistence on priestly celibacy. His comments in the new biography are likely to be even more controversial. He says a century ago, "everybody would have considered it to be absurd to speak of a homosexual marriage. Today, one is being excommunicated by society if one opposes it." He says "it's the same thing with abortion and creating human life in the laboratory," but "the fear of this spiritual power of the Antichrist is then only more than natural." Catholic News Service reports his comments appear in the last chapter of the book by Peter Seewald, who says the interview took place in the fall of 2018. (Read more Pope Benedict XVI stories.)
(Photo : lmencos from Pixabay) (Photo : Matheo JBT)

The American space agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said on Monday, May 4, that a recently discovered asteroid about the size of a double-decker bus made a dangerously close flyby.

NASA told Space.com that the newly discovered asteroid, which was named Asteroid 2020 JA made a close flyby to our planet, which was just over halfway to the moon.

Close Encounter with Asteroid 2020 JA

When it passed, Asteroid 2020 JA missed hitting the Earth by around 148,000 miles (238,000 kilometers). According to NASA, that is equivalent to approximately 0.62 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. On average, the range of the moon to our home planet is 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers). In astronomical standards, the flyby of the asteroid was a near miss.

Asteroid 2020 JA hurtled through space at a speed of 19,000 miles per hour and passed by Earth at an unsafe distance.

According to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, the size of the asteroid is anywhere from 31 to 72 feet wide (9.6 to 22 meters). At the same time, NASA's Asteroid Watch estimated that Asteroid 2020 JA is around 40 feet in diameter. The size of the space object is comparable to a city bus.

NASA told News Break that the asteroid-tracking radars were only able to track the incoming asteroid until it was too late to act. They added that the asteroid was only discovered one day before it dangerously passed our planet.

Gianluca Masi, an astrophysicist from the Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy, captured an image of Asteroid 2020 JA using a telescope. Based on the image, the space rock looks like a speck of light in a field of stars.

ALSO READ: NASA: 318 Gigatons of Ice are Melting in Antarctica and Greenland Each Year, Says NASA

Regular Flybys

Asteroid 2020 JA is not the first asteroid to pass by Earth and certainly not the last. NASA said that asteroids similar to the size of Asteroid 2020 JA regularly made flybys to Earth a few times every month. In general, NASA added that these space rocks do not usually pose any danger to Earth.

A week earlier, a smaller asteroid named Asteroid 2020 HS7 passed by our planet a distance of 23,000 miles or about 36,400 kilometers. The space rock was tiny compared to Asteroid 2020 JA, which only has a diameter of around 13 and 24 feet or 4 to 8 meters). It made its nearest approach to Earth on Apr. 28. The tiny asteroid posed no threat to Earth but made a closed passing to human-made satellites orbiting the planet. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), Asteroid 2020 HS7 was only 750 miles or around 1,200 kilometers away from the closest satellite.

NASA said that the discovery of these new asteroids is not unusual. An estimated 30 asteroids are being discovered every day.

Near-Earth objects such as comets and asteroids are regularly being tracked by NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office to keep an eye on space objects that are potentially dangerous to Earth. At present, about 22,776 near-Earth objects have been discovered by astronomers. NASA said in the report that over 95% of these objects were found through surveys funded by the space agency.

Also Read: NASA: 'Potentially Hazardous' Asteroid That Can Destroy Earth Expected to Safely Pass by on Apr. 29

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
[May 04, 2020] Teleperformance Wins Third Great Place to Work Award in Greece

Regulatory News: Teleperformance (News - Alert) (Paris:TEP), a leading global group in digitally integrated business services, announced today its award-winning multilingual-hub operations in Greece comprised of more than 8,500 people in 8 locations have received the prestigious Great Place to Work (GPTW) certification for the 3rd time in a row. Almost 70% of employees participated in anonymous third-party surveys which objectively rated Teleperformance highly for overall employee trust. Teleperformance employs people of 101 different nationalities in Greece, making it the company's most diverse workplace in the world. Its operations there support clients in 36 languages and dialects in the Continental Europe, Middle East and Africa region. The GPTW 2020 certification is particularly significant with the world currently engulfed in the Covid-19 pandemic which has caused significant worldwide employment challenges and disruptions. Dimitris Ganoudis, General Manager of Great Place to Work Hellas, said: "Teleperformance in Greece is known as a progressive and successful employee-centric organization. Great Place to Work institute is happy to independently confirm it for 2020, based on thousands of multi-faceted anonymous employee responses and validated by rigorous third-party audits. This is a special achievement that reflects well on management due to both the difficult pandemic situation and the remarkable diversity of the Teleperformance workforce successfully united as one team in Greece." Constantinos Hamalelis, CEO, Teleperformance Greece added: "We are honored by this prestigious award that recognizes the commitment of our people working together in a truly diverse, multicultural environment. Our success is based on teamwork. I'm really proud of the candid feedback from a significant majority of our own employees who rated us as a Great Place to Work. My recognition and thanks go to each and every member of this fantastic team." Yannis Tourcomanis, President CEMEA, Teleperformance commented: "We are thrilled to celebrate another recognition of our operations in Greece. Their dedication and commitment to build a truly people-centric environment that promotes growth and development and celebrates diversity is an inspiration to all of us." In the midst of the unprecedented worldwid Covid-19 pandemic work challenges, Teleperformance Greece, in a matter of weeks, was able to convert approximately 94% of its entire workforce from facilities-based to work-at-home employees. This is part of Teleperformance's ongoing efforts to safeguard employment for hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide while ensuring services excellence continuity for its clients and their customers.



Industry analyst Stephen Loynd, CEO, TrendzOwl, observed: "As a global business analyst, I've tracked Teleperformance extensively for the past 15 years. Its operations in Greece are one of the more diverse and consistently successful multi-lingual hub transformations I've seen. The campuses are world-class and reflect the intense 'people-care' focus Teleperformance is known for in the industry. The speed of world-wide staff conversion to work-at-home to save jobs is reflective of a large-scale military operation and could only be accomplished by a global leader like Teleperformance. They clearly value their people as a true priority." In addition to many current regional and global awards and certifications, twenty-one (21) separate Teleperformance country operations including Greece are currently recognized as top employers by third party evaluators: Albania, Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Germany, Greece, India, Kosovo, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates.

Teleperformance Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Daniel Julien said: "We have operated in Greece since 1989 - it is a very successful and vital piece of the Group's multilingual hub strategy. In a multicultural environment, our TP employees operate as one single team to do a great job for our clients in many markets and languages. Due to Covid-19, we quickly converted almost all of our entire Greece workforce to work-at-home to protect our people, their jobs and our clients. This initiative remains a top priority for us everywhere in the world where possible. We are very humbled the employees have such a high trust level that they have again voted Teleperformance in Greece a Great Place to Work. At Teleperformance we care." ------------------- ABOUT TELEPERFORMANCE GROUP Teleperformance (TEP - ISIN: FR0000051807 - Reuters (News - Alert): TEPRF.PA - Bloomberg: TEP FP), a leading global group in digitally integrated business services, serves as a strategic partner to the world's largest companies in many industries. It offers a One Office support services model combining three wide, high-value solution families: customer experience management, back-office services and business process knowledge services. These end-to-end digital solutions guarantee successful customer interaction and optimized business processes, anchored in a unique, comprehensive high tech, high touch approach. The Group's 331,000 employees, based in 80 countries, support billions of connections every year in over 265 languages and 170 markets, in a shared commitment to excellence as part of the "Simpler, Faster, Safer" process. This mission is supported by the use of reliable, flexible, intelligent technological solutions and compliance with the industry's highest security and quality standards, based on Corporate Social Responsibility excellence. In 2019, Teleperformance reported consolidated revenue of 5,355 million (US$ 6 billion, based on 1 = $1.12) and net profit of 400 million. Teleperformance shares are traded on the Euronext Paris market, Compartment A, and are eligible for the deferred settlement service. They are included in the following indices: CAC Large 60, CAC Next 20, CAC Support Services, STOXX 600, SBF 120, S&P Europe 350 and MSCI Global Standard. They have also been included in the Euronext Vigeo Eurozone 120 index since December 2015 and the FTSE4Good Index since June 2018 with regard to the Group's performance in corporate responsibility. For more information: www.teleperformance.com

Follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) @teleperformance View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005461/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Huntington Ingalls Industries has been awarded a potential $187.5M contract by the U.S. Navy for design and engineering of one America-class amphibious warfare vessel.

Huntington Ingalls Industries has been awarded a potential $187.5M contract by the U.S. Navy for design and engineering of one America-class amphibious warfare vessel.

LHA-9 amphibious warfare ships (Picture source: US Navy)

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Pascagoula, Mississippi, is awarded an $187,469,732 not-to-exceed undefinitized contract action for long lead time material and associated engineering and design activities in support of one Amphibious Assault Ship Replacement (LHA(R)) Flight 1 Ship and LHA 9.

The company will also use the funds to obtain long-lead time materials needed to build the service branch's fourth America-class Amphibious Assault Ship Replacement and second LHA(R) Flight 1 vessel, the Department of Defense said Thursday.

The new ship class is intended to replace five decommissioned Tarawa-class LHAs, according to the Navy. The Flight 1 version will have the primary aviation characteristics of the predecessor configuration and will feature a well deck that is designed to support expeditionary warfighting missions

DoD noted the service will obligate the full contract amount from its fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion funds and that the department expects work to be complete by February 2024.

Amphibious warships are designed to support the Marine Corps tenets of Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS) and Ship to Objective Maneuver (STOM). They must be capable of sailing in harm's way and enable rapid combat power buildup ashore in the face of opposition. Because of their inherent capabilities, these ships have been and will continue to be called upon to also support humanitarian and other contingency missions on short notice. The United States maintains the largest and most capable amphibious force in the world.

LHAs are the largest of all amphibious warfare ships, resembling a small aircraft carrier. They are capable of Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing (V/STOL), Short Take-Off Vertical Landing (STOVL), Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) tilt-rotor and Rotary Wing (RW) aircraft operations. LHA Flight 0 will enhance Marine Corp aviation with greater maintenance capability and JP-5 fuel capacity in lieu of a well deck.LHA Flight 1 will reincorporate a well deck to enhance expeditionary warfighting capabilities while maintaining the principal aviation characteristics of the Flight 0.
Threat detection and prevention are essential to ensuring the safety and security of warfighters. Researchers have developed a way to speed up the processing of extremely large graphs and data, making the most efficient use of modern Army computational resources before and during Soldier deployment.

Graphs have become a preferred choice of data representation for modeling many real-world systems containing entities and relationships. Such systems and graphs are widely used in several public as well as military domains such as Facebook with millions of users connected via friendship relations, the World Wide Web, bioinformatics and even DOD security applications. The DOD uses graph analytics that include terrorist-tracking and threat-detection.

In today's data-intensive environment, these graphs grow ever larger in size, and even high-powered, high-performance computing systems, such as those possessed by the Army, cannot process them efficiently, researchers say.

There is a need to develop efficient parallel and distributed systems that can scale modern computer hardware to process such graphs, said Rajgopal Kannan, a researcher for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory's Context Aware Processing Branch working at CCDC ARL-West in Playa Vista, California.

"The Army's vast computational resources must be utilized efficiently at scale to resolve the huge demand for fast computing solutions to mission critical problems," Kannan said.

Kannan collaborated on this project with researchers from the University of Southern California. The team has been focused on developing high-speed and portable graph analytics, which is essential for DOD security analysis such as discovering terrorist communication networks, analyzing biological networks and recommending anti-terrorist actions.

Current approaches do not scale well to large graphs and/or do not have easy-to-use programming interfaces that make the job of developing new graph analytics applications easy, he said. The onus is on programmers to exploit hardware and operating system primitives, which is time consuming, limits program portability and requires code to be rewritten for new architectures and accelerators.

"Our novel parallel computing framework, called Graph Processing Over Partitions, or GPOP, is user-friendly and makes optimized programming easy," Kannan said. "Programmers can focus on developing new high-speed applications and are protected from navigating the complexities of the underlying hardware. The framework is also hardware agnostic, with the code being portable to multiple architectures."

It can be a significant component of custom graph processing systems for the DOD, such as those being developed under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Hierarchical Identify Verify Exploit, or HIVE, program, Kannan said.

ACM's Transactions on Parallel Computing Special Issue featured a paper on this research, Parallel Computing Framework for Scalable Graph Analytics, on Innovations in Systems for Irregular Applications.

"Propagation of information between interconnected entities is a very fundamental operation," Kannan said. "Consider for example the famous PageRank algorithm used for webpage ranking in search engines. It starts by assigning an initial importance/weight to the webpages and then emulates the propagation of this importance/weight along the hyperlinks that create connections in web graphs."

Emulating such propagation for very large graphs puts a lot of stress on the memory system of current computers, Kannan said.

For this purpose, the researchers designed new models of computation that can maximally utilize the power of random access memory and caches available on off-the-shelf servers. Their models are encapsulated in a framework that hides all the gory details and provides a simple interface to make the life of programmers easy.

Another example is shortest distance computations used in analysis of biological networks or online fact-checking that demand extremely fast response.

"Our framework utilizes the power of cluster computing to quickly extract metadata from large graphs and answer shortest distance queries in microseconds," Kannan said. "Our approach has shown that by carefully designing the software systems, the efficiency of underlying hardware can be significantly improved."

The research team's key idea is the hierarchical decomposition of programs: A high level user front end makes for ease of programming coupled with low level hardware primitives that lead to high performance.

Their framework cut down the execution time of several algorithms by up to 80% and is up to 19 times, 9.3 times and 3.6 times faster than current well-known frameworks such as Ligra, GraphMat and Galois, respectively.

"Our work on metadata extraction for shortest distance computations has extended the capability of this approach significantly," Kannan said. "Compared to the existing methods, we are able to process 10 times larger graphs with 50 times more speed. On a cluster with 64 servers, we could process the entire road network of the United States in less than one and a half minutes."

In addition to the DOD, this research has dual-use applications.

"It is also useful for big data companies, such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc., that employ graph analysis in the services they offer such as web search, product recommendation or spam detection," Kannan said. "Efficient graph processing can also unravel new insights in biological research such as genomic analysis, protein sequencing or epidemic transmission such as with COVID-19. Our research will unlock the potential of custom graph processing architectures being developed by the Department of Defense."

The next step for the team is to harness the power of distributed processing systems and distributed memory to scale graph analytics applications to even larger future graphs as part of building a generalized parallel and distributed processing framework.

Throughout this research and all that is to come, collaboration has been and will continue to be a key element of success, Kannan said.

"Collaboration is the lifeblood of research, and this collaborative research was conducted under the aegis of CCDC ARL's open campus initiative, which has been instrumental in enabling the technology transfer of ideas originating from basic academic research," Kannan said.

Kannan and his collaborators from Professor Viktor Prasanna's Graph Analytics and Machine Learning research group at the University of Southern California were able to bridge the gap between academic theory and technological practice to develop technology products that will prove beneficial to key Army Modernization Priorities including the Network and Soldier Lethality.

The dissemination of these results in top publication venues like ACM TOPC and the International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, more commonly known as VLDB, further highlights the importance of ARL-university partnerships and increases the visibility in the warfighter technology space, he said.

This research, funded by DARPA and supported by an ARL-USC Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, recently received recognition from the Department of Commerce as one of the lab's high-impact joint work statements.

###
Liquor shops in parts of Delhi had to be shut on Monday just hours after lifting shutters. All liquor shops in Delhis eastern range were shut down by Delhi Police as customers defied social distancing norms amid Covid-19 lockdown.

All liquor shops in eastern range that were opened today have been closed as social distancing norms were flouted at those shops, Alok Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Eastern Range), Delhi, said. Many thronged the shops to purchase liquor on Monday and defied social distancing measures.

All liquor shops in eastern range that were opened today have been closed as social distancing norms were flouted at those shops: Joint Commissioner of Police (Eastern Range), Alok Kumar #Delhi (File pic) pic.twitter.com/fIOxUADl2d  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

In a video shared by news agency ANI, customers outside a liquor store in Delhi were seen lined-up in a queue that stretched for almost a kilometre. Although those in the queue maintained distance among one another, customers kept lining up with the hope to purchase some alcohol.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, in its order last week, stated that liquor stores and pan shops will be allowed to function in all zones while ensuring a minimum six feet distance (2 gaz ki doori) from each other and ensuring that not more than five persons are present at one time at the shop.

Similar incidents were reported in other parts of the country as well. Large crowds gathered outside liquor shops across Maharashtras Pune city - one of the Covid-19 red zones in the state. Long queues outside liquor shops were seen in areas such as Bhandarkar road, Wanawdi, Salunke Vihar and NIBM road area in Pune.

In Karnataka, booze lovers thronged liquor stores hours before shutters went up at several places.

In some areas, customers flocked liquor shops even before day-break and performed special prayers with flowers, coconuts, incense sticks, camphor and crackers in front of the stores, news agency PTI reported.
Citizens to welcome arriving passengers at Heathrow Airport deserted amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic - Getty Images

Attempts to introduce social distancing at airports are doomed to failure because each jumbo jet would require a kilometre long queue just to board, the boss of Heathrow warns.

Writing in Monday's Daily Telegraph, John Holland-Kaye, Heathrows chief executive, said there simply was not enough space at the major international airports for social distancing to provide a solution to safe travel.

Instead Mr Holland-Kaye called upon the prime minister to agree with other world leaders a common international standard - including health checks on departure - that would allow passengers to travel once Covid-19 infection rates dropped.

Mr Holland-Kaye urged Boris Johnson to introduce the agreed standard within a month to allow airports to begin functioning again by the summer.

He said that unless the aviation industry is up and running in the next three to five months then not only will we see massive job losses in our sector, we will see job losses in many other sectors that depend on us as well.

The Government has begun briefing on how it plans to ease the current lockdown, including implementing social distancing measures - that would keep people up to two metres apart - at railway stations and in shops.

Passengers wear masks as they arrive at Heathrow Airport, - Shutterctocl

But Heathrows boss said social distancing was not a solution for the biggest airports. He writes: Forget social distancing  it wont work in aviation or any other form of public transport, and the problem is not the plane, it is the lack of space in the airport. Just one jumbo jet would require a queue a kilometre long.

Mr Holland-Kaye, who has sacrificed his salary for three months at a personal cost of 185,000, said Heathrow is the biggest single-site employer in the country and warned that thousands of jobs were now at stake. British Airways has begun a consultation to shed 12,000 jobs and Ryanair is also facing swingeing cuts. Jobs in other sectors that rely on air travel, including tourism, were also in jeopardy unless airports can begin operating safely, said Mr Holland-Kaye. He described aviation as the cornerstone of the economy and claimed that 40 per cent of UK annual exports are transported on passenger flights from Heathrow. If those planes arent flying, UK factories cant get the parts they need and nor can they get their finished goods to market, he said.

Mr Holland-Kaye said the only way to re-open borders and begin international jet travel was to get the infection rate under control in this country and in others which he said could take two to four months. Once that is achieved then a common international standard for health in travel was needed that would keep the risk of infection during the journey very low.

The new standard for travel could include a mandatory health check at the airport entrance; the compulsory wearing of surgical masks; and fantastic levels of hygiene in the airport.
SHANGHAI, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Acorn International, Inc. (NYSE: ATV) ("Acorn" or the "Company"), a leading marketing and branding company in China, today announced that the Company adopted a repurchase plan based upon a form approved by the Company's Board of Directors in accordance with guidelines specified by Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, as well as Acorn's insider trading policy. The Company may repurchase up to US$2.5million worth of its American depositary shares ("ADSs") over the next 12 months under the repurchase plan.

The Company's proposed repurchases may be made from time to time on the open market at prevailing market prices, in privately negotiated transactions, in block trades and/or through other legally permissible means, depending on market conditions and in accordance with applicable rules and regulations. The timing and extent of any purchases will depend upon market conditions, the trading price of its ADSs and other factors, and are subject to the restrictions relating to volume, price and timing under applicable law. The Company's Board of Directors will review the share repurchase program periodically and may authorize adjustment of its terms and size. The Company plans to fund repurchases from its existing cash balance.

About Acorn International, Inc.

Acorn International is a leading marketing and branding company in China, leveraging a twenty-year direct marketing history to monetize brand IP, content creation and distribution, and product sales, through digital media in China. For more information visit www.acorninternationalgroup.com.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995

This news release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "future," "going forward," "intends," "outlook," "plans," "target," "will," "potential," and similar statements. Such statements are based on current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond Acorn's control, including the extent and duration of the adverse impact of COVID-19, which may cause actual results, performance, actions, or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties, or factors is included in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.

Investor Contacts:

Contact:

Compass Investor Relations

Ms. Elaine Ketchmere, CFA

Phone: +1-310-528-3031

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Acorn International, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.acorninternationalgroup.com


Police officers patrol an area outside Beijing's Tiananmen Square (back) on World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2020. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

Speaking in Mandarin, Senior Trump Advisor Calls for Greater Freedom in China

A senior White House adviser decried the shocking lack of diversity in voices under the Chinese communist regime, in the first known speech given by a U.S. official in Mandarin Chinese.

Matthew Pottinger, the White Houses deputy national security adviser on Asia, highlighted the regimes suppression of those who sought to speak the truth amid the CCP virus outbreak, including doctors and citizen journalists, and heralded them as civic-minded citizens who committed big acts of bravery.

The cliche that Chinese people cant be trusted with democracy was  the most unpatriotic idea of all, Pottinger said in a speech given in Mandarin Chinese during a virtual panel event held by the University of Virginias Miller Center on May 4.

Pottinger said he gave the speech in the Chinese language so he could open up a conversation with citizens in China and the Chinese diaspora.

Under Chinas Party-state system, he said, its sometimes difficult to cut through the noise, from whether its propaganda, from the wholly state-owned media in China, or the carefully curated social media ecosystem.

Pottinger studied the Chinese language 25 years ago in Beijing and went on to become a China correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. While reporting, he was once arrested by government agents. On another occasion, he was punched in the face by agents while investigating a Chinese companys illicit sales of nuclear fuel to foreign countries, according to his written account published in the Journal.

He said Beijings lack of tolerance for critical voices has taken a turn for the worse in recent years.

It takes courage to speak to a reporteror to work as onein todays China.

Despite the regimes iron-fist rule, sparks of free thought have not ceased, Pottinger said, citing the months of nonstop protests in Hong Kong to resist the Chinese regimes encroachment into the region, which at times brought millions to the streets.

When small acts of bravery are stamped out by governments, big acts of bravery follow, he said.

Other recent acts of bravery he cited: Regular citizens who were punished for speaking their minds about the regimes early coverup of the virus outbreak; journalists who went missing after they filmed video footage of what was happening in Wuhan; and doctors punished for raising the alarm about the virus spreading.

Matt Pottinger, Special Assistant to U.S. President Donald Trump and National Security Council (NSC) Senior Director for East Asia, right, arrives for the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum at the China National Convention Center (CNCC) in Beijing, on May 14, 2017. (Mark Schiefelbein  Pool/Getty Images)

Pottinger quoted a social media post by Li Wenliang, a whistleblower doctor who eventually died of the virus he warned others about: I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, and I dont approve of using public power for excessive interference.

The top advisers speech comes as the United States escalates its calls for China to be held accountable for the pandemic.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently called out Chinese officials for spreading classic communist disinformation to deflect attention on Chinas mishandling of the virus, while President Donald Trump has suggested imposing economic sanctions on Beijing over its role in the outbreaks global spread. Attorney generals in Missouri and Mississippi have separately filed lawsuits against the regime. Some lawmakers have also proposed that the Chinese regime pay reparations.

The U.S. isnt looking at punitive measures here, Pottinger said in response to a question about economic sanctions on Beijing. What President Trump is looking at doing is continuing with the policy that he ran on, the policy that hes implementedwhich is to have a reciprocal and fair relationship with China, not one in which the U.S. allows ourselves to be taken advantage of in the hopes that somehow China will just automatically liberalize.

Speaking on the anniversary of the May 4 movement, a student-led protest in 1919 at Tiananmen Square that radicalized Chinese intellectual thinking, Pottinger said the event may serve as the philosophical underpinning for Chinese people to reclaim their freedoms.

The unfulfilled democratic aspirations from a century ago were a reminder for Chinese people to take fate into their own hands, he said.

How China governs itself is going to be up to the Chinese people. Its not up to anyone else to decide.
Mr. Thomas J. Maronick, Jr. - Managing Partner "We have three former senior prosecutors handling cases for our clients with Yves Archey and Zachary Benninga (of-counsels to the firm) and now senior associate Shauna Lee. I wouldnt want to be opposite any of them any day of the week if I were an opponent."

The firm has hired former senior prosecutor Shauna Lee as senior associate to lead cases in the offices criminal division.

Ms. Lee had previously served as Division Chief of the Special Victims Unit in the Cecil County States Attorneys Office. Previous to that, she handled domestic violence and child abuse felony cases in states attorneys offices in Wicomico County, and Baltimore City.

Shauna brings significant trial experience to our criminal division and carries tremendous respect from former colleagues, adversaries and the judiciary alike. She joins what is truly one of the finest, most experienced and respected criminal divisions you will find, said firm managing partner and founder Thomas Maronick Jr.

We have three former senior prosecutors handling cases for our clients with Yves Archey and Zachary Benninga (of-counsels to the firm) and now senior associate Shauna Lee. I wouldnt want to be opposite any of them any day of the week if I were an opponent.

The firm also has hired associate attorney Mark Davis to assist with both personal injury and criminal cases. Mark has previously clerked for the Office of Public Defender.

Mark is bright, young, and talented, said Maronick. In just weeks with our firm he helped us file two appeals and a federal Habeas Corpus filing. So hes getting the best experience you can get for our clients - by doing it. And he will work very well for both our criminal and personal injury clients.

The firm also announces 15-year family law practitioner Emma Bungard has joined the firm as family law of-counsel. Bungard will be handling divorces, custody matters and other domestic litigation.

Emma brings years of family law litigation experience to Maronick Law to take on this rapidly-expanding practice area for us. She will be an amazing asset to our clients by bringing her many talents and strong client-focused dedication to the firm.

Maronick Law features 8 lawyers including of-counsels and associates with its main office in Glen Burnie, but other offices in Ocean City, Baltimore, Easton and Silver Spring, MD with a satellite office in Bel Air, MD.

The firm handles matters across the state from criminal defense to family law, bankruptcy, personal injury and estate planning among its practice areas.

Firm founder Thomas Maronick Jr is a three-time Super Lawyers honoree, and was named a 2014 Daily Record Very Important Professional under 40 who was named one of Annapolis 40 Finest by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and has supported numerous charitable interests including the Annapolis Film Festival, the Maryland Film Festival, the Creative Alliance and The Walters Art Gallery, and Meridian International, serving on the latters prestigious Meridian Ball Committee, to help plan the oldest charitable gala still held in Washington, DC.

About Law Office of Thomas J Maronick Jr

At The Law Offices of Thomas Maronick Jr LLC, our legal professionals are committed to making a positive difference in the lives of our clients, regardless of the complexity of their situation. We devote our practice to matters that can have a profound impact on individuals and their families. For more information, visit our website: https://www.maronicklaw.com/

About Growth Solutions Team

The Growth Solutions Team is a leading provider of Business Consulting Services including, Strategic HR, CFO Advisory, Sales & Customer Service Training, and Small Business Advisory services. Our team assists companies with growth in sales, profitability, and improved cash flows. For more information, visit the website at https://growthsolutionsteam.com.
The analysts might have been a bit too bullish on Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (NYSE:MPW), given that the company fell short of expectations when it released its quarterly results last week. Results showed a clear earnings miss, with US$294m revenue coming in 4.8% lower than what the analystsexpected. Statutory earnings per share (EPS) of US$0.15 missed the mark badly, arriving some 46% below what was expected. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what the analysts are expecting for next year.

View our latest analysis for Medical Properties Trust

NYSE:MPW Past and Future Earnings May 4th 2020

Following the latest results, Medical Properties Trust's six analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$1.25b in 2020. This would be a sizeable 27% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are predicted to jump 27% to US$1.04. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of US$1.28b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$1.10 in 2020. The analysts are less bullish than they were before these results, given the reduced revenue forecasts and the minor downgrade to earnings per share expectations.

The analysts made no major changes to their price target of US$20.23, suggesting the downgrades are not expected to have a long-term impact on Medical Properties Trust'svaluation. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. There are some variant perceptions on Medical Properties Trust, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$25.00 and the most bearish at US$16.00 per share. This shows there is still a bit of diversity in estimates, but analysts don't appear to be totally split on the stock as though it might be a success or failure situation.

Story continues

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. It's clear from the latest estimates that Medical Properties Trust's rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 27% revenue growth noticeably faster than its historical growth of 18%p.a. over the past five years. Compare this with other companies in the same industry, which are forecast to grow their revenue 4.5% next year. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Medical Properties Trust is expected to grow much faster than its industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that the analysts downgraded their earnings per share estimates, showing that there has been a clear decline in sentiment following these results. They also downgraded their revenue estimates, although industry data suggests that Medical Properties Trust's revenues are expected to grow faster than the wider industry. There was no real change to the consensus price target, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the business has not undergone any major changes with the latest estimates.

With that in mind, we wouldn't be too quick to come to a conclusion on Medical Properties Trust. Long-term earnings power is much more important than next year's profits. We have forecasts for Medical Properties Trust going out to 2024, and you can see them free on our platform here.

We don't want to rain on the parade too much, but we did also find 4 warning signs for Medical Properties Trust (1 is potentially serious!) that you need to be mindful of.

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.
US officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak  and how contagious the disease is  to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.

Chinese leaders 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press.

In a tweet on Sunday, President Donald Trump appeared to blame US intelligence officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential coronavirus outbreak could be.

US intelligence shows China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak  and how contagious the disease is  to hoard medical supplies needed to respond to it. Medical staff are pictured at a hospital in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak is believed to have started

Chinese leaders 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic in early January, according to a Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1. Customers in masks are pictured at a market in Wuhan where the virus is believed to have started

President Donald Trump is pictured returning to the White House from Camp David Sunday. In a tweet the same day, Trump appeared to blame US intelligence officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential coronavirus outbreak could be

Trump has been defensive over whether he failed to act after receiving early warnings from intelligence officials and others about the coronavirus and its potential impact.

'Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the US,' Trump wrote without citing specifics. 'Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner.'

The deadly virus, also known as COVID-19, is believed to have originated in a market in Wuhan, China. But Trump has speculated that China may have unleashed COVID-19 due to some kind of horrible 'mistake.' His intelligence agencies say they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.

President Trump tweeted that the intelligence reports prove he wasn't late in addressing the coronavirus crisis because he had not been briefed on the matter until late January

So far, there have been 1,176,548 confirmed cases in the US of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for 68,066 deaths.

The intelligence reports also come as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.

The sharper rhetoric coincides with administration critics saying the government's response to the virus was slow and inadequate.

President Trump's political opponents have accused him of lashing out at China, a geopolitical foe but critical US trade partner, in an attempt to deflect criticism at home.

Not classified but marked 'for official use only,' the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.

It attempted to cover up doing so by 'denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data,' the analysis states.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus 'was a contagion' for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad  and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

Those conclusions are based on the 95 per cent probability that China's changes in imports and export behavior were not within normal range, according to the report.

Speaking Sunday on ABC's 'This Week,' Pompeo said he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, 'Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories.'

Speaking Sunday on ABC's 'This Week,' Pompeo (pictured on the broadcast) said he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, 'Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories'

'These are not the first times that we've had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab,' Pompeo said.

'And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.'

The secretary of state appeared to be referring to previous outbreaks of respiratory viruses, like SARS, which started in China.

His remark may be seen as offensive in China. Still, Pompeo repeated the same assertion hours later, via a tweet Sunday afternoon.

Pompeo repeated statements made on ABC's 'This Week,' in a tweet Sunday suggesting that China's labs may be responsible for COVID-19 and other viruses

Speaking Sunday on Fox News Channel's 'Sunday Morning Futures,' Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, echoed that sentiment,

Cruz says he believes China 'is the most significant geopolitical threat to the United States for the next century.'

'The communist government in China bears enormous responsibility, enormous direct culpability for this pandemic. We know they covered it up,' Cruz said.

Speaking Sunday on Fox News Channel's 'Sunday Morning Futures,' Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas says he believes China 'is the most significant geopolitical threat to the United States for the next century.' The senator is pictured while on the broadcast

'Had they behaved responsibly and sent in health professionals and quarantined those infected, there's a real possibility this could have been a regional outbreak, and not a global pandemic,' Cruz explains.

'And the hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide are in a very real sense the direct responsibility of the communist Chinese government's lies.'
Hundreds of people demonstrated on May 3 outside the High Court in Jerusalem, calling on the justices to block indicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from leading the next government. Facing them were hundreds of Netanyahus supporters, claiming that their leader is being persecuted. Demonstrations continued today as the court continued to consider the petitions submitted against Netanyahu assembling the next government and against the unity government agreement signed between the Likud and Blue and White parties. With the High Court deliberations broadcast live, demonstrators followed the hearings on huge screens outside the court.

Even though the country has just begun easing restrictions over the novel coronavirus pandemic, demonstrations are back. Israelis were ordered to stay home on April 29 for Independence Day, but once the lockdown released, people went back to the streets for all sorts of reasons. In some cases, opposing demonstrations mixed with one another as people from all walks of life expressed anger and despair.

Staff of municipal children day-care centers demonstrated on April 30 in front of the Knesset, demanding to be fully compensated for the closures in March and in April. That evening, teachers and owners of private kindergartens held a demonstration of their own in Tel Avivs Rabin Square, demanding financial help. The teachers also demanded that the government not reopen the kindergartens on May 3, but wait to be sure that the pandemic is really over. Hundreds of small business owners and self-employed workers joined them, calling for increased help from the government and the easing of restrictions to allow them to return to work.

Ahead of the protest, the Tel Aviv municipality put down place markers for demonstrators to use to maintain the required six-feet distance between each other, reading, Preserving democracy, preserving health.

The Black Flag movement against the destruction of Israels democracy and against Netanyahus continued rule held three demonstrations on April 30: one in front of the Knesset, one in front of the High Court and one outside the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem.

On May 1, surfers demonstrated at the Herzliya marina. Instead of the usual signs, they carried their surfboards and demanded the government "release the sea." Traditional May 1 demonstrations were held in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Nazareth.

Demonstrations continued with force on Saturday, May 2. Several organizations united for demonstrations in Haifa, Jerusalem, Beersheba, Eilat and the Arab town Kafr Qasim as Arab Israelis joined the national waves of protests. Many Arab demonstrators explained that they too are part of the movement against the destruction of democracy; others complained about the dire economic situation, arguing that Arab towns and villages were sidelined for government financial aid. That night, more than a thousand Israelis gathered for the third consecutive weekend in Rabin Square, demonstrating against Netanyahus new coalition deal.
An enquiry in to the "serious" case of 137 COVID-19 infections, and a death, in a single CRPF battalion will be completed soon, officials said on Monday, even as the force is undertaking new measures to combat the outbreak.

They said the probe is being monitored by CRPF chief A P Maheshwari and it will be taken to its "logical end at the earliest."



"The coronavirus outbreak in the 31st battalion of the force has been viewed seriously by the Director General (DG). He has also directed the force to gear up to face the challenge of the pandemic during 'hot spot policing' duties and while rendering other security related tasks," a senior officer said.

There are 137 positive cases in this unit till now and six more results are awaited, he said.

He said all the formation commanders have been asked to ensure that required logistics, anti-COVID 19 procedures and immunity boosting measures are in place in all the units.

The jawans who have contracted the infection and are under quarantine and are being counselled, they said.

The official said the force commanders have been asked to be "undettered" on the operational front as well for community service initiatives related to COVID-19 relief work.

All senior officials are working through a secure online system as the headquarters of the force has been sealed following two staffers being detected positive, they said.

The case in the 31st battalion is linked to "dichotomous orders" issued for quarantine of asymptomatic personnel who join the unit back from leave or have an exposure to an infected person.

While the general order in the force was a mandatory quarantine of 14 days for such personnel, it later came to light that the medical wing of the paramilitary issued a separate order in April, stating that doctors and paramedics can be taken off the quarantine if they do not show any symptom after five days.

Officials have indicated that the primary source of the COVID-19 infection in this unit could be a constable (nursing assistant) who joined the battalion after leave period at his home in the NCR.

He is stated to have undergone a quarantine of only 5 days and he tested positive for coronavirus a few days later. However, the source of infection to this jawan is yet unclear.

It is also being probed if any personnel of the 31st battalion, based in Mayur Vihar, Delhi, could have been infected during a law and order duty along with Delhi Police but remained asymptomatic.

CRPF DG Maheshwari has also asked the Additional DG (Medical) of the Home Ministry to take appropriate action on the separate guidelines issued by the medical directorate for 5 days quarantine instead of the standard health ministry guidelines for a mandatory 14-day period.

In Central Armed Police Forces, the ADG medical that functions under the MHA (ministry of home affairs) looks after the affairs of such medical wings and they operate as an autonomous setup in the force.

Meanwhile, an association of retired paramilitary officials on Monday demanded action into the "lapses" in this case.

"This is totally against the orders of the ministry of family and health welfare in which 14 days quarantine period has been made mandatory," the general secretary of confederation of ex-paramilitary forces welfare association, Ranbir Singh, said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Venezuela Foils Attack by 'Terrorist Mercenaries'

By VOA News May 03, 2020

Venezuelan officials said Sunday they foiled an attack by boats through the port city of La Guaira.

Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the would-be attackers, whom he referred to as "mercenary terrorists", came from neighboring Colombia and were quickly repelled by Venezuelan forces.

"They tried to carry out an invasion by sea, a group of terrorist mercenaries from Colombia, in order to commit terrorist acts in the country, murdering leaders of the revolutionary government," Reverol said in a televised address Sunday.

He said there were "some casualties" but did not specify how many attackers there were, who they were, or what weapons and boats they used.

President Nicolas Maduro's government frequently accuses political adversaries of trying to overthrow his government. Socialist critics have dismissed the accusations as an excuse to detain Maduro's opponents.

Maduro has overseen a six-year economic crisis in Venezuela. More than fifty countries, including the United States, have indicated their support for opposition leader Juan Guaido after a disputed election in 2018, but Maduro maintains control of the country's military.





NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






NEW YORK  The body of a Colorado paramedic who came to New York City to save lives before losing his own to the coronavirus arrived Sunday night in Denver for burial.

Before Paul Carys body was flown from New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Cary will be forever honored in a memorial to medical workers who answered the citys 911 call to the rest of America.

De Blasio said at his daily news briefing Friday that he learned of Paul Carys death the previous day, and it really hit me.

Theres something particularly painful when someone does the right thing, a fellow American comes from across the country to try and help the people of New York City and while working to save lives here gives his own life. Its very painful. Its heroic, the Democrat said.

Cary, a 66-year-old grandfather who lived for decades in Aurora, Colorado, before moving to Denver, arrived in New York on April 1 as part of a wave of out-of-state medical technicians, doctors and nurses who came to the city to help relieve a health care system being overwhelmed by the virus.

Working for an ambulance company that aided the city under a Federal Emergency Management Agency contract, Cary responded from a location in the Bronx to calls ranging from patient transfers to 911 calls.

He died Thursday after falling ill about 10 days ago and entering Montefiore Medical Center, where he spent his final days on a ventilator, said Josh Weiss, a spokesman for the company, Ambulnz.

Cary worked for more than 30 years as a firefighter and paramedic in Aurora, a Denver suburb, before joining Ambulnz. He was so adamant about working in New York that he was planning to stay for a second, one-month tour before getting sick, Weiss said.

In a statement, Carys family said it was devastated.

Our family grieves his loss, and knows that all his friends and family will miss him greatly, the family said. He risked his own health and safety to protect others and left this world a better place. We are at peace knowing that Paul did what he loved and what he believed in, right up until the very end.

In a statement, the Aurora Firefighters Protective Association said that Cary had a passion for emergency medical services and was instrumental in helping shape their departments service into a world-class system.

It was not surprising to hear that Paul had volunteered and was helping those in need up to the very end, the association said.

De Blasio said Cary no doubt saved lives before the coronavirus took his own, as it has four of the citys emergency response workers and 10 city fire department workers in all.

He did not have to do it. He made the choice to come here to save lives, de Blasio said.

The mayor said a lasting memorial will be dedicated to Cary but will honor everyone who came to New York City to help.

So many people came to help, but Paul gave his life for us and were going to honor him in a particular way, he added.

___

Associated Press Writer Colleen Slevin reported from Denver.

___

This story corrects the spelling of Paul Careys name on first mention.
King Gon and Jung Tae-eul unexpectedly met Prime Minister Koo in the center of Seoul. Jung Ta-eul didn't mention her name but introduced herself as a traveler in the Kingdom. The two left, making Koo unhappy to see him happy with another woman.

The Kingdom of Corea

While traveling on his private plane, King Gon and Tae-eul communicated by using their hands, which shocked Secretary Mo and Captain Jo. When they reached the palace, King Gon prepared dinner for Tae-eul. She went around Seoul with less money and ate a sandwich the whole day. Tae-eul realized how King Gon's life growing up and admired him for being honest in what he did. At the dinner table, King Gon showed Tae-eul her ID and praised his cooked food for her, albeit casually.

Captain Jo gave Tae-eul's fingerprint to the forensic team, hoping to get any clue. He received a call from NSC about an emergency meeting and informed King Gon right away.

In her deep thoughts about King Gon, Prime Minister Koo received a call regarding Japan's ships about to enter Corea's sea jurisdiction. She called for an urgent meeting with the National Security Council. Japan tried to penetrate Corea's territory without permission for the third time. She was convinced that negotiations from the previous attempts were enough, and this time, they need to make a bigger stand. She then asked King Gon for his decision.

King Gon sorted to protect and stand firm in handling Japan's move through war. For the past 25 years, this is the first time that King Gon wears the naval suit and he advised Tae-eul that he wouldn't be able to send her off. He gave her the ID and asked her to wait for him. Tae-eul felt sad and bade him farewell as she headed back to her world.

The Republic of Korea

Detective Tae-eul hugged her father after arriving home. To keep herself occupied, she kept herself busy solving cases and capturing criminals with her team. But she still waits to meet the king and wishes to know what happened in his world.

The Kingdom of Corea

King Gon is determined to protect his country. He set foot on naval ships as the Commander-in-Chief of Corea. By raising the King's flag is the sign that the King is on board and manages the command. King Gon made the soldiers ready for advanced action.

The Japanese ship continued to move forward and already entered the territory of Corea. They were within view in King Gon's direction. Captain Jo worried about the King's presence and safety, but he advised them to focus on protecting the country instead of him.

King Gon commanded Major Choe to be ready for the warning shots. Corea's naval jets and tanker ships moved forward through his command. King Gon proceeded to send out warning shots to Japan's warship. After a few minutes, Japan stopped sailing forth and retreated. King Gon felt relieved as well as the soldiers on board.

Prime Minister Koo sent her recognition to the King's effort and issued a press statement towards Japan.

Read Part 2 HERE.
Advertisement

Donald Trump's inner circle was on full display last night as the White House entourage descended upon the Lincoln Memorial for the virtual town hall meeting.

Chief of staff Mark Meadows, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and counsel Hope Hicks swept into the venue with the secret service motorcade and were pictured talking to the president intermittently throughout the broadcast.

They were accompanied by an extensive security detail which fanned out inside and around the hall for the two-hour show.

The revolving door of administration personnel has seen the trio of staffers parachuted into their new roles recently - but they have been thrown in the deep end as they guide the president's coronavirus response.

Hardwired into their minds last night would also have been November's election and the need to rescue Trump's sliding approval ratings.

Before the cameras started rolling they were seen pacing around the memorial venue, having conversations with production staff and briefing their boss as he prepared to face the nation.

And during the Fox News commercial breaks Hicks and Meadows rushed back to the president's side, likely feeding him with talking points and providing encouragement.

Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also watched from the wings before joining Trump for the final 30 minutes of questions.

President Donald Trump consults with counselor to the president Hope Hicks and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during a commercial break

White House entourage including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin walk up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial

Counselor to the president Hope Hicks, who has recently been brought back into the fold, consults with a person involved in the production

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany is seen talking on her mobile phone outside the venue

Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin watch as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the 'America Together. Returning to Work' town hall

Secret Service and White House staff troop into the Lincoln Memorial before Trump attends a town hall meeting

President Donald Trump talks to Secretary Steven Mnuchin (centre left), Counselor to the President Hope Hicks (right in the blue) and some other members of the staff during a Virtual Town Hall

Hicks in particular has made her presence felt seen being brought back into the fold after resigning as communications director in 2017.

As one of Trump's closest lieutenants, she is believed to be the driving force behind the daily press briefings which the president regularly uses to pick fights with reporters.

With her phone glued to her hand and occasionally putting in an earphone, she joined Meadows at Trump's side as he prepared to face the nation.

McEnany, who recently hosted her first White House press briefing - her predecessor did none - was also on hand.

The hordes of advisers and secret service agents fanned out across the room as they watched Trump fire off attacks on Democrats, blast Chinese secrecy and express optimism for a vaccine by the end of the year.

With the two-hour long Fox News 'town hall,' Trump sought to wrap himself in the mantle of America's arguably greatest president - and to persuade a nation battered by death and mass unemployment to look ahead.

'We can't stay closed as a country, we're not going to have a country left,' he said on the show, where two moderators, as well as ordinary citizens via video, put questions to him in front of the monument.

'We're going to have an incredible following year,' he said. To a woman who called in expressing fear of financial ruin and eviction, Trump said her job would come back.

'You get a job where you make more money,' he said.

Counselor to the president Hope Hicks (left), who recently rejoined the administration, and new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (center, speak to President Trump during a commercial break during Sunday night's Fox News Channel town hall

President Trump is seen from his motorcade as he travels between the White House and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Sunday

President Trump's motorcade prepares to leave the White House Sunday for the short drive to the Lincoln Memorial

Hicks in particular has made her presence felt seen being brought back into the fold after resigning as communications director in 2017

Saying Americans should start going back to beaches this summer and recommending that shuttered schools need to reopen in September, Trump forecast good news on the hunt for a vaccine.

'We are very confident that we're going to have a vaccine... by the end of the year,' he said, admitting he was getting ahead of his own advisors with the prediction. 'I'll say what I think,' he said.

The businessman Republican is doing poorly in most polls ahead of the November presidential contest against Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who remains shuttered in his Delaware home.

Trump faces criticism for his bruising, divisive style during a time of national calamity. He is also accused by some of botching the early response to the COVID-19 virus.

Worse, the previously booming US economy, which was seen as a golden ticket to his second term, is now in dire straits due to the nationwide lockdown.

With officials saying the viral spread has begun to taper, Trump is itching to return to the campaign trail.

However he faces new criticism that he is trying to declare premature victory, even as the illness continues to kill thousands of Americans every week.

Having repeatedly minimized the death toll, claiming it will end at around 60,000, Trump conceded that now 'we're going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people.'

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany sits in a motorcade van looking at her phone outside the Lincoln Memorial

The hordes of advisers and secret service agents fanned out across the room as they watched Trump fire off attacks on Democrats, blast Chinese secrecy and express optimism for a vaccine by the end of the year

Trump consults with Hicks and Meadows during a commercial break at the Fox News town hall meeting last night

His emphasis, however, was not on the dead, but on resurrecting his image as a can-do leader who can end the skyrocketing unemployment caused by the lockdown.

That audacious shift began Sunday at possibly the most hallowed monument in the country - the statue of Abraham Lincoln, who led the country through civil war, urged reconciliation, and was assassinated in his moment of triumph.

Trump, who calls himself a 'wartime president' denied that the election will turn into a referendum on his handling of the crisis.

But he added: 'I hope it does because we've done a great job.'

In the next few days, Trump will follow up by breaking months of self-quarantine with long-distance trips to the key electoral states of Arizona and Ohio.

It's a play that will emphasize Trump's massive visibility advantage over Biden and, the White House hopes, rewrite the public relations script after gaffes including the president's suggestion that coronavirus patients ingest disinfectant.

Police troop into the Lincoln Memorial, which was crawling with secret service agents ahead of the president's arrival


Like many other parts of the world, countries in Latin America have enforced lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19. These lockdowns, however, have led to an increase in calls for help to abuse hotlines.

In areas like Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; Sao Paulo, Brazil; La Paz, Bolivia and Mexico City, Mexico -- families and individuals often are only permitted out of their homes for emergencies or to shop for necessary items.

The Reuters news agency reported that each year in Latin America, almost 20 million women and girls suffer sexual and physical violence.

During the lockdowns, there have been more reports of abuse in Mexico and Brazil. Other countries, including Chile and Bolivia, have seen a drop in official reports. However, legal experts and activists say this drop was likely not due to a decrease in violence. They say it is because women were less able to seek help or report abuse.

Maria Noel Baeza is the regional director for UN Women, an organization designed to help women. She told Reuters, in a lockdown situation, women are locked up with their own abusers and have very limited outlets, or ways to get help.

Argentina

Another group looking closely at this issue is the Victims Against Violence program in Argentina. This program runs a hotline for women to report abuse. Its founder, Eva Giberti, said that her group is not surprised by the increase in violence.

Gilberti told Reuters that it is a release of violence that was already there in people. She added that under normal social circumstances that had been limited to some degree.

Argentinas national lockdown began on March 20. Argentinas emergency hotline for abuse victims is supported by the countrys justice ministry. That hotline has experienced a 67 percent rise in calls for help in April compared to a year earlier.



Brazil

In Brazil, Sao Paulo state has been hit the hardest by the new coronavirus. An organization called the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety reported a 45 percent increase in March compared to a year earlier in cases of violence against women requiring police assistance.

Colombia

In Colombia, officials report that calls to a national womens hotline were up nearly 130 percent during the first 18 days of the nationwide lockdown. The lockdown has been extended until May 11.

Chile

In Chile, the womens minister said calls to domestic abuse hotlines had increased 70 percent in the first weekend of lockdown. The government has added ways for women to receive counseling and are keeping shelters open for women at-risk.

Evelyn Matthei is the mayor of Providencia, a wealthy area in Santiago. She said calls to a local office providing legal, psychological and social help had increased 500 percent.

Official reports of domestic violence, however, actually decreased in the first half of April in Chile. Matthei said, This probably has to do with the fact that there is violence within the home but that women cannot go out. They dare not go out.

Mexico

In Mexico, official records show that reports to police of domestic violence rose about 25 percent in March against a year earlier.

The director of the Municipal Institute for Women of Veracruz is Blanca Aquino. She told Reuters that since the lockdown, theres been an increase in reports of domestic violence -- many of those psychological violence. Veracruz is the Mexican state with the countrys highest rate of female deaths.

Arussi Unda is with a Mexican feminist organization named Brujas del Mar. She said at first many calls to the group came from neighbors hearing fights in other houses. Now we get many women asking for advice on how to leave the house and take their children, she said.

International concern

The concern over domestic abuse is not limited to Latin America. There is a fear that victims are being silenced in other countries.

Marta Dillon is one of the founders of the Ni Una Menos womens group. She said women around the world are working together to end domestic violence. Dillon told Reuters the groups supporters in Italy, Turkey, and the United States are working toward an international declaration for the group.

Im Anna Matteo.

Reuters reported this story. Anna Matteo adapted this story for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

lockdown  n. the confinement of prisoners to their cells for a temporary period as a security measure

hotline  n. a direct telephone line in constant operational readiness so as to facilitate immediate communication

outlet  n. a way of releasing or expressing a feeling or impulse

circumstance a condition or fact that affects a situation : the way something happens : the specific details of an event : an event or situation that you cannot control

domestic  adj. relating to or involving someone's home or family

dare  v. to have enough courage or confidence to do something : to not be too afraid to do something

municipal  adj. restricted to one locality

feminism  n. the belief that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities : feminist  adj.
Dear shareholder of AS Pro Kapital Grupp,

We announce that the Management Board is calling for the annual general meeting of AS Pro Kapital Grupp (registration code 10278802, located at Sojakooli 11 Tallinn Republic of Estonia) (hereinafter the Company) shareholders which shall take place on Wednesday, 27 of May 2020 at 13.00 at Tallinn Art Space Gallery, on the ground floor of T1 Mall of Tallinn at Peterburi tee 2, Tallinn, the Republic of Estonia (see www.tallinnartspace.com ). Registration of shareholders for the meeting shall take place from 12.45 - 13.00 on the 27 of May 2020 at the location of the meeting.

The reason for calling the annual general meeting is to decide on approval of the annual report for the financial year of 2019, resolution on covering the loss, election and remuneration of the auditor, prolongation of term of two Supervisory Council members, recalling of one and election of one new Council member. The proposal to call the annual general meeting of shareholders was made by the Management Board of the Company.

The agenda of the meeting is as follows:

Election of the Chairman and Secretary of the annual general meeting of shareholders

The Management Boards proposal:

Elect Ilona Nurmela as the Chairman of the annual general meeting of the shareholders. Elect the Secretary of the meeting as per suggestions made at the meeting.

Approval of the audited annual report of the Company for the financial year of 2019

The Company has prepared the annual report for the financial year of 2019. The report has been audited and the audited report has been made available to the shareholders. It is the competency of the shareholders to approve the annual report.

The Councils and Management Boards proposal and draft of the resolution:

Approve the audited annual report of the Company for the financial year of 2019.

Resolution of covering the loss

The Companys net loss for the financial year which ended 31 December 2019 was in the amount of 26 981 682 Euros. As per the commercial code it is the shareholders competency to decide on the allocation of the profit and/or loss.

The Councils and Management Boards proposal and draft of the resolution :

Cover the net loss for the financial year which ended 31 December 2019 in the amount of

26,981,682 Euros with retained earnings of previous periods.

Extending the term of office, recalling and election of the Supervisory Council members

Two Supervisory Council members have been elected until 05 July 2020 and one until 22 May 2020. The independent member of the Companys Supervisory Council, Mr Olkinuora and the Chairman of the Council, Mr Bozzone, have consented to stand for re-election. Mr Ernesto Preatoni does not wish to stand for re-election and his term has ended on 22 May 2020. The Chairman has consulted with the majority shareholders and they have suggested that the presence of a person with legal background on the Council would be beneficial. Thus, the Management Board of the Company is proposing to prolong the term of two existing members and to elect a new third Supervisory Council member as follows:

The Councils and Management Boards proposals and draft resolutions:

4.1. Prolong the term of office of Emanuele Bozzone as a member of the Supervisory Council of the Company for three years until 05 July 2023.

4.2. Prolong the term of office of Petri Altti Sakari Olkinuora as a member of the Supervisory Council of the Company for three years until 05 July 2023.

4.3. Elect Oscar Crameri as a member of the Supervisory Council of the Company from 27 May 2020 until 05 July 2023.

CV data and presentation of the Council Members can be accessed on homepage

www.prokapital.com sub-section the Company.

Principles and sums of remuneration of members of Supervisory Council remains as decided at 20 June 2016 General Meeting of shareholders.

Election of the auditor

In financial year of 2019 AS Deloitte Audit Eesti has provided audit services to the Company in relation to the audit of the annual report. In the opinion of the Council the auditor has performed the services in accordance with the agreement and the Council does not have any objections as to the service provided. The auditor has confirmed as required by the corporate governance recommendations that it has no work, economic or other relations that would threaten its independence while rendering auditing service. In 2019, the Management Board of the Company took offers from different audit companies for audit for the next 2 years. The recommendation of the audit committee and the Council in 2019 was to continue the collaboration with AS Deloitte Audit Eesti as their price offer and quality of work is considered to be in the best proportion.

The Councils and Management Boards proposal and draft of the resolution:

Elect AS Deloitte Audit Eesti as the auditor of the Company for the financial year of 2020.

To approve the principles for remuneration of the auditor as per the agreement to be signed with the auditor. Approve the fee payable to the auditor for the audit of Company and its subsidiaries for the financial year of 2020 in the amount of 58 300 Euros (net of VAT).

According to the Commercial Code  297 section 5 the set of shareholders entitled to take part in the annual general meeting of shareholders shall be determined as at 7 days before holding the general meeting as at the end of the working day of the settlement system of the registrar of the Estonian register of securities or another depository where the shares of a public limited company are entered, which precedes the general meeting, i.e. on 20 May 2020 at end of the working day.

A shareholder has the right to receive information on the activities of the public limited company from the management board at the general meeting. The management board may refuse to give information if there is a basis to presume that this may cause significant damage to the interests of the public limited company. If the management board refuses to give information, the shareholder may demand that the general meeting decide on the legality of the shareholder's request or to file, within two weeks after the general meeting, a petition to a court by way of proceedings on petition in order to obligate the management board to give information.

Shareholders whose shares represent at least 1/20 of the share capital may request adding items to the agenda of the general meeting, if the respective request has been made 15 days before the meeting, i.e. on 12 May 2020 at the latest. They may also submit a draft resolution for each item on the agenda at least 3 days before the meeting, i.e. on 24 May 2020 at the latest. The draft resolution should be submitted in writing to AS Pro Kapital Grupp, Sojakooli 11, Tallinn, 11316.

At the meeting, items previously not on the agenda may be taken onto the agenda if at least 9/10 of participating shareholders approve and their shares represent at least 2/3 of the share capital. A general meeting may decide on calling the next meeting and settle submissions concerning administrative issues related to the agenda or to the procedure for holding the meeting without such matters having to be included on the agenda beforehand, and to discuss other matters without making resolutions.

The shareholder can until 26 May 2020 at 16:00 inform the Company of appointing a representative or of renouncing the power of attorney of the representative, by sending the digitally signed notice to prokapital@prokapital.ee or by sending the written notice to the office of the Company at Sojakooli 11 Tallinn.

The shareholders of the Company can acquaint themselves with the drafts of the resolutions and proposals, the audited annual report of 2019 financial year, the auditor opinion, on the webpage of the Company www.prokapital.com under the sub-section Company, Investor, Shareholders or upon prior request at the location of the Company at Sojakooli 11 Tallinn at an agreed time during the business days from 09:00 until 17:00. If you have any questions in regards to the annual general meeting of shareholders, please contact us by phone + 372 6 144 920 or by email at prokapital@prokapital.ee . Questions and answers related to the agenda of the shareholders meeting shall be published on the website of the Company www.prokapital.com under the section Company, Investor.

Documents needed to participate at the meeting

Natural person shareholders are kindly asked to bring along a valid identification document, representatives are kindly asked to bring along a valid identification document and a valid written power-of-attorney. In the case of shareholders who are legal entities we request you to bring an extract from the relevant register, where that legal person has been registered and a valid identification document of the representative. For persons representing a legal entity under power of attorney we kindly ask to bring in addition of the referred documents also a valid written power of attorney. Each document issued by a foreign countrys official must be either legalized or authenticated with a document certificate apostille and translated into English.

Best regards, Management Board of AS Pro Kapital Grupp




>A burglary and harassment occurred in the 1500 block of Old Columbus Road.

>Unlawful breaking and entering a vehicle and theft occurred in the 300 block of Brookwood Circle.

>First-degree theft of property occurred in the 800 block of Crawford Road.

>Unlawful breaking and entering a vehicle and theft occurred in the 2600 block of Park Street.

>Sergio Javonta Wilkerson, 26, of Decatur, Georgia, was arrested and charged with third-degree burglary and first-degree theft of property.

>Jacandace Shamikia Finley, 20, of Salem, was arrested and charged with driving under the influence.

>Cupertino Ramos, 35, of Opelika, was arrested and charged with driving under the influence.

Lanett Police Department

>Courtney Harris, 38, of Lanett, was arrested and charged with harassment, public intoxication and obstruction of government operations.

>First-degree possession of a forged instrument was reported in the 10 block of Veterans Memorial Parkway.
New Delhi: For the first time perhaps, the auspicious Chithirai festival in Madurai has been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. It is celebrated every year on the Full moon day of the Tamil Month Chithirai, that falls between April-May. The rituals happen at the Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple with much fervour and a huge crowd gathers to watch the celestial wedding of Goddess Meenakshi Amman with Lord Sundareswara (Lord Shiva). It is believed that Lord Vishnu, as Alagar, rode on a golden horse to Madurai to attend the celestial wedding, also called Thirukalyanam.

As the event stands cancelled, it has been decided to live-stream the rituals for the devotees on the temple's official website. Other ceremonies related to the festival  like the processions, coronation have also been cancelled. As per reports, four preists will perform the main puja, which otherwise takes place in a grand manner.

The celestial wedding is part of the two-week-long Chithirai festival. It also marks the celebrations of the coronation of Goddess Meenakshi and also celebrates of the Journey of Lord Alagar from Kallazhagar temple in Alagar Koyil to Madurai.

There are a handful of events which take place during the Chithirai festival, some of which are as follows:

Kodi Yetram: The chief priest of Meenakshi temple hoists the holy flag on the Dwajasthambam.

Pattabisekam: The coronation ceremony in which Goddess Meenakshi is crowned as the queen of Madurai for four months and after that, her husband Lord Sunderaswarar will be crowned as the king of Madurai for the next eight months.

Dikvijayam: After the coronation, Goddess Meenakshi is believed to have went for war and conquered the whole world and she went to Kailash to conquer it. However, when she saw Lord Shiva there, she fell in love with him and married him.

Meenakshi Kalyanam: The wedding celebration of Goddess Meenakshi and Lord Shiva in Madurai.

Chariot Festival: It is performed the day after the celestial wedding. Lord Sunderaswara and Meenakshi come to see their subjects in a well decorated chariot.
Mr. Greg Zanis was a giant among men, Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin said in a statement Monday. He was a man of action who simply wanted to honor the lives of others. In return, his life was one of honor and one that was celebrated throughout our nation and world. Heeding to the Scripture pick up your cross and follow me, Mr. Greg Zanis did just that. He picked up the crosses he made and followed his mission in the noblest of ways. His legacy shall forever be remembered in his hometown of Aurora and around the globe.
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.




The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says it has made an interim remittance of N3.5 billion to the federal governments purse after the conduct of its 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

The board said it had earlier paid N3.5 billion to candidates by reducing N1,500 from the cost of ePINs sold to each candidate as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari. It said this brings its total remittances this year to over N7 billion.

The board also said it will remit more as soon as its operations are concluded and proper audit of its books is completed.

JAMB said this in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, on Sunday night.

He said it had been the intention of the present leadership of the examination body to return to federal coffers, whatever is left unutilised from its operational funds.

The immediate benefit of the move manifested in the reduction by President Muhammadu Buhari of the UTME Registration fee payable by candidates from N5000 to N3500 which entails the transfer of over N3b to candidates and guardians annually via the reduction in the cost of application documents, he said.

According to Mr Benjamin, before the reduction in the cost of application ePINs, the agency had remitted billions of naira in 2017 and replicated same in subsequent years until President Buharis directive to give back to candidates a percentage of the cost of registration.

Trend

JAMB has been remitting consistently to the federal purse since the appointment of Ishaq Oloyede as registrar in August 2016.

Before his appointment, the agency never returned up to one per cent of N7 billion in any year.

The Federal Executive Council, FEC, in September 2016, therefore, ordered a probe into the administration of the past heads of JAMB and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, over what it called poor revenue remittance in the past.

The total amount JAMB remitted to the federal government coffers between 2010 and 2016 was N 50,752,544.

Dibu Ojerinde, a professor who headed JAMB before Mr Oloyede is now being investigated for corruption. PREMIUM TIMES reported how he recently forfeited several properties to the Nigerian government.

In 2017, the agency said it remitted more than N5 billion to government. In 2018, the board remitted N7.8 billion to the federal government.

In 2019, JAMB remitted N5 billion to the federal governments purse after the conduct of its 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

JAMB is responsible for conducting UTME used to gain admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
A former senior North Korean diplomat apologised on Monday after saying leader Kim Jong-un was likely so ill he could not stand, days before he emerged in state media chain-smoking and walking briskly at an event attended by hundreds of officials.

The North Korean leader disappeared from state media for three weeks, an unusually long time, sparking a flurry of speculation about his health and whereabouts, and worry about prospects for the nuclear-armed state in the event of an unexpected succession.

But on Saturday, North Korean media published photographs and video of Jong-un at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the inauguration of a fertiliser plant.

His re-emergence came as a blow to the credibility of some high-profile defectors from the North who had speculated that Jong-un was suffering from a grave illness or could even be dead.

One of the defectors, Thae Yong-ho, was North Koreas deputy ambassador to Britain, where he managed secret funds for Jong-un. Mr Yong-ho fled to South Korea in 2016 and was one of a pair of defectors elected to parliament last month.

I am aware that one of the reasons why many of you voted for me as a lawmaker is with the expectations of an accurate analysis and projections on North Korean issues, Mr Yong-ho said in a statement. I feel the blame and heavy responsibility.

Whatever the reasons, I apologise to everyone.

The other prominent defector elected to parliament, Ji Seong-ho, had said in a media interview he was 99 per cent certain that Kim had died after cardiovascular surgery and an official announcement would come as soon as Saturday.

Daily NK, a Seoul-based news outlet with sources inside North Korea, reported in April that Kim was recovering from a cardiovascular procedure.

Mr Seong-ho, who was invited to attend Donald Trumps State of the Union address in 2018, did not respond to a request for comment but issued a statement to apologise.

I have pondered on myself for the past few days, and felt the weight of the position that Im in, Mr Seong-ho said.

As a public figure, I will behave carefully going forward.

Mr Seong-ho had told Reuters on Friday he had received information about Kims death from a source he could not disclose.

South Koreas ruling Democratic Party criticised the pair for carelessness and said their mistake could do more serious harm than just misinforming the public.

North Koreas supreme leader had not been seen for weeks until he was reportedly spotted on 2 May (Getty)

One party member urged them to be excluded from the intelligence and defence committees, while another said the defectors contributed little to South Korean society.

A group of activists lodged a complaint with prosecutors accusing Mr Yong-ho, Mr Seong-ho and the main opposition party chief of spreading false information.

Mr Seong-hos party acknowledged he had made rash, careless remarks but criticised the ruling party for undermining the two and instigating hatred towards them.

The blunders highlight the difficulty of getting reliable information on secretive North Korea.

Mr Yong-ho wrote in his memoir that when former leader Kim Jong II died in 2011, even the foreign minister had no idea until ministry staff were called to watch a state media announcement.

North Korea has for decades kept tight control on information, and the health and whereabouts of its leader are top secrets shared only with a handful of most trusted aides, said Cho Tae-yong, a former South Korean national security adviser.

Its an issue that even top government agencies cannot know unless they have a Deep Throat type of source among those aides, said Mr Tae-yong, who was also elected to parliament as a member of Mr Seong-hos party.

The South Korea government, which had urged caution on speculation about Kims health and said it saw no sign anything serious had happened, gathers intelligence from various sources including US spy agencies and satellite imagery, said Kim Hong-kyun, a former South Korean nuclear envoy.

Its effectively impossible for the defectors to verify the truth, though they can be helpful in cross-checking how the organisation they previously belonged to would operate in such a contingency, Mr Hong-kyun said.

In any case, theres no 99 per cent certainty, and you never give numbers no matter how reliable your information seems.

Reuters
Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City announced on Sunday that all international arrivals will be screened for novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) four times during their mandatory 14-day quarantine.

The tests will be conducted on the first, fifth, tenth, and 14th days of the isolation period, according to the municipal Center for Disease Control.

Previous regulations required people to be screened for COVID-19 on the first and final days of their quarantine period.

The decision came after Vietnams 271st COVID-19 patient was confirmed in the southern metropolis on Sunday.

The patient, a British man, was among a team of 13 experts who arrived in Vietnam on April 28 via a charter flight. They were part of an economic project in the Southeast Asian country.

All of them were brought to a quarantine camp and tested negative for the novel coronavirus on the same day.

On May 2, the Briton tested positive while results of the other 12 experts were still negative.

A probe later revealed that the patient had previously tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the UK on April 7.

He did not receive any treatment and only underwent home quarantine.

On April 21, he tested negative for the virus and was granted a certificate, which made him eligible to enter Vietnam on April 28.

The patient currently does not show any symptom of COVID-19, namely a fever, cough, and sore throat.

He is being treated at the makeshift hospital for COVID-19 treatment in Cu Chi District.

The novel coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has infected over 3.58 million people and killed more than 248,500 globally, according to Ministry of Health statistics.

The national tally stands at 271, with 220 having made a recovery and no fatality as of Monday afternoon.

Patient No. 271 was the first case recorded in the country in more than a week.

A total of 14 relapses have been confirmed in Vietnam, with two having recovered following their second treatment.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Rotunda Rumblings

Back in business: Todays the day that construction, manufacturing, distribution and office workers are allowed to come back to work under Gov. Mike DeWines new Stay Safe Ohio order. The new order expires May 29, but as cleveland.coms Laura Johnston reports, that doesnt necessarily mean well have to stay home on Memorial Day weekend. You can read the full order here.

Group project: DeWine said he has created at least 11 working groups to devise plans for reopening other sectors of Ohios economy, from restaurants to professional sports. As cleveland.coms Jeremy Pelzer reports, the governor said the groups will act fairly quickly to devise a list of best practices for each sector, after which he will set a date for reopening.

Reporting from the scene: Columbus NBC4 reporter Adrienne Robbins was trying to cover the coronavirus protesters gathered at the Ohio Statehouse last week when one began accosting her -- apparently upset about media coverage of COVID-19. In the commotion, Robbins broke her glasses. Cleveland.coms Laura Hancock captured part of the encounter on video.

Not staying at home: A small group of protesters showed up Saturday on the sidewalk outside the home of Dr. Amy Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Health, cleveland.coms Eric Heisig reports. In response on Sunday, about 35 doctors and other health care workers stood silently on the Statehouse grounds, at least six feet apart from one another, in a show of support for Acton, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

Where the buck stops: DeWine and Acton were asked about criticism from protesters and others during the governors Friday briefing, Hancock reports. DeWine said he understands peoples frustrations, but the buck stops with him, and criticism should be directed his way, not Actons. Acton called herself an ordinary person who ended up in an extraordinary time in history, by the side of someone who I think is one of the most extraordinary leaders the state will ever see.

Wheels up: DeWine said Friday hes been in contact with the White House about a potential visit from President Donald Trump, cleveland.coms Seth Richardson reports. No other details were available, but a Trump visit to the state  coupled with cover from one of the nations most popular governors right now  could give the president cover and help him with his falling popularity.

The latest numbers: By Sunday, Ohio had 19,914 cases of the coronavirus, with 1,038 deaths, cleveland.coms Jane Morice reports.

Is COVID-19 an urban thing? Coronavirus cases reported in Ohio are nearly three times more likely in the urban centers than in the rural areas, cleveland.coms Rich Exner found. Through late last week, COVID-19 cases totaled 158.9 per 100,000 people in the six largest counties combined, yet just 56.4 per 100,000 in the 39 counties with populations under 50,000. In calculating these totals, cases for state prison inmates, which have caused unusually high overall case counts in Marion and Pickaway counties, were excluded.

This is a test: It will be interesting to watch this week how (or if) Ohios coronavirus reported case numbers increase as more testing comes online, as promised by the governor. The states running total of tests increased 6,577 on Friday from the day before, up from an increase of 4,270 on the same day a week earlier, Exner reports as part of his regular dive into the data behind coronavirus in Ohio. Exner also has a county-by-county breakdown of the number of reported coronavirus cases from the first three confirmed March 9 through the 18,743 reported on Friday.

Brown wants child care bailout: Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown has joined Democratic colleagues in a letter that asks Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to include a $50 billion child care bailout in upcoming legislation to help the nation recover from the coronavirus pandemic, writes cleveland.coms Sabrina Eaton. It said the pandemic has created a dire situation for child care providers whose businesses have seen an enormous drop in revenue, almost overnight.

Pension help: Brown and Toledo Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur told Eaton they want the next coronavirus aid package to include money to shore up failing multi-employer pension systems, such as the Teamsters Central States Fund, that serve an estimated 60,000 Ohioans. Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would create a new Treasury Department office to issue long term bonds and loan the money to the pension plans, but the Senate hasnt acted.

November preview: Shortly after GOP voters picked former state legislator Christina Hagan of Alliance to oppose Niles-area Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in November, the incumbent previewed his lines of attack in a phone call with reporters. He called Hagan anti-worker for backing a 2011 measure that voters repealed which would have curtailed collective bargaining rights for public employees, and anti-vaccination for sponsoring a bill that would have barred employers from taking action against employees who dont get flu shots. Shes going to have to defend that record and she doesnt live in the district, Ryan continued. She tried to run in a couple of other races, she lost, and were gonna have a good time.

Full Disclosure

Five things we learned from the Feb. 18 financial disclosure form of state Rep. Adam Miller, a Marble Cliff Democrat.

1. Aside from his legislative salary, Miller reported earning $10,000 to $24,999 from the U.S. Army Reserves and $100,000 or more from Taft Law.

2. Miller reported a fiduciary relationship as president of the Hilltop Kiwanis Club.

3. Miller reported retirement funds with NBC Securities, Great West Financial and Federal Thrift Savings Plan.

4. At some point in 2019, Miller owed $1,000 or more on a Citibank Government Travel Card and a PenFed Credit Union VISA card.

5. AMVETS Department of Ohio gave Miller a legislative award worth $132.95 and breakfast at the awards ceremony worth $24.

Birthdays

John Fortney, Ohio Senate Republicans press secretary/senior communications adviser

Thomas Horan, legislative aide to state Rep. Jessica Miranda

Straight From The Source

She has tunnel vision, and thats appropriate. Her job is director of the Department of Health, so shes looking at this through the lens of what is optimal for public health. But I think she is not sufficiently cognizant about the damage this has done to our economy."

-Ohio House Majority Leader Bill Seitz on the Thats So Cincinnati podcast from the Cincinnati Enquirer. Seitz said during the interview he wants bars and restaurants reopened by mid May.

Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. If you do not already subscribe, you can sign up here to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free.
George Conway's political action committee released an advertisement Monday demonizing Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic and questioning the vitality of America as a nation if the president is reelected.

'There's mourning in American. And under the leadership of Donald Trump our country is weaker and sicker and poorer,' the minute-long ad asserts.

'And now Americans are asking: If we have another four years like this, will there even be an America?' the narrator questions in his conclusion.

The Lincoln Project is an anti-Trump PAC led by Conway, a lawyer who is married to the president's White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway.

'There's mourning in America,' the ad reiterated, then goes on to blame Trump for the poor economic downturn due to the coronavirus outbreak. 'Today more than 600,000 Americans have died from a deadly virus Donald Trump ignored.'

'Trump bailed out Wall Street, but not Main Street,' it asserted. 'This afternoon, millions of Americans will apply for unemployment, and with their saving run out, many are giving up hope. Millions worried a loved one won't survive COVID-19.'

George Conway released an ad Monday blaming the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic downturn as a result of Donald Trump's response to the outbreak in the U.S.

'Americans are asking: If we have another four years like this, will there even be an America?' the ad, titled Mourning in American, concludes

The ad includes several desolate images of the struggling U.S. economy, including empty roads and shut down factories

In a statement released Monday, the group said the ad is a play on Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign ad titled Morning in America, where he highlighted the positive impact of his first term.

''Morning' highlighted the positive impact of a first term Reagan presidency and presented an optimistic vision of an America that was prosperous and peaceful. Under Donald Trump, we instead face 'Mourning in America,'' the Lincoln Project wrote of the ad.

Jennifer Horn, the co-founder of The Lincoln Project, said the goal of the PAC ad is to highlight Trump's failures as president, specifically during a time of crisis.

'Americans are not only mourning the loss of each other, they are mourning the loss of their routine, families, and livelihoods. Trump and his administration failed at every turn to take the response to COVID-19 seriously until it was too late; now we face a collective mourning for the America we once knew,' Horn said in a statement.

Trump has often lauded his administration's response, especially his decision to close down travel from China early on in the outbreak.

He declared a national emergency on March 13, which critics claim was too late.

Conway, a former Republican who turned independent in 2018, is a vocal and public Trump critic  even though his wife works closely as one of the president's closest advisers.

Conway helped start The Lincoln Project in December 2019 with other anti-Trump Republicans to derail his reelection efforts while remaining true to their conservatives roots and values.

The new ad comes as Trump's reelection campaign has launched its own national advertising blitz after internal polling showed the president slipping in some battleground states.

The ad campaign is aimed at praising the president for his response to the coronavirus outbreak  and reports indicate a second wave of ads will come soon attacking his presumed Democratic contender Joe Biden.
KAMPALA  Cabinet is set to meet today, Monday, May 4, 2020 to determine whether the lockdown over coronavirus will be extended.

At the weekend, the National Taskforce on Covid-19 advised President Museveni that the 21-day lockdown extension, which is due to end on Tuesday, May 5, 2020, be extended by another two weeks to allow conclusion of the community testing survey launched last week.

The survey, which is being conducted in selected districts considered most at risk of acquiring coronavirus, seeks to determine whether the deadly disease has spread to communities. So far, two people, a police officer from Masindi District in Bunyoro sub region, and a refugee in Rakai District, have been found positive of coronavirus from the survey.

Despite this recommendation, Cabinet is expected to ease the current lockdown measures to allow more businesses and offices to reopen but under strict guidelines.

However, Churches, schools and other social gatherings such as big weddings are expected to remain banned.

A taskforce member, who preferred anonymity because Cabinet meetings and discussions are confidential told this website on Monday morning that the ministers and the President are cognizant of the impact of maintaining the current lockdown on ordinary Ugandans economically.

Many Ugandans have lost jobs while those with businesses are starving in their homes.

Following the Cabinet meeting, the President will address the country on the next measures.

I will address the country tonight at 8pm, guiding on the way forward as the 21-day lockdown extension comes to a close tomorrow. I urge you all to continue observing the guidelines from our health experts as the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic continues, Mr Museveni posted on his social media pages on Monday morning.

Related

Continue Reading
She became a stay-at-home mom, and he stopped doing any housework and parenting because "that's what stay-at-home mothers do, all the house and kid stuff."
LONDON, May 3 (Reuters) - Facing questions over why Britain's death toll from the new coronavirus was now the second-worst in Europe after Italy, a British minister said on Sunday people should not jump to conclusions and the full picture was not yet clear.

The death toll was 28,131 as of May 1, just short of the Italian total, increasing pressure on the conservative government which has been accused by the opposition of having acted too slowly in the early stages of the outbreak.

Ministers have rejected comparisons of the headline death toll with that of other countries, saying that excess mortality -- the number of deaths from all causes that exceed the average for the time of year -- was a more meaningful metric.

The most recent available data showed there were almost 12,000 excess deaths in England and Wales in the week to April 17. Of these, just under 9,000 were linked on the death certificates to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Analysis by media including Sky News and the Financial Times suggests those figures are worse than in other European countries.

Appearing on Sky News on Sunday, transport minister Grant Shapps rejected a suggestion that the evidence on excess mortality showed the government's response to the outbreak had failed.

"You need to look at that over a much longer period of time. So we'll have to look back over a year I'm afraid, not to be evasive but we just won't have that information," Shapps said. "It's much more complex than you're making it sound."

He said some impacts of the outbreak would not be known for a long time and that differences in the age and health profiles of nations, as well as population size and density, were among many factors that would have to be taken into account.

"You have to look at the whole picture and that information simply isn't available as yet," he said. "We shouldn't look at the raw data and jump to conclusions."

Story continues

COMPARISONS "UNBELIEVABLY DIFFICULT"

The UK National Statistician, Ian Diamond, also cautioned against relying on any "league table" of worst-affected countries.

"I'm not saying that we're at the bottom of any potential league table, it's almost impossible to calculate a league table, but I'm not prepared to say that we're heading for the top," he said during an interview on BBC News.

Diamond, the head of the Office of National Statistics (ONS) which collates excess deaths numbers, said it was "unbelievably difficult" to make international comparisons.

He said the way Britain was counting and reporting its coronavirus-related deaths was the most transparent, because the ONS was including deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate even if the person had not been tested.

In some other countries, only people who had tested positive for the new coronavirus before they died are included in the official statistics. (Reporting by Estelle Shirbon, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Everything I know  from empathy to the principles of making money  I learned by following in the footsteps of my late father, Ted Cohen. We spoke for hours every day. He was, and always will be, my best friend, advisor and biggest advocate. A successful glassware importer with an impeccable work ethic, my father never missed a day on the job. If he were here today, hed be worried about the millions of unemployed and struggling businesses across the country. The warehouse workers, drivers, construction workers and small-business owners  those are the people he respected most. Looking back on his life and influence, the following five principles he showed me were critical to my success building Chewy.com and investing.

Related: Why Millions of Americans Are Struggling to File for Unemployment Benefits, When They've Never Been More Generous

Watch your expenses

Disciplined capital allocation is one of the most important skills for running a successful business. Thanks to my father, I had the privilege of learning this firsthand. He kept track of every expense his power bills, daily gasoline prices that impacted transportation costs, the individual prices of hundreds of glassware products that he sold. My father also kept tabs on Chewys metrics. He memorized the key performance indicators in both of our businesses.

Related: This Startup Got Bought in Reportedly Biggest Ecommerce Deal Ever

At Chewy, we had maniacal discipline when it came to how we spent money. The company-wide culture of frugality came from his example. Free cash flow was our unwavering governor of growth. We grew Chewy from $200 million in sales in 2013 to $3.5 billion in 2018 while spending only $130 million in capital, all of which went into opening distribution centers across the country and acquiring new customers.

Delight your customers

My father always repeated this quote from his own father: If you take a carload of this (pointing to a pallet of glassware) youll make more money. But if you take a carload of that (pointing to a different pallet), youll make less money, but youll keep the customer. So, take a carload of that.

Related: Getting Into Subscription Ecommerce? Don't Try to Be Amazon

When we started Chewy in 2011, selling pet food online wasnt a novel idea. The field was crowded with competitors, including Amazon. But our mission was to delight customers in a more personal way. We believed combining the experience of the neighborhood pet store with the convenience of shopping online was a key differentiator. The focus was fast shipping, competitive pricing and providing customers with a hyper-specialized experience. My father showed me how building lifelong relationships with customers was far more valuable than optimizing for short-term profits.

Be the person others want to follow

My father led by example, but not in a deliberate way. Its who he was. He never patronized anyone. He admired the blue-collar worker. I watched him roll up his sleeves and help his employees move shipments of glassware from trucks into the warehouse, then put his suit jacket back on, shirt drenched in sweat, and do administrative work. Ive never seen anyone work harder.

Related: 6 Ways to Handle Rapid Growth

I was fortunate to find employees at Chewy who worked relentlessly to grow the company from a three-person operation to a household brand with more than 10,000 employees. We didnt disrupt the pet industry by accident. Our team made huge sacrifices. We opened our first fulfillment center in early 2014, and everything from the warehouse management system to the Wi-Fi would constantly break down. The team worked 16-hour days for weeks until our supply chain was humming. Everyone from the fulfillment staff to the directors and executives were committed to Chewys success. You dont get that level of dedication by leading through fear. My father always said, You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.

Take the long view

My father was never looking to make a quick buck. He had no interest in material possessions. Every year, through thick and thin, he invested his savings into the stock market. He believed the real money was made through time in the market, not timing the market. When I was 13, he gave me a chart comparing real estate to stock market returns since the 1920s. Real estate annualized returns were around 4 percent, and the stock market was around 9 percent. It didnt take long for me to figure out which I preferred. Ive been investing ever since. My father never invested in any fancy funds or paid management fees. He bought blue chip companies and held them forever. His 20-year annualized stock returns were over 10 percent. He never borrowed money or paid interest.

As we scaled Chewy, many advised us to slow down and raise prices. We disagreed. Key to our success was obsessing over customers and market leadership. Over the long term, customers and profits intersect.

Trust yourself

Entrepreneurs dont operate with a handbook. My father taught me how to be independent and trust my own moral compass. He encouraged me to separate myself from the herd and think critically. When I told him I had no desire to go to college, he shrugged. Whether he agreed with my decisions or not, he supported me unconditionally. Letting me make my own decisions sowed the seeds for me to become an entrepreneur. The confidence to never compromise my vision of building Chewy into the largest pet retailer came from knowing if I failed, he would always love me.

For 45 years, he was the first employee to open his office and last one to leave. He showed me how perseverance and discipline ultimately pay off. Not only was his work ethic unmatched, so was his commitment to family. He gave me unconditional love and showed me how to be a father. Above all, he taught me that the best decisions come from heart, instincts and empathy.

Dad, I will forever be grateful.

Related: 9 Big Brands That Are Headquartered Where You Least Expect

Related:

Super 70s Sports: How a College Professor Turned His Hilarious Hobby Into a Social Media Business

All Success Stories Start With One Step

How COVID-19 Sparked Innovative Entrepreneurship on the Pan-European Scale



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas has the unenviable task of steering the states finances  and a $100 billion infrastructure pipeline  during a pandemic. But hes not doing it alone.

In late April, the Treasurer called on the states investment advisory body to discuss the impact of the coronavirus across the state and business. The apparently lengthy meeting brought in a panel including IFM Investors chairman Greg Combet, Australian Sports Commission chairman John Wylie, Starpharma chief executive Jackie Fairley and Monash University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner.

Treasury sources are keeping schtum about whether the panel discussed the $500 million the Victorian government had put on the table for Virgin Australia to relocate its headquarters to Melbourne and Avalon airports. This is of mostly historical interest given the government has apparently gone cold on the proposition. But we digress. The Treasurer has used other business types as sounding boards. Infrastructure expert Rod Eddington is also part of Pallas brains trust, according to Treasury sources, as is Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss Paul Guerra.

There have also been talks with all big four bank bosses  CBAs Matt Comyn, Westpacs Peter King, ANZs Shayne Elliott and NABs Ross McEwan. It was only in March that NAB and ANZ offered up a much-needed loan facility to the AFL. Pallas was probably pleased, given it was his Victorian Treasury officials who had told AFL commissioners to try their luck in the open market for cash before tapping the government for a lifeline.

VERY OFFICIAL BUSINESS
As the country mourns its five bravehearts who were martyred in a firefight with terrorists in Kashmirs Handwara, senior BJP leader and former union minister Shanta Kumar said Pakistan didnt understand the language of peace and the rogue nation needed to be taught a tough lesson through war.

Pakistan has crossed all limits. While the world fights Covid-19 pandemic, Pakistan is violating the ceasefire and orchestrating terror attacks in India. Our neighbour is not only a fool but has gone insane, said Shanta.

Now, there shall be no talks. India teaches its neighbour a tough lesson, he said adding that the country lost 9,000 soldiers in three wars with its neighbour and scores of soldiers and civilians were killed due to terrorist activities.

The veteran leader said the nation was once again shaken by the martyrdom of the five bravehearts who sacrificed themselves in Kashmir.

Till when we will continue to pay tributes to our martyrs and make false promises to their families of avenging the deaths, the former minister asked.

India should not tolerate anymore. Pakistan has tested our patience enough and now let there be a Mahabharat, he added.
The court made a decision to arrest Yanukovych on the case of usurpation of power

Open source

In Kyiv, a court made a decision on arrest in absentia of fugitive former president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych for two months as lawyer of the ex-president Vitaliy Serdyuk reported.

The issue is about the case of usurpation of power. The defense intends to appeal.

Serdyuk believes that the decision on the choice of the restrictive measure for Viktor Yanukovych in case of amendment of the Constitution of Ukraine is based on the material fabricated by the prosecutors office and it is illegal.

On May 13, Viktor Yanukovych is summoned for questioning due to non-appearance as the State Bureau of Investigation reported.

Due to the non-appearance on April 30, 2020, in accordance with the demands of the Criminal Procedural Code, we summon Viktor F. Yanukovych born on July 7, 1950, repeatedly at 15:00, May 13, 2020, to the prosecutor of the third unit of the Department on the investigation of criminal offenses committed by the military, Chief investigative department of the State Bureau Investigation A.A. Berest to obtain procedural status and holding ff proper investigative and procedural actions at the criminal proceeding #62019000000000046, the message said.

According to the State register of trial decision, such a criminal proceeding was opened on February 2, 2019, dye to state treason and complicity.

The court found Yanukovych guilty of addressing the Russian President Putin and asking him to deploy troops in Ukraine.

Besides, the court sentenced Yanukovych to 13 years of the detention for the state treason and complicity in the holding of the aggressive war against Ukraine by the Russian Federation.

Yanukovych was charged with state treason, assistance in deliberate actions against Ukraines state border, sovereignty, and territorial integrity and assistance in leading the aggressive war against Ukraine.
The Houston County Commission met Monday in a special session to adopt a resolution continuing suspension of in-person transactions.

Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}}

All in-person proceeds at all public buildings owned or leased by and under the control of the Houston County Commission are suspended until May 15, except as required by law or provided for under Administrative Order of the Supreme Court of Alabama.

According to Houston County Commission Chairman Mark Culver, the directive is effective beginning May 4 and will be reviewed as situations change. Houston County residents are encouraged to transact county business online and by mail.

We are committed to continuing our service to the public and with that, our law enforcement, garbage pick-up, and other essential services remain the same, Culver said. The most important thing is everyone in the community does their part to stay informed, stay calm, and to recognize that we all have responsibility to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
25 years ago: 104 killed in South African mine disaster

South African miners at work

On May 10, 1994, 104 miners were killed in the Vaal Reefs gold mine in Orkney, one of South Africas largest gold mines. The elevator bringing the miners to the surface of the mile-deep mine was crushed by an underground train which had fallen down the shaft. The two-story elevator at Vaal Reefs was compressed into one by the force of the collision. The majority of the miners killed were immigrants from Mozambique, Lesotho and Botswana.

Both Anglo-American, the huge mining conglomerate which owned the Vaal Reefs Mine southwest of Johannesburg, and South African government officials sought to blame negligence by the underground train driver for the disaster.

Energy and Mineral Affairs Minister Roelof Botha, one of the holdovers from apartheid rule in Nelson Mandelas cabinet, said: It is clear in this accident that the human factor must have played a role. Seeking to place blame on the driver, the statement continued: The locomotive could not have moved as it did had it been properly controlled  The driver is alive so he must have either jumped out of the locomotive or in any event was not in it.

Mining was South Africas largest industry and gold the most profitable product. The Vaal Reefs mine was at that time the countrys second largest, with $845 million in output the previous year. The Mandela government reneged on promises of the nationalization of gold and diamond mines, leaving companies like Anglo-American free to coin profits out of low-paid mine workers.

Between 1909 and 1994, 69,000 miners had been killed and a further 1 million injured in South Africa. The Vaal Reef disaster followed by a little more than a decade the September 1983 methane explosion at Hlobane Colliery, which killed 64 miners, and by two years the May 1993, disaster in the Middelbult coal mine in Secunda, southwest of Johannesburg, which took 53 miners lives.

50 years ago: US trade union leaders organize hard-hat riot attack on antiwar students

Peter J. Brennan's portrait as US Secretary of Labor

On May 8, 1970, about 200 right-wing workers and union officials attacked a group of about 1,000 high school and college students who had gathered at New York City Hall to protest the expansion of the Vietnam war into Cambodia and the killing of four students at Kent State University by the National Guard.

The student-led antiwar demonstrations began on the morning of a Friday workday with students demanding an end to the war and to all military-related research on university campuses. Around noon, construction workers wearing hard hats and carrying American flags arrived and began attacking the students with clubs. The police, who were aware ahead of time that the counter-demonstrations would take place, were on the scene but allowed the students to be beaten without interfering.

The mob would eventually storm city hall and force the raising of the flag, that had been lowered to half-mast in the wake of the Kent State killings, to be returned to full height. By the time the riot concluded, over 70 students were injured and required hospital treatment. Only six arrests were made.

The Hard Hat Riot as the event became known, was carried out under the influence of the Peter J. Brennan, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. Brennan was a political crony of Nixon and would be selected to serve as his secretary of labor in 1973.

Nixon and his allies like Brennan hoped that by mobilizing some of the more backward and reactionary elements in the unions, handpicked by the bureaucrats, students could be intimidated from agitating among workers. Behind this was a more crucial aimto separate, to the extent possible, a mounting strike wave by workers from taking on a consciously antiwar and anti-capitalist political character.

The Workers League, the American predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party, sought to clarify the issue to the workers and students in an open letter published in The Bulletin. The statement declared, The hundreds of workers who demonstrated in open support of Nixon and Agnew, the Vietnam War, and the establishment were, whether they know it or not, coming out for their bitter enemies and for cutting their own throats.

As news of the attack spread, students and anti-war workers expressed an even deeper desire to protest against the war. May 8th saw massive demonstrations in Washington D.C. of over 100,000, and 150,000 turned out in San Francisco the same day. The National Guard was called out against students on 21 different campuses across the country.

75 years ago: Nazi Germany defeated as Red Army takes Berlin

The Brandenburg Gate in the ruins of Berlin, June, 1945

On May 8, 1945, senior German military commanders representing the three branches of the German armed forces signed a formal instrument of surrender in Berlin, in front of Soviet, British, US and French military and civilian officials. The defeat of the Nazi Third Reich heralded the end of the Second World War in Europe.

The surrender followed the seizure of Berlin by the Soviet Red Army. The battle for the German capital had involved two weeks of brutal close-quarters combat, as Soviet troops fought to oust Nazi troops from fortified positions throughout the city.

German dictator Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30 after being told the defense was hopeless. On May 2, the citys main garrison surrendered. Contingents of some military divisions continued to fight until May 8 in the west, northwest and southwest of Berlin. At the end of the battle, large sections of the city lay in waste after the massive use of artillery shells and aerial bombardment. British and American planes had dropped an estimated 75,000 tons of bombs on the city.

The May 8 signing followed a similar ceremony at Reims in northern France the day before, at which General Alfred Jodl, the chief of operations staff of Germanys armed forces, had signed an unconditional surrender. The event, taking place at a residence of Allied US commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, was seen by elements of the Red Army as an attempt to downplay the central role that the Soviet Union had played in the victory. This, combined with the fact that only two of the three branches of the German military were represented in Reims, further necessitated the Berlin signing.

In early June, the Allies would issue a declaration formally dissolving all civilian governmental authorities throughout Germany. Over the ensuing weeks and months, the Stalinist Soviet bureaucracy worked closely with the capitalist Allied governments to prevent mass anti-fascist sentiment throughout the continent from developing into a revolutionary socialist struggle against the profit system.

100 years ago: Sacco and Vanzetti arrested in Massachusetts

Nicola Sacco (left) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (right)

On May 5, 1920, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrant workers and anarchists, were arrested in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, accused of the April 15 armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Companys payroll boxes in Braintree, south of Boston, and the murders of paymaster Frederick Parmenter and security guard Alessandro Berardelli.

The two men were apprehended by Bridgewater police after they accompanied a suspect in the crime, Mario Buda, also an anarchist, to a garage where a car that police suspected was used in the crime was being repaired.

Their arrest and subsequent trial would lead to one of the greatest labor defense cases of the 20th century, which was to spark mass protest in the US and throughout the world.

The United States in 1920, along with much of the rest of the world, was in a ferment of working-class militancy. The Russian Revolution of 1917 had sparked revolutions in Germany and Hungary and awakened anti-colonial movements in India, the Middle East, and in East Asia. In 1920, the young Soviet regime in Russia had defeated invasions by imperialist armies and had beaten the counter-revolutionary forces seeking to reestablish capitalism.

The steel and coal industries in the US had seen hundreds of thousands of workers out on strike. Workers had engaged in general strikes in Seattle and Winnipeg. In 1919 a Communist Party had been founded in the United States, and the Communist International in Moscow began to prepare the working class for world revolution.

Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested as a part of a vicious anti-anarchist and anti-socialist wave of persecutions, known as Americas first Red Scare, that the US government had begun in 1919 in response to the development of working-class struggle. In previous months, the Bureau of Investigation, led by J. Edgar Hoover, had arrested thousands of foreign-born socialists, Communists and anarchists, raided socialist meetings and deported hundreds.

Sacco and Vanzetti were to go on trial in September, shortly after a bomb on Wall Street had killed 30 people.

James P. Cannon, the future founder of the American Trotskyist movement, who was to lead the defense campaign on behalf of the International Labor Defense, developed by the Communist Party, outlined the class character of the movement against the frame-up at a speech in Chicago in 1927:

The protection of Sacco and Vanzetti is the job of the working class of the world, which is knocking on the door, not with the hands of irresponsible individuals, but with the titanic fist of the workers of the wide world because they believe  that the real aim is not only to burn Sacco and Vanzetti in the electric chair but to burn the labor movement in America.
Congress Refuses Rapid Coronavirus Testing Offer From Trump Administration

Sputnik News

04:07 GMT 03.05.2020(updated 04:19 GMT 03.05.2020)

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have rejected an offer of the Trump administration to carry out rapid COVID-19 testing in Congress.

On Saturday, Pelosi and McConnell said in a joint statement that Congress wanted rapid coronavirus testing to be used where it is most needed and not on Capitol Hill.

"Congress is grateful for the Administration's generous offer to deploy rapid COVID-19 testing capabilities to Capitol Hill, but we respectfully decline the offer at this time", the statement says, adding that "Congress wants to keep directing resources to the front-line facilities where they can do the most good the most quickly".

According to the statement, Congress will rely on the testing and safety guidelines of the Office of the Attending Physician until "speedier technologies" become more widely available.

"No reason to turn it down, except politics. We have plenty of testing. Maybe you need a new Doctor over there. Crazy Nancy will use it as an excuse not to show up to work!" US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter later on Saturday.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday that US House lawmakers would not return to the nation's capital next week, but the US Senate does plan to reconvene on Monday.

According to Us Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, there are nearly 1.1 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, including more than 64,200 deaths from COVID-19. In the District of Columbia, over 4,600 cases have been confirmed. The United States remains the country with the largest number of cases and the highest death toll.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Three more people have died of coronavirus, Washington and Warren counties Public Health services said Sunday.

In Warren County, two died: a resident of a nursing home and a resident of an assisted living facility. Another person died in Washington County, but the county health officials do not release that type of detail about coronavirus deaths.

Eight people in total have now died of the virus in Washington County, and 17 people have died in Warren County.

In Warren County, 11 of those who passed away lived in nursing homes, four resided in assisted living, and two lived at home.

But in good news, at least seven people who live in nursing homes or assisted living facilities have fully recovered.

In new data provided by Warren County, among those who tested positive were 91 nursing homes residents, 11 assisted living residents and 79 people who lived in the community. Of those 181 people, 84 people have fully recovered, 80 are still ill, and 17 have died.

Also on Sunday:

Warren County reported three more cases, for a total of 181 people who have tested positive. Four people are hospitalized, all in critical condition, and three others are in critical condition in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Washington County reported six more cases, for a total of 165 people who have tested positive. County officials also reported that 74 people have recovered, and 83 people are still ill.

Saratoga County reported three more cases, for a total of 361 people who have tested positive. Eleven people are hospitalized.

Essex County reported no change in cases, for a total of 48, with no hospitalizations. Next week, Essex County will start reporting recoveries by town.

Local hospitals did not report their daily patient load on the weekend.

Statewide, 9,786 people are hospitalized, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at Sundays press conference.

Below 10,000, which is a big deal for us, he said, noting that its been more than six weeks since the number of patients was that low.

Hospitals also reported 789 new coronavirus patients Saturday, which is lower than normal, but Cuomo said that could be a reporting anomaly.

We were hovering at 900, 1,000, he said.

On Saturday, 280 people died, including 28 nursing homes residents. Cuomo called the continued losses tremendously distressing.

He is now starting to plan for a possible second wave in the fall.

Every hospital will be required to acquire their own stockpile of masks and other protective equipment, he said. By fall, they will have to have a 90-day supply at the rate of usage seen during the pandemic.

We cant go through this day-to-day, moving masks all over the state, this mad scramble every day, he said of the states effort to rush masks to hospitals daily for weeks.

In addition, the state is creating a purchasing consortium with six other states, to buy $5 billion worth of protective equipment. He is hoping that would lead to better prices.

In the meantime, he told everyone to keep wearing masks and staying at least six feet apart.

Act responsibly. Wear a mask, he said. Wear a mask and socially distance. That is your social responsibility in this pandemic.

He added that it was disrespectful to health care workers to not wear a mask, because it could lead to unknowingly spreading the virus.

You know how you show love? Wear a mask, he said.

You can reach Kathleen Moore at 742-3247 or kmoore@poststar.com. Follow her on Twitter @ByKathleenMoore or at her blog on www.poststar.com.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The lockdown may have started with news reports documenting the plight of migrant workers caught between the virus and abysmal living conditions with the loss of daily wage jobs. It was weeks before the government was able to usher in relief measures for this population. Even as the system did what it was meant to, help began pouring in from many corners of the city.

As NGOs and private trusts picked up the baton, relief began reaching even those who had been ignored or neglected.

Having taken up the responsibility of attending to more and more people every day (what with the end of the lockdown still remaining uncertain), these NGOs are finding out that their coffers are not without a bottom. Donations from the public have helped these organisations stretch their resources for the long run. Heres how you can help.

1.SAFA SOCIETY - YOUTH FEED INDIA

This Hyderabad-based NGO is focused on mobilising the youth to help bring relief to migrant worker populations around the country. For this, they are collaborating with COVID 19 Food Security Group. Currently established in all major cities, they have expanded their project Milaap to reach out to migrant workers stuck during the lockdown.

We have been raising funds for healthcare, education, sports, single mothers and disaster relief since our conception in 2010. Recognising the need of the hour, we directed our attention to the migrant communities in need during the pandemic, says Mayukh Choudhury, co-founder and CEO of Safa Society. In Chennai, they have provided relief to migrant workers stationed at T Nagar, Adambakkam, Thiruvallur and Perumbudur. Each kit costs Rs 500 to Rs 550 per family and consists of dry rations and healthcare items.

We have been able to raise over Rs 50 lakh and used it to distribute over 2,80,000 meal equivalents across all the cities we are functioning in. Our next target is to distribute 25,00,000 kits by raising over Rs 3 crore funds, Mayukh adds.

DONATIONS CAN BE MADE TO

Virtual account name: SAFA Society - Milaap Account number: 2223330066517785 IFSC code: RATN0VAAPIS, Bank name: RBL

2. CHINTABAR

Identified as an independent student body recognised by IIT Madras, ChintaBar has been delivering one months supply of rations to migrant workers and their families who have been affected by the lockdown.

They have reached out to over 2,000 people so far.

We cover around 27 households daily and spend around Rs40,000 every day. We are completely dependent upon donations to fund the relief works, says Sreehari, a volunteer with the NGO.

The group has also been distributing sanitary napkins, paracetamol and pain balms to daily wage workers and members of other marginalised communities.

Our volunteers have been working day and night to also provide PPE kits to medical staff, Sreehari adds.

The teams target is to reach around 30 households everyday, working their way all around Chennai.

Account name: Azhar Moideen Account number: 201018211683 IFSC code: SBIN0001055

Bank: State Bank of India Branch: IIT Madras Gpay/PhonePe number: 9995949575 UPI ID: azharmoideen@ oksbi

3. AWARE INDIA

Aware India, a five-year-old NGO, has been distributing dry rations and essential commodities to the most vulnerable sections of the society and villages that are inaccessible.

So far, the organisation has provided over 240 Bags of Hope with dry rations to over 244 families  daily wage workers, people from the Irula community and migrant families in seven hamlets in and around Thiruporur and Kelambakkam.

As part of our holistic development programme at the Chemmenchery Housing Board, we were constantly in touch with the families there. Post lockdown, we continued to do so, understanding and assessing their situation.

Two weeks ago, we decided that it was time to reach out and help them. We started giving out dry rations. The government, on its part, announced that it would give the May months ration kits in April to the families in the resettlement area, shares Sandhiyan Thilagavathy, founder of AWARE.

When he was made aware that relief and aid had not reached many remote parts of the state, thanks to the requests coming in for their help, his team began bringing these enquiries to the governments attention.

The interior parts of Kanchipuram and Chengalpettu are in need of help. In the next phase, we aided over 120 Irula families in Nelvoy and Katchut villages with 48 kits. We also reached out to 140 Irula families in Nandhiyambakkam, he says, adding that several gated communities have come forward to do their bit.

Gated communities are sending requests and contributing to support their house-helps. We are accepting those requests and facilitating five-six families procure provisions daily, he adds.

For details, visit: https://bit.ly/Help- Chemmenchery Helpline number: 8122241688

4. BHUMI

The NGO Bhumi, along with its band of volunteers, corporate partners and other social enterprises, has been actively providing relief and funds for daily wage labourers, migrant workers, children in shelter homes and those affected by the lockdown.

Until two weeks ago, our helpline was receiving about 50 calls per day; now, it has spiked to about 300. So far, the primary requests have been for food provisions and medical supplies, followed by transportation. We have been working with partner organisations and using their help to fulfil the requests, shares Prahalathan Karunakaran of Bhumi. To ensure help reaches those who are most vulnerable the NGO has set up a well-laid system.

Once volunteers or groups submit the profiles of those who need help, the details are verified. Our data volunteers re-verify the information, map fundraisers, contact suitable vendors and suppliers, and transfer funds accordingly, he shares. Bhumi has also partnered with OLX Pledge to provide relief measures to migrant workers and support their livelihood.

For details, visit: www.bhumi.ngo/covid Helpline number: 9999713542

5. CHENNAI COVID LABOUR FUND

A collective of 30 volunteers from the Save Chennai Beaches Campaign have come together to provide relief to migrant workers trapped in the city since the lockdown. As of April 25, the team has been able to raise around Rs 11,27,445 as ration allowance and has spent it in assisting over 4,758 migrant workers in Chennai. When the public sought a portal where they could donate for the teams cause, Sumanasa Foundation (an NGO that supports artists) stepped up and offered theirs, says Sharadha Shankar, a volunteer with the collective.

Given that the lockdown has severely restricted their movement within the city, the collective has stuck to providing financial assistance.

For basic cooking materials like dal, rice and spices, we provide an amount of Rs 35 per person per day, she explains.

The teams help is all the more vital for those families left without a ration card and are thus far from government-sponsored relief.

Although the collective focuses on migrant workers, they have also managed to reach out to other communities  transgender persons, fisherfolk, and other daily wage workers  as and when they receive a call for help. Besides providing for rations, the team is also giving PPE (personal protection equipment) kits for essential workers.

Account name: Sumanasa Foundation Bank: Axis Bank Account number: 911010012570386

IFSC code: UTIB0000006

6. DEMOCRATIC YOUTH FEDERATION OF INDIA, TN

Many young adults in Tamil Nadu have enrolled with DYFI and are acting as foot soldiers of the statewide relief effort. The state division has reached out to around 150 migrant workers settled in districts like Erode, Coimbatore, Kanchipuram and Dindigul. The collective has also organised blood donation and medical camps.

Without public transport, many senior citizens, diabetic people and young mothers arent able to go to the hospital for their routine check-ups. We identified the need for medical camps and coordinated with doctors who volunteered to set them up and do consultations, says Anant Prakash, a volunteer with DYFI in Coimbatore district. The federation has also provided various communities with cooked food, PPE kits and reusable face masks.

Account name: DYFI South Chennai Dist Secretary Account number: 600072949 Bank: Indian Bank, Madras University Branch IFSC code: IDIB000M181

7. MAKKAL PATHAI

Established five years ago by Sagayam, an IAS officer renowned for his anti-corruption activities in Tamil Nadu, Makkal Pathai has been doing groundbreaking service in providing relief to various communities in many districts here.

Our founder Sagayam believes that even the method of providing relief should be taken into consideration. We must not claim higher ground as we bring relief, because they deserve it and must treat it as a right in absence of pay, says Chandra Mohan, coordinator at Makkal Pathai.

Towards this end, they do no distribute ration kits to each family. Instead, they leave all the supplies on a table and ask the people in the neighbourhood to take what they need.

We provide on the basis of need and the contents of our ration packets change accordingly. Each kit costs approximately Rs 380, he explains.

Account name: Makkal Pathai Account number: 35752101378 Bank: SBI, Arumbakkam, IFSC code: SBIN0006495

8.SARASWATI EDUCATIONAL CULTURAL AND CHARITABLE TRUST

Based in Neelankarai, Saraswati Educational Cultural and Charitable Trust is working with the homeless who do not have any identification cards to procure food during the lockdown. As part of their initial project, the trust along with Equitas Trust is working in rehabilitation of these homeless and provide education for their children.

Priyadarshini Rajkumar, secretary of the Saraswati Educational Cultural and Charitable Trust, says, The lockdown was quite unexpected. These labourers dont have jobs anymore. So we thought of providing them at least with food. Once the lockdown ends and things start to stabilise, our project will continue. There are 10,000 such people in Chennai. We are working to help them out.

So far, out of the 1,500-odd families that have been rehabilitated, only around 300 have government cards to avail of services like food rations. The trust is providing ration to all those who are still on the streets and to those who have been rehabilitated but are not covered by the government.

Email: saraswathitrust 20@gmail Contact: Priyadarshini Rajkumar at 9566209426

Inputs by Naaz Ghani, Roshne Balasubramanian and Veena Mani
A new mobile app has been launched today to try and control the spread of coronavirus.

The app has previously been trialled in Newham, London, and on the Isle of Wight, and launches in England today.

It aims to map the people that coronavirus sufferers come into contact with, so it can work out who else is at risk.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has urged the public to carry out their "civic duty" and make the new test and trace system work - saying the only other option is continuing the lockdown.

But how does the app work, and how does it fit into the Government's wider coronavirus plan?

A coronavirus testing official / PA

Contact tracing

The app is part of the UK broader effort to control coronavirus by working out who has the virus.

The Government currently employs 12,000 contact tracers whose efforts will support the work of the app.

Managing director of England and Wales app, Simon Thompson, thanked volunteers for trialling the app before its release.

"My team have worked tirelessly to develop the new NHS Covid-19 app and are incredibly grateful to all residents of the Isle of Wight, London Borough of Newham, NHS Volunteer Responders and the team that went before us; the learnings and insight have made the app what it is today, he said.

The app is said to be key to helping the UK move out of lockdown / PA

How does the app work?

The app uses Bluetooth technology to log everyone you come into contact with.

If you or any of these people have coronavirus symptoms, when you or they tell the app, it alerts everyone you've been in contact with.

The app runs in the background at all times and you need to keep Bluetooth on for it to work. The form of Bluetooth the app uses shouldn't drain your battery, Mr Hancock has said.

If you report that you've had coronavirus symptoms, the app tells you to book a test.

It also lets you check you symptoms against a list of current Covid-19 indicators, such as high temperatures, a new regular cough, and changes to sense of smell and taste. If you enter your symptoms you will be told whether or not you need to self-isolate.

It then finds the people you have been in "high-risk" close contact with over the past 28 days - judged by length of time spent together and how far apart you were. It tells people who had close encounters with you to self-isolate for 14 days and monitor their symptoms - in line with current Government coronavirus advice.

If your test comes back negative, the people you have been in contact with can come out of isolation. If you are positive for the virus, they have to continue to self-isolate for seven days.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, said at the daily coronavirus briefing: "Something that is automated, that can work alongside traditional epidemiological contact tracing is potentially going to be of very great use to us."

One month since UK lockdown - In pictures 1 /14 One month since UK lockdown - In pictures The M5 motorway, looking south towards Devon PA A nearly-deserted Reuters Square in Canary Wharf PA A popular riverside walk alongside the Thames near London's Tower Bridge is almost empty PA The concourse of London's Waterloo station is almost devoid of travellers PA Empty streets and pavements surround Little Ben, a cast iron miniature clock tower, situated at the intersection of Vauxhall Bridge Road and Victoria Street PA Horse Guards Parade in London is empty as tourists stay away PA Liverpool waterfront is practically deserted PA Empty streets in Newcastle upon Tyne PA An empty shopping arcade at Windsor Station PA King's Parade, with King's College (left) and the Senate House (distance) in Cambridge PA A view of a near-deserted Waterlooville town centre in Hampshire PA

Will the app be effective?

As contact tracing apps are relatively new, it is hard to judge their effectiveness.

The NHS app is not compulsory, and users can delete it from their phones at any time - so depends on people signing up to it and keeping it.

Uptake is going to be important and so is the compliance with the app and regularly using it over a sustained period of time  and those are unknowns at the moment, Professor Van-Tam added.

The market research weve done, I think, indicates for the UK that theres a fairly significant optimism that people will engage with something that is clearly about protecting the NHS.

Mr Hancock has said he believes the vast majority of people will self-isolate voluntarily under the new NHS Test and Trace system.

The Health Secretary told Sky News today there "isn't a figure" for what percentage of the population need to download the app for it to be effective.

"Every single person who downloads the app is helping to improve how it can keep us safe. It helps you to keep yourself and your loved ones safe," he said.

Coronavirus testing staff / AFP via Getty Images

Baroness Dido Harding, executive chair of England's NHS Test and Trace Programme, said: "We want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to engage with England's NHS Test and Trace service.

"The NHS Covid-19 app enables the majority of people with a smartphone to find out if they are at risk of having caught the virus and need to self isolate, order a test if they have symptoms, and access the right guidance and advice."

Will lockdown end first on the Isle of Wight?

Although the first UK contact tracing app was initially tested on the Isle of Wight, restrictions were not lifted early on the island.

For the Isle of Wight, all the same safeguards apply, they should still be following all the same social distancing advice, said Professor John Newton, director of health improvement for Public Health England.

Loading....

They will also not be lifted early in London or Newham.
The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the police to facilitate a man's meeting with his mother, allegedly detained in her house by her step-children.

A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and S Prasad, which conducted the hearing through video link, asked the man to go alone to meet his mother at her Burari residence. It ordered the area SHO to facilitate the meeting on May 6 from 11:30 am to 1 pm.

The court also sought the response of the Delhi police and the woman's three step-children on the man's habeas corpus plea seeking a direction to authorities to produce his mother.

A habeas corpus petition is filed for production a person who is missing or illegally detained.

The man has alleged in the plea that after the death of his father in February this year, the step-children forcibly entered the house.

"The petitioner (man) shall go to meet his mother at her residence alone. The SHO of the area shall ensure that neither the petitioner, nor respondents no.3 to 5 (step-children) create any nuisance or do anything provocative that may result in a law and order problem.

Delhi government standing counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra told the court that on March 10, several complaints and cross-complaints were filed by the man, the biological son of the woman from her first marriage, and her three step-children.

He said the fulcrum of the dispute between the parties hinges on the residential premises in Burari's Keshav Enclave, which was owned and occupied by their parents till their father's death.

The step-children were residing elsewhere but after the demise of their father, they forcibly entered the residential premises, he claimed, adding that due to an altercation between the parties, the local police had to intervene and take preventive measures.

The counsel told the court various PCR calls have been received relating to their quarrels and the last one was on April 23 by the man's mother who complained that she was being forcibly confined in her house by her step-children.

It was submitted that the police had tried to stop the quarrel between the parties but the gate was not opened and after some time, they managed to open the lock and the police officials found that the step children were allegedly creating a ruckus and the parties were calmed down.

The man's counsel also told the court that when his sister tried to deliver medicines to their mother, she was allowed to meet her after strong resistance and now even he was being prevented from meeting her.

He said advance copies of the petition were served to his step siblings but they deliberately kept away from the proceedings.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on May 20.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After months fixating on complex infection curves, ambiguous corporate announcements and haywire economic data, investors risk being blindsided by an old foe: U.S.-Sino tensions.

President Donald Trump and his administration have been sharpening their criticism of Beijing, demanding answers about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic as the death toll approaches 70,000 Americans.

That raises the specter of a resumption in the trade war at the worst possible time for global markets already pricing in heroic expectations of an economic rebound.

Expected volatility for American stocks is climbing as the S&P 500 heads for a third day of declines. Add dire projections for commerce and miserable economic data to this ratcheting up of stress between the world's two biggest economies, and last week's sell-off has legs.

"In the wake of the pandemic and recession, geopolitics is the next shoe to drop," BCA Research strategists including Matt Gertken wrote in a Friday note. "Now is not the time to assume global stability."

Instead, they reckon investors should prep for a renewal in U.S.-China tensions. In a Sunday evening interview with Fox News the president stirred concern of a resumption of economic hostilities between the two.

That's a potentially huge headwind to any global recovery when investor expectations for a rebound were already looking ambitious. The gap between markets and economic data was the widest ever, Citigroup said last week. The S&P 500 has dropped more than 4% since.

"The biggest risk here is that President Trump adds geopolitical stress on top of the worst economic shock to the U.S. economy in a century," said John Normand, head of cross-asset fundamental strategy at JPMorgan Chase.

Normand reckons that risk assets could drop another 10% if Trump decides to increase tariffs on a broader range of goods, which would mark a return to the strategy pursued by the president in 2018 and 2019. The potential declines would be even worse, Normand says, if not for the fact many investors already cut their exposure this year due to the recession.

As the pandemic swept the world crippling major economies, investors fled equities -- about $17 billion left U.S. stock funds in 2020 through April 29, according to Bank of America Corp. citing EPFR Global data. Despite a rapid rebound that saw the S&P 500 rally more than 30% from a March low, the American benchmark equity gauge remains more than 15% from its peak.

Relations between the U.S. and China have been simmering in recent days, with Trump even claiming Beijing is trying to damage his election campaign.

Since then he has promised a "conclusive" report on the Chinese origins of the coronavirus outbreak, adding that he has little doubt that Beijing misled the world about the scale and risk of the disease before it became a global pandemic.

That's contributing to a revival in volatility, alongside the decline in equities. A gauge of expected price swings for the S&P 500 known as the VIX index rose a third day on Monday, the longest such streak since early March -- at the height of the first quarter rout.

The scale of the moves remains contained this time around, however.

The hope for many investors will be that mutual self-interest helps prevent a U.S.-China escalation. Both countries will want to avoid any further pressure on their virus-lashed economies. Data last week showed China's exports plunging and U.S. gross domestic product shrinking the most since 2008.

The wild card is that it's an election year in America, and the incentives for Trump to take action may be higher because his approval rating has dropped amid the coronavirus crisis.

"Investors should take seriously any credible reports suggesting that Trump is growing increasingly frustrated with his trailing Biden in head-to-head polls in the swing states," the BCA strategists wrote.

Back when the trade war started, the global economy was in relatively rude health, and it proved surprisingly resilient despite rising tariffs between the U.S. and China.

Even so, the S&P 500 was in thrall to the conflict's twists and turns and when a deal was signed in January it helped push stocks to repeated all-time highs. This time the global economy is on its knees, and investors are on edge after the violent market events this year.

Stephen Jen, the chief executive officer at Eurizon SLJ Capital, reckons there are three broad ways the U.S. could punish China if things do escalate: through trade tariffs, through more restrictions on technology exports, and through financial sanctions.

The risk of all three options will hang over markets in months or even years ahead, he said. He anticipates the U.S. pressuring China to allow an international investigation into the origins of the virus. Beijing may relent and allow some transparency, given similar pressure from Europe and Australia.

"This process may buy some time until perhaps later this year when the global economy will have gained a bit more momentum before real punitive actions are taken, in the event that China will not have done enough," said Jen.
Bright, sunny skies and temperatures soaring into the mid-70s  the warmest of the year  had swarms of people descending on the Connecticut coastline this weekend, despite ongoing warnings from health officials to keep a safe distance amid the coronavirus outbreak.

On Saturday, cyclists, joggers and beachgoers  some wearing masks  crowded along roads and sidewalks in Westport near Longshore Club Park.

On Sunday, at least one group drew a line in the sand  literally  to mark their area and prevent others from getting too close at a mostly desolate Cove Island Beach in Stamford.

The scene was more crowded at state parks, prompting the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to close all 11 of them to new visitors by Sunday afternoon when each of their parking lots reached capacity.

The closed parks included Westports Sherwood Island State Park and Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden, both popular destinations that have been repeatedly closed on nice weekends since the start of the pandemic.

Our parks are open for solitary recreation, were inviting folks to come and enjoy the parks either by yourself or with members of your family, DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes said in a video shared to the departments Facebook page.

She said the parks are requiring visitors to stick to groups of five people or less, and noted the department is instituting lower capacities for some locations to prevent crowding.

Two state parks, Kent Falls in Kent and Seaside State Park in Waterford, have been closed for the duration of the pandemic, according to DEEP.

Heavy foot traffic along the shoreline comes as other states have drawn criticism for allowing beaches to remain open during the pandemic. Last month, the hashtag #floridamorons began trending on Twitter after photos showing crowded beaches were posted on social media.

Local health experts have been warning against interacting with others too soon. Sofia Pendley, clinical assistant professor of Sacred Heart Universitys Public Health program, said social distancing has been working in Connecticut, pointing to the declining number of hospitalizations related to COVID-19.

This downward trend is due to the fact that people are limiting their interaction with one another, she said. If we prematurely become more relaxed, we will see increases in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

Fairfields First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick credited the towns police for reminding residents about social distancing at places like Jennings Beach that became crowded this weekend.

Im happy to say that for the most part our residents were following social distancing, with polite reminders from Fairfield Police Department, Kupchick wrote in a Facebook post.

A spokesman for Fairfield police said many are complying with social distance requirements, but they continue to see people congregating in parks.

We have seen a significant increase in call volume since the nice weather, and Im sure this is only going to continue as the weather gets warmer and people seek to go outside more often, Police Capt. Robert Kalamaras said.

Staff writer Josh LaBella contributed to this report
New Delhi: Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor's ashes were immersed in Banganga in Mumbai on Sunday by his wife Neetu Kapoor, actor son Ranbir Kapoor and daughter Riddhima Kapoor Sahni. Pictures and videos of Neetu, Ranbir and Riddhima performing the rituals have been widely circulated online by their fan clubs. They show that the family of three were also accompanied by actress Alia Bhatt, Ranbirs girlfriend, and filmmaker Ayan Mukerji, his close friend.

Take a look at the pictures and videos here:

Speaking to news agency PTI, Rishi Kapoor's elder brother Randhir Kapoor said the rituals had to be performed in Mumbai as they did not get permission to travel to Haridwar due to lockdown restrictions.

"We did a prayer meet yesterday. Today we immersed his ashes in Banganga as we haven't received permission from the authorities to go to Haridwar," Randhir Kapoor said.

Rishi Kapoor died at the age of 67 on April 30 at H N Reliance hospital in Mumbai after a two-year-long battle with leukemia. His last rites were performed on Thursday itself. However, Riddhima, who stays in Delhi, couldnt pay her tributes to her father. She reached Mumbai via road on Saturday night after she was granted permission to travel.

Meanwhile, a picture of Neetu and Ranbir sitting next to Rishi Kapoors photo from his prayer meet has gone viral on social media. Riddhima, too, was a part of the closed family-only prayer meet.

Rishi Kapoor had returned to India last September after undergoing treatment for cancer in the US for almost a year. In February, he was hospitalised twice. On Wednesday, a day before his death, he was taken to the hospital after he complained of breathing problems.

(With PTI inputs)
A 14-year-old girl was allegedly kneed and hit it the head so many times by a teenage 'girl gang' that she had a seizure.

The victim was allegedly ambushed by three girls, one aged 17 and two aged 15, in a parent's room at Figtree Grove shopping centre in Wollongong, south of Sydney, just before 5:30pm on Friday.

Her three accused attackers allegedly ran away from the parent's room when she began having a seizure, leaving her to convulse on the floor.

Scroll down for video

A 14-year-old girl (left) said she suffered a seizure after allegedly being attacked by three older teenage girls, two aged 15 and one aged 17, in a parent's room at Figtree Grove shopping centre in Wollongong, south of Sydney, just before 5:30pm on Friday

'They were hitting me until the point I had a seizure... I'm still scared,' the young victim told The Illawarra Mercury.

In addition to being kneed and hit in the head, the victim told the publication she was relentlessly kicked and punched throughout the alleged ordeal.

She suffered bruises and soft tissue damage to her body and face and was rushed to Wollongong Hospital at 7pm on Friday.

The attackers allegedly grabbed the girl's hair, threw her to the ground and kicked and punched her.

The alleged victim claimed she knew the girls through mutual friends and that her phone was damaged during the incident.

Two 15-year-old girls and a 17-year-old girl were arrested and taken to Wollongong Police Station over their alleged involvement in the attack on Sunday.

The victim was allegedly kneed and hit it the head so many times that she had a seizure. Her three accused attackers allegedly ran away from the parent's room when she began having a seizure, leaving her to convulse on the floor

One 15-year-old was charged with take/detain in company with intent to get advantage occasion actual bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company of other(s) and destroy or damage property.

The second 15-year-old was charged with take/detain in company with intent to get advantage occasion actual bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company of other(s), destroy or damage property, and common assault.

Meanwhile, the 17-year-old was charged with take/detain in company with intent to get advantage occasion actual bodily harm and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company of other(s).

All three were refused bail and are due to face a children's court on Monday evening, where they are expected to apply for bail.

The 14-year-old has since been released from Wollongong Hospital to recover at home.
The Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, has introduced measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus in the state, including making it mandatory for everyone in the state to wear a face mask whenever they are in the public.

Mr Wike, in a state-wide broadcast on Monday, said All inward-bound vehicles and flights into Rivers State from oil and gas companies with workers for crew change or other essential operations must first submit details of their manifests to the states taskforce on COVID-19 for proper vetting of their virus status before they can be allowed to enter the State.

Mr Wike in the past has expressed frustrations in getting oil and oil-related companies in the state to cooperate with his administrations fight against the novel coronavirus.

The Rivers government recently arrested two pilots working with Caverton Helicopters, charged them, including their 10 passengers, for flying into Port Harcourt in violation of the lockdown order in the state. The government went on to seal Caverton facility in Port Harcourt.

The Rivers government also arrested 22 ExxonMobil workers who drove into the state from neighbouring Akwa Ibom.

Mr Wike in his latest broadcast to residents in the oil-rich state appealed to logistics companies, especially Caverton Helicopters and Bristow, to cooperate with the new measures introduced by the administration and refrain from jeopardizing the lives of our people for the sake of making profits.

READ ALSO:

The governor as part of the new measures ordered a total lockdown of two local government areas  Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor  from May 7 till further notice.

The residents of the two areas must stay at home for 24 hours, the governor declared.

Commercial tricycles, otherwise known as keke, operating in the state are to carry two passengers only, while taxis are to carry three passengers per trip, according to a new order by the governor.

Hoteliers in Rivers must provide the state task force on COVID-19 with manifest of guests already lodged in their hotels before the introduction of the new measures, Governor Wike said.

The governor announced a N100,000 reward to whistleblowers who would give information that could lead to the arrest and prosecution of violators of the latest order.

This Government is focused and therefore will not allow itself to be distracted on its battle against COVID-19, the governor said.

However, we will neither tolerate nor hesitate to deal with anyone who dares to fabricate lies to rubbish the hard work and sacrifice we are making to save the lives in our state just to advance parochial partisan interests.

I wish to reiterate that the hard choices we have to make as a government and as a people over the COVID-19 pandemic are all premised on upholding the sanctity of human life.

As a government, we cannot abdicate this compelling responsibility and abandon our people to chances in the midst of this much dreaded and ravaging pandemic.
OTTAWA - As provinces begin to ease up on COVID-19 restrictions, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says Parliament should also return to a more normal routine.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer holds a press conference on Parliament Hill during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ottawa on Monday, May 4, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA - As provinces begin to ease up on COVID-19 restrictions, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says Parliament should also return to a more normal routine.

A modified House of Commons is currently in session with MPs meeting three times a week  twice virtually and once in person  in the form of a special COVID-19 committee.

But to pass legislation, the House of Commons must be properly recalled, as it now has been multiple times for emergency aid bills.

In each case, opposition parties gave unanimous consent to allow the bills to pass in a matter of hours, without the usual days of debate, expert testimony at committee and proposed amendments. That expedited process is no longer sufficient, Scheer said Monday.

He pointed out that the opposition parties have repeatedly shown that their oversight has provided better programs for Canadians. They have, in the past, forced the government to expand eligibility for benefit programs, for example.

If the House were meeting regularly , then legislation could be given proper study, Scheer said. The Tories had proposed in-person sessions with a small number of MPs three or four times a week.

"Instead of being transparent, the Liberals continue to operate behind the scenes, forcing opposition parties to agree to artificial government timelines or risk being accused of blocking support payments," he said.

"Those days are over."

The governing Liberals and the other opposition parties have so far rejected the idea of multiple in-person sittings each week and they appeared no more enamoured of the idea during a meeting later Monday of the procedure and House affairs committee, which is studying how to make the House of Commons fully virtual.

The committee was told by Commons officials that the same number of staff  about 55  are required to manage a virtual sitting as are needed for the in-person sittings of a small number of MPs that have taken place so far during the pandemic. That prompted Conservative MP John Brassard to question why the Commons isn't sitting three days each week in person.

Commons Speaker Anthony Rota said the concern isn't simply for staff but also for the health and safety of MPs themselves. Moreover, he said the virtual sittings allow for MPs from across the country to participate, not just those who live within driving distance of Parliament Hill.

"The last thing we want to do is to regionalize it," he told the committee.

Rota also agreed with a Liberal MP that virtual sittings significantly reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19.

"That would be a logical assumption."

Bloc Quebecois MP Christine Normandin suggested that increased in-person sittings of the Commons during the pandemic could breach the parliamentary privileges of older MPs and those with underlying health conditions who would be most at risk from potential exposure. Rota agreed that is a possibility.

The committee also heard Monday that Commons officials have begun testing simulations of "hybrid models"  with some MPs sitting in the chamber while others participate virtually.

Rota said it would take relatively few changes to the rules for the Commons to virtually debate legislation, question the government and carry out most other functions.

But he warned that moving to electronic voting would be "more challenging." The rules currently require MPs to be physically present in the House of Commons in order to vote. That means an in-person vote would be required to change the rules to allow for virtual voting.

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.

During the pandemic, the parties have agreed among themselves to limit the number of MPs who have come to vote on emergency aid bills to about 32 MPs. But Rota said he's not sure he'd be comfortable with allowing just a small number of MPs to decide on the voting rights of their fellow MPs  although he said that's up to the parties.

The alternative would be to have all 338 MPs return to the Commons to vote on rule changes but Rota noted that would violate public health protocols for keeping a physical distance of two metres apart from one another.

Rota also encouraged the committee to consider recommending some permanent changes to the rules beyond those necessitated by the pandemic, including expanding the daily 45-minute question period. The rules currently allow just 35 seconds for each question and each answer, "which turns out to be more of a gotcha session on both sides," he said.

For the special sittings during the pandemic, the parties have agreed to allow more than 90 minutes for a modified question period, in which each questioner has five minutes to pose questions and receive answers from government ministers. Rota said this has resulted in more in-depth exchanges and "a better performance on the floor."

The committee is supposed to report back by May 15 with ideas for how to achieve a fully virtual House of Commons.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2020.
Over 6,200 cases of COVID-19 infections have been reported in West Africa and the UN family in the region has come together to support Governments responses to the pandemic.

All countries in the region have reported cases and, over the past few weeks, several have reported spikes in the increase of infections, as well as community cases. Mindful that the COVID-19 pandemic is challenging the strong health systems of high-income countries, serious concerns are being raised in West Africa where most countries health, political and economic systems also have to deal with inherent weaknesses to respond effectively to the pandemic.

Marlene Urscheler heads the Emergency Response Team at UN Human Rights Regional Office for West Africa based in Dakar, Senegal. She was recently designated as the Offices focal point for COVID-19 related issues in the region.

Q: How has COVID-19 affected your work?

COVID-19 has completely changed the way we work. First, in terms of not going to the office, working from home, having to deal with distance learning for kids at home and balance spouses work priorities. As a regional office, we are responsible for 16 countries in the region. Normally, half of the time we travel across the region to strengthen our contacts with the partners and Government authorities, and jointly organize workshops and activities. All of that suddenly, from one day to the other, just fell off. None of us really saw that coming and I think we were taken by surprise, so we needed to re-allocate ourselves.

I was quickly given tasks directly related to the Regional Offices COVID-19 response. This involves participating in the coordination of efforts within a regional UN and civil society platform headed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and co-led by the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). That platform serves as a space to share information and, through its six pillars structure, to provide support and guidance on the different aspects of the response to the pandemic. In one of the pillars, together we are trying to figure out an assessment of the priority issues of countries in the region - which ones should be given priority to - and apply objective criteria in this regard.

All the work that we invested in developing our work plans for months was undone and we sort of started from scratch. We had to revisit our work plans for the projects and our regular work as priorities and the possibilities to implement them have changed. We re-allocated resources to implement the adapted objectives. Some of the events we can readjust, but we also have to gage our partners willingness and possibilities to engage virtually. We also have to wonder, would we get the same results? We when organize three-four days seminars, people often mention the importance of networking during the breaks. In a virtual meeting that does not happen to the same extent.

Because of the pandemic, we are moving into a new area that involves more engagement with humanitarian actors with whom we may not have had such close contacts before. We found that for us it is easier to engage in areas where you have pre-established contacts and partnerships to build upon.

Q: What has the Regional Office been doing to protect the rights of people during this pandemic?

The role of UN Human Rights is to protect the rights of everyone and in the context of the pandemic a particular emphasis is given to the groups of people whose right to health may be most affected. For example, persons living with disabilities, how will we ensure that they have access to healthcare and regular needed check-up in situations of confinement? However, our work goes much beyond the right to health. For example, we need to consider how to ensure that the issue of sexual and gender-based violence is mainstreamed as, unfortunately, it is becoming more prevalent in situations of confinement. These are just two examples but we need to identify which are the most vulnerable groups and try to advocate, be their voice and speak up for them to ensure that no one is left behind. I think this is the role that the Office should play.

Another element that I think we need to be very mindful of is prevention, looking beyond the immediate and getting prepared. We are in a region where there are humanitarian crises and conflict in so many countries; there is a migration crisis, internally displaced persons, violent extremism These contribute to a completely different area of concerns in the context of a pandemic. It would be difficult to assess the magnitude of the upcoming economic slowdown and to which degree it would affect certain groups of people disproportionately. The informal economy constitutes a large part of the economies in West Africa. The lockdowns, curfews and general economic crises disproportionately affected the workforce in the informal economy, as there is no social security such as unemployment benefits for them. We need to find a way to by adapting response measures in such a way that they dont, once again, leave the most vulnerable behind, those that are always kept out; and that development, security and health dont only benefit those that are already in a better situation.

The WFP (World Food Programme) and the FAO (the UN Food and Agriculture Organization) have recently produced predictive reports on food insecurity in the next three or six months in the region; the numbers they have put forward are very concerning. The travel restrictions in place render humanitarian access very difficult for goods and persons.

Q: Are there other human rights situations that your office monitors regularly that have been exacerbated, and are there new ones that you're considering now because of the pandemic?

An area that we are looking into is the issue of detention. In the region, there is huge overcrowding of many detention places, prisons specifically, and the spread of the virus was identified very early on as one of the risks for people in detention in such unsanitary situations. UN Human Rights has supported processes to have presidential pardons or get many detainees released, which was, in my view, a very positive measure taken by many Governments. We would have hoped the overcrowding of prisons would have been addressed anyway but, in that situation, the COVID-19 pandemic helped show that the overcrowding could become a liability for Governments, because if they don't release these people now, they might be faced with a much bigger crisis.

At the moment, almost every persons rights are affected somehow by COVID-19, and there are so many issues we could work on and we should work on. We are so solicited, but we have to strategically choose to engage in areas where we have pre-established contacts, where we already have good partnerships and where we know we can contribute to something that would otherwise be overlooked.

4 May 2020
Highlights Images of the Mi Band 5 have leaked online

The Mi Band 5 could launch in the coming weeks

The Mi Band 5 is tipped to get a 1.2-inch display

Xiaomi has long been tipped to launch the Mi Band 5 in the coming weeks with recent reports hinting that the Mi Band 5 could be launched alongside a number of other Xiaomi products in the first week of April. And now, a new report has emerged which claims to reveal crucial details about the fitness wearable.

Being developed in partnership between Xiaomi and Huami, the Mi Band 5 will come as a substantial upgrade over its predecessor. The images reveal the Xiaomi Mi Band 5 to come with a brand-new oval punch-hole display.

While we're not sure what the purpose of the punch-hole will be, it is expected to be for a camera, however, some are expecting it to be for a capacitive touch button. The leaked images also show the Mi Band 5 with a grey strap.

Apart from this, the display of the Mi Band 5 is also shown to be oval in shape in the leaked images -- something different from what we've seen on previous Mi Bands in the past few years.

While this particular report does not talk about the specifications about the device, previous reports have done so, with the MI Band 5 outside China tipped to support NFC. Other leaked reports have claimed that the Xiaomi Mi Band 5 will come with a 1.2-inch display -- a larger display than the 0.95-inch AMOLED screen on its predecessor.

Despite the larger display, the device is claimed to be lighter and with more contrast. With support for NFC the new Mi Band could also bring support for Google Pay and other payment services. The Mi Band 5 NFC global version could also get contactless payments, work pass and can be used as a bus card.

The Mi Band 4 was launched around the same time last year, and as such, Xiaomi is expected to launch the upcoming version in the coming months. It will be interesting to see if the Mi Band 5 ends up getting any of the features that we've mentioned above. For now, we can only wait and watch,
Families are beset by fear and anxiety as COVID-19 makes inroads at nursing homes across the country, threatening the lives of vulnerable older adults.

Alarmingly more than 10,000 residents and staff at long-term care facilities have died from COVID infections, according to an April 23 analysis of state data by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

But often facilities won't disclose how many residents and employees are infected with the coronavirus that causes the disease, citing privacy considerations. Unable to visit, families can't see for themselves how loved ones are doing.

Are people getting enough to eat? How are their spirits? Are they stable physically or declining? Are staff shortages developing as health aides become sick?

Perhaps most pressing, does a loved one have COVID symptoms? Is testing available? If infected, is he or she getting adequate care?

"This is the problem we're all facing right now: If you have family in these facilities, how do you know they're in danger or not?" Jorge Zamanillo told the Miami Herald after his 90-year-old mother, Rosa, died of COVID-19 only days after staffers said she was "fine."

In recent weeks, amid mounting concern, states including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York began releasing data about cases and deaths in individual nursing homes. (The data varies by state.) And the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it would require homes to report cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to notify residents and families. (Previously, facilities were required to report only to states.)

Families' worst fears have been expressed in recent headlines, including a New York Times story that described "body bags piled up" behind a New Jersey nursing home where 70 residents had perished. Another investigation called nursing homes "death pits" and reported that at least 7,000 residents across the nation had died of COVID-19  about 20% of all deaths reported at the time, April 17.

What can families do? I asked nearly a dozen long-term care advocates and experts for advice. They cautioned that the problems  lapses in infection control and inadequate staffing foremost among them  require a strong response from regulators and lawmakers.

"The awful truth is families have no control over what's happening and not nearly enough is being done to keep people safe," said Michael Dark, a staff attorney at California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

Still, experts had several suggestions that may help:

Stay in touch. With virtually all visitors barred from nursing homes since mid-March, frequent contact with loved ones via telephone calls or video visits has become even more important. In addition to providing much-needed emotional support, it signals to staffers that family members are vigilant.

"When a facility knows someone is watching, those residents get better care," said Daniel Ross, senior staff attorney at Mobilization for Justice, a legal aid agency in New York City. "Obviously, the ban of visitors is a real problem, but it doesn't make family oversight impossible."

If a resident has difficulty initiating contact (this can be true for people who have poor fine motor coordination, impaired eyesight or hearing, or dementia), he or she will need help from an aide. That can be problematic, though, with staff shortages and other tasks being given higher priority.

Scheduling a time for a call, a video chat or a "window visit" may make it easier, suggests Mairead Painter, Connecticut's long-term care ombudsman.

AARP is pressing for Congress to require nursing homes to offer video visitation and to provide federal funding for the needed technologies. If you can afford to do so, buy a tablet for your loved one or organize a group of families to buy several.

Band together. More than likely, other families have similar concerns and need for information. Reach out through email chains or telephone trees, suggested Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition in New York City.

Ask your nursing home administrator to update families weekly through a conference call or Zoom video chat. Explain that families will probably call less often with repetitive questions if communication is coordinated.

Many nursing homes have family councils that advocate for residents, potentially valuable conduits for support and information. Your long-term care ombudsman or administrator can tell you if a council exists at your facility.

Working with a group can reduce the fear that complaining will provoke retaliation  a common concern among families.

"It's one thing to hear 'Mrs. Jones' daughter is making a big deal of this' and another to hear that families of 'everyone on the second floor have noted there's no staff there,'" Ross said.

Contact ombudsmen. Every state has a long-term care ombudsman responsible for advocating for nursing home residents, addressing complaints and trying to solve problems. While these experts currently are not allowed to visit facilities, they're working at a distance in this time of crisis. To find your ombudsman, go to https://theconsumervoice.org/get_help.

Twice a week, Painter holds an hourlong question-and-answer session on the Connecticut Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program's Facebook page. Among dozens of questions that people asked last week: What kind of communication can I expect when a family member is COVID-positive and in isolation? What's the protocol for testing, and are homes out of test kits? Could families get a robocall if a resident died?

One person wondered whether installing cameras in residents' rooms was an option. This practice is legal in eight states, but facilities may consider this elsewhere on a case-by-case basis. A fact sheet from the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care lays out the pros and cons.

"Most of what we do is trying to work out better communication," Painter said. "When there are staffing issues, as there are now, that's the first thing that falls off."

Lodge a complaint. Usually, Painter advises families to take concerns to a nurse or administrator rather than stew in silence. "Tell the story of what's going on with the resident," she said. "Identify exactly what the person's needs are and why they need to be addressed."

If you think a family member is being ignored, talk to the director of nurses and ask for a care plan meeting. "Whenever there's a change in someone's condition, there's a requirement that a care plan meeting be convened, and that remains in effect," said Eric Carlson, a directing attorney with Justice in Aging, a legal advocacy organization.

If that doesn't work, go "up the facility's chain of command" and contact the corporate office or board of directors, said Robyn Grant, director of public policy and advocacy at the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care.

If you're getting nowhere, file a complaint with the agency that oversees nursing homes in your state. (You can find a list at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website.) This is a formality at the moment, since CMS has temporarily released agencies from the obligation to investigate most complaints. Still, "there may come a day when you'll want a written record of this kind," Dark advised.

Complaints that are getting attention from regulators involve "immediate jeopardy": the prospect of serious harm, injury, impairment or death to a resident. "If you believe your concern rises to that level, make sure to indicate that," the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care advises.

Also, contact local, state and national public officials and insist they provide COVID-19 tests and personal protective equipment to nursing homes. "Calls, letters  the lives of your loved ones depend on it," said Dr. Michael Wasserman, president of the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine.

Bring a relative home. Some nursing homes are asking families to take loved ones out of their facilities and bring them home. Every day, all day, Dark said, he gets calls from California families in this situation who are distraught and terrified.

Families need to think through these decisions carefully, said Dr. Joanne Lynn, a policy analyst with the Program to Improve Eldercare at Altarum, a research organization. What if their loved one becomes ill? Will they be able to provide care? If their relative has dementia or serious disabilities, can they handle the demands such conditions entail?

Researchers in Ottawa, Canada, have developed a useful decision aid for families, available at https://decisionaid.ohri.ca/docs/das/COVID-MoveFromLongTermCare.pdf. (Americans can ignore the Canada-specific information.)

At the very least, "get plans in place in case your relative has a bad [COVID-19] case. People can go from stable to serious illness within hours in many cases," Lynn said.

This involves updating advance directives, including whether your loved one would want cardiopulmonary resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, transfer to the hospital in the event of a life-threatening health crisis or hospice care, should that be indicated.
Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

LinkedIn

Email

Telegram



Ro Sawyeddollah has lived in a refugee camp in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, since he fled Myanmar along with thousands of other ethnic Rohingya in 2017, where the U.N. found that Rohingya live under threat of genocide.

After arriving in Bangladesh, Ro Sawyeddollah was trained in citizen journalism by the World Food Programs Storyteller initiative. His writing and photos have been featured in outlets such as the local Frontier Myanmar news website and French news wire France24, and he has worked as a fixer for international outlets like The Economist.

Since late 2019, the Bangladesh government has cut off internet access to Coxs Bazar and blocked refugees from obtaining SIM cards, citing a black market in the camps to evade regulations that only Bangladeshis with national identification cards are allowed to obtain SIM cards and access the internet, according to news reports.

There are over 800,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, according to the United Nations. There have not been any confirmed COVID-19 cases in the refugee camps, but there have been positive tests in nearby communities, according to reports.

Ro Sawyeddollah lives in Camp 15, one of many fenced-in areas housing refugees around Coxs Bazar. He used an internet connection shared by a friend to speak with CPJ via phone calls and messaging app in late April. His responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What kind of restrictions do you face in your reporting?

On our phones, there is no 3G or 4G. Just 2G. We are also not allowed to access Wi-Fi; you have to have a Bangladeshi identity card to have either Wi-Fi or a SIM card. If any authority knew I was using Wi-Fi [provided by my friend], they would take state action against us.

Now, we cant even go to other nearby camps. Before the global outbreak of COVID-19, we were able to at least go and visit other campsbut it was limited. Now, there is a boundary that we cant cross; theres a checkpoint at the edge of the camp.

How are you covering the virus in the camps?

There are a lot of people living in these camps. Some NGOs and social workers are here providing some general information about COVID-19, but its not enough information to be prepared.

So, some youths in the communitylike myselfwho have found ways to access the internet, have been collecting more detailed information online. And we are going door to door helping to spread it, trying to make sure each family has accurate information to prepare.

We can do this now because COVID-19 hasnt reached the camp. But, imagine when it does. At that time, we wont have any options. How can we go door to door to explain? Many, many people dont know what COVID-19 is. Knowing about it is very important to protect our community.

Right now, we are really worried. If we had the internet, we wouldnt have to go door to door! We could just spread news and awareness online, like other people do. Mostly, people already have smartphones in the camps, so it wouldnt be that difficult to spread the news over the networkif we had access.

If COVID reaches the camp, at that time, we may have no options. Dying will be the option, because we cannot make people aware of how to be safe.

How are these restrictions impacting your ability to work with international media?

The internet blockage has made it very difficult for us to communicate with international news outlets who are interested in doing stories from Coxs Bazar.

I would like the international media to make daily stories about our situation. In this hard time, the internet is a golden tool for getting help and required information. And now, we are excluded from using this tool.

And its not only that that the internet doesnt work. Sometimes phone calls dont work too.

How do these restrictions affect the spread of news?

Its very difficult to gather information about the camp, even from within the camp. And now we have restrictions on our movement, too.

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, we used to collect important and emergency information through in-person conversation. But now we cant leave the camp, we cant meet with people we want. So, now we dont have any way to see the accurate picture of the situation.

Even though I myself am able to read news when I use Wi-Fiand its easy for me to get an update on COVID-19its impossible for me to share those updates with my people.

Using the internet isnt a crime. Im trying to raise the voices of my community. I am trying to motivate my community, and I am trying to get the world to hear.
Asked in a 2016 interview by the Associated Press about research by scientists who said climate change is nearing a point where this cant be reversed, candidate Trump responded: No, no. Some say that and some say differently. I mean, you have scientists on both sides of it. My uncle was a great professor at MIT for many years. Dr. John Trump. And I didnt talk to him about this particular subject, but I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture.
Ji Sun Woo, together with Dr. Kim, met Chairman Yeo in a private dinner. Her plan to keep Tae Oh and her side not as suspect failed because Hyun Seo reported to the police as a witness of In Kyu's death.

The detective waited for Tae Oh's statement about the alleged complaint, but he kept silent. However, everyone in the station was shocked as Sun Woo arrived and faced the detective to save Tae Oh from police interrogation. She stood as a witness that Tae Oh was with her during In Kyu fall from the rooftop. She took out Tae Oh's wedding ring and surrendered it to the police. She made it as a proof that Tae Oh is not the murderer. Hyun Seo tried to convince the detective that it's not the real story, but Sun Woo stopped her. Sun Woo told her that it was only her assumption.

Tae Oh realized how Sun Woo valued him as Joon Young's father. She never abandons him when he needs someone to save him. Da Kyung and Chairman Yeo decided not to answer his call when Tae Oh looked for help at the police station. He was disappointed and shouted at Da Kyung as she neglected him. The video that Chairman Yeo kept from the station shows the almost exact time that In Kyu fell from the rooftop and Tae Oh went inside the basement. The video could have saved him, but he took it.

Sun Woo advised Hyun Seo that the case is over and it proves as In Kyu's suicide. She warned Sun Woo that if she keeps protecting Tae Oh and pities him, she will end up losing herself.

Joon Young got bullied by his classmates as Hae Kang shared the malicious rumor that Sun Woo had an affair with In Kyu. Joon Young almost caught up a fight with Hae Kang, but the teacher came in and stopped them. Sun Woo found what bothered Joon Young at school, as Noh-eul told her about the circulating rumors.

The next day, Sun Woo was furious to see Hae Kang's mother and warned her to stop the false rumors. Joon Young knew what she did and got mad for getting back at his classmate's mother. The school was once again surrounded by rumors after what Sun Woo did.

Da Kyung convinced Joon Young to live with them. She mentioned that it would help him and his mother to start a new life. Should Joon Young live with Tae Oh, this would give Sun Woo the chance to live a new life and leave Gosan. Joon Young accepted her offer and asked his father to help him pick up his clothes.

Tae Oh called Sun Woo to meet them in her place. Joon Young packed his clothes and informed his mother he would start to live with his father. Sun Woo felt crushed deep inside, seeing Joon Young leave the house. Tae Oh told her that he would try to talk to Joon Young and stay with him for a few days only.

Da Kyung welcomed Joon Young at her house. She sees Tae Oh is happy to have his son with him.

The next day, Sun Woo goes to work, trying to stay calm while she calls and talks to Joon Young. Dr. Kim asked her out, but she started to decline to stay away from him. She strolled at the mall to keep her mind off as she misses her son. In the clothing department, she saw Joon Young walking. She followed him and saw Tae Oh, Da Kyung, their daughter, and Joon Young from a distance. They look like a happy family together. She felt a deep pain in her heart that a family is what Joon Young needs, which she can't give for now.

Sun Woo crossed her mind to check on new hospitals to work with outside Gosan. She thought of plans to leave the city and start a life away on her own. Ye Rim got her divorced approved, and she will move to Seoul anytime soon. She advised Sun Woo to let go and have a good break away from all the hassles in Gosan.

The whole day, she never received any reply message from Joon Young. Sun Woo came to realize that Joon Young might want to forget her and stay with his father. She packed all Joon Young clothes and other personal stuff to send to him.

Tae Oh arrived home and saw university books overseas for new enrollees. Da Kyung kept it from him. He yelled at Da Kyung as she entered their bedroom. She has plans to enroll Joon Young abroad to live a peaceful environment and live a life away from his divorced parents.

Sun Woo message Tae Oh and asked him to pick up Joon Young's things. As Tae Oh arrived in her house, they had another heated argument about him and their past. Sun Woo cried hearing Tae Oh's words and she tried to hit him, but Tae Oh held her arms and they felt a sense of passion looking at each other's eyes. Their body ignited as their lips sealed, leading them into a passionate night in bed.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 12:51 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c2484 1 National house-of-representatives,Agriculture-Ministry,budget-allocation,procurements Free

House of Representatives Commission IV, which oversees agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food production, has demanded an explanation from the Agriculture Ministry over its high budget allocation for chicken procurement this year.

Commission IV chairman Sudin, a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the commission would hold a follow-up meeting with the Agriculture Ministry on Monday to discuss the matter.

[We will hold the meeting] so that this issue can be clarified, he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

During Tuesdays work meeting between the commission and Agriculture Ministry officials, Sudin questioned the ministrys local poultry development program budget, which allocates Rp 26.98 billion (US$1.83 million) to procure 35,000 chickens.

He said that allocation put the price of one chicken at around Rp770,000. Is the budget for one chicken that big? Sudin said.

He said the allocation violated the implementation checklist for the ministrys 2020 budget, which allocated Rp 551.4 billion to procure around 8.8 million chickens, which put the price at Rp62,000 a chicken.

Sudin also questioned other procurement allocations for the program, such as the Rp 5.03 billion budget to procure 550 pigs, which puts the price of one pig at around Rp 9 million. He urged the ministry to reassess the budget allocation and present the correct data, a demand accepted by the ministrys animal husbandry director general, I Ketut Diarmita.

Read also: Ministry encourages businesses to buy farmers chickens as prices fall

On Saturday, however, Ketut clarified that the Rp 26.2 billion budget also included Rp 3.69 billion for chicken production grants from the technical implementation unit in 2020 and Rp 20.98 billion for completing the remaining work contracts of its 2019 work program in Gorontalo and Southeast Sulawesi, making the chicken budget at Rp 2.02 billion.

The price is not Rp 26.96 billion divided by 35,000 chickens or Rp 770,000 per chicken, but the budget actually consists of several other components of activities included in the budgeting, Ketut said in a written statement.

Additionally, the chicken procurement budget would also include other poultry farm supplies, such as chicken food, medicine, cage repairment cost aid and operational funds.

Ketut added that the high pig procurement budget was due to the higher cost of distributing the pig farm aid in the Papua region. The ministry estimated that the aid distribution in Papua would cost Rp 13.1 million compared to Rp 4.3 million in other regions, namely West Kalimantan and North Sulawesi.
By A.S.M Suza Uddin and Poppy McPherson COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh/BANGKOK (Reuters) - Rohingya refugee Shahab Uddin thought the wooden trawler he boarded in February would be his ticket out of a camp in Bangladesh to a better life in Malaysia. Instead, the voyage nearly killed him.

By A.S.M Suza Uddin and Poppy McPherson

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh/BANGKOK (Reuters) - Rohingya refugee Shahab Uddin thought the wooden trawler he boarded in February would be his ticket out of a camp in Bangladesh to a better life in Malaysia.

Instead, the voyage nearly killed him.

The 20-year-old was among almost 400 survivors pulled from the water, starving, emaciated and traumatized after the boat failed to reach Malaysia and spent weeks adrift before returning to Bangladesh in mid-April.

Hundreds more refugees are stranded on at least two other trawlers, rights groups say, as Southeast Asian governments tighten borders to keep out the new coronavirus, threatening a repeat of a 2015 boat crisis when hundreds of people died.

The United Nations has implored authorities to let the boats land, but anti-refugee sentiment is surging in Malaysia and governments say borders are sealed to keep out the coronavirus.

In interviews with Reuters, seven survivors from the rescued boat recalled two harrowing months.

Estimates of the number of people who died on the boat ranged from several dozen to more than 100 - nobody kept count - but their accounts were consistent.

The survivors described hundreds of men, women, and children crammed on the boat, unable to move, squatting in rain and scorching sun until, as food and water ran out, they began to die of starvation, thirst, and beatings, their bodies tossed overboard. Some wept as they spoke.

"I thought I would not come back home alive," said Uddin. "I missed my family, especially my parents."

The group Fortify Rights said in a statement last week the operators of the boat "held their victims in conditions similar to slavery for the purposes of exploitation".

Reuters was unable to identify or contact the crew for comment.

Amnesty International urged governments to protect stranded Rohingya and allow them to land. It estimated 800 more people were at sea. Several dozen people from one boat landed on the south coast of Bangladesh on Saturday.

Malaysia defends its policy of turning boats away. Authorities have acted lawfully to defend the countrys sovereignty and are ready to do so again, its minister for internal affairs said in a statement on Thursday.

More than a million Rohingya, members of a Muslim minority from Myanmar, live in camps in southern Bangladesh after fleeing from largely Buddhist Myanmars Rakhine State.

Most fled an army crackdown in 2017 that the United Nations says was carried out with genocidal intent. Myanmar denies genocide and says it was responding to insurgent attacks.

'BETTER OFF IN MALAYSIA'

Although the Rohingya people trace their ancestry in Rakhine back centuries, Myanmar says they are illegal immigrants from South Asia.

For years, Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladesh have fled by boat for Thailand and Malaysia when the seas are calm between October and April. Hundreds died in 2015 after a crackdown in Thailand led smugglers to abandon their human cargo at sea.

In Bangladesh, Uddin made a little money driving motorized tuk-tuks but said refugees were becoming more confined.

The government restricts internet and cell phone access and has begun putting up barbed-wire fences around the camps, citing security. Uddin said it began to feel like prison.

"I thought going to Malaysia by whatever way would at least save me. Many have made it to Malaysia and are better off.

He said he and several friends met a man in a shanty town who took them by boat to a trawler where hundreds of people were already crowded on board - men on the lower deck, women on the top. Many of the young women were due to be married in Malaysia.

Another refugee, Enamul Hasan, also 20, said an uncle in Malaysia urged him to go there. I wanted to go to Malaysia to end my family's poverty, he said.

Six of the seven survivors Reuters interviewed said they had gone willingly. The seventh, aged 16, said he was taken by unknown men against his will.

The misery began as soon as they set out.

"We ate almost nothing," said Uddin. "Little kids would cry for water."

WEEPING AND PRAYING

After a week the boat arrived off Malaysia, where it waited for several days before the crew said they could not disembark and would have to return to Bangladesh.

They crossed back over the Bay of Bengal.

"We faced storms three times, said Uddin.

He said he was made to serve as an enforcer for the crew and beat anyone who stepped out of line. If I didnt want to beat them, I myself would be beaten, he said.

Meanwhile, some desperate passengers began to drink sea water.

"By the wonderful grace of God, the water would seem sweet, said Hasan.

"Many jumped into the water ... everyone was saying that it was much better to die in the water than dying in the ship.

At night, the passengers held one another, weeping and praying.

Eventually the boat stopped again, off Myanmar, survivors said, but again it could not dock.

"People kept dying and would be thrown overboard, said Hasan. "I began to wonder when I would die."

The refugees eventually forced the captain to take them back to Bangladesh where, one night, they made landfall.

A coastguard official there at the time said they were a shocking sight: "Many of them were stick-thin, some unable to stand.

Muriel Boursier, head of mission for Doctors Without Borders in Bangladesh, who met survivors later, said many could not walk. Some grieved for lost relatives, staring blankly.

Some survivors were taken to hospital but most went to a quarantine camp, unaware of the coronavirus that had taken hold during their voyage.

"It's difficult to understand that no state is able to open its doors," Boursier said.

Uddin said his parents hardly recognised him but he was thankful to be back, though he had little hope for his future.

"It's better to die here than to die at sea," he said.

(Reporting by Suza Uddin, Poppy McPherson; Additional reporting by Ruma Paul in Dhaka, Joseph Sipalan in Kuala Lumpur; Writing by Poppy McPherson; Editing by Robert Birsel)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Helotes Canyon borders Government Canyon State Park to the south with panoramic Hill Country views with 67 estate sized lots. Lot sizes begin at half an acre and range in size to over an acre.

Helotes Canyon is situated on Bandera Road, approximately 5 miles west of Helotes, in far Northwest Bexar County. Call Steve Coker at (210) 391-7319 to discuss the exciting opportunities for your new dream home in Helotes Canyon!
The work on the construction of 125 community bunkers along the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla and Kupwara districts will begin next week, said Jammu and Kashmir administration on Monday.

We will float tenders within a day for Uri and Boniyar. The construction work will hopefully begin within a week, said Baramulla additional deputy commissioner Mohd Ahsan Mir.

We are opening some tenders today (Monday) and work will begin from next week, said Karnah sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Bilal Mohiuddin Bhat.

He said that Tangdhar needs huge bunkers because of good population in the tehsil. The area is most vulnerable to the cross-border shelling, he said.

He said that the prototype of bunkers was changed owning to the lack of space. Now, the construction of one bunker will cost us 10 lakh, which otherwise was 20 lakh, he said.

An official from the government wishing anonymity said that the UT administration is facing shortage of land to begin the construction. People will have to cooperate with us for the same, he said.

As per the official, a single bunker will accommodate at least four families.

In February, J&K home department had sanctioned 125 community bunkers with an aim to build shelters and safeguard human lives along the LoC from the arbitrary cross-border shelling .

I am directed to convey the sanction of 125 large community bunkers in Baramulla and Kupwara districts falling within 0-3 kilometres along the LoC, reads the order forwarded to the Kashmir divisional commissioner.

As per the order, 85 bunkers have been approved for Kupwara district that include 10 for Keran, 15 for Machil and 60 bunkers have been approved for Tangdhar tehsil. There will be 20 bunkers each in Uri and Boniyar tehsil. The government has approved 25 crore for the project.

The order also reads that divisional commissioner Kashmir should constitute a committee for physical verification of bunkers and the work should be completed within three months.

However, the residents living near LoC have expressed resentment over the decision of constructing community bunkers. We have always demanded underground bunkers. New types of bunkers are not going to deliver well. They are not safe, said Lal Din Khatana, sarpanch of Charunda village on LoC.

Given the recent border skirmishes, the residents living near the LoC are in state of panic. We fear for our lives, said Irfan Ahmad, a resident of Baidan village of Boniyar.

Three civilians, including an eight-year-old boy were killed after the cross-border shelling took place in Keran village of Kupwara district last month.

Last week, two soldiers were killed, while six others were injured, including two soldiers, at Charunda village in Hajipeer sector of Uri.

Pakistan has violated the ceasefire around 1,400 times this year alone, while the corresponding figure for 2018 and 2019 was 1,629 and 3,168, respectively.
Perth Airport has issued a distress signal following multiple blows: not just a 97 per cent drop in passengers but, it claims, Virgin and Qantas withholding payments.

Qantas, meanwhile, has disagreed with this description of the situation.

Artania cruise ship passengers boarding chartered flights at Perth Airport. The airport is still open for vital services in repatriating Australians and serving the FIFO sector, but is no longer making money to cover its costs. Credit:Getty

The airport released a statement on Monday morning saying it lost more than one million passengers in April and 300,000 in March.

Aprils 24,000 passengers represented a 97 per cent drop on last April for interstate and international passengers.
HEBRON, Kentucky  An armed homeowner confronted a man breaking into his residence, firing several warning shots while chasing him down and eventually subduing him during a struggle, according to reports.

David Whitford, 29, is being held in the Boone County Jail on a charge of burglary, WLWT Channel 5 reports. He was taken to jail after being treated at a hospital for head and facial injuries.

Boone County deputies were called to a residence at 2 p.m. Saturday after receiving reports of a burglary in process and shots fired, Local 12 reports. Deputies tell Local 12 the suspect tried to force his way into the residence, but was confronted by the homeowner, who was armed with a handgun.

Whitford ran toward a riverbank while the homeowner fired several warning shots, deputies tell Fox 19. The homeowner found Whitford hiding in a wooded area and reportedly fired more warning shots. The two men then ended up in a physical struggle as deputies arrived, reports say.

The unidentified homeowner refused medical treatment at the scene.

More content on cleveland.com:

Head-on crash in Sandusky County kills southern Ohio woman

Cleveland man posed as therapist on Snapchat, blackmailed girl into sending explicit photos, feds say
- The United States's Food and Drug Administration has authorised the emergency use of remdesivir for treating COVID-19

- A recent clinical trial revealed that the drug helps shorten the recovery time for COVID-19 patients who are seriously ill

- The company producing remdesivir, which was originally developed for Ebola drug, said it will donate 1.5 million vials of the drug

PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Legit.ng News on your Facebook News Feed

The United States's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorised the emergency use of the Ebola drug remdesivir for treating the novel coronavirus.

BBC explains that the authorisation means that the anti-viral drug can now be used on people who are hospitalised with severe Covid-19.

Legit.ng gathers that a recent clinical trial showed the drug helped shorten the recovery time for people who were seriously ill.

US authorises Ebola drug for COVID-19 treatment. Photo credit: Sky News

Source: UGC

The BBC report, however, states that the drug did not significantly improve survival rates.

The drug was originally developed to treat Ebola. Though it helped reduce the recovery time for COVID-19 patients, experts warned that remdesivir should not be seen as a "magic bullet" for treating coronavirus.

In a meeting with the US President Donald Trump, Daniel O'Day, the chief executive of Gilead pharmaceutical company which developed the drug said the FDA authorisation was an important first step.

He disclosed that the company would donate 1.5 million vials of the drug.

According to BBC, emergency FDA authorisation is not the same as formal approval, which requires a higher level of review.

PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news

In another related report, a German pharmaceutical company, BioNTech, has started testing a potential vaccine for the new coronavirus on human volunteers.

According to Al Jazeera, BioNTech said on Wednesday, April 29, that 12 participants of a clinical trial in Germany received doses of the vaccine candidate BNT162 since April 23.

Legit.ng gathers that the German company is working with the US-based company, Pfizer.

BioNTech said the next step it will take in the vaccine production is to start increasing the dose of BNT162 in a trial involving about 200 participants aged 18 to 55.

Also, President Trump has claimed he has seen evidence that gives him a "high degree of confidence" the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

The US president who made the allegation on Thursday, April 30, however, declined to provide details to substantiate his claim.

Trump's claim contradicted a statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, Veteran Nollywood actress, Hilda Dokubo, is not pleased with the lifting of the total movement restriction in the country during the raging coronavirus pandemic.

The actress took to her Instagram handle to question President Muhammadu Buhari's motivation for easing the lockdown in Lagos, Ogun, and Abuja.

The activist who has been vocal about the government claimed some people are lying to the president about what is actually going down.

According to her, someone is lying to the president, and he cannot be allowed to reach decisions on the strength of a lie.

The actress went on to charge Nigerians to take responsibility for their safety and life. Her Instagram video was captioned: "Who is lying to the President?

"They have relaxed the lockdown. Your safety and life is now in your hands. Do not relax! Corona virus is not relaxing. Observe all the safety protocols. Any attempt to believe their lies"

She started the video by saying: "Who exactly is lying to the president, who? The president has announced the easing of the lockdown on the strength of a lie, who is lying to the president?...."

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have upgraded to serve you better

The Nigerian government cannot handle this pandemic - Woman | Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
DeJong, 36, and two colleagues have been working their way down a list of more than 1,000 customers, writing to thank them for their support and patience while they wait for swimming instruction to restart. And he has the hand cramps to show it, he said.
TORONTO - As the deadly toll of COVID-19 on Canada's nursing homes gives rise to a growing number of proposed class-action lawsuits, some legal experts say the cases will turn on what's considered reasonable care during a pandemic.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 3/5/2020 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO - As the deadly toll of COVID-19 on Canada's nursing homes gives rise to a growing number of proposed class-action lawsuits, some legal experts say the cases will turn on what's considered reasonable care during a pandemic.

The ongoing global health crisis that has disproportionately affected the elderly poses a unique and unprecedented backdrop for such civil actions, which have emerged in Ontario and Quebec in recent weeks, experts say.

Funeral home workers remove a body from the Centre d'hebergement Ste-Dorothee, Monday April 13, 2020 in Laval, Que. As the deadly toll of COVID-19 on Canada's nursing homes gives rise to a growing number of proposed class-action lawsuits, some legal experts say the cases will turn on what's considered reasonable care during a pandemic. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

While nursing homes can't be blamed for the pandemic, they can be held accountable for unnecessary and preventable deaths, said Michael Smitiuch, a Toronto-based lawyer who previously led a successful negligence lawsuit against a Brampton, Ont. facility for seniors.

"A crisis like this does not give nursing homes a free pass to neglect the elderly. So I think what will happen is...we're going to look back at this through a lens of what was reasonable under the circumstances," he said.

"The interesting question will be, what is the standard of care during a pandemic?"

The courts will likely look to the requirements and guidelines issued by health ministries, the World Health Organization and other similar bodies in gauging whether any defendants were negligent, Smitiuch said.

The novel coronavirus has ravaged private and government-run seniors' homes, particularly in Canada's two largest provinces, causing a large proportion of the country's more than 3,000 deaths.

Rules and standards for nursing homes have evolved rapidly as public health officials respond to the crisis, with several provinces now banning staff from working in multiple facilities.

However, a number of proposed class-action lawsuits allege negligence on the part of governments or nursing home operators in their handling of the virus.

In Quebec, the son of a 94-year-old woman who died of COVID-19 at one of the province's hardest-hit facilities has filed a class-action application against the government-run CHSLD Ste-Dorothee.

A Toronto law firm, meanwhile, has served the provincial government with notice of a proposed class proceeding on behalf of all Ontarians in long-term care homes.

It alleges the province's failures in overseeing the facilities have resulted in widespread, avoidable illness and death during the pandemic.

Another such lawsuit launched by two Ontario men whose mothers died from COVID-19 targets Revera, a privately owned nursing home company.

None of the cases have been certified as class actions so far and their claims have not been tested in court.

Scott Stanley, a personal injury lawyer in Vancouver, said these lawsuits and any others that surface in the coming months will face multiple hurdles in meeting the criteria for negligence.

First, he said, it may be difficult for plaintiffs to show the actions of the operators or government caused the deaths.

"If the theory is, well, workers were able to go from one home to the other and transmit the virus  that's a theory, but you have to show factually that that actually caused other people to be affected or infected," he said.

It may also be challenging to demonstrate that the care given fell below established standards, particularly when suing governments, since they are measured against the standards they created, Stanley said.

Governments could also introduce legislation to protect themselves against COVID-19 related lawsuits, although there is a "very live debate" over whether they can preclude cases involving breaches of charter rights, he said.

Such laws are generally "very unpopular" politically, he said.

Even if any of the proposed class actions are successful, plaintiffs may be shocked to find the damages they receive are minimal, he said.

"People are not compensated for the loss of companionship, the loss of friendship, from an older person that's deceased," he said.

"You're basically compensating for the loss of economic benefits they brought to you. And most older people are not in a position where they're providing economic benefits...so in many instances those claims are actually worth nothing."

In truly egregious cases, a nursing home could face punitive damages, which are meant to deter certain conduct, said Smitiuch, the Toronto lawyer.

Governments should also consider an inquiry into how care homes responded to the crisis, he said.

"It would be something that would be valuable for the future, because no doubt we'll be facing something like this sometime in the future," he said.

Three professional orders in Quebec have said they will hold a joint investigation into the situation at seniors' homes and long-term care centres since the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on May 2, 2020.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks to media on the White Island volcanic eruption during her post-cabinet press conference at Parliament in Wellington on Dec. 16, 2019. (Marty Melville/AFP via Getty Images)

New Zealand PM to Join Australias National Cabinet Meeting

New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will join Australias National Cabinet meeting on Tuesday to discuss measures being taken by the two governments against the CCP virus, and a possible trans-Tasman bubble that may allow free movement between Australia and New Zealand.

The Australian reported on Monday that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison invited Ardern to join National Cabinet by telephone last Thursday.

On Monday, New Zealand reported no new cases or deaths caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus. New Zealand is now considering downgrading its restrictions from level 4 to level 3.
[May 04, 2020] BritBox Gives Back To New York City Hospitals By Celebrating Frontline Healthcare Workers For National Nurses Week Starting May 6th With 10,000 Free Subscriptions

NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BritBox, the streaming service from BBC Studios and ITV offering the largest collection of streaming British television in North America, is honoring the healthcare workers in several New York City hospitals, including Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and Flushing Hospital Medical Center, by providing over 10,000 free subscriptions to every employee. BritBox is celebrating all those who have been on the front line and working hard for the city that has been sitting at the heart of the Corona virus epicenter in the United States for National Nurses Week starting on May 6. BritBox will also premiere special programming on the service to honor frontline healthcare workers with a selection of series and films for National Nurses Week. At the center of this celebratory collection is Florence Nightingale, a captivating biopic about the mother of modern nursing. Directed by Emmy Award winner Norman Stone (Shadowland) and starring Laura Fraser (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) as Nightingale, the film shares the legendary nurse's story in honor of what would have been her bicentenary. Based largely on her own words that sparked global health care reform, the film follows this British medical icon's journey as she paves the way for this noble profession during a time of crisis and ultimately becomes an international hero. Also premiering are three new series Super Nurses, Horrible Histories: Formidable Florence Nightingale and Frakie. Super Nurses is an inspirational, life-affirming docuseries following dedicated NHS cancer nurses in their daily work. Through gripping narratives, we discover how these special people manage to remain hopeful despite difficult situations. Horrible Histories: Formidable Florence Nightingale is over-the-top and hugely entertaining. The Horrible Histories gang presents a hilarious take on the legendary life of the mother of modern nursing. There is much more to Florence Nightingale than being 'The Lady with the Lamp.' Lastly, Frankie, the story of a heroine for the modern age, Eve Myles (A Very English Scandal) stars as district nurse, Frankie Maddox, who looks life and death in the eye on a daily basis; her mission is to make a difference.



Each employee of the participating hospitals in the New York City area will have the opportunity to sign up for three free months of BritBox and can cancel any time after the three months, with no fees. BritBox is available for $6.99 per monthafter an introductory free trial periodon Roku, Apple TV 4th Gen, Samsung, LG and all iOS and Android devices, AirPlay, Chromecast, and online at https://www.britbox.com/us/. BritBox is also available on Amazon Channels for Prime members and on Apple TV Channels on supported devices.

About BritBox BritBox is a digital video subscription service offering the largest collection of British TV in the U.S. and Canada. Created by two British content powerhousesBBC Studios, the subsidiary arm of the BBC, and ITV, the UK's biggest commercial broadcasterthe service features iconic favorites, exclusive premieres, and current series and soapsmost available within 24 hours after their UK premiere. BritBox also offers expert curation and playlists that enable fans to easily find programs they know and discover new favorites via the web, mobile, tablet and connected TVs. Contact:

Debs Schonfeld

Senior Director, Communication for BritBox

[email protected]

212.705.9498 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/britbox-gives-back-to-new-york-city-hospitals-by-celebrating-frontline-healthcare-workers-for-national-nurses-week-starting-may-6th-with-10-000-free-subscriptions-301051683.html SOURCE BritBox

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Israeli court hears petitions against Netanyahu-Gantz govt Response this week, Knesset deadline on Thursday

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, MAY 4 - The Israeli Supreme Court met again on Monday for the second time to discuss petitions against any potential new government resulting from an agreement between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. The petitions to be heard on Monday are ones against the 18-month rotation between the two at the head of the government, as called for by the agreement. Those filing the petitions say that this would result in a major change to the semi-constitutional Israeli Basic Law. On Sunday, instead, the court had dealt with the legitimacy that a person accused of crimes like Netanyahu can have as a prime minister on the basis of the same principle as that of the rotation of the premiership. Media reported that on this point the court had sided with Netanyahu. The final decisions are expected to come this week, especially since the deadline set by the Knesset is on May 7 for President Reuven Rivlin to indicate an MP backed by 61 out of 120 seats to form the new government. (ANSAmed).




BEAUVAL, SASK.An Indigenous group in Saskatchewan is criticizing the provinces management of checkpoints that are meant to protect northern communities experiencing outbreaks of COVID-19.

Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby Cameron says in a news release that the province was quick to take over local checkpoints, but his group is now getting calls that officers are stopping northerners from travelling south to get groceries.

Beauval Mayor Nick Daigneault says in the release that he was assured by the government that community members would be allowed to travel for groceries after their only grocery store was closed due to COVID-19.

Chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab expressed concern last week about an outbreak of COVID-19 in La Loche, a Dene village about 600 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon, and the Saskatchewan Health Authority has also declared an outbreak in Beauval.

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency said in an email that travel within the northern region is allowed for residents, but that people should not travel for food or medical care if its already available within their own community.

The email conceded that not all checkpoints are staffed 24/7, but that they all have permanent signage.

Limiting non-essential travel helps prevent the spread of COVID-19 into communities throughout the province, the government email stated.

Shahab told a news conference last week that aggressive contact tracing was underway in La Loche and that between 50 to 100 health authority staff are set to be in the community for added support.

The virus is spreading through the community after someone who had been in northern Alberta brought it into the region.

The public safety agency email noted checkpoints are staffed by the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, along with provincial protection and response team members, which it says includes highway patrol and conservation officers.

It also noted RCMP have increased patrols on roads in the Northern Saskatchewan Administration District.

Daigneault said his community had hired its own security companies to monitor the checkpoints, but said the government came in hard, fast and very disorganized.

The province says they want to work with us, but our input and efforts are being ignored, he said.

Cameron, meanwhile, suggested in the news release that the outbreaks could have been prevented if the province had heeded his organizations calls for checkpoints and border closures earlier.
Against that kind of uncertainty we should be trying to position ourselves to be supporting  and potentially benefiting from  all of them, said Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. And instead we seem to be just focused on trying to win the race, in the hopes we happen to get one of the successful ones.
In recognition of the spirit of service that they have demonstrated in their communities, Jander and Olivia  along with 100 other top youth volunteers from across the country  were also each given $2,500 to donate toward the local COVID-19 response efforts of a nonprofit organization of their choice. These funds come in addition to the $1,000 scholarship and engraved silver medallion they earned as Maryland's top youth volunteers of 2020.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, sponsored by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), named Jander and Olivia Maryland's top high school and middle level youth volunteers in February.

"Over the past 25 years, this program has honored students spanning three generations, and the common thread between them has been the determination of young people to respond to the challenges of the moment," said Charles Lowrey, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial. "Who better than this group of young leaders from all over the country to help identify and direct resources to community needs arising from COVID-19?"

As State Honorees, Jander and Olivia also earned an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the program's annual national recognition events; the trip, however, was canceled due to COVID-19 and changed to a three-day online celebration this past weekend. In addition to remarks and congratulations from actress Kristen Bell, honorees had opportunities to connect with each other through online project-sharing sessions, learn about service and advocacy from accomplished past Spirit of Community honorees, hear congratulatory remarks from Lowrey and NASSP Executive Director and CEO JoAnn Bartoletti, and more.

"We admire these young leaders for their ability to assess the needs of the communities they serve and find meaningful ways to address them," said Bartoletti. "At a time when everyone is looking for optimism, these students are a bright light for their peers and the adults in their lives."

About the Honorees

Jander (pictured left), a junior at Oakdale High School, helped provide crucial access to medical care for residents of storm-ravaged Puerto Rico by volunteering on a medical van for several months in 2018. After Hurricane Maria struck the island, Jander and his family had to wait for weeks to learn whether their relatives there were alright. "When we heard back from my grandparents, they described the precarious conditions on the island," said Jander. "There was no power, food, gas, clean water or available medical facilities." But Jander's grandfather, a doctor, had an idea. He and some colleagues wanted to outfit a medical van to reach areas with no access to medical care. As soon as school was out for the summer, Jander flew to the island to help.

Prior to taking the van out, Jander's job was to load supplies and do an inventory of medical equipment. This included making sure batteries were charged, power generators were full of gas, extra gas cans were on board, and basic diagnostic equipment such as blood pressure cuffs and stethoscopes, as well as common medications, were ready to go. Twice a week the team traveled to remote areas on surfaces that bore little resemblance to actual roads. Sometimes they would park the van on a beach or in a parking lot to administer care to people who sometimes tried to pay them with vegetables or chickens, even though their food was in short supply. "People came together during a difficult time and brought forward their best," said Jander.

Olivia (pictured right), a member of Girl Scouts of Central Maryland and an eighth-grader at Magothy River Middle School, organized the planting of native grasses at a nearby beach to help prevent sand erosion, contain the spread of invasive species, and reduce storm runoff pollution in the Magothy River. "Ever since I can remember, I have gone to Lake Claire Beach to relax and be with family," Olivia explained. But over time she had noticed that the size of the beach had been significantly reduced and invasive plants were taking over. A community effort to replenish sand and replant native grasses had been unsuccessful, so when Olivia learned that the Cape St. Claire Improvement Association was planning to replant vegetation in a 150-square-foot buffer zone at the beach, she volunteered to lead the project.

Olivia began by interviewing community leaders and researching native grasses. She then presented a plan at the board meetings of local environmental agencies. Once she had permission, she obtained donations and recruited volunteers from two Girl Scout troops. She then took over the care of 250 native grass plants, which she had to water for six weeks prior to planting. On planting day, last May, a crew of 16 helped Olivia plant. Afterwards, she posted signs and put caution tape around the area to keep visitors from trampling the fledgling plants, and she continued to water the new plants through the summer and fall months. "It was an incredible experience to see the grasses go from tiny and brown to fuller green grasses thriving in the sand," she said.

About The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program was created in 1995 to identify and recognize young people for outstanding volunteer service  and, in so doing, inspire others to volunteer, too. In the past 25 years, the program has honored more than 130,000 young volunteers at the local, state and national level. For more information about The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and this year's honorees, visit http://spirit.prudential.com. For more information about the National Association of Secondary School Principals, visit www.nassp.org. For more information about Prudential Financial, visit www.news.prudential.com.

Learn more at spirit.prudential.com

SOURCE Prudential Financial, Inc.
The revelation last week that two patients with the coronavirus were court-ordered to self-isolate raises new concerns about civil liberties during the pandemic that deserve answers.

A spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Health told Journal Capitol Bureau chief Dan Boyd on Wednesday that the state agency sought court intervention within the past three weeks to require two people to self-isolate. It was the first time an isolation provision in a 2003 state law Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has been utilizing throughout the pandemic has been invoked.

Our goal is not to punish or imprison people; its to isolate someone with COVID using the least restrictive means necessary when that person refuses to self-isolate, said DOH spokesman David Morgan.

Morgan said respondents would typically be isolated in a health facility but could be isolated in their homes. Unfortunately, we dont know what happened because the court records in both cases were automatically sealed. Morgan said thats because they contain protected information. He added the health department could not provide further details, including where the two people live.

The 2003 Public Health Emergency Response Act that gives the governors administration the extraordinary power to isolate or quarantine people to prevent or limit the spread of a communicable disease includes certain safeguards intended to protect civil liberties, including the right to request a court hearing. Little is known about the two recent cases, such as how did the two people present a public threat, how many people did they come in contact with, how are they being quarantined, were they afforded the opportunity to confront their accusers in court and did they retain counsel or have to rely on court-appointed defense attorneys?

New Mexicos court system has been bracing for isolation and quarantine orders. A training session last month included roughly 90 attorneys who volunteered to represent individuals in such cases, and two judges in each judicial district have been designated to hear public health emergency cases. In an op-ed in the Journal on May 1, Second Judicial District Court Judge Daniel Ramczyk noted the judiciary is the branch of government from which Americans seek protection when they believe their freedoms are threatened.

The judiciary has been called upon to assume a dual role during these extraordinary events. First, courts first must work with government in protecting the public from COVID-19. Second, the courts concurrently must protect individuals constitutional and due process rights from any overreach by the government in its response to the virus, wrote Ramczyk, who has more than 17 years on the bench.

None of us gave the government carte blanche to whittle away our freedoms, the judge wrote. How to protect and guarantee those rights can be challenging, at times, and COVID-19 is forcing the judiciary to re-think how it does business. The judicial branch will rise to the challenge.

Those are encouraging words from a seasoned judge, but a legislative adjustment to this blanket sealing is in order to alleviate public health and civil liberty concerns. Were the two respondents placed under guard in a health facility, or simply told to go home with an ankle bracelet? Sealing the court cases buries that important information, as well as whether these individuals are being treated fairly and what others face should they act in whatever way these two did. Our courts should be able to shield private health information and still err on the side of disclosure in any future isolation cases.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when public safety and constitutional liberties are at stake.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
New Delhi, May 4 : As India entered phase-3 of the lockdown on Monday due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, women who already face domestic violence may have to suffer more for the government's decision to open liquor shops, according to women's rights activists.

Speaking to IANS, social activist and Director of the Centre for Social Research (CSR), Dr. Ranjana Kumari said, "According to the government's own National Family Health survey data, there is a direct link between alcohol use and violence by men. So certainly it will escalate. Already there are two times more cases of domestic violence reported to the NCW." She added that there was a rise in the number of women calling for help. "We have also received more calls at our counselling centre than usual. In the past 30 days we have received 27 calls. Opening liquor shops may be a revenue generating thing but at a time when people have lost their jobs, incomes have gone down there is already economic stress in the families, alcohol is not the best choice that the government is giving to the people. It will cut into the economy of the family in terms of using money. Instead of buying better health products men will use money in buying alcohol," Kumari said.

Another women's rights activist Shamina Shafiq told IANS that there are chances that women and children will fall prey to domestic violence due to alcohol consumption by men. "This is hundred percent true. The government is already insensitive towards the rights of women now this step will add to the plight of women and children who face domestic violence. We already saw a rise in such cases in lockdown one and two and now in lockdown 3.0, it will be even worse. Men who are alcoholic, will snatch the money that women have saved for difficult times and will buy liquor. They will get drunk and will beat women and children at home." said Shafiq.

She added that "people are already facing financial difficulty these days. They are already frustrated due to various reasons like job loss, financial problems etc. This will just add fuel to the fire. They will vent it all out on women and kids. I fail to understand what is stopping the government to lay down guidelines for security forces for taking cognizance of such crimes? Why can't they just go and check homes where such cases are frequent?" asked Shafiq.

Another women's rights activist Yogita Bhayana told IANS that it is a strange decision taken by the government. She said this will not just escalate crimes against women and children but also other kinds of crimes like snatching, robberies etc.

"I don't understand how the government considers alcohol as essential service? Addiction can never be essential. In fact this lockdown situation was a perfect opportunity for the government to utilise it for de-addiction." Bhayana said the government could only think of it as a revenue generation source but did not notice what benefits there are from its closure. "If this source of revenue generation has been given an opportunity why not others?" she asked. "Whenever we talk about domestic or sexual violence it is directly related to liquor. During lockdown the violence on women multiplied. When a woman is between the four walls with her abuser, violence against women will aggravate." She added that crimes like marital rapes may increase. "Liquor consumption can cause more marital rapes as well. Even poor states have witnessed crowds outside liquor shops. I don't know from where they are getting money during this economic stress to buy alcohol. This is pure hypocrisy. Not just this, addicts may steal jewellery or other precious things and will beat women for money. I agree that it is one of the highest revenue generating item but the government is not seeing how many murders, rapes and other crimes happen due to alcohol." (Sfoorti Mishra can be contacted at sfoorti.m@ians.in)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 10:28:19|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A group of male nurses from east China's Jiangsu Province risked their lives to save people in Wuhan, the hard-hit city by COVID-19 outbreak. The male nurses from the Zhongda Hospital affiliated to Southeast University have broken the stereotype that man shouldn't be a nurse, and become daily heroes in the fight against the pandemic.
Global Military Ground Robot Market 2020-2024 The analyst has been monitoring the military ground robot market and it is poised to grow by $ 42. 08 bn during 2020-2024 progressing at a CAGR of 27% during the forecast period.

New York, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Global Military Ground Robot Market 2020-2024" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05891148/?utm_source=GNW

Our reports on military ground robot market provides a holistic analysis, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis covering around 25 vendors.

The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by the increased spending in military modernization programs, incorporation of EO/IR systems with military robots, and upgradation of capabilities to counter emerging threats. In addition, increased spending in military modernization programs is anticipated to boost the growth of the market as well.

The military ground robot market analysis includes product segment and geographic landscapes



The military ground robot market is segmented as below:

By Product

 Airborne military robots

 naval military robots

 land-based military robots



By Geographic Landscapes

 North America

 APAC

 Europe

 MEA

 South America



This study identifies the emergence of advanced UAVs as one of the prime reasons driving the military ground robot market growth during the next few years. Also, increasing number of product launches, and emergence of autonomous submarines will lead to sizable demand in the market.

The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters. Our military ground robot market covers the following areas:

 Military ground robot market sizing

 Military ground robot market forecast

 Military ground robot market industry analysis





Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05891148/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

Clare: clare@reportlinker.com

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 21:47:21|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

CAIRO, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's parliament, House of Representatives, approved on Monday a presidential decree extending the state of emergency in the country for three more months starting from April 28, state-run Nile TV reported.

"Declaring a state of emergency in the country has become a necessity given the security and health conditions as well as the internal and regional developments and the continuation of state efforts to uproot terrorism," the general committee of the House of Representatives said.

"The world lives in a health emergency situation that required imposing a state of emergency," said the parliament speaker Ali Abdel Aal.

The approval came one day after Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly delivered a statement before the parliament, warning against "rogue elements supported by some malicious forces to target Egypt."

Madbouly began his statement by referring to "the heinous terrorist attack" which hit Bir Al-Abd town in North Sinai on Thursday.

Madbouly added the police and Armed Forces should be ready at all times to stand up to these challenges.

Under the Egyptian constitution, presidential decisions to renew the state of emergency must be approved by the country's parliament.

Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi first imposed a three-month nationwide state of emergency in April 2017, following a twin bombing at two churches in the northern provinces of Gharbiya and Alexandria that killed at least 47 and wounded over 120 others.

Egypt has been facing a wave of terror activities that killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians since the popularly-backed military ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and the later security crackdown on his loyalists, mostly from the currently outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.

Most of the terrorist attacks in Egypt over the past few years were claimed by a Sinai-based group affiliated with the regional Islamic State militant group.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian army and police killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared by al-Sisi following Morsi's ouster. Enditem
Children immunised with BCG tend to suffer less from respiratory illnesses, according to a specialist

Hundreds of South African health workers were given a century-old tuberculosis vaccine on Monday in a trial to see whether the venerable formula can protect against coronavirus.

Devised at France's legendary Pasteur Institute 100 years ago, the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine is one of the world's oldest and most trusted immunisations.

"We vaccinated the first participant this morning," Duncan McDonald, head of business development and marketing at a clinical research organisation called TASK, told AFP.

Trials started at Tygerberg hospital in Cape Town, where BCG booster shots were administered to 250 health care workers, while another 250 received a dummy formula, or placebo.

"There are observations that this BCG vaccine does something to the immune system that we don't really understand," TASK founder professor Andreas Diacon said.

Children immunised with BCG tend to suffer less from respiratory illnesses, including asthma, he said.

"It makes the immune system cope better with respiratory retract infections," said Diacon. "No one actually really understands why it works".

Diacon and his team want to determine whether BCG could have an effect on coronavirus by reducing the risk of infection or easing symptoms.

"If you can reduce the (COVID-19) symptoms just a little, you will probably get people to survive this better or not even have to go to hospital or not even becoming ill," said Diacon.

In South Africa around 300,000 people catch TB each year -- one of the highest rates of infection in the world. Each year, 63,000 people die, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Diacon, an expert in internal medicine and pulmonology at Tygerberg Hospital and a Stellenbosch University professor said the trials focussed on health care workers as "we believe that they will be exposed most".

The plan is to ramp up the trials to up to 3,000 health care workers in Cape Town. Participants will be observed for at least a year.

Similar BCG clinical trials are being conducted in the Netherlands, Australia and France.

Participants in Australia and Netherlands will be given the vaccine for the first time as there is no policy of administering BCG vaccine in these countries.
Regional

Northeastern states begin phased relaxation of lockdown

Guwahati, Itanagar, Gangtok, Imphal May 4 (Correspondent) | Publish Date: 5/4/2020 9:24:25 AM IST

More shops open in Assam after govt relaxes lockdown

After 40 days of strict restrictions, the Assam government on Monday relaxed coronavirus-triggered lockdown norms allowing more shops to open in the state.However, most of the outlets in the high-street areas kept their shutters down due to the numbering system that allows only one-third of the shops in a row to open on a particular day. A night curfew from 6 pm to 6 am has been clamped across Assam till May 17 to prevent gathering of people in the evening.

The government has allowed standalone shops -- only one-third in a row -- to open in both urban and rural areas and the deputy commissioners held meetings with the market associations and commerce chambers in this regard on Monday morning.

As per the guidelines announced by health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday evening, if the first shop in a row is open on Monday, then the second and third will remain shut. On Tuesday, the first, third and fourth shops will be closed, and likewise.

As per the guidelines, all the shops barring pharmacies have to down their shutters at 5 pm, an hour before the curfew comes into effect.

Markets across the state where numbering system is complete have started functioning while elsewhere, where the process is still on, the shops will open accordingly, officials said.

The shops are being numbered now. By the end of the day, this numbering will be over and they (owners) can open the shops from tomorrow (Tuesday), Jorhat deputy commissioner Roshni Aparanji Korati told PTI.

Nalbari deputy commissioner Bharat Bhushan Devchoudhury said they have allowed only those shops to open where numbering has been completed.

We are also restricting the movement of e-rickshaws. We have numbered them and implemented the odd-even scheme for that. This is done to dissuade the public to come out without a reason, he added.

In some areas of the state capital, long traffic jams were witnessed during morning office hours with people coming out in after more than a month in their own vehicles.

City buses, intra-district and inter-district buses started operating with 50 per cent capacity, but they will not be allowed to ply in red and orange zones.

Standalone liquor shops have already opened from Saturday and long queues were seen at almost all outlets in the state.

To avail all the relaxations, wearing a mask is mandatory, failing which police will take action, Sarma had said.

Arunachal: A number of shops apart from those selling essentital commodities opened along with offices in Arunachal Pradesh on Monday, as the country entered the third phase of the lockdown with more relaxations.

Liquor shops, pan and cigarette stalls and a few garment shops opened shutters in the state for the first time since the coronavirus-induced lockdown came into force in March, officials said.

People made a beeline in front of wine shops here from the early hours but many were left disappointed as outlets ran out of stock.

We are not in a position to meet the requirement of every customer due to limited stock, said Rinku Bora, owner of a wine shop at O Point Tinali here.

He, however, said things should normalise in the next few days.

Shops selling stationery items, cigarettes and betel leaves also witnessed queues since morning.

Officials said people adhered to all safety precautions, including social distancing and wearing of masks while visiting the shops.

Some government and private offices also started functioning with around 50 per cent staff.

Long queues were seen outside several bank branches at Itanagar, Naharlagun and Nirjuli, too.

The state capital witnessed heavy traffic in the morning hours, especially in the Ganga area as people ventured out of their houses, Capital SP Tumme Amo said.

The state cabinet has convened a meeting on Monday to discuss about the modalities during the third phase of the lockdown till May 17.

Sikkim: Shops and business establishments reopened on Monday in Sikkim as the authorities relaxed lockdown regulations in the state which is yet to report any positive coronavirus cases so far.

All shops, including those of liquor, did a brisk business as people rushed to various market places in the state capital and elsewhere in the Himalayan state.

The Sikkim government allowed shops to remain open till 4 PM from Monday, officials said.

In a circular issued on Sunday, the authorities directed shopkeepers and consumers to strictly follow the social distancing norm and use masks in public places.

There was, however, little movement of vehicles as the public and private vehicles have been barred from plying till mtotal lifting of the lockdown, officials said.

Sikkim is one of the few states to have reported no Covid-19 cases till date and all of its four districts are green zones.

Manipur: Manipur began returning to normalcy on Monday after the government eased some lockdown restrictions, subsequent upon categorisation of the state as a green zone.

People are now allowed to return to work and moved out of their places after 40 days long strict lockdown to check spread of COVID-19 in the state.

Except the iconic all-women market and its adjoining market complexes in Imphal, all other market places in the capital city and its outskirts were opened from Monday.

An order of the state home department allowed opening of shops and business establishment across the state from 6am till 4 pm every day, excluding the markets at three Ima Keithels (all-women run markets), Nagamapal and Ngari Galli in Imphal.

The iconic all-women markets remained close since March 21 last, five days ahead of the COVID-19 induced nationwide lockdown began from March 25.

Similarly, major market places in other districts of the state, particularly at the district headquarters were kept outside the purview of the relaxation. As such, these markets remained closed.

No relaxation was given for public transport including buses, taxis and auto rickshaws by the latest revised lockdown norms.

A shocking scene was witnessed today when many elderly turned up at State Bank of India (SBI) at MG Avenue standing in front of the bank without maintaining physical distancing.

They were waiting permission to enter the bank and withdraw their pension. According to the pensioners, they were restricted from entering the bank for reasons best known to the bank authority only.

The elderly turned up as banks were also relaxed from the lockdown.

As per the new guideline, inter-state buses for public transport and movement of individuals will continue to banned except as permitted by state home department.

There will be relaxation in the inter-state movement of individuals for medical reasons or for essential activities with the permission of the state home department. (Correspondent)

Meghalaya: Amid the COVID-19 lockdown, all government offices in Meghalaya have resumed functioning from Monday with 100 percent strength for group A and B officers.

However, in case any employees family members has severe acute respiratory infection and influenza-like illness symptoms or have recent travel history, he/she has been advised not to attend to office but to work from home, Employee having symptoms of cough, fever and sore throat, or who have had any contact primary contacts recently should go for testing immediately, he said.

Additional Chief Secretary for Personnel A.R. (A) Department, Rebecca Vanessa Suchiang said that all government offices in the state shall function at 100 percent strength for group A and B officers and 33 percent strength for group C and D staff with effect from Monday.

In her order, Suchiang also directed the head of departments concerned to notify the roster of duty for group C and D staff.

Lunch time has also been staggered in government offices. The employees have also been directed to download the Aryogya Setu app. (Correspondent)
A Belfast nurse was moved to tears when her family presented her with a painting honouring frontline NHS staff after returning home from a gruelling shift.

Kate Laing (53) said she was stunned to find Graeme Foster's work based on the 'Clap for Carers' weekly round of national applause hanging in the landing of the Moneyreagh home she shares with her husband Steve (47) and children Zoe (22) and Harry (24).

Until recently Kate was Deputy Sister in paediatrics at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald but the closure of that ward due to the Covid-19 pandemic saw her transferred to the Emergency Department. "The painting was a complete surprise and I burst into tears as soon as I saw it because I had just come in after a long day at work," Kate said.

"My family can't do anything to help me at the moment, but this was their way to show their appreciation for what all healthcare workers are doing."

The painting by the east Belfast artist, known as Foss, depicts people clapping for key workers outside their front doors with the iconic Harland & Wolff cranes in the background.

While Kate received the original painting, prints have also been sold to honour others going the extra mile at this time.

"The streets in the painting are named after myself and Steve and he even had my car added into it and people wearing facemasks," she added.

"Those sorts of personal gestures made it extra special."

Like all medical professionals, Kate says coronavirus has been the biggest challenge she has faced in her 34-year nursing career.

"I have never seen anything like this and over the past few weeks we have all gone through periods of feeling emotionally overwhelmed, tired and anxious about what is going to happen," she said.

"While I have years of experience behind me I feel really sorry for the younger junior nurses who are just newly qualified and finding themselves having to deal with a situation like this."

Kate said the weekly Clap for Carers has been a huge boost but says her job has always been a privilege.

Foss has just completed a second painting focused around Northern Ireland's first Nightingale Hospital at Belfast City Hospital's tower block.

It features the iconic NHS murals that have been appearing across the country in recent weeks and a tribute to Captain Tom Moore, whose fundraising for the NHS reached over 32m.

"Whenever this is finally all over the paintings will be a reminder of a time when most of us stood still and only had to clap while others did all the hard work," Foss said.
Known as Hollywoods Preferred Marketplace, which caters to elite celebrities and online shoppers alike, Cask Cartel is now on Americas radar. With CaskCartel.com, Americans can bask in the fact that they have found a home hub when it comes to finding and ordering their ultimate party spirits needs, whether they are for home quarantine parties or stay at home bars. Orders are shipped out by individual retail fulfillment partners, that offers the largest selection of product availability, all in a single online marketplace.

Competitor sites fall short in offering the same advantages as CaskCartel.com. Many fail to provide a broad selection or ultimately fall short because once a customer finally lands the product they want, the product will not end up being available or will reflect as out of stock. Traditional brick and mortar liquor stores do not understand the challenges of running an e-commerce platform or handling customer support issues. Cask Cartels company leadership combines over 20 years in the spirits service industry along with over 20 years of e-commerce digital marketing, in addition to customer service call center support. This is the missing element in the industry, the capacity to connect brand products to the consumer and bridge those gaps within a simplistic navigational platform. This undertaking takes the online marketplace shopping experience to the next level.

Overall, the company has seen a significant increase across the entire portfolio, however, some products have substantially increased, such as Burnetts Vodka, Skrewball, Titos, and Captain Morgan. Additionally, many other bourbons, such as Blantons, Weller, and Buffalo Trace, have also seen a comparable increase.

With current bourbon shortages, consumer buying has only increased buying demands and has escalated them to such a level, that the industry is quite literally being depleted of what were once normal finds that have since become difficult or impossible to find rarities.

As spirit brands tend to solely rely on tasting events, restaurants, and bar sponsorships, as well as other traditional marketing methods for brand sales acceleration and generation, many brands are struggling to adapt to the current environment. The industry has canceled all these marketing lifelines, perhaps indefinitely, and it is unknown what the future holds for many restaurants and bars. Cask Cartel offers a variety of digital ad campaign management programs ensuring the ability to direct target buying audiences. Cask Cartels digital ads outstrip other agencies or internal brands campaigns five to one. Brands that work with the Cask Cartel marketplace will see an unparalleled return on marketing ad spend.

With Cinco de Mayo coming up and it traditionally being an on-premise restaurant or bar gathering holiday, Cask Cartel has decided to celebrate by partnering with El Mayor Tequila to offer a FREESHIP2 discount code. Using this code means receiving free shipping on your order when you buy any two bottles of El Mayor Tequila.


New Delhi, May 4 : The Maharashtra government has moved a plea in the Supreme Court stating that Republic TV Editor Arnab Goswami has abused the interim protection by "browbeating, terrorising and intimidating the investigation officer, and levelled a serious allegation against Mumbai Police Commissioner through a debate on the news channel".

Goswami was granted interim protection by the top court on April 24. The court had asked the police not to take any coercive step in connection with multiple FIRs lodged against him for defaming Congress President Sonia Gandhi and raking communal tensions.

The Mumbai police urged the court to pass a direction to insulate the investigating agency from any pressure, threat or coercion from Goswami, which would enable the fair and transparent investigation into the matter. The police also requested the court to restrain him from abusing interim protection from arrest.

"An announcement on Republic Bharat stated that Goswami was interrogated by the police with regard to the said FIR, but that with regard to the petitioner's FIR, the police refused to register either assault or conspiracy and were covering up the matter," said the Mumbai police's application.

The police also contended Goswami had mentioned in his show that the Mumbai police Commissioner was involved with IndiaBulls and he is investigating this scam. "He also added that many officers of the Mumbai police were involved with IndiaBulls," said the application.

"This appears to be aimed solely at browbeating the investigating officers by creating a fear psychosis that they would also face dire consequences and would be publicly ridiculed, if they proceed for investigations in the two FIRs, one lodged by the petitioner and one against him, against his dictates," it added.

The police insisted that Goswami has acted in a manner which is smeared with arrogance and virtual disregard to the institution of police.

"A balance needs to be maintained between the rights of the petitioner as a senior journalist vis a vis the prerogative of the investigating agency to conduct investigations into the crime as an arm of the law without any fear, threat or pressure," said the police in his plea.
Though the Met Gala is cancelled this year (though a virtual version will be hosted tonight ) a host of A-list stars usually return year-after-year to the exclusive event.

The likes of Rihanna, Beyonce, Sarah Jessica Parker and the Kardashian family have all scored standing invitations to the biggest night in fashion - even if Anna Wintour was initially sceptical about having a Kardashian on the red carpet.

But what did the biggest stars of the Met wear to their first-ever ball? While Rihanna's Pope outfit or Beyonce's nearly-naked Givenchy dress might have stolen the show in the years since, many stars played it safe in their interpretations of the Met Gala theme for their very first outing.

Rihanna

Rihanna in 2007 / Getty Images

Debut: 2007

In 2007 Rihanna was fresh from releasing hits like 'Shut Up and Drive' and 'Take a Bow.'

For her first Met Gala, she committed to her Good Girl Gone Bad era style - combining a floaty white dress with tough studded details and black lace gloves.

While there wasnt any obvious reference to Haute couturier Poiret - the theme of that year - Rihanna has since proved more than capable of delivering on a theme.

Beyonce

Beyonce in 2008 / Getty Images

Debut: 2008

Beyonce has made a habit of shutting down the red carpet with her striking haute couture gowns by Givenchy, but for her very first outing, Beyonce played it safe in a pastel pink Armani Prive gown.

It was an almost invisible nod to the superheroes theme of that year, but the star made up for it in the years following with her latex Givenchy gown in 2016 and nearly naked dress in 2015.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift in 2008 / Getty Images

Debut: 2008

At Swift's first appearance in 2008, she was the epitome of country princess chic in a glittery gown and big bouncy blonde hair. Her detailed gold dress was designed by Badgley Mischka.

Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West at the 2013 Met Gala / Getty Images

Debut: 2013

Kim Kardashians debut Met Gala look was a major sartorial statement.

Her now famous floral-print Givenchy dress and gloves sparked plenty of memes, with Internet armchair experts drawing comparisons between her dress and their grandmothers couches, but it was a brave look from the then-expecting mother and we stand by it.

Blake Lively

Blake Lively at the 2008 Met Gala / Getty Images

Debut: 2008

The Gossip Girl stars debut was a classy one in a black feathered gown by Ralph Lauren with matching gloves and diamond arm candy.

Now Lively regularly tops the Met Galas best-dressed list with truly show-stopping creations. In 2018, she stepped out in a jaw-dropping Versace gown which took four months to make and was accessorised with $2 million worth of jewellery. Go big or go home.

Kendall Jenner

Kendall Jenner at the 2014 Met Gala / Getty Images

Debut: 2014

Though Kendall Jenner makes a habit of flouting the Met Gala theme, in 2014 her pale fishtail gown was a strong reference to the Charles James: Beyond Fashion theme, dedicated to the ballgown designer.

Her designer was also a surprise as she chose to wear a gown by Topshop, setting the stage for Ashley Graham to eventually choose a high street retailer for the Met in 2017 (only hers was H&M). Jenner accessorised with Chopard diamonds.

Cara Delevingne

Cara Delevingne and Douglas Booth at the 2011 Met Gala / Getty Images

Debut: 2011

Cara Delevingne and her eyebrows exploded onto the scene in the early 2010s, when she attended the Met Gala alongside fellow Brit Douglas Booth.

The friends posed for the Alexander McQueen-themed event dressed head to toe in Burberry - the pair were the brand's campaign stars at the time.
NEW YORK - The Latest on the announcement of the 2020 Pulitzer Prizes (all times local):

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Six-year-old Muneefa Nazir, a Kashmiri girl whose right eye was hit by a marble ball shot allegedly by Indian Paramilitary soldiers on Aug. 12, stands outside her home in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Sept. 17, 2019. The image was part of a series of photographs by Associated Press photographers which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

NEW YORK - The Latest on the announcement of the 2020 Pulitzer Prizes (all times local):

5 p.m.

The Pulitzer Prizes had something new this year  the inaugural award for audio reporting.

The award announced Monday went to the collaboration between the staff of This American Life, Molly OToole of the Los Angeles Times, and Emily Green, a freelancer for Vice News.

They won for The Out Crowd, which focuses on the human impact of the Remain in Mexico policy on asylum cases used by the Trump Administration.

The prize board had announced the new category in December, in recognition of the excellent work being done in audio journalism.

___

4:30 p.m.

Kashmiri men shout freedom slogans during a protest against New Delhi's tightened grip on the disputed region, after Friday prayers on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Aug. 23, 2019. The image was part of a series of photographs by Associated Press photographers which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

The Pulitzer Prize board on Monday awarded its prize for commentary to Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times for an essay she wrote for the 1619 Project.

The project, which she helmed, marked the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans being brought to what became the United States of America and the impact it has had.

The board called her work a sweeping, deeply reported and personal essay, and recognized its prompting public conversation about the nations founding and evolution.

___

4:15 p.m.

The board of the Pulitzer Prizes issued a special citation Monday to Ida B. Wells, the trail-blazing African American investigative journalist.

The Pulitzer board said the citation comes with a bequest of at least $50,000 in support of Wells mission, with recipients to be announced.

In honouring her during the prize announcements, the board noted her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.

Wells, born and raised in the south, was a civil rights activist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who campaigned against lynching, which she showed in her writing was used as oppression against African Americans. She later moved north, and continued her activism.

Looters run away from a store as national police arrive during a protest demanding the resignation of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Feb. 12, 2019. The image was part of a series of photographs by Associated Press photographers which was named a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

___

3:50 p.m.

The Pulitzer Prize for public service went to a collaboration between the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica for coverage of policing in Alaska villages.

The stories, which Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy described as riveting, showed how severely public safety is lacking in Alaska, with one-third of villages having no police protection and dozens of communities hiring officers with criminal records of their own.

The coverage brought in funding and inspired legislative change.

___

3:45 p.m.

Michael R. Jacksons musical A Strange Loop, a musical about a man trying to write a musical, has won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Jackson, who wrote the music, story and lyrics, centres on an overweight, overwhelmed ball of black confusion trying to navigate the worlds of white, black, gay as well as his familys religion.

This image released by Doubleday shows a portrait of author Colson Whitehead, author of "The Nickel Boys," winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. (Madeline Whitehead/Doubleday via AP)

No one cares about a writer who is struggling to write, sings the anxiety-ridden lead character, Usher.

The Pulitzer board called it a meditation on universal human fears and insecurities. The play was seen off-Broadway in 2019 at Playwrights Horizons.

The Pulitzer drama award is for a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life, according to the guidelines. Musicals rarely claim the Pulitzer, with only Next to Normal and Hamilton winning since 2010.

___

3:40 p.m.

The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize in public service Monday for illuminating the sparse policing of many Alaska villages.

The New York Times won the investigative reporting prize for an expose of predatory lending in the New York City taxi industry, while the staff of The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, took the breaking news reporting award for quickly unpacking racial disparities and other issues in a spate of governors pardons.

A first-ever award for audio reporting went to This American Life, the Los Angeles Times and Vice News for The Out Crowd, an examination of the Trump administrations remain in Mexico immigration policy.

___

3:30 p.m.

Colson Whitehead became the rare writer to win Pulitzers for consecutive books.

His novel about a brutal Florida reform school, The Nickel Boys, received the fiction prize Monday. Whiteheads most recent previous book, The Underground Railroad, won for fiction in 2017.

He is also known for such acclaimed works as John Henry Days and The Intuitionist.

The drama winner was Michael R. Jacksons musical A Strange Loop. Benjamin Mosers Sontag: Her Life and Work, about the late Susan Sontag, won for biography.

There were two winners in general nonfiction: Greg Grandons The End of the Myth and Ann Boyers The Undying.

In history, W. Caleb McDaniel won for Sweet Taste of Liberty. The poetry winner was Jericho Browns The Tradition.

In music, the winner was Anthony Davis opera The Central Park Five, about the five young men wrongly imprisoned for sexual assault. __

Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

This item has been corrected to show that the fiction prize winner's first name is Colson, not Colton.

___

3:20 p.m.

The Associated Press won a Pulitzer in feature photography for images made during Indias clampdown on Kashmir, where a sweeping curfew and shutdowns of phone and internet service added to the challenges of telling showing the world what was happening in the region of 7 million people.

AP Photographers Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand snaked around roadblocks, sometimes took cover in strangers homes and hid cameras in vegetable bags to capture images of protests, police and paramilitary action and daily life. Then they headed to an airport to persuade travellers to carry the photo files out with them and get them to APs office in New Delhi.

It was always cat-and-mouse, Yasin said, later adding: These things made us more determined than ever to never be silenced.
The Northern Ireland Executive was not given advanced detail of the Republic's lockdown exit strategy, Stormont's leaders have revealed.

Speaking at Monday's daily briefing on the Covid-19 crisis, First Minister Arlene Foster acknowledged the development in the Republic, which will begin lifting some of the restrictions on May 18, stressing the Executive is "working actively on our plan".

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar unveiled the Irish Government's five-stage 'road map' last Friday.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed by the departments of health in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to strengthen co-operation in the battle against coronavirus

Last week it was announced that the Executive will be unveiling its "pathway to recovery" for Northern Ireland in the coming days.

"(We) continue to make progress. It is important the Executive remains focused on getting it right," said the DUP leader.

Outlining the Executive's "thought process" on the plan, stressing this was the seventh week Northern Ireland is living "with restrictions no one wanted".

"If we had not implemented those restrictions. The first wave would have been a lot worse than it has been," she said.

"The challenge for this Executive is how do we lessen the restrictions, that is science-led, proportionate."

Questioned about the Irish Government's exit strategy, the First Minister revealed that she had had a meeting with the Tanaiste Simon Coveney and the Republic's Health Minister, Simon Harris.

"We talked about a number of issues... Of course it's always for a government to put out its staging posts, the way forward. We didn't have a comprehensive view of what was coming in relation to that plan."

Deputy First Minister, Michelle O'Neill also confirmed that no advanced detail was provided to the Executive by the Irish government.

"We talked about the potential exit strategies and what that would look like in the general terms, but there was any detail shared in terms of what Dublin has published," she said.

Mrs O'Neill also offered the Executive's sympathies to the loved ones of a further six people who have died after testing positive for coronavirus here.

The Northern Ireland death toll now stands at 387. Five of the notified deaths released on Monday happened in the previous 24 hours. The remaining death occurred prior to that, but has only now been reported.
DUBAI, May 4 (Reuters) - Iran dismissed as "illegitimate" efforts by the United States to extend the U.N. Security Council arms embargo on Tehran, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

"Iran is not seeking to exit the 2015 nuclear deal with six powers ... America's move is illegitimate and our reaction will be proportionate," Abbas Mousavi said in a televised weekly news conference.

The United States said on Thursday it was "hopeful" the U.N. Security Council would extend the arms embargo on Iran before it expires in October. (Writing by Parisa Hafezi, editing by Ed Osmond)
Property prices in Perth remained stable in April despite the dramatic decline in sales volume, according to the latest figures from CoreLogic and the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA).

Perth's property values continued to post growth in April, growing by 0.2%. According to CoreLogic, it was Perth's sixth consecutive monthly growth. This gain brought the city's median value to $477,000.

"It is positive to know that despite the current economic conditions, sellers are not being forced to sell and lower their sales price to do so," said Damian Collins, REIWA president.

This is despite the 40% decline in sales activity in the month, with weekly sales transaction sitting at a low of less than 300 per week.

Also read: Aussies Still Interested In Property

It also took sellers shorter time to sell their properties this month, with the median selling days falling to 65, down from 77 last year.

The stability in prices could also be attributed to the decline in property listings. REIWA data show that listings declined by 5% over the month.

Collins said the current initiatives by the federal and state governments are helping cushion the impacts of the outbreak, ensuring that homeowners are not forced to sell.

"The full impacts of COVID-19 on the property market are not known at this stage, but the decline in listings demonstrates that there is not an influx of people who are trying to sell their homes due to being in financial distress," he said.

Collins said the state government of Western Australia should consider cutting stamp duty and explore options to give buyers incentives to help support the market amid the ongoing pandemic.

"We ask the government to consider short term changes to help incentivise buyers, as well as long term tax reform removing stamp duty and replacing it with a broader-based land tax system," he said.
The First and Deputy First Ministers for Northern Ireland have indicated that a pathway out of lockdown will be published in the coming days.

At the weekend, the Irish government outlined its roadmap for reopening society and business.

The British government is set to publish its plans this Sunday.

Speaking at todays COVID-19 press conference First Minister Arlene Foster said the NI Executive is working actively on its plan and continues to make progress.

She said people would be anxious to know of NIs plan but cautioned that social distancing measures are likely to be with us for some time.

The First Minister explained: In fashioning a plan ministers are being guided by the latest medical and scientific evidence.

We are looking closely at the current rate of infection, the estimated level of transmission, and estimates of future trajectory in this pandemic once relaxation takes place.

Another significant factor in our planning is assessing the impact on our health and social care system to deal with COVID-19 cases.

And also of course the resumption of other health services. The Executive is also assessing the wider health, societal and economic implications of the current restrictions to determine which areas will pose the least risk and greatest benefit if we were to relax them.

None of these decisions are easy, as weve said before all governments are grappling with the implications of a public health crisis that we never thought would come to pass.

And COVID-19 has dramatically altered society and will have implications for the way we live for many years to come.

She added that there is a danger of the public becoming distracted and going back to what they did before.

The First Minister said the country needs to be on guard and respect social distancing guidelines.

She went on to say that people cannot afford to be lax and act like coronavirus has been beaten as it still poses a threat to you and those you love.

Restrictions wont be kept in place any longer than is necessary, she concluded.

Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill said any approach must be cautious and gradual as COVID-19 is still spreading and taking lives.

She asked the public not to take matters into their own hands.

The plan will be published as soon as possible, hopefully later this week.

Any plan is not a green light for people to do as they choose as the Executive is looking at the safest possible approach, the Deputy First Minister added.

She also took the opportunity to welcome Finance Minister Conor Murphy's announcement of over 700 million of new funding for infrastructure, regeneration, and tourism projects across the north.

That includes match funding of 105m for Derry City and Strabane's City Deal/Inclusive Future Fund.
Noleta "Lady" Populars loved a good family gathering, and that weekend was no exception.

The day before Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards imposed an order limiting crowd sizes to 10 people or fewer, she and her relatives spent the afternoon mixing drinks, playing cards and sharing a meal under the carport of their St. Gabriel home. At the time, the vast majority of the state's confirmed coronavirus cases were in the New Orleans area, and Iberville Parish had only two.

Like thousands of other Louisiana families that have since been devastated by the virus, which has now claimed almost 2,000 lives statewide, they had no idea what was to come.

Populars, 43, was hospitalized with symptoms before the end of the week. She died almost a month later, leaving behind two children: a daughter in college and a son who's just a toddler.

Their life was totally normal, until suddenly it wasn't. No one knows where she contracted the virus.

"It all happened so fast," her sister Natasha Populars said. "We were supposed to grow old together."

EBR reporting 45 new coronavirus cases as Louisiana remains under 30k; see latest data Louisiana remained under 30,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, but the Baton Rouge area broke 5,000 cases on Monday, new state heal

Instead, she's doing her best to support her niece and nephew. Noleta's daughter, a student at Southern with plans to become a nurse, is now raising her little brother with help from other relatives.

Noleta had underlying health conditions that likely exacerbated the effects of coronavirus, including a recent diagnosis of kidney disease and other issues, but nothing that stopped her from living a happy and normal life, her sister said. She's one of the youngest people to die from coronavirus in the Baton Rouge area.

The virus has had an outsized impact on communities of color, which experts have attributed to the prevalence of underlying health conditions in addition to challenges accessing health care and higher numbers of essential workers within that population.

11 more coronavirus deaths in East Baton Rouge bring parish total to 174 An additional 11 East Baton Rouge residents died from coronavirus over the past few days, pushing to parish total to 174 deaths since the firs

Noleta had big plans to watch her son grow up, celebrate her daughter's college graduation and enjoy many more neighborhood crawfish boils, her sister said. But the novel coronavirus swept through their close knit community and caught them off guard.

"We took it serious but didn't suspect it would come here," Natasha Populars said, noting that her sister's illness was among the first confirmed cases in the rural St. Gabriel area, which of late has seen a significant increase. A large part of that increase appears to have resulted from mass testing within the state prison located there, which now has about 200 cases.

Vaccine news in your inbox Once a week we'll update you on the progress of COVID-19 vaccinations. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Iberville Parish, which includes St. Gabriel, is also experiencing one of the highest death rates in the state, more than double the statewide average for coronavirus deaths per capita.

Once Noleta was hospitalized, her kidneys started failing and she was soon transferred to Our Lady of the Lake hospital in Baton Rouge and placed on a ventilator. Her sister said the worst part was not being able to visit her and monitor her condition since the hospital has prohibited most visits to coronavirus patients with the hope of limiting the spread.

That meant sitting at home and waiting for calls from nurses and doctors with updates on her condition and treatment. Sometimes they seemed to give conflicting accounts; a missed call would also add to the family's anxiety, Natasha Popular said.

"My sister was there on a ventilator for almost a month. She couldn't do anything for herself, couldn't even ask for help," she said. "That was the hardest thing. We couldn't be there to help her, hold her hand, make sure she was comfortable."

Finally she was taken off the ventilator and her condition appeared to be improving. But then came the news that she likely wouldn't survive, her sister said.

The family was able to get Noleta transferred to a hospice facility where she could receive visitors. Relatives bathed her and combed her hair. She told one after the other  speaking quietly, her voice almost a whisper now  that she loved them.

"I look back at that time and smile," her sister said. "Spending those final hours with her."

Baton Rouge traffic 'heavier' despite coronavirus stay-at-home order, officials say Despite Gov. John Bel Edwards' stay-at-home order, traffic is on the rise in the Baton Rouge and other areas, state and local officials said Monday.

The family held a visitation and small funeral service the following weekend in accordance with existing regulations banning large crowds.

Limiting the crowd size was a challenge since Noleta "pretty much knew everyone in St. Gabriel" after spending her life there, her sister said. She graduated from East Iberville High School and kept in close touch with her classmates, then spent decades raising her family and working in various jobs, including as a substitute teacher and in the health insurance sector.

Her sister said the outpouring of support has been overwhelming. Amid growing demands that people keep their nose and mouth covered in public, one friend gave her a special face mask made from a piece of cloth printed with a recent photo of the two sisters.

"That one actually made me cry," Natasha Populars said. "My sister was so well-loved. The whole community is basically hurting behind this."
Reuters

A former senior adviser to Britain's Boris Johnson said on Monday he was willing to "swear under oath" that the prime minister knew a party was being held at his residence during a COVID-19 lockdown, accusing him of lying to parliament. British media have reported that at least 11 gatherings took place at 10 Downing Street - the prime minister's official residence and office - or in other government departments between May 2020 and April 2021, when COVID-19 rules limited how many people could meet socially. Dominic Cummings, an architect of Britain's departure from the European Union and a former senior adviser to Johnson who left government under acrimonious terms in November 2020, said on Twitter that the prime minister had agreed that the drinks party should go ahead.
Three parties were shut down across Queensland over the weekend, with police now threatening to re-tighten the lockdown restrictions they just loosened.

A total of $33,350 in fines were handed out after police found 'reckless and terrible behaviour' at three separate parties in Carrara and Pimpama on the Gold Coast, and Banyo in Brisbane.

Queenslanders were told they could travel up to 50 kilometres away from their home for non-essential reasons from Friday, but there are fears that may be revoked after a concerning number of people were caught breaking the rules.

The brazenness of revellers was evident at one house, where police were called two nights in a row.

On the second night a man had the audacity to ask: 'Who do you think you are?'

When the police officer returned fire with the same question, the partygoer said: 'I'm the f**king birthday boy'.

'Oh, well happy birthday mate. Now, tone it down.'

In images obtained by Daily Mail Australia, police found cases of Coronas, bongs made out of Gatorade bottles and bags of McDonald's strewn across a house in Carrara (pictured)

A group of about nine people were caught at a home in Brisbane (right) where just one of the guests lived. They were all fined, as were the group partying in Carrara two nights in a row (left)

Just six new cases of the deadly respiratory virus have been identified in Queensland in the past seven days.

But the state's police commissioner Katarina Carroll said there disappointing signs at the weekend could see restrictions imposed again.

In images obtained by Daily Mail Australia, police found cases of Coronas, bongs made out of Gatorade bottles and bags of McDonald's strewn across a house.

Officers were initially called to an Airbnb in Carrara about 11.30pm on May 1 following a noise complaint, and crashed a group of people in their 20s throwing a birthday party.

When they arrived, some guests attempted to exit from the back door, but officers ushered them back inside to perform a headcount.

The group allegedly told police they were aware of the lockdown orders, and seven men aged between 21 and 25 were fined $1,334 each for the breach.

The next night, police were again called to the same home.

There, they fined 18 people - including five who were present at the party the night before.

At a separate party in Pimpama (pictured) on Saturday night, police arrived at the home to see dozens of people scattering from a home

A 28-year-old man who hosted the party was issued an infringement notice

At a separate party in Pimpama on Saturday night, police arrived at the home to see dozens of people scattering from a home.

A 28-year-old man who hosted the party was issued an infringement notice.

Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler said it was frustrating to see people blatantly flouting restrictions.

'This type of behaviour puts all Queenslanders at risk and counteracts the hard work of police,' Chief Superintendent Wheeler said.

'It's especially disappointing considering the vast majority of Gold Coast residents doing the right thing and following the rules in line with the easing of restrictions across the weekend.

'Blatant disregard of the COVID-19 directives will not be tolerated, as has been demonstrated by fines being issued on each of these occasions.'

Officers were initially called to an Airbnb in Carrara (pictured) about 11.30pm on May 1 following a noise complaint, and crashed a group of people in their 20s throwing a birthday party. They were called to the sane home the next night

People at the Carrara party (pictured) initially attempted to escape out the back door but were ushered back inside to receive their fines

In another incident, officers attended a unit on Saturday night where five women and four men, all in their early 20s, were issued infringement notices for attending a gathering.

Only one member of the group lived in the home.

Commissioner Carroll said of all the incidents, finding a group had broken the rules two days in a row was most disappointing.

'We were incredibly disappointed the first time because we've given the message out tens of thousands of times that you can't have parties, that you can't congregate in large groups,' Commissioner Carroll said.

'To go back a second time I think we were all in disbelief. Completely unacceptable.'

The partygoers received a total of $33,350 in fines.

But Commissioner Carroll said it wasn't just partygoers who let Queenslanders down this weekend.

A photo showing crowds of Queenslanders packed into a local park after the state relaxed restrictions could result in further lockdowns. People flocked to Burleigh Hill on Sunday for the sunset (pictured)

Queensland Police handed out 146 fines across the weekend for 'reckless and terrible behaviour', Commissioner Carroll said. She said most people were doing the right thing. Daily Mail does not suggest the people in this photo were fined

A damning photo showing crowds of Queenslanders packed into a local park after the state relaxed restrictions could result in further lockdowns.

Queensland Carroll said people defied social distancing orders at Burleigh Hill on the Gold Coast on Sunday to watch the sunset.

Lockdown restrictions could be put in place again if residents in the Sunshine State continue to flout the rules, she said.

'We are asking people to stay apart,' she said.

'If an area is very busy, please stay away from there so we can maintain that social distancing.'

Commissioner Carroll said despite 'tremendous efforts' being taken by most across the weekend, the photos taken on the hill could derail the progress.

People flocked to the beach following the easing of restrictions on the Gold Coast this weekend

Exercise has been considered an 'essential' reason to leave the house throughout the lockdown. Pictured: People walking along Miami foreshore on the Gold Coast on May 2 to exercise

Queensland celebrated a public holiday on Monday, but Commissioner Carroll said families and social groups should avoid repeating the antics of Sunday.

'Officers are on the lookout for those breaking the rules... Please don't do it again this afternoon, there will be more police out,' the commissioner said on the Today Show on Monday morning.

The national cabinet will meet this Friday to discuss relaxing nationwide baseline restrictions as numbers of active cases plummet.

At present, there are 885 active cases of COVID-19, meaning 5,817 of the 6,799 diagnosed patients have recovered. So far, 95 people have died.

At present, there are 885 active cases of COVID-19, 6,799 have been diagnosed in total while 95 people have 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

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison has previously said he would delay easing restrictions if Australians weren't following the rules, and urged more people to download the COVID-19 contact tracing app.

Nearly 4.5million people have downloaded the app but Mr Morrison previously said 40 per cent of the population need to be using it to effectively trace cases of the virus.

Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy on Sunday said health experts would recommend a slow, staggered process of bringing Australia out of lockdown.

Professor Murphy said each stage of restriction easing would need to be in place for multiple weeks to review how effective they are before any further loosening of rules is considered.

He flagged a partial reopening of universities, said national cabinet had advised sending kids to school was safe, and said authorities were considering options to restart community sport and lift limits on gatherings.

Sasha Mielczarek from the Bachelorette (standing on the right) was spoken to by police for breaking social distancing rules
DOHA, Qatar and WASHINGTON and ATLANTA and LONDON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Students will have the power to bankrupt universities that do not meet their expectations in a post-COVID-19 world, a US educator has warned at the launch of a major new research report into the future of higher education, commissioned by the Qatar Foundation (QF).

'New schools of thought: Innovative models for delivering higher education', produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), has outlined how higher education institutions must adapt to survive as they face dwindling public funding, questions over their value, and the challenges that technology and automation pose.

As the report was launched today, a EIU panel discussion sponsored by QF saw education experts from three continents explore its findings and share their views on the future of higher education, with Ben Nelson, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute, saying: "Students have an extraordinary responsibility this year because, for the first time in living memory, they have the ability to bring institutions down to bankruptcy.

"They can vote with their feet in a way they have never been able to do before  opting to slip out of college for a year can literally shut down an institution. For the first time, the student's role is that of the determinant partner  determining what universities should be doing and which ones should have the right to serve them going forward.

"When societies and students are interfacing with institutions and not getting what they are paying for, there is going to be a reckoning."

Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, President of Spelman College, told the discussion that academic partnerships are "extremely important in days like this", adding: "Institutions have to stop being so precious and siloed and sequestered."

"Everyone benefits from collaboration, but it takes a very different mindset to what we have now. If we fall back into marketing and competition mode, we are not going to get anywhere."

And Francisco Marmolejo, QF's Education Advisor, said higher education institutions must "challenge their assumptions", saying: "Unless we do that, disrupt, and are willing to take risks, as soon as conditions return to some sort of normal, we may try to become the same as we were before. This crisis is telling us we no longer have the luxury of assuming things will be as they used to be."

'New schools of thought: Innovative models for delivering higher education' can be downloaded here.

A recording of the discussion is available here.

Qatar Foundation  Unlocking Human Potential

Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) is a non-profit organization that supports Qatar on its journey to becoming a diversified and sustainable economy. QF strives to serve the people of Qatar and beyond by providing specialized programs across its innovation-focused ecosystem of education, research and development, and community development.

QF was founded in 1995 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Father Amir, and Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, who shared the vision to provide Qatar with quality education. Today, QF's world-class education system offers lifelong learning opportunities to community members as young as six months through to doctoral level, enabling graduates to thrive in a global environment and contribute to the nation's development.

QF is also creating a multidisciplinary innovation hub in Qatar, where homegrown researchers are working to address local and global challenges. By promoting a culture of lifelong learning and fostering social engagement through programs that embody Qatari culture, QF is committed to empowering the local community and contributing to a better world for all.

For a complete list of QF's initiatives and projects, please visit: www.qf.org.qa

For any media inquiries, please contact: [email protected]

This material is distributed by RF|Binder Partners Inc. on behalf of the Qatar Foundation. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

SOURCE Qatar Foundation
Photo: (Photo : unsplash/Chromatograph)

Lockdown is implemented to help prevent the further spread of the coronavirus. If a person needs to come out, they should practice social distancing because he can also get infected if droplets from a person infected with the virus were inhaled by him.

Apart from that, people that are going out of their houses to buy necessities are advised to wear face masks, although they prefer that people wear reusable cloth masks because disposable masks are better to be used by the frontline healthcare professionals. For better protection, click here so that you would know what fabric is best used for home-made masks.

How Does the Coronavirus Spread?

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the coronavirus can be spread through small droplets that are expelled from people's nose and mouth when they sneeze, cough, talk, or exhale. The droplets would land on surfaces or objects and then when a person touches those objects and touches his eyes, nose, or mouth, the person gets infected.

It is not yet sure whether the virus can be transmitted through the air but it could be possible in healthcare settings where the staff has to be in close contact with patients that are infected and that is the reason why medical staff needs personal protective equipment (PPE).

Aerosols can travel up to ten meters because of their small size. According to an infectious disease expert and Professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, Professor Paul Hunter, even though droplets can move through the air, they are not airborne. By airborne, he meant that the virus could stay for a long period and travel to longer distances.

Can Air Conditioning Spread the Coronavirus?

In Guangzhou, China, a study was done in an air-conditioned restaurant and they found that among 83 customers, 10 became ill to the virus, and the 73 were quarantined for 14 days. This shows that the people that were infected were likely to have close contact and that strong airflow from the air conditioning could have helped propagate the virus.

Another study was done regarding the case of the Diamond Princess cruise ship wherein 700 people contracted the virus. Professor Hunter told HuffPost that the people that were infected did not get the coronavirus when they were quarantined in their rooms.

What to Do in Air Conditioned Areas?

A virologist from the University of Leicester, Dr. Julian Tang said that even though more research is needed, we should assume that airborne transmission of the coronavirus is possible unless proven otherwise, so it would be better to take precautions rather than get infected.

Prof Hunter said that facilities managers should turn the volume of airflow down because the spread is faster especially in crowded, indoor environments. Some studies recommend to increase ventilation, reduce the volume of people in the area, and not to recirculate air to help prevent the further spread of the virus.

In case a reduction in the number of people is impossible and ventilation is inadequate, experts' advice is to wear masks and respirators.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-03 23:36:23|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Aerial photo taken on Sept. 26, 2019 shows a light show at Lujiazui area in Pudong District of east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua/Ren Long)

The Honeywell senior executive, who has lived in China for more than 20 years, said impressive changes have taken place in the Chinese market.

NEW YORK, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Honeywell is optimistic about the prospects of economic recovery in China as the country strives to reboot its paused business, a key executive at the company has said.

"Following the government's rules and regulations, and thanks to the government's support, Honeywell's 21 plants across China have fully resumed manufacturing and are serving customers in China and abroad," Shane Tedjarati, president of Honeywell Global High Growth Regions, told Xinhua in a recent written interview.

"China has become Honeywell's largest single country market outside the United States. With our China sites now fully operational, we are focused on supporting our Chinese customers," he said.

The train G1005 leaves for Shenzhen North Station after a stop at Guangzhou South Railway Station in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, April 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Lu Ye)

Tedjarati said the COVID-19 crisis, which has presented the world with tough business and societal challenges, demonstrated the importance of digital technologies.

"China's digital economy has undergone rapid changes from COVID-19, and we believe that our software-industrial technologies will play a role in helping adapt to these changes," said the senior executive, adding the company remains committed to enhancing collaboration with the Chinese partners.

Honeywell has registered a wholly-owned subsidiary Huosheng Industrial Technology Co. Ltd. in Wuhan as its headquarters for the company's mass-mid segment business in China, according to the company.

People work at a construction site of a utility tunnel in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, April 30, 2020. The project of utility tunnel here, a passage built to carry utility lines, has resumed construction since the end of March. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

"As a key city in central China, Wuhan is strategically located, has an important industrial base, and serves as a technology and research hub in the country," noted Tedjarati, adding the company would like to enhance its cooperation with Wuhan, promote innovative technologies and provide better coverage in central and west China.

Currently, Honeywell has over 50 wholly owned enterprises and joint ventures in more than 30 cities across China, including 21 plants, with about 11,000 employees, among which 20 percent are technologists.

In China, the company's growth "has fully aligned with China's macro trends, like the digital economy and beautiful China," said Tedjarati.

The senior executive, who has lived in China for more than 20 years, said impressive changes have taken place in the China market.

Train D9301 departs for the Hankou Railway Station to pick up passengers in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, April 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

"In recent years, China has undergone an amazing digital revolution that is transforming the way we live and work with exciting new products that connect us and incorporate software and data in new ways," Tedjarati said.

"The rise of China's outstanding private enterprises is another profound change that we have felt," which "will be beneficial to both China's consumers and China's innovation," he added. 
Armed militants, believed to be affiliated with one of the sons of eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar, stormed during the weekend the headquarters of Brega Oil Marketing Company in the eastern city of Benghazi, expelling the firms director, The Libya Observer reported on Monday.

The armed group replaced Brega Oil Marketing Companys director Khairallah Al-Ubaidi, after reports that the manager supported efforts for a political agreement in restive Libya, rather than backing General Haftars announcement that his Libyan National Army (LNA) had accepted a popular mandate to rule Libya.

At the beginning of last week, General Haftar said that his army would take formal control of Libya, answering the will of the people.

Haftar launched in the spring of last year a campaign to take Libyas capital Tripoli. In January this year, a group of paramilitary formations affiliated with Haftars LNA occupied Libyas export terminals along with pipelines and fields. The blockade came amid continued fighting between the LNA, which is loyal to the eastern Libyan government and the forces loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is recognized by the United Nations.

As a result of the blockade, Libyas oil production which had stood at more than 1 million bpd at the start of January  has collapsed to less than 100,000 bpd.

Over the past month, Haftars forces have lost some ground to groups aligned with the GNA, and Haftar ordered his troops to halt operations during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The GNA rejected the unilateral ceasefire, saying it doesnt trust the eastern military commander.

Libyas National Oil Corporation (NOC) said last week that as of April 28, oil production in the country was down to just 95,077 barrels a day.

The forced restriction of oil and gas production has caused Libya financial losses exceeding US$4.35 billion since mid-January, said the NOC, calling again on all parties to lift the blockade and re-start oil and gas production.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed coronavirus model is seen in front of the words coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on display in this illustration

By Jane Wardell and Gayle Issa

SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - Global coronavirus deaths rose past a quarter of a million on Monday after infections topped 3.5 million, a Reuters tally of official government data showed, even as several countries began easing lockdowns designed to contain the pandemic.

North America and European countries accounted for most of the new deaths and cases reported in recent days, but numbers were rising from smaller bases in Latin America, Africa and Russia.

Globally, there were 3,914 new deaths and 75,646 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking total deaths to 250,152 and cases to 3.59 million. At least 1.1 million people have recovered from the illness, according to available official data.

That easily exceeds the estimated 140,000 deaths worldwide from measles in 2018, and compares with around 3 million to 5 million cases of severe illness caused each year by seasonal influenza, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

While the current trajectory of COVID-19 falls far short of the 1918 Spanish flu, which infected an estimated 500 million people, killing at least 10% of patients, experts worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic.

"We could easily have a second or a third wave because a lot of places aren't immune," Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Canberra Hospital, told Reuters. The world was well short of herd immunity, which requires around 60% of the population to have recovered from the disease, he noted.

The first death linked to COVID-19 was reported on Jan. 10 in Wuhan, China, after the coronavirus first emerged there in December. The number of deaths reported in a single day hit a peak of 10,229 just a week ago on April 29. The rate of the daily increase in deaths has slowed to 1%-2% in recent days from a high of 14% on March 21.

Mortality rates from recorded infections vary greatly from country to country.

Story continues

Belgium has the highest fatality rate at 16% among countries with major outbreaks. At the other end of the spectrum, Australia and New Zealand are at 1%. Britain is at 15%, Italy is at 14% and the United States is at 6%, In Africa, Algeria has a 10% fatality rate.

Collignon said any country with a mortality rate of more than 2% almost certainly had underreported case numbers, with countries overwhelmed by the outbreak less likely to conduct testing in the community and record deaths outside of hospitals.

LIFTING LOCKDOWNS

Health experts are watching closely as several countries tentatively ease restrictions on movement in a bid to revive global economies, amid fears of recurring infections.

In the United States, which has the world's highest total of infections and deaths, at almost 1.2 million and 68,000 respectively, at least half of the 51 states are moving forward with plans to reopen stricken businesses.

The loosening of lockdowns, however, led the University of Washington on Monday to up its forecast of deaths from COVID-19 to nearly 135,000 through the start of August, almost double the last prediction.

Italy, among the world's hardest-hit countries, allowed about 4.5 million people to return to work on Monday after nearly two months at home.

Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Finland, Nigeria, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Israel and Lebanon were also among countries variously reopening factories, construction sites, parks, hairdressers and libraries.

Australia and New Zealand, which have individually begun to lift restrictions, held talks on Tuesday about the possibility of a trans-Tasman "travel bubble", allowing residents to move between the two countries.

(GRAPHIC: World-focused tracker with country-by-country interactive, https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/COUNTRIES/oakveqlyvrd/index.html?id=united-kingdom)

(Reporting by Jane Wardell and Gayle Issa; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Richard Pullin)
News agencys Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand honoured with this years Pulitzer Prize in feature photography.

Indias unprecedented crackdown on Indian-administered Kashmir last August, which included a sweeping curfew and shutdowns of phone and internet services, was difficult to show to the world.

But Associated Press news agencys photographers Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand found ways to report it. Now, their work has been honoured with the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in feature photography.

The prize winners were announced virtually on Monday owing to the coronavirus outbreak.

Pulitzer board administrator Dana Canedy declared the winners from her living room via a livestream on YouTube rather than at a ceremony at New Yorks Columbia University.

In a statement on their website following the announcement, Pulitzer said the Kashmiri photographers were selected for their striking images of life in the disputed Himalayan territory.

The Pulitzers are generally regarded as the highest honour that United States-based journalists and organisations can receive.

Important and superb

Snaking around roadblocks, sometimes taking cover in strangers homes and hiding cameras in vegetable bags, the three photographers captured images of protests, police and paramilitary action and daily life.

They then headed to the local airport to persuade travellers to carry the photo files out with them and get them to the APs office in the Indian capital, New Delhi.

It was always cat-and-mouse, Yasin recalled on Monday in an email. These things made us more determined than ever to never be silenced.

Yasin and Khan are based in Kashmirs main city of Srinagar, while Anand is based in the Jammu district.

Anand said the award left him speechless. I was shocked and could not believe it, he said.

The APs president and CEO Gary Pruitt said their work was important and superb.

Thanks to the team inside Kashmir, the world was able to witness a dramatic escalation of the long struggle over the regions independence.

Six-year-old Muneefa Nazir, a Kashmiri girl whose right eye was hit by a marble ball allegedly shot by Indian soldiers on August 12, 2019 [Mukhtar Khan/AP]

Conflict has flared for decades in the Muslim-majority Kashmir region, divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both the nuclear powers.

The tension hit a new turning point in August, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis Hindu nationalist government stripped Indian-administered portion of Kashmir of its semi-autonomy, and divided the Jammu and Kashmir state into two federal territories.

India poured more troops into the already heavily militarised area, imposed a months-long curfew and harsh curbs on civil rights, and cut off internet, mobile phone, landline and cable TV services.

India said the moves were needed to forestall protests and attacks by rebels seeking independence. Thousands of people, including senior politicians and separatists, were arrested.

Last month, several leading Kashmiri journalists were charged by the Indian police under stringent laws for their anti-national social media posts  a move slammed by press and rights groups from around the world.

An Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldier keeps vigil near the India-Pakistan border, about 35km (22 miles) west of Jammu [Channi Anand/AP]

New York Times leads at Pulitzers

The New York Times collected three 2020 Pulitzer awards, including for Brian M Rosenthals investigative report into New York Citys taxi industry that revealed predatory loans that took advantage of vulnerable drivers.

It also won the international reporting prize for a series of stories on Russian President Vladimir Putins regime, while the papers Nikole Hannah-Jones won best commentary for a personal essay that viewed the USs origins through the lens of enslaved Africans.

Reuters news agency won the breaking news photography award for pictures of the Hong Kong protests.

The Courier-Journal in Lexington, Kentucky won the breaking news reporting prize for its coverage of hundreds of last-minute pardons from Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin.

The explanatory reporting prize was awarded to the staff of The Washington Post for a series that showed the effects of extreme temperatures on the planet.

The Baltimore Sun took home the local reporting accolade for reporting on a financial relationship between the citys mayor and a public hospital system that her office oversaw.

Two organisations won the national reporting award: ProPublica for an investigation into a series of accidents in the US Navy and The Seattle Times for coverage that exposed design flaws in Boeings 737 Max.

Ben Taub of The New Yorker won the feature writing award for a story on a Guantanamo Bay guards growing friendship with a captor who was tortured.

A special citation was awarded to Ida B Wells, an early pioneer of investigative journalism and a civil rights icon.
In the early weeks of the pandemic, when even emergency room nurses had to reuse N95 masks for days at a time, nonmedical workers were often given less protective gear than their colleagues who treated patients  or none at all  according to union leaders and hospital employees.

If you work in a hospital, you are exposed to the same kind of virus as the doctors and nurses, said Carmen Charles, president of the union that represents 8,500 nonmedical staff members at New York City hospitals. I understand management wanting to ration the supplies, but at what cost?

Ms. Charles, who leads Local 420, part of the umbrella union for city workers, said some of her members had been denied the N95 masks that were reserved for doctors and nurses. At least 11 members have died, she said.

A spokesman for Health and Hospitals, the citys public hospital system, acknowledged that it saved N95 masks for clinical employees who treated Covid-19 patients and other employees in hot zones, such as the emergency department. Early in the pandemic, the spokesman said, most government guidance on masks focused on clinical employees. He said the agency offered surgical masks to its nonclinical workers.

Elmhurst did not require every employee to wear at least a surgical mask until April 15, the same day Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced an order mandating New Yorkers to wear face coverings in public, according to emails viewed by The Times.

In March, Ms. Carrow, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Braswell handed out supplies in the materials management department, in the hospitals subbasement. Their deaths have shaken other nonclinical employees at Elmhurst who hoped that their distance from patients offered some protection against contracting the virus.

Image Priscilla Carrow was a union steward and community leader in Queens. Her activism centered on issues including housing and fair wages. Credit... via Marci Rosenblum

Ms. Carrow, 65, died on March 30 after working at Elmhurst for 25 years. Mr. Edwards, 61, died two days later, after a friend found him on the floor of his apartment, gasping for air. Both of them had expected to retire within the next year.
(Alliance News) - G3 Exploration Ltd on Monday said producing assets in the onshore GSS gas field in China have been suspended, leaving some villages without gas and electricity.

Shares in G3 were down 34% at 10.40 pence in London in early afternoon trading.

GSS or the Shizhuang South Block is located in the Shanxi province and is G3's most advanced block. China-focused gas producer G3 said the suspension took place "at the direction of the recievers", who were acting as directors of Greka Energy (International) BV.

As a consequence of the suspension, gas flow has dropped by around 150,000 cubic metres per day, resulting in the town government getting involved. The town government has required that both production and supply are "restored as soon as possible".

G3's joint provisional liquidators were appointed in January with the goal of preserving assets and assessing refinancing or restructuring opportunities.

Chair Randeep Grewal said: "I am disappointed to report such actions and saddened to see the local town and village citizens being deprived of basic gas and electricity supply We are attempting to restore gas production as soon as possible.

"The [joint provisional liquidators] and the company continue to be committed to support the re-financing or asset sales completed so as to pay off the debt outstanding to GIC and Nordic Bond Holders."

By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Air conditioning firm Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning India said it has resumed operations at its Gujarat manufacturing facility. Manufacturers have been allowed to begin production in non-hotspot locations as the coronavirus-led (COVID-19) lockdown continues with some relaxations.

Gurmeet Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning India said following government guidelines and abiding by the approved list of activities, the company has been able to successfully start its operations with utmost safety measures.

We have fully sanitized and opened our Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar, Jaipur offices today following operational guidelines of 33 percent staff strength. Our Delhi office started with a very thin attendance as many staff members come from other areas around Delhi and movement is still restricted in these areas, he added.

Also Read: Live updates from COVID-19 in India

The company has begun production activity at its manufacturing facility in Kadi, Gujarat. Singh explained that this production facility started with around 350 operators today and expecting the full workforce to join from tomorrow.

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

Considering the inventory stock, he added the room air conditioner production may not happen for at least next few days of opening.

Some export orders need to be produced and we will leverage our workforce to complete the orders on priority. We are going to address the supply chain issue by following a very high level of indigenization in the raw materials, he added.

Johnson ControlsHitachi Air Conditioning was set up in October 2015 as a joint venture between Hitachi Appliances (now Hitachi Global Life Solutions) and Johnson Controls. Hitachi Appliances carved out and contributed its air conditioning business to the joint venture.

Johnson Controls acquired a 60 percent stake of the carved-out business and Hitachi Global Life Solutions continues as a 40 percent shareholder of this venture.

As far as the staff members are concerned, Singh said the government order of allowing private vehicles carrying passengers to work has been well understood till the last point.

According to him, the police personnel have also been supportive to allow travel for essential workers.

Most of the plant workers stay near our manufacturing plant. For the rest, travelling from Ahmedabad to our plant and head office in Kadi, we already provide conveyance facilities. The company said it is maintaining social distance in office transport, sanitisers are available and the vehicles are also sanitised regularly.

Right now, India has been divided into red, orange and green zones. Manufacturing facilities in non-hotspot regions and in green zones are allowed to resume operations if the basic safety standards are maintained.

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here
Photo: Xinhua

Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli denied rumors of "defecting to the West," saying Saturday on her WeChat that, "Everything is all right for my family and me, dear friends!" She also post nine photos of her recent life.

In the post, Shi said that, "No matter how difficult things are, it (defecting) shall never happen. We've done nothing wrong. With strong belief in science, we will see the day when the clouds disperse and the sun shines."

Shi, also known as China's "Bat Woman" because of her many years of research with bats and viruses, has been troubled by rumors for quite a long time. The recent rumor which has been circulating on overseas social media platforms said that "Shi Zhengli director at #Wuhan Institute of Virology has defected with a treasure trove of intelligence to the USA embassy in Paris. "

It is not the first time that Shi responded to the rumors on her WeChat. Dating back to February 2, she said on her WeChat Moment that, "the 2019 novel coronavirus is a punishment by nature to humans' unsanitary life styles. I promise with my life that the virus has nothing to do with the lab," in a response to an article by Indian scientists implying the novel coronavirus possibly originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Shi Zhengli's WeChat moment Photo: courtesy of Shi Zhengli

Responding to rumors like "virus was leaked from Wuhan Institute of Virology" and "it was a man-made virus," the head of emergencies at the World Health Organization reiterated that the group believes the novel coronavirus is "natural in origin."

"We have listened again and again to numerous scientists who've looked at the sequences, looked at this virus, and we are assured that this virus is natural in origin," Mike Ryan, the executive director of WHO's health emergencies program, said at a press conference on Friday.

He also said it was important to establish the natural host of the virus, which could help pave the way for a better understanding of it and ways to prevent and respond to future outbreaks.

"We accept the committee's advice that WHO works to identify the animal source of the virus through international scientific and collaborative missions, in collaboration with the World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations", WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during his regular virtual press conference from Geneva on Friday.
Taiwan reduced dependence on China long before pandemic: economists

ROC Central News Agency

05/03/2020 04:29 PM

Taipei, May 3 (CNA) Taiwanese businesses had already started to reduce their dependence on China before the ongoing COVID-19 conoravirus pandemic, because of trade friction and growing uncertainty about the future of globalization, economists said.

"What used to be called globalization was actually establishing a presence in China," said Chang Chien-yi (), president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research.

He pointed out that the lack of a language barrier and close proximity made it easy for Taiwanese businesses to build up operations in China, especially when they were offered tax incentives.

Chang cited government statistics showing a drop in Taiwan's investment in and exports to China last year, saying that trend was only accelerated by the COVID-19 outbreak that started in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

Taiwan saw a year-on-year drop in investment in China of 51 percent to NT$4.17 billion (US$139.47 million) last year, the fourth year in a row annual investment has fallen, while exports to China, including Hong Kong, dropped 4.1 percent over the same period, government data showed.

Pulling away from China is not exiting, but merely adjusting the focus from minimizing costs to better management of risks and re-examining one's position in the world, Chang said.

"China is not the only market," he said.

According to Steve Lai (), executive director of the Supply Management Institute in Taiwan, the advantage of operating in China has faded because of stricter environment protection laws and rising wages in recent years.

No one will give up the Chinese market because of its strong domestic demand, Lai said, noting that it is more about repositioning and spreading risk for businesses.

Meanwhile, Roy Chun Lee (), deputy director of the Taiwan World Trade Organization and Regional Trade Agreements Center of the Chung Hua Institution for Economic Research, said businesses had been too content to accept the way things were before trade frictions between the United States and China started in 2018.

The fact that China was the first place to report the COVID-19 outbreak, which disrupted the global supply chain, showed multinational companies' poor risk management, he added.

In March, Taiwan's exports were valued at US$28.27 billion, of which 41.5 percent went to China and Hong Kong, 16.5 percent to ASEAN countries and 13.4 percent to the U.S.

(By Pan Tzu-yu and Kay Liu) Eenditem/AW

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






As governments around the world begin to execute plans for reopening, billions of people now gratefully envision a post-coronavirus future on the horizon.

While there have been numerous influenza pandemics, the global response to COVID-19 has been unprecedented. According to PEW Research, nine out of 10 people worldwide live in countries with COVID-19 travel restrictions. At least nine-tenths (91 per cent) of the worlds population, or 7.1 billion people, lives in countries with restrictions.

The extent of global economic devastation has yet to be calculated.

Containment strategies have largely focused upon travel restrictions and social-distancing, however some countries have taken different approaches. According to U.S. think-tank McKinsey & Company, Although a consensus has emerged around the use of physical distancing to slow transmission in many high-prevalence settings, a few countries, such as Sweden, are pursuing an alternative herd immunity strategy focused on protecting the most vulnerable populations while using only limited distancing measures to flatten the curve for others. The goals are to maintain many aspects of economic and social life today and, over time, to develop a large enough pool of exposed people (about 70 to 80 per cent) to protect the herd. 

As with previous strains of coronavirus, recovery from an infectious disease typically creates immunity to further infection. WHO studies show that people who have recovered from infection have antibodies to the virus. However, as of 24 April,   no study has evaluated whether the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 confers immunity to subsequent infection by this virus in humans.

A Time article April 13 addressed reports of cases of reinfection in some countries: There remains a lot of uncertainty, but experts Time spoke with say that its likely the reports of patients who seemed to have recovered but then tested positive again were not examples of reinfection, but were cases where lingering infection was not detected by tests for a period of time.

But what about the majority of countries currently pursuing containment strategies, once the dust settles on COVID-19? Without the herd immunity being developed immediately in countries like Sweden, most countries will be vulnerable to new cases once current restrictions are lifted.

A near-future pre-vaccine scenario in which, planet Earth back to business as usual, an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier steps off of a plane in Vancouver, or Los Angeles, or wherever  and starts the madness all over again.

A 1995 Harvard Health article published by CDC explains the role of travel in the spread of infectious disease: Travel is a potent force in the emergence of disease. Migration of humans has been the pathway for disseminating infectious diseases throughout recorded history and will continue to shape the emergence, frequency, and spread of infections in geographic areas and populations. The current volume, speed and reach of travel are unprecedented. The consequences of travel extend beyond the traveller to the population visited and the ecosystem. When they travel, humans carry their genetic makeup, immunologic sequelae of past infections, cultural preferences, customs and behavioural patterns. Microbes, animals and other biologic life also accompany them.

With governments currently focused upon reopening the world, it would seem prudent to also look beyond. Whether a resurgence of COVID-19, or the next new virus, will it be feasible to shut down again? Is quarantine a rational response?

CDC recommend a more holistic approach, involving the integration of knowledge and skills from many disciplines, including social, biological and physical sciences.

The focus should be system analysis and the ecosystem rather than a disease, microbe, or host.

The negative health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19 demonstrate that quarantine is not a sustainable strategy for future pandemics. Time to map out a better future.
Advance government procurements of motor vehicles will total 33,500 units in May - July, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV Channel.



"We provisionally worked out this program related to the automotive industry support in the government. This pertains to other government procurements also. About 33,500 automobiles of various authorities, organizations, including state-owned companies and companies with the state participation, should be provided in total over May, June and July," the Minister said.



Government authorities will start procurements of automobiles scheduled to 2021 and 2022 as early as in the second quarter of 2020, as reported earlier. "This will actually provide the automotive industry to pass through this challenging period, specifically May, June, and July," Manturov added.



He noted that russian automakers will be 100% loaded with public transport production in 2020.



"I can confidently state that the utilization will be 100% in 2020, particularly for the public transport, for buses of different classes," the minister said. "This is a helping hand and concurrently the support for the automotive industry and the upgrade of the public transport for regions," TAS cited him as saying.



Automobile producers will also deal with manufacturing of ambulance cars and reanimobiles, the Minister said. "Speaking about reanimobiles, there will be about 1,400 units. We already have experience of implementing such tasks in prior years. These are centralized supplies," Manturov said.
Sauti Sols guitarist, composer and producer, Polycarp Otieno alias Fancy Fingers, and his wife Lady Mandy are expecting their first child.

The pair took to their respective socials to announce the good news this past weekend.

Mandy, a celebrity stylist of Burundian origin, shared a striking photo showing off her bun in the oven and thanked Polycarp for the best gift yet.

Remember your 2020 BLESSINGS are still intact. Happy new month friends! ?? Mr O done given me the best gift yet ?, she wrote.

In the comments section of Mandys post, Polycarp joked that: Haiya!! I was not consulted ????.

He then reposted Mandys baby bump picture and captioned it: Shes a QUEEN. So SUPREME. ??

Polycarp and Lady Mandy have been together for about seven years and went public three years ago. They tied the knot in 2018.
Since the first case was reported in Indiana on March 6, about 18% of those tested were positive. To date, more than 20,000 Hoosiers have tested positive for the virus and the state reports more than 113,000 people have been tested. According to census.gov, the states 2019 population was 6.7 million.
Meanwhile, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, which has $4.8 million available to students enrolled in federal aid programs, with individual grants up to $1,200, as well as $500,000 for those with "extreme financial emergencies."

The 5,000 or so UNO students who are eligible to receive money will be contacted by the Office of Financial Support and Scholarships and asked to complete an application. Aid will be distributed to students based on their financial need.

The Nebraska State College System has also left the decisions of how to connect students in Peru, Chadron and Wayne with $2.2 million in relief aid to campus leaders.

System Chancellor Paul Turman told the Board of Trustees last week the system had prepared surveys for its students asking them to detail the ways they had been financially affected by COVID-19.

In one such survey, prepared by Chadron State College, students are asked what kinds of costs they incurred in making the jump from on-campus to remote education, as well as their food and housing expenses from March 16 to May 8.
The Delhi Commission for Women has issued a notice to Instagram and Delhi Police over 'bois locker room', a group chat made to share pictures of minor girls and make lewd comments. The Delhi Police Cyber Crime Cell has filed a case against the accused under relevant sections of the IT Act and other sections of the IPC

On 3 May, a series of screenshots were posted by an Instagram user, carrying snippets of conversations between 30-odd minor participants on an Instagram group called 'bois locker room'. The participants involved are accused of exchanging photographs of other female Instagram users, some of whom are underage girls, and passing lewd comments on the group.

On 4 May, the Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal issued a notice to both the Delhi Police and Instagram. The notice mentions that the Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of the matter, terming the actions of the accused as being illegal and asking for their arrest. It sought details about the admins and members of the group chat: their usernames/handles, names, email IDs, IP addresses, location etc.

Breaking - DCW chief @SwatiJaiHind issues notice to Instagram and Delhi Police in the matter of a group named "boys locker room" being used by some miscreants to share objectionable pictures of minor girls and planning illegal acts such as rape of minor girls. #boyslockerroom pic.twitter.com/PyzxGCv7kt  Delhi Commission for Women - DCW (@DCWDelhi) May 4, 2020

It has also sought details about whether any of the accused were arrested, reasons if they were not, a copy of the FIR filed in this regard and detailed action taken. It asked Instagram if the social media platform has taken cognisance of the matter and taken action.

On the evening of 4 May, the Delhi Police Cyber Crime Cell filed a case against the accused, reports ANI.

Delhi Police Cyber Crime Cell has taken cognisance of the matter&started probe. On basis on social media reports,a case has been registered under relevant sections of IT Act &other relevant IPC sections: DCP Cyber Cell on Delhi school boys glorifying rape on a Instagram chatroom  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

"They talk trash about women, bodyshame them, morph their pictures, and the list is endless," wrote one of the first women to come forward with details of the Instagram group.

Soon after the screenshots were made public, at least two other women stepped forward to share more screenshots of similar conversations held between the participants, mostly minor boys, who have since either deleted their accounts or changed their names as well as usernames on the social media platform.

Apart from the content shared on 'bois locker room', once outed, specific members of the group allegedly attempted to make a separate Instagram account to leak more private images of the accusers. The conversation was accessed by one of the main accusers and confirmed by another on her Instagram account.

After the screenshots caught the attention of social media users across platforms, a separate Instagram group comprising the participants accused of sexual harassment as well as certain new participants, believed to be their friends, came to light. According to the posts shared by one of the accusers, the new group was formed to think of ways to defend the participants of 'bois locker room'.

Offensive language was used against those who were outing them. And shes dead, gon f*ck her up no cap, Im gonna f*ck every single one jisne story daali (who posted a story) were among the messages allegedly exchanged on this chat.

A new account to replace the old group chat was allegedly created after the participants were outed on social media. The bio of this account mentioned that participants should join in with fake accounts, so no one can expose u. A Twitter user mentioned that this development took place hours after information about the original group chat was put on social media; Firstpost was not able to independently verify this. This account does not seem to be on Instagram anymore.

As #boyslockerroom became one of the top trends on Indian Twitter, an accuser alleged that her Instagram account was hacked into and the password was changed by members of the 'bois locker room' group. Firstpost could not independently verify this.

One of the accused, who a Twitter user termed as being the creator of the group, apparently posted an apology on his Instagram stories; screenshots of this apology have been circulating on Twitter but Firstpost was not able to confirm their veracity. I just want to point out that I realise the gravity of my mistake and that I am in no position to defend myself in any way. I take full responsibility for my actions I would just like to publicly apologise to every single person, esp all the women out there that I have angered. I fully understand and accept my mistake, and I am ashamed of my actions, he allegedly wrote.

The user also begged others to not take further action, as it would be detrimental to us. He further added that some of the accused were silent participants of the group and didnt engage in the actions/conversations that are being condemned, asking that they be left out of the issue.
During its deployment in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the US Navy Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) conducts flight operations with MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.

An MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, attached to the Knight Riders of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 164 (Reinforced), takes off from the flight deck of Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2). (Picture source U.S. Navy)

During flight operations, MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, attached to the Knight Riders of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 164 (Reinforced), has performed takes off and landing from the flight deck of Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2). Essex is underway in the eastern Pacific Ocean conducting routine maritime operations.



USS Essex (LHD-2) is a Wasp-class Landing Helicopter Dock in service with the United States Navy. The amphibious assault ship was built at what is now Huntington Ingalls Industries in Pascagoula, Mississippi. She was launched 23 February 1991 and commissioned on 17 October 1992 while moored at North Island NAS.



The Wasp class is a class of landing helicopter dock (LHD) amphibious assault ships operated by the United States Navy. Based on the Tarawa class, with modifications to operate more advanced aircraft and landing craft, the Wasp class is capable of transporting almost the full strength of a United States Marine Corps Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), and landing them in hostile territory via landing craft or helicopters as well as providing air support via AV-8B Harrier II attack aircraft or F-35B Lightning II stealth strike-fighters.



The armament of the first four Wasp class consists of two Mark 29 octuple launchers for RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missiles, two Mark 49 launchers for RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles, three 20 mm Phalanx CIWSs, four 25 mm Mark 38 chain guns, and four .50 caliber machine guns.[5] The next four ships, Bataan, Bonhomme Richard, Iwo Jima, and Makin Island, have a slightly reduced weapons outfit compared to their preceding sister ships, with one Phalanx and one Mark 38 gun removed.



The MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft is the primary assault support aircraft for the U.S. Marine Corps. It was fielded to replace the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter and has been deployed to support troops in combat since 2007. It uses two engines positioned on fixed wing tips housed in nacelles that rotate to allow the MV-22 to land and take off vertically, but achieve much faster flight than a helicopter by tilting the nacelles forward while in flight in a configuration similar to a fixed-wing aircraft.
The New York Times won three Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, bringing the publications total to 130 since Columbia University began presenting the annual journalism award in 1917.

The Times was recognized for coverage that investigated how New York taxi industry leaders exploited immigrant drivers, pushing thousands into debt and many to suicide; the lead essay for a special project on the impact of slavery on the United States, published 400 years after the first enslaved Africans were brought to the American colonies; and a look into Vladimir V. Putins shadow war to undermine the West.

Read the work below or browse all the 2020 Pulitzer winners and finalists. Heres a list of all the awards and recognitions The Times has received over the past century.
A security guard has denied raping a woman while working at an NHS hospital.

Nicholas Bell, 22, pleaded not guilty to assaulting the woman, who is in her 30s, at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex in April.

His trial is fixed for September 29.

Judge Christopher Morgan of the Chelmsford Crown Court told Bell via video link that the court date may be changed due to the coronavirus pandemic and that "there are a number of caveats".

He added: You will appreciate the difficulties we all face in the current emergency.

"The court will do its best to meet that trial date but understand that its not guaranteed.

Mr Bell was remanded in custody ahead of his next court appearance.
After posting the first weekly gain in a month, oil prices plunged early on Monday as tensions between the United States and China grew over the origin of the coronavirus, which is battering oil demand and increasing the global oil glut.

At 9:23 a.m. EDT on Monday, WTI Crude was down 3.24 percent at $19.16, and Brent Crude prices were down 1.93 percent on the day, to $25.91.

During the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC News This Week program that theres enormous evidence that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab.

China has a history of infecting the world and they have a history of running substandard laboratories. These are not the first times that weve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab, Secretary Pompeo tweeted on Sunday.

The renewed tension between the two largest economies in the world weighed down on oil prices early on Monday, with WTI Crude losing as much as 7 percent at one point before recouping some of the losses.

The sizable global oil glut with very limited storage space available was also dragging oil prices down, although expectations that demand is slowly beginning to tick up lent some support.

Last week, at the start of the OPEC+ cuts and with mounting evidence that U.S. shale producers would be scaling back production faster and more than expected, oil prices closed the week on the positive note, for the first time in over a month.

While the partial easing of lockdowns in some U.S. states and several European countries  including large economies such as Italy, Germany, and Spain  supported the view that demand will begin to slowly recover, the latest manufacturing data for April was as gloomy as it gets, also weighing on oil prices. In France, manufacturers reported business conditions deteriorating at a record pace in April, according to the IHS Markit France Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, while the same index for Italy showed output and new orders plunged at the fastest pace in over 22 years of data collection.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
An investigation has been launched after the wrong body was released for burial by a hospital.

It is understood the person had died at Mullingar Regional Hospital after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

However, the remains released to the family were those of another person.

The bodies of people who had contracted Covid-19 are put in sealed body bags in order to prevent the spread of infection.

It is understood the hospital contacted the undertaker to rectify the mistake before the funeral service took place.

In a statement, Mullingar Regional Hospital confirmed the incident, which happened just over a week ago.

It added that the incorrect body had been released from the hospital mortuary and given to an undertaker on Friday, April 24.

The Ireland East Hospital Group along with Regional Hospital Mullingar are conducting an internal review.

"Following detection, the mistake was rectified," the hospital added.

"We would like to offer our condolences to the families and sincerely apologise for the distress this has caused during this difficult time."

HSE chief operations officer Anne O'Connor said there were procedures in place to prevent this happening and the incident was being investigated.

"We would hope [it is] an isolated incident - and certainly there are lots of procedures in place. That incident is being investigated," she said.

"Obviously, it's a very important and critical thing for us. So we would hope that certainly the policies and procedures that are in place will ensure that doesn't happen anywhere else."

Funerals of those who have died from Covid-19 are subject to restrictions and will usually have to exclude even immediate family who are likely to be close contacts of the deceased.

"We do not wish to alarm the public or add to the trauma that grieving families may be suffering, nor does this mean that the standard of our care or quality of our service is diminished," Colm Kieran, of the Irish Association of Funeral Directors, recently told the Irish Independent.

"We are continuing to offer our services and our professionalism to families in the cases of non-Covid-19 deaths by giving them our attention and expertise in providing them, where possible, with the services of the funeral home, considering local restrictions."
An Air New Zealand passenger plane takes off from Christchurch Airport in New Zealand, Monday, March 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

New Zealand and Australia could soon open their borders to each other, creating what they call a Trans-Tasman bubble as they look to restart their economies after getting their novel coronavirus outbreaks under control.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed on Monday she would take part in an emergency Australian coronavirus cabinet meeting on Tuesday, adding to anticipation of a travel deal.

Both countries have slowed their coronavirus epidemics substantially, to a level well below those in the United States, Britain and other countries in Europe.

Australia has recorded about 6,800 infections and 96 deaths, and New Zealand has had 1,137 cases and 20 fatalities.

NZ and Australia have a mortality rate of just 1% and have maintained low, single-digit daily increases in new cases for weeks, successes they attribute to social distancing and extensive testing.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, left, stands with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during the signing of the Indigenous Collaboration Arrangement at Admiralty House in Sydney, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. A (Bianca De Marchi/Pool Photo via AP)

What Is The Bubble?

Neither leader has outlined what a bubble would look like and there is no clarity on a timeframe either, but it would likely allow free movement between Australia and New Zealand while both keeping their borders closed with other countries.

Ardern has warned that more health measures needed to be in place before travel between them could begin again, saying it was unlikely to happen be in the very, very near short term.

Borders separating Australias states are still closed.

There is speculation a bubble could include Pacific Island nations as they have also managed to keep the virus in check. It would be a major boost to those countries as well as a diplomatic coup, at a time of concern in Australia and New Zealand about growing Chinese influence in the region.

Whats Needed To Launch A Bubble?

Simon Westaway, executive director of Australian Tourism Industry Council, told Reuters discussions with the government on easing travel with New Zealand were in a very early stage.

He said a robust health infrastructure in addition to customs, immigration...

Continue reading on HuffPost
In connection with the expected increase in demand on the Virtsu-Kuivastu and Rohukula-Heltermaa ferry lines in the following years, OU TS Laevad, a subsidiary of AS Tallinna Sadam, and the Estonian Road Administration signed an annex to the additional public passenger service agreement with the aim of performing at least 500 additional voyages on the Virtsu-Kuivastu route each year in the period 01.06.2020-30.09.2026. Since it is not possible to make such an additional number of additional voyages with the existing fleet during the peak season, it is necessary to acquire a new additional ferry for the route. According to the agreement, the Road Administration will order additional voyages in 2020-2022 similarly to the summer periods of previous years - additional voyages will be performed by M/S Regula or another suitable ferry available, on condition that the spare vessel can be temporarily provided during the high season. The agreement sets the goal that in the years 2023-2026 additional voyages will be made by a new-built ferry, the fee and other conditions of which will be agreed after TS Laevad conducts a tender for the construction of the ship and the acquisition cost and terms become clear. The Road Administration has the option to refuse to order additional voyages if the parties do not reach an agreement on the service charges, for example if the possible acquisition cost of a new vessel turns out to be too high.



According to the states wishes, the vessel must be environmentally friendly, have an ice class and an on-board shop, and can also be used on the Rohukula-Heltermaa line with low sea level. The total length of a suitable ferry is up to 114m, draft about 3.5m, capacity approximately 300 passengers and 110-120 passenger cars or 8 semi-trailer trucks with a length of 19m. The parameters of the vessel to be acquired have also been negotiated with local communities. TS Laevad plans to organize a tender for the construction of the additional ferry in the second half of 2020 after the completion of the design work.

Story continues

According to the ferry services agreement with the Estonian Road Administration signed on 11.12.2014, TS Laevad provides ferry services on the Rohukula-Heltermaa and Virtsu-Kuivastu ferry lines until 30.09.2026. TS Laevad also has the necessary competence in the specialities of operating shipping lines and up-to-date experience in acquiring new ferries.

More detailed impact on the economic activities of Tallinna Sadam Group can be assessed after the cost of the additional volume of the service and the acquisition cost of the new ferry have been determined and an annex to the respective agreement has been concluded with the Road Administration.

Tallinna Sadam is one of the largest cargo- and passenger port complexes in the Baltic Sea region, which in 2019 serviced 10.64 million passengers and 19.9 million tons of cargo. In addition to passenger and freight services, Tallinna Sadam group also operates in shipping business via its subsidiaries  OU TS Laevad provides ferry services between the Estonian mainland and the largest islands, and OU TS Shipping charters its multifunctional vessel Botnica for icebreaking and construction services in Estonia and offshore projects abroad. Tallinna Sadam group is also a shareholder of an associate AS Green Marine, which provides waste management services. According to audited financial results, Tallinna Sadam group's sales in 2019 totaled EUR 130.5 million, adjusted EBITDA EUR 74.3 million and net profit EUR 44.4 million.

Additional information:

Marju Zirel

Head of Investor Relations

AS Tallinna Sadam

m.zirel@ts.ee




She never fails to turn heads with her sultry social media snaps.

And Kimberley Garner soaked up the sun as she displayed her jaw-dropping figure while posing in a piece from her swimwear line.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, was a sight to behold in a teal and black patterned bikini that showed off her bronzed hue.

Wow: Kimberley Garner, 29, soaked up the sun as she displayed her jaw-dropping figure while posing in a piece from her swimwear line

Looking radiant as ever, Kimberley let her blonde locks fall loose down her shoulders as she showed off one of her latest looks.

Alongside the snaps, she wrote: 'It's the most fun when I see a girl on the beach in one of my designs, its happened so many times.

'I get so excited and dont act cool at all. This one's called waterfall #MadeInLondon'.

It comes after Kimberley shot an impromptu photoshoot on Thursday from her beach house in Miami , showing off her stunning figure in skimpy sportswear.

Sensational: The former Made In Chelsea star posed in a teal and black patterned bikini that showed off her bronzed hue

Beauty: Looking radiant as ever, Kimberley let her blonde locks fall loose down her shoulders as she showed off one of her latest designs

Sun-kissed: Alongside the snaps, she wrote: 'It's the most fun when I see a girl on the beach in one of my designs, its happened so many times'

The blonde beauty flaunted her tanned curves in a racy black bra with statement strap detail.

She added black sweatpants, pulling the trousers down to show off her toned stomach in a series of sultry poses, captioning the post: 'At home still in sweats... @aloyoga #ad #ambassador.'

Kimberley posed in the open doorway of her Miami abode, showing a glimpse of her sunlit interiors and green outside space.

The reality star turned swimwear designer also showed off her cooking skills on Thursday, rustling up a healthy lunch before treating herself to an ice lolly.

At home: Kimberley shared a sultry photoshoot from her Miami house on Thursday as she isolates in the Florida city

Wow: Kimberley shot an impromptu photoshoot on Thursday from the beach house, showing off her stunning figure in skimpy sportswear

Gorgeous: The blonde beauty flaunted her tanned cruves in a racy black bra with statement strap detail

Kimberley spent some time baking too, proudly posting a snap of herself adding cream to a delicious looking cake.

The reality star splits her time between her homes in London and Miami after purchasing a dream pad in the coastal city in December 2018.

Speaking to MailOnline about her home last year, she explained: 'I worked very hard last year and had even moved home for a few months to save money.

This is the life: She added black sweatpants, pulling the trousers down to show off her toned stomach in a series of sultry poses, captioning the post: 'At home still in sweats

Dream house: Kimberley posed in the open doorway of her Miami sun, showing a glimpse of her sunlit interiors and green outside space

Beach life: The reality star splits her time between her home in London and Miami after purchasing a dream pad in the coastal city in December 2018

'I really had my head down working to concentrate on goals, but achieved it on New Years Eve, praise God, and flew over here. Completed the sale on the plane over.'

Reflecting on her property empire, the designer admitted it is a world away from the hustle and bustle of her busy life in London.

'It's right on the beach, and really is a dream come true,' she explained. 'I am over doing the interior design, going for a beachy chilled vibe for the place.

'I won't be moving there [permanently], as London is one hundred percent home, but really overjoyed and proud to have achieved it.'

Sweet treat; The ex reality star shared a look at her lockdown life as she kept cool with an ice lolly on Thursday
YEREVAN, MAY 4, ARMENPRESS. The international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide remains one of the most important agenda issues of Armenia, Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said during the parliamentary hearings on the governments program.

Last year several initiatives were held on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the commemoration of victims. France declared April 24 as the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. The parliaments of Italy and Portugal adopted initiatives on condemnation and recognition. On October 30 the US House of Representatives adopted a resolution affirming the US position on the Armenian Genocide, and on December 12 the US Senate unanimously adopted a resolution recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide. On February 13, 2020, the parliament of Syria adopted a resolution recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide, the FM said.

According to him, the recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide has long received a universal significance as its recognition is one of the most effective tools to prevent the crime of genocide. In this respect the recent subtexts on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide are worth noting which are conditioned not only by the friendly relations between the nations, who recognized it, and the Armenian people, but also by the aspiration to prevent the new tragedies in the world and the region. In fact, there is a perception in our region that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a restraining force to the threat to security, the Armenian FM said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Its exactly what we need at this coronavirus pandemic moment: A public service message with a some New York attitude.

Thats what I found driving on the West Shore Expressway on Thursday.

Ive seen coronavirus-themed signs along that highway and on the Staten Island Expressway all throughout the pandemic.

Some told me to Save Lives #Flatten The Curve. Or Stay Home Stop The Spread.

Others said Cover Your Face In Public. Or advised me to Wash Hands With Soap.

Another gave the number for the COVID-19 testing hotline.

All pretty standard stuff.

But this one was different. It was definitely tailored to the New York City audience.

The sign said: Outside With No Mask? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Now theyre talking our language.

Fuhgeddaboutit might be the quintessentially New York phrase. Recall how Johnny Depp delineates the various uses of the word in the mob classic Donnie Brasco. Its a word for many occasions.

How bad is this pandemic? Fuhgeddaboutit.

You see Gov. Andrew Cuomos press conference this morning? Fuhgeddaboutit.

You hear that the doctors and nurses dont have enough protective gear? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Its not the first time weve seen highway signs with that word on them. Fuhgeddaboutit appears on signs at various spots in Brooklyn, thanks to former Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz.

And, hey, how many of us Staten Islanders trace our lineage to Brooklyn? It makes perfect sense.

Meanwhile, can you believe that this pandemic lockdown has been going on for two months?

Fuhgeddaboutit.
A 13-year-old girl has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a woman was left fighting for her life following reports of a street fight.

The girl was arrested in London along with a man and a woman, both in their thirties.

Police were called at 11.30pm on Saturday to Lawrence Way in Neasden, north London, after reports of a fight in the street.

A woman in her 20s was taken to hospital by the London Ambulance Service with what officers described as "slash" wounds to her abdomen.

Police said the trio had been arrested, while the victim remains in a critical condition.

The three suspects remain in custody, officers added. Enquiries continue.

Witnesses are asked to call 101 quoting CAD 8620/2 May.
Getty Images

Twenty-eight years ago, the iconic city of Los Angeles fell into a state of historic unrest after four police officers were acquitted in the savage beating of an African-American man named Rodney King.

King suffered skull fractures, permanent brain damage and broken bones during the vicious attack, which was captured on video and sparked a national conversation about police brutality and racial inequality that continues to this day.

The trial drew worldwide media attention after a man named George Holliday filmed the beating from the balcony of his apartment and sent the recording to KTLA, a local news station, in 1991. King, who was on parole for robbery at the time, led police on a high-speed chase before the incident occurred. He was later released without charge.

Four white LAPD officers, including one sergeant, were subsequently charged with assault and use of excessive force. The seventeen officers who were reported to have stood by and watched were never indicted.

But almost a year later, on 29 April 1992, the police officers were acquitted, sparking the worst race riots in US history.

The verdict led to five days of violent protests in which 50 people died and over 2,000 were injured. Nearly 1,000 buildings throughout the city that were damaged or totally destroyed, causing more than $1bn in damages. Almost 12,000 people were arrested.

Demonstrators were enraged over the trial, which featured nine white jurors and just three people of colour, arguing that it evidenced the systemic racism within the criminal justice system.

It also followed the recent killing of Latasha Harlins, who was fatally shot in southern Los Angeles in 1991 while going to the grocery store to buy orange juice. Harlins was just 15-years-old.

The riots were also the culmination of decades of anger surrounding racial and economic inequalities in southern California and throughout the US.

As people took to the streets, King called for calm in an emotional plea. 

People, I just want to say, can we all get along? Can we get along? he asked. Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?"

Kings beating was one of the first instances of police brutality against an unarmed black man in the US to have been recorded and seen all over the world. Twenty-eight years on, similar disturbing videos of police brutality against unarmed black men continue to garner widespread media attention as people continue to demand criminal justice reform.
Cancer campaigners Deborah James and Helen Addis pleaded with people to get checked on suspicion of cancer, even during the lockdown.

Deborah, 38, from South London, was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in December 2016 and earlier this year, scans showed no sign of the disease in her body, but she still needs regular treatment.

ITV producer Helen Addis, 41, who lives in Weybridge, Surrey, was diagnosed with grade 3 breast cancer in 2018 and came through her treatment, which involved several rounds of chemotherapy and a mastectomy. She launched the Change and Check campaign for ITV with the support of Lorraine.

Speaking to Lorraine Kelly on Good Morning Britain, to two women said that now more than ever, people should be checking new lumps with their GPs, in spite of the coronavirus pandemic.

Deborah, who presents the BBC podcast You, Me and The Big C, said early diagnosis is 'a matter of life and death'.

Cancer campaigners Deborah James and Helen Addis pleaded with people to get checked on suspicion of cancer, even during the lockdown on this morning's Good Morning Britain. James, 38, from South London, was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer in December 2016 and still lives with the disease

Speaking via video link from her home, Deborah, who is known as Bowel Babe on social media, said: 'Please get checked. It's literally the difference between life and death: an early diagnosis.

She said that while she understands that we live in a 'very challenging time,' people need to go and get checked.

'We campaign very very hard for people to not be embarrassed, to not worry about going to their GPs and not be embarrassed to say: "I've got a change of bowel habits",' she added.

'The message, loud and clear, is they're still open for business and this is more important than ever,' she added.

Helen Addis, an ITV producer, speaking from home, was diagnosed with grade 3 breast cancer in 2018 and said she owed her speedy treatment to an early diagnosis

Drawing from her own experience, Deborah explained that by the time she was diagnosed after having symtpoms for six months, her chances of surviving for more than five years had shrunk to just eight per cent.

She also explained that when she was diagnosed with bowel cancer, she also had eight tumours in her lungs.

Deborah decided to 'take a break' from treatment during the lockdown, but has resumed after a health scare.

She explained. 'It's an incredibly challenging mix, for me,. I'm somebody, as a lot of people are, manaigng their cancer.

'My tumour markers started waking up a little bit, and it's not what you want in any circumstance.'

Speaking to Lorraine Kelly, the two women said GPs were still open for business and that people should get suspicious lumps checked out 'more than ever'

She explained she is now back on treatment and forced herself to go back to normal, visiting the hospital 'even in these challenging times.

Meanwhile, Helen, who owes her speedy treatment to an early diagnosis, revealed that by the time she saw her GP about a lump she had detected on her body, eight others had appeared, showing 'how fast it's been travelling.'

'I can't stress it enough,' she said.

'Women inherently putting themselves at the bottom of the list,' she said, pointing out that mothers usually put other people in front of their health needs.

'The last thing we're thinking about doing is getting small but unusual things checked out,' she said.

Dr Hilary, who hosted the show with Helen, stressed that GPs are open for business and that patients can be seen and treated safely.
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb (pictured) on Sunday said that mitigation efforts to stem the spread of coronavirus 'didn't work as well as we expected'

A former FDA commissioner says mitigation efforts to stem the spread of coronavirus did not work as well as expected while predicting that more than 100,000 people will die from the virus by June.

Dr Scott Gottlieb spoke to CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, just as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States surpassed 1,182,000 with at least 68,157 deaths.

He said that while cases continue to fall in hard-hit areas such as New York City - the epicenter of the US outbreak - the number of confirmed new infections and hospitalizations have continued to rise in many areas.

'There's about 20 states where you see a rising number of new cases: Illinois, Texas, Maryland, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee,' Gottlieb said.

'And so while mitigation didn't fail, I think it's fair to say that it didn't work as well as we expected.

'We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we're just not seeing that.'

Scroll down for video

As of Sunday evening, at least 1,176,548 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the US, including more than 68,000 deaths

Gottlieb has issued several warnings via Twitter and TV appearances about the 'persistent spread' of the virus as more and more states take steps to lift lockdowns and restart their economies.

On Sunday he cast doubt on current White House projections for new infections and deaths, noting how the numbers have been 'starting to creep back up' over the past two weeks.

'It's really hard to predict beyond June where this goes because we could have large outbreaks or it could become quiescent in the summer,' he said.

'But I think when you look out to the end of June, it's probably the case that we're going to get above 100,000 deaths nationally.

'We may be facing the prospect that 20,000, 30,000 new cases a day diagnosed becomes the new normal and a thousand or more deaths becomes the new normal as well.'

Gottlieb stressed that the true number of infections is likely much higher than the confirmed case counts because experts believe the only about one in 10 are officially diagnosed.

He went on to say that protective measures such as masks and six-feet-apart guidelines could become 'the new normal' in the US as he warned of a possible resurgence of the virus in the fall.

'The challenge is that if we see this slow simmer through this summer- maybe this summer's a backstop to spread, I think it will be - what happens when we come back in the fall?' he asked.

'People are back at work after an August recess. And then you can see this slow simmer explode into a new epidemic or large outbreaks.

'That's the concern, that if we don't snuff this out more and you have this slow burn of infection, it can ignite at any time.'

Gottlieb said that the key to avoiding another crisis is the rapid implementation of tools such as vaccines and effective treatments.

'The more that we see persistent infection, the more we're dependent upon a technological change to really be an inflection point in this epidemic,' he said.

'I think the more that the government accepts the fact that there's just going to be persistent spread and they want to open the economy against that backdrop, the more they better be doubling down on the technology and make sure that we're doing everything we can to get those drugs in time for the fall.'

Asked about the Trump administration's 'Operation Warp Speed' plan to have 300 million COVID-19 vaccine doses available by January, Gottlieb expressed cautious optimism.

'I think what we're going to have in the fall is hopefully multiple manufacturers that have cleared early stage safety trials and have millions of doses that could be deployed in large- large scale studies inside cities,' he said.

'And so what you would do is deploy the vaccine in the setting of an outbreak in a city to both test whether it's safe and effective. So you're continuing to study it, but you're also using it potentially therapeutically to ring fence an outbreak.

'I think we're going to be in a position to do that.

'I know companies are working on protocols, designing trials, to engage in that kind of deployment of vaccines.

'What we need right now is more than one manufacturer to be successful. We need multiple manufacturers, US based manufacturers, to have vaccines ready to deploy in time for the fall.'

Gottlieb emphasized that the true number of US coronavirus cases could be 10 times higher than the confirmed count due to testing limits and the fact that many people are asymptomatic

Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan then asked Gottlieb about his thoughts on coronavirus clusters that have occurred at places such as prisons, nursing homes and meat processing plants.

'There's a school of thought that says because these are highly concentrated, that somehow they're more manageable. What do you make of that argument?' Brennan probed.

'Well, it's true to some extent. It might not be more manageable, but it's more vulnerable, and I think we need to understand that,' Gottlieb replied.

'Disadvantaged communities and certain kind of institutional settings where people can't naturally social distance are hotspots. They're very vulnerable. And we need to be putting resources into those kinds of settings.'

He continued: 'And it's not just the shop floors and warehouses and workers who are vulnerable to infection because of the way they work. That's certainly part of the story.

'But it's also people who come from communities where they have to take mass transit. They can't naturally social distance. They don't have access to good health care to begin with and can't get access to testing.

'Those communities are very vulnerable, and the data now supports that. We're seeing pockets of intense spread in these kinds of settings and these kinds of communities, and we should be pouring resources in to help those people.'
Texas colleges are getting creative as they plan virtual celebrations and other digital accommodations for spring graduations in lieu of in-person commencements during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One thing when we started, we thought, If we cant do an in-person thing, lets try to give them something else unique, Brandon Martin, manager of videography at Rice University.

Rice is working on feature-length films for its undergraduate, graduate and doctoral student ceremonies. Each video, which will last at least an hour, will be streamed online May 16 and will be available to view later on various platforms, including YouTube and Facebook.

The decisions to host virtual celebrations came after many colleges around the country closed campuses and resumed classes online in efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus. As a result, many commencements have been postponed, with colleges offering students the option to walk and celebrate in person in the fall. In the meantime, theyre hoping to offer students something special.

At Rice, Martin is working with the universitys IT team and a committee of students, faculty and staff to complete the ceremony films with profiles on students, personal messages from staff and faculty, and slideshows that will include pictures of each graduate.

Martin said the video will also feature bittersweet moments from earlier this year, including student move-out and the mock commencement seniors hosted when they learned the campus would close and classes would be online for the rest of the semester.

Class of 2020  its such a historical number,  and you think its historical just because of the number, but you never knew it would be a global pandemic associated with them, Martin said.

But Martin said hes striving for it not to become a coronavirus pity party.

The process has proven to be a challenge. Martin has had to wear a mask and practice contactless video capturing, which requires him to social distance from his subjects without a lavalier microphone.

Elsewhere:

Prairie View A&M University will host a virtual celebration on at 10 a.m. Saturday on the universitys website to honor its 910 graduates, but will tentatively host an in-person summer graduation in August should large gatherings be permitted at that time.

The University of Texas at Austins virtual celebration will be held May 23, starting with an online pre-show at 8:30 p.m. and the commencement at 9 p.m. Brene Brown, UT alumna and renowned researcher at the University of Houston, will speak at the commencement.

Houston Community College will hold virtual, live-streamed commencement options for all ceremonies on May 22 and has invited graduates to attend a ceremony in the fall.

UH is postponing its May commencement until the fall but will also plan for something symbolic to recognize the milestone for its graduates, said President Renu Khator.

Texas A&M University expects to graduate about 10,800 students next week, but with commencement postponed, the university plans to honor the students in a number of special ways, President Michael Young said in a letter to the community.

Alvin Community College has invited its graduates to a virtual ceremony but has also invited students to participate in a fall ceremony.

brittany.britto@chron.com

twitter.com/brittanybritto
INVESTIGATION REMINDER: The Schall Law Firm Announces it is Investigating Claims Against Carnival Corporation & Plc and Encourages Investors with Losses of $100,000 to Contact the Firm

The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces that it is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Carnival Corporation & Plc ("Carnival" or "the Company") (NYSE: CCL) for violations of the securities laws.

The investigation focuses on whether the Company issued false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose information pertinent to investors.

If you are ashareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.







We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall of the Schall Law Firm, 1880 Century Park East, Suite 404, Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert) 90067, at 310-301-3335, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com, or by email at [email protected].

The class in this case has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member.

The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005648/en/
One of the spheres of Lithuanian ASHBURN International companys activity is the outsourcing of acquiring networks, Executive Director of ASHBURN International company Zhorzas Sarafanovicius said in an interview with local media.

Sarafanovicius spoke about flexible innovative solutions for acquiring organizations, as well as about expanding the companys activity outside the Baltic countries.

We not only introduce our own software solution TransLink.iQ, but also use it in our work, executive director added. Our own experience in using the platform allows setting goals for its development, namely, to develop and add new functions for terminals, based on the needs of our customers."

Software product development requires deep knowledge, especially when the field of activity is so specific, Sarafanovicius said.

"The system, developed by ASHBURN International specialists, is designed to manage the network of EFTPOS terminals and deliver transactions, as well as monitor the payment terminals and transaction flow in real time, executive director said.

The TransLink.iQ hardware and software system was created taking into account the requirements of the VISA International and MasterCard International payment systems for servicing chip, contactless and other types of cards, Sarafanovicius said. The flexible architecture of the solution allows customizing it in accordance with the needs and infrastructure of the client."

ASHBURN International has its own highly qualified IT team to expand the functionality of acquiring equipment, Sarafanovicius said. The entire work on developing additional functionality and introducing new services for customers is carried out quickly and efficiently thanks to this team.

By using TransLink.iQ solution, it is possible to centrally and remotely manage a network of various payment terminals (made by different manufacturers), as well as simultaneously configure parameters, install and update software to ensure maximum service availability and connect new functions on any number of terminals, executive director said.

The solution allows developing the functionality of acquiring equipment, adding new features to the basic set of functions of payment terminals, executive director said. Such additional features as dynamic currency conversion or installment payment increase customer loyalty.

"We laid the opportunity to develop the functionality of EFTPOS terminals in the architecture of the TransLink.iQ software solution, Sarafanovicius said. As a result, the expansion of the functionality and addition of non-classical functions do not require big resources."

While speaking about security, Sarafanovicius stressed that the TransLink.iQ software platform was developed in accordance with the EMV standard and meets the requirements of the security standard of PCI PA-DSS payment applications.

As part of its PSP activity, the audit is annually conducted in ASHBURN International company for compliance with the requirements of the international PCI DSS Level 1 standard and PCI PIN certification, executive director said. TransLink.iQ solves many problems that the companies face when managing a big network of payment terminals.

It is possible to remotely activate and parameterize terminals, install and update software and monitor the technical status of devices in real time thanks to TransLink.iQ, executive director said. All this allows automating and simplifying the processes associated with the management of the network of EFTPOS terminals, reduce the associated costs and ensure the operational efficiency of the acquiring business.

The solution allows greatly reducing the cost of rendering acquiring services and gain a significant competitive advantage," Sarafanovicius said. The global market of EFTPOS terminals has been divided between the biggest players - Ingenico and Verifone.

Both of these corporations hold about 80 percent of the world market, Sarafanovicius said. Most of banks use the equipment of these manufacturers to render the trade acquiring services. PAX company can be called the third player on the market, but the terminals of this Chinese manufacturer are less used at the cash desk. Ingenico did not operate in Azerbaijan up till now.

ASHBURN International is an official partner of the world's biggest manufacturer of EFTPOS terminals Ingenico Group in Azerbaijan, executive director stressed. EFTPOS-terminals are supplied in cooperation with BSKOM, a BS / 2 subsidiary offering specialized solutions to the financial and trade organizations in Azerbaijan."
Kazoo is a safe and secure app that brings together everything you need to plan, track, and protect your life, explains Peter Goodman, president and co-founder of Kazoo.

What if your phone could immediately alert authorities and your family and friends about a potentially unsafe situation you are in? Not only can the new app Kazoo do that, but it does a lot more, too. Launching in June, the new app offers all the things that people want when it comes to staying connected and safety and security. Kazoo offers precise 30-day location history, which may help with COVID-19 contact tracing, and connects with 4,500 emergency call centers around the country.

We have gone to great lengths to create an app that provides people with everything they need and want, explains Luna Howard, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Kazoo. When you compare what all Kazoo can do for people, it is clear to see that there is nothing else that compares. The features will bring all users and their family members security and comfort.

Rather than have numerous apps that all offer different features, Kazoo has been designed to be all-inclusive, helping to keep people in contact with friends and family, and capture and send personal safety notifications to authorities. The SOS video streaming offers a level of security that no other system has.

Kazoo is currently seeking investors to help with the next round of bringing the complete app to market. They started with an initial investment of $400,000 of their own, and are currently seeking another $250,000. They have raised more than $60,000 from over 115 different investors thus far. The company is offering a 20% valuation discount exclusively for friends and family who invest before they reach the $100,000 mark of the new funding round.

The app offers something that no other app provides, which is SOS live on scene video streaming technology. When someone is in a dangerous situation they can use their phone to easily take pictures of the scene, provide live video streaming, and more. The new app provides many features, including those for a person in a crisis situation, as well as for their emergency contacts. These features include:

Person in Crisis



The ability to instantly livestream video of unfolding scene

Receive communication from emergency contacts

Call 9-1-1 (local authorities) on one screen

See which contacts are actively viewing, have viewed or haven't viewed the stream

Take photos during live stream

Automatically saves incident to the cloud

Emergency Contact

Instantly view live stream of incident

Pinpoints exact location on Person In Crisis (on the same screen as the incident is live streaming)

View incoming phone number to connect to location emergency call centers

Share live link with first responders and authorities

Communicate with Person In Crisis

Rewind live stream

Automatically saves incident to the cloud

Kazoo is a safe and secure app that brings together everything you need to plan, track, and protect your life, added Peter Goodman, president and co-founder of Kazoo. Its designed to be safe, secure, and provide users with the information and communication abilities that they need. Our SOS video streaming sets us apart.

Kazoo launch is in perfect timing, because it can be helpful with the COVID-19 environment. They recently secured a partnership with the leading public safety technology company that provides life-saving data from millions of connected devices to 9-1-1 and first responders. The partnership will be announced with the launch on June 8, 2020. The app directly connects with 4,500 emergency call centers nationwide. Its also relevant to COVID-19 relief if there is a shortage of healthcare workers, helping emergency scenes to easily be prioritized for dispatch. Further, Kazoo is able to play an important role when it comes to COVID-19 contact tracing. Many people dont trust the large companies, such as Apple or Google, with their information, but they do trust using a smaller network like Kazoo.

The app has been built on Amazon Web Services, which is the most secure cloud computing environment. Users can send personalized invites to those they want in their personal circle. In addition to location sharing and video messaging, users will have access to a 30-day location history.

Kazoo offers a solid investment opportunity within the market. There are 1.7 billion smartphone users around the world, creating a $285 billion total addressable market. Investors currently have the rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a next-generation emergency services technology that is being run by a high-caliber management team comprised of experienced entrepreneurs and business leaders.

For more information about Kazoo investment opportunities, visit the site at: https://wefunder.com/kazoo. To learn more about the app and team behind it, visit the site at: https://getkazoo.com/ or view the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seF-4O7rkEM&feature=youtu.be.

About Kazoo, LLC

Located in Washington, D.C., Kazoo is a sophisticated technology company that was started by two successful serial entrepreneurs, Luna Howard and Peter Goodman. The app has been designed to be the ultimate in providing people with safety and security measures, as well as a way to stay connected with their family and friends. The users control their own data. The app is currently in beta, with an official full launch scheduled for June 2020. To learn more about the app and the team behind it, visit the site at: https://getkazoo.com/.
UNITED SIKHS Emergency Team Provides Help to Suffering Populations

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UNITED SIKHS, a United Nations affiliated international non-profit, humanitarian relief, human development and advocacy organization, has had boots on the ground providing support and supplies to families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic all over the world including Australia.

Before World Health Organisation (WHO) announced COVID-19 as pandemic, Australia was one of the first countries to begin immediate action in managing COVID-19 as a national health emergency. As a result of early action Australia has conducted more than 551,000 tests across the country. Of the 6,746 confirmed cases, 90 have been reported dead and 5,685 have been reported as recovered.

The UNITED SIKHS Australia Chapter has launched the UMEED global project to aid those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, under this project, UNITED SIKHS has launched a FOODBANK to help the most vulnerable sects such as elderly over 65 who do not have a family member to care for them, single mothers, international students, disabled, low income families with children.

UNITESD SIKHS/UMEED will provide freshly cooked meals (hot meals) to these sects, which are being cooked at Gurudwara Sahib Tarneit (West of Melbourne). Altogether upwards of 100-200 meals will be prepared twice a day and delivered to recipients doorsteps by volunteers.

In a partnership with Lets Feed and Rehmat Sandhu Foundation, UMEED will also provide over-the-counter medication and essential groceries and non-perishable food supplies such as long-life milk, canned food, flour, rice, lentils and fresh vegetables.

For students in Australia, the Emergency Relief Services for International Students has been established by UNITED SIKHS. Recognizing that students contribute to the Australian economy and are subsequently not covered in relief packages announced by Australian government, are a population in need of support during the COVID -10 pandemic. UNITED SIKHS will provide students with accommodation, groceries, living supplies, study assistance, medicines and other miscellaneous items needed.

Story continues

UNITED SIKHS Australia has activated our Emergency Response Team. Our volunteers are working with local councils and state/federal government in the best possible manner, commented Gurvinder Singh, UNITED SIKHS Australia Chapter Director. Our focus is where it always has been  support all communities to maintain their wellbeing and provide them with means to cope with this disruption and uncertainty. We are grateful to those who are coming forward to support us during COVID-19 pandemic. Its their support which makes us keep going.

Additionally, UNITED SIKHS has joined forces with Uniting Church Wyndham, to provide the homeless population with hot meals in their area ensuring that no one goes without support during the pandemic crisis.





SEE UNITED SIKHS IN ACTION IN MELBOURNE

About UNITED SIKHS: UNITED SIKHS is a U.N. affiliated, international non-profit, non-governmental, humanitarian relief, human development and advocacy organization, aimed at empowering those in need, especially disadvantaged and minority communities across the world. UNITED SIKHS is registered: as a non-profit tax exempt organization pursuant to Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code in the USA; as a Registered Charity in England and Wales under the Charities Act 1993, Charity Number 111 2055; registered in Australia as a not for profit NGO (ABN 24 317 847 103); and is a registered NGO in Belgium; as a non-profit organization in Canada; under the Societies Registration Act 1860 in Panjab and as a tax exempt organisation under section 80G of the Income Tax Act 1961; under the French Association Law 1901; under the Societies Registration Act 1860 in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan; as a registered society under the Registrar of Societies in Malaysia (registered as UNITED SIKHS Malaysia Humanitarian Aid Organisation- Regn No: PPM-015-14

Attachments

Surmeet Kaur

UNITED SIKHS

510-396-2336

surmeet.kaur@unitedsikh.org


The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the Delhi government to ensure that reports of test samples should be furnished within 24 to 48 hours and ordered it to regularly update its website to reflect the correct number of tests that are being conducted to detect Covid-19 cases in the city.

A bench of justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad asked the Delhi government to mention the number of cases that are positive or negative, along with the number of pending test results.

The court was hearing a plea filed by advocate Rakesh Malhotra, who alleged the state government was not taking expeditious steps to furnish test reports within a reasonable time of 48 hours or even earlier. As a result of the alleged delay, he said contact tracing was getting delayed and the infection was multiplying rapidly.

The Delhi governments additional standing counsel Satyakam informed the court that the state government had passed an order on April 29, stopping sending samples to NIB, Noida, due to the delay of over 15 days forwarding test reports. He said the lab has samples coming in from across the country.

He said samples were now being distributed among other government and private labs to ensure reports were received within 24-48 hours from the date of submission.

He told the court that as of date, there are 23 accredited labs for Covid-19 testing in Delhi. Of these, 10 are under the public sector and 13 are private. The collective capacity of these labs is 3,000-3,500 tests per day, he said.

Satyakam said that as on April 29, as many as 7,794 reports were pending, out of which 5,944 reports were with NIB, Noida.

Till the night of May 3, 3,790 reports are stated to be pending with accredited labs and the reports shall be received by today or maximum, by tomorrow. As on May 2, 9,226 reports were pending, but said figure has considerably reduced to 3,790 as on May 3, which itself reflects the government is cognisant of the delay in receiving reports and has dealt with the said situation without losing time, he said on Monday.

Following this, the court said it was satisfied with the remedial measures undertaken by the Delhi government to expedite receipt of reports and directed it to continue uploading the information.
O2 owner Telefonica confirmed negotiations had begun with Liberty Global, owner of Virgin Media. (PA)

One of Britains biggest mobile networks O2 could merge with cable TV and broadband giant Virgin Media, after O2s owner confirmed talks were underway.

Spanish phone giant Telefonica (TEF.MC), which took over O2 in 2006, confirmed negotiations had begun with Liberty Global, owner of Virgin Media. Its shares were trading 4.2% higher at around midday in London.

O2 is one of Britains largest mobile networks, and also supports operators Tesco Mobile, Giffgaff and Sky Mobile. Virgin Media provides cable TV, phone and broadband services, but also has mobile customers but uses other companies networks.

Speculation had been growing in recent days over a potential tie-up, with reports a merge could be confirmed as early as this week. The Financial Times and Sunday Telegraph both suggested the deal could be a 50:50 joint venture, with a payment to Telefonica.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Firms warned on 'knee-jerk' lay-offs as Rolls-Royce job fears grow

Telefonica, which operates in 14 countries including as O2 in Britain, Spain and Germany, released a statement on the talks on Monday.

It said: In relation to the news published in some media regarding the discussions with Liberty Global on a potential integration of their respective telecommunications businesses in the United Kingdom, Telefonica informs that the process initiated by both parties is in a negotiation phase, not being able to guarantee, to this date, neither the precise terms nor the probability of its success.

It added: In the event of a satisfactory agreement on this potential transaction, Telefonica will communicate such information to the markets.

Polo Tang, head of European telecoms equity research at UBS, said in a note to clients that the background was a challenging one in the UK. He highlighted new legislation requiring firms to notify customers when their broadband, phone, pay TV or mobile contract is about to expire, which could prompt them to shop for alternative deals.

READ MORE: UK government to unveil rules for workplaces post-coronavirus lockdown

But he said there could be cost savings of between $4.5bn (3.6bn) and $6.3bn (5bn) from a merger, adding that it improved Telefonicas asset mix in a major market. The resulting company could be a stronger competitor to telecoms giant BT (BT.AL), which owns phone network EE, he added.
TUCSON, Ariz., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) has outlined best practices for advanced pulmonary and cardiac support of COVID-19 patients in a paper entitled "Advanced Pulmonary and Cardiac Support of COVID-19 Patients: Emerging Recommendations from ASAIO  A Living Working Document" being published this month in the ASAIO Journal and Circulation: Heart Failure, a journal of the American Heart Association. The paper was co-authored by Marvin J. Slepian, MD, Director of the Arizona Center for Accelerated Biomedical Innovation at the University of Arizona and ASAIO President.

"A large number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 develop severe respiratory compromise," stated Dr. Slepian, who is also Regents' Professor at the University of Arizona, Sarver Heart Center, College of Medicine  Tucson and College of Engineering. "While many are treated successfully with ventilators, a significant number deteriorate, needing enhanced methods of oxygenation. In addition, a subgroup of these failing patients develops heart dysfunction with acute heart failure.

"An advanced treatment method known as ECMO  extracorporeal membrane oxygenation  is the best lifesaving technology we have today," he continued. "Rapid placement of a mechanical circulatory support (MCS) coupled with oxygenators  is needed to essentially replace lung and heart functions."

ASAIO has been in the forefront of research and development of both the ECMO and MCS technologies, which are advanced therapeutic techniques practiced primarily at tertiary and referral medical centers around the United States by a highly skilled group of cardiac, cardiac surgical, pulmonary, and related specialists. ASAIO physicians, engineers, scientists and industry members have also been instrumental in advancing the clinical knowledge base and refining best practice skills needed to safely and effectively transfer these cutting-edge technologies into broader clinical use.

"The pandemic motivated us to move quickly to put together recommendations for best practices to facilitate widespread use of these lifesaving technologies in order to offset the destructive effects of COVID on the lungs and heart," said Dr. Slepian. He convened a group of leading international cardiac, cardiac surgical, and pulmonary specialists to compile the recommendations outlined in the paper. They developed the concept of a Living Working Document to allow these best practices to be expanded and refined as physicians actually experience being on the frontlines of COVID-19.

"As new insights, adaptations, and improvements emerge," explained Dr. Slepian, "we will rapidly publish them online as supplements and updates to the original document." In addition to publication, the paper will appear on the ASAIO Action portal, which allows physicians to share their experiences, comments and offer suggestions. Top advances will be added to the portal as they occur. "This will provide cardiac and pulmonary specialists with the ability to iterate and refine these lifesaving techniques through a collaborative worldwide effort," he concluded.

Co-authors of the paper are Bindu Akkanti, MD (University of Texas-Houston & Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, Houston, TX), Christian Bime, MD (University of Arizona College of Medicine  Tucson and Banner  University Medicine, Tucson, AZ), Faisal H. Cheema, MD (University of Houston College of Medicine; Houston Heart, HCA Houston Healthcare, Houston, TX; HCA Research Institute, Nashville, TN), Aly el-Banayosy, MD (Integris Baptist Medical Center, Oklahoma City, OK), Steven P. Keller, MD, PhD (Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA), Pranav Loyalka, MD (Houston Heart, HCA Houston Healthcare, Houston, TX), Federico Pappalardo, MD (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy), Keshava Rajagopal, MD, PhD (University of Houston College of Medicine; Houston Heart, HCA Houston Healthcare, Houston, TX), Mark S. Slaughter, MD (University of Louisville School of Medicine and Jewish Hospital, Louisville, KY), and Joseph B. Zwischenberger, MD (University of Kentucky College of Medicine and Medical Center, Lexington, KY).

The American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) has been in existence for close to 70 years, striving to save lives one medical device at a time. Its mission is to provide an international, collaborative forum promoting the development of innovative medical device technology at the nexus of science, engineering, and medicine. Its interdisciplinary membership is comprised of academia, clinicians, engineers, government agencies, industry, and the financial community. For more, visit: asaio.org/about/

The University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center's 160 members include faculty from cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, pediatric cardiology, neurology, vascular surgery, radiology, endocrinology, emergency medicine, nursing, pharmacy and basic sciences. The Sarver Heart Center, which is affiliated with the UArizona College of Medicine  Tucson and UArizona Health Sciences, emphasizes a highly collaborative research environment, fostering innovative translational or "bench-to-bedside" research; dedicated to innovating lifesaving patient care. The academic mission of the Sarver Heart Center encompasses four fellowship programs in cardiovascular disease, interventional cardiology, advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology, and electrophysiology. For more information: heart.arizona.edu (Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube).

SOURCE ASAIO
Western Australia has recorded its fifth straight day of no new coronavirus cases.

Health Minister Roger Cook confirmed the good news at a press conference on Monday, and also said it had been 22 days since the state recorded a case of COVID-19 infection that could not be traced.

"This further reinforces our view that we have no sustained community transition in WA," he said.

The state's total number of cases remains at 551, with 527 recoveries leaving just 15 active cases in WA.
A 2014-batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre resigned on Monday, citing personal safety on government duty' as the reason for it.

The Opposition Congress termed her resignation 'shocking', asking Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar if it was not a "proof of his failure".

Rani Nagar (35), currently posted as Director, Archives Department, sent her resignation to the state chief secretary, requesting to forward it to a competent authority in the Union government.

Nagar said she is also sending copies of the resignation letter to the president, prime minister, Haryana governor and the chief minister through e-mail.

The reason for submitting this resignation is the personal safety on government duty," she said in a letter to the chief secretary.

"I do hereby most humbly submit to you my resignation from the post of Indian Administrative Service with immediate effect, that is effective from May 4, 2020, forenoon," she wrote.

The letter was also posted on her Facebook page. She later left Chandigarh for her hometown Ghaziabad.

Recently, Nagar had posted on her Facebook page that she will resign after the coronavirus lockdown was lifted.

Nagar had come into limelight in June 2018, when she had accused an additional chief secretary-level bureaucrat of harassing her, a charge denied by the officer.

In December 2017, when she was posted as the subdivisional magistrate of Dabawali in Sirsa district, police had lodged a case of tresspass against an unidentified person on her complaint.

Nagar had then posted a video on her Facebook page, alleging that police failed to initiate a prompt action on her compliant.

Meanwhile, Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala termed her resignation a shocking incident.

Hitting out at the BJP-JJP government in the state, Surjewala said, A senior woman IAS officer has given her resignation stating that she feels unsafe.

If a woman IAS officer resigns on the grounds citing personal safety on government duty as the reason, then who will safe in Haryana. Is this not no confidence in your government, is this not a living proof of your failure, Surjewala said hitting out at the chief minister.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
"The business owners were surprised by the responses they got and number of phone orders for pickup, Nancy Cummings, executive director of the La Grange Business Association, said Monday. It was very emotional for the business owners to see that support from the residents, who definitely are making an effort to support the local businesses.
Japan reported 176 new coronavirus cases and 20 deaths on Monday.

The country's total number of cases is now 15,253. The tally includes people tested at airport quarantine stations, health ministry officials, quarantine officers and individuals who returned to Japan from China on government-chartered planes. It also includes infections among the crew of the Costa Atlantica cruise ship docked in Nagasaki, western Japan.

The addition of 712 cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined in Yokohama in February, brings the total to 15,965.

The death toll in Japan has risen to 569, including 13 from the Diamond Princess.

By prefecture, Tokyo has 4,654 infections, followed by Osaka with 1,679, Kanagawa with 1,107, Saitama with 903, Hokkaido with 879, Chiba with 857, Hyogo with 668, and Fukuoka with 648.

Health ministry officials say 312 people were in serious condition as of Monday, including four from the Diamond Princess. A total of 5,147 people have recovered and had left hospital, as of Monday.
COVID-19 lockdown has put an end to all mass-gathering events. This has impacted several people who planned to get married recently or had conferences planned.

One of the people impacted are students who had their farewell parties / commencement ceremonies to commemorate their transition to a new life.

Ohio State News

Students are forced to do this on video conferencing apps while maintaining social distancing. One such institution that was conducting a commencement ceremony recently was Ohio State University. And Tim Cook was present via video conferencing to inspire kids as they took the next step in their lives.

In his address, he spoke about an incident almost a century from now -- the 1918 flu epidemic that too severely impacted humanity across the globe. However, people managed to survive that, and accomplished great heights, talking about the poet T.S. Eliot, aviator Amelia Earheart and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Tim Cook's address to students

He said, It can be difficult to see the whole picture when you're still inside the frame, but I hope you wear these uncommon circumstances as a badge of honour."

He added, In every age, life has a frustrating way of reminding us that we are not the sole authors of our story. We must share credit, whether we'd like to or not, with a difficult and selfish collaborator called our circumstances.

And when our glittering plans are scrambled, as they often will be, and our dearest hopes are dashed, as will sometimes happen, we're left with a choice. We can curse the loss of something that was never going to beOr we can see reasons to be grateful for the yank on the scruff of the neck, in having our eyes lifted up from the story we were writing for ourselves and turned instead to a remade world.

Reuters

Tim Cook honours late Steve Jobs

Cook also shared the feeling of heartbreak while losing someone you truly love, speaking about Steve Jobs and his death, "But fate comes like a thief in the night. The loneliness I felt when we lost Steve was proof that there is nothing more eternal, or more powerful, than the impact we have on others."

"Those of us who can look back on this time and remember inconveniences and even boredom can count themselves lucky. Many more will know real hardship and fear. Others still will be cut to the bone.

He concluded stating, "And while we turn to our loved ones and friends for comfort, think hard about those whose impact on your life is more distant, but no less meaningful."
By Thiam Ndiaga OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Muslims, many praying shoulder-to-shoulder and without face masks, crowded mosques in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou on Sunday, after the government lifted an order closing them. Authorities ordered mosques to be closed in March as the coronavirus outbreak grew in the West African country, which as of Sunday, had recorded 652 cases and 44 deaths from COVID-19. But the order faced opposition, particularly during the ongoing holy month of Ramadan and on Saturday about 100 people protested outside the offices of the Federation of Islamic Associations of Burkina (FAIB) to demand its withdrawal.

By Thiam Ndiaga

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Muslims, many praying shoulder-to-shoulder and without face masks, crowded mosques in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou on Sunday, after the government lifted an order closing them.

Authorities ordered mosques to be closed in March as the coronavirus outbreak grew in the West African country, which as of Sunday, had recorded 652 cases and 44 deaths from COVID-19.

But the order faced opposition, particularly during the ongoing holy month of Ramadan and on Saturday about 100 people protested outside the offices of the Federation of Islamic Associations of Burkina (FAIB) to demand its withdrawal.

The FAIB, which acts as an intermediary between the government and Muslims, later said that the government had lifted the order, provided that worshippers wore masks and respected physical distancing and other health restrictions.

But at the Central Mosque of the Sunni Movement of Burkina Faso on Sunday hundreds of worshippers packed into tight spaces to pray, a Reuters reporter said.

"We cannot be in a house of God and impose our own laws," Talla Beye, 40, a jeweller who had come to pray, said.

And few wore masks in Ouagadougou's largest mosque.

"It is God who brought the disease and who will protect us. Mask or not, God is already in control," he added.

Abdoul Moumini Zoundi, the FAIB's permanent secretary, acknowledged many worshippers were not respecting the health guidelines at mosques across Ouagadougou, but said people felt a religious obligation to pray close to others.

"I came with my own prayer mat to avoid praying on the same mat as others," he said.

"As for masks, some wore them, others didn't."

Despite the spread of the coronavirus across West Africa, some governments have moved to lift certain restrictions, including lockdowns and market closures, partly to reduce the damage to some of the world's poorest economies.

The reported rates of infection in the region are far lower than in other parts of the world, but the World Health Organization worries the outbreak will overwhelm fragile health systems and has warned against lifting restrictions too quickly.

(Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Alexander Smith)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Ronan ORahilly, who has died aged 79, was an Irish businessman who helped to get the Swinging Sixties up and running when he founded Radio Caroline, the pirate station whose offshore broadcasts forced the BBC to up its game and launch Radio 1.

Until Caroline took to the airwaves on Easter Sunday 1964, pop fans had been treated grudgingly, at best, by the BBC: there was Brian Matthews Saturday Club and a weekly chart show, but little else. Radio Luxembourg was livelier but suffered from distinctly crackly reception in Britain. Carolines jingle-laden, American-style format helped to launch the careers of DJs such as Tony Blackburn, Johnnie Walker and Dave Lee Travis.

Radio Caroline's pirate radio ship, MV Caroline, anchored six kilometres off Ramsey Harbour, Isle of Man, in 1967. Credit:Getty

Ronan ORahilly was born on May 21, 1940, into a wealthy family; his parents owned Greenore, County Louth, the only privately owned port in Ireland. His grandfather, Michael ORahilly  known as The ORahilly  had been one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, and had been killed during the street fighting.

After troubled schooling  he claimed to have been expelled seven times  Ronan decamped to Britain, opening The Scene nightclub in Soho, which specialised in blues, soul and RnB, and began managing musicians, his clients including Alexis Korner and Georgie Fame. He showed a pioneering spirit, bringing out Fames debut disc on an independent label, a practice virtually unheard of at the time.
Bolsonaro has turned to military-linked advisers as his relationship with legislators and the courts has cooled.

Brazils right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro attacked Congress and the courts in a speech to hundreds of supporters on Sunday, as the countrys known coronavirus cases rose to more than 100,000 underlining the former army captains increasing isolation over his response to the pandemic.

Bolsonaro has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum for dismissing the threat of the virus in Brazil, which has registered 101,147 confirmed cases and 7,025 deaths, according to the most recent data from the Health Ministry.

On Sunday, dozens of public figures signed an open letter to the Brazilian government calling on officials to protect the nations indigenous people, who often live in remote locations with limited access to healthcare.

At the same time, Bolsonaro faces the most serious political crisis of his mandate after his Justice Minister Sergio Moro quit last week and accused the president of firing the federal police chief in a bid to appoint a personal ally to the post and meddle in sensitive investigations.

Brazils Supreme Court blocked Bolsonaros pick for a new chief on Wednesday, enraging the president.

On Saturday, Moro, among Brazils most popular public figures due to his tough stance on corruption, presented testimony regarding possible obstruction of justice by Bolsonaro. Hours before, the president called Moro Judas on Twitter, referring to the apostle who betrayed Jesus.

Praising military

As Bolsonaros relationship with legislators and the courts has cooled, he has become increasingly dependent on a cadre of military-linked advisers in his government.

As in an April rally also attended by Bolsonaro, demonstrators called on Sunday for the closing of the Supreme Court and Congress and a return to authoritarian measures used during Brazils 1964-1985 military government.

Supporters of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro take part in a motorcade to protest against social distancing and quarantine measures, in Sao Paulo [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]

We have the armed forces at the peoples side: the side of order, democracy, liberty, Bolsonaro said in a speech broadcast live on Facebook.

Enough interference. Were not allowing any more interference. Our patience is over.

Bolsonaro did not call for a military takeover at the rally in Brasilia and such an occurrence is widely considered unlikely in Brazil, where Congress, the courts, the press and civil society wield significant power.

But political leaders have called Bolsonaros participation in anti-democratic rallies irresponsible, especially as he has spoken approvingly of the nations former military dictatorship, which was responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial executions.

Bolsonaros attendance also drew criticism as the nation is a significant coronavirus hot spot.

Bolsonaro, who did not wear a mask on Sunday, has dismissed the coronavirus as a little flu, saying the economic fallout of quarantining measures would be deadlier than the virus itself.

The open letter on Sunday, which warned that loggers and ranchers could introduce the virus to indigenous communities in a development tantamount to genocide, was signed by celebrities ranging from US television personality Oprah Winfrey to Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

The government has banned people from entering indigenous reserves during the pandemic. It has also cut down, however, on law enforcement against illegal loggers and miners in remote regions as a safety measure.





At the Sunday rally, at least three photographers were attacked by demonstrators, according to a witness quoted by the Reuters news agency  an increasingly routine occurrence in Brazil, where Bolsonaro routinely calls the work of leading newspapers fake news.

The Reuters witness saw one photographer from Sao Paulo newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo pulled off a ladder and repeatedly kicked in the ribs.
Ghanaian actress turned musician, Emelia Brobbey has released a video of a song she recorded with Bishop Bernard Nyarko before his untimely death.



It is not clear when the two hit the studio together but as a way of mourning the passing of the actor, Emelia Brobbey has dropped the song.



She is seen singing the chorus of the love song whilst Bishop sings the other verses in tune with a play on his guitar.



Late Kumawood actor, Bishop Bernard Nyarko died on Saturday, 2nd May in the Accra Ridge Hospital after battling a terminal illness.



Watch the video below;















View this post on Instagram



A post shared by Emelia Brobbey (@emeliabrobbey) on May 3, 2020 at 3:06pm PDT













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
A research team from Valencia's Polytechnic University (UPV), from the CVBLab, has developed a predictive artificial intelligence model that can tell the difference between healthy patients, those who are ill with pneumonia and those who have COVID-19, from chest x-rays.

According to Valery Naranjo, professor at the UPV and CVBLab director, the proposed model has proven to have great discriminatory capabilities in the first experiments, reaching an average success rate of 92% when differentiating between the different types of patients.

The algorithm behaves even better when predicting cases of coronavirus; its success rate is slightly better compared to the other cases: it has a success rate of 97% when determining whether an x-ray is from a COVID patient." Valery Naranjo, professor at the UPV and CVBLab director

The CVBLab research group of the UPV has comprehensive experience in the field of artificial intelligence and their speciality is developing computer vision algorithms applied to biomedical images. "This is why we have put our knowledge to the service of the fight against this pandemic," concludes Julio Silva, biomedical engineer and also a member of the CVBLab of the UPV.

To develop the prediction model, the CVBLab engineers have applied classification and segmentation techniques based on deep learning algorithms on a large number of x-ray images. In this sense, Valery Naranjo explains that there are many more x-rays from healthy people and patients with other pneumonias than with COVID-19," due to how recent it is and because many databases are not open source, which represents an added difficulty. The model we have developed solves this class - patient - unbalance and makes it possible to offer reliable and robust results."

The CVBLab group already has an initial version of the computer platform that integrates the prediction model, so it is possible to load a chest x-ray and instantly predict if it is an image of a healthy person, a patient with pneumonia or with coronavirus.

Innovative design

The artificial intelligence model of the CVBLab-UPV displays key novelties in the design of the neural network architecture. In particular, it is based on knowledge transfer techniques combined with other residual convolutional blocks that act in parallel to extract characteristics from chest x-rays.

This new design, adapted to the type of image being studied, has made it possible to obtain initial sensitivity and specificity results of 97%." Gabriel Garcia, biomedical engineer and researcher from the CVLab of the UPV

CBIR system

At the same time, the researchers are developing a new content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system based on generative neural networks. The idea of this system is that, upon receiving a new x-ray image, as well as obtaining a prediction on the diagnosis, the most similar prior cases from a large and constantly growing database will be provided. "The affected lung areas from the archives of the most similar cases are shown with a very intuitive heat map for the expert personnel that uses it. Thus, the doctor has more data in order to make a decision. It is like when they look for something in an atlas, but automatically," says Adrian Colomer, doctor in telecommunication and researcher from the CVBLab of the UPV.

International databases

To create their models, the CVBLab researchers of the UPV have compiled public databases from different institutions, and have normalized them in a common framework, which makes it possible to train and test their models.

Among the compiled databases are the one provided on the BIMCV-COVID-19 open source platform coordinated by FISABIO, one from the University of Montreal, another from the Societa Italiana di Radiologia Medica e Interventistica and one provided by Kaggle in their "Chest X-Ray Images (Pneumonia)" challenge.
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The city will send Staten Islands two private hospitals additional volunteer medical staff as needed but is reserving specialized medical military personnel for the citys public hospitals in the four boroughs, which Mayor Bill de Blasio said have bore the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic -- a characterization that Borough President James Oddo slammed, calling the lack of staffing help inexcusable.

Last week, Oddo and Rep. Max Rose called on de Blasio to send the Islands private hospitals -- Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) and Richmond University Medical Center (RUMC) -- a portion of the medical military personnel the city received from the federal government, saying it was inexplicable, to not send them to the borough.

The city has sent just 29 medical volunteers to SIUH and RUMC combined, while it has deployed more than 700 specialized military medical personnel to its public hospitals in the citys Health + Hospitals network in the other four boroughs.

Asked whether he would ever deploy military medical personnel to Staten Islands hospitals, the mayor did not commit to sending any in the future.

City Hall later said the deployment of military medical personnel was intended by the federal government for the citys public hospitals only.

We have 56 hospitals that have been in this fight all over the city, our public hospital system bore the brunt and we got a number of military medical personnel, nowhere near the number that we asked for, but still a very healthy number and they have been devoted to those public hospitals and doing important work, de Blasio told reporters during a press conference Monday.

But in the meantime, we have been sending additional doctors and nurses from different sources that we have gotten to hospitals all over the city, not just public hospitals but independent hospitals as well, including in the case of Staten Island, RUMC, we will continue to send additional staff as needed, he continued.

Oddo -- who has already slammed the mayor for leaving Staten Island out of the citys coronavirus planning because it does not have a public hospital -- sounded off on Twitter in response to the mayors latest statement.

If you say our public hospital system "bore the brunt" of Covid, but a borough has NO public hospitals, is it fair to say the only hospitals in that borough "bore the brunt" too? Oddo said on Twitter.

The lack of staffing help to Staten Island is inexcusable. "Fairest big city in America," my ass, he continued.

If you say our public hospital system "bore the brunt" of Covid, but a borough has NO public hospitals, is it fair to say the only hospitals in that borough "bore the brunt" too?



The lack of staffing help to Staten Island is inexcusable.



"Fairest big city in America," my ass. https://t.co/Dn56EQhuNg  Jimmy Oddo (@HeyNowJO) May 4, 2020

VOLUNTEER STAFF DEPLOYED ON STATEN ISLAND

De Blasio said he got the federal government to send specialized military medical staff to New York City when he stressed to federal officials, like President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the need for more staff in public hospitals in Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan that were seeing an overwhelming number of cases and where the teams there had been through particular challenge.

Military medical personnel includes a number of specialized staff of mostly doctors and nurses, while staff that comes from the citys medical volunteer reserve bring a wide variety of medical skills.

In its initial deployment of volunteer medical staff to Staten Island, the city sent more than a dozen mortuary personnel, nurses, EMTs and a nurse practitioner and a respiratory therapist.

De Blasio said he had been in touch with Oddo and RUMC CEO Daniel Messina about getting that hospital the staff it needed, as well as personal protective equipment, and pledged to keep getting them more.

Were going to keep working case by case all over the city, but the military piece was a discreet piece of a much bigger effort, and those individuals have been outstanding and theyve been focused on some of the hospitals that have really borne the brunt of this crisis, he said.

RUMC and SIUH previously said that in order for them to expand their hospital capacity they would need more staff, particularly nurses and doctors.

LEFT OUT OF SURGE PLANNING

Staten Islands private hospitals were initially left out of the citys surge planning for the coronavirus outbreak because it is not part of the citys public hospital network, a move that caused the boroughs political delegation to call out the mayor.

The mayor has also left the number of people in intensive care unit beds in Staten Islands private hospitals out of his daily indicators count.

For the past two weeks, he has been tracking the number of New Yorkers being admitted into the citys hospitals, patients in its 11 public hospitals ICUs, and number of people testing positive for the virus as a way to see when the city can reopen. However, he has left Staten Islands patients in the ICU out of that count.

Though the borough has the lowest number of cases citywide, accounting for just 7% of the citys 170,534 total cases as of May 3, the borough has one of the highest numbers of cases per capita in the city after the Bronx.

FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday stepped up a US campaign to hold China accountable for the spread of the deadly coronavirus, asserting there is "enormous evidence" the virus originated in a laboratory in the city of Wuhan. The high-security bio-containment facility, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has called such claims "impossible". Pompeo, speaking on ABC's "This Week," did not elaborate on what he also described as "significant amounts of evidence". But Pompeo's words clearly sought to buttress repeated criticism from Donald Trump about China's role in the pandemic. The US president has said that by playing down the gravity of the virus early this year and failing to fully cooperate with international investigators, Beijing put lives at risk around the world. Pompeo's comments came as an Australian newspaper, The Saturday Telegraph, reported that China had deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence about the outbreak in an "assault on international transparency" that cost tens of thousands of lives. The report cited what it said was a 15-page dossier on the COVID-19 contagion prepared by the so-called Five Eyes intelligence agencies of the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. Pompeo, a former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, made no mention of the Five Eyes report, but said that "there is enormous evidence that this (Wuhan) is where it began." Last week, Pompeo indicated he had not seen definitive proof. "We don't know if it came from the Wuhan Institute of virology," he said at the time. While highly critical of China's handling of the matter, Pompeo declined on Sunday to say whether he thought the virus had been intentionally released. The pandemic has so far infected more than 3.4 million people and killed more than 243,000 around the world, while also fuelling conspiracy theories about its origin. - 'Not man-made' - News reports say Trump has tasked US spies to find out more about the origins of the virus, at first blamed on a Wuhan market selling exotic animals like bats. Pompeo told ABC that he agreed with a US intelligence community statement Thursday that backed "the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified." But he went further than Trump, in citing "significant" and "enormous" evidence that the virus originated in the Wuhan lab. "Remember, China has a history of infecting the world and running substandard laboratories," Pompeo said, adding early Chinese efforts to downplay the coronavirus amounted to "a classic Communist disinformation effort. That created enormous risk." In its Thursday statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the intel community will continue to study "whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan." The Saturday Telegraph report said the Australian government believed the virus probably originated in a so-called wet market, but that there was a five percent chance it accidentally leaked from the Wuhan lab. Some Democrats have said Trump is trying to shift blame to avoid responsibility for a slow response to the pandemic that has resulted in the US having by far the largest numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths. "Not wanting to take responsibility as the deaths continue to mount, he blames others," Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said in a statement. - Growing calls for transparency - Trump has also been sharply critical of the World Health Organization's response to the pandemic and is suspending US financial support, saying it moved too slowly to alert the world to the gravity of the disease and was insufficiently skeptical of China's involvement. The WHO has said it wants to be invited to take part in Chinese investigations into the animal origins of the pandemic. Several countries, including Australia, Britain, Germany and France, have joined in US calls for China to be more transparent about the coronavirus outbreak. The United States now has more than 1,134,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 66,000 deaths, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. China now has nearly 84,000 cases and more than 4,600 deaths. After moving aggressively to lock down the region and contain the virus, Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei lifted restrictions on movements in late March and early April.
WASHINGTON  Medical personnel are administering coronavirus tests to anyone who might come into contact with President Donald Trump during his visit Tuesday to Arizona, administration officials said Monday.

"Those who will be in close proximity to the president will be tested for COVID-19," White House spokesman Judd Deere said.

Security plans for Trump's trip to a Honeywell aerospace plant in Phoenix that manufactures protective masks mimic policy at the White House. Visitors expected to meet with either the president or Vice President Mike Pence are given tests designed to detect coronavirus.

Tests for Trump's trip are ongoing so that results will be available before he lands in Phoenix midday Tuesday.

President Donald Trump speaks about reopening the country on April 29, 2020.

Members of the press pool accompanying Trump to Arizona received swab tests on Sunday. White House staff members are also being tested, as they are frequently.

Officials did not discuss security plans for the trip in light of the spread of coronavirus, but said they would follow recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control.

"The president takes the health and safety of everyone traveling in support of himself and all White House operations very seriously," Deere said. "When preparing for and carrying out any travel, the White Houses operational teams work together to ensure plans to incorporate current CDC guidance and best practices for limiting COVID-19 exposure are followed to the greatest extent possible."

More: Vice President Mike Pence on Mayo Clinic visit: 'I should have worn a mask'

More: Real men wear masks, Mike Pence. You and President Trump should, too.

In early April, the White House announced that "anyone who is expected to be in close proximity" to either Trump or Pence "will be administered a COVID-19 test to evaluate for pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers status to limit inadvertent transmission."

Officials did not comment on security procedures used last week when Pence made visits to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where coronavirus patients are being treated, and a General Motors plant in Indiana that has been converted to produce ventilators.

Story continues

Pence took criticism for not wearing a mask during his tour of the Mayo Clinic, contrary to hospital recommendations. The vice president later expressed regret, telling a Fox News town hall Sunday that "I should have worn a mask."

Officials said they do not know whether Trump plans to wear a mask during the trip to Arizona.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: People meeting with Trump in Phoenix will get coronavirus tested
Geneva (Switzerland), April 30, 2020 (SPS) - The Geneva Support Group for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in Western Sahara has denounced the systematic violation of freedom of opinion and expression and the serious breaches of the International Humanitarian Law by the Moroccan Occupying Power of Western Sahara.

In this context, the Geneva Group, wth more than 200 human rights organizations including the Sahrawi National Commission for Human Rights, has renewed its call to the United Nations Security Council to set up a mechanism for monitoring and reporting human rights within the mandates of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara.

The Geneva Support Group has also appealed the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Western Sahara, and special rapporteurs on freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of association, human rights defenders, the right to privacy, violence against women, and torture.

The Geneva Support has called upon the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances and the Arbitrary Detention, to pay special attention, each within the framework of its mandate, to violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed by the Moroccan Occupation State against journalists and human rights activists in Occupied Western Sahara.SPS

125/090/TRA
MasterChef divided viewers on Monday, after it was revealed the episode had been filmed in the Melbourne suburb of Ringwood East.

And fans had plenty to say about the decision to film the hit reality cooking show out in the suburbs, with some claiming its reputation preceded it.

'Masterchef tonight is set in the suburb next to mine tonight. I'm laughing at the [sic] trying to make Ringwood East seem fancy...' wrote one person on Twitter.

Suburbia: MasterChef divided viewers on Monday, after it was revealed the episode had been filmed in the Melbourne suburb of Ringwood East

Another viewer called it an 'interesting choice', while somebody else warned the show's judges and contestants to be 'careful'.

'Ringwood East? Really? Did you have to double the security detail for this episode?' tweeted another viewer.

Others thought there were Melbourne suburbs more deserving of hosting MasterChef.

'Masterchef tonight is set in the suburb next to mine tonight. I'm laughing at the [sic] trying to make Ringwood East seem fancy...' wrote one person on Twitter

Mixed reviews: Fans had plenty to say about the decision to film the hit reality cooking show out in the suburbs, with some claiming its reputation preceded it

'#MasterChefAU really? You've got all these great culinary suburbs in Melbourne and you chose Ringwood East?' Tweeted one fan.

But other viewers thought it was 'great' that MasterChef had ventured out of the city, making the 25-kilometre trek to Ringwood East from Melbourne's CBD.

'Great to see #MasterChefAU coming to us from a local restaurant in the Ringwood East shopping strip,' wrote one fan.

Keeping it local: After the contestants made their way through the leafy suburban streets, they then entered a local Thai restaurant

Happy to be there: Other viewers thought it was 'great' that MasterChef had ventured out of the city, making the 25-kilometre trek to Ringwood East from Melbourne's CBD

Added another: 'I have never seen people so excited about being in Ringwood East.'

After the contestants made their way through the leafy suburban streets, they then entered a local Thai restaurant, where judges Jock Zonfrillo, Melissa Leong and Andy Allen were waiting for them.

'Welcome to the 'burbs,' said Andy, 32, before telling the contestants that he grew up in the suburbs, and it's where his 'happiest food memories' come from.

MasterChef continues Tuesday at 7.30pm on Channel Ten
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4) - As Congress resumed its sessions today, lawmakers can now participate in hearings and sessions via teleconferencing in the next days to come.

Both chambers of Congress  the Senate and the House of Representatives  adopted a resolution and motions that would allow lawmakers utilize telecommunications technology under the new normal brought by the pandemic.

Senate adopted a resolution allowing senators to participate in hearings and sessions through teleconferencing. However, this will only apply for simple committee hearings and physical presence is still necessary for inquiries and aid of legislation.

Meanwhile, the House adopted two separate motions by Majority Leader Martin Romualdez that would allow lawmakers and members of the chamber to register their attendance through text or chat, and participate through electronic means. The lower chamber only allows 25 lawmakers inside the plenary.

The House also approved another motion by Romualdez allowing committees to conduct meetings through teleconferencing.

Only 15 senators were physically present earlier, while five other senators including Franklin Drilon, Francis Pangilinan, Sonny Angara, Risa Hontiveros, and Cynthia Villar attended the session via video chat.

In the House, 25 were only allowed to attend the session and 301 others also attended the first day of resumption through video teleconferencing.
May the Lord free us from that psychology of division, to divide, and help us to see this of Jesus, this great thing of Jesus, that in him we are all brothers and sisters and he is the Shepherd of all. That word today: 'Everyone, everyone!', May it accompany us throughout the day."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - During the period of quarantine, may peace reign in families and let there be no domestic violence. This was the invitation to prayer with which Pope Francis introduced the mass celebrated this morning at Casa Santa Marta.

"We pray today - he said - for families: in this period of quarantine, the family, closed at home, tries to do many new things, there is a lot of creativity with children, with everyone, to carry on. But there is also another thing, sometimes there is domestic violence. Let us pray for families that they might persevere in peace with creativity and patience during this quarantine".

In the homily, the Pope commented on the passage of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 11.1-18) emphasizing the importance of unity despite differences. It revolved around two poles: the story of the criticism of St Peter by the early Church for eating with sinners, and the message of Jesus in the Gospel, I am the shepherd of all.

In the first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, the Christian community in Jerusalem reproached St Peter for eating with pagans. This is just one example of the many divisions that we find in the early years of the Church, the Pope said.

This spirit of division leads us to divide people between the righteous and sinners, between us and them, he continued. We often believe that we have the correct position before God. Sometimes it leads to thinking that others are condemned. In fact, in the religious atmosphere of the time, not only Peter, but even Jesus was criticised for eating with sinners.

This is a disease of the Church born of ideologies, Pope Francis said. He warned that our commitment to an ideological position can become more important than listening to the Holy Spirit Who guides us. This can lead to divisions.

Pope Francis then quoted a Cardinal emeritus who lives in the Vatican. That Cardinal said that the Church is like a river. Some members are closer to one bank or the other. But everyone is in the same river. No one outside, everyone inside, the Pope said. The Lord wants it this way.

Turning to the Gospel, the Pope emphasized the words of Jesus, I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd (Jn 10:16). The reality that everyone in Jesus is important, the Pope said. Jesus died for everyone, he insisted. He died not only for the good and the just, but even for those who make our lives difficult, for the thief, even for those who dont believe in Him. He died for everyone.

Pope Francis invited us to pray for the unity of all men and all women, that there might be one sole Shepherd, one sole Pastor. "May the Lord free us from that psychology of division. May He help see this aspect, this great reality about Jesus: that in Him we are all brothers and sisters and He is the Shepherd of all," he said. "The word for today is: 'Everyone, everyone!' "
Actor Rishi Kapoors daughter, jewellery designer Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, and her businessman husband Bharat Sahni, have posted pictures in remembrance of the actor, who died on Thursday. While Riddhima shared a couple of throwback family pictures, Bharat shared a picture from what appears to be the Banganga tank where the actors ashes were immersed on Sunday.

Riddhima took to Instagram stories and shared an old picture of her dad. She also posted a picture of Rishi and Neetu Kapoor posing with a baby Ranbir Kapoor. On Monday, Neetu wrote a message of thanks for the doctors who treated Rishi. She wrote, As a family we have a deep sense of loss.. when we sit together and look back at the past few months what we also feel is immense gratitude - gratitude towards the doctors at HN reliance hospital! The whole team of doctors, brothers and nurses headed by Dr Tarang Gianchandani treated my husband like he was their own - they advised us like we were their own.. and for all that and more I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Riddhima also shared her mothers message on Instagram.

Bharat, meanwhile, posted a picture from what looks like the Banganga tank. He wrote in his caption, I consider myself lucky to have something that makes it difficult to say goodbye. Thank you for the memories.

Also read: Rishi Kapoors ashes immersed in Banganga: Neetu, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Riddhima bid tearful adieu

Ranbir, his girlfriend Alia Bhatt, Riddhima, Neetu, and filmmaker Ayan Mukerji were spotted immersing Rishis ashes in the Banganga on Sunday. Rishis brother Randhir Kapoor said a prayer meet for the actor was held on Saturday. We did prayer meet yesterday. Today we immersed his ashes in Banganga as we havent received permission from the authorities to go to Haridwar, Randhir Kapoor told PTI.

Riddhima reached Mumbai on Saturday night, two days after the veteran actor died of leukaemia. She could not attend his funeral on Thursday as she did not get permission to fly down to Mumbai due to the restrictions of the nationwide lockdown.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
In our years-long fight back against an education system that perpetuates profound inequity, we have often said: We didnt get here overnight, but rather by decades of disinvestment. Over the past several years, our union has led the way as weve clawed our way back from the brink of destruction  fighting $1 billion in education cuts, nearly 4,000 layoffs, and toxic conditions in our school buildings. Steadily, we have been making real gains, and weve seen historic investments from both city and state entities.

And then, seemingly overnight, the bottom fell out. In a matter of hours, we had to pivot from an education system based on what our students need  face-to-face instruction, social interaction, and services for our vulnerable students  to a system that was undeveloped and remains inequitable.

Our educators have been building the plane while flying it  certainly, we are used to modifying what we do, adapting to changing circumstances and curriculum  but this was unprecedented. Students and educators left school one day and simply did not return to their buildings. Living rooms are now offices and classrooms, kitchen tables are now science labs, and educators and students alike are learning new platforms like Google Meet (and its ever-important mute button).

And what weve seen has been amazing  from counselors helping students navigate college decisions and emotional needs, to ed-tech members working to develop lessons for teachers, to paraprofessionals calling students to check-in, to school nurses volunteering as frontline workers, to the classroom teachers learning how to use entirely new technology, the efforts of the more than 12,000 members of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers have been heroic.

But lets be clear: The COVID-19 crisis has further exposed the glaring inequities in our education system. At the start of the crisis, we surveyed our membership and asked for their feedback regarding remote learning; and in the more than 5,400 responses, our members concerns were directly connected to equity issues like student internet and technology access. Further, members noted that students ability to use computers and programs now required for online learning is contingent upon having had school-based access to technology.

And when all is said and done, our most vulnerable students  those with special needs, those learning English, or those experiencing poverty  will be the ones who have suffered the most. With 80% of our students facing poverty, Philadelphias schoolchildren are among the most vulnerable in the nation to the profound impacts of this crisis.

Our response to the crisis must be reflective of who we want to be as a society. Quite simply, we must reject efforts to return to an austerity budget that mirrors the years of cuts from which our young people are still suffering. The long-lasting impacts  both in terms of learning regression and impacts of the trauma of this crisis  will require careful attention and resources.

And so, too, must we reject efforts to use this crisis as some twisted proof that online education works in some sustainable fashion, and we must reject the efforts of some parties to capitalize upon their unproven and deeply flawed voucher proposals. Relatedly, we must repudiate union-busting groups attempts to disenfranchise workers (like the Freedom Foundations recent solicitation to our members work emails urging them to drop their union membership). The labor movements solidarity is more important than ever, and its why the PFT is working collectively within the AFL-CIO to push for a holistic response to this crisis.

Further, as we look toward reoccupying our school buildings, we will not let the crisis of toxic schools be forgotten. Like the COVID-19 crisis, the toxic schools emergency is one that is acutely felt in communities experiencing poverty and in communities of color. We have been advocating for remediation work to take place during the closure, and we will continue to urge a serious investment from city and state leaders so that buildings are not only safe from COVID-19 but are also safe from toxins like lead and asbestos.

Collectively, we must roundly refuse the notion that we will be able to recover from this traumatic time by slashing budgets, by cutting services, or by shortchanging the contributions of educators. If we take a path of austerity, we will very quickly return to one of the darkest periods in our citys history, during which the devastating impacts of budget cuts have negatively impacted so many of our young people.

When students return to school buildings, their education must be more robust than ever. Our collective vision for public education must not be diminished by the COVID-19 crisis. There will be talk about what we cannot afford post-COVID-19. But, fundamentally, there will always be funding for what we, as a society, prioritize. Our students must return to schools that are staffed with counselors, nurses, access to the arts, and all of the resources they need to learn, thrive, and move past the trauma of this terrible time. Quite frankly, we cannot afford anything less.

Jerry T. Jordan is the president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.
The United States Supreme Court made history on Monday as it conducted arguments via a conference call and for the first time in its history allowed the public to listen in.

The move comes as justices return to session following delays due to the coronavirus pandemic, and marks a major shift in the courts approach to digital transparency that has left advocates hopeful.

The voices of the nine justices are being streamed on public access channel C-SPAN. This marks the first opportunity that the general people can experience court proceedings in real time.

I think it would be a benefit for the American public, said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix The Court, a nonpartisan group that advocates for transparency in the court.

Technological advances

Considering the partisan nature of politics, Roth said seeing the nine justices, who come from different sides of the US political spectrum, coming to a problem collectively to try to solve it would make the public see the court more positively.

The top court has long bucked technological advances pushed by transparency advocates like Fix The Court.

It was not until 2000, the year the Supreme Court played an essential role in deciding the election of then-candidate George W Bush, who lost the popular vote to Vice President Al Gore, that the court allowed the same-day release of the audio for oral arguments.

Even after that development in 2000, the audio for most oral arguments was released at the start of the next session, which meant up to a year of waiting.

This changed in 2010, when audio started to be released the week after arguments were made.

Electronic filing for court documents came in 2017, though paper filing was still commonly required. It was not until an April 15 order that the court relaxed (PDF) these rules  again due to the coronavirus.

The whole story

While live audio streaming is a major development for the court, it does not mean it will adopt live video.

The court has long resisted any calls to introduce cameras into the court.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in a 2015 interview that cameras could cause undue bias among the public regarding laws that affect more than 300 million US citizens.

Human beings relate to people they see while oral arguments account for only 5 percent of deciding a case, Breyer said. Will they understand the whole story?

But Roth still believes a more visible court is the right path forward, and hopes it lasts.

Im excited, Im cautiously optimistic  theyll make this the new policy will have staying power, he told Al Jazeera.

Cases ahead

The first Supreme Court case ever streamed live dealt with patents. The court will decide whether adding .com to an otherwise generic business term results in a protectable trademark in US Patent and Trademark Office v Booking.com.

While not the most exciting case, it could give the court and its technical team a chance to handle any technical difficulties before delving into larger issues surrounding religious exemptions, US jurisdiction on Native American lands and President Donald Trumps tax returns.

On Tuesday, the court will hear arguments  for the second time  about whether the federal government can require foreign affiliates of US-based NGOs receiving federal funds to have policies expressly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking in United States Agency for International Development v Alliance for Open Society International, Inc.

The court decided in 2013 that the requirement violated the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression.

The court will start on Wednesday with consolidated cases, Little Sisters of the Poor v Pennsylvania and Donald J Trump v Pennsylvania, which question the legality of the Trump administrations 2019 rule broadening conscientious objection exemptions to the Affordable Care Act regarding abortion, contraception, assisted suicide, advance directives and other types of medical care.

The exemption allows employers with religious objections to refuse to provide such care.

The next case, McGirt v Oklahoma, comes on May 11. The petitioner, Jimmy McGirt, was convicted of sex crimes against a child in an Oklahoma court in 1996.

However, McGirt is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and committed the offence inside historic Creek nation boundaries.

McGirt argues his trial should have been in federal and not state court, as guaranteed under the Indian Major Crimes Act. The court challenges state jurisdiction over Native Americans, and could cause the federal government to defer to tribal governments when deciding sentences for Indigenous convicts.

The court heard a similar case in 2018, but did not offer a judgement.

Later that day, the court will hear consolidated cases Our Lady of Guadalupe School v Morrissey-Berru and St James School v Biel, about whether courts can hear employee discrimination cases brought by teachers at Catholic schools, considering religious protections guaranteed by the US Constitution.

Trumps taxes and the next election

May 12 will start what are arguably the biggest cases of the session: those on Trumps tax returns.

The first consolidated cases, Trump v Mazars and Trump v Deutsche Bank AG will feature arguments about whether congressional committees have the authority to issue subpoenas to the presidents accountant and creditors for financial records belonging to the president and his business entities, according to SCOTUS Blog, a website that features writing from lawyers, law professors and others on the Supreme Court.

Trumps legal team argues in its brief to the Supreme Court that something is amiss as there is no precedent for the subpoenas, which in his view exceed the powers of the issuing committees.

Lower courts have denied his motion to block the subpoenas, either in full or in part.





Trump v Vance, to be heard later that day, is a similar case but regards whether county prosecutors can subpoena financial documents from the president as part of a larger criminal investigation being heard in front of a grand jury under a states jurisdiction.

The case involves questions of federal vs state authority, as well as the high bar to which criminal investigations against a sitting president must be judged.

Finally, the court will hear arguments on May 13 about the constitutionality of faithless elector laws in Chiafolo v Washington and Colorado Department of State v Baca.

These winner-take-all laws require that state electors in the Electoral College, which has the final say in presidential elections, must vote for the candidate that won their state. Until 2016, their votes were largely a formality.

The petitioners are electors from Washington state who voted for Colin Powell in the 2016 electoral college, instead of Hillary Clinton, as was mandated since she won the popular vote in the state.

Washington imposed a fine, which the electors say violated the First Amendment.

If the Supreme Court decides to unbind electors from the vote of their state a few months before a presidential election, there could be chaos, according to Paul Smith and Adav Noti from the Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for participation in the democratic process and filed a friend of the court brief on the side of Washington.

A number of issues surround the electors, including the fact that they are not subject to anti-corruption laws.

Smith and Noti argued on SCOTUS Blog that the 538 electors could theoretically take unlimited contributions from national and foreign interests before swinging an election, as there will not be enough time to update corruption laws, throwing US democracy into question.

If voters believe their legitimate votes are irrelevant because the election will actually be decided later by individuals they have never heard of and certainly do not intend to vote for, the voters will feel  and will in fact be  disenfranchised, they wrote.

It is unclear if the new livestream audio format will continue after the coronavirus pandemic. The court may still forgo in-person hearings when it is scheduled to return in October. The majority of justices on the court are more than the age of 65, making them more vulnerable to complications of the coronavirus. Two  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Justice Breyer  are above 80.
A killer hornet that feeds on bees and is capable of excruciating stings that can kill people has made landfall in North America, causing widespread fear among insect experts.

Matt Burrows from Newshub reports:

The Asian giant hornet - which entomologists have dubbed the 'murder hornet' - are native to Japan, where their highly venomous stings are responsible for an average of 50 deaths a year.

It's not known how the murder hornet made it to the US and Canada, 10,000km away, but there are major concerns that its presence there could further annihilate bee colonies, which have already been decimated in recent decades.

Bees are a major food source for murder hornets, which are significantly larger than other hornet, bee or wasp species. They decapitate bees, then take the severed thoraxes back to their offspring, who feed on them.

Their presence in North America was discovered when beekeepers in the north-east visited their normally busy hives to find the ground carpeted in bee carcasses, according to a New York Times report.

A recent study estimates one in every three bites of food is made possible by bees, which goes some way to explaining the fear around their arrival there. A reduction in bee numbers could hit the US, one of the world's largest food producers, particularly hard.

Chris Looney, an entomologist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, told the Times that it's likely North America has a window of just two years to wipe them out.

Here's hoping those pesky buggers don't make their way to NZ.
BURLEY  Magic Valley seniors are a resilient bunch and most are resolutely enduring the isolation and inconvenience that trail along with the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the first sector of the economy opened last week under Idaho Gov. Brad Littles plan, officials charged with supporting senior citizens in the valley felt frustration that a version of normal is not in sight for them.

I dont see us reopening the center in the foreseeable future, said Jeanette Roe, executive director at the Twin Falls Senior Center.

Roe said centers are waiting for direction on when and how to open from the states commission on aging.

Dealing with feelings of isolation has been one of the biggest problems for seniors, Roe said, and those feelings are compounded by the closed center, reduced contact with meal delivery drivers and not even being able to attend the funerals or receive physical comfort when their friends die.

To our seniors, a lot of the time we are their family and we cant physically see them anymore, she said.

Most seniors have been very compliant with self-isolating, she said, but there is no easy answer for quelling their loneliness.

Burley resident Joe Taylor, 94, is blind and was a regular at The Senior Junctions dining room prior to the pandemic closure.

Afterward, he switched to home delivery for his daily hot meal.

I would go to the center every day. Out of everybody there, Ive been going there the longest, Taylor said.

Going to the center for meals means more than just eating prepared food  it also gives him a chance to interact with his friends and adds structure to the day.

Yes, this has restricted my activities considerably. I dont go out much now. Someone else does the shopping and I cant go with them, said Taylor, who still sells real estate  long after the traditional retirement age.

Because Im blind I cant do some of the things that Id like to do if I were sighted, he explained. And Id rather be selling real estate than sitting here and doing nothing.

Each day is a gift, and he wants to live it fully.

Although the pandemic has curtailed his activities, he doesnt spend time worrying about it.

Im not worried, he said. I have six more years to make 100, and everything after that will be a bonus.

Filling the gaps

Roe said the centers services include more than preparing meals and providing fun activities. Some of the services like tax preparation help and State Health Benefits Advisor counseling are the most sorely missed.

She has spent hours helping people who are not always computer savvy to navigate the Internal Revenue Service website to get their stimulus checks, helping some sign up for absentee voting ballots and in some cases, helping them file unemployment claims.

Most of them dont go online and its overwhelming to them, Roe said.

Although the dining room closed during the stay-at-home order, the center still offers curbside meals and sends out about 240 home delivered meals a day.

The centers staff is also calling about 1,600 seniors who visited the center in the last couple of years to make sure they are OK and ask if they need anything.

Were trying to make sure everyone in our area is taken care of, she said.

The center has delivered items like toilet paper and other sundries along with food boxes made available through community donations.

We have been working really hard these last 45 days, Roe said.

The Twin Falls center has 18 delivery drivers and needs a couple more, but has been very cautious about allowing new people into the facility and the center has taken extra measures to protect both staff and clients from infection.

The people who are allowed into the center are limited to staff and meal delivery drivers and they are required to follow a strict protocol of hand washing, distancing and wearing masks.

My staff and I dont go anywhere else, Roe said.

Staff members have self-isolated outside of work in an effort to decrease the chance of exposing fragile people to the virus.

The Twin Falls Senior Centers biggest need right now, she said, is monetary donations, which can be made on the centers website, and will be used to help buffer the rising cost of food at the center.

Roe said the center is also looking for people or businesses who can donate 50 Times-News subscriptions, so they can give the newspapers to seniors who would like a copy along with their home delivered meals.

The center had a newspaper subscription donor who cant continue the donation.

For information on how to donate to The Senior Junction in Burley, call 208-878-8646.

Someones knocking

Meal delivery drivers have been trained to have minimal contact with the seniors, said Dixie Conway, Meals on Wheels driver for The Senior Junction.

Each center has developed its own protocol, which can include knocking to make sure the recipient is home, and then leaving the meal on the doorstep to keeping distance from the senior.

It means a lot to them to have someone show up and just say hi, Conway said.

Conway has been a driver for four years and said its important for home bound seniors to have someone to check on them daily and get help for them if they become ill or fall.

Many clients would love for her to sit with them while they eat, but other seniors are waiting for their meals, so she never lingers more than a few minutes.

For some it is the only human interaction they get, she said, and it can be heartbreaking to know how lonely they are  and then walk away.

I have one lady that I used to hug every day, she said. Now I blow her a kiss and tell her I hope someday soon Ill be able to hug her again.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
Asian hornet

The US is facing an invasion of giant Asian hornets that scientists fear could threaten its bee population.

The monster hornets  nicknamed "murder hornets" by researchers in the northwestern state of Washington  were first spotted late last year near Blaine, a town near the Canadian border.

Known as the Vespa Mandarinia, the hornet is two inches long and is capable of stinging several times, which can prove fatal.

It is estimated that they kill around 50 people a year in Japan alone.

The hornets' stingers are so long that they can penetrate beekeepers' protective suits.

Their toxic venom is equivalent to that of a poisonous snake, according to Jun-ichi Takahashi, a researcher at Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan.

In all four hornet colonies were found in Washington and two more were discovered in British Columbia.

The tell-tale sign was piles of dead bees with their heads ripped off.

Just a handful of hornets can destroy a beehive in a matter of hours, according to Washington's department of agriculture.

Having decapitated the bees during what is known as their "slaughter phase" the hornets then take control of the hive.

They then use the bodies of the bees to feed their young.

"It's a shockingly large hornet," said Todd Murray, an entomologist at Washington State University.

"It's a health hazard, and more importantly, a significant predator of honeybees," he added.

"They're like something out of a monster cartoon with this huge yellow-orange face," said Susan Cobey, a bee breeder with Washington State University's Department of Entomology.

The hornets' natural habitat is the forests and mountains of eastern and southeast Asia, where it has already devastated the local population of the European honeybee.

How they arrived in North America remains unclear. One theory is that they might have been inadvertently transported in international cargo.

Story continues

Washington's department of agriculture has issued a chilling warning to local residents, telling them to use extreme caution should they come across a colony, even though they do not normally attack people or pets unless they feel threatened.

"Anyone who is allergic to bee or wasp stings should never approach an Asian giant hornet," it said.

"Don't try to take them out yourself if you see them," added Chris Looney, another state of Washington entomologist.

"If you get into them, run away, then call us! It is really important for us to know of every sighting, if we're going to have any hope of eradication."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 23:18:49|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

- - - -

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said Monday that the government has decided to gradually ease the COVID-19 related lockdown in the coming days as laborers and daily wagers are suffering due to economic hardship.

"Safety-based standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been designed for all the sectors in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 while resuming business activities in the country," the prime minister said while talking to the members of national and provincial assemblies here.

- - - -

NAIROBI -- The United Nations Children's Fund said Monday more than 127 million school children in eastern and southern Africa have remained at home due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

UNICEF said safe re-opening of schools remains key despite innovative approaches that have been taken for continued learning for more than 127 million pre-primary, primary and secondary school students who are supposed to return to school this week.

- - - -

YANGON -- The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Monday donated medical equipment and accessories to a newly-built laboratory of Myanmar's military hospital for testing COVID-19.

A medical team from the Chinese PLA handed over the equipment, reagents and consumables to the No. 1 Defence Services General Hospital in Mingaladon township, Yangon.

- - - -

JAKARTA -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Monday ordered authorities to take strides to prevent possible second wave of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection from the coming tens of thousands of migrant workers and ship employees in the weeks ahead.

As many as 86,000 Indonesian migrant workers had already returned to the country and about 16,000 others will come home, the president told an online limited cabinet meeting.

- - - -

BERLIN -- The number of German companies which had to revise their own profit or sales forecasts rose to a new record level in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study by the consulting firm Ernst & Young (EY) published on Monday.

A total of 77 profit or sales warnings had been registered, more "than ever before in a single quarter" and more than twice as many as in the same quarter last year, according to the EY study which evaluated the data of 304 German companies from the Prime Standard, the segment of Frankfurt stock exchange with the highest transparency obligations for companies.

- - - -

KUWAIT CITY -- Kuwait on Monday reported 295 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths, bringing the total infections in the country to 5,278 and the death toll to 40, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The new cases included two Kuwaiti citizens who returned from Britain and France, the statement said. Enditem
(Natural News) Scientists have found that there is solidarity among trees. They found that trees can reach out using their roots to help old and damaged trees. The scientists discovered this when they ventured upon an old tree stump in New Zealand that was still clinging to life despite not having any leaves.

The discovery has led the scientists to suggest that, rather than examining trees as individuals, future research should look into how trees in a wide area can share root systems and form a superorganism.

The tree stumps roots have connected to other trees

Sebastian Leuzinger, an associate professor at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), and his colleague Martin Bader, a senior lecturer at AUT, came upon the tree stump of a kauri tree (Agathis australis) while they were hiking in the western portions of Auckland, New Zealand.

It was odd, because even though the stump didnt have any foliage, it was alive, said Leuzinger. He and Bader measured the water flow in the stump and found that it was receiving water from its neighboring trees, all of which are from the same species. (Related: Protecting old trees: Self-contained ecosystems, the majestic giants clean more air and produce more offspring than younger trees.)

Upon closer inspection and even more digging, they found that the tree stumps roots were grafted together with the roots of neighboring trees. Root grafting is quote common among trees. They can form between living trees of the same species to allow for the exchange of resources. Leuzinger and Bader, however, were curious to determine why exactly the other kauri trees in the area would want to keep a nearby tree stump alive.

This, Leuzinger emphasized, was different from how trees would normally operate. Instead of relying on the water taken from the atmosphere, the kauri tree stump followed what its neighboring trees were doing because of its own lack of leaves.

For the stump, Leuzinger said, root grafting helped it stay alive. Without the water provided by the neighboring trees, it would be dead.

But why would the green trees keep their grandpa tree alive on the forest floor while it doesnt seem to provide anything for its host trees?

The altruism of the trees

One explanation, Leuzinger argued, is that the root grafts may have formed before the tree stump lost its leaves. Once the different roots have grafted together, they may expand, allowing them to share more and more resources with each other. If the tree stump had, at some point in its life, stopped providing nutrients to the other trees, this may have gone unnoticed, allowing it to continue living off the labor of the surrounding, fully intact kauri trees.

One other explanation is that the root grafting increases the stability of the trees, especially if theyre living on a steep forest slope.

Leuzinger further explained that their discovery has far-reaching consequences, in that future researchers should begin dealing with trees not as individuals; instead, they should look at forests as whole superorganisms.

Leuzinger explained that, for example, during a drought, trees that dont have as much access to water may have roots that are connected to those with more access to water. This allows them to share resources and increase the forests chance of surviving the environmental disaster.

However, one disadvantage to root grafting is that it could also allow for the rapid spread of diseases, such as the kauri dieback, a disease caused by a fungus-like organism that infects and damages the tissues in kauri roots, starving them to death.

Leuzinger hopes to do more research in the western Auckland region, hoping to find more tree stumps being kept alive by its neighbors.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

Phys.org

KauriDieback.co.nz
AUSTIN, Texas, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Parsley Energy, Inc. (NYSE: PE) ("Parsley," "Parsley Energy," or the "Company") today announced financial and operating results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020. Additionally, Parsley provided an update to its 2020 development program. The Company has posted a presentation to its website that supplements the information in this release.

Updated 2020 Outlook

On March 11, 2020 , the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus 2019 ("COVID-19") a pandemic. COVID-19 has had a material negative impact on global economic activity and, as a result, has also caused significant global oil demand destruction. This unprecedented decline, combined with recent periods of increased production from foreign oil producers (most notably Saudi Arabia and Russia ), resulted in a sharp drop in near-term oil prices.

, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus 2019 ("COVID-19") a pandemic. COVID-19 has had a material negative impact on global economic activity and, as a result, has also caused significant global oil demand destruction. This unprecedented decline, combined with recent periods of increased production from foreign oil producers (most notably and ), resulted in a sharp drop in near-term oil prices. In light of this lower commodity price environment, Parsley is revising its baseline capital budget assumption from a $30 - $35 WTI oil price to a $20 - $30 WTI oil price for the remainder of 2020. In this environment, the Company is reducing its 2020 capital budget to less than $700 million , with reported 1Q20 capital expenditures of $379 million representing more than 50% of this revised full-year budget.

- WTI oil price to a - WTI oil price for the remainder of 2020. In this environment, the Company is reducing its 2020 capital budget to less than , with reported 1Q20 capital expenditures of representing more than 50% of this revised full-year budget. With regional oil prices recently trading below $20 per barrel, Parsley has suspended all new drilling and completion activity in the near-term. Parsley's future activity plans will continue to be driven by unhedged return profiles.

per barrel, Parsley has suspended all new drilling and completion activity in the near-term. Parsley's future activity plans will continue to be driven by unhedged return profiles. Parsley remains committed to free cash flow generation and, in the context of $20 - $30 WTI oil prices for the remainder of the year, is now targeting at least $300 million of free cash flow(1) in 2020. In a lower oil price environment, Parsley will adjust as needed to preserve its balance sheet.

Recent Highlights

Parsley made strides on multiple fronts over the past three months to reinforce the strength of its balance sheet:

In the first quarter of 2020, Parsley lowered its cost of debt and extended its debt maturity profile by refinancing its outstanding 6.250% senior unsecured notes due 2024 with 4.125% senior unsecured notes due 2028.



Throughout March, Parsley added to its 2020 and 2021 hedge positions, further insulating the Company's cash flow in the event of a prolonged downturn in oil prices.



In April, Parsley entered into an amendment to its revolving credit agreement, which reaffirmed its borrowing base at $2.7 billion , increased the elected commitment amount from $1.0 billion to $1.075 billion , and extended the maturity date by two years to October 28, 2023 .

, increased the elected commitment amount from to , and extended the maturity date by two years to . Declared 2Q20 quarterly dividend of $0.05 per share (2) payable on June 19, 2020 .

per share payable on . Parsley successfully integrated the assets of Jagged Peak Energy Inc. ("Jagged Peak"), following the acquisition closing on January 10, 2020 . Parsley is reaffirming its previously disclosed synergy targets for corporate cost optimization, which were outlined when the transaction was announced in October 2019 .

. Parsley is reaffirming its previously disclosed synergy targets for corporate cost optimization, which were outlined when the transaction was announced in . 1Q20 net oil production increased 41% quarter-over-quarter and 61% year-over-year to 126.6 MBo per day. Total 1Q20 net production averaged 197.0 MBoe per day.

Summary Comment and Outlook

"In the face of unparalleled global demand destruction, one thing of certainty is that demand will recover from recent lows, but the magnitude and timing are less clear," commented Matt Gallagher, Parsley's President and CEO. "In these challenging times, we remain focused on controlling what we can control and making sound incremental investment decisions based on the facts at hand. Parsley responded decisively on multiple fronts to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions over the past two months and our company is well built for the endurance test now facing the industry. Parsley's 2020 activity plans will remain flexible, but we remain inflexible in our commitment to allocate incremental capital based on unhedged rates of return in prevailing market conditions. Regardless of the activity scenario we pursue for the remainder of the year, we are committed to generating healthy free cash flow in 2020, exiting the year with a solid balance sheet, ample scale, a shallower oil base decline, and visibility to sustained free cash flow in 2021 and beyond. In short, we will endure with relevance."

Operational Update

During the first quarter of 2020, the Company spud 51 and placed on production 46 gross operated horizontal wells. Parsley's working interest on wells placed on production was approximately 97%, with an average completed lateral length of approximately 9,400 feet. The Company placed on production 28 gross operated horizontal wells in the Midland Basin, with the remainder placed on production in the Delaware Basin.

During January and February, Parsley operated 15 development rigs and five frac spreads before steadily dropping activity throughout March. In April, as a result of regional oil prices trading below $20 per barrel, Parsley temporarily suspended all new drilling and completion operations. Parsley plans to reactivate operations at a stabilized activity level of four-to-five rigs and one-to-two frac spreads when oil market fundamentals are more constructive and in line with Parsley's baseline price assumptions. As a result of these reduced activity levels, Parsley estimates that it will record a charge of approximately $15 million during 2Q20 related to the early termination of certain rig contracts.

In mid-March, Parsley began voluntarily shutting in approximately 400 wells, most of which are vertical wells, for economic reasons. Net oil production associated with these higher per-Boe cost wells was approximately 1-2 MBo per day. In mid-April, Parsley voluntarily shut in several pads that were flaring natural gas, most of which were recently acquired from Jagged Peak in the Delaware Basin. These wells had combined net oil production of approximately 4-5 MBo per day. Throughout the first quarter, Parsley implemented various midstream solutions to mitigate flaring on the recently acquired assets and expects to significantly and more permanently mitigate flaring on these remaining Delaware Basin pads in the coming months.

In addition to the aforementioned shut-ins of 5-7 MBo per day, Parsley expects to voluntarily curtail up to 23 MBo per day of net oil production volumes in May based on near-term regional pricing dynamics. Parsley does not expect to incur any transportation-related deficiency expenses as a result of these temporary production curtailments. Parsley will continue to evaluate its voluntary curtailment level on a regular basis and will adjust production levels quickly and responsibly as market conditions evolve.

Financial Update

Healthy execution in 1Q20 translated to strong performance in key financial measures.

Profitability

During 1Q20, the Company recorded net loss attributable to its stockholders of $3.4 billion, or $9.20 per share. Excluding, on a tax-adjusted basis, certain items that the Company does not view as indicative of its ongoing financial performance, adjusted net income for 1Q20 was $107.2 million, or $0.29 per share.(1)

Adjusted earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation, depletion, amortization, and exploration expense ("Adjusted EBITDAX") for 1Q20 was $457.2 million.(1)

As a result of the recent fall in oil prices and Parsley's decision to significantly reduce its near-term development activity plans, the Company recognized a non-cash impairment charge of $4.4 billion for certain proved reserves during 1Q20. In addition, the Company recognized leasehold abandonment and impairment charges associated with unproved oil and natural gas properties of $557 million during 1Q20.

Realized Pricing

During 1Q20, Parsley reported an average unhedged oil price realization of $45.32 per Bbl net of transportation costs, representing a discount of $0.49 to the average WTI Cushing price(3) for the quarter.

Operating Costs

During the first quarter of 2020, the Company reported lease operating expense ("LOE") per Boe of $4.11. Parsley expects supplier price reductions, the shut-in of higher per-Boe cost vertical wells, and continued utilization of the Company's integrated water handling system will help offset a decrease in near-term production volumes. However, given ongoing uncertainty relating to commodity prices and the Company's production volumes, which has created a uniquely challenging operating environment, Parsley is temporarily suspending its unit cost guidance.

Both general and administrative expense ("G&A") per Boe and cash based G&A per Boe(1), which excludes stock-based compensation expense, decreased quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year to $2.01 and $1.65, respectively, representing Company-low record levels in each case. Encouraging G&A cost trends are a function of ongoing corporate cost savings initiatives including Executive Vice Presidents and more senior officers electing to reduce their respective 2020 cash compensation by at least 50% when compared to 2019. During 1Q20, Parsley incurred restructuring and other termination costs of $34.8 million and acquisition costs of $14.4 million, largely related to severance agreements, relocation expenses and advisor fees associated with Parsley's acquisition of Jagged Peak. These one-time costs are reported separately from the Company's G&A and cash based G&A. Parsley now expects full-year 2020 cash based G&A of approximately $130 million, a reduction of approximately $35 million versus the midpoints of prior guidance.(4)

Healthy realized oil pricing and continued focus on cost controls drove a strong operating cash margin of $22.34 per Boe, or 72% of the Company's average realized price per Boe.(1)

Capital Expenditures

Parsley reported capital expenditures of $379 million during the first quarter of 2020, comprised of $372 million for operated drilling, completion, and equipment activity, and $7 million associated with water infrastructure and non-operated development activity. Parsley is reducing its full-year 2020 capital guidance from less than $1.0 billion to less than $700 million.

Return of Capital Program

Parsley Energy today announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.05 per share.(2) The dividend is payable on June 19, 2020, to shareholders of record on June 9, 2020.

Liquidity and Hedging

The Company entered into an amendment to its revolving credit agreement on April 27, 2020, which reaffirmed its borrowing base at $2.7 billion, increased the elected commitment amount from $1.0 billion to $1.075 billion, and extended the maturity date by two years to October 28, 2023. As of March 31, 2020, Parsley had approximately $739 million of liquidity, consisting of $45 million of cash and cash equivalents and an availability of $693 million on the Company's revolver.(5)

In this lower commodity price environment, Parsley proactively managed its hedge position, restructuring its existing 2020 hedge positions to provide additional protection against lower oil prices using swaps and two-way collars. Additionally, Parsley has also moved aggressively to protect its 2021 cash flow by adding swap positions.

The Company now expects net settlement gains of nearly $650 million during 2Q20 through 4Q21 under a go forward $30 WTI oil price and current basis differentials.(6) This represents an increase of more than $350 million in aggregate downside protection from the Company's hedge position on February 19, 2020. For details on Parsley's hedge position, please see the tables below under Supplemental Information and/or, upon availability, the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2020.

2020 Guidance (7)

In light of the lower commodity price environment, the Company is reducing its 2020 capital budget to less than $700 million, with reported 1Q20 capital expenditures of $379 million representing more than 50% of this revised full-year budget. Given recent market volatility and ongoing uncertainty, the Company has temporarily suspended its detailed guidance on production, activity and unit costs. For further detail, please see the table below.



Prior Revised

2020 Guidance 2020 Guidance Production



Annual net oil production (MBo/d) 125-133 Temporarily Suspended Annual net total production (MBoe/d) 200-210







Capital Program



Total development expenditures ($MM) $1,600-$1,800 <$700 Drilling, completion, & equipment ($MM) $1,500-$1,650 <$650 Other ($MM) $100-$150 ~$50





Activity



Gross operated horizontal POPs(8) 180-190

Midland Basin (% of total) ~65%

Delaware Basin (% of total) ~35% Temporarily Suspended Average lateral length 9,500'-10,000'

Gross operated lateral footage (000's) 1,710'-1,900'

Average working interest ~90%







Unit Costs



Lease operating expenses ($/Boe) $3.50-$4.50

Cash general and administrative expenses ($/Boe) $2.00-$2.40 Temporarily Suspended Production and ad valorem taxes (% of total revenue) 6%-7%



Conference Call Information

Parsley Energy will host a conference call and webcast to discuss its results for the first quarter of 2020 on Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time (8:00 a.m. Central Time). Participants should call 877-709-8150 (United States/Canada) or 201-689-8354 (International) 10 minutes before the scheduled time and request the Parsley Energy earnings conference call. A telephone replay will be available through May 12, 2020 by dialing 877-660-6853 (United States/Canada) or 201-612-7415 (International). Conference ID: 13702189. A live broadcast will also be available on the Internet at www.parsleyenergy.com under the "Investors-Events & Presentations" section of the website. The Company has also posted a presentation to its website that supplements the information in this release.

Upcoming Conference Participation

Parsley plans to participate in the Citi Global Energy and Utilities Virtual Conference on May 13, 2020, the RBC Global Energy and Power Executive Conference on June 2, 2020, and the 5th Annual Wells Fargo Securities West Coast Energy Conference on June 9-10, 2020.

About Parsley Energy, Inc.

Parsley Energy, Inc. is an independent oil and natural gas company focused on the acquisition, development, exploration, and production of unconventional oil and natural gas properties in the Permian Basin. For more information, visit the Company's website at www.parsleyenergy.com.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements represent Parsley Energy's expectations or beliefs concerning future events, and it is possible that the results described in this news release will not be achieved. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of Parsley Energy's control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, Parsley Energy does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for Parsley Energy to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements found in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The risk factors and other factors noted in the Company's SEC filings could cause its actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.







(1) "Cash based G&A per Boe", "Adjusted EBITDAX", "operating cash margin", "free cash flow (outspend)", and "adjusted net income" are not presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States ("GAAP"). For definitions and reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures of Adjusted EBITDAX, operating cash margin, free cash flow (outspend), and adjusted net income to GAAP financial measures, please see the tables and associated commentary below under Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures. The Company has also provided a definition and reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure of "Discretionary Cash Flow per Share" in the tables and associated commentary below under Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures. The Company is unable to present a reconciliation of forward-looking free cash flow (outspend) because components of the calculation, including changes in working capital accounts, are inherently unpredictable. Additionally, estimating the most directly comparable GAAP measure with the required precision necessary to provide a meaningful reconciliation is extremely difficult and could not be accomplished without unreasonable effort. Furthermore, the Company's current 2020 target of at least $300 million of free cash flow is based on WTI oil prices of $20-$30 for the remainder of the year. In the event of continued market volatility and uncertainty, Parsley may not achieve this free cash flow target. (2) Dividend to be paid to all Company equity holders, including shareholders of Class A common stock and holders of Parsley Energy, LLC units/Class B common stock. (3) Represents Bloomberg-sourced 1Q20 average WTI Cushing price. (4) The midpoints of Parsley's prior per unit cash G&A and Boe production guidance ranges were $2.20 per Boe and 205 MBoe/d, respectively. This implied 2020 cash G&A expense of approximately $165 million at the midpoints of prior guidance ranges. (5) Revolver availability is net of letters of credit. (6) Midland, Magellan East Houston, and Brent pricing differentials to WTI Cushing based on forward strip pricing as of 5/1/2020. At $20 WTI and basis differentials as of 5/1/2020, Parsley expects more than $1 billion of net settlement gains during 2Q20-4Q21. (7) Except as otherwise stated, all estimates, projections and/or guidance contained in this press release are based on $20-$30 WTI oil price per barrel for the remainder of 2020. If the WTI oil price trades either below or above this range during all or a portion of the remainder of 2020, investors are cautioned that these estimates, projections and/or guidance would be materially impacted. (8) Wells placed on production.

- Tables to Follow -

Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Selected Operating Data (Unaudited)



Three Months Ended

March 31, 2020

December 31, 2019

March 31, 2019 Net production volumes:









Oil (MBbls) 11,523



8,241



7,102

Natural gas (MMcf) 16,667



13,966



10,488

Natural gas liquids (MBbls) 3,626



2,882



2,436

Total (MBoe) 17,927



13,451



11,286

Average daily net production (Boe/d) 197,000



146,207



125,400

Average sales prices(1) :









Oil, without realized derivatives (per Bbl) $ 45.32



$ 56.40



$ 51.83

Oil, with realized derivatives (per Bbl) $ 49.17



$ 55.05



$ 49.40

Natural gas, without realized derivatives (per Mcf) $ 0.31



$ 0.97



$ 1.38

Natural gas, with realized derivatives (per Mcf) $ 0.50



$ 0.99



$ 1.33

Natural gas liquids (per Bbl) $ 8.95



$ 14.14



$ 17.97

Average price per Boe, without realized derivatives $ 31.23



$ 38.59



$ 37.78

Average price per Boe, with realized derivatives $ 33.88



$ 37.79



$ 36.20

Average costs (per Boe):









Lease operating expenses $ 4.11



$ 3.54



$ 3.65

Transportation and processing costs $ 0.79



$ 1.06



$ 0.73

Production and ad valorem taxes $ 2.07



$ 2.12



$ 2.43

Depreciation, depletion and amortization $ 15.32



$ 15.67



$ 15.39

General and administrative expenses (including stock-based compensation) $ 2.01



$ 3.20



$ 3.37

General and administrative expenses (cash based) $ 1.65



$ 2.81



$ 2.90















(1) Average prices shown in the table reflect prices both before and after the effects of the Company's realized commodity hedging transactions. The Company's calculations of such effects include both realized gains and losses on cash settlements for commodity derivative transactions and premiums paid or received on options that settled during the period. Realized oil prices are net of transportation costs.

Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations (Unaudited, in thousands, except for per share data)



Three Months Ended March 31,

2020

2019 REVENUES





Oil sales $ 522,172



$ 368,126

Natural gas sales 5,169



14,452

Natural gas liquids sales 32,435



43,785

Other 5,027



1,308

Total revenues 564,803



427,671

OPERATING EXPENSES





Lease operating expenses 73,608



41,172

Transportation and processing costs 14,195



8,257

Production and ad valorem taxes 37,183



27,407

Depreciation, depletion and amortization 274,680



173,723

General and administrative expenses (including stock-based compensation) 35,964



38,037

Exploration and abandonment costs 561,611



22,994

Impairment 4,374,253





Acquisition costs 14,425





Accretion of asset retirement obligations 435



345

Gain on sale of property (10)





Restructuring and other termination costs 34,769





Other operating income (expense) 169



(811)

Total operating expenses 5,421,282



311,124

OPERATING (LOSS) INCOME (4,856,479)



116,547

OTHER INCOME (EXPENSE)





Interest expense, net (41,679)



(33,002)

Loss on early extinguishment of debt (21,388)





Gain (loss) on derivatives 545,692



(119,687)

Change in TRA liability 70,529





Interest income 249



291

Other (expense) income (3,983)



58

Total other income (expense), net 549,420



(152,340)

LOSS BEFORE INCOME TAXES (4,307,059)



(35,793)

INCOME TAX BENEFIT 570,963



7,790

NET LOSS (3,736,096)



(28,003)

LESS: NET LOSS ATTRIBUTABLE TO NONCONTROLLING INTERESTS 369,696



3,939

NET LOSS ATTRIBUTABLE TO PARSLEY ENERGY, INC. STOCKHOLDERS $ (3,366,400)



$ (24,064)









Net loss per common share:





Basic $ (9.20)



$ (0.09)

Diluted $ (9.20)



$ (0.09)

Weighted average common shares outstanding:





Basic 366,064



278,794

Diluted 366,064



278,794



Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited, in thousands)



March 31, 2020

December 31, 2019 ASSETS





CURRENT ASSETS





Cash and cash equivalents $ 45,274



$ 20,739

Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts:





Joint interest owners and other 44,709



48,785

Oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids 126,917



192,216

Related parties 5,912



183

Short-term derivative instruments, net 529,431



127,632

Other current assets 56,949



8,818

Total current assets 809,192



398,373

PROPERTY, PLANT AND EQUIPMENT





Oil and natural gas properties, successful efforts method 7,389,684



11,272,124

Accumulated depreciation and depletion 



(2,117,963)

Total oil and natural gas properties, net 7,389,684



9,154,161

Other property, plant and equipment, net 184,240



170,306

Total property, plant and equipment, net 7,573,924



9,324,467

NONCURRENT ASSETS





Operating lease assets, net of accumulated depreciation 124,233



128,529

Long-term derivative instruments, net 95,335





Other noncurrent assets 4,430



4,845

Total noncurrent assets 223,998



133,374

TOTAL ASSETS $ 8,607,114



$ 9,856,214









LIABILITIES AND EQUITY





CURRENT LIABILITIES





Accounts payable and accrued expenses $ 525,913



$ 416,346

Revenue and severance taxes payable 180,429



154,556

Short-term derivative instruments, net 192,599



158,522

Current operating lease liabilities 55,354



61,198

Other current liabilities 4,028



5,002

Total current liabilities 958,323



795,624

NONCURRENT LIABILITIES





Long-term debt 2,998,688



2,182,832

Deferred tax liability 11,158



193,409

Operating lease liability 71,510



69,195

Payable pursuant to tax receivable agreement 



70,529

Long-term derivative instruments, net 17,488





Asset retirement obligations 27,368



20,538

Financing lease liability 1,706



1,320

Other noncurrent liabilities 188



119

Total noncurrent liabilities 3,128,106



2,537,942

COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES





STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY





Preferred stock, $0.01 par value, 50,000,000 shares authorized, none issued and outstanding 





Common stock





Class A, $0.01 par value, 600,000,000 shares authorized, 378,295,514 shares issued and 377,578,206 shares outstanding at March 31, 2020 and 282,260,133 shares issued and 281,241,443 shares outstanding at December 31, 2019 3,783



2,822

Class B, $0.01 par value, 125,000,000 shares authorized, 35,147,222 and 35,420,258 shares issued and outstanding at March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019 352



355

Additional paid in capital 6,994,612



5,200,795

(Accumulated deficit) retained earnings (2,814,540)



570,889

Treasury stock, at cost, 717,308 shares and 1,018,690 shares at March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019 (11,049)



(17,428)

Total stockholders' equity 4,173,158



5,757,433

Noncontrolling interests 347,527



765,215

Total equity 4,520,685



6,522,648

TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY $ 8,607,114



$ 9,856,214



Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Unaudited, in thousands)



Three Months Ended March 31,

2020

2019 CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES:





Net loss $ (3,736,096)



$ (28,003)

Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:





Depreciation, depletion and amortization 274,680



173,723

Leasehold abandonments and impairments 556,512



22,189

Impairment 4,374,253





Accretion of asset retirement obligations 435



345

Gain on sale of property (10)





Loss on early extinguishment of debt 21,388





Stock-based compensation 11,140



5,322

Deferred income tax benefit (570,963)



(7,790)

Change in TRA liability (70,529)





(Gain) loss on derivatives (545,692)



119,687

Net cash received (paid) for derivative settlements 16,902



(5,072)

Net cash received (paid) for option premiums 17,995



(10,440)

Other 3,269



1,056

Changes in operating assets and liabilities, net of acquisitions:





Accounts receivable 145,516



(37,989)

Accounts receivablerelated parties (5,729)



(2,110)

Other current assets (3,601)



1,438

Other noncurrent assets 91



(3,308)

Accounts payable and accrued expenses (129,560)



(15,063)

Revenue and severance taxes payable 25,873



(926)

Other noncurrent liabilities 69





Net cash provided by operating activities 385,943



213,059

CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES:





Development of oil and natural gas properties (281,871)



(352,650)

Acquisitions of oil and natural gas properties (7,411)



(13,846)

Cash acquired from the Jagged Peak acquisition 53,347





Additions to other property and equipment (2,146)



(11,106)

Proceeds from sales of property, plant and equipment 265



17,486

Other (1,142)



809

Net cash used in investing activities (238,958)



(359,307)

CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES:





Borrowings under long-term debt 1,140,000



120,000

Payments on long-term debt (1,223,752)



(120,000)

Payments on financing lease obligations (639)



(676)

Debt issuance costs (6,407)





Repurchase of common stock (11,049)



(5,309)

Dividends and distributions paid (20,603)





Distributions to owners from consolidated subsidiary 



(603)

Net cash used in financing activities (122,450)



(6,588)

Net increase (decrease) in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash 24,535



(152,836)

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at beginning of period 20,739



163,216

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of period $ 45,274



$ 10,380

SUPPLEMENTAL DISCLOSURE OF CASH FLOW INFORMATION:





Cash paid for interest $ (38,049)



$ (30,493)

Cash received for income taxes $ 



$ 240

SUPPLEMENTAL DISCLOSURE OF NON-CASH ACTIVITIES:





Asset retirement obligations incurred, including changes in estimate $ 3,556



$ 219

Additions to oil and natural gas properties - change in capital accruals $ 96,893



$ 53,654

Common stock issued for oil and natural gas properties $ 1,776,199



$ 

Net premiums on options that settled during the period $ (13,004)



$ (9,516)



Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Adjusted EBITDAX

Adjusted EBITDAX is not a measure of net loss as determined by GAAP. Adjusted EBITDAX is a supplemental non-GAAP financial measure that is used by the Company's management and external users of the Company's consolidated financial statements, such as industry analysts, investors, lenders and rating agencies. The Company defines Adjusted EBITDAX as net loss before depreciation, depletion and amortization, exploration and abandonment costs, net interest expense, interest income, income tax expense, change in Tax Receivable Agreement ("TRA") liability, stock-based compensation, acquisition costs, impairment on long-lived assets, loss on early extinguishment of debt, gain on sale of property, restructuring and other termination costs, accretion of asset retirement obligations, (gain) loss on derivatives, net settlements on derivative instruments, net premiums on options that settled during the period and other expenses.

Management believes Adjusted EBITDAX is useful because it allows the Company to more effectively evaluate its operating performance and compare the results of its operations from period to period without regard to its financing methods or capital structure. The Company excludes the items listed above from net loss in arriving at Adjusted EBITDAX because these amounts can vary substantially from company to company within its industry depending upon accounting methods and book values of assets, capital structure, and the method by which the assets were acquired. Adjusted EBITDAX should not be considered as an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net loss as determined in accordance with GAAP or as an indicator of the Company's operating performance. Certain items excluded from Adjusted EBITDAX are significant components in understanding and assessing a company's financial performance, such as a company's cost of capital and tax structure, as well as the historic costs of depreciable assets, none of which are components of Adjusted EBITDAX. The Company's computations of Adjusted EBITDAX may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies. The Company believes that Adjusted EBITDAX is useful to investors as a widely followed measure of operating performance.

The following table presents a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDAX to the GAAP financial measure of net loss attributable to Parsley Energy, Inc. stockholders for each of the periods indicated.

Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Adjusted EBITDAX (Unaudited, in thousands)



Three Months Ended March 31,

2020

2019 Adjusted EBITDAX reconciliation to net loss attributable to Parsley, Energy, Inc. stockholders:





Net loss attributable to Parsley Energy, Inc. stockholders $ (3,366,400)



$ (24,064)

Net loss attributable to noncontrolling interests (369,696)



(3,939)

Depreciation, depletion and amortization 274,680



173,723

Exploration and abandonment costs 561,611



22,994

Interest expense, net 41,679



33,002

Interest income (249)



(291)

Income tax expense (570,963)



(7,790)

EBITDAX (3,429,338)



193,635

Change in TRA liability (70,529)





Stock-based compensation 6,390



5,322

Acquisition costs 14,425





Impairment on long-lived assets 4,374,253





Loss on early extinguishment of debt 21,388





Gain on sale of property (10)





Restructuring and other termination costs 34,769





Accretion of asset retirement obligations 435



345

(Gain) loss on derivatives (545,692)



119,687

Net settlements on derivative instruments 60,549



(8,339)

Net premiums on options that settled during the period (13,004)



(9,516)

Other expenses 3,569





Adjusted EBITDAX $ 457,205



$ 301,134



Operating Cash Margin

Operating cash margin is not a measure of operating income as determined by GAAP. Operating cash margin is a supplemental non-GAAP performance measure used by the Company as an indicator of the Company's profitability and ability to manage its operating income. The Company defines operating cash margin as net loss before income tax benefit, other revenues, depreciation, depletion and amortization, exploration and abandonment costs, stock-based compensation, impairment on long-lived assets, acquisition costs, accretion of asset retirement obligations, other operating expense, net interest expense, gain on sale of property, restructuring and other termination costs, loss on early extinguishment of debt, (gain) loss on derivatives, change in TRA liability, interest income, and other income. The amounts included in the calculations of operating cash margin were computed in accordance with GAAP.

Operating cash margin is provided in addition to, and not as an alternative for, and should be read in conjunction with, the information contained in the Company's condensed consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP (including the notes), included in its SEC filings and posted on its website. The following table provides a reconciliation of operating cash margin to the GAAP financial measure of net loss attributable to Parsley Energy, Inc. stockholders.

Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Operating Cash Margin (Unaudited, in thousands, except for per unit data)



Three Months Ended March 31,

2020

2019 Operating cash margin reconciliation to net loss attributable to Parsley Energy Inc. stockholders:





Net loss attributable to Parsley Energy, Inc. stockholders $ (3,366,400)



$ (24,064)

Net loss attributable to noncontrolling interests (369,696)



(3,939)

Income tax benefit (570,963)



(7,790)

Other revenues (5,027)



(1,308)

Depreciation, depletion and amortization 274,680



173,723

Exploration and abandonment costs 561,611



22,994

Stock-based compensation 6,390



5,322

Impairment on long-lived assets 4,374,253





Acquisition costs 14,425





Accretion of asset retirement obligations 435



345

Other operating expense 169



(811)

Interest expense, net 41,679



33,002

Gain on sale of property (10)





Restructuring and other termination costs(1) 30,018





Loss on early extinguishment of debt 21,388





(Gain) loss on derivatives (545,692)



119,687

Change in TRA liability (70,529)





Interest income (249)



(291)

Other income 3,983



(58)

Operating cash margin $ 400,465



$ 316,812

Operating cash margin per Boe $ 22.34



$ 28.07









Average price per Boe, without realized derivatives $ 31.23



$ 37.78

Operating cash margin percentage 72 %

74 %





(1) Excludes $4.8 million of non-cash costs incurred related to accelerated vesting of stock-based compensation

Free Cash Flow (Outspend)

Free cash flow (outspend) is not a measure of net cash provided by operating activities as determined by GAAP. Free cash flow (outspend) is a supplemental non-GAAP financial measure that is used by the Company as an indicator of the Company's ability to manage its operating cash flow (outspend), internally fund its exploration and development activities, pay dividends, and to service or incur additional debt. The Company defines free cash flow (outspend) as net cash provided by operating activities before changes in operating assets and liabilities, net of acquisitions and acquisition and cash restructuring costs related to the acquisition of Jagged Peak, less accrual-based development capital expenditures. The amounts included in the calculations of free cash flow (outspend) were computed in accordance with GAAP.

Free cash flow (outspend) is provided in addition to, and not as an alternative for, and should be read in conjunction with, the information contained in the Company's condensed consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP (including the notes), included in its SEC filings and posted on its website. The following table provides a reconciliation of free cash flow (outspend) to the GAAP financial measure of net cash provided by operating activities.

Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Free Cash Flow (Outspend) (Unaudited, in thousands)



Three Months Ended March 31,

2020

2019 Net cash provided by operating activities $ 385,943



$ 213,059

Net change in operating assets and liabilities, net of acquisitions (32,659)



57,958

Acquisition costs related to the acquisition of Jagged Peak 14,425





Restructuring costs related to the acquisition of Jagged Peak (excluding non-cash) 30,018





Total discretionary cash flow 397,727



271,017









Development of oil and natural gas properties (281,871)



(352,650)

Additions to oil and natural gas properties - change in capital accruals (96,893)



(53,654)

Total accrual-based development capital expenditures (378,764)



(406,304)

Free cash flow (outspend) $ 18,963



$ (135,287)



Discretionary Cash Flow Per Share

Discretionary cash flow is not a measure of net cash provided by operating activities as determined by GAAP. Discretionary cash flow is a supplemental non-GAAP financial measure that is used by the Company as an indicator of the drivers of trends in our operating cash flows, such as production, realized sales prices and operating costs, because it disregards the timing of settlement of operating assets and liabilities. The Company defines discretionary cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities before changes in operating assets and liabilities, net of acquisitions and acquisition and cash restructuring costs related to the acquisition of Jagged Peak. The amounts included in the calculations of discretionary cash flow were computed in accordance with GAAP.

Discretionary cash flow is provided in addition to, and not as an alternative for, and should be read in conjunction with, the information contained in the Company's condensed consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP (including the notes), included in its SEC filings and posted on its website. The following table provides a reconciliation of discretionary cash flow (outspend) to the GAAP financial measure of net cash provided by operating activities.

Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Discretionary Cash Flow Per Share (Unaudited, in thousands)



Three Months Ended March 31,

2020

2019 Net cash provided by operating activities $ 385,943



$ 213,059

Net change in operating assets and liabilities, net of acquisitions (32,659)



57,958

Acquisition costs related to the acquisition of Jagged Peak 14,425





Restructuring costs related to the acquisition of Jagged Peak (excluding non-cash) 30,018





Total discretionary cash flow $ 397,727



$ 271,017









Discretionary cash flow per diluted share $ 0.99



$ 0.86









Weighted average common shares outstanding, class A 366,064



278,794

Weighted average common shares outstanding, class B 35,199



36,403

Adjusted weighted average common shares outstanding(1) 401,263



315,197







(1) PE Units (and a corresponding number of shares of Class B common stock) can be exchanged for Class A common stock at an exchange ratio of one share of Class A common stock for each PE Unit (and corresponding share of Class B common stock) exchanged. As such, assumes the exchange of all outstanding PE Units (and corresponding shares of Class B common stock) for shares of Class A common stock.

Adjusted Net Income

Adjusted net income is not a measure of net income determined in accordance with GAAP. Adjusted net income is a supplemental non-GAAP performance measure used by the Company's management to evaluate financial performance, prior to (gain) loss on derivatives, net settlements on derivative instruments, net premiums on options that settled during the period, gain on sale of property, restructuring and other termination costs, exploration and abandonment costs, impairment of long-lived assets, acquisition costs, change in TRA liability, loss on early extinguishment of debt, and other expenses, while adjusting for changes in noncontrolling interests, the associated changes in estimated income tax and changes to deferred tax asset valuation allowance. Management believes adjusted net income is useful because it may enhance investors' ability to assess Parsley's historical and future financial performance. Adjusted net income should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, consolidated net income (loss), operating income (loss), or any other measure of financial performance presented in accordance with GAAP. The following table presents a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure of adjusted net income to the GAAP financial measure of net loss attributable to Parsley Energy, Inc. stockholders.

Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Adjusted Net Income and Net Income Per Share (Unaudited, in thousands, except per share data)



Three Months Ended March 31,

2020

2019 Net loss attributable to Parsley Energy, Inc. stockholders $ (3,366,400)



$ (24,064)

Adjustments:





(Gain) loss on derivatives (545,692)



119,687

Net settlements on derivative instruments 60,549



(8,339)

Net premiums on options that settled during the period (13,004)



(9,516)

Gain on sale of property (10)





Restructuring and other termination costs 34,769





Exploration and abandonment costs 561,611



22,994

Impairment of long-lived assets 4,374,253





Acquisition costs 14,425





Change in TRA liability (70,529)





Loss on early extinguishment of debt 21,388





Other expenses 3,569





Change in noncontrolling interests (379,881)



(14,321)

Income taxes on above adjustments(1) (303,144)



(24,132)

Adjustment to deferred tax asset valuation allowance(2) (284,727)





Adjusted net income $ 107,177



$ 62,309

Net loss per diluted share - as reported(1) $ (9.20)



$ (0.09)

Adjustments:





(Gain) loss on derivatives (1.49)



0.42

Net settlements on derivative instruments 0.17



(0.02)

Net premiums on options that settled during the period (0.04)



(0.03)

Gain on sale of property 





Restructuring and other termination costs 0.09





Exploration and abandonment costs 1.53



0.08

Impairment of long-lived assets 11.93





Acquisition costs 0.04





Change in TRA liability (0.19)





Loss on early extinguishment of debt 0.06





Other expenses 0.01





Change in noncontrolling interests (1.04)



(0.05)

Income taxes on above adjustments (0.83)



(0.09)

Adjustment to deferred tax asset valuation allowance (0.77)





Adjustment for change in weighted average share count 0.02





Adjusted net income per diluted share(4) $ 0.29



$ 0.22

Basic weighted average shares outstanding - as reported(3) 366,064



278,794

Effect of dilutive securities:





Class B Common Stock 





Restricted Stock and Restricted Stock Units 





Diluted weighted average shares outstanding - as reported(3) 366,064



278,794

Effect of dilutive securities:





Class B Common Stock 





Restricted Stock and Restricted Stock Units 610



369

Diluted weighted average shares outstanding for adjusted net income(4) 366,674



279,163









(1) The assumed income tax rate is 27% for all periods. (2) Deferred tax valuation allowance has been adjusted to reflect the assumed income tax rate of 27% for all periods. (3) For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019, the number of weighted average diluted shares used to calculate actual net loss per share is based on the fact that, under the "if converted" and "treasury stock" methods, Class B Common Stock and shares of restricted stock and restricted stock units, respectively, were not recognized because the effect would have been antidilutive. (4) For purposes of calculating adjusted net income per diluted share for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019, Class B Common Stock was not recognized because the shares would have been antidilutive using the "if converted" method.

Open Derivatives Positions

Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Open Crude Oil Derivatives Positions(1)



2Q20

3Q20

4Q20

1Q21

2Q21

3Q21

4Q21 CUSHING

























Swaps - Cushing (MBbls/d)(2) 11.0



11.0



11.0

















Swap Price ($/Bbl) $ 57.87



$ 57.87



$ 57.87

















MIDLAND

























Three Way Collars - Midland (MBbls/d)(3)



4.6



13.8

















Short Call Price ($/Bbl)



$ 55.00



$ 51.65

















Long Put Price ($/Bbl)



$ 40.00



$ 35.66

















Short Put Price ($/Bbl)



$ 30.00



$ 25.66

















Put Spreads - Midland (MBbls/d)(4) 3.3

























Long Put Price ($/Bbl) $ 50.00

























Short Put Price ($/Bbl) $ 40.00

























Two Way Collars - Midland (MBbls/d)(5) 6.6



6.5



6.5

















Short Call Price ($/Bbl) $ 48.00



$ 48.00



$ 48.00

















Long Put Price ($/Bbl) $ 43.00



$ 43.00



$ 43.00

















Swaps - Midland (MBbls/d)(2) 21.5



12.5



3.3



5.0



5.0



5.0



5.0

Swap Price ($/Bbl) $ 31.83



$ 29.69



$ 32.60



$ 40.50



$ 40.50



$ 40.50



$ 40.50

MAGELLAN EAST HOUSTON ("MEH")

























Three Way Collars - MEH (MBbls/d)(3) 7.9



10.8



24.1



13.3



13.2



2.4



2.4

Short Call Price ($/Bbl) $ 55.00



$ 55.00



$ 51.22



$ 64.38



$ 64.38



$ 55.00



$ 55.00

Long Put Price ($/Bbl) $ 40.00



$ 40.00



$ 37.23



$ 53.13



$ 53.13



$ 40.00



$ 40.00

Short Put Price ($/Bbl) $ 30.00



$ 30.00



$ 27.23



$ 43.13



$ 43.13



$ 30.00



$ 30.00

Put Spreads - MEH (MBbls/d)(4) 8.2



29.3



29.3

















Long Put Price ($/Bbl) $ 50.00



$ 36.11



$ 36.11

















Short Put Price ($/Bbl) $ 40.00



$ 26.11



$ 26.11

















Swaps - MEH (MBbls/d)(2) 35.8



29.0



15.7



52.0



52.0



52.0



52.0

Swap Price ($/Bbl) $ 29.58



$ 35.24



$ 39.28



$ 40.74



$ 40.74



$ 40.74



$ 40.74

BRENT

























Two Way Collars - Brent (MBbls/d)(5) 3.3



6.5



6.5

















Short Call Price ($/Bbl) $ 52.10



$ 52.30



$ 52.30

















Long Put Price ($/Bbl) $ 47.10



$ 47.30



$ 47.30

















Swaps - Brent (MBbls/d)(2) 7.9



11.2



6.3



22.0



22.0



22.0



22.0

Swap Price ($/Bbl) $ 44.81



$ 41.77



$ 47.40



$ 44.46



$ 44.46



$ 44.46



$ 44.46

Total Hedged Volumes (MBbls/d) 105.6



121.4



116.5



92.3



92.2



81.4



81.4

Premium Realization ($MM)(6) $ 8.1



$ 7.3



$ 7.3



$ (2.0)



$ (2.0)



$ (0.7)



$ (0.7)

Fixed Future Settlements ($MM)(7) $ 16.7

























Midland-Cushing Basis Swaps (MBbls/d)(8) 18.9



14.0



14.0

















Basis Differential ($/Bbl) $ (1.00)



$ (1.44)



$ (1.44)

















Rollfactor Swaps (MBbls/d)(9) 12.1



35.9



35.9

















Swap Price ($/Bbl) $ (2.44)



$ (2.44)



$ (2.44)



















Parsley Energy, Inc. and Subsidiaries Open Natural Gas Derivatives Positions(1)



2Q20

3Q20

4Q20 WAHA









Swaps - Waha (MMBtu/d)(2) 48,242



48,152



48,152

Swap Price ($/MMBtu) $ 0.70



$ 0.90



$ 0.86

































(1) Hedge positions as of 5/1/2020. Prices represent the weighted average price of contracts scheduled for settlement during the period. (2) Parsley receives the swap price. (3) When the reference price (Midland, MEH, or Brent) is at or above the short call price, Parsley receives the short call price. When the reference price is between the long put price and the short put price, Parsley receives the long put price. When the reference price is below the short put price, Parsley receives the reference price plus the difference between the short put price and the long put price. (4) When the reference price is above the long put price, Parsley receives the reference price. When the reference price is between the long put price and the short put price, Parsley receives the long put price. When the reference price is below the short put price, Parsley receives the reference price plus the difference between the short put price and the long put price. (5) When the reference price is above the short call price, Parsley receives the short call price. When the reference price is between the short call price and the put price, Parsley receives the reference price. When the reference price is below the put price, Parsley receives the put price. (6) Premium realizations represent net premiums paid (including deferred premiums), which are recognized as income or loss in the period of settlement. (7) Dollar value of expected net settlements from monetization of certain MEH and Midland swap contracts. Monetized swap contracts have been eliminated by offsetting swaps and are not represented in the chart above. (8) Swaps that fix the basis differentials representing the index prices at which the Company sells its oil and gas produced in the Permian Basin less the WTI Cushing price and Henry Hub price, respectively. (9) These positions hedge the timing risk associated with Parsley's physical sales. Parsley generally sells crude oil for the delivery month at a sales price based on the average NYMEX price during that month, plus an adjustment calculated as a spread between the weighted average prices of the delivery month, the next month, and the following month during the period when the delivery month is the first month.

SOURCE Parsley Energy, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.parsleyenergy.com


[May 04, 2020] Humana-Owned Health Care Facilities Implement New COVID-19 Prevention Standards

Leading health and well-being company Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) announced today that its senior-focused primary care subsidiaries Conviva Care Centers, Partners in Primary Care, and Family Physicians Group have implemented new company COVID-19 Prevention Standards intended to ensure the highest level of safety when patients attend in-person doctor appointments, providing patients confidence to receive much-needed tests and health screenings. "The medical professionals at Conviva Care Centers, Partners in Primary Care, and Family Physicians Group are committed to meeting the needs of all of their patients - and are taking every precaution they know to take to keep their patients safe," said William Shrank, MD, MPHS, Humana's Chief Medical and Corporate Affairs Officer. "These COVID-19 Prevention Standards are based on guidance from the CDC and local health departments. For those patients who need or prefer to receive care in person, they can be assured that our teams are well prepared to deliver that care as safely as possible." Below is a list of the primary COVID-19 Prevention Standards staff members are following at Conviva Care Centers, Partners in Primary Care, and Family Physicians Group facilities to ensure the safety of our patients and staff: COVID-19 Prevention Standards Healthy Staff All center staff members will undergo a daily COVID-19 screening, including a temperature check. They will also wear a mask at all times, in addition to other appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Patient Health All patients and guests are greeted at the center entrance where a COVID-19 screening process is conducted including temperature check. Each patient is provided a mask and hand sanitizer before entering the center.

Sick patients are immediately taken to exam rooms to limit time in our waiting rooms or common areas.

Assist patients in using home delivery services for food and medications. Prevention with Distancing Designated treatment areas are used to care for suspected and symptomatic COVID-19 patients.

Appointment times are being adjusted to separate our symptomatic and non-symptomatic patients.

Center furniture has been rearranged to create appropriate social distancing for anyone who may be in our waiting rooms or common areas. Clean Clinical Environment Exam rooms are cleaned and disinfected between each patient visit.

Every center is comprehensively cleaned and disinfected each night in accordance with CDC guidelines.

High-traffic, high-touch areas are disinfected several times throughout the day. Alternative Visit Options Telehealth visits will still be an available option for those patients who can be safely monitored and/or treated remotely. The doctor and patient will decide together if it is the right time for the patient to return to the center. For patients who are not able to travel to a center for their scheduled appointments, we are continuing to offer video visits ad phone visits.



COVID-19 Prevention Standards are grounded in guidance from the CDC and local health departments, and are subject to change in order to provide a safe environment for face-to-face interactions in our centers. "The safety of our patients and staff members is our top priority, now and always," said Tina Shenouda, MD, Partners in Primary Care and Family Physicians Group's Chief Medical Officer. "For patients who prefer to have face-to-face visits with their physician and care team, we are looking forward to seeing them in our centers and putting forth our COVID-19 Prevention Standards - to reinforce the safety protocols and add an additional layer of protection for our patients and staff. For those patients who have some reservations about face-to-face visits, we will continue to offer telehealth and curbside visits in some locations."

For those patients who cannot attend an in-person appointment, these practices offer robust virtual care options. Conviva Care Centers, Partners in Primary Care, and Family Physicians Group are leveraging and extending their value-based care model to ensure continued access to care for their patients. In addition to making proactive outreach calls to patients, these practices have adapted their care delivery to support social distancing by helping seniors adopt new technology in video visits and virtual health education. This extends care into the home - supporting CDC directives to keep this most vulnerable patient population safe. "Putting our patients first is part of our DNA at Conviva and the COVID-19 Prevention Standards are critical to maintaining the safety of our patients and team members," said Steve Lee, MD, President of Conviva Physician Group. "Regular temperature checks and masks for staff members and our patients are essential enhancements that help to keep everyone safe. Our patients are put at ease, reassured and comforted by the calls they receive from their physicians for telemedicine visits, and when they need to be seen they know that excellent standards are in place for their safe transportation, arrival, and treatment at our centers." About Conviva Care Centers Conviva continues to reinvent excellence in healthcare by embracing meaningful patient relationships focused on producing optimal health outcomes. With more than 90 convenient locations throughout Florida (Broward County, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, Miami-Dade County, Palm Beach County and Tampa/Gulf Coast) and Texas (Corpus Christi, El Paso and San Antonio), the vast network of Conviva Care Centers is comprised of a multi-disciplinary team of more than 300 primary care physicians and over 800 affiliated specialists that provide a wide range of vital healthcare services that patients require daily, including the advantages of senior care activity centers and 24/7 on-call physicians. The success of Conviva is measured by its patients' clinical outcomes and long-term health benefits. To learn more, visit http://www.ConvivaCareCenters.com, or call (833) CONVIVA. About Partners in Primary Care & Family Physicians Group Partners in Primary Care (Partners) is a primary care medical group practice operating centers in Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas under the Partners in Primary Care brand, as well as centers in Florida operated under the Family Physicians Group (FPG) brand. Partners and FPG have a strong emphasis on senior-focused primary care to members of Medicare Advantage health plans. Partners and FPG are committed to providing personalized, high-quality primary care combined with an excellent patient experience. Partners and FPG have experience in both the treatment and management of most chronic and acute-care conditions. The practices also provide health education and value-added, well-being services at their centers and around their neighborhoods to help both patients and community members improve their health. The management services organization for Partners and FPG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM). For more information, visit PartnersinPrimaryCare.com or fpg-florida.com/. About Humana Humana Inc. is committed to helping our millions of medical and specialty members achieve their best health. Our successful history in care delivery and health plan administration is helping us create a new kind of integrated care with the power to improve health and well-being and lower costs. Our efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large. To accomplish that, we support physicians and other health care professionals as they work to deliver the right care in the right place for their patients, our members. Our range of clinical capabilities, resources and tools - such as in-home care, behavioral health, pharmacy services, data analytics and wellness solutions - combine to produce a simplified experience that makes health care easier to navigate and more effective. More information regarding Humana is available to investors via the Investor Relations page of the company's web site at www.humana.com, including copies of: Annual reports to stockholders

Securities and Exchange Commission filings

Most recent investor conference presentations

Quarterly earnings news releases and conference calls

Calendar of events

Corporate Governance information View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005414/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
HONG KONG, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Sunday expressed strong condemnation of and firm opposition to the blatant interference in Hong Kong affairs and the malicious smear of "one country, two systems" by Western anti-China politicians and organization.

Recently some anti-China politicians in the United States and Britain have made unwarranted remarks about Hong Kong's legislation on Article 23 of the Basic Law, distorted comments on the police law enforcement actions and judicial system in Hong Kong and unreasonable attacks on "one country, two systems" and the Basic Law, a spokesperson of the liaison office noted, adding that these politicians' absurd remarks and arrogant attitudes are shocking.

Safeguarding national security is the constitutional responsibility of the HKSAR and is purely China's internal affairs in which other countries have no right to interfere, the spokesperson stressed.

The erroneous remarks by these politicians, which seriously violate international law and basic norms governing international relations, are another example of external forces' gross interference in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs at large.

The spokesperson also blasted a recent report by U.S. National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) as "full of lies and double standards".

The NDI report distorted the truth of Hong Kong's unrest sparked by the now-withdrawn ordinance amendments concerning fugitive transfers, glorified the series of terrorist violence by extreme radicals as "peaceful protests," and defamed the HKSAR government and the Hong Kong Police Force, which have been safeguarding Hong Kong's stability and the rule of law in accordance with the law, the spokesperson said, expressing firm opposition to the organization's egregious acts of openly endorsing illegal and violent elements and undermining Hong Kong's prosperity and stability.

Since Hong Kong's return to the motherland, the policies of "one country, two systems", "Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong" and a high degree of autonomy have been implemented, and Hong Kong residents' rights and freedoms have been fully guaranteed by law. It is a fact universally recognized and not to be distorted, the spokesperson said.

"We are firm in our resolve to safeguard the national sovereignty, security and development interests, to implement the 'one country, two systems' policy, and to oppose any interference by external forces in Hong Kong affairs," said the spokesperson.
The U.S. Army's experimental long-range missile just completed its latest test to show it's just as effective at attacking enemy targets much closer than its maximum range of 310 miles.

The service's new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) quickly closed the 85 kilometers, or 52 miles, and struck its target during an April 30 test at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, according to a recent Army news release.

The test was "the shortest and most challenging yet," Brig. Gen. John Rafferty, director of the Army's Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, said in the release.

At shorter ranges, the PrSM must expend more energy to adjust its angle of attack in a short period of time, Rafferty said in the release.

"It has to start tipping as soon as it comes out of the launcher," he said. "It was a pretty exciting 91 seconds or so."

Related: Army Modernization Programs Will Be Fielded on Time Despite COVID-19 Delays: General

Prior to this latest test, PrSM hit targets at 240 kilometers and then at 180 kilometers, Rafferty said. Next year, the Army will hold four additional test fires of the prototype. It's made by Lockheed Martin, which is currently the only company vying for the contract, according to the release.

The new missile is scheduled to begin replacing the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), a surface-to-surface missile, in 2023 and is initially intended for stationary targets such as airfields, Gen. John "Mike" Murray, commander of the Army Futures Command, said in the release. An upgraded capability, on track for 2025, is being designed to engage moving targets.

PrSM will have a maximum range of 500 kilometers, or 310 miles, compared to ATACMS' 300-kilometer, or 186-mile, range.

Like the ATACMS, the PrSM is designed to fit into the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers.

"We're not investing in a new fleeting of launchers," Murray said. "We're getting two missiles in the same pod that our current missiles go into, so we're actually doubling the load-out of our current fleet with this missile technology."

In its proposed fiscal 2021 budget, the Army requested $172.6 million for the PrSM. The bulk of that -- about $122 million -- is for research, development and testing.

The service also requested $800 million for its Long-Range Hypersonic Missile, a weapon capable of maneuvering at speeds of more than Mach 5.

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

Read More: Army Pours Cash into Long-Range Missile Development, New Infantry Rifles
Since national reunification in 1975, Vietnams economy has grown from strength to strength. Senior economist Nguyen Mai writes about how the economy has developed in that time, with foreign direct investment serving as one of the key driving forces.

Senior economist Nguyen Mai

Vietnam achieved its national reunification on April 30, 1975, fulfilling its strong aspirations, with the sacrifice of many generations of Vietnamese people.

Currently, the country is fighting another enemy  the global coronavirus pandemic, demonstrating its peoples brainpower, creativity, and discipline. This has become a role model for many nations to apply.

During its national construction and development, attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) has become a bright colour in the Vietnamese economic picture as it has been an important and stable impetus for the economy over the past three decades and more.

As of March 20, Vietnam had nearly 31,670 valid foreign-invested projects registered at $370.1 billion, of which 58.3 per cent, or $215.6 billion, has been disbursed. Some 19 out of 21 economic sectors have been home to FDI, with processing and manufacturing achieving $216.7 billion registered FDI (58.6 per cent of the economys total), property business $58.6 billion (15.8 per cent), and electricity production and distribution $27.7 billion (7.5 per cent).

As many as 136 nations and territories have been investing in Vietnam, including South Korea with $68.6 billion in registered capital (18.5 per cent), Japan $59.7 billion (16.1 per cent), followed by Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In 2018 and 2019, Vietnam was among the worlds list of top 20 largest FDI attractors.

All 63 cities and provinces have also attracted FDI, including Ho Chi Minh City with registered $47.5 billion (12.8 per cent), Hanoi $34.64 billion (9.4 per cent), and the southern province of Binh Duong $34.61 billion (9.3 per cent).

Foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) have been providing jobs for 4.5 million direct local labourers and millions of indirect labourers. They hold 23-25 per cent of total national development investment capital, and create over 50 per cent of industrial production value, while helping the country develop a modern financial and banking system. They also hold 70 per cent of the nations total export turnover, and are responsible for 20 per cent of state budget and 20 per cent of GDP.

FIEs have helped Vietnam engage further in international integration since doi moi and the opening door policy were launched, contributing to supporting Vietnam to get out of international embargo, and recover its relations with many nations and international organisations. Moreover, FIEs have also helped Vietnam enhance its status and prestige in the region and the wider world.

However, FDI has also created burning issues about environmental protection, transfer pricing, tax evasion, low technology, labour dispute, goods origin, and even national security and defence. This would need improvements in state management capacity and sound policies to ensure the benefits of both Vietnam and investors.

Foreign direct investment makes up a fifth of Vietnams GDP, illustrating its position as an economic driver. Photo: Freepik.com

Recent performance

Over the past three months, coronavirus has had negative impacts on the Vietnamese economy, with first-quarter GDP growing only 3.82 per cent on-year, and attracted FDI reduced on-year.

From January to March 20, disbursed FDI hit $3.85 billion, equal to 93.4 of that in the same period last year. Newly-added and stake acquisition-based FDI touched $8.55 billion, tantamount to 79.1 per cent of that in the corresponding period last year.

However, thanks to the Bac Lieu liquefied natural gas plant registered at $4 billion, the total registered FDI in the period reached $5.5 billion for 758 new projects. Thus the remaining 757 projects were registered with $1.5 billion, meaning about $2 million for each project  equivalent to 50 per cent of the same period last year.

In the first quarter of this year, FIEs production and business suffered from different impacts as they are in different sectors. The sectors of garments and textiles, beer, fisheries, hotels, and leased offices have been hit harder than the sectors of electronics and computers, for example.

Production developments in January and February differed from those in March. Many enterprises faced difficulties in importing materials in the first two months due to the outbreak in China, which is Vietnams key supplier of materials of garments and textiles, footwear, and electronic components. Many enterprises stopped operation in mid-March.

However, since early March when Vietnam and China resumed their trade activities, the pandemic has attacked Europe and the US which are also major partners of Vietnam. This has forced many partners in these markets to reduce or cut orders from Vietnamese firms, making it hard for Vietnam to produce and export goods to Europe and the US.

For example, Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone in Ho Chi Minh City has 168 operational enterprises with 56,000 Vietnamese employees and 585 foreign employees. So far, 33 enterprises are hit by COVID-19, leaving almost 6,000 workers in temporary unemployment and 1,000 in permanent unemployment.

In the first quarter of this year, FIEs total export turnover, including crude oil exports, hit $40.4 billion, equal to 97.1 per cent of that in the same period last year, and occupying 70.8 per cent of the economys total export turnover.

FIEs total import turnover sat at $33.18 billion, down 0.8 per cent on-year, and accounting for 59 per cent of the countrys total import turnover.

It has been for the first time that FIEs export-import turnover has seen a drop after many years of consecutive increases. However, the economy still witnessed a trade surplus of $7.2 billion, though locally-invested enterprises saw a trade deficit of $4.4 billion.

A brighter future

It is now difficult to forecast the sabotage level of the pandemic on the global economy, including the Vietnamese economy.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have recently forecast that the global economic growth this year may be below zero, while Vietnam is expected to grow below 5 per cent.

However, some optimistic signals have been seen as China has begun to recover its economy, with many enterprises bouncing back. South Korea has also seen a reduction in new positive cases. This is contributing to a bright outlook for the sectors of aviation, tourism, and trade and investment between Vietnam and these nations.

Meanwhile, Vietnams fight against the pandemic is also witnessing positive development. The government and the State Bank of Vietnam have asked commercial banks and localities to deploy financial and fiscal packages to support enterprises and people. The packages are worth many billions of US dollars via direct loans and reductions and exemption of assorted taxes and fees, as well as simplified administrative procedures.

In addition, the business community has also been implementing activities for mutual support, with business associations instructing their member enterprises to conduct new production and business plans and strategies, in line with the governments post-pandemic plans, in which there will need a boost in innovation, renewal of growth model, with a stress laid on improving the quality and effectiveness of socio-economic development. This is aimed to translate the nations aspiration for prosperity into a reality.

In 2020, despite massive difficulties facing enterprises, IT and digital technology are strongly developing, with 5G to be deployed nationwide. Meanwhile, many enterprises are greatly interested in applying solutions related to the circular economy, and localities are reaping achievements in their shift to a digital economy, with many successful models about organic agricultural production.

This year is also the second one for the implementation of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, while it is expected that the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement will take effect in July. These will create new opportunities for Vietnam to expand trade and investment ties with the wider world.

Regarding economic growth, the Ministry of Planning and Investment forecast that the economy may grow 5.32 per cent this year if the pandemic ends in the second quarter of the year.

However, some economic experts hold that if the governments policies are well implemented, and enterprises have good conditions to recover their performance, it is likely that the economy can grow 6.8-7 per cent this year.

Foreign investors are showing their big confidence in the Vietnamese economic outlook thanks to the countrys sturdy actions to help them out of difficulties and cope with the pandemic.

According to the Politburos resolution on attracting foreign investment, prioritising high-tech and clean sectors, it targets FDI of $30-40 billion a year in 2021-2025 and $40-50 billion a year in the 2026-2030 period, and disbursement rates of at least 66 and 75 per cent respectively.

Now is the time for the nation to boost its institution and simplify its administrative apparatus, and rev up innovation. This will determine the speed of economic recovery after the pandemic, and implement the target of attracting more high-quality FDI inflows. VIR

Nguyen Mai

COVID-19 presents opportunities to attract more FDI The COVID-19 pandemic has had a serious impact on Vietnams economy but its also believed to create the conditions to attract more FDI as there have been signs of a switch in capital flows away from China and to ASEAN member countries.
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- McGraw-Hill, the leading learning science company, today announced that Simon Allen has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately, and will join the company's Board of Directors. Mr. Allen had served as Interim CEO since October 2019.

Simon Allen has been appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of McGraw-Hill.

"Simon has demonstrated tremendous leadership during his time as interim CEO and over his many years in the education sector," said Larry Berg, Senior Partner with Apollo Global Management and chairman of the Board of McGraw-Hill. "His ability to inspire and motivate people, his knowledge of the business born of years of experience in this sector and his vision for growing our business make him the right choice. He has a deep understanding of what's needed to drive the company's success and we look forward to continuing our work with him."

"I am thrilled to have the opportunity to continue to lead McGraw-Hill," Mr. Allen said. "Our company has extraordinary strengths  the best talent, technology and content in the industry, a deeply trusted brand and an unwavering commitment to students and educators to help them succeed. I look forward to building our business in a way that will benefit our customers, our employees and our investors."

Going forward the company will continue to focus on creating the world-class content it is known for, providing best-in-class digital platforms for learners and educators, and operating efficiently and effectively. More than half of the company's billings now come from its digital offerings.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, McGraw-Hill assisted more than 7,000 instructors at 1,500 U.S. colleges and universities. Educators who had been using print learning materials, whether McGraw-Hill materials or not, were offered free access to online course materials through the remainder of the disrupted term. Over 110,000 students registered for free access to Connect, McGraw-Hill's easy-to-use homework and learning management solution, or ALEKS, McGraw-Hill's web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system courseware. For K-12 schools, colleges and professional schools around the world, McGraw-Hill provided free webinars, training and resources to help educators move to online learning.

Building on its strong performance in 2019 and into the first calendar quarter of this year, the company will continue to proactively explore options for its capital structure in 2020.

Before being named Interim CEO, Mr. Allen served as President of the company's Higher Ed and International business units after rejoining McGraw-Hill in March 2018.

He has extensive experience in the education sector having led large teams across six continents focused on K-12 and higher education, as well as science, technical and medical digital and print products for professional, governmental and institutional markets.

Before rejoining McGraw-Hill, Simon was the CEO of Macmillan Education, leading the company's transition from print to blended learning products and solutions. Previously, he was Senior Vice President, International at The McGraw-Hill Companies and during that time was elected President of The Publishers Association in the U.K., serving for three years on its council. Before that, Simon was President, Higher Education at both Pearson Education EMEA and Prentice Hall Europe. Earlier in his career, he held sales leadership roles with the Times Mirror Group in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.

About McGraw-Hill

McGraw-Hill is a learning science company that delivers personalized learning experiences that help students, parents, educators and professionals drive results. Headquartered in New York City, McGraw-Hill has offices across North America, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and South America, and makes its learning solutions for PreK-12, higher education, professionals and others available in more than 75 languages. Visit us at mheducation.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Contact:

Tyler Reed

McGraw-Hill

(704) 408-6969

[email protected]

SOURCE McGraw-Hill
Bay of Plenty

You will be operating the Roller and also required to help out the team hands on. You will be working near Bayfair for a...



View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz
A woman from South Carolina was killed by an alligator on May 1, according to the police. The unidentified victim encountered the alligator on Kiawah Island. The police were called and the officer shot and killed the alligator.

Gator attack

According to the police, they were alerted at 5 p.m. and the unidentified woman was already dead when they arrived in the scene. The police did not provide additional details about the attack. Unfortunately, this is the third time in the past four years that a person has been killed by an alligator in South Carolina.

In 2016, a 90-year-old woman walked out of a Charleston nursing home and was killed. In August 2018, a 45-year-old woman walking her dog was fatally attacked on Hilton Head Island. Before the recorded attacks, South Carolina had never recorded a person killed by an alligator.

An increasing number of incidents

According to the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, there has been an increase in the number of alligator attacks in America. From 1948 to August 1, 2004, there have been 376 injuries and 15 deaths have been reported in the United States as a result of alligator encounters. The number of calls regarding alligator sightings and the alligator population is also increasing.

Also Read: Gunshot Exchange in DMZ Between North and South Korea: Accidental or Intentional?

The human population is slowly invading the natural habitat of alligators with numerous land developments, thus the number of attacks and nuisance complaints has increased.

However, alligators do not often attack humans, you are more likely to get bitten by a dog or get killed by a cow than to get attacked by an alligator. There are currently 5 million alligators in the United States and they live throughout the Southeast, from Texas to North Carolina. But most of them are in Florida where 1.3 million alligators currently live.

Alligators can be dangerous but if you leave them alone, they will more than likely want to leave you alone too. Alligators can be vicious since they are technically predators. They are ambush predators because they are good at camouflage and only their little eyes can be seen above water.

They eat mammals like waterbirds, raccoons, turtles, and deer. Alligators sneak up to their prey and then capture them fast. Alligators do not move around a lot, and they won't attack as long as you respect their personal space. But what do you need to do if you get attacked by an alligator?

If an alligator charges after you, the first step is to run as fast as you can. Alligators are very fast and they can run up to a speed of 11 mph, but they can't sustain that very long. If ever it is too late to run and the alligator already sunk its teeth into you, you need to fight back.

Do not pry open the jaws of the gator since it has a bite that weighs 3,000 pounds. Animal experts say that while fighting back, the right way to do it is to smack the sensitive snout of the gator and gouge the eyes as hard as you can so that the alligator will let you go.



Related Article: More People Want Pets, But Why is America's Shelter Always Full?

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
They call the move "accelerating structural transformation for long-term growth. "We simply see it "lay off".

Whichever the case, Volvo recently announced its plans to downsize around 1,300 white collar positions in its Swedish operations, and make a continued review and reduction of all its consultancy contracts.

Volvo worker in their Sweden factory

The exact details on which positions in the company will be terminated remain unclear. So far, Volvo announced that it will start negotiations with the unions regarding the exact nature and amount of job reductions that will be made over the coming months. The company also clarified that its manufacturing services will not be affected by its downsizing plans.

Volvo's goals have been changing with the times. It wants to "lead the transformation in areas such as online business, electrification, autonomous drive and new mobility models". Its long-term plan is to put more of its investments in these areas to maximize the company's growth.

Just last February, Volvo and China auto brand Geely announced that they "seriously considering a merger."

The supposed union shall allow the two brands to combine their strengths and create a strong global group that would accelerate financial and technological synergies between the two companies.

Volvo also wants to lessen its hierarchy setup, to allow decision-making and execution faster and more agile within the company.

Volvo's badge

And while these realignment plans have already been a part of the company's long-term goals prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the emergence of this global crisis has further increased the company's resolve to execute these plans as soon as possible.

The coronavirus pandemic is affecting us in the short term, but we expect volumes and growth to return, said Hanna Fager, head of People Experience. So we need to continue investing in our ongoing transformation and new business areas, by reducing structural costs.

Story continues

Volvo worker in their Sweden factory

Volvo currently employs 41,500 employees in the world. And while its roots are "decidedly Scandinavian", they have manufacturing, research and design operations in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Volvo Cars sold 131,889 cars in the first quarter of 2020. It was down 18.2 per cent compared with the same period last year. According to the company, its global sales performance was affected by the continued impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.



Its global sales, which reached 46,395 cars last March, was also down 31.2 per cent compared with the same period last year. The primary reason was the weakening demand in Europe and the US.

Also Read:

Volvo Launches "Stay Home Store" in Europe Amid Quarantine

Volvo Reopens Torslanda Plant in Sweden


In conformity with the Union Home Ministry guidelines, the Uttar Pradesh government on Sunday issued orders regarding the relaxations to be given during the third phase of the coronavirus lockdown beginning Monday. According to an official, the government accepted the definition of the zones as provided by the Centre.

He said everyone in the hotspots has been urged to download the Arogya Setu app. The guidelines include the permission to increase working hours for factories having over 50 employees if both workers and owners agree, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi told reporters.

For marriages and performing the last rites only 20 persons will be allowed with a request that they will follow social distancing, he said, adding that the government has asked people over 65 years of age to stay home. The liquor shops, which are not in shopping malls, can be opened from 10 am to 7 pm with social distancing norms in place to ensure that not over five persons are there at a time, he said.

"The detailed orders regarding relaxations have been sent to district magistrates and district police chiefs. This is exactly the same as issued by the Home Ministry for red, orange and green zones," Awasthi said. Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had asked officials to prepare a plan for the resumption of industrial activity in the state.

He asked the infrastructure and industrial development commissioner to prepare a work plan regarding labour reforms and the transfer of allowances into the bank accounts of beneficiaries of different government schemes, a statement read. The chief minister said quarantine centres and community kitchens must be constantly monitored and there should be no laxity in this regard.

Referring to the labourers returning from other states, Adityanath said, "They should be properly screened at the quarantine centres. If found fit, they should be given food kits and allowed to proceed to their homes." "If the labourers are found medically unfit, then proper medical treatment should be given to them," he added.

He said members of women self-help groups should be roped in for community kitchens, which will provide them employment as well. The UP chief minister instructed the director general of police to keep tabs on people coming to the state from outside. "A special vigil should be maintained to prevent the spread of infection among police personnel and arrange equipment for its prevention," Adityanath said.

He stressed the need to strengthen the doorstep delivery of essential services and asked officials to prepare a plan in this regard. The CM said good and sufficient food should be available at every quarantine centre. Orders were also issued to every district magistrate to ensure that the inspection of the medical team engaged in COVID-19 treatment is compulsorily done, the statement said.

He directed that a time table should be made for farmers, wholesale and retail traders at the mandis of the state. "The mandis must be continuously and effectively monitored. These should be kept clean and arrangements should be made for sanitisers. Social distancing should be strictly adhered to," he said.

The chief minister said following the implementation of the lockdown, there has been a decline in revenue. "Despite this, the state government has already paid salaries to its 16 lakh employees and pension to 12 lakh retired employees." He, however, cautioned that people living in hotspots may become virus carriers for their colleagues. "Hence, these people should not go to their offices," he said.

Adityanath directed that emergency services must be started after ensuring that the protocol is completely followed. The Health Department must speak to hospitals starting emergency services in the state. An adequate supply of PPE kits, N95 masks and sanitisers should be maintained, and the capacity of COVID hospitals should be increased.

Also read: Lockdown 3.0: Know what's allowed & what's not in Gautam Buddha Nagar from Monday

Also read: Cornavirus lockdown: Over 800 UP migrant labourers reach Lucknow in special train from Nashik
As of Friday, Bishops in Ghana support the nations fight against coronavirus by making a 70,000 cedis donation.

By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ

The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference (GCBC), donated 70,000 cedis (approximately $12, 200) to the nations Covid-19 Trust Fund on Friday.



Archbishop of Cape Coast and Vice President of the GCBC, Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle, presented the cheque on behalf of the Bishops Conference. He was supported by the Secretary-General of the GCBC, Fr. Lazarus Anondee.

Mr. Jude Kofi Bucknor, a member of the Board of Trustees of Ghanas Covid-19 Fund received the donation in the presence of Dr. Collins Asare, the Funds Administrator.

Church initiative

Speaking on the occasion, Archbishop Palmer-Buckle noted that the donation was the Churchs widows mite to support the governments efforts in the fight against coronavirus.

He also said that the GCBCs nine-month national response plan for Covid-19 aims to provide Protective Personal Equipment (PPE) for all Catholic frontline health workers. It will also provide relief items to the vulnerable and the elderly.

In the Catholic Church, we have about 111 hospitals all over the country, including clinics and health centers and they have all got a certain preparedness for this Covid-19 and they are doing what they canWe are following the footsteps of Pope Francis who himself instituted a Covid support fund and donated $750,000 into it, he said.

Archbishop Palmer-Buckle concluded by expressing his gratitude to all, especially the frontline workers for their sacrifices, and called for Gods protection and intervention in this difficult situation.

As of Monday morning, the West African country has recorded 2,169 confirmed cases, 18 deaths and 229 recovered patients.
The Uttar Pradesh government wil in a fortnight bring home labourers stuck in other states because of the national lockdown to contain the coronavirus. While five trains from Maharashtra and Gujarat carrying thousands of UP origin workers have already arrived, at least 7 trains are en route to UP from the two states.

The government plans to run at least 6 trains daily each from the two industrialised states. Besides, the UP government has written to all the states consenting to accept its labourers provided they had been medically screened and documented for. Chairing a review ...
<! The Chinese arrested for suspected illegal mining >

The Osun Joint Task Force charged with fighting assorted crimes, has apprehended 27 persons suspected to be illegal miners in the state.

Mr Abdullahi Binuyo, the Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. Gboyega Oyetola, who disclosed this on Sunday in Osogbo, said that the suspects comprised 17 Chinese nationals and 10 locals.

Binuyo said that the suspects were arrested following a coordinated sting operation in Ilesa and Ife areas of the state.

The official said that government would not fold its arms while its land was being degraded by unauthorised persons.

Aside the economic leakages, the illegal miners have also polluted the Osun River with poisonous metals, thereby making it unsafe for human consumption and irrigation.

We intend to prosecute them and also make sure they pay compensation.

As part of governments economic reforms, solid mineral is a major sector we are exploring. For these reforms to work, it has become imperative to stop illegal mining and step up enforcement activities. The result is what we are witnessing today.

These people neither have genuine mining licences nor are they registered with the government.

What they claim to have is Exploration Licences; that does not permit them to mine the way they are doing.

So, we will prosecute them and make them pay damages.

Apart from flouting governments order to stay at home so as to contain the spread of COVID-19, they have created environmental disaster for us by poisoning our river which is a major public health concern, he said.
Controversial game streamer Felix Kjellberg, better known by his handle PewDiePie, signed an exclusive livestreaming deal with YouTube Monday.

The deal allows YouTube to leverage PewDiePies network of over 104 million subscribers. YouTube wouldnt disclose terms of the arrangement.

I couldnt be more thrilled to continue to grow our roster of creators who are making our platform their exclusive livestreaming home to bring fans around the world even more of what they love, YouTube head of gaming Ryan Wyatt said in a statement Monday.

Also Read: TheWrap-Up Podcast: AMC vs Universal, Hannity vs The New York Times and a Record Month for Gaming

PewDiePie has been streaming for a decade, beginning in 2010.

YouTube has been my home for over a decade now and livestreaming on the platform feels like a natural fit as I continue to look for new ways to create content and interact with fans worldwide, Kjellberg said in a statement. Livestreaming is something Im focusing a lot on in 2020 and beyond, so to be able to partner with YouTube and be at the forefront of new product features is special and exciting for the future.

The Swedish streamer said late last year that he would take a break from YouTube broadcasting, saying he was very tired.

Also Read: FaZe Clan, Michael Sugar Launch FaZe Studios to Produce Films, TV

That tiredness was no doubt brought on by PewDiePies antics  Disneys Maker Studios released PewDiePie from his contract in 2017 after videos of him making anti-semitic jokes were discovered. Later, PewDiePie drew even more backlash for using the N-word during a gaming livestream. The streamer was also shouted out by a mass shooter  the man behind the March 2019 massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand filmed himself saying remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie, before opening fire on passersby. PewDiePie said he was absolutely sickened by the mention and didnt condone the violence.

This deal is YouTubes latest bet on talent in competition for dominance in streaming going on within gaming, as each game streaming outlet (including Amazon-owned Twitch and Microsoft-owned Mixer) scrambles to sign talent exclusively. YouTube already owns the livestreams of creators CouRage, Lachlan, LazarBeam, Muselk, Typical Gamer and Valkyrae, who have some 140 million subscribers between them. YouTube reports that over 200 million gamers each day watch over 50 billion hours of content each year.

Read original story YouTube Signs Gamer PewDiePie to Livestreaming Deal At TheWrap
Getting a Pitch right is crucial.

Screenwriter and Script Assessor Holly Lyons (Home and Away, Neighbours, Emmerdale, Granada TV, AFTRS) will conduct her next seminar, Pitch Documents with Power online on Monday May 11.

Conducted via Zoom, these two sessions demonstrate the key steps to craft a short Pitch document that sells.

My philosophy is to attract funding and talent before you spend time, energy and effort writing the pilot script. This online course is designed to help writers craft a Pitch document with impact. A Pitch document that can get your idea noticed, she said.

Since launching her Script Assessment business, Screenwriting Scriptease, Hollys invaluable feedback has helped countless emerging and experienced writers take their project to the next level. More recently, as a response to the COVID-19 crisis, Holly has launched a series of online educational programs on Zoom tailored for the needs of her clients. Her next online seminar, Pitch Documents with Power, takes place on Monday 11th May.

Hollys courses are already receiving rave reviews:

Holly is absolutely amazing! I attended her weekend TV Pitching course and walked away with the tools and insight to completely reframe a project Id been pitching for a year but was always falling just short. With her help, we won the South Pacific Pictures Big Pitch Competition a month later in Auckland. Thanks for taking us to the next level Holly!!!

Holly makes plotting look elegant and fun. Always with a sense of the infinitely possible.

Places for PITCH DOCUMENTS WITH POWER are limited, sign up now.

Meet your Script Expert:

Holly Lyons has a head for story. She is a screenwriter with extensive experience in Australia and the UK  she has over 500 hours of broadcast credits, as a writer or script editor. In the UK, Holly co-created the action comedy, Help! Im a Teenage Outlaw (ITV) and script edited Emmerdale. She was part of the writing team on several other shows, including Girls In Love, Danis House and 24Seven. She wrote the pilot script for Horrid Henry and the pilot for the animated series Hanas Helpline. She was the series Script Executive on the UK soap, Crossroads. Other screen credits include My Parents are Aliens, Tracy Beaker, Fireman Sam. She was awarded an EBU development grant of 15,000 euros; and was nominated for a Prix Jeunesse. She worked as a Script Development Executive for Granada in London, and was across a diverse slate of pre school, 8-12 and teen content.

Since returning to Australia, Holly has worked on numerous series such as Home and Away, Neighbours, Skinner Boys, Bananas in Pyjamas. Hollys play Space Virgins was a finalist in the ATYP Foundation Commission in 2017 and 2018.

In 2019 Holly, along with her co-collaborator, won funding through Screen Australia and ABCs DisRupted Initiative for their original project, Rocky & Me. Recently, Holly has returned to the script department of Home and Away (Network Seven).

Since launching her Script Assessment business in 2018, Holly has given feedback to over 100 clients. Holly lectured in Screenwriting at Australian, Film, Television and Radio School for four years, and continues to deliver seminars and lectures around Australia.

It was like Holly had x-ray vision

If youd like feedback on your script, book a Script Assessment session here.

Sponsored post.
Jerusalem: Israel's high court heard petitions on Sunday that seek to block Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a government because he has been charged with serious crimes.

Israeli Prime Minister Banjamin Netanyahu. Credit:AP

An exceptionally large panel of 11 justices participated in the highly anticipated session that was being portrayed by some as a watershed moment for Israeli democracy.

The hearing was broadcast live, a rare arrangement for the court and a nod to ongoing restrictions on public life during the coronavirus pandemic.

Much is at stake. If the court voids Netanyahu's ability to serve as prime minister, Israel could be plunged into political chaos, and it would likely trigger the country's fourth consecutive election in just over 12 months.
Burma Karen Revolutionary Leader and Peacemaker with Myanmar Government Dies

Major General Saw Htay Maung at his KNLA brigade headquarters on the Thai border in 1997. / Uzo Uda

A Karen revolutionary leader, Major General Saw Htay Maung, died aged 93 at his headquarters in Kawkareik Township, Karen State, on May 3. His funeral will be held on May 5 at his headquarters in Toh Kaw Koe village, according to his family.

An ethnic Karen, he was born in Pauk Kyaw village, Thar Paung, Ayeyarwady Region, in 1927. He served in the First Karen Rifles before the formation of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in 1949.

He established Karen National Union (KNU)/Karen National Liberation Army Peace Council on Feb. 11 after a split from the KNU in 2007. His armed group signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) along with the KNU and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army in October 2015 with the Myanmar government. He was a leading Karen military leader who fought for freedom through armed revolution, but he did not live to see freedom for his people.

Colonel Saw Kyaw Nyunt from the KNU/KNLA Peace Council told The Irrawaddy that Maj-Gen Saw Htay Maung was a courageous soldier who bravely attacked his enemy as commander of the KNLA Brigade 7.

He had great fighting experience and knew how to manage an operation, said Col Saw Kyaw Nyunt.

The colonel praised his commanders equal treatment of all ranks and his honesty.

Maj-Gen Saw Htay Maung served on the central committee of the KNU and with Brigade 7 from 1970. He represented the KNLA along with the head of the KNU, General Saw Bo Mya, during the first peace talks with Myanmars military regime in Yangon in 2004.

He had great respect for Gen Saw Bo Mya, according to a KNU leader, Padoh Saw Thmein Tun.

Gen Saw Bo Mya before he died in 2006 reportedly told Maj-Gen Saw Htay Maung to continue to negotiate with the regime for peace.

But the message to continue political negotiations was misinterpreted with Maj-Gen Saw Htay Maung thinking he was being told to cooperate with the regime by disarming [a claim denied by the KNLA Peace Council since 2007], Padoh Saw Thmein Tun added.

He did not fully understand politics and he misunderstood General Myas message, said Padoh Saw Thmein Tun.

The military regime also managed to divide the KNLA, he added.

Maj-Gen Saw Htay Maung came from the military wing of the KNLA and did not trust in politics to solve Karen problems.

Those who deal in politics lack courage and do not dare fight. We have to fight. Unless we fight, our enemy will give us nothing, Padoh Saw Thmein Tun quoted Maj Gen Htay Maung saying.

He was reportedly not interested in politics and banned its discussion in his brigade headquarters, saying it was useless.

I never dared to talk about politics at his headquarters. Some of his informants even tried to listen to us when we discussed politics. He was a fighter and only had experience of fighting. It was sad to see how he disarmed first, before the politicians, said Padoh Saw Thmein Tun.

He would never discuss politics but would have long discussions about military tactics, he said.

A power struggle within the KNLA followed the death of Gen Saw Bo Mya, leading to Maj Gen Htay Maungs split from the KNU.

He supported the NCA after witnessing the suffering of Karen communities because of ongoing warfare.

It was good to have political negotiations to solve armed conflict instead of using force and he was supportive of the peace process, said Col Saw Kyaw Nyunt.

You may also like these stories:

In Myanmars Chin State, Rain and Attack on WFP Convoy Force Aid Deliveries by Boat

Shan State Militia, AA Deny Links Through Lucrative Drug Trade
At face value, getting things done quickly doesnt seem like such a bad thing  but although it might make us feel more productive, this might not be the case. (Getty)

Most of us are guilty of putting off things we dont want to do  a tedious work project, a tax return or even just housework. Its a common tendency that more often than not, can lead to stress or a rushed job as we try to get things done in time.

Not everyone is a procrastinator, though. For some people, the urge to complete a task is far too strong, even if waiting and taking our time would lead to a better outcome.

In 2014, David Rosenbaum, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, coined the phrase precrastination to describe this disposition. He defines it as the tendency to get things done as soon as one can, at the expenditure of unnecessary effort  and sometimes to the detriment of the quality of the job at hand.

People who serially rush into tasks tend very much to be those whose strongest driver is to tick things off their to-do list, says Heather Bingham, an in-house organisational psychologist at investment firm BOOST&Co.

READ MORE: Why do meetings drain you of energy?

Placing that tick or crossing off that line is deeply satisfying and a perfect day or week finishes with nothing left on the list. A completed to-do list restores order to their universe and is the way in which they experience self-validation, which is the most important validation most of us crave.

This springs up a lot with those who have jobs where a significant portion can be done perfectly; accountants, finance managers, engineers  anyone whose chief raison d'etre is to get a spreadsheet into check or create a perfect design, she adds.

Anything else that cannot be completed to perfection can never give them their favourite flavour of satisfaction, so they want rid of it so that they can return to doing work that does.

The reasons why we might precrastinate are multiple. We may rush into tasks if we have too much work to do, so we get things done as soon as possible to lessen the load. Personality traits such as conscientiousness and eagerness to please also play a big part, too.

Story continues

The reasons behind it differ for each person, says Ales Zivkovic, a UKCP-registered psychotherapist. However, precrastinators may rush into tasks to gain a sense of control, in order to ease stress or anxiety.

What I usually observe is that people who do tend to want to finish tasks quickly, will be doing so because of their need for control, he explains. What I mean by that is that finishing tasks quickly gives a person a false sense of control of the environment, which for them translates into control of their internal experience.

During periods of stress, we may have more of an urge to finish things fast, Zivkovic adds. One interesting thing to note is that precrastination and procrastination do not exclude each other out  on the contrary, they may be seen hand in hand. So, whilst an individual may want to finish some of the tasks quickly and with haste, they may actually be doing so because the tasks that they procrastinate on evoke anxiety in them.

READ MORE: Does workplace 'wellness' really help employee mental health?

At face value, getting things done quickly doesnt seem like such a bad thing. But although it might make us feel more productive, this might not be the case. Especially if the urge to move some off our to-do list is greater than the desire to do it well.

Think of it this way  someone who procrastinates may leave an essay to the last minute and do a sub-par job. But while a precrastinator might finish the essay with two weeks to spare, they may skip crucial research and leave themselves exhausted and stressed out.

Were so keen to remove the mental load of an un-done task, or put behind us the pain of actually doing it, that well rush it without care  especially if were groaning under a seemingly never ending to-do list, says Hannah Martin, psychotherapist and founder of Talented Ladies Club.

Remember the relief you felt at school when you finished your homework? But rather than spend time thoroughly completing each task correctly, youd dash through it, not caring if you got each answer right or finished tasks properly. Getting your marks back from your teacher was tomorrows problem. All you wanted, in the moment, was to have your homework done.

READ MORE: Should we all be doing walking meetings?

Ultimately, precrastinating may lead us to spend even more time on a task we thought we had finished. This short-sighted, now-focused approach means that in the long run you spend more time and effort on a task, correcting and mitigating the sloppy mistakes of your first attempt, Martin explains. Far better to spend a little more time and effort upfront getting it right at the first pass.
Bengaluru, May 4 : Strict implementation of lockdown measures, effective surveillance, extensive testing and excellent patient care have powered Karnataka to register only 651 Covid-19 cases till Monday, said Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey.

"Karnataka has registered only 651 Covid-19 cases because of strict implementation of lockdown guidelines by the state administration, effective surveillance tracking and contact tracing, institutional quarantine of primary contacts and high-risk international passengers, extensive testing and state-of-the art patient care," said Pandey in an interview with IANS.

As part of Covid-19 combat efforts, the state government enforced strict surveillance of public places, containment zones and buffer zones.

"Regular health check-up of high-risk households, house to house survey of vulnerable population (pregnant women, tuberculosis, asthma and HIV patients, organ transplantees etc.) and detail survey are being done," said Pandey.

Other measures included prompt reporting of Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), including pharmacists being ordered to report suspicious medical purchases linked to Covid-19 also proved helpful.

Similarly, meticulous tracing of Covid-19 patient contacts, deploying tools such as Covid Quarantined Alert System (CQAS) with geographical markers and apps such as Apthamitra helpline, Aarogya Setu and Quarantine Watch enabled the state in containing unchecked transmission.

From reporting 110 confirmed cases amounting to 5.5 per cent of the country's 1,965 cases a month ago, Karnataka has seen 589 cases at the beginning of May, accounting for 1.5 per cent of India's 37,275 cases.

Being "After one month, as on Saturday we have 589 cases amounting to 1.5 per cent of the country's 37,275 cases. Today we stand at number 12 among all the states and Union Territories. In Karnataka, the recovery rate stands at 42.6 per cent compared to 27 per cent all over the country," said the Health Commissioner.

By Friday, the state Health and Family Welfare Department has tested 64,898 samples, out of which 589 have returned positive.

"It means that for every positive person, we are testing 110 persons or we have a positivity rate of 0.90 per cent. This indicates that very liberal and extensive testing done by the state," Pandey said.

In comparison, the rate of positivity in other places is as follows: Delhi 19. 3 per cent, Maharashtra 9.2 per cent, Gujarat 7.2 per cent, Rajasthan 3.3 per cent, Tamil Nadu 3.2 per cent, Punjab 1.9 per cent and Kerala 1.4 per cent, among others.

According to Pandey, on a daily basis, more than 4,500 people are being tested for Covid-19 in the state.

The Health Commissioner, however, ruled out the effect of summer temperature on the relatively low Covid-19 transmissions in the state.

"There is no verified study on the effect of temperature on the virus. It is more of containment measures and implementation of strict lockdown measures like remaining at home by the public at large, maintaining physical distancing, use of masks in public places, use of hand sanitisers and maintaining personal hygiene," he pointed out.

Explaining the reason why only 11 districts, including Bengaluru and Mangaluru, have been turned into red zones, Pandey said that timely identification was the key, along with strict quarantining, testing, stamping and movement restrictions.

Karnataka's Covid-19 red zones, places with 15+ cases, include Bengaluru Urban (162 cases), Bidar (16), Kalaburagi (64), Bijapur (46), Bagalkote (33), Belgaum (73), Davangere (31), Dakshina Kannada (22), Mysuru (90), Mandya (28) and Chikkaballapura (21).

The state's orange zones, places with 5-15 cases, feature Dharwad (10 cases), Uttara Kannada (11), Bellary (13) and Tumkur (7).

Likewise, six districts are in the green zone, places with 1-5 cases. They are Gadag (5 cases), Haveri (1), Chitradurga (1), Kodagu (1), Udupi (4) and Bengaluru Rural (3).

Yadagiri, Raichur, Koppal, Shimoga, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, Chamarajangar, Ramanagara and Kolar are yet to reports Covid-19 cases.

Bengaluru Urban leads the state's Covid burden with 25 per cent cases, followed by Mysuru (13.8 per cent), Belgaum (11.2 per cent), Kalaburagi (9.8 per cent), Bijapur (7.1 per cent) and Bagalkote (5.1 per cent).

Of the 651 cases across Karnataka, 302 are active, 321 got discharged and 27 patients died of Covid-19.

(Sharon Thambala can be contacted at thambalasharon@gmail.com)
New service making it easier to report suspicious emails launched

This article is old - Published: Monday, May 4th, 2020

A new service making it easier to report suspicious and scam emails has been launched.

It features as part of the National Cyber Security Centres (NCSC) Cyber Aware campaign which aims to help tackle online criminals.

Part of the campaign sees the creation of the Suspicious Email Reporting Service which will make it easy for people to forward suspicious emails to the NCSC  including those claiming to offer services related to Covid-19.

The NCSC makes up part of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and its been revealed theyve already taken down 2,000 scams  including 471 fake online shops  trying to trick people looking for coronavirus-related services.

Ciaran Martin, NCSC Chief Executive Officer, said: With greater use of technology, there are different ways attackers can harm all of us.

Thats why we have created a new national reporting service for suspicious emails  and if they link to malicious content, it will be taken down or blocked. By forwarding messages to us, you will be protecting the UK from email scams and cyber-crime.

James Brokenshire, Minister for Security, added: I encourage everyone to follow the Cyber Aware advice and to use the Suspicious Email Reporting Service.

They provide important new ways in which we can protect ourselves as well as our families and businesses.

If you have received an email which youre not quite sure about, you can forward it to the Suspicious Email Reporting Service by emailing report@phishing.gov.uk

The NCSC will then analyse the suspect email and any websites it links to. Whilst the NCSC is unable to inform you of the outcome of its review, they confirm they will act upon every message received.

You should not report crimes by contacting the NCSC in this way. If you think you may have been the victim of fraud or cyber-crime, you should report this to Action Fraud via their website or by calling 0300 123 2040.
Express News Service By

NEW DELHI: After failing to deliver the desired results in agriculture in his first term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday called for reforms in agricultural marketing and freeing the agrarian sector of various restrictions with appropriate backing of statute. In the meeting the possibility of developing e-NAM into a platform to enable e-commerce was also discussed.



The PM on Saturday presided over a high-level meeting on agriculture, which was attended by Home Minister Amit Shah, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who focused on making strategic interventions in agriculture, said an official statement.

Discussion was around the possibilities of uniform statutory framework in the country to facilitate new ways for farming which will infuse capital and technology in the agrarian economy. Besides strategic interventions in the existing marketing eco-system, challenges of (adopting) Model Land Leasing Act were also discussed, said the statement.

It also added that the meeting also deliberated on making Essential Commodities Act compatible with present times for large scale private investment in post-production so that the agriculture infrastructure is incentivised and also has a positive effect on commodity derivative markets.

The pros and cons of bio-technological developments in crops for enhancement of productivity and reduction in input costs was also deliberated, the statement stated. Concessional credit flow to strengthen agriculture infrastructure, special Kisan Credit Card saturation drive for PM-Kisan beneficiaries and facilitating inter and intra-state trade of agriculture produce to ensure fairest return to farmer were some of the important areas covered during the meeting, added the official statement.
Bernard John "Bernie" Waclawski, age 87, passed away on April 30, 2020 at Hospice House in Charles County.



Bernie was born on June 24, 1932 in Dickson City, PA, a small mining town. After high school, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving his country on two different aircraft carriers during the Korean Conflict. He subsequently attended college and graduate school, obtaining his Master's Degree in Physics from Penn State University, Phi Beta Kappa. While at Penn State, Bernie met and married his sweetheart, Cecily Quayle Waclawski. They moved to the D.C. Metro area, where Bernie worked as a Physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology for nearly 30 years. His work focused on low-energy particle physics.



After residing more than 40 years in Rockville, Md., Bernie moved to La Plata, Md., where he lived for the past 11 years. He greatly enjoyed math, physics, reading, and crossword puzzles, and he could frequently be seen walking around town as long as his health allowed.



Bernie and Cecily raised one daughter, Debra. Bernie's number one goal in life was to protect and provide for his wife and his daughter.



In addition to his parents, Bernie was preceded in death by his wife, Cecily Quayle Waclawski.



He is survived by his daughter, Debra Lynn Jones, and her husband, Steve, of Port Tobacco, Md.



In light of current circumstances, interment will be private and take place at a later date at Arlington National Cemetery, with U.S. Navy Honors, where Bernie will be laid to rest with his late wife, Cecily.



In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in Bernie's memory may be made to The Salvation Army or Hospice of Charles County, 2025 Davis Road, Waldorf, Md.
Top government lawyers bid to stop operation of countrys largest media company denounced as an assault on free press.

The Philippines largest television network is facing possible closure on Monday, after President Rodrigo Dutertes allies in Congress refused to renew the stations 25-year licence in a move critics and media watchdogs have denounced as part of the governments continuing assault on the free press.

On the eve of the May 4 deadline, Dutertes Solicitor General Jose Calida said there was no legal basis to give ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation even a provisional licence as it awaits approval from Congress, threatening to prosecute any government officials who defied the order.

No less than the Constitution requires a prior franchise from Congress. Hence, when there is no renewal, the franchise expires by operation of law. The franchise ceases to exist and the entity can no longer continue its operations as a public utility, Calida said in a statement on Sunday, which was also World Press Freedom Day.

Since becoming president in June 2016, Duterte has repeatedly expressed his disdain towards the television network, which is owned by one of the richest families in the Philippines.

Duterte claimed that ABS-CBN had refused to run his political advertisements during the campaign season  allegations the network has denied.





ABS-CBNs coverage of the war on drugs, which has killed thousands of people, also angered the Philippine president.

On many occasions, the president has threatened to block the renewal of the networks franchise, while suggesting that the owners should sell the company to break the impasse. At the same time, he insisted that his hand-picked leaders in Congress were free to decide on the issue.

Provisional license

Several bills have been pending before Congress since 2019 for the renewal of ABS-CBNs licence, but Congress sat on the legislation citing other priorities. The House of Representatives adjourned in March without taking up any of the bills for renewal.

As a remedy for the delay, the Department of Justice advised the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the government agency tasked with awarding broadcast licences, to issue ABS-CBN an interim licence to allow it to continue operating, with consent from Congress.

House Speaker Alan Cayetano had also sent a letter to the NTC urging the issuance of a provisional licence effective on May 4. Cayetano, an ally of Duterte, had previously accused the network of bias against him during previous elections.





Even the NTC had also said that it will allow ABS-CBN to continue operating while waiting for the new franchise, which Congress is expected to take up once it returns from recess.

After the lockdown in the Philippines in mid-March due to the coronavirus health emergency, the NTC also said that all permits to operate and maintain broadcast, which are expiring within the quarantine period, would be automatically renewed.

The permit will be valid for 60 days from the end of the lockdown, according to the NTC. Duterte has extended the lockdown until May 15 in Metro Manila and some parts of the island of Luzon. It remains unclear if the order will be lifted or extended.

Solicitor generals dissent

However, in his statement on Sunday, Calida, the solicitor general, insisted that NTC has no power to issue any such licence to ABS-CBN, citing provisions in the Philippine Constitution, which he said gave Congress exclusive powers.

Although this legislative power may be delegated to administrative agencies through a law, at present, there is no such law giving the NTC or any other agency the power to grant franchises to broadcasting entities.

A 2003 Philippine Supreme Court decision also ruled that NTC cannot issue a provisional permit without the legislatures backing.

Members of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) demonstrate in support of press freedom, in front of the Supreme Court in Manila [File: Francis R Malasig/EPA]

Without the franchise, ABS-CBN now faces the possibility of having to stop broadcasting, and could even face a court could order to stop operations. However, it could continue as a content provider.

Earlier this year, Calida had also ignited anger when he filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking to invalidate ABS-CBNs licence altogether.

In a statement on Sunday, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) denounced Calidas latest legal manoeuvre.

Is the government so blinded by its chief executives hatred of an entity that it dares to flaunt our nations collective sense of fair play, due process, and common good when the entire country grapples with a problem infinitely more pressing and dangerous, NUJP said referring to the coronavirus lockdown.

Executives of the media company, ABS-CBN, appeared before a Senate hearing in February to make their case for the renewal of the companys franchise [Aaron Favila/AP Photo]

Tyrants want to control the press

ABS-CBN is not the first media company that has earned Dutertes ire.

His administration continues to pursue cases against the news website, Rappler and its editor, Maria Ressa, after its extensive reporting on his war on drugs and his administrations role in spreading fake news.

The countrys largest newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer, was also forced to sell to an ally of the president, billionaire Ramon Ang, after Duterte threatened its owners with legal consequences. The newspaper was also critical of the drug war. In the run-up to the 2016 elections, it also reported about Dutertes alleged hidden wealth.

Tyrants always want to control the press, and Duterte is no exception, said Fe Zamora, a veteran journalist who has covered several Philippine presidents.

He has succeeded to a certain extent, in the sense that the media, in general, has become timid. Government propaganda sometimes are reported as news without that probing and critical eye.





While the Duterte administrations lack of transparency poses a stumbling block in any journalists work, she said that it should also serve as a challenge.

But there is hope in some young journalists who continue to soldier on despite the threats and intimidation.

At ABS-CBN, its more than 11,000 employees await any last-minute decision from the Duterte administration, even as they also remain under lockdown.

While not commenting on the legal merits of the franchise renewal, Inday Espina-Varona, an ABS-CBN editor and writer, told Al Jazeera that any gag on any media entity or individual journalist, or group of journalists, is a blow against democracy.

Amid the challenges, journalists will fight on, will continue to explore every platform to bring the news to our people.
The Osun State Government on Sunday announced the arrest of 27 illegal miners in the state. Those apprehended include 17 Chinese nationals and 10 locals, including a local traditional ruler (Baale).

The arrest was confirmed by the Deputy Chief of Staff to the State Governor, Abdullahi Binuyo, who noted that no responsible government will fold its arms and watch its land being degraded by unauthorised persons.

PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the arrest was executed by the recently inaugurated Osun State Security Taskforce (Amotekun) around Ilesa and Ife axis of the state.

This action is coming five months after a report by PREMIUM TIMES exposed how a large number of illegal miners pursued from Zamfara now carry out their unauthorised business in Osun, largely working for Chinese firms. After this newspapers expose, Nigerians on social media charged the authorities to take appropriate steps to stop illegal gold mining in the state and other places.

Also, public health experts warned that if not properly tackled, illegal mining will lead to environmental and human health problems.

Last week, the state government arrested 11 indigenes of Zamfara who sneaked into the state for alleged illegal mining activities amidst the coronavirus lockdown.

Addressing journalists on Sunday, Mr Binuyo said beyond the economic leakages, the illegal miners had also polluted the Osun River with poisonous metals, thereby making it unsafe for human consumption and irrigation. He added that those arrested will be prosecuted and made to pay compensation.

The Osun State Government on Sunday announced the arrest of 27 illegal miners in the state. Those apprehended include 17 Chinese nationals and 10 locals, including a local traditional ruler (Baale).

As part of the governments economic reforms, solid minerals is a major sector we are looking to explore. For these reforms to work, it has become imperative on the reforms to stop illegal mining and step up enforcement activities. The result is what we are witnessing today.

The people you see here neither have genuine mining licences nor are they registered with the government. What they claim to have is Exploration Licences, which does not allow them to mine, the way they are doing. So, we will be prosecuting them and make them pay damages.

The Osun State Government on Sunday announced the arrest of 27 illegal miners in the state. Those apprehended include 17 Chinese nationals and 10 locals, including a local traditional ruler (Baale).

Apart from flouting governments Covid-19 Order, by refusing to stay at home, they have created environmental disaster for us, by poisoning our River which is a major public health concern for us, he said.
A man crosses a nearly empty 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, New York, U.S., March 25, 2020.

REUTERS/Mike Segar

A new report from researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy lays out three scenarios for how the coronavirus pandemic will progress in the coming months.

Using the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic as a model, experts suggested the COVID-19 outbreak will last between 18 and 24 months.

The pandemic "likely won't be halted until 60% to 70% of the population is immune," the report authors said.

The worst of the three scenarios they outline involves a second, larger wave of coronavirus infections this fall and winter.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus pandemic may last until 2022, according to a report published Thursday.

A group of researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) suggest that the COVID-19 outbreak won't end until 60% to 70% of the human population is immune to the virus, which may take between 18 and 24 months.

The experts laid out three scenarios for how the coronavirus pandemic will progress. The worst-case scenario among these three projections involves a second, larger wave of infections this fall and winter. The report authors suggest this is the most likely outcome, and states need to prepare for it.

"This thing's not going to stop until it infects 60 to 70% of people," Michael Osterholm, report author and the director of CIDRAP, told CNN. "The idea that this is going to be done soon defies microbiology."

'There is no crystal ball'

In this April 30, 2020 photo, protesters rally at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan. Gun-carrying protesters have been a common sight at some demonstrations calling for coronavirus-related restrictions to be lifted.

Paul Sancya/AP

Osterholm and his colleagues examined multiple models that predict future coronavirus impacts, research about how well COVID-19 spreads between people, and data from past pandemics to reach their conclusions.

The coronavirus outbreak shares important similarities to a pandemic influenza, like the 1918 Spanish flu (which infected 500 million people worldwide), which makes this type of flu a solid model for comparison.

Story continues

Both a pandemic influenza and the COVID-19 virus spread via droplets we emit when coughing or sneezing and can pass between infected people showing no symptoms  known as asymptomatic carriers. But even though pandemic influenza may be a good model to try and predict how the COVID-19 will outbreak will play out, experts still aren't sure what to expect.

That's because the coronavirus spreads even more easily than the flu does; an average person with the coronavirus infects between 2 and 2.5 new people: a metric known as the virus' R0 value. Seasonal influenza's Ro value is about 1.3.

"There is no crystal ball to tell us what the future holds and what the 'end game' for controlling this pandemic will be," the report authors wrote.

That's why Osterholm's group came up with three possible scenarios about what might be coming after this first wave of coronavirus infections ends.

Scenario 1: The summer months and beyond brings a series of repetitive, smaller waves

People arrive at Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan to take one of the first trains leaving the city in China's central Hubei province early on April 8, 2020.

Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Image

In this projection, the first COVID-19 waves is followed by a series of repetitive, smaller waves that occur through the summer. Those waves, which come with a lower number of infections with persist over a one- to two-year period, gradually diminishing sometime in 2021.

The authors noted that where those smaller waves occur could depend on what measures certain geographic areas have in place to "flatten the curve," including social distancing and non-essential business closures, and how those measures are rolled back.

Scenario 2: A second, larger wave of infections hits this fall and winter

An elderly person arrives on a stretcher, and is admitted to NYU Langone Health Center hospital on March 23, 2020 in New York City.

ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

The worst of the three scenarios, and the most likely, is one in which the first wave is followed by a larger wave in the fall or winter of 2020, and one or more smaller subsequent waves in 2021.

This mirrors what happened during the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic and the 2009 H1N1 flu.

A second wave with more infections would require the US and other countries to reinstitute mitigation measures, like lockdowns, the authors wrote.

"States, territories, and tribal health authorities should plan for the worst-case scenario," they added.

Scenario 3: The world experiences a 'slow burn' of ongoing transmission

A commuter wears a mask while riding the New York City Subway as the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in the Manhattan borough of New York, April 30, 2020.

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

The final scenario suggests that this first wave of coronavirus infections is the only wave. In the coming months, the COVID-19 pandemic would shift into a "slow burn" of ongoing transmission and new cases.

"While this third pattern was not seen with past influenza pandemics, it remains a possibility for COVID-19," the experts reported.

This possibility would mean US states likely wouldn't need to lockdown again, although cases and deaths would continue to occur.

Each of these projections could be influenced by the development of a vaccine.

But any help a vaccine could provide during the pandemic will be a long time coming, the report authors said. The earliest a vaccine is expected is 2021.

"And we don't know what kinds of challenges could arise during vaccine development that could delay the timeline," they added.

Read the original article on Business Insider
In a ray of hope for some city areas, the Pune Municipal Corporation eased the lockdown on Monday. However, Pune mayor Murlidhar Mohol opposed the relaxation, stating that this will cause a spike in citys Covid-19 positive case tally.

The mayor also spoke to Punes guardian minister and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar suggesting that the curbs continue and the time window to keep shops providing non-essential items open, be reconsidered.

Pawar, according to Mohol, has assured he will consider the request positively.

Mohol said, Pune residents followed the first two lockdown phases sincerely, however, once the lockdown was eased people came out of their homes in large numbers as if there is no threat from the virus, thus violating the social distancing norms.

According to Mohol, the district administrations order has created more confusion among residents. Mohol said that he requested Pawar to keep the time window for shops from 10 am to 2 pm instead of 10 am to 7 pm.

The way people rushed to wine shops on Monday was completely wrong.Who will responsibility if the cases increase? Daily, there are at least 100 positive cases in the city.

Mohol said if the shops are open for longer people will be out of their homes for long hours. Let the number of positive cases in the city come down and then we can relax the restrictions. Pune has limited police force and it is tough to control situation on ground.
Lily James stepped out in London amid the UK's current lockdown to take some fresh air and attempt to pick up a takeaway juice.

But the actress' attempts proved fruitless as she was seen trying to pre-order her drink, only to give up and walk away without one.

The Downton Abbey starlet, 31, still enjoyed a stroll nonetheless, looking stylish in a pair of checked cream dungarees.

Fresh air break: Lily James stepped out in London amid the UK's current lockdown on Monday

Lily added a chic navy trench coat to the casual ensemble, completing it with a leather baker boy cap.

She added leopard-print flats to the look and wore her chestnut tresses loosely around her shoulders in light waves.

The actress appeared to go make-up free, using her cap to shield her eyes from the bright spring sunshine.

She was also seen waving at someone across the street before heading to a local shop and joining the socially-distanced line outside.

Stroll: Lily headed out to get some fresh air and attempt to pick up a takeaway juice

Casual chic: The Downton Abbey starlet, 31, was looking stylish in a pair of checked cream dungarees

Lily's relationship with ex Matt Smith came to a close recently, as he was thought to become close to his The Crown co-star Claire Foy.

But she has evidently remained in touch with Matt, seen taking a stroll with him in March before the country went into lowdown.

Once known for public displays of affection, the couple maintained their distance  as well as guarded expressions on their faces  as they strolled near the North London home they once shared.

They certainly appeared in no danger of breaching the Governments social distancing guidance to remain at least two metres apart to halt the spread of coronavirus.

Fruit-free: The actress' attempts to find a juice proved fruitless as she was seen trying to pre-order her drink, only to give up and walk away without one

Stylish: Lily added a chic navy trench coat to the casual ensemble, completing it with a leather baker boy cap. She added leopard-print flats to the look

In-line: She headed to a local shop and joining the socially-distanced line outside

Lily and the former Dr Who star chatted during their stroll  the first time they had been seen together in public since November, the month they broke up.

The split followed rumours that she had struggled to cope with Matt's close friendship with Claire, 37, which developed as they played the Queen and Prince Philip on acclaimed Netflix series.

However, other sources said that the couple  who met on the set of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies in 2014  were driven apart because of their hectic work schedules.

Oh hi! She was also seen waving at someone across the street

Keeping it local: She picked up some essentials in the London store

Breezy: The actress appeared to go make-up free, using her cap to shield her eyes from the bright spring sunshine

But even before their official split, there were reports of tensions in their relationship, with Lily absent from photographs taken at Matt's 37th birthday party in October.

In December, Lily prompted speculation that she had managed to move on from Matt by leaving a British Fashion Awards party in Mayfair in a taxi with handsome actor Max Ianeselli.

That month she also went on holiday to South Africa with her friends, including stylist Rebecca Corbin-Murray, which she described as a post-traumatic stress getaway.
Westpac's surprise-free half-year result helped the ASX turn an opening fall into a strong gain, despite the spectre of record high unemployment later this year.

The S&P/ASX 200 ended Monday's session 1.4 per cent higher at 5319.8, partly repairing Friday's 5 per cent decline. The market was boosted by stronger than expected building approvals, down 4 per cent instead of an expected 15 per cent, and seemed to brush off a halving in the ANZ Job Ads index.

The financials sector added the most points, while energy was the only sector to close in red. Within financials, Westpac gained 2.8 per cent to $15.77, ANZ Bank gained 2.5 per cent to $16.15, and NAB gained 2 per cent to $16.46. Commonwealth Bank gained 1.8 per cent to $59.88. Macquarie Bank dropped as much as 3.4 per cent in the morning before closing 0.3 per cent higher at $97.23.

Volumes were below average for this year at about $830 million.

Chief investment officer at Allan Gray, Simon Mawhinney, said his fund is taking advantage of capital raisings rather than buying and selling stocks. It recently participated in Newcrest and NAB offers.

"I sense that these raisings have a long way to go and it makes sense to keep a lot of dry powder,'' he said. Allan Gray is not ''chipping away at the edges'' - buying small amounts of stock as prices dip - but rather waiting for generous discounts offered to institutional investors.

"Liquidity has dried up quite a lot in the market because there is lots of people waiting for equity issuances.'' Thin volumes add to volatility, he pointed out.

There was a lot of trading in Afterpay following news Chinese company Tencent has taken a 5 per cent stake in the buy-now-pay-later company. Shares closed nearly 24 per cent higher at $36.10.

The materials sector struggled with Fortescue closing 1.7 per cent lower at $10.79, Rio Tinto down 1.6 per cent at $81.30, and South23 down 2.9 per cent to $1.83.

Qube Holdings gained 17.7 per cent higher at $2.56 when it resume trading after a $500 million capital raising.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost around 4 per cent on worries that Donald Trump could impose new tariffs on Chinese exports.

"While investors are already bombarded with weak economic data and bad corporate results as a result of a strict global economic lock down due to the coronavirus crisis, throwing renewed trade tensions will only serve to further dash investors hopes of a healthy global recovery once the crisis is over,'' said senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, Ipek Ozkardeskaya.
STAMFORD  The citys first responders  police, rire and EMS  worked together to collect bags of donated food during a food drive in front of the old Stamford Police Headquarters on Saturday.

Over 5,000 pounds of nonperishable food items were collected to benefit the Fairfield County Food Bank, where demand has increased for food due to the economic impact of the coronavirus. Volunteers representing the three departments loaded carts that were taken in several trips to the FCFB facility in Stamford.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday holds first Cabinet meeting after his government allowed offices to open in the third extension of the lockdown.

Kejriwal, who was so far holding all the meetings through video-conferencing, held the meeting on Monday at the Delhi Secretariat, officials said.

Delhi Cabinet Ministers and officials were present in the meeting, currently underway.

From Monday, while the lockdown has been extended for another two weeks, a number of relaxations have been given by the city government.

While all the government and private offices were allowed to open, those under the non-essential category were only allowed to have 33 per cent attendance.

So far, more than 4,500 coronavirus cases have been reported in the city.
The Lithuanian Navy is looking to expand its fleet of Skalvis-class Mine Counter Measures (MCM) vessels with the procurement of a third hull to be overhauled and upgraded. It will probably be the HMS Quorn, which patrolled the seas as part of the Royal Navy fleet of Hunt Class Mine Countermeasures Vessels (MCMVs) until 2017.

The Lithuanian Navy is looking to expand its fleet of Skalvis-class Mine Counter Measures (MCM) vessels with the procurement of a third hull to be overhauled and upgraded. It will probably be the HMS Quorn, which patrolled the seas as part of the Royal Navy fleet of Hunt Class Mine Countermeasures Vessels (MCMVs) until 2017.

M53 Skalvis MCMV (Picture source: Lithuanian MoD picture)

HMS Quorn, which was decommissioned in December 2017, is being transferred under a sales package that will include the regeneration and upgrade of the vessel. The United Kingdom's Defence Equipment Sales Authority (DESA), part of the MoD's Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organisation, will contract for the regeneration and upgrade on behalf of the Lithuanian Defence Materiel Agency. The package is estimated to be worth between GBP40-50 million (USD50.4-63.3 million).

HMS Quorn is the third MCMV DESA has sold to Lithuania, following in the wake of HMS Dulverton and HMS Cottesmore in 2008. They became operational as the Skalvis class in 2011.

The sale will bring in 1m and there will be income from a levy following the sale of the sonar system on HMS Quorn. The 750,000 cost of disposing of the ship has been avoided.

Lithuania wants the vessel to deliver the same capability as the Skalvis class, which it will operate alongside, meaning a significant upgrade programme will be required.

There will be a competition launched for the contract, which could lead to two years of work for a company which has prior experience of the Hunt Class; most likely a British firm. It is hoped the vessel will be operational for Lithuania in 2023.

Thanks to its weapons and sensor systems, the Hunt-class can combine both mine warfare and maritime patrol missions.

Hunt-class mine counter measure vessel Quorn (M41) (now decommissioned) (Picture source: Thales picture)

About the Hunt Class Vessels:

The Hunt Class vessels specialise in active mine-hunting. They use high-definition sonar to scour the worlds seabeds for mines and lost explosives, which are then destroyed by the ships clearance diving teams or mine disposal system.

The Hunt-class MCMV is a 725 tons vessel specialized in active mine hunting built by Vosper Thornycroft and Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited for the Royal Navy from 1979. Of the 13 vessels built, 10 remain in service today. The Greek and Lithuanian navy each have two vessels in their fleet.

The mine countermeasure vessel is manned by a crew of 47 sailors. The weapons suite consists in a single 30mm DS30M Mark 2 gun, 2 miniguns and 3 general-purpose machine guns.
Panos Panay, vice president of Microsoft Surface Computing, speaks about the new Microsoft Surface Laptop during a Microsoft launch event, May 2, 2017 in New York City.

One apparent winner in the age of Covid-19  along with grocery delivery services, streaming apps and video-calling services  is the good old personal computer, judging by usage gains in recent weeks.

The coronavirus has changed daily life for people all over the world, and that includes the use of technology. When people are mostly staying in, there's less need for travel-oriented services like mobile-friendly Airbnb, Google Maps or Uber. And if people are staying home they can take advantage of larger screens and keyboards that allow for faster text input.

That's good news for companies that make PC hardware, software and peripherals, which were suppressed by the rise of mobile devices like Apple's iPhone and competitors running Google's Android operating system.

"Customers are using Windows PCs to stay productive, connect and learn in this time. In fact, over 4 trillion minutes are being spent on Windows 10 a month, a 75% increase year on year," Panos Panay, Microsoft's chief product officer, wrote in a blog post on Monday. Windows had nearly 87% share of the PC operating system market in April, according to NetMarketShare, and in March, Microsoft said it had reached 1 billion active Windows 10 devices.

After Windows, the second most popular PC operating system is Apple's MacOS, with about 10% share in April. In the quarter ended March 28, the Mac active installed base hit a record high, Luca Maestri, Apple's finance chief, told analysts on a conference call Thursday. The company expects Mac revenue growth to accelerate in the current quarter, Maestri said. (On Monday Apple announced a new MacBook Pro laptop with an improved keyboard.)

Sales of notebook PCs and PC accessories jumped in the first two weeks of March, according to the NPD Group, and PC sales grew some 53% during the week of April 18, a company spokesperson told CNBC in an email on April 27.

"PCs have grown by at least 30% each of the last five weeks," the spokesperson wrote. "Chromebook sales have been up over 100% for each of those weeks. Windows sales up 36% last week and 45% for the last five weeks." IDC estimated that PC shipments were down about 10% in the first quarter because of lower supply.

The resurgence of the personal computer is not necessarily coming at the expense of mobile devices, although people are generally less mobile than usual in places where officials have directed people to stay home.

The New York Times found that Apptopia and SimilarWeb data from January through March showed spikes in the use of websites like Facebook and Netflix, and less pronounced usage increases for those apps.

Last month Facebook announced two product updates that make it easier to use some of its most popular services from a desktop or laptop computer. It announced the availability of MacOS and Windows clients for its Messenger chat app, and it made Instagram direct messages available on the web.

The new golden age of the PC may not last long, however. Governments are still deciding when people can return to offices, schools and other facilities.

Watch: Albion's Ware: Tech has been able to withstand Covid-19 pandemic, emerge as a utility
Doctors have launched a campaign calling for home devices that measure blood oxygen levels to be available on prescription.

They act as an early warning system for people at increased risk of a 'silent pneumonia' death due to coronavirus.

They want the matchbox-sized gadgets, known as pulse oximeters, to be given to those in most urgent need for free. They also advise against otherwise healthy people buying them, to avoid a shortage for those who need them most.

One sinister feature of Covid-19 is that it causes a catastrophic fall in oxygen levels without patients noticing. Intensive care specialists have seen people chatting normally on their phones when their blood oxygen is only at 50 per cent  it should be around 92 per cent. This deficit means they are close to dying, as their vital organs will not be getting enough oxygen.

Doctors have launched a campaign calling for home devices that measure blood oxygen levels to be available on prescription (file photo)

Doctors are pointing out that more than one million people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a smoking-related lung condition, and a further 250,000 with severe asthma, are particularly vulnerable to oxygen starvation.

A paper published in March by Dr Vageesh Jain, a senior public health specialist at University College London, showed that COPD was the 'strongest predictor' of severe disease. The review discovered COPD patients were six times more likely to develop severe Covid-19 infection and 17 times more likely to need intensive care treatment.

A silent drop in oxygen levels also means patients are at risk of dying before they even know they have been infected, but when it is already too late to save them. Those with COPD are especially vulnerable because their lungs have already been damaged by the underlying disease.

Doctors are pointing out that more than one million people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a smoking-related lung condition, and a further 250,000 with severe asthma, are particularly vulnerable to oxygen starvation (file photo)

There is also a debate about whether millions who are vulnerable due to old age should also be issued with pulse oximeters, ahead of the anticipated second wave of coronavirus infections this winter.

Some are suggesting that people with Covid-19 should also be given the devices to help monitor them. As medical consultations are now taking place exclusively online or over the phone, the opportunity for a doctor to get an instant read-out of blood oxygen levels would help them decide whether a patient needs to go to hospital.

Apps that give GPs access to pulse oximeter readings taken at home have been developed.

Nearly 187,000 people have contracted Covid-19 in the UK, and 28,446 have died.

Dr Nick Summerton, a GP in Howden, East Yorkshire, who is a specialist in the use of diagnostic tools in primary care, says that up to one in 30 of these deaths is likely to have involved someone suffering from COPD. A smaller, unknown proportion may have been people with severe asthma who were unable to fight off the infection.

Dr Nick Summerton, a GP in Howden, East Yorkshire, who is a specialist in the use of diagnostic tools in primary care, says that up to one in 30 of these deaths is likely to have involved someone suffering from COPD

'Blood oxygen is a fifth vital sign alongside pulse, temperature, blood pressure and breathing,' he says. 'One feature of this disease is that it can lower people's blood oxygen levels and create this serious risk of patients dying before they get treatment.

'With COPD, you might not be able to tell until it's too late to save them [because their organs have already suffered irreversible damage due to a lack of oxygen].

In recent weeks, Dr Summerton has been helping to field calls for the NHS 111 urgent medical advice helpline.

'We have to work out whether people can be managed at home, or need to be seen by a GP or sent to hospital,' he says. 'There is a big group who will be managed at home, and if we are going to do that pulse oximeters would make that process much safer.

'Some of my patients have bought their own, but the ones most in need are those who can't afford to buy them. This is why we think they should be available on the NHS.' Dr Summerton will be writing to Health Secretary Matt Hancock to call for this. 'They are inexpensive for the NHS to provide,' he adds.

The devices clip onto the finger and send a beam of light through the finger to a sensor on the other side of the unit.

Oxygenated and deoxygenated blood absorb light differently. The oximeter uses this to provide a blood oxygen level reading, which is displayed on a screen. A healthy person should have a reading above 95 per cent.

It was a low reading from a pulse oximeter which alerted doctors to the severity of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's condition and his need to go to hospital.

Dr Summerton said: 'Some of my patients have bought their own, but the ones most in need are those who can't afford to buy them. This is why we think they should be available on the NHS.' He will be writing to Health Secretary Matt Hancock to call for this. 'They are inexpensive for the NHS to provide,' he adds

'Normally, doctors would be more concerned about [other] symptoms, but Covid-19 is slightly odd,' says Ian Pavord, a professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Oxford and chief medical adviser to Asthma UK.

'Blood oxygen can go very low in a patient who is not symptomatic. If I am doing virtual consultations, I can see that kind of information would be very helpful.'

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: PHARMACIST GEMMA FROMAGE EXPLAINS HOW THE SAME MEDICINES CAN DIFFER IN PRICE These anti-allergy tablets contain loratadine, which is a long-acting, non-drowsy antihistamine used to treat the symptoms of allergies, such as sneezing, watery eyes and a runny nose. Its also used for reactions to insect bites and stings and for some food allergies. Prices vary considerably depending on brand but the quantity of active ingredient in the majority of products is 10mg, making them identical. Left: Wilko one-aday hayfever and allergy tablets, 14 tablets, 80p. Right: Bells Healthcare hayfever & allergy relief, 30 tablets, 2.49 Left: Boots one-a-day hayfever & allergy relief, 14 tablets, 3.99. Right: Clarityn allergy, 14 tablets, most pharmacists, 5.49 Pictured: Superdrug onea- day hayfever & allergy tablets, 30 tablets, 6.29 Advertisement

Lionel Tarassenko, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Oxford, is also calling for pulse oximeters to be prescribed to those in high-risk groups. He has developed an app with Sensyne Health that can provide GPs with an instant reading from an oximeter used by a patient at home.

The CVm-Health app was formally launched late last month. It can be downloaded for free by NHS doctors and their patients.

Professor Tarassenko is in talks with the NHSX agency, set up to expand the use of remote and digital healthcare solutions, regarding the app.

'People are starting to think more about a second wave of coronavirus infections hitting us,' he says. 'I would hope the recommendation to use pulse oximetry more widely will have gone through by then.'

Pulse oximeters can easily be bought online, costing from around 20. Professor Tarassenko warned there are dozens of devices on the market and, while price varies wildly, the basic function does not.

Consumers currently have no way of knowing if the device they buy has been fully approved and checked for accuracy.

Like many of the drugs and equipment in demand since the coronavirus crisis began, there are already signs of a shortage of pulse oximeters, with outlets such as Argos and Lloyds Pharmacy reporting limited or no stock.

Following recent suggestions that we should all have pulse oximeters at home, Dr Babak Javid, a consultant in infectious diseases at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, said that it's important to preserve supply for those most at risk from Covid-19.

Dr Javid, who was one of the first to highlight the benefits of the devices, added: 'They would be of very little value for young, healthy people. For the majority they really wouldn't be that useful.'

He says people in low-risk groups should think twice about buying them, because there will be a finite number manufactured.

He suggests that we could address the shortage of pulse oximeters by giving them to the task forces set up to trace coronavirus cases.

'If these task forces were issued with pulse oximeters, they would have a pretty simple five-second job of giving them to those who need them. This would avoid Britons buying millions of them and causing a global shortage,' he tells Good Health.

Dr Andy Whittamore, clinical lead for the Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation Partnership, said: 'The use of pulse oximeters in response to Covid-19 is still being examined.

'Home-use oximeters, which are available for sale online and in chemists, can sometimes give poor or inaccurate measurements. It is important that, before testing at home, people talk to their healthcare professional.'
The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on a raft of petitions challenging restrictions on 4G connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir, where high-speed Internet has been.blocked to prevent terrorists from using it as a communications tool .

The petitions filed by the Foundation for Media Professionals and Association of Private Schools in J&K, among others, challenged a decision by the administration to restrict connectivity in the entire Union territory to 2G services.

Amid the lockdown for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) which has infected more than 700 people in J&K, it is imperative to restore high-speed internet connectivity, the petitioners argued. This would give doctors access to the latest information on Covid-19, facilitate video consultations with patients in line with social distancing norms, and enable students to log onto online classrooms , the petitions said.

Before reserving its order, the bench of justices NV Ramana, SK Kaul and BR Gavai said that on the one hand was the right to health and education of citizens and on the other was the equally pressing concern of national security.

The Centre and the J&K administration claimed that any relaxation on restrictions will promote militancy. Attorney general KK Venugopal argued that militancy was on the rise and the courts should not interfere with decisions that are best left to the wisdom of the government.

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for J&K, argued that the right to Internet was not a fundamental right and can be restricted. Responding to the claim made n the petitions that 4G was essential in the battle against Covid-19 , Mehta said, There are other places in the country where there is no internet or only 2G network is available. We have no information yet that someone has died of Covid-19 there as they did not have internet access.

The petitioners, represented by senior advocates Huzefa Ahmadi and Salman Khurshid, said the government must demonstrate a nexus between high-speed internet connectivity and militancy.

Ahmadi said that militancy has been around in J&K for a long time and in a lockdown scenario, the right to health of citizens must take precedence. Khurshid submitted that the government could curb the spread of anti-national activities through the internet, but .that should not be made the grounds to deprive the entire J&K of high-speed internet.

Article 370 that granted J&K special status was scrapped in August last year and the state was bifurcated into two Union territories, J&K and Ladakh, in moves accompanied by widespread arrests and a communication blockade that lasted several months. In January, the apex court directed the government to review the blockade from time to time.
A Family Dollar store security guard was fatally shot in Flint, Michigan, on Friday after telling a customer her child had to wear a face mask to enter the store, prosecutors said.

An argument began when the security guard, Calvin Munerlyn, 43, told Sharmel Lashe Teague, 45, that customers needed to wear face masks in the store, Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said at a Monday news conference. She yelled at him, spit on him and drove off, Leyton said. About 20 minutes later, her car returned to the store and her husband and son, Larry Edward Teague, 44, and Ramonyea Travon Bishop, 23, stepped out and confronted Munerlyn, according to investigators who spoke to witnesses in the store and reviewed surveillance video. Bishop shot him, Leyton said.

Leyton said Munerlyn was doing his job, protecting others and enforcing a statewide executive order. In Michigan, people are required to wear face coverings in grocery stores, which can refuse service to anyone who isn't wearing a mask.

"We simply can't devolve into an 'us versus them' mentality," he said. "We need to make a commitment as a community to do the things necessary to allow us to stay healthy and turn a page on this crisis together. Not for ourselves but for Calvin Munerlyn, who lost his life needlessly and senselessly."

Michigan State Police arrested Sharmel Teague but are searching for the two men, Special 1st Lt. David Kaiser said.

All three are charged with first-degree premeditated murder and gun counts. Larry Teague is additionally charged with violating the mandate requiring people to wear face coverings inside grocery stores, which is a misdemeanor, Leyton said.

Social media posts by friends and family memorialized Munerlyn, a father of eight children, by his nickname: "Big Duper." A GoFundMe account for the family has raised more than $28,000, exceeding its goal. Latryna Sims Munerlyn, his wife of 10 years, told NBC 25 that he worked at the store for more than a year.

"He would have given you the shirt off his back, the food off his table," Courtney Cabine, a family friend, told the news station. "He was the life of the party."

Nickolas Harrison, who was Munerlyn's friend for 15 years and had worked other security jobs with him, told The Washington Post that Munerlyn was killed trying to protect others.

"My friend Duper was killed for telling a lady she has to put a mask on to come in the store," he said, "which could save her life or the life of others."

Flint District 1 Commissioner Bryant Nolden, who spoke during the Monday news conference, said he often saw Munerlyn training others free of charge at a public gym in Flint. "When I found out what had happened to him, it really broke my heart because I knew what kind of person he was," Nolden said. "We need to stop the senseless violence in the community. This was totally uncalled for, he didn't bother a soul. All he wanted to do was take care of his family and he always had his kids with him."

Family Dollar's website says store employees may wear face coverings, but there's no requirement listed for customers.

Randy Guiler, a company representative, called the shooting "tragic" in a statement given to The Post.

"We will continue to cooperate fully with local authorities on their investigation," Guiler wrote. "As always, we are committed to ensuring a safe environment for our associates and customers. Out of respect for the family's privacy, we are not commenting further at this time."
DECATUR, Ga. - On this day 60 years ago, a black man driving a white woman was pulled over in a traffic stop that would change the course of American history.

The incident was unknown to most at the time and has been largely forgotten. The man was Martin Luther King Jr., and his citation on May 4, 1960, led to him being sentenced, illegally, to a chain gang.

Georgias segregationist politicians sought to silence King before he could mobilize great masses of people. But it backfired as the mistreatment rocked the 1960 presidential race, prompting African Americans to vote Democrat and help end Jim Crow laws in the Deep South.

Today, theres still a lot at stake for Black people, who are still urging presidential candidates to earn their votes while fighting against new ballot restrictions.

Kings willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice proved to be the catalyst for change, said Maurice C. Daniels, who wrote a biography of Kings lawyer, Saving the Soul of Georgia: Donald L. Hollowell and the Struggle for Civil Rights.

Here we are in 2020 and we see there are systemic, institutionalized mechanisms, just as there were in 1960, to stall, derail and to deny citizens their franchise, Daniels said.

Alicia Garza, whose Black Futures Lab is promoting a Black Agenda 2020, sees lessons for todays activists in how King responded to the traffic stop as he challenged the powerful to provide decent jobs and affordable housing and health care for minorities.

That story means everything, Garza said. Yes we do need to put it all on the line, but bigger than that we need to change the rules that are rigged. I think we will have a rude awakening in November 2020 if we do not get very intentional about Democratic priorities.

King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, hosted the writer Lillian Smith for dinner and he was driving her back to Emory University for her cancer treatments when they were pulled over in DeKalb County, just outside Atlanta.

Smith later wrote that they were stopped because the officer saw her white face with a black man. But King may have been followed: The Associated Press had reported that Georgias segregationist Gov. Ernest Vandiver vowed to keep the Montgomery bus boycott leader under surveillance at all times.

King paid a $25 fine that September to settle the false charge of driving without a license, but said he wasnt aware that he was put on probation, threatening prison if he broke any laws.

Days later, King joined the Atlanta Student Movement s sit-ins campaign, and was charged with trespassing in a whites-only restaurant at Richs Department store.

Atlantas leaders soon buckled as Fulton Countys jails filled, agreeing to desegregate in exchange for ending the boycotts crippling white-owned businesses. Charges were dropped and everyone was freed  except King.

The AP reported on Oct. 25, 1960, that over 300 people crowded into the Decatur courtroom to watch Judge J. Oscar Mitchell sentence King to four months, even though Kings Alabama license was valid until 1962.

I watched in horror as Martin was immediately taken from the courtroom, his hands in metal cuffs behind his back, Mrs. King recalled in her autobiography. Martin later told me that the terrors of southern justice, wherein scores of black men were plucked from their cells and never seen again, ran through his mind.

King urged his wife to be strong in a letter from a Georgia prison. Three years before Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he wrote: this is the cross that we must bear for the freedom of our people.

With days left in the race, the campaigns of Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy sought to downplay civil rights issues for fear of losing southern white votes.

Many African Americans had voted Republican since Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Nixon had just been endorsed by Martin Luther King Sr., the leader of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

But Nixon ignored their pleas for help, while Kennedy called Mrs. King to express his sympathy.

Historians Taylor Branch and David Garrow wrote that Robert F. Kennedy threw a fit, telling aides who fed Mrs. Kings number to his brother that they cost him the presidency. But Robert Kennedy called Mitchell, who reversed his denial of bond, immediately freeing King.

Kings father switched his endorsement, saying Kennedy had the moral courage to stand up for whats right. That quote, and others, appeared in a blue-papered pamphlet titled No Comment Nixon Versus a Candidate with a Heart, Senator Kennedy. Unnoticed by the national media, Kennedy aides and King supporters distributed the pamphlet in black churches around the nation the Sunday before Election Day.

According to The Gallup Poll, Black people voted 61% Democrat/39% Republican in 1956, and 68% Democrat/32% Republican in 1960. The shift among Black voters helped Kennedy win the electoral college and the popular vote by a narrow 113,000-vote margin nationwide, according to Theodore H. White in The Making of the Presidency 1960.

Its a really interesting and nuanced history, said political organizer Mary Hooks, co-director of Southerners on New Ground. The booby traps that Dr. King was experiencing during that time are the same ones that are still trapping up our people every day.

___

This story has been corrected to say that Black people voted 61% Democrat/39% Republican in 1956 and 68% Democrat/32% Republican in 1960 according to the Gallup Poll, not 40% Democrat/60% Republican and 70% Democrat/30% Republican, as was reported by Taylor Branch in Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963. The story published on May 4, 2020, also misattributed the error to Theodore H. Whites The Making of the Presidency 1960.

___

Michael Warren is an editor on the APs South Desk and a contributor to the Race and Ethnicity team. Warren also has volunteered as a mentor to Decatur High School students who persuaded the Georgia Historical Society to erect a marker at the site where King was sentenced.
The Delhi government's nod to open state-run liquor shops from Monday saw people lining up in large numbers outside outlets, with police personnel struggling to manage the crowd.

A shop had to be be closed in Mayur Vihar in east Delhi as people failed to maintain social distancing.

According to an official, about 150 government-run liquor shops have been allowed to open from 9 am to 6.30 pm in accordancewith the latest lockdown relaxations given by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

On Monday, liquor shops opened in the national capital after 42 days. The shops were closed due to lockdown restrictions imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus.

In several areas like Burari, Mayur Vihar, Gandhi Vihar, Rohini and Janakpuri, a large number of people had lined up outside outlets.

Police personnel were seen trying to manage the crowd outside many outlets where more than five people are not allowed at a given time.

The government has directed four state-run agencies, which are responsible to sell liquor, to deploy adequate marshals at these shops.

There are around 850 liquor shops in the city including those run by government agencies and private individuals.

In an order on Sunday night, the excise department also directed officials to identify liquor shops, which are being run by private individuals (L-7 licensee) and fulfil conditions laid down by the MHA.

The officials have been asked them to submit a report within three days.

The government has so far allowed only those liquor shops (L-6 and L-8) to operate which are being run by four state-run agencies responsible for liquor sale in the national capital.

"All liquor shops in malls and markets will remain closed. The government-run shops allowed will operate from 9 am to 6.30 pm.

"The four agencies will deploy marshals to ensure that not more than 5 people are present at one time at the shop," the official said.

The department has asked agencies to coordinate with the local administration and police to maintain law and order.

According to the order, bonded warehouses have also been allowed to resume operation from 7 am to 6.30 pm.

The Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation, the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation, the Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited and the Delhi Consumers Cooperative Wholesale Store have been given the permission to open liquor shops in public places, except malls and market complexes.

The agencies will have to give an undertaking stating that liquor shops being allowed to open will fulfil all MHA guidelines, according to the excise department.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Recent research by Gartner has suggested that South Africa will finish the year as the fourth fastest-growing major IT market in the world, with the countrys broader IT market anticipated to ultimately grow faster than everyone else, except for India, Israel and Singapore.

Gartner research vice president and analyst John-David Lovelock explained that the countrys exceptional performance is being driven in the main by the increasing adoption of cloud computing by local companies.

Their increasing embrace of this technology is, in turn, being driven by the investments made by international cloud providers in local data centres.

The growth in the IT industry in South Africa, which has been driven by consumer device sales in recent years is now switching to enterprise, cloud-driven IT spending. In fact, corporate spending on cloud services and digital transformation is likely to be the sectors saving grace in the coming years. People who did not have cloud before are now piling in, which is why spending in SA is almost all cloud-based growth, said Lovelock.

Traci Maynard, Microsoft Executive at Axiz, suggests that the Microsoft Move to Modern approach, which is part of its current licensing strategy, falls neatly within this growth market, as it is designed to enable innovative new cloud and business scenarios that are able to scale.

This strategy incorporates Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) as a key programme to enable partners to move their end-customers to the cloud with ease. My role at Axiz also incorporates the marketing of these Microsoft business groups and teams across our channel in South Africa and Africa, she added.

Axiz is a solution aggregator focused on offering value-added solutions to its registered partner channel. Its Microsoft CSP offering via AxizCloud  which is a cloud services aggregation platform capable of provisioning, managing, and billing sourced from multiple vendors  forms a vital part of the Axiz business strategy.

Ultimately, she continued, Gartners research seems borne out by what Axiz is witnessing, as the company is also seeing the same trends as Gartner coming to the fore.

She said that Axizs software business across 36 vendors is also showing an increasing contribution to the companys revenue statistics, year-on-year.

Our Microsoft Cloud business is steaming ahead across the Africa continent and we welcome all resellers to talk to us about their Cloud journey. Going solo on your cloud journey can be tricky. By partnering with Axiz and joining a solid partner program, you can skip ahead and jump into the action, right away.

For all cloud sales enquiries, contact [email protected] or Traci Maynard on 011 237 7128 direct. AxizCloud Support can be contacted via email [email protected] and telephonically at 011 082 2626 or 0800 390009, with after-hours support at 060 992 9971.
Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the right price. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

So, the natural question for Oxford BioDynamics (LON:OBD) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.

Check out our latest analysis for Oxford BioDynamics

Does Oxford BioDynamics Have A Long Cash Runway?

A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. When Oxford BioDynamics last reported its balance sheet in September 2019, it had zero debt and cash worth UK15m. In the last year, its cash burn was UK2.9m. That means it had a cash runway of about 5.3 years as of September 2019. Even though this is but one measure of the company's cash burn, the thought of such a long cash runway warms our bellies in a comforting way. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

AIM:OBD Historical Debt May 4th 2020

How Well Is Oxford BioDynamics Growing?

At first glance it's a bit worrying to see that Oxford BioDynamics actually boosted its cash burn by 6.8%, year on year. Also concerning, operating revenue was actually down by 24% in that time. Taken together, we think these growth metrics are a little worrying. While the past is always worth studying, it is the future that matters most of all. For that reason, it makes a lot of sense to take a look at our analyst forecasts for the company.

Story continues

Can Oxford BioDynamics Raise More Cash Easily?

Even though it seems like Oxford BioDynamics is developing its business nicely, we still like to consider how easily it could raise more money to accelerate growth. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash to fund growth. We can compare a company's cash burn to its market capitalisation to get a sense for how many new shares a company would have to issue to fund one year's operations.

Since it has a market capitalisation of UK70m, Oxford BioDynamics's UK2.9m in cash burn equates to about 4.2% of its market value. That's a low proportion, so we figure the company would be able to raise more cash to fund growth, with a little dilution, or even to simply borrow some money.

So, Should We Worry About Oxford BioDynamics's Cash Burn?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Oxford BioDynamics's cash burn. For example, we think its cash runway suggests that the company is on a good path. While its falling revenue wasn't great, the other factors mentioned in this article more than make up for weakness on that measure. Considering all the factors discussed in this article, we're not overly concerned about the company's cash burn, although we do think shareholders should keep an eye on how it develops. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 6 warning signs for Oxford BioDynamics (of which 1 is significant!) you should know about.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies insiders are buying, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)

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.
Henry "Kiki" Watson pleaded guilty to attacking a white man pulled from truck: AP

Most people who got to hear about Henry Kiki Watson was when they watched aerial footage of the Los Angeles riots showing a white van driver being pulled from his construction vehicle and attacked.

Or else it was when the former marine, then aged 27, was arrested and mug-shotted, along with five other young black men and agreed a plea deal to only a modest charge. Or when he appeared with that driver, Reginald Denny, on The Phil Donahue Show after being released from jail, shook his hand and apologised for my participation in the injuries you suffered.

Today, Watson, who was involved in one of the most notorious incidents in the riots and civil unrest that followed the acquittal of four white police officers over the beating a year earlier of black motorist Rodney King, says he has no regrets about what he did. Asked if the 55-year-old Watson would have responded in the same way as his younger self, he says he would have.

The reason, he says, is that the structural racism that helped fuel the anger and riots following the beating of King, has not gone away.

Come on. Racism is racism. You know how Americans feel about black people. You know how British feel about black people. Its worldwide. Its not just an American problem, its a worldwide problem, he tells The Independent from Los Angeles.

S*** aint right. The way that black people are treated in the United States is not right. Youre asking if Im still upset, if Im still angry. F***, yes. Nothing changed. What has changed? Its so funny, people like yourself, journalists, every year they want to know whats changed. Aint nothing changed.

Throughout the 28 years since the riots, Watson has continued to live close to the intersection of Normandie Ave and Florence Ave, where the attack on Denny, then aged 36, was carried out.

The construction worker was ultimately saved after the intervention of four black people  two women and two men  who went to his aid, and managed to drive the truck away from the junction, with him in it. They managed to get the red-coloured rig to the Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, with Denny reportedly coughing up blood.

Story continues

Those people didnt even know him and risked their lives to aid him, Don Kelley, Dennys roommate, told the Los Angeles Times at the time. If no one had helped him, he would be dead.

Denny would later appear with Watson on Donohues show. Reviews said both the formers willingness to forgive, and the latters readiness to apologise, felt less than overwhelming.

This is a civil war, said Denny, who needed intensive hospital treatment and later moved to Arizona where he maintains a low profile. This is not me against Mr Watsonits not a personal vendetta. The problems were happening before Mr Watson and I were born.

Watson, who was only convicted of a minor offence and served less than six months, said he had no regrets for his actions. He points to widespread incidents around the country of young black men dying at the hands of police  Eric Garner in New York, or Michael Brown in Ferguson  as proof that the criminal justice system remained overwhelmingly weighted against people of colour.

No, I dont. Theres no regrets. No remorse. No nothing. That was just an ass-whipping. Black people, they get beat up for years. Weve been getting killed for years. So one ass-whipping? No.

He adds: You guys write this stuff I dont have to. I dont make this up. Aint nothing change? Do you think, Im gonna sit here and tell you Oh, your race relations and everything is wonderful in the United States. Its not. So, Im gonna give you what you need to hear.

For a number of years, a mural could be seen on the side of side of Watsons home, documenting a piece of history in which at least 63 people were killed and which the city appears unable to shed. Last year, the mural was removed when he had his work done to his home. For at the past 20 years, he has run a limousine car business.

Watson says the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that data suggests African Americans have been disproportionately infected and killed, underscored the plight of people of colour in the United States. He says he is unsure about the origins of the disease, but feels that the elites of China and the United States, are looking out for each other.

Im not going to tell you Oh, everything is wonderful. Were holding hands and singing Kumbaya. No.

Everything that happens to a black man, woman or child upset to to the utmost. I feel it all as though it was me myself, he says.

That lets you know, they have not changed. You know, theyve been killing us, theyre still killing us. Its ridiculous. Theyre getting away with murder.
Send in your questions for North Wales Community Health Council chief officer Geoff Ryall-Harvey

This article is old - Published: Monday, May 4th, 2020

On Wednesday, the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service will be giving people in North Wales the chance to put questions on health to the regions leading patient advocate.

Geoff Ryall-Harvey is chief officer of North Wales Community Health Council (CHC)  an independent body tasked with holding Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to account.

He has a wealth of experience representing the interests of patients across the region and in his equivalent, previous role looking out for the rights of service users in Cheshire.

This Wednesday, he will be available for 30 minutes to answer your questions regarding your treatment and how to use the health service during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Ryall-Harvey is particularly worried about people not accessing services when perhaps they should be.

If you have a question about accessing care, if youre worried about cancelled appointments or unsure what to do regarding treatment then email: jez.hemming@reachplc.com and we will try and put your question to him.

The video will be released later on Wednesday with a summary of the best questions and answers.

By Jez Hemming  BBC Local Democracy Reporter (more here on the LDR scheme)
A landslide in Saratoga County, New York, left several residents displaced Sunday afternoon.

Photos of the slide in the town of Waterford, 12 miles north of Albany, show a massive crater that swallowed trees and left houses hanging precariously on the edge.

Image: A drone was deployed to assess the damage of a landslide in Waterford, N.Y. (Saratoga County Office of Emergency Services via Facebook)

The Saratoga Office of Emergency Services said several homes had to be evacuated, and three homes were affected, according to the F.B. Peck Hose Company, which assisted the Waterford Fire Department. But no injuries were reported and no structures were totally destroyed.

The area will be monitored over the week, and the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office said a drone was deployed to assess the damage so that responders wouldn't have to risk entering the collapse area.
Photo: Contributed

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me over the past several weeks. Whether you did so by phone, email or through video conferencing  it is hearing your personal situations that allows me to be your voice during these unprecedented times.

For businesses, many of your ideas have turned into recommendations we have made to the government. I have been involved in many meetings with other MPs in the Official Opposition and the government (virtually), and I am continuing to bring your thoughts and opinions forward daily.

This pandemic has created uncertainly for many. Individuals, not-for-profits and businesses are making tough decisions. Ive owned a business with everything on the line, and I can empathize when I hear concerns from new and established businesses today. We need to provide support where most needed now, while defining and rolling out plans for our next steps.

Service Canada offices continue to be closed. If you have any questions about EI, CRA, or any of the new federal programs please reach out. Every persons questions and situations are unique so its best to get details from you. It has been challenging for everyone with daily announcements made without all the details, but we will do our very best to help you. We work closely with other government offices, so if youre not sure who to contact, just reach out and well help direct you. I am so proud of my team who have been working seven days a week since mid-March.

Standing committees are starting up again (virtually), with the focus on COVID-19. I am a member of the industry committee. I had the opportunity to question the minister of small business on April 23 on program requirements that exclude many small business owners. For example, if you use your personal business account (as many small business owners do), or if you dont do payroll for yourself, you may be exempted from the Canada Emergency Business Account Loan. Ive also questioned the minister responsible for tourism about the governments plan for our tourism sector once the economy safely reopens. The minister said that they are not presently working on any plans. Its important to have a plan in place for the thousands of businesses and residents in the Okanagan who are employed in our tourism sector.

Parliament is only sitting in person in the House of Commons for one part-day per week, and there are two virtual online part-day meetings with a limited number of participating MPs. The concept of a virtual Parliament has been misrepresented. Both in person and online are technically committee meetings with a limited number of participating MPs. As the Official Opposition, we have asked the government to include more in-person accountability sittings that meet health and safety requirements.

On May 1, the government made an order in council that immediately brought into effect new firearms regulations. An order in council comes directly from the cabinet without going through the parliamentary process. As such, there is no input from experts or government officials at committee, no debating, no opportunity for amendments by opposition parties, and no vote in the House of Commons on this matter.

With lots happening in Parliament, I know how important it is to continue to reach out virtually to friends and family, especially those living alone. Many not for profit and charity fundraisers have been cancelled, so support your favourites in whatever way you can. Thank you to our first responders, front-line workers and health professionals. Please stay healthy and safe.

Follow my Facebook page or see my website for interviews, press releases, and updates.
Lord Mayor of Belfast Daniel Baker has proposed that the Freedom of the City be bestowed on all frontline workers (Peter Morrison/PA)

The Lord Mayor has proposed that frontline workers should receive the Freedom of the City of Belfast.

Daniel Baker said he has written to all the party group leaders on Belfast City Council to canvass support for the move.

He said frontline workers should include all those providing essential services through the coronavirus pandemic, such as those working in food production, transport and refuse collection as well as health staff.

As the first citizen I have written to all the party group leaders asking for their support to award the freedom of this city to our healthcare workers and all those that are working tirelessly on the frontline to care for vulnerable citizens.

We will forever be in your debt  pic.twitter.com/JPbQkEynWC  Danny Baker (@danielbakersf) May 4, 2020

These are truly unprecedented times for all in society as we continue to battle against Covid-19, he said.

Those on the front line of that battle; our healthcare workers, to those working in shops, food production, bin collection, transport and all other essential services, rightly deserve to be recognised.

I have written to the party group leaders in Belfast City Council to request their support to award the Freedom of the City to all of these invaluable stalwarts.

Without the tireless and dedicated work of our frontline workers we would be in a much bleaker place than what we are today Daniel Baker

Without the tireless and dedicated work of our frontline workers we would be in a much bleaker place than what we are today.

On behalf of all the citizens of Belfast, I want to say thank you for all that youre doing. Youre all truly incredible.

Lets hope that we can mark the Freedom of the City being awarded in a way that is fitting post Covid-19.

The Freedom of Belfast was bestowed on nurses in 2016.

Other previous recipients of the honour include actor Sir Kenneth Branagh, musician Van Morrison, poet Michael Longley and Olympic athlete Dame Mary Peters.
PARIS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire revived calls on Monday for a European tax on digital businesses, saying the coronavirus crisis made such levies more pertinent than ever.

Nearly 140 countries are negotiating the first major rewriting of international tax rules in more than a generation, to take better account of the rise of big tech companies that often book profit in low-tax countries.

However, the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak has left finance ministries more focused on saving their economies than overhauling outdated tax rules, making a deadline of the end of the year to wrap up the talks look increasingly stretched.

Le Maire had said before the crisis that if the talks organised by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development fail, then the European Union should create its own digital tax.

"This crisis shows that those who are making out the best are the digital giants, simply because they are able to keep their businesses going and yet they are the ones that are the least taxed," Le Maire said in a Linkedin Live event.

"My digital tax proposal is more relevant than ever and I hope that our European partners will recognise the absolute necessity to step up the taxation of digital giants," he said.

Past attempts to create an EU-wide digital tax have failed in the face of opposition from Ireland, where many big U.S. tech companies book profits, and some Nordic countries.

In the face of the deadlock, some European countries, starting with France, have pushed ahead with their own national taxes on digital companies.

France's tax triggered threats of tariff retaliation from the United States, which have been put on hold to give time for a deal to be reached this year at the OECD.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas, editing by Larry King)
BOSTON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cengage, an education and technology company, today announced that its merger agreement with McGraw-Hill has been terminated by mutual agreement due to a prolonged regulatory review process and the inability to agree to a divestitures package with the U.S. Department of Justice. In conjunction with the announcement, Cengage reaffirmed its commitment to student affordability and the company's ongoing transformation to digital.

"Cengage entered into the merger agreement as a leader in helping students access affordable course materials and digital courseware," said Michael E. Hansen, CEO, Cengage. "Although we are disappointed that we were unable to finalize the merger, the opportunity ahead remains significant.

"The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the need for students to learn wherever they are," Hansen continued. "On a standalone basis, Cengage is very well-positioned to continue to support the transition to digital and help students save significant money. Looking ahead, faculty and administrators everywhere will be moving their classes online -- and we are now singularly focused on ensuring the Cengage Unlimited subscription and our leading digital courseware platforms continue to deliver value for students and faculty."

Since launching in August 2018, Cengage Unlimited has saved college students over $200 million with more than 2.6 million subscriptions sold. A subscription gives students access to more than 22,000 products, including eBooks, online homework access codes and study guides for one price, no matter how many materials they use. The subscription also includes free access to college success and career support, including activities in resume-building, financial literacy, time management and more. A subscription also includes access to services including Dashlane, Evernote, Kaplan and Quizlet.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, neither Cengage nor McGraw-Hill will be responsible for any payments to the other party as a result of the termination of the merger agreement.

Conference Call

Cengage will host a brief conference call and webcast today at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time to address investor questions. The dial-in number to access the call is U.S./Canada: 1-877-407-0784 and

Toll/International: 1-201-689-8560.

To access the live webcast, please visit: http://public.viavid.com/index.php?id=139743.

A replay of the conference call will also be available beginning at 2:00 p.m. on May 4, 2020 and will remain available through 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on May 11, 2020. The replay may be accessed by dialing 1-844-512-2921. From international locations, the replay may be accessed by dialing 1-412-317-6671, replay Pin Number 13703393. To access the webcast replay, go to: http://public.viavid.com/index.php?id=139743.

About Cengage

Cengage is the education and technology company built for learners. As the largest US-based provider of teaching and learning materials for higher education, we offer valuable options at affordable price points. Our industry-leading initiatives include Cengage Unlimited, the first-of-its-kind all-access digital subscription service. We embrace innovation to create learning experiences that build confidence and momentum toward the future students want. Headquartered in Boston, the company's other businesses include International Higher Education, National Geographic Learning K12 and English Language Teaching, Gale, ed2go and Milady. Visit us at www.cengage.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter.

Media Contacts :

Susan Aspey, Cengage

202.695.6012, [email protected]

SOURCE Cengage

Related Links

http://www.cengage.com


Nigerians In Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) has announced that evacuation of Nigerians from UAE, UK, US and other countries will commence this week.

Chairman, NIDCOM, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, confirmed this morning via her Twitter handle requesting that all applicants should check with the various missions for updates and protocols to abide by.

She tweeted:

Planned evacuation of Nigerians begins from this week. UAE. UK. USA etc All applicants should please check with the various missions for updates and protocols to abide by. May the Lord heal the world.

Planned evacuation of Nigerians begins from this week. UAE. UK. USA etc All applicants should please check with the various missions for updates and protocols to abide by. May the Lord heal the world  Abike Dabiri-Erewa (@abikedabiri) May 4, 2020

The Consulate General of Nigeria in New York has announced that a one way flight is being arranged for stranded Nigerians in US to be conveyed back to Abuja. The flight is scheduled for Sunday, May 10, 2020 by 9:15pm.

The projected cost of flying with the 270 passenger capacity Ethiopian Airline Aircraft  Between 1,300 and 1,700 per adult will be borne by the passengers.

See full notice below.

According to Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) guidelines, all returnees will be compulsorily placed on 14 days isolation at an NCDC approved facility.

Some of the intending returnees have revealed some of their challenges in meeting the requirements of eligibility.

One of the challenges highlighted is the cost of undergoing a COVID-19 Test which is to reveal the status of the applicant. According to one of the intending returnees, the UKs National Health Service (NHS) is not conducting free general public tests for now and it cost 350 to get it done in a private laboratory.

Some persons have suggested that the Regime should go ahead, bring them home and conduct the COVID-19 test upon arrival since they will be placed on a compulsory 14 days isolation.

Some other persons have wondered the rationale behind the decision of those wanting to return to Nigeria. There is this notion that the situation in countries these intending returnees are departing from is not as bad as that of Nigeria.

It is believed that health workers and treatment centers in Nigeria are already overwhelmed. Some other problems of insecurity, unemployment and lack of palliatives are also being highlighted.

The intending returnees have their minds made up and their decision to return were borne out of some convictions known to them. They will come home to have their own fair share of experience  exactly as, better or worse than anticipated.
A 22-year-old Dublin man has been accused of taking part in a violent burglary where another man allegedly had chunks of hair cut out of his head, clothing removed and was threatened with mutilation.

Gerry Connors with an address at Bearna Park, Sandyford, Dublin 18, was charged with burglary at Ballyogan Road in Carrickmines, in Dublin 18, assault causing harm to the man, who is also in his 20s, and unlawful seizure of his BMW car.

The incident is alleged to have happened on April 27 last.

Mr Connors appeared before Judge Grainne Malone at Dublin District Court today.

Detective Garda Karl ONeill objected to bail citing the seriousness of the case and witness intimidation fears.

He said the injured party reported that two males had entered his friends house and assaulted him. It was a chance encounter between them after they had an earlier disagreement, the court heard.

It was alleged they cut off chunks of his hair and punched the man to his head and face.

At one point the injured party was forced to remove his trousers and underwear, Detective Garda ONeill, said, adding that it would be alleged the accused and his accomplice, threatened to mutilate him.

The keys to his BMW were taken and he was told he was going for a drive before being allegedly forced into the car which was driven around the Carrickmines area, the court was told.

It was alleged one of the men was armed with scissors and the driver lost control of the BMW and crashed.

The bail hearing was told that the man was severely beaten and he suffered swelling and bruising around his face. He also had a black eye as well as a sore nose and he finds it difficult to breath.

Gardai recovered a phone and clothing from the car.

The court heard the accused went to the UK for two days afterwards.

However, the detective agreed with defence counsel Fiona Pekaar that on hearing that gardai wished speak to him he returned and presented himself at a station in Dublin.

Pleading for bail, counsel said her client had a heart defect which requires medication. He lives at his family home and helps his father who also had health problems. There was no money available, counsel said.

Mr Connors, who is on disability benefits, had no intention to leave the jurisdiction, the court was told.

Judge Malone said that while directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions had not been received, it was likely the case will be sent forward to the Circuit Court. There would have to be a substantial cash surety, she said

Bail was set in his own bond of 1,000 of which 500 must be lodged. An independent surety in the sum of 2,000 would have to be approved.

On taking up bail he must obey a curfew, stay out of the Carrickmines area, provide gardai with a contact phone number, have no contact with the complainant and another witness and sign on daily at Dundrum Garda station.

He was remanded in custody with consent to bail to appear at Cloverhill District Court on Friday.

Gardai must be given advance notice if an application is being made to approve a person to stand bail.
04.05.2020 LISTEN

It was an azure-skied afternoon, like most other sunny days in Nima. I was on a motorbike, negotiating the curve around the Institute of Islamic Studies, Research in Nima when I heard my name reverberate in the skies. Maaaaaaazi. This was to be expected. The neighborhood I was riding through is where I grew up. It is also where I expend my hours of activism.

I slowed down, turned and lo and behold it was Zeinab Saeed, my fellow Reader at Success Book Club and junior back in the days at Tafsiliyya School for Training and Education. Zeinabs request was simple. She wanted the biography of Prophet Muhammad I have always raved on and on about. She wanted to read it. The book is The Life of Muhammad.

The book, dedicated to those who seek the truth for the sake of the truth was first published in 1976 and was written by the now belated Egyptian writer, politician, journalist and former Minister of Education, Muhammad Husayn Haykal. In his words, the book is a renewed effort to establish the historical truth of the details of the Prophets life in accordance with these rules, as well as to refute, by the same means, the false allegations against Islam and its Apostle.. The book is a tribute to the Muslims critical attitude in religious matters. So while it seemed like just another book being loaned out of my personal library to a fellow enthusiastic reader, it was no simple request handing out such a treasured book when most borrowers tend to not return books. But in the spirit of knowledge sharing, especially one that had to do with such a colossal figure, I had no other choice.

I have read a lot of biographies on the holy prophet of Islam. Notable among these are The Sealed Nectar by Safiur-Rahman Al Mubarakpuri, Mohammad As If You Can See Him by Aidh-al-Qarni, Muhammad for the Global Village by Dr. Muhammad al-Haashimi al-Haamidi, The Prophet of Mercy, The Exemplar beyond Compare, Civilization of Virtues, Muhammad Mustafa all by Osman Nuri Topbas but if there is any biography you will find me sitting down to re-read again and again, then it is certainly Life of Muhammad by Haykal.

The book raises critical issues that can serve as guide posts to Muslims in this age of Google scholarship and quick-fix acquisition of knowledge without proper assimilation and its concomitant issue of misapplication of edicts and facts. The book underscores the fact that the Prophet was the embodiment of the Quran who met the disbelievers with the hardest of hearts and obstinately pig-headed to the truth yet he treated each and every one with candor, respect, cool-headedness. He, the prophet, embraced all these characters and moved along with them. In these modern times, we have clerics and revivalists who in their quest to correct things Islamically create more confusion, increasing the spite in the hearts of the people they purport to correct because of the paucity of the wisdom, tactfulness and wonderful spirit of advocacy of the holy prophet.

One of the issues addressed in the 624-page book is the fact that the validity of the prophet and belief in Allah need no recourse to a miracle. It is self-evident within the natural flow of life and needless of anything beyond the presentation of the revealed text to consciousness. The book states history has not reported a single case of an associationist who believed in Muhammad because of a miracle performed. Islam has no parallel to the case of the magicians of Pharaoh whose rods were swallowed up by that of Moses. The case is established of that of Suraqah ibn Jushum who saw a tremendous miracle on his pursuit of Prophet Muhammad and Abubakar on their way to Madina, became convinced overwhelmingly that there is a divine intervention at hand yet never joined the fold of Islam until about eight years later when the Prophet conquered Makkah. This issue is of utmost importance to me because in recent times we have been bombarded by sophistry of the weirdest order to prove the validity or greatness of some Sheikhs. Some were said to have spoken from walls, others could turn into leaves and the weirdest is that the livestock of the town of certain Sheikhs cannot be roasted by any other person. The story is told of a guinea that flew into the mosque of a certain sheikh to avoid being caught. Its meat never got roasted though dead and placed on fire because of the mystical powers of the sheikh whose mosque it entered. What an expensive sophistry!

Another issue that the book teaches the youth is the flow of life. As young people, we are taught to trust the process. The journey to success in life is fraught with perils, travails, happiness and filled with vicissitudes. It was and it is never beyond the powers of Allah to complete the mission of the Prophet from day one, having all and sundry believing in him. It is never. Yet the Prophet had to go through a roller-coaster of twenty-three solid years before he completed his mission. He was accepted by few and rejected by many (the strong and the mighty) when he started. He was scoffed at by his own uncle, ridiculed by his own people, stoned and badly abused by the people of Taif, accepted by slaves; his followers were persecuted and trampled upon. As if that was not enough, he was exiled by his own people, accepted by strangers, won wars, lost wars, betrayed by the Banu Qurayzah refused to embark on pilgrimage and finally conquered Makkah. That is the process of life. Interestingly, the Muslim youth today is immersed in a world of instant gratification. Longevity in following up on a course of action is virtually non-existent, they do not believe in the process, talk less of even trusting it. A lot have resorted to questionable means to gain precocious success, in the words of Jordan Belfort  at such a ferocious clip that they ended up skipping over the typical life struggles that most young men and women go through that serve to build their characters. The result is success without respect, wealth without restraint, power without responsibility..

.

The reason I always talk about this book is the method used by the author. Muhammad Mustafa al-Maraghi, the former Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar stated in the foreword to the first edition that Dr. Haykals new method is Quranic. For he has made reason the judge, and evidence the foundation, of knowledge. He has repudiated conservatism and castigated the conservatives. Agreeing with the Quranic principle that opinion and speculation are no substitutes for true knowledge (Quran 53:28), he has chastised those who speculate without evidence; who regard the old purely for its age Haykal raised very controversial issues in the book. Some which have been subjects of never ending debates among Muslims and some which the Orientalists have used to attack the Holy Prophet in their quest to tarnish the image of Islam. And he addressed them using evidence from superior logic backed by Prophetic messages and Quranic verses. The Prophets marriage with Zainab Bintu Jahsh, the splitting of the Prophets chest, The slander affair, The campaign against Banu Qurayzah, Al-Isra and many other issues which he addressed with a maturity of mind matched by great knowledge. He also delivered his debates with great, compelling arguments and convinces with sound logic and a unique style. What killed me the most is his concluding two essays, Islamic Civilization as depicted by the Quran and Islamic Civilization and the Western Orientalists. Haykal really spiced up the book with condiments of knowledge and ingredients of proofs.

So I gave the book to Zainab Saeed and these are the lessons she shares with us.

In the book, we get to live the life the Prophet and his companions lived. We get to feel their persecution, their rejection, their pain of separation from loved ones as well as their conviction, their faith, their brotherhood and their willingness to give up their lives in martyrdom for the sake of Allah. How blessed will we be to follow in their footsteps. How blessed will we be with an ounce of their faith in our hearts. How blessed will we be to be reunited with the companionship of the Prophet, his family and companions in Jannah.

Nothing of his life was irrational. As stated in the book in the eloquent words of Al Busayri God did not try us with anything irrational. Thus, we fell under neither doubt nor illusion ".

As I closed the pages of this great book with a heavy heart, I felt the pain his family and companions felt when they laid his blessed body in his grave in the quarters of his favorite wife, Aishah ( peace be upon her ) to bid farewell to a great soul that once lived.

May we continue to be guided by his light till our reunion with him.
The Management of Melcom Group of Companies has described as fraudulent a message circulation on social media platforms that the Company is giving out GH 2000.00 gift card.



It said the message: Melcom is giving GH 2,000 gift card to everyone this week to support the nation! Click here to get yours: testcnx.com/melcom, was false and fake.



Mr Godwin Avenorgbo, the Melcom Group Director of Communications, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the Group had no such plans and was not running any such promotion so citizens should avoid falling for the fraud being perpetrated by hidden hands.



On the other hand, he said: "Melcom is providing support for the fight against COVID-19 through the appropriate government approved channels.



We are not giving any gift card or any other form of support as we appreciate the custom of all Ghanaians".





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.

Featured Video
May 8 marks the 75th anniversary of VE Day, commemorating the end of World War II in Europe. "Race to Victory: WWII Europe," a new documentary about the 100 days leading up to May 8, 1945, is premiering May 4 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the Smithsonian Channel.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson is a major player in the film, sharing the expertise he gained from writing the acclaimed Liberation Trilogy about World War II in Europe. "An Army at Dawn," "The Day of Battle" and "Guns at Last Light" are modern classics of popular history, and he's kicked off a new series with 2019's equally acclaimed "The British Are Coming," volume one of a new trilogy about the American Revolution.

"Race to Victory" is scheduled to repeat on May 8 at 8 p.m. ET, and the show will be streaming on the Smithsonian Channel apps.

Atkinson spoke to us about Victory in Europe Day and why it's important to commemorate the particulars of that particular milestone in WWII history.

Military.com: Do you have a theory as to why VE Day doesn't get the same attention as D-Day or Pearl Harbor Day here in the United States?

Atkinson: It's been completely overshadowed by current events. I think that's entirely attributable to the pandemic. I've written a piece for The Wall Street Journal, and I'm sure that there are others scribbling and opining and whatnot, but it's hard to break through the noise of COVID-19.

Plus, there are diminishing returns on anniversary celebrations regardless of the event. VE Day doesn't quite have the resonance for Americans that the invasion of Normandy does. Of course, the end of the war is bifurcated with VJ day.I suspect that there are millions of people who don't know the difference between them. I don't think it's because people don't really care. I think it's because people are preoccupied.

Military.com: Of course, "The Guns at Last Light," the third book in your World War II trilogy, is an antidote to this, but it seems like people don't know much about the fighting that went on in the spring of 1945. It's almost like there's a collective gap in the public mind between June 6, 1944, and the dropping of the atomic bomb in August 1945.

Atkinson: I think there were 10,400 Americans killed in action in Germany in April 1945, the last full month of the war in Europe, which has almost as many as were killed in June 1944, the month of invasion.

The war was awful until the very end, virtually to the last gunshot. Many people know that the invasion occurred in June 1944 and then something nasty happened at the Battle of the Bulge that winter. But for the most part, they believe there was a glide path to victory.

Of course, things were a lot more difficult than that. There were battles like the Hurtgen Forest that were as ugly as any fighting that occurred anywhere in the world during the war. I've tried to do my part to educate people, but it's hard to break through, especially 75 years after the fact when you've now got three living generations who have no direct knowledge of the war and whose knowledge of the particulars is pretty sketchy.

Military.com: Sometimes at the end of a war, it seems like a culture makes a collective decision to ignore certain things as a way to move forward. There was an incredible amount of destruction in those few months and an immense amount of civilian casualties. Do you think there's either consciously or subconsciously a desire to just not talk about that part so much?

Atkinson: Obviously, for 75 years, there's been a fair amount of hoopla commemorating the war in one form or another and including the events leading up to VE day. I lived in Brooklyn for three years and, even there, May 8 was a pretty significant time of remembrance and reflection.

But it's certainly true that after every cataclysm people need to get on with it. Soldiers who were in Europe, my father among them, got home in the late summer of 1945 and they wanted to go to school or get married or go back to their families or get back to work.

That was generally the feeling among all 130 million Americans at that time. There are certainly events in those dark months of late 1944 and the first half of 1945 that were just pushed aside as part of the national effort to focus on the Pacific. It wasn't clear what was going to happen there on May 8, 1945.

I'm not quite sure the shooting at Paderborn or any of the other nastiness that occurred in the first few months in 1945 doesn't quite get the attention. It's not quite as dramatic, and there was an inevitability to the outcome. So maybe that's part of it too.

Military.com: As someone who knows as much about VE as anyone alive now, what do you think we should reflect on this May 8?

Atkinson: I've spent 15 years of my life thinking about the war. Now, I'm back a little farther in time in the 18th century. The first thing that all of us need to acknowledge and commemorate is the fact that, of the 16.1 million Americans who were in uniform during World War II, fewer than 400,000 of them are still alive today. And that number is shrinking rapidly.

A soldier once said, "No war is really over until the last veteran dies." By that standard, we're getting close to the point where World War II is really over. So that's important.

The postwar period that began in Europe on May 8, 1945, has extended now for 75 years and given us extraordinary things. First of all, it provided the institutions of stability that have been vital to preserving the peace and prosperity for the most part, including NATO and the United Nations, even if those seem increasingly brittle, if not superannuated.

The history of those institutions and the purpose of those institutions and the entire postwar construct that begins on May 8 was a new beginning for civilization, as well as the end of the biggest, baddest war in the history of the species. We should all recognize that those institutions were vital and remain vital.

We've seen an erosion of American leadership. We see it today in the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's tragic. There were 291,000 Americans killed in action in World War II. The 400,000 Americans altogether who died during the war, died for something. They died for the subsequent 75 years that we have enjoyed. It's vitally important that their sacrifice and contributions will be remembered, commemorated and affirmed, and that we build on what they built, what they provided for us. So I think that VE Day is a really important moment for reflection, even as we're preoccupied with other important and critical and alarming things that are going on in the world today.

Military.com: When will we see the next installment in your history of the American Revolution?

Atkinson: Well, I don't have anything else on my hands right here, right now. I'm hard at it, hammer and tongs. We're coming up on the first anniversary of when volume one came out. It took me 15 years to do the three volumes for World War II. I have no illusions that this will be any quicker.

It's too early to forecast when volume two will be published.  I am working hard on it, but it'll be several years still. Those of us toiling in this Revolutionary vineyard are aware of a new word in our vocabulary: a semiquincentennial, which means 250th.

The semiquincentennial for the American revolution begins in earnest in 2025 with the 250th anniversary of Lexington and Concord. Then, we'll have the usual parade of commemorations, including the Declaration of Independence and all of that right through 2033, which will be the 250th anniversary of the treaty of Paris. We all have our eye on that date in 2025, 2026, and I certainly have my eye on it too.
Woman Allegedly Stabs Her Kids After A Fight With Her Own Mother

A 24-year-old Kenyan woman, Winfred Nduku allegedly stabbed her two children, aged 2 and 6, to death, before attempting suicide after a fight with her own mother.

A police spokesperson at the Kayole Police Station confirmed the tragic incident to Kenyans.co.ke, adding that Nduku was recuperating at Mama Lucy Hospital.

The spokesperson said the sad incident was reportedly triggered by an altercation between Nduku and her mother who she lives with.

Narrating the incident, Ndukus mother, Josephine Wambua tearfully said: She was seated right there playing on her phone when I asked her to first tend to the children and saw to it that they at least eat something, then she could get back to her phone.

She kept on playing with her phone. I threw a cup of water at her and repeated my initial statement. She then threatened that she could kill her children and grabbed a knife and did it, she added

After stabbing the children, Ms. Nduku allegedly attempted to stab her mother but could only manage to inflict some cuts on her right hand as they struggled before she was then overpowered and thrown out of the house.

The suspect also attempted to kill herself with the same knife, with her mother saying her daughter stabbed herself in the stomach but was quickly rushed to the hospital alongside her two children who both were pronounced dead on arrival.

Nairobi Police commander Philip Ndolo said Nduku was admitted to Mama Lucy Hospital for treatment and will face criminal charges once discharged.
Crowdfunders set up to save London's best-loved pubs have raised thousands of pounds.

Many boozers, clubs and restaurants are at risk of going under due to the coronavirus lockdown restrictions, with rent due but no customers.

One of Soho's oldest establishments, The French House, which has been serving punters including Charles de Gaulle, Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon and royalty for over a hundred years, is asking for donations to keep it afloat.

Many pubs, bars and restaurants across the UK that are at risk of going under due to coronavirus, including The French House in Soho (pictured), have started crowdfunders

The boozer has been serving customers for over 100 years but now faces months without taking in any money

The pub has set a target of 80,000 and has already raised nearly 23,000 thanks to generous contributions from the public.

The GoFundMe page states: 'In these difficult and uncertain times, and until life gets back to normal for us all, the French House is looking to its friends, its fans, and its family for help.

'The French means so much to all of us. It's not just an important piece of Soho history, it's a resource for an entire community as well as being amongst the last bastions of old Soho.'

A crowdfunder set up of GoFundMe is seeking donations totalling 80,000 to ensure the Soho establishment can stay afloat

Meanwhile another Soho establishment, New Evaristo Club fondly known as Trisha's, has set a donation target of 20,000.

The bar, which has been going strong for 78 years, has so far raised more than 7,000.

Its crowdfunder says: 'I am asking you to give a small donation to help ensure that when all this is over and we can all see those we love again - that Trisha and family can open the door once again.

'The smallest amount could and would make a big difference to keep the club in that position.

New Evaristo Club in Soho, fondly known as Trisha's, is also at risk of extinction with the lockdown on pubs forecast to last months

Trisha's has been serving the Soho community for 78 years and is appealing for 20,000

'Trisha's is a true independent business, there is no brewery to help - she's on her own and that's why she needs us to help.'

It was recently reported that pubs across the UK could remain closed until Christmas as the country continues to control the spread of the virus.

Michael Gove warned that pubs and restaurants in the nation would be 'among the last' to see the restrictions placed upon them relaxed.

Following the announcement, Frank Maguire from Truman's brewery in London, said: 'Things are looking pretty dire. At this rate it seems unlikely we will be open again before Christmas.'

The Irish Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) chief executive Donall O'Keeffe said if the lockdown were to continue, many pubs would be out of business.

The bar's crowdfunder stated that Trisha's is an independent business with no brewery to help

He said: 'If that happens then most pub businesses in this country will be out of business for good.

'The LVA will absolutely support whatever measures are deemed necessary in the interests of public health... but if closing pubs until 2021 is going to be necessary, then it is essential that a specific pub support scheme is introduced.

'Otherwise, there won't be a pub industry in this country by the time a vaccine is found.'
Advertisement

The world's largest hornet, a 2-inch killer dubbed the Murder Hornet with an appetite for honey bees, has been found in Washington state, where entomologists were making plans to wipe it out.

The giant Asian insect, with a sting that could be fatal to some humans, is just now starting to emerge from winter hibernation.

'Theyre like something out of a monster cartoon with this huge yellow-orange face,' said Susan Cobey, a bee breeder at Washington State University.

A researcher holds a dead Asian giant hornet in Blaine, Washington state

Dead Asian giant hornets sit on a researcher's field notebook. The world's largest hornet, a 2-inch-long killer with an appetite for honey bees, has been found in Washington state

Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Chris Looney holds a pair of Asian giant hornets caught in a trap near Blaine, Washington

'Its a shockingly large hornet,' said Todd Murray, a WSU Extension entomologist and invasive species specialist. 'Its a health hazard, and more importantly, a significant predator of honey bees.'

The hornet was sighted for the first time in the U.S. last December, when the state Department of Agriculture verified two reports near Blaine, Washington, close to the Canadian border. It also received two probable, but unconfirmed reports from sites in Custer, Washington, south of Blaine.

The hornet can sting through most beekeeper suits, deliver nearly seven times the amount of venom as a honey bee, and sting multiple times, the department said, adding that it ordered special reinforced suits from China.

Asian giant hornets are more than double the size of honeybees, and have a wingspan measuring more than three inches

Asian giant hornets have been spotted in the United States and Canada for the first time - sparking panic among members of the scientific community

These hornets that were caught in a trap are planed on a notebook to show their size and scale

The university said it isn't known how or where the hornets arrived in North America. It normally lives in the forests and low mountains of eastern and southeast Asia and feeds on large insects, including wasps and bees. It was dubbed the 'Murder Hornet' in Japan, where it is known to kill people.

The large insects are native to temperate and tropical climates in East Asia, where they kill around 50 people each year.

But since November 2019, there have been several sightings of the hornets on the west coast of North America. It's unclear how they arrived.

Asian giant hornets are more than double the size of honeybees, and have a wingspan measuring more than three inches.

The insects also have a large stinger filled with venom that contains neurotoxin, which is capable of causing both cardiac arrest and anaphylactic shock.

Beekeeper Conrad Berube told The New York Times he was recently attacked by a swarm of the 'murder hornets' on Vancouver Island.

'It was like having red-hot thumbtacks being driven into my flesh,' Berube stated, adding that he was left bleeding from the attack.

Berube was stung seven times and was lucky to be alive.

Chris Looney, a Washington State entomologist, poses with a dead Asian giant hornet attached to his jacket. Entomologists are making plans to wipe it out

The hornets life cycle begins in April, when queens emerge from hibernation, feed on plant sap and fruit, and look for underground dens to build their nests. Hornets are most destructive in the late summer and early fall. Like a marauding army, they attack honey bee hives, killing adult bees and devouring larvae and pupae, WSU said.

Their stings are big and painful, with a potent neurotoxin. Multiple stings can kill humans, even if they are not allergic, the university said.

Farmers depend on honey bees to pollinate many important northwest crops such as apples, blueberries and cherries. With the threat from giant hornets, 'beekeepers may be reluctant to bring their hives here,' said Island County Extension scientist Tim Lawrence.

While the hornets can be deadly to humans, entomologists are more concerned that they could kill off bee populations in North America

Entomologists are more concerned that they could kill off bee populations in North America.

The insects are ferocious and can decimate entire beehives in just hours.

Last November, a beekeeper in Washington state found 'thousands and thousands' of his honeybees with their heads torn off.

'I couldn't wrap my head around what could have done that,' the keeper stated.

Asian giant hornets nest in the ground for most of the year, but are most active between July and November.

Dubbed the 'Murder Hornet' by some, the Asian giant hornet has a sting that could be fatal to some humans. It is just now starting to emerge from hibernation

The stinger of a dead Asian giant hornet is photographed in a lab in Olympia, Washington

An invasive species can dramatically change growing conditions, Murray said, adding that now is the time to deal with the predators.

'We need to teach people how to recognize and identify this hornet while populations are small, so that we can eradicate it while we still have a chance,'' Murray said.

The state Department of Agriculture will begin trapping queens this spring, with a focus on Whatcom, Skagit, San Juan, and Island counties.

Hunting the hornets is no job for ordinary people.

'Don't try to take them out yourself if you see them,' Chris Looney, an entomologist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture said. 'If you get into them, run away, then call us!''

Entomologists are 'embarking on a full-scale hunt for the hornets', before they breed and become widely established in North America.

'This is our window, Chris Looney, an entomologist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, told The Times.

While he has set out in the woods of Washington to trap the hornets, he says the task will be difficult, given the hornets can fly more than 20 miles an hour.

'If we can't do it in the next couple of years, it probably can't be done,' he stated.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 00:52:33|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

PARIS, May 4 (Xinhua) -- France will provide 500 million euros (about 547 million U.S. dollars) for the global search for COVID-19 treatment and vaccines, President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday after attending an online donor conference hosted by the European Commission.

"France will provide 500 million euros for the ACT-A initiative," Macron told reporters after the fundraising event which aimed at pooling resources worldwide to develop vaccines and effective treatments as quickly as possible and to make them universally available at affordable prices.

By "ACT-A initiative," the French president referred to the "(Access to COVID-19 Tools) Accelerator" initiative, an international collaboration launched by the World Health Organization on April 24 to accelerate the development, production and equitable distribution of new tools to fight COVID-19.

"We have launched the conference to fund this initiative with a target to reach some 8 billion euros, and we'll make it," said Macron.

According to him, the objective is to have diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines as quickly as possible, and to be able to produce them everywhere for people to have fair access to them. (1 euro = 1.091 U.S. dollar) Enditem
After Gurugram, construction work is expected to resume in Noida on May 5 but real estate developers say the biggest challenge they face is that almost 50 percent of the workforce may return to their villages and construction work may get further delayed by a year.

The government on May 1 extended the nationwide lockdown to contain novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, by two more weeks. Construction activities in urban areas have been limited to in-situ construction, where workers are available on site and no workers are required to be brought in from outside, and construction of renewable energy projects, the guidelines said.

The government has also permitted labourers to return to their hometown.

Real estate developers stopped construction works on sites following the nationwide lockdown imposed from March 25 to contain the pandemic.

The government on April 15 had relaxed guidelines in lockdown 2.0, permitting some construction activity in non-COVID-19 hotspots starting April 20. However, this builders would have to ensure strict social distancing guidelines and were applicable to projects construction workers were locally available on the site.

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

Under the new guidelines, contractors along with developers will need to ensure that social distancing is maintained at sites and will need to find ways and means of achieving it. For basic hygiene and safety precautions, companies can regularly sanitise sites and provide labourers with masks, soap and sanitisers for washing hands frequently.

NAREDCO-Uttar Pradesh President RK Arora told Moneycontrol that construction would resume in some projects in Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway from May 5 after developers secure permissions from authorities.

Construction restarted at our sites in Gurgaon on May 4 and it will resume at our sites located in Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway from May 5. As many as 4,500 labourers are working across our sites, he said.

However, he said a lot of migrant workers may want to return to their native place following the central governments permission. This is our biggest fear and if that happens, projects may get delayed by almost a year, he said.

In Ghaziabad, the administration issued guidelines for resuming construction work on May 4. Gaurav Gupta, President, CREDAI NCR, said Ghaziabad administration has issued standard operating procedures (SOPs) under which permission to restart construction would be issued online.

Construction has been permitted only for labourers residing within the site. We would have to conduct medical tests conducted on all our labourers and provide an affidavit stating that we would comply with all the guidelines and observe social distancing norms, he said.

Our biggest worry is that almost 50 percent labourers wish to return to their hometown and that would delay the project further, he said.

The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has also allowed work to resume at 60 construction sites, provided workers reside on the premises and social distancing norms are followed, CEO VS Kundu had told Moneycontrol.

Around 60 sites have been given permission to restart construction in Gurugram. The chief consideration was that labour should be staying on the premises and they should not be transported, Kundu, who is also additional Chief Secretary of Haryana, said.

Parveen Jain, Vice Chairman, NAREDCO and CMD, Tulip Infratech Pvt, told Moneycontrol his firm received GMDAs permissions to restart work at three sites.

As many as 500 labourers are currently residing across the three sites. The biggest challenge is to retain them now. We had a total of 800 before the pandemic broke out, Jain said.

Jain said availability of cement was proving to be a big challenge. It (a bag of cement) is currently retailing at Rs 350 per bag. We have requested the government to step in and resolve the matter, he said, adding there should be no supply chain hindrances or it would lead to another six months of delay.

Before the lockdown, a bag of 50-kg cement retailed for Rs 180.

Signature Global Group has been granted permission to resume construction across 17 projects in Gurugram and Karnal, said Chairman Pradeep Aggarwal, who is also the Xhairman of ASSOCHAM National Council on Real Estate, Housing and Urban Development.

We hope to receive permissions to restart work on the remaining seven projects within a week, Aggarwal said.

According to KPMG, total construction projects worth more than Rs 59 lakh crore are under development, most of which would have been impacted severely by COVID-19. The Indian construction sector employs over 49 million people, close to 12 percent of the nations working population. Further, it has a multiplier effect on nearly 250 allied industries.
But is that likely? Who ever said Australia might have no income from China? In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye said Australia's diplomatic push would spark Chinese tourists to have "second thoughts" about coming to Australia, while parents of students would also think whether "this is the best place to send their kids here". "Maybe the ordinary people will say 'Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?'" he said. That's what the politicians, diplomats and billionaires have to say, but what do they do?

The communist regime has levers it can pull, for example when it banned tour groups departing for South Korea. But WA is no longer a destination for Chinese tourists thanks to border restrictions. Our billion-dollar tertiary education export market is in the grip of a similar fate, although many international students have been locked in over the next few years when travel can resume. But the world's second largest economy still accounts for a quarter of all Australian exports, worth $153 billion in 2018-19 after growing at 10 per cent a year for the past five years. Iron ore and coal account for more than 25 per cent of the total value. And for most of us in WA, when we think of exports to China, we think iron ore. The industry provides just over 48,000 jobs in the state (down from 56,000 peak-boom in 2013). About three-quarters of WA's exports to China are iron ore (the rest being petroleum, gold, lithium, nickel and other assorted merchandise). In 2019, iron ore mining made up 20 per cent of WA's gross state product, hauling in $97.7 billion in sales. We hold almost 30 per cent of the world's crude iron ore reserves and about half a century's worth of product at current rates of production. Would China pull the plug on that trade? Would China say no to the key ingredient it needs for the steel it needs for its economic recovery?

Not according to the University of Sydney's Professor of Chinese Business Hans Hendrischke. "China and Australia are economically mutually dependent," he said at a panel discussion at the university's China Studies Centre on Friday. "China needs iron ore and food from Australia for recovery and rebuilding. Australia on the other hand needs exports." Professor of International Political Economy at Peking University Daojiong Zha, told the same forum he expected trade between the two countries would pick up later this year.

"When we have a recovery, Australia will be a reliable supplier of high-quality ore and other products like food," he said. "I would expect Chinese imports of Australian supplies will pick up rather rapidly in the third quarter." New research from the Australian National University shows the impact on trade from diplomatic tension between the two nations is likely to be minimal. Historically, if a spat caused a disruption to trade, it was usually minimal and lasted for less than three months. Even if China wanted to pull the plug on WA iron ore, it couldn't. There is no other reliable supplier of cost-effective seaborne iron ore. When you're in the market for 681 million tonnes of the stuff, you can't just order it on Amazon or eBay. Brazil's Vale iron ore miner is still suffering from two catastrophic tailings dam failures over the past five years, with some mines still not operational after the company lost its license to operate eight tailings dams. In 2014 the company was promising to produce 459 million tonnes of ore by last year, but in 2020 will produce between 310 and 330 tonnes.

Are WA's iron ore operators worried by Beijings's war of words? On Thursday, FMG Resouces chief executive Elizabeth Gaines didn't seem overly concerned by the ambassador's threats, telling Bloomberg TV Australia's relationship with China had been built on "decades of a really strong bilateral and respectful trade relationship". "Our relationships are very deep and multifaceted and we have a very strong trading relationship and I'm very confident in the ongoing strength of that relationship," she said. Just weeks ago FMG Resources sought permission to expand its Port Hedland export capacity by 20 per cent to 210 million tonnes of ore a year. The other big iron ore miners are similarly untroubled by Chinese invective. BHP revealed its first substantial iron ore growth ambitions in more than six years last week when it declared its desire to increase export capacity at Port Hedland by 14 per cent. Gina Rinehart's Roy Hill has flagged plans to raise its maximum output from 55 million tonnes to 60 million tonnes.

Loading Even though China's economy has contracted by 6.8 per cent in first three months of the year, steel production has been strong, with the nation producing more steel in the first three months of 2020 than in the same period of 2019. Without West Australian iron ore, China's steel industry would be destroyed, and with it, its hopes to restore the economic growth which its regime needs to survive. This is why Australia should be calling China's bluff on its threats over a coronavirus inquiry. This is why WA should ignore the increasingly shrill rhetoric from its regime.
While countries like Denmark are building walls to prevent the spread of African swine fever, new research has identified two other effective tactics.

A team of scientists from Britain and Spain have reported that culling and fast removal of animal carcasses are critical for the eradication of the disease.

African swine fever is a highly infectious virus that causes severe, usually fatal disease in domestic pigs and wild boar. There is no treatment or vaccine.

It can rapidly devastate pig populations, with outbreaks in China, Poland, Belgium and the Baltic states. In China, it has wiped out around 40% of the pig population.

The virus is not a threat to humans, but it can have a profound socioeconomic impact on areas with outbreaks.

Professor Andy White and his Heriot-Watt University mathematics research team worked with the Spanish Game Resources Institute to develop a new model to combat ASF.

Wild boar transmit the disease and their numbers are on the rise in Europe. There are several populations in the UK and here too numbers are increasing," Professor White said.

Our mathematical model was used to understand the different ways that the virus could be transmitted."

To match the data, British and Spanish researchers showed that infection needed to occur in three ways.

Through contact between susceptible and infected wild boar, through contact between susceptible wild boar and infected carcasses and via individuals that survive the initial infection, but succumb to the disease after several months.

The new model also considered biosecurity measures that can help mitigate the spread of an outbreak.

A combination of culling and the removal of infected carcasses is the most effective way to eradicate the virus without also eradicating the host population," Prof White said.

It is important to act quickly: early implementation of these measures will reduce infection levels while maintaining a higher host population density.

"In some cases, this could prevent the virus from establishing in a wild boar population.

The model also suggests that it may be easier to control ASF in warmer climates. Higher temperatures lead to faster degradation of infected carcasses, which also reduces the severity of an outbreak.

In some regions, wild boar are supplementary fed to increase their density. The model suggests this should be avoided when ASF is a threat, as it leads to a more pronounced epidemic outbreak and persistence of the disease in the long-term.

The scientists reported the findings of their new model in Scientific Reports.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 10:02:27|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

CAPE TOWN, May 3 (Xinhua) -- South Africa reported on Sunday a sharp surge in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, two days after the easing of restrictions following a five-week lockdown.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa stood at 6,783, an increase of 447 from Saturday, the country's health minister Zweli Mkhize said in a statement.

This was the highest surge in the 24-hour cycle since March 5, when the country recorded its first case.

"Regrettably, we report a further eight COVID-19 related deaths: two from the Western Cape, four from the Eastern Cape and two from Gauteng," Mkhize said.

This brought the total deaths to 131, he said.

Western Cape remains the epicenter of the pandemic in the country with 3,044 cases, followed by Gauteng with 1,624 and KwaZulu-Natal with 1,076.

As massive community testing continued, 245,747 tests have been conducted to date, of which 15,061 were done in the past 24 hours, according to Mkhize.

Meanwhile, a Community Screening Program was gaining momentum.

Under the program, more than 7.2 million citizens have been screened, among whom 72,087 were referred to testing, Mkhize said.

Also on Sunday, the government announced strict measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at workplaces amid the partial resumption of business.

Minister of of Employment and Labor Thulas Nxesi has announced that employers must take measures to protect the health and safety of everyone in their workplaces.

These measures include setting up physical barriers at workplaces to ensure social distancing, free provision of appropriate personal protective equipment, screening of workers for COVID-19 symptoms, and isolation and quarantine of workers with related symptoms.

South Africa eased its restrictions to level 4 on Friday, down from level 5.

Under level 4 restrictions, businesses can partially resume operations, allowing 1.5 million people return to work. Enditem
Pockets of south-east Queensland, including outer-Brisbane suburbs and the city of Logan, are particularly vulnerable to job losses from the coronavirus pandemic downturn, research has found.

A Griffith University joint study with the University of Newcastle used census data to calculate which towns and cities nationally are more likely to be affected by an economic downturn.

Some south-east Queensland suburbs are particularly vulnerable to job losses while others are tracking more positively. Credit:Louie Douvis

The Employment Vulnerability Index 3.0 was released late last week, using heat mapping to track which suburbs and cities are more likely to be affected by the downturn.

It is the third version of the index, first published in 2006 and updated again in 2011.
UW Researcher Receives Fulbright Award for Wildlife Research at U.S.-Canadian Border

Holly Ernest, a University of Wyoming professor of wildlife genomics and disease ecology, has received a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct wildlife research at the Canadian-United States border. (Holly Ernest Photo)

Holly Ernest, a University of Wyoming professor of wildlife genomics and disease ecology, has received a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct wildlife research at the Canadian-United States border.

Her project, titled Linking Genomics, Bioinformatics and Disease Ecology for Wildlife Health at the Canada-USA Interface, outlines an interdisciplinary project of transborder collaboration, research and advanced study based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Part of the Fulbright program goal is for Fulbright Scholars to facilitate and build transborder collaborations for research, teaching and service, as well as the Fulbright goal of us serving as ambassadors from the United States to build positive international relations, says Ernest, who also is the Wyoming Excellence Chair in Disease Ecology. So, my Fulbright projects and overall sabbatical projects have multiple goals.

Ernest, who already is approved for a one-year sabbatical from UW, says the Fulbright was to commence this fall. But, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fulbright semester has been pushed back until January 2021. However, she adds that, if she is able to safely travel to the University of British Columbia this fall to start her sabbatical, she will do so.

For her Fulbright, Ernest will focus on three species of wildlife, applying genomics to their serious disease issues. Species include Rocky Mountain ungulates -- mainly elk and mule deer -- and chronic wasting disease as well as bighorn sheep and their pneumonia complex; sea otters along the Pacific Coast from California north into Canada and their serious diseases, which include fatal syndromes that involve toxoplasmosis, heart disease and thorny-headed worms; and studying migration, diseases and health of hummingbirds.

The project is designed to fulfill three main objectives, Ernest says.

-- Build collaborations with Canadian experts in bioinformatics, wildlife health and ecology to develop research in transborder movement of wildlife and transmission of pathogens of importance to wildlife, domestic animals, livestock and people.

-- Conduct computer-based bioinformatic research on host-pathogen data sets to evaluate relationships between host genomics and ecology of disease in wildlife species with ranges extending between the United States and Canada.

-- Advance her skills and capabilities in bioinformatics, and analysis and interpretation of complex genomic and ecological data.

The expertise I gain will enhance my research, teaching and outreach, and I will convey this knowledge to my home institution and network of collaborators, Ernest says. This will be accomplished through a program of study with the unique and expertise-rich academic and professional community at the University of British Columbia and the Greater Vancouver region.

Ernest says her initial inspiration for applying for a Fulbright was Sue VandeWoude, a professor at Colorado State Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. VandeWoude was awarded a Fulbright to travel to Tasmania to grow her collaborations and research on virus disease ecology and quantitative modeling to answer important questions to help wildlife conservation.

VandeWoude and Ernest collaborate on mountain lion genomics and viral disease ecology for populations in California and the Rocky Mountain West.

This award is a big deal to me, Ernest says. It is a huge honor, and many people helped me to develop the plans and proposal for it. It definitely is a village and transborder team effort.

Ernest is one of over 800 U.S. citizens selected by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to teach, conduct research and/or provide expertise abroad for the 2020-21 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as record of service and demonstrated leadership in their respective fields.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. governments flagship international educational exchange program and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations around the world provide direct and indirect support to the program, which operates in over 160 countries worldwide.

Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright, of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given more than 390,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and professionals of all backgrounds and fields the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research; exchange ideas; and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Ernest has been a member of UWs faculty since 2015. She received her Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California-Davis; her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and her masters in veterinary physiology and pharmacology, both from Ohio State University; and her bachelors degree in biology from Cornell University.
I am always a little intrigued by the casual ease with which politicians discuss the fate of the hospitality industry. When the industry does pop up in their consciousness it is nearly always in the context of safety. This is a valid concern (and more about that later) but its strange that hospitality is rarely discussed in terms of the jobs that are at stake or the potential damage to the economy.

It is symptomatic of this attitude that while Civil Aviation gets bright ministers (Jayant Sinha and Hardeep Puri are two recent examples), Tourism is usually left to the dullards (with a few notable exceptions like KJ Alphons in the last government). Somehow, we think the Tourism Ministry doesnt really matter.

But, of course it does.

By some estimates, the hospitality sector accounts for around 10 per cent of our GDP. Thats travel (including airlines) restaurants, tourism, hotels, etc.

That estimate is based on a figure of ten million tourist arrivals a year. It sounds like a lot but Spain has 85 million arrivals a year. Even Singapore (which is just one city) gets 19.1 million visitors. The city of Bangkok got 22.7 million visitors last year.

So ten million tourist is peanuts. And yet that accounts for ten per cent of our GDP.

Obviously, if the city of Bangkok can get 22.7 million tourists to our 10 million, there is massive scope to grow. And while we have been fortunate to have outstanding civil servants who understand this (Amitabh Kant is the obvious example), the political establishment really could not care less.

I cant understand why this should be so.

Tourism earns us revenue. It is labour intensive so it gives people jobs. Unlike manufacturing, where more and more jobs will be lost to mechanisation and robotics, tourism will remain an employment generator for the future. And it is an example of Indias soft power --- a way of spreading goodwill.

Imagine for a moment that Tourism/hospitality boomed even slightly --- say by two million. Think of the effect it would have on GDP, on the jobs it would create and the overall addition to national prosperity.

Unfortunately no government sees it that way. Which is one reason why no one is bothering to help the hotel and restaurant sector.

Unlike the airline sector which wants cash aid and official sanction for ripping off passengers by refusing them refunds, hotels dont seem to want much. All the requests I have seen are for things like GST waivers, interest moratoriums and the like.

These are not necessarily cheap (for the government in revenue terms) but they are not demands for cash bailouts either and as far as I can tell, most hotel chains are not ripping off guests in the way that airlines are. (For the record, my view is that even airlines should be bailed out but after they guarantee salaries and refunds and pledge their shares in return for cash bailouts.)

Whats worse is the conviction among many people who count that the hotel and restaurant industries are done for and that tourists will stop coming to India.

This view is just silly.

Yes, if you force hotels to close and shut down your airports, then everybody is in trouble. But once you begin gradually re-opening the economy (in the case of the hospitality sector, between June and July, I reckon) things will begin to improve quickly.

The first big mistake we make while looking at the hospitality sector is in assuming that the world will stay static. It wont. Things will get better.

All pandemics end. China seemed finished after SARS but it bounced back in six months. Even the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, which killed five per cent of Indias population, eventually ended. And today it is not even mentioned in many history books. (Did you even read about it in school?)

Covid will end sooner than we think. A drug that treats the disease should be available by the end of the year. (As I write, Remdesivir, a drug developed by Gilead is faring well in trials.)

A vaccine developed by Oxford University has worked well in monkeys and is currently being tested on humans. The most optimistic predictions talk about it being available by September. (Drug companies are so confident that they have already been manufacturing and stockpiling the vaccine).

Another vaccine, developed by Pfizer seems promising --- it could be ready by the autumn. And at least six other vaccines are under development.

Vaccine development is a notoriously difficult business. But you would have to be a super pessimist to believe that all of these projects will fail and that no vaccine will be developed.

So a likely scenario is that guests who want to travel will be vaccinated by the spring. (Think of it like the Yellow Fever vaccines we had to take when we went to Africa.) And judging by the quantities in which the vaccine will be manufactured, availability may not be a problem .

After that, we will be as scared of Covid as we now are of polio, TB, smallpox, mumps, typhoid, chicken pox or God alone knows what else. The disease may not disappear. But it will not be a pressing concern either.

Once that happens, hotels, planes and restaurants are back in business. So, the logical worst case scenario is a financial crisis for the hotel/hospitalities sector from July (when establishments start to re-open) till April next year.

Its bad. But it is hardly an end of the world scenario.

In effect though, the hospitality industry has about eight months (or less) that it needs to worry about. And hotels are preparing for how they will handle the situation in this short to middle term scenario before a vaccine or new drugs are created.

I asked Nakul Anand of ITC, who is now the doyen of the hotel industry (after Biki Oberoi, of course) how bad he thought things would get. Anand believes that during the pre-vaccine phase, there will be a recovery that will take several stages.

First of all, he says, people may be reluctant to hang around at crowded airports or to take long flights. During that phase, guests may prefer destinations they can drive to or those that are a short flight away. If you live in Delhi, you might drive to Jaipur, to Agra, or if you are happy with longer drives, Shimla or Mussoorie. From Bombay, the hill stations in the Western Ghats are an obvious choice. And if you dont mind a short flight, then Goa (where Covid rates are astonishingly low). From Bangalore you could drive to Coorg. And so on.

Nakul Anand, Executive Director, ITC Ltd

Secondly, Anand explains, we know that millions of Indians travel abroad. (Some estimates say we have 26-30 million outbound travellers). Many of those travellers will be reluctant to go abroad now for a variety of reasons: fear, the higher cost of air travel etc. .And yet, many of these people will want to holiday at some stage, over the next few months. (Dont you feel you deserve a break after this traumatic lockdown?)

The Indian hotel industry (at all price levels) will target these guests. Yes, we will lose a large portion of the ten million tourists who came to India from abroad. But there are at least 26 million (probably more) Indians who can make up for this.

Anands analysis is shared by much of the hotel industry. I spoke to Neeraj Govil, Senior VP and boss of Marriott International for India and South Asia. He said, The domestic market and associated business opportunities in rooms and local F&B will recover first, followed by international travel.

Until vaccines or cures are discovered, all hotel guests will be obsessive about hygiene. Travellers are likely to demonstrate preferences for hotels that have and are able to effectively communicate enhanced sanitation and hygiene protocols, adds Govil.

Marriott has prepared new SOPs for when the hotels re-open which make significant departures from current practices. All rooms will be left empty for a day after guests check out so that they can be properly sanitized, restaurant tables will be kept far apart, guests will be able to check in and check out with no physical touch points with staff, and if demand is not massive (which it wont be in the next few months) then rooms next door to those occupied by guests will be kept empty and so on.

Neeraj Govil. Head of Marriott in India

Anand and ITC have an advantage because the group has always been the most environment and hygiene conscious chain (its symbol, since the 1970s has been a namaste, not a handshake or anything more personal) so the new post-Covid hygiene rules come easily.

Apart from Neeraj Govil and Nakul Anand, I spoke to other heads of hotel chains. Everyone has written the next two months off. But they are all set for the end of the lockdown. And nobody seriously doubts that by next spring, some semblance of normalcy will have returned.

Its a crisis, not Armageddon.

To read more on The Taste With Vir, click here

Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Vir Sanghvi Why hide the papers? Why keep the conspiracy theories related to Netaji Subhas Boses death alive? And why deny India the truth about the death of one of its great freedom fighters? ...view detail
NEW Board of Directors Executive Committee. Front row left to right: Monica Turner, Sarah Alter & Lisa Walsh. Back row, left to right: Abbe Luersman, Beth Marrion & Dagmar Boggs. "We are excited to welcome Christina, Chris, Cassandra, Melody & Ellen to our board, said NEW President & CEO Sarah Alter. They bring a broad experience set to the table to help further our mission of advancing all women. They will help channel our resources as we pivot to new virtual frontiers.

The Network of Executive Women has named five new members to its board of directors effective early 2020.

Joining the NEW Board of Directors are Audit Chair Christina Bieniek, Principal and Chief Commercial Officer with Deloitte Consulting LLP; Director-at-large Chris Baker, Senior Vice President and Head of North American Retail with Visa; Director-at-large Cassandra Johnson, Executive VP of Customer Care for Google Devices and Services with Google; Director-at-large Melody Richard, VP, Baby with Walmart; and Ellen Siebenborn-Forsyth, VP, Head of Sales, Blue Buffalo, Co.

"We couldnt be more excited to welcome Christina, Chris, Cassandra, Melody, and Ellen to our board, said NEW President and CEO Sarah Alter. They bring a broad experience set to the table to help further our mission of advancing all women and transforming workplaces. They will direct our advocacy and leadership and help channel our resources as we pivot to new virtual frontiers.

Assuming the role of NEW Executive Committee Board Chair is Monica Turner, Senior Vice President, Sales, North American Sales with Procter & Gamble.

Empowering all women to succeed has always been a personal commitment. I am honored to serve as NEW Executive Committee Board Chair, joining these equally passionate and committed leaders as we continue to expand NEWs impact, said Monica Turner.

Assuming new roles within the NEW Executive Committee are Vice-Chair Abbe Luersman, Chief Human Resource Officer with Ahold Delhaize; Immediate Past Chair Lisa Walsh, Operating Partner with Atlantic Street Capital; and Secretary Beth Marrion, Managing Director with Accenture.

Also, assuming NEW Executive Committee roles are Governance Chair Lisa Walsh; Regional Advisory Chair Marla Daudelin, SVP, Immediate Consumption Portfolio & Small Format Customers with PepsiCo  Frito-Lay Division; and Compensation Chair Kim Underhill, Group President with Kimberly-Clark North America.

Continuing to serve on the NEW board executive committee is Treasurer Dagmar Boggs, Chief Retail Sales & Bottler Operations Officer with Coca-Cola.

NEW board committee chairs continuing to serve are Finance Chair Dagmar Boggs and Strategic Value Co-Chair Vicki Felker, Vice President & General Manager, Golden Products Division with Nestle Purina PetCare.

Assuming a NEW board committee role is Strategic Value Co-Chair Abbe Luersman.

Returning to the NEW board as Directors at-large are Kelly Caruso, CEO of Shipt; Kendra Doyel, Vice President, Merchandising with Ralph's Grocery Company/Food 4 Less/Foods Company, Division of Kroger; Andy Dunn, Founder, Red Swan Ventures and Co-founder, Bonobos; Michelle Larson, President, Southwest Division with Shaw's/Albertson's; and Chris Skyers, Vice President - Private Label and Own Brands with Wakefern Food Corporation.

NEW board members completing their terms are Nicole Carroll, SVP, Global Head of Payment Experience & Solutions with Visa; Alicia Howell, retired Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer & Controller with 7-Eleven; Valerie Oswalt, President, Campbell Snacks; and Karen Stuckey, Senior Vice President, Private Brands, General Merchandise with Walmart. Nicola Johnson, Principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP also completes her term, however, she will remain board Committee Chair, Technology.

Our organization was fortunate to have Nicole, Alicia, Nicola, Valerie, and Karen with us, Alter said. We thank them for their contributions to our goal of advancing all women, and the skill and commitment they showed as members of our board. NEW wishes them the best, and we look forward to continuing to work together as friends toward our mission of transforming workplaces for gender equality.

ABOUT NEW

Founded in 2001, Network of Executive Women is the largest U.S. non-profit organization dedicated to achieving gender equality in the workplace and advancing women into leadership roles. NEW is a powerful and growing community of nearly 13,000 members, we are a collective voice for everyone in the corporate world who wants to see diversity, equity and inclusion become a reality. Our members represent more than 925 companies and are active in 22 regions throughout North America. Our mission is powered by more than 260 national and regional corporate sponsors within retail, consumer products goods, financial services, and technology. For more information about NEW and its learning programs, events, content, and insights, visit newonline.org. Connect with us on social media @newnational.
Barcelona will raise money for the fight against coronavirus by selling the naming rights to their Camp Nou stadium next season for the first time in the club's history. The income generated from the re-naming of Barca's 99,000-seater home for one year will be put towards "research projects and other projects involved in the battle against the effects of COVID-19, both at a local and international level". The stadium will keep 'Camp Nou' in its name while also including the new sponsor. The club have previously advertised UNICEF children's charity for free on their shirts. In a statement on Tuesday, the club said the process of finding a buyer will begin "in the next few weeks". "The income generated will create a fund that will be divided in the following way: a part will go towards a project on COVID-19 driven by the sponsors themselves and the rest will be shared out amongst other projects that are being developed in parallel," the statement added. Spain has been one of the worst-hit countries by the coronavirus pandemic. The number of confirmed deaths relating to the virus passed 21,000 on Tuesday, according to the latest figures. "Being the top sporting entity in the world means we take on this challenge as fully as we can," said Barcelona vice-president Jordi Cardoner. "If we can serve as inspiration for other organisations involved in the battle, perhaps we can create a wave of hope for millions of people around the world who are suffering due to this pandemic." Barcelona will sell the naming rights to their Nou Camp stadium and donate the cash to fight the coronavirus
WASHINGTON -- Today the state has a new 'stick'  fake news about the coronavirus, says journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, a contributor to Radio Free Europe/Radio Libertys (RFE/RL) Russian Service, who has been charged with promoting terrorism in a case decried by international rights monitors. Prokopyeva, in remarks on World Press Freedom Day, was referring to the ways that the Russian government  and countless others  is exploiting the coronavirus outbreak to tighten controls over information and the independent press.

On any given day, our journalists are among the bravest in the business, working in some of the toughest environments anywhere, said RFE/RL President Jamie Fly. But the coronavirus pandemic has multiplied the challenges. Weve seen governments deploy disinformation and conspiracy theories to confuse the public and discredit the media, and enact new laws and measures to restrict our reporting, which our audiences rely to protect their families and keep their communities safe. Our journalists have responded to this challenge with courage and a dogged determination to provide our audiences with the facts they need to navigate this difficult period, Fly said.

In Russia, new measures have added to now-standard pressures for journalists, while new threats have targeted individual reporters. Critics fear that a law passed on April 1 criminalizing fake news about the coronavirus can be used to censor critical reporting or silence journalists whom authorities dislike. (Similar legislation exists in countries such as Iran and Kazakhstan and is under consideration in Bulgaria.) Meanwhile, the Russian State Duma commission on foreign interference announced last month that content published by RFE/RL could be subject to review. Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has directly threatened the director of RFE/RLs North Caucasus Service over an article related to the regions response to the coronavirus. An RFE/RL reporter in St. Petersburg was questioned by local prosecutors after she published an interview with a veteran emergency room doctor claiming forced euthanasia and catastrophic conditions in a local hospital.

The threats exploit the coronavirus, but add to a steady stream of measures enacted over decades by Russian authorities to restrict media freedom, including most recently the notorious 2016 Yarovaya legislation on terrorist and extremist activity, and foreign agent legislation passed in 2017 and expanded last December to apply to individuals. As part of the USAGM Press Freedom Film Festival, which opens today, RFE/RL is screening an English-language version of the Russian film Let It All Burn, by acclaimed journalist Andrei Loshak and the 24/7 Russian-language network Current Time, which documents a banned concert in Russia to illustrate the states relentless attack on free speech

The coronavirus has not deterred the Tajik government from its year-long refusal to accredit local RFE/RL journalists, who, despite declining staff numbers and the risk to themselves of infection, have raced to provide the public with essential health guidance and pandemic-related news coverage amid government inaction and an information void.

While Belaruss denial of the coronavirus, which President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has called a psychosis, poses a risk to journalists who report any positive cases, a veteran RFE/RL reporter in Minsk pointed to years of media harassment and said the countrys independent journalists have long been vaccinated from fear.

Journalists with RFE/RLs Iranian Service, known as Radio Farda, say that reporting on the coronavirus is part of a bigger challenge, since every story -- beginning in 2020 with mass protests over gasoline prices, the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Commander Qasim Soleimani, and the downing of a Ukrainian airliner -- is an exercise in countering official lies, debunking conspiracy theories, and digging for the truth.

Audiences have responded resoundingly to RFE/RL reporting, demonstrating increasing demand for its coronavirus coverage even as the pressures facing journalists multiply. Compared to the previous month, visits in March to RFE/RL websites and apps increased 48% to 77 million, page views were up by 43% to 128.5 million, and unique visitors increased 50% to 33.5 million. Spikes were similarly registered on social media platforms, with video views on Facebook rising by 44% to 351 million, and views on YouTube increasing by 18% to 144.5 million. RFE/RL also saw spectacular growth on Instagram -- particularly in Persian, Uzbek, and Tajik -- with a 46% jump in video views to 67.5 million for the month.

About RFE/RL

RFE/RL relies on its networks of local reporters to provide accurate news and information to more than 37 million people in 26 languages and 22 countries where media freedom is restricted, or where a professional press has not fully developed. Its videos were viewed over 3.6 billion times on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram/IGTV in FY2019. RFE/RL is an editorially independent media company funded by a grant from the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

----

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Joanna Levison in Prague (levisonj@rferl.org, +420.221.122.080)

Martins Zvaners in Washington (zvanersm@rferl.org, +1.202.457.6948)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Rozanna Latiff and Krishna N. Das (Reuters) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia  Mon, May 4, 2020 16:02 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5d4aa0 2 SE Asia Malaysia,migrant-workers,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,coronavirus-testing,COVID-19-test Free

Migrant workers in Malaysia are now required to be tested for the new coronavirus, a senior minister said, as the government eased six-week long curbs on movement and businesses.

Thousands of Malaysians joined Monday's morning rush hour as businesses resumed for the first time since the imposition on March 18 of restrictions to contain the spread of the virus.

Senior security minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob told reporters foreign workers in all sectors must now undergo mandatory screening for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, after an outbreak was reported among migrants working at a Kuala Lumpur construction site last week.

"The costs for testing must be borne by the employer," Ismail Sabri said.

The announcement comes after Malaysia detained hundreds of undocumented migrants over the weekend, sparking criticism from the United Nations and rights groups. Ismail Sabri had earlier defended the arrests, saying that all of those detained had tested negative for the virus.

Migrant workers have been a particularly vulnerable community during the pandemic. In neighboring Singapore, thousands of infections have been linked to migrant worker dormitories.

There are about two million registered foreign workers in Malaysia but authorities say many more are living there without proper documents. The migrant workers are mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

Reservations

Malaysia, which until mid-April had the highest number of infections in Southeast Asia, has defended its decision to relax curbs despite a recent climb in cases. On Sunday, it reported 122 new cases, the highest since April 14, for a total of nearly 6,300 infections.

Nine of its 13 states have expressed reservations over the easing move, opting to delay it or toughen restrictions for fear of a surge in infections.

The largest palm producing state of Sabah, on Borneo island, said it would stick to a previous shutdown order that runs until May 12, to ensure people "are not exposed" to the virus, Chief Minister Shafie Apdal said in a statement on Sunday.

But manufacturers are keen to get back to work, with some, such as tech firm Qdos Group, aiming to ramp up production.

Chief Executive Jeffrey Hwang said his company was focused on clearing a backlog in demand for its products, used to make medical equipment, while maintaining "absolute safety" at its facility.

"Got to turn on more overtime in May and June to cope with that," Hwang added.

The government has estimated losses of 63 billion ringgit ($14.58 billion) and for the economy to turn in its worst performance in more than a decade due to the curbs.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Impractical Jokers star Brian Q Quinn is donating booze to benefit Staten Island frontline workers during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

Rubsam & Horrmann Brewing Co., the legendary borough beer company Quinn relaunched in 2019, has partnered with Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn to convert the R&H Pilsner, IPA and Amber into hand sanitizer for police officers, firefighters and hospital workers.

My priority for this batch is definitely city workers, because I know how under-supply they could be in times like this and how they dont have a choice but to work," Quinn told the Advance/SILive.com. We rely on them so much, so anything we can do should be done."

Cara S. (Liander) Gordon, the chief operating officer of R&H, brought the concept to Quinns attention and said the decision to pursue it was a no-brainer.

When youre a Staten Islander, its just in your nature to help out the community anyway you can, she said. Its ingrained in us, especially me personally, and we always look for ways to help each other in crisis.

R&H donated 1,467 gallons of beer to be converted into hand sanitizer in a process that will take six days to complete. Once it is done, R&H will pick up 900 bottles of hand sanitizer to distribute around the borough.

They just needed our beer, and they would take care of the rest, Gordon said, referring to Kings County Distillery. They would even take care of donating on our behalf. However, they have a list of places they donate to in New York City, but they didnt have any Staten Island places on the list. The people running the distillery were so excited because they didnt have a Staten Island connection until now.

The hand sanitizer follows WHO and FDA regulation requirements, and contains glycerin, hydrogen peroxide and denaturant, a substance added to alcohol to make it unfit for drinking. (FYI: There is a strict warning on the bottle that says the hand sanitizer product is not for consumption.)

Brian Quinn of 'Impractical Jokers' donates beer to be made into hand sanitizer. (Credit: Cara S. (Liander) Gordon)

When he first bought R&H, Quinn never planned on making cleaning products out of the beer.

I wanted to get into a fun business and hand sanitizers werent on the top of the list, he joked. Its a bit of a surprise, but its a new chapter in the R&H story.

Rubsam & Horrmann has a deep history on Staten Island. It was originally founded in Stapleton in 1888, and by 1896, it employed 50 workers and brewed 100,000 kegs of beer.

R&H is continuing its beer delivery efforts during the coronavirus outbreak. For more information, visit rhbeer.com.

Despite doing what he can to help during the crisis -- including sending personalized messages to fans via Zoom meetings and partnering with the borough presidents office to create public service announcements -- Quinn said he is not the one that deserves praise.

What Im doing is completely minor in the face of what these city workers are doing, he said. Im happy to be able to help in any small way. Thats all.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on May 3 campaigned against lockdown in several parts of the nation and said that they would have to pay a huge price for it. Addressing thousands of anti-confinement demonstrators, from his presidential palace, he blamed the state governors for continuing the lockdown. As of now, the Latin American nation has reported 101,826 cases of COVID-19 and 7,051 fatalities.

"The destruction of jobs by some governors is irresponsible and unacceptable. We will pay a high price in the future," the head of state said in a speech that was broadcasted live on Facebook.

Last week, Bolsonaro had said that he would like everyone to return to work amid coronavirus lockdown. Bolsonaro in a live video feed said he would like all the citizens to return to work, but added that it is not up to him to decide while putting the onus completely on governors and mayors.

He had railed against state governors saying that their stringent confident measures were an overreaction and would eventually damage the economy. According to experts, the number of reported case in Brazil could be 12 to 15 times more owing to undetected cases due to lack of testing.

Read: Brazil's President Bolsonaro Wants Soccer To Return Amid Pandemic

Read: Outgoing Brazil Minister Sergio Moro Denies Bolsonaro's Allegation

'People are with us'

The most recent demonstration drew a larger crowd than the previous rallies with many asking for the army to intervene. The people are with us and the army is on the side of the law, order, freedom and democracy, Borsonaro replied. Many others waved posters criticising Rodrigo Maia and Sergio Moro, both critics of the Brazilian leaders.

Read: COVID-19: Brazil President Bolsonaro Wants People To Return To Work Amid Lockdown

Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly downplayed the threat of coronavirus pandemic as he last month visited a market to make his case. Bolsonaro visited a market in Taguatinga, a suburb of Brasilia, and spoke to a man selling barbecued meat on skewers. The Brazilian president had also questioned the decision to shut down schools and transport in the country. Bolsonaro had also attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu, alleging that he is not a doctor.

Read: Brazilian Court Orders Prez Bolsonaro To Release His COVID-19 Test Results Within 2 Days


Community members intervened when a woman being attacked at Mount Tabor Park yelled for help, leading to the arrest of a 19-year-old man, Portland police said.

Malik Jabarr Hughes is accused of two counts of first-degree kidnapping, two counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count of attempted first-degree rape. Hughes was arraigned on the allegations Monday afternoon in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

The woman was walking on the southeast side of Mount Tabor Park when she was dragged to a secluded area off a road about 6:30 p.m. and assaulted, police said.

When the woman yelled for help, others nearby intervened to help her and made sure her attacker couldnt escape, according to police.

One man who saw the assault said he yelled at Hughes, and Hughes briefly looked at him, and said, "I just went crazy,'' according to a probable cause affidavit. The man told Hughes to sit down and he did. Another passerby described Hughes as having a "maniacal look'' on his face, the affidavit said.

Police said they arrested Hughes at the scene, near the Southeast Harrison Drive entrance to the park,

He is being held at the Multnomah County Detention Center on $750,000 bail. Hes due back in court on May 12.

He told court officials he has been transient for a month but has family in the metro Portland area. A record from the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles shows he had a Southeast Portland address, according to court records. He has no prior criminal record as an adult.

Hughes, 19, is accused of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree sexual abuse and attempted first-degree rape, according to jail records.

A stranger-on-stranger sexual assault is rare, Portland Police Chief Jami Resch said in a statement.

The selfless actions of these individuals to respond immediately to help a person in need is commendable, Resch said. I extend my sincere gratitude to those who assisted in the intervention and capture of this violent suspect.

If anyone has information regarding the assault, police ask that they contact Detective Nathan Wollstein at 503-545-3482, or by email at Nathan.wollstein@portlandoregon.gov.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

Subscribe to Facebook page

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.

Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter
Springfield, Missouri, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alchemy Renewable Energy (ARE), a high growth portfolio company of Monarch Private Capital that owns and operates renewable energy facilities, is pleased to announce the financial closing for a 44.51-Megawatt (DC) solar, renewable energy portfolio across Indiana, with joint venture partner Telamon Enterprise Ventures LLC (TEV).

AREs parent, Monarch Private Capital (MPC), secured the tax equity financing of a seven-solar-project portfolio in the state of Indiana through a partnership with a large, domestic life insurance company. Insurance companies are increasingly attracted to providing tax equity for utility-scale solar projects, said Chuck Kaiser, Monarch Private Capitals Managing Director of Financial Investments. Expected returns are substantially higher than those available in the investment-grade fixed-income market for a relatively low-risk investment.

The portfolio was developed by the Indiana Municipal Power Agency (IMPA), a wholesale electric power provider, who is the offtaker and Engineering Procurement & Construction provider for the portfolio of projects. With projects in Gas City, Centerville, Crawfordsville, Richmond, Scottsburg, Tell City, and Tipton, the ARE and TEV joint venture will have 12 total projects servicing IMPA cities. TEV serves as the majority co-sponsor of the portfolio, with ARE as the minority co-sponsor.

An investment of this size will have a considerable, positive environmental impact on communities in Indiana and surrounding states by:

Reducing approximately 39,000 MT of CO2e emissions in the first twelve months of operations (the equivalent to removing 8,500 passenger cars from the road for a year),

Over the first six years of operations, an estimated 233,000 MT CO2e of emissions would be avoided (the equivalent to reducing gasoline consumption by 26 million gallons), and

During the first 35 years of operations, roughly 1.2 million MT CO2e would be reduced in and around these communities (the equivalent of 214,000 homes electricity use for one year [1].

ARE and MPC are committed to fulfilling the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals of all its constituents. The Environmental prong examines how a company operates in a sustainable manner and interacts with the environment. By investing in clean power projects across the United States, companies are making significant contributions to transforming the U.S. into an environmentally sustainable economy. Solar energy provides clean power, reduces energy costs, and generates jobs while contributing to the energy self-reliance of the U.S. economy.



For more information on tax equity investing opportunities, please contact Chuck Kaiser by emailing ckaiser@monarchprivate.com.

About Alchemy Renewable Energy

Alchemy Renewable Energy is an industry leader in renewable energy projects as well as comprehensive long-term debt and tax equity financing. The firm utilizes a credentialed team, a strong network of joint ventures, and parent company Monarch Private Capital to support premium mid-size utility-scale renewable energy projects, including solar and biomass power generation. The Company leverages Monarch Private Capitals tax equity placement services as the final element of its projects capital structure. In addition, ARE reduces overall project costs and produce higher overall investor returns by eliminating the need to source third-party development and financing support.

About Monarch Private Capital

Monarch Private Capital positively impacts communities by investing in tax credit supported industries. The company is a nationally recognized tax equity investor providing innovative capital solutions for affordable housing, historic rehabilitations, renewable energy, film, and other qualified projects. Monarch has long term relationships with institutional and individual investors, developers, and lenders that participate in these types of federal and state programs. Investors look to Monarch to create, operate, and manage a variety of different funds, including investment opportunities that address ESG initiatives that provide a quantifiable impact. Headquartered in Atlanta, Monarch has offices and tax credit professionals located throughout the U.S.

About Telamon Enterprise Ventures

Telamon Enterprise Ventures (TEV) is a national solar developer and consultant based in Carmel, Indiana. Having designed and financed one of the nations largest airport solar projects and the nations largest public transit solar array, TEV is a respected leader in solar design, engineering, financing, RFP and construction management. TEV specializes in public sector and utility photovoltaic installations and possesses national capabilities as a subsidiary to the Telamon Corporation with nine locations throughout the U.S.

About Indiana Municipal Power Agency

IMPA is the wholesale power provider to 61 cities and towns throughout Indiana and Ohio that own and operate the municipal electric distribution systems in their communities. The Agency focuses on providing its member utilities with a power supply that is low-cost, reliable, and environmentally-responsible. IMPA members deliver electric service to approximately 330,000 individuals. For more information about IMPA, visit www.impa.com.





[1] https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator
Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider for more details. (17)
A man's body has been found at the base of a cliff near Sydney's Bondi Beach.

The man is believed to have fallen 40 metres to his death in North Bondi before the grisly discovery was made at about 4pm on Monday.

A crime scene has been established near the site of the Bondi Waste Water Treatment Plant, but the circumstances of his death are still unknown.

Pictured: Workers in hi-vis clothing at North Bondi on Monday afternoon after a man reportedly fell 40 metres to his death from a cliff in the eastern Sydney suburb

The discovery was made by a worker at a sewage facility (officers pictured at the plant) near the cliff face, a New South Wales Police spokesperson said

The man's body was found about 4pm on Monday afternoon at the bottom of a cliff face at North Bondi

The discovery was made by workers at the facility but the body is understood not to be that of a worker at the plant, a New South Wales Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.

The spokeswoman said police officers entered the facility to get access to the body.

It comes just months after a man died when he was swept off the rocks at the neighbouring Bondi Beach as huge swells hit the shore.

Workers in hi-vis pictured after the man's body was found near the Bondi Waste Water Treatment Plant

A NSW ambulance motorcyclist leaves the facility following the discovery on Monday

The 47-year-old man drowned after being swept off rocks by large swell at the north end of the famous Sydney beach about 5.30pm on February 15.

His wife, 45, was also washed into the ocean by a rogue wave but managed to climb back onto the rocks, however she suffered cuts and two broken toes in the process.

NSW Police said the couple were Russian tourists.
The Department of Agriculture has said there would be no decisions made in relation to continuation of existing Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) schemes such as GLAS until an agreement is reached on funding at EU level.

With the reform of the CAP logjammed in discussions, Transitional Regulations to bridge the gap between the current policy and its replacement are under negotiation in Brussels.

This week the European Parliament Agri Committee (COMAGRI) voted on its report setting out its position on the proposals.

The proposal is largely technical to allow for the continuation of the existing rural development programmes, subject to certain rules and conditions and to provide for a budget 2021. There are a number of key points that are not yet resolved. Firstly, the issue of the budget  this is linked to the outcome of the discussions on the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU Budget which is not yet agreed by European Council (Heads of State).

The second issue is the timescale. The Council position provides for a one-year transitional period, but is accompanied by a Council Statement recognising that a second year may be required but noting that this can be decided later in the negotiations, when the position on the MFF (EU Budget) and CAP post 2020 is clearer. It is expected that the European Council will look again at the EU Budget over the next month, although agreement is still uncertain and further complicated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The European Parliament draft report agrees that the transitional arrangements should run for 2 years unless the EU Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) and the CAP post 2020 packages are both agreed by October.

According to the Department of Agriculture, in relation to the continuation of existing schemes such as GLAS and BDGP, as there is still no certainty on the budget, or on the timeframe of the transitional measures, no decisions will be made around the Rural Development Programme schemes, including agri-environment schemes, until clarification is provided.

"Ireland has pressed for the earliest possible adoption of this legislation, so that we can provide certainty to farmers and rural communities at the earliest possible time, and plan for the transitional period with legal and financial certainty," it said.

ICSA president Edmond Phelan has welcomed the European Parliament Agriculture Committees position on extending the current CAP arrangements for up to two years but said that the real issue is the need for full funding for CAP in the period. Of course, in the absence of agreement on a new CAP, we have to extend the current CAP. But it is bizarre that there is so little outrage that the threat of cut in CAP funding is still on the table. EU leaders are ignoring the elephant in the room. It is all very well agreeing to CAP extension but we need to see a resolution to the funding logjam.

Given the unprecedented disaster posed by Covid-19, it is absurd to contemplate cuts to CAP funding. The Multiannual Financial Framework proposals which potentially involve a 12% cut need to be set aside. We cannot allow diminution of CAP payments for 2021 and 2022. Farmers across Europe are on the verge of going broke and it is totally unsatisfactory to see the lack of decisive action.

At last, the Farm Commissioner has admitted that a crisis fund, with extra funding from outside the CAP is required. ICSA has been saying this for weeks now and it is alarming that Europe continues to prevaricate on this. The heads of state need to stop messing around; we need money and quickly for farmers," he said.
How do we repay that sort of courage? How do we repair the damage to the bodies and psyches of our hospital workers while this virus marches on? What is the plan to care for our caretakers? We should be discussing, with the same urgency that we devote to the economy, their access to quality mental health care, their access to ample personal protective gear, tangible ways to express our praise and gratitude. Maybe theres a GI Bill, of sorts, to be enacted for hospital workers.
The current coronavirus outbreak will have lasting impacts on consumers' behavior regarding car insurance. While usage-based and on-demand car insurances are not that popular today, the current crisis will act as a catalyst to make them more popular, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director

Young adults are among the most affected groups financially by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Those who are about to enter the workforce are likely to have lower wages and will also have had less time to start building savings. 18-24 years old young adults have low levels of job security due to heavy presence in sectors like retail, leisure, and hospitality that were seriously affected by the coronavirus outbreak. Many of them are looking to make as many savings as they can. Car insurance is one area where customers look to save some money.

Most young adults have less than $1,000 in their savings account. While more and more states are imposing shelter-in-place restrictions and are instructing people to stay home, traditional insurance products like house insurance or boat are seeing a decline. Most people feel that they are less likely to be burgled during the COVID-19 outbreak.

While car insurance is difficult to cancel due to legal requirements, policy owners can make some adjustments to their policies and switch their comprehensive policies to usage-based or on-demand insurance in order to reduce costs. This move can be especially popular among young drivers who have to pay higher premiums due to their inexperience and their likelihood to be involved in accidents more often.

While this shift in behavior can be challenging for large insurance companies, small specialized insurers will benefit from the move. Usage-based car insurance providers will become more popular due to the fact their customers will pay less on their premiums when they are using their cars less often. Also, on-demand insurance companies will become more popular because they allow their customers to switch on and switch off their covers and pay only for the periods they need to be insured.

For additional info, money-saving tips and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.org/

Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc.
The 15 U.S. luxury hotels which were supposed to be bought by Mirae Asset Global Investments from China's Anbang Insurance Group / Courtesy of Mirae Asset Global Investments





By Park Jae-hyuk







Mirae Asset Global Investments said Monday it has decided to cancel its acquisition of 15 luxury hotels in the United States from China's state-controlled Anbang Insurance Group for $5.8 billion, citing the seller's alleged breach of contract.







According to Mirae Asset, a termination notice was sent to Anbang, Sunday, over the sale and purchase agreement they signed Sept. 10, 2019, for the hotels in nine U.S. cities. The hotels included the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, JW Marriott Essex House in New York and the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.







It also asked the escrow agent to return its deposit, which is assumed to be about $600 million.







As Anbang told the escrow agent not to return the deposit, Mirae Asset will likely file a lawsuit against the seller, which will begin a years-long process.







"Although Anbang was in breach of certain material obligations, it sought to close the transaction on April 17," Mirae Asset said in a press release.







"Among other things, Anbang failed to disclose and discharge various material encumbrances and liabilities impairing the hotels, and failed to continue the operation of the hotels in accordance with contractual requirements in a timely manner."







Mirae Asset said it notified Anbang, April 17, that it had the right to cancel the contract if the seller did not resolve the issue within 15 days.







But Anbang did not act until May 2, according to Mirae Asset.







"Anbang has already resorted to litigation by bringing claims last week in the U.S. against us and our affiliated entities. We categorically deny Anbang's claims and are confident that we will be vindicated," Mirae Asset said.







"We will protect our rights vigorously in accordance with the terms of the agreement."







Anbang sued Mirae Asset in Delaware, April 27, alleging the buyer had failed to complete payment.







According to Anbang, Mirae Asset was supposed to finalize payments for the hotels by April 17.







Bloomberg reported that Mirae Asset had asked the Chinese insurer for more time to close the deal because the required debt financing wasn't immediately available.







Mirae Asset, however, has denied the claim it was facing difficulties in raising the money, saying the deal was postponed as the seller had failed to fulfill prerequisites.







"We found out the seller was embroiled in a lawsuit with a third party, so we've continued to ask the seller for related documents, but the seller declined to provide them," a Mirae Asset official said at that time.







In response, Anbang said in a press release Monday that its lawsuit with the third party has already been finished, so the hotels do not have any problems with their ownerships.







The Chinese firm claimed it explained this matter to Mirae Asset through a petition it filed with the Delaware court.


Agra was touted as a model in fight against COVID-19 in early April but more than 600 cases emerged in recent weeks.

On February 25, a day after US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania posed for pictures outside the Taj Mahal on an official visit to India, Sumit Kapoor returned to his nearby home from a trip to Italy.

Kapoor, a partner in a shoe manufacturing firm, tested positive a week later for the new coronavirus, becoming the first confirmed case in the north Indian city of Agra and the origin of the countrys first big cluster of the virus.

The city of 1.6 million people, famous for its 17th-century white domed marble mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, moved fast. It set up containment zones, screened hundreds of thousands of residents and conducted widespread contact tracing.

By mid-March, the iconic Taj Mahal  a UNESCO World Heritage Site  was closed to visitors as part of measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

By early April, the city thought it had the virus beat, containing cases to under 50, while new infections exploded in other Indian cities. Prime Minister Narendra Modis government lauded the Agra Model as a template for the countrys battle against COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

A bank employee with his face covered with a cloth works inside a bank during in Agra [Danish Siddiqui/Reuters]

Now, as the city and its hospitals battle a second wave of infections, Agra is a model of a different kind, illustrating how the coronavirus can roar back even after a swift lockdown and elaborate containment measures.

If it hadnt spread in the hospitals, we would have been able to contain it, said Agras top local official, District Magistrate Prabhu N Singh.

As India grapples with about 42,000 coronavirus infections, second only to China in Asia, Agras tangle with the virus offers lessons for big cities in India and elsewhere.

It all began with a shoemaker who visited a trade fair in Italy.

After flying home via Austria, Kapoor, 44, who lives about 10km (6.2 miles) from the Taj Mahal, first learned he might be infected on March 1, when his brother-in-law, who travelled with him, came down with a fever and tested positive in New Delhi. A state official called Kapoor the next day and told him to get tested at the Agra District Hospital.

He was positive  and so were his father, mother, son, wife and brother. All six were moved to a hospital in New Delhi, about 200km (124 miles) to the north. My brother and I had a sore throat and the other four didnt have any symptoms, Kapoor told Reuters News Agency.

Later, Kapoors accountant in Agra and his wife also tested positive for COVID-19, while other unrelated cases started showing up around the city.

Containment zones

Singh, the district magistrate, and his team attempted to establish containment zones as the virus spread across the city, but they ran into a problem: How to quickly screen thousands of households.

Dr Brajendra Singh Chandel, a surveillance medical officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Agra, said he pulled out vaccination microplans that had been developed for polio control by the WHO, using them alongside Google Maps to plot target areas.

The detailed household-level plans, which helped India eradicate polio in 2014, have clearly demarcated start, middle and end points for surveying an area, Chandel explained, allowing teams to work their way through any neighbourhood efficiently.

Agra was celebrated for appearing to have contained the virus [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Once we zeroed down on the area, we used the polio microplans to execute, he said.

Local authorities identified an epicentre for each cluster of infections and drew three-kilometre (1.9-mile) wide containment zones around them. They surveyed residents in those areas, looking for those who had contact with people who tested positive for the coronavirus or who were showing symptoms. Nearly 3,000 workers screened some 165,000 households, according to a government presentation.

Meanwhile, epidemiologists from the federal governments India Epidemic Intelligence Service arrived in Agra to help with containment, contact tracing and analysing data, said Dr Anshul Pareek, who leads the citys coronavirus rapid response team.

As the number of cases grew, authorities sealed off infection hotspots  typically groups of houses or parts of a street  and cordoned off adjoining neighbourhoods holding as many as 10,000 people.

In a control room used to manage traffic, officials monitored camera feeds from across the city to ensure the lockdown was enforced. Thousands of police were deployed to hotspots and checkpoints. Loudspeakers blared messages telling residents to stay indoors.

That differed from other Indian cities, many of which failed to isolate patients or track down their contacts, allowing the infection to spread, according to health authorities. Weak lockdowns allowed potential carriers to slip through containment cordons, they added. More than 1,300 people have died from the virus in India.

Revival of cases

Agra was celebrated for appearing to have contained the virus. On April 11, Lav Agarwal, a senior official in Indias federal health ministry, held up Agra as an example of how India was working to defeat the pandemic.

But a resurgence was already in the works. In late March, a gathering of the Islamic missionary group Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi had become a source for hundreds of new infections nationwide. Federal authorities sent officials in Agra a list of attendees to track down, Singh said.

Agarwal did not respond to requests for comment by Reuters.

By mid-March, the iconic Taj Mahal  a UNESCO World Heritage Site  was closed to visitors as part of measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic [Sunil Kataria/Reuters]

District police chief Babloo Kumar said he used police investigation tactics and cellphone data to identify Tablighi Jamaat members and their contacts. Eventually, 104 people from this group tested positive in Agra.

The effort was helped by the nationwide lockdown on March 25 that stopped all public transport, shut businesses and kept residents at home.

Without a lockdown, we could not have done anything, Singh said.

By early April, a patient linked to the Tablighi group showed up at an Agra hospital and later tested positive for COVID-19, officials said. The disease spread rapidly among patients and staff who went on to infect their families and relatives. New cases also popped up in Agras other healthcare facilities.

Worst hit was Paras Hospital, the source of at least 92 coronavirus cases, Singh said. One staff member infected 14 others in a two-room home, he said. In another case, a patient from the hospital infected 32 others in a nearby town, he added.

The hospital was sealed off on April 6. Late last month, a chart tracking contacts of positive patients linked to the facility still stood next to Singhs desk.

Agra now has about 600 coronavirus cases and 14 deaths, according to local authorities. As of the end of April, there were 39 infection hotspots and tests had been conducted on 6,848 samples, with some people tested multiple times.

Singh said he is confident the city will defeat the virus, thanks in part to its aggressive contact-tracing system.

The good part is that for all the cases, we know the source, he said.

Still, eradicating COVID-19 in Agras crowded neighbourhoods will remain difficult, particularly without testing large groups of people, said Dr Rajib Dasgupta, an epidemiologist who teaches at New Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Even within a containment zone, for some conceivable time, its not going to go away very rapidly, said Dasgupta.
Thousands of desperate migrants are trapped in limbo and even at risk of death without food, water or shelter in scorching deserts and at sea, as governments close off borders and ports amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Migrants have been dropped by the truckload in the Sahara Desert or bused to Mexicos desolate border with Guatemala and beyond. They are drifting in the Mediterranean Sea after European and Libyan authorities declared their ports unsafe. And about 100 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are believed to have died in the Bay of Bengal, as country after country pushes them back out to sea.

READ: Train Carrying Nearly 1,000 Migrants Leaves Nagpur For Lucknow

Many governments have declared emergencies, saying a public health crisis like the coronavirus pandemic requires extraordinary measures. However, these measures are just the latest efforts by governments to clamp down on migrants, despite human rights laws.

They just dumped us, said Fanny Jacqueline Ortiz, a 37-year-old Honduran travelling with her two daughters, aged 3 and 12.

Ortiz reached the U.S., but American authorities expelled her to Mexico. The Mexican government in turn abandoned the family on March 26 at the lonely El Ceibo border crossing with Guatemala. Ortiz and other migrants on the two-bus convoy were told to avoid the Guatemalan soldiers guarding the border, which was closed due to the pandemic.

They told us to go around through the mountains, and we slept in the woods, she recalled.

Over the next few weeks, an activist helped Ortiz and others in her group of 20 find a ride to the next border, in Honduras.

Since the aftermath of World War II, international and some national laws have protected refugees and asylum-seekers. Even if states have the right to close themselves off for national security, they cannot forcibly return migrants to countries where they will face violence and other dangers, according to Dr. Violeta Moreno-Lax, professor of migration law at Queen Mary University of London.

Yet that is exactly what is happening.

This is blatantly discriminatory and never justified, said Moreno-Lax. The pandemic provides the perfect excuse.

The desert deportations have been happening for years in North Africa and beyond, and Europe has been deadlocked on how to handle migration on the Mediterranean since the 2015 migration crisis. In the United States, President Donald Trump made migration a central issue of his winning 2016 campaign and has unsuccessfully promised to put an end to border crossings from Mexico ever since taking office.

But this year, coronavirus has shifted the dynamic and allowed governments to crack down even harder, even as the desperation of those on the move remains unchanged.

READ: BJP's Sambit Patra Clarifies Rahul Gandhi's Claims Over Migrants' Trains; Adds Instruction

In the United States, Trump is using a little-known 1944 public health law to set aside decades-old American immigration law. For the first time since the U.S. asylum system was created in 1980, Mexicans and Central Americans who cross the border illegally no longer even get the chance to apply for asylum. Instead, they are whisked to the nearest border crossing and returned to Mexico within hours; asylum-seekers at official crossings are also blocked.

Nearly 10,000 Mexicans and Central Americans were expelled to Mexico less than three weeks after the new rules took effect March 21, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. authorities say the decision was not about immigration but about public health.
New orders for US-made goods suffered a record decline in March and could sink further as disruptions from the novel coronavirus fracture supply chains and depress exports.

The Commerce Department said on Monday factory orders dropped 10.3 percent, the largest decrease since the series started in 1992. Data for February was revised down to show orders dipping 0.1 percent instead of being unchanged as previously reported.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory orders would tumble 9.7 percent in March. Factory orders decreased 2.8 percent year-on-year in March. Unfilled orders at factories dropped 2.0 percent in March after nudging up 0.1 percent in the prior month.

Inventories at factories fell 0.8 percent in March after declining 0.4 percent in February. Shipments of manufactured goods decreased 5.2 percent in March after slipping 0.3 percent in the prior month.

Manufacturing, which accounts for 11 percent of US economic activity, is, together with the rest of the economy, reeling from nationwide lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

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 Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported on Friday that its measure of national factory activity dropped to an 11-month low in April. The ISM's forward-looking new orders sub-index plumbed to levels last seen in December 2008.

Manufacturing was already under pressure from the Trump administration's trade war with China. Manufacturing output declined in the first quarter at its sharpest pace in 11 years. Business investment has contracted for four straight quarters.

The longest economic expansion in US history ended in the first quarter, with gross domestic product declining at its steepest pace since the 2007-2009 Great Recession.

TRANSPORTATION ORDERS SINK

Though some parts of the country have started reopening, economists say it would take at least two years to bring the economy back to pre-coronavirus levels. They expect a wave of bankruptcies and a long period of high unemployment.

At least 30 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment benefits since mid-March when state and local government ordered nonessential workers to stay at home to slow the spread of COVID-19.

In March, transportation equipment orders plunged 41.3 percent after increasing 4.6 percent in the prior month. Orders were weighed down by a 296.2 percent dive in demand for civilian aircraft and parts. Though Boeing said its aircraft orders rose in March relative to February, it also reported big cancellations of its troubled 737 MAX jetliner, which has been grounded since March 2019 following two fatal crashes.

There was a 65.3 percent decline in orders for ships and boats in March. Motor vehicle and parts orders dropped 6.7 percent in March. That offset a 63.7 percent surge in orders for defense aircraft and parts. Machinery orders fell 0.5 percent in March after decreasing 1.1 percent in February. But orders for electrical equipment, appliances and components orders increased 0.8 percent in March.

The government also reported that orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, which are seen as a measure of business spending plans on equipment, dipped 0.1 percent in March instead of edging up 0.1 percent as reported last month.

Shipments of core capital goods, which are used to calculate business equipment spending in the GDP report, fell 0.2 percent in March as previously reported.
Another basic step to lower risk, Dr. Winston said, is simply having fewer people in a space.

That is a concept that runs counter to the workplace zeitgeist of the past two decades. The embrace of open floor plans stretches back to the first dot-com boom in the late 1990s. It was hailed as essential to collaboration and creativity, but is, of course, also about cramming more people into expensive office space, a situation that people now realize creates unnerving petri-dish conditions.

Mr. Wymer of Knoll, the furniture design company, said his goal had changed from making offices virus-free, which is impractical, to remaking them so that workers feel safer.

We cant ask employees to come back to the same office, he said. Companies feel we have to address the root fear.

For now, that may mean no more shared desks (a concept in the business world known as hoteling), elbow-to-elbow seating or cafes where people congregate to chat about a project over a fruit water or hazelnut latte. It could mean more use of materials, like copper, that are less hospitable to germs, and reconfiguring ventilation systems that flow air from the ceiling down rather than the floor up, which is considered safer.

Mobify, a Vancouver company that builds online storefronts for major retailers like Under Armour and Lancome, has 40 employees who share space with other start-ups. Its the epitome of the 21st century workplace with side-by-side desks in a row, sans partitions, and open space for a total of 100 people at full capacity to congregate for meetings, or for playing Ping-Pong and pool.

Now, Igor Faletksi, the companys chief executive, said, Its less about fun and more about safety.
Police in North Carolina have accused a group of teenagers and children as young as 9 of stealing more than $1.1 million in vehicles from car dealerships.

Investigators think 19 suspects ranging in age from 9 to 16 were responsible for taking nearly 50 cars from auto sellers in Winston-Salem and Kernersville during a month-long string of break-ins, Winston-Salem police told news outlets.

Some of the children accused of involvement had stolen multiple cars before, The Winston-Salem Journal quoted Lt. Amy Gauldin as saying. Police alleged the suspects stole the keys of new cars or vehicles being serviced at the dealerships and took them on joy rides.

The Forsyth County Department of Juvenile Justice denied multiple requests from the department to detain the children, but the investigation remains ongoing, police said.

Detectives charged one adult, 19-year-old Mekeal Binns, with possession of a stolen motor vehicle in connection with the thefts, the department said. It was unclear whether he had an attorney who could comment on his behalf.

All but six cars were recovered, according to officials.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics North Carolina
An F-15C Eagle from Oregon Air National Guard's 142nd Fighter Wing had to make an unplanned landing at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, Saturday afternoon after declaring an in-flight emergency while operating in the area, according to the Air Force.

A base spokesperson said the F-15 was conducting a mission as part of Operation Noble Eagle, North American Aerospace Defense Command's mission to defend the U.S. and Canada that was launched in the aftermath of 9/11.

Two defense officials confirmed to Military.com that "these types of missions are armed," meaning the fighter jet was carrying missiles. The F-15 can carry a combination of AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles as well as AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles.

The mishap occurred around 1:30 p.m. local time, the spokesperson said.

Related: Misplaced Depot Paperwork Led to F-15 Grounding, Officials Say

While touching down, "the aircraft's landing gear malfunctioned and the aircraft came to rest on its fuselage," the spokesperson confirmed in an email. "There were no injuries to the pilot and runway operations have been unaffected by the incident. The incident is under investigation," the spokesperson said.

According to The Drive, first to report the story, photos surfaced over the weekend on Instagram that showed an F-15 had skidded off the runway into the grass, with its radome missing, its wing tips broken, as well as its right auxiliary fuel tank completely crushed.

Two officials separately told CNN the Eagle was in the area acting as overwatch while President Donald Trump attended Camp David to meet with advisers.

NORAD typically contributes F-15s and F-16 Fighting Falcons, and on occasion, F-22 Raptors in support of Noble Eagle.

The Air Force has been on a quest to replace its aging 1980s-era F-15C/D models, with officials in 2017 voicing concerns about the aircraft's longevity and recurring structural issues.

Earlier this year, the Air Force took a first step toward buying at least eight of the new F-15 "fourth-plus" variant, known as the F-15EX. The F-15EXs are meant to replace the C/D models, officials have said.

The news of the planned purchase would mean the Air Force will bring its first fourth-generation fighter program to bear in more than 20 years.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Read More: Pilot Error, Instructor Delay Caused Deadly T-38 Crash at Vance, Report Finds
CARLSBAD, Calif., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- While schools across the nation remain closed to slow the spread of COVID-19, the joyous sounds of music continue to ring out as districts and schools celebrate their recognition as "Best Communities for Music Education." Now in its 21st year and presented by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Foundation, the Best Communities for Music Education (BCME) program has recognized 754 school districts across 42 states and 148 schools for the outstanding efforts by teachers, administrators, parents, students, and community leaders and their support for music education as part of a well-rounded education for all children.

"Even in this time of uncertainty, the Best Community districts and SupportMusic schools show what can be done when teachers, school and community leaders, and parents all agree that music is essential and not optional as a learning force that must be available to all students," affirmed Mary Luehrsen, Executive Director of The NAMM Foundation. "More so now than ever and as evident by the creative music learning by both teachers and students that continues from home and online, music education plays a crucial role in students' social and emotional connections to each other and the community."

In cooperation with researchers at The Music Research Institute at the University of Kansas, the BCME program evaluates schools and districts based on funding, staffing of highly-qualified teachers, commitment to standards, and access to music instruction. The application period begins in October, with districts and schools announced in the following spring. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen many schools continue their commitment to music education, albeit virtually.

In New Jersey, Livingston Public Schools, a four-time BCME recipient is one school continuing its commitment to music education. The district, which serves students K-12 with choir, band, and orchestra programs, shared that the number of students enrolled in ensembles increases annually, and engagement is critical. "Being named a Best Community for Music Education from The NAMM Foundation celebrates our district's commitment to music education, and the dedication of Livingston's music teachers, administrators, students, parents, Board of Education, and community members to a comprehensive K-12 music program for all students," said Mara Rubin, Supervisor of Visual and Performing Arts. "And now, music is even more important for our students and community during these uncertain times in which we are living because music helps to keep communities together. We are reminded that music creates a sense of belonging and participation, enhancing our community connections, and building our community's spirit."

In Southern California, San Marcos School District is a three-time BCME recipient. Music Teacher Matt Armstrong shared that both teachers and administrators jumped into action to navigate the state-mandated closure and to keep students involved in music-making. For elementary students, music educators launched "Start with the Arts" day on Mondays. "We wanted to focus on family engagement and enjoyment through the arts keeping our elementary students involved with as much as we can."

Across the district, middle school and high school twice-weekly classes let students continue to rehearsing and learning while keeping in touch with friends. One music teacher developed a district-wide practice challenge, where students could submit their videos, allowing them to see other students play from across all grade levelsanother organized masterclasses for the district. One teacher creates entirely produced daily updated videos, and the elementary team collaborated to launch a virtual choir of the song, "What the World Needs Now," in tribute to healthcare professionals. Armstrong says that of the thousands of music students across the district, approximately 95% of students tune in for music classes. "Students are hungry for music. We can't make music together right now, but allowing them to continue to enjoy the music-making process is powerful, and it wouldn't be possible without the support of our administrators, teachers, community, and students."

In addition to the 754 districts receiving Best Communities for Music Education recognition, 148 individual schools across the nation are being awarded the SupportMusic Merit Award (SMMA), which recognizes support for school-based music education programs.

At Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Boston, Massachusetts, a two-time SMMA winner, the school staff knew that arts programming would be important to cohesion and continued student success. Arts Coordinator Christopher Schroeder said that, "In the first week of the closure, our music staff quickly mobilized and launched an online website to adapt our daily music programming. Our students have access to the following online opportunities: virtual music lessons led by 28 teaching artists; daily morning music huddles to keep our students socially connected; music worksheets to strengthen students' music literacy and theory; remote instrument support with tuning and instrument care support, and a curated list of music tech apps that are free or low-cost to most families."

Since the passage by Congress in 2015 of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and a stated emphasis on a well-rounded education, many school districts have re-committed to music and arts education programs. ESSA provides designated funding for well-rounded educational opportunities through Title IV Part A Student Academic Success and Achievement grants. NAMM Foundation research has revealed that these grants are being widely used by school districts to address instructional gaps in access to music and arts education.

Even in the face of statewide school closures, many districts continue to affirm music education and its benefits for students, schools, and communities. In 2018, Music Matters, the condensed guide from the Arts Education Partnership and co-sponsored by the Country Music Foundation and The NAMM Foundation, was released. The report offered vital findings, including music students do better in English, math, and science than their peers without music, and more music and art equals fewer dropouts and a reduced number of suspensions.

Over the past 21 years, the number of school districts gaining BCME recognition has grown, from fewer than 100 in 1999 to more than 700 today. BCME designation has helped raise local awareness of quality music programs from coast to coast and has assisted communities in securing funds for music programs threatened by budget cuts.

A complete list of districts and schools receiving Best Community and SupportMusic designations from The NAMM Foundation can be found at BCME and SMMA.

About NAMM Foundation

The NAMM Foundation is a non-profit supported in part by the National Association of Music Merchants and its 10,400 members around the world. The NAMM Foundation works to advance active participation in music-making across the lifespan by supporting scientific research, philanthropic giving, and public service programs. For more information about The NAMM Foundation, please visit www.nammfoundation.org, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Contact:

NAMM Foundation

[email protected]

SOURCE NAMM Foundation

Related Links

https://www.nammfoundation.org


On March 24, Boeing's Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith told Reuters in an interview that the credit markets were "essentially closed" to the largest US plane maker, and that the entire US aerospace industry urgently needed capital to cope with the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.

Boeing expects the money from the bond issue to cover its funding needs for the year, barring any unexpected event. Credit:Bloomberg

The upsized deal, this year's largest investment-grade bond issue and the sixth largest on record, surpassed Boeing's expectations. It underscores how the company capitalised on US government support, even without having to accept taxpayer money as aid.

In just six weeks, Boeing went from seeking government aid to announcing it no longer needed it.

A $US2.3 trillion US stimulus package, enacted into law at the end of March to provide relief to the US economy which was hit hard by the pandemic, subsequently carved out $US17 billion in aid for Boeing and other companies critical to national security.

Boeing itself had lobbied extensively for aid and had called for at least $US60 billion in government loans for the entire aerospace manufacturing sector. "We can't let anything happen to Boeing," US President Donald Trump said last month, in one of the many instances he expressed support for the company.

Several bond investors in interviews with Reuters cited the US government's backstopping of Boeing, as well as the Federal Reserve's support of the credit markets in the aftermath of the pandemic, as reasons for the success of the capital raise.

"Boeing is pretty vital to, not just the US economy, but to national security interests. Also, you can't argue (with the fact that) the Fed support is what has been the primary driver of what is allowing risk assets to boom," said Mark Heppenstall, chief investment officer at Penn Mutual Asset Management.

Already saddled with $US39 billion in debt as of the end of March, Boeing started the week searching for cash, to cope not just with impact of the coronavirus outbreak on air travel, but with the long grounding of its flagship 737 Max aircraft as well, following a string of accidents.
GUATEMALA CITY - Migrants returning from the United States were once considered heroes in Guatemala, where the money they send back to their hometowns is a mainstay of the economy.

But since the coronavirus pandemic hit, migrants in town after town have been mistreated, run off or threatened by neighbours who fear they will bring the virus back with them from the United States.

Similar mistreatment is being reported across Latin America and the Caribbean. In Haiti, police are guarding a hotel full of quarantined deportees from the U.S.  partly to prevent them from escaping and partly to stop attacks from neighbours frightened of the coronavirus.

For immigrants already shaken by the Trump administrations hard line on deportation, mistreatment at home is a further blow, and a disturbing illustration of how the pandemic is upending longstanding social norms in unexpected ways across the world.

Vanessa Diaz said her mother heard rumours that neighbours were organizing to keep her from reaching her home in the northern province of Peten after she was deported back to Guatemala on a flight from the United States.

Diaz had to run inside with her 7-year-old son and hide when she arrived.

When we arrived my mother said, Get out of the car and run into the house. She was afraid they were going to do something to us, Diaz recalled.

The Guatemalan government says at least 100 migrants deported from the United States between late March and mid-April have tested positive for COVID-19. Even those who, like Diaz, are not infected  she was placed in quarantine at home for two weeks after arriving last month on flight where nobody tested positive  carry the stigma.

The assistant mayor was going around egging people on, because they wanted to kick me and my son out of my house, Diaz said.

The fear hasnt subsided; Diazs mother must shop for food for them all, because her daughter doesnt dare venture out. The mother has filed a complaint with police, because shes afraid neighbours might yet attack the house.

I am afraid. The police came to the house and left their phone number, so we can call them if theres any trouble, Diaz said. But reason and the threat of legal action appear to mean little. I have a document that says I do not have the disease, Diaz said, referring to a letter given to her by the Public Health Ministry when she was sent home to self-quarantine.

Diaz left Guatemala on Feb. 14 and was caught entering the U.S. two weeks later. She and her son spent more than a month in detention in Texas before they were deported.

The treatment of returning migrants by their own countrymen has become a matter of concern for President Alejandro Giammattei, who issued an appeal last month to stop the harassment.

A few months ago, many people were happy to get their remittances checks, Giammattei said, referring to the money migrants send back to their home country. Now, the person who sent those checks is treated like a criminal.

He stressed that through steps like quarantines and health checks, authorities are trying to guarantee that returning migrants are free of the virus.

But on social media, videos have been posted of angry residents chasing fellow Guatemalans deported from Mexico who had escaped from a shelter in the western city of Quetzaltenango where they were supposed to be in quarantine, even though there have been no coronavirus cases among migrants deported from Mexico.

And when one migrant deported from the United States who tested positive for the virus left a hospital in Guatemala City where he was supposed to remain in isolation, the persecution was almost immediate. The local station Radio Sonora identified the man by name, posted photos of him and asked citizens to find him; comments on social media quickly turned brutal, with some suggesting the man should be killed. A judge eventually ordered his arrest because he could infect others, but he remains at large.

More than 680 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Guatemala, including those deported from the U.S., and at least 17 have died. Both figures are considered significant under counts because testing has been so limited.

Ursula Roldan, director of the Institute for Research on Global and Territorial Dynamics at Rafael Landivar University, said the government hasnt set up shelters for returning migrants or carried out public education programs in their hometowns.

The migrants arent to blame. They have made so many sacrifices on their journey, they have sustained the economy of this country, Roldan said.

Roldan also blamed the U.S. government for deporting people with the virus, and of fostering anti-immigrant sentiments.

Unfortunately, the tone regarding the migrants gets more aggressive when there are official statements, like for example when President Donald Trump depicts migrants as a danger in his speeches, Roldan said.

The Roman Catholic Bishops Council has issued public calls to respect migrants, saying the situation breaks our hearts.

How is it possible that both the governments of the United States and Mexico continue to deport people, during a crisis that has exposed the precarious nature of our health care system and a lack of effective strategies to contain the pandemic? the council said in a statement.

The example being set by both governments before the whole world is that they do not have the slightest sense of humanity, it said, while not sparing criticism of Guatemalan society, too.

This isnt about finding fault with others, when we here in Guatemala are witnessing the lack of solidarity in those towns that havent allowed their fellow Guatemalans to return, the council said. When they sent money home, people congratulated them and praised them. Now, when they are deported, without a dollar in their pocket, they are rejected and suffer discrimination.

Meanwhile, Diaz is faced with the prospect of finding a job in a hostile town, penniless after her failed bid to reach the United States.

Asked what she would do after her quarantine ended Saturday, Diaz said: Look for work.
Trauma patients are at risk of developing multiple infections while in the hospital, but it's difficult to identify those who are especially susceptible.

Now a team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found that certain scores already used to assess the severity of a trauma patient's condition can provide clues. The findings are published in PLOS ONE.

In the researchers' analysis of information on 1,665 trauma patients, five of such "disease-severity" scores--called the Denver score, the Marshall score, the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) score, the Injury Severity Score (ISS), and the New Injury Severity Score (NISS)--were examined as predictors of susceptibility to multiple independent infectious episodes.

These scores differ in the way they assess a patient's condition by measuring physiologic responses or injury patterns.

The investigators found that the Denver and Marshall scores, which are used to assess the severity of organ failure in the setting of traumatic injury, can accurately predict susceptibility to multiple independent infections after trauma, even when the scores are determined much earlier than any clinical sign of infection.

"Our findings could potentially facilitate clinical decision-making by identifying patients who are at higher risk of suffering multiple infections during their hospital stay," said senior author Laurence G. Rahme, PhD, Director of the MGH Molecular Surgical Laboratory, Professor of Surgery and Microbiology at Harvard Medical School, and senior scientific staff at Shriners Hospital for Children.

Early prognosis, before infections occur, could strategically guide the timing and duration of antibiotic administration to these patients. It would also allow physicians to implement prophylactic measures, enhance patient nutrition, and formulate potent personalized treatment plans for this group of patients, thus protecting those at higher risk of repeated infections during their recovery period." Laurence G. Rahme, PhD, an MGH Research Scholar 2020-2025

Dr. Rahme added that such personalized treatment plans could be cost-saving because they would limit interventions to only those patients most likely to develop infections, and they would help clinicians prevent hospital-acquired infections that can lead to prolonged hospital stays and the need for additional care.
Key workers' contribution to food production during the Covid-19 crisis has helped the UK achieve food security, Quality Meat Scotland has said.

The coronavirus outbreak has demonstrated how quickly a market can turn, the strategic body for the Scottish red meat sector said.

In the United Kingdom, this was apparent through the disruption to export activity that contributed to a sharp fall in sheep prices.

In the US, where several food plants have stopped working due to Covid-19 cases among workers, the farmgate price for cattle and pigs has fallen because there are a reduced number of buyers and capacity to process livestock.

Indeed, there are some concerns in the US that stocks of meat in cold store will run out before factories re-open and in some parts, there will be shortages of meat. Meanwhile, market-ready animals are backing up on farms.

In the UK, we have not seen processing plants close, although many have slowed down," explained Stuart Ashworth, director of economics services with Quality Meat Scotland (QMS).

"The comparison with the US illustrates how important those working in food processing establishments are and emphasises why they are key workers as much as medical workers."

During the early stages of coronavirus in China, the shortage of staff at ports disrupted the arrival and distribution of imported meat, he highlighted.

Once they returned to work, the period of disruption to usual trade flows resulted in legacy problems for meat exporters to China, such as accessing the containers and ships needed to get product out there.

Mr Ashworth explained that one reason why the wider food supply in the UK has not been significantly disrupted is the fact that cross-channel ferries are running well below capacity, operating largely as freight only transport with minimal disruption at ports.

However, with the financial viability of some ferry routes and businesses being threatened by the reduction in passenger travel, the UK has made financial support available to these companies to secure their future.

Mr Ashworth said: Irrespective of coronavirus, the strategic importance of food security that comes from access to domestic supplies and the availability of skilled workers in the food industry must be better appreciated."

He said discussions over Brexit must recognise the impact of disruption to trade, whether that be through tariff or non-tariff barriers on the financial sustainability of the red meat supply chain.

Given the additional planning required to manage current and future coronavirus disruption, recognition must also be given to the limited amount of time available to put procedures in place that a hastily concluded negotiation could result in, he added.
Midland County recorded its seventh death due to the coronavirus on Monday, according to a state report released Monday evening. Four of the seven deaths have been recorded within the last week.

The county remains at 62 positive cases, according to the report, which was delayed for hours because of a software issue. Bay County recorded two additional deaths and four cases, bringing its total to 161 cases and eight deaths. Gladwin County and Isabella County remain at 14 cases and one death and 61 cases and seven deaths, respectively. Saginaw County recorded two deaths and eight cases, bringing its total to 728 cases and 68 deaths.

The state added on Monday 196 new cases and 86 deaths. Overall, Michigan stands at 43,950 cases and 4,135 deaths.

Monday's state counts are representative of data in the Michigan Disease Surveillance System as of 4 p.m. on May 4, according to the state website. However, as the data backlog is still processing from a software issue, Mondays numbers are not representative of the full data set since the May 3 report.

MidMichigan Health  which covers a 23-county region and has medical centers at seven sites, including Midland  was listed Monday as having 15 COVID-19 patients, defined by the state as confirmed positive patients, including those in ICU and patients who are currently pending and under investigation.

The health system reported one COVID-19 patient in ICU and 37% bed occupancy, the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by any patient regardless of COVID-19 status. This data, according to the mich.gov website, reflects the status in health systems and hospitals 48 hours prior to the time that it was posted to the state page, which was May 4.

MidMichigan Health on Monday reported it has completed a total of 2,686 tests in its 23-county region; of those, 2,355 were negative, 244 positive and 107 are pending.

The state on Monday also is reporting one COVID-19 positive resident at Brittany Manor, one of four of Midland Countys long-term care facilities, which include Medilodge of Midland, Midland Kings Daughters Home and Stratford Pines as of May 3. Gladwin Nursing & Rehab Community and Gladwin Pines Nursing Homes also are reporting no COVID-19 positive residents.

Out of the state's 492 long-term care facilities, 454 have reported a current 3,293 positive COVID-19 cases among facility residents.

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," said Fred Yanoski, Midland County Public Health director/health officer. "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.
Australian intelligence agencies have questioned evidence trumpeted by United States officials supposedly linking the coronavirus to a Wuhan laboratory as concerns within the government grow that the push will derail efforts to eliminate dangerous wildlife wet markets.

Senior members of the Australian intelligence community told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age a research document shared in political circles under the Five Eyes intelligence arrangement was mostly based on news reports and contained no material from intelligence gathering.

A 15-page "dossier" has been widely quoted by local and international media about China's alleged cover-up of the virus. Australian intelligence officials have since identified a research report which was based entirely on open source material. The officials said it was likely the reports were the same.

United States secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed on Sunday there is "enormous evidence" the coronavirus outbreak originated in the Chinese laboratory but did not provide any facts to back up his assertion. Mr Pompeo also said he agreed that the virus was not man-made.
During the session of the Standing Committee on Healthcare and Social Affairs of the National Assembly of Armenia today, deputy of the Bright Armenia faction Srbuhi Grigoryan addressed Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Arman Udumyan and said she is one of the beneficiaries of the social support program that the government has approved to help citizens amid the coronavirus situation.

The deputy asked the official if the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs can create databases and prepare lists to make sure top officials dont receive such support. The parliamentarian particularly stated that the government has reimbursed a part of her utility bills.

In response to the deputys question, Udumyan stated that experience has shown that preparing a list of beneficiaries and classifying the beneficiaries quickly clearly shows that the database system isnt in good condition. Udumyan added that it might be possible to create a unified database in a year.
New Delhi, May 4 : Amid uncertainties over letting mobile and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) reopening factories, Xiaomi India on Monday confirmed Foxconn that manufactures its phones has received necessary approval to reopen its plant in Andhra Pradesh.

"Foxconn has received the necessary approval to begin its operations. We expect production to start in the next few days," Muralikrishnan B, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Xiaomi India, told the media during a press conference over video meet app Zoom.

Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, along with another OEM Wistron had suspended operations at their plants as per the government guidelines during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Almost all of the phones that Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi sells in India are made in the country.

According to Muralikrishnan, nearly 99 per cent of the phones sold in India are made in the country.

The manufacturing is being done at Xiaomi's two facilities -- one at the Sri City special economic zone in Andhra Pradesh and the other at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

The Foxconn facility at Sri City has received the approval while there is no news yet on the Sriperumbudur one. The highest-selling iPhone XR is also being manufactured at Apple supplier Foxconn's facility at Sriperumbudur, Chennai.

About 65 per cent of Xiaomi phone components are also sourced from within the country.

On April 29, Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad exhorted the electronics industry to explore the new opportunities that are arising out of adversity and make the country the global hub of electronics manufacturing.

During a meeting with electronics industry associations, chambers and prominent industry players, Prasad asked the electronics industry to take advantage of the opportunity and new schemes notified by the ministry, attract global investment and strengthen the sector. He emphasised the role of the medical electronics industry that is at a point of a complete turnaround.
Anderson Cooper has disclosed that he was able to let his late mother Gloria Vanderbilt know that he was set to become a father, before she passed away last June.

Last week, Cooper revealed news of the surrogate birth of his baby boy, Wyatt Morgan, and on Monday gave further details in an interview on Live With Kelly and Ryan.

Host Kelly Ripa told Cooper she could "actually picture the joyful expression on [Gloria's] face knowing that you have this baby" which prompted Cooper to explain how Vanderbilt was made aware of the situation before she died last June at the age of 95.

Special: Anderson Cooper reveals late mother Gloria Vanderbilt (pictured together here in 2016) knew he was set to become a father before she died last year: 'She was thrilled'

"I was able to tell her shortly before she died that I was going to have a baby and (my son) Wyatt hadn't been created at that point, was not a being at that point, but he was an idea in my head and I was in the process," Cooper said, smiling. "She was thrilled."

Cooper shared the first picture of his son last Thursday, telling viewers: "As a gay kid I never thought I'd have a child."

He thanked the child's surrogate mother and the medical professionals who delivered him amid the coronavirus outbreak during the emotional segment which began by acknowledging the "difficult times" the nation is going through.

Baby joy: Cooper revealed news of the surrogate birth of his baby boy, Wyatt Morgan, last week

"There are many hard days ahead," Cooper told viewers, adding: "It's especially important to try to hold on to the moments of joy, happiness, even as we mourn the loss of loved ones, we're also blessed with new life and new love."

Cooper revealed that his son's name paid tribute to his mother, who was known as an actress, socialite, author, fashion designer and artist.

'My son's middle name is Morgan. It's a family name on my mom's side. I know my mom and dad liked the name Morgan because I recently found a list they made 52 years ago when they were trying to think of names for me,' Cooper shared.

'He is named after my father, who died when I was ten. I hope I can be as good a dad as he was,' Cooper said

Anderson Cooper has announced the birth of his child, a little boy named Wyatt Cooper

Cooper choked up on-air and told viewers that he'd shared the news with CNN contributor Dr. Sanjay Gupta a couple of days ago

In February, on what would have been his mother's 96th birthday, he shared images from his searching through boxes of photos and files.

He commented at the time that his mother 'kept every note, every letter she ever received'. He said that although it was sad going through the items, it also brought back 'many amazing memories'.

'Wyatt Morgan Cooper. My son. He was 7.2 lbs at birth, and he is sweet, and soft, and healthy and I am beyond happy,' Cooper continued.

Cooper's father died when he was 10. Pictured, the Coopers play at home in Southampton, Long Island, New York, March 30, 1972. American author and actor Wyatt Emory Cooper and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper sit with their sons, Carter (1965 - 1988) and Anderson

'As gay kid I never thought I'd have a child,' Cooper told CNN viewers after announcing the birth. He is pictured as a youngster with his mother

Cooper, 52, is believed to be single at the moment. He split from his boyfriend of nine years, Ben Maisani, in 2018. He then dated radiologist Victor Lopez for a year until they split last summer.

'Im grateful for all those who have paved the way, and for the doctors and nurses and everyone involved in my son's birth,' the new dad continued.

'Most of all, I am grateful to a remarkable surrogate who carried Wyatt, and watched over him lovingly, and tenderly, and gave birth to him. It is an extraordinary blessing - what she, and all surrogates give to families who can't have children.

Cooper said his late mother, Gloria Vanderbilt played a role in the naming of his child too

Anderson Cooper is pictured as a baby with his mother Gloria Vanderbilt

'My surrogate has a beautiful family of her own, a wonderfully supportive husband, and kids, and I am incredibly thankful for all the support they have given Wyatt and me. My family is blessed to have this family in our lives.'

Cooper spent much of his time with his late mother up until her passing in June. She died after a battle with stomach cancer. His brother Carter died by suicide in 1988 when Anderson Cooper was 21.

'I do wish my mom and dad and my brother, Carter, were alive to meet Wyatt, but I like to believe they can see him,' Cooper added as he began to get tearful.
At a televised Fox News town hall held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Donald Trump rejected a supporters advice to rein in his bullying tendencies and begin answering the presss questions directly, instead blaming his belligerent style on the behaviour of a hostile media.

In a question played to Mr Trump on video, retired nurse and elementary school guidance counsellor Carolyn Perkins invited the president to reflect on whether the way he handles questions at his White House press briefings is either becoming of his office or politically wise.

President Trump, my husband and I think you, your family and your staff for your great dedication to our country. We pray for you every day, Ms Perkins said.

The question I have is about your manner of presentation. Why do you use descriptive words that could be classified as bullying, and why do you not directly answer the questions asked by the press, but instead speak of past successes and generally ramble?

USA needs you! Please let go of those behaviours that are turning people away from you. Please hold on to your wonderful attributes that make you our great leader and let go of other characteristics that do not serve you.

Mr Trump responded: I think I like that question! Im not sure, but I think I like that question!

Then, as if to prove Ms Perkinss point, he unfurled a long, rambling answer restating past successes and complaining of his victimisation at the hands of the media, whom he said treat him more unfairly than they have any president  even Abraham Lincoln.

They come at me with questions that are disgraceful, to be honest, disgraceful. Their manner of presentation, and their words. And I feel that if I was kind to them, Id be walked off the stage!

It was unclear exactly whom Mr Trump thought he would be walked off the stage by, but he continued. And yet, if you look in Florida today, we had hundreds and hundreds of boats going up and down the intercoastal, Trump, Trump  we have tremendous support. But the media is, they might as well be in the Democrat party. And why, I dont know.

The president then claimed several achievements on the military and tax policy before returning to his number one enemy: All of the things weve done, and yet we have a very hostile press  So I really appreciate the question, and I very much appreciate the sentiment behind the question. But Im standing up there, and instead of asking me a normal question, the level of anger and hatred  Ill look at them, Ill say whats your problem? What is your problem?

His responses to reporters asking him questions are indeed often personal. On one occasion in late March, when a journalist asked him what he would say to Americans scared about the effects of the pandemic, he replied: I would say that youre a terrible reporter.

Equally, he has repeatedly sought to frame the media as his principal antagonist during the coronavirus crisis. He recently went so far as to begin a briefing by showing the assembled journalists a compilation of videos edited to imply that The Media Minimised The Risk From The Start. (Mr Trump himself repeatedly downplayed the viruss potential.)

I think I have educated a lot of people as to the press, he said after showing the clip, and I would love to be able to say that we have a very honest press ... I dont mind being criticised but not when they are wrong, not when people have done a great job.
Chief constables are urging ministers not to ask the police to enforce loosened coronavirus lockdown rules amid fears doing so will be 'impossible'.

Senior officers are worried that if they are tasked with making sure people stick to eased social distancing measures it could damage the relationship between the police and the public.

There is particular concern about the prospect of trying to make sure people adhere to the concept of only meeting with a strict 'bubble' of friends or family - one of the ways forward believed to be being considered by ministers.

Chief constables are therefore arguing the nation should be trusted to play by the rules so officers can go back to tackling crime which experts believe will increase after lockdown is lifted.

Chief constables do not want the police to be asked to enforce loosened lockdown rules. Police officers in a patrol car are pictured in Greenwich Park, London, on Saturday

Forces believe enforcing eased measures, like 'bubble' meetings of friends or family, will be 'impossible'

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, has previously said her devolved administration is weighing up the merits of a 'bubble' scheme, with the UK government also thought to be looking at the idea.

This would allow people to meet with a select group of close friends or family but it would only work if the selection of people always remained the same.

The idea of asking the police to make sure that people are only meeting with the same group of people has sparked widespread concern at forces up and down the country.

One chief constable told The Times: 'If people are allowed to meet up with a circle of up to ten people, we shouldn't be asked to police that. How ridiculous is that?

'It would be impossible to police. We are in discussion with the government on what we can do but there is going to have to be a different approach.'

A second chief constable said: 'We are clear that we don't want to be relied on for enforcement as restrictions are lifted.'

A third insisted the public should be trusted to take responsibility for their actions as they have largely been asked to during the first phase of lockdown.

They said that will be 'even more important in the next phase', adding: 'When the rules become more complex, of course it will be difficult to expect the police to have a role in enforcing them.'

Boris Johnson is expected to unveil his lockdown exit strategy in an address to the nation on Sunday, having delayed the announcement from Thursday as frantic work continues in Whitehall.

It is currently unclear what role the police will be asked to play when measures are relaxed at some point in the future.

The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) believes crime will start to rise after lockdown and that will require resources to be redeployed away from enforcing restrictions.

An NPCC document warned the longer the police are tasked with lockdown enforcement, the higher the risk of damage to the principle of policing by consent.

The NPCC believes ministers must consider the 'impact on legitimacy and the relationship the police have with the public' when deciding what to do next.

Boris Johnson, pictured in Downing Street this morning, will set out his coronavirus lockdown exit strategy in an address to the nation on Sunday

Martin Hewitt, chairman of the NPCC, said his organisation is 'working closely with the Home Office to ensure that the consequences and implications for policing of any relaxation decisions are fed into the decision-making process'.

The police were given extra powers at the start of lockdown to break up large gatherings and to make sure people are staying at home.

Ministers said they expected the overwhelming majority of the public to comply with the rules.

The latest government statistics showed more than 9,000 fines have been issued across England and Wales to people flouting the rules since the start of lockdown.

Those fines are worth 60 but can be reduced to 30 if they are paid within two weeks.

The government is reportedly considering increasing the value of the fine to 100 to further deter rule breaking.
A drug rehab worker has sued her employer, alleging that the company CEO sexually assaulted her twice while she was in a 'drunken stupor.'

Andrea Pierce, the 38-year-old director of admissions at the Recovery Centers for America at Raritan Bay, New Jersey, claimed in the suit that the rehab's former CEO, James Haggerty, 61, whom she alleged had a 'predatory and rapacious desire,' sexually assaulted her twice while she struggled with sobriety.

Pierce alleges she and Haggerty, who is married, were having an affair last summer and that he promised they would run away to Florida. He has since left the company and she is on administrative leave.

Andrea Pierce (pictured), the 38-year-old director of admissions at the Recovery Centers for America at Raritan Bay, New Jersey, has sued her employer

The suit alleges that the rehab's former CEO, James Haggerty (pictured), 61, whom Pierce alleged had a 'predatory and rapacious desire,' sexually assaulted her twice while she struggled with sobriety

Haggerty is no longer with the company and his attorney, Thomas P. Scrivo, did not return a request to comment, reports NJ.com.

Pierce came forward publicly about her suit to hold her employer accountable, her attorney Peter Valenzano said.

'After having the courage to object to this disturbing behavior, Ms. Pierce was subject to a torrent of retaliation meant to drive her out of the company,' Valenzano said in a statement.

'We are proud of Ms. Pierce for her courage in exposing this unlawful conduct.'

The affair was cause for Pierce to relapse from a period of sobriety, according to the suit. She later turned down his advances and received text messages from Haggerty requesting nude pictures of herself, according to screenshots of the messages included in the lawsuit.

After a brief stint in a detox Pierce in November had another relapse and while still drunk called Haggerty for help, according to the lawsuit.

That's when Haggerty 'exploited' Pierce and forced her to have sexual intercourse, the lawsuit claims.

Pierce came forward publicly about her suit to hold her employer accountable, her attorney Peter Valenzano said. Pictured is the Recovery Centers for America at Raritan Bay, New Jersey

'Given her state, she could not possibly have consented,' the lawsuit says. 'After fulfilling his incessant and infantile sexual needs, defendant Haggerty chivalrously drove (Pierce) to a detox facility.'

Haggerty is accused of sexually assaulting Pierce while she was drunk a second time on March 9, after which she told a friend and her mother what happened. Pierce was encouraged to follow up with a police report.

Pierce underwent a rape kit test at a hospital and allowed police officers in Long Branch, where she lives, to come to her apartment to take photos and take evidence, the lawsuit says.

Long Branch Police Chief Jason Roebuck told NJ Advance Media the investigation is ongoing, but no charges have been filed.

Pierce underwent a rape kit test at a hospital and allowed police officers in Long Branch, where she lives, to come to her apartment to take photos and take evidence, the lawsuit says. Long Branch Police Chief Jason Roebuck says the investigation is ongoing

In an interview with the New York Post, Pierce, through tears, said, 'I had this perfect job, and I love what I do. I love helping people and that is just gone now. I stay in bed all day and I cry.'

The lawsuit says the rehab employing Pierece threatened to fire her after she went public with her allegations against Haggerty in the lawsuit.

She is seeking reinstatement of employment and all benefits, compensatory and punitive damages. Her lawsuit also aims to have the rehab undergo training in several areas to prevent harassment and retaliation in the workplace.

The company, referred to as RCA, is based out of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and has 11 locations in New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

The attorney representing RCA, Christopher P. Kelly, did not wish to comment on the allegations.

'We are confident that the legal process will reveal the truth,' he said in an email.
Chloe Sevigny has given birth, DailyMail.com can confirm.

The Big Love actress, 45, cradled a newborn baby in her arms while seen out in New York City with her boyfriend Sinisa Mackovic on Monday.

Sevigny's offspring is just days old, as the star still was heavily pregnant while talking a walk last Tuesday.

New mom: Chloe Sevigny was seen out with her newborn baby in New York on Monday

Sevigny's spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com that the baby has arrived.

It appeared that the family could have been heading back directly from the hospital, as art world insider Sinisa carried a piece of luggage at his side and Chloe still had hospital bracelet around her wrist.

Chloe was protective of her firstborn, holding them close while covering her own face and hands with a mask and gloves.

The Kids actress outfit evoked the spirit of her days as a 90s It Girl, teaming an A-line gingham dress with Mary Jane flats and black socks.

Precious: Sevigny's offspring is just days old, as the star still was heavily pregnant while talking a walk last Tuesday (above)

By her side: Chloe was joined by boyfriend Sinisa Mackovic

Right home: Chloe still had hospital bracelet around her wrist

Well equipped: It appeared that the family could have been heading back directly from the hospital, as art world insider Sinisa carried a piece of luggage at his side

Just Tuesday Chloe said she was due 'any second' while sharing an Instagram shot of herself.

'Im as big as our collective love for NYC!' she wrote in the caption of the photo, where she was clad in a 'Keep New York Old' tee.

Chloe recently expressed her distress when she learnt that she may not be able to have her partner in the delivery room at a hospital due to safety precautions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Short and sweet: The Kids actress outfit evoked the spirit of her days as a 90s It Girl, teaming an A-line gingham dress with Mary Jane flats and black socks

Worried: Chloe recently expressed her distress when she learnt that she may not be able to have her partner in the delivery room at a hospital due to safety precautions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, but luckily was able to have her beau at her side

Taking care: Chloe was protective of her baby, holding them close while covering her own face and hands with a mask and gloves

'I was told that Sinisa, my boyfriend, might not be allowed to come to the delivery. I had a super-panic attack and was crying uncontrollably,' she told The Cut.

'I have a doula, and she called me really panicked. Shes supposed to be the calm in the storm, so hearing her really irate made it even more scary.'

It has since been confirmed that New York City hospitals must allow partners to be present in delivery rooms.

This is both Chloe and boyfriend of one-year Sinisa's first child. The couple confirmed they were expecting back in January.

Time! Just Tuesday Chloe said she was due 'any second' while sharing an Instagram shot of herself

The star had previously been linked to the likes of Jason Segel, actor/director Vincent Gallo, Pulp rocker Jarvis Cocker, and director Harmony Korine, who is credited with discovering the talent.

Sevigny talked about being pregnant in an April interview with The Cut, telling about what it's like to be pregnant in the age of COVID.

'Being pregnant, everything feels slightly heightened, but we did what most people did  we went out and got a modest amount of groceries and have taken it week by week since,' she told the publication.

Strange times: Sevigny talked about being pregnant in an April interview with The Cut , telling about what it's like to be pregnant in the age of COVID

Chloe, a veteran of New York's 90s party scene, also laughed about adjusting to live sans-booze, saying: 'I like to joke that the hardest part is being around my friends when they're drunk.

'Normally I like being a little tipsy or something but being out, that's been the biggest adjustment. Everything else has been good so far.'

She added: 'I know everyone says you're going to miss being pregnant so I'm trying to really enjoy it... I'm enjoying all the attention I get from my boyfriend with all the massages and foot rubbing and all that.'
A deal struck last week on labour market reform between French employers and trade unions was "revolutionary", the head of the country's MEDEF employers' group said in an interview published Tuesday.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Laurence Parisot also said that, as a result of the deal, a difference in the countrywide rate of joblessness would be "perceptible in 2009".

"It is so new that many people struggle to see the newness of it," Parisot told the business daily.

"But by its mere existence the accord is revolutionary. For the first time there has been an agreement between employers and unions on something that concerns the economy."

She said that the maturity on both sides in pursuing an agreement would bode well for the future: "Our labour code and social thinking is founded on the idea of inequality between employees and their employers. This agreement signifies that between the (two) there is a relationship of equality."
Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

LinkedIn

Email

Telegram



Nairobi, May 4, 2020  In advance of an upcoming appeal hearing for four journalists at Burundian news website Iwacu, who were sentenced to 2.5 years in prison in January, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:

The journalists at Iwacu should never have been arrested, let alone sentenced to years in prison. With the spread of the novel coronavirus, each additional moment they spend in custody presents an unacceptable health risk, said CPJ sub-Saharan Africa Representative Muthoki Mumo. It is impossible to erase the suffering already visited on the four Iwacu journalists, but authorities can stop compounding the injustice by not contesting their appeal and immediately and unconditionally freeing them.

The four journalistsbroadcast reporter Christine Kamikazi, politics desk head Agnes Ndirubusa, English service reporter Egide Harerimana, and photojournalist Terence Mpozenziare scheduled to appear in court on May 6 for the appeal hearing, Iwacu director Leandre Sikuyavuga and founder Antoine Kaburahe told CPJ via messaging app. The journalists have been in custody since October 2019, and in January were convicted of undermining state security.

CPJ and 80 other media and human rights groups recently sent a letter to African heads of state, urging them to release all imprisoned journalists in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read in Kiswahili.
Comic book creators have created all kinds of team-ups over the years, and that means more than just teams of heroes like the Avengers or villains like the Suicide Squad. It also means teaming up superheros people wouldnt normally associate with each other.

Marvel fans are doing that by wishing for a team-up between Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, and both of them have movies coming out in close proximity  though not as close as originally planned.

Why do fans suggest Doctor Strange and Spidey?

Tom Holland | Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney

Fans discussed team-ups on Reddit, with a picture of Blade and Wolverine kicking off the conversation. Between Wolverines claws and Blades sword, thats a lot of sharp metal flying around. However, fans are eager to see the wall-crawler work together with the Master of Mystic Arts. One reason? Location.

Doctor Strange and Spider-Man. Both are native New Yorkers and friends in the comics despite being so different, one fan pointed out. Another fan suggested teaming up Spider-Man with the Fantastic Four, which would be a dramatic way to introduce the latter into the MCU.

Spider-Man and Marvels first family crossed over in the comics several times. It was Mister Fantastic who told Spider-Man that his snazzy new black costume was an alien symbiote who would be known as Venom.

Other suggested team-ups included Spider-Man, Human Torch and Shadowcat, and Daredevil and Spider-Man. There has been unconfirmed speculation that this could kind of/sort of happen in the third standalone Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland, via an appearance by Matt Murdock, played by Charlie Cox of the Daredevil Netflix series.

Doctor Strange and Spider-Man have sequels coming up

Until very recently, Doctor Strange and Spider-Man were going to have movies coming out almost back to back. Marvels original Phase 4 schedule had Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness coming in May 2021, with Spider-Man 3 slated to follow in July. There had been no reports that Spider-Man and Doctor Strange would connect, but now the pandemic has pushed their movies farther apart.

According to Deadline, Sony announced that the third MCU Spider-Man movie would be pushed back to November 2021. That would have brushed it up right against Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which had moved from May 2021 to November 2021.

Now, with Spider-Man taking November 2021, Multiverse of Madness has been pushed back again to March 2022, so that means it now closes out Phase 4 instead of Thor: Love and Thunder, which comes out in February 2022.

It had been widely reported that the series Wanda Vision would somehow lead into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Whether this also pushes back WandaVisions release date has not been made clear.

Marvel had a comic series just for team -ups

As it happens, there was a Marvel comic series that was devoted to team-ups. Just as DC frequently paired Batman and Superman in a comic called Worlds Finest, Marvel had its team-up series, and most of the team-ups featured Spider-Man. The first featured Spidey working with the Human Touch to fend off the Sandman.

Marvels official website put together a list of the best team-ups, placing the Human Torch one first. Other featured teams were Spider-Man, Yellowjacket and the Wasp. Spider-Man and Captain Britain, and Spider-Man and the X-Men.

Perhaps one of the reasons fans suggested Doctor Strange was because that was one of the comic team-ups. The website reads, Doctor Strange was a werewolf in this tale, but thats not why it made the list. Instead, it was the redemptive turn of Satana, the daughter of Satan, that makes this story so special. Stranges soul was imprisoned and imperiled, and only Spidey and Satana had a chance to save him.
Isaac Windes / Courtesy Lamar University

Lamar University has opened an application for their students to apply for funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and the Cardinal Emergency Fund, which was set up after Tropical Storm Harvey.

Emergency grants are available to assist students who were impacted by COVID-19 and need financial assistance, the university said in a letter to students.
The Maharashtra government has accused senior journalist Arnab Goswami of interfering with the probe against him by using his tweets and television debates to browbeat the Mumbai Police.

In an application moved before the top court, the state sought urgent orders to restrain the journalist from engaging in such acts that creates a fear psychosis among the force impeding their ability to probe the case without fear or favour.

Goswami faces multiple complaints of inciting hatred among religious groups, which are now being probed under a single complaint at the NM Joshi Marg police station in Mumbai.

What has prompted the state to approach the Supreme Court is an order of April 24 by which police cannot take any coercive action against Goswami for three weeks. The direction came on a petition by Goswami who sought clubbing of multiple cases against him along with protection from arrest.

The fresh application by the state said, Petitioner (Goswami) considers indulgence granted by this Court as some kind of a license to indulge in unwarranted sensationalism and to ridicule, denigrate, and defame the police department and its officers.

The application seeks a restraint order against Goswami from indulging in such acts that tantamount to interference with the investigation. A further direction has been sought asking Goswami not to abuse the indulgence granted to him by the court on April 24 and cooperate with the investigation.

The application filed by advocate Sachin Patil states that the series of tweets against the police emerged after April 26 when Goswami was called by the police to join the probe. He was upset that the police was unnecessarily questioning him in connection with the FIR against him.

He also alleged that the police did not act on his complaint of April 23 when two bike-borne men attacked his car while returning from work.

The application stated that the television show hosted by Goswami on April 28 showed the Commissioner of Police in bad light by making false charges against him. Accusing him of making a media spectacle of the case against him, the application said, The act and conduct of the petitioner would tantamount to encroaching upon the area of investigation (sole prerogative of the police) as also subjecting the entire criminal justice system to ridicule.

Goswami has also been accused of carrying out a vicious propaganda against the police by abusing his journalistic freedom to malign the police force and its chief using false allegations.

Incidentally, Goswami has filed a second petition in the apex court with regard to a fresh FIR lodged against him on May 2, seeking similar relief from arrest. This case emanates out of his telecast which accused people of one community crowding at Bandra on April 15-16.
Donna McGill went to the post office Friday to collect the mail when she spotted an envelope from the federal government.

The mail was for her dead uncle, 85-year-old John Larareo, of Southampton, who passed away on March 2, 2018.

Inside the envelope was a $1,200 coronavirus stimulus check.

There are reports across the country about dead people receiving the stimulus money from the federal governments coronavirus stimulus package called the CARES Act.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has told The Wall Street Journal relatives of dead people who receive the checks need to return the money.

Youre not supposed to keep that payment, he told the newspaper. Were checking the databases, but there could be a scenario where we missed something, and yes, the heirs should be returning that money.

McGill, the executor of his uncles estate, knows she has to return the money.

There are a lot of people out there that I know that could desperately use some sort of income and it makes me wonder how many people have received checks and they havent taken the time to send it to people who really need it, McGill said.

McGill, who lives in Williamsburg, said some of her adult children havent received their checks. McGill and her husband havent received theirs either.

The check sent to Larareo had DECD next to his name, which indicates the recipient is deceased.

McGill, 56, had to file 2018 income taxes for her uncle because he was alive for part of the year. She believes that is why he received the check.

My first reaction when I got it was to take it and get gift certificates from local businesses and give them to people who could use it, she said. I then thought the better of that and knew they (the government) would want it back.

How many millions of dollars are out there for deceased people while legitimate people have not gotten a dime? she added.

McGill, who works for Seth Mias Catering, has been out of work for eight weeks now because the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the event and wedding industry.

She said she is fine in terms of money to keep going during the outbreak but was frustrated for others who may be struggling financially.

As of April 17, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said payments were issued to 89.5 million individuals worth nearly $160 billion in the CARES Act programs first three weeks.

Related Content:
UK Gov't Considers Introducing 14-Day Quarantine for Flight Arrivals, Transport Secretary Says

Sputnik News

15:45 GMT 03.05.2020

While the United Kingdom has introduced social-distancing measures through the enforcing of lockdown regulations to combat the spread of Covid-19, thousands still fly into the country, even from the world's worst affected areas.

While speaking to Andrew Marr on the BBC, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Sunday he was 'actively' examining the possibility to quarantine people arriving in the UK in order to avoid 'importing' the pandemic.

"I think it is important that as we are seeing the numbers decrease and the R rate we hope decrease that we do ensure that the sacrifices in a sense  social distancing  that we are asking the British people to make are matched by anybody who comes to this country", he said in response to a question on quarantining foreign arrivals to the UK.

He also added that visitors to the UK could be required to download a National Health Service (NHS) tracing app which will help "test and track and trace" arrivals.

The transport secretary defended the decision not to carry out temperature checks or tests, saying that advice by chief medical officer's at the time was that shutting borders would have not prevented but only delayed the virus from entering the country.

He added that Brits who were still abroad could have ended up stranded and unable to return home.

The statement follows the revelation last weekend that all passengers could be placed into a 14-day quarantine upon arrival in the country.

Quarantine arrival measures could be introduced later this month, in an attempt to stop a potential second wave of infections once lockdown measures are relaxed over the world.

The UK is one of the few countries that has decided to keep its borders open amid the pandemic. The government has been criticised for not imposing more stringent travel restrictions, following the revelation that up to 15,000 passengers were arriving daily in the UK.

A total of 200,000 have come from Spain, one of the nations which has been the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and none were tested upon arrival.

Airlines warned on 27 April that a 2-week quarantine could "kill" the tourism industry as the restrictions would deter travellers - both those visiting the UK and Britons going abroad.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to outline the government's plan to relax the lockdown restrictions on 7 May.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Gym owners across Australia are anxiously awaiting the results of Friday's national cabinet meeting after the industry was crippled by the impact of the coronavirus.

Fitness centres have been closed under federal government orders since March 23 along with cinemas, nightclubs, bars and restaurants to stem the spread of COVID-19.

As the social distancing restrictions on non-essential businesses enters its sixth week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is reportedly set to announce this week gyms can re-open under a strict set of conditions.

Fitness Australia chief executive Barrie Elvish said the Australian leader may allow gyms to reopen as long as they limit the capacity in rooms and outdoor classes to 10 people.

An empty Muscle City Gym in Melbourne's Mount Waverley is pictured on March 23. The head of Fitness Australia has said he is hopeful restrictions on gyms could be eased on Friday

Gymgoer Rachel Dillon and her boyfriend have had to trade in their usual gym gear for home workouts (pictured before the pandemic began). Gyms operating with a maximum room capacity of 10 people may be allowed to re-open on Friday

'Nobody wants to put their name to that, but that's what I'm hearing,' he told nine.com.au.

'We could reopen in the same way we were eventually shut down.'

Before widespread business closures were introduced, initial government orders to slow the spread of the virus included a ban on indoor gatherings of more than 100 people and the 'four-square metres per person' rule in enclosed spaces.

In another startling statistic, 90 per cent of the businesses surveyed were still paying $5,000 a month for business expenses despite not being in operation.

Only 30 per cent of businesses meanwhile have not reported a 100 per cent decline in memberships.

The fitness industry employs more than 35,000 people, according to a COVID-19 impact report compiled by the industry body.

HOW AUSTRALIA'S GYMS HAVE BEEN CRIPPLED BY THE CORONAVIRUS SHUTDOWN Exercise professionals/ sole traders who have lost their job or main source of income - 81 per cent Exercise professionals/ sole traders who have not had a single client - 71 per cent Exercise professionals/ sole traders who have lost more than 61 per cent of their income - 44 per cent Exercise professionals/ sole traders continuing to pay up to $5,000 per month for business expenses despite not operating - 90 per cent Exercise professionals/ sole traders who have transitioned to virtual platforms or one-on-one training - 10 per cent Advertisement

The report also laid bare how much of the gym industry had been brought to its knees by the shutdown of society since social distancing restrictions began in March.

The COVID-19 Fitness Industry Impact Report found 81 per cent of exercise professionals or sole traders in the industry had lost their main job or main source of income.

Fitness Australia said last month gyms had already prepared strict safety and hygiene plans ahead of returning to business.

Mr Elvish said gyms are willing to do 'whatever it takes' to resume operation 'sooner rather than later'.

'The fitness industry, like all Australians, want to ensure there is no further spread of COVID-19 as restrictions are slowly eased back. However, there's no reason why gyms can't be one of the first sectors to reopen,' he said.

'We believe gyms can safely reopen with social distancing and hygiene requirements in place, which is why we have prepared a strict reopening framework for all fitness facilities and personal trainers.'

Despite Mr Elvish's enthusiasm, many in the industry are concerned gyms will be among the last businesses to resume normal operations as restrictions are lifted.

Cordoned-off Redland City Council gym equipment in south-eastern Queensland is pictured during the coronavirus lockdown

The Fitness Playground CEO Justin Ashley, who runs four successful gyms in Sydney, told Daily Mail Australia while they are very much in the hands of the state government.

'We know it won't be business as usual immediately. However, if gyms were able to open even at a reduced capacity, that would be a positive step for the industry as well as for the health and fitness of our community as a whole.

'While we look forward to being able to get back to operating our gyms in the future, through this period we will continue to support our community and members online, via The Virtual Playground.'

Pictured: A Willoughby council worker places hazard tape on outdoor gym equipment at Gore Hill on March 30 in Sydney

Business owners are now eagerly awaiting Friday's announcement as Mr Morrison weighs up easing social distancing restrictions on Friday.

Pictured: Fitness Australia CEO Barrie Elvish

He has warned though the rules would only be loosened if more Australians downloaded the government's COVID-19 tracing app.

Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy on Sunday said health experts would recommend a slow, staggered process of bringing Australia out of lockdown.

Professor Murphy said each stage of restriction easing would need to be in place for multiple weeks to review how effective they are before any further loosening of rules is considered.

He flagged a partial reopening of universities, said national cabinet had advised sending kids to school was safe, and that authorities were considering options to restart community sport and lift limits on gatherings.
As claims for unemployment insurance continue to rise, Connecticut is expanding an online service that offers access to more than 100 certification programs for those looking to switch careers after losing their job as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The SkillUp CT program offers some 5,000 courses spanning information technology, business analysis, health fields, project management and other career areas. Many classes are focused on personal skills like communicating effectively or handling pressure.

Registrants must attest to their jobless status as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic during the sign-up process online at ct.metrixlearning.com.

The curriculum was developed by Albany, N.Y.-based Metrix Learning, which has created online training programs for workforce development boards in 15 states that to date have delivered instruction to some 250,000 people. The service integrates with job site Indeed.com, which has a large office in Stamford.

This last month has seen a significant spike, said Joseph Alteri, speaking on a webinar posted by Metrix. Were able to extend Metrix services ... to community partners at no additional cost.

SkillUp CT was pioneered by the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board outside Norwich, and has been expanded to include the states other workforce investment boards: The Workplace in Bridgeport, the Workforce Alliance in New Haven, the Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board in Waterbury and Capital Workforce Partners in Hartford. Backing from the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority supports the effort.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, restaurants and hotels triggered the largest number of layoffs, according to the Connecticut Department of Labor. More than 41,000 hospitality workers filed for unemployment assistance through mid-April.

Certifications span from quick hits like QuickBooks and Microsoft Office applications that can be completed in a month, to 90-day programs such as the Certified Information Security Systems Professional credential addressing cyber security.

Skillsoft is also offering new modules developed in response to coronavirus, such as online workshops for managers and workers for navigating the post-pandemic workplace.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
Click here to read the full article.

At such an unprecedented moment in time, with more demand than ever for streaming content, the sheer volume of films across all the major SVOD platforms  specifically Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and now Disney+  can make finding a genuinely great movie an arduous task. But what can be even more aggravating is when a sought-after title is not available on any streaming platform whatsoever. This is currently true for several consequential films directed by black filmmakers, and it behooves any major streamer to consider acquiring these titles for their libraries.

But thats not to say that there arent major films from black directors available on significant SVOD platforms. Here are 10 titles that are currently available to stream on either Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu or Disney+, listed in chronological order. This list will be updated regularly.

More from IndieWire

School Daze (1987)

School Daze was inspired by director Spike Lees own experiences in a deeply entrenched, social-climbing fraternity/sorority system ,while an undergrad student at Morehouse College in Atlanta. Much of tension arises from the intraracial conflict between the light- (Wannabes) and dark-skinned (Jigaboos) African-American students. Characteristically, Lee gave himself a juicy supporting role, playing a freshman who willingly endures the most improper of humiliations in order to be accepted by the Wannabe fraternity. School Daze isnt neat, but what helps keep it all together are its thought-provoking themes, strong performances, and an infectious energy.

Available to stream on Netflix.

Story continues

Boomerang (1992)

An arrogant ad executive, Marcus (Eddie Murphy) has a reputation as a ladies man. However, Marcus gets a taste of his own medicine when a merger finds him working under the beautiful Jacqueline (Robin Givens), who has a similarly cavalier attitude about sex and romance. Marcus and Jacqueline become involved, but he is put off by her noncommittal approach to their relationship. Meanwhile, Marcus also begins to develop feelings for the pretty Angela (Halle Berry), who is more considerate than Jacqueline. Things get messy. A star vehicle for Murphy, who has the goods to carry it, critics werent too kind to it at the time of its release, but its aged well and is considered a black cinema classic.

Available to stream on Amazon Prime.

I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

In putting together I Am Not Your Negro, director Raoul Peck mined James Baldwins published and unpublished work, selecting passages from books, essays, letters, notes, and interviews that are every bit as incisive and pertinent now as they have ever been. Weaving these texts together, Peck brilliantly imagines the book that Baldwin never wrote. In his final years, Baldwin had envisioned a book about his three assassinated friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. Pecks film juxtaposes Baldwins private words with his public statements, in a blazing examination of the tragic history of race in America.

Available to stream on Amazon.

Barry Jenkins Oscar-winning drama is a moving and transcendent look at three defining chapters in the life of Chiron, a young man growing up in Miami, as he experiences the joy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality. His journey to adulthood, as a shy outsider dealing with difficult circumstances, is guided by support, empathy and love from the most unexpected places, including the local drug dealer, Juan. Moonlight is worth not only watching, but absorbing completely and contemplating afterwords. Its a the kind of movie that lingers long after seeing it.

Available to stream on Netflix.

Strong Island (2017)

More than 20 years after his brothers shooting death on Long Island, filmmaker Yance Ford re-examines the case in this anguishing, personal documentary about racial injustice and family discord. In 1992, Fords 24-year-old brother, William, was killed during an argument with a 19-year-old white mechanic, who claimed he was acting in self-defense, and was never charged with the murder. Williams death has haunted the family since then, and Ford reopens this wound in order to provide context, address the fallout and find some measure of justice. Strong Island is a look into the familys long standing suffering.

Available to stream on Netflix.

Marvel Studios finally gave the world the African superhero it needed. Black Panther follows TChalla who, after the death of his father, the King of Wakanda, returns home to the isolated, technologically advanced African nation to succeed to the throne and take his rightful place as king. But his grit as king  and Black Panther  is tested when he is drawn into a conflict that puts the fate of Wakanda and the rest of the world at risk. Directed by Ryan Coogler, Black Panther elevates the superhero genre to exciting new heights while telling one of the MCUs most fascinating stories, and introducing some of its most fully realized and captivating characters, unlike films that came before it.

Available to stream on DisneyPlus

Sorry To Bother You (2018)

In an alternate reality of present-day Oakland, Calif., telemarketer Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) finds himself in a truly weird, macabre world after he discovers a magical key to professional success. As Greens career begins to take off, his friends and co-workers organize a protest against corporate oppression. Cassius soon gets the attention of the companys cocaine-snorting CEO who makes him an offer that comes with a price. Boots Rileys directorial debut is an outrageously surreal look at capitalism, corporate greed, and workplace dynamics. Its an ambitious, thought-provoking, and very funny original work of cinema.

Available to stream on Hulu.

In Dakar, a group of construction workers abandon their work on a skyscraper in response to months of withheld wages. The group then seeks better opportunities as they take to the sea. At the heart of the narrative are lovers Suleiman and Ada, who must contend with Adas engagement to another man at the behest of her parents. A surprising and wondrous supernatural drama, Atlantics is Mati Diops feature debut. She crafted a fantastical blend of romance, socio-political commentary, and surreal dreamscape all in one, resulting in what is, above all, a tragic love story. The film flips the typically male-centric tale of Africans who undertake the treacherous journey across the Atlantic in search of better lives by telling a story that focuses on the women who often stay at home.

Available to stream on Netflix.

Luce (2019)

In this smart psychological thriller, an adopted all-star student and athletes reputation is called into question when he writes a disturbing essay for a history class at school, which he teacher finds very worrisome. This leads his white liberal adoptive parents to reconsider their impressions of their adopted black son. The film features a brilliant performance by Kelvin Harrison Jr., who captures Luces interior world and outward ambiguity with great depth, as the character struggles to carefully access the most socially acceptable version of himself. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth co-star as his parents in a film directed by Julius Onah, whose work challenges audiences to contend with their own ideas of privilege and power.

Available to stream on Hulu.

Selah and the Spades (2020)

Writer-director Tayarisha Poes feature film debut is set in the closed world of an elite Pennsylvania boarding school, the Haldwell, where the student body is run by five factions, including The Spades, the most dominant, who cater to the most classic of vices and supply students with coveted, illegal alcohol and drugs. As the school year comes to an end, Selah has to contend with the reality that she will lose control of The Spades, with sophomore upstart Paloma making waves. The visually stunning film, which contradicts typical teen movie tropes, stars a young impressive cast of fresh new faces, including Lovie Simone as the titular Selah Summers.

Available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Best of IndieWire

Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
DECATUR, Ga.  On this day 60 years ago, a black man driving a white woman was pulled over in a traffic stop that would change the course of American history.

The incident was unknown to most at the time and has been largely forgotten. The man was Martin Luther King Jr., and his citation on May 4, 1960, led to him being sentenced, illegally, to a chain gang.

Georgias segregationist politicians sought to silence King before he could mobilize great masses of people. But it backfired as the mistreatment rocked the 1960 presidential race, prompting African Americans to vote Democrat and help end Jim Crow laws in the Deep South.

Today, theres still a lot at stake for black people, who are still urging presidential candidates to earn their votes while fighting against new ballot restrictions.

Kings willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice proved to be the catalyst for change, said Maurice C. Daniels, who wrote a biography of Kings lawyer, Saving the Soul of Georgia: Donald L. Hollowell and the Struggle for Civil Rights.

Here we are in 2020 and we see there are systemic, institutionalized mechanisms, just as there were in 1960, to stall, derail and to deny citizens their franchise, Daniels said.

Alicia Garza, whose Black Futures Lab is promoting a Black Agenda 2020, sees lessons for todays activists in how King responded to the traffic stop as he challenged the powerful to provide decent jobs and affordable housing and health care for minorities.

That story means everything, Garza said. Yes we do need to put it all on the line, but bigger than that we need to change the rules that are rigged. I think we will have a rude awakening in November 2020 if we do not get very intentional about Democratic priorities.

King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, hosted the writer Lillian Smith for dinner and he was driving her back to Emory University for her cancer treatments when they were pulled over in DeKalb County, just outside Atlanta.

Smith later wrote that they were stopped because the officer saw her white face with a black man. But King may have been followed: The Associated Press had reported that Georgias segregationist Gov. Ernest Vandiver vowed to keep the Montgomery bus boycott leader under surveillance at all times.

King paid a $25 fine that September to settle the false charge of driving without a license, but said he wasnt aware that he was put on probation, threatening prison if he broke any laws.

Days later, King joined the Atlanta Student Movement s sit-ins campaign, and was charged with trespassing in a whites-only restaurant at Richs Department store.

Atlantas leaders soon buckled as Fulton Countys jails filled, agreeing to desegregate in exchange for ending the boycotts crippling white-owned businesses. Charges were dropped and everyone was freed  except King.

The AP reported on Oct. 25, 1960, that over 300 people crowded into the Decatur courtroom to watch Judge J. Oscar Mitchell sentence King to four months, even though Kings Alabama license was valid until 1962.

I watched in horror as Martin was immediately taken from the courtroom, his hands in metal cuffs behind his back, Mrs. King recalled in her autobiography. Martin later told me that the terrors of southern justice, wherein scores of black men were plucked from their cells and never seen again, ran through his mind.

King urged his wife to be strong in a letter from a Georgia prison. Three years before Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he wrote: this is the cross that we must bear for the freedom of our people.

With days left in the race, the campaigns of Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy sought to downplay civil rights issues for fear of losing southern white votes.

African Americans had mostly voted Republican, since Abraham Lincoln. Nixon had just been endorsed by Martin Luther King Sr., the leader of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

But Nixon ignored their pleas for help, while Kennedy called Mrs.King to express his sympathy.

Historians Taylor Branch and David Garrow wrote that Robert F. Kennedy threw a fit, telling aides who fed Mrs. King number to his brother that they cost him the presidency. But Robert Kennedy called Mitchell, who reversed his denial of bond, immediately freeing King.

Kings father switched his endorsement, saying Kennedy had the moral courage to stand up for whats right. That quote, and others, appeared in a blue-papered pamphlet titled No Comment Nixon Versus a Candidate with a Heart, Senator Kennedy. Unnoticed by the national media, Kennedy aides and King supporters distributed the pamphlet in black churches around the nation the Sunday before Election Day.

Black people had voted 60-40 Republican just four years earlier; this time they voted 70-30 for the Democrat, providing more than enough for Kennedy to win the electoral college and the popular vote by a narrow 113,000 margin nationwide, according to Theodore H. White in The Making of the Presidency 1960.

Its a really interesting and nuanced history, said political organizer Mary Hooks, co-director of Southerners on New Ground. The booby traps that Dr. King was experiencing during that time are the same ones that are still trapping up our people every day.

___

Michael Warren is an editor on the APs South Desk and a contributor to the Race and Ethnicity team. Warren also has been a volunteer mentor to Decatur High School students as they prepare to apply for a historical marker at the site where King was sentenced.
The governments of the countries which are interested in Ukrainian seasonal workers should guarantee them official employment for at least three month and provide them with a package of social insurance services, primarily including health insurance, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Vadym Prystaiko has said.

"We expect to receive a centralized address from the governments of the countries which are interested in our workers. We also expect that they will guarantee official employment for at least three months. We hope that the departure and arrival of these groups [of workers] will be coordinated and organized, probably [they will be transported] by charter flights. The observation, testing and other necessary medical safety measures will be ensured in the destination countries of our workers as well as in Ukraine after they return," he told an online briefing on May 1.

Prystaiko also said that Ukraine expects its workers to be provided with a package of social insurance services, primarily health insurance, respectable accommodation and wages.

He added that the government is holding consultations with foreign partners, Ukrainian transporters and airlines.

"The government indeed counts on the Ukrainians, who used to work abroad recently, for their contribution into the country's development, but we realize that we are currently unable to offer European wages to the most active part of these human resources and we will not create artificial obstacles," he said.
The online services of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the second largest container line in the world, are now back online after an extended outage.

The company's website, msc.com, and its online booking platform, myMSC.com, went offline last Thursday night. In the interim, customers were able to continue bookings by telephone through agents, as well as through third-party online platforms of companies including INTTRA, GT Nexus and CargoSmart.

The outage was restricted to MSC's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and did not affect any of the company's other departments, terminals, depots and facilities elsewhere in the world.

"MSC confirmed that a recent network outage .... has now been resolved and all internal systems are fully functional," the company said on Wednesday morning.

When the outage began, there were multiple reports that a cyberattack was to blame. In response to queries from FreightWaves, an MSC spokesperson responded last Friday that the company "did not rule out the possibility of malware."

FreightWaves sent multiple queries to MSC on Tuesday seeking confirmation that the outage was not the result of ransomware; MSC did not respond.

If it was a cyberattack, it would mark the third time a major container line has been hit in recent years.

Maersk was severely impacted by the so-called NotPetya attack in June 2017. The ransomware was believed to have targeted Ukrainian businesses; Maersk was caught in the crossfire, with disruptions causing a 20% drop in volume. Maersk said in its 2017 annual report that the attack cost the company $250 million to $300 million.

In July 2018, North and South American operations of Chinese carrier COSCO were hit by a cyberattack that disrupted communications systems for a week. Operations quickly recovered and disruptions were minimal.

Lars Jensen, CEO of Copenhagen-based SeaIntelligence Consulting, said in an online post, "Within less than three years, we have now seen the three largest container lines impacted by cyber incidents. In every case, it is clear that one of the most important mitigating factors is the people  the ability to keep the business running without the use of the digital tools for an interim period."

Story continues

He continued, "A consequence of the pandemic will be the sharp acceleration in the use of digital tools, for a wide range of good reasons. This will also lead to a stronger dependence on the functioning of these tools.

"Fear of cyberattacks should not hold back this development," Jensen continued. "But everyone would need to consider carefully what their backup plans are and how to retain the practical skills with their people to manage a crisis situation, and not simply see this as an opportunity to reduce the staff, believing the tools to be infallible. People are indispensable in a digital world." Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Greg Miller

Photo credit: Flickr/Tom Driggers

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
As an investor its worth striving to ensure your overall portfolio beats the market average. But its virtually certain that sometimes you will buy stocks that fall short of the market average returns. We regret to report that long term Everest Re Group, Ltd. (NYSE:RE) shareholders have had that experience, with the share price dropping 33% in three years, versus a market return of about 23%. And over the last year the share price fell 31%, so we doubt many shareholders are delighted. It's down 41% in about a quarter.

View our latest analysis for Everest Re Group

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 unfortunate three years of share price decline, Everest Re Group actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) improve by 1.3% per year. Given the share price reaction, one might suspect that EPS is not a good guide to the business performance during the period (perhaps due to a one-off loss or gain). Alternatively, growth expectations may have been unreasonable in the past.

It's pretty reasonable to suspect the market was previously to bullish on the stock, and has since moderated expectations. Looking to other metrics might better explain the share price change.

We note that, in three years, revenue has actually grown at a 11% annual rate, so that doesn't seem to be a reason to sell shares. It's probably worth investigating Everest Re Group further; while we may be missing something on this analysis, there might also be an opportunity.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

NYSE:RE Income Statement May 4th 2020

It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important factors to consider. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

Story continues

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. As it happens, Everest Re Group's TSR for the last 3 years was -28%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market lost about 3.7% in the twelve months, Everest Re Group shareholders did even worse, losing 29% (even including dividends) . 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. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 0.3%, 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. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Everest Re Group that you should be aware of.

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

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.
Amid increasing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases, the political temperature continued soaring with governor Jagdeep Dhankhar alleging that West Bengal was emerging as a police state on Monday. The states ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) dismissed Dhankhars statements, made in a fresh letter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, as nonsense and alleged that the governor was working as spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party.

In his letter, Dhankhar pointed to a collapsing health sector and politicised public distribution system in West Bengal, and alleged that the state was emerging as a police state where voices of opposition parties were being muzzled.

Countering Banerjees allegation that the governor was trying to usurp power in the time of a crisis, Dhankhar said: People in the state know only too well who in the state is usurper and extra-constitutional fountain of power. Who runs government and syndicates. Who is this ABCD! An open secret! Surely, I am not the person.

BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, have accused the ruling Trinamool of running syndicates, which loosely refer to groups forcing people to buy products from them. The Trinamool has rubbished the charges as ill-intended political propaganda.

Mondays development was the latest in a letter war between the chief minister and the governor. Dhankhar has been at loggerheads with the government for some time. But the fresh letter war intensified after Banerjee wrote to Dhankhar on April 23 in response to a series of letters and social media posts by the governor. Dhankar then wrote two letters to Banerjee, on April 23 and 24, responding to which she wrote another letter on May 2.

He (Dhankar) is keen on working as a BJP spokesperson. Political commentary is not part of a governors job. He has turned Raj Bhavan into an extension of BJPs office, said TMC secretary-general Partha Chatterjee.

Trinamools Lok Sabha leader, Sudip Banerjee, rubbished the governors charges as non-sense. We would take a call whether to respond to his statements and letters at all. He speaks gibberish. He is merely playing his role in Centres plan to discredit Bengal, he said.

The Left and the Congress, meanwhile, urged both the chief minister and the governor to stop this letter war. What are they doing? Exchanging letters and trading barbs are not the need of the hour. They must stop, said Sujan Chakraborty, leader of the Left parties in the state assembly.

The Congresss Lok Sabha leader, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, too, urged both chief minister and the governor to stop firing salvos at each other and to focus on the pandemic situation.

The controversy has been mounting for quite some time now. This is not a time for such time debates and controversies. I urge both of them to refrain to making comments at each other and to stop this letter war right now, said political analyst Amal Kumar Mukhopadhyay, former principal of Presidency College.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The coronavirus pandemic is on the rise in India, social distancing is the only way to stop its effects, and therefore Nashik police has launched a Public Service Communication. Through this campaign, they have released two films in public interest, titled, Stay at Home Stay safe & Stay Home Stay Positive. The film is created & directed by Percept Limited to engage people through social and digital platforms and make them understand the importance of social distancing.

The video was launched by Honble Guardian Minister ShriChhaganBhujbal at a flag hoisting ceremony on the occasion of Maharashtra Day. In the presence of Shri.Rajaram Mane, Divisional Commissioner Nashik, Shri. Radhakrishna Game, Commissioner Nashik Municipal Corporation, Shri.Suraj D. Mandhare, Collector and Shri.ChheringDorje, Inspector General of Police.

The video not just highlights the importance of maintaining social distancing, wearing masks, remaining at home, maintaining hygiene but also ensures to impart confidence in citizens reassuring them that The Nashik Police is committed to their safety & security. It further encourages people to fight and eliminate the virus together simply by following Stay at Home directive enforced by the Government.

Recognizing the increasing levels of uncertainty, worry, miscommunication and lack of citizens' trust in law enforcement authorities, Percept quickly recognized a need and proactively conceived the concept of making a film.

Nashik Police Commissioner, VishwasNangrePatil asked the popular Marathi Star, SubhashBhave, to anchor the film and he was happy to do his bit to spread the message. The first film explains and educates people about the required measures to be taken while staying at home in order to remain healthy, while the other film deals with precautions to take care of in order to prevent needless uncertainties about COVID and its hazard.

Nashik Police Commissioner, Mr VishwasNangrePatil, said, I am grateful to Percept Team for making this beautiful and very useful video conveying message of importance of social distancing, cleanliness, and precautions to be taken during this trying times. The words from Marathi superstar and dear friend SubodhBhave would definitely create the much-needed impact on the minds of civilians to fight the calamity of COVID 19. Really appreciate the kind gesture of DilipSaxenaji, RatanLuthji and Harindra Singh ji and for their support during this pandemic.

Mr DilipSaxena and Mr RatanLuth (Pronounced Lath) were happy to join the good cause and support this initiative of Nashik Police.

DilipSaxena, said, Nashik Police have been putting in extra-ordinary efforts to ensure that we are all safe. In-fact through these films they are now going one step ahead and guiding people on how they can stay at home safe by following certain guidelines issued by the central government as well as how they can remain healthy and fit at home. I am happy to be part of this initiative.

Mr.Ratan Ruth said, We all need to salute the frontline soldiers  our police force  who are caring for us civilians and making personal sacrifices and putting their life at danger while fighting against this pandemic. Lets all support them by staying home staying safe and follow the guidelines given in these films.

Percept Limited recognizes the importance of spreading the message to the masses and hence they have produced several films across the country for Mumbai Police, Pune Police, Pune Municipal, Pune Cantonment Board, and other companies.
Volunteer paramedic honored after dying of covid-19: A retired Colorado paramedic who died of covid-19 after volunteering to help fight the pandemic in New York City was being honored Sunday as his body was scheduled to be returned to Denver. Paul Cary, 66, who worked 32 years as a firefighter paramedic in the Denver suburbs, died April 30, a month after he began working in New York. Before volunteering, Cary had been with a private ambulance company from which 75 employees had volunteered to work in New York, the Denver Post reported. A large procession of fire, EMS and other emergency vehicles were scheduled to drive from the airport after Cary's body was returned Sunday night. Gov. Jared Polis (D) said that Cary had "heroically" served his community and country and that he had traveled thousands of miles to help others. "He risked his own health and safety, and stepped up to do what he could," Polis said in a statement. "I can never express just how grateful I am for people like Paul, and all our emergency responders who are on the front lines of this virus."


B. G., Opalesque Geneva: Amid the current market turmoil, this is our regular report on hedge fund and alternative asset managers who are bucking the trend.

Bitcoin strategy designed to perform in high volatility The ExoAlpha Multi-Assets strategy is a quantitative systematic directional long/short strategy trading digital assets (essentially Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin). The strategy was up +41.30% net of fees in March 2020 (and +78% YTD) while bitcoin was down 25% over the month. It is managed by ExoAlpha, a quantitative trading firm specialised in digital assets based in Paris. David Lifchitz, former director of risk management of the US branch of Ashmore Group, is the CIO. Cryptocurrencies have suffered their two major bouts in March. On the March 12th crash, "the first downside of the day was caused by traders de-risking as global equity markets were selling off," ExoAlpa explains in the March newsletter. "In a second time, lenders were liquidating collateral, belonging to borrowers who became insolvent as a result of the first downside of the day. Miners shut down their rigs while markets were collapsing. As spot prices fell as a result of collateral liquidations, a cascade of liquidation started, and many market makers simply stopped providing liquidity until the market settled down In the middle of the storm, Bitmex infrastructure crashed for more than 40 minutes, leaving investors high dry." "Bitcoin being the main digital asset, now 10 years old, with a market cap of roughly $120bn at the end of March 2020, has demonstrated strong performance and a low correlation to traditional assets, making it a unique asset class. However, its strong performance comes with a very high level of volatility and steep drawdowns, making it hard to include passively in an investor's portfolio. "On March 12th, Bitcoin lost more than 40% in less than an hour. In this market configuration, algorithmic approaches with strong embedded risk management are the best way to minimize drawdowns and potentially take profit of the situation thanks to short strategies, which is our mission at ExoAlpha."

Source: ExoAlpha

"We're heading for another +20% net in April, taking us to +93% net of fees YTD," says ExoAlpha. Cryptocurrencies have recovered since March. The entire market capitalization or value of cryptocurrencies jumped $35.3 billion in 24 hours, CNBC reported on April 30th. Bitcoin was at $9,388.30 - or up 18.57%. Industry participants attribute the rally to two factors: central bank monetary policy, as well as an upcoming event known as bitcoin halving. "My sense is that overall markets are not reflecting reality on the ground though, but this is also the result of the Fed in the U.S. being extremely clear that they will do anything to make sure there is economic stability," Vijay Ayyar, head of business development at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, told CNBC. "We could be seeing a lot of money flowing into equities and crypto as well, as a result of the new money printing."

New machine learning strategy in New York Next Alpha was flat in Q1 2020, and has returned +40% since inception in April 2019, compared to the S&P 500 which has returned -8.5% since that date. Next Alpha is a quantitative alternative investment strategy powered by machine learning, utilizing mathematics, big-data and technical indicators paired with proprietary technology and highly advanced quantitative strategies within a non-linear market and operating environment. The strategy seeks to leverage proprietary systematic processes to rapidly assess large amounts of data, gauge market sentiment, predict market movements, and initiate long and short positions to generate alpha. It has a U.S. investors class and a non-U.S. investors class. Kanen Flowers is the CIO of Next Alpha Capital Management, which is located in New York and was founded in January 2019. He has two decades of experience building big data, advanced algorithms, and machine learning technologies. "All systematic trading involves driving prices toward what is understood as "fair value"," explains a summary reviewed by Opalesque. "Our system is unique in this regard -- rather than continuously exposing our portfolio to constant risk as a linear model would, our system leverages our unique information advantage to keep risks at a comparatively low level until it automatically identifies unique opportunities and mispriced instruments."

New zero-correlation hedge fund NN2 Capital (or NNSquared) is in the process of being launched by Nam Nguyen Ph.D., who has 20 years of experience specialising in developing mathematical models for pricing derivatives, and Gary Norden, who has 30 years of derivatives trading experience. "Our fund includes a variety of trades, in different markets, each with different characteristics, thereby providing diversification to help protect the fund's overall performance," says a fund presentation reviewed by Opalesque. "Particular focus on trades with negative or zero correlation to Buy and Hold equities in order to make the fund appealing to equity investors looking for diversification/hedge." According to the managers, all of their trades are in profit for 2020 so far. "We use both qualitative and quantitative methods to design and test our strategies," Nguyen told MigageNews.com. "We are not just data mining looking for good trades, we specifically design trades to have around zero correlation to equities." "We have been pleased that YTD in 2020, not only have all of our trades been profitable but their correlations to equities have been stable, exactly as we designed," said Norden. Applications for investors will open shortly.

*** Last issue of The Corona Fighters Report here: Report 20. To see all past reports, type Corona Fighters in our search engine here: www.opalesque.com/index.php.

*** Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. Opalesque has not verified this information and gives no warranty of accuracy or completeness. Past performance is not indicative of future results. See our Terms & Conditions for more information. ***

WEBINARS: VIDEO REPLAY of CORONA FIGHTERS - Episode 1 webinar: Watch the replay here: www.opalesque.com/webinar/#pw4 Meet five Managers and learn how and why their strategies delivered positive returns and/or protected capital during the Corona led market meltdown in one hour! "A well-chosen topic of discussion and a great set of speakers to hear and learn from."

"I enjoyed the webinar and found the introduction to the strategies to be diverse and insightful.

"Very resourceful and insightful." 700 people registered for the CORONA FIGHTERS - Episode 1 webinar.



Don't miss EPISODE 2 Time: Tuesday, May 19th, 10 am EST

Register: https://www.opalesque.com/webinar/ You will be able to tune in to this webinar from any computer, tablet, or smartphone. The webinar will be recorded - in case you are not able to join, all registered participants will be provided a link to replay the webinar.
Countless inspirational quotes tell us that real change only happens outside of our perceived comfort zones. When Candler School of Theology student Keith Alexander Asberry II was in Sri Lanka on a travel seminar, he says he received a similar message from God: Never forsake your calling for comfortability.

For Asberry, who is graduating with a master of theological studies degree and certificates in religious education and Black Church Studies, graduate theological education has provided multiple ways to push through discomfort and deepen his calling of bringing together all Gods people, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, gender, linguistic barriers or whatever constructs we may use in divisive ways.

Asberry arrived at Candler with an extensive background in dance and its use in worship, so he embraced his role as a student worker in the Office of Worship. The challenge came when Khalia Williams, assistant dean of worship and music and assistant professor in the practice of worship, charged Asberry with formally organizing and leading the Candler Liturgical Dancers.

I didnt see myself as a leader, but Dean Williams provided the space and opportunity for me to develop in spite of my initial hesitancy and push back, says Asberry, who led rehearsals and developed choreography for the group. It helped me to think about myself and my calling differently.

Worship as an art form

While Asberry originally doubted his ability to lead, he never doubted the importance of art in worship.

I believe that all arts are a part of my calling, he says. Art transcends linguistic and social boundaries to bring people together and encounter God. Dance, particularly, is a part of my calling because it requires one to bring their full selves  the entire physical body  into the artistic process. The body is such an important piece of worship that we often overlook. Dance becomes a tool for us to present our bodies to God as an offering, for Gods glory to be shared and revealed on earth.

Asberry, who says that providing space for other choreographers to find their voice within the group was a highlight of his work, led the Candler Liturgical Dancers in addition to other duties preparing for services.

Keith leads the planning and execution for several Candler worship services with great thoughtfulness and care, Williams says. He has a proven passion for integrating theology, the arts and social justice that shapes and reveals insight of the Black religious experience. His contributions to the Office of Worship have been invaluable, and his ebullient personality and affable nature have made him an ideal person with whom to collaborate.

As for Asberry, he says that his experience as a worship planner has given him a deeper appreciation for worship as an art form.

While I have been involved in the incorporation of arts into the worship service, I realize there is an art to worship itself, he says. The art of worship is a sensitivity to the direction of Holy Spirit, and I can say from the moments of leading or planning that I have learned to trust Holy Spirit and myself more.

Connecting social experiences with the spiritual world

Asberry found moments to both push and trust himself in the classroom as well. A philosophy major at Morehouse College, he says he wanted to attend Candler so he could gain a deeper understanding of the intersections of human social experiences with the spiritual world.

While his courses helped me to look and think differently about the world around me and the various intersecting systems that shape our lives, Asberry says it was the deep conversations with Candlers faculty members that provided the most significant impact. They helped me to understand myself and my future in ways that I often feared and would shy away from prior to attending, he says.

Asberrys trip to Sri Lanka provided another opportunity to trust God outside of his comfort zone. It was his first time traveling internationally, and he found himself inspired by the work of building community despite barriers such as language or geography.

In Sri Lanka, I had the opportunity to witness Gods spirit move beyond the border of my own comfortability and the borders I thought would be a challenge to overcome, Asberry says. I had the opportunity to preach in a Sri Lankan church that only spoke Tamil and required me working with a translator. I made a conscious decision not just to trust God, but to allow myself to go through the process He had for me in this new context. Having done so, I found countless opportunities being placed before me, and with each one, I received even more understanding of the call God has for me.

Like many graduates this year, Asberry is facing uncertainty about his immediate next steps given the COVID-19 pandemic, but he is not losing sight of his long-term goals.

One thing that I plan on doing is building, he says. At Candler, I have built a foundation to see the intersections of the arts, religion and culture. I hope to one day build on that foundation with my own school of music and dance.

Asberry envisions a school of the arts connected with theological teaching, in which the arts are used as a way of connecting with God, exploring and making sense of the world around us and presenting God to others in a language that can transcend our divides.

I hope people from all over the world could come together and experience God through the presentation of the arts.
Tokyo: The Japanese government on Monday officially announced its decision to extend the nationwide state of emergency imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, by nearly a month until May 31.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, scheduled to hold a press conference in the evening, made the formal decision to extend the state of emergency beyond May 6, the last day of Japan`s Golden Week holiday, reports Xinhua news agency.

After an advisory panel of medical experts approved the extension in the morning, the government notified the parliament of the decision.

Economic Revitalization Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told Parliament that the pace of the declining of newly confirmed cases is not fast enough, though the number of new infections has been on a downward trend.

"We need to see a further reduction in new cases," Nishimura said.

The extension comes as the medical system has come under mounting pressure with increasing cases and sluggish economic activities due to stay-at-home requests and business closure.

Abe first declared a month-long state of emergency for Tokyo and six other prefectures on April 7, but this was expanded to cover the entire nation on April 16, in part to dissuade large numbers of people crossing prefectural lines during the five-day Golden Week holidays, which officially began on Saturday.

The state of emergency was originally scheduled to end on May 6, the last day of the Golden Week holidays.

On Friday, a panel of medical experts recommended that the Japanese government continue requesting the nation to continue to follow social restrictions to tackle the spread of the coronavirus and as such believed the state of emergency should be extended.

As of Monday, the number of coronavirus cases in Japan increased to 14,877, with 487 deaths.
Barwani : , May 5 (IANS) The police registered an FIR against 400 unidentified persons who attacked police and a Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) on Sunday, sources in the police department said.

However, the sources also said that the attackers are likely to be let off on humanitarian grounds.

Around 7,000 migrant workers blocked Agra-Bombay Road in Bijasan in MP's Barwani - a red zone area -- on Sunday and attacked police, injuring the additional SP, an SDM and three other police personnel.

The migrants were angry at being blocked on the Maharashtra-MP border and demanded to be allowed to pass through MP on their way to UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and Odisha.

For the last two days, they were pressurising the Barwani administration to let them through, and squatted on Agra-Mumbai NH a few times, but were persuaded to call off the protest.

The workers were forced to leave Maharashtra for want of work and food. They were camping near Barwani. MP police had to stop them because the UP police had sealed the border at the other end on the Mumbai-Agra road.

Reports said the three migrants had died in the past few days.

Barwani collector Amit Tomar said the Uttar Pradesh authorities were being contacted to find a solution to the issue.
As small-business operators, we are constantly faced with unanticipated challenges to our businesses. We are uniquely blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit that allows us to come up with unique solutions that fit the situation but are different in every circumstance. We all understand the situation, but we need our state leader to recognize something we take for granted: One size doesnt fit all. Lets use common sense and come up with lots of unique ideas for New Mexico, and particularly rural New Mexico, that might not work in other parts of our nation.

With that in mind, we came up with an idea to give our customers a different dining experience while still promoting social distancing policies.

I own KBOBS Steakhouse in Clovis. We have 52 employees.

I have requested permission from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to set up 30 picnic tables in our 2-acre parking lot to be used for carry-out food orders as follows:

1. Each table would have a number on it.

2. Tables would be a minimum of 30 feet apart.

3. Customers would order food and pay online.

4. When customers arrive, they would text us their table number.

5. Our servers would deliver food to their table while customers remained in vehicle.

6. Servers, wearing face masks and gloves, would set their order on the table and depart.

7. Customer would then exit vehicle and pick up order to either take home, eat in car, or eat at table.

8. Customer and employees would have no direct contact.

9. When customers leave, our employees would disinfect table to prepare for next guest.

10. All employees will be health-checked daily and not allowed to remain if they have any COVID-19 symptoms.

Our intent is to be able to serve our guests without the risk of a guest transmitting COVID-19 to one of our employees. Currently, at drive-up windows and all carry-outs, guests and employees are closer than 6 feet to pay and pick up orders.

I dont know if our customers will respond, but if they do, I think more restaurants would consider this approach and further advance NMs policies on social distancing. 

The Governors Office turned down my request with no consideration.

In the interest of our employees safety, we have chosen not to put our employees at risk by having personal contact with our customers, therefore, we are currently remaining closed.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of New Mexicos economy, if we dont quickly and prudently start reopening these businesses, we will risk the collapse of our entire economy.
Panaji, May 4 : The Goa government has begun the process of registering all Nepalese nationals in the state, to facilitate their repatriation in the near future due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Monday.

Sawant said that all Nepalese nationals in the state should register themselves with the local panchayat and municipal bodies and would be repatriated back to Nepal, once the central government issues standard operating procedures for the same.

"They should register with panchayat and municipalities. Once the SOP is formulated, they will be repatriated," Sawant said.

According to a fresh directive, all Nepalese in the state have been urged to register themselves with local self government bodies with complete address details of their hometowns. Most of the Nepalese nationals in the state are employed in the hospitality industry as well as in the state's numerous offshore and onshore casinos.

Sawant also said that despite more than 6,000 odd foreigners (mostly European) who had been repatriated since the lockdown began on March 24, several foreign nationals had continued to stay on in Goa.

The Chief Minister urged all owners of guesthouses, hotels and homes who had foreign tenants to register their presence with the local authorities.

"We need to do this so that we know from which country and how many foreigners are staying in Goa," Sawant said.
'If you look at the age group of people who died in India, the average age is 35!'

'That's why as a country we should be much more concerned.'

IMAGE: Patients queue to consult doctors at the Ernakulam General Hospital. Photograph: A S Satheesh/ANI Photo

The Sree Chitra Thirunal Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology, one of the leading medical institutes in Kerala, recently unveiled a testing kit, the Chitra Gene LAMP-N for COVID-19, produced by its team.

The team has also developed another kit, Chitra Magna, to extract the RNA (ribonucleic acid) from a patient's swab sample. This can be used both in PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) and in Chitra Gene Lamp-N tests.

"Think of a day when another small virus, a deadlier one, appears in front of us. That will be the end of the human race. We will be extinct in a second. We are talking about this kind of a danger," Dr Anoop Thekkuveettil, senior scientist at the division of molecular medicine at the institute, below, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier in the first of a two-part interview.

Compared to the other influenza viruses which family it comes from, is COVID-19 deadly or just highly contagious?

It is not very deadly. Just look at the mortality rate; it is just 3%. And the 3% have some other diseases like hypertension, heart disease or diabetes.

Theoretically, the virus is harmless. It only wants to have as many hosts as possible and spreading very fast. That is the only different characteristic it is showing now.

We have no idea why it is spreading so fast unlike other influenza viruses which have only a limited spread.

Is there any difference in the lifespan of this virus compared to the other viruses?

Not much. I think it is because we are very worried about its spread that we are giving too much importance to this virus!

Yes, its spread is very scary. It is trying to get into everyone.

How long do you think it will go on spreading? Till we acquire herd immunity?

I think by the end of June, 50% of the Indian population will have this virus.

The worry is that Indian population is unhealthy. Our respiratory systems are not that good because of pollution and TB, as this is a respiratory disease.

Another thing that we are coming to know from Kerala is that people are showing some resistance.

The symptoms are appearing only 30 to 35 days after the infection. Usually, you should get the symptoms after 14 days.

Somehow, the virus is slowing down within us. Maybe we have developed resistance.

You mean, people have started showing resistance now?

Yes. Initially, it was 14 days, but now, the virus seems to be taking more time to show the symptoms.

If the virus is taking more time to dominate its host, it is much more dangerous. It means we will peak later on, maybe in November or December. It is a possibility.

Do you think the BCG vaccine has a role in us developing some resistance to the virus?

WHO does not agree with this.

But in countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc where we give BCG vaccine, the number of cases is low. But then that is because we are not testing. I feel that's why our numbers are low.

The number of reported deaths is also low unlike in the US or Europe or the UK.

If you look at it critically, how many deaths are normally reported in India?

When old people die, we don't want to say that they died of corona. We say he was a heart patient and suddenly he developed fever and died. We don't even test him to see whether he was COVID-19 positive.

We don't know our actual numbers because we are not testing. Only if every dead person is tested for COVID-19 will we know whether he died a natural death or due to the virus.

A lot of deaths happen normally in India, and that versus COVID-19 deaths is not tallied in India.

So, is it a data problem?

Our health indicator is pretty low compared to the rest of the world. I am looking at what is happening in Kerala, where the health indicator is higher. Here, I do not see a large number of patients complaining of high fever.

Yes, there is some kind of difference in the way the virus is behaving in this part of the world. That's for sure. If so, it is a good sign.

I also want to say that in Europe and the US, the testing is very high. If the US is testing 1 lakh people every day, we have so far only tested 6 lakh people in the whole of India.

The US has so far tested 80 lakh to 90 lakh people. And look at the population of India and the US.

We are just looking at the low number of cases and saying we are better off. No, it is very wrong. Unless we test a very large number of people, we will not get the right number.

Why is it that suddenly the numbers are increasing in India? It is only because we are doing more testing than in the initial days.

COVID-19 infection is preventable and nobody is going to die. It IS basically only a fever and cold.

So if it is tested and treated early, it is not dangerous?

The problem is, we are not testing everybody. When will the patient go to the hospital? Only when he has high fever and pneumonia. When a patient has pneumonia, you have to admit him to hospital.

If lakhs and lakhs of people come suddenly with pneumonia, what will you do? That's the scary part.

So, what is needed is, we should test everybody. Then we can observe the positive patients and also treat everybody with fever with paracetamol. Then, no deaths will happen.

Would you say if a person has fever and cold, S/he can take paracetamol and take rest?

No, it is better not to do self-medication. It is also better to report so that somebody is there to observe.

And without testing, how will you know whether a person is infected with COVID-19 or not? So, testing is very important. Even if you are sitting at home, you would give the virus to the others at home.

It is better to wear a mask if you experience a slight chill or fever, and wash your hands even when at home. And don't use the common toilet.

What is the difference between the common influenza virus and COVID-19?

There is no difference.

But with paracetamol common flu gets cured...

Here also, you will get cured. The treatment is the same.

The problem here is, it spreads alarmingly. And each person will have a different symptom. Some may go faster into the pneumonia stage. It all depends on the health status of the person.

Another problem with this virus is, it enters the body through the ACE receptor. This protein will be higher in of all those who take medicine for hypertension.

The reason why more people are suffering abroad is because a majority of the population suffers from heart disease.

India has a younger population, but young does not mean you are healthy. Here we have other diseases like diabetes.

If you look at the age group of people who died in India, the average age is 35!

More younger people are dying in India than in the US where the average age of the dead is 65 plus.

That's why I feel as a country we should be much more concerned. It points to the general health of the nation. I hope ICMR and the others are looking at these trends.

Recently a study conducted by an institute in Bengal found that the virus has mutated into 10 types, and A2a is the dominant one here in India.

Yes, the virus is mutating very fast. Now that all the countries are isolated, the virus is becoming independent, which means each country has a different mutant virus.

Like the Chinese, the Indians and the Europeans look different, this virus also is becoming different in different countries.

The problem is, if this isolation continues for a longer period, a person coming from say the US will encounter a newer virus in India and vice versa.

So, it will not be the same COVID-19...

No, it will be COVID-19a, COVID-19b, COVID-19c, etc. Then, people will have more trouble. How will we be able to handle different kinds of viruses?

You mean, we will develop immunity only to the virus that is prevalent in that region?

Yes. We will definitely develop immunity to the virus because we are also living organisms. We will find a way out, but we will take more time, that's all.

How long does it take for herd immunity to develop?

It depends on how many healthy people can carry this. You can say we have developed herd immunity only when a large number of the population do not show any symptoms.

Once the virus establishes a host, it will not spread. That's why there is this scientific theory that, just don't do anything, let the virus decide. It will kill a certain number of people and the rest will develop immunity. That's one way of getting out of the situation.

But if you start testing and isolating people, the virus will stay longer. The war between the human beings and the virus will go on for a longer period.

These are the theoretical points.

I know we will recover as this is not a dangerous virus.

But the danger is lurking somewhere else. That is, we are going to meet somebody else very soon. The signs are already there.

As I said earlier, we have an influenza virus, cats have influenza virus, dogs also have another influenza virus... each virus was happy in their own host.

Now, all of a sudden, we see a new trend; one virus from one animal is fusing with another virus from another animal.

This is the third time we are seeing this trend. First, the SARS H1N1, then the MERS CoV which is a virus from the camel fusing with a virus from the bat. The mortality rate of MERS-CoV was 50%.

You said COVID-19 is a fusion of viruses from the bat and the ant-eater. So the bat is the common factor.

So far we see the bat as the common factor.

Why is it so?

The question that we have to ask is, are we disturbing its habitat?

Somehow, the virus gets the feeling that the bat is going to go away. So, the virus wants to change the host. Probably that's what is happening.

Maybe there are not enough trees and fruits for the bats, and their survival is at risk.

We human beings are cutting down trees and building apartments. Where will the bats live? Where will they get their food from?

Another new species of virus may come tomorrow. The question is, are we ready to face such a virus?

Do you feel this is a kind of warning to all human beings?

I feel it is a warning.

The Mortality rate of COVID-19 is very low. But if such a virus with high mortality rate attacks human beings?

Yes, that's the question.

We will survive COVID-19. But tomorrow some other virus may attack us which could be very dangerous. That's what the trend shows.

This is the third fusion and the gap between each fusion virus is reducing.

Maybe in three years's time, we may see another virus that may kill whoever that gets infected. What are we going to do then?

Why is it that two viruses are fusing all of a sudden? That's why people are suspecting whether it is created in a lab.

Do you think COVID-19 is created in a lab? Or, naturally created?

It has every signature of a naturally created virus.

You can have conspiracy theories. But who will do that? I don't think any scientist will do it because we all know the consequences.

See, it is very easy to fuse two viruses in a lab. It is just two days's work. It is a very simple experiment, we can easily do it in the lab.

I feel this is a naturally born virus, and it is a very serious trend.

Do you feel this is nature's way of warning human beings for disturbing its balance?

Yes, that's what I feel. We are ruthlessly destroying the habitats of various creatures. For example, bats need trees, caves and dark spaces to live.

Bats are mammals, very close to us and carry very good viruses. But we destroy their food, their habitats.

When their number is diminishing very fast, the viruses living inside them have to go somewhere else.

You can blame China for consuming bats. But, is it the market that created this virus, or, are we all responsible for this?

We are destroying nature without any conscience.

I am giving you an example. Dogs have their own very deadly viruses in them, one of which is parvo. If parvo attacks a dog, the dog bleeds and dies. There is a vaccine for it.

So far, parvo has never infected human beings. Think about a day when parvo is passed from a dog to a human!

We all have very dangerous viruses living in us and if one species is threatened, the virus will move from that host to another.

And these viruses can multiply in a second. They can mutate and fuse with another one.

And, we are seeing such bad signs.

I feel we have to be a lot more careful and respect nature.

So, it is not just about health, but about the way we are living and dealing with nature.

Yes, this is a big warning from nature. If we ignore this warning, the consequences will be deadlier than what we can even imagine.

This whole species can be eliminated in a second! And if you look at history, you will know how many species got eliminated.

We think we human beings are invincible. No. This small virus has made the entire world close down

Think of a day when another small virus, a deadlier one, appears in front of us. That will be the end of the human race.

We will be extinct in a second. We are talking about this kind of a danger.

Nature is experimenting, and this is not the first time nature is doing it. It has been continuously experimenting.

We have created some kind of imbalance in nature, and we are seeing the result of our own deeds.

When we abuse nature, we will have to pay the price too.

If we can correct the wrongs done by us, it is better we correct them now itself. If not...
Five Security Personnel, Two Terrorists Killed in Kashmir

Sputnik News

04:58 GMT 03.05.2020

New Delhi (Sputnik): Terrorist activities have been increasing in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir for the last one month. Police data suggests that at least 17 terror incidents took place in April alone, in which 29 terrorists were killed while 11 security personnel also lost their lives.

Five Indian Army personnel including a commanding officer were killed in an overnight counter-terror operation in Handwara in the Kupwara district of the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. In the operation, two terrorists were also shot dead by security personnel. The encounter began after a team of five, including two officers from the 21 Rashtriya Rifles, two soldiers, and a Jammu and Kashmir police entered a house to evacuate the civilians on Saturday afternoon.

"The team was subjected to a heavy volume of fire. In the ensuing firefight, two terrorists were eliminated and the team of five army and Jammu and Kashmir Personnel comprising of two Army officers, two Army soldiers and one Police Sub Inspector attained martyrdom," the Indian Army said.

Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Commanding Officer of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles unit, who lost his life in the encounter had been part of several successful counter-terrorist operations in the past and had been decorated for gallantry.

The encounter began on Saturday afternoon after intelligence was received by Army and Jammu and Kashmir police about the presence of terrorists in the forests of Rajwar. The terrorists emerged and hid inside a house. However, the civilians residing in the house were safely evacuated.

This is the second time in a month when army personnel have been trapped in Kashmir. Earlier, on 5 April, five special forces personnel were killed in Kashmir after which cross border firing between India and Pakistan intensified.

The development took place on a day when the Indian armed forces are planning to celebrate the 'war' against COVID-19 by placing flowers at hospitals throughout the country.

Already-tense relations between India and Pakistan began to deteriorate even further due the February 2019 dogfight but hit a new low in August, when Jammu and Kashmir, lost its quasi-independence and statehood and was divided into two union territories. The two South Asian rival nations have fought three wars over Kashmir since 1947, when they became independent from the UK.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






On a day the inter-ministerial central team sent a letter to the state government questioning mismatch in its data related to Covid-19, the Mamata Banerjee-administration claimed to have found all missing data, even while admitting that there were gaps in data that was being released every day.

There was an issue of missing data which is why there were some gaps. All missing data have been retrieved. Now we are in a position to share all this data every day, Rajiva Sinha, chief secretary of West Bengal said on Monday.

A major controversy erupted after state health secretary Vivek Kumars letter to union health secretary Preeti Sudan put the total number of persons who tested positive for Covid-19 in the state at 931 as of April 30, whereas the data shared with journalists gave the number 816.

However, the data shared by the state on Monday supports neither figure. The government said that the total number of patients testing positive stood at 1,259 on Monday, with 229 new cases between May 1 and May 4, which put the April 30 number at 1,030.

There were gaps in data which was triggering confusion. We found that the data reporting structure was highly complicated and some data was not being registered at all. It was not deliberate. We have improved. We searched all data over the weekend and compiled everything so that there is no missing data, Sinha added.

As a result, while the state governments data and so long shown fewer number of cases than in the data shared by the union health ministry, the Monday number was well above what was shared by union health ministry.

The state government on Monday said of the total 1,259 total cases, 908 were active cases, 218 persons have recovered and been discharged from hospitals, 61 persons died of Covid-19 and another 72 died of co-morbidity.

Bengal is turning out to be Indias Covid-19 hub. The state governments mismanagement led to this situation. Without IMCTs interventions, we would have never known the real picture regarding the number of deaths and persons infected, BJP state unit president Dilip Ghosh alleged on Monday.

The IMCT for south Bengal, before leaving the state for Delhi, sent a letter to the chief secretary on Monday accusing the state of fudging Covid-19 related data and suppressing facts. The team, which was in Bengal since April 20, will submit its report to the ministry of home affairs soon.

The number of containment zones in the state has shot up from 444 on April 30 to 516 on May 4. Kolkata, with 318 such areas, has the highest number of containment zones.

Meanwhile the bulletin published by the state on Monday showed that only four districts have been tagged as Red Zones in Bengal. On April 30, the union health ministry released a list which said that Bengal has 10 Red Zones.

The states ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) targeted the BJP for politicising an administrative issue. On social media, Mamata Banerjees nephew and TMC youth wing chief Abhishek Banerjee wrote, In their desperation to score cheap political points, those who are misrepresenting facts and maligning Bengal even daring to call Bengal - Wuhan of India should look at facts: % +ve per million: 14, rank 16th, Total Cases: 1259, rank 9th, Active cases: 908, rank 10th. The ranks refer to the states standing nationally.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The band Portugal The Man is claimed by two places: Portland, Oregon, where they live now, and Wasilla, Alaska, where several of the members are from.

Wasilla, once most famous as the home of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is home to Wasilla High School, where the band formed in 2001 as two students started playing music together.

Wasilla is part of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and it is there, according to Alaskas KTOO News, that the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District School Board voted to ban several books from the districts curriculum.

The books in question?

High school classics "The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Weve got five books here that are labeled as controversial and theyre controversial because of words like rape and incest and sexual references and language and things that are pretty serious problems, especially in our teenage world," said school board member Jeff Taylor in April, when the board made the decision. "Is there a reason that we include books that we even label as controversial in our curriculum? I would prefer that these were gone.

For us to put them in front of teenagers as part of our curriculum thats just something I cant, I just dont understand, he added.

Not everyone is happy about the decision and according to CNN, interest is growing in the banned books.

The school board is set to meet again Wednesday and review the decision. Meanwhile, Portugal The Man is offering to send the books to any student in the district who wants to read them.

They just need to email the band at sticksandstones@portugaltheman.com.

Hopefully they get talked about, because thats the whole point of having these books in the curriculum, is classroom conversation, guitarist Eric Howk told KTOO. And talking about difficult narratives and challenging stories, classroom conversation, is important.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Judged: The Book of Ahmad: an engrossing book about Ahmad, a hateful man who becomes a commander of the Beasts armies, and his trying circumstances that make him decide where his true devotions lie. Judged: The Book of Ahmad is the creation of published author Kevin Keiser, a retired technical sergeant in the US Air Force who currently resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Keiser shares, The beast has created his kingdom on earth in the former nation of Israel. With the promise of bountiful food and modern amenities, thousands of people have taken up residence there. Once inside, they soon discover that crime, corruption, and terrorism are rampant in the Promised Landall under the direction of the beast.

Ahmad, fueled by his hatred for religion, rises to the rank of general and commander of the beasts armed forces. But when his family comes under the wrath of his lord and master, Ahmad must decide where his loyalty lies.

The days of judgment are at hand and the future of the human race is at stake. Will mankind find redemption and their way back to God, or will they condemn themselves to extinction?

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Kevin Keisers new book shows the corruption evil has manifested in a land thought to be the haven of grace and how the people battle their persecution with firm faith in God.

This book showcases an enrapturing depiction of the biblical destruction and redemption that comes in unexpected moments and forms.

View the synopsis of Judged: The Book of Ahmad on YouTube.

Consumers can purchase Judged: The Book of Ahmad at traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about Judged: The Book of Ahmad, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
The fast expansion of Turkeys defense industry in recent years might be becoming harder to sustain as newly released data show the sector is struggling to reduce its heavy reliance on foreign inputs and expand foreign clientele, despite growing investments in high-tech development.

Promoting local arms production has been a hallmark of President Recep Tayyip Erdogans government, based on the idea that Turkey needs stronger military deterrence to be a major regional power but cannot trust traditional Western allies for conventional weapons supplies. Keen to muscle up its foreign policy, the government has sought to enhance Turkeys arms-development capabilities to achieve self-sufficiency and make the most of export opportunities to ensure sustainability.

Efforts to develop the national defense technological and industrial base are seen as an inseparable part of the diplomatic flexibility and international prestige Ankara believes to have gained in cross-border operations in Syria and Iraq since 2016. In Ankaras eyes, the Turkish military continues to be a deterrent combat force in the region, so self-sufficiency in the defense industry remains a major priority.

Another aspect not to be overlooked is that the defense industry has become a distinct area for government grandstanding in domestic politics. Any new military product manufactured locally or sold to foreign buyers is being presented as some sort of political victory in the pro-government media.

Indeed, the Turkish defense industry made significant strides in the 2015-2018 period, creating a success story for Ankara. Yet, the 2019 performance report of the Defense and Aerospace Industry Manufacturers Association, released in late April, shows problems in this success story as a result of some structural problems.

According to the report, the industrys turnover was some $10.9 billion last year, a 24% increase from nearly $8.8 billion in 2018. Foreign sales revenues rose 40% to over $3 billion from $2.2 billion the previous year. But, crucially, imports rose as well. They even slightly exceeded the worth of foreign sales, standing at nearly $3.1 billion, a 28% increase from about $2.4 billion in 2018.

The imports are overwhelmingly raw materials such as steel from Finland to make armored vehicles and intermediate products such as turboprop engines from Ukraine to make drones. The increase in imports is an alarming sign for the Turkish defense industry, underscoring its extreme dependency on foreign inputs. In other words, the increase in exports has relied heavily on imports.

Of note, some European defense industry companies slapped embargoes on Turkey and some European governments banned the sale of certain products to the country during Operation Peace Spring in northeast Syria in October and November 2019. Turkeys campaign targeted Syrian Kurdish militia affiliated with the armed Kurdistan Workers Party group in Turkey, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization. Finland, for instance, halted steel exports to Turkey, while London suspended the involvement of British firms in Turkeys first indigenous fighter jet project, which was already ridden with delays over engine problems. Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Norway and Sweden also banned sales to Turkish firms. A defense industry expert interviewed by Al-Monitor estimates that the embargoes related to Operation Peace Spring have cost Turkey around $1 billion in production losses.

Other figures in the report are more encouraging. Spending on research and development was up by more than 15%, reaching nearly $1.7 billion from some $1.4 billion in 2018. Research and development budgets have continued to expand since 2016, which is a promising sign for the future. The breakdowns show that spending on technology development, in particular, has shot up. The sum reached $249 million last year, increasing 67% from $149 million in 2018. The upticks speak of an increasing focus on high-tech advancement in the Turkish defense industry.

Yet the legal and bureaucratic framework on intellectual property rights continues to fall short of supporting this drive. Because of regulatory loopholes, many defense industry firms involved in research and development are embroiled in legal battles with each other over claims of intellectual property infringements. This spoils trust within the sector and deters firms from collaborating, forming joint ventures and jumping into bigger projects.

In another downside, new orders in 2019 totaled $10.7 billion, a decrease of more than 12% from the previous year. The drop, which came amid economic turmoil in Turkey, ongoing quality and trust problems in the sector and various crises stemming from Ankaras foreign policy, shows that Turkish defense industry firms are struggling to find foreign markets and that the sector has a structural export problem. Given that the sector now supplies 90% of domestic needs, one may suggest the domestic market has reached a point of saturation. Without expanding foreign sales, Turkey can hardly sustain the expansion of the sector. Turkish defense industry firms will be fighting for contracts on the international market and the competition will be much more aggressive.

Other structural problems slowing progress in the sector include crony capitalism, extreme politicization and human capital shortages caused by brain drain.

The next several years will be highly critical for the future of the Turkish defense industry. Whether it can get past the sustainability phase and grow into a global actor will depend on the decisions and steps that Ankara takes.
(Photo : Screenshot from: Mars NASA Official Website)

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), along with other workplaces, have been forced to shut its doors.

But for scientists and engineers who are responsible for driving the Curiosity Mars Rover under NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the work continues. And this means setting up systems while stuck at home to continue controlling the device.





Read Also: Will SpaceX Starlink Satellites Contribute to Sky Pollution? Satellite Show Flies Over US This Weekend



They have made work from home plans in case the rover team had to ship out

According to Business Insider who spoke to two NASA employees on the team, they have successfully driven the rover from their homes six days before NASA even closed their offices.

An employee named Alicia Allbaugh has been working on and off at NASA since 1991. She oversees the 75-person Curiosity Mars Rover program which she has worked on since 2006. After hearing about the pandemic and lockdowns, she then started to make plans if ever the team had to suddenly stay home.

"Luckily for the rover team, there was already some infrastructure in place because it works with scientists all over the world, so a degree of teleconferencing functionality was already on hand. They were able to do an experimental test run on March 12, five days before NASA shut its offices," said Allbaugh

Allbaugh also said that "It took everyone a few hours to acclimatize to setting up all their windows and chats so they fit onto home monitor screens. We figured it out within like two, three hours. We were sort of getting into the groove and understanding the ebb and flow and the pace. The test went off surprisingly well, with the rover receiving and successfully executing a set of orders."

Read Also: Music Streaming Service Deezer Creates AI To Identify Explicit Content From Their Extensive Song Library

Making DIY complex 3D goggles at home

The Curiosity Mars Rover is built and equipped with 3D cameras which are used to send images back to the drivers to try and work out where it should be heading towards next.

Originally, the rover team took a look at these photos with high tech and special 3D goggles which can flip which eye is looking at the image at a rate of 60 times per second.

Matt Gildner, the planner and team lead of the rover, said that the reason they have them is that the Rover drivers need to try and visualize how it moves over a 3D terrain. Gildner leads a team of 20 planners who send and write commands which tell the rover where to go.

The report also states that "Rover planners are now using simple plastic red-blue glasses, the same kind you would use to watch a 3D movie. Gildner says he pops the glasses on for about 10 to 15 minutes at a time about three times a day to look around at where the rover is."





Read Also: Flight Attendants are Now Asking the United States Government to Pause All Airline Travel Due to the Coronavirus

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Moody's Investors Service on Monday said Reliance Industries' Rs 53,100 crore rights issue is credit positive as earnings will decline because of economic shutdowns

New Delhi: Moody's Investors Service on Monday said Reliance Industries' Rs 53,100 crore rights issue is credit positive as earnings will decline because of economic shutdowns.

Last week, Reliance announced it will raise Rs 53,100 crore through a rights equity offering.

Also, the company announced an investment of Rs 5,656 crore by Silver Late in Jio Platforms, the digital services business of RIL.

"This is in line with the company's target to reduce its net debt to zero by 31 March, 2021. The proceeds from the rights issue will reduce RIL's net debt by about $7.8 billion and is credit positive," Moody's said in a note.

Along with the previously announced asset sales to Facebook, Inc and BP Plc, RIL expects to generate net proceeds of Rs 1.1 lakh crore, which will reduce its net debt by the same amount.

"The total net debt reduction from completion of these transactions will lower RIL's reported net debt, which was Rs 1.6 lakh crore ($21.4 billion) as on 31 March, 2020, by about 68 percent and will be equivalent to 1.1x its reported EBITDA of Rs 1 lakh crore for the fiscal year ended 31 March, 2020," it said.

In addition, RIL also announced that it has started the process to carve out its oil-to-chemical (O2C) business as a separate subsidiary in order to facilitate the previously announced 20 percent stake sale in that business to Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco).

Despite the coronavirus outbreak and lower oil prices, RIL confirmed that the due diligence process for the transaction is ongoing.

"This increases the likelihood of the transaction going ahead as announced in August 2019," the rating agency said, adding the transaction with Saudi Aramco values the O2C business at $75 billion and can potentially result in $12-15 billion of cash proceeds for RIL, depending on the amount of debt at the O2C business after the reorganization.

Reliance last week approved the biggest-ever rights issue of Rs 53,100 crore at Rs 1,257 per share.

The company had reported a 10.5 percent increase in its reported EBITDA for the fiscal year ended 31 March, 2020, as compared to a year ago.

While the economic shutdowns due to coronavirus outbreak resulted in a decline in earnings from RIL's O2C and retail businesses for the quarter ended March 2020, its earnings from its digital services continued to grow.

"We expect the earnings from its O2C and retail business to see a steeper decline in the quarter ending June 2020 as India's economy is scheduled to be under shutdown for at least 45 days in this quarter. An earnings recovery for these segments will depend on the timing of resumption of economic activity, which remains uncertain at this stage," it said.

Assuming the economic activity to resume by middle to end of May 2020, the rating agency expected RIL's consolidated EBITDA to decline 10-12 percent in FY2021 as compared to FY2020. However, the EBITDA is expected to return to FY2020 levels in FY2022 as improved demand in combination with low oil prices will result in higher earnings for the O2C segment, while the earnings growth for retail will resume.

"RIL's recent foray into online retail through its partnership with Whatsapp and Facebook could result in a further boost in its retail earnings, which is currently not factored in our projections," Moody's said.

(Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd which publishes Firstpost)
Actor Sanjay Dutt says it will take time for the fact to sink in that Rishi Kapoor is no more. On Monday, Sanjay penned an emotional post in the fond memory of his elder brother, Rishi Kapoor, who died last week after battling leukaemia.

One thing that Chintu Sir taught me was to always do things with a smile on our face! Its going to take some time to sink in that Chintu Sir is not with us anymore. He has always been an elder brother to me. Cant believe he is gone, Sanjay shared.

One thing that Chintu Sir taught me was to always do things with a smile on our face! It's going to take some time to sink in that Chintu Sir is not with us anymore. He has always been an elder brother to me. Can't believe he is gone! pic.twitter.com/O8ifvO2G8L  Sanjay Dutt (@duttsanjay) May 4, 2020

Also see | Pakistani TV host apologises after insensitive joke on Irrfan Khan and Sridevis demise, watch video

Along with it, he posted a photograph in which Sanjay is seen sharing smiles with the late actor and his son, actor Ranbir Kapoor. Sanjay Dutt and Rishi Kapoor have had worked together in films like Hathyara, Sahibaan and Agneepath.

A prayer meeting was held on Sunday for actor Rishi Kapoor. The prayer session was held at the late veteran actors residence in Mumbai.A picture is also doing the rounds on the internet in which Rishi Kapoors wife Neetu Kapoor and son Ranbir Kapoor are seen sitting next to the late actors photograph.

Ranbir is seen wearing a red tilak and saffron coloured turban. Rishi Kapoors daughter Riddhima, who could not be in Mumbai on time to attend her fathers last rites, reached the city on Saturday night. She travelled all the way from Delhi to Mumbai via road.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
DALLAS, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) announced today it now takes corporate travel bookings through industry-standard business travel booking systems. All of Southwest's everyday low fares along with industry-standard booking, ticketing, and functionality with business relevant content are available in Travelport's Apollo and Worldpsan Global Distribution Systems. In addition, Southwest will settle tickets booked via the new GDS processes through Airport Report Corporation (ARC). Corporate Travel Buyers, Travel Management Companies, and business travel decision makers can conveniently book travel and modify reservations with just a few clicks.

"Our new GDS capabilities allow business travel managers the ability to book, modify, and cancel Southwest travel without having to pick up the phone, and they can better track and manage their organization's travel," said Andrew Watterson, Southwest's Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. "I'm thrilled we delivered these in-demand industry-standard capabilities that our business Customers have desired on-time and on budget. While we weather the current business climate, today and every day, we're working as hard as we can to be ready for a rebound and welcome travelers back to the skies with the warmth and hospitality they've come to know and love about Southwest."

Previously, Corporate Travel Managers who preferred to manage their organization's travel on Southwest through a GDS channel could only book or cancel a reservation. With this level of participation with Travelport, Corporate Travel Managers and business travel decision makers now have more access to Southwest's everyday low fares. The new capabilities add a new level of service that Southwest has not been able to offer for its corporate travelers.

"Our Partnership with Southwest Airlines is one of the most exciting opportunities for us to deliver more value to our travel agencies, extend Southwest's reach to new Customers, and together make managing travel easier as travel restrictions ease," said Greg Webb, Travelport's CEO. "This level of access offers Agents a single point of sale for shopping, pricing, booking, and after-sale support, providing for an unprecedented level of superior customer service."

The carrier has additional plans to add similar capability to Amadeus' GDS by the end of 2020.

Last year, Southwest announced several investments dedicated to growing its business travel reach. In addition to expanded content using GDS platforms, the carrier strengthened its direct-connect booking channel, SWABIZ; grew its Sales Team; and built a new Travel Management Company Relationship Team. These enhancements are designed to bring Southwest's fares and flights into the booking channel of choice for the carrier's corporate travel Customers.

To learn more about how Southwest Business can help your business manage its travel program, visit Southwest.com/AboutBusiness

ABOUT SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO.

In its 49th year of service, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. continues to differentiate itself from other air carriers with exemplary Customer Service delivered by more than 60,000 Employees to a Customer base topping 130 million passengers in 2019. Southwest became the nation's largest domestic air carrier in 2003 and maintains that ranking based on the U.S. Department of Transportation's most recent reporting of domestic originating passengers boarded. In peak travel seasons during 2019, Southwest operated more than 4,000 weekday departures among a network of 101 destinations in the United States and 10 additional countries.

Southwest coined Transfarency to describe its purposed philosophy of treating Customers honestly and fairly, and low fares actually staying low. Southwest is the only major U.S. airline to offer bags fly free to everyone (first and second checked pieces of luggage, size and weight limits apply, some carriers offer free checked bags on select routes or in qualified circumstances), and there are no change fees, though fare differences might apply.

Southwest is one of the most honored airlines in the world, known for a triple bottom line approach that contributes to the carrier's performance and productivity, the importance of its People and the communities they serve, and an overall commitment to efficiency and the planet. Learn more about how the carrier gives back to communities across the world by visiting Southwest.com/citizenship.

Book Southwest Airlines' low fares online at Southwest.com or by phone at 800-I-FLY-SWA.

SOURCE Southwest Airlines Co.

Related Links

http://www.southwest.com


The Peoples Democratic League (PDL) is deeply concerned about the recent acts of violence that took place in Sierra Leones central prisons in Freetown, which led to reported deaths and burning of public property. We condemn in the strongest terms these acts as deplorable and a serious blow against peace, democracy and political sanity in the country. The PDL is seriously concerned over the wellbeing of the inmates at the central prison in Freetown, after the attack.

The incident allegedly started in the morning hours of April 29, 2020. Numerous pictures and videos disseminated on social media websites, following the attack were purported to be taken at the central prison, where the terror attack took place. The videos showed the severity of the violence that was used against the prisoners. Pictures revealed also were extremely worrying; and there has been no news on the current condition of the injured prisoners.

To the Peoples Democratic League (PDL), the April 29 prison attack in Freetown cannot be justified in any circumstances, as it appears to be in breach of international humanitarian law, and depending on the circumstances could amount to a massacre, and by extension to war crime and crime against humanity. It is the view of the PDL that violence is no solution and can only tear the Sierra Leonean people further apart. We call upon both the leadership of the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) to stop their trade in allegations and counter-allegation, and return to a political dialogue.

The Peoples Democratic League (PDL) is further concerned of Sierra Leones prisons documented poor condition. Leaked pictures from the central Prison in Freetown show a lack of basic hygiene and over crowdedness. Although the prisons capacity allows for 300 inmates, it holds over a thousand prisoners. Many prisoners sleep on empty floor without mattress.

In this context, the Peoples Democratic League (PDL) urges the government of President Julius Maada Bio to adopt appropriate measures, including structural reforms, in order to prevent these types of acts of violence, and to investigate such incidents with due diligence and without delay. Toward this end, the PDL calls on the competent authorities in Freetown to take concrete steps to improve security inside the countrys prisons; investigate and punish any acts of violence and corruption that may take place in correctional facilities; and preventing the activities of criminal gangs with a presence inside prisons.

Sierra Leone is a democratic country and therefore the national body polity must be seen moving towards that direction. The PDL maintains that the horrific events of April 29 at the Central prison in Freetown warrant international scrutiny in an independent, impartial investigation that can determine all the crimes that took place, including potential crimes against humanity. The victims families deserve answers about why their loved ones should be killed.

We cannot estimate the number of deaths, and we cannot also rely on the social media to explain the truth surrounding the April 29 prison attack in Freetown. However, we cannot sit back when public facilities are destroyed and the lives of general members of the public are exposed to dangers. We will not sit idle and allow the prison massacre in Freetown to be swept under the carpet. We further urge the government of President Julius Maada Bio to investigate and clarify the circumstances surrounding the April 29 prison attack in Freetown, and, where applicable, identify and punish those who have committed these heinous attacks at the central prison dont walk away freely but face the might of the law.

The Sierra Leonean government has a primary obligation to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of these killings. Given the scale of the April 29 attack, there should be an independent, impartial investigation with international expertise into the human rights violations, and any findings should be made public.

For supporting governments action towards establishing any investigation, we, of the Peoples Democratic League (PDL) urge the U.N. Security Council and the African Union to act immediately; to conduct a fact-finding independent investigations into the April 29 prison attack in Freetown with international expertise ; not absolve civilians who committed crimes from facing justice, but to ensure also that security forces are also held responsible for their conduct and demonstrate a fundamental commitment to international rule of law.

The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials require law enforcement officials, including military units, to apply nonviolent means before resorting to force, to use force only in proportion to the seriousness of the offense, and to use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life. The principles also provide that governments shall ensure that arbitrary or abusive use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials is punished as a criminal offense under their law.

The investigations we demand for should seek to establish not only the perpetrators of the April 29 prison attack, but also possible masterminds and any authorities who may be responsible, by action or omission.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights should also undertake a joint investigative mission to Sierra Leone and support a broader independent and impartial investigation. Sierra Leones international partners should maintain a strong demand for accountability, including support for our call for an independent and impartial investigation into the April 29 prison attack, with international experts. If given unfettered access to witnesses and forensic evidence, independent experts with a fact-finding mission could determine if the April 29 prison attack should be characterized as a heinous crime and crime against humanity.

Concluding, we call for:

1) A thorough investigation into the April 29 prison attack in Freetown.

2) We ask that the facts be presented and those responsible be held accountable for their actions.

3) All family members be given the right to have scheduled visitation and those scheduled visits be upheld by the prison administration.

4) The prison authorities to provide an adequate and hygienic environment for detainees to sleep and be housed.

5) We wish all wounded prisoners and prison officers who sustained injuries during the April 29 prison attack, a speedy recovery.

No to violence!

No to rude tribalism!!

No to incitement!!!

No to hate speeches!!!!

No to misuse of the social media to ferment political instability!!!!!

Sender:

Alimamy Bakarr Sankoh

Leader and National Chairman

Peoples Democratic League

PDL
The retired Colorado paramedic who died of coronavirus after volunteering to be deployed to New York amid the pandemic was given an honor procession when his body was returned to his home state for burial.

Paul Cary, 66, of Aurora, Colorado, had been part of Ambulnz's State of New York COVID Response team when he volunteered to be deployed to the state's coronavirus epicenter, New York City.

Cary, a 32-year firefighter paramedic veteran of Aurora Fire Rescue, began working in the city on April 1.

He was assigned to work with FEMA and stationed at the Bronx Zoo, transporting patients all across NYC, an Ambulanz spokesperson told 9 News.

Veteran firefighter paramedic Paul Cary, 66, volunteered to be sent from Colorado to New York City to help frontline workers in their fight against coronavirus in New York City

Cary started working in NYC on April 1, then experienced coronavirus symptoms on April 19 or 20. He died in NYC on April 30. His casket is shown here arriving in Denver, Colorado on May 3

Firefighters salute Cary's casket as it is offloaded from the plane that flew him to Denver

Ambulnz paramedics and Aurora firefighters are seen carrying Cary's casket to a waiting ambulance. Cary was a 32-year firefighter paramedic veteran with Aurora Fire Rescue

Aurora firefighter Tom Johnson is seen standing at attention as Cary's body arrives at the Denver airport on Sunday night

He then developed coronavirus symptoms on April 19 or 20 and was admitted to The Bronx's Montefiore Hospital the next day.

He died from coronavirus complications on April 30, Ambulnz officials told The Denver Channel.

Cary did not die alone, though, as one of his two children - his son, Chris - had managed to fly in to NYC from Colorado to be by his side at the hospital.

In NYC on Sunday, a caravan of ambulances escorted his body as it made the trip from a Staten Island funeral home to Newark Airport for the journey back to Colorado, according to ABC 7.

Cary's body's flight landed at Colorado's Denver International Airport at about 7pm Sunday.

His flag-draped casket was saluted by firefighters as it was unloaded from the flight.

Firefighters and other first responders stood as they watched Cary's procession to the funeral home on Sunday night

More than 80 emergency vehicles and four helicopters participated in Cary's hero procession

The emergency vehicle procession is seen here departing from Denver International Airport

Workers stopped to watch the enormous funeral procession as it passed through Denver

Local residents waved American flags and held thank you signs as the procession passed

Cary's casket was also given a large procession as it was taken from the Staten Island funeral home in NYC to the airport for his flight back to Colorado Sunday afternoon

More than 80 emergency vehicles and four helicopters were part of the procession that accompanied Cary's hearse to Denver's Olinger Hampden Mortuary & Cemetery, where a small ceremony for him took place.

Local residents were seen wearing masks and waving American flags and thank you signs as the procession passed by.

'We were devastated to learn that our father and grandfather, Paul Cary, became the latest victim to die of COVID-19. Our family grieves his loss, and knows that all his friends and family will miss him greatly,' Cary's family said in a statement to the Denver Channel after his death.

'He risked his own health and safety to protect others and left this world a better place. We are at peace knowing that Paul did what he loved and what he believed in, right up until the very end.'

After volunteering for deployment at the end of March, he had actually signed up for a second 30-day tour, before falling ill from coronavirus.

T'Thats not something you can train for, it's something in your blood, in your culture and that's what Paul was all about,' Ambulnz CEO Stan Vashovsky told ABC 7.

Cary is survived by his two children and four grandchildren.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 17:44 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5e0cab 1 Politics COVID-19,Sandiaga-Uno,Twitter,social-aid Free

Having lost to President Joko Jokowi Widodos ticket in the 2019 presidential election, businessman and Gerindra Party politician Sandiaga Uno surprised and angered his supporters when he joined a group of the Presidents supporters to distribute aid near the Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi, West Java, on Saturday.

Those who supported Sandiaga and Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto in last years presidential election took to Twitter to criticize Sandiagas choice to help the group, called Jokowi Mania, distribute COVID-19 aid. The hashtag #GoodbyeSandiagaUno trended on Twitter on Monday.

I [thought you were] different, but it turns out you are the same. Goodbye, bro! If you became a candidate again, I am very sure I [would] not [be] with you again, tweeted @AzzamIzzulhaq on Sunday afternoon.

Immanuel Ebenezer insulted [the Islamist] 212 rally reunion, disrespected clerics and slandered [Jakarta Governor] Anies Baswedan [...] And now @sandiuno [is] with him? said @BERuan9_QuTuB.

Immanuel Ebenezer was the chairman of the Jokowi Mania volunteer group in the 2019 presidential election. In February 2019, at the peak of the presidential campaign, Immanuel was condemned for calling the 212 rally a group of money servants during a talk show.

Sandiaga, who was a successful venture capital entrepreneur, began his political career when he ran in and won the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election with Anies and became Jakarta deputy governor. He later resigned from the position to run in the presidential race.

Despite a bitterly contested election that was marred by sectarian sentiments, the Gerindra Party chose to join the government when the election was over. Prabowo now serves as defense minister. He and Gerindra have also experienced a strong backlash from their supporters.

Read also: COVID-19 aid stalled, used for political stunts

Sandiaga said his choice to volunteer with Jokowis team was simply to provide humanitarian assistance at the grassroots level. He said everyone should join together to fight the COVID-19 outbreak.

When there is a pandemic, everyone must unite. There should be no color or political alignments. Jo-Man [Jokowi Mania] and I agree that our enemy is COVID-19. Lets fight it by following the governments words, said Sandiaga, as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Sandiaga and other volunteers distributed staple food packages to 300,000 families in Bantar Gebang, which had reportedly received little attention during the pandemic.

Together with Pak Sandiaga, we want to pay attention to the Bantar Gebang residents affected by COVID-19. They are almost untouched by [the government] here, said Immanuel.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence at a White House coronavirus briefing.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

An internal Trump administration document predicted that the US's daily coronavirus death toll would almost double over the next month, even as the president has encouraged states to return to business as usual, The New York Times first reported on Monday.

The administration expects daily deaths to increase to about 3,000 by June 1 from about 1,750 now, The Times said.

The White House rejected the data, telling Insider in a statement that "this data is not reflective of any of the modeling done" by its coronavirus task force "or data that the task force has analyzed."

The draft models were created by Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and presented to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Washington Post reported.

Lessler told The Post that "this data was presented as an FYI to CDC," adding that "it was not in any way intended to be a forecast." But he said it was possible that the US could reach 100,000 new infections per day by the end of May, depending on how states continue to reopen.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

An internal Trump administration document predicted that the US's daily coronavirus death toll would nearly double over the next month, even as the president has encouraged states to return to business as usual, The New York Times first reported on Monday.

Daily deaths are expected to grow to about 3,000 by June 1 from about 1,750 now, according to the document, copies of which were obtained by The Times and The Washington Post.

The draft models, presented in a Federal Emergency Management Agency slide deck, also predicted that the number of new infections per day would jump to 200,000 from 25,000  an eightfold increase  by June 1.

Slides containing the projections reportedly showed the logos of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Story continues

The CDC and the White House distanced themselves from the models, which were created by Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and presented to the CDC, The Post reported.

"This is not a White House document nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting," Judd Deere, a White House deputy press secretary, told Insider in a statement. "This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed."

He added: "The President's phased guidelines to open up America again are a scientific driven approach that the top health and infectious disease experts in the federal government agreed with. The health of the American people remains President Trump's top priority and that will continue as we monitor the efforts by states to ease restrictions."

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany lashed out at the media for reporting on the leaked modeling in a statement on Tuesday.

"The Johns Hopkins' study being pushed around by the media as factual is based on faulty assumptions and is in no way representative of any federal government projections," McEnany said.

Johns Hopkins released a statement on Tuesday explaining that the models were "preliminary analyses" that weren't designed to be used as "forecasts," but instead "to aid in scenario planning."

It went on, "The information illustrates that there are some scenarios, including the premature relaxation of social distancing, that are likely to cause significant increases in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States."

Lessler told The Post he wasn't involved in creating the slide deck or disseminating the draft projections to other government agencies.

"This data was presented as an FYI to CDC," Lessler said, adding that "it was not in any way intended to be a forecast."

But Lessler said it was possible that the US could reach 100,000 new infections per day by the end of May, depending on how states continue to reopen.

The numbers illustrate that reopening the country's economy is likely to make the virus' spread much worse.

Some states have begun to relax lockdown measures, allowing many businesses and workers to return to life as normal. But in many cases, infection rates have increased even as the states have reopened. While urban areas like New York City have experienced large numbers of infections, rural areas have been hit with massive outbreaks in places like prisons and meat-processing plants.

What's also clear is that the US isn't experiencing the declines in infection and death rates that the government expected to see as a result of the widespread lockdowns.

Scott Gottlieb, the Trump administration's former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, conceded during a CBS News interview on Sunday that efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus "didn't work as well as we expected."

President Donald Trump told Fox News on Sunday that as many as 100,000 people in the US would die from the virus.

That estimate was a large increase from the numbers the president mentioned just a few weeks ago, but not as many as in Lessler's draft models. On April 20, Trump told reporters that about 60,000 people would die.

As of Monday, the US's death toll stood at over 68,000 people, with 1.2 million people infected. There is a widespread belief among experts that both the infection total and the death toll are much higher than the confirmed numbers.

Read the original article on Business Insider
WASHINGTON - Arnold Hudson Sr. started working as a correctional officer at the District of Columbia jail in 1997, a year after he married his wife, Diane.

Before that, he spent six years as a guard at the now-closed prison in Lorton, Virginia. Ensuring the safety of incarcerated men and women, and providing them some guidance, Hudson believes, is a noble profession.

Hudson, 52, never worried about an inmate hurting him. If you show an inmate respect, he learned over the years, they will return it in kind. Still, Hudson always had his eyes open for possible trouble.

But it was the danger Hudson could not see that he thinks he brought home from the jail. In March, he and his wife fell ill. Her coughing became so severe that she was rushed to a Washington emergency room and tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Diane Robin-Hudson was hospitalized for 10 days, an agonizing time for Hudson, who was not allowed to visit and could only get updates from harried nurses over the phone.

Days later, Hudson, too, tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. His last day at work was March 25, the day his wife went to the hospital. It was also the day the city announced its first positive coronavirus test among inmates.

"My job comes with risk. I get that and accepted that years ago. But my wife, my family, shouldn't be in danger just because I went to work every day to put food on the table," Hudson said, his voice cracking over the phone. "How do I live with this?"

It is a worry shared by health-care professionals, police officers, firefighters, grocery store employees and other essential workers. While they are concerned about contracting the virus at work, an even greater fear is spreading it to loved ones.

The couple cannot be certain how the virus entered their home. Until her illness, Robin-Hudson was a general manager for an IHOP restaurant in Arlington, Virginia.

Still, Hudson, who believes he contracted the virus at work, remains guilt-ridden as they slowly recover. As inmates became sick with what everyone thought was the flu, Hudson escorted many of them to the infirmary. Then he developed a cough.

When Robin-Hudson also began coughing, her family thought her bronchitis had flared. She also suffers from high blood pressure, diabetes and asthma, her husband said.

The 50-year-old's condition grew worse, and she began vomiting and coughing up blood. She also had a fever, chest pains and dizzy spells. At the hospital she spent a week on a ventilator. Doctors recently allowed her to return to her D.C. home with her husband and son, but she still uses an oxygen tank and wears a mask.

Nationwide, defense attorneys and other advocates have been pushing for the release of many inmates as they fear the spread of the virus in detention facilities. But corrections workers and their unions say more must be done to protect them as well.

In the nation's capital, the pandemic infection rate within the jail of about 1,400 inmates has surpassed that of the city itself. The jail reported that 152 inmates had tested positive as of Sunday. One inmate has died.

D.C. officials also said one longtime jail employee has died of covid-19.Theresa Capers, 55, worked as an administrative assistant.

As of Sunday, 61 Department of Corrections employees had been infected, according to the latest city data. The city says 86 employees are off work after testing positive or quarantined after having come into contact with someone infected. That has meant extra and longer shifts for those employees who are able to work, union leaders say.

Last month, the Fraternal Order of Police representing the jail's correctional officers filed a class-action lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court on behalf of five correctional officers, including Hudson, contending that the city failed to do enough to ensure worker safety.

The lawsuit said the city required employees to work near infected inmates and colleagues without proper personal protective equipment. The suit also said the city and jail failed to properly identify inmates or jail employees who might have come in contact with an infected person.

Attorney Michael Hammon, a leader with the jail union, said officers who have not tested positive are using their sick days to avoid going to work. That puts fewer officers in place to quell potential violence.

Last month, correctional officers used pepper spray to suppress a protest, according to the union. The following morning, the union said, workers subdued an inmate who refused to return to his cell and two inmates were hospitalized.

In a decision in the union's favor, D.C.'s Public Employee Relations Board last month ordered jail officials to bargain in good faith with union leaders on safety measures and the jail's decision to expand shifts to 12 hours.

Keena Blackmon, a spokeswoman for the jail, said in an email that the longer shifts enable the jail to be fully staffed more consistently. "The mayor's priority is to have a safe and secure facility," she wrote.

Last week, Blackmon said, jail officials informed employees that masks and gloves would be provided to everyone entering the facility. Additionally, staffers assigned to work with infected inmates will also receive gowns, eye protection and N95 masks. The jail is also requiring all employees to participate in PPE training.

The new equipment and training policies were also ordered by a federal judge late last month following a class-action filed on behalf of inmates by the city's Public Defender Service and the ACLU.

Correctional officers elsewhere are facing similar challenges as they deal with the impact of the virus.

Oluwadamilola Olaniyan works at the Jessup Correctional Institution in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, which has the highest number of positive covid-19 tests of any Maryland prison.

As of Monday, 18 inmates there have tested positive, according to corrections officials. Two of those inmates died after being hospitalized. In addition, 22 correctional officers have tested positive, state officials said. At other Maryland state prisons, another 149 correctional officers and 43 inmates have become infected, according to the latest state figures.

The possibility of carrying the virus home, Olaniyan said, weighs heavily on him and his colleagues. "We're all concerned about our families," he said. "We sacrifice by going in there."

Olaniyan knows 20 of the infected officers at Jessup. Two who were hospitalized told him they thought they were going to die. One started writing his will.

"Thankfully, everyone has made it so far," said Olaniyan, a shop steward with the AFSCME state employees union. "They're coming back to work."

Two weeks ago, after learning a colleague had tested positive, Olaniyan got tested and quarantined himself in an area of his home. Days later, he received the results and burst out of the room. "I'm negative!" he exclaimed. His three young sons started dancing, said Olaniyan, who has since returned to work.

The prison provides gloves and face shields for officers and recently replenished supplies of hand sanitizer, Olaniyan said. But much-needed N95 masks, he said, remain in short supply. "We need many more of them," he said.

Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said Monday that "the department's number one priority continues to be the health and safety of its employees and the incarcerated." Speaking of the state prison system in general, Vernarelli said there is a "sufficient supply" of N95 masks, which are being cleaned after use and rotated back into service. He said inmates also have made more than 10,000 bottles of hand sanitizer for use in prisons and sewn thousands of cloth masks for use by inmates and correctional officers.

The constant worries about the virus, Olaniyan said, are offset by the sense that he is doing essential work. "How are you holding up?" a neighbor recently asked while the two were outside their homes. Inside the prison, two longtime inmates recently thanked him for coming to work - something he had never heard in nine years on the job. "They said, 'Thank you for what you do,' " Olaniyan said.

Hudson doesn't know when he will be able to return to the D.C. jail. He also fears for his 25-year-old son, who lives at the house since graduating from Virginia Union University.

His cough has weakened into an occasional hacking. His doctor told him to drink hot tea, wash his hands and sanitize frequently and use decongestant medications.

"I'm just trying to keep my family safe and together since no one else, not the city, not the jail, no one is working to keep us safe," he said. "They all let us down."

- - -

The Washington Post's Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
Randomly chosen patients will receive a "universal" prayer offered following rituals of Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism

Worshippers wearing face masks attend a prayer ceremony entitled 'overcoming and healing the COVID-19 coronavirus', while marking Buhha's birthday at the Jogye buddhist temple in Seoul. (AFP)

Kansas City: An Indian-American physician in Kansas City has begun a study to find if something called remote intercessory prayer might initiate God to heal those infected with the coronavirus.

Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy launched the four-month prayer study on Friday, which involves 1,000 coronavirus patients who are in intensive care.

In the study, none of the patients' prescribed standard care will be changed. They will be divided in two groups of 500 each and prayers will be offered for one of the groups.

Also, neither group will be informed about the prayers.

The four-month study will investigate "the role of remote intercessory multi-denominational prayer on clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients," according to a description provided to the National Institutes of Health.

Half of the patients, randomly chosen, will receive a "universal" prayer offered in five denominational forms -- Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism -- while the other patients will constitute the control group.

All the patients will receive the standard of care prescribed by their medical providers and Lakkireddy has assembled a steering committee of medical professionals to oversee the study.

"We all believe in science, and we also believe in faith," Lakkireddy said.

"If there is a supernatural power, which a lot of us believe, would that power of prayer and divine intervention change the outcomes in a concerted fashion? That was our question," he said.

The investigators will assess how long the patients remain on ventilators, how many suffer from organ failure, how quickly they are released from intensive care and how many die, Lakkireddy said.

He describes himself as "born into Hinduism," but said he also attended a Catholic school and had spent time in synagogues, Buddhist monasteries, and mosques.

The physician said he cannot explain how people praying remotely for someone they don't know (or a group of people,) could actually make a difference in their health outcomes, and acknowledged that some of his medical colleagues have had "a mixed reaction" to his study proposal.

Lakkireddy said he has no idea what he will find, "but it's not like we're putting anyone at risk. A miracle could happen. There's always hope, right?"
Burma Freedom of Expression in Myanmar in Decline Under NLD Government, Say Advocates

Activists call for freedom of assembly and expression in Yangon in March, 2018. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

YANGONFreedom of expression has declined in Myanmar under the National League for Democracy (NLD) government as more than a thousand people have been sued for raising criticisms against the government, military, members of Parliament and other individuals, according to Athan, a Myanmar organization advocating for freedom of expression.

In the four years since the NLD came to power, from April 2016 to March 2020, 539 lawsuits have been filed against 1,051 people for allegedly raising criticisms against the state, according to a new report from Athan. The lawsuits were filed by the government, the military, members of Parliament and other individuals and groups.

The founders of Athan told the media during a video press conference on Saturday that the number of lawsuits against people who raise criticisms has increased under the NLD government compared to the previous government.

Athan said they had not yet compiled the number of lawsuits filed under the previous government, as the group is still researching these older cases. However, Maung Saungkha, executive director of Athan, told the media that there were only around half as many of this type of case under the previous government as under the NLD.

The 1,051 people sued since April 2016 include 495 civilians, 326 activists, 67 journalists, 60 politicians, 27 members of the clergy, 24 artists, 17 government staff, 15 ethnic armed group members, 7 businessmen, 7 members of parliament and 6 other people, according to the new Athan report.

Of the 539 lawsuits, the government opened 251 of them, violating the peoples right to freedom of expression, said Athan.

Eight lawsuits that Athan says constituted violations of freedom of expression were also filed by the NLD party itself and government supporters to take action against people who criticized the NLD government.

Government staff, the NLD party and supporters also field 19 lawsuits against people who allegedly raised criticisms against Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, according to Athan.

The other 66 cases were filed against those who criticized the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw.Of the 66 lawsuits, 52 were filed directly by the military against people who raised criticisms both online and offline.

Fourteen members of Parliament also filed 18 lawsuits against 35 civilians for raising criticisms. Thirteen cases were also filed by people associated with members of Parliament to take action against 31 civilians for raising criticisms against the politicians.

Athan said that 67 cases were filed against 67 journalists in an attempt to take action against them for their reporting. Thirty-one of the cases were filed by the government and 11 were filed by the military.

Of the 539 total lawsuits, 229 cases were filed under Section 66 (d) of the Telecommunications Law and 91 cases were filed under the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law, according to Athan.

Despite the fact that the Telecommunications Law was amended in August 2017 to prohibit third parties from filling cases under the law unless they are effected directly by an action, the number of cases under the law has not decreased, said Athan member Ko Ye Wai Phyo Aung.

The rest of the cases were filed under the Anti-Defamation Law, the Unlawful Association Act, the Counterterrorism Law, the Treason Law and others.

Ko Ye Wai Phyo Aung told The Irrawaddy on Monday that using the Counterterrorism Law against journalists is one of the worst violations of freedom of expression because the accused faces life in prison.

In March, Mandalay-based Voice of Myanmar editor Ko Nay Lin was arrested and charged under the Counterterrorism Law for publishing an interview with the spokesperson of the Arakan Army (AA), which the government recently designated a terrorist group.

The new Athan report said that eight cases against journalists were filed under the Counterterrorism Law.

Ko Ye Wai Phyo Aung said that they found there have been more restrictions and bans against events and activities of students and civil society groups related to politics under the NLD government.

The government cant deny or neglect human rights and freedom of expressionthe fundamental rights of people, if we are to build a federal democratic country, said Ye Wai Phyo Aung.

You may also like these stories:

Myanmar Can No Longer Afford to Ignore the Threat of Nationalism

Myanmars Emerging Democracy is Being Eroded
This article about the impact of natural disasters was produced by CalMatters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan California policy news site, and The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

OROVILLE, Calif.  Officials at Butte College gathered one fall Wednesday in 2018 for a tabletop exercise in disaster planning.

As Californias fire seasons had become more deadly, utilities were threatening to shut off power as a way of preventing downed lines from igniting blazes. Other catastrophes, such as school shootings, were also on officials minds.

Administrators at the rural community college wanted to be prepared. They mapped out potential scenarios: What if they had to close the campus? How would they continue classes?

They had no idea theyd be putting those plans into action the very next day, in the face of the most destructive blaze in California history.

Even before the coronavirus brought a halt to in-person classes nationwide this spring, some colleges and universities had confronted climate-linked natural disasters with similarly dramatic effects.

And while this pandemic has raised questions about what might happen to students whose educations are being disrupted, these colleges offer real-life examples of the impact of campus shutdowns.

The fires, hurricanes, floods and other emergencies that have been occurring with increasing frequency do not only threaten lives and homes. At some colleges temporarily shut down by these disasters, they have decreased enrollment, slowed students progress toward graduation and deprived faculty and staff of income when they needed it the most, causing some to jump ship.

Related: Canceled research, sports, recitals  college students are coping with more than closed campuses

Many of those universities and colleges also became lifelines for students and for their larger communities after the disasters.

When it comes to crises that can bring a campus to a halt, said Marvin Pratt, director of environmental health and safety at California State University, Chico, which was closed for two weeks by the 2018 Camp fire, All of us have learned that no one is immune.

Story continues

We all lost something

The morning after Butte Colleges training exercise, Andy Suleski, the schools vice president of administration, was heading down Highway 99 to the campus. The wind had picked up, and he checked his phone to see if a power shut-off was on the way. Then he saw the giant plume of smoke.

By the time Suleski reached the colleges parking lot and climbed out of his car, ashes were raining down. It was the first day of the Camp fire, which would kill 85 people in the town of Paradise and the surrounding communities and displace thousands more.

Smoke from the Camp Fire darkens the sky above the Butte College sign in Oroville, Calif., on Nov. 8, 2018. (Don Thompson / AP file)

It closed the Butte College campus for more than two weeks, and cost the school nearly $6.5 million, officials say.

It didnt matter if you lived in a shack or a mansion, we all lost something, said Dayna Collett, a student who also works in the colleges student success center, and whose home was destroyed.

Nearly a quarter of Butte Colleges 11,000 students reported experiencing homelessness at some point before the fires  low-income students are far more likely than wealthier ones to attend community colleges, the federal government reports  and more than 800 more students faced displacement afterward. Staff from the colleges basic needs center set up shop in parking lots, distributing laptops, gas gift cards and information about mental health counseling. The college let students drop classes without financial penalties.

It all coalesced into one big question: What do our students need right now to finish the semester and stay in school? Dawn Blackhorse, a student success specialist at the college, said.

Related: How do you manage college online  quarantined with eight people?

At colleges like Butte, where some students are already struggling to afford food, housing and health care, a shutdown only magnifies that challenge.

In the wake of the 2017 Tubbs fire in Californias wine country, a Santa Rosa Junior College poll revealed that many students were suffering from stress and needed mental health services, Frank Chong, the colleges president, said. More than a quarter reported experiencing a mental or physical health problem as a result of the fire.

When youre going through that type of trauma, you dont think theres anybody else in that situation, or that nobody cares, he said. Sending the survey, he said, was also a way for the college to say, we care about you, tell us how we can help.

After Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in 2017, Houston Community College disbursed more than $7 million in federal financial aid to students earlier than usual, Shar-day Campbell, communications coordinator for the financial aid office, said.

Despite such efforts, many students at campuses that were temporarily closed dropped out, something administrators fear will happen again as the coronavirus pandemic affects earnings and makes people want to stick closer to home. Butte has seen its enrollment drop by 12 percent since the fire, according to college President Samia Yaqub, while the Tubbs fire contributed to a 6 percent enrollment drop at Santa Rosa.

A long recovery

Unlike with recent floods and wildfires, the effects of the coronavirus arent limited to a particular geographic area. But like those localized disasters, the pandemic is projected to leave colleges strapped for cash, with demand for all kinds of services skyrocketing as endowment earnings plummet and state budgets are likely to be cut.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Perhaps the closest recent parallel is Hurricane Katrina, which affected more than 50,000 college students, damaging and closing campuses along the Gulf Coast and New Orleans in August 2005. Seventy-four percent of New Orleans college students reported that their academic performance had declined, and 36 percent withdrew from classes.

Enrollment at some community colleges fell to less than half of pre-Katrina levels. Students who had to move frequently or work full-time to support themselves and their families were less likely to come back to school.

The hurricane cost New Orleans colleges and universities an estimated $1.5 billion in building repairs, lost tuition and payroll expenses.

University officials often think of bouncing back from a disaster like the Camp fire in terms of weeks or months, Megan Kurtz, a community liaison at Chico State, said. In reality, she said, this is a 15- or 20-year recovery.

Related: Federal money to ease collegians coronavirus costs may shortchange some who need it most

Just over a year after the fire, oak trees and grass have again turned the hill behind Butte Colleges main campus, once barren and sooty, a healthy green. But even as many students living situations have stabilized, some say they are just now beginning to cope with the trauma they had previously bottled up.

Communication studies major Mackenzie Bryan lost her home in the fire, bouncing from hotel to hotel for four months. Today, she lives with her family in a condo and is getting ready to transfer to a four-year college.

Image: Mackenzie Bryan (Anne Wernikoff / for CalMatters)

I can talk about it openly, she said of the fire, but I havent fully processed it yet. Now, its more dealing with it psychologically than physically.

The college has filled a position for a full-time mental health counselor and plans to hire a second one soon. While many campus health centers focus on short-term counseling, Butte is experimenting with a 12-week program designed to address post-traumatic stress disorder.

At Sonoma State University, demand for counseling grew by more than 50 percent in fall 2017, the semester the Tubbs fire closed the campus for a week; the university called in therapists from other Cal State campuses to help.

Even though enrollment has declined at Butte, demand for basic needs services continues to grow, something that is also likely to happen in the wake of the pandemic. About 250 students visited the campus basic needs resource center each week before the fire; by the beginning of 2020, more than 1,000 were doing so, and the campus had added a basic needs satellite location.

Image: Butte College Campus (Anne Wernikoff / for CalMatters)

Catherine Osby, a single mother of two studying art and psychology, said she was stopping by the satellite pantry  which offered fresh vegetables, snacks and a place to study two to three times a week early this semester. It helps a lot to know this is here, in case me and my kids are running out of food stamps, she said.

Many of the same circumstances that disrupt students lives during a disaster affect faculty and staff, too.

Related: Choosing pass/fail grades may help college students now, but could cost them later

With the Camp fire raging, Butte College President Yaqub put employees, including hourly workers, on paid leave.

One of the things that we learned is to find a way to help faculty and staff immediately, and a very tangible way to do that is to make sure that they continue to get paid, she said.

Other colleges navigating emergencies have taken similar steps. After Harvey hit Texas, Houston Community College created a new class of leave that faculty and staff could use for errands, such as meeting with flood insurance adjusters. More recently, the University of California has given workers, including students, affected by the coronavirus closures several additional weeks of paid leave.

The coronavirus era

The pandemic has put all colleges emergency plans to the test, reminding them that its not a question of if, its a question of when, Joyce Lopes, director of the emergency operations center at Sonoma State, said.

In just the last three years, that university has weathered two wildfires, power outages that closed the campus for several days and a closure because of smoke from a fire elsewhere. Administrators have learned that they need to train at least three people for each key disaster management role, Lopes said. That way, employees can work in shifts to avoid burnout.

These are often things that go on the back burner, she said. Now people understand why we need to make time to do it.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

Colleges and universities are also adapting their curricula to the new normal, developing training programs that can provide workers to help with rebuilding  and jobs for disaster survivors. Butte College trained 2,000 debris removal workers, Yaqub said, many of whom had lost their jobs and homes in the fires. The college also launched six-month certificate programs in construction, refrigeration and heating, ventilation and air conditioning to meet local building demands.

Similar training programs are being planned for people who have lost their jobs in the pandemic lockdowns or need more training to cope with it. The online learning platform edX, created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, has already launched a course on ventilator use for medical professionals, for instance. Central Ohio Technical College has made more than $1 million in financial aid available for career training for people out of work because of COVID-19. Wake Tech, a community college in North Carolina, is offering online entry-level computer courses to people who have lost their jobs.

While its too soon to tell how the pandemic will affect the future of todays college students, a survey just after campuses were closed by the coronavirus found that 17 percent lacked reliable and safe housing, 28 percent did not have access to healthy food and 75 percent had higher levels of anxiety, depression and stress. More than half had been laid off from jobs they held or had hours significantly cut back.

Image: Students deliver produce (Anne Wernikoff / for CalMatters)

If theres a silver lining to this catastrophe-prone era, its that disasters focus students attention on social problems such as climate change and inequality, Chong, the Santa Rosa Junior College president, said.

I see this is an opportunity for our students to see how to make a difference, and challenge them to address some of these issues in a way that we werent successful in doing in our previous generation.

Sign up for The Hechinger Reports higher education newsletter.
Even as they are finding some positives in working remotely, leaders in the regions student newsrooms say theyre committed to resuming in-person operations once they return to their campuses.

When universities around the country moved the remainder of their semesters online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, student news organizations also transitioned their operations to exclusively digital production.

Annemarie LePard, who lives in Higganum, is a news reporter for the Hofstra Chronicle and radio station WHRU at Hofstra University on Long Island. She said the radio station has become more creative in its reporting, finding new ways to get sound.

Its so significantly better than what it was, LePard said. I hope we take that back with us and dont let it just be a moment.

The Yale Daily News has also continued reporting online since Yale University in New Haven announced it would move all classes after spring break online.

Its been really fantastic to see our writers take their roles as journalists so seriously through this important time  especially while they are all dealing with huge adjustments to their lives and the anxieties that this pandemic brings, Yale Daily News Editor-in-Chief Samantha Westfall said in an email.

Brendan OSullivan, editor-in-chief of the Quinnipiac Chronicle at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, said the transition to online was smooth because reporters were already regularly updating the website.

But it has been a challenge to get the same amount of content out during this time, OSullivan said.

Its difficult to reach out to people when were not on campus together, he said.

Vivian Martin, chairwoman of the journalism department at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, said student journalists are being challenged to find new ways to get stories.

Students are being encouraged to find a way, Martin said. Journalism is a really good model of creative problem solving.

Martin said the skills students are using to innovate their reporting now will become permanent parts of their reporting toolboxes.

There are going to be other crises well have to deal with, Martin said. This is going to be a skill set. These practices and tools get integrated together, and the ones who will prevail and do well are those who know when to use them.

The current situation has also shown student journalists that, although remote reporting is possible, there is no replacement for working together in a newsroom.

Every production night we have dozens of writers, staffers and editors all running around the [Yale Daily News] building, busy collaborating between desks, discussing journalistic decisions, laughing, learning from each other, Westfall said. A lot of that connection is lost while we are remote.

Even though the Quinnipiac Chronicle has been able to produce content without printing its weekly paper edition, OSullivan said staff wont permanently discontinue the print run.

Its another avenue, OSullivan said. Its what the Chronicle is. Its important to keep that tradition.

LePard said having a studio on campus lends WHRU an air of professionalism that is absent with exclusively remote reporting.

Its much different talking to a mic than your phone, LePard said.

Chris Roush, dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac, said while companies may ask journalists to cover more things remotely going forward, the newsroom is a space where journalists can work together and collaborate on a level that is not possible through remote reporting.

You can sit with your fellow journalists and talk through things, Roush said. Its the camaraderie when they have that physical space.

LePard said one of the things she misses most about working on campus is interacting with her fellow student journalists.

Everyone is like a family, LePard said. So well be really excited to see our family again and produce some extraordinary content and reflect on what happened and where do we move on from here.

Anna Aldrich is a student at the University of Connecticut.
Tim Bray, a senior Amazon software engineer, has resigned from his role at the company after five years, citing "dismay" over Amazon's decision to fire outspoken critics of its labor practices.

In a fiery blog post, titled "Bye, Amazon," Bray, a vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), said his last day at the company was Friday. Bray said he "snapped" after Amazon fired Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, two former user experience designers who criticized Amazon's climate stance and, most recently, its treatment of warehouse workers amid the coronavirus. Amazon has said it fired Costa and Cunningham for "repeatedly violating internal policies."

"I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers who were making noise about employees frightened of Covid-19," Bray wrote in the blog post, adding that "remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned."

Bray did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon declined to comment on Bray's resignation.

Before he resigned, Bray had shown support for an employee advocacy group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, which Cunningham and Costa were also a part of. He also signed onto an April letter to CEO Jeff Bezos and Amazon's board of directors, which received more than 8,700 signatures, calling on the company to develop a comprehensive climate change plan.

Cunningham said she commends Bray for "his integrity" and for "doing the right thing" by resigning from his role at AWS. Bray's resignation could spark similar moves from other corporate Amazon employees who want to see meaningful changes made at the company, Cunningham added.

"I think people in general want to work for companies that they feel proud of," Cunningham said. "Amazon has an incredible opportunity to lead both in the coronavirus crisis and with the climate, but it has to start by listening to workers instead of firing us."

An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that it supports workers' rights to protest and criticize their employer's working conditions, "but that does not come with blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, well-being or safety of their colleagues."

In addition to Costa and Cunningham, Amazon has fired multiple warehouse employees who criticized the working conditions at its facilities during the pandemic. The company continues to face widespread criticism over its decision last month to fire Chris Smalls, a warehouse worker who organized a strike at its Staten Island, New York, facility. Smalls said he was fired for organizing the strike, but Amazon said it dismissed Smalls because he violated social distancing rules while he was supposed to be under quarantine after being exposed to a co-worker who tested positive for the coronavirus.

Amazon warehouse workers across the country have called for the company to put in place greater safety protections, including closing down facilities where there are positive cases for additional cleaning. Warehouse workers have staged protests at facilities in Detroit, Illinois and Staten Island, and they participated in nationwide strikes held last week.

The workers' calls have recently sparked a response from growing numbers of corporate Amazon employees. Earlier this month, Amazon employees participated in a "sick out" to show support for Costa and Cunningham, as well as warehouse workers. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice estimates that "well over 500 tech workers" participated in the sick out, the group previously told CNBC.

Amazon has previously said it has gone to "great lengths" to keep facilities clean and make sure employees are following necessary precautions, such as washing their hands, using hand sanitizer and practicing social distancing. It has also started taking employees' temperatures when they report to work and has supplied them with face masks. In the company's latest earnings report, Amazon said it would invest its expected $4 billion second-quarter profit in coronavirus-related efforts, such as purchasing additional safety gear for workers and building out its coronavirus testing capabilities, among other things.

Bray said he believes Amazon's messaging around its efforts to keep workers safe, saying he has "heard detailed descriptions from people I trust of the intense work and huge investments." However, he said he also believes the repeated outcries from warehouse workers, adding that the criticism of the conditions extends beyond its response to the coronavirus crisis.

"At the end of the day, the big problem isn't the specifics of the Covid-19 response," Bray said. "It's that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential."
The Bharatiya Janata Party said on Monday the railways has subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers and the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent, soon after the Congress attacked the central government over the issue.

IMAGE: Migrants from Jaipur arrive by Shramik Special train at Danapur junction, in Patna. Photograph: PTI Photo

The state government concerned can also pay for the tickets, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.

He said the Madhya Pradesh government is doing so and asked Rahul Gandhi to tell the Congress-ruled states to follow suit.

He was responding to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's attack on the railways for charging poor migrant labourers ticket fare, even as it donated over Rs 151 crore to the PM-CARES Fund.

'Rahul Gandhi ji, I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that 'No tickets to be sold at any station'. Railways has subsidised 85% & state govt to pay 15%. The state govt can pay for the tickets (Madhya Pradesh's BJP govt is paying). Ask Cong state govts to follow suit,' Patra tweeted.

The BJP leader further clarified that for each 'Shramik Express', special trains being run for migrants, about 1,200 tickets to the destination are handed by the railways to the state government concerned.

State governments are supposed to clear the ticket price and hand over the tickets to workers, he said.

Seeking to corner the central government, the Congress on Monday said its state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrant workers and labourers stranded at their workplaces due to the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a statement announced the party's decision and said this would be the Congress' humble contribution in standing shoulder to shoulder with these workers.

In a tweet, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy claimed that migrant workers returning home will not have to pay money as the rail travel will be free from now onwards.

Swamy, in a tweet, said, 'Talked to Piyush Goel office. Govt will pay 85% and State Govt 15%. Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement.'
Animal Care Services officers are responding to a growing number of phone calls concerning pet owners who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Dispatchers for the citys 311 non-emergency call line have reported that some pet owners in the past month have refused to release their animals to first responders in cases where they had to seek treatment for the virus and wouldnt be home for some time.

Since the stay-at-home orders took effect, ACS officers have responded to four potential exposure cases, ACS assistant director Shannon Sims said, including one that involved the owner of an animal that had to be relocated. Officers entered the home in full protective gear and removed the pet to the ACS shelter, where it was later turned over to family members.

We try to plan if we need to pick up the animal or determine if there is someone who can take the pets, he said. We can go through our database to find someone to track down and if there are not any next of kin or friends listed we will take the animal in without issue.

Sims said residents should have a discussion with a family member or friends as part of a fallback plan for the care of pets.

Asking for identification is standard procedure, and its also now standard for dispatchers to ask if a resident has the virus and if so to add the information in the write up of the call. Officers have the resident take a photo of their identification and text it to a city-issued phone, so the exchange of information can be done without touching.

A team of ACS officers has been trained on such responses and has the necessary personal protective equipment, gloves and gear, he said.

Its about protecting not just the officer but the people as well, Sims said.

Sims said when officers talk to a resident about an animal issue, theyve already been trained to stay at least six feet apart, allowing the officer to react safely if a call goes wrong.

Sims said the incidents remind him of Hurricane Harvey relief efforts when people seeking shelter in San Antonio were reluctant to let go of their pets.

He said ACS began putting emergency plans into place when the city started monitoring the expanding coronavirus issues overseas and evacuees from China and then cruise ships were quarantined at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.

Sims said the chances of someone contracting the virus via someones pet are extremely thin. There have been recent and rare reports of cats and dogs becoming infected with COVID-19 from humans, but not the other way around.

ACS operations manager Bethany Colonnese said on March 19 the agency had installed new software that allows for curbside service. With the front lobby closed, its a wait-in-car pick up system, with appointments required for foster and adoption services.

ACS spokeswoman Lisa Norwood said disaster planning for pets is something everyone should be engaged in. A list of steps can be found online at sanantonio.gov/Animal-Care/Animal-Health-Welfare/Disaster-Planning-for-Your-Pet.

The checklist includes making sure collars and identification tags are current and having contact information for a veterinarian.

Having a pet come to the shelter should be the last resort, Norwood said.

At the top of the planning list is having someone trustworthy take care of the pet. Adequate supplies and food should also be on hand. And if pets need medications, she said, many veterinarians will fill prescriptions by phone.

Even if this never happens to someone, Norwood said, you should treat your pet like a member of family.

Vincent T. Davis is a reporter in the Greater San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Vincent, become a subscriber. vtdavis@express-news.net | Twitter: @vincentdavis
On the first day of rolling up shutters on Monday after a 40-day hiatus in operations due to the lockdown, many government-run liquor shops in the national capital had to be closed within a just few hours as crowds of buyers did not follow social distancing norms.

The police had to resort to use of mild force to disperse the crowds that turned unruly.

According to an official, about 150 government-run liquor shops have been allowed to open from 9 am to 6.30 pm as per the latest lockdown relaxations allowed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

The Delhi government has directed four state-run agencies, which are responsible to sell liquor, to deploy adequate marshals at these shops. But the marshals were deployed outside very few shops.

People queued up in large numbers outside the liquor shops on Monday morning, the first day of reopening of the vends since the lockdown began in March. What ensued was utter chaos.

The Delhi Police's Special Branch has prepared a report suggesting that the timing for sale of alcohol be extended to avoid crowding at the outlets.

Many people were not aware that only government shops were allowed to open. In most areas including Burari, Mayur Vihar, Gandhi Vihar, Rohini and Janakpuri, a large number of people had lined up outside liquor outlets. Markets such as south Delhi's Malviya Nagar erupted with hundreds of people, not all of them in masks, thronging liquor shops. Traffic slowed, cars honked, people tried to capture the commotion on their phones as police tried hard to control the situation.

Police said two shops had opened in Malviya Nagar but they were shut within hours due to the chaos. In Vasant Vihar, a shop had to be shut within two hours due to an unruly crowd. In Khichadipur, people barged inside one of the shops to buy liquor, they said.

An official said an alcohol vend had to be closed in Mayur Vihar in east Delhi as people failed to maintain social distancing norms. Similar cases were reported from north and central Delhi.

With people gathering in large numbers, the police had to resort to the use of mild force to control the crowds.

"Shops were asked to shut in places where social distancing norms were violated. At some places, mild force was also used to disperse the crowd," a senior police official said.

Liquor shops in Karol Bagh, Daryaganj and DB Gupta road in central Delhi were shut by the police after the crowds gathered to purchase liquor did not maintain social distancing norms, said another senior police official. Liquor shops in Anand Parbat and Ranjeet Nagar did not open, but vends in Paharganj area which opened at around 9 am was closed by 12 noon as people gathered there failed to maintain social distancing norms. In northeast Delhi, liquor outlets in Jyoti Nagar and Dayalpur were also closed within an hour after they opened due to overcrowding and violation of social distancing norms, the police official. "According to an order issued by the government, liquor shops were directed to deploy marshals at the outlets to maintain social distancing. However, a liquor shop near Apsara Border was asked to close since they did not deploy a marshal at their outlet nor were they able to maintain social distancing norms.

"A large number of people gathered even before the shop opened at around 10 am and within minutes, we asked the liquor shop to shut," said a senior police official from Shahdara district. Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Jasmeet Singh said, "Two liquor shops opened in Kotla village, Mayur Vihar and Khichripur in east Delhi between 9 to 10 am. However, they were closed within 15 minutes after people did not follow police instructions. No marshal was deployed in these shops."



There were many who waited outside liquor shops but were not able to buy any bottles. Amit, in his late forties, had come all the way from Paharganj to buy liquor from a vend in Gole Market, but without any luck. The area has three alcohol shops. With a large number of people gathering there, the police dispersed the crowd. "They (liquor shops) have said they will open the shop after 12 noon. I will wait until then," an unrelenting Amit said, refusing to go back home as he sought refuge in a lane near the liquor store. Outside another liquor shop behind the Regal Cinema, a police volunteer pasted a notice saying 'The shop will not be opened until further notice'.

The Delhi government earns revenue of Rs 5,000 crore from the sale of liquor. There are around 850 liquor shops in the city including those run by government agencies and private individuals. In an order on Sunday night, the excise department also directed officials to identify liquor shops run by private individuals (L-7 licensee) and fulfil conditions laid down by the MHA. The officials have been asked to submit a report within three days. The government has so far allowed only those liquor shops (L-6 and L-8) to operate which are being run by four state-run agencies.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras-backed startup, Muse Wearables, is developing novel and scalable methods for coating textiles with nanoparticles-based antimicrobial agents that can inactivate the human coronavirus on contact, the institute announced on Monday.

These coatings are expected to be effective up to 60 wash cycles, thereby making the textiles re-usable. The coated textiles can be primarily used to manufacture N95 masks, surgical masks, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and food packaging bags, among others, with inherent properties of inactivating the coronavirus.

Muse Wearables current pilot machine can coat textiles of length up to 100 metres within a few minutes, thereby making it a viable commercial solution that can be deployed immediately.

Muse Wearables was incubated by IIT Madras Incubation Cell. Startup incubators are usually non-profit organisations that might be run by both public and private entities. Incubators are often associated with universities.

Our startups are working on a range of products that are vital to India and its fight against Covid-19, from N95 masks to intubation boxes and ventilators to affordable testing kits. They have quickly mobilized and repurposed their offerings in response to the situation and are striving to make a positive contribution to the nation and its anti-virus efforts. IITM Incubation Cell continues to assist its startups through these challenging times and hopes that industry support will help them ramp up their efforts in a more meaningful way, said Dr Tamaswati Ghosh, chief executive officer, IIT Madras Incubation Cell, in a statement.

Currently, Muse Wearables is assembling the coating machine and will shortly commence coating various textiles with different nanoparticle solutions. Their coated textiles is expected to be ready for testing by the first week of May 2020. The startup is also partnering with a mask manufacturing company to launch five-layered Antiviral N95 Masks.

Our solution tries to solve the current pandemic problem at the root level by inactivating coronavirus permanently. As soon as it comes in contact with the coated nanoparticles, its structure is permanently destroyed by the nanoparticles. For example, people using masks made by our coated textiles will not transmit the virus to others or have less chances of the virus getting transmitted to them, said KLN Sai Prasanth, chief executive officer, Conzumex Industries, which operates the brand Muse Wearables.

Our coating process is scalable, which means it can be deployed in any textile industry as a textile finishing process. The solution we are developing are not confined to a research laboratory but can be used for commercial purposes, he added.

Whats the big deal about nano-particle coated textile?

*Anti-microbial properties: it continuously captures and destroys viruses and other microbes upon contact

*Other viruses as small as 30 nanometre can also be inactivated permanently

*Does not leach while washing in water and is environment-friendly

*At present can be coated on cotton, polyester and cottonpolyester

*More fabrics will be tested soon

*Non-toxic; can be safely used for making masks and other PPE

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
File image

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath on May 3 expressed confidence that Congress would come back to power after bypolls are held for 24 of 230 Assembly seats in the state.

Nath had to quit as CM on March 20 after 22 of his MLAs rebelled and resigned from the Assembly following the decision of senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia to leave the Congress and join the BJP.

"When by-elections are held, voters will speak their mind. We will win 20-22 seats. Will the (BJP) government last then?" Nath said during a press conference, The Indian Express has reported.

No bypoll date for the vacant seats has been announced so far. Two of these seats are vacant due to the death of sitting MLAs.

According to the newspaper, Nath admitted that he had been wrong in believing that Congress MLAs would not shift their loyalties to the BJP. However, he said the defectors would lose face in the by-elections because the voters in their constituencies know that they are "bought".

According to the report, Nath said while he has decades of experience in politics, he was never involved in the politics of deal-making and neither was his politics driven by personal ambition.

"I am hurt. I never thought our MLAs could fall for such allurements. I have long political experience, but did not have experience of deals in politics," Nath said.

Speaking about the coronavirus outbreak in Madhya Pradesh, Nath said that while he was the CM, his government had taken a number of measures in anticipation of the epidemic, but the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government has been unable to handle the outbreak.
The AAP government told the Delhi High Court on Monday that to get faster results of coronavirus tests, it was sending samples to 23 labs -- 13 private and 10 public sector -- in the national capital.

Taking note of the submission made by the Delhi government, a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad disposed of a PIL seeking directions to the Centre and the Delhi government to ensure swift testing of coronavirus or COVID-19 and declaration of results within 48 hours.

The court said nothing remained in the plea, moved by a lawyer, in view of the steps taken by the Delhi government.

Delhi government additional standing counsel Satyakam also informed the bench that it was decided not to send samples to the National Institute of Biologicals (NIB) in Noida where the testing process was slow leading to increase in pendency.

The Delhi government placed before the bench an order issued by the Health and Family Department in which it was observed that there was considerable pendency at NIB, Noida which was "hindering effective containment of the disease.

The department's order directed its officials not to send any sample to NIB, Noida for testing and the samples shall now be sent to government and private labs to ensure the results are received within a day.

The submissions were made in response to the PIL by Rakesh Malhotra who contended that swift testing and declaration of results was necessary to identify the coronavirus patients in time and prevent community spreading of COVID-19.

He had referred to reports which claimed that delay in testing was affecting contact tracing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amazing, bless 

Reply

Thread

Link

this is amazing. i'm surprised they took this long to give Beyonce this honor.

Reply

Thread

Link

Keep it. I'm over Megan and her brand of liberal feminism, constantly bragging about making men cum as if it should be the peak of a woman's esteem.

Reply

Thread

Link

yeah I mean I like Megan but I'm over all this sex positive shit. Men don't think it's empowering they just want to cum.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Beyonce makes total sense. Meg seems kinda premature.



But that's really great that all the proceeds from the remix goes to charity.

Reply

Thread

Link

I thought Beyonce had her Bey Day in Houston on September 4? Or was that just her album &/or another city?





Reply

Thread

Link

Aww I love this for both of them.

Reply

Thread

Link

"I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker", she wasn't lying. The song is fire, they did that!

I'm surprised beyonce doesn't already have a day in H town, either way it's almost meaningless and no one remembers it lol.



Reply

Thread

Link

Beyonce's verse is kinda cringe but I'm glad Savage will have a longer run and a higher peak because of her

Barbs and Beyhive have been a mess on Twitter because the Drake drop and Weeknd are still outcharting both remixes but instead of taking their time and energy to stream and purchase they harass people who predict/announce Hot 100 charts

Reply

Thread

Link

The first verse was really cringe to me but I really enjoyed the flow of her last verse.



The Barbs and Beyhive have been beefing about Nicki's apparent diss to Beyonce. It's been super entertaining to see. But I definitely see Drake topping the charts over them. His fuckboy fanbase is too powerful. (also his project was decent lol)

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Oh so the "Why you talkin' 'bout who body fake?

With all them fillers in your face, you just full of hate

That real ass ain't keep your nigga home

Now you lookin' silly, that's word to silicone" was a possible diss to bey, I thought i was reaching when I thought that but then again the stan logic that agrees with me is often a reach lol.



I don't find any of bey's verse to be cringe \_()_/, she delivered them well and with her chest lol.



Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I watched Megan's interview about it and I kinda got annoyed by Beyonce. She didn't even call and speak to Megan about getting on the record. In Megan's own words she randomly got a call from someone at Roc Nation who said: "Beyonce's getting on the record." Lol. They didn't even get to "collab" on an idea or even talk about a release date. Beyonce didn't even call her until after the song was released. It just seemed like such an odd way to collab on a hot girl anthem.

Reply

Thread

Link

Beyonce co-opting someone elses song for a hit? Color me shocked.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lmfao

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Beyonce is not doing quick little singles in her solo career anymore but she needs the stats and the radio play to keep the general public entertained so that's how she gets that, pure business

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

No wonder it sounded like shit. It felt like beyonce feat megan on her own damn song

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

So cringeworthy



And Beyonce hopping on an remix of a song thats already a hit is hilarious. She cant get a hit by herself anymore lmao

Reply

Thread

Link

You a troll but this is a fact. This the third time shes done this (the J. Balvin song and the Perfect remix).

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

you do realize she hasn't released an album since 2016. This is her way of staying relevant. It's obviously working.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

this is cute

Reply

Thread

Link

i luv megan but i get the feelings she's a closet republican. can any1 confirm or deny?

Reply

Thread

Link

What makes you say that?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i hopeeee i'm wrong but she's a proud texan, she's not rly observing social distancing, and the few times she's mentioned trump in her lyrics it's never like critical lol. not critical enough!! idk she has never really spoken on politics which is fine but sometimes when i see her posts in ig i'm like hm

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

i see her being more apolitical

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i'm surprised beyonce didn't already have her own day in houston? she's always mentioning she's from there lol



and i think you meant governor of minnesota, op.

Reply

Thread

Link
We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. 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 we'll take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ).

What Is Insider Buying?

It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market.

We don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions. 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 Verizon Communications

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Verizon Communications

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Executive VP & Group CEO of Verizon Consumer Group Ronan Dunne for US$1.0m worth of shares, at about US$53.47 per share. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at around the current price of US$56.83. 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. If someone buys shares at well below current prices, it's a good sign on balance, but keep in mind they may no longer see value. In this case we're pleased to report that the insider bought shares at close to current prices. Ronan Dunne was the only individual insider to buy during the last year.

You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

NYSE:VZ Recent Insider Trading May 4th 2020

Verizon Communications is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying.

Story continues

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. It appears that Verizon Communications insiders own 0.03% of the company, worth about US$59m. 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 Does This Data Suggest About Verizon Communications Insiders?

It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchase. We also take confidence from the longer term picture of insider transactions. When combined with notable insider ownership, these factors suggest Verizon Communications insiders are well aligned, and that they may think the share price is too low. So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Verizon Communications you should know about.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.



We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.
Weather Alert

...Bitterly cold temperatures expected starting Wednesday Afternoon... ...Slick Roads possible late Wednesday Afternoon and Night... An Arctic blast of cold air will move into the Quad State region Wednesday afternoon, pushing the entire region below the freezing mark by 7 pm Wednesday. Once the cold air moves in, temperatures are not expected to rise above freezing until early Saturday afternoon. Gusty north winds will produce very low wind chills Thursday into Friday morning. Wind chills below zero will be likely over southern Illinois and southeast Missouri, with barely above zero wind chills over west Kentucky and southwest Indiana. Wind Chills will remain in the single digits for parts of the area all day on Thursday and into early Friday morning. Anyone traveling or working outdoors should bundle up in layers to protect yourself from developing hypothermia and frostbite. Consideration should also be given to protect pets and livestock left outdoors. For those with water systems vulnerable to an extended period of sub-freezing temperatures, be sure to keep a trickle of water running through those systems. A Winter Weather Advisory is currently posted for part of southwest Indiana and the Pennyrile region of west Kentucky late Wednesday afternoon and night, where the best accumulation of wintry precipitation is expected. However, with temperatures expected to plummet and remain below freezing, any wintry precipitation still left on roadways and sidewalks across the Quad State late Wednesday afternoon and night will freeze. Travelers should use caution while traveling and be watchful for any slick spots on roadways, especially elevated bridges and overpasses. Please stay tuned to the National Weather Service in Paducah for the latest forecasts and statements associated with this winter event.
Striking images captured from inside a Covid-19 ward have given a rare insight into the nation's fight against the illness which has now claimed the lives of 28,446 people across the UK.

Photographer with the Falkirk Herald Michael Gillen was granted access to Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Scotland, and able to offer a glimpse of how health workers on the frontline are dealing with the pandemic.

Among the moving images is one of a nurse in personal protective equipment and medical gloves reassuringly holding the hands of an elderly patient who is being treated for coronavirus.

Mr Gillen's photographs also show nursing staff painstakingly putting on personal protective equipment (PPE), sanitising their hands and comforting patients as they try and control the spread of the virus.

A health worker speaks with an elderly patient and holds her hand inside the Covid-19 ward at the Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Scotland. The striking images captured by photographer Michael Gillen offer a glimpse of how NHS staff are dealing with the crisis

A member of staff at the hospital in Scotland wears a mask, apron and gloves as she walks through the ward

NHS staff wear protective masks as they speak with each other from inside the Covid-19 ward

The hospital, which was once the largest NHS construction project in Scotland, has discharged around two-thirds of coronavirus patients treated back to their homes, while others have been sent to community hospitals or care homes to recuperate.

Coronavirus patient Robin Bennie, 63, who was being treated on Ward B12 and has since been discharged home, said at times he feared he would die from the illness.

The government statistician, from Maddiston, Falkirk, was already being treated for leukaemia when he became ill.

Mr Bennie said: 'For about a week I had a fever and then I noticed that I was getting a wee bit short of breath. It got to the stage that I couldn't look after myself so I phoned the hospital and told them all this.

'When I came in the first two days were quite rough and I wasn't certain if I would live.

'I got a lot of tests done over time and then I was told they were confident that I had Covid-19.

'They gave me some oxygen to help me breathe but it's not very pleasant as it dries up your nasal passages.

'The nurses and auxiliaries, in fact all the staff, are really on the ball.

'Yes, I'll admit when I came in I thought that I had completed my last climb.

'You have doubts but you hope for the best and pray to avoid the worst.'

A health worker wearing a mask and protective eye shield washes her hands while working inside the ward

Staff at Forth Valley Royal Hospital sanitise their hands as they try to control the spread of the virus

Coronavirus patient Robin Bennie (pictured left and right on far right), 63, was being treated on Ward B12 and has since been discharged

A healthcare worker wears a protective mask and eye shield as she works her shift inside the hospital, which was once the largest NHS construction project in Scotland

Mr Gillen, who was granted permission to enter the hospital on April 28, visited the building there were 18 patients being treated on Ward B12, and another 12 on ward A31.

Senior charge nurse Donna Read who oversees B12 said around two-thirds of these patients were discharged safely to their homes.

However staff have also been left making tough decisions about how to manage deaths from the illness, including asking patients to pick one next-of-kin to spend time with.

Ms Read said: 'It was very stressful as people had to adapt to protocols that were changing quickly.

'We were expecting high numbers as seen in China and London but this unit has had about 100 patients with two-thirds of those discharged safely. Forth Valley has been very successful in managing Covid-19.'

But she said one of the hardest parts of the situation for medics was dealing with relatives of seriously ill patients.

Ms Read added: 'People were dying and one of the most challenging parts was around communication.

'We were having difficult conversations with relatives, which normally take place face-to-face, over the phone.

'I found that quite challenging and quite upsetting at the time.

'Next of kin are allowed to come in to spend the last few hours with someone but even then they have to pick one person to come which isn't easy.'

A patient is treated inside Forth Valley Royal Hospital as the country tries to cope with the coronavirus pandemic

A member of staff at the hospital holds the hand of one patient who is being treated inside the Covid-19 ward

NHS workers walk inside Ward B12 where there are 18 patients being treated for coronavirus

A member of staff places gloves on her hands as she attends to patients on the coronavirus ward

A worker at the hospital, which has discharged around two-thirds of coronavirus patients treated back to their homes, wears protective equipment

Protective equipment is provided for staff as they attend to patients inside the hospital

Medics have made postcards for patients to pass on phone messages from loved ones, and donations of iPads have allowed patients to Facetime with people they care about.

Senior charge nurser for ward A31, Rosario Walshe, added: 'It is a very extraordinary time and personally I am proud to be classed as a frontline worker.

'The important message for people to social distance has made a difference.

'Now it is just as important all the good work doesn't become undone.

'It's really important that people help us by keeping social distancing going and remember that people have lost their lives.'

The images come as the latest Scottish Government figures revealed that 1,571 patients who tested positive for coronavirus have now died.

The figures also show that 12,097 people have tested positive for the virus in Scotland.
College is meant to give students wings. And while Jordan Hastys time at Oxford College has clearly done that for him, it also has let him express his roots. The sophomore from Brookfield, a small town in northeastern Missouri, is the first in his family to attend a four-year college, and his first-generation experience and embrace of community have informed the broad range of his academic and service achievements at Oxford.

As a student in a small high school (his graduating class numbered 69), Hasty always assumed he would attend a local state school, as most of the college students he knew had done. But a friend recruited him to Questbridge, an organization that connects bright students who might not otherwise go to college with leading institutions of higher education. Through Questbridge, Hasty found Emory.

First-year students can enter the university through either Emory College of Arts and Sciences or Oxford College, located on Emorys original campus in Oxford, Georgia. After two years, they complete their degrees on the Atlanta campus through either Emory College, Goizueta Business School or the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

I was accepted to both Emory College and Oxford College, Hasty says. I loved the Atlanta campus and had no intention of going to Oxford, but my dad insisted we visit both. As soon as I stepped on the Oxford campus, I knew this was where I wanted to be  and that after two years I could still experience the Atlanta campus. I felt a sense of intimacy here, that I could know and be known by my professors.

Seeing the Oxford Organic Farm further cemented his decision. I grew up in town, but I was a member of FFA in high school and often helped my grandfather with the beef cattle on his farm, he notes. I asked for a work/study assignment as a farm apprentice.

Being part of the tight-knit group of work/study students on the organic farm was an outgrowth of his interest in sustainability and environmental issues, but he took that interest even further, volunteering as a Healthy Eagle, Oxfords corps of peer health educators.

Jordan is a thoughtful student leader who supports his peers and advocates for marginalized voices in our community, says Amanda Yu-Nguyen, director of the Center for Healthful Living and Healthy Eagles adviser. As a Healthy Eagle, he has contributed to conversations about self-care, community care and what achievable well-being looks like for Oxford students.

In his first year at Oxford, Hastys speaking skills and enthusiasm won him a coveted spot as a member of the Student Admission Association, Oxfords group of campus tour guides. That first year also brought what he calls, the best learning experience of my life, a course entitled Global Political Economy and Sustainability, taught by associate professor of sociology Deric Shannon.

In the classroom students studied how economies are organized and how they relate to various forms of power, researching political economic concepts and scholarly work on sustainability. The course was capped with a 10-day trip to Spain, where they met with urban farmers, political organizers and engineers and visited a cooperative community.

Jordan exemplifies the spirit of a small residential liberal arts college like Oxford, Shannon says, creating for himself a scholarly specialization and then looking at it from multiple angles and perspectives in order to try to understand it as fully as one might be expected to.

Making sure all voices are heard

Following the experience in Spain, Hasty chose sociology and economics as his majors and conducted independent research with Teresa Romano, assistant professor of economics. His project studying how role models shape students selection of major (with particular regard to women who major in STEM fields) was accepted as part of the Oxford Research Scholars Program.

Romano speaks of Hastys academic aptitude, but adds, He is also adept at teaching and helping other students in the class or in group work, but without dominating. He is always inclusive, making sure that all voices are heard.

That concern also showed in his work as co-president of OxFirst, an organization for Oxford students who come from first-generation and/or low-income families. OxFirst provides a forum where students needs can be heard and resources shared. Hasty focused on developing the organizational structure and helping first-year students gain skills to ensure the longevity and success of the club.

In explaining his motivation for such broad-ranging involvement, Hasty comes back to the sense of community he felt on his first day at Oxford.

Oxford was a challenge for me in many ways  the message is Work hard. But when I needed it, there were always friends to help me through, he says. This is an academic community of kindred spirits, and you can tweak your experience to what you need. I wanted to make the most of my two years here.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks in Downing Street as he returns to work following his recovery from Covid-19 on April 27, 2020 in London, England.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has revealed that doctors prepared to announce his death as he battled coronavirus, ending up in intensive care, last month.

Johnson said that he was given "litres and litres of oxygen" to keep him alive as he recounted his life-or-death experience with the virus.

"It was a tough old moment, I won't deny it," the prime minister, who only days ago announced the birth of his son with partner Carrie Symonds, said in an emotional interview to Britain's The Sun on Sunday newspaper. "They had a strategy."

Johnson, 55, said he was aware there were contingency plans in place after he became the first western leader to be hospitalized for COVID-19, the disease the virus causes. Britain's Foreign secretary Dominic Raab had to deputize for the PM and steer the country's response to the pandemic while he was in hospital.

"The doctors had all sorts of arrangements for what to do if things went badly wrong," Johnson said.

He admitted he initially brushed off the seriousness of the situation when he tested positive for the virus in late March, saying he was "in denial" and kept working. But he was thankful that his doctors "forced" him to go to the hospital.

When his health deteriorated further, Johnson was moved into intensive care, shocking the nation in the midst of a lockdown.

"The bad moment came when it was 50-50 whether they were going to have to put a tube down my windpipe," Johnson said. "That was when it got a bit . . . they were starting to think about how to handle it presentationally."

After his ordeal, Johnson credit the country's health care service, NHS, for his recovery, dedicating one of his newborn son's names to two doctors who treated him.

"I felt so lucky because so many people have suffered so much more than I did," he said.

Johnson is now back to his regular duties at 10 Downing Street and is, once again, in control of the country's response to the outbreak that has claimed 28,131 lives in the U.K. as of Saturday  a death toll that's just slightly lower than in hard-hit Italy.

He is expected to reveal his plan for how the nation will gradually exit the lockdown and restart its economy later this week.
SPRINGFIELD  City officials and hospital representatives said Monday they continue to see positive trends in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

The optimism about the numbers, however, was countered by a warning for the public to remain vigilant in following practices to keep themselves and others safe from the virus. The warning included urging the public to comply with a new statewide mandate to wear face coverings when in public places, where exposure to the virus is at risk.

Police and health officials said they will hope to convince the public through education and provision of some face coverings or masks, before resorting to fines. The statewide mandate begins Wednesday.

"I think we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said during a weekly coronavirus update. We have to be ever-vigilant. We cant let our guard down.

The total number of positive cases has risen to 1,484 in Springfield, but the trend has been declining including the past weekend, Sarno said.

There were 48 new positive cases of COVID-19 reported Thursday in Springfield, 48 on Friday, 33 on Saturday and 16 on Sunday, Sarno said. Also the number of known deaths from COVID-19 rose by one case in the past week to 22 known deaths, he said.

Sarno was joined by city department heads and top administrators from Baystate Health and Mercy Medical Center in providing the updates at City Hall.

Dr. Mark Keroack, president and chief executive officer of Baystate Health, said the cases of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has been on the decline for three and a half weeks, and has numbers less than 100 in the past three days.

Baystate Medical Center was expanded from a 720-bed hospital to an 850 bed hospital, due to the coronavirus pandemic, expecting a bigger surge than the one that showed up," Keroack said.

Mercy Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Roose also referred to a decline since early April, other than a small uptick this past week. There are 39 hospitalized at Mercy, as of Monday, who are COVID-19 positive or suspected, as compared to a peak of over 50 cases in the first week of April over multiple days, followed by a steady decline, he said..

Even when we saw an increase of a few cases, we still have more than enough capacity, we still more than enough testing, and we have more than adequate supplies including personal protective equipment and ventilators, Roose said.

The hospital officials, Sarno and Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris urged people to wear masks and continue taking steps such as washing hands frequently, staying at least six feet away from other people, staying home when possible, and not going into work when not feeling well.

Sarno said that in updating the public on Monday, he came "with a sense of progress and hope."

I think we are now finally starting to move in the right direction, Sarno said.
Credit: NOAA

As of April 30, there were approximately 39,000 reported cases of COVID-19 in Africa. But public health officials fear it will only be a matter of time before infections start to rise on the world's second largest continent, which is home to 1.3 billion people.

In response to the looming pandemic threat, a team of African scientistsincluding Yale School of Public Health alumna Uzma Alam, Ph.D., MPHworked around the clock in recent weeks to develop one of the first pandemic models forecasting COVID-19 infection and mortality rates across Africa.

The researchers used advanced data science to ensure their projections accounted for existing socioeconomic conditions in different African countries. The resulting forecast provides important region-specific data that is intended to help policymakers and healthcare systems prepare for potential outbreaks.

Alam, a global health specialist with the Africa Institute for Health Policy Foundation in Kenya, discussed the study's key findings.

What impact do you expect COVID-19 to have in Africa?

UA: Epidemiologically, Africa has lagged behind the rest of the world with a later introduction of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Yet our research shows the spread of the disease is rapidly changing. We found that in the absence of appropriate policies, the African continent is likely to experience catastrophic levels of COVID-19. By June 30, 2020, we estimate that as many as 16.3 million people in Africa could contract COVID-19. We project a 135% increase in incidence of COVID-19 from April to May and a 39% increase from May to June. Our models show Northern Africa will be most affected by the pandemic and Eastern Africa will be the least affected. Hotspots will include Morocco and Algeria in the North; Zambia and Djibouti in the East; and Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire in the West. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon will be hotspots in Central Africa while South Africa and Swaziland will have significant infection rates in the South.

Will certain areas of Africa be hit harder than others?

UA: Our model forecasts that the population level prevalence of COVID-19 in Africa is expected to remain under 1.5% throughout the three-month prediction period, April-June. However, there are wide interregional differences. For example, in the Northern and Southern Africa subregions, cumulative infection rates are expected to be slightly over 3 % with the rate in the other subregions expected to be around 3.5% as of June 30. This implies that certain areas in Africa will indeed be hit harder compared to others. Moreover, these subregional and country-level differences are expected to deepen as the pandemic becomes more established in Africa. The reason behind these differences is something our model focused on. We wanted to understand the factors that accelerate and mitigate the spread and mortality of COVID-19, while accounting for local realities. These factors include the strength of local healthcare systems, burden of other infectious diseases such as HIV, socioeconomic status and population levels. We found that less urbanized countries with low levels of socioeconomic development (hence, fewer connections to the rest of the world), are likely to experience lower and slower disease transmissions in the early stages of the epidemic. However, those same factors that initially work to those countries' benefit can hinder interventions that have lessened the impact of COVID-19 elsewhere.

Your study mentions that COVID-19 prevention measures may be difficult to implement in some parts of Africa. Can you please elaborate?

UA: Large-scale prevention measures that have worked in other countries such as frequent hand washing, limiting movement and social distancing are not enough, or at best impractical for addressing the pandemic in the African context. Barriers to such measures include (a) large informal settlements (b) lack of appropriate water and sanitation and (c) high concentrations of marginalized communities, including approximately 12.3 million forcibly displaced people and 4.2 million refugees. Therefore, in the African context, it is imperative that response measures be contextualized to address underlying individual and structural factors that are likely to complicate a strategic response. Interventions also must be balanced with the need to maintain individual livelihoods and social cohesion. For instance, workers who lose their jobs in urban areas due to economic lockdowns are likely to move back home to rural areas where large elderly populations reside, heightening health risks. Consequently, measures such as the provision of adequate water and sanitation subsidies, reliable food distribution and targeted restrictions of movement (e.g. from urban to rural) would go a long way to mitigating spread.

Are Africa's healthcare systems adequately prepared for this pandemic?

UA: Africa in general has weak health systems and the reasons behind this are wide rangingfrom poor governance to Africa being forced to adopt free-market models of economic austerity under the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustment programs. These policies unfortunately have a deleterious effect. We need only look back to the 2014 Ebola epidemic to see how an estimated additional 11,000 deaths occurred due to weak health system infrastructures. During this pandemic, we are seeing far more developed health systems, such as those in the United States and United Kingdom, being overstretched. Therefore, it is likely that Africa's already strained healthcare system is going to be overburdened by COVID-19. However, Africa has the benefit of having learned from past epidemics like Ebola. As a result, local leadership among African nations is already taking appropriate steps, from the development of local testing kits to the production of locally-sourced ventilators. What impact the strength of local healthcare systems ultimately will have on the pandemic remains unknown. Our team is currently conducting a systematic analysis of healthcare systems in Africa and we will make our findings publicly available when they are ready.

What steps does Africa need to take to control the spread of COVID-19?

UA: Understanding the factors that accelerate and those that mitigate the spread and mortality of COVID-19, while accounting for local realities, is fundamental for sound public health measures to tackle this pandemic. Regional initiatives are already engaging with our findings, as the first systematic projections accounting for local context. Lessons from HIV/AIDS programming have taught us that highly effective health interventions fail if the local context is not recognized. Secondly, some of the most effective responses to global health threats involve multi-stakeholder partnerships. Fortunately, many African health systems have implemented such partnerships in the past. They would be best served to leverage that experience and those shared resources again in responding to COVID-19. African policymakers should also consider the impact certain interventions may have in deepening health inequalities. We recommend they use data-driven approaches to identify vulnerable groups so they can be properly and equitably supported during this crisis. At a time of a pandemic, no single community should be marginalized. Finally, in as much as health systems are dealing with an emerging situation, data is fundamental in delivering an evidence-based response. We have made sure our forecasting model is comprehensive, yet agile enough to be regularly updated as circumstances demand.

A pre-print version of the study, "COVID-19 pandemic in the African continent: Forecasts of cumulative cases, new infections, and mortality," which has not undergone peer review, can be found on MedRxiv.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Tom Achoki et al. COVID-19 pandemic in the African continent: Forecasts of cumulative cases, new infections, and mortality, MedRxiv (2020). Tom Achoki et al. COVID-19 pandemic in the African continent: Forecasts of cumulative cases, new infections, and mortality,(2020). DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.09.20059154
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 18:37:10|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

-Unprecedented policies to resume production, ease financial pressure, boost market confidence and prevent debt risks have been rolling out in each country, while the world waits to see if the measures work.

-The epidemic will function as a catalyst to accelerate the shift of global supply chains, according to media outlets.

-A global crisis needs a global response. From the research and development of drugs and vaccines, to information sharing and resource mobilization, none of these can live without global efforts and coordination.

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The world has rarely seen, if ever, four market circuit breakers and negative oil prices during the same period, while numerous planes are grounded in some of the world's busiest airports and production has stopped in plants across the world.

Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United States, (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

The sudden outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, has frozen the world economy and presented the toughest financial outlook in decades.

Can the world economy recover? Will there be a transformation in globalization and supply chains? What are the opportunities after the pandemic?

Those are questions concerning the well-being of humankind, and demand immediate answers.

HOPE AMID RECESSION

"It's just gut-wrenching," dairy farmer Jason Leedle from the U.S. state of Wisconsin, who has recently had to dump more than 10 tons of milk each day, told visiting Reuters reporters.

Mass closures of restaurants and bakeries have driven down demand, while logistics are not up and running as usual.

"All I can see is that line going down the drain," Leedle said.

The extraordinary picture reflects the obvious toll of COVID-19 on the economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that the global economy is on track to contract sharply by 3 percent in 2020, making it the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters is seen in Washington D.C., the United States, April 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Cumulative loss to global GDP over 2020 and 2021 from the pandemic could be around 9 trillion U.S. dollars, greater than the economies of Japan and Germany combined, the IMF has also said.

One cannot help but asking: Is it going to be a long-term recession, or just a short-period contraction?

The IMF predicted in a report published in April that the COVID-19 outbreaks in most countries will peak in the second quarter and then subside in the second half of this year.

The report also expects that global growth in 2021 will rebound based on that assumption. But it also warns that the recession could go deeper and last longer for lack of global coordination.

Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute of Global Affairs, told Xinhua recently that unlike the financial crisis in 2008-2009, when "a crisis began in the financial sector and spread to the real economy," today's crisis is one "that has begun in the real economy and spread back to the financial sector," as countries worldwide try to contain the spread at the expense of massive lockdowns and the halting of economic activities.

Unprecedented policies to resume production, ease financial pressure, boost market confidence and prevent debt risks have been rolling out in each country, while the world waits to see if the measures work.

CHINA AND SUPPLY CHAINS

COVID-19 has disrupted global supply chains, particularly those among multinational corporations, making them rethink the relationship between interest and stability.

The epidemic will function as a catalyst to accelerate the shift of global supply chains, according to media outlets.

The idea for future supply chains is nothing but to strike a new balance between cost savings and supply chain resilience, Gu Qingyang, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

A recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) showed that almost 70 percent of U.S. companies say they have no plan to relocate production to outside of China due to COVID-19.

A container is lifted at Erenhot Port in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, April 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Lian Zhen)

"We are very confident in the Chinese market. We will make another successful year with partners in China," Jean-Paul Agon, chairman and CEO of L'Oreal Group, has told Xinhua recently.

China has the world's most complete industrial support system and ecological system, abundant financing ability, a vast high-quality workforce, and increasing scientific and technological innovation ability, Gu said.

"China occupies a central position in the global industrial chain and supply chain," he added.

BEYOND ECONOMY

Emergencies "fast-forward historical processes," wrote Yuval Noah Harari, the author of "Sapiens," "Homo Deus" and "21 Lessons for the 21st Century," in an article titled "The world after coronavirus" on the Financial Times website.

When countries are in trouble and face an economic slump, there are signs that skepticism of globalization resurfaces, along with decoupling theories. Some say the pandemic is one of the latest tests for globalization.

The advantages of the powerful deployment of labor and resources -- thanks to globalization -- will not be easily altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which will wane eventually.

A global crisis needs a global response. From the research and development of drugs and vaccines, to information sharing and resource mobilization, none of these can live without global efforts and coordination.

Aircrafts are parked on the tarmac at Paris Orly airport in France, April 3, 2020. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua)

As Harari wrote, "both the epidemic itself and the resulting economic crisis are global problems. They can be solved effectively only by global cooperation."

The world has witnessed quick actions to strengthen global governance, which is now embracing opportunities to upgrade itself.

The Group of 20 has set out agendas ranging from stimulus plans and energy security to debt alleviation within a month; the United Nations, the IMF, and the World Bank have all beefed up preparations for post-pandemic economic recovery. Meanwhile, the international community is joining hands to promote information sharing and address medical supply shortages.

In a world that is best defined as a community with a shared future for mankind, a concerted response from all countries to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic will go a long way toward an early economic recovery.

(Xinhua reporters Pan Lijun in New York City, Cai Shuya in Singapore, Xu Yongchun in Paris, Yu Jiaxin in Beijing and Zhou Rui in Shanghai have contributed to the report.)

(Video editor Zhu Cong)
A 57-year-old assistant sub



inspector of Pune police on Monday died of coronavirus infection in a private hospital, officials said.

He had tested positive for the virus in the last week of April and succumbed at around 1pm, Pune Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Shisave said.

The Joint CP said so far 12 Pune police personnel have tested positive for the virus.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Winarno Zain (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 15:37 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5d289d 3 Opinion finance,crisis,FinancialStability,pandemic,coronavirus Free

The Indonesian banking system was in good shape before the coronavirus outbreak. The system has weathered well simultaneous economic and credit decelerations. Systemic risk is low and the banking system appears generally resilient over severe shocks. Banks are highly capitalized, with an average capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 22.8 percent in January 2020, far exceeding the Basel III requirement. Their net profit grew strongly by 9 percent year-on-year in January, compared with 4 percent growth in 2019. However non-performing loans (NPLs) have been increasing since June 2019, especially for the commodity-related sector and manufacturing.

Bank liquidity, which was the concern in 2018, has now eased somewhat. A combination of low demand for bank loans and strong capital inflows in 2019 has increased liquidity. The overall loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) was down from 94.8 percent in 2018 to 93.4 percent in January. Only banks in the BUKU 1 category (banks with capital of less than Rp 1 trillion or US$62 million) experienced deterioration in their liquidity. Their combined LDR rose steeply from 76.6 percent in April 2019 to 88 percent in January. It is these banks that are vulnerable to liquidity shocks in a banking crisis.

But now the situation has changed dramatically as the economic impact of the pandemic unfolds. As businesses collapse and bad loans mount, banks are hit with erosion of their liquidity. And as the countrys economy slips into a deeper malaise, the emergence of a financial crisis cannot be ruled out.

The government response to the impending crisis was laid out in Regulation in Lieu (Perppu) No. 1/2020 on fiscal and monetary management and contingency measures to maintain the financial sectors stability.

The Perppu strengthens the financial crisis resolution framework by giving more power to the relevant institutions, the Financial System Stability Committee (KSSK), Bank Indonesia (BI), the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and the Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS). The KSSK designs strategies for crisis resolution and coordinates and directs the activities of other agencies. It approved the emergency liquidity loan proposed by BI and the OJK. It advised the President to declare the financial system stabilitys status as in crisis, after which all powers of the relevant institutions, including the power of bank restructuring, were activated.

The most important issue in the Perppu is how financially distressed banks hit by the crisis can get short-term liquidity credits (STLA) from BI. The STLA framework is important given the liquidity risk faced by banks. BI can provide short-term liquidity assistance to systemically important banks and non-systemically important banks facing the liquidity crisis. But BI together with the OJK has to assess the financial health of banks, their solvency and the quality and adequacy of their collateral. If all criteria are met then they are submitted to the KSSK for approval.

It is likely that before the KSSK gives its approval, it would first seek other banks, shareholders and creditors of the distressed bank to provide liquidity support for the bank rather than BI. And it is likely that the KSSK might seek political cover before any liquidity support is provided given the historical sensitivities of these policies. These procedures of providing an emergency loan could be ineffective and are fraught with risk.

The other important element in the Perppu on measures to maintain the financial systems stability is the strengthening of the role of the LPS, in cooperation with the OJK, in closely monitoring the condition of banks most vulnerable to liquidity pressures. The Perppu authorizes the LPS to decide on which bank will be bailed or saved and which bank would be closed but have close consultation with the OJK.

But the Perppu instructs the LPS to give priority to bailing at problem banks, not bailing banks with taxpayer money. A bail-in requires the shareholders and the creditors of the troubled bank to first put up the resources to save the bank from bankruptcy. In the bail-in process, the LPS and the OJK ask bank creditors to terminate or write down the banks unsecured liabilities, and convert creditors unsecured claims into equity. If these efforts fail, the LPS takes over the failed bank and then improves its managerial and operational performance to improve its value before it eventually sells the bank to investors or another bank.

If LPS funds are not adequate to cover the cost of resolving failing banks, including reimbursements for depositors of failed banks, the Perppu authorizes the LPS to raise additional capital by issuing bonds on the market or borrowing directly from the government (ministry of finance). But loans from the government have to go through a long, meticulous process with tight conditions, as the government wants to ensure that the LPS can repay the loan, and that no taxpayer money goes into the LPS operation.

The minister of finance, through her decree, PMK No. 33/2020 on the procedures and technical directives for LPS borrowing from the government, states that funds for fulfilling additional capital for the LPS will be stipulated in the annual budget bill and, if the budget law has been enacted by the House of Representatives, the minister of finance will consult with the President over additional appropriation in the budget amendment.

***

Commissioner at a publicly listed oil and gas services company

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.

Topics : finance crisis FinancialStability pandemic coronavirus
More than a month ago, on March 26, to be precise, a data analyst in Pune had described the Covid-19 situation in India as cautiously optimistic.

Based on the analysis of the available numbers, analyst Sahil Deo had pointed out that the rise in the positive cases in India was well below the global benchmark of 33 per cent increase in cases per day and doubling of cases every 2.1 days.

Anything below that was a good sign, he had said while describing the situation as cautiously optimistic given the timely measures taken by the state and central governments.

As of March 26, there were about 600 positive cases in the country as against the 39,900 cases today.

Another note of optimism came from Bengaluru where Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the leading voice of the Indian biotech industry said that India had tackled the coronavirus much better than many other countries. She suggested in a recent interview that smaller red zones be created rather than entire districts to facilitate the resumption of economic activities and enable people to return to their livelihoods.

Mazumdar Shaw pointed out that India had declared lockdown when the country had about 500 cases whereas Italy did it when it had 9,000 cases and the UK, 6,700 cases. The strict pre-emptive measures such as quarantine, curfew, lockdown, and surveillance had stood India in good stead.

The social structure in India is different as compared to western countries and therefore, we did not have as many senior citizens dying as happened in the West, she noted.

Thus, there are valid reasons for us to be optimistic even as we need to be cautious as Pune moves forward, some two months after Maharashtras first Covid-19 positive case was reported on March 9 in this city.

In Pune, which has seen 103 deaths and 1,700 positive cases as of May 2, the concentration of cases is in a few slum pockets in five wards. Pune municipal commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad has already indicated that lockdown restrictions would continue in these micro-clusters and the situation would be gradually relaxed in the rest of the city to allow resumption of economic activity. The details of this are yet to be announced.

The safe return of poor migrants and others stranded due to the lockdown, along with the phased lifting of the restrictions will be the most immediate challenges before the administration.

Last week, a group of city doctors helped create public awareness as they sought to dispel the fears in the public about the final rites of patients who had died of Covid-19. This group of doctors from the Prayas Health Group and the Poona Citizen Doctor Forum pointed out that according to the guidelines by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Covid-19 is a respiratory disease and the spread stops when the patient dies. The only safety measure that needs to be observed is to stay away from the viruses present on the body surface and secretions from nose and mouth.

They then explained the clear guidelines for healthcare workers, mortuary staff and others directly handling bodies, and family members, priests and mourners. There was no reason to fear infection if the basic guidelines were followed, the doctors advised.

This advisory should have come in, say, after the 50th death itself because by then, there was a lot of panic in Pune with regards to the last rites of such patients.

The coming weeks are now going to be critical as the city prepares to move forward, hopefully, with a lot of caution, and certainly, with optimism.

abhay.vaidya@hindustantimes.com
A major discrepancy came to light when a tractor, seized in an accident case by the Sudhar police, was found to have been replaced with some other tractor while it was handed over to the owner on a court order.

After a local made a complaint in this regard, the senior superintendent of police (SSP, rural) has marked an inquiry in the case and deputy superintendent of police (DSP, crime) Dilbagh Singh has initiated the investigation.

Apart from replacing the vehicle, the police allegedly filed a chargesheet in the case under Section 304-A (causing death due to negligence) of the IPC against the driver of the tractor attached with a combine machine, while the first information report (FIR) was registered under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC against the driver and owner of the vehicle. The police also spared the owner of the vehicle in the chargesheet produced before the court.

Motorcyclist Kamaldeep Singh, 22, had died in a road mishap on October 28, 2019 after a combine machine, attached to an Agri King-20 55 tractor, hit him and crushed him. The police had lodged an FIR against driver Parminder Singh alias Pinda of Cheema village under Sections 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), 304-A and 427(mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees) of the IPC on the statement of Pavittar Singh, uncle of the accused.

After the kin of the victim staged a protest, the police had booked the owner of the vehicle Satnam Singh of Rajoana Kalan village and replaced Section 304-A with Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC. The combine machine and the tractor were seized by the police.

Three months ago, the owner of the vehicle received the tractor on Supurdari. The police mentioned in the documents that they have handed over tractor Swaraj 855, seized in the case, to the owner following a court order.

Interestingly, the Swaraj 855 tractor was registered with the transport department on December 13, 2019, 47 days after the accident.

Complainant Mandeep Singh of Rattowal village said, The tractor seized by the police had no documents and it could not be released, but to benefit the owner of the vehicle, the police released the vehicle using papers of another tractor, which was never seized.

DSP Dilbagh Singh said he has already initiated an investigation and collecting evidence against discrepancies. He said stern action would be taken against those found guilty.

A file photo of a combine machine attached with a tractor in the Sudhar police custody in Ludhiana.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
It offends the senses of people, said Foster, who lives on the lake with his wife and their two children. Its so illogical.  We can be in our house locked up together, but we cant be out on the boat in the open air.
The Supreme Court will decide whether coalition government deal is valid as Netnayahu faces fraud charges.

Israels Supreme Court has started the second day of a hearing to determine if a coalition agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and main rival Benny Gantz is valid as the former faces corruption charges.

On Sunday, the court heard arguments on the question of bestowing the duty of forming a government on a Knesset member against whom an indictment has been filed, according to Chief Justice Esther Hayut.

[On Monday] there will be a hearing on the second issue, regarding the coalition agreement, she said, sitting at the head of a panel of 11 judges.

The Supreme Courts ruling is expected to be announced by Thursday.

A ruling against Netanyahu would likely trigger a snap election, the fourth since April 2019, as the country grapples with the coronavirus crisis and its economic fallout.

Last month, after three elections and failure to form a government, Netanyahu and Gantz signed an agreement to form a unity government under which they would take turns leading Israel.

The pact has support from a majority in parliament. However, several groups, including opposition parties and democracy watchdogs, have petitioned Israels highest court to nullify the deal and bar Netanyahu from leading the government, citing the criminal proceedings against him.

The agreement sees Netanyahu serving as prime minister for 18 months, with Gantz as his alternate, a new title in Israeli governance.

They will swap roles midway through the deal before likely taking voters back to the polls in 36 months.

Israeli law traditionally endows governments with four-year mandates, an issue taken up by the deals opponents.

200503082653534

Neither Netanyahu, the right-wing premier in power since 2009, nor former military chief Gantz, was able after a March election to form a viable governing coalition in the deeply divided 120-seat Knesset.

In January, Netanyahu, Israels longest-serving prime minister, was indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He denies any wrongdoing in all three cases against him and says he is a victim of a political witch-hunt.

Netanyahus trial is due to start on May 24.

Israeli law says a prime minister under indictment is not obligated to step down until a final conviction.

However, legal some experts say there are precedents suggesting elected officials indicted with charges that carry moral turpitude should resign.
Karachi: Pakistani actor Adnan Siddiqui has apologised to the families of late Bollywood actors Sridevi and Irrfan Khan over "extremely callous" remarks made against them during live chat show 'Jeeway Pakistan'.

Host and leader of political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Aamir Liaquat Hussain mocked that Siddiqui, who appeared on the show, had "saved lives" of two well-known stars by not doing movies with them.

Siddiqui, who starred opposite Sridevi in 'Mom' and worked with Irrfan in 'A Mighty Heart', didn't get the reference and in his explanation, Liaquat said, "Look, you worked in 'Mom', Sridevi passed away. You worked with Irrfan Khan, and now he died."

The host further said that the 50-year-old actor was offered 'Mardaani 2' with Rani Mukerji and 'Jism 2' with Bipasha Basu, and by not taking up these projects he had spared the lives of the other two actors.

On the show itself, Siddiqui expressed his displeasure over Liaquat's remarks, saying it was not a matter of joke and both the actors were really close to him.

He later took to social media where he called out the host's comments as an "unfortunate incident" and apologised for them.

"The anchor Aamir Liaquat joked about something extremely sensitive. Not only were they both close to me but also as a human it was wrong on so many levels. I cannot even call it 'hitting below the belt'," he said in a lengthy statement posted on Instagram Saturday.

Calling it an "extremely callous act", Siddiqui said the remarks put the "entire country in bad light".

"I want to apologise to the families of Sridevi Sahiba and Irrfan Khan Sahab and their loved ones. If you see my body language I was extremely uncomfortable with what he said but I didn't want to stoop to that level. I regret being on the show."

"I've learnt a lesson and I promise I will not tolerate such act in future. I was hoping this bit wouldn't become public but unfortunately, it has," he added.

Sridevi died away in February 2018 in Dubai while Irrfan breathed his last on April 29 in Mumbai.
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.
Brasilia, May 4 : Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro exacerbated tensions with top institutions in the country by participating in another protest amid a political crisis that began after a former Minister alleged that the President was involved in interference in the federal police.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro once again showed his unconditional support for hundreds gathered in front of the Presidential Palace, at a time when the country was also suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic which has so far infected 101,826 people and killed 7,051 others, reports Efe news.

At least two journalists covering the protest were verbally and physically attacked, according to local media reports.

"You know that the people are with us. The Armed Forces, who are on the side of law, order, democracy and liberty, are also on our side, and God above all," said the President in a statement on his social media networks.

The protesters criticized Congress and the Supreme Court, which have paralyzed or cancelled some of Bolsonaro's initiatives since he came to power on January 1, 2019.

Some of them carried signs calling for military intervention and the closure of the two institutions.

The President "begged God" for his government to "not have problems" next week because he has "reached the limit", without specifying what he was referring to.

This is the second time that he took part in an act considered "undemocratic" and "unconstitutional" by the opposition and human rights organizations.

Sergio Moro, the former Justice Minister, resigned last week after the removal of the head of the Federal Police, Mauricio Valeixo.

He accused the head of state of trying to "politically interfere" in the Federal Police, which is investigating two of the President's children.

Moro's explosive statements led to the opening of an investigation authorized by the Supreme Court not only against Bolsonaro, but also against the former judge himself, to find out their veracity.

If the Prosecutor's Office finds evidence against the President, it could file a formal complaint with the Supreme Court, which could only process it with the endorsement of a two-thirds majority of the votes in the Chamber of Deputies (342 out of a total of 513).

In that case, Bolsonaro would be suspended from his post for 180 days and if the Supreme Court found him guilty, he would be removed and succeeded by the Vice President.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 4

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Turkeys export to the member-states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) from January through March 2020 amounted to $11.4 million, which is an increase by 3.5 percent compared to the same period of 2019, the Turkish Ministry of Trade told Trend on May 4.

During the 1st quarter of 2020, the export to the OIC countries has made up 26.7 percent of Turkeys total export in the same period, the ministry said.

Turkeys export to the OIC countries dropped by 22.3 percent in March 2020 up to nearly $3.4 million compared to the same month of previous year.

Thus, in March of this year Turkeys export to the OIC countries 26 percent of the total export in the same month of 2019.

According to the ministry, Turkeys import from the OIC countries increased by 6.3 percent in 1Q2020 and reached almost $7 million compared to the same period of last year.

The import from the OIC countries amounted to 12.6 percent of the total import of Turkey from January through March 2020.

In March 2020, Turkish imports from OIC countries fell by 17.6 percent compared to March 2019, making up slightly over $1.8 million.

The indicator in March made up 10 percent of Turkeys total import.

Turkeys foreign trade turnover in March 2020 exceeded $32.2 billion.

In Mar. 2020, export from Turkey decreased by 17.8 percent compared to Mar. 2019, exceeding $13.4 billion.

Turkey's import increased by 3.1 percent in Mar. 2020 compared to the same month of 2019 and exceeded $18.8 billion.

During 1Q2020, Turkeys trade turnover amounted to $98.4 billion.

Meanwhile, Turkey's exports decreased by 4 percent compared to the same period in 2019, amounting to $42.7 billion, while imports grew by 10.3 percent compared to the same period in 2019, amounting to $55.6 billion.

The foreign trade turnover of Turkey in 2019 amounted to $374.2 billion.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Back at the tail-end of 2019, back when I had mentally if not physically committed to taking the flight-free pledge in 2020, I asked people for their best overland travel tips. I thought Id get one or two responses but, as it turns out, those whove already clipped their wings in the name of climate change are quite vocal when it comes to favourite journeys.

The recommendations came rolling in, each one bringing with it a snap, crackle, pop of excitement. There were far too many for me to realistically contemplate doing in a year  even before a global pandemic came along and stole away at least three months of potential travel dates.

But I was struck by how each one painted a picture; each evoked the heady feeling of potential, and stirred in me the notion that I could go anywhere, do anything, all without flying. It was the turning point when my New Years Resolution started to look less like self-flagellation and more like an exotic adventure.

Since I cant do any of them at the moment  and neither can you  I thought Id share them. Maybe nows the time to start dreaming of the next travel adventure; maybe nows the time to start planning that flightless trip of a lifetime that will be worth the wait

London to Dublin

London (or anywhere in GB) to Dublin is a fun and cheap train trip. 49 London  across north Wales  catamaran across the Irish Sea to Dublin.

The same trip thats been done for 150 years, but no security queues, cramped 737s or lengthy taxi to the city (its a double decker bus)!

Isles of Scilly by sleeper

The Isles of Scilly are a real hidden gem, an archipelago with miles of golden beaches, a British Bahamas.

The journey is part of the fun: sleeper train from London Paddington at 11.45pm, connecting with the ship at 9.15am from Penzance. At St Marys by midday for lunch.

Trans Siberian Express

The best holiday I had was a train trip across Russia, Mongolia and China... would highly recommend.

Sicily by train (and boat)

We got the train to Sicily this year with a two-year-old and it was amazing! Stunning French and Italian coastline. Absolutely loved it. Stunning, stunning!

US roadtrip

I took a flight to get there, but once there I travelled all 48 mainland US states without spending a penny  all thanks to hitchhiking.

Train through the Alps

We started our honeymoon by travelling to Italy by train, the highlight being the Bernina Express through the Swiss Alps. Very highly recommended.

World's best train journeys Show all 10 1 /10 World's best train journeys World's best train journeys Belmond Andean Explorer Explore Peru with this luxury train service Belmond World's best train journeys Coast Starlight Gorgeous: take in the scenery on a train ride from Seattle to Los Angeles Amtrak World's best train journeys TranzAlpine See stunning views on this New Zealand train journey TranzAlpine World's best train journeys Rovos Rail This rail service takes you to the heart of Africa Rovos Rail World's best train journeys Interregional Portugal Explore all the beauty Portugal has to offer by train Interregional Portugal World's best train journeys Glacier Express Take in jaw-dropping views of Switzerland from a train Glacier Express World's best train journeys East Lancashire Railway Travelling back in time in northern England East Lancashire Railway World's best train journeys Durango & Silverton Enjoy one of America's most scenic train rides Durango & Silverton World's best train journeys Caledonian Sleeper Wake up to the beauty of Scotland with this overnight train Peter Devlin World's best train journeys Belmond Eastern & Oriental A breezy observation car on a luxury Asian train Belmond

Orkney overnight

Head to Orkney. Sleeper to Inverness. Train to Thurso. Ferry to Stromness. Bus, ferry, hire bike and hitch round the islands. Archaeology is everywhere and amazing.

Top tip for if you do get to Orkney. Leave on the on 6.30am ferry from Stromness. Book a birth for the night before. You board at 9.30pm and spend the night on the boat while its docked. Great nights sleep followed by an all you can eat breakfast while you sail back to Britain.

Cruising the Danube

Best train trip: Szczecin, Berlin, Bratislava, Budapest, Belgrade, Sophia, Istanbul (Bratislava-Budapest via speedboat on the Danube for variety).

Spain by ferry

The ferry to and from Santander or Bilbao is lovely  I saw two lots of dolphins off Brittany.
Community kindy, prep as well as Years 1, 11 and 12 will return to the classrooms next Monday, May 11, as part of the state government plan to reopen schools in two stages over three weeks.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk outlined the proposed agenda on Monday, with a reassessment to be done on May 15, before Years 2-10 were due to return to school on Monday, May 25.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announcing students' return to school with Education Minister Grace Grace (background). Credit:Darren England - AAP

It came as there were three new cases of novel coronavirus in Queensland in the past 24 hours, taking the state total on Monday to 1038.

Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said the trio of new patients were all returned overseas travellers who were believed to have contracted the virus in London, Los Angeles and a cruise ship.
Malls and other retail establishments reopened in the state as well. Movie theatres that reopened were showing older-run movies for $5. In one San Antonio theatre, in an upscale shopping center called the Rim, business was steady  low for a Saturday in May, but higher than what might be expected in a state still grappling with a coronavirus outbreak that has killed nearly 900 people, 48 of them in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio.  The New York Times
Coronavirus India: Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has shut down the rumours of distributing money by hiding it in wheat bags among the needy. The actor said that either the story is fake or Robinhood does not want to reveal his identity.

Amid the coronavirus lockdown, several actors have come to the forefront to donate money, food and essential items among the needy to help relieve the pain and misery. One such actor is Aamir Khan, who has contributed his bit to not just PM Cares Fund and CM Relief Fund of Maharashtra but also all the daily wage workers who were working on his upcoming film Laal Singh Chaddha.

Recently, a TikTok video went viral on social media that suggested that the superstar has sent a truck filled with 1 kg bags of wheat flour packets among needy in an underprivileged area in Delhi. While there were many who refused to take the food wheat flour packets thinking that it is too less, those who did take the packets were in for a surprise as they found Rs 15,000 of cash hidden in them.

Shutting down the rumour, Aamir Khan on Monday has tweeted that he is not the person putting money in wheat bags. The actor expressed that it is either a fake story or Robin Hood, who is behind this charitable act, does not want to reveal his identity.

Also Read: Acharya: Salman Khan to appear in a special role in Chiranjeevi starrer?

Also Read: I For India concert: Shah Rukh Khans goofy moments with son AbRam; Aamir Khan, Alia Bhatt and others turn singers and more, watch

Guys, I am not the person putting money in wheat bags. Its either a fake story completely, or Robin Hood doesn't want to reveal himself!

Stay safe.

Love.

a.  Aamir Khan (@aamir_khan) May 4, 2020

On the professional front, Aamir Khan will be next seen in his much anticipated film Laal Singh Chaddha, which is the Hindi remake of Tom Hankss hit film Forrest Gump. In the film, the actor will be seen alongside Kareena Kapoor Khan. Due to the nationwide lockdown, the shooting of the film is currently on hold. The film is scheduled to hit the screens this year on Christmas.

Also Read: Hina Khan worships lord of lockdown in this hilarious TikTok video, watch here

For all the latest Entertainment News, download NewsX App
The Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has described as politically tainted and statistically unreliable, unbelievable, untenable, the latest poverty rate of Nigeria as issued by the National Bureau of Statistics which fixed the current poverty rate at forty percent.

HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf said that it was absolutely absurd, the explanation by the National Bureau of Statistics that it adopted a new methodology in reaching the very recent determination of the estimated percentage of Nigerians that are poor in which case the percentage of poor people in Nigeria in 2012 was now higher than the just released statistical data even when it is clear that poverty has grown exponentially and geometrically even by the admissions of President Muhammadu Buhari who stated last year that based on intelligence made available to him that there are 100 million poor Nigerians.

HURIWA stated that it is only political statistics that can magically reduce the percentage of poor Nigerians from what it told the nation years back long before Nigeria became the POVERTY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD thus overtaking India in 2019 just as the Rights group said nobody needs a statistician to conjure up a magical percentage of the poor that is diametrically opposed to the realities on the ground.

"How come in 2012, the population of the poor in Nigeria statistically stood at over sixty one percent as rated by the National Bureau of Statistics at that time that Nigeria is not so much hobbled by massive poverty to a level of becoming the POVERTY CAPITAL of the World and now that even President Muhammadu Buhari stated that there were 100 million poor people in Nigeria only last year only for the National Bureau of Statistics to sit in the air conditioned offices in the Central Business district in Abuja and in what could be the greatest fallacy of the twenty first century to state that the nation now has only forty percent of poor people amongst the population of 200 million?

HURIWA recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics had in 2012 stated that Poverty has risen in Nigeria, with almost 100 million people living on less than a $1 (0.63) a day, despite economic growth, statistics have shown.

HURIWA which cited a news report by the British Broadcasting corporation as stating that the National Bureau of Statistics said 60.9% of Nigerians in 2010 were living in "absolute poverty" - this figure had risen from 54.7% in 2004.

HURIWA recalled that the bureau predicted this rising trend was likely to continue even as the report, stated that absolute poverty is measured by the number of people who can afford only the bare essentials of shelter, food and clothing.

The NBS, a government agency, said there was a paradox at the heart of Nigeria as the economy was going from strength to strength, mainly because of oil production - yet Nigerians were getting poorer.

HURIWA quoted the NBS as saying in 2012 thus: "Despite the fact that the Nigerian economy is growing, the proportion of Nigerians living in poverty is increasing every year, although it declined between 1985 and 1992, and between 1996 and 2004,".

HURIWA recalled that the NBS said in 2012 that relative poverty was most apparent in the north of the country, with Sokoto state's poverty rate the highest at 86.4%.

In the north-west and north-east of the country poverty rates were recorded at 77.7% and 76.3% respectively, compared to the south-west at 59.1%.

HURIWA however dismissed the latest report that only forty percent of people in Nigeria live in poverty, figures published by the statistics office on Monday showed, highlighting the low levels of wealth in a country that has Africa's biggest economy.

HURIWA recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in a report about poverty and inequality from September 2018 to October 2019, said 40% of people in the continent's most populous country lived below its poverty line of 137,430 naira ($381.75) per year. It said that represents 82.9 million people.

HURIWA CONDEMNS the report as empirically unrealistic and at best is politically tainted statistics since even the same agency had previously stated that the POVERTY RATE was high in Nigeria and from all available evidence in the public domain the POVERTY RATE is widening even as unemployment has reached an alarming dimensions with hundreds of companies folding up due to lack of the enabling environment for productivity.
Advertisement

After one of the most eagerly-anticipated events of the fashion calendar was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, fans of the Met Gala have been recreating their favorite looks from years gone by.

The #MetGalaChallenge was launched last week by actor Billy Porter and Vogue Magazine and encouraged people to recreate their favorite looks in a 'fashion challenge to end all fashion challenges.'

The gala is known for being an event where A-listers show up wearing outfits ranging from the extravagant to the outrageous.

Rihanna, longtime Queen of the Met Gala, seen left, wore an outfit designed by John Galliano for Maison Margiela in 2018 - but as Instagram user Estilotn shows, it could just have easily have been created out of newspaper

Sarah Jessica Parker attends the Met Gala in 2014, right, spectacularly recreated by Instagram user Gracefulhaylie

Lady Gaga arrived at the Met Gala in 2019 in a gloriously outrageous fuchsia pink cape gown designed by her friend Brandon Maxwell. Instagram user Crescentshay pulled off her own version in her backyard, complete with umbrella holder

Last year Kim Kardashian dressed as a dripping wet version of herself designed by Thierry Mugler. Instagram user Kate Broad appeared to pull off a stunning recreation using packaging tape, tinfoil, and rhinestones

From the isolation of their homes, participants put on some great DIY looks, taking inspiration from standout Met Gala looks from years past, from Lena Waithe's rainbow cape to Cardi B's religion-inspired gown from 2018.

The Met Gala traditionally takes place the first Monday of May each year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City but the event was postponed this year after the city was placed under a strict lockdown in order to limit the spread of the disease, with 167,000 confirmed cases and 13,156 deaths.

This year's Met Gala theme was titled About Time: Fashion and Duration and inspired by Virginia Woolf and the theories of the French philosopher Henri Bergson.

Instagram user Shannon the sloth recreated Diane Kruger's Prabal Gurung dress in 2018 using two bath towels, two hand towels, and a washcloth, loads of safety pins, aluminum foil, headband, tape and 'a throw pillow strategically held in place to make the butt poufs extra pouffy'

Vlada Ruggiero recreated actress Blake Lively's Versace gown which was an incredibly ornate ruby and gold design that featured some pretty intricate and extensive beading. Here a couple of bathmats and a throw seem to work just as well

A student fashion designer based in Tokyo under the Instagram Noe Dresses recreated a dress worn by actress Lana Condor designed by Giambattista Valli in 2019. The dress was made from materials found in the trash and consists mainly of plastic used to stop furniture being damages when moved. The plastic was then hand down onto the dress to hold it together to create pleating

The 2019 dress worn by American actress Lili Reinhart created by Salvatore Ferragamo was recreated using bedsheets, right

Aletheia Olear ended up remaking Zendayas 2017 Met Gala look by hand painting each parrot, flower and vine in the dress

In New York, fashionista Sanja Nestorovic recreated the dress Kylie Jenner wore in 2018 using plastic bags and made sure to include the much-talked-about glasses

Instagram user kyserv, right, ended up recreating the outfit worn by Jared Leto in 2018, designed by Gucci complete with navy lapels that he paired with a pink pussy bow shirt

Actor Billy Porter and Vogue Magazine have challenged people to recreate their favorite Met Gala looks in an online challenge in light of the event's postponement this year. Pictured, left: Aili Adalia recreating a look Janelle Monae wore at the Camp: Notes on Fashion Met Gala in 2019 (right)

New York City's Aria De Chicchis (left) recreated Lena Waithe's statement rainbow cape (right) with her dad's Halloween cape and some paper (pictured)

Toronto-based voiceover artist Janna Polzin recreated Frances McDormand's elaborate green cape and headress at home for the online challenge (left). For the Heavenly Bodies theme of 2018, Oscar winner Frances McDormand donned an eye-catching blue and lime green number with a statement headpiece (right)

Parenting blogger themilffiles from Philadelphia, as Cardi B at the 2019 Met Gala (left). Rapper Cardi B stunned in a blood red Thom Browne gown collaboration with British milliner Stephen Jones for the Camp theme of 2019 (right)

Child influencer Aili Adalia from Detroit, who loves to dress up, recreated Cardi B's 2018 look with the help of her mother (left). In 2018, Cardi B, pregnant at the time, wore a Catholicism-inspire gown for the Heavenly Bodies theme (right)

Memphis art consultant Anna Wunderlich had her daughter take part in the challenge, recreating Lily Collins' 2019 camp look (left). For the camp theme, Love Rosie actress Lily Collins donned a ruffled white gown and a beautiful butterfly headband (right)

In another colorful snap, Aili Adalia wore a fruit-print dress like the gown Zendaya wore to the 2017 event (left). The Spiderman Homecoming and Euphoria actress Zendaya Coleman looked beautiful in this gown at the Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between' Met Gala of 2017 (right)

New York city resident Queenglowjob (left) took six hours to recreate the metallic look Ambrosio (right) sported in 2016
The employees of the state agency in charge of regulating the insurance industry in Texas might not put it this way, but in a sense, operationally at least, they have been preparing for the current health crisis brought on by the new coronavirus for a couple of years.

It was around two years ago that Insurance Commissioner Kent Sullivan pointed his 1,300-plus member staff at the Texas Department of Insurance and Division of Workers Compensation toward the goal of creating a more nimble, agile, modernized, best practices organization. Since then productivity and efficiency have increased dramatically, even more so during the current work-from-home environment brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic, according to Sullivan.

Upon embarking on the modernization plan, one of the first things the department did was to move away from desktop computers to laptops for every employee and to strengthen the agencys technological capability so that employees would be able to work from home in a high-quality seamless way, Sullivan said. In addition, there was a push to go paperless, and while TDI is not there 100%, there has been a dramatic shift toward a paperless workplace over the past two years, he said.

Those capabilities, which we had already put in place for various reasons  coincidentally they served us really well when we were all hit by the pandemic, he said.

When Austin, the states capitol and home location for most state agencies, implemented its stay at home order on March 24 with the goal of limiting the spread of COVID-19, TDI was ready from an operational standpoint, Sullivan said.

The work weve done for the past few years has put us in a position where people really can effectively telecommute, so we were able to do all of this fairly early on, Sullivan said. The transition from central office to the home office for 90% to 95% of TDIs employees took place over one weekend, and staff productivity has been extremely robust since that time, he said.

Productivity and efficiency had already been improving at the agency, but in the weeks since the agency moved home there have been even greater improvements, according to Sullivan. Our folks, I really am proud what theyve been able to accomplish. They really havent missed a beat.

Some TDI staff, including field personnel, had already been working remotely to a certain extent even before the pandemic hit. About a third of TDI employees were already working from home at times, according to TDI Deputy Commissioner for Public Affairs Stephanie Goodman. It varied from our call center staff who worked from home several days a week to staff who only worked from home one day a week or on occasion, Goodman said an email.

Sullivan sees the ability to offer the opportunity to work remotely as a great recruiting tool, one that the agency already has been using and plans to continue promoting in the future.

I will tell you candidly that in some areas that require specialized experience or knowledge, being in the government and dealing with the government pay scales, we were in something of a disadvantage in terms of recruiting, Sullivan said. And one of the advantages I thought we could use and I think weve used to some success was to be able to tell people that under the right circumstances they could telecommute on a more aggressive basis than otherwise might be offered by some of the private sector jobs they would be looking at.

Agent Licensing, Call Times

Agent and adjuster licensing, as well as communication with the various stakeholders  both consumers and diverse insurance sectors, including agents  are areas where the department has experienced a big increase in efficiency and productivity, in the past two years and in the past two months.

Sullivan said in an interview with Insurance Journal in May 2019 that before the department began its modernization initiatives, TDI call center wait times were averaging 30 to 45 minutes, even more in the aftermath of a major event, like a weather disaster.

Immediately after Hurricane Harvey you might have waited upwards of an hour to get through to somebody, Sullivan said at the time.

Since then, wait times have been dramatically reduced. For agent phone calls, wait times have dropped to about 30 seconds during the pandemic, compared with more than more than one minute and 30 seconds just a year ago, according to TDI. Additionally, TDI staff answered more than 12,000 consumer calls in March, with wait times averaging under 30 seconds.

Processing times for agent and adjuster licensing have also decreased significantly, from an average of 5.6 days in March 2019 to a little more than a day currently. Before TDIs modernization efforts began two years ago, wait times for an applicant to receive their license could even have taken up to six or eight weeks.

Goodman said the licensing process initially was a bit of an operational challenge when the pandemic first hit partly because testing and fingerprinting vendors were required to shut down, not just in Texas but across the country.

We got very little notice that our testing and fingerprinting vendors would be closing their sites. We worked with the Governors Office to suspend some state requirements and develop an alternate process in short order, she said.

One of the things that we did was to relax the rules on a temporary license, added Nancy Clark, chief of staff of TDIs Administrative Division. Unlike in some other states, Texas statutes allow for temporary licensing. Agents are allowed to operate under temporary licensure if they already have a job that is dependent upon that license, she said.

While the department has not seen an uptick in licensing applicants during the current health crisis, the interest in agent licensing has been steady, and applications are being filed for licenses all lines of insurance, Clark said.

The agency had only recently completed the task of moving the licensing process to one thats completely online, so the application process has been widely available and theyve been coming in every day on a steady basis, she said.

Insurance Impact and Solvency

Sullivan said hes aware of the conflicts that have arisen between businesses that have been forced to close and their commercial insurers over carrier denials of business interruption coverage during the pandemic. Other than that, so far, the only other line of insurance he has seen as being significantly affected by the coronavirus epidemic is personal auto.

Insurers have been filing auto policy changes of various kinds  including those for rebates, refunds and premium credits  in response to the fact that people arent driving as much during the stay at home orders. Goodman said the department has been proactive in getting those filings processed as soon as possible. Weve been able to review COVID-19 related form filings the same day we received them, she said.

It remains to be seen what effect, if any, the COVID-19 pandemic will have on insurer solvency, Sullivan said. Thats because we are still very much in the middle of it.  Theres simply no way to know what the solvency impact is going to be until it plays out.

Sullivan said going forward the department will continue to make operational improvements. Were going to keep moving. Weve stayed on this path of best practices and investing in infrastructure and were going to continue down that road, he said.

Topics COVID-19 Agencies Texas
The impact of the Corona virus pandemic currently ravaging the entire globe is multi-dimentional. This dangerous virus otherwise known as Covid-19 has altered the existing world order; confounded extant medical expertise; foisted a new socio-economic protocol on the world; exposed the classical irony of leadership in Africa; and is greatly challenging the humanity in the present human generation. In response, global dramatis personas of medical science, politics, and economics delved into hysteria of activities aimed at taming the monstrous virus and abating its devastation of human health, the global economy and politics. In this rush, the basic welfares of mankind were not properly factored into the Covid-19 Response Protocols. The implication of this gap in the Covid-19 response protocol comes to light when one realizes the need to protect humanity which is the ultimate target-beneficiary of the sought after anti-Covid-19 breakthrough from hunger-induced extinction! It is this gap in the Covid-19 Response Protocol and the masturbatory welfare interventions of the various tiers of government that has, in the faces of nationwide and local lockdowns in Nigeria and elsewhere, left the masses at the mercies of the well-to-do members of their respective societies. This is the humanity challenge - the challenge to share one's bread with the have-nots!

As usual with our clime where "the love of many has turned cold", this critical masses' welfare gap in the Covid-19 Response Protocol has elicited many responses from political leaders and the people of means. However, most of these responses which are pharisaic, come in the form of food stuffs, condiments, loaves of bread, funds, face masks, hand-sanitizers et cetera which are oftentimes branded with the names and images of the donors; and come with the accompaniment of media hypes at costs that double the values of the items! Furthermore, the beneficiaries are usually subjected to tortuous selection procedures which take into account political, religious and other mundane affiliations. Added to these are harrasments of the hapless beneficiaries in front of motion and still cameras of sundry media platforms! All these defeat both the divine and cultural concepts of the virtue of charity.

However, it is heartwarming that in Ebonyi State which is a microcosm of our larger society where the virtue of charity has been watered down to mundane egocentric garrulous show, there still exists a club of many large-hearted young and old people of the divine order of charity! Okey Elechi, a young graduate of Business Administration and a Technical Assistant to the Governor of Ebonyi State on Culture and Tourism no doubt belongs to that club. This young man who cut his teeth in public service in December, 2019 took up the challenge of providing more than one hundred households of his pastoral community of Ameka in Ezza South LGA in Ebonyi State with welfare packages which included 120 bags of rice and necessary condiments as well as face masks and hand sanitizers on Tuesday, 28th April, 2020. The palliative programme took place in Community Secondary School, Ameka, Ezza South L.G.A.

The councilor representing Ameka ward in Ezza South Legislative Council, Mr. Ezekiel Nwafor who rejoiced with the beneficiaries congratulated the donor for putting smiles on the faces of the people. Nwafor further stated that Okey Elechi was the first person to bring palliatives to Ameka people in this difficult time. He charged stakeholders of the community to emulate Mr. Elechi's shinning example. Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, Mrs. Nwoba Nworie from Umuorugbalaome kindred of Amalekwune prayed God to reward Okey Elechi with good health and prosperity for coming to their aid.

Harvesting honeycombs was by all means an easier task than making reticent Okey Elechi speak about his Covid-19 palliative intervention programme. According to him, "I was touched by the plight of my Ameka people in the face of the lockdowns, so I had to get them the food stuff and other items my little savings could fetch for them. I reached people from all the kindreds irrespective of ideological or religious affiliations because hunger is our common enemy. In fact, I do not know most of the beneficiaries because it was our Traditional Ruler in-council that shortlisted them. This is supposed to be a quiet ceremony because I believe that one does not need protocol, press or even a registered N.G.O. to help people. Branding the items was not necessary as the cost could have reduced the quantity of palliative items. I am not a show man." Okey Elechi charged the people of Ameka and Ebonyi State to cooperate with the administration of Governor David Umahi in the war against Covid-19. "I appreciate Engr. David Umahi for his calculated and sustained fight against the Corona virus and his numerous developmental projects which are epitomes of his love for Ebonyi people. The virus is our collective enemy, so all hands should be on deck. I pray God to protect Ebonyi people and make us prevail over Covid-19", he concluded.

In all, this palliative intervention which was the first in Ameka Community and Ezza South council area since this global pandemic was peculiar in many ways. Coming from Mr. Elechi, a very young man and Scion of the family of an eminent jurist and excellent bureaucrat who should ordinarily be ensconced in the many frolics that characterize youthful exuberance, the gesture depicted the donor as a person of higher order value system - a rarity worth coveting in our clime. A comparison of the value of the palliative items and the income of the donor since his graduation showed that he gave much from the little he had. This positive contradiction put this budding philantropist in the mould of great givers like the widow who gave her mite in the synoptic gospels. The packaging and distribution of the palliative items which were devoid of any form of branding or traces and publicity gave out the donor as a humble and silent achiever who is interested in the dignity of his beneficiaries; and not in vainglory. This breed of people are very scarce, especially among the youths.

It is hoped that in the coming days, Okey Elechi's gesture will stimulate other comfortable members of the society to intervene in the plights of the less-privileged in this period of great trial.
DEPARTMENT of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Ano on Monday, May 4, said former senator Jose Ejercito Jr. Jinggoy Estrada committed four violations while distributing relief goods to the residents of San Juan City.

Unang una wala siyang official coordination from the city government so paglaban yan sa ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) guidelines, pangalawa yung mga nagdi-distribute wala rin silang quarantine pass, they are not authorized persons outside residence so violation na naman yun, Ano said during the Laging Handa forum Monday.

Pagkatapos nakita ko sa video may mga pagsuway sa physical distancing at pangapat pati yung mga seniors at saka minors ay lumabas na ng bahay edi another pagsuway na naman yun, he added.

Ano said that since San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora is a political rival of the Estrada family, the former senator could have sought the assistance of the Office of the Civil Defense for the distribution of relief goods.

The DILG earlier issued a directive instructing groups and individuals planning to conduct relief distribution to coordinate first with the LGU for the issuance of permit to ensure peace and order during the activity.

Ano said he issued the directive after they found that some groups were involved in illegal activities in the guise of relief operations.

Kasi napatunayan natin na may mga grupo na nagsasamantala na kunyari ay magdidistribute ng goods, yun pala magcoconduct ng rally o kaya nininegosyo lang nila, he said.

Estrada was invited to the San Juan City police station while conducting relief operations on Sunday afternoon.

He was later released with no charges filed, but was issued a stern warning to comply with the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) guidelines.

Estrada has expressed belief that his arrest was politically motivated.

Zamora earlier denied having a hand in Estradas arrest, saying that it was just a normal law enforcement. (SunStar Philippines)
Kristin Garth reads her poem Bride Price about the burning of Nusrat Rafi. Read or listen to the poem which is due to be published in The Stakes anthology by APEP Publications

Bride Price

In Bangladesh, where Nusrat Rafi burns

for sexual attention she would spurn then

report to local police, their girls learn

young exactly the price to be women

even a bride. Twelve year olds to old men

are tied without a thought to their consent.

A bill of dowry husband presents, demands

of payment and unspoken consequence 

Bangladesh has the most incidents of

acid burning in the world of women

even little married girls withholding love

and a dowry their rightful owner, men.

Men fear the power of a womans face;

it is power they can choose to erase.

Authors Note:

This poem is about the burning of Nusrat Rafi. She was a nineteen year old girl who was assaulted, reported the abuse and was then burned alive for doing so. Her name must never be forgotten, and no-one should suffer the injustice that was done to her. The poem seeks to place her burning in the context of an all-too common practice in Bangladesh and other places around the world of acid burning of young women.

The practice of men throwing acid into the face of a girl who spurns them, or withholds affection or dowry  often in a forced marriage  is a horrific practice that is not always reported. In Bangladesh, almost 70% of victims are women and girls. Perpetrators are almost always men. After much campaigning and media pressure, the Bangladesh Government introduced legislation in 2002 which included control of sale, use and storage of acid. Attacks have now declined to under 100 a year, but they continue. You can find out more on acid attacks around the world from Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI).

This poem is a part of my book The Stakes, a collection that considers fire and burning as a tool of misogyny. Fire and burning have historically been used against women by men in patriarchal society in history. These terrible practices persist in modern times. The Stakes is being published with APEP Publications.
UPDATE: She received a call from the Department of Labor a few hours before this story was published.

Its been five weeks since Michelle Robles filed for unemployment benefits because of the coronavirus shutdown.

Shes in her last year of nursing school and her last tuition payment is due on May 7. If she doesnt pay, she wont be able to enroll in her final semester.

I haven't been able to pay because I don't have any income coming in, said Robles, 37. I worked so hard to get into nursing school. Its all Ive ever dreamed of.

Robles, a single mom with two teenagers, could have to wait longer than most for her benefits to come through. She lives in New York, but she worked in New Jersey, and people have to file in the state where they work.

Robles said she doesnt know what the hold-up is in her case and shes hoping someone from the Labor Department will call her. Her attempts to get through have been unsuccessful.

Shes one of more than 200,000 people who are still waiting for benefits. The Labor Department said most of those who are waiting are gig workers and the self-employed, but NJ Advance Media has heard from W-2 workers like Robles who are still waiting, as well as from those who were on unemployment before the crisis and are still waiting for expanded federal benefits to kick in. Others say they have started getting payments but they have not yet received the extra $600 a week from the expanded benefits.

At first, her job doing billing for a New Jersey manufacturing company was switched to working from home. But on March 29, she and her co-workers were furloughed.

She applied for unemployment immediately.

A few days later, the system showed what her benefit amount would be. But when it came time to certify benefits, she got the dreaded message: Claim is not payable at this time, and it told her to wait five to seven days before trying to contact a representative.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

She waited those days, and then she started calling, she said.

I called hundreds, even sometimes hitting over a thousand times a day. No answer, Robles said. I emailed everything I could and nothing.

She said she certifies every week, and every week, the system tells her the benefit is not payable at this time.

As Robles waits, shes fallen behind on her bills. She hasnt been able to pay the last two months of rent. Her utilities and cable bills are all late. Same for her car insurance and her cell phone bills. Her car payments are deferred until June. The tuition bill remains unpaid.

Shes also juggling her education with schooling for her teenagers. The three were sharing one laptop, which she called insane.

I got to the point where I just did all my classwork on my cell phone because they had to get their work done and log in to classes, she said, noting she was trying to make sure her kids didnt fall behind at the same time. There were days where I just wanted to cry my brains out.

Robles said she worries that her nursing education is at risk.

Shes wanted to be a nurse since she was very young, she said.

My mother was paralyzed when I was young and I helped care for her, Robles said, noting that she used to send her mom money to help her because shes unable to work. She cant do that anymore.

And now with the coronavirus pandemic, Robles said, its more clear than ever how important the healthcare field is. She wants to get out there and help people, she said.

Im studying for finals but Im overwhelmed with a feeling of uncertainty and really feel unfocused which is not like me, she said. Its just so hard to think of anything else right now.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at bamboozled@njadvancemedia.com.
Pakistan has no locus stand on territories it has illegally occupied

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, May 04: India has issued a demarcate to Pakistan protesting the Pakistan Supreme Court's order on so-called Giglti-Baltistan. India has said that the entire Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh including areas of Gilgit and Baltistan are an integral part of India.

On the order, the Ministry of External Affairs said that Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.

Pakistan's Supreme Court had allowed general elections in the so-called Gilgit-Baltistan region.

It was further conveyed that such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of UTs of J&K and Ladakh by Pakistan nor grave human rights violations, exploitation & denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan occupied territories for the past 7 decades.

Government of India's position in the matter is reflected in the resolution passed by the Parliament in 1994 by consensus, the MEA also said.

Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it. India completely rejects such actions & continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of J&K, the MEA also said.
Killing Eve has been described as a feminist thriller and a perfect show for the #MeToo era as misogynists get whats coming to them.

The show emerged in early 2018, while news around Harvey Weinstein was empowering women around the globe.

Starring two strong leads in Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer, written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (based on novels by Luke Jennings) it has been hailed as ground-breaking -a point few could deny.

Yet its not just misogynists who come asunder. According to actor Fiona Shaw (Carolyn, head of the Russia Section at MI6) theres more to its success than sheer timing.

Its not a very #metoo show. Its very immoral, but its celebratory of the range of behaviour of women, she tells TV Tonight.

It doesnt make any excuses for itself, but it doesnt make any apology.

Even in the so-called creative world of television and film, women have always tended to hold either the moral good or the moral bad. And its really great that in Killing Eve, neither of those things are relevant.

Shaw was drawn to the complexities of the script by Waller-Bridge, who had won praise for her TV adaptation of her stage play Fleabag (which Shaw herself would later appear in).

I read the script, I thought it was marvellous and then I had lunch with her. She is utterly delightful, and now shes flowered into a global thing. Shes a very level headed, very hardworking, creative, lively person, she recalls.

Every page you turned, you werent sure

The first two episodes were utterly fantastic, because every page you turned, you werent sure. What is this? It wasnt like anything else. And yet, you were riveted because it has huge polish. Theres not a word wasted.

Ive done a lot of classical work and its really good to have a text that is as dense and as tight as that was. Every line was just brilliantly wrought. It was like reading an 18th Century comedy.

But she also had hesitations in finding the character.

I was very nervous at the beginning because I really didnt know how to play a character who is so withdrawn, so mysterious. You want to somewhere give a wink to the audience. But I just trusted it and Ive really enjoyed playing her ever since.

The mix of murder and mayhem, espionage and shifting relationships deliberately woos the viewer into a false sense of security.

Youre really on the side of Villanelle and then you reassess

Youre really on the side of Villanelle (Comer) and then you reassess what that means. Its got the charm of psychopaths, she explains.

With Eve (Sandra Oh) you see her bit by bit getting corrupted from her self-image being very virtuous. We all think were good and as life goes on and you concede to various things. You become less good -or have to face the fact that youre less good than you thought you were.

Everybody betrays everybody all the time

Carolyns eye is less on Villanelle as it is on the mysterious assassin organisation The Twelve but Shaw agrees not even Carolyn can be trusted in this complex tale.

You cant trust her. But she also cant trust Eve or Konstantin (Kim Bodnia). She couldnt trust Kenny (Sean Delaney). Everybody betrays everybody all the time, Shaw warns.

People are friendly when they share information, but they also will use that information to sabotage the other person if its for the greater good.

Carolyn is in charge so people have to trust what she says but she may have further information, thats what makes her very powerful.

The audience doesnt know if she has the ultimate information.

Filming hopes to resume in September but is yet to be confirmed given the current crisis is still severe in Europe. Killing Eve is notable for its magnificent locations across Tuscany, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Bucharest and London.

Its just marvellous to take camera crews into these iconic buildings

I find it magical that I can be doing a scene with Eve in Trafalgar Square with Nelsons Pillar and red buses behind us. Its thrilling. It makes the city vibrate, in my mind. In Season 3 -spoiler- I have scenes in Albert Hall. Its just marvellous to take camera crews into these iconic buildings, she says.

And its very exciting to know that in Australia, youre enjoying them as a sort of picture postcard of those places.

But in a show were the body count rises on a weekly basis, does Shaw ever worry that Carolyn might be a next surprise victim? She answers coyly.

Obviously, that would be that. There would be no more to be said if Carolyn was knocked off! she concedes.

But I think thats very unlikely. Thats all I can say.

Killing Eve Season 3 screens 9:30pm Sundays on ABC and new episodes are available from Mondays on iview.
The army on Monday paid rich tributes to the four soldiers, who were killed in a two-day counter-insurgency operation in Jammu and Kashmirs Handwara, before their bodies were sent to their native places.

Top army commanders Lt Gen Y K Joshi and Lt Gen BS Raju were among those who paid homage to the soldiers, Col Ashutosh Sharma, Maj Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh Kumar, and Lance Naik Dinesh Singh.

Late Col Ashutosh Sharma SM and his team were leading a counter-terrorist operation in village Chanjimul, District Kupwara. In a valiant effort to save innocent civilian lives, while putting their own lives in grave danger, they eliminated two terrorists in the operation. In the ensuing firefight, Late Col Ashutosh Sharma SM, Late Maj Anuj Sood, Late Naik Rajesh Kumar, Late Lance Naik Dinesh Singh and Late Sub Inspector Sageer Ahmed Qazi made the supreme sacrifice in service to the Nation, the army said in a statement.

Sharma, 44, had joined the army in 2002 and was from Uttar Pradeshs Bulandshahr. He is survived by his widow and a daughter. Sood, 30, was from Pune and had joined the army in 2012. He is survived by his wife.

Kumar, 29, who was from Punjabs Mansa, had joined the army in 2010 and is survived by his parents. Singh, 24, years, had joined the army in 2015 and belonged to Uttarakhands Almora. He is survived by his parents.

The mortal remains of the martyrs were taken for last rites to their native place, where they would be laid to rest with full military honours. In this hour of grief, the Army stands in solidarity with the bereaved families and remains committed to their dignity and well being, the statement said.

Qazis last rites were held with full state honours at Karnah in Jammu and Kashmirs Kupwara on Sunday in presence of top police officers.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Nation must stay vigilant against virus

People's Daily Online

(China Daily) 13:46, May 03, 2020

Hubei province is lowering its level of response to the novel coronavirus outbreak from the highest level on Saturday, but while this measure is taken by China's hardest-hit area, authorities across the nation were urged to remain vigilant against the disease after loopholes were found in epidemic prevention and control in Heilongjiang province.

In a release on Friday, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, China's Cabinet, called for better control of hospital infections, stronger nucleic acid testing capabilities and more attention to the risk of imported infections nationwide.

Since April, cluster infections caused by imported cases have resurged in the cities of Harbin and Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang. The infections also affected several hospitals, infecting dozens of people including medical staff.

In April, 131 domestically transmitted infections were reported on the Chinese mainland, of which more than 60 percent resulted from cluster infections in Heilongjiang, Mi Feng, a spokesman for the National Health Commission, said on Friday.

Of the six newly reported domestic cases on Thursday, five were in Heilongjiang and one in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, he said at a daily briefing.

The authorities in Harbin and Mudanjiang have failed to realize the risk of imported infections, and were lacking in their capability to curb the epidemic, according to the release.

The two cities also failed to implement the 14-day quarantine measure for people returning from overseas.

The resurgence of cluster infections has also exposed loopholes in infection control in hospitals, and a lack of capability in conducting nucleic acid tests in medical institutions in Harbin, it said.

All health authorities and medical institutions across the country are required to learn lessons from this.

All localities should improve management to detect, report, isolate and treat infections as early as possible, and provide support in policies, funds, human resources and materials to help medical institutions improve testing capacity and efficiency, the release said.

In a separate circular on Friday, the State Council also called for adopting strict measures to minimize possible infections in hospitals.

Hospitals should draft more detailed measures to curb infections. Fever clinicsthe first place to encounter possible COVID-19 patientsmust shoulder the responsibility of early reporting, early diagnosis and early quarantine, and transfer patients to designated hospitals in a timely manner, it said.

Meanwhile, Hubei, the nation's hardest-hit province, on Friday announced the lowering of its emergency response level from the highest to the second level from Saturday, after the province reported no new infections for 27 consecutive days.

A total of 82,874 infections had been reported on the Chinese mainland as of Thursday, with 4,633 deaths. Among them, Hubei province registered 68,128 infections and 4,512 deaths, according to the National Health Commission.

Yang Yunyan, vice-governor of Hubei, said on Friday that people were encouraged to avoid mass gatherings and indoor recreational facilities would remain closed.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Her sister Gigi has dominated the news this week after it was confirmed she's expecting a baby with Zayn Malik.

But Bella Hadid is making sure to create some buzz of her own by posting sultry snaps to her Instagram.

Following a busty shot to kick off the weekend on Friday, the 23-year-old shared a short video clip Sunday in which she writhes around in a bikini.

Flauntingit: Her sister Gigi has dominated the news with her baby news, but on Sunday Bella Hadid made sure to create some buzz of her own with a bikini clip shared via Instagram

Bella's torso glistens with oil and she's wearing full makeup with her hair piled high on top of her head.

Bella is self-isolating along with Gigi, 25, and their mother Yolanda Hadid, 56, on their farm in Pennsylvania.

It was Yolanda who first confirmed the reports that Gigi was pregnant with her first child.

Commanding attention: The 23-year-old gave her social media followers an up close look at her glistening torso as she modeled a skimpy patterned two-piece

Posed: Bella wore full makeup with her hair piled high on top of her head

Not subtle: Bella had kicked off the weekend with this busty shot on Instagram as she self-isolates with Gigi and mom Yolanda Hadid on their farm in Pennsylvania

In an interview with Dutch broadcasting station RTL Boulevard, the former Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star revealed: 'I'm excited to become a grandmother in September especially after I lost my mom so recently.'

'But this is the beauty of life, one soul leaves us and a new one comes in. We feel very blessed. I can't wait to be a grandmother.'

In an appearance with Jimmy Fallon, Gigi also confirmed her baby news, telling The Tonight Show host: 'Obviously we wish we could have announced it on our own terms, but we're very excited and happy and grateful for everyone's well wishes and support.'

Gigi and Zayn, who have an four-year on/off relationship, are rumored to be expecting a baby girl.

They first started dating in 2015 after meeting on the set of the former One Direction star's music video for Pillow Talk.

Spilled the beans: Yolanda, 56, was the first to confirm reports that Gigi, 25, is pregnant by former One Direction boybander Zayn Malik, 27

Mom to be: Gigi also confirmed her baby news, telling Jimmy Fallon: 'Obviously we wish we could have announced it on our own terms, but we're very excited and happy'
A patient who had recovered from novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) died of end-stage liver fibrosis in Vietnam last week, according to the national committee on COVID-19 prevention and control.

The patient was the countrys 251st confirmed case, the committee said on Monday night.

The case, 64-year-old N.V.D., was admitted to a general hospital in Ha Nam Province, located in northern Vietnam, on March 20.

He tested positive for the novel coronavirus on April 7.

The patient was at high risk as he had many pre-existing conditions, including liver fibrosis, gout, and alcoholism.

Health workers could not trace back the source of his infection then.

He was transferred to the National Hospital for Tropical Disease in Hanoi after his initial treatment in Ha Nam.

The mans tests returned negative for four times at the hospital in the capital before he was sent back to his hometown for liver fibrosis treatment on April 17.

The man died of cirrhosis on Friday, the committee said, adding that his death was not caused by the novel coronavirus.

Cirrhosis is a late stage of scarring (fibrosis) of the liver caused by many forms of liver diseases and conditions, such as hepatitis and chronic alcoholism, Mayo Clinic says on its website.

He had gone into a coma due to the critical liver disease and electrolyte disorders.

The patient retested negative for the virus at the general hospital in Ha Nam upon his death.

Vietnam has confirmed 271 COVID-19 cases, with 221 recoveries and no documented fatality, according to the health ministrys latest updates.

The Southeast Asian nation has carried out over 261,000 tests so far.

It is quarantining more than 27,400 people at the time of writing.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
That was before the coronavirus. Now Mr. Driscoll, a 26-year-old from California, is quarantined alone in a suite on the Seabourn Odyssey off the coast of Bridgetown, Barbados.

The ships crew members have been aboard without passengers for nearly seven weeks, caught up in an around-the-world oceanic race against infection. Dozens of cruise ships were out to sea as the virus began to spread, and as the toll of sick and dying passengers rose, port after port turned the vessels away.

Eventually, most passengers were able to disembark. Not so the crew members, many of whom continue to bob the seas in water-bound purgatory. Some of the ships are still riddled with coronavirus cases.

There are thousands of other ships and crews also at sea, many of them also stranded  tankers with no place to unload their oil, freighters that were bound for ports where they are no longer welcome.

Aboard each vessel are crew members who must still do their jobs  operating and maintaining the machinery, cooking and cleaning  even if the ship, itself, is going nowhere.

But there are those, like Mr. Driscoll, whose jobs cannot be performed now. He is an entertainer without an audience.

He sings to himself in the comically tiny shower. His tuxedo hangs uselessly pressed in the closet. His face wears the scruff of the two weeks since he ran out of razors.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 05:52:31|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

OTTAWA, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an allotment of 240 million Canadian dollars (about 168 million U.S. dollars) on Sunday for moving mental health and primary care services online during the COVID-19 crisis.

During his press conference on Sunday, Trudeau said a new mental health platform will provide strategies for managing stress with specific help for those from marginalized communities.

The money will include funding for marginalized communities and virtual primary care for patients who may not need to see a doctor in person.

"By helping doctors run appointments online, you can stay safe at home while getting care, and our hospitals can stay focused on those who need it most," Trudeau said. "If we can use apps to order dinner and videochats to stay in touch with family, we can use new technology to keep each other healthy."

In April, Canadian Health Minister Patty Hajdu unveiled an online portal aimed at linking Canadians of all ages to support workers and mental health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trudeau also announced on Sunday an additional 175 million Canadian dollars (about 122 million U.S. dollars) to support Canadian company AbCellera for what he called "very promising COVID-19 research," and introduced a new COVID-19 Supply Council.

The council will be tasked with finding innovative solutions and keeping Canada supplied with medical equipment like ventilators and masks.

"Until we have effective treatments, or better yet a vaccine, we'll still need a reliable supply of everything from masks to ventilators," he said.

Several provinces in Canada have begun easing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and are set to reopen businesses and services on Monday, including Ontario and Quebec, which are two provinces hit hardest by the coronavirus.

In mid-March, Canada provided 275 million Canadian dollars (about 194 million U.S. dollars) for medical research. It announced the creation of a new strategic innovation fund to allot another 192 million Canadian dollars (roughly 136 million U.S. dollars) to specific companies and research institutions working on new drugs and vaccines.

On April 23, Trudeau announced to allot additional 1.1 billion Canadian dollars (about 782 million U.S. dollars) for national medical research against the COVID-19.

"The better we understand this virus, its spread and its impact on different people, the better we can fight it and eventually defeat it," Trudeau told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa.

As of Sunday afternoon, there were 60,381 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Canada, with 3,791 deaths, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. Enditem
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's new code of conduct designed to bring fairness to the digital advertising marketplace will be world-first. But will it be world-class?

The fight between media companies such as News Corporation and Nine, owner of this newspaper, and Google and Facebook, pits print against digital, regulation against the open internet, market power against political influence, Canberra against California, Walkley Award winning investigations against cat videos.

ACCC Chair Rod Sims faces a difficult task. Credit:Peter Rae

Our online advertising market is worth about $9 billion a year, and for every $100 spent by advertisers online, excluding classifieds, $47 goes to Google, $24 to Facebook and $29 elsewhere.

But given the intricacies of social media ecosystems, the opacity of digital ad markets, the platform and publishers co-dependent but mutually antagonistic embrace, the fact that social media and search engines operate completely different revenue models, attempting to find a way forward will not be easy.
Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill has confirmed that the NI Executive has agreed to match the British government's funding package for Derry's City Deal.

Taking to Twitter the Sinn Fein Vice-President said: "Delighted that the Executive has agreed to match fund Derry & Strabane City Deal/Inclusive Future Fund of 210 million transformative for Derry and the NW & goes some way to redress decades of underinvestment after years of hard work by political, community & business leaders."

In a statement to the Derry News over the weekend Derry City & Strabane District Council said that all project proposals have been submitted to the government at this stage.

It is a year since it was announced that the Derry region will receive 105 million from the UK Government.

The package - 50 million for the Derry and Strabane City Deal and 55m for the new Inclusive Future Fund - aims to boost the economic potential of the city and wider region. It has now been matched by the NI government bringing the overall total to 210m.

Last week, deputy chair of the Northern Ireland Assemblys economy committee Sinead Mclaughlin asked Minister Diane Dodds for an update on Derrys City Deal.

The Minister said the North West deal is still being worked on and she hopes Heads of Terms will be signed off in May or June. She added that significant work has gone into it.

Heads of Terms is a document which sets out the terms of a commercial transaction agreed in principle between parties in the course of negotiations.

In November of last year the local council stated that this document would be signed-off within weeks.

Once it is signed, work will progress on the preparation of a portfolio of outline business cases for the full range of projects, a process expected to take 12-18 months.

Alongside this, confirmation is needed of required revenue funding to support capital investment, in particular in relation to the proposed Graduate Entry Medical School.

A spokesperson for the local council said it is continuing to engage with partners and stakeholders to progress with a pathway and timeline for bringing forward the City Deal to the next stage.

All project proposals have been submitted to government at this stage and Council continues to work with Government to advance with the signing of the Heads of Terms.

She added: Much has already been achieved in terms of the scaling and prioritisation of projects, the proposed governance structures and the processes and timelines involved since the initial City Deal funding announcement.

Discussions in relation to Northern Ireland Government match funding to the UK Government 55m Future Fund element of the funding package are continuing.

In terms of the Graduate Medical School and the much-needed expansion of the Ulster University Magee Campus, the council spokesperson said that these are key catalyst regeneration projects.

They have been described as critical to achieving growth and prosperity for Derry and the wider North West City region.

The Mayor last week led calls for the immediate sign off on the approval and long-term commitment of funding for the Graduate Entry Medical School at Ulster Universitys Magee campus.

The project has cross party support and there is widespread acknowledgement that it is a hugely important project for the city and wider North West region.

Derry City and Strabane District Council has voted unanimously on a number of occasions in support of the project, acknowledging its significance to the North West and to Northern Ireland as a whole.

The development of the Medical School and the expansion of Magee are intrinsically linked and will contribute to the overall growth of the City Region alongside the City Deal proposals.

Meanwhile, the Department of Finance voiced its support for the establishment of a medical school in Derry saying it is one of the priorities of the restored Executive in New Decade, New Approach.

Finance Minister, Conor Murphy hosted a meeting with representatives of the North West on April 30 to discuss the Magee Medical School, City Deals and the Inclusive Future Fund.

Following the meeting, the Minister said: "Todays meeting was a continuation of positive engagement Ive had over recent months with the North West. Ive already expressed my support for the City Deal & Inclusive Future Fund which will be discussed at the Executive."
Representative image

One of the first changes that came in the city folks lives in India after the COVID-19-induced lockdown kicked-in was the sudden absence of their domestic helps. The impact was immediate, and abrupt. As the country was confined to their homes, urban families were forced to carry out their household chores that was often taken as a given.

After six weeks when the government eased some rules allowing gradual resumption of economic activity, one of most asked questions, perhaps, has been: Can my house help and driver come for work? Many were also, possibly, trying to find out whether AC mechanics, carpenters or plumbers would be allowed to come in.

The lockdown of kind that India, and many other countries have imposed, is akin to a medically induced coma. Doctors sometimes choose to black out a patient as an accepted line of treatment. The return to normalisation, however, follows a strict medically-dictated step-by-step protocol.

The lockdowns effect has been very similar. Restrictions are being lifted, but progressively. Factories that have remained shut can now restart work, but conditions apply. Construction activity that were ordered shut overnight because areas with large gatherings were to be emptied out, can now resume work under certain conditions.

Domestic helps, carpenters, electricians, AC and car mechanics and all such self-employed service providers can also return to work, if local resident associations agree to let them in their areas. People have also been allowed to order food and other products on e-commerce platforms, and cab aggregators can resume services in several areas.

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 are gingerly taken, tentative steps towards rebooting the Indian economy, which until recently, was an engine for global growth and had set its sights on the turning in with $5 trillion GDP in a few years from now.

A key characteristic of the Indian economy is the services sectors influence in both depth and breadth. The services sector accounts for nearly two-thirds of Indias economy.

It is not just about the storied software companies that have fuelled aspirations and prosperity among the middle-class. The Indian services sector is also as much about those who have moved hundreds of kilometres from their villages to eke out a living beneath cityscapes as roadside tea vendors, vegetable sellers, newspaper hawkers, domestic helps, drivers, cobblers and construction workers.

Of Indias workforce, 90 percent is in the informal sector, millions of whom have migrated from their villages in search of a better living. In terms of sheer numbers, these inter-state migrants make up for a colossal magnitude, underlining their importance in Indias economic structure.

The Census 2011 pegs the total number of internal migrants in the country (accounting for inter- and intra-state movement) at a staggering 139 million.

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the biggest source states, followed closely by Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal; the major destination states are Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

The Economic Survey of 2017 gives a fascinating insight into Indias internal migration. It used monthly data on unreserved railway passenger traffic between every pair of stations in India for the years 2011-2016.

The key idea was to use net annual flows of unreserved passenger travel as a proxy for work-related migrant flow. This class of travel serves less affluent people, who are more likely to travel for work-related reasons.

It is also relatively unconstrained by capacity, hence reflecting the demand for travel, whereas reserved passenger traffic is more likely to be constrained by the supply of seats. That data shows that such migration within India is between 5 and 9 million annually.

This may have accelerated in recent years with higher growth in the construction sector and a host of economic opportunities as more areas get urbanised.

This has also spawned a bustling domestic remittances market, estimated to exceed Rs 1.5 lakh-crore annually. Effectively, this implies that migrants working in urban areas are sending money back to their families in villages worth two-and-half-times the annual NREGA budget.

These money transfers, from migrant labourers to villages, serve 10 percent of households in rural India and finance over 30 percent of household consumption in remittance-receiving households, buttressing the importance of urban growth for rural families.

The movement of migrant workers back to their villages need to be seen in this context. As the domestic remittances estimates, it could well be economically rewarding if they managed to get back to work in the cities and towns that they were engaged in before the lockdown.

The Centre, to be sure, have sought help these people stay put in their current places, through welfare measures.

On March 26, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman rolled out a Rs 1.7 lakh-crore relief package, in an attempt to limit the economic damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak and tackle the loss of livelihood of millions of poor hit by the lockdown.

The relief package, under a newly-framed Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Yojana, aims to alleviate the financial pain faced by migrant workers, farmers, urban and rural poor and women.

About 800 million people will get 5 kg of wheat or rice each month for three months for free over and above the 5 kg they already get.

A one-time transfer of Rs 500 per month for next three months to the Jan Dhan accounts of 200 million women will be made, of which Rs 10,000 crore has already been deposited. Women of 83 million BPL families have also been provided free cooking gas cylinders for three months under the Ujjwala scheme.

Collateral-free loans provided to women self-help groups have also been doubled to Rs 20 lakh for 6.3 million such groups, which will benefit 70 million households.

The government is also bearing the cost of the provident fund contributions, both of the employer and employees  12 percent each  until June, which have up to 100 employees and 90 percent of whom are earning less than Rs 15,000 per month as salary. More than 4.1 million people have benefited from this with government transferring about Rs 35,000 crore into the EPFO corpus.

Provident fund scheme regulation have also been amended to allow non-refundable advance of 75 percent from the provident fund for contingency expenditure or three months of wages whichever is lower. Until now, 8.72 lakh people have availed this benefit, withdrawing more than Rs 2,700 crore.

The central government has also directed state governments to use the existing welfare fund with Rs 34,000 crore reserves to provide assistance to 21 million construction workers to protect them from economic disruption.

The role of migrant workers in Indias economic rebirth cannot be overemphasised. The jostle to return home in the wake of uncertainty, and no work in sight, is obvious. However, their prospects could well be better staying put in the cities, if appropriate welfare measures reach them. Factories, construction sites and the informal gig and service economy in towns and cities are critical both to the migrant worker as well as the broader economy.
A leading Indo-Canadian organisation has written to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, appealing to him to extend emergency benefits announced during the Covid-19 pandemic to international students, including nearly 200000 from India.

Students from India comprise the largest contingent from abroad in Canada, with over 2 lakh from among the nearly 6.5 lakh. However, a large number of them have been stranded in Canada after restrictive measures were announced in March and colleges and universities closed while returning to India was not an option due to the lockdown in their home country.

However, the Canada Emergency Student Benefits programme or CESB, announced by Trudeau last month, is targeted at Canadian students, meaning citizens and permanent residents. Canada India Foundation or CIF, a leading community group, has expressed its dismay over the exclusion of international students from within the purview of the programme, in a letter sent to Trudeau.

The federal government must include international students to come under the ambit of the CESB because their circumstances are materially not different from those of local students, CIF chair Anil Shah said. The support announced will run from May to August and will provide CA $ 1250 to post-secondary students and recent graduates, with that amount increasing by CA$ 500 for those with dependents or those with disabilities.

However, Indian students may be suffering from neglect since they can no longer earn any income as many retail establishments are closed. Such students are allowed to work for 20 hours a week to support themselves. There is no way out because they cant return home, CIF stated in the letter.

The number of Indian students coming to Canada has increased in recent years, at almost 350 per cent over the figure for 2014.

Satish Thakkar, CIFs national convener said, Financial contribution of international students in Canadian economy around $22 billion, and it supports over 170,000 Canadian jobs, by supporting them at this very critical time will encourage future flow of international students from all over the world.
Months into the spread of the coronavirus in the United States, widespread diagnostic testing still isn't available, and California offers a sobering view of the dysfunction blocking the way.

It's hard to overstate how uneven the access to critical test kits remains in the nation's largest state. Even as some Southern California counties are opening drive-thru sites to make testing available to any resident who wants it, a rural northern county is testing raw sewage to determine whether the coronavirus has infiltrated its communities.

County to county, city to city  even hospital to hospital within a city  testing capacity varies widely, as does the definition of who qualifies for testing.

Testing deserts, stemming from an overwhelmed supply chain and a disjointed public health system, have hit hardest in California's rural north and in lower-income urban neighborhoods with concentrations of residents who already were struggling to get quality medical care. In the absence of a coordinated federal response, local health departments, hospitals and commercial labs across the state have been competing for the same scarce materials. Whether they are "haves"  or have-nots  is determined largely by how deep their pockets are, their connections to suppliers and how the state is allocating emergency supplies.

Compounding these problems is the lack of a state or federal public health infrastructure empowered to acquire and allocate resources on a grand and equitable scale. Hospitals and health systems where many people go for care are, by design, set up to focus resources on their own patients and workers. Their bureaucracies can't readily adapt to do the community outreach and education that could bring testing to the masses; nor are they set up to do the contact tracing that ensures that people who have been exposed to COVID-19 patients are tested and monitored.

Those roles typically fall to county health departments, which in much of California operate on bare-bones budgets that make it a struggle to contain perennial STD outbreaks, let alone a deadly pandemic.

Over the past two months, the state has triaged one testing disaster after another, but it is finally making headway on making tests more widely available, in part by cutting its own deals for supplies and expanding testing sites in underserved areas, said Dr. Bob Kocher, one of three people on a testing task force convened by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

But conversations with dozens of local health officials, hospital systems, scientists and elected officials reveal just how complicated a task it will be.

Take Lake County, a recreational mecca just over two hours north of San Francisco. With 65,000 residents, it has had so few testing supplies that officials have resorted to buying swabs on Amazon and pilfering chlamydia testing kits for swabs and the liquid used to transport specimens to labs. Through what the county has cobbled together, it has identified six cases of COVID-19, all found via nurses or volunteers who have gone out looking for patients. "We're basically having to do tea leaves to figure out what's going on," said Dr. Gary Pace, the county's health officer.

He knows the county has community transmission, both from the cases they've identified and because they've started running tests on raw sewage to check for the COVID-19 virus; samples from four treatment plants have come back positive. "It is a way to just get more information because we can't do testing," he said. Unlike the diagnostic kits  which make use of supplies every health department in the country is competing for  the sewage sampling is done pro bono by a technology startup.

While announcing an ambitious program to increase testing last week, Newsom highlighted the rural-urban divide. "One of the big struggles we have had in the last few weeks of this pandemic is getting to rural and remote parts of this state and getting up testing sites and making them available," he said.

Newsom is promising to dramatically increase the level of coronavirus testing, with a focus on rural towns and communities of color. California currently tests about 25,000 people a day but has a strategy to raise that to 60,000 to 80,000 per day. The state has opened the first of 86 pop-up testing sites targeted for areas in need. It is launching a program to train 10,000 workers to serve as temporary disease investigators who can do the contact tracing considered fundamental in stemming the spread of the virus.

Pace said he wrote the governor to ask for one of the pop-up sites. "Statewide, there's a situation where there's not enough testing, and if you're trying to demonstrate progress, the way you do that is numbers," he said. "We are interested in equity, though, and in my view, we need some horizontal coverage instead of just lots of numbers."

In Mendocino County, situated along California's rugged North Coast, officials expressed similar frustration. In late April, a health center on the Round Valley Indian Reservation got a rapid test machine made by Abbott Laboratories, distributed via the Indian Health Service. That same day, a tribal member came in feeling sick. That person tested positive for COVID-19, as did five family members. The county previously had identified just five cases, all linked to travel.

Dr. Noemi Doohan, the Mendocino County public health officer, fears a broader outbreak among the six tribes who live on the reservation. The state since has provided 2,000 test kits for people who live or work around the reservation. Doohan's office will have to hire couriers to drive 2 hours to a public lab in Sonoma County, which also has limited supplies, to get them processed.

It's every lab  and county  for itself

A mix of commercial and public labs are responsible for testing in California, and supply chain limitations have plagued them all. But those with deeper pockets and stronger commercial relationships have been out-competing counties and public labs with limited resources.

Rural Tulare County, spanning the peaks and foothills of the Sierra Nevada, is home to half a million people. It also has one of the highest per capita death counts of COVID-19 in California. Until recently, the local public lab was the only place in the county that could test for the disease. After borrowing staff from another county, buying additional machines, and suspending testing for most other diseases, they are now able to process 85 tests a day. Officials also can send specimens to commercial labs in other parts of the state, but say days-long turnarounds create bottlenecks for tracking patients and finding contacts.

Monterey County, in the heart of the state's "salad bowl" coastal farming region, has relied on donations  and horse-trading  to meet demand. A local hospital found the expensive materials needed to make a missing reagent and mixed a batch for the public lab, said lab director Donna Ferguson. The hospital also gave the county 1,000 swabs, which Ferguson used to barter with Riverside County for extraction kits.

And through the kindness of strangers, she found a stopgap for limits on another important resource: lab workers.

During an interview with a local public radio station in March, Ferguson mused that if one of the three microbiologists working in her lab got sick, it could be disastrous for the county's ability to process tests. The next day, she got a call from a graduate student at Stanford's nearby Hopkins Marine Station. He'd heard the interview. Could he and his colleagues help? The crew of six graduate students from three universities has been volunteering at the lab since, tripling its capacity to 120 tests a day.

Though the supply chain is a concern for labs of all sizes, manufacturers appear to be prioritizing orders from commercial labs and big health systems over public health labs, said Eric Blanks, chief program officer for the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which represents most of the labs run by public health departments in the nation.

Quest Diagnostics, the medical testing giant headquartered in New Jersey, is running 350,000 coronavirus tests a week in its facilities around the nation. But it is being inundated with samples from across the country, and even as it has worked to ease backlogs, counties and private hospitals are waiting days for results.

Kaiser Permanente says it can test 2,000 to 2,500 people throughout the state each week. Sutter Health, a major provider in Northern California, tests around 650 people each day across its hospitals. CommonSpirit Health, which includes Dignity Health hospitals, says it could process 50,000 samples a week if it had to. As of last week, Stanford had run more than 20,000 tests for Bay Area residents. (Kaiser Health News, which produces California Healthline, is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

But even the giants don't have unlimited supplies. "It really is the manufacturing lines. Theyre the ones that right now are the limiting factor," said Karen Smith, system vice president of laboratory services at CommonSpirit Health.

Moreover, hospitals are not set up to solve the broader issue of statewide disparities in access. They can generally handle the patients sick enough to seek out their ERs. But it hasn't historically been their role to arrange community-wide supplies and testing.

"You're not going to go to an emergency room if you're asymptomatic. That's the last place in the world you want to be right now," said Dr. Omid Bakhtar, medical director for outreach laboratory services at Sharp HealthCare in San Diego. "It's frustrating for me. I have the ability to do more [specimens], but how do I get them?"

Tests but no takers

In pockets around the state, some counties have been able to stabilize their flow of supplies, in some cases because they have more financial means, in others because of their relationships with major hospital systems and research institutions.

With more confidence in their supply chains, Los Angeles and Riverside counties say they are ready to offer testing to any resident. Several other counties, including much of the Bay Area, are asking more people, including workers deemed essential without COVID symptoms, to get tested.

But some counties that have managed to ramp up testing are wrestling with yet another problem: not enough people to test. The reasons are twofold. After weeks of being told they shouldn't go for testing because of shortages, the public seems to be adhering to that message even now that more testing is available. And the public health workforce tasked with locating those in need of testing is depleted.

San Francisco can test 4,300 people each day in its publicly supported labs but was receiving just 500 samples a day as of late April. Los Angeles is testing roughly 10,000 people daily but says it needs to double that to lift the shelter-in-place orders. Its focus in coming weeks is to increase testing among the uninsured and those in at-risk living environments such as homeless encampments and skilled nursing facilities.

Health officials say part of the challenge is they aren't getting the word out to poorer residents and communities of color, even as those same groups are being hit harder by the virus in many cities. In San Francisco, for example, Latino residents make up 16% of the population but 25% of COVID-19 cases. In Los Angeles, black people are 9% of the county's population but represent 15% of the deaths from COVID-19 for which race and ethnicity data is available.

Kocher, of the state testing task force, acknowledged the state has more work to do. But, he argued, there's also a sufficient amount of testing capability available today, especially via high-capacity commercial labs where the state says the vast majority of specimens should be processed.

"Right now, we're concerned with not having enough samples collected," he said.

When officials do slowly begin to let people return to work and school, experts agree that cases will go up, creating even more need for labs, testing and contact tracers. Preparing for that future will require even more resources.

"We need money," said Santa Barbara County Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg. "Lots of money. Lots and lots of it."
With everything thats going on in the world, many of us are dealing with more stress and anxiety than usual. Meditation can help with that. It has a vast range of mental benefits, from mood regulation to stress management, lowering anxiety and improving focus, says Carolyn Plater, mental health clinician and co-founder of Torontos Hoame meditation studio. From a physical health perspective, medical professionals are now using meditation and mindfulness to help improve immune functioning, decrease pain response and improve sleep. Some studies have found it can help treat inflammatory disorders and even increase longevity.

If youve never tried it before, now might just be the perfect time. Heres how to get started.

Start small

If a 20-minute meditation seems daunting, try doing three minutes every day and slowly building your practice. Its about the quality rather than the length, says Stephanie Kersta, Hoames other co-founder, who adds that shed rather see people do short meditations regularly than one long one once a week. We know that many of the effects of meditation can be seen in as little as 10 minutes per day. So you dont need to do a lot of it to reap the benefits. If youre short on time, try working meditation into daily activities. Try meditating in your bathtub or shower or making your regular walk a bit more mindful.

Focus on your breath

We know breathwork works faster to calm us down and reduce anxiety than the fastest-acting anti-anxiety medication on the market, says Kersta. If you find yourself experiencing panic or anxiety, try doing something called box breathing, where you inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and then exhale fully through your mouth for four to six seconds. Grounding activities, such as identifying five things you see, hear or smell can help bring you back to the current moment. Take a deep breath then identify four things, then three things, all the way down to one. Need to get out? Go for a walk and try to incorporate your senses in a similar way along with some deep breathing.

Experiment

A lot of people have this notion that meditating is sitting in lotus position and staying there for a long time, says Kersta. While some feel sitting cross-legged is most conducive to a meditative state, others might prefer to lie down or move around, walk or chant. Theres no right or wrong way to do it, says Kersta. Play around with the time of day, the different styles and themes and find what works for you rather than trying to fit yourself into this stereotypical box of what its supposed to look like. That goes for sound, too. Maybe you need silence to quiet your thoughts or a guided meditation app to keep you on track. Or maybe music is more your jam. Certain music can slow down your heart rate, says Kersta. Sound baths are also phenomenal; I call them the gateway to meditation because often people who have struggled with meditation find they can get into that relaxed state when listening to a sound bath. You can find meditation playlists and sound bath recordings online. Just make sure to listen to them with earphones for a more immersive experience.

Make it a ritual

While you truly dont need any props to meditate, diffusing some oils or lighting a candle can help set the mood. It tells you its time to get ready for meditation and helps get you into that headspace, says Plater. If you have the room and the means, you can invest in props like cushions and crystals and all of that, but really its anywhere you can get comfortable, says Kersta. Unable to find a moment to yourself? Make it a group thing. Theres definitely something about the collective energy of meditating together thats really special, says Kersta. If you have people in your home to meditate with, thats awesome. Im also all for including children and getting them started early. Look online for guided childrens meditations your little ones might enjoy. If youre on your own and looking to foster a sense of community, check out Hoames Instagram for live classes you can join.

Go easy on yourself

One big block for people is feeling like theyre unable to clear their minds. It really isnt about that, says Kersta. Its more about creating this awareness of whats in your mind, but not letting it stick. I always use an image of having your thoughts be clouds and seeing them pass by but not ruminating on them. Kersta and Plater also often hear that people are worried theyre meditating wrong. Any time youre spending with yourself is a win, says Plater. Truly, its impossible to fail at meditation.
Representative image

live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Bajaj Auto, the maker of Pulsar and KTM range of bikes, may this week resume production at its biggest factory located on the outskirts of Pune, one the several districts declared as a Red zone by the Centre.

The Pune-headquartered company has been in talks with the local administration to restart production at the Chakan plant which makes high-end bikes for brands such as Pulsar, KTM, Husqvarna and also Chetak.

Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director, Bajaj Auto said, Most likely, we should be able to restart production tomorrow (May 5) at the Chakan plant. Re-opening of the Chakan plant will allow Bajaj Auto to recommence exports of KTM bikes to Europe and other regions.

The company has already secured the green signal to reopen its plant at Pantnagar in Uttarakhand which caters to the domestic market. The Aurangabad plant in Maharashtra, which handles a bulk of the exports of motorcycles and three-wheelers, has also been allowed to reopen in a restricted manner.

In April, Bajaj clocked exports of 32,000 two-wheelers and nearly 5,900 three-wheelers, all of which happened from the Aurangabad plant. Exports in April were about one-fifth of the average exports Bajaj Auto did every month last financial year.

The reopening of the Chakan plant will have to translate to a similar opening of plants of its parts vendors which are located in close vicinity of the Bajaj plant.

Sharma said the current commencement of production is being done using the parts inventory available with it. However, any ramp-up in output will depend entirely on the ability of vendors to supply the required parts if they are allowed to reopen plants.

Meanwhile, Hero MotoCorp, Indias largest two-wheeler manufacturer, has stated intent of recommencing operations in a graded manner at three of its manufacturing plants  Gurugram and Dharuhera (both in Haryana), Haridwar (Uttarakhand) and additionally, the Global Parts Center (GPC) at Neemrana in Rajasthan.

These manufacturing plants reopen from today (May 4) and production at these facilities will commence from Wednesday (May 6). In April, Hero MotoCorp clocked zero production and zero sales to its dealers.

Pawan Munjal, Chairman, Hero MotoCorp said, We are now ready to hit the ground sprinting as we commence the re-opening of our facilities. With meticulous planning and enthusiasm, we are set to recommence operations. I am optimistic that business and the economy will begin the trajectory of its gradual recovery from here.

Heros other manufacturing plants have also obtained the necessary permissions to reopen and these will commence operations after most of the supply chain partners of the company get the permissions to operate, the Delhi-based company said in a statement.

Heros R&D facility  the Centre of Innovation and Technology (CIT)  in Jaipur has also received the necessary permission to reopen and will resume functioning soon.

With the easing of restrictions in several parts of the country, most of the companys extensive customer touchpoints, including dealerships, workshops and the secondary network, are expected to open gradually from today onwards, added Hero MotoCorp.
A man walks past a closed business on Chua Boc Street, Hanoi on April 14, 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh.

The ratio of Vietnam businesses facing cash flow problems, 47 percent, is higher than the global average of 37 percent, a survey has found.

52 percent of respondents reported customers stopping or reducing purchases because of the new coronavirus pandemic, compared to 29 percent globally, according to "Covid-19 Global Survey" by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

41 percent reported their supply chain disrupted, compared to 24 percent globally, stated the survey, which polled 10,000 world business leaders in March, with 279 in Vietnam.

Other challenges Vietnam businesses face include a reduction in employee productivity, having to defer the launch of new products and services, and inability to obtain supplies.

The Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) recently proposed a VND150 trillion ($6.5 billion) credit package for travel companies, which are among the most severely hurt by the pandemic.

The Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of Ho Chi Minh City (HAWA) also sought a 50 percent reduction in or scrapping of value-added tax, income tax and land fees for six months.

Covid-19 has caused major damage to Vietnams key sectors in the first four months of this year.

The number of companies suspending business in the first quarter rose 26 percent year-on-year to 18,600, according to the General Statistics Office.

Nearly five million Vietnamese workers have had to suspend work or lost their jobs as of mid-April, it said.
An intense thunderstorm pushed through central Tennessee on Sunday, May 3, with some Nashville area residents reporting downed trees and damage, according to local media.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a severe weather warning for the eastern Tennessee area, ahead of possible nickel-sized hail and wind gusts up to 60 mph.

This video shows the conditions in Mount Juliet on Sunday afternoon. Credit: @freecaykris via Storyful
At least two Trader Joes employees at different San Francisco locations have tested positive for the coronavirus, The Chronicle has learned.

An employee at the grocery stores Nob Hill location tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an email sent to workers April 28  the day management received notification of the diagnosis. The employee last worked at the store on April 10.

We cant disclose the details, identity or the medical situation, but the individual is doing fine, the email said.

Another employee at Trader Joes Ninth Street location in South of Market tested positive on Sunday. The person last worked at the store on Friday, and after learning of the diagnosis, Trader Joes closed the store for a thorough, overnight deep cleaning, the company said. The SoMa location reopened for business Monday morning.

But the Nob Hill location did not close for a day to undergo additional cleaning, and that has some workers concerned for their safety.

Its scary and very stressful going to work knowing one of our co-workers contracted the virus, an employee at the Nob Hill location, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job, told The Chronicle. There are over a 100 employees at this store and its concerning. I feel like they (Trader Joes) should be doing more. The Chronicle agreed to grant anonymity to the employee in accordance with its policy on anonymous sources.

Deemed an essential business, grocery stores have been open during the coronavirus pandemic and remain one of the few places people still gather in groups, though protocols are in place to prevent overcrowding, like 6-foot checkout intervals and allowing only a certain number of shoppers in a store at a time. Grocery workers have risked exposure to the virus while working  at least 30 grocery workers have died across the country, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million grocery store employees.

The crew member that tested positive has not worked at the store (in Nob Hill) since April 10. We have kept up with daily rigorous cleaning there and close a store if the employee is still working at the location, said Kenya Friend-Daniel, a spokeswoman for privately held Trader Joes.

The Nob Hill worker who tested positive has since moved to Southern California, and is still employed by Trader Joes, Friend-Daniel said. The store the person now works in, closed for a day for deep cleaning on April 28, when the company was notified of the diagnosis. She declined to disclose additional details of the location, citing privacy and safety concerns for the worker.

Trader Joes conducts screenings of its employees for potential exposure to the coronavirus and for symptoms of COVID-19 before every shift. It provides masks, gloves, hand sanitizers and other personal protective equipment to its employees and has installed Plexiglas barriers for its cashiers, among other measures. The company said it increased the frequency of cleanings, paying close attention to high-contact areas such as restrooms, checkout areas, grocery carts and hand baskets. Its also given a temporary $2 per hour wage increase to all of its workers.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

More Information Inside the newsroom The Chronicle strives to attribute all information we report to credible, reliable, identifiable sources. Presenting information from an anonymous source occurs extremely rarely, and only when that information is considered crucially important and all other on-the-record options have been exhausted. In such cases, The Chronicle has complete knowledge of the unnamed person's identity and of how that person is in position to know the information. The Chronicle's detailed policy governing the use of such sources, including the use of pseudonyms, is available on sfchronicle.com. See More Collapse

Trader Joes said it follows advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has issued cleaning guidelines for community facilities that have had people with suspected or confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

All Trader Joes stores were open on Monday. The company said it notifies the public if a store is closed because of a coronavirus case on its website and posts a physical notification on the door of the store thats affected.

Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @shwanika
Thats saying something. Gerrymandering  the practice of drawing the boundaries of legislative districts to benefit particular legislators, parties, or interests  has a long history in American politics. By some estimates as many as 90% of Missouris legislative districts have already been rendered noncompetitive, which is part of what prompted the reform in 2018. But those legislators seeking to overturn Amendment 1 like having safe districts.

All of this may sound rather dry and technical, but in reality it is not. In fact, it is an issue that gets to the very heart of our democratic government. Let me explain.

When district maps are drawn to benefit a political party  whether Democrat or Republican  the incumbents in these districts dont need to worry about the general election; its already in the bag. So for these protected legislators, building coalitions, bringing people together, and competing for swing voters are a waste of time. In fact, these efforts might even be counterproductive. The party primary is the election that counts for these protected legislators. Unfortunately, however, most Americans dont bother to vote in primaries, so the few partisans who do call the tune. And those few, by definition, tend to be the most motivated, the most politically passionate  the most extreme.
Three CRPF personnel were killed and two others injured when militants opened fire at them during a patrol in Kashmirs Kupwara district, officials said on Monday.

The incident comes just a day after five security personnel, including two Army officers, lost their lives during an encounter in the districts Handwara.

On Monday, militants opened fire at the Central Reserve Police Force soldiers in Kralgund area of the north Kashmir district.

Officials said the three CRPF jawans were killed on the spot. A brief shootout ensued as the CRPF personnel opened retaliatory firing. The body of an unidentified 15-year-old civilian was also recovered from the attack site .

Jammu and Kashmir police, CRPF and the army have launched a search operation in the area to track down the militants involved in the attack.

The operation is still underway, a CRPF spokesperson said.
The coronavirus was a so-called "black swan" event, right? Something unforeseen, even impossible. From the time of the ancient Greeks, the black swan was used as the symbol of improbability. Because everyone knew that all swans were white. Until the Europeans happened across Australia, of course. And discovered that the impossible had always existed right here.

Certainly, Donald Trump said repeatedly in March that the virus was "an unforeseen problem" that "came out of nowhere". It was, the US President said, "something that nobody expected". It's a common enough assertion. In the past three months, at least 614 articles on COVID-19 published in English-language media worldwide have included the term "black swan", according to a search of the Factiva database.

Illustration: Dionne Gain Credit:

Scott Morrison challenged reporters at a March 12 press conference: "Which of you understood the coronavirus was going to occur when we handed down the budget last year? A quick show of hands? Of course, no one did."

Morrison is right that no one picked the exact date of the outbreak. But it's not true that it was unpredicted. And it was certainly not a black swan. A novel coronavirus pandemic was predicted, by experts. And they predicted it not long after the first of the made-in-China coronavirus epidemics of this century, the one broke out in 2002.
Migrants returning from the United States were once considered heroes in Guatemala, where the money they send back to their hometowns is a mainstay of the economy.

But since the coronavirus pandemic hit, migrants in town after town have been mistreated, run off or threatened by neighbours who fear they will bring the virus back with them from the United States.

Similar mistreatment is being reported across Latin America and the Caribbean.

In Haiti, police are guarding a hotel full of quarantined deportees from the US partly to prevent them from escaping and partly to stop attacks from neighbours frightened of the coronavirus.

For immigrants already shaken by the Trump administration's hard line on deportation, mistreatment at home is a further blow, and a disturbing illustration of how the pandemic is upending longstanding social norms in unexpected ways across the world.

Vanessa Daz said her mother heard rumours that neighbours were organising to keep her from reaching her home in the northern province of Petn after she was deported back to Guatemala on a flight from the United States.

Daz had to run inside with her 7-year-old son and hide when she arrived.

When we arrived my mother said, 'Get out of the car and run into the house.' She was afraid they were going to do something to us, Daz recalled.

The Guatemalan government says at least 100 migrants deported from the United States between late March and mid-April have tested positive for COVID-19.

Even those who, like Daz, are not infected she was placed in quarantine at home for two weeks after arriving last month on flight where nobody tested positive carry the stigma.

The assistant mayor was going around egging people on, because they wanted to kick me and my son out of my house, Daz said.

The fear hasn't subsided; Daz's mother must shop for food for them all, because her daughter doesn't dare venture out.

The mother has filed a complaint with police, because she's afraid neighbours might yet attack the house.

I am afraid. The police came to the house and left their phone number, so we can call them" if there's any trouble, Diaz said.

But reason and the threat of legal action appear to mean little.

I have a document that says I do not have the disease, Daz said, referring to a letter given to her by the Public Health Ministry when she was sent home to self-quarantine.

Daz left Guatemala on February 14 and was caught entering the US two weeks later. She and her son spent more than a month in detention in Texas before they were deported.

The treatment of returning migrants by their own countrymen has become a matter of concern for President Alejandro Giammattei, who issued an appeal last month to stop the harassment.

A few months ago, many people were happy to get their remittances checks, Giammattei said, referring to the money migrants send back to their home country.

Now, the person who sent those checks is treated like a criminal.

He stressed that through steps like quarantines and health checks, authorities are trying to guarantee that returning migrants are free of the virus.

But on social media, videos have been posted of angry residents chasing fellow Guatemalans deported from Mexico who had escaped from a shelter in the western city of Quetzaltenango where they were supposed to be in quarantine, even though there have been no coronavirus cases among migrants deported from Mexico.

And when one migrant deported from the United States who tested positive for the virus left a hospital in Guatemala City where he was supposed to remain in isolation, the persecution was almost immediate.

The local radio station Sonora es la Noticias identified the man by name, posted photos of him and asked citizens to find him; comments on social media quickly turned brutal, with some suggesting the man should be killed.

A judge eventually ordered his arrest because he could infect others, but he remains at large.

More than 680 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Guatemala, including those deported from the US, and at least 17 have died.

Both figures are considered significant under counts because testing has been so limited.

Ursula Roldan, director of the Institute for Research on Global and Territorial Dynamics at Rafael Landvar University, said the government hasn't set up shelters for returning migrants or carried out public education programs in their hometowns.

The migrants aren't to blame. They have made so many sacrifices on their journey, they have sustained the economy of this country, Roldan said.

Roldan also blamed the US government for deporting people with the virus, and of fostering anti-immigrant sentiments.

Unfortunately, the tone regarding the migrants gets more aggressive when there are official statements, like for example when President Donald Trump depicts migrants as a danger in his speeches, Roldan said.

The Roman Catholic Bishops Council has issued public calls to respect migrants, saying the situation breaks our hearts.

How is it possible that both the governments of the United States and Mexico continue to deport people, during a crisis that has exposed the precarious nature of our health care system and a lack of effective strategies to contain the pandemic? the council said in a statement.

The example being set by both governments before the whole world is that they do not have the slightest sense of humanity, it said, while not sparing criticism of Guatemalan society, too.

This isn't about finding fault with others, when we here in Guatemala are witnessing the lack of solidarity in those towns that haven't allowed their fellow Guatemalans to return, the council said.

When they sent money home, people congratulated them and praised them. Now, when they are deported, without a dollar in their pocket, they are rejected and suffer discrimination.

Meanwhile, Daz is faced with the prospect of finding a job in a hostile town, penniless after her failed bid to reach the United States.

Asked what she would do after her quarantine ended Saturday, Daz said: Look for work.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Penske Automotive Group (NYSE:PAG) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 48% in the last month alone, although it is still down 28% over the last quarter. But shareholders may not all be feeling jubilant, since the share price is still down 26% 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). So some would prefer to hold off buying when there is a lot of optimism towards a stock. 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.

Check out our latest analysis for Penske Automotive Group

How Does Penske Automotive Group's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?

Penske Automotive Group's P/E of 6.47 indicates relatively low sentiment towards the stock. The image below shows that Penske Automotive Group has a lower P/E than the average (10.0) P/E for companies in the specialty retail industry.

NYSE:PAG Price Estimation Relative to Market May 4th 2020

Its relatively low P/E ratio indicates that Penske Automotive Group shareholders think it will struggle to do as well as other companies in its industry classification. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. 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

Probably the most important factor in determining what P/E a company trades on is the earnings growth. Earnings growth means that in the future the 'E' will be higher. Therefore, even if you pay a high multiple of earnings now, that multiple will become lower in the future. Then, a lower P/E should attract more buyers, pushing the share price up.

Story continues

Penske Automotive Group saw earnings per share decrease by 4.4% last year. But it has grown its earnings per share by 9.6% per year over the last five years.

A Limitation: P/E Ratios Ignore Debt and Cash In The Bank

It's important to note that the P/E ratio considers the market capitalization, not the enterprise value. 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).

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.

So What Does Penske Automotive Group's Balance Sheet Tell Us?

Net debt totals a substantial 230% of Penske Automotive Group'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 Bottom Line On Penske Automotive Group's P/E Ratio

Penske Automotive Group has a P/E of 6.5. That's below the average in the US market, which is 14.4. The P/E reflects market pessimism that probably arises from the lack of recent EPS growth, paired with significant leverage. What is very clear is that the market has become less pessimistic about Penske Automotive Group over the last month, with the P/E ratio rising from 4.4 back then to 6.5 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. If the reality for a company is not as bad as the P/E ratio indicates, then the share price should increase as the market realizes this. So this free report on the analyst consensus forecasts could help you make a master move on this stock.

Of course you might be able to find a better stock than Penske Automotive Group. 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.
Worker representatives are set to seek improved terms and conditions from the government when the pandemic eases following the sacrifices and dangers faced by frontline workers.

A special wealth tax, better sick pay and welfare supports, a universal public health system, green-proofed projects and improved wages for the lower-paid will be among the demands.

Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary Patricia King told the Irish Examiner that union leaders are finalising a document that would be the crux of a new social dialogue agreement with employers and the state.

This pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption, but it has changed the relationship between the state, businesses and workers. The focus is now firmly on basic services from the state to society.

Ms King said at the outset of the virus spreading here, health services quickly morphed into a universal health system".

Our document will say you can't go back. Build a public health system that is free to use. It has to be paid for of course and our document will set out how.

The ICTU general secretary highlightedthe huge numbers of people who have lost their jobs, a situation which shone a light on the gaps in sick pay, welfare supports and how these are funded.

The payments by employers here into the [social] insurance fund are among the lowest for Europe. This in turn is responsible for low unemployment payments. In the end, the lack of sick pay with the pandemic also had to be covered by the State.

Employers currently pay between 8% and 11% PRSI of weekly earnings. ICTU wants this increased.

We under-collect taxes here. There has to be a better and more robust social insurance system, added Ms King.

ICTU also wants higher taxes for anyone with wealth, assets or inheritance over 1 million. This should include if a family home value brings them over the million euro mark.

"It is not only wealthy individuals, but also tax supports and loopholes should be reviewed, added Ms King.

Union leaders are also consciously aware of the public's demand for a greener society. Ms King says this should be no different for employers and the state.

Public procurement should be green-proofed. If you are looking at a tender for buses, whether they be electric or whatever, they must be green-proofed.

What we are saying is we need to get this right. And there are huge outstanding issues, like childcare and housing. We need a new deal, we can't go back.

People are prepared to pay for this, as opposed to getting small tax cuts. This would be more valuable to workers than a few pence at the end of the year [in tax cuts], said Ms King in reference to Fine Gael pre-election promises.

A living wage for lower earners must also form part of a new deal, as must the recognition of joint labour committees and the right to collective bargaining in the workplace, added the ICTU leader.

Unions for nursing, trade, hospitality and low wage workers have fed into the new deal document.

The new government is going to have to talk to key stakeholders in the economy. Workers have shown their worth and value in society, added Ms King.
We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message.
One in five children will be urged to return to the classroom from next week as part of a gradual reopening of schools.

More than 1.7million pupils who are vulnerable or whose parents are key workers will be asked to go back.

Students in year six will be first full classes through the doors - potentially from June 1 - to help them prepare for the transition to high school.

Ministers will target later that week for a wider reopening of primary schools, before secondary schools allow pupils in years ten and 12 to return.

The Government is now preparing to issue guidance that will instead encourage key workers to send their children to school

Officials are looking at options including having classes in on alternate days or weeks to allow them to spread out

Key workers have been entitled to keep sending their children to class throughout the lockdown, but when schools shut six weeks ago they were urged to look after them at home where possible.

The Government is now preparing to issue guidance that will instead encourage these parents to send their children to school.

Just one parent needs to be a key worker for their child to be eligible but parents will not be fined for not sending them in.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, which counsels the government, is targeting June 1 for all year six pupils to be sent back to lessons.

These children are seen as the priority to get back in class due to them transferring to secondary school in September.

A Whitehall source told the Guardian: 'The focus is getting primary school pupils back first but only if the R [a measure of how the virus is spreading] is at a safe level. After primary schools have returned we will then look at years 10 and 12.'

The UK announced 315 new coronavirus deaths on Sunday, bringing total fatalities to 28,446 and putting the country on course to become the hardest hit in Europe

The 315 fatalities reported by the Department of Health is the fewest daily deaths recorded in over a month

Michael Gove revealed the total number of cases jumped to 186,599 following an extra 4,339 positive tests

The cabinet office minister said 76,496 tests had been performed yesterday, dipping below the 100,000 daily target set by the government

Figures from the Department for Education show that 3.7 per cent of pupils in England attended school on the first day that schools were closed, falling to 1.3 per cent by the beginning of the second week.

Welsh schools could reopen at the start of June, First Minister says Schools in Wales could be allowed to reopen their doors next month in a phased approach, the first minister has said. Mark Drakeford said the earliest point schools could resume would be the beginning of June, with a minimum of three weeks needed to prepare from the time it was decided it is safe for pupils and teachers. Some groups could return earlier than others, he said, using examples of year-six children who are due to move up to secondary school, and Welsh medium pupils who may not have had opportunities to use the language at home during lockdown. Mr Drakeford also said work was under way to make sure social distancing guidance was followed and to persuade parents, teachers and pupils that the school environment was safe, saying 'you certainly can't have schools reopen as they did before'. Advertisement

Attendance dropped to 0.4 per cent during the week that would have been the Easter holidays.

But the figures have started to rise with an average of 165,000 children  1.7 per cent of pupils  turning up each day in the week before last.

At the Downing Street press conference last night, Michael Gove said the Government was 'particularly keen to help vulnerable and disadvantaged children to carry on with their education during the pandemic'.

This category includes those at risk of abuse or neglect or with particular special needs.

Schools are expected to start allowing pupils back who are not vulnerable or the children of key workers from the start of June, starting with primary schools.

Officials are looking at options including having classes in on alternate days or weeks to allow them to spread out.

Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman yesterday said there is a 'great deal of logic' in targeting younger children to return to the classroom.

She told Sophy Ridge On Sunday that the younger they are 'the more they need routine'.

But Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: 'While we all want to see a return to some sort of normality, the National Education Union believes it's really premature to talk about a June return date.'
HVAMMSTANGI, Iceland (AP)  Winter storms isolated the northern village of Hvammstangi from the rest of Iceland. Then spring brought the coronavirus, isolating villagers from each other. Now, as summer approaches, residents hope life is getting back to some kind of normal.

High schools, hair salons, dentists and other businesses across Iceland are reopening Monday after six weeks of lockdown, after this North Atlantic nation managed to tame its coronavirus outbreak.

Iceland has confirmed 1,799 cases of the virus, but just 10 people have died. The number of new COVID-19 cases each day has fallen from 106 at the peak of the outbreak to single digits  even, on some days, zero.

I didnt expect the recovery to be this fast, said Icelands chief epidemiologist, Thorolfur Gudnason.

Icelands success is partly testament to its tiny population  just 360,000 people. But it also reflects decisive action by authorities, who used a rigorous policy of testing and tracking to find and isolate infected people, even when they had no symptoms.

That has helped Iceland weather the pandemic without resorting to the near-total social and economic shutdowns enforced in many other European countries. Infected people and their contacts were quarantined, but the rest of the population was not forced to stay inside, only to be careful.

A volcanic island nudging the Arctic Circle, Iceland may be remote, but it is far from isolated. Its Keflavik Airport is a trans-Atlantic hub, and Icelanders are enthusiastic travelers. As in several other European countries, some of the first cases of the virus here were brought back from ski resorts in the Alps, including the Austrian village of Ischgl.

Early vigilance was key to Icelands success. The country confirmed its first case of the virus on Feb. 28, and declared Ischgl a high-risk zone on March 5, two days before authorities there confirmed the first case.

Gudnason said Iceland had been updating and testing its response to a global pandemic since 2004. Hospitals had been testing people arriving from abroad for a month before the first confirmed case, and a media campaign urged hand washing and social distancing.

Story continues

Each institution involved in the response knew its role from the start, he said.

Iceland quarantined everyone returning from virus hotspots and began test-and-trace measures to locate and isolate every case. Bigger countries such as Britain took the same approach, at first. But the U.K. abandoned test-and-trace in March as the number of cases overwhelmed the countrys testing capacity. More than a month later and with almost 30,000 Britons dead, the U.K. is scrambling to resume testing and tracing as part of its route out of national lockdown.

Icelands testing capacity was helped by the presence of Reykjavik-based biopharmaceutical company deCODE Genetics, which early in the outbreak teamed up with health authorities to ramp up public testing.

Over six weeks, Iceland managed to test almost 50,000 people, more than 13 percent of the population, the biggest chunk of any country in the world.

DeCODE did not test people already feeling sick or in quarantine, who were tested in hospitals. The company used its facilities to test a cross-section of the population, and identified scores of new cases, including people with mild or no symptoms.

Kari Stefansson, deCODEs ebullient CEO, said the approach showed that with the use of modern science, even an epidemic like this one can be contained.

Icelands testing yielded new leads for scientists about how the virus behaves. Early results suggested 0.6 percent of the population were silent carriers of the disease with no symptoms or only a mild cough and runny nose.

Preliminary research suggests one-third of those who tested positive at deCODE infected someone around them, providing evidence that silent carriers do transmit the disease but much less than symptomatic patients.

In a random sample of 848 children under the age of 10 none of them tested positive, which guided Icelandic authorities decision to keep schools open for children under 16.

Alongside the testing, civil defense authorities set up a Contact Tracing Team, including police officers and university students, which used legwork and phone calls to identify people who had come into contact with infected individuals. A mobile phone tracing app was up and running a few weeks later.

Gudnason said the approachs success is shown by the fact that about 60% of people who tested positive were already in quarantine after being contacted by the tracing team.

Altogether, 19,000 people were ordered into two-week quarantine. Everyone else carried on with a semblance of normality. Primary schools remained open, and some cafes and restaurants kept operating, following social distancing rules: no more than 20 people gathered at once and everyone 2 meters (6.5 feet) apart.

Starting Monday, gatherings of up to 50 will be permitted, high schools and colleges can resume classes and all businesses except bars, gyms and swimming pools can reopen.

The entire country, however, must self-isolate from the rest of the world for the time being. Everyone arriving from abroad faces a 14-day quarantine.

That means a bleak economic outlook for a country that depends on tourism. On Road Number One, the Ring Road looping through Icelands coastal towns and villages, the Associated Press passed empty vista points and few cars.

Business can only go up from here, said Margret Gujonsdottir, 28, working alone at the roadstop in Hvammstangi.

The village, population 600, was hit badly early on. The town ended up having 26 confirmed cases of the virus, and was put under lockdown for a week while the transmission was being mapped out.

The local grocery store created shifts for customers so they could shop while socially isolating. In an April snowstorm, local search and rescue volunteers used their super-jeeps to drive hospital staff to and from work and shuttled warm meals to elderly residents around town.

Making each others lockdown a little more pleasant became peoples mission, Gujonsdottir said. It really showed me the benefit of living in a small community.
The New Look heels the Duchess of Sussex wore on her royal tour of Pakistan in 2019 are now on sale. (Getty Images)

Yahoo Lifestyle is committed to finding you the best products at the best prices. We may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.

The Duchess of Cambridge never fails to impress with her style, whether she is in a glamorous ball gown or more casual ensemble.

Duchess Catherine - who was formerly known as Kate Middleton before marrying husband Prince William - has worn a medley of designer dresses, as well as more affordable high street brands over the years.

During a recent royal engagement, which saw the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge embark on a royal tour in Pakistan in October 2019, she wore a pair of heels from New Look.

The 38-year-old royal wore a long collarless shirt, with white embroidered detail along the hem, complete with matching trousers and pashmina, all made by a local designer Maheen Khan for the royal engagement.

She completed the look with a pair of Pink Suedette Low Heel Court Shoes when she visited a school in central Islamabad.

On a visit to a school in Islamabad during the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's royal tour of Pakistan, the duchess wore a pair of New Look heels. (Getty Images)

Buy it: Wide Fit Pale Pink Suedette Low Heel Court Shoes | 16.79 (Was 23.99) from New Look

The New Look heels sold out swiftly after she wore them, but have since been restocked.

Now, just months later, the royal-approved shoes are on sale.

The footwear item has been slashed in price, as they have been reduced from 23.99 to 16.79.

The heels boast a pointed toe design, a sturdy block heel, as well as ankle strap detail.

This design is available to buy in two colourways, a pale pink, as well as bright red shade.

Plus they are available in a wide fit design to suit those who need a little more room across the insole, joint and instep.

What we love most is the shoes are vegan, and have been given the seal of approval by The Vegan Society.

There are alternative designs to suit other shoppers preferences, including a round toe heel, and platform designs.

This is not the first time the duchess has worn affordable footwear, as she was previously spotted wearing trainers from Superga and New Balance.
The Ministry of External Affairs on Monday demarched a senior Pakistan diplomat and lodged a strong protest against Pakistan Supreme Court's order on the "Gilgit-Baltistan area which falls under Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). The MEA issued an official statement slamming the Imran Khan-led government for continuing with the policy of subjugation of the Gilgit Baltistan (GB) region, which is "an integral part of India's Jammu and Kashmir under Pakistan's occupation."

Read: Senge H Sering Raises Worsening Human Rights Issue In PoK, Gilgit Baltistan At UN

"It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession. The Government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it," read the MEA's order.

The Pakistan Supreme Court on April 30 allowed the Pakistan Government to amend the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order 2018 to conduct the general elections as well as setting up a caretaker government during the interregnum period. Pakistan has reiterated in the SC that all rights to the citizens of Gilgit-Baltistan falls with Pakistan, thereby the need to amend the 2018 order to hold fresh elections since the present GB Government's tenure expires in June. However, Gilgit-Baltistan falls under PoK, and Pakistan has absolutely no locus standi in the area.

'No locus standi on illegally occupied territory'

The MEA has slammed the neighbouring country for its "illegal occupation" of India's territory along with continuing human rights violations in the area. Pakistan has been constantly under fire for trying to forcibly take control over the GB region with a spike in cases of land grabbing since the inception of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). In the 43rd session of the UN, Senge H Sering, President of Gilgit-Baltistan Studies called the forcible occupation of Gilgit-Baltistan a "China-led genocide".

"India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu & Kashmir. Instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation. It was further conveyed that such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of UTs of J&K and Ladakh by Pakistan nor grave human rights violations, exploitation & denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan occupied territories for the past 7 decades," added the MEA.

Read: PoK, Gilgit-Baltistan Leaders Praise PM Modi's Janta Curfew As India Fights COVID-19
Only for those stranded: MHA clarifies on inter-state movement

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, May 04: The Ministry of Home Affairs has made it clear that the inter-state movement is permitted only for stranded migrants.

This applies to pilgrims, students and tourists who have been stranded the MHA also made it clear.

It is clarified that the MHA orders are meant for movement of such stranded persons, who had moved from their native places/ workplaces, just before the lockdown period, but could not return to their native places/ workplaces on account of restrictions placed on movement of persons and vehicles as part of lockdown measures. The facilitation envisaged in the aforesaid orders is meant for such distressed persons, but does not extend to those categories of persons, who are otherwise residing normally at places, other than the native places, purposes of work etc., and who wish to visit their native places in the normal course, the MHA said.

Inter-state movement relaxation only for stranded migrants: Centre

Earlier this week, the MHA had issued guidelines in which it permitted states to bring back migrant workers. However, it made it clear that this would be applicable only to those stranded due to the lockdown.

This order of the MHA is mainly aimed at those 14 lakh people who have been housed in the various relief camps set up by the government and the non-profit organisations. The order said that it was applicable for migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and other persons.

An official with the MHA explained that if a person belongs to Uttar Pradesh and he has shifted to Karnataka on work, this order would not be applicable to them. These persons have either been transferred or have shifted for work. They live in their homes and hence cannot be counted as stranded persons, the officer also explained.

This would apply to tourists and pilgrims as well, who are stranded due to the lockdown, the officer further explained. In the case of the students, the order is applicable as the educational institutions are shut. Although they may be in hostels, they cannot be counted as stranded persons, the officer also explained.
Switch the Market flag

Open the menu and switch the

Market flag for targeted data from your country of choice.

for targeted data from your country of choice.
A customer shops at Peter Elliot boutique in New York City on April 29, 2020. Eliot Rabin, the owner of the boutique (L) is keeping his store open because he objects to the state order deeming his business non-essential, and says he has received widespread support for his stance. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

Small Businesses Defy Odds to Keep Going Amid Lockdown

Small businesses around the United States are struggling to get by amid CCP virus lockdowns.

While a few have remained open, defying government executive orders, some have adjusted their business models to keep going, even as their communities battle with death and economic loss.

David Smith (not his real name), who runs a home decor business in a neighborhood in Los Angeles, decided to remain open because he believes the lockdown infringes on his civil liberties.

I never closed my business, I take custom orders, Smith, 48, told The Epoch Times, adding that his business is down by 95 percent and hes using his savings to pay his utility bills. But I handle only one person at a time. The door is closed, people knock at the door, and then I allow only one person at a time and we follow adequate protective measures.

Like Smith, Eliot Rabin, owner of the Upper East Side boutique Peter Elliot in New York, decided to keep his store open, selling boys and mens apparel, despite an executive order that deems his business non-essential and requires him to close. He says he doesnt want the lockdown to disrupt what he calls the soul of his business.

Rabin, 78, has suffered substantial financial losses but wants to remain open because it sustains hope. Small businesses such as Smiths and Rabins across the United States are losing $255 billion to $431 billion each month due to the CCP virus lockdown, according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

Keeping their doors open, they say, is more about belief than sustaining an income.

Im not going to allow this to disrupt the soul of my business or the soul of my employees or the soul of my country, Rabin told The Epoch Times, adding that ever since leaving the doors of his business open to clean it, people just started coming in.

Tolerance is the key. Civility is luck. Thats the soul of my business.

People are coming in because theyre human beings and because Im a human being.

Eliot Rabin, the owner of Peter Elliot boutique, works in his shop in New York on April 29, 2020. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

Jeffrey Selden, managing partner of Marcia Selden Catering, which operates in New York City and Connecticut, decided to remain open but in a different way.

Second week of March, we were at a big conference in Las Vegas for Catersource when the world came to a halt. That weekend, we went back to our office on Saturday and created our Party in a Box and Fill your Fridge Menus, Selden said in an email.

We pivoted our business, furloughed 60 percent of our team, and opened our home delivery service and party in a box!

Selden says business hasnt been the same financially as before the lockdown, but they have kept it relevant and positive.

Waiting for the Loans

The immediate challenge that every small business faced as it became non-operational amid the lockdown was the inability to pay rent and utility bills. Getting loans hasnt been easy for most.

Kate Fryer, 33, established her businessA Bead Just Sothrough seven years of hard work and patience in the village of Ballston Spa, New York.

Fryer has a full-service bead store that supplies handcrafted jewelry, jewelry repair, and hosts birthday parties and ladies nights. While her business model was her retail store, because of the lockdown, she had to make a quick transition.

My retail store is closed and I switched over to online sales, Fryer told The Epoch Times.

Its very scary because my business, people want to come in and see and touch and feel what they are buying, she said. Its the idea of losing 100 percent of your business because people cant shop how they are used to.

Fryer, who is financially struggling, has applied for a paycheck protection program (PPP) loan but hasnt heard back from the bank. Thats also been the case with Rabin, according to an earlier interview with The New York Post.

The PPP loans are given under the U.S. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which provides $349 billion in assistance to small businesses facing difficulties due to social distancing, shelter-in-place orders, and other measures designed to control the pandemic.

Small business owners such as Fryer were encouraged to apply for these loans through their banks, credit unions, and other institutions under the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) rules beginning April 3.

A loan statement account status is displayed next to an iPhone screen behind reading coronavirus in Arlington, Va., on April 16, 2020. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

However, the demand for these loans is high. The SBA said May 4 that it had successfully processed more than 100,000 loans from more than 4,000 lenders, and Marcia Selden Catering was one of them.

We have been lucky enough to apply for the PPP loans and were granted that this week! Our business is a fraction of what it was, but are hanging on nicely doing all of our deliveries, and creating virtual parties for clients, Jeffrey Selden said.

Smith says he disagrees with the approach of imposing the lockdown, and declined to apply for a loan.

I refuse to take loans from the government because I dont believe in what they are doing, he said.

Essential vs. Non-Essential

When state governments imposed lockdowns to control the CCP virus pandemic, they closed all businesses that were determined to be non-essential while others, deemed to be essential, such as health care services, grocery stores, and gas stations, remained open.

Rabin said he cant understand why a liquor store would be considered an essential business in New York, while his business is considered non-essential.

I am just as essential, if not more so because I supply, I give from our staff, our people, and have bright colors, emotional support, cheerfulness after youve been cooped up for weeks and weeks, he said.

Smith said he finds the division of society into essential and non-essential businesses as unfair and discriminatory.

We cant distort the economy and destroy peoples livelihoods, we all are essential. We are all responsible for our families, to our children, to our partners, he said.

Rabin said his hope is sustained by the overwhelming response he received after reopening; he said hes received over 10,000 emails of support from all over the world since being interviewed by Fox News.

The phone doesnt stop. People are literally walking in, [saying] dont want to buy, heres $50 to help you out, said Rabin, adding that his store has become symbolic of goodwill and isnt just a business.

Fryer says going online has helped her sustain hope; she believes her business will survive because of the support from her customers.

I actually had a customer, right when this happened, she and I got very close and she called me and said, Kate if you need something, whatever you need, you call me and Ill make sure that you and your family dont suffer and that your business doesnt suffer.'

CNN Newswire contributed to this report.
Fresh satellite images have shown the damage caused to Syrian military sites by recent Israeli airstrikes reports Al-Masdar.

Image Satellite International released a new set of satellite photos that showed the aftermath of the Israeli airstrikes on the Palmyra area of central Syria.

The images showed the destruction of several sites inside a Syrian military base in the Palmyra area, which is located in the eastern countryside of the Homs Governorate.

The first satellite image revealed that nine bunkers, approximately 3010 meters in size, were struck and completely destroyed by the Israeli airstrikes that occurred on Apr. 20, 2020.

The second image released, claims that the Israeli attack probably intended to destroy missiles or an advanced weapons storage.

Last week, released satellite images show some of the destruction from this area; however, the photos focused more on sites that were above ground, like warehouses.

Since Apr. 1, 2020, the Israeli Air Force has launched a half dozen airstrikes inside Syrian territory, with four of the attacks targeting sites belonging to the Syrian Armed Forces.

The other two strikes targeted a vehicle carrying Hezbollah personnel along the Syrian-Lebanese border and a remote location likely belonging to the Iranian-backed forces in eastern Syria.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Two doctors of a private nursing



home here treating non-coronavirus patients were on Monday found to have contracted COVID-19, an official said.

Taking the matter seriously, the district administration decided to temporary close down the nursing home after shifting patients to other hospitals and sanitise it.

Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) of Indore Pravin Jadia informed that two doctors, one of them a woman, of Arpan Nursing Home in the Rajbada area were found to be infected with COVID-19.

He said the nursing home is under 'green category', which means it is not mandated to treat COVID-19 patients.

The CMHO said the entire staff of the nursing home is being medically examined.

Patients who were given treatment at the facility recently are being identified for coronavirus testing, Jadia said.

Areas close to the nursing home are being sealed and declared as a containment zone, he said.

Indore collector Manish Singh said at present a few patients are still admitted in the nursing home and they would be shifted to other hospitals.

After that, it will be temporary closed for sanitization, he said.

He said small hospitals and private medical clinics will not be allowed to reopen as it has been observed they do not take adequate measures for prevention of COVID-19.

As per official figures, Indore, the district worst-affected by COVID-19 in Madhya Pradesh, has so far reported 1,611 cases, including 77 fatalities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Goodbye lockdown, hello smartphone.

The race by governments to develop mobile tracing apps to help contain infections after coronavirus lockdowns ease is focusing attention on privacy. The debate is especially urgent in Europe, which has been one of the hardest-hit regions in the world, with nearly 140,000 people killed by COVID-19.

The use monitoring technology, however, may evoke bitter memories of massive surveillance by totalitarian authorities in much of the continent.

The European Union has in recent years led the way globally to protect people's digital privacy, introducing strict laws for tech companies and web sites that collect personal information. Academics and civil liberties activists are now pushing for greater personal data protection in the new apps as well.

European authorities, under pressure to ease lockdown restrictions in place for months in some countries, want to make sure infections don't rise once confinements end.

One method is to trace who infected people come into contact with and inform them of potential exposure so they can self-isolate.

Traditional methods involving in-person interviews of patients are time consuming and labor intensive, so countries want an automated solution in the form of smartphone contact tracing apps. But there are fears that new tech tracking tools are a gateway to expanded surveillance.

Intrusive digital tools employed by Asian governments that successfully contained their virus outbreaks won't withstand scrutiny in Europe.

Residents of the EU cherish their privacy rights so compulsory apps, like South Korea's, which alerts authorities if users leave their home, or location tracking wristbands, like those used by Hong Kong, just won't fly.

The contact-tracing solution gaining the most attention involves using low energy Bluetooth signals on mobile phones to anonymously track users who come into extended contact with each other. Officials in western democracies say the apps must be voluntary.

The battle in Europe has centered on competing systems for Bluetooth apps. One German-led project, Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing, or PEPP-PT, which received early backing from 130 researchers, involves data uploaded to a central server.

However, some academics grew concerned about the project's risks and threw their support behind a competing Swiss-led project, Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing, or DP3T.

Privacy advocates support a decentralised system because anonymous data is kept only on devices. Some governments are backing the centralized model because it could provide more data to aid decisionmaking, but nearly 600 scientists from more than two dozen countries have signed an open letter warning this could, via mission creep, result in systems which would allow unprecedented surveillance of society at large.

Apple and Google waded into the fray by backing the decentralized approach as they unveiled a joint effort to develop virus-fighting digital tools.

The tech giants are releasing a software interface so public health agencies can integrate their apps with iPhone and Android operating systems, and plan to release their own apps later.

The EU's executive Commission warned that a fragmented approach to tracing apps hurt the fight against the virus and called for coordination as it unveiled a digital toolbox for member countries to build their apps with.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former president could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of charges he dismisses as fabricated.
Press freedom watchdogs say Zimbabwes government continues to stifle the media, despite promises by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to relax restrictions.

Kudzanai Musengi was arrested recently as he tried to record police enforcing the lockdown rules imposed by the government to contain the coronavirus.

Police said Musengi was filming them without a valid accreditation card. The government media commission has said the 2019 cards, however, of which Musengi was in possession, are valid until the 2020 cards are issued.

The freelance journalist says his arrest is an example of how authorities prevent journalists from doing their work.

State security arms of government seem to operate in the world of their own," he told VOA. "Many a time, they harass, they arrest journalists, which is very worrying. We have seen an upsurge of these arrests especially during the lockdown.

Human rights groups have recorded at least 15 arrests of journalists since Zimbabwes lockdown began in late March. In most cases, police said the journalists were intruding in their operations.

Nick Mangwana, the secretary of Zimbabwes ministry of information, told VOA that some of the arrests during the lockdown are a result of a misunderstanding. He says the government regards the media as part of the essential services. He added that Mnangagwas government is ensuring that the journalists legal environment improves.



If you check in the last two years, Zimbabwe is the only country that improved in accordance of Freedom House index," he noted. "We have clearly been a different government, especially in the new dispensation to the previous one, in our approach to freedom of information, and as well to the freedom of the media.



For years, human rights groups and advocates for free media have classified Zimbabwe as being harsh toward journalists. The government of longtime president Robert Mugabe was notorious for arresting journalists and shutting down news outlets who published work deemed critical of Mugabe, his allies or his wife, Grace.

When Mnangagwa took power in November 2017, he promised to change that.



But Tabani Moyo, the head of Media Institute of Southern Africa in Zimbabwe, says proposed new media laws are equally bad as the previous ones.

Most of the reforms were thrown out when the bill went before Parliament, which is ruled by Mnangagwas ZANU-PF party.

This doesnt show a government which is breaking with the past, but which is intolerant to divergent views, whereby the press is seen as part to contest to power and is treated as such," Moyo said.

Moyo said the arrests of the 15 journalists confirmed their fears that Zimbabwes government is not in favor of press freedom.
A Chinese flag is seen as Liu Wanyong performs on his invention, an improvised bicycle which is held afloat by plastic tubes, in Zhenning. Liu is a grassroots inventor who mostly creates things that are related to the traditional village lives of the ethnic minority people in Guizhou. (Image: Reuters)
During a live broadcast and under the watchful eyes of dozens of other journalists, I tried to stay strong as Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, reacted to my questionone no other reporter had dared ask.

In an extended back and forth, Hun Sen said VOA twisted the news and asked me to swear on my life that my questions weren't planted. Throughout the exchange, I expected security to escort me from the briefing.

The prime minister's accusations were nothing new. Many government officials have accused me of working for foreigners to destroy peace in Cambodia.

Nonetheless, I kept smiling and I kept asking questions.

When I started as a stringer reporter for the VOA Khmer language service in August 2016 it was to contribute to independent reporting without fear or favor.

I am proud to be a journalist even at a time when press freedom in Cambodia is under restraint. Since 2017, conditions for the press have deteriorated with journalists arrested or harassed, and news outlets forced to close. New laws have further restricted the space for criticism.

Some journalists have warned me not to "push the button too hard" to avoid getting in trouble. I don't know if they told me that in good will or as a threat.

Government officials have used the way U.S. President Donald Trump verbally attacks journalists, saying they could chase us out of the conference room if we ask questions they think are not good for them.

But the independent press has an important role, even when under pressure.

Some local media organizations rely on outlets like VOA to ask questions they hesitate to ask, either to avoid accusations of being anti-government, losing their job or causing trouble for their publication.

State media often do not dare cover sensitive stories like VOA does. Sometimes they choose to attack VOA when the government reacts to our reporting.

For instance, if a government official accuses VOA reporters of "selling their head"working for the benefit of a foreign governmentsome pro-government media will accuse VOA of being part of a U.S. government plot that is against Cambodia. (VOA is funded by Congress but works independently.)

This was the case when video of my April 7 exchange with Hun Sen was broadcast live on his Facebook page.

After partly answering my question about the state of emergency draft law, the prime minister asked me to swear on my life if I'd been asked by someone in Washington to ask the question.

My answer was simple: I work independently, and people in (Washington,) D.C. don't dictate to me how I do my work. As a journalist, I know what questions to ask. In this instance, I simply did basic research, as the text of draft law had been available through social media.

As the live-video streamed and remained available online, supporters of the government and ruling party attacked and insulted me via social media.

Swearing on my life that I am reporting independently and factually is fine, but the insults and attacks for standing up for press freedom are hard. Several people have told me I should be careful.

Challenges to reporting

Since a media crackdown in 2017, VOA Khmer has been one of the key sources of verified and accurate news for approximately 15 million Cambodians.

Gathering important news can be a challenge when access to information and officials is restricted, and where asking a tough question, especially on human rights issues, can lead to silence or even jail.

Any questions deemed sensitive by government officials are mostly turned down or unanswered. Some civil society leaders and citizens decline interviews because of pressure.

Some said they were scared not only of arrest but also that they may be attacked. Some worried that talking to the press could impact their business and livelihoods.

Journalists also risk abuse or arrest for covering these topics. Journalism is not a crime, as the saying goes. But it could be should power rest in the hands of a corrupt elite.

Every day I experience these challenges, as do other independent journalists in Cambodia.

When I conduct an interview in a public place or coffee shop, I often spot someone eavesdropping or taking my picture. When I cover a protest, I sometimes see police or others taking photos to document the faces of those who attended, presumably to send to their superiors.

I have had officials deny me access to information because I work for independent media, or verbally harass me when I ask questions at a press conference. This has happened also to other reporters, including those from VOA's Khmer Service.

When I anchor a Facebook live stream, botsor fake accountshave posted insulting and hateful comments about me.

Despite these challenges, the few independent reporters in Cambodia remain committed to reporting the news

Because, without a free press, people will never know the truth about their society.

[Editor's note: VOA Khmer is just one of 47 language services providing independent journalism around the world.]
Syracuse, N.Y.  For the third time Sunday, Syracuse police were called to investigate a shooting with injuries in the city, authorities said.

At 11:37 p.m., officers responded to the Blue Star gas station, at 1410 S. Salina St., for a reported shooting, according to Onondaga County 911.

Someone who had been shot arrived a short time later at a Syracuse hospital, 911 dispatchers said.

Some police officers remained at the scene, while others went to the hospital as they continued to investigate, officials said.

Earlier Sunday, police investigated two other shootings.

At 11:31 a.m., city police responded to a shooting in the 200 block of Croly St. When they arrived, they found a man had been shot multiple times. He was taken to Upstate University Hospital and pronounced dead, Syracuse police have said.

Then, at 11:45 a.m., officers were called to another shooting outside Parkside Commons in the 1800 block of E. Fayette St. There, police found a 24-year-old man had been shot multiple times.

The two shootings Sunday morning took place about 15 minutes and a half-mile apart. Police have said they do not know yet if those two shootings are related.

No other information was immediately available about the shooting Sunday night on the citys South Side.

Syracuse police have asked anyone with information about any of the shootings to call them at (315) 442-5222.

Check back for updates.

Have a tip or a story idea? Contact Catie OToole: cotoole@syracuse.com | text/call (315) 470-2134 | Twitter | Facebook
State Secretariat for Economic Affairs

Bern, 04.05.2020 - On 22 April 2020, the Federal Council agreed a guarantee scheme to support promising startups encountering liquidity problems caused by the coronavirus. The government-accredited loan guarantee organisations facilitate access to bank loans for startups. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO has thus set out the practical criteria for this in consultation with interested cantons and the loan guarantee organisations. Loan guarantee applications can be submitted from 7 May up to 31 August 2020.

Based on the existing loan guarantee scheme, a special guarantee procedure was created to secure bank loans for eligible startup companies. 65% of the loan guarantee is provided by the federal government and 35% is provided by the canton or third parties appointed by the canton. In this way, the federal government and the canton (or third party) jointly guarantee 100% of an amount of up to CHF 1 million per startup company. The total amount guaranteed may not exceed one third of the startups 2019 running costs. In justified cases, the canton may deviate from this in its evaluation.



Startups submit a loan guarantee application via the website https://covid19.easygov.swiss/en/for-startups. The loan guarantee application is sent to the participating canton together with all the required documents from EasyGov. A body appointed by the canton reviews the criteria and forwards its evaluation of the loan guarantee application to the responsible loan guarantee organisation. The loan guarantee organisation makes the final decision on the loan guarantee taking into account the evaluation by the body appointed by the canton. On that basis, the company can apply for a guaranteed loan from any bank. Loan guarantee applications which were submitted in full from 7 May up to 31 August 2020 using the above-mentioned platform are taken into consideration.



The cantons of Vaud and Neuchatel were the first to have confirmed their participation in the support measures for startups. The list of participating cantons is updated on an ongoing basis and the responsible bodies and all information about the procedure is published at https://covid19.easygov.swiss/en/for-startups.



The responsible cantonal bodies can make use of an expert group which is coordinated by Innosuisse  the Swiss Innovation Agency  during the evaluation if required. This group submits an assessment of whether the companies applying meet the requirement as science- or technology-based startups.





The following 13 organisations in the Swiss startup ecosystem with a national focus participate pro bono in the expert group:

Business Angels Switzerland, Digital Switzerland, Gebert Ruf Stiftung, Impact Hub, Innosuisse, Mass Challenge, SEF4KMU, SICTIC, Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation, Swiss Startup Group, >>Venture>>, VentureLab (IFJ), W.A. de Vigier Foundation.

Which companies are eligible?

 Startups based in a participating canton and founded after 1 January 2010 but before 1 March 2020

 Companies limited by shares (AG) and companies with limited liability (GmbH) based in Switzerland.

 Startups that are not part of the agricultural sector.

 The startup is not in bankruptcy or composition proceedings or in liquidation

 Startups that are suffering significant financial and liquidity problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic.



What information is required?

 Current expenses. In particular, current expenses comprise wages, investment that is not eligible for capitalisation, rents, costs of patent applications and patent lawyers as well as costs for internal or outsourced research and development processes.

 Annual financial statements as evidence of current expenses in 2019 or, if not available, in 2018

 Business plans

 Company details, including contact details of a contact at the company.

 Details of the lending bank.

 Loan agreement and/or loan applications for any loans received in accordance with the COVID-19 Joint and Several Loan Guarantee Ordinance (COVID-19-Solidarburgschaftsverordnung) of 25 March 2020



Additional requirements

 The startup will confirm that it is not insolvent pursuant to Art. 725 CO at the date it submits the application.

 The business model is scalable, science- or technology-based and innovative.

 Any loans pursuant to the COVID-19 Joint and Several Loan Guarantee Ordinance (COVID-19-Solidarburgschaftsverordnung) of 25 March 2020 will be included.

 The loan guarantee organisation will decide on the guarantee, taking account of the cantons assessment. On this basis, the company can apply for a loan with any bank.



Address for enquiries

State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO

Holzikofenweg 36

CH-3003 Bern

Tel. +41 58 462 56 56

Fax +41 58 462 56 00

Publisher

State Secretariat for Economic Affairs

http://www.seco.admin.ch



Innosuisse  Swiss Innovation Promotion Agency

https://www.innosuisse.ch




Iran's warning: Nuclear deal will die forever if arms ban extended

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 03 May 2020 6:40 AM

Iran's top security official has warned that the 2015 nuclear deal will "die forever" if Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the accord is circumvented and a UN arms ban on Tehran is renewed.

In a post on his Twitter account on Sunday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani reacted to recent US efforts to indefinitely prolong the UN-imposed arms embargo on Iran before it expires in a few months.

"#JCPOA will die forever by circumventing 2231 Resolution & continuing #Iran's illegal weapons sanctions. Sanctions' virus is the US tool for survival of its declining hegemony," he wrote, referring the nuclear agreement by its formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Shamkhani also reprimanded Europe which has failed to fulfill its obligations under the nuclear deal so far, casting gloom over how the bloc would react to the new American shenanigans.

"What will #EU do: Save dignity & support multilateralism or Accept humiliation & help unilateralism?" he asked.

The UN arms embargo on Iran  in place since 2006/2007 will be lifted in October 2020  under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that enshrined the JCPOA.

The United States says it has shared with Britain, France and Germany, the three European signatories to the JCPOA, a draft resolution that would indefinitely extend the embargo.

The motion needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, Britain, France, Russia or China to be adopted, but the latter two, which are both parties to the JCPOA, are widely believed to block it.

To circumvent the veto, the US says it will argue that it legally remains a "participant state" in the nuclear deal only to invoke a "snapback" that would restore the UN sanctions, which had been in place against Iran prior to the JCPOA's inking.

This is while the US unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 and re-imposed the anti-Iran sanctions that had been lifted under the agreement.

On Friday, Iran's Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi said US officials' calls for an extension of the Iran arms embargo lack legal standing, describing Washington's claim to be a JCPOA party "a joke."

Additionally, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov criticized the US for not saying a "single word" about its obligations under Resolution 2231.

"US officials claim that the US retains the rights under UNSC resolution 2231. No single word about US obligations which come together with rights," he wrote.

"In particular, what about refraining from 'actions that undermine implementation of commitments under #JCPOA' (paragraph 2 of res.2231)?"

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski lashed out at the president Monday morning in claiming he is 'not well' and should let Vice President Mike Pence take over while he gets checked out.

'This president, I ask that you get checked out. I ask that you take a rest, I ask that you take care of yourself. Maybe let Mike Pence run things for the next week,' Scarborough said, referencing the third section of the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president to take over if the president is 'unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.'

The attack against Donald Trump came after he demanded Comcast reinvestigate a 2001 incident where a congressional intern died after falling and hitting her head at Scarborough's Florida field office when he was a Republican congressman for the state's 1st district.

'Concast' should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough,' the president urged in a Monday morning tweet. 'I know him and Crazy Mika well, used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record that he is 'nuts'. Besides, bad ratings! #OPENJOECOLDCASE'

'You're not well,' Scarborough continued in his criticism of the president on Monday's Morning Joe. 'Let Mike Pence work with Anthony Fauci, work with Dr. Birx. It would be best for you politically. It would be best for the country medically. It would be best for the Republican Party politically.Talk about social distancing, we're reading stories now about republicans who are politically distancing from you.'

Brzezinski also had her own choice words for Trump's tweet, claiming she and her husband are 'not afraid.'

'My husband has consistently held Trump accountable. Trump's sleazy, gutter tactics reveal his inability to focus on the pandemic and the growing number of people falling victim to this catastrophe that many believe HE made worse. We will follow the facts and we are not afraid.'

Trump was citing in his Monday morning attack a long-running conspiracy theory, which he has previously brandished against Scarborough, a friend turned bitter enemy.

Donald Trump urged Comcast to reinvestigate MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, pointing back to a 2001 incident where one of his congressional interns died after falling and hitting her head in his Florida field office. He called the television host 'nuts'

Scarborough responded on his show Morning Joe Monday, claiming the president is 'not well' and urging that Vice President Mike Pence take over. 'Maybe let Mike Pence run things for the next week,' he said

His wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski responded that they are 'not afraid' of Trump's attacks

Lori Klausutis was an intern in Scarborough's congressional field office in Florida when he was a Republican congressman for the state. In 2001 she fell and hit her head while in the office and died from complications. It was later found she had an undiagnosed arrhythmia and Scarborough was out of town at the time of the incident

Reports last month shared that Trump's daily coronavirus routine includes him hate-watching CNN and MSNBC from his residence in the morning. Trump often calls CNN 'fake news' and has nicknamed MSNBC as MSDNC, meaning to indicate their bias towards the Democratic Party.

The president is demanding Scarborough's employer, Comcast, look into the situation surrounding Lori Klausutis' death. Comcast owns NBCUniversal Media, which includes NBC News and MSNBC.

Klausutis died in 2001 at age 28 while she was an intern for Scarborough after falling and hitting her head at his Florida district office.

Local authorities later revealed that Klausutis had an undiagnosed heart condition that led to the complications that led to her death, and the official cause of death was attributed to an arrhythmia.

An immediate investigation found no evidence of foul play, adding that Scarborough was out of town at the time of the accident and her death.

'You actually tweeted something extraordinary cruel,' Scarborough charged of the president's Monday morning tweet. 'And I know you meant to be extraordinarily cruel to me, by attacking me. By bringing up a conspiracy theory that has lived in the gutters of the internet for some time now'

'You don't understand the pain you cause  you cause the families who've already lost a loved one. Not me. Not my children. Not anybody that knows me or  they know the truth. But, you once again drag a family through this, and make them relive it again,' he continued. 'As if losing a loved one the first time isn't enough.'

He also lamented about the president's 'working weekend' at Camp David, claiming the instead of working to help with mitigation for the coronavirus pandemic, he tweeted hate toward the media, conspiracy theories and an attack against George W. Bush.

'But this weekend, my God, you were supposed to have a working weekend. You got it wrong again,' Scarborough said.

'You were right when you said we are a country at war. But we're losing that war,' the morning show host continued.

He then launched an attack on Trump's overall response to the COVID-19 outbreak from downplaying the threat in January to April, when Scarorough claimed Trump said the virus would 'just go away' and not come back in the fall.

'Mr. President, you're getting worse everyday. You need to take a rest,' Scarborough theorized.

'You need to let Mike Pence actually run things for the next couple of weeks and come back when you're feeling a little better,' he reiterated. 'And when you can really, actually focus on your job, because you just can't do that right now. And Americans are dying everyday because of it.'

The president has referenced the case about Klausutis in the past, when just over a year after Trump was elected he questioned if the 'unsolved mystery' would ever be reinvestigated when talking about other media scandals.

'So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the 'unsolved mystery' that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!' he tweeted in November 2017, referencing Scarborough and MSNBC President Phil Griffin.

Scarborough and his wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski also slammed Trump for his 'working weekend' claiming that instead of working toward mitigating the coronavirus crisis, he spent his time at Camp David spreading conspiracy theories and bashing journalists

Trump held a virtual town hall with Fox News in front of the Lincoln Memorial Sunday evening as he returned to Washington D.C. from his weekend at Camp David, spending much of the time talking about the COVID-19 pandemic

The morning after the tweet, the two responded to the tweet by Brzezinski reading a statement on behalf of Scarborough, who repeatedly refused at the time to directly respond to any personal attacks from the president on Twitter.

'The president was tweeting yesterday, among other things, the conspiracy theory about Joe being a murderer,' Brzezinski read on Morning Joe at the time.

'Today the president crossed another deeply disturbing line with his attack on Joe. The chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America advanced a false conspiracy theory to intimidate the press and cause a chilling effect on the First Amendment,' she continued. 'Joe and I are not intimidated. His bizarre behavior contravenes both the Constitution and basic moral judgment. This is all we're going to say on the matter.'

Trump's personal attack on the morning show host and former Republican Florida congressman is no surprise as he has often lashed out at the left-leaning duo.

The president has had quite a rocky relationship with Mika and Joe, starting with a friendship between the former Republican representative and Trump as his unlikely candidates became a reality in 2016.

Early on, while others were dismissing the billionaire real estate developer's presidential aspirations in the crowded Republican primary field, Scarborough and Brzezinski admitted the plausibility of him winning and offered some favorable reviews of his campaign.

Trump also had appeared on their show a handful of times.

Gradually, however, Scarborough, a conservative Republican turned independent, began warning Trump was unfit for the presidency and continued questioning his soundness of mind and fitness for office well after Trump took his seat in the Oval Office.

The back and forth seemed to culminate in the summer of 2017 when Trump issued a tweet storm where he claimed that Brzezinski showed up to a New Years Eve gathering at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida 'bleeding badly from a face-lift.'

'I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore),' Trump tweeted in June 2017.

'Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me,' he continued. 'She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!'

In a duo of tweets in June 2017, Trump bashed Joe and Mika, claiming that despite their criticisms of him they came to his New Year's Even Party three years in a row. And he asserted Brzezinski showed up 'bleeding badly from a face-lift'

The president continuously claims he doesn't watch Scarborough's show  but tweeted last month while quarantine hate-watching television that he tuned into the first five minutes of Morning Joe

Since then, Trump often refers to Brzezinski as 'low I.Q.' and Scarborough as 'psycho' and insists the two and their show are 'nuts.'

'Watched the first 5 minutes of poorly rated Morning Psycho on MSDNC just to see if he is as 'nuts' as people are saying. He's worse. Such hatred and contempt!' Trump tweeted April 21, well into the quarantine and his routine of hate watching morning shows at the White House.

'I used to do his show all the time before the 2016 election, then cut him off. Wasn't worth the effort, his mind is shot!' he continued.

Trump also tweeted about the duo in July 2019, reminiscing that they requested to be in the room when he won the Republican primary election in New Hampshire in 2016.

'Just reminded my staff that Morning Joe & Psycho were with me in my room, at their request, the night I won New Hampshire. Likewise, followed me to other states,' he tweeted, adding that he doesn't watch the show.

Brzezinski has responded to the attacks, claiming in 2019 that it has 'gotten scary.'

She and Scarborough are especially critical of sexual misconduct allegations that have come out against Trump and his comments towards women.
With just over six months before Election Day, the odds of a Joe Biden presidency are improving. Despite being unable to campaign in person, Biden has opened a comfortable national margin over President Donald Trump. He also leads in most battleground states, including Florida and Wisconsin. If he wins every state now leaning his way, Bidens Electoral College tally could be significantly larger that Trumps in 2016. It would be a resounding victory.

Still, Hillary Clinton held a similar edge over Trump in the middle of the spring four years ago. To prevent a bitter surprise in the fall, Bidens campaign needs to focus on those demographics that remain skeptical of the former vice president. While the elections result might finally hinge on suburban voters, that holy grail of modern American politics, no group should concern Democrats more than Hispanics.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

A recent Latino Decisions poll reveals a clear enthusiasm gap among Latinos for both Biden and the 2020 election itself, with only 49 percent of registered voters currently committed to choosing Biden over Trump, and just six out of 10 planning to go to the polls in November. Compare that with black voters, who seem deeply committed to Bidens candidacy: In another recent poll, 65 percent said they would support Biden. While a mere 23 percent of Hispanic voters seem to be leaning toward Trump, the lack of interest Biden generates within a community already plagued by low voter turnout should be an immediate cause for alarm for the Democratic Party.

What explains Bidens lack of appeal among Latinos? For Democratic consultant Jose Parra, former adviser to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, Bidens troubles began with the campaigns financial constraints during the primary. Biden was running a campaign on very tight budgets, so I assume that was reflected in not being able to invest in the Latino community, Parra told me. During the primaries, Bernie Sanders campaign both outspent and outsmarted Bidens with Latinos. With outreach led by Texan strategist Chuck Rocha, Sanders invested early in Hispanic voters, setting up offices in various Latino enclaves in California, Iowa, and other early states and hiring organizers within the community. Rocha also had the political insight to focus on Sanders immigrant heritage and refocus the candidates Hispanic policy agenda away from immigration and onto health care, jobs, and the economy. The strategy worked. Sanders beat Biden by almost 30 percent among Latinos in California, and at least 33 percent in Nevada.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

I spoke with Rocha a few days ago from D.C., where he was having, by his own admission, a difficult time winding down from the commotion of a presidential campaign to the quiet of the coronavirus quarantine. He was eager to share some thoughts on Bidens Latino challenges. He was just not talking to them, Rocha said. They spent little time and money actually having a conversation with these voters.

Advertisement

Advertisement

And these voters, as Rocha noted, are not just one bloc. Biden has had a hard time motivating young voters in general, and Latinos are just younger, Rocha told me. Among older Hispanic voters, Rocha suggested, Biden faces a different kind of challenge. With those who are older, who have voted in one or two cycles, theres still some Obama hangover with immigration policy, he said. Deportations are still fresh on many peoples minds. At first, Biden was reluctant to distance himself from the controversial immigration policy of the first two years of the Obama administration. He finally did so in an interview with Jorge Ramos.

Advertisement

Rocha warned that Bidens current approach to campaigning from confinement is not reaching the Hispanic electorate. Biden is having webinars and getting endorsements and hes doing all the things that the status quo says you are supposed to do, but thats not how you talk to Latinos, he explained. You have to spend money, go have a conversation, and tell them why your policies are different from Barack Obamas.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Of course, the problem is that Biden cant really have a conversation with anyone in person at the moment, Hispanic or otherwise. The solution, Rocha says, could come from Bidens long list of Hispanic surrogates. People like congressmen Tony Cardenas and Ruben Gallegotheres a lot of members of the Hispanic caucus who are true champions of our community, Rocha told me. But Rocha thinks the Biden campaign still seems reluctant to properly invest in those surrogates: They dont spend money to get them out there in a mail piece or digital or television ads in Spanish, written by Latino consultants. Rocha compared this with how he took advantage of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs crucial backing of Bernie Sanders. Just her endorsement would have meant nothing, Rocha said. But taking her endorsement, making it into a television commercial in Spanish, and then delivering it to every Latino in Nevada or Californiathats how you use a surrogate.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Ocasio-Cortez is an interesting case study for the Biden campaigns sluggish Latino strategy. Rocha told me Sanders internal polling consistently showed no Hispanic surrogate polled better than Ocasio-Cortez with Latinos, but also among coveted young, college-educated whites. Incredibly, according to Ocasio-Cortez herself, as of mid-April no one from the Biden campaign had reached out to her, and she had yet to speak to, let alone meet, the former vice president.

Advertisement

The Latino Decisions poll offers one possible key for Biden with Latino voters in the selection of his running mate. As the campaigns vetting process begins, Biden is said to be considering Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. An impressive 72 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to turn out in November if Biden chose Cortez Masto or another Hispanic woman like the Nevada senator as his vice presidential candidate. (It has to be a woman because Biden has already committed to picking a woman.) Even more important: 67 percent said such a selection would likely inspire them to support Biden at the polls. For Parra, the choice of a Hispanic woman like Cortez Masto would be a watershed moment for Hispanics. Seeing ourselves reflected in a national presidential ticket is something weve never experienced. It would probably be a game-changer, he told me. And Rocha notes that the selection of a Hispanic woman as a running mate would give Biden much-needed free media attention within the Latino community. If you were to pick Cortez Masto or [New Mexico Gov.] Michelle Lujan Grisham, the press covers it and it gets out to the masses, Rocha told me. Thats how you move things.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

One more thing: While his numbers are up and his absence from public view does lessen the chance that he will have a viral senior moment, Bidens hibernation has had another negative consequence for Biden. According to the Latino Decisions poll, almost half of all respondents approve of Trumps handling of the coronavirus crisis, with 47 percent saying Trump was delivering clear and helpful information about the pandemic. That is a function of Trump being in front of the cameras on a daily basis, a luxury Biden doesnt have, Parra told me. But the Biden campaign has room to improve in reaching out to Latino media in order to create a contrast. That has not happened yet. Rocha agrees: Hispanics are not hearing from anyone in the community except Donald Trump, every single day, for an hour of primetime news, talking about how he is fixing this. Without pushback in Spanish, Rocha says, Hispanics are left with Trumps narrative on the pandemic. Theres nobody out there saying what hes doing to our community.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

In spite of Bidens lackluster polling with Hispanics, both Parra and Rocha remain optimistic. He still has plenty of time to maximize the Latino vote, but its going to take investment, paid communication to that community, and it needs to be done by Latinos, Rocha insists. Parra adds a warning: Dont assume Hispanics will show up just based on Trumps horrible treatment of the Hispanic community. The Biden campaign, he told me, should invest well in bicultural and bilingual talent who have a seat at the table in the campaign and who know the communities well. If Biden and his team stall, Latino voters could deliver, either through apathy or rejection, a loud enough rebuke come November. No hay tiempo que perder.
WASHINGTON - After Robert Kadlec was confirmed as President Donald Trump's top official for public health preparedness in 2017, he began pressing to increase government stocks of a smallpox vaccine. His office ultimately made a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion of the vaccine from a company that once paid Kadlec as a consultant, a connection he did not disclose on a Senate questionnaire when he was nominated.

Under the agreement struck last year with Emergent BioSolutions, Kadlec's office at the Department of Health and Human Services is paying more than double the price per dose it had previously paid for the drug. Because Emergent is the only licensed maker of the vaccine, Kadlec's office arrived at the price through negotiations with the company rather than through bidding.

The 10-year contract is part of an effort by Kadlec to bolster the nation's stockpile of defenses against biological and chemical weapons, a focus he made a priority over preparing for a natural pandemic, an examination by The Washington Post found. Kadlec, a decorated veteran and biodefense expert, has argued for more than two decades in government and the private sector that the nation should devote more of its resources to preparing for bioweapon attacks.

"Quite frankly, Mother Nature is not a thinking enemy intent on inflicting grievous harm to our country, killing our citizens, undermining our government or destroying our way of life," he told Congress in 2011. "Mother Nature doesn't develop highly virulent organisms that are resistant to our current stockpiles of antibiotics."

In the two years before the coronavirus pandemic, Kadlec aggressively pursued efforts to fulfill his vision for national preparedness, the Post examination found. He assumed greater control over acquisitions for the Strategic National Stockpile, which in 2018 was moved from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and placed under his authority, the examination found.

Kadlec scaled back a long-standing interagency process for spending billions of dollars on stockpile purchases, diminishing the role of government experts and restricting decision-making to himself and a small circle of advisers, according to three former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Kadlec committed additional spending to such biodefense countermeasures as smallpox and anthrax vaccines while cutting planned spending on emerging infectious diseases, despite warnings from scientists that a natural contagion could also be devastating. Citing limited resources, his office halted an Obama-era initiative to spend $35 million to build a machine that could produce 1.5 million N95 masks per day, as The Post previously reported.

This article is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former government officials, public health experts and contractors, together with a review of hundreds of federal contracting records, correspondence and other documents.

In an interview with The Post, Kadlec acknowledged his role in shifting the focus of preparedness more toward bioterrorist threats. He said he arrived at HHS determined to shield the public from attacks by America's adversaries, and that national intelligence suggested serious and growing threats.

"Even though the war on terror was still going on, the resurgence of state actors like North Korea, like Iran, like China and Russia, were raising the bar in terms of the risks of WMD offenses against our interests and potentially our homeland," Kadlec said, referring to weapons of mass destruction.

Kadlec said he overhauled the interagency process for managing the stockpile because it was overly bureaucratic and slow, a view shared by many in private industry. He said he is proud of those changes - and of his government work in general. "I served this country. I've served this country faithfully throughout," he said. "It's not like some kind of bumper sticker to me."

Kadlec and an HHS spokeswoman declined to comment on whether his work for Emergent - at least as recently as four years before his nomination - created a conflict of interest or whether he should have disclosed it to the Senate. Kadlec said the deal with Emergent was negotiated by contracting officers.

"My standing guidance for this contract, and all contracts, is to get the best value and most protection for the American people," he said in a statement.

The renewal of the vaccine contract was initially sought with more modest terms while the stockpile was still under the auspices of the CDC.

By the time Kadlec's office finalized the deal, records and interviews show, it had been extended from five years to 10 and the number of doses per year had doubled, to 18 million. An Emergent executive said the price per dose is $9.44 in the first year, more than twice what the government paid its previous supplier.

Carol Danko, the spokeswoman, said extending the agreement to a decade brought the price per dose down from what it would have been if the contract were for the shorter period proposed in the CDC solicitation.

Kadlec said the large purchase was necessary to "keep the production base warm," essentially to preserve the nation's capacity to manufacture the vaccine.

As the nominee to lead the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, Kadlec also did not mention on filings to the Senate that he had once been part owner of a small biodefense company with Fuad El-Hibri, Emergent's founder and chairman.

Kadlec "may not have realized" that his involvement in the start-up firm "could be characterized as one of 'employment,' " Danko said.

Emergent declined to make El-Hibri available for an interview. The company has been a supplier to the stockpile for more than a decade.

Emergent spokeswoman Nina DeLorenzo said in a statement that Kadlec's work as a "strategic adviser" for the company and his ties to El-Hibri had no impact on the smallpox vaccine contract.

DeLorenzo praised Kadlec's management of the stockpile. "We have more clarity and certainty as to what the government needs and when," she said. "We also have seen the better coordination, communication, and streamlined decisionmaking that we had hoped for."

In March, Kadlec was designated by HHS Secretary Alex Azar to lead the department's response to the pandemic.

Facing intense criticism for the stockpile's inadequate supplies of protective gear and other medical equipment, Kadlec's office has recently announced new contracts worth billions of dollars for respirator masks, ventilators and other medical supplies. Among the contracts was one worth $62.3 million for masks from O&M Halyard, the contractor whose design for a rapid mask machine was shelved in 2018.

- - -

Less than a year after 9/11, Congress voted to establish the Strategic National Stockpile. The move expanded an earlier federal warehouse of pharmaceuticals and vaccines to ensure that the country would be prepared "in the event of a bioterrorist attack or other public health emergency." Many government experts have since warned that emerging infectious diseases should be regarded as the most likely large-scale threat.

Last year, a simulation organized by Kadlec's office dubbed "Crimson Contagion" revealed how unprepared the government was for a pandemic. An internal report on the exercise found officials would face "cascading" funding and supply-chain shortages, including "scarce medical countermeasures such as personal protective equipment, diagnostics, and antivirals."

A bipartisan panel of former lawmakers and officials had urged Kadlec a year earlier to create "a framework for combating emerging infectious diseases."

But Kadlec, a physician and retired Air Force colonel, had spent his career focused on the dangers of attacks by adversaries.

He wrote chapters on germ warfare and bioweapons for a U.S. Air War College textbook in the 1990s. He argued that the government should build reserves of drugs to shield against anthrax and smallpox attacks, calling bioweapons "as lethal and potentially devastating as a nuclear device."

"Stockpiles of necessary antibiotics, immunoglobulins, and vaccines would have to be procured, maintained, and be readily available to administer within hours," he wrote.

In the mid-1990s, Kadlec was part of an elite Air Force operations unit and served as a U.N. weapons inspector hunting the Iraqi desert for Saddam Hussein's suspected stores of anthrax and botulism. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for service in Iraq.

He held a teaching job at the National War College in the District but left after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to work as biodefense director on President George W. Bush's homeland security council.

In 2005, Kadlec took a job working for Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.. as a staffer on what was then the subcommittee on bioterrorism and public health preparedness. Kadlec helped draft the sweeping law that established a framework for much of the government's preparedness spending today, including the office that he now leads.

Kadlec left government in 2009, when Barack Obama took office, and records show that he started his own business, RPK Consulting, two years later. He was an outspoken critic of the new administration's biodefense policies, especially of its management of the stockpile and the interagency process that was used to decide what should be acquired.

Kadlec wrote in a government security journal in 2012 that, for contractors, the "extensive bureaucracy resembles the Politburo." Asked a few months later who was in charge of U.S. biodefense policy, Kadlec told an interviewer from Johns Hopkins University: "The reality is, it doesn't seem to be anyone is in charge at the current time."

- - -

In the summer of 2012, Kadlec and El-Hibri formed the small biodefense company, East West Protection, with W. Craig Vanderwagen, who had worked in the Bush administration as the first leader of ASPR. Records show that Kadlec was managing director and a part owner of the firm.

The firm sought a contract from Saudi Arabia to build a biodefense system, Vanderwagen told The Post. It did not ultimately win the business with the kingdom, he said. It sold services to authorities in Alaska and Wisconsin.

As a self-employed biosecurity consultant, Kadlec was paid more than $451,000 in 2014, according to a disclosure form he submitted when Burr hired him the following year, this time as a staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee. He also disclosed his involvement in the biodefense company with El-Hibri.

Kadlec reported that 13 clients had each paid him more than $5,000 for consulting work between 2013 and 2014, including a pharmaceutical trade group, an industry lobbying organization and companies such as Emergent and Danish pharmaceutical firm Bavarian Nordic.

He promoted the companies' medical products overseas, said a senior HHS official with knowledge of Kadlec's work, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Kadlec had become a familiar presence in industry circles and was widely known to lobbyists, contractors and others as "Dr. Bob."

"Everybody loves Dr. Bob," said Steve Cash, a former CIA officer and founder of Deck Prism, a federal contractor that retained Kadlec as a consultant. In an email to The Post, Cash called Kadlec a "national treasure."

In July 2017, Trump nominated Kadlec to lead ASPR. Kadlec was required to submit to the Senate health committee a detailed ethics form reporting his professional and financial activity in recent years.

One section of the Senate questionnaire asked for details of any "business relationship, dealing or financial transaction which you have had during the last five years whether for yourself, on behalf of a client, or acting as an agent, that constitutes a potential conflict of interest with the position to which you have been nominated."

At the time, Emergent and Bavarian Nordic - his former consulting clients - were working as medical supply contractors for the government office he was nominated to lead. His involvement in the start-up firm with El-Hibri had ended 30 months earlier.

Kadlec answered: "None."

In a section that asked for details of "all of your employment activities," Kadlec reported having had 14 jobs dating back to the 1980s, along with periods of education, military leave and a spell of unemployment. He listed RPK Consulting but did not identify its clients. He did not mention East West Protection.

Danko said Kadlec "received neither earned nor investment income" from East West Protection. "At the time of his 2017 confirmation by the Senate to be the ASPR, no potential conflict existed," Danko said.

Records show that he sold his stake in the firm to El-Hibri for $20,000.

In paperwork filed with the Office of Government Ethics, Kadlec said he would "not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that to my knowledge has a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of" his consulting work.

- - -

Once confirmed, Kadlec assumed his post in mid-August 2017 and immediately began pivoting ASPR's focus, according to former senior officials and Kadlec himself.

"There was definitely a shift in thinking, and to some extent a shift in priorities," one former official told The Post. "More focus on biologic attacks, intentional attacks, terrorist attacks, and definitely away from natural disease outbreaks."

Kadlec moved swiftly to change the process for supplying the stockpile. Called the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise, or PHEMCE, the process brought together a large group of senior officials from the Health, Defense, Homeland Security and other departments. As the chief of ASPR, Kadlec led its senior council.

Even supporters acknowledge the PHEMCE process could be laborious. But officials from multiple administrations said in interviews that it ensured expertise and open debate from across government before important decisions about the acquisition of vaccines and other vital supplies.

At the heart of PHEMCE for more than a decade was an executive committee of senior officials, a layer below the council led by Kadlec. The executive committee met twice a month and oversaw a network of expert working groups that supplied detailed data on such threats as flu, emerging diseases, smallpox and others.

Kadlec considered that approach to be too "bottom-up." Under his leadership, the office has adopted a "top-down" approach, according to the senior HHS official with knowledge of his work.

Kadlec has largely replaced the old system for making final buying decisions with more exclusive gatherings in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF. Invitees often include his deputy and his counterpart for chemical and biological defense at the Pentagon, the official said.

In the interview with The Post, Kadlec said deliberations needed to be shielded from foreign spies.

"There has been foreign penetration by hostile governments stealing not only our intellectual property but our national security information. And that was something that I wanted to correct. So we don't hold it in the open anymore," he said. "So that's why that changed dramatically on my watch. And again, I can't say I have any regrets."

The changes in part prompted George W. Korch, a career official who chaired the committee Kadlec scrapped, to leave Kadlec's office, according to three former officials.

Kadlec said he had the "greatest regard" for Korch and that Korch left to take a job leading a government laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. "As he shared with me, the opportunity allowed him to go back to his science roots and his home," Kadlec said in a statement.

Korch declined to comment on his departure.

- - -

Executives at Emergent specifically identified transferring the stockpile from the CDC to ASPR as part of their annual corporate strategy for 2017, according to people familiar with it. Like many large contractors, the company has long cultivated relationships in Washington, and it has spent almost $45 million on lobbying since 2005, records show.

DeLorenzo, the Emergent spokeswoman, confirmed that the company encouraged the transfer of the stockpile, saying it believed the move would "streamline the delivery" of products and "reduce bureaucracy."

The company was not alone in that sentiment.

Other suppliers were also frustrated by the CDC's stewardship of the stockpile, according to former officials and executives involved in the process. Some saw the CDC as set in its ways and uninterested in new products, they said.

Kadlec acknowledged in a 2018 interview with The Post that the move was a priority for contractors. "I don't know specifically about the pushes they have done, but I do know that from a standpoint of efficiencies and effectiveness and cost savings . . . having a centralized, single point of contracting is going to probably make it easier for the companies," he said.

At HHS, the idea of transferring the stockpile had been discussed at least as far back as the summer of 2017, shortly before Kadlec's nomination, according to an email obtained by The Post. Chris Meekins, a former congressional staffer who was then an applicant for a senior position in ASPR, wrote the email to document a conversation he had had with Tom Price, then the HHS secretary.

Meekins, who had close ties to the biodefense world and later became Kadlec's chief of staff at ASPR, wrote that he had told Price that putting the stockpile under the control of the assistant secretary would improve the nation's response in a crisis.

In February 2018, the administration signaled in its proposed budget for the following year that it intended to transfer the stockpile, with contents worth $7 billion, to Kadlec's office.

Some public health officials found the idea perplexing.

"I remember thinking, 'That's crazy!' " said Peter Kyriacopoulos, chief policy officer at the Association of Public Health Laboratories. "I started scratching my head, 'Why is this happening?' " he said. "I'm still scratching my head."

The move detached the stockpile from grant programs administered by the CDC to prod state and local governments to better prepare for public health emergencies and ensure they knew when and how to call on the stockpile for assistance.

Some senior officials at the CDC and the White House National Security Council told Kadlec the move would be a mistake, one current and one former official said. But HHS leaders pressed ahead, and the transfer took effect on Oct. 1, 2018.

In the interview, Kadlec said he backed the move. "I supported it from the standpoint that it was the right thing to do," he said. "And also, quite frankly, it was more efficient."

- - -

In July 2017, four days after Kadlec's nomination, Emergent announced that it was acquiring the rights to the smallpox vaccine, known as ACAM2000, from the government's previous supplier.

That supplier's 10-year contract was worth about $425 million. A spokesman for Sanofi Pasteur, the supplier, said it was charging $4.27 per dose by the end of its involvement.

A notice issued by the CDC in August 2018 said the agency intended to contract Emergent to supply the smallpox vaccine for up to five years, starting with 9 million doses per year.

When Kadlec announced the contract in September, for 10 years, he said in a statement: "The virus remains a potential threat to national and global health security. Having vaccines and treatments at-the-ready will be imperative to saving lives."

The new contract called for 18 million doses per year and for Emergent to be paid $9.44 per dose in the first year, a figure that will rise in the coming years, according to Robert Burrows, Emergent's vice president for investor relations.

Danko declined to confirm the price per dose, citing national security and business privacy concerns.

Kadlec said the terms of the contract are "consistent with what you find sometimes in the Department of Defense when you extend a contract over 10 or more years, what you're finding is that you pay a little bit more." He did not elaborate.

The stockpile was already well-supplied with smallpox vaccine in 2018, according to a senior official then involved in the process. The CDC said on its website in June 2019 - and continues to say - that it had enough smallpox vaccine for every American. The doses must be replenished as they expire.

Kadlec told The Post that the scale of the contract was aimed at ensuring that "you basically have a sustainable supply of this, God forbid you ever need it."

Kadlec's office has also awarded Emergent a contract worth up to $535 million to supply a product that treats side effects caused by smallpox vaccinations in a small percentage of patients. Last year, his office exercised a $260 million option to extend an Obama-era contract with Emergent for an anthrax vaccine. And Emergent has a deal worth up to $67.1 million to supply Kadlec's office with a drug to treat cyanide exposure.

In all, records show, ASPR has paid Emergent more than $733 million since Kadlec took over, making the company his office's top contractor.

The company's annual payments from the federal government have risen under Trump and are 50 percent higher than in the Bush and Obama years. Federal contracts now account for about one-third of the company's revenue.

In an annual report filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission in February, Emergent said its business "could be materially harmed" if the government's priorities for the stockpile were to change.

Weeks into the coronavirus pandemic, records show, Kadlec's office has signed contracts totaling $468 million with six mask suppliers. It has signed deals for more than $2.3 billion worth of ventilators. Last month, it awarded Emergent a contract worth up to $22 million to develop a covid-19 therapy.

Testifying to Congress in March, Kadlec said that he and other architects of the government's preparedness system had not fully accounted for a scenario like the covid-19 crisis.

"We did not consider a situation like this today," Kadlec told a House committee on March 12. "We thought about vaccines. We thought about therapeutics. We never thought about respirators being our first and only line of defense for health-care workers."

- - -

The Washington Post's Lena H. Sun and Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Donald Trump used a Fox News town hall to complain about the media's "hostility": REUTERS

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told Donald Trump to take a rest and suggested that Mike Pence handle the nations coronavirus response after the president fired off an extraordinarily cruel message invoking the false idea that the presenter and former congressman should be investigated for murder.

Mr Trump said: Concast should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough ... I know him and Crazy Mika well, used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record that he is nuts. Besides, bad ratings! #OPENJOECOLDCASE

The cold case to which Mr Trump refers is the death of 28-year-old Lori Klausutis, a former intern of Mr Scarboroughs who was found dead in his district office while he was still serving as a congressman in 2001. Her death was not ruled suspicious; she sustained a fatal head injury when she fell thanks to a heart episode.

Mr Scarborough responded directly to the president on his Monday show, saying: I know you meant to be extraordinarily cruel to me by attacking me, by bringing up a conspiracy theory that has lived in the gutters of the Internet for some time now. But just like the Seth Rich conspiracy murder that was pushed by your allies, you dont understand the pain you cause.

He told the president you need to take a rest and said he should let his vice president actually run things for the next couple of weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Morning Joe host criticised the president for spending a working weekend away from the White House tweeting conspiracy theories and other attacks against media colleagues and former president George W Bush.

Really? he said. You have time for this? ... Come back when youre feeling a little better and when you can really actually focus on your job. You just cant do that right now. Americans are dying every day because of it.

He said that the presidents accusations drudge up pain for the families whove already lost a loved one. Not me. Not my children. Not anybody that knows me. They know the truth. You once again drag a family through this and make them relive it again, just like Seth Richs parents, as if losing a loved one the first time isnt enough.

Story continues

Morning Joe and its presenters have been among the presidents most frequent targets on Twitter since his presidency began. This has increasingly included labelling Mr Scarborough psycho Joe, though Mr Trump has also applied the epithet to his co-host and spouse Mika Brzezinski on occasion.

Ms Brzezinski was herself the target of one of the most aggressive Twitter attacks of the presidents early administration, in June 2017, when he claimed to have turned her away from his Florida resort on the grounds that she was still haemorrhaging blood after plastic surgery.

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (dont watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Years Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

Mr Trumps latest attack on Mr Scarborough comes the day after Press Freedom Day, which he did not acknowledge. Instead, he started his morning with another vent of rage directed at the media: The Fake News doesnt show real polls. Lamestream Media is totally CORRUPT, the Enemy of the People! At a Fox News town hall that evening, he complained that 94 or 95 per cent of the press is hostile, and that he is treated worse by the press even than Abraham Lincoln, beside whose memorial he was being interviewed.

Mr Scarboroughs supposed involvement in a suspicious death is seemingly not the only conspiracy theory on Mr Trumps mind. The same night he railed against the media on Fox, the president retweeted a blog post from a far-right conspiracy theorist claiming that Barack Obama was the one running the Russia hoax.

Read more

Trump says Mexico has big coronavirus problems despite evidence

Trump supporter tells him to stop his bullying and answer questions

I want it, I need it: Trump hopes Covid-19 vaccine ready in months

Trump calls coronavirus pandemic a great and powerful plague
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 18:25:30

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 842 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

Biometrics industry is having a moment during the pandemic, with upsurge in adoption of AI to combat the outbreak; digital security measures offer tailwinds.DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Greater emphasis on public safety monitoring and soaring need for patient screening and early detection are pushing the demand for more sophisticated touch-less biometrics technology. Driven by broadening application for identity verification, payments, transactions, and access control, global contactless biometrics technology market will grow exponentially at over 17% through 2030.As indicated by a new report of Future Market Insights (FMI), the novel coronavirus outbreak will have a widespread influence on contactless biometrics technology market. A considerable uptick in online transactions will be a complementary force. Adoption rates will remain higher at facilities that require stringent surveillance, law enforcement, and access control. Key companies are leveraging demand from law enforced and government sectors. Healthcare and biotechnology facilities would account for a majority of demand, especially for facial recognition systems."An influx of innovative and secure avenues of healthcare applications will arise amid the COVID-19 pandemic, fostering demand specifically for iris recognition and facial recognition systems," projects the FMI report.Request report sample with 250+ pages to gain in-depth market insights at https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-11283 Contactless Biometrics Technology Market - Key TakeawaysApplication for facial recognition will experience a boom, with soaring demand for verification and access control.Demand for application in identity verification is soaring, followed closely by access control.Software installed base continues to account for a significant market share.North American market continues to lead, majorly driven by military and government applications.Contactless Biometrics Technology Market - Key Driving FactorsIncreasing government investments in iris recognition, facial biometrics, and fever detection is driving market growth.Declining preference for contact forms of biometrics among enterprises, healthcare facilities, and border control units has augured well for market growth.Visible rise in collaborations between biometric system vendors and governments for introducing citizen-centric contactless solutions is pushing demand further.Operational benefits of accuracy, hygiene, security, and minimal maintenance are complementary to market growth.Contactless Biometrics Technology Market - Key RestraintsHigh price point associated with contactless biometric systems in comparison to conventional systems limits broader adoption.Privacy and security concerns remain longstanding constraints that go hand in hand with each new innovation introduced in market.Competition AnalysisKey players are primarily investing in varying biometric modalities such as contactless fingerprint tech, facial recognition, voice and iris recognition, and palm vein recognition to appeal to a wider consumer base. Biometric system vendors will specifically emphasize raising awareness about the benefits of security and hygiene maintenance through contactless biometrics technology. The global COVID-19 pandemic has created opportunities for market players as touch based alternatives are losing their share to touch-less systems. Equipment manufacturers are collaborating with governments to contribute towards virus containment. Some of the leading players include but are not limited to IDEMIA, NEC, Fujitsu, and Gemalto.Explore the global contactless biometrics technology market report with 175 illustrative figures, 36 data tables and the table of contents. You can also find a comprehensive market segmentation on https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-11283 More About the ReportThe FMI's market research report of 300 pages offers comprehensive insights on contactless biometrics technology market. The market is analyzed on the basis of technology (contactless fingerprint technology, facial recognition, iris recognition, palm vein recognition, voice recognition, and contactless cards), component (hardware, software, services, and others), application (identity verification, payments & transactions, and access control), and industry (BFSI, government & law enforcement, healthcare, military & defense, retail, and others) across six key regions (North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia and Pacific, and MEA).Explore Extensive Coverage of FMI's Electronics, Semiconductors, and ICT LandscapeHosting Infrastructure Services Market: Find detailed insights on the global hosting infrastructure services market with detailed segment-wide analysis, market statistics, key influencing factors, prominent players and critical developmental strategies adopted by them for a 10-year forecast period.SQL Server Transformation Market: FMI's report on the global SQL server transformation market offers comprehensive insights on the market poised for prolific growth during 2019-2029. The study covers comprehensive evaluation of key restraining forces, revenue sources, and market leaders in addition to with essential market strategies.LED & OLED Displays and Lighting Products Market: Get a deep-dive analysis on the Africa LED & OLED displays and lighting products market with essential insights on growth levers, opportunities, restraints, regulatory policies, regional market forecast and key forte of market leaders.About Future Market Insights (FMI)Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India. FMI's latest market research reports and industry analysis help businesses navigate challenges and take critical decisions with confidence and clarity amidst breakneck competition.Contact:Mr. Abhishek BudholiyaUnit No: AU-01-H Gold Tower (AU), Plot No: JLT-PH1-I3A,Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai,United Arab EmiratesMARKET ACCESS DMCC InitiativeFor Sales Enquiries: sales@ futuremarketinsights.com For Media Enquiries: press@ futuremarketinsights.com
Hillsboro ISD Sets June Graduation Date Amid COVID-19 Uncertainty

Hillsboro High School has announced its altered graduation plans for members of the 2020 senior class as the state continues to battle COVID-19.



In a letter to parents Tuesday, April 28, Principal Keith Hannah said that the ceremony will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, June 12, at Eagle Field in Hillsboro. In the event of rain, the ceremony will be moved to Saturday, June 13, at 9 a.m. in the same location.



Hannah said that the original plan was to hold graduation Friday, May 29, but it appears that social distancing guidelines will still be in place on that date.



Superintendent Vicki Adams said that graduation was a difficult decision that had Hannah and the high school staff contemplating the best course of action for weeks.



"We really wanted to keep it on the original date even after Baylor canceled the Ferrell Center," Adams said. But she added that after the governor's last announcement, school officials were afraid guidelines may still be too restrictive at the end of May to allow families into Eagle Stadium to watch their children graduate.



"Being considerate of the seniors and their families so they could make plans, we thought it best to set a date rather than continuing with tentative plans," Adams said. "Therefore, we chose a date in mid-June so that hopefully many family members will be able to attend."



The school's maintenance department is building a stage, and chairs will be spread out for seniors, Adams said.



"The seniors have had so much taken away from them already, that we will make it as special as we possibly can," she said.



If social distancing guidelines are still needed as of the new graduation date, Hannah asked families to understand that graduates may receive a limited number of tickets.



To open up the ceremony to those who cannot attend or are not comfortable attending, graduation will also be livestreamed on Facebook.



Adams said that if restrictions are tightened once again before graduation, the date will remain the same, but the ceremony could be changed to a drive-through event.



As far as class rank and grade-point averages (GPAs) for this school year, Adams said that the school followed its policy that the calculations are based on semester grades.



"We already had all the semesters averaged up to this one, and had fourth six-weeks (grades) for them this semester, so we will continue in the same manner averaging grades," Adams said. "As long as they continue to turn in quality work, it will not affect their averages."



She added that students who are not turning in work will receive incompletes or an F, which could hurt their GPAs or keep them from graduating. The superintendent added that this is being monitored closely to ensure that all seniors get to graduate.



Dual credit course grades will be averaged in GPAs as usual, and students will still receive their college credit for these courses.



Adams said that grades were less of an issue for seniors than other high school students since most of their coursework was already completed.



"Decisions made through the pandemic will actually affect the underclassmen the remainder of their high school career, so we were very thoughtful about our decisions and are following the same protocol for them," Adams said. "We didn't want any students to be adversely affected by the pandemic."




By Colin Packham and Praveen Menon

SYDNEY/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand and Australia are discussing the potential creation of a "travel bubble" between the two countries, even as Australia on Monday reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in two weeks.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she has accepted an invite from Australian Premier Scott Morrison to take part in a meeting of Australia's emergency coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday, stoking anticipation of a travel deal.

The neighbouring countries have claimed success in substantially slowing the progress of the coronavirus epidemic to a level well below the United States, Britain and Europe.

Still, Ardern warned that more health measures needed to be put in place before trans-Tasman travel could restart.

"I wouldn't say it would be in the very, very near short term," Ardern said at a news conference in Wellington.

"Don't expect this to happen in a couple of weeks time. We need to make sure we are locking in the gains all New Zealanders have helped us achieve and make sure we have health precautions in place."

Australia has recorded around 6,800 infections and 96 deaths, and New Zealand 1,137 cases and 20 fatalities. Both have a COVID-19 mortality rate of just 1% and have maintained low single digit rises in new cases for weeks, successes they attribute to social distancing regulations and widespread testing.

"Both our countries' strong record of fighting the virus has placed us in the enviable position of being able to plan the next stage in our economic rebuild and to include trans-Tasman travel and engagement in our strategy," Ardern said.

A New Zealand rugby league team arrived in Australia on Sunday to self-isolate for two weeks before joining Australia's tournament later this month, after receiving special permission.

The leaders will discuss ongoing measures to prevent the possibility of a second wave of COVID-19 infections as they start to ease restrictions that have shut businesses and hobbled their economies.

Story continues

Australia on Monday reported 27 cases, including a seven-year-old boy, in its biggest daily jump in two weeks. That could rise as more states report throughout the day. New Zealand recorded no new cases on Monday for the first time since March 16.

New Zealand does not have a contact tracing app like the one launched by Australia last week to find and inform people who have been in contact with confirmed infected people.

About 4.5 million Australians have downloaded the CovidSafe app so far, well short of Morrison's previously announced target of 40% of the country's estimated 16 million smartphone owners.

Morrison has made wider adoption of the app a prerequisite to further ease strict social distancing regulations in Australia.

SCHOOLS DEBATE

The rise in Australia's death toll was largely due to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in the state of Victoria.

The infection of the seven-year-old boy in New South Wales (NSW) state, which closed his Sydney school, has drawn attention to the contentious question of whether children should attend school during the outbreak.

The federal government has said schools should stay open since children are low-risk carriers of the virus, while some state governments have urged parents to keep children at home.

NSW will reopen schools on a staggered basis from next week, while Victoria has asked parents to keep children at home until the middle of the year.

The states and territories are also moving at different speeds to lift movement restrictions: NSW has allowed people to make house visits in groups of up to two, while Victoria is retaining its stay-home order until at least May 11.

"This is a struggle and ... it's not easy to live this way, but none of us can assume, just because we're frustrated, that this is over," Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Monday. "This is far from over. We have to stay the course."

(Reporting by Byron Kaye, Colin Packham and Praveen Menon; Editing by Sam Holmes and Jane Wardell)
OUTER BANKS, N.C., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Village Realty, a provider of property management services and vacation rentals on the Outer Banks for over 25 years, has announced its "Front Lines" Vacation Giveaway. The giveaway was devised to shed light on the stories of unsung heroes, the essential employees, helping the nation during the Coronavirus pandemic, and giving thanks in the form of a much-needed vacation.

Nominate essential employees, first responders, and healthcare workers for a chance to win a free Outer Banks vacation

"We wanted to find a way to share the stories of the everyday heroes and remind everyone there's light at the end of this tunnel," says Bob Oakes, President of Village Realty. "The world will be ready for a vacation very soon, and it's the least we can do to reward someone with a bit of relaxation after months of intense pressure dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. The new Outer Banks Netflix series has definitely drawn more attention to our beaches, so we're ready to welcome visitors as soon as we safely can," Oakes adds.

How to Enter:

Visit this link to view the "Front Lines" Vacation Giveaway.

Do you have a friend or family member who has been a frontline hero as our country has dealt with the novel Coronavirus? To enter, submit a photo or video and tell Village Realty about your frontline hero and why they deserve a break for your chance to WIN a FREE Outer Banks Vacation! This contest is open to any frontline heroes and essential workers. Examples include first responders, healthcare workers, grocery store workers, truck drivers, delivery drivers, postal employees, and more. If your friend or loved one is helping society in the face of this pandemic, Village Realty wants to hear about it, share their story, and give one lucky person a FREE vacation to remember.

About Village Realty:

Village Realty offers over 700 vacation rental homes on the beautiful beaches of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. You can search and book online 24/7 by visiting VillageRealtyOBX.com or talk to one of their local vacation specialists by calling 888-974-7120.

Media Contact:

Bob Kissell

Director of Marketing

282.480.2224

[email protected]

SOURCE Village Realty

Related Links

http://VillageRealtyOBX.com


Lebanese President Michel Aoun told Sputnik that the return of Syrian refugees home from Lebanon depended on an international decision rather than on his possible visit to Damascus, adding that Beirut had been in contact with Moscow on the refugees' issue in hope that this partnership would alter a viewpoint of the global community on the matter

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th May, 2020) Lebanese President Michel Aoun told Sputnik that the return of Syrian refugees home from Lebanon depended on an international decision rather than on his possible visit to Damascus, adding that Beirut had been in contact with Moscow on the refugees' issue in hope that this partnership would alter a viewpoint of the global community on the matter.

According to various media reports, Aoun planned to pay an official visit to Damascus in last September to accelerate the process of the Syrian refugees' return, but no dates or further information on a meeting between leaders of the two middle Eastern countries followed. Aoun's last visit to Syria was in 2008.

"We are convinced that the return of [Syrian] refugees to their country is related to an international decision, and it does not depend on my possible visit to Syria. The global community acts out of malice in regard to this issue. It wants to keep [the refugees] in countries neighboring Syria, even if the crisis leads to a social, security and economic collapse [there], like in Lebanon, and does not to want to share the refugee burden with these countries despite the enormous potential of Europe and the United States," Aoun said.

According to the president, Lebanon maintains contact with Russia on the issue of the displaced Syrians, hoping that this cooperation will help to change an international position and find a comprehensive political solution to the Syrian crisis.

"We are in contact with Russia on the matter, especially after an initiative that [Moscow] has put forward to facilitate the refugees' return to their country. Unfortunately, this proposal has faced international obstacles that prevented it from being implemented, and, as a result, the situation in Lebanon has deteriorated. We hope that similarities in [our] views will change the community's will to keep the displaced in the countries where they have found refuge and find a comprehensive solution to the crisis in Syria," the president said.

Of Lebanon's population of 4 million, half are refugees from Syria and 600,000 refugees from Palestine. The country's authorities have repeatedly urged foreign actors to step in and support the crumbling economy.
TORRINGTON  Torrington Public Schools recently received a grant from the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority Public Educational and Governmental Programming and Education Technology Investment Account program for $64,700.

The grant will support the purchase of video equipment that will increase production quality and communication capacity, according to a statement.

Equipment to be purchased includes NewTek Tricasters video production systems for Torrington High School and Torrington Middle School along with robotic cameras for taping of Board of Education meetings, HD video cameras for videotaping events, Macintosh computers for storing and editing content, a video signage system for Cable TV broadcasts, video converters, microphones, monitors and lights.

Over the next month, the grant team will establish expanded work groups including students to implement video production in virtual studios, and eventually at the Torrington High School Media Center and enhancement of the Torrington Middle School video production lab. In early summer throughout the fall, the goal will be to go live, stream and broadcast student generated media.

Students will learn all aspects of public broadcast, including but not limited to journalism, writing editing, public speaking, operating of broadcast switching and camera equipment, audio and video editing, filming, lighting and storytelling. Advanced features such as green screen effects, digital signage and digital animation will be provided.

This timely opportunity builds on the Torrington Public Schools Leadership Team partnership with a community led Secondary Ad Hoc Committee, that has been working diligently over the past year and half to help create career pathways, according to the statement.

These include arts, business, education, public safety/criminal justice, and Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM)/Manufacturing and have been vetted by students, staff and business representatives.

We are linking arms with our community partners to help fulfill a skills gap and prepare our students for local employment opportunities that will provide livable wages and keep our community thriving, said Superintendent of Schools Susan Lubomski.

Students who are interested can contact their guidance counselor or Dr. Shannon at jshannon@torrington.org or call: office: 860-489-2294 x 2233 cell 860-689-6222.
SANTA FE  New Mexico health officials have announced five additional deaths due to COVID-19, as the disease continues to ravage the states northwest corner.

In all, 136 of the 186 additional confirmed coronavirus cases announced Monday are from two northwest New Mexico counties  McKinley and San Juan  that have seen skyrocketing infection rates in recent weeks.

Three of the five individuals whose deaths were reported Monday were from one of those two counties. The other two deaths involved a male in his 60s from Sandoval County and a female in her 70s from Bernalillo County.

The five deaths brought the states death toll attributable to the coronavirus outbreak to 156.

In an effort to slow the spread of the virus, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday extended a lockdown order for Gallup for an additional three days, after the citys mayor asked her to do so. Under the new order, the lockdown will remain in place until Thursday at noon.

The lockdown order, issued under the states rarely-used Riot Control Act, closes all roads into Gallup for most non-residents and requires businesses in the city to be closed from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.

The spread of this virus in McKinley County is frightful, the governor said Friday in issuing the lockdown order, and it shows that physical distancing has not occurred and is not occurring. The virus is running amok there. It must be stopped, and stricter measures are necessary.

Coronavirus outbreaks on the Navajo Nation and several tribal pueblos have also prompted curfews, road closures and other measures on tribal land. Native Americans now make up 55.3% of all confirmed COVID-19 cases statewide, according to state data, despite representing only about 11% of the states total population.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 outbreak has also hit nursing homes and other group-living facilities hard. As of Monday, there were 25 such facilities statewide that had confirmed cases among either residents or staff, according to the Department of Health.

In addition, there were 181 individuals hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms around New Mexico, as of Monday.

The Department of Health has designed 842 people as having recovered from the virus, meaning about 20.9% of those infected have recovered.
Inside Hook

At this point in his career, Sylvester Stallone has spent a lot of time revisiting the roles that made him a star. Thats included reprising the role of Rocky Balboa in Creed and its sequel, as well as returning to the role of John Rambo in last years Rambo: Last Blood. But now Stallone has announced another followup to a fondly remembered project of his that few people saw coming.

No, its not Over the Top II. Instead, Stallone took to social media to announce a sequel to 1993s Demolition Man  a satirical science fiction action film which pitted Stallones driven cop John Spartan against Wesley Snipess sociopathic Simon Phoenix in both the present and the future.
Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden at an event in Wilmington, Delaware, on March 12, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Senate Legal Counsel Says Secretary Cant Disclose Joe Biden Records

Senate lawyers have told the Senate secretary not to disclose any information about former Vice President Joe Biden after he asked her to look for records related to Tara Reade, a former staffer who says then-Sen. Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993.

Legal counsel reviewed the relevant statute governing the records of the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices, a spokeswoman for Julie Adams, secretary of the Senate, told The Epoch Times.

Based on the laws strict confidentiality requirements  and the Senates own direction that disclosure of Senate Records is not authorized if prohibited by law, the spokeswoman added, Senate lawyers advised Adams that she has no discretion to disclose any such information as requested in Vice President Bidens letter of May 1.

Biden asked Adams to inquire with the National Archives to try to locate any complaints made by Reade against him. After the National Archives said any personnel complaints would have remained under the control of the Senate, Biden asked Adams to take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records.

Adams office cited section 313 of the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991 (pdf), which states that all counseling, mediation, and hearings conducted by the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices shall be strictly confidential.

Tara Reade poses for a photo during an interview with The Associated Press in Nevada City, Calif., on April 4, 2019. (Donald Thompson/AP Photo)

The release of records can only be made if required for the purpose of judicial review, it states.

We are not aware of any exceptions in law authorizing our office to disclose any such records that do exist, if any, even to original participants in a matter, Adams office said.

Reade and Bidens campaign didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reade said she filed a report with a Senate office after being sexually assaulted and harassed by Biden.

She said the report didnt describe assault but did describe harassment.

I filed the intake form regarding sexual harassment and retaliation with Senate personnel, she said in a May 2 statement.

The statement came after an Associated Press report claimed Reade told reporters the report she filed didnt refer to sexual harassment or assault.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks to MSNBCs Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, on May 1, 2020. (MSNBCs Morning Joe via AP)

This is false, Reade said.

Reade told The Associated Press she recounted Biden wanting her to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty, and it made me uncomfortable.

Reade, 56, shared social media posts that noted what she described appeared to be sexual harassment.

Biden on May 1 for the first time directly addressed Reades allegations. They arent true. This never happened, Biden, 77, said in a statement.

While he asked the archives and the secretary of the Senate to look for records related to Reade, he refused to call for a narrow search of his Senate records that the University of Delaware was gifted years ago.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 17:11:35|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, May 4 (Xinhua) -- More than 2,500 pigs have died of African swine flu in India's north-eastern state of Assam over the past few days, confirmed a state government official to Xinhua on Monday.

The pigs died in over 300 villages spread across five districts of the state. However, sale of pork is not yet banned in the state, even as people have been advised to cook the pig-meat properly before consuming.

The disease is said to be limited to pigs only, and not transmitted to humans, said the official.

The state government had not yet resorted to culling of pigs and will adopt an alternate mechanism to prevent the spread of the highly contagious disease, the state government official said, and added that efforts were being made to administer anti-flu vaccine to the pigs in farms.

"The National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) in Bhopal city of Madhya Pradesh state has confirmed that it is African Swine Flu (ASF). The central government has informed us that it is the first instance of the disease in the country," Assam's Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Minister Atul Bora was quoted as telling journalists Sunday.

According to the minister, the African Swine Flu had no relation at all with the COVID-19 pandemic, and that steps were being taken to save the unaffected pigs. Enditem
Microsoft is joining forces with its partners to give academic institutions in the UAE free half-day training in Teams to help them effectively use the technology and enable more seamless remote learning within the country.

It can be challenging for the many educational institutions moving to remote or distance learning, which have previously never needed to do so, to truly leverage collaborative tools in the most effective way for learning. This initiative aims to make this transition easier for academia and give them a head start to adopt and deploy remote learning with confidence.

Education is key to helping people build a better life through the acquisition of knowledge, critical thinking and problem-solving skills that increases ones chances of obtaining high quality jobs and opening up a sea of opportunities that might not have been available before. And now, the move to remote learning has made maintaining a high standard of education more important than ever, says Sherif Tawfik, Executive Director  Commercial Partners and Scale Business at Microsoft UAE.

This initiative forms part of our commitment as Microsoft, with the help of our partners, to empower every student and educator to achieve and become more, as well as our promise to act as an enabler for the development of the region.

Microsoft will be launching this initiative with 15 partners including, Agile Cloud Solutions, Alef Education, Alpha Data, Cloud for Work, Cobweb, Crayon Group Holding ASA, Creative Technology Solutions, CX Unicorn, Delphi Consulting, Exquitech, GamaLearn, SoftwareONE, Sulava, Technomax and VaporVM. These partners have volunteered their time to help schools and teachers with training on Teams deployment and infrastructure, user training and support services, while also sharing best practices.

Microsofts education solutions, such as Teams, allow students to learn wherever they are and whenever they need to. Not only can content and assignments be accessed online, but students and teachers are able to interact in real time using these tools.

Any academic institution will be able to register for the free training online and thereafter will be able to select a partner from which they would like to receive training.

Their details will then be sent to the partner who will coordinate a date and time to conduct the training session. Additionally, any Microsoft partner will be able to volunteer via the website or by reaching out to Microsoft to help drive training.

Both educators and students need all the support they can to enable an engaging and connected learning environment while at home. Microsoft and our partners want to ensure that they have all the tools and resources needed to create collaborative classrooms when remote learning so as to encourage development and growth, adds Tawfik. -- Tradearabia News Service
The decision to stop sending volunteers to give classes in California prisons was a difficult one for Ernst Fenelon Jr., the senior program coordinator of the Prison Education Project.

Fenelon, who was incarcerated in California from 1991 to 2005, understood what stopping classes would mean for the projects students inside: isolation, uncertainty, and a lack of positive activities to fill their time.

Though he was worried about participants physical health, Fenelon told me, I was also concerned for the mental health safety of those incarcerated, in the sense of keeping their hope alive, keeping them connected to positive programming.

Advertisement

But the COVID-19 pandemic didnt leave many options on the table. The project stopped in-person classes on March 12, and shortly after, California prisons closed to all outside programing.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Beyond prisons, the coronavirus-forced transition to remote learning has highlighted and exacerbated many of the glaring inequalities that were already baked into the U.S. education system. Driven by disparities in access to internet and personal tech devices, the digital divide leaves people isolated, often unable to access information they need to keep themselves safe, much less continue education or work. The consequences of this divide will reverberate for years to come, and we will all suffer for it.

But if the transition to remote learning in the outside world has been complex and fraught, that same shift has been even more so inside prisons and jails. Higher education in prison programs typically involve sending outside volunteersoften university students or professorsinside prisons to conduct supplemental educational programming not offered by the prison. In college, I participated in a program that offered classes varying from biology to gender studies to career prep. Oftentimes, these programs allow incarcerated students to earn university credit. Perhaps most importantly, they provide a connection between people on the outside and people on the inside, breaking down the wall between us and them, if even momentarily.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Both among different prison systems and within individual prison facilities, access to technology isand has always beenwidely disparate. Technology means so many different things in prison, said Mary Gould, the director of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. In one prison, technology might mean coding classes and a podcasting lab, whereas in another, youre lucky to get closed-circuit television and projectors from the 80s. But these disparities were easier to get around when classes were held in person.

Advertisement

Now, educators have been forced to get creative in order to continue providing educational resources for their students, but they also worry about setting precedents that may affect their ability to conduct in-person programming in the future. Underlying all of that is a chilling reality: Incarcerated people are housed in facilities where social distancing is often impossible, hygiene and health care access are lacking, and populations are disproportionately vulnerable to the virus. The Marshall Project (disclosure: I used to work there) confirmed at least 9,437 people in prison had tested positive for the illness as of April 22.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

A very real concern for us is the health and safety of our students right now, and I think I would be remiss if I said that education were the foremost thing on my mind, said Molly Lasagna, the executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education in Prison Initiative.

Some programs have moved to a correspondence learning model, mailing incarcerated students paper assignments they can complete and send back. Others are creating video lectures and mass broadcasting them via prison television systems. Programs in facilities with online learning capabilities (usually through physical computer labs) are in some cases able to use learning management systems like Canvas or Blackboard to keep classes going. Student clerks or teaching assistants, who help facilitate programs from the inside, have taken on additional responsibilities in sharing information and facilitating peer-to-peer learning. Some programs are communicating with students via telephone or kiosk- or tablet-based electronic messaging systems, but such communication usually comes at a price. Still other programs are exploring options for conducting live classes via Zoom or Skype.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Renford Reese, the founder and director of the Prison Education Project, is working on trying to launch a pilot study in California to conduct programming using Zoom, with the help of existing wireless access points installed throughout the facilities. Theyd have to start small, he said, to ensure that students could maintain a safe distance from one another while participating in the class. It wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it could be a way to continue to deliver content that is more engaging and personalized than the alternative, he told me.

The Tennessee Higher Education in Prison Initiative submitted a similar proposal to use Zoom to deliver instruction within facilities, but it was ultimately denied by the state department of corrections, said Lasagna.

Advertisement

Advertisement

THEI works with community college systems to run courses inside three facilities across the state. Two of those three sites have internet computer labs in them, which has allowed the program to transition instruction online, with students using the computer labs in small groups once a week to access content and complete assignments. In the third facility, said Lasagna, courses have transitioned to a correspondence modelwith professors sending in content and students returning assignments.

Advertisement

One major area for concern is that incarcerated students with more financial resources will have more access to educational resources, and those who dont will be left behind. A group of organizations, led by PEN America, recently released an open letter to the CEOs of the two companies that dominate the prison communication and technology landscapeGlobal Tel Link and Aventiv Technologies (the parent company to Securus Technologies and JPay)demanding they stop charging for access to educational content via their devices, including e-books. The letter also demands the suspension of charges for communication related to educational programming.

Advertisement

Incarcerated people should not have to pay a financial price for continuing their education even while under lockdown, the letter reads.

James Tager is the deputy director of free expression research and policy at PEN America and coordinated the open letter. He told me that in the coming months, it will be important to pay close attention to budgets for prison libraries and other educational programming. As economic troubles whittle down budgets for jails and prisons, these types of programs can often be the first on the chopping block, he said.

Last year, Tager authored a report on access to literature and other educational materials in prisons, finding that the book-restriction regulations within the United States carceral system represent the largest book ban policy in the United States. The report raises concerns surrounding the cost of e-readers to incarcerated people and their families and the possibility that the transition to e-readers in prison may be used as justification to limit access to literature, whether through donation programs, individual purchasing, or prison libraries.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Fears about corrections systems using expanded technology as a justification to substitute person-to-person services long predated the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 2014, Emma Coleman wrote for Future Tense, more than 500 facilities had implemented video visitation, in many cases shutting down off-screen visits in the process. But the pandemic has certainly amplified those fears.

Across the field there is real concern about the move toward these types of secured technology deviceswhether its tablets or other sort of pay-for-use technologiesbecoming the preferred method, said Gould, of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison.

For years, Gould said, programs have made the argument to departments of corrections that their instruction cant be delivered remotely. But from a prison administration standpoint, facilitating in-person instruction requires more resources and presents a certain risk. That means educators have to worry about what their actions to adapt to COVID-19 will mean for how theyre able to operate after the pandemicthinking through, Gould said, whether they might be disproving their own arguments about whats actually possible. The risk of facilities being reluctant to reinstate in-person programming seems even more palpable given impending budget cuts.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Fenelon, of Californias Prison Education Project, said the possibility of eliminating or reducing in-person instruction is of great concern to him.

For me when I was incarcerated, the idea of people volunteering  it was like the community, it was like the outside world being able to come in, and it reminded me that I get to go out, he said. So it was this connection that mattered to me, and a lot of what helped me sustain my transformation to return back to a productive citizen of society.

This sense of connection is transformative not only for students on the inside, but also for the volunteers who work with them. I know this firsthand: The three years I spent teaching writing and journalism in Arizona prisons were easily the highlight of my time in college. I learned about the U.S. criminal justice system in a way that would have never been possible from the outside. Through editing my students work, I grew myself as a writer. I knew how much the volunteer-programming ecosystem had given to my own incarcerated family member, and it was powerful to feel like I could, in a small way, contribute to that.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Looking to the future, Fenelon said he hopes this moment encourages a more nuanced discussion of the ways technology can be used to expand educational access and quality while not chipping away at the sense of community that flourishes in an in-person classroom. Reese said he hopes it will lead to technological advances within prison systems.

It compels a system that is out of step with technology.  [I]t almost forces them to expedite the way they deliver content to their residents, said Reese.

Underlying all of the discussion of how programs should adapt to the present and what risks and opportunities exist for the future, theres a central question, said Gould: What is the role of a higher education in prison program?

The answer to that question becomes clear in educators responses to this crisistheir communicating with students and their family members, facilitating channels of information in and out of prisons; their persistence and creativity in providing educational resources however they can; their advocacy for students safety, manifested through fundraisers and care packages and pushing for the early release of vulnerable populations.

COVID-19 has evidenced that the role of a higher education in prison program was never just the classroom, said Gould.

Thats a role technology can supplementbut never replace.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: A 45-year-old woman and four of her associates attacked a tea vendor for not letting them adopt a dog German Shepherd, which the latter was fostering. The incident took place in Ibbaluru Junction near Bellandur on Saturday.

A senior police officer said the victim Srinivas M, a resident of Devarabeesanahalli, runs a tea stall and was taking care of a German Shepherd of his friend, who has away tied it next to his tea stall.

Recently, a street dog also joined him and Srinivas was taking care of the two. Minu Singh, who lives in a nearby apartment, saw the dog and wished to adopt it.

She had approached him twice asking him to let her adopt the dog, which he denied. However, she managed to take the dog away on Friday and kept in in her house. Srinivas, who came to know this, went to her apartment and brought the dog back.

A day later, Minu came with four men and attacked Srinivas with weapons and threatened him that she would complain to animal rights activists as he is not feeding the dog properly and is also not taking care of it. Later, Srinivas approached Bellandur police to file a case against Minu.

Meanwhile, Minu had called Harish KB, an animal activist, to complain that Srinivas had locked both dogs in a shed and there was no proper ventilation. She also claimed that he wasnt feeding the dogs properly.

When Harish went to see the dogs, he found it in a broken shed and he wrote to the animal rescue board to take action against Srinivas.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4)  The Department of Health will give 10,000 kits to the Department of Justice for inmates to be tested for COVID-19, President Rodrigo Duterte said in his sixth report on the special powers granted to him by Congress to address the coronavirus crisis.

Duterte said 3,500 of the test kits will go to the Correctional Institute of Women in Mandaluyong City where 48 inmates contracted the virus.

The Health department reported Monday that 195 inmates tested positive for coronavirus, in addition to the 38 infected Bureau of Jail Management and Penology employees.

The fear of rising infections in prison facilities is fast becoming a reality, with numerous jails in the country reporting virus cases and deaths among inmates and staff.

The government is moving to decongest jails, with Duterte saying in his report that the Public Attorneys Office has filed motions to free 1,359 prisoners.

In April, 22 prisoners with underlying medical conditions filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking temporary freedom amid the outbreak. The motion is pending.

The Office of the Solicitor General opposed the petition, saying that congestion in jail facilities is not a ground to release inmates even amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The Supreme Court and the Justice department, meanwhile, have eased rules to facilitate the release of some inmates.
Islamic terror group confiscating Christians' properties in Syria, watchdog reports

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

A Syrian Islamic rebel group has been confiscating Christian-owned properties in Idlib, according to a new report released by a Syrian human rights watchdog.

Christians in Idlib province face the injustice of jihadist organizations and violations by Islamic factions, in terms of applying Islamic Sharia law to members of different religious communities, an April 25 report released by the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reads.

The group warns that Islamic factions in the war-torn province in northwestern Syria are clamping down on Christians and imposing Jizya, a hefty tax imposed on non-Muslims.

SOHR warns that the imposition of Jizya, which was imposed by the Islamic State during its reign of terror in Iraq and Syria, is an attempt by Islamic groups to force Christians to leave their homes to regime-controlled areas.

According to SOHR, Idlib has been administered by different Islamic factions ranging from Al-Fateh Army to Salvation Government, the civilian wing of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS is a Sunni militant group that formed in 2017 as a merger of militant factions including Al-Nusra Front.

HTS has clamped down on the Christians of Idlib city, pursuing the landlords and occupants of their properties, the report states. The office of Christians properties of HTS, which considers as spoils, has notified tenants to check with the administrative offices, to renew the contracts and set new terms, including raising the rents of houses and shops.

According to SOHR, the factions have informed the tenants that the office has the right to rent, acquire and dispose of property at any time.

Civilians within the Christian community in Idlib who have fled from their homes are barred from appointing someone to change a ruling made by the Sharia courts regarding their property, according to the watchdog.

Similarly for the civilians of the Christian community in western countryside of Idlib, in the city of Jisr al-Shughour and the villages and towns of Yaaqubiya, Al-Qunaya, Al-Jadida, Al-Ghassania and Halauz, where HTS and the office of the spoils, are disposing of properties in order to support the fighters families, the report concludes. The issue of the property of Christian families remains under the control of radical groups of Tahrir Al-Sham Organization despite their attempts to change their policies to exploit the Syrian peoples revolution.

This week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released its annual report. In the report, the commission called on the U.S. State Department to label Syria as a country of particular concern, the agencys worst designation when it comes to the issue of religious freedom.

The CPC designation carries with it the potential for crippling sanctions for countries that systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.

Additionally, USCIRF recommended in the report that HTS be designated by the State Department as an Entity of Particular Concern, a designation given to non-state actors.

USCIRF contends that HTS persisted in religious repression, including the assault and stoning of an Armenian woman in July.

According to USCRIF, HTS is engaged in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act.

The State Department already recognizes HTS subsidiary Al Nusra Front as an EPC and as a designated foreign terrorist organization. USCIRF stresses, however, that the EPC designation should not be limited only to al-Nusra Front.

Syria is ranked on the 11th on the Open Doors USA 2020 World Watch List of countries where Christians are most persecuted.

According to Open Doors, the yearslong Syrian civil war has left the country in turmoil and Christians have not been spared from suffering as they are caught in the crossfire between government and rebel forces.

Additionally, Christians are at risk if forces antagonistic to Christianity rule their home regions, an Open Doors fact sheet explains. In areas controlled by radical Islamic groups, most historic churches have been either demolished or used as Islamic centers. Public expressions of Christian faith in these regions are prohibited and church buildings or monasteries cannot be repaired or restored irrespective of whether the damage was collateral or intentional.
Photo: Lucasfilm

Finally, we can relive all of the ways it reverses course from its predecessor way sooner than expected: the middling Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now available on Disney+, two months earlier than its planned home release. (Say it with us! May the 4th be with you. And also with you.) The Rise of Skywalker will join the nine-part Skywalker saga already available on Disney+, in addition to the other extensive offerings on the service, such as the incomparable Ratatouille, every Disney Channel Original Movie, The Simpsons (now with 50 percent less jokes) and an elephant documentary featuring Meghan Markles voice.

Dont have Disney+ yet? You can sign up here. (If you subscribe to a service through our links, Vulture may earn an affiliate commission.)
C ancer patients are being kept awake during operations to protect them from coronavirus, the Evening Standard can reveal.

Hospitals have increased the use of awake surgery  which avoids the need for general anaesthetic and intubation  to encourage patients to undergo life-saving treatment.

Concern is mounting that people are delaying seeking medical advice for potential symptoms of cancer - and that the number who die prematurely as a result could exceed those who die with Covid-19.

It came as the number of coronavirus patients in London hospitals continued to fall  with the North West overtaking the capital for the first time.

There were 2,033 Covid-positive patients in London hospitals on Saturday  down almost 60 per cent on the peak of 4,813 on April 8  and 2,191 in the North West, Downing Street said yesterday.

The number of hospital deaths in London rose by 58 yesterday to 5,156.

As part of Bladder Cancer Awareness month, London surgeons today issued an appeal for people to get checked for bladder cancer  saying it was one of several cancers where the danger of allowing it to go untreated often outweighed the risk of contracting coronavirus in hospital.

Bladder, oesophageal and stomach cancers are so potentially aggressive that, if left unchecked, they could rapidly become untreatable. Average survival for advanced bladder cancer is two years.

Awake surgery involves patients being given a spinal anaesthetic  similar to painkilling epidurals given to women during childbirth  to numb them from the chest or waist down.

Patients can also choose to be sedated  meaning they sleep through the operation. This avoids the need for intubation  making the operation less risky, in terms of coronavirus, for the patient and the surgical team.

However, more serious operations continue to be performed under general anaesthetic.

Ben Challacombe, chairman of the British Urology oncology section and a consultant urological surgeon at Guys and St Thomas NHS trust, said: At the moment, anything that possibly can be done under an anaesthetic block, sedation or a spinal anaesthetic is being done that way. We have evolved to doing that because of the risks of Covid.

Guys Hospital, in London Bridge, is using the awake procedure for over 70 per cent of operations to remove a tumour from the bladder. These are the more straightforward procedures that are done using an endoscope, or surgical telescope.

Patients are ordered to self-isolate at home for a fortnight before surgery and are admitted 24 hours before the operation to allow them to be tested for Covid-19.

Ramesh Thurairaja, the trusts head of bladder cancer, said: We are taking all precautions, even when they are negative - because of the uncertainty of this virus.

If they are having a bladder tumour removed through a telescope, we are avoiding general anaesthetic and giving them a spinal anaesthetic, so that reduces the risk. They dont have to be awake  they can be sedated if they want to.

Surgeons are concerned that only about a fifth of patients with suspected symptoms of bladder cancer  visible blood in urine, known as haematuria  are coming to hospital for checks. Guys would normally check 20-25 patients a week  but only five a week have been turning up.

Mr Challacombe said: Only 20 per cent of them are coming in. Covid hasnt cured them, of course  its just made them more scared to come.

We are now quite concerned we are going to have a big bulge in patients that are out there with bad disease who should come through but theyre not coming.

We need to get the message across: if you have blood in the urine, you should come.

About 10 per cent of people with blood in their urine will be diagnosed with bladder cancer. More than two-thirds of bladder cancer patients have the problem detected in this way.

Guys and St Thomas has been operating via the private facilities at London Bridge HCA Hospital during the coronavirus pandemic.

About 10-15 bladder cancer operations in the last month but surgeons emphasise that there is capacity to treat all urgent cases.

Plans are being drawn up to increase capacity for cancer surgery across the NHS but it will take many months before the backlog is eradicated.

The standard tests for blood in the urine are an ultrasound scan and a 90-second telescope test  inserting a tiny camera into the bladder via the waterway, which is done under local anaesthetic.

Experts are particularly concerned about painless haematuria  as painful haematuria is normally caused by a urinary tract infection rather than cancer.

The disease is three times more common in men, and in people over 50, but Guys has treated patients in their 30s and 40s.

Bladder cancer is the ninth most common cancer in the UK  the fourth most common in men - with a total of about 13,000 cases and 5,000 deaths per year.

Mr Challacombe said: If your bladder cancer progresses, you are in big trouble. If you get metastatic bladder cancer where it has spread to your lymph nodes or your bones or your lungs, you are unlikely to live two years.

Loading....

At the moment, these patients have got the most to gain from being diagnosed. If these cancers get out of the bladder, they become incurable very quickly.

Mr Thurairaja said that while fewer women were diagnosed, they tended to have more advanced disease as their symptoms are sometimes written off as due to urinary infections

He said: That is the reason why women tend to do worse, because the assumption is always that it is an infection and they will be fine. But they present late, and its too late to be managed.

Its one cancer where [incidence] has not really significantly improved over the years  probably because people are living longer.

Despite Covid, there are still risks associated with bladder cancer  that you will get worse and you may die of your cancer.
The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services reported more than 250 new cases of COVID-19 in Nebraska on Monday.

The department's COVID-19 dashboard listed 5,910 cases statewide as of noon Monday. That was up from 5,659 Sunday night.

Lancaster County had 394 cases as of Monday, according to its reporting, which would be a huge increase over the 302 cases reported by the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department on Sunday. The state had listed 330 cases in Lancaster County as of Sunday. The mayor is likely to address those numbers during her afternoon briefing.

The number of cases continued to rise in counties that are home to meatpacking plants. As of Monday morning, Saline County had 240 cases, up from 189 on Friday. Colfax County had 222 cases, up from 147 on Sunday.

The total number of COVID-19-related deaths in the state to date is 78 after two deaths were reported in Dawson County.

Photos: Lincoln during the pandemic

Reach the writer at 402-473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSLegislature

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.

JoAnne Young State government reporter JoAnne Young covers state government, including the Legislature and state agencies, and the people they serve. Follow JoAnne Young 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 United States Central Command issued Purple Heart medals to six US Army soldiers who suffered brain injuries from an Iranian missile attack in January that targeted two bases in Iraq.

Twenty-three more military personnel have been approved for the medal by the top US commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Pat White, Central Command announced today.

The first six medals were given to soldiers in Kuwait on Sunday and Monday, CENTCOM spokesperson Navy Capt. Bill Urban said. The remainder of the medals are set to be issued later this week.

The Purple Heart is the US militarys recognition that a service member has been wounded in combat.

The Defense Department has said 110 American personnel have so far been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries as a result of a missile barrage by Irans government on Iraqs Ain al-Assad and Erbil air bases in retaliation for the US killing of Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in January.

Some 80 military personnel were considered for the award as a result of the January missile barrage, Urban said today.

President Donald Trump initially downplayed the injuries as not very serious. Defense officials initially described the brain injury cases as in the teens before number of announced diagnoses rose rapidly in the weeks following the strikes.

The Pentagon said in January that more than a dozen ballistic missiles struck the air bases. Pentagon officials said at the time that the bombardment lasted for more than an hour as US military personnel took shelter.

Washington has since ordered Patriot missile and counter-rocket, artillery and mortar air defense batteries into Iraq to defend against future attacks.

The US military clarified its criteria for awarding Purple Hearts for concussive brain injuries in 2011.

Public awareness of the sometimes lifelong injury increased as American military personnel were exposed to improvised explosive devices during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In terms of concussion brain injuries, the US military requires them to have been suffered during action involving an adversary for them to qualify a service member for a Purple Heart.

The concussion also must be diagnosed by a medical doctor as severe enough to have required treatment, for the person to have been rendered unconscious or to have been deemed medically unfit for duty for at least 48 hours, the Navy said in 2011.
Arch Staffing is grateful to our employees across the country for this great recognition. At Arch, we are a family and that is why our clients and candidates enjoy working with us.

Arch Staffing and Consulting has been named as a Best Staffing Firm to Work For winner for 2020. The Best Staffing Firm to Work For awards are given annually by Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA), the global advisor on staffing and workforce solutions, and recognize employers for their top performance in engaging their employees and creating a workplace conducive to talent development, enjoyment, collaboration, and productivity. The winners were expected to be recognized at SIAs 29th annual Executive Forum North America, held March 9th-12th at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, FL, but due to safety precautions, were moved to an online webinar on March 18th.

The winners represent companies who scored in the top quartile in each of the award categories. The categories comprise North American firms with 10 to 20 internal employees, firms with 21 to 50 internal employees, firms with 51 to 200 employees, firms with 201-500 employees, and firms with over 501 employees; and Best Staffing Company to Temp/Contract for. The Best Staffing Firms to Work For 2020 awards are sponsored by Sense.

Arch Staffing and Consulting is a national staffing firm headquartered in Miami, FL. Their mission is to bridge the gap between people and opportunities. They deliver superior customer service and quality to clients, candidates, and colleagues with integrity and trust. With locations across the country, they are committed to providing a high touch experience to both clients and candidates. They go above and beyond to ensure that they offer the best possible service in the industry. With over 100 years of combined staffing experience, they can deliver the right talent when you need it.

Arch Staffing is grateful to our employees across the country for this great recognition. At Arch, we are a family and that is why our clients and candidates enjoy working with us. Our teams are dedicated and support each other nationwide. This is how we build relationships with Americas top talent to bridge that gap and get candidates the job opportunities they deserve and love. All while providing our clients with the best options to solve their hiring needs. Arch is still young, but were up for the challenges that America is facing. This is only the beginning, said Arch Staffing and Consultings President, Ulises Muniz Patino.

With their strong commitment to employee engagement and building a high-performance culture, the companies on this years Best Staffing Firms list are setting the bar high. From newer and niche players to veteran businesses, from traditional offerings to innovation in action, from local organizations to entities with global reach, these firms are demonstrating that a highly engaged workforce is one of the few sustainable sources of competitive advantage in staffing, said Barry Asin, SIA President. Congratulations to the winners for this important recognition.

Over 250 firms sought participation in the program this year, which was conducted by SIA in conjunction with Quantum Workplace, an Omaha, NE-based company. Internal employees at each firm were asked to complete an online survey that measured key engagement categories, focusing on items including teamwork, trust in senior leaders, feeling valued, manager effectiveness, compensation, and benefits. In order to gather statistically sound results, participating companies must have reached a minimum level of employee participation, based on their total number of employees. Companies were ranked in each category according to their overall score. Winners were chosen based entirely on the survey results.

About Arch Staffing and Consulting

Arch is a diverse and global staffing firm incorporated in 1993 under PAE Global. Along with our other divisions, we employ over 20,000 consultants in 72 offices around the world. Arch Staffing & Consulting will be the premier global staffing resource our clients, candidates, and colleagues count on. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Arch provides professional and commercial services for all industries, including information technology, accounting & finance, administrative, skilled trades, engineering, healthcare and industrial. Our team has more than 100 years of combined experience in the staffing industry and a large network of proven talent. For more information about Arch Staffing and Consulting, please visit https://www.archstaffingandconsulting.com. For breaking news and local content follow @ArchStaffing on Twitter, like Arch Staffing on Facebook, and follow Arch Staffing and Consulting on LinkedIn.

Website: https://www.archstaffingandconsulting.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/archstaffing

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArchStaffing

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/archstaffing
Ejaz Kaiser By

Express News Service

RAIPUR: On the similar lines to Europe's 'Rainbow' campaign of youngsters launched to boost morale amid Covid-19 outbreak, the children in Chhattisgarh get engaged in 'Chakmak' drive to uplift people through spreading a sense of hope, smile and positivity in the society faced with the ongoing challenging situation.



The programme is aimed to display paintings and various expressive artworks of children in windows, balconies and walls of houses across the Chhattisgarh state.

The programme shows solidarity by kids and also keeps themselves engaged creatively and joyfully at a time when schools are shut due to the lockdown.



The initiative was launched by the CM Bhupesh Baghel in 6 districts simultaneously through video conferencing.

FOLLOW CORONAVIRUS LIVE UPDATES HERE



"During this lockdown, the children of Chhattisgarh can continue to creatively express and inspire through Chakmak campaign to bring hope, smile, inspiration and positivity not among the children but also the family and community in the wake of COVID-19 epidemic," the chief minister said.



The programme is supported by UNICEF and the women and child development department.



UNICEF India Country representative, Yasmin Ali Haque who joined the event on launching the child-centered programme in the state lauded the efforts of the state government in containing the spread of coronavirus.

"Chhattisgarh has 83% COVID recovery rate, highest in India and no COVID related death reported so far. The state has 81% green districts, highest among big states in India," she said.
The enforcement of the restriction orders in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja turned dramatic on Sunday when the Pastor in Charge of Shekinah Glory Church, Jabi, along with some of his Deacons and workers scaled the fence to evade arrest on sighting the Ministerial Enforcement Team led by Mr Ikharo Attah

Consequently, an FCT Mobile Court sitting in Jabi has ordered an indefinite closure of The Shekinah Glory Church, located opposite Citec Estate, Jabi.

The Presiding Magistrate, Mabel Bello also directed that the General Overseer of the church, simply identified as Pastor Kalu, who escaped with some leaders of the church by scaling the fence, be tracked and arrested.



Giving an update on the activities of the Enforcement Team, its Chairman, Mr Ikharo Attah said he had immediately mobilized his team to the area on receipt of intelligence that the church was in full session, a clear contravention of the ban on religious gatherings in the territory.

He said but on sighting the team, the Pastor, some leading church workers including Deacons and Ushers jumped the fence and escaped arrest.

However, some of the church members, especially the womenfolk who could not scale the fence, were arrested and arraigned before the court.

According to him, the Magistrate found the church workers guilty of violating the lockdown restriction order and sentenced them to three hours of supervised community service with an option of N1, 000 fine. Attah added that a search for the fleeing cleric had begun, saying he must be made to face the law for disobeying the governments directives and endangering the lives of his membe

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
The business accounting software market is expected to grow by USD 1.64 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.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005477/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Business Accounting Software Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Request challenges and opportunities that influence COVID-19 pandemic Request a free sample report of the business accounting software market

Organizations face various challenges in efficiently analyzing and managing large databases. For example, sometimes irrelevant data generated from various sources about consumer behavior, consumer buying patterns, and other information may affect the decision making process. With the emergence of big data and analytics, organizations are now able to transform unstructured and semi-structured data into structured and meaningful data. Business accounting software can leverage this data to help organizations accelerate data management, process and analyze data, and increase the efficiency of financial operations. Also, the integration of AI helps in obtaining new insights from current data to optimize credit decisions, improve financial risk management, and enhance customer experience through intelligent chatbots. Therefore, the rising need for modernizing finance operations is expected to drive the growth of the global business accounting software market 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=IRTNTR40282

As per Technavio, the emergence of business accounting mobile applications 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.

Business Accounting Software Market: Emergence of Business Accounting Mobile Applications

Vendors are introducing business accounting mobile applications that allow customers to easily handle accounting tasks from anywhere and anytime. Most of the vendors are offering basic features such as invoicing and expense tracking in their apps. Some of the advanced features include bill reminders, mobile wallets, and bank transfers. For instance, FreeAgent's cloud-based mobile accounting app provides the option of taking pictures of receipts to record expenses. The app also features an invoicing option that can create, edit, and send invoices directly from the app and track and manage payments and other banking services. The advent of such apps is expected to positively impact the growth of the global business accounting software during the forecast period.

"Introduction of optical character recognition (OCR) and the increasing integration of business accounting software with big data will further boost market growth during the forecast period", says a senior analyst at Technavio.

Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports

Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform

Business Accounting Software Market: Segmentation Analysis

This market research report segments the business accounting software market by deployment (cloud-based and on-premises) and region (North America, Europe, APAC, MEA, and South America).

The North American region led the business accounting software market in 2019, followed by Europe, APAC, MEA, and South America respectively. During the forecast period, North America is expected to register the highest incremental growth due to the increased adoption of business accounting software among SMEs in the region.

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:

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005477/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: media@technavio.com

Website: www.technavio.com/
(Bloomberg) -- Germanys Wirecard AG plans to regain the confidence of investors with sweeping measures to improve compliance and control, said Chief Executive Officer Markus Braun, dismissing calls to step down.

The payment processing company will reveal details of nine projects to improve global internal control systems including how it reports and punishes compliance violations and dealings with business partners, Braun told Bloomberg News late on Sunday.

It follows an independent KPMG audit of Wirecard that caused its shares to fall more than 30% last week. KPMG said it was unable to obtain the data it needed and criticized the company for internal shortcomings and an unwillingness by its third-party partners to contribute to the report.

Wirecard managers had hoped the KPMG probe would resolve lingering concerns around the Munich-based firms third-party business, merchant payments and business activities in India and Singapore, after a series of articles by the Financial Times accused it of fraud in those areas.

However, the report was repeatedly delayed and KPMG said evidence provided for revenues of 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in transactions with third parties was sufficient for reporting purposes but insufficient for the forensic probe. It said Wirecard has an accumulation of software contracts without economic substance.

Braun renewed a previous commitment to improve compliance and move away from doing business with third-party business partners, which process payments in countries where Wirecard has no license to operate. Such contracts represented about half of its transaction volumes last year.

We will massively cut back our third-party business and replace it with our own licenses within the next two years, Braun said by phone. He said the measures wont affect revenue and profit margins.

Rating Cuts

The KPMG report has stirred concern among some of the longest-running Wirecard backers, with analysts from Kepler Cheuvreux, HSBC and Morgan Stanley each cutting or suspending their long-term buy ratings.

Story continues

Wirecards shares were down another 4.6% as of 10:39 a.m. in Frankfurt.

While Braun acknowledged theres more to be done, he said progress has already been made, pointing to a project launched in mid-2019 to strengthen internal controls in Singapore that was rolled out worldwide and has improved standards.

He said the company is boosting staff in its compliance department to 160 from 100. Chairman Thomas Eichelmann last week said it would add compliance and sales specialists to its management board.

Braun rejected a call from billionaire activist investor Chris Hohn of TCI Fund Management Ltd. last week for him to step aside. The CEO said he brings substantial value-enhancing potential to Wirecard, with a clear plan to boost its revenues and profits by multiple times within the next ten years.

We are on course to meet our financial targets for 2020 and keep our long-term guidance, Braun said.

He said the coronavirus crisis has weighed on the firms business with airlines but helped in other areas such as online retail.

All growth drivers are intact and will be strengthened by the digitalization trend and accelerated by corona, Braun said. Wirecard is due to present first-quarter earnings on May 14 and its long-awaited, audited annual report on June 4.

(Updates to add latest analyst rating cuts in eighth paragraph. An earlier version of this story was corrected to fix the date of first-quarter earnings in final paragraph)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Willemstad/Philipsburg:--- The Centrale Bank van Curacao en Sint Maarten (CBCS) has calculated the macroeconomic effects of a solidarity levy on the request of the minister of Finance of Curacao. The analysis reveals that the solidarity levy will result in an even deeper economic contraction in 2020 than was initially projected, even though part of the revenues from the levy will be allocated for income support for some of the vulnerable and most affected groups in society, according to dr. Jose Jardim, interim- president of the CBCS.

The economy of Curacao has been hit hard by the global outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus and the measures that the government has taken to contain a local spread of the virus. Assuming a closure of the borders for a period of 3 months and a lockdown of 1 month followed by a gradual recovery after re-opening, the CBCS projected an economic contraction of 17.7%. It should be noted, however, that the longer the duration of the lockdown and border closure, the deeper the contraction will be.

The deep economic contraction will cause a further increase in unemployment, more poverty, and a worsening of the public finances. Curacao was already facing major socio-economic challenges before the outbreak of the pandemic that is currently aggravated, explains Dr. Jardim. The government of Curacao has requested financial support from the Netherlands. The first tranche of liquidity support covering 6 weeks up till mid-May was, however, significantly lower than the amount the government had requested to finance the support measures. Therefore, other options should be explored.

One of the options that are being considered by the Curacao government is the introduction of a general solidarity levy on all income equal or above the wage limit for the ZV-OV premium for the year 2020, i.e., a gross monthly income of NAf.5,781 or higher. The CBCS assumes in her calculations that the solidarity levy will be in place for a period of 6 months. Even though part of the revenues from the solidarity levy will be allocated to for income support of some of the vulnerable and most affected groups in society, it will have a procyclical effect on the economy. The solidarity levy will cause a deeper economic contraction of 18,9% aggravating the 17.7% expected contraction, according to dr. Jardim.

The consumption of the group that will pay the solidarity levy will drop, caused by a decline in its disposable income. Part of the revenues from the solidarity levy will be allocated for securing jobs (and thereby securing disposable income) for the group under the wage limit. The government of Curacao intends to use the other part of the revenues from the solidarity levy for other purposes, namely replenishment of the reserves of the SVB, compensation for the loss of revenues of the government, and financing of the operational costs of the support measures. In addition, not all affected groups in society will be eligible for support, resulting in a decline of their consumption. Consequently, there is only a partial redistribution of income from the group with an income above the wage limit towards the group with an income below the wage limit. That explains the projected decline in private consumption as a result of the solidarity levy. The greater the share of the revenues that will not be allocated for redistribution, the greater the negative effect on the economy, explains Dr. Jardim further.

Based on a rate of 10%, the net revenues of the government as a result of the solidarity levy will be only NAf.67 million. Therefore, it is not realistic to expect that an economy that was already contracting for a few years before the outbreak of the pandemic, will generate substantial revenues through a solidarity levy to finance the remaining package of support measures, according to the interim-president. It is recommended that the government explores ways of reducing its expenditures instead of introducing an additional tax. The freed-up funds can be complemented by additional financing from the Netherlands and to a lesser extent loan on the local capital market. The limited available funds to cover the income that has been lost as a result of the lockdown call for restarting, in a responsible yet swift manner, of key economic activities that are currently in a standstill in order to reduce the costs of the lockdown and initiate the economic recovery, concludes dr. Jardim.
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

Autonomous mining vehicle and autonomous sanitation vehicle markets take off.



This report highlights progress of autonomous working vehicles in four fields: sanitation, airport, agriculture and mining.







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05890398/?utm_source=PRN







Autonomous working vehicles that run on relatively closed roads and fixed routes, are often free of public road traffic rules, making for popularization of highly automated driving technology. Although the COVID-19 pandemic hinders the development of autonomous driving at airports for the time being, autonomous driving technology for sanitation, agriculture and mining is developing by leaps and bounds.



Autonomous sanitation vehicle

Urban autonomous sanitation street sweepers shall travel at speeds lower than 12km/h according to China's national standards. The use of autonomous driving technology in sanitation field enables all-weather and more efficient operation subject to strict specifications. In China, autonomous sweepers are being piloted in dozens of places nationwide, mainly for enclosed scenarios such as parks and scenic spots. As China spends RMB200 billion to RMB300 billion on sanitation and more than 100,000 sanitation vehicles are sold each year, autonomous sanitation vehicle sales and service market will be worth a staggering tens of billions of yuan considering sanitation vehicles are being replaced by self-driving ones.



In China, vision + radar solution currently prevails among technology roadmaps of autonomous sanitation vehicle manufacturers who differ greatly in underlying algorithms and sensor cost control. As pilot run and operation of autonomous sanitation vehicles are under way in some places of China, solution providers face challenges of cost control posed by mass production, so most of them turn to homemade sensors and low-cost computing platforms like ARM from NVIDIA.



Most start-ups build autonomous sweepers based on existing sweeping vehicles, while body frame and modules of Idriverplus VIGGO are developed specially for autonomous vehicle. VIGGO's electronic/electrical architecture consists of the following domains: Computing and Control, Powertrain, Body System, Steering System, Business System, and Information and Communication.



The new design that dispenses with driver's seat saves seat space for water tank or battery to increase effective operating radius.



By virtue of down-to-earth R&D and reliable products, Idriverplus acquired orders for 1,000 units of its 5G autonomous vehicles from China Mobile in July 2019. Hundreds of VIGGO sweepers have been sold.



In February 2020, Idriverplus also rolled out a spraying sterilizer vehicle for curbing coronavirus disease.



Apart from VIGGO, cockpitless design is also found in AXL, a fully autonomous concept mining truck introduced by Scania. The vehicle represents a future trend for mining vehicle.



Autonomous mining vehicle

Autonomous mining vehicles already find broad application in foreign countries. Autonomous mining vehicles of Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (FMG), an iron ore tycoon, have run a total of 33.5 million km and transported more than 1 billion tons of ores and materials, with production efficiency 30% higher than conventional manual transport. FMG has operated 137 self-driving mining vehicles.



In China, mining companies need to pay out tens of billions of yuan for workers to transport ores and materials each year, who cannot still ensure transport safety and efficiency. In major mining areas of China, road dump trucks featuring non-widebody and small tonnage are largely used with ownership of roughly 200,000 units, while around 5,000 units of off-road wide body dump trucks for mining are produced and sold annually, with ownership of just over 10,000 units. The refitted autonomous mining vehicle market (OEM and aftermarket) in China is valued at least RMB500 billion.



As concerns technology roadmap, mining trucks usually utilize the LiDAR + vision + radar solution for their common price of RMB800,000 at least makes manufacturers seldom weigh the cost of LiDAR. The three sensor fusion solution allows all-day, all-weather perception by sensing system in bad conditions at mines. That mining vehicles travel at low speeds and in simple environment means that LiDAR is optional so some companies also use vision + radar solution for a sharp cut in refit cost.



Major autonomous mining truck solution providers in China have actual projects carried out but all on small scale. Most of autonomous mining truck start-ups have closed one or two funding rounds, marking that capital has turned attention to the segment. At present, they are close to each other in technology roadmap but still need to improve their technology, with orders they announced often worth RMB100 million or so and few vehicles operated (generally dozens of units), which means no one plays a leading role.



Following a contract for two new autonomous vehicles signed on July 4, 2019, Beijing Tage Idriver Technology Co., Ltd. and Inner Mongolia North Hauler Joint Stock Co., Ltd., China's largest mining truck manufacturer sweeping 80% of the domestic market, signed on April 8, 2020 a supply order for 10 sets of "autonomous driving control systems", which will be mounted on 10 units of new NTE200AT vehicles.



Autonomous agricultural vehicle

Autonomous driving for agricultural machinery, the simplest one among all autonomous driving technologies for special vehicles, depends more on high-precision positioning systems and software algorithms. Mainstream hardware configuration is Beidou system + angle sensor + IMU, and vision is optional and available to users who need. In terms of technology roadmap, OEMs often use a hydraulic solution where electro-hydraulic proportional valves are used to drive steering wheel. In aftermarket, the electric steering wheel solution in which motors are used to simulate manual driving is largely used due to being easy to refit and low cost.



Globally, big agricultural machinery manufacturers all have a range of models pre-installed autonomous driving technology (GPS Ready). Examples include John Deere 8R Series, Case New Holland Magnum Series, and AGCO Auto Guide 3000 with standard configuration of Danfoss hydraulic valves. In the Chinese OEM market, hydraulic solutions rule the roost.



In aftermarket, hydraulic and steering wheel autonomous driving solutions take up a considerable proportion of installation and sales. In the Chinese market, flagship products of most system providers are steering wheel solution. Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co., Ltd. provides both hydraulic and steering wheel solutions but the hydraulic dominate; Shanghai AllyNav Technology Co., Ltd. has offerings of both, of which the hydraulic led previously and the steering wheel got vigorously promoted in 2019. Of the shipments of autonomous driving systems for agricultural machinery in China, electric steering wheel solutions shared roughly 20% and the hydraulic solutions swept 80% from 2018 to 2019.



In view of application, agricultural machinery self-driving systems are still expensive (RMB70,000-RMB80,000/set), and massively used in areas with large farmlands, like Xinjiang and Northeastern China. Agricultural machinery autonomous driving system market in China will be valued at RMB4 billion to RMB5 billion given that virtually 200,000 units of mid- and high-end tractors are sold a year and penetration of such systems is 50%. In future, autonomous driving and variable operations will bring a larger market.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05890398/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

www.reportlinker.com


Advertisement

Donald Trump suggested that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe is the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China and that Chinese officials tried to cover it up.

The president continued to point the finger at Beijing and fueled growing suggestions that COVID-19 spread from a Wuhan laboratory before snowballing into a worldwide pandemic.

His fiery remarks at Sunday's Fox News virtual town hall meeting at Washington's Lincoln Memorial came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was a 'significant amount of evidence' the disease had escaped.

Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the global community.

'Well, I don't think there's any question about it. We wanted to go in, they didn't want us to go in. Things are coming out that are pretty compelling. I don't think there's any question,' the president said Sunday.

'Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn't want to admit it,' he added.

His comments came as a Department of Homeland Security report shared on Sunday revealed US officials believe China 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic in early January and hoarded medical supplies.

The four-page report dated May 1 that was obtained by the Associated Press notes that China downplayed the virus publicly but increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.

The document accuses China of covering their tracks by 'denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data.'

It lends weight to a leaked dossier drawn up by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance which describes how Beijing made whistleblowers 'disappear', destroyed early virus samples and scrubbed the internet of any mention of the disease in the early stages.

In the wide-ranging interview last night:

The president said he believed a coronavirus vaccine could be developed by the end of the year;

He lashed out at Democrats who he said were motivated by politics and 'don't want to see a good result';

Trump conceded that 100,000 Americans could die from the disease, after initially touting 60,000 as the final toll;

Trump claimed he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln by the press, as he sat in the shadow of the 16th president's memorial;

He lashed out at the World Health Organisation, branding its handling of the pandemic a 'disaster' and justified his decision to cut funding

Trump said everyone, even Dr. Fauci, told him the virus would be 'no big deal'

Vice president Mike Pence admitted he should have worn a mask when he visited the Mayo clinic following a backlash for flouting the rules.

President Donald Trump suggested that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe is the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China

The president continued to point the finger at Beijing on Sunday during a Fox News virtual town hall meeting at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. where he said China sparked the outbreak before scrambling to cover it up

'Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn't want to admit it...like a fireThey couldn't put out the fire,' the president said

Donald Trump launches fresh attack on 'disaster' WHO Donald Trump doubled down his attacks on the World Health Organisation last night and branded its handling of the pandemic a 'disaster'. The President lashed out at the UN agency for blindly regurgitating information from Beijing and said it has 'missed every single call'. He said the United States had been 'foolishly' pouring money into the WHO and justified his decision to cut its funding. He said: 'The World Health organisation has been a disaster everything they said was wrong and they're China-centric. 'All they do is agree with China, whatever China wants to do. 'So our country, perhaps foolishly in retrospect has been paying $450million a year to the World Health Organisation and China's been paying $38million a year but they were more political than all of our leaders previously. 'What they did, what World Health did, was they missed every single call and we're not going to put up with it.' Advertisement

In Sunday's virtual town hall, Trump said that China failed to admit their mistake in refusing to accept global aid.

'We wanted to go in, but they didn't want us there.

'Even World Health wanted to go in - they were admitted but much later, not immediately.

'They made a mistake, they tried to cover it, like a fireThey couldn't put out the fire,' Trump said.

He condemned the Communist nation for not alerting global leaders on the severity of the outbreak while continuing to allow flights to exit China.

'What they really treated the world badly on, they stopped people from going into China but they didn't stop people from going into the USA and all the rest of the world.'

'They knew they had a problem, I think they were embarrassed by the problem,' Trump added.

When asked about President Xi, Trump said 'I'm not going to say anything' but 'this should never have happened'.

He also lashed out at the World Health Organisation for siding with China and blindly regurgitating its 'wrong' information.

The president branded the UN agency's handling of the emergency a 'disaster' and said the US had been 'foolishly' pouring funding into its coffers.

Trump said that the federal government is putting together a 'strong' report on the origin of COVID-19 that has infected over a million in the US and killed over 68,000, adding it will be 'very conclusive'.

Last week Trump told reporters that he had seen proof that suggests the virus originated in the lab, but he did not go into detail.

Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin watch as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the 'America Together. Returning to Work' town hall

In Sunday's virtual town hall, Trump said that China failed to admit their mistake in refusing to accept global aid

Last week Trump told reporters that he had seen proof that suggests the virus originated in the lab, but he did not go into detail. The Wuhan Institute of Virology located near the wet market pictured above

Diplomats had complained about the slack safety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the years prior to the coronavirus outbreak

Earlier on Sunday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that 'a significant amount of evidence' suggested the virus came from the Wuhan lab.

TRUMP SAYS SAID FAUCI SAID CORONAVIRUS WAS 'NO BIG DEAL' Trump claimed 'everybody' - including Dr Fauci - told him coronavirus was going to be 'no big deal' after he closed the border with China. 'Nancy Pelosi was a month later saying it was going to pass  everybody, even Tony Fauci, was saying it's going to pass, not going to be a big deal,' he said on Sunday night. Fauci has been hailed by many as a voice of reason amid the pandemic. He has resisted criticizing the president but has contradicted him, especially on medical guidance, at daily White House briefings. Fauci warned in 2017 that a disease outbreak could be something the US should worry about. In April, he said that more lives would have been saved if the US had been shut down sooner but that there was 'push back'. Hours after he said it, Trump retweeted a tweet calling for Fauci to be fired. The president says that by stopping foreign nationals from entering the US from China in January, before any other country, he responded quickly. Advertisement

'I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.

'These are not the first time that we've had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab,' Pompeo said on ABC's This Week.

The US intelligence community said it believes that COVID-19 was not 'manmade or genetically modified' but was investigating whether it was caused by 'an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan'.

However, Chinese officials and scientists have denied that there is any connection between the outbreak and the Institute of Virology in Wuhan that studies infectious diseases including coronavirus.

Experts believe the virus started spreading as early as February in the United States before it forced states to issue lockdown directives for millions of Americans beginning in mid-March.

Last week, Trump claimed that he had seen evidence that coronavirus started in the Wuhan virology laboratory and warned he could impose tariffs of $1trillion on China in retribution for the pandemic.

'Yes I have. Yes I have,' Trump said when asked if he had seen proof the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Technology.

The Wuhan lab is located near a wet market that has been identified as the likely epicenter of the outbreak that took place late last year.

However, the president would not divulge what the evidence was that confirmed his suspicions, when asked by a reporter.

'I can't tell you that. I am not allowed to tell you that,' he responded.

In Sunday's virtual town hall, Trump said that China failed to admit their mistake in refusing to accept global aid

President Trump holds still during a commercial break at Sunday night's Fox News Channel town hall that was filmed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington

The Five Eyes spy document, which was leaked to the Australian Telegraph on Saturday, also details how 'risky' bat-related virus studies were carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The 15-page document brands Beijing's secrecy over the pandemic an 'assault on international transparency' and points to cover-up tactics deployed by the regime.

It cites several studies led by scientist Dr. Shi Zhengli at the Institute into deadly bat-derived coronaviruses, with at least one of the virus samples being a 96 per cent genetic match for Covid-19.

But as part of a mass 'suppression and destruction of evidence', the state ordered samples of the virus to be destroyed in laboratories while wet market was bleached to extinguish remnants of the disease.

On Sunday Trump blamed US intelligence officials for failing to warn the country about the severity of the virus tweeting: 'Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S. Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner...'

Trump predicts the US will have a COVID-19 vaccine 'by the end of the year' and says Dems are motivated by politics and 'don't want to see a good result' - as he admits up to 100,000 could die of virus

By Nikki Schwab, senior US political correspondent for DailyMail.com

President Donald Trump expressed optimism that there would be a coronavirus vaccine by the conclusion of 2020.

'We are very confident that we are going to have a vaccine by the end of the year,' he said last night.

He hailed companies racing to find a drug and said the United States was working with Australian and UK partners in an international effort to beat the disease.

Trump offered the ray of hope to Fox News Channel anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who were hosting a virtual town hall Sunday night from the Lincoln Memorial.

But the president's enthusiasm faded as he made a bleak forecast up to 100,000 people could die from COVID-19 in the U.S.

As he gears up for November's election, Trump also swiped at Democrats who he accused of rather seeing people suffer than allow him to take credit.

During the two-hour Q&A, where Americans asked Trump questions via video, he was joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for the last 30 minutes.

Counselor to the president Hope Hicks (left), who recently rejoined the administration, and new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (center, speak to President Trump during a commercial break during Sunday night's Fox News Channel town hall

President Trump's motorcade prepares to leave the White House Sunday for the short drive to the Lincoln Memorial

Hope Hicks, Trump's longtime aide who recently rejoined the White House, and new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows were seen at the president's side during commercial breaks. The president's new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was also on hand.

Throughout the town hall, he came back to his claim that the coronavirus vaccine was coming in 2020.

'We think we'll have a vaccine by the end of this year. And we're pushing very hard. We're building supply lines now and we don't even have the final vaccine,' Trump said.

He pointed to Johnson & Johnson as one company making a dent. 'Many companies, I think, are close,' he told the Fox News Channel hosts.

Admitting that it didn't sound like his usual 'America First' rhetoric, Trump answered, 'I don't care,' when asked how he would feel if another country developed a successful vaccine first.

'I really just want to get a vaccine that works,' the president said.

He added that the U.S. was working alongside Australia and also the United Kingdom, and brought up Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who became extremely ill from COVID-19.

'He thought it was over, it was vicious,' Trump said.

The president said he wasn't worried about people volunteering for vaccine trials.

'No, because they're volunteers,' Trump said. 'They know what they're getting into,' he added, calling those who sign up 'good people.'

The president said he'd like to see therapeutics, too, that would work to cure patients who have COVID-19.

'I would rather have therapeutics, something to make people better, not a cure, at least a therapeutic,' Trump said.

Most recently, the Federal Drug Administration authorized the use of the anti-viral drug Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases.

The president also continue to tout the anti-Malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

He pushed back when Baier mentioned some of hydroxychloroquine's side effects. 'They're bragging about it,' Trump said of the success doctors in other countries have seen using hydroxychloroquine.

He then used that moment to attack his political opponents.

'Here's what we've been reduced to in this country,' Trump began. 'The Democrats, the radical left, whatever you - would rather have people, I'm going to be very nice, I'm not going to say die - would rather see people not get well because they think I'm going to get credit, if hydroxychloroquine works.'

'I have nothing to do with hydroxychloroquine,' the president went on, mentioning how some media reports suggested he owned the company that makes the drug. 'Other then, if it worked, it would be great.'

Trump also used his time at the Lincoln Memorial to go after the press - and compare the two leaders' shoddy press coverage, in the president's view.

The president was asked by a supporter, who said her family, prayed for him every day, about his 'manner and presentation.'

'Why do you use descriptive words that could be classified as bullying and why do you not directly answer the questions asked by the press and instead speak of past success and generally ramble?' she asked, asking him to stop.

Trump said he had to act this way because nearly 100 per cent of the White House press corps was 'hostile.'

'Look I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen. The closest would be that gentleman right up there,' the president said, pointing to the massive Lincoln statue. 'I believe I am treated worse,' he added.

The president described the questions asked by reporters in the briefing room as 'disgraceful.'

'And if I was kind to them, I would be walked off stage,' he said.

Trump mentioned how boaters in Florida were out earlier Sunday with all sorts of Trump signs.

'We have tremendous support, but the media, they might as well be in the Democrat Party,' the president said.

The president, again, showed support for the protesters that have shown up to state capitols, a number of them sporting Trump gear.

'And those are meaningful demonstrations,' Trump pointed out to the Fox News Channel hosts.

And at the top of the program, he talked about how 'probably everybody's scared.'

'I've never seen death like this, I've never personally experienced anything like this,' Trump said of COVID-19.

He pointed out that he had known people who had gotten the flu all of his life.

'I was lucky I never had the flu, then I came here, and they wanted to give me a flu show, I said, "I don't want to a flue shot,' but they have to give it,' he said, seemingly of a discussion he had with the White House doctor once he became president.

'I've known people that had the flu all my life, nobody ever died,' Trump said.

While drawing comparisons between the two viruses in the past, Trump did no such thing Sunday night.

'I've lost three friend,' the president said. 'One a very good friend, a very successful man, New York guy, employed a lot of people - they were all crying over his death, Staney Chera.'

Chera passed away from COVID-19 complications at the age of 78 in mid-April.

He was a fellow New York real estate investor.

'He went to the hospital, he calls me up, he goes, "I tested positive," I said what are you going to do? "I'm going to the hospital." I'll call you tomorrow,' Trump said, recalling their conversation.

'I call the hospital, he's in a coma,' Trump said. 'I know a lot of people who had the flu, they were never in a coma.'

Trump called it a 'horrible thing' that the country is fighting.

'This thing is vicious, it can take you out, it can take you out very strongly,' the president said.

Trump praises boaters setting sail near Mar-a-Lago as 31 states kick off phase one of restarting the economy and tens of thousands across the country trickle out of lockdown to enjoy the sun

By Marlene Lenthang and Meghan Sheets for DailyMail.com

People across the country are slowly trickling out of quarantine and heading to local parks, beaches, and the few businesses that are up and running as states begin to reopen.

So far 31 states in the US have lifted some coronavirus lockdown restrictions with most governors restarting the economy in phases, starting with allowing retailers and recreational parks to open first.

Photographs taken over the weekend showed thousands packed into outdoor farmers markets in California, crowds practicing social distancing while shopping in Seattle, beach-goers soaking up the sun on recently-opened sand strips in Texas, and boaters hitting the waves in Florida.

President Donald Trump showed support for Floridians when he tweeted a video of a flock of boats bearing his 2020 campaign logo near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach on Sunday morning.

'Thank you very much to our beautiful "boaters." I will never let you down!' he wrote.

America reopens: At least 31 states have started to reopen up and allow businesses to open their doors. Florida eased restrictions over the marinas on Sunday as revelers hit the water - including this group of boaters showing off Trump 2020 campaign logos near the president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach

The president tweeted a video of the flock of pro-Trump boats on Sunday morning, writing: 'Thank you very much to our beautiful "boaters." I will never let you down!'

Florida: Revelers hit the waves near Palm Beach on a jet ski with a Trump 2020 campaign flag on Sunday

California: Protesters call for Gov. Gavin Newsom to lift lockdowns during a demonstration near Huntington Beach

Georgia: Dozens of people are seen near an Atlanta Beltline railway station in the Georgia capital on Sunday

Washington: In Seattle customers were seen Sunday practicing social distancing and wearing face masks in a line that stretched around the block as they waited to enter the West Seattle Farmers Market, which opened for the first time in nearly two months due to the coronavirus outbreak

Virginia: A drone photo shows cars lined up to watch the movie Trolls World Tour at the newly re-opened Family Drive-in Theatre in Stephens City, Virginia, on Saturday. Theatre owner James Kopp successfully lobbied Virginia governor Ralph Northam to reopen his drive-in during the coronavirus pandemic, by promising to adhere to strict social distancing guidelines

Texas: Beaches throughout the state were ordered to be open on May 1, prompting hundreds to flock to Galveston Beach on Saturday to enjoy the warm weather

California: In Studio City a Farmer's Market was inundated with thousands of eager shoppers who ignored social distancing orders as they enjoyed the spring time sunshine

In Florida startling photographs of packed beaches have emerged over the past month as Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a shelter-in-place order on April 2, but later allowed beaches to reopen that same month.

This weekend big crowds were seen at Miami-Dade County marinas and parks, which opened Wednesday after weeks of being closed due to the virus.

Most of Florida will reopen on Monday, starting with restaurants that will allow services at 25 percent capacity and retail stores, museums and libraries with restrictions.

However, those orders wont apply to Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, where a majority of coronavirus cases in the state lie. In total Florida has seen over 36,000 infections of COVID-19 and over 1,000 fatalities.

Gov. De Santis touted the success of his state's handling of the virus last week saying: 'There's been a lot that's been done to try to promote fear, to promote worst-case scenarios, to drive hysteria. People should know that worst-case scenario thinking (in Florida) - that has not proven to be true.'

'The only thing we have to fear is letting fear overwhelm our sense of purpose and determination,' he added as an explanation for his reopenings.

President Trump praised De Santis during a town hall meeting on Sunday night, saying: 'Florida tested the people very, very well and look how low the numbers are in Florida.

'They've done a great job.'

Florida: This weekend big crowds were seen at Miami-Dade County marinas and parks, which opened Wednesday after weeks of being closed due to the virus. People pictured enjoying their boats, some waving USA and Trump flags on Sunday off of Palm Beach

These two boats were spotted in the water off of Palm Beach on Sunday as parks and marinas were allowed to open earlier this week

Most of Florida will reopen on Monday, starting with restaurants that will allow services at 25 percent capacity and retail stores, museums and libraries with restrictions. However, those orders wont apply to Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, where a majority of coronavirus cases in the state lie

Boaters seen enjoying a sunny day on the first Saturday since the reopening of marinas in Miami-Dade following coronavirus lockdowns

Locals came out in droves to enjoy the water on the first weekend they were allowed to hit the marinas since they reopened this week

Even though California has not officially reopened tons of people were seen at the Farmer's Market in Studio City on Sunday. Gov. Gavin Newsom has not said when the state would open but said it would take weeks

An aerial view of the Ocean beach where people enjoy warm weather in Long Branch, New Jersey, United States during coronavirus pandemic

Locals in Los Angeles headed out to their parks to sunbathe after Gov. Gavin Newsom doubled down and closed public beaches after crowds gathered there last week

People pictured walking on sand in front of the Golden Gate Bridge at the Crissy Field East Beach in San Francisco on Sunday. Beaches were mostly empty over the warm weekend as Californians heeded stay-at-home orders in anticipation that Gov. Gavin Newsom might ease some restrictions this week

An aerial view of the Ocean beach where people enjoy warm weather in Long Branch, New Jersey, United States during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic

A Huntington Beach police officer asks two men to leave as the beach is closed amid the coronavirus pandemic in Huntington Beach, California on Saturday

In California on Sunday, hundreds of people were seen out and about at an outdoor farmer's market in Studio City, Los Angeles.

California has been under shelter-in-place orders since March 19 restricting locals to stay at home except for essential trips without an official end date in sight. Newsom said some businesses could open 'in weeks, not months.'

However, protests have broken out across the state as locals force their way onto beaches to enjoy warm weather.

In LA County beaches are closed through May 15 but Ventura and San Diego counties have been gradually opening their beaches.

Orange County fully opened their beaches, drawing massive crowds last weekend, prompting Newsom to close the areas local and state beaches on Thursday. After last weekend's crowds, some locals still headed to the beach, but police were on site to order them to go home.

California has the fifth-biggest COVID-19 breakout in the country with over 54,000 cases of the virus and over 2,000 deaths.

Thousands of New Yorkers flocked to city parks this weekend as warmer weather tempted them out of quarantine and forced the city to dispatch 1,000 officers to streets to enforce social distancing guidelines and a ban on large public congregations (Pictured: Central Park's Sheep Meadow on Saturday afternoon)

Under the instructions of Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYPD officers set out on foot, bicycles and in cars to break up crowds and remind those enjoying the weather of public health restrictions requiring they keep 6 feet away from others

Governor Andrew Cuomo said he appreciated residents were bored but that they should not take 'false comfort' from falling COVID-19 cases or from seeing other states reopen

Sarah Schu places a sign advising customers of the direction of travel at the West Seattle Farmers Market on Sunday reminding people to practicing social distancing

Washington state's reopening guidelines allows a few vendors at farmers markets to reopen as long as there is a limited number of customers moving in a single direction inside with hand washing and sanitizing stations available

Apple vendor Dani Clauson waves to a customer after a purchase at her stand in the West Seattle Farmers Market during its first opening in nearly two months because of the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday

Farmer Samantha Alvarez rings up a purchase for a customer at the West Seattle Farmers Market during its first opening in nearly two months on Sunday

Gotta golf! A golfer pictured wearing a mask and protective gloves in his retrofitted cart as he heads out on Sunday at the Shenvalee Golf Resort in New Market, Virginia

Practicing social distancing: The Shenvalee Golf Resort retrofitted all their carts to maintain social distancing measures

In Seattle customers were seen Sunday practicing social distancing and wearing face masks in a line that stretched around the block as they waited to enter the West Seattle Farmers Market, which opened Sunday for the first time in nearly two months due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Washington state, which saw the first outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, has stay-at-home orders through May 31 but phrase one of reopenings starts on Tuesday May 5 where outdoor recreation is open and essential businesses  such as construction, landscaping, and curb-side pick-up retail can open.

The reopening guidelines allows a few vendors at farmers markets to reopen as long as there is a limited number of customers moving in a single direction inside with hand washing and sanitizing stations available.

In Texas thousands flocked to beaches as the state allowed them to reopen on May 1. A couple at Galveston Beach was seen celebrating their wedding at the scenic shoreline, inundated with locals enjoying the warm weather and sunshine.

In Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued a stay-at-home order on March 30 that extends through June 10  making it one of the longest in the nation, but allowed golf courses to remain open throughout that time period. The Forward Virginia plan to ease public health restrictions started on April 24 and allowed certain businesses to open.

On Sunday happy golfers were seen at the Shenvalee Golf Resort in New Market, Virginia using retrofitted golf cars that had sheets of plastic running along the middle to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Texas: Locals in Galveston headed to the beach over the weekend after the state's beaches were allowed to be opened on May 1. Liza Pankey and Christopher Pankey share a laugh after getting married at Galveston Beach on Saturday above

Hundreds of people headed out to Galveston Beach in Texas on Sunday to enjoy the partial statewide reopening of the economy following strict coronavirus lockdowns

In Texas there are over 31,900 cases of COVID-19 and there have been over 870 deaths so far. Beachgoers enjoying a day of sunshine at Galveston Beach pictured Saturday

Meanwhile in New York, thousands flocked to city parks this weekend to enjoy the warm weather that tempted them out of quarantine and forced the city to dispatch 1,000 officers to streets to enforce social distancing guidelines and a ban on large public congregations.

Two of the city's largest public gardens, Central Park and Prospect Park, were filled with sunbathers basking in the 70-degree sunshine across the weekend, many of them in groups.

Mayor de Blasio said in parks alone yesterday, officers were forced to issue 43 summonses to those ignoring social distancing protocol. New Yorkers can be fined up to $1000 for violating the orders.

An additional eight summonses were issued to lockdown rebels outside of the parks, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said, noting the 'majority' of the 51 issued in total were for a failure to maintain a social distance.

Three arrests were made citywide, Shea said, though the circumstances of each was not disclosed. The NYPD has made 60 arrests and issued 343 summonses related to social distancing since shelter-in-place instructions were implemented on March 16.
The third phase of nationwide coronavirus lockdown kicked-in on Monday with partial relaxations. The lockdown restrictions and relaxations in various states are be based on the incidence of Covid-19. All districts of the country have been colour-coded into red, orange and green for the same.

Heres a quick look at relaxations, restrictions under the third phase of the lockdown across major states in India .

Delhi

In the national capital, all government and non-government offices are set to open from today. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that all the reliefs given in the red zone during the lockdown will remain in force in Delhi. Government offices providing essential services will have a 100% staff presence other government offices will have 33% employees, in addition to the secretary and deputy secretary. Private offices will also open with 33% staff presence.

All public means of transport like rickshaws, autos, metro, bus services will remain banned. Restaurants, bars, religious sites, malls, gym, swimming pools, theatres will also remain shut. Private vehicles with two passengers are allowed in the case of four-wheelers. Movement will be allowed from seven in the morning to seven in the evening. All shops will open in residential complexes and neighbourhoods. E-commerce operations are allowed only for essential goods.

Maharashtra

The Maharashtra government revised its order on Sunday, easing most of the restrictions on the industrial and commercial activities even in the urban areas mostly earmarked as Covid-19 red zones.

The Maharashtra government allowed the shops and establishments dealing in non-essential commodities to open even in the 14 districts identified as red zones. The restrictions, however, will continue in the containment zones. This has paved the way for the operations of almost all the commercial activities including opening of liquor shops from Monday in the state.

Gujarat

The government has decided to grant no exemption in six cities and similar municipalities due to extreme cases of infection.

A senior official said on Sunday that Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had decided against granting any relief in the municipal limits of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Gandhinagar and Bhavnagar--all in red zone, and Rajkot municipal corporation which falls under the orange zone, news agency PTI reported.

Also read: Lockdown 3.0 begins from today with more relaxations, some curbs

No relaxation will be allowed in the lockdown rules for another two weeks in municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Gandhinagar, and Bhavnagar, as well as six municipalities of Botad, Bopal, Khabhnat, Bareja, Godhra and Umreth which are under red zone (as per the Centres notification).

No relaxation will be allowed in Rajkot municipal corporation as well, which is under orange zone. This was decided by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani at a high-level meeting held on Saturday, said Ashwani Kumar, Secretary to Chief Minister.

Uttar Pradesh

Establishments with more than 50 workers in Uttar Pradeshs red and orange zones will provide special transport facilities without dependence on public transport. These vehicles will only seat half the capacity. Thermal scanning will take place at all workplaces. There will be an hour gap between the two shifts at the workplaces.

Owners and workers of all types of industries can increase working hours with mutual consent. This system will remain for the next three months.

Construction activities will be allowed in the urban area provided there is no need to bring workers from outside. Renewable energy operations will be allowed. All goods, market complexes, and markets within the limits of the municipal corporation and municipality in urban areas will remain closed.

Bihar

The government has allowed the purchase of all kinds of items from e-commerce portals for residents of 33 districts that fall under the green and orange zones in the state. At the same time, only essential goods can be purchased via e-commerce portals in the five districts covered in the red zone. The guidelines issued by the Union Home Ministry will be followed in Bihar.

Jharkhand

The state will not see any relaxation in the lockdown for the next two weeks. Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that the lockdown will remain the same in the state for the next two weeks. Students, workers and other people are coming back from outside in Jharkhand. In this case, the risk of infection of coronavirus is high. For this reason, the Government of Jharkhand has taken this decision as a precaution.

Rajasthan

Eight districts of Rajasthan are in the red zone. Mobile, laptop stationary and clothing shops will also open in the red zone. Facility to open OPD and medical clinic is also given in the red zone. Construction workers who are on-site, 33% of employees in private offices, e-commerce have been allowed. The ban on sale of pan, gutkha and tobacco products will continue.

Madhya Pradesh

Relaxations will be applicable only in those areas of the orange zone where the infection is less. Street shops will open for a few hours with limited permission for transport services. Small industries will start in green zone areas. 9 districts of Madhya Pradesh have been placed in red and 19 districts in orange zone.
Brilliant unbeaten colt Contrail now has the Japanese triple crown in his sights after landing the 80th running of the Satsuki-sho. He saw off the challenge of third-favourite Salios to secure victory at Nakayama Racecourse.

The 2,000-metre contest for three-year-olds makes up the first leg of the triple crown. The second leg is the Japanese Derby, which is being held behind closed doors in May. The Deep Impact colt now heads to the race, also known as the Tokyo Yushun, as the short-priced favourite due to the way he dished out a first career defeat to Salios, who was ridden by Australian jockey Damien Lane.

The pair may meet again in the second leg in May where there could yet be support for Salios to turn the form around, especially from Australian punters keen to throw their support behind Lane with Australian bookmakers and Paypal betting sites should he get the ride for a second time. Contrail is priced around 1/2 (1.50) to follow-up, while Salios is at 3/1 (4.00) after defeat by just half a length.

However, Contrail's trainer Yoshito Yahagi believes his horse has what it takes to add the Japan Derby to his honours list and set up a tilt at making history. The third and final leg of the triple crown is the Kikuka-sho in October.

He said: "I thought it would be easy to get through, but the runner-up was also strong. We were behind and that was bad for my heart.

"I would have liked to have him gain about 10 kilograms, but I got the feeling he'll be able to do well even over the Derby's 2,400 meters."

Japanese Triple Crown Races

The Japanese Triple Crown is for three-year-old horses and is made up of three different races that each offers a different challenge. The differing nature of each triple crown has made it hard to win over the years.

Satsuki-sho

This is the first leg that has already been won by Contrail. It is also known as the Japanese 2000 Guineas and is run over a distance of 2,000m at Nakayama Racecourse in Chiba every April. This is the fastest race of the three and requires natural speed from the winner

Tokyo Yushun

The second leg is also known as the Japanese Derby and is run over 2,400m at Tokyo Racecourse in late May or early June. This is over a longer trip so needs slightly more stamina but also a bit of luck in-running too.

Kikuka-sho

The third and final leg is the Kikuka-sho, also known as the Japanese St Leger. This takes place at Kyoto Racecourse in October every year. The race takes place over a distance of 3,000m and is more of a stamina test.

Which horses have won the Japanese Triple Crown?

Only six horses have ever won the Japanese Triple Crown throughout its history. It means Contrail will be bidding to add his name to an illustrious and select group of horses. No trainer has ever saddled a horse to win the Triple Crown more than once.

a Sire Light a The first horse to win the Japanese Triple Crown with success in 1941.

a Shinzan a Ended a 23-year wait to see another Triple Crown champion when landing the prestigious honour in 1964.

a Mr CB a The bay son of Tosho Boy won all three races in 1983 to become just the third horse in history to achieve Triple Crown glory.

a Symboli Rudolf a After gaps of more than 20 years between Triple Crown winners, two came along in consecutive seasons. The bay Symboli Rudolf matched Mr CB's achievement just a year later in 1984.

a Narita Brian a Narita Brian won the Triple Crown in 1994 after a ten-year gap followed before a horse good enough to land all three races came along.

a Deep Impact a Deep Impact, a son of Sunday Silence, was the last horse to win all three races in 2005. He is the sire of current Triple Crown-chasing Contrail.
YEREVAN.  The Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan has accepted for proceedings the criminal case against Armen Tavadyan, the owner of 5th Channel television company of Armenia, and Varuzhan Mkrtchyan. Armenian News-NEWS.am learned about this from the office of the judge who will preside over this case.

To note, chairman of the aforesaid court, Artur Mkrtchyan, to whom this criminal case was originally assigned, had transferred it to Judge Karen Farkhoyan.

Armen Tavadyan is accused of bribing a victim of the March 1, 2008 criminal case in order to give false testimony in court. He was detained for two months.

On March 12, the Criminal Court of Appeal ruled to release Tavadyan from pretrial custody. His lawyer Hovhannes Khudoyan had told reporters that the reason for granting their respective appeal was the absence of a reasonable doubt.
Spain and Italy, the European countries hardest-hit by the novel coronavirus, are reopening their economies in stages beginning on Monday.

The big picture: Both countries have emphasized bringing back industry before retail. In the U.S., some states are reopening restaurants and other non-essential businesses first, in contrast with federal guidelines for reopening.

In Italy, manufacturing plants and construction sites will reopen this week, while museums and shops will reopen on May 18 if infection rates stay low, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told parliament on Thursday.

Restaurants and bars are scheduled to stay closed until June under the current plan, while schools would reopen in September, Bloomberg reports.

In Spain, the first phase of the country's plan calls for opening small businesses for counter service and appointments. Restaurants and cafes can only offer delivery. Tourist activity is allowed "without using common areas" and athletes must train alone. Shopping centers will remain closed.

Children were recently allowed to play outside for the first time in six weeks, in line with allowing one-hour excursions close to home. Factories and construction were able to resume business last week.

to play outside for the first time in six weeks, in line with allowing one-hour excursions close to home. Factories and construction were able to resume business last week. Absent a spike in infections, restaurants, bars and hotels can open on May 18 at 30% capacity with outdoor seating only, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a press release on Tuesday. Places of worship would also reopen at a 30% capacity, and agriculture and fisheries could resume business.

restaurants, bars and hotels can open on May 18 at 30% capacity with outdoor seating only, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a press release on Tuesday. Places of worship would also reopen at a 30% capacity, and agriculture and fisheries could resume business. Spain's best-case scenario is that the country can lift all restrictions by the end of June, Sanchez said, with each phase lasting a minimum of two weeks.

The other side: In the U.S., which is reporting the most verified coronavirus deaths in the world, some states have already moved to reopen dine-in restaurants, stores, movie theaters, beaches, salons and spas in their first phase.

White House guidelines recommend that states report a downward trajectory of coronavirus cases within a 14 day period before reopening the economy.

recommend that states report a downward trajectory of coronavirus cases within a 14 day period before reopening the economy. The administration also advises that movie theaters and restaurants should hold to "strict physical distancing protocols," but staying six feet apart is not realistic at businesses like hair salons and tattoo shops, some of which reopened in Georgia last week.

By the numbers:

Spain has reported the most coronavirus cases outside the U.S. (over 217,000) and more than 25,000 deaths, per Johns Hopkins.

has reported the most coronavirus cases outside the U.S. (over 217,000) and more than 25,000 deaths, per Johns Hopkins. Italy has over 210,000 cases and more than 28,000 deaths.

has over 210,000 cases and more than 28,000 deaths. The United States has nearly 1.2 million cases and nearly 70,000 deaths.

Go deeper: The global experiment of exiting lockdown

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the U.S. death toll is nearly 70,000 as of May 4.
Starting today, consumers can finally resume shopping online for non-essential items. These include smartphones, laptops, TVs and other electronic items. However it is important to note that e-commerce websites including Amazon and Flipkart are only delivering in areas where the number of COVID-19 cases are nil or very less.

Special guidelines were announced over the weekend by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for Lockdown 3.0, which begins today (May 4). The country has been divided into three primary zones depending on the number of COVID-19 cases in a particular area. E-commerce platforms have to adhere to these rules and are being allowed to sell items only in orange and green zones.

This essentially means that consumers located in red zones, including all major metropolitan cities, will still be restricted. You can access the entire list of red, orange and green zones over here. The government has also said that a red zone can be moved into a green zone if there are no confirmed cases or there is no reported case since the last 21 days in a district.

ALSO READ

You Can Now Buy Non-Essential Items Online in These Districts: Full List Here

According to a notice on Amazon Indias website, non-essential products will be available for ordering in only select locations and deliveries may take longer than usual. There are a variety of items that are now available on the website including smartphones, smart speakers, laptops, smart TVs, and so on. Flipkart on the other hand, is still showing the availability of essential items and there seems to be on information regarding the new change.
A new book on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be the 'definitive story' of the couple's lives as modern royals, say its authors.

Last month the Mail On Sunday learned Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand interviewed the Sussexes before they moved to America.

The authors, one a notable Meghan Markle supporter, the other a royal correspondent for Elle magazine, say they felt there was a need to present an accurate version of the Sussex's lives after years of media attention.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will be the subject of a new book, Finding Freedom, which will be released in the summer

Finding Freedom, due to be released on August 11, is expected to be a global bestseller

Last autumn Harry issued a statement accusing elements of the press of bullying his wife.

Meghan Markle has told friends that if Kate Middleton was constantly being criticized by the press, the royal family would have stepped in and changed its media policies and shunned the tabloids, an insider exclusively told DailyMail.com last week.

'[Meghan said] no one would have put up with it, and the broken and outdated system would have been revised. Those outlets responsible for their vicious attacks would have been shut out,' the friend explained.

The Sussexes have previously announced they would have 'no corroboration and zero engagement' with four UK tabloids, including the Daily Mail, citing Meghan's poor treatment.

Scobie and Durand, whose book Finding Freedom is published this summer, said: 'The aim of this book is to portray the real Harry and Meghan, a couple who continue to inspire many around the world through their humanitarian and charitable work but are often inaccurately portrayed.

'Our mission has been motivated by a desire to tell an accurate version of their journey and finally present the truth of misreported stories that have become gospel simply because of the amount of times they have been repeated.

Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durant interviewed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle before they left for the US, Mail on Sunday learned last month

'It is thanks to our sources that we have been able to share the definitive story of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.'

The book has the full title Finding Freedom: Harry And Meghan And The Making of A Modern Royal Family, and will be published in August by Dey Street Books.

The publisher reportedly had briefings with people close to the couple and publication is likely to be serialised ahead of a full release.

Promotional material on Amazon says the authors had 'unique access,' adding: 'Written with the participation of those closest to the couple, Finding Freedom is an honest, up-close and disarming portrait of a confident, influential, and forward-thinking couple.'

Harry and Megan were wed in May 2018, but earlier this year they announced they wanted to step back as senior royals and become financially independent

The 320-page biography, due to be released on August 11, is expected to be a global bestseller.

The Sussexes plunged the royal family into a period of crisis when they announced earlier in the year that they wanted to step back as senior royals and become financially independent.

A summit of senior royals was convened by the Queen at Sandringham to discuss the issue, with Harry sitting down for talks with his grandmother, father the Prince of Wales and brother the Duke of Cambridge.

It was later announced the couple would no longer be working members of the monarchy or be known as HRH, and would spend the majority of their time in North America but have the ability to earn money.
TUNIS - Tunisia said Monday that it had recorded four new COVID-19 infections in the country over the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number to 1,013. The health ministry statement noted that 42 people who had tested positive for the virus had died in the country and that 328 have recovered thus far. There are 25 patients in intensive care in the country. Tunisia on Monday loosened lockdown measures with an initial phase of gradual reopening for the vital sectors of the economy, society and exports in which smart working is unavailable.
Two Upstate New York construction companies and others have agreed to pay more than $4.47 million to resolve fraud allegations involving the securing of contracting work meant for disabled veterans, the U.S. Attorney office announced today.

Northland Associates Inc, (Northland), its president James Tyler, The Diverse Construction Group, LLC (Diverse), and their bonding agent, Rose & Kiernan, Inc., have agreed to pay the United States the amount to resolve allegations they fraudulently exploited contracting opportunities reserved for veteran-owned small businesses and small businesses operating in historically underutilized business zones (HUBZones)," according to the press release.

Northland, based in Liverpool in Onondaga County, and its president, will pay the most.

As part of the settlement agreements, Northland will pay $2,125,000, Tyler will pay $2,125,000 and Diverse will pay $100,000. Rose & Kiernan has already paid $120,000.

We are committed to curtailing corruption by contractors who take opportunities set aside for small businesses owned and operated by injured veterans, said United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith. We owe no less to those who sacrificed their own well-being for our safety and security.

The federal government has a long-standing practice of using government contracts to promote small businesses owned by veterans with service-related disabilities and small businesses operating in economically depressed areas. To qualify, a business must report its total income and employees along with the income and employees of any affiliates.

Federal regulations provide that companies are affiliated when one business has the power to control another, or when a third party has the power to control both businesses. When two companies are affiliated, and together exceed the income and employee limitations, neither will be eligible for small business set-aside contracts.

The settlement with Northland, Diverse, and Tyler resolves allegations that those parties orchestrated a scheme to secure government set-aside contracts for Diverse and subcontracts for Diverses undisclosed affiliate, Northland.

Diverse was 51% owned by Hunter Grimes, a service-disabled veteran and 49% owned by senior Northland officials. Northland exerted influence over Diverse in various ways, including by maintaining a bid calendar with deadlines for upcoming Northland and Diverse contracting opportunities, staffing Diverse with former Northland employees, and funneling Diverse subcontracts to Northland for fulfillment.

Northland also took care of various administrative duties for Diverse, including handling its accounting, expediting, estimating, purchasing, contracting and clerical work.

Bottom line: Grimes acted as the majority owner of the Diverse Construction Group, while in reality Northland president Tyler and his company retained true control of Diverse at all times.

According the U.S. Attorney General: Witnesses recounted moving boxes of files from Northlands Liverpool office (which was not located in a HUBZone) to Diverses office in Plessis in Jefferson County (which was located in a HUBZone), to make the Plessis office appear operational for government inspections.

When questioned by officials from the federal Small Business Administration in 2009 about how the two companies were connected, Northlands president Tyler and Grimes misrepresented the relationship between the two businesses.

Shortly thereafter, Diverse funneled more than $1 million to Northland through a Northland subsidiary in an effort to hide the parties affiliation, the news release said.

Grimes retired in early 2015 and died later that same year.

As part of the settlement announced today, Northland, Diverse, and Tyler admitted that their conduct violated federal regulations designed to encourage contract awards to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses and small businesses operating in HUBzones.

Rose & Kiernan, an insurance and surety brokerage based in Rochester, acted as a bond broker for both Northland and Diverse on government construction projects. David Cooper is a senior vice president with Rose & Kiernan. The settlement with Rose & Kiernan and Cooper resolves allegations that they knew or should have known that Diverse and Northland were breaking the rules and taking steps to hide their affiliation with each other to get the contracts.

Their decision to help Diverse obtain bonding was a critical action in furtherance of Diverses and Northlands fraud on the government, and served as a substantial factor in causing Diverse to submit false claims for payment to the United States, the news release said.

The governments investigation was triggered by a pair of whistleblower lawsuits filed by James Hagan and James Hohm. Hagan is a former Northland employee and minority owner of Diverse. Hohm is also a former Northland employee,

In their lawsuits, the two alleged the defendants fraudulently obtained more than $50 million in government contracts that they shouldnt have received.

Under the terms of the settlement, the two will get $1,000,000 of the settlement proceeds that the government receives from Northland, Diverse, and Tyler.

The United States was represented in the case by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adam J. Katz and Christopher R. Moran.
Students across Vietnam returned to school on Monday morning following a prolonged school closure due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic.

Many localities had already allowed partial school resumption on Monday last week, but for others, including such major cities as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang, May 4 is the back-to-school day after three months.

Due to the complicated epidemic, all students in the Southeast Asian country had been told to stay home for their safety since the end of the Lunar New Year holiday in early February.

Ho Chi Minh City

In Ho Chi Minh City, the administration allowed ninth and twelfth graders to return to school on May 4, while students of other grades will take turns resuming their education in the following weeks.

Ninth and twelfth graders had a meeting with their homeroom teachers on Monday to learn about safety measures during the COVID-19 epidemic, while lessons will start on Tuesday.

At Le Van Tam Middle School in Binh Thanh District, students waited in five lines to have their body temperature measured before entering the school.

Nearly 400 ninth graders of nine classes are now divided into 14 classes, each having about 23 students, according to Nguyen Anh Tuan, the headmaster.

Half of these classes study on even days while the others on odd days of the week. Students are seated one meter from one another in the classroom.

Similar methods are also applied at other middle and high schools in the city.

Ho Chi Minh City has more than 270 middle schools and 194 high schools with about 87,000 ninth graders and 63,000 twelfth graders.

Students of Le Van Tam Middle School in Ho Chi Minh City keep distance from one another in the schoolyard on May 4, 2020. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

Students have their body temperature measured before entering of Vo Thi Sau High School in Ho Chi Minh City on May 4, 2020. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

Hanoi

Middle and high schools in the capital were reopened on Monday, whereas students of other grades will return on May 11.

All schools have made careful preparations for the comeback of their students.

Students were subject to temperature checks before entry and were required to wear face masks on campus.

A safe distance was maintained between the students in their classrooms.

Students of Trung Van Middle School in Hanoi have their body temperature measured on May 4, 2020. Photo: Viet Dung / Tuoi Tre

Students wear face masks in a classroom of Yen Hoa High School in Hanoi on May 4, 2020. Photo: Vinh Ha / Tuoi Tre

Da Nang

In the central city of Da Nang, all students from grades one to 12 returned to school on Monday morning.

They had their body temperature monitored and sanitized their hands before entering the schoolyard.

Many schools have removed recess time and only let students take a short break in their classrooms at the end of each period.

Students have their body temperature measured before entering Tay Son High School in Da Nang City on May 4, 2020. Photo: Doan Cuong / Tuoi Tre

Can Tho

Nearly 46,000 students of grades eight to 12 in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho came back to school on Monday, while those of grades one to seven will return on May 11.

At Luong The Vinh Middle School, students of 53 classes have been divided into 73 classes for physical distancing.

Eighth graders will study in the morning and ninth graders in the afternoon, said principal Vo Thanh Tam.

At Chau Van Liem High School, students will spend the first week learning safety measures regarding the COVID-19 epidemic as well as reviewing their previous lessons.

Students have their body temperature measured before entering Chau Van Liem High School in Can Tho City on May 4, 2020. Photo: Thuy Trang / Tuoi Tre

The back-to-school day in some other provinces in Vietnam can be seen in the following photos and videos:

A few students play in the schoolyard during recess at a middle school in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province on May 4, 2020. Photo: Dong Ha / Tuoi Tre

Students at a middle school in Dong Nai Province attend a flag salute ceremony in the classroom instead of the schoolyard on May 4, 2020. Photo: H.S. / Tuoi Tre

Elementary school students in Quang Nam Province have their health monitored before entering the school on May 4, 2020. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre

Elementary school students in Khanh Hoa Province on May 4, 2020. Photo: Minh Chien / Tuoi Tre

A classroom of an elementary school in Thua Thien-Hue Province on May 4, 2020. Photo: Nam Anh / Tuoi Tre

Students return to school in Nghe An Province on May 4, 2020. Video: Tuoi Tre

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
The amount will be used to purchase 240,000 tons of wheat and 100,000 tons of sugar.

Related Egypt buys less wheat than anticipated at tender to boost reserves

The International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC) signed a $100 million financing agreement with the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) to cover the Egyptian governments essential strategic commodity needs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a statement, the approval of the financing, which forms part of the ITFCs Master Murabaha Agreement, enables Egypts GASC to mitigate the harsh human impacts of the coronavirus pandemic by securing food commodity imports.

The amount will be used to purchase 240,000 tons of wheat and 100,000 tons of sugar.

ITFC CEO Hani Salem Sonbol said the facility approved by the ITFC is specifically targeted at supporting the import of critical basic commodities such as wheat and sugar, which are two staples the mass population of Egypt depends on.

ITFC is committed to doing what it can to assist in achieving food security in Egypt during a time when national economies are struggling with the economic impact of this terrible new disease, he added.

Since 2018, ITFC has been supporting the government's efforts through a trade finance facility benefiting the GASC, Egypts largest wheat purchaser.

ITFC allocated $393 million for Egypt in 2019 that was dedicated to import 1.3 million tons of wheat and 130,000 tons of rice.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


The coronavirus pandemic has forced the tradition-bound Supreme Court into some big changes. Starting Monday, the justices are hearing arguments by telephone for the first time.

The court will hear a total of 10 cases over six days, including President Donald Trump's bid to keep certain financial records private. You can listen here.

Here are some observations, trivia and analysis from our Supreme Court reporters (all times local): 10:45 a.m.

Chief Justice John Roberts is keeping the first telephone Supreme Court arguments moving with phrases like: Thank you, counsel. Arguments are scheduled to last only an hour as is typical at the Supreme Court. The justices are asking questions in order of seniority.

Roberts is cutting in to questioning when it's time to move from one justice to the next, stopping government attorney Erica Ross with a thank you before calling on the next justice to speak.

Some of the justices on Monday had niceties for Ross that aren't present in a usual argument. Justice Stephen Breyer started a question and then paused. He said: Good morning, anyway. Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Brett Kavanaugh also had a good morning for Ross.

The Supreme Court has begun hearing its first arguments by phone, and normally quiet Justice Clarence Thomas has asked a question.

After Marshal Pamela Talkin called the court to order at 10 a.m. Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts began the questioning of government attorney Erica Ross. Roberts passed the questioning to Thomas, who hadn't asked a question during arguments in more than a year.

Monday's case is about whether Booking.com can trademark its name. Thomas said he had a couple of questions. He started with: Could Booking acquire an 800 number that's a vanity number 1-800-Booking, for example, that is similar to 1-800-Plumbing, which is a registered mark?



Ring! Ring! At 9:30 a.m. Eastern, Supreme Court was calling the two attorneys arguing today's case by phone: Erica Ross for the government and Lisa Blatt for Booking.com.

The attorneys will wait on the phone for 30 minutes before arguments start at 10 a.m. The court urged lawyers to use a landline, not a cellphone. The only case the justices are hearing today is about whether Booking.com can trademark its name.

Arguments are scheduled to last an hour, 30 minutes for each side, as is usual. Normally at 9:55 a.m. a buzzer would sound in the courtroom to alert the audience.

8:05 a.m.

It took a worldwide pandemic for the Supreme Court to agree to hear arguments over the telephone with audio available live for the first time. Case filings were made available online just two years ago, decades after other courts. Other forays into technology, including posting opinions online, have not always gone smoothly.

Let's hope it goes better Monday. The Supreme Court will call the attorneys at 9:30 a.m. for arguments beginning at 10, and the justices will ask questions in order of seniority after Chief Justice John Roberts. 'The first case chosen by the court is somewhat obscure, about whether the travel website Booking.com can trademark its name, for its first foray into remote arguments. The lawyers on both sides are well known to the justices and experienced in arguing before the nation's highest court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)




African Union flag
Shankill bomber Sean Kelly being restrained during a confrontation in shops in Ardoyne

The families of the victims of the Shankill bombing have called for bomber Sean Kelly to be recalled to prison after an incident outside a Belfast supermarket.

Justice minister Naomi Long also tweeted that she had reported the incident to police after seeing the footage.

The PSNI is investigating after video footage appeared online showing Kelly being restrained by passers-by outside the Eurospar at the Flax Centre in Ardoyne on Saturday.

The mass killer was pictured wielding a stick after a customer was asked to leave the Eurospar. Several men and women restrained ex-IRA prisoner Kelly, who was in an agitated state.

Sunday Life reported that he reacted to a comment made during the scuffle.

Read More

Mobile phone footage of the row has since been viewed thousands of times.

A statement, which was signed by the families of the innocent victims murdered in the Shankill bomb, said: It has been almost 27 years since Sean Kelly and the Provisional IRA murdered our loved ones on the Shankill Road in October 1993.

Twenty-seven years on, and we see Mr Kelly clearly intent on inflicting injury to another member of the public.

We therefore call upon the Secretary of State to revoke Mr Kellys licence and return him to prison.

Justice Minister Naomi Long said it was important police looked into the incident.

"The context, time and when it was filmed is not clear from the tweet," she told BBC Radio Foyle.

A PSNI spokesman added: Police are aware of a video posted on a social media platform on Saturday, May 2.

An investigation into the circumstances surrounding this incident has commenced.

Enquiries are continuing.

Kelly (47), who works at the Flax Centre Eurospar, murdered nine innocent people in the October 1993 Shankill bomb in which fellow IRA member Thomas Begley died.

More than 50 others were maimed in the no warning blast, for which he received nine life sentences.

Kelly was released early in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

In 2013, he publicly apologised for the slaughter, although this was rejected by the families.

Sinn Fein used Kelly to canvass in North Belfast for John Finucane ahead of the General Election last December. It was reported the convicted bomber had been seen erecting election posters and distributing leaflets.

Mr Finucane went on to oust long time DUP MP Nigel Dodds from the North Belfast seat.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald rejected DUP criticism at the time, insisting Kelly, who was convicted for his part in the 1993 bomb, was a supporter of the peace process and had expressed regret over the attack on the fish shop, which killed nine Protestants.

The Northern Ireland Office has been approached for comment.
Michelle Obama has unveiled an intimate new trailer for the upcoming documentary Becoming based on her book tour.

The former first lady posted the clip on Twitter on Monday, writing: Im thrilled to give you a sneak peek of Becoming before it premieres on Netflix on 6 May.

This movie tells my story, from my childhood on the South Side of Chicago to my life today  and it celebrates the powerful stories of the people I met along the way.

Obama can be heard in the clip narrating: I am from the South Side of Chicago. That tells you as much about me as you need to know.

It was a typical working-class community. Some good music, some good barbecue, some good times.

She also provides perspective on her time at the White House and how it shaped her, explaining: So little of who I am happened in those eight years.

So much more of who I was happened before.

Becoming bears the same title as Obamas best-selling memoir, published in 2018. The book quickly became the best-selling hardcover title of the year following its November release.

Netflix has described the upcoming film as an intimate look into the life of former First Lady Michelle Obama during a moment of profound change, not only for her personally but for the country she and her husband served over eight impactful years in the White House.

The film offers a rare and up-close look at her life, taking viewers behind the scenes as she embarks on a 34-city tour that highlights the power of community to bridge our divides and the spirit of connection that comes when we openly and honestly share our stories, the synopsis adds.

Becoming will be released on 6 May at 3am ET in the US on Netflix.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The American Red Cross has assembled a team of 30 trained volunteers to provide emotional and spiritual support, information and referrals for people in New York State who have lost loved ones to the coronavirus.

The virtual COVID-19 Family Assistance Center will link families to crisis counselors who also will provide information and referrals to state and local agencies and community organizations.

These families are dealing with the emotional trauma of losing a loved one, while facing logistical challenges caused by this public-health emergency, said Tara Hughes, Northeast Division Disaster Mental Health advisor and head of the program. Were proud to use mass casualty experience of the Red Cross to join our community together and provide comfort and support to these families across New York State during these difficult times.

The volunteers for the Red Cross Disaster Mental Health, Disaster Spiritual Care, and Health Services programs will help families deal with challenges such as:

moving their loved ones body through systems that may be overwhelmed and have different protocols than normal;

using legal resources for estate, custody, immigration, or other issues related to the death of a family member

finding information on how to obtain travel services.

Affected families are urged to fill out an online intake form in English or Spanish or call 585-957-8187 if they want a volunteer to contact them. Intake forms may be filled out by a friend of someone who needs help or an agency working on behalf of the family.

The COVID-19 Family Assistance Center is expected to operate for as long as families will benefit from the service.
Two floors of the Border Security Force headquarters in Delhi have been sealed after a staff member was tested positive for COVID-19, officials said on Monday.

IMAGE: A BSF soldier stands guard at Jama Masjid in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI Photo

The eight-storeyed BSF head office is located in the CGOs complex on Lodhi road that also houses the Central Reserve Police Force headquarters, which was placed under similar sealing on Sunday after two staffers tested positive.

"A head constable of the BSF working in the force headquarters has been found COVID-19 positive late night on May 3. He last attended office on May 1," a BSF spokesperson said.

"He was working in an office on the 2nd floor. Offices on first and second floors of the headquarters have been closed as a precaution," he said.

All those who came in his contact have been identified and quarantined. They will also be tested for coronavirus, he added.

The BSF head office houses the office of its Director General (DG) and other senior commanders apart from its operational and administrative wings.

Prior to the detection of the case, the spokesperson said the headquarters was closed early by 4.00 pm on Friday as a special precautionary measure.

Officials said this was done as the head constable had then exhibited some illness symptoms and he was immediately sent for medical care.

All attending staff vacated offices and the entire office complex was thoroughly sanitised with prescribed disinfectants, the spokesperson said.

The head office was closed on Saturday and Sunday and 'no staff other than the security personnel and the control room members in limited numbers worked in the headquarters', he said.

"The disinfection of complete Block 10 of the CGO complex (where BSF force headquarters is located) will be done again in the afternoon today in light of the latest COVID-19 positive case.

"Identification of secondary and tertiary contacts as per the protocol is being carried out and all protocols are being followed," the spokesperson said.

A total of 54 troops of the border guarding force have been detected with the disease till now, the maximum 31 from a unit that performed law and order duties in Jama Majid and Chandni Mahal areas of Delhi.

The 2.5-lakh-personnel-strong BSF is primarily tasked with guarding the Indian borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, apart from rendering a variety of duties in the country's internal security domain.
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo meets with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne at the State Department in Washington, on Jan. 30, 2019. (Cliff Owen/AP Photo)

Pompeo Wins Fans in China Despite Heightened Attacks by State Media

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has come under sustained attack from Chinese state media for his criticism of the Chinese regimes handling of the CCP virus outbreak, but he is enjoying growing popularity among ordinary Chinese internet users.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reacted angrily on May 4 after Pompeo said that there was enormous evidence linking the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus to a state-owned virology lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak started late last year.

Evil Pompeo is wantonly spewing venom and fabricating lies, said a commentary piece read out during the broadcasters main news bulletin.

In the past week, CCTV has repeatedly lambasted Pompeo for his criticisms of the CCP, calling him the common enemy of mankind and accused him of spreading a political virus.

Amid the increasingly frenzied attacks from CCP mouthpieces, however, the secretary of state is gaining popularity among some Chinese netizens.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a news briefing at the State Department in Washington, on Feb. 25, 2020. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Fans Defy Censors

The state-sponsored campaign of vilification against Pompeo has had an impact on online speech, with many Chinese internet users parroting state propaganda.

But as many Chinese censors regularly hire trolls to push pro-CCP content, it is difficult to tell whether those comments are a realistic reflection of Chinese public opinion.

In an attempt to counter CCP propaganda without provoking censors, some internet users have uploaded Pompeos personal and family photographs onto social media platforms.

One popular photo shows Pompeo as a young cadet at the West Point military academy, from which he graduated first in his class in 1986.

Many comments below the photo praised him as a handsome and high-achieving young man.

Kitchen Photo Goes Viral

Another photo, which has gone viral on Chinese social media, shows Pompeo washing up in the kitchen, while his wife Susan sat at the kitchen table playing cards.

The photo was posted by Pompeo himself on his Twitter account on Christmas Eve last year. He was honoring his promise to help his wife in the kitchen over Christmas, he wrote.

It struck a chord among many Chinese, presumably because his action formed a stark contrast with that of CCP officials.

Pompeo is clearly enjoying doing washing up! Looking at his smile, I can feel his happiness from the other side of the earth, said one user on Weibo, Chinas Twitter-like social media platform.

Dont let your wife see this! US Secretary of State Pompeo has to do washing up when he comes home. And his wife is playing cards! exclaimed another.

These images have prompted some netizens to reject the official condemnation of Pompeo. The term enemy of mankind seems to have become a compliment, said an online comment.

Wang Zang, a Beijing-based poet, said the CCPs attacks on Pompeo reminded him of the kind of treatment during the Cultural Revolution.

They are doing so because, he told Radio Free Asia, Pompeos criticisms of the Chinese regime has hit Beijing where it hurts.
Voters will decide one contested Democratic-NPL statewide race in North Dakota's primary election, between candidates the party has endorsed and disavowed, respectively.

Zach Raknerud, a 26-year-old retail manager in Minot, is the party's endorsed candidate for North Dakota's sole U.S. House seat. He'll face Roland Riemers, who runs a rental property company in Grand Forks, in the primary for the Democratic-NPL nomination.

The party's nominee would be expected to face incumbent U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., and Libertarian Steven Peterson in November. Neither has a challenger in the primary.

Riemers, 77, has been an unsuccessful candidate for several offices in recent years, including secretary of state, agriculture commissioner, state auditor and governor. He's usually run as a Libertarian but is seeking the Democratic-NPL nomination to better his chances against Armstrong in November, should he go forth.

Though Republicans hold all statewide and congressional seats in North Dakota, and control its Legislature, Democrats have fared better than Libertarians, who hold no seats in state government.

Riemers participated in a protest in April at the state Capitol against Gov. Doug Burgum's business closures and restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. The same day, Democratic-NPL Party leadership disavowed his candidacy.

Riemers words and actions are irresponsible and not representative of Dem-NPL values. We disavow his conduct and his campaign entirely," Democratic-NPL Party Executive Director Michael Taylor said in a statement.

Raknerud, who is running to improve economic conditions for working families, said his candidacy is more reflective of Democratic-NPL values. He said he's been "thankful" for the precautions state officials have taken in response to the pandemic.

But "we could have gone so much farther" beyond the $2.2 trillion CARES Act federal rescue package, he said, such as pausing "nonessential" debt collection and better supporting workers and small businesses.

Riemers said he supports a strategy of herd immunity and social distancing without closures to mitigate the pandemic. He said he would have voted against the CARES Act, and would have preferred that the $1,200 economic impact payments be given "to people who really needed it."

Regarding his party affiliation, Riemers said he's been involved with North Dakota's Republican and Democratic-NPL parties in the past.

He also said Democratic-NPL support in 2016 helped him garner almost 23% of the statewide vote as a Libertarian candidate for state auditor against Republican Josh Gallion. Democrats had no candidate for that race.

But Riemers feels his chances would be better on a different ticket this time around. He's running due to a dissatisfaction with Armstrong and Washington, D.C., and called himself conservative when it comes to spending.

Raknerud said Riemers doesn't offer a platform to support North Dakota's working people, but his strategy is "correct" in that North Dakota has a two-party system of politics.

"If he's going to try to insurge into one, that's his own deal, but we're going to make sure he doesn't do it," he said.

Riemers said he'll campaign for Raknerud if Raknerud is nominated in June "because I kind of like the guy." He wasn't aware of the party disavowing his candidacy when asked about it, but said "that's up to the voters to decide."

"The people know who I am and what I stand for," Riemers said.

Riemers' strategy is a long shot, according to Mark Jendrysik, a professor of political science and public administration at the University of North Dakota. Most candidates who shift party affiliations don't do it out of convenience, he said. Name recognition helps in a race, but Riemers is known as a Libertarian, he added.

"I don't think that the average primary voter of the Democratic-NPL Party is going to vote for a man who has identified as a Libertarian for a long time, has run under their banner, repeatedly, for multiple offices," Jendrysik said.

North Dakota's primary election will be conducted entirely by mail-in ballot due to the pandemic.

Either Raknerud or Riemers will proceed to the Nov. 3 general election as the Democratic-NPL nominee for U.S. House. A Democrat last won the seat in 2008. The salary is $174,000.

Reach Jack Dura at 701-250-8225 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com.

Love 3 Funny 3 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0

Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 05:34:01|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ROME, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Monday used social media to state that Italy was "proud" to contribute to the three multilateral medical organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO).

Conte's remarks came after a broader event called by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen raised 7.4 billion euros (8.07 billion U.S. dollars) to help find a vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Italy pledged 140 million euros for the three organizations, according to a communique from von der Leyen's office.

Italy will donate 120 million euros to GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private group that focuses on immunizations in the developing world.

Additionally, Italy will contribute 10 million euros each to the WHO and to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a public-private foundation that helps fund research projects.

Conte used social media to express his support: "Italy is proud to contribute to accelerating the development, production and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics by supporting" the three organizations, he wrote. (1 euro = 1.09 U.S. dollars) Enditem
Italy, Belgium and Portugal are reopening some business activities on Monday as they take their first tentative steps to lifting their coronavirus lockdowns.

European countries have been severely hit by the pandemic, with some of the biggest economies among the top countries worldwide in terms of infections and deaths.

However, after several weeks in total lockdown  meaning that citizens were only allowed outside their house to buy groceries or medicines  some are slowly easing restrictions.

This is after Germany eased some of its lockdown measures in late April, as well as Austria and Denmark.
South Korea's prime minister said Monday the country's battle against the new coronavirus has yet to end despite the government's decision to relax social distancing this week.



The government said Sunday it will switch to an "everyday life quarantine" scheme starting Wednesday, under which people are advised to take quarantine measures in a way that allows social and economic activities.



Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun voiced the need not to let down the country's guard against COVID-19 despite the relaxation of social distancing.



"Our war against the coronavirus has yet to end and the fight will not end in the short term," Chung said at the government's meeting on virus responses.



"Now we have to accept the life with the coronavirus. We are facing the task of making a new life that goes together with the virus," he added.













The prime minister vowed to continue the government's drive to contain the virus as there is a possibility that more infections could occur than under stricter social distancing rules.



He stressed the government will prioritize taking quarantine steps at schools, as it is considering measures to gradually re-open schools in May.



Later in the day, the education ministry will announce ways to let students go back to schools in May after the country opened the new school year with online classes last month.



Education authorities are expected to begin to permit senior high school students to go to schools later this month. (Yonhap)
Dozens of special interests ranging from health care to business groups filed documents supporting or opposing a GOP lawsuit to ditch Democratic Gov. Tony Evers stay-at-home order.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments today for the controversial case, brought by the Republican Legislature, to lift Gov. Tony Evers safer-at home order.

The court began live-streaming opening arguments at 10 a.m. on the Courts YouTube streaming channel, The proceedings, which are being conducted via video conferencing, are also offered in real time at WisconsinEye Public Affairs Network.

Among those who filed documents in the case are a handful of organizations that have spent big money on electioneering activities to support or oppose the seven justices elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Currently, the court is controlled by a 5-2 conservative bloc that has ruled against Evers in suits brought against him as governor and as the former state school superintendent. The coronavirus pandemic has spurred stay-at-home orders and other restrictions in Wisconsin and throughout the country that have come under increasing resistance in recent weeks by Republicans and conservatives.

Here are some of the groups weighing in on the lawsuit to nullify Evers stay-at-home order after he extended it to May 26 and how much they spent to support or oppose the current justices.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), the states largest business organization, has spent more than $3.8 million to support Chief Justice Patience Roggensack, Justice Annette Ziegler, and Justice Dan Kelly, who are three of the courts five conservatives. WMC also spent an additional $1.2 million to support candidate Michael Screnock, who was defeated in 2018 for an open seat on the court by Justice Rebecca Dallet, who is one of the courts two liberals;

Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed group that backs conservative and Republican candidates and causes throughout the country, has spent about $771,200 to support the elections of Kelly and Hagedorn and another $12,700 to back Screnocks failed bid over Dallet;

Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents health care, home care, nursing home, public service and building service workers in Wisconsin, has spent about $573,850 against Hagedorn and Kelly. In addition, an SEIU PAC contributed $5,000 to the campaign of Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who is one of the courts two liberals;

Madison Teachers Inc., which represents Madison public school teachers, has spent about $25,400 to support opponents of Roggensack and Ziegler. In addition, the union has contributed $26,625 to the campaigns of Ann Walsh Bradley and Dallet;

Wisconsin Education Association Council, the states largest teachers union, and its regional PACs have contributed $40,625 to the campaigns of Ann Walsh Bradley and Dallet. In addition, the union spent about $7,000 on outside electioneering against Roggensack;

Citizen Action of Wisconsin, which is a coalition of labor, environment, and senior citizen groups, among others, spent about $28,750 to support candidate Jill Karofsky, who defeated Kelly in last months spring election. Shell take Kellys place on the high court in August;

American Federation of Teachers, which represents educators and school-related personnel, has made $20,625 in PAC contributions to Ann Walsh Bradley and Dallet.
HASAKAH, Syria  Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently welcomed an initiative launched by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), a civil committee of Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians in the semi-autonomous region of northern Syria, to determine the fate of individuals kidnapped and detained in Syria.

Families who have long waited for answers to what happened to their missing loved ones will be buoyed by this announcement, said Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW, on April 21. Local authorities and the US-led coalition should do everything in their power to ensure that the working group has the support it needs to get these answers.

The SDC had announced the initiative at an April 4 press conference in Qamishli. Ilham Ahmed, president of the SDCs Executive Committee, delivered remarks, stating, The initiative requires hard work and a responsible attitude in a bid to end political, human, social and economic suffering. We should also take into account that any political solution begins with confidence-building measures. Such measures start with the release of all detainees and abductees, the disclosure of the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared individuals and the fair prosecution of those who committed war crimes and terrorist acts.

The committee tasked with following up on the issue consists of legal professionals, civil society activists and relatives of the missing. It will engage local and regional organizations and institutions in collecting data on arrests, detentions and disappearances.

Ahmed told Al-Monitor, The committee tasked with the issue of the kidnapped will coordinate with committees made up of families of the disappeared, arrested and missing individuals across Syria. It will also coordinate with other relevant international and local organizations in a bid to put pressure on the detaining entities and kidnappers to release them. What has happened to the missing individuals will be revealed through official data issued by the concerned authorities.

Ayham Saker, a member of the new SDC committee, told Al-Monitor, We sent messages to Syrian organizations and entities working in the same field as well as international organizations, including the office of the UN special envoy to Syria, Geir Pederson. In the coming days, we will send similar messages to various countries involved in Syria, such as Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United States, as well as the Damascus government, in order to facilitate our work in finding out about what happened to the disappeared and detainees in all of Syria.

Perivan Jamil, from Kobani, told Al-Monitor, My husband was kidnapped five years ago by the Islamic State [IS] on his way back from Aleppo to Kobani, and his fate remains unknown to date.

Aqid Barakhdan, a fighter from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who took part in battles against IS, told Al-Monitor, After we liberated IS-controlled cities, we did not find any detainees in IS prisons,and residents of these cities told us that IS was carrying out field execution operations, often collective ones, against the prisoners and those who violated IS instructions.

Ahmed Tjou, displaced from Afrin and currently residing in the city of Hasakah, said that his son Luqman is being held by an element of the Syrian armed opposition that has occupied Afrin since March 2018.

The Hamza Division militants kidnapped my son one month into their control of the city, Tjou said. They asked for a ransom of $20,000, which I did not have, so I escaped with my family from Afrin to Hasakah for fear that more of us would be kidnapped. To this day, I still do not know the fate of my son.

On April 5, the autonomous administration in northeastern Syria registered its support for the SDC initiative in a statement circulated on local media. It also expressed its willingness to open its prisons to the competent committee. It noted that it had repeatedly allowed the International Red Cross and HRW to visit its detention facilities and said that the people it holds are IS militants accused of crimes against civilians.

Rana Habash, a human rights activist on the Raqqa civil council, affiliated with the autonomous administration, told Al-Monitor, The outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic has fueled fears about the fate of prisoners and detainees in the cells of the Syrian regime and the Syrian armed opposition given the fragile health system, drained by nine years of war. Also, there is a high, alarming number of IS detainees of various nationalities in the autonomous administration prisons. While their governments evade their responsibilities in [refusing to repatriate them], the Kurdish administration cannot protect prisons overcrowded with dangerous people who seize any opportunity to escape.

On March 29, IS detainees rioted at a prison run by the SDF in Hasakah, taking control of the entire ground floor of the facility, as 12 militants attempted to escape. The SDF managed to regain control of the situation the following day. According to HRW, the SDF is detaining about 12,000 IS militants, with 2,000 to 4,000 of them coming from around 50 countries.

On March 30, Amnesty International (AI) called on the government in Damascus to release detainees it holds and to cooperate with UN agencies and humanitarian organizations to prevent the spread of coronavirus in its jails. Lynn Maalouf, AIs Middle East research officer, remarked, All prisoners of conscience  political activists, human rights defenders, and others imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their rights  must be immediately and unconditionally released.

AI reported that based on UN statistics for 2019, some 100,000 people are have been forcibly disappeared and currently detained in Syria.
UAE Cabinet plans for country's post-coronavirus future

May 04,2020 | Source: The National

The United Arab Emirates Government has begun planning for the country's post-coronavirus future.



On Sunday, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, chaired a virtual UAE Cabinet meeting to discuss post-Covid-19 strategy.



Sheikh Mohammed spoke of the need to formulate a development plan to address immediate issue and long-term changes that must be made once coronavirus was no longer a global threat.



"Our national priorities need to be reviewed for a post-Covid-19 world. Our financial and human resources need to be redirected. Our healthcare, food and economic security needs to be further solidified through new programmes and projects.," Sheikh Mohammed said on Twitter.



"Preparing for a post-coronavirus world is to prepare for a new future that no one expected just a few months ago."



The Cabinet agreed to form a new task force, under the Ministry of Economy, that is charged with coming up with a plan to increase the "productivity and competitiveness" of the country's medical sector.



Sheikh Mohammed called for detailed policies to be drawn up to address the recovery and resumption of economic activity in the UAE.



"New teams are required to work faster, more thoroughly and more responsively to the fast-changing daily developments," Sheikh Mohammed said.



The task force will review the sectors that have been hardest hit by the crisis and come up with ways to replenish their resources.



The team is expected to draft a comprehensive strategy that will meet future environmental, epidemiological and natural challenges.



Sheikh Mohammed said the whole world would need to come up with new ways of working that focus on key sectors, including health, education, technology and food security.



Sheikh Mohammed has previously said that serious changes needed to be made in the world post-coronavirus.



The reality of work will change and the way of work must change. The world after coronavirus needs different preparations  because it will be different."

 International Media Investments

Theme(s): Others.
Electronic Team. Inc. announces the release of USB Network Gate 9.0 for Windows, an important update to the companys flagship solution for sharing USB ports over the network. The biggest changes are in the client part of the app. Now users can isolate their USB flash drives, audio cards, USB webcams, 3D mice, and numerous other USB devices while working in the multi-user environments on remote PCs.

With the revamped device isolation feature, its possible to connect individual USB devices to a remote computer and utilize them isolated from other user accounts and sessions. The USB devices that are connected to the remote PC remain invisible to other users logged in to the remote system.

For more information please visit https://www.net-usb.com/

USB Network Gate is a professional software tool for sharing USB devices over the Internet and LAN. It has gained popularity among millions of users worldwide for its streamlined and user-friendly interface combined with a powerful feature set.

The new release of the app includes the advanced per-session and per-user USB device isolation capabilities. The improved functionality helps prevent unauthorized access to shared USB devices that contain sensitive data.



Per-session USB device isolation allows restricting access to selected USB peripherals connected to the remote PC. With this option, the user can make any of their shared devices accessible only during their current remote desktop session. This means when the USB device is shared on the local computer and connected to the remote machine, it wont be visible to other user sessions.

Per-user USB device isolation provides a way to make the USB device accessible only from a specific user account. This can be a local user account, a domain user account, or a Microsoft user account.

In addition to the device isolation support, USB Network Gate 9.0 adds several critical bug fixes and performance improvements.

Additional features of USB Network Gate 9.0 include:

> Extended sharing options, including the ability to set a particular time of inactivity after which the server initiates the device disconnection from the client computer.

> The ability to disable the automatic device restart for the device not to be reset after its disconnection from the client machine.

Support for the Microsoft RDP and Citrix ICA protocols

USB Network Gate 9.0 supports the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol and native RemoteFX USB Redirection. The software allows sharing a physical USB port with virtual desktops. Any device inserted into the shared port will become available for remote connection while working over RDP. Also, the program provides USB redirection over the Citrix ICA protocol.

Download USB Network Gate https://www.net-usb.com/downloads/

Media Assets https://www.net-usb.com/ung-press-kit.html

Electronic Team. Inc. is a global technology development company that has been creating and delivering high-end software applications for USB port virtualization and sharing for over 15 years. With the latest release of USB Network Gate 9.0, Electronic Team, Inc. gets a step closer to achieving its goal to provide top-notch software that takes a leading position in the market of network communication technologies.
A woman whose father was among three neighbours killed in an IRA bombing 32 years ago has won her legal battle over being denied a new inquest.

The Court of Appeal ruled on Monday that a duty to hold a human rights-compliant investigation into the circumstances surrounding the so-called Good Samaritan attack in Derry has not been met.

Senior judges declined to make order compelling Northern Ireland's Attorney General to direct a fresh tribunal.

But their verdict paves the way for Rosaleen Dalton's lawyers to write to John Larkin QC, urging him to reconsider the need for a new inquest.

Ms Dalton's 54-year-old father, Eugene Dalton, was killed along with Sheila Lewis, 68, in the explosion at a house in the Creggan area in August 1988.

A third victim, 57-year-old Gerard Curran, died months after being pulled from the rubble.

The attack became known as the 'Good Samaritan Bombing' because the three friends had gone to check on the whereabouts of a neighbour kidnapped earlier by the IRA.

The paramilitary grouping later apologised, admitting it had planted the device in a bid to kill soldiers.

In 2013 a Police Ombudsman report found RUC officers had information about an IRA booby trap bomb in a house in the housing estate but did nothing to warn residents of the possible danger.

The watchdog identified a failure in the police obligation to protect the lives of the public.

But at that time the Attorney General decided a new inquest was not advisable.

But the Dalton family launched a legal challenge against his decision, claiming such a tribunal could help to establish responsibility for police failures.

They contended that investigative obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights were rekindled by the Ombudsman's findings.

In 2017 a High Court judge refused to quash Mr Larkin's decision, citing the financial and human costs of a further public hearing which would be unlikely to advance the goal of prosecuting the perpetrators.

Appealing that ruling, lawyers for Ms Dalton contended that police shortcomings were "crying out" for examination by a new inquest.

They insisted the case was about ensuring responsibility and accountability.

Delivering judgment on the appeal, Mr Justice Maguire said, much still appears to be "shrouded in mystery" despite the Police Ombudsman's findings.

He rejected the the argument that the Ombudsman's report has satisfied the human rights requirements.

"The key finding of this court is that to date the Article 2 investigative obligation which was revived has not been satisfied," he said.

"This was not the view of the (High Court) judge or the AGNI (Attorney General). In these circumstances, the court will allow the appeal."

Based on those findings further consideration will need to be given to the case by Mr Larkin.

"Not only is he the possessor of the power, but he should have the opportunity to consider the available options," Mr Justice Maguire said.

Outside court Ms Dalton's solicitor insisted the ruling promotes the right of bereaved families to challenge the denial of inquests in conflict-related cases.

Kevin Winters said: "It may indeed open up the possibility of reopening previously refused applications.

"On the back of the recent negative announcement by the British Government on legacy, this is a timely positive message for families and their hopes for future inquests."
Mr Fab



A Nigerian man has taken to Twitter to narrate on how he was turned down by a lady after he sold his laptop to take her out.

The man identified as @Mrfab_ on the platform said the incident happened during on Valentines day celebration.

According to Mr Fab, he had a huge crush on the lady and he decided to prove his love on Valentines day by taking her on an expensive date.

He made the disclosure in response to rapper Eriggas tweet where the rapper asked his fans the most annoying thing love has ever made them do.
Sydney's top universities say they are working on plans to bring students back to campus but warn big lectures are still a long way off.

The prediction comes as the University of Technology Sydney became the latest to reveal a major financial hit, estimating losses of up to $190 million this year, and Sydney University's application for the JobKeeper subsidy for more than 7000 staff was refused.

Universities are looking at how to return students to campus Credit:Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

On the weekend, federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said he wanted to see university students back on campus when second semester starts in August.

In a letter to staff and students on Monday, University of NSW vice chancellor Ian Jacobs said plans were being developed for a phased, gradual return to campus. "This is not a straightforward process and we will be deliberately cautious in our approach," he said.
"You must reside in Ward 3, and have been a resident in Ward 3 for at least a year," said borough Manager Christine Hart.
A number of Kill residents have expressed concern about a plan for more residential development in the village.

McCourt Investments Limited, which has already built numerous homes in the area, wants to build 107 houses and 60 apartments at Kill Hill and Earls Court.

The application is a strategic housing development, which means it will be decided by An Bord Pleanala rather than Kildare County Council.

Strategic housing developments facilitate residential projects of more than 100 units and the mechanism of applying directly to ABP was introduced by the government with the aim of speeding up the planning process.

An Bord is due to decide on the application by July 20, but submissions must be made by May 25 .

However concern has been raised over the possible impact the development might have on the Kill Hill bronze age hillfort which is recognised as an archaeological monument and is protected under the National Monuments Acts.

Residents say the continued existence of the monument is in danger because many of the people who have moved to Kill in recent years are unaware of its presence and there are no signposts or information display boards for the monument in the village.

The scale, importance and visual beauty of the monument is only fully comprehended from the aerial photographs.

Its enormous size dominates the landscape for kilometres in all directions and is positioned in close proximity to the existing village and to other bronze age sites located in the environs of Kill.

Local resident Jonathan Williams said: We need more houses to be built as soon as possible. However, experience and past mistakes have taught us that it is essential that they are built on suitable sites to avoid serious difficulties and repercussions at a later stage.

A McCourt Investments representative was contacted for comment.
US deploys 4 B-1 bombers, 200 troops to Guam for China 'deterrence'

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 03 May 2020 2:11 AM

The US military has deployed four B-1B heavy bombers and hundreds of troops to its western pacific territory of Guam to carry out "deterrence missions" aimed at Beijing after days of provocative maneuvers near contested territory in the South China Sea.

The warplanes and airmen arrived at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam Island on Friday, according to a statement by the US Strategic Command that further noted that three of the B-1B Lancers flew directly to the base, while another diverted to waters near Japan to train with the US Navy.

"Four bombers and approximately 200 airmen from the 9th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing deployed to support Pacific Air Forces' training efforts with allies, partners and joint forces," read the statement, pointing out that the warplanes would also take part in "strategic deterrence missions to reinforce the rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific region."

The US Air Force, however, did not specify for how long the new deployment would continue.

The deployments came just one day after a pair of B-1s conducted a flyover of the South China Sea, making a 32-hour round trip from the Ellsworth Air Force Base in the US state of South Dakota as part of a 'show of force' operation in the region.

The US military regularly conducts what it refers to as "freedom of navigation" missions and air patrols over the South China Sea, aimed at sending a message to Beijing, which has repeatedly censured the operations as provocative and in violation of its sovereignty.

The Chinese government has yet to respond to the latest US deployment, but denounced the American naval missions near the Paracel Islands earlier this week.

Over the past week, US naval warships have also made their presence known around disputed waters in the South China Sea, with a US guided missile destroyer sailing through the Taiwan Strait twice  shadowed both times by a Chinese aircraft carrier sailing close by.

The destroyer was eventually escorted out of the area on Tuesday by Chinese air and naval forces after it, "trespassed" near the contested Xisha Islands -- also known as the Paracels -- according to Beijing.

According to the statement, although the Air Force recalled all five of its B-52 Stratofortress bombers from Guam earlier this month, the B-1s replacing them are capable of carrying larger payloads, including 2,000-pound guided JDAM munitions and anti-ship cruise missiles.

The growing American military presence in the region follows escalating rhetoric from US President Donald Trump against Beijing, increasingly blaming the country for the ongoing coronavirus pandemic without pointing to any evidence to back his claims.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin voted against entering into official government formation talks with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

The Greens yesterday made the historic decision to begin formal negotiations with the two parties on how to form the next government.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan will meet Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tomorrow morning to begin negotiations.

However, it has emerged Mr Ryan's deputy leader was among a group of Green TDs who voiced objections to the move and voted against the proposal during a teleconference call yesterday.

Last week, Ms Martin was highly critical of comments by Tanaiste Simon Coveney, who said he will not agree to a 7pc a year cut in carbon emissions if it impacts negatively on rural Ireland.

Ms Martin described the Tanaiste's comments as "quite disturbing" and said she shared the views of those in her party who were concerned about going into government with Fine Gael.

Expand Close Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin

A Green Party spokesperson said: "Catherine was against going into talks now because she felt greater clarity was needed on the issues raised with the two parties previously, as she expressed on the Sean O'Rourke show on Friday, but she respects the democratic votes of the party and is happy to participate in talks in good faith."

Favour

The party's 12 TDs held a vote on starting government negotiations with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael as they could not reach a consensus.

Those in favour of talks reached the two-thirds majority needed for the vote to be passed.

If the Greens' parliamentary party members agree a programme for government, it will also have to be passed by two-thirds of the membership before they can enter into a coalition.

The party has been racked with internal turmoil over the decision to enter into talks and has been meeting every day via video link to debate Fianna Fail and Fine Gael's policy framework document.

They sent the two parties a list of 17 questions relating to climate change and other key Green issues, such as ending direct provision.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael agreed with the majority of their demands but were reluctant to sign up to a 7pc a year reduction in carbon emissions.

Over the weekend, the Greens sought more information from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael before agreeing to talks.

In a statement published after its vote, the Green Party said it was "conscious of the huge challenges" facing the next Government in the wake of Covid-19 crisis.

"The party will now work with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to develop a deal that respects our mandate with a view to presenting that agreement to Green Party members for approval," it said.

"Any proposal must be transformative on climate action and commit to strong progress towards a more sustainable and fairer society.

"If this is not the case, Green Party representatives will withdraw from negotiations and pursue their mandate in opposition and work to hold the government to account."

Mr Martin and Mr Varadkar welcomed the decision by the Green Party to enter into formal talks.
Virginia Commonwealth University police said they are aware of the allegations of sexual assaults on or near campus posted by an anonymous Twitter account that has since been deactivated.

The Twitter account, which appeared Thursday and was deactivated on Friday, went by the username @VCURAPIST1. It posted several anonymous allegations based on submissions it received, as well as photos of alleged perpetrators.

A second account, @vcurapist, appeared around the same time, and is still active, but hasnt posted any allegations. Other Virginia colleges have had similar accounts created including Old Dominion University and George Mason University.

VCU Police has reached out to the account manager and individuals who are sharing information indicating they are sexual assault survivors, said Corey Byers, a spokeswoman for the campus police.

Byers said Monday that one person who was accused of assault by the account had contacted VCU police.

As of now, detectives do not have active criminal investigations stemming from those posts, Byers said. Survivors have not reached out to speak with police about filing a report.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Sint Maarten Police Force sees it as a necessity to once again issue another stern warn to certain members of the general public. It has been brought to our attention that a small group is once again coordinating a jump up in light of the closing of what would have been carnival 2020; after being repeatedly warned of the dangers doing so may cause.

Warnings such as these are not because the police are aiming at stopping anyones fun, as stated in several of the addresses made by the head of the EOC, PM Jacobs. They serve as a means to request compliance from the community. We have all witnessed firsthand the countless lives that have been lost and masses of people that continue to battle this COVID-19 virus. This virus is not a joke and can be caught in the simplest ways.

Sint Maarten is a tiny dot compared to the rest of the world and our resources are limited. We are again asking the small group of people that refuse to comply, to rethink your decision-making process as it can cost you or someone you love their lives.

We are in this battle together, no one is exempt from contracting the virus, and the more it spreads is the longer we have to limit movement, which will mean extended lockdowns.

When we all come together to comply it will be the sooner we can regain some sense of normalcy and get the country back up and running. We have done it several times after many devastating hurricanes and we can do it again through this COVID- 19 epidemic with the help of the community.

For those that may know someone who is involved in organizing or planning to attend these illegal gatherings, be your neighbors keeper, let them know it is wrong and the repercussions of their actions can have a tremendous impact on the economy of Sint Maarten.

Please think before you act, anyone caught participating or planning any illegal gatherings will be arrested and fined heavily.

At the same time, the police also want to thank the community of Sint Maarten who all comply with the described measure. You make the work easier for the Front liners, and we will get through this together.

KPSM Press Release.
As the city and its hospitals battle a second wave of infections, Agra is a model of a different kind, illustrating how the coronavirus can roar back even after a swift lockdown and elaborate containment measures

Agra: On 25 February, a day after US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania posed for pictures outside the Taj Mahal on an official visit to India, Sumit Kapoor returned to his nearby home from a trip to Italy.

Kapoor, a partner in a shoe manufacturing firm, tested positive a week later for the new coronavirus, becoming the first confirmed case in the northern Indian city of Agra and the origin of the countrys first big cluster of the virus.

The city of 1.6 million people, famous for its 17th-century marble-domed Taj Mahal, moved fast. It set up containment zones, screened hundreds of thousands of residents and conducted widespread contact tracing.

By early April, the city thought it had the virus beat, containing cases to under 50, while new infections exploded in other Indian cities. Prime Minister Narendra Modis government lauded the Agra Model as a template for the countrys battle against COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Now, as the city and its hospitals battle a second wave of infections, Agra is a model of a different kind, illustrating how the coronavirus can roar back even after a swift lockdown and elaborate containment measures. If it hadnt spread in the hospitals, we would have been able to contain it, said Agras top local official, District Magistrate Prabhu N Singh.

As India grapples with around 42,000 coronavirus infections, second only to China in Asia, Agras tangle with the virus offers lessons for big cities in India and elsewhere.

It all began with a shoemaker who visited a trade fair in Italy.

After flying home via Austria, Kapoor, 44, who lives about 10 kilometres away from the Taj Mahal, first learned he might be infected on 1 March, when his brother-in-law who travelled with him came down with a fever and tested positive in New Delhi. A state official called Kapoor the next day and told him to get tested at the Agra District Hospital.

He was positive - and so were his father, mother, son, wife and brother. All six were moved to a hospital in New Delhi, about 200 kilometres to the north. My brother and I had a sore throat and the other four didnt have any symptoms, Kapoor told Reuters.

Later, Kapoors accountant in Agra and his wife also tested positive for COVID-19, while other unrelated cases started showing up around the city.

Containment zones and loudspeakers

Singh, the district magistrate, and his team attempted to establish containment zones as the virus spread across the city, but they ran into a problem: how to quickly screen thousands of households.

Dr Brajendra Singh Chandel, a surveillance medical officer with the World Health Organization in Agra, said he pulled out vaccination microplans that had been developed for polio control by the WHO, using them alongside Google Maps to plot target areas.

The detailed household-level plans, which helped India eradicate polio in 2014, have clearly demarcated starting, middle and end points for surveying an area, Chandel explained, allowing teams to work their way through any neighbourhood efficiently. Once we zeroed down on the area, we used the polio microplans to execute, he said.

Local authorities identified an epicentre for each cluster of infections and drew three-kilometre-wide containment zones around them. They surveyed residents in those areas, looking for those who had contact with people who tested positive for the coronavirus or who were showing symptoms. Nearly 3,000 workers screened some 165,000 households, according to a government presentation.

Meanwhile, epidemiologists from the federal governments India Epidemic Intelligence Service arrived in Agra to help with containment, contact tracing and analysing data, said Dr Anshul Pareek, who leads the citys coronavirus rapid response team.

As the number of cases grew, authorities sealed off infection hotspots  typically groups of houses or parts of a street - and cordoned off adjoining neighbourhoods holding as many as 10,000 people. In a control room used to manage traffic, officials monitored camera feeds from across the city to ensure the lockdown was enforced. Thousands of police were deployed to hotspots and checkpoints. Loudspeakers blared messages telling residents to stay indoors.

That differed from other Indian cities, many of which failed to isolate patients or track down their contacts, allowing the infection to spread, according to health authorities. Weak lockdowns allowed potential carriers to slip through containment cordons, they added. More than 1,300 people have died from the virus in India.

Revival of cases

Agra was celebrated for appearing to have contained the virus. On 11 April, Lav Agarwal, a senior official in Indias federal health ministry, held up Agra as an example of how India was working to defeat the pandemic.

But a resurgence was already in the works. In late March, a gathering of the Islamic missionary group Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi had become a source for hundreds of new infections nationwide. Federal authorities sent officials in Agra a list of attendees to track down, Singh said.

Agarwal did not respond to requests for comment by Reuters.

District police chief Babloo Kumar said he used police investigation tactics and cell phone data to identify Tablighi Jamaat members and their contacts. Eventually, 104 people from this group tested positive in Agra.

The effort was helped by the nationwide lockdown on 25 March that stopped all public transport, shut businesses and kept residents at home. Without a lockdown, we could not have done anything, Singh said.

By early April, a patient linked to the Tablighi group showed up at an Agra hospital and later tested positive for COVID-19, officials said. The disease spread rapidly among patients and staff who went on to infect their families and relatives. New cases also popped up in Agras other healthcare facilities.

Worst hit was Paras Hospital, the source for at least 92 coronavirus cases, Singh said. One staff member infected 14 others in a two-room home, he said. In another case, a patient from the hospital infected 32 others in a nearby town, he added.

The hospital was sealed off on 6 April. Late last month, a chart tracking contacts of positive patients linked to the facility still stood next to Singhs desk.

Agra now has around 600 coronavirus cases and 14 deaths, according to local authorities. As of the end of April, there were 39 infection hotspots and tests had been conducted on 6,848 samples, with some people tested multiple times.

Singh says hes confident the city will defeat the virus, thanks in part to its aggressive contact-tracing system. The good part is that for all the cases, we know the source, he said.

Still, eradicating COVID-19 in Agras crowded neighbourhoods will remain difficult, particularly without testing large groups of people, said Dr. Rajib Dasgupta, an epidemiologist who teaches at New Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University. Even within a containment zone, for some conceivable time, its not going to go away very rapidly, said Dasgupta.
Personal protective equipment will be in high demand for the foreseeable feature as businesses prepare to safely reopen under anticipated state guidelines.

Many Michigan companies have converted to manufacture PPE that businesses will need - and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce it helping make connections between them with a new webpage.

On Tuesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said that residential and commercial construction may soon be able to resume in Michigan, along with additional outdoor industries. The states COVID-19 curve continues to flatten, giving a handful of industries have a chance of going back to work as long as the data continues to support that. When businesses might reopen remains unclear.

One thing that is clear is that businesses will have to adapt safety practices to ensure workers are protected. Employers will be required to monitor symptoms, institute a variety of social distancing techniques, strengthen sanitation and hygiene at the job site and provide recommended PPE-like masks and face shields.

RELATED: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says construction, other outdoor industries could resume work soon, if coronavirus cases continue to fall

"Finding PPE will be the hardest part for small businesses that do not have access to a supply chain, said Bob Thomas, COO for the Michigan Chamber.

Anticipating that struggle, the Michigan Chamber created a list of Michigan businesses that can provide locally sourced, manufactured, or distributed PPE across the state, he said.

RELATED: Muskegon chemical plant to make, donate hand sanitizer amid coronavirus pandemic

The list includes links and contact information for businesses that can provide hand sanitizer, face masks, clear partitions, isolation gowns, disposable gloves, thermometers and distance markers.

Find the webpage here. Buyers should contact companies directly for product information and availability.

Michigan has 39,262 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, and 3,567 related deaths, as of Tuesday, April 28. The United States eclipsed 1 million cases on Tuesday.

Read all of MLives coverage on the coronavirus at mlive.com/coronavirus.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

CORONAVIRUS 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:

Anti-vax groups spread doubt about coronavirus vaccine before one exists

Protesters of Michigans coronavirus response removed from House gallery

Heres how to join a pet Zoom with Dwight from The Office and his potbelly pigs

Pug tests positive for coronavirus; first known dog case in U.S.

Wednesday, April 29: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan
Photo: Netflix

Exotic-cat activist Carole Baskin, one of the subjects of Netflixs Tiger King, has largely steered clear of the media following the release of the streaming platforms hit docuseries. First of all, Tiger King himself Joe Exotic is currently in prison in part for attempting to hire a hitman to kill Baskin. Second of all, the show probes Baskins alleged potential involvement in the disappearance of her second husband, Don Lewis, for which she has never been charged with a crime. However, the Tonight Show proved too strong a pull, and Baskins (extremely relatable) desire to chat with Jimmy Fallon allowed two YouTubers to prank her into a faux interview.

As reported by Variety, tricksters Josh Pieters and Archie Manners posed as late night talent bookers and reached out to Baskin to set up a Zoom interview with Fallon, subsequently compiling an audio soundboard of Jimmys questions to previous Tonight Show guests, specifically queries about cats. Explaining away the visual absence of Jimmy as just a necessary quirk of filming while in coronavirus quarantine, the pair fooled the big cat zookeeper into believing she was, in fact, speaking to Fallon.

The result? Well, Carole Baskin basically just discusses the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on her volunteer staff, asks viewers to support the Big Cat Public Safety Act, and reminds people to never pay money to pet a tiger or lion cub. But all you cats and kittens dont have to take our word for it. You can see the prank for yourself in the video below.
Anne Finger is a writer of fiction and nonfiction who, like many others in her field, cant rely on income from her creative work alone. A polio survivor and wheelchair user, Ms. Finger bought her loft in Oakland, Calif., 22 years ago with the idea that it would serve as a steady financial source. She rents out the space for photo and video shoots and also began listing her sons former bedroom on Airbnb once he moved out.

My idea was that my loft was going to support me for the rest of my life, she said.

The arrival of Covid-19 disrupted that plan. All her rental activity has stopped, and even if it were to start up again soon, Ms. Finger, 68, who recently battled pneumonia, would not feel comfortable letting anyone into her home.

Im high risk, so Im kind of imagining that Im going to be sheltering in place for a long time, said the writer, who has spent decades fighting for disability rights. I want to keep doing my art for another 20 years if I possibly can. So I really want to stay alive.

A few weeks ago, Ms. Finger received some much-needed good news. She was one of 100 recipients of the first round of $5,000 grants from Artist Relief, a new initiative dedicated to helping artists who are facing urgent financial circumstances as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. She wept with joy when she got it, she said.
GROTON, Conn. and BOCA RATON, Fla., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ThayerMahan Inc. ("ThayerMahan"), a leading maritime technology company providing autonomous marine sensing solutions, announced that it closed on $10 million of new financing from AE Industrial Partners Structured Solutions I, LP ("AEI Structured Solutions"), an affiliate of AE Industrial Partners, LP ("AEI"), a private equity firm specializing in Aerospace, Defense & Government Services, Power Generation, and Specialty Industrial markets.

This represents the first investment out of the new AEI Structured Solutions fund and the 45th announced transaction by AEI since 2015. ThayerMahan will use the capital to accelerate growth through acquisitions and expand operations and research and development. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

ThayerMahan provides government and commercial clients with turn-key autonomous marine solutions using state-of-the-art acoustic and electronic sensors integrated on a variety of host platforms tailored to specific mission criteria. ThayerMahan is at the forefront of the paradigm shift in maritime security, leveraging the rapid acceleration of advancements in robotic miniaturization, globally accessible digital communications, and artificial intelligence to drive down costs and supplement the capabilities of traditional maritime operations. In addition, the Company's 'Search as a Service' offering allows its customers in government, industry, and academia to quickly access the latest technology and get the information they need.

"ThayerMahan's technology and strong value proposition in maritime domain awareness impressed our firm. We are excited to partner with a world-class team that is uniquely positioned to address an important market need and challenge," said Kirk Konert, Partner at AEI. "The growing demands for cost-effective autonomous solutions, as well as trends in distributed operations, will only accelerate ThayerMahan's growth."

"AEI is the right partner for ThayerMahan at this stage in our development," said Mike Connor, ThayerMahan's co-founder and CEO, and retired Vice Admiral of the US Navy. "As we built this company, we assembled a talented group of Sailors, Marines, Soldiers, and Coastguardsmen and combined them with top-flight engineers with experience in shipbuilding, autonomy, and data science to create something unique. Our success to date has also been enabled by forward-leaning customers and venture investors. Now, AEI's financial backing and experienced management team will help us scale effectively to provide even more value for our customers."

"We are very excited to partner with Mike and ThayerMahan's world-class team of engineers, acoustic technicians, and AUV/SUV operators," said Marc Baliotti, Senior Managing Director at AEI. "ThayerMahan has deep domain expertise with almost half of its team comprised of former members of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, including former senior leaders of the submarine community and undersea surveillance activities. We look forward to leveraging our industry experience and financial resources to support this highly accomplished team as it builds out its product suite and commercial opportunities."

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati served as legal advisor to ThayerMahan. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as the legal advisor to AEI.

About ThayerMahan

ThayerMahan, Inc. is a maritime technology company dedicated to providing its government and commercial clients with turn-key autonomous marine solutions, including deployment, operations, data gathering and analysis services, using state-of-the-art acoustic and electronic sensors integrated on a variety of host platforms tailored to specific mission criteria. The company is headquartered in Groton, CT with satellite presences in Boston and Washington, DC. For more information, please visit www.thayermahan.com or contact directly at [email protected].

About AE Industrial Partners

AE Industrial Partners is a private equity firm specializing in Aerospace, Defense & Government Services, Power Generation, and Specialty Industrial markets. AE Industrial Partners invests in market-leading companies that can benefit from our deep industry knowledge, operating experience, and relationships throughout our target markets. Learn more at www.aeroequity.com.

CONTACT:

Lambert & Co.

Jennifer Hurson

(845) 507-0571

[email protected]

or

Kristin Celauro

(732) 433-5200

[email protected]

SOURCE AE Industrial Partners
WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th May, 2020) US President Donald Trump submitted for the Senate's approval the nomination of Marshall Billingslea to be the next Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, the White House said in a press release.

"Marshall Billingslea, of Virginia, to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security," the release said on Monday.

Billingslea, former Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Terrorist Financing, will be responsible for attempts to negotiate with Russia and China a comprehensive strategic arms control regime, Trump's initiative to replace an expiring New START.

Among 30 nominations, the White House submitted to the Senate an appointment of Julie Fisher to be next US Ambassador to the Republic of Belarus. Fisher is a career member of the senior foreign service, class of Counselor, according to the release.
Nearly 30,000 businesses in Connecticut won federal support under a second round of the Paycheck Protection Program, pushing to nearly 48,000 the number of Nutmeg State entities that have received loans that are forgiven if they do not lay off workers.

PPP is designed to provide businesses with an eight-week cushion to help cope with limits imposed as a result of the ongoing public health emergency. Under the program, 80 percent of any funds approved must be used for payroll and other employee expenses, with the remainder allowed to be used for rent, utilities and other costs.

Adding $2.55 billion to the initial round disbursed in Connecticut, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has now approved $6.7 billion to businesses in the state with less than 500 employees.

State companies have received less PPP funding on a per capita basis than their counterparts in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts  based on the Small Business Administrations estimate of 745,000 people working at small businesses in Connecticut.

As of Friday, $175.7 billion appropriated by Congress for the program was still available.

Speaking Sunday on CNN, President Trumps head economic advisor Larry Kudlow did not rule out a third round of PPP in addition to other federal relief or stimulus.

This has been an extremely popular and effective program, no question about it. Keeping folks on the payroll is so important, Kudlow said Sunday. We waited a little bit too long, I thought, when the [first] tranche ran out. Lets not make the same mistake again.

Many small business owners complained of getting squeezed out of the initial round of PPP, with banks favoring customers with existing accounts despite the Small Business Administration guaranteeing the loans.

But the latest Connecticut totals suggest more smaller businesses had success in getting loans than before. The average loan in the latest round totaled $84,000  equating to a company with a half-dozen employees at the states median wage for small businesses, with leftover funding for other expenses  versus $225,000 in the first round on average.

Nationally, the average loan size in the second round of the program has been $75,000, down from an average loan of $206,000 during the first round. The SBA has already approved more than 550,000 additional loans in the second round of the PPP program compared to the first.

We did well in the first round  and in the second round we did very well, said Gov. Ned Lamont, speaking Monday afternoon. Were focused on May 20. Were focused on getting things reopened, just because we know that our small businesses have just enough firepower to get through over the course of them next couple of months, assuming they were eligible and got the PPP loans at all.

In the first round of the program, more than 200 publicly traded companies were approved for PPP loans, a CTInsider analysis of Securities & Exchange Commission filings determined. They included a luxury cruise company affiliated with National Geographic; a film distribution company that provides content to Netflix and Hulu; two large companies operating numerous hotels; and multiple national restaurant chains.

Two publicly traded Connecticut companies were among those to report PPP funding: FuelCell Energy, a Danbury-based maker of fuel cell power plants that hovered last year on the edge of bankruptcy, and Precipio, a medical diagnostics business in New Haven.

Some large companies opted to give their PPP loan back following public outcry and new guidance from the SBA stating that companies must certify their need for the loan. The SBA announced last week it will conduct further review of large PPP loans. The SBA now plans to review all loans in excess of $2 million.

Democratic senators have requested that the SBAs inspector general investigate reports that banks prioritized loans for their wealthier business clients. Under the program, banks receive more compensation for the large PPP loans they administer than for smaller loans.

Some lawmakers and lobbyists are demanding more changes to help restaurants access the loans. Restaurants have lobbied to change terms in favor of allowing businesses to use more of the money to cover rent. They also want more flexibility on when they can use the money because many restaurants remain closed.

Scott Dolch, executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association, called the current limitations on the loans needlessly restrictive.

On Monday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to ask that businesses be given more flexibility on when to accept loan disbursements, noting the example of restaurants that will incur larger costs to restart operations due to restocking food inventories, purchasing protective equipment and complying with any new health codes.

Speaking on Fox Business Monday, Mnuchin did not indicate willingness for any wholesale changes.

This is the way the program was designed by Congress, Mnuchin said. We think it has the right intent to get the money to employees. So I dont have the flexibility to change that.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
Inside Hook

Since March, people concerned about COVID-19 have found a host of places to socially isolate themselves  some in houses, some in apartments and some in haunted towns. But one resident of Florida decided to aim high for his choice of quarantine retreat: Discovery Island, a now-shuttered part of Walt Disney World.

On one hand, its not hard to see the logic here: the island has been closed to the public since 1999, putting it pretty high on the list of places youre not likely to wind up infected. On the other hand, theres the fact that its illegal to go there.
/ -- Atman in Ravi's e-book titled 'FEAR' has captured the essence of the current crisis of Coronavirus. This book is an outcome of the personal opinion of the author who wishes to curb the spread of the endless stress and fear that has taken root in the minds of many who are bombarded with all kinds of about the current situation amidst the lockdown.

This e-book comes out with a mission - the objective is to inspire people to live with courage and not be stressed, worried, and anxious. It encourages people to follow the applicable rules laid down by the government. Through the various citations in the e-book, it aspires to promote well-being and create better immunity by instilling confidence and eliminating fear from people's minds. Panic will not really help, but taking precautions as directed by the authorities and living fearlessly is the need of the hour.

AiR says, "FEAR makes the wolf bigger than he is. If we look at the virus with a paradigm that it will cause death, we will see it killing us. If we see it only as a deadly virus that is causing flu and is fatal to the aged and sick, we will take appropriate precautions and not panic. By causing the entire world to come to a standstill, we are creating more threatening consequences. How we look at the virus will depend on us. We can take the required precautions, but we can't run away in panic. Death is not in our hands. We must learn to surrender and accept this truth about life."



Readers can download the free e-book from AiR website: https://bit.ly/fearEbook



About the author- AiRAiR - Atman or the Soul in Ravi, is an embodied Soul whose only mission in life is to help people realize the Truth. He was born in Bangalore on October 15, 1966. As a part of the humanitarian initiative (http://airhumanitarianhomes.org/), a charitable hospital and charitable homes were set up. Today, over 600 homeless and suffering people are served and cared for in our destitute homes and provided with free shelter, food, clothing, and medical care.

A Shiva Temple (http:hivohamshivatemple.org/) was built in the year 1995 in Bangalore which is now known as the Shivoham Shiva Temple. AiR now believes that religion is just a kindergarten to Spirituality, and we all have to go beyond religion to truly realize God. One day, his Guru provoked him to introspect: What is the purpose of life? Is life just meant to seek pleasures and to live and die without any purpose? What happens after death? Will we be reborn? Where is God? Several questions like these took him on a quest, a search for the Truth. He gave up his life of Achievement and Fulfilment in search of the final peak of life: Enlightenment. After a few years of intense search in retreat, deep in the mountains, he realized that we are not this body or mind but the Divine Soul, the Atman. He metamorphosed to AiR - Atman in Ravi and gave up his entire life as RVM and started living as an instrument of God doing 'His Divine Will'. AiR has dedicated his life to helping people realize the Truth.

With AiR's own Realization, he has authored several books, composed bhajans, blogs, quotes, poems and taken up several other initiatives that can direct people towards the Truth and eradicate the ignorance that they live in. His vision, now, is to help people to Ask, Investigate, and Realize the Truth.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Texas corporate law firms spent much of the past decade booting underperforming partners, eliminating less profitable practice groups and hiring fewer rookie lawyers in an effort to grow profits.

New Texas Lawbook data show that the years of stingy hiring practices ended in 2019. Corporate law firms in Houston and Dallas went on a relative hiring spree last year, growing in lawyer count by 3.6 percent, compared to less than 1 percent each of the previous five years.

But legal industry analysts say the long-awaited growth may have occurred at exactly the wrong time, citing the one-two punch of COVID-19 and plunging oil and gas prices.

Most large corporate law firms in Houston depend heavily on energy industry mergers and acquisitions, which have come to a near halt. High-stakes business litigation is on hold because courtrooms are closed due to the pandemic.

Texas Inc.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

As a result of the loss of high-end legal work, several large and successful corporate law firms in Texas are scrambling to cut costs. Baker Botts, Norton Rose Fulbright and a half-dozen other law firms with offices in Houston announced last week that they are temporarily reducing compensation to partners, counsel and associates by as much as 30 percent. More firms are expected to make similar salary cuts.

It could get very bad, and the Texas legal market will take an even bigger hit than others, Jim Cotterman, a principal and legal industry consultant at Altman Weil, said.

Law firms should hope for a short-term skirmish but prepare for a long-term siege, Cotterman said. Law firm leaders need to be brutally honest with their folks right now that they are planning for considerable reductions in expenses and in compensation and that this will be across the entire law firm.

The combined lawyer count at the top 50 corporate firms in Texas jumped from 6,889 in 2018 to 7,130 last year - an increase of 241 attorneys. By comparison, those same 50 law firms added only 194 lawyers for the four previous years combined.

For the past several years, the pool of business lawyers practicing in Texas has remained flat, which is not what we would have expected in such a thriving economy, said Kent Zimmermann, a law firm consultant with Zeughauser Group in Chicago.

At the same time, dozens of national and regional corporate law firms have opened offices in Texas and are hiring local lawyers from existing firms instead of bringing in new talent from their other offices, Zimmermann said. The result has been lawyers jumping from one firm to another in a law firm version of musical chairs.

Breaking News: Get email alerts from Chron.com sent directly to your inbox

The Texas legal market has needed to grow faster for several years, Zimmermann said. Just not this year.

No one could have predicted a pandemic that would shut down the entire economy nine months or even three months ago, Zimmermann said. What seemed like good strategic planning a year ago is now a drain on cash-flow.

Summer additions

Even more worrisome, most of the Texas corporate law firms have scores of law students they are paying to spend the summer with their partners in hopes of hiring them in the fall. These summer associates were scheduled to show up in mid-May, but most firms have delayed their arrivals until mid-June at the earliest.

Then there are last years summer associates - hundreds of them - who were extended job offers a year ago and are expected to start work in September or October. FYI: corporate law firms pay their rookie lawyers right out of law school $195,000 a year.

The economy is contracting. Now is definitely not the time to be hiring new lawyers, Cotterman said. The legal profession is 13 percent to 15 percent overstaffed. Ive been trying to tell firms that they have too many people for the legal work that is out there.

The good news, according to Cotterman and Zimmermann, is that most Texas law firms went into the crisis with strong balance sheets and solid lines of credit to tap.

Baker Botts Managing Partner John Martin said the firm instituted salary reductions for the next three months to ensure that layoffs will not be necessary.

Prime Property: Get Houston real estate news sent directly to your inbox

We are a very conservative law firm, Martin said in an interview earlier this month. We are evaluating everything - how bad will it be and how long will it last. We are all operating in the dark.

Rolling with changes

Vinson & Elkins Chairman Mark Kelly agreed that all law firms will take a hit because of the combination of the COVID-19 crisis and the decline in oil and gas prices.

Good lawyers are needed in hard times, he said. We hope things dont get uglier, but we are a low-debt law firm and we had a great couple months coming into this.

Kelly said V&E, which employs the most corporate lawyers in Texas and has the highest revenue of any law firm operating in the state, still plans to have about 100 law students participate in its summer associate program year - albeit possibly delayed for a few weeks - and to add 90 first-year lawyers in the fall.

I dont like to make short-term decisions, Kelly said. In 2015, some firms had layoffs to cut costs, but those firms suffered when the oil market bounced back. Massive layoffs have repercussions and they hurt a law firms credibility.

The bad economy and oil price crisis is actually an opportunity for several law firms with strong bankruptcy and restructuring practices, such as Kirkland & Ellis, Weil Gotshall, Norton Rose Fulbright, Sidley Austin and Haynes and Boone.

One beneficiary could be Houston-based Porter Hedges, a mid-sized full-service law firm with about a 100 lawyers and solid connections in the oil patch. The firm was hired last week to handle the multibillion-dollar Diamond Offshore Drilling bankruptcy along with lawyers at Weil.

Clearly there is going to be an impact on us and every other law firm, Porter Hedges Managing Partner Rob Reedy said. We are healthy and our finances are in great shape. Our [lower] rates put the firm in a very good position to be competitive during tough times for our clients.

For a longer version of this article, please visit TexasLawbook.net.
Doctors and nurses represent the faces of hospital staff across the country. Behind them stand hundreds of thousands of employees at hospitals in the United States who manage supplies, work in food services and secure the buildings.

They work in the same facilities where the coronavirus has exerted tolls on health care providers, but non-medical workers arent immune.

In examining the pandemic, the New York Times found the victims of the coronavirus within hospitals include non-medical staff, who early in the pandemic reported to work without being offered personal protective equipment.

You know how people clap for health workers at 7 oclock? Its mainly for the nurses and doctors. I get it. But people are not seeing the other parts of the hospital. I feel like those other employees are not focused upon as much, Eneida Becote told the New York Times. Her husband died last month after working for two decades as a patient transporter.

Becote said her husband made about $45,000 a year moving patients around the Brooklyn Hospital Center on stretchers and wheelchairs. He was among at least 32 non-medical hospital workers in New York City who have died during the pandemic, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, when PPE wasn't in abundance, masks and gloves were prioritized for doctors and nurses, according to the newspaper. Often non-medical employees were left with less protection than their colleagues.

The New York Times found that in Elmhurst Hospital Center, a public facility in New York City, three employees who managed personal protective equipment in the same department died from the virus by the middle of April.

Wayne Edwards, Derik Braswell and Priscilla Carrow played critical roles in administering PPE throughout the facility. Edwards and Carrow were planning to retire within the next year. Edwards was 61, Carrow was 65.

Edwards died on April 12 and was 57.

As you start mending your heart for one, then the next one came. You wonder when the pain stops, Gary Johnson, who previously worked in their department, told the New York Times.

In a lawsuit filed n April 20, the largest nurses union in New York accused the states Department of Health of enacting policies that turned hospitals into petri dishes where the virus can fester and then spread to other health care workers, according to the Times.

Similar complaints have been aimed at hospitals in Massachusetts.

Nurses from Saint Vincent Hospital say that furloughs and staff reductions amid the COVID-19 pandemic have led to dangerous delays in care at the Worcester facility.

Beyond health care facilities, a study conducted by UMass Amherst, workers deemed essential during the pandemic fear for their safety.

Of all essential workers surveyed, 51% said they do not feel safe at work. Nearly two-thirds said they are unable to practice social distancing, 29% did not receive COVID-19 transmission training, more than 1 in 15 lack masks, 17% lack hand sanitizer, and 8% lack regular hand washing opportunities.

Related Content:
M any fans have already devoured Normal People, but for those watching weekly on BBC One, the series is coming to a close tonight.

Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell, the BBC Three series (based on Sally Rooney's bestselling novel of the same name) centres around the couple's relationship and depicts the fragility of young love.

While they clearly care deeply for one another, things are, of course, never easy. Both Marianne and Connell grapple with mental health issues and face pressures from their respective friendship circles, while trying to navigate through life and make the difficult transition from their teenage years to adulthood.

Indeed, there are times where - as a viewer - you just want to throw a hard object at the TV, or climb into the box to bang their heads together.

Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in Normal People / BBC

The ending, especially, does not offer a neat, happy conclusion - but nor should it. Rather than offering up cliches, both the show and the book finish on a far more realistic bittersweet note.

But there are subtle differences between how the series and the novel end. Here's how they differ...

How does the book end?

Sally Rooney's novel ends with Connell publishing a short story, which leads to him becoming the editor of the literary magazine at Trinity College.

Just as he and Marianne get things back on track, he finds out he's been offered a place to do a Master's degree at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Despite the pair confirming their unwavering love for one another, Marianne is very practical and urges Connell not to make promises he can't necessarily keep - after all, they have both gone through so much together and they know things are never as simple as one would hope.

The book is open-ended with Connell's decision left unknown and readers guessing whether or not these star-crossed lovers make it through.

How does the show end?

BBC/Element Pictures/Hulu

Similarly to the book, Connell gets accepted on a creative writing course in New York, which will mean a whole year away from Marianne.

While at first she seems to struggle with the news - they have only just got back together, after all - Marianne eventually nudges him to seize the opportunity, telling him she can see him living in the Big Apple and making a go of it.

While Connell initially states he would like to have at least one year that's not chaotic and poses challenges, he eventually comes round to the idea of leaving.

Sitting on the bedroom floor together, they make the heartbreaking decision to part ways; Connell will move to America and Marianne will stay in Dublin.

Naturally, viewers have had plenty to say about the last episode.

Many were left emotional as they rooted for Marianne and Connell:

While others appreciated the conclusion for its frankness:

So, do they end up together?

BBC/Element Pictures/Hulu

The short answer is: we don't know.

Sally Rooney has no plans for a sequel to her book, so fans will have to draw their own conclusions.

As proven time and again, the couple's love is fierce and enduring, but they face more than their fair share of hurdles along the way.

While in an ideal world they would find a way to work it all out and be together, life is far more complicated than that - and that's exactly Rooney's point.

Normal People is available to stream on BBC iPlayer now - or you can tune in to BBC One on Monday June 1 for the final double-bill.
Gi Beum prepared and went to the studio alone to meet Deuk Goo, as he requested. A bus with passengers taken hostage by armed men had planted a timed bomb.

Gi Beum stands in the center of the big room with cameras around him. Deuk Goo stays in the control room as they exchange heated words with each other. Deuk Goo created several transmitter jammers to hinder Gi Beum AI's eyes to do any advanced actions.

Though Bradley taught Gi Beum how to fight with his AI eyes unable to function, he needs to concentrate on getting over Deuk Goo's plan. Tae Woong searched for any means to help Gi Beum.

Geun Chul found out that the video that summoned Gi Beum is only viewed by the police intel. They planned not to involve the public but to let the media focus on Gi Beum. The hijacked bus is still on the loose, waiting for instructions from Deuk Goo.

Another challenge now is that the police commissioner died due to poisoning, which adds another case that would blame Rugal. The police general and Geun Chul's arguments led to possible Rugal's disbandment. The general negotiated with Deuk Goo to protect Argos in exchange for money. Police officers arrived and surrounded the HQ, Geun Chul advised Tae Woong to fight and avoid being caught. They will now be classified as fugitives as the police general chose to take sides and protect Argos.

Choi Ye Won met Argo's directors. This was Bong Man Chul's chance to kill them as Deuk Goo's command. But Choi Young shot the gun first before he could pull the trigger. Man Chul died at Ye Won's house. Choi Young demanded Ye Won and Mi Joo to follow his orders. Ye Won called Gi Beum's phone, and Mi Na took the call. Ye Won asked for Rugal's help to protect her from Choi Young's plans. The Rugal team arrives at her house and finds the guard hitting each other. They put them down and put Ye Won in safety.

Meanwhile, Deuk Goo watches Gi Beum as he fights back to save his life and kill him first. Deuk Goo pulls out a group of men to hold Gi Beum as he pulls his gun to shoot him. Gi Beum was outnumbered lost. Deuk Goo was about to kill him when Min Jung held the gun and misses the shot. Min Jung saves Gi Beum, and they run to escape the pack. Min Jung took the other side, but Deuk Goo captured him and shot him for his disloyalty. Gi Beum tries to find Min Jung, but it was too late.

Deuk Goo was furious to lose Gi Beum and found out the identity behind the Rugal team. He killed the police general as he demanded from Deuk Goo to clean all the chaos and mess he started.

Geun Chul advised Gi Beum to let go of Min Jung and save the hijacked bus first. Tae Woong and the rest of the team meet up to save the passengers. The Rugal team found the bus in an abandoned area. The armed men were about to kill the passengers, but the team saves them. Gi Beum released a video, a start to expose the Rugal's identity to the public.
The challenges confronting the world due to the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic have brought to the fore the inadequacies of the global governance structures, India's former UN envoy Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin has said.

His statement came as the governments across the world struggle to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak which has infected over 3.5 million people and killed nearly 250,000, besides triggering a global economic slowdown due to the lockdowns put in place to contain the contagion.

As the world grapples with the health and humanitarian crisis unleashed by the coronavirus, Akbaruddin, who retired on April 30 from the post of India's Permanent Representative to the UN, told PTI the challenges of confronting the global pandemic have brought to the fore the inadequacies of global governance structures.

Retooling to make them fit for the purpose for our times will be required, once the immediate concerns of addressing the multiple crises are addressed. Otherwise the global governance crisis impedes the arrival of the new normal.

Even while facing unprecedented challenges on the domestic front, India has shown ability to work cooperatively globally with a range of international partners at the regional, plurilateral and multilateral levels in the delivery of global public goods to address the needs of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

In his address to the UNGA in September 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that "the face of the world is changing today. Modern technology in the 21st Century is bringing about sweeping changes in social life, personal life, economy, security, connectivity and international relations.

"In such a situation, a fragmented world is in the interest of no one. Neither do we have the option to confine ourselves within our boundaries".

Modi underscored that in this new era, "we will have to give new direction to multilateralism and to the United Nations".

Meanwhile, Akbaruddin said that the current disruption of the normal work of the UN is not expected to impede the election of India to a non-permanent seat as the sole candidate from the Asia-Pacific region.

The election for five non-permanent members of the 15-nation United Nations Security Council (UNSC) are scheduled for June 17 but in-person and large meetings at the world body have been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic until at least the end of next month.

President of the UN General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande is discussing options, including online voting, to conduct the elections.

India's seat as a non-permanent member on the Council for the 2021-22 term is assured as it is the sole candidate vying for the lone seat from the Asia-Pacific grouping.

New Delhi's candidature was unanimously endorsed by the 55-member Asia-Pacific grouping, including China and Pakistan, in June last year.

From India's perspective, any change in how the voting is conducted will not impact much since it is the sole candidate from the region and its term starts only in January next year.

Previously, India has been elected as a non-permanent member of the UNSC for the years 1950-1951, 1967-1968, 1972-1973, 1977-1978, 1984-1985, 1991-1992 and most recently in 2011-2012.

India has been at the forefront of the years-long efforts to reform the Security Council, saying it rightly deserves a place as a permanent member of the Council, which in its current form does not represent the geo-political realities of the 21st century.

Among India's finest diplomats, Akbaruddin -- a 1985-batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service -- has had a distinguished diplomatic career and is credited with successfully presenting the country's position at the global body on a range of key issues for the last several years.

Among his most prominent achievements during his tenure as India's UN envoy was getting Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar designated as a global terrorist by the world body in May 2019, a victory achieved after 10 years of relentless efforts by New Delhi.

Seasoned diplomat T S Tirumurti has been named India's new Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Apart from the UNSC elections, the 193-member General Assembly is also scheduled to hold elections in June for members of the Economic and Social Council, the president of the 75th session of the General Assembly and the vice presidents of the 75th session.

Abaza said that the options prepared by the DGACM include elections requiring secret ballots where member states can cast their votes at a specific venue, taking into account requirements of social distancing, or by electronic means.

Each year the General Assembly elects five non-permanent members (out of 10 in total) for a two-year term.

The election is held by a secret ballot and requires all 193 UN member states to be present for the voting conducted in the General Assembly hall.

According to the medical advice recommendations, seen by PTI, on resuming normal operations at the UN headquarters, the UN Medical Director has recommended that telecommuting arrangements continue at the UN until June 30.

The official has also recommended that in-person meetings at the UN premises should continue to be avoided as much as possible and events should be held virtually.

The official said that maintaining the current arrangements until June 30 will allow stability during a period of great uncertainty as officials evaluate the COVID-19 transmission in New York City.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Members of two industry associations that are ready for resuming production activity but are apprehensive about execution of order at ground leve

New Delhi: Electronics manufacturers expect to resume partial production this week and full capacity by end of next month if there is no change in guidelines from the government, according to senior company officials.

The central and some state governments have issued notification to allow manufacturing of IT hardware, including mobile phones, and even allowing movement of staff with some restriction from 4 May.

Most of the companies, who did not wish to be named, were waiting for order from local authorities in Uttar Pradesh before making announcement on starting manufacturing.

Uttar Pradesh accounts for more than 60 percent of total mobile phones produced in the country.

According to industry sources, if companies located in Greater Noida, which falls in red zone, get permission to resume manufacturing then most of the mobile phone companies, including Vivo, Oppo and others, will be able to start operations at 30-40 percent of their capacity by the end of next week.

"The Home Ministry order has been very clear on movement of goods. It brings big relief for the manufacturers. Karnataka has come out with very clear instructions along with standard operating procedures. Andhra Pradesh has also issued permission for manufacturing activities. Production is expected to resume in these states. We are waiting for more clarity from other states," India Cellular and Electronics Association Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo told PTI.

MAIT CEO George Paul said most of the companies like iPhone maker Wistron, Flex, Sahasra Electronics and others are ready to resume production.

"All of our members expect to resume production this week. First two weeks in most of the companies will go in housekeeping, inventory cleaning and production planning and then get in to full production. Permission is of operating with 50 per cent staff which means 50 per cent production capacity can be resumed," Paul said.

He said that companies will have to pay salaries of 50 percent who are on standby, therefore everyone would like to resume 100 percent production as quickly as they can.

"The restoration of production is result of extensive consultation between government and industry bodies like us. Companies have applied for ESI scheme which provides for compensation of salaries. If it is approved then it will save industry from heavy losses," Paul said.

Electronic contract manufacturer Dixon Technologies chairman and managing director Sunil Vachani said about 10 days back it started operations at Dehradun plant and it has received permission to start production at plant located in Tirupati.

"We expect to reach 30 percent of manufacturing activity this month and 100 percent by end of next month if there is no change in guidelines from the government," Vachani said.

Members of two industry associations that are ready for resuming production activity but are apprehensive about execution of order at ground level.

"We have been facing problem in movement employees. The local authorities keep changing rules which is not uniformly communicated to police at check post and to the industry. This needs to be addressed across all the states. Otherwise, we see no issue in resuming production," said an Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) company official located in a southern state.

The EMS official said that big companies are expected to recover soon once they start operations, however, medium and small enterprises supplying components in the sector have been hit hard and will need handholding for coming back to the normal.

Sahasra Electronics managing director Amrit Manwani said the company will resume production from Monday with less then 50 staff because there is provision to ensure test of employees for COVID-19 which may take some time.

The company will start focusing on production of electronics required for essential medical equipments like ventilators etc initially for export purpose.

"We will gradually ramp up once all the arrangements as per the guidelines are made," Manwani said.
Holyoke and 15 other Massachusetts communities will participate in a study, which includes innovative addiction treatment and interventions" aimed at curbing the opioid crisis.

The Hampden County Sheriffs Office helped launch the Holyoke Healing Study, an effort to lower opioid overdoses and increase the availability of Narcan (naloxone), a life-saving treatment. The National Institute of Health awarded Boston Medical Center $89 million to help drive down opioid deaths in Massachusetts by 40% in three years.

Ed Caisse, of the sheriffs office, said the effort would focus on community outreach and increasing the availability of Narcan, which revives addicts in the throes of an overdose.

The program aligns with ongoing work by the South Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative, a consortium of nonprofits, law enforcement, businesses and health care providers, Caisse said. It was a no-brainer for us to be involved.

The study includes marketing and social media components to increase visibility.

Were trying to get more Narcan in the hands of people, families who have members struggling with opioid use, Caisse said. Some people are not ready to get the help they need. Its a long process for a lot of them, and its a powerful disease.

The easily administered Narcan gives an overdosing addict a fighting chance. Educating families about the signs of an overdose is critical, too. Theres a lot of information, and its going to get out there in short bursts, Caisse said.

Holyoke reported 14 overdose deaths in 2018, according to Caisse, with the figures rising in 2019. We as a community are trying to work together to prevent deaths, he said.

Addicts who relapse while undergoing treatment are especially vulnerable to fatal overdoses. Narcan at least gets the person breathing again, giving them another opportunity to overcome their dependency. Hopefully, well get them to that point where they get all the help they need, he said.

Caisse added that a high percentage of inmates in the Hampden County Jail have addiction issues.

For more information on the Healing Community Study, visit www.healingcommunitiesstudy.org.
A top official at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) finally called it quit after several employees were fired for being vocal about the conditions on Amazon's warehouse amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

AWS VP and Distinguished Engineer Tim Bray resigned from his post at the tech giant company after more than years of service. Bray described his stint at AWS as 'rewarding and fun." But on a sad note, Bray also expressed his dismay for the firing of whistleblowers who were "making noise" about warehouse employees frightened by COVID-19.

Bray announced on May 1 was his last day with the retail giant as many Amazon employees called out sick for a May Day Strike.

ALSO READ: [BREAKING] COVID-19 Update: Japanese Company Claims UV Light Robot Can Destroy Coronavirus in 2 Minutes

Dismay on the Firing of Employees

Bray is notable for being a co-author of XML. He spent half a decade with Amazon, after working for Google and Sun. Bray said that his work at Amazon was "the best job" he ever had. But he also noted that he reached a breaking point over the firings of organizers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa.

Both Costa and Cunningham claimed that their dismissal from work was due to their vocal criticisms on Amazon's environmental record and treatment of employees during the COVID-19 crisis. The two employees were both members of the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, an organization of employees "who believe it's our responsibility to ensure our business models don't contribute to the climate crisis."

However, Amazon has denied the allegation that the two employees were fired because they were very vocal about the treatment of workers during the pandemic. Amazon said that they support every employee's right to criticize the company. However, they are still bound to comply with internal policies, which the tech firm claimed that Costa and Cunningham have repeatedly violated.

Bray said that he tried to convey his concern through available official channels before deciding to resign. Bray explained that if he remains with his position in Amazon, it is like signing off on actions that he detested. So, he decided to resign. "The victims weren't abstract entities but real people; here are some of their names: Courtney Bowden, Gerald Bryson, Maren Costa, Emily Cunningham, Bashir Mohammed, and Chris Smalls. I am sure it is a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a woman, or both. Right?" Bray told TechCrunch.

Bray's post indicated an unfair power structure inside Amazon, wherein he served as an executive. His post mainly focuses on how employees are being treated in Amazon warehouses worldwide in connection with its response to COVID-19 response, as well as other complaints involving the late-stage capitalism for which the company has undoubtedly played a role.

AWS is a More Ethical Organization

At his former division, AWS, Bray stated that AWS, the cloud computing subsidiary of Amazon, where he worked, is a different story. Bray explained that at AWS, it treats its employees humanely, strives to create a work-life balance and challenges to move the diversity needle. He noted that AWS is a more ethical organization. "I genuinely admire its leadership," Bray said. He remarked that workers at AWS are empowered. "The average pay is very high, and any unhappy employees can walk across the street and get another job paying the same or better," Bray said to TechCrunch.

Also Read: Amazon Listens To Your Alexa Conversations: Here's How To Stop It

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Air Canada said it expects the impact of the pandemic to last at least three years and predicted large job cuts as it hunkers down to survive the darkest period ever for the industry.

The countrys biggest airline, which on Monday reported a first-quarter loss, said it expects capacity in the third quarter to be 75-per-cent below last years level, from a 85-90-per-cent drop in the current quarter. It is accelerating plans to retire 79 planes and continues to look for ways to reduce costs and boost liquidity, it said.

We expect that both the overall industry and our airline will be considerably smaller for some time, which will unfortunately result in significant reductions in both fleet and employee levels, Chief Executive Calin Rovinescu said in a statement. He described the situation as the darkest period ever in the history of commercial aviation.

Air Canadas determination is to ensure that our company is positioned to emerge in the post-Covid-19 world as strong as possible and capitalize on the opportunities that will inevitably arise, he said.

In contrast to major competitors around the world, Canadian airlines havent yet received industry-specific support from the government. So far Air Canada has said it will use a 75% wage subsidy to keep or recall most of the 36,000 employees in Canada who were furloughed.

For the first quarter, Air Canada reported a loss of $1.05 billion compared to a profit of $345 million last year. On an adjusted basis, the loss was $392 million versus a profit of $17 million last year.

Read more about:
Sana Shakil By

Express News Service

Muslims in India have been following the lockdown guidelines strictly and honestly during the ongoing month of Ramzan, said Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi in an interview to Sana Shakil. On Islamophobia, he said it was unfortunate that people are defaming India through fake propaganda

The government has been in touch with religious leaders to ensure social distancing during festivals. How have the community leaders responded?

I have been in constant touch with all the stakeholders to ensure all the guidelines of lockdown and social distancing are strictly followed during the holy month of Ramzan. I personally talked to state wakf boards, religious leaders, representatives of social organisations and other stakeholders to create awareness among the Muslims so that they offer prayers and fulfill other religious obligations including Iftaar during the Ramzan while staying inside their homes.We are happy that by and large, every section of the Muslim community in India has been strictly and honestly following the guidelines of lockdown and social distancing during Ramzan. State wakf boards, religious leaders and social organisations, in cooperation and coordination with local administration, have ensured that lockdown and social distancing is being implemented in toto. The entire country is religiously following these guidelines on the appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I have been advising the religious leaders that any carelessness can be harmful for us, our families, society and the entire country.

Why do you think hate messages on social media, including by some within your party, have increased since the Tablighi Jamaat incident despite the PM personally appealing for communal harmony?

Any type of nefarious activity to disturb and destroy social harmony and peace is unpardonable. Any type of anti-social activity on social media is not in the interest of society or the country. Our party has taken necessary action against any party leader who is involved in such activity. As far as the Tablighi Jamaat is concerned, their criminal act has put a large number of people in trouble. Most Muslim religious leaders and organisations have condemned it and called for action against it. But an entire community cannot be held responsible for one person or one organisations crime. All the conspiracies to create misinformation and rumours are nefarious designs to weaken the fight against coronavirus.

Various dignitaries from Gulf countries have been alleging that India is seeing increasing Islamophobia. What are your views?

There is not a single incident of discrimination against any section of society including minorities under the Modi government. Socio-economic, religious, constitutional and educational rights of every section are absolutely safe and secure in India. All the sections including minorities are strongly moving forward on the path of development with dignity under the Modi government.I have no complaint against any foreign organisation or individual. My objection is about those in our country who are trying to defame India through fake, fabricated propaganda and self-created misinformation campaign to mislead the people. When Centre provided 2 crore houses to the poor, 31 per cent beneficiaries were from the minority community. Our government provided electricity to 6 lakh villages which included more than 39% minority community villages. Minorities have also benefited from other welfare schemes related to water, electricity, road, education, employment and employment opportunities.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom recently designated India as a country of particular concern and claimed that the government has allowed violence against minorities. Your response?

No government in the world can permit and afford violence or riots on its soil. There were some incidents in which some forces  frustrated and depressed due to the atmosphere of peace, prosperity and harmony under the Modi government  tried to disturb this atmosphere. Action is being taken against such forces. Whoever is involved in this nefarious design to disturb the atmosphere of development will not go unpunished.

Some people have criticised the governments handling of the Covid-19 crisis claiming that crucial time was lost before it initiated the measures to contain the outbreak.

Two weeks before the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic, India had started screening of people coming from abroad at the airports. Two-week quarantine was made compulsory for those arriving from foreign countries on or after March 1. PM Modi was engaged in necessary preparations for the days ahead, be it import of health equipment, testing centres and quarantine centres.

The navy arranged isolation facilities at their hospitals in Mumbai, Kochi, Vizag and others. Two-storey isolation was made at Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. The Centre made quarantine facilities at more than 100 government and private hospitals across the country. The state governments were also told to ensure similar arrangements. Lockdown was implemented much before other corona-affected nations.Lockdown in a nation of 130 crore people was the result of farsightedness of PM. Experts in India and the entire world lauded the decision and said it is estimated to have reduced the number of people infected by about 150 times. The people, especially migrants, have faced problems due to some tough measures but this was necessary in the interest of health and well-being of people.
The Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) and the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) have written to the Government accepting their invitation to discuss the Government Roadmap and its implications for pubs as a matter of urgency. This follows commitments made by Ministers over the weekend that the Government will meet with the two representative bodies for publicans over course of the coming week.



As part of their discussions with the Government, the two organisations will be pressing for pubs to reopen at the same time and on the same basis as cafes and restaurants. Recognising the challenge of maintaining social distancing in a hospitality environment, the organisations will also be putting forward radical changes to the normal operations of bars in order to protect public health.



These measures include:

 Bars will become dispense bars only with no sitting, standing, ordering, payment or drinking at the bar allowed.

 Table service will be a requirement with pubs only serving customers seated at tables.

 The numbers on the premises would be confined to no more than 4 per every 10 square metres.

 A maximum of 6 people would be permitted at any one table.

 Customers will be required to use hand sanitiser upon entry.

 All customers must remain seated.

 Staff will be fully trained in the new procedures. They will also be asked to maintain a safe distance from customers when taking orders and to wash their hands thoroughly every 30 minutes.

 The utilisation of outdoor spaces to enhance social distancing.

 Procedures implemented to ensure safe use of toilet facilities, which may include limits on the numbers using toilets at any one time.

 No live music or DJs.

 Gardai / HSE will have the power to close any business who is flouting the public health guidelines.



The two organisations will also stress they remain fully committed to doing what is necessary to protect the health and safety of all staff and customers.



Strict protocols setting out how staff and customers are required to comply with social distancing in hospitality businesses will be developed in conjunction with National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) and the Department of Health. Those protocols would apply to all hospitality businesses. The publican groups would look to have the temporary measures reviewed by NPHET on an ongoing basis, with a view to resuming normal trading when it is safe to do so.



Speaking about the proposed measures, Donall OKeeffe, Chief Executive of the LVA said, We fully respect the need to continue to protect the public health. We have repeatedly proven this commitment, not least in the fact that our sector was the first to close across the country. We also believe that if other venues who serve food and alcohol are allowed to reopen in Phase 3, then pubs should be granted the same opportunity to trade. We dont believe it is in any way appropriate that the Government should apply one rule for some hospitality businesses and another rule for others.



We are making a series of radical proposals to how bars should operate for the reopening scenario. Trading will be extremely difficult under these circumstances. There is no doubt that the pub experience as we know it will have to change dramatically. Many pubs may choose not to reopen as it simply wont be financially viable under these conditions. However, for those who want to trade, these measures will have the essential impact of protecting the health and wellbeing of staff and customers alike, Mr. OKeeffe said.



Padraig Cribben, Chief Executive of the VFI said, We were pleased to see Minister Humphreys and Minister Harris commit to organising a meeting this week to discuss the reopening of pubs in line with restaurants and cafes. We have now written to the Government to ensure this meeting happens at the earliest possible opportunity. What is clear is that the current roadmap plan isnt tenable and will lead to confusion in the hospitality sector if it is not addressed.



The public health restrictions will present real challenges to all hospitality venues, it doesnt matter if they are a pub, a restaurant, a cafe or a hotel. There is no denying that and there is no getting around it. Addressing those public health requirements will be necessary for all hospitality businesses whenever they reopen. Pubs across Ireland are up to that challenge and will do what is required for maintaining a safe and healthy place of business, Mr. Cribben concluded.
Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Premier Brian Pallister has stuck to his ideological guns  especially when it comes to the question of whether to expand the social safety net, even on a temporary basis.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Editorial

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Premier Brian Pallister has stuck to his ideological guns  especially when it comes to the question of whether to expand the social safety net, even on a temporary basis.

While other provinces offered some form of direct monetary support to citizens affected by the crisis, Mr. Pallister staunchly refused to introduce new measures, opting to leave that work to the federal government. This isnt surprising: skepticism of increased social spending is at the core of the premiers politics. But it does make his recent hostile posture toward Ottawas emergency programs seem all the more tone-deaf.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS files Premier Brian Pallister

Last Wednesday, after announcing plans to relax public-health orders, Mr. Pallister was asked about the challenges facing businesses looking to reopen. The premier raised the issue of getting employees back to work  and his first concern was the existence of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

"We are fighting against a federal program that is actually paying people to stay out of the workforce right now," he said. "I dont like the fact that that is real, but that is real. People are being paid to stay home and not work.

"Small businesses have told us theyre fighting against a federal student program that actually pays people to not work, and not look for work," he continued, describing the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB) unveiled in late April. "This also is a disincentive."

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.

That Mr. Pallister should take aim at the CERB  a taxable, $500 weekly benefit equivalent to just $12.50 per hour at a full-time position  is concerning. Since its launch in early April, it has been a qualified success: eligible workers found that applying online was fast and simple, and cash arrived in accounts within 24 hours. That turnaround was critical, especially for those working in low-paid, public-facing jobs that were among the first to be axed in the pandemic.

That cash has allowed families to buy groceries and pay rent. It has enabled exactly what was  and still is  necessary to contain the pandemic: for millions of Canadians to stay home and safely observe physical distancing, while ensuring their basic needs were met. For Mr. Pallister to contextualize this as something the province is "fighting against" flies against everything he and public-health leaders have been urging for seven weeks.

What makes his critique even more jarring is that the pandemic is ongoing. Manitoba has successfully flattened its first wave, but the danger is far from over: the province is still urging physical distancing and other measures. Employers who are allowed to reopen this week are scrambling to obtain sufficient hand sanitizer or institute required safety procedures. For many, those processes will take time.

Many workers who receive the CERB or CESB  particularly those with family members at a high risk of severe complications from COVID-19, or in a high-risk category themselves  are cautious about returning to the workforce too soon. Public-health officials say, with the premiers support, that reopening the province should be guarded and deliberate.

"We must not allow for a COVID comeback," Mr. Pallister said in the same Wednesday news conference.

On that, all Manitobans can agree. If the premier wishes to see people get back to work, he ought to focus on ensuring a safe and supported return during this crisis. In the meantime, the CERB has offered critical support to Manitobans where the province itself offered none; that Mr. Pallister should now treat it as an enemy of recovery, rather than a key safety net enabling a cautious and measured return, is inexcusable.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 3

By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

Azerbaijani assets will ensure healthy balance for the Hungarian Mol Group, which has recently closed the transaction with the US Chevron on acquiring its share in Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC), the company told Trend.

Mol Group said that in the frame of the successfully closed deal with Chevron Global Ventures, Ltd and Chevron BTC Pipeline, Ltd it acquired their non-operated exploration and production and mid-stream interests in Azerbaijan.

"Regarding the planned activities it is the operator, BP who can give further information," said Mold Group. Furthermore, following the closing of the deal, around half of our production will come from outside the Central and Eastern Europe region, giving us a healthy balance," said the Hungarian company.

Jay Johnson, executive vice president of upstream at Chevron said that this sale is an important part of the companys divestment program, which is targeting before-tax proceeds of $5 billion to $10 billion between 2018 and 2020.

"Chevron regularly reviews its global portfolio to assess whether assets are strategic and competitive for capital," added Johnson.

MOL has successfully closed the previously announced deal with Chevron Global Ventures, Ltd and Chevron BTC Pipeline, Ltd regarding the acquisition of their non-operated E&P and mid-stream interests in Azerbaijan, including a 9.57 percent stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli ("ACG") oil field, and an effective 8.9 percent stake in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan ("BTC") pipeline that transports the crude to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan for a total consideration of $1.57 billion with an effective date of 1 January 2019.

The contract for development of ACG was signed in 1994. The new contract for development of the ACG block until 2050 was signed in Baku Sept. 14, 2017.

The total length of the BTC pipeline is 1,768 kilometers, of which 443 kilometers run through the territory of Azerbaijan, 249 kilometers run through Georgia, and 1,076 kilometers go through Turkey. The construction of the pipeline began in April 2003, and it was first filled with oil on May 18, 2005.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Too Risky to Come Home, Crew of Clean US Warship in CCP Virus Limbo
India expects bad debts at its banks could double after the coronavirus crisis brought the economy to a sudden halt, a senior government official and four top bankers told Reuters.

Indian banks are already grappling with 9.35 trillion rupees ($123 billion) of soured loans, which was equivalent to about 9.1% of their total assets at the end of September 2019.

"There is a considered view in the government that bank non-performing assets (NPAs) could double to 18-20% by the end of the fiscal year, as 20-25% of outstanding loans face a risk of default," the official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click here

A fresh surge in bad debt could hit credit growth and delay India's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

"These are unprecedented times and the way it's going we can expect banks to report double the amount of NPAs from what we've seen in earlier quarters," the finance head of a top public sector bank told Reuters.

The official and bankers declined to be named as they were not officially authorized to discuss the matter with media.

CORONAVIRUS SPECIAL COVERAGE ONLY ON DH

India's finance ministry declined to comment, while the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks' Association, the main industry body, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The Indian economy has ground to a standstill amid a 40-day nationwide lockdown to rein in the spread of coronavirus cases.

The lockdown has now been extended by a further two weeks, but the government has begun to ease some restrictions in districts that are relatively unscathed by the virus.

India has so far recorded nearly 40,000 cases of the coronavirus and more than 1,300 deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.

'RIDING THE TIGER'

Bankers fear it is unlikely that the economy will fully open up before June or July, and loans, especially those to small- and medium-sized businesses which constitute nearly 20% of overall credit, may be among the worst affected.

This is because all 10 of India's largest cities fall in high-risk red zones, where restrictions will remain stringent.

A report by Axis Bank said that these red zones, which contribute significantly to India's economy, account for roughly 83% of the overall loans made by its banks as of December.

One of the sources, an executive director of a public sector bank, said that economic growth had been sluggish and risks had been heightened, even ahead of the coronavirus crisis.

"Now we have this Black Swan event which means without any meaningful government stimulus, the economy will be in tatters for several more quarters," he said.

McKinsey & Co last month forecast India's economy could contract by around 20% in the three months through June, if the lockdown was extended to mid-May, and growth in the fiscal year was likely to fall 2% to 3%.

Bankers say the only way to stem the steep rise in bad loans is if the RBI significantly relaxes bad asset recognition rules.

Banks have asked the central bank to allow all loans to be categorized as NPAs only after 180 days, which is double the current 90-day window.

"The lockdown is like riding the tiger, once we get off it we'll be in a difficult position," a senior private sector banker told Reuters.
Robyn Smyth's devoted mother has revealed she always hoped there would be a cure one day for the brave teenager who lived the majority of her life with a rare cancer.

Bernadette Dornan said that Robyn, who died on April 23, was her life, and she hopes to set up a programme that will help other cancer patients.

From Whitehall in Dublin, the 15-year-old captured the heart of the nation with her determination during her 12 years of living with the aggressive neuroblastoma.

She was diagnosed with the disease when she was only three, on September 10, 2007.

The third-year secondary school student died at home surrounded by her family.

They have so many memories, both treasured and painful, of Robyn's too-short life.

Expand Close A lone piper leads the cortege for Robyns funeral mass / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp A lone piper leads the cortege for Robyns funeral mass

Terror

"I remember lifting my little girl off the grass in a nearby park after playing when she had just turned three as she was just exhausted," Bernadette said.

"Terror filled me as I knew there was something really wrong as tiredness was taking over her life for weeks.

"Another bad time was when Robyn was told that her cancer had come back following a period of remission.

Expand Close Robyns white coffin is carried from Whitehall Church last month / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Robyns white coffin is carried from Whitehall Church last month

"I remember her climbing under a hospital bed and screaming, 'Why are you doing this to me?'

"But then there are so many treasured and really funny stories from her illness.

"We were in one of the American hospitals and I remember trying to turn off the air conditioning.

"Well, parts of it collapsed on me as I stood trying to move the flaps on it, which were on a wall. All Robyn could do was laugh and laugh."

Expand Close Robyns little sister Millie, who she loved dearly, beside the decorated tree in Ellenfield Park / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Robyns little sister Millie, who she loved dearly, beside the decorated tree in Ellenfield Park

Bernadette and close friend Martina, who supported the family through numerous hospital appointments, treatments in Dublin and all over the US, said the "great fighter" has made them stronger as individuals.

Robyn's aunts took over flying to the US when Martina could not.

"Robyn made me forget all my worries when she became sick. My entire focus was on her. All the things we give out about daily just left me - for the better," said Bernadette.

"Robyn was my life - she made me move and gave me purpose. She knew her own mind and how her personality worked.

"She definitely didn't care that she was different and she showed her sarcasm at all the right times. Robyn didn't say she loved you often, but when she did, you just knew she meant it.

"Our fighter would put her head on your shoulder and, as a result, you knew she was telling you that she loved you so much.

"She was such a truthful girl and wouldn't hug everyone. Robyn didn't like something just because everyone else did. She refused to follow trends.

"Her shyness was so endearing. In so many ways she was more grown-up than her years, but she wasn't street smart. Her whole being and voice would fill the house.

"Robyn didn't let herself be all about cancer. She didn't want to hear about it when she left the hospital - she left it behind."

For four years, Robyn went into remission, at around the time she started school.

She went on family holidays, was a flower girl at the wedding of one of her aunts, went swimming and learned to bake with Martina - normal, everyday things.

Bernadette said that if Robyn had not become ill, she probably would one day have been a mum-of-four as she loved children.

She is so thankful that Robyn and her younger sister Millie had each other for eight years.

Robyn could not wait for Millie to arrive when her mother became pregnant.

Holidays

Drawing was what Robyn adored. Bright colours brought joy to her, together with carnivals, Ferris wheels, waltzers, pantos, musicals and creating Nando's Thursday after her favourite restaurant.

She also loved her holidays in the sun whenever the family could get away.

Donabate beach was her ideal place to collect stones, take them home and paint them.

Martina said Robyn taught her to become a stronger person.

"To see what she went through for so long and how she handled everything that was thrown at her medically and at such a young age made me stronger," she said.

"Robyn also showed me how to smile and laugh. She would never sit under her battles - she fought. So that also showed me how to be calm, I have to admit. I miss her like there's no tomorrow."

Robyn's funeral mass was held on April 25, with hundreds standing in silence and holding balloons while adhering to social distancing along the short route from her home to Whitehall Church.

The cortege was led by a lone piper.

Robyn's school friends lined parts of the journey as scores of bikers led her to Dardistown Crematorium.

Her ashes are now at home with Bernadette, Millie, who misses her big sister dreadfully, and dad, Leighton.

Bernadette, who was by Robyn's side every second of her treatment journey, would love the public to keep donating to Robyn's Life Trust fund so that further research into neuroblastoma can take place.

"Just because Robyn isn't with us here physically doesn't mean I'm going to stop fighting her cause of finding a cure for neuroblastoma and wanting to help other children with this horrific disease," she said.

"There's no centre of excellence or research facility here in Ireland for this cancer. In time, we hope to set up, with the help of the public and their donations, a programme that will help other sufferers.

"We as a family are so thankful to everyone who helped us throughout the years -everything the public did for us meant and means so, so much.

"Throughout her life, Robyn just wanted to live. When we were told five years ago by the doctors in Our Lady's Hospital Crumlin that they could do no more for her, I just couldn't let that happen."

When her chances of survival dropped to 5pc five years ago and her family were told by Irish doctors to take her home to die, they decided to fundraise to take her to the US for the first time.

"Saying thank you to everyone through our battle just doesn't seem enough. The amount of help and support we received over the years was overwhelming at times," said Bernadette.

"All the medical staff here and in the US were wonderful to Robyn and the entire family. We made a lot of friends along the way and are thankful for everyone who helped Robyn and us on our journey.

Adored

"An American lady called Sheri, who we randomly met in a mall in Michigan, was so good to Robyn, Martina and I every time we had to go to the US for treatment.

"She just knew how to put us all at our ease and Robyn adored her."

Despite having to endure more than 100 gruelling trips to the US over the years for treatment, Bernadette said it was a special time.

"It was just 'us time', Robyn, Martina and I. It was like having space away from the cancer fight in Ireland. It was like being in a bubble where no one could touch us," she said.

A tree in Ellenfield Park in north Dublin has been decorated with photos, messages, glass ornaments and a porcelain angel in honour of Robyn.

A memorial to celebrate her life will be held at a later date.

Donations can be made to Robyn's Life Trust through robynslife.com
Ly Thuong Kiet street in Hanoi is decorated with flags on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the liberation of the South and National Reunification Day (Photo: VNA)



In an article on May 2nd on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of Vietnams liberation of the south (April 30th), the Jungewelt daily said Vietnam marked the anniversary mainly online in the context of the COVID-19. The country is screening a 22-episode documentary depicting comprehensively the struggle for national independence, covering the time period starting when President Ho Chi Minh left Vietnam in 1911 to foreign countries in search of a way for national salvation until April 1975.

The newspaper stressed that with support from the solidarity spirit all over the world, Vietnams national liberation movement has proved that history can be established and shaped on the basis of the spirit of peace and national independence.

The article also reviewed difficulties and hardships facing Vietnam after the world, despite which the country still recorded considerable achievements, especially in the recent past.

It also praised Vietnams efforts and successes in the fight against the raging pandemic with no deaths recorded and the number of cases kept under 500./.
We are pleased to recognize Dr. Carl Bischoff as a UroLift Center of Excellence for his commitment to providing consistent care to BPH patients using the UroLift System treatment, said Dave Amerson

NeoTract, a wholly owned subsidiary of Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX) focused on addressing unmet needs in the field of urology, today announced that Carl Bischoff, M.D., Urology Austin in Austin, TX, has been designated as a UroLift Center of Excellence. The designation recognizes that Dr. Bischoff has achieved a high level of training and experience with the UroLift System and demonstrated a commitment to exemplary care for men suffering from symptoms associated with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), also known as enlarged prostate.

Recommended for the treatment of BPH in both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology clinical guidelines, the FDA-cleared Prostatic Urethral Lift procedure using the UroLift System is a proven, minimally invasive technology for treating lower urinary tract symptoms due to BPH. The UroLift permanent implants, delivered during a transurethral outpatient procedure, relieve prostate obstruction and open the urethra directly without cutting, heating, or removing prostate tissue.

The UroLift Center of Excellence program is designed to highlight urologists who are committed to educating their patients on BPH and the UroLift System as a treatment option and consistently seek to deliver excellent patient outcomes and experiences.

We are pleased to recognize Dr. Carl Bischoff as a UroLift Center of Excellence for his commitment to providing consistent care to BPH patients using the UroLift System treatment, said Dave Amerson, president of the Teleflex Interventional Urology business unit. This achievement has helped many patients experience durable, long term relief from the burdensome symptoms of BPH while preserving sexual function*1,2.

Over 40 million men in the United States are affected by BPH, a condition that occurs when the prostate gland that surrounds the male urethra becomes enlarged with advancing age and begins to obstruct the urinary system. Symptoms of BPH often include interrupted sleep and urinary problems and can cause loss of productivity, depression and decreased quality of life.

Medication is often the first-line therapy for enlarged prostate, but relief can be inadequate and temporary. Side effects of medication treatment can include sexual dysfunction, dizziness and headaches, prompting many patients to quit using the drugs. For these patients, the classic alternative is surgery that cuts, heats or removes prostate tissue to open the blocked urethra. While current surgical options can be very effective in relieving symptoms, they can also leave patients with permanent side effects such as urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and retrograde ejaculation.

About the UroLift System

The FDA-cleared UroLift System is a proven, minimally invasive technology for treating lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). The UroLift permanent implants, delivered during a minimally invasive transurethral outpatient procedure, relieve prostate obstruction and open the urethra directly without cutting, heating, or removing prostate tissue. Clinical data from a pivotal 206-patient randomized controlled study showed that patients with enlarged prostate receiving UroLift implants reported rapid and durable symptomatic and urinary flow rate improvement without compromising sexual function*1,2. Patients also experienced a significant improvement in quality of life. Over 100,000 men have been treated with the UroLift System in the U.S. Most common adverse events reported include hematuria, dysuria, micturition urgency, pelvic pain, and urge incontinence. Most symptoms were mild to moderate in severity and resolved within two to four weeks after the procedure. The Prostatic Urethral Lift procedure using the UroLift System is recommended for the treatment of BPH in both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology clinical guidelines. The UroLift System is available in the U.S., Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico and South Korea. Learn more at http://www.UroLift.com.

About NeoTract | Teleflex Interventional Urology

A wholly owned subsidiary of Teleflex Incorporated, the Interventional Urology Business Unit is dedicated to developing innovative, minimally invasive and clinically effective devices that address unmet needs in the field of urology. Our initial focus is on improving the standard of care for patients with BPH using the UroLift System, a minimally invasive permanent implant system that treats symptoms while preserving normal sexual function*1,2. Learn more at http://www.NeoTract.com.

About Teleflex Incorporated

Teleflex is a global provider of medical technologies designed to improve the health and quality of peoples lives. We apply purpose driven innovation  a relentless pursuit of identifying unmet clinical needs  to benefit patients and healthcare providers. Our portfolio is diverse, with solutions in the fields of vascular and interventional access, surgical, anesthesia, cardiac care, urology, emergency medicine and respiratory care. Teleflex employees worldwide are united in the understanding that what we do every day makes a difference. For more information, please visit http://www.teleflex.com.

Teleflex is the home of Arrow, Deknatel, Hudson RCI, LMA, Pilling, Rusch, UroLift and Weck  trusted brands united by a common sense of purpose

# # #

For Teleflex Incorporated:

Jake Elguicze, 610.948.2836

Treasurer and Vice President, Investor Relations

Media:

Nicole Osmer, 650.454.0504 nicole@healthandcommerce.com

*No instances of new, sustained erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction

1. Roehrborn, J Urology 2013 LIFT Study

2.McVary, J Sex Med 2016

MAC00968-01 Rev A
ATLANTA (May 4, 2020)  The Carter Centers accredited observation mission remains committed to providing an independent observation of Guyana's electoral process, including the upcoming recount. The Center deployed an observer to Miami who was prepared to travel to Georgetown today, but unfortunately, his flight was denied approval to carry international election observers. The Carter Center continues to reach out to government officials to understand what is required to allow Center staff to return to Guyana to observe the recount process.

###

Contact: In Atlanta, Soyia Ellison, soyia.ellison@cartercenter.org

Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope.

A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4) - A 63-year-old foreigner is Zamboanga del Nortes first case of COVID-19 infection.

The provincial government said the patient arrived in Sicayab, Dipolog City, where his partner is also staying, last March 2.

On April 26, the patient was admitted to a private hospital in the city because of chest pains.

The patient was brought to Manila at St. Lukes Medical Center last May 2 and a swab test was done yesterday.

Zamboanga del Nortes provincial government said that contact tracing is ongoing. It has also identified and isolated the persons who had a contact with the patient.

The health workers in the local hospital, who assisted the patient, were asked to isolate themselves for 14-days.

On the other hand, Dipolog City Mayor Darel Dexter Uy asked the public not to discriminate the patient and the health workers who took care of him.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian takes questions at the daily news briefing in Beijing on April 8, 2020. (Greg Baker / AFP/Getty Images)

The newscast blares from a television set in a Beijing apartment, carrying through an open window and echoing across the compound. The refrain is the same every evening: praise for Chinas handling of the coronavirus, dire scenes from foreign hospitals and condemnations of the United States.

The tone is often withering. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo was declared the public enemy of humanity. A few nights later, the anchor feigned sympathy for Americans, who she said were left to die while their government railed against China.

Beijing has pushed this story line at home for months  a mixture of self-congratulation for defeating the virus, denial of central government missteps, and horror at other countries failures to contain the pandemic.

Now, facing escalating international criticism over its handling of the outbreak and growing demands for an investigation into its origins, China has taken its strident nationalist message abroad. The strategy is provoking a backlash and colliding with President Trump's insistence that China covered up the danger of the pathogen.

The undiplomatic invective matches the swagger of Xi Jinpings China, which is richer and more influential than ever, and determined to shape the global narrative as it believes a superpower should  especially as the Chinese president confronts the biggest crisis of his tenure. Beijing sees itself as ascendant at a time that the United States' stature as a world leader is ebbing.

A large TV screen shows images of Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting Wuhan, China, on March 10, 2020. (Kevin Frayer / Getty Images)

Chinese ambassadors are attacking foreign officials on social media and peddling misinformation  amplified by the state-controlled press  to deflect blame for the virus that has killed a quarter of a million people and wrecked global economies.

The latest spat erupted last week after the Chinese ambassador to Australia appeared to threaten a consumer boycott over Australias calls for an independent inquiry into the outbreak. The Australian government accused Beijing, its biggest trading partner, of economic coercion; China denied it and warned Canberra to stop playing political games.

Story continues

The editor of Global Times, a popular tabloid run by the Chinese Communist Party, weighed in on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, comparing Australia to gum stuck to the bottom of Chinas shoe: Sometimes you have to find a rock and scrape it off.

Rising to Chinas defense is a generation of diplomats and pundits dubbed the Wolf Warriors, after a recent pair of blockbuster action films featuring a muscled, globe-trotting Chinese commando who vanquishes Asian drug lords, African pirates and mercenaries led by a villainous American named Big Daddy.

The blockbuster "Wolf Warrior" films, starring Wu Jing as a heroic commando, epitomize China's new, more muscular nationalism. (Well Go USA)

The diplomats fields of battle are social media platforms  usually Twitter and Facebook, which are banned in China. Their weapons include outrage, sarcasm, an abiding suspicion of Western governments and the press, conspiracy theories and, it seems, the support of the Chinese leadership.

In this environment in China, theres no punishment for people who are overzealous in defending China, said Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at Kings College London. Youre not going to lose your job if you overstep. Everyone is trying to demonstrate their loyalty.

Wang Yong, professor of international studies at Peking University, called the more assertive style of some diplomats a reaction to the blaming of China and Chinas policies in fighting the pandemic  especially by the United States.

U.S. news media have reported on Chinas initial attempts to play down the scale of the outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, and on problems with medical equipment it has sent to other countries. The allegations have blunted Beijings own spin: that it has defeated the virus and is leading the medical and humanitarian response to the outbreak.

The Trump administration, under fire for its own missteps, has increasingly emphasized the pandemics origins. Pompeo has claimed the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory  which scientists say is unlikely  and said over the weekend that China has a history of infecting the world.

The old way is to always accept: China does this, China does that, an agenda set by American politicians, Wang said. I think now Americans should have a second thought about this approach.

A bride poses for a photograph next to East Lake in Wuhan, China, on April 19, 2020. (Hector Retamal / AFP/Getty Images)

A decade ago, Beijings diplomats kept a low profile in world capitals  dark-suited sphinxes who rarely engaged with the press or the public. In the Wolf Warrior era  with China and the U.S. locked in a bitter struggle over trade, technological primacy and geopolitical influence  their combative statements fly like arrows from embassies around the globe.

Ridiculous and eyeball-catching nonsense, tweeted the spokeswoman for the Chinese Embassy in India, responding to demands that China pay compensation for the spread of the virus.

Other countries shouldn't blame China for mistakes they have made themselves, particularly the U.S., tweeted the Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands.

The Chinese Embassy in Venezuela ended an angry Twitter thread  which began by complaining about Venezuelan officials referring to the Chinese coronavirus  by saying that some of its critics could put on a mask and shut up.

Workers at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Venezuela unload a 55-ton shipment of humanitarian aid and medical equipment sent from China to fight the coronavirus on March 28, 2020. (Cristian Hernandez / AFP/Getty Images)

Offensive and gratuitous, to some. But the Global Times, in a recent article, said Chinas people are no longer satisfied with a flaccid diplomatic tone.

The star among the Wolf Warriors is Zhao Lijian, a 47-year-old recently installed as a deputy spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Zhao came to prominence last year when, as the No. 2 at the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan, he got into a Twitter feud with former U.S. national security advisor Susan Rice, who called him a racist disgrace.

In March, Zhao suggested on Twitter that the U.S. Army had smuggled the virus into Wuhan. The unfounded conspiracy theory was echoed in state media, but raised eyebrows among more moderate members of Chinas diplomatic corps, including the ambassador to Washington, Cui Tiankai, who said it was very harmful to speculate about the virus origins.

Lijian is representative of a group of younger spokespersons who are unapologetic, Brown said. The mindset is not about keeping a low profile. They feel they shouldnt have to be in that position because they dont see Americans or Europeans going around the world bowing their heads and apologizing, so why should they?

Analysts say the pandemic has revealed Chinas willingness to expand its use of disinformation campaigns  previously focused on undermining pro-democracy voices in Taiwan and Hong Kong  to the wider world. As early as 2015, scholars from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies predicted that the Peoples Liberation Army would use Twitter to deliver propaganda to new audiences to influence the global conversation about China.

Beijing has been playing this game for a long time in Taiwan and Hong Kong, said Nadege Rolland, a senior fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research in Washington. It has all the necessary architecture to deploy such tactics and has garnered a great deal of experience in previous disinformation campaigns.

Wang, of Peking University, acknowledged that the Wolf Warrior style had sparked a debate within the party, although he declined to say whether such behavior would help Chinas image globally.

We are in a new context, new circumstances, he said. The diplomats and government officials will learn from the process, from the reaction of others, what is the best way of communication.

A man buys vegetables at a stall in Wuhan, China, on April 18, 2020. (Hector Retamal / AFP/Getty Images)

Part of the strategy was laid out in a recent article on a website run by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. It proposed tactics that included: a 24-hour, rapid-response operation to quickly answer attacks; promoting Chinese social platforms such as Weibo and WeChat as alternatives to Twitter and Facebook; discussing Chinas shortcomings where they exist; and remaining calm and objective while convincing people through reason.

So far, however, the pugnacious voices are resounding, threatening Chinas ties with other nations.

In Australia, which relies on China as a market for iron ore and other exports, and is a major destination for Chinese tourists and students, the prospect of an economic boycott by Beijing drew condemnations from across the political spectrum.

It was already dawning on many Australians that the strategic risk of overdependence on China was a problem that needed to be resolved," said Ashley Townshend, director of foreign policy at the United States Studies Center in Australia.

The pandemic and Chinas issuance of threats will quicken those calls for our own increased resilience.

But analysts say the menacing tone feeds patriotic sentiment in China, where the party is eager to limit the damage of an outbreak that has killed thousands and tipped the economy into decline for the first time in at least three decades.

A passenger waits for a train at Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan, China, on May 2, 2020. (AFP/Getty Images)

Foreign criticism strikes right at the heart of one of the myths that the party has been cultivating to bolster its legitimacy at home: that the [Chinese Communist Party] is efficient, competent and capable, and that it is the only one able to effectively lead the nation, Rolland said.

Shortly after Xi was named the partys general secretary in 2012  on his way to becoming the countrys most powerful leader since Mao Zedong  he reportedly said in a speech that one of the reasons the Communist Party collapsed in the Soviet Union was that nobody was man enough to stand up and resist.

I think that Chinese diplomats are currently trying to show that they are man enough to stand up for the CCP, Rolland said.

Su reported from Beijing and Bengali from Singapore.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4) - The number of infections among Filipinos abroad has surpassed 1,800, as 68 more Filipinos contracted the coronavirus, the Department of Foreign Affairs reported on Monday.

The DFA said the new cases were mostly from Europe, while four recoveries and four deaths have been recorded in the same region and the Middle east.

The number of confirmed cases among Filipinos abroad has now reached 1,819, with 475 recoveries and 214 deaths. 1,130 overseas Filipinos, meanwhile, are undergoing treatment.

The DFA also noted that repatriation efforts have slowed down due to the temporary suspension of flight operations at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport until May 10.

Authorities advised returning Filipinos affected by the suspension to contact the nearest Philippine embassy or consulate in their area. Contact details may be accessed through the OFW Help Facebook page and the DFA website.

The DFA assured Filipinos abroad that it remains committed in ensuring the welfare of both sea-based and land-based Filipino workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly 86,000 overseas Filipino workers have been granted the one-time 10,000 cash assistance, the Department of Labor and Employment said on Sunday.

RELATED: Cash aid extended to 86,000 OFWs, more than half of target  DOLE

The DOLE said it has received a total of 336,809 applications for cash aid from both stranded and evacuated OFWs as of May 1. Of this number, it said 85,849 have already been approved.

It added that 54,602 OFWs were evaluated by the Philippine Overseas Labor Offices while the remaining 31,247 were assessed by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.
By Laman Ismayilova

"My Little Prince" animated film by Azanfilm studio has reached the semifinal of the 8th Seoul Guro International Kids Film Festival (GUKIFF).

Founded in 2013, GUKIFF is striving to encourage young generations who will lead the film industry and support them to get various opportunities.

The main goal of the festival is to present the most outstanding films for children, youth, and families produced in all over the world. The final night of the GUKIFF 2020 will be held on July 2-8.

GUKIFF wants to introduce various genres of domestic and foreign films dealing with children, family, and dream themes.

"My Little Prince" film was inspired by the works of young artist Maryam Alakbarli, dedicated to the same name novel.

Maryam Alakbarli has nearly 30 works inspired by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exuperys work "The Little Prince". These paintings were demonstrated in a number of prestigious exhibition halls. The animated film was created under the influence of these works.

A very talented creative team worked on the animated film, including director Arif Maharramov, scriptwriter Iman Ismayil, art director Elchin Efendiyev, designer Amil Guliyev, composer Azer Hajiaskarli and producer Mushfig Khatamov.

"The Little Prince" has captured the hearts of readers around the world since 1943. The novella is the most famous work of the French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The tale was inspired by his experiences in the French Air Force.

After the outbreak of the World War II, Saint-Exupery escaped to North America. Despite personal upheavals and failing health, he produced almost half of the writings for which he would be remembered, including a tender tale of loneliness, friendship, love and loss in the form of a young prince visiting Earth.

Since its first publication, the novella was adapted to numerous art forms and media, including audio recordings, radio plays, live stage, film, television, ballet, and opera.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 18:17:01|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

HONG KONG, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A man arrested for taking part in an unlawful assembly in Hong Kong pleaded guilty to a riot charge in court on Monday, the first among those arrested for involvement in the social unrest last year.

The 21-year-old man was prosecuted for participating in a riot with others outside the building of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Legislative Council on June 12, 2019.

At a plea hearing in the HKSAR District Court on Monday morning, the defendant confessed to hurling helmets, traffic cones, umbrellas and other objects at police officers.

During the incident on June 12, 2019, rioters blocked the main roads and charged the police cordon line using bricks, steel bars and other objects as weapons.

Several police officers were injured in the riot. A total of 11 persons involved were arrested.

The case was adjourned to May 15 for sentence. Enditem
Lucknow, May 4 : Independent legislator Aman Mani Tripathi was arrested on Monday along with six persons at Najibabad in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district for violating the lockdown, police said.

Two vehicles of the legislator have also been seized.

According to the UP Police spokesman, the legislator was stopped by the Bijnor police during routine checking.

He could not show any travel pass to the police.

The legislator was returning from Uttarakhand when he was arrested.

He has been booked in the Epidemic Act.

The arrest of the MLA comes hours after the state government distanced itself from the legislator's attempt to travel to Badrinath by claiming that he was going to the shrine to pray for the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's father who passed away recently.
The top Republicans in the U.S. Congress displayed a united front on Friday in their drive for coronavirus-related liability protections for businesses, saying such measures will be crucial to talks about future relief legislation.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Republican leader Kevin McCarthy issued a joint statement redoubling their demands that Americans on the front lines of this fight must receive strong protections from frivolous lawsuits.

Senate and House Republicans agree these protections will be absolutely essential to future discussions surrounding recovery legislation, they said.

The statement marks a hardening line of demarcation between Republicans and Democrats over the question of business liability as the two sides spar over the prospects of a new coronavirus relief package. Democrats are pushing for nearly $1 trillion in federal assistance to states and local governments.

With half of all U.S. states forging ahead with strategies for easing restrictions on restaurants, retail and other businesses shuttered by the coronavirus crisis, business groups have been pushing for protection against COVID-19-related lawsuits for companies that follow health and safety guidelines.

The Trump administration is also pushing for liability safeguards, as well as a reduction in business regulations.

But Democrats have dismissed Republican calls to include liability protections in legislation, saying it could jeopardize workers and coronavirus patients.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday that liability protections should be included in new legislation among pro-growth measures including payroll tax cuts for workers and business investment expensing.

Well probably come together in a few weeks, and resume the discussions. But our emphasis, I believe, is going to be on future growth incentives, Kudlow said in an interview with Fox News.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that money for state and local governments would form the core of the next legislative package that House Democrats are drafting. Other Democratic priorities include extending broadband access.

With the Senate poised to hold regular sessions next week for the first time since March, the U.S. Capitols attending physician issued a six-page document to congressional offices laying out health and safety practices for the sprawling complex.

Dr. Brian Monahans guidance strongly urged the use of face masks in congressional workplaces. But Capitol Police will not enforce that suggestion. For those not wearing face masks, a six-foot distance with others is being required. Workers are also being instructed to measure their body temperatures each morning at home before reporting to work.

It was not yet clear when the House of Representatives would return to regular sessions in Washington.

(Reporting by David Morgan, Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

Topics Legislation USA Politics
A blood-screening company claims it has developed a fast and accurate antibody test  and is urging UK ministers to begin talks to bring it to the NHS.

Quotient said its screening machines, which have received European regulatory approval, can produce 36,000 test results per day.

Each test can be completed in 35 minutes with 99.8 per cent accuracy, the firm said.

Quotient is headquartered in Switzerland but said its researchers in Edinburgh developed the tests, which look for antibodies that the body has built up to fight the disease.

The company said it has 12 screening machines, which are called MosaiQ. It hopes to have another 20 available by the end of the year, and has already spoken with interested parties in Europe.

Chief executive Franz Walt, who was managing director of the laboratory that developed the first test for Sars in 2003, said: We are truly proud to have developed such a fast and accurate test.

We have strong roots in the UK and want to speak to ministers there so MosaiQ can be used in the amazing national effort to tackle coronavirus and relaunch the economy, he added.

The UK government has said it is able to test for coronavirus immunity, but its capacity is currently unknown.

The government is also trying to develop home-testing kits. However, there are concerns over their reliability.

Ed Farrell, chief operating officer at Quotients Edinburgh office, said: Were incredibly proud of all our work here in Scotland and Switzerland.

Weve got such a rich history here and we hope we can now make a difference at this challenging time.
I made a flyer and spread the word to 50 houses in our neighborhood and many people requested us to make masks, Amrita Johar said. Growing up, my parents instilled values in me that I should help anyone whenever I get a chance. I wanted to give out the masks for free. I was so touched by other people in my community who were finding ways to help people that I wanted to find a way to give back to my community as well.
MIAMI, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnival Cruise Line issued the following update to our news release today concerning a further delay of operations for most of our fleet until August 31.

Some of the media reports have not fully conveyed the contents of our previous media statement and why certain itineraries were not being cancelled. Carnival reiterates that this is our current plan contingent on a number of factors.

Any resumption of cruise operations  whenever that may be  is fully dependent on our continued efforts in cooperation with federal, state, local and international government officials. In our continued support of public health efforts, any return to service will also include whatever enhanced operational protocols and social gathering guidelines that are in place at the time of the resumption of cruise operations. We are committed to supporting all public health efforts to manage the COVID-19 situation and will continue to keep our guests, travel agent partners and other stakeholders informed.

SOURCE Carnival Cruise Line

Related Links

http://www.carnivalcorp.com


Advertisement

Millions of Britons face a grim return to work in which all normal social contact remains heavily restricted, a leaked government blueprint revealed yesterday.

Ministers are preparing to publish a back-to-work dossier for seven sectors of the economy at the end of this week, detailing the steps employers will have to follow to get staff back into offices.

But draft guidance seen by the Daily Mail suggested there will be no return to normality in the foreseeable future with the government telling businesses the restrictions could remain in place for up to a year.

Employers will be told to close canteens and other communal areas, with staff encouraged to eat packed lunches on their own.

Shift patterns will be staggered to limit the number of people at work at any one time and reduce rush-hour pressure on public transport. Access to communal facilities like photocopiers will be limited, areas of the floor will be taped off to keep people two metres apart and people could be barred from sitting opposite one another.

Hot desking will be banned and workers will not even be allowed to lend each other a pen for fear of spreading the virus.

As a result of the stringent measures, millions of staff will be told to keep working from home indefinitely 'if at all possible'.

And firms have been told that 'vulnerable' people, including the over-70s, pregnant women and the severely obese, should work from home  even if this means finding them a new role.

The government is believed to have warned industry groups that the restrictions could stay in place for six to 12 months - dashing hopes of a swift return to normal life.

In other developments in the UK's coronavirus crisis:

Deaths from the virus rose by 288 on Sunday  the lowest daily figure since the end of March;

Residents of the Isle of Wight were urged to sign up for a pilot scheme of a virus-tracking app;

New figures revealed that 6.3million are having their wages subsidised by the state under the furlough scheme;

The deputy chief medical officer raised hopes of an effective antibody test, saying the 'overwhelming majority' of recovered patients produced antibodies;

Downing Street confirmed the Nightingale Hospital in London will be mothballed;

Matt Hancock revealed that 85,186 tests were conducted on Sunday  the second day running the figure fell below his 100,000 target.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will unveil the plan to the nation later this week, with Britain's strict lockdown set to be eased

The businesses were told that there will be a 'gradual winding down' of the restrictions after the winter, according to The Sun.

The warnings of a year under restrictions are thought to have been influenced by fears among government medical advisers that the coronavirus is seasonal.

Matt Hancock orders health officials to find why certain groups including the overweight, men and ethnic minorities are more likely to die of coronavirus An urgent review has been launched into whether obesity, ethnicity and gender raise the risk of death from coronavirus. Matt Hancock has ordered health officials to trawl through the records of thousands of pandemic victims. The Health Secretary said it was too early to confirm that weight was a factor but 'data from around the world' was suggesting a link. Researchers at the University of Liverpool warned last week that obesity increased the risk of dying from the virus by 37 per cent. Around three in ten adults in England are clinically obese  with a Body Mass Index above 30  a rate among the highest in the Western world. And Britain's virus death toll, which rose yesterday to 28,734, is second only to Italy's among European nations. Scientists believe obese patients are more at risk of serious complications because their immune systems are worn out after repairing cells damaged by excess fat. Mr Hancock said: 'Our knowledge about this virus grows daily and it appears some groups are more affected than others. 'Emerging data from around the world suggests there could possibly be a relationship between obesity and the impact of Covid-19 on individuals. 'It's too early to say if obesity in itself is a factor or conditions associated with it  or there is not enough data yet to rule it out  so we need to approach any assumptions with caution. 'Every death from this virus is a tragedy and behind each statistic is a name, a loss and a family that will never be the same again.' Advertisement

An industry source said: 'If it survives the winter, these measures will have to be in place longer.'

Other measures introduced will include safety guidance for 'in-home workers', including cleaners, cooks and plumbers, as well as people offering services like fitness trainers.

For example, companies should provide the same cleaner to the same house where possible and delivery companies should call residents rather than ringing the doorbell.

The measures will also encourage taxi drivers to use contactless payment where possible.

Meanwhile, retailers have been told to ask customers to 'shop alone' to prevent queues when high street stores finally reopen.

But there is no sign of any return for pubs and restaurants, except those offering takeaway services.

The plans will form a central plank in the Government's proposals for the 'second phase' of the coronavirus crisis, which are set to be unveiled by Boris Johnson at the weekend.

Last night however, ministers were on a collision course with trade unions over the proposals, with leaders warning that staff could be ordered to down tools unless their safety is guaranteed.

Transport unions said that drivers could refuse to resume train and bus services.

One Government source said the opposition of the unions could be a 'major problem' in getting Britain back to work and ending the crippling lockdown that is costing the economy an estimated 2billion a day. However, businesses reserved judgment on the proposals, with bosses saying the plans did not reflect real life and lacked information about the kind of protective equipment staff will need.

Government sources last night indicated that ministers are set to roll over the lockdown for another three weeks when they review it on Thursday. The Prime Minister will then outline a 'comprehensive' plan to get Britain moving again at the weekend.

But the leaked documents on the planned return to work confirm that the 'new normal', as described by ministers, will bear little resemblance to our old life. In a video message yesterday, the PM suggested any lifting of restrictions will be very gradual, saying: 'The worst thing we could do now is ease up too soon and allow a second peak of coronavirus.'

In the Commons, several Tory MPs urged a faster lifting of the lockdown. Sir Charles Walker warned Britain would suffer 'a tidal wave of human misery' if thousands of good firms were allowed to go to the wall.

Tory shop steward Sir Graham Brady urged ministers to act 'with a view to removing restrictions and removing these arbitrary rules and limitations on freedom as quickly as possible'.

But speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference last night, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the first aim was to 'protect the NHS so the NHS is always there to protect you and your family.'

Under the Government's plans, all firms employing more than five people will have to draw up a detailed risk assessment of working conditions.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace yesterday said that firms would be allowed to break the two-metre rule on social distancing where it was unavoidable.

But he suggested that other precautions, such as plastic screens, might have to be installed in workplaces. However, the draft documents give few details to employers or unions, saying only that guidance on PPE 'is to follow'.

The country could also see handwashing kits by doors, one-way systems in offices, train platforms and bus stops, and limits on the number of people in shops - many of which will go cashless.

Public transport stations would have two metre markers to keep social distancing, with one-way systems to prevent unnecessary contact.

TUC general-secretary Frances O'Grady said unions 'cannot support the Government's back-to-work plans as they stand'.

She also claimed that the lack of detail was 'an open goal for rogue employers'.

Transport unions said it would be 'completely unacceptable' to increase rail services at present.

In a joint letter to the Prime Minister, the three main rail unions said: 'We will not accept new working patterns that put the lives of railway workers and passengers at risk.'

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said public transport was already at the 'maximum' available capacity, with room for only 15 per cent of normal passenger numbers.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies will today call on ministers to offer subsidies and tax breaks to encourage working from home.

The independent think-tank also warns that peak fares might have to be increased to try to reduce overcrowding in the rush hour.

Business leaders called for clarity on issues such as PPE and whether firms can be held liable even if they fulfil their obligations to protect employees.

Director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce Adam Marshall said bosses 'will want to know that they're not going to be held liable for horrible things that may unfortunately happen if they've done everything in their power to keep their people safe'.

Mike Hawes, chief executive of the society of motor manufacturers and traders, told BBC Radio 4 reports of the plans outlining return to work measures were 'reassuring' - adding that its contents were not at odds with what manufacturers were already doing or seeking to implement.

Forgotten victims of the corona pandemic: From a 7-year-old girl battling seizures to father-of-three who needs cancer surgery, the patients in limbo after their NHS treatment was put on potentially tragic hold

They are the forgotten victims of the corona pandemic  patients caught up in a devastating NHS crisis which is costing thousands of lives.

From a seven-year-old girl battling with seizures to a father-of-three who needs cancer surgery, every one of them has had their treatment put on hold while the NHS diverts resources to fight the virus.

And many of them believe it could result in their death.

Last Saturday, the Mail revealed the true scale of this emerging national tragedy.

Two million operations have been cancelled and an estimated 2,700 cancers a week left undiagnosed.

Lyla O'Donovan, 7, has a brain tumour and is 'heartbroken' the surgery she should have had last month is on hold because of the danger of catching Covid-19

In what doctors call the 'collateral damage' of Covid-19, nearly 1,800 extra deaths were recorded by the Office of National Statistics in one week last month, the highest number for nearly 20 years.

The Government wants hospitals to treat people in crucial need of medical help. But, because of the virus, operating theatres have been mothballed and wards closed.

For those who wait, the dreadful truth is that help may come too late.

Lyla O'Donovan, 7

Lyla has a brain tumour and is 'heartbroken' the surgery she should have had last month is on hold because of the danger of catching Covid-19.

The operation is to relieve pressure on her brain and stop her having seizures.

Her father, Paul, 35, a soldier from Co. Durham, says: 'For every seizure she has, we don't know the extent of the brain damage it's doing.'

Reginald Waite, 82

The pensioner from Eaton, Cheshire, was diagnosed with cancer in March after a scan picked up a blockage in his bile duct, but has had a planned operation postponed.

Reginald, a retired electronics engineer, is worried his cancer will spread. 'When are the hospitals going to treat people such as cancer patients and not just concentrate on Covid-19?' he asks.

Reginald Waite, 82, from Eaton, Cheshire, was diagnosed with cancer in March after a scan picked up a blockage in his bile duct, but has had a planned operation postponed

Amelia Jones, 17

Amelia is missing the top of her skull because of emergency surgery after collapsing with a brain haemorrhage on January 3.

The craniotomy procedure was necessary to relieve pressure on her brain, but it has left Amelia with movement and cognitive difficulties.

Her prognosis is poor unless she has a further operation to replace part of her skull, a procedure called cranioplasty, which has been put on hold.

Her father Leighton, who is director of rugby at Marlow Rugby Club, says: 'Amelia has a long way to go, but without this operation she can't start.'

Amelia Jones, 17, is missing the top of her skull because of emergency surgery after collapsing with a brain haemorrhage on January 3

Kieran Crighton, 14

The wheelchair-bound teenager needs two operations  one on his leg to help him walk and another to drain fluid from his brain, but both are on hold.

Kieran, from North Ayrshire, has autism and was diagnosed with five brain tumours two years ago.

His mother, Senga, says: 'I am very anxious for Keiran.'

Kieran Crighton, 14, needs two operations  one on his leg to help him walk and another to drain fluid from his brain, but both are on hold

Ceri Maddock Jones, 39

Mother-of-two Ceri was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer five years ago. Before the virus struck, she'd hoped to go on a med- ical trial.

'The trials are the only option for me. Everything else has been exhausted,' says Ceri, who lives in Ewell, Surrey, with husband Garry and their sons, Austin, six, and Leo, five.

'I don't want to die, for my sons' sake. These trials were my last hope of keeping my family together a bit longer.'

Mother-of-two Ceri Maddock Jones, 39, was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer five years ago

Roland Monger, 39

Roland may have only months to live after his chemotherapy for the skin cancer he has been battling for four years was put on hold.

The university admissions manager from Torpoint, Cornwall, says: 'It is my 40th in July.

I am aiming to make that. Maybe I will see the kids back to school in September.'

Roland Monger, 39, may have only months to live after his chemotherapy for the skin cancer he has been battling for four years was put on hold

Laura Beattie, 31

The fashion business owner, from Manchester needs a lung transplant after cystic fibrosis ravaged her own organs.

Laura has been on the transplant list for two years, but in March she got a letter saying her next test appointment had been 'pushed back' until August 'because of coronavirus'.

Laura Beattie, 31, pictured left with sister Rachel, needs a lung transplant after cystic fibrosis ravaged her own organs

The risk of her getting an infection at the hospital filled with Covid patients is believed to have been the reason.

'I am having monthly appointments over the phone, but the doctors can't measure my lung function properly,' she says.

Which means, crucially, they can't assess whether it is declining because of the disease.

Chris Romney, 64, from Derbyshire, has advanced prostate cancer

Chris Romney, 64

The grandfather from Derbyshire has advanced prostate cancer and has had his surgery at Royal Derby Hospital postponed after facilities were given over to coronavirus patients.

Chris, a retired RAF fighter controller and Nato executive, now fears his life is on the line.

He said: 'Cancer patients have been side-lined. Those like me who need urgent surgery face an increased risk of the cancer spreading, potentially fatally.'

Chris, who lives with his wife, Laura, says the hospital has told him opening up facilities to non-Covid patients will be a 'long, complicated' process.

Rob Martinez, 63

Rob, from Berkshire, suffers from osteoarthritis which is so severe he struggles to climb up and down stairs.

He needs both knee joints replaced, and was forced to take early retirement because of his pain.

Last year, he was given a date for his first knee replacement: April 15, at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey. Rob was overjoyed.

Rob Martinez, 63, from Berkshire, suffers from osteoarthritis which is so severe he struggles to climb up and down stairs

But then he got a call to say all operations had been cancelled for the next three months  starting from the day of his surgery.

'There's going to be such a backlog after all this I dread to think what's going to happen,' he said. 'There's a worry that something like a knee replacement will be forgotten.'

Andy Gower, 53

The businessman from Milton Keynes has only the slimmest chance of surviving his colon cancer if his operation is delayed.

He was due to have surgery this month, but it was cancelled when his hospital was turned over to Covid-19 patients.

Andy Gower, 53, from Milton Keynes, has only the slimmest chance of surviving his colon cancer if his operation is delayed

Now Andy, a father of three, has been told it may be seven weeks before he can have an operation on his stage-three cancer.

He says: 'If I get the operation soon, I have a 75 per cent survival rate, which is quite good.

'But if it has spread to stage four beforehand, then my chances go down to ten per cent.'
I used to work for hours in a row without interruptions. Now, there is an astronaut-themed Lego set on my desk that seems to move a little bit each day. As I write this, my 7-year-old is sitting next to me, deconstructing pencils instead of doing his schoolwork. In listening to an interview I had recorded, I heard a young voice in the background and then heard myself say, Ill help you in a second. Im still on the phone.

As the pandemic stretches on, many parents have wondered: When will it be possible to resume child care?

Not all parents had a choice to stop using child care in the first place. Essential workers have relied on family members, day care centers and other strategies from the beginning of the pandemic, even in the midst of stay-at-home orders and widespread facility closures. Now parents who have been working from home with schools and day cares closed are asking: Is it safe to get help from grandparents, nannies, babysitters or day cares that are starting to reopen?

Experts say there are no easy answers, but there are ways for parents to think about levels of acceptable risk, while factoring in both health and financial considerations.
John Krasinski continues to bring Some Good News," releasing the sixth edition of his online show Sunday night.

This week, Krasinski talks about two girls in Albany, California, who took time to yell compliments to strangers as they passed by. There was no video, so Samuel L. Jackson offers a re-enactment, with lines such as Your dogs face is almost as cute as my face when I was a baby." Actor Ryan Reynolds submits a very quick weather report.

But the focus is on how students are celebrating graduation with no formal ceremonies. Krasinski hooks up remotely with Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Malala Yousafzai, and Jon Stewart so they can offer some words of encouragement and advice to a lucky collection of graduates.

Hanks gets it right

Speaking of graduation messages, actor Tom Hanks delivered a message to the graduates of Wright State in Dayton, calling them the chosen ones.

Youve gone from student to graduate when more has been expected of you than to just be an American," Hanks tells the grads. "You have had to be responsible Americans. Youve had to be good Americans, good Americans who made the sacrifices that have saved lives.

Childs play

Watch the heartwarming moment WCBS meteorologist Lonnie Quinn's daughters interrupted his forecast https://t.co/HI7Y3IfsXw pic.twitter.com/MrHdiDbtBk  CBS News (@CBSNews) May 4, 2020

Newscasters across the country have been working from home, which creates possibilities for unexpected interruptions from pets and children. Lonnie Quinn, a weather broadcaster for WCBS Channel 2 in New York, had to corral his two curious children while trying to deliver a report.

African penguins at a zoo in Singapore explored an obstacle course built for them to build leg strength before wandering around other parts of the zoo amid COVID-19 closures. https://t.co/oC2wqIXx3N pic.twitter.com/Q0bKHQzV1j  ABC News (@ABC) May 4, 2020

Penguins

African penguins at a zoo in Singapore explored an obstacle course built for them to build leg strength before wandering around other parts of the zoo amid COVID-19 closures. https://t.co/oC2wqIXx3N pic.twitter.com/Q0bKHQzV1j  ABC News (@ABC) May 4, 2020

Its hard to go wrong with Penguins. ABC News has video of some having fun on an obstacle course set up by the staff at a zoo in Singapore.

Deer take over

From CBS Pittsburgh, a herd of deer meander on a normally busy street of Milvale, Pennsylvania.
The government will provide small and medium-sized businesses with guaranteed loans at 3-5%, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

"First of all, it is a program of loans at 3-5% for small and medium-sized business. We are aware that there are entrepreneurs who did not work during the lockdown, hence they are unable to show their incomes to a bank. However, they will receive the money they need as the government will be the guarantor. We are planning to allocate up to UAH 30 billion for this program," the head of state said in his video message to the Ukrainians on May 1.

Additional UAH 6 billion will be channeled into increasing the minimum unemployment allowance and supporting employers who had to suspend their activities due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the country.

"They will receive compensation from the government for payment of wages to their employees," he said.
The entire Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India

New Delhi: India has conveyed its strong protest to Pakistan over an order by that country's supreme court allowing the conduct of general elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The Ministry of External Affairs said Pakistan was told that entire Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India and that Islamabad should immediately vacate the areas under its illegal occupation.

In a recent order, the Pakistan Supreme Court allowed the amendment to the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 to conduct the general elections in the region.

"India demarched senior Pakistan diplomat and lodged a strong protest to Pakistan against Supreme Court of Pakistan order on the so-called 'Gilgit-Baltistan'," the MEA said in a statement.

"It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession," it said.

The MEA said the government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories "illegally and forcibly" occupied by it.

"India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir," it said.

"Instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation," it added.

The MEA said Pakistan's recent actions can neither hide the "illegal occupation" of parts of union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh by it nor the "grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom" to the people residing in these areas for the past seven decades.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Yulia Savitri (The Jakarta Post) Palembang, South Sumatra  Mon, May 4, 2020 19:05 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5e5abb 1 National COVID-19-in-Indonesia,Palembang,South-Sumatera,Tablighi-Jamaat,Jamaah-Tabligh,Bangladesh,swab-test Free

Three out of 14 Bangladeshi members of Tablighi Jamaat, a worldwide Islamic missionary movement, in South Sumatra have tested positive for COVID-19 according to results released on Sunday.

The three are currently undergoing medical treatment at Mohammad Hoesin Hospital in the provincial capital Palembang.

Those [members of] Tablighi Jamaat had previously visited Bogor [West Java], spokesperson for South Sumatra Health Agency Yusri told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Bogor is categorized as a red zone for COVID-19 infections in Indonesia with the city having 88 confirmed cases and 14 deaths as of Friday.

Read also: Three passengers of Bogor-Jakarta commuter line test positive for COVID-19

The three patients were identified as case 167 (a 64- year-old man), case 168 (a 56-year-old man), and case 178 (a 54-year-old woman). They are included among the 29 new cases of COVID-19 in South Sumatra, making a total of 185 confirmed cases in the province so far.

South Sumatras COVID-19 rapid response task force has been monitoring the Bangladeshi Tablighi Jamaat members, who are staying at a mosque in Palembang, since April 23. Previously, in a rapid test on April 27, all 14 were found to be negative for the coronavirus.

Given that three have now been declared positive, the remaining 11 Bangladeshis are being treated as suspected cases and are currently in an isolation facility at the Jakabaring athletes village.

Since [discovering that] the three have tested positive, weve been tracking people who might have had direct contact with them. These could be Indonesian members of Tablighi Jamaat or residents living near the mosque, said Yusri.

Read also: COVID-19: More than 1,000 Indonesian Tablighi Jamaat members stranded overseas

Aufa Syahrizal, an official at the Jakabaring athletes village, said that the facility housed several foreigners, from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, who had been put in isolation.

He said the foreign Tablighi Jamaat members came to Palembang about three months ago. They were staying in Palembang because their respective home countries were on lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, he added. (trn)
STAMFORD  Shipping, mailing and e-commerce provider Pitney Bowes on Monday reported flat revenues and an approximately $208 million loss for the past quarter, as it felt the early effects of the coronavirus crisis.

First-quarter revenues for the Stamford-based firm totaled about $796 million, as the pandemic affected operations across its major businesses. The bottom line included a $198 million accounting charge related to its global e-commerce business that a company spokesman said was a result of the macro-environment conditions along with the recent operating environment.

After the release of the quarterly results, Pitney shares took a hit: They closed Monday at $2.96, down 14 percent from their finish last Friday.

Employing about 9,000 and operating 55 commerce-services centers in the U.S., Pitney is one of the shipping-and-mailing companies whose services are designated as essential by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Clearly, we are all operating in unprecedented times and unchartered territory. Our first priority remains around the health, well-being and safety of our workforce, clients, partners and suppliers, CEO and President Marc Lautenbach said in a statement. Today, thousands of women and men across Pitney Bowes continue to play a critical role in the economy by keeping mail and parcels moving, by keeping our clients equipment running and by keeping our supply chain flowing.

Despite the ongoing operations, COVID-19 still cut into returns.

The top line for its commerce-services business grew 8 percent year over year, to $433 million. Within that division, however, the pandemic clipped revenues and contributed to lower worker productivity in e-commerce operations, while presorting services felt the disruption through lower marketing mail volume and reduced productivity.

At its sorting facilities for e-commerce and presorting, Pitney said it has implemented Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for social distancing and incurred higher costs related to sanitizing facilities, health and temperature screenings for employees and staggered breaks and shift scheduling.

The 8 percent drop in revenues to $363 million for the firms SendTech services for office mailing and shipping also reflected the virus impact, with equipment sales and supplies particularly affected.

Among recent milestones, the company celebrated last month its 100th anniversary.

In 1920, inventor Arthur Pitney and promoter Walter Bowes met and put together their ideas to invent the first postage meter, the Model M  an innovation that company officials credit with creating the metered-mail market.

Pitney Bowes is headquartered at 3001 Summer St., on the edge of downtown Stamford. About 200 employees are based there, while another 750 work in Shelton, where it has a customer-innovation center.

pschott@stamfordadvocate.com; twitter: @paulschott
Making water available is always a serious challenge in the summer for all public authorities.

This year, the challenge is higher when hand-washing at every opportunity has become a necessity.

So keeping potable water lines running without a glitch has become most necessary.

Subhomoy Bhattacharjee reports.

IMAGE: A man bathes on a deserted road after procuring water from a leaky pipeline during the national lockdown. Photograph: PTI Photo

One of the reasons the power grid did not break down on Sunday, April 5, despite the almost 32 Gw fluctuation in less than an hour is a tribute to the painstaking work the engineers and supervisors have done developing it over the years.

Quite the opposite has happened in city administrations.

This summer could be a stress test they might find difficult to pass.

For municipal and panchayat administrators in India, April is the month when bad news begins to pour in.

The local bodies begin to receive complaints of water taps running dry, of leaking water pipes, of sewage contaminating the water mains, of blocked drains and other similar stress.

All these stresses are developing this year too, but the departments concerned are unable to focus on them.

Most of these departments, up to their ministers, are justifiably involved in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

They will return to their regular duties later this year, but with substantial delay in the provision of last-mile services in both urban and rural areas, principally the former.

As the lockdown is extended in large parts of the country, this will be the first time for Indian municipal governance that this vital stress test will be missed.

This has implications because few of them have spent time to keep their systems running even for one summer without constant supervision.

Making water available is always a serious challenge in the summer for all public authorities.

This year, the challenge is higher when hand-washing at every opportunity has become a necessity.

So keeping potable water lines running without a glitch has become most necessary.

Yet, the Delhi Jal Board, for example, has had to issue orders for 3,639 of its officials to work from home from March 22 when the lockdown was announced.

The same is true of the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation and others.

This will leave a large swathe of the urban population vulnerable to the challenges of summer without even the admittedly rudimentary support these municipalities provide.

The lockdown has implications for new municipal projects too.

In the cities covered under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) of the total state annual action plan of Rs 77,640 crore, 92 per cent is allocated for water supply and sewerage projects.

For 2020-2021, this translates into providing 1.7 million new household water tap connections.

All of these targets are under severe stress this year.

Yet without the completion of these targets, the risks of disease control are magnified.

There was a campaign, now almost forgotten, that was begun with massive fanfare last year to provide a steady source of water supply in rural areas.

It was to be steered by the Centre.

Just after returning to power again in May 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi had launched the Jal Shakti Abhiyan, described as a time-bound, mission-mode water conservation campaign in 256 water-stressed districts.

To make it work close to 2,000 officers were signed on, the largest-ever mobilisation for a single government project.

"It is clearly the largest ever, bigger than the Open Defecation Free campaign and an earlier one against left wing extremism," said R Gopalan, former secretary, economic affairs in the finance ministry.

The reason for the vast numbers now is that a water rejuvenation campaign requires technical inputs from the engineering departments of the states and the central government, he added.

Led by 255 officers of the rank of additional secretary or joint secretary as Prabhari Officers, they formed about 550 teams to track these 256 districts (India has 725 districts as on March, 2019).

Secretary, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Parameswaran Iyer had said the teams of officers from the central government will visit and work with district administration in the 1,592 water-stressed blocks of these 256 districts.

The officers did go and did commendable jobs to mobilise the public to take part in water conservation.

The government began to monitor these visits in real time to ensure that the teams worked around five target interventions -- water conservation and rainwater harvesting, renovation of traditional and other water bodies/ tanks, reuse and recharge of bore wells, watershed development and intensive afforestation.

These officers were supposed to be on these visits again, soon.

But COVID-19 has deferred these plans.

This was supposed to have been the crucial year given the propensity for Indian projects to fizzle out after gala beginnings.

The project was allocated Rs 11,500 crore for 2020-2021.

In a bold move, the targets for all of them were kept zero and were to be updated only on the basis of actual outcomes.

Those were to be measured at the end of the year.

Even as the Jal Jeevan or Jal Shakti Abhigyan could languish without money, the shortages at the urban level are more endemic and will thus haunt the city bosses this year.

For years, the states have kept their municipalities and panchayats under-funded.

For instance of the 500 cities under Amrut, the necessary reforms needed to make investors put in money has languished.

Before getting their credit rating in order these cities were supposed to review their building by-laws, eGovernance, online building permission system, energy conservation measures, improvement in levy and collection of user charges.

None has reported compliance for 2020-2021.

So only a token Rs 200 crore will be raised by these cities to finance their needs.

As the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs, the cities and villages will return to their daily administrative jobs.

But having delayed development of capacity and reforms it is quite possible even one summer's absence from their jobs will mean they may have to build plenty from scratch again.
The Congress slammed the AAP government's decision to open liquor shops during the lockdown, as people thronged the outlets in high spirits throwing to the wind all caution against the spread of the coronavirus infection.

Many government-run liquor shops which opened after over 40 days in the national capital, had to be shut as people who gathered outside the outlets didn't follow social distancing norms, forcing the police to use mild force to disperse the unruly crowd.

According to an official, about 150 government-run liquor shops have been allowed to operate from 9 am to 6.30 pm in accordance with the latest lockdown relaxations given by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Many people were not aware that only government shops were allowed to open.

Hitting out at the AAP government, Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar alleged that the liquor shops were opened without any forethought. The move will lead to the city witnessing a "sharp spike" in coronavirus cases in the coming weeks, he said.

Even as Delhi has been witnessing an upward trend in the coronavirus graph, the government allowed opening of liquor shops with an eye on revenue generation, without bothering about the health of the people, he said.

"Maintaining social distance and gathering of not more than five people outside a liquor shop at any given time was violated with impunity after the shops opened today. People jostled outside liquor shops to buy booze, which forced the police to intervene and down the shutters at many places," Kumar said.

The government should have done a proper planning before allowing the liquor shops to open, as otherwise, the move will lead to a "sharp spike" in COVID-19 cases in the city, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Stay-at-home orders caught many medical practices and health care systems off guard, leaving them ill-equipped to rapidly adopt an efficient telemedicine platform so they could keep providing time-sensitive care to non-COVID-19 patients.

To help organizations rapidly introduce telemedicine as an alternative option, a urology group in North Carolina developed a guide that enabled them to convert all in-person visits to telemedicine in three days. They report their experience in an "article in press" appearing on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website ahead of print.

The guide, which the authors call a toolkit, uses a common electronic medical record (EMR) system, Epic, and widely available video portals like Google Duo and Doximity, to overcome social distancing edicts. The toolkit relies on eight essential elements readily available in any medical organization new to telemedicine.

One of our motivations for preparing the toolkit was to make it instantly available to any type of organization, large or small, that has an electronic medical record system." Catherine Matthews, Study Lead Author and Professor of Urology and Gynecology, Wake Forest Baptist Health

The eight essential components to successful telemedicine adoption are: an existing EMR, a one-hour training session for providers and staff, patient education on accessing the portal, availability of hardware like smartphones and video-capable computers, integration of new billing and coding functions, information technology support, an audiovisual platform, and patient and caregiver buy-in.

"The first thing you have to figure out is which video platform is going to work most consistently," Dr. Matthews said. Through trial and error, she and her coauthors decided on pairing up the Epic EMR with the Doximity provider networking app.

Patients can access the Doximity platform through a link sent in a text message, eliminating the need for them to download an additional app or log into an online portal.

The article acknowledges other options available for telemedicine: the MyChart video capability incorporated in the Epic EMR system, and even services such as FaceTime, Skype, WhatsApp, and Google Duo.

However, in reporting on their experience, the Wake Forest Baptist urology group found disadvantages to some of these alternatives. MyChart, for example, requires patients to sign up for the patient portal and download two separate apps. "It can take quite a bit of time for staff to educate patients about this option," Dr. Matthews said.

"Patients not only have to have the device and Internet access; they have to have enough aptitude to complete those three separate steps." For providers using their personal devices, platforms like FaceTime and Skype disclose their personal cell phone or e-mail information. Doximity masks that personal contact information with the organization's office number.

Another key component is the ability to teach both staff and patients quickly how to use the technology. "After selecting the platform, engaging the office staff to be on board with virtual visits is the next most important step," said coauthor Whitney Smith, MD, a fellow in the female pelvic health service at Wake Forest Baptist Health. Staff training involved a one-hour session with a mock patient visit.

The goal, she said, was to replicate all the key steps of the in-person visit in the virtual visit, from front desk check-in and nurse chart review to exam and checkout.

"Telemedicine is currently built as a physician platform," Dr. Matthews said. "We changed it to be inclusive of nurses; we engaged our nursing staff into the platform so that they continue to do the same roles that they do in person."

Days before the patient's telemedicine appointment, a nurse calls to notify the patient the visit is being changed from an in-office to telemedicine, and then walks the patient through the connection process. On the day of the visit, the nurse calls again 15 minutes before the visit to review the chart, "just like they would if the patient was there in the office," Dr. Matthews said.

About three and a half weeks into their telemedicine experience, the Wake Forest Baptist Health urology physicians see about 15 patient visits via telemedicine a day compared to 30 in-office visits, Dr. Smith added. Despite a lower total number of visits, Dr. Matthews noted that a high rate of new telemedicine patient visits convert to surgery scheduling.

"Anecdotally, the efficiency from a surgical subspecialty perspective of the translation of new patient appointments to scheduling of future surgeries is currently 20 to 25 percent," she said. "So a surgeon who's not engaging in telemedicine is losing out on an opportunity to identify patients who will need surgery in the next two to three months."

There have been barriers to wider implementation of telemedicine. Reimbursement for telemedicine services had been one, but in March the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a waiver that removed payment restrictions.

Another barrier can be technology. Small percentages of people still don't have smartphones or home computers, and internet service can be limited, especially in some rural areas. Dr. Smith said that the group had concerns about some elderly patients not having access to technology.

"However, they've been able to engage younger family members to help them with the technology, and actually we've had very good success with that," she said. For patients who don't have video capability, the CMS waiver accommodates voice-only visits.

In addition to Dr. Matthews and Dr. Smith, study coauthors are Anthony J. Atala, MD, FACS; Ryan Terlecki, MD, FACS; and Erin Kelly, MSN, ANP-BC, all with the department of urology at Wake Forest Baptist Health.
President Donald Trump on Sunday said he believes a vaccine for Covid-19 will have been found by the end of the year, further shortening the timeline by weeks of even the most optimistic projections for a time-consuming complex process that experts have insisted can take 12 to 18 months.

We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year, the president said t a virtual town-hall hosted by Fox News Sunday evening at the Lincoln Memorial.

He acknowledged straightaway the over-the-top optimism in his assessment. The doctors would say, Well, you shouldnt say that. Ill say what I think, he said, adding, I think were going to have a vaccine much sooner than later.

The president went to name the Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidate, which is slated to start human trials in September. A drug from Moderna went under Phase One trial in Washington state in March and has a long way to go.

The Trump administration has launched an ambitious Manhattan Project-style effort called Operation Warp Speed to speed up the hunt for the vaccine in a private-public partnership. It is reported to have narrowed down the search from an estimated 93 to 14, with plans to further pare it down to seven, and then to 3 or four for final clinical trials in January.

Trumps own top medical advisers have offered January as their most optimistic outlook. Remember, go back in time, I was saying in January and February that it would be a year to 18 months (to develop a vaccine), so January is a year, so it isnt that much from what I had originally said, Anthony Fauci, a top epidemiologist and member of the presidents coronavirus task force told told CBS news last week.

And he prefaced that with aa notable qualifier. .I think that is doable if things fall in the right place.

Deborah Birx, coordinator of the task force, has reservedly agreed January is doable on paper. She has also said, reflecting the magnitude of the challenge, We make forward progress in vaccines and then a little step backwards and then forward progress.

The Trump administration has been eager to get ahead of the epidemic as it faces continued criticism for being slow to respond and the president has sought to project optimism with misleading projections of toll that he has revised upwards several times and by touting untested cures and therapeutics such as the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which his own drug regulators has since cautioned against, citing side-effects.

As the race for a vaccine continues globally, questions have been raised about safety, specially of volunteers participating in these fast-tracked efforts. No, because they are volunteers. They know what theyre getting into, the president said when asked if he worried bout it. Theyre in many cases very good people. They want to help the process. Look, a vaccine has never gone like its gone now.

Were so far ahead of any vaccine ever in history. These things would take two, four, five, six years, Trump went on to say.

It may take even longer, and indefinitely. A vaccine fr HIV has remained elusive 40 years since the search began.
Karolina Jasko has a family history of melanoma, so she's no stranger to paying attention to her skin. Her mother  who battled the deadliest form of skin cancer twice and recovered  has always been vigilant about checking Jaskos moles for any changes.

But melanoma was still able to sneak up on Jasko in a spot neither she nor her mom suspected: one of Jaskos nails.

Experts like Dr. Vishal Patel, assistant professor of dermatology at the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences in Washington, D.C., worry such cases may be on the rise with the popularity of gel manicures that require the polish to be hardened under ultraviolet light.

Its like tanning beds for your hands, Patel, who is also the director of the cutaneous oncology program at the GW Cancer Center, told TODAY. He was not involved in Jaskos case, but commented in general.

Were seeing a lot of patients having not only melanomas, but all types of skin cancers around the finger tips and the cuticles.

Jasko, now 22, who will soon graduate from the University of Illinois at Chicago, first became aware of the unusual spot in 2016 when she was a senior in high school. Shed been getting her nails done once or twice a month for a couple of years, complete with acrylics  artificial nails applied on top of her natural nails  plus a gel polish that was cured with UV light.

When the acrylics were removed during one particular visit, the technician pointed out what seemed to be a bruise on her right thumb nail. It looked like a perfectly straight thin vertical line drawn with a pencil from the top to the bottom of her nail, with a purplish tint to it, Jasko recalled.

She didnt think much about it. But about a week later, her nail became infected, swollen and red, which led her to see her doctor. The infection didnt alarm him, but the mysterious streak on her nail did.

Karolina Jasko had nail melanoma (Courtesy Karolina Jasko)

Jasko was immediately referred to a dermatologist who told her she needed to undergo a biopsy that same day at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Story continues

It was overwhelming because everything happened so quick, Jasko said. It was so scary My mom was like, I cant believe that I never even thought that it could be in your nail.

The portion of her thumb nail with the line was removed during the biopsy, which confirmed it was melanoma. Jasko had to return for surgery to remove the whole nail matrix. Doctors told her it was possible they might also have to amputate the whole thumb, but were able to save the digit. A skin graft from her groin area covered her thumb, which no longer has a nail.

Karolina Jasko had nail melanoma (Courtesy Karolina Jasko)

The nail infection  which was unrelated to the melanoma, but led Jasko to see a doctor  may have saved her life, doctors told her.

They still dont know where the infection came from. They said that was like a sign from God because if I would have waited longer and not come in with that, it could have been possible the melanoma would have spread, Jasko said. She went on to become Miss Illinois 2018 and competed in the Miss USA pageant.

What to know about nail melanoma

Melanoma on the extremities  nails, hands and feet  is the rarest subtype of the skin cancer, accounting for less than 5% of all melanomas, Patel said. But it makes up about a third of all the melanomas that African Americans, Indians, Asians and other people with darker skin develop, which is a ten-fold increase compared to the general population, he noted.

This type of cancer  called acral lentiginous melanoma  tends to be more aggressive than other melanomas. It killed reggae legend Bob Marley at 36 after it showed up as a dark spot under his toenail.

Nail melanoma (Courtesy Debby McCord Thornton (bottom left) and the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology)

The main symptom is melanonychia, or a pigmented vertical streak on the nail. Some people have likened it to a line drawn by a Sharpie. That doesnt mean it's always automatically worrisome because such streaks are much more common in patients with darker skin, Patel noted.

When you have multiple, its reassuring because that may be a signature of your nail beds, he said.

But if a vertical stripe suddenly appears on a nail or its changing, thats something a doctor should check out. Pigment extending from the nail portion onto the cuticle and nearby skin, which is called a Hutchinson's sign, is also of concern.

Health & Wellness

Some doctors say nail melanoma often develops on the thumb of ones dominant hand, or big toe of ones dominant side, but Patel has seen it on all digits and believes all of the nails are equally potentially affected.

This type of melanoma is more driven by genetics and family history than sun exposure, but people should still follow sun-safe practices, he added:

Be careful about UV exposure, including at the nail salon. Wear fingerless gloves with an ultraviolet protection factor or apply sunscreen to your hands at least 15 minutes before a gel manicure.

When outside, apply sunscreen to the whole body, including around your nails and on your hands.

Wear sunscreen and possibly gloves during your daily commute: If youre a driver who has your hands out in a one-and-a-half-hour commute, youre getting UV radiation exposure right to the backs of the hands and the nails, Patel said. Some of these things sound crazy, but the cumulative exposure over time (matters).

Remove nail polish before going to your annual skin check so a doctor can see your nails.

With Jasko's family history of melanoma, doctors cant say how much of a role her regular UV exposure at the nail salon played. She now paints her nails with regular polish and skips the gel manicures. She also gets her skin checked every four months and is doing well.

"I am still getting my check-ups for my skin, and it is still incredibly important to me," Jasko said. "I will be doing this for the rest of my life to ensure I am taking all precautions necessary. I still highly recommend for everyone to add a dermatologist to their list of doctors because early detection saved my life."
Asia With Fighter Jets and Army Bands, India's Military Thanks Health Workers

Indian navy Chetak helicopters shower flower petals on the premises of a hospital as part of an event to show gratitude to health-care workers fighting the COVID-19 outbreak, in Visakhapatnam, India, on May 3, 2020. / REUTERS
MATTOON  A bid for work involving a transformer at the city water treatment plant and coronavirus-relief grants for several businesses go to the Mattoon City Council this week.

A vote to award a contract for the water treatment plant work is on the agenda for the council's regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday while the business grants will be addressed at a specially scheduled meeting on Thursday.

The regular council meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. On Thursday, a required public hearing on the grant applications is set for 4:30 p.m. with the council's vote to follow.

Both meetings will be conducted remotely with public access available online or by telephone.

During Tuesday's meeting, the council is set to vote on the bid from Anderson Electric for the transformer relocation at the water plant.

Anderson's bid was $116,700, the lower of two bids received, according to city records. The estimate of the cost of the project was just more than $158,000.

Other votes scheduled for Tuesday's meeting include approving an easement to access water lines on 19th Street immediately south of Broadway Avenue.

Meanwhile, Thursday's public hearing and votes will address applications from six businesses seeking grants available to help with losses from restrictions in place because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The applicants are Alamo Steakhouse & Saloon, Hubbartt's Downtown Diner, the Ice House, Elliott Furniture, Gaines Photography and Taco Amigos.

With the Downstate Stabilization Grant program, the state of Illinois is funneling money through the federal Community Development Assistance Program, making funds available for small businesses impacted by the restrictions.

The grants provide up to $25,000 for two months of operating expenses for businesses that closed because of the virus restrictions.

A local unit of government has to vote to support the grant applications. The Mattoon council gave its support to seven other applications last month.

Public comments or questions about either meeting can be submitted by calling the Mattoon City Clerk's Office at (217) 235-5654. The city indicated calls should be made by 4 p.m. Tuesday for that day's meeting and by 3 p.m. Thursday for that day's meeting.

Online public access for both meetings will be available at bit.ly/MattoonCC200507. The access code will 623 311 521 for Tuesday's meeting and 621 312 228 for Thursday's; the password for both will be 20819.

Phone access to both meetings will be available at 1-408-418-9388 with the same access code each day as for online access.

PHOTOS: Remember these? A look back at Mattoon businesses through the years
WASHINGTON  The Devereux Glenholme School, a coed therapeutic residential school in Washington for students 8-21 with social, emotional and learning challenges, has united behind the theme of #Devereux Strong during the coronavirus pandemic. The call to action was sent out to students, families, staff, supporters and the community, exhorting them to take care of themselves. #Devereux Strong means the school community comes together even more than normal. #Devereux Strong has a lengthy tradition stemming from its founder Helena Devereux.

In 1912, Devereux was 27 and single. Women did not have the right to vote and were considered old maids if not married by the ripe old age of 27. She turned down a Director of Special Education position of $5000  the equivalent of roughly $130,000 today  at a time when she was also supporting her brother Roberts pursuit of a medical career as well as caring for her aging parents. She took all the money she had, plus borrowed a few dollars, to start her first school. Her peers dismissed her as a starry-eyed female and disregarded her vision as merely the whims of an unmarried school teacher.

It took guts, determination and blind faith to go against the status quo of the time, but she forged ahead with no guarantee of success; especially financially. Today, Devereux serves children, adolescents and adults in 12 states and provides professional internships and training.

School Director Noah Noyes, said, If Helena was here today, I believe she would say, COVID 19? We got this. Its one more opportunity to serve. Miss Devereux's legacy of courage, commitment, and service is a precursor to todays teamwork.

To rise to the level of need for PPE, the Devereux Glenholme staff, families and friends are making masks to help those on campus remain safe. A target of 300 masks has been set. To help in the effort, contact Courtney Delaney, CDELANEY@devereux.org.

Preservation Connecticut announces grants

HAMDEN - Preservation Connecticut, in association with The 1772 Foundation, recently gave capital repair grants to historical societies, museums and nonprofits in Connecticut. The 1772 Foundation, based in Providence, RI, plays a leading role in promoting historic preservation nationwide. In the most recent grant round, the 1772 Foundation worked with the six New England statewide historic preservation organizations (Maine Preservation, The New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, Preservation Connecticut, Preservation Massachusetts, The Preservation Trust of Vermont and Preserve Rhode Island) to administer 1:1 matching grants of up to $10,000. Grants are given to historic preservation projects for building exteriors. At its recent quarterly meeting, the trustees of The 1772 Foundation awarded grants totaling $600,000 to the statewide organizations from which seventy-nine grants will be awarded, ranging from $800 to $10,000.

Local grant recipients included Flanders Nature Center & Land Trust (Van Vleck House $7,665).

Additionally, Preservation Connecticut announces capital repair grants to religious institutions. Since 2013, Preservation Connecticut has awarded $611,426 through its Maintenance and Repair Grant program. Also a 1:1 matching grant, religious institutions are awarded up to $15,000 for maintenance of historic properties in this program. Funding, which is made possible through the support of the State Historic Preservation Office and the Community Investment Act, has helped over 60 groups over the last six years address critical issues with historic buildings.

Preservation Connecticut, formerly the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, is a statewide, private nonprofit organization established in 1975 by a Special Act of the Connecticut General Assembly to preserve the character and ensure the vitality of Connecticuts historically significant places.

Water company completes land preservation notices

CLINTON  Connecticut Water recently completed notification to 10 Connecticut towns and several private nonprofit land conservation organizations of the availability of company-owned land for preservation as open space, according to a statement. In all, there are approximately 480 acres of land that the company no longer needs for water supply purposes and plans to make available for preservation as open space.

Connecticut Water has a strong record of preserving open-space land, working with local communities and land-holding organizations to preserve more than 1,000 acres over the past 20 years, said Maureen P. Westbrook, president of Connecticut Water, in a statement. We look forward to partnering with local communities and nonprofit land-holding organizations that have an interest in preserving this land. Most of these parcels are in their natural states and an asset to the community.

The process of offering these parcels for sale to land conservation organizations is outlined in a 2018 agreement between Connecticut Water and Save the Sound that demonstrates the benefits of the companys combination with SJW Group, completed in 2019. Connecticut Water and Save the Sound both recognize the importance of these open-space parcels to local communities and citizens across the state.

As called for under the agreement, Connecticut Water has notified towns and local land trusts that the land is available. The agreement allows land trusts an extended and expanded schedule beyond whats outlined in Connecticut state statutes, giving communities a longer timeline to assess interest in the properties and acquire funding for the designated parcels, with at least 24 months to execute a plan to secure the property.

Under the agreement, Connecticut Water is also evaluating other company-owned land to evaluate its suitability for passive recreation opportunities that provide for the protection of public water supply sources. Connecticut Water owns more than 6,000 acres of land in Connecticut. The parcels of land specified in the Save the Sound are in Bethany, Chester, Harwinton, Killingworth, Naugatuck, Plymouth, Prospect, South Windsor, Stafford and Thomaston.
Fasten your seatbelts, travelers. We are in for a bumpy ride. Travel as we know it is going to be a lot different over the next year or so as the world awaits a vaccine or some other breakthrough to rid us of the coronavirus and reopen our travel horizons.

Overall, the travel industry, which has ballooned in recent years as the world economy expanded, is going to become much, much smaller in the near term. Airline ticket prices will likely soar. Weekend jaunts to faraway places will fly away. Getting through the airport is going to take longer, and require much more patience than before. Hotel stays will become dull, utilitarian and depressing with guests and staff hiding smiles behind masks. Hotels will also become more expensive. Joyful meals in popular, crowded restaurants? Nope. International travel? As residents of the country with the largest COVID-19 outbreak in the world, Americans are going to have a tough time finding a warm welcome in other countries for a while. Big company events and boondoggles where you can schmooze with clients and colleagues? Off the table for at least a year.

While it's nice to dream of breaking free of stay-at-home orders with big, glossy trips far and wide, the reality is going to be more prosaic. I don't foresee anything close to what we experienced in 2019 for at least three years or longer. As a matter of fact, for the next couple years I think the travel experience is going to be more like what we saw in the 1970s.

First off, travel is going to become much more expensive. Airlines, hotels and rental car companies are not going to be able to discount their way out of this crisis.

In order to comply with social-distancing rules, which are here to stay as long as there is no vaccine to prevent COVID-19, airlines are reducing capacity on each flight by not booking middle seats. What happens when a third of a company's inventory is no longer available? Basic economics says that when you reduce supply, prices will increase. Demand for airline seats will come back slightly, but it's not going to pop back to pre-COVID-19 levels until there's a proven vaccine and fliers don't have to worry about sharing arm rests or cabin air any longer. In order to survive until then, airlines are going to have to raise prices significantly on the few flights left operating. Their mothballed fleets will stay mothballed until demand comes back. We are already starting to see this play out... tried booking a holiday 2020 trip yet? A quick scan shows that it's not cheap.

Significantly fewer travelers means that getting through the airport screening process should be faster, but it won't until there's a vaccine. In addition to screening for bombs or knives, we will soon face a whole new layer of health screening. Like we've already seen in Dubai, passengers could have to submit to rapid coronavirus tests at the airport. Or passengers will have to get screened beforehand and arrive at the airport with a "health passport." Temperature checks will become mandatory. Some airports are already talking about disinfecting passengers with chemical sprays or beams of UV light.

Who wants to put up with all that? These airport hassles mean that only travelers with serious business on the other end are going to put up with flying  this will be people going to visit sick or dying relatives, technicians needed to keep machinery humming, medical or scientific professionals and the like. Planeloads of kids headed to Europe for singing tours, or seniors jetting off to catch a cruise lined up at airport security? Frequent flyers taking "mileage runs?" We won't see any of that until there's a vaccine.

Moxy Hotels

Hotels have spent billions over the last decade turning lobbies into social spaces where travelers can eat, drink, work and interact with each other. Now they are going to have to spend millions to modify those spaces to protect guests. They will also have to discourage use of public spaces until there's a vaccine, which means guests sheltering in their "sanitized for your protection" -style rooms. And who wants to do that?

Big hotels will also have to reduce capacity  by booking only certain floors or every other room down a corridor. And imagine the problems high-rise hotels will have around social distancing on elevators? Ugh. Hotel pools are going to be another tough area for social distancing with fewer chairs spaced further apart, and rules such as allowing only one person in the pool at a time.

Don't miss a shred of important travel news! Sign up for our FREE weekly email alerts.

As we all measure our personal risk tolerance for travel, I think vacations are going to look a lot like they did in the 1970s when I was a kid. Airline ticket prices were prohibitive for families eager for a summer vacation. And planes flew about 60 percent full. Instead of flying, back then we loaded up the station wagon and headed to the beach, the mountains or the lake for two weeks every summer.

That usually meant a day-long drive to somewhere in our state or a neighboring state. That's what I think we will seen this summer and next summer, too. Vacations by car close to home. And instead of heading off to big resorts or amusement parks or national parks, we will book Airbnbs or VRBOs with big yards and backyard pools or private beach or lake access. Family trips by RV, relatively sealed off from other vacationers, will be popular. And like the 1970s, cheap gasoline is going to fuel the resurgence of the road trip.

There is a bright side to this murky outlook, however. Most major tourist destinations have suffered massively from over-tourism in recent years, which has frustrated locals, degraded the experience for travelers, and ruined many cherished destinations. Think of the coral reefs ruined by suntan lotion, hillsides strewn with trash, plastic and sewage seeping into waterways from overtaxed systems or wildlife bothered into near extinction. For about two more years, the worldwide tourist economy, which has been pushed to its limits, will get a much-needed rest.

Read all recent TravelSkills posts here

Chris McGinnis is SFGATE's senior travel correspondent. You can reach him via email or follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Don't miss a shred of important travel news by signing up for his FREE weekly email updates!

SFGATE participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.
Amaravati: As some states start relaxing lockdown restrictions as India enters lockdown 3.0 on Monday, Andhra Pradesh government has allowed the opening of liquor shops in the state with certain criteria.

With a 25 percent hike in the liquor price, the shops can now remain open from 11 am to 7 pm from today. As per the order, only 5 people will be allowed near the shop and they have to follow the social distancing norms, and wearing face mask is made mandatory.

However, the red zone areas are still strictly prohibited by this relaxation. Rajath Bhargava, Special Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh government, said, ''We are taking the measure to open liquor shops in the State for revenue consideration but the government is concerned about the bad effects of alcohol consumption. Our Chief Minister is very much concerned about the evil effects of consumption so we are imposing prohibition tax on that, the amount will be decided soon."

He added that the liquor shops should strictly adhere to certain guidelines including maintaining social distancing. Only five persons will be allowed at a shop at one point of time. If the number of customers increases, the shops will be closed temporarily.

Talking about the increase in the price of the liquor Rajath Bhargava said that this is done to ensure less consumption of liquor. Meanwhile, the bars will still remain closed and no supply will be made in the containment areas.

"Government of Andhra Pradesh is already committed to eradicating alcohol in the long term. All standalone shops will be opened from tomorrow, outside the containment zone. No shop in the malls will be allowed to operate. About 3,500 shops will be opened in the State," said Bhargava.

He continued saying that industries in places outside the containment zones in urban areas and industries in rural areas are being given permissions to operate as well.
(Newser)  An odd condition that the New York Post says seems to "defy basic biology" is popping up among coronavirus patients, and no one has yet figured out how or why it's happening. Some COVID-19 patients are exhibiting abnormally low oxygen levelsones that would typically cause someone to fall unconscious or even diebut don't appear to be in much distress. The Guardian notes that normal blood-oxygen saturation lies at around 95%, but doctors are reporting patients in the 70%-80% range, and even some below 50%. A University of Colorado pulmonary expert tells Live Science that once those oxygen levels drop below 90%, it becomes problematic, as the brain becomes deprived of oxygen; at that point, patients typically start becoming confused and lethargic. Dip below 80%, and vital organs can begin to suffer damage.

story continues below

Yet Science Magazine notes those suffering from "happy" hypoxia (aka "silent" hypoxia) can be seen talking normally, checking their phones, and not reporting much discomfort. "There is a mismatch [between] what we see on the monitor and what the patient looks like," says an ER physician at NYC's Maimonides Medical Center. Doctors do have some ideas on what's causing oxygen levels to fall in virus patients, including possible blood clottingtiny lung vessels that collect and transport oxygen can become easily stopped up. As for why happy hypoxics don't seem distressed by their condition, some experts theorize their otherwise healthy lungs are still inflating well (despite the lack of oxygen circulation in the body) or that they're used to feeling lethargic from low oxygen levels if they already deal with other conditions. "We just don't understand it," a UK anesthetist tells the Guardian. Much more here and here. (Read more coronavirus stories.)
Lawmakers of the then Liberty Korea Party, the predecessor of the now-main opposition United Future Party, lie down at the National Assembly April 26, 2019, to block other parties' lawmakers from entering a meeting room for discussions on legislatively fast-tracking a judiciary reform bill. Korea Times file



By Jung Da-min



The 20th National Assembly has less than a month left before its four-year term ends May 29.



Parties are virtually wrapping up their tasks for the incumbent parliament while gearing up for the 21st Assembly.



Political analysts say they need to prepare new strategies so as not to repeat the discord and political foul play that prevailed during the past four years, which was far from meeting the people's expectations for a mature parliamentary democracy.



Amid the continuing conflicts among parties, about 15,000 bills are expected to be abolished automatically with the ending of the 20th Assembly, which has passed only about 36 percent of submitted bills.



But analysts say the fundamental problem of the 20th Assembly was that it increased people's fatigue about politics, while wasting too much time on political strife with lawmakers failing to abide by legal procedures for the normal operation of the Assembly.



"The 20th National Assembly has been the worst Assembly, not just in a quantitative assessment but also in a qualitative assessment," said Choi Young-il, a political commenter and adjunct professor at Kyung Hee Cyber University. "The fall in the rate of passage of bills was not too much as it was around 40 percent during the previous Assembly, but the disappointing aspects of lawmakers have become more conspicuous as they only fought for their own interests or those of their parties, not caring about how they could better reflect the people's will."



The 20th Assembly kicked off four years ago following the 2016 general election. The then-ruling Saenuri Party, a predecessor to the current main opposition United Future Party (UFP), garnered 122 seats, while the then-main opposition and now-ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) gained 123 seats, with the now-defunct minor opposition People's Party and another minor opposition Justice Party taking 38 and six seats, respectively.



When the 20th Assembly began with the slogan, a "Hard-working National Assembly," expectations were that the political parties would show the good aspects of a multiparty system. But such expectations were shattered through a series of turbulent political events including the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye for a corruption scandal, the division among the conservative parties after the impeachment, and clashes  even physical in nature  among the parties over contentious bills.



The clashes over the contentious electoral and judiciary reform bills last year gave the 20th Assembly the dishonorable name, an "animal-like" Assembly. The electoral reform bill was aimed to give more proportional representation seats to minor parties through a new calculation method. The judiciary reform bill was about establishing a special investigative body for crimes allegedly committed by high-ranking public officials and their family members.



In late April last year, the ruling DPK and other minor parties put the bills on a legislative fast track despite strong opposition from the then main opposition Liberty Party of Korea (LKP) which is now the UFP. This produced a week of physical tussles among lawmakers, despite a law passed in 2012 to prevent such extreme confrontations, making it appear obsolete.



"The parties violated the law for an advanced National Assembly made by themselves, when people care about procedural democracy," Choi said. "What was worse was that they did not apologize for such a violent situation."



In late December last year, the ruling DPK partnered with four minor parties to pass the bills, but the LKP protested until the last moment, with the party's former Chairman Hwang Kyo-ahn staging a hunger strike.



The conflict did not end there, but led to foul play by the country's two major parties in this year's general election.



In February, the UFP created the "satellite" Future Korea Party to gain more proportional representation seats under the electoral reform meant to be favorable to minor parties. The DPK soon followed suit by creating its satellite party, Civil Together, in March.



The major parties' dirty tricks took a savage toll on the minor parties, as the DPK and its satellite won 180 seats in the 300-strong Assembly, followed by the UFP and its satellite with 104 seats. All told, 284 seats went to the country's two major parties, while only 16 seats went to "real" minor parties or independent candidates.



While the 20th Assembly cannot avoid criticism that it has wasted too much time in unnecessary conflict, especially the eight-month fight over the reform bills, it remains to be seen whether the 21st Assembly will be different and break away from the "animal-like" Assembly moniker.


When nurses asked Alphonso Rackard what they could do for him while in the ICU, Rackard knew he needed help with one last thing: marry his sweetheart of 50 years.

Judy Kopko and Rackard got married in an ICU room at Massachusetts General Hospital on Thursday, April 23, with a hospital chaplain and friends and family watching through a live video feed, Boston.com reported.

I have the great honor of announcing for the very first time as husband and wife: Al Rackard and Judy Kopko-Rackard. You may embrace," the chaplain said, according to the news site.

Two days later, the 70-year-old died.

Rackard had pulmonary fibrosis and been admitted to the hospital after having trouble breathing, Boston.com reported, adding that the family also got word that one of his doctors had been diagnosed with coronavirus.

Although he tested negative for COVID-19, he continued to have trouble breathing.

But the seriousness of his condition pushed the wedding into action quickly.

I know he was happy because that was one of the main things that he wanted to do, to be able to marry her, Janina Rackard, Als niece, told Boston.com. "To know that he got the opportunity to do that was beautiful.

Kopko and Rackard arent the only ones deciding to tie the knot during the pandemic.

A 91-year-old couple also decided to get married in Florida.

When we actually began our formal relationship in July last year, I said to Jeanine that I dont know how many days we have, but we have today," Don Sandin told the Tampa Bay Times. And we are grateful for today.

Related Content:
A former governor of Borno State, Ali Sheriff, has denied that he refused to submit himself for COVID-19 test after he allegedly had contacts with persons who later died of the disease.

Mr Sheriff had two weeks ago buried his father who died in a fire accident in Maiduguri. The burial was attended by many prominent residents of Borno, including the states former governor, Muhammed Goni, who died last week of suspected COVID-19 complication.

An online publication, Sahara Reporters, published a report that Mr Sheriff was one of the contacts being traced by the Borno State Committee on COVID-19 in relation to two prominent persons that died after attending the late Sheriffs burial.

However, Mr Sheriff claimed that the report was baseless and false.

He said Sahara Reporters misinformed in saying that the late Shehu of Bama who died of suspected COVID-19, attended his fathers burial. The former governor said the deceased monarch was never at the funeral.

He, however, did not deny that Mr Goni attended the burial few days before he died.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Kolo Adam, and shared with PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Sheriff said he had never undermined the fight against COVID-19 and had been observing social distancing even before the order by the federal government.

The former national chairman of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party alleged that the disinformation was the handiwork of naive-minded politicians.

When asked to confirm if the Borno COVID-19 committee did contact the former governor with the intention of testing him for the new coronavirus, the Borno State Commissioner of Home Affairs, Information and Culture, Babakura Abba-Jato, said he knew nothing about the matter.

Mr Abba-Jato, who is the spokesman of the COVID-19 ommittee, told journalists during the Monday briefing that he has not received such information from the chairman or secretary of the committee.

He represented the secretary of the committee, Salisu KwayaBura, who was absent at the Monday briefing.

Honestly I dont have any information about that; because these are questions that need answers from the technical people, he said.

READ ALSO:

I can only ask this question if at all I have a briefing from them. But on hundred percent scale, I dont know anything about it.

Read Mr Sheriffs full statement below.

Our attention has been drawn to a false publication trending in Sahara Reporters, making the round baseless report that Former Borno Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, Tricks Health Officials, Flees To Abuja To Avoid COVID-19 Test Despite Close Contact With Dead Victims.

That Sahara Reporters: gathered that Sheriff had refused to make himself available for COVID-19 test despite meeting two prominent citizens of the state, who died of the virus recently.

That: A member of the state prevention and response team said the former governor was one of the contacts being traced and linked up with the late former governor, Mohammed Goni, and Shehu of Bama, Alhaji Kyari Elkanemi, who both died of the virus.

Therefore, let me unequivocally responded that all the above were falls information prepared with malicious intention full of political gimmicks.

The late Shehu of Bama did not have contact with Sheriff for the past one year; and was not present at the burial of Senator Sheriffs Father; talk less of attending the funeral prayers that can warrant for a meeting between the two.

There was no place where Sheriff shakes hands with anybody during the burial of his late Father. Not to talk of coming in contact with late Goni during the funeral procession.

And the State COVID 19 Committee when contacted refuted such unfortunate report and revealed that it had never invited Sheriff for a test.

For the record Sheriff and his family were all tested negative in Abuja, before proceeding to Maiduguri.

Since the discovery of the virus in Nigeria Sheriff had never undermined the issue of COVID 19 and confined himself to social distance even before the order by the federal government.

However, it is unfortunate that naive minded politicians instead of praying for protection started to make mischief out of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Advertisements



Meanwhile, as we are investigating the source of this unfortunate and malicious report, the general public is hereby advised to ignore such fabricated information by mischief makers.
Audi has announced the Salute to COVID-19 Warriors initiative in gratitude for the services rendered by essential workers. Audi customers can avail a complimentary disinfection/ cleaning of interiors, exterior cleaning and general check-up of their Audi, along with a courtesy car pick-up and drop.

As part of Audi Indias focus on customer centricity, the brand announced an extension on extended warranty and service plans for its customers in India. All customers whose extended warranty or service packages were set to expire during the lockdown period (March 15  May 03, 2020) were assured that they have the opportunity to extend their plans and receive seamless services for their Audi cars.

Speaking on the occasion, Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head of Audi India, said, As we continue to battle this unprecedented crisis, we are pleased to announce that all Audi India dealerships across the country will prioritise vehicle servicing for essential workers. The most important focus for us has been people's safety and we are honored to be able to serve Audi customers who are COVID-19 Warriors and are tirelessly working on the front lines against this pandemic.

Audi
A simple "sniff test" could signal if an unconscious person is likely to regain consciousness, a new study finds.

A team of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel revealed that the ability to detect smells predicts recovery and long-term survival in patients who had a severe brain injury. The study, published in the journal Nature, shows that the simple "sniff test," which is inexpensive and convenient, could help doctors to diagnose and develop treatments for patients who have brain injuries and unconsciousness.

Image Credit: Pixelaway / Shutterstock

Severe traumatic brain injury is a condition when an outside force disrupts the brain's normal function, such as car accidents, a blow or strike to the head, or physical assault. During a TBI event, a patient may experience a period of unconsciousness that may resolve or not. In some cases, patients become unconscious for long periods, while others succumb to the injury.

After a brain injury, it may be hard to determine the state of consciousness of a patient. Doctors and healthcare practitioners may assess the patient using scales, but they do not determine whether the patient is unresponsive or minimally conscious. Knowing if the patient is minimally conscious is crucial to predict whether they will recover. Further, an accurate diagnosis is vital because it can guide treatment strategies and end-of-life decisions.

Sense of smell

The sense of smell is a fundamental mechanism that depends on specific structures in the brain. The brain works by changing the way people sniff in response to various smells. For instance, when a person smells a foul order, he or she takes shallower and shorter breaths. In healthy people, the sniff-response occurs when people are awake or in sleeping states of consciousness,

Olfaction can serve as a biomarker for consciousness. In the study, the team used a non-verbal, non-task-dependent measure known as the sniff response, to determine consciousness in patients with brain injuries. By using the test, doctors have a sensitive measure of olfactory function.

To arrive at their findings, the team measures the sniff response repeatedly over time in patients with severe brain injuries. To do this, they used jars with different smells for 43 severely brain-injured patients. The experimenter left the patient to smell a jar containing a shampoo, an unpleasant smell of rotten fish, or no smell at all. Each jar was given ten times in random order. The volume of air sniffed by the patient was measured.

Study findings

The researchers found that patients who are minimally conscious inhaled less in response to smells but did not discriminate between pleasant and unpleasant odors. The patients also modified the air into their nose in response to the jar with no smell, showing awareness of the jar or learned anticipation of smell.

In vegetative patients, the results varied, with some not changing their breathing in response to both odors, while others did. They also found that if an unresponsive patient had a sniff response, it is tied to being able to regain consciousness in the future.

"We found that if patients in a vegetative state had a sniff response, they later transitioned to at least a minimally conscious state. In some cases, this was the only sign that their brain was going to recover -- and we saw it days, weeks and even months before any other signs," Anat Arzi, a researcher in the University of Cambridge's Department of Psychology and the Weizmann Institute of Science Israel, said.

Patients who are in a vegetative state may open their eyes, wake up and fall asleep regularly, and have basic reflexes. However, they also do not show meaningful signs of awareness. On the other hand, a minimally conscious patient may experience periods where they can show signs of awareness.

A follow-up research about three and a half years later revealed that over 91 percent of the patients who exhibited a sniff response was still alive, but 63 percent of those who showed no response at all, had died.

"In addition, olfactory sniff responses were associated with long-term survival rates. These results highlight the importance of olfaction in human brain function and provide an accessible tool that signals consciousness and recovery in patients with brain injuries," the team concluded in the study.
China is publicly handing out money and equipment to help fight the spread of coronavirus in Zimbabwe. But Beijing's generosity has made some very wary.

Until now most in Zimbabwe have accepted that Chinas aid and investment strategy in the country is usually tied to infrastructure development.

The partnership announced this week between the China Gezhouba Group and a Zimbabwean company to build a new coal-fired power station worth three billion US dollars fits much better into the business mould Zimbabweans and Zimbabwe business watchers have come to expect.

Critics call the new trend, replicated in several African countries, of shipping medical supplies and offering financial support for primary health care China's coronavirus diplomacy.

China has been extremely active in pushing out support to a host of countries needing assistance to tackle Covid-19, Piers Pigou, southern Africa consultant with the International Crisis Group, tells RFI.

It may well be expending more energy on profiling these contributions in the face of bad press relating to its responsibilities around managing and communicating around the initial stages of the pandemic.

The suspicious list

Here are some of whats been supplied to Zimbabwe so far by the Chinese embassy and the Chinese private sector:

An upgrade worth US$500,000 to Harares main Covid-19 centre, the Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital.

A donation of 50,000 masks, one thousand goggles and 510 protective suits by two Chinese firms to First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwas charity

Equipment including 166,000 face masks, 7,600 protective suits, 20,000 test kits, 12,000 pairs of gloves and five ventilators from the Chinese embassy

Two donations from China's richest man, Jack Ma, including tens of thousands of test kits, protective suits, face masks and shields

A US$3million donation from the China International Development Cooperation Agency to UNICEF Zimbabwe. China is also supporting the United Nations Population Fund in refurbishing neonatal clinics in southern and eastern Zimbabwe.

Story continues

Shielded from criticism

Suspicion among Zimbabweans is rife. It was strongest among government critics to begin with.

Indeed, Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo in early April called on Zimbabweans not to blame one group of people for the origin of the coronavirus in a clear attempt to shield China from criticism.

The late Robert Mugabe used to call China Zimbabwes all-weather friend, a gratitude sparked no doubt in part by China's willingness to turn a blind eye to the country's rights abuses.

But local thought leaders have resisted, using hashtags like #ChineseColony. Videos posted online showing the mistreatment of African migrant workers and traders, mostly Nigerians, in the city of Guangzhou last week haven't helped.

Attempts by Chinese diplomats in Harare to downplay the incidents only stirred anger.

You think that Zimbabweans are so foolish that they would buy into your pathetic explanations when the whole world knows what is going on? journalist Hopewell Chinono said in a tweeted remark to top embassy official, Zhao Baogang.

Chinono, who has more than 134,000 followers accused some Chinese firms operating in Zimbabwe of having pillaged the country and not paying taxes.

If companies like Huawei were paying taxes, Zimbabwe would not need donations, he said, referring to the opaque 2014 investment agreement under which the Chinese tech giant has been exempted from paying tax.

Snakes and bats

The remarks by Chinono reflect growing anti-Chinese sentiment in Zimbabwe, at least on social media. This may gain further traction, says Pigou.

China's support is intended for all Zimbabweans, but there is a strong sense that beneficiation remains mediated by state and Zanu-PF (the ruling party) interests, he said.

Lately even a member of Zanu-PF has let slip some frustration. In a tweet last week, Deputy Information Minister Energy Mutodi said the consumption of dogs, cats, snakes, bats, monkeys in China and other Asian countries had left us all at risk of contracting the Covid-19.

Said Mutodi: We hope to up our game on beef exports to China, Indonesia & others soon.
Unknown gunmen have attacked Toungo town in southern part of Adamawa State, killing at least two people, residents and police said.

One resident said as many as four people were killed.

There is fear everywhere, a trader in the area who did not want to give his name said.

He said the suspected bandits blocked road and killed people travelling along that route.

One of the four killed, a staff of Toungo Local Government Council, was on his way back from a village market, the trader said.

READ ALSO:

The spokesperson for Adamawa, Sulaiman Nguroje, confirmed the attack but said two people died instantly.

He said bandits waylaid some travellers and killed two instantly.

On hearing the attack, police swung into action for manhunt of the bandits, he said. We are on the top of the situation.

Toungo lies on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon and cross-border attacks have been common in the area in recent years.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 02:51:53|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ISTANBUL, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's biggest city Istanbul with a population of 16 million spent Sunday under lockdown in line with the government's measures to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several on-duty officials, press members, and police forces were seen patrolling the city's usually most crowded spots, while avenues, streets, and district centers were all deserted.

"We can say that Istanbulites this weekend have fully complied with the curfew," a local journalist told Xinhua. "The entire city was left to birds."

Taking advantage of the curfew, city workers carried out several asphalt paving works on some streets and highways, the Istanbul municipality said at a written statement.

Numerous teams were in the field during the lockdown by following the social distancing rule and wearing facial masks, the statement added.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier said the government would continue to impose curfews on 31 provinces on weekends until the end of May.

This weekend, the restriction was three days as it comprehended International Labor Day, which was marked on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry announced on Sunday that it extended the travel restrictions for 31 provinces until Monday midnight.

The government will decide whether to pursue the limitation at a cabinet meeting, which will be chaired by the president the next day, the ministry said at a written statement.

According to Turkish presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin, the government would also consider easing the curfew for elderly people at the age of 65 and over.

They might be able to go outside on certain days and hours, Kalin was quoted by the Hurriyet Daily News as saying.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Sunday said at a tweet that Turkey has reported 1,670 new COVID-19 cases and 61 more deaths during the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 126,045 and the death toll to 3,397. Enditem
Victoria Beckham has shared a defiant selfie following the shock reverse of her decision to furlough her staff.

The fashion designer, 46, took to her Instagram Stories on Monday to reveal she was starting 'another week working from home'.

Flashing a coy smile as she posed in a simple white and blue striped shirt, Victoria showed off a natural make-up look.

Defiant selfie: Victoria Beckham took to her Instagram Stories on Monday to reveal she was starting 'another week working from home'

The star had remained quiet on social media until this weekend, after she reversed her decision to seek a government bailout to furlough 30 members of staff following a major backlash.

She simply captioned the image: 'Another week working from home x #VVBSS20'.

Victoria also posted a number of snaps promoting her company, including her beauty brand.

Meanwhile, Items from Victoria's designer fashion label have appeared on Net-A-Porter discount site The Outnet for up to 70 percent off.

Items on The Outnet include a mint blazer with black lapels, reduced to 158 down from 565 - a 72 percent drop - and a matching purse slashed half-price from 850 to 425.

Snap happy: Victoria also posted a number of images promoting her company, including her beauty brand

Bargain! Items from Victoria's designer fashion label have appeared on Net-A-Porter discount site The Outnet for up to 70 percent off

The Victoria Beckham brand has an ongoing relationship with The Outnet, as do the likes of Valentino, Stella McCartney and Dolce & Gabbana. The appearance of the brand's items on The Outlet is not directly related to the the furloughing situation.

This comes after Victoria and her husband David, 45, risk fresh money fury as a report which alleges they took out a 10 million bank loan to buy their 18 million Miami penthouse has emerged.

The couple - who are worth 335 million - are said to have used their firm, Beckham Brand Limited, to take out the loan last year as part of David's Inter Miami FC project, which they are reportedly paying back over 10 years at a fixed rate of 2.5 per cent.

According to The Sun on Sunday, The Beckhams took out a 10 million bank loan to buy a the luxury property in Miami, America last year, despite having the finances to purchase the 18 million property outright.

After initially questioning the need for the super-wealthy couple to require a loan, a source added: 'If they hadn't borrowed cash to buy yet another pad, perhaps they wouldn't have had to furlough staff in the first place.

Slashed: Items on Outnet include [L-R] a mint blazer with black lapels, reduced to 158 down from 565 - a 72 percent drop - and a matching purse slashed half-price from 850 to 425

Yikes! This comes after Victoria and her husband David, 45, risk fresh money fury as a report which alleges they took out a 10 million bank loan to buy their 18 million Miami penthouse has emerged

'If Victoria could borrow 10million to buy a Miami bolthole, there are probably a few people thinking she could have borrowed money in the first place to pay her staff, rather than try and rely on the taxpayer.'

'While they actually applied for this loan towards the end of last year, the timing of its publication could hardly have been worse.'

MailOnline has contacted Victoria and David Beckham's representatives for comment.

The couple and three of their four children are currently hauled up at their Cotswolds countryside retreat amid the coronavirus lockdown after relocating from their luxury London home.

Second home: Victoria is currently hauled up with husband David and three of their four children at their Cotswolds countryside retreat after relocating from their luxury London home

U-turn: Victoria, who recently posted this Instagram picture of her 'working from home' set-up, has reversed a decision to seek a taxpayer bailout for her fashion firm by furloughing 30 staff

The former Spice Girl, whose family is worth 335million, had planned to use the Government's Covid-19 scheme to pay 80 per cent of the wages of some of her staff.

The fashion brand, which employs 120 people, sent letters to 30 members of staff warning them that they were going to be furloughed under the Government's scheme for two months.

She told The Guardian: 'We will not now be drawing on the government furlough scheme.

'At the beginning of the lockdown the shareholders agreed with senior management to furlough a small proportion of staff.

Previous plans: The former Spice Girl had planned to use the Government's Covid-19 scheme to pay 80 per cent of the wages of some of her staff (pictured in London, February 2020)

'At that point we didn't know how long the lockdown might last or its likely impact on the business. The welfare of my team and our business means everything to me.'

It is understood the firm's application would have cost taxpayers 150,000.

The firm denied the U-turn was a result of the public backlash and instead insisted the board 'now believe that with the support of our shareholders, we can navigate through this crisis without drawing from the furlough scheme'.

Turning to the taxpayer: Jamie Oliver, pictured, has sought taxpayer assistance to pay 80 per cent of the wages of 20 employees

In a statement, the company said: 'Victoria Beckham Ltd has been working hard to protect its people and, while adjusting to the impact of COVID-19 and the government lockdown, our decision to furlough a small number of our staff seemed the most appropriate option in keeping with many other businesses.

'The situation is dynamic, and, with the support of our shareholders, we now believe we can navigate through this crisis without drawing from the government furlough scheme.

'Our application was made in the best interests of trying to protect our staff, and that is still our absolute focus. We are doing everything we can to ensure we can achieve that without using government assistance.'
Healthcare workers don't understand why hospital executives won't cut their own salaries, or take larger pay cuts, in order to support first responders who are risking their lives every day.

Reuters

Frontline workers at hospitals are being asked to take pay cuts or unpaid time off to offset the lack of revenue from elective surgeries that are on hold during the coronavirus pandemic, The Daily Beast reported.

These workers have raised concerns, saying that hospital executives aren't taking pay cuts themselves or are taking minuscule pay cuts to their seven-figure salaries.

"I think it's a joke. I think it's a slap in the face ... They're not walking into the hospital every day as a frontline worker," one nurse said of the situation at his hospital.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Frontline workers who care for critically ill coronavirus patients are now taking pay cuts and going without paid time off while the hospital executives continue to make seven-figure salaries.

The pay cuts are meant to offset lost revenue from fewer elective and lucrative procedures that have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Daily Beast reported.

In Denver, executives at Denver Health got April bonuses between $50,000 and $230,000, while doctors, nurses, and other personnel were asked to work fewer hours or take unpaid time off to reduce costs.

In an April 3 email, CEO Robin Wittenstein said the policy, along with a hiring freeze, was meant to "reduce our total salary expense without the need to lay off employees or implement mandatory PTO/furloughs."

Stanford Health Care system has taken a similar approach, asking its workers to take 20% pay cuts for 10 weeks starting on April 27, Palo Alto Online reported. In response, 16 employees wrote a letter to executives and called the pay cuts "extremely disrespectful."

"Stanford Health Care is now turning its back on front-line health care workers and refusing to acknowledge our input when it comes to furloughs. Your refusal to work collaboratively and negotiate is extremely disrespectful to all of us who have been coming to work every day, often without proper protection, putting our lives at risk to care for patients," they wrote.

Story continues

Healthcare workers don't understand why hospital executives won't cut their own salaries, or take larger pay cuts, in order to support first responders who are risking their lives every day, according to the Daily Beast report.

At McLaren Health Care in Michigan, executives said they'll take 2% pay cuts and furlough 1,500 workers to save money, but some employees said that's not enough. According to local news outlet WYXZ Detroit, at least six McLaren executives make about $1 million.

"These people are making millions of dollars and they're going to give 2 percent back?" Jeff Morawski, a registered nurse at McLaren Macomb, told The Daily Beast. "I think it's a joke. I think it's a slap in the face... They're not walking into the hospital every day as a frontline worker."

In the Stanford Health Care letter, employees highlighted how the pay cuts could push frontline workers into personal financial instability.

"You've presented your furlough plan as a 'shared sacrifice' as if this extreme measure has the same impact on the CEO who makes over $3 million/year and a housekeeper or a nursing assistant who struggle to pay rent and feed our family in the Silicon Valley on $60,000 or $70,000 a year," the employees wrote. "This shows a stark lack of empathy and understanding for the reality of our lives."

In an email to Insider, Julie Greicius, the senior director of external communications at Stanford Health Care, said employees have the option to take pay cuts or "use paid time off incrementally over the 10-week period with the option to go into a negative PTO balance as necessary," and can pay back the remaining balance at a future date.

"At present, over 99% of all our employees have chosen to use the PTO option," Greicius said.

Denver Health and McLaren Health Care did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Insider
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4)  The Department of National Defense (DND) said it will find ways to reduce its expenses this year without compromising national security in order to help fund the government's COVID-19 response.

But Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana stressed that shifting funds away from the multi-billion peso armed forces modernization program is out of the question.

"There are no projects to be sacrificed," Lorenzana told CNN Philippines on Sunday, when asked if future procurements of big-ticket defense imports will be put on hold, in response to President Duterte's belt-tightening measures amid the pandemic.

"But we have funds that we can return to DBM (Department of Budget and Management)," he said.

"[Examples are] unobligated funds of prior years and travel expense allocation this year," Lorenzana said. "Obviously there will be very little or no travel this year."

The revised military modernization program is divided into three phases or horizons: 2013 to 2017 (Horizon 1), 2018 to 2022 (Horizon 2) and 2023 to 2028 (Horizon 3).

A DND spokesman was quoted in 2018 as saying that among the equipment to be acquired under Horizon 2, include at least one (diesel-electric) submarine and multi-role fighter aircraft.

"We are still scouting our budget for any that we could return without jeopardizing our operations specially the AFP," Lorenzana said.

Thanks, but no thanks

Lorenzana's statement came as the U.S. State Department announced last week it gave the go-signal for the possible sale of attack helicopters to the Philippines.

Wire reports and defense blogs quoted the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) as saying that the U.S. is offering to sell to the Philippines six of either of these attack helicopters: Bell's AH-1Z Viper (estimated cost at P22.8 billion) or Boeing's AH-64E Apache Guardian (estimated cost at P76 billion).

"We appreciate the gesture of the State department but the PAF (Philippine Air Force) has already chosen their preferred attack [helicopter]," Lorenzana said. "They chose the Turkish (T129) ATAK [helicopter]."

Details of the possible deal for the purchase of the ATAK helicopters are still unclear, but Lorenzana has been quoted as saying that the project cost is a major factor, implying that the Turkish suppliers' offer are lower than its American counterparts.

Reports, however, said that while the Turkish-made choppers are cheaper, its suppliers are having a tough time acquiring U.S. license for some of its components, subsequently delaying the project to move forward.

"The contract [with the Turkish supplier] has not been signed as we deal with issues on the contract itself," Lorenzana said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 10:02:07|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

KAMPALA, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's ministry of health on Sunday warned of social media reports alleging strong immunity among Ugandans and other Africans against COVID-19, saying such rumors are causing laxity in the fight against the pandemic.

Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the ministry of health, said in a tweet that the public should disregard such unproven theories, which pose a serious risk of undermining the country's efforts to contain the novel coronavirus outbreak.

"We have heard rumours of herd immunity among Ugandans and this is causing laxity," said Atwine.

"However, my opinion is that we should not dwell so much on such unproven theories because we risk impacts of mass infections. We continue to see the devastation it has caused in other countries," she said.

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the state-owned communication regulatory body, in March vowed to crack down on individuals who circulate misleading videos, news and advice on social media concerning COVID-19.

Misleading reports could incite violence, cause financial turmoil and endanger people's lives, according to the UCC, adding that suspects shall be prosecuted under the penal laws of Uganda.

So far, Uganda has 88 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 52 recoveries. Enditem
OTTAWA  Canadas court-oversight body has found a Manitoba judge was wrong to join her cabinet-minister husband in weighing in on the federal Liberals selection of judges.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Canadas court-oversight body has found a Manitoba judge was wrong to join her cabinet-minister husband in weighing in on the federal Liberals selection of judges.

However, the Canadian Judicial Council will not sanction or remove Manitoba Court of Queens Bench Justice Colleen Suche, for what the body deemed to be effectively advising a politician  Suches husband, Winnipeg South Centre MP Jim Carr.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The Canadian Judicial Council has found that Manitoba Court of Queens Bench Justice Colleen Suche, shown here at a swearing-in ceremony in 2002, was wrong to join her cabinet-minister husband, Winnipeg South Centre MP Jim Carr, in weighing in on Ottawas selection of judges.

Despite the CJC saying its "closing the matter," a transparency group will now ask the federal ethics commissioner to probe what happened, with the CJC suggesting Carr nominated candidates he wasnt aware of.

It is customary for justice ministers to consult fellow cabinet ministers and judges about appointments to courts.

However, the Globe and Mail reported in February on a leaked 2018 email chain showing Carr, who was at that point a cabinet minister, joined Suche in disagreeing with then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould over the selection of a handful of candidates for Manitoba courts. The pair had suggested an identical list of candidates.

The federal Conservatives asked the CJC to examine whether Suche was acting in a partisan manner; the council had British Columbias top judge, Christopher Hinkson, investigate.

"It is Chief Justice Hinksons conclusion that, given her husbands position, the activities of Madam Justice Suche have gone far beyond (solicited) commentary, and entered an area that is beyond the acceptable ambit for a sitting judge," reads the CJCs April 28 response to Tory MP Rob Moore, which the body posted online Monday morning.

JOHN JOHNSTON / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Jim Carr, Colleen Suche in 2013.

The letter quotes Suche as saying Carrs recommendations matched hers, because he "asked for (her) opinion about qualification of candidates because he did not know any of the people in issue."

Hinkson argued while Suche had tried to avoid perceptions of a conflict of interest, she "ought to have refrained from communication with the executive branch of government on the subject of judicial appointments."

Suche did not respond to a Monday interview request; Carr was not available Monday.

No one has accused Carr, Suche, nor the Liberals of any criminal wrongdoing.

The CJC also says Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal asked Suche after the February news report to refrain from weighing in on judicial applicants while her husband remains in government.

However, the CJC will not sanction Suche nor remove her as judge, which are within the CJCs powers.

In a written statement, Joyal and Manitoba Court of Appeal Chief Justice Richard Chartier wrote "the impugned conduct on the part of Justice Suche occurred without our authorization," and the CJC decision "reaffirmed longstanding and important demarcation lines that exist to separate the judiciary and the executive branch."

The statement did not take issue with judges weighing in on candidates for the bench, when they arent married to politicians.

The longstanding transparency group Democracy Watch is preparing a formal ethics complaint.

"It raises serious questions about the lack of independence in the political and partisan nature of federal judicial appointments, which everybody should be concerned about," said the groups co-founder Duff Conacher.

Hes skeptical of the CJC, as it involved judges overseeing each others conduct. "They tend to back off on a lot of these situations, when there really should be a stronger penalty," Conacher said.

"The independence of the judiciary is a key element in having a democratically-led government," said Conacher, who was concerned by the CJC statement that Carr passed along suggestions without actually knowing those candidates.

The federal opposition parties would not speak by phone Monday, instead sending statements that criticized Carr, instead of the judiciary.

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.

"It is important that ministers take every step to ensure that impartiality and independence are upheld in government operations. It is clear that Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Carr failed to do this," wrote Conservative MP James Bezan, who represents Manitoba's Interlake.

Northern Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus had a similar response.

"It is not acceptable for Liberal cabinet ministers to be discussing appointments with their spouse  regardless of whether that spouse is a sitting judge or not," he wrote.

"The rebuke by the judicial council against Justice Suche represents another red flag about Liberal interference in the appointment of judges."

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
Kevin Kane/Getty Images for Scoop MarketingJourney had been scheduled to launch a major North American tour with The Pretenders on May 15 in Ridgefield, Washington, but unfortunately, the trek has now been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An announcement from Journey members Neal Schon, Jonathan Cain and Arnel Pineda says, "There is no greater thrill for us than playing for our incredibly devoted audience, but their safety must come first. Having seen what the world has endured during the last 45 days, and not knowing what the rest of this year or 2021 will bring, we knew the right thing to do was to make sure our fans' health was not put in jeopardy and to provide immediate access to refund options given the unexpected events caused by this terrible virus."

The band mates also extend their thanks to "all doctors, nurses, police, other first responders and essential workers for their heroic efforts; as well as our fans for doing everything possible to stay safe."

Journey also sends best wishes to The Pretenders, adding that they "hope to see them in the future."

Schon, Cain and Pineda end their message by saying, "We will see everyone again as soon as it is safe to tour, and we will share that news as it becomes available. In the meantime, please Don't Stop Believin' in the wonder of life and in each other."

Fans can contact Live Nation to explore ticket refund options.

Journey tour's with The Pretenders was to have featured more than 60 dates and had been scheduled through a September 12 show in Bethel, New York.

The trek would've marked the debut of a new Journey lineup, as longtime bassist Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith were fired from the group earlier this year.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Srinagar: An Army colonel who led from the front during a fierce and close-range gunfight with militants in the woods of Handwara area in Jammu and Kashmirs Kupwara district on Saturday night was along with three other Armymen and a police sub-inspector found dead early on Sunday.

The others who laid down their lives while fighting militants include an Army major and two corporals and a sub-inspector of the J&Ks police Special Operations Group counter-insurgency unit, Army and police officials said.

Two militants were earlier gunned down by the forces, one of whom was a top commander of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba from Pakistan. An Army jawan was also injured and hospitalised.

The Army said a family taken hostage by the militants was rescued and evacuated to safety by Col. Ashutosh Sharma and his team they engaged in the gunfight.

The authorities suddenly lost contact with the Army-police team during the cordon-and-search operation in Handwaras Chanjimullah area. While reinforcements including Para commandos were rushed there, they couldnt move in due to hostile weather and darkness.

As word spread on Saturday night itself that all five members of the team might be killed, the Army said the operation was still in progress, and that the reports were speculative. Police sources said the guns had fallen silent on Saturday evening itself.

At first light Sunday, the troops on entering the area where the fighting had taken place found the bullet-riddled corpses of Col. Sharma and his team members  Maj. Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh and Lance Naik Dinesh and police sub-inspector Qazi S.A. Pathan  strewn round. Officials said the bodies of two militants were also found. They were later identified as Asif Reshi, a resident of Gund Chabootra village of Handwada, and Hyder alias Iqbal, a resident of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.

The two were buried in a cemetery in the Sheeri area of Baramulla district in the presence of a magistrate on Sunday afternoon. Defence spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia said the Army-police operation was launched after the security forces got an intelligence input saying terrorists were taking civilians inmates of a house in Chanjimulla hostage.

He said: A team comprising five Army and J&K police personnel entered the target area occupied by the terrorists to evacuate the civilians. It successfully extricated the civilians. However, in the process, the team was subjected to heavy fire by the terrorists.

Army and police officials said the militants had come to Handwara to receive an infiltrating group from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. Col. Sharma was the commanding officer of 21 Rashtriya Rifles and had been decorated for gallantry twice in Kashmir.
Open source

Kyiv city hall plans to gradually wrap up the quarantine, given the current and further possible development of epidemiological situation in the city. Vitaliy Klitschko, the mayor said so during the briefing broadcasted by 112 Ukraine.

He added that there should be a clear plan of doing this - for the sake of people's safety and restoring justice. Equal conditions of keeping and mitigating the restrictions must be observed, and Kyiv already presented the firtst part of such plan, Klitschko said.

"Everyone is sick and tired of the quarantine, and everyone wants freedom. But one should not be careless about safety and one's health. Besides, in the situation when the world expects a second wave of the virus in autumn. Believe me, every day, I'm waking up worried whether the city can take this challenge? Will our hospitals take it? Will there be enough doctors in case of emergency? Will the capital's economy last? How many of those objects that we planned to close books on we will be able to finish this year? How will Kyivites live, and how will the city evolve? Because I understand my responsibility for what's going on in the capital. And I do everything not to allow a spell of the disease. And I'm sure that by joint efforts and conscious perception of the situation, we will prevail," Kyiv mayor insisted.

Earlier, the government claimed that the lockdown in Ukraine would remain until May 22; however, some measures will be mitigated.
Restaurants will be allowed back open, outdoors at least.

On May 1, Gov. Henry McMaster announced his work or home order would cease on May 4, and, along with that, restaurants will be allowed to serve customers outdoors. That move comes as the governors accelerateSC task force, a group designed to plan out the states economic re-opening, discussed plans for restaurants reopening this week.

In his announcement, McMaster suggested the move was made with public and economic health in mind.

Our goal from the onset of this deadly pandemic has been to protect South Carolinians, but as we all know, the states economic health is a major component of the states public health, McMaster said in the announcement. South Carolinians, now more than ever, should be vigilant in protecting themselves, their loved ones, and their communities by practicing social distancing and continuing to follow the advice and recommendations from our public health experts.

The May 1 announcement came more than a month and a half after restaurants were initially limited to takeout service only  McMaster closed dining rooms on March 17  and the announcement detailed several provisions that establishments must adhere to when reopening for outdoor dining.

Among those are:

Tables are to be spaced a minimum of 8 feet from each other (measured from all edges of the table).

Groups at a table are limited to 8 individuals.

No gatherings in the building when entering or exiting outdoor seating area.

Maintaining strict social/physical distancing guidelines.

Tables, chairs and seats should be sanitized after every customer.

In the accelerateSC meetings, the governor, several state officials and hospitality scene players discussed a restaurant reopening proposal devised by the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association. The May 1 announcement matches the first part of that proposal, which detailed allowing outdoor seating on May 4. The proposal also called for dine-in service to resume by May 18.

The three-phase plan includes a timeline for reopening, safety and guidelines and training expectations.

Specifically, it says restaurants should put public health signage up, which encourage social distancing and not allowing dining if one feels generally unwell.

In the dining room, restaurants should have one employee specifically in charge of health and sanitation; use single-use utensils, menus and other items, or rewash them after every use; and ensure that staff pass health checks before shifts and wear gloves and masks if they desire.

The plan also details several other actions the state could take to further assist restaurants. Among many, it asks that restaurant owners who adhere to guidelines are indemnified from lawsuits predicated on transmission of COVID-19 to guests or employees; allow restaurants to continue off-premise alcohol sales with to-go food orders; and suspend gross receipts tax.

The guidelines detailed in this plan are driven by three major considerations: safety, gradual and phasing in, the proposal opens. We respectfully submit the balanced and strategic approach using best practices is the optimal approach for the state  our fellow citizens and our guests.

The full phase one proposal can be found here .

But even before the official announcement, the prospect of a May 4 partial reopening wasnt fast enough for some. On April 30, Irmo Town Council decided to get a head start and voted to allow restaurants to do outdoor dining with certain health guidelines

Irmo Mayor Barry Walker says the vote came with two reasons in mind: The need to support local restaurants, and the fact that the citys main source of funding is business licensing and fees.

When they pulled the rug out from underneath the businesses in the state they basically shut down the revenue stream in our town, Walker tells Free Times.

He says he drove through town on May 1 around noon and saw some restaurants open for outdoor dining. He expects the evening and weekend to have higher turnout for the restaurants.

Walker says he explained the councils intentions to vote on the resolution on a call with McMaster in the days prior, and was told that he wouldnt fight with him on it.

When asked if he was worried the towns businesses could face legal repercussions for opening while the governors executive order was still in effect, Walker thought it was unlikely.

I dont think the governor is going to send SLED down here, hed have to arrest a lot of people, he says.

The plan was met with little resistance from the council, which passed it unanimously. However council member Erik Sickinger admits he had waffled on his vote in the lead up and he expressed concerns over defying the governors order in the meeting, seemingly signaling he would vote against the resolution.

He says his vote flipped though due to the inequity for a restaurateur who is seeing big box stores be open from the beginning.

I feel for all businesses that are closed in the shutdown, but the fact is that takeaway is not going to [cut it], Sickinger elaborates.

Walker, who says he has a compromised immune system, says if someone is worried about the health concerns, they should follow suit with what he plans to do  Ill be in my backyard watching the plants grow and listening to jazz.

Were not trying to be renegades out here, Im trying to save our businesses, he concludes.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) has released the results of the teacher promotion interviews which were taken for some teaching staff in February this year.

We are pleased to inform staff of the Ghana Education Service that the results for the promotion test held on February 20 and 21. 2020, to various grades in the Ghana Education Service, have been released, a statement from the Service said.

The positions for which the teaching staff were interviewed were Deputy Director, Assistant Deputy Director I, Assistant Deputy Director II, and Principal Superintendent.

According to the statement, out of 30,280 who were shortlisted for the test, 18,475 candidates, representing 61.0% were promoted.

Teachers promotions

The GES on Friday, January 10 2020, announced that teachers in the country will now have to undergo an aptitude test before they get promoted.

Other categories of teachers will undergo interviews and the aptitude test before promotions.

According to a statement by the GES, the move is to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the promotion process.

This is supposed to be an improvement of the old system where staff were required to present their Appraisal Forms with endorsements by their school heads/supervisors, and a successful interview to gain promotion.

But several groups in the sector had contradicting opinions following the decision.

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), for instance, was in support of a part of the GES decision.

The Association said it would prefer the aptitude tests to the interviews, saying that it was better than the interview system because it eliminates the human factor, and is also less expensive.

People go for the interview and through some mysterious means or reasons, they are just not passedSo we have met with the GES and we have all agreed that an aptitude test depending on the rank that one finds himself will be the way to go because it takes out human influence and also contributes to the reduction of cost that leads to the delay of the interviews. So we feel that the aptitude test is the better option than the man to man interview that was leading to several problems, President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu said to Citi News.

Africa Education Watch (AEF), on the other hand, had doubts about the GES decision.

The group was of the opinion that both the old and new systems fail to address some vital necessities that are needed for the effectiveness of teachers.

In a statement signed by its Executive Director, Kofi Asare, the group said the process used by the GES lack the essential ingredients of results based human resource management, essential for ensuring increased performance and accountability of teachers.

The statement also bemoaned the fact that the promotion process is not linked to the success of the teacher in the classroom.

Meanwhile, the Flagbearer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has promised to bring back the automatic promotion of teachers in the country should he win the 2020 elections.

---citinewsroom
Two women who appear to be health care workers stealing packages off porches are disguised as nurses, police say.

Victims reported that the two women were seen following a FedEx delivery van around the Tri-Cities region of Washington, one of the earliest and hardest-hit states of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dressed in scrubs, gloves, and what appear to be identity badges hanging on lanyards around their necks, the women were captured on security camera footage driving around suburbs and stealing packages from front porches shortly after they were delivered.

Michelle Santiago, a nurse working a shift during one of the burglaries, posted a video of one of the women to Facebook.

"The ironic thing is she stole a new customized warrior rack for police equipment," Ms Santiago said on the post.

"After reviewing video from our neighbours' house it was apparent she was following FedEx through our neighbourhood so may be looking to hit up other houses in the area."

Kennewick Police Department posted photos of the women on Facebook in an appeal for help to find the "porch pirates," who they believe are disguised as nurses.

"To clarify, both appear to dresses [sic] as nurses and we do not believe they are actual nurses. The nurses we are fortunate to know only give their time, lives, and take the vitals of their patients (not their property)," they said.

A Kennewick Police Department spokesman told The Independent that those beliefs were based on opinions and not any specific evidence.

"The statement in the FB post was an opinion. We will not know the suspect's profession, or even if they have one, until they are in custody," the spokesman said.

He said the case has been transferred to the criminal investigations division, but no arrests have been made.

"We have been able to identify multiple suspects as presented to us from callers who saw the Facebook post. We have not been able to locate and questions any of them yet. Our officers are working diligently to do so," he said.
Click here to read the full article.

A single performers double act is among the showier maneuvers that can be attempted on film. Theres the technical aspect: Getting one actor, twice, into the same frame  or cutting to fool the mind into thinking thats so  is inevitably showy. (When David Fincher cast one Armie Hammer to play two Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, it felt, more than anything, like an attempt to show off all the director could do.) And, too, theres the way it maximizes the performer, giving opportunities for more acting as  from Nicolas Cage in Adaptation to James Franco in The Deuce to, yes, Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap, performers amp up the differences in their dual portrayals. All those actors capitalized, hugely, on the chance to create divergent characters who shared every physical detail, but little more.

Ruffalo, playing twins Dominick and Thomas Birdsey, is given ample raw material: The script, based on Wally Lambs novel, places Dominick, a relatively even-keeled fellow, in perpetual counterpoint to Thomas, whom we first meet when he cuts off his own hand in a public library. Its an act of ritual sacrifice that Thomas believes will end the then-ongoing first Gulf War, and its also a way for the viewer to distinguish between two brothers, who now only have three hands between them. But when we see Dominick by Thomas bedside in the hospital, commonalities emerge. Dominick, acceding to Thomas request that doctors not attempt to reattach the severed hand, bears an attitude of irredeemable sadness that seems to share a border with Thomas ecstatic brokenness. Both brothers carry the weight of the world; Ruffalo, playing off himself, illuminates how they shoulder it differently even as he reveals the simple fact that the burden is indeed shared.

More from Variety

Story continues

Ruffalos performances carry the series. This is his two-man show, with supporting characters glimmering in and out. In the main action, Dominick is providing care to Thomas, a brother who has for his entire life represented both a responsibility and a very rare source of mutual support, however conditional. Dominick is also recalling their entire story: Transported by memory, he examines the collapse of his marriage (with his ex-wife, Dessa, played by Kathryn Hahn, wrenching and mordant as ever) following the sudden death of their daughter. He further delves into the history of their family, from recent times, with a mother (Melissa Leo) ill from and eventually felled by cancer, to the farther-flung. Dominick hires a translator (Juliette Lewis) to interpret his grandfathers handwritten memoir and, in so doing, finds out about the recurrence of twins throughout his ancestral line.

In moments like these, one senses that the attentions the show places away from Ruffalos characters, however limited, still end up misspent. We get, for instance, significantly less of Leos character than we do of Dominicks grandfather, seen speaking subtitled Italian in flashback. Its arguable that the absence of the twins mother is as impactful as was her presence, but the practical effect is to keep us away from a deeper understanding of precisely what is going on. As if operating according to the mental rhythms of someone unable to cope with grievous loss, the show skitters about, showing, for instance, a lengthy scene of Dominick and Thomas as young boys on an unpleasant but unremarkable school field trip while alluding, elsewhere, to grievous abuse that we see only fleetingly.

The show may, perhaps, be too effective for its own good at inhabiting Dominicks mind. In its here-there-and-everywhere approach to the incidents of his life, it mirrors the thoughts of a person panicked by a situation coming to a head. But audiences could be forgiven, especially watching episodes on a weekly basis, for wondering what it all adds up to. A reveal late in the run purports to be the solution to a mystery the viewer may not have known was even pertinent; the throughlines of various relationships are frayed, and were meant to deduce via performance the ties of love and pain between, say, Dominick and Dessa.

Which is not to say that the performances dont get us most of the way there! Hahn, for instance, furthers the case that shes one of the very top actors of the current era of TV with a portrayal that glints with things she cant or wont say, if only because shes too weary. Dominick, meeting Dessa for the first time in a long while, tells her that he sees a certain irony: Its funny, people used to predict that you and I would be the ones who stuck it out. Her flat Its funny, cautiously ironed out of all emotion, says as much as any entire scene the two share.

Derek Cianfrance, who wrote and directed every episode, is no stranger to the territory he walks here, that of unremitting sadness as lived through characters to whom weve grown painfully close. In Blue Valentine, his 2010 breakthrough feature, we experience a festering romance, and then a breakup, via performances (by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) witnessed with an almost unbearable intimacy. And in 2013, Goslings death at the end of the first act of Cianfrances The Place Beyond the Pines hits like a wallop, arriving as it does after the audience has come to feel his ambitions and his weaknesses with something more than sympathy.

This kind of anguish wears more easily at the length of two-ish hours and a single sitting than it does over six weeks worth of hourlong episodes. What progress is made in Dominicks and Thomas stories tends to be fitful, wrenched forward through painstaking personal work but to little apparent result beyond forcing us to feel more and more pain. Therapy sessions, for instance, with a character played by Archie Panjabi, or debriefs with a social worker played by Rosie ODonnell, less advance what plot there is than continue the eddying motion of Dominick deeper into despair. That Thomas tenuous grasp on reality has brought him great pain is clear; that Dominick sees his own situation all too clearly yields much the same result. Ruffalo illuminates both states beautifully but that doesnt quite remedy the fact the show does little to illuminate anything beyond the two mens immediate circumstance.

There are elements to recommend I Know This Much Is True: Down the line, the supporting performances are shot through with soulfulness and a sort of stern determination that is a comfort. (ODonnell is particularly fine, in a take-no-guff role that demonstrates her facility for transmitting humanity even, or especially, through gruffness.) And, set in rural Connecticut, the series easily slots into a sort of New England melodrama  think Manchester by the Sea or, on the wilder end, Shutter Island  in which grief is, ultimately, to be borne. Theres less a lesson there than a sort of more-relatable-than-ever stoicism.

But in the end, I Know This Much Is True cannot fully bridge a credibility gap. Dominick has suffered more extravagantly than can reasonably be imagined, and at a certain point, we cannot help shutting down a bit  in part for the extremity of the agony, and in part because it leads nowhere. That the shows final moments feel random perhaps cannot have been avoided: Where does one go from the depths to which this story has plummeted?

Through it all, Ruffalo is his own best supporting actor  he proves, doubly, why Dominick keeps going, by illuminating the love that Dominick has for Thomas and that which Thomas, sustaining them both, reciprocates. Ruffalos the one youll watch for. But with all the talent Cianfrance brings to a show thats ultimately a mismatch for his gifts, I Know This Much Is True ends up being precisely the sum of Ruffalos two parts.

Best of Variety

Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Bijnor : , May 4 (IANS) It was love across the borders that culminated on a wedding on the borders.

Arvind Kumar, 28, wanted to marry Chhaya Rani, 25, but the problem was that he lives in a corona red zone in Uttar Pradesh while his bride to-be was a resident of a green zone in Uttarakhand.

The families came up with a solution and decided to solemnise the wedding, but due to complications, the wedding ended up being solemnised - not at the bride's home - but on the borders of two districts.

According to reports, the groom Arvind, a resident of Rehar area in Bijnor, on Saturday, obtained a travel pass from the district administration and set off to his bride's home in Jaspur in Uddham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand - a distance of about 150 kilometers.

However, he was stopped at the Bijnor border and was informed by the police that he cannot proceed further as the borders were sealed. Besides, people living in red zone are not allowed to travel into the green zone.

Arvind immediately called up the bride's family and discussed the situation.

A fresh plan was chalked out and the bride with her parents and a priest arrived at the Dharampura police picket on the Uttarakhand border. Arvind also reached there with a priest and the wedding was solemnised.

Arvind said, "We had lost all the hope when policemen did not allow us to enter Uttarakhand. But, after much persuasion, they allowed to get the marriage solemnised somewhere in the bordering area. They even helped us in getting married at the Dharampura check-post." The Dharampura check-post in-charge G. D. Bhatt said, "We could not let them through. Arvind lives close to Maniyawala village, where two persons tested Covid-19 positive last month. Later, both the families were granted permission to reach the bordering area.

They came at our post and we helped them. They tied the knot here." The police personnel also took part in their wedding and gave blessings to the couple.

All of them maintained social distancing during the wedding rituals.

Bijnor district comes in the red zone as 31 people have tested positive for coronavirus here. There are at least 185 villages located on the border of the two states, and inter-state weddings are common though not at police check posts.
Pune, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global military communications market size is set to gain traction from the increasing adoption of satellite communication (SATCOM) technology. This technology aids in achieving ship-to-shore, ship-to-ship, air-to-ground, and air-to-air communications. It also provides tactical communication that can be easily integrated on aircraft, naval vessels, and vehicles. This information is published by Fortune Business Insights in a recent report, titled, Military Communications Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis by Component (Hardware and Software), By Technology (SATCOM, VHF/UHF/L-Band, HF Communication, and Data Link), By Platform (Airborne, Ground, Naval, and Space), By Application (Command and Control, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), Situational Awareness, Routine Operations, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026. The report further mentions that the Military Communications Market size was USD 39.86 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 62.96 billion by 2026, thereby exhibiting a CAGR of 6.18% during the forecast period.





Browse Summary of This Research Insights with Detailed Table of Content: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/military-communications-market-102696







Worldwide COVID-19 Impact Analysis:

The emergence of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill. We understand that this health crisis has brought an unprecedented impact on businesses across industries. However, this too shall pass. Rising support from governments and several companies can help in the fight against this highly contagious disease. Some industries are struggling and some are thriving. Overall, almost every sector is anticipated to be impacted by the pandemic.

We are taking continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future.



Get a Sample PDF Brochure with the Short-Term And Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on military communications market,

Please Visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/covid19-impact/military-communications-market-102696







This Report Answers the Following Questions:

What are the Military Communications Market trends, growth drivers, and hindrances?

How many segments does the market have?

Which region is expected to lead by gaining the maximum revenue?

Which company would generate the largest share in the coming years?

What are the opportunities and challenges that the market may come across in the near future?





Drivers & Restraints:

Rising Investment in Military Worldwide to Accelerate Growth

In the defense sector, maintenance of consistent communication and protection of highly confidential information are two of the major requirements. Inaccurate transfer of real time data and leakage of crucial data may result in disputes and pose a risk to the safety of the masses worldwide. Defense communication is often dependent on a vast and complex network of software and hardware components for conveying the messages across the globe.

In addition to that, it consists of all the aspects related to the transmission of information by military forces for well-organized control, command, military surveillance, and functioning. The investment in the military is likely to upsurge in the coming years because of the rising disputes among various countries. However, such communication is mission-critical. Hence, it may hinder the Military Communications Market growth during the forecast period.

Segment:

Software Segment to Grow Rapidly Backed by Increasing Usage of SDR System

In terms of components, the market is bifurcated into software and hardware. The software segment held a 26.5% defense communication market share in 2018 and is expected to grow at a fast pace throughout the forecast period. This growth is attributable to the higher usage of software-defined radio (SDR) systems in military forces. SDR offers improved functions to the end-user. It is also capable of transmitting data, voice, and video across dissimilar systems. Besides, it can integrate cross banding and can perform multi modes of operations by utilizing multiple frequency bands.





Speak to Analyst: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/military-communications-market-102696







Regional Analysis:

Rising Commercial Aircraft Deliveries to Favor Growth in Asia Pacific

Based on the region, the market is segregated into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the rest of the world. Out of these, North America procured USD 15.35 billion in Military Communications Market revenue in 2018. It occurred because of the existence of numerous prominent communication equipment and system manufacturers in this region. Europe is anticipated to grow considerably fueled by the presence of several naval and airborne communication solution manufacturers, namely, Cobham Plc. and Thales Group.

Asia Pacific, on the other hand, is projected to showcase robust growth in the coming years backed by the rising deliveries of commercial aircraft in the developing nations, such as China and India. Apart from that, these countries are experiencing a surge in military spending to remold their military systems for strengthening the defense sector.





Competitive Landscape-

Key Companies Focus on Mergers & New Contracts to Gain Competitive Edge

The market consists of a large number of companies that persistently striving to achieve more share. They are, therefore, aiming to gain new contracts from the Army and Navy and are adopting the strategy of mergers and acquisitions.





Fortune Business Insights lists out all the organizations present in the military communication solution market. They are as follows:

ASELSAN A.S.

Cobham PLC

Collins Aerospace

General Dynamics Corporation

Honeywell International Inc.

Iridium Communications Inc.

L3Harris Technologies, Inc.

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Raytheon Company

Rohde & Schwarz

Thales Group

Viasat Inc.





Quick Buy - Military Communications Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/102696







Detailed Table of Content:

Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities

Key Insights Key Industry Developments  Mergers, Acquisitions and Partnerships Latest technological Advancements Porters Five Forces Analysis Supply Chain Analysis

Global Military Communications Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2015-2026 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Component Hardware Transceiver Antenna Transmitter Receiver Others Software Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Technology SATCOM VHF/UHF/L-Band HF Communication Data Link Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Platform Airborne Ground Marine/ Naval Space Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Application Command and Control Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Situational Awareness Routine Operations Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Region North America Europe Asia pacific Rest of the world



TOC Continued!





Get your Customized Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/military-communications-market-102696







Below are a couple of the latest key industry developments:

June 2019 : Harris Corporation and L3 Technologies declared that they are merging to form a new company called L3Harris Technologies. The new company would is set to become the tenth largest defense company worldwide. It is set to house around 48,000 employees.





: Harris Corporation and L3 Technologies declared that they are merging to form a new company called L3Harris Technologies. The new company would is set to become the tenth largest defense company worldwide. It is set to house around 48,000 employees. February 2016: Harris Corporation, Rockwell Collins, and General Dynamics were awarded a new contract from the Army to develop Manpack radios. These will be carried in rucksacks or mounted on vehicles.



Have a Look at Related Research Insights:





SATCOM Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Component (Receiver, Transmitter/Transponder, Transceiver, Antenna, Modem/Router), By Technology (Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), SATCOM-On-The-Move (SOTM), SATCOM-On-The-Pause (SOTP), SATCOM Telemetry), By Platform (Commercial and Government & Defense), By End-Use (Portable equipment, Land equipment, Maritime equipment), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Military Drone Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Fixed-Wing, Rotary-Wing, and Hybrid/Transitional), By Range (VLOS, EVLOS, and BLOS), By Propulsion Type (Battery Powered, Fuel Cell, and Hybrid Cell), By Technology (Remotely Operated Drone, Semi-Autonomous Drone, and Autonomous drone), By Application (ISRT, Delivery and Transportation, Combat Operations, Battle Damage Management and Others) and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Connected Aircraft Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Systems and Solutions), Connectivity (Inflight, Air to Air, and Air to Ground Connectivity), Application (Commercial and Military), Frequency Band (Ka-Band, Ku-Band, and L-Band) and Regional Forecasts, 2019-2026

Avionics Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By System (Hardware Systems (Flight Management System (FMS), Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS), Electrical System, Emergency System, Health Monitoring System, Collision Avoidance System, Weather System) and Software Systems), Platform (Commercial, Military, Business Jets, General Aviation), End-Use (OEM and Aftermarket), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Military Antenna Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Frequency (High Frequency, Ultra-High Frequency, Super High Frequency, and Extremely High Frequency), By Type (Dipole Antennas, Aperture Antennas, Travelling Wave Antennas, Loop Antennas, and Array Antennas), By Platform (Airborne, Marine, and Ground), By Application (Communication, Surveillance, SATCOM, Electronic Warfare, and Telemetry), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

5G in Aviation Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Platform (5G Airport and 5G Aircraft), Technology (FWA, URLLC/MMTC, and eMBB), Communication Infrastructure (Small Cell, Radio Access Network (RAN) and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS)), 5G Services (Airport Operations, and Aircraft Operations), and Regional Forecast 2019-2026

Military Radar Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Platform (Land Radar, Naval Radar, and Airborne Radar), By Range (Long, Medium, Short, and Very Short), By Application (Airspace Monitoring & Traffic Management, Weapon Guidance, Ground Surveillance & Intruder Detection), By Frequency Band (UHF/VHF, L-Band, S-Band), By Components (Antenna, Transmitter, Receiver), and Regional Forecast 2019-2026



About Us:

Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them to address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in.

Our reports contain a unique mix of tangible insights and qualitative analysis to help companies achieve sustainable growth. Our team of experienced analysts and consultants use industry-leading research tools and techniques to compile comprehensive market studies, interspersed with relevant data.

At Fortune Business Insights, we aim at highlighting the most lucrative growth opportunities for our clients. We, therefore, offer recommendations, making it easier for them to navigate through technological and market-related changes. Our consulting services are designed to help organizations identify hidden opportunities and understand prevailing competitive challenges.

Contact Us:

Fortune Business Insights Pvt. Ltd.

308, Supreme Headquarters,

Survey No. 36, Baner,

Pune-Bangalore Highway,

Pune - 411045, Maharashtra, India.

Phone:

US: +1 424 253 0390

UK: +44 2071 939123

APAC: +91 744 740 1245

Email: sales@fortunebusinessinsights.com

Fortune Business Insights

LinkedIn | Twitter | Blogs



Read Press Release: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/press-release/military-communications-market-9842


A blaze that gutted one of three buildings in an affordable housing complex opposed by some of its Broadmoor Bluffs neighbors came days after vandals smashed 30 windows and tried to set three other fires, according to the owner.

Lee Patke, the executive director of Grecchio Housing, which owns a minority stake in The Ridge complex on Cougar Bluff Point, said in an interview Sunday there was no reason to believe the fire was accidental.

Its a new building. There was no faulty wiring. There were no residents in the units, Patke said. There had been vandalism earlier in the week. It doesnt appear that it was accidental.

At least one security guard was at the complex, which was nearing completion, when the fire broke out, Patke said.

Its just not physically possible to have one person have eyes on the entire 3-acre site at the same time, he said.

Although security cameras are planned for the complex, Patke said he didnt know if they have been installed.

The first residents of the $14 million project in southwest Colorado Springs are still set to move in by the end of the month. Neighborhood opposition and a lawsuit delayed the project for two years.

Colorado Springs police and Fire Department officials couldnt be reached Sunday for comment on Patkes suspicions or for further information about the earlier fires.

The fire Saturday night destroyed the smallest of the complexs three buildings, wiping out 10 apartments valued at up to $2.5 million.

Unfortunately, it was at the one with the most three-bedroom units, so there are quite a few families that we were hoping to serve that we wont be able to as soon as we wanted, Patke said. The majority of the property is on track and well open on schedule.

A 30-unit building is expected to open by the end of the month or early June, and the other, 20-unit building is set to open a month later, Patke said.

RELATED:

Low-income housing developer files civil rights complaint against Broadmoor Bluffs neighbors

Judge settles battle between developer, Colorado Springs homeowners

Springs Ranch Golf Course going from 18 holes to 900 homes after council approval

The three-level building at 555 Cougar Bluff Point broke out shortly before 3 a.m. It was engulfed in flames that shot through the roof, requiring roughly 60 firefighters to extinguish, the Fire Department previously said. Colorado Springs police were also summoned.

UPDATE- Cougar Bluff Pt fire- Fire is under control. CSFD investigators are on scene to determine cause of fire. 2 alarm fire. 57 FFs were on scene. Footage courtesy of @AMR_Social as they arrived with our initial arriving companies. pic.twitter.com/EHgcZTAqB1  CSFD PIO (@CSFDPIO) May 2, 2020

The cause is under investigation and so far there has been no official mention of arson.

Patke said he didnt know if investigators found accelerants or other obvious signs of arson. He said the earlier property damage occurred late Tuesday or early Wednesday, including tagging with spray paint and breaking windows.

The vandals tried to set two fires in a parking area, and a third fire set inside of one of the buildings likewise fizzled.

Patke said he wasnt aware of problems with squatters or people loitering at the construction site.

The Ridge, with plans to put up to 120 lower-income people in one of the citys most affluent areas, provoked a bitter fight by Broadmoor Bluffs residents from the time plans were announced in October 2016. Opponents took to public hearings and online forums to rail about the potential for increased crime, congestion and lowered property values.

In April 2018, The Broadmoor Bluffs Neighborhood Association filed a suit against the city of Colorado Springs in El Paso County District Court, seeking to halt the development and saying the council violated the law in denying their appeals after the complex won the council's approval.

The lawsuit was squelched six months later by 4th Judicial District Judge Michael McHenry, but not before adding to delays.

The lawsuit led to counterclaims by the complexs majority owner, Wisconsin-based Commonwealth Development Corp., which accused the neighborhood association and two associated homeowners groups of engaging in fair housing violations. The civil rights complaint wasnt publicly released because of state privacy laws.

A message sent to a Facebook account belonging to the Broadmoor Bluffs Neighborhood Association wasn't immediately returned.

The Ridge will cater to people earning between one-third and one-half of the area's median income. It was built in a vacant plot of land near Colorado 115 and South Academy Boulevard, behind a Safeway grocery store.

Patke said the building that burned will be rebuilt, but he couldnt provide a time frame.
Ben Mendelsohn's Orson Krennic flanked by Death Troopers (Disney/Lucasfilm)

Ben Mendelsohn wants to return to the Star Wars universe as Orson Krennic in a spin-off series that sees Palpatines Empire at war with an opposing Empire.

Another Empire  that's the other thing that we have never gone to in Star Wars, Mendelsohn told Yahoo Movies UK. We have other peoples and what not, but they all seem to be run under the one Empire. I'd like to see f***ing Carthage.

Released in December 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story told the story of how a ragtag team of Rebels stole the plans of the Death Star from under the nose of the Empire, setting up the events of A New Hope.

Starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn, its considered by many fans to be the best live action Star Wars film released under Disneys watch.

In celebration of Star Wars Day, we spoke with Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn about his time as Orson Krennic, who was more than happy to look back at the pivotal role in the beloved film.

Actor Ben Mendelsohn poses for photographers during the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story fan photo call in London, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)

Krennic was Rogue Ones main antagonist, an Imperial weapons developer who oversaw the construction of the Death Star for Emperor Palpatine from the beachy planet of Scarif. The character was on the Imperial base when it was blasted to smithereens by the Death Stars super laser.

Read more: Cassian Andor show lands Rogue One script doctor

When asked whether he was keen to reprise the role, Mendelsohn was unequivocal.

Of course. Without any doubt, without any doubt, the actor told us while promoting historical Netflix drama The King, in November 2019. Krennic is a middle manager, which is a very unusual thing for a villain to be, but that's what he is.

I'm really proud of Rogue One because it feels like a dirty version of the original Star Wars film. By dirty I mean, like you can feel the environment. And Id be up for [another spinoff] just to wear that f***ing costume again!

Mendelsohn said that during the production of Rogue One, there was an idea to flesh out Orson Krennic further, with a deeper backstory and military past.

Story continues

There was an idea that we talked about, that he is actually a come-up-through-the-soldiers kind of guy, rather than being born into the officer class. That he is more Napoleonic, rather than like Henry the Fifth, Mendelsohn told us.

The battle of Scarif in Rogue One. (Disney/Lucasfilm)

But I don't know that we fleshed it out enough to the point where it became legible enough. And also, I don't think I performed him in a way which helped carry that idea forward.

Continuing to talk about Krennics early rise through the military, Mendelsohn continues, I'd like to have seen some of those earlier Rebels and Empires. Another Empire  that's the other thing that we have never gone to in Star Wars. We have other peoples and what not, but they all seem to be run under the one Empire. I'd like to see f***ing Carthage.

Read more: Rogue One editors reveal how the film changed in reshoots

The Carthaginian Empire was at war with the Greek and Roman empires during the 7th3rd centuries BC, and was eventually wiped out by the Romans in 146 BC

Ben Mendelsohn's Orson Krennic (Disney/Lucasfilm)

On a possible Krennic-starring prequel series, Mendelsohn says, Frankly, if we were going to do something more in Star Wars, let's f***ing see an opposing Empire. That would be awesome.

Rogue One star Diego Luna is set to return to the world of Star Wars in a Disney+ spin-off show based on his character Cassian Andor. Beyond that, theres a series centred around Ewan McGregors young Obi-Wan Kenobi, a female-centric one from Leslye Headland, the creator of Netflixs Russian Doll, plus at least two more seasons of The Mandalorian.

Season two of the Pedro Pascal-starring series, which delivered to the world the iconic character of The Child, is due for release in October 2020 (though that date was set before any pre-Covid-19 production delays).

Mendelsohn adds that this Krennic prequel isnt a proposed series thats in development  but his own idea that hes keen to pursue. Look, it's not something thats been proposed, it's only something that I've cooked up, he prefaces.

Ben Mendelsohn's Orson Krennic (Disney/Lucasfilm)

But what I would like to see, if we were going to do it with Krennic, is that you could go further into the early early stages of the Death Star and I think that's really interesting.

Mendelsohn laid down his one condition for his Star Wars return: that Rogue One co-star Mads Mikkelsen (who appeared as Galen Erso, Jyn's father) join his spinoff.

Read more: Rogue One writers reveal twist that was cut

Mads Mikkelsen is in the handful of absolute best people you want to spend time with on a set. If the rest of my working life was just filming one endless cleaning product commercial, and Mads was going to be there every day, I'd be happy, he says, on his desire to work on literally any project with the Hannibal star.

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 08: Actors Ben Mendelsohn and Mads Mikkelsen attend the 2016 GQ Men of the Year Party at Chateau Marmont on December 8, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for GQ)

That guy is so f***ing good looking. And that guy doesn't behave like a guy thats that good looking. Mads is f***ing awesome fun.

I really enjoyed our rapport. And I love Mads. You'd take a bullet for the guy. He's just he's strictly beautiful in every dimension. That's awesome.

Rogue One is streaming on Disney+ now.
Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani spoke to Smriti Kak Ramachandran about Ahmedabad emerging as a Covid-19 hot spot, the concerns of migrant workers, and getting the state economy back on track. Edited excerpts:

Gujarat continues to see a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases. There are over 5,000 cases and 300 deaths, making the state one of the worst hit. Was there a slip up in arresting the spread of the virus?

The state was under lockdown even before the nationwide lockdown was announced. There was a complete ban on movement of people. However, Gujarat is one of the leading states in India with a large number of international and domestic travellers. This increases the possibility of more cases. By the time we registered our first case on March 19, wed screened around 30,000 passengers and put them under quarantine. After the nationwide lockdown, we ensured strict implementation of MHA guidelines.

Meanwhile, a large number of people who attended the Tablighi Jamat Markaz, came here, and by the time we could track them, they had already come in contact with their friends, family and other people. This led to the rise of cases. Many hid their travel history. Had they co-operated with us, Ahmedabad would not have become a Covid-19 hot spot.

Another reason for rise in cases is our intensive testing capacity. With a capacity of 3,000 per day, we have tested around 80,000 people till date.

The government has not been able to reach out to allay the fears of migrant workers. There have been several instances of migrant workers rushing out on the streets; of stone-pelting and tear gas.

Gujarat has developed a number of regional economic centres, with Ahmedabad and Surat being the biggest. These cities host lakhs of labourers. We acknowledge their contribution in the development and prosperity of our economy. And we are empathetic towards their concerns. The lockdown has been a challenging time for all of us, and especially for them.

We ensured arrangements of proper food and shelter. We provided free foodgrain to migrant workers, including to those without ration cards. More than 10 lakh food packets are being distributed on a daily basis to the needy and there are shelter homes for the homeless.

However, there was another challenge of no work. The workers in Surat demanded to go back. The guidelines of the lockdown did not allow us to make travel arrangements for them in April. But, we did allow industrial units outside the containment zones to resume work, under certain conditions, followed by permitting export-oriented units outside containment zones. This led to opening up of more than 40,000 industrial units and businesses and around seven lakh labourers could resume work.

There are still thousands who want to go back to their homes and their families. First, we plied state transport buses to ferry people to nearby states. Now, the Indian Railways has started Shramik Trains, and we are allowing people to travel to their respective home states. The trains capacity is 1,200 passengers per journey; I believe it will take 10-15 days for all the labourers to be able to go back to their respective states.

Since there is large-scale movement of labourers from Gujarat, are you worried that the state may face a shortage of manpower?

Based on central guidelines, we decided to resume industrial operations from April 20 in areas outside containment zones and municipal limits. I do not think we will face a shortage of manpower in any of the sectors. I am confident that more and more units will be permitted by my administration to resume operations in the days to come, and more labourers will resume their jobs.

What are the immediate steps being taken to revive economy?

We decided to restart all those industrial units and businesses falling outside the limits of municipalities and municipal corporations and containment zones. We also provided the freedom to labourers to work for a 12-hour shift with additional remuneration for extra hours.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Adobe Stock

Feel-good stories about animals taking advantage of empty parks and natural spaces during the coronavirus lockdown are in the news, and Fasmendhoo Island in the Maldives recently experienced some exciting first-time maritime visitors of its own. Endangered hawksbill turtles hatched on a quiet stretch of beach at the Emerald Maldives Resort & SPA in Raa Atoll and were successfully steered towards the ocean by the resorts resident marine biologist, Giorgia Maggioni, and her team.

Known for eventually returning to natal beaches during nesting season to lay their eggs, Maggioni feels confident that an influx of young female turtles can be expected back at this new site in years to come. Notoriously picky when it comes to choosing safe nesting spots, the hatch also stands as a positive testament to how the five-star property, which opened last year, has conserved the pristine natural environment of its 120-hectare private island.

Giorgia Maggioni/Emerald Collection

Giorgia Maggioni/Emerald Collection

Designed by architect Edward David Poole, sustainability was a core philosophy of the resort from conception and construction through operations. Located in the Northern Maldives archipelago, the latest addition to the Emerald Collection uses native langhi langhi leaves, alongside driftwood and bamboo in place of non-eco-friendly imported timber and materials. The island is equipped with a composting facility and recyclable water irrigation system while solar panels provide hot water.

Emerald Collection

Additional conservation measures include no single-use plastics and electric cars and bikes to navigate the island. A range of educational programs is available for guests too, including guided snorkeling tours with Maggioni. Home to sharks, rays, corals and tropical fish, the islands wrap-around reef (one of the largest in the Maldives) can also be explored with PADI qualified instructors from the on-site Diving Centre.

While international travel remains at a standstill, for the moment, at least, experts predict that remote hotels will be a major draw once restrictions are finally lifted. With its collection of dreamy beach and overwater villas, including several with private pools and majestic Royal Beach Villa, future guests at the all-inclusive Emerald Maldives can look forward to safe social distancing never more than a few steps from the sparkling Indian Ocean.

Emerald Collection

Emerald Collection
Advertisement

A photographer from Staffordshire has snapped a series of unbelievable photographs of the country's smallest wildlife, with the colours and extraordinary detail of wasps, flies and grasshopper showcased.

Tech-savvy snapper Darron Matthews captured the insects using a sophisticated laser guided, high speed camera built by American boffins Cognisys.

The camera uses the beams with additional lighting flashes to obtain amazing photos captured within a split second of the insects crossing the camera's path.

Award-winning wildlife snapper Darron, of Norton Canes, near Cannock, Staffs has also got up close and personal with wasps, flies and grasshoppers.

There is a whole community of insect photographers who use macro lenses to get the very best shots. The modern technology allows viewers to see the intricacies and wonderful details of insects that are very difficult to see through the naked eye.

Woods, fields and lakes offer great environments for photographers to capture an array of insects in their natural environment. While most people tend to steer clear of insects, these snappers thrive when encountering little bugs and flies.

Mr Matthews said: 'I've always been fascinated with macro nature photography and the closer I can get, the better.

'A couple of years back I'd heard of a company in the States - Cognisys - had designed a setup that would capture amongst other things, insects in flight.

'After doing a bit of research on this, I'd decided I had to have this kit. Getting the subject to the right location is the tricky bit, but Ive created techniques which help this process.'

Have a look for yourself, with these stunning pictures below showcasing wasps, bees and grasshoppers.

SCROLL DOWN FOR PICTURES.

A photographer from Staffordshire has snapped a series of unbelievable photos of a whole host of wonderful insects, including this honey bee. There are 19 different species of bee in the UK, 68 in Europe and over 300 around the world. Males have longer antennae, bigger eyes and, no sting and no pollen basket compared to their female counterparts.

Using high-speed cameras, Darron Matthews captured wasps, bees and grasshoppers in their natural environment. This grasshopper is one of eleven different species in the UK, and all but one can fly. The Meadow Grasshopper is unable to fly due to its hind wings being stunted.

The camera uses laser beams with additional lighting flashes to obtain amazing photos captured in fractions of a second. This Common Darter is an insect that belongs to the dragonfly family and is native to Eurasia. They are typically found in lakes and ponds and are the most common dragonfly in Europe.

There is a community of insect photographers who use macro lenses to get the very best shots of bugs and creepy crawlies. Like this common blue damselfly, which are abundant throughout the British Isles. They can be found in still bodies of water or in wood and grasslands all over the country.

The modern technology allows viewers to see the intricacies and wonderful details of insects that can't normally be seen by the naked eye. In 2018, Britain saw a plague of wasps following a record-breaking summer of weather. Despite people's fears of wasps, they are very important to the pollinating process.

Woods, fields and lakes offer great environments for photographers to capture an array of insects in their natural habitat. This is a male Darter, its red appearance occurs as it matures while female Darters have light yellow thorax and abdomen.

While most people tend to steer clear of insects, these photographers thrive when encountering little bugs and flies. This German Wasp is common in Northern Europe but has spread and is a common sight in North America, Australia and the South Americas.

The best time to photograph insects is in the morning, due to temperatures being low and bugs being asleep or less active. Often referred to as 'yellow jackets', German Wasps are around half an inch in length and has typical wasp colours of black and yellow.

While the insects are waking up, photographers have plenty of time to get lots of great photographs during this time. This blue tailed damselfly is part of the common blue damselfly family and typically fly from April until early October.
Among the situations for which lawyers say nursing homes should be held to account: Homes that flouted federal guidelines to screen workers, cut off visitations and end group activities; those that failed to inform residents and relatives of an outbreak; those that disregarded test results; and homes like one in California, where at least a dozen employees did not show up for work for two straight days, prompting residents to be evacuated.
An Austrian Airlines plane takes off above the alps in Innsbruck, Austria.

Of the dozens of countries throughout the world that have bailed out their struggling airlines, Austrias government is the first so far to propose adding environmental conditions to its grant.

Speaking at a news conference on April 16, Leonore Gewessler, the countrys environment minister, said these would be a key part of the bailout of Austrian Airlines: If we are talking about several hundred million euros in taxpayers money, then it is clear that [such aid] will be linked to conditions, Gewessler said. Austrian Airlines is reported to be seeking support of about 800 million (US$865 million), but has not yet submitted a formal request for state aid.

Given aviations outsized effect on climate change, it makes a lot of sense  to use this situation to support this transformation, said Gewessler. The country already levies a charge of 12 (US$13) per passenger, but does not impose taxes on fuel, as is the case throughout Europe.

Globally, aviation contributes more than 2% of CO2 emissions, despite the fact that more than 80% of the worlds population doesnt fly. But its difficulty in decarbonizing, coupled with growth in the developing world, together mean it may reach nearly a quarter of global GHG emissions by the middle of the century.

So far, European governments have pledged 3.4 billion (US$3.6 billion) in financial support to airlines such as easyJet and Scandinavian Airlines, with a further 9.5 billion (US$10.2 billion) under discussion. Most of this support comes without financial or environmental conditions, though some governments have sought to limit payments to shareholders. TUI, the charter airline and travel company based in Hannover, Germany, received a 1.8 billion (US$1.9 billion) bridging loan from the German government, on the condition it waives dividend payments for the duration of the loan.

Story continues

Climate campaigners are split on the best way to approach bailing out airlines. While some, like Gewessler, see an opportunity to reform the industry through strict conditions, others believe the bailouts should be avoided altogether in the hopes that polluting airlines go out of businessor, at least, not be subsidized by taxpayers dollars. In the UK, more than 4,000 people have signed a petition to the government calling for it to decline any requests for bailouts from the airline industry. Instead, the petition argues, the government should support the employees to transition into roles in greener transport.

Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news.

More stories from Quartz:
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

By Matanat Nasibova  Trend:

The Azerbaijani pasta factory, a large producer of flour products in Baku, has defined a new export route for flour products, a source at the enterprise told Trend.

According to the source, the company plans to supply products to Iraq.

Negotiations are underway with foreign partners, it is planned to begin deliveries in the second half of the year. The export details are currently being discussed. Varieties of pasta will be exported, tentatively over the next two months. The factory produces 55-60 tons of pasta daily. It is planned to increase production by 20 - 25 percent by the end of 2020.

Production volumes did not exceed 45 tons per day in 2019, and this figure was even lower in 2018. Every year, the company increases production volumes to not only cover the population's demand for pasta, but also enter new foreign markets. So far, Georgia is a potential market for sales, but we are going to actively expand the geography of deliveries, including to non-CIS countries, the company said.

The factory produces 13 varieties of pasta.

The products have a certificate of conformity issued by the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents of Azerbaijan.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @MatanatNasibova
How Books and Buckets program in Long Beach aims to keep kids away from gang violence
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Sausan Atika, Ganug Nugroho Adi and Fadli (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Surakarta/Batam  Mon, May 4, 2020 09:16 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5b2ec2 1 National COVID-19-in-Indonesia,COVID-19,coronavirus,aid,Jokowi,bansos,Klaten-regent Free

While millions of people out of work are depending on the arrival of social assistance to weather the COVID-19 crisis, bureaucrats have dragged their feet in the distribution process and have even taken the opportunity to boost their popularity among voters.



The distribution of food packages and cash assistance is lagging outside of Jakarta as many regencies and cities continue to gather data about their poor populations, a problem that economists warned about.



In Central Java, Klaten Regent Sri Mulyani faced criticism for putting her image on bottles of hand sanitizer in aid packages sponsored by the Social Affairs Ministry. She is seeking a second term in office in the regional elections scheduled to take place in December.



Sri denied that it was her choice to put stickers of her likeness on the bottles of hand sanitizer, saying that the aid packages were distributed with those of other institutions, including the regency administration and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).



The aid from the social ministry was limited. More packages came from us. I personally also gave out hand sanitizer, said the PDI-P politician. Sri said the stickers might have been placed on the bottles by people who wanted to tarnish her image.

Read also: 'Omnipresent' Klaten Regent Sri Mulyani draws mockery About 24.8 million Indonesians, 9.22 percent of the population, are considered poor, living on under US$1 a day, Statistics Indonesia data shows. According to a World Bank report titled Aspiring Indonesia, more than 60 million Indonesians are at risk of falling into poverty.



The central government has gradually implemented physical distancing across the country under large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) over the past month. It is also carrying out social assistance programs to help underprivileged communities endure the social and economic difficulties of the restrictions.



The government has set aside Rp 110 trillion ($7.49 billion) for social safety net programs, including for the expansion of existing programs like the Family Hope Program (PKH) under the Social Affairs Ministrys Integrated Data on Social Welfare (DTKS) and other forms of social aid and cash transfers for those who are not in the database.



Problems have emerged in tracking down those who are not on the list. Some poor families have complained about not receiving packages while nearby well-off neighborhoods reportedly had.



In Batam, Riau Islands, Mayor Muhammad Rudi said many residents had not received the aid. He told them to report to their subdistrict and district heads and promised them that help would arrive soon.



We will provide more packages. For instance, today [Sunday] I received 1,000 food packages. I will give them to those who have not received them, he said, adding that he would prioritize the poor.



The NasDem Party politician said the city administration did not have enough money to enforce social restrictions on the island, which is located next to Singapore.

Regions implementing large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) (JP/Hengky Wijaya) In East Java, in addition to the social aid that is set to be distributed to 5.91 million families, the local administration will give Rp 100,000 to each family for three months. However, Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa said municipalities and regencies in the province had not yet submitted the names of recipients.



In Jakarta, the countrys COVID-19 epicenter, there were reports that several companies that the government had appointed to help pack staple foods for distribution to affected families had experienced delays caused by a shortage of special bags printed with a message from President Joko Jokowi Widodo.



Jakarta-owned food security company PT Food Station Tjipinang Jaya has been packing staple foods into red-and-white cloth bags with the printed message: Aid from the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Together We Fight COVID-19.



One of the firms workers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said his company had received an order to pack 20,000 bags per day in mid-April but that it had not been meeting the daily target because of insufficient packaging.

Read also: Staple food distribution hampered as bags with President's message run short Governor Anies Baswedan said that about 1.6 percent of the packages meant for 1.2 million beneficiaries had been misallocated in the first phase of distribution, which ended on April 25.



They did not reach the beneficiaries because of a wrong address or a case where the recipient had died, Anies said on Friday.



The distribution of aid is currently on hold and will resume 10 days before Idul Fitri. Anies said the administration was updating its data to include more beneficiaries.



SMERU researcher Luhur Bima said the government had shown some improvements in updating the list of beneficiaries from 2005, when the first cash transfer program was rolled out. However, a lack of human resources has made it challenging for the administration to achieve 100 percent accuracy on poverty data.



The data updating process is still not optimal. This causes confusion over who is eligible for the aid programs, he told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.



Donal Fariz of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) criticized the politicians who used the aid distribution for political gain, saying that it was tantamount to corruption.



But even the Corruption Law cannot charge such attempts as a form of corruption, [unless] they occurred during the election, he said.



ICW coordinator Adnan Topan Husodo pointed out that the mass distribution of aid during the pandemic could trigger many illicit practices, from illegal levies to price gouging.



During an emergency situation like this, unfortunately, supervision is lacking, Adnan said.
I am pleased to be a part of MIAA, and I look forward to using my leadership experience to help independent agencies strategize and succeed, Gravatt said.

Clayton brings energy and a unique perspective to our organization, and we are thrilled to have him join the team, said Doug Meacham, MIAA president and COO. With a proven track record for successfully leading large sales teams, Clayton is well-suited to spearhead MIAAs business-development efforts in Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.

Gravatt will work closely with MIAAs agency field specialists, Ross Hoppe, Rebekah Siegfried and Sam Stallard.

MIAA is a wholly owned subsidiary of SIAA (Strategic Insurance Agency Alliance) and is one of its 48 master agencies.
The COVID-19 virus is spreading rapidly through Michigans prison system. As of May 2, almost 2,000 inmates have tested positive with 41 prisoners succumbing to the virus.

Additionally, 278 staff tested positive with two deaths, creating the risk of further spread through the surrounding communities. A recent study by the ACLU predicts an additional 100,000 deaths in the US prison system alone if the countrys massive prison population is not significantly reduced.

As with other state and federal facilities, Michigans prisons have become incubators for the coronavirus. Inmates are forced to live in unsanitary conditions where social distancing is impossible. Particularly troubling is the situation at Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Michigan, where more than half of the population is elderly. Out of 1,400 inmates at the facility, 791 tested positive with 14 deaths.

A class action lawsuit has been filed by prisoners against the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) for its insufficient response to the virus, violating prisoners Eighth Amendment rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The lawsuit states, Despite the ticking time bomb that COVID-19 represents, MDOC has failed to implement necessary or adequate policies and practices throughout its prisons.

Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative stated, Its the duty of every state to recognize that a prison sentence shouldnt become a death sentence just because of a pandemic.

Brandy, whose husband is housed at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan, recently spoke to the WSWS about the situation he and other inmates face. The Cotton prison has 655 positive cases. He is currently housed in one room with 200 other inmates, like cattle. There is a rumor going around that 500 body bags were delivered to the prison, so they are absolutely terrified.

Prisoners do not have the option to practice social distancing. One of the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, also at the Cotton facility, describes sharing a 10-foot by 12-foot room with seven other inmates, five of whom tested positive for COVID-19.

The living conditions are unsanitary, with shared washroom facilities, phones and communication kiosks which are not being properly sanitized. Inmates are afraid to report their symptoms to staff, as they are placed in solitary confinement to isolate.

They dont want to advise staff for fear of being placed in disciplinary holding cells. Individuals in there constantly make noise, so they wont be able to call for help, Brandy told the WSWS.

Solitary confinement is recognized by the United Nations as a form of torture. A statement by Formerly Incarcerated Prison Experts says, for example, Inhumane solitary confinement is not to be confused with medical isolation or quarantine.  unsanitary conditions are even worse in cells designed for complete isolation. Isolation in one of these holding cells is likely to make the situation worse.

Robert Reeves, a prisoner at Parnall Correctional Facility, also in Jackson, states in the lawsuit that he was not given supplies to clean his cell and his requests for medical assistance were ignored. He has not seen a doctor, nor did he receive medical instructions on what to do if his symptoms get worse, despite complaining of chest pain, coughing up blood, and having problems breathing, the lawsuit notes. Reeves was told it was normal and to just endure it.

While the MDOC alleges that it is leading the nation for testing prisoners, as of this writing it has tested about 10 percent of the 41,000 prisoners held in its facilities. Nearly half of those tested have been confirmed as positive for COVID-19.

This growing wave of wholly preventable deaths is being met with criminal indifference from the political establishment. There have been growing calls to release non-violent, pregnant or elderly prisoners to stop the spread, but Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has refused, potentially condemning thousands to death. Whitmer released an executive order with guidelines to slow the spread in prisons, many of which are being ignored.

Particularly troubling is that a significant percentage of the population confined to local jails are legally innocent, imprisoned for being unable to afford bail. The ACLUs Justice Division states that on average 66 percent of the jail population belongs to this group, doomed to a potential death sentence just for being poor.

William Garrison, who was sentenced to life without parole when he was 16, died two weeks before he was to be released from Macomb Correctional Facility after serving 44 years in prison. His sister Yolanda had prepared a room for him and was making plans to celebrate his 61st birthday.

Kelsey Kauffman, the director of education at Indiana Womens Prison, has stated that the failure to release inmates earlier may be considered one of the great public health tragedies of our time.
J.Crew is the first major retailer in the United States to file for bankruptcy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The J.Crew Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy on Monday in a Virginia federal court with an agreement to eliminate its roughly $1.65 billion of debt in exchange for ceding ownership to creditors.

It is the first big retailer to fail during the pandemic and be pushed to the brink by widespread store closures.

More bankruptcies across the retail sector are expected in coming weeks with J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus expected to follow J.Crew.

The J.Crew Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy on Monday in a Virginia federal court with an agreement to eliminate its roughly $1.65 billion of debt in exchange for ceding ownership to creditors

Operations at J.Crew will continue throughout a restructuring and clothing will still be available to purchase online.

In addition to cancelling debt, J. Crew plans to close stores, though the final number it plans to shutter has not yet been determined, a person familiar with the matter said.

The coronavirus outbreak forced the company to temporarily close its nearly 500 J. Crew, J. Crew factory and Madewell stores across the country.

The company said on Monday that it anticipates its stores will reopen when it's safe to do so.

Anchorage Capital Group, Blackstone Group Inc's GSO Capital Partners and Davidson Kempner Capital Management hold significant portions of J. Crew's senior debt and are in line to take control of the company.

They are also providing about $400 million of fresh financing to aid J. Crew's operations, while it navigates Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

In its last full year of operations, J.Crew generated $2.5 billion in sales, a 2% increase from the year before.

J.Crew had aimed to spin off its successful Madewell division as a public company and use the proceeds to pay down its debt but the company said on Monday that Madewell will remain part of J.Crew Group Inc.

Operations at J.Crew will continue throughout a restructuring and clothing will still be available to purchase online. The coronavirus outbreak forced the company to temporarily close its nearly 500 J. Crew, J. Crew factory and Madewell stores across the country

Before the pandemic, J. Crew was already struggling along with other traditional brick-and-mortar retailers to compete amid a consumer shift to online shopping.

It also suffered after a strategic misstep of raising prices that turned off some shoppers.

Retail veteran Mickey Drexler led J.Crew for more than a decade when it become a coveted fashion brand but the chain appeared to lose its way at some point.

Talks in 2014 to sell J. Crew to Japan's Fast Retailing Co, the owner of the Uniqlo apparel chain, fell apart.

Drexler at one point conceded he misjudged how technological developments would alter the retail landscape.

He stepped aside as J. Crew's chief executive in 2017 and last year relinquished his seat as board chairman.

There are a number of retail chains that were already teetering at the start of the year, but the pandemic is wreaking havoc equally across the entire sector.

J.Crew is not the first to seek protection during the coronavirus outbreak and no one expects it to be the last.

J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus are expected to follow J.Crew. Jeans maker True Religion Apparel Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

Clothing store sales plummeted 50.5% in March, according to the latest Commerce Department report, and it has grown worse since.
"The selection of Natan Sharansky as the 2020 Genesis Prize Laureate coincided with the beginning of the worst pandemic faced by humanity in the past one hundred years," said Stan Polovets, Co-Founder and Chairman of The Genesis Prize Foundation. "Natan felt strongly that the most positive impact he could have as the Genesis Prize Laureate is to donate his $1 million prize in its entirety to organizations combating coronavirus and helping individuals most impacted by this vicious, invisible enemy."

"Many people of good will around the world have given generously to help organizations and individuals who have been devastated by COVID-19; I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to this humanitarian effort," said Natan Sharansky. "Throughout the long history of the Jewish people, our ability to come together as one during the times of crisis - to unite and help each other - gave us strength to persevere and face the future with hope and confidence. That's why I cannot think of a better way to use the Genesis Prize money than to fund those who are fighting the coronavirus epidemic, both in Israel and around the world."

Genesis Co-Founder Polovets noted that some of the grants will deliver immediate relief to those most affected; others will seed longer-term advances against the disease. The former group includes Israeli organization 1221 Assistance for All  an emergency support service for residents of Jerusalem; ALEH Negev, working with children with severe disabilities; Association of Rape Crisis Centers of Israel, responding to a 40% increase in domestic violence cases; Hillel and Moishe House, supporting isolated elderly in Europe and the Former Soviet Union.

Among the projects with a longer-term focus are grants to Israel's Weizmann Institute's research program to develop a coronavirus vaccine, and two leading US universities, Columbia and New York University (NYU). The grant to Columbia University Irving Medical Center provides seed funds for researchers to develop new treatments, while the grant to NYU's Tandon School of Engineering funds a competition for undergraduate and graduate students to address the acute engineering challenges presented by the coronavirus, including creating "zero contact" hardware, such as doors and payment systems.

"New York has suffered the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world; the city  and its Jewish community  have been profoundly affected. The grants to Columbia and NYU provide additional resources to the two world-class centers of scientific excellence in New York  where The Genesis Prize Foundation is headquartered  as they work to help the city emerge from the current crisis," said GPF's Polovets.

Morris Kahn, a prominent Israeli philanthropist who contributed additional funds in honor of Natan Sharansky, said: "We are not only battling to save the lives of those infected by COVID-19; the harsh reality has threatened the lives of many, including victims of domestic violence and those less fortunate in need of medical attention. Mr. Sharansky is an example of a true believer in life and the bounty of life, his decision to support these important organizations is the core of the Jewish values  to be compassionate and help ease the pain of others."

Isaac Herzog, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and Chairman of the Genesis Prize Selection Committee, said: "I admire Natan's decision to donate his award in this hour of profound need. The range of projects selected for Genesis Prize grants is strategic, comprehensive and addresses the need for immediate humanitarian relief as well as preparedness for the challenges of tomorrow. The Jewish Agency is honored to partner with Natan and the Genesis Prize in this 2020 philanthropic program."

In addition to the fifteen grants, Genesis announced a special competition in honor of Sharansky, which will recognize Israeli companies working to combat COVID-19 and mitigate the damage from future pandemics. Start-Up Nation Central, an NGO founded by philanthropist Paul Singer, will run the competition in partnership with GPF to promote Israeli innovation globally. GPF and Start-Up Nation Central will award prizes to selected Israeli companies, which either have made significant contributions to the effort to fight COVID-19 or are working on promising technologies, therapies, or vaccines that have the potential to provide significant benefits in the near future. Winners of the competition, to be held in the summer, will donate their prize funds to the charities of their choice.

For additional information about the grantees: https://www.genesisprize.org/laureate-initiatives/fighting-the-coronavirus-pandemic

BACKGROUND

The annual Genesis Prize, dubbed the "Jewish Nobel" by TIME Magazine, honors extraordinary individuals for their outstanding professional achievement, contribution to humanity, and commitment to Jewish values. Legendary Jewish leader and activist Natan Sharansky was announced in December 2019 as the 8th Genesis Prize Honoree in recognition of his life-long advocacy for human rights, democracy, service to the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

Launched in 2013, the Prize is financed through a permanent endowment of $100 million established by The Genesis Prize Foundation.

Previous Genesis Prize laureates are former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; actor, producer and peace activist Michael Douglas; virtuoso violinist and advocate for individuals with special needs Itzhak Perlman; sculptor and advocate for the rights of refugees Sir Anish Kapoor; Oscar-winning actress and social activist Natalie Portman; and owner of New England Patriots and founder of the leading foundation to combat anti-Semitism Robert Kraft. In 2018, the Genesis Prize Foundation honored U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with its inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to social justice and equal rights.

All laureates have selected causes that are important to them, and award funds in their honor have been donated to these causes. These initiatives have included support of social entrepreneurship based on Jewish values, inclusiveness of intermarried families in Jewish life, improving the lives of individuals with special needs, helping to alleviate the global refugee crisis, advancing women's equality, and combatting anti-Semitism and efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel.

SOURCE The Genesis Prize Foundation

Related Links

http://www.genesisprize.org


Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced the new Bounce Back loans seven days ago in response to criticism that existing government support was taking too long to reach small businesses. (PA)

Thousands of small businesses have applied for the governments new coronavirus support loans within the first few hours of launching.

The governments Bounce Back loan scheme officially launched on Monday, offering small businesses 100% state-backed loans of up to 50,000 ($62,000).

Major high street banks are underwriting the loans and online application forms went live on Monday morning. Executives said they were already seeing significant demand for the new loans.

Matt Hammerstein, chief executive of Barclays Bank UK (BARC.L), told the Treasury Select Committee his bank had received 200 applications in just the first minute.

David Oldfield, CEO of commercial banking at Lloyds Bank (LLOY.L), said Lloyds had received 5,000 applications by 10am.

We expect really quite significant volumes flowing through to the Bounce Back loans, Oldfield told the Treasury Select Committee.

READ MORE: UK government to unveil rules for workplaces after COVID-19 lockdown

Hammerstein said: I think there will be extraordinary demand.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the new Bounce Back loan scheme just seven days ago. The programme was launched in response to criticism that existing government support was taking too long to reach small businesses.

Coronavirus business interruption loans (CBILs) were launched in March to support companies through the COVID-19 pandemic. The scheme required banks to asses a business viability before the crisis and ability to repay loans after the pandemic. Critics said these checks led to delays and high levels of rejected applications.

The business interruption loan scheme has started to reach the front line, but small firms have still been having difficulty accessing finance, said Tej Parikh, chief economist at the Institute of Directors.

Oldfield told MPs the Bounce Back scheme was built around simplicity.

Whatever someone applies for within that range, subject to it being no more than 25% of turnover, then we will do no further checks other than the fraud checks, he said.

Story continues

Businesses will only be asked about their turnover, business details, and the amount being requested under the Bounce Back scheme.

Hammerstein said the 200 applications Barclays received were approved within minutes and money should reach business-owners over the course of the next 24 hours.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Firms warned on 'knee-jerk' lay-offs as Rolls-Royce job fears grow

Amanda Murphy, head of commercial banking UK at HSBC (HSBA.L), said there was still some confusion over the fact that business-owners would still be on the hook for money borrowed under the Bounce Back scheme.

It is a loan, its not a grant, Murphy told MPs.

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK
Real estate and REIT stocks have been challenged in this pandemic. REITs are normally known as very defensive stocks because of their strong, contracted cash flows. Unfortunately, this characteristic is challenged in an environment where tenants cannot operate or pay their rents.

Upgrade your real estate portfolio

As a result, a divide has formed between REITs that are investable and those that are not. Despite many attractive yields, it is wise to avoid real estate stocks heavily exposed to hospitality, secondary retail/office markets, and struggling economic geographies (like Alberta).

If you look beyond these areas, there are some really solid opportunities. In fact, many best-in-class real estate stocks are trading well below their book value and are bargains today.

If you dont know where to look, a good place to start is with real estate focused on human essentials: housing, groceries, and e-commerce. Below are three stocks exposed to these themes. They are trading below book value and are paying attractive, sustainable dividends.

Multi-family real estate stocks

Apartment housing is a necessity, even in a crisis. People simply need places to live and rent. With many governments providing assistance to back-stop temporary rents, cash flows in this segment should be relatively stable over the short term.

One stock that is really attractive now is European Residential REIT (TSXV:ERE.UN). It is a REIT focused completely on Europe (particularly in the Netherlands). It just announced that it received 100% of residential rents for April. Since March, occupancy actually rose 10 basis points to 98.4%. Not many other apartment REITs have reported growth, so this is very positive.

The Netherlands has a very tight housing market. Demand for rental space is consistently strong. Of course, times are uncertain, but ERES REIT is trading at a discount to book, has a strong 4% yield, and has a very long-term acquisition pipeline. It is smaller than many peers, but it has a tonne of upside potential from here.

Story continues

Grocery-anchored REITs

Grocery-anchored REITs have held up reasonably well during the pandemic crisis. Choice Properties REIT (TSX:CHP.UN) is one of Canadas largest grocery-anchored REITs, with a diversified portfolio of retail, industrial, and office properties. Its prime tenant and partner is Loblaw (a solid staple name across Canada).

The REIT just announced its Q1 results last week. It stated that it had received 86% of contracted rents for April. 75% of its retail portfolio caters to consumer-staple businesses (grocery, pharmacy, liquor, etc.), so its rental base is fairly stable. It also has a strong industrial portfolio that posted very strong operations.

The company has $79 million in cash and an additional $1.2 billion in excess liquidity. This ensures it can pay its 5.9% dividend payout for 2020.

Provinces are slowly removing pandemic restrictions, so it should revert back to fairly normal operations (and hopefully normal valuations) sometime this summer.

Real estate stocks exposed to e-commerce

E-commerce is becoming a norm across the globe. In 2020, e-commerce is expected to make up for 12-15% of retail sales in the U.S. alone. As this theme grows, demand for specifically e-commerce designed properties will also grow.

WPT Industrial REIT (TSX:WIR.U) is perfectly equipped to meet this growing trend. It has 102 modern logistics properties located across top U.S. distribution hubs. Its key tenants are consumer staple distributors, e-commerce giants, and delivery/courier services.

The REIT is trading significantly below fair market value and pays an attractive 6.7% yield. While it has some short-term revenue risk, the long-term fundamentals of this real estate class are very strong.

It has the backing of a number of Canadian institutions (AIMCO being one), which is fuelling a nice development pipeline. Overall, it has the right properties in the right locations and strong thematic tailwinds. It is a great buy today.

The bottom line

During the pandemic, look for essential, need-based real estate with secular tailwinds and the capacity to grow through these challenging times. Take the market crash as an opportunity to upgrade your portfolio and buy bargain-price, best-in-class real estate stocks today!

The post Real Estate: 3 Top TSX Stocks to Own in a Pandemic Crisis appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

More reading

Fool contributor Robin Brown owns shares of European Residential REIT and WPT INDUSTRIAL REIT USD.

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
Different businesses will have different goals around data usage, says Professor Leo Paas, head of the department of marketing at the University of Auckland Business School.

Nonetheless, a common adage applies across sectors: Before doing anything with data, you need to know what your key concern is, says Paas, discussing the remit of one of the newest C-suite roles, the chief data officer.

For instance, a mobile phone companys key concern is when customers switch from one provider to another. So, you want to use big data to reduce this switching, and your goal is customer retention, says Paas.

In the case of banks, the key concern is not people switching banks. People do not switch banks often, but banks are concerned their customers are buying some of the products they offer from competitors. Their goal is to get the optimal share of wallet and cross-selling, he notes.

For supermarkets, he adds, the concern is how to get more people often to spend it from them and not from the competitor.

He advises: Dont start with the idea that you have this big data set and ask, what should I do with it? Start with your strategic goals, your strategic challenges and then ask, how should I solve them? Do you have all the data to solve them?

If you are looking at retention modelling, you should look at how to use data to detect people who are leaving, he states. Why are they leaving? What data do I need? So, collect data with regards to domain knowledge and your strategy goal.

Key advice on using data analytics: Keep it simple

Paas says organisations should start with simple techniques and only use complicated techniques if they can prove they can add something. Otherwise, keep it simple.

By doing this, everyone understands the terminologies to be used and people from different disciplines can work together on the project.

If, for example, you want to improve the help desk, instead of investing in data, you may have to provide courses for the help desk employees. Then data can then be used to monitor whether the service provided has improved over time. It should be strategy driven, with data helping that out, and not the other way around.

As to who should oversee data in the company, Paas believes it depends on the size of the organisation.

Large companies are now moving towards the chief data officer, that is the ideal, he states. We have at least at the highest level someone who is responsible for the data.

He points out, however, that the chief data officer should be multidisciplinary who knows both data and strategy, not just technology. There are already a few such chief data officers, and all are reporting to the CEO.

It is different in small companies, and the risk is they veer into two directions, as he has observed in New Zealand.

The first is small companies are not using their data. That is a lost opportunity, he says. The other direction is when they try to make a data set that is too big and do not know what to do with it. They almost drown in it.

He notes that sometimes, these companies only have one or two persons who understand the data and work with it. Thus, for small companies, it is even more important to consider the key strategy first, and then follow this with the data, because, if they do everything [with their data], they will not be able to afford it.

He cites the case of a small company that had a couple of Excel databases. They got an external firm to gather the data in one large database. The company still did not know what to do with it. They had data in one platform but no applications for it.

It would have been better if they started with a discussion with everyone involved, says Paas. What are the strategic problems, then what data can be used to solve those? Then maybe have slightly bigger or selective data with relevant information and develop it from there. Once you have a couple of good cases, you can always extend it further.

For larger organisations with a chief data officer, he says a practice that works well is to have an analyst or data scientist in each division. They know the terrain really well, and at the same time, there is a centre of excellence where they share the information.

Dealing with the shortage of data professionals

Paas also discusses the need to develop more data professionals, looking at it as a long-term joint effort between the academe and industry.

He says in primary school, for instance, students can start with basic maths skills, and then programming and coding, for them to be able to make simple computer games. He cites his youngest son, aged 11, did basic Python programming, an optional course in his school. His eldest son studied graphic design programming. The nice thing about this at intermediate school is that it forms a starting point for developing a mindset towards programming and also triggers interest. There should be more opportunities like these.

For the record, I am not pushing my kids to be data scientists,he says, laughing. But I believe quantitative education (teaching and studying statistics) should be stronger and be everywhere.

He says universities should be educating more people who have knowledge of data science but also of business who can communicate about analytics. These students need to understand how to apply data techniques and how these relate to strategy and solving business problems.

Computer science schools may need master level programmes so people with a bachelors in computer science learn the business side of things. Or a bachelors in data science can lead to a master level degree with the strategic side of IT, says Paas.

The chief data officer is the CIOs peer in the C-suite

His insights link with Gartners new report which affirms that the chief data officer is an increasingly prevalent, powerful and long-term role.

For its fifth annual CDO survey, Gartner worked on the following strategic assumption: By 2021, in 75 per cent of large enterprises, the office of the chief data officer will be seen as mission critical, comparable to IT, business operations, HR, and finance.

Gartner says it surveyed 293 CDOs or the highest level data and analytics role with more than half (52 per cent) from North America, 8 per cent from Latin America, 31 per cent from Western Europe, and 8 per cent from Asia Pacific.

Due to the fact that the role is quite new and overlaps, or seems to, with other roles, such as the chief information officer, organisations may have unrealistic expectations as to what a CDO can do and in what time frame, says Gartner.

Thus, it recommends that CDOs define their roles as working alongside the CIO and the technology delivery function. Focus on creating business value by defining business outcomes first, and then producing and analysing the data that links to those outcomes.

The survey finds that chief data officers who report to the chief executive are 170 per cent more likely to be successful in their roles. While it is still possible to fail while reporting to the CEO, it is far less likely, says Gartner.

According to Gartner, this aligns with what it has been saying from the start  that the chief data officer is a business role whose emphasis is on creating value, as against efficiency or cost reduction.

The role should not be viewed as technically focused, it further points out. While we recognise that many CDOs report to the CIO, we advise that this should be a temporary situation. The CDO will fail to create differentiation and value if they are perceived to be another CIO or technology-focused person.

CDOs who find themselves buried in IT have less of a chance of being successful, reports Gartner. This is a finding that CIOs should also pay attention to in order to differentiate technology and information. Having a peer is better for the CIO than having a subordinate.

Gartner lists various ways chief data officers can further enable data and analytics across the organisation:
Hundreds of irate metro workers at the BMRCLs cement casting yard in Bommanahalli demanded immediate release of their pending salaries on Sunday, forcing BMRCL officials and the police to rush to the site in the evening to contain a volatile situation.

The flash protest that started on Saturday threatened to spiral out of control on Sunday afternoon as more than 500 workers surrounded the in-charge officer and demanded they be sent home right away. Officials said vehicles and office building were damaged.

Sanjay Razak, a labourer from Palamu district in Jharkhand, said apart from delaying the wages, the company has stopped providing basic amenities. It has been two days since they supplied water to our area. They have closed the ration shop in the yard for the last three days. The police beat us up if we go out to buy anything, he said.

Yesterday, after the media came here, we were assured that we will be sent home today, said Shankar Singh, another labourer. The people from Bihar were taken away in a bus. But there is no information about our arrangement for people going to Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and other states.

We received our salary only till February. We were paid for the first week of March, Singh said, as the protest made a mockery of social distancing.

A youth from MP, who did not want to give his name, cut off Singh. Let them take away my salary. I just want to go home. But I have spent all my savings on buying rations and other stuff, he said.

To a question, the workers said they had not received free food or rations from the state government in the last two months. We dont have ration cards, they said.

BMRCL Managing Director Ajay Seth, who visited the site, said he spoke to the workers to understand the issue. They have some genuine grievances, though not major, but half of them are eager to go back. Today (Sunday), 130 workers have left for Bihar, he said.

To a question on workers allegations that they were being forced to stay, he said only an appeal was made for them to stay back and continue the work. The workers were assured about their healthcare, food and wages. While we appealed to them to stay back, the option of applying on Seva Sindhu portal (for travel) was also explained to them, he said.

The managing director said outsiders had instigated the workers. Yesterday, they indulged in violence instigated by outsiders. A BMRCL engineer got injured. Today, again, they indulged in violence damaging vehicles and office (building). The same outside organisation was involved in raising the anxiety of workers today also, he added.
Three people have been charged in the fatal shooting of a security guard at a Family Dollar store in Flint, Michigan. Calvin Munerlyn, 43, was shot dead after an altercation May 1 when he refused to allow a customer's daughter inside the store because she wasn't wearing a face mask, a local prosecutor said Monday.

Ramonyea Travon Bishop, 23; Larry Edward Teague, 44; and Sharmel Lashe Teague, 45, all face first-degree premeditated murder and gun charges in connection to Munerlyn's death. Sharmel Teague is in custody. Police are still searching for the two men, who are considered armed and dangerous.

In a news release, Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said Sharmel Teague "began yelling at Munerlyn and spit at him and Munerlyn told her to leave the store and instructed a cashier not to serve her."

Sharmel left the store. About 20 minutes later, she returned with two men who officials identified as Larry Teague and Ramonyea Bishop. The two men confronted Munerlyn, and Bishop shot Munerlyn in the back of the head, the prosecutor's office said.

Bishop is Sharmel Teague's son, the office said. The daughter was not identified or charged.

Police discovered Munerlyn "unconscious and bleeding from his head" at the scene, the release said. He was later pronounced dead at a local medical center. "The death of Calvin Munerlyn is senseless and tragic and those responsible will be held accountable to the fullest extent under the law," Leyton said. "From all indications, Mr. Munerlyn was simply doing his job in upholding the governor's executive order related to the COVID-19 pandemic."

family-dollar-tree-homicide.png

Police at the scene of a deadly shooting at a Family Dollar store in Michigan on Friday, May 1, 2020. WJRT-TV via NNS

Munerlyn's wife told MLive.com that he had worked in the security profession for nearly three decades and had been at the Family Dollar store for a little over a year.

A GoFundMe page has been created for Munerlyn and his family. As of Monday, it has raised more than $61,000.

Story continues

Last month, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered residents to wear a face-covering in enclosed public areas to stem the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 4,000 people in the state.

"It is incredibly sad that in this crisis that this life was lost," Whitmer told reporters. "We are mindful of how important it is that people keep a level head, that we do the right thing protecting ourselves and others."

Munerlyn's mother told MLive.com that she wants justice for her son. A candlelight vigil was held in Munerlyn's honor Sunday night.

"They didn't have to take my baby. All you people just have to do is listen to the law, listen to the governor. Just stay home," she said. "If you don't have to come out, then you wouldn't need a mask unless you're out getting groceries or necessities. All my baby was doing was his job working and doing his job."

3 charged in fatal shooting of store security guard over face mask dispute

White House discusses "winding down" coronavirus task force by Memorial Day

Doctor finds balance between family and coronavirus frontlines
On Sunday, veteran actor Rishi Kapoor's ashes were immersed in Banganga tank in Mumbai. Various pictures and videos floated on social media, in which Rishi's wife Neetu Kapoor, son Ranbir Kapoor and daughter Riddhima Kapoor Sahni are seen performing final rites of the late actor.

Rishi Kapoor  prayer meet  Riddhima Sahni  emotional,        FilmiBeat

Rishi Kapoor's brother Randhir Kapoor told PTI on Sunday, "We did prayer meet yesterday. Today we immersed his ashes in Banganga as we haven't received permission from the authorities to go to Haridwar."

Ranbir Kapoor's girlfriend Alia Bhatt and filmmaker-friend Ayan Mukerji were also present during Rishi's ashes immersion.

Check out the videos and pictures here.

According to sources, Rishi's daughter Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, who was unable to attend the funeral as she was travelling from Delhi by road, was present at the prayer meet. "There were not many people, Only five-six family members," an insider told the news agency.

Rishi Kapoor passed away on April 30 at the HN Reliance Hospital in Mumbai. The veteran actor was diagnosed with leukemia in 2018. After almost a year of medical treatment, he had returned to India in September last year. He was hospitalized twice in February, this year.

Post Rishi's demise on Thursday, his family issued an official statement which read, "Our dear Rishi Kapoor passed away peacefully at 8:45am IST in hospital today after a two-year battle with leukemia. The doctors and medical staff at the hospital said he kept them entertained to the last. He remained jovial and determined to live to the fullest right through two years of treatment across two continents. Family, friends, food and films remained his focus and everyone who met him during this time was amazed at how he did not let his illness get the better of him."

"He was grateful for the love of his fans that poured in from the world over. In his passing, they would all understand that he would like to be remembered with a smile and not with tears. In this hour of personal loss, we also recognise the world is going through a very difficult and troubled time. There are numerous restrictions around movement and gathering in public. We would like to request all his fans and well-wishers and friends of the family to please respect the laws that are in force. He would not have it any other way," concluded the statement.

Ranbir And Neetu Kapoor Organised A Prayer Meet For Rishi Kapoor At Their Residence, See Pic!

Shatrughan Sinha Reveals Why Ranbir Kapoor Cannot Be Compared To His Late Father Rishi Kapoor
Dozens of tenants at a San Antonio apartment complex found themselves locked out last week, even as residents of Bexar County were ordered to shelter at home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

It was just before noon Monday, and some tenants considered essential workers had left to go to work. At least one man walked outside his unit at the Olmos Club Apartments to smoke a cigarette  only to return to find out he couldnt get back inside.

Luis Santana Falcon, an Army veteran who has lived at the complex for nearly 20 years, said the landlord fastened external locks onto front door knobs to prevent tenants from entering their apartments, an attempt to scare them into paying rent.

Falcon, who receives monthly assistance from the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department, paid rent on time and didnt face a lockout. But his son, who lives in another unit at the complex, was temporarily barred from his apartment.

Its not right, Falcon said. All over the world, people are struggling.

The tenants didnt know that they were protected by a federal law to prevent people from being thrown out of their homes during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Olmos Club Apartments tenants, like thousands of other San Antonio families, are living in federally backed rental homes and are protected under the CARES Act, a law passed March 27 that bars properties with federally backed mortgages or those participating in federal housing programs from filing evictions or charging late fees for 120 days if families pay rent late.

In San Antonio, at least 130,200 of the citys 257,300 rental units are on properties covered by the law, according to data analyzed by the San Antonio Apartment Association.

Although lockouts are considered different from evictions  a tool to force a conversation with a landlord in hopes of getting a tenant to pay late rent  Eric Dunn, director of litigation for the National Housing Law Project, said its still a form of requiring the tenant to vacate, which is barred under the CARES Act, also known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

If the reason for the lockout is that the tenant is delinquent in rent, then certainly it ought to apply, he said.

After the moratorium on evictions ends in late July, the law requires landlords to give tenants an additional 30-day notice to vacate  in effect protecting them from losing their apartments through the last week of August.

Teri Bilby, the apartment associations executive director, said the number of units that fall under the CARES Act could be a significantly higher than thought. She came up with 130,200 units by tallying the number of federally backed apartments in San Antonio, including public housing, privately owned affordable apartments with federal financing and properties with federally backed loans.

But the data she analyzed included only properties with more than five units, which means there could be many more single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes that are covered by the federal law.

Its got to be well in excess, said San Antonio attorney David Fritsche, who serves as legal counsel for the apartment association. There have to be a lot of mom-and-pop operators out there. ... And we dont even know how to dig into that unless we dig into a (federal) database that were not privy to.

The Urban Institute estimated that the federal eviction moratorium protects more than 1 in 4 rental units if families living in them pay rent late. Under the CARES Act, evictions can still proceed if theyre not related to a tenants ability to pay rent  such as criminal activity or other lease violations.

The CARES Act also allows landlords to temporarily delay or reduce mortgage payments, an attempt to stave off mortgage defaults and subsequent foreclosures spurred by late or no rent. Judges in Bexar County have also temporarily paused court proceedings that involve foreclosures stemming from unpaid property taxes.

In San Antonio, the CARES Act adds to a network of protections that local officials are hoping will serve as a safety net for families suddenly thrown out of work.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic pushed the local economy to a standstill and stole thousands of jobs, evictions  and the instability and trauma that follow them  have become an increasingly pervasive threat to San Antonio families.

The city in late April set aside $25 million for emergency rental assistance and to help families pay for food, utilities and other necessities, a fund that city officials are touting as the largest of its kind across the nation. Also, the county set aside $4 million in rental assistance for residents living outside the city limits.

Within the first week, 3,900 families tapped the citys fund for $7 million in assistance, said Councilman Roberto Trevino. More than half the people who asked for help make less than $7,000 per year.

This exposed the razor edge that a lot of people live on when it comes to affordability and being able to survive to the next month, Trevino said.

In Bexar County, courts also have suspended eviction hearings, which protects tenants whose homes arent covered by the federal eviction moratorium. Local courts are waiting until after June 1 to hear eviction cases, almost two weeks beyond the Texas Supreme Courts pause through May 18.

But despite guidance from apartment industry executives and government leaders who have urged landlords to keep families in their homes amid the pandemic, some landlords have threatened tenants with lockouts and notices to vacate  including those that fall under the CARES Act protections.

At the Olmos Club Apartments, for example, city officials and housing attorneys question whether the landlord violated the CARES Act  and state law  by locking tenants out.

In Texas, landlords arent allowed to lock their tenants out unless they go through a specific process first, and its unclear if the owner of the Olmos Club Apartments went through all those steps. Tenants said they had no warning, which is required by state law.

If landlords dont follow Texas lockout law, tenants can sue for one months rent plus $1,000, in addition to other damages such as court costs and attorney fees. Councilman Trevino said the tenants who got locked out are being connected to housing attorneys though the citys Right to Counsel pilot program, which provides legal assistance to tenants at risk of losing their homes.

The Olmos Club Apartments management did not respond to requests for comment.

Section 8 confusion

As Texas courts in the coming months resume eviction proceedings, judges will face the burden of sorting out whether properties are covered by the CARES Act if landlords attempt to file before the moratorium ends in July. Thats further complicated by there not being a publicly available database so tenants, judges and property managers can learn exactly which homes and apartments are federally financed.

Theres also confusion about whether the law protects all tenants living in properties where at least some of their neighbors rely on federal rental vouchers, commonly called Section 8.

Alvin Brown is one of hundreds of San Antonio tenants who doesnt have a Section 8 voucher but lives in a complex where many of his neighbors do.

Brown lost his job weeks before local government ordered nonessential workers to stay home.

Brown was late to pay rent for his studio at the Spanish Oaks Apartments on March 1. Three days later, he lost his temporary jobs cleaning air-conditioning ducts at hotels and schools. The $360 he usually took home each week vanished. He couldnt get through to the state unemployment office, drowning in requests from thousands of other Texans suddenly thrown out of work.

In mid-March, the landlord delivered Brown a notice to vacate, giving him three days to pay what he owed or move out. The landlord wouldnt work out a payment plan, Brown said.

On March 31, just days after the CARES Act was signed into law, his landlord filed an eviction lawsuit.

Its immoral, Brown said. This is happening to everybody, and its a situation we have no control over.

Court records show that Browns landlord, Bexar Met Property Management, has been among San Antonios most prolific evictors in recent years  and it receives millions of federal dollars each year through the Section 8 program.

Last October, properties managed by Bexar Met were contracted to receive more than $678,000 in taxpayer money from Section 8 vouchers, according to San Antonio Housing Authority documents. Over the course of a year, that adds up to about $8 million.

Today, more than 50 units at Spanish Oaks, the complex where Brown lives, are paid for by the Section 8 program, according to housing authority documents. Because the property has some federally financed units, its raised the question of whether all tenants living there  such as Brown  could be protected under the CARES Act.

San Antonio attorney David Dilley, who represents the properties owned by Bexar Met, doesnt think so. He argues that only tenants with Section 8 vouchers are protected from late fees and evictions.

Dilley cited recent guidance from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department that took the same position, saying that only tenants with federal vouchers are protected.

I think out of any area that couldve been gray, it couldve been that one about Section 8 tenants and whether it applies to the entire property, Dilley said. That has been subject to interpretation, but HUD definitely cleared that up last week.

Bexar Met had filed Browns eviction lawsuit weeks before HUDs direction  guidance that attorneys from the Fair Housing Council of Greater San Antonio, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and the National Housing Law Project argue isnt the correct interpretation of the law.

Dunn, the attorney for the National Housing Law Project, said he thinks that HUD meant to say that it doesnt have enforcement authority over units that arent receiving federal assistance  not that they arent covered by the CARES Act.

Nowhere in the act does it explicitly say that only tenants with vouchers are covered. Instead, the CARES Act says that covered dwellings are protected if they are in covered properties, which are any properties that participate in federal programs or receive federal assistance.

Asked about its interpretation of the law, HUD in an email statement referred to its previous guidance but did not go into further detail on how it came to its position.

We would take the position that any property that gets a significant portion of its rental revenue from voucher holders and the voucher subsidies they receive is covered by the CARES Act for all of its tenants, said Marissa Latta, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.

Marina Starleaf Riker is an investigative reporter for the San Antonio Express-News with extensive experience covering affordable housing, inequality and disaster recovery. To read more from Marina, become a subscriber. marina.riker@express-news.net | Twitter: @MarinaStarleaf
Soexactly how many years away are we from a real, honest-to-goodness working Star Trek universal translator? You know, a device that will actually interpret and convert another language into our own so we could carry on a regular conversation with a foreign speaker with little to no interruption? We aren't there yetbut we're making moves.

In fact, we now have a version of that all-encompassing translation tool covering virtually everything  and it's already online now.

And if you think Google Translate is the height of what online language translators can handle these days, LingvaNex Translator is ready to shock you.

Just like Google Translate and others, LingvaNex can handle your text, a document, or a website and instantly translate all of it into any of 112 different languages.

But where LingvaNex truly shines is when it gets turned loose on everything else. Used on your phone, LingvaNex can facilitate a voice-to-voice conversation between speakers with a language barrier, translating spoken word into your preferred language. Its auditory skills also allow you to play an audio file or a podcast and get a complete translation of the file's contents.

In case that isn't enough to impress, LingvaNex also tackles images with ease, identifying words in a picture and providing you with their meaning. Another impressive feature is the augmented reality mode, which allows you to put your mobile device camera on foreign text and have it virtually translated on your screen. The value of that feature alone while traveling in another country could be incredibly valuable.

Meanwhile, LingvaNex keeps a virtual record of all your translations and even allows you to bookmark your favorites. Its extensive dictionary means you'll have access to alternate translations as well as word etymologies. You can even save your translated text and share it with a friend or use it in another app.

Available for use with devices using Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS operating systems, you can get a lifetime of LingvaNex translations services now for over 80 percent off the regular price, just $79.99.
Foreign workers wearing protective masks wait on a bus to be transferred from their dormitory in Singapore on 27 April 2020. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

SINGAPORE  An average of 1,200 employers are penalised annually for unacceptable accommodation under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act, Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo said on Monday (4 May).

Delivering a ministerial statement in parliament, Teo said that about 20 operators were also taken to task yearly for breaches of the Foreign Employee Dormitories Act (FEDA).

Dormitory operators found with lapses are required to rectify them immediately. Offenders may be jailed up to a year and/or fined up to $50,000 for offences under the FEDA, which was enacted in 2015.

Employers may also be jailed up to a year and/or fined up to $10,000 for violations of the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.

Housing standards for migrant workers have progressed over the years, Teo noted.

Replying to a question by Member of Parliament (Nee Soon GRC) Louis Ng regarding standards of housing in dormitories, Teo said there was a need to re-look how everyone interacts with one another at home and at our workplaces.

Even the way we socialise will have to change. We will need a focus on public education. So the same for our migrant workers, said Teo, adding that the virus respects no housing type, no nationality nor occupation.

Ng had asked Ministry of Manpower (MOM) whether the ministry would consider updating the Singapore Standards Council's Technical Reference and require all foreign workers dormitory operators to adhere to it. Ng also asked if the ministry would consider increasing the minimum gross floor area of 4.5 square metres for each resident in a foreign workers' dormitory.

In response, Teo said that any sort of environment where people gather in groups, such as the home and the workplace, could result in significant transmission.

Likewise, when you have a large number of people, living together, in a communal setting, there is a very high likelihood of transmission.

Efforts must still be focused on bringing the COVID-19 outbreak under control, said the minister.

Story continues

When this is over, we will reflect and thoroughly look into areas where we could have done better, so that we will be better prepared the next time.

Singapore has some 400,000 migrant workers with a number of dormitories listed as COVID-19 clusters in the recent weeks. More than 50 clusters linked to such dormitories have been identified thus far, including Singapores largest cluster linked to S11 Dormitory@Punggol, followed by Tuas View Dormitory and Sungei Tengah Lodge. The three are among the 25 dorms that have been gazetted as isolation areas.



As of Sunday, more than 15,800 workers living in dormitories have come down with the virus.

There are about 200,000 workers housed in the 43 large dormitories and about 95,000 housed in 1,200 factory-converted dormitories. Most of them are from the construction, marine and process sectors.

There are also 20,000 workers housed in construction temporary quarters.

Another 85,000 work permit and S pass holders from the construction sector live in HDB flats, private residential premises, and other premises.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

Related stories:

About 40 instances of COVID-19 'fake news' debunked since January: S Iswaran

COVID-19: Migrant workers were on MOM's radar since January  Josephine Teo

COVID-19: Singapore to expand testing capacity, 'strategically' deploy resources

COVID-19: Gan Kim Yong outlines 3 indicators for easing circuit breaker measures

COVID-19: All MPs required to wear face masks in Parliament
Sandy Banks was in the newsroom of the Los Angeles Times when the not guilty verdict came back on four white police officers charged with beating black motorist Rodney King.

The jolt after seven days of deliberations from the courtroom in Simi Valley  an overwhelmingly white neighbourhood 30 miles northwest of the city to where the trial was moved at the request of the defendants  was so sharp, she says, it felt like an earthquake.

One of a small number of black reporters at the newspaper, Banks stood stunned and burst into tears. As editors rapidly began handing out assignments, Banks told them she wanted none of them. She wanted to go and join the people already throwing rocks.

It was the first time in covering a story where I just felt I was out of my journalists body, and just in my human being body. The white reporters all around were also stunned, but also very uncomfortable, she says.

The one thing Ill always remember, is one white reporter  she just stopped me in the hall and hugged me and said Im so sorry. Im so sorry. And for me, it was like, heres somebody that I understand. Shes apologising on behalf of those jurors in Simi Valley, and she understood the personal blow it was.

LA Riots Anniversary Show all 10 1 /10 LA Riots Anniversary LA Riots Anniversary A member of the National Guard stands near burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April of 1992, after a jury acquitted the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, riots broke out throughout South Central Los Angeles, killing 55 people, injuring another 2,000, and causing more than $1 billion in damag Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Smoke Billowing from Burning Buildings During Los Angeles Riot Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary A car burns as looters take to the streets at the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues, April 29, 1992, This intersection is considered the flashpoint of the Los Angeles riots WireImage LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. Mother and child amidst mayhem, businesses burning, bystanders watching raging fires, pedestrian walking in the street drinking from a 40-ounce at intersection of Pico Boulevard and Hayworth Avenue in West Hollywood, the sky black with smoke in daylight on April 30, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Korean grocer Soon Ja Du fatally shot Latasha Harlins after a scuffle an Soon's store. 1992 Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag LA Riots Anniversary Harlins Family LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. A view of homeless person sleeping at bus stop on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, graffiti stating FUCK THE POLICE, also graffiti referencing Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, 15-year-old girl shot in the head by Korean shopkeeper 13 days after videotaped beating of Rodney King, killed for suspected shoplifting orange juice though the girl had money in her hand to pay. The jury recommended maximum sentence of 16 years for manslaughter, but the judge instead sentenced the shopkeeper to 5 years probation. When the riot broke out, Korean businesses were targeted early to be looted and burned in response. Graffiti remaining at bus stop after the Rodney King Riots the night of May 2 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Los Angeles police officer Laurence Powell (L), one of the four defendants in the Rodney King case, waits for the start of his hearing 15 May 1992 in Los Angeles, CA. Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled in favor of a second trial for Powell on brutality charges. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey Koon grins during a press conference 04 August, 1993 following his sentencing to a two and a half year prison term. Koon and former police officer Laurence Powell were found guilty of violating Rodney King's civil rights. Powell also was sentenced to two and a half years. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King arives at EsoWon bookstore to sign copies of his new book, "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption," on April 30, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. King is best known as the victim of a brutal police beating that took place in Los Angeles. Itas been 20 years since the Rodney King verdict that sparked infamous L.A. Riots. Getty Images

Banks, 65, says she drove home that evening to her home in the San Fernando valley, itself more white than it is now, wept with her husband, and tried to focus on a daughters upcoming birthday party. They held it that weekend in a park, overlooking the smouldering city, as she listened to well-meaning white mothers say how they wished the video of Kings beating had never been made public.

It was those remarks  not that the women had wished the white officers had not beaten King, but that the evidence had not emerged and triggered the violence  that helped cement Bankss decision that she had to go back to newsroom and ensure the story was reported fairly.

Sandy Banks initial emotion was to go and join the people throwing stones. She did not (Courtesy Los Angeles Times)

It was not enough to write about the looting and killing. It was also important to focus on the black business owners who had suffered, the black schoolchildren likely to endure trauma, as well as the multi-ethnic force of volunteers who turned out to clean up the damage. What image did you put on the front page  a looter wearing a bandanna, or people helping each other?

The story was complicated, ugly, painful and complex. Banks and her colleagues won a Pulitzer Prize.

 1992 LA riots: Please, nothing has changed' says Henry Keith Watson in 2012

Speaking from Los Angeles where she remains a journalist, she says the riots forced changes on many institutions, most notably the Los Angeles Police Department, which she says was woefully ill-prepared for what took place, as well as the media, too white then and too white today.

She stresses the police should have been preparing for something to happen, as the trial of the four officers  Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno  drew to a close.

The black community rioted, she says, not when the beating of King by the officers was shown on television, but when the system failed to deliver justice. It was when we finally realised we could not trust the system.

Banks says the African American population of Los Angeles now stands at around nine per cent, having seen a large increase in Latino and Asian Americans.

She says some things have improved. There is more money, more development, more investment. But access to good schools, supermarkets with fresh food and affordable healthcare remains a challenge. Black students perform worse than others.

In many ways things have got better. In that sense the riots were a wake up call, she says.

Asked what she now takes away from covering the riots and the community, she chooses her words with care.

I always saw the riots, as horrible as they were, as a necessary force, because at some point you have to stand up and say 'no more'. This is not to minimise the deaths and the losses, and it was horrible, she says.

But we were brought to that point after decades of being ignored, of being disenfranchised. So it was a necessary thing. And, and on some level I felt a sense of pride.

She adds: I know that sounds weird, but its like when the bully is after you in school all the time, day after day and mocking you. And then suddenly you turn on them and beat the crap out of them. And yeah, you get suspended. But, you know, he doesnt bother you anymore. Thats kind of how I saw it.
Taking a serious note of long queues



outside liquor shops in Pune in Maharashtra on Monday, police have warned of strict action against such shops if they become the cause of crowding.

Pune Commissioner of Police K Venkatesham directed liquor shops to ensure that social distancing norms are complied with.

"Wine shops have to take steps for ensuring social distance norms & it is their duty in the red zone. If any shop becomes the reason for crowding, action will be taken," he tweeted.

He also asked liquor shop owners to adopt a token system with timings.

The police commissioner said that vehicles without a valid pass are not allowed including for the purchase of liquor.

"One can purchase in a neighbourhood shop only. Plying of the vehicle without a valid permit may entail seizure and fine. For companies which have factories outside the PMC limits and construction projects, the movement of the staff is allowed in dedicated vehicle 'bus' rather than individual vehicles," he said.

Joint commissioner of police, Ravindra Shisave reminded people that lockdown is still in place and Pune is under red zone.

"Though some relaxations have been given in the non- containment zones in the city, we have to take utmost precautions in both containment and non-containment areas," he said.

He added that the relaxations given in the non- containment zones are "very limited".

"During the lockdown, people are not expected to venture out unnecessarily. But today people came out on the roads in a large number presuming as if lockdown has been lifted. I want to remind lockdown still exists and we are still in the red zone and we are still in danger," he said. "Today we lost our assistant sub-inspectordue to COVID and if you really want to pay him a tribute, please obey the lockdown norms and stay indoors," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A mother who was jailed over a high-speed police chase has boasted about her younger 'sugar baby' boyfriend funding her luxurious lifestyle.

Margarita Tomovska, who calls herself 'Mercedes Mum' online, was released from jail in February after serving 18 months for leading police in Wollongong, NSW, on a 230km/hr chase with an unrestrained three-year-old in the back seat.

The 29-year-old took to Instagram on Sunday to lash out at 'jealous broke dog' critics who raised questions about the source of the wealth she flaunts on social media.

As well as the $450,000 dark silver Mercedes AMG she drove in the car chase, Tomovska is known for wearing high-end designer clothes, shoes and handbags.

Margarita Tomovska (pictured) was jailed for leading police on a high-speed chase with a three-year-old in the back seat

The convicted criminal (pictured) has almost 70,000 followers on Instagram and uses the platform to flaunt her wealth

To give some insight into how she affords her lavish lifestyle, the convicted criminal hosted an Instagram 'ask me anything.'

After posting a photo of a huge stack of $100 bills, Tomovska said she chooses not to work even though she has a bachelor degree of criminology and criminal justice at Queensland's Griffith University.

Instead, her 'man' supplies her with cash.

When one person asked if he was a 'sugar daddy,' Tomovska said 'nope not a sugar daddy cause he's younger than me. Sugar baby'.

She added that 'whatever's his is mine too.'

Tomovska said her 'man' funds her lavish lifestyle and wrote 'whatever's his is mine too'

The 29-year-old also said her time behind bars 'overall wasn't bad'. Pictured: Tomovska in a bikini at the beach

The polarising socialite also shared a screenshot of her bank details which showed over $800,000 in three Commonwealth Bank accounts and said she spends five to six thousand dollars a week 'easy'.

When someone wrongly accused her of being a 'high class hooker or a drug dealer', Tomovska said 'you are just a jealous broke dog'.

She also revealed her time spent behind bars 'overall wasn't bad'.

As well as the $450,000 dark silver Mercedes AMG she drove in the car chase, Tomovska is known for posing in high-end designer clothes, shoes and handbags

Tomovska claims her 'man' can't be her 'sugar daddy' because he's younger
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4)  President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered PhilHealth to suspend the collection of higher premiums from overseas Filipino workers, his spokesman Harry Roque said Monday.

"Habang meron tayong krisis, ang naging desisyon ng Presidente (ay) huwag na muna tayong magpataw ng karagdagang pahirap sa ating mga OFWs, lalong lalo na sa panahon na napakarami sa kanilang nare-repatriate at nawalan ng trabaho [While we are facing a crisis, the President decided not to impose additional burden on OFWs for now, especially at a time when so many of them have been repatriated and have lost their jobs]," Roque said in his regular press briefing, adding that their membership can be "voluntary" for now.

He added that Duterte also suspended the higher premium rates levied on the salaries of OFWs. "Iyan naman ay nagkaroon ng mabilisang aksyon ang ating Kalihim ng Kalusugan at sinuspinde nga ang increased collection para sa PhilHealth [That has been acted upon swiftly by the Health secretary, who suspended the increased collections for PhilHealth]," Roque added.

Thousands of Filipinos have flown home as they lost jobs abroad, with the Labor Department offering a one-time aid worth 10,000 for repatriated workers.

RELATED: Cash aid extended to 86,000 OFWs, more than half of target  DOLE

Philippine Health Insurance Corporation Vice President and Spokesperson Dr. Shirley Domingo said the agency is still awaiting specific instructions from Malacanang.

"'Yung sustainability and the achievement of the goals of the Universal Health Care law, syempre we need funding for that," Domingo told CNN Philippines' Newsroom Ngayon.

"It will affect the fund. Hinihintay natin ang [we are waiting for] communication from Malacanang on this, ica-clarify natin 'yun  will it be on the short-term lang during the COVID pandemic, because we have to have some long-term sustainability measures. We have to assess everything."

OFWs are required to remit 3 percent of their annual salaries to PhilHealth computed from a monthly pay range of 10,000 to 60,000, up from last year's 2.75 percent rate. By 2021, the contribution will be raised to 3.5 percent and will be raised annually until the share hits 5 percent by 2024.

PhilHealth Circular 2020-0014 issued last month implements the Universal Healthcare Law by requiring all OFWs to submit their proof of income, from which the amount of their premium payments will be computed. Foreign currency salaries will be first converted into US dollar and then to pesos, which will then be the basis for the contribution.

For example, an OFW earning $400 or 20,800 monthly (from an exchange rate of 52 per dollar) will have to pay 7,488 to PhilHealth for the year. The agency allows an initial payment of 2,400, with the option to pay the balance in quarterly installments. Sea-based OFWs will be charged monthly, which will be automatically deducted from their salaries by their manning agencies.

Philippine Health Insurance Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Morales said separately that the agency is looking at a longer payment period as well as optional contributions following backlash on the collection of health insurance premiums amid the COVID-19 crisis.

"I'm sure hindi pa naman matatapos ito ng [this crisis won't end by] May 30, (so) we are looking at a longer period of the moratorium. In effect, flexible payment period," Morales said during the Laging Handa briefing.

Currently, premium payments from OFWs as well as other members of the state insurance firm have been on hold until May 30 due to the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, but the agency is looking to extend this further.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and several lawmakers have said they will ask PhilHealth to suspend collection of higher contributions from overseas Filipino workers to ease their financial woes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Voluntary premiums

Roque added that the President's order made all OFW contributions to the state insurer "voluntary," contrary to a PhilHealth order that puts some 10 million workers abroad part of its funding base.

The UHC law makes all Filipinos automatic members of PhilHealth and eligible to avail of select medical services for free. The mounting cost of implementation  pegged at 257 billion for the first year  prompted authorities to raise additional funds by higher contributions as well as additional tax collections.

For the coming years, all premiums must be settled in quarterly tranches or in full annually. Failure to settle premiums on time will incur "monthly compounded interest," according to the circular.

However, Morales said PhilHealth needs a wider base of contributing members. He noted that the agency currently lists 3.6 million OFWs pitching in regularly.

In 2019, OFWs and their families availed of 1.7 billion worth of medical services after contributing 1 billion to the PhilHealth fund. Of these, 69 percent have been availed by their dependents in the Philippines, while less than a third were directly used by OFWs to cover their own medical expenses.

OFWs who get sick abroad must first settle their dues with the foreign medical facility then submit receipts and documents to PhilHealth so they can claim their reimbursement, Domingo said.

'Insensitive'

OFW groups started a Change.org petition addressed to PhilHealth last week against these premium payments. The petition has surpassed 390,000 signatures as of Monday morning.

However, PhilHealth said the rules have been announced as early as November 23, 2019.

READ: Higher PhilHealth contributions starting January 2020

"These ambitious health goals must be supported by adequate funding collected through increased premium rates," Morales also said in a statement, hinting that it would be difficult to change the policy.

"As an agency of government, sensitive to the welfare and well-being of all Filipinos, PhilHealth commits to continue exploring means to soften and alleviate the impact of premium rate increase, but it cannot change the Law."

Senator Joel Villanueva told CNN Philippines' The Source that Congress "will look into" the OFW community's petition against the premium payments, while several lawmakers have also blasted the new rule. Senator Kiko Pangilinan also said PhilHealth's April circular was "insensitive and ill-timed" as it came right in the middle of the coronavirus crisis.

READ: Online plea vs. PhilHealth premium hike for migrant workers gains support from authorities, groups

Senator Christopher "Bong" Go, who chairs the Senate Health Committee, now asked the state insurance firm to consider delaying the collection of higher premiums to ease the burden of OFWs. He also asked PhilHealth to exempt people classified as "overseas Filipinos in distress" from payments.

The UHC Act cleared both chambers of Congress in December 2018 and was signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte on February 20, 2019.
Late actor Rishi Kapoor's ashes after he passed away on April 30th, were immersed in Mumbai's Banganga tank on Sunday.

Speaking to PTI, Rishi Kapoor's brother Randhir Kapoor said the ritual was carried out in Mumbai as the Kapoors were not granted permission to travel to Haridwar during the nationwide lockdown, which has been extended till May 17.

"We did a prayer meeting yesterday. Today we immersed his ashes in Banganga as we haven't received permission from the authorities to go to Haridwar," Randhir Kapoor told PTI. The rites were carried out by Ranbir Kapoor, Neetu Kapoor, and Ridhimma. In attendance besides the Kapoors were Alia Bhatt and Ayan Mukherjee.

Immediately after, Neetu Kapoor took to her Instagram sharing a beautiful black and white portrait of Rishi Kapoor. She penned a moving note thanking doctors, nurses, and all the medical staff that made Rishi Kapoor stronger and allowed him to fight cancer.

Neetu Kapoor wrote, "As a family, we have a deep sense of loss.. when we sit together and look back at the past few months what we also feel is immense gratitude - gratitude towards the doctors at HN reliance hospital! The whole team of doctors, brothers, and nurses headed by Dr. Tarang Gianchandani treated my husband like he was their own - they advised us like we were their own.. and for all that and more I thank them from the bottom of my heart.. @rfhospital"

Rest in peace Rishi Kapoor Ji, you will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 08:34:36|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ISLAMABAD, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Sunday underlined the need for reduction in violence in Afghanistan which is a key to take the peace process forward.

Pakistan's appeal came amid spike in Taliban attacks in Afghanistan despite the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the country has consistently underlined the importance of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan, which the country considers indispensable for peace and stability in the region and beyond.

The U.S.-Taliban peace agreement signed in February is a significant step forward, creating an opportunity for the move towards intra-Afghan negotiations, the ministry's spokesperson Aisha Farooqui said in a statement.

"We believe that the pursuit of sustained reduction in violence by all concerned parties is pivotal in advancing the cause of peace in Afghanistan," the spokesperson said.

Farooqui said Pakistan will continue to support a peaceful, stable, united, democratic and prosperous Afghanistan, at peace with itself and its neighbors. Enditem
Kansans encouraged to wear masks in public With phase one of reopening set to start Monday, the state will strongly encourage Kansans to wear a mask in public. Dr. Sam Antonios is the Chief Medical Officer for Ascension Via Christi Hospitals. He says with Kansas starting to reopen, it's critical to continue wearing a mask in public to lower the chances of spreading COVID-19 to others.

JoCo and The Dotte are among the hotspots for the coronavirus but message to wear masks is lost on most locals if glimpse around grocery stores is any indication.Still, here's the guidance from health officials . . .
omni:us, the insurance-focused artificial intelligence (AI) solution business, has announced a partnership with Rokk3r, a global innovation technology and consulting company, to enable the AI company to enter the Latin American insurance market.

In 2019, Berlin-based omni:us began building a presence in the U.S. and Canada with the appointment of Rupin Mago as VP North America.

omni:us said it has a vision to transform the global insurance industry by deploying AI in a hybrid approach to claims, complementing adjusters expertise and equipping them with data-driven customer insights while speeding up processes and improving efficiency with automation.

The partnership with Miami, Fla.-based Rokk3r is designed to enable omni:us to roll out its AI-driven services to insurance companies in Latin America.

Together, Rokk3r and omni:us will help insurers by:

Enabling clean data at the start of the claims process by automating document intake

Reducing manual efforts related to data intense tasks

Empowering core business with decision support and insights

We have been very impressed by Rokk3rs eco-system, which combines human and machine intelligence systems to enable companies to quickly build size and scale, said Mago.

We value the agility and entrepreneurial flair of Rokk3r, and we are convinced it will help omni:us to build scale as we enter the Latin American insurance market, as well as accelerating our planned growth in North America, he added.

Claims is the single biggest savings contributor to an insurance company P&L, so the opportunities are worth pursuing, said Hilario Itriago, managing director of Rokk3r Insurtech.

About omni:us

omni:us is an Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) provider for cognitive claims management. Built on a fully data-driven approach, omni:us aims to transform the way insurers interact with their insured parties, providing the necessary tools and information to make fast, transparent and empathetic claims decisions, while improving operational efficiency and reducing loss adjustment expenses.

Source: omni:us

Topics Mergers InsurTech Tech New Markets Market Data Driven
President of GRASAG GIMPA , Mr. Raphael Apetorgbor

04.05.2020 LISTEN

The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration(GIMPA), chapter of Graduate Students' Association of Ghana (GRASAG), has called on the media to engage graduate students in regular public discourse as one sure path to national development.

The students' group expressed its willingness to fully cooperate with the media and provide media practitioners with content, contacts, resource persons and information to enrich media production.

"We at GRASAG GIMPA are ready to fully cooperate with the media and provide media practitioners with content, contacts, resource persons and information to enrich media production,".

In a statement signed by the President of GRASAG GIMPA , Mr. Raphael Apetorgbor, on the occasion to mark the World Press Freedom Day, he acknowledged that the media are partners in national development which can't be overemphasized.

Commenting on this year's theme, which is 'Journalism Without Fear or Favour', he said the theme should inspire future collaboration and joint public accountability.

Mr. Apetorgbor also charged them to be bold and hold national leaders including graduate student- workers accountable for their stewardship.

"If we do not collaborate in this regard in holding each other accountable, press freedom in Ghana will be meaningless and graduate student-workers will lose their relevance in national development," he stated.

Find the full statement below,



GRASAG GIMPA CONGRATULATES THE MEDIA ON WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY

The Graduate Students' Association of Ghana (GRASAG), Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration(GIMPA) chapter hereby congratulates the inky fraternity in Ghana this World Press Freedom Day, 3rd May, 2020.

That the media are partners in national development cannot be over emphasized.

We, however, live in times when graduate students who are supposed to influence national policy through public discourse have been found wanting, not least among whom are government and business leaders who are graduate students at the same time.

We, therefore, charge the media to be bold and hold our national leaders including graduate student-workers accountable for their stewardship.

The media must engage graduate students in regular public discourse as one sure path to national development.

We at GRASAG GIMPA are ready to fully cooperate with the media and provide media practitioners with content, contacts, resource persons and information to enrich media production.

This year's theme

"Journalism Without Fear or Favour should inspire our future collaboration and joint public accountability.

If we do not collaborate in this regard in holding each other accountable, press freedom in Ghana will be meaningless and graduate student-workers will lose their relevance in national development.

Graduate students and the media are among the privilege few literate populations.

We have to press on regardless of the risks and problems; it is our solemn national obligation.

If we fail to play our expected roles then prosperity will not forgive us.

Long Live Press Freedom

Long Live GRASAG-GIMPA

Long Live Ghana

SIGNED BY:

Raphael Apetorgbor

President, GRASAG GIMPA

0242856075
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 02:25:18|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

OTTAWA May 3 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an allotment of 240 million Canadian dollars (about 168 U.S. dollars) on Sunday for moving mental health and primary care services online during the COVID-19 crisis.

During his press conference on Sunday, Trudeau said a new mental health platform will provide strategies for managing stress with specific help for those from marginalized communities.

The money will include funding for marginalized communities and virtual primary care for patients who may not need to see a doctor in person.

"By helping doctors run appointments online, you can stay safe at home while getting care, and our hospitals can stay focused on those who need it most," Trudeau said. "If we can use apps to order dinner and videochats to stay in touch with family, we can use new technology to keep each other healthy."

Last month, Canadian Health Minister Patty Hajdu unveiled an online portal aimed at linking Canadians of all ages to support workers and mental health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trudeau also announced on Sunday an additional 175 million Canadian dollars (about 122 million U.S. dollars) to support Canadian company AbCellera for what he called "very promising COVID-19 research," and introduced a new COVID-19 Supply Council.

The council will be tasked with finding innovative solutions and keeping Canada supplied with medical equipment like ventilators and masks.

"Until we have effective treatments, or better yet a vaccine, we'll still need a reliable supply of everything from masks to ventilators," he said.

Several provinces in Canada have begun easing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and are set to reopen businesses and services on Monday, including Ontario and Quebec which are two provinces hit hardest by the coronavirus.

As of Sunday afternoon, there were 56,696 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Canada while 3,566 died and 23,813 recovered from the virus. Enditem
Piers Morgan has said he will not host Good Morning Britain on Monday 4 May because he has been tested for coronavirus.

The ITV presenter said he was presenting mild symptoms for Covid-19 and would not be working on the show until his results come back.

On medical advice, and out of an abundance of caution for a mild symptom that arose in past 48hrs, Ive had a test for Covid-19 and so wont be working on @GMB until I get the result back, which should be tomorrow, he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Morgan has become an outspoken critic of the UK governments response to the coronavirus pandemic, accusing ministers of being unprepared for the outbreak.

Last month he clashed with health secretary Matt Hancock over government efforts to procure ventilators for Covid-19 patients, saying the minister had misjudged the public mood by refusing to admit to mistakes in the response to the pandemic.

If Mr Morgan tests positive, he will join a growing list of well-known people who have caught the coronavirus, such as Prince Charles, actor Tom Hanks, and prime minister Boris Johnson.

His Good Morning Britain co-host Susanna Reid also self-isolated in March after one of her children developed symptoms of the virus.

Although the vast majority of people will only have a mild illness from Covid-19, a total of 28,446 people have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for the virus in the UK, as of Sunday.

Government guidance states the most common symptoms of coronavirus are the recent onset of a new continuous cough and/or a high temperature. 
Anna Jarvis founded Mothers Day to honor her beloved mother, then spent the rest of her life fighting the holidays commercial and political exploitation. She died alone in an asylum.

Her story  and the modern-day story of Mothers Day  began, of course, with her own mother. Heres how it all got started.

1858

In the beginning

Mother of Anna M. Jarvis, Founder of Mother's Day (Bettmann Archive via Getty Images)

In 1858, Ann Reeves Jarvis (Anna Jarvis mother) organizes Mothers Day Work Clubs to improve sanitary conditions and stem her communitys appalling infant mortality rates. In her lifetime, Jarvis has 13 children and only sees four of them live to adulthood.

1868

Foes unite

In the wake of the Civil War, Ann Reeves Jarvis (Anna Jarvis mother) coordinates a Mothers Friendship Day in West Virginia to bring former foes on the battlefield back together again. The initially tense day goes well, with veterans from the North and South weeping and shaking hands for the first time in years.

1870

Sacred right

Julia Ward Howe (Getty Images)

Julia Ward Howe, a mother and another forerunner of modern-day Mothers Day celebrations, suggests a Mothers Peace Day. She makes the case that war is a preventable evil and mothers have a sacred right to protect the lives of their boys.

1873

Howes holiday

The inaugural celebration of Howes Mothers Day takes place in June of this year.

1905

Jarvis dies

Ann Reeves Jarvis dies on the second Sunday in May.

1907

Enter Anna

Mother's Day Founder Anna M. Jarvis ((C) Bettmann/CORBIS via Getty Images)

One of Jarvis surviving daughters, Anna Jarvis, organizes a small service in honor of her deceased mother on the second Sunday in May at the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia.

1908

This holiday sticks

White carnations (Getty Images stock)

The first formal Mothers Day commemoration is marked with another service on the second Sunday in May at the same church in Grafton, and with a much larger ceremony in Philadelphia. Jarvis has white carnations distributed to the mothers, sons and daughters in attendance in Grafton.

1910

Its official in West Virginia

The governor of West Virginia makes Mothers Day an official holiday on the second Sunday in May.

Story continues

1912

Vision for Mothers Day

While waging a relentless letter-writing campaign to drum up support for Mothers Day, Anna Jarvis creates the Mothers Day International Association and trademarks the phrases second Sunday in May and Mothers Day. She wanted Mothers Day to be a very private acknowledgment of all the mother does for the family, said Katharine Antolini, a history professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College. It was very sweet.

1914

Official national holiday

Woodrow Wilson (Getty Images)

President Woodrow Wilson makes Mothers Day an official national holiday. Jarvis is gratified by her preferred placement of the apostrophe in Mothers Day  making it singular possessive, not plural possessive, so each family would honor its one and only mother.

1915

Movement spreads

Mothers Day becomes an official holiday in Canada.

1915

Changing tide

Shortly after the official launch of Mother's Day, Jarvis begins to sense shes created a monster when she sees the florist, card and candy industries cashing in on Mothers Day and public interest groups using the holiday to make political statements. She rails against exploitation of what was supposed to be a special, reverential day for families.

1922

Battle with florist industry

Jarvis endorses open boycotts against florists who raise the prices of white carnations every May.

1923

Threats of litigation

Jarvis threatens to sue the New York Mothers Day Committee, of which New York Gov. Al Smith and Mayor John Hylan are members, over plans for a large Mothers Day celebration. The event is canceled.

1925

Disorderly conduct

Jarvis crashes a Philadelphia convention of the American War Mothers, a group that had its own Mothers Day commemoration and began using a white carnation as its emblem. The American War Mothers push for Jarvis arrest, but charges of disorderly conduct are dismissed.

1934

Commemorative stamp

Commemorative Mother's Day stamp (U.S. Postal Service)

Jarvis is slighted when the American War Mothers successfully lobby President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Postmaster General James A. Farley to unveil a Mothers Day stamp. The stamp features a portrait of painter James McNeill Whistlers mother with white carnations and the words, In memory and in honor of the Mothers of America.

1935

Taking on the first lady

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Library of Congress)

Anna Jarvis accuses first lady Eleanor Roosevelt of crafty plotting by using Mothers Day in fundraising material for charities trying to combat high maternal and infant mortality rates.

1940

Increasingly reclusive

Ann Reeves Jarvis, left; and her devoted daughter, Anna Jarvis, right. (Courtesy of The Library of Congress)

Sensing that she cant contain her creation, Jarvis threatens to end it during the 1940s. She told me, with terrible bitterness, that she was sorry she had ever started Mothers Day, said one journalist who allegedly pretended to be a deliveryman so he could meet the increasingly reclusive Jarvis.

1944

Asylum bound

Jarvis, now 80, is placed in a mental asylum called the Marshall Square Sanitarium.

1948

Jarvis dies at 84

Jarvis dies at age 84, alone and penniless from the various legal battles she waged over the holiday she started. She never made any profit from Mothers Day, and she never had any children.

2020

Ever since

Mother's Day cards (Getty Images)

Consumers spend big bucks on their moms each Mothers Day.

Source: Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for Control of Mothers Day, a dissertation by Katharine Lane Antolini

This story was originally published on TODAY.com on May 13, 2017.

Related video:
San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced Monday that the city may close Dolores Park in the Mission in the coming days should the public continue to not comply with social-distancing orders.

Breed said she traveled to multiple parts of San Francisco over the weekend and was disappointed to see crowds overwhelming the park while the weather was sunny. As a result, she says she is considering closing it off completely.

Breed mentioned the park rangers and police officers "really had their work cut out for them."

"We're all adults here," she continued. "Theres no reason we should have to send in any of our law enforcement to tell people what they should be already doing."

Breed added that officers would be out near the park Monday observing visitors.

"If we see that behavior has not changed, we will close the park," she said.

Dolores Park is known to attract large crowds on the weekend due to its central location and typically sunny weather. The recent onslaught of locals hitting the park, however, has become "problematic" amidst orders for city residents to socially distance by staying six feet apart.

SFPD Chief Bill Scott said Monday that more officers and volunteers were deployed to Dolores Park and other popular parks over the weekend and made similar observations.

"It is OK to go to the park and be with members of your own family," Scott said, mentioning visitors should have their masks with them. "What's not OK is to be in large gatherings of groups with people outside your household. That is still not OK. What we're seeing in Dolores and other parks is people are having picnics in large groups and some of those go outside of the household. We're not at a point where we're relaxed to that level yet."

Scott reiterated Breed's comments, adding, "We need to stay the course. We have to do what's being asked of us by medical professionals and what data is telling us."

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on coronavirus here.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGate digital editor. Email: alyssa.pereira@sfgate.com | Twitter: @alyspereira


A case was registered after a purported poster prohibiting the entry of traders from a minority community in a village in Madhya Pradesh's Indore district had surfaced on social media

Indore: A case was registered on Sunday after a purported poster prohibiting the entry of traders from a minority community in a village in Madhya Pradesh's Indore district had surfaced on social media during the lockdown period, an officer said.

The purported banner bearing the name of Pemalpur village, located 65 kms away from Indore district headquarter, displayed a message that traders from a community were banned from entering the village as per the order of villagers.

Police launched investigation following unconfirmed messages on social media that such poster had been put up in Pemalpur village, said Depalpur police station inspector Gopal Parmar.

He said police did not find any poster but some pieces of papers near a school. "On the basis of these pieces, a case has been registered against unidentified persons under various sections of the IPC including destruction of evidence," he said.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh thanked police through a tweet. "Thanks to MP police for taking immediate action. Whipping up communal frenzy won't help the fight against coronavirus. The virus does not have religion," he tweeted.
London, May 4 : As a last ditch effort to prevent his extradition to India, embattled liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Monday filed an application in UK Supreme Court to prevent implementation of an earlier order that made his return to India imminent.

The application came after a gap of almost two weeks after the London High Court on April 20 rejected a similar application and ordered his extradition to India to face enforcement authorities there in connection with a Rs 9,000 crore bank fraud and money laundering case involving his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The UK Supreme Court is expected to hear the matter later this week. Legal experts said that if the application is rejected by Supreme Court as well, then UK Home Secretary would have to sign on Mallya's extradition papers within 28 days.

Mallya's application in Supreme Court came on the last day when such an appeal could be made in the top court. The 64-year-old businessman was given 14 days to file such application against the order of High Court. The high court dismissed his appeal against a Westminster Magistrates' Court extradition order certified by the UK Home Secretary.

Legal experts quoted above said it is unlikely for Mallaya to get a reprieve from Supreme Court as it would only look as constitutional issues and may not tamper with high court's order if other aspects are in order.

This should be music to the ears of enforcement agencies in India who have waiting for a long time get hold of the fugitive businessman. The ED has attached several properties of Mallya in the last few years under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Mallya is being investigated by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the loan fraud case.

He was arrested by the UK authorities on April 20, 2017 on the request of the Indian investigative agencies.

-IANS sn/vd
People rushed to liquor shops in Maharashtra early on Monday after the state government announced some relaxation during the Covid-19 lockdown.

I have been without liquor from the last two months and had a strong urge to consume it. I got up early morning as there would be rush later and I cannot take a risk, said Sachin Ghate, who lined up outside a liquor shop at Lalbaug in Mumbai at 6 am.

Police rushed to the spot and dispersed the crowd asking people to come after the shops were opened.

However, the liquor shops were not opened till noon as shopkeepers did not get any order.

The Excise Department said the delay was due to technical issues.

We will issue the orders today itself to allow opening of wine shops in some time. We have resumed work after three days and have shortage of manpower. Hence it is taking time, Excise Commissioner Kantilal Umap said.

Wine shop owners in Mumbai said they will start operations only after getting the order from the district collector.

The Maharashtra government on Sunday allowed the functioning of standalone liquor shops even in Covid-19 affected Mumbai and Pune - both in red zones. Shops selling liquor as well as non-essential goods will have to ensure six-feet distance between two people and not allow more than five people at a time.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
By the time Robert L. Stevenson gathered his work force at Eastman Machine in Buffalo in mid-March, businesses nationwide were shutting down. But Eastman, which makes fabric-cutting machines, has been in family hands for four generations, and Mr. Stevenson wasnt about to turn off the lights.

Standing atop a table in the lunchroom just off the factory floor, he recounted other crises in the 132-year-old companys history  World War I, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the Great Depression and World War II. We survived those episodes, and well survive this one, he told his employees. Were a family business, and we will take care of everybody.

A little more than a month later, Eastman has successfully battled to stay alive but has the scars to show for it. Forty of the companys 57 production workers were laid off, a move that Mr. Stevenson said was unavoidable.

Its painful, and we never like to lay people off, he said. But otherwise there would be no company to come back to. He has continued to pay for those workers health benefits, so he feels he has kept his word that everybody would be taken care of. On Monday, he brought back five assembly-line workers.
Local shoppers at a San Diego area grocery store were stunned to see a man wandering around the supermarket pushing a shopping cart while wearing a white Ku Klux Klan hood over his head.

The incident took place on Saturday at the Vons location in Santee, a suburb that lies about 20 miles northeast of San Diego.

Last week, San Diego County mandated that all residents wear face coverings to combat the spread of coronavirus, though this shopper likely wore the hood to provoke locals in the community.

Vons employees at the location on Mission Gorge Road noticed the man and approached him, demanding that he remove the hood or leave the store.

Shoppers at a supermarket in suburban San Diego were shocked to see a man wearing a white Ku Klux Klan hood on Saturday

The man was told several times by store employees to remove the hood, but he refused

Images of the man inside the Vons supermarket in Santee, California, circulated on social media, igniting outrage

The man in the Klan hood is seen above getting some fruit during his shopping trip on Saturday

But the man refused and continued shopping.

As he stood at the checkout line, a store supervisor approached him once again and demanded that he take off the hood or leave, a spokesperson for Vons, Albertsons and Pavilions stores told The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The man eventually removed the hood and purchased his items. He then left without incident.

Santee Mayor John Minto told the Union-Tribune that the San Diego County Sheriff's Department has launched an investigation.

The department confirmed to DailyMail.com that its detectives are 'looking into the matter' and will pursue 'any appropriate' criminal charges.

Vons released a statement to DailyMail.com which read: At Vons, fostering an environment of courtesy, dignity, and respect is one of our highest priorities, and we work hard to hold everyone in our stores to these standards, including customers.

Unfortunately, an alarming and isolated incident occurred at our Vons store in Santee, where a customer chose an inflammatory method of wearing a face covering.

Needless to say, it was shocking.

A store supervisor approached the man while he waited on line at the checkout counter and demanded that he remove the hood or leave the store

The man removed the hood, completed his purchase, and left the Vons store in Santee (seen above) without incident

Several members of our team asked the customer to remove it, and all requests were ignored until the customer was in the checkout area.

This was a disturbing incident for our associates and customers, and we are reviewing with our team how to best handle such inappropriate situations in the future.

Images of the man in his hood circulated on social media. He was also photographed without the hood.

The man, a middle-age Caucasian, was seen with long hair wrapped in a pony-tail. He was wearing a camo t-shirt and black shorts.

The images of the man in the white hood ignited outrage on social media, prompting public officials and anti-hate groups to condemn the incident.

Minto praised the Vons employees who stepped in and demanded that the customer remove the offensive hood.

Many thanks to all who stepped forward to curtail this sad reminder of intolerance, the mayor said.

John Minto, the mayor of Santee, praised the Vons employees who stepped in and demanded that the customer remove the offensive hood

This was a disturbing incident for our associates and customers, and we are reviewing with our team how to best handle such inappropriate situations in the future,' Vons said in response to angry social media users

Santee, its leaders and I will not tolerate such behavior.

San Diego County Supervisor Dianne Jacobs said: 'The images I've seen are abhorrent.

'This blatant racism has no place in Santee or any part of San Diego County.

'It is not who we are. It is not what we stand for and cant be tolerated.'

San Diego is #NoPlaceForHate, Tammy Gillies, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in the San Diego area, said on Twitter.

On Twitter, the reaction was scathing. Locals indicated that the area has a history with hate groups active nearby.

Anyone from San Diego would expect this s*** from Santee, tweeted Ryan Miriyev.

One Twitter user called the man a real dunce cap.

Disgusting, commented Mark Dunlop.

Tara Palmer tweeted: I grew up in Santee. It doesn't surprise me at all. White trash central lol.

Another Twitter user remarked: Also grew up in santee. Not surprised.

One Twitter user commented: I live in Coastal San Diego and this is the reason people dont venture East to Santee or as we called it growing up Klantee.

They should have stopped him at the Door, he should never been allowed in or to get a cart.

Wtf Vons explain yourself.

Some on Twitter expressed anger at the supermarket, vowing never to shop there again.

Wow, one Twitter user tweeted.

Its appalling and completely unacceptable.

I just came from a Vons. I wont be shopping there again.

Disgusting.

But another Twitter user, Jason Barritt, came to the towns defense, saying that it has worked to shed its image as a haven for racists.

Santee is usually not like this now a days, Barritt tweeted.

One Twitter user commented: I live in Coastal San Diego and this is the reason people dont venture East to Santee or as we called it growing up Klantee.'

Anyone from San Diego would expect this s*** from Santee, tweeted Ryan Miriyev.

One Twitter user commented: 'Also grew up in Santee. Not surprised'

Tara Palmer tweeted: I grew up in Santee. It doesn't surprise me at all. White trash central lol.

But another Twitter user, Jason Barritt, came to the towns defense, saying that it has worked to shed its image as a haven for racists

Another Twitter user claimed that KKK flyers were distributed in town earlier this year

Mark Dunlop posted a tweet calling the incident in Santee 'disgusting'

'Yep a real dunce cap,' Twitter user Sue Stroud commented on Sunday

Another Twitter user vowed never to stop at Vons over the 'appalling and completely unacceptable' incident on Saturday

Sometimes this scum sneaks in.

Last year, officials in Santee hired a Tennessee-based marketing firm to help improve the towns image.

Santee, a town of 60,000 tucked into a corner of East San Diego County in Southern California, has experienced a development boom in recent decades.

But it is also in the midst of an effort to rebrand itself as a welcoming community for all after being known for unflattering nicknames like Klantee and Santucky.

Santee has a reputation of being a hotbed of racist activity.

The most high-profile hate crime took place in 1998, when five white men left an African American Marine paralyzed after breaking his neck during an alcohol-fueled ambush at a party.

Despite California's image as a liberal haven, it has also historically been home to several active hate organizations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In Southern California, the Ku Klux Klan has held rallies and demonstrations over the course of decades.

In April of last year, a 19-year-old gunman believed to have been motivated by far-right ideology killed one worshipper and wounded three others at a synagogue in Poway, just outside of San Diego.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 05:57:54|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ALGIERS, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Algeria announced a series of measures to address financial difficulties hitting the nation amid drop in oil prices, said a statement of the Prime Minister Office.

The Council of Ministers decided to cut public operating expenditure by 50 percent, instead of 30 percent decided previously, the statement said. Operating budget is destined for covering expenditures of the state and its institutions.

It was also decided to increase guaranteed minimum income and omit taxes on monthly incomes equivalent or less than 233 U.S. dollars, as of June 2020.

In a bid to pursue efforts aiming at developing non-oil sectors, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune ordered "immediate" creation of a national office for Saharan agriculture aiming at the development of millions of hectares of desert land. Enditem
The Central Railway on Monday ran



two special trains carrying stranded migrants to Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan from Akola and Bhiwandi stations, respectively, officials said.

The train carrying nearly 1200 migrants departed at 6 pm for Lucknow from Akola in east Maharashtra, about 605 kms from here. Another train left for Jaipur from Bhiwandi station in Thane district at 9:55 pm.

"Total 1192 migrants from Akola, Vasim, Yavatmal and Amravati with their families left for Lucknow in this special train. All the migrants were stuck in Akola and neighbouring areas since the lockdown came into force in March and they were desperate to return to their home states," said Nilesh Apar, sub-divisional officer, Akola district.

A Central Railway spokesperson said the end-to-end Shramik special train left for Lucknow carrying the registered and nominated passengers by the state government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Since the issuance of Vietnams Law on Foreign Investment in 1987 right after the doi moi policy was adopted, Vietnam has continuously revised its policies to keep improving the opportunities for international investors.

Thomas Treutler, managing director of the Vietnam offices of Tilleke & Gibbins, pores over the countrys highlighted reforms over the past three decades.

Thomas Treutler, managing director of the Vietnam offices of Tilleke & Gibbins

Vietnams favourable policies have helped bring in more and more investment and increased exports. Foreign invested companies (FIEs) now account for 68 per cent of all of Vietnams exports. Importantly, projects involving foreign direct investment (FDI) have created many good jobs helping raise the GDP. As of early 2019, FIEs were directly employing 3.6 million people and indirectly employing another six million.

FDI has come a long way in over the past more than 30 years. Such investment picked up fast in the early to mid-1990s, with the lifting of the US embargo of Vietnam and investors from around the world heading to the country. A quarter of a century later, FIEs now contribute about 20 per cent of Vietnams GDP.

There have been some key policy changes that Vietnam made over the years to help attract investment.

Trade deal participation

Vietnam has taken well-calculated steps to participate in key multilateral trade organisations and build strong bilateral relationships which have bolstered investments into the country. Since joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), entering into bilateral trade agreements with the United States and others, and more recently joining major free trade agreements such as that with the European Union, Vietnams investment numbers continue to rise.

At the same time, via these agreements, other nations have gained access to the Vietnamese market and the competition has raised the quality of products and manufacturing processes in this country.

Decentralisation

In the early to mid-1990s, all FIEs had to be approved at a central level, which caused significant delays in the issuance of licenses. However, the government later decentralised the licensing process so that such projects could be approved at the provincial level or by industrial zone (IZ) boards of management, and can often be approved in weeks or a few months at most.

Clear timelines within which application dossiers had to be acted up were prescribed under the law, which added transparency to the licensing process. Similarly, representative offices can now be approved by the local departments of industry and trade.

This deregulation, combined with a relaxation of administrative burdens as well as advancements such as one-stop application centres and online filing of documents, has led Vietnam to be a country where investments are approved in a transparent fashion, and signals that the country is open for business.

Other changes levelled the playing field between local businesses and FIEs, such as having both types governed by common regulations under the Law on Enterprises and the Law on Investment rather than having a separate law on foreign investment. Initially, Vietnam only allowed overseas companies to have a term of 20 years, but this was later extended to 50 years.

Global supply chain diversification should bode well for Vietnam in the near future, Photo: Le Toan

Industrial/high-tech zones

In one 1988 issue of Sai Gon Giai Phong, in the first year of effect of the newly adopted Law on Foreign Investment, there appeared an editorial relating to the idea of having something called Saigon Export Processing Zone in order to try to attract business as had been carried out successfully in Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea since the late 1970s.

Export processing zones became a reality and Vietnam soon started developing IZs, and later high technology zones.

IZs provide outstanding infrastructure for manufacturing to flourish. Over the years, the southern provinces of Binh Duong and Dong Nai near Ho Chi Minh City, and Bac Ninh and other northern provinces near Hanoi, have become manufacturing hubs, in part due to their investor-friendly policies, and this spread throughout many regions and provinces. In 2019, 65 per cent of all investments in Vietnam were in the manufacturing sector, which is a good signal for the future.

Intellectual property

In the 1990s, Vietnam was often criticised as not being strong in protecting intellectual property (IP) rights, and this was often cited as a reason the country would struggle to attract research and development (R&D), or value-added manufacturing operations. However, with Vietnams accession to the WTO, and the implementation of the Trade-Related Aspects of IP Rights in Vietnam, Vietnams IP laws have for the last 15 years been compliant with international standards.

Importantly, over the last 15 years, laws have constantly improved and even surpassed those of neighbouring countries. Vietnams courts, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Vietnam IP Research Institute in recent years have supported innovative multinational companies in enforcing complex patent rights in the areas of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and electronics.

For example, several patent infringement cases in Binh Duong were ruled in favour of research-based pharmaceutical innovators, and significant amounts of damages and attorney fees were awarded.

The Vietnamese courts are building capacity in IP and there has been a major shift towards handling cases in civil courts, thus paving the way for compensatory damages and attorney fees for rights holders which adds to the deterrent effect.

These recent developments have sent a strong signal to investors that Vietnam is a safe country in which to conduct R&D, and high-tech industries can flourish in the country. Similarly, Vietnams 389 Committee, market surveillance departments, and economic police are very active in combating counterfeit goods.

Tax and customs reforms

Over the years, Vietnam has consistently taken steps every few years to make its tax regime applicable to investors and employees more and more attractive. Vietnam, while still having relatively high personal income tax (PIT), has taken steps over the years to improve its PIT regime especially to help local employees. In the mid-1990s, with Vietnams onerous supplemental PIT system, effective tax rates could balloon to over 70 per cent for local employees. Those large tax rates hindered FIEs from offering high salaried positions to local employees in some cases.

However, supplemental income tax was eliminated, the playing field was gradually levelled, and the effective PIT rates became manageable. This helped create more opportunities for all. In 2004, Vietnam eliminated its tax on repatriated profits, which helped make the tax regime more attractive to investors.

Other tax policy changes also helped make Vietnam a more attractive destination to investors, such as the introduction of the VAT system, and reductions in corporate income tax (CIT). The CIT rate was reduced from 25 to 22 per cent in 2014, and then down to 20 per cent in 2016.

Vietnamese customs authorities participate in a broad range of international projects to co-ordinate activities, introduce modern technology, and introduce best practices in clearing goods and monitoring shipments for IP rights violations. Other key advances were the elimination of export permits and export quota, which liberalised the trade sector and led to increased trading prospects.

Open law policies

In the early 1990s, law firms such as Tilleke & Gibbins, which set up a representative office in 1992, moved toward Vietnam, followed by other firms when the Ministry of Justice started licensing foreign law firms. Major global accounting firms have also been active in Vietnam for 25 years. These organisations, along with outstanding local law firms, have helped guide investors and help facilitate funding into Vietnam. The country has had an open policy marked by excellent co-operation between the MoJ and law firms, to allow these organisations to operate broadly and make a strong contribution.

Institutional partnerships

The government, through its relevant ministries and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), has fostered excellent co-operation with foreign business associations such as the VCCIs European and US counterparts and others.

Through individual dialogues with business associations and the Vietnam Business Forum, foreign investors have had a good and consistent opportunity to provide input to the government on policies to help the business environment. This co-operation has led to many good initiatives in reducing administrative burdens for businesses, and the introduction of beneficial policies for investors.

Poised for a bright future

Given Vietnams outstanding performance in controlling the ongoing coronavirus situation which has included strong public policies, transparency, and providing international aid to other countries, Vietnams leadership role in the region has been highlighted, which is very timely given that this year Vietnam is appointed as ASEAN chair.

With this strong regional leadership position, coupled with the fact that many nations want to diversify their supply chains, the country should be poised to receive more quality investment in manufacturing this year and next. VIR

Thomas Treutler (Managing director of the Vietnam offices of Tilleke & Gibbins)
NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are ready to make history as they prepare to become the first two Americans to launch from U.S. soil since 2011.

Behnken and Hurley are scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center at 4:32 p.m. ET on May 27 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a Crew Dragon capsule in the Demo-2 mission.

"This is a new generation, a new era in human space flight," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a teleconference Friday morning.

"When you think about Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and then space shuttle, those are really the four times in history when we have put humans on brand-new spacecraft," he said.

"And now we're doing it for the fifth time. And that's just the United States. If you look globally, this will be the ninth time in history when we put humans on a brand-new spacecraft."

SpaceX

First ocean landing since Apollo

Demo-2 is the first test with humans since the 1981 launch of the space shuttle Columbia. It will also mark the first time astronauts have landed in the ocean since the Apollo missions.

The May 27 launch follows the first test, Demo-1, a mission that sent an uncrewed Crew Dragon to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) in March 2019, while Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques was aboard.

Following the Demo-2 launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket will return to Earth at the floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. The astronauts will then spend two or three months with the three men currently on the ISS, American astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.

The pair will be launching in a brand-new vehicle and wearing brand-new SpaceX spacesuits designed specifically for the Crew Dragon and up-to-date tech such as touch screens, something that the astronauts said took some getting used to.

U.S. and Canada used Russian rockets

On July 8, 2011, the space shuttle era came to a close as Atlantis soared into the sky for the final time.

Story continues

With nothing to replace it, Americans  and Canadians  were left to launch atop the Russian space agency's (Roscosmos) Soyuz rockets. The cost for a seat? Roughly $80 million US.

But in 2014, NASA awarded contracts to two commercial companies, SpaceX and Boeing, to make the next generation spacecraft that would take astronauts to the ISS.

SpaceX via AP

SpaceX was the first to complete all its testing, though it did have a few delays and setbacks, including the loss of the original Crew Dragon in April 2019 in an explosion.

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner has also suffered setbacks. The last one was in December 2019, when its uncrewed test failed to reach the ISS. An investigation following the incident found that the spacecraft actually risked destruction twice.

Boeing's next test flight will occur sometime later this year.

If the Demo-2 test flight is successful, the official start of SpaceX astronaut launches from the U.S. to the ISS will be Crew-1. No specific date has been set.

Seasoned astronauts

Both Behnken and Hurley are seasoned astronauts. Behnken flew on two shuttle flights, STS-123 in March 2008 and STS-130 in February 2011. He also performed three spacewalks during each mission.

Hurley also flew on two shuttle flights, STS127 in July 2009 and the final mission, STS135 in 2011.

SpaceX

"I certainly didn't expect to fly again," Hurley said on Friday.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, said that she's anxious to get the astronauts launched and safely home.

"My heart is sitting right here," she said with her hand at her throat. "And I think it's going to stay there until we get Bob and Doug safely back from the International Space Station."

Next Canadian astronaut watching closely

Jeremy Hansen, expected to be the next Canadian astronaut to head into space, will likely fly on either the SpaceX Crew Dragon or Boeing Starliner no later than 2024. He, too, will be watching the launch closely.

"I'll be excited  a little bit nervous for my colleagues, of course, but I do have a lot of faith in it," Hansen said of the new spacecraft. "We know what we're doing. There are risks that are being managed, but we're returning something that we've been working on for a long time, so it's going to be rewarding to see it come to fruition."

David Donnelly/CBC

Shotwell said this endeavour wasn't only about building a spacecraft, but also all of SpaceX's employees getting to know the crew on a personal level.

"I wanted to make sure that everyone at SpaceX understood and knew Bob and Doug as astronauts, as test pilots  badass  but dads and husbands. I wanted to bring some humanity to this deeply technical effort as well."

Launching during a pandemic

The launch will be historic for another reason: unlike most launches, NASA and SpaceX are insisting that people not head down to Cape Canaveral to watch the historic event.

"The challenge that we're up against now is that we want to keep everybody safe," Bridenstine said.

Hurley said the current situation is disappointing, but that encouraging people to stay home is the right thing to do.

"We just want everybody to be safe and enjoy this and relish this moment in U.S. space history," he said.

The astronauts themselves have been taking extra precautions themselves during training, Shotwell said. Only essential personnel have been around the pair, and masks and gloves have been used by those who do come in contact with them.

"It's not only about Bob and Doug's safety but also the safety of the crew on board the International Space Station," said Kathy Lueders, program manager of the commercial crew program at NASA.

"It is a shame that more people are not going to be able to enjoy it in Florida. However, it is the right thing to do. Watch it from home; watch it online; watch it on TV," Shotwell said.

"Be there for the ride with us. We'll be together in spirit more so than in physical space."
A doctor at an ambulance unit in Russia's western Voronezh region is in serious condition after falling from a hospital window following complaints that he was forced to work even after testing positive for COVID-19, the third such case in the country in recent days.

Colleagues of Aleksandr Shulepov and representatives of the regional coronavirus task force said over the weekend that on May 2 Shulepov fell out of a second-floor window at the hospital where he worked and was being treated for the coronavirus in the town of Novaya Usman. He is currently in an emergency ward room with a fractured skull.

Shulepov was hospitalized on April 22 for the virus, but was scheduled to be released after his latest COVID-19 test came back negative.

On the same day he was admitted, Shulepov and colleague Aleksandr Kosyakin issued a video complaining that even after testing positive, their boss was forcing Shulepov and his colleagues to work together.

Three days later, Shulepov retracted his initial statement, saying his video with Kosyakin was recorded while he was in "an emotional state" right after he learned about his COVID-19 diagnosis.

Shulepov is the third physician in Russia to fall out of a window amid mysterious circumstances during the coronavirus outbreak.

On May 1, Yelena Nepomnyashchaya, the acting chief physician at a hospital for war veterans in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, died after falling from a window of her fifth-floor office a week earlier.

Local media reported that Nepomnyashchaya had fallen out of the office window while talking on a conference call with regional Health Minister Boris Nemik about turning one of the buildings of the facility into a ward to treat coronavirus patients.

WATCH: St. Petersburg Doctor Quits Over Protective Equipment Shortages

According to the reports, Nepomnyashchaya was adamantly against the idea.

On April 24, Natalya Lebedeva, the chief of the ambulance center in the town of Zvyozdny near Moscow, died in what a Moscow hospital called "an accident." She was treated at the hospital for COVID-19.

REN-TV and the daily Moskovsky komsomolets reported that Lebedeva fell from a window on a high floor at the hospital.

Moskovsky komsomolets quoted Lebedeva's colleagues as saying that she might have committed suicide, because she was accused of infecting her subordinates with the disease.

Russian health authorities said on May 4 that the number of coronavirus cases reached 134,687, with 1,280 deaths and 16,639 recovered cases across the country.

With reporting by Meduza, TASS, TVK, Moskovsky komsomolets, RFE/RL's Russian Service, and REN-TV
President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that the United States actions, which are against human rights, have impeded Irans fight against the coronavirus pandemic, Tehran Times reported.

Anti-human rights actions of the United States have caused challenges to Irans targeted program in fighting the coronavirus, Rouhani said during a speech at virtual summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

He also said that President Donald Trumps action in cutting off payments to the World Health Organization was a strategic mistake which undermines global fight against the coronavirus.

However, you cannot expect other than this from the United States which has repeatedly violated international agreements and law. It has been for many years that the United States deprives the people of their rights and its actions threaten multilateralism and international cooperation, Rouhani said.

He expressed regret over the fact that the U.S. illegal sanctions have prevented Iran from access to medical equipment.

Elsewhere, the president said that the coronavirus pandemic proved how a disease can endanger health of all the people in the world regardless of their ethnicity and nationality.

This is a serious warning to all countries. That the human is being exposed to threats such as destruction of the environment, global warming and natural threats such as the coronavirus. It is the time to replace pressure, economic and military terrorism with multilateral cooperation to fight common threats, the Iranian president suggested.

He noted that Iran has had such a viewpoint and cooperated with other countries since outbreak of the virus.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 14:30:25|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ISLAMABAD, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The Pakistani government has said that a locust migration will start from southwestern Pakistan's Balochistan province and some other countries at the end of May.

The Ministry of National Food Security and Research of Pakistan said Sunday night that the migratory swarms are expected to cross through the cropping area of southern Sindh province during the migration.

Swarms of desert locusts in Pakistan are expected to migrate from Iran and other places to the summer breeding regions in Sindh and eastern Punjab provinces, the ministry said in a statement, adding that it is difficult to restrict the movement of these insects.

In anticipation of the possible threat, the Pakistani government announced a national emergency on locusts, and a national action plan was put into place in collaboration with the provinces, the statement said.

For the purpose of survey and control, agencies in the country like the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), and provincial agricultural departments are working jointly with strong collaboration, according to the statement.

The military units are also deployed on the ground for support in terms of men and material, the statement said.

The ministry said survey reports are regularly shared with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for obtaining technical guidance and support.

In view of the locust threat, strong measures have been taken to survey the land areas in all the provinces in order to take necessary control measures, the statement said, noting that a total of 153,665 square kilometers area has been surveyed. Enditem
Trussville Mayor Buddy Choat spoke to a gathering of dozens of protesters at City Hall today, many of them owners of styling salons, barber shops, fitness centers and other businesses that are still required to be closed under the states latest Safer at Home order.

Choat called on Gov. Kay Ivey to allow small businesses to re-open. My ideal time is as soon as possible, Choat said, drawing applause from several dozen standing outside Trussville City Hall. Trussville is a suburb northeast of Birmingham with a population of about 20,000.

I respect the opinion of those that dont agree, Choat said. I respect the opinion of those who dont want to go out in public at this time. Thats their right. But its also your right and our right to be fair to everyone.

Choat said small businesses are at risk for going out of business permanently.

I do know whats important  thats you and your jobs and the people that work for you, Choat said. If we keep waiting and keep waiting, its going to be too late.

Wayne Alford, CEO and founder of 24/e Health Clubs in north and central Alabama, asked Choat who enforces the shutdown of businesses that violate the state order. Choat said it was municipalities such as Trussville.

Alford suggested that the mayor take it upon himself to allow businesses to reopen.

Choat said he was sworn to uphold the law.

Alford said the shutdown has been devastating. We cant pay our loans, we cant pay our rent, he said. If it goes past (May) the 15th, Ill have to re-open my businesses.

Trussville has already shut down one fitness center that tried to re-open earlier than allowed.

Several of those gathered say they are experiencing financial hardship, and so are their employees.

None of my stylists are getting income, said Jessica Sutherland, owner of Salon Swag. They are self-employed independent contractors and they do not get unemployment benefits.

She said salons are willing to take the same precautions as retail and clothing stores that have been allowed to re-open. Well follow all guidelines - masks, aprons, six feet apart, the next customer has to wait - whatever we have to do to have income for our families. Were not forcing anyone to come in, but those that want to should be allowed.

Waiting until May 15, when the Safer at Home order is to be reassessed and updated, is too long, she said. It can make or break you, Sutherland said.

We just want to work, said Melissa Keith, owner of Studio 1926.

Thom Stembridge, owner of Thoms Barber Shop, said he would re-open his one-chair barber shop immediately if allowed.

Its tough, he said. You can only live off your savings for so long.

Some passersby on U.S. 11 honked in support; others shouted disapproval. Were in a pandemic, yall! one shouted. Pandemic!

Roy Brook of Bessemer stood holding a U.S. flag on a flagpole. I agree with the effort to get things going again, he said.
UC Santa Barbara chemical Engineering professor Michael Doherty has received one of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) most prestigious honors: He has been selected to present the 2020 John M. Prausnitz AIChE Lecture.

The honor is awarded annually to distinguished AIChE members who have made significant contributions to chemical engineering in their field of specialization.

"I am extremely honored to be selected to give this lecture," said Doherty, who holds the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Endowed Chair in Process Systems Engineering. "Over the decades I have attended a great many institute lectures, and the standard is very high. I am already thinking about topics, and soon I will contact former lecturers for their advice."

The lectureship is endowed by the AIChE Foundation in honor of Prausnitz, a chemical engineering professor at UC Berkeley and a National Medal of Science recipient, who pioneered the field of engineering-oriented molecular thermodynamics. Doherty has strong connections to Prausnitz, having worked closely with him for the past decade on the journal Annual Reviews of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Prausnitz was the founding editor, while Doherty and Rachel Segalman, professor and chair of UC Santa Barbara's Department of Chemical Engineering, were his co-associate editors; they took over as co-editors after Prausnitz retired.

"I have known John for almost my entire career, since I spent a sabbatical year with his sponsorship at UC Berkeley in 1984," said Doherty. "He has been my mentor and advocate ever since, which has been a great act of generosity, since I was never one of his students."

Doherty's research focuses on process systems engineering with particular emphasis on crystal engineering, and separation with chemical reaction. He holds six patents, has published more than 200 technical papers and given more than 250 invited lectures.

Previously, Doherty was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and received the E.V. Murphree Award for Industrial and Engineering Chemistry from the American Chemical Society, and the Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research and three divisional research awards from AIChE. He was also listed among the top "One Hundred Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era" in 2008.

Doherty hopes Prausnitz will be in the audience when he presents his lecture in mid-November during the 2020 AIChE Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The AIChE has more than 60,000 members from 110 countries.

###
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, there have been few more distressing images than those coming from Canadas seniors care homes, which have been linked to approximately 50 percent of the countrys total number of coronavirus deaths.

Its a challenging time for one of the most unique and critical niche segments of the commercial market. Tough questions are being asked about the quality of care being administered in seniors care facilities at the same time the need for them is intensifying. According to the Conference Board of Canada, by 2035 there will be a need for an additional 199,000 long-term care beds across the country. Those new beds are projected to require $64 billion in capital spending and $130 billion in operational spending between 2018 and 2035.

A significant amount of those funds will come from the private sector, who will be calling upon a select group of lenders to determine the legitimacy of their operations and the level of risk they face.
He always wanted to return to his native Fermanagh with his wife to live - but instead Eamonn Keown was back last week to bury the woman he married 52 years ago after Covid-19 had cruelly robbed her from him and their three children.

Marie Keown, formerly of London and Arklow in Co Wicklow, died in a nursing home in Maynooth, Co Kildare, on April 17, where she had been living after testing positive for coronavirus.

Her death left her Arney-born husband and children Gerard, Paul and Edwina without the rituals of mourning.

The 84-year-old was buried at a family plot in Cashel near Garrison last week in a touching final gesture for a woman who not only fell in love with a Fermanagh man, but his home county.

"That's why she was buried in Fermanagh; she loved the place and had visited many times. They were together for over five decades and spent many years visiting the county," explained her son Gerard, an Irish diplomat, who is currently on secondment with the Department of Finance in Dublin.

The couple met when they were both living in London in the 1960s.

"Dad is a Fermanagh man, from Arney. They would probably not have met otherwise.

"They lived most of their lives in London, before moving to Kildare a few years ago, where mum spent her last years. She loved Fermanagh and asked to be buried with my father's people in Cashel," he said.

Mrs Keown had been ill, having been diagnosed with dementia, but her son says her family never imagined they would lose her in this way.

"We had thought that dementia would be the cause of my mother's eventual death, but the pandemic came around and it was a shock. You get prepared when someone particularly close to you is ill, but it was a shock for us all.

"Of course, you lose out on the rituals; the things you do when you lose a loved one that you can't do in the current circumstances; you can't hold a funeral, people can't call to the house to offer their condolences. That has been difficult on my father," he said.

He used to visit his mother in her nursing home at least a couple of times a week while his father visited her every day. But those visits stopped, "very understandably", he says, when the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown was introduced.

"There was a fear for all of us that she could catch the virus, but we hoped for the best and the level of care in that home was excellent, they couldn't have done more.

"l mean, it's just one of those things that is everywhere. My mother contacted it and she passed away; it was always a fear in the back of our minds that it would happen."

Mr Keown said the impact on his family, including her grandchildren Fionn, Eamonn and Olivia and sisters Helen and Nancy has been "enormous". "It is difficult to grieve when we can't be together as a family; we have to talk to each other over the phone or go to my father's front door, but not venture in. We were able to comfort him at the burial, but we were being cautious.

"It has been very challenging time for the family and friends," he said.

It was always a dream of his father's to return to his home county with his wife.

"He always wanted to move back to Fermanagh with my mother one day, but clearly that wasn't possible.

"She loved the nature and exploring Lough Erne. It was very special for her; it was one of her favourite places in the world."

The burial by Garrison-based undertaker Peter Carty was a "dignified ceremony", said Mr Keown.

He said his family will not allow Covid-19 to define their mother and wants to remember her for "instilling in us a strong sense of family values".

"When I think of my mother, I think of song; she was always singing, she loved opera and she was in a church choir in her community. She loved art, she painted watercolours, landscapes, portraits.

"She loved her family and she was a very outdoor person. She loved the company for others and she loved Fermanagh. It was a special place for her, so it was always important to her and my father that she was buried there.

"We will celebrate her life with family and friends when better times return," Mr Keown told The Impartial Reporter newspaper.
Thousands of Pashtuns gathered on Sunday to mourn the murder of Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) leader Arif Wazir in Wana, South Waziristan. However, these people also violated the social distancing norms by gathering in such huge numbers amid the Coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan. In a video of the gathering shared by Pakistani journalist Naila Inayat, she alleged that the 'jalsas' gathering are censored and so are their 'brutal killings and funerals' by the Pakistani media.

Thousands gather to mourn the murder of Arif Wazir

Their jalsas are censored and so are their brutal killings and funerals. Thousands gather to mourn the murder of Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement leader Arif Wazir in Wana, South Waziristan. pic.twitter.com/XOKl1bAe2K  Naila Inayat   (@nailainayat) May 3, 2020

Arif Wazir died on Saturday in an Islamabad hospital after unidentified persons opened fire at Wazir near his house in Wana, the South Waziristan district of the country's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday. Arif Wazir is the "18th member" of the family to be killed by 'unknown persons' - which Aurang Zeb Khan Zalmay, member PTM said are "state-sponsored militants of Pakistan".

"Arif Wazir was an outspoken bold person'

"The Pakistan military called them as 'Good Taliban' and consider them as their shadow army. Arif Wazir and his family have fought for last two decades against these militants and have burnt their safe-heavens in the tribal areas of Pakistan," said Zalmay, who lives In Heidelberg, Germany in a statement.

"Arif Wazir was an outspoken bold person and was frequently objecting the dubious role of Pakistan military in the war on terror. For criticizing the dubious role of Pakistan military, Arif Wazir was several times sent to jail where he spent a total 14 months there in the last couple of years," he added.

The attack on Wazir came after Pakistani Police arrested him on April 17 for an alleged anti-Pakistan speech during his recent visit to Afghanistan. He was released on bail days before his killing. Mohsin Dawar, a member of Pakistan's Parliament and member of the PTM, accused state-sponsored terrorists of carrying out the attack.

Pakistan, its military and its notorious intelligence agency ISI are known to use high-handed techniques to suppress any criticism and dissent. Arif Wazir is the first cousin of MNA Ali Wazir, another PTM leader who was arrested last year along with Mohsin Dawar during a protest gathering in Kharqamar.

READ | US journalist Daniel Pearl's parents move Pak SC challenging Sindh High Court's decision

Pakistan Army has held the PTM responsible for running an anti-national agenda, whereas the party led by Manzoor Pashteen is raising the voice against the army's atrocities on the civilians in Pashtun dominated areas.

READ | Pak neta Altaf Hussain who sang Saare Jahan se Acha says his life is in grave danger

PTM, a rights-based resistance movement in Pakistan, which has been critical of state policies in the tribal belt has ruffled feathers among the Pakistan military with its demand of probe into gross human rights violation conducted by the Army. It has also been vocal against the government on the issue of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

READ | Pakistan's coronavirus tally crosses 19,000; death toll at 440

Ever since it was founded in 2018, the PTM has organised regular demonstrations against Pakistan Army's heavy-handed operations in tribal regions while the military has evidently chosen to crush the movement with its all too familiar tactics.

READ | Pakistan's ISI makes full use of COVID-19 distraction, kills off Baloch & Pashtun leaders

(With ANI inputs)
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Sunday sought to reassure Americans that it is safe for states to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic, offering support to protesters who have railed against the lockdowns across the country.

"I really believe that you can go to parks, you can go to beaches . . . [if] you stay away a certain amount," Trump said during a Fox News Channel town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

Trump said it's possible to "satisfy both" anti-lockdown protesters and those who are afraid to resume public life. He noted that Americans have been wearing face masks and social distancing in recent weeks and said "you're going to have to do that for a while," even as states reopen their economies.

He scaled up the estimate he has used for the number of expected dead - projecting that the U.S. toll may be as high as 100,000 - while emphasizing that he takes the novel coronavirus seriously and noting that three of his friends have died after contracting it.

Trump had previously said that about 65,000 Americans would probably die of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Trump's comments come as governors continue to grapple with reopening pains amid ongoing pushback against coronavirus restrictions. They also come as the administration is increasing its efforts to blame China for the virus, which has now taken the lives of more than 67,000 people in the United States.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, on Sunday defended her decision to extend a stay-home order to May 15, declaring that "whether you agree with me or not, I'm working to protect your life if you live in the state of Michigan."

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said a recent spike in cases was merely a "one-day blip" caused by increased testing and pledged that he and other officials were "doing everything in our power to get our state opened as soon as possible."

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, said he had abruptly reversed a decision to make mask-wearing mandatory because people "were not going to accept the government telling them what to do."

Anti-lockdown protesters have demonstrated at capitols across the country in recent weeks. Trump on Friday expressed support for protesters in Michigan - some of whom were armed with military-style rifles - tweeting that "these are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely!"

Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, rebuked some of the demonstrators, saying on "Fox News Sunday" that while she supports their right to protest, they should not be gathering close to one another and forgoing face masks.

"It's devastatingly worrisome to me personally, because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives," Birx said. "So we need to protect each other at the same time we're voicing our discontent."

Amid heightened scrutiny of the federal government's response to the pandemic, some top Trump administration officials have been redoubling their efforts to focus voter anger on China.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed Sunday in an interview on ABC News' "This Week" that "enormous evidence" indicates that the novel coronavirus originated at a laboratory in Wuhan, China - even though the U.S. intelligence community declined last week to specify the origin of the virus.

Pompeo added that "the best experts" believe the virus was man-made. Pressed on the matter, Pompeo said he has "no reason to doubt" the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that the virus was not man-made or genetically altered.

After the expiration of the federal social-distancing guidance at the end of April, states have largely been left to their own devices when it comes to reopening their economies.

The White House last month released a three-phase plan for a gradual reopening, but it offered few specifics. Since then, members of the White House coronavirus task force have begun reviewing expanded guidelines, though there is debate within the administration over the impact the new guidance would have, particularly on faith communities and restaurants.

On Sunday, the governors of several states faced questions about the steps they have taken amid the pandemic. Some, such as Whitmer, defended the need for stay-home orders, arguing that "this isn't something we just negotiate ourselves out of."

"I'm going to continue to do my job, regardless of what tweets come out or what polls come out or what people think . . . makes sense," Whitmer said on CNN's "State of the Union." "We're going to listen to facts and science, because we have got to get this right."

Whitmer also sharply criticized "some of the outrageousness" that was on display during last week's protests in Lansing, Michigan, which she said "depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country."

"The Confederate flags, and nooses, the swastikas, the behavior that you have seen in all of the clips is not representative of who we are in Michigan," Whitmer said.

Mississippi's Reeves, meanwhile, said during a Friday news conference that he had intended to announce a relaxing of safer-at-home orders but instead shared the news that there were 392 cases in the state over the previous 24 hours.

On "Fox News Sunday," Reeves said the state had since analyzed the data and found that the number of cases was higher because more tests were done. He said that finding led him to conclude the state could further relax social distancing requirements, beyond his earlier announcement that retail stores could reopen beginning April 27.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican much of whose state will enter the first phase of reopening Monday, said he is "intent on moving forward to be able to get the society on its feet again."

"I think it's going to be an important step for [the] people of Florida to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel," DeSantis said on Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures." "We're going to follow a safe, smart, step-by-step approach to Florida's recovery."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, on Sunday announced a partnership with six neighboring states to jointly buy $5 billion of personal protective equipment, ventilators, tests and other standard medical equipment. The states, which include New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, seek to maximize their buying power as a collective and end the bidding competition against one another.

As states move forward with partially reopening, some residents are chafing at measures that would make it mandatory to wear face masks in certain establishments.

DeWine said in an interview on ABC News' "This Week" that he reversed course on such an order last week after it quickly became clear that many Ohioans were opposed.

"It just wasn't going to work. You got to know what you can do and what you can't do," he said.

Even in states that are partially reopening, some residents say it feels like it may be a long time before things go back to "normal."

When the mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced last month that salons, gyms, restaurants and some other establishments would be allowed to reopen on May 1, Mary Breedlove, a 53-year-old hair stylist, was flooded with calls from clients.

But for Breedlove, the hardest part has been the stifling effect of having to wear a face mask while she works.

"[With a mask on], it's very impersonal, and our job is a very personal one," she said.

In the latter part of Sunday's Fox town hall, Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made an appearance. Pence said he had erred last week when he visited the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota without wearing a face mask - a rare admission of a mistake by a Trump administration official.

"I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic," Pence said.

Trump laid down his firmest marker yet in the next round of coronavirus negotiations on Capitol Hill, saying during the town hall that he would insist on a payroll tax cut as part of any eventual package. He said he spoke to Mnuchin about the issue earlier Sunday.

"We're not doing anything unless we get a payroll tax cut," Trump said. But Trump's demand for a payroll tax cut has gotten a lukewarm reception from both major parties on Capitol Hill because it cripples the source of revenue for Social Security funding and because it benefits only people who are currently employed and receiving paychecks.

He also said his administration will deliver a report "in two weeks" on how the coronavirus has disproportionately affected minority communities.

And in the shadow of Lincoln's statue, he declared that he is treated worse by the "hostile press" than Abraham Lincoln was, a remark that prompted ridicule from critics.

"They always said Lincoln - nobody got treated worse than Lincoln," Trump said. "I believe I am treated worse."

- - -

The Washington Post's Samantha Pell, Karen DeYoung, Candace Buckner and Aaron Gregg contributed to this report.
4G in Kashmir: The supreme court on Monday reserved its order on restoring 4G service in the Kashmir valley. The three-judge bench headed by Justice Ramanna heard the plea, seeking 4G internet services restoration.

4G in Kashmir: The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order after hearing petitions seeking restoration of 4G internet remains in Jammu and Kashmir, especially the Kashmir Valley.

The three-judge bench, headed by Justice NV Ramanna, heard the pleas with the petitioners making a strong case that 2G services were not enough to continue online education or business/work from home in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown.

The bench said all issues will be considered before delivering the order and no further additional material would be required in this case. The Centres counsel Attorney general KK Venugopal said the restrictions are in place due to security concerns and drew the courts attention to the Handwara encounter yesterday in which 5 security personnel were killed. 4G service will mean that videos can be made on troop movement, he said.

Supreme Court reserves order on hearing a number of petitions seeking restoration of 4G internet service in Jammu and Kashmir. Justice Ramana, said,we are taking into consideration all the issues. Don't require any additional materials in the case. pic.twitter.com/D9LBDZfUeD  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

He maintained that the court should leave the government to take policy decisions, like these, as and when necessary and not interfere with it. Appearing for a petitioner, Salman Khurshid argued students are unable to access online lectures and the restrictions on 4G infringed their education rights.

On August 5, 2019, Article 370 of the Constitution was revoked from Jammu and Kashmir and the erstwhile state was divided into t2 union territories, Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. Since then high-speed mobile internet has been prohibited in the Valley.

These restrictions were subsequently eased after the Supreme Court held that the ban on the internet violated the freedom of expression of the people. After that BSNL internet service was restored throughout the valley but at 2G speed.

Government of India to facilitate return of Indian Nationals stranded abroad. Process to begin from May 7 in a phased manner.@MEAIndia & @MoCA_GoI to soon share detailed info on their websites.#COVID19#IndiaFightsCoronavirus Press Release https://t.co/XPYsKYoiJ9 pic.twitter.com/cBrYUKT6Yl  Spokesperson, Ministry of Home Affairs (@PIBHomeAffairs) May 4, 2020

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
The Vatican is postponing the annual swearing-in ceremony for its new crop of Swiss Guards, a commemoration usually held each May 6 to honour the guardsmen who died while protecting the pope during the 1527 Sack of Rome.

The Swiss Guards said Monday that due to the ongoing coronavirus emergency, the pomp-filled ceremony will now be held Oct. 4.

Other commemoration will go ahead May 6, including a Mass in a Vatican church, but it will be celebrated with only a restricted few guests present.

Vatican City, a small city state in the center of Rome, has been implementing its own version of lockdown that mirrors the measure imposed in Italy, the European epicenter of the pandemic.

Pope Francis has been celebrating daily Mass to empty pews, and on Monday prayed for victims of domestic violence. Italian officials have said calls to domestic violence hotlines have declined during the lockdown, not because assaults are slowing but because victims are less able to call and get help.

Francis said: Let's pray for families, may they go ahead with creativity, peace and patience in this quarantine.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
MBABANE  Forget about opening schools unless you meet these 15 demands!

Teachers have given government an ultimatum to extensively disinfect schools and tertiary institutions in the country before reopening in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.



They also want a site nurse deployed in every school and institution, with a kit that will enable the health professional to conduct temperature screening for the teachers, learners, members of the support staff and everyone entering each school as an open system on a daily basis.



Through their organisation, Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), the teachers clearly made known the 15 conditions that must be met by government prior to the opening of schools.



SNAT Secretary General Sikelela Dlamini said government, through the Ministry of Education and Training, needed to move at a supersonic speed in achieving these requirements, failing which the 2020 academic year could simply be rendered a wasted year.

According to Dlamini, they wanted all the 970 schools (primary and secondary) and 30 tertiary institutions (both public and private), to be extensively disinfected. This should apply to both urban and rural schools.



Testing



The secretary general added that massive testing should also be rolled out, over and above the temperature screening process, as it were. He said evidence on the ground now revealed that local transmission was more rapid and that those infected presently had no history of travel or contact with a positive case.



Dlamini said some people tested positive even before they presented with the COVID-19 symptoms (asymptomatic). This, he said, meant that many emaSwati were already positive but due to the fact that they had not tested, they would not know.

He said pre-existing medical conditions of both their members and learners needed to be seriously considered if they were to put up a fierce fight against the virus. Illnesses and diseases are widespread in our country.

That, coupled with the high poverty levels, is a recipe for disaster. Our health institutions cannot be able to absorb a shock that can come with such an attack, Dlamini said.

He said more support staff members should be hired and trained so that they could assist in fumigating and disinfecting the schools time and again.



He also said a team of health professionals should move around the country to inspect the different conditions in the various schools and tertiary institutions to determine the level of sanitation in these institutions.

Dlamini said these should then be placed in a continuum to necessitate the application of health and safety measures in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.



Further, he stated that all institutions must be provided with water tanks to ensure constant supply of clean running water.

Schools that do not have running water need at least two tanks. The water demand remains high in such institutions due to lack of flush toilets. Those with running water need at least one tank to act as a backup should there be a system failure on the national infrastructure that is run by the Swaziland Water Services Corporation (SWSC), said the secretary general.



Demand



He said COVID-19 had increased the demand for water far beyond the known daily consumption. Dlamini also mentioned that government needed to also provide these institutions with adequate soap and sanitisers, otherwise without these, the provision of the water would not yield any positive results.



He said it was an indisputable fact that they were an organisation of workers (the teachers) but it was also true that they were a human rights organisation and as such, the protection of human rights was their paramount objective.

The secretary general said it was for the above reason that, as SNAT, they were concerned not only about the health and safety of their members but also that of the support staff, the learners under their care, immediate families as well as the general Eswatini populace.



Destabilising



The secretary general said they appreciated the scale of the challenge that engulfed the whole world presently. He stated that the coronavirus had hit all developing and developed countries alike, thereby destabilising human economies and social programmes.



As SNAT, we are cognisant of the fact that as a nation we need to effect some adjustments by re-aligning certain aspects of the economy in preparation for the reopening of same. While doing that we ought to remember that our weak economy might also be swiftly overwhelmed by a resurgence of the COVID-19 if we are not careful, said Dlamini.

Further, he said as SNAT, they had also noted that government tended to duplicate a majority of strategies that were being implemented by South Africa.



We cannot copy and paste since our neighbours are far ahead of us in so many ways. As we rethink about the reopening of the economy, we need to exemplify a bit of realism regarding the issues that confront us as a people, said Dlamini.

Schools were closed by government slightly over a week before the partial lockdown was announced.
By Associated Press

NEW YORK: CBS News "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl said Sunday that she's finally feeling well after a battle with COVID-19 that left her hospitalized for a week. Stahl that said she was "really scared" after fighting pneumonia caused by the coronavirus for two weeks at home before going to the hospital.

"One of the rules of journalism is 'don't become part of the story'. But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more-than-one-million Americans who did become part of it," Stahl said at the end of Sunday's broadcast.

78-year-old Stahl is the dean of correspondents at television's best-known newsmagazine. She joined "60 Minutes" in March 1991, and before that was moderator of the Sunday talk show "Face the Nation" and a Washington correspondent.

She landed the first television interview with Donald Trump after he was elected president, and the first with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she become speaker - both in 2007 and again in 2019. Stahl said there was a cluster of "60 Minutes" employees with the virus. "One had almost no symptoms while others had almost every symptom you can imagine. Each case is different," she said.

Stahl said she found an overworked and nearly overwhelmed staff when she was hospitalized but paid tribute to their care, and said she was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers when discharged. "In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs," she said.

60 Minutes declined to name the hospital involved. "Thanks to them, like so many other patients, I am well now. Tonight, we all owe them our gratitude, our admiration and, in some cases, our lives," she said.

Stahl is arguably the most prominent television journalist to disclose they had the disease.CNN hosts Chris Cuomo and Brooke Baldwin have tested positive, the former continuing his prime-time show while fighting symptoms.

ABC "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos had it, but like many infected, had only mild symptoms.

The virus has infected 3.5 million people and killed more than 246,000 worldwide, including more than 66,000 dead in the United States, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the numbers are likely larger.
O2 is in talks with rival Virgin Media about a potential 24 billion mega-merger, it was confirmed yesterday.

The tie-up would transform the telecoms market overnight, creating a powerhouse to challenge former state monopoly BT.

O2's owner, Spain-based Telefonica, said the telecoms firm was in talks with Virgin Media owner Liberty Global about the deal. It would reportedly see the rivals take 50-50 stakes in the combined business, which Goldman Sachs said could be worth 24.2 billion overall.

Negotiating: O2's owner, Spain-based Telefonica, said the telecoms firm was in talks with Virgin Media owner Liberty Global about the deal

O2 already operates the UK's largest mobile network, with 34m customers, while Virgin Media is one of the biggest internet providers with 6m customers. Virgin also has about 3m mobile customers.

Alongside EE owner BT, the enlarged business would become just the second major provider of both mobile and fixed broadband networks in Britain.

However, Telefonica cautioned that its talks with Liberty Global, owned by billionaire John Malone, might not succeed.

The potential merger with Virgin Media would end years of uncertainty for O2. It was previously on course to be sold to Three owner Hutchison in 2016 for 10 billion, but the deal was thwarted by competition officials at the European Commission.

Since then, there has been persistent speculation about whether Telefonica would seek another deal or float O2 on the London stock exchange.

Deutsche Bank yesterday said the merger of Virgin Media and O2 would 'resolve both companies' long-term strategies for fixed-mobile convergence and provide an increased customer base for Virgin Media to cross-sell its broadband and TV services'.
W e are facing an unprecedented health emergency. So far, the UK has seen nearly 157,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, and over 21,000 deaths, with experts warning that the UK could become the worst affected country in Europe, not far behind the USA in proportions.

In an attempt to slow the spread of the disease and limit the strain on the NHS, the UK population has been living under restrictive lockdown measures for nearly four weeks.

The government mantra of Stay home  Protect the NHS  Save Lives is getting through, with much of the population now working from home or furloughed, businesses shuttered and town centres deserted.

Clearly, this state cant go on forever. Increasingly, politicians and the public are asking when the lockdown will be lifted and we can start to get back to some semblance of normality, whatever that looks like. The big question is when?

The simple answer is, As soon as its safe. But it is difficult to know what that should look like in practice, and how to control the risk of new pockets of COVID-19 re-emerging as restrictions are relaxed.

The answer lies in tracking the early symptoms of COVID-19 in millions of people across the country. I believe that this is a more efficient way to track the early signs of coronavirus than testing for active infections, which is still not widespread across the country and may be inaccurate.

Hospitalisation or death rates also paint an inaccurate picture of the situation on the ground. Because it takes several weeks from someone to progress from first symptoms to life-threatening illness, these figures will always lag behind our real-time data on early symptoms and mild cases out in the community.

Predicting the spread of COVID-19 through a symptom tracking app

In the middle of March, my team at Kings College London and healthcare science company ZOE launched the new COVID Symptom Tracker app aiming to visualise how COVID-19 is moving through the country.

We have been stunned by the response to the app, with more than 3 million stay at home scientists across the UK already using it to track their health and coronavirus symptoms on a daily basis, with support from the government and NHS in many regions of the UK.

By focusing on data from a smaller subset of several thousand people who have been regularly reporting symptoms and had taken a test for COVID-19 (whether positive or negative), we were able to create a computer model that revealed which symptoms are most predictive of a positive test: anosmia (loss of taste & smell), fatigue, skipping meals, fever, and persistent cough.

Using this information, we were then able to predict which people were likely to have COVID-19 based on their symptoms, without the need for a test.

Were now working together with the Department of Health and Social Care to offer coronavirus testing to up to 10,000 app users every week, and will be using the data to validate the reliability of our model for predicting COVID-19 based solely on a combination of symptoms.

When can we lift the lockdown?

The good news is that the lockdown in the UK seems to be working, according to our app data. We appear to have passed the peak of new infections in the general population, and can expect the rate of deaths and hospitalisations to start slowing down in due course.

Using our model to extrapolate to the wider population, the estimated number of people with symptomatic COVID-19 across the country has fallen significantly since the beginning of the month, from 2 million on April 1st to 1.6 million on April 5th, and down to around 300,000 by the end of April.

China, Spain, and Italy have all passed the peak of their outbreaks and, as a result, have begun to loosen their lockdown restrictions. So if we have passed the peak of new infections, will we all be returning to our normal lives?

Unfortunately, were not quite there yet. Despite the fall in the number of people with coronavirus symptoms in the UK, there are still many with active infections. Lifting the lockdown when lots of people are still symptomatic could result in a deadly resurgence of COVID-19 cases, and we would quickly end up back in lockdown.

Again, we can use the app symptom data to inform the best exit strategy. Once the number of people with symptomatic COVID-19 has fallen to a sufficiently low number, restrictions can be lifted.

Then we can use the COVID Symptom Tracker app as an early warning system that locates likely local outbreaks, two weeks before this would be reflected in a rise in hospitalisations or deaths.

Our research is helping to identify those who are likely to be infected as soon as the earliest symptoms start to appear and may reduce the need to test so many people, easing pressure on testing services. This will be an important step for controlling the spreading and re-emergence of the disease in the future as lockdown measures start to relax.

Taking this data-driven approach means we may get out of lockdown sooner, but it relies on millions of people reporting their symptoms daily, for many more months to come.

Even as we return to our normal lives, we need to stay vigilant - possibly for a year or more. So if you havent already, download the app and get in the habit of spending just a minute every day checking in, whether you feel fine or are showing any potential coronavirus symptoms.

Tim Spector is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and the director of the Twins UK study at Kings College London @timspector.To download the app go to covid.joinzoe.com and follow the links to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Bill on debt settlement on electricity market passes first reading

19:10, 04.05.20 751

The bill will help address financial issues that arose at the state-run nuclear power operator Energoatom.
US Q1 GDP Data Masking The True Global Economic Future?

As Q1 GDP data is released on Wednesday, April 29, which will reflect the first three months of 2020 in terms of total economic output, we believe the number will skew the current true global economic conditions to a large degree. The pandemic shutdowns started in the US on March 15th  nearly 2 weeks before the end of Q1:2020. Thus, we had a fairly normal Q1 in terms of economic activity, production, and consumer engagement. Everything changed after March 15th, 2020.

Skilled traders need to watch the current economic data and week over week data that is presented. Skilled traders also need to pay attention to the news items that are being pushed out to the public. Larger and larger corporations and sectors are moving towards bankruptcy or screaming for a bailout. Airlines, Hotels, Car Rental, and dozens of other sectors have all collapsed over the past 5+ weeks. We expect real estate activity and pricing to collapse as well. The results of the last 5+ weeks, after the March 15th shutdown started, have been anything but normal.

We continue to believe the current data and news, which is still representative of the Q1 (pre-shutdown) economic activity may lull investors/traders into believing the global economy will rebound fairly quickly from this virus event. Traders/investors are looking at this current data and thinking, well, this isnt so bad. But they are failing to understand the true scope of the economic contraction event and what the longer-term outcome is likely to be in terms of recovery.

Total World GDP Output

The total world GDP output was approximately $190 trillion. An estimated 15% to 20% global GDP contraction as a result of the Covid-19 virus event would shave $28.5 to $38.0 trillion right off the top of the 2020 global economic output. Should the global shutdown last through the end of May 2020 (or beyond in some form), we believe the contraction in global GDP could become even more severe.

The complicated issues that arise from this global contraction in GDP also bleed over into supply-side economics. As the world attempts to shelter in place to avoid spreading the virus and risking more lives, demand collapses. Once demand collapses enough (resulting in price level collapses as weve seen in Oil) the result in production/supply issues becomes even more complicated. Unlike Eggs or Milk, one simply cant bury or destroy other types of supply. The destruction of certain industries, resources, and capabilities will become very real over time as a result of any extended contraction event. The longer-term results of this type of event are sometimes called stagflation  where price levels rise as income and economic output stay moderately flat.

BEFORE WE CONTINUE, BE SURE TO OPT-IN TO MY FREE MARKET TREND SIGNALS SO YOU DONT MISS OUR NEXT SPECIAL REPORT!

Custom Smart Stock Market Index

Our Custom Smart Cash Index highlights the new price channel that setup recently and why all traders/investors should really start to pay attention to how the global markets have transitioned into a new phase or price cycle. You can see from the chart, below, that the global markets broke below an upward price channel that has been in place since 2012 recently and has established a new downward price channel spanning the December 2018 lows to the February 2020 highs.

We believe the current upward price trend on this chart is nothing more than a bullish retracement in a bearish trend and that the global markets will begin another downside price move within 5 to 10+ days. As weve been trying to share with you over the past few weeks, the longer-term global economic disruption is just getting started.

US Dollar Daily Chart

We believe the US Dollar will enter a new phase of increasing demand throughout the world as global economies begin to feel the pressures of the demand-side collapse. We believe the US dollar is uniquely positioned to benefit from the global economic crisis simply because the US economy is the biggest and most capable economies on the planet in terms of the ability to recover from this virus event. As foreign nations attempt to deal with weakening currencies and economies related to the collapse in demand and continued virus-related economic transitions, we believe the US economy will be one of the first global economies to regain any real growth over the next 2 to 3+ years.

Thus, we believe the US Dollar may attempt another quick downside valuation move, similar to what happened in February/March 2020, then rally to levels above 102 again as continued economic data hit the markets. Remember, valuation levels of currencies are often based on future expectations of economic stability and capability for any nation. The US Dollar is a bit different because it is also the currency of choice in terms of global economic activity. We believe the US Dollar could begin a moderate melt-up process as the virus data continues to scorch the worlds economic output.

Concluding Thoughts:

These longer-term economic expectations are key to understanding how the recovery process will create opportunities for skilled traders and investors. We believe the world will survive this virus event. Yet, we also believe the global economic landscape will likely change over the next 3+ years as this virus event could very easily push many foreign nations away from economic relationships or projects they have engaged in over the past 10+ years. This virus event is really a big game-changer in terms of how and what the future of the global economic world will look like for many.

As weve warned many times, it is not the localized one-off economic event that presents a real problem for the global economy  central banks can simply patch the economy up with an infusion of cash. The bigger problems for the global economy happen when a fundamental shift takes place that lasts 6 to 12+ months and disrupts the systems in place throughout the globe. We believe this virus event could start a process that disrupts supply, demand, consumer engagement, and true valuation levels of almost all commodities and assets throughout the globe over the next 24+ months.

In Part II of this article, well attempt to share more data and highlight where opportunities may present real profit objectives for skilled investors and traders.

The next few years are going to be full of incredible opportunities for skilled traders and investors. Huge price swings, incredible revaluation events, and, eventually, an incredible upside rally will start again.

Ive been trading since 1997 and Ive lived through numerous market events. The one thing I teach my members is that risk is always a big part of trading and thats why I structure all of my research and trading signals around finding profits while reducing overall risks. Sure, there are fast profits to be made in these wild market swings, but those types of trades are extremely risky for most people  and I dont know many successful traders that want to risk their hard-earned money when daily price swings in various assets are moving 10% to 95%.

Im offering you the chance to learn to profit, as I do with my own money from market trends that I hand-pick for my own trading. These are not wild, crazy trades  these are simple, effective, and slower types of trades that consistently build wealth. I issue about 2 to 4+ trades a month for my members and adjust trade allocation based on my proprietary allocation and risk algo  the objective is to gain profits while managing overall risks.

You dont have to spend days or weeks trying to learn my strategy. You dont have to try to learn to make these decisions on your own or follow the markets 24/7  I do that for you. All you have to do is follow my research and trading signals and start benefiting from my trading experience. My new mobile apps make it simple  download the app, sign in and everything is delivered to your phone, tablet, or desktop  updates, videos, education, and trade alerts.

I offer membership services for active traders, long-term investors, and wealth/asset managers. Each of these services is driven by my own experience and my proprietary trading and risk modeling systems. I have a small team of dedicated researchers and developers that do nothing but research and find trading signals for us to take advantage of together. Our objective is to help you protect and grow your wealth.

Please take a moment to visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com to learn more. I cannot say it any better than this I want to help you create success while helping you protect and preserve your wealth  its that simple.

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.




Bigg Boss 13 winner Sidharth Shukla and his co-contestant Shehnaaz Gill recently mourned the demise of their fans who succumbed to COVID-19.

Shehnaaz took to Twitter and paid her tribute to the fans. TWO SIDNAAZ FANS PASSED AWAY WAHEGURU G BLESS THEM AND HUGE RESPECT FOR THEM (sic), wrote the 27-year-old actress.

TWO SIDNAAZ FANS PASSED AWAY WAHEGURU G BLESS THEM  AND HUGE RESPECT FOR THEM  Shehnaaz Gill (@ishehnaaz_gill) May 2, 2020

Later, actor Sidharth Shukla also extended his condolences to the departed souls after a Twitter user tagged him informing about the deaths. Sidharth replied to the post, saying, Really sorry for your loss brother ... but I am sure youre at a better place... RIP (sic)."

Really sorry for your loss brother ... but I am sure your at a better place .... RIP  Sidharth Shukla (@sidharth_shukla) May 2, 2020

Spotboye reported that the two fans who succumbed to the deadly virus were Sanam and Sidharth Jamwal. It further added that followers of Sidharth and Shehnaaz trended hashtags #RipSanam and #RipSidharthJamwal on the microblogging site.

Recently, Sidharth and Shehnaaz along with other television actors got featured in Ekta Kapoor-produced short film aimed at urging people to stay indoors during the time of COVID-19.

Sharing the clip, Ekta wrote, TV fraternity unites against Corona. These unprecedented times call for all of us to be alone, yet together! Heres an attempt, a made-at-home video, for which all of us from the Television Fraternity got together to voice our solidarity and give hope.

View this post on Instagram

These unprecedented times call for all of us to be alone, yet together! Heres an attempt, a made-at-home video, for which all of us from the Television Fraternity got together to voice our solidarity and give hope. #TvFraternityStandsTogether #StayHomeStayTuned #ChangeWithin #AloneTogether Producer Ekta Kapoor Directed by Guroudev Bhalla Creative Director Sonali Jaffar Script Dheeraj Sarna Dialogue Dheeraj Sarna Anukalp Goswami Edited by Vikas Sharma Music Aashish Rego Executive Producers Abhishek Rege Anil Wanvari Binaifer Kohli Fazila Allana Gul Khan JD Majethia Tanusree Dasgupta Media & PR support Ruchikaa Kapoor With thanks to Remo DSouza Aasif Sheikh Aditi Sharma Anita Hassanandani Aasif Sheikh Aura Bhatnagar Divyanka Tripathi Erica Fernandes Karan V Grover Karan Jotwani Karishma Tanna Manish Paul Mouni Roy Parth Samthaan Reem Shaikh Rohitashv Gour Sehban Azim Shabbir Ahluwalia Shailesh Lodha Shehnaaz Gill Siddharth Shukla Srithi Jha Surbhi Jyoti Vikram Singh Chauhan Sign Language Video India Signing Hands Pvt. Ltd. @gbppl24 @sonalijaffar @sarnadheeraj @sarnadheeraj @anukalpgoswami #VikasSharma @aashishrego #AbhishekRege @anilwanvari #BenaiferKohli @fazila_sol @gulenaghmakhan @jd_majethia @tanusridgupta @ruchikaakapoor @remodsouza @anitahassanandani @iaasifsheikhofficial @officialaditisharma @aurabhatnagar @divyankatripathidahiya @iam_ejf @karanvgrover @karanjotwani @karishmaktanna @manieshpaul @imouniroy @the_parthsamthaan @reem_sameer8 @rohitashvgour @sehban_azim @shabirahluwalia @lodha_shailesh @shehnaazgill @realsiddharthshukla @itisriti @surbhijyoti @vikramsingh_chauhan @indiasigninghands

A post shared by Erkrek (@ektarkapoor) on Apr 23, 2020 at 10:36pm PDT

Meanwhile, professionally Shehnaaz was last seen in a music video titled Bhula Dunga along with Sidharth Shukla. The song was sung by Darshan Raval.

Follow @News18Movies for more
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
Oishani Mojumder By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Contract sanitation workers and nurses in the Coronavirus wards form two of the most important Covid-19 warrior teams, but they are seldom recognised as they continue to work in deplorable conditions, even at the cost of their health. Social stigma of working in Covid-19 wards, discrimination, and meagre salaries are testing their patience.

Kistamma, a sanitation worker at Gandhi Hospitals Covid-ward, said: We work close to eight hours a day, with just one hour of break in between. The hospital has been forthcoming in terms of providing Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). They also provide us with breakfast and lunch. However, about eight to 10 workers are forced to live inside the hospital, in a shelter near the Gandhi Medical College, as the stigma and discrimination makes it difficult for them to go back home, she added.

The numbers keep increasing as more and more sanitation workers and nurses are being asked to stay away from their residential areas as they are treating patients affected by the disease. The nurses are in a similar plight. A nurse from Osmania Hospital said: The work hours are always long due to shortage of staff. It has got longer now. Many of us have to stay in the hospitals hostel, because either it gets too late to go back home or some of us arent allowed to enter our residential areas due to the fear of us spreading the disease.

Medicos rue lack of job security

Another staff nurse at Gandhi Hospital, on the condition of anonymity, said: Once we wear the PPE we cannot take breaks, or go to washrooms. We are practically saving lives of patients while putting our own at risk. But for what, a meagre `15,000. Is that all our lives and services are worth? We arent even permanent employees with job security. I have been working in the hospital for 13 years now, and everyday I am scared that I might lose my job. One would hope that the nurses and the sanitation workers will receive high incentives for their fearless service, but once sees is a gloomy picture.

As per the CMs announcement to provide 10 per cent incentive to health workers, these sanitation and security workers will get a meagre rise of Rs 900. Whereas, the GHMC workers and outsourced staff will get close to Rs 7,500. We request the government to take note of this and increase our salaries, said M Narsimha, AITCU president. Last month, the nurses and sanitation workers staged a protest, demanding an increase in their salaries. But being duty-bound, they went back to work once they realised how short-staffed the Gandhi Hospital actually is.

Unkind neighbours

More and more sanitation workers and nurses are being asked to stay away from their residential areas as they treat the patients affected by the disease


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French stocks plunged on Monday after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday there was 'a significant amount of evidence' that the coronavirus emerged from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, adding fuel to the U.S.-China trade war concerns.



China's Global Times said in an editorial that Pompeo was 'bluffing' and called on the United States to present its evidence.



The benchmark CAC 40 was down 206 points, or 4.51 percent, at 4,366 as traders returned to their desks after a long holiday weekend.



Air France KLM shares plunged 7.5 percent after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sold all stakes in four major U.S. airlines, noting that the airline industry has changed due to coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic.



Oil & gas company Total SA plummeted 8 percent as oil prices slipped back after last week's gains on concerns that heightening U.S.-China tensions could impair global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.



In economic news, the euro area manufacturing sector contracted at a record pace in April as government restrictions to limit the spread of the global coronavirus weighed on activity, final survey results from IHS Markit showed.



The final Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 33.4 from 44.5 in March. The score was also below the flash estimate of 33.6. The score was the lowest ever recorded by the series, surpassing readings seen during the depths of the global financial crisis.



France's factory activity shrank at a record pace in April driven by fresh record lows for production and new business as well as a drastic reduction in employment. The PMI slid to 31.5 in April, as initially estimated, from 43.2 in March.



Meanwhile, Eurozone investor confidence rose marginally in May but the current situation fell to a record low due to coronavirus pandemic, survey data from the behavioral research firm Sentix revealed.



The headline Sentix investor confidence index rose to -41.8 in May from -42.9 in the previous month. Nonetheless, this was below economists' forecast of -33.5.



The current situation index declined to a record low 73.0 from -66.0 in April, while the expectations index rose to -3.0 from -15.8 a month ago.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan is not the Libertarian Party's candidate for president. Not yet. The 40-year-old congressman, who left the Republican Party last year, entered third-party politics just weeks before the Libertarian Party is set to nominate its presidential ticket at a convention in Austin, Texas, and the candidates who were already in the race have blasted him as an "interloper."

Amash was making Libertarians a familiar offer: Welcome him in, give him the party's nomination, and he can blow up the two-party system. In interviews this week, Amash has rejected the idea that he'd siphon anti-Trump votes away from Joe Biden, arguing instead that he could stitch together 270 electoral votes.

"I'm in a position, given my age, where I think I have a little more capability, frankly, with social media and with this kind of stuff than these other two candidates," Amash told Politico's Tim Alberta. "I think this presents an advantage for me over the next few months."

Step one on that path: a charm offensive with Libertarian activists, urging a party that struggles to crack 3% of the vote that the country is finally ready for them. "Nobody should get the nomination just because they have higher name ID than other people," Amash said in an interview with The Washington Post this week. He would earn the nomination with conversations and reason, and then he'd apply these tactics to 130 million or so Americans.

Reached at home in western Michigan, Amash talked about that plan and his approach to government, which was idiosyncratic in the GOP and viewed skeptically by Libertarians. He addressed the sexual assault allegation against Biden by saying his campaign was focused on the issues. "Everyone deserves due process," Amash said, "whether it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump."

In a week when the Republican president was panicking about bad internal poll numbers and Democrats were wrestling with headlines focused on the allegation, Amash argued what Libertarian candidates have been pitching since 1976: that this was the year for voters to ditch the Democrats and Republicans. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

- - -

Q: Can you describe the process that led you to seek the presidency?

A: I've spent a lot of time thinking about it over the past couple of months, starting in mid-February. I had to assess whether this was a winnable race. That's important to me. I'm not running for messaging, or to score some points, or anything like that. I believe you run to win. And I had to adjust to this environment. We're at home with a pandemic situation, so are we able to campaign in a way that would allow me to win? And I came to the conclusion that, yes, it was possible to do that.

Q: You've talked about frustration with the two main parties and the "partisan death spiral." But somebody could point to the 2016 election and say: Hey, that was the opening for a third party. Hillary Clinton was far more disliked than Joe Biden, and Donald Trump was more disliked than he is now. And Libertarians could not crack 5%. What's the case now?

A: I'm not sure that I disagree with the idea that 2016 was a good environment for a Libertarian Party candidate. It's hard to know whether this environment is better or worse. I do know that we have two candidates who won't address the systemic problems we have, the partisan nature of politics that is destroying our constitutional system. And I'm not saying that partisanship will go away if any particular person is elected. Of course not. But right now, we let the partisanship drive everything, and it manifests itself in the way the legislative process works so that now you only have a few leaders who control everything and they negotiate directly with the White House. And that is not going to change whether you have Donald Trump or Joe Biden as president.

Q: Speaking of 2016, you said at the time that you could not vote for Trump or Clinton. Who did you vote for?

A: I wrote in [Sen.] Rand Paul [R-Ky]. Those were different times. [Paul, who criticized Trump in the 2016 presidential primary, has become a loyal presidential ally.]

Q: You opposed the Paycheck Protection Program, but you've also said that there should be some sort of universal cash distribution during the pandemic. Can you unpack your thinking on this?

A: The PPP, if constructed properly, could be beneficial to a lot of businesses and maybe a lot of employees, but it's not constructed properly at all. For example, enhanced unemployment benefits work against the PPP's effort to have employers rehire employees. [Some business owners have complained that benefits are more generous than the workers' pre-pandemic wages.] So you have things working against each other in the bill, and you also have hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare that is accessible through the Federal Reserve under the direction of [Treasury] Secretary [Steve] Mnuchin. That legislation is convoluted and complex. What would have been much better for the American people, and should have at least been the starting point, would have been to get money to the people directly as fast as possible. And I was sounding the alarm on that pretty early in the process. The checks would have gone out faster, and those checks should have been universal. Would there be some checks that go to the wrong people? Of course, but the level of waste there is small compared to the level of waste under the current system.

Q: I ask about that because I could find a Libertarian delegate, or maybe one of your opponents, who says: Look, the government shouldn't be redistributing wealth in the first place. So, why is this in harmony with your belief system?

A: I do think it's a form of redistribution. The government is going to be involved in a crisis. There was a lot of desire by hundreds of millions of Americans to have the government involved in this. There is no way the government was going to stay out. And the crisis was furthered by government action. You had big government instructing people to not go to work and instructing people in certain businesses to close their doors. Is it utopian to have this system? No, but in a crisis, there is no perfect way to address it. So the best thing you can do is try to reduce the shock.

Q: Every time someone first elected as a Republican has sought the Libertarian nomination, he's won it. But there's always some resistance to him inside the party. The Libertarian platform, for example, says that the government shouldn't be involved in abortion and that it's a personal choice. You disagree with that, right?

A: I'm pro-life, and people in the party understand that. They know where I'm coming from. And within the party, there's a lot of division on that issue. It's not clear-cut. My suspicion is that the party's actually become more pro-life over the years. But there is common ground, I think, on this particular issue. Libertarians do agree that there shouldn't be federal funding of abortion or abortion providers. And as far as legislation coming through Congress is concerned, that's probably as far as anything we'll ever get.

Q: It's more likely to come through the courts. Say you're president, and you're sitting down with judicial nominees. What is the conversation you guys have about Roe v. Wade and the right to privacy?

A: I think we can agree, and even progressive law professors can agree, that Roe v. Wade has problems as a Supreme Court opinion. So, that's not really a big debate in the legal community. For me, when it comes to judicial nominations and appointments, the question's about whether they uphold the text of the Constitution. I was supportive of Justice [Neil] Gorsuch. I was supportive of his nomination and appointment. And I would be supportive of justices like that.

Q: The Libertarian platform also says that we should - I'm going to read the text, so I'm not gotcha-ing you - "phase out the current government-sponsored Social Security system and transition to a private voluntary system." Do you agree with that?

A: If the question is, do I agree with reforming Social Security, the answer is yes. I don't know whether it has to be replaced or reformed or in some other way. I've long advocated for the idea that Social Security and Medicare, as they are currently operating, will not function into the distant future, and that you have to begin to change the system. You change the system by addressing the people who are youngest right now, and having them transition to a different system, whereas people who are older - just so that we're totally clear on this, people at or near retirement - you wouldn't change the system for them. I want to be careful about the word "phasing" or the phrase "phasing out." I don't want some abrupt change for people who are currently retired or near retirement. The phase-in would affect our youngest people, in their 20s and 30s.

Q: What do you think when you see people protesting stay-home orders, in close quarters, in state capitols? Do you agree with the protests?

A: I don't disagree with the right to protest. Everyone has the right to protest. And no governor can shut down protests. It's a First Amendment protected right. I think that just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean you should do it in a particular way. So to the extent that anyone is out and about ignoring social distancing guidelines and taking big risks, I think that's a mistake. If you do it in a way that pushes people away from your cause, that can be problematic. I think there are millions of people in the state of Michigan who agree with the protesters, at least in spirit. I also agree that the governor has overreached in her approach, and I'm glad that she's taken some steps back.

Q: Was the president right or wrong to halt the legal immigration process during the pandemic? Keeping in mind here that guest workers are still allowed in the country.

A: That's not a particularly fruitful approach. Most of the spread is already happening in communities here in America, so I don't know what's gained from it. If you were going to have lockdowns, it made the most sense to lock down very early. I understand it's hard for anyone, any president, to know what is the right time to do that and how things might spiral out of control. But I'm not sure that this particular population presents a significant increase in risk to the United States in terms of spreading the virus.

Q: How should the 2020 elections be conducted? Do you agree with the states that are restricting absentee ballots?

A: It's important that states, for security reasons, be able to determine how they hold elections and that we not have one government dictating to all 50 states how they're going to hold the elections. But I do think it is important for every state to make voting as accessible as possible. And if that means mail-in ballots during this kind of situation, then so be it. I just don't like the idea of having the federal government start to manage elections across the country, because then you make the system actually more vulnerable to outside attacks.

Q: You've been asked a few times about whether you may be a "spoiler," and why you did not send a message by running against the president in the Republican primary. Bill Weld, who was the Libertarian nominee for vice president four years ago, did just that and dropped out. What lesson did you take from Weld's experience?

A: It was futile, and I recognized that a long time ago. The partisanship is so extraordinary right now that people aren't willing to break away from their leaders in their parties in the way that they might have decades ago. I never expected the Republican Party to peel away from Trump during this election, at least not over the past two years. There was a possibility early on if Republicans had spoken out, right when he was elected. He could have been rejected outright by this point. But once he basically coalesced with the establishment, once he essentially merged with [Sen. Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell [R-Ky.], there was no chance of returning. And that's where we are.
The Indian Railways has issued a set of guidelines for Shramik Special trains being run to ferry the migrants stranded across the country, saying the trains will ply only if they have 90 percent occupancy and the "states should collect the ticket fare", inviting fierce criticism for charging for their services.

A provision in the SOP, which drew a good deal of flak, said the "local state government shall handover the tickets for these passengers cleared by them and collect the ticket fare and hand over the total amount to Railways."

"If you are stuck abroad during this COVID crisis this government will fly you back for free but if you are a migrant worker stranded in another state be prepared to cough up the cost of travel (with social distancing cost added). Where did 'PM Cares' go? Like I said earlier you were better off getting stranded overseas & flown back home!," tweeted NC leader Omar Abdullah.

In the SOP, the railways said the responsibility for food, security, health scanning, providing tickets to the stranded will be with the state from which the train is originating.

It has however taken the burden of providing one meal to passengers whose journey will be of 12 hours or more.

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

While railways has refused to comment on the issue of payments, stating it is a state matter, sources said Jharkhand, which has received two trains till now, has paid its dues. Originating states like Rajasthan and Telangana are also paying for the travel of workers in their states.

Gujarat, the sources said, has roped in an NGO to pay for part of the services.

However, they said, Maharashtra is making the migrants pay some amount of the fare. In fact, Maharashtra Minister Nitin Raut wrote to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, requesting him to bear the cost of ticket.

Railways is charging the fare of sleeper class tickets, plus a super-fast charge of Rs30 and an additional charge of Rs20 for the Shramik Specials.

Hitting out at the Union government for burdening the states, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the situation with migrant workers was a result of the Centre's abrupt announcement of a lockdown.

"It is very unfair that the entire responsibility has been shifted to state governments. This problem was not caused by states. In Parliament, the government said it bore the entire cost of repatriating Indians stuck abroad. In the same manner the migrants should have been sent back.

"Anyway, thousands of crores have been directed to PM-CARES," Yechury told PTI.

Railways rolled out the special trains on Friday. Normally, it said in the guidelines, the trains will be run for distances more than 500 km and will not stop at any station before the destination. Each train with full-length composition with social distancing (not counting the middle berths) can carry about 1,200 passengers.

"The originating state shall plan the group of travellers accordingly. The occupancy of train should not be less than 90 per cent. Railways shall print train tickets to the specified destination, as per number of passengers indicated by originating state and hand them over to the local state government authority.

"The local state government authority shall handover tickets to passengers cleared by them and collect the ticket fare and hand over the total amount to Railways," the guidelines added.

The state government shall issue food packets and drinking water at the originating points, it said.

It will be mandatory for all passengers to wear face covers.

"The originating state will encourage all passengers to download and use Aarogya Setu App," it said.

Follow LIVE updates on the COVID-19 pandemic here

At the destination, passengers will be received by state government authorities, who would arrange for their screening, quarantine, if necessary, and further travel.

"Railways reserves the right to discontinue Shramik Special train operations if safety, security and hygiene protocols are flouted at any stage," the guidelines issued to all zonal general managers said.

Railways has denied charging the migrants and said they are dealing only with state governments. And officials said it was not possible to waive these charges as the national transporter was incurring running charges as well as cost of meals.

"Our trains are coming back empty. The charges we have levied are nominal," an official said.

However, criticising the decision to charge for the travels, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav said exploiting the poor during a disaster is the "job of money lenders, not the government".

"The news of the BJP government taking money from the poor, helpless labourers going back home by train is very shameful. It has become clear that the BJP, which pardons billions to capitalists, is with the rich and against the poor. Exploiting during a disaster is the job of money lenders, not the government," he tweeted in Hindi.

Karnataka Congress president D K Shivakumar said his party was ready to provide aid to the state government for payment of the train fare.

"Giving Rs1 crore cheque to KSRTC from the KPCC for ensuring Free Transport to our working class & labour people who are suffering to reach home because of the rates being charged by the Karnataka Govt. Govt should let us know if they need more, the KPCC will fulfil that as well," he tweeted.

Railways ran five trains on May 1, the first day of operations of the Shramik Specials, followed by 10 on Saturday. For May 3, it has planned 25 trains, but ran around 10 including two each to Bihar and Jharkhand, one each to Bhubaneshwar and Lucknow.

On May 4, it will run its first train to West Bengal.

Follow our full coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic here
Vietnam faces increasing tax evasion and avoidance as policies have not kept up with reality, according to a report by the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) and Oxfam.

Nguyen Duc Thanh, a senior advisor of VEPR, talks about combatting tax evasion.  Photo dantri.com.vn

Tens of thousands of businesses have been detected violating enterprise income tax rules worth up to trillions of dong per year from 2010  2018.

Tax violations not only occur among multinational corporations but also in State-owned enterprises as well as domestic private enterprises; not only in large-scale enterprises but also in small and medium-sized enterprises.

VEPR said although Viet Nam had tried to consolidate the legal framework for tax administration, laws were still inadequate, inconsistent and had not kept pace with the reality of rapid and complex developments.

In the period, revenue loss in both value and proportion of corporate income tax has been on an upward trend since 2014.

Tax evasion and avoidance caused a revenue loss estimated at between VND15.6 and VND20.7 trillion each year, equivalent to 7.5 - 9.9 per cent of corporate income tax revenue.

Professor Nguyen Hoang Oanh from the National Economics University said tax evasion was a common phenomenon in the economy.

In Viet Nam, multinational enterprises have the best opportunity to evade taxes as they set up many branches abroad, shifting profits in high tax rates places to low tax rates places, Oanh said.

Nguyen Duc Thanh, a senior advisor of VEPR, said that to combat tax evasion the country was trying to cut corporate income tax to compete with other countries in the region.

The reduction of corporate income tax might cause the country to enter into competition with other countries, and there might be a race for tax incentives for businesses among ASEAN countries, Thanh said.  VNS
Three anti-Maduro figures familiar with Sunday's incursion, including opposition lawmaker Hernan Aleman, linked it to a separate effort to oust Maduro organised by Venezuelan military defectors in Colombia that some think might have been infiltrated by government agents. Loading As part of that operation, Cliver Alcala - a former Venezuelan Army general who was brought to the United States from Colombia in March to face narcotrafficking charges - allegedly sought to train more than 100 soldiers, mostly Venezuelan defectors, in three camps in Colombia for an incursion into Venezuela. The men involved in Sunday morning's operation hailed from those camps, these people say. Alcala, who was charged alongside Maduro and other senior officials by US authorities in March, is in US custody. His lawyer declined to comment on Sunday. The operation involved at least three boats; one was captured. One of its commanders sent audio recordings to Venezuelan military and police WhatsApp groups, calling for troops to rebel and take to the streets.

Aleman, a Venezuelan lawmaker living outside the country, said on Sunday that he had been involved in Alcala's operation in Colombia since last year. He said the group had to "make some adjustments" after a shipment of weapons destined for the camps was seized by Colombian authorities in March. Aleman said the plan was for the boats to land at La Guaira, home to Venezuela's main international airport and a half-hour's drive from the capital. "Our objective was clear," Aleman said. "We were going to enter through La Guaira because it was the closest place to our targets." The events on Sunday came days after the first anniversary of Guaido's failed uprising in Caracas. The opposition leader attempted to rally troops to oust Maduro in April 2019, but few answered the call. "What do you want us to do?" Aleman asked. "It may take five, even 10 failed attempts, but we will get rid of this government."

Aleman and others briefed on the effort would not clarify the precise objective of Sunday's incursion. Nestor Reverol, Maduro's interior minister, appeared on television on Sunday morning to denounce what he called the "invasion by sea". "A group of terrorists, mercenaries, from Colombia" is how he described the participants. He said their purpose was the "assassination of leaders of the revolutionary government". US officials expressed scepticism. "The Maduro regime has been consistent in its use of misinformation in order to shift focus from its mismanagement of Venezuela," the State Department said in a statement.

Venezuelan authorities said they confiscated 10 rifles, one Glock 9mm pistol and two AFAG machine guns. Images on television showed a pile of documents including ID cards, bank cards and an orthodontist's receipt. Diosdado Cabello, president of the Maduro-controlled National Constituent Assembly, said eight people had been killed and two arrested, including, an "agent" of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. "Behind all of this is the United States, the Colombian oligarchy and narcotrafficking," Cabello said. The Colombian government denied that an "invasion" had originated in Colombia. Cabello claimed that one of the people killed in the operation was Robert Colina, a military operative linked to Alcala known as Pantera - Panther. Cabello blamed the "right wing" but neither he nor other government officials immediately accused Guaido or his opposition movement. Aleman said Sunday's operation was conducted without the knowledge of Guaido or other senior opposition officials. He said they had been briefed last year on the broad outlines of the effort but did not endorse it.

The Colombian camps - described by several people familiar with them as rudimentary - were established after Guaido's failed uprising last year. Senior opposition officials say they dismissed Alcala's effort as haphazard and unlikely to yield results, and in addition feared it had been infiltrated by Maduro's agents. Colombian authorities, meanwhile, did not take them seriously until the March seizure of a truckload of weapons destined for the camps. Before Alcala was taken into Colombian custody in connection with the US charges, he said in an interview with Colombian radio that the weapons were meant to be used in an operation near the border "against the Maduro dictatorship". He has not specifically acknowledged the existence of the camps. Guaido did not comment on Sunday's events. Some in the mainstream opposition said Maduro's government might have staged a fake operation for propaganda purposes. Ivan Simonovis, Guaido's security commissioner, denied involvement of Guaido's "interim government". "If there are any bodies, I suspect they killed people elsewhere and brought the bodies to the coast," Simonovis said. "I mean, a helmet with a US flag? Come on. This is some kind of childish game."
PORTLAND, Oregon, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Industrial Gloves Market Usability (Disposable {By Material (Natural Rubber, Nitrile, Vinyl, Neoprene, Polyethylene, and Others), End-User (Aerospace, Disk Drives, Flat Panels, Food, Hospitals, Medical Devices, Pharmaceuticals, Semiconductors, and Others)} and Reusable {Glove Type (Dipped Gloves, Knitted Gloves, Supported Knitted Gloves, and Others), Protection (General purpose/Mechanical, Chemical/Liquid, and Product Protection), End-User (Machinery, Oil & Gas, Metal Fabrication, Automotive, Chemical, Construction, Plane Manufacturing, Food Processing, Office Building Cleaners, Healthcare, and Others)}: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202027."According to the report, the global Industrial gloves industry was estimated at $6.9 billion in 2019, and is anticipated to hit $17.0 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 12.5% from 2020 to 2027.

Drivers, restraints, and opportunities-

Safety regulations and rules, rise in demand for superior performance and comfort, and growth in healthcare and food processing industries drive the growth of the global Industrial gloves market. On the other hand, availability of local and inexpensive products, and lack of awareness regarding usage of industrial gloves impedes the growth to some extent. However, implementation of innovated technology is expected to create lucrative opportunities in the industry.

Get Detailed COVID-19 Impact Analysis on the Industrial Gloves Market @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/706?reqfor=covid

The disposable segment to dominate by 2027-

The global industrial gloves market size is segmented into usability, material, end-user, glove type, protection and region. Based on usability, the market is categorized into disposable and reusable. The disposable segment accounted for the highest share in 2019, contributing to more than three-fifths of the total revenue, and is projected to maintain its dominant position throughout the forecast period. Moreover, this segment would manifest the largest CAGR of 13.0% from 2020 to 2027. As these gloves are resistant to solvent and are odor free that has led to increase in their usage in the food, hospital, medical devices, and pharmaceutical industries, which drives the growth of the segment.

Request Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/706

The semiconductor segment to retain the dominant share-

Based on end users, the disposable industrial gloves market is segment into aerospace, disk drives, flat panels, food, hospitals, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and others. The semiconductors segment accounted for the maximum share in 2019, holding nearly one-fourth of the total share, and is estimated to maintain the highest share during the forecast period. This is due to increased usage of industrial gloves in the semiconductor industry owing to its properties like bad conductors of electricity and comparative stiffness with least elasticity, which protects workers hands from electric shocks while working. On the other hand, the food industry segment is estimated to portray the highest CAGR of 15.9% during the forecast period. This is due to the regulations of FDA that has made it mandatory to use gloves while preparing food as hand washing is not sufficient to prevent transmitting these pathogens.

For Purchase Enquiry at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/706

North America to dominate the market in 2019

Geographically, North America held the largest share, holding nearly two-fifths of the total market share in 2019, and will maintain its dominant contribution during the forecast period. This is due to stringent regulations regarding the safety of labor and working individuals. Contrarily, the region across Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 13.9% during the forecast period.

Key players in the industry-

Top Glove Corporation Berhad

Hartalega Holdings

Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd

Riverstone Holdings Limited

Careplus Group Berhad, Supermax Corp.

Ansell Healthcare

SHOWA, Inc

Honeywell International Inc.

Semperit AG Holding



Interested in Procuring this Report? visit: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/industrial-gloves-market/purchase-options



Access AVENUE- A Subscription-Based Library (Premium on-demand, subscription-based pricing model) at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/library-access

Avenue is a user-based library of global market report database, provides comprehensive reports pertaining to the world's largest emerging markets. It further offers e-access to all the available industry reports just in a jiffy. By offering core business insights on the varied industries, economies, and end users worldwide, Avenue ensures that the registered members get an easy as well as single gateway to their all-inclusive requirements.

Avenue Library Subscription | Request for 14 days free trial of before buying:

https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/avenue/trial/starter



Similar Reports:

PPE Gloves Market: North America Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2018-2025

Disposable Protective Clothing Market: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20192026

Sports Protective Equipment Material Market: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20192026

Liquid Packaging Carton Market: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2018 - 2025



About Us

Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.

We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.

Contact:

David Correa

5933 NE Win Sivers Drive

#205, Portland, OR 97220

United States

USA/Canada (Toll Free): 1-800-792-5285, 1-503-894-6022, 1-503-446-1141

UK: +44-845-528-1300

Hong Kong: +852-301-84916

India (Pune): +91-20-66346060

Fax: +1(855)550-5975

[email protected]

Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com

Follow Us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allied-market-research

SOURCE Allied Market Research
Containers of Chinese companies China Shipping and COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Company) are loaded on a container as it's leaving the port in Hamburg, Germany, on March 11, 2020. (Fabian Bimmer/File Photo/Reuters)

Trump Administration Pushing to Rip Global Supply Chains From China: Officials

WASHINGTONThe Trump administration is turbocharging an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the CCP virus outbreak, according to officials familiar with U.S. planning.

President Donald Trump, who has stepped up criticisms of the Chinese regime amid the pandemic, has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas.

Now, economic destruction and the massive virus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move U.S. production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to more friendly nations instead, current and former senior U.S. administration officials said.

Weve been working on [reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China] over the last few years, but we are now turbo-charging that initiative, Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the U.S. State Department, told Reuters.

A cargo ship loaded with containers berths at a port in Qingdao in Chinas eastern Shandong Province on Jan. 14, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

I think it is essential to understand where the critical areas are and where critical bottlenecks exist, Krach said, adding that the matter was key to U.S. security and one the government could announce new action on soon.

The U.S. Commerce Department, State Department, and other agencies are looking for ways to push companies to move both sourcing and manufacturing out of China. Tax incentives and potential re-shoring subsidies are among measures being considered to spur changes, the current and former officials told Reuters.

There is a whole of government push on this, said one. Agencies are probing which manufacturing should be deemed essential and how to produce these goods outside of China.

Trumps China policy has been defined by behind-the-scenes tussles between pro-trade advisers and China hawks; now the latter say their time has come.

This moment is a perfect storm; the pandemic has crystallized all the worries that people have had about doing business with China, said another senior U.S. official.

All the money that people think they made by making deals with China before, now theyve been eclipsed many fold by the economic damage from the virus, the official said.

Workers watch a container ship arrive at a port in Qingdao in east Chinas Shandong province , China, on Feb. 4, 2020. (Chinatopix via AP)

Economic Prosperity Network

Trump has said repeatedly that he could put new tariffs on top of the up to 25 percent tax on $370 billion in Chinese goods currently in place.

That does not mean Trump will balk at new ones, officials say. Other ways to punish China may include sanctions on officials or companies, and closer relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing considers its territory.

But discussions about moving supply chains are concrete, robust, and multi-lateral, sources said.

The United States is pushing to create an alliance of trusted partners dubbed the Economic Prosperity Network, one official said. It would include companies and civil society groups operating under the same set of standards on everything from digital business, energy and infrastructure, to research, trade, education, and commerce, he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019. (Susan Walsh/AP)

The U.S. government is working with Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam to move the global economy forward, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said April 29.

These discussions include how we restructure  supply chains to prevent something like this from ever happening again, Pompeo said.

Latin America may play a role, too.

Colombian Ambassador Francisco Santos last month said he was in discussions with the White House, National Security Council, U.S. Treasury Department, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce about a drive to encourage U.S. companies to move some supply chains out of China and bring them closer to home.

China overtook the United States as the worlds top manufacturing country in 2010, and was responsible for 28 percent of global output in 2018, according to United Nations data.

The pandemic has highlighted Chinas key role in the supply chain for generic drugs, which account for the majority of prescriptions in the United States. It has also shown Chinas dominance in goods such as the thermal cameras needed to test workers for fevers.

Some Companies Reluctant

Chinese and U.S. flags flutter near The Bund, before the U.S. trade delegation meets its Chinese counterparts for talks in Shanghai on July 30, 2019. (Aly Song/File Photo/Reuters)

Many U.S. companies have invested heavily in Chinese manufacturing and rely on Chinas 1.4 billion people for a big chunk of their sales.

Diversification and some redundancy in supply chains will make sense given the level of risk that the pandemic has uncovered, said Doug Barry, spokesman for the U.S.China Business Council. But we dont see a wholesale rush for the exits by companies doing business in China.

John Murphy, senior vice president for international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that U.S. manufacturers already meet 70 percent of current pharmaceutical demand.

Building new facilities in the United States could take five to eight years, he said. Were concerned that officials need to get the right fact sets before they start looking at alternatives, Murphy said.

By Humeyra Pamuk and Andrea Shalal

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.
LO Jobs; CRM, Audit, Doc Products; Upcoming Events and Training

May the 4th be with you as the use of the word unprecedented continues to be unprecedented. While in captivity it is important to get out outside once in a while and see the countryside. Of course hairdressers around the nation are saying that, thanks to COVID-19, everyone now knows everyones true hair color on WebEx and Zoom. And guys are concerned about having Abe Vigoda eyebrows, so lets keep the hygiene up. Potential borrowers are concerned about keeping their credit scores up. LOs should keep their clients abreast of how forbearance can change credit scores, and VantageScore, Experian, and Equifax have good information on the topic. As one group believes that worldwide economies will be in trouble for at least the rest of the year, and for decades paying back the rising debt, others believe that states should re-open immediately to minimize the financial damage. I never thought the comment I wouldnt touch him/her with a six-foot pole would become a national policy, but here we are!



Lender Services and Products

Last week we saw the backstory of how DocProbe got started with Trailing Documents. Lets take a look at how their process has revolutionized Post-Closing and given lenders the ability to focus on closing loans. DocProbes holistic process ensures that every document is accounted for and executed correctly, ensuring that every lender, servicer or custodians specific requirements are included in the scope of work. The operation starts with Call Center specialists retrieving missing documents from title companies, attorneys, or counties. The Mailroom opens mail, sorts, and scans. Thorough auditing by the QC Team to ensure no corrections are required. The Shipping Team completes the document process with physical and/or digital delivery to investors and custodians. Account Reps take complete ownership on updating investor exception lists. Find out more next week about the technology used throughout this Trailing Document process. Learn more at www.docprobe.net or contact Nick Erlanger.

Do you use Cenlar as your subservicer? Richey May & Co. will be conducting its annual subservicer oversight review over Cenlar later this month to assist lenders with their monitoring and oversight responsibilities. Richey Mays program and subsequent 120+ page report provides value beyond the basic compliance requirements. With a focus on current and ongoing procedures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the review includes interviews with all key department heads to observe their processes and challenges, a comprehensive review of business continuity and IT assessments to ensure client and consumer information remains secure, and a summary of the subservicers notable accomplishments, challenges, and strategic initiatives for the future. Optional loan level testing is also available to provide succinct and valuable insight into how your personal portfolio is being serviced, potentially uncovering unobserved information and assisting in the client-subservicer relationship. To learn more or to participate in the upcoming review of Cenlar, or our 2020 reviews of Dovenmuehle or LoanCare, please contact Kevin Lohry.

MORA, MORA on the wall, whos the most compliant of them all? Fannie/Freddie tickets are a hot commodity these days. Whether you are in possession or pursuit of one, internal audit needs to be a top priority, as this is a required component for all Fannie- and Freddie-approved lenders and a host of other federal/state regulators and investors. Despite its pervasiveness as a regulatory requirement, many lenders still do not have a clear understanding of the internal audit function. Enter MQMR. Using our extensive mortgage audit experience, we have developed a white paper, The Mortgage Lenders Guide to Internal Audit, that covers all the major bases  what internal audit is, why its important and what lenders need to know to be compliant. To learn more, download your free copy. P.S. We can conduct your internal audit remotely: ask us how!

We really couldnt say it better ourselves. At UNIFY CRM we built our CRM solution specifically for the mortgage business and the results speak for themselves: As a company, we have sought to nd the perfect CRM to meet the individual needs of our 80+ loan officers; we tested dozens before finding Unify. After our demo with Unify, we knew this was a must have CRM. We have now been using Unify for almost a full year with fantastic results. (Marketing Director, Mortgage Financial Services.) I wanted to reach out and let you know how impressed I am with the new UNIFY CRM system. Since diving head rst into the database and actually using it, I have been able to close an additional 8 renances that I would have never called and made over $42,000 in additional commissions in the last 60 days. (Senior Loan Officer, Summit Funding.) We want to partner with you and help grow your business: Schedule a Demo today.



Upcoming Events

Yes, I realize that the large aggregators (Wells, Chase, PennyMac, AmeriHome, and so on) continue to make program and guideline changes, but lets catch up on training, much of it free, from home.

This week Altisource, your one source for mortgage and real estate solutions, is hosting a one-day virtual summit on how Covid-19 is impacting the mortgage industry. The Mortgage Industry Pandemic Summit will take place on May 6, 2020 featuring 28 of the most influential leaders in Originations, Servicing, Vendor Management and Government discussing the operational challenges facing mortgage and real estate companies as a result of the pandemic. There is no cost to attend and registrants can select the all-access option for all sessions or choose individual sessions that interest them the most. Register now.

Franklin American Mortgage Company posted its May 2020 Wholesale Customer Training Calendar. This months calendar offers a variety of training opportunities such as:

Seizing Market Share, 9 Things to Embrace Today and Keep Embracing When COVID-19 Goes Away, The #1 Way to Attract and Convert Agents to Referral Partners and Get More Leads, Stayin Alive: How to Evolve with Facebook to Reach More Customers, Detecting and Avoiding Fraud in Loan Files.

PRMG University TPO published its training calendar. Click here to view the complete schedule for the month of May.

Tune in on May 6th with Plaza Home Mortgage COO and CFO, Michael Fontaine, for the virtual panel Workforce Tetris: Lining up Resources with Todays Needs, where he and other thought leaders will discuss strategies to adapt the new business climate, from remote workforce management to hybrid space planning, as corporate needs shift in the new normal. This virtual summit is hosted by Altisource and registration is free.

On Thursday, May 7 at 2PM ET, October Research is offering a webinar on Streamlining the HMDA Process. Compliance experts will outline action items to help you comply with HMDA efficiently, reviewing everything you need to do to make compliance easy.

The MBA of Greater Philadelphia is hosting a FREE webinar on May 13th to help industry participants in PA understand the realities of eClose in the state.

MGICs exclusive webinar, MI Misconceptions: How to present MI to Real Estate Agents and Consumers, is on May 13th. Discussion items include struggles of todays borrowers and how to help overcome them, current concerns of real estate agents and how to use MI to increase buying power. MGIC offers complimentary webinars every month to help customers succeed in todays mortgage insurance industry. View the full MGIC training calendar for details.

Pennsylvania has recently allowed Remote Online Notarization which is a step towards fully digital closings. The technology and terminology are developing fast, so the MBA of Greater Philadelphia is hosting a FREE webinar on May 13 at 10:30AM to help industry participants doing business in PA understand the realities of e-Close in the state. The current public health crisis should be a wakeup call to start digitizing your closing process.

Are you a leader who wants to give back? Join NAMMBA in a Town Hall Series For College Students. There are 18M students currently enrolled in college, with 4M of them set to graduate this month, into an economic recession they have never experienced before. These same students saw our industry at our worst during the great recession and now we want them to see us at our best. NAMMBA will be hosting a monthly Town Hall Series for college students to help explain how our industry impacts the economy, what this recession means for them and provide students free resources to find jobs. We are looking for CEOs, Senior Leaders, Policy Experts, and Industry Stakeholders who would like to participate in these sessions. To learn more, contact Tony Thompson, NAMMBA's Founder/CEO.



Capital Markets

May got off to a rocky start for stocks, largely due to poor earnings reports and a ratcheting up of tension with China. Apple and Amazon both posted profit warnings, while Exxon posting its first quarterly loss in over three decades and Chevron slashed capital spending for the second time in five weeks and accelerated supply curbs. U.S. Treasuries ended the week pulling back slightly, though the yield curve did steepen on the week; the 10-year yield closed Friday +2 bps to 0.64 percent (+4 bps for the week). President Trump made known his displeasure with China's handling of the coronavirus outbreak on Thursday night, leading to speculation about new tariffs entering the picture.

As far as economic releases went, total construction spending increased 0.9 percent in March when it was expected to decrease markedly. However, the report is dated and the increase in construction spending is unlikely to be repeated in April. Separately, the ISM Manufacturing index for April beat expectations but hit the lowest level since April 2009. It was mostly bad news. Though supplier deliveries increased, it is the result of supply chain disruptions and signals inventory is sitting around longer because of weak demand. Other key indexes, like new orders, production, employment, and backlog of orders all tanked.

To close the week, the Feds two purchase operations saw the Desk purchase $7.916 billion of the possible $8.213 billion (96 percent) with a 51 percent hit rate as $15.62 billion was tendered. For the week, the NY Fed bought $33.5 billion of the estimated $40 billion (84 percent) and 52 percent of the $64.511 billion tendered. This weeks MBS buying has been reduced to a daily average of $6 billion from $8 billion last week. April prepayments will be released after the close on Wednesday with Class A net out on Friday. The NY Fed will conduct two FedTrade purchase operations today totaling up to $6.160 billion of current coupon production.

Today and tomorrows economic calendars are light, with just March Factory Orders and April ISM New York figures today, and March Trade Balance tomorrow. Things pick back up Wednesday with the Weekly MBA Mortgage Index and April ADP Employment Change, before Thursday brings the latest jobless claims, Q1 Preliminary Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, and March Consumer Credit. Additionally, central bank decisions are due from the RBA, BoE and Norges Bank on Thursday. The week closes with what is set to be a grim April Nonfarm Payrolls report, as well as March Wholesale Inventories. We begin the week with agency MBS prices worse a few ticks versus Friday night and the 10-year yielding .63 percent.

Employment and Promotions

Freedom to Succeed! Freedom Mortgage is growing and looking for talented and experienced Wholesale operational professionals to help us serve the needs of borrowers, brokers and wholesale correspondents across the nation. Work from home opportunities for Loan Processors, Closers and Underwriters are available throughout the continental U.S. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the vast majority of our teams already worked from home, so you will be ready to seamlessly and efficiently contribute to our goals on day 1! If you are fueled by your entrepreneurial spirit and are looking for a great work culture, please visit bit.ly/FMRecruiting.

Whats your next career move? Online home refi and purchase applications are forecast to accelerate, and WFH is the new normal, indefinitely. Its time to re-envision and re-define your day and grow your business on your terms. Interfirst's exclusive LO[+R] position, remote Mortgage Loan Originator, puts our resources on your kitchen table. We are expanding to meet growing demand across the U.S., and providing our sales professionals with the resources and financial stability that they deserve. All of our LO[+R] are paid an aggressive salary with the opportunity for significant bonuses. Our low-rate no-lender fee combination makes us highly competitive with anything advertised online. We provide inside purchase and refi leads to you, so goodbye cold calling, hello qualified leads all day long. Our leadership team has 100+ years of mortgage and sales/marketing experience with a 2020 goal of growing our Retail production, on top of the $35B we have originated. Make Interfirst your first move. Apply today.

Despite market circumstances, our approach at Pacific Residential has been to aggressively close both purchase and refinance loans with the same commitment level to underwriting and close times making us the most competitive option for Loan Officers and Branch Managers, says John Phillips, licensed Loan Officer and National Business Development for Pacific Residential Mortgage (PacRes). I found they perform at a high level with aggressive underwriting, the strongest and most positive culture I encountered, and the best marketing and operational support for my referral partners and customers, period. My bottom line, especially today, is to get loans closed before the market or borrowers circumstances changed. I have been shocked on how good their operations are: by far the best mortgage platform Ive seen across the United States. PacRes is expanding in Midwest, Texas, Panhandle, New England, and Southeastern markets. If you are interested in learning why loan officers and Branch Managers are joining ThePac, contact John Phillips, National Business Development, (413.221.2977).

ReverseVision is expanding our team across multiple divisions, with job openings for a Business Development Representative, SDET Engineer, and API TSE. If you are an experienced mortgage technology professional seeking to grow your career in a tight-knit team alongside mortgage industry luminaries, welcome home! Not content to rest easy as the leading reverse mortgage sales and origination platform, we are on a mission to establish HECM and private reverse programs as mainstream lending staples with our flexible, API-enabled technology. Home Equity Conversion Mortgages are evergreen programs that shine for lenders and consumers alike during times of economic uncertainty. Be part of a team helping lenders diversify their portfolios and seniors meet their retirement goals. Click here to view and share our job postings! #SunnySanDiego #professionalgrowth #digitalmortgage

Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc. announced that Paul Licon, the Companys current Chief Accounting Officer/Controller, has assumed the position of Chief Financial Officer. Congratulations!
LB Goodman & Co Managing Director David J. Goodman When you receive this recognition three years in a row, you realize that everyones voices are being heard as we continue to improve year after year.

LB Goodman & Co was recently recognized for the third consecutive year as one of New Jerseys best places to work by NJBIZ, New Jersey's leading business journal. The company has been repeatedly recognized by NJBIZ as a best place to work.

When you receive this recognition three years in a row, you realize that everyones voices are being heard as we continue to improve year after year, states managing director David J. Goodman. Being a Best Place to Work in NJ takes teamwork. Our valued team members work all year to create an environment we can all be proud of.

Creating an optimal work experience is important to Goodman. The teams core values include a can do culture that encourages everyone to help one anotheras well as their clientsto achieve success. Giving back to the community is a priority within the company culture. Committing to a variety of good causes, like rebuilding homes destroyed by Superstorm Sandy, employees create stronger connectivity with one another and the community.

The companys can do mantra makes business sense, too. Goodman believes by taking good care of his employees, his employees will, in turn, take wonderful care of their clients.

Fostering employee engagement has inspired a variety of employee-led initiatives like Dining with David, a book club, weekly yoga classes and Dress Down for Charity, a community event.

Making employees a priority is a sign of skilled leadership. With historic record-low unemployment, its a job seekers market. This means employee benefits alone are not enough. Never has it been more important to create a quality employee experience. Such experiences are the right thing to do, plus they are great strategies for employee retention. Happy employees will stay longer, and some will stay for life. And, that, says Goodman, is great for the team, our clients and for business.

About LB Goodman & Co

Founded by Lawrence B. Goodman in 1968, the award-winning practice has grown in clients and esteem over the years. The firm is now led by his son, David J. Goodman, who is managing director and partner. LB Goodman & Co is a full-service Certified Public Accounting firm with licenses in New Jersey, New York and Florida. All of the firms CPAs hold active CPA certificates. They provide financial expertise in the areas of tax, assurance, accounting, business consulting and retirement strategies. Key industries are dental practices, manufacturing and distribution, and private schools. For more information, visit lbgcpas.com.
Sales for UnbuckleMe, a Houston company that makes a device that enables people with weak thumbs from arthritis or other hand issues to easily unbuckle car seats, are down in a big way since the coronavirus sidelined many of its customers.

But thats not cause for despair for mother-daughter duo Becca Davison and Barbara Heilman, who are about to gain major exposure, and possibly an investor, on ABCs Shark Tank.

The pair will appear on the television show on May 6 with Davisons four-year-old daughter, who inspired the invention when her grandmother offered to watch her for a week when she was six months old. Heilman had trouble using the car seat, which requires 9 pounds of pressure to unbuckle for safety purposes.

An occupational therapist by trade, Heilman did not want to be stuck at home simply because she was not able to operate the car seat. She made a C-shaped tool out of some pliable, thermoplastic splint-making material. The device, which gets clipped around the bottom and top of the seat belt button, serves as a lever, enabling her to release the seat belt with far less pressure than pushing the button directly. The mechanism works similarly to a nutcracker.

GETTING A KICKSTART: Houston entrepreneur finds time is right for launch of travel watch

She spent her career designing adaptive equipment for people with disabilities of the hand, Davison said. When the time came to solve her own problem, it was very much within her skill set to be able to design something.

In researching the market, Davison, a management consultant who grew up in Houston and went to college in New York, discovered that other people have the same problem.

They developed a prototype for UnbuckleMe in 2016 and went to trade shows to make contacts to sell the product, which hit the market in 2017.

On a typical month, the company sells 2,500 to 3,000 units at $14.99 apiece. The patented device, which is manufactured in Iowa, is made of hard plastic on one side and soft on the other.

The UnbuckleMe device comes in several colors and is sold through the company website, Amazon, local retailers Berings, Magpies Gifts, Pure Parenting in the Heights, and at buybuy Baby and Nordstrom stores nationally. Selected nail salons sell it to another market that was not originally envisioned: people with long nails or fresh manicures. Drivers also buy the tool for children age four or older to use themselves before passing it to the front seat for safe keeping.

Other customers who have adopted the device include those with carpal tunnel syndrome or a type of tendinitis called mommys thumb.

FRANCHISING: Press Waffle Co. reels in investor on Shark Tank

Our product has made life easier for so many people, Davison said.

To date, the company is approaching a half a million dollars in annual sales, very few of which occurred recently.

Since the coronavirus took hold in March, potential customers for UnbuckleMe are not driving much. Elderly people, who are among the most vulnerable to the virus, are increasingly keeping a distance from younger children. Parents are staying at home, and when they do get in their cars for essentials such as groceries, they are going alone. No one is going out for a manicure.

Our sales have really fallen off a cliff pretty substantially, Davison said.

In March, the company saw an 80 percent to 90 percent drop in sales volume, but things have picked up a bit in April. Davison anticipates the toll on sales will be temporary as the world gets back to normal.

I know it will come back because people need it, Davidson said. Its a need product, not a want.

katherine.feser@chron.com

twitter.com/kfeser
A political slugfest broke out on Monday over the 'homecoming' of migrants after the Congress accusedthe government of charging money from stranded workers and offered to pay for their travel to native places, drawing asharp retort from the BJP which said the railwayswas already bearing 85 percent of the travel cost and charging only 15 percent from the state governments.

The BJP also accused the Congress of promoting indiscriminate movement of people which, it said, would lead to "faster spread" of coronavirus infection "just like we saw in Italy", and asked if this is what Congress chief Sonia Gandhi wants.

Apart from the Congress, other opposition parties, including theCPI-M, the National Conference and the Loktantrik Janata Dal have criticised the Centre amidst reports that migrant workers are not able to afford to travel back to their native places.

Accusing the Central government and the Indian Railways of ignoring the demands made by the Congress for ensuring safe and free travel of migrant workers and labourers to their homes, Sonia Gandhi on Monday announced that party's state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrants stranded at various places across the country as its "humble contribution" to show solidarity with these workers, who have contributed to nation's development.

Other Congress leaders also joined Gandhi to attack the government, saying it brought back those stranded abroad free of cost while making these poor people pay. They also demanded that the 'PMCares Fund' should be used for migrants.

"On one hand, the railways is charging ticket fares from labourers stranded in other states while on the other, the railway ministry is donating Rs 151 crore to the PM-Cares Fund. Just resolve this puzzle," Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

The BJP hit back saying the railways has subsidised 85 percent of ticket fare for Shramik special trains being run to ferry migrant workers and the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent.

"Rahul Gandhiji, I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that 'no tickets to be sold at any station'. The railways has subsidised 85 percent and state governments have to pay 15 percent. The state government can pay for the tickets (Madhya Pradesh's BJP govt is paying). Ask Congress state governments to follow suit," Patra tweeted.

The BJP leader further clarified that for each 'Shramik Express', about 1,200 tickets are given by the railways to the state government concerned.

The state governments are supposed to clear the ticket price and hand over the tickets to workers, he added.

Hitting out at Sonia Gandhi, BJP leader Amit Malviya tweeted, "the Congress is obviously upset at how well India has handled COVID. They would have ideally wanted a lot more people to suffer and die. Promoting indiscriminate movement of people would lead to faster spread of infection, just like we saw in Italy. Is this what Sonia Gandhi wants?"



Mounting a counter-attack on the opposition party, BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh claimed only Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Kerala governments made migrant labourers pay Rs 1000 for journey.

In a series of tweets, Santhosh said,"the Congress which runs the first (government), is partner in second, is promoter of the third wakes up early in the morning and issues a statement telling the party will pay for it", and claimed thatTripura, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand governments have paid train fare either for their state residents or for trains starting from their state.

"Do states where these migrant labourers have toiled hard for days, months and years have no responsibility", he questioned and asked people to "wake up before jumping to conclusions".

Meanwhile, at a press conference, joint secretary in the Union health ministry Lav Agarwal said permission has been given to run special trains for stranded people, based on the request of some states.

"TheCentre has not ever talked of charging train fare from workers. 85 percent of fare will be borne by Indian Railways, 15 percent by the state government (concerned)," he said.

There was no official reaction from the Indian Railways on the issue, while, off the record, sources dubbed the controversy as "political". Sources also said that payments for 45 Shramik Special trains that have been run so far have been made by the originating state governments, barring Maharashtra, Kerala and Karnataka.

According to railway sources, states like Rajasthan, Telangana and Gujarat -- from where Shramik Special trains have originated -- are paying on behalf of the the migrant workers, while Jharkhand, which has only received such trains, has also paid for the travel of workers.

The Gujarat government has roped in an NGO to pay part of the travel cost, sources said.

States like Maharashtra, Kerala and Karnataka -- from where some trains originated -- are charging the labourers for the trips, the sources said.

"Never forget, this is the government which announced a 21-day lockdown with four hours notice. Read the railway guidelines. They clearly say that the sending state has to collect the money. So, basically it means collecting the money from the migrant workers. Sad. This is a classic example of uncooperative federalism. The government has a simple theory --when things are good, the centre takes credit, when things get tough, pass the burden to states TMC leader Derek O'Brien said.

Urging the government to make meaningful use of the 'PM CARES' fund and use it for the migrants travelling on Shramik special trains,CPI general secretary D Raja said,"the migrants should go home free of charge and the central government should pay for not only their travel but also other essential facilities (for them)."



Criticising the government,CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury said,"as the name shows, the new fund is exclusively for those whom Modi cares for. The poor and the vulnerable, the value creators, he clearly doesn't care for. Callous. Cruel. Criminal," he tweeted along with a cartoon showing a poor migrant saying they were also NRIs (not required Indians)."NC president Omar Abdullah also tweeted on Sunday, "If you are stuck abroad during this COVID crisis this government will fly you back for free but if you are a migrant worker stranded in another state be prepared to cough up the cost of travel (with social distancing cost added). Where did 'PM Cares' go?".

Opposition leader Sharad Yadav said all sections of society are paying a price for the government's apathy, adding this would not have happened if the lockdown had been imposed in a planned manner.

Yadav also urged the railways to pay the fare for migrants, saying the revenue of states has already fallen down a lot.

The railways rolled out the Shramikspecial trains on Friday to ferry migrants, stranded due to the COVID-19 lockdown, to their respective states.

The government came in for criticism after a circular from the railways said,"the local state government authority shall handover tickets to passengers cleared by them and collect the ticket fare and hand over the total amount to the railways."



Terming the Congress president's decision as "historic", AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to shed his "false prestige" and come forward in paying for travel of migrants seeking to return home.

Congress leader P Chidambaram said the party's decision puts the government to shame.

On BJP's criticism, Venugopal said, "we do not want to play in this. This is not the time to play Those who are having no money are unable to travel in these trains, that is why our Karnataka PCC has paid for them. This is there in Kerala, where migrants do not have money to pay."



Earlier in the day, two special trains carrying over 2,000 migrant workers stranded in Maharashtra reached Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, officials said.

The railways is charging the fare of sleeper class tickets in mail/express trains, plus a super-fast charge of Rs 30 and an additional charge of Rs 20 for the Shramik special trains.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
N igel Farage has been visited by police officers who advised him not to breach lockdown restrictions after he travelled to Dover to report on migrants.

The Brexit Party leader previously told how police were last week bombarded with complaints that he defied stay-at-home orders over a separate journey to the East Sussex coast.

And a complaint was reportedly made after Mr Farage travelled to Dover, to report on what he said was an "illegal migrant scandal", on Monday.

According to Mr Farage, officers on Monday night knocked on his door to advise him about the current guidelines that are in place across the UK amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Mr Farage wrote on Twitter: Lockdown lunacy. Two police officers just knocked on my door to advise me on essential travel.

They had received a complaint that I had been to Dover to report on the illegal migrant scandal taking place.

What a total waste of time and money.

It comes after Mr Farage, in a video for his YouTube channel, said: East Sussex Police last week were bombarded by complaints that Id broken the lockdown.

In the video he explained that he had been carrying out broadcasting duties and described himself as a key worker.
Polycab India (PIL) on 2 May 2020 said that it has signed an agreement with Trafigura, Singapore, to acquire 50% stake in Ryker Base thereby terminating the existing joint venture.

The company had entered into a 50:50 JV with Trafigura in 2016 to incorporate Ryker with an aim to strengthen backward integration of its operations and improve quality of its key input i.e., copper.

Post Trafigura's global strategic decision to exit from value-add manufacturing businesses in India where it is a JV partner, PIL decided to acquire balance 50% stake in Ryker from Trafigura making Ryker a wholly owned subsidiary of PIL. The purchase consideration is likely to be around $4 Million (Rs 300 million).

Ryker is involved in manufacturing of copper wire rods with a total annual capacity of 225,000 MT and commenced its commercial production in FY20.

Copper is an important element of Polycab's business and is used extensively in wires, cables as well as most of fast moving electrical goods (FMEG) products. The transaction will further allow PIL to have complete control of Ryker's manufacturing operations. Currently, India is a net importer of refined copper and value-added copper products due to the huge supply gap. Ryker is well placed to service this demand.

Inder T. Jaisinghani, chairman & managing director of Polycab said, "This strategic buyout reflects Polycab's unwavering focus on strengthening its core while readying the business for its future. Enhanced control on our manufacturing operations will generate operational efficiencies and help us deliver better quality products to our consumers. I am confident that this deal will fortify Polycab's market position in the Electricals space and create great value for all its stakeholders.

Shares of Polycab India fell 4.24% to Rs 693 due to weak market sentiment. It has traded in the range of Rs 690.30 and Rs 711.45 so far during the day.

Polycab India manufactures and sells various types of cables, wires, electric fans, LED lighting and luminaires, switches and switchgears, solar products, pumps and conduits and accessories. Polycab caters to various public and private institutions across a diverse set of industries, as well as retail customers through its B2C business.

The company's consolidated net profit rose 13.16% to Rs 218.78 crore on a 23.83% jump in net sales to Rs 2,507.31 crore in Q3 December 2019 over Q3 December 2018.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lesley Stahl, 78, a correspondent for the 60 Minutes news program on CBS, told viewers on Sunday that she is feeling better after her battle with the coronavirus.

At the end of the show, she said, "One of the rules of journalism is Dont become part of the story.' But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more than one million Americans who did become part of it.

In closing tonight, Lesley Stahl shares her personal experience with coronavirus and a message to healthcare workers: Tonight, we all owe them our gratitude, our admirations  and in some cases, our lives. https://t.co/KGBKAbmi56 pic.twitter.com/efq58pIexo  60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 4, 2020

"I wasnt alone from this broadcast. One COVID-positive 60 Minutes coworker had almost no symptoms while others had almost every symptom you could imagine. Each case is different.

After two weeks at home in bed, weak, fighting pneumonia and really scared, I went to the hospital.

I found an overworked, nearly overwhelmed staff; every one of them kind, sympathetic, gentle and caring from the moment I arrived until the moment days later when I was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers.

"In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs. This valiant army in scrubs and masks were not just doing a job. They were fulfilling a mission, answering the call. Thanks to them, like so many other patients, I am well now. Tonight we owe them our gratitude, our admiration and in some cases, our lives."

MORE CORONAVIRUS NEWS ON PENNLIVE

J. Crew files for bankruptcy.

Are signs in N.J. that say Dont be a knucklehead offensive?

Want to go to the beach? Here is a status of all N.J. beaches.

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.
The government faced backlash on Monday for collecting ticket fares from migrant workers onboard the Shramik Special trains that are ferrying stranded migrant labourers across the country. As pressure from opposition leaders mounted, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that 85 per cent of the fare has been subsidised and 15 per cent of the fare would be paid by the states.

However, according to the guidelines for these special trains issued by the Ministry of Railways (MoR) on May 2, the state governments are supposed to collect the fare from the passengers. In Clause 11 of the document, the MoR addresses the issue of sale of tickets. It says that these trains will ply only with consultation with state governments. It says that once the state clarifies the number of people that would travel, MoR would issue tickets. "The local state government authority shall handover the tickets to the passengers cleared by them and collect the ticket fare and hand over the total amount to the Railways," states the document in Clause 11 (c).

The guidelines add that state governments would give food packets and water to the passengers at the originating points.

On Monday, the Centre received backlash from Opposition leaders such as Rahul Gandhi and Uddhav Thackeray. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had also questioned the rationale behind asking migrant workers for ticket fare considering they have had no earning in the past few weeks. Rahul Gandhi had criticised the government and said that on one hand the Indian Railways is asking for ticket fare from needy workers and on the other hand donating Rs 151 crore to PM CARES fund.

                        151           ! pic.twitter.com/qaN0k5NwpG - Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 4, 2020

Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray also said that the Centre should not ask needy workers for ticket fare. "These people have had no source of income for the last few weeks. Hence, on humanitarian grounds, the Centre should not charge them for travelling," the chief minister said. He added that social workers, NGO and individuals have borne the cost of train tickets for such workers.

Subramanian Swamy also called the government's decision 'moronic' and said that money from PM CARES should be utilised instead.

How moronic of the Government of India to charge steep rail fares from the half starved migrant labourers! Indians stranded abroad were brought back free by Air India. If Railways refuse to budge then why not make PM CARES pay instead? - Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) May 4, 2020

He, however, soon posted another tweet saying that he spoke to Railways Minister Piyush Goyal and that the government would pay 85 per cent and states would pay 15 per cent of the fare.

Talked Piyush Goel office. Govt will pay 85% and State Govt 15% . Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement - Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) May 4, 2020

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra also said that 85 per cent of the cost would be paid by the government. He added that no tickets are being sold at the railway stations.

Rahul Gandhi ji, I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that "No tickets to be sold at any station" Railways has subsidised 85% & State govt to pay 15% The State govt can pay for the tickets(Madhya Pradesh's BJP govt is paying) Ask Cong state govts to follow suit https://t.co/Hc9pQzy8kQpic.twitter.com/2RIAMyQyjs - Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) May 4, 2020

Also read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: Central team slams Bengal for 'low testing', 'weak surveillance'; tally 42,533

Also read: Railways will pay 85% fare of migrant workers: BJP
During this lockdown period, Ive been watching the Netflix documentary series, Our Planet, narrated by David Attenborough. An incredible series that has moved me towards praise for the amazing planet we get to enjoy.

Yet, it has also reminded me of an intrinsic truth: the existence and necessity of seasons. We do not only see seasons in nature, but in our lives too.

Ive always wondered why we couldnt consistently remain in those good and comfortable seasons. But, with time Im realising that, just like in nature, seasons are necessary for our ongoing growth too.

Refining

Often, the difficult conditions that some seasons bring are necessary to bring about the change that leads us toward full life.

During one of the Our Planet episode about forests, they discuss a certain group of plants called pyrophytes. Pyrophytes, such as Eucalyptus, actually need fire in order to germinate.

Eucalyptus have cones or fruits that are completely sealed in resin. For these cones or fruits to release seeds, they require the intense heat from fires to melt the resin. So, forest fires are surprisingly essential for the ongoing prosperity of the forest.

When hearing this, I couldnt help but think pyrophytes were unmistakably symbolic of Christian life.

Havent we all, at times, allowed the ways of the world to encapsulate our hearts? Comfort, self-sufficiency, idolatry  you name it  they all, just like resin, slowly barricade our hearts and stifle the growth of spiritual fruit in our lives.

Sometimes those intense, often painful, experiences are required to destroy those things that imprison our hearts. Im not saying God brings about these things  certainly not  but Im definitely saying He uses them for good (Romans chapter 8, verse 28).

For just like in a raging forest fire, there is purpose in our pain. It is the nature of His upside-down Kingdom  in the midst of destruction, there is life.

In the death of our Saviour, there is victory.

Cultivating hunger

There is not only purpose in pain, but in absence too. It is during seasons where certain things are lacking that we realise the longing and cries of our heart. Seasons of loneliness and spiritual distance from God come to mind for me.

Chip Dodd argues that: each feeling has its own specific purpose in helping us live fully. Furthermore, that each feeling we experience reveals specific longings in our hearts that drive us towards fulfilment.

Similarly, Proverbs chapter 16, verse 26 says: The appetite of labourers works for them; their hunger drives them on. Our loneliness reveals our hunger for connection and relationship, and it drives us towards intimacy. I know that when I experience loneliness, I reach out to others and my relationships are fortified.

Equally, I forget my deep need for His presence in my life until it seemingly isnt there. Just as Frederick Buechner says: I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through His silence, His absence, so that we know Him best through our missing Him.

It is when I miss Him that I generally pursue Him most earnestly.

The glory in the getting up

In other seasons, when weve experienced failure, it is easy to feel as if God has abandoned us. When things hurt or fall apart, I know Im quick to question why He would let such a thing happen.

But comparing our heavenly Father to a parent helps me understand. C.S. Lewis captures this beautifully: He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take His hand away; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.

Sometimes stepping away is necessary for our growth. I havent had a child, but I can imagine it must be hard seeing them injure themselves as they learn to walk.

As a parent, you can hold their hand indefinitely but there comes a time when you have to let go and let them figure it out for themselves. They will bump their heads, land on their butts, and let out the odd scream. Yet, the end-product is all worth it.

In the same way, as hard as it sounds, I think sometimes our Father doesnt prevent us from falling because He knows the growth in the getting up far outweighs the pain of the fall. Isnt that the crucifixion in a nutshell?

Thankfully, however, stepping away does not mean abandonment. Through His grace, our hurts can be healed as we pursue greater growth. Romans chapter 8, verse 18: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

There is purpose

I guess what Im trying to say is that no matter what season youre in, there is purpose in it. Although many of us would wish for perpetual seasons of comfort, the truth is that seasons are necessary if we are to become all that He created us to be.

So, whether you are in a season of refining, developing a spiritual appetite, or you are getting up from a fall, we can all be encouraged. I think that if we truly believe that He loves us, we can approach every season with hope.

For we can trust that, even though we may not see it now, we will look back one day and realise: it was love all along.
Scientists hope experimental drug will help Covid sufferers

UK scientists are testing an experimental drug which they hope will significantly improve the health of patients fighting coronavirus.

The treatment has been shown in trials to stimulate the immune response in the lungs of patients with asthma and chronic lung disease, according to BBC Panorama, which gained access to the trial at University Hospital Southampton.

It uses a protein called interferon beta which our bodies produce when we get a viral infection.

Initial results from the trial are expected by the end of June.

The treatment would face further tough checks before it can be used routinely on patients even if the trial is a success.

Social distancing 'would mean 1km queues for each jumbo at Heathrow'

Implementing social distancing at airports would require kilometre-long queues for each jumbo jet, according to the chief executive of Heathrow.

John Holland-Kaye has warned that the UKs major international airports do not have enough space for social distancing to be a solution for safe travel post-lockdown.

He has called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to quickly find a common international standard of alternative solutions that could be ready for the summer.

Amongst the suggestions Mr Holland-Kaye raised were mandatory health checks for passengers, increased levels of hygiene and compulsory facemasks.

PM demands countries work together for vaccine

Boris Johnson will today describe the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine as, quote, the "most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes" when he calls on nations to pull together in response to the pandemic.

The Prime Minister is expected to tell an online pledging conference that the sooner states share their expertise the faster scientists will succeed in defeating the disease.

Mondays conference aims to bring in more than 6.6 billion in funding to develop a vaccine.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has told a town hall meeting that he thinks a coronavirus vaccine will be developed "by the end of this year".

Piers Morgan 'develops mild coronavirus symptom'

Good Morning Britain presenter Piers Morgan has temporarily stepped back from the programme after revealing he has developed a mild coronavirus symptom.

Ben Shephard is sitting in for Mr Morgan today on the show while he waits for the test results.

Online tribute scheme for VE Day

People are encouraged to pay virtual tribute to the Second World War generation ahead of VE Day by contributing to a digital Wall of Remembrance.

Commemorations for the 75th anniversary of victory in Europe day on Friday have been cancelled or moved online due to the pandemic.

To help families mark the occasion, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is launching a digital campaign to collect photos, stories and memories of those who lived through the hardships of the war.

The public can submit their contribution by using the hashtag #ShareYourTribute on social media, or by uploading it to a special section on the CWGC's website from today.

On this day

1471: The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury in the War of the Roses.

1780: The first Derby was run at Epsom.

1896: The Daily Mail, founded by Lord Northcliffe, was first published, priced one halfpenny.

1904: Charles Rolls and Henry Royce were introduced before forming an agreement which produced Rolls-Royce cars.

1974: Abba reached the top of the pop charts with Waterloo, the Eurovision song contest winner.

1979: Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman prime minister.

1982: HMS Sheffield was struck by an Exocet missile during the Falklands War. It was the first British ship to be lost to enemy action since the Second World War.

2000: Ken Livingstone became the first Mayor of London.
Advertisement

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that there would be a coronavirus vaccine in the US by the end of the year, the fastest timeline he has given to date, and that he 'didn't care' where it came from so long as it worked.

'We are very confident that we are going to have a vaccine by the end of the year.

'We think we'll have a vaccine by the end of this year. And we're pushing very hard. We're building supply lines now and we don't even have the final vaccine,' Trump said.

He pointed to Johnson & Johnson as one company making a dent. 'Many companies, I think, are close,' he told Fox News hosts in a virtual town hall and said the US was working with the UK and Australia to develop it.

Admitting that it didn't sound like his usual 'America First' rhetoric, Trump answered, 'I don't care,' when asked how he would feel if another country developed a successful vaccine first.

'I really just want to get a vaccine that works,' the president said.

Trump's timeline for a vaccine is faster than any that has been given so far. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House coronavirus expert, said last week that 'hundreds of millions of doses' could be available by January.

The government is currently funding at least three vaccine development trials to try to fast track the solution.

He also blamed China for the global pandemic, repeating his earlier claims that COVID-19 escaped a lab in Wuhan and that Chinese officials made a 'big mistake' in trying to 'cover up' how deadly it was, and admitted that as many as 100,000 Americans would die from it.

'Were going to lose anywhere from 75-, 80- to 100,000 people. Thats a horrible thing. We shouldnt lose one person over this. This shouldve been stopped in China,' he said.

As of Monday morning, more than 68,000 Americans had died and more than 1,185,000 had been infected with the virus.

Trump - who is gearing up for another election - also said that Democrats would rather see the country suffer and blame him for it than allow him to take credit for any kind of success in the fight against the virus.

Scroll down for video

President Trump said that there would be a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020 at the Fox News Channel virtual town hall where he answered questions from the Lincoln Memorial

Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin watch as President Trump participates in a live Fox News Channel virtual town hall

Donald Trump launches fresh attack on 'disaster' WHO Donald Trump doubled down his attacks on the World Health Organisation last night and branded its handling of the pandemic a 'disaster'. The President lashed out at the UN agency for blindly regurgitating information from Beijing and said it has 'missed every single call'. He said the United States had been 'foolishly' pouring money into the WHO and justified his decision to cut its funding. He said: 'The World Health organisation has been a disaster everything they said was wrong and they're China-centric. 'All they do is agree with China, whatever China wants to do. So our country, perhaps foolishly in retrospect has been paying $450million a year to the World Health Organisation and China's been paying $38million a year but they were more political than all of our leaders previously. 'What they did, what World Health did, was they missed every single call and we're not going to put up with it.' Advertisement

During the two-hour Q&A, where Americans asked Trump questions via video, he was joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for the last 30 minutes.

Hope Hicks, Trump's longtime aide who recently rejoined the White House, and new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows were seen at the president's side during commercial breaks.

The president's new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was also on hand.

Throughout the town hall, he came back to his claim that the coronavirus vaccine was coming in 2020.

He added that the U.S. was working alongside Australia and also the United Kingdom, and brought up Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who became extremely ill from COVID-19.

'He thought it was over, it was vicious,' Trump said.

The president said he wasn't worried about people volunteering for vaccine trials.

'No, because they're volunteers,' Trump said.

'They know what they're getting into,' he added, calling those who sign up 'good people.'

The president said he'd like to see therapeutics, too, that would work to cure patients who have COVID-19.

'I would rather have therapeutics, something to make people better, not a cure, at least a therapeutic,' Trump said.

Counselor to the president Hope Hicks (left), who recently rejoined the administration, and new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (center, speak to President Trump during a commercial break during Sunday night's Fox News Channel town hall

Most recently, the Federal Drug Administration authorized the use of the anti-viral drug Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases.

TRUMP SAYS SAID FAUCI SAID CORONAVIRUS WAS 'NO BIG DEAL' Trump claimed 'everybody' - including Dr Fauci - told him coronavirus was going to be 'no big deal' after he closed the border with China. 'Nancy Pelosi was a month later saying it was going to pass  everybody, even Tony Fauci, was saying it's going to pass, not going to be a big deal,' he said on Sunday night. Fauci has been hailed by many as a voice of reason amid the pandemic. He has resisted criticizing the president but has contradicted him, especially on medical guidance, at daily White House briefings. Fauci warned in 2017 that a disease outbreak could be something the US should worry about. In April, he said that more lives would have been saved if the US had been shut down sooner but that there was 'push back'. Hours after he said it, Trump retweeted a tweet calling for Fauci to be fired. The president says that by stopping foreign nationals from entering the US from China in January, before any other country, he responded quickly. Advertisement

The president also continue to tout the anti-Malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

He pushed back when Baier mentioned some of hydroxychloroquine's side effects. 'They're bragging about it,' Trump said of the success doctors in other countries have seen using hydroxychloroquine.

He then used that moment to attack his political opponents.

'Here's what we've been reduced to in this country,' Trump began. 'The Democrats, the radical left, whatever you - would rather have people, I'm going to be very nice, I'm not going to say die - would rather see people not get well because they think I'm going to get credit, if hydroxychloroquine works.'

'I have nothing to do with hydroxychloroquine,' the president went on, mentioning how some media reports suggested he owned the company that makes the drug. 'Other than, if it worked, it would be great.'

Trump also used his time at the Lincoln Memorial to go after the press - and compare the two leaders' shoddy press coverage, in the president's view.

The president was asked by a supporter, who said her family, prayed for him every day, about his 'manner and presentation.'

'Why do you use descriptive words that could be classified as bullying and why do you not directly answer the questions asked by the press and instead speak of past success and generally ramble?' she asked, asking him to stop.

Trump said he had to act this way because nearly 100 per cent of the White House press corps was 'hostile.'

'Look I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen.

'The closest would be that gentleman right up there,' the president said, pointing to the massive Lincoln statue. 'I believe I am treated worse,' he added.

The president described the questions asked by reporters in the briefing room as 'disgraceful.'

'And if I was kind to them, I would be walked off stage,' he said.

Trump mentioned how boaters in Florida were out earlier Sunday with all sorts of Trump signs.

'We have tremendous support, but the media, they might as well be in the Democrat Party,' the president said.

The president, again, showed support for the protesters that have shown up to state capitols, a number of them sporting Trump gear.

'And those are meaningful demonstrations,' Trump pointed out to the Fox News Channel hosts.

And at the top of the program, he talked about how 'probably everybody's scared.'

'I've never seen death like this, I've never personally experienced anything like this,' Trump said of COVID-19.

He pointed out that he had known people who had gotten the flu all of his life.

'I was lucky I never had the flu, then I came here, and they wanted to give me a flu shot, I said, "I don't want to a flue shot,' but they have to give it,' he said, seemingly of a discussion he had with the White House doctor once he became president.

President Trump holds still during a commercial break at Sunday night's Fox News Channel town hall that was filmed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington

'I've known people that had the flu all my life, nobody ever died,' Trump said.

While drawing comparisons between the two viruses in the past, Trump did no such thing Sunday night.

'I've lost three friend,' the president said. 'One a very good friend, a very successful man, New York guy, employed a lot of people - they were all crying over his death, Staney Chera.'

Chera passed away from COVID-19 complications at the age of 78 in mid-April.

He was a fellow New York real estate investor.

'He went to the hospital, he calls me up, he goes, "I tested positive," I said what are you going to do? "I'm going to the hospital." I'll call you tomorrow,' Trump said, recalling their conversation.

'I call the hospital, he's in a coma,' Trump said. 'I know a lot of people who had the flu, they were never in a coma.'

Trump called it a 'horrible thing' that the country is fighting.

'This thing is vicious, it can take you out, it can take you out very strongly,' the president said.

Trump says China made a 'horrible mistake' and tried to cover-up coronavirus outbreak, hours after Mike Pompeo claimed there was 'enormous evidence' that COVID-19 escaped a Wuhan lab

Donald Trump suggested that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe is the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China and that Chinese officials tried to cover it up.

The president continued to point the finger at Beijing and fueled growing suggestions that COVID-19 spread from a Wuhan laboratory before snowballing into a worldwide pandemic.

His fiery remarks at Sunday's Fox News virtual town hall meeting at Washington's Lincoln Memorial came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was a 'significant amount of evidence' the disease had escaped.

Diplomats had complained about the slack safety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the years prior to the coronavirus outbreak

Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the global community.

'Well, I don't think there's any question about it. We wanted to go in, they didn't want us to go in. Things are coming out that are pretty compelling. I don't think there's any question,' the president said Sunday.

'Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn't want to admit it,' he added.

His comments came as a Department of Homeland Security report shared on Sunday revealed US officials believe China 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic in early January and hoarded medical supplies.

The four-page report dated May 1 that was obtained by the Associated Press notes that China downplayed the virus publicly but increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.

The document accuses China of covering their tracks by 'denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data.'

It lends weight to a leaked dossier drawn up by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance which describes how Beijing made whistleblowers 'disappear', destroyed early virus samples and scrubbed the internet of any mention of the disease in the early stages.

In Sunday's virtual town hall, Trump said that China failed to admit their mistake in refusing to accept global aid.

'We wanted to go in, but they didn't want us there.

'Even World Health wanted to go in - they were admitted but much later, not immediately.

Last week Trump told reporters that he had seen proof that suggests the virus originated in the lab, but he did not go into detail. The Wuhan Institute of Virology located near the wet market pictured above

'They made a mistake, they tried to cover it, like a fireThey couldn't put out the fire,' Trump said.

He condemned the Communist nation for not alerting global leaders on the severity of the outbreak while continuing to allow flights to exit China.

'What they really treated the world badly on, they stopped people from going into China but they didn't stop people from going into the USA and all the rest of the world.'

'They knew they had a problem, I think they were embarrassed by the problem,' Trump added.

When asked about President Xi, Trump said 'I'm not going to say anything' but 'this should never have happened'.

He also lashed out at the World Health Organisation for siding with China and blindly regurgitating its 'wrong' information.

The president branded the UN agency's handling of the emergency a 'disaster' and said the US had been 'foolishly' pouring funding into its coffers.
Silver Lake Partners, the American private equity giant, has bought one percent of Jio Platforms for $750 million (Rs. 5,655.75 crore) in a deal that values the tech and digital arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) at $65 billion.

The deal comes less than two weeks after Facebook spent $5.7 billion to buy a 9.99 percent stake in Jio. The Facebook-Jio deal was the social media networks biggest since its $22 billion buyout of WhatsApp in 2014.

This is the first sizable investment by SLP in India and reaffirms Jios technological capabilities and the potential of the business model, even in this Covid-19 world and beyond. This is at a 12.5 percent premium over the FB deal announced on April 22 this year.

Commenting on the transaction, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani said, "I am delighted to welcome Silver Lake as a valued partner in continuing to grow and transform the Indian digital ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians. Silver Lake has an outstanding record of being a valuable partner for leading technology companies globally. Silver Lake is one of the most respected voices in technology and finance. We are excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian Digital Societys transformation."

Silver Lake shot into prominence after acquiring PC maker Dell Inc along with Michael Dell in 2013. It is a global leader in technology investing, with over $43 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital and a team of approximately 100 investment and operating professionals located around the world in Silicon Valley, New York, Hong Kong and London.

On April 30, Reliance had said, "In addition to the Facebook investment, the Board was informed that RIL has received strong interest from other strategic and financial investors and is in good shape to announce a similar sized investment in the coming months."

On April 22, Facebook bought 9.9 percent stake in Jio Platforms for Rs 43,574 crore. That deal valued Jio at Rs 4.62 lakh crore ($65.95 billion).

Since its launch three years ago, Jio, led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, has grown at a sprinters pace to become India's largest telecom company. It has accumulated some 340 million customers through a barrage of innovations, including offering cut-throat mobile internet prices and a diverse suite of products and including chat services, movies, games and music.

The deal will help reduce RILs debt burden, which bulged due to the breakneck expansion of Jio and other businesses. Ambani invested around $40 billion to launch Jio in 2016. RIL is also the largest retail player in India thanks to a series of aggressive expansionary moves into consumer-facing businesses such as e-commerce and grocery.

On April 30, Reliance Industries said it will achieve zero net debt status ahead of schedule, as it announced its quarterly and annual results.

In addition to the investment by Facebook, the company said, it has received strong interest from other strategic and financial investors and is in good shape to announce a similar-sized investment in the coming months.

Disclaimer: Network18, the parent company of News18.com, is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.
Queenslanders are in for an out-of-this world treat this week with a combination of a Halleys Comet meteor shower, three planets and two constellations lighting up the night sky.

The Eta Aquariids spectacle is a once-a-year event created by Halley's Comet and will be at its best for stargazers at 3am-5am on Tuesday. The planets and constellations are unrelated and a bonus.

Telescope or not, Queenslanders should be able to pick out several bright lights on Tuesday morning. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium curator Mark Rigby said a full moon on Wednesday would obscure the view of the meteor shower, so Tuesday was expected to be the best stargazing chance.

"With the moon behind you, look in an easterly direction and about halfway up the night sky those [Eta Aquariid] meteors can appear in different parts as streaks of light," he said.
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --



Executive Summary

The Global Metamaterial Market, valued at USD 599.75 million in the year 2019 has been witnessing unprecedented growth in the last few years on the back of mergers, acquisitions and collaborations as well as research and development activities to link the existing gaps in the product offerings, the end market requirements and the geographical constraints, thereby creating large customer and partner base in the market. With the progressive growth of aerospace and defense, automotive, medical, energy and power and telecommunication industries, the global metamaterial market is expected to witness growth at a rapid pace in the coming years.







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05890436/?utm_source=PRN







However, owing to the COVID-19 crisis, lockdown measures taken by governments of all the countries around the world has resulted in closure of all economic activities. As metamaterials are used in various end-user industries like aerospace & defence, medical, automotive, consumer electronics and energy & power, hence, the recent outbreak of COVID-19 on all these industries leads to halt in production unit while some of the units are operating with less labour and faces the shortage of raw materials due to lockdown.



Among the Product Type segment in the Metamaterial market (Electromagnetic, Terahertz, Photonic, Tunable, Frequency Selective Surface, Non-linear), Electromagnetic product type segment has been gaining popularity among various other segments and is expected to keep major market share in the forecast period. Electromagnetic metamaterials are comprised of structures, which have exceptionally built properties for applications in optical and microwave applications, including electromagnetic invisibility cloaks, microwave couplers, and beam steerers. Because of these properties showed by this product type, there is an inexorably enlarging extension in a few end-use verticals.



Antenna segment among the application segment holds the majority market share in year 2019. The expanding use in radio wires and radars have prompted expanding effectiveness of these final products, for the most part by virtue of the predominant properties offered by metamaterials. Based on End-User segment, Aerospace & Defense segment holds the major share in the Metamaterial market followed by Consumer Electronics and Medical segment. Metamaterials are used in consumer electronics in a variety of ways such as transparent antennas, touch screen, transparent EMI shielding, augmented reality, etc.



The North America region has the largest market share in year 2019 while it is estimated that North America will remain dominant during the forecast period with United States being the leading country in the region. The high growth can be attributed to the increasing demand from the aerospace and defense vertical. Government agencies, such as DOD (Department of Defense), DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), are funding research universities and industry players for the development of metamaterial-based antennas.



Scope of the Report

 The report analyses the Metamaterial market by Value.

 The report analyses the Metamaterial Market by Product Type (Electromagnetic, Terahertz, Photonic, Tunable, Frequency Selective Surface, Non-linear).

 The report assesses the Metamaterial market by Application (Antenna, Absorber, Superlens, Cloaking Devices, Others).

 The report assesses the Metamaterial market by End-User (Aerospace & defense, Medical, Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Energy & Power).

 The Global Metamaterial Market has been analysed by Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific) and by Country (United States, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, United Kingdom, China, Japan, India)

 Also, the attractiveness of the market has been presented by Region, Product Type, Application and End-User. Also, the major opportunities, trends, drivers and challenges of the industry has been analysed in the report.

 The report tracks competitive developments, strategies, key developments in the market and innovations and development. The companies analysed in the report include Metamaterial Technologies Inc., Harris Corporation, Newport Corporation, Metamagnetics, Kymeta Corporation, Fractal Antenna Systems Inc., Jem Engineering, Phoebus Optoelectronics LLC, Echodyne Corporation, Multiwave Technologies AG

 The report presents the analysis of Metamaterial market for the historical period of 2015-2019 and the forecast period of 2020-2025.



Key Target Audience



 Metamaterial equipment manufacturers, dealers and suppliers

 Consulting and Advisory Firms

 Government and Policy Makers

 Investment Banks and Equity Firms

 Regulatory Authorities



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05890436/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

www.reportlinker.com


Iran's OPEC governor, Hossein Kazempur Ardebili, is in a coma after suffering a "severe" brain hemorrhage.

In a tweet on May 3, the country's Oil Ministry said Ardebili was hospitalized on May 1. It did not provide further details.

Ardebili is a key figure in Iran's energy industry and served as the deputy foreign minister and deputy oil minister in the 1980s.

He was ambassador to Japan in the early 1990s, while at the same time serving as OPEC governor.

Iran has the world's fourth-biggest oil reserves and second-largest natural-gas reserves.

But its economy has been battered by sanctions imposed by the United States since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

Washington's imposition of a full line of sanctions in November 2018 targeted key Iranian economic spheres -- including the banking and oil sectors -- and denied the government its main source of revenue while making international trade increasingly difficult.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
When we think of some of Apples most successful devices, after the iPhone, Apple Watch surely comes to our mind.

Reuters

In the past few years, it has managed to save countless lives, by being one step ahead in noticing (either through its ECG feature or through its heart-rate monitor) if the wearer is in any kind of trauma and contact emergency services if things arent normal, without the wearer even touching the screen.

And now, the Apple Watch has saved the life of an elderly woman, in a hospital.

Reported first by IANS, An 80-year old woman in Germany was saved by Apple Watchs ECG feature that uncovered her heart condition that was actually missed by the hospitals medical-grade ECG machine during diagnosis.

This was published in the form of a study by Oxford University researchers in the European Heart Journal. The woman was admitted to the University Medical Centre, Mainz of Johannes Gutenberg University where doctors described her condition as typical angina symptoms.



The patient had also experienced two presyncopy episodes -- a medical condition when a person loses consciousness due to reduced blood flowing to the brain.



Apple/ Reuters

While the investigation of the problem, they also performed an initial 12-channel ECG. the test didnt find any evidence for ischaemia which is when there are restrictions in the blood vessels that obstruct the supply of blood.

Later, the patient showed doctors the result of ECG tests on her Apple Watch that showed tracings with marked ST-segment depression. In that test, doctors did notice evidence of myocardial ischemia. The patient was then transferred to the catheterization lab.

Authors state, "Accordingly, the patient was treated with coronary artery stenting and left the hospital a day later. The development of smart technologies paves the way for new diagnostic possibilities. In the case of the Apple Watch, after the mobile application is installed, the records an ECG when a finger is placed on the watch's digital crown. A 30-s tracing is stored in a PDF file that can be retrieved from the application."
Pakistani television personality Aamir Liaquat Hussain has apologised for making extremely insensitive remarks about the deaths of iconic Bollywood stars Sridevi and Irrfan Khan.

Recently, in a segment of his show Jeewey Pakistan, he joked about the deaths, which shocked the film world globally, with actor Adnan Siddiqui, who has worked with Sridevi and Irrfan Khan.

Liaquat Hussain started off by saying that Adnan saved the lives of Rani Mukerji and Bipasha Basu. A confused Adnan asked how, to which, Liaquat Husain disgracefully joked about how the actors Adnan worked with outside of Pakistan, died.

You worked in Mom and Sridevi died, you worked with Irrfan Khan as well and he passed away. You were offered roles in Mardaani 2 and Jism 2 but you declined, so the actors of that movie owe their life to you, he added.

Adnan looked uncomfortable with the remarks, and even told Liaquat Husain that it was not something to joke about. Adnan worked with Irrfan in 2007s A Mighty Heart, which also featured Angelina Jolie. Liaquat Husain faced a lot of flak for remarks. On Saturday, he released a video, apologising for his insensitive comments.

Sometimes you lose control over your words. That happens in a live show. At the time it didnt seem like a big issue but when I later thought about I realised that was not appropriate. So Im really sorry. Keeping humanity in mind, this should not have been said. I made a mistake, he said in the video.

Adnan also released a statement about his reaction to the incident on Twitter. In a statement, he said: So I dont know how to explain what Im feeling right now or what to say. But this needs to go out. I was invited on the live chat show aJeewey Pakistan yesterday when this unfortunate incident happened. The anchor Amir Liaquat Sahab joked about something extremely sensitive. Not only were they both close to me but also as a human it was wrong on so many levels. I cannot even call it hitting below the belt.

Also see: Did you know Arun Govil, Ramayans Lord Rama, worked with Sridevi in Himmatwala? See rare photo

It was an extremely callous act to joke about the deceased. This is in very bad taste, not only does it show him and me but also the entire country in bad light. I want to apologise to the families of Sridevi Sahiba and lrrfan Khan Sahab, their loved ones and fans. If you see my body language I was extremely uncomfortable with what he said but I didnt want to stoop to that level. I regret being on the show. Ive learnt my lesson and I promise I will not tolerate such an act in future. I was hoping this bit wouldnt become public but unfortunately it has. Im sorry. Thank you, he said, concluding the statement with folded hands emoji.

Sridevi died in 2018. Irrfan breathed his last on April 29 at the age of 54. He was admitted to Mumbais Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani hospital with a colon infection earlier this week. However, he succumbed to his ailment.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
The Annual General Meeting of Hofseth BioCare ASA will be held at the company's premises at Havnegata 11, 6005 Alesund, on 25 May 2020 at 11:00 CET.



All shareholders are encouraged to submit a voting proxy to the chairman of the board in lieu of attending the Annual General Meeting in person, due to the ongoing situation with spread of Covid-19. The general meeting will be conducted as briefly as possible, and representation of the Company's Board of Directors and management will be kept to a minimum.



Please find the notice to the Annual General Meeting attached.



For further information, please contact:

Jon Olav degard, CFO of Hofseth BioCare ASA

Phone: +47 93632966

E-mail: joo@hofsethbiocare.no



About Hofseth BioCare ASA:

HBC is a Norwegian biotech company that develops high-value ingredients and finished products from Norwegian salmon off-cuts. Ingredients are further developed into discovery and pre-clinical studies in multiple clinics and university research labs in several countries. Lead clinical and pre-clinical candidates are development towards a Gastro-Intestinal (GI) Protective Medical Food, Medical Food to help treat age-related Sarcopenia, and future pharmaceutical clinical studies on the treatment of Anemia and NEC-IBS with Salmon Protein Hydrolysate fractions. The company is founded on the core values of sustainability, traceability and optimal utilization of natural resources. Through an innovative hydrolysis technology, HBC can preserve the quality of lipids, proteins and calcium from fresh salmon off-cuts and trimmings.



Hofseth BioCare's headquarters are in Alesund, Norway with branches in Oslo, Chicago, Mumbai, Menlo Park and Tokyo. HBC is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange Axess list with ticker "HBC". More information about Hofseth BioCare at www.hofsethbiocare.com





This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act

Attachment
A new treatment that helps to relieve coronavirus symptoms could be brought to market in three months time if further trials go well, according to a researcher involved in the project, CNBC reports.

Its very early to say at this stage, said Dr. Fatima al-Kaabi, head of hematology and oncology at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in the United Arab Emirates.

Weve been happy that our initial safety results are promising, thats why were heading into the next phase, of effectiveness of this treatment, she told CNBCs Hadley Gamble on Monday.

If all ... went well and it worked well, then I would propose ... three months time, she said, when asked how quickly the treatment, which was developed by doctors and researchers at the Abu Dhabi Stem Cell Center, could reach the market.

To date, there are no known vaccines or specific antiviral medicines against Covid-19. U.S. health officials say developing a vaccine will take at least 12 to 18 months.

The UAE has 14,163 cases and 126 deaths due to the coronavirus, based on data from Johns Hopkins University.
Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has commended has boss, President Akufo-Addo for his stewardship over the past three years.



According to Dr Bawumia, the Akufo-Addo led government has introduced policies that have reduced the suffering of Ghanaian workers.



Dr Bawumia made this known in a Facebook post as the world marked May Day last Frida, May 1, 2020.



Workers across the globe are celebrated on May 1, May Day as workers day.



On this workers' day, I would like to salute Ghanas number one worker, His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, for his hard work and what he has done for Ghanaian workers after 3 years in office, he stated.



The suffering of our workers has been reduced by your policies which includes the creation of over 350,000 jobs in the public sector alone and much more in the private sector, Reduction in the cost of electricity  compared with the 45% annual average increase between 2013-2016. In the midst of COVID-19, free electricity for lifeline consumers and 50% reduction for all others for the months of April, May and June 2020. In the midst of COVID-19, free water to all Ghanaians for the months of April, May and June he outlined some of the initiatives of the president.



He stressed that President Akufo-Addo has done a lot for the Ghanaian worker which needs to be commended.



The Vice President also lauded Ghanaian workers for their hard work and patriotism towards the development of the country.



Webster - American Graduate Degree

On the occasion of Workers Day, I congratulate Ghanaian workers for their hard work and patriotic contributions towards the development of our country. God bless our workers. God bless our homeland Ghana, the Vice President wrote in a Facebook post on Friday.



Read the post below:





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
How CBC Failed Its Own Journalistic Standards in Its Coverage of The Epoch Times

Analysis

There are many ways in which Canadas national broadcaster failed its own stated standards of journalism in its recent reporting about The Epoch Times.

The CBC recently aired multiple segments on its different platforms, including radio, television, and online, on a special edition about the pandemic produced and distributed by The Epoch Times.

The CBCs promotion of the characterization of the special edition as being racist and xenophobic, its one-sided coverage, and its claims that the special edition advances a conspiracy theory, were heavily criticized by Epoch Times Canada publisher Cindy Gu. She published a statement pointing out that the Chinese communist regime is not the same as Chinese people, and that the special edition puts the focus on the regimes conduct in the face of the coronavirus outbreak, not on the people of China.

Gu also said the CBCs conspiracy theory claim is based on unsubstantiated comments from one recipient and an unnamed mail carrier, falsely claiming that the special edition says the virus was manufactured and that its part of a bio-warfare agenda by the Chinese people, while it makes no such allegations.

The CBCs coverage drew rebuke from a number of journalists, and was the subject of a commentary published on the front page of the National Post on Sat., May 2.

The Twitter bios of two of the three CBC reporters covering Epoch Times special edition say their focus is disinformation on the COVID-19 pandemic. One holds the title of senior reporter.

The front page of The Epoch Times special edition that was distributed on April 13, 2020.

In targeting Epoch Times reporting and in their labelling, the reporters themselves unknowingly became part of a disinformation campaignone perpetrated by Beijing to stifle any criticism and exposure of its conduct by characterizing it as racism.

Reporters who understand the intersection of geopolitics & information warfare would have reported on this quite differently, Marcus Kolga, an expert on foreign disinformation, said on Twitter in reaction to one of the CBCs articles. PRC propaganda, that criticism of the Chinese government is racism is uncritically repeated, + PRC mass disinfo isnt mentioned.

Kolga, a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, wrote in a previous op-ed for Macleans that authoritarian regimes frequently label foreign criticism of their policies as racist as a way to delegitimize them and polarize debate.

In the case of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), this strategy has its roots in propaganda and education initiatives launched as early as the 1990s in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre by then-leader Jiang Zemin. The goal was to drive home the point that the CCP and China are one and the same.

The Epoch Times, founded by Chinese immigrants who fled communist oppression in their homeland, has been covering disinformation put out by the Beijing regime for two decades. Since the start of the pandemic, using sources in China, The Epoch Times has been publishing exclusive reports on Chinas disinformation and hiding of the facts.

For example, in early February, Epoch Times reporters called funeral homes in Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak in China, and got testimonies from the staff on the number of bodies they are cremating, showing the death toll to be magnitudes higher than what the regime had been admitting. And in the days that the CBC was targeting The Epoch Times, the outlet published a report based on leaked documents it obtained showing Beijing knew the virus was contagious but kept silent for days.

Meanwhile, even before setting its sights on The Epoch Times, CBC has run stories that were shaped by the Chinese regimes disinformation about the number of infections in China.

For example, on March 31, the broadcaster published an article headlined, Canadas next-door neighbour is now the epicentre of global pandemic. Heres what that U.S. surge means. This headline assumes the number of infections in both China and Iran as stated by their governments to be correct, while there is evidence that both governments have been lying about the numbers and their rates could be much higher than those in the United States.

In its reports on The Epoch Times, the CBC also repeats a slanderous term used by the CCP against Falun Gong adherents. By repeating the labelling used by a regime that has been torturing and killing Falun Gong adherents in China for over two decades, CBC is helping spread hate propagandathe very accusation it levels against The Epoch Times in its one-sided reports. Adherents of Falun Gong anywhere in the world, including in Canada, would find the term derogatory and hurtful.

What the Special Edition Covers

The Epoch Times special edition is an eight-page broadsheet paper distributed to various neighbourhoods across Canada. According to publisher Gu, this was done because the paper considers that information to be important to Canadians, and is also part of sampling efforts to raise brand awareness and garner new subscribers.

Chinese paramilitary police wear protective masks as they guard the entrance to the Forbidden City in Beijing on May 2, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

The cover page of the special edition is headlined, How the Chinese Communist Party Endangered the World, with a subheading that reads, The Chinese Communist Partys coverup led to a pandemic that now threatens the lives of people around the globe. What really happened, and what lessons can we learn?

The topics included in the special edition are:

-An article on how Beijings coverup of the initial virus outbreak led to a global pandemic;

-An article examining the cancellation of 21 million cellphones in China and its connection with the real death toll due to the virus, as Beijing has not published factual infection and death rates;

-A timeline on key dates and actions showing how the Chinese regime prevented information about the virus outbreak from becoming public, including reprimanding whistleblowers, and key actions taken by Taiwanese and Canadian officials and the outcome of the scale of the pandemic in the two countries;

-An article examining the initial steps Canada took in the face of the outbreak with comments from a Canadian senator on how more prompt action could have reduced infection rates;

-An article on research work looking into how 10,000 fake Twitter accounts linked to Beijing are being used to spread disinformation about the origin of the virus outbreak;

-An article about action taken by U.S. lawmakers to hold Beijing to account for its role in covering up the outbreak;

-An article on how urn shipments to a funeral home in Wuhan indicate a death toll much higher than the one published by officials;

-One version of the special edition in early April included a commentary by an author quoting Chinas former defence minister talking about the need for bioweapons. The author calls for an investigation into the origin of the virus;

-Editorials on why the coronavirus should be called the CCP virus and how countries and regions with closer ties with the Chinese regime were hit the heaviest at the start of the outbreak;

CBCs One-Sided Report

The CBC aired its radio segment on the special edition on the morning of April 29 and published its first online article at 4 a.m. the same day.

The original headline of the article read: Racist and inflammatory: Canadians upset by Epoch Times claim China behind virus, made it as a bioweapon.

A man leaves the CBC building in Toronto in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette)

The opening paragraph says The Epoch Times is coming under fire for advancing a conspiracy theory about the origin of the coronavirus, but the article doesnt provide any proof of this claim.

It also doesnt provide any proof on how Canadians, or a majority of Canadians, feel about the special edition, as claimed by its headline.

Instead, it quotes a recipient in Kelowna who says, It did seem to allude to conspiracy theories like, you know, maybe it was manufactured.

Is that one individuals opinion the source of a headline speaking for all Canadians? Gu said in her statement.

The article quotes an unnamed mail carrier who says he didnt want to deliver the special edition to peoples homes and is quoted as saying the edition claims the virus is part of a bio-warfare agenda by the Chinese people. The special issue doesnt make any such claim, however. The CBC reporters and editors again failed to examine and present any proof supporting such an allegation.

CBC then quotes a scientist saying there is high consensus that the virus is not engineered. Again, the special edition doesnt make any claim that the virus was engineered.

The article doesnt examine the contents of the special edition. The closest it gets is including a photo of the commentary article titled Chinas Bioweapon Ambitions.

In the commentary, the author quotes a former Chinese defence minister talking about biological weapons. At the end, the commentary notes that Chinese authorities havent been transparent about the outbreak and says there should be an investigation.

There must be an investigation of the outbreak in Wuhan, the writer argues. If Chinese officials are innocent, they have nothing to hide. If they are guilty, they will refuse to cooperate.

The Australian Daily Telegraph published a report on May 2 about a research document by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, of which Canada is a member, saying China deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence of the virus in an assault on international transparency, costing tens of thousands of lives. The document also has parts that cover the possibility of the virus leaking from the lab, and notes that research on bat-related viruses has been conducted in the lab for years. The Guardian reported on May 4 that intelligence sources told the media there is no current evidence that the virus was leaked from a Chinese lab, and disputed the information reported in the Daily Telegraphs report.

On May 3, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there is enormous evidence that the virus outbreak originated in a Chinese lab.

Gu notes in her statement that the Wuhan lab coverage is a very small part of the reporting in the special edition, and that we simply asked questions, like many others.

Allegations of Racism

The CBC article quotes the recipient in Kelowna as saying the special edition feels racist and inflammatory. This is the basis for the headline of the story.

Gu noted that the special editions focus is the communist regime ruling China, not the people of China. She also said The Epoch Times was founded by Chinese immigrants, and that many of the papers reporters and editors were arrested in China, jailed, and tortured. The CBC didnt report these parts of Gus statement.

Not only does the CBC article say The Epoch Times is affiliated with the Falun Gong movement and repeat a slanderous term used by the Chinese regime against the spiritual practice, it also words its coverage of the persecution campaign against Falun Gong in China as its followers say the Chinese government persecutes them. In fact, the persecution has been well documented by rights groups, and many governments, including Canadas, have condemned it.

In repeating the regimes derogatory term, the article perpetuates hate against a marginalized group in China, and those who follow the spiritual practice in Canada.

CBCs Journalistic Failures

The CBCs standards of journalism state that it follows the principles of accuracy, fairness, balance, and impartiality.

On accuracy, the standards say, we invest our time and our skills to learn, understand and clearly explain the facts to our audience.

In its reporting, the CBC demonstrated that it failed to understand the content of the special edition and instead presented viewpoints from two people as facts.

On fairness, CBCs standards say, We treat [individuals and organizations] even-handedly. On balance, the standards say CBC is to reflect a diversity of opinion, and on issues of controversy, we ensure that divergent views are reflected respectfully. On impartiality, the standards say CBC is not to promote any particular point of view on matters of public debate.

However, the CBCs reporting didnt include any positive feedback on the special edition. It only reflected negative views and made conclusions based on the opinion of two people, a recipient and an unnamed mail carrier.

In Gus April 29 statement in response to the CBC report, she points out these journalistic failings and notes that the broadcasters reporting is deliberately misleading and intentionally excludes crucial information.

The statement also points out factual mistakes made by CBC, one being that The Epoch Times is found in street boxes in Canadian cities, while it has been a subscription-only paper since July. It also erroneously said Shen Yun Performing Arts is part of the Epoch Media Group.

The full text of The Epoch Times response to CBC can be found here.

The CBC chose to go ahead with airing TV segments on its report, despite the fact that Gus statement addressing some of the articles many problems was already released.

In one TV segment, the anchor opens by saying, The Epoch Times is publishing misleading information about the coronavirus. In another segment, aired on the networks flagship program The National, the anchor says, The Epoch Times published a conspiracy theory about the origin of the coronavirus and Chinas role.

It then quotes a Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) representative saying the special editions front cover is promoting xenophobia towards the Asian community, and says he wants mail carriers to not have to deliver the special edition.

The CBC report doesnt attempt to substantiate the claim that the special edition is promoting xenophobia, which can be done simply by pointing out what the front page states and evaluating it against the definition of xenophobia from any dictionary.

The report says the minister in charge of Canada Post, Anita Anand, rejected CUPWs request, and said the special edition does not appear to meet the required criteria of the offence of wilful promotion of hatred as established in the Criminal Code of Canada.

Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand, whose portfolio includes Canada Post,listens to a question during a news conference in Ottawa on April 16, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

The Criminal Code proscribes hatred directed toward any identifiable group.

The only identifiable group in the special edition is the Chinese Communist Party. Are the multiple CBC reporters credited with these reports, among them a senior reporter, and their editors not capable of making an assessment and analysis on whether there is any substantiation to claims that the special edition is promoting hatred toward the Asian community?

The TV segment notes that Epoch Times is founded by Falun Gong adherents, and quotes an academic saying there is so much bad blood between the Chinese regime and Falun Gong that either side would take whatever opportunity they reasonably could to throw mud at the other.

The two sides that the academic is referring to are on the one hand a totalitarian regime with all the institutions, the full force of the military, and financial assets of the country at its disposal, and on the other hand a group of people who practice meditation and who are being tortured and killed by the government that is supposed to serve them.

Is the academic declaring that the actions of the Beijing regime, well known for its egregious rights abuses that include torture and killing, as actions it can reasonably conduct? And is he equivalencing those actions with the actions taken by a persecuted group that follows an ancient practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance?

In the two-minute, twenty-second segment aired on The National, only about five seconds feature a view defending the Epoch Times, where the senior reporter paraphrases publisher Gu as saying the Party does not represent Chinese people.

Changes to CBC Report

After The Epoch Times first statement, the CBC changed the factual mistake saying The Epoch Times newspaper is available for free and ran a clarification note at the end of the article explaining the change. It also removed the part where it erroneously stated that Shen Yun is a part of Epoch Media Group and ran a correction note about the mistake.

However, at the time of this writing, a separate post containing a video segment of CBCs report on their website still includes the factual mistake that the newspaper is available for free in street boxes.

In its first article, the CBC updated its headline three times, without running any notes about its correction:

Original Version

Racist and inflammatory: Canadians upset by Epoch Times claim China behind virus, made it as a bioweapon

Second Version

Some Canadians who received unsolicited copy of Epoch Times upset by claim that China was behind virus

Third Version

Some Canadians see claims in Epoch Times about origin of virus as racist and inflammatory

Fourth Version

Some Canadians who received unsolicited copy of Epoch Times upset by claim that China was behind virus

Gu subsequently put out a second statement, reiterating that the special edition is not advancing conspiracy theories and that CBC has been making substantial changes to its headlines without running any notes about it. The statement notes that all the headlines are still incorrect, as the focus of the special edition is the Chinese Communist Partys coverup of the pandemic, not the people of China. Gu demanded that CBC retract its one-sided article and issue an apology.

CBC later added an editors note to its article that it has updated its headline and made other changes. The note reads in part The earlier headline also incorrectly stated the Epoch Times claimed China made the virus as a bioweapon. This was done following Epoch Times second statement.

A mail box is seen outside a Canada Post office in Halifax in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Darren Calabrese)

However, other issues Gu raised, such as false claims about the special edition alleging the virus as being manufactured or being part of a bio-warfare agenda by the Chinese people are still there.

CBC proceeded to publish another article on May 1, headlined Federal government says Canada Post must deliver Epoch Times despite union objection.

The article again only reflects views critical of the special edition and The Epoch Times, except those of the publisher, which consists of a small part of the CBC report. The article also again uses the slanderous term against Falun Gong, but unlike last time where it had said its the group that says its persecuted, the new report cites human rights groups on the persecution campaign.

There was no correction or clarification note run in the CBCs original report about the fact that its not just the group that says it is persecuted.

Similar to the first article, the second also doesnt pass muster when held up against CBCs own journalistic standards, such as repeating a false accusation of xenophobia by the CUPW representative without presenting any evidence to that effect or examining and evaluating the allegations.

The report also fails in its identification of stakeholders and relevant expert commentary.

CUPW is known to take political positions, including on foreign policy. Last year, it issued a statement condemning Canadas endorsement of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Canada, along with 50 other nations, says the current regime leader, Nicolas Maduro, rigged the 2018 election and is therefore not a legitimate leader of the country.

The CBC report didnt include any voices from civil society groups or experts on the dangerous precedent it would set if the union was allowed to decide what gets delivered by Canada Post and what doesnt.
A Bhayander-based union leader has been held by the Navghar police in Maharashtra for allegedly duping around 25 migrants. The man asked them to get transit forms so that they could reach their native place in North India amid the coronavirus lockdown. He also charged 200 and issued receipts but the trip was never made.

Chandrashekhar Jadhav, a union leader, ran the Shramjeevi Kamgar Union at Jai Ambe Industrial Estate in Bhayander E, Maharashtra. He allegedly told migrants, who worked at many industrial units in the above area, to fill a transit form to reach their native place in north India. The migrants were charged 200 each and were issued receipts, said PI Prakash Birajdar of Navghar police station.

He even staged social distancing drill, as per rules, and the migrants believed him, said the official. However, no forms were issued and the migrants lodged a complaint with us. We arrested him under Maharashtra Covid-19 Regulations, 2020 and Sections 269, 270 (spread of infectious disease) of the Indian Penal Coder. We arrested him on Sunday and released him on bail, said Birajdar.

Jadhav claimed that he has a clearance from the Mira Bhayander civic body to enlist names of migrants stuck in the twin cities. We are investigating the matter and checking his previous criminal record as we have reports that Jadhav was earlier arrested in similar cases, said Birajdar.

Meantime, Sanjay Patil, Additional Superintendent of Police, Thane Rural, has warned people not to fall for such scams and inform the police about such fraudsters. The migrants should directly contact the District Collector, Thane online for the transit forms with all identity proofs and a medical certificate from by any approved government medical agency, Patil said.
WESTON  The majority of Weston residents voiced support of the town and school budgets, but some cautioned about increasing funding during an uncertain financial future because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Board of Finance has budgeted a mill rate increase of 1.38 percent. Some residents voiced concern of the $54 million schools budget because it came with a projected 2.28 percent year-over-year increase despite the recent schools closure.

But Jeffrey Goldstein, a Wildwood Lane resident, said he favored the budget increase during the public comments portion of Saturdays online finance board meeting.

One of the reasons I moved to this town seven years ago was because of the school system, Goldstein said. The most important thing, in my perspective, is keeping our kids educated and keeping our kids focused.

Goldstein said as a business owner, he understood the tough economic times, but noted the schools were the towns main draw.

If were not taking care of our school, not only will people not come, people will leave, he said.

Ilene Richardson, of Heritage Lane, echoed his sentiments and shared support for the schools budget.

I think we have to make sure we dont sacrifice what our children need and whats valuable to this town out of the general uncertainty of what our future might hold for us, she said.

But some residents voiced concern that a budget increase in the midst of a crisis was tone deaf.

Tim Rodgers, a Newtown Turnpike resident, said he supported keeping the budgets flat during the crisis.

This is almost like a World War II situation and I think special times call for special measures, Rodgers said.

Joseph Castro, a Charles Path resident, said he felt it may be best to maintain the current budgets until a vote can be held by the public.

If we legally can go forward without changing our budget, I think that should be the prudent thing to do until we can get a vote of the people in town, Castro said. Especially if were going to be having cost savings on the BOE side, which is the largest percentage of the budget.

BOF member Greg Murphy said he was in support of holding the school budget flat.

I think the Board of Education should be redirected to submit a flat budget in light of the circumstances in the nation and the town, he said.

The schools budget faced scrutiny earlier in the year when Superintendent William Mckersie first proposed a 5.5 percent increase. Since then, the BOE reduced the $54 million budget to a 2.28 percent  or $1.2 million  increase from last year.

But BOE Chair Tony Pesco cautioned against further cuts because of the potential impact on the schools.

Obviously, these are really difficult times, Pesco said. All of these discussions have been had by the Board of Education and administration. Some of them sound good, but theyre almost impossible to achieve.

BOF Chairman Steve Ezzes said the finance board would not be able to discuss cuts in the BOE budget until its presented with savings for the fiscal year because of the schools closure.

There should be cost savings in the current fiscal year that maybe we can carry over into the next fiscal year, Ezzes said.

The finance board will vote on the town budget and set the mill rate on Thursday.

dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com
As of April 29, Alberta has put in place special coronavirus measures while carrying out operations

Coronavirus: Alberta still processing immigration applications As of April 29, Alberta has put in place special coronavirus measures while carrying out operations

Coronavirus: Alberta still processing immigration applications As of April 29, Alberta has put in place special coronavirus measures while carrying out operations

Coronavirus: Alberta still processing immigration applications As of April 29, Alberta has put in place special coronavirus measures while carrying out operations Mohanad Moetaz Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

Sans Font Size A

A

Applications for immigration to Alberta will continue to be accepted and processed, but the Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program (AINP) has introduced new temporary measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The AINP will now accept copies for all required documents, including copies of signatures on forms. The authenticity of signatures and other documents may need to be confirmed with a phone call or email.

Applicants may be permitted to submit an incomplete application if they meet the following requirements:

Applied after April 29;

Meet all selection criteria for their AINP stream;

Include a written explanation as to why their application is incomplete;

Provide evidence that they have requested the document, or that the issuing party is not operational due to the coronavirus;

If applying for the Alberta Opportunity Stream, they include language test results, or proof that they have registered for a language test on or before October 29, 2020; and

If applying for the Alberta Express Entry Stream, they include valid language results and an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA).

Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs

Applicants who have applied on or before April 29 who cannot provide documents must also:

Include a written explanation as to why they are unable to provide the required documents;

Provide evidence that they have requested the document, or that the issuing party is not operational due to the coronavirus.

For incomplete applications, Alberta will hold them for 60 calendar days from the date of mailing.

After 45 days, it will be determined whether or not the hold will be extended for another 60 calendar days, and so on, for a maximum of six months.

At this point, a decision will be made based on the information available.

Alberta Express Entry Stream

Selection draws and nominations will continue as per usual under the Alberta Express Entry Stream.

At the moment, however, only candidates living and working in Alberta will be considered for nomination.

To receive a nomination, candidates must meet the following requirements:

be currently working in Alberta, even if they are working from home;

have a work permit authorizing them to work in their current job;

have a job that is full-time, paid, meet the provincial minimum wage, exceed Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) requirements; and they must

work in an eligible occupation. Ineligible occupations include those in the governments high-wage and low-wage occupations in the province of Alberta, and the Alberta Opportunity Stream Ineligible Occupations list.

Candidates who were working full time prior to the coronavirus pandemic, and those who are working in a regulated occupation who cannot meet licensure requirements will have their applications on hold for 60 calendar days.

If candidates have no recent employment history in the province, their applications will not be processed until further notice.

Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs

Alberta Opportunity Stream

Candidates who are working from home due to the governments social distancing rules may still be eligible for nomination under the Alberta Opportunity Stream.

If candidates are performing only some of the job duties, they may still be eligible for nomination as long as they intend to return to their regular job duties once the pandemic is over.

Those who have had changes to their employment situation due to the pandemic will have their application put on hold for 60 days to allow them to meet the criteria.

This includes those who are unemployed, working in an ineligible occupation, working in a different occupation, or Post-Graduate Work Permit (PGWP) holders who are working in a different occupation than their area of study.

Nomination

All nominees are required to advise the AINP and Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) of any changes in employment, address, email, phone number or family status, even after nomination.

If a nominees employment circumstance changes due to the coronavirus pandemic, he or she will be given 60 calendar days to once again meet their employment criteria in order to keep their nomination.

If a nominee moves to another province, their nomination will be terminated.

Find out how to stay in Canada

 2020 CIC News All Rights Reserved
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Saeed Azhar and Simon Evans (Reuters) Dubai, United Arab Emirates/Manchester, United Kingdom  Mon, May 4, 2020 15:31 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5d05e1 2 Sports Saudi-Arabia,Premier-League,Newcastle-United,soccer,football,team,club Free

A bid by a Saudi Arabian state fund to secure ownership of Newcastle United is drawing scrutiny, but even if it succeeds it is unlikely that the petrodollars will transform the Premier League club into a powerhouse in the near future.

The prospect of the Saudi bid fuelling a rapid rise to the top, in the manner of Manchester City's four title successes under owners from the United Arab Emirates, has thrilled many Newcastle fans, but several analysts believe that the investment impact may not be on such a scale.

A group fronted by British financier Amanda Staveley, with an expected 80% investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF and 10 percent involvement from billionaire brothers David and Simon Reuben, have made a reported 300 million pound ($375 million) bid to buy the club from British businessman Mike Ashley.

The proposal faces some early obstacles and the prospect of Saudi ownership of a top English club has been condemned by human rights groups.

Saudi Arabia was internationally criticized after the 2018 murder of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdoms Istanbul consulate, the Yemen war and the detention of several womens rights activists.

Added to that there is the long-running dispute with Qatari company BeInSport regarding allegations of Saudi tolerance of 'pirate' broadcasts in the kingdom -- an issue which has been raised by some parliamentarians in the UK.

The proposed takeover is now being reviewed as part of the Premier League's "owners' and directors' test", which was previously known as the 'fit and proper person's test'.

Investors wanting to become owners of English professional clubs have to show they have no unspent criminal conviction for fraud, are not bankrupt, and have not been banned from serving as a company director.

Newcastle supporters, however, are mostly excited at the prospect of major investment in their team, which has not featured in the Champions League since 2004 and has not won the English title since 1927 or FA Cup since 1955, despite claiming one of the country's largest fan bases.

The timing of the bid, though, is far from ideal -- the Premier League is currently suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, Moody's Investors Service cut Saudi Arabia's outlook to "negative" from "stable", saying the oil price crash has raised fiscal risks for the Gulf nation.

"It is a relatively risky undertaking at a time when it looks like the kingdom will need a lot of liquid assets to finance deficits and maintain its currency peg," says Steffen Hertog, Associate Professor in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics.

Improving influence

Hertog, like a number of observers, believes the Saudi involvement is aimed at improving the country's influence and image outside of its borders but says economic realities may limit PIF's ambitions.

"It definitely is part of an Abu Dhabi style soft power strategy, but I am not sure how much extra money they will pour into the club. Given current fiscal developments and the travails of some of the PIFs other assets, there are likely to be constraints to Saudi generosity," he said.

Manchester City's UAE owners have been closely involved in the major decision-making at the club with Khaldoon Al Mubarak chairman since September 2008 but that path may not be followed by the Saudis.

"PIF does not have the experience or capacity to be 'hands on' so would likely take a back seat," says Neil Quilliam, CEO of Gulf-focused consultancy Castlereagh Associates.

Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan addressed, in a television interview on Saturday, the issue of investments abroad, without directly mentioning PIFs potential bid for Newcastle.

"The investments are highly important because they have returns we can use in case of a crisis to curb the deficit. If we use the reserves, we consume the assets and wont have any returns.

"Also, these types of crises create investment opportunities. Many companies reduce their investments, which creates opportunities to invest in them," he told Al Arabiya news channel.

PIF manages over $300 billion in assets. It has been in existence since 1971, but became a more active investor since 2015 when it started reporting to a high-level economic body headed by the kingdoms de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

PIF has been tasked with delivering on Prince Mohammeds ambitious economic transformation drive to reduce the kingdoms reliance on oil revenues.

The fund is headed by former Saudi banker Yasir al-Rumayyan, whose title is governor and is seen as close to Prince Mohammed.

Financial sources have told Reuters that the crown prince had a say on many strategic PIF decisions, such as Softbanks Vision fund investment.
Seven Teams to Compete in Virtual UW Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition May 8

Brett Ralston, a UW graduate student in physiology, from Encampment, is a member of EvolvED, one of seven student-led teams that will compete for seed money during the virtual UW John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition May 8-9. (Tylr Kozelisky Photo)

Seven student-led teams are vying for seed prize money to get their business plans off the ground in the John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition sponsored by the University of Wyomings College of Business.

The John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition awards cash prizes to outstanding teams of student entrepreneurs who submit their business plans for new ventures that show significant business potential.

In response to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 situation, the competition has been modified to be a completely virtual public event via Zoom May 8-9.

To register for the free event, go to www.uwyo.edu/business/entrepreneurship.

These teams have been working tirelessly over the past six months in refining their business concepts, and we are confident that these startups will create significant value for the Wyoming economy, says Patrick Kreiser, the UW College of Business Rile Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and Leadership. Our teams represent a variety of customer and product markets, from medicine to education to politics to engineering to a company whose mission it is to support mothers in Wyoming.

Importantly, building upon the recent celebration of the sesquicentennial of womens suffrage in Wyoming, two of our four undergraduate finalists this year are led by female entrepreneurs, Kreiser continues. Our alumni and stakeholders will be filled with Poke Pride when they see the passion and perseverance of this years finalists.

This year, teams entered the competition from various disciplines across campus. The final seven student teams created startups with innovative business models, and each worked with several mentors in preparing their written reports and formal presentations.

(from left) Abby Lozano, a coordinator in the UW International Students and Scholars office; Kyrie Blaney, a senior majoring in marketing, from Evanston; and Dilnoza Khasilova, a graduate student in literacy education, from Uzbekistan, make up Build Mothers, Build the World, one of seven teams that will compete in the virtual UW John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition May 8-9. (Kyrie Blaney Photo)

Known as the UW $10K Competition until 2011, the John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition encourages students to act on their talents, ideas and energy to produce tomorrows leading businesses.

The seven John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition finalists, their projects, team members, majors and hometowns are:

-- CellDrop: Team members are Benjamin Noren, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical engineering with a graduate minor in gender and womens studies, from Ironwood, Mich.; and John Oakey, a UW professor of chemical engineering. CellDrop uses a patented cell delivery process to quickly and permanently regenerate tissue by encasing mesenchymal stem cells in microscopic hydrogel droplets (cells in tiny gel marbles).

-- Landseer: Team members are Kurt Stahlfeld, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering, from Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Erica Belmont, a UW assistant professor in mechanical engineering. Landseer is producing next-generation lithium battery anodes, with potential to double the energy density of current lithium batteries, via a novel production process with unique cost and environmental advantages.

-- Resono: Team members are Pourya Nikoueeyan, a Ph.D. student from Laramie; and Jonathan Naughton, a UW professor of mechanical engineering. Resono Pressure Systems Inc. commercializes an innovative unsteady pressure measurement system for advanced aerospace and wind energy applications.

Ashley Hyche, a UW senior from Wheatland, is a member of Step-Up Strategies, a company that will compete for seed money during the virtual UW John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition May 8-9. (Heart of the West Photography)

-- Build Mothers, Build the World: Team members are Kyrie Blaney, a senior majoring in marketing, from Evanston; Dilnoza Khasilova, a graduate student in literacy education, from Uzbekistan; Abby Lozano, a coordinator in the UW International Students and Scholars office; and Carole Boughton, business development and public relations director at the Wyoming Montana Safety Council. The mission at Build Mothers, Build the World is to empower Wyoming women through access to postsecondary education; break the cycle of poverty in families; and promote economic development across Wyoming through career placement and development.

-- EvolvED: Team members are Brett Ralston, a graduate student in physiology, from Encampment; Chris Larsen, a Laramie County Community College student majoring in computer science, from Jackson Hole; and Samuel Riggs, a Laramie County Community College senior majoring in accounting, from Laramie. EvolvED is a next-generation learning management system that will use advanced algorithms to provide individualized learning plans to students. EvolvED will increase the number of students meeting curricula standards across the state and the country.

-- Nexus Reliability: Team members are Fritz Ogden, a senior majoring in chemical engineering, from Laramie; Steve Bagley, a financial controller and data scientist for NexRel; and Chas Ogden, a mechanical engineer and technical developer for NexRel. Nexus Reliability is working to revolutionize how heavy industry uses current remote sensing technologies and big data. The Nexus Connect platform not only saves time and money, but also keeps maintainers and operators safe by preventing catastrophic failures before they occur.

-- Step-Up Strategies: Team members are Ashley Hyche, a senior majoring in agriculture communications, from Wheatland; and Ty Shockley, an accountant in Billings, Mont., and a UW graduate from Wheatland. Step-Up Strategies aims to be the solution that allows political campaigns and candidates to connect with their most important constituents by providing highly targeted messaging for state and local races in rural communities.

For more information about the event, visit www.uwyo.edu/business/entrepreneurship/ or email Josie Voight at voight@uwyo.edu.
The rebuilding debate going on in Washington  over which existing businesses are deserving of aid, and how quickly they should reopen  misses a critical point that will determine how successfully we recover from the Covid-19 economic collapse: What are we doing to encourage the creation of new start-up businesses, particularly outside of places like New York and San Francisco?

Understandably, Congress has, to date, pumped trillions of dollars into trying to help existing businesses. But this strategy will not create the jobs needed for recovery. First, because of public health restrictions, reopening existing businesses may not bring back all the jobs those entities previously provided. For example, if restaurants are required to operate with fewer tables for an extended period, they may not rehire all their servers and kitchen staff.

Second, data shows that while small businesses provide the vast majority of the jobs in our country, they do not create job growth  the new jobs needed to make up for the ones lost. That job growth comes from fast-growing start-ups, businesses that have created almost all the net new jobs in this country over the past 20 years. Since early March, at least 34,000 employees across more than 360 startups have been laid off. And yet federal relief efforts thus far have done virtually nothing to spur this part of our economy.

So how could Congress address this with its next package of economic measures?

First, it should provide capital for potential entrepreneurs who want to start businesses. Half of today's Fortune 500 started during a bear market or recession. Some of the most successful companies in American history were launched during economic downturns  FedEx and Microsoft during the 1970s recession; Spanx and Salesforce as the dot-com bubble burst in 1999; Uber and Venmo during the Great Recession of 2009.

How can we use federal policy to try to encourage such new business creation now? Without spending one extra federal dollar, Congress could allow those already eligible for now-enhanced unemployment benefits to draw half that benefit upfront  about $12,000  if a beneficiary agrees to use that money to start a business employing themselves and one other person. And it should expand the small business loan program it has funded twice (the so-called Paycheck Protection Program) to not only "protect paychecks" but to also spur the generation of new paychecks. That would allow entrepreneurs to get small business loans to start new businesses, not just keep existing ones open.

Second, Congress should direct that some of the hundreds of billions of dollars that will be put into buying equipment, making new therapeutics and vaccines and standing up a national testing and tracing apparatus must go to start-ups. To date, the vast majority of funds for these efforts have gone to large manufacturers and providers, large drug companies and large tech companies. These established players are critical, and we need them to help solve the vexing problems we face.

But history shows that innovation and job growth often come from upstarts in these fields. For example, the vaccine that beat Ebola came not from a huge drug player, but from a small biotech firm called BioProtection Systems Inc., which later became NewLink Genetics. The same is often true for lower-tech breakthroughs, including potentially faster processes for making protective gear or test kits. Thus, Congress should set aside 20% of all spending on procurement for pandemic response products and direct that it be funneled to emerging businesses. Growing these smaller players helps create jobs, and makes us more innovative.

And finally, we need to think about "place" and recovery. The red state versus blue state debate is misguided for many reasons. But chief among them is that we have budding technology businesses in cities in states of all political alignments: Indianapolis and Albuquerque; Omaha and Pittsburgh; Nashville and Phoenix; Madison and Orlando. I have brought my "Rise of the Rest" bus tour to more than 40 of these mid-sized cities over the past six years, and invested in more than a hundred companies in them. The potential there is enormous, and yet nearly 75% of all private venture capital still goes to just three states: New York, California and Massachusetts.

Of course, New York, Boston and San Francisco need our help, and deserve it. But if we are going to foster the growth of new businesses, rising start-up ecosystems in other parts of the country cannot be ignored. The "Main Street Relief Fund (MSRF)"  the single largest program in the CARES Act  should be changed to help start-ups in these emerging markets grow. First, the requirement that businesses must already be profitable to access the MSRF should be removed: It ironically rewards businesses that contribute little to new job growth, and punishes those start-ups that fuel job creation (Firms that are funding growth rather than profitability cannot access these funds.) And second, the program should require a portion of the funds go to firms based outside of the coastal tech hubs: firms that are often ignored by both private investors and public programs.

I can understand why policy makers focused first on restoring existing firms that have been hurt by the Covid-19 crisis. But in times of adversity, America does not succeed by simply trying to put everything back the way it was before. We need to grow our way out of this crisis, by backing start-ups all around the country that can create jobs and strengthen our economy for the future.

Steve Case, a co-founder of America Online, is chairman and chief executive of Revolution and author of "The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future."

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
Meat Processor JBS USA to Partially Reopen Minnesota Pork Facility, Says Workers Union

Meat processor JBS USA is planning to partially reopen its pork production facility in Worthington, Minnesota, on Wednesday after closing for more than two weeks due to an outbreak of the CCP virus at the plant, the union representing its workers announced.

The Worthington pork facility, which has more than 2,000 employees and processes about 20,000 hogs per day, will open its kill side on Wednesday, UFCW Local 663 said in a release Sunday.

The announcement comes after at least 26 workers at the facility were reported to be infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the novel coronavirus, last month, prompting its indefinite closure.

Meat-processing workers are particularly susceptible to the CCP virus because they typically stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the line and congregate in crowded locker rooms and cafeterias.

JBS plans to reopen the kill side of the plant this Wednesday, May 6. As it has been since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, your safety at work is our top priority, the release said.

The union has been hard at work ensuring that reopening the plant involves a commitment to enhanced safety guidelines for a safe reopening of the Worthington plant, UCFW Local 663 President Matt Utecht said in a statement.

JBS USA will implement a number of safety measures (pdf) that must be adhered to upon the plants partial reopening, the release notes. These include measures to thoroughly disinfect the plant and enforcing social distancing measures.

Meanwhile, all employees, contractors and visitors will be required to wear face masks upon entering the facility, and will be subject to temperature screenings.

While the Worthington plant has been closed, it was cleaned floor to ceiling, while touchless trash cans, 30 touchless water faucets, and 80 touchless sanitizer dispensers have been installed.

If you have any symptoms of COVID-19, such as a fever, do not go to work, Utecht said.

The news comes amid warnings of U.S.-wide shortage of meat as workers get infected by the CCP virus, with some plants forced to shut down. In recent weeks, Smithfield Foods, a Chinese-owned firm that operates in the United States, has confirmed plant closures.

The threat of a meat shortage prompted President Donald Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act to order meat processing plants to stay open.

It is important that processors of beef, pork, and poultry (meat and poultry) in the food supply chain continue operating and fulfilling orders to ensure a continued supply of protein for Americans. However, outbreaks of COVID-19 among workers at some processing facilities have led to the reduction in some of those facilities production capacity, the president wrote in the order last week.

Trump said that such actions have led to closures of plants, but stressed that it threatens the supply chain.

Given the high volume of meat and poultry processed by many facilities, any unnecessary closures can quickly have a large effect on the food supply chain, Trump wrote.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
Taliban Kill 3 Soldiers in Attack on Checkpoints in Eastern Afghanistan - Official

Sputnik News

12:42 GMT 03.05.2020(updated 12:43 GMT 03.05.2020)

KABUL (Sputnik) - Three Afghan soldiers were killed and five others injured overnight in a gunfight with Taliban militants in the eastern Afghan province of Paktia, a spokesman for the governor told Sputnik on Sunday.

"Last night, insurgents fought for several hours at Afghan checkpoints in the Loari area of Chamkani district and Muqbalo area of Patan district and killed three soldiers and injured five others," Abdullah Hasrat said.

Government forces killed eight insurgents and wounded five others, he added. The Taliban have not yet commented on the clashes.

The Pentagon said in a quarterly report published this week that the Taliban had increased attacks on Afghan forces to levels above seasonal norms in the month following the signing of the US-Taliban peace deal in late February.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider for more details. (21)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 5 2020

The governments new preemployment card program, a mix of cash aid and training subsidies for unemployed workers, should be replaced with cash aid, experts say.

Perbanas Institute economist Piter Abdullah told The Jakarta Post that preemployment card recipients would find it difficult to find jobs after the completion of their training within the program. Many enterprises, especially in nonessential sectors, have decided to let employees go because the COVID-19 pandemic has hit their finances hard, he added.

The choice that laid-off workers face is not whether to look for a new job with improved skills, Piter told the Post in a phone interview on Monday. Instead, they clearly need cash assistance to cover their living costs.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login
Mumbai, May 4 : Thousands of tipplers jostled outside the wine shops in Mumbai, Pune and other parts of Maharashtra amid soaring high expectations that liquor vending would be permitted in Lockdown 3.0, here on Monday.

State Excise Commissioner Kantilal Umap and other top officials made it clear that permission was not yet granted and urged people to stop crowding outside liquor retailers.

A liquor wholesaler from Malad in Mumbai Prasad Shetty told IANS that sentiments ran amok as people anticipated the green signal to come anytime, "but until then, I am not taking risks, the crowds appear too menacing." Outside several liquor shops, long queues were witnessed in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Ratnagiri, and other towns as liquor connoisseurs thronged for a 'quota' of their favourite poison.

While in some places, the tipplers put up a disciplined show of 'physical distancing' at most other sites, it was a free-for-all cocktail of the masses, giving a harrowing time to the police who struggled to keep them apart.

"I have been here since 4 a.m. I am first in the queue, and now it has gone more than two kms long, but the shop has not yet opened," rued a weary but enthusiastic customer outside a Pune shop.

At one shop in Palghar, there were two queues outside one wine shop - one to the right and other to the left, leaving viewers amused, and they even hammered out an informal arrangement - "one from left, one from right"! A Thane resident, Suresh Bhaskaran, aghast by the crowds outside a wine-shop observed: "Wonder if there will be similar crowds when all places of worship are thrown open after lockdown..!" The owner of three wine-shops in Thane, Hemant Pamnani said that the police and the government authorities are still working out details on which liquor shops will be eligible to open as per the rules.

"Some shops opened up briefly and later shut down. We are hoping for clarity this afternoon. We have limited stocks and need to make arrangements from the suppliers," Pamnani told IANS.

A resident of Chandivali, Pradeep Menon said, "The crowds are simply uncontrollable, physical distancing is reduced to a joke, so the government must permit only online or home-delivery till the excitement subsides".

Not willing to take chances, many unabashed boozers came well-prepared - carrying empty rucksacks or travel bags - to lug home fully laden with bottles of their favourite spirits!
Paris: A French hospital that retested old samples from pneumonia patients discovered that it treated a man who had COVID-19 as early as December 27, nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.

Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in the northern suburbs of Paris, told BFM TV that scientists had retested samples from 24 patients treated in December and January who tested negative for the flu.

"Of the 24, we had one who was positive for COVID-19 on December 27," he told the news channel on Sunday.

The samples had all initially been collected to detect flu using PCR tests, the same genetic screening process that can also be used to detect the presence of the novel coronavirus in patients infected at the time the sample is collected.
May 4 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

Corporate confidence has suffered its largest quarterly drop on record, with some of Britain's largest businesses preparing to wait at least a year for demand to recover fully. https://bit.ly/2SvIu92

Coca-Cola Co, owner of the British chain Costa Coffee, has quietly installed 25 machines across the United States and has launched Costa-branded coffee pods in preliminary tests of the American market. It plans to start selling ground Costa coffee directly to consumers next month. https://bit.ly/2WquFd9

The Guardian

Tech firms are in talks with ministers about creating health passports to help Britons return safely to work using coronavirus testing and facial recognition. https://bit.ly/3dff4nE

The government's plan to exit lockdown through a tracking app will need detailed justification to satisfy human rights and data protection laws, a report has warned. https://bit.ly/35txsX4

The Telegraph

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will on Monday describe the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine as "the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes" as he urges countries not to see it as a competition. https://bit.ly/3bZRU4r

Amazon.com Inc is circling crashed satellite company OneWeb, the British firm backed by Sir Richard Branson and SoftBank, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. https://bit.ly/3deQ27M

Sky News

Some of Britain's biggest insurers are holding secret talks about creating a new fund to help charities which have been left unable to conduct fundraising activities during the coronavirus pandemic. https://bit.ly/2YvRn6e

Some FTSE 100 companies are expecting their offices to operate at reduced capacity until the middle of next year, Sky News understands. https://bit.ly/2SyOwFI (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)
A ir ambulances will be able to touch down at Kensington Palace for refuelling during the coronavirus pandemic after the Duke of Cambridge gave permission for them to use a private lawn.

It is thought the move  agreed by Prince William, who became patron of the London Air Ambulance Charity in March  will save lives because it means paramedics will no longer have to waste precious time flying to the nearest fuelling base in Watford.

Under the new arrangement, helicopters will be able to land and take off from Perks Field, grassland next to Kensington Palace usually used as a landing site for Royal Family helicopters.

The palace serves as the London home and offices of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who are currently in lockdown with their three children at their Anmer Hall residence in Norfolk.

William, a former search and rescue helicopter pilot, was known as Flight Lieutenant Wales when he served with the RAF in Angelsey, North Wales. During his three-year tour William took part in 156 search and rescue operations with 149 people being rescued.

He later worked as a helicopter pilot for the East Anglian Air Ambulance for 18 months between 2015 and 2017 before stepping down to take on more royal duties on behalf of the Queen.

A royal source confirmed the initiative and said: Perks Field has been made available to the London Air Ambulance.

The palaces are happy to help in these times.
(Photo : REUTERS/Loren Elliott) An illustration picture shows the new COVIDSafe app by the Australian government on a mobile phone, as the country works to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in this picture taken on April 28, 2020.

Australians may have to provide their personal details to restaurants if they do not have the coronavirus tracking app before they are allowed to dine in.

This was proposed by Restaurant and Catering Australia CEO Wes Lambert in anticipation of the reopening of the hospitality industry in Queensland, as reported in Daily Mail.

ALSO READ: COVID-19 Doctors Finally Understand the Reason Behind Coronavirus' Deadly Blood Clots

ALSO READ: [BREAKING] COVID-19 Update: Japanese Company Claims UV Light Robot Can Destroy Coronavirus in 2 Minutes

Lambert hopes restaurants and cafes can resume their business next month, so he submitted new guidelines to ensure establishments follow safety protocols amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the suggestions was a 'sign in' order for customers who do not have the government's coronavirus tracking app.

The COVIDSafe app uses Bluetooth connections to track people who came in contact with COVID-19 patients. This is to stop the further transmission of the virus.

"We fully advocate the tracking app, in the absence of that the best practice is tracking or tracing," said Lambert adding that the process should not be complicated.

As reported by The Australian, the proposal would require patrons to provide their name and phone number to diners, and then they will be contacted once another customer tested COVID-19 positive.

COVIDSafe is a voluntary app used for coronavirus contact tracing. It can be downloaded from Apple or Google app stores and works only on smartphones.

The proposed guidelines

Lambert, who promotes the use of the COVIDSafe app, said customers who do not have the app would be asked to provide their name and contact number.

Aside from the sign-in, cafes and restaurants will follow social distancing within their premises, including the waiting areas. Tables will be set 1.5 meters away from each other, allowing only about 60% of the normal capacity.

This is much higher than the proposed four-meter distance between tables by the government. This would only allow 25% operational capacity, which Lambert disputes as it would not allow the business to "trade effectively".

There will be no condiments on the table, while hand sanitizers will be available all over the place. The menu will be disposable, on a chalkboard, or laminated provided they are cleaned. Lambert said these are "some practical and low-cost measures" to ensure safety within the venues.

Cleaning guidelines provided by the WHO, state, or the federal government will be strictly followed. These include the buzzing of tables and chairs while bar service will not be available. Also, cutlery and crockery will be sanitized at 80 degrees C.

Finally, the "tap and go" payment limit will be removed, while wipes can be used to clean case registers prior to use.

On lifting the restrictions

Since its launch on Sunday, there were already COVIDSafe already has 4 million downloads. It is still lower than the required 40% by the government.

Last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged Australians to download the app if they want to return to pubs. Lifting of restrictions will be discussed on Tuesday and Friday once the National Cabinet convenes, hoping to make announcements by the end of the week.

Morrison said he would want to get Australians back to work as new coronavirus cases remain below 20 every day.

Allowing restaurants and cafes to operate fully is not possible until a vaccine is already available. Since March, restaurants, pubs, and cafes have been closed or restricted to takeaway services.

There were only the remaining 878 COVID-19 patients from the total of 6,822 reported cases, as 5,849 have already recovered while there were 95 deaths.

Read also: A New Android Malware 'EventBot' is Stealing Banking Passwords and Authentication Codes; Here's How

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A doctor in the Paris region says one of his patients who was diagnosed with pneumonia in December was, in fact, infected with Covid-19. The report, which is due to be published in detail this week, would make it the first known case of the disease in France  a month earlier than previously thought.

Dr Yves Cohen, head of the emergency services ward at the Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, says he went back through the files of patients who had been admitted with flu symptoms in December 2019 and January 2020.

"Twenty-four percent of patients had symptoms which could have corresponded to Covid-19," Cohen told French channel BFMTV.

"We re-tested the nasal swabs which were conducted at the time in relation to another diagnosis, to try and find traces of coronavirus," he explains.

"Out of 14 patients, one tested positive. We tested it two more times to make sure there was no mistake. And twice, it came back positive."

Nasal swab tests, or Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests (NAAT), using a long cotton bud inserted into the nose, can detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the Covid-19 disease.

A sample, gathered from the throat behind the nose, containing a mixture of mucous and saliva, is then tested in a laboratory, over the course of a few hours.

Symptoms coherent with Covid-19

In the December case, the patient in question was a man in his 50s who had no idea how he caught the disease.

According to Cohen, his file showed a scanner which revealed "signs that were totally connected to Covid-19", including signs of inflammation consistent with the virus when he was hospitalised in December at Jean-Verdier Hospital in Bondy, north of Paris.

Contacted later by Cohen's staff, the patient explained that he had not travelled to any infected areas. He had been sick for two weeks and had infected his two children  but not his wife.

The man's wife works in a supermarket at a fish stall. "We asked ourselves if there was a link with fish imported from China. But the woman only worked with French produce," Cohen said.

His team later learned that the woman works alongside "people of Chinese origin" at a sushi stall. "We wonder if she may have been infected asymptomatically," he added.

The patient and his children are now in good health after recovering from the virus.

First cases announced in January

The first official cases of Covid-19, were announced on 24 January by then Minister for Health Agnes Buyzn: two people in Paris and one in Bordeaux. Two of them had returned from Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the outbreak, the other person was a close family member.

Cohen says he has alerted the National Health Agency (ARS) about his discovery and alerted other virologists to re-rest negative swabs in their hospitals to see if there is a trace of Covid-19.

A report is due to be published in the coming days by the International journal of antimicrobial agents.

"We can deduce from this experience that Covid-19 was already in France in December, because the first patient we tested positive dates back to 27 December. We can't go further than that."

"Now it's up to the authorities to carry out an epidemiological investigation," he concluded.
Former Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt did the right thing in resigning a Stormont committee post for breaching lockdown rules, the First Minster has said.

Arlene Foster said it was important that everybody in society abided by the restrictions.

Also commenting on Mr Nesbitts decision to step down as vice chairman of the Executive Office scrutiny committee, Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill said no one was exempt from the rules.

Mr Nesbitt quit his committee position after admitting a lockdown infringement.

Expand Close Arlene Foster (Kelvin Boyes/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Arlene Foster (Kelvin Boyes/PA)

It came as the Sunday World newspaper reported the Strangford MLA had visited a friend on the north coast in Northern Ireland.

Regulations advise against unnecessary journeys.

Asked about the incident at the daily Covid-19 briefing at Stormont, Mrs Foster said: I think it is important to say that everybody has to stick by the regulations that were made in the Assembly, and of course Mike has recognised that he didnt stick by those regulations and therefore he has stepped aside from that role, and I think thats the right thing to do.

Ms ONeill added: I think hes acknowledged that what he did wasnt appropriate and hes obviously decided to stand aside from the vice chair of the committee for that reason.

Were in difficult times but none of us are exempt from these regulations and thats just the situation that were now in.

Mr Nesbitt said: This has been a stressful and difficult period for me and unfortunately I have made some very poor decisions.

I am remorseful and apologise. I shall not return during lockdown.

UUP leader Steve Aiken said Mr Nesbitt had made a huge mistake.
SPRINGFIELD  An 80-year-old woman from Longmeadow is suing two town police officers for $750,000 over a 2016 arrest at a gas station.

Ruth Debisschop filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in June, nearly three years after she was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer and disorderly conduct. Those charges were later dismissed, according to court records.

But, on Aug. 3, 2016, Debisschop was arrested while trying to thwart the arrest of her grandson, who was apparently driving her car, police said at the time. Debisschops lawsuit says police slammed her into the side of a truck, leaving a cut on her face that eventually scarred.

An attorney for the town, and the defendants, officers Carl Mazzaferro II and Ewen MacMeachem, deny Debisschop was manhandled on that day. Police said they were called to the Pride gas station on Longmeadow Street around 10 a.m. that day, for a report of a very intoxicated man inside the attached convenience store who unzipped his pants and exposed himself to customers.

He and a female companion were arrested for drug possession, but Debisschop attempted to stop police from towing the car  which she insisted was hers until they informed her they found drugs inside, according to investigators.

Officers at the time said Debisschop tried to physically force her way past them and was making a scene.

The complaint argues she did not approach police aggressively.

Surveillance video obtained by the Longmeadow Police Department and produced in discovery in Plaintiffs criminal case shows Plaintiff approaching Defendants Mazzaferro and MacEachem at a normal speed and being violently detained within seconds of her arrival, it reads.

Her lawsuit says police detained her for an unnecessary number of hours and denied her timely access to a bathroom, prompting her to soil herself.

Plaintiff endured the remainder of her detention in soiled undergarments, her attorney, Luke Ryan, wrote in the lawsuit.

During a status conference on Monday, Jeffrey J. Trapani, a lawyer for the town, said municipal officials have so far not been inclined to settle the case.

There is a history between this plaintiff and the police department, Trapani told U.S. Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson. The excessive force claim is going to be the biggest bone of contention. One side would claim that it happened; the other side would claim that it did not.

Ryan said his client had no prior criminal record.

The claims in the lawsuit include false arrest, excessive force, cruel and unusual punishment, assault and battery and malicious prosecution.

No trial date has been set in the case.
Three Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed and two others injured when terrorists opened fire on them at a checkpoint in Kupwara, officials said on Monday, a day after five security personnel lost their lives during an encounter in the district.

A teenaged civilian, reportedly of unsound mental condition, was also killed in the exchange of fire between the security forces and the ultras on Monday, they said.

The terrorists opened fire on a naka party of the Central Reserve Police Force at Wangam-Qaziabad in Kralgund area of the district, the officials said.

They said three CRPF jawans were killed on the spot.



A brief shootout ensued as the CRPF personnel opened retaliatory firing, the officials said.

A 15-year-old civilian boy, identified as Mohammad Hazim Bhat, was also found dead at the scene of the incident, they said, adding he was reportedly mentally challenged.

The area has been cordoned off and additional forces rushed there to track down the assailants, the officials said.

This was the second major damage inflicted by terrorists on security forces in Kupwara district within 48 hours.

Five army personnel including two officers and a Jammu and Kashmir policeman were killed during an encounter with militants on Saturday in Handwara area.
>>> Vietnam reports no new COVID-19 cases in community for 16 days, total remains at 270



>>> Vietnam ensures tourist safety amid COVID-19

After 2 weeks of coordination between Hai Duong Parish and Tran Hung Dao Ward's Fatherland Front Committee in Hai Duong City, Hai Duong Province, the organisers raised total cash donations of VND500 million to providing free rice and necessities to local disadvantaged people.

The highlight of the programme was a "rice ATM" set up in Hai Duong City from April 16 to May 1, which allocated 20 tonnes of rice to 10,000 local people in difficult circumstances. As well as this, Hai Duong Parish also distributed 1,100 litres of cooking oil, more than 4,000 chicken eggs, 700 litres of fish sauce and 550 kg of MSG to local people.

In Hai Duong Provinces Tu Ky District, local authorities have disbursed VND630 million in financial support to households in the two communes of Tan Ky and Ngoc Ky, following Resolution No. 42/NQ-CP dated April 9, 2020 from the Government, regulating the distribution of a VND62 trillion financial support package to those affected by COVID-19.

Tu Ky, which is the first district in the province to provide support to people with meritorious services, social policy beneficiaries, and the poor and near-poor households under Government Resolution 42, is striving to complete the disbursement to difficult households across the whole district prior to May 10.

In Ninh Thuan Province, the provincial Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs announced that it has completed the disbursement from the package for three groups of people with meritorious services to the nation, social protection beneficiaries, and the poor and near-poor households, with a total expenditure for this phase of over VND106 billion. Currently, local authorities are urgently making a list of the remaining groups applicable to the package for approval, so that the assistance provided would be handed over to them no later than May 20.

To share in the difficulties with employees working at Him Lam Eco-Tourism Area, on May 2, the Trading and Construction No. 6 Co., Ltd. in Dien Bien Province presented gifts and necessities worth over VND120 million to 55 workers.

The Quang Nam Provincial Border Guard Command (R) present medical supplies to the Border Protection Company 531 from the Sekong Provincial Military Command of Laos. (Photo: NDO/Quoc Viet)



Also on May 2, Quang Nam Provincial Border Guard Command announced that it had visited and presented 1.7 tonnes of rice, 800 medical masks, 25 protective suits and other medical supplies to the Border Protection Company 531 of the Sekong Provincial Military Command of Laos to help them in the COVID-19 fight.

On the occasion, a delegation from Quang Nam Police also paid a visit and presented medical equipment, supplies and necessities to the Department of Security of Sekong Province, with a total value of over VND200 million.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has requested medical examination and treatment facilities to promote remote distance consultation and treatment services, with the upper level health facilities responsible for helping the lower level and providing counselling support to people in local areas, using authentic software or platforms that are in line with the provisions of law and ensure the safety and confidentiality of patients information.

The Ho Chi Minh City Centre for Disease Control has directed the implementation of tighter daily outpatient surveillance on COVID-19 patients that have been declared as recovered through daily laboratory sampling up until the 30th day following their discharge. In addition, for cases that have been discharged for more than 30 days, they will also be sampled again for surveillance.

On May 2, the Hanoi Department of Transport decided to allow Hanoi buses to operate normally at full capacity from May 4 but with strict implementation of anti-epidemic measures, including disinfecting the vehicles, equipping them with hand sanitisers, mandatory face mask wearing and arranging distancing between seats. In addition, buses must not transport more than 30 people at a time (including drivers and service personnel).
Outspoken anti-vaxxer footy star Bryce Cartwright has refused to follow the NRL's call for all players to vaccinate ahead of the league's return to action on May 28.

The Gold Coast Titans back-rower, 25, has been one of the NRL's most prominent critics of vaccines, with his wife Shanelle revealing last year the couple would not be giving jabs to their children Koa, two, and Naia, one.

The NRL on Monday said compulsory flu shots would form part of the Project Apollo Player Protocols in place to ensure players minimise the spread of the coronavirus.

Outspoken anti-vaxxer footy star Bryce Cartwright (pictured with his wife Shanelle) has refused to follow the NRL's call for all players to vaccinate ahead of the league's return on May 28

A member of the New Zealand Warriors wearing a face mask arrives at Tamworth Airport in New South Wales on Sunday. The NRL is enforcing compulsory flu shots as part of the Project Apollo Player Protocols

But despite the overwhelming scientific evidence showing the benefit of vaccinations, Cartwright has told team officials he will reject the jab, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Experts behind the NRL's strategy for a return to play are enforcing the measure on those with the flu are more likely to suffer severely from the coronavirus.

League officials have made clear only the league's chief medical officer Dr Paul Bloomfield can authorise exceptions to the vaccinations on a 'case-by-case basis'.

Mrs Cartwright said last year convincing her husband to see the what she misguidedly believes are the 'harms of vaccination' had 'taken some work', but he eventually came around.

'I remember he (Bryce) was so defensive when I first brought it up and got angry at me for even suggesting that we shouldn't vaccinate,' Mrs Cartwright said at the time.

But in June 2019, Cartwright's team confirmed he would be forced to sit out of their highly anticipated clash with the Brisbane Broncos after he came down with the flu.

The 24-year-old Gold Coast Titans player and his wife Shanelle (left and right) confirmed last year they would not vaccinate their two children, Koa, two, (centre) and four-month-old Naia

The glamorous WAG and her NRL star husband welcomed their son Koa in January 2018

The sportsman was mocked online after coming down with the flu last year, with one fan saying 'if only there were a vaccine' to avoid catching the illness

WHY VACCINES ARE IMPORTANT Immunisation is a simple, safe and effective way of protecting people against harmful diseases before they come into contact with them. Immunisation not only protects individuals, but also others in the community, by reducing the spread of preventable diseases. Research and testing is an essential part of developing safe and effective vaccines. In Australia, vaccines must pass strict safety testing before the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) will register them for use. Approval of vaccines can take up to 10 years. Before vaccines become available to the public, large clinical trials test them on thousands of people. High-quality studies over many years have compared the health of large numbers of vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Medical information from nearly 1.5 million children around the world have confirmed that vaccination does not cause autism. People first became concerned about autism and immunisation after the medical journal The Lancet published a paper in 1998. This paper claimed there was a link between the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Since then, scientists have completely discredited this paper. The Lancet withdrew it in 2010 and printed an apology. The UKs General Medical Council struck the author off the medical register for misconduct and dishonesty. Source: Australian Department of Health Advertisement

The sportsman was mocked online, with one fan saying 'if only there were a vaccine' to avoid catching the deadly illness.

'How good does the flu shot look now,' another wrote alongside emojis of a face laughing.

Others were more concerned about the safety of the couple's children, who are now exposed to the illness.

'Imagine knowing you didnt take a simple preventative measure for your kid AND then you infect your kid with your virus as well,' one person said.

'I truly hope he stays away from his kids.'

'The irony is sweet.'

Mrs Cartwright admitted last year her footy star husband was initially against being an anti-vaxxer, but is now firmly on board with the method

The couple received backlash after they came out as anti-vaxxers.

Health authorities have warned that not immunising children threatens the public's 'herd immunity' against disease.

'Immunisation is a safe and effective way to protect you and your children from harmful, contagious diseases. It also safeguards the health of other people, now and for future generations,' the Australian government's health department says.

'Before vaccination campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s, diseases like tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough killed thousands of children. Today, it is extremely rare to die from these diseases in Australia.'
AVON, Ohio -- ShurTech Brands, locally known as the Duck Tape company, has donated 2,800 N95 respirators/masks to the Cleveland Clinic Avon Hospital.

Mark Hawes, director of environmental health, safety and compliance for Shurtape Technologies, said, During this critical time, many healthcare, emergency services and law enforcement professionals battling COVID-19 are in need of supplies to help protect their workers.

"In response, ShurTech Brands, a subsidiary of Shurtape Technologies  has donated N95 respirators/masks to the Cleveland Clinic Avon Hospital.

Hawes said the company has donated an additional 30,000 N95 respirators/masks to other frontline workers in North Carolina, Connecticut and Florida, where the company has manufacturing and distribution facilities.

He described the companys giving culture and the brush they had with another pandemic in 2009.

Fostering stewardship through giving back to our communities is part of who we are at Shurtape, Hawes said. More than a decade ago, we developed an emergency response plan in preparation for the H1N1 pandemic. As part of that plan, and with the health, safety and well being of our employees being paramount, we established a supply list of materials, including N95 respirators, to support our organization.

Thankfully, we did not need those materials during that time, so we properly stored and maintained our supplies, which has, today, allowed us to contribute to the frontline fight against COVID-19, he said.

Dr. Rebecca Starck, president of Cleveland Clinic Avon Hospital, said, "We are grateful to ShurTech for donating N95 respirator masks for our frontline caregivers who are taking care of COVID-19 patients. The outpouring of support from our neighbors during the pandemic has been incredible and we are honored to care for this community.

Shurtape Technologies consumer and craftsman group ShurTech Brands LLC, located in Avon, markets DIY (Do It Yourself), EIY (Express It Yourself), and Home and Office products under the Duck, T-REX, FrogTape, Painters Mate and Shurtape brands.

For more information, visit www.ShurtapeTech.com.

This story has been updated on May 6.

Read more from the Sun Sentinel.
The global tally of coronavirus infections currently stands at a little over 3.5 million. There have been 245,241 deaths worldwide, and roughly a third of all cases have now recovered. It is still too early to say if the curve has been flattened, since the number of new cases and number of daily recoveries did not show any significant improvement in April.

In India, the case count has now breached the 40,000 mark. There have been 1,323 fatalities till now, and roughly a quarter of all cases have recovered. Here are some graphs mapping the contagion: 1. Tamil Nadu saw the ...
The Midland City Council nominations deadline was extended to May 8, as part of a court order that went into effect April 20. The previous deadline was April 21.

The court order, handed down by Judge Terrence Berg of with U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan, also made it so that just half of the required number of signatures is acceptable at this time. So, while council nominations typically require at least 20 signatures, now, only 10 are needed.

This applies to those who have already filed a statement of organization under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, or established a candidate committee under the Michigan Campaign Finance Law, prior to March 10.

The reasons for the change, as stated in the court order, are due to the hardships placed on candidates by the coronavirus pandemic and the shelter orders. The case was raised when Republican U.S. House candidate Eric Esshaki filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and the director of Michigans elections bureau, claiming the stay-at-home order was making it difficult to collect signatures without being able to canvas neighborhoods and go door-to-door.

The reality on the ground for plaintiff and other candidates is that state action has pulled the rug out from under their ability to collect signatures, Berg stated in the order. Since March 23, 2020, traditional door-to-door signature collecting has become a misdemeanor offense; malls, churches and schools and other public venues where signatures might be gathered have been shuttered, and even the ability to rely on the mail to gather signatures is uncertain  if not prohibitively expensive.

However, a few nominations for Midland City Council have already been submitted. The current list is as follows:

Ward 1: Pam Hall (incumbent) and Jeremy Rodgers

Ward 2: Maureen Donker

Ward 3: Steven Arnosky (incumbent) and Mathew Rapanos

Ward 4: Diane Brown Wilhelm

Ward 5: Marty A. Wazbinski

Rodgers is currently a member of the Midland Planning Commission and ran for the Ward 1 council position last term against Hall, who currently holds the position.

Matthew Rapanos is a realtor with Century 21 and is challenging incumbent Steve Arnosky for the Ward 3 council position.

Midland is divided into five districts, called wards, which elect a city council member every two years. To qualify as a council candidate, those running must be a registered voter in the City of Midland, a resident of the City of Midland for at least one year immediately prior to the date of the election, and a resident of the ward from which the candidate seeks to be elected prior to the date of election.

Candidates typically must file a nominating petition containing at least 20, but not more than 40, valid signatures of registered voters from the ward theyre in. They must also complete an Affidavit of Identity and Receipt of Filing. Completed nominating petitions and Affidavit of Identity must be returned to the City Clerk's Office by 5 p.m. on May 8, according to the court order.

City Clerk Erica Armstrong said she is available by appointment for those who wish to file nomination paperwork, as City Hall is currently closed.

In addition, a Statement of Organization form must also be completed at the Midland County Clerk's Office, located at 220 W. Ellsworth St.

If three or more nominating petitions are received for any one ward, those candidates' names will appear on the primary election ballot on Tuesday, Aug. 4, for that ward only. The two persons receiving the highest number of votes cast in the August Primary Election will be placed on the Nov. 3 ballot for their ward. The person receiving the highest number of votes in the November election will be declared council member for that ward.

Members of the 2020-22 Midland City Council will be sworn into office on Monday, Nov. 9, for a two-year term.
Days after the US Defense Department released three videos showing mysterious UFO-like objects, the Japan's Defense Ministry has decided to draw up protocols for potential encounters with UFOs.

It is learnt that Japan government has decided to consider procedures to respond to, record and report encounters, but it is notable that the nature of such objects is unknown and it could lead to confusion in the minds of Self-Defense Forces pilots, including those of F-15 fighter jets.

According to Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono, SDF pilots have never encountered UFOs, but he added that the ministry has decided to set protocols with an aim to cover the possibility.

Notably, Air SDF fighter jets from seven bases are scrambled to monitor and identify aircraft of unknown nationality.

On April 27, the Pentagon had released three previously classified videos in which US Navy pilots can be seen encountering what appear to be unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

According to Pentagon, the videos, which are not of very good quality, depict unexplained aerial phenomena and these were previously leaked.

The Pentagon said it released the footage to to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real or whether or not there is more to the videos, a statement on the Department of Defense website said.

After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena, the statement said.
CHICAGO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE: JLL) today announced that the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Shareholders will be held virtually via internet webcast rather than meeting at a physical location. The change to a virtual meeting is based on consideration of the continuing health impacts of COVID-19, related governmental orders and guidance, and the well-being of shareholders, directors and employees.

A proxy supplement will be filed today with the Securities Exchange Commission with additional information concerning the virtual meeting, which shareholders are urged to read in its entirety. The virtual meeting will take place at the previously announced date and time of the Annual Meeting, on Thursday, May 28, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. CST.

Shareholders at the close of business on the record date of April 3, 2020, may attend, vote and participate at the Annual Meeting. The items of business are the same as set forth in the meeting notice previously mailed or made available. Shareholders who have already voted their shares do not need to vote them again because of this announcement.

To be admitted to the Annual Meeting, shareholders should log-in to www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/jll2020 beginning at 8:30 a.m. CST on May 28, 2020, and enter the 16-digit control number included in the notice of internet availability of proxy materials, on the proxy card, or in the instructions included with the proxy materials dated April 17, 2020. It is recommended that shareholders afford themselves ample time to complete the log-in process in advance of the commencement of the Annual Meeting at 9:00 a.m. CST. If any log-in difficulties are encountered, shareholders may call the technical support number on the log-in page. Rules of Conduct for the Annual Meeting will be posted at www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/jll2020 before the Annual Meeting commences.

Shareholders should read the proxy materials that were previously distributed and are strongly encouraged to vote in advance of the Annual Meeting, even if planning to log-in and attend through the internet. The proxy card included with the previously distributed proxy materials will not be revised to reflect this change in format and may continue to be used to vote a shareholder's shares in connection with the Annual Meeting.

About JLL

JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. JLL shapes the future of real estate for a better world by using the most advanced technology to create rewarding opportunities, amazing spaces and sustainable real estate solutions for our clients, our people and our communities. JLL is a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $18.0 billion, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 93,000 as of December 31, 2019. JLL is the brand name, and a registered trademark, of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit ir.jll.com.

Connect with us

https://www.linkedin.com/company/jll

https://www.facebook.com/jll

https://twitter.com/jll

Contact: Gayle Kantro

Phone: +312 228 2795

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE JLL-IR
The temple town of Madurai in Tamil Nadu celebrates the Chithirai festival, which includes the coronation and divine wedding of its presiding deity, goddess Meenakshi with Lord Sundareswarar, every year.

Spread over a month, Madurai decks up to celebrate its annual flagship event  the Chithirai Thiruvizha which also marks the visit of Goddess Meenakshis brother, Lord Azhagar or Vishnu.

This year, however, the Chithirai festival which was scheduled to begin last week at the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai has been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Most rituals and ceremonies related to the festival have been cancelled as well. But, the celestial wedding will be performed in a simple way in the first corridor of the sanctum sanctorum by four priests.

And, the ceremony was telecast live on www.maduraimeenakshi.org for devotees.

How is the divine wedding held?

The wedding of Goddess Meenakshi and Lord Sundareshwarar is performed by the chief priests of the Madurai Temple. The rituals after that include a procession of Meenakshi and Sundareshwarar in a chariot pulled by devotees and then Lord Vishnu gives away his sister in marriage to Shiva.

A grand feast is held after the wedding.

What are the rituals of the Chithirai festival?

Kodi Yetram: Meenakshi Temples chief priest hoists the holy flag on the dhwajasthambam.

Pattabisekam: The coronation ceremony in which Goddess Meenakshi is crowned as the queen of Madurai for four months and after that her husband Lord Sunderaswarar is crowned as the citys king for the next eight months.

Dikvijayam: After the coronation, Goddess Meenakshi is believed to have conquered the whole world and also goes to the Kailash to conquer it. However, when she sees Lord Shiva, she falls in love with him.

Meenakshi Kalyanam: The wedding of Goddess Meenakshi and Lord Shiva in Madurai.

Ther Thiruvizha: The chariot festival is performed a day after the divine wedding and Lord Sunderaswara and Goddess Meenakshi taken through the streets in a decorated chariot

Ethir Sevai: It is a part of the Chithirai Thiruvizha of the Kallazhagar temple at Alagar Koyil and begins on the fourth day. On this day, Alagar or Lord Vishnu changes his appearance as Kallar and travels via Kallar Nadu and enters Madurai and the citys residents welcome him.

Alagar Vaigai Elenthuarulal: Lord Alagar leaves Alagar Koyil for Madurai but gets delayed and misses the wedding. Legend has it that he hears that the wedding is over near the Vaigai Rivers bank and he gets angry. He returns to Alagar Koyil after giving gifts to Meenakshi and Sundereswarar after getting into the river.

What is the worship schedule?

The 16th-century magnificent temple has about 50 priests, who conduct the ceremonies six times a day during the festival. But the Meenakshi Temple was closed on March 19 and two priests at a time have been allowed to carry out six daily pujas behind closed doors.

* 5am to 6am - Thiruvanandal puja

* 6.30am to 7.15am: Vizha pooja and Kalasandhi puja

* 10.30am to 11.15am: Thrukalasandhi and Uchikkala pujas

* 4.30pm to 5.15pm: Maalai puja

* 7.30pm to 8.15pm: Ardhajama puja

* 9.30pm to 10pm: Palliarai puja

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Mindy Kaling's latest series on Netflix titled Never Have I Ever is winning hearts all around the world. The series recently received global appreciation when it ranked at the first spot in various countries like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Switzerland. Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever on Netflix has undoubtedly worked its way to become a fan-favourite series.

Never Have I Ever has also managed to achieve this feat in a few days as it released only a week back on April 27, 2020. Now, various actors and celebrities including Mindy Kaling's The Office co-star BJ Novak, who played Ryan, has shared congratulatory messages for the actor.

Also read: Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal take part in an online party with Mindy Kaling & Mahershala Ali

Mindy Kaling congratulated by celebs

Im truly in shock. I cant believe that our show about a complicated little Indian family has been seen by this many people. @loulielang, the entire cast and crew are so grateful to you for making us #1 around the world on @netflix. We love you guys! Thank you!! @neverhaveiever pic.twitter.com/s8F16z94VD  Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) May 2, 2020

This is incredible. Congratulations @mindykaling #neverhaveievernetflix is the Number one show the world over. So richly deserved x x x pic.twitter.com/UVMg4OodA4  James Corden (@JKCorden) May 2, 2020

Also read: Who plays the role of Paxton in 'Never Have I Ever'? Know more about the actor here

Congrats @mindykaling and @loulielang, yall made a classic! I havent felt this way since Mom brought home American Desi on VHS from the Indian grocery store. @ramakrishnannn  youre a ! pic.twitter.com/Mak760eqdk  Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) April 30, 2020

Also read: 'Never Have I Ever' Review: Actor Maitreyi shines in this light hearted teen series

Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever on Netflix encompasses the journey of a first-generation Indian American teenager in the modern-day which is inspired by the actor's own childhood. Never Have I Ever features Mindy Kaling as the executive producer and series creator. Looking at the reception of the first season, it is expected that the second season of Never Have I Ever on Netflix will be in the works soon.

Also read: 'Never Have I Ever' cast and the characters they play on the show

Also read: Mindy Kaling's Netflix series, 'Never Have I Ever' trailer out, Watch here
Katherine Jenkins will perform a live show in an empty Royal Albert Hall to make the VE Day 75th anniversary.

The event will take place on Bank Holiday, Friday 8 May, in a first for the RAHs 150-year history.

Jenkins said in a statement: In London on VE Day 1945, over a million people celebrated Victory in Europe and the end of nearly six years of war. Crowds gathered en masse in Trafalgar Square and up the Mall to Buckingham Palace and whilst we may not be able to celebrate this year as we once did, its only right that we dont allow the 75th anniversary of this historic day to be overshadowed.

Having been part of the 60th and 70th events, I wanted to do something to help bring the nation and the world together in commemoration and celebration at this difficult time. Im excited that we can still come together, albeit virtually, for a tribute of wartime songs and musical memories from Londons most iconic concert venue. The Royal Albert Hall will be seen like never before  empty, isolated and yet still breathtakingly magnificent!

Jenkins will perform wartime songs including The White Cliffs of Dover and Well Meet Again, the latter as a virtual duet with Dame Vera Lynn.

The performance will close with a rendition of the hymn, Jerusalem.

Dame Vera Lynn said: I'll never forget how Well Meet Again meant so much to all those soldiers going off to war as well as with their families and sweethearts. Seventy-five years since the end of the war in Europe, the virus has given those lyrics a whole new meaning. I have found the nations renewed love for the song very moving. I hope this special duet lifts the spirits of our VE Day Veterans and all those separated from loved ones at this time.

The concert is being hailed as a chance to pay tribute to the fallen men and women of the Second World War and to salute the UKs VE Day veterans, but also to thank the Armed Forces, NHS staff and key workers helping the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The performance takes place at 6pm on Friday 8 May, watch here.
Do alcohol warning labels work? Findings from a real-world experiment. Credit: University of Toronto/University of Victoria

When alcohol bottles come with conspicuous labels providing information on the risks of alcohol consumption or drinking guidelines, people are better informed about alcohol's harms and may cut down their drinking, according to a series of studies in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

"The results provide the first real-world evidence that relatively large, bright yellow alcohol labels with rotating health messages get noticed by consumers and can increase awareness of national drinking guidelines, improve knowledge of alcohol-related health risks, such as cancer, and reduce alcohol sales compared to control sites without the labels," says Erin Hobin, Ph.D., affiliated scientist at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She is principal investigator on the studies in this series.

The Canadian research, called the Northern Territories Alcohol Label Study, involved placing bright-colored labels on bottles of beer, wine and distilled spirits with one of three brief messages: One label displayed scientific evidence regarding the established link between alcohol and cancer, the second contained the Canadian government's low-risk drinking guidelines and the third provided information about the number of standard drinks in the container.

One of the studies, led by Jinhui Zhao, Ph.D., and Tim Stockwell, Ph.D., both of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, found that adding such labels to alcohol bottles (300,000 labels in all) decreased total sales of alcohol by 6.9% compared with sales in regions without the new labels.

Alcohol industry interference with warning label research: Legal context and media portrayals. Credit: University of Toronto/University of Victoria

In another article, researchers led by Nour Schoueri-Mychasiw, Ph.D., of Public Health Ontario, found that, among 2,049 participants, awareness of Canada's low-risk drinking guidelines increased nearly three times in the site in which the labels were placed compared with a control location. (Canada recommends no more than two drinks a day for women, no more than three for men and at least two alcohol-free days per week.)

A third study generated controversy. Here, Hobin and her colleagues queried the same 2,049 participants about their knowledge of the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. (The cancer label read, "Chief Medical Officer of Health advises alcohol can cause cancer, including breast and colon cancer.")

Before the label intervention, only about 25% of participants knew alcohol consumption can cause cancer. After the labeling, awareness in Yukon rose to 42%, a 10% greater increase in awareness of the alcohol-cancer link relative to the control site in neighboring Northwest Territories.

However, the cancer label part of these studies was cut short because the alcohol industry protested about the placement of labels on their products. The industry complained that the Yukon Government, who helped coordinate the study and is responsible for alcohol distribution and sales in the territory, did not have legal authority to place such labels, that the labels violated industry's freedom of expression and that the government was defaming alcohol manufacturers.

This image contains the three warning labels used in the research. Credit: University of Toronto/University of Victoria

Under pressure, the Yukon Government shut down the cancer label research in December 2017, only one month after the study's launch.

"I'd describe this study as a David versus Goliath scenario," says Hobin. "Our Yukon partners and research team members worked tirelessly to execute this study and persevered, despite tremendous adversity."

After consultation with legal experts, Stockwell and colleagues concluded, "none of the industry's claims had any merit." In fact, they note that provincial and territorial governments in Canada could be held liable if they do not warn consumers about the link between alcohol and cancer. (The World Health Organization declared alcohol as a human carcinogen more than 30 years ago.)

"Warning labels help drinkers to be better informed about alcohol's health risks and prompted many to cut down their drinking," says Stockwell, co-lead on the studies. "This is an especially vital public health intervention now, as we see people at risk of increasing their alcohol intake as they isolate at home during the COVID-19 outbreak."

Explore further Making cancer risks clear boosts public support for higher alcohol prices

More information: Babor, T. F. (2020). The arrogance of power: Alcohol industry interference with warning label research. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 222-224. Babor, T. F. (2020). The arrogance of power: Alcohol industry interference with warning label research., 81, 222-224. DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2020.81.222 Zhao, J., Stockwell, T., Vallance, K., & Hobin, E. (2020). The effects of alcohol warning labels on population alcohol consumption: An interrupted time series analysis of alcohol sales in Yukon, Canada. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 225-237. DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2020.81.225 Vallance, K., Stockwell, T., Zhao, J., Shokar, S., Schoueri-Mychasiw, N., Hammond, D., Greenfield, T. K., McGavock, J., Weerasinghe, A., & Hobin, E. (2020). Baseline assessment of alcohol-related knowledge of and support for alcohol warning labels among alcohol consumers in northern Canada and associations with key sociodemographic characteristics. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 238-248. DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2020.81.238 Hobin, E., Weerasinghe, A., Vallance, K., Hammond, D., McGavock, J., Greenfield, T. K., Schoueri-Mychasiw, N., Paradis, C., & Stockwell, T. (2020). Testing alcohol labels as a tool to communicate cancer risk to drinkers: a real-world quasi-experimental study. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 249-261. DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2020.81.249 Schoueri-Mychasiw, N., Weerasinghe, A., Vallance, K., Stockwell, T., Zhao, J., Hammond, D., McGavock, J., Greenfield, T. K., Paradis, C., & Hobin, E. (2020). Examining the impact of alcohol labels on awareness and knowledge of national drinking guidelines: A real-world study in Yukon, Canada. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 262-272. DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2020.81.262 Vallance, K., Vincent, A., Schoueri-Mychasiw, N., Stockwell, T., Hammond, D., Greenfield, T. K., McGavock, J., & Hobin, E. (2020). News media and the influence of the alcohol industry: An analysis of media coverage of alcohol warning labels with a cancer message in Canada and Ireland. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 273-283. DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2020.81.273 Stockwell, T., Solomon, R., O'Brien, P., Vallance, K., & Hobin, E. (2020). Cancer warning labels on alcohol containers: A consumer's right to know, a government's responsibility to inform, and an industry's power to thwart. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 284-292. DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2020.81.284 Journal information: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
The police claimed to have arrested the younger brother of a "BJP member" for his alleged role in the assault of the security personnel who were enforcing lockdown in West Bengal's Howrah district last week.

Howrah minority cell chief Zulfiqar Ahmed denied the allegations as "baseless and politically motivated" and said the arrested person was no way related to any BJP leader in the district.

The Howrah City Police shared a video on Twitter of a person instigating people to attack police at Tikiapara on April 28.

"In Tikiapara incident, 14 persons including one who was seen in the video jumping & hitting a police officer have been arrested," it said.

"The main instigator, who provoked people just before the incident, has also been arrested. He is a younger brother of a member of Howrah district BJP Minority Cell," the Howrah City Police tweeted.

Ahmed said the arrested person was neither a BJP worker nor related to any leader. of the saffron party. "This is a baseless and politically-motivated allegation," he said.

State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee claimed that the arrest proved that the BJP was trying to incite violence in the state and malign the TMC government.

"They (BJP) will get exposed whenever they try such tricks," Chatterjee said.

Fourteen people have been arrested so far in connection with the incident, in which two policemen were injured after a mob attacked a team enforcing lockdown at Tikiapara.

Meanwhile, a video emerged on social media and the police can been taking out peace rally in the area. The police, however, declined to comment on the matter.

On their Twitter handle, the Howrah Police shared another video where people can be seen throwing petals on a patrolling party from roofs to express their gratitude.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Character actors in Hindi films slip into diverse avatars with ease and are often relegated to the fringes of stardom

Hardik Mehtas Kaamyaab - a tribute to forgotten supporting actors of Bollywood- see Sanjay Mishras character Sudhree comparing a side-actor to an aalu (potato) as both are easily adaptable.

Relegated to the fringes of stardom in Bollywood, these character actors slip into diverse avatars rather effortlessly without any distinctive identity. So if in Noorie, Avtar Gill was Bharat Kapoors friend, in Dhan Daulat a factory worker.

Initially we didnt have a choice, beggars cant be choosers. I did one film with Mahesh Bhatt, Kabzaa, where he cast me as a corrupt cop who eventually turns good. People liked that role and after that, I become a stereotype and was cast only as a cop, recalls Gill who must have done around 50 films playing either a commissioner or an inspector, out of which 27 were with the Sadak filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt.

A Golden Era

During the 80-90s period of the Hindi cinema, there was no dearth of work for side actors like Birbal Khosla, Manmauji, Liliput or Guddi Maruti. However, most often than not, it was their role that went under the knife on the editing table.

Gill explains that back then films had set parameters, a hero, heroine, villain, mother, father and so on. Since the characters were fixed, we had to see where we could fit. If we are not fit for father then were pushed to be the lawyer, if not that then a doctor, adds the actor who became a household name with TV serial Nukkad as the famous as Kadir Bhai.

For Guddi Maruti  best known for her comedy roles- the road to screen was unexpected. She was in seventh standard when Jaan Hazir Hai was under production and required an actor to play the heroines friend. Just because I was tall and on the heavier side the director convinced my father to let me act as the heroins friend, recalls the actress.

But it was after Preeti Gangulys sudden weight loss that roles all the fat girl roles started coming her way. Sau din Saas ke was half shot, only the comedy scenes and the song Moti Palley Pai Gayi, which Preeti was to shoot, as left to shot. But since she lost weight and Sadanahs (Director and Producer) were family friend they coaxed me to do the film, smiles Maruti who calls 80-90s the golden era for character artists.

At that time around 500 movies were made and all had a sidetrack for a character artist. As a character artist, I have seen the best time of an actors life, she adds. And having learned from Preeti Gangulays mistake, Maruti decided to stick to her curvy aesthetics.

The actress shares that back then while films were done on verbal promises the shooting was an improv ground. Jagdeep uncle was also in the first few films that I did, so he would guide me. Mehmood uncle too used to give his inputs. As a character actor, we got to learn and improvise from legends. After a point, most of our acting was improvisation and hardly anything was as per the script, shares Maruti.

Featured in Limca Book of Records for doing over 1000 films, the baldhead and smiling Manmauji Mishra recalls that his friend, like Jagdeep, used to warn him that he is wasting his time as the director will only cast actors. But he didnt give up.

In Prem Bandhan there is a scene where Rekha comes to the shop. In that scene, I had to stare at her body with malice. After the scene, Ramanand Sagar came laughing, patted me on the back and praised. Such acting expressions were appreciated, he reminisces, adding, In another movie, a death scene required people standing in the background. So the director refused to let me stand, he said meri shakal dekh kay he hassi aate hai.

Typecast Tizzy

But for Liliput Faruqui, it was the stereotyping that forced him to move away from the industry. A born performer, Faruqui rejected all offers entailing comedy based on his height and gradually drifted towards the television.

There I got to do various roles, my caliber was not limited to just my height. On TV I did serious and comedy both but films never gave me that satisfaction, says the writer of TV series like Vikram Vetaal and Dekh Bhai Dekh.

Moreover, he clarifies that he never wanted to be in Manmouje and Birbals category. Faruqui recalls that in the very beginning an assistant of Basu Chatterjee told him that because of his height he wasnt fit for hero or heroine's brother or father.

Though Maruti enjoyed her time as a tall over-sized friend or sister, but after a time it did bring stagnation. Initially it was a boon. After the sixth movie, I told Pahlaj Nihalani ji that I dont want to do the friends role, recalls the actress.

Bearing the burnt

For Birbal Khosla, Kaamyaab is the absolute reality of a character actors life. We are such actors, that no matter even if the film we worked in was a hit, our price remains the same. We are like the kanda (onion) and baatata (potato), laughs Khosla who worked in films like Upkar, Roti Kapda Aur Makaan and Kranti to name a few. The veteran actor shares that, if the length of the film increased, the strength of the character actors role decreased.

Recalling an incident Faruqui shares, I got one role in Sagar which was very performance-oriented but the entire scene got edited. And though the banners of Pramod Chakravorty's Azad carried Manmaujis name, his entire role was chopped. He avoided me for six months, laughs the 76-year-old.

Current scenario

Manmauji notes that now Asrani or Jagdeep are portraying roles once done by him. Gill opines that the current situation of character actors is much like how Sudheer (Sanjay Mishra) is treated in the movie.

He further notes that though the industry has become organised with casting directors in place, it is not helping the veterans. The yesteryear side actors are all praises for the directors of this generation, but point out that they either lack the visualisation of them in a role or simply dont remember them. Maruti feels that actors today are blessed.

Like Kamyaab has Sanjay in the lead role. Even someone like Bhumi Pednekar in Dum Laga kay Haisha is such a refreshing role. The directors are open to casting anybody in different roles, maybe I too would have done a challenging role, she concludes.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Rizki Fachriansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 06:17 625 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5ac54b 1 National remote-learning,students,teachers,teachers-in-Indonesia,KPAI,survey,study,COVID-19,coronavirus,virus-korona-indonesia Free

Students throughout the country have complained about a lack of engagement from their teachers after classes were forced migrate online as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent survey by the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) has found.

According to the survey  conducted between April 13 and 21 and involving 1,700 students and 602 teachers in 54 cities and regencies  79 percent of student respondents reported little to no interaction with their teachers in virtual classrooms, saying their instructors used digital communication platforms only to assign homework.

About 77 percent of the students polled said their teachers had assigned them more homework than usual with unreasonably tight deadlines, resulting in learning fatigue.

About 76 percent of the student respondents said they were not enthusiastic about online learning.

In remote learning, teachers have only focused on providing cognitive education and have overlooked affective aspects related to character-building, KPAI commissioner Retno Listyarti said in a statement on Saturday.

She said that many teachers failed to accommodate students who were unable to afford the electronics or reliable internet connections that were essential for remote learning.

About 42 percent of students said they [could not afford] internet packages, making it difficult for them to make video calls, Retno said, adding that the current learning methods effectively discriminated against students from low-income households.

The KPAI called on the Education Ministry and the Religious Affairs Ministry to formulate an emergency curriculum in an effort to improve education during the ongoing public health crisis.

The organization said that the emergency curriculum should consist only of core lessons and should do away with complex subjects that required direct assistance from teachers.

An emergency curriculum is needed [] so that students wont fall victim to ambitious education policies that neglect their rights, Retno said.
State Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Tehama) discusses the impact the coronavirus is having on rural residents and businesses during a news conference in Sacramento on April 28. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Rebellion is infectious. Rural people are in revolt against Gov. Gavin Newsoms statewide virus-fighting rules, which make little sense in burgs such as Bieber.

Bieber has hardly anything in common with the likes of Burbank or Balboa.

Theres a bar, a restaurant, a hardware store, market, post office, school and a gas station with one pump, says Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle of Bieber in Lassen County. No stoplight.

Dahle grows cereal grains and represents 11 mostly mountain counties in the Senate. His wife, Megan Dahle, is a Republican assemblywoman.

In four of the senators counties  Modoc, Lassen, Sierra and Alpine  there hasnt been one case of coronavirus, he says. Zero.

There is no curve. Its flat.

People are getting fed up with the governors stay-at-home, business-shut-down orders, Dahle says. They want to open up, get back to normal.

Were not like Los Angeles or San Francisco. Lets get back to cooler heads. Let the people free.

Modoc, on the Oregon border six miles north of Dahles farm, with a population of only 9,570, didnt wait for the governor to set it free. The county reopened itself Friday.

Our businesses are dying, and people need to be able to feed their children and pay their rent, said Heather Hadwick, a Modoc County emergency services official.

Good for Modoc. Its big city is Alturas, the county seat, with a population of 2,826. Alturas hardly equates with Alhambra or Anaheim in virus risk.

Neither is Coloma anything like Carson or Covina.

Coloma is where gold was discovered in 1848, along the American River in the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento. The find set off the 49ers rush to California in search of riches that mostly never panned out. But we were admitted to statehood the next year.

Theres a state park at the Coloma gold discovery site in El Dorado County. Newsom ordered it and several state recreation areas along historic Highway 49 closed to slow the virus spread.

But its spring. Wildflowers are blooming, trout are biting and the weather has been spectacular. Inevitably, people have been ignoring the governor and enjoying the public parks  educating themselves on the gold discovery, hiking, fishing and basking in the Motherlode majesty.

Story continues

Problem is, Newsom also closed the parking lots  as he did at the coastal beaches. With no public lots open, motorists park on streets  and clog beach community neighborhoods.

Closing parking lots inconveniences motorists, but it doesnt deter every recreation seeker. Definitely not along Highway 49.

The governor said its OK for people to go out and exercise for their physical and mental health, so people are doing that, says El Dorado County Sheriff John DAgostini.

But the parks are closed and people cant get into the lots. So theyre parking on the two-lane road. With a lot of traffic, somebody is going to get hit.

DAgostini asked the state parks department to reopen the lots and parks.

They dont have to open all the concessions, he says. Just get people off the roadway.

But they are absolutely refusing to do that. Theyre not willing to budge and work with us. They say they cant violate the governors orders.

The governor is dragging his feet, the sheriff adds. Im monitoring it. If things look like theyre going to get out of control and threaten public safety, Im considering cutting the locks and opening the gates myself.

El Dorado County  population 193,000, including South Lake Tahoe  is letting its stay-at-home directive expire and has asked Newsom to loosen restrictions on business. The county has been lightly touched by the virus, with no deaths.

Politically, these northern mountain and valley farm counties are California outliers. Theyre largely Republican.

Bakersfield Republican Shannon Grove is the Senate minority leader. She keeps stressing that north of the Tehachapi, the virus hasnt been as vicious as in densely populated Southern California.

The governor should realize that L.A. County is different than Kern County, Grove says. We need to open up county by county. Weve had only a handful of deaths. Our hospitals are empty. We definitely have to reopen the economy.

Both parties are trying to keep partisan politics out of the virus fight. Theyre following the lead of recent uncharacteristically cordial relations between Newsom and President Trump.

Nevertheless, northern farmers and mountain people have always fought against being looped in with and overpowered by Southern California, eyeing Angelenos suspiciously as water grabbers.

Now theyre trying to escape Newsoms stay-at-home orders that they protest are too heavy-handed for sparsely populated areas.

The mall in Yuba City, Calif., on April 27. "We're not saying all of California is ready to open, but we are," Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City), said. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Yuba and Sutter counties in the Sacramento Valley plan to reopen businesses this week. They and four other nearby counties  Butte, Glenn, Tehama and Colusa  have asked Newsom to exempt them from his stay-home order.

Local businesses cant survive week after week with no business, state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Tehama) says. After a while they throw up their hands and quit, and there go the jobs.

Given the low infection rates, we have to open up our local economy. Its always struggling anyway.

Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City), a rice farmer, says: Were not saying all of California is ready to open, but we are. Weve met the [governors] criteria. The dynamics have changed a lot. This doesnt make sense anymore.

Newsom keeps hinting at loosening his reins. He shouldnt dawdle. Rural folks are beginning to cut the reins themselves and head in another direction.
By Trend





A key factor in lowering global CO2 emissions will be to electrify the economy, and renewable energies will be instrumental to this end, a source in Total company told Trend.

"Becoming the responsible energy major means taking this reality into account by investing heavily in solar, onshore wind and, now, offshore wind," the source said. "These fast-growing energy sources present a number of advantages: they are abundant, clean, efficient and increasingly competitive."

"Total recently continued its growth in renewable energies with two substantial investments in offshore and onshore wind power," the source said. "The Group has signed an agreement with the developer Simply Blue Energy to acquire a stake in the pioneering floating wind project Erebus, located in the Celtic Sea in Wales. The project will have a 96-megawatt capacity and will be installed in an area with water depth of 70 meters."

"With this project, Total is a pioneer on two fronts: it is one of the first movers in this technology in the United Kingdom, the worlds largest offshore wind market, and it is tapping the potential of a completely wind-turbine-free zone," the source said.

"This emerging technology has great potential, opening access to sites further offshore, which have less of an impact on the landscape, and harnessing very strong wind resources," the source said. "Total will bring its expertise in offshore operations to ensure future success in this field."

Total and the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic SOCAR participate in the Absheron fields joint development project. The field is located in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, southeast of Baku. Its development is carried out by JOCAP, a joint venture of SOCAR and Total. The drilling operations are conducted by SOCAR CDC.

Absheron field is one of the biggest gas condensate fields in Azerbaijan, as well as the biggest discovery by Total over the past 10 years. Its development will make an important contribution to ensuring growing domestic demand for natural gas in Azerbaijan and increasing the export revenues.
Giving back and paying it forward has always been part of our companys culture, said Ann Miller, great-granddaughter of the companys founder and LDI Workplace Effectiveness Business Partner.

Today, Community Health Charities (CHC) announced a generous donation of $85,000 from The Mike & Linda Fiterman Family Foundation and Liberty Diversified International (LDI) to support increasing mental health needs around COVID-19. Mike Fiterman is the chairman of the LDI board and grandson of the company's founder.

In honor of Mental Health Month this May, CHC will use LDIs gift to provide immediate mini grants to local NAMI organizations in all the markets where LDI employees live and work. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nations largest grassroots mental health organization, and a long-time CHC partner. Before the global coronavirus pandemic, one in five Americans lived with a mental health condition. Now, these unprecedented times are causing an increase in mental health challenges, including social isolation, anxiety, depression, and more. The remaining funds will be used to provide long-term mental health and community support.

Giving back and paying it forward has always been part of our companys culture, said Ann Miller, great-granddaughter of the companys founder and LDI Workplace Effectiveness Business Partner. Were proud to partner with Community Health Charities to lift up mental health and encourage others to join us.

LDI is challenging other companies to step up and give as much as they can during #GivingTuesdayNow on May 5, and throughout the month of May, whether corporate gifts and grants, special employee giving opportunities, cause marketing or another creative option.

LDI has been a committed supporter of mental health, tying it into last years annual workplace giving campaign. In 2018, LDI celebrated 100 years in business with a Great Gratitude Tour, lighting the torch for the next 100 years of doing good, making lives better, and giving back to communities with partners like CHC.

Anyone needing mental health support can contact the NAMI Helpline at 800-950-6264, or in a crisis, text "NAMI" to 741741 for 24/7, confidential, free crisis counseling. For more health resources during coronavirus, please visit https://healthcharities.org/coronavirus-resources/.

About LDI and Mike & Linda Fiterman Family Foundation

The Mike & Linda Fiterman Family Foundation honors LDIs values of caring, innovation, trust and excellence to support the causes closest to its employees. Liberty Diversified International is a $700 million privately held family of businesses with more than 1,900 employees operating in the following industries: paper and packaging; furnishings and organization products for the office; and building and architectural products. With roots in the corrugated fiberboard business, the company, founded in 1918, is headquartered in the Minneapolis suburb of New Hope, MN, and has 20 facilities throughout the U.S. and Mexico. To learn more, visit http://www.libertydiversified.com.

About Community Health Charities

For more than 65 years, Community Health Charities (CHC) has been creating stronger, healthier communities. We build capacity for nonprofits by raising awareness, amplifying their message, and driving more funds and supporters to their cause; increase employee engagement and social impact for companies through giving, volunteering, health resources, engagement tools, community partnerships, and more; bring leaders together at the national, regional, and local levels to educate, elevate key issues, and improve overall social impact and community health; build community partnerships to harness collective efforts and coalitions; working together to tackle projects that improve community health and address root causes at scale. Visit https://healthcharities.org or @healthcharities.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 07:22:31|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Ni Xinxin weeds for succulents at a greenhouse in Huagang Town, Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, May 3, 2020. Ni, 32, started the business of succulent planting after graduating from college. In 2016, Ni Xinxin rented nearly 100 mu (about 6.7 hectares) of land in Huagang Town to plant succulents. In the past two years, Ni has seized the upsurge of online live broadcast to sell succulents. The live broadcast sales have exceeded half of the total sales. Up to now, Ni Xinxin's annual sales volume of succulents has exceeded 10 million yuan (1.42 million U.S. dollars). (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
New Delhi/Sanaa, May 4 : Almost a year after its chief Ayman al-Zawahiri asked militants in Kashmir to step up terror attacks against India, Al Qaeda on Monday urged Indian Muslims to join the Islamist jihad.

Yemen's Al Qaeda in Arab Peninsula (AQAP), the globally banned terrorist group, issued a statement accusing India of being part of a global war on Muslims.

The Al Qaeda statement comes days after the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Kuwait government and many Arab activists called India Islamophobic. The anti-India statements in the Arab countries were a result of Pakistani propaganda against India over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and Kashmir and also because of the widespread criticism of Tablighi Jamaat Islamic proselytisers for being a super-spreader of the novel coronavirus infection in India.

Denouncing India's Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the AQAP, which perpetrated the September 11 terror attacks in the US, alleged that the Indian government had taken several steps against Muslims.

The terror outfit, whose former chief Osama bin Laden was killed in his hideout at Abbottabad, Pakistan, by the US in a covert operation, urged Indian Muslims to "unite ranks, gather arms and wage jihad." AQAP, primarily active in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, is considered to be the most active and dangerous Al Qaeda branch by the US government.

One of the most wanted terrorists in the world, Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in a video message last year had asked jihadists in Kashmir to escalate terror attacks against India.

The Egyptian doctor and successor to Osama bin Laden said at the time that the Mujahideen in Kashmir "should single-mindedly focus on inflicting unrelenting blows on the Indian Army and government, so as to bleed the Indian economy and make India suffer sustained losses in manpower and equipment."
Punjab reported a big spike of 104 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Monday, most of them pilgrims who recently returned from a Nanded gurdwara that has led to a cluster of infections, as the case count in the state rose to 1,232, according to officials.

A total of 795 of about 4,100 pilgrims who returned from Hazur Sahib in Maharashtras Nanded have so far tested positive for the disease, a health official said on Monday, adding that the test reports of about 1,800 of the pilgrims were still awaited.

About two-thirds of the total cases in Punjab can be attributed to the Nanded gurdwara cluster, according to the numbers released by the state officials.

An official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said as the pilgrims began returning to Punjab, 700 of them were sent to their hometowns to be quarantined at their houses after thermal scanning.

In Ludhiana, the district administration sealed five villages near Samrala and Machhiwara as a preventive measure. The state government started tracing and testing the pilgrims from Nanded only after three of them tested positive in Tarn Taran district on April 27.

Our entire focus has been to test the pilgrims. The process may take another couple of days, a senior official said, asking not to be named.

State transport minister Razia Sultana on Monday dismissed a statement attributed to Maharashtra minister Ashok Chavan that appeared to suggest that the pilgrims could have caught the disease from the Punjab bus driver who ferried them back.

Of the total cases in the state, 23 have died, while 128 have been cured of the infection, the states bulletin said on Monday, adding that three patients were in a critical condition and were on ventilator support.

A total of 28,545 samples have been taken so far in the state and of which, 21,295 have returned negative and 6,018 reports are still awaited. There are 1,081 active cases in the state, as per bulletin.
West Bengal recorded 17 coronavirus disease (Covid-19) related deaths between Friday and Sunday  the highest toll in 72 hours in the state  as a worried state government ordered all private hospitals and clinics to admit all patients without seeking certificates showing that they have not contracted SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease, or face strict penal action.

Private hospital authorities fear that in many institutions the pandemic may spread among healthcare staff and patients, who have been unscathed to date. In some private hospitals, doctors and paramedical staff have been affected while treating Covid-19 patients. One such private hospital in Kolkatas Salt Lake area was shut down in April.

The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) governments 30-page order was issued on Friday  the day eight people died, according to the states medical bulletin that made an exception to record the toll in the last 24 hours.

However, Fridays bulletin was released on the following day and bunched with Saturdays bulletin that declared seven more deaths in the last 24 hours. Two more Covid-19 related deaths were reported on Sunday. The total toll since the outbreak was reported in the state stood at 50 till Sunday night.

There are reports that patients in need of regular critical care related to blood transfusion, dialysis, chemotherapy, obstetric care, institutional deliveries, immunisation etc; are facing hardship due to private hospitals/healthcare facilities that are either non-functional or refusing patients out of fear of contracting Covid-19. Some hospitals are insisting on Covid-free certificates before admitting the patients, said the order.

The order said that normalcy needs to be restored in healthcare services in a planned manner, giving highest priority to the safety of healthcare staff complying with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines and providing them with personal protective equipment (PPE) kits.Failure to adhere to these guidelines shall be viewed adversely and shall make the healthcare facilities liable for penal action under the West Bengal Clinical Establishments Act, the order said.

The TMC government amended the West Bengal Clinical Establishments Act in 2017 and introduced new regulations for private hospitals after some allegations surfaced regarding wrong treatment leading to deaths.

Bengal has 67 Covid-19 hospitals and 16 test centres, of which some are run by private institutions. Two doctors, including a senior state health department official, have died of Covid-19 so far. The number of doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff infected till April 30 is over 100, said Dr. Koushik Chaki, secretary, West Bengal DoctorsForum, which raised the issue with the government on April 28.

Weve to bear in mind that over 60% of patients worldwide have been asymptomatic, said Dr. Chaki.

Doctors at some of the biggest private hospitals in Kolkata told HT that indiscriminate admission could lead to a spike in Covid-19 positive cases, as asymptomatic patients may get admitted.

The management at AMRI Hospitals, a well-known chain treating Covid-19 patients, has decided to route all patients through its emergency departments and conduct mandatory tests on them. The states first Covid-19 related death was recorded at AMRIs Salt Lake unit.

Covid-19 tests are being conducted on each and every patient. All doctors and paramedical staff are using PPEs during procedures. If a person tests Covid-19 positive, then all those who attended on that patient will be tested and made to go through the drill, said Dr. Kalyan Kar, head of surgery at AMRIs Mukundapur unit.

Were carrying out operations, even on critical patients, on a regular basis. Weve decided to increase beds for Covid-19 patients, though were yet to receive one yet, said a spokesperson for CMRI Hospital of the CK Birla Hospitals group.

The state governments Friday order comes amid doctors, working for well-known private hospitals, have had to take a pay cut because of the additional expenditures incurred by the authorities on the procurement of PPE kits, sanitisation drive, and poor footfall of patients during the nationwide lockdown restrictions.

Were risking our lives and also facing salary cuts. Some of the top doctors have been asked to accept a 50% cut, while for junior doctors the reduction in pay is lower, said a doctor working for a well-known group.

Were spending over Rs 60 lakh a month on PPE kits. The government only supplies PPEs to our Salt Lake unit, where Covid-19 patients are being treated. The expenses are bound to go up in the coming days, said an official at AMRI Hospitals.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tanmay Chatterjee Tanmay Chatterjee has spent more than two decades covering regional and national politics, internal security, intelligence, defence and corruption. He also plans and edits special features on subjects ranging from elections to festivals. ...view detail
What potential does JERDE see in the Vietnamese real estate market?

The rising real estate demand due to Vietnams booming middle class and fast urbanisation pace are great opportunities for JERDE. Between 2014 and 2019, the middle class doubled to 33 million people, making this segment a third of the population. This number is expected to continue to rise to 44 million in 2020 and 95 million in 2030.

Vietnams urban population will rise 3.85 per cent every year until 2050, much higher than the ASEANs average rate of 2.1 per cent. Reputable Vietnamese real estate developers are seeking quality international planning and design firms such as JERDE to differentiate their products from their competitors.

Vietnam is home to eight UNESCO world heritage sites. It is blessed with a unique blend of geographical and cultural diversity. This inherent physical and cultural condition provides many opportunities for development in Vietnam to embody its own specific form of urban growth.

A form of urbanisation that ranges from the agrarian to the frenetic structure of cities based on marketplaces and motorcycles. JERDE would be privileged to help in contributing to the building of this vibrant community.

What are JERDEs targets in the Vietnamese market?

Our goal in Vietnam is to establish JERDE as one of the premier urban planning and architectural design firms in the country with offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. JERDE will bring its international experience in design and its unique brand of place-making to Vietnam and will be fully licensed to meet all the regulatory requirements.

JERDE is active in the Vietnamese market despite the pandemic complexities, although readjusting the manner in how its staff works. The efforts in setting up the JERDE office would happen as soon as the situation improves.

Vietnam is picking up on the international trends of green and sustainable development. How are you applying these criteria to your projects in Vietnam?

It isnt so much that Vietnam is adopting these trends. The reality of global warming and the impact that cities have had on the planets finite resources, necessitate any citys development to address both sustainability and how architecture should symbiotically interact with the natural environment.

The aspiration of all of JERDEs projects is to cultivate that symbiotic relationship. From the planning of programmatic components to the study of materialism, the goal is to formulate a composition that embodies that balance of nature and architecture.

Phu Quoc Casino and Resort is the first project bearing the mark of JERDE in Vietnam. What other projects are you considering in the country?

We have some new projects coming up, one in Sapa and another in Nha Trang which will bring JERDEs unique brand and international experience in design to Vietnam.

Place-making has an important role in cities all over the world. It inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. And it also facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

In Vietnamese architecture, mixing tradition and modernity is a current major trend in design. How will you harmonise the two?

Tradition and modernity are not diametrically opposed. In the architectural sense, tradition provides cultural specificity to a project, spatially organised in a contemporary manner.

As such, truly meaningful projects that resonate with local communities contain certain aspects of cultural specifics and are also relevant to the contemporary condition.

What are the trademark characteristics of JERDEs hospitality and mixed-use projects?

At the core of JERDEs projects regardless of their typology is an embodiment of people-centric spaces that are focused on building enriched and enlivened communities. This approach is a common thread to all our projects from the communal spaces and the intimate spaces of the guest rooms of our hotels; to the Verdant vibrant connective spaces of our mixed use cities.
The Nokia 9.3 5G concept images and video have just surfaced. This design has been created by the Concept Creator. The images of the Nokia 9.3 5G have been published by Letsgodigital, while the video surfaced on the Concept Creator YouTube channel.

That being said, this design looks great. The moment you lay your eyes on it, youll notice that a front-facing camera is not there. Well, it is, but you cant see it. The designer decided to place the camera under the display.

This Nokia 9.3 5G concept includes an under-display camera, and five rear cameras

The Nokia 9.3 5G is rumored to include an under-display camera, which is why the designer opted to go down that route. Do note that the phone probably wont include such tech, though. Its highly unlikely that HMD Global will utilize it first, chances are OPPO, Vivo or Xiaomi will.

Advertisement

This phone seems to be made out of metal and glass, but the source doesnt talk about build materials. The phone includes extremely thin bezels, and a flat display.

A rather large camera module is placed on the back of this phone. Its a circular camera module which includes five cameras, Two out of those five camera sensors are huge, by the way. A triple LED flash is placed next to the camera module.

The power / lock button sits on the right-hand side of the phone, while the volume up and down buttons are on the left. Nokias branding is visible on the back, as is a noise-canceling microphone.

Advertisement

A Type-C USB port is placed at the bottom of this phone, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The designer optimistically decided to include an audio jack here.

The phone is expected to include a 120Hz display, and Snapdragon 865 SoC

The Nokia 9.3 5G is rumored to include a 6.3-inch QHD+ OLED display. That will be a 120Hz display, allegedly. The Snapdragon 865 will probably fuel this smartphone.

The device is expected to include at least 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. An 8GB RAM variant with 256GB of storage was also mentioned. Both of those variants will allegedly offer storage expansion, though.

Advertisement

The Nokia 9.3 5G will allegedly include a 108-megapixel camera, and a 64-megapixel on the back, along with three additional sensors. A wide-angle camera will be included, along with a telephoto one, and a macro camera.

A 4,500mAh battery has been mentioned earlier, and the device will almost certainly offer fast wired and wireless charging. Android 10 will come pre-installed on the phone, while the device may come with an official IP rating.

The phone will offer 5G connectivity, as its name says. Were still not sure when will this phone launch, but HMD Global is rumored to bring it in August or September.
A lawyer representing students in more than a dozen cases says colleges themselves often charge lower rates for online classes, which he says is a reflection of their value. (Photo of Cornell University | Wikipedia - Dantes De MonteCristo)

Higher education in the US is expensive and has led to crippling financial debt for a lot of youngstersso much so that one of the main campaign promises of the erstwhile presidential election candidate Bernie Sanders was to waive student loans. So, when students who've paid a bomb for the famed campus experience at premier universities were sent home to learn online during the coronavirus pandemic, they didn't feel they got their money's worth.

Now, students at more than 25 US universities are filing lawsuits against their schools demanding partial refunds on tuition and campus fees, saying theyre not getting the calibre of education they were promised.

The suits say students should pay lower rates for the portion of the term that was offered online, arguing that the quality of instruction is far below the classroom experience.

Colleges, though, reject the idea that refunds are in order. Students are learning from the same professors who teach on campus, officials have said, and theyre still earning credits toward their degrees.

Grainger Rickenbaker, 21, who filed a class-action lawsuit against Drexel University in Philadelphia, said there's little interaction with students or professors and some classes are being taught almost entirely through recorded videos, with no live lecture or discussion.

Other students report similar experiences elsewhere. A complaint against the University of California, Berkeley, says some professors are simply uploading assignments, with no video instruction at all. A case against Vanderbilt University says class discussion has been stymied and the quality and academic rigor of courses has significantly decreased.

In a case against Purdue University, a senior engineering student said the closure has prevented him from finishing his senior project, building an airplane. No online course can simulate the applicable, real-world experience he hoped to gain from the project, the complaint says.

Class-action lawsuits demanding tuition refunds have been filed against at least 26 colleges, targeting prestigious private universities, including Brown, Columbia and Cornell, along with big public schools, including Michigan State, Purdue and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Some of the suits draw attention to schools large financial reserves, saying colleges are unfairly withholding refunds even while they rest on endowments that often surpass USD 1 billion.

Several colleges declined to comment on the lawsuits, but some said students have continued to get what they paid for.

Ken McConnellogue, a spokesman for the University of Colorado, said its disappointing that people have been so quick to file lawsuits only weeks into the pandemic. He said the suits appear to be driven by a small number of opportunistic law firms.

Lawyers representing students, however, say the refunds are a matter of fairness.

You cannot keep money for services and access if you arent actually providing it, said Roy Willey, a lawyer for the Anastopoulo Law Firm in South Carolina, which is representing students in more than a dozen cases. If were truly going to be all in this together, the universities have to tighten their belts and refund the money back to students and families who really need it.

Willey said his office has received hundreds of inquiries from students looking to file suits, and his firm is looking into dozens of possible cases. Other firms taking on similar cases say theyre also seeing a wave of demand from students and parents who say they deserve refunds.

Along with tuition, the cases also seek refunds for fees that students paid to access gyms, libraries, labs and other buildings that are now closed. All told, the complaints seek refunds that could add up to several thousand dollars per student at some schools.

Scores of schools have returned portions of housing and dining fees, but few if any have agreed to return any share of tuition.

At the University of Chicago, hundreds of students signed a letter saying they will refuse to pay this terms tuition, which was due April 29, unless the school reduces tuition by 50% and keeps it at that level during the crisis.

The lawsuits ask courts to answer a thorny question that has come to the fore as universities shift classes online: whether theres a difference in value between online instruction and the traditional classroom.

Willey adds that colleges themselves often charge lower rates for online classes, which he says is a reflection of their value.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
One got out of Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport train to Sweden, never again seeing his parents, who were exterminated in the death camps. One survived two notorious concentration camps, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and was discovered by British troops on a pile of bodies, half-dead with typhus. One endured freezing temperatures and near starvation in a slave-labor camp in Siberia.

David Toren, Faye Becher and Joseph Feingold survived the Holocaust, bearing witness to the seismic events of the last century. Last month, all three died by the same tiny microorganism, isolated once more from their family members. Mr. Toren, who spent his late years fighting to recover paintings looted by the Nazis, was 94; Ms. Becher, matriarch of a close Brooklyn family, was 95; Mr. Feingold, who was the subject of the 2017 Oscar-nominated documentary short Joes Violin, about his gift to a young Bronx girl, was 97.

The New York area is home to just under 40,000 Holocaust survivors, down from nearly twice that many in 2011, according to Selfhelp Community Services, which serves Nazi victims. Now those survivors, mostly in their 80s and 90s, face a new menace that targets people like them: In New York State, the coronavirus has killed more than twice as many people age 80 and up as it has people under 60.

This pandemic is the greatest threat to this generation since the Second World War, said Stephen D. Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, which interviews survivors of genocide. Many are only now telling their stories in full, he said.


Before heading to a Vons grocery in Santee, California, this moron apparently grabbed whatever face covering was most convenient. Clerks reportedly asked the moron several times to remove his dunce cap and he finally did so at the checkout line. From the San Diego Union Tribune:



The city has worked over the years to overcome a history of racially motivated attacks and skinhead activity that led to the nicknames "Klantee" and "Santucky." []





"So troublesome in so many ways this is still happening in Santee at Vons," resident Tiam Tellez wrote on Facebook, where he shared photos he took of the shopper. "Disgusting!"

[]

While some questioned why the man was not forced to leave the store, Tellez, [Santee Mayor John] Minto and others thanked the store's management team for stepping in.





"Many thanks to all who stepped forward to curtail this sad reminder of intolerance," the mayor said. "Santee, its leaders and I will not tolerate such behavior."
Insurance has so many benefits to individuals, businessmen, families, and societies. It is impossible to eliminate all the risks and uncertainties in life and business. However, they can be reduced or shared in exchange for a small premium. This is what insurance companies in Tanzania offer to their customers.

Image: instagram.com @Insurers

Source: UGC

There are hundreds of insurance firms in Tanzania. Hence, it can be daunting, if you are looking for the best company to insure your health, life, or business. We have rounded up a top 10 list of the best companies in Tanzania to aid you in the process.

List of insurance companies in Tanzania

The top property, engineering, liability, motor vehicle, marine, aviation, accidents, guarantees as well as health insurance companies in Tanzania include the following:

1. Jubilee

This firm understands that peace of mind comes when you know that you and your family or business are well covered and protected by the best cover. Jubilee insurance products range from individual or family health cover, motor or non-motor, and travel.

Jubilee health insurance packages will cater for inpatient, outpatient, maternity, dental and optical, last expense, and personal accident types of expenditures. Whats more, you dont have to visit their offices to report claims.

You can reach them out via their 24-hour contact centre to have your issues sorted out in a timely and professional manner.

2. Reliance

Reliance is one of the reliable insurance company in Tanzania that was founded in 1998. Their products range from travel guard cover, motor, public liability, work injury benefits, contractors all risk, employer liability, and professional indemnity.

They also offer property cover, money insurance, fidelity guarantee, marine, aviation, personal accident, group, and students accident cover.

With Reliance, you only fall back and not down! They ensure that you get a prompt and judicious settlement of your claims as fast as possible

READ ALSO: Travel Insurance Kenya Best Agencies 2020

3. Sanlam

Sanlam Tanzania mainly offers life covers that are aimed at giving you peace of mind that the financial needs of your loved ones will be taken care of when you are gone.

Their general policy indemnifies you against a sudden loss of your car and other household possessions that can pose a significant financial burden to your family.

You can take the following products:

Life insurance

General insurance

Institutional cover

Business insurance

In case of an unfortunate event such as death, disability, or even a critical illness, you can obtain claims in a matter of days.

4. National Insurance Corporation of Tanzania

National Insurance Corporation (NIC) has close to 60 years of experience in operating across every region of Tanzania. NIC offers whole life insurance, term assurance, super life cover, ordinary endowment, credit life, super education provider, family income protection, aviation, pen-save plan, and motor cover.

The company understands that claims can be a headache and aims at compensating you as fast as they can. Their 24/7 operating customer care service with a free hotline makes sure that your issues are handled more quickly.

Image: instagram.com @Insurers

Source: UGC

5. Britam Insurance Tanzania

Britam is a leading and diversified financial institution that has interests in not only Tanzania but also the Eastern and Southern African region. To protect your family, you only need to enrol in their health cover, which will take care of large hospital bills of up to TZs. 200,000,000 maternity, chronic and acute conditions, radiology, pathology, funeral, and accidental death benefits.

Their comprehensive motor car covers indemnified damages such as theft, fire, vandalism, falling objects, natural disasters, civil disturbance, and impairment due to natural calamities. Other than health insurance in Tanzania and car cover, Britam also offers personal accident and home protection.

6. GA Tanzania

GA Insurance Ltd is an outstanding and strong company that even reinsures other indemnification firms. This means that it has a large capacity to underwrite a couple of well-established businesses.

Technically, GA can pay any claim even if it is worth billions of Tanzanian shillings. Due to its capability, the firm covers almost all the risks you can think of starting from motor, fire and allied peril, health, accident, travel, engineering, machinery, contractors, marine cargo, aviation, and other miscellaneous products. Claims management, database, and policy issuance are efficient enough to cater to your needs.

READ ALSO: GA Insurance Kenya: Products and list of hospitals

7. First Assurance

First Assurance is a short-term insurance company that has lots of experience and expertise in the industry. It was started in 1930. It aims at giving you a cover to what matters most to you.

This includes your health, goods in transit, home, family, and your car. Members can also pay their premiums through mobile money platforms such as M-Pesa.

8. Bumaco

Bumaco Insurance has over 30 years of experience in the industry. For this reason, it is the best firm you can insure your business, family, health, and life. No one can predict the future. However, Bumaco can protect it.

Image: instagram.com @Insurers

Source: UGC

One of its outstanding features is its lower premiums. Their claims procedure is much simpler and faster to ensure that you are compensated as soon as you encounter losses.

9. Insurance Group of Tanzania

Insurance Group of Tanzania lets you make claims easily by offering most of its services online or through an automated platform. The use of artificial intelligence also ensures that you can access any services even in the wee hours.

Their policies are divided into six categories, with each having at least two different covers. They include property, engineering, liability, motor vehicle, marine and aviation, accident, guarantees, and other miscellaneous.

10. Mayfair

Mayfair is the fastest expanding insurance company in the country. It has solid backing from local and international reputable reinsurers. Their phenomenal steady rate of growth can be attributed to good customer relations and management by specialized professionals.

Mayfair insures your building, household contents, work injury, owner liability, and any risk under their domestic package. The firm is dedicated to offering property related covers. Their premiums can be easily paid through mobile money platforms. Hence, you dont need to walk to banks or their offices every month.

The above ten insurance companies in Tanzania are indeed the best in the country. Their claim procedure is much simpler and also takes the least time possible.

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on to make decisions of any kind. Any action you take upon the information presented in this article is strictly at your own risk and responsibility!

READ ALSO: Best insurance companies in Kenya

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Construction sector employers and not restaurants and cafes are the most likely to claim salary subsidies from taxpayers, new data shows.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on March 30 announced the $130billion JobKeeper program to provide $1,500 fortnightly wage subsidies to six million Australian workers.

Less than a week earlier, the federal government had ordered the shutdown of non-essential businesses, where customers crowded together, in a bid to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Construction sector employers and not restaurants and cafes are the most likely to claim salary subsidies from taxpayers, new data shows. Pictured are construction workers at Sydney's Barangaroo precinct

The construction sector was allowed to continue operating but despite that, 80 per cent of its businesses have either claimed a JobKeeper payment or registered an interest to do so, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.

How COVID-19 is hurting business 69% of businesses reported reduced demand 72% cited reduced cash flow 41% feared being unable to pay bills 24% had less access to credit 41% suffered supply chain uncertainty Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of 2,014 businesses between April 22 and April 28, 2020; Westpac summary Advertisement

By comparison, 76 per cent of accommodation and food services businesses claimed or registered for the wage subsidy, as dine-in restaurants and cafes were banned and trading was restricted to takeaway.

Almost nine out of ten, or 84 per cent, of hotel and cafe businesses told the ABS they were suffering from having fewer customers.

The hospitality sector was even less likely than administrative and support services businesses to seek government help, with 79 per cent of them expressing an interest in the scheme.

Almost two-thirds, or 65 per cent, of retail businesses were eyeing a taxpayer-funded wage subsidy with Australians since the end of March mainly restricted to shopping for food or medicines.

Almost half, or 44 per cent, of the 2,014 businesses surveyed by the ABS in late April credited the JobKeeper subsidy with their decision to keep employing staff.

Close to three-quarters, or 72 per cent of surveyed businesses, expected COVID-19 to hurt their cash flows during the next two months.

By comparison, 76 per cent of accommodation and food services businesses claimed or registered fro the wage subsidy, as dine-in restaurants and cafes were banned and trading was restricted to takeaway. Pictured is an empty restaurant at Sydney's Circular Quay in March

Reduced demand for goods and services was expected to hurt 69 per cent of businesses during the same time frame, with 41 per cent of firms fearing they would have less ability to pay their bills.

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

Without the JobKeeper program, Westpac feared Australia's unemployment rate would hit 17 per cent by the end of June, a level last seen during the 1930s Great Depression.

Australia's second biggest bank is now expecting a jobless rate peak of nine per cent, which is slightly less than Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia's prediction of 10 per cent unemployment.

The jobless rate hasn't been in the double digits since April 1994, as unemployment remained high after the 1991 recession.

During an economic downturn, the building industry is often one of the first to get hit, due to the boom-bust nature of construction work.

Westpac is forecasting an 11.2 per cent plunge in new dwelling investment in the first half of 2020, despite some positive results in March.

'This will do little to avert sharp falls in new dwelling investment over the first half of the year,' senior economist Matthew Hassan said.

'Indeed, approvals may be a poor guide to activity near term as shutdowns directly impact work done on existing projects and lead to delays in the commencement of recently approved projects.'
From Tolstoy and The Third Man to the Lord of the Rings film that never happened, John Boorman tells Richard Fitzpatrick about some of his major influences

The magic of going to the cinema

When I was a child during the Second World War, we went to the cinema to see films.

What I remember most vividly about it is the Saturday morning matinees and the childrens films that I used to see and what impressed me more than the films was the audience  it was full of kids screaming and talking and moving around.

The films didnt really inspire me. When I was 17 or 18, I started seeing films that really inspired me like David Leans. There was something about being with a large audience and a big screen at the cinema. The experience was magical.

You had a high degree of concentration. Today with Netflix coming into your living room  and youre probably doing other things at the same time  its a different and somewhat degraded experience.

The Third Man and the storytelling possibilities of film

Carol Reeds The Third Man made a great impression on me. It was almost a perfect film because you had that Orson Wells character and this romantic element  where the main character is looking for this girl.

Right at the end, at a cemetery, hes standing there and she walks right past him. It was heart-breaking I thought. What it  and filmmaking  made me feel was that stories could be done in a way that was different to any other format.

Orson Welles in The Third Man

Good filmmaking is about storytelling and the way you tell the story. You try to make it in a cinematic manner. The images must carry the story.

You try to lure your audience into the film and to lose their bearings  to get them drawn into the film. Thats what you try to do.

David Lean and the importance of being meticulous

When I made Point Blank in America, David Lean was shooting Ryans Daughter in Ireland. MGM sent Point Blank out to him to look at and he sent me a wonderful letter.

It was a reversal in a sense in that he was writing me a fan letter. We became friends until he died. He was a brilliant filmmaker.

He was meticulous in his preparation and he was deeply involved in every aspect of the filmmaking. He was very demanding. Peter OToole played Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia. I asked him how it was working with David Lean.

He said: I was a galley slave. The only thing that got me through that film was that I promised myself that I would take my revenge on all the other directors I worked with subsequently.

He said that Lean was on top of him every step he took and every word he uttered.

You know that David Lean had OTooles nose changed to make him look more like Lawrence? The only way to make a decent film is to put in the work.

I have described filmmaking as a form of joyous slavery because once you start a film youre with it night and day for the whole time youre making it. It takes every ounce of strength in your body. Every step you take is dedicated to the film.

How The Lord of the Rings helped with Excalibur

Back in 1969, I said to United Artists that I had in mind to make this film Excalibur. They said: If youre interested in that what about Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings? We have the rights to it. Would you like to do that?

So I spent a year on it, working with a writer. Then UA were very short of money. It was too expensive for them so I didnt do it.

I did correspond with Tolkien. I told him what I was trying to do and he gave me some advice. It was interesting.

To make The Lord of the Rings with the halflings, I had to figure out solutions to the special effects problems.

A lot of the research I did became very valuable when I came to make Excalibur a decade later. This was before the advent of computer-generated images so all the special effects for Excalibur were done on set.

We did nothing in post-production. It was all done with a camera. Many of those tricks I came across in my research on The Lord of the Rings.

Fellini and Antonioni  two Italian masters

When I made the film Leo the Last the leading part was played by Marcello Mastroianni and through him I came to know Federico Fellini quite well whom I greatly admired. Fellinis films were magical.

They were so rich and full of character. They were marvellous with wonderful images. Michelangelo Antonioni also I admired.

It was extraordinary that Italy could throw up these two completely opposite geniuses at the same time. Antonioni was so minimalist and Fellini was so extravagant.

Prior to both of them, Italy had several filmmakers making very naturalistic films like The Bicycle Thief. It wasnt a tradition they were following from  it was just that the times threw up two extraordinary men at the same time.

Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment

Growing up, I loved reading the Russians. I was a voracious reader.

I loved Fyodor Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment. It was fascinating the way they dealt at that time in the nineteenth century with law and punishment in Russia.

If you committed a crime, you were sent to Siberia to one of these farms and you worked there. The prisoners ran the prison.

It was about your behaviour that you were judged on rather than being given a sentence.

A committee of other prisoners considered your case and if you were doing a good job, you could be released.

War and Peace and freemasonry

I loved Leo Tolstoys War and Peace. My father and paternal grandfather were both freemasons.

When I got to be 21, my father said to me: Time for you to become a mason.

I said: Tell me what its about. He said: I cant do that. You have to trust me. I said: Im not sure I trust your judgement.

So anyway I was reading War and Peace and there is a description in it of masonry. I read it and I went to my father and told him I now knew all about it.

He said: You cant. I said: I do, and I started telling him and he was shocked. He went white. He said: Where did you get that information?

I said: Well, its all in War and Peace. I showed it to him and he was absolutely stunned. I never took up the option of joining the freemasons.
Galina Yanchenko, MP, the Deputy chairman Faction of the political party "Servant of the People" in The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, The Deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy

In April 2020, Ukrainian parliament reconsidered the government budget and cut some spending. It was a necessary step to find additional funds for health care and fight against the COVID-19. At the same time, billions of dollars, which had been once a part of the state budget and were illegally withdrawn from Ukraine in recent decades, are still hidden in banks abroad. These funds might become an additional resource for our country if a number of amendments to the legislation are introduced.

It must be admitted that in the matter of recovering assets withdrawn by ex-officials abroad, the successes of Ukraine leave much to be desired. That is money of the former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, ex-MP Yuri Ivanyushchenko or escapee president Viktor Yanukovych and his inner circle. Moreover, besides already familiar surnames, there are a lot of lesser-known doers who have been parasitizing on public money for years. That money is still hidden in foreign jurisdictions.

We are talking about billions of dollars have been withdrawn from Ukraine over the years. To date, Ukrainian law enforcement knows where the money is hidden. Hundreds of criminal proceedings are being investigated. Despite that direct confiscation of money is still almost impossible because of the long duration and complexity of the criminal procedure and information collection in the framework of international cooperation.

Just an example: researching a single operation in a foreign jurisdiction in the framework of international legal assistance takes about 1 year. Banking information is stored for 5 years. As a result, the work of Ukrainian law enforcement often turns into tilting at windmills.

Therefore, together with MP colleagues and experts of Ukrainian Institute of the Future, we have developed the draft law No. 3304 that will allow to reactivate this work. It will open up a possibility for Ukrainian law enforcement to file civil suits in foreign jurisdictions.

We offer providing such authority to the National Agency of Ukraine for finding, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes (abbr. - Asset Recovery and Management Agency or ARMA). In addition to filing civil suits, we empowering ARMA:

- Represent Ukrainian Interests in foreign jurisdictions.

- Hire judicial advisers (Litigation Funds) and funders to accompany these claims. Its a well-established practice of the Ministry of Justice for representing Ukraine in courts abroad, but not for our law enforcement yet.

Financing of advisers work will be carried out as a part of assets returned by them. Thus, no additional funds from the state budget are needed for these purposes. Moreover, the draft law expressly prohibits financing of expenses for funders in any other way. The selection procedure of candidates as advisers will be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The practice of civil suits for recovering of withdrawn assets is valid in many countries. And while Ukraine isnt actively conducting such work, the withdrawn assets of Ukrainian taxpayers that were illegally taken abroad become confiscated into state incomes of other countries.

So, it is worth reminding that in 2016 a part of ex-Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenkos money, hidden in Antigua and Barbuda, confiscated into a state income of this Caribbean country. Namely, $66,7 million. The local government argued that the confiscation was based on the fact that Lazarenkos money had been derived from corruption.

It's unlikely that Pavel Lazarenko will ever come back to Ukraine, where he is personally the subject of numerous criminal proceedings. However, we, as a country, could claim and fight for returning money that he had stolen and transferred abroad.

That same year Latvia replenished the state budget 49.3 million dollars by a court decision. That money was arrested as part of a criminal proceeding for laundering funds withdrawn from Ukraine. It owned by the former first Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Sergey Arbuzov.

These funds were in the account of the Latvian branch of PrivatBank. In addition, in the framework of this case, smaller amounts of money were also arrested in a number of offshore jurisdictions owned by Sergey Kurchenko and former Minister of the Environment Nikolai Zlochevsky.

Another recent example is Latvia again. In 2019 money withdrawn from Ukraine by Yuri Ivanyushchenko were confiscated into a state income of this country. It's about $30 million.

Unfortunately, our countrys activity for recovering stolen assets is carried out rather slowly. At the same time, this draft law will allow to intensify this work, provide Ukrainian law enforcement more opportunities for asset tracing and recovering them for the benefit of Ukrainian taxpayers. This is essential for current economic realities. If the law is passed, all Ukrainians will benefit.
Egypt reported on Monday 348 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of infections to 6,813, the health ministry said.

The ministry also reported seven fatalities on Monday, bringing the total number of deaths to 436.

The health ministry added that 70 patients fully recovered and were discharged from isolation hospitals and quarantine facilities. The total number of recoveries from the highly contagious virus now stands at 1,632.

The number of patients whose PCR test results have turned from positive to negative, including complete recoveries, has now reached 2,139, ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said.

The new cases were detected through the ministry's investigation and contact tracing protocols, he added.

Minister of Health Hala Zayed told MBC Masr satellite channel on Friday that the recent rise in the number of coronavirus cases is still within the predicted norms.

She asserted that the situation in Egypt is still safe as long as the weeks numbers are not double those of the previous week.

Zayed attributed the recent increase in the number of cases to peoples habits outside curfew hours, especially during the two weeks that preceded Ramadan.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Canadas prime minister Justin Trudeau has said that it is too early to draw firm conclusions on allegations if China did a cover-up on coronavirus leading to an explosion of Covid-19 pandemic . Canada is part of the intelligence alliance Five Eyes, which has blamed China for the coronavirus outbreak.

Trudeaus comment came during a daily media briefing in Ottawa hours after multiple global media organisations put out reports based on a leaked intelligence dossier that blamed China for hiding and even destroying evidence of the coronavirus pandemic, thus contributing to its worldwide spread. The 15-page dossier came from the Five Eyes intelligence bloc, comprising the United States, Canada, England, New Zealand and Australia.

However, Trudeau was circumspect when addressing the matter as he said it is still early to draw firm conclusions and indeed our focus remains on how we are working to protect Canadians.

He did indicate that intelligence gathering and investigation in this respect was ongoing, as he said, We will continue to work with intelligence agencies around the world, not just the Five Eyes but friends and partners as well and look to find answers to the many questions people are asking.

Trudeaus remarks preceded a comment from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that there is enormous evidence the virus leaked from a virology laboratory in Wuhan.

The Canadian PM has been similarly guarded on this matter even earlier when US President Donald Trump had charged China with allowing the virus to proliferate.

However, one of Trudeaus Cabinet colleagues, Health Minister Patty Hadju, had earlier dismissed questions about China potentially fudging Covid-19 figures, as part of conspiracy theories on the Internet.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
More inmates at Bexar County Jail have tested positive for COVID-19, pushing the overall total for Bexar County to 1,613, Mayor Ron Nirenberg reported Sunday.

Thats just 28 new cases in the last 24 hours, and Nirenberg noted that 13 of those are inmates at the jail, where the novel coronavirus has been sweeping through the detainees and personnel for several weeks.

Only 15 were from the community, the officials said, which is a good sign. That compares to 43 Saturday and 12 Friday, the lowest number of new cases in the community since recording started in mid-March.

No new deaths were reported for the fourth day in a row, the first time that has happened. The death toll stands at 48.

Nirenberg noted that the number of people in the hospital with the disease also continues to be a good indicator that the area is holding its own; 59 of those who have tested positive were in San Antonio hospitals Sunday. Of those, 34 were in intensive care and 20 were on ventilators to help them breath. That leaves 79 percent of ventilators available citywide.

I think one of the most reliable pieces of data is what were seeing in the hospitals, Nirenberg said. And that is actually on track for us. We have been able to maintain strong levels of capacity in hospital beds, ventilator space. The numbers were seeing in the ICU have come down.

That is also a function of the number of transports and calls that our EMS gets related to COVID-19, the mayor added. Those have ebbed and flowed, but theyre on a downward trend.

On Sunday, 26,245 tests had been conducted in Bexar County. Nirenberg noted that fluctuating numbers of new cases can be misleading as testing capacity increases.

We have to take the raw number of infections with a grain of salt because its a function of testing, but we look at our positivity rate, Nirenberg said. Our positivity rate has started to decline. We started at over 10 percent but were now roughly 6.6 percent. And the numbers of tests were running now relative to other cities in Texas is strong.

Now Playing: The mayor met with the Express-News Editorial Board to discuss the reopening of San Antonio after Governor Abbott announced reopening Texas. You can watch the full video of the 1-hour session on https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/ Video: mySA

Despite the partial reopening of most businesses in Texas, Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff urged residents to continue practicing social distancing and wearing masks.

The mask wearing is so critically important as we start to open things up and we enjoy more activities, Nirenberg said. You might run into somebody, youre going to breach that 6 feet of social distancing. So thats important, when youre within 6 feet of someone whos not in your household, wear the mask. Keep the mask with you at all times in case that happens.

Nirenberg offered a light-hearted strategy for residents to measure six feet  thats the width of the sidewalk on the Riverwalk, he said, or 12 tacos end to end.

Meanwhile, officials at the Blanca Villa Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 8020 Blanco Road, reported that it had tested all employees and all were negative for COVID-19. The facility is novel coronavirus-free, according to a news release.

The 143-bed center is owned by Daybreak Venture, which owns more than 60 facilities across Texas.

Brian Chasnoff is an investigative reporter based in San Antonio. To read more from Brian, become a subscriber. bchasnoff@express-news.net | Twitter: @bchasnoff
The bailout has been approved under newly relaxed state aid rules. (Christophe Ena/AP Photo)

The European Commission has approved plans for the French government to give Air France a 7bn ($7.7bn, 6.2bn) lifeline to help it survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

The EUs competition watchdog said on Monday it had green lit the plan under newly relaxed state aid rules.

The approval means the French government can press ahead with state guarantees on loans and a shareholder loan to Air France. The aid package will total 7bn.

This 7bn French guarantee and shareholder loan will provide Air France with the liquidity that it urgently needs to withstand the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

READ MORE: Travel startups ask Google to share the COVID-19 burden

Shares in Air France (AF.PA) were down 6%, making it the worst performer on the CAC 40 (^FCHI) amid a broader sell-off.

Such sweeping support for Frances national carrier would be illegal in normal times but the EU relaxed rules around state aid in late March to allow member states to support their economies through the coronavirus pandemic.

Vestagers department had already approved a 300bn French support package but the Air France aid required additional approval because it went further. Under the scheme, the French government will guarantee 90% of loans made to Air France, higher than the 70% guarantee rate approved in the initial aid package.

The aviation industry is important in terms of jobs and connectivity, Vestager said in a statment. In the context of the coronavirus outbreak, Air France has also been playing an essential role in the repatriation of citizens and for the transport of medical equipment.

We have cooperated closely with France, as with many other Member States, to ensure that public support to tackle the current crisis can be put in place as quickly and effectively as possible, in line with EU rules.

READ MORE: European factories suffer bleakest month in decades

Air France is set to report first quarter earnings on Thursday, giving an insight into just how badly it has been battered by the coronavirus crisis.
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-05 00:20:56

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 651 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Global AgInvesting (GAI), the leading resource for investment conferences, news and insight into the global agricultural sector, is now hosting topical webinars to keep the GAI community engaged and informed in between events, as well as provide a new offering while restrictions are imposed on gatherings due to COVID-19.Occurring two to four times a month, the complimentary webinar presentations, interviews and panel discussions with experts in the sector are already underway. View more information and register for any of the below at: globalaginvesting.com/webinars/ Maintaining Asset Returns in a Low Commodity Price Cycle:A Q&A with David Muth, Ph.D.Wednesday, May 6 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)Muth is managing partner for Alternative Equity Advisors, the capital deployment affiliate for Peoples Company. During this webinar, Muth will provide regional case studies that demonstrate asset management strategies to maintain, or improve, asset returns while the market is facing depressed commodity prices. Case studies will include Midwest, Delta and Pacific Northwest region strategies, and focus on direct operations management models that engage consumer trends in sustainable, organic and regenerative production practices. Register here.Investing in Water for Returns and Impact:A Q&A with Euan FridayWednesday, May 13 at 5 p.m. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)Friday, who is general manager with Kilter Rural in Australia, has over 20 years' experience in senior financial and commercial roles. This includes 10 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and nearly a decade with STA Travel in various roles, including CFO and managing director. He joined Kilter in 2008 in the joint role of CFO/general manager water and is now focused exclusively on the general manager water role. Friday will discuss the opportunities for investing in water with a focus on returns and impact. Register here.If You Eat, You're in Farming: A Discussion With America's GrowersWednesday, May 20 at 3 p.m. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)This webinar's host, Tevor Mecham, is vice president of global technology strategy for Valley Irrigation of Nebraska with responsibility for its technology strategy, assuring growers continue to receive innovative solutions and a strong return on investment. Mecham's experience includes positions with Leica Geosystems, a leading aftermarket GPS technology provider, Hortau and John Deere/Gem Equipment. He also has worked for many years on his family's 4,000-acre farm. During this discussion, Mecham will examine how growers are affected by current supply chain challenges and how the industry from the farm gate to the consumer may address obstacles moving forward. Register here.Ag Supply Chain Disruptions and Opportunities During the Coronavirus PandemicMay 27, 2020 at 5 p.m. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)In this critical discussion, two of Australia's leading agricultural asset managers - Tim McGavin of Laguna Bay and Kim Morison of Argyle Capital Partners - will consider the effects of the novel coronavirus on production and distribution of myriad crop types, animal proteins and consumer products. McGavin, who is CEO of Laguna Bay, is an experienced originator and investor, specializing in agriculture and renewable energy. McGavin was raised on a sheep and cattle farm, and through an investment with his brother, is co-owner of one of Australia's largest privately-owned vineyards (though they sold the majority of their holdings in 2001).Morison is managing director for Argyle Capital Partners, based in Los Angeles, California, where he has been directing the development of the company's water and agricultural investment business since 2010. His family farming origins and career in the cotton and sugar industries have steered his approach to water entitlement and farmland investment portfolios. Register here.Keep abreast of the upcoming monthly webinars at globalaginvesting.com/webinars/ . Learn more about Global AgInvesting, a brand of HighQuest Group which annually brings together more than 1,000 international investors, farm and fund managers, and agribusiness executives at events in New York, Tokyo and London, at globalaginvesting.com CONTACT:Michelle Pelletier Marshallmmarshall@ globalaginvesting.com +1.978.790.0565SOURCE: HighQuest Group
A CALL for seasonal farm labourers in Northern Ireland not to travel to the Republic makes little sense at a time of the year when all the work is non-contact, according to a Fermanagh contractor who operates on both sides of the border.

An organisation representing contractors in the Republic has called for a bar on the workers crossing the border, linking their movement to a spike in coronavirus cases in Cavan and Monaghan.

But one contractor based in Fermanagh said the claim was "fairly foolish" as the farm work ongoing now and in the near future is all non-contact.

"Any of the agricultural work is non-contact this time of year -- fertilising, reseeding and cutting silage," said Jamie Gormley, of Gormley Contracts in Belleek.

"There is still the older generation of farmers who want to jump in the cab, and you have to make clear to keep a distance."

The Association of Farm and Forestry Contractors in Ireland (FCI), which represents 500 contractors employing 10,000 workers, said workers from Northern Ireland were "putting the health of Irish farmers and their families at significant risk and undermining the huge national coronavirus effort," the Sunday Times reported.

But Mr Gormley said the FCI suggestion "is fairly foolish, and I could say that on behalf of other contractors; there is no reason for them to be that way".

He added that there was "a lot of rivalry" among contractors on the different sides of the border, particularly in parts of Fermanagh.

Those on the northern side are around 10% cheaper, possibly due to differences in insurance and machinery costs, the contractor said.

FCI, which has written to Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed asking for a halt on seasonal workers coming over the border, did not immediately respond to questions about the rivalry between contractors, and there is no suggestion its call was prompted by anything other than public health concerns.

Dr Gabriel Scally, the Belfast-born president of the Royal Society of Medicine's epidemiology and public health, earlier in the week told the Irish Times a "spillover" from Northern Ireland was the "most likely explanation" for the sharp increase in cases in the north-east, particularly Cavan.

Dr Scally has consistently argued for an all-island response to the pandemic and believes the

per capita figures in Northern Ireland are much higher than in the Republic, but that is was difficult to know for definite as NI was a "black hole" when it came to reliable data.

He did not specifically mention farm workers.

Tony Holohan, the Republic's chief medical officer, said at a briefing that the rise in Covid-19 infections in border counties is not likely to have been caused by a "spillover" from Northern Ireland.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre reported that the number of cases in the Republic's north east rose by 820% in three weeks. Cavan overtook Dublin as the county with the most cases per head of population.

Minister for Business Heather Humphreys, a TD for Cavan-Monaghan, dismissing claims that the high rate in those counties is linked to cross-border travel, said: "There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest it. The surge, she said, is more likely linked to outbreaks in nursing homes and in Cavan General Hospital."
As Pope Francis visits the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, Fr. Gabriel Randrianantenaina, the Coordinator of the Bishops Conference of Madagascar, says the people are living the visit as a historical moment of grace.

Jean-Pierre Bodjoko, SJ  Antananarivo, Madagascar

Father Randrianatenaina says the people of Madagascar started preparing for the visit as soon as it was confirmed. He was commenting on what so far is turning out to be a successful papal visit.

The Pope arrived in the capital Antananarivo on Friday, 6 September 2019.

The visit is a great joy for all the Malagasy people

This beautiful country has so much potential from the economic, human wealth and cultural point of view. Most of the cultural and human potential that Madagascar has to offer is yet to be discovered and appreciated by the larger world, said Father Randrianatenaina.

We are ready to start anew

Father Randrianatenaina acknowledges that Madagascar faces many challenges, including poverty and political instability. Despite the various events that have marked the history of Madagascar we have hope and, with this visit, we want to start on a new slate, he said. Adding that it was no coincidence that the motto of this visit depicts Pope Francis coming as a sower of peace and hope.

The Pope has come among us as a Sower of peace. From a political point of view, notwithstanding some controversies, the last general election (won by President Andry Rajoelina) went reasonably well, explaianed Father Randrianatenaina.

A dynamic Church with a missionary zeal far beyond its young age

Regarding the situation of the Malagasy Church, Father Randrianatenaina is delighted with the dynamism that characterises the faithful of Malagasy. He says Madagascar has a missionary zeal that goes far beyond the Churchs young age.

With its 22 dioceses, the Malagasy Church is divided into five ecclesiastical provinces.

The only challenge to vocations is that of discernment

Father Randrianatenaina also affirms that seminaries and novitiates are full and the only problem the Church faces in this regard is that of discerning good vocations. He gives thanks to God for this flowering of vocations which he explains as a gift from God.

Asked to describe the visit of Pope Francis in a phrase, Father Randrianatenaina said, for now, the Malagasy people were living the Popes visit as a historical moment of grace.
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 22:10:03

UNITED SIKHS Emergency Team Provides Help to Suffering Populations

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UNITED SIKHS, a United Nations affiliated international non-profit, humanitarian relief, human development and advocacy organization, has had boots on the ground providing support and supplies to families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic all over the world including Australia.

Before World Health Organisation (WHO) announced COVID-19 as pandemic, Australia was one of the first countries to begin immediate action in managing COVID-19 as a national health emergency. As a result of early action Australia has conducted more than 551,000 tests across the country. Of the 6,746 confirmed cases, 90 have been reported dead and 5,685 have been reported as recovered.

The UNITED SIKHS Australia Chapter has launched the UMEED global project to aid those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, under this project, UNITED SIKHS has launched a FOODBANK to help the most vulnerable sects such as elderly over 65 who do not have a family member to care for them, single mothers, international students, disabled, low income families with children.

UNITESD SIKHS/UMEED will provide freshly cooked meals (hot meals) to these sects, which are being cooked at Gurudwara Sahib Tarneit (West of Melbourne). Altogether upwards of 100-200 meals will be prepared twice a day and delivered to recipients doorsteps by volunteers.

In a partnership with Lets Feed and Rehmat Sandhu Foundation, UMEED will also provide over-the-counter medication and essential groceries and non-perishable food supplies such as long-life milk, canned food, flour, rice, lentils and fresh vegetables.

For students in Australia, the Emergency Relief Services for International Students has been established by UNITED SIKHS. Recognizing that students contribute to the Australian economy and are subsequently not covered in relief packages announced by Australian government, are a population in need of support during the COVID -10 pandemic. UNITED SIKHS will provide students with accommodation, groceries, living supplies, study assistance, medicines and other miscellaneous items needed.

UNITED SIKHS Australia has activated our Emergency Response Team. Our volunteers are working with local councils and state/federal government in the best possible manner, commented Gurvinder Singh, UNITED SIKHS Australia Chapter Director. Our focus is where it always has been  support all communities to maintain their wellbeing and provide them with means to cope with this disruption and uncertainty. We are grateful to those who are coming forward to support us during COVID-19 pandemic. Its their support which makes us keep going.

Additionally, UNITED SIKHS has joined forces with Uniting Church Wyndham, to provide the homeless population with hot meals in their area ensuring that no one goes without support during the pandemic crisis.





SEE UNITED SIKHS IN ACTION IN MELBOURNE

About UNITED SIKHS: UNITED SIKHS is a U.N. affiliated, international non-profit, non-governmental, humanitarian relief, human development and advocacy organization, aimed at empowering those in need, especially disadvantaged and minority communities across the world. UNITED SIKHS is registered: as a non-profit tax exempt organization pursuant to Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code in the USA; as a Registered Charity in England and Wales under the Charities Act 1993, Charity Number 111 2055; registered in Australia as a not for profit NGO (ABN 24 317 847 103); and is a registered NGO in Belgium; as a non-profit organization in Canada; under the Societies Registration Act 1860 in Panjab and as a tax exempt organisation under section 80G of the Income Tax Act 1961; under the French Association Law 1901; under the Societies Registration Act 1860 in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan; as a registered society under the Registrar of Societies in Malaysia (registered as UNITED SIKHS Malaysia Humanitarian Aid Organisation- Regn No: PPM-015-14

Attachments
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 08:31 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5b00de 1 Editorial Garuda-Indonesia,Airlines,state-owned-enterprises,BUMN,COVID-19-in-Indonesia Free

With demand collapsing and carriers cutting flight capacity to a mere 10 percent of normal volume, the International Air Transport Association has estimated that most airlines worldwide will go bankrupt later this year without government and lender intervention, as the pandemic-induced crisis has virtually shut down air travel globally.



State-owned national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia is no exception. Air travel has indeed been one of the

industries hit hardest by government-imposed travel restrictions. Most people, afraid of catching COVID-19, are avoiding air travel, virtually shutting down passenger service globally.

Read also: Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia cuts employee salaries by up to 50% Garuda itself, which was in the process of recovering from a tarnished reputation caused by scandal-tainted management last year, is now facing severe liquidity problems as domestic air travel has been virtually grounded for two weeks. Yet more worrisome is the fact that the company is due to repay the equivalent of US$500 million in rupiah and dollar-denominated debt to domestic and foreign banks in May and June.



We have not yet heard about any government plan to bail out companies, even though the regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) on fiscal and monetary measures to cope with the damage caused by the pandemic authorizes the government to inject additional capital or give emergency loans to state companies to support economic recovery.



The airline industry deserves government support, given its role in enhancing connectivity across the worlds largest archipelagic country. A similar line of thought prompted United States President Donald Trump to sign a $58 billion stimulus for airlines in March.



Garuda deserves not only government but also lender support because it is a state-owned company and Indonesias largest carrier. It is encouraging that the new management installed earlier this year was doing a demonstrably good job before the pandemic hit the country in March.



Airlines need highly competent management, as the complex business is simultaneously capital- and labor-intensive and extremely competitive with very thin margins. Significant unpredictability exists in major factors of the business, and the damage of the COVID-19 pandemic is simply beyond the control of management.

Read also: Garuda switches focus to cargo, chartered flight businesses amid mudik ban We cannot allow such vital transportation infrastructure  which flies Indonesias flag internationally  to collapse. Transportation analysts have concluded that Garuda is competitive in operating costs compared to its peers in Asia because of lower personnel costs. The companys profit margin is also better than several Asian airlines.



The liquidity pressures Garuda is now encountering have been caused not by bad corporate governance but mostly by the devastating impact of the pandemic, which has virtually stopped air travel. The financial impact of the current crisis is unlike anything we have ever seen.



Another reason to throw Garuda a lifeline is the consensus of airline analysts regarding good prospects for air transportation across the archipelago. With a population of over 265 million and a steadily rising middle class, the country certainly needs air transportation. Moreover, its untapped tourism potential and its strategic location amid the trade flow between Europe and Australia present Garuda with huge opportunities for expansion.
Shares in Spains Telefonica rose this morning to post the only strong gains on an otherwise almost entirely red Madrid index, after the company confirmed it was in talks with billionaire John Malones Liberty Global over a possible merger of their respective businesses in Britain.

The two have started a negotiation process to merge Telefonicas British mobile operator O2 and Libertys Virgin Media network company, the Spanish company said in a stock market filing.

Mr Malone has strong links to Ireland. He has acquired significant property interests here since the last crash.

The MHL Hotel Collection is a joint venture between Mr Malone, property developer John Lally and businessman Paul Higgins.

It owns 12 high-profile hotel properties in Ireland, including the Powerscourt Hotel in Co Wicklow, and the Intercontinental and Westin hotels in Dublin.

Mr Malone also owns the sprawling Humewood Estate in Co Wicklow and Castlemartin House and Estate in Co Cork. Castlemartin was previously owned by businessman Tony OReilly.

Liberty Global bought TV3 here in 2015 from UTV, rebranding its as Virgin Media in 2018.

There is no guarantee, at this point, of its precise terms or its probability of success, Telefonica said this morning in relation to its talks with Mr Malones Liberty Global.

Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday that talks were ongoing.

It would be potentially positive news for the stock if this is confirmed Madrid-based broker CM Capital Markets said in a note to clients, adding the integration of mobile-focused O2 with a major fixed broadband provider would be complementary.

Telefonica said it would keep markets informed if a satisfactory agreement were reached. The company reports first-quarter results on May 7.

Along with its large European peers, Telefonica has struggled to boost profit growth in the face of fierce competition and reassure investors it can manage a debt pile which stood at 37.74bn at the end of last year.

Shares are down 30pc so far this year, having tracked broadly downwards for the past five years.

Its UK business, which includes O2, generated 7.11bn euros in revenue in 2019, around 14.7pc of the groups total, and had 34.5 million mobile connections on its network.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  About 3,300 West Michigan businesses that have been hurt by the coronavirus pandemic sought $71 million in grants and loans.

Instead, 195 businesses will share $1 million.

The demand for funding throughout the region was staggering with over 3,300 applications received, requesting over $71 million in both grant and loan funding, The Right Place, a Grand Rapids-based economic-development group, said in a statement.

The Right Place received $1 million from Michigan Economic Development Corporation as part of the Michigan Small Business Relief Program. It is to be distributed to businesses in an 11-county area.

Counties formed committees to review applications. The Right Place did not release the names of the business.

The businesses that received funds were affected by Gov. Gretchen Whitmers executive orders that closed non-essential businesses. The grants can be used for payroll, rent, mortgage payments, utilities and other business expenses.

The Right Place forwarded 33 loan applications to MEDC for evaluation, too.

Here is a breakdown of awards by county:

 Barry County: $32,800 in funding, 5 companies

 Ionia County: $40,715 in funding, 7 companies

 Kent County: $615,000 in funding, 62 companies

 Lake County: $6,044 in funding, 3 companies

 Mason County: $26,948 in funding, 10 companies

 Mecosta County: $31,342 in funding, 25 companies

 Montcalm County: $44,230 in funding, 11 companies

 Muskegon County: $140,000 in funding, 30 companies

 Newaygo County: $25,482 in funding, 13 companies

 Oceana County: $21,090 in funding, 24 companies

 Osceola County: 15,231 in funding, 5 companies

Read more:

Gov. Whitmer extends order banning non-essential visits to hospitals, care facilities

Kent County accepting recyclables again after five-week closure

Motorcyclist seriously injured in crash with deer on U.S. 31
New Delhi, May 4 : On the first day of lockdown 3.0 on Monday, the streets of the national capital saw more cars, traffic jams at a few places and even arguments over validity of passes. Mostly, jams were seen ahead of police pickets and borders which remained for one and a half hours, during the peak office hour.

Monday was the first office working day after a prolonged lockdown when Delhi roads started to see peacocks and neelgais invading it. Monday' traffic snarls were a sign of the slow paced return to 'normalcy'.

On Monday, the maximum crowd was seen at the Delhi-Noida (Akshardham Road, Delhi-Gurugram and Delhi-Ghaziabad (Ghazipur) borders. The crowd was significant at the three borders around 9 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. Hundreds of pass holders were seen confronting police over disputes over the validity of passes which eventually slowed down traffic.

Arguments were witnessed between police and drivers on Monday morning at the Noida-Akshardham border and Noida border on the Delhi-Dallupura Road. While the Noida administration was adamant on allowing only those vehicles which had passes okayed by the Noida DM, many Delhi residents insisted on entering Noida on passes issued by the Delhi Police.

The same conditions were seen on both the borders of Delhi-Gurugram (Delhi-Mehrauli Road and National Highway 8 Delhi-Jaipur Road). However, police of both the states were deployed on both sides. Even this didn't stop arguments. Many vehicle drivers entering the other side were seen facing trouble due to the old valid date on the curfew passes.

Meanwhile, a Ghaziabad DM office spokesperson told IANS, "The DM office has informed the police stationed on the border and in the rest of the district, that if any government employee, doctor, media person shows their card, then he or she should be allowed to come across the border." Slow moving vehicles forming a long queue were spotted in Delhi's Moolchand area. Amid announcements to be mindful of social distancing, many office-goers had a taste of Delhi's chaotic traffic after more than a month.

Similar scenes were witnessed near Aya Nagar border and Lodhi Colony Police picket around 9.30 a.m.

However, Southern District DCP Atul Kumar Thakur played it down saying, "We won't call it a jam. The situation arose because it was a Monday and the first working day of Lockdown 3.0. We also had to ensure social distancing. We were deliberately keeping the cars distant from each other which is why the queue seemed long." Jhauda and Tikri borders are in the western range, connecting Haryana-Delhi. But there was no crowd to be seen there in the morning because the maximum number of people coming from Haryana to Delhi and returning from Delhi to Haryana are at the Gurugram border.

According to Shalini Singh, Joint Commissioner of Police of Western Range, "There was no jam on our Haryana-Delhi Frontier Border because the number of people coming to office from these areas is negligible." The Narela Alipore (Kundli Haryana Border) also did not see a jam. Traffic remained normal even in the morning. Most people did not leave their homes. DCP Outer North District Gaurav Sharma told IANS, "Even though it was the first day of the lockdown 3.0, most preferred to stay inside. They may have wanted to know the ground situation first, through the media before stepping out. Perhaps that is why the border was not crowded."

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Joao Franco from Below Deck Mediterranean has been treating Instagram followers to videos and photos of daily interactions with adorable monkeys who constantly drop in for a visit.

Franco returned home to spend time with his family in Zimbabwe. While he waits to return to the United States hes helping around the house, but also hand-feeding wild monkeys who almost seem like pets.

Joao Franco |Karolina Wojtasik/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

This is Africa and also my balcony:) A sneak peak of my life in Africa! Watch this space:) I will wake up at 5am everyday for this I have been called Tarzan by many!! I love animals. more wildlife adventures coming soon!!! he shared in an Instagram video and post.

The adorable monkeys, who often arrive with their babies, look almost like tame pets. But Franco told Showbiz Cheat Sheet these sweet creatures are definitely not pets and hand feeding them should be done with considerable caution.

They may be used to humans, but arent necessarily domesticated

Franco talks to the primates in his video almost like they are human. He told Showbiz Cheat Sheet caution should always be exercised. In fact, while the monkeys featured in his videos look sweet, he says thats not always the case.

There are some troops that arent so friendly, he shared. Theyre not at all domesticated but theyre used to humans. They arent like this with everyone either. They are usually chased or find that people are intimidated by them and use that to their advantage when trying to take food.

However, they now know Franco and know his balcony is a safe place. But they seem to enjoy the balcony and we dont chase them, only stop them from coming in the house, he added. We dont feed them always and feed them very little when we do so they dont expect it. Sometimes they literally come and play on the balcony and with the little dog. Especially when its raining! Its the cutest thing!

Hes built trust with his new friends

Franco has built enough trust where the mother monkeys will allow their babies to play near Franco. And it has come to a point where the mommys let the little ones play near us, which I have never seen before. I guess its trust. I have been mock charged many times by the bigger alphas but I just stand my ground and dont chase back at all and I think it forms a kind of respect. It can be quite scary.

Franco joked about how eventually hes going to end up joining the group. Just waiting for the day they start grooming me, he laughs. Maybe they think Im one of them! An alpha monkey.

But he added, The slightest bit of fear or doubt and they are out of there in less than a second! Or they give the very intimidating mock charge and youll be out of there in less than a second, he shared. And their teeth are no joke!
New South Wales has amassed a $1 billion stockpile of protective equipment in case hospitals are overrun by a second wave of coronavirus.

Five warehouses are stuffed with hundreds of millions of face masks, face shields, gloves, surgical gowns, and sanitising products in case of disaster.

The state has only recorded a handful of new cases each day in the past week, including zero on Thursday, but is preparing for the worst.

New South Wales has amassed a $1 billion stockpile of protective equipment in case hospitals are overrun by a second wave of coronavirus

Lockdowns are set to be relaxed from this weekend and health authorities have warned cases will likely increase as Australia opens up.

Video of one of the warehouses, which are in secret locations around NSW, showed endless pallets of PPE piled floor to ceiling.

Forklifts are seen adding even more to the shelves, some of which are empty and waiting for even more gear to arrive.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the stockpile was the keep the state prepared for any future outbreaks.

'While NSW has successfully flattened the curve for now, we know the battle against this global pandemic is still a reality and we're not taking any chances,' she said.

'That's why we've spent almost $1 billion on PPE to ensure our frontline workers have the key safety equipment they need to fight this virus, and keep NSW residents safe.'

A healthcare worker wearing full PPE takes swabs in Northland Shopping Centre at one of the new mobile testing sites

Five warehouses like this one are stuffed with hundreds of millions of face masks, face shields, gloves, surgical gowns, and sanitising products in case of disaster - with room for even more

NSW had just one new coronavirus case on Monday and revised its total down by three to 3,033. Australia has 6,822 cases with 95 deaths.

Much of the stockpile was imported from overseas in China and elsewhere, but also from Australian companies converting their businesses to make PPE.

The state issued a 'call to arms' in March and more than 1,500 suppliers came forward through the government's emergency supplies portal.

Jobs Minister Stuart Ayres said NSW's stockpile was big enough to fulfill its 'medium term needs'.

'We've identified hundreds of new suppliers of these critical products through the portal and it has shone a light on the tremendous capacity of NSW companies,' he said.

Video of one of the warehouses, which are in secret locations around NSW, showed endless pallets of PPE piled floor to ceiling

A worker inspects a can of sanitiser spray used to disinfect surfaces and kill the coronavirus germs hiding there

Medical staff at ICUs across Sydney are still being told to brace for a spike in coronavirus cases in July, during peak flu season.

Language being used in some hospitals references positive coronavirus numbers as the equivalent to 'water going out before a tsunami' or the 'calm before the storm'.

It means guidelines released by the intensive care society earlier this year - outlining the need for nurses to choose which patients to save - remain in place, despite the COVID-19 curve dramatically flattening.

Anthony Holley, president of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society, said the ease with which COVID-19 spreads meant there was no room for complacency - and 'wartime' measures must remain in place.

Forklifts are seen adding even more to the shelves, some of which are empty and waiting for even more gear to arrive

Much of the stockpile was imported from overseas in China and elsewhere, but also from Australian companies converting their businesses to make PPE

Anticipating that they will still be swamped by patients, plans have been put in place in most ICUs outlining how they will operate if stretched to the limit.

They include.

- Limiting sick patients to one phone call a day, so nurses can focus on care and not be turned into a makeshift call centre.

- Not allowing loved ones into the hospital for a goodbye for terminally ill patients.

- Nurses limiting their time in ICUs to two hour intervals, at which point that would take off their personal protective equipment (PPE), before putting new PPE back on after a break and returning to work.
Pakistan on Monday summoned a senior Indian diplomat to convey its rejection of what it called India's "baseless and fallacious contention" regarding a verdict by Pakistan's Supreme Court on the holding of general elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The move came hours after India said it has conveyed its strong protest to Pakistan over Islamabad's efforts to bring "material change" to territories under its "illegal and forcible" occupation after the country's top court allowed holding of elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.

In a recent ruling, the Pakistan Supreme Court allowed the government to amend a 2018 administrative order to conduct general elections in the region. The Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 provided for administrative changes, including authorising the Prime Minister of Pakistan to legislate on an array of subjects.

The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said on Monday that a demarche was issued to a senior Pakistani diplomat lodging a strong protest over the court ruling and clearly conveying that the entire union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India.

The MEA said the government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories "illegally and forcibly" occupied by it.

In Islamabad, the Foreign Office said in a statement that a senior Indian diplomat was summoned to convey Pakistan's rejection of India's baseless and fallacious contention against the apex court verdict on Gilgit-Baltistan.

It said Pakistan clearly conveyed that the Indian statement over Jammu and Kashmir as an 'integral part' of India" had no legal basis whatsoever".

"The entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is a 'disputed' territory and is recognised as such by the international community, the FO added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
[May 04, 2020] Divine New World for Defense Contactor!!

Defense Contractor Kim Devane (niece of actor William Devane), owner of Divine Imaging Inc. in Malibu, CA (News - Alert) celebrated Spring by taking a frigid ocean plunge in Bandon, Oregon. "What a better way to shake off the Covid-19 cabin fever, and do something truly life-affirming!" Kim Devane stated. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005025/en/ Divine Small Business Face of America! (Photo: Business Wire) She needed to get shocked into reality! The company business model had to change!! Although, Government & Military demand remains strong for defense items, "We are mostly filling open market orders for PP&E merchandise," stated Kim. Access to natonally back-ordered stock of masks, sanitizers, gowns and gloves has finally opened up. However, CEO Larry Abbott finds "it is ironic that most of these products are coming from China. Prior to the pandemic, contractors like Divine were unable to sell items sourced from China to the federal government, but it's a Divine New World now!!!! " The federal government has had to adapt too! The GSA (News - Alert) Senior Procurement Executive (SPE) Class Determinations and Findings are temporarily allowing the procurement of non-TAA compliant PPE products under FSS contracts to support Covid-19 response. "Before Covid-19 if we had inadvertently sold Chinese products through our GSA Schedule, we would have run the risk of hefty fines as high as $1 million (or more), and/or significant penalties such as having our entire contract revoked or being charged with a crime," proclaimed Kim. Things have certainly changed.



Divine Imaging is an awardee of 2GIT $5.5 billion dollar technology contract, "however that contract is not producing at all right now," said Kim. The company has adapted by shifting our focus to those PPE products that are currently in high demand for fighting Covid-19. "WE had to scramble to survive." The Divine goal is to keep a paycheck going out to our team during the shutdown. CEO Abbott submitted the Paycheck Protection Loan Application through BofA, "which was not pleasant!" Our Chief Operating Officer superhero Hank Williams Jr. has been the driving force behind our fast transitions and continued smooth operations working remotely. "We are scrappers and underdogs - a combination of people representing a broad diversity of backgrounds, with a proven ability to get things done in tough environments," stated Hank.

"Divine Imaging is the face of every small business in the United States of America. Divine will survive and persevere through hard work and discipline... but yeah we needed an ice cold ocean plunge to wake up to our new business reality " stated Kim. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005025/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan, North Sumatra  Mon, May 4, 2020 16:46 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5db7e4 1 National COVID-19-in-Indonesia,North-Sumatra,Chinese-fishing-vessel,Langkat,Sumatra-Utara,kapal-ikan Free

Residents in Pulau Sembilan village of Langkat regency, North Sumatra, refused to allow a Chinese fishing vessel to dock at a local port on Sunday over fears of COVID-19 transmission.

The MV Cheung Kam Wing initially planned to transport grouper fish from a local fishing company in the regency but eventually changed course over fears of a backlash from the residents.

One local, Misnaldi, said residents had never prevented foreign fishing vessels from docking before, but said they were concerned the crew could transmit the disease.

"We're worried that foreign crews could transmit COVID-19 to the locals. This is the reason we are denying foreign ships entry to Pulau Sembilan," Misnaldi told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Misnaldi said he was baffled by the governments decision to still allow foreign ships to enter Indonesian waters, especially as it had asked residents to stay at home and had enforced a mudik (exodus) ban to curb the spread of the virus.

Read also: COVID-19: KM Kelud put in quarantine in Medan after crewmen test positive

"It's not fair, foreign citizens are allowed to enter the country, while Indonesians are forbidden to go anywhere to curb the spread of COVID-19," he said.

Langkat Police deputy chief Com. Delami Saleh said the situation in the area had calmed after the ship changed course.

"It is now under control. The locals were reluctant to let a Chinese fishing vessel dock because they were concerned the crew might carry the coronavirus," Delami told the Post.

Langkat is one of several regencies in North Sumatra that have been categorized as green zones, or safe areas, amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Langkat COVID-19 rapid response task force spokesman Muhammad Arifin Sinaga said no confirmed cases had been recorded in the regency so far. (nal)
MILWAUKEE, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- National Stroke Awareness Month gives new author, Vivian L. King, a chance to warn women of a risk factor that can strike when you least expect it. She recently launched her book, "When the Words Suddenly Stopped: Finding My Voice Again After a Massive Stroke," which details the day she collapsed at a local event. She suffered a seizure, later learning that it was a stroke, caused by a blood clot over the part of the brain that manages speech. The clot began bleeding, killing her brain cells, which left her mute for three-and-a half weeks.

"When the Words Suddenly Stopped: Finding My Voice Again After a Massive Stroke" launched worldwide on March 24. Former television journalist, Vivian L. King, uses her personal battle with a stroke to give stroke patients hope during National Stress Awareness Month.

"The entire episode was a shock to me and everyone around me," King says. "I don't have high blood pressure. I don't smoke. I am relatively active, and I do not have a history of stroke in my family. Doctors say taking birth control pills over the age of 40 is what led to a blood clot and, ultimately, my stroke."

African American women are twice as likely to suffer a stroke compared to white women, and they are more likely to have more severe strokes and at younger ages. Most people worry about the more common stroke causes: high blood pressure, obesity, physical inactivity, heavy drinking, use of illicit drugs, smoking, high cholesterol, diabetes, and family history. Birth control pills are the last risk factor on the lists Vivian found when doing her research, and not even every site listed them as a risk.

"Half the women I talk to are wide-eyed when I share that I was 49, taking birth control pills and that caused my stroke," says King. "I wrote this book to start a dialogue that urges women to talk with their doctors if they are still taking birth control pills. I want to prevent this from happening to any other women."

As a single woman whose family lives in another state, Vivian also wrote this book to help people navigate major health crises. She was incapacitated and in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit for ten days. While she describes her medical care as unparalleled, she believes her secret weapons were her faith, family and friends converging to lead her from trauma to triumph.

"They were my advocates," says King. "So, while I could not speak, they spoke for me. This book also illustrates the importance of support."

"When the Words Suddenly Stopped: Finding My Voice Again After a Massive Stroke," comes in hardback, paperback, eBook and Kindle, and can be found at amazon.com/author/vivianlking. It is also being sold by Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee.

About Vivian L. King

Vivian L. King is a dynamic communications leader with an extensive career in broadcast journalism, public relations and community relations. She is an author, speaker, moderator, professionally trained voice actor, and the founder and principal of Vivian L. King Connections LLC, where she provides personalized consulting to individuals looking to find their voice through the media and connect with the community through workshops and forums. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, King received her journalism degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Connect with her at Facebook.com/AuthorVivianLKing/ or VivianLKing.com

Media Contact:

Vivian King

(414) 899-3027

[email protected]

SOURCE Vivian L. King

Related Links

https://www.vivianlking.com


The 33,000 a year chef, pictured, grabbed the woman and held her at knife point while screaming in her face.

A chef at an exclusive Mayfair restaurant terrorised a woman with a knife in Oxford Circus after his mental health deteriorated during the coronavirus lockdown, a court heard.

Richard Nugent, 33, armed himself with a 15 inch blade on May 2 and made his way to the London's West End.

The 33,000 a year chef grabbed the woman and held her at knife point while screaming in her face.

Terrified witnesses alerted police and Nugent was arrested, telling officers it was a 'cry for help' after his flatmates had left him during the lockdown.

Komal Varsani, prosecuting, said: 'A member of the public had reported seeing him get aggressive towards a woman.

He shouted and backed her up against a wall, touching her arm.

'It was Saturday 2 May on Oxford Street. He was stopped and searched which is where the knife was found, a 15 inch kitchen knife.'

Nugent appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court today to admit possessing a knife in a public place.

Nicholas Rosenfield, defending, said it was 'a cry for help' after his mental health deteriorated during the lockdown while living alone..

'He was carrying a knife,' said Mr Rosenfield.

Richard Nugent, 33, armed himself with a 15 inch blade on May 2 and made his way to the London's West End

'He's living on his own. There's nobody at his home, they have all left so he doesn't want to stay there too long.

'He's normally a chef at a reasonably exclusive restaurant in Mayfair where he earns 33,000 a year.

'He decided to go to London to draw attention to himself as a cry for help. It was a cry for help because he feels his mental health is deteriorating.'

District Judge Alexander Jacobs adjourned the case for reports but told Nugent his 'unpredictable' actions were likely to lead to a custodial sentence..

Judge Jacobs said: 'A prison sentence is almost inevitable but something else might be going on and I want to know what that is. So I will - unusually - adjourn this case for reports.'

Nugent, of Tottenham, admitted possessing a knife in a public place.

He was remanded in custody ahead of sentence on May 22.
The session will be broadcasted online, and anyone will be able to join in

A limited circle of people will be able to join the next court session within the MH17 case. The Dutch court reported that as quoted by Ukrinform news agency.

The access will be granted to judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and the limited number of relatives of MH17 victims, as well as media representatives. All those in the session hall will be required to keep a distance of 1.5 meters, which is due to the Covid-19 restrictions.

The session will be broadcasted online, and anyone will be able to join in.

On March 17, all courts in the Netherlands suspended their work due to the pandemic of coronavirus. The judicial bodies only consider urgent cases, in presence of limited circle of people.

Earlier, the Hague district court refused to declassify the names of twelve MH17 tragedy wintesses, as the Russian lawyers demanded.

The judicial process within MH17 case began in the Netherlands in March this year. Dutch prosecutors presented new witnesses in this case, one of which was a Russian citizen. The identities of these people are classified, as there's a serious threat of persecutions by Russian special services.
3 1 of 3 Stamford Police Department / Contributed Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Stamford Police Department / Contributed Show More Show Less 3 of 3





STAMFORD  City police have made an arrest in the break-in and burglary of a Stamford womans Westover home last December, police said.

Levy Bruggman, 23, of College Point, Queens was charged with third-degree burglary after a search of his home in Ozone Park turned up nine items of property that were identified by the burglary victim as belonging to her, said Sgt. Sean Scanlan, property crimes bureau supervisor.
Cybersecurity companies and professionals are banding together to offer free digital defenses to hospitals that are being pummeled with digital attacks during the coronavirus pandemic.

The group, which calls itself the Cyber Alliance to Defend our Healthcare, struck deals with 87 hospitals and four national health-care services in Europe over the past month. Organizers hope to make similar arrangements with numerous U.S. hospitals this month, they told me.

The effort could be a lifeline as criminals take advantage of coronavirus to lock hospital employees out of their computer systems in exchange for ransoms. They're especially dire - and lucrative - during the pandemic since hospitals can't afford to be booted out of their systems for any length of time.

"This becomes a matter of life and death because hospitals have their IT systems locked down, sometimes medical devices, too, and can't function," Andre Pienaar, founder of C5 Capital, a cybersecurity-focused investment firm that launched the alliance, told The Washington Post.

That's partly to prevent their work being slowed by disruptive attacks and to ensure the work isn't stolen by hackers in adversary nations that want to manufacture copycat treatments or to get a leg up on innovation.

"Protecting that intellectual property is crucial because that's the future of our health-care community," retired Gen. Keith Alexander, former U.S. Cyber Command chief, told The Washington Post.

Alexander's company, IronNet Cybersecurity, is one of about 20 companies that are offering free protections through the health-care alliance so far. Pienaar hopes to significantly raise that number as more U.S. hospitals sign up for help, he said.

It may get help from another volunteer cybersecurity protection group, called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, which has focused mostly on taking down the digital infrastructure hackers are using to target health-care systems during the pandemic and identifying common security bugs that hospitals should patch.

And cybersecurity pros in the United States launched an initiative called Defending Digital Campaigns last year to offer free and reduced-price help to political campaigns that are being targeted by Russia and other U.S. adversaries.

Hospitals are far more sophisticated when it comes to protecting themselves online than bootstrap political campaigns, said Ron Gula, a cybersecurity investor who helped fund the election effort and is helping recruit companies to join the health-care alliance.

"They just got hit with a huge [coronavirus] crisis and they're down manpower. So, there's a. . . lack of focus on these critical [cybersecurity] issues," Gula said.

There's no hard data about how much hacking against hospitals has increased during the pandemic, but the FBI and Interpol have both described significant spikes. And cybersecurity pros warn the threat is likely to continue as long as the pandemic lasts.

The alliance also plans to work directly with hospitals, advising their IT staffs on better ways to protect themselves. And the group plans to publish lists of big-picture cybersecurity recommendations for hospitals to follow.

A lot of that work will be done on a volunteer basis by security pros at member companies, Pienaar said.

"Many [chief cybersecurity officials] in health-care institutions have not seen this scale of cyberattacks. Many of them are overworked and overstretched. So, the alliance is going to be giving a lot of advice on a daily and weekly basis," Pienaar said.

The health-care sector has broadly improved its digital protections in recent years and grown better at sharing information about threats so that it's easier to defend against them. But it has lagged other sectors, such as financial services, that have far more mature systems for jointly combating hacking.

"There is no air traffic control picture for health care," Alexander said. "The software that we're putting on the table says, 'Let's build together a comprehensive picture of what's hitting the sector' . . . I believe that will start to change the way we think about cyber."
Border Force picked up 15 migrants and a baby off the Kent coast this morning, with more than 600 already found trying to enter the UK during lockdown so far.

Officials discovered 16 people, including a man carrying a newborn in a blue blanket, in two boats out to sea in the early hours of Monday.

They were brought to shore at Dover where they will be examined for symptoms of coronavirus and processed by officials. The migrants claimed to be from Iraq and Iran.

Another 27 migrants, including seven children, were picked up in two boats off the coast of Calais by French authorities.

Yesterday 49 in three boats were caught trying to get across the Channel in the first crossing this month.

More than 600 people have tried to enter the UK illegally in boats or dinghies since the country went on lockdown on March 23.

Around 16 people, including a man carrying a baby are pictured coming into shore at Dover this morning after being picked up off the Kent coast

The baby is pictured being carried by a man in the group with the other migrants wearing masks

That tally is already nearing the figure of 1,850 for the whole of last year.

In a separate incident, 27 more migrants were picked up by French patrol ships as they tried to make it to the UK this morning.

Home Office says 'Migrants will not be tested for Covid-19' The Home Office will not test migrants for coronavirus when they are brought into the UK, MailOnline revealed last month. Rather than test asylum seekers, the Home Office say doctors and nurses will examine migrants for any symptoms of Covid-19. Any person showing symptoms will be isolated, including those in detention centres, where special isolation areas have been set up, the Home Office has confirmed. A spokesperson said the policy is in line with guidance from Public Health England (PHE). Speaking following the arrival of a group of migrants earlier this month, a Home Office spokesperson said: 'All individuals were brought to Dover and, in line with established processes, will be assessed to establish whether there are any medical requirements. No issues reported. 'All will be transferred to immigration officials. They will be interviewed and their cases will be dealt with in line with the immigration rules, transferring to detention where appropriate. In line with Public Health England guidance, Border Force and all operational staff have the relevant personal protective equipment available to them.' Advertisement

French authorities announced that they dealt with two boats this morning.

At 4.30am, a patrol boat picked up 16 migrants - including two women and six children.

And at 8:32am, another patrol boat rescued 11 migrants - including four women and a child - and collected their boat.

All 27 were brought to Boulogne-sur-Mer and were handed over to border police.

It was revealed at the weekend that just five per cent of migrants who have crossed since January 2019 have been sent back to Europe.

Former MEP and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who is based in Kent, was seen at Dover today, days after being slammed for travelling 100 miles during lockdown to make a video on migrant crossings in Hastings, East Sussex.

He said today: 'Over 1,000 people have come in through Dover already this year.

'Unless we act, it will be many thousands more. Time for the Home Secretary to step up.

'I witnessed first hand our Border Force acting as a taxi service, this must change.

MailOnline revealed last month that the Home Office are not testing migrants for coronavirus when they are brought into the UK.

Rather than test asylum seekers, officials say doctors and nurses will examine migrants for any symptoms of COVID-19.

Any person showing symptoms will be isolated, including those in detention centres, where special isolation areas have been set up, the Home Office has confirmed.

A Home Office spokesman told MailOnline: 'Border Force is currently dealing with a small boat incident off the Kent coast.

'At around 06:55am, a Border Force vessel intercepted a RHIB which was carrying a group of 15 males and 1 female who presented themselves as Iraqi and Iranian nationals.

'All those encountered by UK Border Force will be transferred to immigration officials. They will be interviewed, and their cases will be dealt with in line with the immigration rules, transferring to detention where appropriate.

'In line with Public Health England guidance, Border Force and all operational staff have the relevant Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) available to them.'

They were brought to shore at Dover where they will be examined for symptoms of coronavirus and processed by officials

More than 600 people have tried to enter the UK illegally in boats or dinghies since the country went on lockdown on March 23. Pictured: Today's crossing
Editors note: Todays guest editorials were written by The Medford Mail Tribune and The Ashland Daily Tidings. Editorial content from other publications and authors is provided to give readers a sampling of regional and national opinion and does not necessarily reflect positions endorsed by the Editorial Board of The Daily News.

On Friday, President Trump signed into law the second round of federal loans intended to help small businesses stay afloat during the coronavirus shutdown. But banks that processed applications for the first round of loans said the new money was likely spoken for as soon as it was made available, so its unlikely any business that had not yet applied would see any relief. On top of that, many small businesses that managed to get hold of some of the first batch of money were not small businesses at all.

The first stimulus package Congress passed at the beginning of April included $349 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program. Businesses with fewer than 500 employees were supposed to be able to get loans at 1% interest, and the loans would be forgiven if the money went to pay employees. That first round of money ran out April 16 after just 13 days, and much of it went to huge companies that were able to qualify because of loopholes in the rules.

Large restaurant chains with fewer than 500 employees per location received loans of as much as $20 million. Ruths Chris, a chain of high-end steakhouses with more than 5,000 employees, applied twice on behalf of two subsidiaries and received $20 million. On Thursday, the company said it would give the money back. So did several other companies, led by Shake Shack, which announced April 19 that it would return its loan.

The Treasury Department on Thursday asked publicly traded companies to return their loans by May 7. Thats because those companies have access to credit markets not available to truly small, privately held companies. Shake Shack, for instance, was able to issue $140 million in new shares to raise money.

The Treasury Department wrote that large, publicly traded companies would be unlikely to be able to claim in good faith that they needed the federal loans to survive.

Not only did large companies essentially game the system to get loans that were never intended for them, truly small businesses found themselves locked out of the program entirely because of the way banks were prioritizing applications. A woman who owns a public relations firm wrote an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun describing how Bank of America, which her business used for checking services, declined to process her loan application because she had credit relationships with other banks, not with BOA.

Her story was not unusual.

A group of small California businesses has filed a class-action lawsuit naming JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and US Bank, alleging the banks prioritized loan requests from large customers to earn larger fees.

Meanwhile, Medford-based Peoples Bank worked with local businesses to land 474 loans totaling $73 million from the first round of funding, and 200 more applicants were left hanging when the money ran out.

Congress should have done a better job of making sure the loan money was reserved for those businesses that needed it most. Treasury officials and the Small Business Administration should hold loan recipients accountable, and take legal action against any company that received federal money it was not eligible for.

Reopening parks is good news, and a test

As Jackson County, Ore., begins to reopen some of its park facilities, were about to find out if local residents have taken to heart the restrictions we have all learned to live with over the past month. State parks remain closed, but state officials should watch carefully to see how the county reopenings go.

This is a test. We will all be graded on our ability practice social distancing even outdoors, and our willingness to stay out of closed areas such as playgrounds and picnic shelters. And dont swipe the hand sanitizer.

County parks officials have announced a gradual easing of the complete closure imposed March 23. Starting Friday, area boat ramps and dispersed recreation areas will reopen. On May 15, more day-use areas will open.

But theres a catch.

Those areas will remain open only if users continue to practice social distancing, and only if they honor barricades and taped-off areas such as playgrounds and picnic shelters that cause people to group together. If not, the parks will be locked down again.

Restrooms will be open, sanitized regularly and stocked with soap and hand sanitizer. But if people steal the soap rather than leaving it for others to use, restrooms will be locked up once again.

Sheltering in place has been hard on everyone, and the warm weather has Southern Oregonians itching to get back to the outdoor activities they love. If that can be accomplished in a limited way, while still observing the restrictions that have succeeded in slowing the spread of the virus, well all be better off.

Meanwhile, its unfortunate that all state parks remain completely closed. The Oregon State Parks website explains that grocery stores, medical facilities and other amenities near remote state parks shouldnt have to cope with thousands of visitors and the risk of infection they bring with them.

Thats a fair point. But not all state parks are remote. In our own area, TouVelle Recreation Area and Valley of the Rogue Park are close to urban areas. They also offer access to relatively level walking paths for older citizens and those with disabilities. It ought to be possible for state parks officials to allow very limited reopening of carefully selected day use areas while maintaining the closure of more remote parks and campgrounds.

That would take some of the pressure off county parks as well.

So enjoy the limited opportunity to get outdoors, but please, dont ruin it for everyone by ignoring the necessary restrictions.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
CEDAR RAPIDS  State Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks bid for the Republican nomination in Iowas 2nd District has been endorsed by the partys leader in the U.S. House.

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, has endorsed Miller-Meeks as someone who represents the goals, interests and aspirations of the people of the 24-county district that includes Johnson, Muscatine and Scott counties.

Her hard work and dedication to service are needed more than ever to flip this Democrat-held seat for the people, McCarthy said. Candidates like Mariannette will help us regain control of the Peoples House and give President Trump a Congress that works with him each day rather than obstructs his every move to strengthen our economy, secure our borders and make health care more affordable and accessible to working families.

His endorsement speaks volumes about the importance of the 2nd District in Republicans effort to regain the House majority, Miller-Meeks said.

He knows Ill never quit fighting for conservative principles, and Ill never give up on the people of Iowa, she said. His support is a clear message to Iowa and the rest of the country that the people of the 2nd District have an extraordinary opportunity to reshape our countrys future by standing with me on June 2 and again in November.

Miller-Meeks, an Army veteran and ophthalmologist, is in a five-way race for the GOP nomination. The other candidates are Tim Borchardt of Iowa City, Steven Everly of Knoxville, Rick Phillips of Pella and Bobby Schilling of Le Claire.

The winner will face Democrat Rita Hart of Wheatland, a former state senator. The winner will claim the 2nd District seat held by Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack, who is not seeking reelection.

The 2nd District is rated as a tossup, according to national political forecasters. Its the countrys only open Democratic-held district that President Donald Trump carried in 2016. A recent Des Moines Register Iowa Poll showed a generic Republican leading a generic Democrat by 8 percent in the district.

Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
President Donald Trump speaks with news anchor Bret Baier during a Virtual Town Hall inside of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on May 3, 2020. (Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images)

Trump: New Report Will Reveal True Origins of Virus

President Donald Trump on May 3 said China was embarrassed by the CCP virus outbreak and that a new report will reveal what really happened in the country to cause the global pandemic.

Speaking at a virtual town hall session with Fox, Trump said he believed there was no doubt the virus originated in Wuhan, China.

The president said he believes the countrys leaders had made a mistake and attempted to cover it up while treating the rest of the world badly by allowing people to fly out of Wuhan to other parts of the world, prompting the virus to spread.

Were going to be given a very strong report as to exactly what we think happened and I think it will be very conclusive, he told Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.

President Donald Trump speaks with news anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum during a Virtual Town Hall inside of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on May 3, 2020. (Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images)

Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didnt want to admit it. We wanted to go in [to China] but they didnt want us there, even the World Health Organization wanted to go in, they were admitted but much later, you know, not immediately. And my opinion is that they made a mistake, they tried to cover it, they tried to put it out, its like a fire, its really like trying to put out a fire.

They couldnt put out the fire, Trump said.

What they really treated the world badly on, they stopped people going into China, but they didnt stop people going into the USA and all over the world, so you could fly out of Wuhan, where the primary problem was, all of the problem essentially, also where the lab is, but you could fly out of Wuhan and you could go to different parts of the world but you couldnt go to Beijing and you couldnt go to any place in China.

So whats that all about? Trump said he was querying. In other words, they knew they had a problem. I think they were embarrassed by the problem, very embarrassed.

Elsewhere in the town hall, Trump said he believes his administration did the right thing by closing the economy as it saved millions of lives, but that now they must get it back open safely but as quickly as possible, adding that he believes the country is set to have an incredible year and is going to go into a transition in the third quarter and see things happening that look good.

Trump also said he is also confident that a vaccine for the virus would be developed by the end of the year and that his administration was pushing very hard, and had already begun building supply lines.

The presidents comments come after he told reporters last week that he was confident that COVID-19 came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, adding that U.S. authorities were looking at it very, very strongly.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during the daily briefing on the CCP virus in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on April 8, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in an interview with ABCs This Week on Sunday also said there is enormous evidence suggesting the virus outbreak originated in a Chinese laboratory, but did not provide any further details.

We have said from the beginning, this virus originated in Wuhan, China, I think the whole world can see now, remember, China has a history of infecting the world and running substandard laboratories, Pompeo said, in reference to the first SARS virus. These arent the first times that we have had the world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in Chinese labs. I can tell you that theres a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.

The secretary of state added that the Chinese Communist Party had done all it could so the world couldnt learn in a timely fashion about the virus, and criticized the regimes covering up of the virus through rigorous censorship.

We have seen the announcement, the fact they kick journalists out. Medical professionals inside of China were silenced. They shut down reporting. All the kind of things that authoritarian regimes did. This is a classic communist disinformation effort. That created enormous risk. Now you can see tens of thousands in the United States have been harmed.

President Trump is very clear, well hold those responsible accountable and well do so on a timeline, he added.
Listen to Outbreak Alabama: Stories from a Pandemic, above.

Today, we hear from AL.com reporter William Thornton, who covers business in Alabama and had a busy end to his week when Gov. Kay Iveys Stay at Home order ended at 5 p.m. last Thursday, as retail stores across the state were allowed to reopen in hopes of restarting the economy.

We talked to Bill about what he saw when he went to see how things went for stores in the Birmingham area once the order lifted, how the states retail industry feels about taking the next step and the good news and bad news for Alabamas economy as we grind our way through coronavirus.

Outbreak Alabama will release two or three episodes per week, chronicling the experiences of those directly impacted by COVID-19s spread, including health care professionals, business owners, city leaders, artists, AL.com reporters and many others.

If you or anyone you know is affected by the coronavirus and want to share your story, please email bflanagan@al.com. For all of our coverage on the outbreak and how it continues to impact Alabama, visit AL.com/coronavirus.

Listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like the show, please rate it and write us a review. Thank you for listening.

More from Outbreak Alabama:

A barbers dilemma

Is it really time to reopen Alabama?

A coronavirus survivors message to the rest of us

Ivey not ready to reopen just yet

Crime in the age of coronavirus

What role do our churches play?

The absence of sports

Learning from a distance

Walt Maddox on leading Tuscaloosa through coronavirus

Social distancing, or not

Coronavirus early impact on musicians

Alabama restaurants
A hospital set up to care for people recovering from Covid-19 will be named after the pioneering nurse Mary Seacole to pay tribute to nurses on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic.

The NHS Seacole Centre, the first of its kind in England, will be based at the NHS Headley Court Hospital in Leatherhead, Surrey, and has up to 300 inpatient beds.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock and chief nursing officer for England Ruth May virtually opened the new facility on Monday.

Work has been ongoing in Leatherhead over the last month to transform a disused military hospital into the new inpatient rehabilitation facility.

Matt Hancock virtually opened the hospital on Monday / Daniel Elkeles

It is hoped the hospital will free up capacity in other nearby hospitals for both non-Covid patients and the urgent care of people with the coronavirus, the NHS said.

Ms Seacole, who became known as Mother Seacole, was a Jamaican-born nurse who funded her own trip to the Crimea where she established a hospital to provide support for officers wounded in the Crimean War.

Sir Simon Stevens, NHS chief executive, said: As well as providing important care in its own right, this new service  by recalling the pioneering work of Mary Seacole  rightly pays tribute to our BAME nurses and other staff at the forefront of the extraordinary NHS response to this terrible Covid-19 pandemic.

It also serves as a timely reminder that it is their contribution over the past seven decades that has been a foundation for the very success and continuation of the NHS itself.

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

I fully expect that this will be just the first of a number of Seacole services that will now begin to be established across the country as the NHS moves through the peak of inpatient coronavirus care and the need for community health and rehabilitative services grows.

Mr Hancock said NHS Seacole wll free up "crucial extra capacity".

There can be no more fitting tribute to the extraordinary work of Mary Seacole than the compassion and dedication of our health and social care staff working on the frontline of this pandemic today," he said.

"NHS Seacole will not only offer a vital space for recovery and rehabilitation, but will also free up crucial extra capacity so everybody who needs care can receive it over the coming months.

Ms May said naming the site after Mary Seacole was a "wonderful testament" to nurses and healthcare workers from diverse backgrounds who make up the NHS.

Bristol's Nightingale hospital to provide another layer of armour against Covid-19

Mary Seacole made an extraordinary, long-term contribution to community healthcare and so it is fitting that such an important service is honouring her name," she said.

Its also a wonderful testament to so many nurses and healthcare workers from diverse backgrounds and from different countries who make up our NHS  I am extremely proud of their continued dedication to step up these services for patient during the greatest challenge in our history.

Mary Seacole Trust chairman, Trevor Sterling, added: Naming the hospital at Headley Court the NHS Seacole Centre symbolises the contribution made by so many nurses and other healthcare workers, from all different backgrounds and from all around the world, who make up our wonderful NHS.

"We thank all healthcare staff for their amazing contribution to our communities.

Loading....

It comes as London's Nightingale hospital will be put on standby within days as a result of the capital passing the peak of coronavirus cases.

Staff at the hospital, at the ExCeL conference centre in Docklands, received the news today as they were thanked for their efforts.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 23:00:21|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

VILNIUS, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Vilnius Airport will gradually resume passenger services from May 13, with the first flights to be carried out to Riga and Frankfurt, Lithuanian Airports, a state enterprise which operates the country's three international airports, said in a press release on Monday.

"We believe that now is the appropriate time to gradually ease travel restrictions, and we have established a clear strategy for which we are intensively preparing. Our strategy is based on the newest health safety recommendations, situation of the virus in every destination country, and plans established by the air carriers," Aurimas Stikliunas, head of Aviation Services at Lithuanian Airports, was quoted as saying in the press release.

In this stage, Frankfurt is a very important destination and airport hub from which airlines offer many connecting flights, he added.

Flights from Vilnius to Frankfurt will be performed three times per week -- on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Air carrier Lufthansa will perform these flights beginning from May 13. On the same day, airBaltic carrier will reinstate daily flights to Riga.

The authorities warned earlier that those who decide to travel will still be obliged to isolate themselves for two weeks after returning to Lithuania.

Lithuanian Health Minister Aurelijus Veryga said at a press conference on Monday that quarantine is likely to be extended for another two weeks after May 11, with new easing measures to be introduced.

According to the Health Ministry, Lithuania had registered 1,419 confirmed COVID-19 cases by Monday morning. To date, 46 people have died and 638 have recovered.

The network of Lithuanian Airports comprises of three air gateways in Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga. In 2019 they all served 6.5 million passengers and 62,000 flights. Enditem
ORLANDO, Fla., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Westgate Resorts announced today that its new, all-encompassing WestgateCARES Program will launch on Monday, May 4. The program is a roadmap on how the company will safely reopen its resorts, hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, spas, casinos and other amenities with specific procedures that meet, and in most cases, exceed government-mandated directives.

From the very beginning of this crisis, Westgate organized a dedicated team of professionals to rapidly develop and implement comprehensive procedures to protect its guests and Team Members, including advanced cleaning procedures, strict personal hygiene protocols and a long list of operating procedures necessary to mitigate the risk of this virus. Westgate also announced that all of its WestgateCARES standard operating procedures and policies will be made publicly available on Westgate's website to help other businesses craft their own procedures.

"From day one of this crisis, every decision we made was based on one simple premise: how do we protect our Team Members, guests and the local community?" said Mark Waltrip, Chief Operating Officer of Westgate Resorts. "Just as important, we recognize that many businesses may not have Westgate's extensive resources to develop such comprehensive procedures, and it is our hope that sharing this vital information will help everyone reopen safely and reduce the spread of this terrible epidemic."

Some of the procedures that will be made available include: restaurant and spa operating procedures; contact-less curbside hotel check-in; enhanced sanitization standards for all guest rooms, common spaces and Team Member areas; how to create your own personal protective equipment (PPE); guest and Team Member Screening protocols; and more.

"We have had a very successful track record of preventing the spread of the virus at our resorts, but we recognize that we are all in this together and the entire business community is only as strong as our weakest link," added Waltrip. "We are also hopeful that other businesses will do the same so we can all learn from each other and protect our community." Additional information about the WestgateCARES program can be found at www.westgateCARES.com.

ABOUT WESTGATE RESORTS

Westgate Resorts is the largest privately held timeshare company in the world and one of the largest resort developers in the United States. Founded in 1982 by David Siegel, the company is headquartered in Orlando with 8 Orlando hotel resorts, and 24 themed destination resorts nationwide, featuring more than 14,500 luxury villas and hotel rooms in popular vacation destinations throughout the United States such as Miami, Orlando and Cocoa Beach, Florida; New York City, New York; Park City, Utah; Las Vegas, Nevada; Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Williamsburg, Virginia; Branson, Missouri; Mesa, Arizona; and Tunica, Mississippi. Most Westgate Resorts locations feature a variety of unique restaurant, retail and spa concepts, including Drafts Burger Bar, Edge Steakhouse, Westgate Marketplace & Deli and Serenity Spa by Westgate. For more information about Westgate Resorts, visit www.westgateresorts.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Jessica Murray

The Zimmerman Agency

[email protected]

(850) 668-2222

SOURCE Westgate Resorts

Related Links

http://www.westgateresorts.com


2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning --

4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS.

We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover.

We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come.
India on Monday lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over a move to conduct elections in Gilgit Baltistan, with New Delhi saying the region is an integral part of the country that had been illegally and forcibly occupied by Islamabad.

A senior Pakistani diplomat was served a demarche, or formal diplomatic representation over telephone, to lodge Indias strong protest against the Pakistani Supreme Courts recent order allowing the setting up of a caretaker administration in Gilgit-Baltistan to hold fresh elections, people familiar with developments said.

It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession, the external affairs ministry said in a statement.

The Government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it, it said.

India claims the whole of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the Gilgit-Baltistan region, which was given near-provincial status by the Pakistan government in 2009.

On April 30, Pakistans Supreme Court allowed the government to amend the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order 2018 to set up a caretaker administration in the region to conduct fresh elections. The order was issued in response to a petition filed by the Imran Khan government.

The term of the current government in Gilgit-Baltistan is set to end on June 24 and elections have to be held within 60 days.

However, the external affairs ministry said India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan-occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.

It was further conveyed that such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh by Pakistan nor the grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan-occupied territories for the past seven decades, the statement said.

The Indian governments position on Gilgit Baltistan is reflected in the resolution passed by Parliament in 1994 by consensus, the statement added.

The resolution described Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of India and demanded Pakistan must vacate areas of the state occupied through aggression.

The people cited above, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the demarche was read out over telephone in view of the Covid-19 lockdown. In normal circumstances, a diplomat can be summoned to the external affairs ministry to receive the demarche.

Several other recent demarches were read out to Pakistani diplomats over telephone, the people said.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
McCann Tech Teachers Adapt Instruction to Shop-less Environment



The vocational school is doing what is possible for remote learning but it's hard to replace hands-on learning students get in many of the shops, such as carpentry. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  McCann Technical School teacher Perry Burdick misses school the way it used to be.

He misses his students. He misses his lab. He even misses the occasional fire.

"We have a whole wall of computers dedicated to the kids," the information technology teacher said recently. "They take them apart, put them together. To re-emphasize it, they will go into TestOut and attempt to replicate it doing simulators."

Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of school buildings throughout the commonwealth, the simulators are all the students have.

"It gives you two-dimensional pictures of three-dimensional objects, and [normally] you have to make the connection to what you just did," Burdick said. "The part that's missing in the simulator is the actual interaction with the physical computer.

"In the simulated lab, it's impossible to put a connector in backwards. You're going to miss that magical smoking experience."

In other words, you miss out on the experience of really messing up. And even when you do place the wrong part or hit the wrong switch on a simulator, the worst you'll get is a gentle beep from your real life device. You do not get the kind of trial and error experience that is the best way to drive home a lesson.

"In my trade, we call it letting the magic smoke out," Burdick said. "Once you let the magic smoke out, you can never put it back in. And that's something the kids never forget. It's an educational experience. I try not to consider it a failure. It's an educational experience.

"And it's not something you can do remotely."

When the commonwealth's schools shifted to a remote learning model in April, it forced teachers throughout Massachusetts to rethink how they delivered lessons to their students. The challenge is particularly acute for technical schools, where hands-on instruction is fundamental and cannot be replicated in students' homes.

"We're doing the best we can," McCann Tech Principal Justin Kratz said. "Our instructors certainly are being creative and thoughtful in their activities.

"The long and the short of it is that what our shops consist of is not really possible to replicate without being hands-on. If you're not in the carpentry shop, if you're not fixing lawnmowers and working on cars  It's really frustrating for everybody. But we're doing the best we can with it."

Some programs, like computer-aided design, seem like they would naturally lend themselves to online instruction.

But even leaving aside the disparity in students' access to technology or quality broadband at home  issues that teachers from kindergarten through college are confronting  McCann Tech's CAD classes do not easily translate to remote learning.

"Your average home computer can't run the software our CAD computers run on," Kratz said. "To a certain extent, it can be on the cloud, but when you're talking about these animation softwares  even if you can afford a site license  and some of these software suites we have are insanely expensive  your home computer doesn't have the memory or RAM to run it.

"To run a 3-D architectural drafting program is not something you can do from your average home computer. There are versions that are sort of 'light' versions that our CAD instructors are trying to use to the fullest extent they can. But it doesn't replicate what we can do in the shop with our computers and our software."

Kratz said the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators has worked to support teachers by helping them share best practices and tips. The goal, statewide, he said, has been to keep students' minds sharp and not necessarily forge ahead with new content during the closure.

The good news, if there is any, is that a lot of McCann Tech's seniors were out of the shop and into their cooperative work programs when the pandemic forced the school to close its doors. Therefore, Kratz is confident that members of the class of 2020 already met their competency requirements in their respective trades.

McCann Tech is fortunate in that its program is a little less expansive than some in bigger schools in eastern Massachusetts, Kratz said. Freshmen tech school students begin with an "exploratory" program designed to expose students to all of a school's majors.

At McCann, there are nine technical programs offered in the high school. Other schools in the commonwealth can offer 15 or 20. At the Hodges Cross Road school, the exploratory ends halfway through freshman year, allowing students to get into the shop that much sooner; at some schools, the exploratory can even go into sophomore year, Kratz said.

"We get them in the shop a lot earlier and have them a lot longer," he said. "When a kid graduates McCann Tech, they really take a deep dive into competencies in their shop and typically go above and beyond what the competencies are for their program in the state."

Advanced manufacturing teacher Scott Botto said that even for underclassmen, the lost months of lab work  while unfortunate  will not leave students behind the eight ball come September.

"The only saving grace on the whole thing is that it happened kind of in the middle of the third quarter," Botto said. "We got a lot of stuff done the first three quarters. We'll definitely need to go back [in the fall] and put some stuff into action to get the memory going on what they're doing. But, to be honest, we're going to be OK. We push hard during the year. There's no down time for the kids.

"They've got a lot of the curriculum by the third quarter that we wanted them to have. Now, I'm filling in by rehashing a lot of the stuff.  I honestly think we'll look really good when we come back."

Still, the experience is not the same, Botto said.

Instead of writing code to operate a machine and then seeing those commands put into action, students now are doing the work of writing the code without the reward of seeing the finished product.

"They still do all the same work," Botto said. "It's just that they can't make the product, and they can't prove out their theories because they don't have the machine in front of them. With that said, we do have simulations we use where kids can program the simulator and make it work."

There are no simulators for the real world skill of framing a house.

"At first, I found it very challenging because my job is to teach the kids with hands-on teaching, hands-on learning," carpentry teacher Pat Ryan said. "Now, that has been taken away from me.  It's very difficult to have these kids work on skills-based items at home without having the tools, without having access to hand-on stuff itself.

"The program is designed for building model houses. You can't get that from online learning."

But you can reinforce the concepts that have been learned in the lab, both in video conferences and by watching videos. Ryan said he has spent a lot of time looking at carpentry videos online to screen them before recommending them to the class.

"They're going to find a gazillion videos online, and what's good, what's not good?" he said. "I'm not saying I'm always right, because there are many ways to do things.  It's a lot of work on my end. I'm going weeks ahead to find videos that I think are good enough' to get the point across that I want to get across."

Some of his students are going a step ahead themselves, applying their skills to take on projects at home like building Adirondack chairs or putting up window trim. Ryan offers what guidance he can by looking at photos of the students' work, but he much rather would be able to look over their shoulders to watch their progress.

Either way, that kind of hands-on work is optional during remote learning. It would not surprise Botto to hear about kids going above and beyond.

"I've actually had very good participation with my kids," he said of the switch to distance learning. "I have good classes. The kids seem to want to get the work done. They come to a tech school for a reason. It's maybe different than a history or English or math situation.

"But that's McCann. That's who we are. I'm pretty fortunate, and I know that."
Code for America has appointed as its next chief executive officer, Amanda Renteria , a veteran of U.S. government and politics who has two decades of varied experience in the public service arena.Renteria will take over leadership of the nonpartisan and nonprofit national civic tech group immediately, Code for America (CfA) announced Friday. Board Chair John Lilly issued a statement praising Renteria and describing her as a trailblazer, who has opened doors for women, the Latinx community and people of color. Over the last 25 years, shes risen to the highest levels of government and politics. She will be a game-changer for Code for America.Renteria, a native of Californias Central Valley region, has a long resume that includes having been chief of operations for the California Department of Justice, an economic policy adviser for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and the first Latina chief of staff in the U.S. Senate while working for Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan. Renteria has local government experience too, having worked early in her career as a budget analyst for the city of San Jose. Perhaps most prominently, in 2016 Renteria was the national political director for Hillary Clintons presidential campaign.Renteria, who waged an unsuccessful campaign for governor of California in 2018, has also served as chairwoman and interim president of Emerge America, a nonprofit group that works to recruit, train and support Democratic women running for elected office.Renteria succeeds CfA leader Jennifer Pahlka, the groups founder and executive director, who stepped down Jan. 31 . Pahlka, who is still a member of CfAs board and a vocal proponent of the group and the American civic tech community, had held her position since CfAs inception in 2009. Pahlka first announced her intention to step away in May 2019 , describing the decision as one in the lineage of growing tech companies in which founders step aside to bring in leadership that can take increasingly complex organizations to new levels. For the past three months, Zeryn Sarpangal and Lou Moore have served as interim co-CEOs of the organization.In a recent phone conversation with,* Renteria shared her views on the importance of CfA  with an emphasis on what can be learned from the current COVID-19 crisis  as well as her vision for the groups future.Renteria described CfAs accomplishments over the past decade as incredibly remarkable, noting that the group had done meaningful work aimed at building technology into government in ways that both reached and benefited people, particularly members of vulnerable communities.In many ways, a crisis such as the COVID-19 outbreak emphasizes the importance of digital service delivery for government, Renteria said, with everyone forced to shelter at home and unable to visit government buildings in person. During this time, CfA has seen demand increase for its GetCalFresh food benefits assistance work. It has also seen its staffers and members of volunteer brigades in high demand at the community level working on projects including a PPE website for San Jose.She also praised the Code for America Brigade Network as vital to the future of the work.The Brigade Network is one of the things that makes Code for America so special, Renteria said. Theyre spread out across the country; theyre the eyes and ears of whats happening on the ground in our neighborhoods; and, they bring the energy to this movement.As for her vision for the future , Renteria spoke of continuing to focus on human-centered design in CfAs tech work that puts the needs of end users at the center of all they create. She said her background as a daughter of former farmworkers in the small town of Woodlake has given her a special understanding of how important it is to include all groups in government innovations.Techwire
~ No positive case in the past five days.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- As CPS cleaned up its data over the weekend they realized that they did not report at least one COVID-19 related case. The person passed around April 24th announced Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs said that the number of deceased now stands at 14. However, over the past five days, there have not been any positive cases reported on St. Maarten. Jacobs said the numbers are going down as a number of persons tested negative with 76 positive cases, 19 of which are active.

On Wednesday KLM will be arriving on St. Martin en route to Curacao, the flight is intended for repatriation of Dutch nationals desirous of returning to the Netherlands. Persons wishing to board the flight do not need a waiver as Wednesday is a day persons could move around and the travelers ticket is sufficient proof for the police.

The government is working on a de-escalation plan that will be made public when it is completed. Jacobs said businesses that will be allowed to reopen will have to adhere to strict measures.

In her national address, Jacobs urged residents to continue to upholding the guidelines and measures in place to flatten the curve on COVID-19. She assured the nation that St. Maarten will bounce back despite the global pandemic. She said she has faith and knows that St. Maarten has something that everyone wants and is certain when ports open globally people will return to the island and at that time the island will be ready to host its guests.

Prime Minister & Chair of the EOC Silveria Jacobs National Address on COVID-19 Developments May 4, 2020

People of St. Maarten here and abroad, I hereby address you as Prime Minister and Chair of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), in an update for today, Monday, May 4, 2020, as part of the process to keep the community of St. Maarten informed about the latest developments and the Governments COVID-19 containment, mitigation and response measures.

COVID-19 Cases

Today, May 4th, I am happy to announce that there have been no new positive cases of COVID-19 over the past 5 days. However, Id still like to update you on our latest available data. Based on the latest available data, the counts for May 4, as of 4:30 PM are as follows:

Self-Quarantine: 76

Self-Isolation: 46

Number Hospitalized: 5

Number Tested: 359

Number Positive: 76

Male: 54

Female: 22

Number Negative: 277

Number Pending: 5

Inconclusive: 1

Deceased: 14

Recovered: 44

Active Case: 18

It has been noted by Collective Prevention Service (CPS), that while doing a clean-up of their data and cross-checking with the St. Maarten Medical Centre (SMMC), that they missed the notification of 1 death that occurred around April 24th, 2020. As such, the death rate as of that date is at 14. There have been no new deaths as of today. I apologize to the general public for not giving that information as the clean-up happened over the past weekend and therefore, could only be divulged today.

There is quite a downward trend as you can see in the active cases. I would like to also explain that isolation cases are persons who have symptoms. CPS has noted that many persons have come out of quarantine and isolation as a result of passing their terms or not having symptoms any longer. Persons with suspected COVID-19 that have been tested or will be tested by CPS also fall within this isolation group and persons with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 that are still being actively monitored.

There are currently five COVID-19 confirmed patients admitted to SMMC. One is in the ICU tent and four are in the Mobile Medical Pavilion (MMP) of which two will be discharged soon. This means that there are no COVID-19 patients currently at SMMC. Over the past seven days, there have been no new COVID-19 admissions to SMMC.

On Wednesday 6, May 2020, KLM Dutch Royal Airlines will be making a repatriation flight to Curacao with a stop in St. Maarten. This is to allow Dutch Nationals to return to the Netherlands. Persons traveling to the Princess Juliana International Airport wont need waivers to do so. Wednesday is a regular day for persons to travel for essential services, therefore, proof of your ticket will be enough in the event you are stopped from going from one zone to the other on your way to the airport. Persons who are passengers traveling to the airport are allowed to do so with a driver, however, in this case, more than two passengers will be allowed in the car as long as they have proof of their ticket(s) to take this flight and any other repatriation flight.

Today, May 4th, a meeting was held with the disaster management team including National Disaster Coordinator Mr. Clive Richardson, Mr. Paul Martens, Mr. Silvanico Pauletta, and Ms. Iesha Harrigan together with myself and the legal advisors to reflect on the decisions made, actions taken, planning and strategies moving forward with the EOC since its activation on March 4th, 2020. This is exactly two months ago.

ESF 4, 5, 6, and 10 coordinators have also met to coordinate and develop the guidelines for de-escalation of the re-opening of St. Maarten in a phased manner. These guidelines will give clarity to the general public on the approach of the measures to be taken. We look forward to presenting these to the public once completed. The measures already in place will continue during the de-escalation period. Any new businesses looking to open in the coming period would have to live up to very strict measures and must have an action plan in place to ensure the safety of their employees as well as those persons visiting the location.

The task force comprising of ESF 4, 5, 6, and 10 will be the ones to grant the go-ahead for these businesses to open once I have made that National Decree. The decree will come into play once this National Decree that we are now under expires. This expiration will take place on Sunday, May 10th, 2020. In that decree, I expect that I would be able to state exactly how we will be moving forward with the de-escalation measures as time goes by.

I would like to give the general public a clear overview of the plan of action of government for the next four weeks. This way you will be able to prepare, plan, and also adjust the way we must behave in this new normal. I am very happy that the State of Emergency has had its desired effect. We have ensured that our health sector has never been overrun to the point where we could not handle the number of COVID-19 positive cases that needed medical attention. We were under duress for quite some time when we were trying to build up our capacity. However, I must say, thanks to good cooperation within the kingdom, we have been able to build up our capacity and remain ready to deal with anything should it reoccur.

I would like to take this time to thank each and every one of our front-liners who go out every day while some persons can stay at home and work, or while some of us can stay with family and friends and be safe. You are going out on a daily basis, sometimes on many long-hour shifts and taking care of the people of St. Maarten. You are the real heroes!

The government of St. Maarten and the people of St. Maarten are appreciative of the great work that you continue to do. It has taken a lot of discipline for us to get here. It has taken a lot of adjustments. It has taken a lot of pain. It has taken some depression and stress, but as Ive said before in many of my broadcasts, St. Maarten is special! We have something that the rest of the world wants, and thats why they will continue to flock to our shores. Many who come here do not leave because there is something special about this blessed island.

We must give thanks on a daily basis that we have seen some really rough days. In 2017 no one thought we would ever come back from the hurricanes. They thought St. Maarten was dead, but low and behold, after three months of no tourism, we were able to come back strong; St. Maarten Strong! Now, with this new COVID-19 reality, I expect, I know, and I have faith that St. Maarten will come back regardless of whats going on around the world. Once travel bans are lifted around the world, St. Maarten will be the place that most will flock to and we will be ready to deal with that when it happens. As such, our de-escalation plans also include how residents will be able to return to the island and those announcements will also be made.

I thank all of you out there who are waiting to come home. I know its a tough time and we are making the plans together with all the entities to make that possible in the safest possible manner for you, your families, and also for the general public of St. Maarten. That has always been my number one priority. The safety and security of St. Maartens people.

People of St. Maarten, we see the end of the tunnel. It is up to us, the people, to determine how we will get out of this. I see the light and you see the light, but we must work together; businesses, organizations, community leaders, the people individually of St. Maarten, all our front-liners, volunteers and all working as a team for St. Maarten. With that being said, we must continue to adhere to the guidelines, rules, and regulations to keep our community safe. Let us continue to be patient, faithful, and compliant. I am proud of how complaint you have been. Our behavior as one people will determine our success. Our positive mindset will determine our success. God bless you St. Maarten. Never lose hope! We are a blessed country!
The German government is supporting Ghanas COVID-19 response with up to 13.4 million. The amount will cover the funding of a COVID-19 Unit at the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Takoradi.

The German Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Christoph Retzlaff, told the Daily Graphic in Accra that an eight-bed facility had already been established and furnished with medical equipment as a Severe Infectious Disease Unit.



With the support of the Western Region Coordinating Council and the Regional Health Directorate, he said the facility had currently been refurbished to increase the ward capacity to 25 beds, including an intensive care unit.



In addition, the ambassador said, ventilators would be procured, while training on the installation and use of the equipment would be provided to personnel.



The unit, he noted, was expected to serve as a resource centre for medical training to health officials in Ghana and within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sub-region.



Mr Retzlaff said the measure is implemented by GIZ and funded with 300,000 by the German government (German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development  BMZ).



Mobile laboratories



The ambassador said the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) and the GIZ Governance Programme, which is funded by the German government under the support amount, had joined hands to increase Ghanas capacity to test for COVID-19 infections even in remote areas with limited access to laboratory capacities.



GRA is temporarily repurposing its two mobile laboratory vans which are usually deployed by the Customs Division to test and classify incoming goods at Ghanas borders.



The ambassador said the KCCR will provide its experts and equipment, while GIZ procures additional equipment and materials with an amount of up to 100,000.



The vans will be sent to remote (potential) hotspot areas of the outbreak to conduct COVID-19 tests on-site to minimise the time span between collecting samples and receiving results, to reduce the risk of further infections.



Noguchi Institute



Mr Retzlaff said the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research of the University of Ghana would also be supported to increase its testing capacity through the provision of COVID-19 test kits and also support the Ghana Police Service with personal protective equipment (PPE) through the GIZ-implemented Police Programme.



He disclosed that the German government support was also going to the District Assembly Common Fund Responsive Factor Grant (DACF-RFG) as a key Development Partner, with 10.5 million towards the implementation of immediate response measures at the district level throughout the country.



Mobile app



As part of the measures, the ambassador said, the German government, through its Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the GIZ, was also supporting a mobile app through which citizens could contact medical experts without the risk of becoming infected or spreading the infection, with 200,000.



The app, which is meant to reach at least 500,000 citizens, provides a first contact platform to pre-screen suspected COVID-19 cases, he added.



It will be used as a safe means of contact between patients in home quarantine and medical experts for case monitoring and it will be applied to follow up the health status of recovering patients, he explained.



He said data collected by the app may later on be used for scientific follow-up on the pandemic.

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
A protester holds a sign while joining others during a rally for media freedom outside the Philippine Senate in Manila, Feb. 24, 2020.

The largest broadcaster in the Philippines remained on the air Monday after its license expired during the day, while politicians and officials debated whether it should be allowed to operate with a temporary permit.

The franchise for ABS-CBN officially lapsed after Congress, the branch of government with the authority to grant it a new one, delayed action for more than three years on an application to renew the networks license.

Late Sunday, Solicitor General Jose Calida warned that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) had no legal basis to grant the network provisional authority (PA) to stay on-air for the time being, as the agency had indicated it would do.

The NTC cannot issue a PA when the broadcast company has no valid and existing legislative franchise, Calida said in a statement, referring to the ABS-CBN, which has consistently questioned President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs that has left thousands dead since 2016.

The Constitution requires a franchise from congress before a broadcast firm can operate, and without one, it can no longer continue its operations as a public utility, Calida said.

ABS-CBN did not issue any statements about the expiry of its license and officials with the network declined to comment when contacted by BenarNews on Monday.

In March, the House of Representatives adjourned amid a coronavirus lockdown without taking up some bills that were pending before Congress on the renewal of the networks license, according to Al Jazeera. As a quick solution, the justice department advised the telecoms commission to grant ABS-CBN a temporary permit, Al Jazeera reported on Monday.

After Dutertes government ordered the COVID-19 lockdown in mid-March, the NTC also said that all permits to operate and maintain broadcast, which are expiring within the quarantine period, would be automatically renewed, and the permits would be valid for 60 days from the end of the lockdown, the Al Jazeera report said.

The ABS-CBN franchise that expired Monday was issued in 1995. In November 2016, Congresswoman Micaela Violago filed an application for a fresh 25-year-franchise for the network, according to an ABS-CBN timeline.

On Feb. 10, Calida petitioned the Supreme Court to rule against issuing the new franchise for ABS-CBN and its subsidiary, ABS-CBN Convergence. He accused the network of abusing the terms of its original license by operating a pay-per-view channel illegally, among other things.

A week later and with only 12 days left in the session, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon filed a resolution seeking to extend the franchise until the end of 2022, according to the timeline.

On Monday, the chairman of the House committee on legislative franchises, Rep. Franz Alvarez, said there was no reason for the network to stop airing after its license had expired and while it was still waiting for Congress to act on its application for the renewal.

[T]he Committee enjoined the National Telecommunications Commission to allow ABS-CBN to operate until such time that the House of Representatives makes a decision on its application, the congressman said in a statement, according to the Philippine Inquirer.

Meanwhile, Sen. Risa Hontiveros said she did not see any reason why the NTC could not grant a temporary license.

Even more questionable is why the governments chief counsel insists on shutting down a broadcast network in the middle of a health emergency, depriving the public of a critical means to receive timely and accurate information, she said, referring to the coronavirus pandemic.

Duterte spokesman Harry Roque said the NTC could decide on its own.

This is a matter that must be dealt with by the NTC as a quasi-judicial body and we should wait for the reply of the National Telecommunications Commission, he told reporters on Monday, when asked to comment on Calidas statement. The president will follow whatever the decision is of the National Telecommunications Commission.
Launch of value-added sun care products, penetration of organic products, and growing incidence of chronic disease such as skin cancer propel the growth of the market. Based on price point, the mass after-sun segment contributed the largest market share in 2018. Based on form, the gel segment accounted for the major market share. The region across, North America held lions share in 2018.

Portland, OR, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the report, the global after sun care products market garnered $2.1 billion in 2018, and is expected to reach $2.9 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 3.7% from 2019 to 2026. The report provides comprehensive analyses of the top investment pockets, key drivers & opportunities, major market segments, and competitive landscape.

Introduction of value-added sun care products,penetration of organic products, and growing incidence of chronic disease such as skin cancerpropel the growth of the market. However,rise of counterfeit cosmetics and premium cost of products impede the market growth. On the other hand, revenue opportunities in establishing direct distribution andincrease in demand for luxury skin care products are expected to offer lucrative opportunities to the market.

Download Sample Copy Of Report@ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/6140

The global after sun care products market is segmented on the basis of price point, form, distribution channel, and region. Based on price point, the market is segmented into mass after-sun and premium after-sun. The mass after-sun segment contributed nearly three-fifths of the total revenue share in 2018, and is expected to dominate throughout the forecast period. On the other hand, the premium after sun segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 4.1% from 2019 to 2026.

Based on form, the after sun care products market segments include cream, gel, lotion, essential oil, and others. The gel segment contributed to more than one-fourth of the total market share in 2018. This segment is expected to lead in terms of revenue by 2026. However, the essential oils segmentwould grow at the highest CAGR of 4.3% from 2019 to 2026.

Story continues

Send Me Enquire@https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/6140

Based on geography, the market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and LAMEA. The region across, North America contributed to the highest share in 2018, accounting for nearly one-third of the total revenue. However, Asia-Pacific would register the highest CAGR of 4.8% from 2019 to 2026.

Key market players analyzed in the research include LOreal SAS, Lancaster Group, Unilver Plc, Estee Lauder Companies, Johnson and Johnson, Clarins Group, Coty Inc., Beiersdorf AG, Shiseido, and Bioderma Laboratories.

Avenue Basic Plan | Library Access | 1 Year Subscription |



Sign up for Avenue subscription to access more than 12,000+ company profiles and 2,000+ niche industry market research reports at $699 per month, per seat. For a year, the client needs to purchase minimum 2 seat plan.

Avenue Library Subscription | Request for 14 days free trial of before buying: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/avenue/trial/starter

Get more information: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/library-access

About Us:

Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.

We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.

Contact:

David Correa

5933 NE Win Sivers Drive

#205, Portland, OR 97220

United States

Toll Free (USA/Canada): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-446-1141

International: +1-503-894-6022

UK: +44-845-528-1300

Hong Kong: +852-301-84916

India (Pune): +91-20-66346060

Fax: +1-855-550-5975

help@alliedmarketresearch.com

Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com

Follow Us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allied-market-research/
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 08:17:36|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The United States has confirmed over 1 million COVID-19 cases in just some 100 days after it reported the first case on Jan. 21, making itself the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic worldwide.

Facing criticism at home, some U.S. politicians have been irresponsibly attacking a certain country and the World Health Organization (WHO), hampering global efforts against the pandemic.

Their actions have drawn questions from around the world, and Washington should provide clear answers.

WHERE DID THE VIRUS IN U.S. ORIGINATE?

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has restored the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, a military center for biological research in Maryland State, to full operation, local media reported in late March.

The institution was ordered by the CDC to halt research involving biological select agents or toxins last summer. An online petition was later submitted on the White House petition site demanding the U.S. government clarify the shutdown of the institution.

The public is waiting for Washington to provide a clear explanation to the sudden halt and resumption of the research.

According to a report by the CDC in late February, there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses in the country in the 2019-2020 flu season.

On March 11, CDC Director Robert Redfield told a hearing on Capitol Hill that some COVID-19 deaths have been diagnosed as flu-related in the United States.

Washington needs to clarify the number of COVID-19 cases previously diagnosed as the flu, and make public the samples and genetic sequence of the influenza virus in the country.

DID U.S. FAIL TO NOTICE VIRUS TRANSMISSION AT AN EARLY STAGE?

In late April, health authorities of Santa Clara County in California State confirmed that two patients had died of COVID-19 at least three weeks before the first known U.S. death from the virus on Feb. 29.

Jeffrey V. Smith, Santa Clara county executive, told Xinhua that the patients "apparently contracted the illness from community spread. This suggests that the virus was circulating in the Bay Area in January at least, probably earlier."

Neeraj Sood, a professor at the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that the virus has been in the community for a long time.

"When you start seeing the first death, actually, the number of cases in the population is probably pretty high already," Sood said.

Washington needs to answer if it failed to notice community spread of the virus.

WAS THE U.S. SLOW IN EARLY RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC?

According to a report by The Washington Post on April 4, the CDC "learned of a cluster of cases in China on Dec. 31," and the U.S. side received a call from the Chinese side on Jan. 3 warning against the disease.

On Jan. 8, heads of Chinese and U.S. CDCs talked over phone to discuss technological exchanges and cooperation, a detailed timeline of China's response to COVID-19 showed.

On Feb. 16, the China-WHO joint expert team started a nine-day field visit in China. The team consists of 25 experts, including Cliff Lane, a researcher with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The U.S. government, however, repeatedly downplayed the severity of the epidemic to the public at that time. U.S. media reported that the U.S. administration had squandered more than two months' time since it received initial notification on the virus.

Washington needs to explain why it took so long to take action to combat the virus.

DID U.S. RESPONSE LEAD TO WIDER SPREAD WORLDWIDE?

The Washington Post said that the U.S. National Security Council had pushed for a travel ban restricting travelers from Italy and other countries in the European Union, but was met with resistance from some officials from the administration.

When the ban was finally issued over a month later, "hundreds of thousands of people crossed the Atlantic during that interval," it said.

A report published on April 11 in The New York Times also revealed that the U.S. government's plan to establish a surveillance system in some cities to measure the spread of the virus was delayed for weeks, leaving officials "with almost no insight into how rapidly the virus was spreading."

In March, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the United States has been the country of origin for most of COVID-19 cases in his country.

Washington must respond to the concern that the belated and chaotic U.S. response has actually accelerated the spread of the virus to more places around the world.

WHAT IS THE INTENTION BEHIND BUCK-PASSING?

The U.S. government has criticized a so-called lack of transparency from China regarding the information on COVID-19. However, the facts speak otherwise.

The CDC said on its website that Chinese health officials reported cases of acute respiratory illness in persons associated with a seafood and animal market in the city of Wuhan on Dec. 31.

Since Jan. 3, China began to inform the United States of the outbreak and response measures on a regular basis, the timeline of China's response to COVID-19 showed.

On Jan. 24, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that China "has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus," and that "the United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency."

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also told a coronavirus briefing in late January that China has been "quite transparent" with the world on the virus.

However, some U.S. politicians have stigmatized China with racist remarks, fabricated lies on China's role in the global fight against the virus, and disrupted global solidarity and cooperation in combatting the disease.

The world needs a clear explanation from Washington on why it chose to pass the buck. Enditem
New Jersey became one of the last states in the country Monday to announce school closures for the remaining of the academic year, despite the state being one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. Phil Murphy said he waited to make the decision to close schools for the rest of the academic school year until after his office and a team of educational and health experts determined there was too much uncertainty about how to protect students, teachers and other education employees if schools were to re-open this year.

He said they waited until Monday to make a final decision because the team making the final call wanted to use each passing week to gather more information.

We reach this conclusion based on the guidance from our public health experts and with a single goal in mind, the safety and well-being of our children and our educators, Murphy said Monday during his daily briefing on the pandemic.

The announcement came as 45 other states had already ordered or recommended schools to close for the remainder of the school year, according to a tracker by Education Week, including neighboring states who have been affected by the virus. New York officials announced on May 1 they would extending their closures through the entirety of the year, while Pennsylvania officials made that decision on April 9.

Murphy had held out hope of returning students to school throughout the health crisis, but always specified that he would not re-open the schools unless health officials determined it was safe to do so.

Because it is an elusive enemy that we are fighting, someone you cant lay your eyes on, it makes it even more challenging, Murphy said Monday.

After initially ordering schools to be closed March 18 for at least two weeks, he later extended that closure to April 17. His third extension was until May 15, which gave the state at least one more shot to reassess the situation, Murphy said last month. He noted Monday that he made the decision 11 days before he originally planned too.

I think that most parents and educators expected this decision and were already preparing for the likelihood of remote schooling for the remainder of the academic year, said Scott Baker, a spokesman for New Jersey Education Association. We are glad that the governor took the time to listen to scientists and medical professionals and to be guided by the facts.

Murphy said he felt deep sympathy for the high school seniors who have had their graduating year dismantled by the virus, but he said most of the pressure his office received was from parents and educators pleading with him to close schools for the rest of the year.

We did want to give this every shot we could  in particular for the seniors," Murphy said Monday. "(Re-opening) feels like a bridge too far.

Marie Blistan, the president of NJEA, said in a statement that the statewide closure is an educational loss for students, but commended Murphy on ultimately making the right decision.

Part of our states long-term recovery from this pandemic must include a commitment to help our students, and particularly our most vulnerable students, recover what has been lost by closing school buildings, she said.

As they have been throughout the coronavirus pandemic, school districts will once again have to revise their remote learning plans for the 1.4 million public school students to accommodate the indefinite closure, Department of Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet said Monday.

The discretion of how to proceed with remote learning will be up to the individual school districts, Repollet said, but they will receive additional resources through federal funding and the formation of a state committee put together by the Department of Education.

We are in totally uncharted waters," Repollet said.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Joe Atmonavage may be reached at jatmonavage@njadvancemedia.com.
Iran dismissed as illegitimate efforts by the United States to extend the U.N. Security Council arms embargo on Tehran, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

Iran is not seeking to exit the 2015 nuclear deal with six powers ... Americas move is illegitimate and our reaction will be proportionate, Abbas Mousavi said in a televised weekly news conference.

The United States said on Thursday it was hopeful the U.N. Security Council would extend the arms embargo on Iran before it expires in October.

President Donald Trumps administration has been taking a harder line with the United Nations over its desire to extend and strengthen the embargo on Iran.

Washington has threatened to trigger a return of all U.N. sanctions on Iran as leverage to get backing from the 15-member Security Council on extending the U.N. arms embargo on Tehran.

The United States is not a member of the nuclear deal anymore ... Irans reaction to Americas illegal measures will be firm, Mousavi said.

Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran that have crippled its economy.

Under the deal, Iran agreed to halt its sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.

Iran, which denies its nuclear program is aimed at building a bomb, has gradually rolled back its commitments under the accord since the United States quit. It argues that Washingtons actions justify such a course.
So the Green Party is about to try another "deal with the devil" - or, more accurately, "two devils" this time. Back in June 2007, Green Party stalwart Ciaran Cuffe gave that diabolical description of the party's deal to share government with Fianna Fail.

Now you can add the other potential diabolic beast to the mix in the shape of Fine Gael. Yet this decision to open coalition talks at long last, just days short of a full three months after the General Election, is a welcome relief - not least people who know we need a stable government to deal with what is, hopefully, soon to be the coronavirus aftermath.

Last time, in June 2007, Green Party- Fianna Fail coalition talks opened 10 days after election day. After six days of negotiations, the Green team of John Gormley, Dan Boyle and party general secretary Donall Geoghegan abandoned the talks, believing they were not being taken seriously.

But talks resumed with only three days to go to the resumption of the new Dail term. There was also a second breakdown when Boyle and Fianna Fail negotiator Noel Dempsey fell out over the final draft. Happily, oil was poured on those troubled waters.

Soon, the Fianna Fail parliamentary party was rubber-stamping the Fianna Fail-Green Party programme for government. On June 13, 2007, the Green Party members gathered at the Mansion House in Dublin.

It was a case of "realos versus fundis" as former Green Party MEP Patricia McKenna championed a No vote on coalition on behalf of the fundamentalists. The soon-to-be party leader, John Gormley, put the case for realism in joining coalition. A two-thirds majority was needed for coalition approval - a high-bar rule which will apply to whatever emerges from these latest joust with the two devils.

Eight out of 10 Green Party members present backed the "realos" and 43 months of coalition participation was about to begin. The following day, Fianna Fail leader Bertie Ahern was elected Taoiseach for a historic third consecutive term. He appointed two Green Party TDs to his cabinet with Gormley becoming Environment Minister and Eamon Ryan becoming Communications and Energy Minister.

This is the point where this writer is again honour-bound to say he worked as press adviser for the Green Party in government - but never before or since was a party activist or supporter. I did, however, grow to respect and like pretty well all those I dealt with in that party.

There were some cultural clashes from the start to the end. In autumn 2007, Gormley conversationally told the now Fianna Fail leader, Micheal Martin, he had to go to Bali for a climate change summit. "You're going to ballet?" Martin asked Gormley in some astonishment.

Gormley, whose love of rugby was honed in a childhood spent in Limerick city, reflected on a certain cultural gap.

In late 2009, as the two parties battered out a revised government programme, Dempsey remarked the Greens were all about "hares, stags and badgers". Green Party deputy leader Mary White won the alliteration contest when she countered that Fianna Fail were all about "bankers, builders and bailouts".

But the reality is that the two groups "pulled and dragged along" in the way of most coalitions - and then they fell apart. The parting came at the end of January 2011, weeks after the dreaded Troika of the EU-ECB-IMF landed in November 2010.

It is easy to forget the extent of the economic mayhem that government faced from summer 2008. It was summed up pretty eloquently by Gormley's speech in the Dail in November 2010.

He addressed Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore, soon to be Taoiseach and Tanaiste, but up to then always smugly right about all that was wrong. The Green Party leader correctly foretold that before long the pair would find themselves "in the asylum of government", their policy choices almost non-existent, getting no sleep at night and suffering non-stop criticism by day.

It only took a matter of weeks after the February 2011 General Election for all that to come to pass. By then the Green Party had been almost wiped out.

The experience has been repeatedly parsed - and will again be as these "diabolic negotiations" begin.

It is interesting to note that few of the current 12 TDs and 49 councillors were activists who witnessed the events of 2007-2011 close-up.

Generals, we are told, have the bad habit of fighting the new war with the mindset of the last one. This time the Green Party activists - though absent from the last war - risk adopting that mindset.

But coronavirus has changed many ground rules. Up to now the experience has been that junior coalition partners are often unduly punished at the next general election. The lesson from that is to shun coalition and try to build in opposition.

But next time voters may punish the parties who shun government when it is badly needed. University College Cork political scientist Theresa Reidy has pointed out in this newspaper that post-election research in March showed a Fianna Fail-Fine Gael-Green Party coalition was the preferred option for voters.

One thing has not changed from last time round: the central issue of trust. Can the Green Party trust Fianna Fail and Fine Gael?

The answer is that government cannot work without trust. But trust is earned on all sides - and it is always tempered by the maxim "trust but verify".




By Jung Min-ho







A woman convicted 56 years ago for biting off a man's tongue as she fought against his "attempt to rape" will request a retrial this week.







According to Busan Women's Hot Line, a nonprofit women's rights group, Monday, Choi Mal-ja, 74, and her lawyers will file an application for retrial with Busan District Court Wednesday. She said she acted in self-defense and Korea's justice system at the time failed to recognize it.







On May 4 in 1964, Choi, then 18, was arrested after injuring a man, 21, surnamed Roh, who was allegedly trying to rape her on a street. The next year, she was given a suspended prison sentence. She was devastated.







During an investigation, she maintained her innocence and said she clearly acted in self-defense against the man, who was forcing his tongue in her mouth. But prosecutors rejected her claim, and charged him with blackmail among other offenses, but not rape.







Speaking to the Hankyoreh, a local daily, Choi said she was detained for six months before the ruling and her father even paid Roh settlement money for a lighter sentence.







She said it was a painful trial, in which she was forced to answer insensitive questions such as "Did you have feelings for him?" and "Would you consider marrying him?"







The #MeToo campaign, a global movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault of women, last year prompted her, albeit late, to seek justice, she added.







Her lawyers will hold a press conference in front of Busan District Court Wednesday.


Gov. Tom Wolf urged voters to cast their ballots by mail next month as the state prepares for a primary election in the coronavirus pandemic.

In a news conference Monday, Wolf and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar provided an update on the June 2 primary election. They also discussed the challenges of the primary and preparations for those who want to cast ballots in person.

Nearly 1 million voters have requested mail-in ballots, Wolf said.

The governor touted the virtues of a mail-in ballot for those leery of going to the polls. He said hed apply for a mail-in ballot today.

The primary, initially slated for April 28, was postponed to June 2 due to the coronavirus.

Watch it online here.

This is the first year voters can cast ballots via mail without having to explain why they cant go to the polls. Last year, Wolf signed a sweeping election reform bill, which had strong bipartisan support.

Wolf touted the mail-in ballot as a way for voters to participate in democracy if they are anxious about going to the polls during the pandemic.

At the time we had no idea how important this change would be," Wolf said.

In previous years, voters wanting to vote by mail had no other choice but to seek an absentee ballot and explain why they couldnt vote in person, such as an illness or military service.

When asked why the state isnt moving to an all-mail primary, Boockvar said a hybrid election is the best way to go. Right now, some voters with disabilities cant vote by mail at this time.

Theres not enough time to really ensure adequate participation in our democracy with vote-by-mail alone, Boockvar said.

About 76 percent of the requests for mail-in ballots have come online, Boockvar said.

At the same time, she said the state will work to make sure those wishing to vote in person can do so safely.

You should feel free to go ahead and exercise your right to vote, Boockvar said.

Elections officials and voters have expressed ongoing concerns about the ability of counties to handle the unprecedented groundswell of requests for mail-in ballots and the decreasing pool of election poll workers who are deciding to stay home on election day rather than risk endangering their health by working the polls.

Wolf has said he would love to allow counties more time to count all the mail-in ballots and absentee ballots. Counties can start counting the mail-in ballots on 7 a.m. on the primary election but Wolf would said hed like it to be even sooner.

With the volume of mail-in ballots, Boockvar said its possible not all of the votes will be counted on election night.

Across Pennsylvania, more than 50,000 people have contracted the coronavirus and more than 2,400 have died, according to the state Department of Health.

Staffing polling places

Voting locations could change for many voters, Wolf said. The measure to postpone the primary allows county officials to consolidate polling places for the June primary.

Some advocates said they worry that consolidating polling places could lead to disenfranchising voters. Some said theyre worried about communities with a heavy concentration of minority members losing polling places.

Boockvar is urging schools to work with county officials to be used as polling places for the primary. Schools have been closed for the rest of the spring due to the coronavirus but Boockvar said the schools can serve as polling places.

In addition, Boockvar said state law can compel schools to serve as polling places. She urged public and private organizations to offer their facilities as polling places.

Help serve democracy, she said.

Wolf was asked if voters would be required to masks to vote in person.

The governor said no one will be forced to wear masks but said wearing a mask in public is the right thing to do.

If voters dont follow guidelines on social distancing, he said it would be up to local polling places to decide if anyone would be barred from voting.

Boockvar said state officials are talking with the National Guard about the possibility of using guard members if needed to serve at polling places if counties cant find enough volunteers. She said if guard troops were tapped to serve as poll workers, they would be in plain clothes.

The state has received nearly $30 million from the federal government to help cover election costs.

Wolf is getting set to gradually re-open regions of Pennsylvania. On Friday, Wolf said hell lift 24 counties in Pennsylvanias northern tier from the statewide stay-at-home order.

These are the counties that will be reopened first: Bradford, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, Lycoming, McKean, Mercer, Montour, Northumberland, Potter, Snyder, Sullivan, Tioga, Union, Venango, and Warren.

In a news conference last week, the governor said he couldnt guarantee that most counties would be reopened before the primary.

The June 2 election is not a deadline, Wolf said Friday.

Deadlines approaching

Those wishing to vote in the June primary must register by May 18. Registered voters wishing to use a mail-in ballot must request one by 5 p.m. on May 26.

Those wishing to register to vote or apply for mail-in ballots can do so on the states elections website.

The states election website will have a list of polling places when they are finalized.

More from PennLive

As counties look to consolidate polling places, advocates worry about voter disenfranchisement

Concerns over voter fraud take center stage at hearing with lawmakers on upcoming primary

Barbershops, nail and hair salons wont open in the yellow phase of Pa.s coronavirus reopening; heres why

Reaction to Gov. Wolfs start to reopening Pa. ranges from disappointing and frustrating to relief

U.S. Supreme Court tells Gov. Wolf to defend business closure orders
The Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB), the Kingdoms investment promotion agency, has entered into a proactive initiative with GrowIN Portugal, a platform that helps entrepreneurs incorporate, fund, expand and move their startups to Portugal.

The agreement will serve to promote cooperation between the two organisations, particularly with regard to supporting startups globally during the ongoing pandemic by connecting the two startups ecosystems, EDB said in a statement.

To this end, both parties have agreed to:

 Collaborate on the promotion of key events and opportunities in their respective markets;

 Promote opportunities for developing the startup markets in their respective countries;

 Support startups by arranging introductory meetings with key ecosystem stakeholders in both countries; and

 Exchange information on the evolution of their respective startup markets

Commenting on the initiative, Pakiza Abdulrahman, Head of Startups, Bahrain EDB, said: This timely initiative will provide some much-needed support for not just Bahraini and Portuguese startups, but startups from around the world. The ongoing crisis has hit almost all economic sectors, including the startup industry, and across the globe, were seeing an unprecedented slowdown. By connecting and thereby bolstering our two ecosystems, Startup Bahrain and GrowIN Portugal are providing a lifeline for innovative startups seeking a supportive environment in which they are able to empower the digital economy in their respective countries.

Anas El Arras, Chief Executive Officer, GrowIN Portugal, added: Startups need support now more than ever before, so we are delighted to be collaborating with Bahrain EDB to do just that. Bahrain and Portugal each offer supportive ecosystems complete with funding support, highly-skilled labour forces, cutting edge digital infrastructure and world-class accelerators. Moreover, we each sit on the doorstep of major markets: Europe and MENA respectively. By combining forces, combining ecosystems, we can provide a global space to accelerate startups from around the world, and ensure innovation is not hampered by the global crisis.

Today, both countries trade in a number of items with a focus on aluminium, paper and cotton products. As of 2019 the non-oil trade between the two countries accounts for nearly $22 million increasing from $6.7 million in 2009.

The signing of the agreement follows on from a Bahrain EDB delegation to Lisbon in October 2019, where it announced a fast-track setup process for startups globally looking to take advantage of the business environment and a well-connected startup community through the Startup Bahrain initiative.

With its flexible regulatory environment; the availability of multiple accelerators, access to funding opportunities, world-class physical and digital infrastructure; and some of the lowest set-up and operating costs in the region, hyper-connected Bahrain is increasingly the destination of choice for companies from all over the world seeking to access the growing D1.5 trillion Gulf markets. The island Kingdom is keen to attract more Portuguese companies and startups, the statement added.--TradeArabia News Service
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 20:50:48|Editor: Lu Hui

Video Player Close

DAMASCUS, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men killed nine Syrian policemen in the country's southern province of Daraa on Monday, a war monitor reported.

The armed men attacked a police department in the Mzairib area in the countryside of Daraa, kidnapping the nine policemen and gunning them down, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Britain-based watchdog group said that a total of 435 attempts of kidnapping and killing have taken place in Daraa since June 2019.

It said 280 people have been killed by such attacks, including 61 civilians and 152 Syrian soldiers and policemen.

The observatory has repeatedly reported anti-government sentiment in Daraa.

The Syrian army captured Daraa from an array of rebel groups in 2018.

Daraa has a symbolic significance as it was the birthplace of the Syrian war that erupted in 2011. Securing it was a big victory for the Syrian army both symbolically and militarily as the rebels have used the border to bring in arms and fighters throughout the war. Enditem
Hes got the experience to run an efficient state government and the relationships to get things done. She has the private-sector track record and new ideas to shake things up.

Democratic governor primary candidates Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney and Missoula businesswoman Whitney Williams were making those arguments to voters before COVID-19 dramatically changed the world, and the pandemic has only solidified their points.

After four decades in government, Cooney said he'd be ready on Day 1 to lead the state through what could be the most challenging economic landscape it's had to reckon with in a generation.

"I know how government works. I have the experience and the proven leadership ability and relationships already. I can roll up my sleeves and we can hit the ground running and make sure that we're doing the things Montanans expect to get accomplished," Cooney said recently. Candidates spoke with a reporter over the phone for this story.

Williams argues her experience starting and leading a company that has helped rebuild countries devastated by disaster gives her the fresh perspective to take on issues to revitalize Montana in the wake of the coronavirus.

This is a really urgent moment and it takes bold new leadership. Im a businessperson. Ive also worked inside government. Ive worked extensively with the nonprofit sector as well, and I think that complement of background is going to serve Montana really well, Williams said.

The governors office is open this election as Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock is termed out from running again. Republicans have made clear taking back the seat is their partys top priority.

Democrats have been preparing for a dogfight in the general governor election, for months honing attacks on U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, one of three running in the GOP primary. While Gianforte leads all candidates in the fundraising race, Democrats have also cast him as villain because he's most likely to rally the party's base and get donors to crack open their wallets.

But before Democrats square off against whichever Republican emerges from the June 2 primary election, they first need to pick their own candidate.

Cooney was elected to the state Legislature in 1977 at 22 years old. Over time he was in both the state House and Senate, where he eventually became president. He was later secretary of state for 11 years, followed by several appointed roles in state government. This is his second run for governor, after coming in third in a three-way primary for the job in 2000. Since January 2016 hes been Bullock's lieutenant governor.

This is Williams' first run for public office, but by no means is she new to politics. She is the daughter of Carol Williams, the first female president of the state Senate and founder of Carols List, which works to elect progressive women candidates, and Pat Williams, who was Montanas representative in Congress for nearly two decades.

Williams, after working in the Clinton White House, went on to found Williamswork, a business that connects philanthropists, corporations and more to work on problems across the globe. Williams moved herself and the business back to Montana in 2017, landing in Missoula.

Lee Banville, a political analyst and professor at the University of Montana, said before COIVD-19, candidates for office were often quick to point out they aren't career politicians with tons of bureaucratic experience, but that may be less of a selling point now as voters could look to someone who has shown they know how to navigate state government in an emergency.

"If you know how the state government works, you might be in a better position to handle an emergency like this. ... When people feel unsure and unsafe, safety and assurance become a real asset," Banville said. "That's not to say Whitney Williams can't point to her business experience, and you see in Williams' first ad that she's got the experience helping rebuild communities and rebuilding economies. But people are scared, and having leadership that makes you less scared is a real asset right now."

Before the coronavirus made the notion of debating in person before an auditorium filled with people a dangerous proposition, Cooney and Williams appeared twice in forums meant to help voters learn more about their platforms. When doing that, they more often agreed than diverged.

Both candidates stress the importance of continuing Medicaid expansion. Fighting climate change and a shift to renewable energy would have top billing in their administrations. Both vow to protect a woman's right to access health care and say public lands must be kept in public hands.

For voters trying to choose between the two, Cooney points to his resume more than any stark divergence in policy.

The next governors not only going to have to be ready to go right into the legislative session right after the election, but were going to have to build relationships and have the ability to work with a Republican Legislature, Cooney said.

As a substantive difference, Cooney did point to a pledge he issued early in the election, which Williams did not sign, asking candidates to not rely on self-financing and to disavow money from groups that don't have to disclose their donors.

All Cooney's experience has given Williams a place to try to point out daylight between the two candidates, and she's worked to find places where the Bullock administration, and in effect Cooney, were unable to move key priorities across the finish line.

That includes not only the failure to pass a statewide preschool program in the last legislative session but also the loss of funding for existing offerings. And there's budget cuts made in the 2017 special legislative session that devastated mental health care providers.

"That was the Legislature and that was Mike Cooney's administration," Williams said. "Casey was in the Legislature and a leader of the Democratic caucus. You can't accept all the credit for Medicaid expansion and then not accept any of the blame for the mental health cuts."

Williams also points out the approval of the Black Butte copper mine near the Smith River as something she doesn't support and happened under the Bullock-Cooney administration. Again, it's not a decision made by Cooney and the Department of Environmental Quality must approve mines if permit requirements are met, but it gives Williams the chance to laud Democratic ideals.

"If the mine has all of the approvals and the permits and has to be legally allowed to move forward, that doesn't mean you can't still speak up about a precious resource in Montana," Williams said. "It doesn't mean you can't still have a voice."

Last week Williams came out in support of legalizing recreational marijuana. Cooney has said in the past he supports initiatives that have been proposed and would implement them as governor, but believes it's up to the people to decide.

Democrats being close to lockstep when it comes to policy in the primary isn't an uncommon thing, Banville said. But primary voters do tend to be more progressive, so it makes sense for Williams to tailor an appeal to them, he added.

"You can make this argument about running against politics as usual, so there are opportunities there. But I think given the whole pandemic thing, there are risks there. People may want stability, and unproven politicians may not be to peoples' liking," Banville said.

Last year in her first campaign finance report, Williams made a statement by raising $439,000, a record for a Democratic primary candidate in their first quarter. But the report showed a potential weak spot  a reliance on high-dollar out-of-state supporters and lack of money coming from more rural parts of the state where a Democrat at least needs to garner some support.

To remedy that, Williams planned campaign swings through eastern Montana filled with meet-and-greets to introduce her to voters there. Thats been impossible under the social distancing measures Montana has faced, though she has adapted with digital substitutes. Meanwhile, Cooney's visibility is heightened as part of the administration responding to the COVID-19 crisis. He appears behind the governor at press briefings several times a week and compiles questions from Montanans during telephone town hall events.

"Outsiders always face an uphill battle, and the way this changed things is by making that hill one that you have to climb remotely," Banville said. "That is a really hard road to go."

Cooney, given his long record, has not had to introduce himself to voters.

Montanans have known me. Theyve trusted me in the past and since Ive earned their trust in the past, I think Im in a very good position to bring my leadership and skills to bring Montanans together from very diverse backgrounds, Cooney said.

While it comes with a built-in awareness of who he is, on top of what's now a highlighted role as the Bullock administration responds to the coronavirus, Banville said there's also a risk Cooney could get tagged as just a third term for Bullock.

Cooney said he's proud to be part of the the office and of what they've accomplished, but emphasized he'll be his own governor.

"There will be a Cooney administration. It won't be a continuation," Cooney said. "The Cooney administration will deal with an economic recovery from COVID-19. We are going to be aggressive in our approach when it comes to climate change. New governor, new challenges."

Williams counters the state needs a big shift.

"We are facing a new set of challenges, and that means Montana needs a new generation of leadership and someone who brings different, bigger, bolder ideas to Helena," Williams said.

Banville said it's understandable people might see Cooney as just more of Bullock, but that it's an oversimplification.

"That's his strength and that's going to be his problem if Democrats are seeing that as not doing enough to make things happen," Banville said. "There's an opening there for Williams, but it's also a dicey gamble because it may mean that she has to run a more liberal campaign that might not work later on."

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav



Thackeray has requested the Centre not to charge any amount from migrant labourers for travelling by train to their native places during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown.

Nearly five lakh migrant labourers have been given food and shelter for 40 days in various state facilities, and now they have expressed the desire to go back home in view of the current situation, Thackeray said in a communication to the Centre late Sunday night.

"These people have no source of income since last some weeks. Hence, on humanitarian ground, the Centre should not charge them for travelling," the chief minister said.

Many NGOs, social workers and individuals have come forward to bear the cost of train tickets for migrant labourers, he said.

Thackeray also asked the state officials concerned to be ready to handle large scale groups of migrant workers, if the Centre decides to run trains from cities like Mumbai, Thane and Pune to take them to their hometowns.

Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut has already requested the Railway Ministry to bear the cost of transportation of the migrant labourers to their destinations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sales of multi-purpose family vehicles (MPVs) costing less than VND1 billion ($43,000) doubled in 2019, a report found.

39,442 seven-seater MPVs were sold in 2019, accounting for 17 percent of total sales of passenger cars in Vietnam last year, Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA) stated in its latest report.

This is an increase of 112 percent over sales of the same segment in 2018, and almost three times higher than the 2015-2018 average of 14,652 small-sized MPVs sold per year.

A major driver of demand for these small-sized MPVs, most of which cost less than VND1 billion ($43,000), had been the boom of ride-hailing services in the past five years, which urged many people to think of investing in cars to do business, the report noted.

Small-sized MPVs are the third option for most people behind the traditional sedan or hatchback, as they are more spacious, allowing drivers to carry more passengers when using them as taxis, doubling down as a family vehicle when not used for commercial purposes. Most driver do not require larger MPVs for these purposes, according to VAMA.

Small MPVs also attract customers because of its low investment costs, with most banks willing to provide credit of up to 80 percent of the vehicle price with different credit purchase schemes, it said.

According to the report, the leading model in this segment last year was the Mitsubishi Xpander, accounting for 51 percent of small-sized MPVs sold. It was followed by the Toyota Innova with 31 percent, and the Toyota Rush at 7.5 percent.

Competition in this segment is expected to heat up this year with Japanese automaker Suzuki having just introduced the XL7, a new MPV model, last week.

Japans Mitsubishi is also expected to release a new MPV model called Xpander Cross this year, which would bring the number of models competing for the family car segment to eight, double the number available in 2015, VAMA said.

A total 229,706 passenger cars were sold in 2019, up 19.6 percent over the previous year, it added.


A Boston area police officer went rogue by posting a profanity-laced tirade against Democratic Congressman Joseph Kennedy III using the forces official Twitter account.

The Cambridge Police Department apologized on Sunday after one of its officers mistakenly tweeted angry messages about Kennedy on its official Twitter feed instead of their own personal account.

Another liberal f*****g jerk who just happens to be better than the clown he's running against. Sad for us,' the tweet from Cambridge police read.

The tweet was posted in response to a WCVB-TV story quoting Kennedy who was criticizing the embarrassing state of distribution of personal protective equipment to health care professionals during the coronavirus pandemic.

House Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III (seen above in Newton, Massachusetts, on February 24) was called a 'liberal f*****g jerk' on the official Twitter feed of the Cambridge Police Department

An officer apparently meant to post the tweet on his personal account yet accidentally sent the message using the official Cambridge Police Department Twitter feed

The clown referenced in the tweet is Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Kennedy, 39, is challenging the 73-year-old Markey for his Senate seat this November.

Earlier this afternoon, a member of the Cambridge Police, who has access to the Departments Twitter account, inadvertently posted political commentary on the department account rather than their personal account, that was inappropriate, unprofessional and disrespectful, the department tweeted on Sunday.

While the post was quickly removed, the concerning statements cannot be erased.

These actions do not reflect the professionalism that we as a department take great pride in and we want to sincerely apologize to the Congressman and those individuals the statement was directed at.

CPD posted a series of tweets explaining what happened on Sunday

The police department said that it had apologized to Kennedy and Senator Ed Markey

The department also pledged that it would 'take appropriate action in response to this regrettable incident'

The department will take appropriate action in response to this regrettable incident.

It was unclear what action would be taken. The department declined to identify the officer who posted the tweet.

DailyMail.com has reached out to both Markey and Kennedy for comment.

Cambridge Police Commissioner Branville G. Bard Jr has personally reached out to both Markey and Kennedys offices to apologize on behalf of CPD, according to The Harvard Crimson.

Kennedy is the son of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr, the eldest son of Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, and the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy.

Senator Ed Markey (seen above in Boston on March 15) was also called a 'clown' in the tweet. Kennedy, 39, is challenging the 73-year-old Markey for his US Senate seat in November

Joseph Jr also served as a member of the House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts' eighth congressional district between 1987 and 1999.

Joseph III currently represents the Bay State's fourth congressional district that encompasses Boston's suburbs to the west and south.
Mr Affail Monney, President, Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), on Monday, reiterated the indispensable role the media are playing in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.



He said in an increasingly complex media landscape ignited by citizens right to the use of social media, the importance of the traditional media and the need for an all absorbing attention to reliable and accurate information become more paramount.



As the virus rages, we couldnt but agree more with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that the second pandemic of misinformation from harmful health advice to wild conspiracy theories that have unfortunately accompanied the global fight against the virus can only be waged effectively by the media with verified, scientific , fact-based news and analysis, Mr Monney stated at a flagraising ceremony to mark World Press Freedom Day in Accra.



While we all feel the devastating impact of the pandemic, UNESCO offers a glimmer of hope to the media. It says the unprecedented health crisis has the potential to rebuild trust in the profession.



He intimate that the GJA intends to capitalize on this to strategize with its constituents and partners on how best to recalibrate and reinvigorate the post Covid-19 media system in Ghana.



The event, which was organised by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) in collaboration with the UNESCO, was on the Journalism Without Fear or Favour.



The annual celebration, which fell on Sunday, May 3rd, serves as an occasion to inform citizens of the violations of press freedom.



In 1993, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 3 May as World Press Freedom Day, following a recommendation adopted at the 26th session of UNESCOs General Conference in 1991.



Mr Monney noted that the theme for the event reinforces the point that journalism was not a profession for timid, timorous souls but one for brave and uncompromising characters.



He said this tough, indomitable streak enables some leading journalists to talk true to power, expose acts of corruption and hold the powerful to account; declaring that the GJA specially salutes such special stalwarts on this special Day.



In the same vein, we take umbrage over the breezy disregard for ethical values by certain media men and women who are consumed with incontinent ego and surfeited with prideful arrogance, he said.

Press freedom is a liberty and not a license - liberty to perform and not license to destroy. The offenders must take note and repent.



With regards to the global league table of free media systems to examine quickly the causal factors of Ghanas decline - 23rd in 2018, 27th in 2019 and 30th in 2020.



The common thread which runs through our backsliding is impunity. Impunity, if not checked, ignites a self-propelling and re- energizing cycle which then becomes hellishly difficult to uproot, Mr Monney said.



A pesky call, therefore, goes to the authorities to deal surgically with the calcifying cancer of impunity by prosecuting and punishing, to the fullest extent within the law, perpetrators of attacks against journalists regardless of their material wealth, social status or political links.



He said this was the least action expected in a country touted for its fidelity to the rule of law and not the rule of men.



He said the GJA further urges the government to give birth, with urgent promptitude, to the Monitoring Mechanism on the Safety of Journalists which had been incubating since last year.



He said even at the 30th position, Ghanas media system was well at the optimistic end of the spectrum- adjudged as satisfactory by global benchmark and outranking paragons of journalism like United States, the United Kingdom and France.



This, however, should not give room for any narcotic feeling of complacency. Rather, we must take all steps and move all out to salvage our achievements in media freedom and functional democracy.



Madam Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah-Adjei, a Deputy Minister of Information, hailed the impeccable role the media was playing in informing, educating and sensitizing the Ghanaians on the COVID-19 pandemic.



Mr Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh, Chairman, National Media Commission, cautioned journalists not to allow themselves to be used as conduits for the propagation of fake news.



Mr Abdourahamane Diallo, UNESCO Country Representative to Ghana said: UNESCO believes that a free and independent press is essential at all times, but is particularly important during a health crisis such as the one we are currently experiencing.

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.

Featured Video
STOCKHOLM, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SciBase (SCIB) announced today, on "Melanoma Monday", that they have entered into a collaboration agreement with Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery ("ADCS") - the premier dermatology network in the US with over 150 practices. The agreement will provide ADCS practices with Nevisense, the only FDA approved melanoma detection system, for the analysis of patients' atypical moles at point-of-care.

The partnership further supports ADCS's commitment to the early detection of skin cancer, and their goal of integrating evidence-based technology solutions that help deliver the best possible care to their patients. SciBase will initially install Nevisense in 20 clinics to evaluate practice workflow integration, followed by expansion within ADCS's large network of practices. The practices will be supplied with the latest product, Nevisense 3.0, which received FDA approval on April 30th. ADCS and SciBase will also collaborate on scientific research and the evaluation of new products addressing other skin conditions.

"We are excited to integrate Nevisense during routine total body skin cancer exams to offer our patients the most advanced technology for the earliest possible detection of melanoma. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, but when detected early, treatment has a nearly 100% cure rate. Early testing and treatment are critical for improving survival. Providing our patients with enhanced technology for early testing further supports our continued commitment to delivering best in class care that elevates both our provider and patient experience" said Dr. Matt Leavitt, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery.

"Having the nation's largest dermatology practice network adopt Nevisense and offer patients advanced care options is an important milestone in our strategy to increase our US focus and broaden our presence in the US market" said Simon Grant, Chief Executive Officer of SciBase. "The collaboration also validates the clinical value we can provide with Nevisense and is a reflection of the growing acceptance we see from providers to adopt AI-based healthcare solutions that are supported by solid clinical evidence and can improve patient care."

About SciBase and Nevisense

SciBase AB is a Swedish medical technology company, headquartered in Stockholm that has developed and sells a unique point-of-care device for evaluation of skin disorders such as skin cancer and atopic dermatitis. Its first product, Nevisense, helps doctors to detect malignant melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer. Further development has led to Nevisense also being used as a tool to assess the skin barrier and inflammation. SciBase was founded by Stig Ollmar, Associate Professor at The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Nevisense is based on substantial research and has achieved excellent results in the largest clinical study ever conducted on the detection of malignant melanoma. Nevisense is CE marked in Europe, has TGA approval in Australia and an FDA approval (PMA) in the United States. Nevisense is based on a method called Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), which uses the varying electrical properties of human tissue to categorize cellular structures and thereby detect malignancies and abnormalities. SciBase is listed on First North Growth Market ("SCIB"). Further information is available at www.scibase.com.

ABOUT Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery

Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery is the largest dermatology practice in the country. We are committed to providing comprehensive and unparalleled dermatologic and aesthetic care in a welcoming and engaging environment, seeking to make each patient experience unique. We strive to combine the best of the art of medicine with the latest advances in research and technology in formulating individualized treatment plans to achieve the desired result with superior patient safety and privacy standards.

To learn more about Advanced Dermatology, visit www.advancedderm.com or call 1-866-400-DERM.

For more information, please contact:

Simon Grant, CEO SciBase

Tel: +46-72-887-43-99

Email: [email protected]

Certified Advisor:

AvanzaTel:

+46-8-409-421-20

Email: [email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/scibase/r/scibase-and-advanced-dermatology-and-cosmetic-surgery-group-partner-to-advance-skin-cancer-detection,c3102748

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE SciBase
Despite the uncertainty about what each day will bring, a business owner in Torremolinos is planning ahead for the reopening of his restaurants, following the model used in other countries which are ahead of us in dealing with the pandemic. Jose Molina, whose seven businesses include bars, restaurants, discos, tourist apartments and a hostel in the town centre, started installing plexiglass separation screens at his Casa Sista restaurant more than a week ago.

He has made the screens himself with the help of one of his sons, as the workshops are either closed or lack supplies. So far he has made 20. But this isn't the only measure he has planned to generate confidence among his clients.

He has also created an archway of ozonised water spray to disinfect people's clothing at the entrance, and their temperature will be taken before they come on to the premises. "If it's up, we won't let them in," he says. On the terrace there will be sprinklers with the same gas to keep the atmosphere free of infections.

Once inside, as well as the screens, the tables will be two metres away from each other. There will be no printed menu; instead, clients will download it onto their mobile using a QR code.

In the kitchen, all food will be washed with ozonised water, and crockery and glasses will be disinfected with other products. Only disposable tablecloths will be used. "We may only be allowed 50 per cent of our usual capacity, but we want our customers to feel confident and safe," Jose says.
President Muhammadu Buhari has asked international financial institutions to help member states to cushion the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the president, the assistance, which should be done in the spirit of solidarity, includes extending concessional loans, technical support, lowering of tariff on medical equipment and consumables, sharing of expertise in case management, adopting open trade policies, as well as outright debt cancellation.

Within the spirit of South-South cooperation, we must also assist one another, particularly the less developed and less endowed member states with technical, medical, and financial assistance.

It is by so doing that we can rightly claim to uphold the Bandung Principles of equality, mutual interests, and cooperation, President Buhari said this on Monday in Abuja while participating in a virtual Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Advertisement

Buhari also stressed that only a collective international approach would mitigate the devastating effect of COVID-19.

Read Also: Buhari Gave Consent To Relax Lockdown: Kano Govt

According to him, It is now clearly evident that no nation can independently and singlehandedly tackle a pandemic of this nature which is no respecter of borders, regions or status.

Invariably, enhancing multilateral cooperation through exchange and sharing of best practices is imperative to overcome the disease. We must, therefore, form a united front against this common enemy by being coordinated and timely in our responses.

Furthermore, we must all encourage and empower our scientists and medical experts to join the quest for a vaccine and cure to this universal plague.

Buhari told Heads of State and Government of the Non-Aligned Movement that the central role of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) in fighting the pandemic must be acknowledged and leveraged for the benefit of all member nations.
As a caregiving company, were in a unique position to help. By aligning staff and resources, we were able to provide a free, downloadable kit of crucial guides and tools drawn from our digital platform and team of expert advisers.

Torchlight, a leading provider of employee-caregiver support solutions, announced today the release of the first installment of its Caregiving in Times of Crisis Toolkit. The Toolkit is designed for organizations, businesses, individuals, parents, and caregivers in need of assistance and information during the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. With the vast majority of Americans staying at home during the pandemic, many are not only struggling with health concerns and high stress, they are also grappling with eldercare concerns, distance learning, working at home, sudden job losses/furloughs, and the death of loved ones.

As a caregiving company, were in a unique position to help, said Adam Goldberg, M.Ed., founder and CEO for Torchlight. With our mission, Caring Is Everyones Business, top of mind and heart, Team Torchlight huddled virtually to determine what we could offer to support people whose home and work lives were colliding in ways like never before. By aligning staff and resources, we were able to provide a free, downloadable kit of crucial guides and tools drawn from our digital platform and team of expert advisers.

The Caregiving in Times Crisis Toolkit contains nearly two dozen guides and tools, including articles, podcasts and webinars for eldercare and parent/child resources. Torchlight will continue to add and update resources to the Tool-kit to support individuals and families as the pandemic evolves. Resources include:

 Eldercare in the Time of Coronavirus (Podcast)

 Coronavirus: What Caregivers Need to Know (Guide)

 Coronavirus: What Parents Needs to Know (Guide)

 10 Tips For Managing Stress During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Tip Sheet)

 8 Resources to Help Your Loved One During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Tip Sheet)

 Coronavirus: How To Stay In Touch When Visiting Is Not Possible (Guide)

 Managing Caregiving Anxiety During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Guide)

 Helping Kids Overcome Procrastination (Podcast)

 Distance Learning During the Coronavirus Pandemic (On-Demand Webinar)

 Tips To Help Your Child Get a Better Night's Sleep (Tip Sheet)

 Unexpected House Guests: College Closures & Family Dynamics During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Podcast)

 Free Online Learning Resources for Children & Teens (Tip Sheet)

 Navigating a School or Daycare Closure (Guide)

 Caregivers Guide to Death & Dying (On-Demand Webinar)

 Conversations Exploring Loss & Grief (Podcast)

We are confident that business leaders, volunteers, and many others across the nation will join us in a shared commitment to address what matters most to people, especially during these uncertain times: their loved ones, said Goldberg.

The Caregiving in Times of Crisis Toolkit can be found here .

About Torchlight

At Torchlight, we believe that caring is everyones business and caring is good business. We are the only complete caregiver support solution for employers and member organizations. We offer solutions informed by data and, thus, are built for better results. Our approach includes a user-friendly digital platform and a team of expert advisors. No matter the age, stage or concern, Torchlights decision-support tools, caregiving knowledge base, and human expertise combine to reduce stress and enhance outcomes for both families and their sponsoring organizations more cost-effectively than call center or concierge-only solutions. Because getting caregivers the right resources, in the right ways, right from the beginning should be business as usual. Learn more at http://www.torchlight.care, or email press@torchlight.care.
Anne Hathaway has not been seen in public for two months.

This weekend, the 37-year-old Oscar-winning Les Miserables actress emerged as she was spotted first on her bicycle and then on a beach with her husband Adam Shulman while in Connecticut.

Governor Ned Lamont signed an executive order directing Connecticut residents to Stay Safe, Stay At Home until May 20, but outdoor exercise is allowed and some beaches are open.

Taking a lap or two: Anne Hathaway was seen this weekend enjoying the fresh air in Connecticut. The 37-year-old Oscar-winning Les Miserables actress was first on her bicycle

The order mandates the closure of all nonessential business and not-for-profit entities, and prohibits public community gatherings 'of any size for any reason.'

He directed that people maintain six feet of distance from others whenever possible and instructs essential businesses to implement social distancing measures.

The politician outlined a phased-in approach to reopening, set to begin on May 20.

In Connecticut, outdoor exercises, including running, biking, hiking, or walking, are still considered safe activities.

A-OK! Governor Ned Lamont signed an executive order directing Connecticut residents to Stay Safe, Stay at Home until May 20 but outdoor exercise is allowed

But crowds are not allowed and people have to stay six feet away from others. Several beaches are open including Stamford and Fairfield.

While on her bicycle, Anne had on a dark grey top with green leggings and sneakers.

The Vogue cover girl wore a helmet and sunglasses. A large blue backpack was tightly on her back.

Beach day: Then she was spotted on a beach with her husband Adam Shulman. Some beached like Fairfield and Stamford are open in Connecticut

The basket on her bike was overflowing with items like a blue duffel bag.

Anne and Adam did not seem to have anyone around them when they met up on the beach.

The Princess Diaries actress had on a face mask and hat that tied around her chin as she played with a pink ball.

Adam went mask free as he had on a cap and sunglasses with a black T-shirt worn with blue adidas sweatpants and brown lace up hiking shoes.

Taking the crown: Hathaway was a hit in April when she dressed up as her iconic Princess Diaries character, Mia Thermopolis, as she completed the viral pillow challenge in an Instagram post.

Hathaway was a hit in April when she dressed up as her iconic Princess Diaries character, Mia Thermopolis, as she completed the viral pillow challenge in an Instagram post.

Anne made sure she ascended the throne as the queen of the social media gauntlet as she had three pillows - one royal blue and two white - strapped to her body by a belt.

She made sure to reference the iconic poster for the 2004 film featuring Julie Andrews as she also sported rounded sunglasses and headphones.

The Oscar winner flashed a big smile as she sported ruby red lipstick with her hair pulled back in an elegant ponytail.

The actress - who played the Princess of Genovia in the film - also quoted Andrews' character Queen Clarisse Renaldi as she captioned it: 'A Queen is never late; everyone else is simply early. [crown emoji] #pillowchallenge'

Royalty: The actress made sure to reference the iconic poster for the 2004 film featuring Julie Andrews as she also sported rounded sunglasses and headphones

Hathaway will soon be adding yet another credit to her illustrious repertoire  the film version of American-French New York Times International writer Pamela Druckerman's artfully titled autobiography, French Children Dont Throw Food.

The Colossal actress will star in the in-development feature, playing a 35-year-old American journalist living in Paris who becomes pregnant and quickly learns of the stark differences between the U.S. and France when it comes to expectant mothers and parenthood.

In the book, Druckerman learns that pregnant French women don't rush out to buy every single parenting bible out there, and they are also not as hung up on the ideas of natural births or C-sections.

Anne will portray the expatriate trying to balance family life with her career in the French capital, as she sets out to discover why French children seem so well-behaved.
The state government has clarified that there will be no special trains plying from Mumbai to other states in the near future and that the responsibility of carrying out health check-up of migrants returning to their hometowns lies with the respective states.

In a video conference with the media on Monday, Bhushan Gagrani, principal secretary of state government, said travel of people from red zones is still prohibited. We have already sent 35,000 migrants to their respective states in trains and buses. A few trains were sent to Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh from Nashik and other places, but the same cannot be done from Mumbai as it is a largely affected red zone. If the respective states are willing to arrange for logistics for their travel by road we are giving them permissions, Gagrani said.

He said district authorities have been directed to collect information from migrants to avoid last minute hassle. While talking about health check-up of migrants for Covid-19 infection, Gagrani said migrants in shelter camps have been going through regular check-ups. If they are asymptomatic, there is no need to conduct tests on them. The states receiving them should conduct tests if they find symptoms, he said.

State minority affairs minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik alleged that the Uttar Pradesh government was not willing to take their citizens, who are stranded in Maharashtra, back. There are at least 25 people hailing from UP who are stuck in Maharashtra. The UP government is dilly-dallying the process of giving permissions for their journey demanding to conduct Covid-19 tests on them. Performing tests on such large number of people may take at least one-and-a-half year. While other states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh have given permissions, UP has been indulging in the delay tactics as they do not want take back these people, he said.

State Congress has announced to bear the travelling expenses of migrants stuck in Maharashtra. The partys state unit chief Balasaheb Thorat said as announced by the party president Sonia Gandhi, the Maharashtra unit has taken decision to bear the ticket cost of the migrants who wish to go back.

Meanwhile, the state government has written to the Centre for a special train for 1,069 students from the state who are stuck in Delhi. Most of the stranded students are enrolled with institutions tutoring for civil service examinations. According to the officials from the disaster management cell, they are expecting the arrangement for the special train in next few days.

Govt refutes allegation of negligence in sending stranded Sikh pilgrims

Maharashtra government has refuted the charges of negligence by state authorities in Nanded while sending Sikh pilgrims stranded in Hazur Sahib Gurudwara. We have been regularly checking up on these pilgrims at Gurudwara for symptoms as per the protocol set by the Central government. We were not expected to conduct the tests on them. In fact, our proposal of sending 10 buses daily to avoid crowding was turned down by the Punjab government. 75 buses were sent to Nanded to fetch the pilgrims, said Nitin Kareer, additional chief secretary, Maharashtra government.

Punjab Health minister Balbir S Sidhu alleged they were facing problems of more positive patients as Maharashtra government did not conduct tests on the pilgrims. Had they conducted tests and informed us about the results, we would have treated them accordingly, he told an agency in Punjab.

Another official from Nanded collectorate said the blame-game is meaningless as nobody among the more than 3,000 stranded pilgrims had the symptoms. They contracted the infection during their travel which has led to more people testing positive in Nanded due to spread of the virus through drivers, he said.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Isolated thunderstorms, with wind gusts up to 45 mph and lightning, are possible late Monday in El Paso and Teller counties, according to a ha
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. RCL is likely to register decline in the bottom line when it reports first-quarter 2020 results. In the last reported quarter, the company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 0.7%.

Q1 Estimates

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for first-quarter is pegged at a loss of 58 cents, against earnings of $1.31 per share in the prior year quarter. Over the past 30 days, the companys earnings estimates have witnessed sharp downward revisions. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues stands at $2,139 million, indicating a decline of 12.3% from the prior-year quarter.

Factors to Note

Decline in passenger ticket revenues, and onboard and other revenues are anticipated to get reflected in the companys first-quarter results. Both the metrics might have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Travel warnings and cruise cancellations may have hurt the performance in the quarter to be reported. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for passenger ticket revenues stands at $1,574 million, indicating a decrease 7.9% from the prior-year quarter. Moreover, the consensus mark for the onboard and other revenues is pegged at $688 million, suggesting a decline of 5.7% from the year-ago quarter.

Moreover, travel ban to Cuba and increase in costs are likely to get reflected in the first-quarter performance. Notably, the company anticipates itinerary changes owing to Cuba to impact yields in first-half 2020.

Despite the companys strong fundamentals and growth prospect, the coronavirus pandemic has been taking a toll on the companys performance.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Price and EPS Surprise

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Price and EPS Surprise

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. price-eps-surprise | Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Quote

What the Zacks Model Unveils

Our proven model does not conclusively predict an earnings beat for Royal Caribbean this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. But that's not the case here. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Story continues

You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Earnings ESP: Royal Caribbean has an Earnings ESP of -29.84%.

Zacks Rank: The company has a Zacks Rank #3.

Stock With Favorable Combinations

Here are a few stocks from the Consumer Discretionary space that investors may consider as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter.

GP Strategies Corporation GPX has an Earnings ESP of +58.33% and a Zacks Rank #3, at present.

BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. BJ currently has an Earnings ESP of +8.50% and a Zacks Rank #2.

Activision Blizzard, Inc. ATVI currently has an Earnings ESP of +10.39% and a Zacks Rank #2.

Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?

Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.

Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.

See the pot trades we're targeting>>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



Activision Blizzard, Inc (ATVI) : Free Stock Analysis Report



BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. (BJ) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL) : Free Stock Analysis Report



GP Strategies Corporation (GPX) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
At home and at work  now the same place for many  COVID-19 is forcing us to learn more about ourselves and confront who we are as leaders. One of my most powerful lessons so far came about a month ago. I was getting ready to do my first all-employee virtual town hall for our 250 team members across the country, all coping with an abrupt change to how we live and work. As I was getting set up at my computer, I felt calm and ready.

Then, a few minutes into speaking, something changed. As I was speaking to my team, I was overcome with emotion. My voice wavered and the tears came  not what I had planned, but there was no stopping it.

Within seconds, though, the waves of encouragement started. Dozens of messages and heart emojis filled my screen as my team offered their support  a unique and poignant reminder that despite none of us being in the same room, we were all together.

As I finished the call, I was initially a bit embarrassed. I am an emotional person, but in my professional life, most people wouldnt have known it. As a CEO, Id always seen it as my job to project calmness and strength. But not long after (within hours, in fact) my perspective changed. This wasnt about being weak or losing control. Leading with heart was exactly what was needed in this moment of crisis.

For female leaders especially, this kind of vulnerability can be terrifying. Its ingrained in so many of us to be cool and collected, to project strength and calm or risk looking incompetent.

In truth, though, my moment of vulnerability helped to build trust with my team, especially in this time of uncertainty and stress. After our town hall, I had employees reach out to say how much they appreciated my openness and how comforted they were to know I was feeling many of the same things they are.

Empathy and vulnerability are valuable traits as we navigate this pandemic and the recovery phase, but theyll matter long after, too. Open and candid communication, listening to understand, not just to respond, are critically important right now. They have the power to set the successful organizations apart from the pack. Theyre the skills that foster strong cultures, especially as the workforce changes dramatically.

They also happen to be the skills that women tend to excel at.

Women leaders are already getting well-deserved credit for leading us through this public health crisis. In many ways, women have been the face of the COVID-19 response worldwide, including Canadas many incredible female chief medical officers and public health officials. There are also those working away from the public eye, but no less important; the front-line health-care professionals; the essential workers keeping hospitals, daycares and shelters running.

At the same time, women are still largely underrepresented in leadership roles, despite being so well-positioned to transform organizations for the better. None of this is to say that men are incapable of showing vulnerability or leading with empathy. Were seeing incredible examples of men doing just that, handling employee communications with sensitivity and care, even as their businesses face massive challenges.

Instead, I see this as a reminder for all of us to prioritize these skills, especially as we eventually move into post-pandemic recovery. As we think about the future of work, we should consider these skills an asset, and give them more weight as we build our pipelines of talent and diverse teams.

Models and projections aside, we simply do not know what the future holds, or what normal at work will look like. But as we think about the possible positive legacy of this pandemic, well all do well to rethink how leadership with heart can shape our collective success.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

By Ilkin Seyfaddini  Trend:

A ground-breaking ceremony of a specialized center for pottery production was held in Rishton district of Uzbekistans Ferghana region, Trend reports citing Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan.

To date, more than 20 experienced craftsmen and 7,000 of their trainees live and work in Rishton, as local residents are traditionally engaged in painting ready-made items, from household utensils to art ceramics.

The opening ceremony, which was attended by Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister Sardor Umurzakov, Ferghana regions mayor Shukhrat Ganiyev, high-rank officials of the Foreign Ministry, representatives of Rishton district administration and craftsmen from the Rishton School of Pottery, marks the beginning of a new stage in the further development of traditions of Rishton masters, the report said.

Under the project, creative workshops, exhibition galleries, hotels, catering facilities and other necessary infrastructure will be built in Rishton district.

The initiative is a part of national pottery production development program, which consists of 59 projects to be implemented in all districts and cities of the country and provide employment for 75-80 thousand residents of different regions.

Experienced Rishton craftsmen will travel to pottery enterprises, organize production processes and train young specialists.

JSCB Asaka Bank, JSC National Bank of Uzbekistan for Foreign Economic Activity and JSCIB Ipoteka Bank are responsible for the implementation of the projects, the report said.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
COVID-19 has thrown light on a global blind spot. The world has suddenly woken up to the reality that a hegemonic China has become the irreplaceable fulcrum of a globalised economy and is using that leverage to develop untrammeled power.

Among the many fundamental changes in human life that the pandemic is likely to trigger, none might be more consequential than altering the way the world does business.

COVID-19 has thrown light on a global blind spot. The world has suddenly woken up to the reality that a hegemonic China has become the irreplaceable fulcrum of a globalised economy and is using that leverage to develop untrammeled power.

Taking advantage of the established, consensual economic wisdom of a post-Cold War world order that prioritised hyper-globalisation over national boundaries, China built its industrial might over three steady decades by offering a substantial pool of low-cost, efficient labour and wielding authoritarian control over the human resources.

How China monopolised supply chains



As multinational companies remained fixated on keeping production costs low, and western governments allowed massive outsourcing of manufacturing and industrial capabilities in exchange for financial gains, China exploited the opportunity to monopolise global supply chains.

Until the virus raided us, the world overlooked the dangers of putting all eggs in the Chinese basket. As China sharpened its manufacturing prowess and became worlds factory, it simultaneously developed a complex mesh of internal supply chains and interoperability that made relocation even more difficult, and consequently the world became even more deeply reliant on China-dominated global supply chains.

How deep go Chinas tentacles? A study by a business intelligence company shows 51,000 companies sourced direct suppliers from Wuhan alone, while five million companies have one or more tier-two suppliers in the region, according to Brink.

The article quoted another survey highlighting how manufacturers around the world are at the mercy of China. Around 57 percent of companies are experiencing longer lead times for tier-1 China-sourced components, a list that includes US tech giant Apple which, despite shifting some production to India and Vietnam, remains critically dependent on China.

Chinas role as the preeminent supplier of goods and components across nearly all industrial sectors  technology, automotive, electronics, pharmaceutical, equipment or consumer goods  makes a rerouting of global supply chains almost impossible.

It is a measure of the disruption caused by the pandemic that such a possibility is being increasingly discussed now. As the virus ravages its way through the world (latest figures put global toll at 248,245) there is a sudden urgency to diversify and relocate manufacturing and supply chains out of China.

Pushback against China

This pushback is the result of two distinct impulses: geopolitical and geo-economic. COVID-19 has reinforced the reality that China, at best, is an irresponsible power and a malevolent actor at worst that falsifies and suppresses data, spreads misinformation, lies and indulges in predatory mercantilism to achieve its geopolitical objectives.

Some of this behaviour was already known. The virus has inadvertently translated that malevolent Chinese behavior into real consequences. Governments around the world  from the US, Germany, Australia to India  are in no mood any more to overlook Chinas role in spreading and abetting the pandemic that has killed over two hundred thousand people already and destroyed economies.

Many are seeking accountability from China and holding it responsible for irresponsible domestic and international behaviour led by a feral anti-China sentiment in public sphere.

In the geo-economic arena, many companies are rushing to repatriate some of their production from China to avoid getting caught again in a situation that the pandemic caused where entire global supply chain collapsed due to over-reliance on one source.

This disruption threatens to transform the way the world does business, and it has brought some unexpected opportunities for many nations that seek to benefit from the shifting of production lines away from China. Some of the shift that may happen out of China could also be a corrective measure since China had a disproportionate share of global manufacturing pie. In this respect, the pandemic may have accelerated the trend.

A second chance for India?

Quite naturally, as the country with the worlds second-largest population, a large pool of skilled, semi-skilled workforce, a young demography and a humongous domestic market, India ranks among the top of these (mostly southeast Asian) nations that are keen to seize the supply-chain opportunities. The pandemic may have devastated global economy and brought economic powerhouses to a standstill, but it has simultaneously opened up larger-horizon prospects for nations like India that now has a second chance, having missed the bus on manufacturing and export-led growth altogether.

A lot of hopeful talk is suddenly floating around in Indian media that foreign companies are lining up to tap India as the alternative manufacturing hub, and India is well-poised to capture the tectonic shift.

This exuberance is unsupported by facts. Past developments do not inspire confidence.

A study by Japanese financial group Nomura found that between April 2018 and August 2019, 56 companies relocated supply chain and manufacturing out of China. Of these, 26 went to Vietnam, 11 chose Taiwan, eight settled in Thailand and only three came to India.

Centres aggressive bid

Make no mistake, India is aggressively pushing for a share of the manufacturing pie. If there was reason enough for India to boost its stillborn Make In India initiative, that impulse has now got an added urgency thanks to the prolonged lockdown that has broken the back of Indian economy. India desperately needs foreign direct investment that may boost labor-intensive manufacturing and create jobs to kickstart its economy.

In a blog post, Narendra Modi has asked Indians to rise to that occasion and seize this opportunity since India has the right blend of the physical and the virtual and can emerge as the global nerve centre of complex modern multinational supply chains in the post COVID-19 world.

The prime minister has taken the lead in holding discussions with chief ministers and Cabinet members to persuade foreign investors to shift their production lines and promote local investments. States have been encouraged to capitalize on manpower skill and improved infrastructure. Media reports indicate Modi has asked chief ministers to develop a comprehensive plan.

It was discussed that a scheme should be developed to promote more plug and play infrastructure in the existing industrial lands/plots/estates in the country and provide necessary financing support @EconomicTimes  deepshikhas (@deepshikhasET) April 30, 2020

Various strategies to bring investments into India in a fast-track mode and to promote Indian domestic sectors were discussed. Detailed discussions were held on guiding states to evolve their strategies & be more proactive in attracting investments @EconomicTimes  deepshikhas (@deepshikhasET) April 30, 2020



The meeting with Cabinet members that was reportedly attended by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, home minister Amit Shah and minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal, among others, discussed a scheme to promote more plug and play infrastructure in the existing industrial plot, estates in the country and provide necessary financing support. Plans were drawn to handhold investors, look into their issues and issue faster regulatory clearances.

Dangerous delusions

We are being told that coronavirus will trigger manufacturing exodus from China due to rising labour costs, shortages of workforce, a trade war with the United States, the rise of manufacturing hubs in southeast Asia and now a pandemic that originated on its mainland.

This argument claims that Indias huge domestic market will tip the scales in its favour compared to more nimble-footed southeast Asian rivals.

Some articles claim about a thousand companies are currently engaged in discussion at various levels such as investment promotion cell, Central government departments and state governments and they are apparently attracted by Indias vast domestic market, cheap manpower, resilience of its economy and a strong democracy while regulatory hassles, compliance burdens and policy flip-flop are the downsides.

There also have been reports that US state department is encouraging its businesses to shift production lines out of China to India, and US business captains have apparently been advised by the Donald Trump administration to propose to Indian government to offer incentives in this regard.

Not just media, we also witness a reflection of this narrative in government circles where ministers are making a spate of hopeful statements. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was quoted as saying recently that distrust against China could work to Indias advantage and anger against China could lead to a boom in electronics sector for India.

Prasads Cabinet colleague Nitin Gadkari thinks its time to convert hatred for China into Indias economic opportunity. These are dangerous delusions.

India has some advantages in its huge domestic market, low-cost, abundant labour, high share of working population and a government (at least verbally) ready to invite foreign investors through policy tweaks and infrastructure upgradation but these advantages are offset by realities, mindsets and political compulsions that cannot be changed overnight.

Indias structural shortcomings

Lets start with a bit of statistic. For all the talk about India being a more lucrative destination for investors willing to hedge against overdependence on China, the production cost difference, according to some estimates, between India and South East Asian countries is about 10 to 12 percent.

True, some of the interest shown by the global manufacturers is genuine. For instance, Wuhan, the origin of the virus, is considered the nerve centre for automotive sector. The pandemic has caused some multinationals to focus on India for auto components and electronics. Pankaj Munjal, chairman and managing director of auto parts maker Hero Motors Co., told Livmint that he has received several enquiries from companies who have operations in China.

However, any such shifting of production line involves a huge amount of money in initial setup costs. The pandemic has dealt such a body blow to global economy that many companies are not in a position to spend the amount of cash needed to tinker with existing supply chains.

Let us assume that a company manages to raise the cash needed to invest in new operations. Let us also assume that India manages to offer competitive facilities in terms of infrastructure, connectivity, transport and other logistics. However, companies still have a challenge in finding skilled manpower, invest in training regimes and count on policy support, tax breaks, availability of land and slashing of red-tape bottlenecks.

This is where India falls frequently short. Indias proclamations on foreign investment do not match its actions on ground. Lack of land reforms, uncompetitive labour laws, restrictive trade regime and a predatory tax policy scare away most potential investors.

According to an OECD index on FDI restrictiveness covering 68 countries, India possesses the eighth most restrictive FDI regime. As an Economic Times report pointed out, a Property Rights Alliance trade barrier index calculated for 86 countries ranks India as having the most restrictive trade regime bar none.

Writing in The Times of India, David M Sloan, a member of a Washington-based global advisory consultancy, pointed out that unless India is ready to adjust its policies, carry out over overdue labour market and land acquisition reforms and ends tax terrorism, along with appointing a PMs emissary who will listen to investors woes and hardsell Indias USPs to leverage the COVID--induced crisis, India might as well forget displacing China.

Placement as a potential market

Manufacturers choose destinations for production line based also on which end of the market they are targeting. While Thailand and Malaysia compete for higher-end sectors their ages price them out of labour-intensive work such as stitching shirts and sneakers that is more likely to go to Bangladesh, Myanmar or Cambodia, as per a Reuters report. Vietnam is going for both ends of the market, while Taiwan has given Taiwanese firms located in China huge breaks on tax, land, water and electricity.

As discussed, rerouting of supply lines involves huge upfront costs. This is one of the reasons why Japan has designated $2.2 billion of its stimulus package to help firms shift production out of China. Sadly, for all its trumpeting inviting foreign investment, India has announced no sector-specific incentives, targeted tax breaks or given a promise to carry out much-needed reforms that could be politically controversial.

Further, we have seen no definite policy measures to exploit Indias advantage of a long coastline along eastern shores that is strategically placed to connect with Asia-Pacific markets, allowing for optimised supply chains and minimum transportation costs.

Chinese resilience

Finally, any talk of India benefitting from the disruption caused by the pandemic overlooks the resilience of Chinese supply chains and Chinas centrality in global economy. Instead of a clean relocation, most manufacturers are looking at a China plus one strategy where companies diversify while maintaining their presence in China.

The China-plus-one strategy requires the new location to be proximate to China, and that is a big reason why Vietnam  whose cities such as Hai Phong are just 865 km away from Chinas manufacturing hub of Shenzhen  has emerged as a top destination.

By situating manufacturing centers close to traditional hubs in China, manufacturers are able to reduce costs with limited interruption or delays to existing supply chains, an article in China Briefing pointed out.

Theres more. Though COVID-19 originated in China, the country managed to overcome the pandemic and restart its economy even as the world struggles with the virus  reinforcing the very reasons that attracted global businesses to China in the first place.

India is eyeing higher end of the manufacturing chain since it already has a domestic supply line on production of mobile phones, but these aspirations confront the reality of the efficiency of Chinese system.

For instance, Katy Huberty, head of equity research for North America Technology Hardware at Morgan Stanley was quoted as saying: Technology vendors are encouraged by the pace at which Chinas production has ramped up post the COVID-19 shock, and this has reinforced their belief in locating the production of their high-volume products in China. This provides reassurance that China will remain a large base for manufacturing in these products.

German newspaper DW reported that more than 70% of companies surveyed by the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) in March said they had no plans yet to relocate production and supply chain operations or sourcing outside of China due to COVID-19.

While Chinas centrality in global supply chain has caused huge amount of losses and bottlenecks, while its actions in abetting the spread of the pandemic has angered nations, the factors that drove its centrality in global value chains remain intact, and India will have to go a long way before it can dream of weaning that away.
India Porter is scared. A tiny women who stands barely five feet tall, she is confined to the Huron Valley Correctional Facility, where, she explains, "the officers are stressed, and my peers and I are in a calm panic." Everyone at the facility has been told that they must socially distance to stay safe. But this is "impossible," Porter said in an email. "We live on top of each other. 2 to a cell if you are lucky but others are 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 people in one living space."

Her fear is well founded. Not far away, in another Michigan prison, Efren Paredes, sent to prison at 15, has already seen what it means for the coronavirus to start spreading on the inside. Men there have been "exhibiting a dry cough, dizziness and vomiting" but are told to stay in their housing units. The truth is that corrections officers, those who would take a prisoner to the infirmary, are also afraid that they will get sick. At the Parnall Correctional Facility, also in Michigan, 21 percent of the staff members are infected.

Covid-19 is terrifying for those who live and work inside prisons, their families and the broader community. Governments have moved sluggishly, if at all, to release elderly and medically compromised people, or sufficient numbers of the nearly 800,000 people who are locked in crowded jails each day simply because they can't afford to pay bail. The overcrowding that remains has contributed directly to the outbreaks at these facilities. An astonishing number of people inside of Ohio's Marion Correctional Institution, more than 80 percent, now have covid-19, and their infections are already spreading to the outside public.

Notably, however, we might have been spared so much of this recent trauma altogether if we had simply paid closer attention to what was happening in the nation's prisons, in its poorest neighborhoods and in the halls of Congress, in the 1990s.

Beginning in that decade, a deadly tuberculosis outbreak rocked jails, prisons and poor neighborhoods nationwide. New York City was hit particularly hard - soon reporting 15 percent of the country's cases with only 3 percent of its population. And the extent to which this highly contagious disease soon taxed not just the nation's prison system, but also its health-care system, should have taught us some critically important lessons.

We might well have learned then that this nation pays a terribly high price when it chooses to lock up too many people in filthy, overcrowded and unsanitary facilities while simultaneously not ensuring that everyone inside and outside of them has access to regular and affordable health care. Politicians, at least, should have learned that the walls they imagine separating those serving time from those outside are, in fact, completely porous.

They did not, and the consequences are on display today.

Tuberculosis is a disease that had been virtually eradicated after 1950 but, as the 1980s came to a close, was suddenly back, and spreading - especially in New York City. Between 1984 and 1991, the number of New Yorkers infected with TB doubled, with much higher incidences among the city's most marginalized communities. TB afflicted about 469 per 100,000 black men ages 35 to 44, nearly 45 times the national average.

Even scarier than the reappearance of a disease that destroyed people's lung function and spread quickly among people who coughed or were merely in proximity, this TB epidemic was characterized by mutant strains of the bacteria that proved almost impossible to eliminate with existing treatments. By 1991, public health officials were sounding the alarm, expressing their "deepening concern about a shadowy new health menace" that was, as one reporter put it, "the most alarming medical development" New Yorkers had seen "since AIDS was discovered a decade ago."

It was in New York's prisons that doctors began to notice just how worrisome this new TB epidemic was. In 1991, the New York Times reported not only that there had been a rise in tuberculosis cases on the inside - one that posed a "'deadly threat' to the prison system's 60,000 inmates and 28,000 guards and other employees" - but also that this outbreak could spread quickly to "their families and communities." Indeed, the prison population of the New York Department of Corrections would eventually experience "a 900% increase in active tuberculosis" cases in its facilities, and those who were infected had loved ones on the outside who visited, and friends as well as families to whom they returned after serving their time.

The reaction of physicians and public health officials to the sudden resurgence of this scourge was dismay and disgust. As Lee B. Reichman, a leading medical expert on TB, opined in 1992, "We should be ashamed." Tuberculosis was fully preventable, but the combination of overcrowding and lack of access to health care and poor management of existing infections had created the conditions for its return. Worse, this time around it was much harder to treat. As Reichman pointed out, as "many as half these patients will die of the disease, and many will spread their resistant strains to others."

Thankfully, by 1994, and only after concerted measures were taken to mitigate it, the TB outbreak had begun to slow. But it had left its mark. As one study put it a full decade later, "Given the presence of a large reservoir of latently infected individuals in the city and an ongoing tuberculosis pandemic, New York City continues to face significant challenges from this persistent pathogen."

Disturbingly, the conditions that had made this TB epidemic possible were insufficiently autopsied. The hard truth was that the very problems that had made the nation's poorest and most marginalized populations a petri dish in which the TB bacteria could flourish anew - prison overcrowding and a lack of decent health care for the poor - were utterly man-made.

TB became the scourge that it was in the early 1990s in no small part because of the significant welfare cuts that had taken place in the 1980s, as well as that decade's newly funded and aggressively waged war on drugs. And at least some understood this connection at the time. As one observer noted wryly in 1992, "The return of TB is not a fluke or a mystery but the predictable outcome of a glaring social failure. . . . America has essentially cultivated the contagion." And even years later, one doctor looked back on this terrible outbreak and opined as well that tuberculosis was "a political as much as a medical problem."

But those were voices in the wilderness.

Directly on the heels of the scariest public health crisis the nation's urban centers had seen in decades, and most ironically, in the name of "public safety" and "personal responsibility," Democrats and Republicans joined to pass two pieces of legislation that would make the nation even more vulnerable to the spread of dangerous diseases. These acts would, less than three decades later, ensure that the nation's poorest residents would pay the highest price once covid-19 arrived.

In 1994, and with much fanfare, Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. The public health repercussions of this $30 billion expenditure, the largest commitment to policing and prisons in American history, were profound. In short, it made the nation's prison overcrowding crisis much worse.

The law, and subsequent add-ons to it, fueled an explosion in the federal prison population, going from 94,162 people inside in 1994 to 219,298 people by 2013. Even worse, the law incentivized enforcing draconian new mandatory sentencing laws at the state level, leading to an explosion of prison and jail building at the state and local levels - where most of the nation's incarcerated are housed. Soon state prisons were more overcrowded than they had ever been in their history.

Two years later, the newly Republican-controlled Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which gutted what remained of the American welfare system after the cuts of the Reagan era - a safety net that countless people had depended on for their health care. The PRWORA turned out to be the icing on the poisonous cake that had been the 1994 crime bill. What President Bill Clinton claimed was the "end [of] welfare as we know it" not only took needed income away from already marginalized communities, but it also, as studies have made clear, made it harder for the poor to attend to their basic health-care needs. As one study observed in 2006, welfare reform had had a particularly adverse effect on "the health insurance coverage of economically vulnerable women and children, and that this impact was several times larger" than most acknowledged at the time.

Taken together, these two major pieces of legislation, both passed just as the TB epidemic began to subside, made the nation's most marginalized residents even more susceptible to illness and death should any deadly new airborne disease begin to circulate. Because of key pieces of legislation in this period, such as the 1994 crime bill, today 2.3 million people sit in unsanitary and overcrowded prisons with little access to good health care, while 12 million more cycle through the country's equally dangerous jails each year. And because of the PRWORA's ravaging of the safety net for the nation's poorest residents both in and outside of prison - making it harder not just to see a doctor, but also to have housing and to stay home from work if they are ill - we have left countless people dangerously exposed to disease for reasons that were utterly preventable.

Indeed, in their zeal to "get tough on crime" or to "crack down" on welfare dependency, U.S. politicians had completely missed the cold, hard reality that the TB epidemic of the early 1990s revealed. Once unleashed, epidemics can afflict any of us, regardless of whether we live behind prison walls or in gated communities and whether we can pay for our health care. And for those who are on the inside, and all who live without such care, those epidemics are much more likely to be fatal.

Covid-19 has merely reaped what they have sewn.

- - -

Thompson is a professor at the University of Michigan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of "Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy" and "Whose Detroit: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City."
Sumi Sukanya Dutta By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Lack of rigorous active case search, ineffective contact tracing and improper management of patients with acute respiratory distress could be the reasons why COVID-19 cases and deaths are rising at alarming rates in the worst affected districts in India, the Centre believes.

In a meeting with state chief secretaries on Sunday, Union health secretary Preeti Sudan on Sunday had pointed out that there are 20 districts in the country which contribute to 68 per cent of the total disease load in the country and are particularly worrisome.

These districts include Mumbai, Ahmedabad, South East Delhi, Central Delhi, Indore, Pune, Jaipur, Thane, Surat, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Kurnool, Vadodara, Guntur, Krishna and Lucknow.

Apart from sending central teams of public health specialists, we are also offering to guide these states on the specific issues that they are facing, a senior official in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

The Centre has informed states that eight of the 20 worst-hit districts are seeing cases doubling faster than 10 days and seven have a case fatality rate much worse than the national average.

The ministry has analysed that poor social distancing, ineffective contact tracing and lack of active case search in the past -- which means testing people with influenza like symptoms and hospitalised patients with acute respiratory issues --- besides violations in home quarantine and isolation guidelines and high infection rate among healthcare workers could be the reasons behind rapid case doubling rates.

To curb these, the Centre has suggested actions such as forming field units to verify whether social distancing is being implemented properly in the containment zone, verifying perimeter control, ensuring rigorous contact tracing and active case search, counselling patients and contacts to explain importance of properly following isolation and quarantine guidelines to control spread and ensuring prophylaxis with hydroxychloroquine among healthcare workers.

States have also been directed to ensure sufficient personal protective equipment for medical personnel.

The ministry has also advised the states to train all doctors to treat patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome through ventilators and manage the underlying conditions of COVID-19 patients, the lack of which could be resulting in high mortalities due to the infection.

Some independent researchers too have pointed to a surge in new cases in the past two days and expressed concern that states may not be doing enough.

Confirmed cases continue to rise, and active cases now growing at 5.5% - so doubling every 13 days. Not good. It has picked up speed in last 2 days (from 4.7%). Hotspot management (containment, contact tracing and testing) needs to be much better, tweeted Shamika Ravi, a former member on the PMs Economic Advisory Council who has been analyzing COVID-19 data in India.
JUNEAU, Alaska - Carnival Cruise Line is cancelling its sailings to Alaska this summer, a company spokesperson said Monday. The move adds to the mounting woes facing the states tourism industry amid coronavirus concerns.

The announcement referred only to Carnival Cruise Line and not the other brands under the umbrella of Carnival Corp., spokesperson Vance Gulliksen said by email.

Princess Cruises and Holland America Line, which also fall under Carnival Corp. last month announced dramatically reduced sailing plans for Alaska. Princess Cruises did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on any changes to its plans. Holland America Line said so far nothing has changed regarding its plans.

Tourism is a major industry in Alaska, with cruise ships bringing large numbers of visitors during the typically busy summer months. The number of people visiting the state on cruise ships went from 480,000 in 1996 to almost 1.4 million last year, according to a report by state labour department economists Neal Fried and Karinne Wiebold.

Mike Tibbles, with Cruise Lines International Association Alaska, said so far 419 voyages to Alaska, with a passenger capacity of 825,200, have been cancelled.

Carnival Cruise Line, in a release, said it is committed to supporting public health efforts to manage COVID-19 and focusing its return to service in North America starting in August on a select number of ports where we have more significant operations that are easily accessible by car for the majority of our guests. Those include Miami, Port Canaveral and Galveston.
Prologue

Cecil County, Maryland

February 23, 1861

There's a secret on this train.

In the northeastern corner of Maryland, roughly ten miles south of the Pennsylvania state line and five miles west of Delaware, it travels through the darkness.

The land here is mostly rural, a mix of flat farmland and rolling hills. It's after midnight, and the cold night air is silent except for the sound of the engine and wheels.

By outward appearance, there's nothing unusual about this train: a steam engine, tender, cargo car, and several passenger cars moving swiftly along the rails. Inside, there's also nothing out of the ordinary. The passenger cars are dotted with travelers, most with closed eyes. In the rear sleeper car, a handful of passengers occupy the berths on either side of the aisle. By appearances, they're also relatively typical: two middle-aged businessmen, a young woman, and her invalid brother.

Yet much about this seemingly ordinary train is not as it seems.

Before its departure from Philadelphia a few hours earlier, the railroad's staff received special instructions to delay the train's journey until a mysterious package could be delivered to it, transported aboard under strict secrecy. The package remains tightly sealed, supposedly containing government documents of urgent importance. In fact, the box contains something else entirely. None of the train's staff knows this. Only one passenger on the train is aware of the package's true contents.

In the sleeper car, the two middle-aged businessmen, sitting on different berths, are not who they'd claimed to be when they handed tickets to the conductor. The names written on their tickets are not real. One of the men, with wide girth and thick whiskers, carries hidden underneath his coat two loaded pistols, a loaded revolver, and two sharpened bowie knives. The other businessman, who is short and well-built with a close-shaven beard and piercing eyes, silently gazes around the interior of the car, studying every person and movement carefully. Every several minutes, he stands up and walks to the rear platform, where he stares intently into the passing darkness like he's searching for a secret signal.

Across the aisle in the sleeper car from the businessmen, the young woman is also not who she seems. The name on her ticket is actually her code name; she must conceal her true identity under all circumstances, for she's an undercover agent, aboard this train as part of a secret mission.

Yet the most unusual passenger is the young woman's invalid brother, with whom she boarded in Philadelphia. When he first entered the passenger car and she guided him to his seat, he pulled the brim of his low felt hat down over his face so that no one could see it. He wore a loose overcoat over his shoulders, concealing his clothes and torso. Now, he lies behind a curtain in one of the sleeper berths, hidden from view. Because of his unusual height, he cannot stretch out his legs, so he keeps them bent.

This man is not, in fact, an invalid. Nor is he the young woman's brother. His low felt hat and overcoat are simply a disguise so that no one on the train will recognize him.

The engineer, conductor, staff, and other passengers have no idea he's aboard. But there he is  hiding in their midst.

His real name? Abraham Lincoln. President-Elect of the United States.

In only nine days, a crowd of tens of thousands will gather in the nation's capital, preparing to witness Lincoln's first inauguration as President. When he's up on that platform, his every word and gesture will be observed and recorded by reporters for newspapers from every city in the country. He enters the office at a time of great peril, with a growing threat of war that could destroy the nation. Not since the founding of these United States has an incoming President been so deeply scrutinized or faced with such momentous pressure. The world is tracking his every move.

Tonight, however, he is vulnerable and nearly alone.

Tonight, his life is in danger.

And tonight, the President-Elect is the target of a sinister plot calling for his murder.

This scheme, hatched by conspirators in secret rooms and underground saloons in the city of Baltimore, will try something never before attempted in the history of the country at the time: the assassination of the man elected President of the United States. If successful, they will accomplish something never accomplished since: the murder of an incoming President before he takes office.

This is the story of an early conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln  before he served a single day as President, and on the eve of the terrible war that would define his place in history. It is a story that is not well-known by most people today. Even now, some aspects of the scheme remain mysterious. Yet this story and its strange plot, in its motives and conception, provides a gripping window into the most seismic events of the day, at a moment of great national turmoil. It's the story of a new leader, thrust from near obscurity into a position that will bring the most crushing responsibilities in our history. It's the story of a moral crisis in America so profound our nation was almost destroyed by it  and its aftermath is still being grappled with today.

On this dark night, on this dark train, more than just the life and future of a President is at risk. This is about the future of a country. Forget the fate of Abraham Lincoln  this is about the fates of four million enslaved men, women, and children now held in bondage, and whose best hope for liberty may be aboard this train.

From this moment, just after midnight, as the steam engine and passenger cars move through the darkness, the plot to kill President-Elect Abraham Lincoln is set to trigger within a matter of hours.

The nation's future is at stake.

From The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America's 16th Presidentand Why It Failed, by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch, published by Flatiron Books, an imprint of Macmillan. Copyright  2020 by Forty-Four Steps, Inc.

Available at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org (where your purchase supports independent bookstores), Barnes & Noble (bn.com) and wherever else books are sold.
Balcones Distilling's Texas Bock "We are always excited about exploring the methods and processes that produce unique and complex flavors, so we were thrilled to collaborate with the Spoetzl Brewery team to create this new whisky," said Jared Himstedt, head distiller at Balcones Distilling.

Balcones Distilling announced today its newest special release, Balcones Texas Bock whisky, made in partnership with Spoetzl Brewery, the creator of Shiner Beer. Derived from Shiner traditions and distilled by Balcones, the Texas Bock is a malt whisky made from the exact recipe for Shiner Bock beer, utilizing the brewerys mash bill and proprietary lager yeast strain to create a remarkable flavor profile.

The Balcones Texas Bock whisky marks the third collaboration between the two prestigious Texas brands, following the Barrel-Aged Bock craft beer released by Shiner in March of this year and the Barrel-Aged Spoetzl Marzen released in 2018. The new limited-edition expression is a straight malt whisky that was aged in first-fill American oak barrels for at least two years and made with a mash bill of over 51 percent malted barley.

"We are always excited about exploring the methods and processes that produce unique and complex flavors, so we were thrilled to collaborate with the Spoetzl Brewery team to create this new whisky," said Jared Himstedt, head distiller at Balcones Distilling. It is always inspiring to partner with folks who are committed to quality, craftsmanship, and flavor.

Texas Bock starts with a bright nose full of pear puff pastry, cinnamon icing, walnut praline, and orange peel. On the palate, the whisky is juicy with notes of buckwheat sourdough pancakes, Shirley Temple, maple streusel, strawberry pop rocks, and seasoned oak. It finishes with holiday spices and hints of raspberry cobbler, dried rosemary, and soft suede.

We look forward to having another opportunity to work with the world-class team at Balcones, said Tom Fiorenzi, director of brewing at Spoetzl Brewery. This whisky, in addition to our Barrel-Aged Bock, showcases an exceptional partnership between two Texas-made iconic brands, and we are excited for future opportunities to partner.

Balcones Texas Bock retails for $39.99 and will be available at Balcones Distillery in Waco, Texas, and at retailers throughout Texas and Oklahoma for a limited time.

For more information on Balcones Distilling, check out BalconesDistilling.com, and for more information on Spoetzl Brewery, visit Shiner.com.

About Balcones Distilling

Driven by a passion to create something original and authentic, Balcones Distilling marries centuries of distilling tradition with the bold flavors of Texas. Balcones is synonymous with quality and innovation in the whisky industry, known for emphasizing high-quality ingredients and drawing influences from all over Texas. To date, the distillery has earned over 350 national and international tasting awards and accolades for their whiskies and spirits. Balcones is currently available in 22 states and is one of the fastest-growing whisky brands in the country.

Balcones distills all of its beloved spirits inside the historic Texas Fireproof Storage Company building in downtown Waco. At the heart of the distillery are four copper pot stills built by Forsyths, considered some of the best artisans in Scotland. Guests can now visit and tour the facility, with tastings and events held regularly, and see why Balcones is always Distilled to Appreciate. Visit BalconesDistilling.com for more information.

About Spoetzl Brewery

The Spoetzl Brewery was founded in Shiner, Texas (population 2,069), in 1909, brewing beer with old-world traditions and recipes for the many German and Czech settlers in Central Texas. Since then, the brewery has grown to be one of the leading independent craft brewers in the country, with beers available in all 50 states and Mexico. But every drop of the award-winning beer is still brewed in Shiner, Texas where it all started over 100 years ago. Visit Shiner.com for more information.

# # #
Arrests

Three British nationals were arrested after allegedly flouting coronavirus restrictions by having a lock-in at a Thai bar.

The men were drinking with five "bar girls" at the venue in Pattaya, eastern Thailand, on Saturday night.

There was a "closed" sign hanging on the door of the Pussycat Club and the lights were dimmed - but the officers patrolling the area were suspicious of the rowdy noise coming from inside.

They forced their way inside and found the Brits drinking bottles of beer along with the young women - appearing in the video to be ignoring vital social distancing rules introduced to fight the pandemic.

Coronavirus across the globe100

Police frogmarches the three men out of the bar into a waiting police vehicle. They were arrested and taken to the station along with the bar owner Chanita Kiddeejing, 41, and four young female staff.

Police Major Colonel Kengsart Nualpong said the men would be charged with violation of the country's State of Emergency Act which was brought in to stop the spread of Covid-19. The maximum penalty is two years in prison and fines of 100,000THB (2,473) each.
OPEC production surged by the most in almost 30 years, a survey showed, while demand is not expected to recover soon

Oil prices declined on Monday after three days of gains as worries of a supply glut resurfaced on new data showing production levels were higher in April.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) saw production surge by the most in almost 30 years in April, a Bloomberg news agency survey showed, as countries kept pumping vast amounts of crude even after reaching a price-war truce earlier in the month.

United States West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures last sat at $18.59 per barrel, down 6 percent, while Brent futures were down 2.4 percent at $25.80.

In the previous week, oil prices rose as US stockpiles grew less than expected and cities moved to ease coronavirus lockdown measures, lending hope to a revival in oil demand.

But traders believe it is likely to take more than a year and perhaps longer for demand to return to pre-coronavirus levels. The enormous glut built up over the price war in March and April will also keep prices depressed even as economic activity picks up.

The May futures contract for US WTI plunged into negative territory in April for the first time ever due to fears that the country was running out of space to store oil.

Stocks also declined on Monday after the US released bleak economic data and fresh concerns of a trade war with China appeared.

In thin trade, with China and Japan on holiday, US stock futures fell 1.6 percent, US crude tumbled more than $1 a barrel, or 6 percent and futures for Australias benchmark ASX 200 index pointed to a negative open.

US manufacturing plunged to an 11-year low last month, consumer spending has collapsed and some 30.3 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment in the last six weeks.

Separately, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added to the jitters with remarks on Sunday, when he said there was a significant amount of evidence that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory.

Pompeo did not provide evidence, or dispute US intelligence agencies conclusion that the virus was not man-made. But the comments add momentum to Washingtons pressure on China over the virus origin as US deaths and economic damage mount.

There is a sense of caution, if not foreboding as signs of economic weakness continue to emanate, said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank in Singapore.

Whats really chilling is the risk that an almost quadrupling of unemployment to above 16 percent may prove sticky.

The US April jobs report will be released on Friday but some analysts say it may not fully reflect how many people have been thrown out of work.

In Hong Kong, shares declined on Monday after a two-day holiday on the back of concerns that the city may be seeing its worst economic slump on record. The benchmark Hang Seng was down 3.5 percent.

Hong Kongs authorities are preparing to ease some lockdown measures this week amid signs the coronavirus outbreak has been contained, but investors were jittery over a collapse in corporate earnings.

In currency markets, the safe-haven US dollar rallied to one-week highs against the risk sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars.
Back in 2018, This is Money received an e-mail from a reader which started: 'You need to have a section dedicated to crypto technology and currencies.

'This is now a market exploding with ICOs, new currencies daily, technological advancements and a market worth over $550billion.

'The technology is the biggest technological leap since the founding of the internet.'

Bitcoin bullet: Many may have been tempted into buying and selling cryptocurrencies - but may not know how to do it

It highlighted how quickly the cryptocurrency phenomenon exploded in that time and how much some investors believed in the technology.

But, stories of coins going missing, murky practices and price swings have shown just how volatile the world of bitcoin, ethereum, ripple and co are.

Some coins have historically seen falls by 25 per cent in one day  a huge whack for any investor, experienced or otherwise, while many coins were at peak prices at 2018, and haven't recovered as of May 2020, the date we've updated this guide.

Nevertheless, many readers are asking how they can get their hands on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies safely and securely in 2020, and importantly, how they can sell if they want to take profits.

However, it is the Wild West out there. So let's start with the warnings. As mentioned above, digital currencies are volatile and not for the faint-hearted. You should read our bitcoin box below.

Yes, there are plenty of stories about how people have become rich investing in bitcoin at the start and some self-titled experts are saying this is the best new financial investment you can make.

But there have also been plenty of grumbles about it, including from stalwart US investor Warren Buffett - while the Financial Conduct Authority has also warned bout the dangers of investing in bitcoin.

If you do buy into bitcoin Find out how bitcoin and the blockchain works, so that you have some understanding of the system, the ledger, the major players and the public and private key elements. Remember bitcoin yields nothing and its main source of value is scarcity. Most bitcoin activity is trading not investing. Research coin wallets, the digital vaults where cryptocurrency is held, and consider security carefully. Bitcoins have been stolen before, understand how this happened. Be prepared for extreme volatility. The price can move by 20 per cent in one day and you could easily lose half of your cash in a far quicker time that investing in the stock market. Consider how you would cash in any gains. There are reports that this has proved hard for some people. A time of market stress could lead to people being locked in and unable to trade. Read our guide to How to be a successful investor, which looks at the far less high octane world of long-term investing and how to make it a success. What is bitcoin? The digital currency that most will be familiar with is free from government interference and can be shared instantly online. It doesn't rely on trusting one central monetary authority. The underlying technology is blockchain, a financial ledger maintained by a network of computers that can track the movement of any asset without the need for a central regulator.

WILD WEST WARNING

According to analysis by digital threat firm RiskIQ two years ago, the world's top app stores were hosting more than 600 blacklisted bitcoin apps which leave users open to hackers.

It looked at 18,408 apps across 20 app stores, including Apple and Google Play. It found a staggering 661 to be blacklisted by official cyber security vendors - but still available for download by users.

Hackers behind the malicious apps, which have been blacklisted by one or more cyber security vendors, can trick users into handing over large sums of money or personal details for financial gain.

The rise in unofficial and potentially malicious apps across multiple app stores will alarm potential investors looking to buy into bitcoin  and highlights that you need to be on your guard.

Fabian Libeau, vice president of RiskIQ, says: 'We are seeing threat actors around the world exploiting what is already a hostile currency in a lawless digital world.

'Before handing over any cash or personal data investors should carry out thorough research into the exchange and wallet apps they intend to use.'

If you plan to buy cryptocurrency, you must arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible to avoid the conmen.

Wild West: Buying and selling digital currencies can be a minefield of cowboys and chancers

SET UP A WALLET

Search engine data shows that queries for 'buy bitcoin' outstripped 'buy gold' in the latter part of 2017.

This is Money data showed just how many people have been searching some of the most popular digital currencies.

The price of bitcoin surged from around $1,000 at the start of 2017 to near the $20,000 mark in December 2017, bringing it to the attention of the British public.

To get a cryptocurrency, you need a wallet - this is where the digital currency lives.

HAVE YOU BOUGHT INTO THE CRAZE? Have you invested in cryptocurrencies in recent months? Let us know in the comments section below how you did it and how easy or difficult you found the process.

Because it is a relatively new financial craze, it is hard to say which firms offering wallets are reputable while a number have disappeared or lost customers cash, including Mt.Gox in 2014.

Meanwhile, in 2016, a hack saw the Bitfinex exchange platform lose 120,000 bitcoin.

One of the biggest websites to deal in bitcoin is Coinbase  an online exchange, which also has a wallet option. It has a user friendly app and two-factor authentication.

Another is Blockchain.info which is similar to Coinbase. They are both backed with millions in venture capital funding. Visit coinbase.com/signup and blockchain.info to find out more.

However, it only deals with the most familiar digital currencies - if you want to invest in an obscure one, it is much harder (as we explain below).

Another popular wallet is Electrum, which is a wallet for desktop computer use.

BUY AT AN EXCHANGE

AN UPDATE This guide was written in January 2018, and although most of it still holds up, it has needed a little bit of tweaking. Since then, the bitcoin price collapsed from $12,000 to a low of around $3,000 in December 2018. It has recovered somewhat, and even topped $11,000 last July, but has never got close to the stratospheric heights it enjoyed in December 2017. Bitcoin halves on 11 May 2020, which has seen interest in the cryptocurrency soar. You can read more about that here.

Once you have set up your wallet, you add cryptocurrency to it. You find an exchange and send them cash, either by bank transfer or credit/debit card to obtain digital currency. Bank transfer tends to be the cheaper method.

For example, Coinbase charges 3.99 per cent on debit and credit transactions, or 1.49 per cent for a standard buy/sell.

Many have strict requirements for ID purposes. A handy website is Bittybot, which lets you compare brokers and fees, alongside user ratings.

Two of the most popular brokers are Coinify and Coinbase, mentioned above.

If you buy bitcoin, for example, you will need to hand over your unique key. This is an identifier that represents your account and is different from your wallet log-in. It should be easy to find within the details of your account.

Brokers will ask for this address to make a transaction. When it comes to selling, there should be no issue selling a mainstream coin such as bitcoin.

You can use the same broker you bought it from and it will involve them giving you an other key to send your bitcoin too from your wallet. Once the transaction is confirmed, you should receive your cash.

Remember, some of these exchanges can crash unexpectedly. For instance, Kraken, the fifth largest cryptocurrency exchange, was out of service for two days earlier in the month after scheduled maintenance that was supposed to take two hours.

It left many nervy investors wondering if they'd be able to cash out, if they so wished.

It is also possible to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through some existing trading platforms, where you actually own the coins themselves.

One popular website which advertises heavily is eToro. We've seen adverts on the London Underground and even on easyJet flight boarding passes. Its system works similar to a DIY investing platform's nominee account system, eToro holds the cryptocurrencies and you have a claim on those that you have bought.

Previously the platform used contracts for difference for crypto, but it no longer does.

I BOUGHT 4K OF RIPPLE ON BITSTAMP One This is Money reader, Alex  who only wants his first name mentioned  invested 1,600 in ripple in June 2017, a further 1,600 at the start of December 2017 and a further 1,000 over that Christmas period. He chose ripple after a friend-of-a-friend recommendation from an IT consultant with a keen interest in cryptocurrencies. He says that they had used an exchange called Gatehub. However, Alex says when he went to invest, the website was sticky and slow. After some research and a raft of good reviews, he plumped for Bitstamp. At the time of his investment, ripple was not really heard of, with only bitcoin and ethereum really in the mainstream domain, making it harder to get hold of. However, it took some hoops to get involved. It took a week to get verified, which involved him sending a copy of passport to the Bitstamp HQ in Slovenia, along with a bank transfer, which meant having his Iban and Swift Code to hand. He says that recently, a friend of his has also tried to sign up with Bitstamp, but the company is quoting five weeks to verify, thanks to a surge of interest. He says his June investment saw ripple at $0.22 a coin, but this fell to $0.10 not long afterwards, testing his nerve at the very beginning. Eventually it rose and he was confident to make another investment, in December, when the coin went to $0.38 a coin. By mid-January, it raced to a record high near $4 a coin  and Alex said his account had grown to 34,000 (it's measured in euros as it is Slovenian based) from roughly 4,000 invested. He said on one train journey home, his account had collapsed from 34,000 to 25,000, as investors began to panic. He believes the price went up after rumours that ripple was heading to Coinbase, one of the main crypto players, meaning more people could invest, thus driving up the price. However, the firm issued a statement saying this wasn't the case - and it lead to a bloodbath. So, was it easy to cash out? Alex says it was. He sold 8,000XRP making a tidy profit and taking away his exposure. This was sold within seconds on the site to eager investors. It has left him with 12,000XRP that he plans to keep hold of. Currently, it has 'stabilised' to around $1.15 a coin. He says Bitstamp charge 0.24 per cent for buying and selling. The cost, he says, of selling, was 9 in fees. It was also warned that it would take up to three working days to arrive in his account. It took two. We asked whether his bank had been in touch regarding any suspicious activity, giving the amounts of money being transferred and having been received overseas. He says he hasn't. A raft of case studies recently in the Financial Times revealed problems cashing out their profits, with some banks suspicious of where customers had received huge sums. Transferring cash and passport details to Slovenia for an investment punt is extreme - but Alex says the risk has paid dividends.

CFDS

Some websites offer investors the chance to take a punt on cryptocurrencies, but not actually own any of their own.

Here, you buy 'Contract For Difference' agreements. This is where an investor and a broker agree to pay each other the difference between the price of an asset at the moment the contract is made and its later price when you decide to close it.

The Financial Conduct Authority warned against betting on the currency using CFDs in November.

They are complex financial instruments which allow novice investors to guess whether the price will go up or down.

Punters could lose up to 50 times their deposit if they get it wrong, meaning they could rapidly rack up huge debts.

The FCA said CFD traders are 'at risk of suffering significant losses and potentially losing more than you have invested'.

OBSCURE COINS HARDER TO BUY

At the time of writing in January 2018, many believed bitcoin had peaked  or reached a point in which they cannot make some of the astronomical gains made by early investors, which has, as of May 2020, held true.

As such, many wanted to take a 'punt' on a lesser known coin - and this still may be the point. There is plenty of them.

This is Money signed up to New Zealand based website Cryptopia in 2018 to see a list of what is available. It was huge.

Two that were being tipped to grow in 2018 from a low level by a panel of four fintech leaders for price comparison website Finder in a cryptocurrency predictions survey were cardano (ADA) and stellar lumens (XLM).

They claimed that cardano  a third generation digital currency - will rise by more than 8,000 per cent from $0.78 a coin to $68.

(Update: This did not happen. As of 4 May 2020, cardano sits at a price of $0.05, having hit an all-time high of $1.33 just before this article was originally published)

However, getting your mitts on the coin as a speculative punt is not as easy as it seems.

Hardly any of the aforementioned brokers or wallets cater for the smaller currencies, only the main players such as bitcoin.

You then find yourself on niche websites  or in our case, Cryptopia.

But to buy any currency on many of these types of website requires you to already own bitcoin or another major cryptocurrency.

Or in Alex's case above, sending bank and passport details to Slovenia, which is a hurdle many - understandably - would not be comfortable with.

When we searched 'how to buy cardano UK' a step-by-step guide said we needed to download software for the wallet and own ethereum to get the coin.

We're not sure how many people would be comfortable downloading software onto their computers or phones from sources they do not know. It is open to all sorts of fraudulent activity.

DO YOU DECLARE PROFITS TO THE TAXMAN?

Those who have made profits from buying and selling digital currencies may be left a little confused about whether or not they need to pay tax.

With the deadline for tax returns fast approaching, many may not know whether or not to declare it - and the HMRC guidelines are a little fuzzy.

In December 2019 the taxman issued a policy paper which said it did not class profits as gambling, which means they would be tax-free.

Instead, 'in the vast majority of cases', it said, 'individuals hold cryptoassets as a personal investment, usually for capital appreciation in its value or to make particular purchases.

'They will be liable to pay Capital Gains Tax when they dispose of their cryptoassets.'

Capital Gains Tax is payable on gains above 12,300. This is 18 per cent for basic-rate income tax payers and 28 per cent for higher-rate taxpayers. If you make less than 12,300 or less on selling all your assets in one year, including other investments or property not just bitcoin, you do not pay CGT.
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath paid his tributes to security personnel for their supreme sacrifice while fighting and eliminating terrorists at Handwara in north Kashmir on May 2.

"Salute to the valor and martyrdom of the brave sons of India who sacrificed their lives while protecting the nation in Handwara of Jammu and Kashmir. This supreme sacrifice is unforgettable. The country is proud of you," CM Yogi tweeted.

The Chief Minister Office (CMO) in a tweet on Monday (Many 4) informed that CM Adityanath has announced financial support of Rs 50 lakh to the family of fallen soldier, Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, resident of village Parwana of Bulandshahr and a government job to 1 family members. "A 'Gaurav Diwar' will also be constructed in his native village in memory of Colonel Ashutosh," CMO tweeted.

Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, the commanding officer of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles unit (Brigade of the Guards), who laid down his life during a firefight with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara on Saturday (May 2), was a decorated army officer. He was twice awarded the Sena Medal for gallantry for exemplary bravery in counter-terrorist missions in the past.

He is also the first Commanding Officer or a Colonel-rank Army person in the last five years to have lost his life in an encounter with terrorists. Colonel MN Rai of 42 RR lost his life in an anti-terror operation over five years ago in January 2015 in Pulwama district. Colonel Santosh Mahadik of 41 RR lost his life in November 2015 in Kupwara.

He is survived by his wife and 12-year-old daughter

Colonel Ashutosh Sharma belonged to the Brigade of the Guards Regiment and had been serving in the Kashmir valley for a long time. He had received his gallantry award as a commanding officer when a terrorist came rushing towards his personnel on a road with a grenade hidden inside his clothes.

Sharma shot him at a close range which helped in saving the lives of many of his troops along with Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel, an Army officials told ANI.

On Saturday (May 2), five army persons lost their lives during a gunbattle with terrorists that took place in a remote location in Handwara. Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rakesh Kumar, Lance Naik Dinesh Singh and a rifleman and sub-inspector Shakeel Qazi of Jammu and Kashmir Police were among those who were killed during a firefight with terrorists.

Two terrorists were also killed in the operation by the security forces.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil



Kumar Modi on Monday drew flak from the opposition for charging the RJD-Congress combine with failure to contribute "a single paisa" into the Chief Minister's Relief Fund from which money is drawn to provide assistance to those badly affected by the lockdown.

The senior BJP leader had made the allegation in a tweet on Sunday wherein he had also launched a veiled attack on a sitting Congress MLA, who had shot off a letter to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, seeking return of Rs 50 lakh released from his local area development fund.

"During the crisis that has arisen out of corona outbreak and lockdown, legislators of JD(U) and BJP contributed their one-month salary. Those in the RJD-Congress, failed to contribute a single paisa and displayed their insensitivity by demanding return of Rs 50 lakh," Sushil Modi



known for routinely taking potshots at political adversaries via the micro-blogging site had remarked.

His allusion was to Md Tauseef Alam, the multiple-term MLA from Bahadurganj in Kishanganj district, who had written the angry letter last week and displayed its copies to the media alleging that his constituency had been in a state of "total neglect" by the health machinery, with even bare essentials like hand sanitisers in short supply.

Modi's tweet drew an indignant response from Congress MLC and AICC panelist Prem Chandra Mishra, who warned the deputy CM that he take back his words, failing which he will be slapped with a legal notice.

"I had myself donated my salary in March. So have many of my party colleagues. The Deputy CM has made remark that is false and seeks to demean us in the eyes of the public. He should withdraw his remarks else we will send him a legal notice," Mishra told reporters.

Danish Rizwan, spokesman of the Hindustani Awam Morcha founded and headed by former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, said in a statement that his party boss who is a sitting MLA had donated his one-month salary and posted on social media a screenshot of the transaction receipt.

"Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi must apologise for coming out with a false remark that seeks to defame opposition leaders," Rizwan said.

RJD MLA and spokesman Bhai Virendra pointed out that the partys de facto leader Tejashwi Yadav had announced that 50 per cent of his salary for his remaining term, which comes to an end with the expiry of the assembly later this year, shall go to the 'corona eradication fund' set up by the health department.

"Moreover, 15 per cent pay cut has been announced by the government for all members of the legislature, which has only been welcomed by the opposition and ought to be seen as a contribution. It does not behoove a person holding a high office to make petty comments," he added.

Notably, contributions were made to the 'corona eradication fund' from the Mukhyamantri Kshetra Vikas Yojana, Bihar's revamped version of the local area development fund for members of the bicameral legislature, following a cabinet nod for release of Rs 50 lakh from the quota of each legislator.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had said that legislators were "free to contribute more" out of the fund, which empowers every member of either house to recommend works worth Rs 3 crore every year.

While the corona eradication fund is meant for fighting the pandemic and preventing its spread, allocations from the Chief Ministers Relief Fund go towards schemes like monetary assistance to stranded migrant laborers, running of relief centres where they are provided with food, shelter and medical aid.

Meanwhile, the BJP sought to back the deputy CM to the hilt.

The party's state unit spokesman Nikhil Anand came out with a strongly-worded statement claiming that "Congress-RJD leaders consider the public money at their disposal, raised through the efforts of the common people, as their private property. They should be ashamed of what Tausif has done".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Coronavirus: Turkey plans to reopen in June Erdogan calls govt meeting, road map for tourism and trade

(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, MAY 4 - Almost two months after its first recorded case of COVID-19, Turkey has begun to plan a return to normality starting in June. After the fourth consecutive weekend of total curfew ended at midnight, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to bring together his cabinet via a video conference on Monday to discuss new measures. The lockdown is expected to continue throughout the weekends in May but activities will not be stopped during the week. Ankara expects to reopen other sectors next month to aid an economy that restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus have hit hard, with the Turkish lira now at its lowest level against the US dollar since the 2018 currency crisis. Starting in June, tourism will resume with new distancing and prevention measures, with the reopening of hotels and museums and open-air cultural events. It seems unlikely, instead, that the traditional end of Ramadan holiday will be able to be held since it falls during the last week of May. Turkish Airlines flights are expected to resume starting in June. They are currently suspended until May 28. Mosques and malls will also reopen in early June. The curfew for those over 65 may be loosened in the coming days with specific hours for them to leave their homes. Those with chronic illnesses and those under 20 years old are also under a lockdown. (ANSAmed).




More than 700 volunteers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued clean-up efforts this weekend in response to tornado damage in the greater Chattanooga area. In yellow shirts with hearts of gold, as News Channel 3 described them last week, the volunteers came from across Tennessee and Georgia, including Atlanta, Knoxville and Chattanooga.

It is estimated that from April 20-26, over 300 volunteers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Chattanooga, Cookeville, McMinnville, Cartersville plus 20 full-time missionaries serving in the area put in approximately 5,161 hours of service and completed over 137 projects.

This week, the numbers swelled. More than 700 volunteers showed up. From May 2-3, Church members and missionaries logged over 10,000 hours of service and filled 266 work orders. Additional work not included in tally totals came about as roaming crews went door-to-door to assist.

As Phil Smartt, communications director for the Chattanooga Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said when interviewed by News Channel 3, People need help and thats what we are trying to do is give them help. Church members have cleaned up damage of hundreds of homes, and were just glad to do it. Were helping because Jesus Christ teaches we should love our neighbors as ourselves. So were here to serve our brothers and sisters, no matter how many hours it takes.

News Channel 9, on the scene on Saturday noted that volunteers were working on more than 200 projects, while maintaining social distancing guidelines and CDC recommendations. Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger and State Rep. Esther Helton visited the command center set up at the Church building located on Ooltewah-Ringgold Road. They were impressed by the organization of efforts. Last weekend, federal, state and local government officials, including Congressman Chuck Fleischmann, State Rep. Mike Carter, County Commissioner Sabrena Smedley and City Councilman Darrin Ledford toured Church operations and were also appreciative of the scope and work undertaken by the volunteers.

In addition to local efforts, members of the Church in the greater Chattanooga area also contribute to worldwide efforts of the Church to provide COVID-19 relief. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is providing COVID-19 relief in 57 countries, including China. Church relief includes food, hygiene products, personal protective equipment, medical equipment, cash and other commodities, depending on needs and partnerships per location. In some locations, the Church is sewing masks and gowns for medical workers. President Russell M. Nelson emphasizes that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints desires to be part of the solution to this challenge.

These unique challenges will pass in due time, said President Nelson, reminding that we can be strengthened and lifted as we call upon God and His Son, Jesus Christ  the Master Healer. His gospel provides certain hope and help to a troubled world.

On April 20, 2020, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated more than 40,000 puonds of food to the Chattanooga Food Bank  a small and simple act intended to bring about good. When we join our small efforts together and call upon The Lords help, President Jean B. Bingham of the General Relief Society womens organization said, every individual can do magnificent things. Thats what Chattanoogans, friends and believers are doing. By serving each other, we are fulfilling our responsibilities as disciples of Christ, as President Bingham said, in simple yet remarkable ways.
Mobile operator O2 is in talks to merge with Virgin Media in a move that would pose a serious threat to rival telcos including BT and Sky.

Telefonica, O2's Spanish owner, confirmed it is in discussions with Virgin-owner Liberty Global over a deal between the two network operators.

Liberty Global, which is owned by American billionaire John Malone, is reportedly considering a merger of the two companies' British units.

Telefonica stressed it is currently in the 'negotiation phase', and it is not guaranteed that the two parties will agree a deal.

The Spanish telco giant said it would keep markets informed if a 'satisfactory agreement' was reached, according to Reuters.

Liberty Global told MailOnline it is not commenting on the potential merger.

The two have started a negotiation process to merge Telefonica's British mobile operator O2 and Liberty's Virgin Media network company, the Spanish company said

'The process started between both parties is in negotiation phase, with no guarantee, at this point, precise terms or its probability of success,' Telefonica said.

A tie-up between the two companies could create a major rival for BT, which owns EE, the UK's second largest mobile network.

It would bring together O2's 34 million customers on its mobile network with Virgin's 5.3 million broadband, pay-TV and mobile users.

Virgin Media competes with UK pay-TV market leader Sky, owned by Comcast, in pay-TV, and with BT, Sky, TalkTalk and others in broadband

O2  which also provides the network for GiffGaff, Tesco Mobile and Sky Mobile  is the UK's largest phone company.

Paolo Pescatore, tech and media analyst at PP Foresight, called it 'an intriguing move' and 'a bolt out of the blue'.

'For sure, it is more likely to appease regulators than two mobile operators coming together,' he said.

'Also, let's not forget the parents of both companies have been keen to offload these assets for a while.

'Therefore, there is more to this than simply convergence and competing with BT and Sky.'

While the new entity will be far stronger, Pescatore said obstacles will need to be overcome before the newly-formed entity would be able to compete with BT and Sky, including a valuation of both companies.

Virgin Media remains the 'crown jewels' in Liberty Globals portfolio, but also a 'problem child', he added.

'Virgin Media was one of the pioneers in this area but has been let down without a mobile network, late to market in 4G and struggling TV business.

'Whereas O2 soles focus on mobile and championing consumers will run out of steam at some point.'

Telefonica has been examining options for the O2 business since 2016, after a planned takeover by CK Hutchinson  which owns fellow mobile operator Three  was blocked by European competition regulators.

Talks between O2 and Virgin Media also raise questions over the future of Virgin's mobile operations, which were due to be taken over by Vodafone later this year.

In November, Vodafone won the five-year contract from BT-owned EE.

The Telefonica headquarters in Madrid, Spain. Telefonica confirmed it was in talks with billionaire John Malone's Liberty Global Plc over a possible merger of their respective businesses in Britain

According to Reuters, Telefonica share price rose 3.2 per cent on Monday because of the merger talks.

Telefonica, which reports its first-quarter results on Thursday, has struggled to boost profit growth in the face of fierce competition.

The company's debt pile stood at 37.74 billion euros at the end of last year and its shares are down 30 per cent so far this year.

Its UK business generated 7.11 billion euros in revenue in 2019, around 14.7 per cent of the group's total, and had 34.5 mobile connections on its network.

Virgin Media, meanwhile, had 6 million cable customers and 3.3 million mobile customers as of the end of 2019.
The family of a care home resident who died from Covid-19 have said serious questions need to be asked of private nursing homes over how they have managed the coronavirus crisis.

Lisburn man Ronnie Falloon (84) died in Rosevale Lodge Care Home on April 7, just a few hours after becoming ill.

He was the first to die as a result of the virus at the home.

A spokesman for Rosevale Lodge in Lisburn confirmed that six residents had died as a result of Covid-19, including two in hospital. A seventh death has been linked to the virus.

The care home said it was following all of the Public Health Agency and HSC guidelines.

However, Mr Falloon's family have been left with "serious questions".

"There was a lockdown four weeks before my father died," Mr Falloon's daughter told the Belfast Telegraph.

"No visitors were allowed in or out, all family members were banned, but given the substantial fees these care home charge I would like to know if adequate PPE and procedures were in place to at least attempt to prevent the virus entering the care home."

On Friday it emerged that more than 40% of Covid-19 related deaths in Northern Ireland have occurred in care homes.

Out of the 393 deaths Nisra recorded by April 24, 158 occurred in the facilities.

It led deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill to declare that the battle against the virus "is now in our care homes".

Mr Falloon's family said they are still searching for answers.

The family say no one from management at the care home has yet contacted them to pass on their sympathies or even notify them of Mr Falloon's death.

"It leaves a very bad taste in your mouth," Mr Falloon's daughter said.

"My daddy was taken ill on the morning of April 7. He died that evening and a nurse, who was lovely, phoned at 10.30pm to tell me he had passed away.

"I know he passed quickly in his sleep, so he didn't suffer. He had been tested for coronavirus that morning. It was only after he died that the result came back as positive. We know the staff there loved him and cared for him. It had been his home for two and half years.

"But we're left with serious questions. We were paying over 2,500 a month for my dad to be looked after there.

"We have no idea whether any of the income from us, or the families of other residents, was used to make the necessary health and safety arrangements to try to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

"And if no one was able to enter the home for four weeks before my father died, how did the virus get in there? It could only have been through contact with a member of staff, so what measures were in place to stop that from happening?"

It is understood the manager of the home was absent for a couple of weeks after contracting coronavirus and other family members who worked there had to self-isolate as well.

While in isolation the manager continued to work from home and was supported by other senior members of the group's staff, including the regional area manager and head of nursing.

A spokesman for Rosevale Lodge said: "Very sadly, six of our residents have died with coronavirus - four of these were in the home and two in hospital.

"One more resident passed away who did not have symptoms and therefore was not tested. It is possible that this death was Covid-related but without a test, this cannot be stated definitively.

"Our hearts go out to all of the families who have lost someone. These losses are deeply felt by our nursing and care staff, who have looked after these residents over many months and years. We are following all of the Public Health Agency and HSC guidelines and we have had plenty of PPE throughout this crisis.

"The home has been locked down to all visitors since March 17. Our staff are being temperature tested before starting on shift and they complete a declaration every day to state if they are symptom-free.

"Every one of our residents is being temperature tested between twice and four times a day and this has helped in the early detection of some cases."

The spokesman said staff at the care home are in contact with a nominated family member for all the residents to keep them informed.

He added: "We fully understand how worrying a time this is for all families and we have told them that if there is any change in the condition of their loved one, they will be informed immediately. This is an incredibly difficult situation for our staff, who are following all the possible guidelines and are all too aware of the risks to the elderly people in their care, as well as to themselves and their families.

"As a dementia home, while we are doing all we can to isolate our residents, one of the biggest challenges we face is that the nature of the dementia condition makes this very distressing for them.

"The announcement this week from the Department of Health of testing of all staff and residents in nursing homes is welcome.

"As our outbreak occurred before this, we have yet to be able to avail of this and we would urge the department to make this even more widespread and ongoing for months to come.

"More testing is the only thing that will give us greater confidence and control."
Appearing impatient to return to their native places, migrant workers pelted stones at police in Surat district of Gujarat on Monday, leaving nearly a dozen personnel injured, one of them an IPS officer, and also held protests elsewhere during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, officials said.

Several labourers came out on a road in Rajkot demanding that they be sent back to their hometowns, while some migrant workers got their heads tonsured in an area of Surat after being unable to go back home.

Police personnel lobbed teargas shells and baton- charged agitated workers from Uttar Pradesh, who pelted stones on them near Vareli village on the outskirts of Surat, an official said.

Migrant workers, numbering more than 1,000, were demanding that arrangements be made to send them back to their native places during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, which has rendered them jobless, he said.

Authorities in Gujarat, one of the states worst hit by coronavirus, have started sending back migrant labourers to their respective home state.

At least 10 policemen along with Inspector General (Surat Range), S Pandian Rajkumar, were injured in the stone pelting, he said, adding police have detained 80 people so far.

The labourers also damaged some vehicles parked on the Surat-Kadodara road, the official said.

They clashed with police and threw stones at them, following which security personnel lobbed teargas shells and used batons to disperse them, he said.

"We had asked these migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh to have patience as authorities are still in talks with the UP government for their journey back home.

"However, a mob of over 1,000 men suddenly came on roads and started throwing stones on police, injuring around 10 policemen. Even I received minor injuries on my arm," said Rajkumar.

"It seems they had planned the attack in advance. We have detained over 80 persons and brought the situation under control," said the IPS officer.

In the morning, around 50 labourers from Uttar Pradesh got their heads tonsured here, saying the buses on which they left for their native state two days back after initial nod were forced to halt at Kosamba in the district for want of "valid permission" and sent back to Surat.

They said hey have been waiting endlessly for the administration to clear their journey back home.

A worker demanded that the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat co-ordinate their movement without delay, and claimed bus fare, which they arranged with much difficulty, has not been returned to them.

"Many of us sold off our watches and mobile phones to arrange for the bus fare. Now we are still at the same place, with no permission given to our buses to move.

"We are stranded here with no help from officials. We demand the governments of the two states to coordinate fast for our return back home," he said.

Till Sunday, eight trains carrying migrant workers had left for Uttar Pradesh and Odisha from Gujarat.

Four trains from Ahmedabad, carrying around 1,200 migrant labourers each, travelled to Uttar Pradesh and an equal number of trains from Surat left for Odisha.

In Rajkot, hundreds of migrant workers came out on road in Shapar-Veraval industrial area on the city outskirts, demanding that they be sent back home.

Police said they managed to persuade the workers to call off the protest, and brought the situation under control.

"We have reached out to migrants in residential localities and explained to them that they will be allowed to leave after getting a medical check-up done and completing other formalities," Rajkot Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-1) Ravi Mohan Saini said.

Rajkot district collector Ramya Mohan said the administration has been given strict instruction to follow the government-prescribed guidelines while sending migrant workers back to their home states.

We have get the names of migrant workers registered and sent them to the respective state for approval. Then we have to request the Railways for their transit.

"Based on our request, the Railways will make arrangements for trains only after the home state concerned gives permission for their return, Mohan said.

These procedures take time and migrant workers need to show patience in returning to their native places, the Rajkot collector said.

Some migrant workers also gathered outside the Rajkot collector's office to fill forms for returning home, saying they had no food and money to sustain their livelihood.

"The factory where I worked is closed, and I want to go back to my native place. They say we will have to arrange our our own vehicles to return to our native place, but we want the government to send us back in train," a worker said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
MIAMI, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The WOHASU Foundation announced today that Romero Britto will be on the WOHASU Community Platform on May 5, 2020, at 12 p.m. EST to discuss the connection between art and happiness as he paints live in his Miami studio.

"Art and Happiness are too important not to share," said Britto, founder of the Happy Art Movement.

May 5 at 12 pm ET

Brazilian-born and Miami-made, Romero Britto is an international artist who uses vibrant, bold, and colorful patterns to reflect his optimistic view of the world. Britto has created a visual language of love, hope, and happiness inspiring millions worldwide. He generously created the artwork for the first World Happiness Summit where he shared his passion and purpose. He joins again on the WOHASU Community Platform, www.worldhappiness.com/webinars.

"Romero's inspiring positivity and optimism are easily visible through his work. We are grateful for Romero's contribution to WOHASU and the global happiness movement," said Karen Guggenheim, Executive Director of the WOHASU Foundation, an international non-profit, happiness and wellbeing education organization that launched the WOHASU Community Platform and produces the World Happiness Summit at the University of Miami.

At a time of physical distancing, the WOHASU Community Platform, launched in March 2020, offers a content-rich space dedicated to implementing evidence-based practical tools based on the science of happiness, and an opportunity to increase social connections to foster positive global community. Through the innovative platform, WOHASU connects the public with world-leading experts through live webinars and presentations and provides carefully curated content including a monthly happiness book club, past World Happiness Summit talks, podcasts, yoga classes and programs.

"We created the WOHASU Community Platform as a membership-based platform so that we could increase social connection, educate on how to increase personal, interpersonal, workplace and community wellbeing, and support the important work done by the WOHASU Foundation," said Manuel S. Pietra, WOHASU Foundation Executive Director.

For more information, go to worldhappiness.com or follow WOHASU on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can also follow @RomeroBritto and @romerobrittogallery.

Media Contact:

Eliana Waldman

Phone: 305.310.0812

Email: [email protected]

Related Images

romero-britto-paints-live.png

Romero Britto Paints Live

May 5 at 12 pm ET

SOURCE WOHASU Foundation

Related Links

https://www.worldhappiness.com


Saudi Arabian stocks fell on the first day of trading this week after the Finance Minister of the Kingdom warned that the government was preparing to implement painful measures for propping up the oil-dependent economy.

Bloomberg reports the Tadawul exchange shed as much as 6.8 percent with Aramco alone falling close to 6 percent, to below $7.99 (30 riyals) apiece.

The kingdom hasnt witnessed a crisis of this severity over the past decades, Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan told state media channel Al Arabiya. The Kingdom is committed to the task of sustaining public financing, and is committed to having enough financial strength to face this crisis even if it is prolonged. We have taken several steps both in relation to health, and in relation to financial measures in terms of reducing expenditure. Right now, we are looking at what we can do to reduce the deficit level. Certainly, there has been a significant drop in revenues, and we will likely see its impact in the coming quarters.

Since the start of the year, Saudi Arabias oil revenues have slumped by more than half, Al Jadaan also said, because of the drop in oil prices. Non-oil revenue has also been down since the start of the year. Foreign assets also fell, the official told the news channel, to $464 billion as of the end of March. This is the lowest foreign reserve level in 19 years.

Some of the measures considered by the government are more public spending cuts, a limit of $32 billion on how much of the foreign reserves the government can use to combat the economic fallout of the coronavirus, and more borrowing on international markets.

We will continue to take loans, and we have seen a large demand on government debt securities, internally or externally, Al Jadaan told Al Arabiya. As per the plan we will take loans up to 220 billion [riyals], as per the conditions in the market and the available liquidity.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
While cautioning against reading too much into single statistics, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday that the number of people hospitalized with the new coronavirus and the percentage of intensive care beds occupied by COVID-19 patients are down from a week ago.

The governor also announced 2,341 new known cases, along with 46 more deaths. That brings the overall count of known cases to 63,840 and the death toll to 2,662 statewide since the start of the pandemic. The 46 deaths reported Monday is the lowest total for a 24-hour period since April 19.

Meanwhile, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Monday that the city of Chicago has reached 1,000 COVID-19 deaths. Lightfoot said the city hasnt experienced the scale of tragedy of other cities such as New York, in part due to the citys efforts on bending the diseases growth curve by encouraging people to stay home.

Heres a recap of what happened May 4 with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:

9:05 p.m.: McHenry drive-in theater to reopen this weekend under new exception to states coronavirus shutdown

A drive-in movie theater owner in far northwest suburban McHenry said he plans to reopen Friday after getting the go-ahead to open despite the Illinois coronavirus business shutdown.

Illinois Department of Public Health officials confirmed the McHenry Outdoor Theater may open under updated guidance issued Saturday by the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Read more here.  Robert McCoppin

7:30 p.m.: United Airlines plans to cut more than 3,400 management jobs. Chicago could be especially hard-hit.

United Airlines plans to eliminate more than 3,400 management and administrative positions Oct. 1 as the airline reels from the coronavirus pandemic that has brought air travel to an almost standstill. Chicago, Uniteds hometown, could be especially hard-hit.

We have to acknowledge that there will be serious consequences to our company if we dont continue to take strong and decisive action, which includes making decisions that none of us ever wanted or expected to make, Kate Gebo, the airlines executive vice president of human resources and labor relations, said in a memo to employees on Monday.

The cuts represent 30% of Uniteds roughly 11,500 management and administrative employees. Most of those working at the companys Willis Tower headquarters are in management or administration. Employees affected by the cuts, which go into effect Oct. 1, will be notified in July, Gebo said.

United expects to announce a voluntary separation package for domestic management and administrative employees in mid-May, Gebo said in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Tribune. Employees who take the offer will be able to keep travel privileges and medical benefits for an extended period, along with some continuation of pay, she said. Starting Oct. 1, the company will no longer offer management and administrative employees cash severance packages. Read more here. Lauren Zumbach

7:08 p.m.: How might graduation look for the class of 2020? Illinois officials offer guidance

High schools across the country are trying to figure out alternative ways to honor their graduating seniors. Illinois state education authority is now offering some guidance.

Commencement ceremonies could be virtual or even drive-in or drive-through, the Illinois State Board of Education said in guidelines it issued with the state health department.

But the thing that epitomizes what a graduation ceremony is all about  the handing out of the diplomas  wont be happening. And there wont be handshakes or hugs. Read more here. Hannah Leone

6:20 p.m.: Northwest Illinois church to appeal federal judges denial of temporary restraining order and injunction against Pritzkers stay-at-home order

An evangelical church in northwest Illinois on Monday filed its intent to appeal a federal judges denial of a temporary restraining order and injunction against Gov. J.B. Pritzkers stay-at-home order in a ruling issued this weekend that found the order does not violate religious freedom.

In a lawsuit filed April 30, the roughly 80-person church accused Pritzker  whose order has prohibited large in-person religious services during the COVID-19 pandemic  of demonstrating illegal and discriminatory hostility to religious practice, churches, and people of faith. The complaint took particular issue with the governors designation of other select businesses, such as liquor stores and dog groomers, as essential.

The governors office released a modified stay-at-home order on April 30  the same day the churchs lawsuit was filed -- that expressly lists the free exercise of religion as an essential activity. Under the extended order, gatherings of more than 10 individuals are still prohibited.

In his 37-page decision denying the Beloved Church an injunction, U.S. District Court Judge John Z. Lee referred to the worship formats permitted by Pritzkers order as imperfect substitutes for traditional services.

Still, given the continuing threat posed by COVID-19, the Order preserves relatively robust avenues for praise, prayer and fellowship and passes constitutional muster, Lee wrote.

The Beloved Church on Sunday went ahead and held an in-person service attended by about 60 to 80 people, with social distancing, said Tom Ciesielka, a spokesman for the Thomas More Society, a conservative public interest law firm in Chicago that is representing the church and its pastor, Stephen Cassell.

The churchs filing said the appeal would go to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. Antonia Ayres-Brown

6:12 p.m.: Lake County sheriffs office wont issue tickets for breaking 2-person boat limit, but boating communities push back on Pritzkers order

Boaters in Lake County dont need to worry about a ticket if they have more than two people in their boat, a Lake County Sheriffs Office spokesman said Monday.

Revised stay-at-home regulations rolled out by Gov. J.B. Pritzker last week in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic reopened up some businesses and public spaces but set limits aimed at large gatherings.

Among the new stay-at-home provisions is a rule limiting the number of people on a boat to two, according to a spokeswoman for the Governors Office.

Those health restrictions havent changed, spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said in an email Monday.

The official executive order signed by Pritzker does not include the two-person rule and instead says boaters need to follow the guidelines set by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, said Sgt. Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Sheriffs Office.

The Sheriffs Office has not received any enforcement guidance from the department, and so it cant enforce the rule, Covelli said.

Our function on the waterways remains unchanged: maintaining the safety of its users and enforcing the law, Covelli said. We ask boaters to use their best judgment, be responsible, and operate carefully.

The Sheriffs Office will be enforcing the usual maritime laws in addition to temporary guidelines issued by the Fox Waterway Agency in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Those rules include a ban on tying boats to each other and a requirement that anchored boats be at least 10 feet apart. Read more here. Emily Coleman

4:53 p.m.: Model kits see resurgence as coronavirus shut-ins turn to old-school hobby for something to do

While auto sales slump during the coronavirus shutdown, build-it-yourself plastic versions at 1/25th the size are flying off the shelves.

Revell, the 77-year-old model kit maker that was acquired out of bankruptcy two years ago by a German investment fund, has seen a resurgence as a growing number of people stuck at home during the pandemic painstakingly piece together everything from 60s muscle cars to Star Wars spaceships.

We saw a spike in the weeks leading into the stay-at-home directives, said Lou Aguilera, 50, president of Revell USA, based in northwest suburban Fox River Grove. Since then, our online sales have seen significant growth from people just staying at home, looking for something to do.

Founded in California in 1943, Revell pioneered the plastic model kit that would become a childhood staple for many baby boomers. In 1986, Revell merged with its chief rival, Morton Grove-based Monogram, making the Chicago area the center of the model kit universe.

The basic kits feature sleek cars, planes and ships you build by breaking parts off a plastic tree, gluing them together and then painting and applying decals. The process often takes many hours to either complete or abandon in a sticky mess of adhesive collateral damage.

Many aging baby boomers apparently decided the COVID-19 outbreak was a good time to take another crack at it, Aguilera said.

Youve got people that did it maybe 30, 40 years ago and said this is something I would like to do, if I ever get the time, he said. Well now theyve got the time. Read more here. Robert Channick

4:45 p.m.: Illinois marijuana dispensaries sold almost $37.3 million of legal weed in April

Illinois marijuana dispensaries  designated as essential during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic  sold almost $37.3 million worth of legal weed in April.

Recreational marijuana went on sale in Illinois Jan. 1. Aprils sales bring the state total to about $147.5 million over the last four months, according to data from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which regulates dispensaries.

Last months sales bested Marchs almost $36 million and Februarys roughly $35 million, but trailed the $39.2 million in revenue during January. Read more here. Ally Marotti

3:39 p.m.: Coronavirus and nursing homes: Heres what you need to know before choosing a site

Under normal circumstances, health care experts tell anyone deciding whether to seek the services of a nursing home to make an in-person tour of the facility. Better yet, two visits  one unannounced.

Since nursing homes in Illinois began banning visitors in mid-March due to the coronavirus, its been impossible for families to see what is going on inside these facilities. Yet new sick and elderly patients continue to need skilled nursing at these institutions.

For families faced with this dilemma, health care advocates say the most important aspect of a nursing home hunt has now shifted from inspections to interrogation. The lack of access has made one of the hardest decisions in life  and one of the most expensive  even harder. Read more here. Robert McCoppin

2:35 p.m.: 2,341 new known COVID-19 cases, 46 additional deaths

While cautioning against reading too much into single statistics, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday that the number of people hospitalized with the new coronavirus and the percentage of intensive care beds occupied by COVID-19 patients are down from a week ago.

As of Sunday, just under 4,500 hospital beds across the state were occupied by patients with the coronavirus, a drop of about 4% from a week earlier, Pritzker said. Likewise, the share of ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients dropped by a percentage point, to 33% from 34%.

Snapshots in time alone are not enough to offer a full understanding of where we are, but together they can offer some indication of how things are trending, Pritzker said.

The governor also announced 2,341 new known cases of the coronavirus, along with 46 more deaths. That brings the overall count of known cases to 63,840 and the death toll to 2,662 statewide since the start of the pandemic.

The 46 deaths reported Monday is the lowest total for a 24-hour period since the 33 deaths reported on April 19.

I would just encourage everybody to look at these things on a multiday basis, taking maybe a three, five or seven day average, Pritzker said. Im hopeful. When I saw this number today, I was hopeful that this was the beginning or a continuation of a trend that Ive been praying for. Dan Petrella

1:27 p.m.: Chicago reaches 1,000 COVID-19 deaths

The city of Chicago reached 1,000 COVID-19 deaths on Sunday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters on a conference call.

Lightfoot noted the dark milestone during a Monday afternoon call with reporters where she noted the dead are parents, grandparents, cousins, friends, and loved ones  not just statistics.

She noted the city hasnt experienced the scale of tragedy of other cities like New York due in part due to the citys efforts on bending the diseases growth curve by encouraging people to stay home.

"We have to find hope that we havent had the same kind of outbreak as other cities, Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot also announced that the Arts for Illinois Relief Fund application process will be reopened. Lightfoot and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the fund in March, and its reopening through May 11 with another $1.5 million to give out, Lightfoot said. Read more here. Gregory Pratt

11:24 a.m.: Indiana governor apologizes for maskless photo at restaurant

Indianas governor has apologized for posing for a photo with two people in which none of the three were wearing protective masks  a photo taken a day after he issued a plan for relaxing coronavirus restrictions that recommends such masks be worn in public until mid-June.

The photo circulating on social media shows Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb taking the selfie while inside a restaurant Saturday in the southern Indiana tourist town of Nashville, even while his statewide stay-a-home order was still in effect.

Holcomb said in a statement that he left his mask in the car while picking up his carry-out order from the restaurant after spending the night at the governors retreat in nearby Brown County State Park.

It was a lapse in my usual vigilance, Holcomb said. I should have gone back out to the car to get my mask. My apologies to all the health care professionals and Hoosiers who are working so hard to slow the spread. Read more here. Associated Press

11:07 a.m.: Grant Park Music Festival cancels 2020 summer season

For the first time since the Grant Park Music Festival was established in 1935, the institution will fall silent.

The festival has canceled all its events running June 10 through Aug. 15 in Millennium Park and across the city due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just ensuring the safety of the (Grant Park) Orchestra and Chorus, the administrative staff, our production crew, our patrons  that really drove our decision, said festival President and CEO Paul Winberg in an interview Monday morning.

Its just not safe or prudent to move forward with our festival season. This is going to have a tremendous financial impact on the organization. Weve been busily trying to assess what that even would look like.

The festival has an annual operating budget of $7.2 million, said Winberg. Read more here. Howard Reich

10:55 a.m.: If you get sick with COVID-19, is your employer liable? As businesses prepare to reopen, worker safety is a priority.

Businesses gearing up to return to work as coronavirus lockdowns ease face a minefield of potential liabilities, from age discrimination claims if they hesitate to bring back older employees to disability discrimination claims if they punish anxious workers fearful to come into the office.

But one of their biggest concerns is if employees get sick with COVID-19 and claim they contracted it at work  a costly proposition, employer groups say, at a time businesses are grappling with stalled sales and lost income.

For an employer wanting to get back to normal business, this could be the third crisis facing the nation, said Todd Maisch, head of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. The first being the health crisis, the second being the economic crisis, the third being years of a liability crisis.

As federal lawmakers battle over whether to shield employers from pandemic-related lawsuits, a fight is brewing in Illinois over workers compensation coverage for COVID-19 illnesses. Read more here. Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz

9:28 a.m.: Nursing homes push for immunity from lawsuits as COVID-19 deaths top 20,000

Faced with 20,000 coronavirus deaths and counting, the nations nursing homes are pushing back against a potential flood of lawsuits with a sweeping lobbying effort to get states to grant them emergency protection from claims of inadequate care.

At least 15 states have enacted laws or governors orders that explicitly or apparently provide nursing homes and long-term care facilities some protection from lawsuits arising from the crisis. And in the case of New York, which leads the nation in deaths in such facilities, a lobbying group wrote the first draft of a measure that apparently makes it the only state with specific protection from both civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

Now the industry is forging ahead with a campaign to get other states on board with a simple argument: This was an unprecedented crisis and nursing homes should not be liable for events beyond their control, such as shortages of protective equipment and testing, shifting directives from authorities, and sicknesses that have decimated staffs. Read more here. Associated Press

6:40 a.m.: Cook County Sheriffs Office deputy dies of COVID-19

A 25-year veteran of the Cook County Sheriffs Office died Sunday of complications due to COVID-19, the sheriffs office announced.

Deputy Richard OBrien was most recently assigned to the Civil Process Division in Skokie, according to a statement from the sheriffs office.

He was known to be a highly motivated and dedicated professional.

At least one Cook County corrections officer had died from COVID-19 prior to OBriens death. Read more here. Paige Fry

6 a.m.: Food distribution pop-up sites start on South, West sides to fill gap during COVID-19 pandemic

Under a sunny sky Friday morning outside Trinity United Church of Christ on the citys Far South Side, Monica Moss and other volunteers gave away 500 boxes of boxed and canned food and fresh produce.

The effort marked the beginning of a partnership among seven community- and faith-based organizations and the Greater Chicago Food Depository to address food insecurity in areas hardest hit by COVID-19.

Our church sits in what would be considered a food desert. To get healthy food to people, to raise awareness about eating healthy, has been my passion, said Moss, first lady of the church, which is at the corner of 95th Street and Eggleston Avenue.

It was a beautiful day. People were just so excited to be out of the house helping people," she said.

Moss church, and six others on the citys South and West sides, will host pop-up food distribution for the next five weeks. Volunteers from each organization will distribute 500 to 1,000 boxes of food weighing 20 to 30 pounds each. Read more here. Peter Nickeas

5 a.m.: Inmate who agreed to stay in Cook County Jail to avoid immigration trouble lost life to COVID-19 instead

In early March, Rene Olivo Sangabriel was just one among the thousands of Cook County Jail inmates who would soon find themselves in the devastating path of COVID-19.

Sangabriel, 42, locked up since October 2019 on an 8-year-old outstanding warrant after picking up a second felony DUI charge, appeared in court March 5 for a fairly routine status hearing. His attorney told the judge that Sangabriel had 46 days left in a drug and alcohol treatment program at the jail and that he wanted to finish the program before entering a plea.

I think lets go to the end of the program, Judge Diana Kenworthy agreed, according to a court transcript. I dont want them to remove him from the program and have any changes. ... Whats a good date?"

How about Cinco de Mayo, responded attorney Domingo F. Vargas.

By agreement May 5 for a plea, Kenworthy responded.

The plan to delay Sangabriels plea two months and keep him at the jail made perfect sense at the time, Vargas said.

Court officials had already indicated Sangabriel, who was living in the United States without legal permission, was likely facing a prison sentence on his new charges. Vargas and Sangabriel determined the risk that immigration officials would find him was higher in the Illinois Department of Corrections so they wanted him to burn time as possible at the jail.

In the end, it was COVID-19 that caught Sangabriel. Read more here. Annie Sweeney and Elvia Malagon

5 a.m.: The coronavirus pandemic has people cooped up and anxious. Therapy dogs are here to help, by video call, of course.

Video call meetings and work-from-home regulations are no longer just for humans. Illinois-based organizations that offer therapy dog services are having their canines offer their emotional support online.

Typically in disasters, therapy dogs are dispatched to physically comfort those affected, said Tim Hetzner, president and CEO of Lutheran Church Charities. But, with growing concerns and physical limitations because of the COVID-19 pandemic, video calls have comforted those who need it the most. With the physical restrictions of the states stay-at-home order, many Chicagoans are also choosing to foster pets for companionship.

Many states have stay-at-home orders, and we thought of how we could continue to touch people without being able to physically go out with the animals, Hetzner said. Read more here. Jessica Villagomez

May 2-3
Beirut: Imprisoned members of the Islamic State group rioted and took control of a prison in northeast Syria for several hours, until Kurdish-led authorities negotiated an end to the unrest Sunday.

The riot began Saturday at a prison in the city of Hassakeh, one of the largest facilities where IS members are held, and control was reestablished Sunday evening, said Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

A two-day riot and takeover of the same prison in late March allowed four extremists to escape, although they were caught a day later.

It was one of the most serious uprisings by the prisoners since IS was defeated a year ago, when the SDF seized control of the last sliver of land controlled by the extremists in eastern Syria. Kurdish authorities currently operate more than two dozen detention facilities scattered across northeastern Syria, holding about 10,000 IS fighters.

Among the detainees are some 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them, including about 800 Europeans.

Gabriel said SDF officials and members of the US-led coalition had taken part in talks with the prisoners.

At the height of the riots, he said Kurdish special forces and anti-terror units took part in the operations to try get the situation under control.

He gave no further details, and did not say how many prisoners were involved or if there were any casualties.

US military helicopters flew over the prison Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, and North Press Agency, a media platform operating in the Kurdish-administered areas.

Gabriel said the US-led coalition and the international community bear responsibility for finding solutions for IS detainees, and need to give more support to security and living conditions at the prisons.

A recent resurgence of IS attacks in both Syria and Iraq has raised concerns that the militant group is taking advantage of governments absorbed in tackling the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing slide into economic chaos.

It was not immediately clear if Sunday's prison riot was triggered by concerns about the coronavirus's potential spread in the facility.

Last month, the US-led coalition said it gave hygiene and medical supplies to detention facilities across northeastern Syria, including hand-washing stations, disinfectant wipes, face masks and examination gloves.

One coronavirus death was reported in Kurdish-held areas of Syria in April. The central government in Damascus has registered 43 cases and three deaths.
Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered the dispatch of four military planes loaded with medical supplies and medicines to Sudan to help it fight the coronavirus, Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady said on Monday.

The shipment, which comprises large quantities of drugs and medical supplies, is intended to help alleviate the burden of the Sudanese people in light of the shortage of medicines and protective gear necessary to confront the coronavirus in the country, according to a video statement published by Rady.

The supplies are also meant to help the government of Sudan curb the risk of virus transmission and limit the number of its infections and fatalities from the highly contagious disease, it added.

The move underscores the strong ties between Egypt and its southern neighbour and reflects Egypts full support for all African countries during times of crises, it added.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, Egypt has sent several shipments of supplies and medical aid to some of the worlds worst-stricken countries, including China, Italy and the US.

The pandemic has infected 678 people and claimed 41 lives in Sudan.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Anti-HS2 protesters have spent the coronavirus lockdown in a tree-top campsite in ancient woodland which is being destroyed to make way for the high-speed railway.

Protesters have spent the last six weeks camping out near to ancient trees which are being felled along the proposed route in Crackley Woods, near Kenilworth in Warwickshire.

Dozens of campaigners from Extinction Rebellion and the Stop HS2 groups have joined forces to reside at the makeshift camps in the under-threat woodland.

Their camp of around 20 tents and camper vans is said to feature a roundhouse built from hay bales, complete with a field kitchen.

Those at the so-called Protection Camp claim to be self-isolating amid the coronavirus crisis as one large household would.

Supporters have been bringing the group food and care packages to leave at the edge of the camp as they continue to protest against the high speed rail link.

It comes as demonstrations across 20 other sites including Lodnon's Euston Station took place amid the coronavirus crisis today, with protesters blocking access to building sites for the railway.

The protesters, dubbed the 'Crackley Woods HS2 Protection Camp', have chosen to self isolate in the woodland near Kenilworth, Warwickshire in a camp made up of a roundhouse made from hay bales, a field kitchen, and around 20 tent

The camp was initially made up of locals from a Stop HS2 campaign group, but now includes people from other organisations such as Extinction Rebellion (Pictured: HS2 contractors in Crackley Woods)

Campaigners say the ongoing work to HS2 should be classed as non-essential and is putting the lives of workers and their families at risk.

Environmentalists including Chris Packham are also angry that the development of the railway is leading to 'irreversible destruction' of ancient habitats and woodlands.

Demonstrators arrived at Crackley Woods in March as trees in the woodland began to be felled, despite HS2 contractors erecting fences to keep protestors out.

The group instead built platforms in trees adjacent to the work site so they could see across the fence and witness what is happening to the woodland.

A spokesperson for HS2 insisted the demonstrators are not 'living in trees', but have instead travelled from across the country during the lockdown to set up a camp near the site.

In a video posted by Extinction Rebellion today, more demonstrators appear to arrive at Crackley Woods with banners reading 'NHS not HS2' as contractors lining the entrance to the site insist they must keep a two-metre distance.

In another clip from April 9, a protestor pans across a landscape void of trees as he explains how 'the old oaks' which were once at the back of the shot have now 'gone.'

'It's a bit of a devastating scene really if you knew this area at all,' he continues. 'Within another day or two all of this will be completely cleared and flattened.'

One protester Samantha Smithson, 37, from Nottingham, describes herself as a 'full-time tree defender' with the Crackley Woods Protection Group.

Pictured: A 'reflect, rebel, restore' sign seen in a tree in Crackley Woods amid the protest

The former fashion designer has spent the last three nights in a hammock near a tree that was due to be felled.

She said: 'I'm currently sat on top of a cherry picker transport vehicle which is what they use to carry people to cut off branches from the trees before felling them, so I'm stopping that.

'There is also another lorry behind with the sleepers they use for the line which can't get past. It's hard to say but I think I've been up for 45 minutes. There are six to 10 police officers here.

'They have given me a warning and have to wait for specialist services to get me down because I'm elevated above two metres.

'Because the traffic was stopped in the road it was quite easy to climb on top above the bonnet. I'm planning to stay here indefinitely.

'I didn't plan to do this but we have got to stop this destruction. I'm a member of Extinction Rebellion and I joined HS2 Rebellion quite recently.

'I'm doing this because HS2 is destroying hundreds of ancient woodlands we need to fight climate change. This is our Amazon.'

Pictured: Members of environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion in trees outside Euston Station in London, to protest against the building of the HS2 rail project

Pictured: HS2 line, phase one, is seen running close to Crackley Woods in Warwickshire

Another camp protestor, a former tree surgeon known only as Quercus - which is latin for Oak - said he was 'overcome with grief' when he saw trees being cut down.

He added: 'Even before we had the pandemic and lockdown, there were a vast minority of people that were able to come out and do protests like this - certainly far fewer people now.

'People's democratic right to protest and have their say has been taken away at this time.

'I wouldn't say I'm happy to be arrested again, but I'm privileged enough to be arrested without it affecting me too much.'

A spokesperson for HS2 said more than 35 people have been arrested at the site since the protest began in March.

Campaigners have claimed some 108 ancient woods could be destroyed by the high-speed railway, though HS2 insists this is an exaggeration.

Paul Faulkner, chief executive of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, told the BBC only a 'tiny fraction' of the country's ancient woodland will be cleared.

Demonstrations across 20 other sites including London also took place amid the coronavirus crisis today, with protesters blocking access to building sites for the railway

The group, who call themselves HS2 Rebellion, claim the work is non-essential and that, by failing to stop during the lockdown, it is putting the lives of workers and their families at risk

He added: 'HS2 is aiming to be the world's most sustainable high-speed railway. It's got a whole host of pro-environmental measures that it's introducing, and that's before we get on to the massive economic benefits that HS2 is going to bring.'

Demonstrations across 20 other sites including London also took place amid the coronavirus crisis today, with protesters blocking access to building sites for the railway.

The group, HS2 Rebellion, claim the work is non-essential and that, by failing to stop during the lockdown, it is putting the lives of workers and their families at risk.

They say that health workers remain without personal protective equipment (PPE) and that money used for construction projects should be channelled to such medical supplies instead.

The protesters said they were respecting social distancing guidelines by wearing gloves and masks and claimed the actions were part of their state-sanctioned daily exercise.

Pictured: Members of the HS2 Rebellion group wear face masks and gloves as they protest outside Euston Station

Pictured: HS2 Rebellion handout photo of protesters at the HS2 site in Colne Valley, Greater London

Demonstrators wore gloves and face masks and remained two metres apart throughout the protests (Pictured: Protesters in Broadwells Wood)

'Our nurses and doctors are without PPE, yet these workers can continue because the Government deems them key workers,' said one, in a video posted online.

'Our real key essential workers are without PPE because of projects like this.'

Demonstrators wore gloves and face masks and remained two metres apart throughout the protests.

A statement said the HS2 Rebellion 'wish to emphasise the public resistance to HS2'S destruction of our ancient woodland and wildlife habitats, and HS2'S failure to stop construction works at multiple sites breaching HSE Covid guidelines and exposing their workers, protesters, families and communities to unnecessary risk during a national health crisis'.

A HS2 spokesperson said: 'The Government has given the green light to start building Phase One of HS2, which will generate thousands of jobs across the country and create 400,000 contracts opportunities, many for small businesses - an important investment in Britain's future as we recover from the pandemic.

'Encouraging the harassment of our staff for doing their jobs, alongside dangerous and costly protests and damage to our work sites, is unacceptable.

'All leading environmental organisations agree that climate change is the biggest threat to wildlife and habitats in the UK. By providing a cleaner, greener way to travel, HS2 will help cut the number of cars and lorries on our roads, cut demand for domestic flights, and help the country's drive to a net zero carbon economy.

'We'd urge all green groups to help us in getting people out of their cars, off planes and onto low-carbon, high speed rail.'
A group of 19 juveniles, ranging in age from nine to 16, have been accused of stealing nearly 50 cars worth more than $1million from local dealerships over the last two months, according to North Carolina authorities.

Since the suspects began stealing cars on March 17, authorities said at least 20 car heists were pulled off and are believed to be in connection with the minors.

18 of the thefts happened at dealerships in Winston-Salem, while an additional two dealerships were targeted just 15 minutes east in Kernersville.

At least 14 dealerships were made victims in the crime spree.



As a result of these crimes, forty-six (46) vehicles were reported as stolen in Winston-Salem, said a press release on Crime Stoppers of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County.

The vehicles are reportedly worth around $1,138,718. All but six of the nearly four dozen cars have been recovered.

The stolen vehicles came from at least eight dealerships, including Lexus, Audi, Volvo, Honda, Ford, Subaru, Toyota and Chevrolet.

For the majority of the thefts, the juveniles reportedly swiped keys for new cars or for cars being serviced at the dealerships. Many of the dealerships were hit more than once.

Authorities said they have tried, but failed to secure custody of the juveniles.

The reason why is unclear, but the North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced it was trying to lower the number of minors in detention amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The department said theyve been utilizing electronic monitoring instead.

Detectives have sought, and thus far have been denied, secure custody orders from the Forsyth County Department of Juvenile Justice for the involved juveniles, the release said.

However, four of the children have been taken into custody and three more had minor charges that didnt warrant an arrest, WFMY reports.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Bengaluru, May 4 : Buckling under pressure from citizens and opposition parties, the ruling BJP government has allowed thousands of migrant workers to return to their native places across Karnataka from cities in state-run buses free till May 7, an official said on Monday.

"Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa directed Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) to ferry migrant workers to their native place across the state from cities like Bengaluru free till Thursday (May 7)," the official told IANS.

The decision to extend the free bus ride by 2 days from Tuesday came a day after the opposition Congress on Sunday donated Rs 1 crore to the state-run KSRTC through cheque towards the cost of transporting the stranded migrant workers to their native place free as they were without a job and money.

"For the convenience of migrants keen to go back to their native place within the state from cities and towns, they can use the free bus service of the KSRTC, which has been extended to May 7 from May 5," said the official.

With the Centre allowing the migrant workers to return to their native place within the state or other states from where they came to Karnataka for jobs, the state government has been arranging special buses across the state since Labour Day (May 1) and special trains to other states since Sunday.

As bus services in cities like Bengaluru and Mysuru remain suspended amid the extended lockdown, hundreds of migrants face hardship in reaching the outstation bus terminal in the city centre and the satellite town terminal on the city's southern outskirts towards Mysuru because of fleecing by auto and taxi drivers.

"An insensitive government allowed KSRTC to first charge the migrants double the fare as its buses have to return to depots empty after dropping them at their native place. Shock and anger of the migrants and criticism by citizens in the social media like Twitter forced the chief minister to ensure regular fare for the one-time journey and subsequently free after our party donated Rs 1 crore for ferrying them free," state Congress leader V.S. Ugrappa told IANS.

Declining to accept the Rs 1-crore cheque the Congress gave towards the bus fare of migrants, KSRTC advised the opposition party to donate the amount to the Chief Minister's Covid-19 Relief Fund, a corporation official said.

Refuting the opposition criticism that the state government failed to handle the migrants' return to their native place, especially from Bengaluru, the official said operational logistics, including mobilising drivers, conductors and maintenance staff at short notice took time.

"We had to also deploy doctors and nurses at the inter-state bus terminals to screen the migrants to ensure they don't have high body temperature and are free from the virus before allowing them to board the buses, in which about 30 of them were allowed in each vehicle for social distancing," said the official.

The corporation claimed it ferried about 30,000 migrants in 951 buses to their native places from Bengaluru and other cities across the state on Sunday.

"About 1,500 migrants left Bengaluru for their native place till afternoon on Monday. About 550 buses from the state capital and 400 buses from other cities have been arranged to transport the migrants to their home by night," asserted the official.

About 16,500 migrants were sent in 550 buses from Bengaluru on May 2 to their native place across the state.

Freed food, drinking water and masks were provided to the migrants by the corporation and many non-government organisations (NGOs), including some sponsored by the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S).

A JD-S spokesman told IANS that while migrant workers from other states were being sent in special trains after escorting them in special buses from their relief camps, local migrants were forced to hire autos and tempos to reach the bus terminal in the city, paying exorbitant charges as no local buses were provided to them.
Reuters

Two NASA astronauts gearing up to ride SpaceX's new space taxi will now be on a mission planned to last more than a month, instead of a week, to help the short-handed crew aboard the International Space Station, the US space agency said on Friday.

The launch is scheduled for May 27 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will arrive at the ISS the following day. The mission, SpaceX's first carrying humans, marks the company's climactic test before NASA can certify its Crew Dragon capsule for regular operational flights.

Space Shuttle veterans Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are set to be the first astronauts launched from American soil since the shuttle program was terminated in 2011.

The mission's extension allows Hurley and Behnken to help swap out the station's batteries, a task that requires an outside spacewalk the current US resident on the ISS, Chris Cassidy, could not do alone.

The two astronauts embraced the mission extension, with Hurley saying it could last anywhere from one to four months.

"I think that it being in the summertime, hopefully with a 27 May launch date, we're hitting a good time so that my son will be able to follow the mission a little more closely than he would if he was in school," Behnken said.

SpaceX and Boeing Co have been awarded a combined $7 billion to build separate crew transportation systems under the Commercial Crew Program, NASA's flagship campaign to use the private sector for ISS missions and curb its reliance on Russia's Soyuz rocket.

"We currently are supporting the station with the bare minimum," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Friday. "Without the presence of Behnken and Hurley, we otherwise would likely defer such an operation until additional NASA crew members are available."

Kirk Shireman, NASA's ISS program manager, told reporters on Friday that the agency is basing the length of Hurley and Behnken's mission on how quickly SpaceX can finish preparations on its next capsule.

Delays with development of both SpaceX and Boeing vehicles have led NASA to extend its reliance on Russia, forcing the space agency to buy additional seats on the Soyuz rocket to ferry more astronauts to space.
Pubs in Ireland have urged the Government to allow them to open earlier in the countrys phased recovery plan after presenting a range of social distancing proposals.

Bars are currently scheduled to open in the fifth and final phase of the blueprint, on August 10.

Cafes and restaurants are set to start welcoming back customers in the third phase, on June 29.

The Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) and the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) want pubs to open at the same time as cafes and restaurants.

Expand Close The popular Temple Bar district in Dublin has been almost deserted since the outbreak took hold in Ireland (Niall Carson/PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The popular Temple Bar district in Dublin has been almost deserted since the outbreak took hold in Ireland (Niall Carson/PA)

Many pubs in Ireland closed their doors at the outset of the coronavirus emergency, before even being instructed to by the Government, amid concerns over social distancing.

The representative groups have written to the Government accepting an invitation to discuss the road map.

They said they have put forward radical changes to the normal operations of bars in order to protect public health.

The organisations proposed measures include:

 Bars will become dispense bars only, with no sitting, standing, ordering, payment or drinking at the bar allowed.

 Table service will be a requirement, with pubs only serving customers seated at tables.

 The numbers on the premises would be confined to no more than four per every 10 square metres.

 A maximum of six people would be permitted at any one table.

 Customers will be required to use hand sanitiser upon entry.

 All customers must remain seated.

 Staff will be fully trained in the new procedures. They will also be asked to maintain a safe distance from customers when taking orders and to wash their hands thoroughly every 30 minutes.

 The utilisation of outdoor spaces to enhance social distancing.

 Procedures implemented to ensure safe use of toilet facilities, which may include limits on the numbers using toilets at any one time.

 No live music or DJs.

 Gardai/HSE will have the power to close any business which is flouting the public health guidelines.

Both @VFIpubs and @LVADublinPubs seeking urgent meeting with Gov and have put forward a series of radical measures to allow pubs to comply with public safety guidelines #Coronavirusireland #COVID19ireland https://t.co/VV4RqqomgX  VFI (@VFIpubs) May 4, 2020

Donall OKeeffe, chief executive of the LVA, said: We fully respect the need to continue to protect the public health.

We have repeatedly proven this commitment, not least in the fact that our sector was the first to close across the country.

We also believe that if other venues who serve food and alcohol are allowed to reopen in phase three, then pubs should be granted the same opportunity to trade.

We dont believe it is in any way appropriate that the Government should apply one rule for some hospitality businesses and another rule for others.

We are making a series of radical proposals to how bars should operate for the reopening scenario.

Trading will be extremely difficult under these circumstances. There is no doubt that the pub experience as we know it will have to change dramatically.

Many pubs may choose not to reopen as it simply wont be financially viable under these conditions.

However, for those who want to trade, these measures will have the essential impact of protecting the health and wellbeing of staff and customers alike.

The public health restrictions will present real challenges to all hospitality venues, it doesnt matter if they are a pub, a restaurant, a cafe or a hotel Padraig Cribben, VFI

Padraig Cribben, chief executive of the VFI, said the groups hoped to meet Health Minister Simon Harris and Business Minister Heather Humphreys this week.

We have now written to the Government to ensure this meeting happens at the earliest possible opportunity, he added.

What is clear is that the current road map plan isnt tenable and will lead to confusion in the hospitality sector if it is not addressed.

The public health restrictions will present real challenges to all hospitality venues, it doesnt matter if they are a pub, a restaurant, a cafe or a hotel. There is no denying that and there is no getting around it.

Addressing those public health requirements will be necessary for all hospitality businesses whenever they reopen.

Pubs across Ireland are up to that challenge and will do what is required for maintaining a safe and healthy place of business.
Sandhar Technologies announced that consequent upon easing down of the restrictions by competent authorities w.e.f. 4 May, 2020, some of the Manufacturing Units of the Company viz. at Haridwar, Bawal, Jaipur, Nalagarh and Berhampur (Gurgaon) have received the respective State Government's permission/allowed to commence manufacturing operations at these Units with limited workforce and in complete compliance of government directives.

Accordingly, the Company plans to commence its manufacturing operations from such Units whose permissions have been obtained or where government has permitted to commence the operations, from 6th May, 2020 onwards in a phased manner.

Other Manufacturing Units situated in Gurgaon (Haryana), Manesar (Haryana), Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka will commence their manufacturing operations as and when the local State Governments ease the restrictions or permit the manufacturing operations to begin.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Sao Paulo city hall partially blocked some main avenues on Monday in an attempt to reduce the number of people breaking social isolation.

The government of Sao Paulo says that according to an Intelligent Monitor system, the social isolation in the city is only 52%, while the ideal to combat Covid-19 would be 70%.

The low rate of people in isolation worries Eurides dos Santos, who works as a waitress and needs to take two buses everyday to arrive at her job.

"The number of deaths are just getting higher and we need to do our best so all this is over soon. I think this is very important, to be isolated," she said as she waited for the bus on Monday.

Another new measure implemented by the Sao Paulo municipality is to require commuters to use masks when using public transportation, a measure that bus driver Jair da Silva says should have been implemented sooner.

"This is a good idea, but they should have started it earlier, the government does everything late," he added.

The state of Sao Paulo has the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths of COVID 19 in the country.

More than 7000 people died in Brazil due to the COVID 19, with at least 101 thousand cases confirmed by Sunday.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the new coronavirus can cause more severe illness and lead to death.
: Kerala Chief Minister



Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday wrote to the Centre seeking non-stop special trains to bring back Keralites stranded in various states due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The trains leaving from the state with guest workers can be used for this purpose on its return journey, Vijayan said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Migrant workers from trom Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand have been taken to their respective states in the special trains from the state in the past two days.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Cuisine de France owner Aryzta, which also makes bread products for companies such as Subway and McDonalds, has received a precautionary amendment to its financial covenants to give it increased headroom during the coronavirus pandemic.

The company, whose chief executive is Kevin Toland, said that at the end of April, it had liquidity of more than 385m. That compared to 360m on March 24.

It said that an agreement to formally implement the covenant amendment is expected to be executed shortly.

The amendment will apply to two upcoming covenant tests: one relating to Aryztas annual financial statements as at the end of July, and another relating to its interim financial results at the end of January 2021.

The net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) coverage ratio will be lower or equal to six times under the amendment, while the net interest coverage ratio shall be greater than 1.5 times.

The company said it has no material debt maturities over the coming 16-month period, with 17m due in March 2021.

Aryzta  which before the crisis had been engaged in a sweeping turnaround project  said it has taken immediate and decisive action to maximise cash and reduce costs during the pandemic.

It has suspended production in three bakeries in Europe and five in North America. Production lines at other bakeries have been temporarily closed, while 30pc of its staff have been furloughed.

The Swiss-Irish group has also suspended future capital expenditure, excluding that on health and safety.

Its executive management committee has taken a 30pc paycut for three months, while Aryztas wider leadership team has taken a 15pc cut. The board of directors has seen a 30pc reduction in fees.

Aryzta has activated its full business continuity plans to maintain service levels and to meet our customers expectations, the company said this morning.

It added: Aryzta is fully committed to playing our part as an essential industry providing food at this difficult time.

Shares in Aryzta, which has its roots in IAWS, were trading 2.3pc lower in Switzerland this morning.
Weak global cues, muted results from India Inc, zero sales from top auto manufacturers in April, an extension of lockdown by another two-weeks and contraction in manufacturing activity led to profit-taking on D-Street on May 4 after a sharp 14 percent rally seen in benchmark indices in April.

The Sensex plunged 2,002 points to 31,715 and the Nifty fell 566 points to close at 9293.

Investors lose nearly Rs 6 lakh crore in a single trading session. The average market capitalisation of the BSE-listed companies fell from Rs 129.41 lakh crore recorded on April 30 to Rs 123.69 lakh crore on May 4.

"The abrupt end of the recovery has certainly caught the participants completely off-guard and we might see the index drifting lower ahead," Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking, said.

"With no major development on the local front, we feel the global cues would continue to dictate the market trend. However, any news on a stimulus package for ailing sectors may provide a breather.

Besides, earnings announcement would continue to induce stock-specific volatility so participants should plan their trades accordingly," he added.

We have collated 15 data points to help you spot profitable trades:

Note: The open interest (OI) and volume data of stocks given in this story are the aggregates of three-months data and not of the current month only.

According to pivot charts, the key support level for Nifty is placed at 9,195.8, followed by 9,098.1. If the index starts moving up, key resistance levels to watch out for are 9,462.35 and 9,631.2.

The Nifty Bank closed 8.32 percent down at 19,743.75. The important pivot level, which will act as crucial support for the index, is placed at 19,414.8, followed by 19,085.8. On the upside, key resistance levels are placed at 20,301.6 and 20,859.4.

Maximum call OI of 12.12 lakh contracts was seen at the 9,500 strike. It will act as crucial resistance in the May series.

This is followed by 10,000, which holds 11.65 lakh contracts, and 9,800 strikes, which has accumulated nearly 3 lakh contracts.

Significant call writing was seen at the 9,500, which added 3.27 lakh contracts, followed by 10,000 strikes that added 2.61 lakh contracts.

Call unwinding was witnessed at 10,300, which shed 22,575 contracts, followed by 9,900 strikes, which shed 7,650 contracts.

Maximum put OI of 13.03 lakh contracts was seen at 9,500 strike, which will act as crucial support in the May series.

This is followed by 10,000, which holds 4.31 lakh contracts, and 9,800 strikes, which has accumulated 2.11 lakh contracts.

No put writing was seen on May 4.

Put unwinding was seen at 9,800, which shed 1.40 lakh contracts, followed by 10,000 strikes that shed 1.28 lakh contracts.

A high delivery percentage suggests that investors are showing interest in these stocks.

13 stocks saw long build-up

Based on OI future percentage, here are the top 10 stocks in which long unwinding was seen.

An increase in OI, along with a decrease in price, mostly indicates a build-up of short positions. Based on OI future percentage, here are the top 10 stocks in which short build-up was seen.

A decrease in OI, along with an increase in price, mostly indicates a short-covering. Not a single stock witnessed short-covering on May 4.

Bulk deals

(For more bulk deals, click here)

Board meetings

Results on May 5: Adani Ports, NIIT Technologies, SBI Life Insurance, Varun Beverages, Persistent Systems, Astec Lifesciences, Tata Coffee, and Rallis India.

Aruna Hotels: The board will meet on May 5 for general purposes.

Punjab & Sind Bank: The board will meet on May 5 for general purposes.

Lupin: Company announced positive topline result from Phase 3 study of Single-Dose Solosec for trichomoniasis treatment.

Marico Q4: Profit fell 50.6 percent to Rs 199 crore, revenue down 7 percent YoY to Rs 1,496 crore.

Graphite India starting manufacturing operations at various plants.

Automotive Axles resumed operations of factories and offices at Mysuru and Rudrapur.

Ceat partially resumed functioning at plants in Nasik, Nagpur (Maharashtra) and Halol (Gujrat).

Fund flow

Foreign (FIIs) and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs 1,373.98 crore and Rs 1,661.61 crore, respectively, in the Indian equity market on May 4, provisional data available on the NSE showed.

No security is under the F&O ban for May 5. Securities in the ban period under the F&O segment include companies in which the security has crossed 95 percent of the market-wide position limit.
JCPOA to be destroyed forever by extension of Iran's arm embargo: Shamkhani

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Sun / 3 May 2020 / 09:48

Tehran (ISNA) - Iran's secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani stressed that the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will be destroyed forever by circumventing the UNSC's 2231 Resolution and extension of Iran's arm embargo.

The already-undermined JCPOA will be destroyed forever by circumventing the UNSC's 2231 Resolution and illegal extension of Iran's arm embargo," Shamkhani wrote on his official Twitter account.

"Sactionsvirus is White House's tool to save its failing hegemony. On which side is Europe standing; keeping face and boosting multilateralism or accepting humiliation and helping [the US'] unilateralism?" he added.

End Item

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Fr Paddy McCafferty has been trying to bring the Catholic sacraments to people who are socially distancing and even he must have been taken aback by the amount of abuse he has received for it, much of it from people who grew up within the Catholic community and, presumably, were baptised into the faith that Fr Paddy was doing his best to preserve.

I remember a time when the streets of Andersonstown were decked out with yellow and white bunting, the papal colours, for a bishop driving through. I'm not entirely confident I remember which bishop it was, perhaps Dr William Philbin. That's not important.

What is important is that the streets were packed with people turned out on a summer's evening to see the man drive through because they regarded him as a prince of the Church.

I'm not sure that if the people of Glencairn, or Rathcoole, were told today that Prince Charles would be whizzing past at seven o'clock they would go to as much trouble for him.

My point is that times have changed and, when I hear people talk about "the new normal" and the ways in which they anticipate our world will have been changed by the coronavirus, I recall that it has changed many times before.

It hasn't often changed as radically as some hope it will now. Even in India, commentators anticipate the need for a social wage, an income for everybody, whether they work or not.

But cultural change has sometimes been dramatic and sometimes barely noticed. Take the flurry of interest in the dramatising for television of Sally Rooney's novel, Normal People.

There was a time, not long ago, when the fuss would have been about sex and nudity on screen. In the past few decades, we have seen sex on screen come and go and, apparently, now come back again.

In The Crown, the drama about the life of the Queen, there is an episode which depicts Princess Anne in bed with Andrew Parker Bowles, the man who married Camilla. I doubt it happened entirely as depicted.

As the bedclothes were cast aside and the dabblers got out, we saw that he was wearing shorts and she had a black bra and pants on.

Now, if people want to make love under the covers with their underwear on, that is something they are fully entitled to do. But do the rest of us really believe that that is what they did?

Or even that the director of the drama actually wanted us to think that they were so modest? The whole drift of the story was to strongly suggest otherwise.

There was more blatant sex on our screens in the Eighties than there has been until recently and suddenly again it is no problem after all.

The biggest changes in the lives of those of us over 40 - and I am well over 40 - was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of China.

Younger people won't grasp quite how amazing it is to see Michael Portillo, one of Thatcher's ministers, visit Vietnam and present the story of Ho Chi Minh with the same equanimity he might bring to a celebration of the life of Edward Heath. In fact, I suspect he was a lot kinder to Ho Chi Minh than he would have been to Heath.

But there it was on our screens last week, signalling that the world has turned out to be rather different than many of us expected.

I remember my father, at the age I am now, marvelling at the brevity of life and the rate of change in the world and I suppose I am doing the same thing.

He could remember when a pint of beer was a penny. I can remember when it was 11p. As a waiter in the Unicorn Bar in Castle Street, I served vodka and orange for 3s/7d, about 17.5p.

I also remember when the doctor would come to your house, stick a lollipop stick down your throat to flatten your tongue and make you say "Aaah", which would have been a legitimate expression of wonder for such a service.

Back then, there was corporal punishment in schools. Girls who conceived before marriage would be packed off to convents to have their babies without disgracing their families. Gay people were called queers.

It's only this year that they have been allowed to marry and, when civil partnership was introduced, Lisburn council threatened to refuse to allow couples to enjoy the service in the same room that heterosexuals were married in.

We now have a debate, inconceivable in my youth, about gender and sex not being the same thing, so that a person with a standard male body might identify as female.

The one thing that never changes, or so Churchill moaned, was the ancient quarrel in Ireland but, of course, it has changed.

The united Ireland anticipated by those who declared the republic in 1916 was a Catholic and Gaelic Ireland. Only a few eccentrics argue for that now. The republican project is now pro-European.

I have read many of the histories of the Irish War for Independence.

This coincided with the lethal Spanish Flu, which killed more people than died in the Great War, which was just ending.

Yet, I don't recall that calamity ever being made part of the story of Ireland at that time.

Twenty-three thousand people died in Ireland of that flu, an awful lot more than were killed by the IRA, the Black and Tans and all the other forces put together.

All those IRA men huddled together in ditches with their rifles on a cold November night might have ended up killing more people in their own families than in the Crossley tenders they were waiting to ambush.

Does this mean anything? Well, it means that people remember things which seem important to them now. We trawled our history for stories of British oppression and Irish revolution in order to connect our present experience to past stories and extrapolate from them something we called destiny, the arc of history. All in our minds.

And we warped the stories of the past and the present to make them fit. We always do that.

If we look back at the pandemic of 1918, we will notice the parallels with now, not the bits that don't relate to, or inform, our current concerns.

Fr Paddy's problem is that he didn't change when nearly everything else did.

And people revile him because he embarrasses them with a reminder of how they once were themselves.
Dan Garcia said he first noticed the price of meat rising a couple of weeks ago.

Garcia, owner of Garcias Kitchen in Albuquerque, said the increases have varied from 50 cents to $1 per pound of beef, chicken and pork  depending on the cut  a consequence of a number of meat processing plant shutting down operations across the United States due to the spread of COVID-19.

Garcia was adamant his company wouldnt raise prices during a pandemic, but he acknowledged Garcias Kitchen is feeling the pressure with dining rooms closed at its five locations.

Well be feeling the jump a little sooner, Garcia told the Journal.

Garcia is far from alone.

People up and down the meat supply chain  from ranchers to distributors to the grocery stores and restaurants they work with  have been hit hard by the closure of plants operated by industry giants like Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods.

The closures, prompted by outbreaks of COVID-19 at multiple facilities, have dramatically reduced the nations ability to process meat. That, in turn, has prompted a price spike for restaurants and made it more difficult for some grocery stores to keep meat in their freezers.

Were going to see prices just like weve never seen before, said Mike Perea, owner and president of Albuquerque food supplier Eagle Rock Food Co.

How we got here

The COVID-19 pandemic infiltrated nearly all aspects of American life in March, and the meat processing industry was more susceptible than most. Smithfield, Tyson and JBS each shuttered plants in response to virus outbreaks at facilities.

Mike Minifie, owner of Moriarty-based Western Way Custom Meats, said industrial-scale plants can process around 20,000 animals per day, and losing that capacity has dramatically slowed down production.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to require meat processing plants to stay open. Several experts told the Journal its unlikely the order will be effective without sufficient social distancing measures and support from employees.

Im glad the (act) has been invoked, but its not going to do much unless we protect the workers, said Hitendra Chaturvedi, a professor at Arizona State Universitys W.P. Carey School of Business, with a focus on supply chain management.

Chaturvedi added that large slaughterhouses pack workers in tight spaces that make social distancing a challenge. Any effort to keep workers six feet apart would likely require the facilities to run at around 50% capacity, Chaturvedi said.

With large processors currently unable to run at full capacity, farmers and ranchers havent had a place to send cattle, chickens and pigs. As a result, contract farmers have been left to euthanize animals even with meat prices on the rise, Chaturvedi said.

We do not have a shortage of supply, he said. We have a shortage of the manpower that processes the supply.

Consequently, meat prices have trended upward. A weekly report from Urner Barry, which publishes data about the food industry, reported that beef rose to nearly $2.70 per pound on April 24, up from less than $2.10 in February. Pork, which dropped earlier this year, spiked to nearly $0.80 per pound by April 24, though chicken prices remained lower than in 2019, according to the weekly report.

Local impact

Perea said Eagle Rock, which works with around 150 restaurants in New Mexico, has seen prices jump nearly 50% for some cuts of beef. With restaurants in-person dining rooms closed in New Mexico, he said Eagle Rock has responded by cutting deliveries from two to three times per week down to once a week.

I feel fortunate to even be doing that, Perea said.

Perea added he is particularly worried about restaurants  particularly those with fixed menus  upping their prices during the pandemic.

You may see menu prices changing weekly, monthly, Perea said.

So far, the impact at local restaurants has varied from business to business.

Those who have shied away from industrial meat producers seem to have fared better.

Larry and Dorothy Rainosek, owners of Frontier Restaurant and Golden Pride BBQ, said they work with local producers, and havent felt the effects of major plant shutdowns yet.

Jean Bernstein, president and CEO of Flying Star Cafe, said a lot of her companys deals with suppliers were negotiated ahead of time, which has also minimized the damage so far.

However, Bernstein said a combination of factors  ranging from labor shortages to virus-related uncertainty to a wetter-than-normal winter on the East Coast  have caused food prices to behave in unpredictable ways. For example, Bernstein said Flying Star changed tortilla suppliers after prices went up nearly 30%.

Weve had some surprises, she said.

Bernstein said Flying Star has responded by tightening up its menu and focusing on online delivery to adjust to the pandemic.

Everything is different now, she said.

Looking ahead

David Livingston, a Hawaii-based supermarket research analyst, said even if the shuttered meat processors can re-open soon at partial capacity, it would be unlikely to fill the gaps in the supply chain.

You cant come back at half-speed and expect to meet demand, Livingston said.

Until meat processors are once again operating at full capacity, the burden will likely fall on grocery stores, which are already experiencing a spike in demand with restaurant dining areas closed.

Livingston said most grocers are able to move inventory around to keep shelves from staying empty, but acknowledged it could be challenging to keep meat on the shelves until the supply chain is restored.

With a disruption in supply, theres always going to be empty shelves, Livingston said.

Chaturvedi predicted meat prices will remain high in the short term, but likely wont stay that way for long. Prices could drop below where they stood prior to the virus outbreak in the mid-term, as processors start exporting less meat to overseas markets like China and Europe, where nearly half of Americas meat is currently sent.

Silver lining

One silver lining to major plant shutdowns might be the resultant boost to smaller meat producers in an industry increasingly dominated by the largest companies. Minifie, who said hes worked in the meat industry for six decades, said the field is even more consolidated at the top now than it was coming out of the Great Depression.

While Minifie said Western Way has lost business from restaurant closures, he said the facility is slaughtering more animals than it was before the pandemic, as local farmers and ranchers have brought in cattle and pigs to process for friends, family and neighbors.

Luckily we have the ability to fill that need, Minifie said.

Likewise, Brett Rizzi, owner of No Bull Prime Meats in Albuquerque, said his small meat market uses meat he raises himself and processes at a small facility in Texas. Because of that, Rizzi said, he hasnt seen much of an impact from the industrial closures.

I think Im in a good position, Rizzi said.
She ran on the slogan Fix the damn roads, the kind of platform that emphasizes practical thinking over partisan politics. So how did pragmatic Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer find herself in the middle of several of Donald Trumps most recent tirades?

Well, like others who have ended up in a similar position, she happens to be a womanwith a high-profile job to do. Over that past two months, the coronavirus pandemic has made superstars out of some of the most unglamorous federal executives. Few have become better known than Whitmer, a woman whose response to the crisis as the first-term governor of a swing state has earned such praise that its said to have landed her on the short list to be former vice president Joe Bidens own vice president.

Trump has noticed. Whitmers open criticism of the federal governments performance has so rankled Trump that he often refers to her as that woman from Michigan. But its not just that Whitmer gets under his skin. Her home state is on his mind tooTrump had the last of his in-person campaign rallies on March 9 in Detroit; the path to reelection in November runs through Michigan.

I talked to Whitmer over the phone, less than 24 hours after the Michigan State capitol building in Lansing was flooded with gun-toting protestors, several of whom also carried Trump 2020 flags and chanted Lock her up! That morning Trump had tweeted his advice: The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.

But its clear that Whitmer doesnt take her marching orders from the president. In an interview with Glamour, she charts Michigans path to reopening, working with the current administration, and those persistent V.P. rumors.

Story continues

Molly Jong-Fast: Whats it like to be in Michigan right now?

Gretchen Whitmer: Its interesting. Michigan is a state of almost 10 million people, and [the] vast majority of people are doing the right thing. And because of that, weve been able to push our curve down, and weve saved a lot of lives, and we can now start to think about responsibly reopening and protecting people as we do it. The fact that these demonstrations are happeningit is a small fraction of our population that is engaging in this conduct. It doesnt mean everyone across Michigan agrees with every action we felt like weve had to take, but the vast majority of people are doing the right thing. And I take great inspiration in that fact.

Do you ever feel unsafe there?

No, I dont. I am concerned that in the midst of a global pandemic, people [are] congregating and not taking the actions to protect themselves and protect others. Im very concerned about that. Im concerned about their health. I am concerned about the health of the communities that theyre [going to] return to after they congregate like that. The sad irony is that its actions like theirs that might actually force us to have to do more in terms of [mandating] staying at home longer, or taking additional actions to keep people safe. And none of us wants that.

us-HEALTH-virus-PROTEST JEFF KOWALSKY/Getty Images

How do you feel about the protestors?

I think its important to recognize that people have the right to dissent. And people have the right to demonstrate. So the issue that Ive had with this is that this feels more like political rallies than speech that is being exercised in a responsible way that doesnt subject other people to danger.

The great thing about our country is our freedom of speech, and our freedom to dissent, but that doesnt mean that you can compromise someone elses health or safety in that process. And congregating like this does that.

I think its important that I am focused on doing the next right thing and not getting dragged into all of the political nature of whats happening, because if we start making decisions based on politics and popularity instead of public safety, this is going to go on longer, its going to take more lives, and our economy stress is going to persist for an even longer period of time. And so weve got to stay focused on the public health and the safe reengagement of our economy, and not engage in all the other stuff.

Is it true that youve been talking to former vice president Joe Biden?

We have. He calls to check in with some regularity to see whats going on in Michigan. I think hes someone who is no stranger to the state of Michigan.

When we went through the recession and the auto industry needed help, it was Obama, Biden, and their administration that had our back, and I think he cares a great deal about whats going on. He checks in to see what we need. He asks my thoughts about what ideally should be happening at the national level. And hes given me some counsel along the way too.

If he asked you to be V.P., would you say yes?

You know, honestly, Im in the spot where Ive worked two years to get to. I love my home state. Ive got daughters who are in high school. Im not looking to go anywhere. Ill say this: I think that he will be a great president, and I support him. And I think that every ounce of my energy is going into COVID-19 and our state response and reengaging our economy and making sure we protect lives in the process and thats where every ounce of my energy is dedicated.

Julia Pickett

Do you feel like the federal government has been helpful or hurtful?

Well, I think both. If Im being honest, both. Ive had a really good working relationship with FEMA, with HHS, with the vice president. We have been able to get some supplies to Michigan, and Im grateful for that. I think Ive observedas have a lot of other governors on both sides of the aisle, but for whatever reason when I make them they get more attentionthat we really would have been better off with a national strategy.

Expecting state governors to determine what the best public health interests are when we have a virus pandemic that doesnt observe state lines means we end up with a patchwork of policies in a nation that needs consistent, accurate medical information, and policies that are communicated from the federal government.

And so I think [we need] a national strategy, with constant and accurate communication at the national level and national procurement [for essential supplies]. Because right now states are being pitted against each other and trying to get at N95 masks. And for all of these reasons, I think that there are things that we need to plan for as we look to the future. And those were shortcomings in this moment and led to more COVID-19 spread, and loss of life, and a longer economic distress.

Why do you think the president has targeted you?

You know what? I dont know that it benefits me to get into the mindset of whats going on there. So Im not going to weigh in. But Ill just say I know that this is a presidential election year. I know that Michigan is a critical state. The path to the White House goes through the state of Michigan. And I also know that I am saying similar things to what other governors are saying, and so some might have theories about gender.

I dont know if thats whats going on here, but Im just going to keep doing the job that Im doing, because everything that I do is focused on trying to save lives and get what I need for the people of Michigan. Whether that singles me out for criticism or, on the other side, for compliments, its because Im doing my job, and Im always going to do my job, and Im not going to apologize for doing my job. I want to work with everyone, because the enemy is not one another. The enemy is a virus, and we all have to be focused on that.

Do you feel like criticizing the federal government affects your ability to get the resources you need?

Absolutely. So I avoid engaging. I dont participate in the back-and-forth. Im not going to get distracted by all the political conversations that are happening. We need to make decisions based on public health and our economynot polls and politics.

In your dream scenario, whats Michigans path to reopening?

My hope is that every week or two we engage another sector of our economy, and that we dont see a spike in COVID-19 infections, and by midsummer everything is somewhat back to normal. But we probably still wont be congregating in large groups. My daughter is a senior in high school. Shes not going to have that big milestone where you walk across the stage at a big graduation, and shes worried about whether or not shell be attending college in person. And none of us knows the answer right now. And yet everyone of us is in the same boat. Were going to get through it together.

Julia Pickett

There have been some real racial disparities in the deaths in Michigan, right?

Yes, Michigan was one of the first states to start releasing the racial data with regard to COVID-19 cases. Fourteen percent of our population is African American, but 40% of the deaths are African American. We know that there is a racial component here. And its very likely that this is an issue across the country. We need all to be acknowledging this, and that starts with releasing our data, and then doing the hard work of making sure that we create equity in health care and equity in opportunity.

This is holding the mirror up to the United States, and we have work to do. To start, we created the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities. It is chaired by my lieutenant governor, who is the first African-American lieutenant governor in Michigan, and we are digging in, because in this moment we have to come out of it with a plan and lessons, and a real path to doing better as a nation, and creating equity and opportunity is a critical component to that.

Finally, has anyone been very helpful in giving you great advice?

Thats a good question. What Ive really come to appreciate in this moment is the relationships I have with other governorsDemocratic and Republican for that matter. Weve been able to talk through our thought processes or share our data and information.

Thats people like [Maryland] Governor Larry Hogan, who's a Republican, and [Ohio] Governor Mike DeWine. Mike DeWine and I are not very close on the political spectrum, but he has been really helpful and good to work with. And together with other governors, we have created a Midwestern consortium to coordinate our reopening. I talked to Governor J.B. Pritzker, whos in Illinois. I talked to him last night. He called and wanted to talk through some things. Tim Walz and Tony Eversgovernors in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Governor Laura Kelly from Kansas is one of my favorite people, because she is so smart. She is so strong. And she is funnythats important.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Molly Jong-Fast is the editor-at-large of The Daily Beast.

Originally Appeared on Glamour
An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters.

The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said.

As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report's content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.

The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China's top intelligence body.

Reuters has not seen the briefing paper, but it was described by people who had direct knowledge of its findings.

"I don't have relevant information," the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson's office said in a statement responding to questions from Reuters on the report.

China's Ministry of State Security has no public contact details and could not be reached for comment.

CICIR, an influential think tank that until 1980 was within the Ministry of State Security and advises the Chinese government on foreign and security policy, did not reply to a request for comment.

Reuters couldn't determine to what extent the stark assessment described in the paper reflects positions held by China's state leaders, and to what extent, if at all, it would influence policy. But the presentation of the report shows how seriously Beijing takes the threat of a building backlash that could threaten what China sees as its strategic investments overseas and its view of its security standing.

Relations between China and the United States are widely seen to be at their worst point in decades, with deepening mistrust and friction points from U.S. allegations of unfair trade and technology practices to disputes over Hong Kong, Taiwan and contested territories in the South China Sea.

In recent days, U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a more difficult re-election campaign as the coronavirus has claimed tens of thousands of American lives and ravaged the U.S. economy, has been ramping up his criticism of Beijing and threatening new tariffs on China. His administration, meanwhile, is considering retaliatory measures against China over the outbreak, officials said.

It is widely believed in Beijing that the United States wants to contain a rising China, which has become more assertive globally as its economy has grown.

The paper concluded that Washington views China's rise as an economic and national security threat and a challenge to Western democracies, the people said. The report also said the United States was aiming to undercut the ruling Communist Party by undermining public confidence.

Chinese officials had a "special responsibility" to inform their people and the world of the threat posed by the coronavirus "since they were the first to learn of it," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in response to questions from Reuters.

Without directly addressing the assessment made in the Chinese report, Ortagus added: "Beijing's efforts to silence scientists, journalists, and citizens and spread disinformation exacerbated the dangers of this health crisis."

A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council declined to comment.

REPERCUSSIONS

The report described to Reuters warned that anti-China sentiment sparked by the coronavirus could fuel resistance to China's Belt and Road infrastructure investment projects, and that Washington could step up financial and military support for regional allies, making the security situation in Asia more volatile.

Three decades ago, in the aftermath of Tiananmen, the United States and many Western governments imposed sanctions against China including banning or restricting arms sales and technology transfers.

China is far more powerful nowadays.

Xi has revamped China's military strategy to create a fighting force equipped to win modern wars. He is expanding China's air and naval reach in a challenge to more than 70 years of U.S. military dominance in Asia.

In its statement, China's foreign ministry called for cooperation, saying, "the sound and steady development of China-U.S. relations" serve the interests of both countries and the international community.

It added: "any words or actions that engage in political manipulation or stigmatization under the pretext of the pandemic, including taking the opportunity to sow discord between countries, are not conducive to international cooperation against the pandemic."

COLD WAR ECHOES

One of those with knowledge of the report said it was regarded by some in the Chinese intelligence community as China's version of the "Novikov Telegram", a 1946 dispatch by the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Nikolai Novikov, that stressed the dangers of U.S. economic and military ambition in the wake of World War Two.

Novikov's missive was a response to U.S. diplomat George Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow that said the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for peaceful coexistence with the West, and that containment was the best long-term strategy.

The two documents helped set the stage for the strategic thinking that defined both sides of the Cold War.

China has been accused by the United States of suppressing early information on the virus, which was first detected in the central city of Wuhan, and downplaying its risks.

Beijing has repeatedly denied that it covered up the extent or severity of the virus outbreak.

China has managed to contain domestic spread of the virus and has been trying to assert a leading role in the global battle against COVID-19. That has included a propaganda push around its donations and sale of medical supplies to the United States and other countries and sharing of expertise.

But China faces a growing backlash from critics who have called to hold Beijing accountable for its role in the pandemic.

Trump has said he will cut off funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), which he called "very China-centric," something WHO officials have denied.

Australia's government has called for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the virus.

Last month, France summoned China's ambassador to protest a publication on the website of China's embassy that criticized Western handling of coronavirus.

The virus has so far infected more than 3 million people globally and caused more than 200,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.
Fort Bend County officials launched a free COVID-19 testing site at Missouri Citys Thurgood Marshall High School Friday, May. Congressman Al Green, Fort Bend County Judge KP George, Precinct 2 Commissioner Grady Prestage, Health and Human Services Director Dr. Jacqueline Minter and Missouri City Mayor Yolanda Ford were among a VIP group of elected officials, community leaders and residents who gathered to mark the opening of the drive-through testing site.

Im happy the site is here but this is not a joyous occasion. Were in a war and well wait to celebrate when the war is over. We take this issue very seriously as it affects every part of our lives, Commissioner Prestage said.

RELATED: Missouri City emerging as COVID-19 hot spot. Heres what being done to help

State Rep. Ron Reynolds, who represents the Missouri City community, was also among those who came to help launch the testing site.

Research has shown how the African American community has been disproportionally affected by COVID-19, possibly due to underlying conditions or factors such as diabetes and high blood pressure. In addition, some researchers think it could be connected to genetics but I would say poverty is also a contributing factor because not having the financial resources to afford health insurance can only compound health problems. These members of our community suffer the most so it is important for people to be able to get tested for COVID-19. But, I think everyone should get tested and I am glad this site is here to offer that opportunity to everyone.

Rep. Reynolds said he and other members of the Texas Legislature Black Caucus sent a letter recently to Governor Greg Abbott asking for additional resources for the states African American community due to statistics that show a large percentage of the states COVID-19 cases and fatalities involve the African American community .

We are hopeful Gov. Abbott will help us address this issue, Reynolds said. Testing sites like this one are part of that and we want to continue to help bring resources and support like this to our communities.

MIORE FROM KRISTI NIX: Asian community answers Stafford councilmembers call to action

Fort Bend County officials worked in partnership with Access Health to open the testing site, which will offer free testing to residents by appointment.

We are starting the site with a target of 100 tests per day, Judge George said. If the demand is there, we can expand the site and increase the target number of tests.

Congressman Al Green, who represents the Missouri City area, was also among those who came to help launch the testing site.

The first case of COVID-19 in the Greater Houston area was reported in Fort Bend County. What started as one case in Fort Bend County has grown exponentially and expanded to surrounding counties. Therefore, it is imperative that we continue our efforts to test COVID-19 in all of our communities and implement procedures for effective contact tracing as we work to defeat the coronavirus crisis, Congressman Green said praised local leaders in a press release. I must thank Judge KP George and Director Jacqueline Minter for their unwavering leadership during this global health emergency. Additionally, I must applaud Mayor Yolanda Ford as she welcomes the testing site to Missouri City. It is my hope that this testing site will not only contribute to Fort Bend Countys coronavirus response but also help to flatten the curve for the Greater Houston area overall.

The site is scheduled to be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, residents fill out an online form and a representative will call with instructions and appointment information. Testing is ongoing throughout May. For information, visit https://www.fbchealth.org/

knix@hcnonline.com
Nathan Bills Restaurant and Bar is donating more than 100 free lunches to Springfield Public Schools and Sodexo food service workers Monday as a thank you for their work during the coronavirus pandemic.

These workers are as every bit on the front lines as our medical staff and first responders and if anything, theyre the hidden heroes," said Nathan Bills owner John Sullivan via press release. "Were really proud of what theyve been doing to feed the kids of Springfield and want to honor the incredible work theyre doing serving over 100,000 meals to our kids every week.

The restaurant will drop off the lunches early Monday morning before schools open for meal distribution for students.

Springfield Public Schools and Sodexo have been working together to offer free meals to families at 17 different locations throughout Springfield during the coronavirus pandemic. Families may pick up breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Nathan Bills has been donating meals to first responders and frontline workers since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, including Baystate Health and Mercy Medical Center.

Related Content:
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tops Democratic voters' wish list to join the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Joe Biden, on the ticket for November, a new poll has found.

Seventy-one per cent of registered Democratic voters and voters who lean towards the party said Mr Biden should consider choosing Ms Warren, an erstwhile candidate for president herself, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted from 28 April to 1 May.

Trailing Ms Warren in the survey on whom Democratic voters would like Mr Biden to consider for vice president were California Senator Kamala Harris at 59 per cent; 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams at 50 per cent; and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar at 49 per cent.

Mr Biden has said for months he will pick a woman to be his vice president. He has indicated, however, that the vetting process could delay his final selection until July.

Asked who Mr Biden should tap for vice president if he had to form his ticket today, 36 per cent of respondents said Ms Warren, 19 per cent said Ms Harris, 14 per cent said Ms Abrams, and 13 per cent said Ms Klobuchar.

Ms Warren led the other candidates among both white Democratic voters and black Democratic voters, with 72 per cent of each saying Mr Biden should consider her.

She also led among independent voters, with 41 per cent saying Mr Biden should consider her. She was followed by Ms Klobuchar at 38 per cent, Ms Harris at 31 per cent, and Ms Abrams at 23 per cent.

The top two skills Democratic voters want to see in a vice presidential nominee for the party are crisis management experience, with 57 per cent of respondents saying it is very important, and economic expertise, with 49 per cent saying it is very important, the poll found.

Legislative experience (37 per cent) and executive experience (27 per cent), the two common most common backgrounds for recent presidents, were not considered as important.

Most Democratic voters said they did not care whether Mr Biden chose a white woman or a woman of colour. Three percent said they prefer someone who is white, 23 per cent said they prefer someone of color, and 74 per cent said they don't care.

YouGov surveyed 2,200 US residents via live interview for the poll, which has an overall margin of error of +/- 2.5 points. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey and 2016 presidential voting patterns and registration status.
Somebodys got to help us, she said.

Theres also the Omaha woman who got one check after filing an unemployment claim on March 17, but none since. She said her online record shows that everything was completed and she has recertified every week. But emails and calls have proved fruitless. One day, she said, she was on hold for five hours before giving up.

Im getting a little fed up, she said. Our savings is pretty much gone.

Workers in other states are reporting similar woes as the coronavirus wreaked economic havoc across the nation. More than 30 million people have filed for unemployment over the past six weeks, which marked the worst employment drop in U.S. history.

Included in the total are self-employed or gig workers, who became eligible for special unemployment benefits under federal pandemic relief legislation. Those workers normally are not able to claim unemployment.
By PTI

LONDON: British Sikh doctors are campaigning for a better procurement strategy by the National Health Service for personal protective equipment required on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic in hospitals after a number of them were forced away from key roles due to their beards.

The Sikh Doctors Association had reports of at least five Sikhs being moved out of their usual shift rota at the NHS hospitals for refusing to shave their beards and failing a so-called "fit test" of critical facial protective gear.

"These doctors got in touch with us in some distress for being forced out of their usual roles, which was causing tension among colleagues as they had to cover their work," said Dr Sukhdev Singh, chairperson of the Sikh Doctors Association.

"The problem arose due to a shortage of specialist facial protective masks called Powdered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPRs), which is a hood respirator required in critical areas such as intensive care units.

ALSO READ | UK PM Boris Johnson to set out plan for easing lockdown next week

"The 'fit tests' and equipment need to be geared towards all staff needs, including orthodox Sikhs with turbans and beards," he said.

All the individual cases of the five British Sikh doctors have since been resolved through acquisition of PAPRs, a more expensive but reusable kit costing around GBP 1,000.

The association is now working with individual NHS Trusts and more widely with the NHS England to ensure there is greater awareness around procuring such specialist protective gear in sufficient quantities well in time.

The regular cloth FFP3 masks would not work with beards, a factor that could impact other communities such as Muslims as well.

"The system of procurement cannot continue blindly. There has to be greater interaction and surveys done to ensure that specific staff requirements are taken on board so that there is sufficient stock of the right kind of PPE available in times of crisis such as a pandemic," added Singh.

Sikh Council UK has also been liaising with the NHS England alongside the association over the issue and had written to Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive officer of NHS England, last month seeking his intervention over greater clarity on 'fit tests' and taking religious sensitivities into account.

"It has come to our attention that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NHS Trusts around the United Kingdom will be carrying out 'fit tests' in which certain medical staff could be asked to remove facial hair," the council said.

"For Sikhs, their duty of care is intrinsically interlinked with their faith. Therefore, we ask that no Sikh healthcare professional is forcibly made to choose between breaking their faith or breaking their frontline NHS role," it noted.

NHS England has since confirmed that "reasonable adjustments" would be made.

"I wholeheartedly agree that reasonable adjustments should be made by providers in this area.

"As such, in my weekly discussions with trust medical directors and chief nurses from NHS trusts I will state this clearly as a reminder," Stephen Powis, the National Medical Director of the NHS England, said in response.

The short supply of PPE has been a major issue for NHS hospitals tackling the highly infectious coronavirus, with the government under considerable pressure over the lack of enough protective gear for frontline staff.

Several private fundraising efforts have also been launched to raise enough funds to produce and procure required facial masks and aprons.
Opinion Article

4 May 2020

Amongst the many uncertainties and changes COVID-19 has brought upon the world, one thing is certain: the coronavirus crisis will end and people will travel again.

There is pent-up demand for travel, in fact there's already a term for it in China "revenge travel", those who intend to travel to make up for lost time or because quarantine is driving people crazy! Some are predicting a start toward recovery in 8 weeks, with China already seeing a 20% uptick in demand.

Planning for that pent-up travel demand, however, will require a data-first approach. It is more or less a fact that the profile of your hotel guests will be different after coronavirus compared to your guests pre-corona. With gas prices at a low, and likely continued restrictions on air and international travel, what we'll see this year is the re-birth of the road trip and similar drive market demand.

To help maximize ad spend dollars and to target the right guests, we have put together 10 suggestions to optimize your paid media marketing efforts in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consider these below suggestions when determining who to target and what your messaging should be:

1. Targeting Previous Guests

Studies show that it costs 5x more to capture new guests compared to retaining existing guests. While hotels are shuttered and at reduced capacity, now is the perfect time to strengthen your brand's relationship with your previous guests. If you can convince previous guests that the hotel has strong policies in place for cleanliness and cancellation fees, guests are more likely to choose a property that they have stayed at before and have a positive association with than riskstaying somewhere new during a time of uncertainty and stress.

The goal is to nurture and manage the relationship so when guests are presented with similar options, they choose and prefer your brand. This may involve specific perks, offers or some type of rewards program. Invite would-be guests who have previously canceled reservations first.

2. Retargeting Campaigns to Recent Site Visitors

Searchers who have previously shown interest in your page can generate 10-50x the returns of your normal paid search efforts. These searchers have specifically shown interest in your brand, so continue to advertise to them and consider offering a special offer to those who checked rates but didn't book. Ensure any retargeting efforts prioritize cancellation messaging that make it clear it's easy to get out of a booking if plans change or coronavirus impacts the hotel's ability to stay open.

3. Road-Trippers & "Stay-cationers"

Just like any other rebuilding or revitalization, everything starts at the local level. When travel resumes, leisure guests will likely start with vacations within driving distance or opt for an in-town staycation.

Consider creating a targeted campaign to your drive market (2-3 hours drive) with messaging that resonates with this type of guest - offer in-house services such as a spa, on-site restaurant, or other amenities to generate interest. Even simple things like free parking can be a micro-factor in a decision on where to stay. Could you offer a free car wash to guests before they hit the road back home? Or maybe it's a pre-packaged lunch to go for the journey home.

4. Attracting Business Travelers

With some analysts predicting that business travel will resume before any other travel in major markets like Miami, New York, Chicago - it is important to test campaigns nationally as well - consider targeting searchers and business travelers coming from direct markets as a way to dip your toe into the national market. Proximity to airport, downtown and availability of room service or pick-up orders at your restaurant are important messages to include when attracting business travel.

5. Segmented Campaigns for Desired Demographics

With older populations being more susceptible to COVID-19, it is possible that guest demographics will skew younger than previously. Because of this, some hoteliers may find success by creating campaigns based around different age groups to see what performs best.

6. Targeting In-Market & Affinity Audiences

Use Google's In-Market Audiences to target searchers based on their recent purchase intent. Using these audiences can deliver your message to the right person at the right time based on search history, intent and purchasing patterns within Google. Additionally, Affinity audiences can be used to target searchers based on their habits and interests. These audiences can include family vacationers, travelers, travel buffs, trips by specific destinations and more.

7. Attracting Your Most Profitable Guests

With the world essentially paused, now is a great time to review and refine who your best guest is.

While data-enriching platforms (cc: TargetingHub) can make this easy, one can also analyze the available segments within your paid search audiences to identify who your best guest is. Location, Age, Household Income, Gender and device types are all important segments to consider.

8. Upper Funnel Targeting

Destination and Market-based Campaigns: People will be searching for new places and destinations to travel - think of this as a hard reset on brand loyalty and demand. If your previous campaigns focused around bottom of funnel branded paid search, it's likely you'll need to re-build your funnel by attracting a wider audience again, switching back on bottom of funnel campaigns without thinking about the wider shopping audience is likely to be less successful than in a pre-coronavirus world.

There will be a flood of guests who are particularly susceptible to targeted content, especially if the hotels they were using beforehand created a forgettable or negative experience. Make sure your brand is in a position to capture these new guests.

9. Metasearch Strategy

Because metasearch ads are only utilized when a searcher is looking to make a reservation, it is important to have a presence here to ensure your searchers are booking direct. Metasearch has become a near-essential component of hotel digital marketing in just a short space of time, now is the time to establish a foothold in this space.

10. Implement "Hotels Open in [Location]" Terms

As cities, states, businesses and hotels begin opening up again, an emerging trend of new search terms such as "Hotels Open in Dallas" may develop. Make sure your campaigns target guests who may be searching these new types of terms.Search behavior is likely to be different, with a new set of criteria around cancellation policies, cleanliness and availability. Make sure you're evaluating search trends and adding search terms you may not have ever utilized in the past.

For more tips on how to rebound from the negative effects of COVID-19, visit Vizergy's blog or contact us!
And now for something completely different... A Michigan family is lightening up lockdown with a neighborhood project inspired by the Monty Python.

Karl and Liz Koto of Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., love  love!  Monty Python, the iconic British troupe founded by John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and the late Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. The group, colloquially called the Beatles of comedy, is responsible for nearly five decades worth of classic comic moments.

Earlier this month, the Kotos installed a sign on their front lawn instructing neighbors to perform a silly walk as they pass. You have now entered the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Silly Walks. Commence silly walking immediately, reads the homemade sign.

The project was inspired by the "Ministry of Funny Walks" sketch in the 1970s Flying Circus series, featuring Cleese as a government worker approving grants to develop ridiculous walks.

The bit has become entrenched in the zeitgeist ever since. In 2014, the sketch was parodied with a traffic sign in Norway and more recently highlighted by Dartmouth University researchers in a paper examining flaws in the academic peer-review procedure. And in 2019, hundreds participated in a silly walk parade in Hungary on April Fools Day.

John Cleese's "The Ministry of Silly Walks" is one of Monty Python's most iconic sketches. (Photo: BBC via Youtube)

To the Kotos, who record people on their Nest cam (there is a social media disclaimer on the sign) and upload the footage to the Yorkshire.Silly.Walks Instagram page, observing creativity unfold is levity.

People either understand [the sign] right away or pull out their phones to look up the meaning, Karl tells Yahoo Life, adding that aside from neighbors, it was hysterical to see the first complete stranger attempt a silly walk.

The Kotos camera has recorded a family performing a synchronized swimming routine, another doing the Village Peoples Y.M.C.A. dance and respectable efforts from a pizza delivery worker and even a pet dog. The Kotos get repeat visitors and say parents have joyously embarrassed their children with their walks. People have great fun with it, says Karl.

Story continues

The walks are filmed at a distance to obscure the faces of participants. Sometimes the Kotos two children, ages 8 and 11, sit outside and cheer people on. And in the evenings, the couple reviews footage, edits and brainstorms the video captions.

Karl says branch [ministry] offices have been opened in California and countries like England, France and Kenya. As long as it gives people joy, he says, Well keep the sign up as long as we can.

And above all, the Kotos have gotten the ultimate endorsement. Cleese himself has tweeted his seal of approval, saying that the familys goofy call to action has made me so happy to see.

Bravo #yorkshiresillywalks This made me so happy to see. pic.twitter.com/ul1z0vkTdN  John Cleese (@JohnCleese) May 2, 2020

Video produced by Stacy Jackman

For the latest coronavirus news and updates, follow along at https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please reference the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

Read more from Yahoo Life:

Want daily wellness, lifestyle and parenting news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Lifes newsletter.
SOUTHFIELD, Mich., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Lear Corporation (NYSE: LEA), a global automotive technology leader in Seating and E-Systems, announced today that it will hold its 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the "Annual Meeting") virtually due to public health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic and out of concern for the health and safety of meeting participants. The Annual Meeting will be held on May 21, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. EDT, as previously disclosed. Stockholders will not be able to attend the Annual Meeting in person.

Stockholders at the close of business on the record date, March 27, 2020, are entitled to attend the Annual Meeting. Stockholders can attend the Annual Meeting at www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/LEA2020 by entering the 16-digit voting control number found on their proxy card, voting instruction form or the notice of internet availability of proxy materials previously received.

Please note that the proxy card and voting instruction form included with previously-distributed proxy materials will not be updated to reflect the change from an in-person meeting to a virtual-only meeting and may be used to vote shares in connection with the Annual Meeting.

Whether or not stockholders plan to attend the virtual-only Annual Meeting, Lear urges stockholders to vote and submit their proxies in advance of the meeting by one of the methods described in the proxy materials.

About Lear Corporation

Lear, a global automotive technology leader in Seating and E-Systems, enables superior in-vehicle experiences for consumers around the world. Our diverse team of talented employees in 39 countries is driven by a commitment to innovation, operational excellence, and sustainability. Lear is Making every drive better by providing the technology for safer, smarter, and more comfortable journeys. Lear, headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, serves every major automaker in the world and ranks #147 on the Fortune 500.

SOURCE Lear Corporation

Related Links

http://www.lear.com


Nguyen Le Hoa (second left) with her friends at her restaurant in Switzerland.  VNA/VNS Photo To Uyen

HA NOI  Many Vietnamese people abroad have collaborated with local authorities and residents to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

General Director of Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) in Switzerland, Bertrand Levrat, recently sent a letter to thank Vietnamese woman, Nguyen Le Hoa, for her efforts in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Geneva.

Hoa is the director of a Vietnamese restaurant named Saveurs du Vietnam in Geneva.

Hoa and one of her foreign friends helped the hospital buy 12,000 face masks for HUG's health workers when they faced difficulties in ordering masks from abroad.

The Swiss government has called on people not to use masks wastefully and the masks for healthcare workers must continue to be a priority.

She herself donated 5,000 masks to the hospital and hundreds of Vietnamese meals to COVID-19 patients or people in need.

Along with charitable activities such as donating masks, free food and water, Vietnamese people and locals across the country came out onto balconies and windows at 9pm daily, clapping and expressing their thanks and solidarity with the countrys health workers, said Luu Vinh Toan, Hoa's friend in Zurich.

The Vietnamese community living in Switzerland is estimated to be over 8,000.

Their donations reflected the tradition of solidarity and mutual support of the Vietnamese people. Despite difficulties in their host countries, overseas Vietnamese had launched fundraising campaigns and worked with local authorities to combat the disease, said Nguyen Kim Cong, a member of Hoa's charity group.  VNS
Subscriber content preview

SEATTLE  An apartment building at 8543 Midvale Ave. N. has sold for a little over $5.7 million, according to King County records.

The seller was BK Investment Group LLC, which acquired the midblock parcel of land in 2015 for $557,000, then developed it.





. . .
It has been announced that longtime Batavia Downs employee Joe Figliulo, 77, passed away on May 3, 2020.

Figliulo had been battling pancreatic cancer for the past 11 months. Weakened by chemotherapy, he fell several times and broke his hip.

Figliulo was a longtime employee of Batavia Downs. He started working at the track in 1960 and continued through 1994, working in the racing and mutuels departments.

He left the racetrack to work for the George W. Starling Horse Trucking Company (1995-2002).

Figliulo was the racing secretary at Scarborough Downs from 2003 until his retirement in 2013. While at Scarborough, Figliulo created the Joe Ricci Memorial Trot.

He became a member of the American Harness Racing Secretaries, Inc. in 2009 and credited his mentors, Don DAndrea and Peter Koch, with part of his success.

Joe is survived by his wife, Judy; and daughter, Jennifer.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Joe Figliulo.

(USTA)
DENVER, COColorado Gov. Jared Polis began his news conference Monday by remembering Colorado paramedic Paul Cary. Last month, Cary traveled to New York City to help fight the coronavirus. Thirty days after arriving at the epicenter of the pandemic, the veteran paramedic died of COVID-19.

He knew that he was putting his own life at risk. He knew that he might contract the virus. He knew that he was high risk at age 66," Gov. Polis said during the news conference.

Cary worked as a paramedic for Ambulnz, an ambulance service provider, in its Colorado division.He was part of the its State of New York COVID Response team, the company said in a recent statement.



"When one of the greatest crises of our lifetime struck, he didnt hesitate to raise his hand, volunteer and travel thousands of miles from his home to help his fellow Americans in need," the governor said. "Paul dedicated his life to the service of others, and he will be greatly missed and his legacy will be remembered."

Cary's body was returned to Colorado Sunday. The plane carrying his body was greeted at Denver International Airport by an honor guard of first responders. A procession of emergency vehicles then escorted his body to a funeral home. The long-time first responder spent 30 years with the Aurora fire department before joining Ambulanz.

The procession of emergency vehicles for retired paramedic Paul Cary makes its way out of Denver International Airport on Sunday, May 3, 2020m, in Denver. Cary died from coronavirus after volunteering to help combat the pandemic in New York City. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via AP, Pool)

"He was a leader, a steady hand, in stormy seas. He would often use his wisdom in his and patience to guide younger medics, helping to train the next generation of EMTs and paramedics and other first responders," Gov. Polis said. "Paul Cary served his community heroically for years, and he still worked as an ambulance medic even after retiring from the fire department."



On Friday, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio promised Cary's family a "special memorial" to honor his sacrifice following a weeks-long battle with COVID-19.

"We needed all hands on deck and Paul Cary is one of the people who came," de Blasio said. "Paul gave his life for us and we're going to honor him."

Story continues

During his news conference, Gov. Polis asked Coloradans to honor Cary's memory by continuing to take the coronavirus outbreak seriously.

"Wear masks when youre in public, when youre going to stores. Continue to social distance. You need to stay at least six feet away from others. This is what we owe to those who are risking their lives every day on the front lines of this crisis," the governor stressed.

Cary is survived by two sons and four grandchildren.

An Ambulnz Memorial Fund has been organized to provide college tuition for Paul's four grandchildren. Those who wish to contribute should email Ari Matityahu at Ari.M@ambulnz.com for more information.

VIDEO: Gov. Jared Polis Remembers Paramedic Paul Cary

SEE ALSO:



Don't miss the latest news updates in Colorado. Sign up for free Patch news alerts and newsletters for what you need to know daily.



This article originally appeared on the Denver Patch
By Sam Richards

Bay City News Service

San Francisco police have arrested a 28-year-old man after he allegedly carjacked a Toyota Prius in that city and, about 20 minutes later, was injured when the car wrecked on U.S. Highway 101 in San Mateo, police officers said.

Valentine Sua of Hayward was booked into the San Francisco County Jail on suspicion of carjacking, robbery, conspiracy and receiving stolen property, San Francisco police said Sunday night.

Shortly before 5 p.m. Saturday, officers from the San Francisco Police Department's Ingleside Station responded to the area of Velasco Avenue and Santos Street in the Sunnydale neighborhood on a report of a carjacking. A 36-year-old man told police he had been flagged down by a man who said he needed help jump-starting his car. .San Francisco police said the suspect walked to the driver's side door and told the driver to get out. The suspect then struck the victim, at which point the victim got out of his car. The suspect, as well as a second unknown man, got in the car and fled.

At about 5:15 p.m., the Prius was headed south on U.S. Highway 101 near the state Highway 92 interchange when it veered out of control and flipped, landing in the traffic lanes, San Mateo police Officer Michael Haobsh said Sunday. The injured suspect, later identified as Sua, then ran from the accident scene down 16th Avenue west to South Delaware Street. Near the post office on Delaware Street, about three-quarters of a mile from the crash scene, the suspect entered a recreational vehicle where people were living, Haobsh said. Police found him there a short time later and arrested him.

Haobsh said it wasn't clear whether there was a second person in the car when the wreck occurred in San Mateo.

Sua was treated for injuries suffered in the wreck before he was booked into the San Francisco jail. Sua also will face charges from the California Highway Patrol and from San Mateo police, Haobsh said.

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
A sign outside the Fleming's Prime Steakhouse in Dunwoody, Ga., helps control foot traffic in the restaurant. Read more

Dining rooms in three states began to reopen last week after more than a month of shutdowns to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

Governors in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alaska are attempting a high-wire act, balancing a restart of the economy against calls to protect staff and patrons from the virus.

Still, most restaurateurs  a cross-section of the industry including fast-food chains McDonalds and Chick-fil-A, as well as fancier, chef-driven independents  have demurred, saying more safety measures need to be in place before they greet and seat customers.

Its a hot-button issue in Atlanta, where a coalition of 120 restaurateurs under the name #GAHospitalityInitiative is refusing to reopen.

Among the restaurants that did reopen last week was the Flemings Prime Steakhouse in Dunwoody, Ga., an Atlanta suburb.

Flemings, a high-ticket restaurant owned by Tampa-based Bloomin Brands, plans to reopen locations only in areas that executives believe are not hot spots for the coronavirus, spokesperson Elizabeth Watts said. Bloomin', whose brands also include the more casual Outback Steakhouse, Carrabbas Italian Grill, and Bonefish Grill, will restart six Flemings locations in Florida this week. Two in South Florida, which has more confirmed coronavirus cases, will remain closed, she said.

 READ MORE: Philly-area restaurant owners are planning a hard reset for reopening during coronavirus

The Flemings in Dunwoody could have opened April 27 when Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp lifted shelter-in-place directives. But the company waited until May 1 to better outline a plan for reconfiguring the dining room and to implement safety measures, said Patrick English, Flemings Philadelphia-based senior director of operations, who oversaw the reopening in person.

During the shutdown, the location had been offering food for delivery and curbside pickup  a new line of work for the white-tablecloth operation. "This seems to be a sustainable business model for us, English said. It will remain even as dine-in customer counts rise.

When the reopening became real, we reached out to everyone to make sure that they were comfortable to come back to work, English said. We didnt have anyone who didnt want to come back. It was a question of how we could weave them into the fabric of the schedule.

Fewer customers mean fewer front-of-house staff, but the kitchen staff is now growing with the dining room open.

Dinner business last weekend was evenly divided between the dining room and pickup and delivery. About 90 dinner patrons were served in the dining room Friday, and 108 Saturday, English said. Overall, the restaurants customer count was lower than during a typical May weekend.

Georgia dining rooms are now limited to 50% of seating. English said Flemings was going a little further" than guidelines. The 230-seat Dunwoody location was operating at just 35% to 40% of seating, or about 25 tables, he said.

They say tables must be spaced six feet apart, English said. Were doing eight feet to create a buffer. I really want to err on the side of how our guests are feeling. They trust us and are confident in who [we] are and what were doing.

The bar has not reopened because of the challenges of maintaining social distance with bar seating.

 READ MORE: Reopening businesses during coronavirus is complicated: Im so afraid of letting anybody in the place

Customers wait outside, some in their cars, until their tables are ready. An employee outside the door directs them inside and they are ushered directly to their tables. Waiters wear plastic gloves and masks. Masks are optional for customers. Silverware is rolled up in napkins and brought to the tables. The menus, which include about 70% of the usual items, are disposable. Customers also can scan a QR code and view them on their phones.

They were very appreciative of the measures that were taking," English said of Flemings, which also has locations in Radnor and Marlton.

English noticed that it took two hours for a party of two to dine, opposed to 90 minutes, because people were enjoying themselves. He also saw increased wine and liquor sales. I think people are just enjoying being out, he said.

 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.
Broadcaster Connor Phillips paid tribute to his close friend and colleague Stephen Clements as he kicked off his first show on BBC Radio Ulster.

In a nod to the broadcasters who have gone before him, including Gerry Anderson, Sean Coyle and the late Stephen Clements, the Co Armagh native said he was excited beyond words" to be sat in "one of the most iconic chairs in radio".

As he introduced The Connor Phillips Show for the first time, the 38-year-old admitted: "The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up."

The mid-morning slot was left vacant after presenter Stephen Clements passed away suddenly on January 6, aged 47.

During his show, Connor paid tribute to Stephen, who he described as "a legend".

"Stephen Clements was previously in this seat and he should still be here. He should still be entertaining you," Connor said.

"I worked with Stephen in his first radio job at a commercial radio station and we became very good friends and we stayed friends for many years.

"In January we lost Stephen and this show lost Stephen. We lost his naughty, cheeky smile, we lost his warmth.

"He would regularly text me the letter K which meant karma. His mantra in life was be nice to people and people will be nice to you and he was one of the nicest."

Before dedicating a track to the late presenter, Connor said: "Every time I was at a radio station I would take a photograph of my screen any time Id play one specific song, and he would do the same, because there was one song that he lived his life by and it was a song we shared and I hope I can share this with you this morning.

"For my friend, who became your friend, this is Man In The Mirror by Michael Jackson."

Listeners took to Twitter to share their support for the Jonesborough man after his first mid-morning weekday show on Radio Ulster.

"Good show this morning, making it your own," wrote one listener. "Thanks for making me gurn in the car with Man In the Mirror... was always gonna happen. All the best with everything."

Expand Close Connor Phillips / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Connor Phillips

Another said, "Tuned in this morning just in time to hear such a lovely, heartfelt tribute to Stephen Clements. So apt that his good friend is now presenting the show. Well done, great show."

One user applauded Connor for a show featuring "amazing tunes and great craic".

"Well done! Dancing around my kitchen. Havent done that in a while," they tweeted.

Connor joins BBC Radio Ulster with a broadcasting career spanning TV, commercial radio  both in Northern Ireland and across the UK  hosting national radio across a range of genre from news and current affairs, sport, music and talk shows.

His most recent work has been with the BBC in Manchester presenting a weekend phone-in show that is broadcast simultaneously on BBC Manchester and BBC Merseyside.

The Connor Phillips Show is on BBC Radio Ulster, Monday to Friday at 10.30am and also on BBC Sounds
How To Celebrate Star Wars Day (AKA, May The Fourth) From Quarantine

It is May 4  also known as Star Wars Day. The day when fans all over the world come together to celebrate their love of an epic space saga from a galaxy far, far away.

Over the last 40 years, people have fallen in love with Star Wars, but its hard to talk about the fans without talking about the gatekeepers. As a late blooming Star Wars lover myself, I was afraid to jump into Star Wars because of the rabid male fan base. But here are the facts: Star Wars is awesome (okay, thats an opinion), and people of all races and gender identities love it (that ones a fact). It is the heros journey, and heroes come in all genders and races.

ADVERTISEMENT

When it comes to Star Wars, everyone has their thing that they love and I think part of the reason why gatekeeping is so bad is because if you dont love the same thing as someone else it becomes a, 'Well, [then] you dont love Star Wars, which isnt true, writer and Star Wars fan Rachel Leishman told BUST.

This years Star Wars Day has of course been eclipsed by the dark force known as COVID-19. Our heroes find themselves quarantined at home in order to save the lives of thousands from the hands of darkness.

In celebration of Star Wars Day, people have created online cons and special releases. Artists such as Camilla dErricco launched a series of original pieces of Star Wars artwork and prints especially for May the Fourth celebrations.

Scum and Villainy Cantina are also hosting a 24-hour online con which began at 12:01 a.m. on May 4 and will continue all day. If you were on Twitter last week, you may have seen that the original line-up poster for the Scum and Villainy Cantina event only promoted the men participating. But there are, in fact, a lot of non-white male Star Wars fans some who are also participating in the Scum and Villainy event.

While I cannot speak on behalf of Scum & Villainy Cantina, fandom was right to call out the obvious oversight in the original flyer which did not fully represent the inclusivity of the event. Over the last 2 weeks, we reached out to hundreds of folks to participate - to showcase the breadth of fandom - and as of today have confirmations from many of those folks, now visible with this schedule, one of the co-producers of the event, Justin Sewell, told BUST over email.

Some of the women you can catch include comic book and Star Wars novel author Cecil Castellucci. There will also be a special panel about Carrie Fisher hosted by Mary Sue writer Rachel Leishman and featuring writers Yolanada Machadoand Clarkisha Kent. Leishmans panel will focus on Carrie Fisher and talk a little about how Fisher was an advocate for mental health awareness. A perfect theme, since May is also Mental Health Awareness Month.

What I really like about Star Wars and talking about it to all these people is you find a lot of different love of characters. We all found something to connect to. Why I really wanted to focus on Carrie and Princess Leia is that shes still a beacon of hope, Leishman said.

Other panels to be hosted the Scum and Villainy event include a round table discussion hosted by Catarina Dennis and a discussion between Jessie Maltin and her father Leonard Maltin. Jennifer Muro will be hosting a discussion of the prequel trilogy.

Star Wars Day is about loving Star Wars and showing your love for this epic story that has made it into the zeitgeist of our culture over 40 years. It doesnt matter if you love baby Yoda or Princess Leia, Mark Hamill or Carrie Fisher. This is a fandom for everyone, and we can all play in the sandbox.

"Its always important to remember as Star Wars fans the toxic world thats created from these franchises are meant to separate us but we should all come together because its Star Wars. We all love Star Wars and like these characters for these reasons," Leishman said. "We shouldnt be so quick to shame and judge fans. We all should embrace positivity like Carrie did and try and be our best, especially with how the world is."

Top photo via 20th Century Studios / Star Wars

More from BUST

A Woman-led Star Wars Series Is In The Works

Disney's Queer Representation Problem

Kelly Marie Tran Speaks Out About Online Harassment: "I Won't Be Marginalized"

Isabel Sophia Dieppa is a writer and actor. She is a part of the performance duo Of This World in Chicago, IL. Dieppa is the recipient of a 2018 Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grant, which she has used to report on property rights in Puerto Rico. Her interests lie in science, art, and history. Past writing includes interning for the Chicago Field Museum ECCO program, the national theater blog HOWLROUND, music reviews for UR Chicago, and in a former life was a beat reporter for the Indiana Daily Student. She loves archaeology, kitties, and dancing. The next big adventure may include an archaeological dig in Peru. Follow her on twitter @isabelsdieppa.
Hyderabad, May 4 : Following appeals from various sections, Hyderabad police have released nearly 34,000 two-wheelers which were seized for lockdown violations since March 23.

Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar on Monday tweeted that the police have released the bikes in the last few days.

"Hyd Police have released bikes in the last few days. East Zone 9,000 plus West Zone. 13,000 plus South Zone 8,000 plus North Zone 1,700 Central Zone 2,200," he tweeted.

The top cop, however, cautioned the vehicle owners that restrictions still remain in force and asked them to remain indoors and follow the restrictions to fight Coronavirus.

Telangana police have so far seized over 1.5 lakh vehicles for violation of Covid-19 lockdown. Nearly 1.4 lakh of the seized vehicles are two-wheelers.

Most of the vehicles were seized in Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Racakonda police commissionerates, which cover Hyderabad and surroundings.

Taking care of such a large number of vehicles had also become a big headache for the police. The impounded vehicles were kept not just at the police stations but also in school compounds, parks, private garages and even in open places.

Police had been confiscating bikes of all those stepping out without any reason. Bikes caught beyond three kilometer distance from the residence of the riders are also being seized. Since only one person is allowed on a two-wheeler, vehicles Awith pillion riders were also confiscated.

Police had stated that the vehicles seized will be released only after lockdown and the owners have to collect the same from court after paying the penalty.

However, the police action had come under criticism from some sections of the citizens. Many complained that their vehicles were seized near their houses and despite their stepping out with genuine reasons and producing the proof.

Even, aid workers had complained that police seized their vehicles. The police tightened lockdown enforcement from April 20 by resorting to large-scale impounding of vehicles.

Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi had also appealed to Telangana Director General of Police Mahender Reddy and Hyderabad police commissioner to release the two-wheelers.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president said many poor people were suffering as their vehicles were seized by the police.

The MP suggested that the two-wheelers be released with a warning that a second violation will result in complete seizure of the vehicle
The Sea Hawks were playing their first game in three weeks, but were able to hold off the Panthers for the win.
Our pandemic lockdown is particularly hard on those who it most seeks to protectvulnerable seniors

Older adults with COVID-19, the illness caused by the CCP virus, have several atypical symptoms that complicate efforts to ensure they get timely and appropriate treatment, say physicians.

COVID-19 is typically signaled by three symptoms: a fever, an insistent cough, and shortness of breath. But older adultsthe age group most at risk of severe complications or death from this conditionmay have none of these characteristics.

Instead, seniors may seem offnot acting like themselvesearly on after being infected by COVID-19. They may sleep more than usual or stop eating. They may seem unusually apathetic or confused, losing orientation to their surroundings. They may become dizzy and fall. Sometimes, seniors stop speaking or simply collapse.

With a lot of conditions, older adults dont present in a typical way, and were seeing that with COVID-19 as well, said Dr. Camille Vaughan, section chief of geriatrics and gerontology at Emory University.

The reason has to do with how older bodies respond to illness and infection.

At advanced ages, someones immune response may be blunted and their ability to regulate temperature may be altered, said Dr. Joseph Ouslander, a professor of geriatric medicine at Florida Atlantic Universitys Schmidt College of Medicine.

Underlying chronic illnesses can mask or interfere with signs of infection, he said. Some older people, whether from age-related changes or previous neurologic issues such as a stroke, may have altered cough reflexes. Others with cognitive impairment may not be able to communicate their symptoms.

Recognizing danger signs is important: If early signs of COVID-19 are missed, seniors may deteriorate before getting needed care. And people may go in and out of their homes without adequate protective measures, risking the spread of infection.

Dr. Quratulain Syed, an Atlanta geriatrician, describes a man in his 80s whom she treated in mid-March. Over a period of days, this patient, who had heart disease, diabetes, and moderate cognitive impairment, stopped walking and became incontinent and profoundly lethargic. But he didnt have a fever or a cough. His only respiratory symptom: sneezing off and on.

The mans elderly spouse called 911 twice. Both times, paramedics checked his vital signs and declared he was OK. After another worried call from the overwhelmed spouse, Syed insisted the patient be taken to the hospital, where he tested positive for COVID-19.

I was quite concerned about the paramedics and health aides whod been in the house and who hadnt used PPE [personal protective equipment], Syed said.

Dr. Sam Torbati, medical director of the Ruth and Harry Roman Emergency Department at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, describes treating seniors who initially appear to be trauma patients but are found to have COVID-19.

They get weak and dehydrated, he said, and when they stand to walk, they collapse and injure themselves badly.

Torbati has seen older adults who are profoundly disoriented and unable to speak and who appear at first to have suffered strokes.

When we test them, we discover that whats producing these changes is a central nervous system effect of coronavirus, he said.

Dr. Laura Perry, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of CaliforniaSan Francisco, saw a patient like this several weeks ago. The woman, in her 80s, had what seemed to be a cold before becoming very confused. In the hospital, she couldnt identify where she was or stay awake during an examination. Perry diagnosed hypoactive delirium, an altered mental state in which people become inactive and drowsy. The patient tested positive for COVID-19 and is still in the ICU.

Dr. Anthony Perry, an associate professor of geriatric medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, tells of an 81-year-old woman with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea who tested positive for COVID-19 in the emergency room. After receiving IV fluids, oxygen, and medication for her intestinal upset, she returned home after two days and is doing well.

Another 80-year-old patient with similar symptomsnausea and vomiting, but no cough, fever, or shortness of breathis in intensive care after getting a positive COVID-19 test and due to be put on a ventilator. The difference? This patient is frail with a lot of cardiovascular diseases, Perry said. Other than that, it isnt yet clear why some older patients do well while others do not.

So far, reports of cases like these have been anecdotal. But a few physicians are trying to gather more systematic information.

In Switzerland, Dr. Sylvain Nguyen, a geriatrician at the University of Lausanne Hospital Center, put together a list of typical and atypical symptoms in older COVID-19 patients for a paper to be published in the Revue Medicale Suisse. Included on the atypical list are changes in a patients usual status, delirium, falls, fatigue, lethargy, low blood pressure, painful swallowing, fainting, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and the loss of smell and taste.

Data comes from hospitals and nursing homes in Switzerland, Italy, and France, Nguyen said in an email.

On the front lines, physicians need to make sure they carefully assess an older patients symptoms.

While we have to have a high suspicion of COVID-19 because its so dangerous in the older population, there are many other things to consider, said Dr. Kathleen Unroe, a geriatrician at Indiana Universitys School of Medicine.

Seniors may also do poorly because their routines have changed. In nursing homes and most assisted living centers, activities have stopped, and residents are going to get weaker and more deconditioned because theyre not walking to and from the dining hall, she said.

At home, isolated seniors may not be getting as much help with medication management or other essential needs from family members who are keeping their distance, other experts suggested. Or they may have become apathetic or depressed.

Id want to know, Whats the potential this person has had exposure [to COVID-19], especially in the last two weeks? said Vaughan of Emory. Do they have home health personnel coming in? Have they gotten together with other family members? Are chronic conditions being controlled? Is there another diagnosis that seems more likely?

Someone may be just having a bad day. But if theyre not themselves for a couple of days, absolutely reach out to a primary care doctor or a local health system hotline to see if they meet the threshold for [COVID-19] testing, Vaughan advised. Be persistent. If you get a no the first time and things arent improving, call back and ask again.

Judith Graham is a contributing columnist for Kaiser Health News, which originally published this article. KHNs coverage of these topics is supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and The SCAN Foundation.
T he Royal Mint has issued a commemorative 2 coin to say thank you to the wartime generation on the 75th anniversary of VE Day.

The coin was created in association with the Imperial War Museum in a bid to capture the spirit and stoicism of the wartime generation and the gratitude of those that followed, the Royal Mint said in a statement.

It features the word Victory emblazoned over a group of grinning people and rays redolent of search lights.

The 2 coin and an accompanying historic set of coins used in the Second World War era are now available for purchase, and each unit sold will see a donation made to the Imperial War Museums.

PA

If demand is high enough, the Royal Mint will release the new coin into circulation.

The Mint will also strike a limited edition of 750 sovereigns featuring Benedetto Pistruccis iconic St George and the dragon design on the anniversary of VE Day this Friday.

Commenting on the 2 coin, designer Dominique Evans said: Iconic images of VE Day serve to remind us of the magnitude of events.

Millions came together in the streets to celebrate the end of the war in Europe, inspiring me to put people at the very heart of this coin. The rays evoke search lights, a familiar sight in the skies during wartime, except here they represent rays of hope.

VE Day is still a piece of living history. I hope the coin enables people to capture the poignancy of this landmark anniversary, one remembered by those who were there and celebrated by the generations that followed.

Commemorating VE Day, VJ Day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1 /13 Commemorating VE Day, VJ Day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki Prime Minister Winston Churchill addresses the crown in Whitehall, 8 May 1945 Churchill waves to crowds in Whitehall from the balcony of the Ministry of Health as he broadcasts to the nation that the war with Germany has been won.  IWM (H 41849) Crowds in Westminster at the moment Prime Minister Winston Churchill speaks to the nation, 8 May 1945 The crowds in Westminster as Big Ben strikes 3pm, the moment when Prime Minister Winston Churchill made his statement from Whitehall, broadcast to the nation, declaring that the war in Europe is over  IWM (HU 92005) The mushroom cloud produced by the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, 9 August 1945 An atomic bomb was dropped by United States Air Force B-29 "Bock's Car" on 9 August 1945 on Nagasaki, three days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The Japanese Supreme War Council agreed later that day to accept the Potsdam Declaration of 26 July 1945 which demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan.  US Public Domain (IWM MH 2629) Crowds dancing in Oxford Circus in VJ Day celebrations, 15 August 1945 Victory over Japan Day was celebrated around the world on 15 August 1945, over three months since the end of hostilities in Europe.  US Public Domain (IWM EA 75898) Ground crews of No.356 Squadron RAF on hearing the news of the surrender of Japan The end of the Second World War was celebrated throughout the world. No.356 Squadron RAF, based in the Cocos Islands, celebrate in front of one of their Consolidated Liberator Mark B VIs  IWM (CI 1557) Celebrations in London to mark VE Day, 8 May 1945 Pictured with two British sailors in a fountain in Trafalgar Square are Joyce Digney (left) and Cynthia Covello, members of the Land Army, who travelled to London to celebrate VE Day. They were identified in 2015 following an IWM-led campaign on social media.  US Public Domain (IWM EA 65799) The aftermath of the atomic bomb, Japan, 1945 Three civilians, including a young child, walk down a street amid the debris and devastation caused by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan. In the background, there are a few buildings which are still standing.  IWM (MH 29433) The B-29 'Enola Gay' which dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and her pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets On 6 August 1945, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. The detonation of these weapons, the first and only time they have been used in conflict, changed peoples understanding of the potential consequences of conflict forever.  IWM (HU 44878) Celebrations in London to mark VE Day, 8 May 1945 A truck of revellers passing through the Strand in London following the announcement of Germanys surrender and the end of hostilities in Europe  IWM (HU 41808) News of victory in Europe reaches London, 7 May 1945 Eager soldiers pulling copies of "Stars and Stripes" from the press of the London Times at 9 pm on 7 May 1945. An extra edition was put out to announce the news of Germany's surrender. The headline reads "Germany Quits".  IWM (EA 65948)

The Royal Mints divisional director of commemorative coins Clare Maclennan said it was hoped the coins would help unite the nation amid the upheaval unleashed caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Our VE Day commemorative coin was inspired by a shared sense of community and loyalty, she said.

During these challenging times that the nation finds itself in, we may be unable to join with our loved ones to mark this national milestone, but it feels especially important that we come together to protect the older generation that sacrificed so much for us.

Imperial War Museum senior curator Stephen Walton added: The events of May 1945 initiated and defined the world we live in today. The costliest conflict in human history was nearing its end, and a new era of hope, optimism and social transformation was beginning.

Much anxiety and many challenges remained, but the determination prevailed that, out of an unprecedented global catastrophe, a better human society should emerge and there is no doubt that the relevance of this vision is as strong now as it was then.

The VE Day coin and historic sets are available to purchase here, and come in a range of precious metal and base proof finishes, with prices starting from 10.
The business model for insurance companies depends on one central dynamic: customers pay more for their coverage than they receive, overall, in benefits. As long as that remains in place, insurance companies make money.

Major disasters, such as losses from forest fires, have the potential to rattle the industry. A global economic shock following a deadly pandemic is the type of event with no comparison, for society at large and insurers alike. Companies that offer everything from business interruption insurance to travel insurance are on the hook. I think its going to be horrendous, and I worry about that in terms of New York state in my parochial area of insurance, said state Sen. Neil Breslin, the Insurance Committee chairman.

One projection estimates that the pandemic will cost health insurance companies between $34 billion and $251 billion this year. Health insurers could also lose a portion of their customer base as employers struggle to stay in business and the ranks of the unemployed grow. In the end, it could be up to federal lawmakers to decide how much the pandemic is going to hurt health insurers. In New York, billions of dollars in future profits depend on keeping millions of people covered. Otherwise, insurance premiums will increase, industry leaders warn.

With direct help from the state and federal governments unlikely, health insurance companies are pushing for the federal government to spend billions of dollars to subsidize private health insurance for small businesses and the unemployed. It is a strategy that positions an unpopular industry in a more favorable light as it confronts an array of political and social uncertainties  a nightmare for any insurer.

Theres obviously a range of pressures that are put on the plans, said Eric Linzer, president and CEO of the New York Health Plan Association, which represents health insurers. Certainly more could be done to ensure and maintain the stability of the marketplace.

No one knows how long the pandemic will last. Data shows that more people have been infected with the coronavirus in New York than the next four highest states combined, as of the end of April. The state has tested more than 875,000 people, at least 200,000 more tests than the next closest state, California. Plus, there are the tens of thousands of people who have required hospitalization throughout the crisis. The cost of treating all these people runs into the billions of dollars. Do insurance companies have money to cover all these costs? Certainly they do, Linzer said. Insurers have saved money because expensive elective surgeries have been canceled, and customers are pursuing less medical attention during the pandemic for non-COVID-19 treatments.

But those temporary reprieves from some costs might not help the industry keep its market share in the coming months. More than 60% of New Yorkers have private health insurance, and 95% of people in the state are insured overall. More than 1.4 million New Yorkers have completed their unemployment benefit applications since early in March, and the closure of many small businesses means that insurance companies stand to lose a lot of customers. Even without a second big wave of infections, and any additional economic damage that might bring, health insurers face a tough situation. There are rumblings that some people might even give up on buying insurance given the economic pinch.

To make matters worse for insurers, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has issued emergency orders that have placed additional requirements on insurers. They now have to waive cost-sharing for COVID-19 testing, waive copays for telehealth visits and cover mental health services for frontline workers. There is a moratorium on canceling plans held by small businesses and individuals who cannot pay their premiums. The state also helped hospitals gain an upper hand on insurers by ordering in late April for them to immediately pay outstanding claims by hospitals, which are struggling to maintain their own fiscal health during the pandemic. If the insurers withhold payments to the hospitals, and theyre in financial trouble, (the hospitals are) more likely to accept a lesser amount in negotiations, Breslin said.

Health insurers have their own way of saying the state has not been on their side, including on the hospital order. There is a need to balance the interests of those New York hospitals in need of assistance during the COVID-19 crisis with the interest of individuals, businesses and union members who are struggling to afford premiums and making ends meet, reads an April 22 statement from the New York Health Plan Association. Regrettably, this guidance upsets that delicate balance. At the end of the day, it will be New Yorkers with private health coverage who have to pay the price with unnecessarily higher premiums.

Raising insurance premiums, however, is not a cut and dried process. Health insurers are barred from incorporating their 2020 losses by raising rates next year unless the pandemic continues into the new year. Nowhere in those calculations can they say, Were going to lose this much money in 2020, Cynthia Cox, of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Vox. But there is a loophole that allows for charging higher premiums if insurers have to dip into their reserves to cover claims, according to Voxs reporting. With the downturn in the economy and in the stock market, it has obviously had an effect on health claim reserves that are intended to be there to pay for claims at moments like this, Linzer told City & State.

Even if insurers can raise premiums, that will take time, especially to overcome any resistance from the state. The regulator with respect to approving premium increases for commercial health insurance for consumers is (the state Department of Financial Services), said department Superintendent Linda Lacewell, who added there is a need for health insurers to step up considering how the pandemic is slamming hospitals and everyday New Yorkers alike.

The insurance industry needs to move fast if it wants to keep its customers. While the industry hasnt been included in any of the recent federal stimulus bills, that could change in the upcoming weeks.

Employers need more support, reads an April 28 letter to congressional leaders from groups including Americas Health Insurance Plans, the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Workers need to be able to continue their stable, secure coverage.

This complements calls at the state level by business groups. A federally funded premium assistance program earmarked and targeted to small and mid-size businesses and individuals is the best opportunity to keep people insured, the New York Health Plan Association and business groups said in an April 10 letter to U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, who has been credited with helping the industry as recently December. A spokesperson for the senator could not be reached for comment.

But the states most powerful member of Congress has limited sway on both the federal and state levels. More than 100 state lawmakers would just as soon abolish the whole industry and replace it with a state-level single-payer health care system rather than help them in their current predicament. It just seems like every single time theres any instance of a large disaster, this is what they say, and I dont totally buy it, Assemblyman Robert Carroll said. But like other state and federal lawmakers  including those like him who back single-payer  Carroll wants to help small businesses. They provided health care, Carroll added. What happens if they come back as a shell of their former selves?

The states declining finances mean the answer to that question will most likely depend on the federal government.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 27 that health insurers can recover $12 billion because of losses incurred during the early days of Obamacare. There is still hope within the industry that the government could also help the industry by subsidizing private insurance for businesses and the unemployed. Despite the efforts of the business community to make federal lawmakers see things that way, it remains uncertain whether they will buy what these insurers are selling.
The former deputy chief of the Kazakh presidential administration, Maulen Ashimbaev, has replaced as parliament speaker Dariga Nazarbaeva, the daughter of former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, in a sign of a possible power struggle at the top of the country's leadership.

Presidential spokesman Berik Uali wrote on Facebook on May 4 that members of parliament's upper chamber, the Senate, had approved President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev's proposal to elect Ashimbaev to the post of the Senate chairman, a position that is next in line to take power in the country if the president resigns or is incapable of performing their duties.

The vote was held just hours after Toqaev appointed Ashimbaev as a Senate member, two days after he unexpectedly dismissed Nazarbaeva from the post of Senate speaker.

The decision to remove the 56-year-old Nazarbaeva from the post and her seat in parliament by Toqaev, her father's handpicked successor, may be an indication of a political upheaval among power brokers in the Central Asian country.

Nazarbaeva had served as Senate chairwoman since March 20, 2019, a day after her father stepped down as president after ruling the former Soviet republic for almost 30 years.

At the time, her appointment raised concerns that her father had picked Toqaev as purely an interim leader and that Nazarbaeva would ascend to power.

Nazarbaev, 79, is widely seen as the country's top decision-maker despite leaving the presidency. He continues to lead the ruling Nur-Otan Party and holds the lifetime post as chairman of the powerful Security Council.
For businesses, dealing with government agencies and trying to clarify regulations can be a daunting process even in the best of times.

But it can be even worse during daunting times like these with COVID-19 prompting a spate of government-ordered shutdowns with temporary emergency rules that decide whether a business can stay open or not.

Essential or non-essential? That is the question.

For some small business operators tryi ng to get an answer to that question from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which is the states point agency on Gov. Tony Evers safer-at-home order - and now its extension  has often been muddy and sometimes conflicting.

The USA TODAY NETWORK chronicled those difficulties recently with a news report on a Racine County roofing company run by Michael Hurst, who was one of 2,000 people to query the WEDC through its website seeking clarity. Since Hursts business was in construction it could be deemed a critical trade and keep operating.Hurst, according to the report, was doing work on the Childrens Hospital of Wisconsin, which seemed clearly within the boundaries. But what about doing work on the Foxconn project? Was that essential? Or non-essential?

In true government fashion, the WEDC was using online marketing software  this one called Marketo  to answer the hundreds of queries it was getting from businesses and others. It responded to Hurst thanking him for his inquiry and then telling him that Evers order exempted construction, but said optional or esthetic construction should be avoided. To the extent your businesses conducts both Essential and Nonessential Operations, only those identified as Essential may continue.Which, essentially, dodged the question.

The WEDC response, Hurst told USA TODAY, used a whole bunch of words to say basically nothing and leave me just as confused as I was about the initial order.The news network chronicled other instances of confusing advice from the WEDC. A wood component and laminate manufacturer got the go-ahead to operate because its workers support the manufacture and distribution of forest products a WEDC staffer told the firm.

Your understanding is confirmed, the staffer said.But another wood component and laminate manufacturer  that served healthcare and government clients  was denied when the WEDC sent it a form letter saying unfortunately, there is not any category in the Safer at Home order that would classify your business as an Essential Business or Operation.

And there were others. One tree removal firm got the green light when it said it removed hazardous trees and limbs from homes and properties. Another tree removal firm that removes trees and limbs from threatening homes got a non-essential red light with a link to a FAQ clarifying that landscaping was not considered a critical trade.

WEDC Secretary Missy Hughes told USA TODAY she doesnt believe its the job of the state agency to tell businesses whether they should shut down, but to help businesses navigate the reality of the safer-at-home order.

She lamented that the essential and non-essential labels were a blunt instrument and wished the state agency had time for a more sophisticated conversation as the pandemic hit and the order was issued.

It seems to us there would have been room for that kind of conversation between a business and WEDC: an appeals process to a real-live person or board if a business wanted to challenge a state advisory to close its doors or stop its operations  a decision that would put workers out of work and stress the financial stability of a going concern. Wisconsin small businesses deserved better than what they got. They deserve straightforward advice on how to comply with quickly imposed state directives.The Racine County roofing company owner decided if the state agency didnt have a clear understanding of the governors order he wasnt going to be overly concerned about violating it, USA TODAY reported. After all, he had hard contracts with businesses that werent going to let him decide if they were essential or non-essential.

And no, Hurst said, hes not going along with Evers extension.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
HOUSTON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ION Geophysical Corporation (NYSE: IO) today announced that it will release its first quarter 2020 financial results on Wednesday, May 6, 2020 after the market closes. In conjunction with the release, ION has scheduled a conference call, which will be broadcast live over the Internet, for Thursday, May 7 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time (9:00 a.m. Central Time).

What: ION First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call When: Thursday, May 7, 2020  10:00 a.m. Eastern Time How: Live via phone - By dialing (877) 407-0672 and asking for the ION call a few minutes prior to the start time.

Live over the Internet - by logging on to the web at the address below. Where: https://ir.iongeo.com. The webcast, which will be accompanied by a slide presentation, can be accessed from the ION home page or by clicking on the link listed above.

For those who cannot listen to the live call, a telephonic replay will be available through May 21, 2020 and may be accessed by calling (877) 660-6853 using pass code 13698479#. Also, an archive of the webcast will be available shortly after the call on the company's website at https://ir.iongeo.com for approximately 12 months.

About ION

Leveraging innovative technologies, ION delivers powerful data-driven decision-making to offshore energy, ports and defense industries, enabling clients to optimize operations and deliver superior returns. Learn more at iongeo.com .

Contacts

ION (Investor relations)

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Mike Morrison, +1 281.552.3011

[email protected]

SOURCE ION Geophysical Corporation

Related Links

http://iongeo.com


ROME - An initiative by the Progetto Mediterranea association entitled 'A Flag for the Mediterranean' has been launched.

All citizens of Med countries will from May 2 to June 15 be able to submit a design for a flag to represent the region. An initial selection of the four best ones will be made after June 15 and these will be put to a public vote to choose one. The four possibilities will be available for view on the Progetto Mediterranea website as well as social media networks and the media partners of the initiative: Bolina, Linea Blu of public broadcaster Rai Uno and the La Stampa newspaper. ''This is not a contest,'' said Simone Perotti, who came up with the idea and was a co-founder of Progetto Mediterranea, which has been involved in cultural and nautical activities in the region for over 6 years. ''It is a public initiative that sprung of our conviction that the Mediterranean, despite the fact that it seems a map of the fractures of humans, is in reality an actual continent rich in its extraordinary differences. However, it does not have a flag representing it and that would help to unify it. We are thinking about how may men and women, representatives of a wide range of economic, political, religious and cultural interests, have been working every day for the breaking apart of the Mediterranean. And yet 'every morning life prevails and triumphs', as the writer Tahar Ben Jelloun says. Those who are injured and struck repeatedly usually collapse at some point. And yet the Mediterranean continues to engage in dialogue and relations. And those who do not fall no matter what are bound to prevail and last, as well as try to grow and unite.'' ''This is why, today like never before, the Mediterranean is a resource, a hope, and a prospect. Its philosophical and existential enzyme, its very long history or errors an attempts make it today more than ever the truest laboratory of a possible alternative,'' Perotti added. ''This is why the Progetto Mediterranea association has launched the project 'A Flag for the Mediterranean'. Because when everything seems lost, raising a flag seems like redemption. There is the need for the Mediterranean to raise and fly the first flag able to represent and include. A flag for which it is beautiful to live and not die. A flag that does not call for borders, secession and war: one that instead calls for welcoming, integration and peace. It will be the flag of the future 'United States of the Mediterraneans' that will go from the Black Sea to the Portuguese Atlantic, from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Ligurian Sea, from the Sea of Marmara to the Gulf of Sirte.'' Progetto Mediterranea has already received a large number of proposals for the flag design. Participation is free and open to everyone who sends a proposal to: info@progettomediterranea.com by June 15.

The designer of the winning flag will be invited onboard the Mediterranea vessel for the flag-raising ceremony. The Mediterranean flag will then be sent to all heads of state as well as the heads of national and international institutions to be raised alongside other flags.
Hillsboro Opens Bids On EDA Grant Project Bids on an Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant project were opened by the City of Hillsboro Tuesday afternoon, April 28.



The city was awarded the grant in October of 2017 by the federal agency, which will provide $1.4 million. The Hillsboro Economic Development Corporation (HEDC) is funding the $600,000 local match.



The project will take a new water line from the downtown water tower to the current industrial water tower site on Industrial Loop.



This new line will allow the city to take the West Elm Street ground storage water tank out of service and abandon the line from that tank to near the Hillsboro Police Department on North Waco Street.



City Manager Frank Johnson pointed out that the ground storage tank has continued to experience leaks over the years leading to the loss of water.



The Public Works Department has also experienced numerous breaks in the aging cross-country water line being abandoned.



There will also be a water line installed from Spur 579 north along Highway 81 out to the old airport property, which is owned by the HEDC.



HEDC Administrator Arthur Mann said that having water to the property will make the 300-acre tract much more attractive to prospects looking for new sites.



Eighteen companies submitted proposals before the 2 p.m. bid deadline Tuesday.



The project was bid with a base, which included the downtown water line, and an alternate that takes the water to the old airport property.



The base bids ranged from a low of $708,345.75 up to $1,557,303. On the alternate, the numbers ranged from $948,863 to $1,573,090.



Circle H Construction of Midlothian had the two lowest bids for a total of $1,657,208.75.



MRB Group, formerly BSP Engineers, is investigating the low bidder and is expected to have a recommendation for the city council Tuesday evening, May 5, when a contract could be awarded.



The city learned of the possibility of the EDA grant through Dorthy Jackson, regional and economic development manager with the Heart of Texas Council of Governments (HOTCOG).



She arranged for a site visit by Cornell Wesley, the regional EDA representative at the time.



After a brief presentation by city staff, Wesley recommended the submittal of an application. Approval was received a short time later.



According to Mrs. Jackson, when engineering and administration fees and a contingency are taken into consideration, the project will come in within budget.



The EDA project is part of the overall plan that will erect a new 500,000-gallon elevated storage tank on Morrow Drive to improve water pressure in the industrial park and across the portion of the city served by the downtown water tower, according to engineer Tony Beach with MRB Group.



The new tower will also provide the water needed to continue attracting new industrial prospects to the park, according to Mann.



The city has secured a loan from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) for construction of the tower.



The project also includes a 150,000-gallon ground storage tank and pump station at the site of the existing 250,000-gallon industrial water tower, which will be taken out of service.



The tank and pump station will be used to fill the new larger tower.



Eight-inch water lines in the industrial park along Morrow Drive and Spur 579 are also scheduled to be upgraded to 12-inch lines.



MRB submitted plans to TWDB and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for pre-approval earlier this year.



TCEQ is expected to issue a letter of approval today (Monday, May 4), with the TWDB approval expected soon after.



At that point, the city will be cleared to accept bids on that phase of the project.



Construction on the water line project is set at 13 months, and the water tower project will take about 14 months, once awarded.


The Trump administration is stepping up an effort to reduce dependence on Chinese manufacturing following the coronavirus pandemic, including possible new incentives for companies to shift supply chains, such as tax benefits and subsidies.

Weve been working on [reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China] over the last few years but we are now turbocharging that initiative, Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the U.S. State Department, told Reuters, adding that the focus was on the critical areas and bottlenecks.

Measures involving the Commerce Department, State, and other federal agencies are being explored to determine which supply chains are essential and how they could be decoupled from China. Sources said that one such proposal involves the creation of a trade network of trusted partners called the Economic Prosperity Network that would not include China.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that the U.S. was working with Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam to move the global economy forward, including how to restructure  supply chains to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

The Department of Homeland Security found in a new report that China intentionally concealed the severity of the initial coronavirus outbreak in order to stock up on medical supplies.

This moment is a perfect storm; the pandemic has crystallized all the worries that people have had about doing business with China, one senior U.S. official told Reuters. All the money that people think they made by making deals with China before, now theyve been eclipsed many fold by the economic damage.

An April survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China and the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai found that one in five firms said coronavirus would accelerate decoupling from China, while over half  52 percent  said it was too early to tell what would happen to their long-term supply chain strategy.

More from National Review
I had hoped that we could get back to a sense of normal by allowing our children to get back to the schools they love and to be with their friends and classmates, the governor said at his daily briefing after making the announcement. But the reality is that we cannot safely reopen our schools.

Students will continue online-only instruction through the end of the school year, Mr. Murphy said.

Guided by safety and science, this is the best course of action, he said on Twitter.

Mr. Murphys decision came after New York and Pennsylvania took similar steps. He had repeatedly indicated a preference for schools to reopen, a position shared by President Trump but not by most of his fellow governors.

There is a chance that we could get back in school, he said last Monday on CNBC, hours before laying out benchmarks the state will need to meet before businesses can reopen.

No spring sports will be permitted to hold even partial seasons, the governor said.

A committee will be established to make decisions about summer school and to consider ways to hold graduations and celebrate other milestones, like prom, said states education commissioner, Dr. Lamont Repollet, whose own daughter is a graduating senior. For example, Dr. Repollet said, graduations might be held in August.

The announcement about schools staying closed came on a day that New Jersey announced 45 new virus-related deaths for a total of 7,910 fatalities. Because of a weekend failure of the states computer system, both numbers are below the true figures, officials said.

We are certain that these numbers are underreported, the health commissioner, Judith M. Persichilli said.
The Duchess of Cambridge - who has long been involved in highlighting the importance of the early years and parental wellbeing - has spoken with midwives, health visitors, parents and leading sector experts about the challenges and impact that COVID-19 is having on new and expectant mothers and their families ahead of the UKs Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week

The Duchess of Cambridge has paid a virtual visit to newborn babies via videolink, as she urges new parents to reach out and ask for help if they need it in lockdown.

The Duchess, who spent time with midwives last year as part of a learning exercise, cooed over 16-hour-old baby Max and congratulated his proud mother, who gave birth in hospital during the coronavirus pandemic.

Asking how pregnant women and new parents are coping under Covid-19 rules, she urged them not to fear overburdening the NHS and ask for help when they need it.

In two engagements, both held via video, the Duchess heard how expectant mothers are feeling greater anxiety and nerves about going into hospital, as professionals emphasised that their services are still open.

Addressing concerns that women may fear putting pressure on an NHS which is already trying to cope with coronavirus, Jennifer Tshibamba, a midwife at Kingston Hospital, told her: "We want women to know were still here, were still open."

"Parents do need to go out and reach out to those who can support them, particularly those who can provide knowledgeable resources as well," said the Duchess.

"We've heard it from the frontline workers, for those who are struggling, they don't feel they can reach out because they feel guilty for doing it, which is extraordinary to hear.

"With new mums and parents and families, they don't want to feel like they're overburdening but it is so important to reach out and ask for help when you do need it."

The Duchess of Cambridge speaks to new parents via videolink

As part of a virtual royal visit to talk to staff at Kingston Hospitals Maternity Unit, where she spent two days on a work placement last November, the Duchess was introduced to new parents Rebecca and John Atwood via a laptop at their hospital bedside.

"Hello! Very nice to meet you," said the Duchess. "This is definitely a first, I think. Well firstly, huge congratulations. Is it a little boy or a little girl?"

Story continues

"Its a little boy," Mrs Atwood told her, as she sat up in her hospital bed with her newborn son alongside her in a cot.

Given a closer look at 16-hour-old Max, the Duchess said: "He is so sweet. Ah, congratulations! When did you have him?"

Told he had arrived at 10pm the previous night, she replied: "My goodness, you must be exhausted."

Speaking from home in Norfolk, the Duchess watched as the hospital birth centres lead midwife Sam Frewin appeared on camera in a mask and disposable apron to show her the PPE now used in maternity services.

"Is this what it looks like Sam?" she asked, saying she could still see her smiling "with your eyes".

The Duchess asked after the wellbeing of midwives working with "extra pressures and worries and also trying to wear this very uncomfortable kit by the sounds of it".

The Duchess of Cambridge speaks to health workers as part of the UKs Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week

"To you all there, you do an amazing job, honestly, as you say babies come all the time you know, the fact that you're having to work in these difficult times  well done," she said.

Ahead of the UKs Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, the Duchess also joined a roundtable meeting of experts in the sector about the impact of Covid-19 so far.

Hearing their concerns that pregnant women do not "want to bother the NHS" during the pandemic, and feel isolated under lockdown, the Duchess spoke of the importance of new mothers being able to speak to each other and realised they are "not the only one experiencing something".

"To be able to share it in whatever way - whether it's on the phone, through social media, in any form actually - it does provide that normality and normalising of some of these anxieties and these worries," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 18:55:17|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Few people are seen at the square in front of Tokyo Station in Tokyo, Japan, May 4, 2020. The Japanese government on Monday officially announced its decision to extend the nationwide state of emergency for COVID-19 by nearly a month until May 31. (Xinhua/Du Xiaoyi)

TOKYO, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government on Monday officially announced its decision to extend the nationwide state of emergency for COVID-19 by nearly a month until May 31.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the announcement at a meeting of a government task force on the coronavirus response to extend the state of emergency beyond May 6, the last day of Japan's Golden Week holiday which was the initial expiration date.

"I will extend the state of emergency I declared on April 7 to May 31. All prefectures are subject to it and there is no change to the emergency framework," Abe said during the meeting.

"The one-month period is designed for us to prepare for the next step and put an end to the state of emergency," Abe said, adding that the fight against COVID-19 could be protracted.

He also reiterated his calls for people to refrain from traveling to other prefectures and reduce person-to-person contact by 80 percent in 13 prefectures such as Tokyo and Osaka that require "special caution."

The decision to extend the state of emergency was approved by an advisory panel of medical experts in the morning. The government then notified the parliament of the decision.

Economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told the parliament that the pace of the declining of newly confirmed cases is not fast enough, though the number of new cases has been on a downward trend.

"We need to see a further reduction in new cases," Nishimura said.

The extension comes as the medical system has come under mounting pressure with increasing cases and sluggish economic activities due to stay-at-home requests and business closure.

Abe declared a month-long state of emergency on April 7 for seven prefectures including Tokyo and Osaka, and then expanded it to the entire nation on April 16.
A security guard at a Family Dollar store in Michigan was shot dead after reportedly refusing to let a man without a face mask enter the business.

Police responded to the scene at 877 Fifth Avenue in Flint at 2.15pm on Friday to find the 43-year-old security guard laying in the doorway with a gunshot wound to the head.

The victim was taken to Hurley Medical Center, where he later succumbed to his injury.

Calvin 'Duper' Munerlyn, 43 (left and right), has been identified by family members as the security guard who was shot and killed at a Family Dollar store in Flint, Michigan, on Friday

Pete Tedford, a cousin of Calvin Munerlyn, and Dorothy Nelson, the victim's sister, hold each other closely outside a Family Dollar store on Sunday

Family members have identified the slain store employee as Calvin Munerlyn, known to his loved ones by his childhood nickname, 'Duper.'

He is survived by his wife of 10 years and their six children.

Munerlyn's eldest son also works at the same Family Dollar store but was not present when his father was killed.

Michigan State Police 1st Lt. David Kaiser told The Detroit News on Sunday that detectives are looking into multiple reports alleging that Munerlyn was shot after confronting a customer who attempted to enter the store without a face mask in violation of a statewide policy put in place by Gov Gretchen Whitmer to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

After opening fire on the security guard, the unidentified suspect fled toward high-rise apartment buildings located behind the store. As of Monday morning, no arrests have been made.

On Sunday, about 150 relatives and friends gathered outside the Family Dollar on Fifth Avenue for an emotional candlelight vigil honoring Munerlyn.

Munerlyn leaves behind his wife of ten years, Latryna Sims-Munerlyn (left and right), and their six children

Maalik Mitchell, center left, sheds tears as he says goodbye to his father, Calvin Munerlyn, during a candlelight vigil on Sunday

Family and friends lift their candles to the sky and release balloons to honor Munerlyn, who was allegedly killed after barring a customer from entering the store without a mask

Candles are left lit next to a wall of the Family Dollar store on Fifth Avenue, where Munerlyn had worked as a security guard for a little more than one year

His wife, Latryna Sims-Munerlyn, told MLive.com that she first learned of the shooting when her son called her on Friday afternoon, telling her to get to the discount store.

'I just instantly thought my baby was gone,' she said during the vigil.

Munerlyn was hired at the store a little over a year ago after working security in Michigan for decades.

He was described by loved ones as a loving husband and father who enjoyed spending time with his family.

Munerlyn was also known for helping those in need, including at-risk teenagers in the community.

A family member has launched a GoFundMe campaign seeking donations to help with Munerlyn's funeral expenses.
Former President of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Bice Osei Kuffour, aka Obour, who is also the NPP parliamentary aspirant for the Asante Akyem South Constituency, has donated items and an amount of GH5,000 to the Asante Akyem South Municipal Health Directorate in Juaso in the Ashanti Region.



The items donated included 100 Veronica buckets, 2,000 bottles of hand sanitizers, 20 packs of tissue paper and 5,000 pieces of nose masks.



The items are to help the directorates Covid-19 response operations.



Presenting the items, Obour said, Not all citizens can afford hand sanitizers but the constant washing of the hands with soap and running water is the most affordable option, I am therefore appealing to citizens of Juaso and its environs to take the washing of your hands seriously. I also encourage you to wear your nose masks and wash and iron them after every days use.



The aspiring NPP parliamentary candidate called on residents to heed to the directives of the President in terms of social distancing and all the other protocols announced.



The Municipal Health Director for Asante Akyem, Ruben Osei Antwi, who received the items, applauded the residents for obeying the directives of the President.



He noted that Covid-19 was real and does not differentiate between the rich or the poor.



He emphasized on the need to respect the various measures announced to prevent the spread of Covid-19; and cautioned them to continuously practice social distancing since this would help prevent the spread of the virus.









Source: Daily Guide









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
The funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

The funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

The funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

The funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

Actor Damon Quinn who played Cal in Give my head peace raises a glass as the funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

Actor Damon Quinn who played Cal in Give my head peace raises a glass as the funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

Actor Damon Quinn who played Cal in Give my head peace raises a glass as the funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

Actor Marty Maguire as the funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

Actor Damon Quinn (left) who played Cal in Give my head peace as the funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

The funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

The funeral of BJ Hogg passes his home at Westbourne Terrace in Lisburn on May 4th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Family and friends including actor Tim McGarry pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Family and friends including actor Tim McGarry pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Family and friends including actor Dan Gordon pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Family and friends pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr Hoggs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Family and friends including Michael McDowell and Damon Quinn pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Family and friends including actress Alexandra Ford pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Family and friends including Michael McDowell and Damon Quinn pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Family and friends including Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 4th May 2020 - Hole in the Wall gang fans pictured at the funeral of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim. He was best known as Big Mervyn in the BBC series Give My Head Peace, but BJ Hogg was also a hugely versatile TV, stage and screen actor. Mr HoggOs wife Elish McDonnell Hogg, son Nathan and daughter Abigail joined other family and friends. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Hole in the Wall Gang fans pictured paying tribute outside the former home of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim.

Hole in the Wall fans pictured paying tribute outside the former home of actor BJ Hogg in Lisburn, County Antrim.

Actors Paddy Jenkins and Damon Quinn join family and friends to raise a toast outside Roselawn Cemetery in Belfast as the hearse arrives during the funeral of actor BJ Hogg.

Actors Paddy Jenkins and Damon Quinn join family and friends to raise a toast outside Roselawn Cemetery in Belfast as the hearse arrives during the funeral of actor BJ Hogg.

The cast of the hit TV comedy Give My Head Peace yesterday raised a socially-distanced glass and gave a fond farewell round of applause to the actor BJ Hogg, who created one of the show's most popular characters and who died last week.

Observing coronavirus restrictions at his funeral, BJ's friends and colleagues stayed well apart as they sipped their own small measures of Black Bush whiskey, the actor's favourite tipple.

The Hole in the Wall gang had been joined at a Lisburn funeral home by some other well-known actors and technicians who had worked with BJ throughout his illustrious career on stage and on screen.

The star of The Fall TV series and the Oscar-nominated short movie Dance Lexie Dance died suddenly last week on his 65th birthday.

His costume designer wife Elish and their children Nathan and Abigail watched as his coffin was brought from the funeral parlour to a waiting hearse.

Nathan had posted a video online of his father singing a powerful song from the Ulster Scots musical On Eagle's Wing, and he added a message saying: "Love you Dad. What a Voice."

There were lighter moments on social media too.

Some fans of BJ's alter ego from Give My Head Peace (GMHP), Big Mervyn, the dim-witted loyalist, wondered if he would get a paramilitary-style funeral and if a service would be conducted by the show's fundamentalist Protestant cleric, Pastor Begbie.

In the end there was no funeral service but Paddy Jenkins, the actor who plays Pastor Begbie, was among the mourners at the funeral home, along with other GMHP performers including Tim McGarry, Michael McDowell, Damon Quinn, Dan Gordon, Alexandra Ford and Marty Reid, who plays Big Mervyn's sidekick, Uncle Andy.

BBC floor manager Stephen Killen was also there, as were Game of Thrones star Ian McElhinney and his playwright wife Marie Jones and actors Alan McKee and Marty Maguire.

En route to Roselawn Crematorium, the hearse stopped briefly outside BJ's old boyhood home in Westbourne Terrace, Lisburn.

Some of the GMPH team went on to stand at the gates of Roselawn as BJ's hearse arrived for cremation.

No one is currently allowed inside the church there due to the Covid-19 crisis.

Paddy Jenkins, who also worked with BJ on On Eagle's Wing, reflected on a difficult day.

He said: "It was heartbreaking to realise that BJ's loved ones didn't get the chance to say a proper farewell. But the times we are living in mean nothing is the way it is supposed to be.

"There mightn't have been a normal funeral for BJ today, but I know the family and all of us are determined that he will eventually get the sort of thanksgiving service that he so richly deserves once the current coronavirus emergency eases."
Universities and colleges should not receive any federal stimulus or rescue package money. During this pandemic, they passed up an opportunity to restore credibility to the higher education system of our country. They could have used their administrative control over their students to prevent them from going on spring break and instead remain on the campuses to continue their course work.

This would have aided immensely in the containment of the COVID-19 virus. These students, supposedly our nations brightest, under the direction of their professors and administrators, could have practiced the CDCs recommendations for stopping the spread of the virus. While remaining on their campuses, they could have developed and put into practice more innovative procedures for stopping the spread of the virus. They could have exhibited academic and professional leadership in showing the nation how to confront the pandemic.

Permitting students to go on spring break and then sending them home created a perception of an unholy alliance between liberal college professors, who detest the Trump administration, and bean-counting college administrators, who sought to avoid the expenses associated with confronting the pandemic.

The close living quarters of college students is not a credible argument for sending them home. The military, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and hospital patients live in comparable living spaces, or even closer than the students on college campuses.

Edward J. Smitreski

Northampton
Roland had gotten into trouble with police, once over drugs and another time when he was charged with illegal gun possession in 2018. His mother said he was found asleep in a vehicle with a gun on his lap; the charges were dismissed. Matthews said she does not believe her sons past troubles led to his death.
Our world lies torn and shattered, and all because of an invisible virus that probably was let loose by a horseshoe bat. In our understanding of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), one critical factor stands out. The destruction of wildlife and wildlife habitats led to its creation.

It could be from Wuhans horrific wet wildlife markets or experimenting with bats in a Wuhan laboratory or destroying bat habitats that led to a crisis where millions are infected and hundreds of thousands are dead.

Intermediary species like the pangolin might have helped in mutating this virus and,

over the last decade, humans have left no stone unturned to decimate pangolins and smuggle them live into wildlife markets. They could very easily have been the intermediary species.

China is hugely responsible for the demand and needs to be shamed across the world. I squarely place blame on its actions. I watched closely its enormous role in the tiger crisis that enveloped India from the 1990s for two decades. I watched its increasing presence in Africa and the resultant decline in Africas wildlife. At many international meetings for the last 30 years, it was warned to end its illegal wildlife trafficking and markets. It paid no heed. Many wildlife warriors fought to prevent China from this highly destructive role.

But China, as a global economic power, cared little and plunged on regardless in its craze for wild animal parts and associated medicine. As far as I am concerned, this virus is a result of this. This virus is also a result of the actions of all those political and business leaders who did not care. All those who scoffed at and mocked natures warriors, hurled abuse on those who served both wildlife and nature.

The disrespect that many who serve nature have suffered is shocking. Many of us are now angry and unforgiving. Our warnings over the last 50 years have come true. We have tirelessly strived to prioritise the protection of our natural world. Very few who made policy or took decisions listened. Today, they should be drowning in guilt. Big business has failed nature. Few provide grants to protect it. Corporate leaders prefer to remain ignorant of the ways of nature. Now they have been hit where it hurts most. Trillions of dollars lost, and economies at a standstill. If we wake up from this nightmare, will they learn? Will they shed their arrogance? The less said about our politicians and bureaucrats, the better.

I remember how hard I tried to get Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh to create a department of forests and wildlife (which did not exist in the ministry of environment and forests) so that this essential sector was governed properly. The idea was to create a separate ministry over time and allow a ministry of environment and climate change to be independent of it. He agreed with my logic, (10 years ago), and instructed that it should be done. But a bunch of secretaries vetoed him. PM Narendra Modi has not held one meeting of the National Board of Wildlife in seven years. Nobody cares. They still do not realise that the virus they deal with originates in wildlife and is unleashed because of poor governance. They do not realise that India is in dire straits, the economy a mess and life disrupted because of how we deal with the natural world and its myriad species.

Prime ministers, ministers, political leaders, bureaucrats, business leaders, and society must be educated, and fast, as natures time bomb is ticking. This coronavirus is a warning shot over the bow. Next time around, nature will let loose a virus that will be much more virulent.

This global pandemic could have come much earlier. It did not because of the tireless service of both nature warriors and wildlife warriors. These people come from all walks of life, in villages, towns and cities and spend their time passionately defending nature. Without them, we would have no world to live in. They provide the most essential service to the nation, but arent recognised or respected. More often than not, they are relegated to oblivion. We need to remember all of them today and salute them.

Who are these people? They are, among others, the 150,000 forest officers and forest guards. About 100,000 are scientists, wildlife watchers, wildlife travel promoters, wildlife hotel creators, wildlife photographers, wildlife filmmakers, writers, conservationists, naturalists, village volunteers and non-governmental organisations. We need to celebrate them when we are out of this crisis. The PM must brainstorm with them. You cannot run an economy without a healthy natural world. This virus reveals how easily economic collapse comes. Leaders of the world will have to put forests, wildlife and the environment on the top of the agenda if they do not want to be plagued with more disease and death.

Economic recoveries must be green. No longer can we harm the natural wealth of our country or any country. This virus from Wuhan has proved that it can bring the world to its knees. That is the interdependence of the world today. Healing nature must be our call sign. Our leadership across this planet must wake up to a new era where life, the economics of it, the design of it are non-wasteful and non-exploitative and tempered with great respect for nature.

Preventing global warming and the climate crisis must be immediate priorities. This virus has revealed how our planet is vulnerable and without healing nature, we, as a human race, will die. Lets learn our lessons and act hand-in-hand with the natural world. We need an educated and enlightened media that does its homework. We need urgent global meetings of world leaders on forests and wildlife. We need global decisions to close wet markets and wildlife trade. We need to find non-invasive solutions for our future. Enough of diplomacy; it is time to call a spade a spade. Enough of G7 and G20 meets. They need to be re-strategised in light of what has happened.

Our mission today must be to create key strategies to protect natural ecosystems, wilderness and all the life that abounds in it. If we do not achieve this mission, there is no hope for our planets future.

Valmik Thapar has worked for 45 years with wild tigers. He has also written 30 books on Indias tigers and wildlife

The views expressed are personal
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A new AJC Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) report concludes that antisemitism is both a persistent threat to Jewish security and a human rights challenge, requiring urgent responses from governments, social media platforms, civil society, political and religious leaders, and multilateral organizations.

The report, Antisemitism: A Persistent Threat to Human Rights, and its annex survey incidents of antisemitic expression and violence in countries around the world from October 2019 to April 2020, both before and since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The JBI report comes six months after an unprecedented report by a United Nations expert recognizing global antisemitism as a serious human rights challenge.

Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion of Belief, in October, expressed alarm about rising antisemitism and told the UN General Assembly that it not only threatens the security and human rights of Jews and members of other minority communities, but also is "toxic to democracy" when left unchecked. AJC lauded the report as a historic achievement. Since then, Dr. Shaheed has continued to warn about the danger of antisemitism, and specifically called for action to counter its expansion online during the COVID-19 pandemic in an April 17 statement.

"While the COVID-19 pandemic has upended people's lives worldwide, it has not disrupted the trend of rising global antisemitism that so alarmed Dr. Shaheed," said Felice Gaer, Director of AJC's Blaustein Institute. "Its persistence and proliferation at this time of global upheaval underscore the need for leaders to recognize and condemn antisemitism as a threat to human rights, wherever it originates, and take actions in line with their human rights obligations to curb its spread."

JBI's report expresses serious concern about the potential for antisemitic rhetoric to inspire harassment, discrimination and violence. In a detailed listing of incidents are a number of recent cases in which individuals who expressed antisemitic attitudes online subsequently committed or attempted violent attacks against sites and individuals, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. The report also notes the heightened impact of antisemitic speech in the COVID-19 era, in which online threats and harassment can dissuade Jews from participating in the very limited opportunities available to them to engage in communal religious activities and education.

The JBI report's detailed recommendations call on government authorities to provide Jewish individuals and communities with effective protection from antisemitic violence and discrimination, to establish and strengthen collaborative arrangements with them to ensure these measures are effective, and ensure that measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic do not have a disproportionate or discriminatory impact on Jews' ability to practice their religion.

The JBI report calls on public officials, UN leaders and bodies, religious leaders, and others in positions of influence to promptly and publicly condemn antisemitic acts and rhetoric. It stresses that social media companies should step up efforts to remove antisemitic content from their platforms, with the same degree of resolve that they have pledged to combat misinformation about the coronavirus. It calls on governments, the UN, and others to promote training and education on recognizing antisemitism with reference to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which Dr. Shaheed endorsed in his report and which AJC has long encouraged governments to adopt.

"Over the last six months, we have seen several instances in which governments, and even the United Nations, have taken bold steps to recognize the danger of and combat antisemitism," said Gaer. "It is crucial that leaders not allow the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine this progress, and instead redouble their engagement with Jewish communities to ensure they are protected and able to exercise their rights."

AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, founded in 1971, is chaired by Jerry Biederman. Its Director is Felice Gaer.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday announced that the state government will bear the travel costs of migrants and students who are willing to return home.

I thank the Centre for taking our suggestion to run special trains for people of Bihar who are stranded in other states. Students will not be asked to pay for their tickets as the state government has decided to bear all their travel costs, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said.

He, however, clarified that the migrants returning home will be paid the amount spent on their train ticket after they complete their 21 day quarantine period in camps which have been set up at block headquarters in different districts of the state.

Apart from their travel cost, the state government has also decided to pay Rs. 500 to every migrant after they are discharged from quarantine camps, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said.

His announcement comes amid oppositions allegations that migrants were being asked to pay for their train tickets while returning home in the wake of coronavirus crisis and lockdown.

The opposition parties in Bihar, the RJD and Congress on Monday also offered to bear the cost of travel fare of migrants who are willing to return home from different states through trains.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in a hard-hitting statement said that our party is willing to pay the cost of 50 trains to bring back our poor labourers who want to return home but cant bear their travel cost.

The RJD is making this offer because the double engine government is not capable and making all kind of excuses not to bring migrants who are stuck in other states.

In the same tweet, he also took a dig at Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi and said, Please add the amount and let us know, we will send you the cheque.

In a tweet, Tejashwi Yadav claimed that only 3500 people have returned in five days. It seems that our Chief Minister is not interested in making proper travel arrangements for people who want to return home. Its the state governments responsibility to bring labourers back safely.

According to reports, in the next few days around ten trains carrying Bihari migrants are expected to reach Bihar.

The first train with 1,174 migrants from Jaipur had reached Patna on Friday. On Monday trains are also expected to arrive with stranded students from Kota in Rajasthan, Kerala and Telangana.
More Than 12,000 Lawyers In Iran Reject Move To Dismantle Bar Association

05/04/20

Source: Radio Farda

More than 12,000 Iranian lawyers have protested to a draft bill that undermines their independence and in effect replaces the Iranian Bar Association with a group of judiciary officials appointed by the government. Based on the draft the Judiciary will form a new body named the "Supreme Council for the Coordination of Lawyers' Affairs" that will be based at the Judiciary branch of the government "to coordinate matters relating to attorneys."



A group of Iranian lawyers at an event marking independence

of Lawyers' Bar Association. March 1, 2018.

Iranian lawyers have been struggling for independence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that, among other things, put clerics with no legal training or formal law education on top of the Judiciary branch.



Even some of those appointed as Chief Justice, prosecutors and judges in the post-1979 Iran have never been to a law school. In the meantime, the government has refused to respect the independence of attorneys and has put dozens of lawyers in jail for insisting on legal principles and citizens' rights.



Iran's legal system is based mainly on Shiite religious rules, however, untrained or hardliner clerics serving as judges have been often accused of issuing arbitrary verdicts leading to sentences disproportionate with what people have done.



In a letter to the head of the Islamic Republic's Judiciary, the lawyers called for abandoning the new draft regulations, stressing that the it "is against the interests of the country's legal system and the will of the lawyers' community, and will not be accepted by Iranian legal practitioners."



Earlier, in a letter to the heads of the three branches of government the lawyers had called the new regulations "a blatant violation of the law."



They also described the move by the judiciary as "devastating for the independence of the Bar Association and distorting the procedures of fair legal investigations."



Iran Bar Association Union

The Iranian Judiciary argues that two of the individuals selected by the government will "represent the lawyers."



Since the downfall of the monarchy, and the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, the independence of the country's lawyers has been restricted at various degrees in different periods.



Among the latest cases is the Article 48 of the new Code of Criminal Procedure. The clause presents the head of the judiciary as the sole authority to appoint lawyers for defending suspects in preliminary stages of cases relating to internal and extraterritorial security of the Islamic Republic.



Consequently, the head of the judiciary has issued a list of his "trusted lawyers" to the courts. The move has prompted widespread criticism and protests from thousands of legal experts and attorneys out of the list.
MASON COUNTY, MI  A motorcyclist was seriously injured Sunday, May 3, when he struck a deer on U.S. 31.

The crash happened around 6:10 p.m. on northbound U.S. 31 east of the Pere Marquette Highway off-ramp in Mason Countys Pere Marquette Township.

The motorcyclist, a 56-year-old Fountain, Michigan, man, was seriously injured when he struck the deer, causing his 2014 Harley-Davidson to go into a slide. He was thrown from the motorcycle, Mason County sheriffs deputies said.

Life EMS paramedics treated the man at the scene before he was taken to Mercy Health Hackley Campus.

Firefighters from Pere Marquette and Ludington, along with state police troopers, assisted sheriffs deputies at the scene.

Read more:

2 seriously injured after driver fails to see motorcycle

Woman standing in road after crash hit by another vehicle, seriously injured

Spectrum Health offers coronavirus testing for those with mild or moderate symptoms
A series of screenshots posted on Instagram, on Sunday, is at the heart of the latest (and much nuanced) gender-based conversation on India's millennial landscape. For the uninitiated, these screengrabs were from a group chat called 'bois locker room,' where a bunch of 17-18 year old boys shared images of women (some underage) and discussed awful details of what they would do to them if the opportunity presented itself.

Comments of the variety of 'Inn dono ke bahar aate hain dresses mei se' were at the tip of this body- shaming, photo-morphing and rape-threatening iceberg of objectification. The overnight spotlight on this culture has made me question my own actions, almost as much as the #MeToo movement once did.

warning : the next tweet contains chats/ texts & really strong words  anuvaa (@anuvaa1) May 3, 2020

TW: Sexual abuse/ Rape threats/ Toxic Masculanity/Verbal abuse



Everything about "Bois Locker Room" pic.twitter.com/BUVJ4lDUO0   Homo  (@leskookit) May 3, 2020

Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to be preachy. I just want to take this as an opportunity to introspect and in doing so, raise some uncomfortable questions.

Some have asked: 'what's wrong with the chat; we can discuss whatever we want, in private.' After all, boys group chats are commonplace. I'm guilty of being a member, myself. In fact, most men who we have personally known  fathers, uncles, 'good men', 'woke men'  have participated (even if passively) in this boy's locker room culture.

 MENSXP

The contents of these group conversations habitually have pictures of semi-naked women, some form of revenge porn, casually sexist jokes and sometimes even nudes meant only for private consumption.

Some of us mute these chats, some of us consume them, but barely anyone calls it out  calls it out for being outright problematic.

On a societal level, this in turn creates a culture of normalisation around the gross analysis of female bodies and viewing them as objects of sex. It actually goes even further to make such behavior acceptable and puts the onus on the victim.

It births ideas like 'don't send nudes if you don't want them shared publicly' or 'don't wear short dresses if you don't want to get raped.' I tried reaching out to the girls, who were the subjects of the screenshots, for comments and maybe this fear of victim-shaming is why they didn't respond.

A very close friend was sexually harassed when her auto rickshaw passed by a religious procession in Mumbai. She went home and shared the horrors with her mom only to be told that her mom had also faced something similar when she was young. Why are we not taught to retaliate or call them out?

Why do I have to think about what will people think if I speak up? Why do we run away from our predators instead of replying with an iron fist? under anonymity, she raises pertinent questions.

this is a start,we need to take some serious action but before the society needs to stop normalising the whole "boys will be boys"absurdity,this false sense of being privileged only bc they are men is making them think that they are free to do anything they want.#boyslockerroom pic.twitter.com/j26UwMoSCq  Swara K. (@swarak20) May 3, 2020

Perhaps that's what caused some girls to even side with some of the perpetrators of the group chat almost instantly. They claimed that they personally knew these boys, and that they were innocent for not participating actively in the group chat. 'They were simply members.'

Everytime something wrong happens in your presence and you choose to silently spectator or ignore, you are equally accountable for it  complicit in the wrong. In this case, this complicity could have come from a cushion of social privilege because most of these 'kids' came from 'good families.' But, I'm sure we've all known rich brats who feel like they can get away with being shitty people just because they drive German-made cars. Try living in Delhi for some time, in case you haven't had such encounters.

Another question that the guys on my boys chat raised is that what about the objectification of men at the hands of women?

Well, first: that's wrong too. But let's not indulge in this whataboutery every time a women's issue is raised. And second: Every woman has an account of sexual assault from a railway station, or nightclub, another friend tells me anonymously; so dear men, let's keep our male privilege in check. Patriarchy is real, and so is rape.

Our media is partly responsible for this social epidemic. News outlets have often gaslghted the victim while reporting rape and Bollywood, as a reflection of our society, has strengthened unfair gender roles. No wonder why Kabir Singh was the biggest movie of 2019, and that Kartik Aaryan has built an entire 'acting' career on caricaturing the lives of women.

The problem starts here. This fiasco about #boyslockerroom is just the tip of a much larger, pervasive problem of the rape culture. This objectification of women comes from a deep sense of entitlement; across barriers of caste, income, & education. It is a systematic problem. pic.twitter.com/c0h1rNTC50  Womanastic  (@womanastic) May 4, 2020

So, what's the endgame?

With a lot of learning and unlearning to do, says my friend, for both us and our parents.

My mom normalising the assault on me is not right. Instead of questioning why I'm crying in the middle of the night, no one is asking why I was attacked in the first place.

This change might take a few more generations to take fruit, but we are responsible for being its harbingers more than ever. A good place to begin is to listen to women, without mansplaining. Just hear them out and try empathising with the troubles they face on a near-daily basis because of regressive gender norms and power structures.

We need to let go off the habit of feeling empowered by pulling down women. All 'studies' that state women are wired to be emotionally stronger, and men to be physically so, are full of crap. Our sense of self worth has systematically been placed in the subjugation of The Other instead of being centred around internal and existential values that define us as a species. So basically, find better ways of validating your existence.

Another critical duty, with the current situation in light, is to start questioning our 'bros' on group chats and calling them out for what we feel is wrong. Discouraging gender stereotypes will not just benefit women but also egg on men to embrace what is traditionally considered not 'masculine' enough. For starters, crying, maybe even applying makeup, or getting pedicures or whatever the hell makes you feel better.

Living is tough and some of us are really trying hard to hang in there. We all have so much shit going on in our lives individually, so if we can just exercise our privilege to make someone else's life a little less shitty, it'd be a rather valuable contribution.

At the end of the day, we can all agree that morality can be tough. It can be subjective, and can sometimes even super complicated. It may initially even feel like rolling a boulder up a hill only to see it roll down back again; but it gets easier . You just have to keep trying to push harder.
Dr Nasiru Sani Gwarzo, leader of the Presidential Task Force Committee on COVID-19, has said that the virus was the cause of the mysterious deaths recorded in Kano State in recent days.

The presidential team on COVID-19 pandemic had Tuesday last week arrived Kano State with full commitment to unravel the mystery behind the mass death in the state. Dr Gwarzo had said the experience of epidemiologists and other technical personnel in the team will be used to support the state task force to review cases of COVID-19 pandemic and determine whether or not the mysterious death has a connection with it.

Gwarzo, who in his latest remarks, spoke on Sunday, said the recent deaths from the test carried out established that COVID-19 was the cause.

He said, Let me inform us that most of the deaths recorded of recent and test carried out showed that Coronavirus was the cause.

So, before the final report which would be ready in the next one week or few days, it is necessary for people of Kano to wake up from their slumber that this is a serious issue.

It is not a new thing, countries like America, China, Italy, Spain, England, France and others experienced similar mysterious deaths.

There have been concerns about the COVID-19 cases and the increasing deaths in the state.

President Muhammadu Buhari had during the week gave a matching order to the Gwarzo-led Presidential Task Force to unravel the cause of the mysterious deaths in Kano and also to contain the spread of the virus in the state.

The committees mandate was to support Kano and offer technical assistance.

Our interest as directed is to interrupt further spread of the virus in Kano, Gwarzo said Tuesday on arrival, on a courtesy visit to Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje at Government House.

We are also mandated to evaluate the incessant death in the state and whether or not the cause of the death is natural or associated with COVID-19 pandemic.
Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Partly sunny, brisk, and chilly. Winds should ease up later in the day..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy and cold.
Todays Headlines

The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

Email address

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
A fisherman is lucky to be alive after a crocodile jumped out of the water and bit him on the hand.

The 24-year-old Queensland man was fishing with a friend near Mandorah in the Northern Territory on Sunday when the reptile attacked.

The crocodile crept up on the two men and jumped from the water, biting down on the 24-year-old man's right hand, causing serious injuries.

A 24-year-old Queensland man was left with serious injuries to his right hand after a crocodile leapt from the water and attacked him while he fished in the Northern Territory (saltwater crocodile pictured)

His friend was able to drive him to the nearby Berry Springs where St John Ambulance officers were waiting to take him to the Royal Darwin Hospital.

'We met them at the Berry Springs shop area and a male there [had] quite serious injuries to a hand, where his fingers were quite severely damaged,' St John Ambulance spokesman Craig Garraway said.

After arriving at the hospital the 24-year-old underwent surgery on his right hand and fingers and remains in a stable condition, ABC News reported.

A St John Ambulance spokesman said the man wasn't able to identify the type of crocodile that attacked him.

However due to the bite patterns on his hand paramedics speculated he could have been attacked by a salt water crocodile.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted St John Ambulance for further comment.
CALGARY, Alberta, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gibson Energy Inc. (Gibson or the Company) (TSX: GEI), announced today the release of its inaugural Sustainability Report, which formalizes Gibsons commitment to sustainability and marks the beginning of the Companys efforts to consolidate and report on its work in this important area.



We are excited to release our inaugural Sustainability Report, which signifies our commitment to further embed environmental, social and governance principles into our business and day-to-day operations, said Steve Spaulding, President and Chief Executive Officer. While many of the concepts within sustainability have been part of the way Gibson does business for a long time, through our Sustainability Report, we share details about our existing efforts and commit to greater transparency around our sustainability practices moving forward. We recognize the role we play as a responsible business, within the communities we operate in and around, and will continue to build on our performance each year.

The Sustainability Report outlines Gibsons sustainability strategy, which embraces all areas of Gibson by focusing on three themes that have been deemed most meaningful for the Company:

Operating with Excellence

We operate with excellence by ensuring the safety, integrity and reliability of our operations, assets and governance structures.

Working Together

We invest in talent development, encourage diversity and inclusion and allocate meaningful resources to strategic high-impact community initiatives.

Delivering Energy Responsibly

We deliver the energy needed for a sustainable future across our supply chain through our environmental management and sustainable procurement programs.

The Sustainability Report highlights steps Gibson has already taken to advance its sustainability strategy and gives details of several initiatives the Company is currently pursuing. Gibson has progressed initiatives under each of the themes and will build on this early success in future reports.

The release of todays report marks a milestone for Gibson in its sustainability journey, said James Estey, Chairman of the Board of Gibson. Gibson has always taken seriously its role in shaping a better tomorrow, and todays report outlines the importance of sustainability to how Gibson operates today and in the future. Gibson took several steps over the last year to further its commitment to sustainability, including adding a new board member with significant experience in ESG and responsible investment; increasing the 2020 community investment budget to a Company high of $1 million dollars, which represents a 30% increase relative to 2019; and formalizing board oversight for our sustainability strategy. We remain committed to embedding sustainability further into our business and look forward to sharing our learnings and performance in the future.

The inaugural report covers performance metrics for the 2017 to 2019 calendar years, with the Company currently planning to issue a full-length report on a biennial basis and provide an update of its key metrics in interim years.

Gibsons inaugural Sustainability Report is available on the Company's website at www.gibsonenergy.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

About Gibson

Gibson is a Canadian-based oil infrastructure company with its principal businesses consisting of the storage, optimization, processing, and gathering of crude oil and refined products. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, the Companys operations are focused around its core terminal assets located at Hardisty and Edmonton, Alberta, and also include the Moose Jaw Facility and an infrastructure position in the U.S.

Gibson shares trade under the symbol GEI and are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. For more information, visit www.gibsonenergy.com.

For further information, please contact:

Mark Chyc-Cies

Vice President, Strategy, Planning & Investor Relations

Phone: (403) 776-3146

Email: mark.chyc-cies@gibsonenergy.com
HOUSTON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ara Partners, a private equity firm specializing in industrial decarbonization investments, has closed its debut fund, Ara Fund I, LP (the "Fund"), with approximately $400 million in capital commitments. Ara Partners was co-founded by veteran investors Charles Cherington and Troy Thacker.

The Fund will invest in companies in North America and Europe that are poised to accelerate the decarbonization of the industrial economy. The Fund was backed by a diverse group of institutional investors in North America, Europe and Asia, including public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations and family offices.

"We're pleased to announce our fund closing, and we look forward to backing technology-rich companies that reduce industrial emissions while targeting excellent returns for investors," said Troy Thacker, Managing Partner of Ara Partners. "Amidst the dislocation caused by the COVID-19 crisis, we are particularly grateful to our investors for their support of Ara and its vision."

"Ara's focus on decarbonization of the 'here and now' economy is essential," Charles Cherington, Managing Partner, added. "We seek near-term, tangible carbon reductions and profitable growth through rapid adoption of sustainable industrial products and services. These products are critical building blocks in the transition to a carbon neutral future."

The Fund builds on the team's diversity of experience and industry-rooted insight into how the demands of the industrial sector can be met by low-carbon offerings. Current portfolio companies of the Fund include Puraglobe (a carbon-negative producer of high-specification synthetic lubricants), Transform Materials (a process technology provider for the low-carbon production of acetylene and high-purity hydrogen), Priority Power Management (an independent energy management services provider of renewable power and demand response solutions to industrial and commercial businesses) and Centric Infrastructure Group (an innovative local fiber and energy infrastructure company). The Fund has made two additional industrial growth investments that are not publicly disclosed at this time.

Atlantic-Pacific Capital served as the Fund's exclusive global placement agent and Foley & Lardner, LLP provided legal counsel.

About Ara Partners

Ara Partners is a private equity firm specializing in industrial decarbonization investments. Ara Partners invests in the industrial, chemical and materials, and energy efficiency sectors, seeking to build businesses that are focused on sustainability and ESG principles. For more information on Ara Partners, please visit www.arapartners.com.

Media Contact

Mark Semer

Kekst CNC

+1 (917) 439-3507

[email protected]

SOURCE Ara Partners

Related Links

http://www.arapartners.com


NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is now participating in a nationwide clinical trial investigating whether an oral drug called hydroxychloroquine can effectively prevent COVID-19 in healthy healthcare workers. Known as the Healthcare Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes of Hydroxychloroquine (HERO-HCQ) trial, the study was launched by the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) and will track responses in an estimated 15,000 participants across the country to see if they test positive for COVID-19 and whether they develop antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease.

"The HERO-HCQ trial is more than an important opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against COVID-19. We also hope to learn a lot more about the disease and how it affects healthcare workers and their families," said Andy O. Miller, MD, an infectious disease specialist at HSS who is part of the leadership team responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and spearheading the trial. "We're calling on HSS healthcare workers to share their perspectives so that we can understand and provide answers to the problems they face in real time  and over time."

Hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) is an oral prescription medication approved by the US Food & Drug Administration for the treatment of malaria and autoimmune diseases such as lupus and arthritis. "There is a lot of interest in testing this drug as a preventative agent for COVID-19 because it appeared to block SARS-CoV-2 from entering cells in lab studies," explained Emily Margaret Stein, MD, MS, an internal medicine specialist and clinical researcher at HSS who is collaborating with Dr. Miller on the HERO-HCQ trial. "But like all medications, there are potential risks as well as benefits. Before we make recommendations on who should or should not be taking hydroxychloroquine, we need solid evidence."

Researchers at the Duke University Clinical Research Institute designed and are leading the nationwide HERO-HCQ trial. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute is providing up to $50 million in funding. As partners of the INSIGHT Clinical Research Network, the PCORnet affiliate organization in New York City, HSS, along with New-York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Columbia University Medical Center and Mount Sinai Hospital are collaborating on the trial since they are caring for large numbers of patients with COVID-19. "HSS has long been working with PCORnet to answer big healthcare questions," said Dr. Stein. "COVID-19 is the challenge we are facing today."

All healthcare workers who provide care, supplies or services to patients at HSS including doctors, nurses, registrars, housekeepers, food delivery staff and janitors  can register to see if they are eligible to participate in the study. People with existing conditions, such as renal disease or heart conditions that put them at risk for known adverse effects associated with the drug, will not be eligible to participate.

Dr. Miller and Dr. Stein hope to recruit at least 350 study volunteers at HSS. As a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study, participants will take either hydroxychloroquine or a placebo tablet once daily for 30 days. Clinical assessments will involve nasopharyngeal swab tests for COVID-19 and blood tests to detect the presence of antibodies at the beginning of the study and after four weeks. Researchers will also collect information about participants' health and ask them to fill out quality-of-life surveys.

The target completion date for the HERO-HCQ trial is July 2020. Different from typical studies that take months to collect and analyze data, researchers will analyze data from the study every two weeks. "As soon as there is clear evidence of an effect, either way, the lead investigators will stop the trial and make a recommendation," said Dr. Stein. "If the evidence shows the drug provides no benefit in preventing COVID-19, that will still be a useful result  we will save time and resources and look for other ways to help healthcare workers. If there is clear evidence of a benefit, they will recommend using the drug as preventative therapy."

"It's difficult to think that by doing our daily jobs, we could get sick, and we could also infect our loved ones at home," said Dr. Miller. "This is the time to be proactive, to develop ways to stay safe on the front lines. I encourage all HSS healthcare workers to be a part of HERO-HCQand to be part of the solution."

Learn more about the HERO Registry here.

About HSS

HSS is the world's leading academic medical center focused on musculoskeletal health. At its core is Hospital for Special Surgery, nationally ranked No. 1 in orthopedics (for the tenth consecutive year), No. 3 in rheumatology by U.S. News & World Report (2019-2020), and named a leader in pediatric orthopedics by U.S. News & World Report "Best Children's Hospitals" list (2019-2020). Founded in 1863, the Hospital has the lowest complication and readmission rates in the nation for orthopedics, and among the lowest infection rates. HSS was the first in New York State to receive Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Service from the American Nurses Credentialing Center four consecutive times. The global standard total knee replacement was developed at HSS in 1969. An affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical College, HSS has a main campus in New York City and facilities in New Jersey, Connecticut and in the Long Island and Westchester County regions of New York State, as well as in Florida. In addition to patient care, HSS leads the field in research, innovation and education. The HSS Research Institute comprises 20 laboratories and 300 staff members focused on leading the advancement of musculoskeletal health through prevention of degeneration, tissue repair and tissue regeneration. The HSS Global Innovation Institute was formed in 2016 to realize the potential of new drugs, therapeutics and devices. The HSS Education Institute is a trusted leader in advancing musculoskeletal knowledge and research for physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, academic trainees, and consumers in more than 130 countries. Through HSS Global Ventures, the institution is collaborating with medical centers and other organizations to advance the quality and value of musculoskeletal care and to make world-class HSS care more widely accessible nationally and internationally. www.hss.edu.

SOURCE Hospital for Special Surgery

Related Links

http://www.hss.edu/


Advertisement

By Katie Jarvis, DPA Marketing Assistant

May. 04, 2020 | UNION CITY

By Katie Jarvis, DPA Marketing Assistant May. 04, 2020 | 01:09 PM | UNION CITY

According to Lauren Sims, director of guest services and retail at Discovery Park of America, the number one most requested item in the gift shop since opening has been a guidebook.



When the 50-acre heritage park reopens to the public on June 1, 2020, that need will be met as Discovery Park just received a shipment of its first official guidebook. A link to purchase the guidebook on Amazon is now available at DiscoveryParkofAmerica.com/Guidebook.



Sims, who has been with the organization since it opened in 2013, is responsible for stocking the gift shops with merchandise that ranges from apparel to unique items made in the region.



Discovery Park is such a unique place that features things you cannot see and experience anywhere else in the world, said Sims. Its no wonder to me guests want to take a small piece of it home with them when they leave.



The 50-page guidebook opens with a brief history and acknowledgement of the founder of the organization, Robert Kirkland, with his quote, Discovery Park of America should enhance education for children as well as adults and do it in an entertaining way. I hope it will be a destination that people will visit again and again and walk away each time with an expectation for continued innovation.



This official guidebook, designed by Discovery Parks graphic designer, Carly Christiansen, features more than 175 photographs along with descriptions and unique facts about the entire museum and park. Also included are stories and behind-the-scenes details combined with images of the galleries and artifacts both inside and out. The guidebook is intended to be useful during a visit or afterwards to continue to benefit from the one-of-a-kind experiences that can be found at Discovery Park.



Polly Brasher, Discovery Parks director of education, was instrumental in providing many little-known details that make this guide such an asset. Brasher worked closely alongside Kirkland and others as Discovery Park was being built, and she created the training manual used by the museum and parks docents and other employees. Throughout the guidebook are references to many of the individuals who contributed to the items on display, as well as fascinating details about where some of the artifacts originated that provide a more comprehensive look at the museum and park.



The biggest challenge was determining what not to include, noted Jennifer Wildes, Discovery Parks collections and exhibits director. With more than 5,000 items in our collection, it was a challenge for the team working on the guidebook to choose the artifacts we thought would be the most enlightening.
It should be apparent to you that the coronavirus crisis will have many mirrored circumstances to that of an impending problem down the road: pollution.

Our response to COVID-19 should serve as a lesson to act sooner and more responsibly rather than later to avoid the worst consequences. Single-use plastics infiltrate our oceans, water and food.

Marine life ingest often bright colored plastic that they mistake for food, it sits indigestible in their stomachs, piling up, causing them to starve to death. The plastic problem reverberates back to us as fish become too poisoned to eat and as natural fisheries that we rely on become destabilized.

By the year 2050, there will be more plastic than sea life in our oceans. We need to ban this type of unnecessary plastic use by passing SB54 and AB1080.

Bijan Ashtiani-Eisemann, Santa Cruz

Hypocritical decision

Californias fight against COVID-19 has been a valiant one; I wholeheartedly support the sacrifices required by shelter in place. However, I ask Gov. Gavin Newsom for consistency in his treatment of outdoor activities, most notably with his recent push to close beaches to surfing.

Shelter-in-place has exemptions related to activity and exercise but why is running, walking or biking any different than surfing? The surfing lineup at Ocean Beach is hardly as dense as the running path on Marina Green in the afternoon.

Furthermore, the argument against surfing because it puts health workers in danger is hypocritical given the allowance of road biking, which claims more hospitalizations than surfing. I understand the need for sacrifice, and if closing the beaches are necessary to stop people from dying, then I will lay down my board and hang my suit eagerly. However, the hypocrisy in the decision to close this but open that is what leads to frustration.

In this time, we can all benefit from the mental mantra that lingers on the sandbars from Lincoln Way to Sloat Boulevard.

Adam Pellegrini, San Francisco

Focus on primary goal

Bay Area health officers are adding unnecessary preconditions for stepping back from shelter-in-place orders. Keeping hospitalized coronavirus infections at or below 50% of the hospital capacity is appropriate, but we should stay focused narrowly on this endpoint and do this in the least restrictive and costly way possible.

This can be done by titrating policies specifically to hospital admission rates and local carrying capacity for COVID-19 care (e.g. dedicated 50% of acute care beds).

Hospitals should be working and acting as a regional whole under mutual support agreements. Early warning indicators like daily case rates and emergency room visits can now be correlated with hospital demand. Arbitrary numbers for testing are not warranted. Increased testing and contact tracing is essential for high-risk populations and caregivers, but achieving our primary goal does not require universal testing and contact tracing in all places.

Rajiv Bhatia, Menlo Park

An emergency situation

Anyone who has raised or cared for a toddler when told no recognizes the behavior of the shelter-at-home protesters about going to the beach. These orders are not an affront to anyones constitutional rights. They are emergency public health decisions.

Such declared emergencies can, and should, take precedence over short-term, meaningless desires or personal recreation.

Bruce Kraus, San Francisco

Pause on payment date

Regarding S.F. limbo on when property taxes due (Business, May 1): Why are landlords still forced to pay property taxes if they cant receive any income from their tenants?

The city of San Francisco and the surrounding counties are just greedy if they are attempting to force landlords and homeowners to pay property taxes during this time. Property taxes should be due when the economy reopens and people return to their jobs.

Ben Malin, San Francisco

Real leadership on guns

Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada announced that effective immediately, the sale of assault-style weapons in that nation will be banned. Unlike our president, Trudeau is putting his money where his mouth is.
Editor's Note: With so much market volatility, stay on top of daily news! Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news and expert opinions. Sign up here!

(Kitco News) - Diversified miner Rio Tinto said Monday it is spending $10 million in a variety of grassroots projects across Canada and the United States to fight COVID-19.

Our investments are targeted at practical solutions like funding the food banks or counselling and support services that are helping frontline response workers and the communities around our operations. We will also play our part in supporting and stimulating current and future economic activity through regional development initiatives that are vital for local jobs and businesses," said Rio Tinto Chief Executive J-S Jacques.

Rio Tinto initiatives include a number of local initiatives.

In British Columbia, the BC Works aluminium smelter made a C$50,000 contribution to the Kitimat General Hospital Foundation and provided reusable masks and safety glasses to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

In the Northwest Territories, the Diavik diamond mine is contributing C$60,000 to five Indigenous communities for community identified relief initiatives such as food hampers and on the land activities.
New Delhi, May 4 : Indian journalist, scriptwriter and popular storyteller Neelesh Misra, who also co-founded India's rural newspaper Gaon Connection, has a piece of the pie on most audio platforms, whether it's radio or newer, digital storytelling apps or even online music streaming services. Drawing from decades of storytelling experience, he says that this is a field that needs a lot of attention.

Misra, 46, has recently come up with "Qisse Lockdown Ke With Neelesh Misra", an audio-based show on Audible Suno where the radio personality narrates fictional inspirational and relatable tales about the days of the pan-India lockdown, in Hindi. Currently sheltering at his village home, Misra speaks to IANSlife in an interview.

Audio content platforms are really gaining their feet in India. As a storyteller, your thoughts on the evolution of the audio media? Misra: Audio content platforms are growing for sure and I think this is a very exciting time to be an audio artiste in any form. There are more and more podcasts, etc. But I also want to put some perspective to this. When we started our journey in 2012 and when I became a storyteller, a lot of people didn't think it would work.

They thought, who wants to listen to stories at prime time? With radio, even YouTube, it was the start of podcasts in its own way and we were able to create an audience that wanted to listen to audio content on digital platforms and develop that habit. My learning has been that as far as storytelling is concerned, while the number of story listeners is growing exponentially in the country, the number of storytellers is not growing.

That's a field that needs a lot of attention, they are voices of their communities, their cultures, their geographies, where they come from. We have launched something called the Mic Platform, a website yourmic.in which is a place where storytellers and other audio artistes are given a platform and mentored by me. There are other platforms that are emerging, which are a great idea and I hope that audio artistes of this country grow in multiple languages all over the country and become advocates and ambassadors of the voices and causes they represent. It's a very exciting time and it's going to get better and better for audio artistes.

What are you listening to/reading/watching these days? Misra: I've been at my village home since the lockdown and before Holi. We've been trying to put together 'Qisse Lockdown ke' which has taken up a lot of my time but I've been trying to catch up on web series and documentaries that I wanted to watch, as well as some reading. It's been much more recording than actually watching or reading any content.

Tell us about 'Qisse Lockdown Ke With Neelesh Misra'. How did you come up with it? Misra: 'Qisse Lockdown Ke' is a show that was born out of what we're seeing all around us and is a response to our time as a writer and storyteller. I find it extraordinary and fascinating that when people are locked up in the four walls of their home for a long period of time it does things to them, their lives and relationships. They are able to see their lives in a different light, their priorities and look at themselves in a manner they have not seen before.

Relationships could change, they could heal and get fixed or come under stress, people might find answers or be confronted with questions and I think all of that churn is something that a writer would love to capture and that's what we've tried to do with these heartwarming stories. We have tried to look at different facets, different geographies, different social strata and how being in the lockdown has affected them. It's a challenging assignment for a writer because in normal stories, the plot moves from place to place and there's great freedom to write. There's geography, there's events associated with a place but here it's inside four walls, so it's even more challenging.

We put this show together very quickly for Audible Suno and we're very proud of it, it's a delight to have done it and we hope that millions of people around the country are able to listen to it, especially because Suno is a free app. I hope all my listeners catch it and see something of their lives, a little bit of their lives and themselves in the show and these stories.

Looking at mainstream COVID-19 reportage, do you find enough media spotlight on stories from our hinterlands and subaltern groups? Misra: No, not at all. I don't see mainstream media covering the voices of millions and millions of people in the hinterlands and rural areas that don't have a voice. I think this is the time when the narrative needs to be empathetic not only to big industries and the trading class and companies, but the 3/4th of India outside of this circle. This coverage does not stop, but stories of migrant workers walking back, that's just the start of the numerous ramifications of how the voiceless part of India has been impacted.

That's what we're trying to do at Gaon Connection as we launch a big reportage project. We have been covering this for the last two months with great empathy and intensity and will be ramping it up with national coverage and a survey, as well as a series of reports from across the country.

There are figures and statistics everywhere. How can we bring out the human aspect of stories and narratives as we tell them? Misra: I think there are numbers and statistics of all kinds everyday through the day. How do we put faces to them? While social media does give them faces or television media does give them faces, but these are a very small fraction of it. Often the media likes to only sensationalize, and the media does not have enough empathy and it has a scavenging attitude that feeds on dramatic stories and there's a need to go beyond that.

For journalists, communicators, anyone who is a chronicler in any form, to document these extraordinary stories in a way that they capture the pathos, the pain, the successes and victories, all of that and what is to follow from here. This is so that we can move beyond the numbers and look directly at the faces of people who are impacted from this, that will be a complete story.

Your current and upcoming professional engagements.

Misra: Currently, I'm busy with non-stop recordings for 'Qisse Lockdown Ke' and trying to create new ideas and pilots for audio shows in the future. A lot of video content. For example, I started a series called Slow Poetry, which is poetry written and narrated by me. We've shot many episodes of that. We have been shooting a storytelling show, a horror story show and I hope that the productivity of this time and the sense of calmness at this time will allow me to create a lot of new things. I'm also working on a new film script, and a lot of interesting ideas that I'm just trying to figure out and put into action.

(Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in)
Chinas regulators also tend to look the other way when it comes to state-owned firms, which make up about 40 percent of the vaccine industry. Many vaccine makers operate with an expectation of impunity, knowing that even if they are found to have produced faulty products, they are unlikely to be shut down.

The vaccine that Ms. Huang received is being developed by CanSino Biologics, a Tianjin-based pharmaceutical firm, and the medical science arm of the Peoples Liberation Army. The CanSino vaccine was the first to enter Phase 2 trials, which in the hierarchy of drug testing means it is further along than the worlds other candidates, though there is no guarantee that it will be proven effective. (It has been tested so far on 508 people; a candidate from Oxford University in Phase 1 trials, or earlier-stage testing, has been administered to twice as many people.)

One other Chinese institution also has a candidate in Phase 2 testing  the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, an arm of state-run Sinopharm Group. Sinovac Biotech, a private company and the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, which also belongs to Sinopharm, have potential vaccines in Phase 1 trials.

The Wuhan institute was involved in a 2018 scandal in which defective vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and other conditions were injected into hundreds of thousands of babies. China imposed a $1.3 billion fine on another virus maker involved, Changchun Changsheng. The scandal led to the firing of dozens of officials and pledges of a swift industry cleanup.

The government confiscated the Wuhan institutes illegal income, fined the company and punished nine executives.
COLONIE  As if COVID-19 wasnt enough to worry about, now weve got giant hornets with poisonous venom and eyes that look like something out of a science fiction movie arriving in the U.S.

And they could pose a serious threat to the nation's honey industry.

But beekeepers and those with spheksophobia, or a fear of wasps, may not have to worry just yet if they are in the Capital Region and Northeast. While news of the Asian giant hornets has been in the headlines and on numerous websites over the last few days, the jumbo wasps are believed to be limited to the West Coast, at least for now.

Theyve been detected at very low frequencies at the moment, said Rebecca Clark, an assistant professor of animal physiology at Siena College who specializes in the social behavior of ants and bees.

For one thing, it remains unknown if these Asian giant hornets, which are a variety of wasp, can survive in a cold Northeastern winter.

The hornets were first detected late last year in Washington state and parts of British Columbia. They are about two inches long, or twice the size of most wasps and have orange heads with large black eyes and pincers.

With April and May marking the time of year when bees and wasps become active, there have been sightings of these monster hornets in Washington state, raising alarm among beekeepers.

They are ferocious killers of honeybees, often decimating entire hives, devouring the bee pupae and larvae.

They really like to eat honeybees, Clark said they can take over entire bee colonies in their search for food.

Kari Segraves, a biology professor at Syracuse University explained that the hornets have unique hunting techniques.

"They are the only known species to have cooperative hunting where they can take over an entire bee colony. The purpose in this behavior is foraging for food- they kill the adult bees and then take the bee larvae and pupae back to their nest to feed their young. It is this swarming behavior that humans find frightening," Segraves said in a statement on Monday.

Beekeepers have reported seeing piles of their bees with their heads torn off by the hungry hornets.

Their large pincers can also penetrate a beekeeping suit and their sting can be fatal to humans if stung enough times.

For that reason, they are also nicknamed murder hornets.

Clark said they may have arrived in North America from Asia on container ships but thats not certain.

And there are several reasons they may not threaten the Northeast anytime soon.

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

In addition to questions about their ability to withstand cold winters, these hornets build their nests in the ground rather than in wood. That means theres less chance they can be transported across the country on lumber trucks, which has happened with other invasive pests like the emerald ash borers currently threatening ash trees.

And the hornets do have a natural vulnerability, said Clark. Japanese honeybees can kill hornets by cooking them  that is swarming over them and roasting the hornets alive with their body heat, she said.

The trouble is, most bees in the Northeast are European bees and they dont tolerate the kind of body heat that is generated with an offensive swarm.

There have been a few cases of people dying after hornet attacks, although those instances have usually involved multiple bites and a victim with a venom allergy that can be countered with an EpiPen injection.

While they arent on our doorstep, what should one do if confronted by such creatures say, while on a trip to the Northwest? The best advice, Clark said, is not to panic, but simply step away from the area where the hornets are.

Like bees and other wasps, the creatures arent trying to kill you as much as they are protecting their home.

Usually, Clark said, The insects are stinging because they are trying to defend their nest.

rkarlin@timesunion.com  518-454-5758  @RickKarlinTU
6 Die in Plane Crash in Bolivia

By VOA News May 03, 2020

A Bolivian air force plane crashed in the Amazonian region shortly after takeoff Saturday afternoon, killing all those on board.

The victims on the twin-engine propeller plane included four Spanish nationals and the two-man crew, an air force captain and lieutenant.

The Spaniards were en route to catch a flight back to Spain, the Bolivian Defense Ministry said in a statement, identifying them as Francisco Jose Gallegos Gonzales, Yandira Olivera Velarde, Delis Salvatierra Velarde and Alba Aparicio Formas.

The plane went down in a marshy area on the outskirts of the northeastern city of Trinidad, the statement said, adding that the investigation to the cause of the accident was underway.

The aircraft was also carrying coronavirus test samples to the city of Santa Cruz.



NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Although Gov. Andrew Cuomo asserted last month that the state legislative session is effectively over due to COVID-19, state lawmakers are scrambling to put forth new legislation to address the pandemic. In March alone, lawmakers introduced 60 coronavirus-inspired bills, according to The Buffalo News. Heres a list of some of the coronavirus-related bills that have recently been proposed or introduced.

Absentee voting

A number of New York elections, including the states Democratic presidential primary, have been canceled, but state and federal legislative elections are still on, with the primary date coming up in June. While Cuomo has responded by issuing an executive order mandating that every voter receive a form to be able to request a mail-in ballot, several state lawmakers introduced bills for absentee voting. State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi proposed legislation that includes the spread or potential spread of any communicable disease as a reason to apply for an absentee ballot. Assemblyman Joseph Lentol introduced a more far-reaching bill that would have effectively mandated vote-by-mail for the presidential primary  although its already moot, and any other measures may come too late as well.

Funeral costs

While state law covers funeral service and burial for qualifying individuals, lawmakers are now championing a bill to increase assistance and expand the law to include immigrants. Sponsored by Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz and state Sen. Luis Sepulveda, this legislation increases the minimum benefit from $900 to $3,000 and expands assistance to include undocumented persons. COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically exposed the inequalities that define our economic and healthcare systems, Sepulveda said in a press release. Minority and undocumented communities have disproportionately higher rates of infection and death from the virus, while many of them are also the essential workers keeping our societies functioning and saving lives during the shutdown.

Hazard pay

After President Donald Trumps administration and congressional Democrats have shown an interest in providing health care workers with a bonus, state legislators are demanding essential workers receive hazard pay for serving on the front lines of the crisis. In a joint letter signed by 42 other lawmakers to the congressional delegates, state Sen. Andrew Gounardes urged hazard pay for essential workers to be prioritized in Congress next stimulus bill. In the letter, they request benefits to be extended to to any gig or freelance workers serving an essential role, including delivery workers, freelance journalists/photojournalists and drivers. Similarly, Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas and State Sen. Jessica Ramos sent a letter to state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie on April 14, urging the state to use a number of the federal stimulus funding allocated to the state for hazard pay.

Price gouging of medical products

While price gouging is technically outlawed already, state Sen. Brad Hoylman sponsored a bill to crack down on price gouging of consumer medical supplies. This legislation, which is supported by Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, newly defines an unconscionable excessive price increase as a price greater than 10% before the pandemic began, following states like California and New Jersey. The sale of hand sanitizer, face masks and over-the-counter medications at such increased prices would be subject to a civil penalty of up to $25,000. Profiting off fear of disease is unconscionable, Hoylman said. We cant allow shady businesses to hike prices on the supplies New Yorkers need to stay safe and healthy, like hand sanitizer and face masks."

Support for nursing homes

Gounardes and Assemblyman Ron Kim introduced new legislation to support nursing homes, which have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. The proposed bill, which applies specifically to the administration of residential health care facilities during a state disaster emergency, mandates increased protection for nursing home residents and staff. This includes restricting visitation and entry by non-essential workers, screening of staff before their work shift, daily inventory of personal protective equipment, establishing communication between residents with close family and friends three times a day, and authorizing home care services. The facility would also have to report fatality and infection rates to the state health department daily. If these numbers remain the same or increase over 15 days, the health commissioner could appoint a temporary operator who assumes control and responsibility.

Suspension of fines and fees

Buffalo state Sen. Tim Kennedy and Syracuse Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter are proposing a bill to suspend or cancel the enforcement of fines, fees and court debt in the state. Sixty Democratic state lawmakers have voiced their support and signed onto a letter sent to Cuomo, urging him to take immediate executive action to prevent incarceration and suspending drivers licenses for unpaid fines. Furthermore, legislators are urging the governor to give courts the ability to waive criminal court fees and mandate surcharges. They demand local law enforcements stop issuing parking tickets or citing other minor violations that do not threaten public safety. "Now more than ever, New Yorkers shouldn't have to live in fear of losing a job, missing a rent payment or forfeiting an education due to personal and financial challenges," Kennedy said.

Tax break for front-line medical personnel

State Senate Deputy Minority Leader Joseph Griffo pushed for state income tax exemptions for medical workers and first responders fighting the spread of the coronavirus. His bill would apply to firefighters, emergency medical technicians, law enforcement personnel, doctors, nurses and others helping on the front lines. On April 14, Hoylman also proposed new legislation to amend the state tax law and create a tax deduction for certified first responders, health care professionals and emergency medical technicians. The bill would deduct up to $5,000 in COVID-related expenses, such as for personal protective equipment and transportation costs. New York owes front-line medical workers an enormous debt  one we will never be able to fully repay, Hoylman said. Its particularly outrageous that our federal government is asleep at the wheel, forcing hard-working medical personnel to purchase their own personal protective equipment and other necessities.

Tenant protections

In March, Cuomo imposed a 90-day moratorium on evictions, which prevents landlords from kicking out tenants unable to pay rent. With the moratorium running out in several weeks, several lawmakers have proposed other action. State Sen. Michael Gianaris and Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou have proposed two bills to address the matter. The first would cancel rent for tenants who have lost their income due to the pandemic and suspends mortgage payments for landlords according to the amount of lost rent. Their second and more recent piece of legislation would allow tenants to pay no more than 30% of their income while establishing a fund for landlords who arent receiving any federal, state or local assistance. As reported by City & State, Gianaris and Nious bills would exclude single-family and some multi-unit homeowners if they were to lose their jobs.

State Sen. Juliana Salazar has also put forward the Emergency Coronavirus Affordable Housing Preservation Act of 2020, also known as Relief For All. This legislation, similar to Gianaris first bill, would cancel rent for anyone struggling financially or facing a loss of income due to COVID-19. However, tenants must provide documentation proving financial hardship. Landlords could write off a certain amount of their lost income from their property taxes or have mortgage payments suspended. Salazar told City & State that she supports Gianaris bill, but she believes that her law best addresses the rent issue. New Yorkers are facing down an unprecedented crisis, and we need an unprecedented response, Salazar said in a press release. By passing Relief For All, we can preserve affordable housing, while keeping families in their homes and businesses afloat. With no home left behind, and every rent paid, this is a unity bill that meets the needs of this moment.

Unemployment benefits

State Sen. Monica Martinez is championing a bill to suspend the forfeiture of unemployment benefits during the pandemic. The state Department of Labors forfeit day penalty denies unemployment insurance benefits to individuals who are accused of, in the past, having made a false claim to get benefits. Once they are eligible for payments, these will first be used to pay the penalty, reducing the amount of money received in unemployment insurance benefit payments. The legislature, supported by Hoylman and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, would authorize the Department of Labor commissioner to temporarily suspend the imposition of forfeit days, until the end of the state of emergency. "New York State is facing an unprecedented crisis with more than one million New Yorkers having already filed for unemployment, and unfortunately, this pandemic is not over, Rosenthal said. It's simply unconscionable that the New York State Department of Labor would withhold the payments right now over issues with previous unemployment claims when the situation has become so dire.
Ninety-four per cent of Queenslands COVID-19 patients have recovered, with 980 of the state's 1038 no longer infected.

Recent travellers overseas and people in close contact with a confirmed case accounted for 972 of the state's cases.

A total of 116,650 people have been tested for COVID-19 in Queensland, with 1052 of those performed in the past 24 hours.

Nine of the 52 active confirmed cases are in hospital, with four of these in intensive care.

The remainder of active cases are currently recovering at home.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young says the efforts of parents, children and school staff had contributed to allowing the soon return to school-based learning.

The Department of Education has gone to significant lengths to prepare schools for a safe return to school-based learning, including putting in place multiple measures to assist with social distancing, she said.

The return of kindy, prep, year one, and years 11 and 12 ahead of other grades will allow schools to practice, assess and refine the effectiveness of these measures.

Dr Young urged Queenslanders to continue to practise social distancing and good hygiene.

While Queensland has continued to record very low numbers of new cases over the past week, we cannot be complacent and its so important that we continue to exercise social distancing, good hygiene and comply with all the restrictions in place, as well as staying home if youre unwell, she said.
By Nicholas Chan

San Jose Spotlight

SAN JOSE

Celso Castaniada often wakes up at 3 a.m. - the night has become the day. By 3:30 p.m., Castaniada becomes more confused, a symptom of dementia known as sundowning.

His internal clock has gone awry since the coronavirus shutdown upended Castaniada's routine of going to adult day care center Hearts and Minds Activity Center in San Jose, which closed on March 17. There, the 94-year-old retired custodian for Santa Clara County used to listen to live musical performances, and talk to the staff, volunteers and others with dementia. Now his family is doing everything they can to fill in the gaps.

There are good and bad days, but it's just not the same as sending Castaniada to Hearts and Minds, his son Henry Castaniada said.

When Henry takes care of his dad every Tuesday, they walk outdoors. They play card games and listen to his favorite music. To ease his sundowning, Castaniada's family and his caregiver ensure that his home is well lit and his doctor has changed the dosage of his medications.

"When I leave dad on Tuesday, I go home and as happy as I'm with my dad, there's an emptiness because you see your dad deteriorating," Henry said.

Castaniada's deteriorating condition - and his caregiver and family's tireless care - underscores the challenges confronting those with dementia, their loved ones, caregivers and even highly trained physicians battling the memory-robbing syndrome amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mehrdad Ayati, a geriatrician and professor of medicine at Stanford University, recommends his dementia patients attend a day care center to manage their symptoms by getting physical and social contact. That option is now no longer available during the coronavirus shutdown.

"They are more agitated," Ayati said of such patients. "Some of them are more combative ... this makes me worried because as physicians our last choices will be to medicate them more, which we hate because we know psychotropic medication actually has more side effects rather than benefits for them."

He also worries about the burden on family caregivers as they look after loved ones with dementia day and night while sheltering-at-home.

Debra Law used to take her mother, who has dementia, to Live Oak Adult Day Services in Willow Glen five days a week. With the adult day care center and its three other sites in the county shuttered, she looks after her 84-year-old mother, Lureta Johnson, at home in San Jose.

Law often reminds and helps her mother - a retired nurse - to wash her hands.

"It's gotta be hard having her brain betray her," Law said.

Instead of bringing in their housekeeper during the pandemic, she cleans her mother's room, bathroom and laundry while writing a dissertation for her doctor of philosophy degree and holding virtual classes for her nursing students.

"I had a moment last week - it was on Thursday - when the weight of all the responsibilities that I juggle just felt overwhelming ... " Law said. "I got a phone call, and it was from Live Oak. They were doing a wellness check for the caregivers. It couldn't have been more on time."

Live Oak, along with Hearts and Minds, has launched virtual activities for its participants five days a week. While her mother plays word games, listens to musical performances and does chair exercises during Live Oak's virtual conferences, Law has at least an hour for herself daily.

"It is a labor of love. Our roles have changed now, and I'm like a mother to my mother," Law said.

The Alzheimer's Association's Northern California and Northern Nevada Chapter is hosting virtual support groups and classes for people with dementia and their caregivers. It also has a 24-hour health line for caregivers seeking tips on caring for people with dementia.

"They're able to find that they're not alone in this," said Elizabeth Edgerly, executive director of Alzheimer's Association's local chapter.

Dementia most likely does not increase risk for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus. But people with dementia are more likely to be older adults, people who are at higher risk for contracting the virus. They may also have underlying health conditions that can weaken their immune systems.

The behaviors of people with dementia could also increase their risk of infection as they may forget to wash their hands.

It's a balancing act explaining the pandemic to those with dementia without stirring anxiety. Generally, caregivers should tell those with dementia the basics of the pandemic without delving into the details, though it varies by person how much they can comprehend, according to Jennie Clark, a gerontologist and program manager of the memory support program at Stanford Health Care.

"A good way to say it is that, 'There is a health pandemic that's causing people to shelter-in-place, so we're not able to participate in the normal daily activities, but there are a lot of scientists that are working on this and they're trying to find a cure, a vaccine,'" Clark said.

Caregivers should reassure their loved ones with dementia that they're safe and loved when they get worried and anxious about the pandemic, Clark added.

Edgerly urges caregivers to limit exposure to the news and be aware that people with dementia may pick up on the anxiety of those around them. To ease agitation and sleep disturbances during the pandemic, caregivers should take those with dementia outside in their yards for fresh air, Ayati said. Caregivers should also remember to take care of themselves, he added.

Castaniada's sister looks after their dad at least 40 hours a week at his home. Without her, Castaniada says his dad would be at an assisted living facility, away from his home in San Jose where he has lived for 50 years.

"To have a family member devote that much time and energy to caring and loving is amazing," Castaniada said.

Contact Nicholas Chan at nicholas4b@gmail.com or follow @nicholaschanhk on Twitter.

This story was originally published by San Jose Spotlight. Please use the following link when sharing: https://sanjosespotlight.com/families-carry-the-weight-of-dementia-during-coronavirus-shutdown/

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.
What makes Dhankar so outspoken? Could it because as governor he will be in the drivers seat if the Trinamool Congress performs below par in the elections next year?

Shikha Shalini reports.

In the political climate where exchanges between chief ministers of opposition-ruled states and governors are marking a new normal, the bitterness between the elected head of the government and the representative of the Union government in West Bengal has touched new lows.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently told Governor Jagdeep Dhankar that he had no power to interfere with internal administration and accused him of addressing her in an unparliamentary tone.

He responded on Twitter and through letters reminding observers at large about the chief ministers duty to the governor and the Centre.

Dhankar has been vocal against the state governments handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, too, has been critical of the state government, especially its stance of non-cooperation with the central teams despatched to Kolkata to monitor the state governments management of the infection.

What makes Dhankar so outspoken?

A noted Supreme Court advocate, Dhankar has interpreted his gubernatorial duties seriously and aggressively.

He said he was getting disturbing reports about the states public distribution system, coronavirus-linked fatalities, and the condition of health workers.

"Dhankar actively supports the Centres point and the BJPs agenda. This situation unfolds just a year before the assembly polls in the state, a political observer said.

Dhankars affiliation with the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is relatively new.

He served as Lok Sabha MP from 1989 to 1991 as a member of the Janata Dal.

Being a Jat, he had developed a good rapport with former deputy prime minister Devi Lal and former PM V P Singh.

His nomination as a Lok Sabha candidate came after Devi Lal's strong recommendation.

Interestingly, despite Devi Lal playing a central role in edging out Chandra Shekhar in favour of V P Singh for PM in 1989, Chandra Ahekhar appointed Dhankar as MoS parliamentary affairs (1990-91).

Dhankar maintained a good relationship with former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat also (a Mercedes and other vehicles in his garage were kept at Shekhawats disposal for his political campaign).

He was a Congress MLA from Kishangarh (Rajasthan) from 1993 to 1998.

Political analysts say though he was never a mass leader, his networking skills, especially his friendship with former finance minister Arun Jaitley, led to his appointment as West Bengal governor.

The turning point in his political career was the Ajmer Sharif Dargah blast case.

Some members of the RSS and the Vishva Hindu Parishad were accused.

"A central team was formed by the organisation to defend and monitor the case.

"Bhupendra Yadav was given a key role and Dhankar helped him legally from behind the scenes," said a former member of the RSS.

Yadav, a Rajya Sabha member from Rajasthan, was also government counsel for the Liberhan Commission, set up to probe the demolition of Babri Masjid.

It was thought that Dhankars experience and connections in the Supreme Court would be helpful.

In Rajasthan, he was known for his criminal law practice and was the youngest president of the Rajasthan High Court Bar Association.

He was one of Salman Khans lawyers in the controversial blackbuck hunting case in Jodhpur.

He was part of a student delegation that went to Russia on the invitation of the youth wing of the Russian Communist Party in the 1970s.

Jaitley represented the RSS's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad there. Thats how they first met.

Randeep Dhankar, his brother, is in the Congress and is considered the right hand man of Ashok Gehlot, chief minister of Rajasthan.

One of his more controversial statements was that the Mahabharatas key character Arjunas arrows were fitted with nuclear power. Guess who Arjuna is, in this parallel!

Recently in a letter to the governor, Banerjee quoted the Sarkaria Commission's recommendations and observations to argue that the governor had no powers compared to the elected government.

Dhankar will be in the drivers seat if the Trinamool Congress performs below par in the elections next year.
Asela E. Gejo had a way of capturing the attention of children. Between educating students as a teachers aide at Bond Street School in Asbury Park to telling stories to her grandchildren about her escape from Cuba in 1962, she always captivated her audience.

Gejo fled from Cuba after working there as a teacher for 18 years, and after relocating to New Jersey, she continued as an educator before retiring in 1992.

Her work and life inspired her granddaughter, Laura Tracey, to follow in her footsteps as a teacher.

On Traceys desk in her third-grade classroom at George L. Catrambone School in Long Branch site a gold-plated bell, which was presented to her grandmother upon her retirement. Tracey keeps it there as a symbol of her goals while teaching.

I just think of all that she was and all that she stood for," Tracey said. "And I just admire her so much, and she had so many great qualities that I would love to instill in my students and have them instill in theirs and just keep sending her message forward.

When I look at my grandmothers bell, I feel proud and honored to share a bloodline with such a great educator and such a wonderful person.

Gejo died from complications of the coronavirus on April 27, succumbing to COVID-19 at the age of 92. Tracey last saw her grandmother on March 13, the final day visitors were allowed at The Chelsea Assisted Living in Shrewsbury before coronavirus restrictions locked down the nursing home.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Gejo spent the final weeks of her life alone, limited to interactions with staff at the facility. Since she moved to the nursing home in 2013, Traceys mother, Mirta Anderson, the oldest of Gejos four children, visited every morning, Monday through Friday.

My grandmother would sit by the front door and wait for my mothers visit, Tracey said. So knowing that my grandmother was there waiting for my mother, and no one was going to arrive for her was crushing.

Due to ongoing restrictions from the pandemic, the family was not been able to hold a proper funeral.

Gejo was predeceased by her husband, Ariel Gejo, who escaped Cuba with her. One of their children, Ariel Gejo, Jr., also died in 2018. Nurses told Asela Gejos family that the Friday before she died, she was simply asking to be with her son again.

Tracey and one of her two sons also contracted the coronavirus, and the two dealt with symptoms for a few weeks before recovering. After initially thinking they had a cold, the second week of symptoms brought chills and body shakes. They took a test, but by the time they got the positive result five days later, the major symptoms had subsided.

Even while sick, Tracey continued to teach remotely with students shifted to virtual learning.

Tracey chose her career path in teaching after graduating from Rider University and briefly working at the Asbury Park Press. An epiphany led her to earn her masters degree from Monmouth University, reinventing her professional life in honor of Gejo.

The key to teaching is communicating with my students, getting to really know them, who they are as people, Tracey said. When I teach them, I really feel like its so important to know who they are first, and my grandmother was very much the same way. And she would tell me stories through the years about her students, and she really seemed to know them well. And I think that was the biggest influence for me.

Tracey said Gejo had a good life in Cuba before the rise of Fidel Castro, prompting her and her husband to take their three children to the United States in pursuit of a better life. After traveling from Cuba to Miami to New Jersey, Gejos credentials wouldnt allow her to be a regular teacher in her new home, despite 18 years of experience in Cuba.

She was more than content to continue helping kids as a teachers aide in Asbury Park. Being in a classroom was Gejos true calling.

Her dedication continues to be at the center of Traceys mission in her own career.

I am proud to have followed in my grandmothers footsteps, Tracey said. I cannot think of a job that is more rewarding than teaching. I know that I will continue to honor her legacy by teaching skillfully and passionately.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Chris Ryan may be reached at cryan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisRyan_NJ.
- There have been reported cases of flooding in Nyanza region especially areas near Lake Victoria

- The increased human activity characterised with deforestation have largely played a role in the floods

- The siltation of the lake due to lack of crop cover along river has led to a decrease in the depth of the lake

- Heavy rainfall in the region has also contributed greatly to the flooding as water levels increase

The heavy rains pounding most parts of the country has been both a blessing and pain to Kenyans.

Nyanza region in this case has been a victim of floods linked to unusually rising water levels in Lake Victoria.

READ ALSO: Funza huenda ameila ndoa ya Willis Raburu hadi kuipasua vipande

A section of Homa Bay pier market submerged in water of Lake Victoria posing a threat to the fisherfolk. Photo: Naomi Akoth

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Coronavirus: UN warns of severe food shortage due to COVID-19

The heavy rains have caused an imbalance between the inflow and outflow to the mass water body causing floods across riparian regions in Nyanza from Busia and Migori counties.

The same effect has been felt in riparian areas in Tanzania and Uganda.

Executive secretary of Lake Victoria Basin Commission, Ali Said Matano, said the major causes of the floods that have left thousands homeless is the high water levels in Lake Victoria.

In an exclusive interview with TUKO.co.ke, Matano said the lakes current elevation level was at 1134m above mean sea level.

This means any area lying below this level will experience floods because the water will stagnate to match this elevation level.

The amount of water in Lake Victoria has increased significantly leads to floods in neighbouring regions. Photo: Naomi Akoth

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Break up?: TV anchor Willis Raburu, wife Marya Prude reportedly separate months after losing newborn

He said another cause of flooding is the excess inflow from rivers feeding the lake.

He cited, increased backflows from Rivers Nzoia, Nyando, Migori, Kuja, Yala and Sondu as a contributor to increasing volume of the waters in the lake.

The flooding has gradually increased courtesy of rainfall that commenced in October, 2019 across the regions close to the lake, Matano told TUKO.co.ke.

According to the expert, the increased volume of water has been caused by imbalance between the lakes inflow which is 80% precipitation (rainfall) and 20% from rivers versus outflows which are primarily at 76% evaporation and 24% to the White Nile.

The lake has 17 inlets and White Nile as the only outlet. Small changes in inflow cause an imbalance. For example, the current over-precipitation has caused imbalance that have resulted to floods, said Matano.

The Homa Bay pier in Lake Victoria. Photo: Naomi Akoth

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Nandi man stabs NIS officer, landlord to death during fight with his wife

However, he said the water-holding capacity of the lake had not changed, but the inflow from rivers and from rainfall had increased significantly thus the situation.

Christopher Aura, gg deputy director, Freshwater System Research, Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) said Lake Victoria was not the only lake experiencing this imbalance.

According to Aura, Lake Erie in United States was facing the same situation.

Aura said increased precipitation caused by the climate change initiated minimal level of water accumulation into the lake bed or soil, causing the level of water to increase.

All this may be attributed to climate change that is currently being experienced in the country caused by global warming, Aura said.

A tower that has been affected by floods in Lake Victoria. Photo: Naomi Akoth

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Tecra Muigai's boyfriend arrested in Lamu as police launch probe into her death

The marine expert explained that filtration caused by numerous human activities upstream had increased the lakes bed causing the water level to rise.

The increasing water level to the lake translates to accumulation of water on the land since there is minimal outflow of water from the lake.

This makes the land surrounding the lake to be more saturated hence making it difficult for the water to flow out of the lake hence causing floods, Aura said.

Chairperson of Magnam Environmental Network, Michael Otieno Nyaguti, said the ongoing rainfall can be compared to El Nino rainfalls of 1997 that had a similar effect on the lake water levels.

Otieno, who was born near the lake, said whenever the water level rises, there has been increased breeding of fish in riparian wetlands.

Today when one takes a walk around the lake, fish breeding in the grass outside the lake is a normal scene and in some areas people and particularly children fish using hooks, Otieno said.

READ ALSO: Stivo Simple Boy hilariously caught in the middle of Nigeria vs Uganda online battle

He observed the ecosystem enables multiplication of various fish species like tilapia, lung fish and mud fish.

At the rivers mouths there are currently plenty of riverine fish like Okoko, Sire and Ningu (luo names), he said.

Otieno said the current situation had pushed fishermen to fish at night because the weather contributed to low catch and a risk in movement across the lake.

Reasons for rise in lake water levels vary from climate change to over siltation of the rivers and water bodies due to deforestation of the hilltops surrounding Lake Victoria and both the Mau Escarpment and Cherangany Hills, he added.

He explained that river water had been coloured with sediments washed away downstream resulting in coloured lake water in areas where the lake is shallow like Winam Gulf.

The shoreline is now shallow due to deposit of hilltop runoff.

In some areas, sand harvesting from the lake is replacing fishing with many residents being involved in the prohibited activity using boats.

The rains and change in weather has made transport across the lake and contributes to accidents like the recent capsizing of a water bus in the lake.

Boats using sails and engine-propelled boats manned by inexperienced coxswains are more prone to capsizing. Over-loading of vessels is another contributing factor to capsizing, the chairman said.

The trio agreed that rains may not be controlled but floods can be controlled by replanting settlements areas from the riparian zones, enactment of dykes and construction of holding dams and most importantly, proper watershed management.

Story By: Naomi Akoth, TUKO Correspondent, Homa Bay

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
New Delhi, May 4 : As Irrfan Khan's career in Hollywood was picking up, he was identified to play India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru during the final days of the British Empire and the partition of the sub-continent in 1947 but the project fell through largely due to the Indian government's nitpicking with the script and cost overruns.

Irrfan was approached by the British director Joe Wright (Anoushka Shankar's husband) to play Nehru in "Indian Summer", based on Alex von Tunzelmann's similarly titled book, the actor's biographer, Aseem Chhabra, writes in "Irrfan Khan, The Man, The Dreamer, The Star" (Rupa).

The film was also supposed to explore the rumoured affair between Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten. Cate Blanchett would play Lady Mountbatten and Hugh Grant was offered the role of her husband, Lord Mountbatten. Everything spoke of this being a prestigious project, including that Joe Wright ("Pride & Prejudice" (2005) and "Atonement" (2007) would direct it. The film was scheduled to release in 2011.

"Generations of Indian actors have dreamed of playing Jawaharlal Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi but only a few have had the opportunity. Naturally Irrfan was excited about being cast in the role even when he had no physical resemblance to Nehru. He addressed that concern in an interview: 'I'll turn myself into the character through my attitude.

When I was just out of NSD I had played Lenin at the age of 21. It made me realize my potential and direction as an actor," Irrfan said.

There were, however, delays, the first of which was the Indian government's demand to approve the entire script. "There was even a promise from the director that he would not show any kissing between Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten" but the film's budget shot up to an estimated $30-$40 million. And finally the project was shelved.

"We were in between a rock and a hard place,' Joe Wright told Variety." The Indian government wanted us to make less of the love story while the studio (Universal) wanted us to make more of the love story." Hugh Grant and Cate Blanchett would have moved on since they could focus on other Hollywood and western projects. "But actors too are human beings and Irrfan Khan had just begun to get prime projects in the West. The cancellation of "Indian Summer" must have disappointed him hugely," Chhabra writes.

"But Irrfan had learnt to move on, perhaps from the time when he had faced his first rejection for Mira Nair's "Salaam Bombay". It helped that he kept getting interesting as well as challenging projects, especially in India, that gave him grounds to redefine his image as well as have fun as an actor," the book says.

The actor, who had already made a mark in Hollywood with films like "The Namesake", "Life of Pi" and "Slumdog Millionaire", also turned down a few lucrative offers, most significant was when he said 'no' to Ridley Scott's "The Martian" (2015).

Instead, he opted for a charming, quiet love story - "Piku" (also released in 2015) - where he also got a chance to play the love interest (in the most un-Hindi film way) of Deepika Padukone, and co-star with Amitabh Bachchan.

"He was in two minds about what to do, and he kept asking me," "Piku" director Shoojit Sircar says, adding that the dates for the two films clashed. "I was thinking, possibly for him, who is Shoojit Sircar? He's nobody as compared to a Hollywood director." "Shoojit gave him the choice to select whatever he wanted to do. And all the while Irrfan knew he could only do one film. Shoojit even offered to move his dates. But finally Irrfan said no to Ridley Scott.

He obviously gave up a small but high-paying job. The role of Vincent Kapoor went to the British-Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejifor. But Irrfan made the right choice, since "Piku" heralded the beginning of a string of romantic comedy Hindi films in which he would play the lead role," Chhabra writes.

Irrfan did meet with Ridley Scott and the director told him that he had seen "The Lunchbox". Irrfan later told the press that this was the second time he had been offered a role by the Hollywood director and producer. The first, "Body of Lies" (2008) had Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead. But again Irrfan had to say no because the timing did not work out.

Irrfan also said no to Steven Spielberg one time. "It was a chance for him to act as Scarlett Johansson's love interest. But he was concerned that the film did not offer enough acting opportunity to his character. Perhaps he was being careful after getting a miniscule role in "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012).

However, Irrfan's biggest regret was missing out on the Christopher Nolan film, "Interstellar" (2014), for which he was expected to stay in the US for four months at a stretch.

"He did try to work out the schedule. And he even thought of shuttling between India and the US. But that was not working out for the 'Interstellar' team. And Irrfan was keen to stay in India to work on "The Lunchbox" (2013) and "D-Day" (2013)," Chhabra writes.

"I don't have a tendency to regret what I do, but knowing it's a Christopher Nolan film, I can say that this has been one of the most difficult decisions I've made," Irrfan would later say.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
UK shops would have suffered food shortages during the pandemic without the EU single market, a senior Brussels official says.

In explosive comments, Margaritis Schinas said Britain was fortunate it had not crashed out of the bloc when coronavirus struck  even as Boris Johnson vows to do just that in December, if necessary.

It was only the close economic ties of the single market that kept our supermarkets stocked during these difficult times, the vice-president of the European Commission argued.

He said: I think its quite fortunate that the United Kingdom goes through the pandemic with the certainty of being part of the single market.

I dont want to think what would have happened if the UK would have been subject to the crisis having been out of the single market, as the cliff edge exit could have implied.

The prime minister has put the UK on the path to that cliff edge, at the end of the year, by refusing to extend the post-Brexit transition period  even with trade talks deadlocked and both sides focused on fighting the pandemic.

Instead, Michael Gove is training up to 50,000 form-fillers who will be needed to complete customs declarations for firms which will be required once trade barriers are erected.

Even if a skeleton trade deal is struck, leaving the single market and customs union will leave businesses in a very similar situation to a no-deal Brexit, they say.

Asked, by BBC News, if the UK would have fared even worse from Covid-19 without the transition period, Mr Schinas replied: Absolutely.

Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Show all 18 1 /18 Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, wearing PPE before going into rooms Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, speaks to a carer at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Carers working at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care worker wearing PPE opens a drink carton Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, sits with a carer Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care staff member wearing PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home looks after a resident SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE uses a speaker Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer helps Jack Dodsley, 79, from his chair Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE helps Jack Dodsley, 79 Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer brings food to a resident at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member puts on PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, puts on PPE before she enters a room SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A bench at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS

Pointing to food flows continuing, despite the pandemic, he argued: This is precisely because the single market makes sure that this happens.

On prospects for a trade deal, he added: We are hopeful that we can have the outlook of a future agreement by 1 January.

Although supermarkets ran short of key items including eggs, flour and toilet rolls at the start of the crisis, the problems have since eased and stocks are said to be normal.

At one point, George Eustice, the environment secretary, boasted that the government had kept cross-Channel trade flowing  even as it prepares to erect barriers from December.

The UK has insisted a trade deal with the EU can be agreed by December, but has also insisted Brussels must abandon its red lines on fishing rights and rules on worker, consumer and environmental rights.

It leaves the two sides on course for a full breakdown of the talks by the end of next month  the deadline for requesting a transition extension, should Mr Johnson carry out a U-turn.

No 10 has previously said it will begin full-scale preparations for a no-deal in December if progress has not been made by the end of June.
The global death toll from the coronavirus is more than 247,000 with more than 3.5 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.

Georgia

Two major cities in Georgia, Batumi and Kutaisi, will lift the lockdowns imposed on them in mid-April to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.

Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia said on May 4 that the restrictions will be lifted the next day, adding that two other major cities in the South Caucasus country, Tbilisi, the capital, and Rustavi, may have their restrictions lifted by the end of the week.

Gakharia explained that lifting the restrictions meant that vehicles will be allowed to enter and exit the cities, though the nationwide curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. will remain until further notice.

Earlier on May 4, health authorities in Georgia said that four more individuals had tested positively for the coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 593, including nine deaths.

Serbia

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic says general elections delayed by the coronavirus pandemic will be held on June 21.

The parliamentary and local elections were originally scheduled for April 26 but were put on hold after a nationwide state of emergency was declared in mid-March.

Vucic made the announcement after meeting with leaders of political parties on May 4.

Vucic has said his government will lift the state of emergency later this week after a decrease in the number of new coronavirus cases in the country.

He said on TV Pink on May 3 that parliament would vote on May 6 to end the state of emergency.

The Balkan country has enforced since March 15 some of the strictest lockdown measures in Europe as part of the state of emergency, including border closures and nightly and weekend curfews.

Vucic said that two conditions for restrictions to end had been met: Infections declining to under 5 percent of tests for seven days in a row, and there were significantly fewer people on respirators.

Serbia has recorded over 9,500 coronavirus cases and 197 deaths as of May 4, according to official figures.

From May 4, bus and rail services are allowed but passengers will be required to wear face masks and no air conditioning is allowed.

Shopping malls, cafes, and restaurants will also reopen with social-distancing and hygiene measures in place.

Small shops were allowed to reopen in late April.

Opposition parties have indicated they will boycott the elections over accusations that there will not be a level playing field for the campaign.

Serbian independent media have repeatedly complained of being pressured by officials and have accused the government of fueling an atmosphere of intolerance toward journalists.

Vucic, who has vowed to lead Serbia toward European Union membership while also developing ties with China and traditional ally Russia, has been accused of curbing media freedoms and democracy.

Vucic has denied the accusations.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Balkan and Georgian services, AP, and AFP
A court in Yerevan allowed law-enforcement bodies on Sunday to arrest a wealthy businessman and son of Armenias arrested former Finance Minister Gagik Khachatrian who has accused the government of seeking to illegally dispossess his family.

However, Gurgen Khachatrian was not immediately arrested and his whereabouts remained unknown as of Monday evening.

The Khachatrian family has extensive business interests. The most important of its assets is Ucom, one of the countrys three mobile phone operators and largest Internet and cable TV provider.

The ex-ministers two sons and a nephew own a combined 77 percent of the Ucom stock. Gurgen Khachatrian is also the chairman of the companys board of directors.

In an April 28 statement, he claimed that high-ranking Armenian officials have threatened to arrest him if he and his brother refuse to cede control of Ucom and another major IT firm at a knockdown price. Ucom is not for sale, neither is our dignity, he said.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian was quick to respond to the claim, saying through a spokeswoman that Khachatrian and his relatives must return hundreds of millions dollars stolen from the people.She said relevant authorities will allow the Khachatrians to sell their Ucom stake only if they agree to transfer all proceeds from such a deal to the government.

Khachatrians lawyers said afterwards that the National Security Service (NSS) has brought new criminal charges against him. In particular, they said, he now stands accused of assisting in bribery.

The lawyers confirmed that the accusation is connected to the arrest late last month of Sedrak Arustamian, the top manager of companies belonging to another wealthy businessman, Gagik Tsarukian.

The NSS claims that Arustamian had paid Gagik Khachatrian a $22.4 million bribe to ensure privileged treatment of those companies by tax authorities. It says that the payment took the form of two bogus loans provided to the former minister who was arrested on corruption charges last August.

Both Arustamian and the Khachatrian family insist that the massive cash transfer was a commercial transaction, not a bribe. One of the lawyers representing the family, Yerem Sargsian, told RFE/RLs Armenian service at the weekend that the ex-ministers sons had borrowed the hefty sum to buy real estate abroad. He did not go into details.

In what appeared to a related development, NSS officers raided the Ucom headquarters in Yerevan on Saturday. They also searched the home and the car of the companys new executive and confiscated his laptop computer.

The security service did not comment on the searches. Aram Orbelian, a lawyer for the Ucom CEO, alleged that they are part of broader government efforts to nationalize the company employing 1,800 people or hand it over to another person in gross violation of property rights guaranteed by Armenian law.

The NSS also summoned Gurgen Khachatrians wife and mother for questioning. Both women reportedly refused to testify as witnesses.

Meanwhile, Khachatrian issued a written statement shortly before the court allowed the NSS to hold him in detention pending investigation. The Ucom chairman decried the illegal criminal proceedings and said he has no intention to get involved in these processes as a prisoner and thereby contribute to further illegalities.

Sargsian confirmed on Monday afternoon that Khachatrian has not been arrested yet. But he declined to clarify whether his client has fled Armenia or gone into hiding inside the country. Khachatrian was banned from travelling abroad after being first indicted in January.

Gurgen Khachatrian is prepared to present himself before the investigating body at any moment if its actions are brought back to the legal field, said the lawyer.
Recently, a Connecticut police department backed out of a program that would have used drones to monitor whether citizens show signs of COVID-19 infection, but the company behind the tech says other local pilot programs are in the works.Westport Police Department decided against participating in the Flatten the Curve Pilot two days after announcing its intention to test new drone technology from company Draganfly. According to a news release from Draganfly, the drone uses a specialized sensor and computer vision systems that can detect fever, measure heart and respiratory rates, and identify whether people are coughing, sneezing or practicing social distancing. The drone can reportedly do all of this from up to 190 feet away. Facial recognition, however, isnt part of the equation.According to the press release announcing the Westport project, such drones wouldnt be used around private yards, but they would help monitor beaches, train stations, parks and recreation areas, and shopping centers. Westport Police Chief Foti Koskinas said COVID-19 has ushered in an age where drones need to be utilized for public safety.Westport and its first responder network is one of the most progressive public safety advocates in the nation, Koskinas said in the release. They are real pioneers when it comes to adopting and integrating new technology to protect its community.During a phone call with, Westport Police Department confirmed that it wanted to be transparent about its intention to use Draganflys drones, with the expectation that the public would make its feelings known upon learning about the program.The department indeed received both positive and negative feedback. Not wanting to divide the community of Westport, the agency canceled the project after discussing the issue with Westport First Selectman Jim Marpe, who noted in the follow-up press release that some citizens perhaps misinterpreted the thrust of the pilot.Although I see the greater potential of this technology, I will always be responsive and respectful of the concerns of our citizens in every decision that I make, Koskinas said in the release. reported that the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut criticized the Westport pilot as a chance for Draganfly to market their products and create future business opportunities.Any new surveillance measure that isnt being advocated for by public health professionals and restricted solely for public health use should be promptly rejected, said David McGuire, executive director of ACLU of Connecticut, as reported by, and we are naturally skeptical of towns announcing these kinds of partnerships without information about who is operating the drones, what data they will collect, or how, or if that data will be stored, shared or sold.Despite the setback for Draganfly, CEO Cameron Chell told that the company has two more pilots lined up. Both pilots would be in the private sector, though Chell added that Draganfly has gotten requests from other jurisdictions in the public sector. Chell also remarked that initial testing in Westford showed promise.The technology worked in a real-world environment, Chell told. So that was successful. We were able to get very good operational social distancing data. And the working relationship between the public safety officials and us was also a success.Local areas in the United States have started using drones to specifically respond to COVID-19 in recent weeks . The main use case has been issuing public service announcements about social distancing via drone loudspeakers, but departments are experimenting in other ways, such as sending drones to conduct visual investigations in homes where people have died of COVID-19.
Callum Boyd lost his hair following six months of chemotherapy. (Supplied)

A cancer survivor has revealed how his GP repeatedly dismissed his tell-tale symptoms.

Callum Boyd noticed a swelling in his neck in December 2016 while in his final year at Durham University.

Dismissing it as just stress, the then 21-year-old soon developed night sweats, extreme fatigue and a lumpy neck.

Read more: BBC presenter with 'incurable cancer' is free of the disease

Despite alarming blood tests, his GP dismissed his symptoms as glandular fever and told him to rest.

Boyds sister, then a junior doctor, suspected something sinister and insisted he be seen by a specialist.

In April 2017, he was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkin lymphoma  tumours that develop in the lymphatic system  and began six months of chemotherapy.

Now in remission, 24-year-old Boyd is forced to self-isolate entirely amid the coronavirus outbreak.

I looked well so my GP thought it couldnt be serious

Boyd began to feel unwell while completing his French and History course.

I was busy, a typical final-year student, he told Yahoo UK.

When Boyd went home to Chester for the Christmas holidays, he noticed a swelling in his neck.

I was always a bit run down at the end of term, he said. I had a cold and a sore throat so I wasnt too concerned.

By the end of January, back in Durham, things had taken a turn for the worse.

I felt really really under the weather, said Boyd.

I had a high fever and felt absolutely exhausted.

I noticed the lump again, it felt really sore and tender, and I noticed a few more swellings in my neck.

Then I developed drenching night sweats. I would wake up in the night soaking wet, which is really unusual for me.

Read more: ESPN reporter who died at 34 didnt know he had non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Boyd confided in his sister, who was training to be a doctor on an oncology ward.

She said, Im actually really worried, you should get seen, said Boyd.

Unable to get a GP appointment for two weeks, the student went to an out of hours clinic.

Story continues

The doctor was equally concerned, but said the way the system worked was tests had to be done by my GP, said Boyd.

Managing to see his GP sooner, blood tests came back as really concerning.

My GP thought I looked relatively well so it couldnt be that serious, said Boyd.

The doctor thought I was the right age for glandular fever.

I was told to go and recover at home.

After being urged to push for a diagnosis by his sister, Boyd spent the next few weeks going back and forth to the doctors surgery, pestering the GP.

Eventually his mother travelled to Durham to attend an appointment with him, telling the GP: Im not leaving this room until my son gets a referral.

Boyd during his first round of treatment in April 2017. (Supplied)

Boyd saw a haematologist at a Chester hospital at the end of March.

After various blood tests, scans and a biopsy, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma.

Speaking of hearing the news, Boyd said: You get to the point where cancer becomes the most likely answer.

As you go down the tunnel of diagnoses in oncology and haematology departments, you know where its going.

My haematologist had said, It might be Hodgkin lymphoma. If it is I will come up with a treatment plan and treat you.

Around 2,100 new cases of Hodgkin lymphoma are diagnosed every year in the UK, with most in the 75-to-79 age group.

In the US, 8,480 people are expected to be told they have the disease in 2020.

Read more: The cancers on the rise - and the decline - in the UK

With the cancer having spread to his chest, abdomen and spleen, Boyd began a fortnightly regimen of chemotherapy.

I felt rotten; really really tired, he said.

I had problems with nausea initially. I was told I was immunocompromised so I had a really high risk of infection just stepping out the door. I lost my hair.

I had the full package of side effects.

Boyd finished his chemotherapy in October. After a scan the following month, he was given the all-clear that December.

Throughout the ordeal, the student managed to keep up his studies and graduated with a 2.1 degree.

Moving home for treatment, however, took its toll.

I was miles away from all my friends so socialising was off the cards, said Boyd.

Even colds could make me really unwell.

I managed to keep in touch remotely. As I moved into 2018 my major priority was doing the normal things  going for dinner, going to birthday parties.

Cancer doesn't stop for COVID

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Boyd is being forced to self-isolate again.

He makes up one of the 1.5 million vulnerable Britons who received a letter telling them to self-shield.

It is very very precautionary, he said.

I imagine my blood count is always a little bit lower so Im more vulnerable to infections.

Boyd, who lived in London while working for the Wellcome Trust charity, has temporarily moved back in with his parents.

Having been through isolation before, he feels more resilient this time round.

Everyones in the same boat at the moment, said Boyd.

One of the big challenges [of isolating for cancer treatment] is feeling youre being left behind, which today is less of a thing.

After everything he has been through, Boyd is speaking out to encourage others to trust their body if something seems off.

You know your body better than anyone else, he said. Youve got to persist [with the doctor] and trust your body.

Boyd is also supporting the Teenage Cancer Trusts #BestToCheck campaign.

Protecting the NHS [amid the coronavirus outbreak] means being seen sooner rather than later, he said.

Even in my few months of delay in getting referred, my cancer had spread.

COVID wont disappear overnight, weve got to adapt longer term.

Cancer doesn't stop for COVID.

COVID-19 is the respiratory disease that can be triggered by the coronavirus.

Government officials have urged the public to continue using the NHS after a worrying rise in non-coronavirus related deaths.

Every day around seven young people aged 13-to-24 are diagnosed with cancer in the UK, said Dr Louise Soanes from the Teenage Cancer Trust.

We know that across all age groups, cancer referrals have fallen by as much as 75% during the coronavirus pandemic, and with the anecdotal evidence weve gathered, we fear many 13-to-24 year olds will be deterred from contacting their GP, not wanting to add pressure to the health service.

We know cancer can be harder to treat if its not diagnosed early, but young people can be slower to visit their GP with symptoms. It can also take longer for them to be referred to specialist.

Thats why putting off an appointment will make things harder for the NHS in the long term.

The health service is still very much open and wants to support you.

Donate to the Teenage Cancer Trust here.
For our free coronavirus pandemic coverage, learn more here.

Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Health Secretary Matt Hancock was midway through a radio interview when the phone call came through live to air. On the line was Intisar Chowdhury, whose father Abdul had made a prescient public plea to Boris Johnson in late March. Through a Facebook post, the 53-year-old consultant urologist for a London hospital had urged the Prime Minister to make sure every health worker in Britain would be given protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic. Abdul Mabud Chowdhury died just three weeks later, after contracting the disease. In his phone call, the doctor's grieving son asked for answers and an apology: "The public is not expecting the government to handle this perfectly," he told Hancock. "We just want you to openly acknowledge that there have been mistakes in handling the virus, especially to me and to so many families that have really lost loved ones as a result of this virus and probably as a result of the government not handling it seriously enough." Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, a consultant urologist at Homerton Hospital, died weeks after pleading with the government to provide PPE for healthcare workers. Chowdhury seemingly spoke on behalf of a growing chorus of health experts, MPs and members of the public who think Britain's response to the crisis has suffered from a series of deadly mistakes and miscalculations. The charges focus on four areas: that healthcare workers struggled to access personal protective equipment, that Britain was too slow to implement a lockdown, that it bungled testing, and that vulnerable care home residents were not properly protected. Downing Street and key ministers such as Hancock have been reluctant to concede many errors, although their tone has shifted over recent days as the official death toll hit 28,446, one of the highest in the world and well above the 20,000 figure Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance once said the government hoped to not exceed.

Advertisement

Says Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an adviser to the World Health Organisation: "The countries that moved fast have curtailed the epidemic. The countries that delayed have not. It's as simple as that." Dr Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet medical journal, is even more damning: "The handling of the COVID-19 crisis in the UK is the most serious science policy failure in a generation." Hancock and Johnson had their first discussion together about the virus on January 7. The government's crisis committee, COBRA, would meet several times over the following weeks and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies started crunching the numbers. The government knew a threat existed but did it fully understand just how bad it could get? By March 12 a full-scale outbreak had taken hold in Italy and the illness was spreading across Europe. More than 1000 Italians had already died and thousands more were gravely ill in packed hospitals in the country's hard-hit north. The deadly potential of an invisible killer was becoming more obvious by the hour. That day, Johnson announced Britain would move from the "contain" phase of the emergency to the "delay" phase. This decision would prove a pivotal moment. The shift meant contact tracing would be abandoned, and testing would be restricted to those only in hospital with symptoms. The move was at odds with the WHO, which urged countries to "test, test, test", as well as Germany's much-lauded program of mass testing. The Prime Minister warned at the March 12 press conference that the "worst public health crisis for a generation" was about to hit the country and that "many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time".

Advertisement

What he did not announce was a lockdown. Or anything close to it. Tougher measures would come but not yet, Johnson said, citing the need to introduce measures when they would have the most impact. But his chief scientific adviser also cast serious doubt on whether closing schools, banning mass gatherings or stopping international flights would ever be effective levers to pull. Instead, Brits were encouraged to wash their hands and stay home for seven days if they had symptoms. Schools remained open, restaurants and bars traded as usual, and visitors were still allowed into care homes. Flights were arriving from mainland China, even though Australia had banned them six weeks earlier. Heaving public events were still allowed. A Champions League match in Liverpool drew a crowd of 52,000, about 3000 of whom came from Madrid, where a partial lockdown was already in force. More than 250,000 tickets were sold for the Cheltenham horse racing festival. Both events are now being investigated by health officials who suspect they may have contributed to the rapid spread of the disease in the areas surrounding the venues. Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a March 16 press conference. Credit:Bloomberg By March 16, the government's advice abruptly strengthened. People were told to stay away from pubs, theatres and clubs, to avoid non-essential travel and to work from home if possible, although the orders were not yet mandatory. Why the sudden change? The government had just been handed a bombshell piece of research by scientists from Imperial College London warning that taking a light-touch approach to the virus would cause 250,000 deaths in Britain and overwhelm the National Health Service (NHS). Any hope of defeating the virus by building "herd immunity" in the community was smashed. The only way to prevent 250,000 deaths was through draconian measures, the researchers concluded. Even then, Johnson would not put Britain into lockdown until one week later on March 23. By that point, many other European countries with a much smaller death toll had already been locked down. Says David Hunter, an Australian-educated professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Oxford: "It's very easy in hindsight to state the obvious, which is that the lockdown came too late.

Advertisement

"The British response so far is not a model to follow. It has one of the worst epidemics in Europe and the world. That may have happened anyway. There's no way to know for sure, but some aspects of the response have almost certainly contributed to the high mortality." A former Australian high commissioner to Britain, Mike Rann, says crucial mistakes were made right when they had the most damaging impact: "The earliest stages were handled negligently," Rann says. "A shambles of mixed messaging, poor organisation and a complacent attitude that what was happening in Italy wouldn't happen here." Loading Hunter says border closures in Australia and New Zealand stood in stark contrast to Britain, which only briefly imposed restrictions on people flying in from Wuhan. Even today, the few passengers still arriving in Britain are under no obligation to self-isolate. "Good public health practice would be to, if not close the borders, then at least have some sort of mandatory self-isolation for people coming in during the very early stages of the pandemic," Hunter says. "The reasons why the UK did not do it are unclear. Australia, albeit at a different stage of the epidemic, has been highly successful in closing its border, as has New Zealand, and that has almost certainly played a role in the much much lower number of cases." Arrivals at Heathrow Airport were half what they normally were in March but still, 3.1 million landed there over the month. Nearly half a million came from the Asia-Pacific; 875,000 were from the European Union, and 711,000 came from North America.

Advertisement

Home Secretary Priti Patel supported a ban on travellers who had been in hotspots but was slapped down by Downing Street, which cited scientific advice that doing so would have little impact on the spread of the infection. When this spat was under way, Australia's borders had already been closed for a week to all foreign travellers. Australia banned flights from China as early as February 1. The decision on March 12 to abandon mass testing meant the government could only guess who was infected with the virus and how it was behaving. Government experts at one point estimated as many as 55,000 people had contracted coronavirus, even though there were just 2000 confirmed cases. The extent of its spread would not become obvious until hospitals started to fill with seriously ill patients. A patient is taken from an ambulance outside St Thomas' Hospital in London. Credit:AP Of the few tests that were available, the results were initially processed by a small number of government-run laboratories. Private sector labs and universities offered to help but now say they were given the cold shoulder before the government eventually embraced them as the answer to ramping up testing. Nobel prize-winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse told the BBC's Question Time program that testing was "absolutely critical and hasn't been handled properly". "We know that with this particular disease, you can be infected and have no symptoms. Now, this makes absolutely no sense. We were allowing, potentially, for front-line workers to be on the wards, potentially infecting people, because we weren't testing." Nurse, who is the director of Britains largest biomedical research lab, the Francis Crick Institute, likens the addition of private facilities to the flotilla of small boats that rescued British soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk and says their call-up was long overdue.

Advertisement
That story means everything, Garza said. Yes we do need to put it all on the line, but bigger than that we need to change the rules that are rigged. I think we will have a rude awakening in November 2020 if we do not get very intentional about Democratic priorities.
By Aisha Jabbarova

President Ilham Aliyev has said Azerbaijan has been able to prevent mass spread of COVID-19 due to the measures taken in the country.

Aliyev made the remarks during the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) held in the format of a Contact Group via videoconference on May 4. The summit was held under the motto "United against COVID-19" and the chairmanship of President Aliyev.

As a result of all the measures taken in the country, it has been possible to prevent mass infections. Over the past three weeks, there has been a positive trend between the number of people infected and those recovering in Azerbaijan, the president said.

The head of state stressed that his administrations priority during the pandemic has been to protect residents health and ensure their social protection.

He also highlighted the work done to ensure economic stability in Azerbaijan during the pandemic, solve employment problems and maintain macroeconomic and financial stability, noting that a socioeconomic support package worth 3.5 billion manats ($2.06bn) had been allocated for this purpose.

Furthermore, the president called for global solidarity amid the COVID-19 outbreak, saying that we can overcome COVID-19 with mutual support, self-control and joint efforts only.

As an example of global solidarity as members of the Non-Aligned Movement, the head of state proposed to hold a special video conference of the UN General Assembly at the level of heads of state and government dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The summit was joined by heads of state and government from more than 40 member states as well as officials from the WHO, EU and UN.

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who joined the summit, gave a high assessment to Azerbaijan's support for the organization. He thanked the government and people of Azerbaijan for the financial support of the WHO in the amount of $5 million and expressed his gratitude to President Ilham Aliyev for providing an additional $5 million to the organization.

Furthermore, President of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande said that no country could overcome this difficulty on its own. As the United Nations, we are very pleased to support such initiatives and want to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We would also like to see inequality among all states and nations eliminated.

The event then featured a video address by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who said that with two-thirds of UN member states, the Non-Aligned Movement, has a critical role to play in forging global solidarity.

Emphasizing the importance of global solidarity and international cooperation in the fight against the pandemic, the Director-General said that efforts should focus on long-term multilateral action covering various areas at the level of society as a whole.

In a video address, the EU High Representative and European Commission Vice-President Josep Borrell said that COVID-19 showed how interconnected different parts of the world were and that it was a global call for awakening. He welcomed the Non-Aligned Movement's initiative to convene a summit, saying that defeating the pandemic required a global approach and coordinated response.

It should be noted that this was the second summit initiated by Azerbaijan on COVID-19. Azerbaijan chaired the Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States on COVID-19 on 10 April.

Azerbaijan, a nation of ten million, has registered 2,060 COVID-19 cases so far. Some 1,508 of the patients have recoveredand 26 people have died.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari, on Monday said 14 health workers are among the 75 total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state.

Mr Masari told journalists that out of these cases, six have been discharged from the isolation centre in the Federal Medical Centre, Katsina.

He said among the infected health workers, 10 were medical personnel from the Federal Medical Centre while the other four are from private clinics.

The governor said of the 37 recently confirmed cases, only one is from Daura while the others are from Katsina.

Lockdown on Emirs palace

On Monday, armed security personnel reportedly locked down the palace of the Emir of Daura following the violation of the physical distancing directive observed in the palace.

Thousands of residents had trooped to the emirs palace to receive some palliatives being distributed to cushion the effects of the lockdown.

On the development, the governor said there was nothing wrong with the action (lockdown) adding that it was done to check the spread of COVID.

He also said the government would strengthen the lockdown in Katsina and Daura as compliance was negligible.

He assured that the government would increase spots where residents can purchase food items and medicines and the government will also provide frontline health workers with protective items.

Mr Masari also appealed to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control to consider providing a testing centre in the state.
The Indian government has been criticised for charging stranded migrants, travelling by special trains to their home states, for the journey.

Millions of workers in the informal sector were rendered jobless after businesses across the country were closed following the implementation of a nationwide lockdown on March 25 in an attempt to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The first batch of migrants left the southern city of Hyderabad on May 1 for the eastern state of Jharkhand after the government last week allowed special interstate trains and buses to transport those who wanted to return to their villages in other states.

But it emerged that migrants were charged as much as 800 Indian rupees ($10.58) for the journey. A daily wage worker earns between 200 rupees and 400 rupees ($2.6-$5.3) a day.

Migrants were also asked to pay a surcharge of 50 rupees ($0.66) as buses run by the Karnataka government charged hefty ticket prices, according to reports in local media.

Congress party offers to pay fares

On Monday, Indias main opposition party Congress announced it will pay the migrants fare after Indians took to social media criticising the governments move, with hashtags #PMCaresFund and #Railways becoming top Twitter trends.

Our workers and labourers are the ambassadors of our nations growth, said Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a statement.

When our government can recognise its responsibility by arranging free air travel for our citizens stranded abroad, when the government can spend nearly Rs 100 crores [approximately $13m] on transport and food etc for just one public programme in Gujarat, when the Rail Ministry has the largesse to donate Rs 151 crores [approximately $20m] to the PMs Corona fund, then why cant these essential members of our nations fabric be given a fraction of the same courtesy, especially free rail travel, at this hour of acute distress, the Congress chief said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced criticism for creating a new coronavirus relief fund, PM CARES, when about $500m was lying unspent in an older fund.

Top businesses and celebrities have pledged millions of dollars in new donations.

Many social media users asked why the government did not use the fund to help the poor and migrant workers.

Migrant workers have been forced to walk hundreds of kilometres, many of them without food, to reach their homes.

Here is the official circular very much available of the website of Indian Railways. It clearly says that local authorities have to "collect the ticket fare" and hand it over to Railways. Question is: why this bluffing? How much will you earn out of this?https://t.co/8aj5GMdmmK  Yashwant Deshmukh  (@YRDeshmukh) May 4, 2020

Senior leader and member of parliament from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Subramanian Swamy demanded the government should pay for the fares.

How moronic of the Government of India to charge steep rail fares from the half-starved migrant labourers! Indians stranded abroad were brought back free by Air India. If Railways refuse to budge then why not make PM CARES pay instead? he tweeted.

Government reverses its decision

Faced with mounting criticism, the office of Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said the government will pay 85 percent of the ticket prices and the remaining 15 percent will be borne by the state governments.

The government has also been criticised for using the air force to shower flower petals on front-line health workers instead of lending a helping hand to poor workers stuck in cities for at least a month now.

The entire nation stands united in these challenging times, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted on Sunday.

On Saturday, more than 2,000 rural migrant workers stopped from returning home pelted police with stones in the western state of Gujarat, officials told the AFP news agency.

https://twitter.com/poojas2019/status/1257180454840664070?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Gujarat is one of Indias industrial hubs, and authorities there were bracing for a logistical nightmare after about two million migrant workers and their families signed up for permission to return home, a state official said.

In Indore, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, 14 migrant workers and four others were found by police on Saturday crammed into a cement mixer, local media reported. The migrants had been trying to return home from the western Maharashtra state to the northern state of Uttar Pradesh  a 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) journey.

In an exodus, many migrants already managed to return to their villages, mostly on foot. But local media reported that some died on their long journeys. Many others have been stranded at crowded shelters in various cities.
Controversial businessman Vijay Mallya has filed an application for leave to appeal in the UKs Supreme Court in the latest bid to block his extradition to India to face charges of major financial offences running into thousands of crores.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which acts on Indias behalf in UK courts, said on Monday: He is seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. The authorities in India/CPS have until May 14 to respond to his application.

The Supreme Court usually takes up only cases that involve public interest. The high court of England and Wales had dismissed his appeal on April 20, upholding a lower courts judgement that there is a prima facie case against him of fraud by representation.

In extradition cases, UK courts only need to establish whether there is a prima facie case against the person requested, and not to prove the persons guilt or otherwise.

Mallya tweeted after the April 20 ruling: I will continue to pursue further legal remedies as advised by my lawyers. I am also disappointed with the media narrative which states that I must face trial in India for a fraud of Rs 9000 crores.

I must draw attention to paragraph 6 of the judgement which is available to the public. Please note that the allegations against me and others are specifically and only related to three tranches of borrowing from IDBI Bank for a total of Rs 900 crores in 2009.

This loan was subsumed along with loans from other Banks within the Master Debt Recast Agreement of 2010. Following the DRT order for the payment of approximately Rs 5000 crores by way of Principal and Rs 1200 crores by way of unapplied interest making a total of Rs 6200 crores.

The Banks have already recovered in cash a sum of Rs 2500 crores which is 50 percent of the Principal amount. I have repeatedly offered to pay the Banks in full but, sadly to no avail.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
John Malloy, who has headed the countrys largest school board for the past four years, is retiring.

The director of education of the Toronto District School Board says he will leave Nov. 1.

I am grateful for the privilege of serving students, staff, parents and our community in TDSB over the last several years, he said in a statement. I have been so impressed with the courage of this board and staff to focus on and act on issues of equity. As I reflect on the progress we have made together to help every student succeed, I know that the foundation has been set for this important work to continue because of the amazing leadership happening at every level of the system.

Board Chair Robin Pilkey called Malloy an exceptional, caring and effective leader, in a letter to staff Monday afternoon.

When he came to this board in January 2016, we were in a very different position than we are today and after many years of turmoil, we were ready for a fresh start, one that John provided. Thanks to Johns leadership, tireless work, dedication, and willingness to have hard discussions  and help us as a board make hard decisions  the TDSB is now seen as a model of excellence in equity and instruction in North America, Pilkey wrote.

John led the way for that success.

The board says it will now start a search to find a new leader, one who will take over as schools continue to grapple with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

There will be more information on this process as it proceeds, Pilkey also wrote. However we are confident that an exceptional candidate will be found through a comprehensive search, and the new director will work with the board of trustees to continue our critical work for the next school year and beyond.

Malloy joined the Toronto board after serving as an assistant deputy minister of education and head of the Hamilton-Wentworth public board  and following a governance review after numerous concerns at the Toronto board were raised, including issues with previous director Donna Quan.

Quan resigned after the governance report was submitted in the summer of 2015 and took on a Ministry of Education research project at York University.

At the time, then-Liberal education minister Liz Sandals said with Malloy at the helm, the Toronto board had strong leadership.

Im not afraid of challenges, Malloy said in 2015. I plan to listen quickly and listen carefully, and moving forward, Im confident we can work together for the good of our students.

Malloy earned $303,373.44 in 2019.
The Delhi government on Monday sealed the two branches of Apeejay School in Saket and Sheikh Sarai for charging hiked fees from students in violation of the directions issued by its education department.

The Directorate of Education (DoE), on April 18, had issued an order directing all private schools in Delhi not to revise their fee structure without seeking prior approval. The schools were also asked to charge only tuition fee from the students amid the lockdown. The DoE had warned the schools of action under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, enforced in the city amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an order issued on Monday, deputy director education (south) Arvind Kumar said, Its been reported that the management of Apeejay School (Saket) and Apeejay School (Sheikh Sarai) are not complying with the directions issued by the education department and they are directions by the way of unauthorised fee hike [sic].

Hindustan Times had, last month, reported that the DoE had issued an order against Apeejay Schools, Saket and Sheikh Sarai, for illegally increasing the fee without taking cognisance of the prevailing situation. The parents association in the school had alleged that they hiked the fee by 15-20% in April this year.

On Monday, the DoE in its order said that its received a recommendation from the ADM (south) office for sealing the buildings of these two schools and lodging an FIR against the management of both the schools. The recommendations were later approved by the office of Delhis deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.

Following this, the buildings were sealed by the DoE officials on Monday evening. However, no FIR was lodged by the time this report was filed.

Saurabh Bhardwaj, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Greater Kailash, also tweeted about the sealing of the two branches of the school. Two APEEJAY School branches at Sheikh Sarai & Saket were sealed today by Govt of Delhi. Much appreciated action of Sealing by DM, South and Dept of Education...APEEJAY school had been violating all kinds of norms of Healthy Education system. Inspite of audits showing crores of surplus money in accounts, it was illegally arm twisting parents for increased fee [sic], he tweeted.

Denying all charges against them, the principals of both the branches have issued a statement saying,  We have all requisite approvals from the DoE to charge the fee for the academic year 2019-20. We have certainly not forced or harassed our parents to pay the fee. In fact, we held out a helping hand to those in need, with scholarships. Almost 100% of parents of Apeejay School, Panchsheel Park, have paid the academic year 2019-20 fee, voluntarily and a majority have also paid the present monthly tuition fee.

Almost all the parents are with us and understand the situation. Only a handful of parents have been complaining, motivated by vested interests. Unfortunately, the current force majeure situation has again prompted them to agitate on the fee issue, they added.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fareeha Iftikhar Fareeha Iftikhar is a principal correspondent with the national political bureau of the Hindustan Times. She tracks the education ministry, and covers the beat at the national level for the newspaper. She also writes on issues related to gender, human rights and different policy matters. ...view detail
Israeli Court Hears Petitions Against Netanyahu

By VOA News May 03, 2020

Israel's Supreme Court began hearing petitions against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forming a government while under criminal indictments.

A large panel of 11 justices, are considering the issue of whether a politician is would be entrusted to form a government in such circumstances, for which the Israeli legal code is not explicitly clear.

Although Israel is under the coronavirus restrictions, protesters gathered outside the parliament to watch the proceedings that were broadcast live.

A wide banner reading in Hebrew: "Saving the country fighting corruption" was highly visible.

An Israeli court indicted Netanyahu earlier this year on charges of breach of trust, fraud, and accepting bribes. He has denied any wrongdoing.

If the court rules that Netanyahu should not serve as prime minister, Israel could likely hold election again, the fourth in just over 12 consecutive months.

Following another deadlocked election, Netanyahu signed a power-sharing deal with main rival, Benny Gantz. Under the deal Netanyahu serves as prime minister for the first 18 months while Ganz serves the next 18 months.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Hundreds of small businesses have today applied for government-covered bounce-back loans to help them recover in the wake of the coronavirus, it has been revealed.

Banking giant Barclays says it received 200 applications within the first minute of the launch of the scheme this morning.

Lloyds says it has received 2,000 requests already today, with an average loan size of 35,000.

It comes a week after Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the bounce back loan scheme, which allows small businesses to lend up to 25 per cent of their turnover, up to a maximum of 50,000.

He promised a Government guarantee for 100 per cent of the risk the banks are taking in lending the money.

Hundreds of small businesses have today applied for government-covered bounce-back loans to help them recover in the wake of the coronavirus, it has been revealed. The scheme was announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak (pictured) last week

Banking giant Barclays says it received 200 applications within the first minute of the launch of the scheme this morning

Lloyds also revealed that its customers had sent around 2,000 requests for bounce-back loans in the first two hours after it opened its doors Monday morning

The Treasury has also promised to cover the interest on the loans for the first 12 months.

Barclays chiefs say alongside the 200 applications it received within the first minute, it has also received around 35 applications every minute since.

Matt Hammerstein, the chief executive of Barclays UK, told the Treasury Select Committee that all 200 applications received in the first minute of the launch of the scheme were approved just minutes later.

Banks slammed by business owners over access to coronavirus emergency loans Business owners who struggled to get hold of a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan after they were announced by the Government in March slammed banks and building societies over the difficulties they faced. Sara Keel, of Guildford in Surrey, is the founder of Babycup Ltd, a weaning aid business. Sara Keel, founder of Babycup She told MailOnline: I have tried and failed numerous times to make contact with our bank, NatWest, waiting in telephone queues for hours on end', she says she eventually got a call back but not from the lending department and is still waiting for news and a payment holiday she was promised has never materialsed. She added: 'This inaction and incorrect action puts our contingency plans into jeopardy'. Another upset business owner was Tina Mussell, owner of Parlour Farm Kitchens in Cirencester. Tin Mussell, owner of Parlour Farm Kitchens She said she has already been warned by NatWest that she could be refused an emergency loan because her business lost money in the past two years and said: 'We bailed out the banks as taxpayers in 2008, now we need them to help us.' Advertisement

He said: 'The process to be able to get access to the money is super simple.

'We'd expect the cash to be with those clients over the course of the next 24 hours.'

Lloyds also revealed that its customers had sent around 2,000 requests for bounce-back loans in the first two hours after it opened its doors Monday morning.

David Oldfield, the chief executive of commercial banking at Lloyds, said: 'We do expect a really quite significant volume flowing through to the bounce back loans.'

Mr Sunak announced the bounce-back loan scheme last Monday after complaints from business owners of delays and problems in getting cash from banks.

The government first launched small business coronavirus rescue loans following the lockdown in March.

The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) was announced in the Budget at the beginning of March and later beefed up by Mr Sunak to sums of up to 5million, available through the British Business Banks accredited lenders.

Some entrepreneurs complained they were confused as to whether they were entitled to the loans.

Others raised fears that the provision that means lenders must assess whether businesses are viable allowed banks to turn down loss-making firms, hitting start-ups more focussed on scaling up than profits.

Meanwhile, a poll by the British Chamber of Commerce found the complex application process and slow replies from banks were holding firms back from accessing the funds.

Of 300,000 enquiries about loans from the CBIL scheme, fewer than one in 60 resulted in cash handouts, according to reports.

It was also claimed that many lenders were refusing to give business-saving money if they have cash in the bank - or if they do demanding owners put up 100,000 in collateral, usually their homes, if they need to borrow more than 250,000.

Some business owners claimed that they were rejected if they asked for less than 25,000.

It led some business owners to brand the CBILS as 'not fit for purpose', while Business Secretary Alok Sharma, who said 800 million had been paid out as part of 4,200 loans under the coronavirus business support measures, said he had held conversations with lenders to speed up loan payouts.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma (pictured) said 800 million had been paid out as part of 4,200 loans under the coronavirus business support measures

During the announcement of the new bounce-back loan scheme last week Mr Sunak, said the loans for small companies would have a 'very simple' application process.

Businesses are asked in a two or three page online application, providing what their turnover is and how much money they want to borrow, along with some other details.

Mr Sunak told MPs: 'I know that some small businesses are still struggling to access credit.

'They are in many ways the most exposed businesses to the impact of the coronavirus and often find it harder to access credit in the first place.'

Businesses using the new bounce-back scheme will borrow at 2.5 per cent interest.
The UK's data protection watchdog confirmed today the government still hasn't given it sight of a key legal document attached to the coronavirus contacts tracing app which is being developed by the NHSX, the digital transformation branch of the country's National Health Service .

Under UK and EU law, a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) can be a legal requirement in instances where there are high rights risks related to the processing of people's information.

Last month the European Data Protection Board strongly recommended publication of DPIAs in the context of coronavirus contacts tracing apps. The EDPB considers that a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) must be carried out before implementing such tool as the processing is considered likely high risk (health data anticipated large-scale adoption, systematic monitoring, use of new technological solution). The EDPB strongly recommends the publication of DPIAs, the pan-EU data protection steerage body wrote in the guidance.

Giving evidence to the human rights committee today, UK information commissioner Elizabeth Denham confirmed that her department, the ICO, is involved in advising the government on the data protection elements of the app's design. She said the agency has been provided with some technical documents for review thus far. But, under committee questioning, she reserved any firmer assessment of the rights impacts' of the government's choice of app design and architecture -- saying the ICO still hasn't seen the DPIA.

"I think that is on the verge of happening," she said when asked if she had any idea when the document would be published or provided to the ICO for review.

"Having that key document -- and the requirement for the NHXS to do that, and provide that to me and to the public -- is a really important protection," Denham added. "Especially when everything's happening at pace and we want the public to take up such an app, to help with proximity and notification.

Story continues

"The privacy notice and the DPIA will both need to be shared with us and I do know that NHSX plans to also publish that so that they can show the public -- be transparent and accountable for what they're doing."

The NHSX has given a green light for the ICO to audit the app in future, she also told the committee.

Coronavirus contacts tracing applications are a new technology which, in the UK case, entail repurposing the Bluetooth signals emitted by smartphones to measure device proximity as a proxy for calculating infection risk. The digital tracing process opens a veritable pandora's box of rights risks, with health data, social graph and potentially location information all in the mix -- alongside overarching questions about how effective such a tech will prove in battling the coronavirus.

Yesterday the BBC reported that the NHSX will trial the tracing app in the Isle of Wight this week.

"As we see the trial in the Isle of Wight we'll all be very interested to see the results of that trial and see if it's working the way that the developers have intended," added Denham.

At a separate parliamentary committee hearing last week NHSX CEO, Matthew Gould, told MPs that the app could be "technically" ready to deploy nationally within two to three weeks, following the limited geographical trial.

He also said the app will iterate -- with future versions potentially asking users to share location data. So while the NHSX has maintained that only pseudonymized data will be collected and held centrally -- where it could be used for public health "research" purposes -- there remains a possibility that data could be linked to individual identities, such as if different pieces of data are combined by state agencies and/or if the centralized store of data is hacked and/or improperly accessed.

Privacy experts have also warned of the risk of 'mission creep' down the tracing line. And Gould admitted under committee questioning that once data has been uploaded there will be no way for app users to ask for it to be deleted.

Today the Guardian also reported that the government is in talks with digital identity startups about building technology to power so called 'immunity passports', as another plank of its digital response to the coronavirus. Per the report, such a system could combine facial recognition technology with individual coronavirus test results so a worker could verify their COVID-19 status prior to entrance to a workplace, for example. (A spokeswomen for Onfido confirmed to TechCrunch that it's in discussions with the government but added: "As you'd expect these are confidential until publicly shared.")

Question on whether employers might get access to the app's collected data - branching into "immunity passport" territory. Gould does not exclude it immediately but will write back later after legal advice. Bad bad omen.  Eerke Boiten (@EerkeBoiten) May 4, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Returning to the coronavirus tracing app, the key point is that the government has opted for a system design that centralizes proximity events on an NHSX-controlled server -- when or if a user elects to self-report themselves suffering from COVID-19 symptoms (or does so after getting a confirmed diagnosis).

This choice to centralize proximity event processing elevates not just privacy and security questions but also wider human rights risks, as the committee highlighted in a series of questions to Denham and Gould today -- pointing out, for example, that Denham and the ICO have previously suggested that decentralized architectures would be preferable for such high rights risk technology.

On that Denham said: "Because I'm the information commissioner, if I were to start with a blank sheet of paper [it] would start with a decentralized system -- and you can understand, from a privacy and security perspective, why that would be so. But that does not, in any way, mean that a centralized system can't have the same kind of privacy and security protections. And it's up to the government -- it's up to NHSX -- to determine what kind of design specifications the system needs.

"It's up to government to identify what those functions and needs are and if those lead to a centralized system then the question that the DPIA has to answer is why centralized? And my next question would be how are the privacy and security concerns addressed? That's what a DPIA is. It's about the mitigation of concerns."

Apple and Google are also collaborating on a cross-platform API that will support the technical functioning of decentralized national tracing apps, as well as baking a decentralized and opt-in system-wide contacts tracing into their own platforms.

The tech giants' backing for decentralized tracing apps raises interoperability questions and technical concerns for governments that choose to go the other way and pool data.

In additional details for the forthcoming Exposure Notification API, released today, the tech giants stipulate that apps must gain user consent to get access to the API; should only gather the minimum info necessary for the purposes of exposure notification, and only use it for a COVID-19 response; and cant access or even seek permission to access a devices Location Services -- meaning no uploading location data (something the NHSX app may ask users to do in future, per Gould's testimony to a different parliamentary committee last week. He also confirmed today that users will be asked to input the first three letters of their postcode).

A number of European governments have now said they will use decentralized systems for digital contacts tracing -- including Germany, Switzerland and the Republic of Ireland.

The European Commission has also urged the use of privacy preserving technologies -- such as decentralization -- in a COVID-19 contacts tracing context.

Currently, France and the UK remain the highest profile backers of centralized systems in Europe.

But, interestingly, Gould gave the first sign today of a UK government 'wobble' -- saying it's not "locked" to a centralization app architecture and could change its mind if evidence emerged that a different choice would make more sense.

Though he also made a point of laying out a number of reasons that he said explained the design choice, and -- in response to a question from the committee -- denied the decision had been influenced by the involvement of a cyber security arm of the UK's domestic intelligence agency, GCHQ .

"We are working phenomenally closely with both [Apple and Google]," he said. "We are trying very hard in the context of a situation where we're all dealing with a new technology and a new situation to try and work out what the right approach is -- so we're not in competition, we're all trying to get this right. We are constantly reassessing which approach is the right one -- and if it becomes clear that the balance of advantage lies in a different approach then we will take that different approach. We're not irredeemably wedded to one approach; if we need to shift then we will... It's a very pragmatic decision about what approach is likely to get the results that we need to get."

Gould claimed the (current) choice of a centralized architecture was taken because the NHSX is balancing privacy needs against the need for public health authorities to "get insight" -- such as about which symptoms subsequently lead to people subsequently testing positive; or what contacts are more risky ("what the changes are between a contact, for example, three days before symptoms develop and one day before symptoms develop").

"It was our view that a centralized approach gave us... even on the basis of the system I explained where you're not giving personal data over -- to collect some very important data that gives serious insight into the virus that will help us," he said. "So we thought that in that context, having a system that both provided that potential for insight but which also, we believe provided serious protections on the privacy front... was an appropriate balance. And as the information commissioner has said that's really a question for us to work out where that balance is but be able to demonstrate that we have mitigations in place and we've really thought about the privacy side as well, which I genuinely believe we have."

"We won't lock ourselves in. It may be that if we want to take a different approach we have to do some heavy duty engineering work to take the different approach but what I wanted to do was provide some reassurance that just because we've started down one route doesn't mean we're locked into it," Gould added, in response to concern from committee chair, Harriet Harman, that there might only be a small window of time for any change of architecture to be executed.

In recent days the UK has faced criticism from academic experts related to the choice of app architecture, and the government risks looking increasingly isolated in choosing such a bespoke system -- which includes allowing users to self report having COVID-19 symptoms; something the French system will not allow, per a blog post by the digital minister.

Concerns have also been raised about how well the UK app will function technically, as it will be unable to plug directly into the Apple-Google API.

While international interoperability is emerging as a priority issue for the UK -- in light of the Republic of Ireland's choice to go for a decentralized system.

Committee MP Joanna Cherry pressed Gould on that latter point today. "It is going to be a particular problem on the island of Ireland, isn't it?" she said.

"It raises a further question of interoperability that we'll have to work through," admitted Gould.

Cherry also pressed Denham on whether there should be specific legislation and a dedicated oversight body and commissioner, to focus on digital coronavirus contacts tracing -- to put in place clear legal bounds and safeguards and ensure wider human rights impacts are considered alongside privacy and security issues.

Denham said: "That's one for parliamentarians and one for government to look at. My focus right now is making sure that I do a fulsome job when it comes to data protection and security of the data."

Returning to the DPIA point, the government may not have a legal requirement to provide the document to the ICO in advance of launching the app, according to one UK-based data protection expert we spoke to. Although he agreed there's a risk of ministers looking hypocritical if, on the one hand, they're claiming to be very 'open and transparent' in the development of the app -- a claim Gould repeated in his evidence to the committee today -- yet, at the same time, aren't fully involving the ICO (given it hasn't had access to the DPIA); and also given what he called the government's wider "dismal" record on transparency.

Asked whether he'd expect a DPIA to have been shared with the ICO in this context and at this point, Tim Turner, a UK based data protection trainer and consultant, told us: "It's a tricky one. NHSX have no obligation to share the DPIA with the ICO unless it's under prior consultation where they have identified a high risk and cannot properly manage or prevent it. If NHSX are confident that they've assessed and managed the risks effectively, even though that's a subjective judgement, ICO has no right to demand it. There's also no obligation to publish DPIAs in any circumstances. So it comes down to issues of right and wrong rather than legality.

"Honestly, I wouldn't expect NHSX to publish it because they don't have to," he added. "If they think they've done it properly, they've done what's required. That's not to say they haven't done it properly, I have no idea. I think it's an example of where the concept of data ethics bumps into reality -- it would be a breach of the GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] not to do a DPIA, but as long as that's happened and we don't have an obvious personal data breach, ICO has nothing to complain about. Denham might expect organisations to behave in a certain way or give her information that she wants to see, but if an organisation's leadership wants to stick rigidly to what the law says, her expectations don't have any powers to back them up."

On the government's claim to openness and transparency, Turner added: "This isn't a transparent government. Their record on FOI [Freedom of Information] is dismal (and ICO's record on enforcing to do something about that is also dismal). It's definitely hypocritical of them to claim to be transparent on this or indeed other important issues. I'm just saying that NHSX can fall back on not having an obligation to do it. They should be more honest about the fact that ICO isn't involved and not use them as a shield."
There is no doubt that thousands of local families and children, especially students of color and low-income populations, face unjust barriers to a quality education during a normal time. Now, in a world where nothing feels normal, many of us are spending our time, understandably, worrying about getting through today and facing the uncertainties of tomorrow. Our children and teens are also facing new challenges: an unprecedented amount of time away from school, away from face-to-face interactions with teachers, counselors and other caring adults, and the struggle to adjust to e-learning. This is made even more difficult by the digital divide.

Although many students are adapting and achieving success in an e-learning environment, we know vulnerable populations  kids who may already be struggling  are more likely to become disengaged and fall further behind. This isnt fair, nor should it be acceptable. We owe it to our kids and community to provide our greatest attention and resources to address these inequalities.

Junior Achievement is an organization dedicated to preparing young people to succeed. Our super power is Inspiring Tomorrows! In this difficult time, when our 200-plus school partners including the Indianapolis Public Schools district, are transitioning to e-learning, we are committed to doing our part: Supporting educators in their efforts to deliver engaging, fun, standards-based curriculum and inspiring kids to focus on the future, dream big and believe in their potential.

In our lifetime, we havent experienced anything like this pandemic, and it has challenged JA to consider new and equitable ways to serve children and teens, along with the educators, family members and caregivers striving to support their engagement and enthusiasm for learning in a home school environment. As a result, we have invested in making swift adjustments and additions to our curriculum and delivery models enabling us to provide JA programs, online, for free. Because ALL kids deserve to spend more time planning for and dreaming about tomorrow. And less time worrying about today.

Jennifer Burk is the president and CEO of Junior Achievement of Central Indiana. Learn more about JAs free, online resources during the COVID-19 pandemic at www.jaindy.org or connect with her directly at jennifer@jaindy.org.
NYC Man Uses Drone to Ask Woman Out on a Date Amid the CCP Virus Lockdown
Never talked about charging migrant workers train fare: Centre

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, May 04: The government on Monday said that it had never talked about charging the workers' train fare. 85 per cent fare will be borne by railways and the rest by state governments.

"We have given the permission to run special trains on states' request. We are dividing the cost in 85-15 per cent (railway: states) as per the norms. We never asked states to charge money from the stranded labourers," Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal told reporters.

Sonia Gandhi had earlier asked Congress workers to raise funds to pay the fare on behalf of the migrants. However, railway officials have said that the Centre was only charging the state 15 per cent of the fare. This facility has been made available so that the migrant workers who are stranded due to the lockdown could reach their destination.

The Centre has been advising states not to encourage migrant workers to travel. It would slow down the economic revival process and the recovery process would also take longer.
Students at Jones-Clark Elementary School will begin to receive laptops this week as part of expanded efforts by the Phalen Leadership Academy to extend distance-learning.

The laptops will be delivered to students in phases, with teachers reaching out to families to coordinate the first pickup dates and times as soon as this Wednesday.

Jones-Clark Elementary School is part of the Beaumont Independent School District, but is operated by Phalen  an independent charter operator.

The technology is due to arrive soon, Jones-Clark Principal Stephanie Hayes told The Enterprise. Our scholars will have that technology until probably the beginning of July, because we do not want to discontinue  instructional continuity.

Hayes said the district was able to produce paper learning materials, and have a distance learning system in place a week before the rest of the district with the support of Phalen.

We are going to be moving forward with phase three, which is using Blackboard Connect where teachers will have access to the PLA network to teach lessons, she said. Scholars will be able to go ahead and log on at any time when the live sessions are available.

The other Phalen Academy in BISD, Smith Middle School, will receive laptops as well, with plans for them to arrive in mid-May.

The CEO of the organization, Earl Phalen, said the rollout has adapted as the organization responds to different circumstances.

We are trying to put in our best effort, but that varies, and there is no set standard, Phalen said.

It is different for a child who lives in a home that has six rooms and they are able to go to a private room and sit in a quiet desk and work on their piece after they have a delicious breakfast, rather than some of the other housing circumstances which our children live in.

That disparity is something Phalen said they are working around.

People are losing loved ones and there is not even an opportunity to really grieve in the same way, Phalen said.

And there is a greater stress right now on all households of America, but particularly those who have fewer resources.

We have to have grace during this period and to understand that it is your best effort.

And we appreciate that the scholars are making that effort and that the families are trying to walk beside them.

In an effort to ensure students have all opportunities to learn, lessons and materials will be available for students and parents past the last day of school.

We are not going to stop when the traditional calendar stops, Phalen said.

We are going to employ several of our teachers to continue to support our scholars so we dont lose another two months.

Technical support and weekly materials pickups also have been provided at the two schools, with the most recent including physical education items such as jump ropes and art supplies such as sidewalk chalk.

With Friday marking the end of the most stringent lockdown orders, Phalen also said the return from the crisis is an opportunity to rethink the setup of the school year.

The calendar for schools was set back in the early 1900s and was built for an agrarian culture and an agrarian economy where you needed all the hands out of school and in the fields to make sure that you took care of your crops, Phalen said.

It is not 1910, or 1920. So even as devices are coming in  were kind of saying, Hey, just because the last day of school might be 30 days from now, weve got to think about things differently.

In addition to the laptops, more technology for both campuses is set to arrive throughout this month and the summer.

isaac.windes@hearstnp.com

twitter.com/isaacdwindes
The delayed appeals hearing of former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, sentenced to life imprisonment, will take place in June, the UN announced on Monday.

The hearing, initially scheduled for March, had to be postponed after Mladic, 77, underwent an operation doctors had said was to remove a benign polyp from his colon.

Mladic, once dubbed the Butcher of Bosnia was sentenced to life behind bars in 2017 for his role in the countrys bloody 1990 civil war.

This included for genocide committed by his Bosnian Serb forces in the small eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in mid-1995, Europes worst bloodshed since World War II.

About 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million others displaced in the 1992-95 war, which erupted as communal rivalries tore Yugoslavia apart after the fall of communism.

The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunal (IRMCT) said that Mladic was recovering well from the surgery that he underwent on March 28 and stressed the need to hold the appeal without delay when it is safe and practicable to do so.

With the Netherlands on coronavirus lockdown until May 15, the Tribunal said the hearing would take place on June 16 and 17, although that may change if coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions inhibit the necessary travel or the holding of the hearing for other reasons.

 Heinous 

Imprisoned since 2011 in The Hague detention center, Mladic is one of the main leaders tried by international justice for crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.

In one of its final judgments, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted the brazen ex-commander of genocide in certain municipalities, a fact which now forms the bulk of the prosecutions appeal.

Mladics crimes however were amongst the most heinous known to humankind, the judge said when handing down the sentence.

At Srebrenica, Bosnian Serb forces overran UN peacekeepers before slaughtering almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys and dumping their bodies into mass graves.

Along with Mladic, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic also faced international justice over the Balkans wars.

Milosevic died in his cell in The Hague in March 2006, suffering a heart attack before his trial had finished.

Karadzic was convicted of genocide in 2016 for the Srebrenica massacre and other atrocities during the war and sentenced to 40 years.

After an appeal, judges increased his sentence to life, saying the initial term had underestimated the sheer scale and systematic cruelty of his crimes.
Eagle-eyed Naomi Campbell fans have hailed the model 'iconic' after spotting ther YouTube cameraman wearing a full hazmat suit and mask.

On Saturday, the 49-year-old model, from London, posted her a video on her 'Being Naomi' YouTube channel, sharing all of her favourite Met Gala looks.

However, when Tom Tracey shared a set of screenshots on Twitter revealing the reflection of her camera man in Naomi's stairs, fans teased that they wouldn't expect anything less from the health-conscious star.

Naomi confirmed to FEMAIL that filming took place in her US residence, before New York was placed on official lockdown on the week of March 13th.

On Saturday, the 49-year-old model, from London posted her latest online video sharing her favourite looks from various times attending the Met Gala

However fans quickly noticed she was being filmed by someone wearing a full hazmat suit and mask

He penned: 'Obsessed with Naomi Campbell's quarantine camera man filming her for her YouTube channel'.

'She aint taking no risks', said one.

'You know she had a whole box of those suits already in her closet' agreed another.

A third wrote: 'Omg I was kept awake all night trying to work out who was filming her this is iconic.'

Users teased they weren't at all shocked that the health-conscious model was taking such high precautions

Naomi said: 'The footage that reveals my camera person in the background as I go through dresses was filmed the night of March 11th the same night I returned from LA.

'I have over two years of banked footage that we continually take from during the editing process. I hope everyone continues to practice social distancing and follow the rules of our health experts.'

Naomi frequently documents her strict adherence to hygiene on social media and last month shared a video of herself walking through an airport wearing a face mask and a hazmat suit as she reflected on one month spent in quarantine.

The model was unrecognisable in the video as she filmed herself walking through a terminal and advising her followers to practice good hygiene amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Staying safe: Naomi shared a video of herself walking through an airport wearing a face mask and a hazmat suit as she reflected on one month spent in quarantine

Alongside the clip, she wrote: 'Can't believe it's been 1 month in quarantine. Make sure to stay safe, wash your hands, wear a mask and we'll get through this together.'

It comes after the supermodel revealed she doesn't think things will go back to the way they were after the coronavirus pandemic ends and admitted she is 'loving' being in self-isolation.

The star was joined by fellow supermodel Cindy Crawford, 54, for the first episode of her online show No Filter with Naomi as the pair spoke to each other over webcam last month.

Speaking to Cindy, she said: 'I don't think it's ever gonna go back the same, in terms of the hygiene. For me, never. But when we get this...I will call it a new reset because I really felt like the planet, Mother Nature, needed a break.

'I felt like a lot of gluttony and excess that this truly was just like, It's too much. This being still, I'm loving it.

Naomi frequently documents her strict adherence to hygiene on social media and often wears gloves when she travels

'I don't love the circumstance of what people are going through, the deaths, the friends that I've lost, or the friends and families I know that lost loved ones, also...this is horrible. But the stillness I can see in the air. Do you not see the difference in the airspace in L.A?'

Cindy revealed she is self-isolating with her husband Rande Gerber and their children Kaia, 18, and Presley, 20, and at their home in Malibu and has not left her house much recently.

The model told Naomi it was strange not being able to plan things or knowing when life will return to normal.

Cindy told how she knows she is in a position of privilege as she doesn't have to worry about paying the bills at a time when many people have lost their jobs due to the economic downturn caused by the virus.

Future: Naomi revealed to Cindy Crawford, 54, she doesn't think things will go back to the way they were after the coronavirus pandemic ends and admitted she is 'loving' being in self-isolation

She said: 'The strangest thing is not knowing. Not making a plan, but also not knowing when you can make plans. We don't know where the light at the end of the tunnel is. We know it will come at some point.

'I'm blessed, I can afford groceries and I think it's hard to give advice to people because we're already privileged. I'm very aware that not having to worry about paying for groceries or my phone bill is an amazing luxury.

'Both my kids are here and Randy is here. Just to slow down a minute. I've always loved being busy and I thought 'I'm going to go crazy,' I definitely still exercise, even if it's running up and down my driveway.

'Trying to figure out ways to feel connected to people is really important. I've been checking on my friends a lot who live alone. It's weird for all of us.'
About 2.2 million applicants have been approved for loans so far in this round, with an average size of $79,000, the agencies said. Thats far smaller than the $206,000 average in the programs first $342 billion lending round, when publicly traded companies and other larger organizations sucked up billions of dollars.

Steep demand overwhelmed the Small Business Administrations computer system early last week, preventing many banks from having their customers applications processed. Lenders said the crush began to ease toward the end of the week, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Monday that the backlog had been cleared.

JPMorgan Chase, the programs largest lender in the first round, said on Friday that it had approved 211,000 additional loans, bringing its lending through the program to $29 billion. Bank of America said on Monday that it approved 256,000 applications in the last week, bringing its total lending to nearly $25 billion. Citigroup said it submitted just over $3 billion in loans to the S.B.A. for approval in the last week.

But many questions remain about the programs murky rules  particularly those involving loan forgiveness for businesses that use the money to retain or rehire workers. The earliest loan recipients will be able to seek forgiveness at the end of this month. The Treasury and S.B.A. said Sunday that they planned to issue additional rules and guidance.

Public companies return millions in loans set aside for small businesses.

Publicly traded companies have given back more than $375 million in federal stimulus loans meant to help small businesses stay afloat, according to a New York Times analysis of securities filings and public announcements. Many of the companies began returning the loans after their disclosures raised an outcry that the stimulus program was steering money to major corporations instead of smaller operations like independent retailers and restaurants.

Nine of the 10 largest known loans issued to public companies have or will be returned, the Times analysis shows. The outlier, a loan to BBQ Holdings, which owns several hospitality brands including Famous Daves BBQ, was first disclosed on Friday.
Launched by the European Union, the initiative aims at raising US.3 billion to develop, produce and distribute a vaccine. So far, every country has funded national research projects. The race between China and the United States to find a cure has acquired a geopolitical dimension. Pope Francis has called on all countries to join the common effort.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews)  Japan and Saudi Arabia are the two Asian countries to join a global plan to develop a coronavirus vaccine launched by the European Union today.

The goal is to raise US.3 billion to fund the development and production of a vaccine that would be made available anywhere in the world at a reasonable price.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) will contribute to the joint effort, along with the G20, the African Union, the World Bank and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

The Trump administration is not likely to join after it accused WHO of helping China conceal the coronavirus outbreak last December.

Washington, like Beijing, usually acts unilaterally. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the US agency responsible for procurement and development of countermeasures against, among other things, pandemic influenza and emerging diseases, has allocated one billion dollars to vaccine development.

By contrast, the US Academy of Medicine has distanced itself from the US government, saying that it was ready to finance the EU-led multilateral initiative.

Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese-based company, is already testing a vaccine on humans. It got 60 million yuan (US.4 million) in low-rate credit lines through a programme supported by Chinas central bank. Chinas government has also made land available to the company to build a plant capable of producing 100 million doses a year.

So far, the various countries have been funding national research projects. This has led to a race between the United States and China to come up with a cure, part of their geopolitical confrontation that covers the military, trade and technological fields.

For many observers however, the absence of a global project is leading states, charities and pharmaceutical firms to spend billions of dollars on research that has little chance of success.

Historically, just 6 per cent of vaccine candidates end up making it to market, often after a long process, which is not the case during this frantic time.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis also spoke about the issue. Yesterday, he called for international collaboration to find shared solutions.

It is important, he said, to harness the power of science in a transparent and disinterested way to find vaccines and treatments and to guarantee universal access to essential technologies that allow every infected person, in every part of the world, to receive the necessary health care.
Nollywood star, Mercy Johnson and husband, Prince Okojie, have welcomed their fourth child, a daughter, in the United States.

The couple are already parents to a son and two daughters.

Mr Okojie broke the news on Instagram on Monday evening and also revealed her name, Divine Mercy Ehinomen Okojie.

The baby was born at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center.

Johnson had, some months ago, revealed that she was expecting a fourth child.

The actress announced she was expecting her fourth child on her Instagram page on December 18, 2019.

She shared photos of her husband, a scan of the pregnancy and herself and captioned them with the good news.

Ive always wanted 4 but, after 3 kids, I thought I had retired from the baby-making business, she had said.

So a while back, we found out we had a baby on the way. I cant explain the joy and peace expecting our new baby has brought, or the cravings for food that have followed.

About two weeks ago, the couple denied reports on the internet that they had welcomed their fourth child.

Mercy Johnson, husband welcome another baby

The news was first broken on social media platforms by Mercys colleagues in the movie industry.

Pope Obumneme Odonwodo, an actor who is better known as Junior Pope, had taken to his Instagram page to share maternity pictures of the 35-year-old mother with the infant in her arms.

The couple held an elaborate wedding in Lagos in 2011.
Canciller @GMeza_Cuadra se presenta en la Primera Sesion Ordinaria de la Comision de Relaciones Exteriores del Congreso de la Republica 2020-2021. pic.twitter.com/y9tMZDhfDr
Long term investing works well, but it doesn't always work for each individual stock. We don't wish catastrophic capital loss on anyone. Spare a thought for those who held Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings) Limited (HKG:2008) for five whole years - as the share price tanked 86%. And it's not just long term holders hurting, because the stock is down 54% in the last year. Furthermore, it's down 19% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders. We note that the company has reported results fairly recently; and the market is hardly delighted. You can check out the latest numbers in our company report.

We really hope anyone holding through that price crash has a diversified portfolio. Even when you lose money, you don't have to lose the lesson.

See our latest analysis for Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings)

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 five years over which the share price declined, Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings)'s earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 29% each year. This change in EPS is reasonably close to the 33% average annual decrease in the share price. This implies that the market has had a fairly steady view of the stock. Rather, the share price change has reflected changes in earnings per share.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

SEHK:2008 Past and Future Earnings May 4th 2020

It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings)'s earnings, revenue and cash flow.

A Different Perspective

We regret to report that Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings) shareholders are down 53% for the year. Unfortunately, that's worse than the broader market decline of 13%. 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 32% 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. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings) better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings) (2 are potentially serious!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

Story continues

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on HK 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.
Whitney Hilton is a nurse living in Utah. She usually works at McKay-Dee Hospital, but Whitney recently traveled to New York City to help out on the front lines.

While there, Whitney worked at Northwell Healths Long Island Jewish Medical Center, and she documented the experience in a blog post.

This is a humbling experience. I have so much to say but almost too overwhelmed to say it all, Whitney explained about traveling 2,200 miles to New York to lend a hand.

New York has been hit HARD. The people need help, the nurses need help, the doctors need help, everyone needs help.

This is crisis mode like Ive never seen. This is an incredible experience, albeit the hardest thing Ive ever done AND equally the most rewarding.

She also went on to say, The nurses are burned out; theyve been through these last couple of weeks.

Twitter; Whitney is pictured above with her sign to welcome her home and also wish her happy birthday

Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes and expressed condolences to families of five security personnel martyred in an encounter with terrorists at a village in north Kashmir's Handwara area on Sunday. In counter-terror operation, an Army Colonel and a Major were among five martyred, the Indian Army said.

On Twitter, PM Modi hailed the valour and sacrifice of those brave jawans who "served the nation with utmost dedication and worked tirelessly to protect our citizens".

Tributes to our courageous soldiers and security personnel martyred in Handwara. Their valour and sacrifice will never be forgotten. They served the nation with utmost dedication and worked tirelessly to protect our citizens. Condolences to their families and friends.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 3, 2020

READ | 5 Personnel Including Army Colonel, Major Martyred In Handwara; Raksha Mantri Pays Tribute

Counter-terror operation

A team comprising of five Army and JK Police personnel entered the target area occupied by the terrorists to evacuate the civilians and extricated the civilians, the statement said. Two terrorists were eliminated and the team of five security forces personnel comprising of two Army officers, two Army soldiers and one JK Police Sub Inspector attained martyrdom. Top Lashkar-e Taiba commander Haider from Pakistan has been killed in Handwara encounter, reported news agency ANI quoting IG Kashmir Vijay Kumar.

READ | Armed Forces to pay tribute to Covid warriors on Sunday; here's all that is scheduled

Defence Minister pays tribute

Paying his tribute to the martyrs, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said: "I offer my tributes to the soldiers and security personnel who fell in action. My heart goes out to the families who lost their loved ones today. India stands shoulder to shoulder with the families of these brave martyrs. The loss of our soldiers and security personnel in Handwara(J&K) is deeply disturbing and painful. They showed exemplary courage in their fight against the terrorists and made supreme sacrifice while serving the country. We will never forget their bravery and sacrifice."

READ | Army Issues Statement As 5 Bravehearts Are Martyred In Handwara

READ | Pakistan-based Lashkar-e Taiba Terrorist Killed In Handwara Encounter
Sixty members of the 105 members of the Alabama House of Representatives answered roll today as the Alabama Legislature resumed the session that has been on hold since March 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Representatives wore masks and sat in newly assigned seats to allow spacing. Some sat in the gallery.

Most Democrats did not attend. Rep. Rod Scott of Fairfield said he believed he was the only Democratic member on hand.

House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels of Huntsville announced last week that Democrats would not take part in the restart of the session. Daniels said it would be better to wait until July to pass state budgets because of uncertainty over how much the coronavirus pandemic will change the education and General Fund budgets, which take effect Oct. 1. Daniels said its better for House members to stay in their districts and help in the fight against COVID-19.

Republicans hold 77 of the 105 House seats. It takes a minimum of 53 members to conduct business.

Republican leaders said they know enough about revenue projections to pass the budgets now. They said they could return this summer during a special session to adjust the budgets if necessary.

The House met for less than an hour today. Representatives passed five local bills that had no opposition.

Scott spoke to reporters after the House recessed for the day.

I decided to come essentially because of my constitutional responsibility to represent my constituents on the two things that we are definitely supposed to handle as legislators, and that is the education ways and means budget and the General Fund budget, Scott said.

Scott said he understood the concerns about the uncertainty over state finances during an economic slide thats still hard to measure.

I do understand what those concerns are," Scott said. "However, I dont believe if we were to come in even in September, we would know exactly what those final numbers are for the budget. So, to ease the ability for the school systems to make decisions on hiring people from the funds provided by the state, the decision was made to have the budget reviews now.

House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, said today he thought representatives of every district should be involved in the budgets. He said Republican chairs of the budget committee would try to keep Democrats in the loop.

They will be sent a budget that the committee puts together, McCutcheon said. "And the committee members on the majority caucus and the minority caucus are having input in the committee meetings and having involvement in it. The chairmen are making sure of that. And so because of that, Im doing everything I can to keep them involved in the process and still respect their wishes."

The Senate meets at 4 today. The Senate is expected to consider a $1.25 billion bond issue for capital projects for schools and colleges.

Rep. Bill Poole, R-Tuscaloosa, chairman of the House education budget committee, scheduled a committee meeting for Tuesday on the bond issue in anticipation that it would pass the Senate today.
When asked by a supporter on Sunday about his divisive language and evasive behavior towards the press, President Donald Trump dodged the question. Instead, he complained hes been treated worse by the media than Abraham Lincoln.

The president made the claim during the Fox News virtual town hall, which was shot in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. Carolyn Perkins, an elementary school guidance counselor, said she and her husband thanked Trump for his work and prayed for him daily, but she questioned his combative tone at press briefings.

She asked why he uses descriptive words that could be classified as bullying, avoids giving direct answers to questions from the media, and opts instead to speak of past successes and generally ramble. She called on him to let go of these negative attributes and embrace the positives.

The presidents press briefings are characterized by frequent clashes with reporters that asked unfavorable questions about his administrations handling of the pandemic, and often stretch on for well beyond an hour. The White House reportedly moved to scale back these briefings following concerns from advisers that they were hurting him at the polls.

Asked (by a fan of his!) why he uses the language of bullies and doesn't directly answer questions, Trump doesn't answer the question but says "I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen," then claims "I am treated worse" than Abraham Lincoln. pic.twitter.com/yuIsmo5JFt  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 4, 2020

The president said he appreciated the question, but did not provide a direct response to the points noted. He complained instead about the hostile press, which he claimed treated him worse than any other president.

The closest would be that gentleman right up there, Trump said, gesturing at the memorial of Lincoln, who was assassinated in 1865. They always said Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I...

Continue reading on HuffPost
The leaders of Northern Ireland's main Churches have urged politicians to consider easing restrictions on private prayer in church buildings "sooner rather than later".

In a joint statement, the leaders of the Church of Ireland, Methodist Church in Ireland, Catholic Church, Presbyterian Church and the Irish Council of Churches, said they accept that now is not the time for "a full return" to collective worship in our Churches.

However, they asked for the issue to be reviewed regularly.

"The issue of church buildings being permitted to open for individual visits and private prayer, where this is desired locally and can be done so safely with appropriate social distancing in place, is however a different and a separate matter," they said.

"Where the medical and scientific advice indicates that this limited step is possible, we would urge the Executive to consider easing this particular restriction sooner rather than later."

Last week, Stormont minister Edwin Poots suggested there could be a phased reopening of churches with the capacity to implement social distancing. He said any changes would only be made in line with medical and scientific advice, but that ministers were aware of the negative impact the rules were having on the public.

Mr Poots, who attends a church with 700 seats, said: "If we can facilitate social distancing, can we do it? That's a reasonable question to ask."

Speaking yesterday, new Church of Ireland Primate Archbishop John McDowell said Churches did not want to have any "special treatment", but would like to be considered on their own merits.

"There are lots of things impacted by what is going on right now, and things of course need to be thought through properly at every stage. But faith is very important to people and one of the things that is clear at the moment is that the clergy are still in close contact with people," he said. "Of course that contact is not the same as it was with people coming into churches and clergy going to see them, but people are still ringing around and the clergy have a strong feel for how people are. There is no doubt there is quite a lot of frustration. Not just because of restrictions around attending church. In some very serious scenarios of course, there are even people in abusive situations, and all of it is very difficult."

In their statement, which followed a video conferencing meeting on Friday, the Church leaders told how the current restrictions were "challenging" but also "for the good and the protection of everyone across our island".

Archbishop McDowell added: "We recognise that on the one hand we're citizens that need to respond positively to what is being asked of us by governments and public health authorities.

"And at the same time as leaders of faith communities, we like to think of ourselves as people of hope. There are tens of thousands of people who look forward to going to church every Sunday, and some who go even more frequently than that.

"This is a very serious emergency we're in, and none of us can quite see our way through the fog. Whatever happens next is going to be slow and gradual, and the nature of the disease will dictate the nature of the reaction.

"But at some time when these decisions are being made we hope we will be treated on our merit as Churches and responsible people to do everything required in terms of social distancing or whatever other measures may be needed."
The College Democrats of Massachusetts say former Vice President Joe Biden should fully cooperate with any investigations into former Senate staffer Tara Reades allegations of sexual assault, and they urge Biden and the Senate to release any records on Reades accusations or firing.

In a statement released Monday, the student Democrats said advocating for marginalized groups, including sexual assault survivors, comes before politics, even while recognizing the tremendous stakes of the upcoming presidential election."

While theyll back the eventual Democratic nominee against Republican President Donald Trump, and while they credited Biden for his decades-long support of womens rights, the students said they cannot allow our values to be contravened by political considerations, or we will have surrendered our moral integrity and our claim to leadership.

Democrats must hold our own leaders to the same standard that we hold Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh, among others, Hayley Fleming, CDMA President and Amherst College junior, said in a statement. We hope that this can be an opportunity to show that Democrats take all allegations of sexual assault seriously, regardless of who those allegations accuse.

Reade, a staffer of Bidens when he was a Delaware senator in the 1990s, is one of several women who last year accused Biden of uncomfortable kissing, hugging or touching. She made the sexual assault allegation during a podcast interview in March.

A former neighbor of Reades recently told Business Insider that Reade shared details of the incident more than 20 years ago. The New York Times interviewed several staffers during the period who said they were never aware of any complaints about the senator.

Biden emphatically denied the claims last week after increasing pressure from Democrats, womens groups and Trump to respond to Reade directly. They arent true. This never happened, Biden said.

Fleming said students cannot afford to sit back because they are affected by sexual assault on campuses at alarming rates.

Now is the time to show that our generation is serious about preventing sexual assault, and we encourage our leaders to explore the ways in which gender and power dynamics play into this issue, she said.

The student Democrats, which along with other groups support survivors through the Every Voice Coalition, noted that Biden helped lead the Obama Administrations Its On Us campaign to raise awareness and combat sexual assault on college campuses.

In keeping with his previous advocacy on this issue, we call upon him to make all of his records regarding Ms. Reade available to one or more third parties for scrutiny and to engage in a good-faith dialogue with the public about the allegations against him, the students said.

The Massachusetts High School Democrats also signed the statement, as did Democratic organizations at several colleges throughout the state, including the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Harvard University, Northeastern University, Boston University, UMass Amherst, Amherst College, Smith College and others.

Biden last week requested the National Archives release any records related to Reades allegation, but was directed to the Senate. He then asked the secretary of the Senate to publicly release not only a complaint if one exists, but any and all other documents in the records that relate to the allegation.

That request currently remains in limbo, after further back-and-forth over whether the records might be held at the National Archives or the Senate. The secretary of the Senate on Monday said that the body had no discretion to disclose the information, Politico reported. Biden then asked the Senate secretary whether the very existence of any records is subject to disclosure, if anyone else such as Reade could request them, and if the Senate could release procedures and materials followed for complaints back in 1993 when the alleged assault occurred.

Reade told The Associated Press last week that she filed a limited report with a congressional personnel office; it did not explicitly accuse the senator of sexual assault or harassment.

Last week, Trump, whos been accused of sexual assault or harassment by more than a dozen women, mentioned Reades allegations in response to a question about attacks on the presumptive Democratic nominee by his surrogates and campaign.

I dont think theyre going hard with him with regard to Tara Reade. I think he should respond," Trump said. The president added that Reades story could be false accusations and claimed that he had been falsely charged numerous times.

Related Content:

 Election 2020: Sexual assault claim against Joe Biden corroborated by former neighbor of Tara Reade

 Election 2020: Former Senate aide accuses Joe Biden of sexual assault; Biden team calls allegation false

 Election 2020: Bernie Sanders endorses Joe Biden, says Weve got to make Donald Trump a one-term president

 Election 2020: Hillary Clinton says Joe Biden has been preparing for this moment his entire life as she endorses him for president

 Complaint against Joe Biden by Tara Reade did not explicitly accuse him of harassment, sexual assault

 Read former Vice President Joe Bidens response to Tara Reade sexual assault allegation
DIF employee of Isla Mujeres dies in accident

Isla Mujeres, Q.R.  An Isla Mujeres city council worker lost his life over the weekend after being involved in an accident.

Municipal mayor Juan Carrillo, confirmed the death on social media. He reported that municipal DIF employee, Jabert de Jesus Borges Quinones, died when the vehicle in which he was traveling overturned.

The accident happened along an island roadway when three people inside a buggy overturned on a corner. All three were thrown from the unit. According to the report, Jabert Borge Quinones, who worked at the municipal DIF (el Sistema Nacional para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia) died instantly.

A second person was taken to hospital in serious condition, while the third was detained by police.

Through social media, the mayor expressed his condolences for the death of the city worker. I deeply regret the death of our colleague and friend, Jabert de Jesus Borges Quinones, a great human being appreciated by all and an extraordinary public servant.
Syria strongly denounces Israel's plan for annexing occupied West Bank

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 03 May 2020 3:19 PM

Syria has strongly lambasted Israel's plan for annexing much of the occupied West Bank and roundly rejected statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to grab more Palestinian lands in the occupied region.

In a statement carried by the country's official news agency SANA on Sunday, Syria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates stressed that Netanyahu's statements came in the context of the "aggressive expansionist behavior of the usurping Zionist entity."

This came after the Israeli premier stressed that he would start plans for annexing more areas in the occupied West Bank on July 1 according to US President Donald Trump's so-called Mideast plan.

Defying international outcry, Trump formally unveiled his much-condemned and long-delayed "Deal of the Century" for the Israeli-Palestinian decades-long conflict in January at the White House with Netanyahu on his side.

Trump's Middle East scheme largely meets Israel's demands while creating a Palestinian state with limited control over its own security and borders, enshrining the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as "Israel's undivided capital" and allowing the regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley.

The so-called peace plan, which further denies the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homeland, is also in total disregard for UN Security Council resolutions and the opposition by the vast majority of the international community.

Elsewhere in its statement, the Syrian Foreign Ministry stressed that Netanyahu's land-grabbing aspirations demonstrate Tel Aviv's continuous violation of and contempt for international legitimacy and the international community's decisions regarding the legal status of the occupied lands, particularly with respect to East Jerusalem al-Quds and Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In 1967, Israel waged a full-scale war on Arab territories, during which it occupied a large swathe of Golan and annexed it in 1981, a move condemned by the international community. Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Heights, stressing the territory must be completely returned to the control of Damascus.

"Syria demands that the international community take action and put an end to the Israeli and American arrogance and disdain of the international legitimacy, which constitutes a serious threat to security and stability in the region and the world," the statement added.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry also warned that Israel targets an entire nation, meaning that everyone must take a responsible position for defending the nation's interests and rejecting any form of normalization with "this usurping entity."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






This is the heartwarming moment three platypuses were released back into the wild after they were saved from their scorched habitat during last summer's bushfire crisis.

Seven platypuses were saved from certain death after they were rescued from dwindling waterways that were weeks away from completely drying up.

Three of the critters have now been released back into Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve near Canberra after they were rescued from ponds.

Researchers from the Taronga Conservation Society and University's NSW's Centre for Ecosystem Science answered the call for help from ACT Parks and Conservation staff on December 27 to trap as many platypuses as they could before conditions worsened.

Seven platypus were saved from certain death after they were rescued from dwindling waterways at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve (pictured) weeks away from completely drying up

This is the heartwarming moment three platypus were released back into the wild after they were evacuated from their habitat during last summer's bushfire crisis

It's estimated more than half of the reserve's platypus population were saved which would have otherwise perished within weeks ahead of catastrophic fire conditions.

In a video posted to Taronga Zoo's Facebook page, Dr Phoebe Meagher said researchers moved quickly to get the mammals out of harms way.

'With the help of the University of New South Wales, we got out the nets and the tinny  and we managed to save seven platypus from the drying creeks,' she said.

'We knew that the bushfires were coming through in the next few days and we had work as quickly as possible.'

In January Taronga conservation and recovery programs manager Andrew Elphinstone said they were lucky to get in to rescue the platypuses before they had no water left.

'With an ever-decreasing water body comes the reduction in resources including food,' he said.

'It was feared there was not enough prey items to support the platypus population.'

Dr Meagher described the rescue as confronting as she described the dire conditions they faced.

Seven platypus were saved and taken to Taronga Zoo, where they were getting the best care until they were released back into the wild

The zoo released heartwarming footage of the rescued critters receiving the health checks in December

'We know it was going to be bad but I didn't realise how bad it would be,' she said.

'Some of waterways were a few metres across and 30 centimetres deep with cracks in the soil.

'Animals were coming from all over to try and drink from the last remaining bit of water and you could see the platypus at the top because there was nowhere else for them to go. Usually they like to swim down but they couldn't because the water was so shallow.'

Taronga Zoo released heartwarming footage of the rescued critters receiving the health checks and tender loving care during their time at the zoo.

Rescuers managed to save half of the reserve's platypus population before water levels ran low in December

After getting a clean bill of health from vets, the platypus called Taronga Zoo home before being release back into the wild

Once considered widespread across the eastern Australian mainland and Tasmania, there are fears the beloved native animal is at grave risk of extinction within the next 50 years.

The platypus is currently listed as 'near threatened' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

UNSW researchers fear the wild population could slump by two thirds by 2070 due to climate change and other threats such as land clearing and habitat fragmentation by dams,

'Platypus waterholes in some NSW rivers are drying up and stranding animals, as a result of the drought exacerbated by river management,' UNSW Centre for Ecosystem Science director Professor Richard Kingsford said.

'Our research has indicated that these incidences will likely increase in an increasingly dry future.'
South Korea Says Gunshots Fired From North at Guard Post in Demilitarised Zone - Reports

Sputnik News

03:06 GMT 03.05.2020(updated 03:33 GMT 03.05.2020)

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Multiple gunshots have been fired from North Korea, hitting a South Korean guard post inside the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), the South Korean Yonhap News Agency reports, citing the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

"We are taking actions via inter-Korean communication lines to grasp the detailed situation and to prevent any further incidents. And we also maintain a necessary readiness posture", the JCS said on Sunday, as quoted by Yonhap.

The guard post that came under attack on Sunday morning is located in the central South Korean border town of Cheorwon in Gangwon Province.

JCS said that the South Korean military fired back twice after broadcasting warnings. No casualties or damage were reported on the South Korean side.

Since 1953, following the end of the Korean war, the two countries have been divided by the demilitarised zone, which serves as the border between Seoul and Pyongyang.

The DMZ has served as a meeting place for the leaders of both Koreas and the United States, as the countries took steps to resume the stalled talks on the North's nuclear arsenal.

In February, South Korea requested UNESCO to facilitate recognition of the demilitarised zone at the border with North Korea as an international peace zone to serve as a security guarantee for both countries.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Photo credit: Samir Hussein - Getty Images

From ELLE

Thanks to royal family photographer Samir Hussein, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may have a new favourite photo.

In a new interview with Us Weekly, Hussein shares that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were 'really happy' with the now-iconic snapshot the photographer captured of the royal couple back in March.

The photo in question was from the 2020 Endeavour Fund Awards in Londonone of the last public appearances from the couple as active working royals where Hussein captured the pair beaming at each other whilst under an umbrella as they arrived to the event.

Photo credit: Max Mumby/Indigo - Getty Images

'The picture that I took of Harry and Meghan in the rain recently, Ive never had a reaction to a picture like that one. In terms of the reaction Ive had from people, thats got to be the most iconic from that point of view,' Hussein told Us Weekly.

'I spoke to some of their team and they were really happy about it and talking about it.'

The photographerwho had spent time photographing the couple all around the world over the past few years, including locations such as Australia, Fiji and Africaexpressed how he'll miss being able to capture images of the pair due to their recent relocation to Los Angeles this spring.

'Im really disappointed that I won't get to photograph them so much anymore,' admitted Hussein. 'I hope to get to photograph them [again].'

The duke and duchess - who are expected to release a photo of Archie later this month to mark his first birthday - have been helping their local community in LA by delivering food to residents living with critical health conditions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.



You Might Also Like
GNai Blakemore was horrified. It was early April, and the coronavirus was spreading across Houston. But the personal care home where her aunt lived was sending residents to day groups again.

The 36-year-old public relations director couldnt figure out what agency  if any  oversaw the facility. She desperately wanted help getting the owner to follow stricter protocol to prevent a coronavirus outbreak.

Her aunt, 62-year-old Vicki Brown, had moved into the care home two years earlier, after suffering a series of strokes. They had always been close. Blakemore began to wonder if she should move Brown into her one-bedroom Tanglewood apartment.

If her aunt stayed in the care home and got sick, Blakemore said, I would never get over the guilt.

The question of where vulnerable older relatives are safest has plagued countless families in recent weeks. Early on, state-regulated nursing homes and assisted-living facilities proved dangerous  roughly 2 of every 5 coronavirus-related deaths in Texas were linked to such facilities, even with added precautions.

Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

An untold number more seniors, such as Blakemores aunt, live in group homes that were not uniformly regulated by the state and so not bound by the same rules. Such homes, Blakemore was discovering, posed additional, untracked harm. Texas doesnt release case data for individual regulated facilities, let alone unregulated ones.

The scant information, fear of the virus and lack of an oversight agency compounded an already difficult decision. Yet, the fact remained that a patient was typically placed in a care facility because family members could no longer meet that persons needs, said George Taffet, a geriatrician at Baylor College of Medicine.

Moving someone into a facility can be challenging. Janet Marquis, 59, only got her 86-year-old dad, a truck driver, to move to a Katy-area nursing home with a court-order and transfer from a hospital. He had Parkinsons and Alzehimers diseases, and, though she worried about the level of care, she felt she had no choice but to leave him there.

If I could bring him home and have someone take care of him here, I would certainly do that, but my dad requires 24-hour care, Marquis said. I dont have the resources for that and neither does he.

BEST IN SENIOR LIVING: Why did 3 people at luxury Woodlands senior community die from COVID-19?

Sue Ellen Davis tried for weeks to move her 89-year-old father, James Virgil Davis, from a League City assisted-living facility into her Angleton home. Davis planned to hire someone to help care for her dad, a former Dow Chemical employee, who had Alzheimers and was on hospice. She didnt want him to die alone.

But before she could get him tested to be sure he didnt have COVID-19, a worker tested positive, then some residents, then him. He was hospitalized and returned to the facility tired and weak. She still wanted to bring him home. On Monday, after she arrived for a daily window visit, staff found he had passed away. He tested negative that day for the virus.

Courtesy: Sue Ellen Davis

Geriatricians such as Taffet caution family members to think carefully before removing a relative from a care facility, since the family will still have to meet the needs that overwhelmed them in the first place, and may have worsened. But Blakemore, working from home, felt she could support her aunt. She had to decide if she should.

Blakemores aunt, who worked on a Honeywell assembly line in the Dallas area, had nine strokes in late 2017. She went twice to a hospital, then to rehabilitation and then to a skilled nursing facility. But her insurance wouldnt pay for her stay there long term.

Blakemore searched frantically for a place Brown could afford to live. Brown needed help with her meals and reminders to take her medication. But nursing homes were expensive and didnt seem like the right fit since Brown was relatively young.

The facility she left arranged for her to move to the Alpha Personal Care Homes in Mission Bend. It allowed her more freedom and fit her budget, and Blakemore hadnt been able to find another option. It took a while for Brown to settle in, to call her niece without crying.

Residents in the homes ranged in age, owner Alex Edohoukwa said. And they coped with a variety of issues, from mental illness to brain damage to dementia. Buses took them to various therapeutic programs during the day.

When the threat of coronavirus rose, Edohoukwa prohibited residents from attending their day groups. But he started to worry they would wind up in worse trouble since they could still come and go from the home. He checked that the day groups had procedures to protect against coronavirus, then decided residents could go again.

Im not putting them in harms way, he said. Its more productive for them to have something to look forward to than just sitting at home getting depressed and looking for trouble to get into.

Blakemore worried that returning to the day programs, with lots of other people, was a bad idea. The state had banned visitors and stopped group activities in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities in mid-March. When she learned residents were going back, she set off to figure out who oversaw personal care homes.

Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

She didnt get far. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission regulates group homes that are part of a Medicaid program for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities  which the Alpha Personal Care Homes location was not.

The commission investigated the home in 2018 to see if it was operating unlicensed as an assisted-living facility  defined as a place giving personal care or medication administration to four or more people  and determined it was not.

Fort Bend County, where the home was located, didnt regulate such homes, either.

NOTHING TO DO HERE: People in no-visit Texas nursing homes adapt to world without guests

Blakemore had trouble getting someone on the phone to talk through any of this. She remained concerned. It would be a tight fit in her apartment, but her aunt could sleep on an air mattress or her couch. Blakemore could help her bathe and cook for her. She could get her a brain exercise workbook and let her watch TV while Blakemore worked.

And so, on April 7, Blakemore decided. Early before work, she drove to pack up Browns belongings and bring her home.

emily.foxhall@chron.com
Despite the fact it could be on the brink of financial collapse, German-based airline Lufthansa is trying to do its bit during the pandemic. With many flights around the world  both international and domestic  currently grounded, airlines (Lufthansa included) are finding ways to keep some of their inactive fleet, active.

Following in the footsteps of Air Canada  which recently gutted three of its Boeing aircraft  the flag carrier airline of Germany announced on Instagram it had ripped the seats out of six of its Airbus A330 aircraft so that they could be used to transport vast quantities of medical supplies to the countries who need them most. Lufthansa added that a few A350 aircraft have also been (temporarily) transformed into freight carriers.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Lufthansa (@lufthansa) on Apr 24, 2020 at 7:15am PDT

The airline added, A very special mission for six of our A330  to deliver urgent medical products and to maintain the global supply chains, our passenger aircraft are currently flying around the globe as freighters with unusual cargo.

Extended seats in Economy, Premium Economy and Business Class create plenty of space for the urgently needed goods.

The move has received a lot of support on Instagram, with many users congratulating the airline for a good job!. Its certainly a selfless act considering it could soon see its entire fleet grounded for an indefinite amount of time unless it manages to secure a bailout.

The German government and the airline are currently in the middle of negotiations, but with some $13 billion required to keep it afloat, the government in return wants an equity stake and seats on the board. Business Insider claims CEO Carsten Spohr regards as impossible requirement.

As of today, May 4th, Lufthansa and other airlines in the Lufthansa Group, have made it mandatory for passengers to wear facemasks when boarding flights that are currently running, although recommends they remain worn for the entire duration. Passengers will, however, need to supply their own masks, and the rules are said to be in place until at least August 31st.

Germany currently has 166,000 confirmed cases of the virus and just under 7,000 deaths at the time of writing. The country has certainly managed to contain it far better than its neighbours Italy, Spain and the UK, which all have death tolls above 20,000.

As ABC reports, Chancellor Angela Merkel has a degree in quantum chemistry, so has been able to explain to her country the effects of the coronavirus and how its transmitted in a way that is much easier to understand, along with guidelines to be followed that receive more attention and respect.

Read Next
The mayor also was asked about the financial impact from COVID-19 on government budgets. Lightfoot said the city wouldnt be cutting back on public safety and police, noting the citys chronic street violence. She did express concern about the casino legislation in Springfield and said proposed revenue increases at the statehouse need to balance the realities being faced by people and businesses who are hurting.
Coronavirus Outbreak Updates:Seven persons, including four minors, tested positive for COVID 19 on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases in Bihar to 535, a top official said.

Auto refresh feeds

One COVID-19 patient succumbed to the viral infection so far, while the recovery rate stood at 35.3 percent with 60 patients being discharged.

With one individual testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Odisha, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state climbed to 170 on Tuesday. Of the total, there are 109 active cases.

"So far, 10 areas have been de-contained and now the active containment zones in the city are 90," an official statement said.

According to the Delhi government, the areas de-contained on Monday were in the West district - in and around area of - 11/3, 2nd Floor Ashok Nagar (sealed on April 8); A 36/4, East Patel Nagar (sealed on 13 April); G-174, Capital Greens, DLF, Motinagar (sealed on 8 April).

With three more zones de-contained on Monday, the total number of containment zones in the city stood at 90.

The Congress party has tweeted a 1.44-minute clip from the conversation which will be aired in full at 9 am Tuesday.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's dialogue with Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee on dealing with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis will be aired on Tuesday as part of his series of deliberations with experts on economy and health.

From Tuesday, stand-alone shops will issue tokens for customers to avoid crowding at shop counters.

In an order released on Monday, the Mumbai Police stated that Section 144 has been imposed in the city till 17 May between 8 pm and 7 am. The order clarified that during those hours, only vehicles addressing medical services and the ones used for essential services will be allowed to ply.

Seven more people tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Nepal, taking total confirmed cases to 82, said the country's health ministry on Tuesday.

The Baltimore-based university had recorded more than 1.17 million cases in the country as of 8.30 pm Monday (12.am Tuesday), with 68,689 deaths.

The toll due to coronavirus in the United States rose by 1,015 in the past 24 hours, a tally by Johns Hopkins University showed Monday - the lowest one-day figure in a month.

INS Jalashwa deployed off Mumbai coast, along with INS Magar, were diverted for Maldives on Monday night, he said.

India has sent three naval ships to evacuate its citizens stranded in the Maldives and UAE due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a defence spokesperson said in the early hours on Tuesday.

A total of 14 warships have been readied for evacuating Indian citizens from Gulf and other countries, said Indian Navy officials on Tuesday. INS Jalashwa sailed from Visakhapatnam a few days ago from the east coast to the west coast.

India registered 46,433 COVID-19 positive cases on Tuesday with 1,568 fatalities due to the viral disease, according to the latest data released by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee during the conversation with Congress leader Rahul insisted on a "large enough stimulus package," cited example of US setting aside 10 percent of GDP to tackle COVID-19 crisis.

Handing out temporary ration card to anybody who requires one at the current moment would be a good idea to tackle the food crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee to Rahul Gandhi.

During his conversation with Rahul Gandhi regarding economic impact of COVID-19 in India, Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee called for a faster lockdown exit even though the fast spreading novel coronavirus needed to be taken into consideration.

"We have to take a chance on widening the reach of PDS," Banerjee told Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday while discussing the state of Indian economy.

Abhijit Banerjee advised that India should take a cue from the United States and insisted on putting money into people's hands, "as the current US administration is doing".

"Migrant problem in a city like Mumbai has to be tackled by the state government, not the Centre," said the nobel laureate.

Abhijit Banerjee said it is pivotal to ensure direct cash transfer to the poorest in the Indian economy during the COVID-19 crisis. He also suggested that reliable NGOs can be roped in for this purpose.

"We should try to be optimistic about overall economic revival in India post-lockdown," said Banerjee.

He further claimed that many names still missing in the system.

Aadhaar-based claims for public distribution system (PDS) would have saved a lot of misery for the poor, said Abhijit Banerjee during discussion on economic impact with Congress' Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday.

So far, lives of 82 COVID-19 patients were claimed by the infectious disease. There are 1,577 active coronavirus cases in the state.

After 38 more people test positive for the novel coronavirus in Rajasthan on Tuesday, the total number of confirmed cases in the state climbed to 3,099, said health ministry.

"Of the 24, we had one who was positive for COVID-19 on 27 December," he told the news channel on Sunday.

Yves Cohen, head of the resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in the northern suburbs of Paris, told BFM TV that scientists had retested samples from 24 patients treated in December and January who tested negative for the flu.

A French hospital which has retested old samples from pneumonia patients discovered that it treated a man who had COVID-19 as early as 27 December, nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.

After the Delhi government raised the VAT on auto fuel, the petrol price per litre is hiked by Rs 1.67 to Rs 71.26 while, the price of diesel increased by Rs 7.10 to Rs 69.39 in the National Capital on Tuesday.

Nine trains carrying migrant labourers stranded in Surat will reach Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, News18 reported on Tuesday.

"A significant breakthrough has been achieved in finding an antidote to the Corona virus that attacks the virus and can neutralize it in the sick body," read the statement from the IIBR and Bennett.

Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett visited the lab on Monday and made a joint announcement about the advancement.

The Israel Institute for Biological Research announced on Monday that they had completed the development phase of an antibody to battle the coronavirus, and it will head to mass production.

There are 12,726 people who have been cured or discharged from hospitals so far.

The number of fatalities stood at 1,568 after 195 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. At the same time, 1,020 people also recovered from the deadly respiratory disease, the Union ministrys Covid-19 dashboard showed at 8am.

Of the total, over 9,700 cases have been reported in MMR alone.

Maharashtra, and especially the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), is the worst-affected by the novel coronavirus disease. The state has so far reported 14,541 confirmed cases of COVID-19 which includes a toll of over 583.

"In the second phase, in the last 3 days, more than 50,000 migrant workers have been brought back," said Adityanath.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath claimed that more than 6.5 lakhs migrant workers were brought back to the state during the first phase of lockdown between 27 and 29 March.

Sources said the fresh hike (50 percent) in rates could fetch an additional revenue of Rs 9,000 crore per annum to the cash-starved state government.

The enhanced rates would come into force with immediate effect, he said. The state government also decided to open liquor outlets from 12 noon, instead of 11 am, till 7 pm.

Special Chief Secretary (Revenue) Rajat Bhargava said the abnormal increase in liquor rates was to 'discourage' people from consumption and safeguard health.

The Andhra Pradesh government has enhanced prices of liquor by another 50 per cent on Tuesday, only a day after imposing a 25 per cent hike as shops were reopened in relaxation of the ongoing lockdown, reports PTI.

This is the second train arranged for the workers in Telangana. Similarly, another train from Rayannapadu near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh left for Chandrapur in Maharashtra, the SCR official added.

"The Shramik Special Train left for Khagaria in Bihar on Tuesday morning. All the passengers were screened before they were allowed to board," a senior south central railway official said.

A special train carrying about 1,200 migrant workers left for Khagaria in Bihar from Ghatkesar near Hyderabad on Tuesday.

Thirteen fresh COVID-positive cases have been reported from a force camp in Tripura. These include 10 personnel and three family members (wife and two children) of an infected trooper, a Border Security Force (BSF) spokesperson said. The number of cases from the border state of Tripura stands at 24 now, he said.

COVID-19 cases in border guarding force BSF have climbed to 67, with the maximum reported in a Delhi battalion, deployed in the Jamia area for law and order duties, and from the frontier state of Tripura, officials said on Tuesday.

Of the fresh 38 coronavirus cases, 14 were from Jaipur, nine from Chittorgarh, eight from Kota, four from Jodhpur, two from Tonk, and one from Bharatpur, the Health Department official said.

The death toll due to COVID-19 in the state has climbed to 82, he said. Jaipur alone has reported 49 deaths, Singh added.

Rajasthan recorded five more coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, taking the state's toll to 82, an official said. The state also reported 38 fresh coronavirus cases, he said. Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Rohit Kumar Singh said all the five deaths took place in Jaipur.

67 new COVID-19 positive cases reported in Andhra Pradesh in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases in the state to 1717 with the state toll at 34, according to the state health department.

She was attending to a patient at the urology ward of the premier hospital, where she may have come in contact with an infected person, Pandey said. She has been admitted to the isolation ward of the hospital and people who may have come in contact with her are being traced, the official said.

A woman attending to a patient at AIIMS, Rishikesh has tested positive for COVID-19, taking the number of confirmed cases in Uttarakhand to 61, officials said on Wednesday. Her swab sample was found positive for the infection late Monday night, Additional SDM Apoorva Pandey said.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the national capital on Monday mounted to 4898, with 349 fresh cases being reported in a day, according to Delhi government authorities. No fresh death was reported for the second successive day on Monday.

Test results of five more staff of Jag Pravesh Hospital are awaited, they said. "Five of our resident doctors have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last one week or so, while five more test results are awaited," a senior official of the hospital said.

Five resident doctors of a Delhi government hospital tested positive for COVID-19 in the last one week or so, officials said on Monday.

State-run TASMAC alcohol shops will not be opening in the Greater Chennai City police limits on 7 May, the Tamil Nadu government has said. The opening date will be announced later, ANI reported.

So far, the state has recorded 28 deaths, according to the health department. The COVID-19 recovery rate in the state stood at 49.2 percent after 324 patients were discharged.

With eight more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Karnataka between Monday 5 pm to Tuesday 12 pm, the total number of confirmed cases in the state climbed to 659.

Chhattisgarh government has initiated home delivery services of liquor in green zones in the state, ANI reported on Tuesday. A customer can place an online order for up to 5000ml liquor at a time, with delivery charges of Rs 120.

According to a journalist with The Indian Express, gate number 1 and 2 which were often used by the officer have been closed, along with the corresponding lifts, for disinfecting and will remain shut till Wednesday (6 May).

The senior official in the department of legal affairs who is now positive had last attended office on 23 April.

The fourth floor of the Shastri Bhawan, office of Department of Legal Affairs, was sealed on Tuesday after a senior law ministry official tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Students will have to keep an eye on the official site of the Board.

The HRD Ministry in a webinar on Tuesday announced that the decision on CBSE Board exams for Class 10 aqnd 12 will be taken soon. The new schedule would be announced soon after that on the official site of CBSE at cbse.nic.in.

While interacting with students in a webinar, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said the JEE-Mains exams will be held from 18-23 July while, JEE-Advanced exams will be held in August. He also said that the medical entrance exam NEET will be conducted on 26 July.

Putting a close to the uncertainly over engineering and medical exams, the government on Tuesday announced dates for holding of Joint Entrance Exams (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

Senior employees of Vistara airlines are likely to go on leave without pay for upto four days per month in May and June, PTI quoted Vistara CEO as saying.

"After announcement by Sonia Gandhi ji, we will send them back to their home states free of cost," said Khachariyawas.

Sonia had announced on Monday that the Congress would bear the expense of train tickets for migrant workers heading home during the lockdown.

Rajasthan Transport Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas on Tuesday said that no migrant labourers were charged of train fare by the state government after the announcement made by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

As many as, 71 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in Pune on Monday, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the district to 2,122.

Two infants among eight who tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Pimpri Chinchwad on Tuesday, ANI quoted the health department as saying.

64 buses and 42 small vehicles have been placed for this purpose.

As many as 1,188 migrant labourers arrived at Dankuni railway station in Hooghly district of West Bengal on Tuesday. "They are being sent to their respective homes after health check up," sais the state police.

The West Bengal government has arranged a fleet of West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation (WBTDC) buses to take the migrant labourers home after they arrived from Rajasthan, said state department of of Health and Family Welfare.

However, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant urged them to stay back as the coastal state will require manpower for the economic revival once the lockdown is lifted.

Nearly 80,000 migrant labourers, mostly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, have registered themselves with the Goa government to return to their native places, according to official figures.

The students were quarantined at Sarusajai stadium in Guwahati. "Visited the quarantine site along with officials to monitor their release process. Best wishes to these students," said Sarma.

The first batch of 124 students, who returned from Kota to Guwahati, tested negative for the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, said Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Forty five Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel have tested positive for the novel coronavirus so far. Among the 45, 43 of them were deployed for IS duties in Delhi and two of them in the Law and Order duty with Delhi Police, said the ITBP.

"If you are from Maharashtra and are stranded abroad, we request you to fill the form linked below. The State will pass this information & coordinate with the Ministry of External Affairs to facilitate your return as soon as the restrictions are lifted," tweeted Thackeray.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday appealed all those from the state who are stranded abroad to fill the given form for returning to their homestate.

24 patients, including serving & retired military personnel & dependents, admitted in Army Hospital (Research and Referral) all from Oncology Department have tested positive for the virus and shifted to Base Hospital in Delhi Cantt.

One more person tested positive for COVID-19 in Uttarakhand on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases to 61, including 39 cured/discharged, the state health department said.

The Rajasthan health departmnet said that 66 new positive cases of coronavirus and five deaths reported were on Tuesday in the state. The total number of cases rose to 3,127 with 82 deaths. Actives cases in the state are 1,581.

"He expressed the hope that "behavioural changes" brought about by the infection could become the "new normal" for a healthy society after the pandemic abates. The nation in a post-coronavirus future could well look back on the pandemic period as a "blessing in disguise" if Indians imbibe hand, respiratory and environmental hygiene and practise it in their everyday lives," India Today reported.

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said that so far, India has managed to curb the spread of coronavirus enough to avoid community transmission, which is stage three of the pandemic.

The Embassy of India in Doha Tuesday said that the Centre had decided to operate two special flights to bring back Indians stranded in Doha. The first one will be from Doha to Kochi on 7 May and the second will be from Doha to Thiruvananthapuram on 10 May, the statement said.

"Anyone from another state who is stranded in Uttar Pradesh can register on 'Jansunwai' portal to seek help. Also, people stranded in other states can get themselves registered," he said.

Uttar Pradesh additional chief secretary Awanish Awasthi said that over 65,000 people have been brought back from different states.

MHA joint secretary PS Srivastava on Tuesday said that to maintain social distancing, a gathering of not more than 50 people are allowed at wedding functions and not more than 20 people at the last rites of the deceased.

"The offices that are operational now must ensure thermal scanning of employees.The person in charge must ensure sufficient availability of face masks and sanitisers. Social distancing norms must be followed. Employees must be registered on Aarogya Setu app," said PS Srivastava, MHA joint secretary.

Three new coronavirus cases have been reported in Odisha; taking the total number of positive cases to 173, the state information and public relations department said on Tuesday.

In the 4 pm press briefing, he said, "In last 24 hours there have been 3,900 new cases, 195 deaths and 1,020 people have recovered. The recovery rate is 27.41 percent."

Union health ministry joint secretary Lav Aggarwal said that the coronavirus toll in India rose by 195 in the last 24 hours, adding that the total number of cases of stands at 46,433 nationwide.

"We persuaded certain states as we were not receiving reports of cases/deaths on time from them, after which the cases have been reported and we have seen spike in death cases today," said Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry.

"Till 4 May, we had run 55 trains. Today, trains have been operated from Bengaluru, Surat, Sabarmati, Jalandhar, Kota, Ernakulam, 21 more such trains may leave today," the statement said.

The Ministry of Railways on Tuesday said that so far, 67 'Shramik Special Trains' have been run by various Zonal Railways.

PTI reported that the Indians stranded abroad, who are to brought back, will be charged for repatriation flights. The Centre was quoted as saying that Rs 50,000 per passenger for London-Delhi flight, Rs 12,000 for Dhaka-Delhi flight will be charged.

The total number of cases in the state is now 502, including 37 active cases.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that three new coronavirus cases were reported in the state on Tuesday. He added that all three patients are from the Wayanad district.

"Extensive sanitisation and intensive disinfection of empty coaches of trains being done by East Coast Railway at Jagannathpur (Odisha). Special care being taken to lock the empty trains on their return journey to Surat (Gujarat)," a statement by East Coast Railway Zone said.

The Maharashtra government on Tuesday issued 'clarification to revised guidelines on the lockdown measures for containment of COVID-19 in the state'.

Women in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday held a protest against the liquor shops being opening in the district by the state government amid the COVID-19 lockdown. A protester was quoted by ANI as saying, "Vegetable markets stay open for only 3 hours but liquor shops are allowed to remain open for 7 hours".

"From 7 May, 2,250 people from abroad will be returning back to Kerala initially. The Centre is learned to have approved to bring back 80,000 expatriates but there are 1.69 lakh people in Kerala's priority list. This has been taken up with Centre," he added.

"Centre has informed that they are bringing back Indians from other countries without conducting COVID-19 test. This will increase threat of COVID-19 spread. Testing has to be conducted and I have taken this matter up with the Centre," he said.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and said that "it would be dangerous to fly back stranded Indians from abroad without proper coronavirus testing."

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday also reportedly said that the returnees from abroad will to be in quarantine for at least seven days.

The PIB released the evacuation plan for Indians stranded in 12 countries abroad by 64 flights by Air India, starting 7 May.

All existing visas granted to foreigners, except certain categories, to remain suspended till the prohibition on international air travel of passengers from/to India is lifted by GoI: MHA

The Border Security Force (BSF) said that a total of 69 personnel have been found to be infected by coronavirus so far.

The total number of cases in the Union Territory stands at 741, including 413 active cases.

The Jammu and Kashmir government said that 15 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the union territory on Tuesday. Of these, one is from the Jammu division and 14 from Kashmir division.

The Haryana health department said that 31 new COVID-19 cases have been reported in the state on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases to 548.

Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra has decided to get home quarantined for 14 days after he came in contact of positive patients. Now, for two weeks Mukesh Kumar, Vice Chairman and CEO of Gujarat Maritime Board, will be the in-charge Municipal Commissioner of AMC.

"In all containment zones, sanitisation is being done three times a day. Tamil Nadu has set up 50 testing centers and the state has the highest testing rate in the country," he added.

Tamil Nadu chief minister E Palaniswami on Tuesday said that coronavirus cases are more in Chennai "because it is densely populated".

The Tamil Nadu health department said that 508 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the state on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases to 4,058. Two deaths have been reported too, taking the toll to 33.

The Maharashtra health department said that 350 coronavirus patients have been recovered and discharged on Tuesday, of which 165 patients are from Mumbai. This is the highest discharge number in a single day in Maharashtra. Total number of discharged patients in the state is 2,465 so far.

The Uttar Pradesh government said that 118 new patients have been confirmed as coronavirus positive since Monday evening, taking the total number of cases to 2,880. Out of the total cases, 987 patients have been discharged while 56 others lost their lives.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting of the task force on Coronavirus vaccine Development and took a detailed review of the current status of Indias efforts in vaccine development, drug discovery, diagnosis and testing, reports ANI. "Indian vaccine companies have come across as innovators in early stage vaccine development research.Similarly,Indian academia and start-ups have also pioneered in this area. Over 30 Indian vaccines are in different stages of vaccine development,with few going on to trial stages," the news agency quotes the Prime Minister's Ofiice as saying.

Addressing the media, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said that non-essential shops in the state will remain shut in red zones, According to a report in The News Minute, the chief Minister said that people aged above 65 and young children have been asked to stay indoors until the lockdown period ended. Night time curfew will continue in all districts, he said.

Punjab Government hikes Petrol and Diesel prices by Rs 2 per litre each, with effect from midnight, reports ANI.

Alert ~ One person from Kokrajhar dist, with a travel history of Cooch Behar in West Bengal, has tested positive for #COVID19 . Total #COVID19 patients in Assam now stands at 44. Active cases 11 Discharged 32 Death 1 Update at 9.05 pm / May 5 #AssamCovidCount

One person from Assam's Kokrajhar district, with a travel history of Cooch Behar in West Bengal, has tested positive for the coronavirus infection, said Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. With this the total number of infections in the state rose to 44, including 32 discharged, one death and 11 active cases.

The district has so far recorded 104 cases, two deaths.

The Ghaziabad district administration has allowed over 500 small industrial units to operate during the third phase of the coronavirus lockdown, reports PTI. An official said 532 shops in rural areas were also allowed to operate while in city areas, 650 traders were given permission to do business. Commenting on it, DM Ajay Shankar Pandey said the administration had received 1,177 applications from the industrialists, of which 517 small-scale industrial units were allowed to operate. He said among the 532 shops in rural areas, 145 deal in fruit and vegetables, 13 in mobile phone repair and 12 in construction material.

Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb said that 13 personnel of BSF's 138th Battalion, including a mess worker, had tested positive for the coronavirus pushing the total number of cases in the state to 42. None of them are civillians, he said adding that two persons have been cured and discharged and the number of active cases stands at 40.

Besides the policeman, 13 other people, including two healthcare workers, tested positive for the COVID-19 infection in Gautam Buddh Nagar on Tuesday, according to officials.The number of total cases in the district now stands at 193, even as 109 patients have been discharged from hospitals after their successful treatment for coronavirus, the officials added.

A policeman deployed on the emergency 112 helpline service in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar has tested positive for the coronavirus, PTI quotes officials as saying. The colleagues, family members and other people who came in contact with the sub-inspector have been quarantined and his health condition is being continuouly monitored, a police spokesperson said."It was still being assessed how the policeman got infected or if he came in contact with an infected person," the spokesperson said.

The Central Government has increased excise duties by Rs 10 per litre on petrol and Rs 13 per litre on diesel, reports ANI. Retail sale prices of petrol and diesel will, however, not change as the price hike will be absorbed by OMCs, according to CNBCTV18. These duty rate changes shall come into effect from 6th May, 2020.

2,200 liquor shops will be opened in Telangana except the ones in Containment Zones, ANI quotes chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao as saying.There will be 16 percent hike in the price liquor and the price of cheap liquor will be hiked by 11 percent. People not maintaining social distancing will have to bear consequences. No Mask, no liquor. No Mask, no goods," he said.

COVID-19 cases have been detected in the state's 32 of total 38 districts. Munger is the worst affected district with 102 cases. Four people have died of COVID-19 so far and there 400 active cases at present.

Seven persons, including four minors, tested positive for COVID 19 on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases in Bihar to 535, a top official said.Of the seven cases, five were male and two female. Five of them hail from Katihar district and one each from Kaimur and Siwan, Health Departments Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar said.

Ten people tested positive for COVID-19 in Jharkhand on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases in the state to 125, according to a bulletin issued by the government.Two persons from Dumka tested positive, while the rest are from Ranchi which has been declared a red zone, health officials said. Of the total positive cases, 89 are active and 33 people have recovered and been discharged, the bulletin said. Of the 91 cases in Ranchi, 71 are active, it said. Two persons have died of the infection in the state so far, while one died due to comorbid conditions, it said. No new cases were reported in the past two days.

Coronavirus Outbreak Updates: Seven persons, including four minors, tested positive for COVID 19 on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases in Bihar to 535, a top official said.

Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb said that 13 personnel of BSF's 138th Battalion, including a mess worker, had tested positive for the coronavirus pushing the total number of cases in the state to 42.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao said that lockdown in the state has been extended till 29 May. He advised people to finish their purchases by 6 pm as there would be a curfew from 7 pm. The chief minister warned of strict action against those found outside their homes after 7 pm.

Noting that the opening of shops in Mumbai has led to the flouting of social distancing norms amid rising number on COVID-19 cases, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi ordered that no permission be given to non-essential shops, including liquor stores, in Mumbai.

The total number of coronavirus infections in Delhi rose to 5,104 as 206 news cases were reported today. The toll stands at 64 with no deaths being reported today.

Mumbai reports 635 new COVID-19 cases and 26 deaths, pushing the total case count to 9,758 and fatalities to 387, PTI quotes the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation as saying.

The Tamil Nadu health department said that 508 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the state on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases to 4,058. Two deaths have been reported too, taking the toll to 33.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issues standard operating procedures for movement of Indian nationals stranded outside the country.

"Passengers found to be symptomatic shall be immediately taken to medical facility. Remaining passengers shall be taken to suitable institutional quarantine facilities to be arranged by respective states. These passengers shall be kept under institutional quarantine for 14 days.

"If they test negative after 14 days, they will be allowed to go home and will undertake self-monitoring of their health for 14 more days as per protocol. The remaining people will be shifted to medical facility by states/UTs governments," the statement said.

All existing visas granted to foreigners, except certain categories, to remain suspended till the prohibition on international air travel of passengers from/to India is lifted by GoI, the MHA said.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and said that "it would be dangerous to fly back stranded Indians from abroad without proper coronavirus testing."

"From 7 May, 2,250 people from abroad will be returning back to Kerala initially. The Centre is learned to have approved to bring back 80,000 expatriates but there are 1.69 lakh people in Kerala's priority list. This has been taken up with Centre," he added.

The Ministry of Railways on Tuesday said that so far, 67 'Shramik Special Trains' have been run by various Zonal Railways.

"Till 4 May, we had run 55 trains. Today, trains have been operated from Bengaluru, Surat, Sabarmati, Jalandhar, Kota, Ernakulam, 21 more such trains may leave today," the statement said.

Union health ministry joint secretary Lav Aggarwal said that the coronavirus toll in India rose by 195 in the last 24 hours, adding that the total number of cases of stands at 46,433 nationwide.

In the 4 pm press briefing, he said, "In last 24 hours there have been 3,900 new cases, 195 deaths and 1,020 people have recovered. The recovery rate is 27.41 percent."

Forty five Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel have tested positive for the novel coronavirus so far. Among the 45, 43 of them were deployed for IS duties in Delhi and two of them in the Law and Order duty with Delhi Police, said the ITBP.

Two infants among eight who tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Pimpri Chinchwad on Tuesday, ANI quoted the health department as saying.

As many as, 71 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in Pune on Monday, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the district to 2,122.

Putting a close to the uncertainly over engineering and medical exams, the government on Tuesday announced dates for holding of Joint Entrance Exams (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

While interacting with students in a webinar, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said the JEE-Mains exams will be held from 18-23 July while, JEE-Advanced exams will be held in August. He also said that the medical entrance exam NEET will be conducted on 26 July.

With eight more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Karnataka between Monday 5 pm to Tuesday 12 pm, the total number of confirmed cases in the state climbed to 659.

So far, the state has recorded 28 deaths, according to the health department. The COVID-19 recovery rate in the state stood at 49.2 percent after 324 patients were discharged.

The fourth floor of the Shastri Bhawan, office of Department of Legal Affairs, was sealed on Tuesday after a senior law ministry official tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The senior official in the department of legal affairs who is now positive had last attended office on 23 April.

According to a journalist with The Indian Express, gate number 1 and 2 which were often used by the officer have been closed, along with the corresponding lifts, for disinfecting and will remain shut till Wednesday (6 May).

67 new COVID-19 positive cases reported in Andhra Pradesh in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases in the state to 1717 with the state toll at 34, according to the state health department on Tuesday. Meanwhile, state-run TASMAC alcohol shops will not be opening in the Greater Chennai City police limits on 7 May, the Tamil Nadu government has said.

COVID-19 cases in border guarding force BSF have climbed to 67, with the maximum reported in a Delhi battalion, deployed in the Jamia area for law and order duties, and from the frontier state of Tripura, officials said on Tuesday.

A special train carrying about 1,200 migrant workers left for Khagaria in Bihar from Ghatkesar near Hyderabad on Tuesday.

"The Shramik Special Train left for Khagaria in Bihar on Tuesday morning. All the passengers were screened before they were allowed to board," a senior south central railway official said.

This is the second train arranged for the workers in Telangana. Similarly, another train from Rayannapadu near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh left for Chandrapur in Maharashtra, the SCR official added.

India registered 46,433 COVID-19 positive cases on Tuesday with 1,568 fatalities due to the viral disease, according to the latest data released by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The figure includes 32,134 active cases.

After the Delhi government raised the VAT on auto fuel, the petrol price per litre is hiked by Rs 1.67 to Rs 71.26 while, the price of diesel increased by Rs 7.10 to Rs 69.39 in the National Capital on Tuesday.

Aadhaar-based claims for public distribution system (PDS) would have saved a lot of misery for the poor, said Abhijit Banerjee during discussion on economic impact with Congress' Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday.

He further claimed that many names still missing in the system.

"We should try to be optimistic about overall economic revival in India post-lockdown," said Banerjee.

Abhijit Banerjee advised that India should take a cue from the United States and insisted on putting money into people's hands, "as the current US administration is doing".

"We have to take a chance on widening the reach of PDS," Banerjee told Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday while discussing the state of Indian economy.

Handing out temporary ration card to anybody who requires one at the current moment would be a good idea to tackle the food crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee to Rahul Gandhi.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's dialogue with Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee on dealing with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis will be aired on Tuesday as part of his series of deliberations with experts on economy and health.

The Congress party has tweeted a 1.44-minute clip from the conversation which will be aired in full at 9 am Tuesday.

In an order released on Monday, the Mumbai Police stated that Section 144 has been imposed in the city till 17 May between 8 pm and 7 am. The order clarified that during those hours, only vehicles addressing medical services and the ones used for essential services will be allowed to ply.

From Tuesday, stand-alone shops will issue tokens for customers to avoid crowding at shop counters.

Even as India's COVID-19 fight entered its third phase on Monday with considerable relaxations to the lockdown curbs, confirmed cases surged to 42,836 with 2,573 fresh cases. The death toll rose to 1,389 with 83 fatalities reported in 24 hours.

The government said a record high number of 1,074 patients recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours but cautioned that the restrictions can be reimposed if there is any complacency in following the containment and social distancing norms.

The Centre also announced that it will facilitate the return of Indians stranded in other countries in a phased manner from 7 May.

Country records highest number of recoveries in 24 hours, says health ministry

According to the 5 pm update issued by the Union health ministry, India now has 42, 836 confirmed cases of coronavirus while 1,380 persons have died due to the disease. Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases (12,974), followed by Gujarat (5, 428 cases), Delhi (4,549) cases, Tamil Nadu (3,023 cases) and Madhya Pradesh (2942).

Maharashtra also recorded the highest number of fatalities with 548 deaths followed by 290 in Gujarat and 165 in Madhya Pradesh.

According to the health ministry, the number of active cases stood at 29,685 as 11,761 persons were cured/discharged while one has migrated.

Earlier, while addressing a press briefing, Joint Secretary at the health ministry Lav Agarwal said that as many as 1,074 COVID-19 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours, the highest number of recoveries recorded in one day.

The rate of recovery stands at 27.52 percent , he said, but stressed that there is a need for rigorous implementation of the containment strategy while people also need to strictly adhere to hygiene as well as social distancing habits.

Agarwal cautioned that if the virus spread is detected in areas that do not have any active cases for now, restrictions can be reimposed there.

Kerala did not report a single new case for the second consecutive day, but neighbouring Tamil Nadu saw its tally rising by a record number of 527 new cases. Gujarat and Maharashtra also reported significant rise in their numbers. Several other states including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha also reported a rising number of cases.

Gujarat reported 376 new cases and 29 more deaths  the highest for a day  to take its total tally of confirmed cases to more than 5,800 and fatalities to 319. Ahmedabad alone reported 259 new cases and a record number of 26 deaths on Monday, taking its tally of confirmed cases to above 4,000 and the death toll to 234.

In Maharashtras Mumbai, the case count crossed the 9,000-mark and jumped to 9,123 with the addition of 510 new patients, while 18 more died due to the viral infection.

While several big urban centres across the country continued to report rise in the number of cases, several smaller states and Union Territories  including Goa, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Meghalaya, Assam, Aruranchal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Manipur, Mizoram, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Tripura  have witnessed nil or very few cases getting detected in the last few days.

Confusion prevails as restrictions are eased in green, orange zones

In the third phase of the lockdown, more categories of stores including of apparel and electrical goods, as also various kinds of repair centres, and even barber shops in some places, reopened in several parts of the country. Liquor shops saw the biggest of the crowds and had to be closed at many places, including in the National Capital, after social distancing norms appeared totally missing.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said whatever happened on Monday was not right and all have to follow the social distancing norms . "It is sad that people were not following social distancing norms at some shops today. I request everyone to not take any risk," he said.

#WATCH It was unfortunate that chaos was seen at some shops today in Delhi...If we come to know about violations of social distancing and other norms from any area, then we will have to seal the area and revoke the relaxations there: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pic.twitter.com/0eFgaqrKsB  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

On the other hand, confusion prevailed in large industrial and business clusters across the country, including in Noida and Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi, on reopening of offices and industrial establishments due to lack of clarity on daily commute of their staff given continuing restrictions on major modes of the public transport.

Row over rail fares of migrant workers

The transport of migrant workers back to their home states continued for the third consecutive day on Monday. Kerala opened its borders at six places for Keralites stranded in other states due to the COVID-19 lockdown to return to their native places.

A total of 21,500 migrant workers and their family members stranded in Gujarat for over 40 days were sent back to their native states, including UP and Bihar, through 18 trains in the last three days, a senior official told PTI.

Union health ministry officials also said the process of transporting stranded migrant labourers was being coordinated by states, though the central government guidelines have clearly stated that the infectious disease management requires everyone to stay where he or she is.

Based on the request given from states for particular cases, permission was given to run special trains. Be it the government of India or the Railways, we have not talked about charging from workers. Eighty-five per cent of the transportation cost is borne by the Railways, while states have to bear 15 percent of the cost, Agarwal told reporters.

Earlier in the day, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi lashed out at the Centre and said the party's state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrant workers and labourers stranded at their workplaces due to the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus.

"What is particularly disturbing is that the central government and the Rail Ministry are charging them (migrant workers) for train tickets in this hour of crisis," she said. "When the government can spend nearly Rs 100 crores on transport and food for just one public programme in Gujarat, when the Rail Ministry has the largesse to donate Rs 151 Crores to the PM's Corona fund, then why can't these essential members of our nation's fabric be given a fraction of the same courtesy, especially free rail travel, at this hour of acute distress?," the Congress president asked.

Centre to facilitate return of Indians stranded abroad

Separately, the Union Home Ministry said the government will facilitate the return of Indians stranded abroad and the process will begin from 7 May in a phased manner. Only asymptomatic people would be allowed to travel and it would be arranged by aircraft and naval ships, and the facility will be available on a payment basis.

After their arrival in India, medical examinations will be conducted on everyone and they will be subsequently put under quarantine for 14 days, either in a hospital or in an institutional facility, the ministry said.

Modi calls for new template of globalisation at NAM virtual conference

At a video-conference of leaders of the Non- Aligned Movement (NAM), Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi called for a new template of globalisation post COVID-19, saying humanity is facing a major crisis.

"COVID-19 has shown us the limitations of the existing international system. In the post-COVID world, we need a new template of globalization, based on fairness, equality, and humanity," the prime minister said. "We need international institutions that are more representative of today's world. We need to promote human welfare, and not focus on economic growth alone. India has long championed such initiatives," he said.

Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends 'Non-Aligned Movement' Summit via video conferencing#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/fe7NA9E7ky  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

With inputs from agencies
Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the graduation ceremony for the Class of 2020 at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo., on April 18, 2020. (David Zalubowski/AP Photo)

Pence Says He Should Have Worn Mask While Visiting Mayo Clinic

Vice President Mike Pence on May 3 said that he should have worn a mask during a recent visit to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota after receiving backlash for failing to adhere to the medical facilitys policy requiring it.

From early on, the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has made it clear that you wear a mask to prevent you from conveying the coronavirus to other people, and so since the president and I are in the unique position were in, were tested often, Pence said during a Fox News virtual town hall on May 3. I didnt think it was necessary.

The White House has said that both President Donald Trump and Pence have tested negative for the CCP virus.

But I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic, he added, noting that two days after visiting the Mayo Clinic, he wore a mask when touring a General Motors ventilator plant in Indiana.

I think it really is a statement about the American people, the way people have been willing to step forward, practice social distancing, wear masks in settings where they cant do that, Pence said. I couldnt be more grateful to see how the American people responded.

The CDC recommended in early April that Americans maintain 6 feet of social distancing and wear face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, to prevent transmission of the virus.

As per Mayo Clinic policy, all patients and visitors are required to wear a face covering or mask to help slow the spread of COVID-19, and patients and visitors are asked to bring their own face covering or mask to wear. If a patient or visitor doesnt have a mask, the Mayo Clinic will provide one.

Pences decision to not wear a mask on his visit to the academic medical center saw him widely criticized on social media, including by celebrities and many public health experts.

Vice President Mike Pence (C) visits a patient who survived the CCP virus and was going to give blood, during a tour of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on April 28, 2020. (Jim Mone/AP Photo)

Following the backlash, Pence initially told reporters that he felt he could visit the center without a mask because he is regularly tested for the virus, and since I dont have the coronavirus, I thought itd be a good opportunity for me to be here, to be able to speak to these researchers, these incredible health care personnel, and look them in the eye and say thank you.'

Karen Pence defended her husbands actions, and insisted that they didnt know about the Mayo Clinics mask policy until after his visit.

As our medical experts have told us, wearing a mask prevents you from spreading the disease, and knowing that he doesnt have COVID-19, he didnt wear one. It was actually after he left Mayo Clinic that he found out they had a policy of asking everyone to wear a mask, she said during a Fox and Friends interview.

The vice president meant no offense and didnt mean to scare or hurt anyone, she said.
As the due date of model and musician Marz Lovejoys son approached, she received a text from a friend. So are we going to livestream the birth? it read. Lovejoy figured the friend must have heard from her husband that she had been thinking about just thata minute-to-minute, no-filter livestream of her delivering her second child.

But nojust a moment of coincidental clairvoyance. For Lovejoy, it was a sign: That solidified it for me.

In March, as the coronavirus began to explode in America, Lovejoy and her husband had begun to make plans for her home birth via virtual meetings with midwives in Minnesota, where Lovejoythe culture editor at Office Magazine (and sometimes muse of Savage x Fenty)is from. But there were other preparations to think about too: What cameras would they need to set up? What streaming platforms were most user-friendly?

When Lovejoy and her husband decided to share their sons arrival, a typically private experience, a sturdy tripod became as important as a birthing pool. Sure, there are going to be some nosy people and I might get a few trolls, she says, but overall I think the people who are going to be tuning in are going to be bringing really good energy. Theyre going to be coming to learn, to see what a home birth is like.

Lovejoy was already seven months pregnant and on vacation in Mexico with her husband and toddler when the pandemic began to take hold. The couple didnt initially wanted to risk traveling home to New York. There was nothing to really rush back to, Lovejoy says, so she met with a midwife in Mexico and began making plans to have the baby there. But that same day the U.S. State Department announced that borders would be closing indefinitely and that Americans should either come home or stay where they were. Suddenly the couple was faced with a tough choice.

Story continues

I went from having my birth team in New Yorktwo midwives and a doulato [potentially] having a baby in Tulum, she says. They always tell you that birth is so spontaneous. Im glad this isnt my first rodeo. Quickly, her family unit shifted their plans: They got their things together and headed not back to New York, but Saint Paul. She had already been planning to have a home birth, as she had with her first child, but now she was holding virtual meetings with midwives in Minnesota and recalibrating her expectationsagain. Once I got to Minnesota, I was a bit discouraged with the anxiety of traveling and being pregnant during this time, she says.

As soon as plans were in place, though, her anxiety began to ease. Thats partially because the house where she is planning to give birth to her son, who is due on May 4 (but hasnt arrived as of publication time), is on the same land where her great-grandmother raised her grandmother. I feel so protected here, she says. I'm surrounded by my family and my ancestors.

Now that she was settled on what Lovejoy describes as sacred land, she started to think about how other pregnant women might be feeling right now. What would it be like to have a baby in the hospital during this time? she says. Especially as a woman of color, especially as a black woman. How could she make this experience easier for them? What could she do to show she understood and shared their anxiety?

The answer came to her pretty easily. Were living in virtual times. Were livestreaming some sort of content every day. Confined to our homes, were more online than ever. Why should birth be any different?

Lovejoys decision was motivated by a desire to present home births and doulas as accessible, alternative options to hospitals, where Lovejoy says she has rarely felt safe. As long as you're healthy, and you're already low-risk, home birth can be such a beautiful experience, she explains. Lovejoy recognizes that home doesnt look the same for everybody, but she wants to present her choice as a possibility to those who might not have considered it. (People who are pregnant should make decisions about how to deliver in consultation with their doctors.)

When you're young and you come from a disenfranchised community, you may not even be thinking about home birth or having a doula, she tells me. But doctors don't always listen. Even superstars like Serena Williams and Beyonce talk about their birthing experiences and how there were times when they had to advocate for themselves. I want women to know that there are resources.

Given the sobering statistics about maternal mortality for black womenthey are about three times more likely to die during childbirth than white womenLovejoy says making decisions around childbirth for black women can be the difference between life and death. (When Serena Williams gave birth to her daughter, Olympia, she had to ask to be given a computed tomography (C.T.) scan when she feared she was having another pulmonary embolism. Instead, a nurse dismissed her request, suggesting the meds were making her confused, and a doctor gave her legs an ultrasound instead.)

Research increasingly shows that access to doulascompanions who arent health care professionals but who advocate for and support women during their birthing experiencescan help lower those odds, in whatever birthing scenario a mother chooses. The American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology released a consensus statement in 2014, saying, Published data indicate that one of the most effective tools to improve labor and delivery outcomes is the continuous presence of support personnel, such as a doula, specifically in cases of women of color. Mounting research suggests that having access to a doula can improve the health and well-being of women of color during pregnancy and childbirth.

But in most states doulas are not covered by health insurance and can cost anywhere from $1,000 or more, depending on the state, which is one of the reasons Lovejoy set up a GoFundMe to raise money for people of color and those who identify as LGBTQ to employ women-of-color doulas for their births. The fund will also provide scholarships to two women of color in their midwife or doula training. Lovejoy is working with Roots Community Birth Center to allocate donations.

So far, Lovejoy has raised nearly $22,775 of her $30,000 goal. Donations above $100 will receive a notification on the day of Lovejoys labor, as well as an additional notification one hour prior to the delivery. Figuring out how to stream the experience was a bit of a challenge, Lovejoy says, because most platforms either have streaming time limits or come with prohibitive fees, but in the end, the stream will live on Crowdcast, with a minimum donation of $3 to tune in. Labor can be long, so we'll start a couple hours before and just go from there, Lovejoy says. Birth can be super unpredictable, so I'm hoping this baby doesn't come early and the whole thing is a bust.

In the meantime, shes getting support from her network of notable friends, like musicians Kehlani, Sza, and Diana Gordon, and model Ebonee Davis. Erykah Badu will be performing the role of virtual doula, by offering Lovejoy words of encouragement and blessing the birth beforehand. This is one of the ways I feel that I can help in a crisis, Lovejoy says. It's so unfortunate to me that so many women throughout history have had miserable birthing experiences. You created life. I don't care whatever vehicle or device or building you build. Nothing compares to creating a life.

Dayna Evans is a freelance writer based in France.

Originally Appeared on Glamour
NASA has slated Michigan Technological Universitys second student-built satellite for a March 2021 deployment from the International Space Station (ISS).

Stratus, named for its cloud-imaging mission, will be carried to the space station, 200 miles above Earth, in a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket. The Dragon will dock to the ISS.

Stratus will be unloaded by the crew, then placed in the Kibo Modules airlock, where the Japanese Experiment Module Remote Manipulator System robotic arm will move the satellite into the correct position and deploy it into space, said Brad King, Michigan Techs Henes Endowed Professor in Space Systems, who has served as Aerospace Enterprise advisor since students came to him with the idea to form a team nearly two decades ago.

Not hard to see how CubeSats get their name. Stratus is a 3U spacecraft, which means its composed of three units. This photo was taken in fall 2019.

Once successfully deployed, Stratus will be the Universitys second orbiting nanosatellite. The first, Oculus-ASR, was launched from Cape Canaveral in June 2019. Another satellite, Auris, designed to monitor communications emissions from geostationary satellites, has cleared system concept review in the design and development phase of the Air Force Research Lab University Nanosatellite Program (AFRL UNP).

Bill Predebon, J.S. Endowed Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics in the College of Engineering, welcomed the news of a second satellite launch with praise for King and Aerospace Enterprise team members. It is amazing that Michigan Tech will have a second student-built satellite in space next year.

"It is a testament to the creativity, ingenuity, and hands-on ability of our students. I am so proud of them." Bill Predebon

How the Payload is Paid For Stratus is funded through NASAs Undergraduate Student Instrument Program and CubeSat Launch Initiative. Michigan Tech's third satellite, Auris, is funded by the AFRL University Nanosatellite Program.

Stratus will use infrared imagery to gather cloud data that can validate and improve numerical weather models. Michigan Tech Aerospace Team Program Manager Troy Maust, a fourth-year computer engineering major, has been working on the CubeSat project for about a year.

This mission has been in the works for much longer, he said. As with Oculus, I estimate more than 200 students and alumni have been part of this mission; it wouldn't be possible without them. I am delighted to see these years of hard work pay off.

The 10-by-10-by-30-centimeter, 4.4-kilogram Stratus CubeSat is considerably smaller than the 70-kilogram Oculus-ASR, a microsat which measures 50-by-50-by-80 centimeters. But both, as well as Auris, are classed in the broader category of nanosatellites, the craft that represent an important development in space industry trends.

In the past, satellites have been large, multimillion-dollar projects, Maust said. While large satellites are still being built, there is a shift toward using multiple smaller spacecraft in a constellation. Besides lowering the overall cost, constellations can provide coverage spread over a larger area. Stratus is an example of using this mindset for weather satellites.

Next Steps for Stratus: FlatSats and Day in the Life

"All of this will keep us busy until our December 2020 handover date." Troy Maust

The COVID-19 global pandemic has affected university access around the world, and Michigan Tech is no exception. Maust said much remains to be done. But as Huskies who relentlessly labored to prepare Oculus-ASR for its launch can attest, this isnt the first time the Aerospace Enterprise has contended with unexpectedly condensed timelines.

System level testing will take place as soon as campus is able to reopen. We'll continue with FlatSat 1 and 2, Maust said. The names are explanatory and the steps are necessary before the CubeSat is entirely assembled. Spacecraft components are laid flat on the workbench and connected to the CubeSats subsystems to verify that the system works together as a whole.

Next comes DITL 1 and 2, or Day In The Life, said Maust. Again, the name is apt. The tests simulate the actions our assembled spacecraft will perform in a day, with the final test running for a full 24 hours, Maust said. Vibration and thermal vacuum testing will also be performed to ensure the spacecraft can withstand the harsh conditions of launch and space.

The process of designing, building and flying a spacecraft is multifaceted, which is why the Aerospace Enterprise, one of the largest at Michigan Tech, welcomes members from disciplines across campus and is organized into numerous subteams. While Stratus system-level testing is taking place, another subteam will be working on procuring any necessary Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) licensing. This can be a long process and must be started well in advance of launch, as we will not be allowed to continue without the proper licensing, Maust said.

In 2016, Michigan Tech was selected to fly Stratus as an auxiliary payload. In early December 2019, a NASA-Goddard Spaceflight Center team conducted a thorough critical design review, or CDR. While we suffered a few nicks and dings from the event, as is common during CDR, we passed and were able to move on to system integration in preparation for an upcoming launch, King said.

Winning the NASA launch was great news, but our celebration was short. Suddenly our to-do list has gotten a lot longer and the stakes have gotten a lot higher.

"I know these students can handle whatever challenges lie waiting between here and orbit. Like it was with Oculus, we will have our big celebration when we see the rocket heading skyward." Brad King

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the University offers more than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.
A newly-qualified doctor about to join the frontline in the battle against coronavirus has spoken about celebrating her graduation online after Queen's University Belfast announced it will not hold ceremonies on campus.

Dr Abbie Harte (24) studied for six years to achieve her medicine degree, which she was awarded via her laptop screen in a virtual celebration last Tuesday amid the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

A rite of passage for all university students, Dr Harte said the virtual ceremony was a memorable way to mark the end of her degree, despite not being the celebration she had dreamed of.

Queen's students due to graduate this year were informed of the change via email. The university has committed to holding further celebrations in the future to allow graduates to reflect on their achievements with family and friends.

Dr Harte said: "Although a traditional ceremony would be nice to mark the end of our medical degree and a lovely way to celebrate with close family and friends, I think that we are all extremely understanding of the current situation and why we weren't able to have a traditional ceremony.

"It wasn't the celebration we were all hoping to have, but it was a lovely day and I was able to celebrate with my close family to acknowledge the end of a challenging six years.

"It's definitely a small sacrifice to make, especially when you see how hard all key workers are working at the moment."

Dr Harte will soon join the fight against Covid-19 as she takes up a post in the Belfast trust months earlier than initially expected.

Final year medical students at QUB have been granted provisional registration earlier than normal to help ease the immense pressure facing local health professionals.

She continued: "Covid-19 has affected everyone, daily lives have changed and many plans and big celebrations have been cancelled.

"I am just grateful that myself and my colleagues have been able to graduate early and can start helping out wherever we can.

"It was lovely to see that the majority of final year students were happy to take up this position and will be starting over the next few weeks.

"It does seem very daunting to start working in such unusual circumstances, but I feel we will all be very well supported."

Newly-qualified doctors will take up posts in the hospitals alongside other clinicians where they completed their most recent placement.

This is because they have gone through the induction process and are familiar with the hospital environment, fellow staff and procedures.

However, they will not necessarily return to wards where they have worked previously as many services have been reconfigured in preparation for the coronavirus pandemic.

Legislation has also been developed to enable final-year student nurses within six months of registration to go into the NHS in a paid capacity.

Meanwhile, QUB law student Kristina Sundin-Maheral (31) said graduates deserve a traditional ceremony later this year to formally recognise their efforts.

Donning a gown and hat and taking to the stage to collect your degree is a huge motivation for students as they study for their exams, the Canadian woman said.

"Everyone was really looking forward to graduation, Queen's do it so well and it's such a prestigious event," she said.

"Queen's put on the nicest day, they do such a great job.

"However, it's understandable, there's no way with the current situation that it could go ahead in July with so many people.

"I was really happy to hear they are planning to do something in future."
Juries could be cut back to a minimum of seven people to ensure social distancing when courts return after lockdown to tackle the huge backlog of 37,000 cases.

Giving evidence to the Commons Justice Committee on the impact of Covid-19 on the legal system, Justice Minister Chris Philp insisted the right to a jury trial would remain.

It comes just days after Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, the most senior judge in England and Wales, had mentioned cutting the number of jurors from 12 to as low as seven.

He also conceded that trials could take place in lecture theatres or halls to abide by social distancing restrictions.

Mr Philp told MPs during a virtual meeting today: 'There is categorically no question at all under any circumstances of the right to jury trial being removed.

Mr Phillp, pictured at Prime Minister's Questions in January this year, conceded that trials could take place in lecture theatres or halls to abide by social distancing restrictions

'There is some consideration being given as to if we have further emergency legislation in coronavirus, which is far from certain, indeed it is probably less likely, we might consider allowing a minimum jury size of seven rather than nine as it currently is.

'That would require legislation, I'm not sure there will be any further legislation, to be honest.

'But, for that aside - the possibility of a seven minimum rather than a nine - there will not be any diminution in the right to jury trial.'

A senior lawyer has previously suggested that all criminal trials held during the lockdown should be heard without juries.

Jury trials in the UK have ground to a halt since March, but the move has caused an increasing backlog of 37,434 cases, as of April 30, awaiting trial.

Mr Philp added that the system had done 'pretty well' in dealing with the emergency.

It comes just days after Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, the most senior judge in England and Wales, is considering cutting the number of jurors from 12 to as low as seven

He told MPs: 'I think, actually, our jurisdiction here has done pretty well in keeping functioning at a level in very difficult circumstances by contrast to much of the rest of Europe.

'In many, if not most, European jurisdictions, the court system has shut down completely with no court cases being heard at all.'

Discussing restarting the justice system last week, Lord Burnett told the BBC: 'There is blue-sky thinking going on at the moment. It is going to be necessary to look at more radical measures to enable jury trials to continue.

'I would support a move to reduce the number of jurors. That was done during the Second World War. Plainly, it would be easier to ensure a safe trial for everybody, with social distancing and other precautions.'

12 jurors are required for trials in England and Wales. Northern Ireland also has a 12 juror rule except for certain terrorist offences linked to the Troubles, where it is still trial by judge. In Scotland there are 15 people on the jury.

Experts are also testing remote jury trials using online tools such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams (pictured)

A working group chaired by High Court judge Mr Justice Edis is looking at measures that could be taken amid calls from lawyers for 'clean, hygienic and safe' courtrooms.

'The use of big venues, all of this I can assure you is already being thought about,' continued Lord Burnett.

'You can't have juries sitting together cheek by jowl, you can't have them expectorating towards each other in a tiny jury box.'

Others have said there could be advantages to measures such as virtual trials for victims giving evidence.

'They don't have to come to court, they don't have to face the pomp of it, when they're not sure what's going on,' Dame Vera Baird QC told the BBC.

'They might run into the defendant, the defendant's brother might deliberately bump into them.

'If you can go to remote evidence somewhere in a suburban house... and give your evidence there and be cross-examined across a television link from a relatively comfortable place... then that can add a great deal of confidence to people coming forward.'

Amanda Pinto QC, chairwoman of the Bar Council, told the committee today that a barrister-wide survey on the possible impact to their practices of the Covid-19 emergency shutdown was 'shocking'.

She said: 'The results are, frankly, shocking - 56% of all barristers cannot survive six months in practice. That takes us from the date of the survey to October of this year.

'69% of publicly-funded barristers cannot survive six months.

'And almost 75% of young barristers, that's those in practice for less than seven years, will not survive six months.'
Ranking members of seven House committees asked the Department of Education to disclose the findings of the department's ongoing investigation into Chinese government funding at U.S. universities, according to a letter viewed by Axios.

The big picture: The coronavirus pandemic has deepened the rift between the U.S. and China, and it's renewed calls for decoupling across multiple sectors.

Details: In a May 4 letter addressed to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, seven Republican lawmakers cited the Chinese government's recent attempts to control scientific research relating to the coronavirus as the reason for greater oversight.

The letter also mentions theft of research and intellectual property, Chinese Communist Party propaganda on U.S. campuses, and concerns that Chinese government-connected funding puts pressure on U.S. institutions.

The letter was signed by the ranking members from the House committees on oversight and reform; education and labor; homeland security; science, space and technology; armed services; foreign affairs; and intelligence.

What they're saying: These actions "bring into question whether U.S. [institutes of higher education] receiving federal taxpayer dollars should be allowed to accept funds from China, the CCP, or other affiliated organizations," wrote the lawmakers.

"The interests of the two nations appear to have diverged."

We cannot allow a dangerous communist regime to buy access to our institutions of higher education, plain and simple," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who spearheaded the letter, told Axios in a statement.

"The Chinese Communist Partys cover-up of the early outbreak of the coronavirus immeasurably worsened this diseases impact on the United States and the world. We owe it to the American people to hold China accountable and to prevent them from doing further harm to our country.

Context: Last year, the Department of Education began investigating several U.S. universities to determine if they had failed to disclose foreign funding as required by law.

In February, the department announced it had uncovered at least $6.5 billion in undisclosed foreign funding and that it was extending the investigation to include Harvard and Yale.

The investigations include donations and contracts with foreign governments, including those of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China and Russia, and companies with strong state ties.

The investigations have been deeply unpopular among some faculty and staff, and university administrations have said that the funding disclosure requirements are byzantine and difficult to follow.

The bottom line: Republicans feel the coronavirus has confirmed their worst fears about the Chinese government's intentions, leading them to double down on pre-coronavirus efforts to scrutinize China's influence in the United States.

Go deeper:
Students have changed their plans as summer programs have been canceled due to the coronavirus. When they lose internships, students say they miss out on work and resume-building experiences.
Shoppers may notice limits on meat purchases at some grocery stores.

The limits are in response to the closure of some meat packing plants across the nation due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Over the past few weeks plants operated by Tyson, JBS, Cargill, National Beef Packing and Smithfield Foods have been shut down as employees become sick.

The food chain is breaking," wrote John Tyson, Tysons board chairman last week in a full page ad published in several newspapers.

There will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed," he warned.

Grocers are keeping watch on supplies and placing limits to ensure availability for all customers. Many are urging shoppers not to hoard meat.

Our goal is to satisfy more customers by limiting some purchases. The supplies continue to very tight and our incoming orders are seeing more out of stocks this week than in the past, said Scott Karns, CEO and president of Karns Foods.

Meats is in supply, but shoppers will find less variety, Karns warned.

MORE: Warehouse workers say their safety concerns are being ignored

Here are how some local grocery chains are handling meat supplies:

Costco

The chain is limited fresh meat purchases to a total of three items per member among beef, pork and poultry products.

In a statement to customers, Costco said it has implemented limits on certain items to help ensure more members are able to purchase merchandise they want and need. Our buyers and suppliers are working hard to provide essential, high demand merchandise as well as everyday favorites.

Giant

Late last week, Giant implemented purchase limits  two per day per household  on select meat, poultry and pork categories until further notice. The measures are designed to provide as many customers as possible with meat, said Ashley Flower, chain spokeswoman.

Karns Foods

The central Pennsylvania chain is running some limits on products strictly based on availability to get replacement product. CEO Scott Karns is recommending customers limit purchase needs to one weeks worth of meals until supply shortages are over.

Hopefully, this issue will be corrected soon and supply of product will return to normal levels. At Karns we continue to have a good supply of meat its just an issue of some cuts not being available temporarily, he said.

Wegmans

Wegmans is asking shoppers to limit purchases of bacon, beef, chicken, ground meat, lamb, pork, sausage, turkey and veal, according to its website.

To help ensure we can serve the immediate needs of our customers, and minimize out-of-stock items, we currently have purchase limits on certain products, the statement read.

In addition, since March Wegmans has limited the purchases of Family Pack 80% Ground Beef and Family Pack Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast to two per family. Around that time, it also encouraged shoppers to limit meat purchases to better manage inventory.

Although we may not have every product cut or variety available for the next few weeks, we are working hard to source all the product we can to ensure our customers have plenty of options in our meat department, Wegmans said.

Weis Markets

Weis is not limiting purchases with exception to one featured item, London broil for $3.99 a pound, said spokesman Dennis Curtin. He added meat cases are stocked and they are keeping an eye mostly on beef supplies.

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.
The Bombay High Court on Monday



said it would continue working limited hours and with restricted benches to hear only extremely urgent matters via video conference until further orders following extension of the lockdown due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Bombay HC Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and other judges of the Administrative Committee on Monday held a meeting and issued a circular stating that HC and its benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad and Goa and all district and magistrate courts across the state shall function as they are doing presently and would take up hearing on only extremely urgent matters.

The circular noted it was necessary to scrupulously follow guidelines issued by both Centre and state government on precautions to be taken by staff while working.

As per the circular, identity proofs of advocates and litigants shall be asked for at the entry points of all court complexes, a register will be maintained at these entry points and names of all entrants would be recorded.

It said no person shall be permitted to enter the court premises without wearing a mask, and any person showing signs or symptoms of COVID-19 shall not be allowed to enter or remain in the court rooms.

To meet exigencies, an isolation room shall be earmarked for such persons.

"At the entry points of the court complex, liquid soap and water basin will be provided for hand wash and entrance of each court room, as far as possible, make provision of hand sanitizers," the circular said.

It is also advisable for all lawyers and litigants to download the Aarogya Setu mobile application, the circular said.

The circular further said necessary social distancing shall be maintained inside court premises, including court rooms and lifts and other departments.

"As far as possible, members of the staff, lawyers and litigants, who are young and not differently-abled, should be encouraged to use stairs instead of lifts for their own safety," it said.

"Judges and members of staff, in the unlikely event of having any symptoms of COVID-19, are requested to immediately report the same to the medical centre," the circular said.

Since the outbreak began, the HC and all other courts are working on skeletal staff, hearing only extremely urgent matters through video conference.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Are you spending your birthday at home this year? If so, you don't have to cancel party plans altogether, but the celebrations might look a little different this year.

While you might not be able to meet up in person, there are many fun ways to have a birthday party on Zoom. From hosting a fancy dress party to throwing a cheese and wine night or pamper session, here are seven ways to virtually socialise with your friends and loved ones on your birthday.

See how well your family and friends know you by hosting a birthday party quiz. Challenge them to answer as many of the 20 questions as they can. For just under a fiver, this game is a great laugh and fun for all ages.

Each pack from Funtastic Games contains 20 game sheets, which you can either send as a photo of to your friends, or post through their letter box. There's also a playful A5 certificate for the winner.

For adults, you could even turn this into a fun drinking game by taking a sip of your favourite tipple each time you get a question wrong.

Buy the Birthday Party Quiz Game for 4.95 on Amazon

You might not be able to venture out to the shops on the high street right now, but why not treat your friend or loved one to an Amazon gift card and go shopping together online?

Simply call each other on Zoom, let the birthday recipient share their screen with you and browse together across thousands of products for something special.

Amazon gift vouchers start from 15 and go right up to 500 if you're feeling extra generous. Or you can choose an alternative amount by typing into the 'Other' box.

Buy an Amazon gift card, from 15

Whether you have a box full of old costumes or you want to try something new, a fancy dress party on a Zoom call is a great way to have some lighthearted birthday fun.

Amazon has a huge selection of affordable fancy dress costumes and fun accessories for all ages. They also have options for pets so your cat or dog can join in the fun. Want to get creative? You could even try your hand at some face painting too.

Shop costumes on Amazon

While Netflix has its Party service, which lets you hook up with friends and watch films at the same time, did you know there's a Chrome extension which allows you to host a Disney Party?

While it's in no way affiliated or connected with the official Disney Plus streaming service, it works in a similar way to Netflix Party. Alternatively, you can connect on Zoom and try to click the movie at the same time.

It's important to note that all users will need a Disney+ subscription. If you don't have one already, you can currently sign up and get a free seven-day trial, which can be cancelled at any time during the trial period. After the trial has ended, you will be charged either 5.99 per month or 59.99 for the annual subscription.

The service lets you stream from up to four profiles at the same time, which is ideal if you want to have a Disney movie night with friends.

Buy now on Disney+, from 5.99 per month

Party guests will have to make their own drinks at home for this virtual cocktail night, which makes it the perfect opportunity to impress one another with your mixing skills.

From boozy tipples to fruity mocktails, this Beautify Copper Cocktail Making 11-piece set comes with everything you need to make special birthday drinks.

The set also comes with a 500ml Parisian cocktail shaker, muddler, double-ended bar spoon/fork, Hawthorne strainer, julep strainer, 2 X pourer and double ended 25ml/ 50ml measuring jigger and recipe guide.

Buy this cocktail set now on Amazon for 38.99

From enjoying a glass of wine whilst wearing your favourite hair or face mask to giving yourself an at-home manicure, a pamper night with your besties over Zoom is a fun and relaxing way to enjoy your birthday.

Whether you want to send a mini pamper gift set like this Oh K! Chok Chok Glowing Skin Set to the birthday recipient or you all make do with what you have at home, an at-home mini facial is an indulgent birthday treat.

Buy this mini pamper set now on Beauty Bay for 40

Spoil the birthday recipient with a luxurious hamper so they can indulge in a cheese and wine night over Zoom.

You could send the hamper directly to their door or split the contents and drop off their share so you can both enjoy the cheese and wine goodies. Or if you're both complete foodies, simply order two.

This beautifully packaged hamper includes a bottle of a Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon, Snowdonia Select Extra Mature Cheddar Truckle, Simon Weaver Organic Cotswold Brie and much more.

Buy this hamper now on Amazon for 44.40

MailOnline may earn commission on sales from the links on this page.
Last week, news of the Vietnamese governments ongoing success in combating corruption was revealed via the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) releasing its annual Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI), a policy monitoring tool assessing citizen experiences and satisfaction with government performance at the national and sub-national levels in governance, public administration and public service delivery.

PAPI 2019 data surveyed more than 14,000 citizens from all 63 provinces nationwide, and a UNDP press release stated that in 2019, the greatest progress was made in the dimension on enhancing control of corruption in the public sector (which is most strongly correlated with overall citizen satisfaction) and increasing transparency in local decision-making. This matches well-documented reform efforts spearheaded by the high-profile anti-corruption campaign.

The press release went on to pay tribute to Vietnams efforts. Tackling corruption has been a centrepiece of the Party and government efforts, with numerous high-profile investigations over the last few years, it said. Consequently, the 2019 PAPI report reflects the clear impact of this anti-corruption campaign on perceptions of grand and petty corruption. This dimension saw the strongest improvements in 2019 at commune and national levels  with 5 per cent more respondents than in 2018 reporting that corruption was decreasing.

According to the PAPI 2019, while the anti-corruption drive is changing perceptions, there is continued evidence of significant declines in petty corruption, as experienced by citizens in district level public hospitals and when applying for land use right certificates.

While control of corruption scores has improved, a substantial number of respondents (20-45 per cent) continue to perceive corruption as prevalent in the public sector. This suggests that further efforts are needed to address this problem in the coming years.

Vietnams anti-corruption campaign was intensified years ago with 2012s Resolution No.12-NQ/TW of the fourth Central Party Committee Meeting, which targeted improved morality within the Party.

Party General Secretary, State President Nguyen Phu Trong emphasised in a speech in December last year that the campaign would continue into 2020, and several high-profile investigations in 2019 confirm the campaign continues.

The government has also issued directives targeted at reducing petty corruption facing businesses and citizens, such as the prime ministers Directive No.10/CT-TTg on strengthening effective management and prevention of harassment and problems for people and businesses in working performance.

Last week, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered a comprehensive investigation over the public procurement of healthcare equipment nationwide, after a related scandal was uncovered in Hanoi.

Investigators from the Ministry of Public Security reported that Nguyen Nhat Cam, director of Hanois Centre for Disease Control, and his accomplices had increased the purchase price for a COVID-19 test kit package by three times, or VND4.7 billion (over $204,000).

PM Phuc recently instructed the Government Inspectorate to launch an urgent investigation into the observance of legal regulations regarding the recent state management of rice exports.

The inspection aims to identify whether or not there are any signs of profiteering or other negative acts taking place, and to strictly handle them in accordance with the law.

In fact, Vietnam was also extolled by the international community for its fight against corruption. The UNDPs PAPI 2017 revealed significant improvements in five of the six PAPI dimensions compared to 2016. These are Transparency, Vertical accountability, Control of corruption in the public sector, Public administrative procedures, and Public service delivery.
Home Instead Senior Care and the National League for Nursing Foundation for Nursing Education (NLNFNE) are partnering once again to support geriatric education through a $10,000 scholarship fund for nursing students. The fund will address the growing need for enhanced geriatric education in nursing programs across the nation. At least six scholarships will be awarded to help prepare the ever-growing workforce of nurses with competencies to deliver the best care for aging adults.

As recent events have further showcased, the nations nurses are an integral part of our healthcare systems ability to provide high-quality care to all, especially vulnerable populations. This unmatched dedication both in times of crisis and the routine day-to-day, will be key to meeting the unique needs of older adults in the coming years.

While the worlds population of adults age 65 and older is expected to continue growing at a rapid pace, there is an understanding within the healthcare industry that these seniors will have a significant impact on the systems core business, especially regarding long-term care. Therefore, its in the best interest of older patients, the healthcare system and taxpayers to ensure nurses are well-prepared to care for the aging population.

Older adults rely the most on the U.S. health care system and their needs are often complex. Through the continued partnership of the NLN Foundation for Nursing Education with Home Instead, we have helped over a dozen nursing students fulfill their academic goals and become emerging leaders in geriatrics, said NLN Foundation Chair, Dr. Cole Edmonson DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FACHE, FAONL, FNAP, FAAN. As the voice for all levels of nursing education, the NLN Foundation and the National League for Nursing are proud to help nursing programs to graduate competent nurses to serve at the front lines of public health.

Everything we do at Home Instead is driven by our mission to enhance the lives of aging adults and their families, said Jeff Huber, CEO of Home Instead. Through our work with the NLN Foundation, we have a real opportunity to build a strong and diverse nursing workforce dedicated to providing the best quality care for older adults.

The NLN Foundation for Nursing Education scholarship application period opened February 25 and will close May 18. Applicants will be notified by the end of July and awardees will be recognized at the NLN Summit in Orlando on Sept. 24, 2020. For more information, candidates can visit the NLN Foundation website.

About Home Instead Senior Care

Founded in 1994 in Omaha, Nebraska, the Home Instead Senior Care franchise network provides personalized care, support and education to enhance the lives of aging adults and their families. Today, the network is the world's leading provider of in-home care services for seniors, with more than 1,200 independently owned and operated franchises that provide more than 80 million hours of care annually throughout the United States and 13 other countries. Local Home Instead Senior Care offices employ approximately 90,000 CAREGivers worldwide who provide basic support services that enable seniors to live safely and comfortably in their own homes for as long as possible. Home Instead Senior Care franchise owners partner with clients and their family members to help meet varied individual needs. Services span the care continuum  from providing personal care to specialized Alzheimers care and hospice support. Also available are family caregiver education and support resources. Visit HomeInstead.com. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the NLN Foundation for Nursing Education

The NLN Foundation for Nursing Education, works to raise, steward, and distribute funds to support the mission of the National League for Nursing: promoting excellence in nursing education; building a strong and diverse nursing workforce; advancing the health of our nation and the global community. The NLN Foundation collaborates with partners in various industries to empower nurse educators through scholarships and research initiatives that change the landscape of nursing education. As the preeminent funder of scholarships, grants, research, and faculty development programs, the NLN Foundation is committed to empowering nurse educators today and for generations to come.
A group of Republican U.S. senators said Thursday they would introduce legislation to address consumer privacy concerns surrounding technology companies efforts to help build contact tracing apps to fight the new coronavirus outbreak.

Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the Commerce Committee, and other key Republicans introduced the bill that would hold businesses accountable to consumers if they use personal data to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bill would allow technology companies to develop platforms that could trace the virus and help flatten the curve and stop the spread  and maintaining privacy protections for U.S. citizens, said Republican Senator John Thune.

Alphabets Google and Apple have been working with public health experts and researchers to write apps that people can use to notify those they have come in contact with if they come down with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

This kind of contact tracing is deemed necessary to reopen the U.S. economy, which has been hard hit by shutdowns aimed at slowing the spread of the disease which has killed more than 60,000 Americans.

Other co-sponsors of the bill are Senators Jerry Moran, who called the tech companies efforts well intentioned and Marsha Blackburn.

As Congress seeks to enact a uniform comprehensive data privacy and security framework, thoughtful and targeted legislative efforts, like this bill, will address specific consumer privacy violations resulting from COVID-19, Moran said in a statement.

The bill would require companies to obtain express consent from people if data about their health, location or proximity to another person is collected, require companies to disclose what will happen with their data, require companies to take steps to ensure that anonymized data does not allow individuals to be identified and require companies to delete all personally identifiable information once it is no longer used to track the spread of the coronavirus.

State attorneys general would enforce the bill.

Apple and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the bill.

The companies have previously said that privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in building the apps. They have also said that users interactions would be tracked, not their locations, and that nothing would be monetized.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Diane Bartz; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Daniel Wallis)

Topics COVID-19 InsurTech USA Tech
National Chairman of the largest opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Ofosu Ampofo has assured Members of Coalition of Aggrieved Customers of some Fifty-three (53) collapsed Fund Management Companies (CACFM) that their locked-up funds will be refunded when candidate, John Mahama becomes the next President of Ghana.



According to him, the Former Head of State when voted into office will deal with their situation with dispatch.

Speaking on an Accra-based radio Station on Saturday, he said "The people are suffering and nobody is listening to them. I want to assure them that if Akufo-Addo does not pay them, John Mahama, who is a people scented politician will deal with their situation with dispatch. Their case is not like DKM which is situated in only one region rather into the bank spread across the country"



Mr. Ampofo revealed that since it is no fault of the workers, pensioners market women, Government should take a second look at the stimulus package it has for Ghanaians.



"These people are suffering as a result of Government collapsing these banks. Some of the customers, a nurse says she said with the bank since she thought she could rely on it in the future after retirement.Now the banks have collapsed and the people are being denied payment of their locked down funds" he stressed.



Mr. Ampofo recalled that the Finance Minister claimed the money was ready of which Government was set to pay them.



"I listened to the General Secretary of the collapsed Fund Management, I was said. He says they are dying everyday. This time is about survival. Look at the released prisoners, they are not happy because of their release rather they are hungry" he stated.



The National Chairman says he is appealing to President Akufo-Addo to look at people adding if those who work are suffering, what then is the fate of millions whose funds are locked up and now can not step out due to Covid-19.



Background



The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November last year revoked the licences of some 53 Fund Management Companies over some regulatory breaches. Some customers of the affected companies were taken through a validation process for onwards payment but almost five months down the line, they say they have not been paid.



Spokesperson for the Coalition, Charles Nyame said Government needs to as a matter of urgency need to start disbursement of funds or risk losing the upcoming General Elections. We were made to go through the validation processes from 18th November, 2019 till 15th January, 2020. He added it has been over three months of which members expected payment but they have not heard anything from SEC. The Spokesperson also revealed they were told by SEC, the claims filed is in an excess of GHc4 Billion of the data it had.

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
Live Q&A: Syracuse small business lawyer on coronavirus economic recovery Live Q&A: Attorney Jeffrey Scheer, chair of the small business practice at law firm Bond Schoeneck & King, is answering your questions about economic recovery. Posted by syracuse.com on Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Thousands of local small business owners have obtained federal loans or other funding to sustain themselves and their employees through the current shutdown phase of the coronavirus pandemic.

But whats next? How do businesses shift from emergency triage to economic recovery? How do you ensure your business qualifies for forgiveness in the Paycheck Protection Program? What plans should small business owners be making now to be ready for the future, including any potential reopening?

Attorney Jeffrey Scheer, chair of the small business practice at law firm Bond Schoeneck & King, will join syracuse.coms Back in Business reporter Julie McMahon for a live Facebook Q&A to help answer these questions and more.

The Q&A is scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. Head over to syracuse.coms Facebook page at 10 a.m. to join the discussion.

Scheer represents a range of small and mid-size businesses across industries in New York state and beyond. He helps small businesses navigate the many financial, regulatory and transactional issues they face  including the unique obstacles caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Scheer also works with non-profits and serves as the chair of the Public Broadcasting Council of Central New York (WCNY).

You can submit your questions for Scheer by emailing reporter Julie McMahon at jmcmahon@syracuse.com, or by commenting on the live feed.

See you at 10 a.m. on Facebook. If you miss the live stream, come back to syracuse.com for a replay.

CNY BACK IN BUSINESS

CenterState CEO, KeyBank team up to offer $5,000 grants to local small businesses

Second round of small business PPP funding shows signs of hope for the little guy

Small businesses: If you were shut out of PPP loans by your lender, try this one

A problem for NY businesses: Workers wont return when they can get unemployment on steroids

Small business tips: Central NY bankers advice on working with PPP lenders

Shop local: Where to buy books in CNY

More from CNY Back in Business
Free online parenting courses launch in North Wales

This article is old - Published: Monday, May 4th, 2020

A series of free online parenting courses have been launched by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and local authorities across the region.

The courses will be available free of charge to all residents of North Wales until November 2022.

The current COVID-19 lockdown provides a timely opportunity for families to access these courses whilst staying safe at home.

The accredited courses by The Solihull Approach are evidenced based and have been developed by registered professionals. They focus on supporting the relationships between parents, grandparents, and/or carers and their children by improving emotional health and wellbeing.

Siobhan Adams, Public Health Consultant from Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Boards Public Health Team said: The four online courses provide a wealth of information about pregnancy and birth, brain development and the physical and emotional development of your baby.

They support you as parents, grandparents and carers to recognise your own emotions and those of your children.

This helps provide you with an understanding of how emotions impact on behaviours, ultimately supporting your relationships and improving your emotional health and wellbeing.

Many families across the UK and beyond have undertaken these courses, as one parent explains: This course has been an absolutely invaluable gift to me. It has and will change so many aspects of my life.

I am undoubtedly a better parent and more rounded and fulfilled person as a result. Some aspects have literally been like Eureka moments to me! I wish Id known all this years ago.

If you are interested in exploring these courses, please go to: www.inourplace.co.uk to register and enter North Wales exclusive access code: NWSOL
By Kim Bo-eun





First Vice Minister of Economy and Finance Kim Yong-beom speaks during a meeting on the economy and financial markets at the Korea Federation of Banks in central Seoul, Monday. / Yonhap
Advertisement

Boris Johnson today urged Britons not to 'ease up' on lockdown measures too early

Britain's daily coronavirus death toll today rose by 288 - the lowest 24-hour jump since the end of March, as figures show the UK's crisis is continuing to slow down after peaking in mid-April.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock tonight announced the total number of victims had reached 28,734, meaning Britain's official toll is Europe's second worst - behind only Italy (28,884).

But top statisticians say thousands of British care home victims are still being missed in the official count because the figures only include patients who have tested positive in a laboratory.

Mr Hancock acknowledged that the daily rise was lower 'than at any point since the end of March' but pointed out that the 'reported figures tend to be lower over the weekend so we do expect that number to rise'.

During the darkest days of Britain's crisis in mid-April, more than 1,000 deaths were being announced by the Department of Health each day. The UK has not recorded fewer than 200 deaths a day since March 26, three days after Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed the draconian lockdown.

Britain today announced a further 3,985 cases of the coronavirus, meaning officially 190,000 Britons have been infected since the crisis began. But the true size of the outbreak is likely to be in the millions because of the controversial decision to abandon a widespread testing regime early on in the outbreak.

Setting out Britain's new test, track and trace programme to curb the outbreak even further, Mr Hancock said it would 'hunt down and isolate the virus so it is unable to reproduce'.

It would involve an 'army' of 18,000 human contact tracers and the new app which is being launched tomorrow as part of a trial in the Isle of Wight.

The developments come after it was revealed that England's excess death rate amid the pandemic is the worst in Europe, higher than Italy, Spain and France. Data compiled by officials on the continent shows England's spike in excess deaths has also lasted longer than any of its coronavirus-ravaged neighbours.

In other developments to the UK's coronavirus crisis today:

Boris Johnson urged Britons not to 'ease up' on lockdown measures too early, saying it could 'allow a second peak of coronavirus';

Nicola Sturgeon gazumped the Prime Minister again by revealing that there won't be 'meaningful' changes to lockdown this week;

Ministers revealed they were trying to get Britain 'as many masks as possible' as the Government prepares to change its official advice;

Britain's main commuter roads started to jam up again with London seeing another 2 per cent rise in traffic;

London's NHS Nightingale hospital will be mothballed to new patients and kept as backup in case of a second wave of COVID-19 in Britain;

A contact tracing app to track the spread of coronavirus will be trialled on the Isle of Wight before being rolled out more widely later this month;

Heathrow Airport has warned travellers could face queues more than half a mile long to board flights;

Rail unions said it was 'premature' to open up the country's public transport network when the lockdown eases;

Officials caved in to pressure to name the secretive SAGE panel, naming all but two of the scientists who helped shape the UK's response.

Data shows how the coronavirus death toll in Britain has risen at a much quicker rate than that of Italy - but it has slowed down in the past two days

It comes after it was revealed that England's excess death rate amid the pandemic is the worst in Europe, higher than Italy, Spain and France. EuroMOMO assigns a so-called Z-score to all the countries in its database, showing the deviation from a five-year average of deaths. England's Z-score peaked at 44.1 during Week 16 - which ended April 19, according to the monitoring project, with Spain in second place at 34.7

More than 4,000 care home residents in England and Wales have died during the pandemic up until April 17, official data shows, 19 per cent of the total on that date. This compares to Germany's 2,401. A third of its total deaths have been in care homes, but that includes prisons and other community settings. Adelina Comas-Herrera, an author of the report, said she expects half of the UK's deaths to have taken place in care homes, suggesting the true death toll could be in the region of 50,0000

ARE CORONAVIRUS DEATHS NOW FALLING? One of the Government's five tests for adjusting the lockdown is whether there has been 'a sustained and consistent fall in daily deaths from coronavirus'. But to see whether this is happening, we need to know precisely when those deaths are taking place. This information is not included in the running total announced each day by the Government, which is based on when deaths have been reported, not when they actually happened. To find out when deaths are taking place, we need to look at different statistical sources. The only source that publishes frequent updates of when coronavirus-related deaths are taking place is NHS England, which releases figures every day for the number of deaths in hospitals in England of patients who have tested positive for Covid-19, together with the date on which the death occurred. The latest figures from NHS England, covering hospital deaths up to 5pm on May 3, show that since a peak on April 8, the numbers do seem to be trending downwards. No date since April 16 has seen more than 600 deaths take place, and no date since April 24 has seen more than 400 deaths. The figures from NHS England are revised every day to incorporate deaths that have taken several days or even weeks to be confirmed. There is a small chance that revisions made in the next few days could affect those 'benchmark' dates of April 16 and April 24, making the trend harder to detect. But for now, the figures suggest a drop in hospital deaths as the month of April continued. The next benchmark to look out for will be the point when deaths no longer go above 200 each day. Remember these figures are only for people dying in hospital in England who have tested positive for Covid-19. They don't give a full picture of what is happening elsewhere, particularly in care homes. But on Tuesday we will get the latest weekly figures for deaths involving Covid-19 in England and Wales in all settings - inside and outside hospitals - based on death certificates. This is the widest possible measure of deaths linked to coronavirus, and includes the date on which the deaths occurred. These figures will enable us to see if the trend suggested by the hospital data in England is reflected across England and Wales as a whole - and provide more evidence as to whether that trend is 'sustained and consistent'. Advertisement

But the final count, which should have been released at 2pm, may be lower because of a change in how deaths are recorded in England.

Ministers finally caved in to mounting pressure to include COVID-19 fatalities in care homes in the daily updates last week.

It came amid fears thousands of victims were being missed because the daily figures only took into account patients who died in hospitals.

Care home deaths make up almost half of all deaths in some neighbouring European countries, according to estimates.

And official data from Scotland suggests around 40 per cent of all victims die in care homes, suggesting Britain's true death toll could be in the region of 50,000.

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales all now include care home deaths in their daily COVID-19 situation updates, which they announce individually.

But their tallies do not always line-up with the official count provided by DH because of how they are recorded.

For instance, Scotland's death toll stands at 1,576 - but the Department of Health had only registered 1,559 fatalities for the country yesterday.

No overall daily update is given by England, with NHS bosses only offering a count of how many patients have died in hospitals.

But because of DH's new reporting system, some of the deaths NHS England reports each day have already been included in previous tolls.

Officials do not provide an in-depth breakdown to show how many COVID-19 deaths occurred in hospitals compared to care homes and other settings.

It comes after an EU monitoring project today revealed that England has had the worst excess death rate in Europe during the coronavirus pandemic.

Excess death rates show how many more people have died than would usually be expected for the time of year.

The figures are seen as a clue to the number of 'hidden' coronavirus deaths, with official figures almost certain to be incomplete.

Many countries have seen a spike in excess deaths during the pandemic but figures collected by EU-backed database EuroMOMO show England performing worse than any other European country.

EuroMOMO assigns a so-called Z-score to all the countries in its database, showing the deviation from a five-year average of deaths.

England's Z-score peaked at 44.1, according to the monitoring project, with Spain in second place at 34.7.

The other three UK nations had a far lower Z-score, with Wales peaking at 19.3, Scotland at 17.3 and Northern Ireland at 8.5.

ENGLAND HAS HAD THE WORST EXCESS DEATH RATE IN EUROPE DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC England has had the worst excess death rate in Europe during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an EU monitoring project. Excess death rates show how many more people have died than would usually be expected for the time of year. The figures are seen as a clue to the number of 'hidden' coronavirus deaths, with official figures almost certain to be incomplete. Many countries have seen a spike in excess deaths during the pandemic but figures collected by EU-backed database EuroMOMO show England performing worse than any other European country. EuroMOMO assigns a so-called Z-score to all the countries in its database, showing the deviation from a five-year average of deaths. England's Z-score peaked at 44.1, according to the monitoring project, with Spain in second place at 34.7. The other three UK nations had a far lower Z-score, with Wales peaking at 19.3, Scotland at 17.3 and Northern Ireland at 8.5. EuroMOMO does not provide an actual number of excess deaths, but separate figures have shown around 12,000 more deaths than usual in the UK. England was also the only monitored nation with a 'substantial increase' of excess mortality for the 15-64 age group, preliminary data shows. Excess fatalities include deaths from other causes which may nonetheless be linked to the pandemic, for example stroke or heart attack victims whose treatment was delayed because of an overburdened health system. Epidemiologists say these statistics help to build a more complete picture, because many deaths go unreported when there is an exponential surge in a short period. Advertisement

EuroMOMO does not provide an actual number of excess deaths, but separate figures have shown around 12,000 more deaths than usual in the UK.

England was also the only monitored nation with a 'substantial increase' of excess mortality for the 15-64 age group, preliminary data shows.

Excess fatalities include deaths from other causes which may nonetheless be linked to the pandemic, for example stroke or heart attack victims whose treatment was delayed because of an overburdened health system.

Epidemiologists say these statistics help to build a more complete picture, because many deaths go unreported when there is an exponential surge in a short period.

A report today warned COVID-19 deaths in care homes are not inevitable, amid fears the virus has claimed the lives of thousands of Britain's most vulnerable.

Researchers at the London School of Economics highlighted exactly where the UK had fallen short of protecting some 400,000 care home residents and staff.

At least 5,000 care home residents are thought to have died from COVID-19. Official data shows care home deaths account for around a third of all fatalities.

The LSE report claimed Number 10 has followed a 'reactive' response to the COVID-19 crisis, rather than preventing the outbreak from the outset.

In some cases, swab tests have been limited to six residents with symptoms per care home, forcing staff to make assumptions on who may have the killer infection.

In contrast, Hong Kong - which took action to prevent a crisis early on - has recorded no official deaths in care homes.

But Adelina Comas-Herrera, an author of the LSE report, said she expects half of the UK's deaths to have taken place in care homes up until now.

This would suggest the UK's true death toll is in the region of 50,000, with most of the deaths included in the official toll of 28,000 being in hospitals.

The pattern has been reported in Spain and Italy, where governments were slow to act and were underprepared for the pandemic with low levels of PPE.

In other developments today, the membership of the secretive committee which has been advising the Government on handling coronavirus was finally made public.

The names of those who sit on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) had not previously been published on security and independence grounds.

But ministers this morning bowed to mounting pressure and released the names of 50 experts across many fields who have sat in regular crisis meetings.

It comes amid a row over No10 aide Dominic Cummings and top Google AI expert Demis Hassabis attending meetings.

Don't get your hopes up! Nicola Sturgeon gazumps Boris Johnson AGAIN by saying there won't be 'meaningful' changes to lockdown this week - as ministers admit they are stockpiling masks for the public and hint 2 metre distance rule will be eased

Road map for exiting coronavirus lockdown A leaked draft has revealed more details of the shape of the next phase of coronavirus curbs - due to be unveiled by Boris Johnson on Sunday. Key points include: More flexibility around the two metre 'social distancing' rule as long as firms are taking other steps to protect workers.

Installing screens, strict hygiene procedures, and ensuring people are not close together very long are touted as alternative safeguards.

Offices will be ordered to overhaul their rotas, staggering start, finish and break times.

Hot desking will need to end and sharing equipment kept to an absolute minimum.

Staff considered vulnerable who cannot work from home should be put in the 'safest possible roles'. Advertisement

Nicola Sturgeon today dismissed the prospect of any 'meaningful' change to lockdown this week - as Boris Johnson pushed back the timing of his exit plan by days.

The Scottish First Minister declared at a briefing in Edinburgh that the situation is so delicate the curbs cannot be significantly eased.

She also promised to set out her own proposals for how to ease the curbs tomorrow - nearly a week before the PM is expected to unveil his strategy.

The latest brazen example of Ms Sturgeon gazumping the Westminster government came amid signs the two-metre social distancing rules could be softened to help revive the economy.

The shape of the 'road map' has started to emerge, with a leaked draft suggesting it will recognise that keeping gaps between workers is not always possible.

Instead companies will be advised they can take other precautions such as installing screens and imposing strict hygiene procedures.

Meanwhile, offices will be told to overhaul their rotas to minimise risks by staggering arrival, break and departure times, ending hot desking and avoiding sharing equipment.

Ministers confirmed this morning that the government has started stockpiling face masks for public use.

The PM is expected to unveil the exit strategy in an address to the nation on Sunday, having delayed the announcement by three days as frantic work continues in Whitehall. The law requires that a decision on extending the lockdown measures be taken by Thursday, but ministers could have initial results from a huge surveillance project to assess the prevalence of the disease by the end of the week.

In a video posted on the Downing Street Twitter feed today, Mr Johnson warned that the 'worst thing' the country could do right now is 'ease up too soon' while there is still a threat of a 'second peak'.

'We will only be able to move onto the second phase of this conflict if our five tests have been met,' he said.

The tests are: that the NHS must have sufficient critical care capacity; there must be a sustained and consistent fall in daily deaths; the infection rate must be decreasing to 'manageable levels'; there must be enough PPE and testing supply; and any adjustments must not lead to a second peak which could overwhelm the health service.

Mr Johnson said: 'The worst thing we could do now is ease up too soon and allow a second peak of coronavirus.'

Ministers have been under massive pressure to set out the way forward, with the draconian current curbs estimated to be costing the country 2billion a day.

The obstacles have been underlined with unions threatening to block plans to get rail services up to 85 per cent of usual levels within a fortnight. Furious Tory MPs accused the RMT of trying to exploit the situation to get more money for their members.

Downing Street stressed that current guidance was for people to maintain the two metres gap 'where possible'.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon today dismissed the prospect of any 'meaningful' change to lockdown this week

The Tube was still busy today despite the strict lockdown rules in force - amid claims from unions that the government wants services back up to at least 85 per cent by May 18

Ministers 'in talks over immunity certificates for workers' amid hopes of antibody test Ministers are in discussions over coronavirus 'immunity certificates' for workers amid rising hopes of an antibody test. Paperwork that could show people are clear of the disease and unlikely to get it again could be deployed as part of efforts to get the economy up and running. The plans emerged amid suggestions an accurate antibody test could start being rolled out across the UK within a fortnight. Testing giant Roche Diagnostics says that it has created a kit that is accurate enough to be used at scale - and the firm says it has enough stock to provide hundreds of thousands to the NHS every week. It comes after weeks of disappointments regarding antibody tests, which are designed to tell someone if they have contracted the virus in the past and indicate whether they may now be immune. Roche claims its lab-based 'Elecsys' test can spot 100 per cent of people who have had the virus - with no 'false negatives' at all. The test is important because it gives the clearest possible picture of how widespread the coronavirus is in the UK. If many more people have had the illness than currently believed, fears of a second peak will diminish. Advertisement

At her daily briefing in Edinburgh today, Ms Sturgeon said that, although 'real and significant progress' was being made, the rate of reproduction of the virus was still too high to alleviate lockdown measures.

She said it is 'likely' that lockdown measures will continue without any 'meaningful' changes.

'Although we are making real and significant progress ... the numbers still eing infected by the virus and the all-importnat R number remain too high right now to make any meaningful change without risking the virus running out of control again,' she said.

Saying she expected to unveil her own exit plan tomorrow, Ms Sturgeon said work would be done to ensure there was alignment with the rest of the UK, but divergence in measures could still be possible.

The First Minister also outlined the Scottish Government's test, trace, isolate (TTI) strategy, which she said would aid the easing of the lockdown measures.

Ms Sturgeon said the strategy would only work if the public adheres to it, adding it was not a 'quick fix or magic solution' and would need to be done alongside current hygiene guidance.

Ms Sturgeon said moves were being made to deliver a TTI strategy by the end of May, with testing capacity expected to have to rise to 15,500 per day to support the approach.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace hinted that social distancing advice will be fleshed out, telling Sky News that that protective screens and ensuring people were not close together for very long could reduce the need for strict distancing.

'You can look at shielding, you can look at how long you stay near people. The two-metre rule reduces the possibility of infection by a certain amount of time,' he said.

'If you halve that it still keeps people away from being infected but for a lesser time. The probability of being infected is much less.

Ministers are stockpiling face masks as they admit human nature means people will want to wear them Defence Secretary Ben Wallace today confirmed the government is stockpiling face masks for the public - saying human nature means people will want to wear them. Mr Wallace said supplies were being put in place in case the government decides to change its advice - something that has already happened in Scotland. Mr Johnson said last week they will be 'useful' in the next phase of lockdown but the Westminster guidance has not been updated. 'It's not the amazing thing if you wear a mask that no one's going to get it but there is obviously this issue about human nature and interactions if you go on public transport and wear a mask will you feel able to go back to work,' Mr Wallace said. 'At the same time, to anticipate should different rules be made around masks we're trying to source as many masks as possible as we speak and have been for the last few weeks.' Advertisement

'I think there are options about how we can do it. You can wear PPE, that could be a possibility if you have to be in close proximity or indeed you could find other ways of doing it.'

He pointed towards supermarket workers working behind 'shields'.

Mr Wallace also confirmed that the government is stockpiling face masks in case it decides to change its advice - something that has already happened in Scotland. Mr Johnson has said they will be 'useful' in the next phase of lockdown but the Westminster guidance has not been updated,

'It's not the amazing thing if you wear a mask that no one's going to get it but there is obviously this issue about human nature and interactions if you go on public transport and wear a mask will you feel able to go back to work,' Mr Wallace said.

'At the same time, to anticipate should different rules be made around masks we're trying to source as many masks as possible as we speak and have been for the last few weeks.'

Sir Jeremy Farrar, a SAGE member and head of the Wellcome Trust, said there was 'nothing magical' about the two metre advice, and it was based on long-standing evidence about how far coughs and sneezes were likely to travel.

'There is nothing magical about two metres,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'Perhaps more importantly is the time you spend near someone else.'

The draft guidance, a version of which has been leaked to the BBC and Financial Times.

Unions are accused of holding country to ransom by refusing to step up services Rail unions have today been accused of trying to stymie Britain's recovery while holding the country to ransom after they said it was 'premature' to open up the country's public transport network when the lockdown eases. RMT's Assistant General Secretary Mick Lynch said today that ministers want to be running 85%-100% of train and Tube services within a fortnight despite it not being 'safe' - days after they demanded a new pay deal for workers during the coronavirus crisis. Mr Lynch also admitted 'most' of their members are working despite Mayor of London Sadiq Khan slashing Tube and bus services to 15 per cent and 12 per cent respectively compared with normal levels and closing 40 stations. Yet tens of thousands of key workers are cramming on to buses and trains because they have no choice but to travel to work every day. Mr Khan has also claims that Transport for London needs four weeks to prepare for lockdown easing - because it has furloughed 7,000 staff and up to a third of workers have been self-isolation through the crisis. The country's three biggest rail unions have written to Mr Johnson warning that increasing train services to normal levels from May 18 will be 'dangerous and lead to the public flouting the rules'. But Tory MP Andrew Bridgen told MailOnline today: 'This is absolutely typical of the militant transport unions  they are trying to exploit the crisis and hold the Government to ransom for more money.' Advertisement

It suggested vulnerable staff - such as those aged over 70, pregnant, with underlying health conditions or pregnant - should be put in the 'safest possible roles'.

The guidance is clear that anyone who can work from home should continue to do so - meaning many staff will be out of the office for months to come.

But the draft does not spell out what action should be taken on PPE - saying merely that more information will follow. Some businesses fear they might be open to legal action from staff if they loosen the rules without clear direction from the government.

Mr Wallace played down concerns that 'coronaphobia' could hamper efforts to get the economy running again, with polls showing significant numbers would be nervous about returning to work.

The Defence Secretary said: 'I strongly believe the public aren't stupid. They read advice, they listen to the media.

'They took on board the Government's advice... and I think they will be perfectly able to read the Government's next stage when we get to it.

'I'm totally confident when it comes to the next step we will all together be able to move forward.'

Mr Johnson will describe the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine as the 'most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes' later as he calls on nations to 'pull together' in response to the pandemic.

The Prime Minister is expected to tell an online pledging conference - co-hosted by the UK and eight other countries and organisations - that the sooner states share their expertise the faster scientists will succeed in defeating the disease.

It comes as Mr Johnson revealed he feared he would not live to see his baby son Wilfred born when he battled Covid-19 in intensive care last month.

The PM will tell the conference, which aims to bring in more than 6.6billion in funding, that the race to develop a vaccine is 'not a competition between countries but the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes'.

PM faces Tory revolt over lockdown measures Boris Johnson will face a backbench rebellion over his Government's 'absurd, dystopian and tyrannical' coronavirus lockdown today. Furious Tory MPs including 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady and ex-Brexit ministers David Davis and Steve Baker are preparing to voice anger over the extent of the enforced shut-down. They will argue that the economic, social and health costs of the self-imposed paralysis of UK PLC is so great that it must be eased. They will use a debate on the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations brought in in March, which gave ministers and police the greatest swathe of restrictive powers ever granted in peacetime. As well as measures to unclog the stagnant economy there are civil liberties concerns about the new NHS contact tracing app and the way it tracks the public. Mr Johnson is expected to announce measures to allow the lockdown to be eased in an address to the nation on Sunday, after it is officially extended for three more weeks on Thursday. But Mr Baker, a former Brexit 'Spartan' who is no stranger to going contrary to his front bench, said 'whatever the necessities, that the rule of law should have been overthrown in this period is extraordinary and deeply troubling,' in an article for the Daily Telegraph. Advertisement

'It's humanity against the virus - we are in this together and together we will prevail,' he is expected to say.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnson faces a backbench rebellion over his Government's 'absurd, dystopian and tyrannical' coronavirus lockdown today.

Furious Tory MPs including 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady and ex-Brexit ministers David Davis and Steve Baker are preparing to voice anger over the extent of the enforced shut-down.

They will argue that the economic, social and health costs of the self-imposed paralysis of UK PLC is so great that it must be eased.

They will use a debate on the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations brought in in March, which gave ministers and police the greatest swathe of restrictive powers ever granted in peacetime.

As well as measures to unclog the stagnant economy there are civil liberties concerns about the new NHS contact tracing app and the way it tracks the public.

Mr Johnson is expected to announce measures to allow the lockdown to be eased in an address to the nation on Sunday, after it is officially extended for three more weeks on Thursday.

But Mr Baker, a former Brexit 'Spartan' who is no stranger to going contrary to his front bench, said 'whatever the necessities, that the rule of law should have been overthrown in this period is extraordinary and deeply troubling,' in an article for the Daily Telegraph.

'Millions of people in our country have been plunged into idleness at public expense and unemployment, facing financial and psychological hardship on a scale never seen before,' he added.

''Thousands of people have missed life-prolonging health appointments. Vulnerable people are isolated and domestic violence has soared. Soon will come the full economic impact on all our lives.'

He went on: 'This is absurd, dystopian and tyrannical. The sooner it is ended, the better.'

Mr Johnson today warned that lifting lockdown restrictions too soon would be 'the worst thing we could do'.

In a video message on Twitter, the Prime Minister said it was important to meet the five tests set by the Government before easing the lockdown.

Mr Davis, who has a long history of speaking out on civil liberties issues, is preparing to challenge the Government over its new contact tracing app, which is due to start trials on the Isle of Wight this week.
Seoul Disagrees With Speculation that Kim Jong-un Had Surgery - Reports

Sputnik News

07:19 GMT 03.05.2020(updated 07:52 GMT 03.05.2020)

The North Korean leader was conspicuously absent from public functions for most of the month of April, prompting rumours about his well-being. However, the DPRK chairman recently made his first recent public appearance after the long absence, seemingly in good health and spirits, negating direr earlier speculations.

Seoul believes that there is no evidence to suggest that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un underwent heart surgery, regardless of what media reports say, a senior official at the South Korean presidency told Yonhap.

"There were speculative reports that Chairman Kim underwent surgery based on some difference in his gait," the official said, as quoted by the news agency. "We have reasons to believe that there was no surgery, but cannot disclose such details."

On Saturday, South Korean state news agency Yonhap reported that Kim had made his first public appearance in 20 days. The chairman was seen inspecting a fertiliser plant in Sunchon after his several-week absence.

Unconfirmed reports about Kim suffering health issues spiked after he skipped public appearance at a number of important events in North Korea in April, including the ceremony marking the birthday of his late grandfather and the country's founder, Kim Il Sung.

South Korean online newspaper Daily NK reported that Kim, aged 36, was undergoing treatment following a heart-related surgery. After media reports about Kim's surgery, some news outlets reported about the leader's alleged death.

South Korean government officials denied these reports saying that Kim is "alive and well" and that no credible proof indicating that Kim has had health problems was seen.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Taiwan's Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung looks on during a interview with AFP in Geneva on May 21, 2017. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)

Australias Foreign Affairs Department Supports Taiwans Involvement in WHO

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) supports Taiwans involvement in the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an observer in line with Australias one-China policy.

DFATs support comes after Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung sent an email to media outlets globally calling on the WHO to include the nation as part of a global effort to contain the virus.

Chen pointed to the success of Taiwans containment measures saying that, Despite its proximity to China, Taiwan ranked 123rd among 183 countries in terms of confirmed cases per million people.

In the 17 years since it was hit hard by the SARS outbreak, Taiwan has been in a state of constant readiness to the threat of emerging infectious disease, said Chen.

Despite Taiwans population (23.8 million) being similar in number to Australias, the Asian island nation has just 432 confirmed cases of the virus and 6 deaths.

Australia has over 6,801 confirmed infections and has recorded 95 deaths.

In an email to The Epoch Times, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the WHO needs to ensure inclusive, practical cooperation and robust information exchange between nations, and the WHO must maintain a close working relationship with all health authorities.

Liberal senator James Paterson and Labor senator Kimberley Kitching have supported the call.

One-China Policy Dispute

Beijing has repeatedly tried to discourage attempts at recognising Taiwan as a formal country. This is because the Chinese regime claims Taiwan as part of its territory. The dispute has its roots in the 1945 establishment of the government of the Republic of China on the island.

China has pressured governments and international companies to support its one-China policy. In 2019, fashion label Christian Dior apologised publicly after a photo of a presentation slide used during an internal conference was circulated online. Dior said, The slide showed a map of China, sans Taiwan.

Dior has always respected and upheld the One China principle, and strictly safeguards Chinas sovereignty and territorial integrity, a statement from the company read, adding that such incidents will never happen again. Dior is a friend of China.

From 2009 to 2016, Taiwans health ministers took part in the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the WHO, as observers.

However, in 2017, China barred Taiwan from taking part in the World Health Assembly and its meetings.

The WHO has also been accused of bowing to Beijing by ignoring advice from Taiwan and responding too slowly to the virus initial spread.

Taiwan Vice President Chen Chien-jen said they had warned the WHO about the risk of human-to-human transmission of a pneumonia-like disease in China on Dec. 31, 2019.

Taiwan is currently not a WHO member state.
Coronavirus toll drives government-wide push to move US production and supply chain reliance away from China-officials.

The Trump administration is turbocharging an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, according to officials familiar with United States planning.

President Donald Trump, who has stepped up recent attacks on China before the November 3 US presidential election, has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas.

Now, economic destruction and the enormous US coronavirus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move US production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to other more friendly nations instead, current and former senior US administration officials said.

Weve been working on [reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China] over the last few years but we are now turbocharging that initiative, Keith Krach, under-secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment at the US State Department told Reuters News Agency.

I think it is essential to understand where the critical areas are and where critical bottlenecks exist, Krach said, adding that the matter was key to US security and one that the government could announce new action on soon.

The US Commerce Department, State and other agencies are looking for ways to push companies to move both sourcing and manufacturing out of China. Tax incentives and potential re-shoring subsidies are among measures being considered to spur changes, the current and former officials told Reuters.

There is a whole of government push on this, said one. Agencies are probing which manufacturing should be deemed essential and how to produce these goods outside of China.

Trumps China policy has been defined by behind-the-scenes tussles between pro-trade advisers and China hawks; now, the latter say their time has come.

This moment is a perfect storm; the pandemic has crystallised all the worries that people have had about doing business with China, said another senior US official.

All the money that people think they made by making deals with China before, now theyve been eclipsed many fold by the economic damage from the coronavirus, the official said.

Economic prosperity network

Trump has said repeatedly that he could put new tariffs on top of the up to 25 percent tax on $370bn in Chinese goods currently in place.

US companies, which pay the tariffs, are already groaning under the existing ones, especially as sales plummet during coronavirus lockdowns.

But that does not mean Trump will baulk at new ones, officials say. Other ways to punish China may include sanctions on officials or companies, and closer relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island China considers a province.

But discussions about moving supply chains are concrete, robust, and, unusually for the Trump administration, multi-lateral.

The US is pushing to create an alliance of trusted partners dubbed the Economic Prosperity Network, one official said. It would include companies and civil society groups operating under the same set of standards on everything from digital business, energy and infrastructure to research, trade, education and commerce, he said.

The US government is working with Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam to move the global economy forward, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said April 29.

These discussions include how we restructure  supply chains to prevent something like this from ever happening again, Pompeo said.

Latin America may play a role, too.

Colombian Ambassador Francisco Santos last month said he was in discussions with the White House, National Security Council, US Treasury Department and US Chamber of Commerce about a drive to encourage US companies to move some supply chains out of China and bring them closer to home.

China overtook the US as the worlds top manufacturing country in 2010, and was responsible for 28 percent of global output in 2018, according to UN data.

The pandemic has highlighted Chinas key role in the supply chain for generic drugs that account for the majority of prescriptions in the US. It has also shown Chinas dominance in goods like the thermal cameras needed to test workers for fevers, and its importance in food supplies.

Hard sell for companies

Many US companies have invested heavily in Chinese manufacturing and rely on Chinas 1.4 billion people for a big chunk of their sales.

Diversification and some redundancy in supply chains will make sense given the level of risk that the pandemic has uncovered, said Doug Barry, spokesman for the US-China Business Council. But we dont see a wholesale rush for the exits by companies doing business in China.

John Murphy, senior vice president for international policy at the US Chamber of Commerce, said that US manufacturers already meet 70 percent of current pharmaceutical demand.

Building new facilities in the US could take five to eight years, he said. Were concerned that officials need to get the right fact sets before they start looking at alternatives, Murphy said.

Trump White House pledges to punish China have not always been followed by action.

A move to block global exports of chips to blacklisted Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, for example, favoured by hawks in the administration and under consideration since November, has not yet been finalised.
Tougher privacy laws will be put to Parliament next week in a bid to jail anyone who breaches the safeguards in the federal governments new coronavirus tracing app, with police and security agencies exposed to the sanctions.

Access to the highly sensitive data will be restricted to state health agencies and those in their service, making it a criminal offence for anyone else to collect, use, disclose or attempt to decrypt the personal information in the app.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly with the COVIDSafe app on his phone. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The Morrison government wants the new penalties, including a $63,000 fine for every privacy breach, to assuage concerns about the app and expand its use beyond the 4.5 million people who have already downloaded it to their phones.

But privacy advocates have called for explicit rules to block access by security agencies and new state laws to confirm those safeguards, setting the scene for a debate this week over the strength of the draft bill.
The Defence Headquarters says the Troops of Operation Lafiya Dole (OPLD) have eliminated 134 Boko Haram/Islamic States of West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists and arrested 16 informants in Borno State.

The Coordinator, Defence Media Operations, John Enenche, a major general, disclosed this in a statement on Monday in Abuja.

Mr Enenche disclosed that the success was recorded in the ongoing subsidiary operation in the North East Theatre of Operation code-named Operation Kantana Jimlan.

He said the operation, being conducted as part of the conclusive phase of OPLD, was already recording monumental successes.

He said the operation is being conducted preparatory to the final routing of BHT/ISWAP criminals from the Nigerian territory by the troops of OPLD.

He said the operation was coordinated by the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, a lieutenant general, adding that it has intensified on various fronts especially within the Timbuktu triangle.

Mr Enenche added that the operation had left the criminal elements and their leadership in complete disarray and thus setting the conditions for the commencement of the final assault on their enclaves and hideouts.

Several BHT/ISWAP targets were acquired and engaged with precision by Nigerian Army Artillery Regiments across the entire theatre thus delivering accurate fire on the criminals who were seen fleeing in disarray.

In a coordinated artillery bombardment on Timbuktu triangle conducted on May 1 and 2, seven Boko Haram Gun Trucks were destroyed while 78 BHT/ISWAP fighters were killed as confirmed by both aerial and human intelligence.

Within the same period, another successful artillery engagement to Buk in Damboa Local Government Area resulted in the neutralization of an additional 56 BHT criminals.

Acting on intelligence that a large number of BHT members were converging at the location, the gallant troops of the Nigerian Army Artillery Regiments acquired and engaged the location with deadly precision, inflicting heavy casualties on them.

As confirmed by our intelligence sources, only a handful of the terrorists escaped the location with gunshot wounds, with little chances of survival, he said.

Mr Enenche further explained that 16 high profile Boko Haram informants fell into the troops dragnet within the last two weeks.

He said that the arrest of such high profile informants had significantly dislocated the terrorists information and supply chains and equally dislocated their communication.

He said as the gallant troops continue to overwhelm the criminal elements on all fronts, it is quite apparent that the days of the criminal elements called Boko Haram are indeed numbered.

Meanwhile, the Chief of Army Staff, Buratai, who has been in the Theatre with the troops for the past five weeks congratulated the gallant troops for their resilience, courage and dedication to the noble cause of defending our fatherland against the criminal elements.

He further urged them to remain focused and ruthless as they take the fight to the fleeing remnants of the enemies of our nation.

The general public is hereby encouraged to provide credible information to our Troops as the Nigerian Military remains resolute in tackling the security challenges of the Country, he said.

NAN
Hong Kong reports no new COVID-19 cases, 1,039 in total

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:33, May 03, 2020

HONG KONG, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection (CHP) reported no new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, with the total number remaining at 1,039.

Thanks to the effective anti-epidemic measures, according to the CHP, there had been no new cases for five consecutive days in Hong Kong before two people returning from Pakistan were tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday. There have also been no new local infections for more than 10 days in a row.

Sophia Chan, secretary for Food and Health of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, still called on residents to stay alert as the overseas epidemic situation remained serious.

As there is a continuous increase in the number of cases reported around the world, members of the public are strongly urged to avoid all non-essential travel outside Hong Kong, a CHP spokesperson said.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






The Bitterroot Public Library has begun its reopening process with curbside holds pickups and limited patron access as it works towards restoration of full library services.

The library had closed mid-March to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Director Mark Wetherington Jr. said the slow phased opening is in consultation with the Ravalli County Health Department to prioritize the health and safety of staff and library users.

There were people very grateful to be able to visit their library, use the computers and look at the new books, he said. It is different to scroll through the online list of books verses going into the library. Were happy that the way we are operating is safe while meeting needs.

The library is currently open 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Thursday and 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Friday. Only 10 people, including staff, will be allowed in the library at one time (per Montana Governor's guidelines).

The library opened at 9:30 a.m. on Monday. Wetherington said there were five people in line waiting at the door. By 2 p.m. 20 people had used the library services.

People can browse and check out things but were limiting it to four people as there are staff at work trying to catch up on various projects to make sure that when we fully open were ready to go, he said.

Currently staff is cleaning, organizing and mending books.

Its been like a puzzle coordinating access, safety, scheduling but weve been as responsive as we can while following the health guidelines that weve been given, Wetherington said. We want to keep everyone healthy.

Currently, the requirement to use the Bitterroot Public Library are:

 Everyone entering is required to wear an accepted face covering, such as a scarf, bandanna, or mask while in the library.

 The library will continue to provide curbside holds pickup services to those unable or unwilling to enter the library.

 Visits will be limited to less than 30 minutes per day per visitor to use a computer, browse items and checkout only. There will be no seating available except at a computer.

 Visitors are strongly encouraged to bring their library card with them into the library in order to use the self-checkout station

 No more than two computers will be available to the public initially (due to distancing requirements). Patrons are strongly encouraged to be able to navigate the computer themselves. Staff may be available to assist but at a safe distance.

 All visits and computer use will be first come, first served.

 Staff and patrons will maintain social distancing recommendations. Distancing markers and physical barriers will be visible.

 Staff will clean frequently used surfaces throughout the library hourly.

 Items returned to the library will be quarantined for 72-hours but will not accrue late fees.

 All items must be returned to the book drops only.

These plans are subject to change. The library may offer more access before the end of the month based on recommendations of the local health department and the governors phased re-opening.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Sunday was a perfect day at the Jersey Shore, or as perfect as it could be amid a coronavirus outbreak that continues to shutter businesses and restrict activities.

In Long Branch, the water temperature was 50 degrees  not too bad for the first weekend of May  and some were taking a dip.

Bradley Beach opened its boardwalk on Sunday, one day after letting everyone onto the beach that stretches along 10 blocks.

Gary Engelstad, mayor of Bradley Beach, said visitors appeared to be respecting social-distancing guidelines.

Were kind of doing this on the fly, because its a whole new world, Englestad said.

At first, there was a hesitation in letting visitors sit too long in chairs and on blankets  they wanted to keep people moving," he said  then there was a realization that might not be reasonable in a beach setting.

The boardwalk, closed on Saturday, opened Sunday to provide additional space to walk and move around.

We flew a drone over the beach. It gave literally a birds eye view. What we saw was good. People were doing the right thing and spreading out, Englestad said.

We understand the need and desire for people to get out and look around. Im glad we can provide that, Englestad said.

Here are some scenes from Bradley Beach and elsewhere on Sunday:

A pair of couples sit at the end of the Ocean Grove Pier as many enjoy a day at the beach on a beautiful spring afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Belmar police enforce social distancing directive outside Playa Bowls at 4th and Ocean Avenues on what turned out to be a very nice beach day on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The scene in Ocean Grove as many enjoy s day sty the beach on a beautiful spring afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A woman dances to The Beatles' 'Birthday Song' in Ocean Grove as many enjoy a day at the beach on a beautiful spring afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

People leave the beach at the south end of Ocean Grove on a beautiful spring afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The scene at Pier Village in Long Branch, N.J. as many enjoy a banner beach afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The scene at Pier Village in Long Branch, N.J. as many enjoy a banner beach afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The scene at Pier Village in Long Branch, N.J. as many enjoy a banner beach afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Social distancing in full effect in Ocean Grove as many enjoy a day at the beach on a beautiful spring afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Two teenagers take a dip in the 50-degree ocean at Pier Village in Long Branch, N.J. as many enjoy a banner beach afternoon at the Jersey Shore on Sunday, May 3, 2020. Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

See the full photo gallery here.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobJenningsNJ
Associations warn governments to do more to support the movement of mail by air during the COVID-19 crisis

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), and the Universal Postal Union (UPU) have warned that the available air capacity to carry cross-border postal services is currently insufficient and urged governments to do more to support the movement of mail by air during the COVID-19 crisis.

Owing to the drastic 95% reduction in passenger flights, which are typically used to transport mail, and a 25-30% increase in demand for e-commerce as customers and businesses resort to online purchasing in response to social distancing restrictions, the two associations said postal administrations are facing a challenge in sending and delivering international mail, in particular, cross-continental mail.

IATA and UPU are calling on governments to facilitate the flexibility that airlines need to meet this critical demand by removing border blockages to ensure trade flows continue, avoiding unnecessary regulations and fast tracking the issuance of permits for chartered operations. Additionally, ensuring adequately trained staff are available to process and clear the mail upon arrival is essential.

IATA and UPU said they were also working to support posts use of cargo flights in addition to commercial passenger flights by providing information on the airlines and cargo carrier status, available new alternative routes and best practices.

Alexandre de Juniac, IATAs Director General and CEO, commented: Airlines have been required to cut passenger services in the fight to stop the spread of COVID-19. So, its vital that everything is done to support the smooth movement of mail which is an important component of society.

UPU Director General Bishar Hussein said: Posts are trusted partners in the delivery of goods, vital medical supplies and essential information on the pandemic. The cancellation of more than 4.5 million passenger flights  the primary means of transporting post - has meant that capacity is scarce, costs more and takes longer. Action needs to be swiftly taken to address the shortfall in air cargo capacity and to keep the mail moving.

G20 governments, at their recent emergency meetings, committed to minimize disruptions to trade and global supply chains and identified the need to prioritize keeping air logistics networks open and functioning efficiently. Posts and airlines are cooperating to meet this priority by ensuring that reliable operations continue throughout the pandemic.

As reported last month, postal operators have begun using mail-only freight trains from China to help clear huge backlog of mail destined for Europe  caused by the huge cuts in passenger airline belly cargo capacity  and deliver medical supplies.

Each China Post CR Express block train carries around 300 tonnes of mail and is the result of cooperation between China Post, Lithuania Post, Polish Post and railway operators, with transport taking between 12-14 days. Around 2,000 tonnes of mail is slated for rail transport from China in the next 2-3 months.

Many of the train journeys are expected to end in Lithuania, although other trains will go to Poland. Trucks then take the mail to their final destination in more than 30 countries across Europe.

The use of the rail network to deliver mail is a success for the Universal Postal Unions Supply Chain Team, which has championed the rail network for the delivery of mail between Europe and Asia. At present, the team is working with representatives from Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, among others.

UPUs director of postal operations Abdelilah Bousseta said: Sometimes supreme challenges can lead to good ideas and produce simplified solutions. At present, given the current situation, the train network is one of the very best solutions for moving the huge volumes of mail.

Image: Shutterstock.com
COVID-19 has swept the world of its feet and has introduced a new world order and different ways of doing things. Nobody knows when the world will be entirely out of the woods. The uncertainty has left many businesses and their employees at a fix. More than ever, many people are looking up to cooperation to be socially responsible by supporting the fight against the Novel Corona Virus.

In Ghana, companies have made some donations in different ways and areas by way of CSR. Some of these organisations have received backlash from their employees, beneficiaries, stakeholders for the contributions made. Not to say, these critics are not in support of a donation for the public good, but they cited disappointment at these organisations for donating at the expense of other business obligations. The question then is, at what point is Corporate Philanthropy (CP) mistaken for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in totality?

There is a reedy line between CSR and Corporate philanthropy. Though similar, they are not the same. And organisations cannot be held to CP at the expense of the bigger CSR picture. I like to think of CP as a component of CSR. In the hierarchy of a companys responsibilities, Corporate philanthropy has a place. But cannot replace Corporate Social Responsibility in its entirety.

There are many definitions of corporate philanthropy as there are of corporate responsibility. However, the common denominator of all the definitions is the fact that corporate philanthropy is about the donation of resources to support defined beneficial social purposes. Though a necessary component of an organisations responsibility, CP does not represent the full scope of CSR at all.

Corporate Social responsibility is how companies conduct their business in ways that are ethical, socially friendly, and beneficial to the community in which they operate. It goes beyond making a donation or funding a social course. CSR, in my estimation, help companies answer key strategic questions: What do we bring to the environment we operate? What impact are we making in the lives of the people we employ in this era of COVID-19? Will our company and our operating model stand the test of time? Are our operations meeting all regulatory and legal requirements? Will we still be in business beyond COVID-19? If we will not, what measures are we putting in place to mitigate the impact of our non-existence?

I think responsible organisations owe it a duty to themselves and the people who depend on them to do more than philanthropy, especially in this crisis. It is in the interest of the state to ensure responsibility beyond donations. After all, what is the point in making a donation when employees are not being paid and some are being laid off? And working environments do not encourage social distancing precautions, among other socially irresponsible behaviours in the name of COVID-19?

I think we should all begin to see CSR beyond CP and hold organisations to it. We are happy to receive the donations, but what are businesses doing to ensure business continuity, employee safety, customer protection during and after the Novel Coronavirus pandemic?

The fact that company C has not donated to a fund does not mean, they are not socially responsible. They could be up to something equally bigger and more sustainable. I think donations should not be societys only yardstick for judging a corporations level of social responsibility.

There are many things organisations can do by way of CSR beyond donating money to support the fight against COVID-19. Businesses can focus on ensuring, for example, employee comfort and safety, creating a safe work environment that meets all the necessary safety precautions. Providing as much flexibility as possible that allow employees to work without sacrificing other responsibilities.

Companies can keep constant and transparent communication with both external and internal stakeholders. Customers, for example, may want reassurance your business will be there for them: employees, assurance of job retention and business continuity beyond COVID-19. Thus the need for constant engagement in this period. As much as you can, keep your message simple, positive and concise.

Organisations need to review their business processes, especially at this time and eliminate all practices that impact their business continuity post-COVID-19 negatively.

Businesses can also support the government by ensuring adherence to legal and regulatory requirements and not using the virus as a leeway to avoid tax and other commitments that support the state.

There is so much a responsible organisation can do to support the society in these uncertain times. In our quest to expect more from them, lets not focus our attention on just philanthropic activities. Lets encourage responsibility in its totality.

About the Writer:

The writer is an Accredited CIPR Public Relations practitioner. She currently works with a Payment Systems Infrastructure Provider as a Senior Officer in charge of Corporate Communications & Branding. Views expressed does not reflect the opinion of her organisation or her professional association. Kindly send your comments to [email protected] Follow her on LinkedIn Eunice Asantewaa Ankomah; Instagram: @asantewaa23 / Twitter: @AsantewaaTindi / Facebook: Eunice Asantewaa Ankomah-Tindi.
Since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in Nigeria in 2015, anti-corruption has been at the heart of his administration. However, a lot of effort is focused on grand corruption at the higher levels of governance and politics. There is less emphasis on the less-talked-about but vulnerable areas such as the health sector.

We have been involved as researchers in an extensive study of health sector corruption in Nigeria. The study interacted with front-line health workers and health policy makers and managers. The aim was to systematically identify the different types of corruption occurring in the Nigerian health sector, and rank them based on how damaging they can be to the health sector.

The drivers and potential solutions to these health sector corruption problems were also identified, as well as recommendations on how to mitigate corruption in the sector. In the end we hope to explore and bring to the fore feasible grassroots solutions to the problem of health sector corruption in Nigeria.

In the war against COVID-19, health system resilience, accountability and integrity are more important than ever. The health systems of some high-income-countries have become overwhelmed by the rising number of infected persons and deaths from the disease. Weaker, corruption-prone and less resilient health systems of many low and middle income countries are even more vulnerable . Some may even collapse.

Research has underscored the vulnerability of Nigeria's health system. A consistently solid and accountable health system has eluded the country. The requisite health resources are also in short supply.

The reality is that citizens, health workers and international development partners worry that Nigeria's health system is very weak and may be unable to adequately combat COVID-19.

Money management issues

Contributing to the weakness of the system is the federal and state governments' very low budgetary allocation to the health sector.

Nigeria's health sector appropriation in the 2020 budget is 4.5% of the total federal budget, about N427.3 billion. This is far below the 15% agreed in the 2001 Abuja Declaration , when African Union member countries pledged to improve spending on their health sector and urged donor countries to scale up support.

Following recent collapse in the international price of crude oil, the budget has now been revised downward.

Concerns about budget are valid. But of equal weight is the issue of the optimal management of presently allocated funds. This continues to be an underlying problem.

In a paper published last year health workers and decision makers set out to explain the reasons that corruption persists in the healthcare sector.

They identified the top 49 corrupt practices in the Nigerian health system. These included absenteeism, procurement-related corruption, under-the-counter payments, health financing-related corruption, and employment-related corruption.

Discussions with health workers in an ongoing study on COVID-19 spanning different regions in Nigeria echo these findings. Health workers have indicated that there are structural and facility-level corruption and accountability issues that they have to work with routinely. These compromise their efforts to do their jobs as healthcare providers, including containing COVID-19 and its impacts.

We also found that there were high levels of distrust in the government, poor welfare conditions for health workers and health service users, and a lack of proper equipment.

What needs to be done

Patricia Garcia , a leading figure on global health issues, believes that for most developing countries, with more money comes more corruption.

Nigeria is certainly a case in point.

So what can be done about it?

The previous journal publication on Nigeria noted that front-line workers and policymakers agreed that tackling corrupt practices requires a range of approaches.

Garcia herself advocates an incremental approach to tackling the problem.

We could start from the bottom up, taking small steps. We need rigorous research methods to prove or disprove that a strategy works. Addressing and ending corruption will require the participation of researchers from several disciplines and multiple approaches, and the commitment of funders to supporting serious research. Corruption in global health should not continue as an open secret, it has to be confronted and brought to light.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria calls for sincerity on the parts of the authorities, the health workers and citizens. It also demands vigilance from civil society organisations and the mass media to foster accountability.

During the Ebola outbreak, Transparency International reported how systemic corruption in West Africa's health sector undermined the response. Unfortunately, the lessons seem to have parted with the epidemic. We hope that lessons from dealing with COVID-19 will strengthen the health system in Nigeria and put in place stiff anti-corruption measures.

We will undertake further studies on health system corruption and accountability through a new project that is funded by the UK's Joint Health System Research Initiative, entitled Understanding and eliminating health sector corruption impeding UHC at district level in Nigeria and Malawi: institutions, individuals and incentives.

The contribution of the authors is sourced from the SOAS Anti-Corruption Evidence -ACE- research consortium funded by UK aid from the UK Government -Contract P0 7073-. The views presented here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the UK government's official policies or the views of SOAS-ACE or other partner organisations. For more information on SOAS-ACE visit www.ace.soas.ac.uk We are grateful to the health workers who granted us permission to have them interviewed.

Charles Orjiakor receives funding from the Health Policy Research Group, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Project Pink Blue, Abuja

Prince Agwu - receives funding from the Health Policy Research Group, University of Nigeria

By Obinna Onwujekwe, Professor of Health Economics and Policy and Pharmaco-economics/pharmaco-epidemiology in the Departments of Health Administration & Management and Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria And

Charles Orjiakor, Lecturer , University of Nigeria And

Prince Agwu -, Researcher in the Department of Social Work, University of Nigeria
Last year's event was hugely popular so we hope these new series of wild ales give the sour beer community something to be excited about.

California Wild Ales, San Diegos Sour House and the citys only all-barrel-aged sour brewery, today announced its second annual May the Fourth be With You, bottle release celebrating George Lucas Star Wars. The brewery is introducing 10 new sour ales and two sour ale kombucha blends to commemorate Star Wars Day.

Since we're living in crazy times and cant celebrate Star Wars Day in our tasting room like we did last year, we decided to hold a huge online beer release, said Bill DeWitt, co-owner and founder of California Wild Ales. Last year's event was hugely popular so we hope these new series of wild ales give the sour beer community something to be excited about.

The sour beer maker partnered with TapShack Craft Liquid Company to create a special blend of sour ale and kombucha. As a craft beverage company, were committed to being innovative and providing more exciting options to our customers, said Chris Bourgeois, co-owner of TapShack. Working with California Wild Ales to create a sour kombucha is a logical step for us and we hope both sour beer and kombucha lovers alike give our blends a try!

One bottle and 11 draft selections will be packaged in 16 ounce crowlers and available for online sales for curbside pickup at the California Wild Ales brewery and tasting room located at 4202 Sorrento Valley Bld., Ste. L or free local delivery on Monday, May the 4th. Customers can visit: http://www.californiawildales.com or call (855) WILD-ALE or (855) 945-3253 to place orders. Each order will be accompanied by stickers and artwork of the special Star Wars-inspired designed for the event.

Only (40) 16 oz. cans of each flavor are available in addition to a special bottle release of 100 500ml bottles for the event called the ImPEARial Stromtrooper.

Rebel Alliance Lineup



May the Force Be With Yuzu: two-barrel wild ale blend with yuzu and sea salt

Han SoLoQuat: two-barrel blend showcasing tropical stone fruit flavor of loquat

Padme Almondala: sea salt plus lightly roasted almonds were added to golden ale

Chewboocha: higher-ABV golden sour base with carrot, turmeric, ginger, and cayenne pepper kombucha; collaboration with TapShack OB

The Mangolorian: two-barrel blend with fresh mango, local honey, and ginger

The Dark Side Lineup



BanAnakin Skywalker: golden sour base with caramelized bananas and toffee

Tuskin Radler: barrel-aged golden sour plus oroblanco citrus, ruby red grapefruit, and local honey

Mango Fett: overripe mango added to the 12-month barrel-aged golden ale, before an addition of jalapeno and sea salt

The Dark Side: barrel-aged golden sour plus beet, pomegranate, and hibiscus kombucha from TapShack OB

ImPEARial Stormtrooper: Julian pears and Saigon cinnamon feature in this 7.5% ABV Imperial sour (100 bottles available)

Emperor Pulpatine: red wine character with blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries

Darth Citrius: wild ale with Escondido-procured Persian limes, Meyer lemons, and satsuma mandarins

A single bottle release a 500ml Bottle The ImPEARial Stormtrooper (Julian Pear, Saigon Cinnamon)

About California Wild Ales

California Wild Ales, San Diegos Sour House, is San Diegos only all-barrel-aged sour brewery. It began creating fresh and funky wild ale in 2015 and opened its tasting room in 2018. The brewerys sour beer is aged in American, French, and Hungarian oak barrels for a minimum of nine months and uses fresh, local produce from local San Diego farmers. California Wild Ales is known for its branding, which includes characters representing the yeast and bacteria thats used to ferment the sour beer named Lacto (short for Lactobacillus), Brett (short for Brettanomyces) and Pety (short for Pediococcus). http://www.californiawildales.com

About TapShack

Based in Ocean Beach, California TapShacks mission is to create the best-tasting, highest-quality kombucha and cold-brew coffee possible that combines modern brewing techniques with an ancient craft. We strive to push the boundaries on kombucha and cold-brew coffee innovation and fuel the daily lives of individuals through irresistible flavor and quality that improves the feeling of well-being and health. Driven by the passion for craft beverages, owners Chris and Amanda Bourgeois created TapShack to share with the local community and beyond. http://www.tapshackob.com

For additional information or imagery visit:

https://www.californiawildales.com/product-category/beer/star-wars/

Online Star Wars Beer Shop

https://www.californiawildales.com/product-category/beer/star-wars/

FB Event Page

https://www.facebook.com/events/232043618069192

Facebook: California Wild Ales

Instagram:@californiawildales

Twitter: @CaliWildAles

Hashtags: #californiawildales, #fermented, #sourbeer, #starwarsday, #maythe4thbewithyou, #beer, #beerrelease, #sdbeer, #maythefouthbewithyou, #bottlerelease, #supportlocalbusiness, #indiebeer, #barrelaged, #wildale, #wildales, #sdbeerlife, #craftbeerlife, #beeradvocate, #brewery, #sandiegocraftbeer, #instabeer, #beerporn, #beerstagram, #brewtography, #craftbeer, #cervesa, #beerlover, #beergeek, #beertime, #craftbeerlover

Or contact:

Bill DeWitt

Co-Founder | Owner | California Wild Ales

4202 Sorrento Valley Blvd

Suite L/M

855-WILD-ALE (945-3253)

http://www.californiawildales.com
Bob Pacella of Cape May throws back a sand shark he caught while fishing on the beach in Cape May, NJ on May 3, 2020. Cape May opens its beaches amid the coronavirus pandemic. Read more

The bright bloom of spring brought more sunshine and warmth to the Philadelphia region on Sunday. Along with more bleak reports of sickness. And more death.

The numbers that define the human cost of the coronavirus pandemic continued to rise, even as plans to restart stalled state and local economies crept forward, and shutdown-weary people swarmed newly reopened parks in New Jersey.

Governors in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware joined three other northeastern states in a pact to collectively buy $5 billion in personal protective equipment, erecting a barrier against future shortages while saving taxpayers money.

Pennsylvania neared a milestone 50,000 coronavirus cases on Sunday. A line of dogs  and their chastened owners  got chased off a New Jersey beach. The annual bar-to-bar Clown Crawl, renamed the Clown Sprawl to reflect social-distancing guidelines, drew only a handful of costumed funny men and women.

Everywhere, it seemed, the persistent chirp of songbirds made it almost possible to believe that the crisis was ending, or at least stabilized, even as some of the worlds biggest countries reported new highs in infections.

India, second only to China in population, saw its biggest one-day jump, while new coronavirus cases in Russia topped 10,000 for the first time, and the death toll in Britain neared that of Italy, the epicenter in Europe, ABC News reported.

The United States continues to be the far-and-away world leader: More than 1.1 million Americans were confirmed to have the coronavirus and more than 67,000 have died as of Sunday. By comparison, second-place Spain had 216,000 infections, and Italy had the second-most deaths, at nearly 29,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The news was hardly better locally.

In soon-to-slowly-reopen Pennsylvania, an additional 962 people had tested positive, bringing the total to 49,267, officials announced on Sunday. With 26 more deaths, that toll increased to 2,444. Nursing homes account for 67% of those.

In Philadelphia, expected to be among the last parts of the state to restart, the story sadly remained the same. Health Department officials announced 327 additional cases, bringing the total to 15,854, and 22 more fatalities that raised the death count to 727.

More than half the deaths were among residents of long-term care facilities. Nearly a thousand patients are being treated in Philadelphia hospitals.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy reported Sunday that 3,144 more people had tested positive, bringing the state total to 126,744, and 137 more had died, pushing that sum to 7,871. More than 5,300 New Jerseyans are in hospitals, including more than 1,600 in critical or intensive care.

On Sunday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the formation of the seven-state consortium to fight the pandemic, to help us get the equipment and get it at a better price.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, who attended the announcement virtually, said that states will gain from not needing to compete against one another for supplies, and that the group also should collaborate on expanding testing.

By working together," Wolf said, we can do a lot more than we can do with each of us working on our own.

The governors  including those in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts  hope a regional approach will enable them to stabilize the supply chain while reducing costs. Murphy, who also joined remotely, said the consortium should look to buy American-made equipment, to help local businesses.

Health experts warn of a potential second wave of COVID-19 as lock downs get eased and more people circulate.

Locally, the warm weekend weather and general stay-at-home fatigue combined to draw people outside, causing a number of New Jersey parks to be overrun on Saturday and leading state officials to warn people to go elsewhere on Sunday.

Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, Bulls Island Recreation Area, Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park, Hacklebarney State Park, and the Wharton State Forest were among those crowded with visitors on Saturday.

REMEMBER, COVID-19 IS NOT GONE, state Department of Environmental Protection officials said in an all-caps warning on Sunday. In order to KEEP PARKS OPEN and all visitors a safe distance from one another, visit close to home, mask up, and make your stay short.

 ASK US: Do you have a question about the coronavirus and how it affects your health, work and life? Ask our reporters.

Murphy has warned that he wont hesitate to re-close parks if a lack of safety precautions threatens to increase the spread of the virus.

New Jersey declared beach access closed at Corsons Inlet State Park, saying only boaters would be allowed to use the parking area. That followed indications on Saturday night that visitors were using the park as a means to reach the closed beach in Ocean City.

Quite a few people had used the entrance to go north on to Ocean Citys closed beaches, one person wrote on the state parks Facebook page. We came back at 2:45 p.m. ... cars everywhere people with no masks or facial coverings, groups all over, no distancing.

Staff writer Laura McCrystal contributed to this article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 04:22:17|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

PRAGUE, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The "air bridge" between the Czech Republic and China has accomplished the shipment of medical supplies with the aircraft of China Eastern Airlines landing at the airport in Prague on Sunday morning.

Czech Interior Minister and Central Crisis Staff head Jan Hamacek thanked all those who participated in the mission, especially the firefighters and police officers who helped unload and distribute the materials, on twitter.

"Today the 50th and final aircraft with protective equipment landed. Huge thanks to the firefighters, police officers and all those who participated in the air bridge from China, to whom we received the much-needed veils, respirators, protection suits and other material necessary to protect against coronavirus. Thanks," Hamacek tweeted.

Since March 20, aircraft, of which most are China Eastern Airlines flights, have carried around 2,000 tons of respirators and other material from China to the Czech Republic, helping the European country ease the severe shortage in medical supply.

According to local media reports, the Ministry of Interior has paid about 4 billion crowns (160 million U.S. dollars) for the orders. Enditem
WARSAW, Poland - Polish cultural authorities said Monday that they have decided to put off the 18th edition of the Frederic Chopin international piano competition by a full year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The new date for the competition was set for Oct. 2-23, 2021. Originally it had been scheduled for Oct. 2-23 this year.

The organizers said the list of contestants will remain unchanged for the event next year in Warsaw.

Culture Minister Piotr Glinski said the decision was dictated by the probability that gatherings with large audiences will still be banned this fall, amid anti-COVID-19 social distancing.

I think we all agree that, although possible from the technical point of view, the competition without an audience would not make much sense, Glinski said.

On top of a gold medal and a prize of 40,000 euros ($45,000), the winner secures prestigious recording and concert contracts. Among past winners are Argentinas Martha Argerich, Italys Maurizio Pollini, Garrick Ohlsson from the U.S. and Polands Krystian Zimerman.

The competition also draws international crowds to Warsaws National Philharmonic. Tickets bought for the event remain valid for 2021.

The first competition was held in 1927. There was a postponement from 1937-49, due to World War II. It has been held every five years since 1955.

Polands best loved composer and pianist, Chopin was born in 1810 in Zelazowa Wola near Warsaw to a Polish mother and a French father. He left Poland at 19 to travel to Vienna and then Paris, where he settled, composing, giving concerts and teaching piano. He died in Paris in 1849 and is buried at the Pere Lachaise cemetery. His heart is at the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.

More details about the change of dates are to be announced May 14.
PUNE, India, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Key companies covered are Honeywell International Inc., Lakeland Inc., W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., PBI Performance Products, Inc., TenCate Protective Fabrics, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Ansell Microgard Ltd., DuPont, Bennett Safetywear Ltd., TEIJIN LIMITED, Udyogi, Sanctum Work Wear Pvt. Ltd., Derekduck Industries Corp., Protective Industrial Products (PIP).

Protective Clothing Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, By Product, 2016-2027

The global protective clothing market size is anticipated to be driven by the rising government norms worldwide to maintain workplace safety, especially in the manufacturing, food processing, construction, healthcare, and chemical industries. Also, the increasing cases of accidental injuries and mortalities would affect the market positively. Fortune Business Insights published this information is a recent study, titled, "Protective Clothing Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Product (Disposable and Durable), By Application (Flame Retardant Apparel, Chemical Defending Garment {Radiation Protection, Particulate Matter, and Others}, Clean Room Clothing, Mechanical Protective Clothing, and Others), By End-Use (Pharmaceutical, Oil & Gas, Chemical, Firefighters, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027." The study further states that the protective clothing market size was USD 12.48 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 34.31 billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 14% during the forecast period.

Browse Detailed Summary of This Research Report with Tables and Figures: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/protective-clothing-market-102707

The emergence of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill. We understand that this health crisis has brought an unprecedented impact on businesses across industries. However, this too shall pass. Rising support from governments and several companies can help in the fight against this highly contagious disease. There are some industries that are struggling and some are thriving. Overall, almost every sector is anticipated to be impacted by the pandemic.

We are taking continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future.

To Get The Short-Term and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Protective Clothing Market,

Please Visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/covid19-impact/protective-clothing-market-102707

This Report Answers the Following Questions:



Which strategies are adopted by companies to intensify competition?



Which segment is likely to gain the maximum share in the coming years?



What are the challenges and opportunities that the market may come across in future?



What are the growth drivers and hindrances in the market?

Drivers & Restraints:

The Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic on the Market

In the healthcare environment, there is a rising demand for protective clothing to prevent contamination from various sources.

Healthcare workers are persistently working to control the rate of infection by correctly disposing and laundering the clothing.

The demand for surgical gowns, coveralls, and isolation gowns has upsurged rapidly from the healthcare sector to prevent the transmission of microorganisms through blood or bodily fluids in themselves, as well as the patients.

The Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, OSHA, and World Health Organization (WHO) implemented new set of rules to be followed by the workers of primary health care centers, quarantine centres, laboratories, point of entries (POEs), and hospitals

Segment:

Rising Usage of Protective Clothing to Prevent Injuries will Drive the Chemicals Segment

Based on end use, the market is fragmented into oil & gas, firefighters, chemical, pharmaceutical, and others. Amongst these, the chemical segment is expected to procure the largest share owing to the increasing usage of protective clothing in the chemical industry for preventing injuries caused by hazardous chemicals, such as cleaning agents, degreasers, and paints. Besides, workers in several industries are nowadays exposed to various types of toxic chemicals. The oil & gas segment, on the other hand, held 13.5% protective clothing market share in 2019.

Regional Analysis:

North America to Dominate Fueled by Strict Laws by OSHA Regarding Workers' Safety

The market is regionally categorized into the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America. Out of these, North America procured USD 4,677.9 million revenue in 2019. It is set to dominate throughout the forecast period. This growth is attributable to the rising number of stringent norms put forward by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure workers' safety. The organization has formed certain safety standards associated with industrial disasters, such as manufacturing machinery failures, fires, and others. Asia Pacific would grow rapidly backed by the rising rates of occupational accidents in the developing countries, such as South Korea, India, and China.

Speak to Analyst: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/protective-clothing-market-102707

Competitive Landscape-

Key Manufacturers Aim to Enhance Portfolio through Acquisitions

A large number of manufacturers and distributors are mainly focusing in the development of more sustainable and recyclable materials for a wide range of industries. They are also adopting the set of norms provided by government agencies worldwide. In addition to that, they are following the strategy of mergers and acquisitions to broaden their product portfolio & serve their consumers better.

List of Key Companies Operating in the Protective Clothing Market, They are as follows:

Honeywell International Inc. (U.S.)

Lakeland Inc. (U.S.)

W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. (U.S.)

PBI Performance Products, Inc. (U.S.)

TenCate Protective Fabrics (U.S.)

Kimberly-Clark Corporation (U.S.)

Ansell Microgard Ltd. (U.K.)

DuPont (U.S.)

Bennett Safetywear Ltd. (U.K.)

TEIJIN LIMITED ( Japan )

) Udyogi ( India )

) Sanctum Work Wear Pvt. Ltd. ( India )

) Derekduck Industries Corp. ( Taiwan )

) Protective Industrial Products (PIP) (U.S.)

Other prominent companies

Quick Buy - Protective Clothing Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/102707

Below are two of the latest industry developments:

March 2020: Lakeland Industries, Inc. augmented its previously planned expansion of the manufacturing capacity by 30%. Since the past couple of years, it has invested around USD 6 million to widen its manufacturing footprint into India and Vietnam, increase margins, improve efficiencies, as well as add and update IT systems. The company decided to upsurge production because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

February 2019: Protective Industrial Products, Inc. (PIP) successfully acquired West Chester Protective Gear. This new deal would solidify PIP's position in the global market in North America. It would be able to deliver the retailers and distributors in the safety industry with a broad product portfolio that includes more flexible solutions.

Detailed Table of Content:

Introduction

Research Scope



Market Segmentation



Research Methodology



Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics

Market Drivers



Market Restraints



Market Opportunities

Key Insights

Key Emerging Trends  For Major Countries



Key Developments: Mergers, Acquisition, Partnership, etc.



Latest Technological Advancement



Insights on Regulatory Scenario



Porters Five Forces Analysis

Global Protective Clothing Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, By Product, 2016-2027

Key Findings / Summary



Global Protective Clothing Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Product



Disposable





Durable

TOC Continued!

Get your Customized Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/protective-clothing-market-102707

Have a Look at Related Research Insights:

PPE Industry Share, Market Size, Analysis by Product (Head Protection, Eye & Face Protection, Hearing Protection, Protective Clothing, Respiratory Protection, Fall Protection Protective Footwear, Hand Protection, and Others), By Application (Construction, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Chemical, Food, Pharmaceutical, Transportation, and Others) and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Medical Clothing Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Product (Surgical Drapes, Scrubs and Gowns, Gloves, Facial Protection, Sterilization Wraps, Protective Apparels and Others), By Application (Hospitals & Physicians' Offices, Outpatient Facilities, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

Medical Mask Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Surgical Mask, Respirators, and Others), By Distribution Channel (Hospital Pharmacies, Retail Pharmacies, and Online Pharmacies), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

Plastic Container Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Material (PET, PP, HDPE, LDPE, and Others), By Container Type (Bottle & Jars, Pails, Tubs, Cups & Bowls, and Others), By End-Use (Beverages, Food, Pharmaceuticals & Cosmetics, FMCG, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Plastics Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Polyethylene Terephthalate, Polyvinyl Chloride, Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, Polyamide, Polycarbonate, Polyurethane, Polystyrene), By End-Use Industry (Packaging, Automotive & Transportation, Infrastructure & Construction, Consumer Goods/Lifestyle, Healthcare & Pharmaceutical, Electrical & Electronics, Textile), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

About Us:

Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them to address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in.

Our reports contain a unique mix of tangible insights and qualitative analysis to help companies achieve sustainable growth. Our team of experienced analysts and consultants use industry-leading research tools and techniques to compile comprehensive market studies, interspersed with relevant data.

At Fortune Business Insights, we aim at highlighting the most lucrative growth opportunities for our clients. We, therefore, offer recommendations, making it easier for them to navigate through technological and market-related changes. Our consulting services are designed to help organizations identify hidden opportunities and understand prevailing competitive challenges.

Contact Us:

Fortune Business Insights Pvt. Ltd.

308, Supreme Headquarters

Survey No. 36, Baner

Pune-Bangalore Highway

Pune - 411045, Maharashtra, India

Phone:

US: +1-424-253-0390

UK: +44-2071-939123

APAC: +91-744-740-1245

Email: [email protected]

Fortune Business Insights

LinkedIn | Twitter | Blogs

Read Press Release: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/press-release/protective-clothing-market-9853

SOURCE Fortune Business Insights
As the ruling New Patriotic Party is yet to set the date for holding its parliamentary primaries, the incumbent Member of Parliament for Bantama, Daniel Okyem Aboagye is alleged to have physically assaulted some delegates who are opposed to his re-election bid.



The Sofo Line Police Station in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region has commenced investigations into a case of assault brought against the Bantama MP.



The complainant, Julius Kyei Sekyere told ABC News that he was assaulted by the incumbent MP on Sunday morning.



"Yes its true, he assaulted me near our Church at Adoato so Ive been given a Police Medical Form, Julius narrated.



According to him, he was around his church premises (Adoato Christ Apostolic Church) when he saw the MP in the company of another person near the churchs building.



As my MP, I approached and greeted him. Without any provocation, he started hurling insults at me for not supporting his re-election bid. I, therefore, told him I couldnt join his camp and before I could say jack, he hit me, Julius narrated his ordeal.



According to ABC News, the fight was separated by passersby as it could have turned bloody - "The Pastor of Christ Apostolic Church at Adoato who happened to witness the assault on his Church Member called Mr. Okyem Aboagye aside in an attempt to calm him down."



However, ABC News claims to have a video recording of lady who was threatened by Daniel Okyem Aboagye for not supporting him.



Mr. Okyem Aboagye who defeated then-incumbent MP, Henry Kwabena Kokofo who had served just a term in office, is waging a political war of his life to return to Parliament in 2021. However, his campaign has been rocked with several controversies.











Source: ABC News/Ghana









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
France said Sunday that it would not quarantine anyone arriving from the EU, the Schengen area or Britain due to the coronavirus, as it prepares to start easing confinement measures after two months of lockdown.

On Saturday, the government had said it would extend the state of emergency to contain the crisis until at least July 24, and anyone entering France would have to remain in isolation for two weeks.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

But the quarantine rules would not apply to anyone arriving from the European Union, the Schengen zone or Britain, regardless of their nationality, the presidency said on Sunday.

And for French and EU citizens arriving in France from other regions outside the EU, the Schengen area and Britain, the rules will be announced in the coming days, the presidency said.

Nevertheless, the tougher border controls introduced by France in mid-March to limit coronavirus contagion, particularly at the border with Germany, will continue, the interior ministry told AFP.

The travel restrictions currently in place at our borders will continue to apply, the ministry said. Nothing has changed.

The number of new deaths from Covid-19 in France has been declining in recent days, with 135 fatalities reported over the past 24 hours on Sunday.

The national health service said the increase brought Frances total death toll to 24,895, the worlds fifth highest figure after the United States, Italy, Britain and Spain.

The last time the number of daily reported deaths was below 135 was on March 22, when it represented only those reported by hospitals.

The current figure also includes deaths reported by elderly care homes and other medicalised care facilities.

France plans to start lifting the coronavirus lockdown from May 11, when children are to return to school in stages, some businesses will reopen and people will be able to travel within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of their homes without a signed justification for their movement.

But Health Minister Olivier Veran warned Sunday that this would depend on further declines in Covid-19 infections, especially in hard-hit areas like the Paris region and northeast France.

The government has said the number of new coronavirus cases must stabilise at fewer than 3,000 per day as it expands testing, otherwise doctors and nurses could face another wave of patients that have tested hospitals since March.

If the number of new cases proves too high, well have to reconsider the date for lifting the lockdown, and decide according to the situation in each department, Veran told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

He also cautioned against planning summer holidays for now, saying its unlikely that this virus is going to go on vacation.

Officials are scrambling to ramp up testing capacities to 700,000 people each week by May 11, which health experts say is essential for containing the outbreak.
Born in Tokyo, but interested in his Ainu roots from a young age, Kitahara Jirota Mokottunas was inspired by conversations with his grandmother, who grew up on the island of Sakhalin, to research the diversity of Ainu culture.

An Ainu in the Tokyo Area

I am an Ainu. However, sometimes when I tell people I was born not in Hokkaido, but in Tokyo, and was raised in Saitama Prefecture, it brings the conversation to a halt, as if they are thinking, Oh, so maybe hes not really an Ainu. This is probably not the case now, but around 20 years ago, it was little known that there were thousands of Ainu in Kanto, along with a number of Ainu organizations active in the area.





I knew I was an Ainu, but still there was almost nothing around me that made me feel or consider what that meant. From when I left home in the morning to when I got back from school, I did not encounter a single utarianother name for an Ainu person. The only reminder of that identity was the pair of carved wooden dolls of an old Ainu couple in a neighborhood barbers shop. I came to look forward to seeing them in the mirror when I went for my monthly haircut.

In 1980, a mothers group established the Kanto Utari Association in Tokyo and began holding monthly meetings. As they had no fixed place for these, they used meeting rooms at labor and welfare centers in Shinjuku and Itabashi. These women had been born in the late 1940s, so their generation was a little removed from the Ainu language and what was seen as traditional culture. Even so, there were chances to learn a number of upopo songs from older women who sometimes attended, which was good fun.

When I was in the second grade of elementary school, I watched an Ainu ku rimse bow dance performance by the members of a troupe called Warabiza. I was excited by the energetic movements, which made a lasting impression on me. It was another year before I had the opportunity to learn an Ainu song and dance, and two more before I mastered it. It was really difficult to find information thenalmost unbelievably so, from todays perspective.

Learning the Language

The mothers attended several lectures on the Ainu language at Waseda University. When they taught me the words they picked up there, I was so happy to learn our own languageas foreign as it still feltand enjoyed putting it into use. But they had their jobs to do as well, so I could not make as much progress as I would have liked.

I think I was in sixth grade when Nakagawa Hiroshi, an Ainu language researcher (now a professor at Chiba University), held classes for our group. I took part, although I was obsessed with manga and video games at the time, so I was not at all conscientious. Still I liked how he included tongue twisters, songs, and kamuy yukar (divine epic poems), which I repeated until I could recite them from memory. They were full of words I did not know, so I learned them as strings of sounds. It was not until I was in university that I came to understand their meaning.

My Grandmothers Name

When I was in my second year at junior high school, there was a gathering in Shizunai (now part of Shinhidaka) in Hokkaido with talks from elderly speakers who knew a lot about the Ainu culture and language. I went with my father, and my grandmother also attended after my mother told her about it.

My grandmother lived in nearby Biratori then. Apparently, my mother remembered that when she was very young, adults used to talk to each other in Ainu, but my grandmother never spoke the language either in the family or outside the house. Before I was born, my mother asked her about the family history as well as words and customs, but she would never reply.

Unexpectedly, after a kamuy yukar was performed in front of my grandmother at the Shizunai gathering, she turned around completely and supported my efforts to learn about the Ainu.

I went to visit my grandmother during school vacations. She told me that she had an Ainu name and taught me the Ainu names of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother. She was called Toonintemah, a name apparently derived from the fact she drank a lot of milk. My great-grandfather was Asketoku and my great-grandmother was Cikasuhpa. It should have been obvious that my grandmother had an Ainu name, but I had not thought about it until then. I felt like I had been hit in the chest when I learned this, and I gained a firm conviction of the connection between Ainu history and myself.

Diversity Within the Culture

Conversations with my grandmother had a strained atmosphere. Talking about Ainu things meant bringing up a lot of complex emotions for her, and often she would not speak at all when she was not in the mood. I found it strange that at times, the Ainu words she used sounded different from those I had learned.

For example, when she said that it was because she lived among wajin (the Yamato ethnic majority in Japan) that she did not know Ainu, the vowels she used sounded longer and her pronunciation of ha was like a short burst of breath. I mentioned it to her, and she replied that it was because she was from Karafuto (the Japanese name for Sakhalin, a large island now under Russian control), so that was why it was different from how people speak Ainu in Hokkaido. The word Karafuto lodged itself in my brain.

Until then I had associated Ainu only with Hokkaido, but before the modern era, they lived from southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to Hokkaido and northern Tohoku. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union took control of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, and most of the Ainu living there moved south to Hokkaido. Some other members of indigenous peoples from Sakhalin like the Uilta and Nivkh also went to Hokkaido at this time. My grandmother lived in a village called Raichishi on the west coast of Sakhalin, and in the neighboring village there were Uilta people who had moved there due to marriage or work. While the Ainu had a shared language and culture overall, each location had its own individual character. I felt this strongly in talking with my grandmother.

After that, I was always thinking about Sakhalin. I wanted to know about the customs and language of my forebears, but maybe these were different from those in Hokkaido. I began to think about the diversity of Ainu language and culture.





Dismissive Attitudes

While my interest in Ainu culture grew from when I was a junior high school student, I talked about it less to the people around me. My teachers and classmates either did not know about the Ainu or were not interested, and I was regarded as a curiosity, winning only unwelcome reactions. In the study of racism, the word microaggression describes how typical daily communication can, on an unconscious level, often be lightly condescending or defamatory. It is hard to make it into an issue when it is minor and unintentional, but it is very hurtful. For many years, I did not know how to describe my experience, but now the word microaggression seems to fit the dismissive reactions or lack of interest in my ancestors language and culture, and the people who developed them.

I went on to study Ainu beliefs and language, attending night classes at a university in Sapporo. This included just two classes on the regular curriculum; the rest of the time I went to private seminars. The more I studied, the more painfully I felt how all of the prevalent information was about Hokkaido, and that I would have to conduct my own research to learn about Sakhalin.

While I gathered materials about Ainu beliefs in Sakhalin during my postgraduate studies, I began to feel that Ainu culture in Hokkaido was not homogenous, but richly varied. I also found that there were others working hard to find out about their ancestors in Hokkaido. Fortunately, in 2005 I was hired by the Ainu Museum, where I worked as a curator. I had visited it many times as a student and learned a lot there. I too came to want to share what I had learned from my research with many utari.



A man prays, holding in his right hand an ikupasuy, a ceremonial stick used when making offerings of alcohol to the gods. In his left hand is a lacquered sake bowl acquired through trade with Japan.

Recently, I had a moment of realization in talking to an utari woman researching material culture. She had no chance to encounter her culture and history while growing up, feeling only the disdain of society toward the Ainu. It was as an adult that she studied traditional culture, became a researcher, and engaged in revival activities and raising awareness. She saw it as a form of recovery to learn about her culture and tell other people about it. Hearing this, the meaning of cultural revival became clear for me too.

Recovery for All

Ainu legends, beliefs, crafts, and music all have their own appeal. While the Ainu are said to have lived in harmony with nature, oral traditions warning against indiscriminate fishing and hunting, monopolizing, and food waste indicate that in the past our society also had people focused on material wealth. It may have been that actual experience of resource depletion led to the teaching, through literature and religion, that one should be satisfied with what one has. I find gratification in knowing what those ancestors thought and considering it for myself.





In addition to intellectual pleasure, I feel this study gives me aid toward my own recovery. Some say that identity is constructed through knowledge of traditional culture, but I did not become an Ainu through learning the language. I was an Ainu from when I knew nothing at all. What happened to me was that by learning the language, culture, and history, I gained my own perspective on the forebears who developed and were a part of them. This did not mean overly romanticizing the Ainu, but I understood that the disdain toward them was groundless and unjustified. And I felt the same sense of recovery I heard about from the other researcher by appreciating this and telling others about the Ainu.

In April 2020, the Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park will open. [Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the opening has been postponedEd.] I greatly hope it will help many utari to achieve their own recovery. In contemporary Japanese society, the Ainu are not the only ones cut off from their roots. Among the wajin, there are those who feel stifled by talk of one homogenous people, while others are often spurred on by conceit to display their intolerance. In this sense, the majority need to achieve recovery too. By seeing Ainu cultural revival, and using it as a mirror to view inside themselves, they will realize their own thoughts do not all match the standard values of society. Respecting diversity is also connected to appreciating the importance of ones own values that differ from those of others.

(Originally published in Japanese on March 27, 2020. Banner photo: Inau ritual sticks topped with wood shavings are the subject of the authors research; he made the ones in the picture himself. Photo and illustrations courtesy Kitahara Jirota Mokottunas.)
A mark of 999.9 fine sits on hallmarked one kilogram gold bullion bars at the Valcambi SA precious metal refinery in Lugano, Switzerland, on April 24, 2018.

Gold prices could "break the highs" seen earlier this year, after declining in March along with assets across the board, according to UBS Investment Bank's Joni Teves.

"There is growing potential (for gold) to break $1,800 (per ounce) in my view," Joni Teves, precious metal strategist at UBS Investment Bank, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Monday. In the near term, the firm has a target price for gold at $1,790 per ounce.

That comes as "investor interest continues to grow in this environment of uncertainty and negative real rates," Teves said.

As of Monday afternoon Singapore time, the price of spot gold was around $1,698.61 per ounce, an almost 12% increase year to date.

Last week, the World Gold Council released its first-quarter 2020 demand trends report for the precious metal, where it highlighted that the global coronavirus outbreak was "the single biggest factor influencing gold demand."

"As the scale of the pandemic  and its potential economic impact  started to emerge, investors sought safe-haven assets," the report said. "Gold ETFs saw the highest quarterly inflows for four years amid global uncertainty and financial market volatility."

For her part, UBS' Teves said the move in gold had been drive by a "pickup in investor interest, particularly from institutional investors."

"Gold is becoming attractive in this environment where uncertainty is very high, growth is expected to weaken, and at the same time you have negative real rates which make gold attractive to hold as a diversifier in investor portfolios," Teves said.

Meanwhile, Fat Prophets' David Lennox told CNBC in an email that the "bigger tailwind" for gold prices is in the actions of government and central banks.

Large government expenditure to stimulate "flagging economies" hit by Covid-19 has raised concerns over debt in a future without the virus, said Lennox, who is a resources analyst at the firm.

Furthermore, he added, currencies are also being driven lower as a result of central banks cutting rates to stimulate economies.

"Fiat currencies post COVID will not be the place to be invested," Lennox said, in reference to government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity.
Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

As Christians, we cannot give our undying allegiance to anyone except Jesus. For everyone else, we must call balls and strikes, or else we lose credibility as bearers of the light and stewards of the Gospel. For every elected official, including the President, that means praising them when they do good and criticizing when they do wrong.

During the 2016 GOP primary, Donald Trump was the very last Republican I wanted to see elected.

I was one of a handful of conservative leaders around the country who chose to openly and publicly oppose him in the primary. I wrote CNN articles, was interviewed on several radio and television shows, and I sounded the alarm about his personal history and seeming lack of moral compass.

My main reason for opposing Trump was because, based on his past actions and words, I believed he would ultimately govern like a center left-leaning Republican.

I thought he would support abortion rights.

I thought he would pick his Palm Beach lawyer buddies and Bar insiders for the federal and Supreme Court.

I thought he would ignore the real threat to religious liberty that exists due to the advancement of the radical LGBT policy agenda.

I thought his past statements on moral issues, coupled with his personal history, meant he would surely become the typical, moderate, New York establishment, Republican president.

Well, I was wrong.

And I was wrong about almost every one of my concerns about how he would govern on policy and appointments.

After watching him pick Mike Pence for vice president and release a list of Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation approved judicial candidates for the US Supreme Court, I was amazed and stunned! These were game changers for me.

Since his election, on issues of most concern to conservative Christians, the President, and those surrounding him, have been surprisingly strong.

We all wish he would use restraint on Twitter and in his rhetoric, show humility, and be more charitable towards those with whom he disagrees. We would all love to have a kinder, more respectable, and family-friendly president who is still fiercely committed to principle.

But politics has only one true bottom line  policy.

Policy determines whether human beings live or die. Policy determines whether free speech and religious liberty will be protected or trampled under the demands of liberal activists. Policy affects whether Dad has a job or is applying for welfare. Policy directly affects the people sitting around your dinner table.

Some Christians say, Oh, but I what about his potty mouth? What about his lack of collegiality? What about, what about, what about?

Well to those people, I would respectfully say, what about the 62 million unborn human beings slaughtered in their mothers wombs in America?

What about the baby girls who are poisoned by digoxin injected with a needle into their heart or burned to death by poison saline solutions?

What about the baby boys who are ripped limb by limb with forceps and a curette blade or sucked into a vacuum?

Does anyone think for one moment that when the famous British parliamentarian William Wilberforce, during his 20-year fight to end the slave trade, that he was concerned about aligning himself with members of Parliament who had a foul mouth and a checkered past? No! Wilberforce was committed to ending the evil slave trade and would hold hands, work with, and help elect any politician who could help join his great campaign for the sanctity and dignity of human life.

I understand Christians who are uncomfortable with or despise Trumps style. But I urge you not to surrender the strategic influence of your vote on some long shot, third-party candidate.

I respect conservative #NeverTrumpers, but their reasoning is flawed because they are not being good stewards of something precious  their vote. This is especially true if you are living in a purple state like Florida where the margins of victory are and will continue to be razor thin.

We should rightly judge men based on their real actions and words, not based upon perceived motives or the state of their hearts. In 2016, I opposed Donald Trump based on his past actions and words. In 2020, I will support Donald Trump based on his actions and words on public policy since becoming president.

In Scripture, we see many times God using imperfect men to accomplish good things. President Trump is far from perfect, but hes accomplishing unprecedentedly good things in terms of policy and appointments  and for this reason, President Trump deserves our support.
Allison Langdon has congratulated her Today co-host Karl Stefanovic and his wife Jasmine Yarbrough on the arrival of their first child, daughter Harper May.

Appearing on Monday's Today show, Allison and stand-in host David Campbell proudly announced that the couple had welcomed their bundle of joy last week.

'We are so excited because the Today show has a tiny new addition. Karl and his gorgeous wife Jasmine brought their little girl into the world on Friday,' Allison said.

'He left here in a hurry after work, he did!' she continued, explaining that Karl, 45, rushed home on Friday as Jasmine, 36, had gone into labour.

Allison, who never shies away from gently ribbing Karl on-air, added: 'That's a beautiful baby. I'm just going to say it now, that's all Jas!'

'Looks like her mum, luckily!' giggled David.

'The Today show has a tiny new addition': David Campbell (left) and Allison Langdon (right) congratulated Karl Stefanovic and his wife Jasmine Yarbrough on the arrival of their first child, daughter Harper May on Monday's episode of Nine's Today show

Poking fun at her co-host: Allison, who never shies away from gently ribbing Karl on-air, added: 'That's a beautiful baby. I'm just going to say it now, that's all Jas!' Pictured: Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough

Finishing the segment with a heartfelt message to Karl and Jasmine, Allison said: 'Congratulations guys, get a little bit of rest if you can and we cannot wait to meet her.'

Harper's arrival was also announced on Saturday's episode of Weekend Today, by Karl's colleague and close friend, Richard Wilkins.

'Mum and bub are both doing very well,' Richard said proudly.

'Harper is absolutely perfect': The couple welcomed the baby girl (pictured) on Friday, just after midday. In a statement, Karl said he was 'in awe' of his new little girl

'Mum and bub are both doing very well': The happy news was also announced on the Today show on Saturday morning by Karl's colleague and close friend, Richard Wilkins (far left)

Meanwhile on Saturday, Karl's new manager, Mark Morrissey, also welcomed the newborn as their 'newest client' in a sweet Instagram post.

Alongside a photo of Harper wrapped in a blanket, Mark hilariously wrote: 'Available for all media, network and radio opportunities'.

'Morrissey Management announces and welcomes their newest client - Harper May Stefanovic,' the caption began.

Too cute: On Saturday, the Today host's new manager, Mark Morrissey, also welcomed the newborn as their 'newest client' in a sweet Instagram post

'Harper is now available for all media, network and radio opportunities.

'Please contact her manager Mark Morrissey direct at Morrissey Management for all future enquires.'

Jasmine gave birth on Friday at the North Shore Private Hospital.

Style and comfort: The Today show presenter made sure Jasmine was as comfortable as possible in a luxurious maternity suite at Sydney's North Shore Private Hospital (pictured)

Bumping along: Jasmine last shared a photo of herself to Instagram on Tuesday. She posed in a black dress while cradling her baby bump alongside the caption: 'Countdown is on'

In a statement, Karl said: 'Harper and Jasmine are doing well and dad had a great night's sleep.

He added: 'I am in awe. Harper is absolutely perfect.'

The shoe designer gave birth in a spacious private suite that looked more like a modern hotel than a hospital room, which featured a plush couch and state-of-the-art shower facilities.

The birth was tinged with sadness for Karl, whose mother, Jenny, lives in Cairns and was unable to meet the child due to coronavirus travel restrictions.

It was previously reported that Jasmine's parents, Bob and Cheryl Yarbrough, would be coming down from Brisbane so they could spend a fortnight in quarantine then help care for the baby girl.
A generous customer left a $1,300 tip to support a Texas restaurant that was forced to close its doors due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Stay-at-home orders in Texas expired on Thursday and businesses were allowed to reopen on Friday. Restaurants have special restrictions for reopening, including keeping their capacity at 25 per cent.

The Frog & The Bull was one of those establishments that welcomed customers but little did the restaurant's owner, David Fernandez, know that one patron would gift his business with a large tip.

Fernandez explained to CNN that a man and his family had visited the restaurant on Friday. They ordered filet mignon, scallops, grilled steak and other items, bringing their check to $337.

A customer left a total of $1,300 (check depicted) at the Frog and The Bull restaurant in Austin, Texas, on Friday

That's when the customer asked his server, Josh Pikoff, 18, to double charge him.

Because the request was so unusual, Pikoff asked Fernandez to help.

'He said charge me double for everything and I asked, '"are you sure?" Fernandez told CNN. 'He said, "yes".'

Once the customer received his updated check in the amount of $674 plus tax, he added an additional $300 tip for Pikoff and another $1,000.

According to a photo of the check, the $1,000 was 'for the house'. That brought his total to $2,029.

Fernandez said he doesn't know the identity of the customer, but that his gift will help get the restaurant back on track.

Another act of kindness occurred recently in Maryland at the Greene Turtle in Mount Airy. The owner of the Greene Turtle said a customer left a $1,000 tip for the staff, bringing their total to $1,224

Nearly two weeks ago, an Arkansas customer gifted the Colonial Steakhouse restaurant in Pine Bluff with a large tip. The customer gave the family-owned restaurant $1,200, which was the customer's entire stimulus check issued by the federal government

Another act of kindness occurred recently in Maryland at the Greene Turtle in Mount Airy.

The owner of the Greene Turtle said a customer left a $1,000 tip for the staff on a takeout order, bringing their total to $1,224.

Staffers gave a shout out to the customer on 11 News, saying: 'Our staff would like to make a special shout out to one of our very beloved guests (you know who you are!) for leaving such a generous gratuity during these hard times!'

Nearly two weeks ago, an Arkansas customer gifted the Colonial Steakhouse restaurant in Pine Bluff with a large tip when they picked up their takeout order.

According to KARK, the customer gave the family-owned restaurant $1,200, which was the customer's entire stimulus check issued by the federal government.

'We just started crying and thanking God because it came at a time that most of our staff really needed it,' Colonial Steakhouse manager Allison Hall told the station.
First Nations people are being urged to get tested for COVID-19 if they are experiencing symptoms.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 2/5/2020 (626 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Advertisement Advertise With Us

First Nations people are being urged to get tested for COVID-19 if they are experiencing symptoms.

Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to infectious disease such as the novel coronavirus due to pre-existing health outcomes and socio-economic conditions.

Marcia Anderson

No First Nation communities in Manitoba have reported cases of COVID-19, but medical professionals are nevertheless cautioning them to remain alert, even as the province has plans to reopen non-essential services and businesses.

Marcia Anderson, a Cree-Anishinaabe doctor who works in public health in Manitoba, said one way to keep on top of the situation is by increasing the number of people going in for testing.

"If you dont have symptoms, there is no reason for you to be tested," she said.

"If you do have symptoms, that could be related to COVID-19, you can call the nursing station or hospital and get instructions on how to come

in and be tested for COVID-19."

Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, a new cough or worsening of a chronic cough, a sore throat, runny nose, muscle aches and GI gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea or loss of taste or smell.

A similar message came from Tom Wong, chief medical officer of public health with Indigenous Services Canada, who is closely watching developments at First Nations elsewhere in Canada.

While Manitoba First Nations are at zero cases, First Nations in other provinces are experiencing outbreaks of the illness. Wong said the next two weeks would be a watershed moment.

As of April 30, Indigenous Services Canada was aware of 131 confirmed positive COVID-19 tests on First Nations reserves in provinces  33 in British Columbia, 21 in Alberta, 15 in Saskatchewan, 32 in Ontario and 30 in Quebec. Nunavut reported its first case this week in Pond Inlet.

"We want everybody to get the message that the community, the public health department, ought to be emphasizing physical distancing, washing your hands, not gathering in crowds, including young people, because young people sometimes think they are not vulnerable," said Wong.

"Many factors contribute to this reality, including lack of housing, overcrowding, lack of clean water, limited health services," the Southern Chiefs Organization has stated.

Thats why in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, stringent measures to keep the virus out were put in place, such as shutting down territorial borders. In Manitoba and elsewhere in Canada, some First Nations have closed their communities, going so far as to erect blockades.

Anderson said its really important to know if and when COVID-19 cases start in the community "so that communities can be best prepared to respond with the public health management and the primary-care needs."

She also said knowing there are no cases because of negative test results is also helpful.

"Thats important, so that as the province starts its restart strategy that community leaders also have the information that they need to decide on whether to loosen or to tighten the public health measures that they put in place, as well," she said.

Wong said its too early to tell which way the so-called curve will go in First Nations.

"We are working with the communities, with the provinces and territories, very closely to shut the door on transmission. Youve heard about the meat plant (in Alberta), for example. Those are some of the areas where workers from First Nation communities  they work there, then they come back to the community and unknowingly, because theres an outbreak at those facilities, they bring back the virus to the community, which has happened," Wong said.

"What we are hoping to not see is an exponential increase. What we are hoping to see is the flattening of the curve and bending the curve."

Wong said First Nations have been successful in shutting down the entrance of the virus in their communities, "including the lockdown of communities and being very strict about isolation, not gathering in crowds."

Anderson cautioned calm.

"One thing thats really important to remember as of this date in time is that if you were to have those symptoms like sore throat, new cough, fever, shortness of breath, as of right now its still more likely to be some other respiratory virus as opposed to COVID-19," she said.

"That being said, its still important that you take steps to protect yourself and your loved ones from passing on whatever it is thats causing your symptoms. Your health-care team will work with you or discuss with you when you go in to be tested the best way to do that."

 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.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
More than a fifth of employees in Britain have been furloughed, with 8 billion pounds ($9.9 billion) claimed from the government to sustain their wages during the coronavirus lockdown, tax authorities said on Monday.

HM Revenue and Customs said on Twitter that 6.3 million workers from 800,000 employers had been furloughed, citing figures up to midnight (2300 GMT) on Sunday.

That accounts for 23 percent of Britain's 27.9 million employees, according to the most recent labour market data.

Under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which is central to efforts to slow a rise in unemployment, the state pays 80 percent of workers' pay up to 2,500 pounds a month.

The scheme is due to run until the end of June and is likely to cost the public finances around 39 billion pounds, based on an assumption that 30 percent of employees are enrolled, Britain's official budget forecasters have said.

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 figures came as pensions minister Therese Coffey said the government received 1.8 million claims for welfare payments between March 16 and the end of April via its 'Universal Credit' benefits system.

Universal Credit benefits are paid to people in work as well as those who have lost their jobs.

Coffey said that overall, the volume of welfare claims had been six times bigger than pre-coronavirus during that period, and that in one particular week the increase had been tenfold.

Last week an official survey showed two thirds of British firms had asked for public money to pay staff they have temporarily laid off, pointing to a strong take-up for a key part of the government's plan to soften the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Another part of the government's strategy - offering state-backed loans to companies - has made less progress.

Data from a finance industry group showed government-backed bank lending to small and medium-sized businesses rose to 4.1 billion pounds by April 28, up from 2.8 billion pounds the previous week.
Have you ever tried to keep track of all the pieces while playing three-dimensional chess? Imagine if the fourth dimension  time  were included, and the goal was to understand the evolution of the entire Greater Yellowstone Geoecosystem. Thats an apt analogy for the 55-year research career of U.S. Geological Survey scientist emeritus Ken Pierce.

Ken was hired by the USGS in 1963 after earning degrees from Stanford (BA, 1959) and Yale (Ph.D., 1963). Unraveling Yellowstones geologic complexities has been Kens passion since he began working there in 1965, and it continues to be so. Meticulous observations and careful field work have supported his overarching approach to geology: trying to understand what, why, how and when.

Kens first assignment was to map the poorly understood deposits left by glaciers in Yellowstone. In this assignment he helped to produce the first numerical ages of glacial moraines in the western United States. That landmark study showed the last two major glaciations in Yellowstone  the Bull Lake and Pinedale  were about 140,000 and 22,000 years old, respectively, coinciding with the Illinoian and Wisconsin glaciations in North America.

Ken recognized that the Bull Lake glaciation was more extensive to the south and west than the Pinedale in the Yellowstone region. He discovered the earliest Pinedale glaciers initially flowed southward from the Absaroka-Beartooth Uplift into the Yellowstone Caldera, depositing thick glacial moraines.

His mapping demonstrated early Pinedale glacial buildup occurred on the Yellowstone Plateau, and ice flow later reversed from south to north over the crest of the Washburn Range into northern Yellowstone and beyond. Further mapping showed in the interval between Bull Lake and Pinedale glaciations the center of Yellowstones ice mass shifted toward high terrain to the northeast, a region Ken referred to as the Yellowstone Crescent of High Terrain.

Glaciation in Yellowstone was dramatically different from elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Why? Ken deduced that the Snake River Plain acted as a low-lying conduit channeling storms from the Pacific Northwest to the Yellowstone Plateau and Yellowstone Crescent of High Terrain, stimulating a tremendous increase in precipitation. Combined with high heat flow and high rates of seismicity, this explains why Yellowstone has more geothermal features than anywhere else in the world.

Kens questioning of why areas covered by Bull Lake Glaciation differed from those of Pinedale Glaciation, and why Yellowstone is topographically so much higher than its surroundings, led to his pioneering work on the Yellowstone Hotspot. Ken combined recent work on the progression of ages of volcanism becoming younger from southwest Idaho along the Snake River Plain northeastward to Yellowstone with his meticulous mapping of faulting and topographic uplift likewise becoming younger to the northeast  this was the basis for understanding Yellowstones origin as a hotspot.

Kens focus on the track of the hotspot and on changes in the Yellowstone landscape led to his work on heavy breathing of Yellowstone Caldera  recurring episodes of uplift and subsidence. Sediment cores and stratigraphic sections along the Yellowstone River revealed gravels deposited about 2,850 years ago and evidence of high erosive power. Ken and his coworkers deduced the river then was flowing much more vigorously than today, which they attributed to a period of profound uplift of its source area in Yellowstone Caldera. Further study revealed changes in shoreline levels north of Yellowstone Lake related to uplift and subsidence of the caldera over the past 14,000 years.

Through these discoveries, Ken brought understanding of Yellowstones glaciations full circle  it turns out that subsidence and uplift in the Yellowstone Plateau-Snake River Plain are essential to understanding complex facets of Yellowstones recent glaciations, as is Yellowstones hotspot origin. Deformation of Yellowstone Caldera is evident in the distribution of the Bull Lake Glaciation where the topography was actively subsiding in the trailing western part of the hotspot, while the distribution of the younger Pinedale glacial deposits was affected by active uplift on the eastern leading edge.

For more than 50 years, Ken Pierce has been a leading and humble contributor to what we know about Yellowstone and, more fundamentally, about geologic processes that inform the Yellowstone Volcano Observatorys ability to assess and respond to modern-day activity. His findings through state-of-the-art geologic field mapping, geomorphology, geochronology and solid-earth physics are guideposts for current research. His popular books, Interpreting the Landscape of Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, Recent and Ongoing Geology and Creation of the Teton Landscape, a Geological Chronicle of Jackson Hole and the Teton Range have introduced the public to the geologic wonders of the Greater Yellowstone Geoecosystem.

In addition, Ken is an unselfish researcher who has shared his knowledge and mentored many younger geoscientists. He is emblematic of what it means to be a true public servant and a scientist working with eyes wide open.

Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This weeks contribution is from Lisa Morgan and Pat Shanks, emeritus research geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey; Cathy Whitlock, regents professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University; Steve Colman, director and professor emeritus of the Large Lakes Observatory at the University of Minnesota Duluth and adjunct scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Joe Licciardi, department chair and professor of Earth Sciences at the University of New Hampshire.

Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. This week's contribution is from Lisa Morgan and Pat Shanks, emeritus research geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey; Cathy Whitlock, regents professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University; Steve Colman, director and professor emeritus of the Large Lakes Observatory at the University of Minnesota Duluth and adjunct scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Joe Licciardi, department chair and professor of Earth Sciences at the University of New Hampshire.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
A resident with no immediate family has become the 15th person to die at the coronavirus-riddled Newmarch House near Penrith in Western Sydney.

The man's death takes the New South Wales total to 45 and the national toll to 96.

'His passing highlights how terrible this virus is and how devastating it is for the elderly in our community,' Newmarch House operator Anglicare said in a statement on Monday afternoon.

'The impact of COVID-19 on older people is increasingly evident in Australia and internationally and this is extremely distressing for other residents, their families and members of the wider community.'

The nursing home became a coronavirus hotspot after a staff member went to work for a week with a sore throat, not realising she was carrying the virus.

Health Services Union NSW said daily testing of workers at the nursing home at the centre of the deadly COVID-19 outbreak 'absolutely' should have happened earlier.

A resident with no immediate family has become the 15th person to die at Anglicare Newmarch House in Western Sydney (pictured)

More than a third of all residents and 26 staff members have tested positive to coronavirus. Pictured: an aerial view of Newmarch House nursing home

The testing regime has been established in an attempt to manage the outbreak where more than a third of all residents and 26 staff members have tested positive to coronavirus.

General secretary Gerard Hayes on Monday said it shouldn't have taken the deaths of so many Newmarch House residents to introduce daily staff testing.

Testing should have been performed 'across the board' two months ago when there was an outbreak at northwest Sydney aged care home Dorothy Henderson Lodge, he said.

'We know aged care is such a vulnerable sector of the community and it should have been done from day one,' Mr Hayes told ABC radio on Monday.

'It's vitally important that people are tested to make sure that something that may or may not the virus can be eradicated.'

NSW Health is running the testing at Newmarch House, which first became aware of its outbreak on April 11.

'We continue to be grateful for the support from the Commonwealth and NSW governments,' an Anglicare spokesman told AAP on Monday.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said over the weekend he was 'quite satisfied' Anglicare was doing everything it could to halt the virus, but was saddened by the confirmation of new COVID-19 cases at the facility in recent days.

He also defended the staff who had spread infection, saying dealing with the virus was 'like almost going to the moon'.

Investigations are underway to find out how the staff members, who Anglicare says were experienced in infectious disease situations, caught the virus.

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

Genomic sequencing had so far shown the virus that entered the home had linkages with 'a number of other clusters' in the community, NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said.

The department is open to the possibility the virus didn't come solely via the first known case - a nurse who worked at the facility for six days with mild symptoms.

'What we're trying to do is identify the index case ... and that requires going through all the medical records, reinterviewing staff, trying to find any other chains,' she told reporters on Monday.

'Were there any other introductions at or about that time? We're just trying to look if there were any missing links or missing chains.'

Dr Chant said results of some serology tests were pending, but 'might be a dead end'.

'Sometimes, I've got to be honest, we don't actually find that first case in,' she said.

'All I can say is that the genetic sequencing is indicating that there are similarities, this strain is the strain that was in the broader Penrith area.'

An investigation has been launched into whether infection control methods were breached at the facility which has become a coronavirus cluster.

Anglicare says it will raise the possibility of extracting residents from the aged care home.

Anglicare Sydney chief executive Grant Millard said 'it would seem that's fairly obvious that there have been failings'.

'The use of PPE (personal protective equipment) is foreign to a lot of people,' Mr Millard said on the weekend.

A group of family members published a scathing open letter to Mr Millard saying communication from within the home had been 'far from satisfactory'.

Health Services Union NSW said daily testing of workers at the nursing home at the centre of the deadly COVID-19 outbreak 'absolutely' should have happened earlier. Pictured: Family members of a resident walk through Newmarch House last week

The nursing became a COVID-19 hotspot after a staff member went to work for a week with a sore throat, not realising she was carrying the virus

A makeshift memorial honouring Newmarch House residents who have died from coronavirus

'Phones went unanswered day after day. Calls were not returned. Details about our individual loved ones were not provided regularly,' the letter read.

'The residents were reporting that the care was inadequate and they were becoming distressed. Many of them were sick and frightened and did not have regular access to their family on the outside which increased their levels of anxiety as well as ours.'

NSW Opposition Leader Jodi McKay called on the government to give all Newmarch residents, even ones who were healthy, the option of being moved to the public hospital system.

The latest death at Newmarch House brought the nationwide tally to 96 on Monday as leaders grapple with relaxing social and economic restrictions.

A coronavirus outbreak at Cedar Meats in Melbourne's west is behind 19 of Victoria's 22 new cases, with 34 infections coming from the abattoir.

A Sydney school was closed on Monday when a student tested positive, just one day after a Melbourne campus was shut because a teacher contracted the disease.

In Queensland, the staggered path back to the classroom has been outlined with kindergarten, prep and years 1, 11 and 12 returning to classrooms on May 11.
The West Bengal government on Monday announced a host of relaxations including plying of private buses with a maximum of 20 passengers each and allowing standalone shops to open, but expressed apprehension that these measures could lead to dilution of the lockdown which is in its third phase.

Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said private buses can ply intra-district in green zones with not more than 20 passengers, while standalone shops will be allowed to open in all zones barring the ones under containment.

Announcing relaxations in various zones across the state, he said though the Centre has extended the lockdown by two more weeks till May 17, it has given liberty to state governments to allow certain activities by assessing the ground situation.

"We are of the opinion that these relaxations announced by the Union government will dilute the lockdown, but we would abide by it... We want a balance between life and livelihood," Sinha said.

"The state government feels activities which the central government has asked to recommence will be beneficial for the economy and wages can be paid to workers and employees, but the way the relaxations are being given it is diluting the lockdown," he said.

Sinha said shops which are not situated within malls or market complexes will be considered as standalone and they will be allowed to open from 10 am to 6 pm.

"Neighbourhood shops, sweetmeat shops, those selling beetle leaves and tea can open but people will have to carry the tea back home for consumption," he said.

The top state bureaucrat urged private bus operators with inter-district permits to apply for appropriate route permits.

Sinha also said mining activities will resume in the green and orange zones.

"Construction activities in rural areas will start, while in urban areas, 'in situ' construction work will be allowed where the workers are put up at the site, but for this prior permission of district magistrates and that of Kolkata Municipal Commissioner in the metropolis will be required," he said.

The chief secretary said private offices outside containment zones will be allowed to operate from 10 am to 6 pm with 25 per cent staff strength.

He, however, said the state government does not encourage reopening of private offices in the present scenario if the work can be done from home.

Sinha said office cars will be allowed to ply with two passengers and the driver with valid passes.

"If all these guidelines are not followed, the administration will be constrained to take legal action under the Disaster Management Act," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
From laptops to apparels, people logged on to e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Paytm Mall and Snapdeal on Monday to place orders for non-essential items but lack of adequate manpower amid the lockdown could delay deliveries, according to industry executives.

E-commerce companies have been permitted to sell all items in Orange and Green Zones starting from Monday, the first day of the third phase of the nationwide lockdown that began on March 25.

Depending on the number of cases of coronavirus infections, areas have been divided into Red, Orange and Green Zones. In the Red Zones, which include Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad, the companies can ship only essential items like grocery, medicines and healthcare products.

However, shortage of staff at warehouses and for logistics could result in delays in deliveries of items, as per the executives.

An Amazon India spokesperson said the company saw demand for various kinds of smart devices, products related to electrical appliances, clothes and work from home enablers, among others.

"Our consumers in Orange/ Green zones are buying other priority products that they needed the most. Thousands of sellers have received orders for the first time since the lockdown began in March and we are hopeful that this will help jumpstart the livelihood of many small sellers and their workforce," the spokesperson said.

The company reiterated its demand that the list of priority products be expanded for customers in the Red Zone as well in order to revive economic activity while serving urgent needs and ensuring citizen safety in a high-risk area.

Under the first and second phase of the nationwide lockdown between March 25 and May 3, the government only allowed delivery of essential goods, including grocery, pharmaceuticals and healthcare products, through e-commerce platforms.

A Snapdeal spokesperson said the company expects 80-90 per cent of its sellers in the Orange and Green Zones to become active over the course of this week. On an average, deliveries are being promised within 6-10 days and actual deliveries are likely to be completed in lesser number of days, the spokesperson added.

"Thousands of our sellers received orders for non-essential products on Day 1... we have started picking up orders from sellers in Salem, Amritsar, Gurugram and Guwahati, amongst many other locations.

"Some of the products supplied by our sellers today include steel utensils, apparel, footwear, notebooks and pens, and electronics like power banks, phone and laptop chargers," the spokesperson said.

Paytm Mall Vice President Srinivas Mothey said consumer electronics, laptops, mobile phones, home, and fashion products are among the few categories that are doing extremely well on its platform.

"... we believe this trend would continue for the next couple of days. As we have noticed earlier people are ordering the most for work and study from home essentials. Depending on the type of product we are offering delivery timelines between two to five days," he added.

However, e-commerce companies are also facing challenges on a few fronts.

An industry executive, who did not wish to be named, said lesser manpower at warehouses and those available as delivery staff could result in delivery timelines getting delayed.

E-commerce companies could look at sharing delivery resources from other digital business like online food delivery to shorten delays, the executive noted.

A senior industry executive said that apart from the guidelines issued by the Centre, there are rules specified by states and even districts.

Given that the classification of Red, Orange and Green Zones is in a dynamic state, it could make operations difficult for online commerce platforms, the executive said.

The classification of zone changes depending on the number of coronavirus cases in a particular area.

Also, standalone retail shops -- irrespective of whether they sell essential or non-essential items -- have been allowed to operate in Red Zones while e-commerce platforms are not allowed to ship non-essential items to such areas. There is no level-playing field between the two modes, the executive quoted above said.

Another challenge for e-commerce companies that follow the marketplace model like Amazon India, Flipkart and Snapdeal is that many of their sellers are either located or have their warehouses in Red Zones.

The home ministry guidelines, issued a few days ago, remain unclear on operations of these marketplace sellers of non-essential products, who are in Red Zones. So, they are dependent on how local authorities issue their guidelines, the executive said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Michelle Keegan is favourite to replace Holly Willoughby on Celebrity Juice, after the star quit after 12 years on the show.

The Our Girl actress, 32, is hotly tipped to step into Holly's shoes as a team captain after the This Morning host, 39, leaves at the end of the series.

Michelle is among a number of names thrown into the hat as bookies place odds on who will join Keith Lemon, 47, on the ITV2 comedy panel show.

Hotly tipped: Michelle Keegan is favourite to replace Holly Willoughby on Celebrity Juice, after the star quit after 12 years on the show

Bookmakers Ladbrokes have placed odds of 4/1 on Michelle bagging the coveted job.

The brunette beauty recently left her lead role as army medic Georgie Lane in Our Girl, so the timing would be perfect for her to step up.

Alex Apati of Ladbrokes told Mirror Online: 'Michelle Keegan's no stranger to Celebrity Juice and she could soon become a permanent fixture if the latest odds are anything to go by.'

Departing: Michelle, 32, is hotly tipped to step into Holly's shoes as a team captain (pictured on the show with Richard Arnold, James Argent and Gemma Collins)

Meanwhile, other stars considered for the role include Scarlett Moffatt at 9/2, while Ferne Cotton is in the running to return to the job she left in 2018, with odds of 5/1.

Gemma Collins, Eammon Holmes, Emma Bunton, Rylan Clark-Neal and Kelly Brook are other names in the running.

MailOnline have contacted representatives of ITV2 for comment.

It was revealed on Sunday that Holy had quit Celebrity Juice  the show that helped make her a household name  after 12 years.

Good timing: The brunette beauty recently left her lead role as army medic Georgie Lane in Our Girl, so the timing would be perfect for her to step up

Tipped: Meanwhile, other stars considered for the role include Scarlett Moffatt at 9/2, while Ferne Cotton is in the running to return to the job she left in 2018, with odds of 5/1

The presenter will end her reign as a team captain on the award-winning panel show at the end of the current series.

Insiders say the decision comes as a blow to programming chiefs, who have long relied on her star quality to attract viewers.

Although Miss Willoughby had worked in television for several years before Celebrity Juice, landing the role on the show in 2008 helped make her TV hot property.

Moving on: Holly quit ITVs Celebrity Juice after 12 years starring as a team captain alongside Paddy McGuinness and host Keith Lemon

She joined This Morning a year later and still hosts the show with Phillip Schofield. Celebrity Juice is also where the term Holly Willoughbooby was coined to described her curvaceous figure.

Her resignation comes shortly after her husband Dan Baldwin  one of Celebrity Juices creators  stopped producing the ITV2 show.

The mother of threes departure now throws the future of the series into doubt after its host Keith Lemon, the comic alter-ego of Leigh Francis, said it would be over if she quit.

Big job: Holly joined This Morning a year after starting Celebrity Juice and still hosts the chat show with co-host Phillip Schofield

A friend of Miss Willoughby told The Mail on Sunday: She absolutely loves being on the show, she has loved it but she felt it was time now.

'She wants to spend more time with her family, filming Celebrity Juice takes up an evening that she could be spending with her family.

She is, after all, one of the busiest women in showbiz.

Yesterday, Francis paid tribute to Miss Willoughby on Instagram under his guise as Keith Lemon, saying: Love this woman. What an incredible sport. Always willing to get her hands dirty and join in. One of the boys but all woman. A spokesman for Miss Willoughby last night declined to comment.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 17:57:34|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

COLOMBO, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka produced 13.2 million kgs of tea in March, a 50 percent drop compared to the same period last year, statistics from the Sri Lanka Tea Board showed here Monday.

Statistics showed that this is the lowest rate of production since February 2009 when the tea production totaled 12.8 million kgs.

Local media reports quoting industry specialists said that the steep drop in tea production in March was due to the ongoing measures taken by the authorities to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in the country which has so far infected over 700 people and caused 7 deaths.

However, experts pointed out that in addition to the curfew imposed to prevent the virus outbreak, the drought was also a factor that contributed to the drop in production levels.

Sri Lanka produced 300 million kgs of tea in 2019, a slight decline from the 303 million kgs produced a year earlier.

In January this year, the Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) said it was aiming for 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in earnings from the export of Ceylon Tea in 2020 and hoped to increase tea production to 340 million kg. Enditem
In the third phase of the nation-wide lockdown to arrest the spread of coronavirus, the government has issued partial relaxation like allowing movement in green zones, reopening of some non-essential shops like stationary shops, etc. But amid all this, the reopening of liquor shops after dry weeks has created the buzz around the country.

People were seen lined up in long queues outside the liquor shops on Monday morning to get their stock of booze refilled, with social distancing norms thrown to air at most places. Firecrackers were burst in Karnataka and buyers were showered with flowers by the shopkeepers in Mirzapur. The situation in east Delhi went so much out of hand that the administration had to order the closure of booze shops as people were not following the norms.

The Twitter once again did what it does best; it went ahead with its the meme game. Here are some of the gems:

Your neighbour who has never talked to you standing outside her house asking you to bring a whiskey bottle for her too. pic.twitter.com/JRcZcTXT7U  Pakchikpak Raja Babu (@HaramiParindey) May 4, 2020

whiskey bottle to sanitiser pic.twitter.com/oeJfHh9HZg  GILL 2.0 (@ikpsgill1) May 4, 2020

Wine Shop owners from 4th May : pic.twitter.com/RreQ2RJ6aZ  Shivam Tripathi (@C_vam_Misspell) May 4, 2020

after standing for 4 hours in liquor line you ask for a Breezer pic.twitter.com/IMiBNCinrh  Godman Chikna (@Madan_Chikna) May 4, 2020

Yeh bewde hum sabko Liquor dubenge.  Rishabh Bhandari (@jokebazz) May 4, 2020

An Alcoholic after buying 3bottles in advance stands in line for the 3rd time *le liquor shop owner :point_down: pic.twitter.com/urjjF4T4Yg  :smile_cat:Polly:smile_cat: (@polly_shishu) May 4, 2020

Neighbor uncle after spotting me in a queue at a liquor shop -#LiquorShops pic.twitter.com/9cuNN8g9dE   . (@AjeebPrani) May 4, 2020

My gang Running towards liquor Shop pic.twitter.com/skxSSncx5W  S Ravind King (@sravindking) May 4, 2020

Liquor shop owners today pic.twitter.com/v3pkaoEiYF  Deepanshu Gupta (@gupta__jee) May 4, 2020
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea by a Principal District & Sessions judge from Karnataka challenging the appointment of a judicial officer as additional judge of the Karnataka high court.

The plea by RKGMM Mahaswamiji was taken up by the top court for hearing just minutes before the swearing-in of Padmaraj Nemachandra Desai, who is currently working as Principal judge, Family court at Bengaluru.

You have come at the eleventh hour. Only 15 minutes are left for the swearing in, a bench of justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose told Mahaswamiji before rejecting his plea.

The central government had, on April 30, cleared the appointment of Desai and four other judicial officers as additional judges of the Karnataka high court.

The Supreme Court collegium had recommended their elevation ten days earlier on April 20.

Mahaswamiji claimed that four of the five were either his batchmates or senior to him. But Desai was junior to him in service and the appointment of Desai amounted to superseding him, Mahaswamiji submitted.

It is a case of superseding/passing over of a senior District judge (who was appointed on 25.02.2008 under reserved category i.e., Scheduled caste) by junior district judge and the recommendation of Padmaraj Desai by the collegium is unlawful, arbitrary, the petition said.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
New York

Faced with 20,000 coronavirus deaths and counting, the nation's nursing homes are pushing back against a potential flood of lawsuits with a sweeping lobbying effort to get states to grant them emergency protection from claims of inadequate care.

At least 15 states have enacted laws or governors' orders that explicitly or apparently provide nursing homes and long-term care facilities some protection from lawsuits arising from the crisis. And in the case of New York, which leads the nation in deaths in such facilities, a lobbying group wrote the first draft of a measure that apparently makes it the only state with specific protection from both civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

Now the industry is forging ahead with a campaign to get other states on board with a simple argument: This was an unprecedented crisis and nursing homes should not be liable for events beyond their control, such as shortages of protective equipment and testing, shifting directives from authorities, and sicknesses that have decimated staffs.

"As our care providers make these difficult decisions, they need to know they will not be prosecuted or persecuted," read a letter sent this month from several major hospital and nursing home groups to their next big goal, California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has yet to make a decision. Other states in their sights include Florida, Pennsylvania and Missouri.

Watchdogs, patient advocates and lawyers argue that immunity orders are misguided. At a time when the crisis is laying bare such chronic industry problems as staffing shortages and poor infection control, they say legal liability is the last safety net to keep facilities accountable.

They also contend nursing homes are taking advantage of the crisis to protect their bottom lines. Almost 70% of the nation's more than 15,000 nursing homes are run by for-profit companies, and hundreds have been bought and sold in recent years by private-equity firms.

"What you're really looking at is an industry that always wanted immunity and now has the opportunity to ask for it under the cloak of saying, 'Let's protect our heroes,'" said Mike Dark, an attorney for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

Nowhere have the industry's efforts played out more starkly than in New York, which has a fifth of the nation's known nursing home and long-term care deaths.

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

New York's immunity law signed by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo was drafted by the Greater New York Hospital Association, an influential lobbying group for both hospitals and nursing homes that donated more than $1 million to the state Democratic Party in 2018 and has pumped more than $7 million into lobbying over the past three years.

While the law covering both hospital and nursing care workers doesn't cover intentional misconduct, gross negligence and other such acts, it makes clear those exceptions don't include "decisions resulting from a resource or staffing shortage."

Cuomo's administration said the measure was a necessary part of getting the state's entire health care apparatus to work together to respond to the crisis and save lives.

Nationally, the lobbying effort is being led by the American Health Care Association, which represents nearly all of the nation's nursing homes and has spent $23 million on lobbying efforts in the past six years.
SEATTLE, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- New COVID-19 forecasts for the US project nearly 135,000 deaths through the beginning of August, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

The revised projections reflect rising mobility in most US states as well as the easing of social distancing measures expected in 31 states by May 11, indicating that growing contacts among people will promote transmission of the coronavirus. Increases in testing and contact tracing, along with warming seasonal temperatures  factors that could help slow transmission  do not offset rising mobility, thereby fueling a significant increase in projected deaths.

IHME's model assumes that mandates that are currently in place will stay in place until infections are minimized.

The projected US deaths through early August total 134,475, with a range of 95,092 to 242,890.

"In each state, the evolution of the epidemic depends on the balance between relaxed social distancing, increasing temperature, and rising rates of testing and contact tracing," said IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray. "We expect that the epidemic in many states will now extend through the summer."

By wearing masks, staying six feet away from others, and washing hands, individuals can lower the risk of transmission.

Starting today, IHME forecasts for the US are based on a new hybrid model. The model IHME released on March 26 to estimate hospital resource demand is now combined with a disease transmission model. The new model captures the impact of changes in social distancing mandates, changes in mobility, and the impact of testing and contact tracing. It enables predicting a resurgence if and when more social distancing mandates are relaxed.

"This new model is the basis for the sobering new estimate of US deaths," Murray said. "The model will allow for regular updating as new data are released on cases, hospitalizations, deaths, testing, and mobility. It can also be used to identify what may be the trajectory to progressively relax social distancing while still limiting the risk of large-scale resurgence."

Regarding individual states, IHME is forecasting the following:

Texas : Forecasting 3,632 deaths through August 4 , with a range of 1,470 to 10,721

: Forecasting 3,632 deaths through , with a range of 1,470 to 10,721 Georgia : Forecasting 4,913 deaths through August 4 , with a range of 2,013 to 12,125

: Forecasting 4,913 deaths through , with a range of 2,013 to 12,125 New York : Forecasting 32,132 deaths through August 4 , with a range of 29,248 to 37,136

The latest US forecasts are based on four key determinants estimated from data: mobility, population density, testing, and temperature.

"Our understanding of the effect of temperature on transmission of the virus is rapidly evolving," Murray said. "At the moment, we believe that the effects of temperature on transmission are important, yet minimal. As we move into summer and temperatures rise, we will learn more and will revise our projections if it is statistically relevant."

Although the new hybrid model has not yet been applied to European forecasts, today's results also show increases in expected deaths in Europe:

UK: 40,555 deaths (up from 27,100) projected through August 4 , with a range of 29,657 to 74,539

, with a range of 29,657 to 74,539 Italy : 31,458 deaths (up from 27,777) projected through August 4 , with a range of 29,605 to 34,969

: 31,458 deaths (up from 27,777) projected through , with a range of 29,605 to 34,969 France : 28,859 deaths (up from 25,096) projected through August 4 , with a range of 25,280 to 38,798.

: 28,859 deaths (up from 25,096) projected through , with a range of 25,280 to 38,798. Spain : 27,727 deaths (up from 25, 231) projected through August 4 , with a range of 25,720 to 32,130

: 27,727 deaths (up from 25, 231) projected through , with a range of 25,720 to 32,130 Germany : 8,543 deaths (up from 6,922) projected through August 4 , with a range of 7,006 to 12,150

For details on all findings, please see the accompanying estimation update and FAQ on our website.

NOTE: Hospital administrators, government officials, and others not associated with the news media may contact us here.

IHME is grateful to the Microsoft AI for Health program for supporting our hosting of COVID-19 data visualizations in the Azure cloud.

About the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research organization at the University of Washington School of Medicine that provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world's most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them. IHME is committed to transparency and makes this information widely available so that policymakers have the evidence they need to make informed decisions on allocating resources to improve population health.

SOURCE Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

Related Links

http://www.healthdata.org/




Taylor Swift sent a letter to a nurse fighting on the frontline during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 30-year-old pop star surprised mega-fan Whitney Hilton by posting her a touching note and gifts on her 30th birthday to thank her and let her know how "grateful" she is for her heroic efforts during the health crisis.

Whitney returned home to Utah after helping out at Northwell Health's Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York to find a surprise package from the 'Shake It Off' hitmaker.

In the letter, which was enclosed in a frame, Taylor wrote: "I wanted to send you some presents and to let you know I am so grateful for you.

"I can't thank you enough for risking your life to help people and for spreading the message loudly that people need to hear about taking this seriously."

The Grammy-winner then revealed she is planning to "thank" Whitney in person and shared how she got in touch with her after seeing a picture of the nurse at one of her concerts.

She added: "Also, I saw the photo of you from my show! Thank you for coming! I would love to give you a hug next time and thank you in person. With love and admiration, Taylor."

Whitney has shared snaps of the letter and her presents, including merchandise, on Twitter and captioned the post: "This was quite literally the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE."

Taylor has been donating to fans suffering financial hardship during the health crisis and previously said she was keen to do even more to help, as she's "constantly in awe" of the work done by medical professionals and healthcare workers.

She said: "Obviously we have a lot of time on our hands right now, with people being out of school, out of work. I've been doing a lot of cooking, a lot of reading, a lot of watching films that I've never seen before. But mostly I've been online trying to figure out how to help others and just constantly in awe of our first responders, emergency workers and our healthcare professionals that are putting themselves in danger every single day."
Washington: Everyone is troubled in the present day due to the problem of Coronavirus continuously increasing for the last several days, while there are so many people who have lost their lives due to the outbreak of this virus and the epidemic. Deadly coronavirus, which started from China, has caused the most devastation in America. The virus has caused the most deaths in America than any other country. Many countries around the world are trying to find a cure for it. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has claimed Sunday that the coronavirus vaccine will be available by the end of the year.

Johnson's big statement, says, 'Doctors prepared me to be declared dead at one time'

Trump said at Fox News' virtual town hall, "I think we'll have a vaccine by the end of the year." According to John Hopkins University, the number of people infected with the coronavirus epidemic has increased to 11 lakh 57 thousand 687. While the total number of people who lost their lives to the virus has increased to 67,674. So far, 2 lakh 47 thousand 306 people have died due to Corona epidemic. While the number of people infected with the virus has crossed 3.5 million.

Mike Pompeo's big statement, says, 'Coronavirus originated from Chinese laboratory'

US President Donald Trump (in file pic) says US to have coronavirus vaccine by 'end of this year': AFP news agency pic.twitter.com/xxqB0NNt55 ANI May 3, 2020

Death toll in Rome decreases, government breath a sigh of relief



The discovery of vaccine for the treatment of coronavirus has already intensified worldwide. The European Union has promised to set up an International Medical Program, to lead the global response to fight the coronavirus, as well as to raise US $ 8 billion to fund the pandemic vaccine. In the UK, clinical trials for a potential vaccine for the Covid-19 developed by scientists at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University have begun. Meanwhile, other developers in Europe have also pushed forward their work against the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Encounter between militants and security forces in Iraq, 4 died
Syrian men have spoken out against the claims by the regime that they will be compensated for their service in the army reports Etihad Press.

Syrian authorities have not hesitated to enlist thousands of young Syrian men for compulsory military service since the start of the countrys ongoing conflict, seizing them and sending them to various battlefronts, where some have spent more than nine years, if that war hasnt already killed them.

With the issuance of a new demobilization decision last month, there has been much talk of the payment that the authority will provide as compensation for years of service. The authority promised its ranks that it would employ them through special competitions, pay them money and ensure their livelihoods, without any application of those promises.

Rima al-Qadiri, Minister of Social Affairs, told Sham FM recently that, the unemployment compensation is funded from the general budget, with 15 billion Syrian pound allocated to it. The largest share of the program is to support those who have been demobilized. Other required funds will be provided by the Ministry of Finance.

We have completed the first phase of the program to support demobilized [troops], with the number of names reaching more than 35,000, she added. There are those who have benefitted from job opportunities in the public and private sectors, micro-projects.

Qadiri elaborated that, the monetary aid from the program finished its first stage, and we have renewed it to accommodate the latest demobilized troops. Those who benefitted from monetary aid in the first stage will not benefit from it in the second stage, with the exception of employment opportunities, which will be accessible to everyone.

She promised a special competition for those who have been demobilized, for open opportunities in the public sector. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Local Administration is collecting data from all ministries.

The ministers statements were met with sarcasm and denial from those who had been demobilized, as they were old promises that have yet to be put into effect. Some comments mentioned that the aid money is being stolen, and only about 10 percent of it is being provided.

One member of the Syrian governments forces commented on Qadiris words, saying that, This issue does not need a contest. Why is it not right to employ those who have been demobilized without this lie? And yet we wait for this competition and corruption and bribes in order to be hired. We have been waiting for more than a year, and havent seen anything.

Another commenter wrote, We collect the compensation money in order to pay a bribe for employment, only to get paid 40,000 pounds. These are nine years lost.

Another person said, At every meeting there are only promises. There is a competition for the people who have been demobilized, but it doesnt actually exist. We are tired of these words. When they need us, they take us. And when we need them, they turn their backs and do nothing but procrastinate. We were fighting and living under the bombs and bullets while they were in hotels and restaurants, and their children were travelling abroad as tourists.

Syrian authorities promised compensation to workers and others hurt by the closure of commercial activities, but have not carried out those promises. This is despite it receiving tens of thousands of requests via its website, to which it attached nearly impossible terms to grant compensation.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
A fresh surge in bad debt could hit credit growth and delay recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Mumbai/New Delhi: The government expects bad debts at its banks could double after the coronavirus crisis brought the economy to a sudden halt, a senior government official and four top bankers told Reuters.

Banks are already grappling with 9.35 trillion rupees ($123 billion) of soured loans, which was equivalent to about 9.1% of their total assets at the end of September 2019.

There is a considered view in the government that bank non-performing assets (NPAs) could double to 18-20 percent by the end of the fiscal year, as 20-25 percent of outstanding loans face a risk of default, the official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

A fresh surge in bad debt could hit credit growth and delay recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

These are unprecedented times and the way its going we can expect banks to report double the amount of NPAs from what weve seen in earlier quarters, the finance head of a top public sector bank told Reuters.

The official and bankers declined to be named as they were not officially authorised to discuss the matter with media.

The finance ministry declined to comment, while the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks Association, the main industry body, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The economy has ground to a standstill amid a 40-day nationwide lockdown to rein in the spread of coronavirus cases.

The lockdown has now been extended by a further two weeks, but the government has begun to ease some restrictions in districts that are relatively unscathed by the virus.

India has so far recorded nearly 40,000 cases of the coronavirus and more than 1,300 deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.

Riding the tiger

Bankers fear it is unlikely that the economy will fully open up before June or July, and loans, especially those to small- and medium-sized businesses which constitute nearly 20 percent of overall credit, may be among the worst affected.

This is because all 10 of the largest cities fall in high-risk red zones, where restrictions will remain stringent.

A report by Axis Bank said that these red zones, which contribute significantly to Indias economy, account for roughly 83 percent of the overall loans made by its banks as of December.

One of the sources, an executive director of a public sector bank, said that economic growth had been sluggish and risks had been heightened, even ahead of the coronavirus crisis.

Now we have this Black Swan event which means without any meaningful government stimulus, the economy will be in tatters for several more quarters, he said.

McKinsey & Co last month forecast Indias economy could contract by around 20 percent in the three months through June, if the lockdown was extended to mid-May, and growth in the fiscal year was likely to fall 2 percent to 3 percent.

Bankers say the only way to stem the steep rise in bad loans is if the RBI significantly relaxes bad asset recognition rules.

Banks have asked the central bank to allow all loans to be categorized as NPAs only after 180 days, which is double the current 90-day window.

The lockdown is like riding the tiger, once we get off it well be in a difficult position, a senior private sector banker told Reuters.
Shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) will be in focus. On a consolidated basis, Reliance Industries (RIL)'s net profit fell 38.74% to Rs 6,348 crore on 2.5% decline in revenue to Rs 151,209 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

EBITDA increased 7.6% to Rs 25,886 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019. Decrease in Q4 revenue is primarily on account of 10.1% decline in refining and petrochemicals business revenues. Sharp fall of 20.5% Y-o-Y in average Brent oil price led to lower product price realization across the hydrocarbon chain. This was partially offset by continuing growth in consumer businesses, even amidst the operational issues posed by the pandemic. Digital services and retail business recorded an increase of 30% and 4.2% Y-o-Y respectively, in revenue during the quarter.

RIL after market hours on Thursday (30 April 2020) announced that its board approved the issuance of equity shares of Rs 10 each of the company on rights basis to eligible equity shareholders of the company as on the record date (to be notified later), of an issue size of Rs 53,125 crore. Shareholders can subscribe to one equity share for every 15 equity shares held as on the record date. The issue is priced at Rs 1,257.

On a consolidated basis, Tech Mahindra's profit after tax (PAT) fell 29.9% to Rs 804 crore on 1.7% decline in revenue to Rs 9,490 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q3 December 2019. EBITDA fell 13.8% to Rs 1,348 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q3 December 2019. EBITDA margins fell 200 bps to 14.2% in Q4 March 2020 over Q3 December 2019.

Hindustan Unilever (HUL)'s net profit declined 1.24% to Rs 1519 crore on a 9.4% decline in net sales to Rs 8,885 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019. EBITDA for Q4 March 2020 stood at Rs 2065 crore, declining 11% year on year from Rs 2321 crore in Q4 March 2019. HUL said the spread of COVID-19 impacted the business from mid-March, which culminated into scaling down of operations post the national lockdown. Domestic Consumer Growth declined by 9% with a decline of 7% in underlying volume growth.

Maruti Suzuki India had zero sales in the domestic market, (including sales to OEM), in April 2020. This was because in compliance with the Government orders all production facilities were closed. Meanwhile, following resumption of port operations, the first export shipment of 632 units was undertaken from the Mundra port, ensuring that all guidelines for safety were followed.

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) announced that the company sold 733 vehicles in the export market during April 2020. Domestic sales of vehicles during the month was completely impacted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and resulting national lockdown.

Mahindra & Mahindra's Farm Equipment Sector (FES) announced its tractor sales numbers for April 2020. Domestic sales in April 2020 were at 4,716 units, as against 27,495 units during April 2019. Total tractor sales (Domestic + Exports) during April 2020 were at 4,772 units, as against 28,552 units for the same period last year. Exports for the month stood at 56 units.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company's net profit rose 23.8% to Rs 281.93 crore on 11.7% rise in total income to Rs 2,968.55 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

AU Small Finance Bank's net profit rose 3.45% to Rs 122.32 crore on 35.65% rise in total income to Rs 1,366.60 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tyshchenko assured he had strictly been observing the quarantine.

Member of Parliament from the ruling Servant of the People parliamentary faction Mykola Tyshchenko says the Kyiv-based Velur restaurant, which belongs to a restaurant chain reportedly linked with the lawmaker, will pay a fine if a violation of the coronavirus-related quarantine rules is proved.

"I would like to officially announce that Velur is ready to pay a fine if the restaurant has really violated the law," he said on Facebook on Sunday, May 3.

"If the violations were recorded, the director of the restaurant will pay the fine at that very second! And I will personally take care of it. For my part, I, Mykola Tyshchenko, as a citizen of Ukraine, will be cooking food for Kyiv doctors with my own hands until the end of the quarantine," he added and shared a photo where he is cooking food.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Nashi Groshi program with Denys Bihus reported on April 27 that Kyiv's Velur, which is associated with MP Tyshchenko, had received VIP guests amid the lockdown. What is more, Tyshchenko himself visited the restaurant.

Read alsoMayor Klitschko presents quarantine easing plan for Kyiv

In response, the lawmaker said that those were "personal", "individual" meetings and the restaurant was working as a "kind of headquarters," being closed for regular visitors.

Tyshchenko assured he had strictly been observing the quarantine.

On April 28, the police visited the restaurant to check the media reports. According to a police officer, "there were no visitors at the restaurant, but several employees were present there." The police explained the quarantine rules and responsibility for their violations to the restaurant's manager. The latter gave a written explanation for the situation and confirmed an obligation not to service visitors during the quarantine period.

On April 30, David Arakhamia, the chairman of the Servant of the People faction, said he thought Tyshchenko should be punished for his restaurant's operation during the quarantine.
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking his intervention to arrange special trains to send stranded migrant labourers back to their home states from Punjab, news agency ANI reported.

On Sunday, Singh took to Twitter and announced that he will be taking up the matter with the Centre.

Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking his intervention to arrange special trains for the next 10-15 days, beginning May 5, for transporting migrant labourers stranded in Punjab to their home states.  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

I will be taking up the matter with Center to take immediate steps for the safe & early departure of migrant workers, desirous of leaving, to their respective States. Punjab Govt will look after you in every way till GoI makes necessary arrangements. I request all to cooperate, the chief minister tweeted on Sunday.

Also read: Stranded migrant workers not asked to pay train fare, says BJP

Have written to request PM @NarendraModi Ji to direct Govt of India institutes in Chandigarh & Punjab i.e. PGI & IMTECH-CSIR Chandigarh, IISER Mohali, NIPER Mohali, NABI Mohali, and Central University Bathinda to augment viral testing capacity of 2,000 daily.  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) May 4, 2020

Singh has also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct government institutes in Chandigarh and Punjab to augment viral testing capacity of 2,000 daily.

Also read: In comeback to Sonia Gandhi, Centre points to 85% subsidy for migrant trains

I will be taking up the matter with Center to take immediate steps for the safe & early departure of migrant workers, desirous of leaving, to their respective States. Punjab Govt will look after you in every way till GoI makes necessary arrangements. I request all to cooperate.  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) May 3, 2020

Have written to request PM @NarendraModi Ji to direct Govt of India institutes in Chandigarh & Punjab i.e. PGI & IMTECH-CSIR Chandigarh, IISER Mohali, NIPER Mohali, NABI Mohali, and Central University Bathinda to augment viral testing capacity of 2,000 daily, his tweet read.

Over 500 migrant workers stranded in West Bengal due to nationwide coronavirus lockdown reached Bharatpur in Rajasthan in 17 buses on Monday morning, said an official.

On Friday, the Centre gave in to pressure from state governments which had been demanding special trains to take the stranded workers home. The ministry rolled out the special trains on Friday and operated the first train between Telangana and Jharkhand.

Normally, it said in the guidelines, the trains will be run for distances more than 500 km and will not stop at any station before the destination. Each train with full-length composition with social distancing (not counting the middle berths) can carry about 1,200 passengers.

The government has mandated that migrant workers returning home should be placed under home quarantine to protect the local population from the spread of coronavirus.
MBABANE  Eswatini and its fellow SACU member States are said to be losing at least E7 billion in customs revenue every month due to the COVID-19 pandemic.



SACU is the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) made up of five countries in Southern Africa. These countries are Eswatini, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. All customs and excise collected in the common customs area are paid into South Africas National Revenue Fund.



Revenues



The revenue is shared among members according to a revenue-sharing formula, as described in the agreement. South Africa is the custodian of this pool.

The member countries have relied on the bloc, which brings in between E88 billion to South Africa down to E8 billion for the country (Eswatini).



SACU Executive Secretary Paulina Elago was quoted by EyeWitness News saying that closed borders had cut trade in some countries to only one per cent of normal flows.

In 2018, the five SACU member States exported goods worth R1.39 trillion, equating to E115 billion per month.



Out of the E1.5 trillion in imports, they generated customs and excise revenues of E90 billion.

Last year, they shared E120 billion with South Africa receiving E87.7 billion, followed by Botswana with E23.7 billion, Namibia E22.3 billion. Lesotho and Eswatini got E8.9 billion and E8.3 billion, respectively.

For the country, that is 12 per cent of gross domestic product.



Publication



But due to closed borders, the Botswana Unified Revenue Service is currently processing less than one per cent of the usual cross-border trade volumes while the country is said to have recorded a decline of up to 70 per cent.

At that rate, which means that of the estimated E10 billion that SACU would have generated in a month, anything between E7 billion and E9.9 billion is already lost.



SACUs Elago said that it was difficult to quantify the impact now but it would be unprecedented.

Based on the current situation, it means the countrys target will not be met.

Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg, when presenting budget estimates in February this year, had said SACU receipts were expected to soar to E8.34 billion.



Experts told this publication that it would be a disastrous year regarding the collection of revenue following the reduced economic activity. They felt the countrys endurance would be put to the test.

With borders closed, other forms of generating income internally like issuing of passports have been derailed, shared another expert.



On May Day (last Friday) Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini announced that there was a Cabinet sub-committee to develop an economic recovery plan.

The foundation of this plan is both the National Development Plan and the Strategic Roadmap. The Cabinet sub-committee will engage key stakeholders in the development of this plan, announced the premier.



Prevention



On another note, the countrys businesses importing farming inputs, especially fertiliser, can breathe a sigh of relief, as South Africas Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Thoko Didiza announced that export of agriculture products would be allowed from last Friday.



The neighbouring country downgraded to level four of the lockdown on May 1. Some industries are now allowed to operate.

Some local outlets were reportedly running out of farming inputs, especially fertiliser and needed to import from South Africa, which was on full lockdown.



According to Didiza, the export of wool and other synthetic products will be allowed at level four.

Retail shops providing agricultural inputs may operate and auctions may take place, but under strict conditions to adhere to the prevention of health risks, said Didiza.

In the country, on the other hand, public auctions, including that of animals, remain frozen.
Berkshire Hathaway has sold all its airline stocks because of the coronavirus pandemic, but Warren Buffett is telling investors they should still bet on America.

The billionaire investor revealed the conglomerate has offloaded the entirety of its stocks in the US airline industry, waving goodbye to shares in United, American, Southwest and Delta Airlines, during the firms annual shareholder meeting Saturday.

In the same meeting, Buffett urged investors to hold onto stocks in businesses they like and to never bet against America despite the mounting concerns over the long-term impact the virus is wreaking on the economy.



More than 30 million Americans have lost their jobs since the outbreak began and gross domestic product plummeted 4.8 percent in the first quarter alone, officially plunging the US into its first recession since 2008.

The airline industry has been one of the hardest-hit by the pandemic as borders closed, the federal government banned flights to and from some nations and stay-at-home orders have left the few planes still operating empty of passengers.

Buffett confirmed Berkshire has sold its roughly 10 percent stake in the four largest airlines because the world has changed for the industry.

Back in December, Berkshire owned upwards of $4 billion in airline stocks including 42.5 million or a 10 percent stake in American, 58.9 million or a 9.2 percent stake in Delta, 51.3 million or a 10.1 percent stake in Southwest and 21.9 million or a 7.6 percent stake in United.

The world has changed for the airlines. And I dont know how its changed and I hope it corrects itself in a reasonably prompt way, he said during Saturdays meeting, often dubbed Woodstock for Capitalists, which was held virtually.

I dont know if Americans have now changed their habits or will change their habits because of the extended period.

The chairman and CEO warned that the current downturn could have an impact on consumer travel habits going on far longer than the virus itself.

I think there are certain industries, and unfortunately, I think that the airline industry, among others, that are really hurt by a forced shutdown by events that are far beyond our control, he said.

I dont know whether two or three years from now, that as many people will fly as many passenger miles as they did last year The future is much less clear to me about how the business will turn out through absolutely no fault of the airlines themselves.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
(BOSTON & ZURICH) -- Today, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Cytosurge AG, a company manufacturing unique high-precision nanotechnology instruments, announced that they will collaboratively investigate CRISPR-based approaches to more effectively introduce multiple edits into the genome of single cells, while minimizing CRISPR-related toxicity. This capability could become instrumental in driving forward diverse large-scale efforts such as the engineering of cell lines for pharmaceutical, clinical and biotechnological applications, transplantable immune-compatible pig organs, and the resurrection of extinct species.

The CRISPR system with its ability to precisely manipulate the DNA sequences of cells to repair dysfunctional genes, and alter the fates of cells and traits of entire organisms, has tremendous potential for curing diseases and understanding the biology underlying normal and disease-related traits. However, key challenges such as cell toxicity caused by damage to the cell's DNA due to unspecific activity of the CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme, and the stress and toxicity caused by the intracellular delivery of the editing reagents, remain to be solved. These problems are amplified in cases where multiple changes need to be edited into a single cell's genome to engineer transplantable tissues or model complex diseases and stand in the way of harnessing the CRISPR system's full potential.

"Especially when it comes to the manipulation of cells with entire sets of genome edits in more comprehensive approaches, we still have to improve our ability to maintain the viability and health of cells, and read out the success and effects that every individual edit has," said George Church, Ph.D., who is a Founding Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and Lead of its Synthetic Biology focus area. "Cytosurge's cell manipulation platform with its cell injection and sampling capabilities that themselves don't harm cells offers us an entry point into this complex analysis and could help us dramatically expand the multiplexing potential of the CRISPR system longer-term."

Church also is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The development of CRISPR technology has long been a focus in his research group at the Wyss Institute and HMS with multiple key breakthroughs in the genome editing field that also led to the formation of several startup companies, including Editas Medicine and eGenesis, which are now developing gene therapy and organ transplant solutions for unmet medical problems.

In CRISPR-mediated genome editing, the programmable CRISPR-Cas9 and related enzymes are guided to specific sequences in the genome by short "guide RNAs" (gRNAs) and use their DNA endonuclease activity to cut the DNA double strand with surgical precision. In the presence of a partially homologous "DNA repair template," the natural "homology-directed repair" mechanism of the cell then can write the changes contained in the template into the genome. Although work in a number of research labs has dramatically enhanced the efficacy and fidelity of CRISPR-mediated genome editing at individual target sequences, the introduction of large numbers of edits into the cells remains a difficult obstacle. Highly multiplexed genome editing poses distinct challenges, arising from the toxicity due to DNA damage (genotoxicity) during multiple edits, and the toxicity to other parts of the cells caused by current CRISPR delivery methods (cytotoxicity). This practical limit prevents researchers today from engineering cells with highly multiplexed gRNAs, for example, to develop a complex trait that is under the control of many genes, or model a complex genetic disease.

The research collaboration between the Wyss Institute and Cytosurge, spearheaded by Soufiane Aboulhouda, a Ph.D. candidate working with Church, and Wyss Institute Technology Development Fellow David Thompson, Ph.D., at the Wyss Institute, will investigate the consequences of introducing entire collections of gRNAs into single cells by leveraging Cytosurge's FluidFM technology.

The FluidFM BIO Series combines the world's smallest syringe with sensitive force feedback and easy point & click operation. This allows it to reliably and gently inject material into either cell plasma or nucleus while keeping the cells alive and intact. FluidFM will enable researchers to precisely inject the enzymatic CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme and multiple gRNAs at defined concentrations - and at measurable volumes - into the cytoplasm or nuclei of single cells. Multiple gRNAs can either be introduced simultaneously or stacked over several cycles. At a later step the resulting cell lines can be analyzed, or cell material can be extracted from individual cells for single cell analysis, including mRNAs that are transcribed from edited genes.

Cytosurge's CEO, Pascal Behr, Ph.D., is looking forward to the collaboration: "We take great pride in this new collaboration with the Wyss Institute and the group of George Church. As a Switzerland-based university spin-off company, we share the same mindset as the Wyss institute with respect to its highly application-focused research strategy. The opportunity to further push the boundaries of genetic engineering and the CRISPR system is very exciting and motivating for us as a company. We are therefore looking forward to enabling new scientific discoveries and ultimately benefiting patients' well-being in the future by combining the capabilities of our FluidFM technology and the expertise and vision of our partners at the Wyss institute."

Thus, by performing a systematic analysis of markers for cell viability and gene expression changes caused by gRNAs nano-injected into single cells, the collaboration aims to develop enhanced delivery strategies for multiple gRNAs, and to discover rules that help minimize toxicity related to the CRISPR system and cell manipulation methods, while at the same time enabling effective multiplexed gene editing.

"This collaboration between George Church and his team at the Wyss Institute's Synthetic Biology platform and Cytosurge could help remove a major roadblock in the CRISPR genome engineering field and, if successful, allow researchers to reengineer cells and tissues in ways that up to now have been impossible," said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at HMS and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital, as well as Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

###

PRESS CONTACTS

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University

Benjamin Boettner, benjamin.boettner@wyss.harvard.edu, +1 617-432-8232

Cytosurge AG

Claudia Frey, claudia.frey@cytosurge.com, +41 43 544 87 20

The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University uses Nature's design principles to develop bioinspired materials and devices that will transform medicine and create a more sustainable world. Wyss researchers are developing innovative new engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing that are translated into commercial products and therapies through collaborations with clinical investigators, corporate alliances, and formation of new startups. The Wyss Institute creates transformative technological breakthroughs by engaging in high risk research, and crosses disciplinary and institutional barriers, working as an alliance that includes Harvard's Schools of Medicine, Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Design, and in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston University, Tufts University, Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin, University of Zurich and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Cytosurge brings with its FluidFM solutions significant benefits to a wide range of applications in life sciences, biophysics and mechanobiology. Unique benefits include quantitative volume measurements of injected compounds during drug development, improved CRISPR gene editing by direct delivery into the nucleus, isolation of selected cells directly from culture, 2.5D nano-printing down to sub-micron levels or single cell adhesion and colloidal probe measurements.

Cytosurge AG develops, manufactures and distributes state-of-the-art nanotechnology solutions and systems based on its patented FluidFM technology. At the heart of the technology are the hollow FluidFM probes which have apertures down to 300 nm enabling the handling of femtoliter volumes.
President Donald Trump promised that more federal assistance is coming for Americans put out of work by the coronavirus outbreak and vowed to press ahead with reopening the economy as he addressed the nation in a televised town hall event at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday.

In the opening minutes of the event, broadcast by Fox News, Trump revised upward the number of Americans he expects to be killed by the virus. "We're going to lose anywhere between 75, 80 to 100,000," he said.

He had said at the beginning of April he hoped deaths would total less than 60,000; the number of dead is more than 67,000.

"Now we have to get it back open," Trump said, addressing the economic fallout of the shutdown.

Trump's first question, by video, came from an Alabama woman who said she had been unable to apply for unemployment, hadn't received a federal stimulus check and was feeding her family on donations.

"There's more help coming," Trump said. "It's not your fault. Just remember that. There's more help coming. There has to be."

The president will follow the event with a visit to Arizona on Tuesday - his first trip out of town since March 28 other than a visit to Camp David in Maryland this weekend.

- - -

The town hall comes as several states across the South and Midwest - including Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Missouri - have taken steps to significantly relax restrictions on economic and social life that were put in place to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Trump has agitated since March to relax stay-home orders and other social distancing practices that have pushed more than 26.5 million people out of their jobs.

In response to questions from a teacher and a student, Trump said he wants schools and universities to reopen in the fall.

But public health experts warn that reopening too soon could backfire, leading to a flareup of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and even a second shutdown. Another surge could cement perceptions that Trump cares more for the economy and his re-election than the health of American citizens.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are already weighing a fourth round of stimulus after passing another $484 billion rescue plan in late April. But the Washington area is seeing a rash of coronavirus cases, making lawmakers circumspect about returning to work.

Social distancing measures have also stopped, for now, Trump's ability to hold campaign rallies, a key component of his bid for re-election. He indicated Sunday that he hopes to resume them soon.

The White House used one of nation's most symbolic backdrops for Trump's town hall - a powerful setting known for civil rights and liberty that draws on President Abraham Lincoln's legacy of emancipating slaves during the Civil War.

Trump in late April called on people in states including Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia to "liberate" themselves from government rules to slow the pandemic.

- - -

The president has seen his approval ratings fall as the number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. climbed past 1.1 million and deaths mounted in the world's largest outbreak.

As his approval ratings decline, Trump has ramped up his rhetoric about reopening the economy and looked to shift blame for the pandemic to China, where the outbreak originated.

Trump trails presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in key battleground states including Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, recent public polls show. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey taken April 13-15 showed registered voters believe Biden would do a better job of responding to the virus than Trump by a 9 percentage-point margin.

The decision by some states to begin reopening reflects what they see as the growing risk to their economies if businesses remain closed. It's a similar calculus for Trump campaign officials, who say the election will hinge on how well the president manages the economic recovery now that tens of millions of Americans are unemployed.

But critics say Trump's haste to reopen is putting Americans in a position of choosing whether to risk their health for their jobs.

- - -

Last week, for instance, he ordered meatpacking plants to keep operating after a spate of virus outbreaks among workers had forced shutdowns and threatened to choke off supplies. The move sparked an outcry from unions as Trump moved to shield meat-processing companies from liability but offered no clear assurances for worker safety.

Trump, though, has continued to express confidence about reopening. He suggested a coronavirus vaccine could be developed and widely available by January, and predicted - in contradiction of his top public health advisers - that the virus would be gone by fall.

"We're going to be very careful as we open," Trump said at the White House. "If there's a fire, we're going to put it out."

It's still unclear whether Americans will follow the president's advice to get back to work, or to frequent businesses that are now reopening. And there are signs his calls are falling flat in the nation's capital.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a rare moment of agreement, issued a joint statement on Saturday rejecting a White House offer of rapid coronavirus testing for lawmakers.

"Our country's testing capacities are continuing to scale up nationwide and Congress wants to keep directing resources to the front-line facilities where they can do the most good the most quickly," Pelosi and McConnell said.
Many customers of banks were seen on Monday waiting to gain access into banking halls as well as many others who trooped out after more than four weeks of lockdown to curb the spread of Coronavirus pandemic in the country without observing the social distancing rule.

President Muhammadu Buhari in his April 27th nationwide broadcast disclosed that the Federal Government have directed the affected States to start easing the lockdown effective from today, Monday, May 4th, 2020.

In addition, the Lagos State Government gave guidelines that all persons must adhere to the use of face masks, gloves, and hand sanitizers when in public places.

A visit to Polaris bank and Access Bank, both on medical road Ikeja, saw a huge turnout of customers waiting anxiously outside the banks.

It was also observed that the traffic situation in Lagos was very chaotic and complex as the city is busy with cars, buses and motorised tricycle taxis with social distancing not being practiced but many were putting on face masks.

Some BRT terminals were filled to capacity with waiting passengers hoping to get on the available buses.

Commuters were also seen trekking long distances, for those of them whose destination are not too far while Danfo drivers failed to stick to the government order of carrying 8 passengers, when passenger scrambled to enter the bus, the bus is full, no one wants to come down to meet the required number of passengers.
There is a deliberate attempt on the part of many in the mainstream media, and within the Democrat party, to confuse evidentiary concepts when it comes to tying the Chinese Communist regime to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. This commonly takes the form of denial that theres evidence the virus spread from a Wuhan China lab. While to date there is has been no production of direct physical evidence tying the lab to the virus, there is abundant circumstantial evidence to this effect. And circumstantial evidence is perfectly good evidence.

Legally there are two broad categories of evidence, direct and circumstantial. Examples of direct evidence are eyewitnesses, fingerprints, photographs, DNA, etc. Circumstantial evidence is inferential and ties its target to a crime or civil wrong. Obviously, having direct evidence of wrongdoing is preferable, and juries (particularly modern ones) expect it.

However, direct evidence is not always available, and is less likely to be available the more sophisticated and resourceful the wrongdoer. Were courts forced to rely solely upon direct evidence that would be a boon to capable malefactors, and to the extent modern juries sometimes unreasonably expect such evidence, this sometimes proves true. It would be hard, if not impossible, to hold organized crime gangs or corrupt corporations accountable if courts could not rely heavily or even exclusively upon circumstantial evidence. RICO cases, which pursue such defendants, effectively rely on circumstantial evidence to help demonstrate improper patterns of conduct.

Thats true with nations as well, particularly autocratic ones like China, where the regime has almost total control over the country. There is nothing that can stop the Chinese regime from hiding or destroying evidence of the origins of the Wuhan virus. Indeed, part of the circumstantial case against China is that this is exactly what theyve done, as whistleblowing doctors have mysteriously disappeared or died.

I n civil law there is a concept called res ipsa loquitur. It means the thing speaks for itself. Res ipsas applicable when a claimant cannot obtain direct evidence of wrongdoing because the defendant has exclusive control over the means and evidence of the harm. This concept is so well ingrained within the civil law, that it eventually morphed into the concept of strict liability wherein certain businesses -- pharmaceuticals are a primary example -- are held liable for mistakes on the legal assumption of negligent wrongdoing within their offices or labs.

Its not the purpose of this piece to prove the circumstantial case against China. There is overwhelming evidence of the link between the Wuhan lab and the outbreak, summarized very well more than a month ago in National Review. Bolstering the case are State Department cables from 2018 that expressed alarm regarding research at the Wuhan lab on coronaviruses and lax protective measures. Add to that the Chinese governments numerous attempts to dissemble and hide information -- evidence in any court of a guilty state of mind -- and you have a compelling case, even without direct physical evidence.

The mainstream media repeatedly attempts to obfuscate this by claiming there is no evidence of Chinese wrongdoing when they only mean direct evidence. Take a 5/1/20 headline from the print edition of the Washington Post: No evidence that deadly virus escaped Wuhan research lab with online version much the same. Of course, thats simply not true, ironically contradicting the Posts own original reporting regarding the State Department cables. The evidence is circumstantial, not direct, but so what? Its valid and compelling evidence and should be reported that way. And applying the res ipsa concept quite enough to prove the case.

The left is all for circumstantial evidence when it suits their objectives. The collusion case against Trump was entirely made up of a circumstance -- that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and some Trump officials and advisors had contact with Russians. That was very weak evidence, yet it led to Trumps impeachment. Similarly, with absolutely no context or collaboration of Christine Blasey Fords claims against Brett Kavanaugh opponents of the nomination trumpeted extremely weak circumstantial evidence -- really innuendo -- to tie Kavanaugh to the allegation. That a youthful Kavanaugh was fond of beer and occasionally partied was enough evidence (entirely circumstantial) to tie him to Fords claims according to the media and Democrats.

The case against China is profoundly stronger than either of the two examples above. It appears that the Trump administration is intent on making it, perhaps not in international court (which some Republicans have called for) but publicly in some way. Trump has wisely rejected calls to cancel Chinese debt, but has raised the prospect of increasing tariffs to cover part of the cost of the epidemic to the U.S. An informal and transparent white paper effectively indicting China, prepared by honest and capable U.S. officials, based if need be entirely on probative and compelling circumstantial evidence, could justify such action.
Purdue researchers are exploring ways of determining the extent of psychological trauma induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and identifying factors that influence depression, anxiety, substance use and self-harm. The team will focus on critical care registered nurses in hospital settings. (Photo Jonathon Borba/Unsplash)

An expert on trauma in nursing leads a team of Purdue University researchers pursuing the answer

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Accounts of the mental toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on nurses and other health care workers are highlighted in news and social media, but how to protect their well-being is largely unknown.

An expert on trauma in nursing leads a team of Purdue University researchers pursuing ways to identify at-risk nurses and design means for healing and recovery.

Karen Foli, co-author of The Influence of Psychological Trauma in Nursing and an associate professor of nursing in the College of Health and Human Sciences who leads the team, plans to determine the extent of psychological trauma induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and identify factors that influence depression, anxiety, substance use and self-harm. The team will focus on critical care registered nurses in hospital settings.

The psychological and behavioral responses of frontline nurses to the COVID-19 pandemic is largely unknown, and the lack of this knowledge is a roadblock to interventions that will improve nurses well-being, Foli says. We must care about and care for our nurses, not only as fellow human beings, but as the largest portion of the health care workforce. A healthy nurse workforce means fewer medical errors, better overall treatment and more lives saved.

Foli is collaborating with Yu-Chin Chiu, assistant professor of psychological sciences, and Lingsong Zhang, associate professor of statistics and member of the leadership team of the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering at Purdue. The College of Health and Human Sciences funded the research through its rapid response grant program.

Chius research focuses on mechanisms of cognitive control, which is the ability to coordinate thoughts and actions according to internal goals. Failure of cognitive control has been shown to contribute to behaviors associated with mental illness and addiction, Chiu said.

Determining whether cognitive control plays a role in how nurses respond to psychological traumas induced by the COVID-19 pandemic is a part of the research project.

The work builds on Folis model called the middle range theory of nurses psychological trauma. A data-driven manuscript that expands on the model was fast-tracked for publication this June in the Archives of Psychiatric Nursing because of its relevance amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical model positions the nurse as the focus of trauma-informed care and examines what can be done at both the individual and organizational level to mitigate traumas that impact nurses.

Folis previous research applied a trauma-informed approach to substance use in registered nurses, and nursing care and support of nontraditional families during transitions and challenges faced in community settings.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked the No. 6 Most Innovative University in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at purdue.edu.

Writer: Elizabeth K. Gardner

Media Contact: Matthew Oates, 765-586-7496 (cell), oatesw@purdue.edu, @mo_oates

Sources: Karen Foli, kfoli@purdue.edu

Yu-Chin Chiu, yuchinchiu@purdue.edu

Lingsong Zhang, lingson@purdue.edu
M&S Visual Field Testing Were excited to release the Melbourne Rapid Fields  A Visual Field which allows for the user to utilize one or both products to fit their individual need."

M&S Technologies, internationally recognized leader, in creating essential products eye professionals rely on, has partnered with the University of Melbourne and to release the Melbourne Rapid Fields - Visual Field Suite (MRF) which consists of In-Clinic and Online Visual Field testing.

Were excited to release the Melbourne Rapid Fields  A Visual Field which allows for the user to utilize one or both products to fit their individual need. The MRF-Clinic has been published, peer reviewed and demonstrates a high correlation to the Humphrey HFA Perimeter. A significant advantage is that the unit can be sanitized in less than 2 minutes between patients mitigating exposure to the COVID virus. The Online Visual Field screening allows the eyecare professional to monitor patients in the comfort of their home, says Joe Marino, President & CEO.

The new MRF Visual Field Tablet is meticulously designed and calibrated to deliver consistent results. The portability enabled by the new space saving design allows for reliable testing on and off-site. The simple interface makes it easy to use and reduces test time.

This revolutionary software has been peer reviewed and published by leading journals. Tests include: Full field 30-2, Full grid 24-2, Macular 10-2, Screening as well as Visual Acuity assessment. Patient data is auto-populated providing immediate, accurate HFA style reports.

For more information call 847-763-0500

About M&S Technologies:

Founded in 1990, M&S Technologies is a software development and device manufacturer, rooted in innovative software development, local manufacturing and stellar customer service. M&S specializes in visual acuity testing systems. Known worldwide for our leading technological advancements, M&S is dedicated to bringing high quality, extremely accurate testing products to eye-care professionals, optometry schools and universities.

See the Release on PRWeb

Have a thought about this article? Contact us and let us know.

http://www.mstech-eyes.com
Meat section in a Netcost supermarket in Brooklyn, New York City, on April 28, 2020. (Petr Svab/The Epoch Times)

Major Food Retailers Limit Meat Purchases Amid Pandemic

Several major supermarket chains in America have announced limits on how much meat customers can buy, citing pandemic-driven supply chain disruption and the threat of panic buying leaving store coolers empty.

Costco, Kroger, and Albertsons have all announced product limits after key meat processing plants shut amid the outbreak of COVID-19, the disease caused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus.

In a Coronavirus Response section of its website, Costco said on Monday that customers would be limited to three fresh meat items per purchase.

Fresh meat purchases are temporarily limited to a total of 3 items per member among the beef, pork and poultry products, the company said in a statement.

Shoppers line up outside a Costco to buy supplies amid the COVID-19 outbreak in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Feb. 28, 2020. (Duane Tanouye via Reuters)

Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the United States, will be imposing limits of two packages per person of fresh pork and ground beef at some of its locations, WCPO reported.

Albertsons has, in the words of a company spokesperson cited by KGTV, announced that customer purchases will be limited to two packages of beef, chicken, and pork (this means they can purchase up to six packages of meattwo per commodity).

Some of the retailers insisted the supply chain stress was limited to several suppliers and that, overall, there was plenty of protein in the pipeline.

At Kroger, we feel good about our ability to maintain a broad assortment of meat and seafood for our customers because we purchase protein from a diverse network of suppliers, Kroger spokesperson Erin Rolfes said, WCPO reports. There is plenty of protein in the supply chain; however, some processors are experiencing challenges.

An Albertsons spokesperson said the retailers move to impose product limits was not due to shortages but to prevent panic buying from impacting product availability on shelves.

We are not experiencing and do not anticipate any issues with supply or product availability. We did so to prevent panic buying and to ensure more of our customers can find the products they need, the spokesperson said, according to KGTV.

David Dewey, the president of the California Association of Meat Processors (CAMP), told KGTV that while overall protein production would not be affected that much, individual grocery stores might see some disruption.

The supply is going to tighten up obviously, Dewey said.

A woman shops in the chicken and meat section at a grocery store in Washington on April 28, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to keep meat plants open and ensure an ample supply amid the pandemic.

Such closures threaten the continued functioning of the national meat and poultry supply chain, undermining critical infrastructure during the national emergency, Trump wrote in the order, noting the large impact closures of key plants can have on the food supply chain.

Closure of a single large beef processing facility can result in the loss of over 10 million individual servings of beef in a single day, Trump noted. Similarly, under established supply chains, closure of a single meat or poultry processing facility can severely disrupt the supply of protein to an entire grocery store chain.

Trump, after getting off a call with meatpacking executives on Wednesday, said that thanks to the executive order, we unblocked some of the bottlenecks.

Meanwhile, some major meat plants that closed due to the outbreak have begun resuming operations.

Smithfield Foods reopened its hog slaughterhouse in Monmouth, Illinois, on Saturday, after a weeklong shutdown, while the companys facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, took its first steps toward reopening Monday after being shuttered for over two weeks because of an outbreak that infected more than 800 employees.

Arkansas-based Tyson Foods was also resuming limited production Monday at its pork processing plant in Logansport, Indiana, where nearly 900 employees had tested positive for the virus.

The JBS pork plant in Worthington, Minnesotaabout an hour east of Smithfields South Dakota plantplanned a partial reopening on Wednesday.

Meat-processing workers are particularly susceptible to the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, because they typically stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the line and congregate in crowded locker rooms and cafeterias.

According to a CDC report released Friday, more than 4,900 workers at meat and poultry processing facilities have been diagnosed with the CCP virus, including 20 who died.

The illnesses occurred among 130,000 workers at 115 facilities in 19 states, according to the CDC. Some states didnt provide data, so the actual count could be higher.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
For a lot of people, Cinco De Mayo means fiestas, tacos, and margaritas. However, did you know about the story that led to this widely celebrated day? The United States may not have become a nation as it is now without this historic day.

May 5, Independence Day?

As part of wolrd history, everyone should know that Cinco De Mayo is not the independence day of Mexico. That is instead celebrated on September 16, commemorating the Cry of Dolores, which initiated the war of Mexican independence from Spain. However, this does not mean May 5 it is not an important day. The history of this fateful day significantly affected the entirety of North America.

Struggling Economy

The struggling economy of Mexico was entered for the second time by the French. During that time, the French were hoping to attain control over Mexico under Napoleon III's rule. Charles de Lorencez, the French General, led his army to the capital of Mexico. Lorencez's army intended to bring down the president, Benito Juarez.

However, his plans were ruined as they had encountered strong resistance. This had resulted in the Battle of Puebla that occurred on May 5, 1892. Despite the Mexican Army is only half the total number of the French army, it was able to proclaim victory over the opponent at Puebla.

The Mexican army proclaimed victory under the leadership of Ignacio Zaragoza. Puebla is a city located 70 miles from Mexico City. After four days, Juarez declared May 5 or Cinco de Mayo a national holiday in the country.

Affecting the History of the United States

Even if the battle was not a significant win and the French were able to conquer Mexico in 1864, it served as the inspiration of resistant groups during that period. This led to the country making alliances with the Americans, which resulted in the Napolean's forces fleeing the country.

It is believed that the French would have helped the Confederacy during the Civil War, thus the resistance groups in Mexico changed the history of the United States of America.

In California, Pro-union Mexican-U.S. citizens celebrate Mexico's victory during the Battle of Puebla. They perceive that event as a victory for the cause of the union. It was later formalized and spread across California and was celebrated yearly not only in California but also by Mexican-Americans from different parts of the world.

Check these out:

A Minor Mexican Holiday

Despite being widely celebrated across the United States and different parts of the world, Cinco de Mayo was a minor holiday in Mexico. However, due to its growing popularity and wide-ranging celebration, it had transformed into a celebration of Mexican heritage and culture in different locations with a vast population of Mexican-Americans. This had contributed to it being a big holiday in the United States, where even people with no Hispanic heritage also love to participate.
Stealth plunder of Argentinian waters raises fears over marine monitoring

by Jonathan Watts

May 04,2020 | Source: The Guardian

An armada of more than 100 fishing vessels are illegally plundering south Atlantic waters close to Argentina, environmental groups say, raising concerns that the coronavirus lockdown has weakened already fragile marine protections.



The incursion of the ships, mostly from east Asia, appears to have been carried out by stealth. The vessels waited until nightfall, shut down satellite tracking systems in coordination and then moved into the squid-rich waters of Argentinas exclusive economic zone, Greenpeace said.



The ships were detected in Mar del Plata on the radar of a legal vessel, which reported the incident to coastguard officials and fishing authorities.



By one estimate, the ships  each capable of taking 50 tonnes per day  could in less than three weeks exceed the Argentinian fleets quota for the entire season.



The incident has prompted questions in parliament and underlined how commercial interests are trying to capitalise on the relaxation of environmental monitoring and enforcement during the pandemic.



Most people think that the global pandemic means that nature is finally having a chance to heal. But this is not what we are seeing in the unregulated waters of the South Atlantic ocean, said Luisina Vueso, from Greenpeaces Protect the Oceans campaign.



Just one look at this shocking radar image shows you that this armada  is taking advantage of the lack of governance in the high seas to empty our oceans of life.



Similar concerns have been raised in other areas of the world. In the Amazon, deforestation is accelerating and more illegal miners are invading indigenous territories following the Brazilian governments admission that it would have fewer rangers on the ground.



On the savannahs of east Africa, conservation groups warn of a rise in wildlife poaching. And in the US, oil companies have lobbied to develop wells inside national parks and for the criminalisation of pipeline protesters.



The oceans pose an even greater worry, environmental groups say, because even before the pandemic there was very little regulation of fishing and mining in international waters. This is the least patrolled domain in the world. Monitoring has declined further since the Covid-19 outbreak.



This month the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd reluctantly suspended its campaign to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise in Mexicos Upper Gulf of California because it was unable to secure fuel due to the pandemic.



Industrial tuna fishing companies have persuaded maritime organisations to remove onboard monitors, reduce port inspections and loosen trans-shipment requirements.



The Canadian government has followed several countries in removing observers from all fishing vessels until the end of May, which means no oversight of what is caught and discarded.



This has alarmed ocean conservationists and some of the more responsible fishing companies. The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation said the lower level of surveillance would open the door to increased illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and in doing so could undermine the recovery and resilience of many important fish stocks globally.



Frederic Le Manach, the scientific director of the ocean protection group Bloom Association, said fishing fleets around the world were pushing for fewer restraints on their activities, which could have disastrous implications.



The pandemic is a good excuse for industrial fisheries because without observers you can do exactly what you want, he said. But it would be a major mistake to allow weaker regulations at a time of crisis because once you do that it is hard to go back. If anything we need stronger monitoring during this crisis. This could be the moment when we put CCTV cameras onboard every fishing ship. This would be a major step forward.



Fishing fleets are lobbying for weaker rules so they can compete on a level playing field. The nationalist undercurrent was apparent in the UK recently when five European supertrawlers entered British waters. This is legal but it provoked accusations that they were taking advantage of the lockdown, because there were fewer such vessels this time last year.



Vueso said the worsening free-for-all showed the need for a global ocean treaty that would create more sanctuaries and coordinate management of the high seas and punishment of violators.



The solution is not to just add more patrolling to Argentine waters if hundreds of vessels from different nationalities are operating illegally in the area, he said. A strong treaty would also increase international collaboration to crack down on vessels like these that even during a global lockdown will seek to take advantage of any opportunity to plunder our ocean.



In the tuna-rich waters of the coral triangle in south-east Asia, illegal fishing has long been rife, and locals expect it to grow in the pandemic. Last month Indonesian maritime authorities seized three Philippine and two Vietnamese illegal fishing vessels.



We are prepared for any increase in illegal vessels operating in [Indonesian waters] amid the spread of Covid-19. That is why we are not decreasing our operations as illegal fishing is still rampant, the government said.

 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved

Theme(s): Fisheries Resources.
ROCKVILLE, Md., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Federal Realty announces the rollout of a contactless pick-up program at its shopping centers in the Greater Philadelphia market. Branded The Pick-Up, the program is made available to all tenants and customers looking for comfortable ways to return to shopping at their favorite stores.

The program expands on an already popular curbside pick-up program that was rolled out for restaurants at the start of the COVID-19 mandatory closings. Customers will be able to place orders directly with stores by phone or on-line, and arrange for same day pick-up, at a time most convenient for them.

"The Pick-Up will allow for my team to add another layer of service to our customer experience, with minimal effort. Customers can simply order by phone or through our App and utilize The Pick-Up," says Justin Rosenberg, owner of Honeygrow in Bala Cynwyd, PA and Cherry Hill, NJ. Rosenberg continues, "Customers are notified by text and our team can run their order out to their car with a completely contactless exchange. Federal's proactive support will help us meet a new demand with this program and gives us a tool we need to thrive in a challenging environment."

Federal expects to grow The Pick-Up, with plans to expand on the service, in response to the changes in customer shopping habits. "We see this as a long-term solution to finding even more convenient ways for customers to shop," says Jeff Fischer, Vice President of Leasing," and assisting our merchants to create meaningful engagement with customers that is not possible through on-line shopping," Fischer continues.

Installation of The Pick-Up locations will begin mid-May in preparation for businesses re-opening when permitted. Look for The Pick-Up at Federal properties, including Andorra Shopping Center, Bala Cynwyd Shopping Center, Ellisburg Circle, Flourtown Shopping Center, Lancaster Shopping Center, Langhorne Square, Lawrence Park Shopping Center, Northeast Shopping Center, and Wynnewood Shopping Center.

About Federal Realty

Federal Realty is a recognized leader in the ownership, operation and redevelopment of high-quality retail-based properties located primarily in major coastal markets from Washington, D.C. to Boston as well as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Founded in 1962, Federal Realty's mission is to deliver long-term, sustainable growth through investing in densely populated, affluent communities where retail demand exceeds supply. Its expertise includes creating urban, mixed-use neighborhoods like Santana Row in San Jose, California, Pike & Rose in North Bethesda, Maryland and Assembly Row in Somerville, Massachusetts. These unique and vibrant environments that combine shopping, dining, living and working provide a destination experience valued by their respective communities. Federal Realty's 104 properties include approximately 3,000 tenants, in 24 million square feet, and over 2,700 residential units.

Federal Realty has increased its quarterly dividends to its shareholders for 52 consecutive years, the longest record in the REIT industry. Federal Realty is an S&P 500 index member and its shares are traded on the NYSE under the symbol FRT. For additional information about Federal Realty and its properties, visit www.federalrealty.com.

Media Inquiries:

Lisa Geiger

Senior Marketing Manager

443.219.1823

[email protected]

SOURCE Federal Realty Investment Trust Philadelphia

Related Links

http://www.federalrealty.com


GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more
A charity has secured 100 acres of farmland on the Isle of Wight with plans to transform the area into a 'rich wildlife haven'.

Until now, Little Duxmore in East Wight has been principally an arable farm, producing crops like maize.

However, the Wildlife Trust now hopes that the area will be transformed over the coming months and years.

It aims to naturally restore the habitat for farmland birds such as yellowhammer, skylark, nightingale and cirl bunting.

The farm could also become home to a significant variety of other wildlife, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust stated.

The farmland sits close to several other nature reserves and will form part of an expanding 'nature recovery network' on the island.

Grazing livestock such as cattle and pigs may roam the land in a 'hands off' approach, the group added.

It comes as the charity recently published a plan which sets out an aim to secure a third of land for wildlife and to double its own estate across the two counties.

Debbie Tann, chief executive at Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, explained that the land had been 'intensively farmed' for years.

"We cant wait to see what nature will bring back, with us here to provide a helping hand," she said.

The Island really is at the vanguard of our vision for a much wilder future and today we are one step closer to achieving that aim.

The site at Little Duxmore is an example of the new type of nature based solutions that the charity is offering.

This includes opportunities for organisations to invest in nature as a way of reducing pollution, carbon or helping boost biodiversity.
Liquor shops reopened across the country in the non-containment zones after 40 days from Monday with people queuing up in large numbers, giving social distancing norms a toss at some places.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had extended the 40-day nationwide lockdown from Monday for two more weeks and allowed liquor and tobacco shops to open in the green and orange zones.

In the national capital, many government-run liquor shops had to be shut as people, who gathered outside the outlets, did not follow social distancing norms, while in some cases police had to use mild force to disperse the unruly crowd.

According to an official, about 150 government-run liquor shops have been allowed to open from 9 am to 6.30 pm in the national capital in accordance with the latest lockdown relaxations given by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Large number of people made a beeline in Uttar Pradesh that reopened 26,000 liquor stores, while Rajasthan had to close most of the shops where social distancing norms were not being followed.

As per the government notification, shops selling liquor have to ensure social distancing and also make sure that not more than five people are present at one time at the shop.

Liquor shops across Noida and Greater Noida witnessed scores of customers queuing up right from 10 am, as the sale of liquor resumed for the first time since the nationwide lockdown came into force on March 25.

In an official order on Sunday, the Gautam Buddh Nagar administration allowed opening of retail and wholesale licensed liquor stores from May 4 between 10 am and 7 pm with certain restrictions.

Only stores outside hotspots and containment zones have been allowed to resume sales, while people have been prohibited to sit and consume alcohol at model shops and country bars, District Magistrate Suhas L Y stated in the order.

"Not more than five customers are allowed at any liquor store at any given point of time and they too have to observe a gap of at least two years between them. Five circles should be marked outside the shop at a distance of six feet where people can queue up, one person in a circle," the order stated.

Rajasthan also witnessed a similar situation with some people struggling to carry liquor bottles, while a few followed the social distancing norms and stood in circles marked in front of shops and on roads.

Policemen were also deployed near the shops to ensure that liquor stores are not crowded.

Meanwhile, complaints were made to the excise department in Rajasthan that liquor shops are overcrowded and no social distancing norm was being followed, prompting the department to order closure of all such shops till proper arrangement sare made.

"There were complaints that shops were overcrowded so the shops were closed and the licensees were asked to make proper arrangements for effective social distancing," district excise officer Sunil Bhati said.

Chaotic scenes outside liquor stores in some parts of Uttar Pradesh were witnessed, while elsewhere serpentine queues were seen long before the outlets opened.

Principal Secretary, Excise, Sanjay Bhoosreddy along with officials of the department inspected liquor shops in various parts of Lucknow, which include Mahanagar, Aliganj, Indiranagar, and instructed all the shopkeepers to ensure that social distancing is strictly adhered to and that sanitisers are made available.

"Orders have been issued to allow 26,000 liquor shops in the state to open. Liquor shops have opened in most districts of the state, while adhering to the rules and regulations of social distancing. Sale of liquor is going on, while maintaining cleanliness aroundshops. There is an estimate that on the first day itself, the government is likely to earn Rs 100 crore as revenue," Bhoosreddy told PTI.

In Chandigarh, the city administration allowed reopening of all shops in the non-containment zone areas. It had announced reopening of shops in the internal sector markets from 10 am till 6 pm on an odd-even formula in the non-containment zones.

People, wearing masks, gathered in large numbers in Himachal Pradesh without maintaining social distancing norms to buy liquor at the stretch between CTO and Scandal Point.

With just one active coronavirus case in Himachal Pradesh currently, most areas of the state has been designated green zone. Kangra is one of the districts which still come under orange zone.

Long queues were seen outside liquor outlets in Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra, a day after the state government said shops of non-essential items, including liquor, will be allowed to open in non-containment zones, but to the dismay of the customers, they remained shut.

A senior state government official said no order has been issued to keep these liquor shops closed.

Tipplers queued up outside liquor shops in Dahisar, Matunga, Santacruz, Malwani, Kandivali and other places since early hours of Monday, but found the outlets closed.

In some areas, police announced that the liquor shops will not open on Monday and asked people to go back home.

Select liquor shops in Bengaluru and other parts of Karnataka pulled up shutters, with tipplers thronging them in huge numbers at many places.

In Goa, people observed social distancing rules while standing in queues outside these shops.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
If you're awake early over the next couple of mornings you will have a chance to see two exciting phenomena in the sky across the state.

Those awake early the next two days will be able to see a couple of remarkable things in the sky. Credit:AAP

Both the annual Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower and a more unexpected visitor, a comet found by a Victorian stargazer, will be visible over Melbourne and the rest of Victoria on Tuesday and Wednesday between 5am and 6am.

Seeing one impressive celestial phenomenon is reason enough to get up early in the morning, but two together in the same part of the sky seals the deal, Astronomical Society of Victoria vice-president Perry Vlahos said. Both phenomena are diminished by the light pollution from bright lights found in cities and towns, but if observers are in dark country skies theyll have the best possible views.

You will need binoculars or a telescope to see the comet "as a fuzzy bloated star" from Melbourne, but a telescope or 30-second exposure camera with a tripod will show its tail in rural areas.
Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, on Monday, expressed concerns over the relaxation of lockdown norms in Delhi. He said that the Delhi government has allowed too much relaxation in the capital.

Dr Harsh Vardhan said that considering Delhi's current coronavirus count, it should follow strict lockdown norms. "I should not comment on what more needs to be done in Delhi, as it may be taken as a political statement. But considering the current status, I personally feel that more stringent action needs to be taken in the national capital to combat COVID-19. I think that minimum relaxation should be given by Delhi government during coronavirus-induced lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19," he added.





#WATCH Delhi: Long queue seen outside a liquor shop in C-Block, Vasant Vihar. Govt has allowed sale of liquor in standalone shops, neighbourhood (colony) shops or shops in residential complexes. #CoronavirusLockdownpic.twitter.com/WPWdaC6Q1c  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Arvind Kejriwal-led government on Sunday announced a list of activities that would be allowed during the third phase of lockdown in the national capital. Among these included sales of liquor, the commencement of industrial activities, manufacturing, and others.

Also read: Coronavirus Live Updates: East Delhi liquor shops closed after social distancing violation; state tally 4,549

Also read: Lockdown 3.0: What's allowed, what's not allowed in Delhi from today?

Therefore, on Monday, liquor shops opened in the national capital for the first time since lockdown began on March 25. The Delhi government has reportedly permitted around 150 government-run liquor shops to open from 9 am to 6:30 pm from May 4.

As a result, a large number of people lined up outside liquor outlets in areas like Burari, Mayur Vihar, Gandhi Vihar, Rohini, and Janakpuri. Police personnel were seen trying to manage the crowd outside many outlets.

#WATCH: More than a kilometre long queue seen outside a liquor shop at Desh Bandhu Gupta Road in Delhi. pic.twitter.com/LSOoZ3Zzd7  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Delhi is in the red zone, which means here the coronavirus outbreak is severe. Delhi has country's third-highest positive cases for coronavirus at 4,549. Delhi's all 11 districts are under the red zone. The capital has a total of 97 containment zones.

Delhi: More number of vehicles seen on roads in the national capital today, after Delhi govt announces several relaxations amid #CoronavirusLockdown; Visuals from Moolchand. pic.twitter.com/5orSQBBP4F  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Also read: Coronavirus lockdown 3.0: Delhi Police lathicharge as people flock to liquor shops

Also read: Lockdown in Delhi: State-run liquor shops to open from 9 am till 6:30 pm
The killings occurred in a town called Muzayrib in Daraa province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Unknown gunmen abducted and killed nine policemen in southern Syria in a rare attack on a government building in the defeated cradle of the nine-year uprising.

State news agency SANA quoted the interior ministry as saying the nine policemen were killed after a terrorist group attacked them as they were performing their job, using the governments term for rebels and fighters.

The killings occurred in a town called Muzayrib in Daraa province, the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Unknown assailants attacked the municipality building  abducting nine members of the security forces before shooting them dead and abandoning their bodies in a square, Syrian Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The province, which was retaken by regime forces from rebels in 2018, is a common site of attacks, usually targeting loyalists and civilians working for the state.

But the nature of Mondays incident and high toll is unusual.

Usually, attacks against regime forces target checkpoints or patrols, not government buildings, Abdel Rahman said.

Is ISIL back?

Daraa is considered to be the birthplace of the popular uprising that erupted across Syria in 2011, before spiralling into a full-blown conflict.

200320041200347

After its recapture by Russia-backed government fighters in 2018, state institutions returned, but the army is still not deployed in the whole province, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria.

Many former rebels stayed instead of evacuating under a Moscow-brokered deal, either joining the army or remaining in control of parts of the province and some neighbourhoods of the provincial capital, also called Daraa.

The armed group ISIL (ISIS) has in the past claimed attacks in the area. In July it said it killed six soldiers at a checkpoint.

Sleeper cells have recently increased attacks in eastern Syria. Last month the group claimed responsibility for the killing of two Syrian army officers in the same province.

The group lost the last scrap of its territorial caliphate a year ago, but retains a presence in Syrias vast Badia desert.

The civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions from their homes since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of government protests.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Mawson Resources Limited ("Mawson" or the "Company") (TSX:MAW)(Frankfurt:MXR)(PINKSHEETS:MWSNF) is pleased to provide its first update for its 100%-owned Sunday Creek shallow orogenic ("epizonal") gold project (previously known as "Clonbinane") in the central Victorian goldfields of Australia.

Scheduled Webinar Time: May 5, 2020 08:00 Eastern Time (US and Canada) The Company will host a webinar to discuss the Company's Australian projects. Those wishing to join can do by registering in advance for this webinar. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0TkZL9WdRCG8KJNal8k3pA After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.



Key points:

In late March 2020 Mawson announced a comprehensive deal with Nagambie Resources Ltd to acquire or joint venture three Victorian epizonal projects and a right of first refusal over the largest contiguous tenement package prospective for epizonal-style gold in the State of Victoria (3,600 square kilometres; Figure 1);

Mawson has tripled its ground holding at Sunday Creek with the staking of exploration licence ("EL") 7232 application (13,243 hectares) for a total land holding of 19,365 hectares (Figure 2);

Historic gold mines as Sunday Creek occur over a greater than 11 kilometre trend. Prior drilling has tested only 800 metres of this trend and to an average of 80 metres depth. Selected drill results include: CRC013: 21 metres @ 4.8 g/t gold from 9 metres including 2 metres @ 28.8 g/t gold from 15 metres (Figure 4), and; VCRC022: 8 metres @ 11.3 g/t gold from 66 metres including 2 metres @ 40.3 g/t gold from 70 metres (Figure 5); Trenching has also revealed broad low-grade halos to higher grade mineralization with one surface trench returning 166 metres @ 0.9 g/t gold (Figure 3);

Immediate plans at Sunday Creek are to apply tools to define vectors towards epizonal mineralization including geophysical surveys (microgravity, detailed ground magnetics and induced polarization) and alteration studies, followed by 5,000 metres of diamond drilling during Q3 and Q4 2020 to target high-grade and halo mineralization intersected by earlier drilling at Apollo-Golden Dyke and potential repeats of mineralization along the 11 kilometre historic mine trend.

Mr. Hudson, Chairman and CEO, states: "While we continue to drill with success in Finland, we are extremely excited to have also diversified into the Victorian goldfields in Australia, which are arguably the hottest gold ground in the world with the high-grade Fosterville mine rewriting the geological opportunity. Since acquiring our Victorian portfolio last month, we have moved to triple our ground holdings at Sunday Creek. Like Fosterville, Sunday Creek is an historic epizonal goldfield, mined during the 1800s to early 1900s and explored for near-surface oxide gold during the 1990s and early 2000s. Given the exploration success at Fosterville we now understand that epizonal systems can develop extremely high-grade zones. This has provided insight into a never-explored search space for high grades at depth in one of the most fertile gold regions in the world.

The Sunday Creek project is a significant historic high-grade epizonal gold mining area developed over multiple parallel zones over 11 kilometres of strike. While high-grade historic mines exist along these trends, limited systematic exploration has been undertaken within the 19,365 hectare project. Drilling over 800 metres of strike, down to a maximum average depth of 80 metres has taken place at the Golden Dyke-Apollo prospect area. Drill results demonstrate high grade gold with selected holes including 8 metres @ 11.3 g/t gold from 66 metres including 2 metres @ 40.3 g/t gold. Trenching has also revealed broad low-grade oxide gold with one trench returning 166 metres @ 0.9 g/t gold. Mawson has developed a good understanding of the project after the first month of data compilation since acquisition. The Company plans to undertake large-scale, deeper-seeking geophysical methods followed by diamond drilling during Q3 and Q4 2020 to target high-grade gold at depth and along strike."

Victoria has produced more than 80 million ounces of gold and has seen three booms: the 1850s, pre-World War I, and the last three years. Two different styles of gold mineralization predominate in Victoria. The deep orogenic ("mesozonal") style and the shallow orogenic "epizonal" style. The mesozonal style is represented by Bendigo and Ballarat, huge systems, which are nuggety and extremely difficult to put into modern resources calculations. Mawson are sharply focused on the epizonal (or Fosterville) style.

Mawson acquired the Sunday Creek project on March 25, 2020 with the acquisition of EL6163 (5,822 hectares) and RL 6040 (300 hectares). The recent application of EL7232 (13,243 hectares) has extended the total land holding at Sunday Creek to 19,365 hectares. The project is an epizonal Fosterville-style deposit located 56 kilometres north of Melbourne. Historically, the Golden Dyke Mine (Photo 1) at Sunday Creek was one of the larger producers of gold in the Melbourne Zone of Victoria. Total production from the Sunday Creek goldfield is reported as 20,000 ounces gold at a grade of 16.9 g/t gold between 1865 to 1920. Gold mineralization is hosted by breccia zones within, or proximal to dykes with mineralization continuing along structures that extend into the sedimentary country rock. The dykes form multiple undrilled parallel trends over more than 11 kilometres with historic epizonal gold-mines (Figure 2). At Golden Dyke, gold grades within quartz-stibnite veins ranged up to 120 g/t gold and 50% stibnite, while altered and stockworked diorite dyke averaged 6 g/t gold outside the high-grade veins. The epizonal Tonstal mine, located 8 kilometres north-east of the Golden Dyke mine extracted 2,814 tonnes at 23 g/t gold during the early 1900s, while the adjacent Tobin mine extracted 1.1 tonnes at 203 g/t gold in the late 1870s.

Trench sampling by CRA Exploration in the early 1980s at the Apollo prospect demonstrated extensive low-grade oxide gold over 166 metres at 0.9 g/t gold with results ranging from <0.04 g/t to 8.0 g/t gold, and including 30 metres @ 1.6 g/t gold. Two small drill campaigns tested the Golden Dyke-Apollo trend to 40-100 metres vertical depth over an 800 metre strike. In 1986, Ausminde Pty Ltd and Ausminde Holdings Pty Ltd (collectively "Ausminde") completed soil and rock chip sampling and undertook RC drilling in 1993 (29 RC drill holes). Beadell Resources Limited subsequently drilled at Golden Dyke-Apollo in 2008 (27 RC holes (4 with diamond drill tails) and 3 diamond drill holes). Drilling results from both these programs greater than 5 g/t gold are shown in Table 1. None of the drill or trench data has been independently verified at this time. Compilation of available data and 3D geologic modeling has progressed well since acquisition of the project in early March. The true thickness of the mineralized intervals is not known at this stage. Selected drill results with a 0.5 g/t and 5 g/t gold lower-cut from these two drill programs at Golden Dyke-Apollo included (Figures 3-5):

CRC013: 21 metres @ 4.8 g/t gold from 9 metres including 2 metres @ 28.8 g/t gold from 15 metres

from 9 metres including from 15 metres VCRC022: 8 metres @ 11.3 g/t gold from 66 metres including 2 metres @ 40.3 g/t gold from 70 metres

from 66 metres including from 70 metres VCRC011: 18 metres @ 4.5 g/t gold from 37 metres including 10 metres @ 7.1 g/t gold from 42 metres

from 37 metres including from 42 metres VCRC007: 15 metres @ 4.5 g/t gold from 62 metres including 5 metres @ 11.2 g/t gold from 67 metres

from 62 metres including from 67 metres CRC020: 15 metres @ 4.1 g/t gold from 25 metres including 3 metres @ 15.4 g/t gold from 32 metres

The Company plans for 2020 are to commence geophysical surveys (micro-gravity, detailed ground magnetics and induced polarization) over the coming months, followed by 5,000 metres of diamond drilling during Q3 and Q4 2020 to target high-grade and adjacent mineralization intersected by earlier drilling at Apollo-Golden Dyke and potential repeats of mineralization along the 11 kilometre historic mine trend. The company also plans to undertake alteration studies on existing core and new drilling as prior work on epizonal gold deposits in Victoria has defined clear mineral and geochemical vectors towards mineralization.

The Sunday Creek Project has multiple historic mines that are open at depth and along strike. The project is a high value exploration project with affinity to the Fosterville Mine. Further information on work plans and prospectivity of the Company's two joint venture projects, Redcastle and Doctor's Gully will be made as further data compilation occurs over the coming months. Prior to starting work on any of the exploration concessions Mawson will undertake an effective and open community consultation with all stakeholders.

Qualified Person

Michael Hudson (FAusMM), Chairman and CEO for the Company, is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure or Mineral Projects and has prepared or reviewed the preparation of the scientific and technical information in this press release.

None of the drill and trench data have been independently verified at this time. These historical data have not been verified by Mawson and are quoted for information purposes only. Drilling and trench information from Sunday Creek by CRA Exploration, Ausminde and Beadell Resources had a variety of assays and check assays reported in historical reports. It is reported that the primary analysis for gold was completed by fire assay with an atomic adsorption finish by NATA registered laboratories. XRF assays were used for antimony.

About Mawson Resources Limited (TSX:MAW, FRANKFURT:MXR, OTCPINK:MWSNF)

Mawson Resources Limited is an exploration and development company. Mawson has distinguished itself as a leading Nordic Arctic exploration company with a focus on the flagship Rajapalot gold project in Finland. The Australian gold acquisition provides Mawson with a strategic and diversified portfolio of high-quality gold exploration assets in two safe jurisdictions.

On behalf of the Board,





"Michael Hudson"

Michael Hudson, Chairman & CEO Further Information

www.mawsonresources.com

1305 - 1090 West Georgia St., Vancouver, BC, V6E 3V7

Mariana Bermudez (Canada), Corporate Secretary, +1 (604) 685 9316, infoatmawsonresources.com

Forward-Looking Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. Although Mawson believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate, and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Mawson cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, capital and other costs varying significantly from estimates, changes in world metal markets, changes in equity markets, planned drill programs and results varying from expectations, delays in obtaining results, equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions, local community relations, dealings with non-governmental organizations, delays in operations due to permit grants, environmental and safety risks, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in Mawson's most recent Annual Information Form filed on www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Mawson disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.

Photo 1: The Golden Dyke Mine was one of the largest producers of gold in the Melbourne Zone. The photograph below is from the early 1900s.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8hl_d7yIEk
Waist High Snow Hits Northeastern China

Heilongjiang Province, located in Northeastern China and bordering Russia, is known for its annual international ice and snow festival, which showcases giant ice castles and sculptures.

Nonetheless, when a two-day snow storm dropped several feet of snow on April 20 to 21, the weather bureau reported it as the heaviest snowfall in the region in 37 years. Local residents say they have never experienced snow like this in April in their lifetimes. Some say they believe its punishment from heaven.



Location: Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province

Date: April 20, 2020

Many people had to leave their houses through a window, because the front door was completely blocked by snow.

Man shoveling snow:

Look at that window. This elderly man cannot get out.

Man in black:

Take a look at this car. Can you see the silhouette of the car? The car is completely buried under the snow. Ah, its freezing cold. Take a look at this car!

Woman:

Everyone, let me show you what its like when snow blocks the door. The heavy snow on April 20 blocked my front door. I just got out through the window. Take a look: from the ground to waist height! See, I am not kneeling, I am standing. That is snow blocking the door! You may have heard about it, but never seen it. I experienced it once before when I was a kid, and now its happening again. And right here is not even the thickest snow; its over there!



Location: Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province

Date: April 20, 2020

Woman 1 in the background:

A large amount of snow fell from the roof, which is very dangerous. There was strong wind yesterday at level 8 or above. The snow was all blown to this place. Actually, on the main roads the snow was not that bad, but it was all blown around by the wind and accumulated here.

Woman 2 in the background:

The snow is so deep that all the doors are blocked. I shoveled a tunnel through. Too bad, I still cant get through.

Woman 3:

I still need to go grocery shopping on this snow day. Wow, I cant get out!

Woman 4:

Its from the snow storm last night. We started shoveling the snow at midnight and kept doing it all night, otherwise we wouldnt have this cleared path to get out.

There is more snowfall this season than we had all winter. I feel this is retribution and punishment for some wrongdoings.



Location: Baicheng City, Jilin Province

Lead:

Two neighboring provinces, Jilin and Inner Mongolia, have also reported heavy snow storms on April 20 and 21.

Conclusion: Wheat seedlings were frozen and damaged by the snowstorm. Many Chinese internet users are expressing concern that peasants will have a poor harvest this year.
Mr Morrison suggested last Thursday she phone in to the meeting, and following national cabinet's agreement on Friday, she was formally invited and has accepted.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was invited to join Australia's national cabinet meeting by Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Credit:AAP

The national cabinet meeting takes in the Prime Minister and all state and territory premiers and chief ministers.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will join Australia's national cabinet meeting on Tuesday to discuss COVID-19, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced.

They are expected to discuss a mooted "trans-Tasman bubble" that would allow Kiwis and Australians to freely travel between countries.

Loading

They will also discuss the CovidSafe app, a version of which NZ is also adopting.

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said he is very keen on the idea of the trans-Tasman bubble and Health Director General Ashley Bloomfield said on Monday he was in constant contact with his Australian counterparts.

Mr Bloomfield said he had been providing advice to Ardern ahead of the call.
HALIFAX - The Snowbirds aerobatics team flew over Nova Scotia communities Sunday in remembrance of the victims of a mass shooting and six deaths in last week's navy helicopter crash.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 3/5/2020 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Canadian Forces Snowbirds fly in the teams signature nine-jet formation, with trailing white smoke, over Fredericton, on Sunday,May 3, 2020. They flew over the city as part of Operation Inspiration which will see them fly over cities across the country starting in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia today and working west throughout the week. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Stephen MacGillivray

HALIFAX - The Snowbirds aerobatics team flew over Nova Scotia communities Sunday in remembrance of the victims of a mass shooting and six deaths in last week's navy helicopter crash.

On a warm, clear day over the East Coast province, the red, white and blue Tutor jets performed above the 12 Wing Shearwater air base in Halifax, home to the CH-148 Cyclone helicopter that crashed off Greece.

Six members of the Canadian Forces died Wednesday in the incident, which is now under investigation by the military.

The loss of life came in the wake of a mass shooting by a gunman, who took 22 lives on April 18 and 19, beginning in the coastal community of Portapique, where 13 people died.

The nine-plane formation began at the Greenwood air base, travelled over the communities affected by the mass shooting, flew over Shearwater and downtown Halifax and then returned to the base during the afternoon.

The day began with performances over Saint John, N.B., Fredericton and Kentville, N.S.

Capt. Joel Wilson, a 27-year-old pilot participating in the flights, said in a telephone interview from Greenwood, N.S., that the team hoped to provide relief and inspiration for Nova Scotians at a difficult time.

"The first word that comes to my mind is that I'm honoured," said the captain, who is in his first year in the unit.

"It's been tragedy after tragedy for Nova Scotia."

"It's one little thing we can do during what's been a terrible month for the province as a whole."

The aerobatics team planned to fly in its usual diamond shape over most areas.

However, Wilson said the team planned to fly a special pattern over Shearwater in honour of the air crew and the Royal Canadian Navy personnel lost in the Cyclone crash.

He described it as the "missing man" manoeuvre, where one of the jets flies off the formation to symbolize personnel who have died in the course of duty.

The native of Brantford, Ont., said there are members of his unit who have connections to the Canadian Forces members who died, giving the flyover added meaning to the pilots and the technicians.

The performance is also part of a cross-country tour which the military says aims to boost morale as the country continues to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wilson said the unit encouraged the public to maintain social distancing while observing the planes, even as municipal parks in Halifax were reopened to the public after weeks of lockdown.

"We're at about 1,000 feet, which can be viewable from a further distance than usual," he said.

Exact details on when and where the Snowbirds will next perform will be posted online, but it's expected they'll focus on flyovers over hospitals and neighbourhoods.

Some Canadians took to social media last week to ask whether the flyovers are necessary, given many people are continuing to struggle and die from COVID-19.

Caryma Sa'd, a Toronto lawyer, wrote: "Is it too late to call off the whole Snowbirds thing? With many people cooped up and sheltering in place, the sound of military jets overhead will be anything but comforting."

That was similar to criticisms of the U.S. military's decision to deploy its Blue Angels and Thunderbirds teams.

"We would be flying regardless,'' the Snowbirds wrote on their official Twitter account last week in response to the various concerns.

"Now we're just spreading the love (from a distance of course) instead of saying hello to the same farmers around Moose Jaw.''

The Snowbirds initially paused their training in March because of COVID-19 and delayed the start of their flying season, which was to begin in June.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 3, 2020.
Late Easter Sunday, when thunderstorms and an EF-3 tornado caused widespread devastation to the Chattanooga area  affecting the most vulnerable, frail seniors and their families  two Ascension Living facilities teamed up to provide safe shelter for storm victims.



Ascension Living Alexian PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) and Alexian Village  Tennessee responded in a coordinated effort to meet the needs of PACE participants. PACE is a community-based program serving about 280 senior residents in Hamilton County offering senior home care, adult day care and geriatric medical care. Alexian Village is a senior living community about nine miles from downtown Chattanooga, offering independent living, assisted living, memory care, rehabilitation and therapy and long-term skilled nursing care.



Following the destruction, many participants served by Ascension Living Alexian PACE and their families experienced property damage and were without power. On Monday morning, the PACE interdisciplinary team addressed participant needs (i.e., those who needed electricity for medical equipment, etc.), mobilized resources and had some program participants transferred to safe locations with family. Six PACE participants with special needs remained without safe shelter options, as the evening temperatures dipped to the 30s.



Vicki Guertin, executive director, Alexian PACE, reached out to Doug Malin, Alexian Village administrator, which immediately ignited a team effort to find shelter for the six stranded without power.



Within hours on Monday, we were able to work out a solution to provide safe, warm shelter for our participants and their families, Ms. Guertin said.



"Alexian Village responded quickly with a creative solution to ensure the safest environment possible, while adhering to COVID-19 guidelines and screening processes," officials said. "An unused building on Alexian Villages Continuing Care Campus, which was once the Alexian Inn hotel, was quickly converted into safe temporary shelter space. Alexian Village staff went into action preparing rooms. Within two hours, beds were moved and made, rooms were cleaned and toiletries and towels were laid out for guests. Staff provided food and hospitality to guests throughout the stay."



Alexian PACE provided 24-hour staffing by certified nursing assistants at the Inn, and continued each individual's plan of care including medical supervision, transportation, pharmacy services, rehab services and social services, until everyone could transition safely. Some of the PACE participants returned to their homes within several days, another stayed one week.



It was amazing how the team worked together to make this happen, Mr. Malin said. Maintenance, environmental services, dining services, nursing, social services and administration all worked together to make the rooms available to PACE participants.



During one of the most challenging times  an historic virus pandemic, storms and tornado  an overwhelming need to serve inspired pa"ssion, creativity and coordinated response on behalf of Chattanoogas most vulnerable, frail seniors served by Alexian PACE," officials said.



Ms. Guertin said PACE family members expressed gratitude for this compassionate act of caring.
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its fifth month, many workers on the front lines are still without the basic safety protections necessary to protect them against the deadly respiratory disease. For millions, the inability of the worlds most powerful governments and corporations to provide safe working conditions and basic necessities has exposed the rot of the capitalist system for all to see.

This contradiction finds one of its sharpest expressions at Amazon, a trillion-dollar conglomerate operated by the worlds richest man, where workers have played a key role in the distribution of commodities to families sheltering in their homes. Late last month it was reported that nearly 75 percent of all Amazon facilities in the United States have reported at least one confirmed case. Since testing is not widely available and many cases are asymptomatic, no scientific estimate of infections at Amazon has been compiled to date. Undoubtedly, the numbers of confirmed cases are underestimations of the actual amount of sickness.

Following the initial COVID-19 infection reported at the companys Seattle headquarters in early March, the corporation, worth an estimated $1.2 trillion in market capitalization, did next to nothing to protect its employees.

When the first case [was recorded at Amazon], they showed us a video, said one warehouse worker in the US to the International Amazon Workers Voice. Preferring to remain anonymous, the worker spoke about the limited, inefficient and miserly efforts put forward by the company during the several critical weeks in March after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. They were advising us to wash our hands, offering us sanitizers. They didnt make masks a big issue at first, he said.

Meanwhile, the state economy everywhere was shutting down at a rapid rate. At first [in mid-March], they were closing schools, certain small businesses, he said. For the first six hours or so [after management made us watch the video on health safety], I thought wed be shut down, too.

Then we got this paper saying that we were essential, he noted. Ive been here for years and never heard them say that.

The decision to implement a few minor, cosmetic precautions occurred a month after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in late January. Amazon is a global commerce firm employing hundreds of thousands of workers and involving millions its operations, and the infection levels in many countries were already spiking. One might have hoped at the very least for a heightened level of concern and sensitivity to the dangers posed by the virus on the part of the corporation. This was not so.

We started asking questions, shouldnt we be standing six feet apart? the worker said. We were reporting all types of places [in the warehouses] where wed been working together, all bunched up.

Amazon reported quarterly earnings of $75.4 billion at the end of April. In a letter to investors, company CEO Jeffrey Bezos remarked, We are inspired by all the essential workers we see doing their jobsnurses and doctors, grocery store cashiers, police officers, and our own extraordinary frontline employees. The service we provide has never been more critical, and the people doing the frontline workour employees and all the contractors throughout our supply chainare counting on us to keep them safe as they do that work.

Were not going to let them down. Providing for customers and protecting employees as this crisis continues for more months is going to take skill, humility, invention, and money, Bezos gushed. As the pandemic has forced millions to remain at home and forego essential trips outside, Bezos has profited handsomely, raking in over $24 billion in personal wealth while his employees, declared essential, were forced to work unprotected.

What really insulted me was when I found out that Amazon was selling masks to the public, but not giving them to us, the worker told the IAWV. In late March, Bezos wrote employees directly in a letter from our founder on an internal company blog, callously asserting that company employees would have to wait their turn for masks and other protective gear. The letter came days after Amazon workers walked off the job at a facility in New York in response to a positive COVID-19 case detected there.

These walk outs occurred alongside a massive international strike wave of workers in the auto industry, who defied both management and union representatives to shut their facilities down rather than work in unsafe conditions.

During this initial period, Amazon management relaxed certain company policies. The company began suspending limits on unpaid time off (UPT), opting to hire new workers rather than attempt to force existing workers into the warehouse. The company also began allowing personal cell phones into the facilities. The phones were supposed to be allowed in case of family emergencies, they said. I began asking why we werent being given masks, and thats when they let us have cell phones.

Inadvertently, the loosened restriction on phones led to workers filming and taking photos of the dangerous conditions they had been forced to remain working in.

Someone took a picture, I didnt actually see it, but I heard the photo got out of us working in close proximity, he said. It had to be done, to expose what was happening.

We were then told that the state government would be coming to make sure Amazon was complying with the safety requirements. At the time, workers were reporting to the IAWV completely lax and unworkable social distancing measures at their facilities. Amazons expectations are completely unrealistic, the worker said, adding its like the managers dont even listen to you when you suggest improvements that can be made.

Amazon provides us with all these ways we can speak up and be heard when it comes to reporting things, whenever there is a suggestion to improve things, but if its something they dont like  [the workers voice trails off]. The IAWV has previously written on Amazons internal reporting system, which encourages workers to spy and inform on one another. However, when such a system is used to point out the shortcomings of the company, the corporation seeks to silence its critics.

The company began limiting the number of workers in break rooms stationed around warehouses to two per table. I remember walking inside a break room and seeing all these chairs shrink-wrapped and saying, whats going on? the Amazon employee said. Before that time, the company did not bother requiring that workers wear protective facial masks or providing them with hand sanitizer.

Now they have traffic cones set out on the main floor area, with little markers telling us to go one way from A-side to B-side in the warehouses. Before, we would have stand up meetings with management twice a day. Once the meetings stopped [due to social distancing], we stopped seeing our buildings general manager at all, they said.

In early April, after a wave of walk outs among Instacart, Whole Food and Amazon workers, the company introduced a requirement for masks and thorough cleaning. This was two weeks after the first case was reported at my facility , they said. At my site, they werent wiping down our stations. Only once in a while. It was like this until early April.

Id asked PAs, Assistant Managers, everyone and would get no response. What if someone else touches this right before me? I got no response. Its even worse because I get moved around from station to station. Thats the way this company operates.

It was previously reported that at this time that an unnamed worker at a warehouse in Hawthorne California became the first Amazon employee to die of COVID-19. Amazon did not report the death until mid-April.

Summing up their experience at Amazon, the worker told the IAWV: This is the only company I ever went to work for and all its reviews were bad. And the funny thing is, all of the reviews were true! Weve lost so many great workers over this B.S., Im disappointed. Im not interested in moving up in the company. I just say to myself let me get my time in and then go home.

On May 1, Amazon returned to its company policy of strictly limiting the amount of times a worker can call out without being disciplined. The shift in company policy coincides with President Trumps demand for the re-opening of the United States economy, a homicidal act under conditions where the COVID-19 pandemic not been contained, systematic testing is not being conducted, and there is no vaccine. I give it two weeks, the worker said. There are some serious issues coming.
The lockdown due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is estimated to have tripled the urban unemployment rate in its first three weeks. According to the Reserve Bank of India, a full bounce-back looks unlikely in the near future, and the business sentiment has shifted from negative to one of pessimism.

The governments recently-announced economic package does little for workers in urban areas, most of whom are irregular informal workers. The majority of them  62 to 85%  have no access to benefits such as provident funds and insurance, which make up the flagship government schemes for Covid-19 relief aimed at such workers.

Policies to protect workers are being discussed across the world. Such as the United Kingdoms payment of 80% of wages for furloughed workers and a universal basic income. Closer home, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), has urged the government to provide a fiscal stimulus of 2 trillion, which could support 200 million low-income people with 10,000 each. Many of the proposals being put forward insist on targeted direct transfers, often through biometric identification-based bank accounts. The CII specifically mentions an Aadhar based Direct Benefit Transfer.

Targeting based on incomes and encashing checks may be easy in economies with broad-based tax and payments systems. For vulnerable groups in India, correct targeting and timely payments are perennial problems. Detailed data is severely lacking. For example, just 7% of adults file taxes, and the available labour force statistics make it difficult to accurately identify unemployed individuals. There is growing evidence of exclusions and omissions, and payment failures and misdirection from the Aadhar-based system even in normal times and in areas where it has been in place for a while.

Economists have long recognised the informational challenges of targeted payments. They have advocated job guarantees because they are self-targeting. A needy rural household and a rural landlord both have access to work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), but the landlord is unlikely to take up digging wells for 202 a day.

These reasons motivated MGNREGA to cover all rural households, and the government expects to rely on it to create rural jobs once social distancing rules are relaxed. It is time to be bolder than this. A universal job guarantee needs to be on the table for discussion to cover the many workers who are in precarious work situations across in the country.

Even in more advanced countries, national statistics have proved inadequate in recording informal workers outside the organised sector, especially the new breed of self-employed and temporary workers in cities. To understand the value of job guarantee to such workers, the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics conducted a survey of over 16,000 individuals in India in 2018. It found that, on average, an urban worker is willing to take a 15% cut in wage to get a guaranteed number of days of work in a year.

Our survey showed that migrants were much less likely than non-migrants to be able to pay for emergency expenses. They also placed a greater value on having a job guarantee. Although a universal programme would not have overcome the immediate plight of uncovered migrants, it is certainly fair to say that the holes in coverage created by targeted payments have not been adequately weighed in policy discussions.

The self-targeting features of a universal job guarantee make it equitable and cost-effective. A 100-day job guarantee at a daily wage of 200 (similar to MGNREGA) would cost 20,000 per person. Lets suppose all casual workers (13% of the urban workforce of 300 million persons), irrespective of income, take up the job guarantee. To calculate how many other individuals take it up, add the 15% value that workers place on having a job guarantee, and we end up with a daily value of 230. In urban India, 16% of the workforce, including those who are unemployed, earn less than 230 from other works  and suppose all of them take up the job guarantee scheme. From a back of the envelope calculation, an urban job guarantee would cost 1.74 trillion, or 0.8% of Indias annual GDP.

Many may consider 200 obscenely low. At 400 a day, the estimated cost of providing a 100-day job guarantee would be 6.6 trillion. In reality, costs are likely to be much lower, because the take-up rates here include government workers and business owners, who place much lower values on job guarantee.

Importantly, these costs do not net out potential benefits from skills for young urban workers, 93% of whom have no formal vocational or on-the-job training. A job guarantee might lift some of their despondency, as documented for young UK workers during the New Deals of the late 1990s.

At a time of severe economic insecurity, a pledge, not even an actual outlay of 1 to 3% of GDP, is a minuscule sum to restore dignity to those who may have fallen through the cracks. This is not the time for technophiles to dogmatically cling on to the libertarian ambitions of targeted bank transfers as an end in itself. Old ideas of job guarantees have value in todays difficult economic times.

Swati Dhingra is associate professor, department of economics, and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics

The views expressed are personal
MIAMI, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Cansortium Inc. (CSE: TIUM.U) (OTCQB: CNTMF) ("Cansortium" or the "Company") today provided an update on its business, including commentary on its current business operations, liquidity, and positive financial momentum in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Executive Chairman Neal Hochberg noted, "During 2019 we expanded from 7 medical marijuana dispensaries to 18 in our core market of Florida. We ended the year with good momentum and a strong commitment to creating a solid financial foundation that would position the Company and the Fluent brand for further growth and enhanced profitability in 2020. Since year end, we have further expanded to 20 dispensaries across the state, extending our geographic coverage to encompass metro regions which, combined, are home to approximately 60% of Florida's 21 million residents."

"During the first four months of 2020 we have continued to make significant progress on our strategic priorities, despite the unprecedented challenges posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic. We recently completed the previously announced sale of non-core assets in Puerto Rico, freeing up important capital and further reducing our operating expenses, enabling us to intensify our focus on growth opportunities in Florida, as well as opportunities in Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania."

Update on Current Business Operations and Liquidity

All of the Company's 20 Florida dispensaries and cultivation facilities have remained open following Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' April 3, 2020 Stay-at-Home order, which specifically designated medical marijuana as one of several essential services. As part of its efforts to help slow the spread of COVID-19, each of the Company's dispensaries is prioritizing express pick-up orders, including curbside and drive-through pick-up. In addition, the Company has implemented additional cleaning and sanitation procedures in accordance with Federal, State and local health guidelines, as well as social distancing protocols, at each of its dispensaries, cultivation and production operations, and corporate facilities, and has adopted a work-from-home policy for most management and staff positions.

During the first four months of 2020, the Company has taken several steps to expand its Florida operations, enhance its financial flexibility and liquidity, and prioritize capital allocation toward large, profitable U.S. growth opportunities in Florida, Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania. These steps have included:

opening two (2) additional medical marijuana dispensaries in Florida . The Company currently operates 20 medical marijuana dispensaries in Florida  double the number it operated last year at this time  and has several more at various stages of construction and approval that it expects to add to its network over the remainder of the year;

. The Company currently operates 20 medical marijuana dispensaries in  double the number it operated last year at this time  and has several more at various stages of construction and approval that it expects to add to its network over the remainder of the year; consummating the sale of its non-core assets in Puerto Rico for approximately U.S. $670,000 in cash and royalties on future sales of Fluent-branded products;

for approximately U.S. in cash and royalties on future sales of Fluent-branded products; restructuring approximately U.S. $25 million of near-term debt obligations;

of near-term debt obligations; completing a private equity placement for gross proceeds of approximately U.S. $4.6 million to fund strategic growth opportunities;

to fund strategic growth opportunities; transferring the Company's 50% ownership of its Colombian subsidiary to its in-market partner as the first step toward eventually exiting the Colombian market;

engaging Zola Global Investors Ltd. to provide consulting services to the Company, pursuant to which Zola will receive one million common shares and stock options with a three-year term to purchase up to three million common shares at an exercise price of U.S. $0 .255per share;

.255per share; appointing board member Neal Hochberg as Executive Chairman following the February resignation of the Company's co-founder and CEO; and

as Executive Chairman following the February resignation of the Company's co-founder and CEO; and appointing career pharmacist Roger Daher of Ontario, Canada to the Company's board of directors.

Mr. Hochberg continued, "Over the past six months, the Special Committee of independent Board members has overseen the design and implementation of a strategy to focus investment primarily on the Company's core market of Florida and the Pennsylvania, Michigan and Texas markets, divest non-core businesses and to ensure appropriate financial strength and liquidity to capture significant growth opportunities."

"While the unprecedented market conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic have invariably challenged the Company and its customers, I am grateful for how the Fluent team has responded to care for our customers and for each other. Despite these challenges, our operating performance has continued to improve during the first four months of 2020, approaching an operating scale and efficiency necessary to achieve and sustain positive operating cash flow. As one of the first five licensed operators in the state, we are proud to be serving Florida's large and growing population of medical marijuana patients."

About Cansortium Inc.

Headquartered in Miami, Florida, and operating under the Fluent brand, Cansortium is focused on being the highest quality cannabis company in the State of Florida driven by unrelenting commitment to operational excellence from seed to sale. Cansortium has developed strong proficiencies in each of cultivation, processing, retail, and distribution activities, the result of successfully operating in the highly regulated cannabis industry. In addition to Florida, Cansortium is seeking to create significant shareholder value in the attractive markets of Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where the Company has secured licenses and established operations.

Cansortium Inc.'s common shares and warrants trade on the CSE under the symbol "TIUM.U" and "TIUM.WT.U", respectively, and on the OTCQB Venture Market under the symbol (OTCQB: CNTMF). Investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the Company on www.otcmarkets.com.

Forward-Looking Information

Certain information in this news release, may constitute forward-looking information. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "targets", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "an opportunity exists", "is positioned", "estimates", "intends", "assumes", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events.

Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of opinions, assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company as of the date of this news release, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to the factors described in the public documents of the Company available at www.sedar.com. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the Company; however, these factors should be considered carefully. There can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements containing any forward-looking information, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

For further information:

www.getfluent.com

SOURCE Cansortium Inc

Related Links

www.cansortium.com


Array of health facilities granted permission to conduct COVID-19 tests



The Ministry of Health has allowed 51 health facilities across the country to perform diagnostic tests in order to detect cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

In line with this move by the Ministry of Health, a total of 24 units based in northern region, four units located in the central region, along with one unit in the Central Highlands, and an additional 22 units located in southern region, will be permitted to conduct tests aimed at checking for positive COVID-19 cases.

At present, the two main methods of identifying positive COVID-19 cases globally include viral genetic tests, widely known as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), along with antibody tests, which are most often used for the purpose of quick testing.

The PCR method is considered to be highly accurate due to it being able to directly detect the viral gene. However, this method requires medical professionals to work with complex machines, ultimately leading to the results taking several hours to be released.

With regard to the antibody method, specialized training is not required, with the outcomes only taking a short period of time to be released. In spite of these benefits, this method has a much lower sensitivity and specificity than the results produced by the PCR method.

It is believed that a combination of both methods will help to control the disease in a more efficient manner, thus reducing the burden placed on medical facilities, whilst simultaneously allowing resources to be focused on treating infected cases.

Vietnam tests COVID-19 vaccine on mice

The Company for Vaccine and Biological Production No.1 (VABIOTECH) said it has tested COVID-19 vaccine on mice before further evaluation.

Dr. Do Tuan Dat, VABIOTECH President said the vaccine has been developed in collaboration with with scientists from the UK Bristol University since the very first COVID-19 infection case was confirmed in Viet Nam.

The companys scientists successfully grew the COVID-19 antigen in the lab, which is the most important ingredient in vaccine production, Dat said.

Next week, the blood samples on the animal will be sent to the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology for further evaluation, he added.

The vaccine will be further tested on animals to further evaluate the safety and immunization.

Vietnamese citizens from Italy released from isolation

A group of medical staff and nurses at a hospital in a Nang celebrate after the last COVID-19 patient leaves the hospital. 52 Vietnamese returning from Italy were released from isolation after testing negative for SARS-CoV-2 for the fourth time on Saturday (May 2).

A total of 52 Vietnamese citizens returning from Italy have tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 for the fourth time after a 14-day period of isolation in the central city, and they will be leaving for home soon.

Director of the citys Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Dr Ton That Thanh, told Viet Nam News on Saturday that they will be given health check certificates for going home. They had been isolated at the citys Military Training School since April 18.

Sample test results were negative for SARS-CoV-2 for the fourth time in a row. They are healthy with daily medical checks and monitoring during the isolation. They are allowed to leave isolation from today (Saturday), Thanh said.

According to the latest report from the citys health department, 16 people have been monitored at the citys hospitals, while 4,554 people had completed isolation. A total of 4,774 medical samples had tested negative for SARS-CoV-2.

Six COVID-19 patients, who were treated at the citys hospitals, returned home after testing negative for SARS-CoV-2 during isolation from March 27 to April 10. All six are in good health, vice director of the citys General hospital, doctor Nguyen Thanh Trung said.

Vietnam records no new community COVID-19 infection for 18 straight days

Health workers in southern Kien Giang province checks temperature for a local (Photo: VNA)

Vietnam reported no new COVID-19 cases on May 4 morning, marking 18 days in a row since April 16 without new infections in the community, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

The country has so far confirmed 271 cases tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2, including 219 recoveries and no deaths.

The committees treatment subcommittee reported that 12 patients tested negative for the virus once and nine others tested negative twice or more.

A total 27,409 people having close contact with patients or coming from pandemic-hit countries are under quarantine at hospitals, concentrated quarantine areas, or at home.

The Company for Vaccine and Biological Production No.1 (Vabiotech) of the Ministry of Health has gained initial success in studying a potential coronavirus vaccine.

Right after the first COVID-19 case was reported in Vietnam in January 2020, the company partnered with the UKs Bristol University to conduct research on the vaccine.

Blood test samples on mice will be sent to the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology for evaluation.

Philippines bars incoming flights for one week to decongest quarantine centres

People in Philippines wear face masks

The Philippines decided to suspend all incoming passenger flights for one week from May 3 to help reduce pressure on quarantine facilities which are housing thousands of Filipino repatriates.

Millions of Filipinos work abroad, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Singapore and Qatar among the most popular destinations.

Some 24,000 have already returned home, with the majority losing their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those returning are required to complete a 14-day quarantine at centres built or re-purposed by the government that are now filled to capacity.

The Philippines has converted several convention centres, ships, hotels, and government facilities into quarantine centres as the number of people infected with the coronavirus has risen.

However, outbound flights will be allowed to continue, including those flying stranded foreigners out of the country.

As of May 3, the country had reported over 9,200 cases and 607 deaths.

Five Buddha bar-linked patients test positive again

A corner of Buddha Bar in HCMC's District 2. The city has reported five relapses related to the hotspot - PHOTO: THE HCMC MEDIA CENTER

The HCMC Department of Health last night said two more recovered Covid-19 patients had tested positive again, all linked to the Buddha Bar cluster in District 2.

The relapses are the 235th and the 124th patient, who were discharged from hospital on April 15 and April 14, respectively. They visited Buddha Bar on March 14. Earlier, the city reported three relapses related to the hotspot, including the 151st, 207th and 224th.

Besides this, the 92nd patient, a 21-year-old Vietnamese student returning from France, has tested positive again after being given the all clear on April 14. All the relapses are now being treated at Cu Chi field hospital.

According to the health department, HCMC has seen 54 positive cases so far. Aside from the six relapses, local doctors are treating the 91st patient, a British pilot, who is still suffering critical developments. He obtained a negative result on April 30.

On Friday, the department also announced to keep recovered Covid-19 patients under health monitoring for 30 days instead of 14.

This morning also marks the 16th straight day that Vietnam has not reported any infection caused by community transmission. It has also been eight days in a row that Vietnam has confirmed no new Covid-19 patient, keeping its total count at 270 since last Friday when two imported cases were confirmed.

HCMCs condo building lockdown lifted





The apartment building at 1A-1B Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street in HCMC's District 1 is under lockdown on April 30 - PHOTO: CATPHCM

Authorities of HCMCs District 1 have lifted the lockdown on an apartment building at 1A-1B on Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street as 92 people in close contact with a recovered Covid-19 case that retested positive have returned negative test results.

The 92nd case, who lives in Block B2 of the building and returned to Vietnam from France, tested positive for the coronavirus on April 29 after recovery, prompting local authorities to lock down the building to take samples from those with potential exposure to the patient and disinfect the area. The patient was sent to Cu Chi field hospital in the city for treatment.

According to a representative of the district, some 32 people from 11 households who share the same story with the patient and some other families on the first floor are still self-quarantining. Da Kao Ward is calling for food donations to the households.

The 92nd patient contacted no one at the building during the quarantine period. However, after testing negative twice, he went to a convenience store nearby to buy food. Local government is still tracing all those with potential exposure to the patient, the official said.

The city has seen six Covid-19 patients retesting posititve for the virus so far.

One more COVID-19 case recorded, taking tally to 271

A British national has been confirmed the latest COVID-19 case in Vietnam, taking the countrys total amount of COVID-19 cases to 271, the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control said on May 3.

Samples for SARS-CoV-2 testing.

The 37-year-old man, who is an expert of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, landed in Ho Chi Minh City-based Tan Son Nhat International Airport on April 28 onboard a private plane from the UK with 12 other passengers. They were taken to a concentrated quarantine area in the citys Can Gio district upon their arrival.

The man first tested negative for the novel conoravirus SARS-CoV-2 along with the other people on board but a second test taken on May 2 revealed a positive result.

Patient No. 271 is currently being treated at the Cu Chi COVID-19 treatment hospital in HCM City.

Of the 271 confirmed patients, 131 are imported cases who were quarantined upon their arrival.

Up to 219 patients have made full recovery, while 52 others are being treated at medical establishments nationwide.

Twelve patients were tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 once and nine others tested negative twice or more.

A total of 30,530 people who had close contact with confirmed patients or coming from pandemic-hit regions have been quarantined across the country, including 246 at hospitals, 5,748 at concentrated quarantine areas and 24,192 at home.

Campaign helps generate jobs for nearly 10,500 young people affected by COVID-19

Close to 10,500 people have found a job through a non-profit campaign held in Hanoi for students and young people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The campaign was carried out from April 10  30 by the Hanoi chapter of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (HCYU), the Hanoi Students Association, and the Hanoi Youth Federation, in cooperation with Global Shapers Hanoi, Global Shapers HCM City, Canavi, Accesstrade, and the G.A.P Institute.

It aimed to offer 10,000 jobs for students and young people whose employment is particularly vulnerable during the pandemic. Many have already lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet, as thousands of small- and medium-sized enterprises and household businesses in the city have suspended operation.

The campaign helped connect them with recruiters offering seasonal and work-from-home jobs as well as employment after the pandemic ends.

It has so far attracted 963 recruiters and job agencies such as SieuViet, Vietnamworks and FreelancerViet. As many as 17,291 candidates are waiting for job interviews or opportunities.

More than 1,000 people have taken part in interviewing skill and Microsoft Excel training courses held by Canavi.

Vice Secretary of the HCYUs Hanoi chapter Tran Quang Hung said the first phase of the campaign has ended with positive outcomes.

In the second phase, which will take place from May 4  31, the HCYUs Hanoi chapter will cooperate with Canavi to organise more workshops at major universities across the city to provide career counseling and job matching services for fresh graduates, he said.

Thailand reports single-digit new COVID-10 cases for seven consecutive days

Thailand recorded a downward trend in new cases with only three new infections confirmed on May 3, the lowest figure since March 10.

New daily infections have remained in the single digits for seven days in a row.

So far, Thailand has reported a total of 2,969 COVID-19 cases, 54 deaths, and 2,739 recoveries.

May 3 also saw lifting of restrictions on several businesses, bringing some aspects of life back to citizens.

On the same day, Laos reported no new cases for the consecutive 21 days. The number of cases remained at 19, of which nine were declared to have recovered.

Meanwhile, the Philippines saw additional 295 cases and four deaths on the day, bringing the total to 9,223 and 607, respectively. In all, 1,214 patients have recovered.

The number of COVID-19 infections in Indonesia is now 11,192 after 349 new cases were reported. With 14 new fatalities on the day, the countrys death toll hit 845.

Indonesia has conducted COVID-19 test for more than 83,000 people.

Malaysia reported 122 new cases and two deaths, bringing the total to 6,298 and 105.

Singapore also recorded 657 new COVID-19 cases on May 3, raising the national tally to 18,205, announced the countrys Ministry of Health.

Most of the infections were work permit holders residing in dormitories.
Over 3,000 labourers stuck in Maharashtra due to the coronavirus lockdown were brought to Uttar Pradesh in three special trains on Monday.

A day before, over 2,000 workersaround 800 from Maharashtra and 1,205 from Gujarat's Ahmedabad-- were brought to the state in the special Shramik trains.

According to officials, two trains with 2,127 labourers reached Gorakhpur from Maharashtra's Bhiwandi and the Vasai Road railway stations in the early hours on Monday.

In Lucknow, over 1,021 stranded labourers arrived from Nagpur at 8.30 am.

They were screened for coronavirus and sent to their homes.

Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation deployed 44 buses to carry the migrant workers who arrived in the state capital to their destinations, Lucknow Depot Regional Manager PK Bose said.

"These buses were sanitised. At 11 am, the labourers boarded the buses. They were provided with food, water and masks. The buses then departed for Gorakhpur, Basti, Moradabad, Prayagraj and Sonbhadra," Bose said.

Gorakhpur's SDM (Sadar) Gaurav Singh Sogarwal said, "The first train from Bhiwandi brought 1,145 passengers at 1.20 am on Monday. The other train from the Vasai Road railway station brought 982 passengers around 5.30 am.

A large number of them belonged to Khajni, Bansgaon and Gola tehsils of Gorakhpur, he said.

Social distancing norms were maintained in trains and buses.

A labourer, Ram Shabad, who worked in a loom in Maharashtra's Bhwandi expressed joy over the return to the state.

"I am happy that finally I reached my hometown. On the way, we got food and water. Before boarding the train, my documents were checked. At the Gorakhpur railway station, my thermal screening was done."



"I am happy that after a long time, I will be able to see my family, he added.

According to officials, only 54 people were allowed in a bogie of a train.

Travelling ticket examiners and the RPF staff were also deployed in the trains.

Those who arrived in Kanpur on Sunday belonged to 53 districts of the state.

They were examined and sent to their homes in 43 buses, Kanpur City Magistrate Himanshu Gupta said.

Some labourers told mediapersons that they had to pay the fare of general class.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven addresses the nation about the coronavirus pandemic March 22 on Swedish national television. (Anders Wiklund / Associated Press )

Why is everybody talking about Sweden?

Lately, my country has caught the attention of the media in the United States for an unexpected reason. As the entire world struggles to manage the spread of the novel coronavirus, Swedens response to the pandemic has been singled out as radical, lax and controversial" because Sweden has not imposed a broad general lockdown, an approach taken by many other countries.

Sweden is known as a country with a strong welfare model, including public healthcare for all, and has among the worlds highest life expectancies. Some might find it difficult to reconcile this image with our approach to containing COVID-19. Its time to set the record straight on what is going on in Sweden.

Sweden shares the same goals as all other countries  to save lives and protect public health. We are also facing the same challenges as other countries; namely, the scale and speed of the virus spread and the pressure on the national health system. The objective is to reduce the pace of the coronavirus spread and to "flatten the curve" so that large numbers of people do not become ill at the same time.

Sweden is tackling the coronavirus pandemic through both legally enforced measures and recommendations. Like most other countries, we are promoting social distancing, protecting vulnerable people and at-risk groups, carrying out testing and strengthening our health system to cope with the pandemic.

The government has banned visits to care homes for the elderly and made changes to the social security system to make it easier for people with COVID-19 symptoms to take sick leave. Public gatherings of more than 50 people are banned. Secondary schools and university and college classes have moved to online instruction, and people are encouraged to work from home.

Swedens measures differ from other countries in a few significant ways. We are not shutting down schools for younger children or daycare facilities. We have no regulation that forces citizens to remain in their homes. And we have not ordered the closure of any businesses, though businesses like restaurants are required to operate with social distancing rules.

Story continues

Swedish laws on communicable diseases are mostly based on voluntary measures and on individual responsibility. Sweden's coronavirus strategy builds upon those principles. Its a strategy that makes sense for Sweden, but we are humble enough to admit that it may make less sense elsewhere, because all societies are different.

The key here is the high level of trust in Swedish society. According to the World Values Survey, there is a high level of interpersonal trust between Swedes, and there is also a high level of trust in public authorities. The authorities also have a high level of trust in citizens to heed their advice.

The use of recommendations in public health efforts  rather than mandates  is a common strategy in Sweden. One example of this is child immunizations. In contrast to the United States, where all 50 states mandate immunizations for children in order to enroll in school (although there are exemptions given), Swedens child vaccination program is based on recommendations from the authorities and is not a legal requirement. Yet more than 97% of Swedish children are vaccinated in accordance with the recommended immunization schedule.

It is too early to draw any firm conclusions about the effectiveness of the measures taken in Sweden, but they are continuously reassessed by our public health experts.

It is deeply saddening that the virus has hit care homes for the elderly hard in Sweden. One of the main priorities now is to strengthen protections for those living in care homes. More personal protective equipment and online education for staff are being provided, testing has increased and more than 1,000 inspections will be carried out by the Health and Social Care Inspectorate.

It is also too early to compare infection rates and death tolls internationally, since countries differ in how they count coronavirus-related deaths. Countries differ in terms of population density, age structure and housing culture  and many other factors that affect the spread of the virus. Countries are also in different stages of the pandemic, and in different phases of maintaining or relaxing measures.

Eventually the world will need to agree on how to register COVID-19 deaths, how to detect unregistered cases and how to evaluate the general health effects of the coronavirus on the entire population. It will be important to learn from all of this to prepare ourselves for potential future outbreaks of similar viruses.

In the meantime, life is not carrying on as normal in Sweden. Most people are staying at home voluntarily. Domestic train travel, a major means of transportation, has fallen drastically, and almost all domestic flights have been canceled. Many businesses have closed. Unemployment is expected to rise dramatically. In response, the government has approved crisis packages to mitigate the financial impact of the pandemic on Swedish businesses and workers.

The coronavirus is not a disease that can be stopped or eradicated completely, at least not until an effective vaccine has been produced. Swedens strategy may not provide all the answers, but we believe the combination of voluntary and mandated measures is not only more sustainable for Sweden than a lockdown strategy but will strengthen the resilience of Swedish society to fight this virus in the long run.

Karin Olofsdotter is Swedens ambassador to the United States.




By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: It's a morning of firsts for the Supreme Court, the first time audio of the court's arguments was heard live by the world and the first arguments by telephone.

The changes are a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which has made holding courtroom sessions unsafe, especially with six justices aged 65 or older and at risk of getting seriously sick from the virus.

The historic session began at the usual time of 10 a.m. EDT, when Marshal Pamela Talkin called the court to order and Chief Justice John Roberts announced the days case.

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" Talkin began, dropping the words commanding people to draw near" to reflect the unusual circumstances.

Arguments, scheduled to last an hour as they would generally in the courtroom, ran 17 minutes long, but without serious problems. The justices asked roughly two questions apiece at a time, and Roberts occasionally interjected to keep things moving.

And there was one mild surprise: Justice Clarence Thomas asked questions for the first time in more than a year.

Several justices said good morning" to the lawyers, a telephone nicety not often heard in the courtroom. The justices also did not interrupt each other, as they frequently do in court, and instead took turns asking questions.

The court's plaza, normally bustling on the mornings of arguments, was deserted Monday, as it has been since the building was closed to the public in mid-March because of the virus outbreak. Two months of arguments were postponed before the court decided to hear 10 cases over six days in May.

The experiment could propel the court to routinely livestream its arguments. Or it could just be an extraordinary exception to the court's sustained opposition to broadening the audience that can hear, if not see, its work live.

Cases that will be heard over the next two weeks include President Donald Trump's effort to shield tax and other financial records and whether presidential electors have to cast their Electoral College ballots for the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state.

The court chose a somewhat obscure case about whether the travel website Booking.com can trademark its name for its first foray into remote arguments. The lawyers on both sides are well known to the justices and experienced in arguing before the nation's highest court.

Justice Department lawyer Erica Ross, who once served as a law clerk to Justice Elena Kagan, was first up. She last argued at the court in late February. She delivered this Supreme Court argument, her sixth, from a Justice Department conference room.

She was followed by Lisa Blatt, a onetime government lawyer who will be arguing her 40th Supreme Court case. Blatt will be at her Washington-area home, she told The Washington Post.

She is known for her colorful writing and speaking style and for her ability to engage in a healthy give and take with the justices. She was also a prominent liberal supporter of Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his contentious Senate confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court.

Blatt, representing Booking.com, got Justice Sonia Sotomayor to laugh out loud when she told the justice, It looks like we would have lost if you were the trial judge.

Each lawyer got two uninterrupted minutes to make an opening statement, after which Roberts kicked off the questioning. After that, the justices asked questions in order of seniority. Kavanaugh, who joined the court in 2018, went last.

The court sometimes issues opinions at the start of argument sessions, with the justice who wrote for the majority reading a summary of the opinion and, more rarely, a second justice summarizing a dissent. But in another change wrought by the virus outbreak, opinions are being posted online without any statements from justices. The court will next issue opinions on Thursday.

The session ended as it always does in the courtroom. Roberts said, The case is submitted.

Talkin followed: The honorable court is now adjourned until tomorrow at 10 o'clock."
The BJP said on Monday the railways has subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers and the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent, soon after the Congress attacked the central government over the issue.

The state government concerned can also pay for the tickets, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.

He said the Madhya Pradesh government is doing so and asked Rahul Gandhi to tell the Congress-ruled states to follow suit.

He was responding to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's attack on the railways for charging poor migrant labourers ticket fare, even as it donated over Rs 151 crore to the PM-CARES Fund.

"Rahul Gandhi ji, I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that 'No tickets to be sold at any station'. Railways has subsidised 85% & state govt to pay 15%. The state govt can pay for the tickets (Madhya Pradesh's BJP govt is paying). Ask Cong state govts to follow suit," Patra tweeted.

The BJP leader further clarified that for each 'Shramik Express', special trains being run for migrants, about 1,200 tickets to the destination are handed by the railways to the state government concerned.

State governments are supposed to clear the ticket price and hand over the tickets to workers, he said.

Seeking to corner the central government, the Congress on Monday said its state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrant workers and labourers stranded at their workplaces due to the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a statement announced the party's decision and said this would be the Congress' humble contribution in standing shoulder to shoulder with these workers.

In a tweet,BJP MP Subramanian Swamy claimed that migrant workers returning home will not have to pay money as the rail travel will be free from now onwards.

Swamy, in a tweet, said, "Talked to Piyush Goel office. Govt will pay 85% and State Govt 15%. Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
TROY  A member of Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnellys staff has tested positive for coronavirus, prompting the closure of the county courthouse until Wednesday.

The district attorney said she learned late Saturday that an employee of her office tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, she said, she and other employees will be quarantined as a precaution while continuing to work.

"We have one employee who is asymptomatic," Donnelly told the Times Union. "We are all taking precautions. Those of us who have been in the office are quarantining for 14 days just because we want to make sure that it ends here."

The employee was not identified.

The states Unified Court System posted the closure on its website stating that the courthouse at 80 Second St. will be closed "to comply with enhanced cleaning protocols.

Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the court system, said because the courthouse is a shared facility  the district attorney, public defenders office and county court clerk are all located in it  court officials asked for a deep cleaning. He said all matters are being handled virtually and directed to the administrative offices of the 3rd Judicial District, which can be reached at 3rdJDAdministration@nycourts.gov or (518) 285-8300.

The courthouse was closed Monday and will be closed again Tuesday, officials said.

Latest coronavirus-related cancellations, postponements

The latest coronavirus numbers in NY

Sign up for the Times Union coronavirus newsletter

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

Full coronavirus coverage

Donnelly stressed that she and her staff will continue to work. The state court system has been increasing virtual court proceedings in which parties appear by video.

The temporary closure of the courthouse comes as the state's top judge acknowledged an unclear road ahead for the court system in dealing with the pandemic that has killed upward of 70,000 Americans in just a few months. In her weekly address on the pandemic, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore noted that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said there is likely to be a gradual reopening depending on all economic and public health considerations.

"I know that many of you have been wondering and asking when it might be safe to reopen our courthouses and get back to work," she said. "The short answer is that its too soon to know, and that we are not yet in a position to formulate any final or even longterm plan. "

DiFiore said court officials "remain acutely aware that so much of what we do, whether its conducting jury trials or screening the public at magnetometers, depends on, and requires, facetoface interaction with many different stakeholders and constituencies, which, of course, poses a risk of community spread. That said, the time has come, and we have begun to plan."
Almost two million Britons have submitted benefits claims since the middle of March as coronavirus disruption wreaks havoc with families across the UK.

Some 1.8 million claims for Universal Credit were made to the Department for Work and Pensions between March 16 and the end of April.

That figure represents six times the volume of claims which the department would ordinarily expect to receive in such a timeframe.

In one week there was a tenfold increase in claims but the daily rate is now thought to have stabilised at between 20-25,000 - still double that of a standard week before coronavirus.

The latest welfare statistics, revealed to MPs by Work and Pension Secretary Therese Coffey, came after Downing Street said 800,000 firms have now accessed the government's furlough scheme.

That means more than six million workers - approximately one fifth of the UK's workforce - have now been furloughed with the government paying up to 80 per cent of their wages, up to 2,500 a month.

Therese Coffey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, told MPs 1.8 million Universal Credit claims were made between March 16 and the end of April

The current outbreak and the subsequent lockdown which was imposed on March 23 have caused massive disruption to the jobs market with some struggling firms making workers redundant while others have opted for the furlough route.

The scale of disruption was revealed by Ms Coffey this afternoon as she answered questions in the House of Commons.

She said: 'Since 16 March to the end of April we have received over 1.8 million claims to Universal Credit, over 250,000 claims for Jobseeker's Allowance and over 20,000 claims for Employment Support Allowance.

'Overall, this is six times the volume that we would typically experience and in one week we had a tenfold increase.

'The rate for UC claims appears to have stabilised at about 20-25,000 per day, which is double that of a standard week pre-Covid-19.'

Ms Coffey added: 'We've also issued almost 700,000 advances to claimants who felt that they could not wait for their routine payment and the vast majority of these claimants received money within 72 hours.'

The government has been urging firms to furlough workers rather than make them redundant in order to maintain a link between employers and employees.

That way when the lockdown ends the hope is many companies will be able to get back up to speed quickly.

The furlough scheme sees the government pay 80 per cent of a worker's wages, up to a monthly cap of 2,500.

Any furloughed worker is not allowed to work for their firm due to the fact they are effectively being paid by the state.

The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said at lunchtime that the total number of firms applying to the scheme now stood at just shy of one million.

It means taxpayers are picking up the bill for the wages of more than six million workers at a cost of 8 billion.

The spokesman said: 'Since the launch, 800,000 employers have used the job retention scheme to furlough 6.3 million jobs. That's to a total value of 8 billion.'
Intrepid Potash (NYSE:IPI) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 43% in the last month alone, although it is still down 56% over the last quarter. However, that doesn't change the fact that longer term shareholders might have been mercilessly wrecked by the 72% share price decline throughout the 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. 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.

View our latest analysis for Intrepid Potash

Does Intrepid Potash Have A Relatively High Or Low P/E For Its Industry?

We can tell from its P/E ratio of 9.47 that sentiment around Intrepid Potash isn't particularly high. The image below shows that Intrepid Potash has a lower P/E than the average (16.3) P/E for companies in the chemicals industry.

NYSE:IPI Price Estimation Relative to Market May 4th 2020

Intrepid Potash's P/E tells us that market participants think it will not fare as well as its peers in the same industry. Many investors like to buy stocks when the market is pessimistic about their prospects. It is arguably worth checking if insiders are buying shares, because that might imply they believe the stock is undervalued.

How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios

Earnings growth rates have a big influence on P/E ratios. When earnings grow, the 'E' increases, over time. And in that case, the P/E ratio itself will drop rather quickly. Then, a lower P/E should attract more buyers, pushing the share price up.

Story continues

Most would be impressed by Intrepid Potash earnings growth of 15% in the last year. In contrast, EPS has decreased by 4.0%, annually, over 5 years.

Don't Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits

It's important to note that the P/E ratio considers the market capitalization, not the enterprise value. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. In theory, a company can lower its future P/E ratio by using cash or debt to invest in growth.

Such expenditure might be good or bad, in the long term, but the point here is that the balance sheet is not reflected by this ratio.

Is Debt Impacting Intrepid Potash's P/E?

Intrepid Potash has net debt equal to 38% of its market cap. While it's worth keeping this in mind, it isn't a worry.

The Verdict On Intrepid Potash's P/E Ratio

Intrepid Potash trades on a P/E ratio of 9.5, which is below the US market average of 14.4. The EPS growth last year was strong, and debt levels are quite reasonable. The low P/E ratio suggests current market expectations are muted, implying these levels of growth will not continue. What we know for sure is that investors are becoming less uncomfortable about Intrepid Potash's prospects, since they have pushed its P/E ratio from 6.6 to 9.5 over the last month. 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. If it is underestimating a company, investors can make money by buying and holding the shares until the market corrects itself. So this free visualization of the analyst consensus on future earnings could help you make the right decision about whether to buy, sell, or hold.

You might be able to find a better buy than Intrepid Potash. If you want a selection of possible winners, check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a P/E below 20 (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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.
Scientists say theyve discovered an antibody that blocks infection by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus behind the current global health crisis.

The antibody, known as 47D11, targets the deadly virus's infamous 'spike protein', which it uses to hook onto cells and insert its genetic material.

Tests in mice cells showed that 47D11 binds to this protein and prevents it from hooking on  effectively neutralising it.

The breakthrough offers hope of a treatment for the respiratory disease COVID-19, which has killed more than 235,000 people to date.

Researchers said the antibody, if injected into humans, could alter the 'course of infection' or protect an uninfected person exposed to someone with the virus.

Conceptual illustration for COVID-19 treatment, diagnosis and prevention showing antibodies attacking SARS-CoV-2 virus

The European research team identified the antibody from 51 cell lines from mice that had been engineered to carry human genes.

The antibody targets the novel coronavirus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, known as SARS-CoV-1.

However, scientists claim that it can also neutralise SARS-CoV-2, which is from the same family of coronaviruses as SARS-CoV-1.

This research builds on the work our groups have done in the past on antibodies targeting the SARS-CoV that emerged in 2002/2003, said co-lead author Professor Berend-Jan Bosch at Utrecht University.

Using this collection of SARS-CoV antibodies, we identified an antibody that also neutralises infection of SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells.

ANTIBODIES ARE PRODUCED BY WHITE BLOOD CELLS Antibody, also called immunoglobulin, a protective protein produced by the immune system. Antibodies recognise and latch onto antigens - foreign substances - in order to remove them from the body. Molecules on the surface of the antigen differ from those found in the body, allowing the immune system to recognise it as foreign. Antibodies are produced by specialised white blood cells called B lymphocytes (or B cells). When an antigen binds to the B-cell surface, it stimulates the B cell to divide and mature into a group of identical cells called a clone. The mature B cells, called plasma cells, secrete millions of antibodies into the bloodstream and lymphatic system. As antibodies circulate, they attack and neutralize antigens that are identical to the one that triggered the immune response. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica Advertisement

Such a neutralising antibody has potential to alter the course of infection in the infected host, support virus clearance or protect an uninfected individual that is exposed to the virus.

Dr Bosch added that the antibody's ability to neutralise both strains of SARS-CoV suggests that it may have potential in mitigation of diseases caused by future emerging coronaviruses.

SARS-CoV-2, which is responsible for the illness known as COVID-19, is spread through small respiratory droplets from sneezing or coughing.

The virus hooks onto a locking point on human cells to insert its genetic material, makes multiples copies of itself and spreads throughout the body.

In the lab, researchers injected mouse cells with a variety of spike proteins of various coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS.

The team then isolated 51 neutralising antibodies produced by the mouse cells that target the spike protein  one of which, 47D11, could prevent infection of cells with SARS-CoV-1.

The successful antibody, 47D11, binds to an enzyme called ACE2  which is also present in SARS-CoV-2  and acts as the viruss 'doorway' to human cells.

The researchers in this study have developed an antibody that binds to the spike and blocks virus entry into cells, said Dr Simon Clarke, professor of Cellular Microbiology at University of Reading, who wasnt involved in the study.

Antibodies like this can be made in the lab instead of purified from people's blood and could conceivably be used as a treatment for disease, but this has not yet been demonstrated.

While it's an interesting development, injecting people with antibodies is not without risk and it would need to undergo proper clinical trials.

A CDC illustration (pictured) shows morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. The virus is named for the protein spikes that give the appearance of a surrounding corona

Although researchers injected mice cells with spike proteins of coronaviruses that cause SARS, MERS and the common cold, they were not injected with SARS-CoV2, the cause of COVID-19.

The research was also conducted in cells outside the animal  known as 'in vitro'  rather than in a live organism  known as 'in vivo'.

There are several animal models of COVID-19 infection and without having results from any in vivo studies, it is not possible to conclude that the product will be effective in vivo in humans, said Dr Penny Ward, Visiting Professor in Pharmaceutical Medicine at Kings College London.

This potential would be greatly enhanced if antiviral effect was observed in an animal model.

Natural antibodies are large Y-shaped proteins, illustrated above, that patrol the body looking for disease

High concentrations of the antibody may also be required to be effective in vivo.

The antibody was generated using US-based biotechnology company Harbour BioMed's H2L2 transgenic mouse technology.

'Much more work is needed to assess whether this antibody can protect or reduce the severity of disease in humans, said Dr Jingsong Wang, founder and CEO of Harbour BioMed.

We expect to advance development of the antibody with partners.

We believe our technology can contribute to addressing this most urgent public health need and we are pursuing several other research avenues.

The discovery has been published online in Nature Communications.
The UK is in talks with pharmaceutical giant Roche on a large-scale rollout of a coronavirus antibody test with a near-100 per cent accuracy rate, health secretary Matt Hancock has said.

The Swiss-based company announced on Sunday that it is ready to ramp up production of its test to double-digit millions per month over the course of May for use by healthcare services around the world.

It is understood that the test could be in use in the UK within weeks, helping to build a picture of the true spread of the fatal virus among the population.

It is now being independently evaluated by Public Health England at its laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire with initial results expected by the end of this week.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued emergency authorisation for the lab-based test, which has also received approval for use in countries using the European CE mark, including the UK.

Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Show all 18 1 /18 Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, wearing PPE before going into rooms Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, speaks to a carer at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Carers working at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care worker wearing PPE opens a drink carton Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, sits with a carer Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care staff member wearing PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home looks after a resident SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE uses a speaker Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer helps Jack Dodsley, 79, from his chair Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE helps Jack Dodsley, 79 Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer brings food to a resident at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member puts on PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, puts on PPE before she enters a room SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A bench at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS

Speaking at the daily Downing Street coronavirus briefing, Mr Hancock said there were very positive indications about the new test, but acknowledged that the UK had experienced false hope in the area before.

The health secretary previously ordered 17.5 million testing kits, only to find that they did not work.

Mr Hancock revealed that he has himself been giving regular blood samples to help scientists in the hunt for an antibody test, having recovered from a bout of Covid-19 in March.

But he admitted that he is not confident that his recovery has given him immunity from a second infection, saying that he would still not be happy walking into a crowded room.

Scientists have yet to determine definitively whether Covid-19 infection confers immunity on sufferers and if so for how long. However, researchers at the South Korean Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday that they now believe it is impossible for the virus to reactivate in human bodies.

Deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said the overwhelming majority of people who had recovered from Covid-19 were found to have antibodies in their bloodstream but it was not yet known how long these antibodies would remain.

He said we just havent had this disease around on the planet in humans for long enough to know whether those who had recovered were immune.

Antibodies produced in response to other human coronaviruses, such as the common cold, dont persist necessarily for years and years and years, he said.

News on the talks with Roche came as Mr Hancock launched a test, track and trace pilot programme in the Isle of Wight, whose residents are being asked to download a smartphone app allowing the identification of anyone who has been near someone testing positive for the disease.

Announcing talks over a Swiss antibody test: Matt Hancock (PA)

He announced that 288 people who had tested positive for coronavirus died across the UK in the 24 hours to 9am on Monday. This was the lowest daily total since 30 March, but brought Britains overall tally to 28,734, just 150 short of overtaking Italy to become the second worst-hit country, behind the US.

Professor Van-Tam said the number of cases would have to come down further before the government can meet its five tests allowing the easing of social distancing restrictions.

And Downing Street indicated that Boris Johnson may not be able to set out his exit strategy on Thursday  the deadline for a six-week review of lockdown  as hoped, with expectations that he will instead set out his thinking on Sunday.

The Swiss firm says the test  called Elecsys  has a specificity greater than 99.8 per cent and sensitivity of 100 per cent, meaning it gives no false negative results and only one in 500 false positives.

Group CEO Severin Schwan said: Thanks to the enormous efforts of our dedicated colleagues, we are now able to deliver a high-quality antibody test in high quantities, so we can support healthcare systems around the world with an important tool to better manage the Covid-19 health crisis.

Antibody tests do not cure coronavirus or provide any protection against the disease.

Instead, they can detect whether an individual has previously been infected and has antibodies in his or her system able to fight off a future infection.

Mass testing will give public health officials a much clearer idea of how many people have had Covid-19 than the currently available antigen tests, which indicate only whether a patient is currently suffering from the disease.

This will help scientists determine whether the crucial rate of reproduction, known as R, has dropped below one, meaning that each infected person is passing the virus on to fewer than one other person.

And it might make possible the issuing of immunity passports allowing people who are no longer at risk of infection to return to normal life.

Chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance have repeatedly stressed that there can be no lifting of lockdown restrictions until R is below one, in order to avoid the risk of an upsurge in cases.

Mr Hancock said: Today Roche, the Swiss global diagnostics company, made a very positive announcement about progress with their antibody test and we are in discussions with them about a very large-scale rollout of antibody testing, as well as with some others.

But he added: There has been false hope before in antibody testing, so we will make announcements when we are absolutely ready.

Asked whether he would personally be ready to give up social distancing measures and trust that his own illness had given him immunity, Mr Hancock said: Not yet. Not yet. I very much hope that the science shows that the people who tested positive for having antibodies have a low risk of transmitting the disease and a low risk of catching it.
For more than two years, people in the rural Queensland town of Biloela have mounted a national campaignHome to Bilofor the freedom of a Tamil refugee family. Despite a partial legal victory last month, Nadesalingam (Nades) and Kokilapathmapriya (Priya) remain imprisoned, with their two daughters Kopika, 4, and Tharunicaa, 2, on Christmas Island, a remote Australian outpost in the Indian Ocean.

On March 5, 2018 they were snatched out of their home in Biloela in the early hours of the morning by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the security firm Serco. Last September, after being detained for 18 months, they were transferred to Christmas Island when a last-minute injunction from their lawyers prevented their immediate deportation back to Sri Lanka.

Biloela is a town of around 6,000 people on the southern edge of the Bowen Basin in Queensland, a large coal-mining region. The campaign waged by the towns residents has won support across the country and around the world. An online petition for the familys freedom has nearly reached 300,000 signatures.

Angela Fredericks with the Biloela refugee family

One of the leaders of the campaign, Angela Fredericks, spoke to the WSWS after the Federal Court ruled that Tharunicaa, the youngest daughter, was denied procedural fairness last year when then Immigration Minister David Coleman refused to allow her to apply for a visa. The court also ordered the government to pay $206,000 in legal costs.

While this ruling has not removed the threat of deportation looming over the familys head, it will enable them, and the Home to Bilo campaign, to continue fighting for their freedom.

WSWS: It has been more than a year since our last discussion. Could you give us an update on the campaign?

Angela Fredericks: Within the last year the most stressful moment was in August, when we received a phone call from Priya saying the guards had surrounded her, separated her from her kids and were deporting them. It was a heart-wrenching evening. Priya had her phone on, so we could still be with her, and that footage showed how a deportation is carried out.

Mercifully, our amazing lawyers managed to get an injunction in place while they were already in the air, which saw them stop at Darwin and taken off the plane. They were then sent to Christmas Island.

There have been three prongs to this campaign from the get-go. There is the legal arm. We have had to continue crowd funding for the lawyers to do their work. The second prong is the public campaignwe are continuing to put pressure on the ministers to use their ministerial discretion to grant the family a visa.

The third prong, which is one of the most important, is sustaining the family. Since they have been on Christmas Island it has been a lot more difficult to do that because we now only have the phone. We cant do video calls because the internet over there is subpar.

WSWS: What are the conditions like on Christmas Island?

AF: The family has been put in the Phosphate Hill detention site. This is not the site that [Prime Minister] Scott Morrison, prior to the 2019 election, gave a [televised] tour of, showing all the upgrades. They are in a demountable village that is in a stage of disrepair. When they got there it hadnt been used. It was incredibly dusty and dirty.

They have had to move rooms four times, due to toilets and floorboards breaking, including an incident where Priya fell through the floorboards. When they first arrived they had bunk beds, with Nades and Kopika on the top bunk and Priya and Tharunicaa in the bottom bunk.

It is very basic and not child-friendly. They have a playground, but it is unsafe and roped off. The bedrooms all just open out onto the outdoors. The family has been given two rooms to use, however, due to safety, they all sleep in one room. No parent wants to sleep somewhere where their two-year-old can just walk outside. So, they are all currently sleeping together in one queen bed, which is quite ridiculous.

The conditions improved through advocacy from their lawyers. Kopika started school this year and they can book the recreation centre twice a week. With no other children there, they could use the cubby house and toys. Mercifully, they did let the girls start swimming lessons, once a fortnight per child.

WSWS: What was it like for the family when the Australian government held 200 evacuees in 14-day COVID-19 quarantine on the island?

AF: All the people being quarantined were in the main detention site, on a separate base. However, the guards would go between the facilities. All the food came out of the facilities housing those in quarantine.

All the Serco guards and staff come over from the mainland, the majority from Sydney. The staff are classed as essential so they dont have to complete the 14-day quarantine. They have no protective gear on, so there is a great deal of stress.

WSWS: In regard to COVID-19, what did you think of the use of emergency powers to ban a refugee protest in Melbourne?

AF: I think we always have to be wary, in crisis times, of governments tightening rules and taking away rights. In that case, all the people who participated were adhering to the rules. They were conducting a safe protest.

It was a violation of the right to protest. What is frustrating is that the unions were allowed to hold a similar-style protest just the day before, with no fines being given. We are saying one lot of humans are allowed to protest, but another lot of humans are not.

I think it has been made very clear that the government does not like us looking into the asylum process. They want to deter people; they want people to give up.

WSWS: Could you describe what the Federal Court ruling was like for those in the campaign?

AF: We found out, on a Tuesday evening, that the ruling would be handed down on the Friday. For lots of us there was a real sick feeling about that. We have had such bad experiences before about these rulings occurring on a Friday, as it goes straight into the weekend.

However, even in talking with Priya I had a good feeling. She always keeps so hopeful, saying no, it is going to be a good response. When the court dismissed the first ground [of appeal], that made us feel the ruling was going to be negative, but the court granted us the second ground.

The judge ruled that procedural fairness had not been affordedthat the family and the lawyers were never told their case was being looked at and were never given a chance to put in information.

From the very start of this case we watched a very flawed system, starting with the fast-track system for Priya and Nades. We saw the failure of how those assessments were handed down and how no new information can be presented. This judgement meant that a court actually agreed there has been no fairness in their case. It also meant no immediate deportation.

WSWS: Why do you think asylum seekers are targeted in Australia and internationally?

AF: This goes back to the nature of fear. The fear of change, the fear of people who are different. We have seen it time and time again in Australian historythere is a race that we target. You can go back to the White Australia policy. There were the Chinese, then the Greeks and Vietnamese. There is always a group chosen to target. Now it is the Sri Lankans and Indians.

Governments want to keep their power, and fear often drives people to think in terms of needing that protection. That is exactly why we have put such a human face on Priya and Nades. It is trying to show people that they are no different to us. We are all humans. They are just other people and there is nothing to fear.

Every refugee is a person with a story. We easily use blanket statements for this group of extremely vulnerable people. But it always comes back to the question: What causes people to be displaced? For example, we are currently going through COVID-19, which is very likely to cause more displaced people.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett did not host the Annual General Meeting of Berkshire Hathaway this year in Omaha due to coronavirus-led travel ban, but he virtually welcomed the shareholders and investors world over to what he calls the Woodstock for Capitalists. The Oracle of Omaha shared his views on economy and stock market, especially the impact of coronavirus crisis. He also threw light on the US' 243-year-long history. In his four-hour long address to investors in black and white plain slides, he not only reiterated some basic principles of investing but also updates on his investments. Here is a compilation of five lessons from Buffett that are relevant to Indian investors:

Growth is inevitable but be careful

Unlike market crash of 2008 post global financial crisis, when Buffett went on an aggressive buying spree, he has laid low in the recent drop in the markets. Berkshire is in fact net seller of equities so far in 2020 despite the company sitting on $137 billion cash pile. When asked, he said the cash pile "isn't all that huge when you think about worst-case possibilities". However, he is still bullish on America. His message was loud and clear. "Don't bet against America". But he did emphasise on exercising caution unlike 2008 when he categorically stated "Buy American. I am".

"I don't believe anyone knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. I know America's going to move forward over time, but I don't know for sure and we learned this on September 10, 2001. And we learned it a few months ago in terms of the virus. Anything can happen in terms of markets. And you can bet on America but you're going to have to be careful about how you bet. Simply because markets can do anything," he said in the AGM.

Equities 'enormously sound' investment

Buffett made a case for investing in equities, which he believes will outperform treasury bills in the long run. However, treat equities as partnership in the company. Don't gamble. "I hope that everybody will buy stocks with the idea that they are buying partnerships in the business and not chips that can move up or down. Equities are enormously sound investment provided they are an investment and not a gambling instrument. It will outperform bonds, treasury bill and the money under the mattress over the long run unless you see them as gambling instruments," he pointed out.

Accept mistakes and make amends

Buffett has been bullish on airline stocks. According to Berkshire's exchange filings, the company owned 9-11 per cent stakes in airlines such as Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. However, Buffett sold them all in April. He accepted that he made a mistake and now he is unsure if people will again fly the way they used to do in pre-COVID era. "I don't know that three, four years from now people will fly as many passenger miles as they did last year," he said. "You've got too many planes."

The lesson here is don't marry your stocks. If your original investment thesis fails, you shouldn't shy away from exiting your positions. "When we sell something, very often it's going to be our entire stake. We don't trim positions. When we change our mind we don't take half measures. And if we like a business, we're going to buy as much of it as we can and keep it as long as we can," he explained.

Index investing is the best approach

Warren Buffett believes a layman investor should stick to index investing instead of falling for investments suggested by advisors. "People will try and sell you other things because there is more money in it." Taking a dig at them, he said, "Most good sales people believe in their own baloney. That's part of being a good sales person." He once again pointed out that people pay huge amounts of money for advice that they really don't need. "In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is owning the S&P 500 index fund. If you bet on America and sustain that position for decades, you'd do far better than buying Treasury securities, or far better than following people who tell you where to invest."

In India, you have various index funds from Nifty50, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 500 to Nifty Midcap 150 index funds. In fact, you can invest in S&P 500 index fund as well. Just in April, Motilal Oswal AMC launched India's first international index fund that gives you exposure to top 500 US companies.

Don't live or invest on debt

In an age of 'Buy Now and Pay Later' where easy money is available on tap of your phone, Buffett doesn't want you to use credit cards. "People should avoid using credit cards as a piggy bank to raid. It just doesn't make sense. You can't go through life borrowing money at those rates and be better off."

He has consistently advised against investing on borrowed money too. "You never want to use borrowed money to buy into investments, and we run Berkshire that way. There's no reason to use borrowed money to participate in the American tailwind. But there's every other reason to participate,'' he said.

Also read: Berkshire Hathaway sells entire stakes in U.S airlines: Warren Buffett

Also read: Coronavirus pandemic can't stop America or Berkshire Hathaway: Warren Buffett
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday (May 4) thanked the Centre for considering the suggestion to run special trains to send the people of Bihar who are stranded in other states due to coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown back to Bihar.

The Bihar chief minister assured that the workers who are returning to the state will not have to pay for there train tickets and quarantine centre has been set up in the state for these workers.

CM Kumar said that all these workers will stay at quarantine centre for 21 days and they will be given a minimum amount of Rs 1000 each by the state government after the completion of quarantine period. He added that Rs 1000 has been already given to 19 lakh people by the state government under this scheme.

Talking about the return of stranded students from Rajasthan's Kota, CM Kumar said that the state government is spending its own money to bring these students back and no student has been asked to pay any moeny.

Earlier on Monday (May 4), Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi slammed the Centre for charging train fare from thousands of migrant workers who are returning home due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

Sonia said in a statement that workers and labourers are the ambassadors of India's growth and why they can't be extended " a fraction of the same courtesy" as the ones who were brought back from abroad.

"Our workers and labourers form the backbone of our economy. Their hard work and sacrifice are the foundation of our nation. As the Central Government barely gave a four-hour notice of the lockdown, workers and migrant labourers were denied the opportunity to return to their homes," she said in a statement.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 06:51:26|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Editor's note: The Italian government's decree putting the country under lockdown has been in place since March 10, in a bid to contain the spreading coronavirus.

On Monday, Italy began to emerge from the world's longest nationwide lockdown. Below is a first-person account from Grandesso Federico, an Italian national residing in Padova, northern Italy, on the first day of the partial lift of the lockdown.

by Grandesso Federico

Padova, Italy, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Today we can start breathing again, after this long confinement the feelings are a contrast of two emotions: one positive and the other, I would say, realistic.

From today for sure we can start a new life with more social contacts -- we can finally meet husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends and relatives in general. But for friends, we will have still to wait. These kinds of contacts are very important here, and today with the partial lift of the lockdown we will feel less isolated from the dear ones.

In construction sites and factories alone, more than four million Italians are getting back to work, in good news for our devastated economy. The biggest positive vibe I saw is a sense of freedom that was lost and forgotten for several weeks. Today is a perfect sunny day with a lot of people biking, jogging, and sitting on the grass -- a scene that was missing for weeks but ever so much valued now.

One of the most important signal is the reopening of parks, with kids and parents finally free to enjoy a long-awaited moment, all this was in full respect of the distancing measures and the use of masks because nobody forgot that the "monster" is still there. The kiosks selling drinks at the city center park are again operating in take-away mode but drinking again your coffee on the bench can give you the sensation that life can slowly be enjoyed again.

I know, these are only little things but for the moment we feel restored after so much isolation. In contrast with the pleasures of biking again under the sun, there is also an underground fear that the contagion could restart again erasing all our legitimate hopes. It is a bittersweet sensation confirmed by the fact that there are still a lot of people in the house blocked by scare and stress.

To have a more clear picture of all this, I take my bike to meet Antonio Guadagnino, a Padova-based entrepreneur.

He told me: "We are seriously reopening and there was a big pressure to restart, at the moment people understood the gravity of the situation and now they use masks following all the necessary security measure. This morning on the streets there was more traffic than what I was expecting, this made me worried about the speed of this restarting."

"At the beginning, there were few masks and we were not used to wearing them, but after a while people understood the importance and started using them. About offices and production sites, many controls started, all entrepreneurs feel responsible for maintaining the working place completely safe. To go out from this situation we have to continue keeping in mind the three Ts: testing, tracing, and treating," Guadagnino said.

My second stop is the main train station in order to detect if there was also a growth on the normally packed local trains. In an almost empty station, the saleswoman of the bookshop sadly told me that there was no difference with last week in passenger traffic, maybe also because the number of trains is still limited. It is clear that for the moment cars and bikes are still the first choice to travel to work.

Leaving for a moment the uncertainties related to our working future, the place that could restore me is still the park, probably only in that open place you can forget for a moment all the anxieties. After a regenerative moment in the "green," I plunge myself in the busy historical city center where people are slowly getting back strolling among the few open shops.

I stopped for one second talking to Ivana De Simone, owner of a pizza takeaway shop. With optimism, she told me: "Today I saw more people on the streets all with masks and distancing. They seemed to be more positive and joyful, people want to enjoy the summer and come out with light clothes."

From these inspiring words, and also from what I saw today, despite the difficulties -- past and future, the message from Padova is that people just want to come back to normal, following the rules, because after this it's necessary to come back to live again. Enditem
This is an opinion cartoon.

parasite

/persit/ noun

1. an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the others expense.

2. a person who habitually relies on or exploits others and gives nothing in return.

Something about Trumps Fox News virtual town hall at the Lincoln Memorial just seemed wrong.

Coronavirus in Alabama: Complete coverage

Trump was using the power and dignity of the most lauded president in history for ... something. The word parasite came to mind as I watched Trump, dwarfed by Lincoln, talking with two Fox News commentators. They invaded the sanctity of arguably the most revered president in history - for a political campaign, yes. But for what reason, exactly?

If it seems odd to stage a town hall with no in-person audience at the Lincoln Memorial, a site for huge rallies and events in more normal times, youre missing the point: President Trumps plan for Sunday night is packed with strategic signaling, Axios reports.

We wanted a powerful image of American strength and the idea of what reopening looks like, a White House aide told Axios.

Trump, The Great Divider, often compares himself to Lincoln, The Great Uniter. He claims contending with the coronavirus pandemic makes him a war time president", just like Lincoln as he kept the country together through the Civil War.

And then it came.

I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen, Trump claimed, in response to a question about why the president often bullies the press. What cant he just answer their questions without all the hysterics?

The closest would be that gentleman right up there, he said while pointing at Lincolns statue. They always said nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.

Yep. With Lincoln as the backdrop, 45 whined that he is treated worse than the 16th president - the one who was assassinated.

To Trump, having to answer reporters questions must be a fate worse than death.

More cartoons by JD Crowe

Alabama mayor caught in the jaws of coronavirus hot spot wants to reopen

Alabama physician exorcises his coronavirus demons through art

Chill, Eagles fans. Youll be crazy about Jalen Hurts

Miami Dolphins are thankin for Tua

Coronavirus: Do snake handling churches disinfect their snakes?

Easter 2020: Empty tomb. Empty church. Full heart

Fearless Fauci is more loyal to truth than to Trump

Pandemic politics: We dare you to vote

Trump: Im a cheerleader for the country
At polling locations, voters will be encouraged to wear masks and they will be asked to stand six feet apart, Fajman said. Each polling location will have tape on the ground to mark six feet, she said.
London, May 4 : In another example of how Apple Watch can save peoples lives, an 80-year-old woman in Germany was saved by the ECG functionality of Apple Watch for uncovering her heart condition that was missed by a hospital's own ECG during a diagnosis.

According to a study by Oxford University researchers published in the European Heart Journal, the elderly woman attended the University Medical Center Mainz of Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany, with what was described as "typical angina symptoms." The patient also advised of two 'praesyncopy' episodes, a situation where a person almost loses consciousness due to reduced flow of oxygenated blood to the brain.

Going through details of the woman, doctors performed an initial 12-channel ECG. The test did not see any evidence for ischaemia, which is a restriction in blood vessels that can restrict the blood supply.

Later, the patient showed doctors the results of the ECG tests she took with her Apple Watch, revealing 'tracings with marked ST-segment depression'.

In those results, the doctors did see evidence of myocardial ischemia, and the patient was later transferred to the catheterization lab.

"Accordingly, the patient was treated with coronary artery stenting and left the hospital a day later," the study authors wrote.

"The development of smart technologies paves the way for new diagnostic possibilities. In the case of the Apple watch, after the mobile application is installed, the records an ECG when a finger is placed on the watch's digital crown. A 30-s tracing is stored in a PDF file that can be retrieved from the application," said the study.

"Thus, the Apple watch may be used not only to detect atrial fibrillation or atrioventricular-conduction disturbances but also to detect myocardial ischaemia," the authors wrote.

There have been several examples where Apple Watch saved lives in the past.

A US doctor recently saved a person's life by using Apple Watch Series 4 on his wrist to detect atrial fibrillation (AFib) at a restaurant.

An Apple Watch user in the UK was alerted about his low heart rate by the device. It revealed a serious heart condition that ultimately resulted in a surgery to fix the problem.
Sixteen people, including 15 who were already on quarantine after they came in contact with a religious leader who returned after attending the Tablighi Jamaat gathering in Delhi in March, have been tested positive, the health ministry has said.

All the 16 people were found COVID-19 positive on Sunday, it said, adding that the total number of coronavirus cases in Nepal now stands at 75.

Of the 16 patients, 15 were already on quarantine after they came in contact with a Muslim religious leader who had returned to Nepal after attending the Jamaat congregation in Delhi and was found COVID-19 positive later, the ministry said on Sunday.

All the 15 -- eight men and seven women -- are from the Nepalgunj area in Western Nepal.

Tablighi Jamaat members have emerged as the prime suspects among potential coronavirus carriers, not just in India, but also in Pakistan, Malaysia and Brunei.

In India, the Jamaat has come under severe criticism for defying the lockdown and organising the congregation in south Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz last month.

According to officials in Delhi, as many as 2,100 foreigners visited India for Tablighi activities since January 1 and all of them first reported at its headquarters in Nizamuddin.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Trump predicts high death toll but contradicts experts and says vaccine will be available by year-end.

US President Donald Trump has predicted 100,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the country and a vaccine to be ready by the end of the year, contradicting experts who said a cure is likely 18 months away.

Trump relaunched his election campaign on Sunday, forecasting an incredible future as he alternated during a two-hour Fox News broadcast between predicting a rapid recovery for the US economy and casting blame for the pandemics spread on China, where the disease is believed to have originated.

COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, has infected more than 1.1 million and killed more than 67,000 in the United States, shut wide swaths of society, including most schools and many businesses.

Were going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to a 100,000 people. Thats a horrible thing, said Trump.

As recently as Friday, he had said he hoped fewer than 100,000 Americans would die and earlier in the week had talked about 60,000 to 70,000 deaths.

Trump participates in a live Fox News Channel virtual town hall called America Together: Returning to Work, from inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on Sunday night. [Joshua Roberts/Reuters]

About half of the states in the US have now moved towards at least partial lifting of lockdowns as the number of new cases started to drop or level off and as citizens agitate for relief from restrictions that have sent the economy into a tailspin.

We cant stay closed as a country [or] were not gonna have a country left, Trump said.

Few tough questions

The US president faced a few tough questions in the event, which gave him a new format to reach the public while he is unable to hold campaign rallies and after he faced widespread criticism for his combative daily briefings.

200501183400835

In an assessment that clashes with those of some public health experts, Trump said he believed that there would be a vaccine for COVID-19 by the end of the year.

The doctors would say, well, you shouldnt say that, Trump said. Ill say what I think  I think well have a vaccine sooner than later.

Many health experts, including Dr Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, have cautioned that a vaccine is likely a year to 18 months away.

There is an incredibly small chance of having a highly effective vaccine or treatment for the coronavirus within the next year, Englands Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on April 22.

Trump also said he wanted students to return to schools and colleges in autumn (in the months of September to December in the US), even as he acknowledged the possibility of a resurgence of the disease.

Well put out the embers, well put out whatever it may be. We may have to put out a fire, he said.





Speaking the day before the Senate returns to Washington, DC, Trump said it was possible that federal coronavirus aid could rise to $6 trillion from the nearly $3 trillion Congress has already passed to try to ease the heavy economic toll of the crisis.

There is more help coming. There has to be, he said.

Meanwhile, Trump, who has been criticised for not moving faster early in the year to stop the spread of the disease, sought to blunt criticism by blaming China.

He said China made a horrible mistake without saying precisely what this was or providing specific evidence for his assertion.

Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was a significant amount of evidence that COVID-19 emerged from a Chinese laboratory, but did not dispute US intelligence agencies conclusion that it was not man-made.
Pakistan is still following its "myopic" and "limited" agenda of pushing terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir, and India will respond appropriately with precision unless the neighbouring country gives up its policy of state sponsored terrorism, Army Chief Gen MM Naravane said here.

In an exclusive interview to PTI, the chief of the 1.3 million-strong Army said India will give "proportionate response" to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and support to terrorism by Pakistan.

On the Handwara encounter, Gen. Naravane said India is proud of the five security personnel who laid down their lives saving civilians from terrorists at a village in the North Kashmir locality and particularly complimented Col Ashutosh Sharma who led the operation.

"I would like to emphasise that Indian Army will give proportionate response to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and its (Pakistan's) support to terrorism. The onus remains with Pakistan to bring peace in the region," the Chief of Army Staff said.

"Unless Pakistan gives up its policy of state sponsored terrorism, we will continue to respond appropriately and with precision," he added.

Gen Naravane said the recent infiltration attempts by Pakistan along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir showed that Pakistan is not interested in battling the coronavirus pandemic and is still following its "own myopic and limited agenda of pushing terrorists inside India."



"The low priority given to the Pakistani citizens by its own government and the army is apparent by the exponential rise in cases and massive shortages of medical equipment and supplies in Pakistan," he said.

The Army Chief said even during the SAARC video conference, Pakistan's narrow-mindedness was on full display when it used the platform to complain about "non-existent" violations of human rights in Kashmir instead of finding ways to keep its citizens safe from the pandemic.

"The increased intensity of ceasefire violations by the Pakistan army, where its targets innocent civilians on the LoC, just shows that the country is a global risk and is not interested in providing relief to its own citizens," he said.

"In fact, Pakistan's removal of names of hardcore terrorists from the terror watch list just proves that it still believes in exporting terrorism as an instrument of state policy," he added.

On implementation of recommendations of terror anti-terror watchdog FATF, Gen Naravane said Pakistan has sought to "blindside" the international community by making superficial changes and amendments to its "non-existent" checks on terror financing and money laundering.

"It still continues to employ proxies to inflict terror and violence not only inside India but also in Afghanistan where it supports the Taliban militarily and financially," he said.

"The sudden spurts in violence against Afghan security forces are indicative of the illegal and illicit drug and money laundering networks that fuel the conflict," Gen Naravane added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As states begin to reopen their economies in tentative phases, experts struggled to envision what the new American public life will look like amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Some pointed to an increased reliance on technology, others speculated social distancing would become another daily normalcy.

'Humans are just terrified of other humans right now. They just don't feel confident about each other,' said Daniel Cusick, a New York architect who has worked on public spaces for three decades.

'But people need a structure. They need to be told theres something greater.'

Pictured: Servers wearing masks wait on customers on the deck of Dead Dog Saloon in South Carolina as rules for outdoor eating loosened on Monday

Social distancing, a public health measure implemented during the pandemic, may become more normalized as economies reopen amid the pandemic

After COVID-19 arrived to the US in January, businesses across the country soon shuttered and the economy began to stagger as confirmed cases  and deaths  began to spike at unprecedented levels.

By March, the US had surpassed every other country in the world and amassed the largest number of infections. The US even eclipsed China, where the virus originated last year.

In recent weeks, restless state officials peeled back stay-at-home orders, prompting some to wonder how the country will function with much of it still under lockdown.

The digital world has kept many institutions going in the United States since mid-March.

It has allowed an approximation of office life to continue. It has, along with a robust supply chain, brought to our doors some of the goods we usually go and get.

But those same functions, paired with unease, could work against the return to public spaces.

'Technology is reshaping what it means to be in a public place,' said John R. Stilgoe, a historian and landscape expert at Harvard who has spent his career exploring and chronicling the landscapes where Americans move around.

'How do you define the "public realm" when an enormous percentage of the American public spends the majority of its day in its pajamas?' Stilgoe says.

Similarly, social distancing and created less crowded facilities could also be an outcome of the pandemic.

Nan Ellin, dean of the college of architecture and planning at the University of Colorado Denver, worked with her students and the city to close some restaurant-heavy blocks to traffic so the street can be used as outdoor cafes and 'the tables can be farther apart from one another.'

'We don't want to lose our public ground. But we want to have a safe public ground,' said Ellin, editor of 'Architecture of Fear' and author of 'Good Urbanism: Six Steps to Creating Prosperous Places.'

She adds: 'We need little hooks to get there so people can start to be with one another again in a way that feels safe.'

Already, there are hints of what institutions and the spaces they occupy could look like.

If even some come to pass, they could alter Americans relationship with the public realm.

Vibrating pagers like those used at chains like Red Lobster. Already some hospitals are handing them out; instead of entering a lobby, wait in the car until you buzz.

People in across Texas flooded local beaches after Gov. Greg Abbott reopened them

Pictured: Rolando Willimann (center) wears a protective face mask as he carries fishing gear to his boat at the Flamingo boat ramp during the new coronavirus pandemic in Florida

Arrows on the ground, and other physical markers to encourage and enforce distance. Imagine sidewalks with scoring every 6 feet so those walking could make sure they're the human equivalent of a few car lengths behind. Or large sculptures deployed to separate people.

New designs for eating places. McDonald's is already prototyping a socially distanced version of its restaurant that could be a template for fast-food spaces around the world.

Checkerboard grids on the grass in parks, with people allowed to occupy one square only if those surrounding it are empty.

Or time-sharing of public places: If you don't show up for your 12:15 p.m. slot at the playground, you're out of luck.

Churches holding services in shifts. Ballparks and movie theaters deliberately keeping seats empty, halving attendance.

Enter the 'institution,' a word that encompasses several parts of public life.

'Institution' means government buildings - post offices and courthouses and DMVs. It means town squares and public parks, churches and nursing homes and college campuses and, of course, hospitals.

It can also mean skyscraper lobbies, shopping malls, hotels, big-box stores and supermarkets - the touch points of a consumer society whose open, public operation means a society is edging toward normal.

Eric Martin, a Bucknell University associate professor of management who studies disaster responses, cited an established place like Katz's, the crowded New York deli made famous in 'When Harry Met Sally.'

Martin: '[Katz Deli] doesn't change quickly. It's been around forever. That's what it means to be an institution. And so we allow these places a legitimacy that we might not with other place

How businesses like that move forward, he says, will speak volumes.

'It doesn't change quickly. It's been around forever. That's what it means to be an institution. And so we allow these places a legitimacy that we might not with other places,' Martin said.

'We think those are legitimate organizations. So if they're doing it, if they'e changing, we say, 'Oh, this is real,' he added.

Something else unites these places. In each, the woman on the next bench, the man ahead in the checkout line, the family down the pew are suddenly potential vectors - or potential victims - of the outbreak.

That can impede a free society's functions in ways not yet fathomed.

'Democracy depends to a surprising extent on the availability of physical, public space, even in our allegedly digital world,' John R. Parkinson writes in 'Democracy and Public Space: The Physical Sites of Democratic Performance.'

Architecture has always dictated behavior. In China, where controlling people is a government priority, Beijing's avenues are lined with metal fences just high enough to keep people on sidewalks.

The sprawling, segmented layout of Pakistan's capital city was designed in part to discourage mass gatherings.

But those are public spaces responding to visible threats. Retooling spaces to an invisible virus - the crux of what American institutions face today - is different.

Will we wear masks in banks, where a masked man means something different? Will the DMV, the butt of a thousand long-line jokes, suddenly lack lines?

Will we retreat to our cars, bypassing public space entirely in what Cusick calls 'people moving from bubble to bubble, like the Jetsons?'

In 1943, after a German bombing of the British Parliament, Winston Churchill advocated rebuilding the House of Commons chamber exactly as it had been.

He invoked the importance of the physical institution in preserving national ideals.

'We shape our buildings,' he said, 'and afterwards our buildings shape us.'

As isolation ebbs, a similar question confronts Americans repopulating the public places they share. How will these places reshape society - and how will trepidations about a post-isolation world shape them in turn? We can only go so far.

'You cannot hold the air to yourself. The air is shared,' says Marci J. Swede, dean of the school of education and health sciences at North Central College in Illinois.

'No man is an island' has no more truth than when we're talking about the air we're breathing,' she says.

'And it's hard to be around other people when you don't have that sense of trust.'

Despite criticism from public health experts, some states have flouted suggestions and partially reopened their economies.

Texas led the way as the first state committed to loosening stay-at-home orders.

As of May 1, retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls can reopen at a 25 percent reduced capacity.

State parks reopened on April 20 but people must wear face coverings and masks and adhere to social distancing. People also cannot visit in groups of five or more.

Hospitals were allowed to resume surgeries on April 22 that had been postponed by coronavirus.

Since then, nearly half of the US has partially reopened their economies.

The US has recorded 1,187,190 cases and a death toll of 68,597.

Florida is back in business! Cheers go up as freshly groomed beaches reopen at 7am - and restaurants and retailers open for 25% capacity trade as the Sunshine State joins nearly half of America in relaxing lockdown

Florida has now officially reopened with most coronavirus restrictions being lifted as of today as about half of all US states partially reopen their economies after the lockdown.

As part of the reopening in Florida, which has seen 1,300 deaths and 36,000 infections among its 21.5 million residents, retailers and restaurants across much of the state can open their doors at a 25 percent capacity.

While some beaches across parts of the state were allowed to reopen last month, Clearwater Beach in Tampa officially reopened to the public before sunrise on Monday morning.

Police removed 'closed' signs from barricades at 7am to the cheers of the 50 or so people waiting to step on the freshly groomed sand. Clearwater police have a large presence patrolling the beach and are urging people to socially distance.

Cafes along the beach also reopened with eateries allowed to resume dine-in services if they have outdoor seating and can ensure appropriate social distancing.

Cones are set up to help beachgoers keep a safe distance from one another after Clearwater Beach in Florida after the beach officially reopened on Monday amid the coronavirus pandmeic

Cafes along the beach also reopened with eateries allowed to resume dine-in services if they have outdoor seating and can ensure appropriate social distancing

Medical practices can also resume elective surgeries and procedures as part of the state's phased reopening.

Movie theaters, bars and fitness clubs will remain closed for now.

Governor Rick DeSantis has left existing restrictions in place across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties - the three most highly populated in the state.

DeSantis had drawn criticism for waiting until April 2 to clamp down on commerce - after most other states had already done so - in part because of Florida's high proportion of elderly residents - more than a fifth are age 65 and over - who are especially vulnerable to the virus.

But Florida, a key swing electoral swing state, appears to have avoided the worst of the health crisis seen in other states such as New York and New Jersey.

The highest daily number of infections occurred on April 17 with just over 1,400 new cases. New daily infections have been considerably lower since then and only increased above 1,000 on April 23 and May 1. The highest daily deaths occurred on April 28 with 83 deaths and fatalities appear to be on the decline since then.

The state does not appear to have met all the White House's guidelines for reopening, which include 14 days of declining cases and contact tracers to track infections.

The number of US cases has now topped 1.1 million and the death toll has increased to more than 68,500.

Clearwater police have a large presence patrolling the beach and are urging people to socially distance

States, mostly in the South, the Midwest and mountain West, have moved to relax restrictions since Georgia led the way last month.

Georgia took another step toward a full restart by allowing all businesses to reopen from Friday. Large crowds of people were seen in Atlanta on Sunday as shelter-in-place orders expired and businesses reopened.

Health experts are now concerned that warmer weather could prove to be challenging to manage coronavirus as restaurants, hair salons and other businesses reopen across the country.

On Saturday, thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington to view a US Navy flyover to honor healthcare workers and others battling the pandemic.

In New York City, the warmest weather yet this spring caused picnickers and sunbathers to flock to green spaces in Manhattan, including crowded conditions at the Christopher Street Pier in Greenwich Village.

Last week, California ordered beaches in Orange County to close, after crowds defied public health guidelines to throng the popular shoreline. Police in the county's Huntington Beach said people were complying on Sunday.

Dr Deborah Birx, coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, said on Fox News Sunday that massing on beaches was not safe unless people kept at least six feet apart.

Large crowds of people were seen in Atlanta on Sunday as Georgia Governor Brian Kemp allowed shelter-in-place orders to expire

She also weighed in against allowing such businesses as beauty salons and spas to reopen in the first phase.

'We've made it clear that that is not a good phase one activity,' she said.

She said that rrotesters gathering, as they did last week in Michigan and other parts of the country to demonstrate against stay-at-home restrictions, posed a huge risk.

'It's devastatingly worrisome to me personally if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or a very - or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives,' Birx said.

Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner, said on Sunday the country was seeing a 'mixed bag' of results from coronavirus mitigation efforts.

He said there were about 20 states seeing a rising number of new cases including Illinois, Texas, Maryland, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Virginia reported a record number of deaths on Sunday.

'We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we're just not seeing that,' he said on CBS' Face the Nation.

'If we don't snuff this out more and you have this slow burn of infection, it can ignite at any time.'
Highlights Google Pixel 4a is tipped to go on sale on May 22

The Pixel 4a camera specs and samples have leaked ahead of launch

The phone could come with a 12.2-megapixel Sony sensor

Tech giant Google is widely expected to launch a new Pixel smartphone in the coming weeks. To be called the Pixel 4a, this device would be the successor of the budget Pixel 3a from 2019 and could borrow in terms of design and even specs from the company's current flagship, the Pixel 4.

Leading up to its launch, Google hasn't managed to keep absolute control over leaks and rumours about the phone. As a result, we know pretty much all there is to know about the phone even before it has been made official by Google.

Earlier, we've been told about the possible sale date for the Pixel 4a, as well as its core specs, and now a new report claims to have revealed camera samples of the Pixel 4a ahead of its launch.

The Pixel 4a's camera samples were shared by Cuban YouTuber Julio Lusson (TechnoLike Plus). The channel had previously shared the first real-world footage of the Pixel 4a and now, has shared camera samples that show off the Google Camera app's features like Portrait Mode, Astrophotography, Night Sight and HDR+. The camera samples in original quality can be viewed through this Google Photos link.

However, before we move on and talk about the samples and the specs of the camera, it should be noted that the device in question is running a pre-release firmware build, and as such, we could easily see Google make changes to the available modes, and even improve performance of the camera processing unit with the retail software release.

The Cuban YouTuber also shared the camera specifications with XDA Developers which confirms there will be a single rear camera at the back of the phone consisting of a 12.2-megapixel Sony IMX363 sensor with an f/1.73 aperture lens and 1.4m pixel size. At the front, there will be an 8-megapixel Sony IMX355 sensor with an f/2.0 aperture lens and 1.14m pixel size. Interestingly, this is the same sensor found on the Pixel 3, Pixel 3a, and Pixel 4, while the Sony IMX355 is the same primary front-facing camera sensor found on the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3a. The website also reveals that the Pixel 4a's front camera is fixed-focus and supports EIS but no OIS, while the rear camera supports both OIS and EIS with auto-focus.

The publication also goes on to assess the Pixel 4a's camera samples which it claims pack "excellent detail, balanced noise reduction with visible luminance noise, adequate (but not best in class) dynamic range, and great color accuracy". It further compares the phone's Night Sight shots to the Galaxy S20+, only to declare the Pixel 4a as the winner.

As fas as the other specs of the phone go, the Pixel 4a in the past has been tipped to bring a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 chipset paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The phone is likely to feature a 5.81-inch OLED display with an FHD+ resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels and a refresh rate of 60Hz.

To keep the phone running, Google is tipped to equip the Pixel 4a with a 3,080mAh battery with support for 18W USB Type-C fast charging. However, the phone will miss out on wireless charging.
Rome, May 4 : On the eve of the easing of the eight-week national lockdown, Italy's daily new deaths from COVID-19 dropped to 174, the lowest level since the start of the lockdown on March 10.

Italy is set to ease its lockdown measures beginning on Monday. The new rules will allow Italians to visit family members living in the same region, and bars and restaurants to offer takeaway options instead of delivery only during the lockdown, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

The lockdown will be eased in further stages at two-week increments, on May 18 and June 1, provided the data related to the outbreak continue to improve.

In an interview published Sunday in La Stampa, a daily newspaper from Turin, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned that Monday's easing did not mean "everyone was free" to do as they pleased. He said that if Italians did not obey the rules they risked reversing the dramatic gains reached so far.

But Conte told La Stampa that if indicators continue to improve he would consider moving up the time table up in parts of the country least hurt by the pandemic. That would include much of central and southern Italy, but would not include Italy's economic capital of Lombardy, the region that includes Milan.

As of Sunday, the coronavirus death toll in Lombardy (14,231) represented nearly half of the total for the country as a whole (28,884). In terms of population, Lombardy accounts for around one in six Italian residents.

Before Sunday, Conte publicly resisted the notion of scaling back the lockdown differently in different parts of the country. In the wake of his remarks to La Stampa, some media predicted political consequences if some parts of the country were allowed to reopen faster than Lombardy and other hard-hit northern parts of the country.

In the wide-ranging interview with La Stampa, Conte said that starting Monday Italy would be prepared to distribute some 12 million protective masks per day, which would be increased to 18 million a day in June and 24 million a day in August.

Conte also said that the country was stockpiling coronavirus test equipment and that next week the country would start a pilot project to test 150,000 people nationally for coronavirus antibodies that could show who has a resistance to the virus, either from being cured of COVID-19 or recovered naturally.

Other data released Sunday reinforced the positive trends indicated by the lowest one-day death toll in nearly eight weeks. The number of recovered totaled 1,740 on Sunday, up from 1,665 a day earlier.

Meanwhile, the numbers in intensive care, hospitalization and recovering at home with symptoms all decreased. Until three weeks ago, all three categories had not decreased on the same day, but have become commonplace since then.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Asip Hasani (The Jakarta Post) Surabaya  Mon, May 4, 2020 17:20 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5df0f5 1 National COVID-19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,East-Java,khofifah-indar-parawansa,surabaya,Sampoerna,factory,coronavirus Free

East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa has criticized the Surabaya city administrations delayed response to a cluster of COVID-19 infections at one of tobacco giant PT HM Sampoernas factories in the city.

The response to the case was too late. They [Sampoerna] reported the case on April 14 to the Surabaya Health Agency. Perhaps the report lacked details. If [the report was] detailed there should have been a quick response," she told reporters on Friday.

Khofifah said the provincial COVID-19 task force was only made aware of the case on April 28 when dozens of Sampoerna workers were confirmed to have contracted the virus.

Sampoerna's Rungkut 2 factory in Rungkut district has been identified as a new cluster of COVID-19 cases in Surabaya after the test results of two workers came back positive for COVID-19 several days after their deaths on April 14.

The Surabaya COVID-19 task force has since scrambled to trace those who may have had direct contact with the two workers at the factory, which has at least 500 employees.

On April 29, the task force took blood samples from 323 workers for rapid testing with 91 of them returning reactive.

The 91 workers have since undergone polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, with 63 testing positive.

East Java COVID-19 task force member Joni Wahyuhadi said that another 165 workers who might have been in direct contact with the two deceased workers had undergone PCR tests earlier but the results had not yet been disclosed.

Meanwhile, PT HM Sampoerna Tbk director Elvira Lianita said the company had put its cigarette products produced at the Rungkut 2 factory in a five-day quarantine before distributing them to consumers to ensure they were free from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Read also: Sampoerna factory closes after two COVID-19 deaths, authorities rush to trace contacts

"We also quarantine our products for five days before they are distributed to our consumers," she said on Thursday in a written statement obtained by The Jakarta Post.

She said that the five-day quarantine was longer than the quarantine period suggested by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the two organizations, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can survive for 72 hours on plastic and stainless steel surfaces, less than four hours on copper surfaces, and less than 24 hours on cardboard surfaces, she said.

Elvira said the Rungkut 2 factory had been closed since April 27.

The Sampoerna COVID-19 transmission cluster, the 30th cluster detected in Surabaya, will likely cause a spike in confirmed cases in the city. The city is the hardest hit region in East Java with 554 confirmed cases and 71 deaths recorded as of Monday.

According to the official government count, East Java is the third hardest hit province in the country, behind only Jakarta and West Java, with 1,124 cases and 117 fatalities recorded as of Monday.

Despite the emergence of the cluster, East Java Manpower and Transmigration Agency head Himawan Estu Bagijo said that factories could continue to operate in Surabaya, Sidoarjo and Gresik, where large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) have been implemented.

"No article in the PSBB regulation stipulates any restrictions on economic activities, only limitations. Factories may continue to operate as long as they adhere to physical distancing measures," he said.
A Louisiana real estate firm is giving away a free house for anyone willing to relocate it - the only catch is that it's haunted.

Sylvia McLain, the co-owner of McLain Investments, posted pictures of the house, located in Lafayette, Louisiana, on Facebook in March, saying it was up for grabs, gratis, to anyone who was willing to pick up the house and move it off the property.

She wrote that the 'iconic home' was built in the late 1920s to early 1930s and that it had been unoccupied for the last six months, but was 'vacated due to development,' after her company bought the land.

A Louisiana real estate firm offered up this 2,400-square-foot home for free to anyone willing to move it off the property and restore it

Sylvia McLain posted pictures of the home on Facebook in March, saying that it needed 'TLC'

'We have concentrated our efforts and development cost in saving as many of the trees as possible and simply do not have a place in the neighborhood for the home,' she wrote.

'In an effort save the history' of it, she said her company decided to give away the home to someone willing move it off the property and restore it.

The home, she noted, 'needs some TLC,' but had two working air conditioners.

The Facebook post attracted hundreds of comments from people interested in taking the 2,400-square-foot house - as well as a slew of notes from former home residents and locals who noted that the house is haunted.

Locals are said to compare the house to the 'Amityville horror house' - the Long Island home where a man murdered his parents and four siblings while they slept in 1974, which was later said to have been haunted after the slaughter occurred.

One Facebook user, Gypsy Dawn, claimed to have been the 'last tenant that lived there before it was abandoned. The property was heaven but that house is quite unsettling if you dont enjoy communing with the Spirit world because they speak loudly.'

Former residents of the home said that they experienced paranormal activity while living in it

The two-story home was built in the late 1920s to 1930s and housed several generations of a family over the years

A Facebook user said the house was haunted while she lived there. McLain revealed that after two months, someone has agreed to cart the house away and restore it

The house is said to be haunted by the spirit of a 90-year-old woman, Adele Vincent (circled). She is pictured here in a family portrait taken in 1900

Adele (pictured in 1900, left, and in an updated image, right) was said to have a penchant for checking on the stove when people were cooking in the kitchen during her life

One of Adele's relatives said that while living in the house, she would hear the sound of pots jangling on the stove, even though nobody was in the kitchen. Adele (seated) is pictured with her family in an undated image

Gary Alleman, meanwhile, wrote: 'I experienced three things there that could not be explained and my friend that lived there had more than that. We actually experienced one together and we still talk about it.'

Although neither of the former residents specified exactly what happened, a woman who grew up in the home revealed her experiences.

Dawn Vallot DeClout, told the Mirror that her family bought the 160-acre plot of land the house stands on in 1860 and that her great grandmother, Adele, died in the front room in 1967. DeClout and her family lived in the house until the 1980s.

Adele, DeClout said, 'lived to be almost 90 and she was always digging in the pots, like when you have something on the stove and someone goes and looks in the pot and stirs it around.'

Dawn Vallot DeClout said her relatives built the house and that she lived there up until the 1980s. She is Adele's great granddaughter

DeClout said that her family believes that it's Adele's spirit that's haunting the house, but that she's 'not menacing at all.'

She said that while her family lived in the home, 'we used to hear her all the time jangling the pots when we had something on the stove' and added that 'You could hear somebody picking up the lid but there was nobody in the kitchen.'

McLain told the newspaper that she had heard the haunted house rumors, calling them 'really cute stories.'

If the supposedly haunted nature of the house didn't scare off potential takers first, the high-price of moving the house seemed to do the trick.

McLain said that one person who was interested in taking the house balked after learning that it would cost about $80,000 to move the house and then reassemble it at the final destination.

If kept closer to its current location, though, the cost could be as low as $50,000.

On Sunday, however, McLain wrote on Facebook that the house is now spoken for, as someone has stepped up and agreed to cart it off.

The house will be broken up into four pieces and then moved in about a week.

'We were able to find a house mover that wanted it for one of his children,' McLain wrote, adding that she and her company are 'in love with the property and hope to bring it back to its original glory!'
The widespread stay-at-home orders and restrictions on going outside had left a lot of people stressed and eager to go outside. Why not plan for your next trip while still stuck at home? Make a detailed plan of where you will be traveling again once the COVID-19 pandemic ends.

Mexicans are known to spend a little bit more on events such as festivals, carnivals, and parties compared to other types of public events. This proves that Mexican festivals are perfect to be included in your next out of the country trip.

Here are some Mexican Festivals that you need to witness first-hand:

Otumba: Feria Nacional del Burro

Donkeys are well appreciated in a town in Mexico called Otumba. Otumba is located at the crossroads northeast of Mexico City. During the Spanish Colonization, Otumba became the center for the sale of donkeys. On May 1, the Feria Nacional del Burro has been celebrated every year since 1965.

This is a well-known festival. Yearly, it attracts more than 40,000 guests in a variety of events in the celebration of the festival.

During this festival, fireworks displays, hot air balloons shaped like donkeys, and burrito booths can be observed. Additionally, a donkey race can be witnessed during the festival. Also, donkey dancing can be enjoyable to watch. Furthermore, the festival includes an event where a donkey gets crowned.

Noche de Los Rabanos

In the beautiful city of Oaxaca, located in the southern part of Mexico, radish carving is a well-celebrated activity. The Noche de Los Rabanos is translated in English as 'The Night of the Radishes.' It is a yearly festival that emphasizes the use of radishes in making art, such as the creation of sculptures.

Radishes were introduced in Mexico by the Spanish. The artists in Oaxaca had made use of radish as a medium in carving out religious designs. It was used to attract people to shop at a Christmas market being held in the center of the city.

Since the competition in 1897, radish arrangements have transformed into a more impressive and complex art. Currently, the maximum number of entries is 100, where 100 people get to show their talents while making use of government-grown radishes. These radishes are big and are not edible.

Check these out:

The Velas of Juchitan

This is a colorful festival that is held in Juchitan, a city located southeast of Oaxaca City. This was traditionally held to celebrate the days of saints, and it had grown over the years. Currently, there are 26 Velas. Velas involve huge parties that happen between April and September. The majority of the Velas are centered on the identity of multiple interest groups and families. Some of these Velas include the Union of Fishermen and Vela of Las Autenticas Intrepidas Buscadoras de Peligro or the Authentic Intrepid Seekers of Danger. Vela of Las Autenticas Intrepidas Buscadoras de Peligro celebrates transsexual men who are generally accepted as a 'third gender' by the Zapotecs.
What's next, social distancing for big cats? Zookeepers demanding personal protective equipment?

In a word, yes. COVID-19, the illness that has cut a swath through the globe's human population, is threatening tigers, too, and even lions, experts say.

Those at greatest risk of catching the virus, according to animal welfare experts, are the thousands of tigers living in unregulated zoos and private captivity across the United States.

More than 5,000 tigers live in captivity in the U.S., with as few as 6 percent of them in accredited zoos  the fruits of an illicit market that was placed under global scrutiny by the Netflix documentary "Tiger King."

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

But even big cats that live in accredited zoos are in danger. Four tigers and three African lions have been diagnosed with COVID-19 at the Bronx Zoo in New York City. Public health officials believe the animals caught it from zookeepers.

Image: Bronx Zoo (David Dee Delgado / Getty Images file)

While the illness appears to be mild for big cats, with no evidence yet that they can pass it to humans, accredited zoos are racing to implement social distancing for their animals, as well as their staff.

The cats in accredited zoos are the lucky ones. Tigers sold in the poorly regulated private market are more likely to live in cramped conditions with fewer resources, experts say.

Saff Saffery, a popular star of "Tiger King" who has regularly engaged with unregulated zoos and sanctuaries, says most of them cannot protect their animals. An outbreak of disease is always possible, he said.

"Unless there is a licensed staff of veterinarians to individually care for these animals at proper protocol levels, it's impossible to prevent," he said.

Beyond that, feeding and caring for the animals without sufficient protective equipment puts workers in danger, Saffery said. He lost an arm when he was mauled by a tiger at Joe Exotic's Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma.

Story continues

"The livelihood of these animals is in the hands of the humans who care for them," he said. "So because it's a give-and-take relationship, they need to operate together. These zoos have no choice but to go out and tend to these animals directly, one on one, every day."

Preliminary studies indicate that the coronavirus replicates poorly in dogs, pigs and chickens but that ferrets and cats are vulnerable.

Since the first cases emerged, accredited zoos across the U.S. have put new safety measures in place, although marshaling the necessary resources can be difficult.

Dr. Randy Junge, vice president of animal health at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio, says his team is working to prevent any outbreak among the 10,000 animals there.

"Privately owned 'exotics' ... they're pretty much unregulated, so what they do is completely up to them," he said.

"We've divided up our staff into small teams," he said. "We wear masks. We maintain distance between workers. We report illness and take our temperature daily. And all of those steps that we do to protect people are also protecting our animals. So there's no zoo visitors here. All of our keeper staff are wearing masks around the animals."

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

The Columbus Zoo plans to reopen in the summer, but the ongoing lockdown has taken a financial toll. As of Tuesday, 29 employees had been furloughed and 33 positions were being removed. And the economic impact of the shutdown presents an added challenge for all animal keepers.

Lauri Caron, owner of the Octagon Wildlife Sanctuary in Punta Gorda, Florida, houses a hundred exotic animals. She says she's been struggling with supplies for the volunteers who manage her big cats, which include 14 lions, three tigers and 20 bobcats.

For the time being, members of her team have been maintaining 6 feet of distance between one another while preparing food that has been donated for her animals. But she doesn't know what the sanctuary will do once it runs out of the necessary equipment.

"We need more masks and gloves," she said. "We don't have enough. For the time being, any volunteer feeling sick is not allowed in here. We've been spraying bleach on the bottom of our volunteers' shoes and the animals' toys, too.

"There are so many unknowns. We try to take all precautions we can. And since we survive on visitors to keep the lights on to buy medications and other supplies, we don't know what we are going to do without funding."
SAN ANTONIO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GlobalSCAPE, Inc. (NYSE American: GSB), a worldwide leader in the secure movement and integration of data, today announced that two of its San Antonio-based team members were recoginzed in this year's Business Intelligence Excellence in Customer Service Awards. Jeff Kruchak, senior consultant, was the sole recipient in the Consultant of the Year category. Keith Lowery, server analyst, was recognized as one of three Front-Line Pros of the Year.

"This recognition is well deserved for Jeff and Keith, who are outstanding examples of the front-line teams that deliver unparalleled customer service to GlobalSCAPE clients," said Mark Hood, chief operating officer at GlobalSCAPE. "Our employees are our greatest asset. These individual contributions are essential to ensuring a high-performance culture dedicated to client success. Thank you to Jeff and Keith for their exemplary efforts and congratulations on this recognition."

Kruchak has served in a senior consultant role at GlobalSCAPE since 2015 and is responsible for delivering technical advice, implementing solutions, and providing knowledge transfer to GlobalSCAPE clients. Lowery joined GlobalSCAPE as a server analyst in 2018, a role in which his passion has thrived for providing world-class technical assistance to users and support team members for GlobalSCAPE server and client programs.

The Excellence in Customer Service Awards are the latest recognitions for GlobalSCAPE. In March, GlobalSCAPE's Enhanced File Transfer (EFT) 2020 platform won top honors in the Secure File Transfer category of the 2020 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards. The company was also named a 2020 Best Company to Work for in Texas and was a finalist for the San Antonio Business Journal's Business of the Year.

The Business Intelligence Group was founded with the mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. The organization's proprietary and unique scoring system selectively measures performance across multiple business domains. For more information, visit: https://www.bintelligence.com/excellence-in-customer-service-awards.

About GlobalSCAPE

GlobalSCAPE, Inc. (NYSE American: GSB) is a pioneer in securing and automating the movement and integration of data seamlessly in, around and outside your business, between applications, people and places, in and out of the cloud. GlobalSCAPE provides cloud services that automate your work, secure your data, and integrate your applications  while giving visibility to those who need it. GlobalSCAPE makes business flow brilliantly. Visit www.globalscape.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The words "would," "exceed," "should," "anticipates," "believe," "expect," and variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements are based upon the Company's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the important factors that could cause the actual results of the operations or financial condition of the Company to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the overall level of consumer spending on our products; general economic conditions and other factors affecting consumer confidence; disruption and volatility in the global capital and credit markets; the Company's ability to protect patents, trademarks and other intellectual property rights; any breaches of, or interruptions in, our information systems; legal, regulatory, political and economic risks in international markets and global public health crises that reduce economic activity (including the recent coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak); the results of our reduction in force; the discovery of additional information relevant to the internal investigation; the possibility that additional errors relevant to the recently completed restatement may be identified; pending litigation and other proceedings and the possibility of further legal proceedings adverse to the Company resulting from the restatement or related matters; the costs associated with the restatement and the investigation, pending litigation and other proceedings and possible future legal proceedings; and our decreased "public float" (the number of shares owned by non-affiliate stockholders and available for trading in the securities markets) as a result of share repurchases. More information on potential risks and other factors that could affect the Company's financial results is included from time to time in the Company's public reports filed with the SEC, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and Current Reports on Form 8-K. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to the Company as of the date of this press release and speak only as of the date hereof.

GlobalSCAPE Investor Relations Contact:

[email protected]

GlobalSCAPE Public Relations Contact:

Zintel Public Relations

Matthew Zintel

[email protected]

SOURCE GlobalSCAPE, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.globalscape.com


The former mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Ali Najafi, who is being held in prison for the murder of his second wife said he has paid 100 billion rials (roughly $650,000) to the victim's immediate relatives and acquired their forgiveness.

In Irans Islamic criminal code, if a dead victims family forgives the killer, the death penalty can be avoided.

Najafi was married to two women, as Islamic law permits up having up to four wives.

The amount Najafi says he has paid is an astronomical sum of money for an Iranian citizen. Just two years ago 100 billion rials would be at least $2 million. Since then the rial has lost most of its value.

Speaking at his third round of trial on Sunday, May 3, Najafi said the family of his murdered wife was not going to request his execution, based on 'qisas', which is retribution in kind.

MIT-educated Mohammad Ali Najafi, 67, shot his 35-year old second wife, Mitra Ostad, at their home in a posh neighborhood of Tehran in May 2019. The police found Ostad's body with several gunshots in her chest. Hours later, Najafi surrendered to the police.

Mohammad Ali Najafi was sentenced to retribution last year for the murder but the victim's family forgave him, and the sentence was eventually reduced to six years and six months in prison for manslaughter and one year and three months in prison for possession of an unlicensed firearm.

However, the Islamic Republic Supreme Court overturned a preliminary court ruling, and the case is being reopened.

Najafi also disclosed that he was hesitant to commit suicide or surrender to the police after killing Ms. Ostad. He also reiterated that he did not accept the charge of premeditated murder.
The following editorial appeared in Monday's Japan News-Yomiuri:

- - -

Priority should be given to curbing the military face-off between the United States and Russia, and the United States and China, to create an environment for constructive discussions on nuclear disarmament.

The 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, originally scheduled to be held in New York from late April, was postponed due to the spread of the new coronavirus. The conference is slated to be convened within a year.

The NPT aims to limit the possession of nuclear weapons to five states - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - and prevent the spread of such weapons to other nations. While the five countries are obliged to reduce their nuclear arsenals, other nations are guaranteed the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

More than 190 countries and regions have joined the treaty since it came into force in 1970. The NPT has played a certain role in restraining the nuclear arms race.

However, the harsh reality remains. The United States and Russia are competing to enhance their nuclear weapons capabilities. A bilateral treaty designed to eliminate all intermediate-range nuclear forces expired last year. China is stepping up its development and deployment of intermediate-range ballistic missiles by taking advantage of its position, unfettered by U.S.-Russia nuclear disarmament treaties.

Another issue is the fact that disputes between nuclear and non-nuclear powers are intensifying, as the latter have increasingly felt disappointed with the stalemate over nuclear disarmament.

Some non-nuclear states seek an early entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted at the United Nations in 2017. Other nations, including the United States and France, oppose the move, arguing that the treaty is unsuited to the current reality, as it rejects nuclear deterrence and thus weakens the NPT regime.

Even if the NPT review conference, which is held every five years, had been convened as scheduled, it would have ultimately been unable to adopt an agreed-upon document. It would have only revealed the deep division between the two sides.

The important thing is to promote discussions on nuclear disarmament in line with the actual security environment. A new framework needs to be explored to cope with the development of military technologies utilizing artificial intelligence, among other innovations, and China's military expansion.

Whether U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been reluctant to work on nuclear disarmament, is reelected in November is an important variable, but the significance of arms control by the United States, Russia and China will remain unchanged, irrespective of who the U.S. leader may be.

The three countries are expected to move forward with easing tensions and establish a situation in which they can feel assured of securing their safety without relying on nuclear weapons.

This year marks 75 years since atomic bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the only nation to have suffered atomic bombings, Japan has a responsibility to persistently assert the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, as the country is now facing threats from China and North Korea, it must be said that extended U.S. nuclear deterrence has a certain role to play.

Because it is caught in this dilemma, however, Japan has a solid understanding of both nuclear and non-nuclear powers' viewpoints. Japan should proactively work to break the deadlock, acting as a go-between for the two sides.
A hot potato: Most people understand what whitelist and blacklist mean, but are they outdated, racist words? Thats the opinion of the UK governments cyber security agency, which is getting rid of the terms and replacing them with allow list and deny list.

The National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), a branch of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), said it was implementing the change to help stamp out racism in cyber security.

Blacklist is a term often used in tech, and other industries, to describe a list containing banned, disallowed, or undesirable elements such as passwords, spam emails, websites, applications, etc. Whereas whitelist is the opposite, containing everything that is allowed.

There's an issue with the terminology. It only makes sense if you equate white with good, permitted, safe and black with bad, dangerous, forbidden. There are some obvious problems with this, wrote NCSC executive Emma W. So in the name of helping to stamp out racism in cyber security, we will avoid this casually pejorative wording on our website in the future.

The alteration to the terminology was prompted by a request from a customer, who asked if the agency would consider changing the wording on its website.

The open-source browser engine Chromium, which is used in Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi and others, also deprecated the terms whitelist and blacklist after being asked to do so by Microsoft engineers.

An academic study from the University of Limerick claimed terms such as blacklist, whitelist, and black sheep do not merely reflect a racist culture, but also serves to legitimise and perpetuate it.

For those considering complaining about the change, the NCSCs technical director, Ian Levy, says: If youre thinking about getting in touch saying this is political correctness gone mad, dont bother.

Image credit: Olivier Le Moal and Grenar via Shutterstock
Man, dog pronounced dead after early morning explosion, structure fire near Harbor Springs

A man and a dog have both died as the result of an explosion and structure fire early Tuesday morning in West Traverse Township near Harbor Springs.
Courtesy Cleavon Gilman

Cleavon Gilman had seen the news footage of the crowds on the beaches in Florida and California.

But this was Central Park on Saturday afternoon, a jog away from New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The 40-year-old emergency resident had lost so many patients that he keeps a chair between the ambulance bay and the trauma room where he sits to call families with the worst possible news.

And everywhere he now looked in the sun-splashed heart of the COVID-19 epicenter, he saw throngs of people ignoring social distancing as they milled about and relaxed amidst the trees and lawns, many without masks. He took it as a deep insult.

Its a slap in the face, Gilman said. It really is. I cant explain it any other way. It struck me as very selfish and not in touch with the reality.

Gilman served as a Navy Corpsman in Iraq in 2004 and he considers the pandemic to be another, more deadly kind of war, in which more than 18,000 New Yorkers have died in eight weeks.

Thats twice the American dead in Afghanistan and Iraq, he said. Thats insane, right? And people are suntanning and picnicking with wine and cheese in Central Park.

The sight of the heedless crowds in the park prompted him to take a cellphone video. He stopped recording after an ambulance and a police car rolled across the park, roof lights flashing.

People looked at the ambulance as if the ambulance was out of place, he said. I was shocked.

Dr. Cleavon Gilman was a Navy corpsman in Iraq in 2004 and considers the fight against coronavirus a different, deadlier war. Courtesy Cleavon Gilman

Some unfortunates infected by such selfish carelessness in the sun are sure to end up in an ambulance and a hospital, where health-care workers will struggle, and too often fail, to save themwhile endangering themselves.

Many of my colleagues are becoming ill, Gilman said. Ive had three colleagues die over the past two weeks.

One of his more eminent colleagues, Lorna Breen, had recovered from COVID-19 and returned to work to continue the fight but proved to be still too weakened to finish a 12-hour shift. She was recuperating at her familys home in Virginia at the time Gilman got a slap in the face from the selfish in Central Park.

Story continues

On Monday, Gilman was devastated to learn that Breen had died by suicide. Breens father rightly called her a hero, telling The New York Times She tried to do her job, and it killed her.

Gilman had considered Breen a hero long before COVID-19 struck. She had devoted herself to providing excellent care to the vulnerable and underserved in upper Manhattan.

Were talking the working class and the working poor, Gilman said She did that for years. That was her community.

And she did so as a major figure in the field of emergency medicine who could easily have gone elsewhere.

She was the top of everything she did, Gilman said. Just a really classy person as well.

She guided and inspired a long succession of new doctors.

She mentored thousands of people and made them better human beings and better physicians, Gilman said.

Then the pandemic hit.

This was a surge in a war zone, Gilman said. Gurneys back to back to back... Patients being intubated left and right.

The death rate was highest among the vulnerable people who were closest to Breens heart.

Those were people she had devoted her life to helping, Gilman noted.

She lost patient after patient. And, upon returning to her apartment at a shifts end, she had to observe social isolation.

This virus causes us to be alone, Gilman said. Its not good to be alone with your thoughts.

COVID-19 Docs Are So Worried Theyre Preparing Their Wills

He added, The quiet times of this war are real hard on everyone... Its hard on the soul. Its real hard on the soul.

And it may have been even harder on Breen when she was down in Virginia, away from the fight for the vulnerable.

Shes a clear casualty of war, Gilman said. This is a lot harder than being in Iraq, definitely a lot harder.

He added, On top of that, there's no end in sight.

Gilman noted of himself, Ive been to war, but even I got beat down. The hardest part, harder than being in Iraq, is actually having to hear loved ones on the phone, three times a shift, crying at the other end that their mother died, that their husband died.

Always much too soon after he made one notification, he would have to head for the chair just inside the ambulance bay and make another.

You just hear those cries and you anticipate it on every call, he reported. It is a horrible deja vu that I relive over and over again. It just wears on you over time.

He called one woman to tell her that her sister was dying and she told him she was burying her husband in three hours. She had lost her brother a few days before. All of them died of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, President Trump was tweeting for other locales to liberate themselves.

Im like, Dude, theres a deadly virus out there, Gilman said. Im on the front lines every day and hes telling people to liberate themselves. Im like, No, were all in it together. Show some leadership please.

He has little doubt about the results of a premature reopening.

This virus is going to spread all across the U.S., he said.

He believes that most New Yorkers are taking the needed precautions, but a selfish fraction can cause monumental hurt.

If you have 5 percent of 8 million people doing their own thing, that's a lot of people, he said.

That would include the folks he saw in Central Park picnicking with wine and cheese on Saturday. They might not have been so casual if they had read the online journal Gilman has been keeping on his website during the pandemic. One entry describes going back over the records of patients he had intubated.

I did have ONE patient who was extubated, which I was excited about. Yeah!!  What, this patient was extubated? my heart filled with joy as I clicked around the medical record trying to find the most recent progress note. [click, click, click] so many clicks, trying to find the information! Oh here it is! I said with a smile on my face. The note said, patient is on 5L of nasal cannula. Thats amazing! Im so happy for this 50-year-old man! I told my co-workers, his family must be so happy! Wait, Wait what is this?... as I read further my heart filled with fear and an uneasiness. The note read: Patient continues to hallucinate and sees wolves in the chair Oh maybe thats just a prolonged medication effect from being intubated for weeks, I reasoned using my medical background, that should wear off soon. But as I delved deeper into the medical chart, the prognosis only became more grim. His neurological exam mentioned that he had left sided neglect from hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, meaning that he had brain injury from not having enough oxygen to his brain. This is usually seen in patients who have strokes or cardiac arrest. I was devastated! Even the patients that are extubated are not having good clinical outcomes. The left part of the world does not exist for this patient. He will be unable to drive and likely unable to even dress himself.

Gilman noted another kind of crowding on a relatively quiet day at the hospital: Eleven ambulances outside of the Emergency Department and its only the afternoon.

Earlier this week, Gilman summed up his job in this war that in eight weeks has killed more of us than in all the years of our longest wars.

I go to the hospital, Gilman told The Daily Beast. Thats my job. You have a very easy job. Your job is to stay in your house. If you go outside, you wear a mask.

If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!

Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
F riday last week was a good day for new music. We greatly enjoyed Ghostpoet's ink-black new record (even if it did make us feel rather uneasy) as well the bracing new collection of covers from Joan As Police Woman.

But that wasn't all. We were treated to an eclectic bunch of fresh material, from an R&B sensation giving her take on throwback jazz, to a veteran rocker releasing a politically motivated banger.

Elsewhere, there's a new live album from a cult hero and, maybe best of all, a song released in tribute to a late legend.

This is the new music you need to check out.

Kiss Me In The Morning by Glen Ballard and Randy Kerber feat. Jorja Smith

Jorja Smith has lent her textured vocals to this old-school jazz track. Its a cut off the soundtrack to the new jazz-themed Netflix drama The Eddy  the latest project by director Damien Chazelle, the man behind Whiplash and La La Land.

How Far? by Gorillaz feat. Tony Allen and Skepta

The music world mourned the loss of a true icon last week, with the passing of Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen. The drummer features on this newly released track, produced by Damon Albarn under his Gorillaz guise and with Skepta spitting bars over the top.

Thurston Moore  May Daze

Loading....

Thurston Moore has dropped a new song, issued as a rallying cry for our USA sisters and brothers to register as voters today, if you still need to, according to a statement posted on Bandcamp. Its a scuzzy, Sonic Youth-ish rocker.

Zola Jesus  Live at Roadburn 2018

Loading....

Russian-American artist Zola Jesus has released her first ever live album, recorded back in 2018 at Dutch festival Roadburn. Its only available on Bandcamp for now, but will arrive on all other streaming services this Friday (May 8).

Sia  Saved My Life

Dua Lipas wonderful new album has been helping many of us through lockdown, and now the British artist has delivered something new  shes listed as a co-writer on Sias anthemic track Saved My Life.
A sheriff has admitted that he killed a man when he was 14 in a violent encounter but never told law enforcement officials when applying for his job.

In an interview with Local 10 Sunday Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony addressed a report that was published on Saturday by a watchdog news group that revealed he shot and killed a man in 1993.

Sheriff Tony said 18-year-old Hector Rodriguez tried to kill him and his brother outside their home in an inner city neighbourhood of Philadelphia - and he responded in self-defence.

'Unfortunately, we had a dispute with him  my brother and me  in front of our home and he made threats to kill us and he literally pulled out a gun. He had no problem with shooting us right there,' Tony said in the interview yesterday.

In an interview with Local 10 Sunday Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony (pictured) addressed a report that was published on Saturday by a watchdog news group that revealed he shot and killed a man in 1993

'There was no crime, no arrest and this was considered a self-defence case, as it should have been,' he added.

He was appointed head of the Broward Sheriff's Office in 2019 but said in the application process 'it doesn't require you to bring it up'.

He added: 'I don't want to be some 14-year-old black kid who survived a shooting. I don't want to be someone's victim.'

Tony believes the release of the nearly three-decades old story is politically motivated because he is running for election in 2020 to keep his post as Broward County Sheriff.

He maintains there was no arrest at the time and he was cleared of any wrongdoing as a juvenile. Reports at the time said the victim had been shot multiple times.

He said that during the 1993 incident at his home, he was quicker to grab the gun -believed to have belonged to his father - than his brother.

Tony believes the release of the nearly three-decades old story is politically motivated because he is running for election in 2020 to keep his post as Broward County Sheriff

'Under Pennsylvania law, juveniles are not arrested, they go through a petition of delinquency. It never came up on my background checks or clearances, since I was a juvenile and I didn't commit a crime, as it was self-defense,' Tony told Florida Politics.

Rodriguez's girlfriend at the time Maritza Carrasquillo said she didn't know Tony had been acquitted of the charges.

She says she doesn't understand how someone who killed a human being could become a sheriff.

In response, Tony said he was sympathetic to someone losing a loved one but that he has no regrets he survived a violent attack by their loved one who was trying to kill him and his brother.

In the interview he was asked if he tried to conceal the information. Tony said that he's talked about it publicly while mentoring children and has shared the story in church. He said the encounter has been a driving force for him to excel in life.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Army Chief General MM Naravane on Monday said India is proud of Col Ashutosh Sharma, the Commanding Officer of 21 Rashtriya Rifles battalion, and four other security personnel who laid down their lives while saving civilians from terrorists at a village in Handwara in north Kashmir.

In a warning to Pakistan, Gen Naravane said the Indian Army will give "proportionate response" to all acts of terrorism and infringement of ceasefire violations.

"We lost five brave officers and jawans of Indian Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police while saving civilians from terrorists at a village in Handwara.

I wish to convey my heartfelt condolences and gratitude to these valiant braves," the Army Chief told PTI in an interview.

"The nation is proud of their actions especially of the Commanding Officer who led from the front and ensured that there were no civilian casualties or collateral damage during the entire operation," he said.

Apart from Col Sharma, a decorated Army officer, the others who fell to the bullets of terrorists were Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh, Lance Naik Dinesh and Sub-Inspector of Jammu and Kashmir Police Sageer Ahmad Pathan alias Qazi.

"I also take this opportunity to tell the families of our brave-hearts that, we, the entire Army fraternity, is immensely proud of their gallantry and assure you that we stand in solidarity with you during this extremely difficult time," the Chief of the Army Staff said.

ALSO READ | India will give proportionate response to all acts of terrorism by Pakistan: Army Chief Gen MM Naravane

The operation was launched following inputs that a number of civilians were being held hostage in a house in Chanjmulla locality of Handwara.

Two terrorists were killed in the operation.

The killing of Col Sharma was a major loss to the Army as he had led several successful anti-terror operations in the Valley in recent months.

He was conferred with Sena Medal, a prestigious peace-time gallantry award, twice.

There have been frequent incidents of ceasefire violation by Pakistani side since India announced its decision to withdraw special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two union territories in August last year.

Pakistan often resorts to ceasefire violations to push militants into the Indian side.

Indian troops have also been retaliating to Pakistani actions under its policy of hot pursuit.

According to official figures, Pakistani troops resorted to 3,200 instances of ceasefire violations in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, which was the highest in the last 16 years.

Of these, 1,565 ceasefire violations took place between August and December after the India reorganised Jammu and Kashmir.

In 2018, Jammu and Kashmir recorded 2,936 instances of ceasefire violations by Pakistan.
Hearings in the US extradition case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will resume in September after being postponed from later this month because of the coronavirus outbreak, a London court said on Monday.

Assange is wanted by US authorities to stand trial for conspiring to hack government computers and espionage. His extradition case began in February for a week before being adjourned until May 18 for another three weeks of arguments.

Last week, Judge Vanessa Baraitser said it would not be possible for it to recommence this month because of strict restrictions on gatherings to curb the spread of COVID-19.

At a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday - which journalists listening to remotely were unable to follow live - it was agreed that September would be the most convenient date for the hearings to resume, although an exact date and an appropriate venue was yet to be decided, a spokesman said.

Assange was not able to attend Monday's hearing via medialink because his lawyers said he was not well enough to appear.

The 48-year-old, an Australian citizen, says he could spend decades in prison if convicted, and calls the case against him political and a threat to free speech. The United States says he put the lives of informants in danger by publishing secret diplomatic cables.

Last week, Assange's partner, lawyer Stella Moris, said his life was at severe risk from COVID-19 in London's Belmarsh Prison where he is currently being held.

Assange was dragged from the Ecuador embassy in London last April after spending seven years there in a bid to avoid being sent to the United States, during which time he had two children with Moris.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 05:52:34|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

RAMALLAH, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed on Monday night to extend the state of emergency for the third consecutive month in the Palestinian territories amid the spread of coronavirus.

Abbas extended the state of emergency in Palestine until June 5 following the recommendation of Prime Minister Mohammad Ishtaye.

The number of cases infected with COVID-19 in Palestine since March 5 has reached 532. Enditem
(Bloomberg) -- Reports of a health scare for Kim Jong Un are prompting North Korea watchers to envision the country without him: And the general consensus is that not much may change in how the regime deals with the outside world.

While any sudden leadership change in a dictatorship as opaque as North Korea always has the potential for unintended consequences, the 36-year-old leader had consolidated power since taking over from his father in 2011. That has appeared to leave no real advocates for a Chinese-style opening of the North Korean economy or a change of approach with the U.S. on nuclear weapons, according to Robert Kelly, a professor at Pusan National University.

I would be surprised if you didnt have another hardliner who more or less kept North Korea as it is, so Im not sure that North Korea would suddenly implode, said Kelly, who writes extensively about the country from South Korea. We need to kind of accept that North Korea is reasonably stable and will be with us for awhile.

As usual with North Korea, it was near impossible to tell what was happening on Tuesday. U.S. officials said Kim was in critical condition after undergoing cardiovascular surgery last week, while South Koreas presidential office said that Kim was conducting normal activities in a rural part of the country and no unusual military movements were detected.

President Donald Trump said later the U.S. doesnt know how Kim is doing.

I wish him well, weve had a good relationship, Trump said at a White House briefing.

If Kim were to be debilitated, the biggest immediate question mark surrounds succession. Given that North Korea has been ruled by one family since it was constituted after World War II, its nearly a given that the next leader would come from within the dynasty.

Kim has purged scores of senior officials since taking office, including his own uncle. In 2017, his half-brother Kim Jong Nam was killed with a chemical weapon at an airport in Malaysia, removing one of his last remaining rivals for power in the bloodline.

Story continues

While North Koreas patriarchal leadership structure is dominated by males, the most prolific family member is his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong. She served as his envoy to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, became the first member of the immediate ruling family to visit Seoul and was also by his side during Kims summits in Vietnam and Singapore with Trump, who has touted his friendship with the North Korean leader even while pushing him to give up his nuclear weapons for sanctions relief.

The two other prominent male members of the Kim family -- Kim Jong Chol, the current leaders older brother; and Kim Han Sol, the son of the murdered half-brother -- lack strong political support within the ruling party. Theres also the possibility that Kim has a son through a previous relationship: South Koreas DongA Ilbo newspaper reported in 2017, citing a parliamentary committee, that the countrys spy agency learned he had a son born in 2010.

It is the outside worlds wishful thinking that North Koreas ruling system will collapse if another Kim passes away, said Cheong Seong-chang, director at the Sejong Institutes Center for North Korean Studies. With the broader leadership of the regime sharing the same interests with the Kim family, a prolonged leadership vacuum is highly unlikely.

Survival has been a running theme in North Koreas dealings with the U.S. over the years, with the regime citing the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a reason it needed to acquire nuclear weapons. Kim has doubled down on that effort since taking office, testing an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in the face of threats from Trump to unleash fire and fury in addition to imposing stifling economic sanctions.

Trump Meetings

The escalation from Kim won him a series of face-to-face meetings with Trump, a first for a North Korean leader. And while the sanctions remain in place, Kim has since continued to build up the countrys weapons as he pushes for North Korea to become accepted by the world as a nuclear-weapons state -- a stance that is unlikely to change if his sister or someone similar takes charge.

There is little reason to expect change to North Koreas nuclear posture if Kim Jong Un is incapacitated, said Miha Hribernik, head of Asia risk analysis at consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft. The countrys nuclear and ballistic missile arsenals are its only guarantee against foreign military intervention. Kims potential successor is unlikely to give up this trump card lightly.

Trump, who is facing an election later this year, of late has shown little interest in stepping up pressure on North Korea. Last month, he wrote to Kim offering assistance to fight the virus, a letter that prompted a public response from his sister.

Resilient System

As a heavy smoker -- and with a pandemic ravaging the world -- it wouldnt be particularly surprising to many analysts if something were to suddenly happen to Kim. But its also true that very few people know for sure about Kims health.

When his grandfather Kim Il Sung died in 1994, the state kept his death a secret for almost two days to make arrangements for succession. Similarly in 2011, the death of his father Kim Jong Il was announced two days later unbeknown to the outside world, Thae Yong Ho, a former No. 2 at North Koreas U.K. embassy who defected to South Korea in 2016, wrote in his book.

The succession process after the deaths of those two leaders show that a sudden demise for Kim was unlikely to change North Koreas political system, according to Kwon Eun-min, a lawyer with Kim & Chang, one of South Koreas most prominent law firms.

Everyone worried that absence of the two leaders who had a strong grip on power to result in a rapid change of the power there, said Kwon, who has led a study on unification and North Korean laws. But North Koreas capabilities of internal checks proved to be stronger than the outside world had imagined.

(Updates with Trump comments in fifth paragraph.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
She's no stranger to cosmetic procedures, having reportedly spent $40,000 on a boob job, cheek filler and lip plumping injections.

And KC Osborne has revealed she's not ashamed of her transformation and in fact endorses surgery as an option for anyone who feels insecure about their looks.

The Married At First Sight star, 32, told Daily Mail Australia last week: 'I love a natural beauty, and if you want to enhance a natural beauty, that's totally up to you.'

'Just do what makes you happy': KC Osborne is not ashamed of her cosmetic transformation and in fact endorses surgery as an option for anyone who feels insecure about their looks

'No one should judge you. Just do what makes you happy,' she added.

'It's not really up to anyone else to decide what you can or can't do with your body.'

KC overhauled her appearance with a series of cosmetic procedures during her 10 years spent working as a professional dancer in LA.

Confident: The Married At First Sight star, 32, told Daily Mail Australia last week: 'I love a natural beauty, and if you want to enhance a natural beauty, that's totally up to you.' Pictured with her boyfriend, Michael Goonan, at Crown Towers Melbourne on Friday

And it seems she hasn't put Hollywood beauty standards behind her, as she has undergone further procedures since returning to Australia.

KC was recently pictured with noticeably fuller lips compared to how she looked in the final episode of MAFS, which was filmed in January.

Meanwhile, throwback photos from years ago show the performer looking drastically different with thinner lips, lighter hair and less prominent cheeks.

Hollywood makeover: KC overhauled her appearance with a series of cosmetic procedures during her 10 years spent working as a dancer in LA. Pictured before and after surgery

Forever changing: It seems KC still hasn't put Hollywood beauty standards behind her, as she has undergone further procedures since returning to Australia

KC told NW magazine back in March she had spent $40,000 on surgical and non-surgical procedures.

'I've obviously had my boobs done, Botox, filler in my cheeks, having my lips done and veneers,' she said at the time.

The former Pussycat Dolls backup dancer added that she wasn't shy about discussing the work she'd had done because she was comfortable in her own skin.
Amid an unprecedented, extraordinary event that has global repercussions on the economy and lives of several millions of people, COVID-19 has impacted the entire world on many fronts. Keeping the ramifications of the pandemic on various industries, and especially, the IT industry, and to spread the knowledge and make the Indian IT Industry more resilient, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and AIC STPINEXT INITIATIVES have initiated STPI Pulse, an online webinar series, where speakers of global repute are sharing their knowledge and experience for the benefit of the community at large. STPI Pulse is a pioneering initiative to help industry & start-ups stay afloat by deliberating on the challenges, opportunities, and strategies to become more sustainable, efficient & resilient in front of global crises. The maiden episode was launched on 15th April 2020 and STPI conducted the 3rd session of the webinar today. The three webinars received an overwhelming response with the participation of over 4000 participants.

The maiden episode, which was launched on 15th April 2020, featured Dr. Omkar Rai, Director General, STPI, and Shri Subroto Bagchi, Co-founder of Mindtree and Chairman of Odisha Skill Development Authority. The 1st session focused on the topic Overcoming the Unprecedented COVID-19 Crisis: A Strategy for MSMEs & Startups in IT/ITeS Industry.

As a keynote speaker, Shri Subroto Bagchi accentuated on 11 strategies comprising lead with sacrifice, communicate continuously, rewrite your business plan, dont follow the herd, leaders are sense makers, how can I help, cut your costs to the core, question your relevance, seek external help, never miss opportunities in crisis, and newer opportunities will come.

Before taking off the maiden session, Shri Subroto Bagchi appreciated the pioneering initiative by STPI, and said, I salute STPI for starting this series which promotes communication & is addressing COVID-19 challenges at the right time. Communicate with customers, suppliers & the last person in your organisation. Keeping the human angle at the core of tough decision making, Shri Bagchi further added, When you make your decision according to your situation, you are more likely to stay with it. It is not necessary that all the popular tough decisions are meant for your company as well. Do what you can to support as a leader and a human being.

While addressing at the maiden session of STPI Pulse, Dr. Omkar Rai, Director General STPI said, As you can see from the name itself, this knowledge series will ensure that all stakeholders know the pulse of the things happening around us. The IT industry is so innovative, it is coming forward with ideas, solutions & suggestions to not only mitigate the challenges but also to capitalize on them and come up with solutions that can benefit the society at large. The industry is fast adapting to the measures and the government is also quite proactive while supporting them.

When STPI Pulse is focused on disseminating knowledge to Indian startups, it was natural to choose a home-grown product Airmeet to connect with audience. The maiden webinar series was a massive success with 1418 people registered on Airmeet and 1109 people attended live through this platform. Similarly, on Facebook 623 people watched live.

The second session of the webinar series Sailing through Uncertainties: Impact on startups & how to leverage the current crisis to emerge as leaders was conducted on 24th April 2020, presenting Dr. Omkar Rai, Director General, STPI and Shri Senapathy Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, Axilor Ventures and Co-Founder & Former Vice Chairman, Infosys.



During the conversation, Shri Senapathy Kris Gopalakrishnan while deliberating on how investment can be attracted from institutional investors said, My discussion with Institutional investors tells me that they are very keen to support their companies. They are allocating them disproportionately & protecting existing investments. If you are doing reasonably well and executing plans well, investors will support you. During the conversation,while deliberating on how investment can be attracted from institutional investors said, My discussion with Institutional investors tells me that they are very keen to support their companies. They are allocating them disproportionately & protecting existing investments. If you are doing reasonably well and executing plans well, investors will support you. While extolling the role of STPI in promoting Indian start-ups & product creators, he accentuated, Im glad that STPI has conducted this webinar on Airmeet, which is an Indian start-up. After the ground-breaking success of session 1 & session 2 of STPI Pulse, STPI today conducted the 3rd session on Design Thinking for Building Global Class Products by roping in Shri Arun Jain, Chairman and Managing Director, Intellect Design Arena Ltd. & Founder & Former Chairman & CEO, Polaris Consulting and Services Ltd. as keynote speaker; Dr. Omkar Rai, DG, STPI as a distinguished speaker and Shri Subodh Sachan, Director, STPI & CEO, AIC STPINEXT INITIATIVES as session moderator. We must focus on building innovative products. While talking on the various dimensions of design thinking. Shri Jain explained, Design Thinking starts with listening to customers in an unbiased manner, moves on to dialogues, and focuses on observations. Its is about understanding requirements, observing, connecting the dots, and unearthing blind spots. He explained about the 3 laws of Design Thinking include less is more, the last 2% is 200% & theory of prioritization. He also explained about the 5 forces that drive Design Thinking, which comprises skill, expertise, perspective, idea, and alignment.
PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG) shares traded higher by 7% on Monday after the company reported a major jump in first-quarter earnings on Friday and detailed a plan to replace 11 of its 14 board members once it emerges from bankruptcy.

The latest news was well-received by the market, and it even landed PG&E an upgrade on Monday.

The PG&E Thesis

UBS analyst Daniel Ford upgraded PG&E's stock from Neutral to Buy and raised his price target from $14 to $15. Ford said PG&E seems well-positioned to emerge from bankruptcy in the near future.

PCG has secured most of what is required to receive plan confirmation by June 30 in order to participate in the California wildfire fund and to benefit from legislation's liability reform, Ford wrote in a note.

Ford said PG&E should be able to hit its five-year target of 7% to 8% base rate growth, and the companys income growth could grow at an even higher rate. At this point, Ford said the stock has a four-to-one upside/downside skew with limited potential downside due to an equity backstop commitment.

Other PG&E Analysts Weigh In

Wells Fargo analyst Neil Kalton said PG&E investors are finally seeing the light at the end of the bankruptcy tunnel. But while California has established a wildfire fund to help mitigate future liability risk for utilities like PG&E, Kalton said there will still be risks for investors.

In our view, while utility caused wildfire events will likely decrease over time given substantial ongoing mitigation efforts (pre-emptive public safety power shutoffs, wildfire-related investments, etc.), the risk remains substantial, Kalton wrote.

Wells Fargo has an Equal-Weight rating and $12 price target for PG&E.

Bank of America analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith said PG&Es long-term financial projections remain on track.

Given earnings normalize more in 22 we perceive shares appear optically cheaper on 21 P/E in which the equity raise is tied to, although recognize the market has yet to formally shift to 2022 just yet, Dumoulin-Smith wrote.

Story continues

Benzingas Take

It seems increasingly clear that PG&E will hold some value once it emerges from bankruptcy. However, there are still plenty of questions about what the new normal will be for California utilities moving forward and how that will impact PG&Es stock price.

PG&E traded around $10.91 per share at time of publication

Do you agree with this take? Email feedback@benzinga.com with your thoughts.

Related Links:

Here's How Much Investing 0 In PG&E Stock Back In 2010 Would Be Worth Today

How Large Option Traders Are Playing PG&E Ahead Of Critical Bankruptcy Deadline

A PG&E yard in San Francisco. Photo by Peter Merholz via Wikimedia.

Latest Ratings for PCG

May 2020 Wells Fargo Maintains Equal-Weight May 2020 UBS Upgrades Neutral Buy Apr 2020 UBS Maintains Neutral

View More Analyst Ratings for PCG

View the Latest Analyst Ratings

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Arranges $85 Million Debt Financing Package

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 4, 2020) - Burcon NutraScience Corporation (TSX: BU) (OTCQB: BUROF) ("Burcon"), a global technology leader in the development of plant-based proteins, is pleased to announce that its joint venture company, Merit Functional Foods Corporation ("Merit Functional Foods" or "Merit") has secured a debt financing package of up to $85 million of capital from a syndicate of lenders including Export Development Canada, Farm Credit Canada and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

"We are thrilled with Merit's decision to expand production capacity at Merit's state-of-the-art plant protein production facility currently under construction," said Johann F. Tergesen, Burcon's president and chief executive officer, adding, "We are equally thrilled that Merit has arranged such a substantial debt funding package."

Merit Functional Foods is building a 94,000 square foot production facility in Winnipeg to produce high quality pea and canola proteins. The state-of-the-art facility, which is scheduled to be completed in Q4 2020, will be the only commercial facility in the world with the capability to produce food grade canola proteins. This financing will support Merit Functional Foods' growth plans and allow for expansion of their pea and canola protein production capacity.

Merit's product portfolio currently consists of three product family offerings: pea protein, non-GMO canola protein, and MeritPro, a unique lineup of nutritionally complete protein blends. Its entire portfolio aligns with a number of consumer label preferences, including allergen-free, gluten-free, non-dairy, non-GMO, and vegan.

Export Development Canada (EDC) is a financial Crown corporation dedicated to helping Canadian companies of all sizes succeed on the world stage. EDC's mandate is to support and develop Canada's export trade by helping Canadian companies respond to international business opportunities including those in the cleantech and agriculture sectors. As Canada's largest financier of clean technologies they provide insurance and financial services, bonding products and small business solutions to Canadian exporters and investors and their international buyers while adhering to a commitment to sustainable and responsible business.

Story continues

Farm Credit Canada (FCC) is also a federal Crown corporation and Canada's leading agriculture and food lender, with a loan portfolio of more than $38 billion. FCC provides flexible, competitively priced financing, specifically designed for the agriculture and food industries.

To facilitate the financing, Burcon has provided a short-term letter of credit in the amount of $6.5 million, which will remain in place until no later than September 30, 2020, and also provided a $4 million guarantee of Merit's debt obligations.

About Burcon NutraScience Corporation

Burcon is a global technology leader in the development of plant-based proteins. With over 280 issued patents and more than 260 additional patent applications, developed over a span of more than twenty years, Burcon has grown an extensive portfolio of composition, application, and process patents covering novel plant-based proteins derived from pea, canola, soy, hemp, sunflower seed and more. In 2019, Merit Functional Foods Corporation was established in a joint venture by Burcon and three veteran food industry executives. Merit Foods is building a state-of-the-art protein production facility in Manitoba, Canada, where it will produce, under license, Burcon's novel pea and canola protein ingredients. For more information visit www.burcon.ca .

Forward-Looking Information Cautionary Statement

The TSX has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy of the content of the information contained herein. This press release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements or forward-looking information involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performances, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements or forward-looking information can be identified by words such as "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "project," "estimate," "expect," "believe", "future," "likely," "may," "should," "could", "will" and similar references to future periods. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding the expected use of proceeds contained in this press release. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Burcon's plans and expectations include the actual results of business negotiations, marketing activities, adverse general economic, market or business conditions, regulatory changes and other risks and factors detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by Burcon with securities regulators and stock exchanges, including in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Burcon's annual information form dated June 28, 2019 filed with the Canadian securities administrators on www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement or information only speaks as of the date on which it was made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Burcon disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although Burcon believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and accordingly, investors should not rely on such statements. CLARISOY is a trademark of Archer Daniels Midland Company.

Investor Contact

Paul Lam

Manager, Business Development

Burcon NutraScience Corporation

Tel (604) 733-0896, Toll-free (888) 408-7960

plam@burcon.ca www.burcon.ca

Media Contact:

Steve Campbell, APR

President

Campbell & Company Public Relations

Tel (604) 888-5267

TECH@CCOM-PR.COM

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/55273
Carnival Cruise Line announced Monday it would resume cruises leaving Galveston beginning in August, after cruises were postponed across the globe due to the novel coronavirus pandemic for nearly two months.

Beginning Aug. 1, Carnival will offer cruises on its Dream, Vista, and Freedom lines. A total of eight Carnival ships will operate out of three ports: Galveston, Miami and Port Canaveral, Fla. The companys other North American and Australian homeport cruises will be canceled through the month of August.

Carnival said in a statement that resumption of its cruise operations is fully dependent on cooperation with local, state and federal officials and that any return to service would include enhanced protocols regarding social gathering.

We are committed to supporting all public health efforts to manage the COVID-19 situation, the company said in a news release. We are taking a measured approach, focusing our return to service on a select number of homeports where we have more significant operations that are easily accessible by car for the majority of our guests.

Royal Caribbean did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it, too, would resume cruise travel out of Galveston.

Galveston, the nations fourth-largest cruise port, has been hit hard by the global cruise line shutdown. The Galveston County Daily News reported that the citys Wharves Board of Trustees projected the port would lose $14 million in net income this year because of cruise cancellations.

A spokeswoman for the Port of Galveston said it would have a conference call with Carnival in the coming days regarding the preparation and support needed to resume cruise operations. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will also be involved in those discussions.

This announcement is great news for the port, our port partners, Galvestons tourism industry, cruise vacationers and everyone else who benefits from our cruise business, said Rodger Rees, CEO and director of the Port of Galveston, in a statement. We are looking forward to working with Carnival Cruise Lines and the agencies who oversee our cruise operations to ensure a safe, successful restart.

Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines is the largest brand owned by Carnival Corp., which also owns Princess, Holland America Line and other brands. Carnival Cruise Lines has 27 ships and transported 5 million passengers last year.

The new coronavirus has dealt a blow to the company, stranding some ships at sea with sick passengers. Multiple ships reported outbreaks and struggled to find places to dock. In early April, two Holland America cruises disembarked in Florida with at least nine passengers sick with COVID-19.

Carnival Cruise Lines halted new sailings on March 13. It initially expected to be able to sail again on April 10.

Still, parent Carnival Corp. is in strong financial shape, having raised nearly $6 billion in debt and equity since the crisis began.

Carnival Cruise Lines said it is offering future travel credits or refunds to passengers whose cruises are canceled. The company said it will engage government and health experts to ensure that it can safely sail in August.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

nick.powell@chron.com
Of the myriad ways researchers are fighting the spread of the coronavirus, studying Tweets may not be the first that come to mind. But now, as in past crises, tapping into one of the world's leading real-time messaging service can help identify new pandemic hotspots, highlight new symptoms, or interpret how people and communities are responding to orders to practice social distancing.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)'s expert data science team has facilitated social media analysis in the past, and has developed machine learning tools to better pull needles of insight out of the vast haystacks of the Twitterverse.

Starting in March, TACC began ingesting large amounts of tweets daily -- roughly 40 million messages, of which one million are unique. Combining their collection with similar efforts from groups at UT Austin, the University of Southern California, and George State University, they have extended their collection of COVID-19 related tweets back to January. (Last week, Twitter announced that it would be releasing new API endpoints to its own COVID-19 related tweets collection for approved developers and researchers.)

"There's a large amount of interest in these types of collections. It's very useful in data science," said Weijia Xu, who manages the Scalable Computational Intelligence group at TACC.

Today, TACC announced a new GitHub repository where interested researchers can access both pointers to raw Twitter data related to COVID-19 and large-scale analyses facilitated by TACC's supercomputers.

The first of the analyses available to researchers is a set of n-grams: contiguous sequences of words from a given sample of tweets. The top 1,000 one-, two-, and three-word sequences have been assembled for each day of the pandemic. Assembling even a single 1-gram from several million tweets could take up to an hour on a laptop due to the amount of data processing involved, but can be done in minutes on TACC's supercomputers.

The TACC research team, led by Xu, has also been working on topic modeling analyses, identifying terms that frequently appear in connection with each other, though not necessarily in order. These will be added to the GitHub repository in the coming weeks.

Both methods of clustering can be helpful in identifying trends in how the pandemic, and people's response to it, are evolving.

Future projects using the data include a searchable public database; entity analysis -- inspecting tweets for known entities such as public figures or organizations and returning information about those entities; and event detection -- automatically detecting the occurrence of events and categorizing them.

These efforts will be facilitated by tools developed at TACC, like the Domain Information & Vocabulary Extraction project, a National Science Foundation-funded effort to extract biological entities from publication and other text documents using machine learning, which has been adapted for other types of extraction.

TACC's main goal -- here, as in most things -- is to facilitate the research of others and power discoveries. "We're mostly interested in letting people access curated datasets and helping them do research," Xu said. "We're collecting, cleaning up, and processing data so it's ready for others to use."

Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) are among the first to express interest in using the TACC COVID-19 Twitter datasets for targeted research.

"The TACC COVID-19 Twitter collection will be invaluable in enabling us to model communication patterns and topics that emerge across stages of the disease," said Sharon Stover, a professor in the Moody College of Communications. "We may be able to compare the timeline to similar data from other countries such as China that experienced the epidemic earlier. This may lead us toward understanding when typical responses occur and help us to characterize how populations make sense of health pandemics at certain stages in an epidemic's process."

Strover is particularly interested in learning how one might segment tweets by certain population features to learn more about sub-networks that pass along certain information -- or ignore it.

Dhiraj Murthy, an associate professor of Journalism and Sociology at UT Austin and author of the first scholarly book about Twitter, plans to use the dataset for his academic work.

"My lab is in the very initial stages of using these data to study two research questions: To what extent is fake news, misinformation, and disinformation regarding COVID-19 present on social media platforms? And: Are social media platforms being used as venues for racist messaging against people of Chinese/Asian origin within COVID-19-related posts?"

Matt Lease, from the UT School of Information, has been using the database to research misinformation in collaboration with Murthy, and also to identify incidents of racist messaging. "The large dataset TACC is collecting, along with its computing and storage services, plus excellent researchers and staff, makes it a fantastic resource for researchers interested in studying and combatting the spread of racist messaging on Twitter."

Both in the moment, and for retrospective analyses, Twitter data can be an incredible resource.

Said TACC research associate Ruizhu Huang: "The large volume of tweets collected at TACC provides a valuable date source to explore various perspectives on COVID-19. And the storage and supercomputing power at TACC will tremendously speed up the data analysis process."

###

TACC welcomes interested scholars to reach out to collaborate or investigate the datasets. Please contact Weijia Xu for more information.
Were screwed. Thats what principal Kristina MacBury is hearing over and over again from her students at Sarah Pyle Academy.

Sarah Pyle is a dropout-recovery program in Wilmington, Del., and its students, ages 16 to 21, face a lot of hardships in the best of times: They may be the primary breadwinners in their families. Some have kids of their own; others are taking care of sick parents. Many are homeless.

Now, as a historic recession takes shape amid the pandemic, these students are worried about finding work to bolster their families earnings or losing jobs they already have. Theyre upset about the prospect of not getting a traditional graduationa major milestone for any young adult but one that may be especially hard-won for Sarah Pyles graduates.

I have kids whose parents are kicking them out because they dont have a job or because theyre not getting alongthey never got along, said MacBury. We have a significant amount of [students with] parents that either have cancer or other health issues and this really drove their anxiety through the roof.

See Also: Coronavirus and Schools

For many of these students, the school was a respite from tumultuous home lives, but like thousands of others across the country, its building is closed to in-person classes to rein in the spread of the coronavirus. All MacBury can do now is tell her students that she and the staff at Sarah Pyle have their backs and tend to their students mental and emotional needs as best they can from a distance.

I need you to worry about being balanced, about being centered, about being healthy, about using your strategies. If not, you know where to go to if you start feeling some kind of way, MacBury advises her students through phone calls, emails, and online meetings. Other kids have been reaching out, I dont feel like myself. Can you please help me, stay on the line with me while I call the mental-health hotline?

While these students needs may be especially acute, Sarah Pyle is not alone. Schools across the country are scrambling to prop up students emotionally and mentally during frightening, uncertain times when their ability to respond is greatly diminished.

For educators, school psychologists, and school counselors, who have traditionally relied heavily on in-person interactions to gauge and boost their students well-being, this period poses unique challenges and high stakes.

I think for school-based practitioners, our work has always been face to face with students, said Dede Bailer, the coordinator of psychological services at Virginias Fairfax County public schools, one of the nations largest districts. So, for us, the absence of the opportunity to see students face to face has been our biggest obstacle.

Nationwide Shortages

Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, many schools were straining under the burgeoning mental health demands of their students. In many areas, schools have become the de facto mental health-care providers for children.

Unfortunately, there is a shortage of mental health providers in general in many communities and so more has fallen upon the schools to address the mental health needs of kids, said John Kelly, a school psychologist at the Commack school district in New York and a former board director for the National Association of School Psychologists .

Anxiety, depression, and suicide rates have been steadily growing among school-age children. At the same time, there is a national shortage of school psychologists, according to NASP, to meet the rising need.

Now, add to that social isolation, anxiety over parents losing jobs, fears of loved ones falling ill, no respite from conflicts with family, and grief over death or missing important milestones such as graduation. The culmination of all of that will have a corrosive effect on students mental health, said Franci Crepeau-Hobson, a professor at Colorado Universitys School of Education and Human Development.

This is such a different animal, she said of the current situation, In that its not what we would call an acute traumatic stressorthose have a discrete beginning and end. This has a potential for chronic traumatic stress where people are walking around in this state of elevated arousal.

Living day in and out in a fight-or-flight mode taxes the brain and the body, said Crepeau-Hobson.

We cant access our cortex and higher-order thinking, she said. We know that chronic stress is associated with all kinds of physical illnesses and diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes  Then [there is] this increased risk for anxiety disorders and depression because people feel hopeless.

Struggling to Keep Up

Now, with school buildings shuttered and in-person meetings largely banned, schools are struggling to provide anywhere near the same level of mental health support to students remotely as they did before the pandemic.

While over 90 percent of district leaders have a plan in place for continuing to support their students mental health, less than a quarter say theyve been able to meet students needs to the same degree as before the pandemic, according to a recent survey by the Education Week Research Center . For urban schools, only 5 percent of superintendents say they have been able to provide the same level of mental health supports as before.

The kids Im most concerned about are the kids I havent heard back from, said Shawna Rader-Kelly, a school psychologist at Bozeman High School in Bozeman, Mont. The kids that are engaged in the learning and are in pretty supportive environments, they seem to be doing OK. For the others, Im not sure how to keep that support going except to keep checking in.

Rader-Kelly and one other school psychologist serve a school of 2,400 students. Theyre trying to keep tabs on the students they had already identified as at risk for mental health issues while also looking for warning signs among students who werent previously having issues.

We will look at a list of kids who were on our radar, she said. But were also reaching out to teachers and saying, if you have concerns because a kid hasnt engaged or a student has reached out to you  so they dont feel like theyre on an islandtrying to support a student who needs help. Were trying to open up those lines of communication so that we can continue to monitor those students that weve been concerned about but also keeping an eye open for students whose circumstances might have changed.

Privacy Issues Loom Large

Not being able to meet with students in person has been a big challenge for school psychologists and counselors. Another hurdle: Its tough to provide adequate confidentiality when meeting with students virtually.

Boston Public Schools is continuing to provide counseling services virtually to students and their parents. But its not as simple as just hopping on a Zoom meeting, said Andria Amador, the director of Behavioral Health Services at Boston Public Schools.

When youre seeing a child in your office at your school, you have a secure environment, she said. But in a home where there are other kids or other family members, or some of our families who are homeless  there may not be a physical location for the child to go and have a confidential conversation.

The district has been training its mental health staff since schools closed on how to provide teletherapy.

Instead of discussing deeply personal issues with students in ways that may run afoul of confidentiality rules, Amador said, school psychologists and counselors in her district are using that time to help students strengthen their coping skillswhether it be breathing exercises to manage anxiety, developing time-management strategies, or brainstorming ideas for how to get along with family members.

In Fairfax County, the district has started offering counseling sessions to all of the districts middle and high school students, regardless of whether they were previously considered at risk, as well as their parents. Parents can call in if they have concerns or are having issues with their children, said Bailer. So far, 60 percent of the appointments have been for parents.

On its COVID-19 resource page, the district also invites parents to submit tips and ideas for keeping families happy and occupied that the district then shares with other families.

Kelly, the school psychologist in New York, has focused on supporting teachers and parents, and helping them deal with their emotions so they can, in turn, help students.

Kids will take their cue from the adults around them, he said. Self-care is very important for adults.

While Kelly is giving teachers resources to teach students how to cope and regulate their emotionssuch as breathing or mindfulness exerciseshe is also encouraging the adults to model those skills, in addition to eating healthily and getting adequate sleep and exercise.

We are a profession that wants to help others, and so we struggle and become frustrated and demand certain things that right now are not feasible or possible, said Kelly. Instead of focusing on those limitations, really try to enhance or focus on the things that are possible: just maintaining those connections.

Relief for Some

For some select students, being out of school may have the reverse effect of improving their mental health, if they were being bullied or had extreme social or test anxiety before their school was shut down.

I have had some students who are actually doing OK because we have removed some of the things that have caused them stress and anxietyschool and social situations, said Rader-Kelly.

Even at Sarah Pyle, the dropout recovery school, some students are excelling as they work remotely.

We have kids who have gotten so many credits.  There are a lot of kids this is really working for them, said their principal, MacBury.

But that seemingly bright spot quickly pales in comparison to the avalanche of needs students will likely have when they return to school. Many students will be trying to make up for lost learning time while coping with job loss or death in their families, say the psychologists Education Week spoke to for this article.

Nobody can really predict the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic will affect students mental health long-term, but schools need to start planning for this right now, said Rader-Kelly, the school psychologist in Montana.

Even though it is so ambiguous right now, said Rader-Kelly. We have to talk about, how do we screen kids and support them when they return?

The bottom line, said Amador, the director of Behavioral Health Services at Boston Public Schools, is that more school psychologists are needed because when we come back from this there are going to be a lot of mental health needs.
The third phase of lockdown has commenced from today, and the central government has provided some economic activity to restart in green, orange and red zones. Strict curbs will, however, continue in the containment zones. The nation-wide lockdown was imposed on March 25 and will last till May 17.

On the extension of the lockdown, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said: "Time has come to re-open Delhi. The Delhi government will suggest to the Centre that only containment areas in the city be declared as red zones and not the entire districts". At present, all 11 districts in the city have been declared as 'red zones'.

Consequently, Kejriwal listed out activities that will be allowed and prohibited in the lockdown 3.0 (from May 4th to May 17th) in the national capital.

Following the "RED ZONE" guidelines prescribed by Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. Of India, Here is a list of all the activities which are PRESCRIBED and PROHIBITED in Delhi. For List of Containment Zones, Visit: https://t.co/HfiPOhETha pic.twitter.com/JgdJ5dAXXg - AAP (@AamAadmiParty) May 3, 2020

Activities prohibited in Delhi

1. Travel via air, train or metro

2. Interstate movement

3. No education institutes will be allowed to open

4. Hotels, cinema halls and malls will remain shut

5. No religious gathering allowed. Religious places will also remain shut

6. Political, social and cultural gatherings are also not allowed

7. Barbar shops, spas, salons will remain prohibited.

Activities allowed in Delhi but not in non-containment zones

1.Going out of home between 7 AM to 7PM

2. Private vehicles allowed with conditions. In four wheeler, two people are allowed at one point of time (driver plus passenger) and in a two-wheeler, only a single rider is allowed.

3.E-commerce services of only 'essential goods' will be allowed

4.Standalone shops

5. Self-employed service providers (example housemaids, plumber, carpenter)

6. Books and stationaries

7.Electrical goods, sanitary and hardware goods stores

8.Agricultural activities

9. Bank services

10. Shops selling essential items in malls and shopping complex.

Also read: Coronavirus India live updates: People queue up outside liquor shops amid lockdown 3.0; 42,533 total cases

Also read: Lockdown 3.0: Know what's allowed & what's not in Gautam Buddha Nagar from Monday
The number of COVID-19 cases in



Madhya Pradesh's worst hit Indore district rose to 1,611 after 43 more people tested positive for the disease in the last 24 hours , a senior health official said on Monday.

Besides, the death toll here rose to 77 after one more patient succumbed to the disease, Indore's Chief Medical and Health Officer Praveen Jadia said.

The 82-year-old victim, who died at a hospital here on Sunday, was also suffering from diabetes and had breathing problems since long, he said.

An analysis of the data showed that the COVID-19 death rate in the district was 4.78 per cent as on Monday morning. The death rate has shown a decline in the last 25 days.

So far, 362 patients have been discharged from hospitals after recovery.

Claiming that the COVID-19 situation in the district is coming under control, Jadia said, "If people follow the governments guidelines in the third phase of the lockdown, then the situation will further improve."



He said out of the total population of over 35 lakh in Indore, the COVID-19 survey has covered 28.33 lakh people.

"During the survey, we identified 9,000 people with symptoms of cold, cough, fever and breathing problems and have started the process of collecting their samples for coronavirus testing from Monday, he said.

Curfew is in force in the urban limits of Indore since March 25, after the first COVID-19 patient was found here.

All prohibitory orders will remain in force in Indore during the third phase of the lockdown that began from Monday, a district administration official said.

Private institutions and offices, shops, pubs, bars and liquor shops will not be opened, he said.

All religious places will also remain closed, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
(CNN)  Houston will get a live look at aviation history when World War II-era planes fly over the city next Saturday.

The Lone Star Flight Museum is organizing the Fight to the Finish Flyover to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day on May 8  the day Germany's unconditional surrender to Allied Forces was announced in 1945.

"While it is the mission of the museum to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, the Lone Star Flight Museum and its partners felt compelled to lift the spirits of the Houston community while we fight COVID-19," the museum said in a statement.

"The program name, Fight to the Finish, was originally a nod to the efforts of those that fought in World War II, but today has even more significance that anyone could have imagined."

The museum is flying nearly 30 historic warbirds on a path that darts over 18 neighborhoods in the Houston area, beginning and ending at Ellington Airport.

The flyover is set to include a B-52 "Devil Dog," a P-51 Mustang, a SB2C Helldiver, and more.

The flyover is planned with COVID-19 social distancing orders and guidance in mind.

"The FAA-approved flight path was designed to allow spectators to see the aircraft from the safety of their homes," the Lone Star Flight Museum said, telling spectators, "We are bringing the planes to you!"

Scores of people across the US watched as the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds conducted formation flights over Washington, Baltimore, and Atlanta on Saturday.

This story was first published on CNN.com "World War II-era planes will put on a show in the skies over Houston"
President Muhammadu Buhari has commiserated with the families of three University of Port Harcourt students reportedly murdered by their kidnappers and their bodies buried in a shallow grave in April.

The president, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Sunday, also extended condolences to the university authorities and the Rivers State Government over the unfortunate incident.

While describing the tragic occurrence as sad and heinous, Mr Buhari regretted that the evil perpetrators have cut short the prospectively bright journey of these youths.

He prayed that God would comfort all those who mourned these young students and grant their souls eternal rest.

While noting that the Nigerian Police Anti-Kidnapping Unit has apprehended one of the suspected perpetrators, the president further directed the police authorities to intensify the search for the remaining suspects and bring them to justice.

This administration will continue to equip the law enforcement and security agencies to bring to an end the evil activities of kidnappers in the country, he assured. (NAN)
The Japanese government's decision to extend the state of emergency over the coronavirus outbreak is putting further pressure on restaurants and other businesses in Japan.

Toyoshima Tadashi, 69, has run a restaurant for over four decades in Chofu City, Tokyo, but decided to close permanently after Prime Minister Abe Shinzo announced the decision at a news conference on Monday.

The restaurant, located inside a city-run complex that includes a concert hall, has been closed since late March. It saw sales plummet after events in the hall were cancelled due to the outbreak. Toyoshima says 450 reservations were cancelled.

He said he'd had high expectations for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and that he had never imagined he would be in such a bind.

Chofu City will likely provide Toyoshima with financial support for rent and utility bills for the March through May period.

But he still has trouble keeping his two employees on the payroll, as monthly sales dropped to zero. Before the outbreak, his restaurant racked up millions of yen in sales every month.

Watching Abe's news conference on Monday, he decided not to reopen. Toyoshima, who was a chef for nearly 50 years before the pandemic, says he has not cooked for more than two months and has lost his motivation.

Toyoshima said he doesn't understand why he has to suffer so much because of the coronavirus.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

The total number of coronavirus-infected people in Uzbekistan has reached 2,160, Trend reports on May 4 with reference to the Ministry of Health.

Within the last day, 66 people got infected. To date, 1,319 patients have fully recovered in the country, 10 have died.

On April 30, Uzbekistan's Special Republican Commission for the preparation of a program of measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the country introduced new measures with the quarantine regime.

From 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM, and from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM (local time) the citizens of the country are allowed to go out without special permission for the purposes of going to and from work and purchase of medicines and necessities.

Citizens are also allowed to walk near their homes, observing a social distance (intermediate distance of two meters) and wearing face masks.

In addition, the heads of higher education and research institutions, as well as professors, are allowed to continue their scientific work and other activities.

Recently, quarantine in Uzbekistan was extended until May 10.

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 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
A special train with more than 1,000 pilgrims left Ajmer for West Bengal Monday morning as part of an exercise to evacuate stranded people, officials said.

This is the third train to be operated by the North Western Railway (NWR) headquartered in Jaipur. Earlier, one train took 1,180 workers from Jaipur to Patna on around midnight on May 1. The second train went from Nagaur to Hatia in Jharkhand on Sunday with 905 workers on board.

Mondays train from Ajmer to Dankuni in West Bengal left at 11:25am with 1,186 passengers.

These are pilgrims who were stranded in Ajmer since the lockdown was first imposed on March 24, said Sreya Guha, principal secretary of forest and environment and tourism departments and in charge of transfer of stranded people between Rajasthan and West Bengal.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage.

The pilgrims had come to visit the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti and were stranded when the lockdown was announced to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The Dargah Committee, a management body for the shrine, said all stakeholders donated for rail fare of the pilgrims.

The Dargah committee, khadims (people who facilitate prayers) and Ajmer Sharif Diwan donated money to collect fare for the pilgrim. We gave 825,660 to the railways, said Shakil Ahmed, nazim (secretary) of Dargah Committee.

He said earlier the committee also paid for buses for sending 150 pilgrims to different parts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

Al pilgrims were screened before they boarded the train.

An official of NWR said no passenger on the special trains was charged fare; it was paid by the district administration. We dont know where they raised it through donations or any other means; all that we know is the railways got the money from the district administrations for each train, he said, requesting anonymity.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A looming fiscal crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has some of Northeast Ohios movers and thinkers again talking, some publicly, about building a regional government from among those communities that survive the fallout.

One of them is advocating for the consolidation of the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County into a metro government, a structure adopted elsewhere and explored by cleveland.com last year in its series Cleveland 2030, A Way Forward.

At the very least, they suggest that the potentially unprecedented financial hardships in store for many municipalities will require the regions Balkanized landscape to embrace more shared services or mergers in suburbia.

Cleveland.com tapped into the discussion, and received on-the-record responses from elected officials, academics and others in positions of influence across the region. Here are some highlights from what we were told:

Bernie Moreno, Blockchain entrepreneur and vice chair of the Cuyahoga Community College Foundation

Moreno believes some of our suburbs, including Brook Park, East Cleveland and Warrensville Heights, are financially terminal and should be combined with fiscally healthier municipalities.

No matter how well-intentioned their leaders, some struggling municipalities never will be able to generate the revenue necessary to adequately provide services, he said.

Cuyahoga County has 59 cities, villages and townships within its border. Moreno envisions a region with far fewer, and ideally just one, a combination of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.

We have to start getting to a glide path that gets us to a big consolidation, Moreno said.

But the focus doesn't have to be just on merging cities, he said. We could combine redundant and overlapping services such as economic development, planning and zoning under a single organization to make it easier for businesses to navigate.

Moreno recommends convening a group of bold leaders who can put aside their agendas and self-interests, as well as the pet projects of their friends, to make tough decisions on a new and sustainable structure for the county.

I see a huge train wreck coming if somethings not done, he said.

Joe Roman, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the regions chamber of commerce

Roman also believes the time is right for discussing changes in the way the region is governed given that in his opinion the pandemic already has eviscerated the local economy.

That should come as no surprise.

A year ago, before the coronavirus crisis emerged, Romans organization already was advocating for structural reforms to the regions tax system to alleviate what it considered to be an especially high tax burden on the regions population.

The GCP had commissioned a study that found Cuyahoga County residents were paying $632 more a year per capita than residents in a peer group of 10 large urban counties, from Buffalo to St. Louis.

Of the 10, Indianapolis and Nashville had the lowest per capita taxes. Both places also have regional governments.

Roman said he plans to hold County Executive Armond Budish to his promise to create a task force to look at potential structural reforms to the tax system in exchange for the partnerships endorsement of the county Health and Human Services tax increase.

The tax passed overwhelmingly on Tuesday and will raise an additional $35 million a year to pay for social services across the county.

Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish

When cleveland.com asked this week about the task force, Budish seemed puzzled.

If we said there will be a task force, there will be a task force, he said.

Budish went on to say the county already is pursuing structural efficiencies. He cited the county acquiring and operating Clevelands downtown jail, which he said is saving the city $5 million a year, and the consolidation of 911 dispatch centers around the county.

The county also is instituting changes as a result of the pandemic, allowing more employees to work from home and investing in the software and hardware to make that happen permanently.

We are different than we were a month ago as a county government, he said.

But does the fiscal stress of the pandemic make a better case for regionalism?

I think it certainly supports the notion that we have to find savings any way we can, Budish said.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson

We caught up with the mayor at his teleconference a week ago, and asked about potential changes in government that might result from the pandemic.

He said the requirement that cities balance their budgets could force some conversations about consolidation of services or even governments, but he offered no predictions.

"Whenever you have catastrophic events, there's always a new normal," Jackson said, and that applies to economic, social and political structures.

Jackson also made no mention during the teleconference of the potential financial crisis for his city if downtown-based companies continue to allow employees to work from home.

Such a scenario could prevent the city from collecting from 85% of those employees, who live in the suburbs but now pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the city of Cleveland.

Greg Lawson, research fellow at the Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based think tank

Lawson believes that economic fallout from the pandemic will dwarf that of the latest recession of more than a decade ago, and that Ohio municipalities such as Cleveland are particularly vulnerable because of their reliance on income taxes to fund their budgets.

This is probably an existential crisis for many cities or municipalities, he said.

That said, Lawson doesnt think a merger of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County is on the horizon. Instead, he said more municipalities may look to join neighbors that are already sharing services such as health departments or bulk purchases.

The next phase could extend to consolidating police or fire departments, Lawson said, or in some extreme situations, the dissolution or merging of suburban governments.

It will be kind of building up over time, he said.

Ayesha Bell Hardaway, a Case Western Reserve University law professor

Bell, who specializes in legal issues dealing with crime and policing, said consolidating firefighting and emergency medical services could make sense in some instances. She cited East Clevelands lack of resources and the donations other cities have made to East Clevelands fleet of emergency response equipment.

Crucial to such decisions will be making sure the savings add up ahead of time and that the consolidation does not result in a reduction in services, she said.

Case Western Reserve University Economics Professor Daniel Shoag

Shoag believes regional government as a general rule makes sense in Greater Cleveland where there has been relatively little population growth. But he also believes long-term decisions should not be made during desperate times.

Ideally, the federal government will help local governments stabilize, he said. Making permanent changes such as merging departments will take time and may not be the right reaction to what hopefully wont be that long of a shock.

Parma Mayor Tim DeGeeter

The demands of today are too great for some people to join the discussion about a future that might include shared services or a metro government. The mayor of Clevelands largest suburb is among them.

DeGeeter told cleveland.com his focus right now is on shoring up the citys finances and working with other local elected officials to convince Congress to allow federal coronavirus-related aid to be used to make up for budget shortfalls.
If this is the first time you've heard of a Big Red Shake at Burger Boy, you're not alone.

The Big Red-flavored specialty drink is the shake of the month at the San Antonio burger restaurant. The monthly spotlight is news for many customers, the restaurant said.

CURBSIDE: An updated list of San Antonio restaurants offering takeout and delivery

"Simply put, we took a San Antonio favorite, a drink that our customers love so much, and made it a shake flavor," Burger Boy said. "We like to think of the Big Red Shake as a Big Red float without the 'float.'"

The drink debuted in March 2017, but fans seemed to be surprised it existed when the restaurant made the monthly announcement over the weekend and started tagging their stay-at-home buddies for dinner ideas. The drink is available on the permanent menu for $2.59 plus tax.

Other unique flavors like Oreo, caramel and coconut are also available.

Burger Boy is continuing its drive-thru and curbside operation only at this time at all three locations. Though Gov. Greg Abbott is allowing restaurants to open dining rooms, Burger Boy told fans it is opting not to. The restaurant wants to take "extra precautions" for its food, customers and team.

The restaurant added special appreciation for customers who are keeping the iconic burgers in mind during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Being a small, local business, we are proud to be serving San Antonio during these unprecedented times," the restaurant said. "We appreciate all of the continued support from our community. We are doing our part to give back whenever we can as well."

Madalyn Mendoza covers news and puro pop culture for MySA.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @maddyskye
A man in his 20s been hospitalised with serious injuries after a "public order incident" in Co Tipperary yesterday evening.

The incident led to one person being arrested by local gardai.
Human remains of at least six people found at bottom of al-Hota gorge near Raqqa, HRW investigation shows.

ISIL (ISIS) used a deep gorge in northeast Syria as a dumping ground and mass grave for bodies of people it abducted and executed, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report.

Authorities need to remove the human remains from the al-Hota gorge located 85km (53 miles) north of Raqqa city and preserve the evidence for criminal proceedings against the killers, HRW urged in a statement on Monday.

ISIL controlled the area around the al-Hota gorge from 2013 to 2015.

By flying a camera-equipped drone into the 50m (164 feet) deep gorge, HRW discovered the remains of at least six people floating at the bottom.

Based on the state of decomposition, the bodies were dumped there long after ISIL had left the area, HRW said. The identities of those victims and their causes of death remain unknown.

Place of horror and reckoning

Geological maps and a 3D topographic model of al-Hota from the drone imagery suggest that the gorge goes deeper than the drone was able to see, so more human remains may lie below the waters surface, HRW said.

Al-Hota gorge, once a beautiful natural site, has become a place of horror and reckoning, Sara Kayyali, Syria researcher at HRW said.

Exposing what happened there, and at the other mass graves in Syria, is crucial to determining what happened to the thousands of the people ISIS executed and holding their killers to account.

Locals also recounted to HRW that when ISIL controlled the Raqqa area, its members threatened people with being thrown into al-Hota.

Three people told HRW they had been to al-Hota during the time of ISILs control and had seen bodies scattered along the gorges edge.

One man who had gone to collect desert truffles that grow in the area in March 2015 said he saw a body stuck on a protruding ledge.

This was a dumping area for bodies from all over, he told HRW. They [ISIL] brought them in from Raqqa, Deir al-Zor  nobody knows how many bodies were there.

An ISIL-recorded video posted on Facebook in 2014 shows a group of men throwing two bodies into the gorge.

HRW verified that the clothes on the men match those worn by two people who are shown in another video being executed by ISIL members.

More than 20 mass graves across Syria containing thousands of bodies have been found in areas formerly held by ISIL.

But efforts to exhume these mass graves have been faltering due to a fluid security situation, limited resources and minimal outside support, HRW said.

The al-Hota gorge is currently controlled by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, while Raqqa city remains under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Kayyali said whichever authority controls the gorge has an obligation to protect and preserve the site.

They should facilitate the collection of evidence to hold ISIS members accountable for their horrendous crimes, as well as those who dumped bodies in al-Hota before or after the ISIS rule, Kayyali said.

HRW added that authorities need to ensure the area is clear of unexploded munitions so that forensic experts can descend into the gorge, remove the bodies and begin with identification.
But because the arguments were widely broadcast by media outlets, it made history as the first time the public could listen in remotely as advocates made their cases. The court doesnt allow cameras in its courtroom, has never allowed simultaneous audio broadcasts and only rarely allows tapes of its hearings to be released the same day.
A 69-yar-old woman told police she fired off blasts from a shotgun to send a message to kids she said were harassing her got a different kind of message Friday night when authorities hauled her off to jail.

Debra Marie Keffer, of Springfield, was accused of unlawful use of a weapon and booked into the Lane County Jail, according to the Springfield Police Department.

Police received multiple calls about gunshots in the 1200 block of E Street at about 9:30 p.m. When arrived they spotted a person carrying what appeared to be a shotgun moving between a car and a house.

Police surrounded the house, closed off the street and eventually was able to reach Keffer by phone in her home.

Police said she was cooperative, saying she had been harassed by kids and wanted to send a message. Authorities were unable to find the kids.

The shotgun and other firearms were taken from the home, and Keffer arrested.

-- Tom Hallman Jr; thallman@oregonian.com; 503-221-8224; @thallmanjr

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
United States Postal Service worker unloads packages in Manhattan during outbreak of coronavirus disease.

Reuters

Police in Washington state are asking for help in identifying two women who dressed as nurses and stole packages from people's homes.

The Kennewick Police Department wrote in a Facebook post on May 2 that they were investigating a case of "porch piracy."

"Both appear to dresses [sic] as nurses and we do not believe they are actual nurses," police wrote.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Police in Washington state are asking for help in identifying two women who dressed as nurses and stole packages from outside of people's homes.

The Kennewick Police Department wrote in a Facebook post on May 2 that they were investigating a case of "porch piracy."

Pictures provided by the police department show the women wearing blue nursing scrubs and one woman was even photographed wearing surgical gloves. The women also appear to be wearing lanyards that nurses typically use for identification.

"Both appear to dresses [sic] as nurses and we do not believe they are actual nurses," the department wrote.

The two women were pictured driving a red sedan.

"The nurses we are fortunate to know only give their time, lives, and take the vitals of their patients (not their property)," police added.

Michelle Santiago had a package stolen from her home on Wednesday and told CNN that she captured the incident on her home security system. According to CNN, Santiago is a nurse and her husband is a law enforcement officer.

"I could see the FedEx driver drop the package off around 3 o'clock that afternoon in one video and in (a following) video this woman walks up and takes it less than 5 minutes later," she told CNN, adding that other people in her neighborhood had reported similar instances.

According to researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1.7 million packages are lost or stolen every day in the US. And CNBC reported that market research firm Rakuten Intelligence found that online spending in the US has increased by over 30% from the beginning of March through mid-April, compared to the year prior.

Read the original article on Insider
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Michelle Fitzpatrick (Agence France-Presse) Frankfurt am Main, Germany  Mon, May 4, 2020 07:09 625 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5ade81 2 Environment German,horse,lockdown,coronavirus,COVID-19,pandemic,animals Free

Every morning white mare Jenny leaves her stable to stroll through her Frankfurt neighborhood. Bringing trams to a halt and smiles to people's faces, the free-roaming horse is brightening up the coronavirus lockdown for many.

"Everyone else has to live with coronavirus restrictions but Jenny is as free as ever," her owner Anna Weischedel, 65, told AFP.

For more than a decade Jenny has wandered solo through her local Fechenheim area, a green part of Frankfurt on the bank of the Main river.

She explores the high street, trots along the tram line to a nearby field and spends hours nibbling on patches of grass.

The beloved Arabian mare, already a venerable 25 years old, has always been a hit with residents. But never more so than in recent weeks.

"People seem to notice her more because they have more time. A lot of passers-by stroke her, maybe because they are missing some human contact," said Anna.

Like many countries, Germany has closed schools, playgrounds and many businesses to curb the outbreak.

Though it has slowly started easing some lockdown measures, people are encouraged to limit their social interactions and keep their distance.

But there are no rules against snuggling with Jenny.

"It makes us so happy to see Jenny, we miss her when we don't pass her on our walks," said Gaby Marxen, 61, holding two dogs on a leash.

Johanna, 8, who was also out walking a dog, said: "My brother and I like to pet her."

To avoid misunderstandings, since people have in the past called the police to report an unaccompanied horse, Jenny wears a note around her neck that reads: "I haven't run away, I'm just out for a walk."

The daily ramble ends at around 4:00 pm, when Anna's 80-year-old husband, Werner, jumps on his e-scooter to find Jenny along her usual route and tell her it's home time.

"And then she slowly heads back," said Werner, a retired flower shop owner.

Read also: Vienna's horse-drawn carriages ride again, for food delivery

'Very patient'

In all her years of ambling, Jenny has never caused trouble and local authorities have embraced their equine celebrity, the couple said.

"She's a very patient horse, it takes a lot to stress her out," said Anna.

The only thing that upsets Jenny is the noise of fireworks, something she shares with Werner who is haunted by the sounds of bombs dropping on Frankfurt when he was a child during World War II.

"Jenny and I spend New Year's Eve cowering together," Werner smiled.

Jenny's animal-loving owners, who also have a near-toothless chihuahua and look after more than 100 birds, are taking the coronavirus pandemic in their stride.

"We survived the war, we'll survive corona," shrugged Werner.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 11:48:39|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A man rides a bicycle near a commercial street in Wellington, New Zealand, May 4, 2020. New Zealand reported no new COVID-19 case over the past 24 hours, the first time in 49 days, with the total number of infections staying at 1,487, the Ministry of Health said on Monday. (Xinhua/Guo Lei)

WELLINGTON, May 4 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand reported no new COVID-19 case over the past 24 hours, the first time in 49 days, with the total number of infections staying at 1,487, the Ministry of Health said on Monday.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told a press conference that one probable case has been reclassified as confirmed, so the total case number remained unchanged.

The death toll stood at 20, Bloomfield said, adding 1,276 cases have now recovered and currently four people are in hospital, with none in ICU.

The country moved from Alert Level 4 to Alert Level 3 last Tuesday and will stay for at least two weeks at Level 3 before a further review and Alert Level decision on May 11. Enditem
Lockdown 3.0 begins today and India Coronavirus latest news: India's coronavirus tally has touched 42,836, including 29,685 active cases, 1,389 deaths, 11,761 cured or discharged, and 1 migrated patient. Though cases are rising every day, the government claims it has been able to curb coronavirus spread in most parts of India. As the government allows partial opening up of the economy from today, India could, however, see a spurt in cases if social distancing norms are not followed by people. Several visuals are coming in from different parts of the country today, especially Delhi, where people were seen queueing up in large numbers outside liquor stores while flouting social distancing norms.

Follow all the latest updates on coronavirus pandemic in India on BusinessToday.In blog here:

10:35 pm: West Bengal govt allows salons, inter-district buses in green zones, private offices outside containment zones

West Bengal government on Monday allowed opening of salons and resumption of intra-district bus services in green zones. Apart from this, private offices are allowed to open between 10 AM to 6 PM with up to 25 per cent strength outside containment zones.

10:25 pm: Restaurants face problems in Bengaluru amid lockdown

Restaurants face problems in Bengaluru amid continuing lockdown. Sayyed Jameel, owner of Deagh Restaurants, says, "Our business is down by about 80 per cent. Customers are also not visiting our outlets as people do not have money to dine in restaurants".

10:15 pm: Rahul Gandhi to discuss coronavirus with Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee on Tuesday

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will discuss the critical issues of Covid-19 and its economic impact with Nobel Laureate Prof. Abhijit Banerjee on Tuesday.

Tomorrow at 9 AM, tune in to watch my conversation with Nobel Laureate, Abhijit Banerjee on dealing with the economic fall out of the #COVID19 crisis.



To join the conversation & for regular video updates, subscribe to my YouTube channel: https://t.co/4WBysSnKTg  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 4, 2020

10:10 pm: Need new template of globalisation in post-COVID world: PM Modi at NAM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that the novel coronavirus pandemic had exposed the limitations of the current global order and post the pandemic, the world needs a new template of globalisation based on fairness, equality and humanity.

#COVID19 has shown us the limitation of existing international system. In the post COVID world, we need a new template of globalisation based on fairness, equality & humanity. We need international institutions that are more representative of today's world: PM Modi at NAM summit pic.twitter.com/WaOenE9ibh  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

10:00 pm: IGNOU postpones June term end exam due to COVID-19

Indira Gandhi National Open University has postponed the June, 2020 Term End Examinations, which were originally scheduled from 1 June, 2020, in the wake of the lockdown due to COVID-19. The new revised set of dates for exams will be decided later, said Prof. Nageshwar Rao, VC IGNOU.

9:55 pm: Doubling time of COVID-19 cases improves to 12 days from 3.4 before lockdown: Health Ministry

"Doubling time of COVID-19 cases has improved from 3.4 days before lockdown to 12 days today. Lockdown and containment efforts are yielding results, our challenge now is how to further improve these results, to further increase doubling time," says Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare on Monday.

9:50 pm: Telangana reports 3 new cases of COVID-19

Three new cases of coronavirus have been reported in Telangana, taking total number of cases to 1,085. Of this, 471 cases are active, while 29 patients have lost their lives due to the disease, says Telangana Health Department.

9:40 pm: 6 deaths, 175 fresh coronavirus positive cases reported in Rajasthan

As many as six deaths and 175 new COVID-19 positive cases reported in Rajasthan, taking the total number of cases in the state to 3061. A total of 77 deaths have been recorded in the state so far, says state health department.

9.20 pm: Coronavirus latest updates: DRDO develops UV blaster

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed an Ultra Violet (UV) Disinfection Tower for rapid and chemical free disinfection of high infection prone areas. The UV Blaster is useful for surfaces like electronic equipment, computers and other gadgets in laboratories and offices that cannot be disinfected with chemical methods.

9.15 pm: Bringing Indians home

Repatriation of Indian nationals will begin on May 7 with United Arab Emirates. Naval ships will be used to bring back Indian workers from UAE. As far as flight operations are concerned, DGCA had prepared a schedule starting from May 15, reports said.

9.15 pm: Train fare row: Migrant workers charged full fare for Shramik train to UP, says report

Even Gujarat, a BJP-ruled state, took full fare from labourers before allowing them to board the Shramik special train, reported India Today TV. Labourers boarding the special train from Nadiad, near Ahmedabad, to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh were charged Rs 645 for every ticket.

8.52 pm: Coronavirus hotspots in Tamil Nadu

Koyembedu Market Complex in Chennai has been temporarily shut after it emerged as a hotspot for coronavirus cases. A week ago, two traders from the market tested positive for COVID-19. Over the week, more than 300 positive cases across various districts of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, Cuddalore, Ariyalur, Sivagangai, Perambalur, Villupuram and Kanchipuram, were traced to the Koyembedu cluster.

8.19 pm: Coroanvirus India latest updates

Ministry of Civil Aviation has informed that Air India, Alliance Air, IAF and private carriers undertook 443 flights under Lifeline Udan initiative. Air India and Alliance Air conducted 265 of these flights. Cargo weighing 821.07 tonnes has been transported so far.

8.17 pm: Coronavirus cases in Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh Health Department posted 121 new coronavirus cases today. This takes the total number of cases in the state to 2,766. SO far, 754 patients have been cured and discharged, while 50 others have lost their lives to the virus, informed State Health Department.

8.15 pm: Gujarat coronavirus cases latest updates

Gujarat Health Department has reported 376 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases in the state now stands at 5,804, including 1,195 people recoveries and 319 deaths.

8.13 pm: Tamil Nadu coronavirus lockdown latest updates

Tamil Nadu government has announced opening TASMAC outlest, which are state-run liquir shops, from May 7. These outlest will not be opened in coronavirus containment zones, though.

8.04 pm: Dharavi corona cases latest updates

Dharavi region in Mumbai posted 42 new coronavirus cases today, informed Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. This takes the total number of COVID-19 cases in Dharavi to 632, including 20 deaths

7.53 pm: Karnataka COVID-19 latest updates

Karnataka government has asked industries to submit an online self-declaration that they are adhering to the standard operating procedure for resuming operations. Under Lockdown 3.0, state government has allowed certain industries and IT/ITES companies to resume operations in urban areas and all industries in rural areas outside containment zones.

7.52 pm: Jammu and Kashmir coronavirus latest updates

Jammu and Kasmir reported 25 new COVID-19 cases reported in today, including 1 from Jammu division and 24 from Kashmir division. Total coronavirus cases in the Union Territory stands at 726, including 415 active cases, informed Department of Information and Public Relations, Government of Jammu and Kashmir.

7.02 pm: Coronavirus in Punjab latest updates

Punjab has reported 132 new coronavirus cases today, taking the total number of cases in the state to 1,232. As of now, according to Punjab Health Department, there are 1,081 active COVID-19 cases in the state, of which 3 are on ventilator support. Punjab has seen 23 patients succcumb to the virus.

6.47 pm: COVID-19 in Himachal Pradesh latest updates

Himachal Pradesh reported that number of active coronavirus cases in the state has decreased to 1. According to State Health Department, 40 COVID-19 cases were identified in the state so far, out which 1 person succumbed to the virus.

6.43 pm: Coronavirus in Odisha latest updates

Odisha government has allowed inter-dustrict and intra-district movement of buses in green zones. Buses will accomodate only half of their seating capacity.

Odisha govt modifies it's earlier order to allow plying of buses on intra-district & inter district routes in green zones. The buses will ply with passengers up to 50 per cent of their seating capacity. #CoronavirusLockdownpic.twitter.com/zTP38h1G4C  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

6.27 pm: India coronavirus latest updates

India will bring back is nationals stranded abroad in a phased manner, starting May 7. The stranded Indians would be ferried by aircraft and naval ships. Centre stated that a Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) has been prepared in this regard. To this end, Indian Embassies and High Commissions are preparing a list of distressed Indian citizens. It will be a paid facility.

6.20 pm: West Bengal COVID-19 latest updates

West Bengal posted 61 new coronavirus cases today, taking the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state to 1,259. The death toll due to COVID-19 in West Bengal stands at 61, with 11 deaths in the last 24 hours, informed State Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha.

6.18 pm: Delhi Coronavirus updates: CM Arvind Kejriwal talks to denizens of national capital as Lockdown 3.0 begins with certain relaxations

#WATCH I appeal to people of Delhi to ensure three things- wear masks when you step outdoors, practice social distancing and sanitize/wash your hands frequently: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pic.twitter.com/XbFSQ6xC0t  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

6.16 pm: Lockdown 3.0: Railways paying 85% of migrants' train fare, remaining borne by states, says Centre

On the controversy over charging train fare from distressed migrant labourers, Centre clarified that Railways is paying 85 per cent of fare and the remaining 15 per cent is being borne by the states. Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry clarified that all states, except one or two, are cooperating with the Centre on this.

6.03 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:

5.48 pm: Coronavirus in India latest updates

According to latest data from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in India reached 42,836. This includes 29,685 active cases, 1,389 deaths, 11,761 cured or discharged, and 1 maigrated patient. India reported 2,573 new cases and 83 deaths in the past 24 hours.

5.45 pm: Coronavirus in Delhi latest updates

I appeal to people of Delhi to ensure three things- wear masks when you step outdoors, practice social distancing and sanitize/wash your hands frequently, said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

5.25 pm: Coronavirus in Tamil Nadu latest updates

Tamil Nadi Health Department reported 527 more comfirmed COVID-19 cases in the state. This takes the total number of coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu to 3,550.

527 more people have tested positive for #COVID19 in Tamil Nadu taking the total number of cases in the state to 3550: State Health Department pic.twitter.com/XgggpSfi3T  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

5.20 pm: Coronavirus in Karnataka latest updates

37 new #Coronavirus positive cases have been confirmed in Karnataka from 5:00 PM yesterday to 5:00 PM today. Total number of cases in the state stands at 651: State Health Department pic.twitter.com/8ssIIOgSe5  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

5.15 pm: PM Narendra Modi address Non Alignment Movement Summit via video conferencing on India's strategy to curb coronavirus

Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends 'Non-Aligned Movement' Summit via video conferencing#COVID19pic.twitter.com/fe7NA9E7ky  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

5.07 pm: Coronavirus in Kerala latest updates

No new cases of coronavirus were reported in Kerala today, informed CM Pinarayi Vijayan. The total number of positive cases in the state is 499, including 34 active cases, he added.

5.03 pm: IN PICTURES: Long queues outside liquor stores in Kolkata

West Bengal: Long queue outside a #liquorshop in Kolkata pic.twitter.com/SjgJIWZK1v  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

5.00 pm: Liquor shops open in Goa

Liquor shops have opened in Goa after more than a month. An official said people observed social distancing rules while standing in queues. "Wine shops across Goa opened on Monday but there was no rush as such by people. We have adopted 'no mask, no liquor' policy to ensure that social distancing norms are followed strictly," said Goa Liquor Traders' Association president Dattaprasad Naik.

4.55 pm: Migrant ticket fare row: TMC bats for free tickets

TMC has said that the Centre should ensure free train travel for migrant workers. "The labourers should be brought back home for free. Why is the railway ministry charging them? It is the duty of the Central government to ensure safe and free travel of the migrant workers to their homes," senior TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi.

4.50 pm: Goa corona updates

A Foreigner Regional Registration official in Goa said that there are over 2,000 foreign nationals in Goa. So far, 6,000 people have been evacuated from the state. There were 8,000 foreign nationals in Goa when the lockdown began.

4.45 pm: Maharashtra coronavirus cases

Maharashtra govt said that 35,000 migrant workers have been sent back home by trains. Medical check-up and other precautions were undertaken before sending the workers home. The govt said that they are sending more people after conducting a primary medical check-up.

4.40 pm: Punjab seeks special trains

Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh has asked Home Minister Amit Shah to intervene and arrange for special trains for the next 10-15 days. He said that there are migrant workers in the state who must be returned to their home states.

4.35 pm: Liquor shops in Andhra Pradesh see long queues

People have crowded outside liquor shops in Andhra Pradesh as police personnel can be seen chasing them away. Social distancing norms have been flouted there also.

#WATCH Andhra Pradesh: Long queue seen outside a liquor shop in Chittoor; social distancing norms flouted. pic.twitter.com/v9IgIrZGqQ  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

4.28 pm: Social distancing must, otherwise cases will spike: MHA

Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agrawal says historically it has been noted that if social distancing is not respected when social mobility is allowed, chances of disease transmission increase rapidly once restrictions are eased.

4.24 pm: Amitabh Kant on aspirational districts

As of now, there are about 610 cases of COVID-19 in 112 aspirational districts which is considered fairly low at less than 2 per cent of the national level of infections. Of these, six districts have reported first case after April 21, says Amitabh Kant, Chairman of Empowered Group 6.

In pandemics such as #COVID19, historically it has been noted that if social distancing is not respected when social mobility is allowed, chances of disease transmission increase rapidly once restrictions are eased: Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agrawal pic.twitter.com/QAWgd9ZESn  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

4.21 pm: India reports highest number cured patients

As of now, as many as 11,706 people have been cured. In the last 24 hours, 1,074 people have been cured. "This is the highest number in terms of cured patients noted till date. Our recovery rate is now 27.52 per cent. The total number of COVID19 cases now stand at 42,533," says Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry.

4.16 pm: MHA on inter-state cargo movement

The MHA has asked states to ensure that there are no issues in inter-state cargo movement. MHA Control Room Number 1930 and NHAI helpline number 1,033 may be used by drivers/transporters to lodge any complaint pertaining to lockdown: MHA Joint Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava.

4.14 pm: Watch health ministry's dealy briefing on coronavirus

As of now, there are about 610 cases of #COVID19 in 112 aspirational districts which is considered fairly low at less than 2 per cent of the national level of infections. Of these, six districts have reported first case after April 21: Amitabh Kant, Chairman of Empowered Group 6 pic.twitter.com/D06HGWElpp  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

4.11 pm: UPSC civil services Prelims 2020 exam postponed

In view of the prevailing coronavirus lockdown, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), on Monday, decided to postpone the civil services preliminary examination "until further notice". The UPSC prelims exams were scheduled to be held on May 31. In a meeting held on Monday, the commission along with its chairman Arvind Saxena said the fresh date of the examination will be made available on May 20, after assessing the situation.

Also read: Coronavirus lockdown: UPSC civil services Prelims 2020 exam, postponed; new announcement on May 20

4.05 pm: 57-year-old Pune ASI dies of coronavirus

A 57-year-old assistant sub inspector of Pune police on Monday died of coronavirus infection in a private hospital, officials said. He had tested positive for the virus in the last week of April and succumbed at around 1pm, Pune Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Shisave said.

4.00 pm: Students not to pay fare; migrants to get full refund: Nitish

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made it clear on Monday that his government will bear full expenses towards the homeward journey of students and migrant workers stranded outside the state because of the lockdown, in a rebuff to the opposition which has accused him of leaving them in the lurch. In a video message, the chief minister said train fares of students were being paid directly by his government to the railways, while migrant workers will be reimbursed the entire expenses they incurred on the journey once they have completed their 21-day quarantine after reaching Bihar. PTI

3.52 pm: Noida containment zones divided into 2 categories

The authorities have divided containment zones in Uttar Pradesh's Noida into two categories -- areas that have at least one positive coronavirus case and those with more than one case. The perimeter of former category areas will be 400 meters, while the perimeter for the other area will be 1 km.

3.39 pm: Most states paying for migrants' travel

Amidst criticism that the railways was charging stranded migrant workers for ferrying them home, sources said payments for 34 Shramik Special trains that have been run so far have been made by the state governments, barring Maharashtra. - PTI

3.32 pm: Remdesivir likely to be available in the US from next week

Antiviral drug Remdesivir, approved by the US food and regulatory body for emergency use to treat the COVID-19 patients, is expected to be available by the next week, the CEO of the company manufacturing the medicine has said. The announcement was made on Sunday by Dan O'Day, CEO of Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical company making the vaccine. The US is the worst-affected country in the world with over 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and more than 67,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.

3.28 pm: Maharashtra Congress on ticket fare row

The Maharashtra Congress has said it will bear fare for migrants being transported to their native states on 'Shramik Special' trains amid COVID-19 lockdown, accuses the Modi government of leaving stranded workers to fend for themselves.

3.15 pm: Clash between police, migrant workers

A clash erupts between migrant workers and police in Surat. The workers are demanding that they be sent back to their native places. The total coronavirus tally in the state stands at 5,428, including 290 deaths.

Till now, 11,706 people have been cured. In the last 24 hours, 1074 people have been cured.This is the highest number in terms of cured patients noted till date. Our recovery rate is now 27.52%. Total number of COVID19 cases is now 42533: Lav Agrawal, Joint Secy, Health Ministry pic.twitter.com/cyf6HDy5VK  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

3.06 pm: Bengal has highest COVID-19 mortality rate: IMCT

West Bengal has the highest mortality rate in the country at 12.8 per cent, Inter Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) chief Apoorva Chandra wrote in his final observations to state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, before leaving for Delhi on Monday. "This extremely high mortality rate is a clear indication of low testing, weak surveillance and tracking," Chandra said in the letter. A discrepancy has been brought to the fore in the number of COVID-19 cases reported by the state in its medical bulletins and its communication with the Union government, the letter said.

3.00 pm: Tripura sends back 33,000 migrant workers

The government of Tripura, along with the help of central government, have decided to sent back 33,000 migrant workers to their respective states by train.

#WATCH Gujarat: A clash erupts between migrant workers & police in Surat. The workers are demanding that they be sent back to their native places. pic.twitter.com/aiMvjHGukY  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.50 pm: BSF jawan in West Bengal contracts corona

A BSF jawan working with the Centre's inter-ministerial team (IMCT) has tested positive. After the diagnosis 50 personnel were put in quarantine. The BSF jawan worked as a driver and was touring with the IMCT to West Bengal. He has been admitted to a state-run isolation facility.

2.45 pm: Maharashtra COVID-19 updates

Total number of cases in Thane district has crossed 1,183 as on Sunday night. There are 300 cases each in Thane and Navi Mumbai municipal corporation limits, while there are 200 cases in Kalyan Dombivli area. In Palghar district, the number of cases are at 177. Maharashtra has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country at 12,974.

2.40 pm: Tripura send 33,000 migrant workers by train

The Tripura government said that the state has 33,000 migrant workers and their families who are stranded. It said that these migrant workers are mostly from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal. They have been sent back to their homes.

#WATCH Gujarat: A clash erupts between migrant workers & police in Surat. The workers are demanding that they be sent back to their native places. pic.twitter.com/aiMvjHGukY  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.35 pm: Himachal Pradesh corona news

As lockdown norms were relaxed in the state of Himachal Pradesh, people flocked to shops. People gathered in large numbers outside shops in Shimla that were opened after 40 days on Monday. Government offices also reopened with 30 per cent staff. Public transport is still shut.

2.33 pm: Jharkhand coronavirus cases: No lockdown relaxations

Jharkhand government has decided not to relax lockdown restrictions. "It was felt that there is a need to take a cautious approach as many of the migrant workers have started entering the state from various states affected severely by COVID-19. It was accordingly decided not to implement any new relaxation in all three zones," according to the minutes of the meeting conducted on Sunday, a copy of which was released to the media.

2.28 pm: Lockdown 3.0: Ola, Uber resume services slowly

Cab aggregators Ola and Uber have resumed services in certain parts of the country, including in Ghaziabad.

We are leaving West Bengal today after 15 days. We visited many locations&made report as per our observation. Report will be submitted to the Centre. Primary observation is that improvement is needed: Vineet Joshi, IMCT Team Leader for Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri&Kalimpong. #COVID19pic.twitter.com/EINEE51hIc  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.23 pm: Salons open in Gurugram

Saloons open in Gurugram following revised lockdown guidelines issued by Ministry of Home Affairs that has been extended till May 17. A salon owner says,"Salon has been sanitised completely.1 worker is present at the salon & only 1 customer is allowed inside at a time."

Govt of Tripura along with the help of Central Govt have decided to sent back 33,000 migrant workers to their respective states from Tripura largely by train: Chief Minister of Tripura Biplab Kumar Deb. #CoronavirusLockdownpic.twitter.com/mEKhWYciN2  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.17 pm: People outside a liquor vend in Andhra Pradesh

Long queue seen outside a liquor shop in Muppalla village in Chandarlapadu mandal of Krishna District.

Govt of Tripura along with the help of Central Govt have decided to sent back 33,000 migrant workers to their respective states from Tripura largely by train: Chief Minister of Tripura Biplab Kumar Deb. #CoronavirusLockdownpic.twitter.com/mEKhWYciN2  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.14 pm: People throng liquor shops after relaxation

People line up outside liquor shops in Mumbai after the state govt allowed standalone shops, including liquor shops, to open from today except for the containment zones. Several states have reported violation of social distancing norms after scores of people were seen flouting rules.

Ghaziabad: Cab aggregators Ola & Uber resumed their services today. Mani, an Ola driver says, "I suffered losses due to suspension of cab services. Now, I am very happy that the services have been resumed. I will follow social distancing norms during the rides". #lockdownpic.twitter.com/McW5B0fasA  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 4, 2020

2.05 pm: Many liquor shops closed in Delhi after social distancing violations

Authorities decided to shut liquor and wine shops in Karol Bagh and East Delhi after several people were seen flouting social distancing norms as the government decided to open liquor shops. "In Karol Bagh, the Delhi People has closed a certain liquor store after people were seen flouting social distancing norms," Maninder Singh, SHO, Karol Bagh, told News 18.

1.57 pm: Non-essential shops opened in Chennai

As India enters the third phase of the lockdown, mobile phone, electronic and stationery shops have been opened in Chennai based on the guidelines issued by the state government.

Haryana: Salons open in Gurugram following revised lockdown guidelines issued by Ministry of Home Affairs that has been extended till May 17. A salon owner says,Salon has been sanitised completely.1 worker is present at the salon & only 1 customer is allowed inside at a time. pic.twitter.com/iQGGZ56E2w  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

1.53 pm: Jharkhand has not charged migrants for ticket fare, says minister

The Jharkhand government did not charge a single penny, says the state Rural Development Minister. Also, the state has not provided any major relaxation in the lockdown 3.

1.47 pm: Bank credit rises sharply in March

The bank credit growth to various sectors saw a significant surge in March, even as the economic activity halted in the second fortnight of the month. The credit to NBFC sector grew by a steep Rs 1.15 lakh crore, the highest since January 2008, the SBI Research's Ecowrap said.

Also read: Bank credit rises sharply in March, NBFC credit highest since Jan 2008, says SBI report

1.41 pm: Govt faces backlash for collecting ticket fares

The government faced backlash on Monday for collecting ticket fares from migrant workers onboard the Shramik Special trains that are ferrying stranded migrant labourers across the country. As pressure from opposition leaders mounted, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that 85 per cent of the fare has been subsidised and 15 per cent of the fare would be paid by the states.

Also read: Lockdown 3.0: Who pays for migrants' tickets? Here's what Railways' guidelines say

12.30 pm: MP govt not to charge fare from migrant labourers

The MP govt orders that railway fares will not be charged from labours. All state coordinators, who are responsible for their respective states, should convey this message to state nodel officers and railways. The state government will bear the entire railway fare cost.

1.22 pm: Centre's IMCT attacks Bengal govt

The Inter-Ministerial Central Team writes to West Bengal Chief Secretary on its final day in the state. "State needs to be transparent and consistent in reporting figures and not play down spread of virus," writes IMCT leader Apurva Chandra.

#WATCH Andhra Pradesh: Long queue seen outside a liquor shop in Muppalla village in Chandarlapadu mandal of Krishna District. #CoronavirusLockdownpic.twitter.com/1AjAfREqFP  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

1.08 pm: Dr Harsha Vardhan relaxations in Delhi

Visuals at liquor shops in Delhi is disturbing and against the social distancing norms

It is disappointing that such things are happening.

Delhi is in red zone and strictness required here

Every day numbers is going up in Delhi, therefore, control and containment required here

Our Corona curve is stable and our doubling rate is increasing

I don't wish to comment on Sonia Gandhi remarks, but it is Modi govt who has started these special trains on state's request

We are in advance stage in vaccine research and are also manufacturing diagnostic kits in India.

1.04 pm: Don't charge from migrants: Maharashtra CM

Foreign workers are allowed to go home as the lockdown has been relaxed. The Centre is requested not to charge ticket price from migrants as people's financial condition has deteriorated due to coronavirus.

Maharashtra: People line up at liquor shops in Mumbai after state govt allowed standalone shops including liquor shops to open from today except for the containment zones. #CoronavirusLockdownpic.twitter.com/5emiUA73nT  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.57 pm: Economic activity resumes in Karnataka

Several employees and workers of a garment factory in Peenya Industrial Area in Bengaluru could be seen rejoing work after the factories opened amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Tamil Nadu: Mobile phone, electronic and stationery shops have been opened in Chennai based on the guidelines issued by the state government. #COVID19pic.twitter.com/6Lo3rPsSDq  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.48 pm: Punjab-Maharashtra indulge in blame game

Punjab are facing more problems as the Maharashtra government did not conduct testing of people who returned from Hazur Sahib in Nanded. "If they had not conducted tests, then at least they should have informed us about it. We would have acted accordingly," Punjab Health Minister Balbir S Sidhu.Notably, Punjab witnessed a spurt in cases after pilgrims from Hazur Sahib in Nanded returned to the state.

IMCT writes to West Bengal Chief Secretary on their final day in the state. State needs to be transparent & consistent in reporting figures & not play down spread of virus, writes IMCT leader Apurva Chandra pic.twitter.com/u6mtaWRZtt  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.45 pm: Latest visuals from Moolchand

Many vehicles can be seen on roads in the national capital today after Delhi govt announces several relaxations amid coronavirus lockdown. As India officially enters the third phase of lockdown, Delhi has decided to restart some activity.

          .      ,                     .  CMO Maharashtra (@CMOMaharashtra) May 3, 2020

12.37 pm: Stringent action needed in Delhi, says govt

Delhi is one of the places where considering the current status, more stringent action needs to be taken, says Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. His statement came after Delhi allowed many activities to take place despite the Centre placing the national capital under the 'red zone' category.

Karnataka: Employees and workers of a garment factory in Peenya Industrial Area in Bengaluru rejoin work after the factory opens amid #CoronavirusLockdown, following the revised guidelines issued by State and Central Government. pic.twitter.com/08cIo8pVEJ  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.29 pm: Delhi restarts some economic activity

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held first Cabinet meeting in the Delhi Secretariat on Monday after government offices were allowed to be opened by the Delhi government from today. The Delhi has restarted some economic activity from Monday.

#WATCH We are facing more problems as Maharashtra govt did not conduct the test of ppl who returned from Hazur Sahib in Nanded. If they had not conducted tests, then at least they should have informed us about it. We would have acted accordingly:Punjab Health Min Balbir S Sidhu. pic.twitter.com/cMVnooKs2z  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.22 pm: Railways clears air around fare of migrant workers

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday said that Indian Railways will pay 85 per cent train fares of migrant workers. The remaining 15 per cent, state governments will have to pay. The move has come after the centre faced a backlash from Congress party, and other opposition leaders for charging migrant labourers during the lockdown. BJP leader Sambit Patra stated that that for each 'Shramik Express' (special trains being run for migrants) about 1,200 tickets to the destination were handed by the railways to the state government concerned.

12.18 pm: West Bengal to yet decide on lockdown relaxations

Despite the Centre allowing the functioning of certain shops and services to give some respite during the third phase of the lockdown that began on Monday, large parts of West Bengal wore a deserted look as the state government is yet to decide on the relaxations in the green and orange zones. Shops, barring those selling essential commodities, remained closed and vehicles were off the roads in most parts of the state in the morning. In the afternoon, a task force led by Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha will decide on the relaxations. - PTI

12.15 pm: Liquor shops reopens today

The Centre has allowed liquor sale across all the country, excluding containment areas, from today. As per the government order, only standalone shops will be allowed to sell liquor; malls or liquor shops in shopping complexes will remain closed. This has prompted people to throng liquor shops in huge numbers, flouting of social distancing norms. Several retailers have also expressed concerns that their existing stock may dry-up soon.

Also read: Liquor shops, wine shops reopen today amid lockdown: Check out timings, status, state-wise details

11.58 pm: Isuzu Motors restart operations

Isuzu Motors Ltd. has got Punjab Government's permission to restart manufacturing operations at Manufacturing Plant, situated at village Asron of Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar District with limited workforce effective from today.

11:50 am: Delhi liquor shops: Police lathicharges

Delhi Police took to lathicharging buyers who had flocked outside a liquor shop in Kashmere Gate. Alcohol customers were found violating social distancing norms as liquor shops open after nearly two months of lockdown.

Delhi: More number of vehicles seen on roads in the national capital today, after Delhi govt announces several relaxations amid #CoronavirusLockdown; Visuals from Moolchand. pic.twitter.com/5orSQBBP4F  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

11:40 am: Rajasthan corona cases: 4 more deaths

Four more deaths have been reported in Rajasthan, along with 123 fresh cases. The death toll in the state has reached 75. Jaipur has reported 44 deaths. Seventy-three cases in Jodhpur, 19 in Chittorgarh, 12 in Jaipur, 11 in Pali, three in Kota, two in Rajsamand and one each in Alwar, Bikaner and Udaipur have been reported.

11:35 am: CM Arvind Kejriwal and ministers hold cabinet meeting

11:30 am: Shramik Special trains subsidised 85%

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that the Indian Railways is subsiding fares by 85 per cent for migrant workers. The state has to pay 15 per cent, stated Patra commenting on Rahul Gandhi's tweet criticising the fare charge for migrant workers.

#WATCH Delhi is one of the places where considering the current status, more stringent action needs to be taken. I think that minimum relaxations should be given by Delhi Govt amid #CoronavirusLockdown to curb the spread of #COVID19: Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan. pic.twitter.com/hHB5xQdXWe  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

11:25 am: Delhi COVID-19 cases: Shops open

Shops selling essential goods open in Delhi's Bengali Market as relaxations ease on Monday. The area was a containment zone earlier but no new cases have been reported in the past 28 days.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held first Cabinet meeting in the Delhi Secretariat today after government offices were allowed to be opened by the Delhi government from today. #COVID19pic.twitter.com/o70R9oTyz5  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

11:15 am: Corona Delhi news: Govt liquor shops to operate till 6:30pm

The Delhi government has issued an order stating that state-run liquor shops will operate only from 9am to 6:30pm in the city. The order statesthat marshals will be deployed to ensure that social distancing norms are followed strictly. Around 150 liquor shops have been allowed to operate.

11:10 am: Coronavirus Delhi updates

As relaxations come into effect today, construction activities have resumed in Delhi. However, the state has said that only in-situ construction will be allowed, meaning that construction where workers are already available and there's no need to get workers from outside.

11:05 am: Maharashtra coronavirus cases: No liquor sale in 5 districts

As the Centre allows certain relaxations from Monday, liquor shops have opened across the country. However, the Maharashtra government has said that shops selling non-essential commodities, will be allowed apart from five districts in the state. Solapur, Aurangabad, Jalna, Buldhana and Amravati districts have said that liquor shops will not be allowed to open.

11:00 am: Shramik Special trains for migrant workers

Indian Railways sources have told ANI that they are charging only standard fare for this class which is just 15 per cent of the total cost incurred by the railwaya. The Indian Railways is only ferrying passengers that are being brought by the state governments. So far 34 Shramik Special trains have departed from various parts of the country. The government has been criticised for charging ticket fares from migrant workers.

10:55 am: Corona special trains

Indian Railways sources told news agency ANI that the middle berth of the Shramik Special trains have been kept empty to ensure social distancing. Passengers onboard have also been given free food and water for the journey. The government is receving flak for asking migrant workers -- who have had no earnings in the past few weeks -- to pay for their tickets.

10:45 am: Liquor shops open in Chhattisgarh

Rush was seen outside liquor shops in Chhattisgarh as they open for business. People were seen flouting social distancing rules as they flocked to liquor stores to purchase alcohol.

#WATCH: Police resorts to mild lathicharge outside a liquor shop in Kashmere Gate after social distancing norms were flouted by people outside the shop. #Delhipic.twitter.com/XZKxrr5ThC  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

10:35 am: Coronavirus news updates

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.

10:30 am: Odisha corona news

A new case has been reported from the state's Sundergarh district. The total number of cases in Odisha is 163. Sundergarh has 11 cases, out of which five have recovered. The district is an orange zone.

10:25 am: Corona special trains: Uddhav Thackeray bats for no fares

As the Centre is being criticised for demanding train fares from migrant passengers, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray has also asked the govt to not charge migrant labourers. "These people had no source of income for the past few weeks. Hence, on humanitarian ground, the Centre should not charge them for travelling," the chief minister said. The CM said that nearly 5 lakh migrant labourers have been given food and shelter for 40 days in various state facilities.

10:20 am: Coronavirus Assam updates

As relaxations ease across the country, people have come out of their houses to get their essential businesses in order. In Assam, traffic has increased on Monday after the state government allowed movement. Assam has also imposed a blanket ban of 12 hours from 6pm to 6am every day.

Rahul Gandhi ji,

I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that No tickets to be sold at any station

Railways has subsidised 85% & State govt to pay 15%

The State govt can pay for the tickets(Madhya Pradeshs BJP govt is paying)

Ask Cong state govts to follow suit https://t.co/Hc9pQzy8kQpic.twitter.com/2RIAMyQyjs  Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) May 4, 2020

10:10 am: Corona news: FICCI says no restrictions on drone use for govt

FICCI on Saturday said that government agencies and industries should be given blanket exemptions from drone usage till December 31 to monitor and curb spread of coronavirus. "Currently, drones are only allowed to legally fly using permission from Digital Sky (online platform) in six small green zones in remote rural areas of the country. This is insufficient to address the numerous challenges faced by our country in the time of this crisis," it said.

10:00 am: Liquor shops open in Karnataka

People have started queueing up outside liquor shops in Karnataka. As per the new guidelines, liquor shops have been opened for business today.

Delhi: Shops selling essential goods open in Bengali Market which was a containment zone earlier, after Delhi Govt eased the restrictions as no new case has been reported in the area in past 28 days. #COVID19pic.twitter.com/tjWqFdsiJb  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

10:00 am: Maharashtra coronavirus cases: Some offices open

As per the new guidelines of the MHA, some offices have opened in Maharashtra today. Employees must be screened and all necessary social distancing norms must be followed as per the norms.

Chhattisgarh: Social distancing norms being flouted as people in large numbers queue outside a liquor shop in Rajnandgaon. The state govt has allowed liquor shops to open in the state from today except for the containment zones. #CoronavirusLockdownpic.twitter.com/GfTzQP86Ip  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:55 am: Corona cases on the rise in Rajasthan

In Rajasthan, four new deaths have been reported due to coronavirus. The number of positive corona cases in the state has increased to 3,009. The state is also sending home stranded migrant labourers and students via Shramik Special trains.

Assam: Movement of people and vehicles increase in Guwahati after govt announces relaxation in the restrictions amid #CoronavirusLockdown.



The nationwide lockdown imposed to combat #COVID19 has been extended till May 17, 2020. pic.twitter.com/zJFJIR7xhj  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:50 am: Liquor shops open in Delhi

Amid the coronavirus lockdown, the state has allowed certain relaxations including the opening of liquor shops. As the restrictions lift on Monday, customers have queued up outside liquor shops to purchase alcohol. Visuals from Delhi:

Karnataka: People line up at a liquor shop in Bengaluru as state government permits the sale of liquor between 9 am to 7 pm from today. pic.twitter.com/3SmTwlO1w1  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:40 am: Global coronavirus cases: 3.5 million cases so far

Global coronavirus cases surpassed 3.5 million on Monday, with deaths nearing a quarter of a million. North America and European countries lead the tally with the most number of new cases. However, numbers have increased in smaller bases in Latin America, Africa and Russia as well.

9:35 am: Corona testing in India

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that they have conducted over 11 lakh tests in the country as on May 4, 9am. ICMR has sped up testing of samples as cases in the country continue to rise.

9:30 am: Corona special trains: Rahul Gandhi critices the govt

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has criticised the government for making migrant labourers pay for the ticket fares onboard the Shramik Special trains. He questioned the Indian Railways for donating to the PM CARES fund while asking for fares from needy labourers.

Maharashtra: Employees of an IT company in Nashik are being screened as they rejoin work after their company opens amid #CoronavirusLockdown following revised guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs. pic.twitter.com/1Vh2OpmhKF  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:25 am: Corona news: Subramanian Swamy lashes out at govt

Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy lashed out at the government for making migrant labourers pay for their tickets onboard the Shramik Special trains that's ferrying people across the country. He said why not make PM CARES fund pay the fee.

4 deaths and 123 new #COVID19 cases have been reported in Rajasthan today. Total positive cases stand at 3009 and death toll is 75: Rajasthan Health Department pic.twitter.com/bDOENYkg7I  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:20 am: Karnataka corona cases

Migrant workers arrive in Kalaburagi from different parts of the state. They will be screened and transported home. They have also been given refreshments. Buses carrying migrant workers started arriving at 5am today. Around 70 buses are expected to arrive and the process is likely to go on for the next three days.

People line up outside a liquor shop in Laxmi Nagar after Delhi govt allowed sale of liquor in standalone shops, neighbourhood (colony)shops or shops in residential complexes. pic.twitter.com/ADyPE8ZUYQ  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:15 am: Coronavirus latest news: Congress mobilises local sources

Congress leader and Gujarat MP Ahmed Patel has asked Congress party workers to mobilise local sources and help stranded migrants in travelling back to their homes.

                        151       



   ! pic.twitter.com/qaN0k5NwpG  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 4, 2020

9:10 am: Chhattisgarh corona updates: Liquor sales boom

People have already lined up to buy booze in Chhattisgarh as relaxations are eased from today. Liquor shops will also be allowed to sale from Monday onwards. However, customers will have to observe necessary social distancing norms.

How moronic of the Government of India to charge steep rail fares from the half starved migrant labourers! Indians stranded abroad were brought back free by Air India. If Railways refuse to budge then why not make PM CARES pay instead?  Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) May 4, 2020

9:05 am: Corona news: Congress to bear cost of migrant's rail travel

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has decided that the party will bear the cost of every needy and migrant labourer's travel on Shramik Special trains. The party has asked every Pradesh Congress Committee to bear the cost of rail travel for the needy. Gandhi said that this will be the party's humble contribution in the service of the compatriots and an attempt to stand in solidarity with them.

9:00 am: Coronavirus in Assam

In the third phase of the lockdown, a 12-hour curfew will be imposed in Assam. The curfew will be enforced from 6pm to 6am every day and there will be nomovement during that time, said Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He added that private medical clinics and doctor chambers, vets, dental clinics and labs can open from today but they will have to shut shop at 5 pm. Standalone shops will be allowed to open.

8:55 am: Delhi coronavirus cases: Airport to resume operations

Terminal 3 of Delhi airport to resume operations today. Commercial passenger flights at Delhi airport will initially operate from Terminal 3 after the lockdown ends, said a senior official of its operator DIAL on Sunday. Vistara and IndiGo passengers would enter the airport through gates 1 and 2, while AirAsia India and Air India have been allotted gates 3 and 4. SpiceJet and GoAir passengers would enter through gate 5.

8:50 am: Coronavirus in Maharashtra

An Aurangabad MP has said that even though the state has allowed liquor shops to reopen, they will not allow liquor sales in Aurangabad. He said that if liquor shops are allowed to reopen then people will not follow restrictions. "This isn't the time to sell liquor and create problems for mothers and sisters," said the MP.

8:45 am: Punjab coronavirus updates

6.44 lakh migrants, most of them labourers, have registered for journey back home. 3.26 lakh from UP and 2.22 lakh from Bihar, besides from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Arunachal Pradesh will be ferried on the Shramik Special trains organised by the government upon the requests of state governments.

8:35 am: Uttar Pradesh coronavirus news

The UP govt on Sunday issued fresh guidelines keeping in mind the relaxations allowed by the Centre. The state govt has asked all people in the red zones to download the govt's Aarogya Setu app. It added that only 20 people will be allowed to gather for weddings and funerals. People over 65 years have been asked to stay at home. Liquor shops not inside shopping malls can be opened from 10 am to 7 pm.

8:30 am: Corona in UP

Special train with 1,200 migrants reach Kanpur from Gujarat today. These trains are being operated on the request of state governments. Only people who have registered and are being brought to the stations by governments can travel in these Shramik trains.
Dozens of Canadian elected officials have signed a petition urging the federal government to extend COVID-19 financial support to all undocumented migrants in this country.

We call on the federal government of Canada to immediately ensure that income supports are available to migrant and undocumented workers without valid Social Insurance Numbers, said the 50 municipal and provincial politicians from coast to coast in a joint letter released Monday.

Migrant and undocumented workers are essential workers taking care of our communities  they deserve essential emergency income supports as well as all other social programs and rights to take care of themselves and their families during this crisis.

Kevin Arseneau, a provincial politician in New Brunswick, said he represents a riding where many migrant workers are helping to build the economy.

I could not, in good conscience, leave them unrepresented. Migrant and undocumented workers are essential in New Brunswick, the Green Party politician said.

They grow our food, take care of children, sick and the elderly, clean homes and hospitals, prepare and deliver food, and work in construction. They deserve the same income support as everyone else.

The Migrant Rights Network says there are 1.8 million non-permanent residents in Canada, many of whom are excluded from emergency income supports because they dont have a valid social insurance number, remain overseas due to border closures or fail to meet the minimum income requirements to qualify.

As governments talk about reopening the economy, many people remain in abject crisis, particularly migrant and undocumented people, said Karen Cocq, a spokesperson for the network. They are part of all our communities and deserve all the same rights.

Bhutila Karpoche, the New Democrat MPP for Parkdale-High Park, said she signed the letter and supported the campaign because of her enormous respect for the migrant workers labour.

Migrants are contributing members and a part of our society in every way. One big lesson weve all learned from the pandemic is that there is no you versus me, she said.

We are all in this together and we are strongest when we look out for the most vulnerable.

Vancouver resident Laura Lopez and her husband have worked as painters in construction since they came to Canada from Mexico in 2015.

They lived from paycheque to paycheque before COVID-19 and since March both have stayed home with no income.

We try to eat less so our daughter and son (age nine and two) have enough to eat. We have no money for our rent, said the 34-year-old, who left violence in northern Mexico with her husband to raise their kids and say they have spent all their money trying unsuccessfully to get proper immigration status.

My biggest fear is that we are going to end up on the street. Some people have been racist and not nice to us and we are happy for the support (of these politicians).

Sharmarke Dubow, a city councillor in Victoria, said Canadians cannot beat the coronavirus unless everyone in the community is protected.

We cannot flatten the curve if we leave half a million undocumented migrants behind, he said. Canada is stronger, healthier and safer if we stand together as a community.

Correction  May 4, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that misidentified the Migrant Rights Network as the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.
The Blue Angels will conduct a flyover in New Orleans on Wednesday to honor essential workers on the front lines of the fight against coronavirus.

The U.S. Navy Blue Angels made the announcement on Twitter Monday morning. Pilots will be flying over New Orleans, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston on Wednesday, May 6.

"We salute and thank all healthcare workers, first responders, and other essential personnel serving on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19," the post read.

More information regarding times and location routes will be released Tuesday.

Can't see the tweet? Click here.
The following speech was delivered by Tom Peters to the 2020 International May Day Online Rally held by the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International on May 2. Peters is a leading member of the Socialist Equality Group in New Zealand.

The corporate media is glorifying New Zealand as an example of a supposedly humane response to the pandemic, in contrast to the Trump administration and governments in Britain, Brazil and elsewhere.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was recently hailed in The Atlantic as the most effective leader on the planet. The Financial Times published a column with the headline, Arise, Saint Jacinda, a leader for our troubled times. According to the New York Times, Australia and New Zealand are restoring trust in democracy with their strategy to combat the virus.

Numerous articles assert that Ardern is naturally more empathetic because she is a woman, and that the world can be saved if only more female leaders are elected.

The speech by Tom Peters begins at 22:29 in the video.

No one should be fooled by this propaganda campaign. New Zealand has 1,479 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 19 deaths. While this is fewer than in many other countries, the virus has not been eliminated and new cases are reported every day.

This past Tuesday, the government relaxed its lockdown measures, allowing schools and many businesses to reopen, more than a week earlier than scientists had advised. The move was opposed in a petition by nearly 45,000 teachers, parents and childcare workers.

Ardern said extending the lockdown might help eliminate the virus, but such considerations had to be traded against the huge economic impact, meaning the impact on corporate profits. The decision will be used as an example in other countries, whose leaders are clamouring for a return to work, whatever the cost to peoples health and lives.

New Zealands public health system has been starved of funding for decades, and was totally unprepared for a pandemic. In 2018, following a nationwide strike by nurses and healthcare workers, Ardern insisted that there was no money to fix the crisis in hospitals. The union bureaucracy pushed through a sellout deal that maintained the unsafe levels of staffing.

Preventable diseases are widespread, particularly among working class, Maori and Pacific Island communities. Last year, the government failed to stop a devastating measles outbreak, which spread to Samoa, an impoverished Pacific country and a former colony of New Zealand, where it killed 83 people.

While refusing to properly fund the health system, the government has responded to the pandemic by handing out more than $12 billion in business subsidies, bailouts and tax cuts. The Reserve Bank has promised billions more for quantitative easing to prop up the financial system.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson says that the debt being accumulated by the state will be paid back by generations of New Zealanders. Of course, he does not mean the super-rich, whose fortunes will continue to expand.

The government and big business have begun a sweeping assault on jobs and wages to ramp up the exploitation of the working class. Economists predict unemployment will exceed 10 percent, and perhaps reach 30 percent, a level unseen since the Great Depression.

Tens of thousands of people have been sacked since the start of the year. The tourism industry, which employs one in eight workers, has collapsed. Major companies have slashed wages by 20 percent or more and universities are threatening to do the same.

In a country of five million people, more than 600,000 live in poverty and the number is increasing rapidly. One charity estimates that the number of people who cant afford enough food has doubled since the start of the year, from 10 to 20 percent of the population. Food banks are reporting a massive 400 percent increase in demand.

The Ardern government, a coalition between Labour, the Greens and the anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party, has no solution except mass unemployment, poverty, nationalism and militarismincluding a stronger alliance with US imperialism.

One year after a fascist terrorist killed 51 people at two Christchurch mosques, government ministers continue to scapegoat foreigners for social problems, fostering the growth of the extreme right.

As in the 1930s, however, the social disaster is destroying illusions in capitalism and pushing millions of people to the left. The critical task is to build the necessary socialist leadership for the revolutionary struggles ahead.

In New Zealand, this requires a complete political break from the Labour Party, the Greens, as well as the unions and middle class, pseudo-left groups that support the government and are joining the glorification of Jacinda Ardern.

The International Socialist Organisation, for example, says Ardern is an excellent political figure and the praise she has received is well-deserved. The liberal Daily Blog, which is supported by Unite and other unions, has proposed doubling the Prime Ministers salary. The blog is also demanding cuts to immigration, a larger military, and regurgitates the US propaganda blaming China for the pandemic.

The Socialist Equality Group, the New Zealand supporters of the ICFI, is the only tendency that opposes the Ardern government from the standpoint of socialism. We reject all forms of nationalism and identity politics, which seek to divide the working class according to race or gender.

The only solution to the present crisis is the fight to unify working people in New Zealandincluding Maori, Europeans, Pacific and Asian immigrantswith workers internationally, to abolish the profit system. We call on you to join us in this historic struggle.
Kolkata: The Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT), which visited West Bengal to asses the coronavirus COVID-19 situation, said there are discrepancies in reporting of cases in the state. In a status report submitted West Bengal Chief Secretary on their final day in the state, the IMCT raised questions on the governments claim that it has surveyed 50 lakh people.

"State needs to be transparent and consistent in reporting figures and not play down spread of virus", IMCT leader Apurva Chandra stated in the report.

"West Bengal has the highest mortality rate in the country at 12.8 per cent. This extremely high mortality rate is a clear indication of low testing, weak surveillance and tracking," Chandra said in the letter.

The IMCT also highlighted a discrepancy in the number of COVID-19 cases reported by Bengal in its medical bulletins and its communications with the Centre.

"While the state government has claimed a very high level of daily surveillance of individuals in containment zones, no database was shown or results made available. During the stay of the committee itself, over 50 lakh persons would have been surveyed in the four districts. Collating and evaluating a database of this magnitude requires very robust systems to be in place. However, no such evidence was available during our stay or field visits," the letter written by the IMCT head Apurva Chandra, Additional Secretary with the Central government read.

"The bulletin of April 30 showed active COVID cases as 572, discharged after treatment 139 and expired due to COVID 33 making a total of 744. In a communication to the Union Secretary (Health & Family Welfare) from the Principal Secretary (Health) on the same day the total number of cases was indicated to be 931 leading to a discrepancy of 187 cases," the letter said.

In addition, the Bengal government admitted on April 30 that 72 COVID-19 patients have died in the state but classified as death due to co-morbidities, the central team said in the letter. It, however, commended the efforts made by the state Health Department in increasing the testing rate which was languishing at around 400 per day till April 20 to 2,410 per day on May 2.

According to the state health department, over 6 lakh people were surveyed in containment areas falling in four districts including Purba Midnapur (1,50,447 people), North 24 Parganas (1,77, 654), Howrah (1,76, 960) and KMC (1,31,460) by around 1500 teams.

The Union Home Ministry constituted IMCTs to visit coronavirus hotspots for assessment, issue directions to combat the spread of the lethal virus in those areas and submit a report to the Central government.
The New York City Police Benevolent Association, the citys largest police union, released a statement Monday arguing that officers should not be tasked with enforcing social distancing ordinances.

The NYPD needs to get cops out of the social distancing enforcement business altogether, PBA president Patrick Lynch said in a statement. As the weather heats up & the pandemic continues to unravel our social fabric, police officers should be allowed to focus on our core public safety mission. If we dont, the city will fall apart before our eyes.

The citys police force has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with over 4,000 officers testing positive for the illness and 30 dead over the course of the outbreak. In early April, almost 20 percent of the entire 36,000-strong police force was on sick leave for coronavirus or other illnesses.

Enforcing social distancing in the city is made exceedingly difficult by the citys density and residents reliance on public transport. NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea said Monday that police issued about 70 summonses over the weekend for violations of social distancing regulations.

This is a great experiment were living through here, Shea told reporters at a press conference. Really never seen this before in a city of 8.6 million people trying to keep everyone inside.

The NYPD on Saturday arrested three people in a group violating social distancing measures, and video of the altercation was shared in local media. The force also faced criticism after allowing mourners to gather at the funeral of an ultra-Orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn. After more mourners gathered than were initially predicted, police were forced to break up the funeral.

More from National Review
RALEIGH, N.C., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MGT Capital Investments, Inc. (OTCQB: MGTI) today provided the following legal update:

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER

BOB THOMAS, derivatively on behalf of

MGT CAPITAL INVESTMENTS, INC., Plaintiff, vs. ROBERT B. LADD, JOHN McAFEE, H.

ROBERT HOLMES, MICHAEL ONGHAI,

NOLAN BUSHNELL, ROBERT S.

LOWREY, BARRY C. HONIG, JOHN

STETSON, MICHAEL BRAUSER, JOHN

O'ROURKE III, and MARK GROUSSMAN, Defendants, and MGT CAPITAL INVESTMENTS, INC., Nominal Defendant. Index No. 70301/2018



NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT

TO CURRENT MGT CAPITAL

INVESTMENTS, INC. STOCKHOLDERS

NOTICE OF PROPOSED SETTLEMENT OF DERIVATIVE ACTION

TO: ALL CURRENT OWNERS OF MGT CAPITAL INVESTMENTS, INC. ("MGT") COMMON STOCK (TICKER SYMBOL: MGTI) AS OF APRIL 23, 2020, WHO CONTINUE TO OWN SUCH SHARES THROUGH JUNE 26, 2020 ("CURRENT MGT STOCKHOLDERS").

PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY AND IN ITS ENTIRETY. THIS NOTICE RELATES TO A PROPOSED SETTLEMENT AND DISMISSAL OF STOCKHOLDER DERIVATIVE LITIGATION AND CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR RIGHTS.

IF THE COURT APPROVES THE SETTLEMENT AND DISMISSAL OF THE DERIVATIVE ACTION, CURRENT MGT STOCKHOLDERS WILL BE FOREVER BARRED FROM CONTESTING THE APPROVAL OF THE PROPOSED SETTLEMENT AND FROM PURSUING RELEASED CLAIMS.

THIS ACTION IS NOT A "CLASS ACTION." THUS, THERE IS NOT A COMMON FUND UPON WHICH YOU CAN MAKE A CLAIM FOR A MONETARY PAYMENT.

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that this action is being settled on the terms set forth in a Stipulation and Compromise of Settlement dated April 23, 2020 (the "Stipulation").1 The purpose of this Notice is to inform you of:

the existence of the above-captioned derivative action and the related derivative action Ojha v. Ladd , Index No. 65647/2016 ("Derivative Actions"),

, Index No. 65647/2016 ("Derivative Actions"), the proposed settlement between the Plaintiffs and Defendants reached in the Derivative Actions (the "Settlement"),

the hearing to be held by the Court to consider the fairness, reasonableness, and adequacy of the Settlement,

Plaintiffs' Counsel's application for fees and expenses, and

Plaintiffs' Service Awards.

This Notice describes what steps you may take in relation to the Settlement. This Notice is not an expression of any opinion by the Court about the truth or merits of Plaintiffs' claims or Defendants' defenses. This Notice is solely to advise you of the proposed Settlement of the Derivative Actions and of your rights in connection with the proposed Settlement.

Summary

On April 23, 2020, Plaintiffs, MGT, in its capacity as a nominal defendant, defendants Robert B. Ladd, H. Robert Holmes, Michael Onghai, and Nolan Bushnell ("MGT Defendants"), and defendants Barry C. Honig, John Stetson, Michael Brauser, John O'Rourke III, and Mark Groussman ("Shareholder Defendants") entered into the Stipulation in the above-captioned action filed derivatively on behalf of MGT, in Supreme Court of the State of New York, Westchester Country (the "Court") against the MGT Defendants and the Shareholder Defendants. The Settlement, as documented in the Stipulation, subject to the approval of the Court, is intended by the Settling Parties to fully, finally, and forever compromise, resolve, discharge, and settle the Released Claims and to result in the dismissal of the Derivative Actions with prejudice, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Stipulation. The consideration for the Settlement is as follows: (i) adoption of certain corporate governance reforms, the terms of which are fully set forth in Exhibits A and B to the Stipulation by MGT; (ii) the MGT Defendants shall collectively pay $75,000 to MGT; (iii) the Shareholder Defendants shall collectively pay $150,000 to MGT. As part of the Settlement MGT shall pay a Fee and Expense Award to Plaintiffs' Counsel of $150,000 and Service Awards to 2 Plaintiffs of $1,500 each, to be paid from the Fee and Expense Award.

This notice is a summary only and does not describe all of the details of the Stipulation. For full details of the matters discussed in this summary, please see the full Stipulation posted on the Investors page on MGT's website, mgtci.com/, contact Plaintiffs' Counsel at the addresses listed below, or inspect the full Stipulation filed with the Clerk of the Court.

What is the Lawsuit About?

The Derivative Actions are brought derivatively on behalf of nominal defendant MGT and alleges that the MGT Defendants and Shareholder Defendants breached their fiduciary duties by making and/or causing MGT to make false and misleading statements of material fact to the investing public, failing to maintain internal controls at MGT, and engaging in a pump and dump scheme.

Why is there a Settlement?

The Court has not decided in favor of Defendants or Plaintiffs. Instead, both sides agreed to the Settlement to avoid the distraction, costs, and risks of further litigation, and because the Settlement, including the corporate governance reforms adopted by MGT as part of the Settlement and the payments by the MGT Defendants and the Shareholder Defendants to MGT, provides a substantial benefit to, and is in the best interests of, MGT and its stockholders.

Defendants deny each and every allegation of wrongdoing or liability arising out of or relating in any way to the events, conduct, statements, acts, or omissions alleged in the Derivative Action. Defendants further assert that, at all times, they acted in good faith, and in a manner they reasonably believed to be and that was in the best interests of MGT and MGT's stockholders. Defendants assert that they have meritorious defenses to the claims in the Derivative Actions. Nonetheless, Defendants have entered into the Stipulation, without admitting or conceding any fault, liability, wrongdoing, or damage whatsoever, in order to avoid the risks inherent in any lawsuit and the burden and expense of further litigation.

The Settlement Hearing and Your Right to Object to the Settlement

On April 24, 2020, the Court entered an order preliminarily approving the Stipulation and the Settlement contemplated therein (the "Preliminary Approval Order") and providing for the notice of the Settlement to be made to Current MGT Stockholders. The Preliminary Approval Order further provides that the Court will hold a hearing (the "Settlement Hearing") on June 26, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. before the Honorable Linda S. Jamieson, New York Supreme Court, Westchester County, Courtroom 103, located at the 111 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., White Plains, NY 10601 to, among other things: (i) determine whether the proposed Settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate and in the best interests of MGT and its stockholders; (ii) consider any objections to the Settlement submitted in accordance with this Notice; (iii) determine whether a judgment should be entered dismissing all claims in the Derivative Actions with prejudice, and releasing the Released Claims against the Released Persons; (iv) consider the agreed-to Fee and Expense Award to Plaintiffs' Counsel of attorneys' fees and the reimbursement of expenses; (v) consider the Service Awards to Plaintiffs, which shall be funded from the Fee and Expense Award; and (vi) consider any other matters that may properly be brought before the Court in connection with the Settlement.

Any Current MGT Stockholder who wishes to object to the fairness, reasonableness, or adequacy of the Settlement as set forth in the Stipulation, or to the proposed Fee and Expense Award to Plaintiffs' Counsel, may file a written objection with the Court. An objector must at least 14 calendar days prior to the Settlement Hearing: (1) file with the Clerk of the Court and serve upon the below listed counsel a written objection to the Settlement setting forth (a) the nature of the objection, (b) proof of ownership of MGT common stock as of April 23, 2020 and through the date of the Settlement Hearing, including the number of shares of MGT common stock held and the date of purchase, (c) any and all documentation or evidence in support of such objection, and (d) the identities of any cases, by name, court, and docket number, in which the stockholder or his, her, or its attorney has objected to a settlement in the last 3 years; and (2) if intending to appear, and requesting to be heard, at the Settlement Hearing, he, she, or it must, in addition to the requirements of (1) above, file with the Clerk of the Court and serve on the below listed counsel (a) a written notice of his, her, or its intention to appear at the Settlement Hearing, (b) a statement that indicates the basis for such appearance, (c) the identities of any witnesses he, she, or it intends to call at the Settlement Hearing and a statement as to the subjects of their testimony, and (d) any and all evidence that would be presented at the Settlement Hearing. Any objector who does not timely file and serve a notice of intention to appear in accordance with this paragraph shall be foreclosed from raising any objection to the Settlement and shall not be permitted to appear at the Settlement Hearing, except for good cause shown.

IF YOU MAKE A WRITTEN OBJECTION, IT MUST BE ON FILE WITH THE CLERK OF THE COURT NO LATER THAN JUNE 12, 2020. The Clerk's address is:

Clerk of the Court

Supreme Court of the State of New York, Westchester Country

111 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd

White Plains, NY 10601

YOU ALSO MUST DELIVER COPIES OF THE MATERIALS TO PLAINTIFFS' COUNSEL AND DEFENDANTS' COUNSEL SO THEY ARE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN JUNE 12, 2020. Counsel's addresses are:

Counsel for Plaintiffs: Phillip Kim THE ROSEN LAW FIRM, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Timothy Brown THE BROWN LAW FIRM, P.C. 240 Townsend Square Oyster Bay, NY 11771



Counsel for Defendants Robert B. Ladd, H.

Robert Holmes, Michael Onghai, Nolan

Bushnell and Robert S. Lowrey and

Nominal Defendant MGT Capital

Investments, Inc.: John P. Coffey KRAMER LEVIN NAFTALIS & FRANKEL LLP 1177 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10036 Counsel for Defendant Mark Groussman: Laura Zimmerman BAKER & McKENZIE LLP 452 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10018



Counsel for Defendant Barry C. Honig and John Stetson: Robert D. Weber SHEPPARD, MULLIN, RICHTER & HAMPTON LLP 1901 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1600 Los Angeles, CA 90067 Counsel for Defendant Michael Brauser: Kimberly Rollnick RICHARD AND RICHARD, P.A 825 Brickell Bay Drive Tower III, Suite 1748 Miami, FL 33131



Counsel for Defendant John O'Rourke III: Nicole Lloret ORRICK, HERRINGTON & SUTCLIFFE LLP 51 West 52nd Street New York, NY 10019



An objector may file an objection on his, her or its own or through an attorney hired at his, her or its own expense. If an objector hires an attorney to represent him, her or it for the purposes of making such objection, the attorney must serve a notice of appearance on the counsel listed above and file such notice with the Court no later than 14 calendar days before the Settlement Hearing. Any Current MGT Stockholder who does not timely file and serve a written objection complying with the above terms shall be deemed to have waived, and shall be foreclosed from raising, any objection to the Settlement, and any untimely objection shall be barred.

Any objector who files and serves a timely, written objection in accordance with the instructions above, may appear at the Settlement Hearing either in person or through counsel retained at the objector's expense. Objectors need not attend the Settlement Hearing, however, in order to have their objections considered by the Court.

If you are a Current MGT Stockholder and do not take steps to appear in this action and object to the proposed Settlement, you will be bound by the Judgment of the Court and will forever be barred from raising an objection to such settlement in the Derivative Actions and from pursuing any of the Released Claims.

You may obtain further information by contacting counsel for Plaintiffs at: Phillip Kim, The Rosen Law Firm, P.A., 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor, NY 10016, Telephone: (212) 686-1060, Email: [email protected]; or Timothy Brown, The Brown Law Firm, P.C., 240 Townsend Square, Oyster Bay, NY 11771, Telephone: (516) 922-5427, Email: [email protected] . Please Do Not Call the Court or Defendants with Questions About the Settlement.

About MGT Capital Investments, Inc.

MGT Capital Investments, Inc. (OTCQB: MGTI) is a U.S.- based Bitcoin miner with operations at an owned facility in Georgia. The Company owns 1,500 new generation Bitmain miners generating approximately 80 Ph/s of hashing power.

For more information on the Company, please visit: https://mgtci.com

Forwardlooking Statements

This press release contains forwardlooking statements. The words or phrases "would be," "will allow," "intends to," "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "project," or similar expressions are intended to identify "forwardlooking statements." All information set forth in this news release, except historical and factual information, represents forwardlooking statements. This includes all statements about the Company's plans, beliefs, estimates and expectations. These statements are based on current estimates and projections, which involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include issues related to: rapidly changing technology and evolving standards in the crypto mining industry; the ability to obtain sufficient funding to continue operations, maintain adequate cash flow and execute its business strategy; volatility in the Bitcoin market; and other factors set forth in the Company's most recently filed annual report and registration statement. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forwardlooking statements, which reflect management's analysis only as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forwardlooking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date hereof. Readers should carefully review the risks and uncertainties described in other documents that the Company files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. MGT Capital Investments, Inc. provides no assurance regarding the actual outcome of the events contemplated by any forward-looking statements included in this release.

Investor and Media Contact:

Robert Lowrey

Chief Financial Officer

[email protected]

919-378-1788

1 All capitalized terms used in this notice, unless otherwise defined herein, are defined as set forth in the Stipulation.

SOURCE MGT Capital Investments, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.mgtci.com


Amitabh Bachchan paid a heartfelt tribute to one of his most popular co-star and late actor Rishi Kapoor during the i For India concert on Sunday which was telecasted live on Facebook. He talked about his journey from being a child with mischief on his eyes to becoming an actor whose every word was believable. The 77-year-old had tears in his eyes as he ended his tribute saying he must have gone with a gentle smile.

Sitting in the open area of his residence in Mumbai and clad in his usual white shawl, Amitabh began his tribute by recalling the day he saw a young Rishi for the first time at veteran filmmaker and superstar Raj Kapoors house.

T 3520 - In Memoriam .. pic.twitter.com/zIlVUn3qpg  Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) May 3, 2020

Talking about his prep at the RK Studios, Amitabh said, I would see him more often after , at RK Studios, when he trained as an actor for his film to be made, Bobby - - a diligent enthusiastic youngster, ready to pounce onto every learning that came his way, in that famous large and legendary make up room, of Raj ji at the end of the first floor corridor of make up rooms.

Claiming how his determined and confident walk resembled his grandfather Prithvi Raj Kapoor, he said, a walk I had noticed in one of his earlier films .. that walk .. I never found it in any other. The actor went on to share the names of the films which brought them together - Naseeb, Amar Akbar Anthony and the most recent, 102 Not Out.

Also read: iForIndia concert highlights: Mira Nair remembers Irrfan Khan, Amitabh Bachchan pays tribute to Rishi Kapoor

He added how when he spoke his lines, you believed every word of it as there was never an alternative, its genuineness was beyond question. Talking about his playful attitude on and off sets, he said, Even in the most grave sequences he would discover that comedic spark and we would all just crack up. Not just on set, if you were with him at any formal event , he would find that little distractive light hearted gem to expand on and lighten the situation.

Amitabh also shared, When there was a time lapse as the shot got readied during a shoot , he would bring out his playing cards, or at times pull out his rather complicated Bagatelle board and invite others to play, a competition, not just for fun, a serious competition.

Also read: Rishi Kapoors ashes immersed in Banganga: Neetu, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Riddhima bid tearful adieu

His eyes turned moist as he spoke about his last days. During his time of diagnosis and his treatment he never ever lamented his condition .. it was always .. see you soon , just a routine visit to the Hospital .. Ill be back shortly. I never visited him in Hospital .. I never wanted to see distress on his smiling cherubic face. But I am certain .. when he went , he must have gone with a gentle smile, he said.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
New Delhi, May 4 : After a webinar on leadership lessons through Ramayana, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is now set to conduct a webinar on lessons from Bhagavad-Gita during the COVID-19 crisis.

"We are happy to announce a webinar on 'Lessons from the Bhagavad-Gita during the Covid-19 Crisis' by Professor Subhash Kak, Oklahoma State University, USA on Thursday, 7 May 2020," Vice Chancellor of JNU, Jagadesh Kumar Mamidala said.

Kak is a honorary visiting professor at School of Engineering, JNU and works in the area of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, archaeoastronomy, and history of science.

He is also a member of the Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) since 2018, and he was awarded the Padma Shri in 2019.

Kak, who is the author of 20 books that include Mind and Self, The Avamedha and the Wishing Tree, is expected to begin the lecture with a review of the disruptive changes that technology has thrust upon the world and how the Covid-19 crisis, while a serious challenge in itself, is a kind of a reset and an opportunity to make changes to be better prepared for the future.

"The lecture will draw upon the Bhagavad-Gita for a deeper understanding of recent history and strategies for a humanistic response," Mamidala said.

Kak is also said to have discovered a long-lost astronomy of the Vedic period that was published in scholarly journals of the West and India and in the book The Astronomical Code of the Asgveda.

Earlier the university had organised a webinar on challenges and solutions to COVID-19. Over a thousand people including many from foreign countries had reportedly participated in that webinar.
- Residents of a barangay in Bataan charged up to the barangay hall demanding for their cash assistance under SAP

- They alleged that there was a malicious manner of listing and distribution of DSWD forms

- According to reports, those who were often listed were either relatives or acquaintances of local officials

- The whole incident was caught on video and was uploaded in the Facebook page of 107.1 FR Radyo Bandera

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed

A video of residents of Barangay Roosevelt in Dinalupihan, Bataan gathering at the barangay hall and incessantly accusing barangay officials has gone viral.

According to the caption on the video, uploaded on 107.1 FM Radyo Bandera Olongapo City, the residents were so angry because of the alleged wrong method of listing the beneficiaries under the social amelioration program, more popularly known as SAP.

Aside from the listing that the residents complained about, the distribution of the DSWD form of the workers at the barangay hall was also brought up.

The report alleged that only the 'kaalyado" and the relatives of local officials were commonly listed as beneficiaries.

Here is the video of the incident at the barangay hall.

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, the government faced problems when they imposed the initial community quarantine, which was elevated into enhanced community quarantine. It also suspended transportation causing massive problems with commuters.

The coronavirus outbreak started out in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. Scientists believed that the virus came from an animal at one of Wuhan's wet markets. At present, the Philippines is under a state of calamity while the entire Luzon is under an enhanced community quarantine.

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!

Being aware of the correct and relevant information is the first step towards solving any problem. Here we remind you of the major symptoms of the coronavirus disease. The key is not to panic and yet be aware. Check out all of the exciting videos on our KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
Four US warships have entered Russia's Barents Sea for first time since the Cold War to 'conduct maritime security operations'.

The US Navy confirmed Monday that three destroyers and one support ship had been joined by the Royal Navy's HMS Kent in the mission. It said U.S. Navy surface ships had not operated in the Barents since the mid-1980s.

Russia's defense ministry had been notified on May 1 'in an effort to avoid misperceptions, reduce risk, and prevent inadvertent escalation', the Navy confirmed.

Russia's Northern Fleet is tracking the group, the Russian Defence Ministry was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) breaks away from USNS Supply (T-AOE-6) following a routine Replenishment at Sea on April 29

The HMS Kent (F78) takes part in a replenishment-at-sea with Supply-class fast combat support ship USNS Supply (T-AOE-6) whilst on exercise with the U.S. Navy in the Arctic Circle

The U.S.-British decision to conduct operations in the Barents Sea comes with Russia pushing ahead with a huge military build-up in the Arctic.

It is an area Russia regards as strategically vital due to its huge hydrocarbon reserves, warming Northern Sea shipping route, and geopolitical and defence importance.

'In these challenging times, it is more important than ever that we maintain our steady drumbeat of operations across the European theater, while taking prudent measures to protect the health of our force,' said Vice Adm. Lisa Franchetti, commander, U.S. 6th Fleet.

'We remain committed to promoting regional security and stability, while building trust and reinforcing a foundation of Arctic readiness.'

The US Navy confirmed Monday that three destroyers and one support ship had been joined by the Royal Navy's HMS Kent in the mission. The HMS Kent (F78) takes part in a replenishment-at-sea with Supply-class fast combat support ship USNS Supply

From the bridgewing of Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75), Lt. Shawn Henry watches HMS Kent (F78) drive into screen formation, as both ships participate in Surface Action Group exercises in the High North, on May 2

The USS Donald Cook (DDG 75), USS Porter (DDG 78), USS Roosevelt (DDG 80) are supported by fast combat support ship USNS Supply (T-AOE 6) on the operation, the US Navy said.

Russia's Northern Fleet is said to be tracking the group which entered the Barents Sea on Monday morning.

The fleet, which includes both nuclear-powered ships and submarines, is based near Murmansk in the waters of the Kola Bay, a fjord which feeds into the Barents Sea.

The US Navy confirmed Monday that three destroyers and one support ship had been joined by the Royal Navy's HMS Kent in the mission in the Barents

On April 15 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, 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.

And on April 26 a pair of US fighter jets accompanied a Russian warplane flying close to an American aircraft carrier in the Pacific region.
Healthcare Georgia Foundation is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2020 Joseph D. Greene Community Service Award. The list of recipients includes five individuals and one collaborative, all of which will be recognized at the Joseph D. Greene Community Service Award ceremony on November 9, 2020, during the Foundations rescheduled Connections 2020 conference.

Established in 2008, the Joseph D. Greene Community Service Award shines a spotlight on extraordinary individuals, nonprofit organizations, and collaboratives that are making a difference and championing the cause of equitable healthcare in their communities. By recognizing those who inspire and lift others up, it is the Foundations hope that Mr. Greenes legacy of community service will continue through the work of others.

The full list of recipients includes:

-Sheila Weidman-Farley

-Dr. Heval Mohamed Kelli

-Beth Shaifer

-Dr. Beverly Deaderick Taylor

-Darrell Sabbs

-Healthy Savannah (Collaborative Award Recipient)

Dr. Gary Nelson, President of Healthcare Georgia Foundation, commented on the award recipients, We consider it an honor and a privilege to highlight the efforts of these individuals and the collaborative. Their unwavering commitment to serving their communities through the advancement of health equity is most admirable, and the Foundation thanks each and every one of them for their selfless service and tireless work.

To learn more about each of the 2020 Joseph D. Greene Community Service Award recipients, please visit https://www.healthcaregeorgia.org/2020-joseph-d-greene-community-service-award-recipients/.

###

About Joseph D. Greene

A personal hero and mentor to many, Joseph D. Greene served on the board of several major organizations, including the University System of Georgias Board of Regents. A native Georgian, Mr. Greene was the rst African American elected to public ofce in McDufe County and the rst to serve on a number of community and state boards in an era when racial tensions were high and integration was in its early stages. As a founding Healthcare Georgia Foundation board member, Mr. Greene helped steward the organization from its inception in 1999 through his retirement from the board in 2006. In 2008, Healthcare Georgia Foundation dedicated its community service award program in his honor, naming it the Joseph D. Greene Community Service Award.

About Healthcare Georgia Foundation

Healthcare Georgia Foundation is a statewide, charitable organization with a vision of health equity in Georgia where all people attain their fullest potential for health and well-being. Through strategic grantmaking, our mission is to enable, improve, and advance the health and well-being of all Georgians. For more information, visit healthcaregeorgia.org.
CHANTILLY, Va., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Starting today, first responders throughout the Washington D.C. Metro area can stop by any of the 40 local Paisano's Pizza restaurants during their shift for a free meal as a thank you for their tireless work protecting communities during this time.

Paisano's, known throughout the region for pizza, subs, pasta, salads, wings and more, will offer any first responder in uniform a free meal any time during the day when the restaurant is open. Orders can be taken by phone or walk-up and delivered curbside. The program will run as long as shelter-in-place orders are effective in local communities.

"It's important for us to continue giving back in our communities and show our gratitude to the men and women keeping us safe," said Colleen Sisk, COO of Paisano's. "We know a lot of first responders are working long hours and we want them to know that with this new program, all of our restaurants are here to feed them whenever they need a meal during these unprecedented times."

For a full list of local restaurants, visit https://www.paisanospizza.com/locations.

As COVID-19 sweeps the world, Paisano's is one of the few restaurant brands operating throughout the DMV area, focused on offering delivery, no-contact delivery and curbside pickup options. In fact, 98 percent of Paisano's deliveries are conducted by its internal employees. This allows Paisano's to continually monitor the health of its staff and safeguard the chain of custody of its food  from preparation and cooking to packaging and final delivery.

The brand has also been active during the pandemic through food donations to local hospitals and other organizations in need. Paisano's is offering a 20 percent discount off all food orders to any staff at local hospitals who places an order.

For more information, go to https://www.paisanospizza.com/.

About Paisano's Pizza

Headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, Capital Restaurant Group operates more than 40 Paisano's Pizza locations primarily in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. Founded in 1998 and deeply rooted in local communities, Paisano's first opened in the Shoppes at Fair Lakes in Fairfax, VA. Since then, it has expanded to dozens of more locations. Its management team has decades of experience in food service and has grown Paisano's into one of the premier delivery establishments in the region. It sets itself apart by delivering a high-quality product with a relentless focus on guest satisfaction. From its dough and pizza sauce to pasta and more, Paisano's makes everything it delivers to homes or offices fresh, made-to-order meals and pizza dough made from scratch daily. Paisano's is a restaurant that truly offers something for everyone on the menu. For more information, visit https://www.paisanospizza.com/ or follow the brand on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

SOURCE Paisanos Pizza

Related Links

https://www.paisanospizza.com


WHAT A MESS!

Lets hope the inevitable saturation of news brought about by this latest global pandemic does not allow everyone to forget the horrors just a few months ago of the appalling bushfire crisis on the Eastern seaboard. Lets also hope that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 report is not forgotten, because were we to ignore the problem of global warming at this crucial time, future deaths globally will far outnumber those wrought by COVID-19.

It is now apparent that these two monsters appearing within a short space of time  like genies out of bottles  reveal our self-delusion that we have everything under our control. We have been humbled as human beings to realise that we are not gods. Hopefully, we understand that we have been deluding ourselves that we are the top dog in our universe, that only humans can improve the world and keep evolving due to our high intelligence and physical endeavours.

Perhaps this is a very good time to re-assess the truth of what humans are capable of. Since the industrial revolution and its concomitant rapid progress with manufacturing, and food production on a massive scale helped by the invention of railways linking areas of production with city populations, society rapidly benefited from capitalism  too busy and greedy to see the widespread destruction being done to the planet. Today many blame those capitalists for becoming rich, but many workers also benefited from the system, which is probably the reason why, today, very few want to see the end of such a system. The ease of consumption has softened the majority to think that this is the only type of society we can have, whereas capitalism is just one of many ways society has organised itself over the centuries.

Its time now to face facts and listen to some unpalatable truths about where capitalism has led us. In his paper, Deep Adaptation, Professor of Sustainability at the University of Cumbria, Jem Bendell, painted a bleak picture of the future unless we act immediately to reduce carbon emissions. His descriptions of trying to live with climate-induced droughts, lack of water, diminished crops, depleted supermarket shelves, and no power were illustrated powerfully during the height of the bushfires. Communities ringed with ferocious fire storms; people uprooted and living in centres safe from the apocalypse  although in many cases, suffering from smoke inhalation and watching as fiery debris rained down on them. Completely impotent against a raging Nature. Like the latest situation with COVID-19, suddenly our normal, comfortable daily lives were shattered: no longer knowing what normal life is anymore.

But have these apocalyptic experiences opened our eyes? Are we starting to perhaps doubt that the capitalist system under which many of us were thriving is beginning to crumble? The British economist Lord Nicholas Stern described climate change as the biggest market failure in history. Yet we still hear our leaders telling us they cant (or wont) reduce greenhouse gas emissions if it means endangering jobs in the coal industry. Do they consider that the few jobs in one particular polluting sector are more important than reducing global warming which, if not dealt with, will destroy the planet and everyone elses jobs in other industries? It would appear that common sense has been lost.

Some enlightenment has been gained thanks to COVID-19. It has forced us to stay home. The greenhouse gases usually produced by the emissions of carbon dioxide via the thousands of planes in the skies and the millions of cars racing around the earth, have fallen sharply. So far weve already halved this years addition to the atmospheres carbon dioxide concentration that affects climate change. This is such a sobering statistic that it is absolutely necessary to review the way the lives we lead affects the world we live in. It is essential that after the pandemic, we do not revert to that lifestyle.

This knowledge alone should be enough to make us re-think our own behaviour. Imagine the tremendous benefits if this reduction in travel were combined with a cessation of using fossil fuels for energy. Immediately, the planet would begin to recover  albeit slowly.

But is there a connection to be made between the two most life-threatening problems facing humankind? Is climate change and the appearance of deadly viruses linked? In my lifetime, there has been Ebola outbreaks in 1976, 1995, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007, and 2012. Do you remember the Hendra Virus in 1994? It was transmitted from bats to horses to humans, but not from human to human. In 2002/3 we had the SARS virus since traced through the intermediary of civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in the Yunnan province of China. COVID-19, the latest, has killed nearly three times as many people in eight weeks as SARS did in eight months. It is proving more contagious and has infected more than one million people. Another coronavirus was MERS in 2012. They seem to be happening more frequently and becoming more contagious.

What is causing this? Once again the mixing of wild animals in the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in Wuhan was the trigger on this occasion, but globally as well as in China, wild food is becoming increasingly formalised as an economic sector. Industrial agriculture is entering food production. Wild food operators in Asia are pushing further into forests, and increasing the interface with, and spillover of, new pathogens, including COVID-19. Evolutionary biologist, Rob Wallace author of Big Farms Make Big Flu targets the role of agribusiness in this crisis. He links this with the need to mend humanitys broken relationship with ecosystems, putting the ball well and truly into the capitalists court. We can no longer treat nature like a production line.

Food production has to change radically. We have to support programmes that support agroecological production. What is agroecology? Its the study of ecological processes applied to agricultural production systems using new management approaches. It isnt associated with any one particular method of farming but compared to the industrial approach to farming, it can be seen to be more an alternative agriculture.

Wallace sees the practice of highly capitalised production of food endangering the entire human race: in this instance helping to unleash this new, deadly pandemic. We need agroecological practices that protect the environment and our farmers, and we must find a way to heal the ecological metabolism and remove economics as the sole motivator for everything we do.

We have a monumental challenge in our quest to restore the ecological balance. What is becoming increasingly clear is the damage being done to the environment and our health by continuing to pursue monetary gain at the expense of the planet. The future being created under the present capitalist system will see environmental constraints reducing the quality of life and introducing extremist perspectives, i.e. survival of the fittest, which will replace liberal values. Lets imagine what social collapse might mean to ordinary folk. Bendell explains his idea of deep adaptation as being the three Rs  Resilience, Relinquishment and Restoration. He says Resilience asks us how do we keep what we really want to keep? Relinquishment asks us what do we need to let go of in order to not make matters worse? Restoration asks us what can we bring back to help us with the coming difficulties and tragedies? 

Bendell doesnt get involved in politics other than to say that the Wests response to environmental issues has been restricted by the dominance of neoliberal economics since the 1970s. He doesnt comment on duplicitous governments spreading lies to keep us in the dark. He doesnt mention their corruption by the massive donations of fossil fuel companies and other magnates. He doesnt need to.

We need support in our quest for a more sustainable way of life. We are Resilient. The consensus is that people do not want to keep the polluting industries  we want to Relinquish them, but those in charge drag their feet. To begin the Restoration the current reduction in CO2 will depend on how the people decide to reconstruct society because if this isnt done soon, we face more apocalyptic catastrophes and the anger that simmered after the appalling summer of 2019/2020, will seem mild compared to the coming rage.
As frontline health care workers continue to put themselves at risk battling the coronavirus outbreak, some members of the public are giving their thanks - and doing so at a large scale.

At Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, the facilitys grounds and landscaping team mowed a giant heart on the medical centers lawn outside its front entrance at 15 Francis St.

The uplifting image was created over the weekend to honor medical staff who continue to work during the public health crisis, a hospital spokesperson told MassLive.

Its not just hard work, its heart work," the spokesperson said. Thank you to facilities and operations for reminding us what its all about.

Aerial photographs of the heart showed it taking up several yards of the hospitals lawn, though officials did not specify the exact measurements of the image.

The grass heart is one of many acts of goodwill directed to frontline workers amid the pandemic.

Actor and Massachusetts-native John Krasinski surprised Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center employees with free Red Sox tickets for life last month, and multiple businesses, including John Hancock, have been donating meals to health care workers.

The financial company also lit its iconic tower blue in April to show its appreciation for those working on the frontlines of the outbreak. Several other well-known buildings in Boston have done the same.

7 John Hancock donates 8,500 meals to Boston hospital employees, lights building blue to honor them

Related Content:
Recently, Reliance Jio was in the news when social media giant Facebook decided to invest a whopping 5.7 billion dollars for a 9.99 percent stake in the telecom operator.

And now, another American company is interested to take a bite of the Indian telecom disruptor.

Reuters

Private equity firm Silver Lake has announced plans to invest Rs 5656 crore in Jio Platforms for a 1.15 percent stake in the Indian telecom giant. With this investment, the valuation of Jio now stands at $65 billion with a 12.5 percent premium to the value after Facebooks investment.

Silver Lake has made major investments in several popular brands over the years. Last month it invested in travels booking website Expedia and homestay startup Airbnb. In March this year, it invested $1 billion on microblogging platform Twitter.

This will actually be the second time it is making any investments in India, after funding Bangalore-based commodity trading and risk management software startup Eka.

Why the investment in Jio?

Egon Durban, co-chief executive and managing partner at Silver Lake, in a statement, Jio has brought extraordinary engineering capabilities to bear on bringing the power of low-cost digital services to a mass consumer and small businesses population

He added, The market potential they are addressing is enormous, and we are honoured and pleased to have been invited to partner with Mukesh Ambani and the team at Reliance and Jio to help further the Jio mission.

Reuters

Jio head Mukesh Ambani said in another statement, Silver Lake has an outstanding record of being a valuable partner for leading technology companies globally. Silver Lake is one of the most respected voices in technology and finance. We are excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian Digital Societys transformation.

What do you feel about Silver Lakes investment? Tell us in the comments below.
Subscriber content preview

Here are some steps to take if you wind up on the market for new coverage.



By TOM MURPHY

AP Health Writer

Mass layoffs are pushing many Americans into an unfamiliar role: shopping for health insurance that isn't offered by an employer.

A swirl of confusing terms and options await inexperienced shoppers as they sort health insurance plans. And there's probably no one from human resources available to quickly answer questions.





. . .
Last evening, for almost two hours, President Donald Trump participated in a town hall event, "America Together: Returning to Work," on the Fox News Channel. The program was much watched by observers on both sides of the political fence because of reports that the president will be curtailing his free-wheeling daily appearances before the media and the nation at his Coronavirus Task Force's White House news briefings.

The news leads arising from the town hall involved President Trump's enthusiastic prediction that a vaccine for COVID-19 will be available before the end of the year. He was also upbeat about the country re-opening after six weeks of disastrous draconian shutdowns, as he insisted that schools need to resume as soon as possible, and colleges should plan to welcome students to their campuses next fall. He also modified his prediction of two weeks ago about how many Americans would die from COVID-19.

TRUMP: I used to say 65,000. And now I'm saying 80,000 or 90,000.

The president also went out on a limb to state that he expected a vaccine against the COVID-19 pandemic to be available by the end of the year. "We are very confident that we're going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year, have a vaccine," he insisted at one point. There was a lot of content: the program transcript provided by Fox News runs to over 20,000 words

In lieu of a live audience, the town hall, which took place at the iconic Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., went virtual and included about 20 video questions chosen from 1,000 that were sent to Fox News. The show was hosted by Fox News Channel's news program anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who also asked a variety of questions.



Fox News town hall, May 3, 2020: L. to R.: Treasury sec. Steve Mnuchin, V.P. Mike Pence, President Trump, Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum. Photo courtesy of Fox News.

In the second hour, President Trump was joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, with everyone spread out before the statue of Abraham Lincoln and sitting the requisite minimum of six feet apart from each other.

The mainstream media apparently did not see much news arising from the event, since neither the New York Times or the Washington Post chose to issue any breaking news headline alerts about what was said.

The country is as divided politically today as it ever has been. President Trump's supporters approved of his performances, while his detractors found fault. That's what social media are saying, and it's what the journals of political opinion are reporting.

Right after the Town Hall ended, for example, a CNN guest commentator insisted, "Trump was overwhelmed and throwing up his hands." Over at Fox News, on The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, Sara Carter commented approvingly, "The president showed his empathy and common sense."

Throughout the program, President Trump spoke quickly and without notes. His tone was upbeat and optimistic, in sync with the fact that more than half of the 50 states now are slowly beginning to re-open. He's trying to encourage people that it's safe to do staged re-openings in order to repair the economy. It was a mix of health advice to people concerned about COVID-19 and cheerleading for the "new normal" that awaits us. For example, the president advised continuing caution for people who are over 60 and may have a pre-existing condition.

When I appeared as a guest analyst by video Skype on BBC World News television in the U.K. three hours after the town hall ended, the program host, Sally Bundock, was most interested in how it might have influenced the president's approval ratings. That is hard to say. Yesterday, the Real Clear Politics average of polls had President Trump with a 44.1% approval rating as opposed to 50.8% disapproval. In a match-up with Joe Biden, the president is behind the former vice president in the average of polls by 42.3% to 47.6%.

The polls at the moment mean little to nothing in terms of the long run up to the November 3 election. We are in uncharted waters politically, especially in the wake of the totally unprecedented coronavirus pandemic panic that has engulfed almost the entire world and changed normal life to one that many people describe as resembling an episode of the original Twilight Zone with Rod Serling.

With the country so divided now, every election including for the presidency is pretty much a bare-knuckles fight. President Trump is beginning the 2020 campaign with his base of supporters solidly behind him and a campaign war chest that dwarfs the Democrats'. The question is, can he expand his reach to so-called independent voters and even some Democrats? In 2016, for example, he won the support of about 15% of Democrat voters who supported socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders when he ran against Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democrat presidential nomination.

Adding to the unknowns, Democrat challenger Joe Biden is facing increasing questions arising from accusations that he sexually assaulted a young female staffer in 1993. Even some Democrats and progressive media are saying Biden needs to come clean about this. Meanwhile, as Biden's momentum, if he ever had any, fades, there is increasing speculation that N.Y. governor Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, or even Michelle Obama might step in at the last minute as a member of the ticket to run against President Trump. Whatever happens, the months ahead promise to be a great show.

This exchange from the program's transcript was one of the more interesting ones of the evening:

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Let's go to Carolyn Perkins (ph). She's a retired nurse and an elementary school guidance counselor. And here's her comment/question.

QUESTION [on video]: President Trump, my husband and I thank you, your family and your staff for your great dedication to our country. We pray for you every day. The question I have is about your manner of presentation. Why do you use descriptive words that could be classified as bullying? And why do you not directly answer the questions asked by the press but instead speak of past successes and generally ramble?

The USA needs you. Please let go of those behaviors that are turning people away from you. Please hold on to your wonderful attributes that make you our great leader and let go of other characteristics that do not serve you.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Good. I think I like that question.

MACCALLUM: She's a schoolteacher.

TRUMP: I'm not sure, but I think I like that question. I appreciate it. I appreciate the prayers, too, very much.

Look, I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen. The closest would be that gentleman right up there. They always said Lincoln  nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.

You're there. You see those press conferences. They come at me with questions that are disgraceful, to be honest  disgraceful  their manner of presentation and their words. And I feel that if I was kind to them, I'd be  I'd be walked off the stage.

I mean, they come at you with the most horrible, horrendous, biased questions. And you see it, 94 percent or 95 percent of the press is hostile. And yet, if you look in Florida today, we had hundreds and hundreds of votes going up and down the Inter-coastal, "Trump, Trump." We have tremendous support, but the media is  they might as well be in the Democrat Party.

And why, I don't know. We fixed our military. We fixed the Vet. You know, if you look at the  the V.A., you take a look at what's going on with our vets, they have choice now and we have accountability. We're able to get rid of people that don't treat our vets well. They  they have been trying to do that for 44 years. And because of civil service and the unions, you couldn't do it.

The biggest thing is choice. We have done  choice  where, if a vet can't see a doctor quickly, they go outside; they get a doctor; they get fixed up; we pay the bill, instead of waiting for five weeks, seven weeks. Look at how well these things are running. We rebuilt our military. We've done  we had the greatest tax cut, biggest tax cut in history  all of the things we have done, and yet we have a very hostile press.

And you understand. I  maybe you're not going to say it or admit it and maybe you shouldn't, but nobody has ever seen anything like this.

So I really appreciate the question, and I  I very much appreciate the sentiment behind the question. But I'm standing up there, and instead of asking me a normal question, the level of anger and hatred  I'll look at them and I'll say, "What's your problem? What is your problem?"

You know, I believe we've done more than any president in the history of our country in the first three years, three and a half years. I really believe that. When you look  even if you look  Space Force  Space Force.

Also, take a look at terrorism, Al-Baghdadi  we killed him; Soleimani  we killed him. We killed the worst terrorists in the world. We got rid of ISIS for  you know, we took over 100 percent of the caliphate.

When I took it over, the caliphate was all over the place.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran journalist who writes about politics, media, popular culture, and health care for American Thinker and other publications. Peter's website is http://peter.media. Follow Peter on Twitter at @pchowka.
Tran Hong Kien - Partner of Assurance and Accounting Services PwC Vietnam

The IFRS Roadmap in Vietnam was officially approved in Decision No.345/QD-BTC on March 16 by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), a year after issuance of the draft version. It is a big leap in the MoFs commitment to enhance the quality and transparency of financial reporting in Vietnam towards global standards.

The approved roadmap of IFRS application in Vietnam is fundamentally the same as the draft. However there are four notable differences.

First, the approved roadmap offers a more comprehensive approach, which will be effective for all entities except for small, medium and micro-sized enterprises. Entities falling under the roadmap will have different options or tracks  some belong to compulsory or voluntary IFRS application groups, whereas others are mandated to apply Vietnamese financial reporting standards (VFRS).

Second, according to the draft roadmap, an entity compulsorily or voluntarily preparing its financial statements (FS) under IFRS will be exempted from preparing FS under Vietnamese accounting standards (VAS). However, in the approved roadmap, this term is removed. This would probably be an area that requires further clarification by the MoF in the future.

Third, for adopters of separate FS under IFRS, the draft roadmap was opened to all qualified enterprises with demands and resources or enterprises selected by the MoF after 2025. The approved roadmap, however, leaves the voluntary adoption of separate IFRS FS after 2025 to be determined based on the results of the pilot application phase from 2022 to 2025.

Lastly, the approved roadmap excludes banks and other credit institutions which will follow a separate roadmap to be issued by the State Bank of Vietnam. In our view, this exclusion is appropriate since IFRS application will be more complex for banks and credit institutions due to the impact of IFRS 9  financial instruments.

Sparking transformation

From 2025, VFRS will be mandatory for any entities who have not, either voluntarily or compulsorily, adopted IFRS in the first phase.

VFRS is expected to be issued before November 2024 with minimum changes to those IFRS to the extent suitable to the conditions of Vietnam's economy, the businesss needs, and the feasibility of application.

Whether adopting IFRS (after 2025) or VFRS (from 2025), future financial statements are expected to change significantly from the current VAS financial statements. Entities will have more say and be held responsible for the presentation of financial transactions under their substances, rather than following predetermined guidance as per the current VAS system.

In addition, the preparation process of financial statements will also be transformed. It is no longer merely a job of the accounting department, but rather requires smooth and collaborative processes in all divisions of an enterprise. This will be an end-to-end approach including human resources, finance, budget and planning, IT, taxes, risk management, and more.

An often-cited impact of IFRS on the operation of entities is that banks reduce the tenure of bank loans when IFRS 9 is adopted due to the impact of the expected credit loss.

Early adopter benefits

The IFRS adoption between 2022 to 2025 is voluntary for certain entities, such as parent entities which are state-owned enterprises, listed companies, large public entities and 100 per cent foreign-invested companies which are pre-approved by the MoF.

After this voluntary period, enterprises are either subject to IFRS (compulsory consolidated financial statements and/or compulsory/voluntary separate financial statements) or compulsory adoption of VFRS from 2025.

Rather than a completely new set of standards, VFRS are expected to be modified from IFRS with narrow scope modifications to suit Vietnams circumstance. Therefore, entities are recommended to start planning for IFRS conversion early. Such IFRS preparation tasks can still be used even when the VFRS option is selected in 2025.

If entities wait for the VFRS standards to be issued and until then start to study and implement, they will miss out the preparation stage which is crucial in achieving optimal implementation.

As mentioned earlier, IFRS adoption will affect every part of the entity. The successful implementation of IFRS extends beyond the accounting department. More importantly, it involves decision making and leadership by senior management including the board of directors, those who may not have an accounting background, in changing the operation processes, standardising information, and making optimal economic decisions.

The required time for an IFRS conversion process can vary, depending on factors such as human resources, knowledge and experience, availability of information in management information systems, industries, lessons learnt from peers, etc.

It usually takes a minimum of one year. Entities with a long history, operating in multiple industries, banking and insurance industries or with multiple geographical locations will need a longer period of time for conversion.

Even though 2025 seems to be quite some time from now, entities should not wait. A successful IFRS conversion project involves various processes and considerations which may not be ideally compacted towards the deadline. Experience shows that greater values can be achieved when basic preparation tasks are done before the formal IFRS plan is approved.

Early preparation tasks include assessing IFRS adoption impacts upon operations, budget and financial data as well as related stakeholders; planning to align the IFRS conversion objectives to those stakeholders, such as investors, shareholders, and lenders; and identifying potential shortage or insufficiency of human resources, data, and processes.

The IFRS conversion also requires the restatement of the opening balance sheet and restatement of comparative data of the periods before the IFRS adoption date which entities will need to comply with.

It should be noted that the amount of time spent on updating the knowledge of the accounting team, even though it is important, would account for a small part of the implementation period.

In the current economic conditions with many uncertainties due to COVID-19, entities will be more cautious in allocating budgets for IFRS implementation to best suit the business situation

It is expected that human resources for the upcoming IFRS of Vietnam will be insufficient, therefore, early preparation will help entities recruit and train the necessary staff before 2025.

Adoption success factors

Entities that have successfully adopted IFRS cover three main factors.

First, the application of IFRS requires an up-to-date information system to support the process of collecting, standardising, and processing end to end data throughout all internal departments within the entity or even with external stakeholders.

Successful IFRS implementations often go with successful implementation of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Therefore, entities that are in the process of implementing ERP projects should consider embedding functions relating to IFRS preparation.

Other entities without an ERP plan would still need to revise their existing information systems in order to capture the required IFRS information.

Second, the implementation of IFRS requires a collaboration between the accounting and other departments, thus the existing internal processes may no longer be suitable and need to be adjusted. This may involve a restructuring of the entitys organisational structure towards efficiency and effectiveness.

Lastly, and most importantly, are people. The accountant role has changed from traditional debit/credit recording to preparing financial statements based on understanding the nature of transactions, exercising judgments from past information and future forecast. IFRS training and updating for accounting teams who are now mostly familiar with VAS cannot be implemented in a short period of time.

The management and the owner of the entities who will use IFRS financial statements should also be trained to read and understand the financial reporting information.

In the region, Malaysia and Thailand have gone through a similar journey. From our experiences, while internal capabilities are essential, bear in mind that a successful implementation of IFRS involves appropriate assessment and decision-making processes to navigate and avoid non-optimal options which would be costly in terms of time and money.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

Trend:

Azerbaijan's position on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is clear and unchangeable, Spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva said, Trend reports on May 4.

Abdullayeva was commenting on the statement by Armenian Foreign Minister Mnatsakanyan at the meeting of the Commission of the Parliament about the step by step settlement of the conflict.

"The conflict has to be resolved in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act and the requirements of the related UN Security Council resolutions. Armenian armed forces should be withdrawn from all the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and IDPs expelled from these lands must return to their homes. There is no room for additional comment on this issue," she concluded.

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.
Recently, forest officials caught a rare snow leopard that ravished livestock in a remote village in the Indian Himalayas.

And now reports reveal that the rare and endangered feline is being sent to a zoo instead of being released in the wild, upsetting and enraging activists around the world.

Wikimedia

Forest officials caught the leopard after it was trapped inside a pen holding sheep and goats in the Giu village near the Tibetan border in Himachal Pradesh.

Hardev Negi, the forest official who lead the team to capture the leopard said in a statement to AFP, "The big cat was unable to escape from the enclosure after killing a few livestock. The shepherd contacted us and we captured the animal in a cage."

According to the state wildlife official Savita Sharma, the snow leopard wont be released into the wild since it was an incident of wild animal-human conflict. She also revealed that there are only 44 snow leopards living in the high passes and treacherous valleys in Himachal Pradesh.

Officials estimate that the feline managed to kill around 43 sheep and goat while being trapped in the pen for nearly four days.

Animal rights activist expresses outrage

Rajeshwar Negi, the National Convener of Nature Watch India, said the decision was unjust and it was forcing the leopard to live a life without freedom.

Talking about the stress animals face during transit, he stated, "Don't they know how stressful it will be for the animal to be transported on a bumpy 350-kilometre long road.

He added, Does it mean the snow leopard will spend the rest of its life in a zoo instead of the Himalayan wilds?"



Reuters

He also put emphasis on the fact that the zoo in Shimla has higher temperatures compared to where the Snow Leopard is used to living in its natural habitat.

Negi also revealed that snow leopards were being forced to move to a lower altitude as their natural prey which includes the ibex and blue sheep have completely vanished due to hunting.

Global warming is also to blame, he says as warmer temperatures push the tree line higher, tempting farmers to move upwards in the mountains to farm and graze livestock, entering the snow leopard territory.

Obviously, maintaining ecological balance is paramount to ensuring the survival of these highly endangered snow leopard species, and it's high time humanity tried to understand the adverse effect of having entire species of animals disappearing from the wild, and how it will indirectly affect human lives in the long term.
Nationwide disability representation provider publishes e-book offering tips to streamline the Social Security disability application and appeals process

Belleville, Illinois, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Allsup, the nations premier disability representation company, has released the 2020 edition of its free e-book, Applying For Social Security Disability Insurance: Getting It Right The First Time. The book provides expert guidance to understand questions on SSDI eligibility, timing and potential payment amounts.

The e-book is authored by Jim Allsup, founder, chairman, and CEO of Allsup, a nationwide SSDI representation company that has helped more than 325,000 individuals obtain their SSDI benefits. Simple, concise chapters help potential applicants determine SSDI eligibility and offer step-by-step explanations of the entire application and Social Securitys decision-making process. The new edition includes up-to-date information and recent SSDI program changes, and offers practical tips to help improve the likelihood of being approved for disability benefits. A PDF version is available free on the Allsup website and for purchase and use on e-readers at Amazon.com.

The book offers personal accounts of former workers with a variety of physical and mental health conditions who have successfully obtained their disability benefits. In addition, the text explains the benefits of the free Ticket to Work program and return to work assistance offered by Allsup Employment Services, as a Social Security Administration-approved (SSA) Employment Network. A glossary of common terminology used by the SSA when working with claims and appeals is also a feature of the Allsup e-book.

These are difficult and anxious times, especially for those with health conditions that put them at higher risk. However, beyond the economic and health impact of the pandemic, there are those with severe disabilities who will need to consider the SSDI program that they funded during their earning years, said Mary Dale Walters, Allsup senior vice president and the e-books editor. Understanding eligibility and learning how to navigate the Social Security disability program from our experts can help a former worker get through as quickly as possible.

Story continues

The national average success rate at the initial application, where most people apply on their own, is only 37%, Walters said, while Allsup customers have the help of a disability expert and an application success rate about 50% higher.

An exclusive feature of having Allsup as your representative is the free online tool, empower by Allsup. With empower, individuals can quickly determine if they are likely eligible for benefits, and begin working with Allsup experts to prepare their claim immediately. The tool is accessible by desktop, tablet or mobile devices.

To get started and apply for disability benefits, visit FileSSDI.Allsup.com.

E-book details: Applying for Social Security Disability Insurance: Getting It Right The First Time, ISBN: 978-1-62660-140-6, Kindle version, $7.99.

ABOUT ALLSUP

Allsup and its subsidiaries provide nationwide Social Security disability, veterans disability appeal, return to work, and healthcare benefits services for individuals, their employers and insurance carriers. Allsup professionals deliver specialized services supporting people with disabilities and seniors so they may lead lives that are as financially secure and as healthy as possible. Founded in 1984, the company is based in Belleville, Illinois, near St. Louis. Learn more at TrueHelp.com and @Allsup.

Attachment

Rebecca Ray

Allsup

(618) 236-5065

r.ray@allsup.com



Victoria Shockley

Pinkston

(919) 780-9727

victoria.shockley@pinkston.co


The Valleys annual Memorial Day parades honoring the servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice have been cancelled due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

With heavy hearts, officials in Ansonia, Derby, Seymour and Shelton decided to not hold the parades in the interest of safety, for parade participants as well as parade-goers.

This was a very difficult decision on many levels, said Ansonia Events Coordinator Richard DiCarlo. About 75 percent of our participants fall into the at risk realm of the COVID-19 health demographic and that alone was too big a risk.

DiCarlo said Ansonia will hold a virtual alternative to the parade so the memories of all those whove died serving the country dont go unnoticed.

We need to be reminded to honor those who came forth to serve this country in time of need and gave the ultimate sacrifice so we can enjoy our freedom, DiCarlo said. These heroic men and women are far greater than anything life today can throw at us. No matter what we do, we will never live up to their ultimate sacrifice. Yes, its only a parade that was cancelled, but Memorial Day lives on.

Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti encouraged folks to check the citys website for updates on the virtual program.

Regardless of the crisis we are battling now, Ansonia and all residents across the country will always remember the sacrifices of our brave men and women in the armed forces who fought so valiantly for us, he said.

Ralph Villers, chairman of Ansonias Cultural Commission, said a visual retrospective of past parades is being considered, and said people can find other ways to express their appreciation.

Using the usual protections and social distancing, I would visit the monuments at Ansonias Veterans Park, Villers said. Look at the names and contemplate how their ultimate sacrifice allows you to be free.

In neighboring Derby and Shelton, where both towns combine forces to hold one of the states oldest Memorial Day parades, calling off this years event was inevitable.

We started planning for the parade in September, but when the pandemic hit, we decided logistically its not going to work, said Fire Marshal and Parade Line-Up Co-Chairman James Chic Tortora. We have almost 90 units march each year, and almost 98 percent werent willing to attend this year due to the health crisis. Its really unfortunate, but given the several thousands of people who show up, we just cant keep people safe. We will do it next year, bigger and better than ever.

Derby Mayor Richard Dziekan, an Air Force veteran, said cancelling the parade was very sad, but keeping people safe during the pandemic is critical to getting back to normal.

I love this country, the veterans did so much for us, but we will be back, Dziekan said.

In Seymour, Parade Committee Chairman Alex Danka said while the Memorial Day parade planned for the end of this month is off the table, the committee hopes to hold the towns first ever Memorial Day and Fourth of July parade with fireworks (possibly) on July 4.

Our committee and this town are committed to honoring all those who sacrificed for us, and if everything works out, and its safe to do so, we will hold an event like this town has never seen before in July, he said.

jean.sos@snet.net
(Natural News) The death tolls from COVID-19 that have been widely reported for various countries around the world are upsetting on their own, but a new report shows that those numbers are actually just the tip of the iceberg.

An analysis carried out by the Financial Times shows that the death toll from the disease overall could be as much as 60 percent greater than what official counts indicate. They reached this number by taking a look at the numbers of deaths from any cause in March and April of 2020 in various locations around the world and comparing it to the average for the same time frame in the years from 2015 to 2019. The total they arrived at, 122,000, represents a 50 percent jump in overall mortality in relation to the locations historical average.

When you look at individual places, you can see the same phenomenon at work. New York State, for example, typically sees 441 deaths each day on average in non-pandemic times, according to data from Indexmundi.com. During the coronavirus surge, however, they experienced a 299 percent rise in total deaths from all causes. It could be argued that not all of these are directly caused by coronavirus; in some places, people arent as quick to seek medical help for non-virus reasons as they normally would be because theyre worried about being exposed. At the same time, however, lockdowns mean there are a lot fewer road and work accidents killing people these days.

It simply cannot be a coincidence that so many more people than usual are dying at the same time that the virus is surging in different areas.

When you subtract the number of officially counted coronavirus deaths in various places from these excess deaths, youll see that there are thousands of people who most likely died from the virus but were never tested for it. After all, it doesnt make any sense to use the hard-to-get tests on people who are already dead. However, this does show us how far off official counts could be.

Huge jumps in overall deaths seen throughout Europe

The report also looked at individual countries, and it paints a grim picture of the situation in Europe. Frances overall death rate climbed by 34 percent, while that of Italy rose by 90 percent and Spain by 51 percent. In Belgium, overall deaths were up by 60 percent, while a surge of 42 percent was seen in the Netherlands. When you look at specific places, its even worse. The surge in total mortality in Bergamo province was 463 percent, while that seen in Madrid, Spain, was 161 percent. Ile-de-France, France, meanwhile, saw a surge of 122 percent.

Theres no question that coronavirus is behind these deaths. There really is nothing else that could be suddenly causing hundreds of thousands of people to die around the world at the same time. You may recall that when all this started, a lot of people argued that those dying from the virus were elderly or sick people who would have died anyway, but its clear from these numbers that is absolutely not the case.

In fact, the Financial Times went on to calculate that the global death toll of coronavirus should actually be above 300,000; contrast this with the current official count, which is closer to 200,000. These are statistics that could save lives if they were used to make decisions about ending lockdowns. With a 50 percent surge in deaths around the world, is it really time to start getting back to life as normal?

Sources for this article include:

NaturalNews.com

FT.com
KUALA LUMPURMigrant workers in Malaysia are now required to be tested for the CCP virus, a senior minister said, as the government eased six-week long curbs on movement and businesses.

Thousands of Malaysians joined rush hour morning on May 4 as businesses resumed for the first time since the imposition on March 18 of restrictions to contain the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Senior security minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob told reporters foreign workers in all sectors must now undergo mandatory screening for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the CCP virus, after an outbreak was reported among migrants working at a Kuala Lumpur construction site last week.

The costs for testing must be borne by the employer, Ismail Sabri said.

The announcement comes after Malaysia detained hundreds of undocumented migrants over the weekend, sparking criticism from the United Nations and rights groups. Ismail Sabri had earlier defended the arrests, saying that all of those detained had tested negative for the CCP virus.

Migrant workers have been a particularly vulnerable community during the pandemic. In neighboring Singapore, thousands of infections have been linked to migrant worker dormitories.

There are about 2 million registered foreign workers in Malaysia but authorities say many more are living there without proper documents. The migrant workers are mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and Nepal.

Reservations

Malaysia, which until mid-April had the highest number of infections in Southeast Asia, has defended its decision to relax curbs despite a recent climb in cases. On Sunday, it reported 122 new cases, the highest since April 14, for a total of nearly 6,300 infections.

Nine of its 13 states have expressed reservations over the easing move, opting to delay it or toughen restrictions for fear of a surge in infections.

The largest palm producing state of Sabah, on Borneo island, said it would stick to a previous shutdown order that runs until May 12, to ensure people are not exposed to the CCP virus, Chief Minister Shafie Apdal said in a statement on Sunday.

But manufacturers are keen to get back to work, with some, such as tech firm Qdos Group, aiming to ramp up production.

Chief Executive Jeffrey Hwang said his company was focused on clearing a backlog in demand for its products, used to make medical equipment, while maintaining absolute safety at its facility.

Got to turn on more overtime in May and June to cope with that, Hwang added.

The government has estimated losses of 63 billion ringgit ($14.58 billion) and for the economy to turn in its worst performance in more than a decade due to the curbs.

By Rozanna Latiff and Krishna N. Das

NTD staff contributed to this report.
A PENNDOT sign along Route 1 just below Street Road in Bucks County asking drivers to stay at home and practice social distance because of the coronavirus, on Sunday March 22, 2020. Read more

 UPDATE: Gov. Wolf outlines plans for reopening in early June

Officials in Delaware and Bucks Counties are asking Gov. Tom Wolf to aid the Philadelphia region as it looks to eventually reopen, including by increasing diagnostic testing and separately assessing new coronavirus cases in its nursing-home population against those among the rest of the population.

State health officials, meanwhile, say these populations are naturally intertwined and unable to be separated. Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday he would take into account how much community spread is occurring outside nursing homes and other congregate-care facilities, and balance that with the statewide reopening criteria.

We are trying to make this reopening process as measured, reasonable, and logical as we can, but there will always be a measure of subjectivity in it," the governor said. If we dont take into account that there may be a higher density of long-term care facilities or congregate care areas like prisons in an area, then were not being realistic.

The Delaware County council noted that for the county to reach Wolfs benchmark for reopening, it would have to record an average of 20 new cases per day for two weeks. Last week, the county averaged 139 new cases per day. But 70% of deaths and 20% of all positive cases are from long-term care facilities, the council said.

Council views our current situation as two separate challenges that require separate approaches, councilman Kevin Madden said in a Monday press conference, reading from a statement prepared by the council.

The Democratic-controlled body said if Wolf, a fellow Democrat, would assess the cases in the community outside nursing homes, the county may begin to at least partially reopen before too long."

Let me be clear: We are not calling on the governor to reopen Delaware County until we can safely do so, and there is still too much spread of COVID-19 in the community at this time," Madden said in a phone interview. The governor has set targets for counties to open. We are calling on the state to give us the necessary resources to meet these targets as soon as we can.

Tom Killion, a Republican state senator from Delaware County, and eight Republican state representatives from Bucks County later joined in the call for a modified metric.

A general shutdown in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic was justified," Killion said in a statement. However, we now know this virus disproportionately affects our seniors and those with underlying conditions. ... Adhering to the metric previously announced without consideration of congregate care home cases will delay the reopening of our region for weeks if not months.

Eight Republican state representatives from Bucks County  Sen. Bob Mensch, Sen. Tommy Tomlinson, Rep. Frank Farry, Rep. Todd Polinchock, Rep. Meghan Schroeder, Rep. Craig Staats, Rep. Wendi Thomas, and Rep. Kathleen Tomlinson  signed a letter to the governor and the health secretary in favor of this revised metric. Bucks Countys three-member, Democratic-controlled board of commissioners, as well as its health department, are also on board, the legislators said in a statement.

The Bucks County lawmakers signed the letter with the acknowledgement that we have very little community spread and a significant amount of our cases are from long-term facilities, they said.

The governor indicated Tuesday that even if nursing home cases were excluded, the Philadelphia region would not be out of the woods in terms of the virus spread.

We are trying to keep people safe, Wolf said. If you look beyond long-term care home mortality rates in the southeast [part of the state], you still have a troubling situation.

Philadelphia Health Public Health Commissioner Tom Farley said it could be a good idea to separately follow nursing home case data, as long as those cases arent removed from the broader equation entirely.

We certainly need to make sure that we have some sense that nursing homes are getting better, as well as a sense that the overall epidemic is getting better, he said.

Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Monday these populations will not be excluded when gauging which areas can resume some business.

We have been asked this question before, and we are not going to separate nursing home cases from other cases in counties," Levine said. "What we have certainly learned in this global pandemic of COVID-19 is that we are all interconnected. One section of our community  impacts the general community, and the community impacts that facility.

Levine said it is impossible to separate these sectors, particularly because staff members go back and forth between the facility and the broader community.

This request comes as 24 counties in northern parts of the state prepare to move into the initial phase of reopening Friday, and officials work to balance the public health risks of a pandemic with the economic fallout of a prolonged shutdown.

Health officials say stay-at-home orders and other measures are key to mitigating the pandemic. In the process, however, the economy has suffered. Already more than 1.6 million Pennsylvanians have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus.

While nearly 70% of Pennsylvanians, including half of self-identified Republicans, approve of Wolfs response, the ones who dont have made their voices heard. Some Republican lawmakers last month spoke to and mingled with a crowd of protesters who rallied outside the state Capitol to call for the economy to reopen.

Wolf has said repeatedly that he expects the densely populated Philadelphia region to be among the last to reopen. The governor has said he based his decisions on a per capita metric  an average of fewer than 50 new reported cases over 14 days per 100,000 residents  and other factors, such as hospital capacity and testing capabilities.

 READ MORE: Heres how low Phillys case count has to be for the state to consider reopening Southeastern Pa.

Delaware County officials say the Philadelphia region should be first in line for more diagnostic testing.

Along with leaders of other Southeastern Pennsylvania counties, the council called on Wolf to prioritize increasing testing in the hard-hit area, the economic engine that drives the state economy and contributes a disproportionate share of the states tax revenue.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered

Health officials are looking to expand testing across the commonwealth, including in the collar counties around Philadelphia, Levine said.

The governor has outlined a plan for reopening, Madden said, and the Philadelphia region must be given the necessary resources to reach the targets set out.

 READ MORE: Red light, green light: What do Pa.s reopening phases mean for Philly amid the coronavirus pandemic?

Even if given these tools, Madden said officials would not rush to reopen too quickly at the risk of vulnerable residents.

Regardless of political party or background, we all want the same things, he said. We all want to see businesses open. None of us want to see others die from the virus."

Staff writer Sean Walsh contributed to this article.
All three teachers majored in Adolescence to Young Adult Integrated Social Studies at BGSU

By Andrew Addessi

It seems like one day youre sitting in the class, and then the next, youre standing in front of it.

Kevin Werner, Kaetlin Bowling, and Mckenzie Weaver  three 2019 Bowling Green State University alumni  each has been recognized as Rookie Teachers of the Year.

Werner majored in Adolescence to Young Adult (AYA) Integrated Social Studies with a minor in history, and now finds himself teaching at River Oaks Middle School in South Carolina. He puts high importance on talking with his students, learning about their lives outside the classroom and switching up routines. Most classes start with a "good things" activity where his students are free to share about their days.

The recognition gave me the boost of confidence that I am doing this whole 'teaching thing' somewhat correctly, Werner said. Between the professors, the amazing cohort I was privileged to be a part of and the amazing CMT whom I had throughout my student teaching experience, I felt prepared to take on this role.

Creating unique classroom structures and connecting with his students was helped along by the lesson planning and hands-on approaches from his professors, such as Drs. Nancy Patterson and Joanna Weaver. Werner aims to make lessons that not only teach, but also give the students something to look forward to.

Bowling majored in AYA Integrated Social Studies with a minor in history. After her time at BGSU, Bowling now teaches South Carolina history to eighth graders at Alston Middle School. She puts major emphasis on building a relationship with her students and connecting the content she teaches to present day.

As soon as I was able to relate to them and show them that I care and am a real person, they started to become more interested in the content, Bowling said. BGSU helped me learn and develop important classroom management strategies so I didnt have to learn them in my first year of teaching.

Bowling is thankful for the BGSU social studies staff helping her learn the skills to write lessons and activities that are not just productive, but also engaging for students. She also cites Patterson and Weaver as huge influences through her learning.

Weaver also majored in Adolescence to Young Adult Education Integrated Social Studies and teaches social studies at DuBose Middle School in South Carolina. Teaching middle school comes with its own set of challenges, but Weaver makes sure that care for her students come first, and content second.

Sometimes, in your first year of teaching, you feel like everything you're doing and all the hard work is doing absolutely nothing, Weaver said. This award made me realize that I am doing a great job, and that what I am doing is effective and working.

Rather than settling as a good teacher, Weaver looks to be a great teacher. Once again thanking Patterson, she thanks her professors for the foundation to not just teach students, but to care for them, too.

Teachers are often important figures in a students life, so being effective, engaging and taking a unique approach to teaching is just as important. Werner, Bowling and Weaver are all recognized for their devotion to not just their jobs, but to the students they teach.

The content comes second for me, Weaver said. All the history in the world does not compare to the importance of being cared for.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Norman Harsono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 13:14 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c6319 1 Business Indonesia,solar-energy,solar-photovoltaic,demand,commercial,residential-area,IESR,budget-reallocation,COVID-19 Free

Indonesias photovoltaic (PV) providers face a bleak business outlook at least in the next six months as the government and individual users cut back spending on anything deemed nonessential amid the pandemic, including solar panels.

Demand for commercial PV panels was down up to 70 percent in the March-April period from a year earlier as businesses aborted installation plans and as, most critically, the government cut back electrification project plans, according to a recent survey conducted by energy think tank Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR).

Meanwhile, demand for residential PV systems dropped by up to 100 percent during the same period as consumers reallocated funding to groceries, bills and savings.

We see the outlook over the next six months  until the third quarter of 2020  as largely negative. No new orders, IESR executive director Fabby Tumiwa said during a virtual press conference on April 21.

The challenges faced by Indonesias solar power industry are similar to those across developing renewable markets in Asia, such as India and Vietnam, where local producers are equally exposed to foreign exchange risks and shrinking financial support.

So far no government has taken a strong stand to support renewables during the downturn, wrote energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie Asia Pacific in a press note on April 29.

Solar power contributes less than 4 percent to overall energy consumption in the Asia Pacific region but is the fastest-growing renewable energy source worldwide alongside wind power.

In Indonesias case, the domestic solar industry is at the mercy of the government, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the electricity business through electrification projects, according to an Indonesian Solar Panel Producers Association (APAMSI) representative.

That automatically means that a shift in spending will add to the burden on solar producers, APAMSI chairman Nick Nurrachman told The Jakarta Post on Monday (27/4).

Due to the COVID lockdown, the industry can close down, either temporarily or permanently, he said.

The government announced in late March a plan to reallocate Rp 62.3 trillion (US$4.15 billion) from the state budget to tackle the coronavirus. The freed funds would focus on health care, the disbursement of relief funds and financial incentives for enterprises.

Nick added that Indonesian producers also struggled with higher production costs due to the weakening rupiah exchange rate and more costly cross-border logistics. Producers imported 40 percent of the materials used to create solar PV panels, including silicon, junction boxes and glass.

Domestically produced solar PV costs rose between 15 and 20 percent per unit in the March-April period.

Responding to the challenges, APAMSI members were cutting costs and securing Industry Ministry permits to remain open under lockdown in anticipation of new solar PV orders.

Most members have reduced employee shifts. Production line workers are put on leave  still receiving salary  and indirect staff, particularly marketing, go to work to ensure orders can keep coming in, said Nick, summarizing workplace changes within the domestic industry.

Meanwhile, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministrys energy conservation director, Hariyanto, confirmed that the government was slashing state-funded renewable energy project targets but not cancelling them entirely.

He said the ministry had revised down its target for government-funded solar rooftop installations from 800 units to 144 units and for solar-powered streetlamps from 40,000 to 26,000. The lamps are installed in hard-to-reach regions with poor electricity infrastructure.

Theres a reduction in volume as we refocus the state budget on attainable projects, he told reporters during a video conference earlier this month (22/4).
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator, sat with some discomfort, her feet barely touching the floor, as Doctor Donald Trump prescribed his latest cure for the coronavirus. Dr. Trump talked about ways to ingest cleaning fluids and take hydroxychloroquine and if that didnt work go out and sit in the sun. Dr. Birx did not speak up even though other doctors and cleaning fluid suppliers shouted loudly about this outrageous advice.

Not to be left sitting quietly on the sidelines South Dakota Governor Nurse Kristi Noem, a protege of The Donald, immediately started a study program for hydroxychloroquine using residents of South Dakota as her guinea pigs. Other countries had already tested the pill and not only found it inadequate but dangerous. People with certain health problems died from it.

Trumps former personal attorney Michael Cohen, a man who was just released early from prison because of the coronavirus impacting the prisoners, went to prison for defending and lying for his boss Donald Trump. Cohen paid off the porn stars prior to the last presidential election in order to protect Trump.

Anyhow Cohen said under oath that anyone aligning themselves with Trump would find themselves corrupted. All of the stooges that line up with Trump for his virus briefings have been compromised. They attempt to lend credence to his lies and misrepresentations knowing full well that the advice he is handing out can be harmful if not deadly. They are complicit in endangering the lives of their fellow Americans. And the same goes for the Republican Senators who refused to sign off on the impeachment of the most incompetent man ever to sit in the oval office.

Trump still has the time to do great damage to this country. The media is remiss in not publicizing all of the things he has been doing quietly to injure the poor and minorities. He has been subtly quashing all of the good things President Obama enacted while he was in office. The SNAP or Food Stamp Program is just one of them.

How can South Dakotas two GOP Senators sit back and say nothing when they know full well that many of their constituents are Native Americans and because of the poverty on the Indian reservations, many of them depend on the SNAP Program in order to survive? Shouldnt it be a major part of their job to protect the people in their own state? We once editorialized that GOP meant Greed Over People and in the era of Donald S. Trump this interpretation has truly become the main focus of the Republican Party. Sad!

It took a major pandemic for the total incompetence of Trump to surface. It was always there but like a boxer who can dance his way out of a corner, Trump has been dancing and weaving, but when this pandemic came out of nowhere, he had no place to hide. Perhaps the GOP could snicker behind his back about his irrelevance, but when America and the world came under a deadly attack of a disease that seemed to be unstoppable, the Republicans had to take a new look at their clueless leader because he was finally endangering their chances of getting re-elected.

There is an old saying that emphasizes how to protect ourselves and it goes, Katy bar the door and that is exactly what all of us must do in order to survive as a people over the next 200 days of Trump's presidency.

Contact the Editorial Board of Native Sun News Today at editor@nativesunnews.today

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today

Join the Conversation
SAN FRANCISCO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Lookout, Inc. , the leader in mobile security, today announced that its Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security offering achieved a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Joint Advisory Board (JAB) Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO). Lookout is now available on the FedRAMP Marketplace .

FedRAMP aims to accelerate the adoption of secure cloud solutions through reuse of assessments and authorizations, increase confidence in cloud solution security, and ensure consistent application of existing security practices. There are two types of FedRAMP Authorizations: a P-ATO granted by the JAB and an Agency Authority to Operate (ATO) issued by individual agencies. Lookout has earned a JAB P-ATO, which demonstrates the company's elite ability to provide holistic mobile security protection to government agencies.

The JAB, which includes representatives from the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the General Services Administration (GSA), conducts one of the industry's most comprehensive risk assessments of a cloud service offering (CSO).

"Lookout's FedRAMP JAB P-ATO comes at a critical time as federal agencies scramble to address the security challenges that come with shifting millions of employees and contractors to telework," said Jim Dolce, CEO at Lookout. "We're ready to help our federal agencies pursue the benefits of telework in a mobile-first world."

Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security enables agencies to gain visibility into the entire spectrum of mobile risk, apply policies to measurably reduce that risk, and integrate into existing security and mobile management solutions.

"We pursued the JAB P-ATO to enable the widest range of government agencies to quickly deploy our Mobile Endpoint Security solution," said Bob Stevens, Vice President of Americas at Lookout.

The journey to a mobile-first government workplace is already well underway. Initiatives and programs such as NIST's Mobile Device Security for Enterprises and The Presidential Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity encourage government entities to implement secure mobile technology to improve communication within agencies and increase productivity across departments. As a result, there are more devices than ever accessing government networks, and traditional perimeter-based security solutions are no longer adequate because they cannot simply be migrated to mobile operating systems. As a result, federal agencies must implement security that was architected specifically for the modern mobile-first world.

To learn more about Lookout's FedRAMP compliance information and work with government agencies, please visit: https://www.lookout.com/products/government-solutions .

About Lookout

Lookout is a cybersecurity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world. Powered by the Lookout Security Platform and the largest dataset of mobile code in existence, Lookout provides protection for the entire spectrum of mobile risk: phishing, app, device and network-based threats. Lookout is trusted by hundreds of millions of individual users, and enterprises, government agencies and partners such as AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Microsoft, Google, and Apple. Headquartered in San Francisco, Lookout has offices in Amsterdam, Boston, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington, D.C. To learn more, visit www.lookout.com and follow Lookout on its blog , LinkedIn , and Twitter .

Media Contact

[email protected]

SOURCE Lookout

Related Links

http://www.lookout.com


New Delhi, May 4 : Lenovo-owned smartphone brand Motorola launched its foldable flagship Moto Razr in March this year and the device has now been listed with May 8 tentative release date on Flipkart.

The smartphone was originally planned to release in the country on April 2.

The date was postponed to April 15 due to coronavirus pandemic, and later to May 6.

The smartphone maker is yet to release an update whether it will start with sales of Motorola Razr this week.

The smartphone is priced at Rs 1,24,999 for the sole 6GB RAM + 128GB storage variant.

The phone features a 2.7-inch OLED 'Quick View' interactive display on the outside of the device will keep you connected.

The phone, when open, gives 6.2-inch 'Flex View' display with 21:9 'CinemaVision' aspect ratio -- the same ultra-wide dimensions used by the film industry.

The device has 16MP dual use camera (f/1.7 aperture) that doubles up as the rear camera when open, and the selfie camera when closed.

It houses 'Night Vision' mode in extremely low-light conditions to bring more details out of the dark.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  Last summer, when U.S. Rep. Justin Amash announced he was leaving the Republican Party and would run for reelection as an independent, he shook up the race for Michigans 3rd Congressional District in a big way.

Democrats saw it as an opportunity.

A three-person race  between Amash, a Democrat and a Republican  could split the Republican vote, they said, giving Democrats a path to victory and an opportunity to represent the Grand Rapids area in Congress for the first time since 1976.

Some saw the opposite playing out. Because Amash voted to impeach President Donald Trump, he would likely have received a portion of the anti-Trump vote that would otherwise go to the Democratic nominee.

So, who was right?

Now that Amash left the race to seek the Libertarian Partys presidential nomination, we may never know the answer. But several political observers told MLive.com that Amashs move will likely benefit Republicans on Election Day.

Its good news for the Republicans that Justin Amash is not going to run, said Doug Koopman, a political science professor at Calvin University who worked as a congressional staffer for Pete Hoekstra, Fred Upton and Paul Henry.

Almost every scenario, if he were in the race in November, he would take more votes from the Republican side than from the Democratic side.

Nathan Gonzales, the editor and publisher of Inside Elections, a non-partisan political newsletter, said Amashs exit makes the congressional election less complicated for Republicans.

It doesnt guarantee their victory, Gonazles said. But I think the risk is now about whats happening at the top of the ballot rather than whats happening with Amashs candidacy.

Michigans 3rd Congressional District includes the city of Grand Rapids, a large portion of Kent County, part of Montcalm County, as well as Ionia, Barry and Calhoun counties.

The district leans Republican but has become more competitive in recent years. Trump earned 52 percent of the vote there in 2016, down one percent from Mitt Romneys performance four years earlier, according to the Cook Political Report.

The last time a Democrat was elected to represent the city of Grand Rapids in Congress was 1974. Attorney Richard Vander Veen was elected that year, in what was then the 5th Congressional District. He replaced U.S. Rep. Gerald Ford, who resigned from the seat to become vice president during Richard Nixons second term.

After Amash announced in July that he was leaving the Republican Party and would run for re-election as an independent, Democrats touted their chances of winning the congressional seat.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the arm of the Democratic Party focused on U.S. House races, announced that it had added the congressional district to a list of House seats it was trying to flip from red to blue. It said that in 2018, Democratic candidate Cathy Albro earned 43.2 percent of the vote against Amash, more than enough to beat a split Republican vote.

DCCC spokesperson Courtney Rice said the district remains competitive despite Amashs exit.

She pointed to an internal DCCC poll that was conducted in February among 405 likely general-election voters. She said the poll, whose full results have not been made public, shows a generic Democratic candidate leading a generic Republican candidate by 47 percent to 45 percent.

The district has been trending towards Democrats, she said.

The DCCC says Republican Bill Schuette narrowly defeated then-candidate Gretchen Whitmer in the district in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Whitmer received 49.1 percent of the major-party vote, according to the DCCC.

Hillary Scholten, an immigration attorney from Grand Rapids, is the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 3rd Congressional District seat. She said her campaign is focused on service-oriented leadership, and that her top issues are expanding access to healthcare, protecting drinking water, and increasing educational and employment opportunities.

Regardless of what Amash chooses to do, I think we have a path to victory, Scholten said.

She added, For me, its about the issues, not so much blind party allegiance. I think theres a strong group of voters here who liked Amash for his independent-style of thinking, and Im someone who offers that as well but with the added bonus of wanting to provide on issues that deeply matter to people.

Others argued that, had Amash stayed in the race, he would have helped Republicans and hurt Democrats.

After Amash left the GOP and announced he would run for re-election as an independent, the Cook Political Report revised its rating for the race from solid Republican to toss up. But the political newsletter revised its rating once again in December to lean Republican.

Any path in 2020 probably involved Amash siphoning votes from the GOP nominee, reducing the threshold for victory, Cook Political Report author David Wasserman wrote. Now, Amashs anti-Trump posture seems more likely to split votes on the left.

Richard Czuba, a nonpartisan pollster in Michigan, echoed that sentiment. He said now that Amash has left the race, Democrats may have a better opportunity to win because it solidifies the anti-Trump voters behind one candidate.

I dont think anybody will claim that Justin Amash is going to get a share of the Trump vote, he said. Hes simply not. So, what he and the Democrat were doing is splintering that vote.

Five candidates are seeking the Republican nomination to represent the 3rd Congressional District. They are: state Rep. Lynn Afendoulis, R-Grand Rapids Township, U.S. Army veteran Peter Meijer; former Sand Lake Village President Tom Norton; Lyons Village Trustee Joe Farrington; and Battle Creek attorney Emily Rafi.

Afendoulis and Meijer are regarded as the front runners.

Meijer campaign spokesperson Noah Sadlier said how Amash would have affected the race is one of those political mysteries well never get an answer to.

But he added, Thats never been our focus. Weve always been focused on serving West Michigan, and we look forward to continuing our service to the community.

Read more:

Michigan districts are meeting students where they are as schools adapt to remote learning

From closing restaurants to requiring masks, Gov. Whitmer has issued 69 executive orders in 56 days

University of Michigan provost cautiously optimistic for in-person fall semester
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) London, United Kingdom  Mon, May 4, 2020 15:52 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5d361b 2 World Boris-Johnson,COVID-19,lockdown,Britain Free

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out his plan to ease a nationwide coronavirus lockdown next Sunday, media reports said, as new guidance emerged on how to maintain social distancing in workplaces.

Stay-at-home orders imposed in late March are up for review on Thursday in Britain, one of the worst hit countries in the COVID-19 pandemic, but the government has already said the measures will be eased only gradually.

New guidance drawn up with company bosses and trade unions, seen by the BBC and the Financial Times, suggests office workers will be encouraged to stay at home for months to avoid overwhelming the transport system.

But where staff must come in, companies are being urged to stagger shifts, stop people sharing desks or stationery, step up hygiene measures, keep staff canteens shut and restrict the number of people in lifts.

Shop or bank branch workers dealing with customers must be protected by plastic screens, according to the recommendations -- although there is no detail on what kind of protective equipment other employees might require.

Britons are currently being told to stay at home unless they need to work, buy essentials or take daily exercise, but they must stay at least two metres away from other people.

Maintaining this social distancing while restarting the economy brings huge problems.

"It won't work in aviation or any other form of public transport, and the problem is not the plane, it is the lack of space in the airport," said the chief executive of London's Heathrow airport, John Holland-Kaye.

"Just one jumbo jet would require a queue a kilometre long," he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

A total of 28,446 people have now died after testing positive for COVID-19 in Britain, almost on a par with Italy, Europe's worst affected country.
The coronavirus pandemic caused a delay of an important visit from Armenia to the US, the country's FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said on Monday at the parliament.

According to him, the agenda of relations is voluminous, there is good potential in the development of bilateral relations. The minister noted that in 2019, US aid increased by 40%, reaching $ 60 million.

Despite the dire consequences of the pandemic for the US itself, they decided to provide aid to Armenia in the amount of 1 million to eliminate the consequences. As for the reduction of aid to Artsakh, the minister noted he would be limited in the comments: this is about the implementation of specific programs, this is a consistent dialogue, and it is not worth talking about it in the past completed time.
CHICAGO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Antony Nettleton, former global leader of assurance, quality and enterprise risk for Grant Thornton International, has joined Sikich and will lead its assurance team.

"As technology drives significant changes in assurance work, those changes present great opportunities for forward-thinking companies," Sikich CEO Chris Geier said. "Antony brings an ambitious, growth-oriented mindset to our business and an enthusiasm for using technology to improve processes and deliver superior client service that mirrors my own. I'm confident he's the right leader to guide our assurance team through this era of change."

Prior to joining Sikich, Nettleton worked in a variety of roles at Grant Thornton for nearly 30 years. He most recently led Grant Thornton's global quality and enterprise risk team. Prior to that, he led its Chicago assurance practice and served on the U.S. firm's partnership board.

"When I got to know the Sikich team, I was impressed with the company's entrepreneurial and innovative culture, as well as its strong leadership," Nettleton said. "Sikich's breadth of capabilities puts it in an enviable position where it is able to address middle-market companies' many business challenges. And its embrace of a wide range of technology will enable our team to offer clients more insight and value during the assurance process."

Nettleton earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Liverpool. He works in Sikich's Naperville office.

About Sikich LLP

Sikich LLP is a global company specializing in technology-enabled professional services. With more than 1,000 employees, Sikich draws on a diverse portfolio of technology solutions to deliver transformative digital strategies and ranks as one of the largest CPA firms in the United States. From corporations and not-for-profits to state and local governments, Sikich clients utilize a broad spectrum of services* and products to help them improve performance and achieve long-term, strategic goals.

*Securities offered through Sikich Corporate Finance LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Sikich Financial, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor.

SOURCE Sikich

Related Links

http://sikich.com


Bafut Palace Archives

Brigadier General Nka Valere, Commander of the 5th Joint Military Region has said claims that the military burnt down part of the Bafut Fons palace and molested queens and princesses during an operation in September 2019 are unfounded.

He was speaking in Bafut Friday, May 1, 2020 following a fact-finding mission to the Fons Palace. Brigadier General Nka was accompanied by Brigadier General Ekongwese Divine Nnoko, Commander of the 5th Gendarmerie Region.

I heard on social media just like you that soldiers had burnt portions of the Bafut Palace. You, men and women of the media, can see for yourselves that there was no attack on the Bafut Palace, said Nka. He said soldiers are doing all to secure lives and property.

The military chiefs in the North West region were in Bafut at the end of a six-day military operation that led to the destruction of camps run by armed separatists. The commander of the special operation, Colonel Matiang Charles Alain and his no fewer than 300 elements drawn from other detachments of the military including the 501 Air Force Base and the Motorized Infantry Brigade, swept through Bafut for six days from the night of Saturday, April 25, 2020.

From Sop, Mankwi, to Manka Nikong through to Nsani and then Agyati and beyond, the defence forces neutralised scores of separatist fights including the notorious general Alhadji and general Peace Plant. Open sources suggest at least 53 separatists were killed in the operation. Separatist general Alhadji is known to have masterminded the kidnapping on November 5, 2018 of 79 students, the principal and three staff members from the Presbyterian Secondary School (PSS) Nkwen.

Operation Free Bafut also led to the recovery of the Saddle Hill Ranch, a luxury hotel resort that had been transformed into an operational base for armed separatist fighters grouped under the name Bafut Seven Katta Defense Force. Assorted weaponry was also recovered along with motorbikes, a Toyota Fortuner SUV and two horses.

Cameroon-Info.Net recalls that in September 2019, news made rounds to the effect that the military had burnt down part of the Bafut Fons palace and molested queens and princesses during an operation. Brigadier General Nka Valere has now denied the claims.

Hon. Fusi Naamukong, Member of Parliament for Bafut/Tubah at the time wrote to the President of the Republic decrying the excesses of elements of the defence and security forces he accused of invading the Bafut Palace and villages in the Bafut Fondom.

In the letter dated September 25, 2019, the Parliamentarian addressed himself to the Head of State on the Desecration of the Bafut Palace and Villages in Bafut Fondom.

The MP said he had been reliably informed by senior elites of his constituency that elements of the Cameroon military invaded the Bafut Palace on Tuesday, September 24, 2019. He wondered why such a thing will be happening when the Head of State is making efforts to bring lasting peace and national cohesion with a call to dialogue.

The invasion is happening for the second time and saw the military shattering eight houses belonging to queen mothers, looting property, shattering three ancestral shrine houses, looting its content, shattering the two doors of the museum and carrying away artefacts. One of the Fons guards, a 56-year-old prince who is a father of six children was shot, the queen mothers, prince and princesses were molested, said Hon. Fusi Naamukong, voted out of parliament last March 22.

The representative of the people at the time added that since the convening of the Major National Dialogue, many villages in Bafut Subdivision had been attacked by the military with many houses destroyed, property looted and innocent civilians killed.

This diabolic action has left the entire population devastated, with many forced to flee into the bushes for safety. The whereabouts of His Majesty the Fon of Bafut is unknown, leaving the entire population of Bafut Subdivision in panic and fear.

It is worthy to note that the Palace of Bafut is an ancient tourist destination and an imminent UNESCO heritage site. Looting the artefacts exposes the country to international shame.

Hon. Fusi Naamukong calls on the President of the Republic to bring the perpetrators of these acts of vandalism, looting and wanton destruction to book and those affected adequately compensated.

He hoped that government will do everything to create a conducive atmosphere that will enable peace and harmony to return to this beautiful nation and Bafut subdivision in particular.

On October 11, 2019, Human Rights Watch said On September 24, soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) attacked and looted the Royal Palace in Bafut, North-West region.

Ilaria Allegrozzi, Senior Central Africa Researcher for Human Rights Watch wrote that: At least 10 BIR soldiers attacked the palace where, according to witnesses, the soldiers may have suspected Anglophone separatists were hiding. They shot and wounded the Fons brother before looting the palace museum and taking several precious artefacts, including a bronze mask from the 18th century and golden necklaces. The military operation lasted for three hours and occurred during a traditional ceremony with more than 200 people.
To say Australias tourism industry has suffered from The Virus is like saying socks dont quite go with sandals. 100,000 tourism workers have lost their jobs, no f*cker is going anywhere and, as Flight Centre chief executive Graham Turner recently told The Australian, many tourism companies will be decimated if domestic travel restrictions are not lifted within a month.

But, though possible, such a loosening is unlikely. As the ABC recently reported, even though we may be less than three weeks away from kids returning to school and office workers being released back into the wild, some form of restrictions are likely to remain for the six months through September.

How this will affect your coastal-jaunt ambitions remains unclear. But, though nothing is certain, if our case-load remains as low as it is now, it is expected domestic holidays will be legal by September. In fact, there are now suggestions Australia and New Zealand may resume tourism in whats being referred to as a trans-Tasman bubble.

Of course, until the data comes through, no-one can say for sure.

What we do know, is that Australians are getting restless. As The Chronicle.com.au reported this week, Apple Maps data shows direction requests have begun trending upwards again after plummeting in early March.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by greatoceanroad (@greatoceanroad) on Dec 9, 2019 at 12:16am PST

Similarly, Requests for road directions in Australia are still down 58 per cent from normal levels, but have begun to increase after bottoming out at more than 70 per cent in early April.

On top of that, Foot direction requests have also begun to tick up.

Suffice to say, were pacing our cells.

A DMARGE analysis of the latest Google Search Trends shows this impatience may not be reserved for getting back to the office and bottomless brunches. Why? If you look at the search data for down-under hotspots, Australians appear to be regaining interest in domestic travel.

How so? After a 28th April announcement that NSW would join Queensland in a loosening of laws, we noticed an uptick in search traffic for the twelve apostles, the great barrier reef, Uluru and Noosa beach houses, to name a few.

This comes in a context where, With most international routes likely to be shut for at least the rest of the year, companies such as Flight Centre and Intrepid Travel are revamping their travel packages to cater for local rather than international travel, reports The Australian.

On top of that, reports came out on Friday that Qantas and Jetstar are now selling flights for June, despite no official word on domestic travel bans being lifted, leading media to speculate they know (and are preparing for) something we dont.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Johan Drone Adventures (@johan_drone_adventures) on Apr 19, 2020 at 3:00am PDT

This interest in domestic travel also comes after the Federal Government has announced a $95 million support package for zoos and aquariums, which The NSW Tourism Industry Council says is a great show of faith and support for tourism operators at a time when they need it most.

In a press release, Simon Spellicy, Chair of the NSW Tourism Industry Council, said, We know how hard the tourism industry is suffering, particularly in NSW which is the gateway to Australia for many international visitors.

RELATED: Virgin Australia Collapse Holds Intriguing Silver Lining, Experts Claim

Many tourism operators which exhibited animals suffered tremendous financial losses as a result of the bushfires, and now theyve been hit with the impacts of COVID -19, Mr Spellicy said.

These operations can apply to the Government to access these funds which can be used for animal welfare costs, including the cost of feed, specialised care and utilities relating to animal care.

This fund is on top of any support the relevant businesses can receive should they meet the criteria for JobKeeper payments.

The NSW Tourism Industry Council strongly encourages businesses to apply for these grants to assist with their operational costs at a time when visitation is not possible, Mr Spellicy said.

This also comes at the same time as the establishment of the Tourism Restart Taskforce which will provide advice to industry and Government on the short, medium and long-term priorities to rebuild tourism in Australia.

As a representative body, the NSW Tourism Industry Council will continue to liaise directly with Federal Minister Simon Birmingham on NSW specific initiatives that will drive visitation to specific locations, both in Sydney and regional NSW, Mr Spellicy said.

More to come as the story develops.

Read Next
Sensex and Nifty fell over 5.5% each on Monday tracking weak cues from overseas trend and subdued earnings season.

Reversing trend after 4-days of gains, Sensex closed 2,002 points or 5.94% lower at 31,175 and NSE Nifty lost 566 points or 5.74% to 9,293.

Experts said earnings reports and global cues would continue to dictate the local market's trend.

Asian markets faced sharp sell-off on Monday amid growing concerns over China-US trade war tariffs, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sentiments turned negative after US President Donald Trump threatened China to impose new tariffs.

Wall Street sold off sharply on Friday after Trump, as well as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, blamed China for creating coronavirus in a Chinese laboratory.

Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking said," Above all, the news of US president contemplating fresh tariffs on China over its mishandling of the pandemic triggered a sharp decline in the US markets which further worsened with the warning from Apple and Amazon."

Domestic equity indices were also subdued, taking cues from the latest March quarter earnings that came below street estimates.

While RIL share price fell 3.22% intraday after Q4 results, Hindustan Unilever declined 5.26%. Tech Mahindra stock lost 7.8% after Q4 earnings. Apollo Pipes share price was down 7.5%, followed by ICICI Lombard General Insurance that fell 6.6% and AU Small Finance Bank shares that traded 5% lower.

Pharma stocks outperformed in today's session, the only index that closed in green territory. All the other indices ended with losses with banking, metals and consumer durables being the top losers.

Among pharma stocks, Aurobindo Pharma rose 4.43% while Cipla was up 3.7%, followed by 2.15% gain in Cadila and 1.43% rise in Biocon. Sun Pharma also closed as the top gainer on Nifty today, quoting 0.33% at the session's end.

While metal, banking and financial indices dropped over 8% each, PSU Banking, realty and auto were down 7% each, followed by 5% fall in media.

Auto shares fell sharply today, as most of the industry majors posted zero domestic sales for the April month, due to the virus-induced lockdown. While Maruti closed 8.75% lower, Eicher Motors fell 6.45%, and M&M ended 2.66% lower.

Ajit Mishra VP - Research, Religare Broking said, "The sharp cut in the index in early trade on Monday could be a shock for many and that might result in erratic swings. Technically, 9200 would be a critical support zone for the Nifty index."

Amid weakness in equity markets, rupee also opened 61 paise lower in the currency market today at 75.73 per dollar. The local currency later closed at 75.71 against the last closing of 75.12 per US dollar.

Traders said the extension of the lockdown till May 17, coupled with weak economic key data also impacted the markets. Meanwhile, the nation has reported a total of 42,533 coronavirus cases, of which 11,706 have been cured or discharged patients. The death toll in the country has risen to 1,373.

Nifty today saw closing in the support zone at 9300-9100 and India VIX again saw a notable spike to close around the 44 mark, said Sameet Chavan Chief Analyst-Technical and Derivatives, Angel Broking.

Commenting on Nifty's near term technical outlook, Sameet Chavan said, "In case of further escalation, we may see Nifty correcting towards 9100 - 9000, whereas on the flipside, 9390 followed by 9450 would be seen as immediate hurdles."

Sensex slides to 31K, Nifty loses 500 points: 5 factors behind market crash today

Coronavirus corrodes India's manufacturing; factory activity reaches record lows in April

Share Market Update: Sensex ends 2,002 points lower, Nifty at 9,293; Hindalco, ICICI Bank top losers

Why Hindustan Unilever shares fell 6% in intraday trade

Tech Mahindra share price falls over 8% on weak Q4 earnings

RIL share price slides 3% on fall in Q4 net profit
A woman who was killed by an alligator on Kiawah Island on Friday ignored repeated warnings by her friend to not get close to the carnivorous reptile, according to an incident report released Monday.

Cynthia Covert, a 58-year-old Johns Island resident, died in the attack near Salt Cedar Lane, authorities said.

An autopsy determined that Covert drowned and the death was ruled accidental, according to Charleston County Coroner Rae H. Wooten.

According to the Charleston County Sheriff's Office incident report, deputies spoke with a witness who said she was Covert's friend.

Covert saw an alligator in a pond behind her friend's home on Salt Cedar Lane and wanted to get closer, the report said.

The friend told deputies that Covert was on the back steps of her home and eventually moved down toward the pond.

"(She) kept yelling for her friend to get away and saw her friend was about four feet from the edge of the water when the big alligator came up and attacked her friend," the report said.

The friend's husband grabbed a shovel while Covert's friend called 911, the report said. The husband tried to hit the alligator in a bid to make it release Covert, but those efforts were not successful.

The alligator dragged Covert under the water, the report said.

"She stated her friend never screamed," the report said.

At the scene, deputies saw the alligator and Covert surface briefly before going under again, the report said.

When the alligator surfaced again, a deputy opened fire, hitting the reptile four times, the report said.

Firefighters then were able to pull Covert back to land, but she was unresponsive and was declared dead. The alligator's remains were pulled from the water and turned over to the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

Covert was an animal lover, often promoting fundraisers for rescue organizations and sharing stories about people and their pets on social media. She worked as a stylist at Prime Cuts Salon on Seabrook Island, according to her Facebook page.

Shes the third person to die from an alligator encounter in the state, according to SCDNR records.

The death of a 90-year-old woman in July 2016 in a pond outside a West Ashley extended care facility was the first alligator-related fatality on record in the state, according to DNR.

In August 2018, South Carolina's second fatal alligator attack in two years occurred when a 45-year-old woman was killed at a resort community on Hilton Head Island.

In June 2019, the body of an elderly man who had been reported missing was discovered in a pond on Kiawah Island with bite marks. Alligators were known to be active in that area. Investigators later determined the man died of natural causes before the alligator came upon his body.
The ratio of number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases recovering in relation to the number of people dying of the viral infection has improved with the current Union health ministry data showing the outcome ratio to be 90:10. So for every 10 deaths, 90 people have recovered from the disease.

We determine the outcome ratio by analysing our cases that are closed in terms of people in hospitals who recovered proportional to those who died of the infection. This also indicates the clinical management status of a hospital, said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, health ministry, adding that the outcome ratio has improved been April 17 and May 4.

On April 17, the ratio was 80:20, wherein 80 people had been discharged after recovery and 20 patients could not make it. The current outcome ratio, however, has improved and stands at 90:10, he added.

On Monday, the country also reported the highest number of recovered patients to date.

A total of 1,074 patients have recovered in the past 24 hours, which is the highest to date, taking the total number of patients cured of Covid-19 in the country to 11706. It has also improved Indias recovery rate that now stands at 27.52%, he said.

With 2,553 new Covid-19 cases reported in the past 24 hours, the total number of infected patients in the country is 42533, with 1389 deaths, according to the health ministrys data (which lags the data in the HT dashboard).

So far we have been fortunate that India has not seen an exponential growth in cases like other affected countries. However, people need to be extra careful now that the lockdown is being eased in a staggered manner, so as to not throw away the gains made. The focus will continue to remain on rigorous containment measures in areas from where maximum cases are being reported and strictly implementing infection control practices, said Agarwal.

The health ministry has urged people to wear masks or a face cover when stepping out, and to scrupulously follow physical distancing.

Implementing total lockdown has yielded results in the form of significant improvement in Indias case doubling rate that before lockdown stood at about 3.4 days and is now almost 12 days.

The testing capacity has also been ramped up to meet the demand by increasing the number of labs to 426 (315 in the government sector and 111 in the private sector) and increasing sampling. As on May 3 we have done more than a million tests for Covid-19, and 77,474 in a day. There is no shortage of testing kits or any other material in the country; all those who need to be tested are being tested, Agarwal added.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
'I am more worried about the rainy season from June.'

'If you don't bury the COVID-19 dead properly, then rainwater will seep into the dead bodies and it will come to our locality where I fear more than 2,000 people will be affected.'

Kindly note the image has been posted only for representational purposes. Photograph: PTI Photo

The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has moved the Supreme Court seeking its inclusion in a plea filed by Mumbai lawyer Pradeep Gandhy opposing the burial of those who died of coronavirus in a qabristan (Muslim burial ground) near his residence in Bandra west, north west Mumbai

Gandhy appealed to the Supreme Court after his plea, that burial of coronavirus victims in the graveyard would spread infection in adjoining areas, was rejected by the Bombay high court on April 27. His appeal will be heard by the apex court on May 4 by Justice Rohinton F Nariman and Justice Indira Banerjee.

The Jamiat has contested Gandhy's appeal and said the risk referred to by him was 'unfounded'.

'It has further been clarified that till date there is no evidence of persons having become infected from exposure to the bodies of persons who died from COVID-19,' the Jamiat said in its intervention plea.

"Have we stopped people from using the qabristan? No. We are allowing normal bodies to be buried as we have no problems. We are only objecting to COVID-19 bodies," Pradeep Gandhy tells Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf.

You lost your case in the Bombay high court, but have filed a petition in the Supreme Court, stating that COVID-19 bodies should not be buried in the graveyard near your house. Why are you so worried?

Next to my locality where I stay there is a qabristan called Konkani qabristan. There are two more for Shias, Muslim sub-castes, etc.

Three weeks ago, a COVID-19 dead body came for burial. Now the locality where I am staying is next to this qabristan and there are 700 of us families staying there.

There is just one wall that separates the Tata colony (where he lives) and this qabristan.

When policemen and civic officials arrived with the dead body, our society members stopped the burial and told the police that according to the World Health Organisation there cannot be burial of any COVID-19 bodies.

They have to be only cremated, be it Christians or Muslims.

I have seen the WHO guidelines, and they are contrary to what you are saying.

Allow me to complete. Luckily, that day, that dead person's son was my client as I am a lawyer.

I convinced him why was he causing problems to the locality people?

He agreed and did the burial at the qabristan in Bandra East.

No sooner this happened than we took letters from each and every society and submitted to the Bombay municipal corporation that there should be no burial of COVID-19 patients in the qabristan next to our locality.

Later, I filed a writ in the Bombay high court, but it was rejected.

I mentioned in my plea that Municipal Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi had brought a notification according to WHO guidelines that COVID-19 patients's bodies will not be allowed to be buried, only cremated.

However, that notification was later on changed by earmarking various qabristans in Mumbai where COVID-19 patients were allowed to be buried. One of the qabristans is next to my house.

What are the grounds on which COVID-19 patients can be buried? How many such qabristans are there in Mumbai where they can be buried?

There are no criteria on how the BMC decided these qabristans. That is what I have mentioned in my writ.

They have a list of 35 qabristans where you can bury COVID-19 patients. I filed my writ that it is against WHO guidelines to bury COVID-19 patients next to residential areas.

But the high court rejected your plea as your case was not scientifically proved that dead bodies spread COVID-19.

The Government of India had allowed the burial of COVID-19 patients's bodies with certain conditions -- like only four people from the family can go to the graveyard, two municipal employees have to accompany the dead body and two police officials must be present during the burial, etc.

There are many more conditions, like these many chemicals must be put and the grave has to be dug till 8 feet deep and photographs must be taken.

These are some conditions I can recall offhand. My petition was rejected because there were guidelines put up by the Union government.

While rejecting my petition,the judge said I could not bring forth any scientific argument, but where can I get scientific arguments amidst this complete lockdown? Where will I get reports from?

You can always search online and access the reports.

I showed Swedish research, UK research and WHO research. But the judge was not happy and said to give some Indian research.

Is it proved that COVID-19 spreads from dead bodies?

Yes. And now I am more worried about the rainy season from June.

If you don't bury the COVID-19 dead properly, then rainwater will seep into the dead bodies and it will come to our locality where I fear more than 2,000 people will be affected.

Is this not more of a phobia on your part?

I do not want to make this subject more public because it is touching a sensitive subject like religion. I don't want to cause any disharmony and I don't have any such intentions.

Why didn't you seek in your petition that instead of burying the bodies near residential areas, the COVID-19 bodies could be buried in qabristans, which are far away?

That is what my argument is. Do it somewhere else where there are no residential areas. Bandra East is like one of those qabristans.

Moreover, there are six families staying inside the Konkani qabristan called mujawars (who take care of the graveyard). It is dangerous for them too to stay there.

How did you know that COVID-19 bodies had been brought to the qabristan?

The police comes with the COVID-19 patient's body along with civic officials. It is compulsory, so it is obvious when you see them that the person has died of COVID-19.

How are Muslim countries handling this situation?

I dont know about Muslim countries as I have not done research on them. But Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom are not allowing the burial of COVID-19 bodies. They are cremating them even if it is a Muslim.

Burying the dead is essential to Islam. Article 25 of the Constitution gives all Indians the right to practise their religion unhindered.

Yes, no doubt everyone has the right to practise their religion, but there is something called reasonable restrictions.

Have we stopped people from using the qabristan? The answer is no. It is more than 100 years old and we have never stopped anyone from using it. We are allowing normal bodies to be buried as we have no problems.

We are only objecting to COVID-19 bodies.

In New York they have an island on the outskirts of the city where they are burying only COVID-19 patients. There are 25,000 bodies buried there.

In Sao Paolo, Brazil, COVID-19 patients are buried 200 kilometres away from the city. They have taken a huge plot of land only to bury COVID-19 patients. I saw these things on television.

I feel this is the solution for Mumbai too.

What is the meaning of a pandemic? It can infect anyone and therefore it is the duty of the government to take care of the people who are not affected by COVID-19 and are alive.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday attacked the government for charging train tickets from migrant labourers going back to their homes and announced that her party will bear the cost for the rail travel of all such workers stranded due to the coronavirus lockdown.

In a statement, she said it is disturbing that the central government and the rail ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis.

But what is the responsibility of our government? Even today, lakhs of workers and migrant labourers are languishing in different parts of the country and wish to return to their homes and families but there is neither adequate money nor provision for free transport, Gandhi said.

Referring to the Namaste Trump event in Ahmedabad on February 24, Gandhi said when the government could spend nearly Rs 100 crore on transport and food for just one public programme in Gujarat, arrange free air travel for Indians stranded abroad and when the rail ministry has the largesse to donate Rs 151 crore to the PMs Corona fund why cant free rail travel be provided to migrant workers at this hour of acute distress.

Our workers and labourers form the backbone of our economy and the ambassadors of our nations growth. Their hard work and sacrifice are the foundation of our nation, she added.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi too attacked the central government for charging train tickets from migrants. On one hand, railways is charging fare from migrant labourers stuck in other sates, and on the other hand, the railways ministry is donating Rs 151 crore in PM-CARES fund. Please solve this riddle, Rahul Gandhi said on Twitter in Hindi.

                        151       



   ! pic.twitter.com/qaN0k5NwpG  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 4, 2020

Sonia Gandhi, meanwhile, said in her letter that the central government barely gave a four-hour notice of the lockdown, thus denying workers and migrant labourers the opportunity to return to their homes.

Post the partition of 1947, this is the first time India witnessed a tragedy with such a massive human cost as thousands of migrant workers and labourers were forced to walk home several hundred km on foot- without food, without medicines, without money, without transportation, without anything except for the desire to return to their families and loved ones, she said.

The very thought of their plight is enough to break our hearts as there was also the outpouring of support from fellow Indians for their inspiring resolve.

Gandhi said the Congress has been raising this issue from the outset of the lockdown and sought provisions for the safe and free rail travel of migrant workers and labourers to their home-towns.

However, despite our repeated demands, the central government and the rail ministry have chosen to completely ignore the same, she added.

Gandhi said the Congress has taken a decision that all its state units will bear the cost for the rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labourer and take necessary steps in this regard.

This will be the Congress humble contribution in service of our compatriots and to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them, she said.

Shortly after her letter, Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel asked all the state units to mobilise all possible local resources. As directed by Congress President,in my capacity as Treasuer (AICC) I request Pradesh Congress Committees to mobilise all possible local resources to help migrants purchase tickets to get back home, Patel said on Twitter.

He added that its time to turn this into a peoples movement.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Modern Landscape

Getting Everyone Involved

Sherlock Holmes famously said, Data, data, data. I cannot make bricks without clay. While this idea is still a cornerstone of public safety work, a lot has changed since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote those words. Today, the landscape is rapidly evolving as the demand for service increases and the mission scope broadens and becomes more complex.However, most citizens arent aware of these changes. And if the public, media and politicians dont understand what an agency does, they wont know whether personnel are performing their duties correctly, or implementing appropriate policies and budgets. That means public safety agencies must leverage data and analytics to build trust and gain support through more transparent operations. In short, its no longer enough to say, Trust us, were doing a great job. These agencies need to include citizens in what they are doing and why.A changing mission scope impacts all disciplines of public safety  from EMS to fire. One example of this shift can be seen in law enforcement. Complex offenses like human trafficking and cybercrime are becoming more prevalent. These types of cases take extra time and effort to solve, which means investigations use up valuable public safety resources at higher rates. This can be seen in the massive increase in cost, capabilities, time and training needed to secure and manage digital evidence.At the same time, traditional crimes continue to decrease across the western world, helped, in part, by proactive enforcement and prevention programs. As a result, many municipalities are being pressured to cut public safety jobs and put fewer officers on the street, risking the gains they have made.Public misunderstandings about an agencys mission undermine its efforts to engage in proactive programs, build engagement and, ultimately, secure public satisfaction and funding. To combat these misconceptions, agencies should harness data and analytics to increase transparency with stakeholders. Public safety leaders must show both citizens and government officials the demands they face and how they spend their time and money. That way, all parties will have a better understanding of the proper policies.Police, fire, and emergency medical chiefs can increase support for policies, priorities and technologies by educating the public about what they do using facts and data. This will help them to gain assistance from city officials to invest in those programs.Its also crucial to increase engagement with the public, especially when social media can make any move go viral in minutes. Leaders should hear questions and concerns from the people they serve at open forums, via online feedback or through door-to-door canvassing. Once they understand citizens knowledge and expectations, officials can gather the necessary data to address them.Agencies also need to take advantage of the digital resources at their disposal by posting online statistics about safety issues and performance measures for easy, community-wide access. And to remove ambiguity and make information as robust as possible, there should be concrete systems and protocols for tracking operational data.For example, every emergency service department should have a transparent metric for response times to 911 calls. Does the interaction begin when someone starts dialing the number or when the dispatcher picks up? And all operational data, from the PSAP to patrols, must provide robust security and audit trails to place its intergrity beyond doubt.Agencies that answer these questions will help the public understand how modern public safety agencies work. Governments around the world increasingly back this effort. The U.S. has implemented the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS); Canada has the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR); and the U.K. operates the Crime Survey for England and Wales and publishes standardized police-recorded crime data.Growing demand, increasing complexity, and changing expectations have rapidly transformed public safety in recent years. At the same time, public perception has not kept pace, leading to tensions and dissatisfaction. As agencies continue to adapt to their changing mission, transparency and public understanding will become even more important. By sharing evidence-based insights with stakeholders, such as the public, media and politicians, leaders will increase trust while helping their cities thrive. It doesnt get more elementary than that, dear Watson.
Mia Heller, of Society Hill, walks her American Hairless Terrier named Bandyn on a chilly fall morning. Bandyn might be wise to keep the coat handy. Read more

Like just about everything  and everyone else  these days, the atmosphere continues to have an adversarial relationship with normality.

After a short-lived flirtation with May, a decided chill has resettled across the region, and frost could reappear on Mothers Day weekend, when temperature readings might fall into the 30s.

Its a possibility, said Dean Iovino, a lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.

Saturday likely will be among the chillier May days on record, with highs forecast just past 50. Thats about where they should be on Thanksgiving weekend; the record low maximum temperature for a May 9 is 49 degrees.

The atmosphere often is described as an ocean of air, and on Saturday afternoon it might sound like it, with 20-plus mph steady winds and near gale-force gusts, and the weather service says it likely will issue a wind advisory.

At a time when we should be talking about heat indices, wind-chills on Sunday morning will be near freezing.

Temperatures next week could average 12 or more degrees below normal, said Jack Boston, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

 READ MORE: Phillys gloomy weather has been matching the national mood. And it might be about to get worse.

On Monday, when the normal high would be 72, readings might stay in the 40s, with a daylong cold rain if a storm develops as expected. Monday might qualify as the most miserable day you could have in May, he said.

In the meantime, the daytime highs this week, ranging from the mid-50s to mid-60s, will be 7 to 15 degrees below normal as spring continues to make a mockery of the long-term outlooks.

As an Arctic air mass spills southward, areas in northern Pennsylvania could see some wet snow on Friday, the day the state is due to lift some of the coronavirus-related restrictions in those regions.

Snowflake sightings are possible as far south as the Poconos early Saturday, the weather service says, and by Sunday morning temperatures are expected to fall into the mid-30s in Philadelphia.

May, we hardly knew ye

Despite temperatures well into the 70s during a spectacular weekend, readings since April 14 have averaged close to 5 degrees below normal, said Boston.

 READ MORE: The Philly region got a taste of normality on a beautiful Saturday

Since mid-April, a broad area of upper-level low pressure, a trough that favors cooler weather, has dominated the East. And this week and next, the region will be visited by an atmospheric celebrity, the polar vortex.

After spinning rather quietly in the high latitudes all winter, damming up cold air and depriving the East Coast of significant snows, the vortex has been dislodged, said Boston. It is being forced southward by strong air pressure systems over northwestern Canada and the North Atlantic that extend all the way to the Arctic.

The chill is forecast to persist and deepen by the middle of next week, with a few rough mornings for some of the regions vulnerable plant life.

There could be some problems with some of the stuff thats already popped out of the ground, Boston said.

When do we store the sweaters?

Weve got a pretty big pattern change coming, said Boston, but I wouldnt look for any weather thats going to require air-conditioning until the 20th of May.

He said he sees a return to  dare we say, normality  by Memorial Day.

Then again, in both its mid-March outlook and March 31 update, forecasters at the governments Climate Prediction Center said that the odds favored above-normal temperatures around here in April. The month finished 2.4 degrees below normal, despite quite a warm start.

As for AccuWeather, it called for April temperatures to be 3 or more degrees above normal.

Much of the country ended up experiencing April temperatures below long-term averages.

.
Health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Monday said the Maharashtra government had erred in conducting proper screening and tests of the pilgrims who were stranded in Nanded, leading to the sharp rise in Covid-19 cases in Punjab.

He informed that he had also spoken to his counterpart in Maharashtra government, Rajesh Tope, and expressed his displeasure over the development.

Sidhu was in the city to chair a meeting with senior district administration officials, including MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, MLAs Rakesh Pandey, Amrik Singh Dhillon, Surinder Dawar, Kuldeep Singh Vaid, Sanjay Talwar, deputy commissioner Pradeep Kumar Agrawal, police commissioner Rakesh Kumar Agrawal, civil surgeon Dr Rajesh Kumar Bagga, among others.

During the meeting, Sidhu sought suggestions over the ongoing efforts being made to check the spread of coronavirus disease.

Sidhu told the media that Maharashtra is a Covid-19 hotspot and yet it neglected the testing of Hazur Sahib pilgrims, most of which turned out positive after their return to Punjab.

Taking a jibe at the Union government, the health minister claimed that the former was not providing any support to the Punjab government. He said that till date, the Centre had allocated only 71 crore to the state for fighting the disease, which was quite less.

WOULD INCREASE TESTING CAPACITY TO 6,000 A DAY

The state health minister further said that they are working to increase the capacity of the existing government labs and assured that soon, the testing capacity in the state would be increased to 6,000 a day. He also said that testing at Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) would start soon and the government is also tying up with private labs such as Dr Lal Path Labs, Tuli Labs Amritsar and other such companies.

CENTRE NO PROVIDING US SUPPORT

The state health minister also hit out at the Union government, stating that Punjab was not getting any support from the Centre.He said that till date, the Union government has allocated only Rs 71 crore to Punjab to fight the virus which is very less. The Union government has even failed to allocate pending GST arrears of Rs 4400 crore to Punjab, he added.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

The global automotive brake system market is anticipated to witnessing a substantial growth due to fresh prospects of the automotive industry in emerging along with developing economies and increased safety concerns by the government. It was stated in the report that the overall growth of the market is expected to reach a market value of above US$ 25 Billion through 2022, exhibiting a strong 5.7% of CAGR throughout 2017-2022.

In modern cars mostly two kinds of brakes are used which are drum brakes and disc brakes. Every new car has disc brakes on the front wheels, whereas the rear wheels may possibly use whichever drum or disc brakes. Of these, the disc brakes category has a comparatively bigger share in the overall market during 2017 and will account for a market evaluation of US$14 Billion for the duration of the forecast 2017 to 2022. On the other hand, the expansion rate for the drum brakes segment will be on the climb in the approaching years.

Request for Report Sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/3550

In terms of the sales channel, the worldwide market is categorized into aftermarket and OEM. The OEM category reflects a revenue share of about fourth-fifth and will foresee a remarkable 5.5% CAGR for the duration of the assessment, 2017-2022. The aftermarket category is relatively a lot smaller and consists the share of residual revenue in the worldwide market for the duration of the assessment. By, vehicle type, the worldwide market is categorized into premium passenger cars, heavy commercial vehicles, light commercial vehicles, luxury passenger cars, compact passenger cars, and mid-sized passenger cars. Of these, the compact cars will have the benefit of being trouble-free to maneuver together with being undemanding on the wallet at the fuel pump. Therefore, it isnt astounding to acknowledge that compact cars will expand market share for the duration of the assessment. The mid-size car category abides by compact cars on the basis of popularity, however, are yet probable to lose market share. The advanced technologies used in the modern cars are electronic stability control (ESC), anti-lock braking system (ABS), electronic brake-force distribution (EBD) and traction control system (TCS).

Europe to foresee a lucrative market with the highest contribution and the companies in the market are proposed to centralize their efforts on this region with lucrative prospects for a good ROI. With the market in Europe, the companies are trying to center on APEJ or North America, since both the regions will have worldwide market evaluations valuing billions of dollars for the duration of the assessment.

The foremost market players active in the worldwide market are Continental AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, Wabco Holdings, Inc., ZF Friedrichshafen AG, Aisin Seiki Co, Ltd., Knorr-Bremse AG, Akebono Brake Industry Co. Ltd., TRW Automotive Holdings Corp., Halla Mando Corp., Brembo S.P.A. and others.

Get Request for Table of Contents: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/requesttoc/3550

Company Overview

we are a UK-based market intelligence company that operates out of its passion to help brands grow, discover, and transform. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined - we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.

Our Team

we are a multidisciplinary team of dedicated research specialists who work with a fine-tooth comb approach to deliver you the insights that you need in order to have a firm grasp of your industry. We have the expertise, experience, and commercial acumen across a wide range of research areas. We build our reports using only the reliable sources to arm our clients with relevant, quality, and actionable facts

More Info of Impact Covid19@ link: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/3550
T he UK has fallen behind many other European countries in its response to coronavirus, a public health expert has said.

Andrea Ammon, the director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), said the UK was one of five European countries that are not significantly reducing new coronavirus cases.

Ms Ammon told the European Parliament that Bulgaria was the one European country where cases were still rising.

But the UK, Romania, Poland and Sweden had shown "no substantial changes in the last 14 days", Ms Ammon said.

Healthcare workers in protective equipment / AFP via Getty Images

The ECDC is a health monitoring service for all EU members, as well as the UK, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

The UK has had 28,734 coronavirus-related deaths , according to Government figures released on Monday, the second-highest number of deaths in Europe - although fatalities are calculated differently in each country.

Euromomo, an EU-supported service that monitors excess deaths, shows England has suffered the highest rise in deaths among more than 20 European countries compared with a five-year average.

The UK's daily death total on Monday of 288 announced on Monday was the lowest since the end of March, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock / PA

And Government ministers and some experts have warned against international comparisons while the pandemic is still ongoing.

Ben Wallace, the UK's defence secretary, said investigations should wait until the global picture of the pandemic is clearer.

He told the BBC's Today programme: I think the time for post-mortem into this global pandemic viral spread is for once we all have as much data as possible, the testing around the world produces solid and realistic results about who is infected, how it acts with different people, and also when theres potentially a vaccine in place."

And statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said a "Eurovision approach" to the pandemic would be naive.

He told the Today programme: There are so many variabilities about how people record Covid deaths  even what the correct metric is for measuring the impact of the epidemic  that to start saying were going to be worse or whatever is completely inappropriate.
[May 04, 2020] PwC Partners with Cognite and OutSystems to Accelerate Industrial Digitalization

SINGAPORE, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PwC, Cognite, and OutSystems have formed a strategic partnership to deliver unprecedented digital transformation solutions for manufacturing, energy and utility customers. The partnership empowers industrial data scientists and engineers to operationalize data and develop applications by abstracting complex data pipelines, data contextualization, and application development tasks. The new partnership will allow companies to go from idea to application in a matter of weeks instead of years using Cognite Data Fusion (CDF), a proven world-leading, industrially focused data operations platform, the OutSystems leading low-code development platform , and PwC's change management and digital strategies to operate and scale. The time savings is a result of using low-code application development capabilities to integrate contextualized data to solve real problems. The first project for the trio of companies is already in motion through the PwC Energy Experience Center in Norway where Cognite, OutSystems, and PwC serve a common manufacturing customer Aarbakke. "Aarbakke relies on operators' skill and domain knowledge to drive operations, and this application helps deliver data to them to increase visibility and improve decision making," said Rolf Thu, IT and Smartfactory R&D manager at Aarbakke. "With readily available contextualized data from Cognite Data Fusion and the speed of app development enabled by the OutSystems platform, PwC's developers have been able to rapidly build and deploy this solution." "PwC is in the business of helping businesses succeed with change and workplaces of the future, and we are committed to partnering with technology platform leaders in the industry," said Eirik Rasmussen, partner and leader of the Energy Experience Center. "With this partnership, we are uniquely positioned to solve manufacturing, energy, and utility challenges." "We're looking forward to joining PwC, Cognite and other industry leaders to help customers take their businesses to the next level," said Peter Dunlap, vice president of channels and aliances with OutSystems. "The agreement extends the company's longstanding partnership with PwC, which has helped customers in many industries build powerful business apps. Transforming these industries using technology and innovation will be so important to so many people, and this partnership is uniquely positioned to drive value for these customers."



"Working with OutSystems and PwC is an excellent opportunity for us to deliver value by playing to each of our strengths," said Dr. John Markus Lervik, CEO and co-founder of Cognite. "We liberate and contextualize OT, IT and visual data, OutSystems leads in helping companies rapidly develop their applications and integrate them with CDF as unified data source, and PwC provides the expertise and consultancy for change management. The process from strategy to scalable innovation and value realization is accelerated by working together as partners." A data-driven manufacturing masterclass on How Digital Strategy, DataOps Platforms and Low Code Platforms Work Together will be offered online on May 12, 1600-1700 Central European Time, and 10:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time and will feature how PwC, Cognite, and OutSystems solve digitalization challenges of a manufacturing customer. Register for the masterclass here .

About PwC and the Energy Experience Center PWC is a global professional services company encompassing accounting, consulting and law services. Every day, we go to work to help public and private businesses strengthen their competitiveness and adjust for the future. In Norway, there are 2000 auditors, advisors and lawyers spread across 27 offices, with deep insights into local business and community life. Globally, the network spans 157 countries, with a total of 276,000 employees. This means that we can combine global knowledge with local expertise and solve some of the biggest challenges for our customers. In PwC we support those who dare to invest, those who dare to re-imagine the possible and through that change the world for the better. This also applies to the oil and energy industry. The PwC Energy Experience Center helps clients accelerate digital innovation and transformation. We offer an ecosystem of talents, solutions, and an environment that combines the best partnerships and advice to help our clients create next generation experiences for customers, employees, and partners. The Energy Experience Center is a showroom, both for our business clients and partners, who want to see our entire range of services and learn more about new technology and solutions. About Cognite Cognite is a global industrial AI software-as-a-service (SaaS) company supporting the full-scale digital transformation of heavy-asset industries around the world. Their key product, Cognite Data Fusion (CDF), empowers companies with contextualized OT/IT data to drive industrial applications that increase safety, sustainability, and efficiency, and drive revenue. Visit us at www.cognite.com and follow us on Twitter @CogniteData or at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cognitedata About OutSystems Thousands of customers worldwide trust OutSystems, the global leader in low-code application development . Engineers with an obsessive attention to detail crafted every aspect of the OutSystems platform to help organizations build enterprise-grade apps and transform their business faster. OutSystems is the only solution that combines the power of low-code development with advanced mobile capabilities, enabling visual development of entire applications that easily integrate with existing systems. Visit us at www.outsystems.com or follow us on Twitter @OutSystems or LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/outsystems . Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20171116/1994802-1LOGO SOURCE OutSystems

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The Bombay High Court on Monday



directed the Maharashtra government to file a reply to a PIL seeking that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits, hand sanitisers, face masks etc seized by authorities be released and given to doctors and health care workers.

Justice BP Colabawalla directed the state's counsel to file the reply by May 11.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by Mohan Joshi, general secretary of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.

Joshi's plea contended there was a shortage of PPE kits, masks, sanitisers etc since the coronavirus outbreak began, and there have been instances of hoarding and black marketing of these items.

Joshi sought that guidelines be issued for Maharashtra, which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country, so that these items can be released for use by medical staff combating the outbreak.

Advocate Jyoti Chavan, the state's counsel, said the court had asked the state government to file a reply detailing the quantity of such items seized, and also inform court if any application had been made by traders or owners of such items for their release.

In another matter related to safety equipment in view of the outbreak, Justice Colabawalla accepted an undertaking by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) that its private contractors would follow directives on providing face masks, washing facilities to its 4,000 contractual 'safai karmacharis'.

He was hearing a plea filed by 'Kachra Vahtuk Shramik Sangh', a group of 4000 private solitary workers doing civic assignments on a contract basis.

The petitioners, through their counsel advocate Jane Cox, told HC they go door to door collecting waste, and that the BMC gives them only one face mask and one pair of gloves for a month.

"They aren't given uniforms or washing facilities, while the same are given to BMC's permanent safai karmacharis. The petitioners wear their own clothes that they take back home to wash. This can lead to spread of infection," advocate Cox said.

The BMC counsel Anil Sakhare told the court that, as per civic guidelines, the BMC was providing masks, gloves to the contractors of each ward.

The contractors in turn were responsible for giving it to the contractual safai karmacharis, he said.

Sakhare said the petitioners could make complaints to the concerned ward or contractor, adding that the BMC would ensure "contractors followed its guidelines.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mike Pompeo

C'mon, Mike. You are much better than this.

Former CIA director Mike Pompeo, who graduated first in his West Point class and went on to earn a degree from Harvard Law, has reduced himself to a foot soldier in Donald Trump's plan to blame China for the spread of COVID-19 here.

After saying there's "significant evidence" the COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan laboratory, now Secretary of State Pompeo made George Orwell proud on May 3 when he delivered this gem of doublespeak during his appearance on ABC's "This Week."

"The best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point," he said. When challenged with the fact that US intelligence agencies don't think COVID-19 is man-made, Pompeo effortlessly shifted gears. "I've seen what the intelligence community has said, I have no reason to believe that they've got it wrong," he said

So what is it, Mike? Is it man-made, or not? And are you throwing the intelligence community under the bus?

Your verbal gyrations are inappropriate as nearly 70K Americans have died from COVID-19 and the president is now talking about more than 100K deaths.

China quickly jumped all over Pompeo's statement, presenting it as part of the Trump administration's "unprecedented propaganda, while trying to impede global efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic."

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. China did not cover itself in glory in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic as it initially covered up the severity of the outbreak there and muzzled scientists. That was the off-Broadway show that Trump took to the Great White Way.

With an idea of both silencing critics and redeeming itself before the rest of the world, China has made development of a COVID-19 vaccine by September a national priority.

Not to diminish America's private sector know-how, but what if China develops a vaccine before the US does and limits our access to it?

There is no international agreement covering the production and distribution of vaccines. The World Health Organization has traditionally served as a forum for the discussion of vaccine distribution, but has no global enforcement authority. Trump already has trashed the WHO and yanked its funding.

As the world's No. 1 and No. 2 economies, the US and China should be cooperating in the fight against the pandemic, not lodging propaganda pot shots at each other.

Like it or not: We're all in this together.
What Madigan and complacent Democrats were eager to rush to the ballot is a proposal to raise taxes. The Pritzker Tax, which would switch Illinois from a flat income tax to a graduated tax with rates set by lawmakers, cruised through the General Assembly last May in record time. As with that tax proposal, lawmakers could have put the other proposals for constitutional changes on the ballot themselves. They just didnt.
The Commerce Ministry's public procurement portal GeM on Monday said it has started an initiative -- The Saras Collection -- for rural self-help groups (SHGs), wherein they can display their products on the platform for government buyers.

Under this initiative, SHGs will be able to list their products on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) in five categories -- handicrafts; handloom and textiles; office accessories; grocery and pantry, and personal care and hygiene.

In the first phase, 913 SHGs from 11 states have already registered as sellers and 403 products have been onboarded, GeM said in a statement.

"A unique initiative of GeM and the Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-NRLM, the Saras Collection would showcase daily utility products made by rural self-help groups and aims to provide SHGs in rural areas with market access to government buyers," it said.

To develop a scalable model capable of onboarding a large number of SHGs across the country in a short time frame, GeM has developed an API (application programming interface) based integration mechanism with the NRLM (National Rural Livelihoods Mission) database, it said.

The onboarding of SHGs under the initiative has been initially piloted in the states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

"The coverage shall be rapidly extended to enable a large number of SHGs from all the states/Union Territories to sell their products to government buyers. Potential buyers shall be able to search, view, cart and procure such products through the stipulated modes of procurement," it added.

In order to handhold and facilitate SHGs in uploading their products, GeM is assisting with product catalogue management, order fulfilment and bid participation.

Further, government buyers will also be sensitized through system generated messages/alerts in the marketplace about availability of SHG products on the portal.

Direct access to government buyers will do away with intermediaries in the supply chain, and ensure better prices for SHGs.

Rural Development and Panchayati Raj and Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched the initiative on Monday.

GeM is a 100 per cent government owned firm which was set up as the National Public Procurement Portal for procurement of goods and services required by central and state government organizations.

Government departments, ministries, public sector units, state governments, and Central Armed Police Forces are allowed to carry out transactions through this portal.

The government has made it mandatory for all the departments and ministries to source goods and services from the e-marketplace.

The portal provides a wide range of products from office stationery to vehicles.

Automobiles, computers and office furniture are currently the top product categories. Services, including transportation, logistics, waste management, web casting, are also listed on the portal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Trump tells Netanyahu not to cherry-pick 'deal of century'

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 03 May 2020 7:21 AM

US President Donald Trump has reportedly told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a recently announced "peace plan" as one package.

Citing senior sources, Israel's TV Channel 13 said the US had informed Netanyahu that he could not cherry-pick certain terms of the "deal of the century" for annexing major parts of the occupied West Bank.

According to the Israeli channel, there are "deep" and "basic" differences between Washington and Tel Aviv regarding the annexation of the Jordan Valley, the North of the Dead Sea and other settlements.

The sources also revealed that the US administration had asked Netanyahu to announce his agreement on the principle of the "two states for two nations". Otherwise, Washington would not okay his annexation plan, they said.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman also informed Netanyahu that Trump wanted Israel to implement his plan, and not anything else.

Defying international outcry, Trump on January 28 announced the general provisions of his long-delayed plan at the White House with Netanyahu by his side.

The US president said his proposed deal would ensure the establishment of a "two-state" solution, but Jerusalem al-Quds would be the "undivided capital" of Israel.

Palestinian leaders, who severed all ties with Washington in late 2017 after Trump controversially recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the "capital" of Israel, immediately rejected the plan, with President Mahmoud Abbas saying it "belongs to the dustbin of history."

Trump's Middle East scheme largely meets Israel's demands in the decades-old conflict while creating a Palestinian state with limited control over its own security and borders.

It also enshrines Jerusalem al-Quds as "Israel's undivided capital" and allows the regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley.

The proposal further denies the right of return to their homeland to of Palestinian refugees, among other controversial terms.

Palestinians argue that one primary flaw of Trump's deal is that despite presumably offering a recipe for peace with Israel, it totally excludes and sidelines them.

They view the deal as Washington's seal of approval for Israel's long-desired annexation of their territories it has been illegally occupying for decades, in total disregard for UN Security Council resolutions and the opposition by the vast majority of the international community.

In September 2019, Netanyahu pledged to annex "all" settlements in the occupied West Bank if he emerged victorious in general elections.

Last month, Netanyahu and his main rival, Benny Gantz, agreed to start plans for annexing the occupied West Bank on July 1 as part of a deal to set up a coalition cabinet.

On Thursday, the ambassadors of 11 European countries warned the Israeli regime that its planned annexation of the occupied West Bank was a "clear violation of international law" that would have "grave consequences" for the regime.

Envoys from the UK, Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, and Finland as well as the European Union presented their formal objection to the plan.

The envoys voiced their grave concern over "the clause in the coalition agreement that paves the way for annexing parts of the West Bank".

"The annexation of any part of the West Bank constitutes a clear violation of international law," they said.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






The project this year, as in any year, is what is topical. Our world celebrated the Moon landing and the 1st International Earth Day 50th Anniversary, so that seemed like a worthy study for our participants, said DeMakas, who served as the coordinator of the unique project that included a Radio Show and Puppet Play.
The European Commission on Monday gave the green light to 7.0 billion euros ($7.7 billion) in French state aid to national carrier Air France to cushion the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. "The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a ?7 billion French aid measure consisting of a state guarantee on loans and a shareholder loan to Air France to provide urgent liquidity to the company in the context of the coronavirus outbreak," EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. The EU's executive body, the bloc's competition watchdog, loosened its rules on state subsidies in mid-March to make it easier for member countries to come to the aid of companies in financial difficulty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case of Air France, the aid consists of 4.0 billion euros in bank loans, 90-percent guaranteed by the state, and 3.0 billion euros in direct state loans in return for which the airline has committed to improving its profitability and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. "France has demonstrated that all other potential means to obtain liquidity on the markets have already been explored and exhausted," the Commission said. "In the absence of the public support, Air France would likely face the risk of bankruptcy due to the sudden erosion of its business. This would likely cause severe harm to the French economy," it said. As a result of the imposition of travel restrictions introduced by France and by many destination countries to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Air France has suffered a significant reduction of its services, which resulted in high operating losses. France and the Netherlands each hold about 14 percent of the Air France-KLM group. The Dutch government, for its part, plans to give 2.0-4.0 billion euros state aid to KLM in the form of loans and guarantees. Air France has suffered a significant reduction of its services amid the coronavirus crisis
Night and weekend curfew in Jammu and Kashmir 2022: Know guidelines, rules: What is allowed, what is not

3 jawans, 1 civilian killed in attack on security personnel in J&K

India

oi-Deepika S

Srinagar, May 04: At least three jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and a civilian were killed after a patrolling party of the paramilitary force was attacked by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara on Monday, triggering a fierce gun-battle.

The encounter comes after a day after the death of five security personnel, including two army officers, in the same area in a face-off with terrorists that began on Saturday.

A teenaged civilian, reportedly of unsound mental condition, was also killed in the exchange of fire between the security forces and the ultras on Monday, they added.

The militants opened fire on a 'naka' party of the Central Reserve Police Force at Wangam-Qaziabad in Kralgund area of the district, the officials said, adding three CRPF jawans were killed on the spot.

Deeply disturbing and painful: Rajnath on killing of 5 security personnel in Kashmir

A brief shootout ensued as the CRPF personnel opened retaliatory firing, the officials said.

A 15-year-old civilian boy, identified as Mohammad Hazim Bhat, was also found dead at the scene of the incident, they said, adding he was reportedly mentally challenged.

The area has been cordoned off and additional forces rushed there to track down the assailants, the officials said.

This was the second major damage inflicted by militants on security forces in Kupwara district within 48 hours.

Five army personnel, including two officers and a Jammu and Kashmir policeman, were killed during an encounter with militants on Saturday in Handwara area.
Family Guy is known for its irreverent and politically incorrect humor, but on Sunday, Seth MacFarlanes animated series went where few would dare to tread.

In an episode called Better Off Meg, Natalee Holloway was mentioned in a joking way, as the show riffed on the name of the Mountain Brook teen who went missing in 2005 on a high school trip to Aruba.

The half-hour episode focused on Meg Griffin (voiced by Mila Kunis), a hapless teen who struggles to be noticed by just about everyone, including her extremely dismissive family. Heres a partial synopsis of Better Off Meg, from a Family Guy fan site:

When everybody ditches Meg on her birthday, she goes bowling alone. Later that evening, the family watches a news report and discovers that Meg was killed in a car accident. Meg also watches the report and realizes that Bruce at the bowling alley accidentally gave her drivers license to the wrong person. When her funeral is poorly attended, she decides to strike out on her own while the family tries to cope with grief with mixed results. Moving to a new town, Meg meets the new neighbor and Keyser Sozes the name up of Natalee Hallway, but spinning lies about her background soon begins to wear on her.

Meanwhile, (her brother) Chris discovers of the girls are coming onto him with the death of his sister and indeed, becomes Big Man on Campus at school. But when Meg gets homesick, she gives him a call and reveals her secret. However rather than helping her, he shoves her into a moving van and sends her away, where she finds herself tied up in a warehouse while her memorial service at school is happening. She bangs her head on the concrete floor until she creates a pool of blood to allow her to slide out of the warehouse and heads to the school.

Natalee Hallway, of course, is a twist on Natalee Holloway, whose disappearance became a media sensation, a nightmare for her family and a mystery that was never solved. She was declared legally dead in 2012. Details of the case werent mentioned in Better Off Meg, but the name Natalee Hallway pops up several times.

This isnt the first time Family Guy has evoked Holloways name for laughs. In a 2019 episode titled No Giggity, No Doubt, Peter Griffin, the shows bumbling patriarch (voiced by MacFarlane), shouts Natalee Holloway! when the new prom queen is about to be announced.

Family Guy airs at 8:30 p.m. CT on Fox.
Amid a spike in the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), West Bengal has decided to go slow in bringing back migrant workers stranded in different states.

The state feels the return of so many people without Covid-19 tests needs to be planned with utmost care so that the infection does not spread to new areas through those coming back.

West Bengal chief secretary Rajiva Sinha said no one coming from other states would be allowed to enter containment zones.

So, if someone taking a train for Bengal hails from a containment zone, he or she cannot be sent home. Some other arrangement needs to be made and these require time, Sinha said.

It wont be proper to allow lakhs of stranded migrants labourers all in one go. They need to be brought back in phases because detailed planning has to be made. Else every effort made till date will go down the drain, Sinha added.

The state, however, has started the inter-district movement of migrant workers stranded in different parts within the state.

Despite the pressure being mounted on the government by opposition parties to fast-track the process of bringing back migrant workers, the government has so far given its nod to the entry of two special trains, one from Rajasthan carrying 1,200 pilgrims and the other from Kerala with migrant workers, to enter the state, as of Sunday evening.

The train from Rajasthan will originate from Ajmer and stop at two places in West BengalDurgapur in West Burdwan district and Dankuni in Hooghly districton May 5. The train from Kerala will start on May 4. Bengal on Sunday asked the government of Kerala to share the details of every passenger before the journey starts.

While top officials of the state government remained tightlipped and there was no press briefing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Lok Sabha members of the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Left leaders have started contacting other states on their own to arrange for the return of the workers.

I spoke to railway minister Piyush Goyal, who said that Bengal has not applied for any special train but has given consent to let only two trains to enter the state. We are afraid the Bengal governments delay in arranging for the return of the migrant workers would worsen their plight, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha and a lawmaker from West Bengal.

Senior BJP leaders alleged that they had contacted the administration in Karnataka to organise the return of migrant workers stranded there but that the Bengal government did not respond.

Karnataka has already appointed an IAS officer as the nodal officer for dealing with the return of migrant workers to Bengal. But the state government did not contact officials in Karnataka as of Sunday evening, Sukanta Majumdar, the BJP MP from Balurghat in West Bengal, said.

Bengals dillydallying on the issue of bringing back migrant workers, who are our own people, is scandalous. The Centres is also behaving in an inhumane way by charging train fare from migrants who stand virtually penniless. The state needs to expedite the process and the centre needs to facilitate, Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member Md Salim said.






Nissan will pull back from Europe and elsewhere to focus on the United States, China and Japan under a plan that represents a new strategic direction for the embattled carmaker, people with direct knowledge of the plan told Reuters.

The "operational performance plan" is due to be announced on May 28 and goes beyond fixing problems from ousted leader Carlos Ghosn's aggressive expansion drive, the people said.

The company's struggles predate the current global economic shutdown. Nissan's 2019 sales slumped severely.

Nissan was already planning to implement what was described as a "do or die" plan in January, before the global coronavirus pandemic froze automotive production and sales worldwide.

Pursuit of market share, particularly in the United States, led to steep discounting and a cheapened brand. Under the new, three-year plan  reported here for the first time  Nissan aims to restore dealer ties and refresh lineups to regain pricing power and profitability, the people told Reuters.

"This is not just a cost-cutting plan. We're rationalizing operations, reprioritizing and refocusing our business to plant seeds for the future," one of the people said.

The plan also aims to cut competition and expand cooperation with alliance partners, the people said. Nissan will follow Mitsubishi in plug-in electric hybrid vehicle technology, with the smaller peer taking the lead in Asian markets outside China and Japan. France's Renault will likely focus on electrical vehicle technologies and Europe.

Nissan and Mitsubishi declined to comment. Renault did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The plan, led mainly by Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta rather than Nissan's low-key chief executive, Makoto Uchida, is aimed at freeing resources to invest in products and technology for the United States, China and Japan, the people said.

"The net effect is even though we reduce our R&D spend this year versus last year and make other savings, we pump those freed-up resources back into core markets and core products," said one of the people, who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak with media on the matter.

Story continues

The plan is likely to take up to two weeks to be finalized, with sales and earnings targets complicated by the anticipated long-term impact on auto sales of government measures worldwide taken to stop the coronavirus outbreak, the people said.

In July, Nissan targeted an operating margin of 6% on revenue of 14.5 trillion yen ($135.83 billion) by March 2023, versus 3% and 13 trillion yen forecast at the time for the year ended March 2020  the results of which are scheduled for release later this month. Management has since changed, with Uchida and Gupta appointed in December.

To be sure, focusing on its three core markets does not mean a total retreat from elsewhere for Japan's second-largest automaker by volume after Toyota.

Nissan will try to maintain a presence in Europe through stepped up efforts with its Qashqai and Juke crossover sport-utility vehicles (SUVs). In Asia, it plans to further expand sales in Thailand and the Philippines which, with Australia, generate roughly 90% of sales and profit in the region excluding China, Japan and India.

Still, its new plan calls for tighter, targeted lineups in countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, Russia, Brazil and Mexico  such as focusing on the beefy Patrol SUV in Africa and the Middle East. That means Nissan might need to shutter more than the 14 assembly lines announced in July. In March, it also announced plans to stop production in Indonesia.

Nissan previously put its annual global production capacity at over 7 million vehicles based on three daily shifts per plant. The new plan is based on two shifts which, with the 14 closures, puts capacity at about 5.5 million, the people said.

Under the plan, the Yokohama-based automaker aims to remain in the U.S. market where it is tasked with eliminating the perception of being a bargain-basement brand. Though its North America sales have grown, its operating margin has narrowed.

"For several years, everything was based on volume growth, then we shifted our emphasis to quality of sales, and we did it overnight," said one of the people. "We did it too fast, and that choked our business."

Nissan's U.S. models have an average age of over 5 years. To lower that to 3.5 years, the automaker plans to launch new and significantly redesigned cars, including a next-generation Rogue crossover SUV, the people said. It will also reduce sales to rental and other fleet operators, they said.

Nissan has been slow to launch models in Japan too. Under the new plan, the automaker will introduce six new or redesigned models over the next three years to bring the average lineup age to under 2.5 years from an undisclosed figure, the people said. Domestically, the average age of lineups from competitive auto brands is generally two to three years.

In China, Nissan's new plan involves designing vehicles more specifically for consumers in the world's largest auto market, instead of offering cars designed for U.S. consumers. Its China-only Venucia brand will need to be re-positioned to better respond to competition from a multitude of indigenous brands, the people said.

Related Video:



Click here to See Video >>


The United States is to hold a presidential election in November of 2020. The coronavirus crisis, however, has caused concern among some Americans about the safety of public voting stations.

As a result, the interest in voting by mail has increased around the nation. The process would permit citizens to send their ballot through the U.S. postal service to election officials in their states.

President Donald Trump is opposed to the process. And Republican Party officials in some states are supporting his objection.

A new survey finds that 47 percent of Democratic Party members and 27 percent of Republicans support voting by mail. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research did the survey.

It found that 39 percent of Americans overall support voting by mail in November. In 2018, under 20 percent supported the process.

The survey found that 40 percent of Americans are against voting by mail. However, 48 percent of those questioned also said they would support the process if the coronavirus were spreading come November.

The survey also found a divide on support for no-excuse absentee voting. This system permits registered voters to vote by mail without providing a reason for doing so. The no-excuse absentee system is already in place in most states.

President Trump and other Republicans argue that voting by mail will lead to election corruption. In a recent Twitter post Trump wrote Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. He said possible dishonesty in the process was too risky.

All states do elections differently. Only five states automatically mail ballots to every voter. But in answer to the coronavirus, some states have changed the political party presidential nominating elections to the mail-only process.

The Republican National Committee has been fighting some of those moves.

A New Mexico court recently decided in favor of Republicans who sought to block the state from holding its June primary by mail only. It forced the state to open some voting stations. The ruling also forces citizens to request permission to vote by mail.

But, in Texas the Democratic Party won a court case about voting processes. A judge ruled that the state government must permit voters to vote by mail if they fear getting COVID-19 at voting stations.

In Wisconsin, the Republican-controlled legislature defeated a request to hold that states April 7 primary and state court election by mail.



Such battles are expected to continue, especially if the virus is growing in the fall.

Brynn Alexander is a 36-year-old who just moved into military housing in Alabama. She worries about security in the vote by mail process.

How do you even identify that the mail got to the right person? Alexander asked, adding that in-person voting would make the public more accepting of the results. You dont want one party or the other saying the other side cheated. she said.

But Alexander said she supports exceptions to permit some people to mail in ballots, like her 70-year-old mother.

Rick Reinesch is a 59-year-old computer technician in Austin, Texas. He said Republicans needlessly push worries about voter fraud.

Paul Miller of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is an 81-year-old Republican retiree. He said he is not sure he trusts voting by mail. He usually goes to a voting station on Election Day.

But Miller might send his ballot this year in the face of the viral threat. I could be persuaded, he said.

Im Alice Bryant.

The Associated Press reported this story. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story



survey - n. an activity in which many people are asked questions in order to gather information about what most people think about something

absentee - n. a person who is not present in a usual or expected place

primary - n. an election in which members of the same political party compete for the chance to be in a larger election

automatic - adj. always happening because of a rule, law, previous agreement or something else
As much as one-third of the world's population will be exposed to Sahara Desert-like heat within half a century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at the pace of recent years.

Scientists from China, the US and Europe found that the narrow climate niche that has supported human society would shift more over the next 50 years than it had in the preceding 6000 years.

Dust storm near Orange, NSW in January. The relatively stable climate that has supported human civilisation for the past six millennia is likely to shift in the next 50 years because of climate change. Credit:Nick Moir

As many as 3.5 billion people will be exposed to "near-unliveable" temperatures averaging 29 degrees through the year by 2070. Less than 1 per cent of the Earth's surface now endures such heat.

That heat compares with the narrow 11- to 15-degree range that has supported civilisation over the past six millennia, according to research published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
MasterChef Australia fan-favourite Poh Ling Yeow has given fans a look into her very private marriage.

Speaking to TV Week magazine on Monday, the 47-year-old praised her husband, aspiring actor Jono Bennett, 39, for keeping her grounded amid the whirlwind of fame.

'We just have a pretty low-key life with just the dogs and running the business,' the chef said.

'We just have a pretty low-key life': MasterChef Australia fan-favourite Poh Ling Yeow, 47 (right) has given fans a look into her very private marriage to aspiring actor Jono Bennett, 39, (left)

Poh revealed that while she was filming MasterChef earlier this year, she chose to fly back home to Adelaide every weekend so she could spend quality time with her husband.

When quizzed on whether babies are on the cards, Poh simply responded: 'No, not having kids.'

Poh met Jono in 2009 on the set of the first season of MasterChef, where he was working as a show runner.

Keeping him close: Poh (left) revealed that while she was filming MasterChef earlier this year, she chose to fly back home to Adelaide every weekend so she could spend quality time with her husband (right)

'No, not having kids': Poh also revealed that babies are not on the cards for the couple

The couple started dating not long after the show ended and went on to marry five years later.

'Every time the show comes around, it's essentially the anniversary of us meeting,' Poh said.

Poh has had a rather complicated love life over the past two decades, involving two marriages and 'a love triangle' with her best friend.

That's different! Poh's first husband, Matt Phipps (left), married her best friend of 20 years, Sarah, Rich (right) after they divorced - but Poh remains on good terms with them both

The celebrity cook married her first husband, Matt Phipps, in 1990 when they were both practicing Mormons.

But when they chose to get divorced after nine years together, Matt went on to marry Poh's best friend of 20 years, Sarah Rich.

Poh went on to marry Jono in 2014.

Unusual arrangement! Jono (right) works with Poh (left), Matt and Sarah at their cafe in Adelaide called Jamface

In an extraordinary twist, the two couples then went into business together, teaming up to open their own cafe in Adelaide called Jamface.

Poh has made no secret of the unusual arrangement in the past, but insists she's learnt to make it work as mature adults.

'He's my ex-husband. She's my best friend. And when we broke up, they got together and it's all dandy. It's actually really good!' she told Mamamia in 2017.

What a tasty dish! Poh (left) recently uploaded this rare Instagram photo of herself and Jono

'Everyone tries to complicate it. From the outside in, they're all like 'love triangle!' And I'm like, 'no!' He's like my brother now and I think  people are never interested in the back story. They want everything to be sordid,' Poh said at the time.

She and Matt have remained 'great mates' since their divorce, something that used to make her new husband Jono feel 'jealous'.

'It was something we all had to work on essentially,' Jono told Woman's Day in 2017. 'I know it's very human to be jealous, but it doesn't make it right.

'There's a lot of history [between Poh and Matt], so it's not something that can be taken away. It's not something that should be.'
Enterprise Products Partners LP

Crude oil prices temporarily dipping below zero are not phasing plans by two pipeline companies to build an offshore export terminal in the Gulf of Mexico about 30 miles south of Brazoria County.

Houston pipeline operator Enterprise Products Partners and Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge both told the Houston Chronicle that they still remain committed to developing a joint venture project known as the Sea Port Oil Terminal, or SPOT.
A senior Amazon.com engineer has resigned in solidarity with fired corporate and warehouse workers who protested working conditions at the company.

Tim Bray, a vice president and veteran engineer with the company's cloud-computing division, said in a post on his personal blog that he quit "in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19."

Bray, who worked in Vancouver, was a distinguished engineer, a coveted title large tech companies award to senior technologists. The decision will likely cost him more than $1 million in loss of salary and unvested Amazon stock, "not to mention the best job I ever had," he said.

Amazon has been fighting the spread of coronavirus cases in its logistics network and a public-relations battle against critics who say the company hasn't done enough to make warehouses safe. Small groups of workers at facilities around the U.S. have walked off the job in protest, and an employee activist group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, called for corporate employees to call in sick after two of its members were fired.

Amazon has said the workers were fired for violating corporate policy forbidding them from speaking publicly about internal matters.

More for you GE to slash 13,000 jobs in aviation amid air travel plunge

Bray, who last year signed the employee group's open letter urging Amazon to do more to fight climate change, said he raised concerns about the firings internally. Having done that, he said, "remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned."

He said he believed both that Amazon was making massive investments to keep workers safe during the pandemic, and that workers who have spoken out have legitimate concerns. In the essay, Bray said the company was treating warehouse workers like "fungible units of pick-and-pack potential." He chalked up some of what he sees as Amazon's failings to its success in a capitalist system not set up incentivize good treatment of workers.

"Firing whistleblowers isn't just a side-effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets," Bray wrote. "It's evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison."

Bray, whose last day was Friday, said that Amazon Web Services, the division he worked for, treated workers humanely and "is by and large an ethical organization." Amazon didn't immediately comment.
Indeed, De Vuysts initial lack of enthusiasm began to change when he realized his talent for the job. By 2015, he had landed at Verico Xeva Mortgage and soon began to rack up industry honours, including being named a Young Gun by CMP in 2016, winning a 2016 Business Excellence Award from Verico and being a Top Performer (Volume) at Xeva Mortgage in 2016 and 2017. Today, as a high-profile broker in the Verico Paragon Mortgage Group, De Vuyst views his work through an appreciative spectrum.

What I really enjoy is that every day is different, he says. We're fairly lucky to be in an industry that is constantly evolving and constantly changing. There's not just the same day in, day out, so it keeps you on your toes.

Its the human element of the profession that De Vuyst says has provided him with the most valuable benefits. I get to help people every day with their financial goals and the dream of owning a home, he says. It's a pretty upbeat, positive business at times. Obviously, there's some low points. But every day changes, so it's actually quite enjoyable that way  nothing ever stays the same.

Viva Vancouver

De Vuysts business is focused on the Greater Vancouver market, which he defines as a lively environment that is expanding pretty much every day. He notes that the market is enjoying a lot of refinances and a lot of purchases that we weren't seeing last year, but he warns that media coverage of Vancouver often doesnt get it right.

The dangerous thing, I think, is that there's a lot of misconceptions about the Vancouver market, he says. Some days it's up and some days it's down, depending on what articles you read and what your media sources are.
Former Air Force base in Gettysburg on market for $4.5 M

A former air force base near Gettysburg is up for sale. The base is listed as having 50 beds and 15 bathrooms on a 42-acre parcel of land.
Hyderabad, May 4 : Taking a serious note of a tragic incident in which a woman and her new-born baby died after she was made to run around hospitals on the suspicion of being infected with Covid-19, the Telangana High Court on Monday asked the state government to ensure that while fighting coronavirus, other emergencies like pregnancies are not ignored in hospitals.

The court also suggested that the government make sufficient numbers of ambulances available across the state to cater to patients in emergency.

A division bench directed the government to file a counter-affidavit about the incident by May 20.

The court treated as Public Interest Litigation (PIL) a letter by lawyer K. Kishore Kumar to Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan.

The lawyer, hailing from Jogulamba Gadwal district, sought direction to the government to ensure pregnant women were given urgent care in government hospitals.

He drew the Chief Justice's attention to a heart-wrenching incident in which the pregnant woman was made to run for nearly 200 km, shutting between six hospitals and which led to the death of both the woman and her child.

Jenila (20), a resident of Yapadine village in Gadwal district, had approached Rajoli Primary Health Centre (PHC) for delivery on April 24 but the PHC staff referred her to Gadwal District Hospital. On reaching there, the doctors asked her to go to Kurnool in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh as her blood pressure was high and she was anaemic. Since it was difficult to reach Kurnool due to lockdown, an ambulance was arranged to shift her to Mahabubnagar District Hospital, about 100 km away.

The doctors, after examining the woman at Mahabubnagar Hospital, found that her condition was critical and asked her husband to take her to Government Maternity Hospital in Hyderabad, another 100 km away.

The lawyer said when the woman was shifted to Government Maternity Hospital, the doctors asked her first under Covid test as she was coming from a Covid hotspot. She was shifted to Gandhi Hospital, where she was tested for Covid-19. As the test report came negative, the next day she was shifted back to Maternity Hospital, where she delivered a baby boy through cesarean section. As the new-born had difficulty in breathing, he was taken to Niloufer Hospital, where he died the same day. As the mother's condition was also deteriorating, she was shifted to Osmania General Hospital, where she succumbed on April 27.

Jenila's husband Mahender said both his wife and child would have survived if she was provided timely medical help. He said precious time was lost as hospitals in Gadwal, Mahabubnagar and Hyderabad kept turning her away out of fear of coronavirus.
Sullivan started off small, closing his first deal from his dining room table, but things quickly moved in the right direction. By the end of its first year in operation, East Coast Mortgage Brokers had four independent agents.

However, success didnt come without hardship. That economic boom didnt last forever, and the second half of the decade wasnt nearly as rosy in Newfoundland. The market went from being robust to challenging  in 2019, new construction in the province was the lowest it has been since the Great Recession.

In spite of this, East Coast continues to prosper and has seen growth in volume and within its team year-over-year. Sullivan says it all comes down to working with people who share your values and making sure you have your clients back.

Were a close-knit community, in our personal lives and business-wise, he says. When we do a good job, our clients tell their friends and family about us, and thats how we continue to grow.

Over the years, tightened government regulations have also been a barrier for the mortgage business in general. However, this has also created opportunity. While people have become a lot more informed and knowledgeable, Sullivan says first-time homebuyers especially still want guidance and reassurance from someone they can trust, which gives brokers a great chance to show clients how valuable their expertise is.
Melitta Bentz, a diminutive housewife from Germany, remains an important figure in the storied history of one of the worlds most popular beverages

Sipping more coffee these days? Laboring at home and traveling less, I find myself more frequently appreciating a good brew, as well as an invention that is to coffee what the slicing machine is to bread. Im referring not to a burr grinder or a French press or a Keurig machine, but to the lowly paper filter invented just 112 years ago.

More on the filter and its female inventor in a moment. First, some interesting coffee facts I learned from personal experience or during research for this article.

Fans of filtered coffee have Melitta Bentz to thank. ( Alpha_7D/Shutterstock)

The Evolution of Coffee

In the last 500 years, coffee went from an exotic libation confined to east Africa to as universal a beverage as there is, aside from water itself. According to historian Jonathan Morris in his Coffee: A Global History,

Coffee is a global beverage. It is grown commercially on four continents, and consumed enthusiastically in all seven: Antarctic scientists love their coffee. There is even an Italian espresso machine on the International Space Station.

Ive been drinking coffee since 1982, but until a visit to Taiwan about five years ago, nothing else had eaten the beans before they became the grounds that made all the brown stimulant I drank. It was in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei that I tried my first cup of coffee made from the droppings of civets, a tropical forest cat. The animal first eats the coffee cherries that fall to the ground, then excretes the beansa truly natural de-pulping process. I couldnt discern any special taste to the costly concoction, but I brought some home anyway just to introduce it to others.

Coffee was likely first cultivated in Ethiopia in the 14th century, but a hundred years later, the epicenter of the coffee trade moved to Yemen, which then dominated the business for at least 200 years.

If you like a little chocolate mixed with your coffee, in what we today call a cafe mocha or a mochaccino, youre drinking something whose name came from the city of Mocha in modern Yemen. From the late 15th century to the early 18th, Mocha was the worlds leading port from which coffee was dispatched. By ship, it traveled to cities throughout the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and east Africa.

The first coffee houses in Istanbul opened in 1554 and within 40 years, their number reached 600. They attracted people who enjoyed the drink while gossiping against the regime. Scorning the coffee houses as dens of subversive iniquity, Sultan Murad IV ordered them all closed in Istanbul in 1633 and throughout the Ottoman Empire shortly thereafter. Just like Americas prohibition of alcohol three centuries later, this one simply drove coffee drinking underground until the government surrendered a few years later.

By the 1780s, an astonishing 80 percent of the worlds coffee poured forth from the Caribbean islands and most of that from what is now the Dominican Republic. It wasnt until the 19th century that Brazil emerged as a major producer, followed by Colombia and the Central American states.

The Coffee-Sugar War

A fascinating but brief coffee-sugar war erupted between 1897 and 1903. The principal figures involved were the American entrepreneurs Henry Osborne Havemeyer of American Sugar Refining Company and John Arbuckle of the giant coffee firm, Arbuckle Brothers. When Arbuckle decided to challenge Havemeyer by entering the sugar market, Havemeyer retaliated by muscling in on the coffee business.

The result was a price war from which both sugar and coffee consumers greatly benefited, but which yielded millions of dollars in losses for the two companies. Its one of many failures of that great bogeyman theory, predatory price cutting. You can read more about it in FEEs archives here.

It may come as a surprise, but its the natural oils in coffee to which we owe the entirety of its glorious taste. As Antony Wild explains in Coffee: A Dark History,

Most coffee oils are immensely complex and have foiled the best efforts of scientists to simulate them adequately, which explains why artificial coffee flavoring is without exception of a poor standard. Although these oils constitute less than three percent of the end product by weight, without their presence coffee would neither smell nor taste of anything. In effect, 97 percent of the coffee one buys by weight is tasteless, baked vegetable matter and caffeine, which is unaffected by the roasting process and constitutes between three and six percent of the final weight of the coffee.

Until the early 20th century, all the major names associated with coffee were those of menfrom sultans to shippers to industrialists. Then along came a diminutive housewife in Dresden, Germany named Melitta Bentz. In classic entrepreneurial fashion, she was alert to a problem, solved it, then took the risk of creating a company to market her invention, and succeeded.

Melittas Contribution

Melitta Bentz was 35 in 1908 and frustrated with grounds in her coffee. It was a common complaint but one the rest of the world seemed willing to tolerate.

Percolators of the day over-brewed coffee at the expense of its taste, imparting an annoying bitter flavor. Linen rags would retain the grounds but were messy and required frequent cleaning. Surely, something else could provide an appealing compromise, she thought, and be quicker, easier, and cleaner.

She experimented with several materials. She wasnt satisfied with any of them until she grabbed some blotting paper from her sons school book, punctured it multiple times with a nail, put it in a brass pot she filled with coffee grounds, then poured hot water over it. Bingo! No bitterness, no grounds! It was an instant hit with her friends, switching on the proverbial light in Melittas entrepreneurial brain.

Melitta was granted a patent for her filter in July 1908 and within months, her company was up and running with its initial four employees: Melitta herself plus her husband Hugo and sons Willy and Horst. Producing filters at first within their home, they sold more than a thousand of them at the Leipzig Fair in 1909. Demand for the simple, newfangled invention exploded thereafter.

In 1936, Melitta improvised her original design and turned her filter into the now-famous cone shape with which we are all familiar.

A vintage box of Melitta coffee filters. (Public Domain)

Melittas Legacy

Production of the filters was paused briefly by World Wars I and II but surged again afterward in each case. But for those interruptions, the family-owned business flourished for decades, even after Melittas death in 1950. Today it employs thousands in Germany, Florida, and New Jersey. A belated obituary in The New York Times in 2015 quoted a company spokesperson as saying,

Most Melitta locations still have a photograph of her on the wall. Every employee knows Melitta Bentz and her exceptional role as the mother of the corporation.

I dont know if the millions of coffee filters sold by her company made Melitta Bentz rich or not. Im guessing she might well have made it into the income category some envious people disparagingly label as the one-percent. If so, that would actually make my coffee taste even better.

Melitta Bentz is an important figure in the storied history of one of the worlds most popular beverages. She came up with a better idea. She possessed the courage to invest in it. She earned the willing patronage of millions of happy customers. She employed thousands of people. She hurt no one in the process; indeed, she left the world in a small way better than when she found it.

Not bad for a housewife from Dresden.
Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn has always been a kind-hearted person, especially when it comes to his fans. The Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior actor recently shared a sweet message for an autistic child, who is very fond of Ajay's songs in Bollywood movies.

A Twitter user shared a video of a little child grooving to Ajay's track, writing in the caption, "#AskKajol I am NAZIA MAJID from Doha, Qatar. My child is autistic and dosen't respond to anything much but is very fond of ajay devgn sirs songs as I am his biggest fan and play his songs all the time. It's my heartfelt request that @ajaydevgn sir wishes amna today (sic)."

Responding to this, Ajay wrote, "Sending across my best wishes to you and your daughter."

Sending across my best wishes to you and your daughter @naziamajid1 https://t.co/LoOAOAKxdG Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) May 3, 2020

On the movies front, Ajay Devgn's Maidaan is scheduled for December release but the coronavirus may play spoil sport in its theatrical debut date. He is also part of Bhuj: The Pride of India and will feature in a small role in SS Rajamouli's RRR.

On the other hand, Ajay has also confirmed his involvement in a sequel to his 2018 hit film Raid and in the Hindi remake of Tamil blockbuster Kaithi. Both these projects will go the floors once normalcy is restored.

Follow @News18Movies for more
Authorities in the Chinese capital have formally arrested a retired professor who called COVID-19 a "Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus," as supporters of the ruling party unleash a political backlash against its critics and the authorities investigate supporters of Wuhan Diary author Fang Fang.



Beijing police formally arrested Chen Zhaozhi on April 14 for picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the regime, after he made comments linking the coronavirus to the CCP.



Chen, a former professor at the Beijing University of Science and Technology, had weighed in on a raging online debate about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic by saying it should be described as a "Chinese Communist Party virus" rather than a Chinese virus.



Chen, 68, told his lawyer during their first meeting on April 24 that police had tried to force him to confess but he refused to do so, according to the overseas based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network.



Chen, who is currently being held at the Haidian Detention Center in Beijing, has high blood-pressure and has previously suffered a stroke, sparking concerns about his health, especially if he becomes infected with the coronavirus himself.



He also suffers from dementia, adding to concerns for his well-being.



Beijing resident Ma Xinli, who has been trying to find out more about Chen's case, said he was initially called in for questioning at the Haidian police station on April 10.

"According to his [ex-]wife, the police came to his home before they detained him and checked the contents of his cell phone," Ma said. "After they detained him, they took his computer away as well."



'A very sensitive topic'



Ma said Chen's detention was "very likely" linked to his remarks about the coronavirus.



"The Wuhan pneumonia is a very sensitive topic right now, so it's risky to post or repost anything relating to it," he said.



Ma said Chen was diagnosed with dementia on a recent trip to hospital.



"It was the police who took him there, so they know about it," he said. "He shouldn't be detained at all."



Chen's lawyer Ma Gangquan said Chen was refusing to "confess," which didn't bode well for him, as he was already being watched by police after shouting "Down with Li Peng!" outside Beijing's Babaoshan crematorium last year, on the day of the former premier's funeral.



"He won't plead guilty, because he thinks that what he wrote online should come under freedom of expression, and was therefore legal," Ma Gangquan said. "This is purely an act of revenge by the police department."



Nationwide backlash



Chen's arrest comes amid a nationwide backlash, both online and by law enforcement, against anyone criticizing China's handling of the coronavirus epidemic after it emerged in Wuhan.



Liang Yanping, a professor at Hubei University, is currently under investigation by the authorities, and has been targeted by a deluge of hate speech and threats online since she spoke out in support of Fang Fang, who authored the mildly critical Wuhan Diary when the city was under lockdown.



"Little pink" CCP supporters and paid "50-cent army" commentators have also targeted retired Hainan University professor and acclaimed poet Wang Xiaoni for a torrent of online abuse.



Guo Yuhua, sociology professor at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, said there appears to be a renewed nationwide political campaign targeting outspoken academics and intellectuals under way.



"This is happening in colleges and universities," Guo said. "It's not, I think, just about restricting speech, but also about the targeted elimination of people who express dissenting views."



"They are targeting anyone who expresses their support ... for Fang Fang," she said.



She said those targeting Fang Fang and her supporters, many of whom are older women from a literary background, lack the ability to think critically.



"I don't know them, but they behave in such a disgusting way, like they can't tell right from wrong," Guo said. "They don't have minds of their own, or any capacity for independent thought; I actually pity them."



Online comments likened the online witch-hunt to the chaotic and arbitrary political campaigns and struggle sessions of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).



Intimidation, harassment



Meanwhile, authorities in the central province of Hubei have intimidated and harassed potential litigants



"Chinese police intimidated and harassed potential plaintiffs in litigation against Wuhan and Hubei governments for failure to release vital information about the novel coronavirus in a timely manner, which resulted in deaths and damage," CHRD said in a statement on its website.



"Authorities pressured victims and families to abandon efforts to seek legal consul online, give media interviews, or contact lawyers offering legal aid," it said.



By April 22, at least six families who lost loved ones to the virus and one woman who recovered from it were forced to abandon lawsuits "under intense threats and harassment," the group said.



Meanwhile, an internal Chinese report has warned that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, according to Reuters.



The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.



The Chinese foreign ministry declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.



Reported by Wong Lok-to for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Gao Feng for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The metropolitan magistrate court on Monday rejected a bail plea of 10 Indonesian nationals who had been arrested in April after they attended the Tablighi Jamaat gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi and failed to disclose this information to the police. The 10 accused will remain in judicial custody till May 11.

A total of 12 people, including the arrested accused (six men and six women) from Indonesia had visited Delhi in March for the religious meet. After attending the meet they came to Mumbai on March 7 and were staying at an apartment in Bandra. Two of them are currently still under quarantine.

The accused were booked for attempt to murder and culpable homicide not amounting to murder, under the Indian Penal Code, along with other charges. They were arrested by the Bandra police on April 23.

Their defense lawyer Ishrat Khan, while seeking bail for the 10 accused, had pleaded that charges of attempt to murder and culpable homicide not amounting to murder, do not apply to the case.

On Monday, when the plea came up for hearing, the prosecution failed to submit a reply on the bail plea. The defense, however, pleaded that looking at the charges applied by the prosecution, the magistrate did not have jurisdiction.

The court considered the defendants argument and rejected the plea. The accused will now approach the sessions court for bail.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Gujarat's Chief Minister Vijay Rupani decided not to ease relaxation in certain cities -- Surat, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, and Bhavnagar, even towns--Botad, Bareja, Godhra, Umreth, Bopal, and Khabhnat also falls under Red Zone.

By looking at the staggering and unfathomable rising cases of coronavirus in Gujarat, the state government decided no relief for six cities. On Sunday evening, a senior official passed the statement, stating that Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had decided no relaxation will be granted in the municipal limits of six cities Surat, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, and Bhavnagar, as high number of cases has been accounted in these cities (Red zone), while Rajkot municipal corporation in Orange zone.

According to the Centres notification, for another two weeks, no relief to be given in these six municipal corporations citiesVadodara, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Surat, and Bhavnagar. Even some towns Botad, Bareja, Godhra, Umreth, Bopal, and Khabhnat also wont get any ease from lockdown.

In a press briefing via video conferencing, Ashwani Kumar CMs secretary said, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in a high-level meeting, decided not to ease restrictions in certain cities due to high COVID-19 cases including Rajkot though its in Orange zone.

Kumar further said, no shops and offices will be allowed to open except those which are selling essential items. While, paan shops selling tobacco, cigarettes, gutkha, etc will be operated only in few parts of the state.

Total number of #COVID19 positive cases in India rises to 42,533 including 29,453 active cases,11,707 cured/discharged/migrated and 1373 deaths: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare pic.twitter.com/zqwLyTceUO  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Further added, Kumar talked about industries that are permitted to work and said, it has to be operated from rural areas but on the condition of adhering to social distancing. Meanwhile, only 30 passengers at a time could be carried by drivers and conductors, if anyone flouts the rule will have to bear the strict action.

Mr. Kumar also said that passes need not renew as it will be valid till May 17.

Kanpur: A special train, carrying 1200 migrant workers who were stuck in Gujarat's Sabarmati amid #CoronavirusLockdown, reached Kanpur yesterday. pic.twitter.com/qmYKWbRoOV  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 4, 2020

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
WOOD RIVER  Gov. J.B. Pritzker warned residents on Sunday against falling victim to coronavirus-related scams as the number of cases statewide surpassed 60,000.

The Madison County Health Department announced another death and 19 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 24 deaths and 364 cases. The deceased was identified as a woman in her 60s.

Statewide there were 2,994 new cases and 63 new deaths reported on Sunday. Pritzker said there are now 2,618 deaths statewide and 61,499 cases. He also noted there were 19,417 new tests performed in the past 24 hours  the highest number to date.

Pritzker also said cases have been reported in all but five of Illinois 102 counties. He said there are 4,701 people hospitalized with coronavirus, including 1,232 in intensive care unit beds and 759 on ventilators.

The Madison County figures on Sunday included 75 people hospitalized and 99 recovered, meaning they have completed isolation.

Illinois Department of Public Health information released by ZIP code Sunday showed additional cases in the Alton, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Troy, Granite City and Collinsville, areas. For the first time, the Maryville area also was noted on the IDPH website with six cases.

A total of 96 cases were reported in 62025 (Edwardsville) with 58 in 62040 (Granite City/Pontoon Beach), 50 in 62002 (Alton), 42 in 62034 (Glen Carbon), 30 in 62234 (Collinsville), 15 in 62294 (Troy) and 11 in 62035 (Godfrey).

More Information Area COVID-19 cases by county St. Clair - 537 (33 deaths) Madison - 364 (24 deaths) Clinton - 112 (5 deaths) Monroe - 75 (11 deaths) Montgomery - 28 (1 death) Jersey - 13 (1 death) Bond - 6 (1 death) Macoupin - 32 Washington - 13 Greene - 3 Calhoun - 1 Sources: Illinois Department of Public Health and Madison County Health Department. See More Collapse

Ten cases were reported in 62052 (Jerseyville), 62060 (Madison), 62249 (Highland) and 62056 (Litchfield); nine in 62095 (Wood River); eight in 62010 (Bethalto); seven in 62024 (East Alton), 62090 (Venice) and 62069 (Mount Olive); and six in 62062 (Maryville) and 62088 (Staunton).

The IDPH is releasing case numbers by ZIP code for areas with more than five cases. Numbers are not released in ZIP codes with fewer cases to protect the privacy of patients. The information is available online at www.dph.illinois.gov. Click on the coronavirus banner, then COVID-19 statistics in the drop-down menu on the left side.

Additional cases also were reported Sunday in Montgomery, St. Clair, Clinton and Monroe counties in the Metro East, according to the IDPH website. One additional death was noted in Monroe County.

During the briefing, Pritzker noted numerous COVID-19 related scams ranging from cyberscams text messaging to door-to-door solicitations for donations. He reminded people to be vigilant and report scams to the Illinois Attorney Generals Office.

You will be caught; you will be prosecuted, he told scammers, calling them reprehensible bad actors.

For the latest information on COVID-19 or coronavirus resources, visit the Madison County Health Department online at www.madisonchd.org or on Facebook @MadisonCHD. Also visit www.co.madison.il.us for more news and a daily update or on Facebook @MadisonCountyIL.
The GDP growth in the first quarter of FY21 is expected to range between 1 per cent and 2 per cent due to ongoing coronavirus lockdown, Chief Economic Advisor KV Subramanian said. However, the economy is likely to rebound in the second quarter as industries resume their operations and migrant workers get back to their jobs, Subramanian told news agency ANI. He added that the Indian exports are bound to see a hit amid weak global economic scenario.

Subramanian said it was the time for Indian industries to revamp strategies and adopt modern technologies to compete on a global scale as various multinational corporations planned to move out of China. On India Inc asking for a fiscal stimulus, Subramanian said that India has to take into account its ground realities before committing to such demand rather than following models of Britain or the US.

In March, India outlined a Rs 1.7 lakh crore economic stimulus plan providing direct cash transfers and food security measures to give relief to millions of poor hit by coronavirus lockdown. According to global news agency Reuters, India may soon announce a second stimulus package of nearly Rs 1 lakh crore and focus on help for small and medium businesses weathering the coronavirus outbreak. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday reportedly held important meetings with key ministers, including Home Minister Amit Shah and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and top government officials to discuss a second stimulus package for sectors hit by coronavirus lockdown.

Meanwhile, India's coronavirus tally has touched 42,836, including 29,685 active cases, 1,389 death.

Also read: Coronavirus Live Updates: Total cases surge to 42,533, 1,074 people cured in 24 hours, says govt

Also read: Congress offers to sponsor lakhs of stranded migrant labourers' train tickets
France was one of the first countries scrambling to create a COVID-19 contact tracing app, and now its close to finding out how its app works in practice. Digital Affairs Minister Cedric O has stated (via Reuters) that Frances StopCOVID should enter real-world testing the week of May 11th, right as the country will start easing pandemic lockdown measures. He didnt say when the app might be ready for widespread use, although thats likely to depend on initial results.

And before you ask: no, France isnt budging on its desire to loosen Apples Bluetooth restrictions for the sake of the app. While O acknowledged that both Frances centralized approach (which stores identifiers for positive contacts in one place) had Apples decentralized method had flaws, he argued that the method supported by iOS was crippling. It allegedly had inferior data protections and gave up control, making it difficult for a health authority to learn from info without asking tech companies.

The minister was aware that trusting a central organization created the potential for abuse, but saw French control of health policy as a sovereign prerogative that shouldnt be handed over to private companies. He also noted that France would move forward regardless of whether or not Apple changed its mind. The iPhone version is satisfactory, he said. Still, its clear the French government is hoping Apple will bend by the time StopCovid is widely available.
Self-made millionaire Barbara Corcoran has "the best people skills" of all the investors on ABC's "Shark Tank," according to her co-star on the show, Mark Cuban.

"Her ability to recognize the good and bad in somebody, what they'll be like as an entrepreneur, what they'll be like as a person  Barbara picks up on that stuff in a minute," he said on Corcoran's podcast "888-Barbara."

And it was Corcoran's gut for entrepreneurs that helped her decide to invest in Holly Cooper, founder of food company Fried Green Tomatoes.

"Our food truck makes everything fresh to order," Cooper told the Sharks during the episode. "Our bacon, lettuce, fried green tomato sandwich is the favorite. We're known best by visitors from all over the country for our hand-battered, fried green tomatoes, fried pickles and our secret sauce."

After trying Cooper's food, the Sharks were impressed.

"Wow, this is great," Shark Daymond John said.

Lori Greiner agreed. "That's very good, Holly," she said.

And taste translates to sales, Cooper said.

"For most of our [food truck] events, we're doing $600 to $800 an hour in business, with customers waiting more than an hour to get their favorites," she said. And "it's more than a food truck, we have a product."

The Fried Green Tomatoes food truck is located in Nashville, Tennessee, but the company's batter and secret sauce are sold in boutique stores nationwide.

"We did $268,000 [in total sales for 2018]," Cooper said during the episode.
Business is anything but usual these days for Donkey & Goat, the urban winery in Berkeley. The tasting room, typically crowded on weekends, is closed. Restaurants arent ordering wines. With the economy tanking, some wine club members have canceled their memberships.

But one of the biggest disappointments of the coronavirus shutdown, says co-owner Tracey Brandt, is that the winery had to cancel one of its favorite events of the year: the summer release party. Originally scheduled for May 16, the event is designed for people to come pick up a set of just-released Donkey & Goat wines. It typically draws about 300 people.

Its live music, tons of food, wine everywhere, Brandt says. Its just a big old party.

So, this time around, Brandt and her husband, Jared, decided to reinvent the pickup party.

John Storey / Special to The Chronicle 2018

We are thinking of it like an In-N-Out drive-through, she says. I bought a dozen walkie-talkies with headsets. Well have staff directing traffic, have the cars form a big semicircle in our parking lot, with barrels outlining it. Customers will drive up and give their name to an attendant decked out in protective gear, who will then radio up to another staff member to bring down the customized order. It will go in the trunk, saving the customer the hassle of getting out of the car.

John Storey / Special to The Chronicle 2018

The new party will be held for two days over Mothers Day weekend. Chefs Finn Stern and Stella Dennig will be offering food to go, including a flaky flatbread fold-over with smoky eggplant and charred cauliflower ($12.50) and citrus and beet carpaccio with dill labneh ($9). The pair had been preparing to open an Oakland restaurant this year, but the coronavirus has put those plans on hold.

The Donkey & Goat summer release includes wines like the 2019 Lilys Pet-Nat ($35), 2019 Still Kraisey Merlot ($38), 2019 Barsotti Vineyard Gamay ($34) and 2019 partial skin-contact Sauvignon Blanc ($34).

The Brandts are making it cute, but is this corona-style release party (as theyre calling it) an early indication of what winery events will be like for the foreseeable future?

John Storey / Special to The Chronicle 2018

Not being able to gather  its just so hard, Brandt says.

Theyre keeping employees busy with local wine deliveries and online wine sales. But like many small wineries  like many small businesses, period  were fighting for our survival, she says.

Theyre trying to plan for eventual reopening, anticipating some significant changes. Reservations? Timed entry? Fewer tables? Most of it seems doable, but Brandt still has questions.

We can envision table-side tastings, sure, she says. Were lucky in that we have a huge space. If we can make the numbers work, which is a question, well have to see if our overhead can support fewer guests without having to charge them too much money.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

John Storey / Special to The Chronicle 2018

In the meantime, though, theyll pretend theyre working at an In-N-Out drive-through, and saying hi to familiar wine club faces through car windows.

Were just throwing spaghetti at the wall, Brandt says of navigating the business right now. Doing everything we can to see what sticks.

Donkey & Goat summer release pop-up. 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. May 9 & 10. 1340 Fifth St., Berkeley. 510-868-9174. Order Donkey & Goat wines ($32-$40) and Finn & Stella food ($8-$14) at www.donkeyandgoat.com. Deadline to order is midnight May 5.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
Eddie Jordan says he is "convinced" that most manufacturers in Formula 1 could quit the sport over the fallout of the corona crisis.

FIA president Jean Todt has already warned that in the period ahead, "teams, suppliers and manufacturers may have to review their program".

"The world has not only changed extremely because of corona, the values of people have shifted," said Jordan, a former F1 team owner.

"Environmental awareness is high on the list. For the bosses of the corporations, this means that they too have to rethink," he told Sport1.

"I am convinced that manufacturers like Mercedes, Honda and maybe Renault will pull the ripcord and end their Formula 1 commitment in the next two years," he told correspondent Ralf Bach.

The commitment that is most endangered, Jordan warned, is Mercedes'.

"The Mercedes leadership cannot do anything else," he said. "They have achieved everything - won everything. Under the circumstances, they can no longer win anything more.

"They will sell their team, perhaps to Lawrence Stroll, who aims to become world champion with his son and the Aston Martin brand. It will be difficult with his current Racing Point team," Jordan said.

As for Mercedes' next move, he thinks the German marque will "enter into a more intensive partnership with McLaren, as they did before".

Part of the problem for Mercedes' works team, Jordan argues, is that its title sponsor Petronas will also be in big trouble over the crisis.

"Oil prices are falling, so the oil companies can no longer afford a commitment in the mid double-digit million range each year," he said. "Petronas will therefore also have to get out.

"That tears a huge hole in the budget."

But despite his dire warnings about manufacturers, Jordan actually thinks Ferrari will stay.

"They're different," he said. "They have Formula 1 blood in their veins, so Formula 1 is not up for debate. Quit threats are just warning shots.

"In the future, Ferrari, Red Bull and probably McLaren-Mercedes will again be the pillars of Formula 1."

Jordan also thinks Sebastian Vettel will switch to McLaren for 2021, with Lewis Hamilton then filling his cockpit at Maranello.

"Lewis will switch to Ferrari," he said. "Only the Italians can still afford his salary and they know that he is worth it."

(GMM)
More than $25,000 worth of merchandise was stolen from the Gucci outlet store in Secaucus late Friday night, Secaucus Police Chief Dennis Miller said.

A Newark man, 21-year-old Mecca Nevins, has been charged with burglary, theft and other offenses after he was found by Secaucus Detective Lt. Michael Torres hiding in a nearby creek camouflaged by some brush early Saturday morning, Miller said.

Secaucus police responded to the Hartz Way facility at 11:56 p.m. Friday after they were told by Gucci security personnel  who were watching a live video feed  that burglars were inside the store stealing merchandise.

Approximately $26,000 worth of merchandise was found to be stolen from the store, some of which was found discarded by the burglars near the store, Miller said.

Police searching Nevels after his arrest found he was in possession of marijuana and stolen merchandise from Gucci.

Secaucus police, with the assistance of a K-9 from the Hudson County Sheriffs Office, searched the area for others involved in the burglary, but no one else has been arrested.

I want to thank the Hudson County Sheriffs Office for always being willing to assist us with their K-9 resource, Miller said. I also want to commend my responding officers who still perform their essential duties without hesitation, despite the inherit risk to themselves during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Nevels was taken to the Hudson County jail pending his appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court.

Anyone with information regarding the burglary is asked to contact the Secaucus Police Detective Division at (201) 330-2052 or detectivedivsion@secaucus.net, or the Secaucus Police Tip Line at (201) 330-2049 or spdtips@secaucus.net.

All calls can be kept confidential.
It truly never ceases to amaze me how Illinois public sector officials have not missed a beat financially during this coronavirus crisis. Their mantra should be do as I say, not as I do!" While they rush to cash their taxpayer financed paychecks at the bank, private sector workers and small business operators such as myself scramble to meet obligations and stay afloat. If state and local politicians were compensated via commissions or performance based percentage, we would be shocked how quickly the business economy switch would be flipped on.
People enjoying the spring weather in Stockholm on April 22 despite the coronavirus pandemic.

ANDERS WIKLUND/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images

The architect of Sweden's unusual coronavirus plan says he still isn't sure it was the right call not to introduce a lockdown.

The state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet he was "not convinced at all" and his team was constantly examining how it was going and what else should be done.

He also said it was important to "be humble all the time because you may have to change," according to The Independent.

Sweden has introduced only a handful of rules and has left places like parks and restaurants open, but its death toll is much higher than neighboring countries'.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The scientist behind Sweden's controversial coronavirus plan says he is still not sure whether the country made the right decision by not implementing a lockdown.

"I'm not convinced at all," Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Friday, adding that the country's Public Health Agency  where he works  was constantly monitoring the situation.

"We are constantly thinking about this  What can we do better and what else can we add on?" he said, according to The Independent.

"I think the most important thing all the time is to try to do it as well as you can, with the knowledge we have and the tools you have in place. And to be humble all the time because you may have to change."

The state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell at a press conference in Solna, Sweden, on March 12.

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images

Sweden has attracted international attention and scrutiny for choosing to rely on citizens' sense of public duty and trust that they'll practice social distancing even without a host of rules meant to keep people apart.

People in Sweden are urged to stay apart, but shops, restaurants, bars, parks, and elementary schools are still open, with the limited rules including a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, a ban on visits to care homes, and restaurants kept from serving customers who aren't seated.

Story continues

If Sweden's plan proves successful, it could serve as evidence that other countries might have dealt with the virus without devastating their economy and keeping people inside.

But whether it has been successful is up for debate: The country's death toll is far higher than that of many other countries that introduced harsher restrictions.

People in Stockholm on April 21.

Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

Sweden, with its population of over 10 million, had recorded 2,679 COVID-19 deaths as of Monday morning.

The country's death rate, adjusted for population, is much higher than the rates of its locked-down neighbors  more than six times that of Norway and more than three times that of Denmark.

Even if the lack of a lockdown is ultimately viewed favorably, it is also possible that other countries could not have taken the same path as Sweden. The country has an unusually high level of trust in its government and in experts, has a strong belief in citizens' duty to one another, and is sparsely populated.

Tegnell and Sweden's government have repeatedly expressed confidence in the plan.

Tegnell said last month that the strategy had achieved its goal of stopping the country's health service from being overwhelmed and that it was "very difficult" to know whether a lockdown could have prevented more deaths.



He added that the virus passing through Stockholm, the country's capital, had allowed some immunity to build up among the population.

He also said that about 15% to 20% of people in Stockholm had reached a level of immunity that would "slow down the spread" of a second wave of the virus, something experts worldwide say could be coming.

People outside in Stockholm on April 22.

ANDERS WIKLUND/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images

But the World Health Organization and other experts have warned that it is unclear how long people who have been infected might be immune and even whether they will be.

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven also expressed his confidence in the plan last week, claiming it could work in the long term as countries try to find a way to manage their populations until a vaccine is found.

"I feel confident in the overall strategy," he said, Reuters reported. "One reason that we have chosen this strategy, and where we have supported the agencies, is that all measures have to be sustainable over time."

But some scientists in Sweden and around the world have been worried that the strategy will result in a needlessly high death toll.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Naik Rajesh Kumar, who was killed in an anti-terror operation in north Kashmir, was cremated will full military honours at his home village in Punjab's Mansa district on Monday evening.

He was among the five security personnel who died Saturday night in an encounter in Handwara, an operation in which the Army also lost a colonel and a major. Both officers will be cremated on Tuesday.

Villagers in Rajrana near Sardulgarh chanted slogans like Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata Ki Jai as the soldier's body, wrapped in tricolor, was taken to the cremation ground.

His father Ram Kumar said he was proud of his son for laying down his life for the country.

Naik Kumar, 28, joined the Army in 2010. He is survived by his parents, two brothers and two sisters, Mansa Deputy Commissioner G S Chahal said.

Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, MLA Nazar Singh Manshahia and district officials were present at the funeral.

Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, the commanding officer of 21 Rashtriya Rifles which was involved in the anti-terror operation, will be cremated in Jaipur on Tuesday.

The last rites of Major Anuj Sood will also be held Tuesday in Chandigarh, officials said.

Col Sharma's body arrived in Jaipur Monday by a special aircraft and was taken to the military hospital in a decorated army vehicle. Floral tributes were paid at the Chandigarh Air Force station as Major Sood's body arrived there.

Major Sood's father, Brigadier Chandrakant Sood (retd), told the media that the of the death left him shocked, but at the same time he was proud of the supreme sacrifice the officer had made for his motherland.

"He was a true son of the nation," he said at his Panchkula home.

The body of Lance Naik Dinesh Singh, another soldier killed in the same operation, was expected to reach Uttarakhand's Almora on Tuesday, an official said.

The 25-year-old soldier was the son of ex-Army man Godhan Singh Gaira, a resident of Bhanauli village.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A reconnaissance ship appeared near gas deposits, while Russian oil tanker moved from the occupied naval area with Russia's state flag dipped so that no one would notice it

Open source

Hetman Sagaidachnyi, the Ukrainian Navy flagship and frigate, conducted regular combat drills in the Black Sea. During the exercise, it observed another violation of the international maritime law by Russian ships. Bryz, the TV and radio studio of Ukraine's Defense Ministry reported that on its Facebook page on early May 4.

The crew of Hetman Sagaidachnyi frigate conducted shooting drills in the sea and observed more violations of the maritime law and presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in strategically important naval sectors", reads the message.

A reconnaissance ship appeared near gas deposits, while Russian oil tanker moved from the occupied naval area with Russia's state flag dipped so that Ukrainian sailors would not notice it.

Earlier, March 26, Russian missile boat was spotted in Ukraine's exclusive naval area, near Odesa gas deposit.

Earlier, Ukraine has successfully tested the new Neptune missile system. It was reported by the Secretary of National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksiy Danilov on his Facebook page. "The second successful test is over. The Neptune missile system successfully hit floating targets at the Alibei range in the Black Sea area," the statement said.
Jeffrey Epstein had his own office at Harvard University and visited the college more than 40 times after he was released from prison on sex crimes charges in 2010, according to a new report.

An internal review by Harvard, published on Friday, laid bare deep, longstanding ties between Epstein and the university that were only cut after fresh allegations emerged against the disgraced late financier in 2018.

Harvard confirmed that Epstein, who died in a New York prison in August awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges, had made more than $9 million (7m) in donations to them over the years.

His money funded the construction of at least one campus building.

The review found that no gifts were received from Epstein, who was not an alumni, following his conviction in 2008 for Florida state sex crimes, one of which involved soliciting sex for pay from an underage girl.

Lawrence Bacow, Harvards president, said the university has donated $210,000 of unspent donations to groups that support victims of sex trafficking and assault.

The report, overseen by Diane Lopez, Harvards general counsel and vice president, found that even after his conviction and subsequent 13-month stint in jail, some members of the Harvard community continued their relationships with Epstein.

Ms Lopez wrote that "in 2013, several faculty members requested that Harvard reconsider accepting donations from Epstein.

The university reported that Martin Nowak, director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED), had been placed on administrative leave over unreported contact between him and Epstein.

While we have not been able to determine the precise number of campus visits, we understand that Epstein visited the offices of PED in Harvard Square more than 40 times between 2010 and 2018, Ms Lopez wrote.

Epstein initially funded the program in 2003 with a gift of $6.5 million. He maintained a relationship with Mr Nowak over the next 15 years, including after Epsteins release from prison.
CHESTER  A 13-year-old is in critical condition at Alfred I. DuPont Hospital, Wilmington, following an afternoon shooting in an uptown residential area, city police reported late Sunday.

Officers were dispatched to 20th and Potter streets about 2:22 p.m. Sunday for report of a shooting victim. Officers located a victim in the backyard of a residence in the 400 block of East 20th Street. The 13-year-old male received numerous gunshot wounds to abdominal area and one to the head area, according to a release from Captain James Chubb.

Witnesses in the area stated the victim was running through yards and hopping fences to evade gunfire before falling to the ground. The suspects returned to a vehicle and fled the area. This vehicle was described as a silver 2007 Acura RDX (SUV) with a Delaware registration, the release states.

Paramedics treated the victim at the scene before he was transported to Crozer Chester Medical Center for further treatment. He was then transferred to Alfred I. DuPont Hospital.

Detectives are following up on several leads. If anyone has any information regarding this case, they are urged to contact city Detective Brian Pot at 610-447-8431 or bpot302@chesterpolice.org, or county CID Detective David Tyler at 610-891-4197 or tylerd@co.delaware.pa.us
Going after bad actors

Benczkowski, 50, has been chief of the Criminal Division since July 2018. The division's more than 600 attorneys prosecute an array of violations: fraud, organized crime, drug trafficking and transnational computer crimes, among many others.

Illegal schemes tied to COVID-19 already have emerged and triggered arrests and federal charges from New York to California.

The first criminal charge was filed March 25 against a Los Angeles actor from the Iron Man movies who hawked a fake cure for COVID-19 and promised astronomical returns to prospective financial backers. (To date, there is no approved cure for the acute respiratory illness.)

In an unrelated case, two men were criminally charged for lying to potential investors by claiming to have 40 million N95 face masks that could be sold for double or triple the purchase price. But the touted masks didn't exist.

Says Benczkowski: There's almost no limit on the creativity of fraudsters and others to use COVID as a basis to commit new types of fraud, but also to put new twists on the same old scams."

'The worst of the worst'

"These are the worst of the worst individuals, in my mind, he says. We're all in this together. This is a time when Americans  even though we're isolated and separated from one another  we need to be there for each other, we need to support one another.

"And people who prey on the circumstance that we all find ourselves in, in order to make a buck, are just the worst of the worst human beings, as far as I'm concerned."

What motivates them?

"It doesn't matter to us what motivates them, he tells AARP, but it's almost entirely greed."

Fraud complaints pour in

As of the week of April 27, the National Center for Disaster Fraud had received more than 12,000 calls and emails, with 4,200 of these deemed worthy of criminal investigation, Benczkowski says. Depending on the severity and scope of the allegations, probes could be launched by federal, state or local law enforcement or regulatory agencies, he says.

"If somebody says, There's a guy who is trying to charge $50 for a six-pack of toilet paper at his local store,  at best that may be referred to state or local officials, he says.

The center, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was created to combat fraud tied to government relief programs that arose after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.
YEREVAN.  This agreement complements the major package agreement between the EEU and Singapore. Armenias Deputy Minister of Economy Varos Simonyan stated this at Mondays sitting of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Regional and Eurasian Integration, during the discussion of the matter of ratification of the agreement on trade services and investments between Armenia and Singapore.

The Deputy Minister noted that given the fact that this agreement contains services and investments in various domains, several separate agencies of Armenia were responsible for its implementation.

After the debates, the MPs endorsed this agreement.

To note, Armenia is also a member in the EEU.
Two dead, 125 rescued after massive fire breaks out in Surat packaging unit

Migrant workers clash with cops in Surat; stones pelted, tear gas fired

India

oi-Deepika S

Surat, May 04: A large number of migrant labourers, who have been demanding that they be sent home clashed with the police in Gujarat's Surat on Monday.

This was the fourth instance of protest by migrants in Surat, where a huge number of labourers come from other states to work in the diamond and textile industries.

The migrants clashed with police and damaged several vehicles on Surat streets. Police used teargas shelling to disperse the migrant workers.

The incident took place near Vareli village on the outskirts of Surat while the migrant workers were demanding that arrangements be made to send them back to their native places in the wake of the coronavirus-enforced lockdown.

The labourers also damaged some vehicles parked on Surat-Kadodara road, the official said.

They clashed with police and threw stones at them, following which the security personnel retaliated and lobbed teargas shells and lathi-charged the agitated workers, the official said.

The situation was later brought under control and security was stepped up in the area, he added.

Last week, hundreds of migrant workers had come out on roads and vandalised the office of an under-construction building and vehicles in Surat district.
Ontario obstetricians and midwives grappling with the uncertainties of COVID-19 are welcoming new provincial guidelines that aim to keep mothers and newborns safe during the pandemic.

Released Friday by a provincial task force, the guidelines address many aspects of labour, delivery and postpartum care, and include screening protocols for birthing mothers, the proper use of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) by health-care staff and patients and  crucially for worried families  the recommendation for a single support person during labour and birth.

They also provide guidance on caring for pregnant women and new mothers with either a suspected or lab-confirmed case of COVID-19. This includes the advice that mothers with the virus can, with proper precautions, safely breastfeed their babies.

The goal is to reduce conflicting messages to health-care practitioners and provide them with uniform guidance on childbirth and newborn care during the pandemic, said Dr. Mark Walker, co-chair of the provincial Maternal-Neonatal COVID-19 Task Force and chief of obstetrics, gynecology and newborn care at The Ottawa Hospital. As well, he added, the guidelines should reassure pregnant women and their families that care decisions are being made with the best-available evidence.

The biggest challenge for all of us is there is no playbook for this virus, said Walker, professor and chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Ottawa. In everything else were trained to do we have evidence, textbooks and published articles. For the first time in our lives, we are facing a situation where the answers arent always known.

In the absence of provincial guidelines, individual hospitals and midwifery practices have been determining their own protocols for childbirth and newborn care based on a variety of sources, ranging from the Southern Ontario Obstetrical Network to the World Health Organization. This has created conflicting messages for health-care practitioners and, in some cases, increased anxiety for mothers and families, said Dr. Jon Barrett, co-chair of the task force and head of maternal fetal medicine at Torontos Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

In the Toronto area, for example, some hospitals have had a different set of birthing guidelines than a neighbouring hospital, thereby creating confusion for families and care providers, said Barrett, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Toronto.

There have also been reports of families shopping around for a hospital with the fewest restrictions on support partners, which means they may be delivering their baby at a hospital that doesnt have their medical records on hand, leading to an increased health risk for mother and baby, Barrett said.

The guidelines state a birthing mother may have a single support partner throughout her stay as long as that partner has screened negative for COVID-19, the hospitals infrastructure allows adequate physical distancing between patients and has enough PPE for the support person.

Dr. Karen Gronau, site chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Brampton Civic Hospital, welcomes the guidelines and said they will bring consistency across institutions, a big help for both providers and patients.

Patients were hearing a lot of rumours and saying, Oh, this hospital is doing this and that hospital is doing that, and its pretty difficult as a provider to know what to tell people, she said. I only knew what we were doing at our institution.

Its great to reassure patients that we have these evidence-based guidelines based on several weeks of local experience and several months of international research and observations during the pandemic.

Gronau said the guidelines for newborn care will be particularly reassuring for mothers because the best-available evidence suggests there is a low risk of vertical transmission of the virus between mom and baby.

Everyone is anxious about getting COVID-19, but pregnant women must be additionally anxious about it  before they have their baby and postpartum, worrying they may pass it (the virus) on to their baby.

Jasmin Tecson, a registered midwife with the Toronto-based Seventh Generation Midwives and president-elect of the Association of Ontario Midwives, also welcomed the guidelines, and said in an email they take into account two key priorities: To keep healthy patients out of hospital who have chosen to receive care in the community with their midwife, and to protect the well-being of health-care workers on the front lines.

Remi Ejiwunmi, a registered midwife at Midwives of Mississauga, with privileges at Trillium Health Partners, said the guidelines are patient-centred and ensure decisions of where a mother will deliver her baby is based on her clinical picture, rather than on rigid rules.

For example, a COVID-positive mother who is in distress will need to be in hospital, said Ejiwunmi, who is on the Maternal-Neonatal COVID-19 Task Force. But a mother who had the virus early in her pregnancy but is clear of COVID-19 when she will deliver and has a low-risk pregnancy can safely opt for a home birth  if that is what she wishes, she said.

The guidelines also make it clear midwives who care for patients at home and in the community require proper PPE, something that midwives have been advocating for, but hasnt happened consistently across the province, with some midwives having to use homemade masks and gowns, she said.

Our hope is that this document shows PPE should be available to everyone in every setting, Ejiwunmi said. That will be the expectation.

The Maternal-Neonatal COVID-19 Task Force is made up of more than a dozen experts, including obstetricians, midwives, infectious disease physicians and family doctors, and includes perspectives from rural, community and academic hospitals and midwifery practices.

The guidelines are made up of 13 recommendations, and include, among others:

Mothers who are COVID-positive, have symptoms of the virus or have been in close contact with a COVID-positive person will wear a surgical mask during all stages of labour.

Infants who are born to COVID-positive mothers should be tested for the virus within the first 24 hours of delivery, even if they dont have symptoms.

Mothers who are COVID-positive can safely do skin-to-skin with their newborn and breastfeed their baby using proper precautions, which include wearing a surgical mask and washing their breasts, chest and hands before breastfeeding or pumping breast-milk.

Babies born to COVID-positive mothers are being tracked by BORN Ontario, or the Better Outcomes Registry & Network. So far, between 10 and 20 COVID-positive mothers have delivered babies in the province, said Walker, the networks scientific director.

Birthing and newborn recommendations will be updated and refined as more data is collected in Ontario, Canada and from international registries, Walker said.

For a pregnant person, the most important thing is to be aware that it (childbirth) is going to be a different experience than they were expecting when they first got pregnant, before the pandemic.
News

Washington, DC - Remarks by President Trump at a Signing Ceremony for H.R. 266, Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act:

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Thank you very much. Were gathered today for a very historic bill signing that will provide vital financial relief to American workers and families. Were grateful to be joined by Vice President Mike Pence, and also with us are Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Administrator Jovita Carranza, Senators Roy Blunt, John Cornyn, Dan Sullivan, as well as Leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Steve Scalise and Liz Cheney. We appreciate you all coming. A very big moment.

I want to thank Congress for answering my call to pass this critical funding. And the bill includes, as you probably know  youve been watching it over the last week as it matured unto this this point  $320 billion to refill the Paycheck Protection Program, helping keep millions and millions of American workers on the payroll. Great for small businesses. Great for the workers.

Thirty billion dollars to the Paycheck Protection funds will be reserved for small financial institutions, including those that serve minority and distressed communities, extending vital relief to thousands of African American and Hispanic American small-business owners and their employees. And thats $30 billion of the Paycheck Protection funds. And thats really having to do very much with extending vital relief to thousands of African American and Hispanic American people in this country that are so great but have been so badly hurt. Theyre great people. Theyve been badly hurt.

Ten billion dollars for Economic Injury Disaster Grant Program. Fifty billion dollars for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which will provide loans to small businesses and farms. Very important  farms. Seventy-five billion dollars to reimburse hospitals and healthcare providers. Eight hundred and twenty-five million dollars  thats a small one; million. Thats the first time Ive seen the word million instead of billion. Eight hundred and twenty-five million dollars for community health centers and rural clinics, which serve many of our most vulnerable low-income communities. And $25 billion for expanding testing capabilities.

So let me once again thank everyone who helped achieve these historic victories. This is a tremendous victory. This is on top of all of other things that weve been doing, including an incredible job, I must say  where Vice President Pence and with the task force  the coronavirus, that we are really hitting hard. The task force has been fantastic. The ideas and the implementation has been unprecedented. We dont get the credit that we should, and I dont want it for myself, but I actually do want it for the Vice President, and I do want it for the task force. But most importantly, I want it for all of the incredible people that are working so hard.

You see what weve done on ventilators. Were now  were the kings. I have many countries calling. Were the king of ventilators. Countries are calling, and theyre calling all the time now  can we help them with ventilators. And we are helping some countries. We spoke to a number of them today: Indonesia, Honduras, El Salvador. We spoke to numerous countries today. You probably saw that.

I spoke to the presidents, prime ministers. Im speaking to everybody. They all want to know if we can help them with ventilators. And were capable of doing that because were making thousands and thousands of ventilators. And every governor has more than they need. In fact, some of the governors are now taking ventilators and shipping them to different states that dont even need them.

So its been an amazing story that hasnt been written about. Actually, there have been stories about why havent they written about it. Those are the stories, because the news is  much of the news is not fair. But thats been incredible.

Likewise, our testing  Mike just said today 5 million. Tell me, was it 

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Its 5.1 million, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: 5.1 million tests. Thats more than all countries combined. All countries combined. 5.1 million tests.

And you were asked a question about that the other day. You didnt hit 5 million tests. Well, I guess Mike didnt respond, or he wasnt asked the answer. But, right now, its 5.1 

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT:  and that was just the other day, Mike.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

THE PRESIDENT: Some reporter named  I think his name was Jonathan Karl, right? Whos a very nice  actually, a very nice guy.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: One month ago, Mr. President, we had done a total of 80,000 tests nationwide.

THE PRESIDENT: And now were 5.1

THE VICE PRESIDENT: As of today, because of the partnership you forged, because of the support of leaders gathered here and governors around the country, 5.1 million Americans tested.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, and actually, I wanted to tell you this: Honduras just called, and they are in a quagmire because they dont have good testing, and they asked us to help them with their testing. We will. Theyve been helping us very much on the border. Our southern border is setting record lows for people coming through our southern border. We have that really in good shape.

In addition, were now up to our 170th mile. We want to get up to 450 early in the year, early  by the end of this year. But basically, early next year, well be up to 450. Maybe even soon than that. And ultimately, what weve done on the wall is incredible.

The amount of  and I can say this to John from Texas  John Cornyn  the numbers are incredible, in terms of coming across. Weve stopped it. And that 170-mile stretch where we have the wall, its like  its like a different world. People used to just drive right across and nobody could do anything about it. Now we have a tremendous, powerful wall there, and its been  its been incredible, because a country needs to have borders. And you dont have borders if you have people pouring in by the tens of thousands. And we have totally stopped it. So its been  its been a great thing.

So were going to sign this right now. Before I do, I think Ill ask the Vice President if hed like to say anything, and maybe some of the people in the room. Theyve all been very instrumental in this, and theyve been great friends of our country.

Mike, please.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Mr. President. And thanks to your leadership, the leadership of the members of the House and Senate who are gathered here, and frankly, the bipartisan support that weve enjoyed in this effort, more help is on the way. Small businesses will be able to keep even more Americans on the payroll while our nation makes our way through the coronavirus.

And critical funding for hospitals, Mr. President 

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  you said earlier in the week  we are encouraging states around the country to restart elective surgery wherever possible, even on a county-by-county basis. Additional funding for hospitals is here and additional funding for testing. Well be reviewing those resources in a conference call with governors today.

But I want to join you in thanking all of the members of the House and Senate who are here, and frankly, all of the  all the members in both political parties who have continued to provide the support youve called for, for the American people, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Its been really amazing, hasnt it?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It has.

THE PRESIDENT: So what was the vote in the Senate?

REPRESENTATIVE SCALISE: 385 to 5.

THE PRESIDENT: What was it?

REPRESENTATIVE SCALISE: About 385 to 5.

THE PRESIDENT: There  there it was. And what about the Senate?

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Unanimous.

THE PRESIDENT: And then theyll criticize me, the Democrats, for doing the bill. I said, But you voted for it. Well, that doesnt matter.

Dan, do you have anything to say?

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Yes, sir, Mr. President. And I first want to thank you and your team  you, the Vice President, the Secretary of the Treasury  literally working around the clock. Everybody notices that. We certainly notice it in Alaska. We really appreciate it.

You know, my state has a lot of tough, resilient people. Your grandfather is a part of that legacy, in terms of the great state of Alaska.

But, you know, some of our key industries  oil and gas, the energy sector, the fishing community, the tourism community  theyre facing tough times. But this bill is going to help and your administration, Mr. Vice President and Mr. President, are doing so much to help those sectors. So I just want to thank you on behalf of the people I represent.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Dan, very much.

Steve?

REPRESENTATIVE SCALISE: Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, for the leadership and for calling on Congress to pass this bill  the bill youre about to sign. This is going to put another 300-plus billion dollars in the Paycheck Protection Program. This has been a lifeline not only to small businesses, but  I know youre well aware  youve saved over 30 million jobs just with the first tranche of that money that went out. Over 30 million people are on the payroll today that would have been unemployed.

We just saw another 4.4 [million] Americans that went on the unemployment rolls. This is going to save probably another 30 million people from going on unemployment. Theyll be able to stay in their jobs. Those small businesses will still be alive so that they can come back when we start opening the economy safely, to be able to come back.

We see all of these industries distressed  the oil and gas industry, ag industry, restaurants. Everybody wants to start focusing on how to reopen the economy in a safer, smarter way. I appreciate your leadership. This bill is going to be a lifeline, again, to millions more people that will be able to stay on the payroll of their companies.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Steve.

Kevin, please.

LEADER MCCARTHY: Yes, sir. First of all, I want to thank all those on the frontline. I want to thank those in the medical community; the truck drivers; the farmers who are providing the food, making sure its safe in America; and those even in the stores. What youre doing, this country is very grateful for.

I know I was with the President the other day and I was thanking him, and he was telling me, No. What hes watching across this country are that people are making those sacrifices. And the example that you are showing every day, being in at work, is an example that America wants to see. That we know, as Americans, well get through this. Well overcome this and well be stronger.

We had a stronger economy than weve ever had before, prior to a virus that came from a distant land from a country that lied to us. We would never have to experience this. But this leadership is going to make a difference.

And what youre doing right here  I want to give a little special thanks to the SBA and to the Secretary.

ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: Thank you.

LEADER MCCARTHY: Because we designed this in a time of need. And when you just look at the data, 74 percent of that money at the very beginning went to com-  went to businesses that had $60,000 or fewer in a payroll per month.

Those are the businesses we know that make decisions around a kitchen table. And your action early on, on April 7th, that said its going to need more money, you were right. I think those in politics that held it up just for a political purpose owe this country an apology.

And today, youre going to sign something that you created thats going to make a fundamental difference for the rest of us. But thank you for your actions (inaudible).

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Kevin. Its going to help a lot of people. That, I can say.

Jovita, good job youre doing.

ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: Thank you very much, President.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.

ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: Appreciate that, kindly.

THE PRESIDENT: Want to say something?

ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: Of course.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.

ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: Your strong leadership really has propelled the motivation, the energy, the stability, and the tenacity of the Small Business Administration. And every small business that weve been able to touch in some way  whether its answering a question, processing a loan, guaranteeing a loan, the fact that we have over $700 billion committed at this point to small businesses is herculean.

And it would not have happened if it had not been for your strong leadership galvanizing the left and the right and everything in between to make these funds possible for our small business.

Now SBA is focused on economic recovery, and were very focused in on the small businesses. And were going to meet them at the corner to start bringing back their employees, hiring new ones, and become very, very strong in the new economy, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: And I assume that SBA has never done numbers like this. This is record-breaking stuff (inaudible).

ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: Sir, weve done 14 years of loan processing and guaranteeing in 14 days.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Unheard of.

ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: And its like an ATM machine with over 400 billion dollars and 30 million small businesses waiting in line.

THE PRESIDENT: Its been incredible.

ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: So, thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: And, as you know, Harvard is giving back the money. Stanford is giving back the money. Everyone is giving it back. And in many cases, they never got  were talking about some of the bigger companies that we felt, after we looked at some numbers, that they shouldnt have taken it. And Steve maybe will say something about that.

But Ill go back to John Cornyn first. Please, John.

SENATOR CORNYN: Thank you, Mr. President. You know, these are extraordinary times and it tests all of us. And I want to congratulate you and your administration on meeting this challenge head on.

Weve got  this virus is trying to teach us a lot of lessons that weve got to learn about our supply chains 

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

SENATOR CORNYN:  about the source of these viruses, which create these pandemics.

But, you know, my state, like Senator Sullivans state, has got the double  double whammy. One is the coronavirus and the other is the oil and gas industry has been decimated.

And so I appreciate your willingness to meet with the leaders of the industry, Secretary Mnuchin, and the good work thats being done at Treasury to stand up this economic stabilization lending facility that hopefully will provide a lifeline to this industry.

But in the end, I think we all realize that we need to safely find a way to begin to reopen our economy. Because the biggest problem the industry has is a lack of global demand because the rural economy has been shut down.

THE PRESIDENT: Thats true. Thats true.

SENATOR CORNYN: So, well get through this together. But I just want to extend my appreciation to you and your administration for your leadership and your partnership with all of our mayors, our governors, and those of us who work in Washington.

THE PRESIDENT: Good job. Good job.

Well, we have some  one of the  one of great ones. One of our really good friends.

Lynne [Liz], go ahead.

REPRESENTATIVE CHENEY: Thank you very much, Mr. President. I appreciate that. Well, its an honor to be here for the signing of this really important piece of legislation. I also know that you join me and we all join in saying thank you, expressing our gratitude to doctors and nurses, the healthcare professionals who are out there on the frontlines and taking care of people. Our prayers to those families that have lost people to this horrible virus.

And also, I really appreciate very much the focus on remembering where the virus came from and the extent to which the Chinese Communist Party, the government of China, was very much responsible for an action that allowed this virus, that caused this virus, frankly, to be spread around the world because they were not honest, because they were not forthcoming, because they allowed travel outside of Wuhan to the rest of the world. And theyve got to be held accountable.

And I know there will be a lot of support on both sides of the aisle, Mr. President, in Congress to do just that.

THE PRESIDENT: I understand.

Steve?

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Thank you, Mr. President. This is the fourth bill youve now signed to help with the coronavirus. And this is very important. And I want to thank the Senate and the House for working with us to get this done. And I want to thank the American workers and the American business for all their hard work.

And as the President said, this is really a program thats designed for small business. And we put out some clarification yesterday that some of the bigger businesses that have taken out loans should return the money. We appreciate that theyve done that. There will be a surveillance around this if they dont.

But I can tell you the many stories Ive already received from very small businesses, some of them that have 5 or 10 people, and the meaningful impact that this has had. And I know that the additional funds are going to make an enormous difference to over another 30 million workers. So between the original funds and these funds, it will be over 60 million workers, close to half of the private payroll.

Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. Vice President.

THE PRESIDENT: Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Steve.

Roy?

SENATOR BLUNT: Mr. President, great to be with you. Your team is reacting and moving in a way faster than anybody has ever seen. What the Secretary has done in small business is unbelievable. This is a small agency that has done years of work in just a few days.

The load that Secretary Mnuchin has taken on and the way that theyve been able to respond to get individual direct payments out  unbelievable. Theres always going to be some gaps in that, but now theyre stepping back and doing exactly what you need to do. But the amount of work thats been done here is incredible.

I talked to the mayor of Jefferson City, our state capital, yesterday, whos the second-generation owner of the Hallmark store on High Street in Jefferson City. And she said, without the loan  she said the minute she got the notice that she got the loan, that was the difference in whether her business was going to survive or not.

And then one other thing Ill mention on the testing element: Weve worked closely with you to try to design that testing to do what you think needs to be done in terms of the delivery of how weve attacked this virus. About half the money goes immediately to states and to local community health centers and rural health centers. The rest is going to be used to try to  in a Shark Tank kind of atmosphere, with public and private partners working together, to try not only decide what new tests can be available in a quicker way, but also how we can encourage faster production of those tests than they would ever be able to do by themselves. And that direction came right out of this office, between you and the Chief of Staff. And Im glad the bill reflects that.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Roy. Great job, Roy. Appreciate it very much.

So, I just spoke with Tim Cook of Apple, and he would like us to do things. Hes going to be spending tremendous amounts of money in our country. Hes going to be bringing back tens of billions of dollars into our country. Hes going to build. And he feels that were going to have a V. You know what the V is. Were talking about the U or the V, or maybe a flat line. But he thinks its going to be a V. Thats his own impression. And hes had some pretty good impressions. He gets it.

I just want to thank everybody thats here today. I want to thank, most importantly, all of the people that have suffered so greatly for a reason that should have never happened. This should have never happened to our country. This should have never happened to 184 other countries either. This was a disgrace that it was allowed to happen.

So, with that, Ill sign the bill.

(The bill is signed.)

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Thank you, very much. How about well give one to Roy, for a change. Well give one to Roy. Dont worry, youre all going to get it.

Okay? Thank you all very much. Hold it one second. Very importantly, were going to give these out. Okay?

Liz, youll give them out, around.

REPRESENTATIVE CHENEY: Yeah.

Q Mr. President, 50,000 people have died today. Youre saying that you want credit for what the government has done. Do you take any responsibility for these 50,000 deaths that have happened in this country?

THE PRESIDENT: I think weve done a great job. As you know, minimal numbers were  minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people. Minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people. And were going to be, hopefully, far below that. If we didnt take quick action, you could have lost many millions of people.

So were really being given a lot of credit for a lot of people. Im not looking for credit for myself, but I am looking for credit for people in the federal government that have done such a great job, and for the doctors and nurses and everybody else.

Please.

Q Mr. President, do you have any comment on Rick Bright, who has said hes going to file a whistleblower complaint?

THE PRESIDENT: I dont  I dont the gentleman. Im sorry. I dont know him. I dont know how you sign a whistleblower complaint when  is that a whistleblower complaint youre talking about? How do you sign a whistleblower complaint everybody knows who he is? I know nothing about him.

Q He says he was retaliated against because he refused to promote hydroxychloroquine.

THE PRESIDENT: That, I dont know. Again, I dont know anything about it. I dont know 

Q Did you ever ask scientists 

THE PRESIDENT: I dont know 

Q  to promote it?

THE PRESIDENT: Easy, easy. Just take it nice and easy. I dont know anything about him. Until yesterday, I never heard of the gentleman. Okay?

Q Have you asked anyone to look into what happened to him?

THE PRESIDENT: What?

Q Have you asked anyone to look into the circumstances surrounding?

THE PRESIDENT: I have not yet. At some point, I will. I guess they moved him to a different group.

Q Mr. President, what price China should pay for spreading this virus and covering it up and lying about it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, were looking into it. Were studying it. Were investigating it, and well see what happens. But it is something that shouldve been stopped early on. It couldve been stopped easily in China, and we dont understand why they didnt do it. So were looking into it. Were not happy about it.

Q Why dont  why dont you know about 

Q Mr. President, could you 

THE PRESIDENT: Who are you with? Who are you with?

Q Im with NPR. Ayesha Rascoe. Im with NPR.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Go ahead. Youre not up. Go ahead, please. Question.

Q Do you support any money for the Postal Service?

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: So, I can comment on that, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Postal Service.

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: So, we authorized in the last CARE Act over $10 billion of a loan. My team is already actively working on that with the Postal Service, if they need the money. And were dealing with that.

THE PRESIDENT: The Postal Service is a joke because theyre handing out packages for Amazon and other Internet companies. And every time they bring a package, they lose money on it. So Amazon and other Internet companies and delivery companies are dropping all of their  not all of them, but a big portion of packages, and whatever else theyre doing, into a post office. And the post office is supposed to deliver the packages, and they lose a lot of money.

The post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times. Because they dont raise them. For some reason  these people have been in there a long time. But for some reason, theyre very cozy with some of these companies, and they dont raise the price of a package. And if they raise the price of a package, like they should, four or five times thats what it should be  or let Amazon build their own post office, which would be an impossible thing to do because the post office is massive and serves every little piece of the country. The post office, if they raised the price of a package by approximately four times, itd be a whole new ball game.

But they dont want to raise because they dont want to insult Amazon and they dont want to insult other companies, perhaps, that they like. The post office should raise the price of the packages to the companies, not to the people  to the companies. And if they did that, it would be a whole different story.

Do you agree with that, Steve?

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: I do. And, actually, we are going to put certain criteria for our postal reform program as part of the loan, and were looking forward to  the board is  recruiting a new Postmaster General and doing postal reform.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Ill go a step further. If they dont raise the price of the service they give  which is a tremendous service and they do a great job, and the postal workers are fantastic, but this thing is losing billions of dollars; it has for years. Because they dont want to insult  for whatever reason, you could imagine  they dont want to insult Amazon and these other groups.

If they dont raise the price, Im not signing anything. So theyll raise the price so that they become maybe even profitable, but so they lose much less money. Okay? And if they dont do it, Im not signing anything and Im not authorizing you to do anything.

Q Mr. President, can you clarify your comments about injections of disinfectant? Theyre quite provocative.

THE PRESIDENT: No, I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you, just to see what would happen.

Now, disinfectant, for doing this maybe on the hands, would work. And I was asking the question of the gentleman who was there yesterday  Bill  because when they say that something will last three or four hours or six hours, but if the sun is out or if they use disinfectant, it goes away in less than a minute. Did you hear about this yesterday?

But I was asking a sarcastic  and a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands, and that would make things much better. That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to the reporters.

Okay.

Q But you were asking your medical experts to look into it. Were you being sarcastic with them?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No, no, no, no. To look into whether or not sun and disinfectant on the hands  but whether or not sun can help us. Because, I mean, he came in yesterday and he said theyve done a big study. This is a study. This isnt where he hasnt done it. This is where theyve come in with a final report that sun has a massive impact, negatively, on this virus. In other words, it does not live well with humidity, and it doesnt live well with sun, sunlight, heat. It doesnt live well with heat and sun and disinfectant. And thats what I brought out. And I thought it was clear.

Okay? Anything else?

Q Mr. President, could you comment a little bit on what youre considering right now for helping the oil and gas industry? That was something that was just mentioned.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I want to help that industry. That industry got unnecessarily hurt by massive amounts of oil being  being produced by very big countries  oil-producing countries. And they got carried away. And I got involved with those two countries to have them make peace with each other. But by the time we get involved, all of a sudden, I mean, they have billions of barrels that  they never saw anything like it. Every tanker is loaded up with oil, sitting out on the ocean. Oil is less than water. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.

Now, in many respects for our country, automobiles and airplanes and all of the things that you have to do with the airlines  were trying to make the airlines work again, and we will. We just provided financing for them, which was great. Were going to keep our airlines and all those employees totally intact.

So, in some ways, fuel cost is very low. But Im an energy person. I love the energy business. Were energy independent. Were going to stay that way.

Were also filling up, as you know, John, our National Strategic Reserves. And were filling them up like never before. And were, frankly, getting very good prices  okay?  as we should. Very good prices. So were filling up the reserve; thats 75 million barrels. And were going to have that filled up pretty soon. So itll be filled for the first time in a long time. And were doing it at a very, very low cost. So, its good.

Now, itll come back when the virus is gone. They lost 40 percent of their market because of the virus, in all fairness to even the producers and even the countries. They lost 40 percent of their market because people arent driving automobiles; theyre not doing anything. So, all of a sudden, theyre not flying on airplanes. The airline business was essentially shut down. So all of this massive amount of fuel  and this is all over the world; this isnt here. This is in every  virtually, every country.

Id probably say  as you know, Ive been talking about 184 countries. Its probably more than that now. A hundred and eighty-four. A friend of mine said  a very sophisticated friend said, I never knew you had 184 countries. We actually have more than that. But 184 countries, that we know of, have been affected by this.

So, the oil business lost 40 to 50 percent of their market. And that was  you know, who wouldve seen a thing like that coming? As soon as this comes back, and with the cutting, the energy business will come back and itll come back strong. So, were working.

The energy business is very important to me, and were going to build it up. This really hurt the energy business as much as any other business, because it totally knocked out  the supply kept coming. And, by the way, there was a lot of oil where this hit. Before it hit, there was a lot of oil. Prices were pretty low, which is a very good thing. But then we got hit by this, and it was devastating to the energy business all over the world.

Q Just a quick follow-up.

THE PRESIDENT: So we will be able to  once this straightens out and once you get some demand, and then youre going to reduce the supply a little bit, itll equalize and its going to be great again. Well  we will make the energy business great again.

Q Can you, sir 

Q Mr. President 

THE PRESIDENT: And we want to remain independent. Were independent now. Were totally independent on energy. We want to keep it that way.

Go ahead.

Q Can you or Secretary Mnuchin perhaps clarify whether the government is considering taking stakes in energy companies? Equity stakes.

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Well, the President has asked me to work with the Secretary of Energy, and were looking at a whole bunch of alternatives. It would be premature for me to comment on any one of them. But the President has asked us to look at the range of alternatives.

Q Is that one of the alternative?

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: It can. You can assume thats one of the alternatives, but theres many of them.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, one of the alternatives we can think about, Steve  and just in sitting here watching  we could buy  you know, the United States is the largest user of oil. We could buy oil at a great price into the future. That gives them the infusion they need, and we have oil at a great price into the future. So thats something Id like you to think about.

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: It is, Mr. President 

THE PRESIDENT: Likewise 

SECRETARY MNUCHIN:  as youve suggested.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Likewise, I told Steve were the biggest user of the airlines  the United States government. And one of the ways we can help the airlines is buy tickets at a very large discount, maybe 50 percent off or maybe more.

And you buy into four or five years worth of tickets, and you infuse them with some cash. And in the meantime, were flying the people of our country for, you know, a fraction of the cost that it would be if the  you know, when the airlines get back.

They will get back, but  so were thinking, in terms of  as additional, because the airlines are well set right now. But as an additional incentive, where we buy tickets in advance at a very big discount, which Ive liked really from the beginning.

And were not up there  look, the fact is that the airlines are going to be fine the way it is now, but I like that as an additional help for the airlines. I like it both ways. I like it for us to. Were the larger user of the  largest user of the airlines. So you buy tickets. I dont know. It sounds good  right?  if we get a good discount.

REPRESENTATIVE CHENEY: I appreciate, Wyoming appreciates what youre doing for the energy industry, as well, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Wyoming is great. Theyre great. And theyre lucky to have you.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Mr. President, could I make a comment on energy, sir? Sorry to interrupt.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, please.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: But, first, I want to thank you and your administration. Your involvement on the OPEC deal was incredible, vital. It wouldnt have happened without what you did. Your whole team has been very focused on energy.

I do think one issue that a number of us are starting to have concerns about is there are big American financial institutions that the federal government has helped many times  theyre going to do well with regard to facilitating some of the CARES Act stuff  theyre starting to discriminate against American energy companies, discriminate against investment in my state, in Alaska. And I think its going to be really important. And these big 

THE PRESIDENT: I dont like that. Thats 

SENATOR SULLIVAN: These big Wall Street banks that want to 

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

SENATOR SULLIVAN:  that want the federal government to help support them and then they discriminate against a critical sector of the U.S. economy. By the way, the sector  the 2008-2009 recession, it really drove us out of our recession.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: I dont think they should be allowed to do that, sir, and I know you have concerns about it too.

THE PRESIDENT: I like the idea of looking into that. Youre right. You know, that got where they were pushed by the radical left, and so theyre afraid of the radical left. Shouldnt be afraid of the radical left. Very nice people  AOC-plus-three and all of her friends. But you shouldnt be afraid of them. You should reason with them. And if they dont reason, you do whats right. You cannot be discriminating against these great energy companies. And there is  Ive heard that from them. Thats very hard.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: One of the banks, I think they said, We want to be out of out of energy by 20-  2050. Thats a long time. But they want to be out of energy. Whats that all about  they want to be out of energy?

So, you know, were blessed in this country because were sitting on top of tremendous wealth. Very few countries have that kind of wealth. Were bigger than Saudi Arabia, were bigger than Russia, were bigger than any other country, in terms of our energy.

And a lot of things like the Paris Accord  the Paris Accord basically took your wealth away. It didnt give you the advantage. And I said, I wont sign it, because it took the wealth of this country away because they didnt want us to use our energy. They didnt want us to use our  our great asset.

We have tremendous wealth. You know, one of the interesting things: If you look at Iran and you look at Saudi Arabia, and you look at the big, vast waterways that we patrol  years and years and years, gratis, for nothing, so that other people got rich, so that we could get oil out of there. But so that other people got rich. We never got anything. Now we get things for it.

But we dont have ships very much in there anymore. And with all of the conflict and all of the things  they kept saying, Where are the American ships? We have so much energy now. Were sitting on so much. And its happened, really, over the last three years, three and a half years. Weve (inaudible).

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: One thing that happened great, John  I mean, if  if you look  John, you were even in favor of it because youre an energy person  but we helped Alaska. But we really helped the United States with ANWR, for Dan. They did a fantastic job.

Ronald Reagan tried to get it approved; couldnt do it. Every President tried to get ANWR, and they couldnt do it. I got it approved.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Yes, sir. Great.

THE PRESIDENT: People dont even talk about it, and thats okay. They dont have to talk about it. Thats why I talk about it. (Laughter.) Because nobody else will.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: We love it in Alaska, Ill tell you that.

THE PRESIDENT: But ANWR is perhaps the largest find in the world. Right? It could be.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Could be.

THE PRESIDENT: But its certainly one of them.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: But its been talked about for years, probably one of the  maybe the largest find anywhere in the world. And we got it approved a year ago. And youre working on it, and its incredible.

But Ronald Reagan could not do it. He said that was one of his big disappointments. He could not get ANWR approved. They couldnt get it through. And we got it through. We got it passed. And that was a great achievement for everybody in this room, and it was a great achievement, actually, for the two of you, the  the big oil guys. Right? It was a big  and I have to say, these senators and the people in this room, they love energy. Not that they love it; they love the jobs it produces and they like what it represents. And it gives us total independence. So its very important.

Okay. Any other question?

Q Mr. President, just to follow up on energy: Are you satisfied with the current output by the Russians and the Saudis, or do you want them further to cut production?

THE PRESIDENT: I  Id wish youd  because you have the mask on. So its a  (reporter removes face mask.) Yeah, thats great. Just for a second.

Hes not worried. See the man in front of you?

Q Its okay.

THE PRESIDENT: Are you worried about her? Are you worried about her? Hes not worried. Look, hes protected.

Go ahead.

Q All right. Are you satisfied with the current cut from the Saudis and the Russians, or do you want them to further cut the production?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it could be that they further cut. I think its going to be natural though, really, isnt it? Its going to be natural at this point. So I think I got them to cut maybe  what would you say?

REPRESENTATIVE SCALISE: Nine, nine and half million barrels.

THE PRESIDENT: I would say  well, they say 10. They say 10 million, but I think its 15 million barrels. I even heard 20 million. But, you know, its going to be natural. And in all fairness, Texas and Oklahoma, and if you go to North Dakota and all of our places, its going to be natural. Canada is cutting. Theyve got to cut. Right now, I mean, theyve got to cut.

And its  its  you know, supply and demand is a beautiful thing. But what happened is, one day, all of our demand just  not all  50 percent of our demand disappeared with this virus. They say from 40 to 50 percent.

So youre producing, and its going good. Price is good. Price is good enough for the companies and really good for the countries  it was really good  and the consumer. And then one day  in one day, it stopped. So its, you know  well, I guess you could always say its somebodys fault, but it happened. Something happened that nobody thought would ever happen.

Okay.

Q Just a couple more on hydroxychloroquine.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.

Q Have you or Secretary Azar pressured or asked scientists in the administration to promote it? And are you 

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I never spoke to a scientist. But I will tell you this: I did speak with the President of Honduras just a little while ago, and I didnt bring it up; he brought it up. He said they use the hydroxychloroquine. And he said the results were so incredible with hydroxychloroquine. This happened an hour ago.

I just spoke to him, President of Honduras, and he said  and I guess we made some available to them or whatever. He was thanking me. And I said, How has the result been? And he said its been incredible.

Now, I dont know  hes not a doctor, I dont think. But hes  he thanked me, and he said the results have been very good.

So you hear it both ways. Ive seen all negative, other than the other day. I saw some study, which wasnt good. But I saw very positive coming out of France and coming out of a lot.

But heres the President of Honduras saying how good it was. I mean, I didnt even bring up the subject. He brought it up. So the study has to be there.

Q Are you taking it?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, Im not a doctor. The study has to be done. And maybe its helping. If it helps, its great. If it doesnt help, dont do it. It does work with, as you know, malaria, lupus, et cetera. And its a very powerful drug. And I would say this: If it works, I think everybody would be in favor of it.

But check with him, call him, the President of Honduras  a really nice guy. I just left him  just on the phone. You know what they needed? Ventilators. He said, Can you give? I said, We can help you, because were making  were going to have a hundred and  were going to have 110,000 made in a very short period of time. And theyve been making them by the thousands.

Mike Pence went out to a factory in Wisconsin just the other day, three days ago. And he came back; he could not believe how incredible the factory was. Theyre making thousands of ventilators every couple of months. Thousands.

And company  and countries are calling us now: France, Italy. Were sending to Italy, France, Spain. We are making thousands and thousands of very high-grade ventilators. Theres a big difference between high grade and not high grade when it comes to what those do.

And were sending them to countries as they call, as they need them. Were sending them all over the world. And when we asked the governors, Do you need ventilators?  the answer is no. In fact, New York was nice. They sent some to  I think they sent them to Massachusetts.

Yeah, please. Jeff.

Q Mr. President, just to follow up on the comments from yesterday, you said you were being sarcastic, but some people may have misunderstood you. Do you want to just clarify to America?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I wish they wouldnt  I wish they wouldnt 

Q Do you want to 

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think I did.

Q Can you just clarify to Americans 

THE PRESIDENT: But I do think this 

Q  that you dont want people to ingest that?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I do think that disinfectant on the hands could have a very good effect.

Now, Bill is going back to check that in the laboratory. You know, its an amazing laboratory, by the way. Its amazing the work they do. So hes going to check.

Because a hard surface  this is a hard surface, I guess, maybe depending on whose hands youre talking about, right? But this is a hard surface. And disinfectant  the disinfectant has an unbelievable  it wipes it out. You know, you saw it: Sun and heat and humidity wipe it out.

And this is from tests. Theyve been doing these tests for, you know, a number of months. And the result  so then I said, Well, how do we do it inside the body or even outside the body, with the hands? And disinfectant, I think, would work. He thinks would work. But you use it when youre  when youre doing your hands. I guess thats one of the reasons they say wash your hands. But whether its washing your hands or disinfectant on your hands, its very good.

So theyre going to start looking at that. And there is a way of, you know, if light  if sun  sun itself  that sun has a tremendous impact on it. It kills it like in one minute. It goes from what was it? Hours to, like, one minute. Its dead.

So I said, You got to go back and look. But Id like them now to look as it pertains to the human body, not just sitting on a railing or sitting on a wall. Id like them to look as it pertains  because maybe theres something there. They have to work with the doc  Im not a doctor. They have to work with the doctors. But maybe there is something to light and the human body and helping people that are dying. Okay?

Q But just to clarify  just to clarify that, sir: Are you  are you encouraging Amer-  youre not encouraging Americans to ingest 

THE PRESIDENT: No, of course  no. Of course.

Q  disinfectant?

THE PRESIDENT: That was  interior wise, its said sarcastically. It was  it was put in the form of a question to a group of extraordinarily hostile people, namely the fake news media.

Okay. So 

Q Some doctors felt they needed to clarify that after your comments.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, of course. All they had to do was see it was  just, you know, the way it was asked. I was  I was looking at you.

Q No, you werent, sir. I wasnt there yesterday. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: I know. I know.

Q You were looking at Dr. Birx.

THE PRESIDENT: Whats that?

Q You were looking at Dr. Birx.

THE PRESIDENT: I was looking at Bill. I was looking at the doctor. I was looking at some of the reporters. I dont know if you were there. Were you there? I dont think you were there.

Q I was there, and I watched you ask her.

THE PRESIDENT: No, not you. Not you. Not you. You were there. You  if youre there, I never forget. You were 

Q I wasnt there yesterday, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: You were not?

Q No, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I didnt think you were there.

Okay.

Q Just, Mr. President  Mr. President, I know that you continue to say  youre obviously 

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, hold it one second.

Q Yeah.

THE PRESIDENT: Any other questions from any other people?

Okay, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
THIS NEWS RELEASE IS INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION IN CANADA ONLY AND IS NOT AUTHORIZED FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.



TORONTO, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Minaurum Gold Inc. (Minaurum or Company) (TSX.V:MGG) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with Clarus Securities Inc. (Clarus) on behalf of a syndicate of agents (collectively with Clarus, the Agents), whereby the Agents will raise up to C$5,000,000 (the Offering) through an Offering of up to 12,500,000 units of the Company (the Units) to be priced at C$0.40 per Unit. Each Unit is comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company (Common Share) and one-half of one Common Share purchase warrant (each whole Common Share purchase warrant, a Warrant), with each Warrant entitling the holder to purchase one Common Share at an exercise price of $0.60 for 24 months following the completion of the Offering.

The proceeds raised from the Offering will be used by Minaurum for the exploration of the Alamos Silver project and for working capital purposes.

The Offering is scheduled to close on or about May 28, 2020, and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities to be issued under this Offering will be offered by way of private placement exemptions in all the provinces of Canada. The Units to be issued under this Offering will also be offered offshore, including in the United Kingdom pursuant to applicable exemptions and in the United States on a private placement basis pursuant to exemptions from the registration requirements of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

The securities referred to in this news release have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent U.S. registration or an applicable exemption from the U.S. registration requirements. This release does not constitute an offer for sale of, nor a solicitation for offers to buy, any securities in the United States. Any public offering of securities in the United States must be made by means of a prospectus containing detailed information about the issuer and its management, as well as financial statements.

Minaurum Gold Inc. (MGG | TSX Venture Exchange; MMRGF | OTC; 78M Frankfurt) is a Mexico-focused explorer concentrating on the high-grade Alamos Silver Project in southern Sonora. With a property portfolio encompassing multiple additional district-scale projects, Minaurum is managed by one of the strongest technical and finance teams in Mexico. Minaurum's goal is to continue its founders' legacy of creating shareholder value by making district-scale mineral discoveries and executing accretive mining transactions. For more information, please visit our website at www.minaurum.com and our YouTube Minaurum Video Channel.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Darrell A. Rader

Darrell A. Rader

President and CEO

For more information, please contact:

Sunny Pannu  Investor Relations Manager

(778) 330 0994 or via email at pannu@minaurum.com

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

2300  1177 West Hastings Street Telephone 778 330-0994 Vancouver, BC V6E 2K3 www.minaurum.com info@minaurum.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements: Certain disclosures in this release constitute forward-looking information. In making the forward-looking statements in this release, Minaurum has applied certain factors and assumptions that are based on Minaurum s current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Minaurum. Although Minaurum considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Minaurum does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
[The stream is slated to start at 11:30 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is holding his daily press conference on the Covid-19 outbreak, which has infected more than 316,400 people across the state as of Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

New York will require all hospitals to build a 90-day supply of personal protective equipment to prepare for another outbreak, Cuomo announced on Sunday. He said efforts to procure masks from China amid state competition for medical supplies were "inefficient and ineffective" and warned against dependence on China for basic equipment.

"We would control our own destiny rather than everyone trying to figure out how to buy from China," he added.

On Friday, Cuomo announced the state's schools and universities would remain closed and continue distance learning for the remainder of the academic year. He said there's not enough time to develop a reopening plan that would keep students and educators safe for schools to reopen this academic year.

The coronavirus has infected more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. and has killed at least 67,686 people, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 3.5 million people and has killed at least 247,700 people.

 CNBC's Emma Newburger contributed to this report.

Read CNBC's live updates to see the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.
Reporting a revenue loss of about Rs 3,200 crore in April compared to the previous year, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said the lockdown is making it difficult for the government to pay salaries to its employees.

Speaking to the media, Kejriwal said the Delhi government will implement the Central government's latest guidelines on lockdown relaxations.

"Every year in April, the estimated revenue generation is Rs 3,500 crores, and this year, it is just Rs 300 crore. It is making difficult for the government to pay salaries," Kejriwal said.

He said that the lockdown was necessary as without it, the situation would have taken a drastic turn.

"The country was not ready to deal with COVID, there were insufficient PPE kits, people did not realize the importance of social distancing protocol."

However, the Chief Minister said Delhi is now ready to open the lockdown as the Centre marked all the 11 districts in the city as red zones.

"The whole of Delhi is in the red zone. All the guidelines have been followed until now, but because the whole of Delhi is in the red zone, people are losing their employment, traders are suffering losses because of no businesses, and the whole economy is disturbed. We will not be able to continue this for long because of no revenue generation due to the lockdown."

Kejriwal also said that Delhi is fully ready for the lockdown to be lifted, and has requested the Central government to lift the lockdown other than the 97 containment zones.

"Today is the last day of the second phase of the nation-wide lockdown. While the lockdown has been extended for another two weeks, some restrictions have been lifted."

The Delhi Chief Minister said the government has deliberated on this and has decided that it will permit the lifting of all the restrictions as decided by the Central government.

"The lockdown period should have been used to prepare ourselves for the fight against Corona. We cannot say that Corona will leave our nation or we will have no Corona cases further. We will have to live with it, but along with preparation to deal with it."

Kejriwal said Delhi is ready to face Corona, and has developed adequate infrastructure and necessary PPE kits.

"We have suggested the Central government to seal 97 containment zones in Delhi and declare all the other parts of Delhi as green zones. We can also operate shops in those green zones on an odd-even basis. We hope that markets will start operating soon in Delhi."

He said the removal of the lockdown may cause a rise in the number of cases, but the government is ready to deal with the situation.

The Delhi government has also issued an order on Sunday allowing all the relaxations given by the Centre in the red zones from Monday.

So far, more than 4,000 cases have been reported in Delhi.
DAMASCUS, Syria - Unknown gunmen killed nine Syrian policemen on Monday in a southern village close to the border with Jordan, state media and an opposition war monitor said.

The attack occurred in the province of Daraa where Syrias anti-government uprising began in March 2011 before morphing into a civil war that has killed more than 400,000 people and displaced half the countrys population.

Daraa has become rife with assassinations and attacks targeting government troops who retook the area from rebels in July 2018.

Syrias state news agency SANA said that the nine policemen were killed in the village of Muzayreeb by armed gunmen who attacked them while they were on duty. It listed the names of the dead policemen without giving further details.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that a group of unknown gunmen kidnapped the nine policemen before shooting them dead and leaving their bodies in one of the villages streets.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack. Sleeper cells of the Islamic State group have been recently increasing their attacks in eastern Syria. Last month IS claimed responsibility for the killing of two Syrian army officers in the same province.

Separately, SANA reported an Israeli airstrike that targeted military depots in the region of Safira south of Aleppo city Monday night. It said Syrian air defences confronted the enemy missiles, adding that damage from the Israeli aggression was being assessed.

There have recently been several reports of suspected Israeli strikes inside Syria, the last a week ago, when the Syrian military and state media said Israeli warplanes flying over Lebanon fired missiles toward areas near the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing three civilians.

Israeli rarely comments on such reports, although it has acknowledged carrying out airstrikes inside Syria on numerous occasions in the course of Syrias nine-year conflict, saying it was going after Iranian military targets in the country.
Pakistani actor Adnan Siddiqui has acted in movies with both Sridevi and Irrfan Khan (Image: Pinterest)

Pakistani television personality Aamir Liaquat Husain apologised late last week for making insensitive comments about the demise of Bollywood actors Sridevi and Irrfan Khan.

Husain, who hosts a show called Jeewey Pakistan, joked about the deaths of the two Indian actors, while conversing with Pakistani star Adnan Siddiqui, who has worked with both Sridevi and Irrfan.

His controversial statement opened with thanking Siddiqui for saving the lives of Bollywood actors Rani Mukerji and Bipasha Basu. Confused about what he was referring to, when the Pakistani actor sought an explanation, he said how all non-Pakistani actors Siddiqui has worked with have died, and by not working with Bipasha and Rani, he spared them.

He had said: You worked with Sridevi in the movie Mom' and she died; you worked with Irrfan too, and he passed away as well. However, you declined offers to act in Mardaani 2 and Jism 2, starring Rani and Bipasha, respectively. So, they owe their lives to you.

After facing immense flak for the remarks, Husain released a video on Twitter to apologise for his comments. He claimed he realised in retrospect that his words were inappropriate and admitted that he had made a mistake.Adnan, who was visibly uncomfortable with the statement, had told off Husain immediately and had later taken to Twitter to express his feelings about the incident elaborately.
Richard Yeomans, an employment specialist and partner at London law firm Addleshaw Goddard, discusses what the future might hold for furloughed workers and businesses, as the economy attempts to pick things back up from the coronavirus outbreak.

The Government's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was an emergency response to an immediate problem.

Something had to be done, fast, to avert the mass redundancies threatened by the lockdown measures  which would have been disastrous not just for the economy, but also politically and socially.

It is still unknown when the UK lockdown will be lifted or how it will be done

Under the scheme, which is due to run until the end of June, the Treasury pays 80 per cent of wages of workers laid off because of the current crisis, up to a maximum of 2,500 a month.

But the scale of take-up has been above all estimates. Some 140,000 companies applied on the first day, and it's estimated up to half of all UK companies have applied, or will do and four million workers are furloughed. This is far higher than Treasury estimates.

Meanwhile Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been urged by other party members to introduce a 'wage subsidy package to taper furlough payments when coronavirus lockdown measures are eased and businesses begin to recover.

The Liberal Democrats have suggested the Treasury pays 50 per cent of employees' salaries on the Job Retention Scheme in the first month after they have returned to work.

By the third month back in work, the Government would pay 30 per cent of their salaries, under the proposals. Companies would then be expected to pay the full wages by the fourth month.

So what does the future hold? What should employers be doing? Are there alternatives to furlough? And what happens next?

Was furlough the right thing for businesses?

Furlough was a lifeline for many companies. It bought them breathing space or even survival  in the short term. But it may not be a good fit for some businesses.

Furlough is conditional on an employee doing no work for at least three consecutive weeks and that may not work for businesses which still need employees to perform some work.

Some organisations may have the option of furloughing only some staff but then they face questions about how they select staff for furlough and they will have to be particularly careful to avoid discrimination.

Even when employers try hard to do the right thing, they could run into problems; for example, 'topping up' the salaries of furloughed workers to full salary might cause resentment amongst those employees still working.

Another option is to choose a 'rotational' model; three weeks on furlough followed by three weeks' work, with different groups switching  this may be seen as fairer as furlough and work is evenly shared. But not all workers are interchangeable in this way.

In many cases companies really need specific staff to do some work, but on reduced hours. Where this is the case, a move to part-time working is likely to be a better option. But this means no CJRS subsidy which also increases the likelihood of reducing pay.

Richard Yeomans is a partner at London law firm Addleshaw Goddard

Can companies force these changes through?

No  not unless they already have a contractual right to reduce hours and pay. Employee consent is therefore usually needed. But we have seen during the last financial crisis  and so far during this lockdown  that employees usually do give consent as long as changes are clearly and openly communicated.

Generally speaking, employees prefer a cut in salary to the risk of being made redundant, especially in the middle of a crisis.

Should companies be preparing for a return to work?

Definitely. We don't know when lockdown measures will be lifted, but it looks likely there will be gradual easing rather than a 'national go-back-to-work day'. So employers should be thinking about what measures they need in place to ensure staff and customers can stay both healthy and productive.

What does it mean to be furloughed? If you're being furloughed by your employer, it means you're being sent home, but will still receive 80 per cent of your salary from the Government, up to a maximum of 2,500 a month. However, you first need to agree to be put on furlough by your employer, who can then apply for the money to the Government. You cannot apply for it yourself. Your employer can choose to pay the remaining 20 per cent of your wages, although it is not obliged to do so. If you earn more than 2,500 a month, your employer can choose to 'top up' your salary, but again it is not forced to do so. You will still continue to pay income tax and national insurance contributions while on furlough. Benefits such as health insurance, private medical, gym membership etc should continue as normal unless otherwise agreed. This Government job retention scheme is only for employed people, it does not apply if you are self-employed. There is an alternative scheme in place for those working for themselves. It is possible to refuse to be furloughed, however, doing so may put you at risk of redundancy and/or termination of your employment.

This forward planning will include issues such as phased returns to work (e.g. which employees are needed back in the office from day one and which can return later), rotational working (i.e. some working from home and some from the office), social distancing at work and staggered start/finish times to avoid peak commuting times.

It will look different across businesses. Some businesses are likely to see an immediate spike in demand (e.g. businesses with pent-up demand - dentists and hairdressers spring to mind) and others will see a more gradual increase in business. Some may find the way they do business, or even their business model, has changed for good.

Companies will also need to be aware of discrimination issues around returning to work. Some groups, like parents with childcare responsibilities, may be unable to return, or return full time, whilst others who belong to vulnerable groups may need to remain in lockdown for longer.

What if business doesn't pick up again or the company can't afford to take staff back?

Employers can still make workers redundant during furlough or afterwards. But they need to follow the fair redundancy process or risk unfair dismissal proceedings. If they propose 20 or more redundancies at an establishment, they will also need to collectively consult to avoid further compensation claims.

HMRC has warned that CJRS grants cannot be used to substitute redundancy payments and that this will be monitoring this closely.

What if companies apply in error?

It is important to read the Government guidance carefully. Whilst initially dealing with huge volumes of claims, HMRC are likely to rely on employers being truthful about complying with the eligibility requirements.

However, over time, it is likely that HMRC will audit the applications and payments that have been made  and those employers who have not fully satisfied the tests will be required to repay the grant and potentially face penalties.

Some of the eligibility requirements are not straightforward and there are contradictions between the HMRC Guidance and the underlying legislation  employers should therefore take care when making applications.

What are the longer term implications?

Apart from the broader impact to the economy, it is very likely we will never fully return to 'business as usual'. For a start we are bound to see greater demands around employee rights, especially areas like flexible and remote working.

In the past these were often seen as difficult  there has been a cultural shift towards flexible working and the Covid-19 crisis will have magnified that shift as employers and employees have been forced to embrace remote working.

Apart from the broader impact to the economy, it is very likely we will never fully return to 'business as usual' - Richard Yeomans

Both the Conservative manifesto and the draft Employment Bill 2020 pledged to make flexible working easier and it will be harder for employers to insist on traditional working practices when employees have demonstrated that they can work during the lockdown.

And, going forward, many employers may actively promote such changes, given the opportunity for reduced office space and associated costs.

It is highly likely we will see tensions on employee rights becoming a renewed political battleground. At the same time as disrupting ways of working, the Covid-19 crisis may lead employers to look for a different kind of flexibility; for example, the greater use of zero hours contracts and/or amending contracts to allow them to reduce hours or pay when necessary.

But this is likely to face resistance from employees (who will value security after the uncertainty of this crisis). It would also conflict with a longstanding agenda across all the main political parties to regularise the treatment of atypical workers  in other words to give them more employment rights.

If the current Government intends to continue that, it will have to find a way of promoting employee rights that does not place greater burdens  and costs  on businesses, as they try to recover from this crisis.
Reliance Industries Ltd said on Monday that it has agreed to sell a 1.15% stake in unit Jio Platforms Ltd to private equity investor Silver Lake Partners for 5,655.75 crore, days after it sold a bigger stake to Facebook Inc., as Indias most valuable company aims to wipe off its debt.

The Indian conglomerate said it sold the stake to the US private equity firm at a 12.5% premium to Facebooks $5.7 billion deal for a 9.99% stake that was announced on April 22. The transaction values Jio Platforms at 4.9 lakh crore, Reliance said, adding that the enterprise value of the unit was 5.15 lakh crore.

Reliance is raising funds at a breakneck pace as it attempts to cut its debt and secure its capital needs amid a sharp downturn in the global economy. The collapse in oil prices and demand for fuels because of coronavirus-related lockdowns has led to the sharpest profit decline in nearly two decades at its main chemicals and refining division.

Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Asias richest man, has pledged to cut Reliances $21.4 billion net debt to zero, but a critical part of the plan, which is to sell a stake in the companys refining and chemicals unit to Saudi Aramco for $15 billion, looks uncertain because of the plunge in oil prices. Still, Reliance reiterated last week that it will manage to reach its target ahead of schedule.

If the Facebook and Silver Lake deals go through, it will accelerate Reliances deleveraging plans, analysts said. Reliance also announced a rights issue worth 53,125 crore to pare its debt, the biggest such equity sale through Indias public markets.

This (Jio-Silver Lake deal) is credit positive as it enhances RILs already strong financial flexibility, including the recently announced rights issue and investments by Facebook Inc., said Vikas Halan, senior vice-president (corporate finance) at Moodys. Halan added that these initiatives could reduce net debt by about $13.6 billion from the reported net debt of $21.4 billion as on March 31.

Reliance will use the investment proceeds from Silver Lake to redeem optionally convertible preference shares, according to Axis Capital.

Silver Lake is a major technology investor, with over $40 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital. Its investments have included Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabets Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies and Twitter among others.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
She announced her split from her retired AFL star husband Jimmy Bartel in August 2019.

And now former WAG Nadia Bartel, 34, is about to celebrate her first Mother's Day as a single parent to sons Aston, four, and Henley, one.

Appearing on Bec Judd's 'Unstoppable Mums' podcast on Sunday, Nadia said she was lucky to have her children around for the special day, but admitted it wouldn't be the same as previous years.

Scroll down for video

Former WAG Nadia Bartel has revealed her bittersweet plans for her first Mother's Day as a single parent to sons Aston, four, and Henley, one, following her high-profile split from AFL star husband Jimmy Bartel in August 2019

When asked how she would be spending Mother's Day on Sunday, Nadia had a bittersweet answer.

'It's so hard, because I'm so used to doing a big family thing on Mother's Day,' she admitted, adding that they'd have to resort to celebrating the day over zoom this year.

On a positive note, Nadia confirmed her young sons would be with her on the day.

'I have the boys. Aston has become quite the little chef, so we'll see what he whips up on Mother's Day,' she said with a smile.

'It's so hard, because I'm so used to doing a big family thing on Mother's Day': While Nadia recognised COVID-19 would create problems for celebrating the day, she was happy to be able to spend the special day with her young sons

Like most Australians, Nadia also admitted to finding parenting and home-schooling a struggle while in self-isolation.

She said she was at times overwhelmed by balancing motherhood with running her businesses.

The former WAG, who founded the clothing label Henne, said: 'It's [running her businesses as usual] been a massive struggle actually, more so just because obviously the boys, and with their age gap.'

She said Aston's at-home school program requires a lot of face-to-face sessions with the teachers that she has to work into her busy day.

'It's [running her businesses as usual] been a massive struggle actually': Nadia said she's found home-schooling and parenting while working hard at times during self-isolation

Nadia added that with most turning to online shopping, her workload hasn't slowed down, which makes managing home-schooling hard.

'The middle of the day is hectic. I try to form some sort of routine, but it's so hard because kids just do what they want to do and the home-schooling makes it hard,' she explained.

'I've been getting up really early, before they're [her children] up at 5.30am,' she said, adding that at night time she continues working after they go to bed at 7pm.

Nadia said she always prioritises quick bursts of 15-minute exercise blocks during the day to increase her mood and 'stay happy'.

'Never what I thought would happen': Speaking to Stellar last month, Nadia admitted 'every day is tough' as she adjusts to life as a single mother after splitting from Jimmy (pictured)

Nadia spoke for the first time about her split from ex-husband Jimmy Bartel in Stellar magazine last month.

In the interview, Nadia admitted 'every day is tough' as she adjusts to life as a single mother, saying: 'This is never what I thought would happen.'

Jimmy has since moved on with new girlfriend, Lauren Mand.
Andy Lack, who has served as chairman of NBC News and MSNBC for five years after a longtime affiliation with the company, is stepping down from his job amid a corporate restructuring.

Lack "has decided to step down and will transition out of the company at the end of the month," according to a statement from NBC. The move came months ahead of schedule, according to people familiar with the deliberations, who said Lack had planned to step down after the 2020 presidential election.

The announcement ended Lack's lengthy tenure at NBC, one split into two tours and marked by significant upheaval within his ranks, particularly in his most recent time at the network, which included the firing of "Today" anchor Matt Lauer for sexual misconduct.

The news came the same day NBCUniversal announced it was reorganizing its news and entertainment divisions. Cesar Conde, who has overseen Spanish-language Telemundo and NBC's international organization, will now serve in the newly created role of chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, which includes NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC.

It's the first big executive shuffle by CEO Jeff Shell since he took over for Steve Burke earlier this year. Lack's direct reports, who included NBC News President Noah Oppenheim and MSNBC President Phil Griffin, will now report to Conde, along with CNBC Chairman Mark Hoffman.

The move comes now in part because Shell wanted to make his imprint on the company and is facing intense budget pressure during economic fallout from the novel coronavirus, according to NBCUniversal insiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

That fallout had already forced NBC to place on hold an ambitious plan to launch a news service with Sky News, which NBC parent Comcast gained control of in 2018.

Meanwhile, two former NBC journalists said late Monday that they had been contacted by investigators with the New York state attorney general's office exploring allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at NBC News.

Lack, 72, a veteran TV news producer, first joined NBC as news division president in 1993 after a long career at CBS and oversaw a surge in the ratings for "NBC Nightly News" and the "Today" show. He left the network for a series of other corporate media jobs a decade later.

Since returning to the network as chairman of its news division in 2015, Lack oversaw a resurgence of some of NBC's marquee shows, such as "Today," and urged NBC News to fully embrace its cable partner MSNBC, pushing anchors from both divisions to work together.

He also oversaw high-profile controversies and missteps: anchor Brian Williams's suspension and demotion for exaggerating his reporting exploits; the network's apparent delay during the 2016 presidential campaign of the "Access Hollywood" recording from 2005 in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women; "Today" host Matt Lauer's firing for sexual misconduct in 2017; and the signing of Fox News host Megyn Kelly to a huge contract that resulted in a low-rated talk show and her eventual departure from NBC.

Lack was also in charge when NBC parted ways three years ago with investigative journalist Ronan Farrow, who subsequently won a Pulitzer for the New Yorker magazine with his groundbreaking story revealing Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein as a repeat sexual offender and harasser.

Lack had been the subject of growing criticism after Farrow published a book last year accusing Lack and other NBC News brass of impeding his investigation as a way to protect Lack's close friend Lauer, whose pattern of sexual misconduct had not yet become public. NBC News denied killing Farrow's story.

"It disappoints me to say that even with passage of time, Farrow's account has become neither more accurate, nor more respectful of the dedicated colleagues he worked with here at NBC News," Lack wrote in a memo last year.

Some of the criticism came from inside the building. MSNBC star Rachel Maddow took her bosses to task last year, declaring on-air that network employees were disappointed with the handling of Farrow's Weinstein story. She also called for an outside party to investigate the claims related to Lauer. The "amount of consternation this has caused among the rank-and-file people who work here would be almost impossible for me to overstate," she said.

One of the former NBC staffers who had been contacted by state investigators was Rich McHugh, a producer who worked with Farrow, who said he spoke to them last fall. The other was Linda Vester, a former correspondent who has said that Tom Brokaw made a sexual advance toward her two decades ago. Vester said the investigators who contacted her in January asked whether she knew whether Lack was involved in any effort to have a story on her allegations against Brokaw killed.

An NBCUniversal spokesperson said the company was unaware of any inquiry. A spokesperson for the state atttorney general's office could not be reached late Monday.

For Lack, the adverse publicity generated by these episodes has been counterbalanced by NBC News's ratings and financial performance during his tenure, his supporters at the network say.

A week before news of his departure, Lack wrote an op-ed praising the news media's handling of the coronavirus pandemic amid President Donald Trump's verbal attacks on journalists during briefings. The piece was in the works for at least a week, according to people familiar with its drafting, and was written as a fond farewell to the job.

Reflecting on his career in the news business, he wrote, "in this moment, it feels more like a calling."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 15:24:27|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

CANBERRA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A remote facility in central Australia has become the home to grounded passenger jets from around the world amid the coronavirus crisis.

Dozens of planes worth more than three billion Australian dollars (1.91 billion U.S. dollars) have arrived at the Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS) facility at the Alice Springs Airport.

With COVID-19 forcing thousands of aircraft out of the sky the 100 hectare facility provides round-the-clock maintenance for jets until their airlines want them back.

In addition to grounded Boeing 737 Max 8s owned by Silk Air and Fiji Airways the facility is now housing four Airbus A380s, the world's largest passenger airliner.

Tom Vincent, the managing director of APAS, said that building the facility has been a long-term project.

"This business I set up 10 years ago. We've been quietly working away to gain all the regulatory approvals to maintain the aircraft and a lot of time and capital that has gone into that," he said, according to The Australian's report on Monday.

"Had we not done that, we wouldn't have been able to capitalise on the current situation. We've always built everything so that we can manage rapid expansion."

Vincent has fast-tracked stage two and three of the planned APAS expansion, which will boost the facility's capacity to 100 aircraft by the end of June.

"If you're in this, you love aviation and it is dreadful to see the industry hurt so much," he said.

"But we're here to provide a service and it's a service that's valued by our customers and we're happy to be supporting them."

As well as creating jobs in Alice Springs, the main city in central Australia, the facility has also become a tourist drawcard.

Dave Batic, the Alice Springs Airport manager, said that with the airport owning more than 35 square km of surrounding land APAS could continue to expand significantly.

"Out of every crisis there's an opportunity, and this is an opportunity not just for Alice Springs and the Northern Territory but Australia itself," he said.

"This could potentially be the world's biggest aircraft storage --facility. We'd support that expansion," he added. Enditem
In this article GILD

CRM

USAAX

The coverage on this live blog has ended  but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus outbreak, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team. Pharmaceutical companies continue to make headlines as governments and investors hang their hopes on a steady recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O'Day said Sunday the company would be donating its entire supply of remdesivir to treat coronavirus patients. Roche Chairman Christoph Franz said the drugmaker will invest more than $437 million in a German testing site. Another week of quarterly reports lies ahead, and more retail locations are reopening as U.S. states loosen lockdown restrictions. All times below are in Eastern time. Global cases: More than 3.5 million

Global deaths: At least 247,752

US cases: More than 1.1 million

US deaths: At least 67,686 The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

8 pm: 'It's can or die' for Bay Area breweries, as beermakers reckon with bar and restaurant closures

Federation Brewing co-founder Aram Cretan Camille Snell

Craft breweries across California are suffering along with the rest of the food services industry, with many reporting a drop of 50% or more in revenue. But they're finding a lifeline in aluminum. Breweries like Cellarmaker and ThirstyBear in San Francisco and Federation in Oakland are canning as much beer as possible so they can keep their hoppy ales from expiring in the tank and so they can sell four-packs curbside to consumers. The Can Van, a mobile canning service based in Sacramento, is as busy as ever, driving around the region to help breweries can hundreds of cases at a time. It's no substitute for kegs, which is how breweries make the bulk of their money. But unable to sell kegs to bars and restaurants or to offer draft beers inside their taprooms, cans are their only option. "It's can or die right now," said Connor Casey, co-owner of Cellarmaker, which owns House of Pizza in San Francisco in addition to its brewery. "There's not even a choice." Ari Levy

7:30 pm: United Airlines plans 30% cut to management ranks from October

United Airlines told employees in a memo that it expects a 30% cut in its management and administrative ranks starting in October, a company memo shows. United accepted U.S. government payroll aid which bans job cuts until Sept. 30. United released the following statement to CNBC: "Travel demand is essentially zero for the foreseeable future and, even with federal assistance that covers a portion of our payroll expense through September 30, we anticipate spending billions of dollars more than we take in for the next several months, while continuing to employ 100% of our workforce. That's not sustainable for any company. And that's why we are doing everything we can to reduce costs in the near-term so we can bounce back quickly when demand starts to return and help ensure our company and the jobs it supports will be here when customers are flying again." Phil LeBeau, Reuters

7:02 pm: New projection shows about 135,000 US deaths from Covid-19 by August with lockdown measures being lifted

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) estimates nearly 135,000 coronavirus deaths in the US through the beginning of August, citing the easing of lockdown orders as the main driver of the new number, Reuters reports. The forecast from the IHME puts the U.S. death toll through early August at 134,475, the midrange between 95,092 and 242,890. The new projections reflect reopening measures underway across the country and the increase of social contact between people that will increase transmission, the IHME said, according to Reuters. "This new model is the basis for the sobering new estimate of U.S. deaths," IHME Director Christopher Murray said about the reopening measures, Reuters reported. Chris Eudaily

6:34 pm: Rising meat costs hit Shake Shack

Customers wait for to-go orders outside Shake Shack in South Beach on April 19, 2020 in Miami Beach, Florida. Cliff Hawkins | Getty Images

Shake Shack, which regularly touts the quality of meat in its burgers, is facing rising beef costs due to meatpacking plant closures stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. "Over the last month, we've seen significant increases in beef, with the largest increase being realized over the last week," CFO Tara Comonte said on the company's first-quarter earnings conference call, CNBC's Amelia Lucas reports. Shake Shack's same-store sales tanked in March after social distancing measures and stay-at-home orders across the U.S. went into effect that disrupted consumers' regular spending habits. Chris Eudaily

6 pm: Updated world map shows more than 3.5 million cases worldwide

5:45 pm: People receiving SSI or VA benefits have until tomorrow to meet this stimulus check deadline

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Those receiving SSI or VA benefits from the government, and have children under 17, will need to wait until tomorrow to file information to the IRS to make sure their family gets its full stimulus payment. Millions of stimulus payments are currently being deployed to Americans, including checks of up to $1,200 for individuals or $2,400 for married couples, plus $500 per child under 17, based on family income. Lori Konish

5:12 pm: Economists say the way out of the recession depends on the level of consumer fear

Customers are seen at Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant on April 27, 2020 in Franklin, Tennessee. Tennessee is one of the first states to reopen restaurants after the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Jason Kempin | Getty Images

Economists are looking for new ways to measure a rebound from a deep recession, suggesting that the recovery will depend on individual psychology, overall consumer confidence, and also whether the government was successful enough in filling the income gap for the workers who lost their jobs. "It's much more behavioral. It's not just driven by incomes. It's driven by fear," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. Economists have been looking to China as an example, since the disease started there. "Even a month after they reopened in Wuhan, people are still worried about going to public places and malls." Patti Domm

4:30 pm: California Gov. Newsom says some businesses will reopen Friday, with conditions

People walk past a mural that is part of the campaign to create 1,000 murals on closed businesses, created by the company Beautify, as the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Santa Monica, California, May 4, 2020. Lucy Nicholson | Reuters

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday that some of the state's retailers, like those that sell clothes, books, sporting goods, toys and more, will be allowed to offer curb-side pickup starting Friday if they meet certain health guidelines set forth by stated officials later this week. His office later tweeted that this order would not include office spaces, dine-in restaurants and shopping malls yet. Newsom also announced that individual counties that believe they have adequate testing and contact tracing capacity, proper sanitation practices and are able to provide security to those who are most vulnerable, including homeless, older citizens and the incarcerated, could begin moving even further into "phase two" of the state's reopening plan, which would include allowing some restaurants and businesses in the hospitality industry to reopen with modifications. "This is a very positive sign and it has happened only for one reason: The data says it can happen," Newsom said at his daily press briefing. Noah Higgings-Dunn tweet

4:11 pm: Stocks eke out a gain to start the week

4:07 pm: Microsoft reports 75% increase in time spent on Windows 10

The humble personal computer is seeing a resurgence in the age of coronavirus. Time spent on Windows 10 is up some 75% year over year, Microsoft said. The disclosure comes days after Apple said it saw a record Mac active installed base in the most recent quarter. Jordan Novet

3:38 pm: New drug from Japan to be tested in more than 40 countries, including US

Avigan influenza tablets, produced by Fujifilm Holdings Corp., are arranged for a photograph at the company's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. Akio Kon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

U.S. doctors are currently testing an influenza drug made by Fujifilm as a treatment for Covid-19. Tim Hornyak reports for CNBC that the drug, which is called favipiravir, has been shipped from Japan to 43 countries where it will be tested in clinical trials among patients with mild to moderate symptoms. Favipiravir previously saw promising results in a clinical trial in China where patients treated with the drug tested negative for Covid-19 after a median of four days. Hannah Miller

3:31 pm: Car crashes recently started to increase, USAA CEO says

USAA has observed an uptick in car crashes in recent weeks, although coronavirus-related business closures remained in place, CEO USAA CEO Wayne Peacock said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "The last couple of weeks we've seen a slight uptick in those rates, certainly not because stores are reopening," Peacock said, suggesting the rise could be attributable to "a spring fever or a cabin fever in the air." USAA, like many auto insurers, saw declines in accident claims as stay-at-home orders went into effect across the U.S. Peacock said that on average, USAA saw 40% to 50% fewer crashes during stay-at-home orders from pre-lockdown levels. Kevin Stankiewicz

3:01 pm: US Treasury seeks to borrow a record $3 trillion this quarter

The U.S. Treasury announced plans to borrow $2.999 trillion this quarter, a record. "The increase in privately-held net marketable borrowing is primarily driven by the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, including expenditures from new legislation to assist individuals and businesses, changes to tax receipts including the deferral of individual and business taxes from April  June until July, and an increase in the assumed end-ofJune Treasury cash balance," the statement said. Jeff Cox

2:17 pm: NFL cancels international games for 2020 season

Jacksonville Jaguars' Gardner Minshew II (centre) fumbles the ball during the NFL International Series match at Wembley Stadium, London. Simon Cooper | Getty Images

The five games initially scheduled outside the U.S. for the 2020 National Football League season will be played domestically, the league announced. "After considerable analysis, we believe the decision to play all our games domestically this season is the right one for our players, our clubs, and all our fans in the US, Mexico and UK," said Christopher Halpin, NFL executive vice president and chief strategy and growth officer. The NFL had one game set for Mexico City and four in London for the International Series. The Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Jacksonville Jaguars and Miami Dolphins were all set to be the "home" teams for the games and will now host the game at their own stadiums. Chris Eudaily

2:14 pm: WHO to speak with US to make remdesivir more widely available

The World Health Organization is planning to speak with the U.S. government and biotech firm Gilead Sciences on potentially making antiviral drug remdesivir more widely available to countries across the globe. The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for Gilead's drug to treat Covid-19 patients after results released last week from a U.S. government-run clinical trial showed some patients who took remdesivir recovered faster than those who didn't take the drug. The drug has not been formally approved to treat the virus, and U.S. health officials caution new data on the drug has yet to be peer-reviewed. One top WHO official said he "welcomed" the recent data, adding there's "signals of hope there for the potential use of the drug." Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

2:02 pm: Apple, Google preview digital contact tracing system

Apple and Google released sample code and screenshots of example software using the companies' contact tracing tools. The hope is this system can anonymously notify people who may have been infected with Covid-19 using Bluetooth signals from other phones. Although the screenshots and code are not an example of the exact software that public health authorities will use, it's a base for them to start without building an entire software program from scratch. Take a look at the screenshots here. Kif Leswing

1:54 pm: Tyson warns of more meat supply disruptions

A Tyson Foods pork processing plant, temporarily closed due to an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), is seen in Waterloo, Iowa, U.S., April 29, 2020. Brenna Norman | Reuters

Tyson Foods warned of more disruptions to its meat supply chain, despite an executive order from President Donald Trump to keep plants open. Tyson executives said that U.S. hog processing capacity has been nearly cut in half as the coronavirus closes slaughterhouses. Trump deemed meat processing plants as critical infrastructure and ordered them to keep operations running under the Defense Production Act in an effort to protect the country's food supply and workers. Tyson has already faced hurdles with reduced demand from restaurants and with hundreds of workers testing positive for the coronavirus. Those challenges will continue into the coming months, Tyson said. Amelia Lucas, Sara Salinas

1:39 pm: Online grocery shopping surge is whetting venture capital investors' appetite

Long wait times. Out-of-stock items. Incomplete orders. The sudden popularity of online grocery shopping is not only frustrating customers and challenging grocers. It's also inspiring more grocery-related venture capital deals, FreshDirect co-founder and former CEO Jason Ackerman said.

"I'm seeing more deals in online grocery... than I've ever seen before," he said. Ackerman said he's spoken to many grocery chains that can't keep up with the demand for online grocery pickup and delivery. "Over time, that will wear on customers," he said. He said the struggles have highlighted the need for more investments in infrastructure that speeds up order fulfillment, lowers costs for grocers and improves the experience for customers. Melissa Repko

1:28 pm: New York on 'other side of the mountain' as deaths and hospitalizations fall, governor says

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the daily number of hospitalizations and new deaths related to Covid-19 are declining, suggesting the state is on "the other side of the mountain." However, he added that officials are not seeing as steep of a decline as they hoped. New York's so-called pause order ends on May 15, but local governments will need to show they meet the criteria before social distancing restrictions can be lifted, such as ensuring adequate health-care capacity, diagnostic testing capacity, a lower rate of new infections and the ability to conduct contact tracing. The state reported 9,647 total hospitalizations on Sunday, down from 9,786, Cuomo said. An additional 226 people died from Covid-19 on Sunday, he said, which makes four consecutive days that daily figure has been below 300. The last time the number of deaths was below 300 was on March 31. "You see that mountain that we went up, now we're on the other side of the mountain. You start to see the shape of the mountain, unfortunately, the decline from the mountain is not as steep as the incline," Cuomo said while referencing a chart of total hospitalizations in the state related to Covid-19. Noah Higgins-Dunn

12:52 pm: New Jersey closes all schools for the rest of the academic year

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced that the state's schools will remain closed for the remainder of the academic year to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. "As I have noted before, we are working with the principle that public health creates economic health, or in this case, public health creates educational health," Murphy said during his daily press briefing, The governor and the Department of Education have not made a decision on summer programs. The announcement comes after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week that schools and colleges in his state will be closed for the rest of the academic year. New Jersey reported 1,621 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 128,269. The state also reported 45 new deaths for a total of 7,910. Jasmine Kim

12:36 pm: FDA clamps down on coronavirus antibody tests

The Food and Drug Administration said it is tightening rules for antibody tests after it became aware of "a concerning number" of tests performing poorly or being marketed inappropriately. Manufacturers will need to submit emergency use authorization forms and data proving the tests work within 10 days or face possible removal. So far, 12 antibody tests have been authorized by the FDA for emergency use, and more than 250 tests are currently the subject of a pre-EUA or EUA review, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn told reporters Monday. Antibody tests can indicate whether a person has had Covid-19 in the past and was either asymptomatic or recovered. U.S. officials and businesses have been pouring money into antibody testing, hoping it will give people the confidence to return to work and reopen parts of the economy. Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Will Feuer

12:11 pm: Amazon engineer quits over concerns about the company's firing of workers who called for coronavirus protections

Tim Bray, a senior software engineer and vice president at Amazon Web Services, resigned from the company, citing Amazon's move to fire outspoken critics of its labor practices. In a blog post, Bray said his last day at the company was May 1. He said he strongly disagreed with Amazon's decision to fire several workers who criticized the company's climate stance and, most recently, its treatment of warehouse workers amid the coronavirus. "I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers who were making noise about employees frightened of Covid-19," Bray wrote, adding that "remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned." Amazon warehouse workers and corporate employees have participated in a string of protests over the past few months to call for the company to better protect workers. The workers want Amazon to shut down facilities where there are positive cases and provide paid sick leave, among other things. Amazon has previously said it has gone to "great lengths" to keep facilities clean and make sure employees are following the necessary precautions. In the company's latest earnings report, Amazon said it would invest its expected $4 billion second-quarter profit in coronavirus-related efforts, such as purchasing additional safety gear for workers and building out its coronavirus testing capabilities. Annie Palmer

12:00 pm: Automakers reopen plants

Automakers with plants in southern states are reopening and slowly beginning to produce vehicles. Daimler started to produce Mercedes-Benz models last week in Alabama and on Monday BMW confirmed the reopening of its plant in South Carolina. Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors, which operate separately in the U.S. but have the same South Korean parent company, also confirmed they reopened plants Monday in Alabama and Georgia, respectively. The facilities, according to the automakers, have implemented new and increased safety and sanitization protocols in an attempt to lower the spread of Covid-19. They also are not operating at normal levels. Other automakers such as Toyota Motor are expected to begin reopening their plants in the coming weeks. General Motors, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler are among the automakers to not yet announce a restart date following delays to previous restart dates. Michael Wayland

11:45 am: New York City to give away 7.5 million face coverings

Medical workers wearing masks walk past a 'Thank You' sign outside of Mount Sinai Hospital amid the coronavirus pandemic on May 3, 2020 in New York City. Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city will give away 7.5 million face coverings, free of charge, to residents at local parks, grocery stores and other city locations. New Yorkers have "overwhelmingly" complied with the Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order requiring all residents to wear a face covering when in public, but the city is going to step in to further provide face coverings to people who may not have the means to obtain one, de Blasio said. The free face coverings the city plans to distribute effective immediately will not be non-medical and won't be the same masks used by health-care workers, however, they will still be reusable and effective as long as they remain dry, he said. Noah Higgins-Dunn, Jasmine Kim

11:31 am: Carnival Cruise Line to sail again August 1

An image of Carnival Splendor cruise ship at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Circular Quay on March 22, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. Izhar Kahn | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Carnival Cruise Line said it will resume North American service on August 1, becoming the first major cruise line to restart operations as the pandemic continues to spread. Attention will be focused on bookings for the early cruises as analysts and industry insiders contemplate how resilient the demand for cruising is after multiple ships became the sites of Covid-19 outbreaks that infected thousands and killed dozens. Jackie Ceren, a travel agent based out of Florida, said she has clients who have been waiting to book for weeks. However, she has doubts about whether the U.S. has contained the virus and whether the company will be able to sail come August. "It's going to all depend on what's happening with this virus. I do have people waiting. People do really want to get back on ships," she said. "But if people book and they end up having to cancel these cruises, no one's going to be happy. [Carnival is] making it worse, I think." Will Feuer

11:16 am: Salesforce announces tools aimed at reopening businesses safely

Salesforce announced a handful of new tools aimed at helping businesses and community leaders reopen safely amid the coronavirus pandemic. The tools, available on Work.com, will include items such as contact tracing, a resource center and a system to manage employee shifts to adhere to social distancing. "We are capturing the best advice, the best words from doctors and tremendous business organizations who are telling businesses of safe ways to reopen," Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "When we go back to work there's things we're going to have to do differently." Jessica Bursztynsky

11:03 am: Gottlieb says he does not trust results from a single antibody test

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC's "Squawk Box" that he does not trust the results from a single Covid-19 antibody test. Concerned about rates of false positives, the former FDA chief said he recommends people take multiple tests to ensure accuracy. "Quite frankly, if it was me, I would repeat it three times," said Gottlieb, a CNBC contributor who sits on the boards of Pfizer and biotech company Illumina. "I know they're expensive but I wouldn't put confidence in any one test." Kevin Stankiewicz

10:54 am: Lowe's workers get another bonus as pandemic continues

Home improvement retailer Lowe's is handing out a second round of bonuses to employees helping customers stock up on supplies for home repairs and do-it-yourself projects during the pandemic. The company said it'll spend $80 million on special payments to its hourly employees. All full-time hourly employees will get a $300 payment and part-time and seasonal employees will get $150. It gave similar special payments to employees in late March. Starting Monday, Lowe's said it will require all employees to wear a mask or face covering while working at stores and visiting customers' homes. It is providing masks and gloves to employees. Lowe's is one of the retailers that's kept stores open during the pandemic as an essential retailer. In an interview with CNBC in late March, CEO Marvin Ellison said customers have turned to the company as they replace appliances, do DIY projects, or buy other items that help them during extended stays at home, such as larger freezers or new water heaters. Melissa Repko

10:35 am: Small businesses reel as pandemic slams the brakes on the economy

Nearly three-fourths of small business owners say the Covid-19 outbreak will likely have permanent effects on the way they run their businesses, according to the CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey. "Most small businesses were in rapid growth mode in January. ... 2019 was roaring for lots of small businesses," said Marilyn Landis, who runs small business consulting firm Basic Business Concepts. The pandemic  and the shelter-in-place orders that followed  quickly put the brakes on that business boom. CNBC's Eric Rosenbaum reports the survey found that 62% of small business owners said demand for their products and services has fallen in the past two months, with 42% saying demand decreased "a lot." Terri Cullen

10:18 am: Kroger expands testing for grocery workers

Grocery workers across the country may soon have an easier time getting coronavirus testing. Kroger said it's expanding employees' access to Covid-19 testing by providing employees with free self-administered kits or an appointment at one of its drive-thrus, if they have symptoms or medical need. Kroger is the parent company of many grocery chains, including Fred Meyer and Fry's, and has more than 460,000 employees. As grocery workers continue to stock shelves, check out customers, or fulfill online orders during the pandemic, some have gotten sick and died. Grocers have announced a growing number of safety measures to try to prevent the spread of the virus in stores, such as providing masks for workers, installing Plexiglass dividers, and encouraging social distancing with signs. A major grocery union also encouraged shoppers to wear masks and limit trips to the store. Melissa Repko

10:10 am: Number of new cases in Europe, Asia is on the decline, while US remains steady

10:03 am: GE Aviation plans to cut its global workforce by 25% as coronavirus hurts air travel

General Electric's aviation unit plans to slash its workforce by 25% this year as the coronavirus pandemic threatens demand for new aircraft. The 13,000 job cuts will be permanent and include involuntary measures and voluntary ones like early retirements. General Electric is doubly exposed to the aviation slump through both the GE Aviation manufacturing arm and its leasing unit, one of the largest aircraft lessors in the world. "To protect our business, we have responded with difficult cost-cutting actions over the last two months. Unfortunately, more is required as we scale the business to the realities of our commercial market," David Joyce, CEO of that GE unit, told employees in a memo. Melodie Warner

9:40 am: Dow falls more than 300 points to start the week

9:28 am: Majority of small businesses missed out on CARES Act loans, survey finds

A sign reading "Buy Local" with closed restaurants and shops on Main Street on April 10, 2020 in Livingston, Montana. William Campbell | Corbis via Getty Images

More than 30 million small businesses  the lifeblood of the U.S. economy  are on the ropes amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the government loan programs designed to help them aren't doing the job, a CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey found. The $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), part of the CARES Act, was meant to provide a lifeline for businesses suffering through the economic shutdown, but only 13% of respondents who applied for PPP were able to obtain loans, the survey found. Among all respondents, just 7% have already received financing and 18% are still waiting for a response from a lender. CNBC's Lori Ioannou delves into the reasons behind the struggles small businesses are having in trying to obtain financial support. Terri Cullen

9:24 am: Experts weigh in on how schools can be open in September

Most states have already closed public schools through the remainder of the academic year. Of those that haven't, no state has set a date to reopen them. Reopening schools is arguably the most essential complication to overcome for an economic recovery as many parents simply can't go back to work if their children are still home. Unless plans are thoughtful and nearly foolproof, parents won't be comfortable putting their children at risk. The United Federation of Teachers union, which represents more than 140,000 teachers and other school employees in New York City, has started an online petition addressed to the federal government demanding certain requirements are met before schools can reopen. They include widespread testing, temperature checks upon entering schools, rigorous cleaning protocols, and a procedure for tracing people who have been in close physical contact with anyone who has tested positive for the virus. Melodie Warner

9:09 am: HSBC expects a 'jagged U-shaped recovery'

The global economy is most likely set for a U-shaped recovery with a "jagged bottom" after the coronavirus crisis, according to HSBC. Speaking to CNBC Monday, Head of Global Foreign Exchange Strategy David Bloom outlined the bank's game plan in the event of L-, U- and V-shaped recoveries, emphasizing that analysts should be making plans for all eventualities. In a U-shaped scenario, the economy fails to respond immediately to exits from lockdowns around the world, but the expectation for a delayed rebound remains in place with multiple "false dawns," Bloom suggested, causing a "jagged bottom" to the U curve. Melodie Warner

9:00 am: J.Crew files for bankruptcy protection

Clothing apparel company J.Crew filed for bankruptcy protection, making it the first major retail bankruptcy of the coronavirus pandemic. The New York-based retailer had already been struggling under a heavy debt load and sales challenges. The company said it reached a deal with stakeholders to convert $1.65 billion of its debt to equity. It also secured $400 million in financing from existing lenders Anchorage Capital Group, GSO Capital Partners, and Davidson Kempner Capital Management to help fund operations through bankruptcy. Melodie Warner

8:46 am: The latest US coronavirus hot spots

8:16 am: Tyson Foods Q2 net income drops 15%

Tyson Foods reported a fiscal second-quarter decline in net income of 15% year over year, sending the company's shares down 5% in premarket trading. Tyson temporarily closed plants amid the Covid-19 outbreak after hundreds of workers tested positive for the virus. The company expects higher production costs and lower productivity as it attempts to ramp back up. Read more about Tyson's fiscal second quarter and coronavirus response from CNBC's Amelia Lucas. Sara Salinas

7:08 am: Roche CEO says it is 'very likely' patients develop immunity

People who have recovered from Covid-19 are "very likely" to be immune to the virus, according to Roche CEO Severin Schwan. "We know from other coronaviruses that it's very likely as soon as you have gone through an infection you will also acquire immunity," he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe," adding that more research is needed. "We need studies to really see whether those people who have been infected once are subject to reinfection. But there's a high likelihood that this will be the case." Chloe Taylor

6:56 am: Roche to invest 400 million euros in German testing site

Volunteers dressed in protective suits, masks, gloves and goggles carrying blood and throat mucous samples to test for COVID-19 on March 27, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Sean Gallup | Getty Images

Swiss drugmaker Roche will invest more than 400 million euros ($437 million) in a German testing site, according to Reuters. Roche Chairman Christoph Franz said the investment will include making antibody tests in order to detect people who have already been infected with the virus and recovered. Franz said the drugmaker will invest in its biochemical production facility in Penzberg, as well as in additional diagnostics research and development, Reuters reported. Sara Salinas

5:45 am: Germany's coronavirus reproduction rate stands at 0.74

The reproduction rate of the coronavirus in Germany is currently estimated at 0.74 on average, Health Minister Jens Spahn said, Reuters reported. The reproduction rate refers to how many people could be expected to be infected by someone with the virus, on average. Health authorities want to keep that number below 1 so the spread of the virus gradually slows. Holly Ellyatt

5:15 am: Spain's daily death toll rises by 164

Health workers wear protective masks as they observe a minute's silence at the entrance of the Hospital Doctor Peset in remembrance of nursing staff who have died due to Covid-19 on April 06, 2020 in Valencia, Spain. Rober Solsona | Europa Press News | Getty Images

The number of deaths from the coronavirus in Spain reached 25,428, up from 25,264 the previous day, its health ministry said. That marks a daily increase of 164 deaths. Spain has recorded 218,011 cases of the virus, the second-highest total from any country, after the U.S. Holly Ellyatt

4:50 am: Japan extends state of emergency to May 31

Few passengers are seen on a Tsukuba Express train amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 27, 2020 in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. Etsuo Hara | Getty Images

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has decided to extend Japan's state of emergency to May 31. Abe said he will consider lifting the emergency without waiting for its May 31 expiration if experts decide is possible based on regional infection trends, according to Reuters. Holly Ellyatt

4:33 am: Euro zone manufacturing economy contracts at a record pace in April

Activity in the euro zone's manufacturing sector contracted at a record rate in April with Covid-19 related measures impacting heavily on demand and production, a survey showed. IHS Markit's Purchasing Managers' Index for manufacturing fell to 33.4 in April from 44.5 in March, the final PMI data showed Monday. It's slightly lower than preliminary data estimating a decline to 33.6. The 50-point mark separates monthly expansion from contraction. "Below the earlier flash reading, the latest PMI was the lowest ever recorded by the series (which began in June 1997), surpassing readings seen during the depths of the global financial crisis and indicative of a considerable deterioration in operating conditions," IHS Markit said. "Output, new orders, export sales, and purchasing activity all fell at record rates, whilst supply-side constraints intensified to an unprecedented extent. Confidence about the future sank to a fresh series low." Holly Ellyatt

4:00 am: Russia sees another daily rise in cases of over 10,000

A woman wearing a protective mask holds flowers near a makeshift memorial for medics, who reportedly died in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Region in the times of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in central Saint Petersburg, Russia April 28, 2020. Anton Vaganov | Reuters
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Iman Bar, M.D., of Newport Concierge Medical  announced today 'Immunity in the Community' -- a comprehensive, county-wide initiative advocating for more rapid and comprehensive testing for COVID-19 for residents of Orange County, California, which has one of the highest rates of the virus per capita in California.

"The beaches in Newport Beach were open two weekends ago, and we had more than 40,000 visitors to our community that weekend," said Dr. Iman Bar, M.D. "We're at a very vulnerable place with our community, and we have a lot of seniors and other 'at-risk' residents who need to be protected."

Recent statistics estimate only 4% of the Orange County population has been tested for COVID-19.

"There is lack of comprehensive testing here in Orange County," continued Dr. Iman Bar. "Testing and treating as many people in the community is of upmost importance right now. The more people we can test quickly, the faster businesses can re-open, and people can get on with their 'new normal' lives."

"A strong and effective governmental public health infrastructure in Orange County is essential not only to respond to crises such as these in the community, but also to create advisory health committees to address ongoing local challenges occurring during the COVID pandemic," said Dr. Iman Bar.

The Immunity in the Community initiative makes it easier and faster for residents to get tested for COVID-19. The initiative will test Orange County residents in order to learn if they are 'silent carries' or have developed immunity to the virus, or if a resident is a silent carrier spreading the virus without knowing it. Immunity in the Community is a comprehensive initiative launched by Dr. Bar who has recruited private labs to test the thousands of residents of Orange County in real-time, with 24-hour turn around results.

About Dr. Iman Bar, M.D.:

Newport Concierge Medical's mission is to provide personalized, high-quality concierge care on an as-needed or preventative basis. We are a full-service holistic family practice in Newport Beach, CA who believe in working with our patients to maintain and improve their health.

For more information: https://newportconciergemedical.com/

Contact: Dr. Iman Bar, M.D.

Phone: 949-706-1212

SOURCE Newport Concierge Medical

Related Links

https://newportconciergemedical.com/


A mother who died on a dream holiday to California was killed by a blood clot caused by her contraceptive pill and the long-haul flight.

Zoe Williams, 42, of Caerphilly, South Wales, collapsed and died after arriving in San Francisco with her husband Jason, 45, and their son on the 11-flight from Britain.

Her heartbroken husband was baffled by the cause of her death but has now been told by US doctors that she was killed by a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) clot in her lung - partly blamed on her pill.

DVT is known as 'economy class syndrome' because passengers cannot move around during the long-haul flights.

The contraceptive pill is well-known to be linked to increased risk of blood clots in the veins - the NHS says the risk is small but 'statistically significant'.

Zoe Williams, 42, of Caerphilly, South Wales, collapsed and died after arriving in San Francisco with her husband Jason, 45, and their son on the 11-flight from Britain. Pictured: Zoe with her son

Zoe's husband (pictured together) was baffled by the cause of her death but has now been told by US doctors that she was killed by a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) clot in her lung - partly blamed on her pill

Husband Jason said: 'We found out she had a blood clot in her lung which was likely to have been caused by her contraceptive pill and the long-haul flight.

'It was a relief to find out what really happened but also frustrating that deep vein thrombosis wasn't picked up when she was checked after an 11 hour flight.'

How the latest contraceptive pills can triple the risk of getting blood clots in your veins Contraceptive pills that contain oestrogen may cause blood to clot more easily. This could lead to a clot in the leg, known as deep vein thrombosis. It may cause pain, swelling and tenderness in one calf, a heavy ache and/or warm skin in the area and redness, particularly at the back of your leg below the knee. If a DVT is left untreated, a piece of the clot may break off and block one of the blood vessels in the lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism. Blood clots can also trigger a heart attack or stroke. A 2015 study by the Division of Primary Care, University Park in Nottingham, found that use of any contraceptive pill almost tripled risk of blood clot; though the baseline risk is small. As such, it is unlikely a doctor will prescribe the contraceptive if a woman has two or more of the following risk factors: Is very overweight

Has migraines or high blood pressure

Has had a blood clot or stroke before

Had a close relative who developed a clot before 45

Has been immobile for a long time, such as wheelchair users Source: NHS Advertisement

He added 'This has left a massive hole in our life and she never could be replaced. What I'm struggling to comprehend is why this had to happen to her.'

Jason was sent the post mortem results from the US months after Zoe collapsed on the holiday in November.

He told how the couple and their son Haydn, 11, flew to San Fransisco on October 26.

But the next day she told her husband that she was tired and found it difficult to walk, but she said this was down to the long flight.

He said: 'We all left the hotel room and she walked 20 to 30 yards and collapsed. She said she just felt tired and told us to go on and she would just stay back at the hotel to sleep, but she seemed fine in herself.'

She feared it was linked to an illness she had 20 years ago called Guillain-Barre syndrome - a rare but serious autoimmune disorder which attacks cells in the nervous system.

On day three of their holiday, Jason brought his wife to see a doctor who began treating her Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Jason said: 'On Thursday, we went to popular shopping attraction Pier 39 and to explore Alcatraz. Zoe was in a wheelchair.

'She had classic symptoms of the Guillain-Barre syndrome we thought she had, but we wanted to show our son around.

'Zoe said she didn't want us to take her to hospital in San Francisco because she trusted her doctors in Heath Hospital and promised she would go straight there when they got home.'

The contraceptive pill is well-known to be linked to increased risk of blood clots in the veins - the NHS says the risk is small but 'statistically significant'. Pictured: The family together during a previous holiday

Jason was sent the post mortem results from the US months after Zoe collapsed on the holiday in November. He told how the couple and their son Haydn (pictured with his mother), 11, flew to San Fransisco on October 26

The three were due to fly home back to the UK on Saturday, November 2. Zoe used a wheelchair to get on the plane - but the family were told she was too ill to fly. The couple went back to their hotel and planned to see doctors the next day.

Her husband said: 'But she deteriorated that night. She said she was struggling to breathe and I called an ambulance, but she passed away in my arms before they arrived.'

The post mortem ruled out their fears that it was linked to her previous conditions - but left the family with 'mixed emotions.'

He said: 'Zoe was a very special wife and mother. So generous and loving, she would do absolutely anything for Hayden. She had an infectious smile and she did everything for us and absolutely spoiled Hayden.

Jason (pictured with his family) runs a flooring company Haydens Designer Flooring Ltd - and thanked his colleagues for their support and understanding

Around 800 people turned up to Zoe's funeral and all the women sported leopard print as the mother-of-one Zoe loved the pattern. Pictured: Zoe with her friend Cath Jones

'Haydn has been nothing short of phenomenal. He talks about his mum every single day and that's really important. He doesn't have many down days, he just remembers all the good times we had together.'

Jason runs a flooring company Haydens Designer Flooring Ltd - and thanked his colleagues for their support and understanding.

He said: 'I tried going back to work, but I found it too difficult at first, I couldn't focus my mind so I started going back in January before the lockdown. I had a lot of support in work from the boys who ran it for me until I could go back.'

'About 800 people turned up to Zoe's funeral and all the women wore leopard print because Zoe loved it and we wanted it to celebrate her life.
Mexico's Centro Nacional de Control de Energia (Cenace) indefinitely stopped all operations and critical tests for clean-energy projects amid the rising number of coronavirus cases in the nation.

Cenace, or the National Energy Control Center, is a public body assigned to oversee the operational control of the National Electric System as well as the operation of the Wholesale electricity market.

As an independent system operator, they are responsible for performing functions to sustain the quality, safety, and reliability of the electrical system. They are also responsible for authorizing and modernizing projects that will help develop the national power grid.

According to Cenace, all preoperative tests of power plants are suspended. Measures put in place to increase the reliability of the country's electrical system have also ceased operations. Tests that have yet to be performed will also be postponed.

The new measures caused many critics to worry. They said the agency did not mention older non-renewable plants operated by the Comision Federal de Electricidad, another state-owned utility company. They believe the move will hurt renewable producers.

Clean-energy producers may file a case before regulators as the new guidelines may displace competition. Eduardo Perez Motta, former head of Mexico's antitrust regulator, said the recent changes creates enormous uncertainty for the operators, citing the state-run utility companies can cut off power distribution at any time.

Credits

Tensions between the clean-energy industry and the current administration, led by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, came to a peak following the Energy Ministry's announcement to grant old, government-run plant credits.

The decision, which was announced in December 2019, would have opened new developments to old, state-run plants.

However, a judge granted a full suspension of the rule change, saying the credits would have damaged incentives for renewable projects and clean-energy producers.

The Mexican federal court initially suspended the rule change for Zuma Energia subsidiary Santa Maria in late November, but later on, changed to ruling to apply to all utility companies across Mexico.

Critics and clean-energy producers said they should also have access to the benefits and incentives.

The ruling is a blow for President Lopez Obrador's plans to support and modernize state utility companies.

Want to read more? Read the latest news here:

The current administration is focused on modernizing CFE's existing electrical plants instead of focusing on renewables. They also plan to build a new coal plant. Other CFE-run hydroelectric plants now qualified for clean-energy credits.

The head of the CFE denounced the reliability of wind and solar energy. He claims the renewable power options are incredibly unreliable and expensive. He said both options would force the government to buy electricity instead of generating it.

AMLO's energy policies are designed to create energy security by using plants from an earlier time, which means self-sufficient and renewable power is outside of the mainstream. His policies, however, could hold Mexico back from creating a more sustainable and modern energy system that could lower prices for consumers and emit fewer greenhouse gases that contribute to devastating environmental damages.
New Zealand and Australia are discussing the potential creation of a "travel bubble" between the two countries, sources said on Monday, even as Australia reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in two weeks.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will take part in a meeting of Australia`s emergency coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday, the Australian government said, stoking speculation that two-way travel could be permitted in the near future.

"The idea of a bubble with Australia was floated two weeks ago, and this is an example of the sort of action that could happen within it, while always ensuring the protection of public health," New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.

"Officials in both countries are considering all aspects of the trans-Tasman concept, and planning how this could happen more broadly," Peters added.

The prospect of two-way travel was first proposed by Peters, though Ardern in April insisted it was a "long-term goal" and would need to include other Pacific countries.

Australia and New Zealand have both slowed the spread of coronavirus in recent weeks to levels significantly below the those reported in the United States, Britain and Europe.

Both governments attribute their success to social distancing restrictions and widespread testing.

However, Australia on Monday reported 26 new cases, including a seven-year-old boy, its biggest daily jump in two weeks. That could rise as more states report throughout the day. New Zealand recorded no new cases on Monday for the first time since March 16.

Overall, Australia has recorded around 6,800 infections and 95 deaths, and New Zealand 1,137 cases and 20 fatalities.

On Sunday, a New Zealand rugby league team arrived in Australia to self-isolate before joining Australia`s tournament later this month, after receiving special permission, a move that Peters said could pave the way for a trans-Tasman bubble.

Ardern and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison are expected to discuss their strategies to slow the spread of coronavirus at Tuesday`s meeting, one source familiar with the details of the meeting told Reuters.

New Zealand does not have a contact tracing app like the one launched by Australia last week to find and inform people who have been in contact with confirmed infected people.

Just over 4 million Australians have downloaded the CovidSafe app so far, well short of Morrison`s previously announced target of 40% of the country`s estimated 16 million smartphone owners.

Morrison has made wider adoption of the app a prerequisite to further ease strict social distancing regulations in Australia.

SCHOOLS DEBATE

The rise in Australia`s death toll was largely due to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in the state of Victoria.

The infection of the seven-year-old boy in New South Wales (NSW) state, which closed his Sydney school, has drawn attention to the contentious question of whether children should attend school during the outbreak.

The federal government has said schools should stay open since children are low-risk carriers of the virus, while some state governments have urged parents to keep children at home.

NSW will reopen schools on a staggered basis from next week, while Victoria has asked parents to keep children at home until the middle of the year.

The states and territories are also moving at different speeds to lift movement restrictions: NSW has allowed people to make house visits in groups of up to two, while Victoria is retaining its stay-home order until at least May 11.

"This is a struggle and ... it`s not easy to live this way, but none of us can assume, just because we`re frustrated, that this is over," Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Monday. "This is far from over. We have to stay the course."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced he will take part in an international day of prayer and fasting on 14 May to ask God to help humanity overcome the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this week, the inter-religious Higher Committee of Human Fraternity issued an international call for all people of all faiths to make it a day of praying, fasting, and doing acts of mercy to implore God to save the world from the pandemic.

"In difficult times, we must stand together for peace, humanity and solidarity. I join His Holiness Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb in their support for the Prayer for Humanity this 14 May  a moment for reflection, hope, and faith," Guterres tweeted.

The Higher Committee of Human Fraternity is made up of 11 religious leaders, scholars and cultural leaders from around the world aiming to support a peaceful world under the Document of Human Fraternity signed between Sheikh El-Tayeb and Pope Francis in February 2019.

The document is meant to achieve universal peace, encourage closeness between peoples and renounce violence and extremism.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Reno Omokri, a former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed concern over the death of three Northern Emirs within six d...





Reno Omokri, a former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed concern over the death of three Northern Emirs within six days.





Bornos first class monarch, Shehu of Bama, Alhaji Kyari Ibrahim El-Kanemi died on Monday afternoon at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).





His death was followed by that of Emir of Rano, who passed on yesterday and the Emir of Kaura Namoda, Ahmad Muhammad Asha, whose death was announced on Sunday.





Omokri, who served as presidential assistant on new media under Jonathan, expressed worry that many ordinary persons could be passing away on a daily basis, whose deaths were not being reported.





Within a week, three major Northern emirs have died: Shehu of Barma, April 27 aged 63, Emir of Rano, May 2 aged 74 and Emir of Kaura Namoda, May 3, aged 71.





If prominent people are dying like this, what is happening amongst the talakawas? What is going on? He tweeted.
Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) on Monday said it is surrendering its 15 terminals with a turnover of Rs 277.50 crore to railways due to "commercial and business viability considerations".

These terminals, spread across various states, have 'net block' worth Rs 64.84 crore, the company said.

"Due to commercial and business viability considerations, the company has decided to re-organise its number of terminals by surrendering/ handing over certain terminals of the company which are built on the land taken on lease from the railways," CONCOR said in a BSE filing.

According to the company's assessment, the surrender or handover of the terminals to the railways will not impact the business of the company materially, it said.

The company said its Madho Singh (Rajasthan), Rourkela (Odisha), Tatanagar (Jharkhand), and Maharashtra's Chinchwad, Miraj and Bhusawal terminals were found "not viable for business".

About the Rewari (Haryana) terminal, it said that road-based terminal will continue and traffic will be cleared from Khatuwas railhead; while about the Ballabhgarh (Haryana) terminal, it said that business has been shifted to Delhi.

Giving the reason behind surrender of the Babarpur (Haryana) terminal, it said the existing traffic of Babarpur has been diverted to CONCOR's newly developed MMLP Barhi; and for the Desur (Karnataka) terminal, it said the "railways has demanded land back".

About the Visakhapatnam terminal, it said the existing traffic has been shifted to MMLP/Vishakhapatnam.

Other terminals surrendered included Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Sabarmati (Gujarat), Ratlam (Madhya Pradesh) and Nagpur (Maharashtra).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Assam government has started the process of deporting 26 Bangladeshi nationals, who were held in the state during the nationwide lockdown restrictions, which were initially enforced for 21 days from March 25 and then further extended for another 19 days till May 3 to contain the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

The Bangladeshi nationals were held on Sunday in lower Assams Dhubri district while they were trying to cross over to their country. Assam shares a 267km border with Bangladesh, of which 90 km falls in Dhubri.

The Bangladeshi nationals were carrying valid travel documents. However, few of their visas had expired during the lockdown restrictions. They were travelling from Upper Assams Jorhat district with lockdown passes that were issued for migrant labourers. Theyve been placed in a quarantine facility in the district on Sunday, said Anant Lal Gyani, deputy commissioner (DC), Dhubri district.

The DC said that the 26 Bangladeshi nationals had entered India via the Changrabandha international border in West Bengals Cooch Behar district before the lockdown restrictions were enforced. Though they had T-1 visas meant for tourists, they told the officials in Dhubri that they were engaged in fishing activities in Jorhat, he added.

The two vehicles in which theyre travelling were intercepted in Dhubri on Sunday, as the passes issued to them from Jorhat were valid for travel only till the district. Besides, the local address in Dhubri furnished by the Bangladeshi nationals turned out to be fictitious. Later, they admitted that theyre trying to go back to their country, Gyani said.

Yuvraj, superintendent of police (SP), Dhubri district, said that all the relevant details of the Bangladeshi nationals have been shared with the Union Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for the deportation process.

Well initiate the process of their deportation soon. They may be deported even before their mandatory 14-day quarantine period ends, the SP said.

Last month, Border Security Force (BSF) officials in Assams Karimganj district in the Barak valley had sent back a Bangladeshi national, who had swum across the Kushiyara river on the Indo-Bangla border in a bid to get himself treated in India.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for a "thorough investigation" into "shocking" allegations that Iranian border guards beat and then forced a group of Afghan migrants into a river.

Afghan officials said up to 70 migrants last week illegally crossed into Iran, where they were beaten, tortured, and then forced into a river by Iranian border guards.

Authorities in the western province of Herat, located along the border with Iran, said they had retrieved 12 bodies from the Harirud River that crosses both countries.

Dozens of Afghan migrants are still missing and Afghan authorities have launched an operation to locate and retrieve the bodies.

"The allegations are indeed shocking," Patricia Gossman, an associate director for the Asia division at HRW, told RFE/RL on May 4. "It really requires a very thorough investigation into what exactly happened."

Gossman said that if proven, the actions of the Iranian border guards would amount to "a very serious human rights violation."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Musavi said the "incident" took place on Afghan soil.

"Border guards of the Islamic Republic of Iran denied the occurrence of any events related to this on the soil of our country," he said in a statement on May 3, adding that Tehran would launch an investigation into the incident.

Abdul Ghani Noori, governor of Herat's Gulran district, where the migrants crossed, accused Iranian security forces of throwing the group of Afghan migrants into the Harirud River.

Afghan officials said it was not the first time that Afghans had been tortured and killed by Iranian security forces guarding the 920-kilometer-long border.

"I haven't heard of a case like this in recent memory, although we have previously documented abuses by Iranian border officials against Afghans for some time," Gossman said, adding that there had been past incidents of Iranian border guards beating and firing on Afghan migrants.

Decades of conflict, extreme poverty, and high rates of unemployment force thousands of Afghans to illegally cross the border into Iran every year.

There are currently up to 1 million registered Afghan refugees in Iran, while the country hosts another 2 million undocumented Afghans, according to the United Nations.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP
MISSION, B.C. - A justice advocacy group says it wants prisoners at a federal institution in British Columbia ravaged by a COVID-19 outbreak to know there are people in the community fighting for their safety.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 3/5/2020 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Mission Correctional Institution in Mission, B.C. is pictured Tuesday, April 14, 2020. A justice advocacy group says it wants prisoners at a federal institution in British Columbia ravaged by a COVID-19 outbreak to know there are people in the community fighting for their safety. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

MISSION, B.C. - A justice advocacy group says it wants prisoners at a federal institution in British Columbia ravaged by a COVID-19 outbreak to know there are people in the community fighting for their safety.

Meenakshi Mannoe of the Vancouver Prison Justice Day Committee says members were rallying outside Mission Institution Sunday and making noise from their cars or at a safe physical distance.

The committee is calling for the urgent care of all prisoners across Canada and the immediate release of detainees to ensure adequate physical distancing and quarantine measures.

Inmates' sentences should not include exposure to a potentially fatal respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Mannoe said.

"However we feel about the crimes people do, they're not supposed to be subject to further punishment inside," she said.

"We want to let them know we're out here making noise and we're calling for action from all levels of government and the Correctional Service of Canada to make sure people have safe living conditions."

The group is also calling for broader testing of all prisoners, and daily updates with details of the situation for their family members.

It is also among more than three dozen organizations demanding an immediate inquest into the death of an inmate at the prison last month.

Mission Institution is experiencing the largest prison outbreak in Canada. The B.C. government said Saturday that 133 inmates and staff have tested positive for COVID-19.

Across Canada, 290 federal inmates have been infected, with 155 having recovered, according to federal figures released Saturday.

There were 41 active cases among correctional officers among a total of 84 who have tested positive since the pandemic began, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers said Saturday.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said in a statement Sunday that the government knows correctional institutions face unique vulnerabilities during public health emergency.

"The situation around COVID-19 is both challenging and rapidly evolving, and our response will continue to adapt as required," Blair said.

The Correctional Service of Canada said in a statement that it's working to limit the spread of the virus at each of its prisons.

Inmates who show symptoms or test positive for COVID-19 are medically isolated and both staff and inmates are provided with masks and information about how to use them, it said. Enhanced cleaning protocols are in place, including disinfecting common areas and high-contact surfaces.

"Every effort is made to provide inmates on medical isolation with as much time out of cell as possible while respecting strong infection and prevention principles in order to contain the spread of COVID-19," it said in an emailed statement.

The correctional service has also suspended visits, temporary absences unless medically necessary and all inter-regional and international transfers of inmates.

On April 25, the correctional service said all inmates at the medium-security Mission prison had been tested for the virus, although new cases continue to be identified.

Based on expert recommendations, the prison installed new hand-washing stations, boosted hygiene supplies and now has nurses at the site around the clock and physician coverage every day.

"These are unprecedented times and we are working diligently, and often around the clock, to prevent the spread of the virus. The situation around COVID-19 is both challenging and rapidly evolving and we continue to adapt our response and do everything in our power to keep our employees and inmates safe," the correctional service says in a statement.

The Vancouver Prison Justice Day Committee organized its first rally outside Mission Institution following an inmate's death on April 15 from apparent complications related to COVID-19.

Before the pandemic, the group organized an annual memorial for prisoners who have died behind bars.

When the committee calls for the release of inmates, it doesn't mean simply setting people free, Mannoe said. It means allowing them space to self-isolate or quarantine with community supports in place for rehabilitation.

"We need to release people into communities in a safe and just way that services the prisoners themselves and the people who have been impacted by their harm," Mannoe said.

"I'm not saying open the doors, I'm saying let's resource people and get them out of a system that's not serving them and a system that a lot of survivors (of crime) would also say doesn't necessarily lead to justice on their end."

A COVID-positive prisoner at Joliette Institute in Quebec filed a proposed class-action lawsuit on April 21 against Correctional Service Canada's handling of the pandemic.

On April 23, the Correctional Service of Canada said it was "conducting an analysis of the offender population" so it could make release recommendations.

The Parole Board of Canada said it had been trying to streamline processes and speed up decisions. In some cases, parolees might be allowed to move home instead of to a halfway house, the board said.

To combat possible infections in its prisons, Newfoundland and Labrador has released 65 inmates under the public health emergency the province declared on March 18. So far, the province's jails have been COVID-free.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 3, 2020.

 By Amy Smart in Vancouver.
Opposition parties and human rights advocates in Egypt are calling for an investigation into the death of a young filmmaker in a Cairo prison.

Shady Habash died in the capital citys maximum-security Tora prison after his health had deteriorated for several days, his lawyer told Agence France-Presse.

The 24-year-old filmmaker was arrested in March 2018 for spreading fake news and belonging to an illegal organization after directing a popular music video that mocked President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The song, Balaha, was widely popular in Egypt, garnering more than five million views on YouTube.

Ramy Essam, who starred in the music video, wrote that Habash was the kindest and bravest of people.

He never hurt anyone. May God have mercy on him," Essam, who is in exile in Sweden, said in a Facebook post Saturday.

Habash remained in detention for two years without trial. In an October letter from prison, he lamented that prison doesnt kill, loneliness does.

For the past two years Ive been trying on my own to resist everything happening to me, so that I can come out of prison the same person youve always known, but I cant go on, he said.

Since Sisi rose to power in a military coup in 2013, thousands of artists, journalists and human rights defenders have been arrested as part of Egypts clampdown on dissent and perceived supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Most recently, Egyptian security forces forcibly disappeared two women, Marwa Arafa and Kholoud Said, over critical social media posts. Human Rights Watch urged authorities to disclose their whereabouts.

On Monday, Egypt's Civil Democratic Movement, an opposition coalition, called for an immediate and transparent investigation" into Habashs death and a review of pre-trial detention laws, according to Al Jazeera.

Human rights lawyer Ahmed Ezzat wrote on Twitter that Habashs death should be of concern to all Egyptians.

Calling on the authorities to release all detainees now does not concern only the opposition or activists. Anyone can be the next victim, he tweeted. No one is safe.
Saudi Arabian Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan attends the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Virtual Meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on March 31, 2020. Xinhua News Agency

Saudi Arabia is preparing to enact "strict, painful measures" in the face of its worst growth contraction in two decades brought on by the twin shock of coronavirus lockdowns and low oil prices, its finance minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said in a sobering interview over the weekend. The oil-rich kingdom, in the midst of historic social and economic liberalization, is going to have to slash projects and spending as it sees its foreign currency reserves shrinking at a record pace, its fiscal deficit widening and its risk assets deteriorating. Forecasts for GDP contraction this year are as steep as -3.2%, while ratings agency Moody's downgraded the country's sovereign outlook to negative from stable on Friday. Aside from the risks to the kingdom's fiscal strength from the pandemic and oil price shocks, further risks lie in "the uncertainty regarding the degree to which the government will be able to offset its oil revenue losses and stabilize its debt burden and assets in the medium term," Moody's wrote.

"We must reduce budget expenditures sharply," al-Jadaan told Al Arabiya TV on Saturday. "Saudi finances need more discipline and the road ahead is long." The striking change in tone from the minister, which just ten days prior was more vocally optimistic and spoke of the country's resilience to deal with the situation, was not taken well by markets: Saudi Arabia's stock exchange, the Tadawul, dropped more than 7% during trading the following day. While al-Jadaan in April suggested additional borrowing on international markets, this time he said that "all options for dealing with the crisis are open." "The list is extremely long," the minister said of the cost-cutting possibilities. But likely high on that list are some of the multibillion dollar mega-projects in areas from tourism to infrastructure that fell under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious Vision 2030, meant to drive private industry and diversify the kingdom's economy away from oil.

'Significant balance sheet strength'

Still, despite facing what may be the greatest period of uncertainty in its modern history, Saudi Arabia is in a better position than most to weather this crisis. This is thanks to the sizable wealth buffers it's built up over the previous two decades  including $473 billion in international reserves as of March, according to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority  the highest of any country in the Gulf and broader Middle East. Saudi Arabia's debts are also low by global standards, and it has easy access to capital markets for borrowing, as its bond issuances of the past two years  oversubscribed many times over  demonstrate. Its $7 billion bond issuance in mid-April reportedly saw some $54 billion in orders by investors.

"Though the outlook is challenging, Saudi Arabia has significant balance sheet strength on which it can draw to ensure that the fiscal deficit is adequately funded and the investment programme remains on track," Ehsan Khoman, head of MENA research and strategy at Japanese bank MUFG, wrote in a note Monday. "Stability will come at a cost, however, and we see public debt rising to 31.6% of GDP this year  the highest level since 2005," Khoman wrote, adding that MUFG expects foreign currency reserves to drop by $47 billion this year, though they will remain ample, accounting for nearly three years of import cover. Analysts at Moody's agree on the point of Saudi fiscal strength, despite the crisis and ratings downgrade, affirming its issuer rating of A1. "Saudi Arabia's A1 rating is supported by the government's still relatively robust, albeit deteriorating, balance sheet," Moody's wrote, "which is underpinned by a still-moderate debt level and substantial fiscal and external liquidity buffers."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 23:28:39|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

WUHAN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Senior students in 121 high and vocational schools will return to campus on Wednesday in central China's Wuhan city, an official said Monday.

Eighty-three senior middle schools and 38 secondary vocational schools are the first batch of schools to open for graduates, said Li Tao, deputy secretary-general of the Wuhan municipal government.

These schools have carried out cleaning and preventive disinfection before opening. Health tests are required for all faculty and staff of Grade Three classes in these schools and for students prior to their return.

The back-to-school date has not been decided for other students in junior and senior middle schools in this city. Enditem
Smithfield Reopens Illinois Pork Plant After COVID-19 Shutdown

Smithfield Foods has reopened its hog slaughterhouse in Monmouth, Illinois, after a weeklong shutdown because of COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus.

Company representatives said in a statement cited by the Monmouth Review Atlas newspaper that the facility, which accounts for some 3 percent of U.S. pork products, resumed operations on the kill floor, maintenance, plant service, and animal foods, on May 2. Employees of the cold side were due back at work on May 4.

About a dozen of the facilitys 1,700 workers protested the plants reopening on May 2, with some holding signs saying, We want screening to return to work, according to a separate report by the Review Atlas.

Smithfield employees earlier protested at other plants, calling for more protections amid the pandemic.

Smithfield, in a statement, said media were blowing the supposed conflict between the company and employees over COVID-19 protections out of proportion. It emphasized an ongoing positive and constructive partnership with staff.

Media and other reports pitting the company against its employees are flat-out wrong. There is no such division. The company and its team members all want the same thing, namely, to protect employee health and safety while also safeguarding Americas food supply, Smithfield stated.

In an earlier statement announcing the Monmouth plant closure, Smithfield said it had taken steps to protect employees from the virus, including screening for COVID-19 symptoms, providing personal protective equipment and encouraging its use, installing plexiglass barriers, and asking symptomatic workers to stay home.

The company has been explicitly instructing employees not to report to work if they are sick and that they will be paid, Smithfield said in the statement.

Meat-processing workers are particularly susceptible to the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, because they typically stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the line and congregate in crowded locker rooms and cafeterias.

Meat processing facilities, which are characterized by labor-intensive, assembly-line style production, are not designed for social distancing, Smithfield said in a statement. Employees often work in close proximity on production lines. Similarly, space constraints exist in common areas such as cafeterias, break and locker rooms, and bathrooms.

On April 28, President Donald Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure an abundant supply of protein for Americans as plant shutdowns have sparked concerns of shortages.

Such closures threaten the continued functioning of the national meat and poultry supply chain, undermining critical infrastructure during the national emergency, Trump wrote in the order, noting the large impact that key plant closures can have on the food supply chain.

Closure of a single large beef processing facility can result in the loss of over 10 million individual servings of beef in a single day, Trump noted. Similarly, under established supply chains, closure of a single meat or poultry processing facility can severely disrupt the supply of protein to an entire grocery store chain.

Trump, after getting off a call with meatpacking executives on April 29, said that because of the executive order, we unblocked some of the bottlenecks.

Smithfield Foods said in a statement welcoming Trumps order that it should make for easier access to protective equipment and testing.

According to a CDC report released May 1, more than 4,900 workers at meat and poultry processing facilities have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, including 20 who have died.

The illnesses occurred among 130,000 workers at 115 facilities in 19 states, according to the CDC. Some states didnt provide data, so the actual count could be higher.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Betty Johnson, one of Oregons most tireless and influential advocates for social services and health care reform, never stopped working for the causes she believed in.

Johnson, who had been in and out of hospice care several times over the last two years, died Wednesday morning in her Corvallis home at the age of 97. As recently as last Friday, friends reported, she was still going strong, using the videoconferencing program Zoom to chair a meeting.

Originally from Kansas City, Johnson moved to Corvallis in 1970 with her husband, Francis. In 1972 she became director the Area Agency on Aging for Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties and began building a remarkable legacy of service and accomplishment throughout the mid-valley and the state.

While she always worked in partnership with others, Johnson inevitably played a leadership role in every initiative she got involved in. During a 15-year career in senior services, she was instrumental in establishing such bedrock mid-valley social programs as Meals on Wheels, Dial-A-Bus and Benton Hospice Service (now known as Lumina). She also helped organize Interfaith caregivers, which provides support for seniors and people with disabilities, and spearheaded the construction of the nonprofit assisted living facility Corvallis Caring Place.

Johnson retired in 1987, but instead of slowing down she kicked off a long-running second act as a champion for single-payer health care.

In 1991 Johnson founded Mid-Valley Health Care Advocates, one of the first groups in the state to promote the goal of health insurance for all Oregonians. As one of the founders of Health Care for All-Oregon, Johnson helped lead the fight for Measure 23, a 2002 initiative that would have established a statewide single-payer plan. When the measure was voted down, Johnson regrouped and kept on fighting.

With her blazing blue eyes, crown of snow-white hair and calm yet commanding manner, Johnson had a way of inspiring people to join her. She became a fixture at the Oregon capitol in Salem, helping to shape health reform legislation and gently pressuring lawmakers to push for the bills she supported.

She was an absolute force, said state Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, adding that Johnson was a regular visitor to her office.

Shes been consistent and persistent and really, I think, inspired a lot of people, Gelser added. We still have a ways to go to achieve her vision, but shes a big reason why weve made it as far down the road as we have.

Mike Huntington, a retired radiation oncologist, recalled meeting Johnson in 1986, when she enlisted him and his partners in a campaign to end the practice of balance billing, which required patients to pay the difference between Medicare-covered services and the full cost of care. Within a year, all of the doctors in the Corvallis area had agreed to end the practice.

She was a good thinker, a long-term strategist, and she wouldnt let you off the hook, Huntington said. She would say something like, Im counting on you, and you couldnt say no to her.

When Huntington retired, Johnson was waiting to recruit him as a full-time health reform activist.

That was in 2006, he said, and basically Ive met with her at least once a month ever since.

While the movement will miss Johnsons leadership, Huntington said he believes it will continue to press forward  in part to honor her legacy.

We feel were all carrying around a good chunk of Betty in us now, he said. Shes trained us.

Johnsons dedication was legendary. In 2016, when she was honored for her lifetime of achievement by the Oregon Public Health Association, she missed the awards luncheon in Corvallis  because she was attending a meeting of health care reform activists in Portland.

Johnsons son Mark described his mother as a devout Catholic whose drive to serve others stemmed from her deep Christian faith.

She was always looking for how to make things better, he said. She would always apply this moral compass she seemed to have.

Phil and Jean Monaco got to know Johnson and her husband, Francis, in the late 1970s through St. Marys Catholic Church. The two couples became close friends as well as neighbors, and Jean Monaco remembered Johnsons kindness when her husband had to travel on business.

She would go out of her way to have me over for dinner, she recalled.

Phil Monaco marveled at Johnsons tireless dedication to health care reform and the other causes she worked for until the last week of her life.

Ninety-seven years old and she was leading a Zoom meeting, he said.

She was an incredible person who never gave up and never tired of doing what she thought was right.

Johnson is survived by her husband of 67 years, Francis; three sons, Mark Johnson of Seattle, Russ Johnson of Bend and David Johnson of Vale; a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Welch of Buhl, Idaho; 10 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

A private family funeral is planned, with a memorial service to be scheduled at a later date.

Reporter Bennett Hall can be contacted at bennett.hall@lee.net or 541-812-6111. Follow him on Twitter at @bennetthallgt.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
The situation surrounding the coronavirus outbreak continues to develop quickly. To keep you up to speed, the Star-Tribune will update this page throughout the day with the latest news regarding coronavirus in Wyoming.

All of our coronavirus coverage  which can be found here  is free to read.

The numbers:

Confirmed cases in Wyoming: 444



444 Deaths in Wyoming: 7



7 Probable cases: 152

152 Fully recovered patients: 405 (289 confirmed, 116 probable)

405 (289 confirmed, 116 probable) Tests completed: 10,763 (as of Monday: 5,565 at Wyoming Public Health Laboratory, 5,197 reported to state by commercial labs, one at CDC lab)

Our resources:

Latest updates:

Restrictions continue to be rolled back

5:18 p.m.

Wyoming, like many states, has begun rolling back restrictions put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19. On Monday, officials in Natrona County rolled out a phased plan for returning to daily life.

Also on Monday, they announced that outdoor dining will be permitted again -- with a host of conditions. For example, table sizes will be limited to six diners. Tables must also be six feet apart.

Restrictions are also be rolled back in other Wyoming counties. Church and religious services can start back up in Platte and Niobrara counties, while restaurants in Lincoln County can begin serving patrons again.

Wyoming now at 444 confirmed coronavirus cases

5:10 p.m.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Wyoming rose by nine on Monday.

Six of those cases were found in Fremont County, which now has 128 confirmed cases of coronavirus -- the most in Wyoming. There new cases were found in Laramie County, which, at 104, has the state's second highest total. There are now 596 cases  444 confirmed and 152 probable  and 405 recoveries  289 confirmed and 186 probable  recorded in the state, as well as seven deaths.

Bar owner ticketed after people found drinking there

9:55 a.m.

Officials have said most businesses are voluntarily complying with public health orders. But there have been exceptions. The Office Saloon in Gillette was ticketed last week for violating state COVID-19 health orders for allowing dozens of people to drink on the bars property.

The details, via the Wyoming News Exchange: Sheriff's deputies in Campbell County received a report of 50 people drinking outside the bar Wednesday. When they arrived, only a few people were there. But when they came back three hours later, there was a large group of customers who were drinking and angry about the closure orders.

Businesses reopen

9:47 a.m.

Personal-care businesses such as hair salons, barbershops, tattoo parlors and child care centers reopened on Friday around Wyoming. The Star-Tribune has been keeping a list of businesses that have reopened, and you can find it here.

Research project at Wyoming State Hospital

9:35 a.m.

Willing patients and staff at the Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston are being tested en masse for the novel coronavirus, part of a joint effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The psychiatric hospital was visited by the CDC team that came to Wyoming earlier this month. The team recommended a "point prevalence survey," meaning an effort to test the staff and patients to get an idea of the spread of the disease in an area that has both a communal population and a traveling group of employees. The testing will be diagnostic; it will seek to identify who currently has the disease, rather then attempting to look at who may have had it in the past.

Latest stories:

Have a question about coronavirus that you want answered? Send us an email at editors@trib.com.

You can find all of our daily rundowns here.

Photos: Casper copes with COVID-19
Venezuela's government said it foiled a marine incursion on Sunday by 'terrorist mercenaries' who attempted to enter the country on speedboats from neighboring Colombia, which opposition leaders dismissed as a staged incident.

President Nicolas Maduro frequently accuses political adversaries of attempting to overthrow him with the backing of Washington, which has vowed to force him from office through sanctions that have crippled the OPEC nation's oil exports.

Critics of the ruling Socialist Party often dismiss such accusations as stunts used as an excuse to detain opponents of the government.

The group landed early on Sunday on the coast of La Guaira, about 20 miles (32 km) from the capital Caracas, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in a televised address.

'They tried to carry out an invasion by sea, a group of terrorist mercenaries from Colombia, in order to commit terrorist acts in the country, murdering leaders of the revolutionary government,' he said.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido said the government was seeking to distract from recent violent events including a deadly prison riot on Friday and bloody Caracas gang battle on Saturday night.

'The regime is seeking to divert attention with a supposed incident (in La Guaira) plagued with inconsistencies, doubts and contradictions,' the press team for Guaido, who is recognized by more than 50 countries as Venezuela's legitimate leader, said in a statement.

Socialist Party leader Diosdado Cabello said eight people were killed and two detained.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said one of the speedboats had sunk, and that military vessels were searching the coast for survivors.

The assertions by Maduro's government of Colombian involvement were 'unfounded', Colombia's foreign ministry said in a statement, and were an attempt to distract attention from 'the true problems that the Venezuelan people are living.'

Maduro has overseen a six-year economic crisis that has left many citizens unable to obtain basic food and medicine and forced nearly five million people to emigrate.

The United States and dozens of other countries disavowed Maduro after his disputed 2018 election, which they say was rigged. They instead recognize Guaido, who is head of the country's legislature.

But Maduro retains the backing of the country's armed forces as well as countries including China and Russia, which have harshly criticized the U.S. sanctions. (Reporting Vivian Sequera, additional reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
Geneva: The World Health Organisation's emergencies chief said on Monday that it has received no evidence from the US government to back up allegations by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the coronavirus could have originated at a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies program, talks during a press conference at the World Health Organisation headquarters in Geneva. Credit:AP

"From our perspective, this remains speculative," Dr Michael Ryan told reporters in Geneva.

"We have not received any data or specific evidence from the US government relating to the purported origin of the virus."

He said WHO would be "very willing" to receive any such information the US has.
THE YOUTH MUST KNOW SERIES



The NDC, in a clandestine manner, has set in motion, a grand charade to revive the deceptive unprecedented infrastructure achievement mantra that failed to hoodwink Ghanaians in 2016.



It would be recalled that in the lead up to the 2016 general elections, the NDC captured fathom hospital projects in their Green Book and Manifesto ostensibly to create a false impression in the minds of Ghanaians that Mr. Mahama has undertaken unprecedented infrastructural projects within 4years but fortunately, they were exposed badly.



This ineffective and scruffy strategy is being re-launched by the NDC in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the week, the NDC through Sammy Gyamfi, in a very arrogant bravado, told a palpable falsehood to the effect that the Mahama Administration (between 2013 and 2016) built over 3,000 Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Compounds.



Ironically, the data available does not support this wild delusional claims. The number of CHPS Compounds constructed by the erstwhile Mahama led NDC Administration is captured in all the budget statements (2012-2017) presented to Parliament by the then Finance Minister, Hon. Seth Terkper and the current Finance Minister, Hon. Ken Ofori Atta.



It must be stated that aside the budget statements, there is no other document presented to Parliament or any other appropriate quarters for allocations to be made for the construction of CHPS Compounds in the years under review.



In simple terms, the budget statements remain the only documents that captured the construction of CHPS Compounds by the Mahama Administration and same have been employed below to expose the NDC.



In the first year of the Mahama Administration, only 19 CHPS Compounds were construction. In Paragraph 730 of the 2014 budget, the government stated that ...19 CHPS Compounds were constructed whiles works on 24 new CHPS Compounds commenced. In 2014, the Ministry will begin the construction of CHPS Compounds to upscale maternal and child health care services. This means that in 2013, 19 CHPS Compounds were built whereas construction of additional 24 commenced, summing up to 43.



In paragraph 630 of the 2015 budget, the government stated that the Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) concept remains the Ministrys main strategy of bringing basic health services to the community level. In this regard, a total of 724 CHPS zones were made functional. This presupposes that 724 CHPS Compounds were built in 2014.



There is no record on the commencement of construction and/ or completion of new CHPS Compounds in the 2015 fiscal year. The records show that, in 2015, the government focused on the revision of the Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Policy and Strategy and completed same before the 2016 budget was presented to Parliament.



In paragraph 723 of the 2016 budget, the government stated that the revision of the Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Policy and Strategy as well as a model design for CHPS was completed. Government intend to construct 1,600 CHPS Compounds spread in all 10 regions with a good proportion dedicated to maternal and neonatal services over the medium term. In 2016, *the first 250 compounds will be constructed.*



In other words, construction of 250 CHPS Compounds started in 2016. That notwithstanding, only 60 CHPS Compounds were completed before Mr. Mahama left power as captured in paragraph 658 of the 2017 budget statement.



Per the available incontrovertible data, the total number of CHPS Compounds completed and operationalized by the Mahama administration was Eight Hundred and Eight (808). It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the NDC and its surrogates, as characteristic of them, told plain lies ostensibly to hoodwink Ghanaians to believe that Mr. Mahama did well in building CHPS Compounds.



The Youth of this country must be reminded that in November 2013, Mr. Mahama announced a 10% pay cut for himself, his vice and appointees of his government and stated that the accrued monies will be used for the construction of CHPS Compounds across the country. Shamefully, it turned out to be the usual deception and lies that he is known for. When the Deputy Controller and Accountant General, Mr. Kwasi Owusu appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of parliament in 2017, he revealed that the then Chief of Staff wrote to the office to stop the deductions and release what had been deducted to the presidency. A paltry GHC896,459 had been realized by the end of 2014 when the Controller was ordered to release the money.



The NPP Government led by the most visionary President Ghana has ever had, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been candid with the good people of Ghana and has put up a sterling performance with glaring evidence in all sectors of the economy, including health.



Within three years, the NPP government has undertaken over 700 infrastructural projects, encompassing District Hospitals, Poly Clinics, Community Clinics, Community Health Centers, CHPS Compounds, Staff Bungalows among others. Aside these, 7 Regional Hospitals, 3 Infectious Disease Control Centers, 88 District Hospitals, 9 Poly Clinics and dozens of CHPS Compounds and Community Clinics have been earmarked for construction this year.



Truth shall at all times, triumph over lies and propaganda. The Ghanaian Youth is discerning and would vote to keep the candid, visionary and responsible leader, President Akufo-Addo in the Jubilee House beyond the 2020 elections.



Thank you.



Issued by NPP YOUTH WING

















Source: NPP YOUTH WING









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
Attorney General KK Venugopal said that that ban on 4G internet is about the protection of the lives of the entirety of the population of Jammu and Kashmir and not just the COVID-19 patients.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on a batch of petitions seeking restoration of 4G internet services in Jammu and Kashmir claiming the 2G service available in the Union Territory is not sufficient for education and business purposes amid the ongoing coronavirus-induced lockdown.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice NV Ramana said that it is taking into consideration all the issues in the matter and that it does not require any additional material in the case. "We will pass appropriate orders in the case," Justice Ramana said.

During the hearing, attorney general KK Venugopal appearing for the Central government said that the orders that have been passed specifically stated that restrictions of internet speed are required for national security. Venugopal said that it's about the protection of the lives of the entirety of the population of Jammu and Kashmir and not just the COVID-19 patients.

Follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak

"Terrorists are being pushed into the country. Yesterday, there were some tragic events also. These men could easily take videos of the troop movements because they were trusted. The enemy could know the troop movements if they had 4G," Venugopal told the court.

The attorney general said that the petitions have to be examined against the larger public interest of national security, adding that national security is paramount and those tasked with protecting national security must be the sole judges in the matter. "The matters of policy decision cannot be interfered with by the court. It must be left to the government," Venugopal added.

Lawyer Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for one of the petitioners, told the court that the COVID-19 situation in Jammu and Kashmir has worsened and added that problems are being faced by doctors who cannot access necessary information about coronavirus treatment due to the internet speed. 75 doctors have also made a representation flagging the same concerns, Ahmadi said.

Justice Ramana said that the government is saying the people can rely on the landline broadband connection, to which Ahmadi responded by saying broadband connections account for less than one percent of the total internet connections in Jammu and Kashmir.

"There are around approximately 1 lakh 32 thousand broadband landline connections in Jammu and Kashmir, but more than one crore phone/internet connections. The total number of broadband connections in Jammu and Kashmir account for less than one percent of the total internet connections," he said.

Justice BR Gavai, another judge in the bench, said that the numbers are not in dispute but it's a legal question of balance and the government is raising security concerns.

Justice Ramana said that the Central government is claiming that there has been a surge in terrorist activities and they have collaborated via 4G. Ahmadi responded by saying that the terrorist activities were more in the 1990s when there was no internet at all.

Ahmadi submitted that the Centre is arguing that the national security may be compromised, but they have not been able to show any direct nexus in the case. Let them open internet speeds for a week and see if there is any nexus with terrorism, Ahmadi said.

Senior lawyer Salman Khurshid, appearing for another petitioner in the matter, said that private schools are under government directions to provide education via video-conferencing. We have an obligation under the Right to Education to provide education, Khurshid said.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the Central government had started with a complete lockdown and then brought in relaxations by allowing movement, followed by landline and then 2G internet services.

Notably, internet services were suspended in Jammu and Kashmir in August last year after the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. While the 2G services on postpaid mobile phones and broadband have been restored, 4G services still remain suspended.
SAN DIEGO - Authorities are looking into whether a man who they say wore a Ku Klux Klan hood while grocery shopping in a San Diego suburb over the weekend could face criminal charges, the sheriffs department said Monday.

The unidentified man was photographed with the white hood while pushing a grocery cart at the store in the town of Santee on Saturday, a day after the county required people to wear masks outside to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to the San Diego County Sheriffs Department.

Store clerks asked him to take off the hood or leave the store, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. He removed the tall, pointed hood that had two small eye holes cut into it, paid for his groceries and left.

Deputies were not called to the scene but are investigating to see if he could be charged with a possible hate crime, the department said.

The Sheriffs Department does not condone hate or any acts of intolerance in our communities, the department said in a news release.

Santee Mayor John Minto issued a statement thanking all who stepped forward to curtail this sad reminder of intolerance. Santee, its leaders, and I will not tolerate such behaviour.
Julian Assange's extradition case has been postponed and the hearing is likely to resume on September 7, a court heard.

The Wikileaks founder, 48, is wanted in the US for allegedly conspiring with army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to expose military secrets a decade ago.

District judge Vanessa Baraitser has ordered the Australian's case, which had been set for May 18, be moved from Woolwich Crown Court to another court and to resume in September.

'It's going to take some negotiation to find a Crown Court that is open in September, in the current climate, and willing and available to take this hearing,' judge Baraitser said in Westminster Magistrates' Court today.

The new location, which might be outside London, and start date for the remaining three weeks of the hearing will be confirmed on Friday.

Julian Assange's (pictured leaving Westminster Magistrates' Court on January 13, 2020) extradition case has been postponed and the hearing is likely to resume on September 7, a court heard

Assange is captured wearing two pair of glasses during the hearing on February 24, 2020. The Wikileaks founder, 48, is wanted in the US for allegedly conspiring with army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to expose military secrets a decade ago

Judge Baraitser delayed the May 18 hearing last week over her concerns that Assange and lawyers wouldn't be able to attend court in person due to the coronavirus lockdown.

She suggested July or August, but both prosecution and defence lawyers were busy during those months. Both parties support the delay until September.

Lawyers didn't attend today's hearing due to the lockdown and Assange's representatives confirmed he was 'too unwell' to appear via videolink.

Assanges lawyers have said they have been unable to take instruction from their client since the coronavirus outbreak.

Six journalists and six members of the public were in the courtroom. Journalists dialling in were accidentally left on mute and could only hear holding music for the entire hearing.

A sallow skinned and bearded Julian Assange was carried down the steps of London's Ecuadorian embassy last year after seven years inside, and was carrying a copy of 'Gore Vidal: History of The National Security State'

Judge Baraitser scheduled a callover hearing on June 1 if the Australian was well enough to attend via videolink. He will remain in custody until then.

She said: Last week it became clear the May 18 hearing was at best uncertain and I adjourned the hearing until today for parties to take instructions. A likely start date would be Monday September 7 but I cannot confirm that today.

What is Julian Assange charged with in the US? The US Department of Justice has charged Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with 18 crimes - 17 under the Espionage Act and one under computer hacking legislation. Officials say Assange, as founder of WikiLeaks, endangered US informants in Iran, Syria, China, Iraq and Afghanistan by publishing unredacted documents that identified them. The 18 charges against Assange, filed in Virginia last year, are: Count 1: Conspiracy to receive national defense information Counts 2-4: Obtaining National Defense Information Counts 5-8: Obtaining National Defense Information Counts 9-11: Disclosure of National Defense Information Counts 12-14: Disclosure of National Defense Information Counts 15-17: Disclosure of National Defense Information Count 18: Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion (Hacking) Advertisement

A crown court will be made available in September but I cannot say which court this will be. It will take some time to impose firm arrangements so the best thing I can suggest is parties will be notified by email this Friday confirming the location and start date.

Its likely to be a crown court in London but it will take some time to negotiate to get an open, not suspended, crown court.

We will do our utmost to make sure the defendant can attend. In 28 days unless he is unwell he must appear, as everyone does, over videolink.

James Lewis, QC, for the US government, said: We do need time for the American prosecutors to come over.

We think it is doubtful flights will have resumed earlier than then so we would rather have a September date because it gives more opportunity to have the American prosecutors actually in court.

A US grand jury has indicted Assange on 18 charges - 17 of which fall under the Espionage Act - including conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified diplomatic and military documents.

The charges carry a total of 175 years' imprisonment.

Assange's father John Shipton is delighted about the delay, saying it will allow family and supporters from Australia to attend.

He's also optimistic Assange might not be behind bars for the whole four months.

'I'm hoping there will be a very strong and firm bail application,' he told AAP. 'It appears his lawyers held the power in today's hearing and got the hearing dates they wanted, so it's a good sign.'

Last week Mr Fitzgerald told the court Assange is facing the full power of the White House in a prosecution that had been influenced by Donald Trump.

Assange pictured in a prison van in April last year. Assange was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 to avoid onward extradition to the US from Sweden for sexual offence allegations dating back to 2010 which he has always denied

He said: This is an unprecedented case with obvious political and historical implications. The relevant defence expands over 10 years and several continents.

Our expert evidence is that the decision to prosecute by the US was influenced by senior members of the administration and the president of the US.

He is there for facing the full power of the US government. They have massive resources, they have a series of legal resumptions operating in their favour.

Assange was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 to avoid onward extradition to the US from Sweden for sexual offence allegations dating back to 2010 which he has always denied.

In November Swedish authorities dropped the rape allegations but he was jailed for 50 weeks last April after breaching his bail conditions when the asylum period granted to him expired.
It was a rare show of global leadership on the part of the Europeans, and a late-hour attempt at international coordination. Countries the world over have been pursuing divergent  and often competing  approaches to tackling the pandemic.

While the European Union may have led this global fund-raising effort, the bloc has struggled to get its own 27 members on the same page with health, travel and financial measures to respond to the coronavirus crisis. And the details of how the money raised on Monday will be distributed still remain to be sorted out.

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union that spearheaded the initiative, said the money would be spent over the next two years to support promising initiatives around the globe. The ultimate goal is to deliver universal and affordable access to medication to fight Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The multilateral effort stood in sharp contrast to the solo road the United States is on as scientists everywhere scramble to develop a vaccine to stop the virus that has ravaged most parts of the globe, leaving 250,000 dead so far.

In early March, German government officials said they believed that Mr. Trump had tried to lure a company based in southwestern Germany that was known to be working on a vaccine to move its research work to the United States.
Mr. Larssons posthumously-published trilogy of Millennium novels  including The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo  are highly derivative of all previous-to-him Scandinavian thriller writers, Ms. Lesser added.

Mr. Nesbo, in the introduction to a 2009 English-language reissue of his third Blake mystery, The Man on the Balcony, wrote: Sjowall and Wahloo have shoulders that can accommodate all of todays crime writers. And we are all there.

Maj Sjowall was born on Sept. 25, 1935, in Stockholm, where she grew up on the top floor of one of the hotels her father managed. She recalled an unhappy, unloved childhood.

She was a single mother at 21  her boyfriend had left her before her daughter, Lena Sjowall, was born  then married and divorced two older men by the time she met Mr. Wahloo, a left-wing journalist and novelist, in about 1962.

Ms. Sjowall was a magazine art director, and the two worked for different publications owned by the same publisher. They fell in love discussing a crime series that would focus on a single detective. They also wanted their books to reflect their Marxist views.

We wanted to show where Sweden was heading: towards a capitalistic, cold and inhuman society where the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, Ms. Sjowall said in an interview with The Guardian in 2009.

From the beginning, they planned 10 books, which they wrote at night while her daughter and their sons, Jens and Tetz Sjowall Wahloo, slept. Facing each other across a table, they wrote alternate chapters in longhand. The next night, they edited and typed the others work, mindful of finding a style that appealed to a broad audience,
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

When COVID-19 came to Indian Country, it spread quickly. The Navajo Nation now has the third-highest rate of cases in the United States, behind New York and New Jersey, and health care professionals anticipate the peak is yet to come. In New Mexico, more than 50% of people infected are Native American.

But the Navajo Nation, along with 573 other federally recognized tribal governments  22 of which are in New Mexico  still hasnt received substantial support from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which Congress passed in late March. The act allocated $8 billion directly to the tribes to be split among them.

The original deadline for getting funds out the door was eight days ago.

For Indian Country, the struggle to get their fair share of federal resources has always been a problem. Thats a big reason why tribes are so at risk right now, because they have consistently been left behind, Sen. Tom Udall told the Journal in a phone interview last week. The CARES Act was a good start  but again were seeing Native communities face roadblocks and hurdles.

Udall, the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said he thinks the Treasury Department did not understand how to help the tribes get this money directly. He said the department did not consult with the committee on the process. As of Friday, the department had not determined how much will be delivered to each tribal government, according to court documents.

They didnt quite know how to deal with what the formula should be, Udall said. I dont think they know how to do tribal consultation and how to do it effectively and quickly. I dont think they knew how to rely on and utilize the resources in government that know about tribes and could give them information where they wouldnt be making mistakes along the way.

Court fight

Rep. Deb Haaland, who represents the 1st Congressional District and is a member of the Laguna Pueblo, said the New Mexico delegation and the Congressional Native American Caucus fought hard to get tribes included in the CARES Act.

When we found out the White House was proposing zero (for tribes in the Coronavirus Relief Fund) all of us got on the phone and called our colleagues, Haaland told the Journal last week. It was my understanding that the White House came back with $3 billion, and we pushed harder. We ended up with 8.  Its not enough but we need it now.

But questions about how to distribute the money among the tribal governments quickly arose, and who qualifies for the money proved to be a sticking point.

The Treasury Department included hundreds of Alaska Native corporations  regional and village entities owned and operated by Alaska Natives on a for-profit basis  as eligible for a cut of the $8 billion.

This led the Navajo Nation and at least 10 other tribes to sue Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, arguing that the corporations should not qualify as tribal governments.

According to a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last month, if the money is split equally among tribes and ANCs, each tribal government will receive 30% less than they would if the ANCs are not included. And if the funds are divided based on population, land base, employees and expenditures, the ANCs will receive the largest share of the money.

Under this approach, the ANCs will have an outsized impact, the tribes lawyers wrote in the complaint. Together, the ANCs own approximately 44 million acres of land. These landholdings are equivalent to the total trust land base of all federally recognized Tribal governments in the lower-48 states combined.

Although ANCs contend they should be considered tribal governments because they represent the interests of Native shareholders and are helping them through this crisis, a U.S. district judge sided with the tribes last week . A memorandum opinion by Judge Amit Mehta says the tribes have proved they would suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief and that ANCs do not satisfy the CARES Act definition of a tribal government.

Judge Mehta issued a preliminary injunction on April 27 temporarily prohibiting the Treasury Department from disbursing the funds to ANCs. But his ruling did not order an immediate release of the money to tribal governments.

The parties filed a joint status report Friday in which the Treasury Department said it had not yet arrived at a determination as to the amounts to be paid to Tribal governments from the Coronavirus Relief Fund.  Defendant plans to post details of the allocation on its website.

Haaland and Udall said they are still negotiating on additional relief for tribal communities in a coming economic package.

No revenue

The Indian Health Service, which provides medical care to Native populations, has received and distributed about $1 billion in CARES Act funding at its hospitals, clinics and testing sites. And agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Housing and Urban Development have also been allocated money to help tribal communities through existing programs.

But this falls far short of what the tribal governments need.

Tribes are sovereign nations. They know their communities best, Haaland said. So they would have to allocate the money in different ways to achieve the same end, which is to protect their community members from contracting virus, to stop the spread, to make sure they are sending their resources where theyre needed most. It could be for PPE; it could be for testing, or to make sure they have clean water to drink and wash their hands with. It could be for any number of things  thats what is stopping them from having a full-on response to this pandemic.

Santa Clara Pueblo Gov. J. Michael Chavarria said tribes would use the money for such things as helping to offset costs of protective equipment, and to pay for law enforcement at roadblocks and deep cleaning of facilities.

Our tribal businesses are closed, and were not generating any revenue. We dont have a tax base, said Chavarria, who is also the chairman of the All Pueblo Council of Governors. We are not asking for a handout. This is a trust responsibility of the federal government.

Although federal programs for tribal education, health, housing and food assistance have received a bump in funding, it takes time for the money to reach pueblos.

Some pueblos are classified as self-governed, while others are direct-service tribes. This determines whether money goes directly to pueblo governments or is diverted through a regional office.

Its not a straight flow-through, Chavarria said. The different mechanisms are complex. Life goes on, so we are taking steps to fill in the gaps and make ends meet.

Other local governments have received help from the Coronavirus Relief Fund already: Bernalillo County has received $31.8 million, and Albuquerque has received over $150 million, according to officials.

Donations, state aid

Rep. Derrick Lente, D-Sandia Pueblo, has seven pueblos in his district, and hes been hearing a lot from their leaders about frustrations with the federal response.

Each tribe is essentially holding their breath, waiting for those dollars to come in so they can go and buy those essentials they have to have for their community members that have come down with these illnesses, he said.

In the meantime, Lente has been reaching out directly to state government officials, who have been able to deliver resources in a matter of days.

Donations and volunteers have also become a valuable asset. The Navajo Nation, which crosses into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, has been purchasing masks and food with help from donations. The Pueblo Relief Fund, started by the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center and the All Pueblo Council of Governors, has been providing supplies for pueblos in New Mexico and Texas.

The New Mexico Indian Affairs Department, the New Mexico Community Foundation and the New Mexico National Guard have also been delivering food to tribes using money from the Native American Relief Fund.

But Lente said it shouldnt have to be this way. He said its unforgivable that the federal government hasnt done more to help already.

The federal government has a trust responsibility to ensure that as caretakers for the tribes that they must be able to meet certain obligations, Lente said. To this point, those obligations, in my assessment, have been very fragmented or have been very absent. If not for the ways that tribes have come together, if not for the way the state of New Mexico has partnered with the tribes, the circumstances might have been much more dire than they are today.

This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.
A left-wing pundit accuses the government of stigmatizing Budapest by starting to lift the coronavirus restrictions only in the countryside. His pro-government counterpart finds such speculation absurd and politically motivated.

The government has partially lifted restrictions outside Budapest and Pest County from Monday. In the countryside, kindergartens, churches, open air restaurants, bars and beaches can open, but social distancing rules need to be observed.



Merces Andras Jambor accuses the government of using the coronavirus to deepen the cleavage between Budapest and the countryside.



In a Facebook comment, the alt-left commentator who also serves as an advisor to Budapest Mayor Karacsony suggests that the government wants to stir up anti-urban sentiment among its core rural supporters by suggesting that the capital is the heart of the epidemic, and therefore they should fear its inhabitants.



Magyar Hirlaps Daniel Galsai finds Jambors suggestion outright ridiculous. The pro-government columnist finds it justified that the government has not yet lifted the ban in Budapest, bearing in mind that half of the those confirmed to have caught COVID-19 live in the capital.



This opinion does not necessarily represent the views of XpatLoop.com or the publisher. Your opinions are welcome too - for editorial review before possible publication online.

Click here to Share Your Story
TDT | Manama

The Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) is contributing BD60,000 to a joint-project with the Capital Governorate to establish temporary housing for migrant workers and ensure their safe transfer to these facilities, as part of national efforts to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19).

BCCIs contribution is within the framework of its close relationship with the governorate. Capital Governor Shaikh Hisham bin Abdul Rahman Al Khalifa praised the important role played by BCCI in supporting national efforts to contain and prevent the spread of COVID-19, and its support to traders under the current circumstances.

Shaikh Hisham said that this initiative confirms its active contribution to solving the problem of the congestion of migrant workers in their residences within the governorate. It is also in line with its proven national role in supporting the various initiatives for the benefit of both citizens and residents.

Shaikh Hisham called on various institutions and private sector companies to contribute to the efforts made by the governorate to reduce the intensity of expatriate labour workers through the establishment of temporary housing or donations of existing buildings for temporary housing.

For his part, BCCI chairman Samir Abdullah Nass said that this initiative comes in implementation of the royal directives of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, together with the efforts, cooperation and coordination with the esteemed government, to combat the coronavirus.

He stressed the importance of harnessing all of BCCIs capabilities to support the national efforts to address this pandemic and its negative repercussions on various sectors.

He pointed out the chambers keenness to align with national efforts to protect the safety and stability of Bahraini society. The BCCI chief stressed that expatriate labour workers in the Kingdom are being fully cared for and respected by the government and that they enjoy all the rights guaranteed by the laws and legislations of the Kingdom.

He pointed out that all preventive measures are being taken to reinforce their protection and their safeguarding from the current epidemic.
Dr. Zoltan Kovacs- the international spokesperson for the Hungarian government on Monday elaborated on his country's relationship with China amid the COVID-19 crisis in an exclusive interview to Republic TV. He mentioned that Hungary has historical ties with China founded on mutual respect. At the same time, he highlighted that all countries needed to examine whether their supply chains, such as healthcare systems were dependent on one single country. Dr. Kovacs contended that the lesson from the aftermath of the novel coronavirus was that nations should avoid overdependence on a single source in the future.

On the possibility of Hungary reviewing the balance of ties with China, Dr. Zoltan Kovacs said, "The relationship with China is obviously a very specific issue all countries around the world are coping with. Hungary has immense respect and historical ties with China dating back to the 1960s. Our approach has always been founded on mutual respect. I think that is the essence in the relationship between any two countries."

Read: Travel Restrictions Keep Indian Chess Player In Hungary; I Am Fine, He Says

He added, "But at the same time obviously, we have to face global challenges as you suggested, i.e how much Hungary or European Union's economies, supply chains especially if it is the healthcare system are dependent on what country. And that is an issue that many countries around the world have to address. I think that one lesson which we have already drawn from fighting the virus and the economic aftermath is that all countries around the world have to take care of their own supply chains especially the healthcare system. If you are dependent on only one source, that Hungary and other countries have to avoid in the future."

Read: Hungary Seen Breaking EU Rules With Education Law Amendments

'These are political attacks'

During the interview, Dr. Kovacs also slammed the "liberal media" for criticising his country's efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Noting that India too had been panned by sections of the Western media, he claimed that these were political attacks on governments and politicians they did not like. Moreover, he stressed that the responsibility of an elected government was towards the people.

"What is wrong is the attitude and behaviour of what they call themselves the liberal media. We were always leading the way. It was about Hungary-bashing for the last couple of years. Indeed, as you have suggested, we have seen examples of India-bashing for the last two years. As a matter of fact, these are political attacks on those governments, politicians which they don't like. And they don't really matter anymore," the Hungarian government spokesperson stated.

Read: Hungary Proposes Legislation To End Legal Recognition Of Trans People

Read: Hungarys Orban Warns About Climate Crisis, Slow EU Growth
In the HBO drama The Sopranos, crime boss Tony Soprano sneaks through a maze of storefronts to meet with his therapist. The last thing he wants is for his mob family to know he is seeing a shrink. That would be a sign of weakness in his macho culture.

That male culture is still there in our industry, says Francis Callahan, a labor leader and educator for building trade unions in Massachusetts.

To be absolutely clear, Callahan is neither a mob boss nor a TV actor. He is part of the senior leadership of Massachusetts AFL-CIO, serving as president of the 75,000 member Building Trades Council. But Callahan has seen firsthand how opioids have led to addictions and then to post-injury mental health issues for many workers.

Its a culture of toughness, in a word, a lot of testosterone, he says. We dont like talking about our feelings a lot, so its that stigma with mental health.

With many musculoskeletal injuries treated with pain medications, workers can still show up on the job. You can still work. Its not like a broken leg or a broken arm, you can still go to work, work through the pain. The nature of the industry is also if you dont work, you dont get paid, he explained at this years Workers Compensation Research Institutes annual conference.

Workers compensation pays only 60 percent of a workers pay in Massachusetts. You can make a lot more than that if youre willing to take a pain medication and soldier on, he said.

There are other incentives to solider on. Workers not working may lose pension credits and health insurance. So you lose a lot, even on workers comp, so youre more likely to tough it out, Callahan said.

Depression and Suicide

Callahans experience with workers for whom what began as a work injury leads to mental health issues is supported by the research of Dr. Les Boden, professor of Environmental Medicine at Boston University School of Public Health that he shared in detail at the WCRI conference.

Bodens research is focused on the economic and human consequences of injuries. He has served as a consultant for governmental agencies and hes currently the chair of the workers compensation study panel of the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Bodens work shows that for many workers, the effects of injuries do not end when the physical harm is healed and they get back to their jobs. In some cases, the effects can be deep and long-term and affect mortality.

Ive found out that many workers have effects on their earnings that last long past the time that theyre no longer on workers compensation, he said. Ive also discovered that lots of workers whove had workplace injuries end up on Social Security and disability insurance, many more than the Social Security Administration thinks are there.

He has also learned that workers who suffer lost time injuries may actually die earlier than others in similar situations.

Bodens research team began 20 years ago following 100,000 workers in New Mexico after they were injured. The initial findings confirmed that workers with lost time injuries die sooner. In terms of overall mortality, there was considerably a higher rate of death among people who had lost time injuries than people who only had medical only injuries.

The study looked at causes of death, recognizing that the opioid epidemic began during the period these workers were injured. He found that there was a substantial increase among those with lost time injuries in both drug related death and suicide deaths as a percentage of all the people in those categories.

Particularly among women, a lot of the suicide deaths were drug overdose deaths. For men, the percentage wasnt as high. Boden said thats because men tend to kill themselves with guns, and so drugs are not as important a cause.

My conclusion here is that this is an important issue, Boden said. That people who are injured at work have an increased risk of both opioid dependence and depression, which is what eventually led people to die from suicide and to die from drug overdoses.

He said two contributing factors are the limited access to mental health services for injured workers and the extent to which workers compensation does not always pay attention to depression issues that occur post injury.

This is something I think that its time for all of us who are interested in occupational safety and health to take a closer look at, to prevent morbidity and mortality resulting from a workplace injury, but not directly from an injury, but indirectly from the mental health consequences, he said.

Worker Programs

According to the AFL-CIO leader Callahan, his union is addressing mental health issues with a program built on education, drug testing, a strong benefit plan with an employee assistance program, and peer-to-peer communication.

We call each other brother and sister in the labor union, and there really is a family aspect to that camaraderie, says Callahan. If youre more comfortable talking to, you know if youre a carpenter youre going to talk to a carpenter, or an electrician or an iron worker, its that camaraderie on the job, he said.

Co-workers can reach out or a steward who sees that someone is having difficulty may ask if something is going on at home. And the worker can be directed to the right place for the confidential treatment they need, Callahan said.

Mary Christiansen, senior manager of the self-insured workers compensation program at Southern California Edison, advocates taking into account the employees life outside of work, as well as at work. She said her team recognizes that when people have injuries, there may be things happening in their lives that prevent them from recovering as quickly as they should or can. These may include depression, comorbidities, financial problems or family problems.

We stepped back and we said, What does the company have available to help these people, these injured peers, recover?'

The program includes but goes beyond the employee assistance program to involve those handling wellness, benefits, financial services, health advocacy, even payroll. One result is a fact sheet with hotlines that claims reps can use to refer employees seeking help with specific issues.

You need to listen to what theyre saying and try to understand whats going on, Christiansen said. She said overall workers comp claims costs are down in part due to this approach to the whole person.

Treatment

There can be tension between insurers looking for evidence-based treatments and professionals offering treatments for mental health issues. Dr. Kenneth Larsen, a clinical psychologist at the Department of Medicine at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston, a pioneering occupational health center, has 20-plus years of experience caring for injured workers. Much of his work has been with severe, acute and chronic trauma, using what he calls limbic-oriented approaches.

Whereas cognitive behavioral therapies deal with talking about thoughts, ideas and values, the limbic approach works to quiet down the parts of the brain that trigger anxiety, anger, rage and sensations that affect functioning.

Larsen explains that patients with post-traumatic stress have memories that are like movies going on in their head that they cant stop and that prevent them from going back to work. They often feel that theyve lost their abilities and theyre very anxious. Theyre breathing up in their throat, their chest is tight, their neck is tight throughout the day; theyre getting just locked down, he said.

Just talking about it reinforces the memory. Instead, Larsen concentrates on quieting down the alarm center by teaching them how to breathe deeply down into their abdomen. Once the patient is calmed, it becomes possible to begin talking about coping, the future, hopes and dreams. But if theyre anxious and out of sorts, then you can never get through to that spot, he said.

Larsen forges an alliance with patients, getting them to understand that the wisdom is in their own body and then to gently get them to take more control of their lives. He said that if limbic treatment begins early, they can be back to work very quickly. Limbic therapies can take a long time, as many as 15 to 20 sessions. But he has developed a way to do this in three sessions and has treated almost 450 patients with his method.

His treatment requires working closely with surgeons, pain specialists and case managers from workers comp insurers or ancillary companies. Theyre the gold in this industry, he says of case managers. With a workers comp nurse attached to a case, youre going to have a better, faster outcome, he says. But everyone has to talk to each other.

Topics Workers' Compensation Massachusetts Drugs
Amanda Holden shared her gratitude for the NHS while appearing on Monday's edition of Good Morning Britain.

The Britain's Got Talent judge, 49, discussed how those working in the healthcare system helped her when her baby son was stillborn at seven months in 2011.

Detailing how thankful she was, she said: 'Ive used them more than most people Ive had to rely on them, I think we've always known the NHS is there and we all do take it for granted but its wonderful how we shine a light on them.

Moving: Amanda Holden gushed about the NHS on Monday's Good Morning Britain, as she said it is 'wonderful to shine a light' on their work

'Its been well documented that Chris and I had a baby boy who was born sleeping, then a year later I gave birth to Hollie and went into a coma, and then my sister had a car accident, but they took care of us so well... Im indebted to them really.'

Amanda lost her beloved son Theo seven months into her pregnancy in February 2011.

Amanda was fast approaching her due date with her son when she was given the devastating news that Theo's heart had stopped beating.

A year before, she had miscarried a little boy at 16 weeks. In an interview about that time, she said: 'It was without doubt the blackest period of my life.'

Experience: Amanda lost her beloved son Theo seven months into her pregnancy in February 2011 and she said the NHS 'took care of us so well... Im indebted to them really' (pictured with daughters Hollie and Lexi)

Sweet message: Amanda said of the NHS, 'I think we've always known the NHS is there and we all do take it for granted but its wonderful how we shine a light on them'

'I have such a charmed and lovely life and I just never imagined I would miscarry a baby. Never. You never think it might happen to you.'

The actress, who has two daughters with husband Chris Hughes, Alexa, also known as Lexi, 14, and Hollie, eight, said their baby boy would never be forgotten.

During her Heart Radio show last month, she said: 'I'll literally do anything for the National Health Service because they got me through it, they got Chris through it and I now thankfully have two healthy girls and a little boy who is still part of the family but just not here.'

Meanwhile, Amanda went on to discuss her charity single Over The Rainbow which will be raising money for the NHS.

Family unit: The actress has two daughters with husband Chris Hughes, Lexi, 14, and Hollie, eight (pictured)

Great cause: Meanwhile, Amanda went on to discuss her charity single Over The Rainbow which will be raising money for the NHS and detailed how all money goes to help frontline staff

Of the music, she said: 'Its my debut single and its extraordinary, I made an album but we put it on hold because of what was going on...

'We had recorded it with a live orchestra last year, and [at the time] I thought we'll have a few bubbles while singing with the orchestra and they remembered we did it, so we turned it around in a week and now its for charity.'

Going on to thank Heart Radio for helping support her, she went on: 'Global and Heart are so supportive, they are playing it often for me. Im thrilled for their support, every download is 99p and all of that goes to the NHS.

'One of the ways the money is going to be used is we're looking after the mental wellbeing of a lot of our frontliners, they're creating rooms that'll be called wobble rooms, where they can go in and collapse, and have a wobble.'

Helping others: Amanda said of the song, 'I made an album but we put it on hold because of what was going on... so we turned it around in a week and now its for charity'
INDEPENDENCE  The Primitive Peddler was forced to shut its doors last month as part of a statewide effort to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Melissa Thoma, who operates the antique and home decor store in downtown Independence, is going to keep them closed for awhile longer despite Gov. Kim Reynolds proclamation allowing many stores, restaurants and gyms to reopen for business Friday.

Im going to stay closed, just for my safety and the safety of the employees and the shoppers, Thoma said. Im just not real comfortable about it.

Ive talked to some other business owners in town too, and I think its kind of a 50-50 split, she added. Financially wed all like to be open. Its not a decision you want to make.

Thoma will continue offering curbside service to customers who order through her website but isnt certain when shell fully reopen.

Independence is in Buchanan County, one of 77 Iowa counties allowed to reopen many businesses at 50 percent capacity. Black Hawk, Bremer and Tama counties nearby are among the 22 counties where closures have been extended at least through May 15.

Website posts by various Independence stores and restaurants show opinions remain split on whether its time to open back up.

Due to the governor we are able to have dine in limited to 50% capacity plus we do carry-out orders, owners of Ariannas Kitchen posted on their Facebook page, noting the restaurant will be open Friday. Remember to wash your hands, practice social distancing, and stay safe. We cant wait to see our customers!

But the owners of First Street Deli said they will continue limiting service to carry-out orders only.

After much consideration (we) have decided that First Street Deli will NOT open up for sit down dining on Friday, First Street Deli said on its Facebook site. We feel the health and safety of our community, family and friends is most important and believe this is the best way for us to help that along.

Eschens Clothing in downtown Independence took a hit when it was forced to close and a number of wedding postponements and events cut into formal wear sales and rentals.

Were going to unlock our doors and open  and were going to get people in the store if we can, said Dan Eschen. We will practice the social distancing.

Eschen is hoping customers return and other stores in the Independence business district can get back to business soon.

We need as many businesses that can open to be open, he said. We all feed off each other.

At least two Independence fitness centers  Iowa Strength and Rivers EDGE Sports and Fitness  will reopen Friday. Both have indicated they will enforce social distancing requirements on the number of individuals allowed in.

The governors order also allows libraries to reopen at 50 percent capacity Friday. But City Manager Al Roder said the Independence Public Library, as well as City Hall, will keep doors shut for now.

I believe they will be opening on Tuesday to curbside service, said Roder, noting even that practice had stopped earlier.

Decisions about whether to reopen are being made along many of Iowas Main Streets this week, including restaurants and stores in Winneshiek County.

I cant speak to a percentage but its mixed here as well, said Andrea Watson of the Decorah Area Chamber of Commerce.

I know that there are some folks who are trying to open up, maybe by letting one person in a store at a time, she said. There are others that are not comfortable opening at this time.
Click here to read the full article.

A cinematic essay about life, memory and time, Argentine Nicolas Privideras Adios a la Memoria (A Farewell to Memory), the Doc Works in Progress (WIP) winner at Spains Malaga Film Festival, captures the life and recollections of the filmmakers Alzheimers-stricken father.

Produced by Pablo Ratto of Trivial Media, Adios a la Memoria does so through home movies the filmmakers father shot, footage from archives as well as those filmed by Prividera, as a family tragedy during the late-70s dictatorship in Argentina continues to haunt the family.

The docu-essay steers away from the standard first-person narration, and instead is told in the third person by Prividera who studied at the University of Buenos Aires and the National School of Experimentation and Filmmaking and whose previous films, M and Tierra de los Padres, parts one and two of a trilogy completed by Adios, have garnered a slew of awards.

Prividera delved into why he sought to explore the theme of memory, his cinematic influences and what the future holds:

Goodbye to Memory is the third part of a trilogy on the subject of personal and collective memory, you have said. How did you become interested in this topic and why?

Lets say that the topic was imposed on me organically by my experience as the son of a person disappeared by the Argentine dictatorship which began in 1976. The search for what had happened to my mother (including the contradictory memory about her that had remained in the family and those who knew her in her social militancy) was the subject of my first film, M, in 2007. What interested me was how the past is still present, and that was also the subject of my second film, Tierra de los Padres, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2011. In Adios a la Memoria, I return to the home movies that my father filmed between the 60s and 80s, material he had briefly included in M, but there was so much of it that it needed its own movie. All three form a sort of trilogy, although each one can be seen and understood separately.

Story continues

Tell us about the influences on your works. What aspects of French docu-essay director Chris Markers films have influenced Goodbye to Memory?

It is inevitable to think of Marker, of course, since he is the undisputed master of film essays. What influenced me the most, consciously, is the way in which he managed to escape the most performative of that format, avoiding falling into the traps of the purely subjective documentary. In Marker, there is no personal memory that is not anchored in, and in tension with, collective memory. On the other hand, Marker also teaches us how to work with montage and voice off or voice over, avoiding any redundancy or linear exposure, playing (like memory itself) with its constant counterpoint between the most diverse images and thoughts.

Why do you refer to Alexandre Dumas classic The Count of Monte Cristo in your film?

This is a Markerian hallmark, in the sense of assuming all text (be it in books or movies) as part of ones memory. In the case of The Count of Monte Cristo, he is one of the bridges between my memory and that of my father, as well as a figure that summarizes the experience of confinement (including the confinement in memory itself). That is best expressed in the 1922 silent movie, directed by Emmett J. Flynn and starring John Gilbert, which I include clips of in Adios a la Memoria.

The first movie you made when you were very young was one of horror. Why did you choose that genre and how does it influence your works today?

It is my first movie in the universe of home movies, and that is why I include it in the film to account for the moment when cinema became a yearning. But it could be said that the genre chose me, and not the other way around, since terror was a way to exorcise the daily horror that was breathed in the street, under that apparent atmosphere of normality that the dictatorship provided during the day (the killers mostly came out at night, like the monsters from those old movies I used to watch on TV).

Do you already have a new project in development? What is it about?

There are always ideas and projects, but it usually takes several years for them to settle. For example, I began to mull making Adios a la Memoria while shooting M in 2007. But only after my fathers illness did I understand what film I should make.

Best of Variety

Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
A British oil expert had tested Covid-19 positive in the U.K., then negative after 14 days, before coming to HCMC and testing positive again.

The oil expert, Vietnams latest Covid-19 patient, had not been treated in the U.K. after testing positive on April 7. He had isolated himself at home before testing negative 14 days later, an epidemiological investigation has shown, HCMC authorities say.

Doctor Nguyen Tri Dung, Director of HCMC Center for Disease Control, said Monday that British authorities had given "Patient 271" a certificate that he was free of the virus before coming to Vietnam.

The 37-years-old arrived in HCMC on April 28 on a private jet. He was quarantined on arrival on the same day and tested negative. But a test five days later came out positive. The man had flown in with 12 other passengers who are still under quarantine and have tested negative so far.

The flight crew left Vietnam immediately and did not go through immigration process.

"Patient 271" has not developed a fever, cough, or sore throat as of Monday morning. He has been moved to the city's Cu Chi field hospital for treatment.

"The patient was quarantined upon arrival and monitored in accordance with the procedures so there are no transmission factors in the community," Dung said.

Vietnam suspends foreign nationals from entering the country starting March 22. In certain cases, those coming with diplomatic or official passports, or for special economic projects, are given entry, but they need to present a Covid-19 free certificate from a recognized authority in the country of embarkation. All persons are put under 14 days of quarantine upon arrival and tested for the novel coronavirus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said in its scientific brief on April 24: "There is not enough evidence about the effectiveness of antibody-mediated immunity to guarantee the accuracy of an immunity passport or risk-free certificate", adding that using such certificates might increase transmission risks.

On Monday, HCMC authorities said everyone arriving in the city from abroad will be quarantined for 14 days and tested on the first, fifth, 10th and last day of isolation. The Health Ministry regulates that arrivals are tested on the first and last days of the 14-day quarantine period only.

HCMC has recorded 55 cases. It is treating eight active cases and has discharged the rest.

Vietnam, which still has 53 patients under treatment, began day 18 without community transmission Monday morning.
WASHINGTON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A new survey commissioned by the National Association of Letter Carriers found that, by an overwhelming margin, Americans support federal government funding that would allow the United States Postal Service to survive the devastating financial impact of the pandemic.

That is the bottom-line result of a bipartisan survey done among registered voters by two public opinion firms, one that does polling for Republican clients (North Star Opinion Research) and the other that conducts surveys for Democratic groups (Hart Research Associates).

The poll measured voter perceptions of the importance of the Postal Service and of how to deal with the plummeting revenue caused by the pandemic-related economic shutdown.

Among those surveyed, 92 percent want Congress to appropriate funds in the next round of financial relief legislation to allow the USPS to maintain operations through the coronavirus crisis. That includes 90 percent of Republicans, 83 percent of Independents, 96 percent of Democrats, 90 percent of rural voters, 92 percent of non-college whites, and 94 percent of retirees.

One striking feature of the polling is the lack of any sharp divergence among Republicans, Democrats and Independents; among rural or urban voters; or among regions of the country. Support both for the Postal Service and for temporary funding to help it weather the pandemic-related drop in funding is extremely strong among all partisan, demographic and regional categories.

The postmaster general has stated that without emergency relief funding, the Postal Service could run out of money by the fall. The economic situation has led to government relief programs for various sectors, including airlines, small businesses and hotels, but not to similar assistance for the Postal Service, which also relies on earned revenue for its operations. The USPS does not receive taxpayer funding.

By 78 percent to 22 percent, voters prefer financial aid over requiring the USPS to significantly increase rates. That includes margins of 74 to 26 percent among Republicans and 81 to 19 among rural voters.

Among factors voters cited were the Postal Service's delivery of prescription medicines, bill payments and online purchases, along with its role now in helping the country fight the pandemic, including delivering test kits and other supplies.

The poll showed that voters across the boardof all demographics and party affiliations; all regions of the country; and rural, urban, and suburban areasoverwhelmingly favor the appropriation of funds vs. loans to get the Postal Service through the economic shutdown.

That was the case even when respondents were presented a counterargument stating that the USPS' financial problems predate the pandemic and repeating the mistaken idea that they are "caused by charging package delivery rates that are too low." Even in that case, two-thirds of those polled support providing "direct funding to the Postal Service during the crisis."

The results reflect a broad consensus that the mail and package service provided by the USPS is important, a sense shared by 94 percent of those polled. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) rate it very important. The Midwest leads with 95 percent of residents agreeing. As far as political affiliation, 95 percent of Democrats regard the Postal Service as important, 92 percent of Republicans, and 91 percent of Independents. Rural and suburban voters share that sentiment to the tune of 94 percent, slightly higher than urban voters.

The national online survey of 804 registered voters, conducted from April 10 to April 12, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.

To read a memorandum on the poll results prepared by Hart Research and North Star Opinion Research, visit: https://heroesdelivering.com.

SOURCE National Association of Letter Carriers
The abattoir behind Australia's biggest coronavirus cluster has outed itself after the Victorian government refused to name it.

The Cedar Meats facility in Brooklyn, Melbourne is linked with 34 cases of the deadly disease.

The first case was recorded in early April and a second worker tested positive on April 23, according to 3AW.

The factory closed for a deep clean on Friday and employees, many of whom work in close quarters, were told to get tested.

Nineteen positive results were returned on Sunday, causing Victoria to have its biggest daily total since April 11 when 24 cases were recorded.

The Cedar Meats facility (pictured) in Brooklyn, Melbourne is linked with 34 cases of the deadly disease

One of the workers at the plant had an operation at Melbourne's Sunshine Hospital after a workplace accident on Thursday.

He tested positive for the virus over the weekend, prompting around 20 hospital workers to self-isolate.

Cedar Meats General Manager Tony Kairouz said: 'All workers are self-quarantining and we are working closely with the Victorian health authorities.

'All meat processed at our facilities is processed in accordance with Australian Standards for food safety and our customers can be confident that the meat processed at our facilities is safe to eat.'

The Victorian government's refusal to name the meatworks caused outrage among locals.

Victorian Transport Association CEO Peter Anderson said the plant should have been named to protect truck drivers who deliver livestock and take away meat.

In a press conference today Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton: 'It's not for us to declare that it's a particular setting.

'If the meatworks wants to name itself to be clear that it doesn't involve other places, then they're free to do so.

'Naming it is not part of what's required for us to do our work.'

Meat processing plants globally are proving to be hotbeds for the disease because they have largely remained open despite employees working in close quarters.

In the US, meat factories have recorded 4,900 cases and at least 20 deaths.

Medical staff take down details after performing tests for the COVID-19 coronavirus on people who used a drive-through testing site in a Melbourne carpark on May 1

Cedar Meats statement in full A number of our employees have tested positive for coronavirus in one of our facilities in West Melbourne. The welfare and safety of our staff, visitors, suppliers and customers is our highest priority. All workers are self-quarantining and we are working closely with the Victorian health authorities. All meat processed at our facilities is processed in accordance with Australian Standards for food safety and our customers can be confident that the meat processed at our facilities is safe to eat. Advertisement

In Victoria there were 13,000 tests on Sunday - the largest amount of any state in one day - with 22 positive results.

There are now 1,406 cases in total in the state.

Victoria's state of alarm is set to finish on May 11, the earliest date the government will consider relaxing current social distancing restrictions.

The has launched a testing blitz that aims to complete 100,000 checks before next Monday.

On Sunday the government confirmed a teacher at Meadow Glen primary school in Epping had coronavirus and the school will be shut from Monday to Wednesday.

The teacher's infection was reported after Education Minister Dan Tehan accused Mr Andrews of failing in his leadership by keeping schools shut.

Mr Tehan later issued a statement withdrawing the remarks, saying he had overstepped the mark.
The fresh exchange of fire between the neighbors, who remain technically at war since the armistice 67 years ago, came only a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reemerged in public, dispelling rumors of his demise.

South Korean border guards fired two salvoes of warning shots in response, but an Army spokesman here said the North Korean guards probably fired their guns accidentally and did not see what they were shooting at.

North Korean border guards fired at a South Korean guard post in thick fog in the demilitarized zone in Gangwon Province on Sunday morning.

It was the first military provocation in the DMZ by North Korean border guards since October 2014 and violated an inter-Korean military pact from September 2018 to cease all hostilities in the border area.

A spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff here said several bullets were fired at the South Korean guard post on the frontline around 7:41 a.m. A South Korean sentry found four bullet marks and slugs on the wall of the guard post. Nobody was injured and no other equipment damaged.

South Korean soldiers shot back two salvoes of 10 warning shots and broadcast a warning to the North Korean side. South Korea also sent a fax to the North demanding an explanation, but there was no response.

The Defense Ministry here said the gunshots were a violation of the military pact, but a senior officer told reporters there was "a low possibility of a deliberate provocation."

He added the shots were fired in the early morning, when North Korean guards typically check their guns and may have been accidental since visibility was so low. He added that farmers on the North Korean side continued to go about their business as if nothing had happened and there were no unusual military movements there at the time.

"The North had little reason for a provocation since the South Korean guard post that was shot at has the advantage of terrain," he added.
Virginia Could Start Reopening May 15: Northam

Virginia could start reopening on May 15, Gov. Ralph Northam said Monday as he extended his stay at home order until May 14.

I anticipate moving into phase one on the 15th, the governor said at a press conference.

Youll be able to get your haircut but youll need an appointment.  You can go out to eat again but restaurants will use less of their seating so to spread people out more.  You can go to the gym, but with fewer people and more requirements for cleaning.

Officials still arent completely sure if reopening can start, prompting the extension of the harsh order.

Since March, Virginians have been largely confined to their houses and ordered not to leave except for so-called essential trips. As most states in the nation reopen or move toward reopening, Northam has so far resisted calls to ease restrictions along with neighboring Maryland and the District of Columbia.

People begin to arrive at the Family Drive-In Theatre during its opening night in Stephens City, Virginia on May 1, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Extending the order gives us an additional two weeks to watch the data and determine if we are meeting the metrics we need to see to enter phase one, the Democrat said. He said hed do everything he can to give advance notice to people if the plan changes.

Phase one includes easing limits on businesses and houses of worship. People who go out will be encouraged to maintain distance between themselves and others and use face coverings or masks in public.

Companies will be told to establish policies to keep employees and customers physically separated while avoiding conferences, trade shows, and other large gatherings. Employees may have to wear masks at work. Disinfecting should be stepped up. People who can work from home should continue to do so.

In-person gatherings at churches and other houses of worship will be allowed with social distancing measures. Farmers markets can operate.

The elderly and people with compromised immune systems should stay home if possible.

A protestor carries a sign reading We Will Not Comply during a demonstration outside the Virginia State Capitol to protest Virginias stay-at-home order and business closures in the wake of the CCP virus outbreak in Richmond, Virginia on April 16, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Phase one could last two to four weeks or even longer, according to state officials. Phases two and three are projected to last about three weeks each.

Phase two will see further easing of restrictions, including allowing social gatherings of up to 50 people. Workers will still be advised to work from home if possible and follow social distancing guidelines if they go to work.

Phase three would only be implemented if theres no evidence of a rebound in new cases for a sustained period of time. It would remove the ban on social gatherings and remove capacity limits on businesses and other establishments. At-risk populations including the elderly would still be advised to stay home when possible and a heightened amount of cleaning and disinfection would continue.

The number of new cases in Virginia hasnt fallen significantly in recent days, with record levels reached April 30 and May 1. The state saw 821 new cases overnight. Officials expect the daily rate to stay high as they ramp up testing even more. Theyre instead focusing on the percentage of people who test positive in respect to the total number tested, especially the 7-day moving average of positive tests.

We want to see a downward trend in that percentage over 14 days, Northam said.

Another key metric is the percentage of people hospitalized with COVID-19.
Kim Brent / The Enterprise

San Diego utility company Sempra Energy is delaying a final investment decision on its proposed Port Arthur LNG export terminal as liquefied natural gas prices are trading at record lows.

Although more than half of the proposed facility's production has been sold and a general contractor had already been chosen, Sempra said Monday that market conditions are prompting the company to push back a final investment decision to some point in 2021.
04.05.2020 LISTEN

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for Assin Central, Hon Nurein Shaibu Migyimah, has donated some food items to the Muslim communities in his constituency.

The items which include bags of sugar, boxes of tea leaves, cartons of milk, pieces of but as among others are meant to support them in their month-long Ramadan fasting, and prayers.

Presenting the items on behalf of Hon. Migyimah, the former constituency secretary for the NDC in Assin Central and spokesperson for the candidate, Mr. Eric Aubin Hawkins emphasized that, though the fasting period could still be successful even without the donations, he is of a firm belief that it would still be helpful especially to those who could not genuinely afford them for their fasting, so the need for the donation.

He also seized the opportunity to admonish them to exhibit the true nature of Islam in order to live harmoniously with each other and continue with their comprehensive prayers towards the country in this trying times to win the fight against COVID-19.

The Assin Fosu Imam, Imam Masahoud Alhassan Zachariah, who received the items on behalf of the Muslims, expressed gratitude for the kind gesture. He also advised all Muslims in the country to pray for Allah (God) to heal the world of COVID-19.

He further urged the faithful to cling to all the protective measures in the light of the global threat COVID-19 to halt its spread.
Canberra, May 4 : A specialist rescue dog named "Bear" has helped locate around 100 koalas in a fire-ravaged bushland in Australia, it was reported on Monday.

Since the devastating bushfires last summer, the keen-nosed Bear and his handlers have been working to track down those sick and injured koalas in order to provide them with treatment, reports Xinhua news agency.

The initiative is run by the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) Detection Dogs for Conservation team in conjunction with the International Fund for Animal Welfare and local wildlife groups.

The USC's detection dogs were previously used to locate animals for scientific studies but have proved crucial in finding injured wildlife in the vast areas of devastation left by the fires.

"We've worked in areas post-fire with other dogs, and they were able to smell their target odours, so it didn't surprise me that Bear could do it," Bear's handler, Romane Cristescu told local media.

"The catastrophic landscape is really hard for us, but for Bear it's an opportunity for him to be out and play and do what he likes doing." A thermal camera attached to a drone is also used by the team to help locate which areas the koalas are in and then the specially trained Bear is sent in to identify which tree they are hiding in.

Once the koalas are located, the team and wildlife care experts can give the animals the support they need to survive in the wild.

Thousands of koalas perished in last year's bushfires.
VICTORIAWhen John and Moufida Holubeshen heard that a nightmarish insect known for its poisonous sting and voracious appetite had arrived in their neck of the woods, they did what almost no one would have done.

They went looking for it.

The Nanaimo, B.C. residents made up half the foursome that ultimately tracked and destroyed the first Asian giant hornet nest discovered in North America.

It was an ordeal that included John becoming one of the first people to be stung by an Asian giant hornet in Canada.

Eight months later, as news of the hornet in the U.S. has beekeepers and spheksophobiacs abuzz, they still have a hard time believing they met the largest hornet species in the world in their hometown.

It felt so surreal. As we were leaving, what kept going through my mind was: Did that really happen? John said. It was almost like an out-of-body experience.

The Holubeshens, who are part of Nanaimos beekeeping club, found out the hornet was in their neighbourhood last September through a news release. Native to Asia, with queens that grow as long as five centimetres, the hornets were first spotted in North America last year  first in White Rock and Nanaimo, B.C., then in Washington.

Concerned about the threat the hornets could pose to their honey bees when they were discovered in town last September, Nanaimos beekeeping club managed to get access to the geographic data showing where the hornet had been spotted. Like detectives tracking a serial killer in a crime drama, they triangulated the points to determine the likeliest green space the hornets might have set up a nest.

Then the Holubeshens went to the park in just shorts and T-shirts, thinking that, even if they did find the nest, their chances of meeting an Asian Giant hornet stinger-on were slim.

They were wrong.

Not five minutes from the car, John said: Look, I see them, Moufida recalled. About 15 feet ahead of her husband, Moufida turned to see the biggest hornets shed ever seen flying at John. Thats when he got stung.

I dont know what shocked me more, the size of this thing or the pain, John said. He said the hornet stung him in the chest, with an intensity that felt more like getting hit by a plank of wood than a typical sting. He was so taken aback that Moufida had to call out to remind John to move away from the hornet. The pain lasted 16 hours.

The next time the couple returned to the nest, they wore winter coats under full bee suits, while their acquaintance, Conrad Berube, doused the nest in carbon dioxide.

Berube said in an email that he was stung at least seven times in the process, and had flu-like muscle aches for a full day afterward.

A single sting can kill tissue around the puncture for several millimetres in radius and depth  as well as cause the pain and swelling typically associated with hymenopteran venom, he wrote, adding that once youve been stung by any hornet or wasp, the best thing to do is cage your eyes and run away.

The Asian giant hornet has been given such monikers as murder hornet for its sting and for its appetite for honey bee offspring.

Now, as the hornet comes out of hibernation, and its being spotted in nearby Washington State, the Holubeshens are remembering their own encounter with the giant bug  and what it could mean if Asian giant hornets are waiting to re-emerge in Nanaimo, too.

Entomologists involved in tracking the hornet in western North America say they may never know exactly how it landed on this continent.

Tim Lawrence, a county director at Washington State Universitys entomology department, said that two Asian giant hornets found in Washington came from two different countries  Japan and Korea.

There were at least two introductions, he said. The reason why it's here is really hard to say  it could have been a cargo ship.

The western state and province both have extensive shipping connections with Asia, providing potential transportation routes for the hornet  whether intentional or accidental.

Lawrence said that as an invasive species without any natural predators, the possibility of the hornet spreading through western North America should be a concern.

But his primary concern is not the hornets venomous sting, which can kill people and has done so in Japan  its their risk to crops requiring pollination by honey bees.

While the hornets are awake and reproducing in the spring, theyre at their most aggressive in August and September, when they hunt honey bee larvae.

While Asian honey bees have natural defences against the hornet, North American honey bees are totally vulnerable. And honey bee pollination is necessary to the growth of crops such as raspberries and blueberries.

Lawrence said the lack of recent hornet sightings in B.C. doesnt mean its out of the woods  once one nest had established itself, it likely laid the groundwork for more.

The nest can produce hundreds of reproductives a year, he said. I hope that B.C. is going to be out there with traps looking to determine how widespread the hornets have become.

While they have a painful and dangerous sting, Lawrence said the hornets are not unusually aggressive toward humans, and that people can evade them by escaping to indoor spaces, or running away, but not in a straight line.

While they could still be biding their time in B.C., the hornets are unlikely to spread throughout Canada, said Sheila Colla, a professor of biology at York University.

It is extremely unlikely that the Asian hornet would be in Toronto this summer, as there have only been two records in the U.S., Colla said. I think we can breathe easy on that one.

Convinced as they are that Nanaimos nest was thoroughly eradicated, John and Moufida Holubeshen are not banking on the predator insect being gone for good.

The fact that theyve been here once means whatever mechanism they came by is likely to happen again at some point, John said.

In some ways, their memories of the hornet still stings. Two days after helping destroy the hornets nest, John and Moufida had been relaxing on their porch when an approaching buzz caused them both to bolt upright out of their chairs.

There was the unmistakable hum of quickly fluttering wings. And it seemed to be getting closer.

The couple found the source: a colourful hummingbird and not, as they had feared, the waspish predator with which they had come face to stinger.

With files from Jacob Lorinc

Read more about:
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:

The Alma Consulting, international company providing research, consulting, management and ISO International Certification Services, operating in Azerbaijan, increased total volume of operations in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, Executive Director of the company Habil Ahmadov told Trend.

However, the company will not stop here and intends to increase the number of foreign investors, which is being attracted to Azerbaijan, Ahmadov said.

Our company, as part of cooperation with Enterprise Azerbaijan portal, is implementing a number of projects to attract foreign investors, and also participating in creation of road maps - action plans aimed at simplifying, reducing the cost and speeding up business processes in Azerbaijan, said the director.

He added that the government is taking a number of steps aimed at developing the investment attractiveness of the country's energy sector.

To improve the investment climate in Azerbaijan, it is necessary to strengthen economic factors, in particular the structure of the regions economy, the current level of investment activity, the capacity of the existing local market, and the possibility of transferring dividends abroad. Moreover, personnel reforms should be carried out to improve the investment attractiveness of any country. The implementation of these reforms in Azerbaijan began back in 2016 under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, and we are already seeing positive results, Ahmadov emphasized.

Ahmadov noted that the favorable investment climate is largely characterized by the quality of government procedures - from the speed of registration of an enterprise to obtaining a building permit.

A stable judicial system, without which no foreign entrepreneur would agree to invest, also plays an important role in attracting investors. In the non-oil sector, most actively foreign investment was carried out in the development of industrial and social infrastructure and urban economy. Large investments were made in construction. In 2019, as a result of work carried out in the construction sector, residential buildings, buildings of secondary schools, hospitals, preschool institutions and much more were commissioned, he said.

Azerbaijan reached a significant progress in achieving the most favorable investment climate in the country. In addition, a positive factor is that the leadership of Azerbaijan does not stop here and continues the policy of reforms in order to achieve greater accessibility on doing business in the country, Ahmadov stressed.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: Fidan_Babaeva
It was clear that those whose work in 2019 led them to be selected as a semifinalist  and perhaps ultimately as a nominee or a winner  deserved the recognition they earned, the statement said in part. Those we consulted felt the awards could also offer a glimmer of hope to an industry looking for light in a very dark time.
Troopers are asking for help tracking down a driver who they say drove the wrong way on Interstate 84 in The Dalles on Friday, causing a crash.

The Oregon State Police said the driver went west on an eastbound off-ramp and the freeway itself, causing several other drivers to swerve and avoid him. One driver, Peter Chapman of Vancouver, swerved and hit the center divider.

His car rolled onto its side, troopers said. He wasnt hurt.

The wrong-way driver eventually did a U-turn on the interstate and left the area, according to the state police. Troopers dont know where exactly he went.

Witnesses said the man was in a lime green 2000s-era Subaru Outback that has gray highlights. The car had dusty red dirt on it.

The driver was described as a heavy man with gray, ear-length hair and a full beard.

Troopers ask anyone who has information about the driver or his car to call 1-800-442-0776 or *OSP. Tipsters should leave information for Trooper Michael Holloran.

-- Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Ramallah, May 5 : Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned Israel against implementing its plans of annexing Palestinian lands in the West Bank.

Abbas's warning was made in an online speech he addressed before the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit that was held online on Monday, according to the WAFA news agency report.

"If the occupation (Israel) implements its plans of annexing Palestinian lands, we will disengage from all our commitments and agreements," Abbas told the members of the NAM, Xinhua news agency reported.

In his online speech, Abbas called on NAM members, the international community and the United Nations Security Council to bear their responsibilities towards ensuring the enforcement of the international law.
04.05.2020 LISTEN

In 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power, having been elected by 17.2 million Germans- the biggest democratic turnout of its time, while demonising their opposition, telling lies of equality and workers rights without guarantees. Hitler did not start killing people instantly, but when he began, he did not want to stop. Apart from the Jews, blacks were among the groups that were not only killed, but sterilised if left to live.

In Hitler's Germany, disabled and black people were collected in the back of vans and had gas dropped in with them. However, if the disabled or black person opted for sterilisation, they could not reproduce and share their deformation with the rest of the gene pool in society.

The 1935 Nuremberg laws prohibited marriages between Jews and other Germans. These were later amended to include black people and Roma in the same category as Jews. Black children could be removed out of schools, merely for just being black. Kids and adults could call them monkeys on the streets, and the world didnt care, because it was happening almost in all large nations.

A visit to the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam includes a very illuminating presentation of just how the Nazis took hold. Hitler only favoured German people, then he only liked certain people who were German, and kept whittling it down, trying to slaughter more and more of them. His initial draw was that he was anti-establishment.

Adolf succeeded in getting away with the killing because Germans were divided. When you have a separated nation, it is possible. The trick is to split up that nation, the deeper the divide, the easier it is to control. Hitler and his top brass were also the new value of media-controlled propaganda.

Having said that, blacks have not learned anything from their suffering in the past. Yes, Jews, too, have not realized in the sense of the way they treat Palestinians- the ongoing theft of Palestinian land and apartheid treatment of Palestinian people, but blacks need a lot to learn:

1.Black people lack solidarity and do not usually like supporting each others businesses. A black person would rather buy from an Asian or any other race, than from a fellow black.

2.Black people usually dislike the intelligent ones among them. If you are clever, you create a lot of enemies; people see you as different. Even your government will hate your intelligence, such that if they fail to recruit you, they will either kill you, or make life very miserable for you.

3.Most Black people are not tuned to think beyond level 1 of Maslows hierarchy of needs, i.e. air, water, Housing, food, and possibly cars. As soon as someone gets them, they stop thinking anything beyond that- We are not encouraged to save to open factories and big businesses, invest in research, to be more innovative and creative, etc.

4.Most black people hate and find it effortless to murder each other. For instance, I once read a depressing story in a Ugandan newspaper, Bukedde, of one lady working from the USA, who had returned home for a visit, but was murdered by a relative simply because she helps other blood relatives, but not him. There was a genocide in Rwanda in 1990s where Tutsis and Hutus were slaughtering each other, only because of tribalism.How do you murder someone over something they didn't choose to be? The recent attacks by Black South Africans against blacks from other countries, simply because they do not want them in their country. A black person can hate you over something as simple as a Facebook page.

5.Most black people take offence in being corrected, or someone disputing with them. One can make you a life enemy for not agreeing with them politically.

6.Most black people and their govts find it straightforward to brutalize people. Instead of prison camps, as Hitler did, they have safehouses where torture is done. There are recordings of these tortures in several African subhuman countries, including Uganda. Recently, I saw pictures of a Ugandan MP, Francis Zaake, with bodily marks of torture, and it was hurting.

Just an aside. I am not asking blacks to discriminate other people basing on race, because we are all human and deserve a society that care, but we should learn to love our own race,push ourselves hard to think beyond the obvious, and be proud of being black. That is why, I think, the 1930s lesson is so important!

*Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba*

Stalk my blog at: http://semuwemba.wordpress.com

"Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive." - Henry Steele Commager 1902-98
If the novel COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control soon, the diseases impact on the insurance industry as a whole may be pretty much a wash.

If not, the industry may be on the verge of an historic catastrophe.

A report released Friday by Willis Towers Watson projects that personal and commercial auto insurers in the United States and United Kingdom will see a $51 billion reduction in claims costs this year, while returning an estimated $16 billion to consumers through refunds. Refunds estimated so far are estimated at $10 billion and insurers will likely kick more back to customers if stay-at-home orders continue, the analysis says.

On the other hand, COVID-19 may add $16.7 billion to U.S. workers compensation losses and increase losses in the U.S. and U.K. by $11 billion for business-interruption and event-cancellations, $4 billion for credit and sureties, $1.5 billion for employment practices liability and $1.5 billion for directors and officers insurance, the report says.

If you calculate net decrease in losses for auto ($35 billion) and compare that to the sum of the increased losses in the other lines ($34.7 billion) and you will find that the two numbers pretty much cancel each other out.

Those projections follow Willis moderate scenario, which assumes that four months of strict and two months of light social distancing will be effective at controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus fairly quickly. The moderate projection also assumes economic growth will resume before this fall and consumer confidence will return by winter.

There are plenty of reason to be skeptical as to whether strict social distancing will last that long. As of Friday, more than half of the U.S. states had allowed some businesses to reopen. In Georgia, consumers can even go get a tattoo or a haircut.

If a severe scenario projected by Willis plays out, the insurance industry could be in dire straits. While social distancing will reduce U.S. and U.K. auto claims by $77 billion, the pandemic could increase costs for other lines  primarily workers compensation and general liability  by $140 billion. That is more than a third of the entire $365 million in premiums reported by U.S. property and casualty insurers in 2018.

The severe scenario assumes that social distancing lasts for 12 months and a global economic contraction continues until early next year.

For true doomsday believers, Willis offered a limited success scenario that assumes government lift social distancing rules after three months because of the catastrophic economic cost and the virus spreads until finally controlled by herd immunity. If that plays out, Willis projects $92 billion increase in workers compensation losses, a $27 billion increase for general liability and $22.7 billion more in event cancellation losses, as well as increases in losses to other lines.

Willis also offers an optimistic scenario for those who see the glass as half full. That assumes government mitigation measures are highly effective and are able to control COVID-19 within three months, while consumer demand for get-away time returns within four months. In that case, auto claims drop by only $28 billion, offset by an additional $1.1 billion in business interruption and event cancellation claims and $600 million more for directors and officers claims. A $3.3 billion increase in workers compensation claims from the health care sector is largely wiped out by a $3.1 billion decrease in claims from workers outside of health care in the optimistic scenario.

We have not associated probabilities with these scenarios, but we regard all of them as possible and at his point should not be considered extreme tail scenarios (although some of them may have been before the COVID-19 outbreak), the report says.

Workers compensation line will suffer the greatest losses from the pandemic compared to other lines in each of the scenarios. Ultimate losses will vary greatly depending on how many workers are infected, and what share of those whore infected must be hospitalized or eventually die.

Willis estimated that each COVID-19 claim will bring $35,000 in medical treatment costs and $3,000 in temporary disability. Some of those will be death claims that cost an average of $1 million for physicians and $750,000 for other health care workers, the study says.

In its moderate scenario, Willis assumed that 20% of hospital-employed physicians and nurses will be infected and 12.5% of other healthcare workers will be infected. That amounts to 1.1 million infected workers, with. 9.5% of them requiring hospitalization and 9,300 of them dying from the disease.

In the worst-case, limited success scenario, Willis projects a 75% infection rate for all health care workers, resulting in 7.9 million cases and 129,000 deaths.

The broad range of scenarios that Wilis included in the report mirrors an analysis released earlier this month by the National Council on Compensation Insurance. That report projected losses ranging from $2 billion to $81 billion, depending on infection rates and the number of claims that are deemed to be compensable.

In conclusion, Willis said the cumulative impact of the pandemic could substantially exceed losses from the Sept. 11, 2011 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Along with those losses, the industry faces a serious risk that its reputation will suffer, the report says.

A good portion of these losses will probably be considered to have been unintended, arising from broad wordings in smaller commercial policies, the report says. It will also beg a question however as to the full extent this should be transferred into the industry, which after all exists to provide continuity for just this type of event.
The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) on Monday said it is contemplating legal action against companies sellingpersonal protective equipment kits by fraudulently using 'Khadi India' brand name.

The KVIC clarified that it has, so far, not launched any PPE kits in the market and saidfake equipment are being sold in the name of Khadi India product, saying that the cat is "totally incorrect and misleading".

"The fake PPE kits manufactured by one Delhi-based 'Nichia Corporation' were brought to the notice of Deputy CEO, KVIC, Satya Narayana, who informed that KVIC has not launched any PPE kit or outsourced it to any private agency," the KVIC said.

It must be clarified that KVIC specifically uses double-twisted hand-spun, hand-woven khadi fabric for its products and hence, the kits made of non-woven material likepolyester and polypropyleneare neither khadi products nor KVIC-approved products, it stated.

KVIC Chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena said the commission has developed aPPE kit made of khadi fabric which is at various levels of testing.

"So far we have not launched khadi PPE kits in the market. Selling PPE kits fraudulently in the name of 'Khadi India' is illegal. At the same time, they pose a grave risk to the safety of our doctors, diagnostic and paramedic staff who are dealing with cases of corona disease on a routine basis," Saxena said, adding that the KVIC was contemplating legal action against such fraudsters.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
- A netizen claimed that she noticed the stretch marks of Ellen Adarna on her stomach

- She suggested that the actress should undergo a surgery first before flaunting her body on social media

- The gorgeous celebrity replied to her follower using intense words and phrases

- She also belied the claim that she has stretch marks on her stomach because they are located on her thighs

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed

Ellen Adarna had an intense reply to a social media user who bravely mocked her stretch marks.

KAMI learned that the said incident happened after the popular actress flaunted her postpartum body on social media.

A netizen claimed that she saw stretch marks on the celebritys stomach and she suggested that Ellen should see Vicky Belo to undergo a surgery.

The netizen also told the Pasion De Amor star to let her stretch marks fixed first before uploading a picture that shows some skin.

Opps kita stretch mark... Papa-surgery muna ha bago mga pictorial na frontal, she commented.

Normal lang yan. May paraan kay Dra. Belo. Back in career ka muna. Balik flawless, she added.

PAY ATTENTION: Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news!

Ellen could not help but react after reading the comment of one of her followers. She exclaimed that the face of the said netizen needs more treatment.

The actress also belied the claim that she has stretch marks on her stomach, saying that all of them can be seen on her thighs.

Your face needs more treatment than my stretch marks, the celebrity replied.

Btw, I dont have stretch marks on my stomach just my thighs (if you can see it through my pants, then youre amazing). Everyone would agree on this she added.

Screenshot via Fashion Pulis

Source: Instagram

In a previous article by , Ellen clarified her recent statement after a netizen thought that she accused John Lloyd Cruz of cheating.

Ellen Adarna is one of the most beautiful and prominent celebrities in the Philippines. Before she went on showbiz hiatus, she became a cast member of Home Sweetie Home.

POPULAR: Read more news about Ellen Adarna!

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!

Filipino nurse: "We actually don't want to become heroes Si Kimberly ay isang nurse sa Bacolod, isa siya sa mga frontliners na binubuwis ang buhay araw-araw. Narito ang kanyang masasabi sa nararamdaman ng mga frontliners tulad niya.  on HumanMeter!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Recent sightings of Asian giant hornets  dubbed murder hornets for their voracious and violent appetites  have scientists worried the invasive species could decimate vital bee populations across the United States if not properly contained.

Since initial reports in early December, the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) has notified residents of multiple counties to be on the lookout for the giant hornets, which threaten honeybees and all the crops they pollinate.

The pest, which has queens that can grow over two inches long, has devastating mandibles that can decapitate one bee every 14 seconds, according to a New York Times report. After removing the head of the bee, the giant hornet returns the thorax to its nest to feed its young.

Although not typically aggressive toward humans, the WSDA said, the hornet has a powerful sting that can pierce beekeeping suits. In Japan, hornets kill approximately 50 people a year, the Times reported.

It is not immediately clear how the hornet made it to the United States, but CNN reported they sometimes travel on international cargo, and it is believed they became active last month after initial sightings because their hibernation is coming to a close.

The first step to eradicate the hornet is to locate its colonies, the WSDA said, and it is currently enlisting the help of local beekeepers and the public to trap and report Asian giant hornets in Washington  even offering tips to trap the insect.

The clock to ensure the invasive pest does not gain a foothold in the country is ticking, the New York Times report showed. This is our window to keep it from establishing, said Chris Looney, an entomologist at the WSDA. If we cant do it in the next couple of years, it probably cant be done.

To report a sighting of an Asian giant hornet, contact your states department of agriculture.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk posted this image of the SN4 Starship prototype, with its single Raptor engine, on the test stand in South Texas on May 3, 2020.

A new photo shows just how big SpaceX's Starship Mars-colonizing vehicle will be.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted an image Sunday (May 3) looking up at the belly of the latest Starship prototype, the SN4, which is on the test stand at the company's South Texas site. The shot shows the SN4's single Raptor engine, looking extremely lonely in the center of a 30-foot-wide (9 meters) expanse.

"SN4 fire soon. Raptor looks so smol," Musk wrote in the tweet .

Related: SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy rocket in pictures

SN4  soon. Raptor looks so smol. pic.twitter.com/WcMdo6wAtjMay 4, 2020 See more

As Musk noted, the Raptor will get a workout soon, in the form of a "static fire" test, during which the engine will blaze while the rocket is tied down. Indeed, SpaceX aimed to perform the engine test Sunday night but called it off because the Raptor's liquid methane propellant got too warm, Musk explained in another tweet . The next attempt will come soon, likely sometime today (May 4).

If the static fire goes well, SpaceX will start gearing up for an uncrewed test flight with the SN4, taking the prototype about 500 feet (150 m) into the South Texas skies.

Future prototypes will go much higher. For instance, the SN5 will have three Raptors, and SpaceX wants to send that vehicle about 12 miles (20 kilometers) up, Musk has said.

The final Starship will be more powerful still, boasting six engines. The 165-foot-tall (50 m), 100-passenger craft will be capable of blasting itself off the surface of the moon and Mars, Musk has said.

But Starship will need help breaking free of our planet's gravitational grip. So it will launch off Earth atop a giant rocket called Super Heavy, which will be powered by dozens of Raptors. (In earlier designs, Super Heavy could boast 37 engines. But Musk recently tweeted that the rocket will be powered by "only" 31 Raptors.)

Both Super Heavy and Starship will be fully reusable, potentially slashing the cost of spaceflight enough to enable the colonization of Mars, Musk has said. And the Red Planet isn't the pair's only exploration target; the moon is also in play. For example, NASA just awarded SpaceX a contract to develop Starship as a lunar lander, to ferry astronauts to the moon's surface for the agency's Artemis program, which aims to land humans in 2024.

Two other industry groups got similar human-lander contracts: Alabama-based Dynetics and a team headed by Blue Origin, the spaceflight company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Not all of the privately developed landers will necessarily end up flying NASA astronauts; the agency will assess the designs and decide which ones to continue funding. Ultimately, NASA will choose from among the vehicles that make it through to operational flight, purchasing landing missions as transportation services.
One person was airlifted to a Chicago trauma center early Sunday night after an ATV crash on the south side of Hobart, city fire officials confirmed.

Hobart Assistant Fire Chief John Reitz said fire officials responded Sunday night to the 6700 block of Grand Boulevard for a report of an adult male who fell off an ATV he was riding.

Reitz said the man suffered "serious lower body injuries" but the helmet he was wearing "undoubtedly saved his life."

Reitz urged the public to use extreme caution when operating a vehicle of any type.

This story is developing. Check back later for updates.

Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0

Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Pune district in Maharashtra has



reported 71 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking its COVID-19 count to 2,122, a Health official said on Monday.

With four deaths, the number of fatalities has reached 115, he said.

"Of the 71 new cases, 62 were reported from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) limits, four from Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and five from Pune rural and Cantonment areas," the official said.

The number of cases in PMC limits now stands at 1,876, and 121 each under PCMC and rural and Cantonment areas, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST

Bazaar Corporate Radar

Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar.
New Delhi, May 4 : The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Bombay High Court to examine and decide within two weeks a plea challenging its interim order declining interim ban on burial of bodies of Covid-19 patients in cemeteries in Mumbai's Bandra West.

Pradeep Gandhy moved the top court, through advocate Udayaditya Banerjee, stating the current unprecedented health situation ought to take precedence over the religious rights of the deceased's family members. Gandhy, who is a resident of densely-populated Bandra West, filed an appeal against the April 27 order of the Bombay High Court rejecting his prayer at the interim stage.

A Bench of Justices R.F. Nariman and Indira Banerjee took up the matter through video conferencing, orally observed since the order was passed at an interim stage and in the absence of any affidavit by the state or the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, it would be appropriate for the High Court to decide on this plea within two weeks.

The petition contended there is no research to support that the infection would not spread from the buried infected bodies through the soil and underground water.

The petitioner argued that though there may be no scientific basis to support the claim, and it is better to be 'safe rather than sorry' in extraordinary times, where there is no vaccine for the disease.

Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind had also moved the apex court seeking to intervene in this plea. Ghandy had argued that the burial of Covid-19 patients in the graveyard in Bandra West would spread to the outbreak of the virus in the adjoining areas.

The Muslim body, seeking to intervene on the matter, said that the apprehension related to the spreading of the virus due to burial of bodies of those infected with COVID-19 is unfounded, and insisted that there is no risk during the burial.

The Muslim body said the burial of dead bodies is essential to the religion of Islam, and it is also an essential practice of other religions such as Christianity. The plea said that such a right forms part of the right to practice one's religion under Article 25 of the Constitution.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 22:24:57|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

DOHA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Qatar's health ministry on Monday announced 640 new coronavirus cases, raising the total number in the Gulf state to 16,191, official Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.

Most of the new cases are expatriate workers who have been subject to quarantine as contacts with the confirmed cases, said a ministry statement quoted by the QNA.

Meanwhile, 146 more have recovered from the disease, bringing the total recoveries to 1,810, while the death toll remains at 12.

A total of 106,795 lab tests for COVID-19 have been carried out in Qatar so far. Enditem
MANZINI - Tears, confusion and financial woes are some of the frustrations for students like Mpendulo Dlamini amid the closure of institutions of higher learning due to the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19).



In fact, just like the others sectors, institutions of higher learning were unprepared for the challenges that are coming with the outbreak of coronavirus and the situation is worse for students from underpriviledged families.



An investigation carried out by this publication revealed that the outbreak of coronavirus was an external shock to the higher education system that will shine the light on inequality that has been previously been ignored.



Welcome



This is more so because some students do not have homes that will easily welcome them back, worse if the working family members have been laid off without payment due to the ongoing partial lockdown in the country.



Again, some institutions of higher learning have introduced online teaching and learning, which means that the laid-off parents and guardians have to finance the students with enough data bundles to continue with their studies.



However, in some cases, government-sponsored students find themselves using their monthly allowances (about E1 690 for off-campus students and E650 for on-campus students) to take care of their families during the partial lockdown as the breadwinners were on unpaid lay-offs.



Due to that, off-campus students, who rent flats around their campuses, are having trouble in paying their rent and this is a dilemma which Dlamini, who is a student at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT), is faced with.



Dlamini, of Mafutseni in the Manzini Region, is from a family of six, who include his parents and three siblings (two sisters and a brother). He said his mother worked in one of the textile factories in Matsapha while his father was unemployed.



On that note, he said his status in the family had changed from being a scholar as he was now acting as a breadwinner since his mother was on unpaid leave. He said the situation forced him to use the little allowance he was getting from government to take care of his family.



This means that I cannot afford to pay rent for my flat in Mbabane. I am afraid to even approach my landlord because I know that he is expecting the rent since it is his familys income, the student said.



Slash



He said if he could get the courage to approach his landlord, he could ask him to at least slash the rent by half for the duration of the partial lockdown with the view of paying the balance once things were back to normal.

I cannot imagine what the self-sponsored students are going through since every fee comes from their parents pockets, the student said.



However, the scholar mentioned that if government, through the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), could prioritise the programme of distributing food parcels to the vulnerable families like his, maybe the situation could be better. In that regard, the LUCT Student Representative Council (SRC) has written letters to most landlords and pleaded with them to defer rental payments for a certain period of time.



In their letter, which was confirmed by LUCT SRC Vice President Lindelani Zwane, the council said it was with great concern that students were facing difficulties in paying their rent due to lack of financial support during the outbreak of the pandemic (COVID-19).



The SRC said the institution consisted of many students who were underprivileged as they came from needy families. They said some of their parents were unemployed, while others were working on farms as well as textile factories in the country which had been closed during the partial lockdown, which was aimed at flattening the curve.



They argued that the little money the students were getting from government, was now consumed by the needs of their families as the administration of the country was failing to support its poverty stricken citizens.

This means that the poverty-stricken populace are fighting two battles; hunger as well as COVID-19, reads part of the SRC letter to landlords.



On that note, they said they were hoping that the students landlords could assist the nation, in particular the students, by not collecting rent for this month until the situation was better.



Important



Human life is more important than anything, they said.

Meanwhile, Thabiso Khumalo, who is leasing out houses to 12 LUCT scholars, confirmed that some of them had not paid rent for April and May 2020.

He said five students paid in full while one had not paid even a cent.



He said there were six other students who were sharing a big house and their rent was E3 000 per month.

He said they paid E1 200 for April 2020 and cited that they were still trying to organise the balance from their parents.



Now its already May and they have not paid in full the April 2020 rent, which means I have been patient with them, the landlord said.

He mentioned that he was also using the rent money to take care of his family, which meant that at the end, he expected them to pay.
An elderly couple from Chinas Henan province took legal action against their own son for neglecting his duty of financially supporting them.

Filial piety isnt that important of a notion in the Western world, but in China its a big deal. Failing to take care of your elderly parents is actually considered a legal offense both in China and in other countries with large Chinese communities, like Singapore or Taiwan. Its actually not uncommon for parents to sue their offspring for neglecting them in their old age, and while most reconcile their differences before having punitive measures enforced, some dont and police, revenue service and banks have to get involved. Such was the case of an elderly couple whose son flat out refused to support them even after being ordered to by a judge.

Photo: moerschy/Pixabay

According to Chinese news portal Sohu, Mr. and Mrs. Zhang, an elderly couple from Henan Provinces Xiangcheng District, originally sued their son for neglecting to support them financially last year. After a short court battle, on May 10, 2019 the son was ordered by a the districts Peoples Court to pay a set alimony to his mother and father every month, but he continued to ignore his legal duty.

Almost an entire year went by without the elderly couple receiving a single yuan from their son, so the two heartbroken parents decided to involve the police and enforce the judges verdict. First, a police officer called their son advised him to start fulfilling his legal duty to his parents, but after the man flat out refused, social workers stated and investigation and discovered that he had plenty of money in his bank accounts, but simply refused to pay.

Photo: Sohu

The bank where the ungrateful son kept most of his money was reportedly contacted by state workers to freeze his accounts until all of the money owed to his parents has been paid.

Having to witness the couple of over 70 years of age still having to rely on the law to receive allowances from their own children, it just feels heartbreaking, one of the police officers involved in this case told Sohu. I hope that everyone knows that taking care of parents is the responsibility of their children, so that painful things like this dont happen again.
(Alliance News) - Cora Gold Ltd on Monday said it will undertake an environmental and social impact assessment for the Sanankoro gold project located in southern Mali.

"The collection of baseline data for the environmental and social impact assessment has already commenced. Deliverables will include specialist studies, ranging from ecological, water and social studies, a conceptual closure and rehabilitation plan, a stakeholder engagement process, a resettlement policy framework and a community development plan," Cora said.

The west Africa-focused gold company has appointed environmental consultants Digby Wells Environmental to undertake the assessment on Sanankoro project.

Cora plans to deliver a definitive feasibility study on Sanankoro before the end of 2021, upon successful completion of resource growth. A scoping study on the project estimated an 84% internal rate of return at a USD1,400 gold price.

The exploration permit for the Sanankoro project expired on February 1, but Cora expects an award of a new permit in due course once the due process has been completed.

Shares in Cora were up 2.7% at 5.65 pence each in London on Monday afternoon.

By Tapan Panchal; tapanpanchal@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
[May 04, 2020] Discover Board Appoints Thomas Maheras as Chairman Following Death of Lawrence Weinbach

The Discover Board of Directors has appointed board member Thomas Maheras as Chairman, effective immediately, following the unexpected May 1 death of Chairman Lawrence Weinbach. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005773/en/ Lawrence Weinbach (Photo: Business Wire) Weinbach, who was 80, joined Discover as an original board member when the company went public in 2007 and was lead director on Discover's board from 2009 to 2018. He served as independent chairman since January 2019. "The entire Discover community joins me in extending its deepest sympathies to Larry's family as the company mourns the untimely passing of our colleague, leader and friend," said Roger Hochschild, CEO and president of Discover. "I benefitted greatly from Larry's steady guidance and stewardship, and I am grateful for having had the opportunity to work so closely with him." Maheras, 57, joined the board in 2008. He has been the managing partner of Tegean Capital Management, LLC since 2008, and a partner and Chief Investment Officer of Iron Park Capital Management, LL since 2019, two investment advisory firms based in New York. Prior to that, he was chairman and co-chief executive officer of Citi Markets and Banking, the investment banking division of Citigroup, Inc. He has served as chairman of the U.S. Treasury Department Borrowing Advisory Committee and as an executive committee member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.



"Tom's replacement of Larry under these unfortunate circumstances will provide continuity for Discover. His experience and knowledge of the business will be invaluable to us in his new capacity as chairman," said Hochschild, who also is a board member. Weinbach most recently was chairman of Great Western Products Holdings, LLC, a manufacturer and master distributor of food and nonfood concession products, since 2009 and a managing director of Yankee Hill Capital Management, LLC, a private equity firm, since 2006. Prior to that, he was the executive chairman of Unisys (News - Alert) Corporation, a worldwide information services and technology company, from 2005 to 2006, and its chairman and chief executive officer from 1997 to 2004. He served as managing partner and chief executive of Andersen Worldwide, a global professional services organization, which included Arthur Andersen and the company now known as Accenture (News - Alert) from 1989 to 1997.

"Larry was an exceptional leader who will be greatly missed," Maheras said. "I am honored to take over as chairman and look forward to working with my fellow board members and Discover's strong leadership team to deliver on the company's purpose of helping people achieve a brighter financial future." About Discover Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) is a digital banking and payment services company with one of the most recognized brands in U.S. financial services. Since its inception in 1986, the company has become one of the largest card issuers in the United States. The company issues the Discover card, America's cash rewards pioneer, and offers private student loans, personal loans, home loans, checking and savings accounts and certificates of deposit through its banking business. It operates the Discover Global Network comprised of Discover Network, with millions of merchant and cash access locations; PULSE, one of the nation's leading ATM/debit networks; and Diners Club International, a global payments network with acceptance around the world. For more information, visit www.discover.com/company. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005773/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
A couple in South Africa died shortly after consuming a home-brewed beer, police believe, according to Sowetan Live.

Northern Cape police officer Mohale Ramatseba said the 42-year-old woman was first to die. She was found deceased in their home with empty bottle of the homemade beer around.

A 54-year-old man was found seriously ill. He later died in hospital, Ramatseba said.

Police were investigating the cause of the fatalities. Two empty bottles of homemade brew has been seized for forensic tests, he added.

This incident comes as South Africa has endured more than a month of the coronavirus lockdown. The country banned the sale of alcohol and cigarettes during the spread of COVID-19. While liquor sales in many countries have been deemed essential during these days of social isolation, South Africa put rules in place that are some of the strictest in the world.

Residents may only leave their homes if they provide an essential service or need to procure essential goods like food or medicine. And, South Africa banned the sale of cigarettes and alcohol, joining a short list of three other countries: Thailand, Greenland, and parts of Mexico.

According to CNN, the decision by the South African government to temporarily ban alcohol was influenced by concerns, including compromising the immune system, lowering inhibitions when it comes to social distancing, personal hygiene, and trying to reduce incidents of domestic violence.

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.

Read more:
At this point, remarking that people now are more concerned about online privacy than ever before is not a novel observation. Whats fascinating, though, is that interest in personal digital security has remained high since the issue exploded about seven years ago. In other words, instead of experiencing a short-lived spike, digital privacy awareness has been sustained.

This is especially encouraging to me, since I gained my background in technology precisely out of the desire to secure my own digital autonomy.

I know as well as anyone that its not always clear where to turn to improve ones digital security. Getting a handle on the subject can seem like trying to jump onto a moving train. To extend the metaphor, this article may give you a running start.

My hope is that a guide from the perspective of someone who not long ago probably knew less than you do now, you will develop enough of a foundation to journey forth on your own.

Gluing Together Your Threat Model

So where do you start? Quite simply, with yourself. The whole purpose of security is to protect what is valuable, and what is valuable is different for everyone. Consequently, security is possible only after you determine the object of value. Only then can you assess how far to go to safeguard it.

Before you can think about the means, you must select the end. In the case of digital security, you need to figure out what it is you are trying to protect. This could be as straightforward as certain files on your devices, or the contents of your communications with associates.

It could be more abstract. For example, as a consequence of your behavior, certain personal details about you  while not contained in files as such  can be inferred and automatically captured as data streams akin to files, called metadata.

In the context of digital security, everything essentially takes the form of information, so you need to think long and hard about what information youre guarding, and all the forms it can take or ways it can be accessed. This can be quite a task at first, but it gets easier with practice.

Defining the information you want to protect gives you the first component that comprises what is called a threat model  basically your high-level strategic view of how to keep your information safe. In the context of your threat model, your valued information goes by the more succinct name of asset.

Once you have defined your asset, its time to identify your adversary, which is the glorified name for entities who want to take your asset. This exerts a strong influence on what your threat model ultimately will look like  your strategy for holding onto your asset will look very different depending on whether your adversary is your nosy neighbor or a hostile government.

When contemplating your adversary, it is critical to enumerate realistic threats. It may seem counterintuitive but, as you will see by the end of this primer, it actually doesnt help to overestimate your enemy.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The word adversary may evoke a diabolical nemesis, but that doesnt have to be the case. Though you shouldnt inflate your antagonist, neither should you overlook it. While its very easy to single out an adversary like a criminal hacking collective (if that is indeed yours) for its overt ill intent, your adversary could be a service you willingly use but do not fully trust. The point is, you need to catalog every player that wants your asset, no matter the reason.

With those two pillars in place, its time to finish the tripod: Accounting for your asset and adversary, you need to size up the means the adversary has at its disposal and, most importantly, the means you have and lengths you are willing to go to protect your asset. These last two things are not always the same  hence the distinction.

Fortunately an abundance of tools are available to keep your asset secure, if you know how to use them. Even better, the most effective ones are all free. The real limit in practice is that of self-discipline. Keep in mind that a powerful safeguard is useless without the resolve to utilize it consistently without relenting.

Categorize and Prioritize

I like to think of adversaries as occupying one of three categories:

Category 1 adversaries are entities engaging in what is popularly called surveillance capitalism, but technically referred to as data mining. Operating predominantly in the private sector, category 1 actors are those that passively collect information from you as a consequence of your use of their services. However, in recent years we have learned that companies overstep this implicit covenant to collect data on individuals even when those individuals dont explicitly do business with them. Generally, these adversaries dont seek out your data directly. Instead of coming to you, they wait for you to come to them. Therefore, they can be thwarted by shrewder consumer choices.

Category 2 adversaries are those that employ primarily offensive techniques to execute both targeted and untargeted (i.e. indiscriminate) attacks on users. This category includes a diverse spectrum of attackers, from lone black hats to sophisticated criminal enterprises. What they all have in common is that their methods are intrusive, actively breaching ones defenses, and definitely not legally sanctioned.

Category 3 encompasses the most formidable adversaries  foes that can leverage state resources. In point of fact, the actors in this category are the only ones that qualify for the information security consensus term advanced persistent threats or APTs. Like category 2 opponents, they conduct invasive offensive operations, but they do so with the financial resources of a political faction or government behind them, and in many cases, the legal immunity of one as well.

This is my own taxonomy, rather than accepted industry terms, but my hope is that it illustrates the kinds of adversaries you may face vividly enough to help in your threat modeling.

You will have to judge for yourself which of these categories describes your adversaries most aptly, but there are some quick diagnostics you can run to characterize what you need to look out for, based on your assets as well as the adversaries themselves.

If you dont consider your work particularly sensitive and just want to mitigate the creepiness factor of intimate personal details constantly and mercilessly being stored and analyzed, you are facing a category 1 scenario. Most of you likely will find yourselves in this boat, especially if you rely to any degree on social networks or communication services operated by ad revenue-driven tech companies.

For those of you in possession of highly valuable information, like six-figure-plus financial data, theres a good chance you need to arm yourself against category 2 attackers. The lucrative nature of the information you handle means you likely will attract actors that specifically and actively will work to breach your defenses to steal it from you.

Dealing in truly sensitive data, the kind that could spell life or death to certain people, exposes you to category 3 adversaries. If youre the kind of person who risks attack from a state-level actor, like a national security journalist or defense sector professional, you already know it. If fending off category 3 attackers is your reality, you need way more operational security than I possibly could provide you. My treatment of category 3 actors will be more for the sake of painting a complete picture for readers in general, and to convey a sense of scale of possible countermeasures.

Next Steps

By now, you should have a sense of what your asset is, and what adversary it attracts. This aligns with my roadmap for this four-part series. Subsequent installments will focus on determining which tools and practices your asset and adversaries necessitate.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The next three articles in this series will equip you with some tools for countering each of the adversary categories. In the next installment, which delineates threats from category 1, you will learn the digital hygiene that is beneficial for everyone and sufficient for most, but inadequate for those squaring off against foes in categories 2 and 3.

The article that follows, along with educating those anticipating threats from category 2, might draw in those who want to get ahead of the pack fending off category 1. It also will build a bridge for those bound for the hard road of resisting category 3 attacks, but it wont be enough in itself.

Instead of focusing on software tools themselves, the last piece will strive to outline the thought patterns needed to combat the most daunting opponents one can face in information security. Considering the inherently vast capability of category 3 threats, the goal is to describe the evaluative mindset of those who need to defend against them.

You Cant Have It All  but You Should Try to Have Some

Ill leave you with one parting thought to set the tone for this series: No matter how your threat model shapes up, you will face a tradeoff between security and convenience. You will never have both, and their inverse relationship means an increase in one decreases the other. A viable threat model is one that finds the balance between the two that you can stick with, but that still addresses the threat at hand. The only way to keep that balance is through discipline.

This is exactly why plans that overkill your adversary dont work. All they do is trade away more convenience than you can tolerate for security you dont need, which leads to abandonment of the threat model entirely more often than to a revision of it. Instead, if you find your equilibrium and have the will to maintain it, you will set yourself on the path to success.

That path, as you will see, is challenging and long  possibly endless  but there is a reward purely in traveling it. The only thing more satisfying than setting out on its winding way is to bring new company along. So, Ill see you next time, when we hit the trail.
On April 30, it was reported in the Herald & Review that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld a ruling that a requirement of proof of citizenship for voter registration is unconstitutional. In my not so humble opinion, I know they are wrong and such a requirement is not an unreasonable prerequisite for a U.S. citizen to register to vote. They completely turned around the meaning of the Constitution.

To quote from the article, Many experts say voter fraud is extremely rare, and critics contend the Republican-led efforts are actually meant to suppress turnout from groups who tend to back Democrats, including racial minorities and college students.

Turn this around and ask how the Republicans could suppress racial minorities if they are all citizens? The answer is simple; they cant. The critics arguments are totally without merit unless those racial minorities backing the Democrats are not true citizens and its their fraudulent vote the Democrat critics are afraid the Republicans are trying to suppress.

Ask how the Republicans could suppress the vote of college students unless those college students are trying to vote outside their official residence of record and/or trying to vote twice. The answer is simple; they cant. The critics arguments are totally without merit unless those college students are trying to vote fraudulently.

As to experts saying voter fraud is extremely rare, is there anyone alive, including those living caves, who have not heard the standing jokes about Chicago: "vote early, vote often;" "Chicago, where even the dead vote;" and from Republicans "when I die, please dont let me vote Democrat?" There is a reason for those standing jokes and it is not because voter fraud is extremely rare.

Willard Sudduth, Decatur

Love 3 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 13
Expressing concern over the "ongoing agitation over ration supply" and the COVID-19 situation in Bengal, the BJP state unit on Monday wrote to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, saying people could have benefited from central schemes, had she not rejected them. In his letter to Banerjee, which was released to the press, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the government was depriving people of the benefits of two central projects PM Kisan and Ayushman Bharat Yojana -- "owing to narrow political considerations".

"It is a matter of concern that people are agitating in East Midnapore, Murshidabad and North 24 Parganas over poor quality of grains and inadequate supply. Over 70 lakh farmers would get help from the (Centre's) allocation of Rs 4,200 crore under the PM-Kisan scheme, if the state opts for it.

"At the same time, Rs 2,714 crore allotted as income support under Krishak Bandhu scheme for the year 2020-21 should also be utilised," the letter said. Ghosh urged the state government to provide a financial aid of Rs 1,000 to every poor household and make arrangements for doorstep delivery of ration. He demanded free COVID-19 treatment for the poor.

The state can provide free treatment to the underprivileged without burdening its exchequer if it signs up for the Centre's Ayushman Bharat Yojana, Ghosh noted. The BJP MP said the government should procure 100 per cent grains from the farmers and provide them an incentive over and above the minimum support price for wheat and rice.

Ghosh, during the press meet, pointed out that 12 hospitals in the state have either been closed partially or completely as frontline health workers there were placed under quarantine. "From medical practitioners to police, many have been put in isolation. The healthcare system is under serious stress. What is the state doing? They are only delaying tests. The ICMR and various other agencies have voiced concern over the low testing rate in the state," he said.

Bengal has reported an average of 232.25 tests per million, far behind what the ratio is in most other states. "Double the honorarium and salaries given to healthcare workers, including nurses and Asha personnel, for the next six months and provide them with adequate safety equipment," the state BJP president said in the letter. Iterating that the state government is hiding actual figures of COVID-19 death, Ghosh said "this is only worsening the situation".

The BJP MP further said that the government should take measures to ensure that Bengal workers who have migrated to other states for work get to avail free of cost healthcare. He suggested that the government make arrangements to bring back people stuck outside state at the earliest, and necessary precautions be taken to avoid contamination.

The BJP leader also demanded that the audit committee formed to certify the COVID-19 deaths be disbanded, alleging it was constituted to conceal the actual toll. "We have requested the Union Health Ministry to send another central team to assess the situation. We hope that the state, in the interest of the people of Bengal, shall cooperate with the team," Ghosh said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-03 22:35:00|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

- - - -

NEW DELHI -- India's federal health ministry said on Sunday evening that five new deaths due to COVID-19, besides 283 fresh positive cases, were reported since morning across the country, taking the number of deaths to 1,306 and total cases to 40,263.

"As on 5:00 p.m. (local time) today, 1,306 deaths related to novel coronavirus have been recorded in the country," said the information released by the ministry.

- - - -

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyzstan on Sunday reported 26 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number to 795.

Ainura Akmatova, head of the public health department of the Health Ministry, said Sunday that there have been 221 patients with coronavirus infection in hospitals in the country.

Akmatova said that 11 patients are in serious condition, and four are in intensive care.

- - - -

TEHRAN -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that the mosques will reopen in 132 towns designated as low-risk areas on Monday, as the COVID-19 infection cases and the death toll have taken on a downward trend over the past weeks, Press TV reported.

"From tomorrow, mosques will reopen in 132 towns, which were decided in today's session as white and low-risk areas," Rouhani told a meeting of the National Headquarters for Managing and Fighting the Coronavirus in the capital Tehran.

- - - -

HARARE -- Police in Zimbabwe will arrest anyone leaving their homes without wearing face masks starting Monday, deputy minister of Information Energy Mutodi said on Sunday.

"With effect tomorrow Monday May 4, police will arrest anyone seen without putting on a mask in the CBD, entering shops or any public places," Mutodi announced on twitter.

- - - -

THE HAGUE -- The death toll from the novel coronavirus in The Netherlands exceeded 5,000, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) announced on Sunday.

With 69 reported deaths from Saturday to Sunday, the total number of people who died of COVID-19 in The Netherlands grew to 5,056.

- - - -

MADRID -- A Boeing 777 plane carrying 56 tons of sanitary material from China for Community of Madrid, one of the 17 autonomous communities of Spain, landed at Madrid-Barajas Airport late on Saturday night, the regional government has informed.

Among the equipment on the aircraft, which came from Shanghai, were 315 multi-parameter monitors, which are used in intensive care units. Enditem
Evergreen actor Rishi Kapoor passed away on April 30 at the H N Reliance Hospital in Mumbai, after a two-year-long battle with leukaemia. Throughout his treatment in both India and the US, his wife Neetu Kapoor stood beside him like a pillar of strength.

Now, after completing the final rites of her late husband with son Ranbir Kapoor and daughter Riddhima Sahni, Neetu took to social media to thank the hospital staff for taking care of Rishi over the past months and treating them like their own.

In a lengthy post, the former actress reflected upon the last few months and said that along with a deep sense of loss, her heart is filled with gratitude for everyone who took care of the actor.

"As a family, we have a deep sense of loss.. when we sit together and look back at the past few months what we also feel is immense gratitude - gratitude towards the doctors at HN reliance hospital," she wrote.

"The whole team of doctors, brothers and nurses headed by Dr Tarang Gianchandani treated my husband like he was their own - they advised us like we were their own.. and for all that and more I thank them from the bottom of my heart," she added, concluding the statement with folded hands emoji.

Along with the post, she added two monochrome pictures. The first one was a solo picture of Rishi, flashing a big smile at the camera, the other had the couple striking an endearing pose.

Rishi Kapoor's ashes were immersed in Mumbai's Banganga tank on Sunday. Joining Ranbir, Neetu and Riddhima for the final rites were actress Alia Bhatt and filmmaker Ayan Mukerji. Earlier in the day, a prayer meet was held at the Kapoors' residence.

Read: Ranbir Kapoor Immerses Rishi Kapoor's Ashes in Banganga; Alia Bhatt, Ayan Mukerji In Attendance

Follow @News18Movies for more
Kolkata: Standalone shops selling foreign, IMFL, and country spirits in green, orange and red zones, except in containment areas in West Bengal will remain functional from 12 noon to 7 pm, a guideline issued by the state government stated. The government has, howver, disallowed liquor shops located in shopping complexes or malls, or hotel-restaurant-cum-bars to open.

According to the notification issued, those customers wearing masks will be sold liquor and social distancing norm has to be strictly followed. There should be a distance of 6 feet between two customers in the queue. The authorities also asked the licensees to provide hand sanitizer to customers at the time of transaction.

The government also encouraged home delivery of liquor to minimise footfall at the shops. The order allowed the display of fresh MRP of bottles outside shops. According to one of the licensees, the move will allow them to sell their old stock at new prices.

Earlier in the day, long queues were seen outside liquor shops in various parts of the state today. People thronged to buy liquor as wine shops re-opened after a 40-day lockdown period. In order to maintain law and order and social distancing, the police shut several shops and asked people to go back to their homes.

In an apparent bid to shore up revenues, the West Bengal government last month decided to impose 30 per cent sales tax on wine and beer. The duty would be applicable to the existing stock.
Its no secret that Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., has had an acrimonious relationship with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The freshman lawmaker has quickly become a lightning rod of criticism for AIPAC and its supporters, who have gone so far as to accuse Omar of using anti-Semitic tropes to describe the groups lobbying activities.

That hasnt stopped her from signing onto a key AIPAC lobby item for this year. Omars signature in particular stands out among the 391 House members who have jumped onboard an AIPAC-backed letter bolstering the Donald Trump administrations efforts to extend the United Nations arms embargo on Iran, which expires in October as the first sunset provision under the nuclear deal.

The letter, spearheaded by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and top Republican Mike McCaul, R-Texas, calls on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to extend these provisions in order to prevent Iran from buying and selling weapons.

Pompeo doesnt exactly need any convincing. He noted last week that the Trump administration is evaluating every possibility with regard to forcing the UN Security Council to extend the conventional arms embargo. That includes threatening to use a mechanism from the nuclear deal at the United Nations to force multilateral snapback sanctions on Iran, which could be the accords final death knell.

Despite Trumps stated withdrawal from the deal, Pompeo raised eyebrows last week by arguing that a 2015 UN resolution defined the United States as a participant in the accord, thereby allowing it to trigger the snapback sanctions. Pompeo later doubled down on the argument in a rancorous Twitter spat with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Iran has said that Russia and China are interested in selling it combat aircraft once the embargo expires, and Moscow and Beijing are likely to veto any extension. As such, proponents of the nuclear deal accuse Pompeo of using the issue as a ploy to instate snapback sanctions, thereby making it harder to revive the accord should Trump lose in November.

While the AIPAC letter has some support from some other progressive lawmakers, many other prominent left-wing members have not signed on, including the rest of Omars self-styled squad  Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

Congresswoman Omar has consistently, for a long time, supported arms embargos against human rights abusers, her office told Al-Monitor. However, that is not to say that she supports Pompeos tactics or that her position on sanctions has changed, or that she is not in support of the [nuclear deal]. It was just a narrow ask that we couldnt find anything wrong with.

Omar, who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, has introduced legislation that would place arms embargoes on human rights abusers, including Iran. Engel, who unlike Omar boasts warm ties with AIPAC, also warned the Trump administration against Iran snapback sanctions upon sending the letter today.

The UN arms embargo will be the first provision of the Iran nuclear deal to expire, Engel said in a statement. This letter, supported overwhelmingly by both parties in the House, represents an imperative to reauthorize this provision  not through snapback or going [at] it alone, but through a careful diplomatic campaign.

A House Democratic aide told Al-Monitor that snapback itself right now is the end of the deal. And a lot of members of Congress dont think thats the way to do this.

We have had long discussions with the administration about what we expect as part of a larger deal, and if this can be the beginning of a larger deal, then its something members of Congress can support, said the aide.

The Joe Biden presidential campaign has been blunter. The Democrat's chief foreign policy adviser, who helped negotiate the Iran deal, slammed the sheer hypocrisy of threatening to use snapback sanctions to secure an arms embargo extension last week. Instead of negotiating a new deal, Biden has vowed to lift US sanctions and return to compliance with the accord if Iran does. (Iran has tripled its stockpile of low enriched uranium beyond the limits laid out in the accord since Trumps exit from the deal.)

The conventional arms embargo covers combat aircraft, tanks and artillery, but not more advanced technology such as Russias S-400 missile defense system.

The AIPAC letter says, Iran routinely violates this [embargo] with impunity, particularly in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The letter also calls for the United Nations to place travel restrictions on Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, the new head of Irans Quds Force.

AIPAC is also pushing a nonbinding resolution introduced by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., which calls for an extension of the arms embargo and travel restrictions. That bill has 21 co-sponsors to date.
The new NHS coronavirus app will have unintended consequences, according to the head of the unit developing it.

Officials do not know exactly how it will work, Matthew Gould, chief executive of NHSX, told a parliamentary committee.

There will be unintended consequences, there will for sure be some things we have to evolve, he said.

We need to level with the public on this, that when we launch it, it wont be perfect and as our understanding of the virus develops, so will the app.

The app is being rolled out to residents of the Isle of Wight for a trial, ahead of an expected national release later this month.

Health secretary Matt Hancock told the daily coronavirus briefing at 10 Downing Street on Monday: Last week we put in place the testing capability on the island, from tonight the contact tracing capability will go live and from tomorrow, NHS staff on the island will be able to download the app.

From Thursday, each one of the 80,000 households on the island will get a letter from the chief nurse with comprehensive information about the trial. Islanders will then be able to install the app.

Mr Hancock urged islanders to embrace this with enthusiasm, telling them: By downloading the app you are protecting your own health, you are protecting the health of your loved ones and the health of your community. But he stressed the trial of the app did not mean the end of social distancing measures on the island.

Privacy campaigners have raised concern over the potential for mission creep with the data that will be gathered on peoples movements and contact with others.

The Health Service Journal reported that it has not yet passed tests on cyber security, performance and clinical safety needed to be included in the NHS app library.

But Mr Hancock insisted it had been designed with privacy and security front of mind.

The data is stored on an individuals phone, not by the NHS, until somebody finds that theyve got symptoms and then they need a test and they come in to the NHS and the NHS needs to contact those who have been in contact with them, he said.

This has the highest level of privacy built in to make sure that we can both reassure people in terms of privacy but also that it will be effective and save lives.

Testing tsar John Newton told the No 10 briefing that the app itself would contain no personal information, but simply data on where the phone has been and which other phones it has been near to, using anonymised randomly generated numbers.

Its a very safe use of data and people should feel very reassured by the precautions that have been taken, he said.

The NHSX app is part of the governments wider test, track and trace strategy as the UKs lockdown is relaxed.

It will use Bluetooth technology to monitor when users are in close proximity to other people, and if they develop coronavirus symptoms they can choose to alert those who are at risk.

The data is recorded under an anonymous ID, rather than by the persons name, and anyone receiving a warning notification will not know how and where they were possibly infected.

Contact tracing has been used extensively in South Korea, Hong Kong and Germany, where outbreaks have been contained more quickly.

Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent Show all 19 1 /19 Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent Two elderly people chat on a street in Valencia, Spain on 4 May EPA Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent People look at the city from Villa Borghese park in Rome during the first day of Italy's next phase in its coronavirus lockdown Getty Images Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent An elderly couple who has not been outside for nearly two months enjoys the weather as they sit on a bench in a park in Athens on 4 May AFP via Getty Images Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent Henri de Chassey, wearing a protective face mask, kisses his partner Margaux Rebois, who is returning to Paris after spending two months in Brussels on 4 May REUTERS Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A commuter in protective mask wears gloves at an underground station in Brussels as some companies are allowed to bring workers back to the office EPA/STEPHANIE LECOCQ Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent Paralympic swimmer Inigo Llopis prepares to swim in San Sebastian, Spain, for the first time since the lockdown began Getty Images Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A worker wearing personal protective equipment disinfects a school in Athens as Greece relaxes its nationwide lockdown REUTERS Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A Spanish National Police officer distributes protective masks in Melilla, Spain, on 4 May EPA Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent An employee poses in front of halfway-cured hams in a factory in Guijuelo, Salamanca, Spain, on 4 May EPA Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent Workers in protective suits disinfect a high school in Athens as Greece moves to reopen schools for final-year students on 11 May EPA Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A worker disinfects a bus as transport vehicles are disinfected several times a day as part of Belgium's lockdown exit strategy Belga/AFP via Getty Images Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A worker from Textilia haberdashery in Brussels holds a fabric that can be used to make customised protective face masks as Belgium relaxes its lockdown measures REUTERS/Yves Herman Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A bride tries on a wedding dress at a bridal shop in Madrid on the first day that some small businesses are allowed to open during Spain's lockdown REUTERS Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent People walk across the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping mall in central Milan as Italy eases its lockdown AFP/Getty Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A couple kiss in the Duomo Square in Catania as Italy starts moving out of its lockdown Reuters Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent Mirel Chetan organises the books of the Antonio Machado bookstore in Madrid after 51 days of closure Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A couple kiss in front of the sea in Catania as Italy begins a staged end to a nationwide lockdown due to the spread of the coronavirus disease ANTONIO PARRINELLO/ REUTERS Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A waiter at Caffe Cracco handles takeaway coffee in Milan on 4 May as Italy starts to ease its lockdown Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images Europe emerges from lockdowns across the continent A woman holds a yoga posture as she exercises by the Colosseum monument in Rome on the first day of Italy relaxing its lockdown measures VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images

The NHSX app has so far been tested in closed conditions at an RAF base, and is being piloted on the Isle of Wight from Tuesday.

The government plans to employ 18,000 contact-tracers by the middle of May, who will be in touch with people who have developed symptoms but do not have the app.

Mr Gould told parliaments Joint Committee on Human Rights that the app was so far being offered to users as young as 16, but the threshold could change following advice from the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and Childrens Commissioner.

Im conscious that smartphone use goes down with the more elderly population, he added. This is part of a strategy, so were making sure were not just relying on the app.

Asked whether a minimum percentage of the population must use the app to ensure its effectiveness, Mr Gould said the government did not have a target.

He told MPs that similar projects in countries including Australia, Singapore and Norway showed that anything from a fifth upwards would be good value.

Even at that level, the app starts to give us some really important insight into symptoms, how the virus is spreading and how we need to deal with it, he added.

If we can get to higher levels of 40, 50 per cent or above, the app can really make a big difference in identifying those people who have been in touch with suspected cases and making sure we can identify and isolate those people faster and more effectively.

Mr Gould suggested that the app could materially affect the governments decision on how quickly to lift restrictions on movement and association that have been in place since March.

Police have the power to arrest and fine people for violating the current public health regulations, but Mr Gould said data from the app would not be passed to law enforcement and compliance with alerts would be voluntary.

Dr Orla Lynskey, associated professor of law at the London School of Economics, told the committee there were privacy concerns over the gathering of location data.

Location data is inherently, incredibly sensitive  it says where you were at a certain point in time: were you at the doctor, were you at the counsellor, were you at the sexual health clinic? she added.

There is an inherent risk that if you create a system that can be added to incrementally, you could do so in a way that is very privacy invasive.

Dr Michael Veale, a lecturer in digital regulation at University College London, said there was a potential for function creep.

He said that if identifying details were incorporated in future, such as passport details, it could allow progression to a kind of traffic light system where the idea is someone could be risk-scored on the basis of that activity.

The experts called for the purpose of the app to be strongly limited and have a sunset clause governing when it will no longer be necessary.

Mr Gould did not rule out an expansion to the apps scope, but said any changes made would be explained to the public.

We could offer people the choice to offer more detail, but it will be a choice, he added.

If you delete the app, all data stored on the phone that hasnt been voluntarily shared is deleted [but] if shared by choice it can be kept for research.

Mr Gould said that the app would not ask for peoples names and does not know who you are, but requires the first half of postcodes to gather information on potential hotspots and alert local hospitals to surges.

Committee members raised concerns over how the app could operate alongside those used by other countries, including the Republic of Ireland, that use a different type of decentralised system.

We are worried about interoperability but its not just us taking this approach, Mr Gould said.

If it becomes clear that a different approach is a better one and we need to achieve things more effectively, then we will change.

NHSX has committed to publishing the apps code, its privacy assessment and security models.

Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner, said her officer had been advising developers and would be doing robust audits going forward.

We expect to look at the data protection impact assessment, which is the key document for us to critique, she added.
US accused of transporting ISIS commanders, Syria's Arab League membership discussed, explosions heard in Homs and calls for sanctions to be lifted. Catch up on everything that happened over the weekend.

1. Iraqs Hezbollah al-Nujaba Movement claims in a new statement that the US is planning to transfer senior Islamic State (ISIS) commanders and other terrorists to Iraq, Al-Masdar reported. Washington is insisting on the implementation of a plot to return the terrorists to Iraq by transferring a large number of ISIS commanders and militants from the eastern Euphrates and other parts of Syria, the Movement said via a statement from their official account.

2. Arab League Assistant Secretary General Hossam Zaki stated that differences still persist between Arab countries over restoring Syrias membership at the organization. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that discussions on Syrias membership arise ahead of any Arab League ministerial meeting or summit, citing efforts by Algeria, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to end Damascus isolation. Ultimately, no progress has been made, he revealed, saying, Consensus is necessary.

3. Two civilians were killed in a cluster bomb explosion in southern Daraa city, activists said Saturday. According to Zaman Al-Wasl, a four year-old child passed away and six more people were wounded due to the blast in the Old City of Daraa. Activists say the bomb was from the regime army remnants in the area.

4. The explosions that took place in the city of Homs were due to human error, according to SANA. At 9:25 a.m. on May 1, 2020, successive explosions were heard at a military position in the city of Homs, and investigations revealed that these explosions occurred due to human error during the transportation of some ammunition, a military source announced. He added that the explosions caused material and human losses due the shrapnel that was emitted. Earlier, several explosions were heard in the south of the city of Homs where columns of smoke were seen rising from the site as shells fell in the vicinity of it, causing injuries to several civilians.

5. A member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Czech-Moravian Trade Unions Gathering, Martin Bis, depicted the unilateral coercive economic measures imposed by the West on Syria as inhuman, calling for the immediate lifting of these unjust measures. In a statement to SANAs correspondent in Prague, the Czech official said that maintaining the imposition of these coercive measures is criminal behavior that aims at hampering a final victory over terrorism in Syria, undermining the countrys economy and impeding its reconstruction process.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The Carnival Fantasy wont be sailing out of the Port of Mobile until at least September 1, according to a news release from Carnival Cruise Line on Monday.

The 2,056-passenger vessel is currently sailing to Panama to return crew members to their home counties as part of a nine-vessel mission to repatriate more than 10,000 healthy employees who remain on board the cruise ships. The vessels are returning the passengers because limitations with air travel is preventing crew members from flying home.

The safety and well-being of our team members continues to be a top priority, said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. Given the pause in our operations, we are committed to getting our crew members safely home to their families.

The Miami-based company is now advising guests and travel agents of its plan to phase-in a resumption of North American services this summer with only eight ships beginning August 1. The inaugural voyages under the plan will leave from Galveston, Miami and Port Canaveral. The Carnival Fantasy is not included in the itinerary.

All cruises other than those leaving from the three cities are canceled through Aug. 31. The cruise line, as of mid-April, had canceled voyages to June 26. Prior to that, the company announced delays on excursions until April 30. By March 30, the delay had been extended to May 11.

The last time the vessel return to Mobile with passengers on board was March 17.

Impacted guests and travel advisors are being notified by email with options for a combined future cruise credit, an onboard credit package or a full refund. Booked guests are instructed to make their selection online, alleviating the need to contact Carnivals customer service center that is still operating in a work-from-home status due to locally-imposed office closures in South Florida.

Its unknown when the Carnival Fantasy will return to Mobile. The vessel has been in Mobile since 2016, when cruising resumed in the Port City following a five-year hiatus.

The lack of a cruise ship also means a lack of money coming into the city of Mobile to provide revenues for paying down an annual $1.8 million bond on the Alabama Cruise Terminal. The terminal opened in 2004, but the bond is not scheduled to be paid off until 2030.

The cruise ship, according to the city, produced more than $6 million in gross revenues during the last fiscal year, ending on Sept. 30, 2019. The money came from parking fees from visitors and wharfage fees assessed on the cruise ship being docked in Mobile.

A Mobile city spokeswoman said they have not heard from Carnival regarding the situation.

The cruise industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, government regulators have issued warnings about taking cruises. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended on April 15 a No Sail Order for cruise ships for 100 days out of concern over a risk of infection. That No Sail Order has been extended until either the US Health and Human Services Secretary calls off the public health emergency, the CDC director rescinds or modifies the ruling or 100 days pass without further action. The expiration is July 24.
The first bite of Sol y Lunas crabmeat enchilada is blissthe generous portion of sweet crustacean snaps through its corn tortilla wrap, tart tomatillo sauce, and crunchy slaw topping. Nostalgia builds with each subsequent bite of this beloved dish. It was a mainstay at the original Sol y Luna, a groundbreaking eatery in Lakeview that introduced Birmingham to tapas-style dining and premium tequilas when it opened in 1997.

Founded by Guillermo Castro, the original closed a couple of years after his fatal heart attack in 2011. Guillermos brother, Jorge Castro, is the central figure behind the revived Sol y Luna, which premiered in January in the Lane Parke development in Mountain Brook Village.

Jorge was a bartender at the original. He also ran its sister restaurant, Cantina Tortilla Grill, which was displaced in mid-2019 from its longtime location in the Pepper Place district. (Plans to relocate Cantina, possibly to the Avondale area or near Railroad Park were put on hold after the opportunity arose at Lane Parke for Sol y Luna.)

The new restaurant remains a family affair. Guillermos and Jorges brother, Alex, is a partner. Jorges wife, Aimee, oversees the front of the house. Alexs son, Christopher, is in charge of the servers. Jorges namesake son runs the bar.

Tapas-style dining is designed to be communal, which the Castros encourage by placing wooden platforms on the tables that can hold several plates. We want people to share this food while enjoying each others company, Castro says.

Much of the menu will be familiar to Sol y Luna old-timers, including the smoky tequila- chipotle flambe called Shrimp Diabla ($17), and Iron Skillet Mussels ($14) with a hearty broth of wine, garlic, chipotle, and lime juice that begs to be sopped with the toasted bolillo bread that accompanies it.

Sabana Mexicana, cheese-topped beef medallions and chipotle-tomato chutney, as well as the rich-and-creamy Tomatillo Lobster Soft Taco (both are market price) also are favorites among customers past and present.

Another top-selling dish from the original, Red Snapper al Mojo de Ajo (market price), is sauteed with large shrimp and doused with a reduction of wine, spicy dried chiles de arbol, garlic, and onion.

We have a lot of customers who remember Sol y Luna, Jorge Castro says. And weve had a lot of new ones stop in because they heard about it.

Fans of Cantina and its catering operation might recognize Sol y Lunas Grilled Salmon ($16) and Duck Empanadas ($14). The latter is a pastry-wrapped blend of savory shredded duck meat, creamy cojito cheese, and chunky salsa made with purple onion, minced fresh chilis, cilantro, and bell peppers.

Dont overlook the Chile en Nogada, ($14), a relleno-like roasted poblano pepper stuffed with ground beef and dried fruit, seasoned with cinnamon. The creamy topping of goat cheese, garlic-pecan sauce, and dried fruit enhances its piquancy.

Desserts include sticks of deep-fried churros and crepes filled with platanos, a type of banana. Both ($7) come with cajeta, Mexican-style caramel made with goats milk.

Sol y Lunas drink menu features more than three-dozen tequilas. Most are $5-$15 a pour; a shot of the restaurants most exclusive tequila, Rey Sol Extra Anejo Private Selection, is $53.

With all those tequilas in stock, margaritas dominate the specialty cocktail menu. The Sol y Luna Margarita ($9) is spiked with serrano pepper. Puerto Vallarta Margarita ($9) pays tribute to the Jalisco state, the home of tequila, with tart tamarind. El Matador Margarita ($9) features hibiscus and strawberry syrup. Familiar flavors can be found in the Cantina Margarita ($8) made with key lime, and Cantinas signature Perfect Margarita ($9).

Other cocktails play new riffs on standards like the Old Fashioned. One version is made with barrel-aged Hornitos Black tequila ($11); another combines tequila and mezcal and is finished with mole cocktail bitters ($12).

The classic rummy Pina Colada is reimagined as a Gin Colada ($8). The Bama Mule swaps the standard vodka with whiskey from Birminghams Dread River Distillery.

Wines by the glass ($9$12) or bottle (most are in the $30$40 range) skew toward Spanish and South American labels. Beers ($4$6 drafts/$3$5 in bottles or cans) include both Mexican and local brews.

Sol y Lunas interior exudes simple elegance. White walls showcase decorative elements like a chandelier made from curly, multicolored blown glass and a mural depicting a smiling woman by a full moon. Small white lights strung along the ceiling evoke a starry sky.

Guillermos spirit is very much present. His portrait hangs near the bar, and a take on a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) memorial also honors his memory.

The Castro brothers briefly considered a different concept when planning the new Sol y Luna, but felt compelled to remain true to its founders vision.

Asked if his brother would love the reincarnation, Jorge doesnt hesitate. I think hes smiling up there.

Details

Sol y Luna | 920 Lane Park Court (Mountain Brook Village) 205.407.4797 | solylunabham.com

**NOTE: Sol y Luna currently is only open for curbside pick-up Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., due to COVID-19 restrictions.

This story appears in Birmingham magazines May 2020 issue. Subscribe today!
A woman who has quadrupled the size of her lips has just undergone her twentieth lip injection - and insists she'll keep going until hers are the biggest in the world.

Andrea Emilova Ivanova, from Sofia, Bulgaria, has spent thousands of pounds at aesthetic clinics injecting fillers into her pout.

Dubbed a real-life Barbie, the 22-year-old had her latest injection last Tuesday and shared a photo of herself with her 33,000 Instagram followers at the weekend to reveal her ever-growing pout.

Andrea, who began her transformation in 2018, forks out around 135 for each treatment, but admitted she has lost count of how much she has spent over the years.

The philosophy student added that while she probably has one of the biggest pouts in the world, she'll continue to have more fillers until she's satisfied with her lips.

Andrea Emilova Ivanova, 22, from Sofia, Bulgaria, who has quadrupled the size of her lips, has just undergone her twentieth lip injection

Andrea has spent thousands of pounds at aesthetic clinics in the Bulgarian capital injecting filler into her pout. She is pictured left before she started getting filler and right more recently

'I like my new lips a lot, it was hard to eat after the injection and two to three days after the procedure gets more difficult,' she said.

'I feel great to have even more but some doctors think it's enough, though I still want them bigger. My doctor said he will do more injections for me but said I have to wait for at least two months.'

She went on: 'There are no restrictions to what I can eat. I think my lips are lovely, I love them. I am not sure if they are the biggest lips in the world but they are one of the biggest, I think.'

Last year it was revealed Andrea had gone under the needle 15 times, tripling the size of her pout in a bid to be 'more fashionable'.

Andrea, pictured in a recent Instagram video, said she feels great to have even more fillers but 'some doctors think it's enough'

Last year it was revealed Andrea had gone under the needle 15 times, tripling the size of her pout in a bid to be 'more fashionable'. She is pictured in 2019

Though doctors have advised the student to stop having filler, Andrea has insisted she still wants her lips bigger. She is pictured after her twentieth lip injection

She said at the time: 'I have visited almost all clinics for aesthetic procedures in Sofia and I put in my lips almost all kinds of lips fillers.'

Andrea added that she receives dozens of comments from adoring fans complimenting the size of her lips and has even been proposed to online by admirers.

But not everyone is a fan of her oversized features, and the student has faced backlash from social media users as a result of her aesthetic procedures.

Andrea said: 'I get thousands of compliments on my lips and on my outfit, and on my vision and style every day from people all over the world.

'I have both positive and negative comments, but women write most of the negative comments.'

Andrea, pictured left before and right after tripling the size of her lips, had the fillers in a bid to be more 'fashionable'

Despite that, Andrea refuses to care what people think of her lips, adding that only her opinion matters.

She said: 'There are people who like me with bigger lips and there are people who like me with smaller lips but it doesn't matter to me, because it's important for me, how I like it. Other people's opinion is irrelevant.

'I can't give any indication of how big is too big, or can lips be too big, because for each person, "big", "bigger" and "too big" are different concepts.

Andrea, who has 32,000 followers on Instagram, said she receives dozens of comments from adoring fans. She is pictured in 2019

'I'm broadminded and I think people should be free to choose, which one is for them big, bigger or too big. There are no boundaries for me.'

Andrea said she had always wanted to have lip fillers but denies being addicted to them.

She claims to be unique and said she doesn't copy any celebrity when it comes to her aesthetics.

When asked if she wants to have the biggest lips in the world, she said: 'Yes, why not? In my country the big lips are fashionable and there are many girls with fillers in the lips too.'
by Kim Sang-wook

Some agencies had reported him ill or dying. Yesterday he inaugurated a fertiliser factory amid the usual enthusiasm of the technical staff.

Seoul (AsiaNews)  North Korean leader Kim Jong-un yesterday attended the opening of a fertiliser factory in Sunchon, north of Pyongyang, North Koreas state agency, KCNA, reported today, thus breaking the silence over Kims fate and health.

The pictures of the event show a smiling Kim, in Maoist outfit, cutting a red ribbon at the inauguration ceremony. All the participants broke into thunderous cheers of 'hurrah!' extending the greatest glory to the Supreme Leader, KCNA writes.

Next to Kim was his sister Kim Yo-jong, seen by many as the Supreme Leaders designated successor in case of death.

Yesterday's was Kim Jong-uns first public outing since 11 April. His absence from the birthday celebrations of his grandfather Kim Il-sung had fuelled speculation about his health. A South Korean news agency, and later CNN, had even reported that he was seriously ill, almost dying.

US President Donald Trump refused to comment about Kim's health; but a group of Chinese doctors and diplomats did travel to Pyongyang to provide "advice".

North Korea is one of the most isolated countries in the world, with news under tight state control. The leaders health is treated as top security, given the fear of real or imaginary coups.
The Elks Hall in Regina couldn't be saved after a fire broke out in the building, says the organization's secretary-treasurer Charlotte Henderson-Wilson.

Fire crews were on the scene at 5 a.m. on Sunday to fight the blaze.

FireVideosFD/YouTube

Henderson-Wilson was told the fire started in the garage.

"We don't know what happened," she said. "We don't have anything in the garage other than some chairs and stuff like that. But it had already gotten into the roof so they said that they couldn't save the hall."

The building, located at 4915 1st Avenue N., was leased from CN, Henderson-Wilson said.

She said the entire history of Elks Hall No. 9 went up in flames with the building.

"Stuff like pictures and all those kinds of things that we can never replace," she said. "Everything's gone."

Henderson-Wilson said she put a call out on social media asking people to share any photos or memorabilia they might have saved in their own homes. Many people have responded with their favourite memories.

"So many people in Regina have so many memories in that building," she said. "At least we have our memories, still."

'This won't be the end of us'

Henderson-Wilson has been with the organization for 13 years.

"Since the day that I joined the Elks, it's been like I had a new family and everybody is very close."

Both of her children were married in the hall, and her grandchildren's baby showers were in the hall. As her family grew, they started renting the hall for Christmas and other family gatherings.

She said other Elks organizations across Canada have reached out to help, and she's seen tremendous support from the Regina community as well.

"This won't be the end of us. If we have to meet in each other's garages, we will be there and we'll still be reaching out to help kids."

The Elks of Canada is a volunteer organization. The Regina Elks hold fundraisers to support sick children, in particular supporting the Sparks program out of Saskatoon.
Dividend paying stocks like Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) (STO:ERIC B) tend to be popular with investors, and for good reason - some research suggests a significant amount of all stock market returns come from reinvested dividends. Yet sometimes, investors buy a stock for its dividend and lose money because the share price falls by more than they earned in dividend payments.

A 1.8% yield is nothing to get excited about, but investors probably think the long payment history suggests Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson has some staying power. Some simple analysis can reduce the risk of holding Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson for its dividend, and we'll focus on the most important aspects below.

Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson!

OM:ERIC B Historical Dividend Yield May 4th 2020

Payout ratios

Companies (usually) pay dividends out of their earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, the dividend might have to be cut. As a result, we should always investigate whether a company can afford its dividend, measured as a percentage of a company's net income after tax. In the last year, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson paid out 241% of its profit as dividends. A payout ratio above 100% is definitely an item of concern, unless there are some other circumstances that would justify it.

We also measure dividends paid against a company's levered free cash flow, to see if enough cash was generated to cover the dividend. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson paid out a conservative 25% of its free cash flow as dividends last year. It's good to see that while Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson's dividends were not covered by profits, at least they are affordable from a cash perspective. Still, if the company repeatedly paid a dividend greater than its profits, we'd be concerned. Very few companies are able to sustainably pay dividends larger than their reported earnings.

While the above analysis focuses on dividends relative to a company's earnings, we do note Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson's strong net cash position, which will let it pay larger dividends for a time, should it choose.

Story continues

Consider getting our latest analysis on Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson's financial position here.

Dividend Volatility

One of the major risks of relying on dividend income, is the potential for a company to struggle financially and cut its dividend. Not only is your income cut, but the value of your investment declines as well - nasty. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson has been paying dividends for a long time, but for the purpose of this analysis, we only examine the past 10 years of payments. Its dividend payments have declined on at least one occasion over the past ten years. During the past ten-year period, the first annual payment was kr2.00 in 2010, compared to kr1.50 last year. This works out to be a decline of approximately 2.8% per year over that time. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson's dividend has been cut sharply at least once, so it hasn't fallen by 2.8% every year, but this is a decent approximation of the long term change.

We struggle to make a case for buying Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson for its dividend, given that payments have shrunk over the past ten years.

Dividend Growth Potential

With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share (EPS) are growing - it's not worth taking the risk on a dividend getting cut, unless you might be rewarded with larger dividends in future. Over the past five years, it looks as though Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson's EPS have declined at around 29% a year. A sharp decline in earnings per share is not great from from a dividend perspective, as even conservative payout ratios can come under pressure if earnings fall far enough.

Conclusion

To summarise, shareholders should always check that Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson's dividends are affordable, that its dividend payments are relatively stable, and that it has decent prospects for growing its earnings and dividend. We're a bit uncomfortable with its high payout ratio, although at least the dividend was covered by free cash flow. Earnings per share have been falling, and the company has cut its dividend at least once in the past. From a dividend perspective, this is a cause for concern. With this information in mind, we think Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson may not be an ideal dividend stock.

Investors generally tend to favour companies with a consistent, stable dividend policy as opposed to those operating an irregular one. Still, investors need to consider a host of other factors, apart from dividend payments, when analysing a company. For instance, we've picked out 4 warning signs for Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson that investors should take into consideration.

We have also put together a list of global stocks with a market capitalisation above $1bn and yielding more 3%.

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.
An A&E doctor has claimed that the weekly clap for NHS staff has resulted in a bizarre spike - in ACCIDENTS.

Dr Richard Pilling, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, told a colleague that the nationwide Thursday night ritual had led to an unexpected peak of admissions to A&E.

The unlikely trend was claimed by Dr Pilling and disclosed by medical colleague Dr John Wright, of Bradford Royal Infirmary, in a diary of the Covid-19 pandemic for the BBC.

Ella Simkin and her father in A&E in St George's hospital. Ms Simkin was taken to hospital after missing her footing and falling during the weekly 'Clap for our Carers'

In Dr Wright's diary entry he speaks about, 'interesting little peaks in accident rates that health care professionals weren't expecting' and urges people to 'be a bit more cautious.'

'The clap for carers has made us a little busier,' said Dr Richard Pilling, consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Harrogate District Hospital.

'It's very nice that everyone is very enthusiastic about showing support but it's escalated, so people are coming out banging pans and seeing who can clap the loudest, and therein accidents lie.

The unlikely trend was claimed by Dr Pilling and disclosed by medical colleague Dr John Wright, of Bradford Royal Infirmary, in a diary of the Covid-19 pandemic for the BBC. (St George's hospital where Ella Simkin was taken to following a fall during 'Clap for our Carers'

'It's nice to walk on to your doorstep and show appreciation, it's a chance to see your neighbours, and it's lovely to see people sticking together during the lockdown. Just do it less vigorously - you don't have to be the loudest on the street.'

Dr Richard Pilling said that one woman fell and slashed her knee while trying to get a better view while clapping.

While people who haven't been exercising who suddenly get up and clap may be prone to falling and breaking their bones.

In Dr John Wright's diary entry he speaks about, 'interesting little peaks in accident rates that health care professionals weren't expecting' and urges people to 'be a bit more cautious' (Dr Wright pictured)

Dr Wright added that people need to be more cautious, especially if they've been sitting down all day, as it might be one of the few times older people go outside.

MailOnline have contacted NHS England for comment on the claims that the weekly clap for NHS staff has resulted in a spike in accidents.

Ella Simkin who's 23 and from London, has experienced an injury first hand. She went outside with her parents to clap on Thursday and decided to jump up on to a raised concrete flower bed to get a better view.

The nation has shown their collective appreciation for NHS staff during the Covid-19 outbreak by clapping each Thursday evening at 8pm. Residents gather in Dorchester to applaud

Ms Simkin ended up missing her footing and sliced open her knee. She was taken to hospital.

'I was very embarrassed when we got there. When I went for the X-ray I was telling them I was out clapping when it happened. Everyone found it very funny and lots of people said my heart was in the right place,' she said.

The nation has shown their collective appreciation for NHS staff during the Covid-19 outbreak by clapping each Thursday evening at 8pm.
Jadir Azougaghs phone hasnt stopped ringing since the government announced the deescalation of coronavirus confinement measures. He runs a barbershop with his brother near the Principe Pio metro station in the center of Madrid, and his customers have not been able to get a haircut for over a month and a half due to the coronavirus lockdown. They were desperate, he says.

Phase 0 of the governments deescalation plan will come into effect today. Several provinces and islands that meet the set requirements will pass directly into Phase 1. Under Phase 0, dental and physiotherapy clinics, restaurants with take-away service, hairdressers and barber shops will be able to reopen with a maximum capacity of 30% and service by appointment only. A few hours after the government announced the plan last week, Azougagh, 34, already had 10 customers for Monday. Work is health, he says.

We think it is absurd that there is already an opening date without having communicated what security measures are needed Alejandro Fernandez-Luengo, spokesman for the Spanish Hairdressing Business Alliance

Juanjo Melian has been disinfecting his hairdressing salon all morning in Las Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria in Spains Canary Islands. Walls, floors, furniture, appliances. Everything, he explains. He has staggered the working hours of his staff of five so that when the salon opens on Monday, they will take it in turns to tend to customers who head a waiting list that will keep them busy for the next 10 days.

Uncertainty reigns in a sector that narrowly missed being considered essential during the lockdown. Are we able to trim beards? How should we receive clients? asks Melian. In the absence of detailed government guidelines, he is following those of his main supplier, LOreal.

Alejandro Fernandez-Luengo, spokesman for the Spanish Hairdressing Business Alliance, criticizes the lack of information and the confusion it has generated. We think it is absurd that there is already an opening date without having communicated what security measures are needed, he says. As president of the Marco Aldany hairdressing chain, he says he has devised his own security measures for his salons that already have long waiting lists.

The catering industry is also beset by doubts over protocol. Teresa Rodriguez and her husband own two restaurants in Coslada, in the Madrid region, with a total staff of 27, though only one restaurant will open and one member of staff  the chef  will be working on Monday. Under Phase 0, the restaurant will only be open for customers to collect orders. But when Madrid province moves into Phase 1, Rodriguez is planning on opening the restaurant terrace, but with the specified limited capacity. With five tables, we are not going to earn much, she says.

Before the lockdown, the terrace catered to 16 tables and served up to 100 lunches a day. Im opening because we have to get the country going, but I know its not profitable, she says. The only information on how to do it so far is what the prime minister [Pedro Sanchez] has given us. Rodriguez suffers from asthma and is worried about contracting Covid-19 from serving hamburgers.

I dont believe a demand for dentists will return

Since the state of alarm was declared on March 14, Said Farahs dental clinic has been practically empty. The clinic, a family business located in Coslada, Madrid, has been opening its doors to emergency patients just one day a week. Only people with cysts have been coming, he says. While the clinic could open normally on Monday, he is not optimistic about the prospects of patients returning. Only people who were mid-treatment will come back, he says.

Oscar Castro Reino, president of the Spanish Council of Dentists, says dental clinics have received specific guidelines on how to operate during the pandemic. These include banning patients coming in with company, removing magazines from waiting rooms and the constant disinfection of the premises. Access to personal protective equipment is a problem, and Farah highlights the prohibitive price of high protection masks. A few days ago, he bought 15 from a Chinese company for 55. Its an unsustainable expense with so few customers, he says.

A closed bar in San Sebastian in the northern Basque Country. Javier Hernandez

Common sense

Victor Torres predicts that business will return gradually in his line of work. He is the healthcare director of a physiotherapy and osteopathy clinic in the Madrid district of Chamberi, which has been providing emergency services since the beginning of the pandemic. Torres hopes to open three days a week from Monday as he is already getting numerous calls from patients, but he is concerned that he has no more information on protocol than the public in general. We feel very helpless, he says. Even before [entering Phase 0]. We had no clear criteria about what qualified as an emergency.

Until now, he and his colleagues have followed the strict guidelines laid down by the Professional Association of Physiotherapists  spacing out appointments, using gloves and masks and plenty of common sense.

Physiotherapy colleges and WhatsApp groups of people working in the sector have been the main sources of information for 35-year-old Jose Luis Costa. He owns a physiotherapy and training center in the southern province Cadiz which is due to open on Monday with everything still up in the air, as he is still in the dark when it comes to official protocols. Costa has hired a specialized cleaning company to disinfect the clinics four rooms and is in the process of acquiring masks, gloves and hydro-alcoholic liquid. They have also told us about machines that perform emergency disinfections, he says. "But we are considering the options regarding safety and price while making sure everyones safety remains a priority. Theres a lot that still needs to be assessed.

English version by Heather Galloway.
Demands for an investigation by Ugandas donor countries into the brutal torture of opposition member of Parliament Francis Zaake continues with both the U.S. and the E.U. weighing in. As previously reported by Black Star News, Zaake was tortured by military dictator Gen. Yoweri Musevenis secret police after he had distributed food to his starving constituents from his home.

Ugandans face starvation due to the strict Covid-19 lockdown imposed by Gen. Museveni. Yet, unlike the wealthier industrialized countries that have also imposed lockdowns Ugandaas with other African countriesdoesnt have the social safety net to support people with sustenance during this period of unemployment.

Museveni, who has ruled since seizing power in 1986, is also playing food politics, with an eye toward next years election. Zaake, who is 29, represents the new generation of leadership operating under the People Power umbrella, whose most recognizable figure is also a member of Parliament, Robert Kyagulanyi, a.k.a. Bobi Wine.

More than 80% of Ugandans are aged below 35. Gen. Museveni is believed to be anywhere from 75 to 80 years old. Its widely expected that a People Power coalition would soundly defeat Museveni in next years polls. Museveni wants to earn political capital by becoming the sole distributor of food in Uganda during the Covid-19 lockdown. He reacted brutally when Zaake, responding to appeals from his starving constituents, distributed rice and sugar, at his own expense.

Zaake remains at Lubaga Hospital in Kampala, the capital, in severe pain, hardly able to speak, with bruises and abrasions on his face, his arms, his side, and his legs. On April 30, Christopher Krafft, the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. embassy to Uganda tweeted: "CDA Krafft had a constructive discussion with Ugandan gov officials on the need to fully investigate allegations that security services tortured MP Zaake, & hold perpetrators accountable."

The tweet added, "Measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 can & must be enforced w/out violating human rights."

Separately, the head of the European Union (EU) Mission to Uganda, Attilio Pacifici had earlier tweeted: "The EU firmly opposes torture & other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

"We are very concerned about reports of HR violations of people arrested during #COVID19 lockdown, including MP Zaake & Rukirabashaija.. The other referenceRukirabashaijais to Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, an author and activist arrested by the military police. He wrote "The Greedy Barbarian, a book that criticizes the ruling first family. His arrest has been condemned by Amnesty International.

Musevenis military dictatorship wouldnt survive without the financial support from the E.U. and the U.S., in addition to the weapons and training from Washington. Since 2017 the E.U. has provided $150 million to the regime. The U.S. provides nearly $1 billion in total annual aid.

Zaake was detained on April 19 by Gen. Musevenis security agents. He is believed to have been kidnapped by elements of the Internal Security Organization (ISO) and Chieftaincy Military Intelligence (CMI).

The regime continued to humiliate the torture victim by producing Zaake, semi-nude, in court on a stretcher with the bruises on his body in clear view. A judge refused to hear the charges against him and ordered that he be provided medical treatment. So far, the Ugandan Inspector General of Police, Martin Okoth Ochola, or leaders of the other security agencies havent issued a statement about Zaakes torture.

Fred Enanga, a police spokesperson said, "We remain committed to actively investigating all allegations of torture reported against our officers." This is the kind of nonsensical statement typically issued. There has never been any subsequent investigation of numerous past cases and no one has been held accountable. Both Bobi Wine and Zaake were first arrested and tortured by Musevenis security agents in 2018 when the crop of young leader emerged into prominence.

Human Right Watch has also called for an investigation. Police brutality is always prohibited, pandemic or no pandemic, said Oryem Nyeko, Uganda researcher at the U.S.-based organization. Ugandas authorities should urgently look into these allegations and hold those responsible to account.

Meanwhile, Bobi Wine, who visited Zaake in hospital issued a statement on Instagram that read: "The evidence of torture on comrade Hon. Zaakes body is depressing. This video is recorded fourteen days after he was brutalisedOne wonders why security operatives would do this to anybody, let alone a Member of Parliament! The short video that accompanied the post showed the bruises on Zaakes body.

Bobi Wine also wrote, And let us keep this evidence. In the years to come, our children will watch and see these things. They will study about how a brutal dictator ruled over our country and treated his opponents this way. Hopefully, they will also study how a tired nation came together and got rid of the dictator, throwing him on the dustbin of history like all others who came before him."

Nicholas Opiyo, a prominent human rights lawyer in Uganda, during an appearance on a local radio program said Zaake was severely tortured and added: When I met him, his face was swollen, his eyes could not see, and he spoke with a lot of difficulties

(Source: https://www.blackstarnews.com/global-politics/africa/uganda-global-demand-for-military-dictator-museveni-to).
While COVID-19 has dominated headlines since the novel coronavirus upended how state and local governments do their work, the fact remains that defending against and recovering from cyberattacks are duties that persist unabated.A virtual session of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) midyear conference titled Stronger Together: State and Local Cybersecurity Collaboration came out of a report of the same name published earlier this year by NASCIO in partnership with the National Governors Association (NGA). The effort was a response to the dramatic increase in ransomware attacks on the public sector in 2019 and looks at examples of places where state, county and city governments are working together to bolster cybersecurity.North Carolina Chief Risk Officer Maria Thompson and Randy Cress, CIO and assistant county manager in Rowan County, N.C., explained how such partnerships work in their state, where legislation requires local governments to report all cyberattacks to the state Department of Information Technology (DIT). DIT works with the North Carolina National Guard and the Emergency Management agency to assist cities and counties responding to cyberattacks. As with so many interagency efforts, communication is key, they said.Thompson stressed the importance of understanding who the stakeholders are at the local level, and of finding someone who is trusted in the local government community. For her, one of those people was Cress, who serves on the North Carolina Local Government Information Systems Association (NCLGISA) as an IT Strike Team Leader. Cress had previous experience working with NCLGISA on emergency management and disaster preparation for the states hurricane season, work that he said parallels readying for cybersecurity. Because he had existing relationships through that association, he had built trust among his fellow local government peers.Thompson said she wants local governments to understand that the legislation mandating cyber reporting does not mean cities and counties are beholden to the state, but rather that the state understands that locals are often under-resourced and wants to offer tools to help in incident response. And while states may not have budgeted line items for assisting local cyberefforts, as is the case in North Carolina, Thompson said leaders must get creative when it comes to funding.Also part of the panel were the reports authors, NASCIOs Meredith Ward and the NGAs Maggie Brunner, who brought up a belief held by some IT leaders that helping local governments is not in the states swim lane. Thompson was clear on her stance that that is incorrect.Its a concept central to Thompsons belief that a whole-of-state approach is necessary in cybersecurity. State is in our title, she said, but state doesnt necessarily just mean state agencies. It is also DIT's job to work with and help protect North Carolina's local jurisdictions.The relationships that you have will create that environment where you can share and learn from each other, Thompson continued. Does education and awareness make you better and stronger? Yes, and by continuing to learn from each other, we get better over time.
US President Donald Trump believes that the Chinese authorities have not taken timely measures to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. Washington intends to find out what was due to this, TASS reported.

On Sunday, Trump told Fox News that the virus came from China and they should have stopped it right away.

We will have to find out what this reason was, Trump added.

Trump is convinced that the Chinese authorities made a mistake at the early stage of the fight against the spread of coronavirus, and then misled the world community in an attempt to hide it.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that Washington had evidence that coronavirus had allegedly begun to spread from a Wuhan lab.
Cher will debut an exclusive performance of her new single, a Spanish language version of ABBA's "Chiquitita". Proceeds from the song "Chiquitita" have benefited UNICEF's work since the 1979 Music for UNICEF Concert.

"I am so proud to premiere this new version during the broadcast of UNICEF Won't Stop," said Cher. "I've long admired UNICEF, especially for their work with young women since I was a little girl. Now, more than ever, it's critical that we prioritize every child around the world as if they were our own."

There will be additional performances by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Angelique Kidjo as well as Peter Frampton, Il Volo, Luke Islam, Matthew Morrison, Musicality, Jordin Sparks, Rob Thomas and more.

Other event participants include UNICEF Ambassadors P!NK, Tea Leoni, Halima Aden and Pau Gasol, UNICEF Supporters Jenna Bush Hager, Sofia Carson and Laurie Hernandez as well as Morgan Freeman, Bjorn Ulvaeus and more. Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer, granddaughter of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Audrey Hepburn, will pay tribute to her grandmother. UNICEF Won't Stop will be executive produced by Erich Bergen who recently produced the star-studded "Saturday Night Seder" and the online revival of "The Rosie O'Donnell Show."

The event will feature UNICEF experts and advocates highlighting the impact of COVID-19 and the relentless efforts to curb the outbreak, protect children and disseminate factual information. The program will virtually take audiences to China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Jordan, Mexico, the United States of America and more.

UNICEF's response to the COVID-19 pandemic is focused on providing critical supplies to health facilities, preventing the spread of new infection, ensuring the continuity of education and analyzing data to inform where and how to best deploy resources. To ensure that all four areas of focus are being prioritized UNICEF has released an appeal for $651.6 million.

To learn more about UNICEF's work visit www.unicefusa.org/COVID-19

About UNICEF

UNICEF works in some of the world's toughest places, to reach the world's most disadvantaged children. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone. For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, visit www.unicefusa.org

SOURCE UNICEF USA

Related Links

https://www.unicefusa.org/


Australia's top TV presenters are rumoured to be on annual salaries of up to $2.3million.

But what are they really like to work with?

From a no-nonsense perfectionist to a 'freebie lover', here's how the nation's most famous faces reportedly act behind the scenes.

What it's REALLY like working for Australia's biggest TV stars: Industry insiders reveal how the likes of Karl Stefanovic (left, with Sylvia Jeffreys) and others treat staff behind the scenes

Industry insiders spoke about their experiences of working with high-profile talent in a feature published by New Idea on Monday.

Grant Denyer

He may be one of TV's most vertically-challenged presenters, but Grant Denyer makes up for it with his big personality on and off screen.

Mr Popular: He may be one of TV's most vertically-challenged presenters, but Grant Denyer (pictured) makes up for it with his big personality on and off screen

Those who have worked closely with Grant say he often organises fun activities for the cast and crew to celebrate the end of filming.

A source said: 'He adds a lot to meetings with his opinions and new approaches to interviews and game shows.

'You never know what he will come up with next.'

'He is very particular about good lighting': While sources say he is shy yet friendly when the cameras aren't rolling, Dr. Chris Brown (pictured) is apparently quite image conscious

Dr. Chris Brown

Dr. Chris Brown is a veterinarian by trade and became a popular TV presenter after rising to fame on Bondi Vet in 2009.

While sources say he is shy yet friendly when the cameras aren't rolling, the 41-year-old I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! host is apparently quite image conscious.

'He is very particular about good lighting to make him look young and is always well groomed,' an insider claimed.

Keeps to herself: Whereas Carrie Bickmore (left, with Lisa Wilkinson) comes off as the sweet girl next door, she is apparently quite reserved and private when she's not in work mode

Carrie Bickmore

Whereas Carrie Bickmore comes off as the sweet girl next door, she is apparently quite reserved and private when she's not in work mode.

The Project host and mother-of-two is so focused on work that she rarely has time for small talk, which means she is perceived by some colleagues as a 'snob'.

But the reality is, she is just a professional who prefers to spend her free time with her family and close friends.

She really is Australia's sweetheart! Delta Goodrem (pictured on set of The Voice) reportedly makes 'everyone feel special' on set

Delta Goodrem

Another star who is said to be anything but a diva is Delta Goodrem.

Known as Australia's sweetheart, The Voice Australia coach reportedly makes 'everyone feel special' on set.

Delta greets every member of the crew by name, a source told New Idea, and always makes an effort to ask staff about their personal lives.

'She has a heart of gold': Tracy Grimshaw may come off as stern and matronly while hosting Channel Nine's A Current Affair, but those who know her best say she is a big softy in real life

Tracy Grimshaw

Tracy Grimshaw may come off as stern and matronly while hosting Channel Nine's A Current Affair, but those who know her best say she is a big softy in real life.

Far from being a hostile presence in the newsroom, the veteran journalist is said to be friendly and have 'a heart of gold'.

Tracy, who lives on an acreage property, doesn't socialise much outside of work and prefers to spend her time off with her animals.

'Makes everybody laugh': Reinstated Today host Karl Stefanovic (pictured) is known for his Aussie larrikin persona, and his colleagues say it's not an act

Karl Stefanovic

Reinstated Today host Karl Stefanovic is known for his Aussie larrikin persona, and his colleagues say it's not an act.

According to sources at Channel Nine, the father-of-four is constantly cracking jokes on set and 'makes everybody laugh'.

He is also reportedly quite generous and is the first person to shout drinks for the team after a long day at work.

Lisa Wilkinson

Lisa Wilkinson, who left the Today show for Channel 10's The Project in 2018, is believed to be Australia's highest-paid TV star with a rumoured $2.3million salary.

And she takes her role very seriously, according to one source, and is always punctual and prepared.

Proving her dedication to the job, she is often the last to leave as well.

One interesting fact about her is that she apparently 'loves a good freebie' when she is travelling overseas for interviews.

'If the shampoo and conditioner are a good brand, she will put them in her suitcase before she leaves... Lisa loves hotel complimentary products,' the source said.

'Lisa loves hotel complimentary products': Lisa Wilkinson is a total professional at work, but she reportedly has sticky fingers when it comes to complimentary hotel products

Sonia Kruger

Sonia Kruger will host the Big Brother reboot on Channel Seven in June, and she is apparently quite the perfectionist behind the scenes.

'She has very high expectations of those she's working with, from everyone to hair, makeup and the whole crew... She just doesn't have time for other people's mistakes,' a source claimed.

They added that Sonia can be quite direct with her 'no-nonsense approach'.
Coronavirus: Egyptian workers and police clash in Kuwait Immigrant workers demand to be taken home

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, MAY 4 - In a rare incident, Egyptian workers and Kuwait police clashed in the small Gulf emirate.



The immigrants are demanding to be sent back to their home countries amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Kuwaiti state-run news agency KUNA said Monday that there had been an insurrection by workers housed in a compound on in the outskirts of the capital. It noted that control had been reinstated by the security forces and that a few rioters had been arrested. Videos appear on social networks, the authenticity of which cannot be independently verified, showing dozens of Egyptian workers, some armed with makeshift crowbars of wood and iron, clash with local police in an area surrounded by fences and barbed wire. The workers can be seen yelling ''where is our embassy''. The Egyptian embassy in Kuwait was quoted by Kuna as saying that a flight will be organised in the coming days to take some of the workers left in the oil-rich emirate back to Egypt.



(ANSAmed).




Standalone wine stores and liquor shops opened shutters in parts of the country on Monday after more than a month amid the Covid-19 lockdown. Alcohol lovers thronged the shops with many violating the social distancing norms.

In the national capital more than 100 people  not all observing social distancing measures  stood in line ahead of the reopening of a liquor store, news agency AP reported.

Another liquor store in Old Delhi witnessed about 200 shoppers pushing and shoving each other until the Police intervened.

The government should just keep the liquor shops shut if such crowds are going to gather, a Delhi resident was quoted by AP.

Uttar Pradesh also saw long queues outside many liquor shops. People lined up since early morning to purchase alcohol, as early as 7 am.

In Karnataka also, booze lovers thronged liquor stores hours before shutters went up at several places.

At some places, they flocked liquor shops even before day-break and performed special prayers with flowers, coconuts, incense sticks, camphor and crackers in front of the stores, news agency PTI reported.

Large crowds gathered outside liquor shops across Maharashtras Pune city - one of the Covid-19 red zones in the state.

Mumbai and Pune are under the red zone but the state government notification said standalone liquor shops and those selling non-essential items would be allowed.

Long queues outside liquor shops were seen in areas such as Bhandarkar road, Wanawdi, Salunke Vihar and NIBM road area in Pune.

However, five districts in Maharashtra have decided not to permit liquor sale. Administrations of Solapur, Aurangabad, Jalna, Buldhana and Amravati districts have issued instructions that liquor shops will not be allowed to open, PTI reported.

In Andhra Pradesh, liquor shops are open but a prohibition tax will be imposed to discourage people from consuming, said Special Chief Secretary to Industries and Commerce Department.

(With inputs from agencies)
The chairwoman of a British charity has sparked controversy after making comments speculating about the reasons behind the coronavirus pandemic.

Louise Carpenter, who is head of the Poultry Club of Great Britain, claimed the virus was 'nature's way of cleansing the planet' in a newsletter sent to members last week.

But her comments have prompted a backlash from members, who are understood to have been left alarmed by her words.

Louise Carpenter has apologised after speculating about reasons for pandemic

Her full statement in the newsletter, reported by The Sun, read: 'I believe this is nature's way of cleansing and protecting our planet for the future.'

Upon being made aware of the concerns of readers, Carpenter, who works as a headteacher at St Michaels primary school in Nottinghamshire, apologised to the charity's trustees and said she was merely trying to find 'reasoning'.

The charity later released a statement apologising for any offence caused.

The statement said: 'It has been brought to our attention that some of the content in the recent Poultry Club of Great Britain newsletter has unintentionally caused distress to some members of the club and the wider public.

'The Board of Trustees wish to convey an unreserved apology to anyone who may have been troubled by any of the content in the newsletter.

'Louise and the trustees remain fully committed to working hard for all of our members and the wider poultry fancy.

'We wish all of our members, and the wider fancy the very best during this difficult time.'

Mrs Carpenter ,who is a charity head and headteacher said it was 'nature's way of protecting our planet and cleansing it for the future', before later apologising for her comments

Carpenter's remarks came on the back of the UN releasing data showing the positive impact the global lockdown has had on the environment.

The UN recently reported that the world's carbon dioxide levels have dropped by six per cent as a result of the significant drop in usage of cars and public transport.

However, the organisation also warned that levels will return those recorded pre-lockdown once the global economy recovers and isn't a cure for climate change.
IT has now become incumbent upon Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, to address the nation on the ongoing furore surrounding the shipment of petroleum products to a particular location, namely Aruba, which shipment, according to reports, was then diverted to be consumed by another nation, Venezuela.
Press Release

May 4, 2020 IMEE: TIME TO HUSTLE, AS FACTORIES PULL OUT OF CHINA New jobs can be made in the country's post-quarantine economy if the government moves quickly to attract manufacturers planning to relocate from China to other Asian countries, Senator Imee Marcos said. Marcos, who chairs the Senate committee on economic affairs, cited the emerging trend of factory relocations from China, as Japan, the United States, and the European Union are planning to transfer production of their crucial imports from the mainland due to supply shortages amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Even Chinese manufacturers are planning to relocate to neighboring countries to evade high tariffs imposed by the United States on China-made goods produced for large American companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, Marcos added. "The Philippines has a competent workforce and a command of English that removes language barriers felt in other Asian countries, but our economic managers must study more closely and quickly the incentives offered by Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which are ahead in the race to attract foreign investors," Marcos said. Marcos is pushing to amend the Foreign Investment Act via Senate Bill 1024 to set up an Investments Promotion Council and add "long-delayed incentives" for foreign investors. Among the Marcos bill's incentives are to raise foreign ownership limits, lower the USD2.5-million capital requirement to set up operations, simplify requirements for all national-level permits, and criminalize wrongdoing related to their procurement. "The emerging economic trend and opportunity amid Covid-19 also call for a second look at the CITIRA (Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Reform Act)," Marcos said, citing that the proposed 10-year period to scale down corporate income tax from 30% to 20% may "miss the boat." Indonesia is cutting its corporate income tax from 25% to 20% by next year, Marcos said. The government must also take a cue, Marcos added, from other Asian countries like India, a competitor in lower-value manufacturing and business process outsourcing (BPO), which has already cut corporate taxes to as low as 15% for the 2019-2020 financial year and has been actively negotiating with potential Japanese investors and foreign chambers of industry. "The resulting CITIRA bill must keep manufacturing companies and BPOs from leaving our export zones, while being able to take advantage of the impending exodus of factories from China," Marcos said.
Baghdad: Increasing crime and terrorist infiltration incidents have shaken people from inside today. Every day one gets to hear some such shocking news which creates chaos among the people. There is only one question in everyone's mind whether it is safe to stay in their homes or not. Why can not it be said today that the common man is completely safe in his homes, there is no fear of any danger or of any major disaster.

Mike Pompeo's big statement, says, 'Coronavirus originated from Chinese laboratory'

According to sources, in two separate attacks in Iraq, security forces killed four militants of the Islamic State (IS). It is also being said that after getting intelligence information, Army helicopters chased the vehicle of IS terrorists. The army attacked the vehicle of militants near the mountainous region of Himalin in the northern part of Salahuddin province.

Death toll in Rome decreases, government breath a sigh of relief

Salauddin Provincial Police told the Xinhua News Agency on Sunday that their vehicle, including four terrorists, had been destroyed in this bombing. Two security guards have also been killed in this attack.

Johnson's big statement, says, 'Doctors prepared me to be declared dead at one time'
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 5)  Barangay Addition Hills in Mandaluyong City will be placed under a one-week total lockdown from May 7 to 14, local officials said.

Mayor Menchie Abalos met with Addition Hills Barangay Captain Carlito Cernal, councilors, and local health officials on Monday night, where they approved placing the area under a strict lockdown to stop the rise of COVID-19 cases.

Barangay Addition Hills has the most number of COVID-19 cases in the city with 57 confirmed cases. The city has recorded a total of 418 confirmed cases.

During the seven-day lockdown, city officials will deliver food packs to all residents of the barangay starting Tuesday. Local officials will also maximize the lockdown period to conduct random rapid testing of 3,000 residents.

Over 32,300 families will be affected by the village lockdown, the city government said.

"We're distributing today some food packs for them. All establishments, stores will be closed in accordance with the protocols of the lockdown," Mandaluyong City public information officer Jimmy Isidro told CNN Philippines on Tuesday.

Mandaluyong City has yet to issue an executive order for the total lockdown of Barangay Addition Hills. Abalos added local authorities are also keeping a close watch on its other barangays with high number of cases. Barangay Mauway also has 57 cases, while Highway Hills has 45 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Monday.

"Ang ibang barangay sa lungsod na mayroon ding mataas na bilang ng COVID-19 CONFIRMED CASES ay kasalukuyan na po nating pinag-aaralan para sa mga hakbang na isasagawa dito," she said in her official Facebook page.

In Manila, Sampaloc and Tondo 1 were also earlier placed on a 48-hour "hard lockdown" to carry out testing and rapid risk assessment activities for possible COVID-19 cases. Both districts recorded the highest number of infections in the city.

The Philippines has 9,684 confirmed COVID-19 cases to date. A total of 1,408 individuals have recovered, while 637 died.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 01:56:17|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

GENEVA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday said that a total of 7.4 billion euros (8.07 billion U.S. dollars) has been pledged for enhancing the research and development for COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.

"Today, leaders from 40 countries all over the world came together to support the ACT Accelerator through the COVID-19 Global Response International Pledging Event, hosted by the European Commission," the WHO chief said.

Ten days ago, the WHO and the European Commission co-hosted the launch of the ACT Accelerator, a global collaboration to accelerate the development, production and equitable access to new COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, and Monday's pledging event is a follow-up to this effort.

"This was a powerful and inspiring demonstration of global solidarity," Tedros said at a virtual press conference from Geneva on Monday.

He stressed that the potential for continued waves of infection of COVID-19 across the globe demands that every single person on the planet be protected from this disease.

"WHO remains committed to working with all countries and partners to accelerate the development and production of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics, and to ensure their equitable distribution," he said. Enditem
Long-stay travel packages in the pipeline

The Tourism and Sports Ministry is floating an idea to provide long-stay packages to foreign tourists who are seeking disease-free destinations.

tourismCOVID-19Coronavirushealtheconomics

By Bangkok Post

Monday 4 May 2020, 04:10PM

Tourists have to provide a health certificate and strictly comply with screenings and measures from Thai health authorities to gain entry. Photo: Pornprom Satrabhaya / Bangkok Post

Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, Minister for Tourism and Sports, said that while international tourists are expected to gradually return after the domestic market, Thailand has to come up with a more appropriate marketing strategy to cope with the new norm of travellers.

The ministry is working with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to set up a model which will attract specific groups of travellers to visit chosen areas, Mr Phiphat said, reports the Bangkok Post.

Phuket, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan will be the pilot destinations to welcome high-end tourists globally.

As those locations are reachable via limited gateways, the provincial authorities can ensure the screening of incoming guests and provide more safety prevention against the possible import of the virus compared to other major destinations, such as Bangkok, Pattaya and Chiang Mai.

Mr Phiphat said tourists who want to spend at least one month in Thailand have to provide health certificates and strictly comply with every screening and health measures by Thai health authorities.

Currently, TAT offices abroad are reaching out to the long-stay market which normally spends more than average tourists, while four-star and five-star hotels are promoting the packages to their regular guests.

The outbreak allows Thai tourism to shift focus to quality tourists rather than quantity, Mr Phiphat said.

The disease-free tourism packages are set to launch during the last quarter this year which is the time tourists from western countries usually seek warmer climes.

When the pandemic in Thailand has been brought under control, international travellers must not be the cause of a second wave of the infection, said TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn.

The new health screening practices for tourists before flying to Thailand may become the standard in the future such as an idea of animmunity passport or risk-free certificate.

Mr Yuthasak said once domestic tourism resumes after lifting the lockdown measures, locals will travel in smaller groups.

Land transportation will be a popular choice, thanks to cheaper oil prices, he said.

The economic recession and drought will cause people to be more concerned about spending, so the market of budget travellers is expected to grow.

Millennials and female travellers will be the first group of independent tourists to travel.

If the tourism industry cannot bounce back stronger from the downturn, it is difficult to restore the overall economy, Mr Yuthasak said.
A deputy commissioner of police, the central region of Mumbai, tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday. A senior IPS officer confirmed the news. Meanwhile, twelve other policemen, including six police officers, from JJ Marg police station too tested positive for the virus. Following the development, 48 policemen from JJ police station who were in touch with the 12 infected officials were sent for quarantine.

On Friday and Saturday a medical checkup was carried out for Mumbai police officer from South and Central Region at JJ hospital. The results which came on Monday revealed that the 12 police officers were positive. Sangramsingh Nishandar, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 1, said, Over 12 policemen including six police officers and six police constable tested positive. 48 policemen have been sent for quarantine from the same police station.

Earlier on Sunday, six policemen from Pydhonie, three from Nagpada and two from Mahim also tested positive for Covid-19.

On Monday evening the Mumbai Police crossed the 200 mark with a total of 211 police personnel testing positive for Covid 19. The city police contributed 50% of the cases in Maharashtra Police department, which recorded 422 cases till Monday.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that an insurer has a duty to defend its insureds estate in a personal injury lawsuit brought by a man who was shot by the policyholder.

This comes after Richard A. Carly came to the front door of Terry McCutcheon, whom he had been dating, and found himself unexpectedly being pulled inside her home by her ex-husband Harold Eugene McCutcheon Jr. Carly had walked in on Harold carrying out a murder-suicide plan that involved killing Terry before turning the gun on himself. An altercation between the two men ensued, and Carly was shot in the face.

After Carly filed a personal injury lawsuit against Harolds estate, the estate sought coverage under both a homeowners and a personal catastrophe policy from its insurer, Erie Insurance Exchange.

Although Erie argued the shooting incident could not be considered an accident, and therefore, it did not owe coverage to the estate under the policy, The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on April 22 held that Carlys allegations in the suit were sufficient to trigger Eries duty to defend. This affirmed a previous order of the Superior Court.

A Murder-Suicide Plan

On September 26, 2013, Harold successfully carried out his murder-suicide plan after outlining his intentions in a note he left to his adult children.

However, after Harold had killed Terry but before he killed himself, Carly arrived at the house. After ringing the doorbell and receiving no answer, he was pulled into the home by Harold. A fight broke out between the two men while Harold continued to hold the gun he had used to kill Terry. During the struggle, Carly alleged shots were carelessly, negligently and recklessly fired by Harold, one of which struck Carly in the face and caused severe injuries.

Carly filed suit against Harolds estate, and the estate sought coverage of the lawsuit under its Erie Insurance Home Protector Policy and its Erie Insurance Personal Catastrophe Liability Policy.

Harolds homeowners policy outlined that it will pay all sums up to the amount shown on the declarations in the event that an insured becomes legally obligated to pay damages because of bodily injury or property damage caused by an occurrence during the policy period.

Similarly, his personal catastrophe policy said it will provide coverage for amounts an insured becomes legally obligated to pay due to personal injury resulting from an occurrence. The policy defined a covered occurrence as an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to conditions, which results in personal injury or property damage which is neither expected nor intended, according to Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Kevin Doughertys opinion.

Both policies expressly excluded coverage for bodily injury, property damage or personal injury expected or intended by an insured.

Based on the policy provisions, Erie argued it did not owe coverage to the estate because Carlys injuries were expected or intended by Harold. As a result, Erie filed a declaratory judgment action.

The trial court initially agreed with Erie and granted summary judgment in its favor, finding that Erie had no duty to defend the estate against Carlys complaint. On appeal, however, the Superior Court reversed that decision. Erie filed a petition for allowance of appeal, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review.

Accident Versus Intentional Act

In its argument, Erie contended it does not have a duty to defend Harolds estate because the allegations in Carlys complaint describe a shooting during the commission of multiple felonies, according to Doughertys opinion.

Erie argued the term occurrence in the context of a liability insurance policy is defined as an accident, and the injuries resulting from this fight are not the result of an accident but a willful and malicious assault, the opinion document stated.

Although Harold never expressed his intention to harm Carly, Erie argued this does not rule out the possibility that he acted intentionally. According to Erie, Harolds decision to fight with Carly while brandishing a firearm was an intentional act, and Carlys injuries could be expected under the circumstances.

On the other hand, Carly argued the allegations in his complaint should be taken as true, and if doubt or ambiguity exists, it should be resolved in favor of coverage, Doughertys opinion stated.

According to Carly, the allegations in his complaint indicate Harold accidentally shot him. Carly emphasized that he does not allege Harold pointed the gun at him or threatened him and is not seeking relief for any intentional acts.

By denying coverage, Carly alleged Erie is presuming the accidental discharge of the gun was criminal and suggesting its policy excludes all risks associated with gunfire. Carly argued that although Erie could have written its policy to expressly exclude these risks, it did not.

Supreme Court Decision

Contrary to Eries view, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that Harolds encounter with Carly was not part of his other intentional conduct for the purposes of insurance coverage. It stated that although Harolds fight with Carly was intentional, Carly only sought damages for the shooting injury, not a fistfight or shoving match.

Had the policys exclusion expressly stated coverage would not apply to incidents involving firearms, or during the commission of a crime, then perhaps there would be no duty to defend the underlying claims by Carly, Dougherty wrote in his opinion. But the policy does not say this.

With this in mind, the court held that Erie has a duty to defend Harolds estate against Carlys lawsuit, affirming the previous order of the Superior Court.

Looking at the Facts

In light of the ruling, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy filed a dissenting opinion, arguing that Carlys injuries do not constitute an insurable occurrence.

Mundy argued that for an event to be considered an insurable occurrence, it must be unintended and occur unexpectedly. She stated that the discharge of Harolds gun under the circumstances that caused injury to Carly cannot be interpreted as an unexpected event that would trigger Eries duty to defend.

We are tasked with looking at the facts, not speculating about scenarios that are inconsistent with common sense or experience, she wrote. The facts are clear: while in the process of effecting a murder-suicide, McCutcheon physically pulled Carly into the home, engaged in a physical struggle with Carly, while he, the aggressor, held and discharged a firearm.

Mundy wrote that she believes the discharge of the firearm under the circumstances alleged in the Carly complaint do not carry the degree of unexpectedness necessary to constitute an accidental occurrence, and therefore disagreed with the notion that Erie is obligated to provide coverage.

In my view, artful pleadings cannot form the basis of imposing a duty to defend, she wrote.

Topics Carriers Pennsylvania
Human rights activist Ajda Ender was staying at a friends house when Turkey announced its first case of the novel coronavirus in mid-March. At a time when all state authorities were telling us to stay home, I simply could not, as I was in a legal battle with my neighbors, whose harassment and threats prevented my access to my own apartment, Ender, a trans woman, told Al-Monitor.

Enders case was brought to the parliaments agenda earlier this year by Zuleyha Gulum, a deputy from the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party, who asked the Ministry of Family and Social Affairs to protect Ender from threats, harassment and physical violence from her neighbors and police officers.

When she went to the local police station to file a complaint, she was met with transphobic speech. The officers told her that it was the way she looked that caused all this, Gulum said in a parliamentary question in January.

With the outbreak of the coronavirus, things went from bad to worse for Ender. The neighbors at her friends apartment, where she took refuge, cut the water and the internet connection to force her to move, as they believed she may carry the virus. Like many small businesses, her fashion brand, already struggling in the last year, came to a halt.

We are a vulnerable group and have become even more so during the pandemic. The coronavirus outbreak left me without a job and a home, yet when I applied for financial support from the Ministry of Social and Family Affairs, I was rejected, she said, sending Al-Monitor the negative reply to the request. Not only do we not get any help from the government, but statements by members of the government and top bureaucrats put us at risk of physical and verbal attacks.

Enders complaint comes as part of an explosive debate on mounting trans- and homophobia in Turkey, spurred by the remarks of Ali Erbas, head of Turkeys Religious Affairs Directorate. In an April 24 sermon, Erbas said that Islam condemns adultery and homosexuality because they bring disease and corrupt generations. Hundreds of thousands of people every year are exposed to HIV due to homosexuality and adultery, he stated.

Come and lets fight together to protect people from such evil, he said as Turkeys COVID-19 tally mounted, making the country a regional hotspot for the pandemic.

The remarks immediately drew the ire of human rights groups and bar associations, which accused Erbas, a close confidant of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of inciting hatred against Turkeys vulnerable LGBTI community and HIV-positive citizens. Gay rights group Kaos GL said Erbas had "spewed hatred" with "unscientific claims. The Ankara Human Rights Association declared that it would file a judicial complaint against him for inciting hatred. The Izmir Bar Association said it was concerned the statement could encourage new hate crimes.

Unsurprisingly, Erdogan threw his weight behind Erbas. An attack on Erbas is an attack on the state, the president said in a thinly veiled warning to critics April 27. Almost simultaneously, prosecutors launched a probe into the Ankara Bar Association for belittling the religious values adopted by part of the Turkish society. The Diyarbakir Bar Association faced a probe on the same grounds.

Government officials rallied to the side of Erbas as well. Suleyman Soylu, the powerful interior minister, tweeted with the hashtag #AliErbasisnotalone, Here it is, brief and clear, we love Ali Erbas and we need his words. The deans of theology faculties issued a declaration of support, restating that homosexuality was against Islamic teachings.

It is extremely concerning to see some of Turkeys top government representatives appearing to endorse hateful remarks by the head of the religious affairs directorate, Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement May 1. Turkeys government has an obligation to protect everyone from hate crimes and discrimination, and should not tolerate statements by officials that encourage hate crimes and target LGBT people and those living with HIV.

The controversy comes amid increasing homophobia in Turkey, where homosexuality is legal, but the LGBTI community is subject to abuse, harassment, violence and even murder. Many activists claim that homophobia and transphobia have increased with the coronavirus outbreak as many people regard the LGBTI community as carriers of the virus.

Some of the commentators on mainstream and social media have stepped up their attacks on the LGBTI community during the coronavirus pandemic, said Yildiz Tar, a member of Kaos GL. This is hardly new, but it is particularly perturbing that this hate speech is repeated by officials who portray the LGBTI as the culprits, rather than victims, of the pandemic. I am concerned that this hate speech, which has intensified over these critical days, will continue after the pandemic, becoming a permanent fixture of the political rhetoric.

Homophobia in Turkey has reached TV series and even childrens artwork in the last two months. In April, Love 101, a high-school drama set in the '90s about a bunch of unruly teenagers, came under fire because one of the main characters was alleged to be gay. Though the series trailer gave no such indication, conservative columnists and others kept referring to a Netflix conspiracy as the series was allegedly timed to start at Ramadan and named the gay character Osman  the name of the third caliph of Islam  deliberately to insult Muslims. United under the hashtag #Netflixadamol ("literally Netflix be a man," but meaning "be decent"), they called on Turkeys media watchdog to censor the series, but it went online as planned on April 24. There ended up being no indication that Osman, a resourceful teen entrepreneur-in-the-making, was gay. However, conservative media outlets continued their attacks on the series for encouraging the Turkish youth to form gangs, engage in crime, use drugs and have perverse relationships.

Even more strangely, the art museum Istanbul Modern's online activity inviting children across the country to draw rainbows and stick them in windows to cheer up confined Turks, also came under fire. Egitim-Sen, a teachers trade union, confirmed that some local education directorates had called on school principals not to allow children to participate in the project, saying it was an LGBTI plot to turn children gay.

The LGBTI rights group ILGA Europe ranked Turkey second from last  just ahead of Azerbaijan  in its review of 49 European and Central Asian countries in its 2020 report. Hate speech toward LGBTI Turks is steadily rising, said the report, citing statements by Soylu and the Religious Affairs Directorate as examples.
Even as Maharashtra has reported the most number of coronavirus cases in the country, one of its districts, Wardha, has managed to remain free from the virus despite being surrounded by districts with high number of COVID-19 cases.

According to the district's collector Vivek Bhimanwar, who spoke to The Indian Express, this was because of the initiatives taken by the administration, including strict vigil at four goods unloading points in the region and deployment of youth squads in over 65 villages.

"We are surrounded by three highlyaffected districts  Nagpur, Yavatmal and Amravati. So, we needed to be extra cautious," Bhimanwar said.

Follow our LIVE Updates here.

"We started off our campaign as early as February when we quarantined 13 girls from Beijing, who had joined the Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya. At that time, there was no talk of lockdown in the country," the official said.

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

Bhimanwar added that in mid-March, the administration shifted 54 major crowding vegetable markets to large open places in order to prevent crowding. They also stopped the entry of vegetables from outside the district.

A major challenge was to ensure that entry into the district was sealed.

"We knew it would be impossible to deploy police at all the points. So, we roped in staff from other departments to form vigilance squads along with 65 squads of local youths led by sarpanchs of villages near the entry points of the district," Bhimanwar said, adding, however, that the most effective method was to establish four good unloading points at district borders.

"We allowed transport vehicles carrying essential goods only by four routes and created unloading points at the entry points of district," the collector said, adding that drivers and cleaners of such vehicles were shifted to a separate facility and were not allowed to enter the cities.

Also Read | India's response well-organised, but will have to prepare for surge after lockdown: WHO official

"The vehicles are also disinfected and goods are unloaded by local labourers and carried to markets in separate vehicles," Bhimanwar said.

"We have put 114 foreign travellers and 19,600 outside travelers under home quarantine. A total of 300 samples were sent for testing, of which, 291 have reported negative and nine reports are awaited," the official added.
Researchers unearthed three skulls that were different from the hundreds of others in a mass grave discovered in Mexico City. The grave was found to be more than 500-years-old, dating back to the 16th century.

According to the archaeologists who excavated the burial site near San Jose de Los Naturales Royal Hospital, the skeletons' front teeth were filed decoratively as a ritual custom. They were buried alongside the indigenous people who made up most of the bodies at the grave.

The three unknown individuals were confirmed to have been African slaves after a genetic test. They are believed to be among the first slave trade that occurred in what is now Mexico.

History of Slavery

In 1518, a Spanish monarch named King Charles I allowed merchant ships to transport enslaved Africans to the Americas. In 1542, he liberated Indigenous people from slavery, causing an increase in demand for African slaves.

Nearly 120,000 enslaved Africans worked as servants, miners, and field workers between 1518 and 1650.

The Spanish believed the Africans fared well against diseases brought over from Europe-illnesses that nearly eliminated the entire Indigenous population.

The San Jose Hospital was built in 1530 and was initially exclusive to patients from indigenous tribes. Many died during the smallpox outbreak, and it was also said to have completely eradicated the Aztec Empire.

Disease Carriers

The three individuals were recovered in 1992 when Mexican workers were constructing a new subway. An examination of the skeletal remains suggests the slave trade may have introduced two infectious diseases to the Americas: hepatitis B and yaws.

On one man's tooth, researchers found DNA from a strain of the hepatitis B virus. The same strain is found in present-day West Africans. They believe the African slaves brought a novel form of the virus to Mexico.

Another victim's tooth showed traces of yaws, a forgotten disease that infects the bones, joints, and skins. The researchers found traces of the infection in the skeleton of a 17th-century European individual which suggests yaw continued to spread in the region a century later.

Trauma

Based on the radiocarbon dates of their teeth, scientists have concluded that they lived sometime between 1436 and 1626. As slaves, they were likely transported to Mexico in a transatlantic bondage system in the early 1500s.

The individuals did not live a comfortable life. All three in their 20s before being placed in the mass grave. Their bones displayed signs of hard labor and physical abuse. They had skull and leg fractures possibly from carrying heavy loads. They were also malnourished and suffered from parasitic infections.

The archaeologist found five pieces of buckshot in one of the victim's chest cavity, suggesting he was once shot with a gun. The bone was also stained with a greenish pigment which means the bullets stayed in the body of the victim until his death.

The findings paint a very detailed picture of the lives of African slaves, their origins, and their experiences after they were captured and sold in the slave trade. It reminds the world, once again, of the cruelty and inhumane practices of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Do you want more information about the Atlantic slave trade? Watch the video below:









Read more interesting news below:
Telework preparations paid off

NASCIO President and New Hampshire CIO Denis Goulet welcomed attendees to a very different gathering of state chief information officers on Monday. For the first time ever, it's a virtual event, with panelists assembling from their home offices across the country in light of travel restrictions and shelter-in-place orders due to COVID-19. While organizations across the globe have stepped up their virtual meeting capabilities in recent weeks, there is perhaps no group better suited to making a successful transition to an online event.The opening session was moderated by Washington state CIO Jim Weaver , joined by his counterparts Stephanie Dedmon from Tennessee and Curt Wood from Massachusetts . They spoke of massive shifts toward telework, changing priorities and the ever-growing criticality of technology. Here are five key points from their coronavirus response to date.The three state CIOs on the panel described their states efforts pre-pandemic to encourage remote work capabilities. While many in government were reluctant to institute the practice on a significant scale before, COVID-19 forced the issue and is bringing skeptics around to its viability.According to Dedmon, Tennessee has had a formal work-from-home policy in place for about seven years. And while its never been used to the degree it is now, the state got a dry run in early March when tornadoes struck the area around the capital city of Nashville. About 30 percent of the workforce could work from home before the pandemic (though not all of those did so full time), while now, the state has about 54 percent of its workforce working remotely full time.

Paradigm shift on cyberthreats

Massachusetts also had enabled telework for five to six years, Wood said. But in early March, only about 1,000 state employees were working from home. As is the case in virtually every state, COVID-19 required a dramatic shift toward remote work, requiring emergency purchasing of thousands of laptops. In addition, the state had to quickly add capacity to its VPN infrastructure. Wood estimates up to 90 percent of what he describes as the back-office workforce is working remotely today.One of our biggest challenges I think was to be able to transition so quickly with a workforce that was used to working in an office environment or in a field location, and be able to access their apps and understand how to work from home in a prolonged period, Wood said.Weaver described Washingtons existing telework policies as robust, with an average of about 3,000-5,000 teleworkers before COVID-19 hit. Now that number is closer to 30,000, he said, and is slowly increasing with the additional staff being brought on to manage increased demand on the state unemployment system.When it comes to traffic patterns on state networks, Weaver has also noted a shift during the pandemic era with the massive move toward telework. Another major change has been adjusting to a new way of managing monthly patches to desktops, he added.Both Dedmon and Wood noted the effectiveness of past cybersecurity efforts in preparing them to securely withstand external intrusion attempts. From a network perspective, weve certainly seen an uptick in  probes and pings against our network. Weve seen a lot more activity coming in from Russia and China, but nothing that I dont think was anticipated, Wood said.

We havent seen a lot of difference to date, Dedmon said.A greater challenge than guarding against more aggressive external threats, the CIOs noted, has been keeping solid cybersecurity practices in place for the newly remote workforce in order to develop understanding of multi-factor authentication tools and guard against things like malicious emails and texts.

Redefining normal: IT is essential

As newly remote workforces near almost the two-month point, IT leaders across the country have pivoted their staff toward a more nimble, problem-solving approach to their work. For Dedmon, its definitely not status quo. Almost every day, something new is needed, she said, describing the attitude shes tried to instill with agencies and IT teams. Were striving to be seen as enablers and being able to assist to solve problems.And emerging tech that may have raised eyebrows in simpler times is now something agencies are more willing to consider. The emergency situation has made people more open to new technologies, she added.

Industry has proven to be a vital partner

In Massachusetts, current events elevated the status of much of the state IT workforce. Internally in my organization, our IT staff had never really been considered essential personnel before, with the exception of a few, Wood said. He made that change early on, a critical decision for business continuity.Another theme that emerged from NASCIOs COVID-19 session was the many ways in which private industry has stepped up to work alongside government to weather this emergency.

Digital government: strengths and weaknesses exposed

Wood talked about a common strain on state government during this time: the dramatic increase in demands on state unemployment systems. Working with AWS, the state was able to stand up a remote call center in three days in order to support the influx. Taking that point a step further, he asked why in the future, that work needed to rely on government office space.Government has finally realized what the private sector has known for years: Government can work remotely. Weaver said, echoing an oft-repeated observation that the current crisis can transform the way work is done in the public sector.Dedmon agreed that the support of the vendor community offering complete solutions to pressing problems has proven very helpful. We have had a number of partners who have really stepped up and helped us out, have been able to quickly, in very short order, stand up additional capabilities for a number of our agencies, she said.As mentioned relative to emerging technology, the push toward more online services during this time when physical service delivery is limited may help CIOs in the long run. The My TN app recently launched in Tennessee is getting more use of late, alongside expected increases in unemployment and other assistance programs.In Massachusetts, Wood described available online services as fairly mature, though the pandemic has presented some new opportunities. Recent additions include additional communications tools like alerts and text notifications, chatbots, and other automated tools to relieve some of the pressure from state call centers where possible.With a note of caution, Wood expressed reluctance to get too grandiose with a digital strategy that could prove unwieldy. This gives us an opportunity to rethink this and prioritize, he said. We dont want to get caught up in something so big that we cant do anything.
Zoukis Consulting Group "Each day the COVID-19 infection rate and death toll rises in American prisons," explains Christopher Zoukis, Managing Director of the Zoukis Consulting Group. "Prison officials know they have a pandemic on their hands. They just don't have the tools they need to protect inmates or staff."

Coronavirus has changed the world we live in, but if you or a family member are one of the 2.3 million people incarcerated in the U.S., there are other concerns to consider. Since April 29, 2020, at least 14,513 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19. However, these infection numbers underrepresent the dire state of COVID-19 in prison because many prisoners have not been tested.

To combat this developing pandemic, Zoukis Consulting Group developed a coronavirus tracking dashboard for all prisons in the U.S. The dashboard data displays the number of inmates tested, inmate and staff deaths, positive and negative results, and pending results.

The recently released COVID-19 in Prison dashboard helps journalists and families track cases of the novel coronavirus in prison. Users can isolate a particular prison system to view prison system-specific coronavirus infection data, as well as statistics, information on testing, and answers to frequently asked questions. Its the most comprehensive resource for those interested in how COVID-19 is affecting American prisons.

This resource portal provides a broad overview of COVID-19s impact on every prison system across the country, said Christopher Zoukis, Managing Director. Where possible, we at the Zoukis Consulting Group have embedded applicable coronavirus resources in PDF format.

With this new comprehensive tool, journalists and prisoners family members can now access this data collected and implemented into an easy-to-use online portal. For the past month, the Zoukis Consulting Group has collected data, tracking how the virus has spread and how prison systems across the country are addressing the crisis.

The dashboards are divided by each states prison system. The COVID-19 in Prison portal can be accessed at https://www.prisonerresource.com/covid-19. Once at the portal, journalists can search by state or scroll through resources to find important information regarding the spread of coronavirus in prison and other coronavirus issues affecting American corrections.

For example, clicking on the Federal Bureau of Prisons link brings the user to data specific to the federal prison system. As of May 3, 2020, 1,926 federal inmates and 350 BOP staff have tested positive for COVID-19, with 38 federal prisoners dying from the virus. An additional 515 inmates and 148 staff members have recovered. This dashboard also shows that 51 federal prisons and 21 halfway house systems have reported inmate or staff infections. Additionally, the federal prison section hosts PDFs of Attorney General William Barrs March 26 and April 3 memorandums concerning the early release of federal inmates due to COVID-19.

As COVID-19 continues to spread across the U.S., many inmates have limited access to healthcare and other vital resources. In addition, options are highly limited for social distancing in prison, which has led to a crisis in most prison systems. The risk of exposure for older inmates and those with autoimmune and respiratory illnesses is an even more significant.

The new dashboard provides a much-needed resource for journalists and families of inmates, and legal resources for those who may qualify for early release from custody.

About the Zoukis Consulting Group

The Zoukis Consulting Group is a boutique federal prison consultancy specializing in prison preparation, resolution of in-prison matters, and reentry success. The firm regularly advises federal criminal defense attorneys, criminal defendants, and their families on federal prison matters. ZCG can be found online at https://www.prisonerresource.com.

About Christopher Zoukis

Christopher Zoukis, MBA, Managing Director of the Zoukis Consulting Group, is the author of the Directory of Federal Prisons (Middle Street Publishing, 2020), Federal Prison Handbook (Middle Street Publishing, 2017), Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016), and College for Convicts (McFarland & Co., 2014). He is also the chief COVID-19 reporter for Prison Legal News and Criminal Legal News. Learn more about Mr. Zoukis at https://www.prisonerresource.com/christopher-zoukis-federal-prison-consultant/.
For Nigerian math teacher Michael Thompson, who has a physical disability that requires him to use crutches, educating the students he encounters every year in Nigeria is his most important goal. So when he arrived to teach at one particular school where the students wanted to mock his disability, he changed up his perspective and teaching methodsand not only helped them learn math but helped them to be better people as well.

He shared his story on social media, where hes gone viral for his valuable message about making sure that the students are the most important part of his day.

Thompson suffers from acute flaccid paralysis, a condition that has caused him to lose mobility in his legs and rely on crutches to get around. He shared on Twitter how he arrived at one school where he taught with a very visible impairment, which caused some of the students to mock him.

The first time I entered the class, they said and I heard it clearly, How can this guy with crutches be our Mathematics Teacher. It hurt me, he wrote.

He went on to explain that the students all mocked him when he went to write his name on the board, because with his crutches he couldnt even reach the top. They nicknamed me CRUTCHES, Crutches not even Mr. Crutches, he said.

But as he went on to write, he decided not to try directly changing the studentsbut instead changed his perspective so the students didnt notice how he was making them fall in love with him.

But you know what I did? I changed my #perspective, I played along with the mockings. I told them each time see my hand cannot reach the top of the board, I will start from where my hand can reach  and I respond with a blooming smile each time they call me CRUTCHES, he wrote.

In time, he wrote, the students stopped looking down on him. And not only did they grow to love the subject he teaches, but they grew to love having him at the head of their classroom, as well.

With time  they not only love me, they fell deeply in love with Mathematics, he wrote. Focus on things you can control and not on things you cannot control or change. Channel your energy wisely.

The responses to the thread were full of other teachers praising him for his strength and passion for helping childrenand they even contained one from one of his own former students.

Mr Michael taught me maths while I was preparing for Waec in 2016 and all I can say is this man is a man full of passion and love. At first I pitied him but I later got used to it cause this man doesnt even see his self in a pitiful situation, wrote Akinlade Oluwaseyi. I pray God continues to bless you. According to her Twitter bio, Oluwasevi went on to study microbiology since having Thompson as her teacher.

It wasnt easy for Thompson to get to a point where he could even get a formal education, much less help provide one to other students in Nigeria. He told Yahoo News UK that his mother paid for his education grinding pepper and borrowing money from one place and the otherand now hes in a position to make sure other students struggling to get their education have access to a fantastic teacher.

I walk with the aid of crutches but that will not stop my dreams of impacting lives and imparting knowledge into people throughout the world, he said.

(Courtesy of Michael Thompson)

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Epoch Inspired Newsletter here: TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
Guwahati: The Assam government on Sunday (May 3) said the first instance of African Swine Flu has been detected in the state and it has already killed around 2,500 pigs across 306 villages.

Despite a go-ahead from the Centre, the state government will not resort to culling of the pigs immediately and will adopt an alternate mechanism to prevent the spread of the highly contagious disease, Assam Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Minister Atul Bora said at a press conference.

He said the disease has no relation at all with COVID-19.

"The National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD), Bhopal has confirmed that it is African Swine Flu (ASF). The central government has informed us that it is the first instance of the disease in the country," Bora said.

As per a 2019 census by the department, the pig population was 21 lakh, but it has increased in recent times to around 30 lakh, he added.

"We have discussed with experts if we can save the pigs without culling them. The death percentage of the pigs affected by the disease is almost 100 per cent. So we have made some strategies to save the pigs, which are not affected by the virus," Bora said.

The department will collect samples within one km radius of the infected area and test them, he informed.

"After testing, we will cull only those pigs which will be found infected. We are avoiding the immediate culling of the pigs. We will take daily updates and will take a decision as and when the situation arises," Bora said.

The further testing will be done in Assam itself in three labs here, but these will not be sufficient and officials concerned have been asked to contact the Health Department for this, he added.

The minister said that the state government has requested the neighbouring states to take steps so that there is no movement of pigs.

"The virus spreads through pig's meat, saliva, blood and tissue. So there will be no transportation of pigs between districts. We will also check what can be done to the pigs passing through our state.

"We will have a surveillance zone within 10 km radius so that no pigs are transported out of the area or no feed is moved from a different location. We will also do GPS mapping," Bora said.

He, however, said the disease has not spread much yet and around 2,500 pigs have died due to ASF across 306 villages in seven districts in the state.

"The disease was detected during the last part of February. However, it started in April 2019 in China at a village of Xizang province bordering Arunachal Pradesh. It is suspected that the disease crossed over to Arunachal Pradesh and then reached Assam," Bora

Usually, pigs roaming freely are infected, but off late those in the farms are also seen affected, he added.

"In a particular case of one farmer, whose 230 pigs have died, his employee's personal pig died due to this. So it is suspected that the employee carried the virus from his home to the farm and got the pigs infected. We have seen it in some other farms also. So humans also carry this virus," Bora said.

The Veterinary Department started giving the vaccine of classical swine flu to the pigs after this outbreak, but it was stopped as there was a danger of spreading the virus through the doctor, he added.

"However, it never affects humans. There is no problem in consuming pork from the areas where there is no infection. We will conduct awareness and training of farmers. We have selected 13 districts for this purpose," the minister claimed.

He also said that the government has formed district-level committees to implement the guidelines such as pigs will not be allowed to roam freely and the farmers will have to keep them in enclosures.

When asked about compensating the farmers incurring losses, Bora said, "Farmers have been affected. We are assessing the total damage. We will see the provisions from the disaster management authorities and compensate them accordingly."
Louise Rogenski, a CT Scan Technician, outside of the emergency room at Jeanes Campus-Temple University Hospital. The Supreme Court is poised to rule on whether President Trump has the authority to end DACA, the program that allows Rogenski and others to live and work in the U.S. Read more

When hospital CT technologist Louise Rogenski scans patients known or suspected to have COVID-19, shes close enough to see the fear in their eyes.

She never lets it show that shes anxious, too  and not only because of the coronavirus.

In a matter of months, the Trump administration could end Rogenskis work helping the sick, potentially deporting her and other immigrant health-care providers to homelands they barely remember.

Rogenski is a DACA recipient, one of about 700,000 who as children were illegally brought to the United States by their parents, then permitted to live, learn, and work here under an Obama-era program. Trump ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in 2017 and fought the legal rulings that have kept it alive all the way to the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule by the end of June.

It bothers us that from a government standpoint, they want to get rid of us, said Rogenski, 26, who was 12 when her parents came to the Philadelphia area from Brazil.

She buries her worries when at work because we cant let that stop us from helping the next person. We have to try to save the next person.

In the battle against the coronavirus, she and many other DACA recipients serve at the point of the spear  an estimated 27,000 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technicians, physician assistants, and home aides.

 READ MORE: DACA march to U.S. Supreme Court stops for a rally at Philly City Hall

Rogenski pulls on an isolation gown, eye shield, mask, and gloves to scan patients at Jeanes Campus of Temple University Hospital, and often puts in extra shifts at Nazareth Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia and Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood.

Others work at doctors offices, clinics, and medical centers.

Its out of compassion, and the dire necessity we see in our communities, said Jonatan Quintino Juarez, 23, a medical assistant at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health. Our parents couldnt access health care. We saw that.

His work exposes him to patients who could have COVID-19, but who might not speak English, who need to explain their symptoms in Spanish to a bilingual aide like him. Early in the pandemic, he worked at an outdoor screening station.

Its very likely Ill end up getting it, thats become very clear to me, said Juarez, who is finishing nursing school. Its emotionally exhausting. Im overthinking about it, and scaring myself, and more focusing on my job.

His parents came to Lancaster from Mexico in 2000, seeking a better life for then-3-year-old Jonatan, his 2-year-old sister, and 5-year-old brother. The years-long uncertainty around DACA has become a weight.

We are constantly trying to prove ourselves to a country that doesnt want us, that doesnt see us, he said. Im here to do my job. Im here to help people.  If anybody deserves a piece of paper that validates them, its my parents. Ill be fine. Other countries will want me.

The Supreme Court ruling will settle one of the most consequential immigration cases of the Trump era, deciding whether Barack Obama had the power to create DACA without congressional approval. DACA opponents say that he did not, and that immigration laws must be enforced without exceptions.

 READ MORE: Everything is at stake for Dreamers as Supreme Court takes up DACA

Recipients, also known as Dreamers, get no citizenship or legal status, but qualify for work permits and renewable, two-year deferments from deportation. The lower-court decisions have allowed those with DACA to continue filing for renewals, although acceptance of new applications has been halted.

The kids  theyre young adults now  their stories speak for themselves, and their bravery speaks for itself, said Philadelphia immigration lawyer Adam Solow, who represents DACA recipients at Solow, Isbell & Palladino LLC. Its a disgrace that our political system, which authorized $4 trillion in spending in less than a few weeks, without any real debate, has not come to a compromise to help DACA recipients after nearly a decade.

University of Illinois at Chicago scholar Adam Goodman isnt surprised that the U.S. might deport immigrant health workers in the teeth of a pandemic. The countrys mythical identity as a nation that welcomes immigrants simply doesnt square with historical evidence, he said. Its anti-newcomer bent nears an apex under a Trump administration that portrays migrants as takers and criminals.

The administrations attempt to terminate DACA lays bare their real target  reducing or ending all immigration, said Goodman, author of The Deportation Machine: Americas Long History of Expelling Immigrants.

When DACA youths hear talk of sending them back to their country, it takes a minute to register. Because the U.S. is their country, they say, the place where they grew up, went to school, found community.

We are Americans, said Jose Ramirez, 27, a licensed practical nurse at the UPMC hospital in Harrisburg, and whose parents brought him here from Mexico at age 8. Any second I can lose everything that Ive worked for  I dont have a backup plan.

Anel Medina was 5 when she and her parents left Mexico City for Kennett Square. Now, shes a registered nurse, working in an oncology unit at a Philadelphia-area hospital she declined to name.

The threat of catching COVID-19 is real, but as a nurse, as a DACA recipient, as someone who went into health care for the love of health care and the love of patients, I go in knowing I want to help others, she said. I go in with all my heart and soul, knowing Im going to change someones life.

Medina, 29, wants to become a nurse-practitioner  if she can raise the money, since DACA recipients arent eligible for federal school loans or aid. And if she isnt forced from the U.S.

When people talk about health workers at the front lines, theyre talking about Mariana Galati, 27, a registered medical assistant at Jefferson Health, who works at a drive-up testing site in South Jersey.

She faces exposure to the virus all the time. And she takes every shift shes offered.

I have to be there. I want to be there, she said. Im not scared, but I am scared at the same time. I know what the risks are. All the patients look at you, Thank you, thank you so much for doing this. If we didnt have you ...'

She came to the United States at 5, when her mother brought her to Camden from Mexico, and now lives with her husband in Mount Laurel, about to start nursing school.

I dont have anything to go back to, she said. I dont have any close family there. All of myself, everything Ive learned, my entire schooling, has been here.

For her, the doubts around DACA are very frustrating, when Ive done everything right every step of the way. I dont have a criminal background. Im a good citizen. I help out. Theres a shortage of nurses.

Rogenski, the CT tech, has already been told by Jeanes administrators that shell be let go in June unless her work authorization is renewed. She filed months ago, but by the time her appointment for fingerprints arrived, that office had been closed by the crisis, she said. So now, the hospital where I have been risking my life during this epidemic is threatening to terminate me.

The stress is exhausting. Yet, when she gets home after working eight or 12 or 16 hours, sleep can be slow to come. If she develops a small cough, she wonders, Is this it? Have I caught the virus?

My mom is especially worried, Rogenski said.  If you get sick, I cant even go take care of you. 
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Tiffany Fumiko Tay (The Straits Times/Asia News Network)  Mon, May 4, 2020 13:02 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c3baa 2 News Great-Singapore-Sale,Singapore,travel,tourism,coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

There will be no Great Singapore Sale (GSS) this year.

This will be the first time in the 26-year history of the event - usually held between June and August - that it will not be taking place.

The Singapore Retailers Association (SRA), which organises the GSS, told The Straits Times that it will "take a break this year in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic".

"It will return next year to offer local and tourist shoppers the 'Great Singapore Experience', both offline and online," said SRA's executive director Rose Tong.

The annual event - where retailers traditionally serve up discounts and promotions - underwent a revamp last year amid criticism that it had lost its relevance. Its duration was cut by half and it was expanded to include festivities such as a pop-up market, fashion shows and film screenings.

The cancellation comes as little surprise as the sale - timed to coincide with the school holidays as well as peak travel season - will likely fall flat even if shops are allowed to reopen when the circuit breaker ends on June 1.

Read also: Singapore visitor arrivals in March lowest since SARS outbreak in 2003

A ban on short-term visitors to Singapore has meant no tourists, and the school holidays were brought forward by a month to May.

Ms Tong said that retailers have been signing up staff members for courses during the downtime and seeking other revenue streams.

The SRA urged firms to also take advantage of government schemes to help retailers go online and extend their reach overseas, in order to diversify and generate new sales avenues. Ms Tong noted that consumers were likely to be more cautious in their spending when stores reopen, and shopper traffic would likely not return to normal for at least six months.

"Of utmost urgency now is for landlords to truly extend themselves and give tenants the much needed lifeline to mitigate imminent massive store closures and job losses, especially our small local retailers," she said, adding that this would be in the form of a commitment to reduce rent by at least half for the months ahead, or to base rental on a percentage of turnover.

"The silence and non-commitment from landlords on rental rebates and rental reductions beyond May is worrying and spells trouble for the retail industry and the economy."

Topics :

This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
Authorities in Sumter arrested a woman on Saturday accused of licking her hands, coughing and touching several items at a grocery store and a sandwich shop.

Shenir Gibson Holliday, 38, of Sumter was arrested by Sumter police officers who responded to a call of a suspicious person at an IGA grocery store on Pinewood Road, authorities said.

Officers found the woman in the store's parking lot and identified her as the suspect in a hand-licking incident at the Sub Station II sandwich shop on Peach Orchard Road in unincorporated Sumter County, authorities said.

"Officers reviewed video footage inside the IGA, which showed the woman licking her hands and coughing before pulling on freezer doors and touching food items," according to the Sumter County Sheriff's Office. "She also was seen doing the same in the dry-food section of the store."

Investigations by police officers and sheriff's deputies are ongoing.

Holliday was charged by police with aggravated breach of peace and food tampering. She also was issued a citation for violating South Carolina's work-or-home order, which was in place at the time but expired Monday morning.

The sheriff's office filed the same charges against her "for a similar incident" at the sandwich shop.

Bail was set Sunday at $100,000, court records show. Holliday was ordered to stay away from the grocery store and the sandwich shop.

She was also ordered to undergo testing for COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, the Sheriff's Office said.
Visiun's Performance Insight COVID-19 Antibody Dashboard

Visiun, the leader in laboratory analytics, has developed new reporting that analyzes COVID-19 antibody titers for plasma donation enabling health systems to identify what percentage of their tested population meet donation eligibility.

Developed in quick response to address a critical customer request, these new analytics provide a breakdown from positive COVID-19 patients carrying enough of the antibody to be eligible for plasma donation. This includes the number of positive and negative antibody test results derived from the number of samples tested as well as a categorization of the amount of antibody titration levels using defined markers for donor eligibility thresholds. Hospitals can see the percentages of samples that meet each defined threshold for plasma donation eligibility criteria.

Convalescent plasma is the liquid part of blood that is collected from patients who have recovered from the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, caused by the virus SARS-COV-2. According to the USFDA, COVID-19 patients develop antibodies in the blood against the virus. Convalescent plasma is currently being investigated for the treatment of COVID-19 because there is no approved treatment for this disease and there is some information that suggests it might help some patients recover from COVID-19.

In addition to these new analytics, Visiun has been proactively helping laboratories respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with the creation of a suite of applicable analytics, offered at no charge to laboratories that have Visiuns software product, Performance Insight, installed. Additional capabilities include reporting for laboratories to monitor volumes of positive and negative test results by laboratory location, reporting that filters new positive cases from repeat positive results, and the ability to distinguish high volume COVID-19 positive areas based on zip codes. Importantly, this tool can also be used for laboratories to monitor their COVID-19 test turnaround times and trending volumes.

Compatible with every major LIS on the market, Performance Insight provides laboratory management with business intelligence and analytics to help their teams monitor key service commitments and improve workflow, quality, and financial performance. With Performance Insight, laboratories can eliminate manual reporting processes and see everything that is happening in the lab on a daily basis including turnaround time, quality, productivity/workflow, blood product utilization, test utilization, and more.

About Visiun, Inc.

Visiun is the leading provider of performance analytics to the laboratory industry. Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Visiun has been providing services to the laboratory industry for over ten years, with hundreds of laboratories installed across the United States. Performance Insight, Visiun's core product, provides laboratory managers with a comprehensive suite of analytics that deliver immediate improvements in performance, efficiency, and quality. For more information, please visit http://www.visiun.com.
We're definitely into long term investing, but some companies are simply bad investments over any time frame. It hits us in the gut when we see fellow investors suffer a loss. For example, we sympathize with anyone who was caught holding China South City Holdings Limited (HKG:1668) during the five years that saw its share price drop a whopping 78%. And we doubt long term believers are the only worried holders, since the stock price has declined 39% over the last twelve months. Furthermore, it's down 15% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders.

View our latest analysis for China South City Holdings

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. 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.

During the five years over which the share price declined, China South City Holdings's earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 7.7% each year. This reduction in EPS is less than the 26% annual reduction in the share price. So it seems the market was too confident about the business, in the past. The less favorable sentiment is reflected in its current P/E ratio of 1.98.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

SEHK:1668 Past and Future Earnings May 4th 2020

It's probably worth noting that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. This free interactive report on China South City Holdings's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, China South City Holdings's TSR for the last 5 years was -72%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

Story continues

A Different Perspective

We regret to report that China South City Holdings shareholders are down 36% for the year (even including dividends) . Unfortunately, that's worse than the broader market decline of 13%. However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case there's a good opportunity. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 23% per year over five years. 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. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand China South City Holdings better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks, for example - China South City Holdings has 4 warning signs (and 1 which shouldn't be ignored) we think you should know about.

Of course China South City Holdings may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on HK 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.
After coming late to the testing party -- for reasons ranging from technical issues to regulatory hurdles -- the US has now conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country

Vienna International Airport is offering on-site COVID-19 tests that will deliver results in about three hours.

Passengers at Vienna International Airport can now sign up to get tested for the coronavirus.

For departing passengers, that means they can use the medical certificate to prove that they are not infected with COVID-19 when they arrive at their destination. Countries like Thailand, Bangladesh and Cambodia, for instance, require that arriving passengers carry a medical certificate proving they are COVID-19 free.

Austria, too, has made medical certificates mandatory. But passengers arriving at Vienna International Airport without a certificate can get tested on-site. If the test results are negative, travelers will be exempt from the mandatory 14-day quarantine imposed on all travelers who arrive without medical clearance.

Tests will only be conducted on asymptomatic travelers who do not exhibit the classic signs of the virus -- cough and fever. Those who already demonstrate symptoms and have been in contact with infected persons will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days.

The PCR tests, which collect samples from deep within the nose and throat, will be carried out by Confidence DNA Analysen GmbH and cost 190. Tests must be booked in advance.

Meanwhile, major international airlines have also begun introducing their own precautionary and screening measures at their home airports. Emirates has begun conducting coronavirus blood tests for passengers leaving from Dubai. The tests are conducted by the Dubai Health Authority, and results are ready in 10 minutes.

Etihad Airways has installed self-serve, contactless kiosks that can flag at-risk travelers by monitoring their temperature, heart rate and respiratory rate.
An empty classroom at Edmund Waller school in south London - Shutterstock

Boris Johnson is expected to unveil plans to reopen primary schools from June 1. In an address to the nation next Sunday, according to The Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister will outline the Governments "roadmap" out of coronavirus lockdown in response to a study showing the rate of the viruss transmission in the UK.

Based on current infection rate data, Mr Johnson is hoping to put teachers on three weeks' notice to reopen primary schools in England to all pupils on June 1. Year 10 and year 12 students will then be the first wave of secondary pupils to return later in the month.

The move is intended to minimise the threat to early years development and help parents return to work.

Telegraph readers have shared their views on the Governments plans to reopen schools. Read on for some of the best comments weve received and join the conversation in the comments section.

Absolutely the schools should reopen in June

@Owen Daniel

Absolutely the schools should reopen in June, as long as parents arent punished for keeping their kids at home if they feel its best. Waiting until September is unlikely to be any safer if theres a seasonal factor with the virus and a vaccine isn't ready.

A phased dismantling of lockdown makes absolute sense

@Janet Warrior

A phased dismantling of lockdown makes absolute sense, but vulnerable workers will need special arrangements of some sort in order to work safely. Who would want to be the employer who gets sued for putting vulnerable staff at risk?

"I bet there would be an army of ambulance chasing lawyers salivating at the prospect.

Primary schools should not open until September

@June Winton

I think primary schools should not open until September. The disease seems worse for younger children to suffer. It's the secondary children who need to study for their exams.

Story continues

Lets get them back in the classrooms as soon as possible

@Rory Bremmer

Why cant some schools go back earlier depending on the prevailing infection rate? Moreover, as school children are at low risk of death from the disease lets get them back in the classrooms as soon as possible. Of course if a child is living with vulnerable adults they can stay home but the rest should return.

The first step back to normality should be based on economic activity, not primary education

@Roger Thrush

The first step back to normality should be based on economic activity, not primary education. Then those returning to work who cant work at home, who have school age kids, their children can go to school as it is for like essential workers now. All other kids should stay at home.

We need to get the kids back to school for their own wellbeing and education

@Super Grover

The education pupils are receiving right now is inconsistent and at times non-existent. We need to get kids back to school for their own wellbeing and education. Waiting till August or September is far too long. Unions are already making noises about cancelling 2021 exams. Its not fair on the pupils.

Its not nearly enough but its a start

@Charles Cole

Its not nearly enough but its a start, thank heavens. If the polls are to be believed Boris Johnson will have one hell of a job defusing the herd hysteria his policies and the media have created.

I wonder how many parents will be too worried to allow their children to attend?

@Huw Morgan Jones

The government in England may well partially reopen schools after the Whitsun break. I wonder how many parents will be too worried to allow their children to attend? Polling suggests two thirds think it too early for schools to start up again.

Equally, the governments of Scotland, Wales and even Northern Ireland seem less keen. I'm not saying the parents and devolved politicians are correct, but I could understand why rather a lot might think it worth holding on for the next academic year 'for safety's sake'.

Why is Britain so slow with everything?

@Carrie Anne

All other European nations are reopening their schools now or next week. Why is Britain so slow with everything?!

Should primary schools reopen in June? Share your view in the comments section below.
Rantoul, IL (61866)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low near 25F. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low near 25F. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.
Catherine Tyldesley looked stunning as she posed in the sunshine in a social media picture on Monday.

The former Coronation Street star, 36, took to Instagram to post two snaps of her in a gorgeous floral dress as she stood in the sunshine.

She posed with one hand on her hip while wearing the midi number which had a pleated skirt section, teaming it with pink strappy sandals.

Stunning: Catherine Tyldesley, 36, seemed to be keeping her spirits high as she posed in the sunshine on Monday wearing a pretty floral dress

Catherine styled her long blonde tresses in loose beachy waves and went for a minimal makeup look with a slick of mascara and a nude pink lip colour.

The blonde beauty finished off her look with some sky-high heeled sandals and minimal jewellery.

She posted the pictures for her 611,000 followers alongside the caption: 'Little bit in love with todays outfit. Summer in a dress!'

Summery floral: The former Coronation Street star took to Instagram to post two snaps of her in a gorgeous floral dress as she stood in the sunshine

The actress has been keeping a brave face on things after she recently revealed her grandfather is on a ventilator battling coronavirus.

She told her fans on Thursday that her grandfather is 'really, really poorly'.

Catherine, whose parents are also battling coronavirus, said she is convinced her husband Tom Pitfield and son Alfie, five, caught it on a flight in November last year.

Ill: Catherine, whose parents are also battling coronavirus, said she is convinced her husband Tom Pitfield and son Alfie, five, caught it on a flight in November last year

Catherine said: 'He's on a ventilator in hospital at the moment.

'My parents were really really poorly for about a month. They really struggled to shake it.

'I'm convinced, I've got a lot of friends who are doctors and most have said it's been going on since September, October and people have been keeping it quiet and it's built and built and built.

'I'm convinced my Tom and Alfie had it in November. They caught it on a flight and some man collapsed on a plane, a young man, on oxygen, couldnt breathe.'

'All the symptoms of corona. The day after Tom woke up and said, "Phone me an ambulance I cant breathe". And you now how fit my Tom is - he's never ill. He was so ill.

Catherine continued: 'Four days later Alfie got it. And its only now that Im going, "Oh my God that was it".

'I put it on Instagram and so many people messaged me saying they were on my Emirates flight and they got sick.'

Last month, the Strictly star revealed that both of her parents Janet and Graham are battling coronavirus.

The actress made the surprise revelation during an interview with Lorraine Kelly on Good Morning Britain, adding her father was briefly hospitalised during his battle with the deadly disease.

But Catherine insisted that after three weeks of battling the virus she is optimistic that her parents have 'turned a corner' towards getting better.
MANILA, Philippines  State insurer Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) on April 22 reminded overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) of the mandatory premium rate hike for this year.

But the announcement sparked outrage especially from modern day heroes who slammed the rate adjustment as a form of injustice at this time of a global health pandemic.

More than 300,000 have signed an online petition against it.

Hindi po ako payag. Panibagong pabigat naman po sa amin. Sana po ay magkaroon ng option at hindi po mandatory, said Marlon Sarguet, an OFW in Australia.

Alfred Busa argued that they also pay health insurance abroad but not as high as three percent and they are able to enjoy its benefits.

Sa health insurance na iyon ng Taiwan, kumbaga mararamdaman mo talaga ang hinuhulugan mo, pero hindi siya ganun kalaki, he said.

I support universal healthcare, but this is nuts. Absolutely nuts. I seriously wonder how theyre going to enforce this on all overseas Filipinos. What are they going to do? Bar me from leaving the country unless I pay up? wrote Josh Lim, an OFW in the US.

Definitely bad legislating on the part of Congress and/or bad rule-making on the part of PhilHealth, he added.

Even Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Locsin slammed Philhealth, telling the agency to leave the OFWs alone as the payment does not even benefit them .

Why don't we just leave OFWs alone except to help them when they are in trouble. Their blood but better wages abroad account for 10% of our GDP according to the assholes who want to take some of their earnings. https://t.co/QBoZSuYtEa  Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) May 3, 2020

Kabayan Partylist Rep. Ron Salo, one of the original proponents of the Universal Health Care Law, meanwhile, expressed support for the OFWs call for a moratorium on the premium rate hike and explained that the Law actually provides benefits to contributors including OFWs.

Story continues

I support our OFWs call for a moratorium on the increase of Philhealth premiums in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.

Finally, it is worthy to note that the UHC Law provides that those who are directly contributing premiums should be given better health coverage, he noted adding that member contributions also benefit Filipinos who are not able to pay for medical services.

What OFWs need to know about the new premium rate hike

The state insurer on April 22 published on its social media page details of the law which explains the mandatory premium rate hike for OFWs starting this year.

PhilHealth Circular No. 2020-0014, first announced in December 2019, states that all overseas Filipinos including their dependents living and working abroad must remit 3% of their monthly monthly salary to the agency, an increase from last years 2.7%.

The law covers overseas Filipinos working and living abroad including their dependents, even those who are on-vacation or are still waiting for documentation, registered on not with the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP).

By overseas Filipinos mean:

Land-based OFWs

Seafarers and other sea-based workers

Filipinos with dual citizenship (RA 9225)

Filipinos living abroad

Overseas Filipinos in distress

Other overseas Filipinos not previously classified elsewhere

No photo description available.

Its a tiered payment computation which gradually increases each year starting from 2019 to 2025:

2019  2.5%

2020  3%

2021  3.5%

2022  4%

2023  4.5

2024 and 2025  5%

Based on PhilHealths computation, OFWs who earn monthly salary of P10,000 will have to pay P630 each month or P7,400 for the whole year while those who receive P60,000 a month will have to pay P1,800 each month or P21,000 for the whole year.

Since 2020 is the transition period, an OFW will have to pay an initial amount of P2,400 then he or she may opt to pay the remaining balance in full or in quarterly payments.

By 2021, the initial payment will be 3 months of the OFWs salary and the remaining amount may be paid in full or in quarterly installments.

An OFW may opt to pay in full for one year or by quarterly installments.

Payment mode for sea based OFWs must be made monthly through salary deductions by their manning agency or employers.

All overseas Filipinos are required to submit proof of actual income to which PhilHealth will compute the monthly premium contribution.

Missed contributions beyond the due date must be paid with monthly compounded interests.

The new measure takes effect on May 5, thats 15 days after its publication in a major newspaper on April 22.

The post PhilHealths 3% mandatory pay hike amid global pandemic draws public ire appeared first on UNTV News.
Ulster University has said that government sign-off is needed by the end of May to ensure student intake for a Magee medical school can proceed as planned for 2021.

Elected representatives from across the north west have called on the Executive to sign off on a medical school at Magee and match funding for Derrys City Deal.

The Executive will meet today and SDLP MLA Sinead McLaughlin today said that with three weeks to get it over the line 'it must be top of their agenda'.

I urge all Executive Ministers to make a call this week. Lets get it done, together, she added.

An Ulster University spokesperson stated that it is 'steadfast' in its commitment to establishing a Graduate Entry Medical School in a bid to address the challenges of a healthcare system at breaking point, and to future proof care provision across Northern Ireland.

The Universitys completed Outline Business Case was submitted to the Department of Health on 21st October and we are hopeful that it will be reviewed by the Minister as soon as possible.

We continue to work with the General Medical Council to gain full accreditation. The GMCs Stage 5 process can only be completed when it recommends progression to Stage 6, and that is only possible when a funding decision is confirmed.

To complete the next stages with the GMC in preparation and readiness for a 2021 intake of students, confirmation of a funding commitment is required by the end of May.

The department of health is readying its own business case for medical expansion in Northern Ireland but gave no assurances that a medical school will be based in Derry.

Meanwhile, another government department, that for the economy, has told the Derry News that Ulster Universitys business case for expansion to 10,000 full-time students requires significant work.

Long-running plans for a medical school at Ulster Universitys Magee campus have been plagued by set-backs.

A revised timeline targeted student enrolment in 2021.

The Derry News asked the department whether it expects the medical school to be approved and for medical students to enrol at Magee next year.

In response, a Department of Health spokesperson said: The establishment of a Graduate Entry Medical School is one of the priorities of the restored Executive in New Decade, New Approach.

The Department of Health has been clear that there are two separate business case processes in relation to the development of a Graduate Entry Medical School.

The first process, which has been under way since 2017, has involved significant assistance from departmental officials on the development of Ulster Universitys own business case.

Ulster University has been grateful for this assistance, which has ensured that their business case meets the standards within government financial guidance.

He added: The second process is the development of the Department of Healths own business case which will outline the need to be addressed by any expansion of medical education.

That business case will be formally submitted to the Minister very shortly. It will be appreciated that the departments immediate and overriding priority has been the local response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Department of Health must ensure that any proposal represents value for money for health and social care. It is for the Executive to collectively decide on the best approach for Northern Ireland as a whole.

COMMITMENTS

There was renewed optimism in January of this year when a deal was agreed by Northern Irelands political parties to restore devolved government three years after it collapsed.

The New Decade, New Approach document contains firm commitments to a Magee Medical School from both the British and Irish governments.

It states: The Executive will expand university provision at Magee in line with commitments made by the previous Executive, including through the establishment of a Graduate Entry Medical School.

Furthermore, under the section outlining the UK governments financial and economic commitments to Northern Ireland it says: Capital and resource funding for the Medical School in Derry

subject to the Northern Ireland Executives approval of the project.

While the Irish government adds that it is willing in principle to contribute to capital investment to support expanded provision at Ulster University Magee Campus, alongside the commitment made as part of this agreement by the UK Government.

The commitment made by the previous Executive was for 10,000 full-time students at Magee.

In 2019/20 there were 3,456 full-time students enrolled at Magee  4,237 overall.

Five years previous, 2014/15, there were 3,883 full-time enrolments  5,098 overall.

In a statement to the Derry News, spokesperson for the Department for the Economy (DfE) said it is committed to engaging with Ulster University regarding expansion of its Magee campus, including taking account of priorities set out in New Decade, New Approach.

The university confirmed in correspondence to the Department in September 2019 that it has remained committed to securing expansion of its Magee campus, and at the same time confirmed that the business case required updating prior to any consideration by the Department or Executive. The Department also recognises, however, that the business case requires significant work.

The Department of Finance voiced its support for the establishment of a medical school in Derry saying it is one of the priorities of the restored Executive in New Decade, New Approach.

Sinn Fein Finance Minister, Conor Murphy hosted a meeting with representatives of the North West on April 30 to discuss the Magee Medical School, City Deals and the Inclusive Future Fund.

Following the meeting, the Minister said: "Todays meeting was a continuation of positive engagement Ive had over recent months with the North West. Ive already expressed my support for the City Deal & Inclusive Future Fund which will be discussed at the Executive."
In the not too distant future, 10 luxurious homes will occupy a picturesque hilltop within Mexicos luxurious Punta Mita resort.

Known as Las Vistas Estates, the homes will range in price from $2.3 to $2.85 million. Theyll be perched atop the Careyeras hillside, framing picturesque views of Banderas Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

Youre at the top of it all in Punta Mita in Las Vistas Estates, with home sites ranging from just over a half and acre to over an acre, there is amble space to build your dream home, said Brendan Wood sales director of Punta Mita. The master developer, in line with the low density make up of Punta Mitas master plan carefully set each lot not to affect the natural ravines of Careyeros mountain and keeping optimal viewscapes.

Las Vistas Estates is the first phase of a master-planned resort community. These 10 residences offer a chance to get in at the very beginning. Buyers will have opportunities to customize their homes with luxurious fits and finishes, while Wood promises jaw-dropping views from every lot.

Its Punta Mitas version of Pacific Heights, soaking up the best views of the Punta Mita peninsula, Sierra Madre mountains, and year-round panoramic sunrise and sunset views, caped off nightly with the best natural light show around, the fire ball setting into the ocean.

More Information Details Address: Las Vistas Estates, Punta Mita, Mexico. Price: $2.3 million to $2.85 million. Features: Ten luxurious homes within the Punta Mita Resort, known collectively as Las Vistas Estates, are available for sale. Lots range in size from roughly half an acre to more than an acre. Perched atop the Careyeras hillside, the homes will frame views of the Pacific Ocean and Banderas Bay. See More Collapse

Initial examples of architectural styles indicate the multilevel homes will cascade down the hillside, offering grand view terraces and expansive outdoor spaces.

Multiple lots within the enclave will boast more than 200 feet of frontage space. The largest lot, estate four, a watering bucket-shaped plot along the southern border of the community, occupies 1.04 acres and allows its owner to construct up to 15,838 square feet of living space.

Encircled by nearly 10 miles of Pacific Ocean and home to more than a dozen luxury communities, Punta Mita has long been a destination for those looking to live it up south of the border.

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 anything stands out to Woods, its the views that Las Vistas Estates will enjoy.

Many people dont realize the natural beauty of this region when they visit Punta Mita and the coast of Riviera Nayarit, he said. Theres the Sierra Madre Mountain Range leading right into the Pacific Ocean, island formations just outside one of the largest bays on the Pacific Coast, the natural convergence of the end of the Sea of Cortez, open Pacific Ocean, and Bay of Banderas  all within plane sight of Las Vistas Estates.

Learn more at www.puntamita.com.

Contact: Punta Mita Properties at USA, 1-888-647-0979, pminfo@puntamitaproperties.net.
A vast renewable energy scheme has been recommended for environmental approval by Western Australia's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).

The Asian Renewable Energy Hub is a planned development in the East Pilbara area of Western Australia. Set to cover 6,500 square kilometers of land, it's envisaged that the project will produce as much as 15 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar power, with as many as 1,743 wind turbines being used.

The project's consortium is made up of CWP Energy Asia, InterContinental Energy, Vestas and the Macquarie Group.

The scheme's website states that up to 3 GW of power will be set aside for energy users in the Pilbara area, while the "bulk of the power will enable large scale production of green hydrogen products for domestic and export markets." According to the EPA, a subsea power cable will be used to send energy to both Indonesia and Singapore.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), hydrogen is a "versatile energy carrier". Generating it does have an environmental impact, however. The IEA has said that hydrogen production is responsible for around 830 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. It's within this context that the idea of green hydrogen, produced using renewable sources such as wind and solar, is so attractive.



In a statement published on Monday, the EPA said its recommendation for environmental approval was "subject to conditions including managing and monitoring impacts on migratory birds." Other conditions include consultation on management plans with stakeholders that include traditional land owners.

Tom Hatton, the EPA's chair, said that one of the key environmental issues considered by the EPA was, "the proposed clearing of 11,962 hectares of native vegetation, and its potential impact on fauna habitat, flora and vegetation."

"The EPA also considered the potential impact from the construction and operation of four subsea cables on benthic communities and habitat, marine environmental quality and marine fauna," Hatton added, noting that fire management was also considered a "key issue."

The EPA's report is now subject to a two-week public appeal period, which will end on May 18. A final decision on the proposal will be made by the relevant minister for environment.

While Monday's news is a boost to the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, the scheme is still some years off. A final investment decision is expected in 2025, with construction slated for 2026 and the first exports expected in 2027.
We do not register a decrease in the incidence rate, but we will develop criteria for adaptive quarantine, said Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov.

"Within 17 days, we register from 400 to 600 cases per day in the country. At the same time, we are increasing the number of tests. But we do not see a decrease in the incidence yet," he said at an extraordinary government meeting on Monday.

Stepanov noted that Ukraine had been under quarantine regime for more than 50 days and "quarantine is starting to greatly affect the economy."

"In our opinion, mitigations in the form the government proposes are quite risky," he said.
A member of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, Adamu Suleiman, has died of COVID-19.

The state governor, Abdullahi Sule, disclosed this, he said Suleiman who represents Nasarawa Central in the state Assembly, died before the result of his test came back positive. He explained that after the COVID-19 status of the lawmaker was discovered, members of his family and those living in the house went into isolation and samples have been collected from them by NCDC officials for testing.

According to the governor, the deceased lawmaker has since been buried according to Islamic rites without adherence to safety measures, as it wasnt clear at the time if he died of COVID-19. He however gave the assurance that those who performed the burial rites of the lawmaker would also be isolated and tested for COVID-19.

The governor said the state House of Assembly complex is to be closed until it is decontaminated.
AccuWeather forecasters are warning chances of snow and other wintry weather to break out across portions of the eastern United States, just after a winter storm spent the weekend making a mess of places from the Tennessee Valley through the Southeast and up the Eastern Seaboard into New England.
An emergency makeshift hospital erected in Central Park to treat COVID-19 patients is to close, officials announced Saturday, as coronavirus cases continue to decline in New York.

The 14-tent hospital, equipped with ventilators, was built on the Upper East Side of the park at the end of March by Samaritan's Purse, and set up with the purpose of helping to relieve the overflow of COVID-19 patients from Mount Sinai's hospitals.

Samaritan's Purse said the temporary hospital had treated 315 patients for COVID-19. But now with the worst of the coronavirus pandemic having seemingly passed, the US-based Christian global relief agency said it would stop admitting new patients from Monday.

It will take approximately two weeks to treat the final patients and take down and decontaminate the tents, a spokesperson for the charity said. Just eight patients remained at the field hospital as of Friday.

An emergency makeshift hospital erected in Central Park to treat COVID-19 patients is to close, officials announced Saturday, as coronavirus cases continue to decline in New York

An emergency makeshift hospital erected in Central Park to treat COVID-19 patients is to close, officials announced Saturday, as coronavirus cases continue to decline in New York.

Just eight patients remained at the field hospital as of Friday, officials said

'This marks a significant turning point in the coronavirus outbreak in New York because it means the case numbers are declining to the point that the local healthcare system will be able to meet the needs,' the spokesperson continued.

State Senator Brad Hoylman told NBC New York approximately 40 Samaritan's Purse staffers will stay within the Mount Sinai system and will be redeployed to Beth Israel Hospital.

The field hospital proved controversial, with LGBT groups pointing out that staff and volunteers are required to sign a 'statement of faith' stressing that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

'I was told by Mount Sinai yesterday that Samaritan's Purse will be relocating from Central Park to a floor of Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital on 17th Street in my senate district,' Hoylman told NBC.

'I expressed opposition to the hospitals continued relationship with the homophobic [Samartian's Purse founder] Franklin Graham I have a question why they continue to support one another. Im afraid the consequences of this poisonous relationship will linger.'

Samaritan's Purse and Mount Sinai have not yet responded to a DailyMail.com request for comment.

Measures to dismantle the makeshift field hospital will begin in the coming days

Samaritan's Purse said the temporary hospital had treated 315 patients for COVID-19. But now with the worst of the coronavirus pandemic having seemingly passed, the US-based Christian global relief agency said it would stop admitting new patients from Monday

It will take approximately two weeks to treat the final patients and take down and decontaminate the tents, a spokesperson for the charity said

The field hospital proved controversial, with LGBT groups pointing out that staff and volunteers are required to sign a 'statement of faith' stressing that marriage can only be between a man and a woman

Saturday's announcement comes after the US military hospital ship USNS Comfort sailed out of New York and back to Virginia on Thursday.

The navy vessel and Central Park hospital were part of a massive operation to double the number of hospital beds in New York state to 110,000.

But hospital admissions came in much lower than the worst-case projections because of the city's weeks-long shutdown, Governor Andrew Cuomo has said.

The 1,000-bed ship treated just 182 patients while in New York. All have since been discharged to their homes or to a nearby hospital, Navy Spokesperson Mary Cate Walsh said.

According to Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman, once the Comfort has returned to base in Norfolk, it will restock and be cleaned before possibly departing on another venture.

Hoffman added that the departure 'is a sure sign of modest progress in mitigating the virus in the nation's hardest hit city and is a welcome sign.'

The USNS Comfort departed from Manhattan's Pier 90 on Thursday. It is making a return trip to its home base in Norfolk, Virginia

The hospital ship USNS Comfort passes the Statue of Liberty as its departs New York City. 182 people were treated while the ship was docked in NYC

The temporary US Army hospital set up inside the Javits Convention Center - the home of the US Open - also announced its closure Friday, after treating more than 1,100 patients.

'Planning is ongoing for the drawdown of federal resources that are no longer needed due to the flattening of the curve,' a FEMA spokesperson wrote in a statement. 'The remaining patients at the Jacob Javits Center are expected to be discharged or transferred today.'

Vital medical equipment and other supplies at the Javits Center will remain in place in case theres a second wave of COVID-19 when lockdown orders ease. Meanwhile, military staffers are scheduled to leave Manhattan starting next week.

As of Sunday afternoon, New York had 316,415 confirmed cases of coronavirus state-wide and 19,189 recorded deaths, an increase of 280 from the day previous Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. More than 700 New Yorkers were dying daily at the peak of the outbreak last month.

The total death toll does not include 5,200 additional victims in New York City whose deaths were blamed on the virus on death certificates, but whose infections haven't been confirmed by a lab test.

Cuomo also said that new cases and intubations continue to fall, though remarked hospital admission number are still 'disturbingly high'.

The New York Governor is expected to this week extend a stay-at-home past May 15 for the state's badly affected areas.

The last few dozen patients who were treated at the temporary hospital at the Javits Center are scheduled to be released by the end of day
New Zealand today reported no new cases of coronavirus for the first time since the crisis began.

The number of 'confirmed and probable' infections remained at 1,487 after one suspected case 'already known to us' tested positive, the health ministry said.

The death toll was also unchanged at 20, while only four people are currently in hospital, none of them in intensive care.

New Zealand's director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said the figures were a 'cause for celebration' and 'symbolic of the effort that everybody has put in' but warned that Kiwis would need to keep up 'continuing vigilance'.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said Kiwis' efforts had 'put us at the front of the pack' but warned them 'not get ahead of ourselves', telling them to 'stick to our bubble and finish the job we started'.

This graph shows how New Zealand has brought the epidemic under control, with new daily cases (in yellow) falling to zero and the daily percentage increase (in red) also very low

New Zealand only confirmed its first case on February 26, but had shut its borders by March 19 and started imposing a full-scale lockdown on March 26.

The lockdown was eased last week, allowing takeaways to resume from restaurants and hundreds of thousands of people to return to work.

Gatherings of up to 10 people are now allowed for events such as weddings or funerals under the so-called Level 3 restrictions, down from the highest Level 4.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern is due to decide in the next week whether the country can move down to Level 2, in which gatherings of 500 could be allowed.

Public venues and 'most businesses' would be allowed to re-open under Level 2, subject to health restrictions.

Speaking today, health director Bloomfield said the 'real test' would come later this week when any new cases caused by the move to Level 3 start to become visible.

'Clearly, these are encouraging figures today. But it is just one moment in time,' he told a press conference on Monday.

'The real test is later this week when we factor in the incubation period for the virus and the time it takes for people to display symptoms, which is generally five to six days after exposure.

'So that is when we will have an indication if there are any new cases coming through that might be emerging in the community as a result of our shift from level four to level three.

'We cannot afford to squander all the hard work and effort of the past weeks.'

New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured last week) will decide in the next week whether the country's lockdown can be eased further

People at Muriwai Beach near Auckland last week in the wake of New Zealand easing strict regulations implemented to curb the spread of the coronavirus

New Zealand is also considering a travel 'bubble' with Australia that would allow people to travel between the two countries.

Australia has also enjoyed success in bringing the crisis under control after similarly imposing early travel bans.

Parts of Australia also began relaxing lockdown rules over the weekend, with some regions allowing more outdoor activities and small gatherings. The country has seen 6,801 cases and 95 deaths.

Ardern will join her counterpart Scott Morrison and Australian state leaders in a virtual meeting tomorrow to discuss the 'trans-Tasman bubble' proposal.

'Both our countries' strong record on fighting the virus has placed us in the enviable position of being able to plan the next stage in our economic rebuild,' Ardern said.

Morrison had said last week that the 'only exception' to the travel ban was 'potentially with New Zealand, and we have had some good discussions about that'.

Ardern said the two-week quarantine periods which both countries currently impose on international arrivals would be mutually waived under the proposal.

She was reluctant to speculate on when it could take effect but warned: 'Don't expect this to happen in a couple of weeks time.'

'We need to ensure that we're locking in the gains that all New Zealanders have helped us achieve and make sure we have health precautions in place to make sure we do this safely,' she said.

Ardern was cautious about the prospect of allowing Pacific island nations which are free of Covid-19 into the bubble due to the inability of their health systems to deal with even a minor outbreak of the virus.

'That's a conversation we'd need to have directly with them,' she said. 'There's a huge risk if COVID finds its way into Pacific island nations that are currently untouched.'

A customer collects takeaway food from an outlet in Auckland last week after restrictions were eased following a five-week lockdown

People queue outside a takeaway store last week in Auckland when restrictions were lifted after New Zealand brought the epidemic under control

New Zealand has carried out nearly 153,000 tests for a population of five million and has another 59,000 testing kits in stock.

So far, there have been 1,137 confirmed cases and another 350 'probable' cases, some of which are likely to be added to the 'confirmed' column.

Only 191 cases are considered 'active', with just four people currently in hospital - down from eight yesterday.

New Zealand says that 38 per cent of its cases are imported and another 32 per cent are linked to imported cases, leaving only a minority of cases transmitted locally.

Ardern has previously hailed New Zealanders for 'breaking the chain of transmission' during the successful five-week lockdown.

Twenty people have died in New Zealand, all of them aged over 60 and all but two of them aged over 70.

New Zealand has also provided exhaustive detail about the epidemic on a government website, including details of every case.

Bloomfield said that New Zealand has '16 significant clusters' although three are 'considered closed' after 28 days without a new case.

'We are still wanting to be sure that there is no undetected community transmission in our communities,' Bloomfield said.

'So reflecting on the incubation period of this virus, and it is really later this week that we will be confident if we are or are not seeing new cases popping up in the community, so that is why it is very important we maintain the current posture.'
The world economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic has become a catalyst for the plans of German imperialism to force Europe under its hegemony and to grasp for world power again.

This is most openly expressed in a recent paper by the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), an influential German think tank. Under the title Deterrence and Defence in Times of COVID-19, it says: As the unprecedented economic fall-out of this crisis is starting to become apparent, it may seem tempting to curtail defence spending. However, current volatility in the world, according to the authors of the study, would make this irresponsible.

Christian Molling, the main author, is well networked in foreign policy circles. Before becoming DGAP research director and program director for security and defence, he worked for the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP), which jointly published the programmatic paperNew Power, New Responsibility in 2013.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Wikipedia Commons)

Europemeaning, above all, Germanycan still shape its own destiny, write Molling et al. Germanys upcoming EU presidency offers a genuine opportunity to emerge from the crisis intact and possibly even stronger. In order to achieve this goal, the advisers to the German government call for a comprehensive conflict strategy in the confrontation with rival powers, both within the borders of Europe and at the global level.

With a view to Germanys EU Council presidency in July, the authors write: This may have looked like a routine jobuntil now. The fact that the largest EU economy, the largest defence spender and the second largest military force in the EU takes over in midst of the crisis gives Berlin leverage to shape outcomes in the defence realm. Germany should use its leadership role to shield key European defence and industrial capabilities and propose a pragmatic redesign of instruments like the European Defence Fund and PESCO [Permanent Structured Cooperation].

PESCO is the preliminary stage of a continental European military alliance being promoted by Germany in particular. Except for Denmark and Malta, all EU states belong to it. Founded in November 2017, the cooperative is to be seen as a direct reaction to the British [EU] exit referendum, Ronja Kempin of the SWP told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2019.

As a basis for German options for action, the DGAP authors draft various scenarios of political developments on the European continent.

The common starting point of these scenarios is the following situation: From 2020 onwards, European countries are likely going to find themselves under a double strain: While public finances will come under stress, the need for continued or even increased defence investment will remain as the security environment deteriorates.

The DGAP paper argues that the military and weapons are indispensable for managing the political upheavals arising from the crisis and at the same time to assert German and European geostrategic interests against international rivals: Europe cannot take a tough stance on Russia in the east and neglect the south. It is not possible for Europe to focus on just one pillar. It must address deterrence, defence and crisis management simultaneously.

The paper describes the effects of such a policy as follows: As some governments are forced to declare bankruptcy, the remaining forces are needed for internal security tasks. This would result in a lack of investment in the national armed forces. The security situation would be tense as Russian analysts assume that the nuclear threshold has been lowered due to the loss of conventional capabilities.

Elsewhere it says: Given the lack of US leadership in the global response to COVID-19, Beijing is currently positioning itself as the alternative provider of soft power. Beijing is presenting an image of control and benevolence, delivering medical equipment and test kits to Europe and elsewhere, while the United States is barely able to handle the crisis at home.

In fact, the United States was the greatest source of uncertainty from the German point of view. The DGAP paper states that it is possible that the deep rift in US society and the enormous strain that the fight against the pandemic puts on the US economy could lead to a political withdrawal of the United States from Europe.

The result of such an Ami goes home [Yanks go home] scenario would be an intra-European debate on nuclear deterrence. Given that Europe includes nuclear powers as well as countries that have signed and ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, internal cohesion is strained. Both budget and nuclear debates meet with political resistance in individual states. This paradoxical situation of having to spend more while budgets are becoming tighter exacerbates political rifts between Europeans. Just as during the last crisis, Europeans have different spending priorities. Diverging spending patterns impact defence industries differently across Europe.

From the German point of view, the goal in this situation must be to politically integrate countries that have fallen behind in the meantime. To this end, a political instrument should be developed that corresponds to NATOs national framework concept.

The idea that the global crisisdespite considerable challengespresents itself above all as an opportunity for German imperialism runs like a red thread through the DGAP study.

With a view to major European armaments projects such as MGCS (Franco-German battle tank) and FCAS (joint European air combat system), the paper recommends, for example, that the German government take the initiative immediately. This crisis offers a chance to overcome national sentiment in organizational and defence industrial cooperation. It should be seized even though political resistance is to be expected. Germany should envisage the next generation of defence industrial cooperation and consolidation.

But the stubborn nationalism of other EU countries is not the only brake on German ambitions that could now finally be overcome. Another obstacle that needs to be removed is the firewall that traditionally separates civilian and military R&D in Europe. Instead, the aim must be to use all available means more creatively to achieve military and strategic goals. If even this does not produce the desired results, alternative means must be used.

The paper literally states: Conflict has already spilled out of the conventional military domain. If military means prove more expensive or less effective than alternative ones, it is prudent to consider a more comprehensive way to engage in conflicts and deter adversaries. Such a comprehensive conflict strategy could build on the lessons learned from hybrid warfare and foreign influence operations against Europe (emphasis added).

These lines leave no doubt that the German bourgeoisie, despite its defeat in two world wars, is preparing new historical crimes behind the backs of the people. In 2005, the American military strategist Frank G. Hoffman defined hybrid warfare as a combination of conventional and irregular ways of fighting in connection with terrorist actions and criminal behaviour.

When German military advisers speak of alternative means in this context, this must be taken as a serious warning. The elements of such hybrid warfare are, according to the definition, among other things the use of nuclear, biological, chemical and improvised explosive devices, the implementation of disinformation and propaganda campaigns together with cyber-attacks, as well as the deployment of covertly fighting troops, or soldiers and military equipment without national emblems, operating on foreign territory.
The caller sounded legitimate.

He said he was a Multnomah County sheriffs deputy and that mental health therapist Rachael Sutta had failed to heed a subpoena to show up in court as an expert witness. The only way to avoid arrest was to pay a bond.

He directed Sutta to stay on the phone, so she could be monitored via GPS and not be at risk of arrest for fleeing, as she withdrew $5,050 from her bank.

He then told her to have the money loaded onto a card voucher she could find at Fred Meyer, sending her a screenshot of what a Reloadit card looked like. While still on the phone, he directed her through the steps and had her read the numbers from the card back to him.

Only after she had completed the process did Sutta realize shed been duped, at least the second therapist in the Portland area targeted in the same scam in the last month.

Sutta said she was embarrassed but eager to alert others so they dont fall victim to the same fraud.

Oregons U.S. Attorneys Office and the FBI have warned of several new fraud schemes emerging that exploit the coronavirus pandemic. Theyve warned of scammers targeting vulnerable people by setting up websites, contacting people by phone and email and posting false information on social media.

Sutta, a 37-year-old married mother of a toddler, said she panicked at the thought of losing her license and not being able to help the clients shes still seeing via video from home during the pandemic.

She said she was in fight or flight mode, thinking I had to fix the problem.

Now, Sutta is out most of the savings from her private practice that she had set aside to pay taxes.

The Sheriffs Office is warning others to be aware of the scam, reminding the public that law enforcement officers never call anyone demanding money under any circumstances.

Sheriffs officials offered these tips:

-- Never provide personal or financial information to an unsolicited caller or by email.

-- Be suspicious of callers who demand immediate payment for any reason.

-- Never wire money, provide debit or credit card numbers to a stranger.

Sutta reported the scam to police and to the FBI.

By the time she alerted Kroger Co., she was able to recover only $500 of the $5,050 she had loaded onto a card bought at Fred Meyer in North Portland.

The caller, Sutta said, had claimed that Fred Meyer was a contracted partner with the U.S. Treasury Department and the card she loaded the money onto was what he termed a "registered enforcement load voucher."

Sutta sent a group email to other Portland-area therapists so they wouldnt get snared in the same trap.

Sutta was then surprised to learn another Portland therapist already had received a similar call.

The other Portland therapist, a 31-year-old woman who asked not to have her name used because shes still skittish that she was targeted, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she withdrew about $2,500 from her bank while she remained on her cellphone as instructed.

She said she had first received an automated voice mail from someone who said he was a lieutenant from the Multnomah County Sheriffs Office and that she needed to return his call. She did and reached a man, who gave the same subpoena story.

He sounded very legitimate, she said.

Upon the last-minute advice of her husband, who she had texted about what was occurring, she hung up on the caller before loading any money onto a card.

No arrests have been made in the scams.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

Subscribe to Facebook page

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.

Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter
Globally, more than 3.5 million people have been infected by the coronavirus, and close to 2.5 lakh people have died due to the pandemic. Speaking of the nations hit most with the infectious disease, the US tops the list with more than a million cases, followed by Spain (247,122), Italy (210,717), the UK (186,599), France (168,693) and Germany (165,664).

However, the US, Italy, and Spain among others have started thinking about re-opening as the virus spread seems to have slowed down.

While millions of people took advantage of easing lockdowns to enjoy the outdoors, some of the worlds most populous countries reported worrisome new peaks in infections Sunday, including India, which saw its biggest single-day jump yet, AP reports.

The total number of Covid-19 cases in India has reached 42,533, with more than 2,500 cases being reported in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Statewise, Maharashtra has reported the most cases in the country (12,974), followed by Gujarat (5,428), Delhi (4,549), Madhya Pradesh (2,846), Rajasthan (2,772), Tamil Nadu (2,757), and Uttar Pradesh (2,626).

In major developments, we came across the news of the US President claiming that a vaccine to treat corona patients could be ready by end of this year.

Trump believes as many as 100,000 Americans could die in the pandemic, after the death toll passed his earlier estimates, but said he was confident a vaccine would be developed by the year's end.

Trump alternated during a two-hour virtual town hall broadcast by FOX News between forecasting a rapid recovery for the U.S. economy and casting blame for the pandemic's spread on China, where the disease is believed to have originated.

Also, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, also claimed there is enormous evidence the outbreak originated in a Chinese laboratory. However, he did not provide any of the evidence.

In Japan, Prime Minister is set to extend the countrys state of emergency on Monday until the end of May, reports the public broadcaster NHK.

Abe is expected to explain the reasoning behind the extension of the state of emergency, which is now due to expire on Wednesday, at a news conference in the evening, NHK said.

In Russia, new cases exceeded 10,000 for the first time, while the death toll in Britain mounted near that of Italy, the epicenter of Europes outbreak.

In case you dont know, the U.K. population is comparatively much younger than Italys and Britain had more time to prepare.

That apart, the United States continues to see tens of thousands of new infections each day.

Well, we do have good news from New Zealand which has reported zero new cases for the first time.

Its an encouraging result, said Ashley Bloomfield, the director-general of health.

There have been 1,487 confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, with 86 per cent of them now recovered. Seven people are in hospital.

Back home, in one of our podcasts, we did talk about the recent guidelines rolled out by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which will come into effect from today.



To know more, tune in to the podcast Lockdown 3.0: List of activities allowed and prohibited across the country

Even though restrictions have been eased in non-hot spot areas, metro cities including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, all marked red zones, will stay under strict

Read by: Kanishka Gupta
Authorities in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen are holding nine people after hundreds of police raided a Protestant church gathering at the weekend, RFA has learned.



An estimated nine people were detained after state security police and officials from Xiamen's religious affairs bureau raided a meeting of the unofficial Xingguang Church on morning, local time.



Chaotic scenes ensued as dozens of law enforcers struggled to grab and take away church members, some of whom fought back hard not to be removed from the meeting, according to cell phone footage of the raid seen by RFA.



Pastor Yang Xibo told RFA that the members were meeting in a private residence at the time of the raid, and that police had burst in without a warrant or any form of ID or documentation.



"The state security police came banging at the door, then they kicked it down and dragged those in the way outside the doorway, dragging them to the ground," Yang said in an interview on .



"One person's ribs were cracked, and they are now in a lot of pain, and a lot of the [female church members] have bruises on their arms and legs," he said. "We went to the hospital with them, so we could record the evidence."



Yang said the raid was likely due to the church's refusal to join the Three-Self Patriotic Association, a state-approved body in charge of Protestant Christians.



An eyewitness said the church members had no warning.

"They didn't say anything, nor show any documentation, but they just broke in," he said. "They pinned a man and a woman to the floor, pinning them down by chest and legs using their knees."





He said police then took personal details and ID numbers from everyone present.



"They told us that it is illegal for us not to resister [with the government], but we don't think that private residential gatherings are illegal," he said.



"This kind of gathering of mostly friends and relatives is just like any family gathering," he said.



A second church member from Xiamen who declined to be named said it should be illegal for the authorities to break into private residential property and detain people.



"We would like the whole of society to pay attention to this violent behavior," the church member said. "They are lawless and indiscriminate."



Repeated calls to the Xiamen municipal bureau of religious affairs and to the local government offices in Xinglin district rang unanswered during office hours on .



The raid came amid a nationwide crackdown on religious worship by the administration of President Xi Jinping, which regards Christianity as a dangerous foreign import, with ruling Chinese Communist Party documents warning against the "infiltration of Western hostile forces" in the form of religion.



The ruling party embraces atheism, yet exercises tight controls over any form of religious practice among its citizens.



China is home to an estimated 68 million Protestants, of whom 23 million worship in state-affiliated churches, and some nine million Catholics, 5.7 million of whom are in state-sponsored organizations.



Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The security and defense sector of Ukraine in January-March 2020 was fully funded from the general fund of the national budget in accordance with the monthly plan with UAH 48.593 billion, according to the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC).

"The dynamics of revenues to the special budget fund in January-March 2020 was also positive. According to recent data, the special fund of the state budget for this period received more than 35% of revenues from the annual plan," the council said.

The NSDC indicated that the needs of the security and defense sector of Ukraine in 2019 were funded in the amount of UAH 218 billion or 5.48% of GDP, which corresponds to the requirements of the law of Ukraine on national security.

Based on the results of the analysis, NSDC Secretary Oleksiy Danilov instructed the relevant working group to prepare proposals for improving the efficiency of using budget funds for the national security and defense in the context of preparing proposals for the national budget for 2021.
(Newser)  Doctors the world over are struggling to contend with the coronavirus, but in Russia, a unique problem is plaguing attending health-care workers. The Moscow Times reports that Alexander Shulepov, 37, a medic in Novaya Usman, Russia, suffered a skull fracture and is now in critical condition after he fell from the second story of a rural hospital. Shulepov, who himself had been diagnosed with COVID-19, had recently filmed a video with colleague Alexander Kosyakin in which they complained they'd been forced to keep working by higher-ups, and in Shulepov's case, despite his diagnosis. A few days after that video, Shulepov suddenly made a second one in which he said the initial film was "high on emotions," and insisted he now only had a "runny nose," per the Metro. His fall out of the hospital window took place this past weekend.

story continues below

Local media report that Kosyakin has been questioned by cops over his spreading of "fake news" and is facing criminal charges. Shulepov isn't the first Russian health-care worker to meet this suspicious fate: Two senior female doctors also were reported to have fallen out of hospital windows under eyebrow-raising circumstances. One, a 48-year-old who plummeted 60 feet out the window of a Moscow hospital, had tested positive for the virus herself and had been blamed for the spread of COVID-19 at her facility, the Sun reports. The second, a 47-year-old mother of two, also took a six-story tumble after pushing back on a lack of personal protective equipment for workers at her Siberian hospital. Both women died. Perhaps unsurprisingly, hospital officials are denying anything is amiss or refusing to comment. (Read more Russia stories.)
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, says about 4,000 Nigerians abroad are willing to come home as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

The minister disclosed this at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 daily press briefing on Monday in Abuja.

He said if the federal government had its way and there were enough bed spaces at the isolation centres all Nigerians abroad willing to come home would be brought back.

The minister stated the government was in the process of repatriation of Nigerians abroad who were willing to return and Emirates Airline had indicated interest to bring them back to Nigeria.

He added that the airline would operate on May 6, to bring Nigerians abroad back to the country and the returnees would be the first batch to be brought from abroad.

He said, We have secured 300 beds in Lagos and 1,000 in Abuja, the governor of Lagos has been outstanding in his support, he has done a great job and his leadership quality is exemplary.

Mr Onyeama said the British Airways would be coming to Lagos on Friday and since it would be coming empty, the government had negotiated with the British government that Nigerians in the United Kingdom should be allowed to join the Airways.

Ideally we would have loved if the Airways come to Abuja, but we have to make do with what we have, we have to understand the challenges our people are facing, he said.

READ ALSO:

Mr Onyeama said it had also done a deal with the United States of America if there was any flight available that would be coming to Nigeria.

On Monday we did a deal with Ethiopian Airlines to bring back our people. Air Peace is coming from London on Saturday and we are doing a deal if they can bring our people back to Nigeria, he said.

He also said that a large number of Nigerians currently in China are willing to come back home, adding that the government is trying to do a deal on how they could be brought back to the country.

He added that Nigerians in India too would be brought back, adding that the government will do everything possible to bring back Nigerians back home.

(NAN)
MIAMI, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Miami region has a strong entrepreneurship ecosystem that provides a solid business foundation which should help the area respond to the recent economic downturn, according to new research found in the Miami report of the U.S. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor ecosystem project led by Babson College and eMerge Americas.

The report, An Ecosystem on the Rise: Entrepreneurship in Miami, details numerous positive findings for entrepreneurship in the region, including:

Thriving entrepreneurial culture

Strong supporting networks

Attractive location for people with skills needed by new and growing firms

"Networks and entrepreneurial culture are two of the 10 categories considered critical in a thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem. Both categories are ranked by several of Miami's most influential players as strong pillars in the South Florida ecosystem today, and the community should take advantage of them to navigate this current crisis and emerge even stronger," said says Babson Miami Director Gustavo Trindade.

The report also details areas that need attention because

Entrepreneurial finance ranks low relative to other categories

Despite its attractive location, the region often loses highly qualified young people

"Although a lot has changed since the COVID-19 outbreak, we have outlined four key recommendations to further improve the Miami entrepreneurial ecosystem that we believe will remain relevant post-COVID: (i) to increase the availability of capital to entrepreneurs; (ii) to find more ways to attract highly educated young people; (iii) to make the ecosystem even more accessible and impactful; and (iv) to bring government to the table as much as possible," said Babson Entrepreneurship Professor Donna Kelley.

"As a community, we're now facing a new set of challenges to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic," said Melissa Medina, president of eMerge Americas. "We are proud to partner with Babson College, the global leader in entrepreneurial education, to highlight the underlying strengths and exceptional talent within Miami's diverse tech ecosystem that are critical to our economy."

The report offers key recommendations for the Miami entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Continue developing sources of finance

While entrepreneurship rates were high overall in Miami, the results of the report published in 2016 suggest high frequency among men and among those of mid-career age. Entrepreneurial finance more often favors male-led businesses, and young people often have few personal resources or access to funding. Given that entrepreneurial finance was the lowest rated component of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Miami, it may be useful to examine access to all societal groups in developing the finance offerings for entrepreneurs.

Focus on growing the accessibility of Miami's startup culture

Miami benefits from a robust culture for entrepreneurship, prominent entrepreneurial leaders, and strong networks. Direct efforts toward enhancing the impact of this activity in areas such as job creation and innovation, as well as its accessibility to all, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, and other distinctions will contribute toward Miami's continuing growth in impactful and inclusive entrepreneurship.

Promote Miami among highly educated young people

The expert survey revealed that Miami is an attractive place for people to relocate, yet also recognized that highly qualified young people may tend to leave the region. Given the lower level of entrepreneurship among young people compared to those in mid-career, it may be important to promote the attractiveness of Miami for this age group, particularly those with high education levels.

Look to partner with government

The experts indicated moderate government involvement in entrepreneurship in Miami. While many ecosystem components may be well-covered by the private sector in the region, government might fill in gaps, like addressing the needs of women or youth entrepreneurs. In addition, partnerships with private organizations may boost the latter's efforts.

About the report

Babson College has a long-standing relationship with the area, offering its Graduate and Executive Education programs from its Miami campus, establishing the Babson Miami WIN (Women Innovating Now) Lab, and providing the curriculum that powers Miami's Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program.

In 2019, GEM launched an ecosystem project in a dozen cities around the world, including Miami. In 2020, the Babson-based GEM United States team conducted a survey of experts in finance, government, education, and other relevant areas connected to the Miami entrepreneurship ecosystem, as well as entrepreneurs. In selecting Miami for this project, Babson recognized the strength of Miami's entrepreneurship ecosystem, buoyed by organizations such as the Knight Foundation and Endeavor, initiatives such as 500 Startups and Babson's Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab, and events like the eMerge Americas conference, all of which were bringing visibility and legitimacy for entrepreneurship in the Miami metro area.

The GEM ecosystem project includes both an adult population survey and an expert survey. The GEM U.S. team conducted only the expert survey in Miami in 2020, so this report is focused on this component of the overall research study.

See the full report https://www.babson.edu/admission/visit-babson/babson-miami/

Babson College Miami

Babson College, founded in 1919, is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds. We shape the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to create sustainable economic and social value in organizations of all types and sizes. A global leader in entrepreneurship education, Babson offers undergraduate, graduate, and executive education programs as well as partnership opportunities and has been ranked the No. 1 school for entrepreneurship for 27 years. Babson College's curriculum powers Miami's Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, which launched in 2013. In 2017, Babson College expanded from Massachusetts to Miami to reach working professionals in the Southern U.S. and Latin American markets. Babson College Miami offers Graduate and Executive Education programs, including the Blended Learning MBA, Master of Science in Business Analytics, and Certificate in Advanced Management. Miami also is home to the Babson Miami WIN (Women Innovating Now) Lab program, which works with women entrepreneurs in order to help them accelerate and grow their businesses. At Babson, you learn how to think and act like an entrepreneur, to identify and explore new opportunities in a way that increases your chance of success regardless of whether you are starting a business or driving innovation within an organization. For more information, please visit babson.edu/miami.

eMerge Americas

eMerge Americas is the premier technology event connecting the Americas, held annually at the Miami Beach Convention Center. By connecting global industry leaders and investors with corporate business executives, government leaders, and entrepreneurs, eMerge Americas is transforming Miami into the tech hub of the Americas. In 2019, eMerge Americas attracted more than 16,000 attendees and more than 400 participating companies from over 40 countries. eMerge Americas serves as a catalyst to propel innovation and investment in South Florida and Latin America. The eMerge Americas founding partners include: Medina Capital, A-Rod Corporation, Greenberg Traurig, Knight Foundation, Miami-Dade County, and the Miami Herald. For more information about eMerge Americas, please visit: emergeamericas.com

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor

Since 1999, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) has surveyed over 4 million adults in 114 economies, resulting in 21 years of worldwide data on rates of entrepreneurship and profiles of entrepreneurs, including demographics, motivations, and ambitions. GEM was co-founded by Professor Bill Bygrave at Babson College and Professor Michael Hay at London Business School. Babson College has remained a key global sponsor of GEM and sponsors the GEM United States team.

SOURCE Babson College

Related Links

https://www.babson.edu


Construction of Thu Thiem Bridge-2 on schedule

Construction of the Thu Thiem Bridge-2 that will connect District 1 with the Thu Thiem New Urban Area has been speeded up on priority so as to complete it on schedule. The VND 4,260 bn bridge project was visited by Saigon Investment and up till now the construction is at a stage where the concrete structure on the main bridge span has completed 11 out of 34 pillars and the steel girder spanning the Saigon River has completed three out of 17 beams, while on 4 April, the first cable was also pulled up.

The abutment construction of the bridge on the District 1 side is now 100% complete, and has completed the pre-stressed concrete structure of the scaffolding from AS5 to AS9 pier, reaching 228/438md and now the construction of AS9 to AS10 and AS3 to AS5 is on. The construction engineers are striving to complete the main bridge by September, though the bridge extensions of N1 and N2 have not yet received ground clearance. According to the blue print, the Thu Thiem Bridge-2 will be a steel structure of cable-stayed span and will be open for traffic in December.

The current Covid-19 pandemic hindered the recruitment of more experts and personnel from abroad and the investor's representative said that in order to prevent the spread of disease in the community they followed strict procedures such as organizing alternate construction groups, focusing on construction of important features, limiting the number of workers, setting up a disinfecting routine, wearing masks and protective equipment, and maintaining a distance of two meters. Currently each shift has about 50 employees, which is down by 50% compared to normal times.

Metro No. 1 Project nearing completion

The Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR) and the contractors launched a competition to accelerate the construction progress of the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien Metro No. 1 project. The goal set for 2020 is to complete 85% of the tasks and finally complete the project by the end of 2021. The project was started in August 2012 and by the end of January 2020 about 70% of the construction will be completed.

Mr. Vo Van Hoan, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, said that this Metro Line marks the friendship between Vietnam and Japan, which will transform Ho Chi Minh City. According to a previous plan, the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien Metro Line No. 1 was to be completed by 2020, but legal issues delayed the project. At the end of 2019, the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City issued a decision approving some adjustments to the project, and the completion of this VND 43,700 bn project was moved to end of 2021.

Mr. Bui Xuan Cuong, Head of Management Authority for Urban Railways, said that in order to reach the goal of completion by end of 2021, the Management Board and the contractors will focus on handling contractual problems, disbursement, and improving processes to accelerate the progress of the project. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has caused many setbacks, the investor as well as the construction units will work to ensure the completion of the project as per schedule.

Accelerating the flood settlement project

The People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City is urging the competent authorities to hand over the site for the flood settlement project at the earliest. The Trung Nam Group is investing nearly VND 10,000 bn in this project which will protect a part of Ho Chi Minh City from being inundated during high tide. This will be the first phase of the project and will be an important premise for investors to accelerate the construction progress.

Under the direction of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, the current implementation of this project has been assigned to the Binh Chanh District People's Committee to handle the compensation and resettlement of the construction land. At the same time, the Saigon Port Joint Stock Company was requested handing over of two buoy berths anchored at Tan Thuan sluice gate to Trung Nam BT 1547 Company Limited to execute the construction. In addition, the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has also asked the Southern Air Petrol Logistic Joint Stock Company to suspend the construction of the wharf that is affecting the embankment section-2 of the project.

Talking to Saigon Investment, a representative of the investor said that the related parties are now trying to disburse the project in the next one or two weeks. Major items of the project include: Ben Nghe sluice, Tan Thuan sluice, Phu Xuan sluice, Muong Chuoi sluice, Cay Kho sluice, Phu Dinh sluice and key dyke embankments. Meanwhile, in housing projects, Mr. Le Hoa Binh, Director of Department of Construction, said that for non-urgent projects, the department has recommended reducing construction activities. All construction projects must ensure absolute safety, in line with the necessity of maintaining social distancing in the current pandemic scenario.

Tra Giang
Three jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were martyred and seven injured in a militant attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara on Monday. One militant was also neutralised in the gun battle.

The militants attacked a patrolling party of the paramilitary force at Wangam-Qaziabad in Kralgund area of Kupwara district. Sources told India Today that it was an ambush and a fierce gun-battle is underway.

While three CRPF personnel have lost their lives, seven others injured in terrorist attack in Handwara, according to CRPF officials.

3 CRPF personnel have lost their lives, 7 injured in terrorist attack in Handwara(J&K), CRPF officials tell ANI https://t.co/tG0NbdOgTG - ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Meanwhile, a CISF jawan was also injured in a grenade attack on a security forces' camp at Nowgam area of Srinagar on Monday, officials said.

The encounter comes just a day after five security personnel, including two army officers, were martyred in an encounter in the same area. In nearly an eight-hour long firefight, security forces had neutralised two terrorists, which included Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) chief identified as Haider.

Army officer Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood and Lance Naik Dinesh and sub-inspector of Jammu and Kashmir Police Sageer Ahmad Pathan alias Qazi, were martyred in the line of duty.
"I am excited to have Vinnie join Signet at such an important inflection point for our business," said Joan Hilson, Chief Financial Officer. "He is an accomplished executive with extensive financial and investment background, and I am confident that Signet will benefit from his experiences and perspective as we accelerate our Path to Brilliance transformation efforts."

Sinisi has over 15 years of experience as a retail analyst, including his most recent role as Executive Director, Equity Research with Morgan Stanley. He held previous positions with Bank of America  Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Prudential Financial, where he focused on retail and real estate portfolio evaluation.

Signet's new management team, the progress seen with its Path to Brilliance strategy and the company's capability to emerge as a result of the strategy with an enhanced competitive advantage drew Sinisi to this role. He will be responsible for communicating Signet's strategic growth plans to the investment community and will continue to build a network of effective relationships with retail analysts and investors.

The company sincerely thanks Randi Abada, SVP Investor Relations & Financial Strategy, who has left the company, for her dedication delivering an effective Path to Brilliance message to the investment community over the past two years.

About Signet Jewelers

Signet Jewelers Limited is the world's largest retailer of diamond jewelry. Signet operates approximately 3,200 stores primarily under the name brands of Kay Jewelers, Zales, Jared, H.Samuel, Ernest Jones, Peoples, Piercing Pagoda, and JamesAllen.com . Further information on Signet is available at www.signetjewelers.com .

See also www.kay.com , www.zales.com , www.jared.com, www.hsamuel.co.uk,

www.ernestjones.co.uk , www.peoplesjewellers.com, www.pagoda.com , and www.jamesallen.com .

Safe Harbor Statement:

This release contains statements which are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements, based upon management's beliefs and expectations as well as on assumptions made by and data currently available to management, appear in a number of places throughout this document and include statements regarding, among other things, Signet's results of operation, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies and the industry in which Signet operates. The use of the words "expects," "intends," "anticipates," "estimates," "predicts," "believes," "should," "potential," "may," "forecast," "objective," "plan," or "target," and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, our ability to implement Signet's transformation initiative, the effect of US federal tax reform and adjustments relating to such impact on the completion of our quarterly and year-end financial statements, changes in interpretation or assumptions, and/or updated regulatory guidance regarding the US federal tax reform, the benefits and outsourcing of the credit portfolio sale including technology disruptions, future financial results and operating results, the impact of weather-related incidents on Signet's business, deterioration in the performance of individual businesses or of the Company's market value relative to its book value, resulting in impairments of fixed assets or intangible assets or other adverse financial consequences, including tax consequences related thereto, especially in view of the Company's recent market valuation, and our ability to successfully integrate Zale Corporation and R2Net's operations and to realize synergies from the Zale and R2Net transactions, general economic conditions, potential regulatory changes or other developments following the United Kingdom's announced intention to negotiate a formal exit from the European Union, a decline in consumer spending, the merchandising, pricing and inventory policies followed by Signet, the reputation of Signet and its banners, the level of competition in the jewelry sector, the cost and availability of diamonds, gold and other precious metals, regulations relating to customer credit, seasonality of Signet's business, financial market risks, deterioration in customers' financial condition, exchange rate fluctuations, changes in Signet's credit rating, changes in consumer attitudes regarding jewelry, management of social, ethical and environmental risks, the development and maintenance of Signet's OmniChannel retailing, security breaches and other disruptions to Signet's information technology infrastructure and databases, inadequacy in and disruptions to internal controls and systems, changes in assumptions used in making accounting estimates relating to items such as extended service plans and pensions, risks related to Signet being a Bermuda corporation, the impact of the acquisition of Zale Corporation on relationships, including with employees, suppliers, customers and competitors, and an adverse decision in legal or regulatory proceedings. For a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statement, see the "Risk Factors" section of Signet's Fiscal 2018 Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on April 2, 2018 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. Signet undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law.

Investors:

Vincent Sinisi

SVP Investor Relations

+1 330 665-6530

[email protected]

Media:

Colleen Rooney

Chief Communications Officer

+1 330 668 5932

[email protected]



David Bouffard

VP Corporate Affairs

+1 330 668 5369

[email protected]

SOURCE Signet Jewelers Ltd.

Related Links

https://www.signetjewelers.com


Hundreds of migrant workers seeking to return home clashed with police and pelted stones at them near a village in Gujarat's Surat district on Monday, following which the security personnel lobbed teargas shells and baton-charged the agitated workers, an official said.

Besides, several labourers also came out on a road in Rajkot demanding that they be sent back to their hometowns, while some migrant workers got their heads tonsured in an area of Surat after being unable to go back home.

Hundreds of migrant workers clashed with police near Vareli village on the outskirts of Surat while demanding that arrangements be made to send them back to their native places in the wake of the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, a police official said.

They threw stones at the police, following which the security personnel retaliated and lobbed teargas shells and lathi-charged the agitated workers, he said.

The labourers also damaged some vehicles parked on Surat-Kadodara road, he said.

The situation was later brought under control and security was stepped up in the area, he added.

Besides, 50 migrant labourers got their heads tonsured in Surat's Pandesara locality on Monday after being unable to leave for their native places in Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.

They claimed that two days back their buses were given permission to leave Gujarat. But, later they were stopped at Kosamba in Surat by local administration officials due to lack of "valid permission" and asked to go back.

The workers said they have been waiting endlessly for the administration to clear their journey back home.

One of them said the money they arranged for the bus fare after lot of hardships has not been returned to them, and demanded that governments of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat co- ordinate their travel back home without delay.

"Many of us sold off our watches and mobile phones to arrange for the bus fare. Now we are still at the same place, with no permission given to our buses to move. We are stranded here with no help from officials. We demand the governments of the two states to coordinate fast for our return back home," he said.

In Rajkot, hundreds of migrant workers came out on road in Shapar-Veraval industrial area on the city outskirts, demanding that they be sent back home.

Police said they managed to persuade the workers to call off the protest, and brought the situation under control.

"We have proactively reached out to migrants in their residential localities and have explained to them that they will be allowed to leave in vehicles that they themselves arrange after getting a medical checkup done and completing other formalities," Rajkot Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-1) Ravi Mohan Saini said.

"In some areas, we have received complaints regarding landlords demanding rent and factory owners not paying salary. We will take action on such complaints. So far, the migrants have understood and are peaceful," he said.

Some migrant workers also gathered outside the Rajkot collector's office to fill forms for returning home, saying they had no food and money to sustain their livelihood.

One of the workers, a native of Badaun in Uttar Pradesh, said he filled the form as told by police.

"The factory where I worked is closed, and I want to go back to my native place. They say we will have to arrange our our own vehicles to return to our native place, but we want the government to send us back in train," he said.

Some of the workers said they have not got salaries from factories where they worked, while their landlords are still demanding house rent.

"Our company gave the salary initially but is not paying us any more. We have nothing to eat, we want the government to arrange for a train back to our native place from Rajkot," said another worker.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Baby steps: men new to skincare routines should focus on the basics

It's a sweeping stereotype, but lots of men have a fairly basic, or entirely non-existent, skincare routine. Compare this to the regimes of women, who have cabinets full of lotions, serums, moisturisers and masks.

Sexism is at play here. Society historically places more pressure on women to look youthful and wrinkle-free.

In contrast, the rugged, salt and pepper look is valued in men, meaning that ageing isn't as big a deal.

Women suffer from these double standards, both mentally and financially, but it also impacts men - not only are they neglecting their skin but they're missing out on the pleasure a proper skincare routine can give you.

"Men have been brought up not caring about their appearance, their health and particularly their skin's health," says Dr Catharine Denning, Curel's dermatologist and aesthetic doctor ambassador.

"Culturally, it hasn't been seen as masculine to care too much about these things.

"As such, men are often never taught how to properly look after their skin."

These preconceptions are changing as gender boundaries become increasingly blurred.

Your skin isn't just about vanity but is an important part of overall health. The world of skincare can be daunting, but that doesn't mean you have to adopt a multi-step routine and use dozens of products.

Here's what men should know about the basics...

Essential skincare knowledge for men

"Your skin is the largest organ in the body and is vital for lots of life functions, including immunity, temperature regulation and protection against microbes, as well as the elements," explains Denning.

"Simply put, you would only survive a few hours without your skin, but it's one of the last things people think of in terms of their overall health."

Protecting your skin properly will help reduce your risk of skin cancer, which is the most common type of cancer in Ireland and one of the most common in the UK.

A proper skincare routine, which includes a good-quality SPF, is vital. Even though those with fair skin have a greater risk of cancer, it's important to remember that everyone can get it, regardless of how much melanin is in their skin.

How does male and female skin differ?

There's an almost hilarious difference in how male and female beauty products are packaged - it's either manly colours like black or blue, compared to pretty, delicate, sparkly versions for women.

While you don't necessarily have to buy a product specifically designed for your gender, male and female skin does have different needs.

"Men's and women's skin differs in certain aspects, such as hair growth, sweat rate, oil production, pH and other factors," Dennings explains. "Until the age of 50, men's skin barrier function is better. Their skin is thicker, their oil production is generally greater and they don't lose so much water through the skin. This means that men have less tendency for dryness."

What are the basics men need?

While male and female skin differs, Dennings says they both benefit from the same type of active ingredients, so you don't necessarily have to stick to male-only products.

If you have a completely non-existent skincare routine, it's a good idea to start small - you don't want to suddenly adopt a multi-step routine you won't be able to maintain.

For Victoria Schofield, digital education executive at skincare brand Dermalogica, the bare minimum for anyone's skin is to cleanse and moisturise daily.

"Cleansing is the foundation to healthy skin, as removing dirt, debris and pollutants will keep skin clear, she adds.

"A clay and charcoal-based cleanser is great to purify and deeply cleanse.

"However, ensure that the formula is fortified with skin protective lipids, so that skin isn't left feeling stripped, tight and vulnerable to damage."

Both Schofield and Dennings recommend using a light moisturiser that will hydrate the skin without making it too oily.

Another non-negotiable is including some SPF in your routine. Dennings advises a standalone product.

"Don't rely on one in your moisturiser," she says.

This really is the bare minimum. For that extra boost of skin protection, you could think about adding in a vitamin C product, which Dennings says "will help defend against pollution and other toxins we encounter on a daily basis".

Once you've found the products that work for you, you can start experimenting with other hero ingredients in skincare, like retinols and glycolic acids. Baby steps for now - and whatever you do, make sure you're drinking enough water.
Farm to table only happens when delicate supply chains are working properly. Coronavirus-caused disruptions are holding hostage some 2 million pounds of Swiss cheese in Pennsylvania.

Normally, all that Swiss produced from Pa. farmed milk is shipped out to be nibbled on by cheese lovers all across the country, much of it at now-shuttered restaurants.

Blame COVID-19 for putting a big hole in demand for Pa.-produced Swiss cheese.

In wake of the coronavirus shut-down, the Swiss cheese is stranded and stacked to the rafters inside an idled Mercer County, Pa., cheese factory, with no telling for how long, according to KDKA in Pittsburgh, which reports:

On a stretch of U.S. Route 19, about nine miles north of Mercer, cars and trucks rush by the Fairview Swiss Cheese Factory.

For four generations, this factory has been taking milk from western Pennsylvania dairy farms and turning out Swiss cheese.

But in this time of the coronavirus pandemic, the finished cheese is piling up in the factory with nowhere to go.

Its packed in 200-pound cases, contained on 1,800-pound pallets, and is stacked to the ceiling in the cold room of the warehouse and aging room.

Right around two million pounds or better, factory owner Richard Koller told KDKA.

Normally, he said his cheese would go to a packing company, get sliced or packaged under a variety of names, and sent out across the country.

Cheese is still moving through the grocery stores but thats only part of the industry, Koller told KDKA.

But all those shuttered restaurants and sandwich shops are putting a crimp in the cheese business.

Koller is hopeful, however, telling KDKA hes heartened to hear Florida is starting to reopen because his cheese finds a major home on Cuban sandwiches in the Sunshine State.

Until then, Koller said hes had no choice but to halt cheese production about 10 days ago. This means his milk suppliers might have to dump their product. So far, Koller told KDKA he hasnt laid off any of his own staff.

Who knows how long the cheese crisis will go on?

READ MORE:

Hopes dim for missing hiker who fell into creek at Pa. state park

Pa. dad on the run after beating kids, ages 2 and 4, with metal baseball bats, belts and boards: state police

Herd of deer roam coronavirus-deserted streets in once-busy Pa. town

Pa. boy, 2, dies after what police say was brutal beating by his moms boyfriend: report

Body of missing New Jersey Shore rowboater found after strong storms

Masked man accused of exposing himself in Pa. Target parking lot

Pa. man accused of brutally beating girlfriends 2-year-old son, whos now on life support: cops

Pa. mom charged with attempted homicide after 7-year-old son dies violently: Heartbreaking

Pa. nurses help man say goodbye on FaceTime to grandfather dying of coronavirus: We shed a lot of tears

Miracle Pa. man, 89, beats COVID-19, despite diabetes, high blood pressure and needing ventilator

Coors Light answers 93-year-old Pa. womans plea for more beer amid coronavirus with 10 cases

2 police chiefs in neighboring Pa. towns die within hours, including 1 who just recovered from COVID-19
New Retail Locations and Product Lines to Complement Existing 300+ Product SKUs

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 4, 2020) - EuroLife Brands (CSE: EURO) (FSE: 3CMA) (OTC PINK: EURPF) ("EuroLife" or the "Company"), a vertically integrated enterprise focused on the pan-European health and wellness sector, is announcing that they are working with their newly announced partners to establish additional health and wellness locations to continue serving their European customer audience.

EuroLife recently signed an LOI to acquire "HANF" hemp retail stores (see press release dated April 23, 2020). With seven (7) locations and currently over 300+ health and wellness SKUs on the shelves, Eurolife is looking to have continued retail-focused prosperity during these economic conditions. The allowable sale of consumable goods in our European retail model during the COVID pandemic is a key differentiator in how the company is looking at opportunities to continue driving revenue in today's economic conditions. The executive branch of EuroLife is working during the LOI due diligence period to secure an eighth (8) location that will continue to fall under the purview of an essential service to provide consumable goods and products under the health and wellness category.

Over the last 8 months EuroLife has strategically entered into key supply chain agreements, license distribution and logistics agreements, and secured raw manufacturing of product ingredients. All these imperatives have been key to establish a long-term presence within the European Consumer Market. These agreements (pending finalization) are the foundation of the larger retail operations for Eurolife Brands' European Business Model. With diverse and stable asset growth established through agreements reached in the latter half of 2019 and into the first two quarters of 2020, the executive team is moving forward with revenue producing growth asset targets for Q3 and Q4 2020. The company announced on April 23, 2020 that it is following a similar formula to build out one of the largest SKU portfolios of Superfoods, comprising of CBD and hemp-based products; in addition, Eurolife looks to continue its Portfolio growth to potentially include Superfoods that contain mushroom and mushroom derivatives.

The company has set up a task force that will review its current licensed and owned product SKUs, network opportunities, existing mushroom distribution agreements with its North American Partners such as Champignon Brands (CSE:SHRM) in an effort to repeat its success with brand portfolio growth. The task force will set out, in short order, success parameters to review market potential, audience growth, revenue forecasts, and logistical and distribution faculties.

Additionally, EURO has received a commitment from European Equity Group to work with its newly added retail distribution network in establishing an 8th retail location within Europe. This announcement comes at the heels of our retail acquisition announcement of April 23, 2020.

"EuroLife is working to have formalized agreements and have an established physical and digital foothold within the European market in a relatively short period of time. By leveraging our existing consumer platforms and combining them with retail, we are providing a safe and confident consumer shopping experience while synergistically driving revenue across existing business units. A formula not unlike other giants of retail, in which a company looks at its existing assets and works with news business units, or in our case acquires new business units to drive the bar of success higher together versus what either alone could achieve. This cross-pollination of business units is what is allowing the company to move aggressively towards our goal of maximizing shareholder value" said Shawn Moniz, chief executive officer of Eurolife.

About EuroLife Brands Inc.

EuroLife Brands (CSE: EURO) (FSE: 3CMA) (OTCPK: EURPF) is a vertically integrated enterprise focused on the pan-European health and wellness sector.

For additional information:

Contact: ir@eurolifebrands.com or visit EuroLifeBrands.com

No stock exchange or securities regulatory authority has reviewed or accepted responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking Information Cautionary Statement

Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the CSE. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for EuroLife Brands described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedar.com.

.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/55318
China has no right to ban fishing in Vietnamese waters: fisheries society

The Vietnam Fisheries Society expressed vehement opposition Monday to Chinas announcement of an East Sea "fishing ban" starting May 1.

In a document sent to several Vietnamese governmental entities, including the Government Office, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the society said that Chinas "fishing ban" on areas of the East Sea, including parts of the Gulf of Tonkin and Vietnams Hoang Sa (Paracel) Islands, is a violation of Vietnams sovereignty over the Paracel Islands and Vietnamese sea areas.

It was also a violation of Vietnams legal rights and interests, not to mention international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and relevant international legal documents, the document said.

The society said it "vehemently opposes Chinas unreasonable actions. [The fishing ban] has no legal value over sea areas under Vietnams sovereignty. Vietnamese fisherpeople have the right to fish in sea areas under Vietnams sovereignty."

It requested Vietnamese authorities to strongly oppose and take due measures to stop and prevent Chinas "unreasonable actions."

The East Sea is internationally known as the South China Sea.

On April 30, the Hainan Provincial Department of Agriculture announced that Chinas annual "fishing ban" on the South China Sea has begun on May 1 and would last until August 16, the Xinhua reported.

The ban would apply to certain sea areas at the South China Sea that encompass parts of the Gulf of Tonkin and Vietnams Paracel Islands.

No fishing activities are allowed in sea areas under Chinas sovereignty within the time period, except in certain cases, according to the Hainan department. During the period, China would perform safety checks for fishing equipment and vessels, as well as instructing its fisherpeople of relevant policies and skills, it said.

Vietnam has consistently condemned and rejected the issue of such bans by China, while the latter has claimed that the bans seek to promote sustainable fisheries development and improve marine ecology.

China has also been ramping up its aggressive behavior in the East Sea of late, including announcing the establishment of what it calls the "Xisha District" and "Nansha District" in so-called "Sansha City" on April 18 to manage Vietnam's Paracel and Truong Sa (Spratly) Islands, the Macclesfield Bank and surrounding waters.

On April 14, Chinese survey vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 was spotted around 158 km off Vietnam's coast, inside Vietnam's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). It then followed exploration vessel West Capella belonging to Malaysian state oil company Petronas after entering Malaysia's EEZ.

Vietnam and several other countries, including the Philippines, the U.S., Australia and Japan, have either denounced or voiced dismay at Chinas actions.
A dam burst in eastern Uzbekistan, leading to massive flooding, large-scale evacuations, and devastated farmland, both in the area and across the border in Kazakhstan. The Sardoba Reservoir dam was finished in 2017. A criminal probe has been launched into possible "official negligence."
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Patient readers, I got started in good time, and for some reason had an attack of the slows. Ill add a bit more shortly. lambert UPDATE All done. Theres a very nice link for soil fans under Biosphere.

#COVID19

At reader request, Ive added this daily chart:

The data is the John Hopkins CSSE data. Here is the site. I have changed to a logarithmic scale for US States and territories.

New Yorks geometric growth continues at 1.01. Needless to day, this isnt even flat, let alone the vaguely bell-shaped curve we were told to expect. The linear view may reinforce this:

And speaking of vaguely bell-shaped curves:

Well thats a fascinating way to present it pic.twitter.com/zwIFMyzGoN  Scientists for EU (@Scientists4EU) May 3, 2020

* * *

See Vice, How to Read the Coronavirus Graphs:

Quantities that grow exponentially, when depicted on a linear scale, look like curves that bend sharply upward, with the curve getting constantly steeper. On a log scale, exponentially growing values can be depicted with straight diagonal lines. Thats the beauty of plotting things on log scales. Plots are meant to make things easy to understand, and we humans are much more adept at understanding linear, straight-line behavior. Log plots enable us to grasp exponential behavior by transferring the complexity of constantly steepening curves into the simplicity of an exponentially increasing scale. On a log scale, we want to constantly be making the line more and more horizontal. The general concept of flattening is still a good one, but its never going to curve down. And so what we should be looking, and hoping for is a trend toward horizontal.

Politics

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? James Madison, Federalist 51

They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery. Frank Herbert, Dune

They had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord

* * *

2020

Biden (D)(1): The Committee to Save the Rich [Jacobin]. Earlier this month, a coalition of progressive groups published an open letter to Joe Biden concerned with how he might earn young peoples support Among the most concrete (and easily realizable) demands the groups offered had to do with staffing  specifically a pledge they hoped Biden would make to appoint zero current or former Wall Street executives or corporate lobbyists, or people affiliated with the fossil fuel, health insurance, or private prison corporations to his transition team, advisory roles, or to cabinet. Barely two weeks later, Biden as good as replied when it emerged hed appointed none other than Larry Summers to advise him on economic policy. There are certainly other, less ideological reasons to be angry about Summerss appointment. Just as the Biden campaign evidently has no regrets about hiring Harvey Weinsteins PR flunky Anita Dunn, it apparently doesnt think Summerss track record of misogyny or dubious connections are any kind of liability (or, perhaps, just plain doesnt care). As president of Harvard, Summers cultivated a close personal and professional relationship with now-deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein  a relationship that continued after Epsteins initial conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. He was eventually forced to resign the presidency at Harvard amid a controversy prompted by remarks about female aptitude in math and science.  So Larry fits right in? Biden (D)(2): Democrats, Its Time to Consider a Plan B [New York Times]. Ms. Reades account is not nearly as incredible as some have argued. In the course of my reporting, I have worked closely with many survivors of sexual assault. It isnt unusual, in my experience, for survivors to exhibit behavior that seems unstable or erratic to others. They may initially disclose to investigators or journalists only a fragment of what happened, and then reveal more over time  some even falsely recant, either because they sense the police dont believe them, or because they fear the consequences of pressing their claims. And victims often maintain relationships with their attackers or harbor mixed feelings about them. [I]t is also possible that this wont just go away, and that it will demoralize voters and place Mr. Biden at a disadvantage against Mr. Trump in the general election, despite the fact that Mr. Trump has a damning list of accusers alleging sexual offenses. For a candidate mainly favored for his presumed electability and the perception of empathy and decency, thats a serious liability.  Biden (D)(3): Luckily for Biden theres already an Upworthy headline generator he can use. https://t.co/BcyyywHSAq https://t.co/NGFcb9z5Zy  Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 4, 2020 This is the Upworthy generator, but sadly Biden-specific keywords cannot be incorporated. UPDATE Biden (D)(4): Coincidence? You be the judge: well this certainly doesnt it make it feel like a campaign messaging blast pic.twitter.com/xSYg8YVdAS  anonymous account (@jackallisonLOL) May 2, 2020 UPDATE Cuomo (D)(1): Andrew Cuomo may be the single most popular politician in America right now [Chris Cilizza, CNN]. Cuomos stratospheric numbers are driven by remarkable bipartisan support. Yes, 90% of Democrats view him favorably. But 73% of independents say the same as do a majority (53%!) of Republicans. And, they represent a stunning turnaround for Cuomo who, as recently as February, had an overall job approval of just 36%. Cuomos handling of the coronavirus has, without exaggeration, flipped public opinion about him in, roughly, six weeks. In fact, its a turnaround that not even George W. Bush experienced in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Cuomos daily press briefings on the state of the states fight against the virus have become must-see TV  as Cuomo ranges from stern father to loving counselor to frank friend and back All of which begs the question of whats next for Cuomo. After all, he is only 62 years old  15 years younger than presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden!  and in the middle of his third term as governor of the Empire State. Cuomo has been, to date, definitive about his lack of interest in running for president  ever.  Amazing to me that Trump is leaving Cuomo alone. Trump (R)(1): Owning the libs, who richly deserve to be owned: The new Trump ad specifically targets the hypocrisy of liberals who touted "believe women" for years and who're now rallying around Biden pic.twitter.com/z2xUN5CsPU  keyvan () (@shafieikeyvan) May 1, 2020 UPDATE Trump (R)(2): How Greenwich Republicans Learned to Love Trump [The New Yorker]. How did Americas country-club Republicans, the cultural descendants of Prescott Bush, learn to love Donald Trump? They dont have much in common with the cliched image of his admirers: anxious about losing status to minorities, resentful of imperious elites, and marooned in places where life expectancy has fallen. But the full picture has never been that simple. As early as May, 2016, exit polls and other data showed that Trump supporters earned an average of seventy-two thousand dollars a year, while supporters of Hillary Clinton earned eleven thousand dollars less. Two-thirds of Trumps supporters had incomes higher than the national mediansometimes, as in Greenwich, much higher.  Class interest, class solidarity. * * * From the worlds ugliest email operation, Mothership Strategies, Fauci as a fund-raiser: I happen to agree with Fauci on social distancing. But Id have less difficulty participating in the Fauci love fest if he werent ramping Gilead like a penny stock (something that could end up killing a lot more people than, well, bleach).

2016 Post Mortem

A new trope: No makeup? No pantsuit? No problem. Ive got the must-have accessory for spring. Im wearing a mask (and voting!) for my country, my community, and my grandchildren. #MaskingForAFriend @PandemicAction pic.twitter.com/68t8us5K1D  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 2, 2020 Im sure this will shift votes in swing states.

Rehabilitating Bush

Realignment and Legitimacy

Two Weeks of Democrats Pathetic Attempts at Opposition [The New Republic]. Following a bill of particulars of the Democrats ridiculous last two weeks: The most puzzling thing about the Democrats most recent spell of turning Republican is that GOP policies are more unpopular than theyve been in a long while, and the president remains largely distrusted by the American public. Why wouldnt the Democrats take advantage, for instance, of the current enthusiasm for Medicare for All to create a better-functioning health care system both for the current crisis and beyond, rather than dangling a tepid plan to dump yet more money into the hands of private insurers? Perhaps, after all, theres still one crucial difference between the two parties, captured perfectly by the old aphorism: Republicans fear their base, and Democrats hate theirs.  Im not sure thats true anymore. The working class is not the Democrat base, and the Democrat Establishment wants to get rid of it entirely, and make suburban Republicans part of their base. China Was Right: Academics and Democratic Leaders Call For Censorship Of Social Media and The Internet [Jonathan Turley]. The only thing spreading faster than the coronavirus has been censorship and the loud calls for greater restrictions on free speech. The Atlantic published an article last week by Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizona law professor Andrew Keane Woods calling for Chinese style censorship of the internet. While Goldsmith and Keane are obviously not calling for authoritarian abuse, they are advocating control over the Internet to regulate speech  crossing the Rubicon from free speech to censorship models. They declared that in the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong and significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with society norms and values.'  All the while raising the banner against the Fascist Trump administration, of course. Here at NC, we know that this means, WaPo and PropOrNot already tried to drive us out of business once. The anticapitalist streaming service taking on Netflix: This is Means TV [Huck]. The platform launched earlier this year (February 26) with a roster of documentaries, films, cartoons and podcasts; all of which are available to its thousands of subscribers for just $10 a month. Popular series include their flagship broadcast, Means Morning News, and Sprinkles & Wrinkles  an animation about two Marxist cats on a mission to overthrow their owner. The Detroit-based couple behind the site, Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes, made their first foray into leftist media as Means of Production, with a campaign video for then little-known democratic candidate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We came to AOC with the story arc and pitch for the video, Burton explains, and then she really helped us develop the narrative elements that spoke to her experience. The video was an instant viral success, and paved the way for a new genre of campaign films. AOC had this special kind of energy, recalls Hayes, but wed never really seen a campaign video blow up like that before her.'

Stats Watch

At reader request, I added some business stats back in. Please give Econintersect click-throughs; theyre a good, old-school blog that covers more than stats. If anybody knows of other aggregators, please contact me at the email address below.

No stats of interest today.

* * *

Shipping: Prices to move oil around the world are soaring as demand to store fuel on ships takes on a bigger role in energy markets. Charter prices for vessels that transport refined oil products have nearly quadrupled since the start of March and the Baltic Clean Tanker Index measure of freight rates hit a record high late last month before slipping back [Wall Street Journal]. The surging prices show how the demand for floating storage for crude has spilled into broader fuel transport business. With global stockpiles of petroleum forecast to grow by around 550 million barrels this quarter, a race is under way to store surplus gasoline, diesel and jet fuel at sea. The number of available tankers that handle refined petroleum products has plummeted.

Shipping: Coal volumes are evaporating from U.S. rail networks and they dont appear to be coming back. Electricity generation from coal-fired power plants is forecast to decline 20% in 2020 from a year ago, and one analysis suggests renewable sources topped coal for the first time on a quarterly basis in the first three months of the year [Wall Street Journal]. U.S. coal production is sliding and the upheaval in energy is accelerating as electricity demand declines under coronavirus restrictions. Freight railroads are feeling the impact in the sectors single biggest market by volume. Coal loads are down 21.4% so far this year.

Shipping: Gauges of construction industry sentiment are turning downward, with measures for billings by architects and new orders for construction equipment makers both at weak levels. The weakness is hitting supply chains. Load-matching service DAT Solutions says the ratio of available loads to trucks in the spot market for construction-heavy flatbed trucking plummeted nearly 77% from March to April [Wall Street Journal]. K&D Industries of NY says it lost three-quarters of its jobs hauling materials for construction sites when New York idled most construction work in March forcing the company to defer payments on a bank loan and other bills.

Petri Dishes: Carnivals stock swings higher after plan to phase in resumption of cruises this summer [MarlketWatch]. Shares of Carnival Corp. swung to positive territory Monday, after the cruise ship operator announced its plan to phase in a resumption of its North America service, beginning Aug. 1. The company said operations will resume with eight ships, Carnival Dream, Carnival Freedom and Carnival Vista from Galveston, Texas; Carnival Horizon, Carnival Magic and Canrnival Sensation from Miami, Florida; and Carnival Breeze and Carnival Edison from Port Canaveral in Florida. The company said all other cruises will be cancelled through Aug. 31.

Infrastructure: Workers set to leave Marylands Purple Line project [RT&S]. Frustrated by one delay after another, the builders currently working on Marylands Purple Line project say they will leave the project because the state is not paying for the delays and cost overruns. The project currently costs $2 billion.  Our failed state cant even build a 16-mile light railway line.

Todays Fear & Greed Index: 44 Fear (previous close: 43 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 43 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated May 4 at 12:21pm.

Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 186. Remember that bringing on the rapture is a good thing.

The Biosphere

UPDATE Scientists Waited Two and a Half Years to See Whether Bacteria Can Eat Rock [Scientific American] (original). After 30 months, they put their samples under the microscope. The minerals incubated with microbes appeared ragged or pitted  as if they had been dipped in acid, not bacteria  after their 864-day incubation. The sterile control minerals, by contrast, retained sharp, smooth edges. The scientists also detected abundant ATP in the mixtures that included microbes, indicating feasting. And remember: there was absolutely nothing to feast on except crushed rock. Another mystery remained: who was eating the rocks? When the scientists checked the DNA of the microbes in their samples, they found almost exclusively bacteria. Missing from the cultures, surprisingly, were fungi. The lithotrophic bacteria they did find have a special power: the ability to harvest electrons from iron atoms outside their bodies. That is, they can eat without swallowing their food. The bacteria ingest the electrons in a technique called external electron transfer.. So, bacteria indeed appear able to initiate and accelerate the dirt-making process. On land, dirt supports plants, which support most everything else.  Well, lets hope we dont kill those bacteria off. Because that would be bad.

Health Care

Public Health Across the Pacific (podcast) [Christopher Lydon, Open Source]. With Jim Yong Kim (on Korea) on the East Asia response, and Warwick Anderson (on Australian). Anderson remarks, in passing, that the United States is a failed state. I highly recommend this level-headed and quietly devastating episode, which is followed by Questions of Leadership, a disgraceful extended Cuomogasm. (Holy moley, the guy slashed $400 million from Medicaid, worked for years with Republicans in the State legislature to stymie progressive legislation, has a terrible record on #COVID-19 (especially compared to California and Washington), and liberals are hailing him as a leader because he gives a good briefing on TV? There are far worse problems here than lack of leadership.

Most major health insurers arent charging patients for coronavirus treatment  but theres one big catch [MarketWatch]. The nations largest insurers  including Aetna, Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare  are waiving cost-sharing for coronavirus treatment. That means theyre not making patients pay deductibles, copays, coinsurance and other charges if theyre hospitalized with COVID-19, which had killed more than 63,000 Americans as of Friday. (See a full list of what insurers are doing here.) So if your health insurer is waiving cost-sharing, does it mean you wont be charged at all if youre hospitalized for coronavirus? No. Theres always a catch, [Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation] said. You still could have out-of-pocket costs even if your insurer says theyre going to waive all the cost-sharing. Even though health-insurance companies are waiving cost-sharing for their members, people who get health insurance through their jobs may still end up having to pay for treatment. Thats because employers with self-funded or self-insured health plans can opt out of waiving cost-sharing for their employees. A self-funded or self-insured health plan means the insurance company administers the plan and the employer pays the claims. So even though your health insurance card may say Aetna on it, your employer could be footing the bill. Most people who get their health insurance through their job are in a self-funded or self-insured plan, Pollitz said. If you have health insurance through your job and want to know if your employer is self-funded and whether its waiving cost-sharing for coronavirus treatment, call your human-resources department or whoever handles your employers health insurance to find out.

Testing is not only a technical problem:

Michael Santos went to the hospital to get checked out for the coronavirus. He wound up with a $1,689 bill. https://t.co/DOm3sNjlIo via @businessinsider #SinglePayerSunday  Medicare for All (@AllOnMedicare) May 3, 2020

If people get $1500 bills for testing, its not gonna happen. Duh.

Coronavirus cases drop by up to 44% due to shelter-in-place orders, study drawing on CDC data shows [MarketWatch]. The number of COVID-19 cases fell by up to 43.7% roughly three weeks after the implementation of a shelter-in-place order, according to a working paper distributed Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper was authored by researchers at Bentley University, San Diego State University and the University of Colorado Denver. Researchers analyzed social-mobility data from SafeGraph, a geospatial data company, which represents the movements of roughly 45 million smartphone devices. To produce their estimates of the effects of the shelter-in-place orders on health outcomes they drew on data regarding COVID-10 cases collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and made public by the Kaiser Family Foundation. However, some states will see more success from their shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs) than others, the researchers wrote. The earliest adopters of statewide SIPOs saw the largest declines in the rate of coronavirus cases, including declines in the rate of COVID-19-related mortality, they said. In addition, more densely populated states also appear to reap relatively larger health benefits from their SIPOs.'

Baltimore Healthcare Workers Criticize Military Flyovers Honoring Them [Baltimore Beat]. America Strong military flights over some of the United States hardest hit cities offered as tribute to beleaguered healthcare and essential workers have been met with outrage and ridicule by healthcare workers. Instead of spending $60,000 per flight hour on a showy attempt at solidarity, please spend that money housing homeless and incarcerated people in safe places where they can be socially distanced, said Kate Dunn, a registered nurse in Baltimore. For me, that is what actual support and solidarity would look like. And I would sleep better at night knowing my patients were at less risk.'

Class Warfare

Bye, Amazon [Tim Bray]. . And at the end of the day, the big problem isnt the specifics of Covid-19 response. Its that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential. Only thats not just Amazon, its how 21st-century capitalism is done. At the end of the day, its all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker, what with mass unemployment and (in the US) job-linked health insurance. So theyre gonna get treated like crap, because capitalism. Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective strength. This is a must read, given Brays position at Amazon and his technical reputation.

I am sorry but we are going to talk about woody allen [Reading the Tarot (DG)]. Im saying, when we talk about morality and platforming and so on, we are mostly talking about one very narrow moral concern: hate. Basically, the moral offences that a small segment of the population finds the most objectionable are the ones that are organized against. These moral concerns come mostly out of university culture. People who, say, live in dangerous areas with high murder rates might find other things more pressing. People who live in places where suicide rates are skyrocketing or overdoses just keep steadily happening might find other things more pressing. That narrowness in concern within publishing and other cultural industries happens because at the moment the industry is overwhelmingly populated with people who are expensively educated, people from the coasts, and people who have the financial support of others in order to be able to afford living on $31,000 a year as an editorial assistant in New York City. This is a very small demographic, and it dominates the literary world, the art world, and so on. Because of their shared socioeconomic background and their shared educational histories, they are a more homogeneous group than they probably want to admit [W]e need to have a serious talk about cultural production and why we refuse to hear from a growing segment of our population.

The class war against front-line workers [E.J. Dionne, WaPo]. When social solidarity is essential, its common to hear pious sermons against class warfare. Unfortunately, there is a class war. And its victims, so many of them front-line workers, didnt start it.  Dionne seems to think that only Republicans are waging class war against workers. Odd.

Rule #2 of Neoliberalism:

Simple: weve concluded the people who are at risk are the people we dont care about, and havent for awhile. pic.twitter.com/R1Z44WxksU  Marshall Steinbaum  (@Econ_Marshall) May 4, 2020

When I wrote that post back in 2014, I had no idea how close to the bone it would cut.

Were on the Brink of Cyberpunk [Slate]. As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps through the world, it collides with governments in the West that have spent decades deliberately shedding power, capability, and responsibility, reducing themselves to little more than vestigial organs that coordinate public-private partnerships of civic responsibility. This hollowing of the state began in earnest in the 1980s, and the science fiction of that timethe earliest texts of cyberpunkimagines what happens when that process is complete. Cyberpunk is a genre of vast corporate power and acute personal deprivation. The technologies at the center of it are all means of control, control bought by the wealthy or broken by criminals. Where recourse is available, in whatever small way, its through direct action.  The connection to Gibson, which the author makes, is quite direct.

Typo: Lensing, not lending. Another autocorrect pratfall:

Very large quantities of concentrated capital can bend truth rays and warp epistimology and ontology. There is a financial lending effect by which you can detect the presence of large cold masses of money that otherwise cant be seen  Venkatesh Rao (@vgr) May 3, 2020

Interesting methodological suggestion.

News of the Wired

The Queen of Consciousness Driving Psychedelic Study and Advocacy (interview) [Amanda Feilding, Filter Magazine]. Feilding: Psychedelics and the knowledge that you can alter your consciousness should be part of the fabric of societyits not what the naughty boy does before he commits a crime. Psychedelics do not encourage crime, they increase connectivity with nature, which is good for the environment and your passion for people and openness. These are all good human qualities that should be nurtured with the careful use of psychedelics. Psychedelics used to be called fruit of the gods. They make us more god-like. They make us more ourselvesour better selvesif used well. The only way we can drag psychedelics out of the naughty box is to prove that they have better efficacy than any other medicine thats being offered to treat psychological illnesses. We did a study of overcoming nicotine addiction using psychedelics with Johns Hopkins, and it had an 80 percent success ratethis was a pilot study a few years ago.  Lets check with Big Pharma on that, shall we?

History of Blondie, the comic strip:

The comic strip is named -Blondie- because she was the original protagonist. Dagwood was originally just one of her several love interests. https://t.co/8rLnMlK3b4 pic.twitter.com/WIODzhGllK  Neocon Sally Rooney stan account  (@NeoconMaudit) May 3, 2020

I was never more determined.

Zeitgeist watch?

Six weeks ago the #CatNamesWorldCup started with 128 entires  now just one remains. Ladies and gentlemen, cats and kittens your winner is

CHAIRMAN MEOW! Thank you to everyone for taking part x  Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) May 3, 2020

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here . Todays plant (ChiGal):

ChiGal writes: Motivated myself to take a walk today with the idea of searching out the lovely scent of honeysuckle before its gone  looks like someone else had the same idea!

* * *









: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldnt see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know Im on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated.

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!
What happened

Shares of Royal Caribbean (NYSE:RCL) shot up 45% in April, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Though this sharp rise pared some of the stock's losses for the year, the shares of the cruise company are still down a whopping 65% year to date.

So what

The cruise industry has been battered by bad news since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with medical experts warning people not to go on cruise ships and countries shutting off borders to curb the spread of the virus. Royal Caribbean has extended its cruise suspension by canceling all sailings through June 11.

But there are signs that things may not be as bad as they seem. On April 8, the company amended export-credit backed loan facilities relating to two of their vessels, Anthem of the Seas and Spectrum of the Seas. This move was to incorporate a 12-month debt-holiday initiative offered by the official export credit agency of Germany to assist cruise-line borrowers. On April 21, another vessel, Quantum of the Seas, had its loan facility amended with the same debt holiday. These measures will help ease the cash flow burden for Royal Caribbean as it navigates this unprecedented crisis.

The company has also announced that it will lay off or furlough 26% of its workforce in the U.S. This will affect nearly 1,300 of the company's more than 5,000 employees in this country. Though drastic, the move will help save more cash. Royal Caribbean is also rumored to be in talks with Morgan Stanley to raise new financing and is said to be discussing a package that may include the issuance of convertible bonds or equity. The target is to raise as much as $600 million to help get through the pandemic.

Now what

Royal Caribbean has weathered many crises in the past. Though the current one seems like the single biggest challenge to hit the industry in decades, the slew of measures undertaken by the company to raise cash, shore up its balance sheet, and slash costs may help it to survive.

The question now is whether business will return to normal even after the pandemic is contained, or if it will take an extended period for people to step onto a cruise ship again. Whichever is the case, it seems that Royal Caribbean's finances have been bolstered and that the company should still be around to take advantage of the recovery.


Rochester, N.Y.  New York passed a major milestone in its battle against coronavirus on Sunday as over 1 million people in the state have now been tested.

More than 21,000 people were tested on Sunday, enough to push the total into seven figures. A total of 1,007,310 have been tested since the crisis began.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in April the state would push to double its daily testing total from 20,000 to 40,000. Daily tests were near 30,000 a day much of last week.

The increase in testing is necessary as the state prepares to reopen parts of its economy in the weeks ahead, Cuomo has said.

Cuomo today outlined multiple steps regions in New York will need to take to restart businesses. Reopening will occur slowly and in phases.

Any approach needs increased testing to monitor how the virus responds to increased business activity.

New Yorks National Guard has so far made nearly 300,000 testing kits to collect samples, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a press briefing in Rochester. The state is sending 60,000 new kits to labs and hospitals across New York today, he added.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Coronavirus update: See which of Cuomos reopening requirements Central NY has met

What businesses might reopen this month amid coronavirus in NY? McMahon offers clues about restart

Syracuse family was poised for first graduate, a better neighborhood, a new career. Then coronavirus hit

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.  Colorado is on course for millions in fines as mentally ill people accused of crimes languish in jails awaiting services, an official said.

Colorado Department of Human Services figures show the number of the most severely ill pretrial detainees on a wait list for competency restoration doubled in mid-April, largely because of the coronavirus pandemic, The Gazette reported Saturday.

The delays are poised to put the department in continued violation of a federally enforced civil agreement carrying penalties of up to $10 million per year.

Its going to have a significant impact on fines for the state, said Robert Werthwein, director of the Colorado Office of Behavioral Health.

Werthwein did not provide an estimate of fines the state is likely to pay this year, but said they will exceed the previously projected $2.5 million.

State administrators were initially confident they could hold down fines to $2.5 million, citing progress including shrinking the wait list for competency evaluations, Werthwein said.

Delays associated with the coronavirus pandemic derailed the states ability to meet some court-ordered deadlines, particularly for inpatient restoration, he said.

The state Department of Human Services agreed in March 2019 to overhaul its evaluation and treatment of mentally ill criminal defendants. Disability Law Colorado sued in 2011 in federal court over years of widespread delays that kept mentally ill people behind bars waiting for services.

We were trending in the right direction, is how I would put it, Werthwein said. Unfortunately, since COVID-19, the waitlist went up.

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. The vast majority of people recover.
Hispanic-serving institutions are doing their best to help Latinos and Hispanics enrolled in their schools get a better future after the pandemic, according to a recently published article.

Impact of the Global Pandemic Towards the Education System

The global health pandemic has brought many changes to the world. It does not only change how businesses operate today, but it also changes how schools work and mold their students to become globally competitive.

With the changes that the pandemic has brought to the education system, schools are now scrambling to help students learn amid COVID-19. Institutions are offering online classes, modular classes, and other alternatives.

However, those who belong in the middle-class families and self-supporting students like Latinos and Hispanics will be facing financial challenges to meet the demand for education today. They have to buy a new laptop and need to have a stable internet connection to participate in the online classes as physical class discussion still seems impossible at this time.

Helping Hispanic Students Cope With the Demand of Education

Hispanic-Serving Institutions are very much aware of how important getting a degree is most especially for Latino students. It can be remembered that after the Great Recession, over 99 percent of jobs went to those who have degrees and certificates.

This means that after this global pandemic, it is expected as well that most of the jobs available will be given those who have finished their degree. This is to help the country's economy to start anew.

William Serrata, President of El Paso Community College, is working so hard to encourage their Latino students to enroll and finish their degrees, or else they will have no certificates, which will be their key in employment.

He said that Higher Education would even become more critical for Latinos because more than 30 million have filed unemployment due to the closures of businesses. He also emphasized this to Excelencia Education, which measures the number of enrolled Latino students, their retention rate, and most especially the percentage of those who finished and get their degree.

In the upcoming weeks, colleges and universities are going to prepare for another academic year. In Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Latinos are composed of at least or more than a quarter. This means that they are working hard to make sure of a better life for Latinos after the pandemic.

Erika Beck, president of California State University Channel Islands, said: "We understand the disproportionate impact that this crisis has on our most vulnerable students. I think it also highlights the role that Hispanic-Serving Institutions will play as a bridge to a post-pandemic future, as well as a post-pandemic economy and society."

According to research by Excelencia, the number of Latino students enrolled in higher education has increased and even reached a record high in 2017. Still, only a few of them finished or completed their degree. The study shows that only 22 percent of Latino adults in the United States have an associate degree or higher.

A few of the factors seen why the percentage is so low are the costs of higher education, limited knowledge about college, and how they balance their time for work, academics, and family. These are the barriers that prevent Latino students from finishing their degrees on time.

This situation is even becoming worse today as the global pandemic hits most of the Latino families. Many of them were furloughed and laid off from their jobs and cannot apply for unemployment due to their immigration status. This is economic stress for Latino families.

New Norm of Education

Mark Rosenberg, President of Florida International University, is thinking about how to help Latino students in meeting the new demand for education. She said that the key to meet the demands of Latino students is the transition from "student-centric institution" to a "learner-centric institution."

He said: "A lot of our students are adult learners. They have family responsibilities, and they may not have the opportunity to get your traditional four-year, six-year degree. They need it now because they're working full or part-time. They need learning or a competency now, and we're very comfortable in moving into that space."

He also anticipates that more colleges and universities will be ramping up in the coming weeks in their individualized learning program, which is designed to help students balance their academic and personal life.

In this case, it is expected that remote education will become the new norm in education. At the same time, the digital divide will become a problem not only for students but also for school administrators and teachers.

Read related articles:
Gurugram, May 4 : The Millennium City of India reported 11 Covid-19 cases on Monday with majority of them having Delhi connection. With this, the number of cases here reached 83.

Civil Surgeon of Gurugram J.S. Punia said 7 people were linked to Azadpur vegetable market in Delhi, one person belonged to Nasik and another had recently returned from West Bangal. Two others were native of Gurugram, he added.

The 7 people with Azadpur market link connection are wholesalers or their employees who transport vegetables and fruits from there.

The official said 65 people had been placed under quarantine after they recently returned from other states.

Gurugram District Magistrate Amit Khatri said they had been isolated at different government, ESI and private hospitals, and their family members placed under home quarantine. The health officials were trying to identify those who must have come in their contacts, he said.

The official, however, claimed that number of cured persons was also increasing with 49 patients discharged till now.

Khatri urged residents to stay at home despite relaxation and step out only for necessary works.

Meanwhile, the district administration declared 24 containment zones and 16 buffer zones after a review committee meeting during the day.

"Based on reports filed by the SDM-rank officers, Gurugram has 13 containment and equal number of buffer zones, Sohna 9 containment zones and 2 buffer zones, and Pataudi 2 containment zones and 1 buffer zone," Khatri said.

Khatri said 3 km area from the house of a Covid-19 patient was declared the containment zone, and 5 km under the buffer zone in urban areas. The buffer zone in rural areas is 7 km as per the guideline of WHO.

"Every household that falls under containment zone will undergo thermal screening and sanitization," Khatri said.
Uber Eats said it took the decision based on 'a hard look at the business metrics' over a competitive market for food delivery

Uber Eats said it is discontinuing its services in the Middle East, including in Egypt, starting 18 May as it looks into redirecting resources to other markets where its food delivery business is booming.

According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Uber said it would fully discontinue Uber Eats operations in the Czech Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay and Ukraine by 4 June 2020.

Regular Uber rides will continue unaffected, it said.

Uber said it will transfer its Uber Eats business operations in the United Arab Emirates to Careem, its wholly-owned subsidiary operating primarily in the Middle East.

Consumers using the application in the UAE will be transitioned to the Careem platform in the coming weeks, after which the Uber Eats app will no longer be accessible.

We have made the decision to discontinue Uber Eats in the Middle East. This will also allow us to commit further energy and resources on our top Eats markets around the world, an Uber Eats spokesperson told Ahram Online.

Uber Eats said it took the decision based on a hard look at the business metrics amid a competitive market for food delivery.

The suspension of the food delivery services would allow Uber Eats to steer resources to markets in Europe and globally, where the service is growing fast.

The spokesperson said Uber would remain committed to growing and investing in Ubers mobility platform in the Middle East.

We are committed to continuing to serve cities in the Middle East through our Uber Rides business, where we continue to launch new products/services such as Uber Medics to help support our communities through this difficult time, the statement read.

Mondays announcement ends Uber Eats two-year operations in Egypt, as the food delivery business in the populous country continues to see an exit from leading companies operating in the sector, which is dominated by the Egyptian food ordering website Otlob.

Earlier this year, Spanish on-demand delivery startup Glovo exited the Egyptian market and three others globally as part of a plan it said aims to push for profitability in 2021.

Januarys announcement of an Egypt exit was the second by Glovo, months after it announced it halted its operations in Egypt in April 2019 without providing further details.

However, Glovo resumed its services temporarily in June 2019 after the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) gave a green light to the resumption of the service after it obliged the company to suspend an agreement with German Delivery Hero, another delivery service in the country, that violates anti-monopoly laws.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Al Jazeera speaks to Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor of Caravan magazine, on the state of media and democracy.

New Delhi, India  Indias Hindu nationalist government has been criticised for silencing dissent and undermining independent media, with critical journalists branded anti-nationals or charged under anti-terror laws.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, press freedom has deteriorated, with India dropping to 142nd place in the list of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2020.

Newspapers and television networks critical of the governments have either had their advertisements blocked or their offices raided, and activists have been thrown in jails for organising peaceful protests.

It has resulted in widespread self-censorship on the part of media. A sectarian agenda, critics said, have instead been accorded more prime-time slots in tune with the Hindu nationalist governments right-wing politics.





Modi himself has not conducted a single news conference since becoming prime minister in 2014.

Before an abrupt decision to announce a coronavirus lockdown on March 24, Modi met editors and owners of 20 major media organisations asking them to publish positive stories. The government also tried to control all aspects of information regarding the coronavirus crisis.

Al Jazeera spoke Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor of Caravan magazine, on the state of media and democracy in India.

Al Jazeera: How would you describe the state of press freedom in India at the moment?

Hartosh Singh Bal: Well, its been going from bad to worse for a while. I think ever since Modi took over [in 2014], theres been a deliberate attempt to subvert the whole independence of the media, and dissent has been strictly controlled.

I think just a few hours before the coronavirus lockdown [was announced on March 24], Modi himself spoke to a lot of owners and editors of print [media] across the country, and youve seen the results.

They [media] are basically reporting positive stories on the lockdown, and the migrant crisis was largely ignored. Historian Ram Guhas column was removed from the English newspaper the Hindustan Times, whose owner Modi spoke to. And we are getting a lot of under-reporting on the bad impact of the lockdown and of what is happening in the country.

Al Jazeera: Why do you think media companies are so willing to comply with the government pressure?

Bal: Two things, I think. One is to do with the media landscape. The media ownership by big business and people who have other business interests already had undermined the media even during the times of the previous Congress party-led government.

But Modi after coming to power used this systemically to basically coerce media through indirect means, in terms of ease of doing business for the owners, who have other commercial interests. The government can create roadblocks or deny permissions for other businesses if the reporting is not favourable.

Also, there is a great deal of collusion. There is an ideological belief in many of the owners in whatever this government represents, so theres both coercion and collusion in what is happening. And then the [pro-government] media itself has been used to undermine any other media that speaks up independently.

You have 9 oclock [prime time] news shows dedicated to journalists, who are called anti-nationals, traitors and left-wing extremists simply because they are critical of the government. So this government has basically managed the media by either making it ineffective or questioning its very purpose through other media which are more amenable to what they [government] want.

Al Jazeera: How dangerous do you think it is to be calling journalists or anyone who criticises the government anti-national? Also, the government has charged journalists, especially in Kashmir, under the anti-terror law (UAPA).

Bal: Clearly, its part of the same process. Kashmir is a particularly dangerous case, the extreme case, the limit case of where India will go with the kind of things Modi is doing. Kashmir was under lockdown in a sense which preceded COVID-19 because the government wanted some political ends met.

And the reporting that came out in the mainstream Indian media was that [Kashmiri] people were actually happy about being locked down in their houses. And this despite all the facts to the contrary, as the foreign media and a few other Indian media reported.

But the mainstream narrative which people in this country believed was the narrative that the government wanted spun. That is what is happening. He [Modi] is creating a fictional world in which people are consuming reality.

And what is actually happening, the shortcomings of the government, even the normal process of democracy in which leadership and political decisions are questioned, is being undermined. There is no constant exchange except through [pro-government] media. So in some senses, the very democratic framework of India, the way it should operate, is today in peril.

Al Jazeera: Indian government leaders love to talk about how India is the worlds largest democracy. They say it all the time. But then how does that fit with the state of press freedom in India when the press is such an important part of democracy?

Bal: India today is in the danger of failing to be a constitutional democracy. Im not claiming that Modi doesnt enjoy democratic support. He does, even today, a huge amount.

But the very idea of constitutional democracy is mandated and functions through the work of institutions that control majoritarian tendencies, control the kind of anti-Muslim sentiments that this government is fomenting.

So constitutional democracy, for it to work, requires the checks and balances of institutions and the press. It may be a democracy in the sense that the majority rules, that the mob rules in some senses, but it is not a constitutional democracy in the real sense today.

The interview has been edited for clarity.
Seoul, May 4 : Two North Korean defectors elected as lawmakers in South Korea on Monday apologized for their remarks over Pyongyang leader Kim Jong-un's ill health amid public criticism over fake news.

Thae Yong-ho, who won a seat in the recent South Korean parliamentary elections and also a former No. 2 diplomat in North Korea's Embassy in London, apologized his unconfirmed remarks on Kim's health, reports Yonhap News Agency.

The North's leader appeared in public for the first time in 20 days last week, debunking speculation that he might be seriously ill.

Thae earlier said Kim "cannot stand up by himself or walk properly".

"I apologize to the public (over my remarks) whatever the reason is... As I received many rebukes for the last two days, I've been feeling the impact of my words keenly." Thae, said he felt a "heavy" responsibility for the impact his remarks could have as a lawmaker.

Also on Monday, Ji Seong-ho, another North Korean defector elected as a lawmaker, apologized for claiming that he was "99 per cent sure" of Kim's death, Yonhap News Agency reported.

"I deeply apologize to the public. I've been thinking about myself in the past few days. I deeply felt the weight of my post," Ji said in a statement.

Kim's absence from an annual event marking the April 15 birth anniversary of his late grandfather and national founder Kim Il-sung had spawned media speculation about his ill health.

But Pyongyang's state media reported Saturday that he attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a fertilizer factory.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, left, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom will take part in a virtual fundraiser for Biden on Friday. (Associated Press)

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will hold his first high-dollar fundraiser Friday, a virtual gathering featuring California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Donors are being asked to contribute up to $100,000 to a joint fundraising committee that comprises Bidens campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Its the first fundraiser for the joint committee, a fundraising mechanism that could help Biden narrow the enormous financial edge President Trump has in the 2020 race.

This will be the kickoff event for the Biden Victory Fund and we are excited that California gets to take the lead, the invitation says. Please join us to support Vice President Biden and ensure we win back the White House in November!

As the incumbent, Trump has been able to raise money jointly with the Republican National Committee since he took office. The presidents reelection campaign and the RNC have raised more than $677 million through March 30, according to the Federal Election Commission.

In contrast, Biden raised $135 million and spent $108 million through March 30 as he battled in the Democratic nominating primary.

Until now, Biden was raising money at the federal maximum of $5,600 per donor. But now that he is the presumptive nominee and has formed a joint fundraising committee with the DNC, the former vice president can accept six-figure checks.

Donors who contribute or raise $100,000 will be co-chairs of the event, with several lower-priced tiers of tickets, according to the invitation.

In a normal campaign year, such a fundraiser would be a posh affair, possibly a sit-down dinner catered by a celebrity chef at the mansion of a Hollywood A-lister or business chief. The top donors would be given access to an intimate reception, and the candidate would pose for pictures with them.

But because of the coronavirus, little about this campaign is normal. Fridays fundraiser will take place online. A conversation between Biden and Newsom will be moderated by David Plouffe, who was then-Sen. Barack Obama and Bidens campaign manager in the 2008 race.

Story continues

Newsoms apparent backing of the presumptive nominee is not surprising. But the governor, who has been consumed fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, has yet to formally endorse the former vice president.

The governor, who has seen his national profile grow during the coronavirus crisis, had endorsed Sen. Kamala Harris in the Democratic nominating contest before she dropped out. Newsom declined to endorse another candidate before the California primary in early March, though his wife backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren. As recently as mid-April, after Sen. Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign and Biden became the presumptive nominee, Newsom demurred when asked during a coronavirus briefing if he would endorse him.

"You've just reminded me of politics," Newsom said, according to Politico. "Candidly, I've been so focused on COVID-19, I haven't been asked."

On Sunday, Biden stepped closer to officially clinching the nomination, winning the Kansas primary with 77% of the vote and 29 delegates. Biden now has 1,435 delegates, and will likely reach the 1,991 he needs to officially win the nomination in June, according to the Associated Press. Though Sanders has ended his campaign, he is continuing to appear on ballots in an attempt to win delegates and influence the partys platform and rules at the partys convention in August.
The COVID-19 shutdown has put a damper on just about every single commercial market imaginable. Residential real estate is no exception.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The COVID-19 shutdown has put a damper on just about every single commercial market imaginable. Residential real estate is no exception.

So who would have expected that the highest-priced condo sale in the history of Winnipeg would have taken place in the middle of a frozen economy.

Say what you will about the glacial slow pace of Winnipeg housing price growth, it is nothing if not reliable and not even a global pandemic will change that.

Yes, new Winnipeg property listings were way down in April  more than 40 per cent  and many homeowners are concerned about the value of their homes holding up. The kind of pervasive consumer uncertainty now present is never good for any kind of market.

But wait a minute. The April housing market produced some results that should soothe some of those worries, like the sale of the most expensive condo in Winnipeg in the prestigious One Wellington Crescent building.

The price  $1.79 million.

David De Leeuw, a veteran agent at Royal Lepage Prime Real Estate, was the selling agent. The property was in play for some time and when the seller was ready to move there was plenty of uncertainty as to what the proper approach to marketing it would be.

"We decided to list it in April at the full price and see what would happen," said De Leeuw.

He didnt need to list it on the MLS because he and some peers already had five qualified buyers lined up, including a couple from Toronto.

But the Toronto buyers had conditions on selling their own Toronto condo worth about twice as much as the Winnipeg residence. They were not confident that they could get their price out of the Toronto market.

In the end, it sold for the asking price to Winnipeg buyers.

"I think it bodes well for the Winnipeg market," De Leeuw said.

"I have been talking to my clients over the course of the last several weeks and there is lots of worrying with the loss of jobs and people who own houses are worried that the value of their homes will drop along with their investments and everything else."

"I think it bodes well for the Winnipeg market."  Royal Lepage agent David De Leeuw said, referring to the sale of a $1.79-million condo.

But there are good signs thats not happening in Winnipeg. De Leeuw believes the Winnipeg market will be good coming out of the crisis.

Peter Squire, Winnipeg Realtors Associations vice-president of external relations, said that it is true that April is the start of the busiest quarter in the housing market and while traffic is obviously down, prices are holding firm.

Squire said he has a rule of thumb for prices that compares the difference in the percentage gain or loss between sales and dollar volume. "For single family homes the difference is negligible  0.16 per cent. This tells me right away there is no real change in pricing to be concerned about," he said.

While listings in April were down by more than 40 per cent, sales were off by about 30 per cent.

Michael Froese, the managing partner for Royal Lepage Prime Real Estate in Winnipeg, said the decline in listings  or inventory  has even created some mini-bidding wars in the middle of this shutdown.

"Conventional wisdom would have said that in a pandemic everything comes to a screeching halt. But there are still a lot of buyers out there who need to buy," he said. "The buyers didnt leave in droves but the listings did. We have not seen a cliff drop in prices. In some parts of the city they have even shot up in competition."

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 its House Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast that came out at the beginning of April Royal Lepage said that if the virus was contained by the second quarter the aggregate price of a home in Winnipeg would be unchanged.

"However, if the impact of COVID-19 is felt till the end of summer, Canadians in the region could see the aggregate price of a home drop by two per cent (in Winnipeg)," it said.

Prior to the outbreak the fundamentals of the Winnipeg residential real estate market were strong.

Froese said the announcement the first phase of the reopening in Manitoba will start next week is obviously good news for the market.

"Predictions are tough at the moment but prices are holding," he said. "If the phases of reopening roll out well, there is no reason to think there will be a price reduction this year."

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
Sixty seven personnel of the Border Security Force (BSF) have so far tested positive for Covid-19, the organisation said in a statement Monday night.

Out of the 67 cases, 24 are from Tripura from where 13 more positive results were reported Monday of samples taken from people from a BSF campus.

They include 10 BSF personnel and three family members 03 (wife and two kids) of a BSF trooper who had tested positive on Sunday.

In Delhi, 41 BSF personnel have tested positive for Covid-19 while one trooper Kolkata is the only positive case in that city so far.

The BSF said that another personnel, while on leave has also been detected Covid-19. He is admitted in the hospital in his home town. It did not mention the place.

Two floors of the BSF headquarters in Delhi were sealed on Monday after a staff member tested positive for Covid-19.

The BSF, one of Indias seven central armed police forces is still better off than the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) which has reported 135 positive cases in a battalion in Delhi over the last few days.

The Covid-19 cases among the police forces have set alarm bells ringing in the ministry of home affairs (MHA) which is responsible for the internal security of the country.

On Sunday, the MHA asked chief secretaries, director generals of police (DGPs) of all states and heads of central paramilitary forces to prepare a second line of defence in police to make up for those who may be rendered ineffective due to Covid-19.
Fatoumata is one of the first to get up in the darkness. It's 4:00 am and in the Malian capital of Bamako, the 18 members of the Sinaba family are gradually preparing to greet the day.

The young woman, the mother of a small child, lights the fire to heat rice left over from the previous day before the start of the fasting. Her brother, Solo, in his 20s, grumbles. He eats in silence, his eyes glued to his portable phone and social media.

Mahamadou, the family patriarch, shakes the late risers. "What's the time?" he asks the eldest son, Moussa.

"Five o'clock. The muezzin will sound in just 12 minutes."

Once the muezzin's call has resounded, 10 family members will have to wait until the end of the day to drink and eat again during the holy fasting month of Ramadan. The great-grandmother and the youngest children need not take part, under Islamic principles.

During the day, the sun beats down and the faithful will have to deal with temperatures that can reach beyond 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

In Mali, more than 560 people have tested positive for COVID-19, of whom 27 have died, but hardly anyone mentions the coronavirus in the Sinaba household, as in many middle-class families.

Mahamadou Sinaba is a civil servant at a ministry where life has been turned upside down by coronavirus. By MICHELE CATTANI (AFP)

Nevertheless, activity at the ministry where Mahamadou Sinaba is a civil servant has been turned upside down. Other family members sell ice cream or are training to be electricians.

Despite quarantine restrictions, the pandemic seems to be having only a minimal effect on day-to-day life in this country ravaged by strife and poverty.

'Best time of day'

"There was death before the coronavirus. There will be death after it," Moussa Sinaba says philosophically on the way to the mosque.

In Mali the mosques have remained open during Ramadan leaving the faithful free to gather and read the Quran. By MICHELE CATTANI (AFP)

Unlike other countries, Mali has not shuttered its mosques, and religious gatherings at close quarters have led to angry debate.

The sun rises slowly. Mahamadou Sinaba grabs his phone and goes to sit on a rock overlooking the Niger River, a few dozen metres (yards) from the house.

With a faraway gaze, he listens in silence to a crackly radio broadcast while other old men from the district settle around him.

The foreign news was full of tensions between China and US President Donald Trump, while the big story at home was the second round of long-delayed parliamentary elections held on April 19, despite the risks of jihadist violence, ethnic clashes and a pandemic.

It was still early morning when a breeze came up. "This is the best time of the day," Mahamadou smiled.

Behind him, two of his daughters are washing the dishes in the river and a couple of children brush their teeth, feet in the water. One constant in daily life is that the women of the household will get on with preparing meals.

Everybody soon returns to the courtyard of the house. The mattresses the family used to sleep out of doors because of the stifling heat inside have been put away, along with the mosquito nets.

Rest is important during the holy month of Ramadan, even in the mosque. By MICHELE CATTANI (AFP)

Lethargy takes hold with the mounting heat, but women toil at the cooking and going to the market, which remains open despite the health crisis. The men are either at work or gathered in groups, for their endless discussions.

'Family affair'

Mats and chairs are installed in the shade of a grand old tree in the centre of the courtyard. People who have not drifted off are chatting.

"Our Ramadan is a family affair. From the great-grandmother to the baby, we're together," the patriarch says with pride.

With the schools closed, Malian children find other diversions like marbles to pass the time. By MICHELE CATTANI (AFP)

Loud cries punctuate the settled calm. In the time of coronavirus, Ramadan remains a time for the young ones, whose schools have been closed. Small kids race from courtyard to courtyard in their dozens, playing marbles and chasing each other.

The notion of social distancing gains no traction here. "How could we manage that in our context?" asks Fatoumata Sinaba.

"Coronavirus is something people talk about, but we haven't seen anybody with it in this district," adds Souda, Mahamadou Sinaba's wife.

Souda objects to the curfew that prevents her from going out to sell braised fish in the evening. "That's the only impact of the corona I see around here," she smiles.

Sunset approaches

During prayers at 1:00 pm, the local mosque was packed, but in his family, Mahamadou Sinaba was the only one to wear a mask. "God is there for us," he declares, "but that doesn't prevent us from protecting ourselves!"

Malian children freshen up in the cool waters of the Niger River before breaking the fast. By MICHELE CATTANI (AFP)

Mostly stretched out on the floor, some men listened attentively to the preaching of the imam, while others dozed.

By around 4:00 pm, people become itchy for sunset. Children flock to the river to play, splash and show off their somersaults. The air in the district lightens up and people break into smiles, knowing that their daylong fast will soon be over.

At 6:45 pm, the family is ready in the courtyard. The dates have been pitted and glasses are filled with the juices of ginger and kinkeliba, a west African plant used in herbal tea and for a range of medicinal purposes.

Members of the Sinaba family sttle down for Iftar, the evening meal that breaks the fast after the sunset. By MICHELE CATTANI (AFP)

At 6:47 pm, the voice of the muezzin rings out. The hour has come and the family can begin iftar  breaking the fast together.
I have a choice: I can either step forward and do something meaningful and help those around me, or I can just sit back and observe, said local resident Bill Hartman amid the global pandemic. Im choosing to step forward.

In an email to President Timothy E. Trainor, Ph.D., Hartman asked Mount St. Marys University to help serve the most vulnerable individuals within our local community. St. Josephs Place (formerly St. Catherines Nursing Center), a 106-bed skilled nursing facility, requested 125 face shields in order to protect their staff and residents from the spread of the novel coronavirus.

A friend of mine read an article indicating the Mount had a 3-D printer, Hartman recalled. I read about other printers being used in similar situations and it made sense to reach out to your university. He was confident the Mount would step forward to meet the need.

Little did he know the Mount had several 3-D printers.

Within days, Kraig Sheetz, Ph.D., dean of the School of Natural Science and Mathematics, enlisted the help of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Garth Patterson, Ph.D., and Associate Professor of Visual and Performing Arts Nick Hutchings, M.F.A.

Frederick County had a problem and an advocate [Bill Hartman] and we had two people who like a good challenge and feel strongly about serving the community, Sheetz said.

Where Science Meets Art

Both professors use their printers for research, problem solving and creativity in their classrooms. My Prusa MK3 printer was purchased using faculty development grants provided by the university, Patterson wrote in an email. Two years ago Hutchings worked together with Director of Development Kim Johnson, MBA18, to write and secure grant money from the Delaplaine Foundation for his two Ultimaker 3 printers.

After test printing a published design from the National Institutes of Health, Patterson researched and found Prusa, his printers manufacturer, published a similar headband design that was easier to replicate. Due to state and local quarantine restrictions, the two professors brought their printers home and started printing around the clock in their makeshift workspaces.

I printed four at a time; that took 12 hours and 14 minutesbasically eight a day minus defects, Patterson said.

The files took 11 hours on my printers; they are slower to print but incredibly reliable and I have been printing with a sturdy PLA plastic, Hutchings said.

All thats required to print is the forehead bracket. The face shield as a complete unit contains a forehead bracket, a transparency film that acts as the shield itself and an elastomer band to hold it on the users head, Patterson clarified. A top piece can be added to reduce contamination and a bottom stiffener to make the shield more robust.

Assembly included using a standard 3-hole punch to make mounting holes in the transparency film. There are three mounting points the transparency fits over and there are tie off points for the elastomer to fit around the users head, Patterson explained. Hutchings added glue for durability and an extra piece of electrical tape to support the shield.

The Mount Way

The artist and scientist have been absolutely marvelous, Hartman exclaimed. Im not sure which of the two went as far as getting transparencies and making holes and actually putting together full units, but I was immensely impressed!

Both professors volunteered their time in addition to teaching full course loads remotely. There were challenges along the way, but Sheetz, Patterson and Hutchings worked together overcoming designs, updates, broken printer parts and creative use of materials, in service of the end users.

We talk all the time about how real problems in life are interdisciplinary, Sheetz asserted. Here we saw just one intersection of arts and science and that is the passion for using maker spaces to bring creativity to our disciplines. Its the kind of thing we want our students to witness so they too can develop the habits of mind to solve ill-defined problems.

As of May 1, the Mount has printed and assembled 55 face shields and provided them to Hartman for delivery to St. Josephs Place. Sheetz, Patterson and Hutchings are working to obtain more materials and supplies necessary to complete another 60-70 face shields as quickly as possible.

Focus on the Opportunities

Three weeks ago Hartman, like millions of Americans, lost his job due to the pandemic. His training as a technical professional, with manufacturing and factory experience in alternate energy management and solar energy with companies like Tesla and BP, had taught him to focus on the opportunities.

While Patterson and Hutchings printed face shields, Hartman continued his efforts and linked with Elizabeth Buckman of Emmitsburg Cares, a group of individuals who serve the local community, to create the Emmitsburg Community Emergency PPE Team (ECEPT).

Together, their network collected monetary donations, procured materials to sew 1,000 facemasks, made and organized kits and established a no-contact system of creation, delivery and distribution. Hartman worked with Vice President and Chief Development Officer Robin Rose at Frederick Memorial Hospital who shared the design for the material facemasks needed to preserve the life of N-95 masks that are in short supply around the world.

As of May 1, ECEPT donated 500 facemasks to Frederick Health.

I knew there would be people willing to help, but maybe they needed an introduction or a catalyst to get involved in meaningful ways, he said. I think we rate ourselves as a society as to how we rise to the occasion to protect the helpless.

Mindful of the Needs of Others

Hutchings, illuminated by the blue lights of his printers at night, says his tiny effort wouldnt be possible without a Delaplaine Foundation grant. In 2019, when philanthropist George B. Delaplaine was asked what makes a meaningful life, he told Mount Magazine Ill tell you. Its to do as much for the community as you possibly can. Loving othersits in my religion. Every time I give the blessing, I say Make us always mindful of the needs of others.

Hartman, a very recent Emmitsburg transplant living in Carroll County, says the Mount is a special place. It can be seen as just a regular schoolbut underneath the surface not every place has what the Mount does its something to be proud of. The most important thing here is theres history between the Mount and Emmitsburg. Whenever one part needs something, the other part rises to the challenge, Hartman reflected. Thats a big deal.
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Vadym Prystaiko has discussed with Ambassador of Finland to Ukraine Paivi Laine the issue of hiring Ukrainian seasonal workers abroad, the deputy prime minister's press service said on Monday.

"Finland is experiencing a shortage of labor force for seasonal operations. Ukrainian workers have shown themselves to advantage. They are responsible, honest, hardworking and we will be glad to have an opportunity to hire them for work in farming, forestry and other spheres this year," the diplomat said.

The Ukrainian government is aware of regular employment of Ukrainian workers for seasonal operations in European countries. In particular, Finland hires from 12,000 to 15,000 Ukrainians annually, in particular for work on farming equipment and harvesting campaigns.

"Together with Finnish colleagues the government of Ukraine will help Ukrainian workers to arrive for seasonal work, in particular by arranging a necessary number of flights. Of course, safety is the matter of the utmost importance. Therefore, the requirements for employers regarding legal employment of Ukrainian workers, providing them with high quality health insurance and observation remain unchanged," Prystaiko said.

He also said that the government was working with requests for seasonal workers from Austria, Finland, Denmark, Norway and other countries.
With a seismic magnitude of 3.3 on the Richter scale, an earthquake shook Los Angeles, California, early this past Sunday. In a report by the U.S. Geological Survey, the epicenter is believed to be a mile away from Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley.

They said it happened at 3:00 a.m., with a depth of almost seven kilometers, or a little over four miles. So far, there are no casualties or injuries reported.

A data sample shows that California and neighboring state Nevada experience an average of over 230 earthquakes with magnitudes past 3.0 and below 4.0 annually.

Tremors in California

The most recent earthquake has followed after a swarm of tremors that had a magnitude of 3.0 and higher. The most recent one was last month, at 3.8 magnitudes. In the California area, the San Andreas Fault is responsible for most of the earthquakes that happen in the region, which has an average of two or three large earthquakes each year.

According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a study by the California Institute of Technology, last summer, a fault that runs from the San Andreas to Death Valley has begun to move for the first time in half a millennium.

Author of the research Zachary Ross expressed his team's surprise at the findings since they have not observed any changes in the Garlock fault for years.

"Here, all of a sudden, it changed its behavior," he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. He believed this was high time that the state improved the quantification of earthquakes.

Last summer, two consecutive earthquakes hit the region, from the 6.4 in the Mojave Desert to another 7.1, not including the aftershocks.

"We can't just assume that the largest faults dominate the seismic hazard," he added, referring to the potential of smaller faults that can create bigger quakes.

Check these out!

An Earthquake Early Warning System

Currently, California is the first and only state in the nation to implement an Earthquake Early Warning System.

California Governor's Office of Emergency Services said in a statement last month that the system uses ground motion sensors planted across California to detect movement underground. "[The system] will notify Californians so that they can 'Drop, cover and hold on' in advance."

The system makes use of the Shake Alert earthquake early warning system, which sends alerts through two delivery systems: The first is MyShake, the app developed by the University of California, Berkeley Seismology Lab. The app, which is downloadable on the iOS and the Android, is only sent to people in the zones where the earthquake will occur.

The second is a wireless notification system. The Wireless Emergency Alerts system sends notifications via cellphone towers, according to the chief of the seismic hazards in the OES, Ryan Arba.

The wireless emergency messages would send notifications to devices about the incoming earthquake seconds before it happens.
An $10 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will allow the Murdoch Children's Research Institute's (MCRI) clinical trial of the BCG vaccine against COVID-19 to extend to 10,000 healthcare workers across Australia and Europe

An A$10 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will allow the Murdoch Children's Research Institute's (MCRI) clinical trial of the BCG vaccine against COVID-19 to extend to 10,000 healthcare workers across Australia, Spain and The Netherlands.

The grant will allow the MCRI team to expand the BRACE trial from the original target of 4000 healthcare workers.

In The Netherlands and Spain, the Radboud University Medical Center and UMC Utrecht will begin enrolling 4000 healthcare workers across 13 sites in the coming weeks.

The BRACE trial, which commenced on March 27, has already enrolled more than 2500 workers in hospitals across Australia.

The multi-centre randomised controlled trial, which started at The Royal Children's Hospital, will see half of healthcare workers given the BCG vaccine to test whether it can protect those exposed to SARS-CoV-2 from developing severe symptoms by boosting their 'frontline' immunity.

BCG was originally developed against tuberculosis, and is still given to over 130 million babies worldwide each year for that purpose. The BRACE trial builds on previous research which showed that BCG can provide some protection against respiratory viral infections and a study in which BCG reduced virus levels and enhanced immunity to a virus with a structure of a similar type to SARS-CoV-2.

Professor Nigel Curtis, who leads the BRACE trial, thanked the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for generously supporting this research effort. Professor Curtis is a clinician-scientist who heads MCRI's Infectious Diseases Research Group, Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases at The University of Melbourne and Head of Infectious Diseases at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne.

"This funding will be crucial to quickly enable us to expand the BRACE trial to Sydney in Australia and The Netherlands and Spain internationally," he said.

"It will be imperative to help our researchers show whether BCG vaccination improves 'innate' immunity in frontline healthcare workers to buy crucial time to develop and importantly, validate, a specific anti-COVID-19 vaccine."

Philanthropic support has allowed the trial's rapid development and rollout in Australia. This support has included A$700,000 from Sarah and Lachlan Murdoch, A$400,000 from The Royal Children's Hospital Foundation (RCHF), A$1.5M from The Minderoo Foundation and A$200,000 from the South Australian government.

Following the Melbourne launch of the trial in March, additional sites in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth were announced in mid-April.

Professor Curtis said, "We have dealt with the pandemic extremely well in Australia with rapid and thorough physical distancing, contact tracing and quarantine where appropriate.

This new funding from the Gates Foundation allows other countries to also test whether additional preventative measures may help protect healthcare workers.

"These sorts of trials normally take around eight to 12 months to start, but with the early support of philanthropy, we were able to start in record time within three weeks. "Since beginning the BRACE trial we have been inundated with requests from other hospitals wanting to be involved, both in Australia and internationally. This funding will allow us to begin delivering on those requests."

Professor Marc Bonten from UMC Utrecht said, "We are looking forward to collaborating with Professor Curtis and his team. We are very pleased to now be joining this international trial to see if BCG can help lessen COVID-19 symptoms in Dutch healthcare workers."

Professor Mihai Netea echoed those sentiments saying, "At Radboud UMC we have spent more than 10 years investigating BCG's off-target effects, including previous research with Professor Curtis. In a time of crisis such as this, we thank the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their agile and generous contribution."

Professors Curtis and Netea, along with WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, recently emphasised in a letter to The Lancet the need for BCG vaccine to only be given in the context of clinical trials when investigating its off-target effects.

BCG vaccines are already in short supply, and indiscriminate use could jeopardise the supply needed to protect children against tuberculosis in high-risk areas.

In Australia, the South Australian site is coordinated through the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, and was enabled by a A$200,000 funding announcement from the South Australian state government.

Three sites in Perth are coordinated by the Telethon Kids Institute, and funded by the Minderoo Foundation which contributed A$1.5 million.

The additional sites in Melbourne are at Monash Health and Epworth Health, and The Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney. MCRI Director, Professor Kathryn North, said, "The philanthropic leadership shown by our valued donors is vital to support urgent medical research at this critical time."

"Australia has proven itself to be a global leader in 'flattening the curve' and we are pleased to now be in a position to help the rest of the world. We are still in a race against time."

Visit the MCRI website for more information on the BRACE trial.

###
T he parents of British teenager Harry Dunn have urged Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to concede his departments position on the diplomatic immunity granted to their sons alleged killer.

Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn wrote to Mr Raab on Monday to invite him to seek an urgent declaration from the High Court that 42-year-old Anne Sacoolas did not have immunity at the time their 19-year-old son was killed in a road crash last year.

The teenagers parents also called on Mr Raab to withdraw a statement he made after the incident to the House of Commons on October 21 last year in which he stated Mrs Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity.

They described the Foreign Secretary's comments as misleading.

The move comes in the week where the familys lawyers are expected to receive further disclosure documents which they hope will assist them in their judicial review claim against the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO).

It is understood the FCO maintains its position that the suspect had diplomatic immunity at the time of the crash.

Mr Dunn was killed when his motorbike crashed into a car outside a US military base in Northamptonshire last August.

Mrs Sacoolas, the wife of a US intelligence official based at RAF Croughton, was granted diplomatic immunity following the crash and was able to return to her home country, sparking an international controversy.

Anne Sacoolas was charged with causing death by dangerous driving in December

She was charged with causing death by dangerous driving in December but an extradition request for Mrs Sacoolas, submitted by the Home Office, was rejected by US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in January.

Previous disclosure documents, seen by the Press Association news agency, showed that a senior diplomat at the FCO had sent a text message to their US embassy counterpart saying they should feel able to put the suspect on the next flight home.

The material, which surfaced earlier this year, also showed a briefing note copied to Mr Raabs private secretary from three days after the fatal crash which revealed concern for some very unpalatable headlines.

Speaking on behalf of the family after the letter was sent to the Foreign Secretary, their spokesman Radd Seiger told PA: It is now time the UK Government put the interests of its citizens above anything else.

Anne Sacoolas never had diplomatic immunity, yet the UK Government rolled over under pressure from the US government and agreed that she did, unlawfully.

Mr Raab misled Parliament when he spoke in the House of Commons on October 21 and he must now withdraw that statement and I have invited him to do so.

We cannot bring Harry back. But we can help alleviate some of their suffering by ensuring they get the justice they deserve, that every single one of us are entitled to.

Mr Raab must now urgently seek an order from the High Court in London that Anne Sacoolas did not have diplomatic immunity, then formally demand that the US Government return her to face justice.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.
As businesses around the world begin to reopen and Doug Ford offers more specifics on when and how Ontario will get back to work, one big question remains unanswered: What, exactly, will our workplaces look like when we return?

Anyone who thinks theyll be anything like the offices, manufacturing plants, restaurants and stores we left in a hurry seven weeks ago is likely in for a shock. Not only will our workplaces look physically different and operate differently, experts say we can expect a whole new philosophy toward work  one where home life is part of the equation.

Our work and home life have become completely immeshed, theres no blurring of the lines anymore, says David Zweig, an associate professor of organizational behaviour and human resource management at the University of Toronto.

And that is not necessarily a bad thing, he adds.

We used to go in the office and it used to be Im at work, home life is at home, no one expects your home life to be interrupting your work when youre at the office,  says Zweig.

But those walls have fallen a little bit and its going to be difficult to disentangle them again. And so we can all stop pretending now that our work and home life are completely separate entities  because theyre not.

Of course, our workplaces will change physically as well. They must: Its quite possible that we will have to design them to minimize human contact for months or years. And possibly forever.

This will impact every aspect of office, retail and restaurant design, and it will affect how we use those workplaces, too.

The 65 new regulations Ford announced last Thursday help to create a more concrete framework for the extent of the changes were in for.

Some businesses will have to install Plexiglas barriers, revamp heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems, use boot sanitizing trays, distribute hand sanitizer to employees and customers, enforce hand washing, hold outdoor meetings and maintain safe physical distancing.

Were telling our businesses how to be ready for when we get that green light, said Ford, referring to the OK that must come from Dr. David Williams, Ontarios chief medical officer for health.

What is crystal clear is that the days of offices teeming with people are over, at least for the short term, says Zweig. And trends toward hoteling and hot desking  where workers are made to share rooms, offices and cubicles to pack even more people into expensive square footages  almost are certainly gone, he adds.

Theres no way they can go back to that kind of model given the need for social distancing.

Instead, we should prepare for strategies such as staggering workers schedules so that only a portion of a workforce comes in on any given day, or splitting shifts, he says.

Maximum loads in elevators will almost certainly shift from weight to numbers of people, and experts say governments will have to mandate elevator capacities, along with social distancing lines in front of the lifts, much like those that snake into grocery and LCBO stores.

What all that means, says Richard Leblanc, a professor of government, law and ethics at York University, is that the image of the harried bankers or lawyers working late into the night in their 40th-floor offices is one of the past.

Long term we might never go back to working 60 to 70 hours a week in an office tower, says Leblanc. Theres not necessarily a relationship between productivity and location of work, so the work environment has also changed. They will now be putting in those extra hours at home.

Leblanc says companies large and small will have to set their own safety plans for reopening.

While federal, provincial and local health officials will set out the broad rules of return, every organization will have to fit those criteria into their unique circumstances.

Desk spacing, mask use, sanitizing station placements and aisle usage will vary from business to business, Leblanc says.

And that should be a plan that businesses develop right now so that when the green light is given for them to open theyve got a robust, defensible plan, says Leblanc.

Governments are not experts on running businesses, the business people are. So the governments are setting the framework and the conditions that business can adopt or not, he says.

Restaurants, for example, could lower capacity to 25 per cent or to 50 per cent depending on floor space and seating configurations  with both meeting government set distancing criteria.

And theres a debate right now in the airline industry about whether middle seats should be removed. Those are choices, he says.

This shrinking will be a reversal of the business model many industries have adopted  often to great hue and cry  over the past several decades, Leblanc says.

Over the past 10 or 20 years the strategy has been lets have as many people in the airplane or in the restaurant as we possibly can (and) each seat for a restaurant could be worth $10,000 a year, he says.

What that means is that in the new normal, prices are going to go up.

While restaurant prices may rise, the number and size of grocery stores may shrink, with more and more people finding that online food deliveries made during pandemic isolations are actually to their liking.

Im going to ask myself do I really need to spend 50 hours a year going to Loblaws, as an example, to get groceries or can I spend $100 a year on a delivery fee and have groceries brought to my door once a week, he says.

Leblanc expects many of the revisions coming to businesses and eating establishments will last.

What happens in stressful times  and we have data from the Great Depression, for example  is that peoples behaviours change permanently, he says.

We may never go back to siting on a crowded airplane or in a crowded restaurant. So the sooner businesses in key industries come to the realization that their business model has changed ... the better.

Jerry Davis, a professor of business administration at the University of Michigan, says that new normal strategies could certainly liberate workers but may well include some dystopian elements.

Far from trusting their employees to work from home, for example, some employers may turn to communist-style surveillance, Davis says.

I naturally always head right towards the most dark and terrible version, which is that HR and IT band together to create (an East German secret police) Stasi system, he says.

You could imagine ... companies using much more intrusive forms of control because they do want to act like they trust you, but they also want to make sure that youre not taking a nap or screwing around or watching porn on the companys computer.

Andrea Raso, an employment and labour lawyer with Vancouvers Clark Wilson LLP, says that altered workplaces and employment situations will create some novel legal issues.

Company-imposed temperature surveillance, or the insistence on wearing masks in certain workplaces, for example, could create privacy concerns, Raso says.

Privacy has to be balanced with the employers obligations under occupational health and safety legislation ... that an employer has an obligation to create a safe workplace for all of its employees, she says.

That has to be balanced against personal intrusion and so a lot of it is really going to depend on the type of workplace that youre in.

If a workplace forces employees into close quarters, for example, temperature monitoring and masks might be more justified than in places where everyone had their own offices, Raso says.

Another question would centre on the rights of companies to demand employees go into work if they have underlying conditions or are merely frightened to do so.

Raso says most provinces have enacted legislation that allows people with conditions that make them more susceptible to the virus to take an unpaid leave  where theyd be eligible for Employment Insurance or some other government benefit.

Its a bit different if an employee just feels uncomfortable. Everybody going back to work is going to have that discomfort and thats different, she says.

I dont know that employers would be as harsh as to terminate, although there isnt anything preventing them to do so. But it would likely mean the employee is on an unpaid leave (and) probably not get paid at all.

Many of the social distancing strategies brought to the workplace  shorter or split shifts, working from home, or going to the workplace less often for example  would also serve to spread out peak loads on mass transit systems, experts say.

One place social distancing strategies may not be possible, however, is in manufacturing, where assembly line placement dictates proximity to other people he says, adding Volkswagen and Tesla are both reopening their car assembly factories.

I guess theyre finding ways to space out employees on an assembly line ... or theyre not. Well see how well it goes, whether its sustainable to have a manufacturing industry with people working closely together, Zweig says.

However, the long-term trend  driven by primordial urges to see and touch people  could take us back to pre-pandemic workplaces, says Dirk Matten, a professor of policy at York Universitys Schulich School of Business.

Its just part of the human condition to be face to face, says Matten, who is also director of the schools centre for excellence in responsible business.

Matten says many businesses will have learned from the long isolation that some meetings are more productive if held online, with more built in discipline and fewer distractions and over-talking.

So in that sense, I think some of these isolation practices will survive, he says. But by and large I think we need that face-to-face connection.
A lot has changed this week. First parks reopened, Aprils stay at home order expired, businesses and restaurants resumed operations under strict social distancing and 25 percent capacity rules, and a new stay at home order for non-essential establishments has been placed until May 20th. Meanwhile, Houstonians are enjoying the simple pleasures of going outside, eating their favorite foods, and stopping by local businesses.

With fear around going outside and eating at restaurants alleviating slightly, places like Discovery Green, Hermann Park, and restaurants all saw more people than they have in the past two months.
SINGAPORE, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Energy Market Authority today announced "Creating Our Low Carbon Energy Future Together" as the theme for Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) 2020.

2. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented challenge for the energy industry with the uncertain economic and energy demand outlook. At the same time, this crisis could help accelerate the transition to a more secure and sustainable energy future when the global economy recovers. Despite a temporary drop in emissions caused by COVID-19, the urgent need to combat climate change remains. How can we seize new growth opportunities and work together towards a low carbon energy future? Against this backdrop, SIEW 2020 will provide a platform for global energy stakeholders to share best practices and effect change across the energy industry.

3. On the SIEW 2020 theme, Dr Koh Poh Koon, Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Trade and Industry, said: "The theme highlights how governments and industries are faced with the urgent challenge of growing the economy in a sustainable manner. The uncertain global economic outlook would present even more challenges for the energy sector. I look forward to the meaningful discussions at SIEW on how we can create a low carbon energy future together."

4. EMA announced the theme at the inaugural SIEW 2020 Global Launch webinar. Speakers at the launch included Mr Neil Atkinson, Head of Oil Industry & Markets Division, International Energy Agency (IEA), and Mr Tan Cheng Guan, Head of Renewables & Environment, Sembcorp Industries. Moderating the discussion was Ms Goh Swee Chen, President, Global Compact Network Singapore.

Highlights at SIEW 2020

5. The Singapore Energy Summit will see a high-level panel comprising ministers and industry leaders delving deeper into the theme. This includes discussions on the pathways to our low carbon energy transition, the impact on the economy, and how we can tap into low carbon alternatives.

6. For the first time, Singapore and the IEA will co-host the 2nd Global Ministerial Conference on System Integration of Renewable Energy at SIEW. Dr Fatih Birol, IEA's Executive Director, said: "The integration of variable renewable energy is a key part of strengthening modern, sustainable, and affordable energy systems. I am very pleased that the IEA will co-host the 2020 IEA System Integration of Renewable Energy Ministerial Meeting with the Government of Singapore at Southeast Asia's premier energy sector event, SIEW."

7. "This year -- during the IEA's year of Clean Energy Transitions -- we will bring together ministers and business leaders to discuss real world solutions and the latest developments to integrate growing shares of renewables -- a critical part of the effort to enhance energy security, sustainability and affordability. Now, more than ever, governments and energy sector actors should prioritise the security of energy systems and this important event is designed to assist with this imperative," added Dr Birol.

8. S&P Global Platts will host a new conference on LNG & Hydrogen Gas Markets in Asia, with a special focus on the growth and development of hydrogen in the region. Returning partner event Asia Clean Energy Summit will examine clean energy alternatives including floating solar photovoltaics. Asian Downstream Summit 2020 will be co-located with the Asian Refining Technology Conference, with a focus on sustainability & productivity in refining & petrochemicals.

9. Delegates can also look forward to report launches at the SIEW Energy Insights and SIEW Thinktank Roundtables. Returning roundtable hosts include the Agora Energiewende; the Energy Research Institute @ NTU ([email protected]); the Energy Studies Institute (ESI); and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ).

10. SIEW 2020 will be held at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, from 26 to 30 October 2020. More updates will be shared when registration for SIEW opens in July.

About Singapore International Energy Week

Now in its 13th edition, the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) is a premier platform in Asia for energy insights, partnerships and dialogues. The conference brings together the world's leading conferences, exhibitions and roundtables in one week, one location. SIEW enriches the global energy conversation by convening political, business, academic and energy industry thought leaders to advance solutions and actions across the energy spectrum of oil & gas, clean and renewable energy, and energy infrastructure financing.

Website: www.siew.sg | Follow us: www.facebook.com/SIEW.sg | Twitter: @SIEW_SG | LinkedIn: SIEW

About the Energy Market Authority

The Energy Market Authority (EMA) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Our main goals are to ensure a reliable and secure energy supply, promote effective competition in the energy market and develop a dynamic energy sector in Singapore. Through our work, we seek to forge a progressive energy landscape for sustained growth.

Website: www.ema.gov.sg | Follow us: Instagram: @EMA_Singapore | Facebook: facebook.com/EnergyMarketAuthority | Twitter: @EMA_sg

For media queries, please contact:

Ms Chin Kai Li Ms Charis Pek Energy Market Authority Edelman for Singapore International Energy Week Tel: +65-6376-7479 Tel: +65-6347-2342 Email: [email protected] Email:[email protected]

SOURCE Energy Market Authority

Related Links

www.ema.gov.sg


On Saturday, former President George W. Bush made a rare public intervention. In a slickly produced video message, Bush called for compassion and solidarity in the face of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. In the final analysis, he said, over a montage of heart-warming images, we are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together. And we are determined to rise. Some partisan combatants did not take kindly to Bushs words; one, the current president, Donald Trump, attacked Bush on Twitter for failing to speak up in similar terms when he (Trump) was impeached recently. Before the weekend was out, however, Trump, too, would condemn partisanship. Last nightduring a town hall on Fox News in which he sat (*metaphor klaxon*) in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorialhe expressed shock that during a crisis, it would be so partisan (the it here being Democrats and the media). They always said, Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln, Trump said. I believe I am treated worse.

Its not just Bush and Trumpas this crisis has gone on, voices from across the political spectrum have attacked partisanship as an impediment to our collective response. On CNNs State of the Union yesterday, two governorsGretchen Whitmer, Democrat of Michigan, and Larry Hogan, Republican of Marylanddid so; on Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd quoted from Bushs video, and said that good news about kindness, generosity, and heroism in the face of the virus has been obscured by the intensifying and often partisan debate over when and how to re-open this country. Such critiques, especially when coming from the mouths of politicians, should be treated with caution: as with the similar Trump-era debate over civility, they sometimes seek, under the cover of American Unity, to blunt legitimate criticism. Trumps impeachment was a good example of this dynamic. The presidents defenders in Congress and the news media took the fact that the impeachment was (almost) entirely partisan, in the sense that they refused to support it, and twisted that into a value statement; in so doing, they succeeded in muddying and delegitimizing the clear fact pattern around Trumps conduct vis-a-vis Ukraine. All too often, the framing of mainstream political coveragewittingly or notaided that effort.

ICYMI: Thirteen seconds. Dozens of bullets. One explosive photo.

When it comes to the coronavirus story, partisan framing is once again serving us poorlybut not in the feelgood, all-in-it-together sense articulated by Bush et al. The cost of the coronavirus is not felt equally in our society, and the response of our leadersin politics, business, and other spheresdemands sharp scrutiny and criticism, unblunted by folksy bromides about the American spirit. Rather, the problem here is that the partisan lens flattens out nuance, turning complex issues into simple dichotomies. Media coverage, of course, often ignores nuance for reasons that arent at all political. But partisanship invariably makes the problem worseby entrenching misleading binaries, and aligning them with conflicting tribal identities.

As I wrote recently, the debate over reopening America is a case in point; there are trade-offs to be made here, but the crude, broader framingpublic health v. the economyoften misses their nuances, and has stoked a culture war around a question culture warriors shouldnt decide. Last week, Kyle Pope, CJRs editor and publisher, discussed the polarized reopening discourseand attendant stupidities, including the politicization of wearing maskswith Charlie Sykes, a veteran conservative commentator and strident critic of the Trump cult, on our podcast, The Kicker. For Sykes, much of the right is currently channeling an anti-intellectual contempt for expertise that predates Trumps rise, but has been supercharged by his presidency.

Theres been much discussionthroughout the Trump era, but especially recentlyof the various harms right-wing hyper-partisanship can wreak on its adherents. But ill effects arent limited to one side of the spectrum; aggressively partisan framing sucks its opponents in, too, by contriving contestation around facts that didnt ought to be contested. Creating the controversy is, in itself, a victory for the partisansit wastes their opponents time, and distracts us all from the thoughtful, rigorous modes of inquiry that deserve our attention, especially now. As Sykes put it to Pope, Science is never about dogmatism; its always about skepticism. Obscuring that truth, Pope replied, doesnt just affect the rightit drives the other side into its own dogma, where youre forced to believe everything science says because the other side is so wrong.

Sign up for CJR 's daily email

When the right attacks expertise as part of an elite conspiracy, its tempting to defend it in terms that imply its infallibility. But that isnt how expertise works, especially when it comes to a novel virus whose many vicissitudes the scientific community has yet to fully figure out. As Ed Yong put it in another indispensable article for The Atlantic last week, scientific advance is less the parade of decisive blockbuster discoveries that the press often portrays, and more a slow, erratic stumble toward ever less uncertainty. That, as Natalie Dean, a statistician at the University of Florida, told Yong, looks jarring to people who arent used to it, which is to say, most of us. Were far more used to looking at things through the lens of partisanship, which prizes certainty, even when there is none to be found.

Below, more on the coronavirus:



Other notable stories:

ICYMI: Why did Matt Drudge turn on Donald Trump?

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop.
A pair of state laws allow Michigan governors to declare states of emergency during a crisis, at which point the governor has temporary powers to make certain decisions.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency on March 10 in response to the coronavirus infiltrating Michigan. As of Monday, May 4, shes signed 69 executive orders, including the stay-at-home order, orders to close bars and theaters, orders to close schools and more.

The list of orders can be seen below, with links to the full order and MLive stories explaining what they mean.

Whitmers first coronavirus-related order was 2020-04, and every order since has been in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A handful of the orders are repeated with few or no tweaks, as theyre extensions of a previous order that was about to expire.

The list of orders can be seen below, with links to the full order and MLive stories explaining what they mean.

Executive Order 2020-04

Date: March 10

Status: Rescinded and replaced on April 1

What it orders: Declares a state of emergency

For more: Gov. Whitmer declares state of emergency as first coronavirus cases confirmed in Michigan

Executive Order 2020-05

Date: March 13

Status: Rescinded and replaced on March 16 by Executive Order 2020-11

What it orders: Limits gatherings and temporarily closes schools

For more: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer bans gatherings of more than 250 people as coronavirus spreads

Executive Order 2020-06

Date: March 13

Status: Rescinded and replaced on March 14 by Executive Order 2020-07

What it orders: Limits visitation at health care facilities and other care facilities

For more: Gov. Whitmer bans non-essential hospital visits, urges virtual meetings as COVID-19 count rises

Executive Order 2020-07

Date: March 14

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 5 by Executive Order 2020-37

What it orders: Limits visitation at health care facilities and other care facilities

For more: Governor clarifies coronavirus-related hospital visitation restriction, allows parents

Executive Order 2020-08

Date: March 15

Status: Rescinded on March 20 by Executive Order 2020-18

What it orders: Enhances restrictions against price gouging

For more: Coronavirus price-gouging addressed by Gov. Whitmer

Executive Order 2020-09

Date: March 16

Status: Rescinded and replaced March 21 by Executive Order 2020-20

What it orders: Closes places of public accommodation like bars, restaurants and theaters

For more: Michigans governor orders all bars, restaurants, entertainment venues, more to close amid coronavirus outbreak

Executive Order 2020-10

Date: March 16

Status: Rescinded and replaced March 25 by Executive Order 2020-24

What it orders: Expands unemployment eligibility, rescinded and replaced by Executive Order 2020-24

For more: Michigan expands unemployment benefits amid coronavirus concerns to include sick workers, caregivers

Executive Order 2020-11

Date: March 16

Status: In effect through April 5

What it orders: Further limits gatherings and temporarily closes schools

For more: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer bans events and gatherings of more than 50 people amid coronavirus outbreak

Executive Order 2020-12

Date: March 16

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 13 by Executive Order 2020-44

What it orders: Suspends seasonal load restrictions for essential deliveries

For more: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer halts semi cargo weight restrictions to bulk up on coronavirus supplies

Executive Order 2020-13

Date: March 17

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 14 by Executive Order 2020-49

What it orders: Enhancements to operational capacity at health care facilities

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-14

Date: March 18

Status: In effect until 30 days after the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Gives residents more time to pay back taxes to avoid foreclosure

For more: Tax foreclosure deadline extended in Michigan during coronavirus pandemic

Executive Order 2020-15

Date: March 18

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 14 by Executive Order 2020-48

What it orders: Relaxes the Open Meeting Act to allow for remote participation of public meetings

For more: Michigan Gov. Whitmer suspends Open Meetings Act during coronavirus crisis to allow virtual meetings by government bodies

Executive Order 2020-16

Date: March 18

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 15 with Executive Order 2020-51

What it orders: Allows child care centers to open or continue without certain licensing requirements

For more: Whitmer letting Michigan day cares stay open during coronavirus pandemic, signs order allowing emergency child care centers

Executive Order 2020-17

Date: March 20

Status: In effect until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Restrictions on non-essential medical and dental procedures

For more: No plastic surgery, teeth whitening during coronavirus outbreak, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says

Executive Order 2020-18

Date: March 20

Status: Rescinded and replaced on April 17 with Executive Order 2020-53

What it orders: Enhances restrictions on price gouging

For more: Whitmer issues new executive order on price-gouging related to coronavirus

Executive Order 2020-19

Date: March 20

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 17 by Executive Order 2020-54

What it orders: Prohibits landlords from removing tenants

For more: Evictions must halt amid coronavirus outbreak, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer orders

Executive Order 2020-20

Date: March 21

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 13 by Executive Order 2020-43

What it orders: Clarifies the closure of places of public accommodation to include personal care services like hair and nail salons, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-09

For more: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer closes hair and nail salons, tattoo shops due to coronavirus

Executive Order 2020-21

Date: March 23

Status: Rescinded and replaced on April 9 by Executive Order 2020-42

What it orders: Institutes a stay-at-home order, which suspends activities "that are not necessary to sustain or protect life"

For more: All Michigan residents, most businesses ordered to stay home to slow spread of coronavirus

Executive Order 2020-22

Date: March 25

Status: Parts are in effect through April 24, others are in effect through April 30

What it orders: Extends dates for county canvassing of March primary

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-23

Date: March 25

Status: Rescinded and replaced on April 13 by Executive Order 2020-45

What it orders: Allows certain state hearings and procedures to happen remotely

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-24

Date: March 25

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 22 by Executive Order 2020-57

What it orders: Expands unemployment eligibility, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-10

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-25

Date: March 25

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 21 by Executive Order 2020-56

What it orders: Allows for flexibility and efficiencies at pharmacies

For more: Whitmer order eases limits on prescription refills, sets protocol for coronavirus drug treatments

Executive Order 2020-26

Date: March 27

Status: Parts are in effect through July 15, others through July 31

What it orders: Extends state income tax filing deadlines

For more: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer delays state, city income tax filing deadlines over coronavirus pandemic

Executive Order 2020-27

Date: March 27

Status: In effect through May 5

What it orders: Makes changes to encourage voting for the May election to happen via absentee ballots

For more: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says dont go to the polls, vote absentee in May 5 election, slow the coronavirus

Executive Order 2020-28

Date: March 28

Status: In effect until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Restores water services at all occupied homes

For more: Gov. Whitmer signs executive order requiring water reconnection during coronavirus

Executive Order 2020-29

Date: March 29

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 26 by Executive Order 2020-62

What it orders: Establishes protocol for prisons and jails to reduce spread

For more: Gov. Whitmer takes action to protect jails, detention centers from coronavirus

Executive Order 2020-30

Date: March 29

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 26 by Executive Order 2020-61

What it orders: Allows hospitals to use more types of health workers to treat coronavirus

For more: Gov. Whitmer lessens restrictions for health care workers during coronavirus outbreak

Executive Order 2020-31

Date: March 30

Status: Effective through May 31

What it orders: Allows winter-grade gasoline to still be sold after April 1

For more: Non-essential veterinary visits banned in Michigan during coronavirus pandemic

Executive Order 2020-32

Date: March 30

Status: Rescinded and replaced on April 2

What it orders: Restricts nonessential veterinary services

For more: Non-essential veterinary visits banned in Michigan during coronavirus pandemic

Executive Order 2020-33

Date: April 1

Status: Rescinded and replaced on April 30 by Executive Orders 2020-66, 67 and 68

What it orders: Expands the emergency and disaster declaration, replaces Executive Order 2020-04

For more: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asks lawmakers to extend Michigans state of emergency during coronavirus pandemic

Executive Order 2020-34

Date: April 2

Status: In effect until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Clarifies the scope of veterinary services, rescinds Executive Order 2020-32

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-35

Date: April 2

Status: In effect through the end of the 2019-20 school year, except for provisions pertaining to the 2020-2021 school year  although it was rescinded and replaced April 30 by Executive Order 2020-65, which clarifies the guidelines further

What it orders: Suspends in-person instruction at schools for remainder of 2019-20 school year

For more: Whitmer orders all Michigan schools to remain closed through academic year as coronavirus cases surge

Executive Order 2020-36

Date: April 3

Status: Continues until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for staying home, if the person has had close contact with somebody who has the virus, or is showing principal symptoms of it

For more: Michigan workers with coronavirus ties cant be disciplined for staying home, Gov. Whitmer orders

Executive Order 2020-37

Date: April 5

Status: Rescinded and replaced May 3 by Executive Order 2020-72

What it orders: Limits visitation at health care facilities and other care facilities, rescinds Executive Order 2020-07

For more: Whitmer extends order banning non-essential visits to hospitals, care facilities

Executive Order 2020-38

Date: April 5

Status: In effect through June 4

What it orders: Extends deadlines for Freedom of Information Act responses

For more: Whitmer issues order allowing delayed in-person processing of Freedom of Information Act requests

Executive Order 2020-39

Date: April 7

Status: In effect until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Relaxes requirements and restrictions on some emergency medical services

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-40

Date: April 8

Status: In effect through May 5

What it orders: Ensures speedy delivery of emergency coronavirus supplies

For more: Gov. Whitmers latest order ensures speedy delivery of emergency coronavirus supplies

Executive Order 2020-41

Date: April 8

Status: In effect through May 6

What it orders: Allows electronic signatures and remote notarization

For more: Remote notarizations allowed during coronavirus pandemic, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer rules

Executive Order 2020-42

Date: April 9

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 24 by Executive Order 2020-59

What it orders: Extends the stay-at-home order, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-21

For more: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer extends coronavirus stay-at-home order through April 30

Executive Order 2020-43

Date: April 13

Status: Rescinded and replaced April 30 by Executive Order 2020-69

What it orders: Closes places of public accommodation like bars, restaurants and theaters, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-20

For more: Whitmer initiates liquor buyback program for Michigan bars impacted by coronavirus pandemic

Executive Order 2020-44

Date: April 13

Status: In effect through May 11

What it orders: Suspends seasonal load restrictions for essential deliveries, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-12

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-45

Date: April 13

Status: In effect through May 11

What it orders: Allows some state hearings to be done remotely, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-23

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-46

Date: April 13

Status: In effect until 90 days after the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Establishes a liquor buyback program

For more: Whitmer initiates liquor buyback program for Michigan bars impacted by coronavirus pandemic

Executive Order 2020-47

Date: April 13

Status: In effect through June 30

What it orders: Extends expiration date of driver's licenses to June 30

For more: Recently expired drivers licenses, plate tabs OK in Michigan during coronavirus pandemic

Executive Order 2020-48

Date: April 14

Status: In effect through May 12

What it orders: Allows for remote participation in public meetings, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-15

For more: Gov. Whitmer extends executive orders on hospital capacity, virtual public meetings

Executive Order 2020-49

Date: April 14

Status: In effect through May 12

What it orders: Enhances operational capacity at health care facilities, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-13

For more: Gov. Whitmer extends executive orders on hospital capacity, virtual public meetings

Executive Order 2020-50

Date: April 15

Status: In effect through May 13

What it orders: Makes nursing homes set up COVID-19 units or transfer patients to special facilities

For more: Whitmer orders nursing homes to transfer coronavirus patients to separate units or special facilities

Executive Order 2020-51

Date: April 15

Status: In effect through May 13

What it orders: Allows child care centers to open or continue without certain licensing requirements, rescinds Executive Order 2020-16

For more: Gov. Whitmer extends emergency child care services in Michigan during coronavirus crisis

Executive Order 2020-52

Date: April 17

Status: In effect until 60 after the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Allows certain pesticide applicator certificates to be deemed unexpired until 60 days after the state of emergency and disaster ends

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-53

Date: April 17

Status: In effect through May 15

What it orders: Enhances restrictions on price gouging, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-18

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-54

Date: April 17

Status: Most parts in effect through May 15, others in effect until 30 days after May 15

What it orders: Prohibits landlords from removing tenants, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-19

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-55

Date: April 20

Status: In effect until 90 days after the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Creates a coronavirus task force focusing on racial disparities

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-56

Date: April 21

Status: In effect through May 19

What it orders: Enhances operational capacity, flexibility and efficiency of pharmacies, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-25

For more: Whitmer extends order allowing for 2-month pharmacy refills during coronavirus crisis

Executive Order 2020-57

Date: April 22

Status: In effect until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Expands unemployment eligibility, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-24

For more: Whitmer moves to further expand unemployment eligibility during coronavirus crisis

Executive Order 2020-58

Date: April 22

Status: In effect until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Suspends timing requirements of some civil and probate court proceedings and actions

For more: Deadlines for civil, probate cases extended under Michigan executive order

Executive Order 2020-59

Date: April 24

Status: In effect until May 15

What it orders: Extends the stay-at-home order with some changes, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-42

For more: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer extends stay-at-home order through May 15, relaxes certain restrictions

Executive Order 2020-60

Date: April 24

Status: Rescinded and replaced May 2 by Executive Order 2020-71

What it orders: Requires new safety measures at food-selling establishments and pharmacies, including requiring people to wear masks and designating shopping hours for vulnerable populations

For more: Whitmer orders shopping hours for vulnerable residents, masks for employees checking out customers

Executive Order 2020-61

Date: April 26

Status: In effect until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Allows hospitals to use more types of health workers to treat coronavirus, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-30

For more: Whitmer extends order loosening scope of practice laws for health care workers

Executive Order 2020-62

Date: April 26

Status: In effect through May 24

What it orders: Establishes protocol for prisons and jails to reduce spread, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-29

For more: Whitmer extends measures to curb coronavirus spread in jails, detention centers

Executive Order 2020-63

Date: April 27

Status: In effect through July 21

What it orders: Any personal protection orders set to expire between April 27 and June 1 now expire on July 21

For more: Michigan extends personal protection orders during coronavirus crisis

Executive Order 2020-64

Date: April 29

Status: In effect until the end of the state of emergency and disaster

What it orders: Prohibits hospitals from denying medical care to people based on stereotypes or worth during high demand times

For more: Hospitals cant deny service based on a persons worth, Whitmer orders

Executive Order 2020-65

Date: April 30

Status: In effect through the end of the 2019-20 school year, except for provisions pertaining to the 2020-21 school year

What it orders: Clarifies guidelines for remote school instruction, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-35

For more: Read the full order here

Executive Order 2020-66

Date: April 30

Status: Since it only rescinds a previous order, there's no set ending date

What it orders: Rescinds Executive Order 2020-33, which declared a state of emergency and disaster

For more: Whitmer issues orders extending state of emergency without support of legislature

Executive Order 2020-67

Date: April 30

Status: In effect through May 28

What it orders: Extends the state of emergency and disaster under the Emergency Powers of Governor Act of 1945, replacing Executive Order 2020-33

For more: Whitmer issues orders extending state of emergency without support of legislature

Executive Order 2020-68

Date: April 30

Status: In effect through May 28

What it orders: Extends the state of emergency and disaster under the Emergency Management Act of 1976, replacing Executive Order 2020-33

For more: Whitmer issues orders extending state of emergency without support of legislature

Executive Order 2020-69

Date: April 30

Status: In effect through May 28

What it orders: Closes places of public accommodation like bars, restaurants and theaters, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-43

For more: Michigans closure of bars, gyms, casinos extended to May 28

Executive Order 2020-70

Date: May 1

Status: In effect through May 15

What it orders: Makes changes to the stay-at-home order, by allowing low-risk activities like construction and real estate to begin May 7, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-59

For more: Whitmer signs order allowing construction, real estate and outdoor work to resume May 7 in Michigan

Executive Order 2020-71

Date: May 2

Status: In effect through May 30

What it orders: Requires new safety measures at food-selling establishments and pharmacies, including requiring people to wear masks and designating shopping hours for vulnerable populations, rescinds and replaces Executive Order 2020-60

For more: Whitmer orders extension of protection guidelines for grocery stores, pharmacies until May 30

Executive Order 2020-72

Date: May 3

Status: In effect through May 31

What it orders: Limits visitation at health care facilities and other care facilities, rescinds Executive Order 2020-37

For more: Gov. Whitmer extends order banning non-essential visits to hospitals, care facilities

COVID-19 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

Monday, May 4: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Gretchen Whitmer is a national figure now. What you need to know about The woman in Michigan'

Michigan districts are meeting students where they are as schools adapt to remote learning

Gov. Whitmer says protest 'depicted some of the worst racism and doesnt represent Michigan
Dame Emma Thompson has called on the government to do more to protect families, as new research suggests 2.4 million children are struggling to get enough to eat during the lockdown.

The Oscar-winning actor said families find themselves in an impossible position and ministers should provide more emergency funds to help those who cannot afford supplies.

The Independents Help The Hungry campaign is highlighting the UKs hunger crisis and seeking to raise money for The Felix Project so the food-surplus charity can provide food for NHS staff, the poor and elderly.

A new survey by YouGov indicates as many as 350,000 people have had times when theyve gone hungry during the lockdown because there wasnt enough food.

The poll, commissioned by the Food Foundation, also found that two million children have been given smaller portions or less nutritious meals because parents have run out of supplies. As many as 2.4 million children have experienced some form of food insecurity during the crisis.

Recommended How to support our campaign

Dame Emma, an ambassador for the Childrens Right2Food campaign, said: What is undeniable is that our government has yet to extend real lifelines to those who cannot afford food.

We need emergency income support to put money in the pockets of families who are suffering, and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) must ensure child benefit payments are increased and sufficient for alleviating the hardship so many children are enduring.

The charity is asking the DWP to scrap the five-week wait for universal credit and double child benefit by paying it fortnightly instead of monthly.

Anna Taylor, executive director of the Food Foundation, said ensuring children have enough food should be a priority, but were leaving them behind in conversations about emergency support and theyre falling through the cracks as a result.

She added: Having enough nutritious food to eat is a basic right and without it, childrens mental and physical health suffers irreparably.

Olivia Colman joins volunteers to deliver food packages (Lucy Young/Evening Standard)

A government spokesperson said: We are doing whatever it takes to ensure people are supported through these unprecedented times and we remain committed to providing opportunities and tackling the root causes of poverty.

Widespread support is available  We continue to encourage schools to work with their suppliers to arrange food parcels or collections for families eligible for free school meals. Where this is not possible, a national scheme was launched for schools to provide supermarket vouchers, which is delivering for thousands of schools.

In April, actor Olivia Coleman backed our Help the Hungry campaign, volunteering with The Felix Project to deliver food packages to those in need.

The Independent is encouraging readers to help groups that are trying to feed the hungry across the country  find out how you can help here. Follow this link to donate to our campaign in London, in partnership with the Evening Standard.
Sports The Guardian

The Steelers quarterback is headed to the Hall of Fame. But he was unloved outside Pittsburgh for understandable reasons Ben Roethlisberger almost certainly played his final game in the NFL on Sunday. Photograph: Ed Zurga/AP Ben Roethlisberger is lucky that football legacies are not decided by finales. If Sunday night was indeed Big Bens last ever NFL game, as he has strongly hinted, it wasnt exactly a mic drop. In the 42-21 beatdown by the Chiefs, Roethlisberger struggled with rollouts, and l
A pharmacist gives Jennifer Haller, left, the first shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for the CCP virus, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle on March 16, 2020. The vaccine was developed by Moderna. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo)

Trump Predicts That CCP Virus Vaccine Will Be Ready by End of 2020

U.S. officials are confident a CCP virus vaccine will be ready by the end of this year, President Donald Trump said.

We are very confident that were going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, Trump said during a virtual town hall on May 3. We think were going to have a vaccine by the end of this year and were pushing very hard.

Now, the doctors would say, Well, you shouldnt say that. Ill say what I think. Ive met with the heads of the big companies, these are great companies, he added.

Yeah, I think were going to have a vaccine much sooner rather than later.

Companies and groups around the world are racing to test vaccine candidates and several have entered human trials in the United States. Oxford University scientists said last week that the vaccine candidate theyre developing could be available by this fall.

Vaccines are studied in three phases of trials to determine their safety and effectiveness. Each stage involves injecting more people.

Researchers are hoping vaccines for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, induce neutralizing titers, or antibodies that could block the virus from replicating. The virus causes the disease COVID-19.

A participant in a CCP virus vaccine trial receives an injection in Kansas City, Mo., on April 8, 2020. This early safety study, called a Phase 1 trial, is using a vaccine candidate developed by Inovio Pharmaceuticals. (Center for Pharmaceutical Research via AP)

Operation Warp Speed

A Trump administration effort called Operation Warp Speed is focusing on having 300 million vaccine doses ready by January 2021.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, part of the White House coronavirus task force, said phase 2 trials will show whether candidates are safe and effective. If results are positive, then the administration will work with manufacturers to start scaling up production even as testing continues.

You, at risk, proactively start making it assuming its going to work. If it does, then you can scale up and hopefully get to that timeline, Fauci, the head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said on NBCs Today show last week. I think that is doable if things fall in the right place.

Fauci in January said it would take 12 to 18 months to develop a vaccine.

Trump told reporters at the White House that hes in charge of the operation.

President Donald Trump speaks with news anchor Bret Baier during a Virtual Town Hall inside of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on May 3, 2020. (Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images)

Vaccine Production

Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and other U.S.-based companies are among those working on vaccines, but researchers in other countries are also testing candidates.

Asked during the town hall whether another country could have a vaccine ready before the United States, the president said he isnt worried.

I dont care. I just want to get a vaccine that works. I really dont care. If its another country, Ill take my hat off to them, he said.

A therapeutic, or an existing drug that works against COVID-19 would be better, he added.

While hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, and other existing or experimental drugs are being tested in COVID-19 patients across the nation, none have yet been proven safe and effective.

Vaccines typically arent used until all three phases are completed. Some in the medical community are speculating CCP virus vaccines could be used before then.

If vaccines have cleared early safety trials by the fall, they could be used to ring-fence infections in cities, while we continue to study them to make sure theyre safe and effective for mass inoculation, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said on CBSs Face the Nation earlier on May 3.

Waiter Marcos Huerta, right, serves a grill of fajitas at El Tiempo Cantina in Houston, on May 1, 2020. (David J. Phillip/AP Photo)

Human Challenge Trials

One way to accelerate testing of vaccines is human challenge trials.

In phase 3 trials, thousands of people volunteer to be injected, and researchers dose some with the vaccine candidate and others with a placebo. Researchers track the subjects for months to discern whether the vaccine is effective in preventing infection.

A human challenge trial would speed the process by adding a second step after the injections: deliberately infecting the volunteers with the CCP virus.

By replacing conventional Phase 3 testing of vaccine candidates, such trials may subtract many months from the licensure process, making efficacious vaccines available more quickly, three professors wrote in a proof in the Journal of Infectious Diseases last month.

Taking into account the global pandemic, the authors argued in favor of considering human challenge trials as long as the participants were healthy and young.

Multiple measures would be put in place to ensure that, prior to consenting, potential participants fully comprehend the unusual risks involved in the study, wrote Nir Eyal, professor of bioethics at Rutgers University; Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard University; and Peter Smith, professor of Tropical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the CCP virus, which causes COVID-19. (Niaid-RML via AP/The Canadian Press)

More than 10,000 volunteers across 52 countries have signed up as volunteers for challenge trials.

During the town hall, Trump said he supports the idea, saying volunteers would be aware of what was happening.

Theyre, in many cases, very good people. They want to help the process, he said.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers also supports such trials, writing in a letter (pdf) to the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human Services that they are likely appropriate in the case of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The enormous human cost of the COVID-19 epidemic alters the optimization of the risk/benefit analysis, they wrote.

Using challenge trials for CCP virus vaccines has faced opposition.

Myron Levine, a vaccine researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, says he doesnt believe such trials would actually be faster, given how quickly researchers are already moving on CCP virus vaccines.

I cannot imagine that it would be ethical and would really speed up what we have to do, he told Science Magazine.
There are 60 million Latinos in the United States today who are at higher risk for COVID-19. The reason? Hugs and kisses.

According to a recent article, people around the world are heavily reminded to practice social distancing. Yet, hugs and kisses, which are signs of respect and affection, are deeply ingrained in Latino culture.

"The way we communicate affection with one another for most of us is through physical contact, which would be the hug or the kiss on the cheek," said Cristalis Capielo Rosario, a Puerto Rican professor of counseling psychology at Arizona State University. "Culturally, we want to establish relationships that are based on mutual trust. ... so for us, part of building that relationship is having the contact."

As COVID-19 affects more than 1.8 million and killed more than 68,000 people in the United States, Latinos are facing a dilemma of potentially making themselves more vulnerable to the coronavirus or abandoning those customs, which can lead to stress.

While hugging and kissing as a greeting is not unique to Latinos, the ritual is planted into Latino culture from childhood. They practice these gestures not just with close family members, but with their other relatives, friends, colleagues, acquaintances. Even during first time introductions, Latinos are fond of greeting with hugs and kisses.

Check these out!

"As a matter of fact, a lot of kids will get reprimanded if they don't give an abrazo to their nana or tata, or their tio or tia, and so on," said retired professor Salomon Baldenegro, founder of University of Arizona's Mexican American and Chicano studies program. "It's an integral part of our culture. It's almost subconscious. You don't even think about it. You just do it. It's that ingrained."

Other health risks

What also worsens their dilemma is the health risks that come with being Latino. According to a report by Latin Post, Latinos have a higher chance of diabetes and cancer because of hereditary reasons, which can further aggravate their health once infected by COVID-19.

Ethnic customs have conflicted with public-health policies before

According to Alan Kraut, professor at American University who specializes in immigration, ethnic and medical history, various ethnic groups throughout centuries have come into conflict with health policies aimed at controlling epidemics.

In Italy, the practice of kissing the dead and embracing the sick was blamed for a 1916 outbreak of polio.

"During the terrible encounters between Europeans and Native Americans" in the 16th century, Kraut said, Europeans brought with them smallpox. This disease wiped a significant number of the Native American population.

In 1918, the Spanish Flu became pandemic, with ethnic newspapers warning ethnic groups of their cultural behaviors that could put them at risk of becoming infected.

"In Italian, in Yiddish, in Polish, in many of the languages of the groups that came in large numbers during the turn of the century, the editors put their readers on notice that there were certain changes in their behaviors that they had to practice for the sake of public health," Kraut said. "They would often say things like, 'If you sneeze or cough, use a handkerchief. Don't spit on the sidewalk. Pay attention to the mandates of public health officials.'"

With the COVID-19 crisis nowhere near the end, could Latinos entirely abandon their cultural practices in the name of national health and safety?
Elder Law Associates PA attorney and partner, Howard S. Krooks, Esq., CELA, CAP, discusses important legal documents to have in place if you get sick or incapacitated. Elder Law Associates PA is here for you now or whenever you need us. The coronavirus has hit our community hard, but we know that our healthcare workers wont give up on us, so we will never give up on them. They truly are our heroes and we thank them!

Elder Law Associates PAs partner Howard S. Krooks, Esq., CELA, CAP was interviewed by WPTVs Michelle Quesada on April 30 discussing Living Wills and Designations of Healthcare Surrogates and why these essential legal documents are critical, especially right now during the COVID-19 crisis, to have in place. Elder Law Associates, Howard Krooks, WPTV, Michelle Quesada, Coronavirus Cases Surge Read the story and watch the video here.

The attorneys and staff members of Elder Law Associates PA, headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla., would like to thank all of the frontline healthcare workers who are giving it their all right now in the midst of the coronavirus. Their dedication, commitment to serve, and tireless devotion to caring for all of their patients is appreciated and valued by all. To thank them for everything that they are doing to keep their patients and the community safe and well during the COVID-19 pandemic, the firm is offering healthcare workers in South Florida free legal documents to communicate their preferences in the event of a personal health catastrophe.

The Elder Law Associates PA team will assist these heroic healthcare workers in Florida by drafting Living Will and Designation of Health Care Surrogate documents free of charge during this worldwide health crisis. These two essential advance directives help people legally express their preferences regarding their medical wishes and end-of-life care. A Living Will details a persons desires regarding medical treatment if he or she is unable to express informed consent. A Designation of Health Care Surrogate is a document that authorizes a person to make medical decisions for another person if that person is unable to make them on his or her own. These two documents together help to provide clarity on who can make healthcare decisions for an incapacitated person and what those decisions should be.

Please watch this short, informative video for more information, and be sure to forward this information to family members, colleagues, friends and coworkers working on the front lines in Florida. According to partners Ellen S. Morris, Esq., and Howard S. Krooks, Esq., CELA, CAP, "Elder Law Associates PA is here for you now or whenever you need us. The coronavirus has hit our community hard, but we know that our healthcare workers wont give up on us, so we will never give up on them. They truly are our heroes and we thank them!"

Contact Elder Law Associates PA today for more information about drafting these important legal documents. The firm remains open during regular business hours, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the attorneys and staff remain fully accessible via email, through 1-800-ELDERLAW and (561) 750-3850, and through video conferencing. Elder Law Associates PA can take care of all of the initial gathering of information electronically, and they have instituted new safe, social distancing procedures for all document signings, which will be held in their outdoor plaza in Boca Raton, Fla. For more details about Elder Law Associates PA, its attorneys and staff members, please visit http://www.elderlawassociates.com.
SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday lashed out at Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, accusing him of attempting to link the Nanded Sikhs pilgrims with the spread of coronavirus in Punjab.

He also asked Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and the Congress to stop demonising' the pilgrims who recently returned from a Sikh shrine in Maharashtra's Nanded.

The government is the villain while the pilgrims are the victims of this villainy, alleged Sukhbir in a release here.

A SAD-BJP coordination committee also condemned the Congress leader, charging him with stigmatising Sikhs by comparing the pilgrims with the religious congregation of another community.

So far, over 700 of the around 4,000 Sikh pilgrims who recently from Nanded have tested positive for coronavirus, resulting in a war of words between the state government and the Opposition.

Sukhbir's statement came in the wake of a tweeted reference by Digvijaya Singh linking the pilgrims with the spread of coronavirus in Punjab, alleged a SAD party release.

Coronavirus today is a global issue and Digvijaya's statement will defame the Sikhs all over the world as the originators of the coronavirus. It is a part of the old anti-Sikh mindset of the Congress Party which sees a Sikh behind every evil and every calamity that happens in the world, alleged Sukhbir in the release.

Badal asked Amarinder Singh to apologise to the Punjabis for allegedly tarnishing the image of the Sikh community through shocking statements by Digvijaya and Punjab ministers.

The SAD chief asked the CM why the state government did not follow a standard operating procedure on social distancing in the matter of seating arrangements in the buses for the pilgrims.

Why were so few buses sent to bring such a large number of pilgrims while it was known that only 25 passengers should travel in a bus according to the official guidelines, he asked.

Why did the government not send doctors to accompany the pilgrims when everyone is aware of the widespread virus," he further questioned.

The SAD sought an independent inquiry into the matter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
3 Work From Home Myths That Can Do More Harm Than Good

If you are currently working from home during the circuit breaker, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. You are still getting an income but you're not risking your health being on the frontlines. However, despite the positives of your situation, it's likely you may not feel as lucky. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented increase in anxiety, depression and other mental health concerns. In contrast to what some people may believe, people working from home are not immune to those feelings. To make matters worse, it is commonly believed that employees who work from home are less productive and should be available 24/7. Now more than ever, this is a dangerous mindset to have, as the absence of face-to-face interaction and increased stress can lead to a burnt out workforce. Below, we break down some of the most common myths surrounding working from home, how these myths can promote an unhealthy work culture and how to adjust accordingly.

Myth 1: Remote Workers Slack Off At Home

One of the most common things that managers worry about when one of their employees works from home is that productivity will plummet. Employees getting distracted with Netflix, doing household chores and generally slacking off is an image that perpetually remains in the skeptical manager's mind. However, it's simply not true that working from home leads to a less productive workforce. A Stanford study found that people who worked from home actually had a 13% performance increase, took shorter breaks and were able to concentrate better.

However, during the pandemic, things are a bit different. Workers were thrown into a work-from-home environment without choice. They don't get their own private room to work from. For workers who prefer an office environment, the stress that they have to adjust to a new environment, coupled with a manager who believes they won't perform adequately can put undue emotional distress. Now, not only has their work environment changed but now they'll have to overcompensate to prove to their bosses that they can perform at their normal levels, further increasing stress and anxiety. At the core, this myth stems from a lack of trust. Employees who feel their bosses don't trust them feel demotivated and micromanaged  the last things they should be feeling during a global crisis. If you're a manager, trust that your employees will do the job that they were hired to do. Productivity loss may happen, but chances are, it will stem from external forces that the employee may not be able to control.

Story continues

Myth 2: Working From Home Means You Are Available 24/7

Singapore is already one of the hardest working nations in the world. Furthermore, with increasing connectivity, many Singaporeans stay logged into work round the clock. This is mainly due to the perception that your response rate is tied to your performance, which makes employees and bosses alike feel pressure to answer emails and take calls at any time of day. Now that we are working from home, the line between work and home is blurred even further. During this crisis, you may feel like you always need to be online and connected to show your manager that you are working at 100% capacity despite being at home.

However, being available 24/7 can lead to burnout and a loss of productivity. Burnout may lead to serious psychological ramifications. Cross-sectional studies have shown that burnout leads to increased alcohol consumption, stress, depression and physical pain.

With employees already feeling increased levels of stress and depression, adding in the potential for burnout by keeping them connected to work 24/7 can exacerbate these issues. Down the line, this type of chronic stress and mental exhaustion can also lead to serious health problems like heart disease. It can also result in millions of dollars of lost productivity. Lastly, while it's bad for your employees, it's also bad for the bottom line. The World Health Organisation estimates that depression and anxiety costs the global economy US$ 1 trillion per year in lost productivity. To mitigate this, you should set a clear workday schedule and log off your work-related apps.

Myth 3: Working From Home Will Break Down Company Culture

As a boss, you've worked hard to create the best environment for your employees. You strived to create a company culture that fosters creativity, independence, innovation and success. With your employees working at home, you may be worried that your company culture may suffer. However, that may not be the case, as there are plenty of ways to maintain your current company culture. You should start by enforcing your existing company's culture by writing it down and sending it out to your employees. Make sure it is inspirational, clear and well-written. You can also foster teamwork and engagement by creating virtual happy hours where your employees can play games together or just reconnect. You can also send out information about community relief efforts your employees can participate in from home if your company culture includes giving back to the community.

Table showing several platforms that allow individuals to socially bond, remotely

Furthermore, rather than thinking about how working from home will damage your company's work culture, you should think about adjusting your company culture to the "new normal". This includes keeping open a line of communication and being clear in your expectations for your employees. Thus, while it will take more effort to maintain your company's culture, it is certainly not impossible. In fact, this difficult time can be a great way to see how your company's culture can improve.

Empathy, Trust & Open Communication is Key

Whether you are an intern, mid-level manager or a CEO, you will most likely be feeling the same emotions as your colleagues. Empathy is crucial during this time, regardless of your rank. Just as an employee may be feeling stressed out and frustrated, so too are the CEOs and managers. If you're a manager, you should be aware of how the current situation affects your employees mental health and adjust your strategy accordingly. This may include being a little more flexible with employee schedules, being there for your employees if they're feeling overwhelmed and being open to suggestions from employees who are struggling in the current situation. Most importantly, it's crucial to trust your employees and not fall prey to hidden biases and misconceptions.

It's important for employees to do their part as well. You should maintain an open line of communication and keep your manager updated on your progress. You'll need to be honest with your manager or HR if you're feeling overwhelmed. A good company will help you cope during this period. Furthermore, everyone should take the time to unwind after work. Tackle a new project, exercise, spend quality time with your family and shut down your work laptop. Lastly, make sure you a financial plan (including insurance) in case you get sick and need to take time off work. The companies who take this crisis as an opportunity to learn, adapt and grow are the ones who will end up reaping long-term rewards.

The article 3 Work From Home Myths That Can Do More Harm Than Good originally appeared on originally appeared on ValueChampion's blog.

ValueChampion helps you find the most relevant information to optimise your personal finances. Like us on our Facebook page to keep up to date with our latest news and articles.

More From ValueChampion:
For 81 years, generations of families have come to say their goodbyes here. Theyve shared words of comfort, cried freely, and sung hymns to salve the pain. The chapel inside Terry Funeral Home has held them all.

Elmer Lynn had planned to memorialize his 70-year-old wife, Mildred, here, too. She died on Easter of COVID-19 at Lankenau Hospital.

Seated at an antique table in the casket selection room, a weary Lynn explained to Gregory Burrell, the owner of the West Philadelphia funeral home, why he changed his mind.

Theres eight members of the family that has it. Nobodys gonna come. So why should I have a viewing? said Lynn, who first met Mildred when they were teenagers around the corner from each other in Mantua.

Discussions had been heated with loved ones about the funeral for his spouse of 50 years. Her family is close and visited each other frequently, unaware that they were spreading the coronavirus. Lynn was firm: Just go straight to cremation. That would solve the immediate problem."

Burrell began the paperwork: You sure nobody wants to view before we, uh

I went through this before I came over here, Lynn said, interrupting before Burrell could finish his question. And it was all a resounding hell, no.

Since the pandemic began, Gregory Burrells days have been filled with difficult conversations. The number of direct cremations is higher than ever at Terry Funeral Home. In any given year, his establishment handles an estimated 5% of the 6,800 black deaths in Philadelphia.

But 2020 is not just any year. Black people in Philadelphia  and in other U.S. cities including Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles  have been disproportionately affected by the virus. Although black residents represent 44% of the citys population, they currently represent 54% of COVID-19 deaths, according to the data available. As of Friday night, there were 638 deaths in the city, racial analysis was available for 508 of them. Out of these 508 deaths in the city, 273 were black residents.

Given stringent public health limitations around gatherings and human contact, concerns around how the bereaved will reconcile losses are universal. In the black community, the new restrictions have disrupted centuries-old funeral traditions and the ways they can collectively grieve.

The impact that its having on families whod like to have the traditional homegoing service they are being robbed of that as a result of this virus, said Burrell, 59, of the black church ceremony, which emphasizes that the spirit making it to heaven calls for jubilation. And its disheartening for me, having experienced death in my own family. Just recently, my wife passed away a year ago. I could not imagine not being able to have the homegoing that she wanted for herself.

Worry never leaves his mind. By April 15, Terry Funeral Home had already seen 25 bodies, what theyd typically handle in a month. At months end, the funeral home had received 54, half of those people had died of COVID-19. Under ordinary circumstances, funerals with burials make up 65% to 70% of their business. But with more cremations, traditional funerals are down to around half.

Its so much rapid death so quickly, said Burrell, who has a staff of five full-time employees and 15 part-time workers, all working longer hours since the pandemic began.

Funerals were a big deal in Apopka, the Florida town outside of Orlando where Burrell was raised. When he was 8, a friend who was a year older died after falling out of a tree, and he was one of the pallbearers. There was one funeral home in town.

I got hooked, Burrell said. I started going to funerals of people who I didnt even know.

He worked his way up in the funeral business over the years and made a name for himself after reviving a struggling funeral home in Winston-Salem, N.C. He didnt think hed settle this far north, but a fraternity brother told him the Terry Funeral Home was up for sale.

Inside Burrells office, lined with framed clippings of press coverage, regalia of his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, and his alma mater, Morehouse College, the phone hasnt stopped ringing. Each day he receives at least six inquiries for services. During the pandemic, hes gotten calls from families in hard-hit states such as New York and New Jersey. Terry Funeral Home cared for the homegoings for such high-profile Philadelphia political leaders as C. Delores Tucker, William Gray, and Lucien Blackwell. He bought the business from the Terry family in 2000.

Expand On homegoings and black funeral traditions For Terry Funeral Home in West Philadelphia, homegoings are the most popular type of service. During enslavement in the U.S., gatherings among enslaved people were restricted. Homegoings were among rare instances that some enslavers allowed black people to come together. Homegoings, which are held across denominations in the black church, celebrate the persons life and that their spirit has made it back home. These services are often filled with jubilation and music.

Black mutual aid societies, many run through churches and clubs, made providing burial insurance a core mission in the 19th century. University of Missouri-Columbia professor Tashel Bordere said black funeral homes, grew out of this need to take properly take care of black bodies and to make sure that they are represented in a way that is meaningful, and that produces solace for families who come in to see or have their final moments.

Outside of funerals, black communities often memorialize through art and material culture. Consider the shrines that neighborhoods build when a life is lost, memorial tags and medallions that bear loved ones faces, memorial tattoos, or the RIP murals that adorn many walls in Philadelphia. Some black mourners order life-size cut-out portraits of the ones who transition.

So, how do we keep these going? Bordere posed. How do we continue producing these things that meant something for us in a way that still feels very visible for us even in whether there's an audience or not?

Here are Borderes recommendations maintaining black memorial traditions during the pandemic: Hold a processional of cars around the deceaseds favorite places

Have every vehicle tune into the same music playlist

Serve the deceaseds favorite meals at home, in place of a traditional repast

Host conference call or digital forum where mourners can speak the names of their loved ones

Order R.I.P T-shirts or jewelry

A lot of his business comes from mourners who trust them for the funerals theyve conducted before, such as the woman who once recalled to him that Terry had handled her grandfathers service in 1939, or Geraldine James, who arrived at the funeral home after Elmer Lynn settled plans for his wifes cremation. James was there to ask about a payment plan.

Her brother, Henry, 64, known for his civic work in West Philadelphia, died earlier in April after contracting coronavirus at Cliveden Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Mount Airy, where he was being treated for COPD. He tested positive on a Wednesday, and on that Saturday, he was gone.

It just happened so fast. It feels like it started with a roommate having a cold, Geraldine James said.

Their brother, Lloyd Knight, had made the payments on Henry James life insurance policy. There was another policy that named Geraldine as the beneficiary. Both were worth $9,000; they were $6,000 short. Most of the remaining balance was for the interment, which was to be paid to the cemetery. If they couldnt raise the money, burial would be out and theyd have to cremate Henry.

That was kind of traumatic, waiting to find out what the amount was, Knight said. We already purchased the casket, so we had to move forward.

According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the average cost of a funeral in 2017 with a viewing and an interment was $8,755. Some final expense insurance policies may cover only $5,000. And two out of five Americans, research shows, dont have life insurance at all.

Burrell acknowledges that his funeral home is one of the more expensive ones. Still, Burrell said, families expect lower prices because so few can actually attend a funeral now. Earlier in the month, Terry Funeral Home had limited livestreaming options in the chapel, but launched Zoom funerals in late April. In-person services are limited to 10 people at a time.

University of Missouri-Columbia professor Tashel Bordere, who researches death and rituals, has observed that across faiths, grieving black families, honoring their loved ones, often take occasions such as homegoings and Islamic janazahs to assert the value of the persons life, in a way that may not have been recognized by society. Turnout is a sign of respect, she said.

Those who show up  from clergy to fictive play family  assume roles that help the grieving process. This reflects the collectivist nature of many black families, she said, and compensates, for some, for a lack of trust for mental-health professionals who may lack training in bereavement counseling and culturally responsive practices.

No matter what the form of death was, whether from COVID-19 to cancer to homicide, the goal is to still say this person matters and to create this atmosphere for people to be able to, to cry, to wail, to express all of the things that they will not be able to express in other spaces or in the absence of other support that might be more accessible for majority populations, Bordere explained.

Black mourners, Bordere explained, especially those who may be balancing other economic pressures already, are tasked with financing memorials that can show the departeds worth while facing steep funeral costs.

While research frequently notes how pregnancy-related death, gun violence, cancer, heart disease among public health crises affect black people, there is less emphasis on the cumulative toll of chronic death exposure and the grief pipeline," said Towson University social epidemiologist Sharon Jones-Eversley.

When you have communities that are already saturated with death all around them, and then when that death hits their household, hits their workplace, hits their community, what kind of services from a population-based perspective or community-based perspective are being offered? Jones-Eversley asked. Once the cameras go, the news article is written, the church sends over food and friends come, how does that family, how do those individuals that are impacted by that loss, how do they move on?

Burrell doesnt know how the families he serves, nor how the community at large, will recover. The funeral home is in talks to partner with mental-health specialists to offer counseling.

We have not began to scratch the surface on what people gon be going through, he said.

Expand Facing disparities, in health and in death As researchers widely predicted, COVID-19 has become another disease with grim impact for the black community. The pandemics risks extend beyond death, explained Towson University social epidemiologist Sharon Jones-Eversley. The pandemic, she said, is a wake up call and an opportunity to address longstanding racial disparities. Here are her recommendations for what local governments, institutions, communities and individuals can do. Collaboration, including research and training, between public health experts, black funeral home directors, health care workers, epidemiologists, death researchers and bereavement specialists

Promoting efforts to improve water and air quality in distressed communities

Maintaining high sanitary guidelines for community spaces and neighborhood businesses

Emergency support for funeral homes and institutions who provide grief services Jones-Eversley says that residents should continue washing their hands, eating healthy food and exercising. They also should: Seek medical attention when needed

Have conversations with professionals and family members about health, death planning and legacy

Discuss family medical history and be transparent about with relatives about diseases that may run in the family

Small family health fairs to address conditions in medical history

After hearing about the financial bind that Henry James family was in, Burrell offered a $1,600 discount. Knight rushed to a credit union, uncertain how much was in his account. That turned up $1,500. Geraldine James started calling around for donations. They finished paying for the burial during the two-hour viewing they had selected so that neighborhood friends could see Henry one last time. There was no service. The family planned to place the ashes of their sister, Victoria James, who died in November, in the casket.

You have to stay six feet away from the casket. No touching the casket, Albert Aponte, a funeral home attendant, told a mourner in the lobby. The queue to view was socially distanced  limited to three people. Staffers kept watch to ensure that the number of people in the chapel did not exceed 10.

Before the funeral, Geraldine James was afraid about getting too close to her late brother. Many things about the service scared her, even about what could happen with the flowers if she wanted to take any home. She arrived with daisies, lilies, and roses.

I cant have him back! she sobbed. She put a red rose in her brothers hand and another by his feet, where the urn of their sister would be placed.

Her son started to make his way towards her. A funeral home employee quickly intervened: Its too many people in the chapel. Im going to ask yourself to remove yourself just for now, OK?

As Geraldine James cried, two mourners unwrapped the urn. With that, the casket was closed.

At Ivy Hill Cemetery in Mount Airy, Henry James loved ones were told to stay in their cars in the parking lot. Geraldine James and Lloyd Knight were exceptions. There was no minister. Deacon Carlton Cummings, a friend of Knights, filled in, leading a prayer for the surviving siblings, as the two, wearing gloves, held hands.

Cummings prayed for comfort and survival for the family.

It wasnt considered a graveside ceremony, it was a prayer for peace that their souls be rested in heaven, Geraldine said days later.

Expand Who was Henry James? Henry James, 64, was the guy you could find on Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia, hanging out with friends hed known for years. He loved Philadelphia. He was a retired paratransit driver for CCT Connect, a former block captain and participated in the Men of Mill Creek, a group focused on crime prevention.

He died on April 11 of COVID-19 at Roxborough Hospital.

When he was a student at West Philadelphia High in the 1970s, Mr. James was one of the early wall writers who wound up pioneering graffiti culture. Cornbread knew him as Gator, one of the teens who ran with graffiti legend Kool Earl back then.

He was mellow. He was friendly. He was easy to get along with. He never caused any controversy" said Earl Kool Earl Hubbard.

He got the name Gator, at first, because of a condition that made the skin on his neck look reptilic, said Pamela Dixon, his fiancee. The rashes subsided, but motivated him to wear alligator shoes. Henry James became known for his love of fashion, and for dressing from head-to-toe suits, hats, pinky rings and of course footwear.

Henry James previously lived with addiction, but had been in recovery for more than 30 years. He was devoted to Narcotics Anonymous, where he was a sponsor.

He used to always say, God granted him that serenity and he ran with it, recalled Dixon.

Lloyd Knight, the deceaseds brother, remembers Mr. James as a role model, pushing to help youth stay out of trouble: He was a good example in the community, Knight said. He paid the most attention to his nephews and the younger kids.

Before her brothers homegoing, she felt a deep loneliness. Grieving the loss of someone to this pandemic, she said, just leaves a lot of unanswered questions, [answers] that well never get.

Their family is planning a larger memorial for later, but with the uncertainty, Geraldine explained, its still too early to set a date. The homegoing of Henry James didnt happen the way she thought it would, but in the end, she knows that they managed to give her siblings a resting place. One day, shell visit and talk to them. In the meantime, shes been talking to God.

Thats how I heal I heal spiritually. Its a long process. I just sit and I stare and I think about times we had together, she said. Today doesnt feel any different than last week. It still hurts."
Louisiana remained under 30,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, but the Baton Rouge area broke 5,000 cases on Monday, new state health data shows.

As of Monday, 1,991 people have died from the virus across the state, but nearly 70% of the people who tested positive for the virus through Saturday are presumed to have recovered, the Louisiana Department of Health reported in its noon update.

The 70% figure works out to 20,316 people, the state's latest estimates.

In the 12-parish Baton Rouge region, deaths from the COVID-19 illness tied to the virus rose by 12 on Monday to 369.

The bump is the first double-digit, one-day increase in deaths from the COVID-19 illness since 15 deaths were reported in the region on Thursday.

11 more coronavirus deaths in East Baton Rouge bring parish total to 174 An additional 11 East Baton Rouge residents died from coronavirus over the past few days, pushing to parish total to 174 deaths since the firs

Reporting of deaths from COVID-19 has tended to rise sharply on Mondays after a weekend lull, once state and coroner's offices are operating again at full steam.

This Monday's tally followed that pattern, but the increase from the prior weekend was the smallest since April 6, when six new deaths were reported on that Monday a month ago and as deaths from the viral pandemic were just starting to gain momentum, an Advocate analysis of health data shows.

Though Pointe Coupee Parish saw its cases grow by 4.9% on Monday, most other parishes in the area saw one-day growth of 2.6% or less. Four parishes saw cases grow at rates of less than 1% on Monday: Ascension, East Feliciana, Tangipahoa and West Baton Rouge.

East Baton Rouge Parish added 45 new cases on Monday to hit 2,131 cases, a 2.2% increase from Sunday and slightly faster growth in cases from the day before.

The region as whole hit 5,078, an increase of 82 from the day before, a 1.6% increase, the health data show.

Across the state, cases rose by 333 to 29,673, an increase from a long-term low in new cases reported on Sunday, but still well off the peak from early April and in line with the far lower daily tallies in new cases in recent weeks.

Health experts have pointed out that deaths tend to be a lagging indicator of the virus's spread. While case numbers catch the virus earlier on, they can be subject to the variations of the testing process and don't offer an immediate reflection of viral spread.

Some percentage of people are also likely infected but asymptomatic and haven't been tested.

On Monday, 897 more tests were completed for a total of 26,968 in the Baton Rouge region. That's increase of 3.4% from the day before, which is on par with recent trends, and works out to 89 tests per 100,000 people.

Some health experts at Harvard University have said daily per-capita testing needs to be at least 150 tests per 100,000 people per day to begin safely reopening society.

East Baton Rouge adds 32 more coronavirus cases as slowing trend resumes; see latest state data The growth in cases of the novel coronavirus in the Baton Rouge area continued to slow on Sunday from a sharp, one-day rise two days earlier, 

Vaccine news in your inbox Once a week we'll update you on the progress of COVID-19 vaccinations. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

An additional 11 East Baton Rouge residents died from coronavirus over the past few days, pushing to parish total to 174 deaths since the first was reported almost six weeks ago.

The parish coroner's office announced the latest deaths in a press release Monday morning. The victims range in age from 44 to 84, four women and seven men.

All had underlying medical conditions that made them especially vulnerable to the effects of coronavirus, Coroner Dr. Beau Clark said.

Clark's office has been ahead of deaths reported by the state. State health officials reported 156 deaths in the parish as of Monday.

The Louisiana Department of Health provides updated numbers every day at noon.

See totals for other regional parishes:

Ascension: 647 cases, 40 deaths

Assumption: 201 cases, 6 deaths

East Feliciana: 130 cases, 16 deaths

Iberville: 482 cases, 32 deaths

Livingston: 243 cases, 16 deaths

Pointe Coupee: 108 cases, 15 deaths

St. Helena: 31 cases, 1 death

St. James: 253 cases, 20 deaths

Tangipahoa: 588 cases, 23 deaths

West Baton Rouge: 111 cases, 22 deaths

West Feliciana: 153 cases, 3 deaths

See our coronavirus tracking map here.
England has had the worst excess death rate in Europe during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an EU monitoring project.

Excess death rates show how many more people have died than would usually be expected for the time of year.

The figures are seen as a clue to the number of 'hidden' coronavirus deaths, with official figures almost certain to be incomplete.

Many countries have seen a spike in excess deaths during the pandemic, but figures collected by EU-backed database EuroMOMO show England performing worse than Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or any other European country.

This chart shows the excess death rate of ten European nations as calculated by EU-backed monitoring project EuroMOMO, with England in a clear lead. The figures are for Week 16, which ended April 19

HOW DO THEY WORK OUT WHICH COUNTRIES HAVE HAD THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF EXCESS DEATHS? Excess death rates show how many more people have died than would usually be expected for the time of year. The figures are seen as a clue to the number of 'hidden' coronavirus deaths, with official figures almost certain to be incomplete. EuroMOMO does not provide an actual number for weekly excess deaths recorded in each country. Instead, it assigns a so-called Z-score, showing the deviation from a five-year average of deaths for each nation. Advertisement

EuroMOMO assigns a so-called Z-score to all the countries in its database, showing the deviation from a five-year average of deaths.

England's Z-score peaked at 44.1, according to the monitoring project, with Spain in second place at 34.7.

The other three UK nations had a far lower Z-score, with Wales peaking at 19.3, Scotland at 17.3 and Northern Ireland at 8.5.

EuroMOMO does not provide an actual number of excess deaths, but separate figures have shown around 12,000 more deaths than usual in the UK.

England was also the only monitored nation with a 'substantial increase' of excess mortality for the 15-64 age group, preliminary data shows.

Excess fatalities include deaths from other causes which may nonetheless be linked to the pandemic, for example stroke or heart attack victims whose treatment was delayed because of an overburdened health system.

Epidemiologists say these statistics help to build a more complete picture, because many deaths go unreported when there is an exponential surge in a short period.

Excess deaths in the current pandemic likely reflect the broad impact of the coronavirus, said Lasse Vestergaard, a senior medical officer at the project.

EuroMOMO assigns a so-called Z-score to all the countries in its database, showing the deviation from a five-year average of deaths. The map shows how different countries recorded different Z-scores during Week 16, which ended on April 19

Graphs show how England recorded a consistently high number of excess deaths for several weeks, unlike other European nations which saw rates drop much quicker after peaking

This chart shows the daily number of coronavirus deaths in the UK. It reached a five-week low of 229 today, but separate figures show a high number of excess deaths in England

Andrea Ammon (pictured), the head of the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC), said today that Britain was not yet seeing a downturn in cases

The EU's diseases chief offered further gloomy news today by saying the UK had yet to see a downward trend in the pandemic - contradicting Boris Johnson.

Andrea Ammon said Britain was one of five European countries along with Poland, Romania, Sweden and Bulgaria where the epidemic is not yet in retreat.

Ammon, the head of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), said Britain had seen 'no substantial changes' in the last 14 days.

Speaking to EU lawmakers, she said the same was true of Poland, Romania and Sweden, while Bulgaria was still recording an increase in cases.

The UK has seen 28,675 coronavirus deaths, and today's increase of 229 was the smallest since March 29.

However, Britain is now only a few hundred deaths short of Italy's tally, which is the worst in Europe and the second-highest in Europe after the United States.

The Prime Minister said on Thursday that Britain was 'on the downward slope' and 'coming to the end of the first phase' of the crisis.

Comparing the virus to an 'invisible mugger', Mr Johnson said that 'this is the moment when we have begun together to wrestle it to the floor'.

Hailing Britain's 'apparent success' during the six-week lockdown, he said Britain had 'defied predictions' by avoiding a 'collapse' in the NHS.

The PM himself returned to work last week after an alarming scare with the virus which saw him spend three nights in intensive care at St Thomas's Hospital.

Boris Johnson (pictured outside Number 10 last week) said on Thursday that Britain was 'beginning to turn the tide' against the epidemic

Austria's health minister Rudi Anschober last month described Britain's infection rate as 'frightening' compared to other European countries such as his own.

At the same time, the WHO's European director Hans Kluge said Britain's high figures had 'tempered' otherwise positive signs on the continent.

Apart from the five countries mentioned, every other European nation has seen a drop in cases, ECDC chief Ammon said.

'As of Saturday, it appears that the initial wave of transmission has passed its peak,' she said in a virtual meeting.

However, she warned that 'this is not going to end any time soon and people need to prepare mentally for it.'

Ammon said that 'this virus will not go away as long as we don't have a vaccine' and warns 'we must not drop our guard.'

The ECDC monitors all 27 EU member countries plus Britain, Norway, Liechtenstein and Island.

More than 1.1 million cases have been recorded as of Monday across those 31 European countries. More than 136,000 have died, according to the ECDC.

Unclear cases, low testing rates and the strain on health care systems mean the true scale of the pandemic is likely to be far greater.
The Ministry of External Affairs said a demarche was issued to a senior Pakistani diplomat clearly conveying that the entire union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India.

New Delhi: India has conveyed its strong protest to Pakistan over its efforts to bring "material change" to territories under its "illegal and forcible" occupation after the country's top court allowed holding of elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The Ministry of External Affairs said a demarche was issued to a senior Pakistani diplomat lodging a strong protest over the court ruling and clearly conveying that the entire union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India.

"It was further conveyed that such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh by Pakistan nor the grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan occupied territories for the past seven decades," it said in a statement.

In a recent ruling, the Pakistan Supreme Court allowed Islamabad to amend a 2018 administrative order to conduct general elections in the region. The Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 provided for administrative changes, including authorizing the Prime Minister of Pakistan to legislate on an array of subjects.

The MEA said the government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories "illegally and forcibly" occupied by it. "It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession," the MEA said.

It said India protested Islamabad's efforts to "bring material change in Pakistan occupied territories" and asked it to vacate them.

"India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir," the MEA said.

"Instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation," it added.
Delhis deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia spoke to Sweta Goswami and Shivani Singh about the social and economic costs of the national lockdown, the importance of reviving the citys economy, and learning to live with the new normal.

Edited excerpts:

CM Arvind Kejriwal has said that its time to restart the citys economy, and that Delhi is prepared to handle the rise in Covid-19 cases if it comes as a consequence. Can you quantify the economic cost of the national lockdown to the Capital?

Calculating the economic cost of the lockdown immediately is very difficult because something like this has never happened before. Never before did all kinds of activities come to a standstill at this scale. Businesses, markets, and government and private offices were shut, and operations of even those catering to essential services were curtailed. While economists will have to compare the figures, everything was reduced to zero in the entire city. The economic loss is so huge that it is getting difficult to get an idea of its quantum.

The long-term after-effects of the lockdown are going to be more dangerous because there will be unemployment; there wont be any liquidity in the market because of which businesses wont grow.

What about social cost? There are a large number of people who have been left without jobs, with no money and an extremely uncertain future.

When the lockdown was first imposed, scores of migrant workers began to leave Delhi because they did not know how long the restrictions would be in place. It created a massive vacuum in the demand for work and so they chose to head to their villages. But after Delhi started its massive hunger relief programme across the city, these people started settling in at our shelters instead of heading to their home states. We are feeding cooked meals to 10-11 lakh people through lunch and dinner every day.

Being locked at home has its own drawbacks as well. Even if youre getting food and salaries as part of the work-from-home policy, the idleness creates frustration and despair which gradually manifests into fights. It hampers productivity. So the social impact of this will not only be a job loss, but the productivity of working people will also go down, and personal lives will be affected.

The government undertook an exercise to house and feed migrants and the underprivileged. So far, what has been the financial cost of this essential measure?

In April, we spent over Rs 100 crore on our cooked meal scheme alone. The same cost is likely to be incurred this month as well. Similarly, we are giving free ration to everyone and those who are still left behind are being given ration kits. The total cost borne by the Delhi government in Covid-19 related relief packages has crossed Rs 1,000 crore by now.

How many migrant labourers are still stuck in Delhi? How long will it take to make arrangements for sending all of them home?

The central government has clarified that this facility is not for those who have been staying in a state and working for six months or one year. This scheme is for those who had come to work temporarily and had to return to their home state immediately after getting the work done, but could not because of the lockdown. Such people could be anyone -- tourists, pilgrims, or someone who came for business.

But if you have been staying in Delhi and working, then you have to stay in the Capital. The Delhi government is also taking up confidence-building mechanisms to convince such people to stay in the city.

However, there were also a lot of people who had nowhere to go after the lockdown except their villages. We had stopped around 10,000 such people, all of whom have been staying in our night shelters ever since. We have made a list of people from these shelters who want to go and where they want to go. We are coordinating with the concerned states depending on the locations provided by them.

Migrants are the backbone of Delhis economy. If they do go back, and the government is now facilitating that, wont it have an adverse impact on the citys functioning?

There are two types of migrants -- those who came temporarily and those who stay in Delhi. It is the Delhi governments priority to stop those residing in the city from leaving. From today, stand-alone shops, in-situ construction works, and some industries have opened. They will slowly start getting jobs again. Once that happens, I dont think they would want to leave the city. Our priority now is also to ensure that the demand for work increases in the city.

We have to think about the traders also. We are currently telling traders to pay full wages to their employees, we are also asking them to not charge any rent form their tenants -- how long can they carry on like this? Traders also do not have unlimited money.

Governments have learnt about the coronavirus disease and made necessary preparations in the two months of the lockdown. Now, opening the markets is very important.

The relaxations in curbs allow limited activity only in some sectors. When can those employed in other sectors -- those who have shops in markets, malls, those in the service sector -- hope to get back to work?

On the basis of the count of Covid-19 cases, all of Delhi is in the red zone as of now. There is not going to be a turnaround point of coronavirus in the city. We have to learn to live with the disease as we do with dengue or TB. On the health front, we are making all arrangements to be able to treat a large number of patients.

The relaxations given by the Centre in the red zone are substantial, except that malls and markets such as Connaught Place or Nehru Place cannot open. It is likely that after May 17, the ambit of relaxations is further increased.

How much has the Delhi government lost on the GST collection front? Any demands from the Centre in this regard?

The loss is huge. In April last year, the collection was Rs 3,500 crore. This year, till April 30, we have collected only Rs 400 crore. So, factoring in an anticipated growth of 10%, we are losing around 90% on GST and sales tax etc. On top of that, there are losses in excise etc. The government cannot disburse salaries with just 10% of the usual revenue.

The doctors who are treating us, the junior engineers who are providing water, the food inspectors who are providing ration, the teacher who are imparting online classes, the civil defence volunteers  the government cannot compromise on their salaries. The Delhi governments expenditure towards salaries of its employees alone is around Rs 3,500 crore per month. It has become a challenge for us to meet our expenditure.

We are now exploring from where the Delhi government can take loans and which sectors can generate more tax.

Is the government planning to restructure salaries or announce pay cuts of its employees?

So far, we have not considered that. But, the rules which have been laid down by the Centre are being implemented in Delhi as well. We are making every effort to pay for the salaries.

Will it affect projects and welfare schemes of the Delhi government as well?

Of course. At present, we have put a blanket ban on all our ongoing projects. We have made it clear that any kind of expenditure, except Covid-19 related, will not be made in any department.

Delhi is a consumption and trading state, not a production one. So even if the lockdown is totally lifted, for at least two-three months, no government project will take off, particularly construction projects which are capital intensive. Paying salary is our priority. Only after that will we decide which flagship schemes to spend on depending on the funds situation.

Any demands from the Centre in terms of funds to make ends meet?

We have asked them to give us money for Covid-19 management as it has given to other states. Similarly, we have also requested them to give us tax-related money such as GST compensation.

In Delhi, the problem we face is that the government cannot take loans like other states. But we have small savings fund loans. Usually we take 50% of this loan. This time, we have already written seeking 100% of the small savings fund loans. We are also exploring if the Centre can take loans on behalf of us.

Liquor shops have been opened from today and Delhi saw massive crowds. Do you think it was the right decision?

We never took any decision specifically on liquor shops. These shops have been opened on the same lines as a clothes shop or a bookshop. The rule of allowing is the same -- it has to be a stand-alone or a neighbourhood shop or one located in a residential area.

Ironically, nobody is reporting on how the children are feeling on getting access to bookshops after two months. Why are people asking only about those who did not get access to liquor?

Nevertheless, liquor is an important aspect of the economy and people also want to buy it. Today, reports of overcrowding outside liquor shops forced the police to shut many such outlets. We have issued directions to ensure strict social distancing and better management for Tuesday.

If the virus is here to stay and we have to learn to live with it, normalcy as we knew it may never return. What are your thoughts on the new normal  both social and economic -- that we may have to get used to?

Coronavirus has forced people to rethink a lot of things -- be it our lifestyle, way of working, and even the use of technology. So many meetings that we used to do physically in this secretariat have shifted to video conferencing. In education, also we are trying how online teaching can add value to education. But, it cannot replace one-to-one teaching.
Fellow Ghanaians there are two classes of trained Scientists in Africa who have been schooled in Western Universities at the expense of their respective countries. The first group has the ability to perform the skills she or he has been taught and gets Ph.D. in that given field; however, the individual is incapable to apply the skills learned to find solutions to a contextual problem that would pop-up in his own country. Such a group of people lacks Critical-Thinking Skills to create anything for the benefit of society.

In Pedagogy, they are classified as educated robots who lack creative skills to apply what is learned to solve problems in a real-life situation. In fact, they cherish titles and brag about their field of study and expect everyone to worship them due to their hollow certificates. Such people live in a Match-Box existence and they refuse to get out of their narrow Match-Box experience to see various realities staring at them just outside their box.

Fellow Ghanaians, that is the reason that a whole Secretary to the Ghana Medical Association could pop up his chest and rant, " I would not endorse Herbal Products to treat the Pandemic Coronavirus patients in Ghana". However, the World Health Organization does not have a cure for the Pandemic and he, himself has not come up with anything to help as a scientist to assist his country.

Moreover, he would have the audacity to block our Competent Wholistic, Scientific Medical Practitioners to use their time-tested Potent Herbal Products to heal the Pandemic Coronavirus patients in our Government Hospital because he is in a position to do so at the detriment of the whole country.

My people, these so-called Experts among us are still looking at their shoulders to get permission from the Western Pharmaceutical Establishment which controls the World Health Organization to come out with a Vaccine with its deadly side-effects, automatically sanctioned by WHO to make more money out of Africans.

My Fellow Africans, this is the reason I applaud the Leadership of the Ministry Health and their Expert Scientists in Madagascar for coming out with their Covid-19 Organics derived from the Artemisia Plant to tame the Pandemic Coronavirus. The Expert Scientists in Madagascar did not look at their shoulders to get permission from The Hawks at WHO to save the whole of Africa.

Fellow Africans, this is the second group of Expert Scientists who have applied their Critical-Thinking Skills to create products to solve their contextual Medical, Social, Economic, and a World Health Problem. In fact, our Expert Scientists who are Critical Thinkers do not need the approval of WHO, controlled by Western Pharmaceutical Companies to use our own Potent Herbs to heal ourselves as Human Beings created in God's own image.

My people, I was expecting The Black Star of Africa to have taken the lead in getting out of the jaws of WHO but our current Leadership at our Ghana Health Services did not shine at this time, and we applaud the Leadership of the Malagasy Government for African Emancipation drive.

Rev. Yaw Obeng-Aduasare, M.Div. (Master of Divinity)

Theologian/Mathematician

New York City
Twenty-eight years ago, Angella Mudd started into nursing because she liked helping people and the excitement that each new patient brought. Now, the Air Force lieutenant colonel is in New York City battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

A reservist, Mudd lives in Fulshear and typically works as an emergency room nurse at Houston Methodist West Hospital. She said as she watched what was going on in New York City and the amount of people sickened, she was not surprised when she was called up. Around 9:30 p.m. April 4, the Air Force called to let her know that they needed her in New Jersey by 12 hours later. Once in New York City, she began operating in two roles.

BREAKING NEWS: Get email alerts from Chron.com sent directly to your inbox

You have the hat of a leader, but you also have the hat of a nurse. So I work as a chief nurse for the nurses that are in this mobilization, and theres about maybe 175, Mudd said. And then I also function as a nurse in one of the local hospitals, and I work in their emergency room.

Having never been to New York City before, she has now visited Times Square midday and said it is kind of eerie to see the place that would usually have thousands of people roaming about but now only a couple hundred around.

The wife and mom of four said this has been a tough mission for her family because they barely had any notice or time to process it.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Readjusted model forecasts thousands of additional COVID-19 deaths in Texas

It was definitely a shock for my family because every time Ive deployed, even when I deployed to the Middle East, I had six months to a year notice, so I was able to prepare, Mudd said. My family wasnt able to prepare for this, which is good and bad. You dont have time to grieve.

She had previously thought the media had been blowing up what was really going on, that the situation couldnt really be that bad. However, seeing what was actually going on in the nations largest city stunned her.

And when I came here and when I saw what the reality of it was, it was then that I realized the news isnt even telling remotely what the true story really was. They werent lying, but they didnt  they may have not even known how bad it really was, she said.

Mudd said seeing the excellent levels of care by her fellow workers has been powerful. She is inspired by watching doctors and nurses go the extra mile for their patients, who they may not be able to necessarily help otherwise, and ensure that their phones are charged so that they can at least hear from their families, who are not allowed to visit them in the hospital.

MORE FROM TRACY MANESS: Houston experts discuss staying mentally healthy during COVID-19 pandemic

Its important that somehow these people stay in touch, even if they have a tube into their lungs, where they cant breathe on their own, Mudd said. If theyre awake, if we can dial the number and have the family talk to them, it means so much.

Coming from Texas, she had the opportunity to help one particular man who wanted someone to call his wife, but nobody on staff spoke Spanish. Earlier in the day, the patient had left work and gone to the ER because he wasnt feeling well. Without that call, his wife may not have known that he was lying in a hospital bed intubated and on life support.

It was really a sad situation, and it ended up being okay, Mudd said.

She said that the situation in New York City has been emotional. An angry, sloppy crier by her own admission, she sometimes weeps over what she sees and for the family she misses back home.

She appreciates interacting every day with different people in nursing and the opportunity to leave a positive impact and impression on patients lives. And I like for people to walk away and go, Wow. Shes affected me. Im glad that she was in my life, Mudd said.

Mudd joined the Air Force at nearly 40 years old and has been enlisted for 11 years. Inspired by her oldest daughter, now 27, who was moving out to follow her dreams, Mudd decided to apply for the Air Force. Her family sort of laughed at her, but her husband accompanied her to every recruitment interview. When she finally was accepted, the couple had a spat about it because he confessed that he had gone only because he figured she was too old and would never be chosen, she said.

But these days, it is a family effort with her away. Her 19-year-old daughter steps up as the mother figure, keeping things clean and in order and also helping with her 13-year-old brothers learning at home because of the pandemic. Their 23-year-old brother helps with math because he is studying engineering and construction.

Mudds orders are typically for six months. She considers serving the United States and the people of New York City a great honor.

This mission, while it hasnt been named yet and it hasnt been called humanitarian mission yet, theres no greater gift that were able to give than the care and the compassion that we provided, she said.

tracy.maness@hcnonline.com


By Park Jin-ho





The most notable change caused by U.S. President Donald Trump's transactional views of the Seoul-Washington military alliance is an "unreasonable" demand that the ROK government pay more money to support the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).



Beyond any doubt, President Trump has recently rejected the "best" deal negotiated between working-level representatives from both governments.



The unprecedented delay in signing the new Special Measure Agreement (SMA) determining the amount of costs each side is responsible for will significantly influence strategic benefits from operating ROK-U.S. combined military capabilities.



While there is no sign of a potential change in President Trump's stance, Korea's Ministry of National Defense decided to take the unusual and risky action of asking for the National Assembly to pass a special bill designed to provide financial aid to South Korean workers for the USFK who were put on unpaid leave starting April 1.



On April 29, the bill was passed by the National Defense Committee and is likely to be approved by a plenary session as both the ruling and opposition parties have agreed to relieve the financial difficulties workers are suffering from because of the unpaid leave.



Needless to say, the Assembly is obliged to take care of the Korean workers supporting the alliance now put under involuntary furlough, not because of their fault but due to the long-drawn-out defense cost-sharing negotiations between Seoul and Washington.



Some express concerns that enacting the special law may lead the ongoing negotiations into a "chicken game" situation unless President Trump changes his strategic and political mindset.



In fact, the U.S. government refused in advance South Korea's offer to pay the wages of the Korean workers, prior to concluding two other deals  construction and logistics costs  that are part of the SMA.



There is one important difference between Seoul and Washington in dealing with the SMA. Before the agreement becomes effective, the agreement need to be approved by the National Assembly, but not by the U.S. Congress. Only President Trump signs off on the deal for the U.S.



In other words, the U.S. Congress has no legal right to be directly involved in the government-level negotiations on the agreement. Thus, the passage of the bill in Seoul will likely have a limited effect in pressuring the U.S. government and Congress to stop any further delay in reaching an agreement.



This different process in implementing the agreement was not carefully discussed while the National Defense Committee was dealing with the bill April 26.



And, it is very unlikely that Trump will change his stubborn demand for an increase in what Korea should pay. It has been proven since he took office that it was very unusual for him to cede any political decision to the U.S. Congress, so it is very unrealistic to expect that he will be influenced by the National Assembly's political decision.



Again, Trump will not be reluctant to get into a political chicken game with his Korean counterpart. He seems to believe that he made a considerable concession in agreeing to 10th SMA in early 2019  so not again.



More time does not necessarily mean a better result. With the passage of the bill, the Korean representatives in the SMA negotiations think that they will be able to explore a new avenue.



It should be remembered that this is totally dependent on how well they are able to read President Trump's mind. From this perspective, it is worth considering that before passing the bill, the National Defense Committee makes an attempt to discuss the issue with its counterpart at the U.S. Congress.





Park Jin-ho (jhp7604@gmail.com) worked for the National Defense Committee chairman and 2017 Munich Young Leader of the Munich Security Conference.


Travellers could fly between Australia and New Zealand without undergoing 14 days of quarantine at either end of the journey, under talks between New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the national cabinet to resume flights between the two countries.

The discussions will put a priority on flights across the Tasman before Australia relaxes curbs on other international travel during the coronavirus pandemic, with the option of opening travel with Pacific Islands afterwards.

Trans-Tasman travel will be on the agenda when Jacinda Ardern joins Scott Morrison and the national cabinet on Tuesday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Ms Ardern doused hopes of a move within weeks to resume flights but said she hoped it could be done over time without requiring travellers to isolate in quarantine.

"It is about really considering ourselves within a bubble where we feel secure that the relative response from both sides of the Tasman gives the assurance that that won't be required," she said of the quarantine.
MOSCOW  For most of the post-Soviet period, energy officials in Russia have resisted OPEC entreaties to participate in production cuts to help prop up oil prices, arguing that doing so was impossible because of the countrys cold climate.

This week, confronted by a gusher of unsaleable oil and no place to put it, Russian energy executives unveiled plans to reduce production by a fifth by shutting down wells, many of them in the Arctic.

Not eager to share the burden of shutdowns with OPEC, the Russian government long maintained that curtailing production was not as simple a matter for them as it was for the desert oil kingdoms. Supposedly, wells drilled in permafrost could not be shut down, lest they froze, requiring them to be drilled all over again when they were reopened.

Oil analysts have called the cold weather claim one of the global oil industrys biggest geopolitical bluffs, one which Russian officials carried off with a straight face for decades to deflect OPEC demands for help with prices.
President Muhammadu Buhari has reacted to the killing of three University of Port Harcourt students by kidnappers. NigerianEye rep...





President Muhammadu Buhari has reacted to the killing of three University of Port Harcourt students by kidnappers.





NigerianEye reported earlier that the decomposing bodies of three persons; one female and two males who were students of the University of Port Harcourt were recovered in a forest in Ete-O community in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State.





Police personnel attached to the Anti-Kidnap Unit of Rivers State Police command in an investigation into the kidnap of the victims arrested one of the members of the kidnap gang who took the team to the shallow grave where the murdered students were buried.





The President commiserated with the families of the students murdered by their kidnappers and their bodies buried in a shallow grave in April.

He also extends condolences to the university authorities and the Rivers State Government over the unfortunate incident.





This was contained in a statement on Sunday, signed by Garba Shehu, the Presidents Spokesman.





Buhari described the tragic occurrence as sad and heinous, regretting that the evil perpetrators have cut short the prospectively bright journey of these youths.





He prayed that God will comfort all those who mourn these young students, and grant their souls eternal rest.





President Buhari, while noting that the Nigerian Police Anti-Kidnapping Unit has apprehended one of the suspected perpetrators, further directed the Police Authorities to intensify search for the remaining suspects and bring them to justice.





According to the President, This administration will continue to equip the law enforcement and security agencies to bring to an end the evil activities of kidnappers in the country.




REGINA - Saskatchewan's Opposition on Monday questioned the flow of information from the government about a COVID-19 outbreak at a hospital just as the province was preparing to loosen restrictions intended to limit the spread of the illness.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe speaks while Health Minister Jim Reiter looks on at a COVID-19 news update at the Legislative Building in Regina on Wednesday, March 18, 2020. Saskatchewan's Opposition is questioning the flow of information coming from Moe's government about two COVID-19 outbreaks as the first restrictions loosen around public health measures. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michael Bell

REGINA - Saskatchewan's Opposition on Monday questioned the flow of information from the government about a COVID-19 outbreak at a hospital just as the province was preparing to loosen restrictions intended to limit the spread of the illness.

NDP Leader Ryan Meili said he wants to know when the health minister was told about a cluster of cases at the hospital in the Saskatchewan-Alberta boundary city of Lloydminster.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority has apologized for not informing the public and local officials about the outbreak sooner.

The authority said it informed the Ministry of Health a couple of days before the outbreak was made public on Wednesday. Health Minister Jim Reiter said he was told the night before and talked to Premier Scott Moe the next day.

By that time, 13 staff members and patients had been infected, health officials said.

Meili said the public deserves answers about an apparent breakdown in communication.

"I don't see how ... in the midst of a pandemic, which is all hands on deck, in which everyone is watching every single case across the province, how a new outbreak in a health-care facility, at a time when we're talking about reopening a lot of businesses and other services, how that could possibly not make it's way to the minister," said Meili.

Reiter said things could have been done quicker.

"I'm just not prepared to throw ministry officials under the bus," he said. "Certainly I'll accept some responsibility. Could it have been done more timely? Yeah, it certainly could have."

The province announced 34 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, its largest increase in a single day. Of the new cases, 29 were from in and around La Loche, a northern Dene village experiencing an outbreak.

The province's chief medical health officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab, has said while the number of cases in the far north is concerning, they are mainly isolated to La Loche. The increase in infections was to be expected as door-to-door testing and contact tracing ramped up, he said.

Despite the case count, Saskatchewan pushed ahead Monday with the first stage of its reopening, which included medical offices such as dental clinics, optometrists and physiotherapists.

"It honestly feels really nice," said Alison Matsyk, a physiotherapist in Regina and partner at Stapleford Health and Rehab Centre.

"You can already tell that there's a sense of relief from people being able to access it again because there's a lot of people out there that have that need.

"It brings a little more of that feeling of normal coming back."

Because of the outbreaks, La Loche and Lloydminster weren't included in the first phase of the plan.

Moe defended moving ahead with eased restrictions.

"We see a number of provinces that are moving quite more rapidly than Saskatchewan in opening a wider suite of businesses and services in their communities," he said.

"That is why we left a number of weeks between Phase 1 and Phase 2, and that's why we have not yet set a date for Phase 3, so that we can react to anything."

Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

He also said people could expect to see more cases coming from northern Saskatchewan as testing continues.

Several weeks ago, residents in the region weren't practising physical distancing to the same extent they are now, the premier said.

"Physical distancing was starting to become commonplace in many places throughout the southern areas of the province. In many cases it had not quite made it's way through to the most rural and remote communities in this province."

Chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab added that overcrowding is another factor for transmission.

Units to be used for self-isolation are being sent to La Loche as are more conservation officers to help, Moe said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2020
Bear the koala detection dog stops by for a quick visit to Two Thumbs Wildlife Trust in the Snowy Mountains of NSW, Australia. (AAP Image/supplied by International Fund for Animal Welfare)

Australian Dog Named Bear Finds 100 Koalas Stranded by Bushfires

A five-year-old Australian koolie dog along with a team of experts has saved more than 100 koalas in bushfire-ravaged parts of Australia since November last year.

Bear is a rescue dog who not only has a social media following but also a documentary called Bear  Koala Hero about his work. He has been detecting koalas in areas impacted by the fires since last summer.

Bear is part of the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) Detection Dogs for Conservation team which has been working with the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Despite bushfire season ending in March, the search for sick, dehydrated, or starving animals is ongoing.

If we find them, wildlife carers can plump them up. Their goal is to release them when and where they have a better chance of having food available to them, USC Detection Dogs for Conservation researcher Romane Cristescu told AAP.

While the world focus turns to the COVID-19 pandemic, for koalas the struggle is not over. Badly burnt land hasnt recovered and vegetation has not grown back.

Some places have burnt so much for such a wide area, some species may take decades to recover, Cristescu said.

A recent koala population report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare found that 6,382 koalas are estimated to have died from the bushfires in New South Wales alone.

Australia is no stranger to bushfires, but last summer the country faced some of the most widespread and sustained bushfires in the modern record, driven by record warm temperatures above Antarctica in the spring of 2019, which resulted in a temperature imbalance in the Indian Ocean that extended into early 2020.

These regional climatic factors saw reduced rainfall and low humidity that fueled the out-of-control fires, which began earlier than normal in September 2019 and ravaged thousands of hectares of land until February.

Read More The Air Above Antarctica Is Suddenly Getting WarmerHeres What It Means for Australia

The bushfires shocked Team Bear, who has been training Bear and four of his mates since 2015. Members of the team described working with Bear as healing.

International Fund for Wildlife campaigner Josey Sharrad said Bear brought the team optimism during the devastation.

He found koalas despite all those harrowing conditions. That brought us hope, Sharrad said.
The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crisis has exposed the limitations of the existing international system and the world needs a new framework of globalisation and international institutions that are more representative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday.

Addressing a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for the first time since he assumed office in 2014, Modi said efforts to promote human welfare will have to go side by side with measures for economic growth in a post-Covid-9 world order.

Modi, who has pushed efforts to organise a coordinated response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the region and beyond by organising a video conference of leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) and joining a special summit of the G20, skipped the last two NAM summits in 2016 and 2019.

In line with his addresses at multilateral meetings held after the Covid-19 crisis began, Modis speech at Mondays video conference too focused on the need to fashion a new world order after the pandemic. NAM, he said, can promote global solidarity at a time when humanity is facing its most serious crisis in many decades.

Covid-19 has shown us the limitations of the existing international system. In the post-Covid world, we need a new template of globalisation based on fairness, equality and humanity. We need international institutions that are more representative of todays world, we need to promote human welfare and not focus on economic growth alone, Modi said.

India has backed initiatives to help fashion a better world order, such as the International Solar Alliance to help our planet heal from the disease of climate change, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure to protect ourselves against climate and disaster risks, and the International Day of Yoga, he added.

Without naming any country, Modi also said: Even as the world fights Covid-19, some people are busy spreading other deadly viruses such as terrorism, fake news and doctored videos to divide communities and countries.

Amid the Covid-19 crisis, he said, India has shown how democracy, discipline and decisiveness can come together to create a genuine peoples movement. India has helped other countries to counter Covid-19 and promoted coordination in its immediate neighbourhood, he said.

India is regarded as a pharmacy of the world, especially for affordable medicines. Despite our own needs, we have ensured medical supplies to over 123 partner countries, including 59 members of NAM, Modi said. India has also organised online training to share its medical expertise with others and is active in global efforts to develop remedies and vaccines.

Many countries organise military drills but India had taken the initiative to organise disaster management drills in our region and beyond. NAM should call upon the international community and the World Health Organization to focus on building health capacity in developing countries, he said.

The NAM should also ensure equitable, affordable and timely access to health products and technology and develop a platform where all member countries can pool their best practices, crisis management protocols, research and resources, he added.

In the founding spirit of the movement, let us aim today to come together, not grow apart Let us work as partners towards an inclusive and cooperative global response, Modi said.

India played a major role in the establishment of NAM in 1961 but in recent years, the organisation of 120 developing countries has not been a key part of New Delhis multilateral diplomatic initiatives. India continues to have robust ties with key members of NAM from Asia, Africa and the Arab world but New Delhis decision not to join the organisations summits at the level of the prime minister after 2012 reflected the rebalancing of diplomatic equations.

Azerbaijan, the current chair of NAM, organised the virtual summit on Monday to forge a united response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It said the summit was aimed at mobilising NAM member states to fight Covid-19 and to strengthen multilateralism.

More than 30 heads of state and government and other leaders from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean joined Mondays meeting, which was also addressed by UN General Assembly president Tijjani Muhammed Bande, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, EU high representative Josep Borrell and WHO director general Tedros Ghebreyesus.

The NAM leaders identified requirements for remedies and called for action-oriented follow-up measures. Following the summit, the leaders adopted a declaration underlining the importance of global solidarity in the fight against Covid-19, and announced the creation of a task force to identify the requirements of member states in terms of medical, social and humanitarian needs.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
In the biggest single-day surge in the state so far, Tamil Nadu on Monday reported 527 new COVID-19 cases, a large number of them linked to Koyambedu market here, taking the tally to 3,550 while the toll rose to 31 with the death of one person, the government said.

The new cases included 19 new-born and children below the age of ten, a health department bulletin said.

Thirty people were discharged from various hospitals, as the aggregate of those recovered and sent home rose to 1,409, but the state's recovery rate which was hovering over a healthy 50 plus per cent till recently took a hit in view of the steady spike in the cases in the past few days.

In fact, the state added a whopping 1,086 cases in the last six days.

Amid the continued surge in COVID-19 cases, Chief Minister K Palaniswami called on Governor Banwarilal Purohit and briefed him over the ongoing measures to tackle the spread of the contagion and related aspects.

The Governor discussed the COVID-19 control measures taken by the state government and prevailing current situation with the chief minister, a Raj Bhavan release said.

"A 65-year old man with co-morbidities admitted to the Stanley Medical College Hospital here died due to COVID-19 infection today," the bulletin said.

In continuing trend of heavy numbers in the past few days amid stepped up testing, the state reported 527 new cases.

"A large number of today's cases are linked to the Koyambedu market," it said.

There was no respite for Chennai as the metropolis reported 266 infections, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state capital to 1,724 while Cuddalore district accounted for the next highest new cases on Monday with 122.

The Koyambedu wholesale vegetable market here, the state's largest, has emerged as a hotspot for the virus in recent days as several traders and loadmen tested positive, prompting authorities to scaledown operations there.

A senior police official from the city was among the confirmed cases on Monday, making him the first IPS officer in the state to contract the infection.

He had made a few visits to the Koyambedu market to review the containment measures implemented there, police sources said.

Authorities in Cuddalore, over 200 km from here, told PTI that 100 plus samples -taken from those associated with the Koyambedu market - tested positive in their district.

Of the total 161 positive cases as on date, at least 124 were linked to the market hotspot, they added.

As of Sunday, Cuddalore had only 39 positive cases.

As on date, Tamil Nadu has 2,107 active caes and on Monday alone 12,863 samples were tested, taking the total to 1,62,970.

Krishnagiri district remained the only bright spot in the state, retaining its green zone tag with another day of nil cases.

As a result of continuous capacity addition, the state has 50 labs, including 14 in private sector.

Meanwhile, expressing solidarity with frontline warriors of COVID-19, the Defence public relations office here tweeted saying two C-130 J Hercules aircraft traversing across the nation flew over Kanyakumari in southern most tip in a gesture of solidarity.

In another tweet, it said Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment, a DRDO lab at Avadi here, "delivers the special software 'Kavasam' (armour) to the Corporation of Avadi for COVID-19 tracking and resource allocation."



The android based mobile application is for the team leaders and facilitiates among other aspects assigning health workers tasks like house surveillance and data collection.

"A resourceful database for the corporation is created with geocoding of streets and number of houses in each street," a CVRDE release said.

Also, another app has been developed for geofencing of the home or quarantined person and it provides notification to authorities if the positive person moves 100 meters away from his or her location.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The British Ambassador to Egypt Geoffrey Adams has agreed with Egypts Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat on the key elements in both countries shared fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a letter addressed to Al-Mashat, Adams expressed the UKs support for the Egyptian international cooperation ministrys efforts, in line with its People, Projects, and Purpose framework.

According to a statement, the UK Embassy and British businesses will work together to address the immediate medical needs of both Egypt and the UK.

The UK has already provided training to over 250 Egyptian medical staff, equipping them with advanced skills in intensive care, basic life support, and cardiovascular life support, according to the statement.

In addition, Vodafone has donated EGP 10 million, while BP has offered EGP 2 million to equip quarantine hospitals with ventilators and to support the treatment of COVID-19 patients, according to the statement.

AstraZeneca has donated 20,000 rapid Coronavirus-related tests worth $100,000, in addition to 100,000 surgical masks, 100,000 gloves and 3,000 disposable gowns, according the statement.

The UK is placing emphasis on support for healthcare provision, social protection, and the economic reform agenda in its programs in Egypt, according the UK Embassys statement.

On 20 January, a joint statement was issued by the then Secretary of State for International Development of the United Kingdom and Minister Al-Mashat, outlining a number of areas of enhanced economic cooperation.

Meanwhile, the UK is playing a leading role in the global campaign against the coronavirus. It is the G7 lead on support to vulnerable countries during the crisis. The UK has confirmed a responsive funding package of more than GBP 700 million, including GBP 130 million contribution to the United Nations (UN), GBP 65 million of which is allocated to the World Health Organization (WHO), according to the statement.

The UK also is co-hosting the virtual Global Coronavirus Response Summit held on 4 May, and will host the virtual Global Vaccines Summit on 4 June, according the statement.

On 14 April, UK Minister of State for International Trade Greg Hands extended the UKs thanks to Egypts action of sending a large number of medical gowns to the UK.

He said that this came after contacting the Egyptian Ambassador in the UK and much engagement by British Ambassador to Egypt Geoffrey D Adams.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Taiwan sent letter to WHO, has yet to receive reply: health ministry

ROC Central News Agency

05/03/2020 09:24 PM

Taipei, May 3 (CNA) Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) recently sent a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) asking to participate in the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA), but has yet to receive a reply, an MOHW official said Sunday.

The ministry sent a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asking to take part in the upcoming WHA, the decision-making body of the WHO, Liu Li-ling (), an official in the MOHW's Office of International Cooperation, told CNA.

Liu said the letter emphasized Taiwan's contributions to global health and the country's achievements in containing the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease.

The letter was sent "recently," Liu said, though no answer has yet been received from the WHO.

Even if Taiwan is not a member of the WHO, the country has actively shared its epidemic prevention experience with other nations, including the United States and the European Union, Liu said.

On Sunday Taiwan health officials held a teleconference with their Israeli counterparts to discuss the COVID-19 measures each side has taken, Liu added.

The WHA is scheduled to hold its 73rd session from May 17-21, though it may be conducted virtually due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 2009-2016, Taiwan participated in the WHA as an observer under the name Chinese Taipei, amid better relations with China during the then-Kuomintang administration.

However, since 2017, China has persuaded the WHO not to invite Taiwan, in line with Beijing's hardline stance on cross-strait relations since President Tsai Ing-wen () of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party took office in May 2016.

(By Chang Ming-hsuan and Chiang Yi-ching)

Enditem/AW

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Tuesday is Cinco De Mayo, a holiday rooted in Mexican history and adopted by millions of Americans, both Latino and non-Latino.

The holiday, which honors the Mexican victory over the French at the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, actually is celebrated more in the United States than in Mexico.

Still, the improbable victory is a cherished moment in Mexican history of Mexico and often is confused by Americans as a Mexican Independence Day.

The battle of Puebla was a bright spot in an otherwise dismal period for Mexico. Saddled with crushing debt and political instability, Mexico endured 36 changes in presidency between 1833 and 1855 and was threatened with revolt even during its war with America from 1846 to 1848. The legendary Santa Anna ruled Mexico 11 times before his death in 1876.

By 1861, Mexico was heavily in debt to European powers such as Britain, France and Spain, who allied for a military intervention to recoup the monies owed to them. France was the most enthusiastic, because Napoleon wanted to conquer Mexico and re-affirm a global empire. Britain and Spain eventually negotiated with the Mexicans and left soon after realizing French intent.

Mexico was little match for the powerful French army, one of the strongest in the world, and suffered from lack of manpower, equipment and financial resources. As some 6,000 French troops and 2,000 loyalists advanced on Mexico City, they approached the city of Puebla, where a hastily assembled force of 4,000 Mexicans awaited.

The Mexican defenders included many farmers carrying hunting rifles and machetes, among other inferior arms. Still, the Mexicans were atop a steep hill, with a ditch and a brick wall as extra protection. A short artillery bombardment failed, so the French command recklessly ordered a frontal assault, which summarily was repulsed.

Two other charges also failed before the Mexicans counter-attacked and French forces eventually retreated with losses of more than 500 men. Four days later, Mexican President Benito Juarez declared Cinco De Mayo as an annual national holiday.

The smashing win at Puebla, however, did not affect the outcome of the French intervention, which eventually carried the nation for Napoleon. The French leader installed Maximillian, Archduke of Austria, as emperor of Mexico.

A number of American ex-Confederates settled in colonies in Mexico after the Civil War. Among them was Missouri Gen. Sterling Price, who lived on 640 acres west of Vera Cruz in the attractive colony of Carlota, named for Maximilians spirited wife. The United States, preoccupied with the Civil War, had done little to halt Napoleons advance.

The Maximilian regime seemingly was doomed from the start, with the new emperor facing stiff Liberal opposition. Though he embraced many forms of Mexican culture in his grand mansion outside Mexico City and pledged his allegiance to his new homeland, Maximilian quickly lost popularity. The United States, now free of the Civil War, demanded French evacuation, and support among the French public also was eroding.

In 1866, France began to withdraw its troops, leaving Maximilian with badly outnumbered forces. The emperor eventually was captured and executed by firing squad on June 19, 1867. Carlota, having failed in attempts to find European support, descended into madness and died in Belgium in 1927.

Today, Cinco De Mayo is an important day on the calendar in Puebla, where mass celebrations are held. Neighboring Mexican states also honor the holiday, and many streets across Mexico are named Cinco De Mayo.

Still, the holiday is much more popular in the United States and usually is marked in numerous American cities, not just those along the border. Alcohol typically flows freely during many of these celebrations, and parades, costumes and music also dominate the day.

This years marking of the day is likely to be done on a much smaller and less public scale.

Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.
In this article FCT-IT

The Italian navy's Alpino FREMM frigate. Amanda Macias/CNBC

WASHINGTON  Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri Marine has been awarded $5.5 billion to develop the U.S. Navy's newest class of warships. The contract, announced last week, is for the design and construction of the lead frigate, with an option to buy nine more. If the U.S. Navy exercised all options on the contract, delivery of the 10th ship would be delivered in the mid-2030s. The Pentagon estimated the first ship would cost $1.2 billion. The nine subsequent ships would cost up to approximately $781 million, in 2018 constant dollars, Navy officials said in a call with reporters.

An exterior view of the Italian warship Alpino. Amanda Macias | CNBC

The Italian Fregata Europea Multi-Missione, or FREMM, is a multi-mission warship that was one of five contenders for the lucrative U.S. Navy contract. In February 2018, the U.S. Navy awarded $15 million design contracts to Fincantieri Marine, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Huntington Ingalls, Austal, and Lockheed Martin. The competition slimmed to Fincantieri, Huntington Ingalls, Austal and a joint venture between General Dynamics and Spanish shipbuilder Navantia.

A look inside

CNBC spent a day aboard the Italian Navy's Fincantieri-built Alpino warship in 2018 while the vessel toured the U.S. East Coast. The visit was organized to introduce the vessel to U.S. Navy leadership, sailors and lawmakers. The tour began with a brief overview of the nearly 550-foot long vessel, its crew, capabilities and an espresso from one of several machines aboard the vessel.

An espresso aboard the Italian Alpino warship. Amanda Macias | CNBC

"I showed my ship to some American sailors and they told me that this is the ship of the future. I had a hard time believing that because I come from a little Italian town and our navy is not as big as the United States Navy," Mario Olivieri, an Italian sailor assigned to the FREMM Alpino, told CNBC aboard the vessel. "So, I'm proud of my ship," Olivieri said walking along the ship's noticeably wide passageways.

A view of a passageway on the Italian frigate Alpino. Amanda Macias/CNBC

The Italian warship, which would be modified to meet U.S. Navy specifications and requirements, is capable of conducting anti-submarine warfare, point-defense anti-air warfare, electronic warfare, anti-surface warfare and special operation insertion. "It's a proven design operating at sea with both the Italian and French navies. The French have taken it and have launched in combat," a spokesperson for Fincantieri Marinette Marine told CNBC, referring to the 2018 retaliatory strikes in Syria. The targeted strikes, carried out by the United States, United Kingdom and France, were aimed at destroying the Syrian regime's chemical weapons infrastructure days after a suspected chemical attack by Syrian forces. On April 13, 2018, the French used one of its Fincantieri-built ships to successfully launch naval cruise missiles against a chemical weapons production site. From the bridge of the ship, we are shown how the missiles were launched during the April strike. Fincantieri's design is equipped with a 16-cell vertical launch system, or VLS, for holding and firing missiles.

A view of the Italian warship Alpino's 16-cell vertical launch system where missiles are held and launched from. Amanda Macias | CNBC

Other armaments include two Oto-Breda 76mm guns, two three-tube torpedo launchers positioned both port and starboard, two Oto-Breda 25mm machine guns and two NH-90 helicopters. In terms of payload, the vessel can carry MU90 torpedoes, surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles, anti-ship missile and anti-submarine missiles, and missiles on each of the helicopters. The ship also carries a rigid-hull inflatable fast boat that can be deployed from a controlled door and ramp system. This feature is a crucial design element that can be used for special operations insertion missions.

A naval gun aboard the Italian navy warship Alpino. Amanda Macias | CNBC
EastEnders' Lola Pearce is set to be left stunned in upcoming episodes as she learns former fling Peter Beale is joining the funeral parlour.

Spoilers reveal the character, played by Danielle Harold, tries her best to reassure her boyfriend Jay Brown (Jamie Borthwick) after Callum Highway (Tony Clay) leaves.

However, she's left shocked to learn that he's already drafted in Peter (Dayle Hudson) as a replacement - with the two of them working together, will Jay discover Lola and Peter's one night stand?

Big shock: EastEnders' Lola Pearce is set to be left stunned in upcoming episodes as she learns former fling Peter Beale is joining the funeral parlour

Recent scenes saw Lola and Peter sleep together, shortly following his return to Albert Square.

After discovering she was pregnant with Jay's baby, the two later fell out over their different views over her pregnancy - with Jay wanting to keep it, while Lola wanted a termination.

Things only got more confusing for Lola as Jay, excited at the prospect of starting a family, later got down on one knee and proposed.

Former fling: Lola is shocked to learn that Jay drafted in Peter (Dayle Hudson) as a replacement for Callum - with the two of them working together, will Jay discover Lola and Peter's one night stand?

Lola was adamant that she didn't want to get married, but told her beau that she may want to do so in the future.

However, despite their heart-to-heart, Lola's head was all over the place and she ended up getting drunk at the Price Albert, before falling into the arms of Peter.

Later, after having a termination, Lola reconciled with Jay, and was determined that her one-night stand with Peter would remain a secret.

Secrets and lies: But with Peter and Jay now set to work closely together, just how long will the illicit liaison remain hidden?

With the guilt eating away at her, she recently confessed all to Callum, but so far her sex secret has remained hidden from Jay.

But with Peter and Jay now set to work closely together, just how long will the illicit liaison remain hidden?

And just how will Jay react should he learn of Lola's betrayal?

EastEnders continues Mondays at 8pm and Tuesdays at 7.30pm on BBC One.
CEDAR FALLS  University of Northern Iowa professor Anelia Dimitrova expected the coronavirus would cause a two-week spring break extension  not a swift end to campus life and the beginning of teaching online.

She thought it was odd, she said, when one of her students noted in March that their last class before spring break could be their last meeting in person.

Very quickly it became apparent that that was very naive and idealistic, Dimitrova, who teaches journalism and ethics, said.

The first cases of COVID-19 appeared in Iowa March 8, and the numbers of cases continue to rise, despite statewide closures of schools, restaurants, churches, stores and other businesses. Universities will finish semesters online, graduation ceremonies are cancelled or going virtual, and summer plans are uncertain.

More than a month later, Iowa college instructors, like Dimitrova, are learning how to deliver a world-class education from behind a computer screen while also navigating working from home, changes in coursework and uncertainty on what comes after this shift in teaching.

Iowa State professor and Faculty Senate President Jonathan Sturm said ISU faculty switched to distance learning quickly in March 2020. Therell be some changes, you know, some faculty will have to decrease their expectations. Things may happen a little more slowly.

A snapshot: The changes affect 6,000 faculty members at Iowas public universities  3,421 at University of Iowa, 1,910 at Iowa State and 697 at Northern Iowa. At UNI, 300 laptops were checked out so students would have technology to finish classes, meaning not all students may be able to participate. One professor said she spends four hours straight online teaching two, two-hour courses. Others said grading time doubled or tripled.

The end date for online instruction is unclear. Iowa State and University of Iowa announced summer courses will proceed online. Theres also the question of the effectiveness of online learning.

Distance learning

Distance learning was a growing part of university culture long before the pandemic.

Students participating in at least one online course in fall 2015 made up 27.9% of all high-education enrollment nationally, according to a 2017 Digital Learning Compass survey.

The survey found 41.8% of Iowas undergraduate and graduate students, or nearly 115,000 students, enrolled in at least one distance-learning course that year.

At the three public universities, over 37,000 students participated in at least one online class in fall 2018. From 2014-2018, Regent institutions saw a 46.5% increase in online programs.

The technology existed beforehand, but many professors never taught an online class  until COVID-19.

President of ISUs Faculty Senate Jonathan Sturm, who teaches music history, said he avoided working with some technologies because he thought they didnt add to his course. Now the software is necessary; he felt behind the curve. His first quiz accidentally gave away an answer to the students, Sturm said.

His wife, Julie Sturm, an Iowa State professor of music theory, takes extra steps when grading assignments sent as a PDF since the format isnt compatible with her computers software.

What seem like minor technical issues have multiplied Julie Sturms daily workload threefold  sometimes extending her grading process to 15 hours in a day, her husband said.

Does it work?

Past studies on distance learnings effectiveness show mixed results.

A 2015 Wright State University study found the grades of online learners to be higher  contradicting several past studies.

On the other hand, a 2017 Brookings Institution study found online students do substantially worse in future courses compared to in-person class students. Online education may contribute to the socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps, according to a George Mason University 2019 study.

Many professors experiencing online learning during the pandemic say it will never fully replace the traditional class setting.

Technology

Though the 2017 study ended with negative results for online learning, the researchers concluded online learnings flexibility and affordability serve a purpose in higher education. With this technology, students will still earn degrees, even during a pandemic.

A century ago, the opportunity to learn halted for many during the Spanish Flu. During that pandemic, which killed an estimated 675,000 Americans, schools closed for weeks without an option for distance learning.

Iowa State Faculty Senate Resolution 19-19 states while students must take responsibility for their own education, faculty must ensure, despite new challenges posed by COVID-19, a world-class education is still available.

National news outlets reported universities are preparing to potentially continue the online model into 2021.

Dimitrova said lasting effects could come. The benefits of flexibility, cost-effectiveness and reduced environmental impact could lead to more work-from-home in and outside of higher education post-coronavirus.

I think this pandemic is shifting the paradigm. I think maybe conducting these classes online in media, (or) some mixture of online moving forward would better prepare students for a workplace, Dimitrova said. Im sure many employers would prefer to have people work from home.

Adapting some classes to online is easier than others.

STEM classes moved from hands-on lab time to online simulation software. Technical difficulties stunt discussion-heavy courses.

Iowa State Associate Teaching Professor Diane Bugeja said the hands-on courses like her photojournalism course is not as effective from behind a screen.

Even her final project  a slideshow of 25 of their best photos on any given topic with an audio interview playing over the top  would not be feasible.

With directions from medical professionals to remain six feet apart  preferably more  Bugeja knew she could not ask her students to stick a microphone in front of someones face.

Instead, students will be using their visual eye to capture their experiences in isolation.

I think theres going to be a lot of different stories. I think that we all assume that were all cooped up in our house and were all going to be the same. I dont think so, Bugeja said. This kind of worked out one way. I think its really important that students go to this place that they need to go to to sort out this experience.

Danielle Gehr is a senior at Iowa State University, studying journalism. Gehr is the summer reporting intern for IowaWatch., a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that focuses on investigative journalism and training the next generation of journalists. Find us and support us at iowawatch.org
Two brothers and a 20-year-old woman have been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Jeremiah Ranger, 15, who was killed soon after he entered the back seat of a white SUV with another boy in North York late last month.

Toronto police released security footage of the incident last week. That video, taken from a security camera near Sheppard Avenue West and Jane Street around 6 p.m. on April 26, shows Ranger boarding a parked vehicle with another boy.

Soon after, the two boys can be seen fleeing the car, with Ranger falling to the ground then getting up to run away

Officers later found him collapsed by a dumpster roughly 20 metres from the car, suffering from a gunshot wound in his abdomen. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

The other boy was unharmed.

According to his mother, Ranger had recently celebrated his 15th birthday with his family and girlfriend.

He was happy, Krystal Ranger told the Star, describing her son before his funeral, which was held at the Emmanuel Church of the Nazarene in a livestream for family, with only the pastor present.

Gun violence had been part of her sons life from a young age, she said  I had Jeremiah in 2005, the year of the gun, referencing Torontos then-worst year for gun deaths. His father and cousin were injured in separate shootings; when Jeremiah was 10 years old, he saw two men shot in front of him, she said.

Tyler Young, 22, of Cambridge, was arrested with the assistance of Waterloo Region police in connection with Rangers death on Friday, Toronto police said.

On Monday morning, Hannah Gaudet, 20, surrendered herself to Toronto police 32 Division. Her boyfriend, 23-year-old Seymour Young  Tyler Youngs older brother  surrendered himself also to 32 Division soon after.

Both Gaudet and Seymour Young were scheduled to appear in court Monday.

Tyler Young appeared in court in Toronto on Saturday.

All are charged with second-degree murder.

Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the citys gun violence has continued unabated. According to the latest police statistics, 60 people have been shot so far this year, 15 fatally; three of those victims were 16 years old or younger.

As other major crime categories in the city continue to drop  including robberies, assaults and auto theft  shootings are up 18 per cent over this time last year.

Saturday night, a man was gunned down in front of a house in Scarboroughs Wexford neighbourhood in the citys 25th homicide of 2020.

With files from Wendy Gillis
Gregory Tony talking about the incident: (WPLG Local 10 YouTube)

A senior police officer has admitted that he killed a man when he was 14-years-old, despite not mentioning it in his job application for his current position.

Broward County sheriff Gregory Tony, who became sheriff in 2019, after Scott Israel was suspended from the position, admitted to the killing after a report that was released on Saturday claimed he killed a man in 1993.

Mr Tony said he shot and killed 18-year-old Hector Rodriguez in self defence, after he attacked him and his brother outside their home in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately, we had a dispute with him  my brother and me  in front of our home and he made threats to kill us and he literally pulled out a gun, he said in an interview with Local 10.

He had no problem with shooting us right there, the sheriff in south Florida added.

Mr Rodriguezs then-girlfriend, Maritza Carrasquillo, disputed this claim and told the Florida Bulldog that she believes he was not armed that day.

Hector didnt have a weapon on him that Im aware of, and I never saw him with a weapon, she said.

In a statement, Mr Tony told the publication that he hadnt brought the incident up before, because he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

The juvenile authorities reviewed my actions and cleared my name, he said. This was the most difficult and painful experience of my life and I have never spoken of it publicly.

I worked every day from that time forward to leave the violence that surrounded me in Philadelphia behind.

Mr Tony added to Florida Politics that the incident didnt come up during any background checks, because he was never arrested for the incident.

Under Pennsylvania law, juveniles are not arrested, they go through a petition of delinquency, he said.

It never came up on my background checks or clearances, since I was a juvenile and I didnt commit a crime, as it was self-defence.

Read more

Suspended police chief claimed deputy died from virus for being gay
Cartoonist Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, claimed to be channeling the national consensus when he announced that losing a few hundred thousand people (or fewer if we are clever) is an acceptable price for reopening the economy.

Personally, I found it gratifying to have my long-held suspicion  that the character of Dogbert speaks for the cartoonist  confirmed.

Still, color me skeptical that having coffins pile up on the sidewalk, as in Guayaquil, Ecuador, or fill up churches, as in Bergamo, Italy, is the most business-friendly way out of the lockdown. Reopening the economy isnt necessarily the same as reviving it, after all, and mass death is pretty much the opposite of revival.

Meanwhile, Sweden seized the opportunity offered by the virus to enact the plot of Logans Run, with a sell-by age of 70 rather than 30. Everybody older than that, and everybody with a chronic disease, has been ordered into house arrest for the duration, ridding society of their unwelcome presence.

A similar devotion to negative eugenics seems to be behind Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patricks insistence that there are more important things than living. If the virus selected for Republican donors, its possible his philosophical ponderings might have led him in a less nihilistic direction. Or perhaps he and Adams hope that human sacrifice on a sufficiently grand scale will appease the gods responsible for the plague.

Traces of magical thinking are all over the public discourse, as with the repeated invocation of peak to describe the day before drastic lockdowns began having their effect, as if a steady downward slope is guaranteed.

In recent weeks many news articles have described sick people being turned away from hospitals, and many others have described people dying at home, but very few point out that these are two parts of a single story, and its a story about health care rationing.

Any time a health care facility turns away a patient who subsequently dies or suffers gravely, the potential for a malpractice suit looms large. I hope the nations hospitals are preparing for pandemic-related lawsuits better than they prepared for the pandemic itself.

We all should be deeply grateful for the heroics of our front-line medical workers.

But its grotesque that heroism is required.

Could hospital administrators have foreseen the possibility of a pandemic, along the lines of the pandemics predicted in detail by everyone from Bill Gates to the Obama White House to any number of novelists and screenwriters? If so, could they have stockpiled sufficient PPE?

Every time I hear of another administrator threatening job action against medical workers who speak out about the risk to their lives, I marvel again at their eagerness to spend so much of their future lives in the company of litigators.

Any easing of the lockdown will have to proceed in steps, bringing another set of problems. On Twitter, journalist Jill Filipovic asked: States opening up before schools and childcare facilities open up just means women are going to lose their jobs, right? The answer lies with employers. Those who dont accommodate parents could be inviting a novel kind of employment discrimination lawsuit.

In ordinary times, it would be difficult for any employee to prove that he or she contracted an infectious disease at work, just as in ordinary times no one would fault an employer for failing to provide protective equipment or enforce social distancing. But in these days, if a worker is scrupulous about maintaining social distance off the job, proving that the likeliest source of infection was the workplace might be easy.

Because the law runs on precedent, and this situation is unprecedented, Im not sure whether a workers coronavirus claim against his or her employer would be shuttled into the workers compensation system, where damages are capped, or into the ordinary civil courts, a potentially chilling prospect for employers. No business owner wants to be in the position of waiting for a jury to return with a calculation of damages.

The White House has floated a trial balloon about a liability shield for businesses. Details dont even reach the level of vague, as of the time of writing, but its difficult to conceive of any federal law that could constitutionally pre-empt the entire enormous landscape of state law.

A more realistic approach might be that taken by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which offers a streamlined path to recovery. Or the federal government could provide a financial backstop to insurers who agree to a liberalized set of claims processing standards. Something along those lines strikes me as having a greater chance of withstanding legal scrutiny than a blanket grant of immunity.

Joel Jacobsen is an author who in 2015 retired from a 29-year legal career. If there are topics you would like to see covered in future columns, please write him at legal.column.tips@gmail.com.
We need to screen everybody, said Hugh Mighty, dean of Howard Universitys College of Medicine and vice president of clinical affairs. You want to know the negative as well as you want to know the positive. Unless we blanket the whole region with screening, were not going to know what were dealing with in terms of who is positive.
After seeing crowds of people out last weekend, Austin Mayor Steve Adler fears Texas may have reopened "too quickly."

On Sunday, Adler said in a zoom interview with news station Fox 7 Austin that he is "concerned" that the city might go back to being temporarily shut down as many residents were not wearing face masks while out in public buildings.

READ MORE: The latest news and features about coronavirus in San Antonio

"It's important for us to try to figure out how to open up the economy, but I'm a little concerned we are starting too quickly," he said. "... As I look around and drive around, I think people may be going too far. I wish that everybody was still wearing masks, I wish that the gatherings were smaller."

Gov. Greg Abbott's "Open Texas" plan began its first phase last Friday, allowing retail malls, dine-in restaurants and movie theatres to reopen at 25 percent of its capacity until May 18. When Abbott made his announcement last week, he said face masks are not required but are recommended. Much like San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, Adler has kept it mandatory for people in the city of Austin to wear face masks. However, due to Abbott's order, officials can not enforce the measure through fines or citations.

"Every public health official that I talk to says people should wear masks so, in Austin, I'm going to keep it mandatory for now," he said. "The penalty for not wearing a mask is that more people are going to get infected and some people are going to die ... I'm hoping people take this penalty very seriously."

RELATED: 'There's just so much uncertainty': Mark Cuban says Texas is 'not yet' ready to reopen Friday

Adler said he will not go to any businesses that have recently reopened until he sees the number of cases that emerge from this past weekend, which may take up to two weeks.

"It takes that long for the virus to manifest and for tests to come back so we are going to be watching the numbers very closely, but it's going to be another 10 days before we know if there are infections that are passing right now," he said.

For the time being, Adler encourages residents in Austin to limit the number of people they are with and to practice social distancing.

Last week, Dallas Mavericks owner, entrepreneur and TV personality Mark Cuban also said he was concerned that Texas may be reopening too soon, saying in an interview that the state is "not yet" ready to return to business.

Click the video below for the full interview with Adler.

Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:
More than 100 sick or injured koalas have been found in bushfire-ravaged parts of Australia by a dog named Bear since the country's horror summer.

The five-year-old Australian koolie dog has been on the ground since November trying to detect surviving koalas in NSW and Queensland.

The life-saving pooch was abandoned by his original owners due to his obsessive compulsive disorder that made him unable to play well with others.

A dog named Bear has helped rescue more than 100 sick or injured koalas in bushfire ravaged areas. Pictured with his handler Dr Romane Cristescu

But Bear was rescued by the University of the Sunshine Coast, and trained to find koalas in desperate need of rescue.

Bear works in the university's Detection Dogs for Conservation team which has been working with the International Fund for Animal Welfare and local wildlife groups to find and rescue koalas in areas devastated by bushfires.

Bear is the only dog in the world that can sniff out both koala faeces and fur.

USC uses a drone equipped with a thermal camera to locate koalas in trees and then Bear is sent in to use his sense of smell to find them. The team of experts assesses the koalas and takes them into care if necessary.

Bear was abandoned by his original owners due to his obsessive compulsive disorder that made him unable to play well with others

The 2019-20 bushfire season was Bear's first deployment onto a fire ground but his handler never doubted his ability.

'We've worked in areas post-fire with other dogs, and they were able to smell their target odours, so it didn't surprise me that Bear could do it,' Dr Romane Cristescu told AAP.

'The catastrophic landscape is really hard for us, but for Bear it's an opportunity for him to be out and play and do what he likes doing.'

Most of the koalas found were near the Two Thumbs Wildlife Sanctuary in the NSW alpine region, Nerriga in the southern tablelands and Kandanga in Queensland's Gympie region.

Ember is one of many koalas that have been rescued and treated after bushfires decimated their food source and natural environment

Despite the bushfire season ending in March, the team is still out on the field searching for sick or injured koalas.

'We're still finding animals that are struggling to find food. They're on the edge of starvation,' Dr Cristescu said.

'If we find them, wildlife carers can plump them up. Their goal is to release them when and where they have a better chance of having food available to them.'

Dr Cristescu acknowledges the bushfire emergency might be out of everyone's minds now but for koalas, it's not over.

Bear is the only dog in the world that can sniff out both koala faeces and fur allowing him to sniff out specific locations for a swift rescue

Many areas of land which were badly burnt haven't recovered and vegetation has not grown back.

'Some places have burnt so much for such a wide area, some species may take decades to recover,' she said.

The USC Detection Dogs for Conservation researcher said the devastating bushfire season left her team in shock, but being able to go into the fire grounds and help was a healing process for them.

IFAW wildlife campaigner Josey Sharrad said Bear brought the team hope during the devastation.

'He found koalas despite all those harrowing conditions. That brought us hope,' she told AAP.

IFAW earlier this year released a report which found more than 6000 koalas died in last summer's bushfires across NSW. They called for an emergency listing of koalas as endangered, to make sure the marsupial is protected as the population starts to recover.

'We don't want people to move on so quickly from the bushfire emergency,' she said.

'Every koala we can track, rescue and rehab counts to the future survival of species.'

IFAW and USC are also working on research looking into how resilient the species are in the hope they can help more koalas survive in the next fire season.
KYODO NEWS - May 4, 2020 - 23:15 | Coronavirus, Japan, All

U.S. biopharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences Inc. said Monday it applied with the Japanese health ministry for approval to use its anti-viral drug remdesivir to treat new coronavirus patients, paving the way for its clearance as early as this week.

Health minister Katsunobu Kato said Saturday he wants to give the green light "in about a week" after an application is made on remdesivir. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday it has authorized the emergency use of the drug for those hospitalized with severe illness caused by the virus.

If approved, remdesivir would be the first therapeutic drug to treat COVID-19 patients in Japan.

The government has revised a Cabinet order so it can fast-track the process to authorize medicines for COVID-19 on condition such drugs have been approved in the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany or in France.

"While there is limited information known about the safety and effectiveness of using remdesivir to treat people in the hospital with COVID-19, the investigational drug was shown in a clinical trial to shorten the time to recovery in some patients," the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a statement on Friday.

Remdesivir was developed as a possible treatment for Ebola, but it has not been licensed or approved anywhere globally. Clinical trials have been under way to confirm the effectiveness and safety of its use for coronavirus patients around the world, including Japan.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday the government also intends to approve homegrown anti-flu drug Avigan to treat patients of COVID-19 later this month. A scientific study in China has shown its effectiveness in treating the disease.
The Capital Region recorded seven more deaths due to COVID-19 on Monday, and at least five of them were tied to area nursing homes.

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy said two more residents of the county-run Shaker Place nursing home died overnight Sunday. One was a woman in her 70s and the other was a woman in her 90s. Both had underlying health issues, he said.

I do want to say to the families out there, our condolences and prayers go out to you and you'll be in our thoughts going forward," he said.

Shaker Place in Colonie has had one of the largest outbreaks among long-term care facilities in the region, with 48 residents and 24 employees testing positive for the virus to date. Six residents have died.

Fifteen employees who have tested positive remain out of work, McCoy said Monday. Nine others have fully recovered and returned to work.

Columbia County, meanwhile, saw two more deaths on Monday. Both were residents of the Grand Rehabilitation and Nursing at Barnwell in Valatie, where a new cluster of cases has emerged.

County Public Health Director Jack Mabb said the home had 37 cases among residents as of Friday  up from just two one week earlier. Staff at the home have also tested positive, but Mabb did not have that number.

The county distributed test kits to the home at the request of the state Department of Health, which wanted to see if the virus had spread within a particular unit, Mabb said Friday.

Latest coronavirus-related cancellations, postponements

The latest coronavirus numbers in NY

Sign up for the Times Union coronavirus newsletter

Full coronavirus coverage

The outbreak at the Grand is the second known outbreak among long-term care facilities in the county. The Pine Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Philmont had at least 50 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Friday, including 35 among residents and 15 among staff. At least nine residents there have died.

Warren County reported its 18th death from the virus on Monday, and confirmed that the victim was a resident of a nursing home in the southern part of the county.

Officials did not provide further information.

Residents of long-term care facilities continue to be especially vulnerable to the virus. To date, 12 of Warren County's 18 deaths have been residents of nursing homes and four have been residents of assisted living facilities. Of the county's 182 confirmed cases so far, 91 are residents of nursing homes and 11 are residents of assisted living facilities.

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

Statewide, anywhere from one-fifth to one-quarter of all deaths have been among residents of long-term care facilities. As of Friday, 3,087 residents of nursing homes and 646 residents of adult care facilities statewide had died from the virus, according to data being kept by the state Department of Health.

Many have criticized a March 25 state directive requiring nursing homes to readmit COVID-positive residents for exacerbating the problem. In recent days, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the facilities have since been instructed that they should only accept COVID-positive residents if they have the capacity to care for them. Those that can't, he said, must tell the state Department of Health, which would then arrange for them to be admitted elsewhere.

Cuomo said the state has several COVID-only nursing home facilities where residents can go if their home can't care for them.

Known cases in the Capital Region

As of Monday, more than 3,000 residents of the Capital District have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Of them, 172 have died.

Below are the known cases, hospitalizations, recoveries and deaths from COVID-19 broken down by county:

Albany  1,224 cases, 32 hospitalized, 7 in ICU, 621 recovered, 49 deaths

Columbia  226 cases, 12 hospitalized, 4 in ICU, 102 recovered, 16 deaths

Fulton  84 cases, 4 deaths

Greene  172 cases, 56 active, 116 resolved, 8 hospitalized, 10 deaths

Montgomery  54 cases, 46 recovered, 2 under medical care, 1 death

Rensselaer  350 cases, 194 recovered, 6 hospitalized, 1 in ICU, 23 deaths

Saratoga  364 cases, 11 hospitalized, 393* recoveries, 14 deaths

Schenectady  518 cases, 20** hospitalized, 367 recoveries, 28 deaths

Schoharie  40 cases, 8 hospitalized, 35 recovered, 1 death

Warren  182 cases, 4 hospitalized, 111 recovered***, 18 deaths

Washington  166 cases, 75 recovered, 8 deaths

*as of April 29, includes recoveries from presumed and confirmed cases

**includes all hospitalizations in county, regardless of patients county of residence

***includes recoveries of presumed and confirmed cases
Coronavirus update: Global cases pass 3.4mn, curve flattening in some countries

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 03 May 2020 11:20 AM

Worldwide, over 3,421,834 people have now been infected with the new coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19.

The pandemic has also killed more than 243,524 people across the globe, according to the latest data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

Many countries have already managed to bring the virus outbreak under control and eased lockdown restrictions that confined hundreds of millions of people to their homes; however, many others are still struggling to rein in the spread.

The US, which stands on the top of the world's worst-hit nations  with 1,132,315 cases and 66,364 deaths  has now given a Swiss drug-maker giant an emergency use authorization for an antibody test.

Swiss multinational healthcare company Roche said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test.

The test  with specificity greater than 99.8%  can determine if people have ever been infected with the virus and developed antibodies against it.

Roche said it has already started shipping the new test to top laboratories globally and will step up production to "high double-digit millions per month."

China reports 2 new cases, one imported

Meanwhile, China  the first ever nation to report the coronavirus late last year  reported only two new cases, and no additional deaths.

The national Health Commission reported a total number of 82,877 cases and 4,633 deaths on the mainland from the viral infection, which first emerged in the central city of Wuhan in December 2019.

As China has eased curbs on travel and relaxed rules on quarantine, the country's most populous cities started to see a spike in the number of outbound travelers on Saturday, the first day of a long holiday weekend in China.

The number of people traveling outside their home cities jumped nearly 50 percent at the start of the Labor Day weekend, according to Reuters.

The Ministry of Transportation expects 23.36 million travelers a day during the five-day holiday.

South Korea reports 13 new cases

South Korea reported 13 new cases of infection, but no additional deaths as of Sunday morning.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has so far reported 10,793 cases of COVID-19 and 250 deaths.

COVID-19 on the rise in India's crowded jails

Meanwhile, India is struggling with the rise of COVID-19 cases in its crowded prisons, raising concern among health experts who warned that the facilities are serving as breeding grounds for the virus.

That has prompted authorities to impose jail lockdowns and release thousands of pretrial detainees on parole.

"It is a terrifying situation," said Madhurima Dhanuka, head of the Prison Reforms Program for the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative."If measures aren't taken soon, then things can become extremely difficult."

There are no official numbers on how many prisoners have been infected, though.

India has reported a total number of 39,90 cases and 1,323 deaths.

Outbreak in Europe's hotspots

In some European countries,the curve of infection has started to flatten.

Nevertheless, Italy has reported a spike in deaths and in the United Kingdom,the outbreak has showed no signs of slowing down.

Italy, the worst-affected nation after the US, reported some 474 new deaths  up from 269 on Friday - raising the total number of fatalities to 28,710.

Figures released Saturday showed 1,900 new cases, compared with 1,965 a day earlier.

The country currently has 209,328 positive cases of COVID-19, and 28,710 deaths.

The UK reported a total of 621 more deaths, 454 of which occurred in hospitals.

The Department of Health also began counting deaths in care homes on Wednesday.

The total death toll now tops 28,131, with some 182,260 positive cases across the UK.

Spain with the steepest virus curve, has reported almost 254,567 known cases and 25,100 deaths.

Officials have announced that wearing face masks will be mandatory in public transportation in the coming weeks.

France on Saturday announced an extension of a health state of emergency until July 24.

It has so far reported 168,396 known cases and 24,760 deaths.

Germany reported 793 new cases and 74 additional deaths on Saturday.

The country's total death toll reached 6,812, with the number of known cases reported at 164,967.

Germany has had a death toll, far lower than Italy, Spain and France.

Russia, meanwhile, said the number of positive COVID-19 cases has been growing rapidly.

On Saturday, health officials reported 9,623 new cases, with the majority recorded in the capital Moscow.

The mayor of Moscow has warned that hospitals could soon be overrun with patients.

Footage of cadavers sparks protest near Mexico hospital

Families of people infected with coronavirus in an impoverished satellite city of Mexico's capital, Mexico City, have held a protest, demanding news of their sick relatives and the return of bodies of the dead.

The demonstration was held after videos surfaced on social media showing cadavers at a hospital.

One video of the Las Americas general hospital in Ecatepec showed several bagged bodies on stretchers, some in a small room and others lined against a courtyard wall. The protesters blocked a highway outside the hospital.

Authorities said the hospital, which is run by the health ministry, would try to hasten the delivery of bodies to families.

Mexico reported 1,349 new cases of infection and 89 more deaths on Saturday.The new figure brings the total number of cases to 22,088, along with 2,061 deaths.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address










Haiti - News : Zapping...





Jeremie : 2 Pastors arrested

Sunday in Jeremie, denounced by the population, two pastors were arrested (Joseph Bertony Brunache of the Church of God in Bordes and Carl Sunday of the Church of living God), for violation of health measures of the state of Emergency. At the time of their arrest, the churches of these pastors were full of worshipers while the Government prohibited any gathering of more than 10 people.



Fire on Boulevard Harry Truman

On Sunday afternoon, the premises of the Association of Driver Guides of Haiti, located on Boulevard Harry Truman, were destroyed by a violent fire, the origin of which remains unknown at the moment. The assessment is expected in the coming hours.



Covid-19 : Great acceleration of cases around mid-May ?

According to Doctor Junot Felix specialist in health system and professor at the University, speaking on the radio of the capital "When the virus begins to spread in tap taps and working-class neighborhoods, the cases of contamination will multiply at high speed" believing that this could happen around mid-May...



PNH : Results of the Nippes

Wisnel Decembre the spokesperson of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) in the department of Nippes took stock of the operations during the month of April, period during which 64 individuals were arrested including 32 in flagrante delicto, for various crimes including, but not limited to : assault and battery, criminal association, illegal possession of a firearm and theft.



Religion : Thousands of masks for the faithful

As part of the continuing mobilization of the religious sector against the Covid-19, Claude Joseph, the Minister of Worship, met Cardinal Chibly Langlois in Les Cayes and gave him thousands of masks for the Catholic faithful in the region.



In addition, he visited the Evangelical Baptist Mission of Southern Haiti (MEBSH) and met with its President, the reverent Alneve Emile, of the urgency to maintain the mobilization against Covid-19 through the churches and took the opportunity to give him a lot of mask for the protection of the faithful.



World Press Freedom Day

"On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, the Government takes this opportunity to acknowledge the intensive involvement of the media in raising awareness to limit the spread of the Covid-19 virus in the country," declared the Secretary of State for Communication, Eddy J. Alexis.



"Aware of the importance of the media for democracy, the Ministry of Culture and Communication through the Office of the Secretary of State for Communication, reaffirms the will of the Government to continue to guarantee freedom of the press and of expression while promoting the full development of the communication and media sector, so that they are even more dynamic and professional..." See also : https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-30688-icihaiti-politic-journalism-without-fear-or-favour.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Kathmandu, May 4

Nearly, 3,500 Nepali workers in Kuwait, working and living undocumented, have submitted their applications to the host government seeking repatriation. However, it is not certain when they will be sent back to Nepal as the Nepal government has barred anyone from entering the country now to control the coronavirus outbreak.

The applicants are currently staying at government-run shelters along with other similar workers from other countries. Earlier last month, the host government had urged the undocumented workers to register for repatriation.

The government has said that the workers applying for repatriation in this scheme will be sent back to their countries at the governments expense. They will not be punished for their illegal stay and will be allowed to come back legally.

The Kuwaiti government has started negotiations with the Nepal government to repatriate them as soon as possible. Consequently, the workers have also prepared their luggage and other belongings for their travel home.

The Nepali Embassy in Kuwait says around 3,000 Nepalis have applied to the embassy for travel documents recently.

An official in the Ministry of Labour and Employment in Nepal says there are around 7,000 undocumented Nepali workers in Kuwait, but only around half of them chose to repatriate.
A second face-off between security forces and terrorists, not far from the Handwara house in north Kashmir where a bloody firefight killed 5 soldiers, appears to be part of a Pakistan attempt to rewrite the script for terrorism in Kashmir, a top security official told Hindustan Times on Monday evening.

Just minutes earlier, two young men had opened fire at CRPF jawans at a security checkpoint when they were busy checking out some movement in the adjoining orchard. Two jawans were killed on the spot, the third succumbed to the gunshots later. A civilian who was caught in the cross-firing also died.

The attack is considered brazen not just because of how the terrorists targeted security personnel at a checkpoint, but also the timing.

In an overnight operation in another part of Handwara over the weekend, the security establishment had lost four soldiers including the commanding officer of the battalion Colonel Ashutosh Sharma and a police officer. At the end of the 13-hour long operation, two bodies of terrorists were found. One of them was said to be a top Lashkar commander Haider, a Pakistani national.

Top intelligence officials told Hindustan Times that they have decided to keep an open mind about the number of terrorists involved in the Handwara encounter and ascertain if this group had recently infiltrated into India.

Handwara falls along the infiltration route from the Leepa Valley.

Intelligence agencies had earlier pointed to terror launch pads that had been activated in Pakistan-occupied Kashmirs Dudhnial, Sharda and Athmuqam across the Keran sector on this side of the Line of Control.

It was in the Keran sector in early April that a team of army commandos killed the entire infiltrating batch of five terrorists in a close-quarter battle. Five Special Forces commandos had laid down their lives in this operation carried out in heavy snow.

Counter-terror operatives said about 25-30 terrorists are believed to have slipped through the security grid along the LoC in April alone.

The developments of the last two days appears to indicate, a senior security official said, that Kupwara district, particularly Handwara, would be the hotbed of action this summer.

This assessment also matches with intelligence inputs that suggest the Pakistan-backed terrorist groups would focus on north Kashmir. There would be some intermittent attacks elsewhere too, like the grenade that terrorists threw at CISF jawans at a power facility in Budgam. A CISF jawan escaped with some splinter injuries in his leg.

Pakistan has for years, tried to give Kashmir terrorism a local face. There was a renewed attempt at this makeover in recent months. According to an assessment presented to national security planners in late April, the ISI had messaged the 100-odd foreign terrorists to lie low and let the local terrorists front the battle with security forces.

Foreign terrorists are seen to be consolidating logistics, expanding the overground workers facilitation network and concentrating on recruitment of Kashmiri youth, the report accessed by Hindustan Times said. Foreign terrorists had accordingly stepped up efforts to radicalise the youth in the Doda-Kishtwar-Ramban range to prepare them for recruitment.

The intelligence brief had also predicted a spike in terror activities and attacks from April, after the starting of Ramzan.

Our assessment is that the next 10-14 days are going to be crucial very crucial, a top intelligence official said, alluding to inputs that indicated an effort by terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed to carry out simultaneous suicide attacks targetting army and central paramilitary bases.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Union government will facilitate the return of Indians stranded abroad and the process will begin from May 7 in a phased manner.

In a statement, the Home Ministry said only asymptomatic people would be allowed to travel and it would be arranged by aircraft and naval ships, and the facility will be available on a payment basis.

After their arrival in India, medical examination will be conducted on everyone and they will be subsequently put under quarantine for 14 days, either in a hospital or in an institutional facility, the ministry said.

"The government of India will be facilitating the return of Indian nationals stranded abroad on compelling grounds in a phased manner. The travel would begin from May 7," it said.

The government has prepared the standard operating protocol (SOP), and the Indian embassies and high commissions are preparing a list of distressed citizens, according to the ministry.

"This facility would be made available on payment-basis. Non-scheduled commercial flights would be arranged for air travel," it said.

Medical screening of passengers will be done before taking the flight and only asymptomatic passengers will be allowed to travel. During the journey, they will have to follow the protocols, such as the health protocols issued by the Health Ministry and the Civil Aviation Ministry, it said.

"On reaching the destination, everyone would have to register on the Arogya Setu app," the Home Ministry said.

"Everyone would be medically screened. After scrutiny, they would be quarantined for 14 days, either in a hospital or in an institutional quarantine on payment-basis, by the concerned state government," it said.

COVID-19 tests will be done after 14 days and further action would be taken according to health protocols, the statement said.

The Ministries of External Affairs and Civil Aviation will soon share detailed information about it through their websites, it said.

"The state governments are being advised to make arrangements, including for testing, quarantine and onward movement of the returning Indians in their respective states," the ministry said.

India banned arrival of international flights beginning March 23. The 21-day lockdown was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 in a bid to combat the the novel coronavirus pandemic. It was first extended till May 3 and then again till May 17.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
California lawmakers return to the Capitol this week to begin what they describe as necessary but painful negotiations to keep the state running and redirect dwindling funds to the costly coronavirus pandemic.

Leaders of the state Senate and Assembly have asked them to pursue only COVID-related or "essential" bills.

But many legislators say they aren't letting go of their pre-COVID agendas. They're pushing ahead with measures to tax soda, ban flavored tobacco products, reform mental health care and expand public insurance to undocumented immigrants age 65 and up, arguing that the virus's devastating reach underscores just how badly California needs to bolster its public health system.

"This pandemic has highlighted all the gaps, all the disparities in our California health care system," state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) said at a recent virtual town hall meeting with health care advocates. Durazo is the author of one of the bills to expand California's Medicaid program to older unauthorized immigrants.

After enjoying years of healthy budget surpluses, California is facing the prospect of a major shortfall  reflecting the double whammy of the unprecedented economic shutdown and the pouring of public funds into the pandemic response. It's unclear exactly how large a shortfall, partly because the state gave taxpayers until July 15 to file their income taxes. One estimate by Legislative Analyst Gabriel Petek puts the deficit at $35 billion for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

That's a stark contrast to the $5.6 billion budget surplus Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom had projected at the beginning of the year, when he touted proposals to address chronic homelessness, reduce prescription drug prices and increase investments in mental health treatment.

Those plans and other work at the Capitol came to an abrupt halt in March when the coronavirus forced the legislature to shut down unexpectedly.

During the recess, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins urged lawmakers in a memo to "put on pause" existing bills and take up only "the most pressing issues."

"I have asked Senators to reconsider their priorities and reduce the number of bills they carry," the San Diego Democrat wrote.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, a Democrat from Lakewood, asked lawmakers in his house to focus on "essential" bills this year, said Katie Talbot, his spokesperson.

For bills that carry a price tag, Assembly Budget Committee Chair Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) wrote in a memo, "we will no longer be able to consider new priorities and ideas from stakeholders, advocates and Members, with the exception of COVID-19 related costs, wildfire prevention, and homelessness funding."

The Assembly reconvenes Monday and the Senate on May 11.

The governor will release his revised 2020-21 state budget proposal on May 14. After that, the legislature has about a month to hammer out a final spending deal with Newsom's administration.

Unlike in previous recessions, the administration and lawmakers are talking about health care spending bumps rather than cuts because of the nature of the COVID-19 crisis.

"When we had the fires, the voices of emergency folks were prominent in the budget discussions," said Leonor Ehling, executive director of the Center for California Studies at California State University-Sacramento, who spent 20 years working in the legislature. "Now what public health officials say about spending will have added weight."

At a budget hearing in late April, a top state Department of Finance official told lawmakers that investments in health "are certainly at the top of our list."

"We're trying to figure out how to put out a revised budget that will have cuts, but making sure that we reduce the impact and minimize it on the most vulnerable people," said Vivek Viswanathan, the department's chief deputy director for budget.

But what falls under the umbrella of "COVID-related" appears to be broad and subjective. And even advocates for certain issues aren't always on the same side about whether to wait until next year or move forward.

In special budget hearings over the past three weeks, lawmakers agreed the state must secure more masks and other protective gear  not just for front-line hospital workers but also for dentists, primary care doctors, grocery store workers and others who will be instrumental in reopening the economy.

They want California to increase diagnostic testing for COVID-19, deploy thousands of contract tracers to track down and monitor people exposed to COVID-19 patients, and ensure there are safe quarantine locations for infected people. Lawmakers from rural areas want the state to help pay for their coronavirus costs, noting that federal funding went largely to urban regions.

Other lawmakers are seeking hazard pay for some nursing home workers, stipends for nursing students, exemptions for hospitals from state seismic standards and more residency slots for medical students.

"Hospitals are losing money.  Primary care doctors are dropping their visits," said Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), himself a pediatrician. "A lot of people are in a world of hurt right now."

But some lawmakers say they intend to advocate for issues that aren't directly related to the crisis, issues that in some cases have been debated in the legislature for years.

Assembly member Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) intends to push for a soda tax, although lawmakers have rejected soda taxes several times. Under the measure, proceeds from the tax would fund community health programs.

Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) wants to ban retail sales of flavored tobacco products, which are popular with young people. He hopes his bill will resonate with his colleagues, noting the World Health Organization has linked smoking to COVID-19.

"They've sounded the alarm that persons, if they use tobacco, if they smoke, if they vape, they're at risk of suffering the worst and most deadly symptoms of COVID-19," Hill said. "To me, that's significantly important in moving this legislation forward."

Durazo, who is carrying one of the measures to expand Medicaid to older unauthorized immigrants, insists the legislature must act quickly. She is framing it as the humane thing to do, and necessary to help stem the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

California already offers full Medicaid benefits to income-eligible residents up to age 26, regardless of their immigration status. Newsom has yet to say whether he will support spending $80.5 million in the next fiscal year to expand the program  a price tag that worries even some supporters of the idea.

"I am concerned about how our economy is going to come out of this pandemic," said Assembly member Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno).

Ting, a key voice in health care funding, echoed that sentiment. He said some lawmakers are just going to have to adjust to the financial realities of the pandemic.

"We know there is no sector of the state left untouched by this pandemic," he said. "Our biggest challenge, unlike the federal government, is that we cannot deficit-spend. It limits our ability to do all the help that everyone is asking us to do."

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.
The secretary of the Senate said Monday that it cannot comply with Joe Biden's request to release any documents pertaining to a sexual harassment complaint that Tara Reade allegedly made against him in 1993.

The state of play: The office said it had been advised by the Senate's legal counsel that it "has no discretion to disclose" any information pertaining to Reade because of confidentiality requirements under federal law.

Reade has stated she filed a written complaint with a "Senate personnel office" while working in his office as a staffer.

Biden said last week those records would not be with his Senate papers currently held at the University of Delaware  but at the National Archives, under the secretary of the Senate's purview.

He also personally addressed Reade's allegation of sexual assault for the first time, saying it "never happened."

Bob Bauer, an attorney on the Biden team, responded to the secretary's office with three questions:

Is just the existence of any such records subject to the same prohibition on disclosure? Is there anyone, such as a complainant, to whom such records, if they exist, could lawfully be disclosed? Could the Senate release the procedures and related materials, including any standard forms or instructions, that the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices followed in 1993 for the intake and processing of any complaint of this kind?

The big picture: Reade told AP this weekend that even if the complaint were found, that she neither used the phrase "sexual harassment" in it nor described the alleged assault.
A headteacher worried about the impact of the loss of free school meals on his students spoke out today about how an urgent call to our campaign partner, The Felix Project, has secured meals for more than 70 of their most vulnerable families.

Gary Kynaston, headteacher of Hammersmith Academy in Shepherd's Bush, said: "I've worked for 30 years in city education and I recognise the immediate need for children that are coming from low income backgrounds.

"From an educational perspective, children can't learn if they're hungry and over 50 per cent of our families have had a free school meal over the last six years.

"The number of families arriving now for food since lockdown has more than doubled in four weeks. Within a month we've gone from feeding 30 families to approximately 70 families."

Bobby Ho from Hammersmith Academy, Sonia Khamlichi from Medidata who donated more than 180 face masks to the school's PPE drive, and Gary Kynaston (Hammersmith Academy)

He added: "We receive food from The Felix Project and we create food packages comprising mixed bags of vegetables and non-perishables and redistribute that to our families who are self-isolating or struggling on low income.

"The Felix Project initially delivered 15 to 20 crates three times a week, before upping the supply to up to 50 crates."

Hammersmith Academy is one of over 100 schools and charities being supplied by The Felix Project, along with giant community hubs in 14 boroughs as the food surplus distribution charity quadruples their supply to 40 tonnes a day, the equivalent of 100,000 meals, to help Londoners in need.

Damien Conrad manages Felix's food hubs from home where he is self-isolating in a multi-generation household / Sharon Conrad

Our Food For London Now appeal is helping Felix tackle this surging demand and has so far raised 3 million towards a 10 million target to help Felix feed Londons vulnerable who are unable to afford or access enough food over the next three years.

Today we have launched an online series profiling some of the faces behind our campaign and it kicks off with two interviews  one with Mr Kynaston and another with Damien Conrad, who has continued to manage Felixs distribution operations while self-isolating at home in a multi-generation household.

Mr Conrad said they were witnessing some examples of incredible collaboration and people power.

He described how the Greater London Authority had contacted Felix about a vulnerable family who are unable to leave their home as they are at high-risk of contracting Covid-19.

Within hours a volunteer from Alfalah food bank had visited the home with food packages.

"They had got their first food package via the shielded group but they hadn't eaten since then," he said.

"The woman's response to the Felix food was amazement and enormous gratitude. She said: 'how on earth did you find us? Who has joined these dots? Who has made these connections? Thank you ever so much'."

Mr Conrad added: "The demand from each borough is enormous and it's growing daily as more people go onto benefits, lose their jobs and go into furlough."

Donate at virginmoneygiving.com/fund/FoodforLondonNOW
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4) - The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) said it owes 7 billion to some 5,000 hospitals, clinics, and other health facilities due to unreturned claims.

PhilHealth President and CEO Ricardo Morales clarified, however, that it is normal for a large corporation like the state insurer to have accounts payable or debts with some hospitals.

We have always accounts payable at any time. Because we are a large corporation, we transact about 1 million claims a month, we pay out between 10 to 12 billion a month, he told CNN Philippines News Night.

READ: UST Hospital defers retrenchment of workers

Morales explained that the amount they owe with some hospitals is called a Return to Hospital claim, which is a claim redirected back to the health facility due to deficiency in documents or requirements.

Because sometimes the claims is [sic] not complete, may hindi compliant sa requirement (some are not compliant with the requirement), so we return this to the hospital. At the end of 2019, this accounted to 12 billion for the 5,000 or more hospitals, clinics, he said. As of latest count, we have reduced it to 7 billion. So nababayaran namin yan (So we are able to pay them).

Morales said PhilHealth is trying to adapt to a computerized mode of transaction with hospitals to avoid fraud and faster release of payment.
Syrian Troops Demine Hundreds of Hectares of Land in Bid to Rebuild War-Torn Nation

Sputnik News

15:55 GMT 03.05.2020

Damascus has estimated that it will cost between $200 and $400 billion to rebuild the infrastructure damaged or destroyed during the foreign-backed-civil war which kicked off in 2011. It remains unclear where the money will come from, as the US and its Syrian Kurdish militia allies have taken control of much of Syria's oil-rich eastern territories.

Syrian troops have demined another 1.7 hectares (4.2 acres) of territory in the past 24 hours, the Russian Defence Ministry's Centre for Reconciliation has reported.

"Over the past 24 hours, Syrian Army engineering units performed mine clearance in Abril, Duma, Mazraat Mahmoud and Haush al-Farah (Damascus province), Jasim, Anhul, Kafar Shams and El Harrah (Daraa province). 1.7 hectares of land have been cleared. 43 explosive objects have been found and destroyed," the Centre said in a statement.

Syrian forces, some of them trained by their Russian counterparts, have been engaged in systematic demining operations for almost two years now, with Russian sappers sent to the country to assist in the demining of hundreds of buildings, dozens of kilometers of roads, and dozens of hectares of land in war-torn areas like Palmyra, Homs, and Aleppo between 2016 and 2018. The Center for Reconciliation has been reporting on Syrian mine clearance activities since August 2018, with crude estimates suggesting that roughly 600 hectares have been cleared, with thousands of explosive objects destroyed, over the last year and a half.

The demining efforts are part of a broader series of measures by Syrian authorities to return life to normal following the destruction or withdrawal of the vast majority of mostly Islamist jihadist militias which fought in the country throughout most of the 2010s. Other efforts have included rebuilding cities, roads and social infrastructure, and confiscating catches of military equipment abandoned by fleeing militants which continue to be found to this day.

President Bashar Assad has estimated that would take at least 10-15 years and the equivalent of $200-$400 billion to restore Syria's infrastructure to prewar levels. These rebuilding efforts have been complicated by US moves to seize control of eastern Syria's oil and gas fields (accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly revenue before the war), and continuing US and European sanctions against Damascus, affecting everything from fuel supplies to medical equipment.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Music video director, Clarence Peters has debunked claims surrounding the death of Kodak, the video vixen who died from electrocution.

According to Clarence Peters, no one has been arrested or arraigned by the police over her death as reported.

He also stated that he was not in the building where Kodak died but was in another building close to the one where the incident happened.

A statement issued reads: On the 29th of April 2020, Love Divine Ike (Picture Kodak) was in the dance studio, on the premises of Capital Dreams Pictures, with 5 other team members and myself  7 people in total.

At about 7:30 pm on the same day, while in another office  a building beside the dance studio, on the same premises, some people who were said to be with Love Divine at the time, rushed in and called my attention to the fact that Love Divine had collapsed.

We immediately rushed her to the nearest hospital, which refused to let us into their premises, let alone admit her. They assumed she was a Covid-19 patient.

We tried, but we were not able to gain entry into a second hospital. We eventually got her to a third hospital where she was pronounced dead 30 minutes after arrival.

I was not physically in the same room as her when the incident occurred, and when I inquired, I was told by those present at the scene that Love Divine, while taking a break from the dance session, was sitting on one of the metal sliding door rails, charging and using her phone plugged to an extension box.

The witnesses didnt realize anything was wrong, until they saw she had laid down, and they noticed smoke coming from her chest area.

She was said to be electrocuted, her phone was found on her chest, with severe burn marks, and the phones imprint on her chest.

The witnesses were taken to the Ojodu Police Headquarters straight from the hospital where statements were taken and the phone (which had traces of burnt flesh on it) was deposited.

Governor Sanwo-Olu declares emergency on Lagos roads

The following day, the Police conducted an examination of the body and were taken to the scene of the incident for further examination.

The Police are currently carrying out a full-scale investigation into the events that occurred, and an autopsy will be carried out, with the full permission and consent of her family.

Please note that no one has been charged or arrested, by the Police. The witnesses and I willingly made ourselves available to the Police and we have all pledged our full co-operation, through every part of this process. I will be helping out in every possible capacity.

Love Divine and the entire WestLifeCrew was a huge part of Capital Dreams Pictures, and losing her hurts us all deeply.

She was an exemplary person, and a legend in her own rights. We will miss her very much.

Words will never be enough to describe what her family is going through in these things trying times. My thoughts and prayers are with them, and I ask God to grant them all the strength & fortitude at this time.

This is a truly difficult time for us all, and were asking for a lot of patience and goodwill from the general public, in these difficult times.

May God help us through this.

The post Clearance Peters debunks reports that he was arrested over Kodaks death appeared first on .

Share this post with your Friends on
Saudi-based Acwa Power said its consortium with Gulf Investment Corporation and AlBawani Water & Power Company has signed a major water purchase agreement with the Saudi Water Partnership Company for a greenfield sea water reverse osmosis desalination project being built at an investment of $650 million in Jubail city.

On completion, the Jubail 3A Independent Water Plant (IWP) will boast a capacity of 600,000 cu m of potable water/day, thus contributing to Saudi efforts to ensure water security.

The 25-year agreement was signed with Abdulrahman Abdulmohsen A. AlFadley, Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture and Chairman of the Board Directors of SWPC.

The project will be delivered by Acwa Power, Gulf Investment Corporation and Al Bawani, while the Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) contract has been awarded to a consortium comprising Power China, Sepco-III and Abengoa.

Under the terms of the partnership, the consortium led by Acwa Power will design, construct, commission, operate and maintain the desalination plant as well as associated potable water storage and electrical special facilities, said the statement from Acwa Power.

Lauding the deal, Saudi Water Partnership Company CEO Khaled Al Qureshi said: "In alignment with our mission to ensure adequate water production capacity for Saudi Arabia, we are keen to work closely with Acwa Power, a Saudi company with international expertise, as our trusted partner."

The Jubail 3A is a highly significant project for the Saudi water sector, featuring storage facilities as well as in-house solar power to reduce any burden on the energy grid. It will also be crucial in meeting growing water demand, supplying Riyadh, Qassim and the Eastern Provinces with much needed potable water, he added.

Acwa Power CEO Paddy Padmanathan pointed out that building sustainable water security was a key priority for the kingdom.

"We are well positioned to ensure long term availability and supply of reliable, low-cost water resources needed to advance socio-economic progress," he noted.

Acwa Power, he stated, would continue to contribute strongly to the kingdoms National Water Strategy 2030 and Vision 2030 by utilising its considerable global expertise to provide solutions that best support national interests.

"We are delighted to collaborate with SWPC on this major project and are confident that the Jubail 3A IWP will play a significant role in enhancing critical water infrastructure for the country," he observed.

"Desalinated water makes up 63 per cent of water consumed in Saudi Arabia and Acwa Power is a leading industry player in the kingdom's water sector," said Padmanathan.

"It has been entrusted with several major desalination projects in the country including the Rabigh IWP, Shuqaiq IWPP and the Shuaibah plants," he added.

Chief Investment Officer Rajit Nanda said Acwa Power brings recognized sector expertise and a well demonstrated track record in successfully operating key projects under the KSA public-private partnership framework."

"Jubail 3A IWP is an important addition to our rapidly expanding portfolio of projects and is an endorsement of our capacity and capability to deliver sustainable results, benefitting the communities we serve," he added.

GIC Group Head (Principal Investments) Meshary Al Judaimi said Saudi Arabia has successfully attracted local, regional and international private sector investment into the countrys water and power sector.

This project will continue to increase the efficiency of the sector with private developers using up to date technology and good utility practice at a very economical price," stated Al Judaimi.

"Winning Jubail 3A project reinforces GIC role in supporting private sector participation in the development of the GCC economies," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
New Delhi : In order to boost the morale of the entrepreneurs who have been suffering due to the lockdown, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has been talking to various stakeholders and telling them not to lose hope. Gadkari has been using social media and other means like video conferencing to reach out to people, entrepreneurs and industry leaders.

Gadkari is even reaching out to foreign students, seeking their suggestions on how to bring the battered economy back on track. He believes only dialogue can solve problems.

According to a top official of the MSME ministry, Gadkari makes a point in all meetings that there is a need to convert this crisis into an opportunity. "He tries to instil a sense of hope amidst all the gloom. It has positive impact on the stakeholders as it is coming from none other than a minister," the official said.

He held a talk 'Response to global pandemic, Roadmap for India' with students of Indian origin living in 43 countries including Britain, Canada, Singapore and Australia recently. During the talk he appealed to them to play an active part in the fight against the coronavirus and said that the youth have the ability to take the country forward. He asked them to work on innovative ideas in this direction. He also asked them to take advantage of the situation arising from the world's disillusionment with China.

During a recent meet with representatives of Assocham on reviving the MSME sector, Gadkari said that the Japanese government has recommended a special package for its industry to pull out of China and invest elsewhere. Gadkari termed it a big opportunity for India to take advantage of the situation. "There is a need to forge new partnership to establish joint ventures in India to attract global firms. We need to meet the global demand apart from meeting domestic demand as many companies now want to get out of China."

Gadkari also emphasised on the need to lessen the burden of big cities such as Gurugram, Delhi and Mumbai as economic drivers. He said there is a need to create economic and industrial clusters outside the big cities to drive growth.

Gadkari said currently work on 22 expressways is going on at a fast pace. The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is one of them where there is an opportunity of investment in IT Parks, Logistics and industrial units.

Gadkari has spoken to representatives of Ficci, Assocham, CREDAI and leaders of other business organisations since the lockdown came into force on March 24.

According to ministry officials, Gadkari has reached out to at least 10,000 industry leaders during the lockdown period and has discussed its economic fallout and how to revive the economy post lockdown.


WASHINGTON  Jonathan Karl writes in his new book that President Trump is waging an assault on truth, but also details the ways in which the celebrity star turned commander in chief strategically baits the press into personal grudge matches that undercut the credibility of the media.

Too often in the Trump era, the press has looked like an opposition party, Karl said in an interview on The Long Game, a Yahoo News podcast.

Karl is chief White House correspondent for ABC News, and first interviewed Donald Trump in 1994 as a reporter at the New York Post. Since then, Karl said, he has lost count of how many times he has interviewed Trump. Its probably a couple dozen times and might even be more, Karl said.

Whats clear from the book  Front Row at the Trump Show  is that Karl and Trump know each other well, and have something of a working relationship, even though Trump called Karl a third-rate reporter earlier this month during a press briefing.

He knows that even as he gets irritated by my questions or my reporting, he knows that I treat him with respect and I treat the institution of the presidency with respect. I think he appreciates that, Karl said.

Karl uses his long track record with Trump as an effective backdrop to illustrate the way that Trump, as president, has conducted a Dr.-Jekyll-and-Mr.-Hyde routine  with the news media since the early days of his presidential campaign.

The 52-year-old journalist describes multiple occasions when the 73-year-old president has switched on a dime from friendly and magnanimous toward him in private to hostile and angry in front of a crowd, or vice versa. At a Florida rally in the fall of 2018, Trump praised Karl to others backstage after an interview and then minutes later encouraged a large crowd to jeer at Karl and others in the press pen.

Jonathan Karl. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Heidi Gutman/ABC via Getty Images, Alex Brandon/AP)

In December 2015, Trump was enraged by Karls questions during an interview moments before he took the stage in Iowa. Once Trump was out of view of any TV cameras, he began to scream and curse at Karl backstage. Moments later onstage, he joked with the crowd about how Russian President Vladimir Putin has reporters killed. I would never kill [journalists]. But I do hate them, Trump told his supporters. And some of them are lying, disgusting people.

Story continues

And then, backstage again, Trump took more questions from Karl and persuaded him to pose for a photograph afterward together.

The artifice of it all, Karl argues, demonstrates that it is part of Trumps intentional strategy. He wants to define the media as the opposition party, Karl writes in his book.

He may be at war with the news media, but he is also in love with the news media. ... He sees the public jousting with the press as a critical component of the Trump shows success, Karl writes.

Karl describes a conversation with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who told him that the media is a better opponent for Trump than the Democrats, because many voters who were key to getting Trump elected in 2016  white working-class people from union households in the Rust Belt  still have some loyalties to Democrats.

And Karl relates a comment Trump made to Lesley Stahl, a CBS journalist for 60 Minutes. Trump told her he attacks the media so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.

Karls book argues that the press plays into Trumps hands when reporters take his attacks on them personally. The attacks can be unnerving, writes Karl, who details several that Trump has made on him. Its tempting to respond or hit back. If you do, it becomes a story about the conflict between a reporter and the president  in other words, exactly what he wants.

Karl specifically criticizes CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta, who is a pariah to Trump supporters, for personalizing Trumps attacks on the press and making himself part of the Trump show. Karl argues that this essentially benefits both Trump and Acosta. It gives Trump a villain to fight, and it makes Acosta famous. Acosta has declined to comment publicly about Karls criticisms, and did so once again when asked by Yahoo News to respond.

A White House staff member reaches for the microphone held by CNN's Jim Acosta as he questions President Trump during a 2018 news conference. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

But in an interview, Karl said that its not really so much any individual. Its kind of the cumulative effect.

If you turn on cable news at any point over the past three years, you can be guaranteed  you're going to be seeing a story: Look at that, can you believe what he just did? Oh, my God, this is the worst thing, Karl said. Some of those things have been really awful and terrible and they needed to be talked about, but theres no sense of variation. Some of the stuffs been pretty trivial and its been crazy tweets.

The effect of playing into Trumps hands, Karl said, is really dangerous.

You have basically a third of the country, maybe more, that essentially wont believe anything that they see in a newspaper or in a television news report, he said.

In his book, Karl writes that for all the spinning and stonewalling I have encountered in a career covering politics, the disregard for the truth I have witnessed at the Trump White House is qualitatively different.

The president himself has waged a sustained campaign to make people think the truth is a lie whenever he doesnt like the truth or it makes him look bad, Karl writes. This isnt the dodging and weaving you expect to see from politicians, including presidents. This is an assault on truth itself.

_____

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:
A special train with 1,186 passengers on board left for Dankuni junction of West Bengal from Rajasthan's Ajmer on Monday.

The special train was arranged for the pilgrims who were stranded at the Ajmer dargah area, a senior official of the state government said.

A spokesperson of the north western railway said the train left on Monday for Dankuni, near Kolkata in West Bengal.

"All the protocols of social distancing, screening were followed while allowing the passengers to board the train. Seating arrangements were also made as per social distancing norms," he said.

The pilgrims were stranded in Ajmer ever since the lockdown was imposed in March.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with Sarpanchs across the country through Video-Conferencing on Panchayati Raj Divas in New Delhi on April 24, 2020. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, May 4 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi subtly shamed Pakistan for perpetrating cross-border terrorism in India and running propaganda to create a wedge between India and its allies at the web-summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) nations.

Though the Prime Minister did not mention Pakistan by name, he said that even as the world was fighting COVID-19, "some people are busy spreading other deadly viruses such as terrorism, fake news and doctored videos to divide communities and countries." The summit was held on Monday, at the initiative of President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, the current chair of the NAM, to enhance coordination of the member states in their fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Pakistan, represented by President Arif Alvi, participated in the summit as well.

After the UN, the NAM is the biggest group of countries with 120 members. This was the first time that Prime Minister Modi attended the NAM summit after assuming office in his first term in 2014. He had skipped the 2016 summit, becoming the first Indian Prime Minister to do so.

Modi on Monday at the NAM summit said that the coronavirus pandemic had demonstrated the limitations of the existing international system. "In the post-Covid world," Prime Minister said, "we need a new template of globalisation based on fairness, equality and humanity. We need international institutions that are more representative of today's world." India has been persistently and emphatically asking for structural reforms in global institutions since the pandemic hit the world.

Though the NAM has been considered irrelevant and ineffective, Prime Minister Modi on Monday said, "Today, humanity faces its most serious crisis in many decades. At this time, NAM can help promote global solidarity." The movement, he said, has often been the world's moral voice. "To retain this role, NAM must remain inclusive," he said.

Briefing the NAM summit about India's efforts in combating the pandemic, Modi said, "Despite our own needs, we have ensured medical supplies to our 123 partner countries including 59 members of Non-Aligned Movement. We are active in global efforts to develop remedies and vaccines." During this crisis, the Prime Minister said, "we have shown how democracy, discipline and decisiveness can create a genuine people's movement."
United States President Donald Trump, citing treatment for diseases such as cancer, stated that it was important for the hospitals to attend the other patients as well. Trump said that many citizens are not able to undergo basic medical surgeries because of the focus on coronavirus.

READ: Trump Wants To Switch Focus, Push For Economic Reopening

POTUS bats for allowing other treatments

Thousands of Americans, including those with serious illnesses such as cancer, have helped slow the spread of Coronavirus by delaying procedures and treatment.



We must safely reopen our country and hospitals soonwe owe it to those who have made these sacrifices. pic.twitter.com/RTonMrSjih  The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 4, 2020

In a town hall event with Fox News, President Trump stated that hospitals are also losing a lot of revenue and are not being able to attend to other patients, with entire hospitals being blocked for the usage of coronavirus.

READ: Trump Back From Mid-Covid Presidential Retreat; Disputes Son-in-law Jared At TV Town Hall

In a twitter post, the White House, President Trump said, "We have to let them come back. It's okay with us. Again, that's up to the Governor. We have some hospitals where there is almost no COVID and you have the hospital where you can't do elective surgery. In some cases, they are waiting along and that's not a good thing. They have to get back. They have to let these hospitals (function), cause these hospitals are losing a fortune. They have to let the hospitals open and get back to elective surgery. There are many hospitals right now which could be doing that."

U.S. public health officials have said a vaccine is probably a year to 18 months away. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations leading expert on infectious diseases and member of the White House coronavirus task force, said in late April that it is conceivable, if a vaccine is soon developed, that it could be in wide distribution as early as January.

READ: San Francisco Police Chief Bans thin Blue Line Face Masks

Though the administrations handling of the pandemic, particularly its ability to conduct widespread testing, has come under fierce scrutiny, the president tried to shift the blame to China and said the U.S. was ready to begin reopening.

Ill tell you one thing. We did the right thing and I really believe we saved a million and a half lives, the president said. But he also broke with the assessment of his senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, saying it was too soon to say the federal government had overseen a success story.

READ: Donald Trump Slams George W Bush For Not Speaking Against Impeachment
Nearly 400 asymptomatic employees have tested positive for COVID-19 at a single Triumph meat packing plant in missouri.

The local health department started testing all of the more than 2,200 workers at the plant in St Joseph after 92 asymptomatic employees tested positive.

As of Sunday 373 employees and contract workers of Triumph Foods, who presented for testing sample collection with no related symptoms, have received positive results for COVID-19, local health officials confirmed.

'We continue to work this weekend contacting these asymptomatic patients and have initiated the process of contact tracing with those determined to be close contacts of our positive cases,' said Dr. Randall Williams, director of DHSS.

CEO of Triumph Foods Mark Campbell said Sunday: 'Being swabbed wasn't much fun, yet the test results will be critical to helping us understand where the coronavirus is in our facility and our communities.'

The figures show 17 per cent of those tested were positive for coronavirus.

The local health department started testing, pictured, all of the more than 2,200 workers at the plant in St Jospeh, Missouri, after 92 asymptomatic employees tested positive

Nearly 400 asymptomatic employees have tested positive for COVID 19 at Triumph Foods, a pork processing plant, in St. Joseph, Missouri, pictured

Two dozen meat processing plants across America have been forced to close at some point in the last two months while many others have been forced to slow output after workers got sick.

America's mounting meat crisis has been laid bare in pictures showing empty store shelves across the country after processing plants were forced to slow production or close amid outbreaks of coronavirus.

At least 20 workers have died and another 6,500 have fallen ill as cramped working conditions with employees often standing shoulder-to-shoulder on production lines has caused coronavirus to run rampant.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.3 million food and retail workers, said earlier this week that 20 food-processing and meatpacking union workers in the US have died of the virus.

An estimated 6,500 are sick or have been exposed while working near someone who tested positive, the union said.

Some of the biggest slaughterhouses in the United States have closed over the last few weeks as COVID-19 spread widely through meat processing facilities. Chicago Sam's Club is pictured

Costco will limit meat purchases to three items per member. A Chicago store is pictured

On Monday Costco said it had limited the number of beef, pork and poultry products customers can buy.

Grocery stores are preparing for massive shortages of meat supplies following coronavirus induced supply disruptions.

Costco said it would temporarily limit fresh beef, pork and poultry purchases to a total of three items per Costco member, following Kroger Co, which has put purchase limits on ground beef and fresh pork at some of its stores.

Employees of two departments at the Smithfield pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D. report to work on Monday, May 4, 2020, as the plant moved to reopen

The Greeley JBS meat packing plant sits idle on April 16, 2020 in Greeley, Colorado. The meat packing facility voluntarily closed until April 24 in order to test employees for the coronavirus

Before the pandemic, food policy experts say, roughly one out of every eight or nine Americans struggled to stay fed.

Now as many as one out of every four are projected to join the ranks of the hungry, said Giridhar Mallya, senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for public health.

Starting Monday, Costco will also require all shoppers to wear masks or face coverings to reduce the chances of transmission of the virus.

John Tyson, chairman of the United States' largest meat processing company Tyson Foods Inc said last week the food supply chain was 'breaking' and millions of pounds of meat would vanish from grocery stores in the country.
The government's task now is not to curtail reform, but to fix mistakes, president notes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his latest video address to the nation assessed the progress of health care reform.

"Usually we go to doctors to get help. Today it's they who are begging for it," Zelensky said, commenting on the situation with the country's health care during the second stage of the ongoing reform, according to the President's Office.

Zelensky noted that the topic of COVID-19 has flooded the information space, while the global situation in the country's medical industry must also remain in focus because today, Zelensky says, "our medics are under attack."

"Facebook, Instagram, and my desk are filled with appeals coming from hospital teams from all over our country. They're all about stage 2 of health care reform... We created a working group, which included our country's scholars, professors, and honored doctors. Alongside the new leadership of the Ministry of Health, they've analyzed the progress. The truth is that the reform has both big advantages and obvious drawbacks," the head of state said.

According to Zelensky, the task is to preserve all the positive aspects and urgently correct errors.

Read alsoUkraine gov't allocates almost US$586 mln to hospitals for treating COVID-19 patients  health minister

"In particular, due to the new financing mechanism, about 50,000 medics could be laid off and 332 hospitals across Ukraine  shut down. Nearly a thousand hospitals will receive much less money than last year. Emergency medical care, multidisciplinary hospitals, cancer centers, veterans' hospitals, most children's hospitals, psychiatric and TB clinics are all at risk. All this raises a number of questions. Why, instead of saving people's lives, are medics forced to think about their own survival? Why were tariffs calculated by officials without a deep understanding of the process rather than medics? How come an ambulance team call costs a mere UAH 75?" asked Zelensky.

Among other things, he noted that regional hospitals for children will receive below UAH 200 million, while most TB clinics found themselves on the verge of closure.

"I can't allow any of this. I can't allow staff cuts in ambulance teams ... I cannot allow qualified children's opt for working abroad which would cause catastrophic hike in child mortality. Or, to have TB incidence increase by a third within two years. We cannot allow any of this; otherwise, it will be called sabotage, not reform," the president emphasized.

"I urge the minister of health, chairman of the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine to urgently put forward proposals to resolve these issues. What we need is not to curtail the reform, but to improve it. It's about admitting mistakes and fixing them," Zelensky said.

Read alsoUkraine's health minister: Local governments not authorized to cancel quarantine

Since the start of coronavirus outbreak, Zelensky says, the Ukrainian health care system is "not just vulnerable, but actually a step short of a coma."

On April 1, 2020, Ukraine launched the second stage of health care reform. Almost all municipal medical facilities (district, city, and regional hospitals) will receive funds under a direct agreement sealed with the National Health Service of Ukraine.
Consumers and businesses could also be affected

Over the last few weeks, airlines have been forced to deal with cancellations brought on by pandemic-stricken workers and weather conditions. Now, theyre facing a completely different specter  one brought on by a new 5G service set to be launched this week by AT&T and Verizon.

Airlines first waved the red flag on the issue in December, moving AT&T and Verizon to agree to hold off on 5G deployment until January 20 to help prevent problems within the aviation industry. N...
Kabul, May 4 : At least five Afghan soldiers were killed and seven injured when Taliban militants detonated an explosives-laden truck near a military outpost in Helmand province, officials said on Monday.

The attack took place in Nahr-e-Saraj district on Sunday night.

"In this powerful bombing, five members of the security forces were killed and another seven were injured and the outpost was partially damaged," provincial governor's spokesperson Omar Zwak told Efe news.

Zwak said the security facility was a jointly run by the Afghan Army and special units of the intelligence agency.

"Initial information suggests that the bomber used a truck full of explosives to attack the outpost," the spokesperson said.

The Defence Ministry in a statement confirmed the attack but did not provide casualty details.

Taliban spokesperson Qari Yusuf Ahmadi in a statement said the attack was carried out in response to the "repeated violations by enemy" and attacks against civilians, referring to the military operations of the Afghan government.

"The enemy facility was completely destroyed and tens of enemy personnel and members of the intelligence were killed and injured," Ahmadi said.

The Taliban spokesperson claimed that 150 security personnel were at the outpost on Helmand-Kandahar highway. He claimed that the attack also left several military vehicles and cars destroyed.

Violence has increased across Afghanistan in recent weeks after the Taliban signed an agreement on February 29 with the US to pave the way for peace in the war-torn country.

All warring parties have been accusing the other of violating the terms of the agreement inked in Doha, following a week-long reduction in violence.

The Taliban on April 5 warned that it would "react and respond" to "repeated violations" by the US and the Afghan government's airstrikes and attacks against the militant group and civilians.

The US military in Afghanistan on Saturday warned the Taliban of a response if the insurgent group continued with its attacks in violation of an agreement the two sides signed in February.

The Afghan government also claimed that the Taliban have increased attacks against security forces and civilians after signing the peace agreement.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

By Eldar Janashvili - Trend:

Azerbaijans UniBank OJSC completed the first quarter of 2020 with a profit of 6.3 million manat ($3.7 million), while for the same period of 2019, the bank suffered losses worth 8 million manat ($4.7 million), Trend reports citing the banks financial report.

Thus, the bank earned 14.4 percent on an annualized basis.

According to the report, net interest income of the bank increased by 22.5 percent in the first quarter of 2020 and amounted to 15 million manat ($8.8 million), and was formed due to interest income of 22.2 million manat ($13 million), which increased by 10.5 percent. The interest expenses decreased by 8.4 percent, amounting to 7.1 million manat ($4.1 million).

Non-interest income of the bank amounted to 6.1 million manat ($3.5 million), declining by 19.4 percent year on year. Non-interest expenses amounted to 17.3 million manat ($10.1 million), an increase by 18.9 percent. Operating profit amounted to 8.8 million manat ($5.1 million), 2.5 million manat ($1.4 million) of which was spent on reserves, while 13.3 percent were withdrawn from reserves in the first quarter of 2019.

Accordingly, the banks profit amounted to 6.3 million manat ($3.7 million).

(1 USD = 1.7 AZN on May 4)

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @eldarjanashvili
The Chinese embassy in Nigeria has berated those demanding compensation from the Asian country over the COVID-19 pandemic. The coron...

The Chinese embassy in Nigeria has berated those demanding compensation from the Asian country over the COVID-19 pandemic.





The coronavirus was first recorded in Wuhan, China, and the country has been accused of mismanaging the outbreak.





The embassy, in an article published in The Guardian, took a jab at Oby Ezekwesili, a former minister of education, who said the country must pay reparations to Africa for its coronavirus failures.





Ezekwesili had written: The continent must be accorded damages and liability compensation from China, the rich and powerful country that failed to transparently and effectively manage this global catastrophe.

However, reacting on Sunday, Sun Saixiong, press secretary of the Chinese embassy in Nigeria, said Ezekwesilis comments make no sense at all.





Saixiong said China has taken the most comprehensive, rigorous and thorough measures to contain the spread of the disease, and has also made tremendous sacrifices and made significant contributions to the global response.





The virus is a common enemy to all mankind and may strike anytime, anywhere. Like other countries, China is also a victim, not a perpetrator, even less an accomplice of COVID-19, he added.





In the face of major public health crises and infectious diseases, the international community should stand in solidarity and work together, not resort to mutual accusation or demand retribution and accountability. As we recall, there has never been any precedence of the latter.





Did anyone ask the US to offer compensations for the 2009 H1N1 flu, which was first diagnosed before breaking out on a large scale in the US and then spread to 214 countries and regions, killing nearly 200,000 people?





AIDS was first reported in the US in the 1980s and then swept across the world, including Africa, causing untold sufferings to countless victims. And we dont remember Mrs. Ezekwesili coming forward to ask the US to be held accountable?





The financial turmoil in the US triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 turned into a global financial crisis. Did anyone ask the US to take the consequences?





The official said the world must understand that our enemy is the virus, not China and it can only defeat COVID-19 by pulling together not attacking and discrediting others.





We hope that Mrs. Ezekwesili will respect facts, science, and international consensus, stop letting herself dance to others tune, stop attacking and blaming China for nothing, and stop making irresponsible remarks, he added.




We've only just started May, but it seems clear that peak 2020 has arrived: Nicolas Cage has been announced as the star of a new scripted series that will focus on "Tiger King" Joe Exotic.

The proposed eight-episode series will be based on the Texas Monthly article "Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild," written by Leif Reigstad, according to a news release obtained by TODAY.

The series will be produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios, but undoubtedly the wild success of Netflix's multipart documentary "Tiger King," which sunk its teeth into quarantined viewers earlier this year, was also a major influence in getting the ball rolling.

The series, whose working title is "Joe Exotic," will feature Cage as Exotic, an "eccentric, exotic zookeeper in Oklahoma who fights to keep his park  even at the risk of losing his sanity," according to the release. "The series will live in the lions den with Joe, explore how he became Joe Exotic, and how he lost himself to a character of his own creation."

The role would be Oscar-winner Cage's first television role of his career, which began in 1981 and has included some iconic and totally wild portrayals, including films like "Peggy Sue Got Married" (1986), "Raising Arizona" (1987), "Honeymoon in Vegas" (1992), "Face/Off" (1997), "National Treasure" (2004) and "Ghost Rider" (2007). He won his Academy Award in 1996 for "Leaving Las Vegas."

2020 Film Independent Spirit Awards - General Atmosphere (Michael Kovac / Getty Images)

Cage will also serve as an executive producer on the project.

We're just wondering, though  has anyone contacted Kevin Bacon? During his visit to TODAY on April 29, Al Roker asked the actor if he'd be interested in taking on Exotic, and Bacon loved the idea. "Wouldn't that be great?" he chuckled. "Sure, I'd play Joe Exotic in a second."

Well, he may not get his chance this go-round, but there are still loads of terrific Exotic-adjacent characters out there to be hired. But bear in mind that the limited series is still only in the proposal stages. According to the news release, it will "go to market in the next few days."

Yet another cliffhanger in the ongoing "Tiger King" saga!
For an already vulnerable, stigmatised group, the outbreak and lockdown have increased concerns about their health.

Lagos, Nigeria  When Andrew* first found out he was HIV-positive in January this year, he suffered a fleeting sense of paralysis, fearing his life was about to change forever.

At 27, it was one of the things he dreaded as a gay man who was still in the closet. Even within the Nigerian LGBT community, HIV discrimination is rife and Andrew noticed no one would reply to him on the dating apps he used when he changed his status.

In the weeks after his diagnosis, he developed a routine to deal with the illness: religiously taking his HIV medication and practising celibacy.

Andrew is a software developer who views the world through a prism of codes and programs, and as the coronavirus pandemic became very real, with Nigeria confirming its first case of the contagion in February, he felt uneasy.

The hysteria on the internet, fear-mongering, and the subsequent government-enforced lockdown in Lagos drove him to check his stash of HIV medication, or antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. Andrew started a six-month treatment schedule in January  one 300mg tablet taken daily to lower the presence of the virus in his body. With half the batch already taken, he realised he had enough to last him until June.

But Andrew was still gripped with anxiety. Im supposed to get tested after six months to check if Im detectable. I dont think Im detectable yet, and with coronavirus in town, what if I contract it with the state of my immune system? he wondered.

Detectable refers to Andrews viral load, or the presence of the virus in his body.

A challenging health system

Limited research has indicated that people with HIV may not face any greater risk of infection from the novel coronavirus, as long as they adhere to their prescribed antiretroviral medication and are not otherwise immunocompromised, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Andrew does not have health insurance, so he relies on free HIV treatment from healthcare centres that are LGBT-inclusive. With the lockdown rolling on and ushering a fresh wave of unrest, he is now relying on virtual consultations with his doctor  WhatsApp, video calls  which has dissipated his anxiety to an extent.

Not only is the coronavirus pandemic exposing the decaying state of public health infrastructure in Nigeria, it is also showing how Nigerias LGBT population has limited access to doctors that provide safe, affirming spaces. This stems from the fact that Nigeria remains one of the most homophobic countries in the world, rendering LGBT Nigerians targets of discrimination and abuse.

Since 2014, there has been a law in place which criminalises same-sex marriage and public displays of affection between gay people. There are no official rights or protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation  which makes it difficult for LGBT Nigerians to seek help from public services.

The lockdown in Lagos also came with pockets of militarisation in the state and elsewhere  soldiers and security forces enforcing stay-at-home orders even if it means resorting to intimidation and violence.

As such, LGBT Nigerians trying to access HIV treatment are faced with the added challenge of navigating potentially hostile forces.

The LGBT community already faces official discrimination in Nigeria. The lockdown has made it more difficult [File: Reuters]

Coronavirus-induced anxiety

In March, Ebuka*, a 26-year-old bisexual man, agreed to an interview at a pizza place before the lockdown began.

Ebuka tested positive for HIV in November 2018. His mental health had been blighted by cycles of depression and one traumatic, self-harm episode. But relocating from Abuja to Lagos the following year to start a new job in digital advertising had lifted him from the mist, and he found some semblance of stability and clarity.

At the pizza place, Ebuka revealed that his current batch of ARV drugs was nearly depleted and he needed to obtain another prescription refill soon.

April, he said, when I asked about his next clinic appointment. Ebuka and Andrew have slightly different HIV treatment regimens. Since he has already achieved undetectable status, Ebukas HIV medication comes in a three-month batch.

Any disruption in treatment could leave his immune system vulnerable to opportunistic infections like the coronavirus.

The next time I heard from Ebuka, it was the second week of lockdown. He described how he had experienced police harassment, after being profiled as gay, while driving to the clinic to obtain his next batch of HIV medication, which should last him another three months. He fears the police more than HIV or coronavirus, he explained.

Police patrol the deserted central business district in Lagos during lockdown on a day in March [Reuters]

Remote health solutions

The clinic Ebuka was heading to in Lagos was never overcrowded, is sectioned into consultancy, pharmacy and blood labs, and helmed by an efficient staff working in shifts. It is one of the few spaces in Lagos where LGBT Nigerians without health coverage can access free HIV treatment in a discrimination-free atmosphere, where their sexual history and habits do not undergo judgemental scrutiny.

In contrast, in public health environments, many LGBT patients say homophobia is deeply entrenched and they face an unwelcoming atmosphere.

The centre, which did not want to be identified in this report, has since complied with the government lockdown. A medical representative told Al Jazeera that it opens on select days for its health workers to dispense HIV healthcare so that patients like Ebuka can obtain their life-saving ARV drugs.

Andrew got his HIV medication from The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERS), a non-profit organisation that has steadfastly championed LGBT inclusion and advocacy since its inception. TIERS also closed because of the lockdown, but is trying to ensure that vulnerable LGBT communities are not cut off from accessing health services.

We closed our physical offices since 18 March, but medical services have been running virtually since then, Xeenarh Mohammed, executive director of the centre, explained by phone. We have ARV pick-up to clients . In cases where the medication needs to be dispatched, the client will be responsible for sending a dispatch rider for pick-up. That way, confidentiality is maintained as the rider is brought directly to them. Medications are packed discreetly.

Olumide Makanjuola, a sexual health and rights activist, is most concerned about the effect of the outbreak and lockdown on the most vulnerable. I think of persons who are living with HIV in communities, like LGBTIQ, sex workers and Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) whose access to health is mostly through niche, non-governmental organisations, he said over email.

Later on the phone, Makanjuola expressed other concerns: There will be a lot of anxiety and the possibility of drug unavailability at centres due to delivery delay and other logistics-related issues. Makanjuola was quick to point out that this is not a current reality, but a projection if the lockdown persists beyond three months.

The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERS) is closed during lockdown [Iyoha Osas Daniel/Al Jazeera]

Logistical issues

Antiretroviral drugs are imported and part of various HIV prevention and treatment projects funded by local and international donors, working with health spaces like TIERS to reach key target populations like men who have sex with men (MSM) and others.

Although Nigeria has closed its air borders to decelerate the spread of coronavirus, essential flights purveying medical supplies and drugs can still enter the country, but not without delays from donors as they are also navigating lockdowns in their own terrains.

These centres in Nigeria are now faced with local logistics issues since there is a restriction of movement, with taxi-hailing services barely operational.

But the ease in lockdown for the time being, starting from May 4, is a welcome development and could help as many LGBT Nigerians with HIV access healthcare, without the initial obstacles.

Despite budgetary allocations, Nigerias healthcare system is seriously stunted by political corruption. Congestion in public health facilities, and lack of equipment, drugs and doctors have created vacuums where non-governmental organisations are becoming part of the ecosystem, meeting the health needs of different communities and sub-groups.

The LGBT community in Nigeria exists as a heterogenous group, where interactions occur in discrete bubbles across digital platforms. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, members are forging solidarity and dealing with their communal anxieties through virtual hangouts.

Andrew says he has been helping a few community members with groceries and dried foods, while Ebuka sought out those with HIV who need medication, to help cover the cost of dispatch delivery.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy
New Delhi, May 4 : A Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor, who had received grievous injuries during the January 5 campus violence, has moved the city court seeking early hearing of the plea filed in January for registration of FIR against the mob, stating that more than four months having elapsed since the incident.

Sucharita Sen, professor at the Centre for Study of Regional Development, had received injuries in head during the violence. On January 5, masked men, armed with sticks and rods, had allegedly attacked students and teachers and damaged property on the campus.

She filed a complaint with the Station House Officer (SHO), Vasant Kunj North, and sought registration of FIR for offences, like attempt to murder, rioting and mischief, but "no action was taken by the police." Sucharita, through Advocates Adit S. Pujari, Tara Narula and Kriti Awasthi, then moved the court on January 13, seeking registration of FIR, following which the police was asked to file an action-taken report (ATR) by March 25.

"Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the complaint case was adjourned to April 25. Consequently, the investigating agency has not filed the ATR," the fresh application filed by Sucharita stated.

It stated that FIR should be immediately registered on account of orders passed by the Delhi High Court in January, directing an expeditious investigation. Sucharita said evidence in the case was in the nature of data that could be tampered with.

"The offences committed by the accused persons are very serious and include offences that are cognizable and non-bailable in nature, and necessary directions to the investigating agency are sought to register an FIR and investigate complaint fairly, properly and impartially," it said.

The matter is listed for hearing on Tuesday.
Greg Hatala/For NJ Advance Media

Don't Edit

One quarantine-time adoption story

Shelters and rescues have been urging people to consider adopting a pet while at home, allowing more time for training and company while the animal acclimates to new surroundings. Many have answered the call. Heres one persons story: Vinessa Erminio is a Research Editor for NJ Advance Media:

I've wanted a dog for years, said Vinessa. I grew up with a dog, and I missed the fun and companionship of having one. For a long time I lived in an apartment that didn't allow pets, but after I finally bought a house last fall, with a fenced-in yard, I started casually researching local shelters and rescues online.

I had just decided to take the next step of visiting shelters in March when the coronavirus restrictions started, which forced me to change plans. I thought I would have to wait until the outbreak was over and the shelters could resume their usual practices before I could adopt a dog, but I kept following local shelters and rescue groups on Facebook just in case.

Vinessa Erminio's newly adopted dog, Kayla.Courtesy

That's how I learned about Kayla. She was highlighted on her shelter's Facebook page, and her photo just grabbed my attention. She was the right age, the right size, compatible with my living situation, and she was beautiful! She had recently lost an eye due to an injury, which concerned me at first, but then I remembered from watching countless veterinary shows that it doesn't affect the dog's quality of life at all. I contacted the shelter, and when I met her she was just so sweet, calm and eager to please. I immediately knew I had found my dog.

I've only had her for a week, but we're doing great so far. It's been wonderful to have company while I'm at home during the quarantine, and Im looking forward to many happy years together. 

Its a safe bet to say that Kayla is, too.

Don't Edit

Liberty Humane Society

Kaliko is a young female pit bull terrier mix in the care of the Liberty Humane Society in Jersey City. For more information, call 201-547-4147, email lhs@libertyhumane.org or go to https://www.libertyhumane.org/.

Don't Edit

EASEL Animal Rescue League

Kris Kringle is a young male domestic shorthair in the care of EASEL Animal Rescue League in Ewing. For more information, email apps@easelnj.org, call 609-883-0540 or go to https://www.easelnj.org/.

Don't Edit

Southern Ocean County Animal Facility

Jetty is a 2-year-old male shepherd/Labrador retriever mix in the care of the Southern Ocean County Animal Facility in Manahawkin. For more information, call 609-978-0127, email socaf@@ochd.org or go to https://www.ochd.org.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Salem County Humane Society

Bellatrix is a 2-year-old female domestic shorthair at the Salem County Humane Society in Carneys Point. For more information, call 856-299-2220 or email info@salemcountyhumanesociety.org.

Don't Edit

Edison Animal Shelter

Magnolia is a 4-year-old female pit bull terrier mix in the care of the Edison Animal Shelter in Edison. For more information, call 732-248-7278, email eas@edisonnj.org or go to https://www.petfinder.com/pet-search?shelter_id=NJ593.

Don't Edit

Homeward Bound Pet Adoption Center

Owl is an adult male domestic shorthair that is FIV-positive at the Homeward Bound Pet Adoption Center in Blackwood. For more information, call 856-401-1300, email info@homewardboundnj.org or go to https://homewardboundnj.org/.

Don't Edit

South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter

Gemini is a 3-year-old male mixed breed in the care of the South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter in Vineland. For more information, call 856-691-1500 or email adoptions@sjras.org.

Don't Edit

Jersey Shore Animal Center

Abbott is an 8-month-old male domestic shorthair at the Jersey Shore Animal Center in Brick. For more information, call 732-920-1600 or email info@jerseyshoreanimalcenter.org.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Furever Home Dog Rescue

Roxy is a female boxer/terrier mix between 6 and 7 years old in the care of the Furever Home Dog Rescue in Randolph. For more information, email fhdr@att.net or go to https://www.fureverhomedogrescue.com/.

Don't Edit

Humane Society of Ocean City

Comet is a 7-year-old male domestic shorthair at the Humane Society of Ocean City. For more information, call 609-398-9500 or email info@hsocnj.org.

Don't Edit

Second Chance Pet Adoption League

Portia is an 8-year-old female Chihuahua/schipperke mix in the care of the Second Chance Pet Adoption League in Morris Plains. For more information, call 973-208-1054 or email njwoof@cs.com.

Don't Edit

Best Friend Dog and Animal Adoption

Lulu is a 3-year-old female domestic medium-hair in the care of Best Friend Dog and Animal Adoption in Cranford. For more information, call 908-425-0008, email bfdaaa@gmail.com or go to https://www.petfinder.com/member/us/nj/cranford/best-friend-dog-and-animal-adoption-inc-nj70/.

Don't Edit

Associated Humane Society in Newark

Luna is a young female pit bull terrier mix at the Associated Humane Society in Newark. For more information, call 973-824-7080 or go to https://www.petfinder.com/search/pets-for-adoption/?shelter_id%5B0%5D=NJ01&sort%5B0%5D=recently_added.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Angel Pets Welfare Society

Padme is an adult female domestic shorthair in the care of Angel Pets Welfare Society in Colonia. For more information, call 732-340-1199 or email info@angelpaws.org

Don't Edit

Animal Welfare Association

Sparky is a 1-year-old male Chihuahua mix in the care of the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees. For more information, call 856-424-2288 or email adoptions@awanj.org.

Don't Edit

Somerset Regional Animal Shelter

Elsa is an adult female domestic shorthair at the Somerset Regional Animal Shelter in Bridgewater. For more information, call 908-725-0308 or go to awos.petfinder.com/shelters/sras.html.

Don't Edit

Animal Alliance

Hunter is a 1-year-old male Swedish vallhund/beagle mix in the care of Animal Alliance in Lambertville. For more information, call 609-818-1952 or go to https://www.animalalliancenj.org/.

Don't Edit

South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter

Mon Chou is a 2-year-old female domestic short hair in the care of the South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter in Vineland. For more information, call 856-691-1500 or email adoptions@sjras.org.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

SAVE, A Friend to Homeless Animals

Tucker is a 1-year-old male terrier/retriever mix in the care of SAVE, A Friend to Homeless Animals in Skillman. For more information, call 609-309-5214 or go to https://savehomelessanimals.org/.

Don't Edit

Mt. Pleasant Animal Shelter

Johnny is a 3-year-old male domestic shorthair at the Mount Pleasant Animal Shelter in East Hanover. For more information, call 973-386-0590, email info@njshelter.org or go to https://njshelter.org/.

Don't Edit

Rawhide Rescue

Ziva is a 3-year-old female Labrador retriever/terrier mix in the care of Rawhide Rescue in Warren. For more information, email rawhiderescue@hotmail or go to https://rawhiderescue.org/.

Don't Edit

EASEL Animal Rescue League

Crumb is an adult male domestic shorthair in the care of EASEL Animal Rescue League in Ewing. For more information, email apps@easelnj.org, call 609-883-0540 or go to https://www.easelnj.org/.

Don't Edit

Edison Animal Shelter

Jackie is a 3-year-old female pit bull terrier mix in the care of the Edison Animal Shelter. For more information, call 732-248-7278, email eas@edisonnj.org or go to https://www.petfinder.com/pet-search?shelter_id=NJ593.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Associated Humane Society in Newark

George is a young male domestic shorthair at the Associated Humane Society in Newark. For more information, call 973-824-7080 or go to https://www.petfinder.com/search/pets-for-adoption/?shelter_id%5B0%5D=NJ01&sort%5B0%5D=recently_added.

Don't Edit

Somerset Regional Animal Shelter

Mr. Snuggles is a male American bulldog mix between 3 and 4 years old at the Somerset Regional Animal Shelter in Bridgewater. For more information, call 908-725-0308 or go to awos.petfinder.com/shelters/sras.html.

Don't Edit

SAVE, A Friend to Homeless Animals

Hearts is a 10-year-old female domestic longhair in the care of SAVE, A Friend to Homeless Animals in Skillman. For more information, call 609-309-5214 or go to https://savehomelessanimals.org/.

Don't Edit

Animal Alliance

Elena is a 2-year-old female Jack Russell terrier mix in the care of Animal Alliance in Lambertville. For more information, call 609-818-1952 or go to https://www.animalalliancenj.org/.

Don't Edit

Chance at Life Cat Rescue

Brosnan is a 1 1/2-year-old blonde and white male cat in the care of Chance at Life Cat Rescue in Bergen County. For more information, call 201-982-2219, email chanceatliferescue@gmail.com or go to https://chanceatlifecatrescue.com/.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Liberty Humane Society

Cotija is a young female pit bull terrier mix in the care of the Liberty Humane Society in Jersey City. For more information, call 201-547-4147, email lhs@libertyhumane.org or go to https://www.libertyhumane.org/.

Don't Edit

Angel Pets Welfare Society

Casserole is a 2-year-old male domestic shorthair in the care of Angel Pets Welfare Society in Colonia. For more information, call 732-340-1199 or email info@angelpaws.org

Don't Edit

Mt. Pleasant Animal Shelter

Romeo is an adult male Labrador retriever mix at the Mount Pleasant Animal Shelter in East Hanover. For more information, call 973-386-0590, email info@njshelter.org or go to https://njshelter.org/.

Don't Edit

Humane Society of Ocean City

Breac (pronounced Brock) is a young male domestic shorthair at the Humane Society of Ocean City. For more information, call 609-398-9500 or email info@hsocnj.org.

Don't Edit

Associated Humane Society in Newark

Coco Puff is a young male American Staffordshire terrier/Weimaraner mix at the Associated Humane Society in Newark. For more information, call 973-824-7080 or go to https://www.petfinder.com/search/pets-for-adoption/?shelter_id%5B0%5D=NJ01&sort%5B0%5D=recently_added.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Associated Humane Society in Tinton Falls

Sherylyn is a 2-year-old female domestic shorthair at the Associated Humane Society in Tinton Falls. For more information, call 732-922-0100 or go to https://www.petfinder.com/search/pets-for-adoption/?shelter_id%5B0%5D=NJ02&sort%5B0%5D=recently_added.

Don't Edit

Trenton Animal Shelter

Cody is a male American Staffordshire terrier between 2 and 3 years old at the Trenton Animal Shelter. For more information, call 609-989-3254 or go to https://www.petfinder.com/member/us/nj/trenton/trenton-animal-shelter-nj43/.

Don't Edit

Salem County Humane Society

Button is a 1 1/2-year-old female tabby at the Salem County Humane Society in Carneys Point. For more information, call 856-299-2220 or email info@salemcountyhumanesociety.org.

Don't Edit

Second Chance Pet Adoption League

Arianna is a 10-year-old female cairn terrier/schnauzer mix in the care of the Second Chance Pet Adoption League in Morris Plains. For more information, call 973-208-1054 or email njwoof@cs.com.

Don't Edit

Associated Humane Society in Tinton Falls

Bronx is a 4-year-old male domestic shorthair at the Associated Humane Society in Tinton Falls. For more information, call 732-922-0100 or go to https://www.petfinder.com/search/pets-for-adoption/?shelter_id%5B0%5D=NJ02&sort%5B0%5D=recently_added.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Greg Hatala/For NJ Advance Media
Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg gives a press conference in Oslo, Norway, on March 16, 2020, where children asks questions about the novel coronavirus.

Norway will give $1 billion to support the distribution worldwide of any vaccine developed against Covid-19 as well as for vaccines against other diseases, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Monday.

Oslo made the pledge as part of a donor conference held on Monday by the European Union to raise 7.5 billion euros ($8.23 billion) towards the testing, treatment and prevention of the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Non-EU member Norway is a co-chair of the event as a long-standing donor to global health initiatives.

"This is a global problem that needs common solutions between countries, not least with distribution, so that everyone gets access to the vaccine," Solberg told Reuters in an interview ahead of the conference.

The $1 billion will go to GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, a global partnership of private and public organizations focusing on immunization worldwide, as direct funding for the period 2021-2030. Norway has financed GAVI since its inception in 2000.

Solberg said she regretted the United States, a close ally of Norway, had stopped funding the World Health Organization (WHO) and that it was not part of Monday's initiative, which also includes Canada, Japan and Saudi Arabia, the current chair of the G20 group of nations.

"It is a pity the U.S. is not a part of it. When you are in a crisis, you manage it and you do it jointly with others," Solberg said.

"Everyone will certainly evaluate their work at some point and see what could have been done differently," she said. "But you do this afterwards, not when you are in the middle of it."

Oslo will also give an additional $50 million to the WHO to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic, on top of its normal funding to the U.N. agency.

Norway has already announced 2.2 billion crowns ($215.50 million) in funding to the Oslo-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI), set up to fight emerging epidemics by funding the development of new vaccines.

She said it was also in the interest of western nations to help developing nations with their coronavirus response to prevent longer-term problems.

"Without the medicine and the (possible) vaccine, there will be bigger economic setbacks, bigger security and environmental challenges, as well as migration challenges," she said.
S upporters of Julian Assange were cautioned by police as they protested outside a central London court today.

A group of at least five demonstrators were pictured outside Westminster Crown Court wielding placards reading beep to free Assange and end the show trial.

The WikiLeaks founder, 48, is wanted in the US for allegedly conspiring with army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to expose military secrets a decade ago.

He is currently being held at Londons maximum security Belmarsh prison, while the court system tries to reschedule his extradition hearing which was paused due to the coronavirus pandemic.

If he is sent back to America he will face 18 charges over the publication of classified government documents, which could result in a 170-year prison sentence.

Today, dedicated followers of the high profile inmate demanded that he be released from detention and spared extradition to the US.

Witness and journalist Barnaby Nerberka told the Standard that around 10 police officers threatened the protestors with arrest.

Following the hearing, around 20 reporters and demonstrators left the court and were swiftly told to leave the area by an additional 10 officers, he said.

They then left of their own accord.

Met police issued a statement following the incident saying: At 12:45hrs on Monday, 04 May, officers dealt with a group of people protesting outside Westminster Magistrates Court, NW1.

"Police engaged with those present, reminding them of current COVID-19 guidelines and they all dispersed. There were no arrests."

It is understood the extradition hearing has been delayed until September.

The protesters reportedly left of their own accord and no arrests were made / Barnaby Nerberka

Monday's brief hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court determined that the case should resume in September, although a precise date has not been set.

Journalists were unable to attend remotely after the conference call system  set up to help the press comply with social distancing rules  was not connected.

The case is expected to last three weeks and the courts service is still looking for a Crown Court with the capacity to take the case, which might take place outside of London, the spokeswoman said.

Assange did not attend Mondays hearing via video link due to being unwell.

His lawyers are calling for him to be released on bail, saying he is at heightened risk of contracting Covid-19 due to a pre-existing respiratory condition.

A further administrative hearing is due to take place on June 1.

Julian Assange - In pictures 1 /30 Julian Assange - In pictures 2019 Julian Assange on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates court on April 11 Jack Taylor/Getty Images 2019 Julian Assange made a defiant gesture with his fist as he arrived at court AFP/Getty Images 2017 Julian Assange puts his fist in the air as he steps out to speak to the media from the balcony of the Embassy Of Ecuador Getty Images 2012 Protesters gather outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks is staying Getty Images 2012 Masked supporters of Julian Assange outside the Embassy of Ecuador in Knightsbridge Dominic Lipinski/PA 2010 Photographers hold cameras to the windows of a Serco prison van believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Reuters 2016 ulian Assange's cat, is adorned with a tie and collar inside the window of the Ecuadorian Embassy PA 2016 Pamela Anderson delivers lunch to Julian Assange at Embassy of Ecuador Getty Images 2010 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is pictured through the heavily tinted windows of a police vehicle as he arrives at Westminster magistrates court in London AFP/Getty Images 2010 Jemima Kahn leaves the City of Westminster Magistrates Court after offering to stand as surety for Julian Assange Getty Images 2010 Julian Assange of the WikiLeaks website speaks to reporters in front of a Don McCullin Vietnam war photograph at The Front Line Club in London Getty Images 2010 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gestures inside a prison van with red windows as he arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice Getty Images 2011 WikiLeaks website founder Julian Assange arrives at The High Court Getty Images 2011 Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, shakes the hand of a supporter as he leaves Trafalgar Square after addressing the crowd during the 'Antiwar Mass Assembly' organised by the Stop the War Coalition Getty Images 2011 Journalist John Pilger and Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, chat before addressing the crowd during the 'Antiwar Mass Assembly' organised by the Stop the War Coalition at Trafalgar Square Getty Images 2012 Placards are left by supporters of Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing website, outside the Ecuadorian Embassy Getty Images 2015 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with Reverend Jesse Jackson outside the Embassy of Ecuador in London PA 2016 People attend a video conference of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the International Center for Advanced Communication Studies for Latin America (CIESPAL) auditorium in Quito AFP/Getty Images 2016 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds up his new kitten at the Ecuadorian Embassy in central London WikiLeaks 2017 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a press conference from inside the Ecuadorian embassy AP 2018 Supporters of Julian Assange outside Westminster Magistrates Court, London where a court decision is due on whether a UK arrest warrant against the WikiLeaks founder is still valid PA 2018 British hacker Lauri Love and his girlfriend Sylvia Mann are surrounded by media after visiting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London on 6th February 2018 AFP/Getty Images 2018 A cat named 'James' wearing a collar and tie yawns by the window of the Ecuadorian Embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been for over five years on 6th February 2018 AFP/Getty Images

Assange has been held in Belmarsh prison in east London since he was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy a year ago.

He had been sheltering in the embassy since 2012 after taking refuge there to avoid extradition to Sweden on allegations of sexual assault.

He was jailed for 50 weeks for breach of the Bail Act in April last year.

Despite having served the custodial part of his sentence, Assange has remained in jail on remand since September last year awaiting the outcome of the current extradition proceedings.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled he would be at risk of absconding a second time if he were to be released on bail.
As Italy joins other countries in easing lockdown restrictions on Monday, the countrys bureau of statistics has said the nations reported coronavirus death cases are fewer than the actual stated fatalities.

The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), the main producer of official statistics in Italy, in an analysis quoted by Reuters, gave a breakdown pointing to thousands of fatalities that have never been officially attributed to COVID-19 since the outbreak of the disease in the country.

Italy currently holds the unenviable third spot of countries with highest coronavirus cases, with the U.S. and Spain as the first two.

As of 4 p.m. on Monday, the country had recorded over 210,000 cases and 28,884 casualties from the deadly virus.

ISTAT, from its first report on the impacts covering 86 per cent of the population, said from February 21 when Italy reported its first death till March 31, the nationwide deaths were up by 39 per cent compared with the average of the last five years.

Based on the available statistics, the countrys bureau of statistics said those deaths not attributed to the pandemic were people who either died without getting tested or resulted from the excessive stress of the health system especially in more affected areas.

The combined analysis of ISTAT daily mortality data with the ISS Covid-19 Integrated Surveillance System data showed that the direct mortality attributed to COVID-19 in individuals with confirmed diagnosis, was in the first quarter of 2020 of about 13,700 deaths.

There is an additional amount of about 11,600 deaths for which three possible effects can be hypothesised on the basis of mortality data currently available. There is an additional direct effect of Covid-19 (consisting of deaths of non-tested people), an indirect effect of the virus (such as organ dysfunction as a consequence of viral infection resulting in cardiovascular or other cause-specific mortality, as observed also in influenza outbreaks).

Lastly the quota of mortality not directly related to the virus but resulting from the excessive stress of the health system especially in more affected areas, read an excerpt from ISTAT official website.

READ ALSO:

Most of the states in the northern region (Lombardy) of the country have recorded unusual death cases since the outbreak in Italy.

States like Piedmont and Veneto have witnessed 47 per cent and 24 per cent increases respectively in death cases while the general death cases in the region were up by 186 per cent in March from 2015-2019.

Bergamo has been tagged as the worst-hit state in the country as its deaths increased by 568 per cent while Milan also recorded 93 per cent increase in March compared with the 2015-2019 average.

Other states in the southern region like Lazio, Sicily, Campania also saw a decline in death rates.
World Asthma Day is an event annually organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). The program is held to improve asthma awareness and care across the globe. The day is celebrated on the first Tuesday of May and this year it will be celebrated on May 5, 2020. Let us have a look at World Asthma Day's objective, history and more.

All you need to know about World Asthma Day

Amid the outbreak of COVID19, GINA has decided to postpone their promotion of World Asthma Day 2020 until they issue a new notice. As stated by many respiratory health advocates, this time the sharing of information for asthma patients will be given done online. The first World Asthma Day was celebrated in Barcelona, Spain in the year 1998. It was celebrated in more than 35 countries in association with the organisation. Reportedly, the number of participants has been increasing with each year since then. The main aim of this day is to raise awareness about asthma and how it affects people.

ALSO READ: Top Chinese Health Official Warns Of COVID-19 Rebound

History of World Asthma Day

World Asthma Day was established in 1998 and over 35 countries were involved. The day is supported by the organisation GINA, which works with health care groups around the globe to help raise awareness. However, GINA is an initiative taken by the US-based National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLB). Also, WAD is supported by the World Asthma Foundation (WAF). During this day, the asthma patients were made aware of the safety measurements they can take to help them cope with their condition.

What is asthma?

Asthma is a chronic lung disease that causes breathing difficulties. It is caused by swelling and inflammation of the bronchial tubes that sometimes leads to allergens, stress or changes in temperature. Some of the major symptoms of asthma include breathlessness, coughing, wheezing and a feeling of tightness in the chest. As per doctors, the symptoms can vary according to the frequency and severity of the disease. The disease is not usually curable but can be controlled to some extent. Also, proper and definite education and understanding are keys to controlling asthma effectively.

ALSO READ: Centre Deploys 20 Health Teams For districts across India With Maximum COVID Cases

Steps that can be followed to manage Asthma

One can follow a personal asthma management plan prepared with the help of a doctor.

Educate yourself by reading or listening about the risk factors of asthma that can cause the condition of the patient worse.

Teach patients to recognise the symptoms and to take medication at a proper intervals of time.

The patient should always carry a prescription regarding their asthma details.

ALSO READ: Report: Arizona Lagging Behind In Per Capita Health Spending

ALSO READ: US: Iowa Health Officials Report 528 New Virus Cases, 9 Deaths
The upside of feeling like weekends no longer exist is that, by the same logic, neither do Monday mornings. Which means that making a Dutch baby (also called a German pancake) for breakfast on a weekday is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Advisable, even.

Its also easy, pantry friendly, and its buoyancy will inevitably lift any spirits that need lifting.

To make it, heat your oven to 425 degrees, and get out a large, heavy, ovenproof skillet, cast-iron or otherwise.

To serve 3 or 4, in a bowl, whisk together 4 eggs, 3/4 cup milk (nondairy is fine) and a big pinch of salt. Once the eggs are combined, vigorously whisk in 3/4 cup flour. Or whirl it all together in a blender. At this point, you can stir in some grated lemon zest or nutmeg or a tablespoon of sugar, or all or none of the above. (If you want to scale it down to serve 2, use 3 eggs and 1/2 cup each flour and milk.)
Photo for illustration (Source: tuoitre.vn) The project was jointly carried out by scientists of the Company for Vaccine and Biological Production No.1 (VABIOTECH) under the Vietnamese Ministry of Health, and their colleagues from the UKs Bristol University.

According to Mr. Do Tuan Dat, Chairman of VABIOTECH, scientists have succeeded in generating a strain carrying SARS-CoV-2 antigens in the laboratory, which is considered the most ingredient in vaccine production, helping the body to produce antibodies against the deadly virus.

He said that the vaccine has been tested on mice for two weeks and scientists are waiting for the results to examine the ability to produce antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Next week, scientists will conduct blood tests on mice in the laboratory and send samples to the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology for evaluation, he said.

After this stage, the COVID-19 vaccine will continue to be studied and tested on animals to further assess its safety and effectiveness.

According to the institute, it will take at least 12-18 months to develop COVID-19 vaccine that can work safely on human.

There are currently no approved vaccines or medication for the COVID-19, which has killed nearly 245,000 people worldwide and infected almost 3.5 million.

Around 150 COVID-19 vaccine development projects are being conducted worldwide.

Vietnams exports surge 4.7 percent in four months



Vietnam's export value saw a year-on-year increase of 4.7 percent to an estimated 82.9 billion USD in the first four months of this year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Photo for illustration (Source: baoquocte.vn)





Domestic companies generated 26.4 billion USD from exports during the period, rising 12.1 percent year-on-year and making up 32 percent of the country's total export earnings. Meanwhile, exports of foreign-invested firms hit 56.49 billion USD, up 1.5 percent and making up 68 percent of the total.

Fifteen groups of products recorded an export value of over 1 billion USD or equivalent to 80.1 percent of the nations four-month total earnings. Of them, phones and parts earned the largest export turnover with 16.2 billion USD, up 1.1 percent year-on-year. Electronics, computers and components came next with 12.4 billion USD, up 28.6 percent year-on-year, followed by textiles and garment (8.9 billion USD, down 5.8 percent); machinery equipment and parts (6.9 billion USD, up 29.6 percent); and footwear (5.5 billion USD, up 1.3 percent).

From January to April, the US remained Vietnam's biggest export market, spending 20.3 billion USD on Vietnamese goods, a yearly hike of 13.4 percent. It was followed by China with 13.1 billion USD, up 26.7 percent; the EU with 10.7 billion USD, down 8.1 percent and ASEAN nations with 8.2 billion USD, down 3.4 percent, the GSO said in a monthly report.

Per the report, the country's imports expanded 2.1 percent year-on-year to an estimated 79.89 billion USD in the period. Domestic firms spent 33.58 billion USD on imports, up 1.1 percent year-on-year while foreign-invested companies saw a yearly turnover rise of 2.9 percent to 46.31 billion USD.

Electronics, computers and components accounted for 22 percent of the nations four-month imports at 17.8 billion USD, up 12.5 percent over the same period last year. Among others were machinery, equipment and parts at 11.5 billion USD, down 0.1 percent; telephones and parts (4.3 billion USD, up 12 percent); cloth (3.6 billion USD, down 10.9 percent); steel and iron (2.9 billion USD, down 6.4 percent); plastics (2.8 billion USD, down 1.4 percent) and plastic products (2.3 billion USD, up 14.6 percent).

China was Vietnam's largest supplier, selling 22.7 billion USD worth of goods to Vietnam, down 0.1 percent year-on-year. The Republic of Korea ranked second by shipping 15.5 billion USD worth of goods to Vietnam, up 2.5 percent year-on-year, followed by ASEAN countries with 9.9 billion USD, down 7.8 percent.

New arrivals to undergo four COVID-19 tests

Upon entering the country fresh arrivals will immediately be put into isolation where they will have samples taken four times, once upon their arrival, followed by on the fifth, tenth and final days of their compulsory 14-day quarantine period.

Photo for illustration (Source: dangcongsan.vn)

This newly-issued regulation regarding testing new arrivals four times comes after Ho Chi Minh City assessed that there is currently a greater threat of new entries carrying the virus than previously thought.

According to Dr. Nguyen Tri Dung, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control (CDC), Ho Chi Minh City had previously taken samples from those in quarantine only on their first and last day of isolation, in line with national regulations.

The health sector will continue to monitor and take samples of patients who have been discharged from hospital for a further 30 days after their release in order to prevent the spread of infections caused by a relapse of cases. Indeed, as many as 280 people on international flights to Ho Chi Minh City have had their samples taken for COVID-19 testing.

At present, Ho Chi Minh City has so far recorded 55 cases of COVID-19 infection, including six relapses, therefore taking the total number of cases currently receiving treatment to eight. In addition, 398 suspected cases have so far tested negative.

The health sector recommends people do not go to work, or school, and contact medical staff for advice if they start to show signs of a fever, a cough, or a sore throat./.
If your financial advisor, broker, or other investment professional recommended that you invest in energy stocks, bonds, or Master Limited Partnerships and you have lost money, you may be able to recover your losses through a FINRA arbitration claim.

The national securities law firm, Levin Law, P.A. (Levin Law) is investigating brokerage firms that recommended that their customers invest heavily in energy stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded notes (ETNs), as well as in Master Limited Partnership (MLPs). If your investment advisor, stockbroker, or other financial professional recommended and sold you energy stocks, ETNs, ETFs, MLPs, or other energy investments like oil stocks and you suffered significant losses, please contact us at 305-402-9050 or contact@levinlawpa.com.

Recently, energy investors have suffered catastrophic losses in such investments, particularly when their advisors recommended that they place a significant percentage of their portfolio assets in MLPs and other energy investments.

Levin Law is investigating whether brokerage firms fully and accurately disclosed all material risks of the oil and gas investments - like energy stocks and bonds, as well as MLPs - when recommending and selling such investments to their customers. Brokerage firms that did not fully and accurately describe the material risks and benefits of such investments, or over-concentrated their customers accounts in energy investments, may be liable for investors losses.

MLPs, energy stocks, and other oil and gas securities have suffered meaningful drops in value over the course of the last few months. Some of the MLPs, stocks, ETNs, and ETFs that have been impacted include, but are not limited to:

Barclays Crude Oil ETF (OIL)

United States Oil Fund (USO)

Proshares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil (UCO)

Proshares K-1 Free Crude Oil (OILK)

ETACS S&P Crude Oil (OILX)

iPath Pure Beta Crude Oil (OLEM)

Clearbridge MLP and Midstream Fund (CEM)

Cohen & Steers MLP Income and Energy Opportunity Fund (MIE)

DCP Midstream Energy (DCP)

Goldman Sachs MLP & Energy Renaissance Fund (GER)

Goldman Sachs MLP Income Opportunities Fund (GMZ)

Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. (FGP)

Targa Resource Partners (NGLS-A)

Tallgrass Energy LP (TGE)

Shell Midstream Partners (SHLX)

Plains All American Pipeline (PAA)

NuStar Energy LP (NS)

MPLX LP (MPLX)

Dynagas LNG Partners LP (DLNG)

Delek Logistics Partners, LP (DKL)

CSI Compressco LP (CCLP)

Crestwood Equity Partners LP (CEQP)

CNX Midstream Partners LP

Ciner Resources LP (CINR)

Capital Product Partners L.P. (CPLP)

Black Stone Minerals, L.P. (BSM)

Talos Energy (TALO)

Tortoise Energy (TYG)

Magellan Midstream Partners (MMP)

NGL Energy Partners (NGL)

Rhino Resource Partners (RHNO)

Viper Energy Partners (VNOM)

Foresight Energy (FELPQ)

MidCon Energy Partners (MCEP)

Blueknight Energy (BKEP)

Calumet Specialty Product Partners (CLMT)

Cheniere Energy Partners (CQP)

Enable Midstream Partners LP (ENBL)

Enlink Midstream Partners LP (ENLK)

Genesis Energy LP (GEL)

Holly Energy Partners LP (HEP)

Investors May Be Able to Recover Damages Through a FINRA Arbitration

If your financial advisor, broker, or other investment professional recommended that you invest in energy stocks, bonds, or Master Limited Partnerships and you have lost money, you may be able to recover your losses through a FINRA arbitration claim. For more information, please visit https://www.levinlawpa.com/energy-stocks-etfs-etns-and-master-limited-partnerships/

Contact Levin Law for a Free Case Evaluation

If you have suffered losses in energy stocks, bonds, or Master Limited Partnerships, please contact Levin Law managing partner, Brian Levin, at 305-402-9050, brian@levinlawpa.com, or visit Levin Laws website, https://www.levinlawpa.com. Levin Law accepts most cases on a contingency-fee basis, meaning that you would not be obligated to pay Levin Laws attorney fees unless money is recovered on your behalf.

About Levin Law

Levin Law is a premier securities and class action law firm with significant experience. Brian Levin, Levin Laws founding attorney, has achieved settlements and recoveries for individual and institutional investors throughout the country and the rest of the world totaling over $100,000,000 in assets. Levin Law represents retirees, individual investors, high-net-worth investors, ultra-high-net-worth investors, institutions, family offices, trusts, publicly held companies, and others. More information about Levin Law can be found at https://www.levinlawpa.com or by calling 305-402-9050.
The possibility of a snap autumn election has been raised by junior Fine Gael ministers who have raised opposition to Green Party demands to cut emissions by 7% as part of any coalition deal.

A tele-conference of ministers of state on Friday morning heard major concerns about Green pressures for government talks with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

Junior justice minister Denis Stanton raised the prospect of an autumn election and told fellow junior ministers to be ready for a snap vote if coalition efforts collapsed or failed.

Stanton spoke about being prepared for another election in the autumn. And nobody expressed a different view, said one minister who was on the call.

A dozen junior ministers took part in the group two-hour long phone call, which was chaired by European Affairs Minister Helen McEntee.

A key issue which ministers expressed concern and in many cases opposition to is the Green Party's insistence that any programme for government should include an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7% annually.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said on Friday that he and Fine Gael were "keen" to meet the Greens' emissions demand. But the Irish Examiner understands several ministers agreed on the Friday tele-conference call that this core demand was a red line for them and an unrealistic demand.

You can't beat the fever of a zealot, confided one junior minister.

There are a new breed of Greens. And even half of Eamon Ryan's TDs weren't councillors 12 months ago. We are not doing 7%, added the rural minister.

"You can get to it [that emissions cut] if you wreck the place, the minister said.

During the group call, junior health minister Catherine Byrne outlined her own experience of how Green councillors at a local level were very difficult to work with, telling colleagues they were not interested in solutions.

Local government minister John Paul Phelan and junior public expenditure minister Patrick O'Donovan both spoke about how Fine Gael should still strive to be in government-but not at any cost.

We must have red lines, Mr Phelan told colleagues.

Meanwhile, the Green Party's decision to enter government formation talks is expected to see leader Eamon Ryan meet Fianna Fail and Fine Gael leaders Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar this week. The Green Party are also expected to appoint a negotiating team.

A concern, some parliamentary party members said, was trying to get younger members to approve any final deal, one TD said:

"The 17 questions were about establishing a decent baseline. There was so much we care about not in there that will need to be in any document good enough for the members to accept."

It was also confirmed the 16 parliamentary members held a vote to enter the talks. A source added:

The important thing is this is now happening. And that we get enough good things for young members, in particular."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 07:31:12|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Israeli students wearing masks wait to make registration with their parents as they return to their elementary school for the first time in nearly two months in central Israeli city of Modiin amid COVID-19 pandemic on May 3, 2020. On Sunday, some of the schools in Israel were reopened for first through third grade classes, as well as 11th and 12th grade classes. The Israeli Ministry of Education said that schooling had resumed in 80 percent of cities and towns. (Photo by Gil Cohen Magen/Xinhua)
By Trend

Iran is preparing a plan to pay out extra for those who provided valuable services in the country's health sector amid the coronavirus outbreak, the head of the Iran`s Planning and Budget Organization Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said, Trend reports citing IRNA.

Nobakht said the funds "will be paid out soon".

Speaking of Iran's health sector hiring new workers, Nobakht pointed out that recently universities of medical sciences were notified to employ some 4,000 people.

"Recently, 2,280 people have been provided with contracts for recruitment, and recruitment of about 3,000 more will be funded in the coming months, Nobakht said on Instagram.

These employers will be selected from among those who have passed the the previous tests, he said.

Iran continues its battle to limit the spread of the coronavirus across country. 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.

The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Queenslanders have been promised schools, cafes, shops and restaurants will be open by the middle of the year, as long as the relaxed restrictions put in place at the weekend do not result in any more cases.

Three new cases were recorded in Queensland on Monday, from people who had recently returned from London, Los Angeles and an overseas cruise ship, bringing the states cumulative total to 1038.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says schools could be reopened by the end of May and other businesses could be getting back to normal by June. Credit:AAP

It came after a weekend when most Queenslanders obeyed restrictions, with officers issuing 146 fines across the weekend.

Police broke up a few house parties for social-distancing breaches, while officers moved on and fined some people at Burleigh on the Gold Coast for crowding a park.
New Delhi, May 4 : Gujarat Chief Minister for the last three-and-a-half years, Vijay Rupani is dealing with the scourge of the deadly coronavirus by virtually fighting in the trenches as the pandemic scorches his state. He has been in favour of a gradual lifting of the lockdown because he has been practicing a cluster containment strategy in areas registering high number of Covid-19 cases.

In an extensive conversation with IANS, he outlines his mantra for going after the virus even as he maintains an equilibrium between lives and livelihood. Rupani said, "My main aim amidst the lockdown is to ensure that no one in Gujarat should sleep with an empty stomach." Here are excerpts from the interview:

Q: Gujarat is one of the preeminent industrialised states in India, and the late surge of Covid-19 cases must have taken the administration by surprise. Now as the lockdown lifting measures are being talked about, how are you dealing with hotspots like Ahmedabad and Surat? A: Gujarat was the first state in India to have a disaster management authority. This has helped the state have a structured intervention in such critical times.

Since the beginning of the lockdown, we have made it a point to ensure a steady supply of essential items in accordance with safety measures. We contacted the organisations supplying items like milk and medicines and instructed them to follow safety protocols and ensure continuous supply of essential items to the citizens of Gujarat.

Following the MHA guidelines, industries in rural areas were given approval to operate. Later, we also permitted export units within city limits to resume their operations provided they had prior export orders. A standard operating procedure (SOP) was drafted and sent to all the units that resumed operations.

The SOPs included safety measures like social distancing, compulsory use of masks/sanitiser etc. We also increased the daily working hours to 12 hour a day with adequate remuneration for the extended time period. In addition to that, we also instructed the industrial units to provide accommodation within the working premises for its staff as far as possible.

As the lockdown has been extended for another 14 days from May 4, we are ensuring a strict implementation of the same. At the same time, we are taking extra precautions and making an effort to resume day-to-day activities in the less affected areas.

Q: As the state's CM, how have you managed to maintain the fine equilibrium between lives and livelihood? A: Hon'ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid emphasis on 'Jaan Hai to Jahan Hai' when he announced the first phase of the lockdown on March 23. Inspired by his words, my administration's prime motive was to save the people from getting affected with the virus. As a measure of caution, we deployed police personnel across the length and breadth of the state in addition to using CCTV and drone surveillance to ensure that people do not move out of their houses amid the lockdown.

At the same time, we adopted cluster containment strategy in areas registering high number of Covid-19 cases. We imposed a curfew in such areas with a complete restriction on movement of people. At the same time, we ensured to provide essential items like milk, medicines, vegetables etc. to the people at their doorsteps in such areas.

We started intensive testing in such areas to identify the affected people and put them under necessary medical care. There were more than 750 teams of health officials engaged in this task for Ahmedabad for seven consecutive days. In Surat, we had 666 teams working for three consecutive days. At the same time, we also tested in other parts of Gujarat to find out the suspected cases and trace their origin.

My main aim amid the lockdown is to ensure that no one in Gujarat should sleep with an empty stomach. We covered more than 90 per cent of the state's population, more than 5 crore people i.e. 66 lakh NFSA families and 61 APL-1 families, within the first 15 days. At the same time, we also introduced the Anna Bhrama Yojana to provide free food grains to migrant workers and those without ration cards. We covered around 5 lakh people under this. In order to ensure that the families do not run short of essential supplies, we decided to provide an additional of 3.5 kg wheat and 1.5 kg rice to each NFSA card holder in the last week of April.

At the same time, we initiated the Vadil Vandana for the aged and the elderly living alone in the mega cities. We ensured the provision of free meals at the doorsteps through this scheme. At the same time, we distributed more than 3 crore food packets to people who did not have the provision to cook. We have also deposited Rs 1,000 into the bank accounts of NFSA card holders through DBT, without any additional documentation process. This has benefitted more than 65 lakh families as we have deposited Rs 650 crore into their accounts.

Apart from that, we provided farmers the liberty to harvest Rabi crops, permitted them to transport bore wells and started the purchase of agri produce from April 15 at the APMCs. More than 15,48,657 quintals of agri-produce has been sold by the farmers at the APMCs as of May 1. We have also started the purchase of wheat and gram at MSPs from the farmers.

Based on the guidelines issued by the MHA, we decided to resume industrial units outside municipal limits from April 20. We instructed the owners to ensure safety measures and arrange accommodation for the workers within the units as far as possible.

We also made it a point to provide 30-minute break every 6 hours and adequate remuneration for a 12-hour shift. At present, around 40,000 industrial units have resumed their operations and more than 5 lakh workers have resumed their duties. We decided to resume export units within the city but outside containment zones from April 25, provided they had pending export orders.

Q: Gujarat has a splendid history of dealing with the Surat epidemic and cleaning up nicely after that. Are some of those mechanisms and learnings coming handy in the fight against Covid-19? A: Gujarat has witnessed various disasters in past like the Surat Epidemic, Kutch Earthquake etc. and has come out of it successfully. With the State Disaster Management Authority in place, we are doing a careful analysis of the measures taken in the past and implementing the relevant ones in a step wise manner amidst the Covid-19 crisis.

Q: How would you explain this sudden rise in Covid-19 cases? As I write this, there are more than 4,300 cases in Gujarat...

A: I consider the rise in cases as a positive sign for the administration and the people because it helps us identify the affected patients and put them under necessary medical care. The intensive tests done by the administration have helped us identify the affected people, thereby leading to a rise in the cases. As of May 1, we have conducted more than 68,000 tests across the state.

If we talk about Ahmedabad, more than 60 per cent of the total cases are from cluster regions, i.e. 20 per cent area of Ahmedabad has 80 per cent of the cases and the remaining 80 per cent area registered 20 per cent cases. A large number of people attended the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi and came back to Gujarat. By the time we could track them, they had already come in contact with their friends, family and other people around them. This led to the rise in cases in the city.

At first, we identified the hotspot areas and imposed curfew. At the same time, we did aggressive testing in those areas in order to identify the infected people and put them under necessary medical care in order to curtail the spread of Covid-19. The health workers conducted door to door tests in the affected areas. We have tested around 3000 samples per day in the last 10 days due the increase in the number of approved labs.

We also created 2,200-bed capacity hospitals in our four major cities for treating Covid-19 patients by March-end itself, and we were the first state to do so. At present, there are more than 61 hospitals, including 31 private hospitals, for treating Covid-19 patients. There are 10,500 Covid-19 beds with 1,500 ICU beds and 1,500 ventilators at the moment. We will increase this to 22,500, including 10,000 beds in Covid-19 care centres, in one week.

Q: You have also had problems with migrant labourers from Odisha in Surat, how have you dealt with that issue? A: As Surat is one of the fastest growing cities in India and a major industrial hub, there are large numbers of migrant workers in the city. The government had communicated to the district administration, municipal corporation, business houses and social organisations to ensure the provision of essential items and shelter to migrant workers amid the lockdown.

I am proud of our local administration, which has made special arrangements for more than 1.25 lakh labourers in Surat. We have distributed free of cost grains, rice, pulses, sugar and salt to these labourers under the Anna Brahma Yojana. This is a state-wide scheme providing free food grains, salt and sugar to the poor, deprived, labourers and helpless sections of the society. Not only this, we have gone further to cover those migrant workers who do not have ration cards, to support them in this hour of crisis.

The local authorities also interacted with few of the labourers and got to know that the main concern for them was not food or shelter, but work. They wanted to return home as they did not have work. With the new guidelines issued by the MHA, we restarted industries, workplaces and factories from April 20. At present, there are more than 40,000 industries running in the state with 5 lakh labourers working in addition to more than 30,000 labourers working at 700 private construction sites.

I am hopeful that things will improve for the better in the days to come.

Q: What are some key innovative measures initiated by your government to curb the menace of Covid-19? A: Gujarat was the first state in India to come up with a dedicated Covid-19 hospital. We built a 2200-bed hospital within a week. At present, we have around 10,500 dedicated Covid-19 beds and it will increase to 22,500 in a few days.

I am proud to tell you that a private firm in Rajkot has manufactured ventilators. They are at par with international standards and cost less than the imported ones. After getting necessary approvals, the firm is now providing us indigenous ventilators named Dhaman-1. I am sure that the firm will be fulfilling India's demand of ventilators in the days to come. At the same time, we have vendors providing us a steady supply of N-95 and three layered masks and PPE kits, all produced in Gujarat.

Gujarat is not only fulfilling India's demand for HCQ tablets, but the state is also fulfilling the global demand. Our pharma industries have exported HCQ tablets to countries like the US, Israel etc.

At the same time, we are the first state in India to come up with mobile testing vans for testing more and more Covid-19 samples from the rural areas.

These steps have certainly prepared us to face this challenge comfortably, and I am confident that we will be able to contain the spread of the virus soon.
Scores of volunteers are ready for a "Flags In" Memorial Day mission.

But the volunteers from the Joint Veterans Committee  a group that includes Tri-County Council of Vietnam Era Veterans, Capt. William Dale O'Brien Marine Corps League Detachment, Battlefield & Beyond and the Albany County Chapter of Gold Star Mothers  need 18,000 American flags for that mission.

They are working together to ensure flags are placed on veterans' graves at 28 cemeteries in Albany County on time for a "Flags In" ceremony on Memorial Day, May 25.

"Please help us with this very important event," pleads Mark Rosenzweig, chairman of the joint Veterans Committee, William F. Wigand VFW Post, Albany. "We need to make sure no veteran's grave in Albany County is left behind this Memorial Day. Due to the impact of COVID-19, we are forced to seek community funding for the flags for our veterans."

The group aims to make sure Albany County is included in the national "Flags In" ceremony.

In the past, the committee has received funding from various sources, including the city of Albany, to cover the cost of the more than 18,000 flags, Rosenzweig said, With the financial difficulties caused by the COVID-19 shutdown, the committee is left to raise the money necessary to purchase the flags for the graves. So the group is asking the community to help by sponsoring a flag or flags for the graves to honor our veterans who are buried in Albany County. Flag sponsorship is $1 for each flag.

"This year is different than previous years, with everyone struggling due to the shutdown," he adds. "It is important for us to continue to honor and respect our veterans who are buried in 25 cemeteries in Albany County," said Rosenzweig.

In previous years, proceeds from poppy sales helped fund purchase of flags. Because of the pandemic, volunteers were not able to hit the streets to sell poppies.

"We felt the tradition of "Flags In" is so important we could not allow it to be forgotten this year," said Joe Pollicino, Tri- County Council Vietnam Era Veterans president. "By asking the community to sponsor a flag or flags, we will be able to order the needed flags and make sure our veterans receive the honor and respect they deserve.

"Without the help of the community, we will not be able to honor our veterans this year with the placement of an American flag on their grave," Pollicino added. "We need people to step up and sponsor the flags at $1 each."

Businesses and organizations can get involved by sponsoring a cemetery.

Checks can be sent to the Joint Veterans Committee, William F. Wigand VFW Post, 370 Central Ave., Albany, NY 12206.

"Memorial Day is a difficult day for so many of us in the Capital Region," said Carrie Farley, an Albany County Chapter of American Gold Star Mothers member and past department president of Gold Star Mothers Inc. "As a Gold Star Mother, seeing an American flag marking your hero's service when visiting on Memorial Day warms your heart. I am both proud and excited about working on the sponsorship drive for this year's 'Flags In' ceremony in Albany County."

For information, please contact Mark Rosenzweig at 518-701-6647 or Joe Pollicino at 518-360-5754.

Family duty

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

Airmen 1st Class Jack and Joshua Seeberger are following in their father's footsteps.

The brothers are serving as loadmasters with the 109th Airlift Wing at the Stratton Air National Guard Base in Scotia.

The brothers are the son of retired Master Sgt. Scott Seeberger, who served with the 109th for 22 years before retirement.

The younger airmen enlisted in 2018.

"Even though we never planned on joining at the same time, being able to take the journey with my brother made it a little easier and also rewarding," said Joshua. "This is just one more experience that we can share."

After they completed the basic loadmaster course in San Antonio, they flew to Jacksonville, Arkansas, for initial qualification for the C130-H; and the last stop was to complete Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training.

After their dad served in the Marine Corps, he enlisted in the 109th in 2001 and became a loadmaster.

News of your troops and units can be sent to Duty Calls, Terry Brown, Times Union, Box 15000, Albany, NY 12212 or brownt@timesunion.com.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Yunindita Prasidya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 16:20 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5d5c32 1 Business Indonesia,stock-market,outlook-2020,COVID-19,analyst,regional-market,manufacturing-industry Free

The recent meltdown of share prices on the Indonesian stock exchange is not over despite signs of recovery in the past two weeks, stock analysts have said.

Mirae Asset Sekuritas Indonesia said in its monthly strategy report published on April 6, there are more reasons to think that the volatility is not over yet. The securities company estimates that manufacturing activities will even get worse in April and May.

When asked about the outlook for the month ahead, Mirae Asset head of research Hariyanto Wijaya told The Jakarta Post on Monday that the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI), the main gauge of Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), was likely to undergo a correction in May due to weak economic data and an outflow of capital.

We think foreign investors would continue to book a net sell on Indonesian equity in May, he said.

The global meltdown began to hit the local stock market following the announcement of the countrys first COVID-19 case on March 2. By March 23, the JCI had plunged to 3,900 points  the lowest seen since October 2015  due to COVID-19-driven market panic.

The index began to show signs of recovery in the following days, after the exchange introduced a new measure to protect the index from falling further. Between March 23 and April 29, the index climbed 14.48 percent.

On Thursday, last week, the JCI gained 3.26 percent, in line with the increase in most regional price indeces.

However, share prices on the local exchange reversed the upward trend on Monday amid selling pressure from both local and foreign investors. The index lost 2.5 percent to end the morning session on Monday at 4,595 points, marking a 27 percent decrease so far this year.

Artha Sekuritas Indonesia vice president Frederik Rasali shared the cautious view. He told the Post on April 30 that as long as the economic sentiment is not good, the increase in the JCI is still very risky.

He explained that the relatively calm market was a result of the exchanges newly introduced 7 percent limit-down policy, which protected the index against free-fall.

Frederik went on to say that he believed foreign investors would continue their selling spree and opt for cash for higher liquidity.

Over the past five weeks, share sales by foreign investors exceeded buys by Rp 7.3 trillion (US$472 million). The average net foreign sell volume per week between March 23 to April 24 reached Rp 1.46 trillion. According to IDX statistics from April 30, foreign net sales have reached Rp 19.13 trillion this year.

On the outlook, if we look at the global conditions with regard to the spread of the coronavirus, [on the chart], it has started to plateau. Hence, there is a possibility that the market, too, will recover, Jasa Utama Capital analyst Chris Apriliony told the Post on April 30.

He suggested that the increase in the number of countries that have loosened their lockdowns following the flattening of their COVID-19 curve should provide positive sentiment for investors.

Recently, a number of European Union countries have announced an easing of restrictions, including France, Italy and Spain. South Korea has also decided to lift several movement restrictions, as has Vietnam.

Several sectors have been performing well on the local bourse amid the health crisis. Chris observed that telecommunications and consumer goods were among the best performers, yet the retail sector had not been performing well as the pandemic hit the sector quite hard.

Meanwhile, Asian stock markets fell sharply on Monday as risk sentiment turned sour after US officials tried to pin blame for the coronavirus pandemic on China, stoking worries of fresh tensions between the world's top two economies, Reuters reported.

Singapore shares tumbled as much as 3.3 percent, their sharpest intraday drop since March 30, while Malaysian shares shed as much as 2.3 percent, their worst in six weeks, ahead of March trade data.
By PTI

KOLKATA: Despite the Centre allowing the functioning of certain shops and services to give some respite during the third phase of the lockdown that began on Monday, large parts of West Bengal wore a deserted look as the state government is yet to decide on the relaxations in the green and orange zones.

Shops, barring those selling essential commodities, remained closed and vehicles were off the roads in most parts of the state in the morning.

In the afternoon, a task force led by Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha will decide on the relaxations, including which shops and establishments will be allowed to reopen in the two zones, an official said.

"However, the complete lockdown will continue in the containment zones," he said.

There are four red, eight green and 11 orange zones in the state.



CLICK HERE FOR COVID-19 LIVE UPDATES

"We are waiting for the state government notification before deciding on opening business establishments," Confederation of West Bengal Trade Unions president Sushil Poddar said.

The association has a membership base of around 10 lakh in the state.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had last week announced a few relaxations and allowed intra-district plying of buses in green and orange zones, with a maximum of 20 passengers in each vehicle.



ALSO READ | Over 2,500 migrants will return to West Bengal from Rajasthan, Kerala on Monday: CM Mamata Banerjee

Bus operators, however, refused to commence services stating it would be economically unviable for them to run vehicles with only 20 passengers.

Associations of bus operators had earlier said either the state government should give them subsidies for running the buses or it may requisition the vehicles for plying these on different routes.

Meanwhile, liquor outlets have been allowed to reopen only in the green zones in the state from Monday, an official said.

All liquor shops in the state have been shut since March 25 when the nationwide lockdown was imposed.

The state government has not allowed reopening of liquor outlets in the red zones and is still undecided on those in the orange ones, officials said.
She recently revealed she was struggling to find a job at a law firm, despite being a law graduate.

And now it seems Married At First Sight's Stacey Hampton has no need to worry anymore as she has announced a major career change.

On Monday, the 26-year-old reality TV star revealed she is considering becoming a fashion designer after being offered the opportunity to start her own clothing range.

New gig: Married At First Sight's Stacey Hampton has announced a new career change after struggling to find a job at a law firm despite having a degree

The mother-of-two shared the exciting news on her Instagram story during a question and answer segment with fans.

'When are you going to bring out your own clothing range?' one fan asked.

Stacey explained she had been offered to create her own range by an unnamed brand and asked her fans for ideas of what pieces of clothing they would like to see her launch.

'What do you want to see?' On Monday, the 26-year-old reality TV star revealed she is considering becoming a fashion designer after being offered the opportunity to start her own clothing range

'That's an amazing question, I got an offer today to start my own range,' Stacey said.

'What are your thoughts guys and what do you want to see?'

Last month, Stacey - who is known for her lavish lifestyle and love of designer goods - claimed she was struggling to find a job at a law firm, despite having a degree.

She explained in a YouTube video that most employers aren't willing to hire her for just three days a week, which she is asking for because she has two children at home.

Career change: Last month, Stacey - who is known for her lavish lifestyle and love of designer goods - claimed she was struggling to find a job at a law firm, despite having a degree

Stacey said she could not work five days a week because she is a single mother to sons, Kosta and Kruz.

'A lot of people ask why I'm not using my law degree, but not many law firms like to take on people who only want three days a week,' she said.

'If I did five days a week then I feel like I'm not being fair on my children and I'm not there for them and I'm not helping them with their schooling and stuff like that,' she added.

'Being a single parent has impacted me quite a lot, but I'm also so blessed and wouldn't have my life any other way.'

Family first: She explained in a YouTube video that most employers aren't willing to hire her for just three days a week, which she is asking for because she has two children at home. Stacey said she could not work five days a week because she is a single mother to sons, Kosta and Kruz

She told Daily Mail Australia at the time that hadn't applied for any legal roles, and is waiting until her children are older before she fully commits to her career.

Stacey was awarded a Bachelor of Laws from the University of South Australia in August 2017.

She went on to receive a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practise from The College of Law in April 2019.

A month later, she was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of South Australia.
PONTIAC, MI  A long-time Oakland County sheriffs deputy is facing a criminal charge, the loss of his job and a possible civil lawsuit in the shooting of a pregnant 16-year-old during a March traffic stop in Pontiac.

The 20-year veteran police officer, 52-year-old Deputy Christopher Cadotte, was arraigned Friday, May 1, on a charge of careless discharge of a firearm causing injury or death, the Detroit Free Press reports. The charge is a two-year offense and/or $2,000 fine. The incident occurred on March 9. Cadotte is out on a $25,000 personal bond. His next court date is June 16.

Termination proceedings are in progress, according to a news release from the Oakland County Sheriffs Office.

RELATED: 16-year-old Michigan girl shot by officer during traffic stop early Monday morning

A lawyer representing the victim, Isabella Simpson, and her family, told the Free Press that there are plans to file a lawsuit. Simpson was shot in the upper right collar bone. She was released from the hospital a few days after the incident, the report said.

The shooting occurred just after 2 a.m. during a traffic stop. Deputies were in the area assisting with a separate drug-related stop when they pulled over the vehicle for a traffic offense. The vehicle slowed down and then then the driver fled on foot, leaving three passengers in the car. Simpson was the front-seat passenger.

A deputy then positioned his patrol car in front of the vehicle, which continued to move forward, according to a sheriffs office news release. The deputys gun discharged as he was exiting the vehicle, the release said.

The account differs from a March news release, which said the deputy drew his weapon and fired into the windshield as the vehicle moved toward him.

The driver, identified as a 15-year-old Pontiac boy, was unlicensed and took the vehicle without the owners permission, according to police.

READ MORE:

Man confronted for entering Dollar Tree without mask wipes nose on clerks shirt

U.P. sheriff candidate charged with violating election law

Monday, May 4: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Share your adorable pet photos with Bissells Pawsitivity campaign
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo's new stay-home, work-safe order lasts through May 20 and prohibits businesses that were originally excluded from Gov. Greg Abbott's latest executive order to reopen.

"We need to remain vigilant for a phased reopening to work," Hidalgo wrote in a recent Twitter post announcing the order.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Texas reports most deaths in a day from COVID-19 as Gov. Abbott prepares to drop stay-home order

The order comes just days after Abbott lifted the state's stay-home order and announced a two-phased plan to allow some businesses to slowly start reopening at 25 percent capacity levels.

Hidalgo said during a recent press conference that Abbott's decision to lift the state order forced her to enact a four-part mitigation plan to restart the Houston economy sooner than she expected. The night the state's stay-home order expired, Texas had the deadliest day yet for COVID-19.

Hidalgo's persistence to keep residents safe from the coronavirus has led to constant backlash from conservative residents and state leaders, turning the pandemic political.

'NOT SO FAST': Hidalgo announces fourth step in mitigation plan to restart Houston's economy

Despite the pushback, Hidalgo is encouraging residents to follow the new county order and stay home if at all possible.

"Reopening doesn't mean mission accomplished, it doesn't mean the virus goes away," Hidalgo said during a recent press conference.

The judge is also asking residents to report businesses that are operating at full capacity to report violations via an online form.

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
FREE WEST PAPUA!

Last month, Central Jakarta District Court convicted six Papuan activists of treason for holding a peaceful protest outside the Indonesian Presidential Palace in August of last year.

The protest, organised by the Indonesian Peoples Front for West Papua, was in response to armed raids by Indonesian police on the dormitories of Papuan students. The activists consider the raids to have been made without any legitimate justification, and that they were instead a racially motivated attack.

The six activists convicted  Surya Anta, Arina Elopere, Charles Kossay, Deno Tabuni, Isay Wenda and Ambrosius Mulait  have been held in prison since the August protest. Some of the actions considered treasonous by the court were waving the West Papuan independence flag, singing pro-independence songs, and making speeches calling for a referendum on independence.

The sentences handed to each of the activists were eight or nine months imprisonment; this includes time already served during the trial, which means they are expected to be released within a few weeks. This strange juxtaposition of what is typically considered a highly serious charge (treason) and a seemingly mild punishment, gives the impression that the trial has been politically motivated, opportunistically balancing a justification of the polices actions against the activists and the Indonesian governments harsh opposition towards the West Papuan independence movement with a cautious attitude to growing unrest against the governments oppression, exploitation and genocide in its Papuan colonies, both amongst the Papuan peoples and the Indonesian left.

Indonesia declared independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1945, which would be formally acknowledged by the Dutch government in 1949. The Dutch, however, continued to occupy West Papua for another thirteen years.

During that period, the left around the world campaigned for Dutch occupation to end and generally promoted Indonesias claim to the territory. The reason was that, at the time, the other half of the island of Papua was occupied by Australia as a territory. Many believed that if West Papua  with its small population, limited economic and political infrastructure, but immense natural resources  became independent, it would be forced into an exploitative relationship with Australia or other powers (similar to what we have seen with Timor-Leste), and perhaps even be annexed by Australia.

An assumption was also made by many that the Sukarno government of Indonesia, which had many progressive characteristics and had good relationships with the Soviet Union and Peoples Republic of China including adopting some Soviet-inspired policies, would also adopt a Soviet-inspired progressive minority nationalities policy, and allow the peoples of West Papua self-governance and freedom of cultural expression. This hope would, tragically, never manifest.

The United States, hoping to pull Indonesia away from its leaning towards the Soviet camp, aimed to win Indonesian favour by pressuring the Dutch government to relinquish its claim to the territory. In 1962 a deal was signed between the Netherlands and Indonesia, on the basis of a temporary period of Indonesian administration followed by a plebiscite of the West Papuan people, to be held in 1969, on the question of whether to remain part of Indonesia.

From 1965-66, the Indonesian military, led by the extreme anti-communist Suharto, conducted mass killings of communists (real and claimed) throughout Indonesia. At least half a million and possibly over a million people were killed, with the support and assistance of Western governments including the US and Australia. In 1967 Suharto formally removed Sukarno from the presidency and imposed himself as president, beginning a three-decade dictatorship, which Suharto himself dubbed the New Order.

Thus when 1969 arrived, there was little hope for the planned plebiscite to be conducted fairly. The military government selected from the population of over 800,000 Papuans just over a thousand people to gather, surrounded by armed soldiers, to vote on the question of independence by a show of hands. Many that were present later said that they had been threatened with violent reprisals against their families should they not vote against independence. The Indonesian authorities reported a 100 per cent vote against independence, and labelled this sham plebiscite the Act of Free Choice. Shockingly, the UN hastily moved to recognise the vote as legitimate and permanent. The Indonesian government has since refused to hold another vote, and activists calling for a new plebiscite have been routinely harassed by police, fined, and imprisoned.

Since then, the Indonesian occupation has brutally repressed the West Papuan people and robbed their land. As many as half a million killings have been attributed to the Indonesian military occupation, and many more have been subjected to torture and rape.

The CPA calls for the Australian government to support the right of West Papuans to self-determination, the release of all political prisoners and for the Indonesian military to withdraw. There must be a new referendum!
Youth who report one of the seven chronic medical conditions (CMCs), including asthma, congenital heart disease, diabetes, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and sickle cell disease, are often diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. A new systematic review in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, examines the prevalence of anxiety disorders and the impact of anxiety on disease-related outcomes for children and adolescents with CMCs.

The research team based in Australia and the Netherlands found the prevalence of anxiety disorders in youth with CMCs was higher than that in the general population. Anxiety may also be associated with adverse disease-related outcomes for children and adolescents with these conditions.

The issue of 'mental-physical comorbidity' (i.e., meeting diagnostic criteria for least one mental illness and one physical disease) is critical, with the combination of anxiety disorders and physical disease appearing to be particularly prevalent among youth. Associated with significant implications, the combination of anxiety disorders and a physical disease presents the potential for worsened physical disease outcomes. Health professionals working with children and adolescents with chronic medical conditions should routinely screen for the presence of anxiety disorders in order to provide the best possible care to these youth." Vanessa Cobham, Ph.D., lead author, clinical psychologist at the University of Queensland and Children's Health Queensland's Child and Youth Mental Health Service, Brisbane, Australia

The review based on 53 studies included the examination of prevalence of anxiety disorders and disease-related outcomes across seven different CMCs in children and adolescents with an average age of 18-years or younger.

Twenty-nine studies investigated the occurrence of anxiety disorders and found that more-than-half of the identified studies relied on only one informant (either the youth themselves or parent) in determining whether or not the youth met the criteria for an anxiety disorder. This was seen as the most significant limitation regarding the pervasiveness of an anxiety disorder.

While it is likely these studies underestimate the occurrence of anxiety disorders, the authors did find however that across all CMCs the anxiety prevalence rates were high: affecting approximately 20 percent to 50 percent of youth. In studies that included a healthy control group, rates of an anxiety disorder were substantially higher among patients with all CMCs. Across all CMCs, the rate of anxiety disorder was higher than the global prevalence rate of 6.5 percent as previously reported by Polanczyk and colleagues1.

The remaining 24 studies examined the impact of anxiety on disease-related outcomes. No studies were identified for disease-related outcomes for epilepsy or congenital heart disease, however the authors reported that anxiety was associated with:

poorer symptom control, school absenteeism, and higher rates of smoking in youth with asthma;

increased disease activity in youth with inflammatory bowel disease;

greater pain in youth with juvenile idiopathic arthritis; and

longer lengths of hospitalizations in youth with sickle cell disease presenting in vaso-occular crisis.

The most significant and common limitations in relation to the question of the impact of anxiety on disease-related outcomes were the cross-sectional design of most studies and the fact that almost all studies relied on one informant only in assessing both anxiety and disease-related outcomes.

The evidence for youth with diabetes was inconsistent, with some studies reporting a negative impact of anxiety on metabolic control and treatment adherence and other studies reporting a positive association between elevated anxiety and treatment adherence.

While evidence that anxiety is associated with adverse disease-related outcomes in these youth, more longitudinal research is needed to delineate the impact of anxiety on child outcomes, Dr. Cobham and her team concluded. It is recommended that health services routinely assess for anxiety disorders among youth with CMCs. Psychometrically validated anxiety questionnaires (both parent and youth versions) are likely to be a feasible means of screening for anxiety disorders.
A motorist has been slugged with a hefty parking bill after he left his car abandoned in a shopping centre car park for at least five months.

Footage posted to TikTok reportedly filmed in a western Sydney car park shows the motorist confronted with a nasty surprise at the parking ticket station after he retrieved his vehicle on Friday night.

'This d*** left his car here in the shopping centre for two years, he's trying to get out and look how much it is,' the motorist's friend is heard in the video.

The Sydney motorist copped a nasty surprise as he was leaving the car park on Friday night

The ticket machine shows a parking bill of $8450 for the 147 day stay.

'The car wouldn't be worth eight grand you mutt,' the man jokes to the motorist.

According a Roads and Maritime Services check on the NSW licence plate, the car is a blue 1999 Honda Civic sedan with its registration and insurance due to expire in mid July.

An estimated value of the 21-year-old model ranges up to a maximum $2,192, based on vehicle condition, mileage, and options.

'My mate's car is worth less than the parking ticket,' the video was captioned.

The value of the 21-year-old Honda Civic was a fraction of the price of the parking ticket

The TikTok video was inundated with more than 63,400 likes and almost 700 comments, where many viewers slammed the author for exaggerating the length of the car park stay, which works out to be 21 weeks.

'Since when does 147 days equal two years?' one commented.

Others questioned the authenticity of the footage.

Viewer's queries for more detail about what happened and how he got out have not yet been not responded to.

'How did they not tow your car,' one asked.

Another added: 'But why would you leave your car there for so long?'

Footage of the extraordinary incident posted on Tik Tok has been questioned by viewers




Syracuse, N.Y.  Onondaga County Ryan McMahon gave a glimpse today of what businesses might reopen in Central New York in the coming weeks after being shut down because of coronavirus.

First up would be construction and manufacturing, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo already has said would be in the first reopening phase in some regions as business slowly gets going again.

And McMahon thinks Central New York is poised to add some of that work back on May 16 when the states current shutdown expires. Theres no guarantee that will be the first day some go back to work. Cuomo has yet to lay out any definitive start date for any industry or region.

Yet this region has the second-lowest rate of virus spread, behind the North Country.

Were mindful what we do here is going to be the blueprint for what they do across the state, McMahon said.

What else might come on line early? Maybe landscaping. And eye and dental care, McMahon said.

But not hair salons, he said. Salons arent a part of May 15, he said, citing the day the current order expires.

And not restaurants, he said. They still are working on both space and business plans. Is it worth it to reopen if you have to remove half the seating to observe social distancing? Some may opt to continue to do takeout only until social distancing rules are loosened, McMahon said.

No matter what, the restart will be slow. When those first jobs restart, the state will wait two weeks before opening up any more sectors, Cuomo has said.

McMahon said he agrees with the two-week waiting period. Officials want to see how and whether the virus spreads.

Thats why you crawl into it, McMahon said.

But if the viruss spread is slow and manageable, more businesses will reopen, he said. Its all dependent on people accepting that the virus is here and highly contagious. McMahon urged people to be vigilant about staying apart so the economy could start churning again.

Unless theres an outbreak in the community, he said. Then all bets are off.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Cuomo set at least 12 tests for CNY economy to reopen. Heres how we check the boxes

As he struggled to breathe, CNY nursing home wouldnt test for coronavirus, family says

Protesters gather in downtown Syracuse, demanding Cuomo reopen New York

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Live Q&A with Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon is discussing the countys response to the coronavirus pandemic. What are your questions? Posted by syracuse.com on Friday, May 1, 2020

Got a story idea or news tip youd like to share? Please contact me through email, Twitter, Facebook or at 315-470-2274.
According to Pune zila parishad health department, over 1,390 cases were reported till 2 May - 1,321 cases in Pune city, 59 in Pimpri-Chinchwad, and 16 in Pune rural areas. The Centre has extended the lockdown till 17 May in a bid to contain the spread of the virus.

Pune district on Sunday saw a spike of 68 new COVID-19 cases. Coronavirus has infected over 1,900 people and claimed the lives of 103 in the district, reported The Hindu.

According to Pune zila parishad health department, over 1,390 cases were reported till 2 May - 1,321 cases in Pune city, 59 in Pimpri-Chinchwad, and 16 in Pune rural areas. The Centre has extended the lockdown till 17 May in a bid to contain the spread of the virus.

The pandemic has not only delivered a huge blow to health of humans, but has also brought the economic activity to a standstill.

However, in order to turn the wheels of economy again, the central government has decided to allow some activities depending on different zones  red, green and orange.

Maharashtra has seen over 12 thousand cases in the state with 548 deaths. The district of Mumbai has recorded the highest number of cases followed by Pune. Both Mumbai and Pune have been put under the Red Zone.

Here are the activities which are allowed in Pune:

Red Zones (activities allowed with restrictions - outside containment zone)

 All industrial establishment in urban areas prohibited except: in Special Economic Zones/ industrial estates/townships with access control.

 Production units requiring continuous process and their supply chain, jute industry with staggered shifts and social distancing.

 Manufacturing units of essential goods, including drugs, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, their raw material and intermediaries.

 Private offices can work with upto 33 per cent strength, rest to work from home.

 All government offices with 100 per cent strength from levels of deputy secretary and above, remaining to attend up to 33 per cent.

 Defence and security services, health and family welfare, police, home guards, fire and emergency services and such other important services to function without restrictions.

 Movement of individuals and vehicles only for permitted activities vehicular restriction -- four-wheelers to have maximum two passengers besides driver and pillion rider not allowed for two-wheelers.

 All construction activities in urban areas prohibited, except: a) in situ construction, and b) construction of renewable energy projects.

 All shops selling essential goods to remain open in red zones, except in malls.

 All shops selling non-essential goods to remain closed in malls, market complexes and markets in urban areas.

 All stand-alone shops, neighbourhood (colony) shops and shops in residential complexes to remain open in urban areas for essential and non-essential goods.

 All shops in rural areas (other than mills) to remain open for essential and non-essential goods e-commerce activities only in essential goods.

The Pune district currently has no Orange and Green zones. The zone classification, however, is dynamic and will be revised every week. State governments and union territories are allowed to classify additional districts as Red or Orange Zones. However, they cannot lower the zone classification of a district.
The CPI(M) has written to Opposition leaders to join the party in forming a comprehensive economic roadmap for a post-COVID-19 India.

In the letter, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has said the Left party has prepared an economic roadmap to tackle the issues emerging out of the pandemic and urged the other parties to give their views on it.

"I am forwarding this roadmap, which has been formally sent to the President and the Prime Minister, for your consideration and any proposals that you may have. I request you to also share any ideas that you may have for any sort of a joint move on these proposals. The CPI(M) is ready to host a video consultation on our server, if you agree. The details, date and time can be fixed subsequently," the letter stated.

The document has been sent to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, DMK's M K Stalin and T R Balu, RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and CPI general secretary D Raja among others.

The CPI(M) has suggested that as an immediate measure, the central government must make available to every non income tax paying household Rs 7,500 per month for a period of three months, and to every individual 10 kg of free foodgrains per month for a period of six months.

It has urged the centre to pay its GST dues to the states and also to double the states' borrowing limits as immediate measures.

It has also suggested mid-term and long-term methods which include facilitating return of migarants, recoveries of MSMEs and hike in public investments.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
HCM City has an ambitious goal to create a large innovation district as part of its plan to become a smart city.

The view of Samsungs factory in eastern HCM City where a new innovation district is expected to take shape.

HCM City, which has many of the conditions needed to become the first smart city in Vietnam, is still finalising plans for its ambitious goal to build an innovative city within a city in the eastern part of the sprawling metropolis.

The plans call for merging districts 2, 9 and Thu Duc to become an innovative district based on a digital, knowledge-based economy.

If approved by the central Government, HCM City would be the first locality in the country to manage a city within a city.

To seek ideas for the hub, the city last year launched a contest on planning concepts. Sasaki Associates Inc, a US architecture and design solution firm, won first prize worth VND4.5 billion (US$193,960).

The company proposed different zones, facilities and development plans, while ensuring elements needed for a smart city and innovation, as well as other factors to support the growth of technologies and key industries.

A representative of the company said the eastern urban area should be designed to attract more investment and new opportunities while promoting globalisation and maintaining local culture, appealing to a talented workforce from around the world, and adapting to climate change.

According to Sasaki, the planned innovation district is envisioned as a significant economic driver for the city and region, connecting research, entrepreneurship, academia, industry, and the local community to create a diverse innovation eco-system.

The city has the potential to expand upon the traditional triple helix model of an innovation districts structure, involving academia, government and industry, to more directly involve communities and society at the core of its innovation activities while ensuring long-term ecological and environmental resilience, said Romil Sheth, Sasaki principal.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, chairman of the Peoples Committee, said the innovation district, spread over more than 211sq.km and home to more than 1.1 million people, was based on the idea of a hi-tech and smart urban development zone.

Smart-city scheme

HCM City has achieved significant results after more than two years of implementation of a project to become a smart city.

As part of the plan, districts 2, 9 and Thu Duc were selected first, thanks to their intensive science and technology attributes.

The 48sq.km Thu Duc District has a high concentration of educational institutions, research centres and four large universities with more than 10,000 lecturers, including over 1,000 professors, and over 100,000 students.

It will serve as a place for training high-quality human resources.

The 50sq.km District 2 with the new Thu Thiem Urban and Financial Centre will provide infrastructure and international exhibition and financial centres for the innovation urban area and the city as a whole, Phong said.

The 114sq.km District 9, which contains the Saigon Hi-Tech Park, would be a hub for research and incubating innovative technologies.

The eastern area boasts modern infrastructure, including the first metro line still under construction from Ben Thanh Market in District 1 to Suoi Tien Theme Park in District 9, and the expressway from HCM City to Long Thanh-Dau Giay in Dong Nai Province and Cat Lai Port, the largest in Vietnam.

Challenges

Developing a smart city would help HCM City solve serious issues such as traffic jams, floods, environmental quality and infrastructure gaps amid increasing globalisation and rapid development of technologies, according to experts.

The city needs to provide better public services and an improved quality of life for residents, as well as more jobs.

However, Pham Thai Son of the Vietnam-Germany University said the citys current resources were insufficient to build the innovation district or a city within a city in the eastern part.

Dr Nguyen Cao Tri of Van Lang University also noted that it would be difficult for the city to change management methods immediately.

So it must find creative ways based on current policies, he said.

Pham Chanh Truc, former deputy secretary of the municipal Party Committee, said: A smaller area should be designated first as the innovation district and then expanded because the project would involve huge expenditures.

To make the plan feasible, the city has to start with the basics, such as traffic infrastructure, he said.

We must build a fully new urban area where priority is given to pedestrians, buses and metro lines, and no longer to motorcycles and private cars, Tri said.

Dr Nguyen Do Dung, an overseas Vietnamese in Singapore, called for a policy to ensure flexible governance.

The city should promote its openness and friendliness, and open resources of data, governance, and global connectivity, he said.

Prof. Tran Hai Linh, chairman of the Vietnamese Business Association in South Korea, recommended setting up an advisory panel to help the city plan the application of technology, artificial intelligence, and renewable energy.

The government plays a major role as an initial catalyst in mobilising resources and policies for an innovative city with cooperation among universities, research institutes, and businesses.

Speaking at a recent forum to discuss the vision for the innovation district, Ousmane Dione, World Bank country director in Vietnam, said: A clear vision, good planning and a skilled workforce are keys to a successful innovation urban area.

Private sector

Nguyen Thien Nhan, secretary of HCM City Party Committee, said technological solutions and financial resources, especially from the private sector, have been mobilised to ensure the smart city projects success.

The State should work with businesses, from master planning to implementing Public Private Partnerships. The state budget should be allocated first. Business funding will follow if they see our success, he noted.

Dr Nguyen Cao Tri of Van Lang University and other experts have urged the city to seek investment from the private sector.

According to JLL Vietnam, a global real estate services firm specialising in commercial property and investment management, the trend of creating a city within a city, commonly referred to as large-scale integrated development, has become the next big trend in Vietnam.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, chairman of the Peoples Committee, said the eastern part of the city, including District 2, 9, and Thu Duc, offers good conditions for developing large and innovative city projects.

According to the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Vietnam, US investors are paying attention to pouring money into and sharing experiences on developing innovative and smart cities in Vietnam.

AmCham has worked with the US Consulate in HCM City, the Ministry of Information and Communications, and other agencies to set up the US-Vietnam Smart Cities Industry Group.

The group has more than 30 members covering urbanisation planning, software and hardware, and energy and wastewater treatment solutions, among others.

Japanese investors, meanwhile, are also looking towards Vietnamese smart cities and urban development areas.

Keiji Kimura, chairman of the Japan Conference on Overseas Development of Eco-cities, said many Japanese investors were already involved in urban infrastructure and development in Vietnam.

The Ministry of Construction said the plan is unprecedented in the country and would require careful study prior to offering its recommendations.

The ministry noted that the establishment of the eastern city directly under HCM City management would require amendments in urban planning and construction laws. VNS

Vietnamese-made robots used for pandemic fight HCM Citys use of hi-tech to make robots in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates its capacity for innovation, as well as the creativity and collaboration of its engineers. A group of experts from HCM Citys Ton Duc Thang University developed the Covid Defender 1.0 and Disinfection Robot 1.0 models, which are used in sterilisation. The Covid Defender 1.0 is operated by a remote control up to two kilometres from the robot. It has an arm designed like an ejector that is convenient for spraying chemicals. The robot can work for six consecutive hours at 15km per hour. A smartphone installed on the equipment allows remote observation and control through video calls. In the future, Covid Defender 1.0 will be used in fire prevention and control as well as other emergencies. The Disinfection Robot 1.0 model can memorise a layout of a workspace. It can disinfect by exposing ultraviolet rays to destroy the DNA structure of the virus. The products advantage is that it has no chemicals and is environmentally friendly. A team from the Eastern People Military Hospital in the city has also made a robot used for sterilisation under an order from the Department of Health. It sprays chemicals for sterilisation and cleans floors. It can also disinfect itself. It can be operated via a remote control connected to a 4G network or the internet. The Department of Health will provide this kind of robot to local hospitals that receive COVID-19 patients. In addition, the Military Technical Academy has manufactured an autonomous robot named Vibot-1 that can replace some medical workers in high-risk quarantine areas. The robot can deliver food, medicine and necessities, move waste outside, and help communicate between doctors and patients. It can carry different types of goods with loads up to 100kg. Its operation is monitored by a control centre. VNS



Bo Xuan Hiep

HCM City sets up steering committee for new city within city HCM City authorities plan to establish a steering committee on the creation of a city within a city that will include districts 2, 9 and Thu Duc, according to Nguyen Thanh Phong, chairman of the city Peoples Committee.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Kumbungu, Mr Ras Mubarak, says the fight against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will be won through sustained public education, science, technology and prayers.

According to him, this was the time that public health practitioners must be encouraged and supported to educate the populace to halt the community spread of COVID-19.



Mr Mubarak, who is the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Kumbungu in the Northern Region, made the remarks in an interview with journalists at Dalun, after he distributed 150 gift boxes to some vulnerable groups in the constituency last Saturday, May 2, 2020.



Donations



The gift boxes contained assorted food items such as bags of rice, sugar, cooking oil, canned fish, sachets of tomato paste, milk, tea bags and packs of fruit juice to the aged, widows and people living with disabilities (PWDs) in Zangbalun, Dalun, Satani and the Kumbungu township.



The food items that were donated with the support of the government and the people of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was aimed at easing the burden of the vulnerable groups during the month of Ramadan.



Earlier in the day, he had also donated four bags of rice and a check for GH2,000 to members of the Tamale branch of the Ghana National Association for the Deaf before setting off to Kumbungu.



The occasion was also used to educate the beneficiaries and some members of the public at the separate venues for the donation on the COVID-19 safety protocols.



Dispel rumours



Mr Mubarak used the occasion to dispel the notion being held by a section of his constituents that the coronavirus could not infect people , especially Dagombas, who claimed to have some form of immunisation through the drinking of herbs against such viruses .



"One thing that I heard on my return to the constituency was that this virus cannot infect a Dagomba man because he has a form of immunisation through the drinking of herbs against such viruses but this is not true when it comes to all viruses, including coronavirus which has no cure," he stated.



Medical expert



A Medical Laboratory Scientist, Dr Seidu Fiter, who was part of Mr Mubarak's team, urged Muslims to strictly follow the safety protocols by washing their hands thoroughly under running water with soap and sanitise their hands before performing ablution.

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
A woman has shared a final photo of her mother, who died from Covid-19 in hospital, in a bid to warn others of the real dangers of the disease.

Joan Wright, 75, died in Furness General hospital in Cumbria last week, with her husband, who is still in hospital with the virus, holding her hand and with family members by her side.

Her daughter Deborah Buchanan, from Newtownabbey in County Antrim said her mother asked her take the photo shortly before she passed away.

The final photo of Joan Wright, 75, who died in Furness General hospital in Cumbria last week. Her family and her husband are pictured in PPE

It shows Mrs Wright bed bound, with her husband, Ms Buchanan's father and other family members, all dressed in PPE.

In a Facebook post, Ms Buchanan, said: 'This is the reality of Coronavirus. Wake up and wise up. This is not going away anytime soon and more and more people are going to die. Dont let it be your parent or grandparent or any member of your family who ends up like this. Stay away from those you love, and protect yourselves and them.'

She said that both of her parents had tested positive for COVID-19 on 27 April after being admitted to hospital. Ms Buchanan had travelled to the hospital after she was requested to attend and said her mother, who was on a ventilator, was in good spirits at the outset and was 'happy, talking and joking.'

Speaking to Northern Irelands Sunday Life newspaper, Ms Buchanan said that her mother and father (pictured), who had been together more than 50 years, had moved to Cumbria 15 years ago to retire

However, several hours later, her mother's condition deteriorated and family members returned to the hospital where she died a short time later.

'We had to watch her gasp her last breaths and slip away in agony. My dad says this is the worst thing he has ever felt in his life, he fears going to sleep incase he doesnt wake up. They hadnt left the house in weeks but still picked this up and both took very unwell. My dad is still in hospital and not out of the woods yet, his heart is broken and he has to continue to fight to try and beat this.'

Ms Buchanan said they were lucky to be there when her mother passed away but has issued an impassioned plea for people to stay at home.

'Please, stay at home, please do not go through the heartache we have had to. Ours isnt over yet.'

Speaking to Northern Irelands Sunday Life newspaper, Ms Buchanan said that her mother and father, who had been together more than 50 years, had moved to Cumbria 15 years ago to retire.

*I want to add that although my parents did not leave the house in weeks, they did have care workers and medical professionals coming into their home. So many people are asking how its possible when they didnt leave, anything is possible with this virus,* Ms Buchanan added at the bottom of her post.
Highlights Several fake messages are being forwarded on social media in the backdrop of coronavirus pandemic.

A WhatsApp message stated that the government was giving free masks is doing rounds on social media.

The message has been deemed fake by the government's fact check page PIB.

The pandemic period has been subjected to a lot of fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories in its wake.

The latest being a social media message about free masks being circulated by the government.

A message stating that the government is giving out free masks is doing rounds on the internet.

The message states that the government is distributing free masks under a new scheme called PM Mask Yojana.

The message directs its user to click on a link it has provided.

The message has been declared as fake by the official Press Information Bureau (PIB)'s fact check page. The tweet by the fact check page confirms that there is no scheme and that the link is fraudulent.

"Claim: Amidst #CoronaOutbreak, a social media message claims free masks are being distributed by the government under 'PM Mask Yojana' A link is provided for placement of orders... #PIBFactCheck: There is no such scheme. This is a fraudulent link. Do not spread such #FakeNews," read the tweet.

Messages targetting taxpayers and the unemployed have also surfaced on the internet.

A WhatsApp message states that taxpayers are required to click on a link to process their GST refund. PIB fact check has deemed this message as fake. "Please do not click on any fake link which promises to give a refund. These are phishing messages and not sent by CBIC or @Infosys_GSTN. Visit gst.gov.in for online filings related to GST."

One more message stated that the unemployed people will get Rs 3500 per month under "Pradhan Mantri Bhatta Yojana." The PIB Fact Check has deemed it as fake stating that there is no such scheme.

Another message doing rounds on the internet is about the government of India invading the privacy of citizens through WhatsApp. However, the fact check stated that there was no reality to this claim.

The fake message elaborated about the ticks a user would see on WhatsApp and what they signified. It stated that the government was taking note of if three blue ticks appeared.

"FakeNewsAlert! Messages circulating on social media reading 'WhatsApp info regarding tick marks is fake #PIBFactCheck: No! The Government is doing no such thing. The message is #FAKE. Beware of rumours!" Read the tweet.

To curb misinformation, WhatsApp reduced the number of people who the messages can be forwarded to five people. The change is said to have reduced message forwards by 25c percent globally. WhatsApp has also introduced a feature wherein the user can verify a certain forward on the web by clicking on a magnifying glass.
Authorities have released the name of a man killed Friday night in a fiery crash in Hoover.

The Jefferson County Coroners Office on Monday identified the victim as Jeffery Alan Jones. He was 36 and lived in Hoover.

The crash happened about 7 p.m. Friday on Rocky Ridge Road near Loch Ridge Drive. That location is across from Element apartments.

Hoover police and firefighters arrived on the scene to find that a 2018 grey Dodge Challenger crashed into a concrete utility pole, came to rest down an embankment and caught fire. Jones, the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle, was unable to escape and was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:20 p.m.

Jones lived not far from the crash site and several people who knew him, including family, responded to the scene.

Officers with the Hoover Police Traffic Unit are investigating.
Even the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) fails before Pakistans obsession with inflicting terror against India. The Handwara encounter, in which five Indian soldiers and a policeman were killed fighting a militant cell, is a reminder that through the pandemic, it has been business-as-usual along the Line of Control and in Kashmir. The past few months have seen a steady exchange of fire between Indian and Pakistani forces along the border, a parallel infiltration of militants, and concomitant terrorist activity in Kashmir. Rawalpindis recent rebranding of the existing militant groups in Kashmir as The Resistance Front does nothing to disguise the fact what is happening continues to be State-sponsored terrorism with Rawalpindis favourite Lashkar-e-Taiba at the forefront of the violence.

Pakistan has been ratcheting up violence in and along Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370. This is despite failing to persuade the international community to force India to reverse its decision, and the sanctions threat of the United Nations Financial Action Task Force. It is evident to everyone that India is not going to change what was passed in Parliament without opposition, and is now engraved in the Constitution. Pakistan knows this too, but what it is seeking to do is make India pay a price for effectively cutting Islamabad out of the future of the Valley. Pakistan should know that incidents like Handwara, however tragic, will do nothing to bend Indias will.

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi laid out a new path for Indo-Pakistani relations, one that focused on trade and investment, tackling common development challenges and building personal bridges. It required, however, Pakistan to accept that the use of coercion to force territorial changes is no longer viable. The Covid-19 pandemic provided a perfect opportunity for Islamabad to at least explore this new path, using the excuse of a common viral enemy to put aside a legacy of animosity. Instead, PM Imran Khan chose to treat the pandemic as a non-event and the military, which still determines Kashmir policy, rejected the opportunity through violence on the ground. Pakistan must accept the new reality. But a nation born in bloodshed and sustained by violence will not surrender its delusions easily and peacefully. Which is why India should take into account these designs, anticipate challenges, and respond accordingly. Security forces will have to be at the forefront of this battle. The prize at the end will make it all worthwhile: The conclusion of the Kashmir conflict, a more united India and forcing Pakistan to, hopefully, give up terror as an instrument of State policy.
A uniquely resilient organism all but unheard of in the Arabian Sea 20 years ago has been proliferating and spreading at an alarming pace, forming thick, malodorous green swirls and filaments that are visible even from space. This unusual organism is Noctiluca scintillans--a millimeter-size planktonic organism with an extraordinary capacity to survive, thrive and force out diatoms, the photosynthesizing plankton that have traditionally supported the Arabian Sea food web. Noctiluca is not a preferred food for larger organisms, so these large blooms, recurring annually and lasting for several months, are disrupting the base of the region's marine food chain, threatening fisheries that sustain 150 million people, and possibly exacerbating the rise of criminal piracy in the region.

New research published this week in Nature's Scientific Reports describes how the continued loss of snow over the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau region is fueling the expansion of this destructive algal bloom. Led by Joaquim I. Goes from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the study uses field data, laboratory experiments, and decades of NASA satellite imagery to link the rise of Noctiluca in the Arabian Sea with melting glaciers and a weakened winter monsoon.

Normally, cold winter monsoon winds blowing from the Himalayas cool the surface of the oceans. These colder waters sink and are replaced with nutrient-rich waters from below. This convective mixing is no different than putting an ice cube into a mug of hot coffee. During this time, phytoplankton, the primary producers of the food chain, thrive in the sunlit, nutrient-rich upper layers, and surrounding countries see a bounty of fish that feed directly or indirectly on the phytoplankton. But with the shrinking of glaciers and snow cover in the Himalayas, the monsoon winds blowing offshore from land are warmer and moister, resulting in diminished convective mixing and decreased fertilization of the upper layers.

In this scenario, phytoplankton such as diatoms are at a disadvantage, but not Noctiluca. Unlike diatoms, Noctiluca (also known as sea sparkle) doesn't rely only on sunlight and nutrients; it can also survive by eating other microorganisms. Noctiluca hosts thousands of photosynthesizing endosymbionts within its bulbous, transparent, greenhouse-like cell. The green endosymbionts provide it with energy from photosynthesis, while its tail-like flagella allows it to grab any microscopic plankton from the surrounding water as an additional source of food.

This dual mode of energy acquisition gives it a tremendous advantage to flourish and disrupt the classic food chain of the Arabian Sea. Noctiluca's second advantage is that its endosymbionts accumulate a lot of ammonia in the cell, making the organism unpalatable to larger grazers. As a third advantage, the accumulated ammonia is also a repository of nitrogenous nutrients for the endosymbionts, making them less vulnerable to diminishing inputs of nutrients from a weakened convective mixing.

Noctiluca blooms first appeared in the late 1990s. The sheer size of their blooms, which occur annually, threaten the Arabian Sea's already vulnerable food chain because its symbionts not only compete with phytoplankton for the annually replenished nutrients, but feed on the phytoplankton themselves. However, only jellyfish and salps seem to find Noctiluca palatable. In Oman, desalination plants, oil refineries and natural gas plants are forced to scale down operations because they are choked by Noctiluca blooms and the jellyfish that swarm to feed on them. The resulting pressure on the marine food supply, and economic security may also have fueled the rise in piracy in countries like Yemen and Somalia.

"This is probably one of the most dramatic changes that we have seen that's related to climate change," said Goes who, along with Lamont researcher Helga do Rosario Gomes, has been studying the rapid rise of this organism for more than 18 years. "We are seeing Noctiluca in Southeast Asia, off the coasts of Thailand and Vietnam, and as far south as the Seychelles, and everywhere it blooms it is becoming a problem. It also harms water quality and causes a lot of fish mortality."

The study provides compelling new evidence of the cascading impacts of global warming on the Indian monsoons, with socio-economic implications for large populations of the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East.

"Most studies related to climate change and ocean biology are focused on the polar and temperate waters, and changes in the tropics are going largely unnoticed," said Goes.

The study highlights how tropical oceans are being disproportionately impacted, losing their biodiversity, and changing faster than conventional model predictions. This may portend dire consequences over the long term for countries in the region already gripped by socioeconomic problems from war, poverty and loss of livelihoods, said Goes.

###

Lamont-Doherty scientists O. Roger Anderson, Douglas G. Martinson, and high-school students working with the observatory also contributed to the research. Other co-authors include researchers from Oman's Ministry of Fisheries and Agricultural Wealth and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as researchers from Oman's Sultan Qaboos University, and from Tiangong and Xiamen universities in China.

The research was funded by NASA Earth Sciences, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Centre.

Copies of the embargoed paper are available from the authors.

Scientist contacts:

Joaquim Goes jig@ldeo.columbia.edu

Helga Gomes do Rosario helga@ldeo.columbia.edu

More information: Kevin Krajick, Senior editor, science news, The Earth Institute kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is Columbia University's home for Earth science research. Its scientists develop fundamental knowledge about the origin, evolution and future of the natural world, from the planet's deepest interior to the outer reaches of its atmosphere, on every continent and in every ocean, providing a rational basis for the difficult choices facing humanity. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu | @LamontEarth

The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu.
Melissa Leong shocked audiences when she took a phone call in the middle of a cliffhanger moment on MasterChef Australia: Back To Win on Monday night.

The judges were about to cast their opinions on the food served up by the contestants at Thai Ute restaurant in Melbourne's Ringwood East, when the phone rang.

The 40-year-old judge then said: 'And the phone's ringing, so I'll just go take that now' before darting off to answer the call.

What are you doing! Melissa Leong (pictured) shocked audiences when she took a phone call in the middle of a cliffhanger moment on MasterChef Australia: Back To Win on Monday night

Melissa then gestured for the crew to find her a pen as she wrote down a reservation from a punter on the other end.

'Hello, Thai Ute! For tomorrow, a reservation, right? 5pm?' she asked before adding, 'Thank you so much, not a problem, bye!'

The baffled contestants looked on, amazed and wondered why Melissa took the call, with Khanh Ong wondering aloud: 'What is she doing?'

Ready: The judges were about to cast their opinions on the mains served while filming at Thai Ute restaurant in Melbourne's Ringwood East when the phone rang

Oh wow! Melissa then gestured for the crew to find her a pen as she wrote down a reservation from a punter on the other end

Helpful! 'Hello, Thai Ute! For tomorrow, a reservation, right? 5pm?' she asked before adding, 'Thank you so much, not a problem, bye!'

However Ten Daily revealed the reason she took the call was simple - she didn't want the restaurant to lose a customer due to filming.

Fans online were impressed, with several praising the chef for stopping production to help out a local business.

One person Tweeted: 'MVP for tonight's challenge: Melissa takes the cake for that graciousness she showed taking that phone call.'

Good work! Fans online were impressed, with several praising the chef for stopping the production to help out a local business

Another added: 'That phone call. LMAOOO Rolling on the floor laughing props to Melissa for handling it really well'.

One more Tweeted: 'HAHAHaha omg taking a reservation phone call during a verdict is A WHOLE MOOD'.

Someone else chimed in: 'I love Melissa's energy. She's awesome. And answering the phone and taking a reservation. Face with tears of joy I enjoy her presence so much.'

MasterChef: Back to Win continues Tuesday at 7.30pm on Channel Ten
Hyundai has been away from the pickup truck market and there is no logical reason for it. However, the company unveiled a pickup truck concept called Santa Cruz in 2015 and it finally looked like the automaker has realized what its losing out on. People wouldve expected Hyundai to launch a full-fledged, hardcore truck to leave a strong impression, but the Santa Cruz is a unibody pickup truck, which means that the automaker is offering a jack-of-all-master-of-none kind of a truck. However, a rendering artist named Enoch Gabriel Gonzales has envisioned a truck which he calls Tarlac, and it falls in line with the companys design philosophy. Looks neat, huh?

What Does The Hyundai Tarlac Look Like?

The truck is named after a province located in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines.

The Tarlac draws a lot of inspiration from Hyundais current lineup and it doesnt look out of place. The cascading grille on the front fascia seems to be inspired by the Santa Fe and the Palisade. From the looks of it, it appears to be a body-on-frame layout. The cuts and creases on the sides are evident. It doesnt feature flared wheel arches or black plastic cladding, though. The wheels, however, look quite fancy.

While the front end and the side profile look good, the rear isnt very appealing. The taillights seem to be a little overdone and it looks boxy overall. Nevertheless, it still looks pretty decent and in line with the other Hyundai products. This is what the designer had to say:

"My design is intended to compete with the likes of Toyota Hilux, Mitsubishi Triton, and Ford Ranger. The design follows Hyundai's Design philosophy. It carries the same elements from SUVs like Palisade and Santa Fe."

Where Is The Hyundai Santa Cruz?

For now, we know that the Santa Cruz will be launched in Australia and Southeast Asian countries. But, will it be coming to the U.S.? The answer is yes. Last year, a senior official said that finding a place to build the Santa Cruz was one of the biggest challenges it faced. After much deliberation, Hyundai chose its Montgomery, Alabama assembly plant as the birthplace for the pickup truck in the States.

The company will be pumping $410 million into the plant for expansion. This is not just for the Santa Cruz, but also for products like the redesigned Santa Fe which is seeing a rise in demand. Hyundai also said that the Santa Cruz will create 200 direct jobs at the plant and 1,000 indirect jobs through regional suppliers.

What Will The Santa Cruz Be Like?

Even though the Santa Cruz naturally fits into the mid-size pickup truck segment and would take on the Colorado, Tacoma, Gladiator, and the likes, Hyundai has said that the Santa Cruz will be targeted to a different set of audience. Hyundai is taking inspiration from Chevy LUVs business model, wherein the truck was targeted to the Baby Boomers back in the 70s and 80s. Hyundai will be marketing the Santa Cruz as more of a lifestyle, urban commuter vehicle.

Instead of being pinned on a traditional, body-on-frame architecture, the Santa Cruz will be based on a car-like crossover platform, similar to the Honda Ridgeline.

Final Thoughts

Hyundai is a successful automaker with a presence in almost all segments. It has a plethora of hatches, sedans, and even SUVs in its portfolio, but the company never really made an effort to compete in the pickup truck segment.

Finally, in 2015, the South Korean automaker unveiled the Santa Cruz pickup truck concept at the Detroit Auto Show. The concept was very well received by the audience and we expected to hear more about it soon. Fast forward half a decade and we are still waiting for that truck. The truck was last spotted testing in Europe earlier this year, so were hoping to see it soon.

Given that Hyundais chief designer, Luc Donckerwolke, resigned recently, they could use some helping hands. A job for Gonzales, perhaps, Hyundai? What are your thoughts on the Hyundai Tarlac pickup truck? Share them with us in the comments section below.

Source: https://www.behance.net/gallery/962...
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 05:33:30|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

WARSAW, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Shopping malls and hotels reopened in Poland on Monday as the country's government lifted additional restrictions put in place in March to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Malls are required to enforce hand sanitation and give out disposable gloves to shoppers.

Stores reported high numbers of customers as many retailers were allowed to open their doors for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Besides malls, hotels, libraries and cultural institutions are allowed to open again, as well as some art galleries and other museums. Among them is the Royal Castle in the center of the capital, Warsaw, which was officially reopened by deputy prime minister Piotr Glinski.

"Institutes such as these, which will operate under a new sanitary regime, will be reopened systematically," Glinski said in his ceremonial speech. "The final decision lies with their boards and will always be coordinated with the sanitary inspections."

So far, the Polish government has reported 14,006 coronavirus cases, with 698 deaths. The spread of the epidemic has been steady, with typically between 200 and 400 new cases reported daily. Enditem
Agra, May 4 : The district authorities clarified early Monday there was no relief for the Taj city and lockdown restrictions will continue to be effectively enforced till May 17.

District magistrate P.N. Singh tweeted there was fear that the number of infected would rise further, therefore lockdown restrictions will remain in force, more strictly to be complied with. He said 7,234 samples had been taken so far for testing.

The number of COVID-19 cases reached 597 in Agra. So far 15 deaths have been reported, while 147 had recovered and returned home. Four quarantine centres have been shut down. The city now has 44 hot spots.

The neighbouring districts of Firozabad and Mathura are also red, as the number of Covid-19 infected has continued to go up.

The Agra district administration came under pressure as more than a thousand migrant labourers arrived from Ahmedabad in a special train.

After thermal screening at the Agra can't station, 595 locals were sent for quarantine, while the rest were sent to their districts in buses.

The District Administration, meanwhile, decided to constitute village and mohalla level monitoring committees. Those so far registered under the MGNREGA scheme would be mobilised to dig 21 lakh pits for sapling plantation and to clean up 178 community ponds before the monsoon rains.

Voicing dissatisfaction of the locals against the government medical facilities, a leading shoe exporter Pooran Dawar who has been daily providing thousands of food packets for distribution through the police network, in a communication to the state's political leadership, has highlighted some gaps that need to be immediately plugged. Dawar said closure of private hospitals and clinics has resulted in a lot of avoidable suffering and even deaths. Poor infrastructure and back up support in the dozens of quarantine centres where food and water bottles were thrown at the inmates in a disrespectful manner, have caused a lot of pain and anguish.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
The Union Public Service Commission has taken a decision to postpone the civil services preliminary exam until further notice. The exam was scheduled to be held on on May 31.

According to officials in the UPSC, a call will be on the new date after assessment by May 20. A meeting of the Commission, chaired by Arvind Saxena, was held on Monday to take the call to defer the exam with senior UPSC officials. The decision comes after the Central government extended the lockdown for two weeks starting May 4.

UPSC has done what needed to be done, said an official privy to the developments. In the current scenario where Covid-19 is spreading, it is not feasible to hold such a large scale exam.

The Commission, the official added, has not taken a call on a fresh date for the prelims. The date will be decided in due course of time after evaluating the situation, the official added.

The decision has been taken keeping mind the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown restrictions, a second UPSC official told Hindustan Times. A fresh date will be announced after May 20.

From inaccessibility of exam venues during lockdown as schools had been turned into quarantine centres, to ensuring students had enough time to book tickets to reach the centres, the UPSC had to address a host to issues to be able to hold the exam on May 31, it would have been very difficult , said the second official.

The Commission was due to release admit cards for the students this week, but has decided to defer the process in view current crisis.

Nearly 10 lakh people register for the civil services preliminary examination every year. Nearly 1.6 lakh functionaries participate in conducting the exam across 2,500 centres.

Many other premier exams, such as the Haryana Civil Services, which was slated to be held from June 5, have also been postponed.

Former UPSC chairman Vijay Singh told Hindustan Times that the decision may delay the recruitment process a little but it is not worrisome.

We have to keep in mind not everything else has been postponed as well, said Singh. The preliminary exam is huge exercise carried out in a number of centres. The logistics are vast and expansive with people involved across the country. UPSC cant afford for anything to go wrong, it has to maintain its reputation and the exam has to be conducted in a way that no doubts are raised about it.

All that may happen is that the recruitment process may be a little delayed but thats not a real big deal, he added.

But the lack of clarity in a new date brings a new set of anxieties for aspirants who believe that the preparation time for the main examination may be reduced.

The uncertainity is worrisome, but at the same time but am hoping for positives since it will give aspirants more time to study, said UPSC aspirant Snigdha Talapatra, 25, who will be writing her second attempt. Its probably going to happen in August or September. I sincerely hope we will not be given lesser time to prepare for Mains. Studying for prelims also entails studying for Mains for most us though.

The situation is so dire that the decision to postpone the exam was inevitable, she added.
Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and state Congress chief Kamal Nath has high hopes of his party bouncing back to power in the state in the near future.

Addressing a video news conference on Sunday, he claimed the BJP government may not last beyond the bypolls to the 24 vacant Assembly seats. He expected the Congress to win 20-22 of the seats.

Kamal Nath said that the betrayal by 22 former MLAs of Congress and the BJP's role in toppling his government right when the nation was supposed to deal with coronavirus were not lost on people's mind.

"The voters are very much aware of happenings around them and they can hand a verdict quietly. You can gauge their mood on social media or when you talk to them in those constituencies. So, I am very confident of the comeback of Congress," Kamal Nath said when asked if he will hoist the national flag in MP on Independence Day.

Even while answering all political questions, Kaml Nath kept insisting that, as of now, the priority was to deal with the situation arising out of Covid-19 pandemic. He attacked the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government for "mismanaging the crisis". "Unless the BJP shows some vision in its strategy , the state will get sucked into darkness," he said.

He said that the biggest failure was in the government's inability to get the suspect cases tested. "What kind of testing is being done, why are results coming after more than 10 days? In these 10 days, even negative persons will get infected in the hospitals and those infected might die. Also, how much testing is being done in rural and semi-urban areas, with such influx of returning migrant labourers. Perhaps they believe if there is no testing, there will be no cases. This is disastrous," Kamal Nath said.

For once, Kamal Nath chose to speak up about his failure and that of his party's top leadership to read the dissent in the party that reflected on his acumen and overconfidence. "I certainly have political experience of 40 years, but I did not have the experience of the politics of deals and allurements and burning ambitions. I was communicating constantly with our MLAs even in Bengaluru and they told me of the tempting deals on offer, I told them to do whatever they deemed right," he said.

Kamal Nath scotched the theory that the Congress MLAs left because they were unhappy. He said had all the records of communications with them and how many of their works were done.

"Will they accept that they went out of temptation and as part of the deal? I know how much time I gave them despite being personally running the government with ministers and not outsourcing it like the previous government," he said.

He denied differences with former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh or that Singh gave him the impression the MLAs would not quit the party. "My relations with Digvijaya Singh will continue as before. I do not need any new team," Kamal Nath said.

He strongly denied the BJP claim that his government did not take enough steps to prevent the Corona crisis.

He said that steps were taken right from January end when there were only a few cases in the country. All through February, different meetings were held and orders issued to deal with the situation, though the pandemic was declared only on March 12. He listed out a series of date-wise steps to prove his point.

"BJP and Shivraj (Singh Chouhan) kept cracking jokes about the Corona crisis saying our apprehension was misplaced. They were only busy pulling down the government and now they are trying to put the blame on us," he said.

If Congress were in power, it would focus on procuring emergency equipment like ventilators, preventive gear like PPE kits and more testing kits and facilities, he said.

Kamal Nath also rebutted BJP charge about his government not fulfilling promises of farm loan waivers, saying that loans had been waived for over 27.22 lakh farmers in two phases and he has records of the same.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan still believed in the old trick of populist announcements. "But the point is about the strategy to implement these announcements. It is about how relief will be provided to farmers, small traders, labourers and small businesses. "How will they rebuild the economy that has totally collapsed?"
Torontos baby steps in lifting COVID-19-related restrictions will not accelerate until there is a consistent decline in the number of new infections in the city, the public health chief warns.

Dr. Eileen de Villa said Monday she knows warming weather and news about other places relaxing restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the deadly virus are making Torontonians impatient to see life get back to normal.

And there are positive signs. Each Torontonian with the virus now infects one person on average, down from about 3.5 people. The number of new cases is doubling every seven days, an improvement from every four days.

But Torontonians are still being infected every day and, unlike some other municipalities, Toronto has not yet seen a steady decrease in new cases. Toronto appears to still be at its infection peak, de Villa said.

When our local COVID-19 infections begin to show a consistent decline we can then start to ease our restrictions to get back to enjoying our city, de Villa said, adding data wont reveal that decline until after it has occurred.

Earlier Monday Mayor John Tory told CP24 the city will try to follow the Ontario governments lead in lifting restrictions. But Torontos size  of its transit system, for example  means the city will have its own timetable for some services.

Toronto has made small moves. The city is restoring regular yard waste collection halted in mid-March when Torontos emergency declaration shut down non-essential city services.

And Tory announced Monday that this week the city will start taking locks off 81 community gardens and next week open the 12 allotment gardens.

The 1,300-plus Torontonians who use public plots to grow food and plants must follow new provincial guidelines to ensure physical distancing, and the cleaning and disinfecting of commonly used surfaces and equipment.

Tory said the moves, and planning for more, can take place because most Torontonians are heeding public health advice to stay at home as much as possible and obey physical distancing rules and restrictions on park amenities.

Some people, however, are disobeying the rules in brazen ways.

In a controversial move, the city closed High Park entirely last Thursday to prevent people gathering to look at blooming cherry trees, an annual magnet for photo snappers.

Not only did a man climb a cherry tree and pose for photos in closed High Park, apparently in the early hours of Monday, but the bearded intruder also appears to have urinated at the scene.

Toronto Police are investigating the incursion and hope the public can help identify the intruders who appeared on the citys BloomCam, set up so people can remotely view the blossoms.

The video stream shows the man climbing a blooming tree, hanging from some branches and roughly moving others while an accomplice takes photos. The bearded man later appears to turn his back to the camera and urinate.

Tory shrugged off the incident, saying the interlopers might be candidates for the Darwin Awards  online tributes to people who put themselves at risk  who exhibited pre-evolutionary behaviour.

Police spokesperson Meaghan Gray said in an email: The actions by the man in the video are inappropriate at any time; and could lead to charges such as trespass to property and/or mischief.

Officers have also been made aware of other damage and vandalism that took place in the park over the weekend, including damage/vandalism at The Nature Centre, as well as discarded beer bottles.

Gray asked for anyone with information to identify the intruders to contact police at 416-808-1111 or Crime Stoppers anonymously.

David Rider is the Stars City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering city hall and municipal politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

Read more about:
Auckland Transport (AT) announced today that the Matakana link road will be built with four lanes from the outset, instead of two proposed earlier.

Mayor Phil Goff says the extra lanes are something the Warkworth community has been asking for.

AT has developed a plan that will allow all four lanes of the Matakana link road to be built within the existing $62 million budget, he says.

Building four lanes from the outset will ensure that the new road can accommodate growth in the Warkworth area, which is expected to see a population increase of 20,000 over the next 30 years.

Matakana link road is a 1.35km link between State Highway One and Matakana Road.

The route will provide an alternative around the frequently congested Hill Street intersection for traffic heading to and from Leigh, Omaha, Sandspit and Snells Beach.

Rodney councillor Greg Sayers says the news is a win for the local area.

I am extremely pleased that the four-lane option has finally made it across the line, he says.

Cr Sayers adds the new road will alleviate pressure on Hill Street when bulldozers move in to permanently upgrade the intersection.

Minister of Transport Phil Twyford acknowledge local list MP Marja Lubeck for her advocacy on the link road.

He says the project will create jobs and help support the local economy, as well as give people real transport choices with a shared path being built alongside the road.

AT's executive General Manager of Integrated Networks Mark Lambert says AT is looking to have the road built in time for the opening of the new Puhoi to Warkworth motorway.

Preparatory works started last week  prior to the main construction works  and involve lizard trapping and relocation, tree felling and service relocations on Matakana Road, he says.

The project will employ up to 120 staff over the construction period and the work will include provision for safe walking and bike riding. AT is also building a new bridge which will involve the removal of vegetation and some replanting.

Mr Lambert says AT will ensure that any wildlife in the area is relocated safely.
Note: From now through next week, when ballots are mailed out, the Montana Standard is featuring some contested primary races for area legislative seats in southwest Montana and local contests in Butte-Silver Bow County. This one is for state Senate District 39.

In a rarity for these parts in recent years, an open state Senate seat  this one in District 39  features two current House members from the same party.

The district covers parts of Anaconda-Deer Lodge, Butte-Silver Bow, Granite and Powell counties, and has been held by Democrat Gene Vuckovich of Anaconda since 2011. He is barred by term limits from seeking re-election.

One of the two Democrats running, Gordon Pierson of Deer Lodge, has represented House District 78 the past eight years but cannot run for a fifth term in that chamber. The other is Mark Sweeney of Philipsburg, who is serving a first term in House District 77.

Only one will move on past the primary, with the winner to face Republican Suzzann Nordwick of Butte. Vuckovich defeated her and Libertarian Dick Motta in 2016.

Here is some biographical information on the three candidates and statements on their candidacies in their own words:

Suzann Nordwick - Republican

Age: 56

Address: West Daly Street, Walkerville

Occupation: Engineer/analyst

Education: Montana Tech, bachelor and masters degrees in metallurgical engineering

I am a knowledgeable scientific researcher and analyst with strong discernment and management skills. Im a fifth generation Montanan with two engineering degrees from Montana Tech. I have 30 years of broad-ranging work experience as a result of working for both industry and academia. I stand for truth, liberty and freedom and I have a proven record of commitment to community service.

I believe in the founding values expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, including the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Im running for state Senate because I want to help our government adhere to its baseline belief that power is held by the people. I think government needs to be efficient, effective, and accountable. Transparency brings accountability. Government should operate using common sense, with more logic and less fear.

I have the energy and time to give to this job and I want to help improve how our state government operates. The attributes I would bring are deeply needed in the legislative process, especially my real-world problem-solving experience.

As a citizen advocate, Ive spent many volunteer hours working to hold government agencies accountable. In the Legislature, Id support smaller and localized government while promoting a better sense of customer service.

Ill work to remove barriers to job creation in all sectors of Montanas economy  from Main Streets to natural resources. More opportunities need to be made available for all Montanans. Ill work hard to ensure ample resources are available for us to learn, to work and to enjoy our lives in the state we love.

Public lands are a big part of Montana and I strongly support access to them, including multi-use, natural resource recovery and Montanas stream access. I support keeping public lands public and will opposes any legislation that threatens this.

A vote for me is a vote toward a more transparent/accountable government and a vote to protect your Constitutional Rights. My commitment is to work for my fellow citizens and not for special interest. I want us all to regain faith that our government operates as intended  truly for the people and by the people, with equal justice under the law. Im an experienced and well-informed common-sense problem solver. Please put me to work for you!

Gordon Pierson - Democrat

Age: 48

Address: 603 Washington, Deer Lodge

Occupation: Emergency Room Nurse at Community Hospital of Anaconda

Education: Powell County High class of 1989 and Montana Tech class of 2015 with a bachelor's degree in nursing

I have proudly represented HD 78 for the last four terms and would like to use my experience from my time serving in Helena to continue serving the people I care about in SD 39 as your state senator.

My number one priority with the COVID-19 crisis is the safety and wellness of the people within Senate District 39 and all of Montana. It has been difficult not being able to knock on doors and talk to people face to face but that's not as important as keeping people safe and saving lives! Being a registered nurse helps me with being a good representative of the people.

Jobs and Economy. This definitely includes standing up for and working FOR our state workers and their families. Protecting TERS and PERS plans and fair wages are big parts of this priority. I will continue as I have done serving on the House Business and Labor Committee for the last eight years. I strongly support mining, the lumber/timber industry and continued ARCO reclamation and the many jobs these industries have provided. I am strongly against right to work legislation, and am endorsed by MFPE, CLC, AFL-CIO and Sun Mountain Lumber as well.

Healthcare and Mental Illness. Maintaining responsible and accessible healthcare for all Montana citizens especially our elderly and vulnerable populations is a top priority of mine. I'm tired of the Butte-Anaconda-Deer Lodge area being the hot spot in the state for suicide rates as well as our great state being in the top three for suicide in the nation! I will continue this battle as I have done serving on the House Health and Human Services committee for the last eight years.

Keeping public land public, available and open for future generations of our Montana children is always a top priority of mine.

At this moment COVID-19 is the biggest issue facing Montana. Keeping Montanans safe and healthy comes first. After everyone is safe, then jobs and economy need to be recovered to keep Montanas economy strong. This includes our small businesses, continued ARCO reclamation, natural resource development and agriculture just for starters.

I am a fourth generation Montanan who is born and raised within Senate District 39. This makes everything that happens here part of my life and the lives of people I know and love. This is what makes me the only candidate for this seat.

Mark Sweeney - Democrat

Age: 60

Address: 337 Beta, Philipsburg

Occupation: Retired Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Currently Real Estate Broker/Owner Montana Blue Ribbon Real Estate, owner Aquatic Resource Management, natural resource consulting business.

Education: Bachelors degree from University of Montana Western in natural resource management.

I currently represent Montana House District 77, have served two terms on the Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Commission and have served on numerous boards and organizations. Appointed by Gov. Steve Bullock to the Upper Clark Fork River Basin Citizens Advisory Council and by President Obama to the Western Montana Bureau of Land Management Advisory Council.

Im running because Im drawn to public service. I enjoy working with my constituents on issues that are important to them and our communities. I want to be an effective senator and bring state funding and projects home to Senate District 39. The four-year term allows me to build strong relationships with other lawmakers, the governors office and constituents to work on important legislation.

I have good communication and listening skills and enjoy getting to know people. As a fourth-generation Montanan I find it easy to connect with other lawmakers from around the state. The old adage, Montana is just a small town with long streets is true.

I understand the legislative process and what it takes to work with others to pass bills or keep bad bills from becoming law. I am willing to work across party lines to pass legislation that is good for our state.

What are the most important statewide issues? First, we need to recover from this COVID-19 heath crisis. Many bills will be dealing with this issue. We need to make sure we pass bills that strengthen the local economy, create employment and ensure that small businesses not only survive but thrive. We need to develop a quick response Medical Reserve that can be called together quickly in the future.

I would like to raise the minimum wage for full-time, essential state workers to $15 per hour. During this current health crisis almost all workers at the Montana State Hospital and the Montana State Prison were identified as essential. I believe all should make a minimum of $15 per hour. These facilities also need funding upgrades and maintenance and I will work to make that happen.

I am honest, hard-working and I stay in touch with my constituents not just during the legislative session but throughout the year. I am available. On every piece of campaign literature or in newspaper ads, my phone number is listed in bold: I encourage people to contact me as their senator and express their concerns. We are in this together.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0

Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Wellington: The New Zealand government has been forced to deny it has politicised its asylum process over the case of acclaimed author Behrouz Boochani, who has been waiting six months for assessment after arriving on a one-month visitor visa.

Opposition immigration spokesman Stuart Smith made the sensational claim while questioning the government over the whereabouts of the Iranian refugee.

Behrouz Boochani has been in NZ on a one-month visitor's visa since November. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Boochani travelled to NZ in November, ending a marathon stay in Australia's offshore detention regime by accepting an invitation for a speaking engagement in Christchurch.

Immigration New Zealand granted him a one-month visitor visa.
During unprecedented moments in history we look to the arts and artists for hope and creative reflections of humanity, but at this time we are not able to gather physically, communally, as we have before, Rutter said in a statement. I am heartbroken by these necessary steps that have emptied our halls that are usually bursting with the sights and sounds of creative genius.
Music video director, Clarence Peters has debunked claims surrounding the death of Kodak, the video vixen who died from electrocution....





Music video director, Clarence Peters has debunked claims surrounding the death of Kodak, the video vixen who died from electrocution.





According to Clarence Peters, no one has been arrested or arraigned by the police over her death as reported.





He also stated that he was not in the building where Kodak died but was in another building close to the one where the incident happened.





A statement issued reads: On the 29th of April 2020, Love Divine Ike (Picture Kodak) was in the dance studio, on the premises of Capital Dreams Pictures, with 5 other team members and myself  7 people in total.

At about 7:30 pm on the same day, while in another office  a building beside the dance studio, on the same premises, some people who were said to be with Love Divine at the time, rushed in and called my attention to the fact that Love Divine had collapsed.





We immediately rushed her to the nearest hospital, which refused to let us into their premises, let alone admit her. They assumed she was a Covid-19 patient.





We tried, but we were not able to gain entry into a second hospital. We eventually got her to a third hospital where she was pronounced dead 30 minutes after arrival.





I was not physically in the same room as her when the incident occurred, and when I inquired, I was told by those present at the scene that Love Divine, while taking a break from the dance session, was sitting on one of the metal sliding door rails, charging and using her phone plugged to an extension box.





The witnesses didnt realize anything was wrong, until they saw she had laid down, and they noticed smoke coming from her chest area.





She was said to be electrocuted, her phone was found on her chest, with severe burn marks, and the phones imprint on her chest.





The witnesses were taken to the Ojodu Police Headquarters straight from the hospital where statements were taken and the phone (which had traces of burnt flesh on it) was deposited.





The following day, the Police conducted an examination of the body and were taken to the scene of the incident for further examination.





The Police are currently carrying out a full-scale investigation into the events that occurred, and an autopsy will be carried out, with the full permission and consent of her family.





Please note that no one has been charged or arrested, by the Police. The witnesses and I willingly made ourselves available to the Police and we have all pledged our full co-operation, through every part of this process. I will be helping out in every possible capacity.





Love Divine and the entire WestLifeCrew was a huge part of Capital Dreams Pictures, and losing her hurts us all deeply.





She was an exemplary person, and a legend in her own rights. We will miss her very much.

Words will never be enough to describe what her family is going through in these things trying times.





My thoughts and prayers are with them, and I ask God to grant them all the strength & fortitude at this time.





This is a truly difficult time for us all, and were asking for a lot of patience and goodwill from the general public, in these difficult times.





May God help us through this.




When Jorge Newbery finally got through to his 95-year-old mother, Jennifer, on a video call April 18, she could barely talk or move and her eyes couldn't focus.

It was the first time he had seen her since California nursing homes shut their doors to visitors a month earlier. Immediately after the video chat, Newbery called the front desk in a panic.

"I said, 'You gotta get her out, you gotta call 911,'" he recalled. "She's looking like she's about to die."

Newbery's mother was living at the Rehabilitation Center of Santa Monica, one of 198 nursing homes in California where at least one patient had contracted the coronavirus as of April 28, public health records show. The outbreak at the Rehabilitation Center has been worse than most, with 12 employees and 24 patients infected, including nine fatalities, according to the Los Angeles County health department.

The Rehabilitation Center shares several other worrisome characteristics with many other homes beset by coronavirus infections: Historically, it has had lower-than-average staffing levels and a record of not always following basic staffing and infection control rules, a Kaiser Health News analysis shows.

Compared with homes reporting no patient infections, California facilities with one or more patients with a COVID-19 case had on average a 25% fewer registered nurses per resident in the final three months of 2019, the last period for which the federal government has published data.

In addition, 91% of nursing homes reporting at least one case of the virus had a previous health violation for not following infection control rules, while 81% of homes without reported cases had such violations. Typical violations included nurses or aides not washing their hands or wearing protective clothing around potentially contagious patients.

"With low RN staffing, it is not surprising that these facilities have had previous violations for infection control and poorer overall quality as measured by having more deficiencies," said Charlene Harrington, a professor emerita of the School of Nursing at the University of California-San Francisco. "It is a classic situation that reaffirms what researchers have found previously, only the situation with the COVID-19 virus is far more serious than anything the nursing homes have experienced before."

In an email, Jeffrey Huang, the administrator of the Rehabilitation Center of Santa Monica, said "we respectfully and strongly disagree" that Medicare assessments of the home's quality predict or reflect the nursing home's efforts to protect residents from the coronavirus. The staff was "continuing to do everything possible for keeping our residents and staff safe in these uncertain times," Huang wrote. He declined to discuss Newbery, citing patient confidentiality.

Nursing homes have emerged as one of the places the coronavirus spreads most aggressively. In California, 4,711 nursing home residents had been infected and 663 had died by the end of April, about a third of all COVID-19-linked deaths that homes in the state have reported to authorities.

The KHN analysis is the first to compare Medicare's public quality measures for the 198 California nursing homes that registered coronavirus cases by late April with the 983 homes with no cases reported to either the state public health department or Los Angeles County, where a majority of homes with infections are located. KHN found that California homes with coronavirus cases averaged 2.8 stars on Medicare's five-star overall quality rating, while other homes averaged 3.5 stars.

On average, the homes that have had coronavirus cases had more complaints lodged against them and were fined 29% times more often. In addition, Medicare also calculated that their health violations of all types were 20% more serious. They also tended to be larger, averaging 105 patients versus 83 on the homes without virus cases.

The analysis found no substantial difference in the homes' numbers of nurse aides or licensed practical nurses, but fewer registered nurses, who have the most medical training and supervise the other caregivers. On average, there was one registered nurse for every 39 residents at a California home without a patient coronavirus infection versus one RN for every 52 residents for homes with infections, KHN's analysis found.

Certainly, nursing homes with stellar quality ratings also have had coronavirus outbreaks. Nursing Home Compare, the federal government's consumer website, gave its top overall rating of five stars to Life Care of Kirkland, the Seattle-area nursing home that was the first reported to have a slew of infections. In California, 12 of the nursing homes with coronavirus infections had above-average ratings for both staffing levels and inspection results, although only three had no history of infection control citations.

The prevalence of coronavirus infections in lower-rated nursing homes could be explained by poorer care, but there might be other factors, said David Grabowski, a professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School. For instance, the lower-rated homes might be primarily located in low-income areas with high rates of coronavirus cases in those neighborhoods, he said.

"This suggests a very different set of policies if we want to protect nursing homes from further outbreaks," Grabowski said.

Representatives of nursing homes rated as below average on Nursing Home Compare say that the coronavirus has thrown everyone off guard and that registered nurse staffing levels are irrelevant to whether a patient is infected by the new virus.

"It's really hard to draw a straight line from" issues raised in previous years' inspections "to this pandemic that even the experts didn't see coming and were not prepared for," said Elizabeth Tyler, a spokesperson for Longwood Management Corp., which runs three nursing homes with coronavirus infections that were also poorly rated before the pandemic: Studio City Rehabilitation Center, Burbank Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center and Sunnyview Care Center.

Burbank and Sunnyview have a health inspection rating of one out of five stars, which is much below average, while Studio City has two stars. Tyler said that health inspection ratings are a "very, very complex system" taking into account hundreds of different factors, and she hesitated to make any connections between past reviews or staffing levels and the current outbreak.

Lakeview Terrace in Los Angeles, which has recorded three cases of COVID-19, has been on a list of 15,000 nursing homes around the nation that health inspectors are required to visit more frequently because of repeated violations of patient safety rules. It has an overall Medicare rating of one of five stars  the lowest rating  and almost six times the national average of health deficiencies.

In August 2019, inspectors faulted the home after they saw a nursing assistant deliver a breakfast tray into an isolation room without putting on personal protective equipment. They also discovered the home was not keeping logs to track signs and symptoms of possible infections.

DJ Weaver, an administrator for Lakeview Terrace, said that on the rare occasion that mistakes happen, the facility counsels and trains staff and makes systemic improvements to prevent future occurrences.

"Overall, we have done a good job not allowing cross-contamination of any infectious organisms, which is the real danger," Weaver said in an emailed statement.

Lakeview's cases came as a result of accepting a hospital patient who had undiagnosed COVID-19, Weaver said. His infection of two roommates couldn't have been prevented by the facility's policies designed to protect residents from the virus. Those include banning staff from working at multiple nursing homes and suspending group dining and activities.

"That kind of thing is really hard to foresee," Weaver said.

Jennifer Newbery entered the Rehabilitation Center of Santa Monica in April 2019. Up until the day of the video conversation, Jorge Newbery said he and his four siblings had been told by staff that the nursing home had only three cases of COVID-19, and that everything was under control.

But after the home transferred Jennifer Newbery to a local hospital, doctors told her family she tested positive for the coronavirus and had pneumonia, Newbery said.

When Newbery later called to thank the staffer for facilitating the video chat, he asked if the facility had seen any deaths.

The staffer said yes, Newbery recalled, and it floored him. "We absolutely had no idea," he said.

Newbery said his mom is getting better at UCLA Medical Center Santa Monica. After she's discharged, Jorge wants to take her to Chicago to live with him and his family.

Newbery said he had been unaware of Medicare's critical assessment of the Rehabilitation Center, which has two stars out of five overall on Nursing Home Compare, denoting below-average care. Inspection records show that during a visit in May 2019, health inspectors faulted it for failing to sanitize a blood pressure cuff before it was used on a second patient, and for allowing a urinary drainage bag attached to a catheter to be touching the floor. In August 2019, inspectors determined the home violated California's minimum staffing requirements because it lacked enough nurse assistants on 10 out of 24 days.

Huang, the administrator, noted Medicare gave the facility five stars, the best rating, in a quality category that assesses things like the frequency of patient trips to the hospital or emergency room and homes' self-reported assessments of how often residents improved during their stays. The regulators who issued the May 2019 deficiency found no evidence of harm to a resident, he said.

Michael Connors, an advocate with the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said nursing homes with fewer staff members and poor compliance with infection control practices are ripe for the spread of the virus.

"No place could be more dangerous to live right now," Connors said. "It's these characteristics that make nursing homes ground zero for COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths."
A cold front bringing buckets of rain and damaging winds has sparked a severe weather warning for the Perth metropolitan area, the South West and parts of the Great Southern and Southern coastal districts. The glorious autumn weather Perth has been experiencing is coming to an end, bringing some much needed rain to the state. Credit:Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology said a cold front will move through the state, bringing showers, isolated thunderstorms and winds with speeds of up to 100km/h which could damage properties. The damaging winds are most likely to occur ahead of the leading edge of the storm but thunderstorms but showers and gusty winds will continue through much of Monday morning. Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Neil Bennett said the worst of the storm would hit Perth in the afternoon.

"We are expecting some very localised gusty winds of up to 100 km/h. But the key thing with this front is the rain, we are expecting some decent falls out this one, round about 20 millimetres for Perth," he said. "The strongest winds will probably be about mid-afternoon and continuing with rain right through the afternoon and the evening and then slowly easing off." On Tuesday evening a much stronger cold front is expected to come through, bringing with it more thunderstorms affecting communities in Albany, Bunbury, Busselton, Mandurah, Margaret River, Mount Barker and the Perth metropolitan area. "We are more concerned with a front due to arrive during Tuesday evening, it does look like it will be a particularly strong front," Mr Bennett said. He said the front is due to go through the state from mid-afternoon and winds with speeds of up to 125km/h were possible.
In March, The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the annual Met Gala had been postponed 'indefinitely' due to the coronavirus pandemic.

And in honour of Met Monday, Lily Collins looked back at some of the quirky outfits she wore to the prestigious fashion ceremony on Instagram over the weekend.

The actress, 31, uploaded a selection of behind-the-scenes images from her 2017, 2018 and 2019 appearances, taking inspiration from Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo, Our Lady of Sorrows and actress Priscilla Presley, respectively.

'Feeling nostalgic': In honour of Met Monday, Lily Collins looked back at some of the quirky outfits she wore to the prestigious fashion ceremony on Instagram over the weekend

The Tolkien star revealed she decided to treat fans to some fun images of her Met Gala preparations after 'getting nostalgic'.

Kicking off her countdown was her kooky, black-and-pink puffball dress by Giambattista Valli for 2017's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons theme.

Sharing a snap from a dress rehearsal, the thespian wrote: 'Met Ball Monday countdown.

'Things are a little different this year, so Im getting nostalgic! Looking through my phone and found this picture... on Cloud 9 in my @giambattistavalliparis at the Met Ball fitting for Rei Kawakubo/ Commes des Garcons...' [sic].

'On cloud nine': The actress, 31, uploaded a selection of behind-the-scenes images from her 2017 (pictured), 2018 and 2019 appearances

Avant-garde: Kicking off her countdown was her kooky, black-and-pink puffball dress by Giambattista Valli for 2017's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons theme (pictured)

'A couture daydream': The thespian adhered to the 2018 Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination theme by channelling Mater Dolorosa in a structured Givenchy gown

The Love, Rosie actress adhered to the 2018 Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination theme by channelling Mater Dolorosa in a structured Givenchy gown with a tear drop face jewel.

The media personality captioned the image: 'Met Ball Monday countdown, #2  in a couture daydream getting ready for Heavenly Bodies in @givenchyofficial...'

Lily's latest look saw her transform into the late Elvis Presley's ex-wife Priscilla on their wedding with a dipped hem bridal gown and bouffant-styled tresses.

Describing her creative team's vision, she penned: 'Met Ball Monday countdown, #3. This time last year testing bouquets before hitting the Camp red carpet... in @giambattistavalliparis and @cartier.

In the zone: The media personality pulled out all the stops for her look, which came complete with a tear drop face jewel

Glitz and glam: Lily's latest look saw her transform into the late Elvis Presley's ex-wife Priscilla on their wedding with a dipped hem bridal gown and bouffant-styled tresses

Taking it back: The Love, Rosie actress looked sensational at her last appearance at the New York event

'Ultimately decided the roses were a little too extra (I know, how could it ever be?) and tossed the idea aside. Larger than life glam by @gregoryrussellhair and @fionastiles...' [sic]

The global COVID-19 crisis has caused the cancellation of many annual events, with the Met Gala being postponed until further notice.

This is the first time that the event - for which tickets can cost up to $35,000 a person - has been called off in the 22 years that Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour has chaired it - a job that she took on in 1995 when she made her debut as the hostess of the star-studded party.

Since then, the event has become a must-attend for Hollywood's most prominent and glamorous stars, with A-listers going above and beyond to embrace each year's fashion-focused theme, while also showcasing their own style credentials on the red carpet.
The air cargo carrier is working with the Government of New Zealand as part of its International Airfreight Capacity (IAFC) scheme to help facilitate the exports of key commodities from New Zealand to the rest of the world while ensuring that essential cargo continues to be transported into the country.

Emirates SkyCargo will be operating 3 weekly Dubai-Auckland-Melbourne-Dubai flight rotations and a once a week Dubai-Sydney-Christchurch-Sydney-Dubai flight service operated by the carriers Boeing 777-300ER passenger freighters.

Emirates SkyCargo will be providing a vital cargo lane for the exports of high quality exports from New Zealand including food items such as chilled meat, honey, dairy products, and seafood to various destinations in the Middle East and Europe. The flight service is also expected to help transport pharmaceuticals and medical appliances to markets in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

"Emirates SkyCargo is delighted to working with the Government of New Zealand to help connect fresh produce of the highest quality and other key exports from Auckland and Christchurch. We consider it our responsibility to ensure that we are able to facilitate adequate supply of food and other essential commodities to markets that we serve and also support exporters in New Zealand at the same time," said Nabil Sultan, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President, Cargo.
Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Shane Miller, left, and Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Austin Kelly, both assigned to Fleet Surgical Team 9, draw blood from a sailor assigned to the guided-missile destroyer Kidd after its arrival in San Diego last week. (Petty Officer 2nd Class Alex Corona / U.S. Navy )

Novel coronavirus outbreaks aboard three Navy warships have taught the military service valuable lessons that enabled it to respond quickly in late March when a sailor started displaying symptoms of COVID-19 on the guided-missile destroyer Kidd, a vice admiral in charge of the Navys surface force said last week.

The Kidd was conducting counter-drug operations in the eastern Pacific near South America when a sailor began showing symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, on April 22. Less than a week later, the ship was moored at Naval Base San Diego, with 243 of its roughly 330 sailors evacuated from the vessel.

Vice Adm. Richard Brown, commander of the Naval Surface Force Pacific in San Diego, said Friday that quick action by the Navy to bring the Kidd into port soon after its first case was reported likely prevented a broader outbreak among the crew.

This virus is insidious, Brown said during a conference call with reporters. If we had left her out there, the entire crew would have got infected.

Brown said that after outbreaks on other ships  amphibious assault ships Essex and Tripoli, littoral combat ship Coronado and aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt  the Navy knew that from the first case on the Kidd, the clock was ticking.

You can stop the spread of the virus, but it takes a huge effort and urgency to do that, Brown said.

That lesson came from the Tripoli, a ship recently built in Mississippi. According to Brown, the ship was set to be delivered to the Navy and hundreds of sailors moved aboard in mid-March, just when broad community spread of the coronavirus was picking up nationwide.

The Essex and Coronado, two San Diego ships, were among the first in the Navy to report cases of the coronavirus. Brown said the Essex, while in port, started rotating its crew day to day by duty section  allowing for social distancing onboard. The number of cases initially rose slowly but soon flattened and eventually stopped.

Story continues

That almost became the model, but that was the first week of the Navy crisis  when Tripoli hit a month later, we were ready, Brown said.

When the virus began spreading on the Tripoli, the decision to move crew members off was made within a day of the third confirmed case, Brown said. About 630 sailors were moved off the ship and, as a result, the outbreak was limited to around about a couple dozen sailors.

That number has since gone down, he said.

One of the most valuable lessons the Navy has learned about the virus is how it can spread between people who do not appear ill, known as asymptomatic spread.

The Coronado had its first positive COVID-19 case on March 17. The Navy, for the first time, tested the entire crew  now a standard practice aboard ships leaving for deployment.

Thats the evolution, Brown said. We did not know a lot about the virus back in the middle of March. Its amazing what we learned. When you do 100% testing, thats when you find the asymptomatic sailors.

Asymptomatic carriers of the virus have prolonged the quarantine period for some sailors on the Roosevelt.

The first known coronavirus cases on the Roosevelt emerged in late March. Two days after the Navy announced the outbreak, the San Diego aircraft carrier pulled into Guam. Initially, the Navy said sailors would remain on the ship and be restricted to the pier.

Days later, the ships then-commanding officer, Capt. Brett Crozier, sent a letter to Navy captains and three U.S. Pacific Fleet admirals warning that the only way to get the outbreak under control  and save sailors' lives  was to move 90% of the crew off the ship.

Crozier was fired by acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly after a copy of that letter was leaked to the media. Modly then resigned less than a week later after a profanity-laden speech he delivered to the Roosevelts crew was also leaked.

The ordeal is the subject of an ongoing Navy investigation.

Croziers proposal was adopted by Navy leaders and sailors began moving off the ship. Eventually, more than 4,200 who tested negative for the virus were moved to hotels on the island. Those with positive tests were placed in isolation on base.

However, as the Navy began to bring sailors back the ship after at least 14 days in quarantine, some tested positive for the virus, despite having no symptoms.

On Friday, Jonathan Hoffman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Navy will no longer routinely release specific coronavirus case numbers on ships.

We believe weve moved past the point where the daily updates are providing useful information for public conversation, Hoffman said.

The last official numbers from the Roosevelt, released Thursday, said 1,102 sailors have active cases of the virus  an increase of 162 from two days prior. The Navy attributed that surge to asymptomatic sailors coming out of quarantine.

In order to return to the Roosevelt, which has been sterilized bow to stern, sailors must now test negative on two successive tests, the Navy says.

That policy will apply to Kidd sailors now in quarantine in San Diego, Brown said. The last numbers released by the Navy said 78 sailors had tested positive  a number Brown said will likely rise or fall over the next couple of weeks.

Even though a sailor tested negative on the day of arrival, there was crew interaction on the ship, Brown said, adding that it took about six days for the ship to get to San Diego after its first case. They might not be at a viral load that theyre showing (right now).

Brown said he is confident the Navy has learned from whats happened on the Roosevelt and that those lessons are minimizing the virus effect on the Kidd.

Theres not a massive breakout because we acted so fast, Brown said.

An industrial cleaning company has been brought aboard to sanitize the Kidd  another lesson from the Tripoli, he added.

The Navy expects the Kidd will remain in San Diego at least a month for quarantine and sanitation.

Dyer writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune
Maryland's stay-at-home covid-19 order has been stressful for Ann and Tom Schruben, self-employed workers who live in Kensington with their 11-year-old daughter.

Ann noticed her husband was a little grumpy. He's generally a cheerful guy who likes to crack jokes and puns.

In fact, their daughter, Darcy, had given him a book of "exceptionally bad dad jokes" as a Christmas present.

When Ann heard a friend in Ohio was posting a daily joke in front of her house, she told Tom he should do the same thing. Tom resisted. Then, about two weeks ago, he grabbed a whiteboard and wrote at the top "BAD DAD JOKES." He scrawled in purple ink:

"Hold on - I have something in my shoe! I'm pretty sure it's a foot."

At 8 a.m. on April 17, he set the whiteboard near the footpath in front of his house and waited inside his screened-in porch to see if anyone reacted. Nothing. A few hours later, he heard a chuckle from outside.

"Once he got his first laugh, it was so satisfying to him," said Ann, a landscape designer.

The next day he woke up at 7 a.m. and scribbled his second bad dad joke: "Without geometry, life is pointless."

Soon, he heard people laughing as they walked by his home, along a creek on the edge of Rock Creek Park. Some called out to Tom and told him how much they liked the jokes. Others stayed for a socially distanced chat.

A spring returned to Tom's step. Each morning since, he's put out a new joke.

"It surprised me how much it made my mood better," said Tom, 62. "I don't really know why, I guess I feel like I'm contributing a little bit to other people's happiness."

Day 3: What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef.

Day 4: What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear.

One woman who strolls by each day told Tom when she gets home she calls her granddaughter to relay the joke.

"That makes my day," he said.

Tom, an environmental consultant, also likes the routine of putting up the joke.

"It gives me a reason to get up and get out in the morning early," he said. "It breaks up the day and gives me a little purpose. We look forward to it in the house."

The Schrubens talk each day about which joke to display. They leaf through the book Tom got for Christmas, titled: "Exceptionally Bad Dad Jokes: So frightfully awful ... yet wonderfully spiffing." Sometimes they pull the jokes from there; sometimes the Schrubens make them up.

"He loves to make really bad jokes," Darcy said. "He makes a lot of puns."

One joke from the book has prompted the most discourse. On day eight, he wrote:

"I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. I'll let you know."

Lots of neighbors were talking about that one, including Jim Pekar, 59, who ambles by the whiteboard each day to see the latest bad dad joke.

"If you don't like them, well, they're not supposed to be good," Pekar said, adding that he calls his neighbor's humor "stand-up for the shut down."

Mana McNeill, 65, also saw the chicken-and-egg joke as she walked through the neighborhood with her walking buddy, Tina McKay, 68. Both women live nearby in North Chevy Chase.

It was raining that day so Tom had covered the sign in plastic wrap to protect it.

"We stopped and read the joke, and we had to think about it for a minute," McNeill said. "Then I finally got it. I've been telling other people the joke since. It's clever."

She has known the Schrubens for years, since their grown children were in school together. But when the women walked by that day, they didn't know Tom had been putting out jokes.

"That was great fun, we had a chuckle," McNeill said. "It was a nice respite on our walk. You have to find something great in this mess."

That is exactly the life perspective that has kept Tom and Ann going since two of their six children died from medical issues, one in 2002 and one in 2009, they said.

In the darkest days, they made a conscious decision to seek out things that make them feel happy.

"It adds to our trying to find joy where we can," Ann said. "It's hard won, believe me."

And so if a silly - and bad - dad joke does that for them and others, they intend to keep it going.

"Everyone is very stressed with the virus and the quarantining," Tom said. "I thought it would be a good idea to give people a break from that, shake them up momentarily to take their mind off their troubles for just a minute."

How long does he plan to continue?

"Until we're done with the virus," he said. "Maybe longer."
Craig Murray, the former British diplomat turned writer and commentator, is facing contempt of court charges arising from his reporting of last months trial of former Scottish National Party (SNP) leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.

Salmond was found not guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh of multiple charges of sexual assault and attempted rape during his period as first minister in the devolved Scottish parliament.

If found guilty by a judgethere is no jury in contempt of court casesMurray could face up to two years in jail and/or an unlimited fine.

Craig Murray in 2006. (Image credit: Flickr user: Vodex)

On his website, Murray, an SNP supporter, reported that four other Scottish nationalist social media commentators had also been warned by the police of possible contempt charges while a journalist, unnamed, has had his house raided and computers seized by police from the Alex Salmond team.

A police van had parked outside his house two days before he was charged. Elements within the media appeared to be aware of the charges against him before they were served, indicating collusion between the press and the police.

Murray is not well liked by the establishment. His perceptive and widely read reporting of the show trial of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has earned him hatred and enmity in ruling circles. But the legal charges and police intimidation used against him point fundamentally to the immense tensions building up around the Scottish government and the SNP leadership in the aftermath of Salmonds acquittal. Instigated by the prosecution team at Salmonds trial, they appear to be an attempt to suppress public knowledge of what was revealed by the triala high level conspiracy to send Salmond to jail on the flimsiest of charges.

Moves against Salmond have been building since 2016, when the former first minister hinted at his disagreement with the slow progress towards a second referendum on Scottish independence in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. These tensions escalated hugely following his move to Russian broadcaster RT, where he continues to host a weekly show. Sex allegations against Salmond surfaced shortly after.

Salmond was first charged in January 2019, days after winning a judicial review in which the Scottish government admitted an internal investigation into the claims against Salmond was tainted by apparent bias. Salmond won 512,000 in compensation.

Last months High Court case exposed the lack of any evidence against Salmond beyond uncorroborated testimony and hearsay. Murrays commentary also drew out the extraordinarily close relationship between the anonymous female complainers and the current leadership of the SNP. He highlighted evidence revealed in court of orchestration between some of the complainants.

On his blog, Murray has posted an image of the charges against him, all of which relate to articles and comments posted between August 23, 2019 and April 3, 2020. He is accused of having impeded or prejudiced the case against Salmond by his posts. Murray has been singled out despite a deluge of prejudicial images, distorted and partial reporting from the Scottish media, mostly supportive of Salmonds accusers and political opponents.

Neil Mackay, at the Glasgow Herald, for example, wrote March 8 of looking back at a few great trials of the past which, while in no way connected with next weeks events, had huge wider significance. These included the trials of Nazi organiser of the Holocaust Adolf Eichmann, as well as mass murderers Charles Manson and Peter Sutcliffe.

Murray has noted that he had been charged with contempt after the trial and not before or during it. This would be a serious act of negligence if his reporting had in fact prejudiced the trial.

Murray has also been charged with publishing material which could lead to an identification of one of the complainants, Ms. A. He did not identify anyone. One commentator noted correctly that the evidence which could supposedly be used to identify Ms. A. is part of the record of the trial. Murray pointed out that if he was guilty of this offence then so were much of the British media, including the Times, Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Daily Record, Herald, Aberdeen Press and Journal and Scotland on Sunday all of whom reported the same information, sometimes more explicitly, which remains readily available on all their web sites.

For people with knowledge of the internal life of the SNP, Ms. A.s identity can readily be worked out from the events described during the trial. But Ms. A., as with all the other complainants, has been granted lifetime anonymity because of the failed case against Salmond. As a result, any role played by SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in bringing proceedings against Salmond remains obscure.

Salmond ally and former Scottish Justice Secretary and lawyer, the SNP MP for East Lothian Kenny MacAskill, noted in the Scottish Left Review that much of the case against Salmond seemed to be offered up to Police Scotland on a platter by senior government and SNP sources  Some charges were utter bunkum and the likes of which Ive never seen in 40 years involvement in the courts; and certainly not in the High Court.

Jim Sillars, a former deputy leader of the SNP, wrote of Salmond, The book he is writing, with the material he was not allowed to produce at trial, but which has all the authenticity of Scottish government and SNP party documents, will be like a volcano going off underneath some people. Some whose identities I and others know, but cannot name, must tremble at the prospect of what is to come.

Sillars and MacAskills comments underscore the politically explosive implications of the faction fight raging in the SNP and why such extraordinary measures are being taken to silence Murray.

The SNP has been the ruling party in Scotland since 2007. It has a dominant position in the Scottish parliament, Scottish local authorities and holds most Scottish seats in the British parliament.

Sturgeon is currently playing a key role on behalf of the entire British ruling class in organising a return to work in the midst of the raging COVID-19 pandemic. She poses as a progressive counterweight to Boris Johnsons Conservative government, while to all intents advocating the same policies.

The Salmond affair could bring down Sturgeon, collapse the Scottish government and blow the SNP to bits, exposing its toxic internal relations, wrecking its political authority, and confirming its bitter hostility to the working class. The party has for decades assiduously sought to foster a leftish veneer, now much eroded, in its pitch to Scottish voters.

Yet no party in Scotland can easily replace the SNP. Its rise to unchallenged prominence was due to having successfully exploited the rightward evolution of the Labour Party, which is now almost as hated as the Tories. Talks of an SNP split or clear-out at the highest levels favoured by Sillars, Murray, MacAskill and, perhaps, Salmond testify to the possibility of the SNP implodingleaving Scotland without a functioning government and further destabilising the whole of the UK.

The Socialist Equality Party calls on workers, young people, artists and academics, and all those concerned with the defence of democratic rights to demand all charges are dropped and Murray be allowed to continue his work. The charges against him prove the willingness of the SNP leadership and the Scottish state to dispense with democratic and legal norms in defence of their interests. But this does not imply any support for Murrays nationalist politics or for the Salmond faction, which represents a clique of pro-business figures with a record of attacks on the working class no less filthy than Sturgeons.

The unprincipled faction fight within the SNP lends perfect expression to the reactionary politics of Scottish nationalism. The SNP is seeking to transform an independent Scotland into a low-tax investment platform for major corporations seeking access to the European market. It will be paid for by the destruction of the living standards of the working class, facilitated by driving a nationalist wedge between Scottish and English workers when a unified struggle against British and world imperialism is essential.
TORONTO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Americas Gold and Silver Corporation (TSX: USA) (NYSE American: USAS) ("Americas" or the "Company"), a growing North American precious metals producer, today provided an operations update.

Summary

Relief Canyon poured first gold in mid-February 2020 and the Company remains confident that commercial production can be achieved towards the end of Q2-2020 or beginning of Q3-2020 despite the challenges presented by COVID-19.

and the Company remains confident that commercial production can be achieved towards the end of Q2-2020 or beginning of Q3-2020 despite the challenges presented by COVID-19. While Relief Canyon has been operating through the COVID-19 pandemic, ramp-up has been slower than anticipated due to an inability to get key management and consultants to site to troubleshoot common start up challenges.

All operating aspects of Relief Canyon have now started to meet budget parameters. Waste movement is ahead of budget and there is an ore stockpile of over 0.2 million tonnes. As of April 30, 2020 , approximately 3.3 million tonnes of material have been mined, including 2.5 million tonnes of waste and 0.8 million tonnes of ore.

, approximately 3.3 million tonnes of material have been mined, including 2.5 million tonnes of waste and 0.8 million tonnes of ore. Ore gold grade mined and early grade reconciliation are in-line with the mine plan.

Ore leaching has been slower than planned, a common issue when commissioning heap leach operations. Pregnant solution grade and solution application rate are now nearing design levels following improvements to agglomeration, solution application and stacking practices.

The Galena recapitalization plan ("Recapitalization Plan") is proceeding better than expectations with the Company seeing benefits in both production and exploration. The Company plans to update the market on this asset on a more regular basis moving forward.

The Mexican government issued a national decree to suspend non-essential businesses in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic until the end of May. This order affects all mining operations.

Due to the rapidly changing and on-going uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in the reduced ability to adequately meet the normal commissioning challenges at Relief Canyon with the COVID-19 limitations in place and impact to the Cosala Operations, the Company has decided to withdraw its full-year 2020 guidance.

Outlook for 2021 continues to be 90,000 to 110,000 gold equivalent ounces which assumes Relief Canyon is fully ramped up to commercial production and the Cosala Operations has resumed normal operations and expected production.

As of March 31, 2020 , the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $16.3 million which includes funds under the Galena Recapitalization Plan.

"All aspects of the Relief Canyon mine are starting to perform near design capacity following some initial teething pains common to commissioning a new operation. These start-up challenges took slightly longer to remediate due to travel and operational restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Relief Canyon is now well on its way to a successful ramp-up. Americas Gold and Silver is closely monitoring developments regarding the outbreak of COVID-19 and our priority is to protect the health and safety of our employees by providing a safe work environment," said Americas President & CEO Darren Blasutti.

Relief Canyon

Relief Canyon successfully poured its first gold in mid-February 2020 with initial construction completed nine months after construction formally commenced in mid-May 2019. The initial capital spend to first production was within the guidance range the Company provided of US$28 to US$30 million.

The Company is targeting commercial production by the end of Q2-2020 or beginning of Q3-2020, which represents a potential delay of approximately one month from the previous expectations. While operations continue during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company has been limited in its ability to promptly troubleshoot ramp-up issues often present when commissioning a new mine.

Mining rates have steadily increased and total tonnes mined are close to budget. As of April 30, 2020, approximately 3.3 million tonnes of material have been mined, including 2.5 million tonnes of waste and 0.8 million tonnes of ore. Waste movement is ahead of budget and the operation currently has an ore stockpile of approximately 0.2 million tonnes ahead of the crusher waiting to be placed on the leach pad. To-date, approximately 0.6 million tonnes of ore have been stacked on the leach pad.

Mined ore grade is reconciling well to the block model. Ore grade from these early phases of the mine plan are lower than the life of mine average grade and the Company expects mined ore grade to increase towards the end of the year and into 2021. Ore crushing and stacking rates are steadily increasing.

Following the first gold pour in February, solution flow rates to the leach pad increased at a slower rate than anticipated. The Company is confident that measures taken in the past five weeks, including improved agglomeration and stacking practices, will allow the operation to continue its ramp-up to feasibility study targets. Solution and grade are now on-track to meet expectations and any placed ounces will be recovered through the leach cycle.

Galena Complex

The Galena Complex is benefiting from the previously announced Recapitalization Plan that commenced in October 2019. The Recapitalization Plan improves productivity in the short term with the purchase and refurbishment of underground mining equipment. Underground development improvements, additional equipment procurements, and an exploration drilling program will benefit the operation longer term by further improving mining efficiency and lowering cash costs. Exploration is aimed at adding mineral resources with exploration success already realized in Q1-2020.

Production

The Recapitalization Plan is still in the early stages of implementation but the Company is already starting to see the benefits in terms of production and a reduction in cash operating costs. The Galena Complex increased production and lowered cash costs in Q1-2020 compared to Q4-2019; silver and lead production increased by 44% and 67% respectively. During the Recapitalization Plan, the Company has chosen to exclude production and cost figures from the outlook but feel that it is important to provide an update to the significant improvements already demonstrated by the operation.

Development

Redevelopment of existing infrastructure is progressing on the 4300 and 5500 Levels which includes drift rehabilitation and rail replacement. On the 4300 Level, drift rehabilitation is over 70% complete, with new rail placement over 60% complete. The 4300 Level rehabilitation is expected to be finished by the end of May 2020. A recently developed drill station on the 4300 Level will facilitate testing of up-dip extensions of silver/lead-rich zones starting in mid-May 2020. The 5500 Level drift rehabilitation is complete and rail installation is well underway. Additionally, ramp development between the 5200 and 5500 Levels is proceeding according to plan. This ramp development provides access to two mining fronts, which when complete, will allow more efficient movement of equipment and workers between levels. Repair of the lowest loading pocket is also proceeding, which when finished, will allow material to be hoisted from the 5500 Level.

Equipment

With the Recapitalization Plan, the operation has acquired several new pieces of equipment to help improve productivity. A 4-yard scoop and a single boom jumbo are now in service. Two 3.5-yard scoops are on-site, being disassembled for shipment and reassembly underground.

Exploration

The Recapitalization Plan has budgeted approximately 39,000 meters of exploration drilling with over 9,000 meters (or over 20%) complete. Based on the current drill plan, the Company expects drilling to finish in approximately 15 months with two drills in operation. Targets include up-dip and down-dip extensions of known veins, with emphasis on untested zones below the 5500 Level, which is the deepest working level of the mine. Additionally, a new geologic model is partially complete. The geologic model will be used for target improvements in the near term and exploration for new orebodies longer term.

Drilling on the 3200 Level extended the strike and dip length of several veins with widths and grades the Company expects to be economic in the future. Five veins in the Upper Country Lead Zone (UCLZ) were extended between 37 and 61 meters to the east. These veins are adjacent to current production areas on the level. The 133 vein was extended 107 meters along strike and 70 meters up-dip and down-dip. A 9.1-meter siderite vein zone was crossed 500 meters north of the 3200 Level in an area previously untested on the South Argentine fault. This zone has the potential to be a new orebody and will be explored from the 4300 and 5500 Levels as drilling continues. The current 3200 Level drill program will be completed in early May, followed by drilling on the 4300 Level targeting upper extensions of the 360 vein system.

Drilling from the 5200 Level has focused on deep extensions of mineralization centred around the 291 and 360 vein systems with encouraging results. The two deepest holes project-to-date include the highest-grade values. Hole 52-493 crossed the 291 vein more than 60 meters below the current mineral resource with an interval grading 3,020 grams per tonne silver over a true width of 1.4 meters. In drill hole 52-501, a new vein was crossed in the footwall of the 360 vein approximately 85 meters below the 5200 Level. The unnamed vein assayed 2,123 grams per tonne silver over 0.8 meters and has the potential to become a new mining front with additional drilling.

The 16-hole drill program on 5200 Level is nearing completion. Drilling will commence from the 5500 Level in mid-May, targeting what the Company's geologists believe to be some of the most prospective targets in the mine. This includes the down-dip projection of the 72 vein, which was the main source of ore during the peak silver production years of 2000-2004. Drilling will focus on areas to the east and below historical workings, which produced average grades of over 680 grams per tonne silver. In addition to targeting the 72 vein, exploration will focus on what has been described as the "triple point", where the high-grade 175, 185 and Silver veins are projected to converge. This area has never been explored and is projected to be 100 meters below historical workings. Follow-up drilling in the 291 and 360 vein systems is also planned from 5500 Level and is designed to extend these zones down-dip.

The following table summarizes the most significant intercepts of the program to date:

Hole Vein Zone From (m) To (m) True Width (m) Ag (g/t) Pb (%) Cu (%) AgEq1 (g/t) 32-091 4 UCLZ 29.8 30.9 0.9 467 5.9 - 704

3 UCLZ 52.3 54.4 1.8 283 9.8 - 675 32-092 4 UCLZ 26.6 27.5 0.9 250 9.7 - 638 32-093 5 UCLZ 32.6 34.4 0.8 447 16.9 - 1,122

133 UCLZ 153.0 153.9 0.7 306 9.9 - 704 32-096 Fuller UCLZ 49.1 50.1 1.0 251 15.9 - 887

133 UCLZ 86.9 87.2 0.3 343 15.2 - 951 32-097 4B UCLZ 30.0 31.4 1.1 301 12.3 - 793

133 UCLZ 140.5 141.3 0.7 593 19.9 - 1,390 32-099 5 UCLZ 59.4 61.1 1.0 159 11.8 - 632

3 UCLZ 84.4 85.2 0.6 331 11.4 - 787 52-487 242 291 System 124.5 125.9 1.0 312 12.4 - 809 including 242

124.5 125.0 0.3 837 32.6 - 2,141 52-488 348 360 System 75.9 78.7 2.6 271 12.6 - 777 52-490



89.4 90.1 0.4 1,295 5.5 0.5 1,572 52-491 291 291 System 99.5 100.7 1.2 1,430 - 0.9 1,531 including



100.5 100.7 0.2 7,544 - 4.7 8,083 52-493 291 291 System 154.9 156.7 1.4 3,020 - 2.3 3,284 including



155.4 156.7 1.0 4,252 - 3.2 4,623 52-494 291 291 System 122.3 124.8 2.1 430 - 0.5 489 52-495 291 291 System 132.7 133.7 0.8 473 - 0.4 518 52-496 291 291 System 206.3 207.6 0.9 892 - 2.9 1,221 52-499 370 360 System 252.7 254.1 0.7 378 9.2 - 750

360 360 System 257.5 258.4 0.4 1,737 25.9 0.3 2,803 52-501 239 291 System 147.0 148.3 0.7 373 12.3 - 867 including



147.3 147.4 0.1 1,156 38.5 - 2,696 including



147.8 148.0 0.1 1,101 34.2 - 2,469 52-501 368 360 System 229.4 230.6 0.6 800 26.6 - 1,863 52-501 370 360 System 232.9 234.1 0.7 422 16.1 - 1,066 52-501 360 360 System 256.4 258.9 1.3 364 5.8 - 596 including



257.2 257.4 0.1 2,428 39.1 - 3,992 52-501

360 System 321.2 323.2 0.8 2,123 - 0.9 2,232 including



321.2 321.9 0.3 4,595 - 1.9 4,817

A full table of all drill results is available on our website at:

https://www.americas-gold.com/site/assets/files/5450/dr20200504.pdf

Cosala Operations

On March 31, 2020, the Government of Mexico issued a national COVID-19 related decree for the temporary suspension of all non-essential businesses in the country, including all mining operations, until at least the end of May. At this time, the Company's Cosala Operations continue to be illegally occupied (see Company news release dated February 3, 2020). While the Company cannot negotiate with the self-interested representatives of this illegal action, it is optimistic that a legal and legitimate labour representative for its workers will be identified, and the mine will be in a position to re-open after any COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. The Company's priority continues to be the safety of its workers and the community of Cosala that have been negatively impacted  first by the illegal blockade and now by the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020 Guidance Withdrawal and Q1 2020 Quarterly Results Update

The Company continues to assess the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on operations during this unprecedented period. Due to the rapidly changing and on-going uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in a reduced ability to efficiently meet normal commissioning challenges at Relief Canyon with the COVID-19 limitations in place and impact to the Cosala Operations, the Company has decided to withdraw the full-year 2020 guidance. The Company believes it is prudent to take this step as the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop, particularly given the significant risk related to the potential for additional government laws, regulations or other measures that might be required that could impact its ability to operate, such as business disruptions in supply chains, disruptions in the markets for our products, commodity prices generally as well as global health and economic impacts. The Company will continue to target safe and effective execution of its operation and production plans. The Company does not expect that these factors will materially impact its growth plans and the previously provided outlook for 2021 and beyond, as applicable, to the extent that commercial production is achieved at Relief Canyon on the currently expected timing in 2020 and resumption at the Cosala Operations of normal operations and production occurs by the end of 2020.

The Company expects to provide updated financial and quarterly production results with its Q1-2020 release. The Company will provide updated timing and details of our quarterly conference call in advance.

Technical Information

The diamond drilling program used NQ-size drilling. Americas Gold and Silver's standard QA/QC practices were utilized to ensure the integrity of the core and sample preparation at the Galena Complex through delivery of the samples to the assay lab. The drill core was stored in a secure facility, photographed, logged and sampled based on lithologic and mineralogical interpretations. Standards of certified reference materials, field duplicates and blanks were inserted as samples shipped with the core samples to the lab.

Analytical work was carried out by American Analytical Services Inc. ("AAS") located in Osburn, Idaho. AAS is an independent, ISO-17025 accredited laboratory. Sample preparation includes a 30-gram pulp sample analyzed by atomic absorption spectrometry ("AA") techniques to determine silver, copper, and lead, using aqua regia for pulp digestion. Samples returning values over 514g/t Ag are re-assayed using fire-assay techniques for silver. Additionally, samples returning values over 23% Pb are re-assayed using titration techniques.

Duplicate pulp samples were sent out quarterly to ALS Global, an independent, ISO-17025 accredited laboratory based in Reno, Nevada to perform an independent check analysis. A conventional AA technique was used for the analysis of silver, copper and lead at ALS Global with the same industry standard procedures as those used by AAS. The assay results listed in this report did not show any significant contamination during sample preparation or sample bias of analysis.

About Americas Gold and Silver Corporation

Americas Gold and Silver Corporation is a high-growth precious metals mining company with multiple assets in North America. The Company's newest asset, Relief Canyon in Nevada, USA, has poured first gold and is expected to ramp up to full production over the course of 2020. The Company also owns and operates the Cosala Operations in Sinaloa, Mexico and manages the 60%-owned Galena Complex in Idaho, USA. The Company also holds an option on the San Felipe development project in Sonora, Mexico. For further information, please see SEDAR or www.americas-gold.com.

For more information:

Stefan Axell Darren Blasutti VP, Corporate Development & Communications President and CEO Americas Gold and Silver Corporation Americas Gold and Silver Corporation 416-874-1708 4168489503

Qualified Persons

Niel de Bruin, Director of Geology and a Qualified Person under Canadian Securities Administrators guidelines, has approved the applicable contents of this news release.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information:

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, Americas Gold and Silver's expectations, intentions, plans, assumptions and beliefs with respect to, among other things, estimated production rates and results for gold, silver and other precious metals, as well as the related costs, expenses and capital expenditures, the Company's construction, production, development plans and performance expectations at the Relief Canyon Mine, including the anticipated timing of commercial production at Relief Canyon, the resolution and removal of the illegal blockade at the Company's Cosala Operations and the resumption of mining and processing operations. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "goal", "plan", "intend", "potential', "estimate", "may", "assume" and "will" or similar words suggesting future outcomes, or other expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions, or statements about future events or performance. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of Americas Gold and Silver as of the date such information is provided and is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements of Americas Gold and Silver to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. With respect to the business of Americas Gold and Silver, these risks and uncertainties include risks relating to widespread epidemics or pandemic outbreak including the COVID-19 pandemic; the impact of COVID-19 on our workforce, suppliers and other essential resources and what effect those impacts, if they occur, would have on our business, including our ability to access goods and supplies, the ability to transport our products and impacts on employee productivity, the risks in connection with the operations, cash flow and results of the Company relating to the unknown duration and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; interpretations or reinterpretations of geologic information; unfavorable exploration results; inability to obtain permits required for future exploration, development or production; general economic conditions and conditions affecting the industries in which the Company operates; the uncertainty of regulatory requirements and approvals; fluctuating mineral and commodity prices; the ability to obtain necessary future financing on acceptable terms or at all; the ability to develop, complete construction, bring to production and operate the Relief Canyon Project; and risks associated with the mining industry such as economic factors (including future commodity prices, currency fluctuations and energy prices), ground conditions and other factors limiting mine access, failure of plant, equipment, processes and transportation services to operate as anticipated, environmental risks, government regulation, actual results of current exploration and production activities, possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates, permitting timelines, capital and construction expenditures, reclamation activities, labor relations or disruptions, social and political developments and other risks of the mining industry. The potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and operations are unknown at this time, including the Company's ability to manage challenges and restrictions arising from COVID-19 in the communities in which the Company operates and our ability to continue to safely operate and to safely return our business to normal operations. The impact of COVID-19 on the Company is dependent on a number of factors outside of its control and knowledge, including the effectiveness of the measures taken by public health and governmental authorities to combat the spread of the disease, global economic uncertainties and outlook due to the disease, and the evolving restrictions relating to mining activities and to travel in certain jurisdictions in which it operate. 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. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such information. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from this forwardlooking information is available in Americas filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators on SEDAR and with the SEC. Americas does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or other such factors which affect this information, except as required by law. Americas does not give any assurance (1) that Americas will achieve its expectations, or (2) concerning the result or timing thereof. All subsequent written and oral forwardlooking information concerning Americas are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements above.

Cautionary Note to U.S. Investors:

The terms "proven and probable reserve", "resource", "measured resource", "indicated resource", and "inferred resource" used in the press release are mining terms used in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects under the guidelines set out in the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Standards. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

While the terms "mineral resource", "measured mineral resource", "indicated mineral resource", and "inferred mineral resource" are recognized and required by Canadian regulations, they are not defined terms under standards in the United States and normally are not permitted to be used in reports and registration statements filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission ("SEC"). Moreover, the definitions of proven and probable reserves used in NI 43-101 differ from the definitions in the United States Securities and Exchange Commission's Industry Guide 7. As such, information contained in the Company's disclosure concerning descriptions of mineralization, reserves and resources under Canadian standards may not be comparable to similar information made public by U.S companies in SEC filings. With respect to "inferred mineral resource" there is a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and a great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of the mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into reserves.

1 AgEq was calculated using metal prices of $18.00/oz silver, $3.00/lb copper and $1.05/lb lead

SOURCE Americas Gold and Silver Corporation

Related Links

http://www.americas-gold.com


Israeli Court Hears Petitions against Netanyahu Forming Gov't While Under Indictment for Corruption

Sputnik News

11:52 GMT 03.05.2020

Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted earlier this year on charges of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust. Israel's longest serving prime minister has denied any wrongdoing, claiming he is the victim of a politically motivated "witch hunt".

This Sunday Israel's high court started a two-day hearing into petitions against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forming a government while under indictment over corruption charges, with a ruling expected to be announced by Thursday, reported AP.

"Today we shall hear arguments on the question of bestowing the duty of forming a government on a Knesset member against whom an indictment has been filed Tomorrow there will be a hearing on the second issue, regarding the coalition agreement," announced Chief Justice Esther Hayut as she opened proceedings, broadcast live, at the head of a panel of 11 judges.

Most of Israel is still under coronavirus movement restrictions.

Netanyahu was indicted in January on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust  allegations he has emphatically denied, calling all three cases against him a political witch-hunt.

If convicted in the trial due to start on 24 May, Netanyahu could face up to 10 years in prison on bribery charges, with a maximum three-year term possible for fraud and breach of trust.

The Supreme Court will also hear petitions challenging a coalition deal between Likud party's Benjamin Netanyahu and the current speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Blue and White party chief Benny Gantz.

Following three inconclusive elections, on 20 April 2020 Netanyahu's former rival and leader of the Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) Party agreed to join a unity government with the long-serving Prime Minister, which would rotate the premiership, with Netanyahu serving as prime minister the first 18 months and Gantz serving the next 18 months.

However, a number of advocacy groups, including opposition parties, issued six petitions, with two of them demanding the court decide whether the pact signed by Likud and the Blue and White was legal, and whether Netanyahu, indicted in a spate of graft probes that include buying positive press and receiving illegal gifts from a rich donor, was in a position to form a government.

According a statement by Eliad Shraga, the head of one of the groups petitioning the court, Movement for Quality Government in Israel, it was "unconscionable that a man like this will go in the morning to court to sit in the dock and in the evening will manage the security cabinet and send us and our children to battle.''

Israeli law, however, says a prime minister under indictment is not obligated to step down until a final conviction.

Should the Supreme Court void Benjamin Netanyahu's ability to serve as prime minister, the move might trigger the country's fourth consecutive election in just over 12 months.

Demonstrators have been taking to the streets weekly to protest Netanyahu's continued rule, with counter-protesters also turning out to express their opposition to the court's hearing the petitions.

Israel's attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, told the court on 30 April that he saw no need for "judiciary intervention" to bar Benjamin Netanyahu from serving as prime minister while facing criminal charges, albeit the criminal charges against the prime minister "raise significant problems."

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






MEXICO CITY  A migrant shelter in southern Mexico called La 72 has for years been a popular way station for those traveling from Central America to the United States. Last year it received a record number of visitors, sometimes sheltering more than 2,000 a month.

In recent weeks, however, that traffic has come to a grinding halt, and even gone into reverse.

Since late March, amid the coronavirus pandemic, no more than 100 migrants have passed through the shelter. And nearly all were heading south, trying to get back to their homes in Central America.

Weve never seen this before, said Ramon Marquez, the former director of the shelter. Ive never seen anything slow migration like the coronavirus.

Border closures, suspended asylum programs, interruptions in global transportation and stay-at-home lockdowns have drastically curbed migration around the world, particularly from poorer nations to rich ones.
Blood flow in the human body is generally assumed to be smooth due to its low speed and high viscosity. Unsteadiness in blood flow is linked to various cardiovascular diseases and has been shown to promote dysfunction and inflammation in the inner layer of blood vessels, the endothelium. In turn, this can lead to the development of arteriosclerosis--a leading cause of death worldwide--where arterial pathways in the body narrow due to plaque buildup. However, the source of this unsteadiness is not well understood. Now, IST Austria professor Bjorn Hof, together with an international team of researchers, has shown that pulsating blood flows, such as those from our heart, react strongly to geometric irregularities in vessels (such as plaque buildup) and cause much higher levels of velocity fluctuations than previously expected. The research could have implications on how we study blood flow related diseases in the future.

"In this project, we wanted to explore if insights we recently gained regarding the origin of turbulence in pipe flow can shed light on instabilities in pulsatile flows and to cardiovascular flow in blood vessels," says Hof. "Our results indicate that a previously unknown mechanism may cause turbulence in pulsating flows within the human body at lower flow velocities than previously thought." Why is turbulent blood flow hazardous to health?

The inner wall of a blood vessel, the endothelium, is very sensitive to a force known as 'shear stress' which, in this case, refers to the friction created by blood flow on the inside of a blood vessel. Normally, the cells within the endothelium are adapted to relatively steady flow rates in one direction. However, if turbulence arises in the vessel (e.g., due to a geometric irregularity), the flow becomes multi-directional and results in changing shear stress forces on the endothelium. Such stress fluctuations can trigger cellular dysfunction, inflammation of the endothelium and, in the long term, arteriosclerosis. Modeling turbulence in blood flow

The team has proven both experimentally and theoretically, that blood vessels with geometric irregularities are likely to cause more turbulence than previously thought. In their experiments, which were conducted at IST Austria, team member Dr. Atul Varshney was able to demonstrate that, when pulsating blood flow slows down (e.g., in between heartbeats), turbulence was created, especially in areas that had geometric irregularity. Once the flow was accelerated again, such as with the beat of a heart, it became smooth and turbulent free (otherwise known as laminar flow). This means that if a blood vessel is not ideally shaped or has geometric irregularities, more turbulent flow is likely to occur with each pulse cycle or heartbeat. The research could have important ramifications in how the medical community models blood flow, especially in large blood vessels such as the aorta.

Hof concludes: "It is astonishing that this instability has been overlooked in earlier studies. We suspect, also because of the complex composition of blood, that there may be other mechanisms that can cause turbulence in cardiovascular flow at even lower speeds. Like in the present study, also our future work will aim to identify fundamental mechanisms that are relevant to other areas such as medicine."

###

About the Hof group at IST Austria

Most fluid flows of practical interest are turbulent, yet our understanding of this phenomenon is very limited. The Hof group seeks to gain insight into the nature of turbulence and the dynamics of complex fluids. The group combines detailed laboratory experiments with highly resolved computer simulations, and applies methods from nonlinear dynamics and statistical physics, enabling them to decipher key aspects of the transition from smooth to turbulent flow.

This research was carried out by scientists from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen, Germany, the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and the Center for Applied Mathematics at Tianjin University, China.

Funding information:

The IST Austria part of this project was supported by funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 program (Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Grant no. 754411) as well as grants from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

Publication:

Duo Xu, Atul Varshney, Xingyu Ma, Baofang Song, Michael Riedl, Marc Avila & Bjorn Hof. 2020. Nonlinear hydrodynamic instability and turbulence in pulsatile flow. PNAS. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1913716117
They spent two years driving around every county in Wisconsin finding old barns and talking to farmers. We discovered early barns are a special place in the landscape. We talked to the farmers about their love of the land, he said. I began to realize what I was drawn to, when I was shooting not only the barn itself, getting the hills, trees around it and the skies above it.
NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance will on Tuesday announce he is quitting state politics and running for the marginal federal seat of Eden-Monaro.

Mr Constance's decision came only after his cabinet colleague, NSW Deputy Premier and Nationals' leader John Barilaro, revealed he had decided not to run. The pair had said publicly they would not both contest the seat.

The Bega MP, who shot to national prominence during the summer bushfire crisis, was shown polling done over the weekend indicating he was a strong chance to win.

Liberal Senator Jim Molan was also believed to be seriously considering a lower house seat, but a political source close to him said he had decided not to nominate for preselection. This too would be confirmed on Tuesday.
TEHRAN, Iran, May 4

Trend:

Iran is preparing a plan to pay out extra for those who provided valuable services in the country's health sector amid the coronavirus outbreak, the head of the Iran`s Planning and Budget Organization Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said, Trend reports citing IRNA.

Nobakht said the funds "will be paid out soon".

Speaking of Iran's health sector hiring new workers, Nobakht pointed out that recently universities of medical sciences were notified to employ some 4,000 people.

"Recently, 2,280 people have been provided with contracts for recruitment, and recruitment of about 3,000 more will be funded in the coming months, Nobakht said on Instagram.

These employers will be selected from among those who have passed the the previous tests, he said.

Iran continues its battle to limit the spread of the coronavirus across country. 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.

The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.
Chandigarh, May 4 : With the partial lifting of curbs with the onset of coronavirus lockdown 3.0 on Monday, industry in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh is finding it tough to get operations back on track.

The reason: shortage of manpower due to inter-state movement of people.

Lack of clear-cut guidelines on road transport and inter-state movement of goods -- both finished and raw -- is a major challenge in the supply chain. Also, the workers' fear of personal safety is causing a manpower crunch.

"Most of our factories, distribution centres and suppliers are operating with 25-30 per cent of capacities," Torque Pharmaceuticals' Managing Director P.S. Chhatwal told IANS here.

Since the March 24 countrywide lockdown, there has been a huge gap between demand and supply in logistics. "We depend largely on Mumbai for raw material. Earlier, the loading of a truck took 4-5 hours. Now, owing to the manpower shortage and strict adherence to social distancing norms, it takes more than a day," he said.

"We can arrange a truck from here for transporting finished goods to the other states. But if we have to arrange trucks for transporting raw material from other destinations, it's difficult as truckers want assurance on return trip," Chhatwal said.

His company has manufacturing facilities in Himachal Pradesh's industrial hub Baddi and Punjab's Dera Bassi.

With the surge in demand, the truck freights had risen 15-20 per cent, trade insiders said.

The Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial belt in Himachal Pradesh has nearly 550 pharmaceutical units, with 500 of them being MSMEs.

Most industrialists told IANS they depended on daily travel of the skilled and unskilled workers from Punjab, Haryana and Union Territory of Chandigarh.

"Since no inter-state movement is allowed by Himachal Pradesh, we are facing huge shortage of skilled manpower. Our employees want to return, but they can't join the work due to travel curbs," said another industrialist.

Allying fears of spread of coronavirus again in the Asia's largest pharmaceutical hub Baddi, he said, "If it comes under a containment zone again, this would be an enormous setback for MSMEs".

A report compiled by the Punjab government points to startling facts.

"Over 8.30 lakh people want to head out of the state to their home states; 4.66 lakh from Ludhiana alone," tweeted Special Chief Secretary K.B.S. Sidhu, who is in-charge to monitor state-wide coronavirus cases. And those who want to return to Punjab are just 8,739.

According to the recent CII CEOs' snap poll on impact of Covid-19 on economy and industry, a majority of firms continue to anticipate significant decline in the topline and delay in economic revival and demand recovery.

Over 300 CEOs, with nearly two-thirds belonging to MSMEs, took part in the survey.

The lockdown brought economic activity to a halt and the survey indicates majority of firms (65 per cent) expect revenues to fall over 40 per cent in the April-June quarter.

For financial year 2020-21, the expectations of decline in revenue are staggered. Around 33 per cent firms are anticipating revenue fall of more than 40 per cent, and 32 per cent 20-40 per cent revenue contraction.

While three of the four firms have said complete shutdown of operations was a major constraint being faced by business, more than half of them also indicated lack of demand as a hinderance.

The survey reveals the industry may experience a protracted slowdown in economic activity as a major proportion of respondents (45 per cent) feet it will take more than a year to achieve economic normalcy after the end of lockdown.

With respect to their own companies, however, the 34 per cent respondents anticipate a slightly quicker recovery. A major part of the respondents anticipates normalcy in domestic demand conditions in 6-12 months, post-lockdown. Additionally, according to a large proportion of firms, recovery in domestic demand for their products or services may precede the recovery in foreign demand for the same.

On the jobs, 54 per cent firms foresee job losses in their respective sectors after the lockdown ends. 45 per cent respondents expect 15-30 per cent cut in jobs.

To revive industry, Chandigarh Advisor Manoj Parida on Monday said the industrial area in the city was exempt from the odd-even rule. Inter-state travel will be allowed for permitted activities in Chandigarh.

Chandigarh being a tricity, passes issued by the Deputy Commissioners of Mohali and Panchkula will be valid as the borders are sealed. Thermal scanning will be done at entry points of Chandigarh.

Appreciating the Chandigarh administration's decision to lift curfew, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) said it was much needed and would go a long way in restoring normalcy.

"Due balance has been maintained in restarting economic activity and ensuring health safety and citizens should also extend their cooperation by following health protocols religiously," SAD spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
Appearing impatient to return to their native places, migrant workers pelted stones at police in Surat district of Gujarat on Monday, leaving nearly a dozen personnel injured, one of them an IPS officer, and also held protests elsewhere during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, officials said.

IMAGE: Police personnel baton charge on a migrant worker during a clash, amid the ongoing COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, in Surat. Photograph: PTI Photo

Several labourers came out on a road in Rajkot demanding that they be sent back to their hometowns, while some migrant workers got their heads tonsured in an area of Surat after being unable to go back home.

Police personnel lobbed teargas shells and baton-charged agitated workers from Uttar Pradesh, who pelted stones on them near Vareli village on the outskirts of Surat, an official said.

Migrant workers, numbering more than 1,000, were demanding that arrangements be made to send them back to their native places during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, which has rendered

them jobless, he said.

Authorities in Gujarat, one of the states worst hit by coronavirus, have started sending back migrant labourers to their respective home state.

SEE: Stones pelted at police by stranded migrant labourers in Gujarat

At least 10 policemen along with Inspector General (Surat Range), S Pandian Rajkumar, were injured in the stone pelting, he said, adding police have detained 80 people so far.

The labourers also damaged some vehicles parked on the Surat-Kadodara road, the official said.

They clashed with police and threw stones at them, following which security personnel lobbed teargas shells and used batons to disperse them, he said.

"We had asked these migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh to have patience as authorities are still in talks with the UP government for their journey back home.

"However, a mob of over 1,000 men suddenly came on roads and started throwing stones on police, injuring around 10 policemen. Even I received minor injuries on my arm," said Rajkumar.

"It seems they had planned the attack in advance. We have detained over 80 persons and brought the situation under control," said the IPS officer.

IMAGE: Migrant workers run for cover as police personnel fire teargas shells during a clash, amid the ongoing COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, in Surat. Photograph: PTI Photo

In the morning, around 50 labourers from Uttar Pradesh got their heads tonsured, saying the buses on which they left for their native state two days back after initial nod were forced to halt at Kosamba in the district for want of "valid permission" and sent back to Surat.

They said hey have been waiting endlessly for the administration to clear their journey back home.

A worker demanded that the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat co-ordinate their movement without delay, and claimed bus fare, which they arranged with much difficulty, has not been returned to them.

"Many of us sold off our watches and mobile phones to arrange for the bus fare. Now we are still at the same place, with no permission given to our buses to move.

"We are stranded here with no help from officials. We demand the governments of the two states to coordinate fast for our return back home," he said.

Till Sunday, eight trains carrying migrant workers had left for Uttar Pradesh and Odisha from Gujarat.

Four trains from Ahmedabad, carrying around 1,200 migrant labourers each, travelled to Uttar Pradesh and an equal number of trains from Surat left for Odisha.

IMAGE: Police personnel stand guard after hundreds of migrant workers seeking to return home clashed with police and pelted stones at them, during the ongoing COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, in Surat. Photograph: PTI Photo

In Rajkot, hundreds of migrant workers came out on road in Shapar-Veraval industrial area on the city outskirts, demanding that they be sent back home.

Police said they managed to persuade the workers to call off the protest, and brought the situation under control.

"We have reached out to migrants in residential localities and explained to them that they will be allowed to leave after getting a medical check-up done and completing other formalities," Rajkot Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-1) Ravi Mohan Saini said.

Rajkot district collector Ramya Mohan said the administration has been given strict instruction to follow the government-prescribed guidelines while sending migrant workers back to their home states.

"We have get the names of migrant workers registered and sent them to the respective state for approval. Then we have to request the Railways for their transit.

"Based on our request, the Railways will make arrangements for trains only after the home state concerned gives permission for their return, Mohan said.

These procedures take time and migrant workers need to show patience in returning to their native places, the Rajkot collector said.

Some migrant workers also gathered outside the Rajkot collector's office to fill forms for returning home, saying they had no food and money to sustain their livelihood.

"The factory where I worked is closed, and I want to go back to my native place. They say we will have to arrange our our own vehicles to return to our native place, but we want the government to send us back in train," a worker said.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- JAGGAER is delighted to announce that Aaron Carter, Assistant Vice President, Illinois Public Higher Education Cooperative (IPHEC) , and the University of Illinois at Chicago have been honored with E&I Cooperative Services Awards , which recognize excellence in the higher education purchasing profession.



Aaron was announced winner of the E&Is David H. Lord Cooperative Services Award, which was created to acknowledge and recognize a member who has made exceptional contributions to E&I Cooperative over a comprehensive period of time through volunteerism in the area of Cooperative Services, as exemplified by David Lord, long-time E&I President. The nomination criteria for the award include loyalty, dedication and continued and/or extraordinary service to the procurement profession through E&I.

University of Illinois at Chicago, led by Director of Purchasing Debra Matlock, received the E&I Cooperative Contract Volume Award, which recognizes an E&I member in higher education with the highest year-over-year increased purchase volume.

E&I Cooperative Services is the USAs largest member-owned, non-profit purchasing cooperative serving the needs of education. As a trusted advisor to the education community, it offers over 120 competitively solicited contracts as well as solutions to help more than 4,500 members source effectively.

In 2018 Illinois Public Higher Education Cooperative (IPHEC) chose JAGGAERs Source-to-Pay solutions to serve the States public, higher education institutions, and community colleges via E&I Cooperatives competitively solicited and awarded contract.

E&I Cooperative Services and JAGGAER are valuable partners, and I know they are as excited as I am to support and advance the collective activities of public institutions of higher education, said Aaron Carter. We can all take pride in the award.

University of Illinois-Chicago has been a longstanding, best-in-class JAGGAER customer, who in 2019 renewed their commitment to JAGGAER by extending their Procure-to-Pay contract through 2026. The University also expanded their usage of JAGGAER by electing to implement Contracts+ functionality.

Story continues

The recognition of Team UIC Purchasing with E&Is Cooperative Contract Utilization Award is truly appreciated. It is really a tribute to E&I for identifying and securing cooperative contracts reflective of its members requirements for best value, competition, and a broad range of supplies and services. We are proud to receive this acknowledgement and thank JAGGAER for our contract and their contribution to making this E&I award possible for UIC, said Debra Matlock.

Here at JAGGAER we are delighted to congratulate Aaron and Debra on these awards and their exceptional endeavors in cooperative purchasing, said Helen Johnson, Vice President, Education at JAGGAER. We would also like to thank IPHEC and E&I Cooperative Services for their partnership and for helping us better serve our customers in Illinois and across all higher education in the United States, she added.

About E&I Cooperative Services

E&I Cooperative Services (E&I) is the only member-owned, non-profit purchasing cooperative solely focused on serving education and related facilities. E&I delivers expertise, solutions, and services through a diverse portfolio of competitively solicited contracts. By leveraging the knowledge and purchasing power of its nationwide membership, E&I helps higher education and K-12 institutions reduce costs, optimize supply chain efficiencies, and save time on the RFP process. The Cooperatives member-driven competitive solicitation process has been validated by the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing (NIGP) as complying with generally accepted procurement standards. For more information, please visit www.eandi.org

Media Contact

Nicole Katz, Content Manager

E&I Cooperative Services

631.630.8294 | nkatz@eandi.org

About JAGGAER: Procurement Simplified

JAGGAER is the worlds largest independent spend management company, connecting customers to a network of 4 million suppliers in 70 countries, served by offices located in the Americas, APAC, Asia and EMEA. JAGGAER offers complete SaaS-based Source-to-Pay eProcurement solutions with advanced Spend Analytics, Sourcing, Supplier Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Savings Tracking, and intelligent workflow capabilities all on a single platform, JAGGAER ONE. JAGGAER has pioneered spend solutions for over two decades and continues to lead the innovation curve by listening to customers and stakeholders in all industry sectors, public services and academia. Additionally, JAGGAER integrates with most all ERPs, can transact on one single platform or easily complement existing systems to drive more value and holds 37 patents  more than any other spend management provider.
Lisa Joyce Tucker, born to the late Laymon and Leona Tucker, passed peacefully in her sleep at the young age of 59 in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 26, 2020.



Born in Newfoundland, Canada on October 8, 1960, Lisa soon became a Lexington Park, Maryland resident, where she remained, except for her time spent studying at Herkimer College in New York. At Herkimer, her studies included botany and photography. She was a graduate of Great Mills High School where she remained active on the reunion committee. Lisa loved to travel, but the restaurants and Broadway shows of New York City remained a favorite.



Lisa loved spending time with her family, especially the littlest ones, including Jackson & Kayden, and her rescue dog Romeo. She cared for others, especially those in need, and in return everyone cared for her. Lisa valued connection and treasured her friends; even on the worst hospital day visitors would likely get a smile. Her quick wit and talkativeness immediately put you at ease, but behind the charming smile was a dry, sarcastic humor that would surprise you and leave you laughing until you cried.



Lisa was a foodie who loved to try new eateries wherever she visited, frequent her favorite hometown establishments and still enjoyed home-cooked meals from brother-in-law Kelsey and her sister Linda's famous lasagna. She made sure no holiday passed without Lumpia, a personal and family favorite. She was an avid collector of Hallmark Christmas ornaments and shared an extensive clock collection with her late mother, Leona. Though she could often be found watching the news, she was just as likely to kick back in her chair viewing shows such as Mad Men, Law & Order and South Park. Just some examples of her diverse interests and tastes.



Lisa was a dedicated civilian employee at the Patuxent River Naval Base and was looking forward to retirement in the near future. Through her multiple decades there, she enjoyed several roles with different departments, her most recent as a procurement specialist. She made friends at each stop along the way, adding to her collection, especially as she became increasingly involved in the American Federation of Government Employees union after joining in 1997.



Lisa is survived by uncles James Tucker of Oxon Hill, Md. and Roosevelt Tucker of Atlanta, Ga., aunt Gloria Finley of Detroit, MI, sisters Linda Martines of Stephenson, Va. and Leslie Tucker (spouse Kelsey Saunders) of Lexington Park, Md., niece Kristin Hodnett (spouse Michael Hodnett) of Stephenson, Va. and a host of cousins. She was preceded in death by her parents.



All services are pending. Arrangements are being handled by Brinsfield Funeral Home in Leonardtown, Md.



In lieu of flowers and in light of the current pandemic and Lisa's generous spirit, memorial contributions may be made to the Sepsis Alliance https://donate.sepsis.org/ltucker where you can also share your stories and memories with her friends and family on her personal memorial page.
The number of Wisconsin residents with confirmed cases of COVID-19 climbed above 8,000 Monday as more people in the state began to have access to testing.

In Kenosha County, 555 people had tested positive for the virus as of Monday morning, said Liane Blanck of the Kenosha County Division of Health.

Fourteen people have died of the virus in the county, the most recent a 63-year-old man.

Kenosha County has the third-highest number of cases among Wisconsins 72 counties, behind Milwaukee and Brown counties.

The increased testing by the Kenosha Community Health Center is playing into these numbers, Blanck said.

The Kenosha Community Health Center, in a partnership with the county and with Gateway Technical College, opened a drive-through testing site last week in the parking lot of Gateways Kenosha campus.

Blanck said the new testing site, which is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday, tested 95 people in the first three days it was open.

People being tested are referred to the site by their doctors or by the health department, and they receive results in 24 to 48 hours. Blanck said she did not know how many of those tested at the site have had positive test results.

Statewide, 8,236 people have tested positive for the virus, with an average of 10% to 13% of those tested getting positive results.

Testing more available

Testing is becoming more widely available in Wisconsin. While tests were limited to people with severe symptoms and those who had contact with people who had confirmed cases of the disease, the state is now urging people with mild symptoms to seek testing.

In Kenosha County, the health department has been expanding testing, including by using the Wisconsin National Guard to test all inmates and staff at the Kenosha County Detention Center and jail last week. In those tests, 79 inmates and five staff members tested positive.

The department plans to use the National Guard to help with testing at other sites, including some private employers.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine calls on the international community to step up pressure on Russian authorities in order to protect journalists in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

"The international community should step up pressure on Russian authorities in order to protect journalists in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. On the World Press Freedom Day, we join the appeal of Ukrainian journalists, formerly illegally imprisoned Roman Sushchenko and Stanislav Aseev, to intensify international pressure on Russian authorities aiming to release Crimean Tatar citizen journalists Remzi Bekirov, Osman Arifmemetov, Rustem Sheikhaliyev, Nariman Memedinov, human rights activist Server Mustafayev and to dismiss the illegal charges, reads the statement of the Ministry posted on Facebook on May 3.

As noted, the Russian occupation administration destroys the media space to cover up the real situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea.

The Russian occupation administration has established an information ghetto from the beginning of the occupation, by systematically destroying the freedom of expression on the peninsula, harassing and imprisoning journalists and bloggers on the pretext of combating extremism or separatism, and in every way hindering their work. ZMINA. Human Rights Center and Crimean Human Rights Group have recorded over 300 violations of the rights of journalists and bloggers for six years of the occupation of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, the statement reads.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine underscores that out of 3,000 media outlets officially operating on the peninsula until 2014, only 232 managed to re-register at the request of the occupying power.

Some media outlets made more than three attempts to register but were rebuffed on the basis of flimsy formalities. In particular, this concerns the Crimean Tatar holding ATR TV Channel. Russia practically deprived the Crimean residents of an opportunity to hear an alternative opinion, by blocking signals of Ukrainian radio stations and access to online media outlets, the Ministry notes.

In addition, the statement highlights that the Russian propaganda outlets not only seized the media space of Crimea but also disseminate intolerance speech, portraying Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars as an enemy.

"We call on the international community to take decisive action against the annihilation of freedom of expression and gross violations of human rights in the temporarily occupied Crimea by the Russian Federation. We express our full support to journalists, bloggers and all those who, despite the repression, are not afraid to publicly express their civic position," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine emphasizes.

ol
A few weeks back, Worldtempus released an article on the pillars of neo-vintage style, reviewing the details of each watchmaking era. Shortly after, another post mentioned tropical dials, which were identified as a retro-feel enhancer. The next step in this mini-series focuses on another foundational ingredient of retro timepieces, the NATO strap.

1858 Geosphere  David Chokron

The weaved nylon strap was born in the 1960's with an invitation to tender submitted by several Air Forces from NATO members. It's a strip of highly sturdy synthetic fabric, to be threaded between the lugs and caseback of a watch. It's soft and comfortable. It's easy to swap without having to remove the unbearable spring bars inserted inside leather straps' or metal bracelets' ends. It's more hard-wearing than the former and lighter than the latter. Both those features come in handy in the context of a NATO jet fighter airplane. Original NATOs are very long, which makes them easy to wear them on a naked wrist or over a G-suit. That extra length still exists, the excess being meant to be folded back in a loop.

Anonimo Nautilo  Anonimo

Much like tropical dials, NATO straps were not meant for the general public. They're military gear and therefore not a widespread feature. They were offered with new watches only within the scope of military equipment requirements. Their blooming was to take place at a much later time, one hungry for nostalgia and tool watches. That time is now, or has been since the beginning of the 2010's to be precise. Back then, a trend started that worships military and vintage timepieces, fertilized by an overwhelming number of brand-new retro timepieces. In that context, one should recognize the importance of the reissued Tudor Heritage Chrono, whose beautifully crafted NATO-type straps were deeply influential.

BR V2-92 Military Green  Bell&Ross

These trends were enhanced by another, which is no less decisive : personalized watches. Vintage timepieces lovers are a small community focused on maybe two dozen different models. Many of those have known several generations, all of which have their own appeal. But it's a rather uniform realm. In order to make things different, diverse, more cheerful or amusing, that crowd unearthed the NATO strap. Mixed colors, central stripes, that style started to evolve and grow, as did its suppliers. Those were not watch brands or specialists strap makers. Instead, the business was preempted by watch accessory shops and second-hand retailers, most of which relied on Chinese manufacturers. The prices now range from the typical 20 or 30  to 150  for the very high-end models retailed by Omega.

The Omega Seamaster 300  60th Anniversary Trilogy  Omega

It didn't take long for premium brands to start offering their timepieces with NATO straps. Montblanc, Anonimo, Bell&Ross, Tudor still, Omega or TAG Heuer, there's a real crowd of them out there, especially in the rugged, tool watch category.
West Bengal has the highest mortality rate in the country at 12.8 per cent, Inter Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) leader Apoorva Chandra wrote in his final observations to state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, before leaving for Delhi on Monday.

'This extremely high mortality rate is a clear indication of low testing, weak surveillance and tracking,' Chandra said in the letter.

A discrepancy has been brought to the fore in the number of COVID-19 cases reported by the state in its medical bulletins and its communication with the Union government, Chandra noted in the letter.

The team, led by Chandra, returned to the national capital after having completed two weeks of stay in Kolkata.
There is an urgent need to augment the governments resources to sufficiently finance the programs and measures to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus situation, and launch the country towards recovery and rehabilitation, said President Duterte on the signing of EO 113.

On May 2, 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte signed Executive Order (EO) 113 . Taking effect immediately, EO 113 states that a 10% tax (or properly, Duty) is to be placed on the importation of both crude oil and refined petroleum products.

Fuel prices have not been this low for a very long time. It goes without saying that the reason behind it isnt exactly good. The Philippine government has had great difficulty in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying cost, so they saw the global oil price drop as an opportunity.

What does this mean for us?

Since the Philippines is dependent on the importation of petroleum products, the additional 10% tariff (AKA exact monetary value based on imported product's unit price) can help the Philippine government raise income. Granted that the local petroleum companies will shoulder the added cost, this tax will serve as an added source of funding for the country. This is to be placed on top of the existing 3% tax on importation.

For consumers, it follows that the increase in importation costs will result in higher prices for consumer goods. However, crude oil futures have been hovering at really low prices; even going down to negative a few weeks back. This brings us to the fact that the implementation of the added tax is only temporary. Until such time that the modified rates of importation duty revert back to 0, or the Presidents emergency powers cease to take effect, the added tax will continue to be paid.

Will it mean an increase in the price of fuel at gas stations? In theory not yet, at least. There should a good supply of petroleum following the sharp decrease in demand. The tariff should be in effect on incoming shipments when local petroleum companies need to import more. By then, we may see an adjustment in prices.
Jill Pennington has breached lockdown twice to have illicit sex with her married lover. She doesnt feel guilty about either the affair or her violation of social isolation rules.

The fact is, she insists, there is nothing clandestine about her six-and-a-half-year relationship with Paul (not his real name): his wife is well aware of his infidelity.

Pauls wife knows who I am and I certainly know who she is. She knew about me two weeks after we began seeing one another, explains Jill, 52, who owns a glamping site and lives in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire.

Jill Pennington has breached lockdown twice to have sex with her married lover but she doesnt feel guilty about the affair or her violation of social isolation rules (file image)

I dont feel an ounce of remorse when we happen to bump into one another  because she chooses to stay married. All of our children  my three and her only child  are adults and they know about the situation too, she adds.

She is similarly insouciant about flouting the ban on fraternisation between households.

After we had both self-isolated for 14 days and knew we were safe, Paul came to my house one afternoon for a couple of hours. Then last week he spent the night with me.

I dont feel guilty or worry about the virus spreading. To the best of my knowledge there havent been any cases in our small town and we have both been isolated so we know its not possible for either of us to have it.

Now, in the final part of our groundbreaking series on relationships in lockdown, we discover how mistresses of married lovers are coping with rules that ban clandestine sex  and discover how cheats are proliferating and finding means of self-gratification remotely.

We lift the lid on the furtive online encounters that have been burgeoning since restrictions were imposed, and examine the fallout of both physical affairs and online infidelity.

And we ask: will the coronavirus make us more ethical in our relationships, or create a nation of philanderers?

There is evidence of a rise in online duplicity this April compared with last.

Will the coronavirus make us more ethical in relationships, or create a nation of philanderers? Couples have had time to think about their affairs during lockdown (file image)

Jessica Leoni, of the dating site Illicit Encounters, says this escalation in remote sex suggests there will be an upsurge in the real thing once lockdown is lifted.

When we get over this crisis there is going to be a lot of sex going on, she says. It will be like the Baby Boom after World War II all over again.

Cheats are frustrated stuck at home. They are bickering with their partners and seeking fresh relationships elsewhere.

Our own surveys have shown a sharp rise in Skype and FaceTime affairs, with cheats having video sex sessions with new partners on their phones, laptops and home computers.

12% of middle-aged women (35-44) find sexual fantasies more erotic than pornography when they want to get in the mood Advertisement

As soon as lockdown ends, there will be a huge rise in the number of physical affairs.

The pandemic, Jessica believes, is also sharpening the resolve of those in unhappy marriages to start afresh when lockdown ends.

Of the women who admitted they dont love their partner any more, our survey found that 20 per cent are considering ending the relationship when lockdown is over.

Consultant clinical psychologist and sexologist Janice Hiller is not surprised about the huge rise in remote sex.

The thrill of that initial meeting with someone online raises levels of dopamine, the motivation/drive chemical in the brain, she says.

Jessica Leoni, of the dating site Illicit Encounters, says the pandemic is sharpening the resolve of those in unhappy marriages to start afresh when lockdown ends (file image)

Then there is the excitement of waiting for the next clandestine meeting, a sense of feeling energised.

But make no mistake: although there is no physical contact, it is still infidelity. You are forming a strong connection with someone outside your primary relationship and it is injurious.

The person cheating will betray signs of lack of interest in his partner. Hell become distracted; hell seem uncomfortable. The tell-tale signs are taking the phone everywhere he goes  even into the bathroom  and hanging up abruptly.

28% of women aged 45-54 living apart from a partner revealed they have had phone sex during lockdown but only 11 per cent have been intimate online Advertisement

Research shows people do tend to justify these online encounters to themselves. They will shrug them off as harmless fun. After all, theyll argue, they are not meeting anyone or taking things further. But they are behaving dishonestly and it is a breach of trust.

Their partners are likely to feel incredibly hurt and upset. Their reactions are often just as strong as if there had been actual physical intimacy. They experience a profound sense of betrayal. If they have very low self-esteem it can lead to depression, even panic attacks.

Is there such a thing as an affair that hurts no one? Jill Pennington would argue that there is.

She says she was reluctant to start dating Paul, who first asked her out at Christmas 2013, even though he was separated from his wife and living back with his mother at the time.

Initially she turned him down, but then succumbed: Even though he ended up returning home and back into the marital bed, we continued to see one another, she says. At times it hasnt been easy, but then what relationship is?

Sexually we are incredibly compatible. Im not ashamed to admit I enjoy sex  and, far from being awkward, it was great fun exploring each other for the first time. Thats why I knew without hesitation that I wanted to continue seeing him.

Ms Leoni also said there has been an escalation in remote sex since the start of the pandemic, which suggests there will be an upsurge in the real thing once lockdown is lifted (file image)

Six years later, we know each other well enough to have a cosy routine. We chat every day. He runs an agricultural business and the hours are long, so he works every day including weekends.

Before the lockdown, we would grab a few hours here and there. Sometimes he would visit early in the morning, sometimes he just appears in the middle of the night. I would see him three or four times a week for sex.

How about since lockdown?

We didnt have an upfront conversation about the impact it would have on our relationship because we initially had no idea how serious it was, Jill says, although we knew it would mean wed have to see less of each other.

We live 15 minutes apart in different villages. The lockdown here is strict, with regular police patrols. As a result weve only seen each other twice in five weeks.

33% of women living apart from their partner feel less confident about their body than before - and have put on weight Advertisement

Even so, the situation hasnt really tested things between us because were used to having restricted access to one another. Thats why my feelings for him havent changed and I know his are the same.

'We have been together so long its like a marriage. Occasionally I have wondered how things would be if we lived together  but then I pull myself together and realise thats not for me.

My daughter is back from university and living with me. Were busy ensuring that when we can eventually open for business, were ready. Its a good way to ensure the time flies.

If anything, the pandemic has me realise I want to see more of him. But I still have no desire to live with him. It would spoil things. His wife apparently was worried that he would leave and choose to live here.

Paul might be married on paper but emotionally and physically he belongs to me. Coronavirus wont change that. I know Im loved and cherished by this wonderful man. My motto is that we have only one life and I fully intend to enjoy it.

Is Jill right to absolve herself of guilt about her affair?

Psychotherapist Leila Collins, who practises privately in North London, is adamant that such relationships are destructive: there is no circumstance in which they are to be condoned. Her sympathies lie with Pauls wife.

Consultant clinical psychologist Janice Hiller is not surprised about the rise in remote sex and says the thrill of an initial online meeting raises levels of dopamine (file image)

There is no such thing as a wife who doesnt care about an affair, says Leila. She merely looks the other way. And you cant gain happiness from an illicit relationship at the expense of other people.

Neither will your children forgive you. Even if they are grown up, it doesnt make any difference. You lose their trust and goodwill.

Children are very judgmental about betrayal and deceit. They are unlikely to forgive it even if you live to be 100.

The pandemic, she insists, should not encourage us to seek sexual gratification elsewhere but to focus our minds on the relationships we have.

Most people are looking at their partners, seeing them with fresh eyes and appreciating them more than ever, she says. They are realising that their children and marriages are far more important than the thrill of an illicit rendezvous with a stranger.

When families are losing loved ones in a global pandemic, its a good time to reflect on your life and how you are conducting yourself.

'A lot of couples have stopped picking quarrels because they realise how unimportant trivia is in the grand scheme of things. Thousands are dying, so what does it matter? Leilas hopes chime with our survey of 1,600 women of all age groups throughout the UK, 76 per cent of whom have enjoyed spending more time with their partners since lockdown.

12% of middle-aged women (35-44) find sexual fantasies more erotic than pornography when they want to get in the mood (file image)

I hope the pandemic will make couples treasure the person they have, says Leila. If youre having an affair, you are not trustworthy. You have no integrity.

I make no apologies for saying this. I see the effects of infidelity on my patients.

So Id urge anyone contemplating an affair at this time of crisis or at any time  just to evaluate what they have. The grass is not always greener. If youre married with children, it really couldnt get any better.

And she has unequivocal advice for those in the throes of an affair: Either stop it completely or get a divorce.

For Lucy Johnson and her married lover Alex (not their real names), the coronavirus crisis has certainly had a galvanizing effect.

Lucy, 35, single and an IT consultant from London, has been having an illicit affair with Alex, also 35, for the past 18 months.

They have both decided that after lockdown they cannot continue to drift on as they have been doing.

Weve agreed that once this is over we need to start making some serious decisions, says Lucy. Either we take a leap of faith or we stop for good and cut contact.

Their friendship dates back to childhood: When we were babies, our mothers attended parenting classes together and my attic is full of photographs of us together.

28% of women aged 45-54 living apart from a partner revealed they have had phone sex during lockdown but only 11 per cent have been intimate online (file image)

We shared bathtimes, sleepovers, birthdays, trips to the park or the farm. If anyone had told me back then Id have ended up being his mistress, Id have been horrified.

But here we are, 35 years later and hes cheating on his wife of five years with me, his lifelong friend.

She says their wildly different personalities  he is calm and logical; she creative and mercurial  made it seem preposterous that they would ever end up together.

But something changed at Christmas 2018. We were in a bar together  just the two of us  having met up for a catch-up, and Alex was asking me why I hadnt come to his grandmothers funeral.

I hadnt gone because his wife Sarah, a particularly jealous woman, had banned any of Alexs female friends from attending. I didnt want his family to go through the drama of her kicking off, even though we werent having the affair at that point.

 She was my Grandma. I needed you, he said. Youre the only person my whole life that Ive ever really needed. 

In that moment, Lucy says, our eyes locked and something changed. Six months later, he visited her flat one weekend when Sarah was away and they became lovers.

One thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was waking up to him making me coffee. I know youre supposed to remember every detail about the first kiss with your lover but I dont. All I remember is that it felt like coming home. Like something we should have been doing all along.

The two of just fit  Ive never felt anything like it and I doubt I ever will again.

Although to begin with Lucy resolved the encounter should be a one- off, her determination evaporated as soon as she saw Alex again.

Lucy, 35, who is single, has been having an affair with Alex, also 35, for 18 months but they have decided that after lockdown they cannot continue as they have been (file image)

They began a routine of covert encounters: Mostly hell come to my flat. Sometimes well go away  time our liaisons with trips to see our families in our home town, then add a few sneaky days on the end at a hotel, that nobody will miss.

Neither of them has breached lockdown, which has added more complications.

It has been hard, she says. Its weird what you miss about someone when they arent there and you cant even see them.

Its not the sex  although I do miss that  its little things. Alex doesnt mind it when I guess the ending 15 minutes into a film, or the fact that I struggle to tie my own shoelaces sometimes! Those are the bits about me he loves. I miss his voice and his hugs.

Weve been texting a lot. I tend to wait for him to contact me, when the coast is clear. He does, without fail. But my heart aches for him all the time and thats a new feeling.

This enforced separation has made Lucy re-evaluate her affair. Impelled by a sharpened sense of her own mortality, she is starting to think about what is really important to her. The suburban house and children she once disparaged as boring now have more appeal.

Living alone and having contact with your lover based on someone elses schedule is no way to live. Its no way to love. Not in your 30s, she says.

Im not jealous of Sarah but Im very sad Alex and I cant share the lockdown experience together.

However badly its going for them (and it is going badly), thats a shared experience theyll have that we never will. And thats what solid relationships are about, isnt it? Shared experiences.
M cBurgers a la moi. DIY French fries. Your favourite comfort meals are back on the menu, boys and girls, only now its your fault if theyre undercooked.

Subway, Patty & Bun and Pizza Pilgrims are among the swelling ranks of restaurants throwing caution to the wind and making secret recipes for their most popular plates available to the public.

Dont call it a comeback  normal service sadly wont return in the restaurant biz for a while  but its a touching move nonetheless. If the reader cant go to the table, the table will come to you. Its a satisfying alternative to takeout, anyway.

High street sarnie chain Subways Facebook page and Instagram stories are a repository of how-to videos for crafting their most moreish double chocolate cookies (the secret? Loads of chocolate, obvs) and selected six-to-12in subs, including the teriyaki and herby and cheese bread (a feel-good substitute for sourdough). (facebook.com/subwayuk).

Greggs, meanwhile, has launched its own DIY baking tutorials  GIY (Greggs It Yourself)  on its Facebook page, walking homebodies through the steps to build their own much-missed delicacies, such as the sausage, cheese and bean melt. (facebook.com/greggsofficial).

Patty & Bun has gone one step further, offering DIY burger kits replete with everything youll need to whip up a premium hunk of beefy joy (including HG Walter patties, brioche buns, cheesy slices, onions and mayo) in the guise of its signature Ari Gold or Smokey Robinson burgers. Each 25 kit contains enough for four burgers. (pattyandbun.co.uk).

Baguette-me-not: Subway have spilled the beans on their chicken teriyaki sub

Vegan? The Vurger Co, which specialises in creating taste-approximate patty dopplegangers using brown rice, sweetcorn, black beans, and all sorts of organic wizardry, has you covered. A kit for two is 17.95.

Pizza Pilgrims 15-a-kit take-in comes with a guide detailing how to conjure up a creditable pizza in a frying pan, and enough materials to manufacture two buff bases of your own. (pizzapilgrims.co.uk).

Granted, not a fast food chain, but Milk in Balham is encouraging those missing the cheese-slathered Convict muffin, a staple signature of Sunday mornings in south London, or other favourites to order from milklondonshop.uk. Buckwheat pancakes, serving two a pack, are 17, and the Convict pack is 16.

For dessert (or snack time)? Doughnut Time is doing decorating kits. Just add icing (from 20, doughnuttimestore.com).
A degree of chaos and confusion prevailed on the first day of Indias lockdown 3.0  this is the third extension of the national lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, but with substantial relaxations in restrictions  with several citizens violating social distancing norms and authorities struggling to enforce a complex set of regulations across the country on Monday.

The most visible symbol of Indias partial opening up  and the challenges that come with it  were licensed liquor shops, which were allowed to resume operations after 40 days.

Be it in Delhi or Kolkata, Bengaluru or Jaipur, and be it in the poshest locales or lower middle-class colonies or slums, it was in front of liquor shops that people queued up for kilometres, jostling with each other, often not wearing masks, violating social distancing protocols, and in many cases, leading the police personnel to use force to disperse crowds or authorities to shut down shops.

In Delhi, alarmed by the reports of these violations, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal  who had only on Sunday asked for the lockdown to be entirely lifted  warned that strict measures, including more restrictions and sealing, would be introduced if the trend persisted. Experts, however, pointed out that the government should have anticipated the challenge, and in the case of liquor shops, either not enforced stringent restrictions in the first place, or allowed a more widespread reopening to ensure adequate supply.

Monday also saw greater traffic movement than during the last 40 days as more shops and offices opened for business, but this was coupled with confusion in enforcing norms  with local authorities in different states struggling to distinguish between activities and individuals permitted to be out and those who needed to stay home.

One big relaxation that kicked in was the decision to allow self-employed people, including domestic help, plumbers, and electricians, to work. But resident welfare associations were divided on the issue. In the Capital, while many neighbourhoods allowed workers to come in, others advised caution. Sudha Sinha, president of Federation of CGHS Dwarka limited, said, We have requested residents in all societies to wait till May 17. There is no harm in waiting for a while, especially when cases are increasing every day.

In other cities in the country, officials reported higher traffic on roads a large number of industries resumed operations. Still, a large population still worked from home, and the traffic was not close to normal. Some rush was also reported at local markets, where shops selling non-essentials such as stationery and clothes opened.

But a big challenge was in implementing the guidelines. An official in Delhi said, To be able to know who is within the 33% of a private office workforce and therefore is allowed to go to work is difficult. To be able to explain to people what activities are still not allowed when they think it may all have opened up is difficult. We will have to communicate better, and citizens will have to be more responsible.

Around 150 liquor shops opened in Delhi on Monday to loud cheers and applause. But this lasted only briefly as the jostling for space began. The crowd represented all classes, coming in SUVs and sedans, but also on motorcycles and rickshaws. In places such as Ashram, Govindpuri and Vasant Vihar, the queue was more than a kilometre long while people flouted social distancing norms. In places such as the Lajpat Nagar flyover near Srinivaswpuri, the queue of buyers also caused a traffic jam, prompting police to lathi-charge the crowd.

Delhi police officials said that by around 3pm, almost 90% of the shops were shut. Joint commissioner of police(eastern range) Alok Kumar said, We did not resort to lathi charge but to used mild force to disperse the crowd. The few shops that were open today shut shop on their own. We will follow the governments order and will ensure that people are disciplined while standing on the queue.

While many blamed citizens for being irresponsible, policy experts said the government should have been more careful. Shakti Sinha, a retired bureaucrat who has served as secretary in the Delhi government, said, The government should have anticipated demand; planned better; allowed more shops to open up; provided for home delivery options and recognised that it will be difficult to control crowds.

Former Delhi chief secretary, Rakesh Mehra, said that even though liquor shops are a major source of revenue for the state governments, opening only limited number of shops resulted in crowding in these stores.

I dont know what prompted the government to open some shops while keeping the rest closed. Alcohol is not like your regular non-essential commodities where people think that they would only go out to buy when shops near their houses open. Limiting supply will only lead to crowding, panic buying and chaos, Mehra said.

In the rest of the country too, the most challenging situation for authorities was in liquor shops.

In West Bengal, the police had to wield batons and chase away customers at many shops, including one located in the Kalighat area. By 12pm, most of the shops downed shutters again. Later, the excise department allowed online sale and home delivery. In UP, 23,000 liquor shops opened  but social distance norms were frequently violated. In Karnataka, long queues could be seen outside liquor outlets much before the official opening time of 9am. In some places, people reserved their spot since Sunday night by leaving slippers, bags and other personal items. In Mumbai, select liquor shop owners said they will deploy bouncers from Tuesday to control crowds.
The Textiles Ministry on Monday assured farmers in Maharashtra that the Cotton Corporation of India is fully prepared to purchase cotton at minimum support price in the state during the ongoing lockdown.

The MSP operations are continuing and Cotton Corporation of India's (CCI) procurement is on at 34 centres currently in the state, the ministry said amid concerns that traders may not offer a better price in view of the pandemic situation forcing farmers to avail the MSP rates.

The Cotton Corporation of India along with its agent the Maharashtra State Cotton Growers' Marketing Federation is well geared and ready to implement the minimum support priceoperations in Maharashtra, the ministry said.

The assurance by the ministry followsmedia reports regarding problems being faced by farmers in selling kapas in agricultural produce market committees (APMCs) in Maharashtra.

"The procurement is regulated by the state APMCs and 27 centres are coming under red zones as identified by the district administration wherein procurement is expected to pick up after 3rd May, 2020," it said.

In remaining 22 centres the state government has been approached by the CCI for issue of passes/tokens to farmers to bring Kapas and the matter is being constantly monitored by the Ministry of Textiles through daily status reports on arrival of farmers &Kapas procurement in the APMCs.

The necessary coordination of the CCI with the officials of the Government of Maharashtra is being done through frequent Conferences for trouble shooting of emerging issues.

The Textiles Ministry has also issued an advisory to the Government of Maharashtra to make appropriate arrangements in APMCs for facilitating access to the cotton farmers to avoid distress selling, the ministry said.

Around 77.40 per cent of total Kapas produced in Maharashtra had already arrived in the markets and been sold till March 25.

The CCI has procured 91.90 lakh quintals of kapas equivalent to 18.66 lakh bales of cotton.

Steps have been taken by the CCI to clear outstanding payment to farmers for the procured kapas. Of total procurement value of Rs 4,995 crore, a sum of Rs 4,987 crore has already reached farmers, the ministry said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Warren Buffett praised the Federal Reserve for its actions to blunt the effects of the coronavirus but said he worries about the repercussions. Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway's annual investor meeting Saturday, Buffett said companies struggling to make it through the current period of social distancing owe thanks to the Fed for providing low-interest financing that is helping keep them afloat. Without mentioning specific worries, Buffett said he is concerned about the longer-term ramifications. "We're doing things that we really don't know the ultimate outcome to," the 89-year-old investing legend said at the virtual meeting. "I think in general they're the right thing, but I don't think they're without consequences, and I think they could be of extreme consequences if pushed far enough. But there would be kind of extreme consequences if we didn't do it as well." The Fed sprung into action as the coronavirus pandemic caused businesses across the U.S. to halt operations abruptly. Similar to what it did during the Great Recession, the central bank slashed its benchmark short-term interest rate to near zero and began buying Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. However, this time it extended its operations to lend to businesses large and small, bought money market funds and municipal bonds, and went much further out on the risk-spectrum by buying high-yield corporate debt. Doing so has provided some stability to financial markets but also raised questions of moral hazard that come with public rescue operations.

Putting the Fed on 'a pedestal'

Buffett, though, said companies that were able to borrow under the current operations "should send a thank-you letter" to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his fellow central bankers. "Jay Powell, in my view, and the Fed board belong up there on a pedestal," he said. "They acted in the middle of March probably somewhat instructed by what they'd seen in 2008 and '09. They reacted in a huge way and essentially allowed what's happened since that time to play out the way it has." Prior to the Fed's intervention, the corporate debt markets had seized up and yield spreads against government bonds of similar duration hit levels not seen since the financial crisis a decade earlier. Debt issuance since then has exploded, with March and April setting records with $253.3 billion and $261.8 billion respectively, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. March was a quiet month in the high-yield market, but it bounced back in April to $33.7 billion after just $3.5 billion the month before. That's happened even though the Primary and Secondary Market Corporate Credit facilities, which the Fed announced as vehicles through which it will buy corporate debt, are not yet operational.
The move was announced at the start of Mondays (4 May) session by Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin. (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)

SINGAPORE  All Members of Parliament (MPs) are now required to wear face masks while attending parliamentary sessions, except when delivering speeches.

The move was announced at the start of Mondays (4 May) session by Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin. As I've said before...the onus remains on us parliamentarians to continue to lead in critical times, both within this chamber and within our communities, Tan said.

He and the other MPs were wearing masks during the ongoing session.

A Bill would be read later in the day by Leader of the House Grace Fu, which proposes amending Singapores Constitution to allow Parliament and its committees to meet and dispatch business with members being present at two or more appointed places, if necessary, Tan added.

The ultimate form and modalities of such continuity arrangements would be looked into once the Bill is passed, he said. We will learn where we can from other countries and other Parliaments and implement what works best in our Singapore contexts.

Tan also conveyed the Houses best regards to Workers Party (WP) MP Low Thia Khiang who is warded in the intensive care unit (ICU).

A day earlier, the WP announced that its former Secretary-General was admitted to the ICU after a fall at his home. We wish him a speedy recovery and our thoughts all with him, Tan added.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

More Singapore stories:

COVID-19: Man, 60, charged for failing to wear mask, abusing police officers

COVID-19: I am a sovereign woman who refused to wear mask at Shunfu market apprehended

Former Workers' Party Secretary-General Low Thia Khiang in intensive care unit

COVID-19: Singapore to ease some circuit breaker measures starting next week
The National Security of Service of Armenia, staying true to the principle of extirpating various manifestations of corruption and within the scope of functions reserved to the Service by law, as a result of operational intelligence measures and investigative actions, has received factual data regarding the fact that the son of the ex-head of the State Revenue Committee and later ex-finance minister, acting in conspiracy with their relative, due to the official position of their father, for the purpose of supplying products and providing information technology services to the tax and customs bodies of Armenia, established a commercial organization, and the father assigned the officials of the State Revenue Committee and later the Ministry of Finance to collaborate with the officers of the mentioned organization to ensure proper participation in the public procurement procedures in the IT sector, to provide necessary information for this, eliminate the obstacles that may emerge and apply more favorable procurement procedures. Taking advantage of the favorable conditions created as a result of abuse of official position, the officers of the organization connected to the official, along with the State Revenue Committee, signed several agreements for supply of products and provision of services in 2008-2020, according to which particularly large amounts of state funds were transferred to the company.

By combination of the obtained, interconnected and reliable evidence, the head of the company is charged under relevant articles of the Criminal Code of Armenia, and arrest has been selected as a pre-trial measure.

Afterwards, based on sufficient evidence, on April 28, 2020, the body implementing proceedings decided to change, supplement the charge brought against the son located in Armenia and involved in the proceedings as accused-on-trial and bring another charge against him. However, the son knew about the need to show up at the body implementing proceedings, violated the conditions of signature to not leave the country, never appeared before the body implementing proceedings and hid from investigators, after which a search was declared against him, and the court has selected arrest as a pre-trial measure.

Preliminary investigation continues, measures are being taken to find the accused-on-trial and bring him to justice.
Irans governor for OPEC, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili is in a coma following a severe cerebral hemorrhage, Iranian media are reporting.

The official, who used to be deputy oil minister and deputy foreign minister in the 1980s, was hospitalized on Friday, media reports said.

Bloomberg recalls Ardebili was first appointed governor to OPEC for Iran in 1985. The agency noted that the official is a close advisor to Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh and an experienced negotiator who plays a central role in the formation of Irans official position on various oil-related topics.

Ardebili was also instrumental in the recovery of the Iranian oil industry after the signing of the so-called nuclear deal that put an end to UN sanctions against the country, imposed because of its uranium enrichment program.

Regarding Ardebilis current state, Bloomberg quoted an Iranian government official as saying his hospitalization was unrelated to the coronavirus outbreak. The OPEC governor had had serious heart problems that prevented him from attending the OPEC meeting in March.

Iran was one of the countries hardest-hit by the coronavirus, with total infections at more than 97,400 and the death toll at 6,203.

The country is also suffering under the double blow of low oil prices and U.S. sanctions targeting its oil industry, which is vital for its economy. Even in such a context, Iran is still exporting oil and as it surfaced last week, helping Venezuela repair its refineries, which are operating at very low run rates because of years of mismanagement. Venezuela is reportedly paying for the services in gold.

Iran is also shipping oil to Syria, despite sanctions against both countries, according to data from TankerTrackers.com. With China reducing its intake of crude from abroad amid the coronavirus epidemic in January and February, Syria may have become Irans largest oil buyer, at least temporarily.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday issued directives to attach IAS and senior PCS officials with district magistrates to assist the administration in the working of quarantine centers, shelter homes and community kitchens for the stranded labourers coming to the state.

The chief minster issued the orders on Monday while chairing a meeting of senior state government officials at the Lok Bhavan here, an official statement said.

He said the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Provincial Civil Services (PCS) officials will be attached with the district magistrates of 75 districts in the state.

Adityanath also said industrial activities should be started in the state while adhering to the safety parameters mentioned in the advisory issued by the Centre.

"The community kitchens have been geo-tagged. The quarantine centers will also be geo-tagged," he said, adding those staying in COVID-19 hotspot areas should not go to their offices.

He instructed officials to carry out special monitoring in districts of Agra, Lucknow, Meerut, Kanpur Nagar, Moradabad, Saharanpur and Firozabad.

People must wear masks or face covers if they have to venture out of their houses, he said.

"Social distancing must be adhered to during vaccination of children. The para-medical staff involved in this work should use masks, gloves and sanitisers. Ventilators in hospitals must be in functional mode," he said.

The chief minister also ordered that communication be done with village pradhan and corporators, and that the monitoring committees inform the government if any outsider sneaks into the rural areas.

He said that steps should also be taken to identify additional sources of revenue for the state.

He advocated an action plan to identify alternative sources of revenue growth.

In order to provide employment opportunities to the migrant labourers and workers, the officers have been directed to connect them with one district-one-product scheme (ODOP), Vishwakarma Shram Samman Yojana and dairy committees.

Later, Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Awanish Awasthi said during his daily media briefing that Adityanath gave important guidelines regarding providing employment to migrant workers and treatment and prevention of coronavirus infection.

He said two trains have arrived from Gujarat, while five trains will be reaching here soon. He did not elaborate, except for saying that these trains will come from Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab.

Awasthi said 2,273 people have returned to the state from Maharashtra by two trains.

He added that on the instructions of the chief minister, preparations have been made to send 7,000 people from the quarantine centers to home quarantine.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Once again, investors are nervous, after two sessions of losses pushed the S&P 500 back below the 2,850 upper resistance level. The indexs appreciation has slowed in recent weeks, after a sharp bear market rally in the last week of March brought it back from the doldrums. Investors are wondering now if this rally is real, or if the bear will come roaring back at them.

Its at times like these that some comprehensive stock analysis is most helpful. TipRanks has the right tool for that job: the Smart Score, which analyzes 8 separate factors from the TipRanks database, all collected and measured by AI algorithms, and uses them to generate a simple, comprehensive score for the markets most traded stocks. The Smart Score measures the traditional factors of stock analysis, including the technical and fundamental analyses, as well as the conventional wisdom on a stock, through analyst, blogger, and news sentiment, and the collective investor views, through hedge activity, insider trading, and individual investor activity. The result is an aggregate, a single number that points out the stocks likely forward path.

Weve used the TipRanks database to find three undervalued stocks with perfect 10 Smart Scores. While these shares are trading low, the perfect Smart Scores suggest that is more an artifact of the recent overall market slide  for a variety of reasons, each of these stocks has a clear path forward, toward price appreciation. Here is what makes them stand above the crowd.

Wix.com, Ltd. (WIX)

Since its founding in 2006, Wix has built a solid reputation as the place to go for do-it-yourself website construction. The platform offers users a range of tools and editors to make site building simple, even for non-experts. Wix has become wildly popular due to its ease of use, and brings in recurring revenue of $707.2 million annually. Wixs successful platform rests on the freemium business model. The basic service is offered for free, to all comers, while company revenue is derived by selling subscriptions, downloadable user tools, and upgrades.

Story continues

Coming into 2020, before the COVID-19 epidemic, Wixs financial state had been gradually improving. Quarterly earnings were on the way up  Q4 2019 showed $204.6 million in total revenue, up 24.6% year-over-year. The company finished the year with over $331 million in cash on hand.

Despite that strong finish to calendar year 2019, Wix shares tumbled badly in the Q1 2020 market slide. The stock hit a peak on February 19, dropped by nearly half to its trough on March 18, and while its has bounced back, WIX is still down 20%.

The Smart Score, however, suggests that WIX is undervalued. Wall Streets analysts still rate the stock a Strong Buy, the financial bloggers are 90% bullish on the shares, and the news coverage of Wix has been 100% positive. Along with an increase in hedge fund purchase activity, these are strong signs that the stock retains plenty of investor confidence.

SunTrust Robinsons 5-star analyst Naved Khan describes that confidence in clear prose: We believe Wix's freemium offering remains relatively resilient given its focus on providing mission critical online tools/services to SMBs. We view the company's recent decision to pause the price hike as a prudent, customer centric move to keep churn low and expect to see a pick-up in DIY sign-ups as lockdowns catalyze demand for online services.

Khan rates Wix a Buy, and supports that rating with a $167 price target that implies a robust upside potential of 35%. (To watch Khans track record, click here)

Wall Streets analyst corps agrees with Khan  which we saw in the Smart Score review. WIX shares hold a Strong Buy rating from the analyst consensus, based on 13 recent reviews  including 12 Buys and only a single Hold. The average price target is $150, somewhat more cautious than Khans, but still suggesting a 21% one-year upside for the stock. (See Wix stock analysis at TipRanks)

Hudson Pacific Properties (HPP)

Our next stock is a real estate investment trust, a sector that is well-liked by income-minded investors who appreciate the high dividend yields offered. Hudson Pacific is an REIT focused mainly on office space in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver areas. The company owns almost 15 million square feet of leasable space, in some of the prime tech centers in North America. HPP counts some heavy hitters among its tenants, including Alphabet, Inc. and Netflix.

HPPs earnings grew steadily from Q2 through Q4 of last year, reaching 55 cents per share in the final quarter, beating the forecast by 12%. Full year revenues came to $818 million, with full year net income of $42.7 million. HPP used that fund a 25-cent per share quarterly dividend, which annualizes to $1 and gives a yield of 4.3%. Its a solid foundation for investors seeking profitable investments.

And right now, HPP shares are well down from their peak. The stock hit its top value on February 14, just 5 days before the bear market started  and that bear hit HPP hard, knocking out 58% of the stocks share value. It has had trouble regaining traction; many tenant companies are facing their own coronavirus problems, and so are having trouble meeting the rent, cutting into HPP income stream. The stock is still down 39% from its peak, severe underperformance compared to the S&P 500s 16% net fall.

Once again, however, a look at the Smart Score shows us why we should see HPP as undervalued, rather than depressed. The stock keeps a Strong Buy analyst rating, as well as 100% bullish sentiment from the financial bloggers and news outlets. But the real key here is the insider sentiment  corporate officers have taken advantage of the stocks low price to buy up $2.29 million worth of shares, giving the stock a strongly positive insider trading strategy. These factors add up to that perfect 10 Smart Score.

Writing from Wells Fargo, analyst Blaine Heck rates HPP a Buy, although his price target of $24.50 suggests a modest 4.4% upside. Supporting his Buy thesis, Heck writes, HPP has done a nice job managing its unleased development pipeline exposure... HPP trades at a discount to its West Coast office peers, so if HPP can again report strong rent spreads, maintain a strong pre-leased rate on its development pipeline, and indicate that demand from tech tenants remains strong, we believe shares can outperform. (To watch Hecks track record, click here.)

Sentiment on Wall Street is a bit more bullish on HPP than Heck allows, perhaps influenced by the strong insider confidence noted above in the Smart Score. Of 6 analyst reviews, 5 are Buys and 1 is a Hold, making the consensus rating a Strong Buy. Shares are selling for $23.46, and the average price target, at $29.67, indicates an upside of 26% for the coming 12 months. (See Hudson Pacific stock analysis at TipRanks)

Service Corporation International (SCI)

We dont like to think about it, but death is business, too. Funeral services, and cemetery management, are a major operation, as surviving family and friends are always deeply interested in seeing that proper care is taken of the departed. SCI, based out of Texas, owns and operates over 1,500 funeral homes and 400 cemeteries across 43 states and eight provinces in the US and Canada. The company regularly brings in over $3 billion annual revenues.

Wrapping up 2019, Q4 finished with a strong top line of $851 million, up 3.6% year-over-year, with EPS of 60 cents. The company saw earnings gain from lower expenses, while partially offset increased taxes and softness in cemetery revenues. Q1, however, reflected the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing measures. Those measures have cut back on funeral services, and SCIs top line revenue was down 4.4% sequentially. EPS, at 43 cents, fell sequentially and missed the forecast, also by 4.4%.

SCI hit its peak in early March, after the market slide began, but when it fell, the fall was steep. SCI shares bottomed out after losing 34%, and have remained essentially flat since then in volatile trading. Despite the hit to share values, the company maintained its dividend, even raising it to 19 cents per share  the third increase in the last three years. SCIs dividend annualizes to 76 cents per share, and offers an above-average yield of 2.13%. The reliability of the dividend is a clear attraction for the stock while share price value remains down.

The Smart Score shows some of the reasons why this stock remains a solid buy. Wall Streets analysts and financial bloggers are bullish, as are the hedge funds, which have bought more than 128,000 shares in the last quarter. Better, though, is the 12-month return on equity, which is strongly positive at 21.57%. This all adds up to a Smart Score of 10, topping the scale.

4-star analyst Scott Schneeberger sees a path forward for SCI, writing, [Service International] is using technology to innovate in the current operating environment, executing expense management, remains financially sound generating ample free cash flow, and should rebound significantly as "social distancing" progressively eases.

He gives the stock a Buy rating, with a $47 price target that implies an upside of 31%. (To watch Schneebergers track record, click here.)

In addition to a perfect 10 Smart Score, SCI shares also have a unanimous Strong Buy analyst consensus rating, based on 3 recent Buy reviews. SCI shares are selling for $35.72 at this writing, and the average price target of $45.83 suggests the stock has room for 28% growth in the next 12 months. (See Service International stock analysis at 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.
Thiruvananthapuram, May 4 : Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja, here on Monday, responded to the 100,000th call that came to the Disha-helpline number 1056.

The helpline, launched on January 22, has received huge number of calls from people seeking help and guidance on Covid-19.

When the phone rang on Monday, it was picked by Shailaja. On the other end was a lady Sreelekshmi from Chennai and all her doubts was cleared. Just before the end of call, Shailaja told Sreelekshmi who she was and a startled caller couldn't hide her excitement.

Soon there was applause from all who was hearing Shailaja answer the caller.

Sreelekshmi praised the Minister for her work. Shailaja said everything had happened like this because of the good team work and the phone was disconnected.

The 24x7 helpline is functioning from the state capital.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Fifty years ago, on a sunny May Monday, students in jeans faced National Guardsmen in gas masks on Kent State Universitys Commons.

Student unrest had unnerved the nation, as college kids protested the Vietnam War.

And in small town Kent, tensions had been escalating all weekend.

Then, in 13 seconds, 13 college kids were shot.

Four students died, and nine were injured. The senselessness was unfathomable.

The shooting was a seminal moment in the country, making a far-away war far too real to Americans. It helped turn public opinion toward peace.

The father of victim Allison Krause told Time magazine: Is dissent a crime?  Have we come to such a state in this country that a young girl has to be shot because she disagrees deeply with the actions of her government?

So why did the Guard fire at a bunch of college kids?

The Guard said they had fired in self-defense, afraid for their lives because the students threw rocks and screamed Strike! But the nearest student shot was about 75 feet away.

A federal judge dismissed a criminal case against eight Guardsmen. In a civil trial was settled out of court in 1979, with a financial settlement of $675,000 to the wounded students and families of those who had been killed: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder.

The Guard issued a statement of regret, but not of culpability.

"In retrospect, the tragedy of May 4, 1970 should not have occurred.  Hindsight suggests that another method would have resolved the confrontation. Better ways must be found to deal with such a confrontation.

The Special Report: The Kent State Tragedy, by the Presidents Commission on Campus Unrest, commonly known as the Scranton Commission, in October 1970 found: The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.

Fifty years later, there is still no definitive answer.

But forever, the name Kent State will be synonymous with the anti-establishment. The university for years tried to downplay the link before, finally, embracing its role in history.

The 17 acres where the Guard marched and the students congregated is now one of 2,500 National Historic Landmarks in the United States.

This year, the university planned months of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary, culminating with a weekend of meaningful activities. Theyve been canceled because of the coronavirus, though the school has two days of virtual programs planned.

That day left an indelible mark on the lives of many people around the world, Rod Flauhaus, project manager for the May 4 50th Commemoration said. While our original plans for the 50th Commemoration have changed, the important thing is that we still remember and honor the lives of Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder and the events of that tragic day in 1970.

Cleveland.com will tell the stories of current Kent students and survivors, as well as present historic photos and a tour of the May 4 Visitors Center over the next three days, culminating on May 4, the 50th anniversary of the shooting.

Check back to see the stories as they post.

Kent State students studying shooting 50 years later, reflect on its significance

Now and then: See how Kent State University looked in May 1970, compared to today

Take a virtual tour of Kent States May 4 museum

See a graphic timeline of the Kent State shootings

Kent State University survivors tell their stories 50 years later

And everything was just frozen in this chaos in horror and screaming: Gerald Casale remembers May 4, 1970

I just curled over and I just started shrieking: Theyre shooting their guns: Laura Davis remembers May 4, 1970

My immediate response was I dont know how I missed getting shot: John Filo remembers May 4, 1970

It was then that we realized it was live ammunition: Roseann Chic Canfora remembers May 4, 1970

I have great pride in the revolt: Kent State University shooting victim Alan Canfora recounts events leading to May 4, 1970

No matter what your politics at the time, the events of May 4, 1970, haunt all who were there: Ted Diadiun

See and hear how people remember May 4, 1970

The failures and lies behind the student killings of 1968 and 1970 are still with us, just in other forms

I saw the muzzle flashes. Oh, my god.   Couple implored students to avoid Kent State protest, then watched shootings in horror

Kent residents cant ignore history, impact of May 4th shootings 50 years ago

How the Kent State University shooting happened (graphic)

79 haunting photos from the Kent State University shootings youve likely never seen before
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 19:13:42|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Cars travel on a street in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 4, 2020. Malaysia started to restart most of its economic activities on Monday, as new COVID-19 cases in the country dropped after a short spike during the weekend. Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said at a press briefing that 55 new cases were reported, among which seven were imported cases with the remainder being local transmissions, pushing the total cases in the country to 6,353. (Photo by Chong Voon Chung/Xinhua)

KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia started to restart most of its economic activities on Monday, as new COVID-19 cases in the country dropped after a short spike during the weekend.

Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said at a press briefing that 55 new cases were reported, among which seven were imported cases with the remainder being local transmissions, pushing the total cases in the country to 6,353.

Another 71 cases have been released, bringing the total of those cured and discharged to 4,484 cases or 70.6 percent of all cases. Of the 1,764 active cases still receiving treatment, 28 are currently being held in intensive care and 13 of those are in need of assisted breathing.

No new deaths have been reported, leaving the total fatalities at 105.

Noor Hisham added that two mobile applications had been launched to help authorities with contact tracing and to help members of the public conduct self-assessments on their risk of getting infected.

Malaysia on Monday lifted some restrictions on the movement control order to allow most sectors to reopen in a bid to restart the economy.

In a large shopping at downtown Kuala Lumpur, some of the shops are open with staff taking temperatures of the customers before allowing them to enter. Many people remained cautious on the easing of the restrictions as the country recorded a daily increase of cases on both Saturday and Sunday respectively.

Some state governments have announced that they are not fully following the federal government's decision by either continuing the restrictions or imposing their own conditions.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government has made it mandatory for foreign workers across the country to undergo COVID-19 screening following a spike in foreign workers testing positive in Kuala Lumpur.

He added that the spike in COVID-19 cases over the past two days had been traced to foreign workers at a construction site in the capital which has since been closed. Enditem
On the initiative of the Azerbaijani President, chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Ilham Aliyev, a Summit of the NAM's Contact Group will be held today through videoconference.

The Summit under the motto "United against COVID-19" will focus on the fight against coronavirus pandemic.



Given that the Non-Aligned Movement includes 120 countries, the Summit will be held in the format of a Contact Group with the participation of countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, based on the principle of geographical representation.

The videoconference, to be attended by heads of state and government of more than 40 member states, will also be joined by the UN Secretary-General, President of the UN General Assembly, President of the African Union, WHO Director-General and High Representative of the European Union.

Chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement has passed to Azerbaijan at the 18th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the NAM member countries which was held in Azerbaijan on October 25-26, 2019. Azerbaijan will chair the organization during 2019-2022.



The extraordinary Summit of the Turkic Council was held on April 10 through videoconference on the initiative of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, chairman of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States Ilham Aliyev.
Photo: pixabay

Police are searching for an aggressive chicken accused of engaging in fowl play at an Louisiana bank.

The Walker Police Department responded to a complaint about the brazen animal Friday, the agency said in a social media post over the weekend.

Witnesses told police the chicken had been spotted at the bank multiple times last week, approaching patrons at the ATM, chasing customers and even attempting to climb into cars in the drive-thru, according to the departments post.

Officials said officers responded to the bank within a few minutes of the call, but found the pesky poultry had already escaped.

The suspect remains on the loose and police advised residents to avoid confronting the animal, and instead call for help.
Caution: This piece drips with satire and sarcasm. If that's not your thing, read no further.

Headline : Michigan's Whitmer says armed protesters displayed 'worst racism and awful parts' of US history. (FoxNewspolitics, 3 May 20)

Whoaaaa! Good thing Gretchen told us. We'd never have suspected that Michiganders would protest the lockdown by lynching black people, burning their churches, terrorizing them with burning crosses, and raping their wives and daughters.

Or that they'd scalp Native Americans and give them blankets infected with smallpox germs.

Or that they'd round up Japanese-Americans and put them behind barbed-wire fences. Or line up any handy Vietnamese women and children and mow them down with machine gun fire.



Demonstration in Michigan State Capitol (Fox News video screen grab).

Those are about the most awful parts of U.S. history any of us can imagine, and it's good that Michigan has Gretchen Whitmer in charge so she can keep us informed of all these atrocities being carried out in this day and age in what we once thought was a civilized member of the 48 contiguous states. We were naively thinking such things were in the distant American past, long before Brown v. Board of Education or the Freedom Marches of the fifties and sixties.

Seriously, it just never would have occurred to any of us that anyone living in Michigan would be capable of such racism or of acting out these worst parts of American history. Do you have secret societies up there, Gretch? Paramilitary outfits that practice shooting and like to do things outdoors and stay in shape and work on self-defense and other similar barbaric customs? D eplorable NRA types who cling to their guns and Bibles, insisting irrationally on 2A rights and dragging their knuckles on the ground? As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might say, "Wow, this is, like, some heavy stuff."
(Photo : linkedinsalesnavigator/Unsplash) Man writing

Students are seeking partial refunds on tuition and campus fees because they claim they are not receiving the proper quality of education as promised after their schools opted to switch to online after the government ordered the shutdown of schools and other industries amid coronavirus pandemic.

The Daily Mail reports that lawsuits say "the quality of instruction is far below the classroom experience" after the closure last month. Prestigious private and public universities like Columbia and Cornell, Brown, Michigan State, Purdue, and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Students seek refund amounting to thousands of dollars for tuition and other fees for accesses to gyms, libraries, labs, and other facilities that are now all closed.

ALSO READ: [BREAKING] COVID-19 Update: Japanese Company Claims UV Light Robot Can Destroy Coronavirus in 2 Minutes

While online education proponents say it can be just as effective, universities say they have done everything they can to create rigorous online classes in a matter of weeks.

However, complaints maintain that the college experience is more than just course credits as personal interaction between students and faculty add value to traditional learning. Meanwhile, colleges usually charge less for online classes.

Grainger Rickenbaker, 20, a freshman in the Drexel University in Philadelphia who filed a class-action lawsuit, said his online classes "are poor substitutes for classroom learning." There is little interaction in classes, which mostly used recorded videos.

Drexel, which costs $2,405, closed mid-March, but the semester continues online until June 13.

'You just feel a little bit diminished. It's just not the same experience I would be getting if I was at the campus,' said South Carolina-based Rickenbaker.

ALSO READ: COVID-19 Doctors Finally Understand the Reason Behind Coronavirus' Deadly Blood Clots

Questioning the educational quality

'The value of any degree issued based on online or pass/fail classes will be diminished for the rest of the students' lives,' they state in the lawsuit citing "breach of contract' and 'unjust enrichment."

Rickenberger files the case on behalf of the 13,490 Drexel undergrads while Dixon is doing the same for the 11,117 students at Miami, which tuitions cost$51,930 and $54,516, respectively.

Similarly, the University of California, Berkeley, faces the same case as some professors are simply uploading assignments without clearly providing instructions while Vanderbilt University focuses on the 'quality and academic rigor of courses has significantly decreased.'

For Purdue University, the complaint said that no online course could trigger the applicable, particularly when only $750 has been credited instead of the whole $10030.

Online university courses cost around $15,000, while the actual class is approximately $50,000.

'These students decided to go to in-person, on-campus universities. They could have chosen to go to online colleges and earn their degree that way, but they didn't.'

Meanwhile, prior to the case, demands for tuition refunds had been spreading. Students have started petitions calling for refunds as online classes left them underwhelmed.

Similarly, Michigan State University faces a lawsuit as it college charges about $5,250 per semester in room and board fees, but the school only offered students a room and board credit worth $1,120. It costs about $14,524 per semester.

These references and online courses increase the probability to lead students to drop out of school.

Read also: Health Expert: There May Not be a Coronavirus Vaccine After All

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all.

Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe

Our news is free on LAist. To make sure you get our coverage: Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter. To support our non-profit public service journalism: Donate Now.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials are making plans for summer -- and for now, none of those plans involve reopening school campuses shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic.

In a video address Monday, Superintendent Austin Beutner said LAUSD leaders have "made no decisions" about whether the fall semester -- still scheduled to begin on August 18 -- will involve students in classrooms, online or both. He said it's not clear what the public health conditions will allow.

Last week, Governor Gavin Newsom surprised many educators when he suggested California schools could resume in-person instruction early -- perhaps even as soon as mid-July. Newsom fears the longer students remain at home, the farther they'll fall behind academically.

icon

DON'T MISS ANY L.A. CORONAVIRUS NEWS

Get our daily newsletters for the latest on COVID-19 and other top local headlines.

Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

But on Monday, Beutner outlined an alternative solution for this problem: he said LAUSD will offer summer classes -- all online -- to any student who wishes to participate, "which we've never done before."

WHAT WILL LAUSD'S EXPANDED SUMMER SCHOOL LOOK LIKE?

Beginning in the middle of June, LAUSD will offer three different summer learning options:

Credit recovery and intervention for high-need students. Just like in any typical summer, LAUSD will offer high school students another chance to complete courses they need to earn their diplomas. They'll also offer intensive interventions for younger students. And like in normal times, participation in these most-rigorous programs will be "invitation-only" -- federal funding guidelines limit these programs to the students who are furthest behind, Beutner said.

Instruction for all in core subjects in grades pre-K through 12. Beutner said any student who wishes can enroll in math and English language arts courses during the summer session. During a town hall meeting last week, officials with LAUSD's Local District West said that these courses would be offered for two hours each day. "We haven't done this before," he said. "this will be new."

Beutner said any student who wishes can enroll in math and English language arts courses during the summer session. During a town hall meeting last week, officials with LAUSD's Local District West said that these courses would be offered for two hours each day. "We haven't done this before," he said. "this will be new." Enrichment opportunities for all students. Beutner teased one opportunity he said LAUSD would offer in conjunction with the guitar-making Fender, which would teach students to play ukulele or guitar. Other enrichment programs will be available that will tie in math, literacy and critical thinking skills. LAUSD Local District West officials also said this summer enrichment program will also feature virtual visits to zoos and libraries.

Participation in summer school programming will be voluntary, Beutner said. Many other details of how the program will work are still being finalized.

THE COST TO CLOSE A SUMMER GAP

In years past, roughly 20,000 of the district's 472,000 students would have participated in summer school programs, most of them in programs designed for the highest-need students.

LAUSD teachers will lead the courses -- and because teachers aren't normally paid during the summer, they'll be earning "additional" compensation, Beutner said in an interview.

Historically, funding constraints have limited the size of LAUSD's summer school offerings, Beutner said. But this year, "we're not going to make the budget the constraint."

As a result, LAUSD could be operating this year's summer programs at a financial loss. Officials have previously estimated that the additional offerings will exceed LAUSD's current budget for summer school by $50 million.

"In these extraordinary circumstances," Beutner said. "we are going to provide the funding to make it available for all because there's a ton of research that shows that learning gaps are problematic for students."

WHAT ABOUT THE GOVERNOR'S IDEA?

It's concern about this "learning gap" that drove Governor Newsom last week to float the idea that schools cut their summer breaks short.

One recent, early forecast suggested that -- if existing research on summer learning loss is any guide -- in some worst-case scenarios, students could begin next school year as much as a full grade-level behind, particularly in math. (The researchers behind the forecast say not all students will backslide quite this dramatically.)

In an interview with KPCC/LAist, Beutner said he doesn't mean for Monday's speech to be read as a rebuke of the governor's idea.

Beutner pointed out that both he and Newsom have outlined similar requirements that would have to be met before school campuses could reopen -- among them: widespread coronavirus testing and contact tracing, favorable trends in case counts and the availability of personal protective gear.

But while not entirely ruling out Newsom's idea, Beutner also said it's too soon to begin discussing a date of return: "Let's let the science catch up with the speculation."

"The governor has this strategy of being transparent by starting public conversations," said Wes Smith, the executive director of the Association of California School Administrators. "That's what he does. He launches these trial balloons and then we around the state start to dig in ...

"Nothing is going to happen this summer," Smith said on KPCC's AirTalk last week, "that's going to put our students or our staff at jeopardy. We're going to work on those things before we ever discuss starting in earnest in July, August, September or whenever that date is."

GRADUATIONS, TRAINING, REOPENING PLANS

A few other items Beutner addressed:

Graduations. Beutner said all end-of-year ceremonies -- everything from high school graduation ceremonies to elementary- or middle school culminations -- will only be held online.

Beutner said LAUSD officials looked into some pretty dramatic options, like renting out the Coliseum or Dodger Stadium and seating students "far apart." But health authorities told district officials that, for now, virtual gatherings were the only way for families to celebrate safely.

Beutner committed to make LAUSD facilities and funding available for in-person celebrations that could take place after it's safe to reopen school campuses.

Training. This week, more than half of LAUSD teachers will begin a 30-hour training course in distance learning instruction this week.

In an interview, Beutner said the course is designed to help teachers answer these questions:

"How do you get a sense if students are engaged or not? How do you raise their level of engagement? How do you make sure families are part of this discussion? How do you make sure you balance out Zoom versus independent work?"

This training continues a 10-hour course that Beutner said "almost all" LAUSD teachers completed on "the basics of online instruction" last month.

Reopening plans. Beutner said district officials are studying the options.

Beutner referenced a plan of alternating schedules where students could attend classes on-campus for only a few days a week and online for the rest of the time.

That said, Beutner cautioned that it's too early to talk about how LAUSD campuses will work once they reopen.

"It's not just as simple as moving the desks apart," Beutner said in an interview. "There's a lot of complicated moving parts."

This post was updated with additional quotes and information.
Australia's largest pharmacy operators are preparing for an upswing in the home delivery of prescription medicine, as industry players say the sector has made more than five years' worth of progress on digitisation in just a few weeks.

"We are seeing a significant increase in direct patient to pharmacy communications, including home delivery. This is occurring through the Amcal and Discount Drug Stores consumer apps as well as directly with the pharmacy, and the rollout of e-prescriptions, which has only just started, will only dramatically increase this trend," general manager of retail at Amcal owner Sigma Healthcare, Brian Tomlin, said.

Pharmacy operators and start-ups are eyeing an online drug delivery boom that has been years in the making. Credit:Andrew Quilty

Australia was on the cusp of formalising an e-prescribing framework prior to the coronavirus pandemic and the federal government has since accelerated the policy.

Sigma, which has a market cap of $625 million and owns pharmacy brands including Guardian and PharmaSave, said it anticipated deliveries would grow.
Social media allows us to connect with friends and loved ones in meaningful ways even when we arent together in person, which is wonderful. It also allows us to get to know and interact with people in other places, whether thats in the United States or around the world. That, too, is great
Press Trust of India

Researchers in the US' Texas A&M University are asking hundreds of frontline medical workers to participate in a late-stage, phase 4, clinical trial of a widely-used tuberculosis vaccine that could help boost the immune system and blunt the devastating effects of COVID-19.

Texas A&M is the first US institution in the clinical trial to have federal clearance for testing on humans. Researchers hope to demonstrate that Bacillus Calmette-Guerin or BCG mitigates the effects of the novel coronavirus, allowing fewer people to be hospitalised or to die from COVID-19.

The researchers are seeking to repurpose the vaccine, which is also used to treat bladder cancer. BCG could be widely available for use against COVID-19 in just six months because it has already been proven safe for other uses, the university said.

"This could make a huge difference in the next two to three years while the development of a specific vaccine is developed for COVID-19," said Dr Jeffrey D Cirillo, a Regent's Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology at the Texas A&M Health Science Center.

BCG is not meant to cure coronavirus but bridge the gap until a vaccine is developed, thus allowing us to buy time until something can be developed, said Dr Cirillo.

Healthcare workers will be the first people eligible for the clinical trial, which is set to begin this week. Efforts are underway to recruit 1,800 volunteers to take part in Texas A&M's nationwide test of BCG's application for coronavirus.

"It's not going to prevent people from getting infected. This vaccine has a very broad ability to strengthen your immune response. We call it 'trained immunity, said Dr Cirillo.

Because the human body fights a COVID-19 infection in a manner that is similar to how it would attack bladder cancer, the researchers are hopeful that his work could lead to an effective and quickly developed treatment for COVID-19.

Additionally, evidence shows that the coronavirus can cause damage to a patient's central nervous system, and it even might cause long-term effects that could lead to dementia, Alzheimer's or Parkinson 's disease. Dr Cirillo said the potential for lasting effects from COVID-19 is another reason to get the vaccine to the public as quickly as possible.

Texas A&M University Chancellor John Sharp has offered USD 2.5 million to ensure research can proceed as quickly as possible.

The Texas A&M Health Science Center is leading a group of scientists and medical doctors with Harvard's School of Public Health, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Dr Cirillo said repurposing the existing bladder cancer vaccine called TICE(R) BCG could result in bringing a COVID-19 treatment to the US public in the fastest possible way.

Because the drug is already approved by the FDA, the researchers can skip the first three phases of clinical trials usually required before testing on people, since this vaccine has already passed those phases.

As the coronavirus has spread around the world, researchers have noticed that the morbidity and mortality rates were lower in some developing countries, including India, where the BCG vaccine is widely used.
Elon Musk has suggested introducing an augmented reality game similar to Pokemon Go that Tesla owners could play while driving.

The Tesla boss initially tweeted "Minecraft has amazing legs," in reference to the hugely popular video game, before speculating whether it would be possible to develop games for the electric cars.

He then called out to his 33 million followers to see if any were able to integrate games through Tesla's operating system, which could be displayed on the vehicles' 12.3-inch LCD screen.

"Anyone think they can get a good multiplayer Minecraft working on Teslas?" he tweeted. "Or maybe create a game that interacts virtually with reality like Pokemon Go while driving safely? Like a complex version of Pac-man or Mario Kart?"

Twitter users were divided in their response to Mr Musk's tweets, with some quick to point out the risks involved in developing such features for the electric cars.

"That's a dangerous game, if you are driving you should be driving and nothing else, not playing games, not watching films, not on a phone," one user replied. "You are risking your own and other people's lives being that irresponsible."

Another user claimed to have been hit by a driver who was playing Pokemon Go, stating: "To be frank, 'while driving safely,' just isn't enough for me."

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

Among those replying was Minecraft technical director Nathan Adams, who wrote: "Send me a Tesla and I'll see what I can do."

EA product manager Bret Hoffman suggested that Minecraft was not best suited for Tesla but claimed that "a driving version of Pokemon Go-like mechanics would work".

Any in-car game could prove particularly problematic, given that an accident investigation into a fatal Tesla crash in 2018 revealed that the driver was playing a video game on his smartphone at the time of the incident.

When the results of the investigation were published earlier this year, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) warned that any distractions from driving should be avoided, even if the vehicle is semi autonomous.

"If you own a car with partial automation, you do not own a self-driving car," NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said in a statement at the time. "This means that when driving in the supposed 'self-driving' mode... you cannot play video games."

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent about whether it plans to pursue Mr Musk's idea.
When Jake Mienk, publisher of the Herald-Press in tiny Palestine, Texas, heard Monday that his newspaper had won a Pulitzer Prize, he and his goosebumps went looking for editor Jeffery Gerritt, who had stepped out for an afternoon cup of coffee.

I tackled him in the parking lot, Mienk told the editorial board Monday, about an hour after Columbia University and the Pulitzer board named Gerritt as winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing, putting him in company with winners from the nations largest and most-storied publishers, from the Washington Post to Reuters to the New Yorker. Honestly, he grabbed hold of me and sank to his knees and just started crying.

The news gave us goosebumps, too. Gerritt has been knee-deep in national awards over the past couple of years for his passionate, informed editorials. The wins came this spring for a series of tough editorials last year about needless deaths in Texas county jails. He won the national Headliner Award for editorial writing and the Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership and Community Engagement. Before coming to East Texas, Gerritt spent 17 years in Detroit, where he was a reporter, editorial writer, assistant city editor, and columnist for the Detroit Free Press.

But in our business, nothing quite compares to the Pulitzer Prizes handed out each spring. In citing Gerritts work, which zeroed in on conditions in Anderson County, the Pulitzer board noted his bravery in calling to account powerful local officials. The board said Gerritt had won for editorials that exposed how pre-trial inmates died horrific deaths in a small Texas county jail  reflecting a rising trend across the state  and courageously took on the local sheriff and judicial establishment, which tried to cover up these needless tragedies.

Mienk conceded the editorials had made him nervous when they published last year. Of course they did, he said. I am not going to lie. I sweated every last editorial we wrote. These editorials were taking to task the highest-powered people in our community.

But he said he eventually was made comfortable because he trusted his editor. His knowledge, his passion about these topics, and especially his background in writing about prison and jails, he said. I know that if anyone was an expert in these topics, it was Jeff.

Yet, the cost of producing great journalism has never been higher, especially for smaller community and regional newspapers. And the business of truth-telling is under attack, actively by those who would rather face it and passively by those who would rather not pay for it.

And so Gerritts victory is tinged with a certain irony: his Pulitzer comes only days after the paper announced it would cut publication from five days to three.

The Herald-Press is owned by Alabama-based Community Newspaper Holding Inc., which owns 12 papers in Texas.

Business at the companys East Texas papers had actually been doing comparatively well as of late, Mienk said  until COVID-19 shut local economies down. In 2017, he actually had ordered a paper in Corsicana to increase publication from three days a week to four. But that upward trend reversed itself this year.

On Saturday, he announced the cutback in Palestine on Page One, telling readers that COVID-19 had wiped out the newspapers advertising revenue. Mienk said Monday he hopes the cut is only temporary until this crisis passes.

We hope so, too. Newspapers cost money to publish, and the good ones cost extra. Its a sad footnote on a very happy day when we celebrate the Herald Press editorial page as the best in the nation.

Several others with Houston and Texas connections were recognized. W. Caleb McDaniel, a Rice University professor, won the history category for his book Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America. Jericho Brown, who earned his PhD from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, won in poetry for The Tradition. Former Chronicle investigative reporter Brian Rosenthal also won, for investigative reporting at The New York Times. Dallas Morning News photographer Tom Fox was a finalist for breaking news photography.

To all the winners, congratulations. Enjoy the recognition. We live in a society where brave, independent journalism is both needed and imperiled now more than ever before. Let the Herald Press story be a reminder of newspapers vital role in our democracy, and subscribers vital role in keeping it alive.
(Newser)  One of the protesters who showed up in Chicago on Friday to rally against the lockdown measures in place wore an American flag mask on her face. The sign in her hands brought to mind another country and place altogetherand the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial wasn't pleased. Dennis Kosuthwho ABC News reports was present as a counter-protestersnapped a photo of the woman, whose sign held the German words "Arbeit macht frei, JB." Those first three words make up the phrase the Nazis incorporated into Auschwitz's gate; it translates to "work will set you free." NBC News reports that Kosuth wrote that the woman "assured" them that she wasn't a Nazi.

story continues below

On Saturday, the Auschwitz Museum responded on Twitter, writing, "'Arbeit macht frei' was a false, cynical illusion the SS gave to prisoners of #Auschwitz. Those words became one of the icons of human hatred. It's painful to see this symbol instrumentalized & used again to spread hate. It's a symptom of moral & intellectual degeneration." JB is an apparent reference to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who is himself Jewish. On Saturday he noted some Friday protesters carried signs "filled with hate. ... I've spent decades of my life fighting against bigotry & hatred," he noted. The Chicago Sun-Times adds that Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth weighed in on Sunday: "That Nazi slogan is not acceptable," she said. (Michigan's governor said protests in her own state were filled with "the worst racism.")
In a live Instagram interview, actor Arti Singh talks about her relationship with Sidharth Shukla and says they are just friends. Their good bonding was seen in the Bigg Boss 13 house, though he is a good guy, they are good as friends.

In Bigg Boss 13 house, bonding of Arti Singh and Sidharth Shukla was appreciated by viewers. However, some claimed that earlier they were in a relationship, but no one report confirmed it. Squashing the rumours, Arti said, she would love to work with Sidharth as he is a good actor and a friend to her.

She was also asked about, is there a chance that the two can be more than friends? To which she wisely answered and said, they share a great bond as it was displayed in the BB house. However, after coming out from the BB house, they havent got in touch with each other for a while.

Arti also said though he is a good human being and a great friend of hers, howbeit seeing each other as a couple as they have a different personality. During the live chat, she also told that Sidharth is not a short-tempered person, but due to the condition in the BB house was so tense that made everyone angry, concluded Sihdath is a nice man.

Talking about Artis quarantine, the diva is utilising her leisure time to the fullest. From prepping meals for the family to keeping her self fit, thats what her isolation regime. Indeed she also an avid social media user, so on a daily basis she uploads some entertain yet engaging content over social media. Recently she accepted a challenge given by Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover, where she has to balance a shoe with one leg.

Watch the video here:

For all the latest Entertainment News, download NewsX App
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 20:51:19|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

The Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool are seen in a rainy day in Washington D.C., the United States on April 30, 2020. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

The groundless criticism peddled by some U.S. politicians was not echoed by others, as China has taken solid actions to assist other countries and regions in beating the coronavirus and made great contributions to international human rights endeavors.

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A commentary carried by the Monday edition of the People's Daily slammed some U.S. politicians for smearing China's fight against the COVID-19 epidemic with false accusations of so-called "human rights abuse."

The U.S. move is aimed at covering up their own fault for not putting people's lives first and failing to contain the epidemic in the United States, said the commentary under the byline of Zhong Sheng.

Sparing no effort to save lives is deeply ingrained in the Chinese psyche, which has been fully demonstrated in China's all-out efforts to battle the novel coronavirus, it said.

However, seven U.S. senators recently sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, maliciously slandering China for "engaging in its most egregious human rights abuse" during the epidemic.

Medical workers take care of a COVID-19 patient whose nucleic acid test result has turned negative in a ward at the west campus of the Union Hospital affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, April 24, 2020. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

The groundless criticism was not echoed by others. John Ross, former director of Economic and Business Policy of London, said that China has "a real understanding of human rights" and "the key human right is to stay alive."

The right to life is among the most basic human rights enshrined in the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" of the United Nations.

The so-called "human rights abuse" fabricated by some ill-intentioned U.S. politicians constitutes an affront to Chinese people's anti-virus fight, the article said.

Noting that the Chinese government has been placing people's lives and health as the top priority, the article gave a clear illustration of how the country went all out to save every COVID-19 patient, regardless of the cost.

It also pointed out that China has taken solid actions to assist other countries and regions in beating the coronavirus and made great contributions to international human rights endeavors.

Photo taken on April 27, 2020 shows people posing for a photo with the face masks donated by China's Fujian Province in Oregon, the United States. Governor of the U.S. state of Oregon Kate Brown expressed her heartfelt thanks to China for its donation of 50,000 medical face masks from Oregon's sister province Fujian. (Xinhua)

Starting Jan. 3, China began to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) and countries including the United States of the pneumonia outbreak of unknown cause and response measures on a regular basis. The United States, however, squandered two months that could have been used to prepare for the response measures, the article said.

To curb the spread of the virus, Chinese people had voluntarily stayed at home and governments at all levels in China had taken resolute and effective measures in the anti-virus fight. In contrast, after the numbers of confirmed cases and fatalities surged in the United States, departments of the U.S. government were bickering over appropriations for coronavirus containment.

No wonder American media reports called the U.S. government's response to the crisis "disastrous," the article said.

A self-proclaimed "global human rights defender," the United States is, in fact, notorious in its own human rights record.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gives a speech via video during a virtual Briefing on China's Experience on COVID-19 Response in Beijing, capital of China, March 12, 2020. (National Health Commission/Handout via Xinhua)

As COVID-19 continues to take a heavy toll globally, the United States announced that it would halt funding to the WHO, a move denounced by medical journal The Lancet as "a crime against humanity," the article said, adding that the U.S. sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries have severely impeded the epidemic control efforts in these countries.

"What kind of 'human rights' is this?" the article asked.

Without life or health, human rights cannot be, it said, urging certain U.S. politicians to stop chanting empty slogans and start caring for the lives of U.S. citizens. 
Foreign tourists walk with their suitcases on Ly Thai To Street in Hanoi, March 26 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

A massive drop in international tourists arrivals saw Q1 revenues of Hanois three to five star hotels fall 49 percent year-on-year.

According to a new Savills Vietnam report, the average occupancy rate of three to five star hotels in Hanoi fell by 30 percent in the first quarter as a result of the steep fall in foreign tourist arrivals as the country imposed strict entry restrictions and also suspended all international flights. The average room rate in the first quarter for these hotels was down 13 percent year-on-year, the report said.

It said the four-star and three-star segments were heavily affected with average revenues plunging 60 percent, forcing many to temporarily suspend operations and let their staff take unpaid leave.

Data from the citys Department of Tourism show 153 hotels in Hoan Kiem and Dong Da Districts in the downtown area have shut down between February and March.

The capital has approximately 9,950 rooms in 66 hotels, 16 of which are five-star, 19 are four-star and 31 are three-star.

The occupancy rate is unlikely to recover in the second quarter as Vietnam continues restricting entry of foreign nationals and requiring those few who are allowed to enter to be quarantined for 14 days.

Hospitality and tourism have been hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis. Foreign tourist arrivals in Hanoi in the first quarter has been estimated at 756,000, down 37 percent year-on-year. Totally, Hanoi tourist arrivals in the first quarter dropped to a five-year low at 3.85 million and revenues fell 40 percent to VND15.6 trillion ($668.5 million), according to the citys department of tourism.

Hanoi last year welcomed 29 million tourists and related revenues hit VND103.8 trillion ($4.5 billion) for respective year-on-year increases of 10 percent and 34 percent.
British Airways is one of the firms represented by Airlines UK.

Prayitno via Compfight cc

The UK's airline industry association warned that the country would be "completely shut off from the rest of the world" if a proposal to quarantine everyone who arrives in the country for 14 days is implemented.

The CEO of Airlines UK, which represents many of the UK's major airlines, said the UK should be "leading internationally with health and aviation authorities on common standards, including health screening."

Unlike many other European countries, the UK has not closed its borders to international arrivals despite being one of the countries worst-hit by COVID-19.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The UK's airline industry association, Airlines UK, said the country would be "completely shut off from the rest of the world" if a proposal to quarantine everyone who arrives in the country is implemented.

The British government is considering quarantining every person who arrives in the country for a period of 14 days.

Tim Alderslade, the CEO of Airlines UK  which represents many of the UK's major airlines  said the UK should be "leading internationally with health and aviation authorities on common standards, including health screening."

Speaking to BBC News, Alderslade said: "The danger is it would be a blunt tool measure when what the UK should be doing is leading internationally with health and aviation authorities on common standards, including health screening, which will enable our sector to restart and give people assurances that it's safe to travel."

The UK has not closed its borders to international arrivals despite being one of the countries worst-hit by COVID-19.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who contracted and then recovered from COVID-19, said last week that the UK was "past the peak" of the virus.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Colorado is "moving in the right direction," with the daily growth rate of coronavirus cases at 1.4% as of Sunday, and the daily growth rate of hospitalizations at 0.1%, Gov. Jared Polis said Monday.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  The most recent list of restrictions and delays because of the COVID-19 coronavirus is below. Fridays list can be seen here.

Monday, May 4, 2020

Construction, manufacturing and distribution operations will resume today. Offices also can reopen. Masks are required at businesses, aside from a list of exceptions.

The Cleveland Metroparks is canceling summer activities. This includes Edgewater LIVE and Euclid Beach LIVE concert series and summer camps. The water taxi connecting the east and west banks of the Flats wont operate this summer. The Ledge Pool is also closed. Metroparks rental spaces are closed through September. The Metroparks Zoo remains closed.

The city of Cleveland asked scooter-rental companies to temporarily pull their vehicles from the city as a precaution related to the coronavirus crisis.

Lake Erie fishing guides will be allowed by the Ohio Department of Health to begin taking customers walleye fishing on Lake Erie starting May 12.

Holden Arboretum in Lake County will reopen on May 12.
There wasnt a sticky bun to be found at Madisons Bakery in Cape May by noon on Sunday  and that was a positive sign.

The Beach Avenue bakery sold out of most of its sweet treats, which employee Samantha King said was a good problem to have especially with how tough the pandemic has had on local businesses in the Shore town.

Sunshine and temperatures in the 70s brought more traffic to the southernmost Jersey Shore town this weekend, but with restrictions put in place by Gov. Phil Murphy and local officials to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, businesses say theyre struggling. Some say they may not be able to recover.

It has definitely been trying, especially since were opening another location right on the Washington Street Mall in the middle of a pandemic, King said. "That has been a little tough. Normally, we would have been open the second week in March. Our usual clientele was used to having us open a couple of weeks ago, so they have not been able to come in and get things, so that hurts a small business.

Mohamed Abdel-Salam, owner of Louie's Pizza in Cape May, makes a pizza, Sunday, May 3, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

With Murphy reversing the closure of state and county parks and some towns opening beaches, many people took the opportunity to get outdoors this weekend for a walk on the sand to see the ocean or ride a bike around their favorite Jersey Shore town.

The extra people allowed businesses allowed to be open to score some much-needed business after the coronavirus forced several changes to how they operate.

Behind Madisons Bakery, longtime Louies Pizza owner Mohamed Abdel-Salam was preparing a pie to place in the oven. Abdel-Salam finds himself in the same predicament as other eateries in the city. Adbel-Salam was happy to see an uptick in traffic  and sales  this weekend, but he was worried about the longterm future of his business and others that were surrounding him.

The weekend has been great, but the business is doing terrible because the hotels do not rent to anybody, and that affects us, Abdel-Salam said. As long as the hotels are closed, we cannot do anything.

Lauren Breeze, of Cape May, picks up an order of ice cream from Dustin Piccolo co-owner of Fine Fellows Creamery in Cape May, Sunday, May 3, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Down the street, Fine Fellows Creamery co-owner Dustin Piccolo was serving up Moosetracks and Guatemalan Ripple ice cream the people have come to know in Cape May. Piccolo said they have had to adjust by only opening on weekends, and taking extra precautions to make sure the food and customers safety remain on par.

We were closed for three weeks just to make sure that everything was cleaned in the shop, sanitize everything in the shop to make sure that we keep everyone safe, Piccolo said. We are not allowing people to come into the shop, and are just doing the curbside pickups. We are also changing gloves every single time we have a customer and using hand sanitizer to make sure they remain safe."

At the tip of New Jersey in Cape May Point, there were a large number of people, distanced appropriately, walking about the beach, with some children taking the time to play in the sand and intermittently running to the Atlantic Ocean.

Michale Neil, of Erial, gives his 14-month-old daughter Autumn a snack while visiting Cape May Point, Sunday, May 3, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Erial resident Michael Neal was at Cape May Point beach with his family. Neal said it was a good escape after being inside for an extended period of time.

It is nice to be out and just enjoying the weather, Neal said. We have been confined in the house with the kids, and we were losing our minds. It is nice to have some space and get out. There is something calming about the ocean."

Atlantic City is one of the few Jersey Shore towns that left its boardwalk open  even though all the casinos and hotels have been shuttered. The warm weather, however, brought more people to the resort town on Sunday.

The boardwalk itself was bustling with people riding bikes, jogging, or walking along with their families.

People enjoy a warm day on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, Sunday, May 3, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

People enjoy a warm day on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, Sunday, May 3, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

At the boardwalk entrance near South Rhode Island Avenue, several vehicles were packed close together, with silver and blue balloons that spelled out happy birthday hanging outside of them. Outside of the vehicles, 17 people were together, celebrating the guest of honors birthday.

While it may have been a good day for visitors who have been quarantining at home for weeks on end, not everyone was enjoying the situation. Standing outside their boardwalk businesses, Asif Ansari and Mohamed Salam looked at what could have been.

Ansari owns a clothing and souvenir shop on the 1500 block of the boardwalk, while Salam owns Marios Pizza. Ansari and Salam had been experiencing a healthy amount of business before the pandemic struck. Now, the two are having a tough time, with Ansari being closed altogether.

We do not know if we will be able to open when this is done, Ansari said. That is how bad it is. We do not have the rent money. We hope our landlords will work with us. We even have not gotten any help from the government.

Ansari added he has also seen a majority of people not wearing face coverings as they move about the boardwalk. Though they are not required outdoors, Murphy strongly encouraged people to wear face coverings when he reopened parks and golf courses Saturday.

I still see about 80% of people walking around without a mask, Ansari said. It is dangerous for us, and I do not feel safe.

Richard Burke, manager of Big G's Tattoos on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, stand by a closed sign, Sunday, May 3, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Their business neighbor Richard Burke is also worried about his fate with Big Gs Tattoos. As the manager of the tattoo parlor, and investor to the next door amusement game business, Burke was sitting on a bench instead of helping customers. He said he is trying to find assistance for his $84,000 lease and is facing the possibility of not being able to pay the rent.

I do not know when were going to open up again, and Im very stressed out, Burke said. We need to open up. We need to get Atlantic City back, and we need to go to work now.

Fred and Arlene, of Philadelphia, relax on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, Sunday, May 3, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Chris Franklin Here may be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com.

Tim Hawk may be reached at thawk@njadvancemedia.com.
COLUMBIA, Md. (May 1, 2020)The number of new unemployment claims filed in Maryland dropped each week in April but the downward trend is of little comfort to the state's small-business owners as the reopening of the state remains uncertain.



"I think it's very little solace for small-business ownersparticularly for those that are self-employed, independent contractors, gig workers that are now newly eligible for unemployment benefits," Mike O'Hallaron, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business told MarylandReporter.com in a phone interview on Friday. "And I know the administration is doing everything they can to rectify the IT issues they've been having with their contractor and with the system. But the fact remains is that even with these lower numbers, this is still the greatest crisis facing the business community since the Great Depression."



"So, while yes, the numbers are trending downward, it's very little solace to our employers that are very anxious to get back to work so they can get their employees off those long waiting lines just to file their claims."



O'Halloran said the state has treated some small businesses better than others during the pandemic and that that is not fair.



"We still don't understand, why, for instance, a liquor store can offer curbside but your Main Street retail shop cannot. Obviously, the sort of best practices, the safety protocolsthose best practices are already being instituted. So, why then, have winners and losers been picked? So, we would suggest that curbside pickup can begin right now."



During the week that ended on April 25, 37,225 initial claims were filed, according to the Maryland Department of Labor. The state introduced a new one-stop filing system called Beacon on April 24 due to complaints related to a backlog in claims and excessive wait times before being able to file. During the week that ended on April 18, 47,545 new claims were filed. During the week that ended on April 11, 61,770 new claims were filed and during the week that ended on April 4, 108,508 claims were filed.



Frederick County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rick Weldon said the decline may be due to ongoing technical issues with the department's Division of Unemployment website.



"I'm hopeful that the downward trend continues, but I'm a little worried that reductions in applications might also reflect some level of frustration with the enrollment system itself. The structural issues with the website and software have been widely acknowledged, including a recent honest assessment by Governor Hogan himself."



However, Weldon said the longer Gov. Larry Hogan's stay-at-home order remains in effect, the more claims are likely to be filed.



"The obvious worry is that continuing the shelter requirement into May means more employers face serious cash/income shortages, leading to future layoffs and more enrollments."



Hogan issued executive orders closing bars, restaurants, theaters and gyms effective March 16. He issued a stay-at-home order for Marylanders on March 30. Both orders are still in effect and do not have a projected end date although Hogan has said the state could be ready to begin to reopen in the next few weeks if certain criteria are met. Over 30 million claims were filed in the U.S. during the past six weeks, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.



Maryland Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Christine Ross said the latest unemployment numbers were "largely anticipated and indicative of the massive economic impact of the COVID 19 pandemic."



Ross elaborated on that point.



"There are many variables that may have contributed to the data that was reported. While I am not in a position to comment on the specifics, what I do know is that Maryland's employers are eager to put people back to work. Maryland's business leaders are busy preparing for what reopening our economy will look like so that we can get people back to work as expeditiously as possible once given the go-ahead."



Senate President Bill Ferguson said in a statement on Friday that his office has been "inundated with constituent case work from too many residents who are unable to access the unemployment insurance benefits they are entitled to." Ferguson said the Beacon system has "fallen well-short of what was promised." Ferguson said he will continue to urge the Department of Labor to fix the glitches in the system.
In an effort to reach a population particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, Newark began testing its homeless residents for the virus on Monday morning.

The voluntary process launched at an airport hotel that serves as emergency homeless housing for 194 and the goal is to ultimately offer tests to all of the roughly 2,200 homeless people living in the states most populous city.

Newark partnered with the hotel operator last month as part of a plan by Mayor Ras J. Baraka to provide short-term housing for the citys homeless  called residents without addresses in Newark  as the pandemic raged around the globe.

The city is now sheltering more than 1,800 people in 21 locations on a daily basis in an effort to slow transmission of COVID-19.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

This was a critical part of our strategy, Baraka said in a statement. We had to get these people off the street and inside for their own safety and the safety of others. We were able to entice many of them to come indoors, and today we start testing those who have so far been asymptomatic, to gather more data about how this disease has spread.

The homeless face a greater chance of contracting the virus and spreading it because of their unpredictable movements  its hard to shelter in place when you dont have a place  and the fact that this virus can be spread by those showing no symptoms, explained Dr. Mark Wade, director of Newarks Department of Health and Community Wellness. The department is conducting the tests and Wade is leading the effort.

It doesnt give an opportunity for the virus to be controlled in terms of its spread, Wade said.

Dr. Mark Wade, director of the Newark Department of Health and Community Wellness, watches as they begin testing the city's homeless population for COVID-19 in the parking lot of a local hotel on Monday, May 4, 2020.Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

Newark officials described the citywide homeless testing campaign as a first in New Jersey and possibly the nation.

After the hotel, testing will continue until all 21 homeless shelters have been covered.

Wade described an aggressive outreach and engagement program intended to make contact with these residents on the streets and encourage them to come indoors. The city contracts with Bridges, Inc., a homeless outreach organization, which is out in the community on a daily basis interacting with these citizens.

We literally have a hotel room for them to shelter in, Wade said Monday, adding that they receive three meals a day and access to various medical services in a safe environment.

For its testing, the city is using a new and less-intrusive nasal swabbing method thats more comfortable, quicker to apply and safer for the medical staff, Wade said. Every staff member at each shelter is also being tested.

Test results are returned in 24 to 48 hours.

Anyone who tests positive will be quarantined for 14 days under medical supervision, unless they require hospitalization.

They will quarantine in a separate hotel already designated for COVID positive homeless residents, Wade said. Once cleared, they would return to their original shelters.

Newark begins testing its homeless population for COVID-19 in the parking lot of a local hotel on Monday, May 4, 2020. Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

While the city cannot force someone to seek treatment or self-quarantine, we have public health and the law behind us, Ward said, noting that a positive patient could no longer stay in one of the non-COVID shelters. His hope is that the various professionals involved, including medical and mental health providers, will convince residents to follow treatment recommendations.

Some homeless residents previously tested positive for the virus, Ward said, though he didnt have figures available Monday.

Those being tested under the program rolled out this week are asymptomatic, since anyone already showing symptoms would have previously been referred for treatment, Ward noted.

Gloves and masks have been distributed to homeless citizens as part of the outreach effort.

I think we have collectively been successful in helping these residents without addresses to understand the gravity of the COVID-19 crisis and are getting them to safety, which is not always an easy thing to do, Wade said. This has been a novel, life-saving approach and I dont know of another major city in the country that has done this.

Newarks Contact Tracing Task Force, which tries to identify anyone who may have come in contact with an infected person, will take on any positive cases from the homeless testing program. The task force has a goal of tracing about 500 cases a day across the city.

Those working with Newark on the homeless testing program include Salvation Army, Bridges, Inc. Outreach and Engagement, the Newark Homeless Coalition, the Essex Continuum of Care and the Newark Homeless Commission.

As of Sunday, Newark has reported 5,805 positive cases and 443 deaths, while all of Essex County has seen 14,624 cases and 1,282 deaths. Statewide, the death toll is more than 7,900.

Newark begins testing its homeless population for COVID-19 in the parking lot of a local hotel on Monday, May 4, 2020. Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

Photographer Patti Sapone contributed to this report.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
The policy was the creation of UIUC Gies College of Business Dean Jeff Brown and two other university professors, Tim Johnson and Morton Lane. The three collaborated with Andrew Martin, a Besso broker who syndicated the deal through Lloyds.

The coverage placed was innovative and required us to design the product as nothing like it had been done before, Martin told Yahoo Finance. The foresight of Dean Jeff Brown and the structuring skills of Dr. Morton Lane was a fortuitous combination that resulted in what may prove to be a valuable hedge for the University of Illinois.

Martin added that he has worked with Dr. Lane over many years in creating other insurance financial products, and that Lloyds underwriters collaborated with the UIUC team to develop an insurance program that met the universitys requirements.

UIUCs policy provides up to $61 million in coverage to match the revenue generated from Chinese students enrolled in both the business and engineering schools; the terms trigger if both schools saw a combined revenue decline of at least 18.5% from a loss in Chinese students. Both colleges have been paying $424,000 a year in premiums.

To the universitys luck, all three stipulated events have occurred: US immigration policies continue to tighten under the Trump administration; the country has also been embroiled in a trade war with China since 2018; and, of course, the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Brown in a previous statement in 2018, Chinese students account for about 11% of UIUCs total student population  these students are responsible for a fifth of the Gies College of Businesss revenue.
The Maharashtra Congress on Monday



said it would bear the fare for people being transported to their native states on 'Shramik Special' trains amid the lockdown for the coronavirus outbreak, and accused the Narendra Modi government of leaving such stranded migrants and poor to fend for themselves.

These trains are being run from point to point on the request of states to clear stranded labourers etc amid strict social distancing norms.

Maharashtra Congress unit chief Balasaheb Thorat tweeted, "The Modi govt left the stranded workers to fend for themselves. Many have been walking for hundreds of kilometres to reach home. Now, as per the announcement made by @INCIndia president Soniaji Gandhi, the ticket cost of these migrants will be borne by the @INCMaharashtra".

Earlier in the day, Congress president Sonia Gandhi had announced that her party would bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrant workers stranded at their workplaces due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown and seeking to return home.

With the Centre facing a backlash for not making such travel free, the ruling BJP said the railways had subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for Shramik Special trains and that the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had, on Sunday, urged the Centre to transport these people for free as they had no source of income for several weeks now due to the lockdown.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Medical reports on two detainees record bruises, swelling, and repeated vomiting following release.

Beirut, Lebanon  A senior Lebanese army source has denied that the military tortured detainees who said they were beaten with sticks and electrocuted after their arrest during riots last week.

The seven detainees in question were arrested by the army intelligence on Wednesday in the southern port city of Sidon. That night, angry protesters took to the streets across the country over the rapid depreciation of the local currency.

Some threw rocks and petrol bombs at banks and, in a small number of instances, security forces.

The Sidon detainees were accused of participating in riots and attacking soldiers, according to Lama al-Amin, a lawyer representing the detainees.

By Friday, most had not been allowed to contact a lawyer or family member in violation of regulations, al-Amin told Al Jazeera.

Al-Amin is a member of The Committee of Lawyers in Defense of Protesters, an ad hoc group born out of an unprecedented popular uprising against Lebanons establishment in October 2019.

Working with the Beirut Bar Association, al-Amin was able to get access to the detainees on Saturday at Sidons Zgheib Barracks, the local army intelligence headquarters.

They were scared, terrified, and had been beaten, she said. They told me about all the torture they had undergone. Two said they had been electrocuted.





Six were released that day with one more remaining in custody. Three were taken straight to the hospital, and two remained there on Monday.

Medical reports on two detainees showed one was repeatedly vomiting and had pain in his head and both legs. Another had bruises on his back and pain in his right shoulder and both legs, in addition to swelling on the soles of both of his feet.

The lawyers committee said a number of those held had been electrocuted, beaten with sticks, insulted and threatened.

Alaa Antar, one of the young men who remains in hospital, declined to comment citing his medical condition.

The army source said an investigation had found no torture occurred. If they have any complaints to put forward, they have the right to do that here. Our doors are open, the source said.

Judge Peter Germanos, the government commissioner to the military court, has asked the investigative branch of army intelligence to carry out an investigation into the allegations of torture, and asked that he be informed of the results.

Growing concern

The torture allegations come after a week of fiery protests and riots in Lebanon in response to the rapid depreciation of the local currency, amid growing unemployment and fears that hunger could become widespread.

The Lebanese army has used tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, and live fire to quell riots and open blocked roads, injuring dozens.

As a result of wounds sustained from live fire by soldiers, 26-year-old protester Fawaz al-Semman died on April 28.

The military said more than 150 of its personnel were wounded in attempts to control riots last week.





Its recent handling of protests has brought heavy criticism from rights groups, in addition to protesters, many of whom formerly saw the army as one of the only respectable institutions in a country that regularly ranks as one of the most corrupt in the world.

The Human Rights Watch said the army unjustifiably used excessive, including lethal, force against protesters in Tripoli.

If proven, the allegations of the army torturing a detained protester  soon after the killing of a demonstrator last week  is a troubling escalation in their attempt to stifle dissent, Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at the HRW, told Al Jazeera.

He said the army should investigate the allegations and hold those responsible to account.

Such potential blatant violations of the law cannot be allowed to continue with impunity, Page said.

The army in 2017 was widely accused of torturing a number of Syrian detainees, leading to the death of four in their custody.

The military never said whether any personnel were held accountable in the case, and officially blamed the deaths on pre-existing illnesses.

Down with military rule

Protesters from different parts of Lebanon met in Tripoli on Sunday and marched to the family home of the 26-year-old who was killed by the army last week.

Those who kill their people are traitors, some chanted. Down with the rule of the military.

A demonstrator who has come to be known simply as Jack The Flag, a reference to the large Lebanese flag he carries, accused the army of safeguarding the political elite.

Its quite simple  if you treat us like citizens asking for our rights, we will be the first ones to protect you, he told Al Jazeera.

But the army, like the rest of the Lebanese state, is prone to favouritism and sectarianism and political quotas. Recently they are not protecting us  they are standing in our way.
The CEO of Southwest Airlines, one of the largest US air companies, has insisted that it is safe for travellers to fly again.

He also said that air traffic, nearly paralyzed by the coronavirus pandemic, was gradually reviving.

Asked on CBS whether it was safe to fly again, Gary Kelly replied, 'It is. We're doing everything possible to encourage people to come back and fly.'

He said his airline was taking a number of safety precautions. Passengers and crew members will be required to wear masks, planes will receive deep cleaning between flights and some seats will be left empty to allow a degree of social distancing.

The CEO of Southwest Airlines, one of the largest US air companies, has insisted that it is safe for travellers to fly again

'I don't think the risk on an airplane is any greater risk than anywhere else,' Kelly said.

'You look at the layered approach that we use, it's as safe as any environment you're going to find.'

Kelly's remarks come after other major airlines, including Delta, United, American, and JetBlue, announced that passengers would be required to wear protective masks on flights.

Kelly also said he believes the worst has passed for the industry.

'I think we've seen the bottom here,' he said. 'Each week after the first week of April has gotten successively better. I don't think June will be a good month, but we're looking forward to July and August.'

He acknowledged, however, that things remain in flux.

'There are bookings in place, but those could easily be canceled,' he said. 'It is one day at a time.'

Kelly said nearly 400 of the airline's fleet has been grounded during the lockdown.

Asked on CBS whether it was again safe to fly, Gary Kelly (pictured) replied, 'It is. We're doing everything possible to encourage people to come back and fly.'

Kelly's announcement about the introduction of new safety precautions comes as Heathrow's Chief Executive John Holland-Kaye today warned that there simply isn't enough space in airports to keep each passenger 6ft apart.

Plans to introduce post-lockdown social distancing at airports 'won't work' and will lead to queues snaking for up to half a mile to board each large plane, he said.

Southwest has received $3.2 billion in emergency assistance from the government and has applied for an additional loan, but Kelly said he was not sure it would be needed.

He said the government's relief plan had given the markets sufficient confidence that his company was able to raise an additional $6 billion last week.

'I think we have what we need to see our way through,' Kelly said.

'We have until September to make that decision' on additional government aid.'

The federal assistance is conditioned on companies preserving jobs until the end of September.

But the Southwest chief said that unless the recovery starts to kick in by July, the company might have to order a first round of layoffs.

He said the last measure for the financially strapped air carrier would be involuntary furloughs for the airline's more than 60,000 employees.

The Trump administration is distributing $25 billion in emergency assistance to airline companies, which employ some 750,000 workers in the United States.

The celebrated investor Warren Buffett, ranked as the world's fourth richest man, said Saturday that he had made a mistake by investing in the four biggest US airlines, including Southwest.

He said his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate had sold all its airline shares, including the 10 percent of Southwest shares it had held.
It is getting more difficult to watch or believe Democrats who have suddenly forgotten what they used to say about Judge Brett Kavanaugh a year and a half ago.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel was right on target when she said this at ABC:

I'm going to take issue  I'm going to take issue with the media ignoring this. It has been appalling, the hypocrisy, as to how Brett Kavanaugh was treated versus Joe Biden. Brett Kavanaugh, every accuser was put on TV. It was wall-to-wall coverage. They went into his high school yearbook. They said he needed an FBI investigation. Michael Avenatti was on TV accusing him of gang rape from an accuser who'd never even met Brett Kavanaugh. And then you go to Joe Biden. Five weeks of silence. Nineteen interviews without a single question. He won't let people go into his records in the University of Delaware. They're calling on the DNC to do the investigation. It went from MeToo, MeToo, MeToo, to Move on, Move on, Move on in a nanosecond because he's a Democrat and the hypocrisy is appalling and it's not just from the Democrats, it's from the media, and I'll tell you, I think any outlet that conducted those 19 interviews and didn't ask a single question should be disqualified from conducting any part of a presidential debate.

Well said, Ronna.

Most Americans remember the way that Judge Kavanaugh and his family were treated on national TV.

And now you read that Kirsten Powers deleted her Kavanaugh tweets.

As Ronna said, the left wants to move on when a Democrat is accused and that's hypocrisy of the worst kind.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
What is Joe Bidens case for the presidency?

The most obvious answer, of course, is that hes not Donald Trump. Thats a perfectly legitimate argument to make, and it might be enough to get the job done. Biden has already hinted that he views himself as a placeholder for the next generation of Democratic Party leaders.

If, however, Bidens case for the presidency is predicated on his nearly 50 years of public service, he is a failure without many peers. This is not my position; this is Joe Bidens position.

There are numerous reasons that Biden might resist opening his Senate papers from 1973 to 2009 (and his vice-presidential papers from 2009 to 2016) that have little to do with the accusations of sexual assault made by Tara Reade. None of them are very persuasive.

His papers do not cover personal business dealings in the private sector; they cover his time working for the people of the United States. The University of Delaware had initially promised that Bidens records were to be made public two years after he retired from public office. That was in 2017.

On top of that, the justification Biden offers for holding back the release of his papers is astoundingly weak: They are documents that existed and that for example when I go, when I met with Putin or when I met with whomever, he said in his recent video interview on MSNBC. And all of that to be fodder in a campaign at this time.

Dear Lord, werent we just subjected to four years of panic-stricken news cycles warning us that Russia and the president had schemed to crush American democracy? Yet here is Biden arguing that he wont share documents amassed while he was forging foreign policy because they include conversations with Vladimir Putin, our most dastardly geopolitical foe ever.

Looking back at the Obama administrations history of placating the Russian strongman, a habit we can reasonably suspect was far more pronounced in private than public, we should probably assume the papers would explode the already-tenuous myth that Biden has a history of being tough on Russia.

Story continues

The predicament of releasing his papers isnt that they might be taken out of context, as Biden alleges, but that they will give far too much context.

Even beyond Putin, Bidens papers are sure to include the candidates thoughts on the most consequential political debates of the past half century: war, abortion, segregation, China, criminal justice, and the culture war.

Perhaps his papers would shed light on why Biden voted for welfare reform and the Defense of Marriage Act and an immoral border wall? Maybe it will give voters some context as to why he voted to repeal GlassSteagall, the supposed root of the 2007 great recession? Or why he advocated against green-lighting the raid that killed Osama bin Laden?

These days, Biden likes to pretend he was a fierce opponent of the invasion of Iraq, when in reality he turned critical only after the democracy-building went south. Biden stood in front of Congress in 2002, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and argued for war.

The historic record already shows that Biden was far more than just civil with segregationists early in his career: He engaged in obsequious efforts to gain their trust for committee seats and worked with them on issues such as busing.

While in the Senate, Biden supported virtually every expansion of the drug war and mass incarceration, coauthoring the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Biden gave passionate speeches on the Senate floor arguing that one could be a progressive and lock the SOBs up. Now Biden claims to regret 1990s crime bill, calling it a big mistake.

Maybe Bidens papers can provide some ideological framework to his recent embrace of an extremist abortion position as well. In 1976, Biden voted for the Hyde Amendment, a somewhat toothless law banning federal funds to pay for abortion. (In 1993, he voted to save the Hyde Amendment.) Today, Biden supports overturning the Hyde Amendment and believes that taxpayers should fund the procedure on demand until crowning. There still exists a Biden amendment, which was added to the Foreign Assistance Act in 1981 to ban American aid from being used in research related to abortions. In 1982, Biden proposed a law allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade. In 1984, Biden supported the Mexico City policy, banning federal funding for organizations that provide abortion or expand abortion services. Both in 1995 and 1997, Biden voted for partial-birth abortion bans vetoed by Bill Clinton. There are probably some interesting correspondences in his papers dealing with 40 years of pro-life advocacy.

Its this history, Biden argues, that makes him uniquely competent to be president. Its also this history he ignores. Bidens senatorial experience entails four decades of making decisions and supporting public policy he now claims to regret. Indeed, its difficult to recall a single issue on which Biden has kept a principled and consistent position over the years. His papers would likely put an exclamation point on that reality.

Of course, theres nothing wrong with changing your mind. We all do it. Most of us, however, can expound on the evolution in our thinking; the events or facts that impelled us to rethink our perceptions. Biden has never explained himself on most of these flip-flops.

Its unlikely that most Democratic Party voters (or any voters) are acutely concerned with a politicians malleable policy positions. They want Trump gone. Yet setting aside the hypocritical standards and coverage of sexual-abuse allegations, both the medias and his own, release of these papers would probably force Biden, who struggles to articulate much of anything these days, to explain why hes made a 180 on virtually all notable policy stances. As a recent New York magazine piece put it, Biden is at his best when hes neither speaking nor appearing in public. For Democrats, Biden is best because Biden is not Trump.

As his papers would likely prove, thats about it.

More from National Review
Earlier, Cherkasy mayor ordered to weaken lockdown measures in the city. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov claimed that the response to the weakening of the lockdown in Cherkasy wil be a "tough one"

Residents of Cherkasy, central Ukraine witnessed an increased security mode, as military vehicles and patrol units of the National Guard appeared on the streets. Chief municipal inspector of the city Stanislav Kolomiyets placed his video record on Facebook, showing how it happened.

"Last night (May 3, - 112 International), National Guard vehicles packed with fighters appeared on the streets of Cherkasy. I spotted one of these vehicles next to my house, and I wondered why the unprecedented security boost. They told me they were "patrolling," an MP of the local city council said.

According to him, the day before, he urged people to come and support their mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko, who was summoned for an interrogation at the National Police main department's building in Cherkasy. "Hundreds of people were ready to show up; however, the interrogation was postponed for an indefinite period of time", the MP said.

Stanislav Kolomiyets assumes that the government could fear resistance and mass protests in the city, which is why the military stepped in.

On May 2, mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko also said the central government was "afraid of mayors of regional capitals", and the decisions that could me made by the local authority.

On April 30, Cherkasy mayor ordered to weaken the lockdown measures in the city, allowing the citizens to visit parks and most of the shops. President Zelensky, in his address, promised "legal consequences" for such a decision. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov claimed that the response to the weakening of the lockdown in Cherkasy will be a "tough one."




The Chinese Embassy in Nigeria has in a recent statement stated that it was unfortunate that the global pandemic, Coronavirus emanated from Wuhan in China, noting that the country was just a victim of the COVID-19 which its described as a common enemy to mankind.

The country, however, urged the international community to avoid the blame game and consider pulling hands together to fight the pandemic.

Former vice president for the World Banks Africa Region, Oby Ezekwesili, was however condemned in the statement delivered and signed by the Sun Saixiong, Press Secretary for the Embassy, for demanding compensation from China over the Coronavirus pandemic.

Saixiong noted that China has been open, transparent and responsible since the outbreak of the dreadful virus, noting it was not a perpetrator or an accomplice of the pandemic.

Naija News understands that SaiXiong was reacting to an earlier statement by Ezekwesili which demands that China should compensate Africa nations for damages caused by the killer virus.

Her statement reads, China must pay for failing to manage COVID-19, which had severely injured Africas development prospects and worsened the conditions of the poor, as reported on The Washington Post.

Ezekwesili pointed out that the best solution to ease the pains caused by the pandemic was for China to accord damages and liability compensation to Africa.

According to her, China has failed to act responsibly to the dreadful virus which has claimed thousands of lives, and hence Africa must not be made to suffer more for their act.

Saixiong, however, in his statement berated Ezekwesilis claims, asking her if anyone has ever challenged the United States or asked them to offer compensations for the 2009 H1N1 flu.

The Chinese Embassy, however, charged Ezekwesili to respect facts, science, and international consensus and stop fooling around with blame games.

Part of the statement reads: Did anyone ask the US to offer compensation for the 2009 H1N1 flu, which was first diagnosed before breaking out on a large scale in the US and then spread to 214 countries and regions, killing nearly 200,000 people? AIDS was first reported in the US in the 1980s and then swept across the world, including Africa, causing untold sufferings to countless victims.

China has taken the most comprehensive, rigorous and thorough measures to contain its spread and conduct international cooperation. In this process, China has made tremendous sacrifices, accumulated valuable experience, and made significant contributions to the global response. The international community bears witness to and applauds Chinas efforts and progress,

We must understand that our enemy is the virus, not China. The international community can only defeat the virus by pulling together. Attacking and discrediting others will not save time and lives lost.

Meanwhile, Africans Union Special envoy for the fight against COVID-19, Dr Okonjo-Iweala has warned President Muhammdu Buhari of a second economic recession in his tenure.

Share this post with your Friends on
Crises are rarely good for opposition politicians, at least in the short run. People tend to rally around their leaders and dont have a lot of patience for the professional critics.

Canadas Conservative Party, however, has taken a tough situation and made it even worse. At crucial moments in the COVID-19 crisis its leader and the candidates vying to replace him have taken careful aim and shot themselves in the foot.

They have, in short, shown that so far at least theyve learned nothing from their defeat last fall. They dont seem able to rise to this truly unprecedented occasion, and by all appearances theyre still running scared in the face of the right-wing forces that have such a grip on the partys base.

If there was one clear lesson from the Conservatives failure to dislodge Justin Trudeaus Liberals from power, it was that they cant afford to distance themselves from urban and suburban voters in central Canada.

If they want to be a party of power, theyre going to have to appeal to voters in the centre of the political spectrum. Its simple electoral math.

Yet as they chart their way into the post-pandemic world, the Conservatives are doing just the opposite. Whether driven by genuine ideological commitment or by the calculations of a leadership contest, theyre doubling down on an appeal to the social conservative right, and more generally to the concerns of rural voters who remain loyal to them.

Their reaction to the governments new measures on gun control is of a piece with that.

They must surely know that banning the sale of assault rifles  31 years, for heavens sake, after the Ecole Polytechnique massacre  will be greeted as long overdue in the countrys major cities, where almost no one needs to own a gun of any kind.

Yet the Tories lameduck leader, Andrew Scheer, focused almost entirely on what he sees as an affront to law-abiding gun owners, and on the Liberals supposed sneakiness for changing firearms regulations in the midst of a health crisis. Likewise, the apparent frontrunner to replace him, Peter MacKay, launched an attack on the Liberals crass move.

Which begs the question: do the Conservatives really want to be the party that doesnt want to ban assault rifles? Is that the hill they want to die on?

Then, of course, theres the case of Derek Sloan, the rookie Tory MP from eastern Ontario and fringe leadership candidate.

Sloan achieved his 15 minutes of fame by calling into question the patriotism of Canadas chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, by asking whether shes loyal to Canada or China.

Given Tams ethnic background, thats a clearly racist attack  Sloans disingenuous attempt at denial nonetheless. Its an embarrassment to the party, but at the same time it could have been an opportunity for Conservatives to disavow such bigotry.

Instead, Scheer prevaricated for the better part of a week before saying the obvious, that he doesnt believe in questioning peoples loyalty. His silence in this case was especially loud, suggesting that quite a few Conservatives may actually agree with Sloan.

To their credit, according to the Canadian Press, the partys Ontario caucus met by phone and demanded that Sloan apologize. Instead of doing that secretly, though, they should have shouted it from the rooftops  if they wanted to send a message to minority voters who are key to future victory in many suburban ridings that they can feel at home with Conservatives.

This is the decision the party must make once the new leader is known after ballots are counted on Aug. 27: will it continue to pander to a small but ideologically motivated base, or expand its appeal to the centre ground of Canadian politics?

Everyone agrees well be in a new political world once the pandemic is over. Conservatives must decide whether they want to be part of it.

Read more about:
Consider ye the porcupine of the woods; they scurry not, neither do they congregate.

But these many-quilled, solitary, nocturnal, near-sighted plodding mammals are marvels of pure defensive evolution.

And, slowly, theyre spreading down from the states Northwest Corner toward Fairfield County towns, there to lick anything salty, enchant those with a taste for the singular, and teach the family dog the mistake of charging too fast into the fray.

Amanda Branson, executive director of the Naromi Land Trust in Sherman, said theres evidence of porcupines in the trusts Herrick Preserve, in the northern part of town near the Appalachian Trail.

I can say theyre in Kent, 100 percent, Branson said. Because my dogs have been porcupined there three times.

Diane Swanson, executive director of the Pratt Nature Center in New Milford, said hikers have reported seeing a porcupine on the centers trails.

Its one of the animals I havent seen here yet, Swanson said. But they definitely live here.

But the nature preserve at the Westside campus of Western Connecticut State University in Danbury is, at present, porcupine-less.

Never, said Frank Dye, emeritus professor of biology at Western and guiding light pf the preserve, when asked if hed ever seen a porcupine there. But I would definitely be delighted to see one.

Gerri Griswold is the director of administration of White Memorial Foundation, the 4,000-acre nature preserve in Litchfield.

On the rarest of occasions, weve seen signs of them here, Griswold said. Most people dont realize they live here.

Porcupines in Connecticut are North American porcupines, to differentiate them from their South American cousins. Their Latin name  Erethizon dorsatum  can be loosely translated as the animal with the irritating back.

Theyre a member of the rodent family, second in size only to the beaver. They can weight up to 30 pounds and live for 20 years or so in the wild. Theyre found throughout the United States and Canada, south to Mexico.

Theyre comeback kids. By the early 20th century, they were mostly gone from Connecticut. Theyre woodland dwellers and much of the state had been deforested for farming. In 1935, naturalist G.C. Goodwin wrote that for many years, they have been practically unheard of in Connecticut.

Abandoned fields became forests. And slowly, porcupines returned to the state.

They came to the state from New York and Massachusetts, said Jenny Dickson, director of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protections wildlife division.

After finding a home in towns such as Colebrook and Norfolk, theyve begun to spread south.

They are definitely doing well, Dickson said.

But that spread is slow. Porcupines waddle and dont dodge cars like squirrels. Theyre prey for black bears, coyotes, fishers and great horned owls. And, unlike others rodents, theyre not good at the fruitfulness thing.

They only have one pup a year, Dickson said. (How do they mate? Very carefully.)

But said Griswold  who is a licensed animal rehabilitator and is, admittedly, a quill-waver when it comes to porcupines  said she sees them regularly near her home in Winchester.

They are just the coolest animals, she said.

Why way cool?

To begin with, each porcupine comes equipped with about 30,000 quills  hollow, barbed little lances that cover their back, sides and strong tails. They dont hurl them but the quills can come loose easily, so that any animal that lunges at a porcupine is likely to retreat with a snout full of quills. If its a dog, it also means a trip to the vet.

When threatened, porcupines also emit an odor thats been compared to really bad BO or stinky cheese.

They are largely solitary herbivores, who go it alone, rather than running with the herd or flock. They feed on buds and roots and berries in summer, evergreen needles and tree bark in winter. The can be selective, like a mouse in a maze remembering where to find a food pellet.

Each female has a 50-acre territory and they can remember which tree has their favorite food, Griswold said. They have wonderful memories.

Like skunks, they are black and white, the better to signal at night to would-be predators to steer clear. They can be noisy, with a repertoire of coughs, whines, and mewling shrieks. Baby porcupines are, cutely, called porcupettes.

All in all, Griswold said, they are a source of wonder.

It is so fascinating, she said. Theyve come up with the most unusual adaptations to survive.

Contact Robert Miller at earthmattersrgm@gmail.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 16:49:46|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A cameraman films the medical supplies donated by China in Suva, Fiji, May 4, 2020. China on Monday donated medical supplies to Fiji to help the South Pacific island nation fight against COVID-19. (Xinhua/Zhang Yongxing)

SUVA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday donated medical supplies to Fiji to help the South Pacific island nation fight against COVID-19.

Speaking at the handover ceremony of the medical supplies, Chinese Ambassador to Fiji Qian Bo said the Chinese government donated 300,000 U.S. dollars cash to the Fijian government to support its combat against COVID-19.

Qian handed 52 carton boxes of medical supplies with a total value of about 270,000 Fijian dollars (about 119,880 U.S. dollars) to further support Fiji's effort in going through the pandemic.

He said all those medical supplies will serve critical roles in protecting frontier medical staff, and identifying potential cases, so as to contribute to the medical capacity development in fighting the pandemic.

The ambassador stressed that the virus is a common enemy to all mankind. China and Fiji have a stake in each other's well-being and should stay united and work together.

"In the midst of all this crisis, humanity is still very strong and for that we are truly grateful to the People's Republic of China for you officials and for the many other organizations within China that are supporting the fight in Fiji and also the Pacific," said Fiji's Minister for Health and Medical Services Ifereimi Waqainabete.

Waqainabete said the donation from China will further strengthen Fiji's fight against the virus and also enhance the strong development partnership with China.

"Going forward, this pandemic will only make us stronger and also grant us the ability to share expertise between Fiji and China."

The minister also told Xinhua that he congratulated China for its good work to contain the COVID-19 and the expertise China has shared with the countries such as Fiji.

As for how China and Fiji can strengthen its cooperation in the field of health, especially in the battle against this deadly virus, he said the two countries connect in many ways in terms of health.

"This is not the first time we have health support from China. We had some of our health staff for training in China, and we have had some visits from China to our hospitals and health centers."

The batch of medical supply to Fiji on Monday, the first of its kind by the Chinese government after the outbreak early this year, includes 1,000 pieces of medical disposable protective clothing, 1,000 pieces of medical protective goggles and 1,000 pieces of N95 protective face masks among others.

According to Qian, a batch of face masks donated by China's Jiangmen Municipal Government of Guangdong Province, and other batches of medical supplies donated by the Chinese people from all walks of life will be arriving in Fiji very soon.

Earlier next week, 1,000 tests of PCR diagnosis test kits donated by the Chinese government, and medical supplies donated by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, by Guangdong Provincial Government and Chinese companies in Fiji are expected to arrive via a French Polynesian courtesy chartered flight.
Health experts from the private and public sectors have estimated that a vaccine for a new strain of disease would usually take up to 18 months of development, at least.

At a Fox News Virtual Town Hall, Trump affirmed his prediction that a vaccine will be available by the end of the year.

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci supported this practicality, saying that it was achievable for national laboratories to produce a vaccine that will be made accessible for all if "things fall in the right place."

Coronavirus in the United States

During the briefing, Trump clarified that his utmost priority at the moment was the pandemic, and so his impending impeachment and the November elections were not raised. The president was especially concerned about the effect the pandemic had on his family.

Last month, his estimates of the coronavirus deaths would be at 60,000. Trump's current forecast for this month has significantly swelled to 100,000 Americans in the worst-case scenario.

"I said a terrible thing has happened," Trump said, about having a talk with his son and grandchildren about the pandemic. He said without the intervention of the federal administration, the minimum death toll would have doubled. "Our country's going to be bigger, better, and stronger than ever before."

Trump attributed this mitigation strategy to his orders of closing down borders to China and other countries which were heavily impacted by COVID-19. Another factor that he said was temporarily shutting down the U.S. economy. Some states are now reopening businesses this month as quarantine measures loosen.

The president said that a lot of people wanted to go outside, acknowledging the protests all across the nation, which he called meaningfully. "We have to get [the economy to] open safely, but we have to get it open as quickly as possible."

Check these out!

"China Made a Mistake"

At the rate that national healthcare systems and laboratories were going, Trump predicted that the United States would manufacture its own antibiotics within two years. This meant that the U.S. would no longer rely on the importation of supplies and equipment from other countries, such as China.

In the same press conference, Trump called out the World Health Organization for simply repackaging China's misleading claim about the coronavirus pandemic as a benign disease.

A report by Politico involving the Department of Homeland Security claimed that China delayed informing the WHO about the highly contagious nature of the coronavirus until it was too late.

In a series of tweets, Trump said that the WHO was China-centric despite the massive funds coming from the United States.

It was concluded in a research dossier by "Five Eyes" intelligence that China deliberately hid or destroyed any leads regarding the coronavirus outbreak. This was consistent with U.S. discoveries about the origins of the pandemic, which sources believed was a virus that escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.

Currently, there is an investigation ongoing into how China managed to suppress news about the coronavirus since its outbreak.
[The stream is slated to start at 9:30 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is holding a press conference Monday to update the public on the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 174,331 people in New York City, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

De Blasio announced Friday the city would open 40 miles of streets in May and nearly 100 miles to pedestrians as the weather warms.

"The open streets are going to be another way to help encourage social distancing, because the warmer weather tells us we're going to have a new challenge," de Blasio said at a press conference on Friday.

Last week, de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced New York City is suspending 24-hour subway service to disinfect subway cars and protect essential workers during the coronavirus crisis.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs the city's public transit system, will still provide buses and "dollar vans" at no cost to essential workers during those hours, Cuomo said. The subway system has been lauded for its 24-hour daily service. Service has been ordered to halt before, but rarely and usually due to natural disasters.

On Thursday, billionaire philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg provided more details on his plan to assist New York with its contact tracing efforts. He said he is developing three smartphone apps to help New York state trace every person who comes into contact with someone infected with Covid-19 to help control the spread of the virus.

Contact tracing requires scores of people to interview coronavirus patients and track down all of their contacts over the past 14 days so those people can be notified, tested and quarantined if necessary.

Read CNBC's live updates to see the latest news on the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Aarogya Setu app generates a unique ID for each user and it keeps a track of all other IDs coming in contact with it and the GPS location and time of said contact.

As countries around the world are fighting COVID-19, old systems are being repurposed using new technology with one such system being that of contact tracing. It entails identifying those who are infected with disease, advising them to be under self-quarantine and tracking down all those whom they have been in contact with to prevent the disease from further spreading.

Ordinarily, this is done through the interview method, however, given the shortage of personnel, the rapid and unexplained pace of the virus's growth as well as the likelihood of inaccurate information given by any subject, technological solutions are being looked at across the globe.

The Indian government has addressed this by creating the Aarogya Setu app.

How does it work?

The app generates a unique ID for each user and it keeps track of all other IDs coming in contact with it and the GPS location and time of said contact.

The idea being that if the Bluetooth of two phones is connecting, if one individual is found to be infected then the other individual is at a potential risk of infection.

What are the concerns?

Given the sensitive nature of data involved and the mandatory prescription for using the app, concerns about privacy violations have been raised. The Supreme Court in the 2017 Puttaswamy judgment reiterated that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right and laid down the proportionality test to assess any State restriction imposed on said right.

The proportionality test comprises these aspects: First, it must have a legislative basis and a legitimate aim must be pursued. Second, it should be a rational method to achieve the intended aim. Third, there must be no less restrictive means which can also achieve the intended aim (necessity). And fourth, the benefits must outweigh the harm caused to the right holder.

While independent arguments can be raised negating the fulfilment of each of these prongs, it is clear from the outset is that in the absence of any legislation governing this app, the criterion is not met as all these conditions have to be satisfied for the test to be fulfilled.

In addition, basic principles of data protection such as data minimisation, purpose limitation, transparency and accountability are not fulfilled. The inclusion of other services such as the PM-Cares Fund laughs in the face of the purpose limitation and scares many privacy activists of this evolving into another Aadhaar where the root purpose is needlessly clubbed with derived purposes.

The extensive personal information that the app secures is against the norm of data minimisation. In addition, the privacy policy of the app does not mention the relevant department with which the information may be shared.

Lastly, in the absence of any governing legislation, the terms of service and privacy policy play fast and loose with the data retention issue.

On to the technology, there is a possibility of false alarms as proximity does not indicate probability. Bluetooth would exchange the Unique IDs even if two people walk past each other within a certain range, while maintaining all necessary precautions, as well as people who may be sitting across different rooms and different floors. If one is found to be infected, all the concomitant user IDs would be incorrectly identified as potentially being infected.

How can this be addressed?

In the absence of a data protection legislation, there is a necessity to ensure that the government at the very least passes a legislation and if not an ordinance, which works in consonance with the principles laid down in the Puttuswamy judgment as well as those stated by Sri Krishna Committee Report on Data Protection.

Any legislative instrument should have a definite sunset clause, giving a prospective time period for how long the data acquired will be placed on the government cloud servers and of its subsequent deletion.

In doing so it would ensure that the element of parliamentary accountability is brought into effect. In the interim period, a judicial oversight committee should be formed as has been done by the government in South Africa.

Furthermore, if the raucous response (however delirious) by the masses to the prime ministers addresses is reflective of anything, is that unlike other countries there is an immense degree of faith in the Central leadership in India.

For the app to work it must be adopted 50 to 70 percent of the relevant population, thus transparency is key for having continued faith in the governments initiatives.

As contact tracing techniques will be critical in ensuring that the viruss resurgence is curtailed when the lockdown is eased, thus what the application also provides is an opportunity to have a new conversation on the usage of data.

One approach could be with the government having an open dialogue focusing on the usage of this app for public health, patients and lastly citizens. All essential aspects but each of a different nature.

Public health would focus on why this app needs to be used; its relevance in ensuring that finite resources that are being used most effectively in dealing with this pandemic.

From the patient's perspective, contact tracing could help patients in ascertaining how to address issues such as seeking care and ensuring access to health care providers. This would help them in addressing their worries in terms of how to deal with the virus.

Finally, the citizen perspective is relevant in having community-level strategies as has already done by the identification of different zones (Green, Orange and Red).

On a micro level this could help in collective curve flattening with the GPS information being collected used to develop community strategies. However, the caveat being that the personally identifiable information that the app presently collects is not clubbed with it. Instead the app should only state that a COVID-19 patient was there.

With respect to the Bluetooth technology, app developers could incorporate a user interface which would state that one is within a range of device XYZ, whether this is an infection range (Y/N). In the event of any false alarms, they can simply be clicked away. Better yet, the app design could invite people to add a nickname and a photo so that contacts could see who they are.

Conclusion

A judicial inquiry in this issue seems unlikely at this stage and if the Supreme Courts verdict in the Anuradha Bhasin (Kashmir lockdown) case is anything to go by, its clear that they are strongly advocating for the separation of powers doctrine in national security matters, by ensuring that the executive carries out a constitutional review of its actions.

The app is here to stay and likely to be critical in policy decisions.

While the Indian government has had a dodgy history when balancing between privacy and national security, this is an opportunity to show their belief in the rule of law even in the midst of a pandemic by engaging in some innovative thinking.
Cece Lewis and her golden retriever, Lala, play in the waves at Laguna Beach. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Southern California's second heat wave in as many weeks is poised to bring scorching temperatures that could break records in Los Angeles County by midweek.

The warm-up will begin Monday afternoon, with temperatures in the low to mid-70s along the coast and highs in the mid-80s to low-90s in the valleys. Temperatures are expected to peak Thursday, when it could reach nearly 100 degrees in downtown Los Angeles, according to the National Weather Service.

"We have a ridge of high pressure, which is a dome of warm air that's pushing up over the area, along with a little bit of an offshore push out of the northeast that's going to suppress our cooling sea breezes," said David Sweet, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

The result is a scorcher that will bake inland cities across L.A. and Orange counties with temperatures 20 to 25 degrees above normal through Friday, Sweet said.

Temperatures on Wednesday are expected in the mid-70s at the beaches, the lower 90s in inland communities and up to 100 degrees in the valley. Thursday will be even hotter, with the mercury rising to the mid-80s along the coast, Sweet said.

The heat wave could topple records in portions of Los Angeles County on Thursday. The record high temperature for the day in downtown L.A. set in 1941  is 97 degrees. Forecasters say it's possible temperatures could surpass that.

The skyrocketing temperatures come amid the coronavirus outbreak and public health orders that have closed many outdoor recreation areas, including parks, pools and beaches where people typically flock to cool off during warm weather.

Officials in Los Angeles reminded the public ahead of the heat wave that beaches remained closed through May 15 under the county's Safer at Home order. People should stay home as much as possible, venturing out only for essential activities, officials have said.

A significant heat wave is expected next week, with temperatures nearing 100 in some valley areas. As a reminder, the @MayorOfLAs Safer at Home order remains in effect. Beaches in L.A. remain closed. https://t.co/HNpOB4lYNuhttps://t.co/YycLfvSzXn https://t.co/aA8YKDq3AR  LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) May 3, 2020

The last Southern California heat wave triggered crowds at some Orange County beaches that spurred Gov. Gavin Newsom to take action last week, calling for a "hard close" of all state and local beaches for the foreseeable future.

Story continues

My job as governor is to keep you safe, Newsom said last week. "I have to make this adjustment. I hope its a very short-term adjustment.

The move triggered a legal battle and protests in several coastal cities, including Huntington Beach, where roughly 2,500 protesters used megaphones and signs to demand that the state reopen its economy and allow life in public to return to normal.

Ventura and San Diego counties have been gradually opening their beaches and havent attracted the same crowds or scorn from Sacramento as Orange County has in recent days.

During the upcoming heat wave, forecasters say, people should drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned space, stay out of the sun and check on relatives and neighbors when its safe. When possible, strenuous outdoor activities should be done in the early morning or evening, when temperatures are at their lowest.
In recognition of the spirit of service that they have demonstrated in their communities, Jadyn and Kael  along with 100 other top youth volunteers from across the country  were also each given $2,500 to donate toward the local COVID-19 response efforts of a nonprofit organization of their choice. These funds come in addition to the $1,000 scholarship and engraved silver medallion they earned as Montana's top youth volunteers of 2020.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, sponsored by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), named Jadyn and Kael Montana's top high school and middle level youth volunteers in February.

"Over the past 25 years, this program has honored students spanning three generations, and the common thread between them has been the determination of young people to respond to the challenges of the moment," said Charles Lowrey, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial. "Who better than this group of young leaders from all over the country to help identify and direct resources to community needs arising from COVID-19?"

As State Honorees, Jadyn and Kael also earned an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the program's annual national recognition events; the trip, however, was canceled due to COVID-19 and changed to a three-day online celebration this past weekend. In addition to remarks and congratulations from actress Kristen Bell, honorees had opportunities to connect with each other through online project-sharing sessions, learn about service and advocacy from accomplished past Spirit of Community honorees, hear congratulatory remarks from Lowrey and NASSP Executive Director and CEO JoAnn Bartoletti, and more.

"We admire these young leaders for their ability to assess the needs of the communities they serve and find meaningful ways to address them," said Bartoletti. "At a time when everyone is looking for optimism, these students are a bright light for their peers and the adults in their lives."

About the Honorees

Jadyn (pictured left), a senior at Jefferson High School, established a food pantry at her high school that provides weekend food to the families of 28 students who rely on free or discounted hot lunches on school days for a substantial part of their weekly nutritional needs. Jadyn used to help pack bags of food with a program for elementary school kids in need, and then realized that they lost this essential support once they entered high school, which is in session only four days a week in her district. "Many of these students went hungry over the long weekend," she said. "I couldn't imagine how they could possibly focus in school if they were [malnourished]." She proposed the idea of creating a food pantry at the high-school level to her school district's superintendent and school board, and then persuaded a local food bank to help get it started.

Jadyn began preparing bags of food and delivering them to students every other Thursday. When her initial supply of food ran low, she started a county-wide food drive. To do that, she appealed for donations through a newspaper article, a radio advertisement and promotional fliers, and asked businesses and organizations to host collection boxes. The local library system also agreed to participate by accepting food donations in lieu of overdue fines for one month. Once her drive had yielded enough food to last until the end of the school year, Jadyn devoted all of her free time to keeping her pantry organized, packing food bags and making discreet deliveries to students. An entire class at her school has now taken on Jadyn's "Panther Pantry" project, making it likely that it will continue well beyond Jadyn's time at the school.

Kael (pictured right), an eighth-grader at Boulder Elementary School, led a service learning club that conducted several community service projects over the past three years, including winter clothing drives, a student weekend food program and fundraising for playground equipment at his school. Kael managed these activities as one of seven student voices ambassadors in the U.S. Department of Education's 21st Century Community Learning Centers program. "The projects I worked on were very important to me because our town has high poverty rates," said Kael. "This results in families that may not be able to afford a good meal and good clothing for the winter, so I wanted to help support families."

Kael's club decided to run a winter clothing drive after seeing fellow students coming to school in just sweaters and running shoes despite sub-freezing temperatures. To obtain donations, they hung posters around town, placed collection boxes at small businesses and asked large stores to contribute needed items. Last year, they were able to distribute more than 80 articles of winter clothing to students in need at a school-wide family night. The club also conducted community drives to provide more than 40 students with "KidsPacks" full of food to take home every weekend. In addition, Kael and his fellow volunteers raised more than $5,800 to buy a "spinning orbitron" for their school's playground. Kael created a display on the impact of his projects and presented it at national symposium in Washington, D.C., last summer.

About The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program was created in 1995 to identify and recognize young people for outstanding volunteer service  and, in so doing, inspire others to volunteer, too. In the past 25 years, the program has honored more than 130,000 young volunteers at the local, state and national level. For more information about The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and this year's honorees, visit http://spirit.prudential.com. For more information about the National Association of Secondary School Principals, visit www.nassp.org. For more information about Prudential Financial, visit www.news.prudential.com.

Learn more at spirit.prudential.com

SOURCE Prudential Financial, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.prudential.com


On May 1, Texas began its first phase of reopening and the Gateway City is no exception as Mall del Norte opened its doors for the first time in over a month and a half.

Despite the opening, however, not all stores and mall areas will open right away. Some stores and food vendors will take some time to see how this first phase of reopening looks for the public and the companies seeking to begin profiting as the first flock of customers head to the stores.

Most of the stores that opened in the mall on Friday were local retailers. Employees and owners were relieved to finally return to work despite the slow traffic of customers seen on the first day.

I still think that the majority of people are taking the most precautions they can because of the virus still going on, which was a surprise to me as I thought the mall would be full, but as you can see it is not, said Ruby Quintanilla, who is part of the management of the Shoe Dept. Encore store at the mall.

Even though Quintanilla hopes the traffic of customers will improve for the weekend, she does not believe so since people are still scared and many large retailers are still shut down.

However, other retailers feel more positive about reopening their businesses in the mall.

We are still waiting as a lot of stores are opening in the coming days as few stores are opened today, and then things will turn out better in terms of turnout, said Juan Magana, who is the owner of the store Nuts and Stuff at the mall.

Magana is ready for his business to serve people as he operates mainly in the food sector. His small space in the middle of the mall also has hand sanitizer and signage in efforts to inform people about what they are doing to fight the virus.

Other local retailers also feel excited about reopening despite the huge fear that the pandemic is far from over.

I feel great that we were finally allowed to open once again and to begin profiting while having the monies to also pay employees as well, said Marisol Salinas, who is the manager of Marlens Gallery Laredo.

Despite finding optimism in opening their doors once again, many said the slow traffic expected in the first few days or even weeks has caused several of their employees to not return to work.

All retailers also seemed to be making good on their duties to only maintain a 25% capacity of individuals inside their stores as state policy demands.

Our store is always 300 (maximum capacity), so we are dividing by that by 25% which would be 75, but rarely do we get that number of people in our store at a time, so we will put a cap at 50 by counting the people, Quintanilla said.

Others are being stricter in terms of the number of people allowed into their stores.

Right now what we are doing is only letting in one person at the time, which is the policy we will have for some time that might change in the coming weeks as we may slowly allow maybe two or three people in the store just for their safety and our space capacity, said Luis Luna, who is the store manager of Vitamin World.

Salinas, on the other hand, says she does not expect her furniture store to get over capacity, but she has a counting system in place to make sure only the right amount of people are inside their store.

Some businesses were seen with associates outside the stores counting everyone who walked in as they had lines set up.

Large retailers are slated to open soon in the mall including Macs Inc. which has two stores in Mall del Norte and is slated to open Monday.

Macy's plans to reopen 68 locations this Monday, said Macys Inc. media relations director Jacqueline King. We are unable to share any further information on store locations at this time.

Although the company did not specify if either or both of the two Laredo locations will open Monday, the fact that Texas and a couple other southern states are the only ones to adopt new policy in reopening businesses means that Macys main openings will be in the state of Texas. Their guidelines even point out that they will open when various factors, including statewide directives, allow them to do so.

According to the information sent out to investors, Macys will reopen its stores based on several environmental criteria that they consider important in reopening such as relevant state retail ordinances have been lifted for reopening. Other factors include having sneeze guards installed and sanitation supplies available and training staff on new health and safety routines.

The safety measures are similar to the guidelines already posted by other retailers that have pointed out the importance of continued social distancing in efforts to make sure the people are safe at the mall.

Although there is not one definitive date when large retailers will open, Macys pointed out that by mid-June Macys Inc. plans to open almost completely in the United States its approximate 600 stores, according to the information sent out to their investors by CEO Jeff Gennette and CFO Paula Price.

The stores that will be reopening will put in place many guidelines for both employees and customers in efforts to ensure that the transmission of COVID-19 is prevented as much as possible. Some of these changes are similar to the ones being done already by grocery stores.

According to the information provided to investors of Macys, these changes include things like: Enforce social distancing as the new norm, reduce contact between customers and colleagues and place sanitation stations throughout stores.

As for employees, they will be required to wear protective gear all the time such as face masks and gloves and wash their hands frequently. The store will also have several stations in which they will have hand sanitizer with antibacterial gel.

Signage will also be posted all throughout the store to remind people on current safety guidelines to avoid transmission of the virus.

We are creating an environment that enables our customers and colleagues to shop and work with safety, confidence and peace of mind, said the main statement sent out to the investors of Macys Inc. in the presentation by Gennette and Price.

This is something all retailers, whether local, small or large, are trying to implement as life returns to the mall slowly but surely in the coming days and weeks.

However, continued precautions such as good hygiene and the usage of face masks continues to be a main caveat of keeping these businesses open as people must work collectively in efforts to put an end to the virus.

If people do need something and it is necessary, I would advise people to come; however, if people just want to come to the mall to hang out and have something to do, then I would advise against that as going out creates a risk for all, Salinas said.
WASHINGTON  There has been a barrage of contradictory claims in recent days about how U.S. officials believe the coronavirus emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan, what evidence they have and when President Donald Trump was first briefed about it.

Here is what we actually know:

When was Trump first briefed on the intel about the coronavirus?

As NBC News has reported, U.S. intelligence agencies first detected signs of a health crisis in Wuhan in November and began producing intelligence reports on the issue in December. Intelligence reports first appeared in the president's briefing book, known as the President's Daily Brief, in early January, according to NBC News' reporting. The brief is written for the president, but it also goes to certain Cabinet officials and top advisers.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

The National Security Council began meeting about the coronavirus in early January, according to NBC News' reporting.

But according to multiple officials, Trump rarely, if ever, reads his written intelligence product. On Sunday, Trump said he was first briefed on Jan. 23.

"On January 23, I was told that there could be a virus coming in but it was of no real import. In other words it wasn't, 'Oh, we've got to do something, we've got to do something.' It was a brief conversation, and it was only on January 23," Trump said during a Fox News town hall Sunday.

Did the virus really emerge accidentally from a Chinese lab?

Despite Trump's comment Thursday that he has seen information that gives him high confidence that the outbreak was the result of an accidental release from a Wuhan laboratory, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News that they have made no such assessment. There is no "smoking gun" evidence pointing them in that direction, they say, and there may never be.

Intelligence officials stand by the public statement put out Thursday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which said that the intelligence community has concluded that the virus was not man-made but that it had reached no conclusion about whether it emerged accidentally from a lab or was transmitted to humans through animals.

Story continues

Related: A specific "tasking" seeking information about the outbreak's early days was sent last week to the Defense Intelligence Agency. The CIA got similar instructions.

NBC News reported last week that the White House has tasked the intelligence community with investigating that and other questions about the origin of the virus, the extent to which China covered it up and whether the World Health Organization was complicit in the cover-up. Some critics have raised the concern that the White House is pushing the intelligence agencies to validate a conclusion that helps it politically, by distracting attention from the question of whether it acted soon enough. China and the WHO deny that they were less than forthcoming, and China says the virus couldn't have come from one of its labs.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday on ABC that "there is enormous evidence ... I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan." But he declined to detail the evidence, as did Trump when he was asked about it.

Two White House officials told NBC News that by saying he'd seen convincing evidence, Trump wasn't saying he'd seen an intelligence assessment.

Scientists and virologists say a far more likely explanation is natural transmission from animals to people. But experts and U.S. officials say a good deal of circumstantial evidence points to an accidental release. No one has credibly suggested that the virus was engineered by humans. Pompeo said he accepted the scientific consensus that the virus was naturally occurring.

Two labs in Wuhan were studying coronaviruses, experts told NBC News: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, shorthanded as the Wuhan CDC. Researchers from both facilities collected the virus samples from bats in caves. The goal of the research was to learn more about a family of viruses that had already been proven lethal to humans in the 2002 SARS outbreak.

Less is known about the Wuhan CDC, which is a short distance from the Wuhan wet market where officials first said the virus emerged. Much attention has been focused on the WIV, which has a Biosafety Level 4 section where scientists work on the most dangerous pathogens. It should be noted, however, that coronaviruses aren't deemed dangerous enough to require BSL-4 safety procedures. They are in a BSL-3 category, requiring less rigorous procedures.

Image: Wuhan Institute of Virology (Hector Retamal / AFP - Getty Images file)

In the accidental release scenario, a worker at one of the labs could have become infected and transmitted the virus to others. Those who suspect such a lab release point to the following:

A Jan. 24 study published in the medical journal The Lancet found that three of the first four cases  including the first known case  didn't provide a documented link to the Wuhan wet market.

The bats that carry the family of coronaviruses linked to the new strain aren't found within 100 miles of Wuhan  but they were studied in both labs.

Photos and videos have emerged of researchers at both labs collecting samples from bats without wearing protective gear, which experts say poses a risk of human infection.

A U.S. State Department expert who visited the WIV in 2018 wrote in a cable reported by The Washington Post: "During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, [U.S. diplomats] noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory."

According to Senate Intelligence Committee member Tom Cotton, R-Ark., the Chinese military posted its top epidemiologist to the WIV in January.

The Shanghai laboratory where researchers published the world's first genome sequence of the coronavirus was shut down Jan. 12, according to The South China Morning Post.

According to U.S. intelligence assessments, including one published by the Department of Homeland Security and reviewed by NBC News, the Chinese government initially covered up the severity of the outbreak. Government officials threatened doctors who warned their colleagues about the virus, weren't candid about human-to-human transmission and still haven't provided virus samples to researchers.

Despite all that, most scientists and researchers believe natural animal-to-human transmission is the most likely scenario.

Related: One expert said the theory the virus came from a Wuhan animal market has lost favor in some quarters, in part because an early patient had no market link.

Peter Daszak, a virus expert who has visited one of the Wuhan labs as part of a U.S.-funded program, said millions of people in China are infected each year by coronaviruses from animals. Most of the infections aren't life-threatening.

"There's just an incredible volume of traffic between wildlife and people," he said.

He added that the WIV rarely worked with live viruses and generally practiced sound safety procedures.

"I've been in hundreds of labs, and I know a good lab when I see one," he said. "These guys are good."
A Qantas A380 Airbus takes off in front of an Air New Zealand 747 at Auckland International Airport October 10, 2008 in Auckland, New Zealand. The promotional visit by the world's largest passenger jet is timed to coincide with the opening of the new pier at Auckland Airport built especially to accommodate the 73 metre long A380.

Tim Hales/Getty Images

Australia and New Zealand are reportedly considering a travel agreement between them as they begin to lift their lockdown restrictions.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement that officials in both countries are "considering all aspects of the trans-Tasman concept, and planning how this could happen more broadly," according to Reuters.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern discussed the concept of a travel agreement with reporters in New Zealand on Monday, saying that it would offer "huge advantages" to both Australia and New Zealand.

Ardern will join Australia's national cabinet meeting on Tuesday to discuss both countries' plans to reopen, according to The Guardian.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Australia and New Zealand are reportedly considering a travel agreement between the two countries as they both begin to ease out of their tough coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement that the idea of a "travel bubble" between New Zealand and neighboring Australia was floated two weeks ago as a potential way to slowly reopen borders.

"This is an example of the sort of action that could happen within it, while always ensuring the protection of public health," Peters said, according to Reuters. "Officials in both countries are considering all aspects of the trans-Tasman concept, and planning how this could happen more broadly," he added.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern discussed the concept of a "travel bubble" with reporters in New Zealand on Monday, saying that it would offer "huge advantages" to both Australia and New Zealand.

"There are significant advantages to New Zealand in terms of a trans-Tasman bubble not only [in terms of] domestic tourism, but equally we have a flow of people traveling between both countries, for business purposes, trade and so on," Ardern told reporters.

Story continues

She added that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has expressed that the plan would also create a "huge advantage" for Australia. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, she did not discuss a particular timeline for the plan but said that flights would not resume for the next few weeks.

Ardern will join Australia's national cabinet meeting on Tuesday to discuss both countries' plans to reopen, according to The Guardian.

"Both our countries' strong record on fighting the virus has placed us in the enviable position of being able to plan the next stage in our economic rebuild and to include trans-Tasman travel and engagement in our strategy," she said on Monday.

Both Australia and New Zealand have been praised for their quick actions to slow the coronavirus spread, which has contributed to low numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths compared to other major industrialized nations. Experts say that early national lockdown efforts, good public adherence to the rules, and widespread testing capabilities may have prevented Australia and New Zealand from being overwhelmed with a wave of infections, similar to what is being seen in hard-hit countries like Italy and the United States.

As of Monday local time, Australia has reported just over 6,800 cases and 96 deaths, while New Zealand has reported 1,487 cases and 20 deaths.

Monday also marked no new coronavirus cases in New Zealand for the first time since lockdown measures were put in place, a promising sign that the country's actions have stemmed the spread of the virus within its borders. In contrast, Australia reported 26 new cases on Monday, the country's biggest jump in two weeks.

Last week, New Zealand lowered its lockdown level from a four to a three, allowing schools and certain businesses to begin to reopen. Some Australian states, including New South Wales and Queensland, have also begun to relax their restrictions this week, and Morrison said last week that pubs may reopen if enough people download the government's coronavirus tracing app.

Read the original article on Business Insider
YORK TOWNSHIP, Ohio  An head-on crash on U.S. 20 in Sandusky County early Sunday morning claimed the life of a woman from southern Ohio, according to the State Highway Patrol.

Margaret McCamick, 35, of Bridgeport, was pronounced dead at the scene after the crash near County Road 302. The driver of the other vehicle, an 18-year-old female from Bellevue, Ohio, was taken to Firelands Regional Medical Center. Authorities did not release her condition.

Troopers say McCamick was driving a 2010 Ford Focus east in the westbound lanes on U.S. 20 just after 1 a.m. when she struck a 2016 Nissan Versa head-on. Its unknown if drugs or alcohol were factors and the crash remains under investigation.

Both drivers were wearing their seatbelts.
Jammu: In an unfortunate incident, three CRPF personnel were martyred in a terrorist attack in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday (May 4). According to reports, terrorists opened fire on a CRPF patrol party near Qaziabad area of Handwara. The area was cordoned off following the attack on the forces and an additional reinforcement has been rushed to the spot to track down the terrorists.

An unidentified body has also been recovered from the spot. According to ANI, a terrorist was also killed in the retaliatory firing; however, an official confirmation on the same from CRPF remains awaited.

According to CRPF officials, at around 5:30 pm today, terrorists opened fire on 92 Batallion CRPF at Wangam-Qaziabad in Kralgund area. While two CRPF jawans were killed on the spot, one succumbed to his injuries while he was being rushed to a hospital.

According to officials, paramilitary troopers retaliated immediately leading to an exchange of firing between two sides for several minutes.

The attack on the CRPF patrol party in Qazibad area comes barely two days after the Handwara encounter in which five Army personnel and two terrorists were killed during an encounter. The incident took place on May 2.

According to an army official, a few terrorists had taken some civilians as hostage inside a house in Changimulla at Handwara of Kupwara district. Upon receiving a tip-off, a joint operation was launched by the Army and the Jammu and Kashmir Police. A team comprising of five Army and police personnel entered the target area occupied by the terrorists to evacuate the civilians and successfully extricated them, he said said.

However, during the process, the team came under a heavy volume of fire by the terrorists and in the ensuing firefight, two terrorists were eliminated and the five Army personnel and a policeman were killed in the line of duty, the army said.
'I Am Okay With 45-Odd People Too'

According to Bangalore Mirror, Meena Iyer met Rishi Kapoor on March 9, 2020, a day before Holi.

While speaking to Meena Iyer, Rishi Kapoor told her that he would be okay if Ranbir wants to go for an intimate wedding. "It's their call. I am okay with 45-odd people too."

'Ranbir Is A Private Person'

Rishi Kapoor had further told Meena, "I will tell my friends and well-wishers to bless them. I will apologise and explain that everyone couldn't be invited because Ranbir is a private person. I respect his privacy."

Alia Was Accepted By Rishi & Neetu Kapoor Wholeheartedly

We all saw how a few days ago, at the funeral of Rishi Kapoor, Alia was as involved and as devastated as Neetu, Ranbir and Riddhima Kapoor. The actress was constantly there for the Kapoors and made sure to extend her emotional support to the family. She was also seen taking Riddhima on a video call, so that the latter could say a final goodbye to her father, as she couldn't reach Mumbai on time.

Cut To Present

There's no denying that currently, wedding would be the last thing on Ranbir and Alia's minds. However, it is great to see how the two are there for each other in this tough time!
The Textiles Ministry on Monday assured farmers in Maharashtra that the Cotton Corporation of India is fully prepared to purchase cotton at minimum support price in the state during the ongoing lockdown. The MSP operations are continuing and Cotton Corporation of India's (CCI) procurement is on at 34 centres currently in the state, the ministry said amid concerns that traders may not offer a better price in view of the pandemic situation forcing farmers to avail the MSP rates.

The Cotton Corporation of India along with its agent the Maharashtra State Cotton Growers' Marketing Federation is well geared and ready to implement the minimum support price operations in Maharashtra, the ministry said.

The assurance by the ministry follows media reports regarding problems being faced by farmers in selling kapas in agricultural produce market committees (APMCs) in Maharashtra.

"The procurement is regulated by the state APMCs and 27 centres are coming under red zones as identified by the district administration wherein procurement is expected to pick up after 3rd May, 2020," it said.

In remaining 22 centres the state government has been approached by the CCI for issue of passes/tokens to farmers to bring Kapas and the matter is being constantly monitored by the Ministry of Textiles through daily status reports on arrival of farmers &Kapas procurement in the APMCs.

The necessary coordination of the CCI with the officials of the Government of Maharashtra is being done through frequent Conferences for trouble shooting of emerging issues.

The Textiles Ministry has also issued an advisory to the Government of Maharashtra to make appropriate arrangements in APMCs for facilitating access to the cotton farmers to avoid distress selling, the ministry said.

Around 77.40 per cent of total Kapas produced in Maharashtra had already arrived in the markets and been sold till March 25.

The CCI has procured 91.90 lakh quintals of kapas equivalent to 18.66 lakh bales of cotton.

Steps have been taken by the CCI to clear outstanding payment to farmers for the procured kapas. Of total procurement value of Rs 4,995 crore, a sum of Rs 4,987 crore has already reached farmers, the ministry said.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday called upon Odia people living in Gulf countries to contribute their might for development of the State.

Talking to some prominent Odia expatriates in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through video conferencing, Pradhan said post-Covid will provide an opportunity for India to emerge an economic power. It should be the endeavour of all Odia expatriates to channelise some of the global economic opportunities for the country to Odisha, he said.

Asserting that all the major economic powers of the world are now looking at Indian for its vast market, the Union Minister said the country is going to be next big consumer of energy including petroleum.

Interacted with Pravasi Odia friends residing in the Gulf countries namely the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman through video conferencing. Discussed the #Covid19 situation in the Gulf region and measures they are taking to keep themselves protected, Pradhan tweeted.

The expatriate Odias spoke about the measures taken by the respective governments there to counter the deadly coronavisru. They also praised the proactive roles of the Indian embassy at this time of crisis.

With the blessings of Lord Jagannath, we shall overcome this grave challenge that has befallen humanity, Pradhan said.
The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, said 27 police personnel had been attacked and assaulted by the public since the commencement of lockdown enforcement in the country.

The Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), Frank Mba, who disclosed this in a statement on Sunday in Abuja, said the act was perpetrated at different times and locations.

Mr Adamu said some of the officers were still in hospitals receiving treatment because of the injuries inflicted on them during the attacks.

He condemned the attacks and warned that the trend would no longer be tolerated by the police.

A female police officer, PC Ngozi Nkem, in Agbor, Delta State was seriously assaulted when a police team was dispersing a group of persons that was at that time, holding a birthday party in clear disobedience to the social restrictions and distancing orders.

Apart from the attack on the person of police officers, some of these citizens have equally carried out attacks on police assets and facilities.

For example, two police stations and police quarters were attacked and burnt down in Katsina and Abia states while 15 police vehicles/motorcycles were also damaged, he said.

The I-G commended Adeyemo Ogunyemi, the Divisional Crime Officer II, Eruwa Police Division, over his uncommon restraint and professionalism in the face of unprovoked attack by a woman identified as Kehinde Afolake.

He said the video, where the woman was seen assaulting the officer unchallenged and without retaliation, while he was on lockdown enforcement duty in Okeola area of Eruwa, Ibarapa, Oyo was viral in the social media.

The officer, like a lamb being led to the slaughter, did not fight back but rather, maintained absolute calm, patience and decorum even as the woman rough handled him and slapped him severally.

The said woman also assaulted two female police officers, Insp. Ojola Abiola and Insp. Queen Eguaoje and gave one of them human bite during an attempt to invite her to the Police Station for the earlier incident.

The Oyo incident is a classic example of unprovoked, unwarranted and unnecessary attacks faced by police officers in the course of performing their legitimate duties, he added.

The I-G had directed the Commissioner of Police, Oyo Command to carry out a discreet investigation into the attack on the police officers and ensure that justice was done.

Mr Adamu enjoined citizens to continue to cooperate with the police and other security personnel and voluntarily comply with all COVID-19 prevention orders.

He pledged to continue to hold officers accountable and ensure commensurate punishments on any personnel who violate the rights of the citizens.

The I-G, however, warned against any unprovoked attack and assault on police officers in the course of their duties as perpetrators would be made to face the full wrath of the law. (NAN)

IMC/ISMA
Takuo Aoyagi, an inventor of the pulse oximeter, a medical device that measures oxygen in the blood and has become a staple of hospitals around the world, emerging in recent months as a key tool in the fight against the novel coronavirus, died April 18. He was 84.

His death was announced by his longtime employer, Nihon Kohden, a Japanese manufacturer of electronic medical equipment, which did not provide additional details. The New York Times reported that he died at a hospital in Tokyo, citing a niece.

For years, health professionals have been taught to measure four primary vital signs: body temperature, pulse, respiratory rate and blood pressure. Since at least the late 1980s, when the pulse oximetry technique pioneered by Aoyagi began to gain wide acceptance, oxygen saturation has been described as a "fifth vital sign," a crucial indicator of whether oxygen is being delivered from the lungs and heart to the rest of the body.

"It's been absolutely revolutionary in terms of improving the safety of acute-care procedures as well as improving diagnostic training, because it's such a useful sickness index," said Lance Terada, chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. While working in the operating room or performing a pulmonary procedure, he added by phone, "you have one eye on what you're doing and the other eye on the pulse oximeter," a device that can be applied to the forehead or, more often, painlessly clipped to a finger or ear.

"The most valuable thing about the pulse oximeter is that it's one of very few pieces of data that we monitor in real time," Terada said, enabling health-care workers to quickly respond to the worsening condition of a coronavirus patient, for instance, whose symptoms may rapidly transform from a bad cold into pneumonia and respiratory failure. A pulse oximeter can provide a "warning sign," he added, for patients whose condition is worsening but who may still have no difficulty breathing.

Many patients with chronic illnesses also use a pulse oximeter to track their oxygen levels from home - a convenience that was all but unthinkable in the decades before Aoyagi's breakthrough in the early 1970s. Previously, oxygen saturation was measured through a blood gas test that required samples from patients' arteries. Imprecise ear oximeters were also developed during World War II to warn military pilots of oxygen deprivation.

At the time those devices were created, Aoyagi was a young boy living on the west coast of Japan's main island. He was 9 when Japan's surrender brought the war to an end, removing fears of Allied bombing runs near his home, and went on to experiment with ear oximeters as an electrical engineer, fascinated by the underlying science.

As he learned, a pair of lights - red and infrared - are shined through the earlobe or another translucent part of the body, and differences in the way the lights are absorbed enable the device to calculate the amount of oxygen in the blood.

Aoyagi hoped to use the oximeter to develop a noninvasive way of measuring cardiac output (the amount of blood pumped by the heart) through a method known as dye dilution, in which dye is injected into a patient. Rather than aid fighter pilots in dogfights, he hoped his invention would signal a hospital patient's need for artificial ventilation.

According to a 2007 essay by John Severinghaus, an authority on anesthesia, Aoyagi encountered a roadblock in the form of "noise" - variations in the flow of blood as it moves through the body's labyrinthine plumbing system - that prevented him from accurately calculating the movement of the dye. His breakthrough was a mathematical formula, a "ratio of ratios," that enabled him to cut through the noise and measure oxygen in the blood.

"Greatness in science often, as here, comes from the well-prepared mind turning a chance observation into a major discovery," Severinghaus wrote. Quoting Jere Mead, a respiratory physiologist, he added: "One man's noise is another man's signal."

Aoyagi created a pulse oximeter prototype with a Nihon Kohden colleague, Michio Kishi, and in 1974 their company submitted a patent application listing both men as inventors. The patent was granted five years later.

By then, Aoyagi had been transferred to another project. The concept behind pulse oximetry had been "denied" by a skeptical supervisor at Nihon Kohden, Aoyagi recalled, and he was kept from working on the device until 1985. Competitors such as Minolta had made refinements that helped make the pulse oximeter popular. Without their work, he wrote in a personal essay, "the idea might be buried."

In recent years, Aoyagi was increasingly recognized for his invention, which has been championed by the World Health Organization and proved especially useful for surgeons monitoring patients under anesthesia. In 2015, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded Aoyagi its Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology and declared that his research had led to "a fortyfold reduction in death rates in anesthesia."

"All of today's pulse oximeters," the institute said, "are based on Dr. Aoyagi's original principles of pulse oximetry."

Aoyagi was born in Niigata prefecture on Feb. 14, 1936. He graduated from Niigata University in 1958 with a degree in electrical engineering and worked at Shimadzu, a Kyoto-based scientific instruments company, before joining Nihon Kohden in 1971. In 1993 he received a doctorate in engineering from the University of Tokyo.

Information on survivors was not immediately available.

While health workers have credited pulse oximeters with helping to save the lives of coronavirus patients, some doctors have cautioned the public from making a run on the device. The American Lung Association issued a statement Thursday warning that it had become "more difficult for consumers and even hospitals to purchase" pulse oximeters.

"Unless you have a chronic lung or heart condition that affects your oxygen saturation level on a regular basis," said Albert Rizzo, the association's chief medical officer, "most individuals do not need to have a pulse oximeter in their home."
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkeys president said Monday that Libyas eastern-based forces have entered a regression phase in the conflict with the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli, following a series of setbacks.

Turkey heavily backs, including with military aid, the Tripoli government against eastern-based Libyan forces led by commander Khalifa Hifter.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed continued support for the U.N. backed government in Libya, speaking after a Cabinet meeting.

The pro-coup Hifter has entered a period of regression, Erdogan said. The efforts of the countries that have provided him with endless financial support and weapons will not be enough to save him.

Hifters forces are backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia. For months his forces, bolstered by shipments of powerful missiles, jets and drones, held an advantage over the coalition of fractious militias while besieging the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli. But Turkeys escalating military support for its Libyan allies has shifted momentum of the conflict.

Western Libyan forces have thwarted Hifters advances, recaptured coastal cities near the Tunisian border, attacked Hifters key western airbase and tightened their siege on his stronghold of Tarhuna.

Last week, the U.N.-supported government rejected a unilateral cease-fire declared by Hifters forces for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, citing the collapse of past agreements.
Martin Sedlacky recently received the Goodwill Envoy award for spreading the good name of Slovakia abroad.

Martin Sedlacky (r) feels very honoured and glad that people in Slovakia know about the activities of expats abroad. (Source: Courtesy of the Foreign Affairs Ministry)

Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled

Not many people in their thirties get a brand name that allows them to be easily recognised in the world of business. Eastern-Slovak native Martin Sedlacky, the man who helped save Latvian airlines, is one of them.

Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement

He was not yet thirty when he joined the board of airBaltic, the Latvian national airline on the verge of bankruptcy, and brought it back onto its feet, transforming it into a top air carrier.

Many people looked at me as if to ask whats this greenhorn doing here?, Sedlacky admitted, referring to when the company first entrusted him with one of its top posts in 2012.

But in the course of a few months, especially after he proved he could manage people and make some tough decisions, peoples attitudes quickly changed.

At the time, none of my subordinates was younger than me; most of them were more than 10 years older, added Sedlacky, who received the Goodwill Envoy award in December 2019 for spreading the good name of Slovakia abroad.

US experience helped
While there are major differences, during the COVID-19 pandemic we can find parallels between the situation we find ourselves now and the Spanish Flu pandemic that began in 1918.

The 1918 pandemic killed at least 50 million people globally, with 675,000 in the U.S. While the novel coronavirus looks like it will fall well short of that mark, one could argue that advances in technology  and the accompanying quick dissemination of knowledge  are a major part of that.

We can argue about slow reaction times and lack of governmental preparedness, but the reality is that once the severity of the situation was realized, the populace was quickly alerted. We have internet and television to quickly lay out facts and information to alert people to isolation rules. There is no doubt this significantly slowed the spread.

In 1918, the only access to information was a newspaper, which would be printed the day after any announcements. There was no TV, no internet, not even radio  the first known radio news broadcast was not broadcast until Aug. 31, 1920 in Detroit. This meant the spread was rapid as people were infected before they were even aware of the issue.

How lucky we are to have access to medical information almost instantly. And yet, access to so much information seems to breed willful ignorance. People are choosing to dismiss information given by Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the worlds leading virologists, in favor of misguided pronouncements by reality show charlatans like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.

Worse still, people armed only with Google and some Facebook memes now fancy themselves to be expert virologists, actively rejecting information passed on by news outlets who, somehow, are accused of perpetrating the pandemic.

People are protesting stay-at-home orders and social distancing rules, as if it is some sort of rebellious act of freedom. More than a thousand people packed into a Louisiana church each Sunday under the pastors calls for freedom of religion.

Honestly, I am fine with these people congregating if the only people they are endangering are themselves. Theres something vaguely Darwinian about their determination to put themselves at risk like that. Unfortunately, they are also allowed back out in society, where their faith in their church is matched only by their willful disregard for social distancing.

Incidentally, the lawyer for Louisiana pastor Tony Spell and the Life Tabernacle Church has contracted the coronavirus and a church member has since died from it. The church member was an usher so who knows how many people he may have infected?

Maybe the church members would be willing to lock themselves in. Then they could worship all they want without infecting others. It would be like being on a cruise ship  no problems there.

Now there is a clamor to re-start the economy. This despite still having inadequate testing and no antibody testing to determine if someone has already had the disease. Or even knowing if previous exposure guarantees immunity against re-infection. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has decided to re-open restaurants Friday, provided they are 25 percent capacity. We cannot keep people off the streets, so how many will flout that rule?

If we look at the 1918 pandemic, the first wave was in March but eased during the summer months as people practiced social distancing (or simply dying). When World War I finally ended, millions of people across the country joined victory parades, with 250,000 people packing together in Philadelphia alone. The resulting second wave killed more people than died in WWI.

There was little understanding of transmission of Spanish Flu. In fact, scientists assumed the influenza was caused by a bacteria (while viruses were discovered in the 1880s, it was not until the invention of the electron microscope in 1931 that images of a virus was seen). Viruses need a host to survive, so if the host does not transmit the disease during the life of the virus, then the virus will die. This is why ebola outbreaks were so short. The virus killed the host fast before it could be transmitted. COVID-19, unfortunately, has a longer life span.

This is why social distancing works. The COVID-19 has a finite lifespan, but can still survive on plastic or steel for seven days (influenza typically stays active on surfaces for only hours).

So now we are seeing protesters at various state capitals, brandishing their Second Amendment assault rifles and their right-wing paraphernalia, screaming about their right to mingle in public and, presumably, kill themselves or their loved ones. Others are champing at the bit to crowd onto beaches and parks.

Despite a world of information at our fingertips, people are refusing to learn from the lessons of 1918-19. That pandemic came in three waves. We have a chance to limit this to one, but seeing the attitudes and actions of the willfully ignorant, I am not hopeful.

Andy Coughlan is a Beaumont resident who teaches at Lamar University and also draws the Sunday local cartoon for The Beaumont Enterprise.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 15:27:49|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

SYDNEY, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A specialist rescue dog named "Bear" has helped to locate around 100 koalas from bushfire-ravaged wilderness in Australia, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported on Monday.

Since the devastating bushfires last summer, the keen-nosed Bear and his handlers have been working to track down those sick and injured koalas in order to provide them with treatment.

The initiative is run by the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) Detection Dogs for Conservation team in conjunction with the International Fund for Animal Welfare and local wildlife groups.

The USC's detection dogs were previously used to locate animals for scientific studies but have proved crucial in finding injured wildlife in the vast areas of devastation left by the fires.

"We've worked in areas post-fire with other dogs, and they were able to smell their target odours, so it didn't surprise me that Bear could do it," Bear's handler, Dr Romane Cristescu told AAP.

"The catastrophic landscape is really hard for us, but for Bear it's an opportunity for him to be out and play and do what he likes doing."

A thermal camera attached to a drone is also used by the team to help locate which areas the koalas are in and then the specially trained Bear is sent in to identify which tree they are hiding in.

Once the koalas are located, the team and wildlife care experts can give the animals the support they need to survive in the wild. Enditem
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREASouth Korea said Monday it protested to North Korea over the exchange of gunfire inside their heavily fortified border that it says the North started.

South Korea said several bullets fired from North Korea hit one of its front-line guard posts on Sunday before South Korean troops fired 20 rounds of warning shots in response. It was the first shooting inside the Demilitarized Zone in about two and a half years, but there were no known casualties on either side, according to South Korean defence officials.

Defence Ministry spokesperson Choi Hyun-soo told reporters Monday that South Korea sent a message of strong protest and urged North Korea to explain the shooting and avoid similar incidents. Choi said North Korea hasnt responded to the message.

The 248-kilometre-long Demilitarized Zone bisects the Korean Peninsula and is guarded by mines, barbed wire fences and combat troops on both sides. It was formed as a buffer after the end of the Korean War and officially is jointly overseen by North Korea and the American-led UN Command.

The UN Command said in a statement Monday that it was investigating if there was a violation of an armistice that ended the Korean War. South Korean military spokesperson Kim Joon Rak declined to comment on the UN Command investigation.

The gunfire exchange happened two days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a public appearance that ended a three-week absence that prompted intense rumours about his health. It also came amid deadlocked U.S. diplomatic efforts to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons.

South Koreas military said Sunday that a preliminary analysis showed North Koreas firing was probably not a calculated provocation. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said it was believed that North Koreas firing was not intentional.

Some observers doubt it was accidental and said North Korea could plan more provocation to try to wrest diplomatic concessions.

Read more about:
A YOUTH who caused thousands of euro worth of damage during a late-night crime rampage in the city centre has been warned he faces two years detention if he reoffends.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named because of his age has pleaded guilty to multiple charges relating to offences which took place on February 1. 2019.

Significant damage was caused when several large shop windows at Cruises Street were damaged when they were struck and kicked.

The criminal damage charges before the court relate to three stores  Eason, Three and River Island.

The defendant, who was 16 at the time, has also pleaded to a number of charges relating to the theft of a number of different cars.

Those offences all occurred in Castletroy area of the city on dates in February.

During a sentencing hearing, Liam Carroll BL said his client had spent some time in custody following his arrest and that he now appreciates his liberty and acknowledges the seriousness of the offences.

He said he no longer associates with certain individuals and that he has been cooperating with the Probation Service since he pleaded guilty late last year.

Imposing sentence, Judge Gerald Keys noted the positive contents of a probation report and the recommendation that any period of detention be deferred for a period of time.

Addressing the defendant directly the judge said: You involved yourself in an orgy of criminal activity for a certain period of time adding that because of his age he was entitled to certain protections in law.

I hope you will take advantage of that protection, he said warning the youth that he would be treated like an adult and a criminal once he turns 18 later in the year.

Appealing to the court to give the defendant a last chance the youths grandfather told the court that certain elements had called to his home and coerced him into behaving the way he did.

He said he believes he has learned his lesson and that he will remain on the straight and narrow.

The judge said he was noting the recommendations of the Probation Service and was willing not to impose an immediate order of detention.

It will be a hanging over you, he told the youth. If you want to go to jail ignore everything I have said, your future freedom is entirely up to yourself, he added.

The 17-year-old was sentenced to two years detention but the penalty was deferred for nine months under the provisions of the Childrens Act.

The matter is due before the court again, for review, early next year.

Between now and then the youth must remain under the supervision of the Probation Service.
CASA hosts virtual training event

CASA of the Pikes Peak Region needs volunteers to advocate for abused and neglected children as the organization strives to meet its Vision 2020 goal of serving every child in need by the end of the year.

Community members who are interested in becoming CASA volunteers can learn more about the program at a virtual information session, by Zoom meeting, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Tuesday.

To receive a link and login information, send an RSVP email to Uriko Stout at urikos@casappr.org.
With spring break in full swing, Sophia Basile was looking forward to returning to school and seeing her friends, but the coronavirus pandemic caused her university to close for the rest of the semester midway through break.

Now, seven weeks later, shes isolating in her dads house and taking online classes.

I look outside and what the situation has come down to is a tiny virus, that started all the way in Wuhan, is now over here and controlling everything we do, and it sucks, said Basile, a sophomore law student at Suffolk University in Boston.

I feel like my education is being stripped away from me.

College students are one of the large groups affected by stay-at-home orders put in effect to protect people from the coronavirus. Entangled Solutions, a California-based education consultancy, reports that 4,234 higher education institutions and 25.8 million college students have been impacted by the pandemic.

The first impacts Basile felt were on March 10, when the university announced it was moving to virtual learning for the remainder of the semester.

Basile had to move off campus until further notice. Her hopes for going back to school after spring break were crushed.

For us to go from being in school every day, going to work, having a social life, to being locked in our houses, living in fear, not knowing when we will be able to go outside again and seeing people with masks and gloves on is scary and takes a huge physical and mental toll, Basile said.

While she misses her former life, she believes learning from home may be for the better  at least for now.

I have a mother who is very high risk, and if she gets the virus, the chances of her surviving are slim to none, said Basile. So, if its between going back to campus and (having) the possibility Ill get the virus, and staying home and doing online classes with a lower risk, I would much rather stay at home and practice social distancing.

Still, Basile said she does not want the fall semester to be done online, even though she knows shell obsess about the cleanliness of her desk and the hygiene of her classmates on return to campus.

I want to be able to go to college and I want to be able to see my friends, but at the same time theres no way we can be reassured that every square inch of the school is disinfected or everyone is healthy, she said.

I feel like were never going to be able to go back to the way things were before.

Attending classes in the closet

Professors are also adjusting to virtual learning and planning for the future. Salvador Bondoc, chairman of Quinnipiacs occupational therapy program, said he and his colleagues are doing their best to give students the value theyd receive on site.

Normally, students in clinical programs work hands on with patients and professionals. Now, students use videotaped therapy sessions for simulated patient observation and use a Quinnipiac-designed virtual experience to accomplish other competencies.

Absent the clinical setting, Boldoc said students are able to practice exercises with their families. It can be a rewarding experience for the families to see what their children are studying, he said.

Boldoc said there has been mostly positive reception to online learning in the OT department, but he knows its difficult for students to adjust.

He said in families with little space in their house and a bunch of commotion, for example, some students are attending classes in their closets.

Its very inconvenient for some students, and theyre struggling with finding balance, Boldoc said.

Boldoc said being empathetic and understanding is important.

Its not just about teaching, right? said Boldoc. Its also about being student-centered and understanding what theyre going through and then helping them manage that. They have multiple lives, right? Not just academic lives, their social lives, and whats happening in their own home. So [we need to] be able to respond to their needs and be flexible.

While Boldoc and his colleagues are working their hardest to make online learning succeed, hes concerned about the volume of preparation that needs to be done for classes in the fall.

We start classes, I think, Aug. 24 in the fall, and contracts begin Aug. 11 or something like that, said Boldoc. Im not sure if two weeks would would be enough for us to turn things around as rapidly as we did (in the spring) on a high-quality, highly efficient level. And, of course, the clinical piece we can only simulate so much. How are we going to do that?

In an email sent to faculty and staff Tuesday, Quinnipiac President Judy Olian said our strong preference is to complete the full 2020-21 academic year on campus, although she acknowledged several issues need to be resolved first.

To that end, Olian announced four multidisciplinary planning groups that will examine short- and long-term options related to public health, academics and operations, from business as usual to worst-case scenarios.

Our goal is to return Quinnipiac to a focus on advancing the university of the future, with the benefit of lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis, Olian said.

Bryan Proctor is a student at Quinnipiac University.
Lebanon's top Christian cleric backs central bank governor as currency tumbles A man counts U.S. dollar banknotes next to Lebanese pounds at a currency exchange shop in Beirut

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's politically influential Maronite Christian patriarch backed the long-serving central bank governor on Sunday, after the prime minister cast bank chief Riad Salameh as responsible for a currency crash that has worsened sharply in recent days.

The pound, which has lost more than half its value since October, slid to record lows on a parallel market over the past week, losing some 15% of its value. Prime Minister Hassan Diab sharply criticised Salameh on Friday.

Currency changers have gone on strike and the parliament speaker urged the government to use "legal powers" to halt the fall in the pound.

The past two days have seen bomb and firebomb attacks on banks, although there were no reports of injuries.

Amid a growing debate over whether the bank governor of 27 years should resign, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, Lebanon's top Christian religious authority, said criticism of Salameh would only hurt the country.

"We ask: who benefits from the destabilisation of the central bank governorship? The beneficiary himself knows," said Rai. "We know the dire outcome, which is eliminating the confidence of the Lebanese people and (foreign) states in the constitutional foundations of the state."

Lebanon is governed according to a sectarian political system that parcels out state positions according to religious group. The central bank governorship is reserved for a Maronite Christian while the premier is always a Sunni Muslim.

Diab's government was formed in January with the support of powerful Iran-backed Shi'ite movement Hezbollah and has struggled to enact stalled reforms demanded by foreign donors.

Gebran Bassil, head of President Michel Aoun's Maronite Christian party, echoed many of Diab's criticisms, saying the central bank bore "great responsibility" for losses incurred and lack of transparency and coordination.

Bassil said the state must now take responsibility for "correcting" these mistakes, and said such moves would not constitute a "coup against the free financial system or central bank independence".

Story continues

The currency's rapid fall has raised the prospect of price hikes and broader unrest at a time when unemployment has soared and a coronavirus lockdown has dealt an additional blow.

On Saturday a small bomb was detonated outside a commercial bank in the southern city of Sidon, damaging its facade. A bank in the city of Tyre was attacked with Molotov cocktails early on Sunday, security sources said.

The attacks did not result in any injuries and the assailants remain unknown, the security sources said.

(Reporting by Eric Knecht; editing by Peter Graff and Jason Neely)
Merilee has been the most business-savvy public relations professional I've worked with in my nearly 20 years within the industry.

SAN DIEGO, CA, May 4, 2020Internationally-regarded brand analyst, strategist and futurist Merilee Kern, MBA, who serves as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Publicist for industry-leading CEO and Personal Branding Agency The Ascendant Group (among other professional endeavors and agency affiliations) has been accepted into the Forbes Business Councilthe foremost growth and networking organization for successful business owners and leaders worldwide.

Merilee was vetted and selected by a review committee based on the depth and diversity of her experience. Criteria for acceptance include a track record of successfully impacting business growth metrics, as well as personal and professional achievements and honors.

We are honored to welcome Merilee into the community, said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, the collective that includes Forbes Business Council. Our mission with Forbes Councils is to bring together proven leaders from every industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and make an even greater impact on the business world.

As an accepted member of the Council, Merilee has access to a variety of exclusive opportunities designed to help her reach peak professional influence. She will connect and collaborate with other respected local leaders in a private forum and at members-only events. Merilee will also be invited to work with a professional editorial team to share her expert insights in original business articles on Forbes.com, and to contribute to published Q&A panels alongside other experts.

Finally, Merilee will benefit from exclusive access to vetted business service partners, membership-branded marketing collateral, and the high-touch support of the Forbes Councils member concierge team.

Merilee has been the most business-savvy brand strategy and public relations professional I've worked with in my nearly 20 years within the industry, notes Raoul Davis, CEO of The Ascendant Group and an original Founding Member of the Forbes Agency Council. I have absolutely no doubt that her contribution to the Forbes Business Council will be immense.

Its a true honor to have been accepted into this esteemed membership organization, Merilee said. Im certain that my participation with Forbes Business Council will help further cement my leadership role within the various companies and agencies that Im affiliated with, or own, while also elevating and further demonstrating my value within the branding, public relations and marketing communications communities at large.

About Forbes Councils

Forbes Councils is a collective of invitation-only communities created in partnership with Forbes and the expert community builders who founded Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC). In Forbes Councils, exceptional business owners and leaders come together with the people and resources that can help them thrive. To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com.

About Merilee A. Kern, MBA

Merilee Kern, MBA is an internationally-regarded brand analyst, strategist and futurist who serves as Chief Strategy Officer for The Ascendant Groupan industry-leading CEO and Personal Branding Agency. As a prolific branding and marketplace trends pundit, Merilee reports on noteworthy industry change makers, movers, shakers and innovators across all categories, both B2C and B2B. This includes field experts and thought leaders, brands, products, services, destinations and events. Also as the Executive Editor of The Luxe List and Executive Producer and Host of multiple television programs, Merilees cross-media platform work reaches an audience in the multiple millions each month through an array of broadcast TV programs, print and online publications as well as terrestrial radio. As a prolific business and consumer trends, lifestyle and leisure industry voice of authority and tastemaker, she keeps her finger on the pulse of the marketplace in search of new and innovative must-haves and exemplary experiences at all price points, from the affordable to the extremealso delving into the minds behind the brands. Connect with her at http://www.TheLuxeList.com and http://www.SavvyLiving.tv; on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @LuxeListReports; and on LinkedIN @MerileeKern.
The breaches took the form of driving past his ex-wife's house and sounding his car horn "in a course of repetitive conduct'.

A 62-year-old farmer has been jailed for conducting a "deliberate campaign" of harassment against his ex-wife.

Sean John Thomas Murphy appeared at Belfast Crown Court, via a videolink with Maghaberry, where he was handed a sentence of two years and ten months.

This will be divided between 17 months in jail and 17 months on licence and Murphy was also issued with a ten-year restraining order.

Judge David McFarland told the farmer and civil engineer that if he continued to ignore court orders to stay away from his ex-wife, he would face longer periods in prison.

At today's sentencing, Judge McFarland set out the background of the case against Murphy, who was convicted by a jury earlier this year.

A jury at Newry Crown Court found Murphy guilty of harassing his wife over a period from August 16 to 27, 2019. The jury also convicted Murphy of eight separate counts of breaching a restraining order during that period.

Judge McFarland said these breaches took the form of driving past her house in Newtownhamilton and sounding his car horn "in a course of repetitive conduct."

Murphy made the case at his trial that whilst he accepted he did drive past her house and sound his car horn, this action was not intended to breach the order his ex had taken out against him, or to harass her.

Judge McFarland said the marriage came to an end in 2014, and since then it was clear Murphy had not accepted this and that his "conduct has deteriorated" since then.

He said Murphy's criminal offending since the break-up has consisted of harassing his ex-wife, and of breaching subsequent restraining and non-molestation orders.

This, the Belfast Recorder said, indicated a man who has demonstrated both an "inability to restrain himself" and a failure to respond to court orders.

Judge McFarland revealed that at the time of his offending last August, Murphy was on bail and awaiting sentence for previous offending.

The Judge also noted that after reading a statement written by the victim, her ex-husband's actions have had a "significant impact on her life and mental wellbeing."

Judge McFarland said the latest "deliberate campaign" mounted against her by Murphy was carried out "in the full knowledge that it would cause her emotional harm and mental anguish."

Murphy was arrested on August 29 last year, and during interview he denial harassing his ex-wife and gave what the judge described as a "lying account."

He handed Murphy a sentence of two years and ten months.

He was also issued with a ten-year restraining order, and warned "the longer he carries out this conduct, the more punitive the sentence will become."
Shimla, May 4 : A rescued snow leopard -- a native of the alpine and high-altitude regions of the Himalayas -- has arrived at the Himalayan Nature Park near Shimla, wildlife officials said on Monday.

After veterinary checkup, it was found the abandoned wild cat, weighing 7 kg, was stressed, under-fed, weak and suffering from severe dehydration.

A wildlife official told IANS that the rescued snow leopard is just a six to eight months old, most probably abandoned by the mother.

Rather than re-introducing it in its alpine habitat, wildlife officials transported this vulnerable species, which was trapped in a sheep pen in a hamlet in the Spiti Valley, for veterinary checkup to the nature park in Kufri, some 15 km uphill from here, known for temperate vegetation.

The decision has angered wildlife activists.

The wildlife wing admits that there is no wildlife rehabilitation centre in high mountain passes of the state where the Central government-funded Snow Leopard Conservation Project is underway.

"The snow leopard was examined on Sunday and we found that it was ill and very weak, owing to dehydration," veterinary surgeon Sandeep Rattan told IANS.

The cub was also under stress -- physical and emotional -- owing to separation from the mother. "There are some physical injuries and gangrene too at some portion," Rattan said.

"Our first priority is to regain its normal weight. A team is carrying out the necessary treatment. We are feeding a small chicken to it. Since its tooth development is at the primary (cub) stage with canine teeth yet to surface, it will be difficult for it to savage natural prey," he said.

Rattan said that might be the reason it was looking for an easy prey in the nature, i.e. livestock.

The snow leopard was trapped in Gue village, famed worldwide for the 500-year-old mummified remains of a Buddhist monk, under the Kaza subdivision in Spiti Valley, some 350 km from Shimla, on May 1. The village is close to the Indo-Tibetan border.

Divisional Forest Officer Hardev Negi, who led the team to trap the wild cat, said the snow leopard was trapped after the villagers complained that it was killing their sheep.

Wildlife officials, who said that they don't interfere with the snow leopard's natural life cycle in the wild, told IANS that without its mother, the cub wouldn't be able to learn survival skills.

In this case, the probability of releasing the cub into the wild is bleak. "The young one is most likely to be kept in the nature park alone," an official said.

Rattan said that searching the traces of its mother would be a futile exercise, as the range of a snow leopard in nature is very wide and the terrain is treacherous and rocky.

Animal caretakers placed the cub under 24-hour surveillance under CCTV surveillance and have started feeding it chicken meat and vitamins.

Taking care of the orphaned snow leopard is a first-of-its-kind experience, but confident caretakers believe that they will do their best to save it.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
Irvine, Calif. - In Northern Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, microorganisms are able to eke out an existence by extracting water from the very rocks they colonize.

Through work in the field and laboratory experiments, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, as well as Johns Hopkins University and UC Riverside, gained an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms by which some cyanobacteria survive in harsh surroundings.

The new insights, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate how life can flourish in places without much water in evidence - such as Mars - and how people living in arid regions may someday derive hydration from available minerals.

"The Army Research Office funded this project because they want to understand how organisms can survive in extreme environments," said lead author David Kisailus, UCI professor of materials science & engineering. "They also wanted us to help translate that to enabling humans to cope with the harshest of conditions, whether it be out in the middle of the desert or while exploring other planets."

The research team focused on the interactions of Chroococcidiopsis, a desiccation-resistant cyanobacteria found in deserts around the world, and gypsum, a water-containing calcium sulfate-based mineral. The colonizing life-forms exist beneath a thin layer of rock that gives them a measure of protection against the Atacama's high solar irradiance, extreme dryness and battering winds.

Co-author Jocelyne DiRuggiero, associate professor in Johns Hopkins University's Department of Biology, traveled to the remote desert to collect gypsum samples, which were brought back to her lab in the U.S. She cut small pieces harboring cyanobacteria and sent them to Kisailus' lab for materials analysis.

In one of the most striking discoveries of the study, the researchers learned that the microorganisms change the very nature of the rock they occupy. By extracting water, they cause a phase transformation of the material - from gypsum to anhydrite, a dehydrated mineral.

According to DiRuggiero, the impetus for the published work came when Wei Huang, a UCI postdoctoral scholar in materials science & engineering, spotted data showing an overlap in concentrations of anhydrite and cyanobacteria in the gypsum samples collected in the Atacama.

"Our analysis of the regions of rock where microbes were colonized revealed a dehydrated phase of calcium sulfate, suggesting that they extract water from the rock to survive," Kisailus said. "We wanted to do some more controlled experiments to validate that hypothesis."

DiRuggiero's team then allowed the organisms to colonize half-millimeter cubes of rock, called coupons, under two different conditions: one in the presence of water, to mimic a high-humidity environment, and the other completely dry. Amid moisture, the gypsum did not transform to the anhydrite phase.

The cyanobacteria "didn't need water from the rock; they got it from their surroundings," Kisailus said. "But when they were put under stressed conditions, the microbes had no alternative but to extract water from the gypsum, inducing this phase transformation in the material."

His team utilized a combination of advanced microscopy and spectroscopy to examine the interactions between the biological and geological counterparts, finding that the organisms bore into the rock like tiny miners by excreting a biofilm containing organic acids.

Huang employed a modified electron microscope equipped with a Raman spectrometer to discover that the cyanobacteria used the acid to penetrate the gypsum in specific crystallographic directions - only along certain planes where they could more easily access the water existing between faces of calcium and sulfate ions.

Kisailus said the project was a great example of interdisciplinary collaboration between microbiologists and materials scientists.

"Researchers have suspected for a long time that microorganisms might be able to extract water from minerals, but this is the first demonstration of it," DiRuggiero said. "This is an amazing survival strategy for microorganisms living at the dry limit for life, and it will guide our search for life elsewhere."

Robert Kokoska, Ph.D., program manager at the Army Research Office, an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory, noted: "The Army has a strong interest in how microorganisms well-adapted to extreme environments can be exploited for novel applications such as materials synthesis and power generation within these harsh environments. This study provides valuable clues for uncovering the evolved design strategies used by these native, desert-dwelling microbes to maintain their viability in the face of multiple environmental challenges."

###

Funding for the work was provided by the Army Research Office and NASA.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 222 degree programs. It's located in one of the world's safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County's second-largest employer, contributing $5 billion annually to the local economy. For more on UCI, visit http://www.uci.edu.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists.


By Phil Kerpen





The United States is in the process of destroying its health care system via lockdown. By ordering that all but emergency medical treatments and procedures cease in the name of preserving health system capacity, we have emptied out hospitals to gird for a wave of COVID patients that never came.



Now hospitals are laying off and furloughing by the tens of thousands  and liberal opportunists see this, somehow, as a market failure that would justify government directly seizing control of the medical system through a Medicare-for-all plan.



Liberals look at the virus response in Italy, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom and think  somehow  that's what we need here. But we don't have to look to the catastrophic failures of systems abroad as a cautionary tale, because here in America the two biggest failures in our coronavirus response were failures of centralized government control.



The slow start in the American health response was caused by a failed testing rollout, due to incompetent bureaucracy that prohibited private sector testing in favor of a CDC test that didn't work and was contaminated by live virus. When it did finally work, there were severe capacity constraints  a problem caused not by too little centralized government control, but by too much.



As government loosened its grip and allowed private labs to conduct testing, capacity scaled up dramatically. This is a lesson we could have learned from South Korea's experience, where their widely praised testing program was developed not by their national health system, but by private companies that were promised fast regulatory approval.



The second major policy failure was a decision that crippled our health system capacity and likely significantly increases deaths from all causes. It was a directive from Medicare  the very program liberals now seek to expand to everyone to the exclusion of all choice and competition.



On March 18, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) "announced that all elective surgeries, non-essential medical, surgical, and dental procedures be delayed" during the coronavirus outbreak.



With few if any exceptions, every health system in America implemented the directive, emptying out hospitals and doctors' offices and crippling health system capacity everywhere the anticipated wave of coronavirus patients failed to materialize. The Mayo Clinic, for instance, is furloughing 30,000 employees.



Emulating the fully government-controlled National Health Service in Great Britain, Medicare made the call that denied cancer patients care they need, ended more transplant surgeries, and sent a panic through the country that caused heart attack and stroke victims to tragically die at home under the mistaken impression that the empty hospitals were too busy to help them.



In the face of this Medicare-caused catastrophe, liberals have floated the new argument that in a fully government-run system, hospitals wouldn't suffer crippling revenue loss from canceling nearly all of their non-COVID medical services  because they would have direct taxpayer funding.



As if disconnecting revenue from the provision of actual medical care is somehow a virtue, they are taking the lesson that we should look at the catastrophic misallocation of resources by government we are currently seeing and institutionalize it permanently. Not to mention that for the math of the Bernie Sanders plan to even pretend to be realistic, he assumes that all providers would accept current Medicare rates, which are about 40 percent lower than what private insurance pays.



The only solution under Medicare-for-all would be even more massive, economy-crippling tax hikes than have already been proposed, possibly doubling every existing federal tax or more. Most likely we'd end up in the middle  with a smaller health system with less capacity, fewer ICU beds that would leave us less prepared for a future pandemic like Italy, Spain, and France  as well as steeply higher taxes.



Political or bureaucratic allocation of resources can never perform as well as a decentralized system that aggregates the decisions, preferences, and needs of millions of people. Every helpful action by the federal government during the crisis has taken the form of waiving or relaxing regulatory requirements, like telehealth and phone consult restrictions that never should have existed in the first place.



A more free market health system could avoid not just the catastrophic miscalculations like the one we are experiencing with the unnecessary collapse in non-COVID care, but also the everyday distortions caused by Medicare rules and petty federal regulations that tie the hands of doctors and patients. That's the real policy lesson of the current crisis.





Phil Kerpen (phil@americancommitment.org) is the president of American Commitment and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. His commentary was distributed by Cagle Cartoons Inc.




Overnight, high-speed, reliable home internet access suddenly became essential to the work of teachingand most teachers are paying for it out of their own pockets.

As school building closures in nearly every state stretch to the end of the school year, almost all teachers are doing at least some online instruction. Theyre hosting video conferences with their students, uploading videos and class materials to online platforms, and in some cases, exceeding their data plans.

Yet a nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey found that just 1 percent of teachers said their school or district was paying for their high-speed, wireless internet at home.

And that raises the question: Should schools foot the bill for teachers home internet access?

See Also: Coronavirus and Schools

Ideally, districts would be able to pay for high-speed home broadband for teachersin my opinion, always, said Sabia Prescott, a policy analyst for New America, a think tank in Washington. But thats not something thats feasible for most districts.

Nearly all teachers96 percenthave wireless, high-speed internet at home that they pay for themselves, according to the EdWeek Research Center survey. (Four percent of teachers, mostly in rural areas, dont have high-speed, wireless internet at home and make do during the current school shutdowns with mobile hotspots or even working in parking lots or empty school buildings.)

To help ease the burden, some teachers and advocates have called for more school districts to chip in on internet and cellphone bills.

The first few weeks of this, it was surprising how much people just assumed teachers could do thisthat every teacher had internet, had a data plan, had a place in their house where they could teach, said Kelly, a special education teacher who requested that her last name and the name of her school not be used.

She has the internet in her home now, but for the first six years of her career, she lived in a small studio apartment without internet access.

If it had been a year ago, I dont know how I would be getting through this time, she said.

The 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the ability for employees who work from home to write off unreimbursed business expensessuch as internet bills and data planson their taxes. Teachers can still deduct up to $250 annually for books, supplies, computer hardware and software, and other supplementary materials that they purchased for their classrooms and were not reimbursed for by their districts.

Extremely Stressed

Of course, offsetting the cost of teachers internet would be an additional expense for districts at a time when theyre bracing for draconian budget cuts due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Still, some district leaders are committing thousands of dollars to help cover their teachers internet bills during this pivot to remote learning.

In Millsap, Texas, a small town about an hour from Fort Worth, the choices for internet and cellphone providers are limited, said Deann Lee, the superintendent of the school district there. Unlimited data plans arent always an option, she said.

Lee uses a portable WiFi hotspot at home, and even though she often works from her office at the empty administration building, she still runs out of data quickly these days.

I knew if I was going through data that quickly, then so were the teachers and paraprofessionals, Lee said.

She had heard of a superintendent in Gunter, Texas, offering a stipend to teachers to cover internet costs, so Lee decided to do the same in her district for all 175 staff members. In April and May, all teachers and paraprofessionals received a $50 stipend to help offset their internet and cellphone costs. Custodians and maintenance workers also received the same stipend for gas, since they are still required to drive to school buildings to work.

Its a way to show support and appreciation, as well as help financially, Lee said.

Teachers are working harder than ever, said Matthew Gutierrez, the superintendent of the Seguin, Texas, school district. The districts 500 teachers each received a $50 internet stipend in both April and May.

Their world was turned upside down overnight, he said. I felt that there was just a lot of stress and sadness surrounding the school closures, and so not only to boost morale but to honor the work that theyre doing to meet the needs of students,  I felt the need to acknowledge their work.

The district is in a suburb of San Antonio, and teachers there have reliable access to the internet, Gutierrez said. Still, he knew some teachers were likely exceeding their cellphone data plans to connect with students.

Although the $50 a month isnt a lot, Gutierrez added, its something to show that at the school district, I acknowledge the extra that they are doing, and I acknowledge the fact that they are extremely stressed right now.

Do What We Can Right Now

New Americas Prescott said one reason that more districts arent paying for their teachers internet is that they dont know how long this period of remote learning will continue. Initially, schools across the country had planned to close for just two weeks, and now its been two months. State and district leaders arent yet sure when or how theyll be able to reopen school buildings.

And although the federal government has given schools a $13.5 billion infusion through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, some analysts have said that districts will need billions more dollars to prevent mass teacher layoffs and other severe cuts. Federal lawmakers have not yet signaled if theyll give schools another round of emergency money.

Lee, the superintendent in Millsap, said she expects that her district will have a blended approach to learning in the fall, with some teachers working remotely by choice and some working remotely for three or four weeks upon any exposure to the coronavirus. She thinks shell be able to continue paying those teachers a stipend for their internet, either through the CARES Act, state funds, or Title I money for teachers in schools with that designation.

Also, paying for teachers internet now is a sign of goodwill, especially if district leaders have to make cuts next year, Gutierrez said.

The economy is taking a huge hit, and I dont know how things are going to look in a yearthere might not be a possibility to do a salary increase, Gutierrez said, adding that his district might continue the internet stipend through the fall if needed. Lets do what we can right now while we can.
New Delhi: India expects bad debts at its banks could double after the coronavirus crisis brought the economy to a sudden halt, a senior government official and four top bankers said.

Indian banks are already grappling with 9.35 trillion rupees ($123 billion) of soured loans, which was equivalent to about 9.1% of their total assets at the end of September 2019.

There is a considered view in the government that bank non-performing assets (NPAs) could double to 18-20% by the end of the fiscal year, as 20-25% of outstanding loans face a risk of default, the official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

A fresh surge in bad debt could hit credit growth and delay Indias recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

These are unprecedented times and the way its going we can expect banks to report double the amount of NPAs from what weve seen in earlier quarters, the finance head of a top public sector bank told Reuters.

The official and bankers declined to be named as they were not officially authorized to discuss the matter with media.

Indias finance ministry declined to comment, while the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks Association, the main industry body, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The Indian economy has ground to a standstill amid a 40-day nationwide lockdown to rein in the spread of coronavirus cases.

The lockdown has now been extended by a further two weeks, but the government has begun to ease some restrictions in districts that are relatively unscathed by the virus.

India has so far recorded nearly 40,000 cases of the coronavirus and more than 1,300 deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
A man punched his friend in the face until he died while calling him a 'poofter' and accusing him of attempting to rape him while he slept.

Trevor Whybrow had been drinking beer and spirits with 68-year-old Barry Moffatt at a birthday party in Mooroopna, 180km north of Melbourne, on May 27, 2018.

Whybrow became convinced his long-time friend was trying to sexually assault him in his sleep.

Trevor Whybrow (pictured) was drinking beer and spirits with his 68-year-old friend at a birthday party in Mooroopna, 181 kilometres north of Melbourne, on May 27 2018

'The f***ing poofter tried to rape me,' Whybrow said as he punched Mr Moffatt repeatedly in the face before dragging him outside the unit.

Whybrow has been jailed in the Supreme Court of Victoria for 23 years, after a jury found him guilty of murder.

The 58-year-old must serve at least 17 years of his sentence before being eligible for parole.

Justice Christopher Beale accepted that Whybrow did not intend to kill Mr Moffatt.

'In your intoxicated state, you believed Moffatt was trying to rape you,' the judge said on Monday.

He added the killer had post-traumatic stress disorder at the time which contributed to the attack.

He and Mr Moffatt had been at a party for the partner of Whybrow's mother.

Paramedics could not save the unidentified man, who later died at the scene of the block of Mooroopna units (pictured) some time after 9pm

Whybrow eventually fell asleep, with Mr Moffatt later nodding off next to him before being attacked.

His face was covered in blood and he made gurgling noises as his friend punched him, accusing him of attempted rape.

'Have you ever been raped?' Whybrow asked his mother as she urged him to stop.

Whybrow later told police he'd hit Mr Moffatt about 20 times.

'It became apparent that you were not sure what Mr Moffatt had done to you in the bedroom, if anything,' Justice Beale said.

Pictured: the scene of the crime - a block of units in Mooroopna near Shepparton in central Victoria

'You maintained that he must have done something, otherwise you would not have acted the way you did.'

The judge said no sentence could make up for the suffering of the victim's family.

'Your offending cost Moffatt his life, but he was not your only victim. No sentence I impose can undo what you have done,' Justice Beale said.

Whybrow was described by members of his local church as quiet and well-respected. They said he had never acted aggressively and was an eager volunteer who mowed lawns and cooked meals for the homeless.

Justice Beale accepted the man was sorry for what he had done.

More than 700 days spent in custody since the murder will count towards Whybrow's sentence.
Through that so-called Order exactly two years ago in May, 2018, the then Pakistan government had seized more authority from the local council in the Gilgit-Baltistan region to deal with the affairs of that region

New Delhi: India on Monday issued a demarche to Pakistan and lodged a strong protest against a recent order of the Pakistani Supreme Court that reportedly allowed the amendment to the so-called Order of 2018 of the Pakistani government to now conduct general elections in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan. Through that so-called Order exactly two years ago in May, 2018, the then Pakistan government had seized more authority from the local council in the Gilgit-Baltistan region to deal with the affairs of that region. India has always regarded Gilgit-Baltistan as part of its territory which has been under the illegal occupation of Pakistan since 1947-48.

In a statement, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) said, India demarched senior Pakistan diplomat and lodged a strong protest to Pakistan against Supreme Court of Pakistan order on the so-called Gilgit-Baltistan. It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession.

The MEA further said, The government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it. India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu & Kashmir. Instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.

The MEA added, It was further conveyed that such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh by Pakistan nor the grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan occupied territories for the past seven decades. The government of Indias position in the matter is reflected in the resolution passed by the Parliament in 1994 by consensus.
SAN DIEGO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dalrada Health Products, the wholly owned subsidiary of Dalrada Financial Corp. (OTC Pink: DFCO) announced today the opening of two new distribution centers, a 10,000 square-foot facility in Brownsville, TX, and a 5,000 square-foot facility in Vista, CA. This comes amid the growing demand of GlanHealth's products and services nation-wide, including Mexico and Canada. Based on recent sales contracts, the company anticipates fulfilling $10MM of combined volume from the two locations in 2020. The added warehouse space will store finished goods, bulk products, and equipment for the growing spray services business line.

With the latest launch of the GlanHealth sanitization and disinfectant brand, the company is realizing the demand and is planning accordingly to build a sustainable and scalable model. "Our strategy is to expand quickly to meet the immediate need, with a long-term vision to set the groundwork as our brand grows with enhanced packaging requirements to service customers worldwide," said Brian Bonar, CEO of Dalrada.

The company will continue to provide news & announcements surrounding substantial business activities during the months of May and June, as it wraps up the fiscal year.

About Dalrada Health

A subsidiary of Dalrada Financial Corp., Dalrada Health is focused on solving health problems around the world. The company develops products and services that address the unmet needs of consumers due to accessibility, affordability, or availability. With operations in the U.S., Malaysia, and India, Dalrada Health can reach underserved markets through strong partnerships and the development of efficient supply chains. Dalrada Health is committed to solving universal health problems through improved methodologies resulting in products and services that benefit the global marketplace. For details, visit https://dalradahealth.com. For details about GlanHealth's hand sanitizers and surface disinfectants, visit https://GlanHealth.com.

About Dalrada (DFCO)

Dalrada Financial Corp. (OTC Pink: DFCO) solves real-world problems by producing innovation-focused and technologically-centered solutions on a global level. Delivering next-generation manufacturing, engineering, and healthcare products and services designed to propel growth, Dalrada is a team of industry experts and an organization built upon a strong foundation of financial capital. The Company and its subsidiaries are positioned for stable long-term growth through intelligent market research, sound business acumen, and established operational infrastructure. For more information, visit www.dalrada.com or call 1-858-283-1253.

Disclaimer

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future revenues and sales projections, plans for future financing, the ability to meet operational milestones, marketing arrangements and plans, and shipments to and regulatory approvals in international markets. Such statements reflect management's current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, our ability to obtain additional financing that will allow us to continue our current and future operations and whether demand for our products and services in domestic and international markets will continue to expand. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the Company's expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the Company's success are more fully disclosed in the Company's most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its annual report on Form 10-K.

SOURCE Dalrada Health

Related Links

http://www.dalrada.com


In recognition of his high-impact work advancing the field of RNA-targeting medicines, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded Scripps Research Chemistry Professor Matthew Disney, PhD, a prestigious Research Program Award, to aid Disney's development of treatments for incurable diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS and frontotemporal dementia.

The NINDS Research Program Award is designed to enable creative scientists with a proven track record to focus their time and talent on advancing science rather than on writing grant applications. It lasts for five years, is extendable for up to eight, and in Disney's case, is worth up to $11 million cumulatively.

Matt Disney's work has changed the landscape of what scientists now consider 'druggable targets,' and in the process, reinvigorated research on multiple incurable diseases, including muscular dystrophy, ALS and advanced, metastatic cancer. That this prestigious NIH award program has now gone to two of our Florida-based scientists in four years speaks to the world-class, high-impact biomedical research we do." Douglas Bingham, Executive Vice President, Scripps Research

In 2017, Florida-based Neuroscience Professor Ron Davis, PhD, was among the inaugural group of 30 scientists to receive the NINDS Research Program Award. Davis studies both basic and applied neuroscience, and has discovered biological mechanisms underpinning memory and forgetting, while searching for new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

Disney says he plans to use the Research Program Award to advance new treatments for some of the most challenging brain diseases.

"There are millions of patients and their families that have invested their time and their own tissue samples to advance the development of targeted therapeutics," Disney says. "They are awaiting development of new approaches that can be advanced into medicines for brain and nervous system diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and ALS and multiple rare genetic diseases."

Essential for life, RNA carries out fundamental duties in our cells. It templates genes, builds proteins, and regulates multiple cell activities, including how much of a particular protein gets manufactured from our DNA.

Controlling, silencing or repairing RNA, especially toxic RNA that might be garbled, expanded or broken, has been a goal of many scientists through the years. By designing a sort of computational and mathematical decoder, Disney has succeeded against tough odds.

"Our work has developed new ways in which the RNAs that directly cause these disease can be manipulated with chemical probes and in some cases, we can use the body's own defense system to erase disease-driving RNSs," Disney says.

"Armed with these tools and approaches, we are attempting to set a foundation to develop drug-discovery technologies that may allow treatments to emerge. This award will allow us the freedom to pursue these new directions and take risks to go after multiple diseases at once."

RNA is built of simple stuff, just four nucleic acids. Under an electron microscope, it appears more like loose yarn fragments than the large, sweater-like protein structures most drugs reliably target. As a result, many scientists had written it off as an undruggable molecule.

By defining those relatively rare, stable RNA structures, and then matching those forms to a database he built of complementary small-molecule drugs, Disney built a system for identifying RNA drugs for multiple diseases.

His system has identified compounds now under study as potential disease-modifying treatments for conditions including Fragile X syndrome, muscular dystrophy and inherited ALS.

Beyond ALS and muscular dystrophy, Disney's RNA-modifying tools are showing great applicability to cancers and a variety of other rare genetic disorders, Disney says.

In addition, because many viruses are made of RNA, Disney's technology can be used to identify new classes of antiviral drugs. His team is now developing drug candidates to attack the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, the cause of pandemic COVID-19.

"Often times viruses, including coronavirus, have specific folds in their RNA that allow them to integrate with the host's protein manufacturing machinery to replicate," Disney says. "We're designing small molecules that target these structures in the RNA to short-circuit this process and serve as lead therapeutics. In principle this could be scaled to every seasonal viral outbreak we're going to be challenged with."

A founder of Expansion Therapeutics in San Diego, Calif. and Jupiter, Florida, Disney has also been recognized with the 2019 Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Chemistry from Tel Aviv University, the 2018 Weaver H. Gaines BioFlorida Entrepreneur of the Year award, and the 2015 National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award.
By Linda So and Grant Smith

(Reuters) - When the first cases of the new coronavirus surfaced in Ohios prisons, the director in charge felt like she was fighting a ghost.

We werent always able to pinpoint where all the cases were coming from, said Annette Chambers-Smith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. As the virus spread, they began mass testing.

They started with the Marion Correctional Institution, which houses 2,500 prisoners in north central Ohio, many of them older with pre-existing health conditions. After testing 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were shocked. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, close to 95% had no symptoms.

It was very surprising, said Chambers-Smith, who oversees the states 28 correctional facilities.

As mass coronavirus testing expands in prisons, large numbers of inmates are showing no symptoms. In four state prison systems -- Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia -- 96% of 3,277 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic, according to interviews with officials and records reviewed by Reuters. Thats out of 4,693 tests that included results on symptoms.

The numbers are the latest evidence to suggest that people who are asymptomatic  contagious but not physically sick -- may be driving the spread of the virus, not only in state prisons that house 1.3 million inmates across the country, but also in communities across the globe. The figures also reinforce questions over whether testing of just people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus.

"It adds to the understanding that we have a severe undercount of cases in the U.S., said Dr. Leana Wen, adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, said of the Reuters findings. The case count is likely much, much higher than we currently know because of the lack of testing and surveillance."

Some people diagnosed as asymptomatic when tested for the coronavirus, however, may go on to develop symptoms later, according to researchers.

The United States has more people behind bars than any other nation, a total incarcerated population of nearly 2.3 million as of 2017 -- nearly half of which is in state prisons. Smaller numbers are locked in federal prisons and local jails, which typically hold people for relatively short periods as they await trial.

Story continues

State prison systems in Michigan, Tennessee and California have also begun mass testing -- checking for coronavirus infections in large numbers of inmates even if they show no sign of illness -- but have not provided specific counts of asymptomatic prisoners.

Tennessee said a majority of its positive cases didnt show symptoms. In Michigan, state authorities said "a good number" of the 620 prisoners who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic. Californias state prison system would not release counts of asymptomatic prisoners.

Each state manages multiple prison facilities. Ohio, for instance, has 49,000 prisoners in 28 facilities. A total 3,837 inmates tested positive for the coronavirus in 15 of those facilities. But the state has not yet provided results on symptoms for 1,809 of them and did not identify the total number of tests conducted across the prison system.

Arkansas and Tennessee have also taken a targeted approach by conducting mass testing in several of their facilities. Michigan, North Carolina, California and Virginia have started with one facility each.

Most state prisons did not provide the age or other demographic details of those who tested positive for the coronavirus, which has killed 197,872 people across the globe, including 51,791 in the United States.

VAST UNDERCOUNT

Reuters surveyed all 50 state prison systems. Of the 30 that responded, most are only testing inmates who show symptoms, suggesting they could be vastly undercounting the number infected by the coronavirus.

Florida and Texas, whose inmate populations are bigger than Ohios, report a combined total of just 931 cases -- far fewer than the 3,837 inmates who tested positive in Ohio. New York, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, has reported 269 positive cases among 51,000 inmates. All three states are testing only symptomatic prisoners.

Prison agencies are almost certainly vastly undercounting the number of COVID cases among incarcerated persons, said Michele Deitch, a corrections specialist and senior lecturer at the University of Texas. Just as the experts are telling us in our free-world communities, the only way to get ahead of this outbreak is through mass testing.

Prison officials in Florida and Texas said they were following guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with state health officials when testing only inmates showing symptoms of the virus. New Yorks Department of Corrections said its policy of only testing prisoners who show symptoms was reflective of testing procedures in the general public.

Tennessee took an aggressive approach after a dozen inmates tested positive at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex in the city of Pikeville last week. The state's Department of Correction has tested 3,503 prisoners at Bledsoe, the Northwest Correctional Complex and the Turney Center Industrial Complex.

As of Friday, 651 were positive, and most of them were asymptomatic, the department said.

Its what makes the pandemic more difficult to manage, said Marc Stern, former medical director for the Washington State Department of Corrections and a faculty member at the University of Washingtons School of Public Health. There are a whole lot of people who are asymptomatic.

After a recent spike in cases at the Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, North Carolina, state correctional officials tested all 723 prisoners last week. Of the 444 who were infected by the virus, 98% were asymptomatic, the states department of public safety said. One inmate has died at the prison.

Similarly, mass testing at two Arkansas prisons -- the Cummins Unit in the city of Grady and the Community Correction Center in the state capital Little Rock -- found 751 infected inmates, almost all of them asymptomatic, the state corrections department said. It did not provide the total number of inmates who were tested.

Arkansas prisons have faced contagious disease outbreaks before, such as scabies and chickenpox, but those episodes were easier to manage because inmates showed overt symptoms, said Arkansas Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dina Tyler. But with this virus, you have no idea because so many are asymptomatic. It makes it very challenging to contain, she said.

24-HOUR TURNAROUND IS CRUCIAL

Michigans Lakeland Correctional Facility houses some of the states oldest and most medically frail prisoners. When coronavirus cases surged, the prison saw a spike in infections and deaths. As of April 23, nine Lakeland inmates had died from COVID-19, accounting for a third of the deaths across Michigans 29 state prisons.

Nearly half of Lakelands 1,400 prisoners suffer from chronic underlying health conditions, according to state data. Many are in wheelchairs, and the minimum-security facility in southern Michigan has its own geriatric unit for its large elderly population.

On Tuesday, the prison tested all 400 inmates in the geriatric ward and plans to test the rest of the facility by the end of the week. Of the 971 tested so far, 642, or about 66%, were positive. A state official declined to disclose how many were asymptomatic.

We know mass testing is going to make our numbers spike and might make us look bad, said Chris Gautz, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. But I dont think theres another prison system in the country that doesnt have large numbers. They just might not be testing as rigorously as we are.

All tested inmates are quarantined in their rooms or units pending the test results, which usually come back in a day, he said. The 24-hour turnaround is crucial because once an inmate tests negative, they can return to the general population, he said.

In the seven state prison systems conducting mass tests, 49 inmates have died.

As the coronavirus spreads behind bars, rights groups and public defenders say they fear more will succumb, and have pressed for the release of nonviolent older and medically high-risk inmates. While thousands have been let out, crowded, often unsanitary conditions have raised concerns that jails and prisons could become vectors for the disease.

Theyre worse than landlocked cruise ships, Stern, the corrections expert, said, referring to stranded cruise ships that have been overwhelmed by coronavirus infections.

(Linda So reported from Washington and Grant Smith from New York. Additional reporting by Brad Heath. Editing by Jason Szep)
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) resumed trading for the month of May with an increase of 0.30 per cent just as the country eases lockdown.

Specifically, the All-Share Index rose by 68.85 points or 0.30 per cent to close at 23,089.86 against 23,021.01 achieved on Thursday.

Similarly, the market capitalisation inched higher by N36 billion to close at N12.033 trillion against N11.997 trillion posted on Thursday.

The marginal increase was due to gains recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, amongst which are: MTN Nigeria, Ardova, Dangote Sugar Refinery, UAC of Nigeria and Union Bank of Nigeria.

Analysts at Afrinvest Limited expected the performance of the domestic bourse to be shaped by releases of corporate earnings and bargain hunting activities this week.

Similarly, analysts at United Capital Plc, said, This week, the implementation of OPEC supply cut deal and the influx of more quarterly earnings will drive sentiments amid increasing number of countries weighing the need to unlock economic activities as the debate around health and economic wellbeing gets louder.

Prestige Assurance dominated the gainers chart in percentage terms, growing by 10 per cent to close at 55k per share.

READ ALSO:

Ardova followed with a gain 9.96 per cent to close at N12.70, while Wapic Insurance appreciated by 7.69 per cent to close at 28k per share.

Learn Africa went up by 6.80 per cent to close at N1.10, while Mutual Benefit Assurance appreciated by five per cent, to close at 21k per share.

Conversely, NEM Insurance and Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals led the losers chart in percentage terms, dropping by 10 per cent each, to close at N1.98 and 54k per share, respectively.

Chams followed with a decline of 8.70 per cent to close at 21k per share.

Access Bank shed 7.58 per cent to close at N6.10, while University Press depreciated by 7.55 per cent to close at 98k per share.

In spite of the growth in market indices, the total volume of shares traded decreased by 30.49 per cent with an exchange of 249.86 million shares, worth N2.39 billion transacted in 6,538 deals.

This was in contrast with a turnover of 359.47 million shares valued at N3.26 billion traded in 4,946 deals on Thursday.

Transactions in the shares of Guaranty Trust Bank topped the activity chart with 44.53 million shares valued at N935.21 million.

FBN Holdings followed with 40.71 million shares worth N187.41 million, while United Bank for Africa (UBA) traded 24.75 million shares valued at N144.55 million.

Zenith Bank sold 22.85 million shares worth N328.51 million, while Access Bank transacted 14.51 million shares valued at N89.39 million.

(NAN)
On Friday, as he forcefully denied an allegation of sexual assault made against him by a former Senate aide, Joseph R. Biden Jr. called on the National Archives to release any complaint related to the accusation.

But the National Archives immediately responded that any such personnel records would not be under its control but would rest with the Senate itself.

Then the Biden campaign sent a letter to the secretary of the Senate asking the office to direct a search for any relevant records, if they existed, and make the results of the search public.

On Monday, the secretary of the Senate said that her office had no legal discretion to disclose any such information. That prompted Mr. Bidens personal attorney to respond to the Senate office asking, in effect, what his campaign needed to do to locate any relevant documents and arrange for their release.
Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, heading up the reopening task force, says a plan will be released May 18 for a phased opening. The task force has been speaking with businesses and organizations on how they can safely restart the economy.

State Officials Caution May 18 Not 'Magical' Reopening Date

BOSTON  State officials on Monday stressed that May 18 is not a "magical date" for reopening the commonwealth.

Rather, the restart of economic activity will be a phased effort based on recommendations from an advisory board announced last week and public health experts.

"There seems to be some with an understanding that May 18 is a magical date," said Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito at Monday's daily COVID-19 update. "May 18 is the date that we have said the report of this advisory board will be released."

Gov. Charlie Baker last week extended the stay-home order until May 18 as cases of the novel coronavirus continued to climb. He said guidance from experts and the federal government has been that there needs to be a downward trend in key indicators associated with the novel coronavirus.

"We're number three basically behind a New York in terms of  and New Jersey  in terms of both cases and deaths," the governor said on Monday. "And for states that literally don't have and haven't had a significant penetration with respect to COVID, for whatever reason, got a different timetable than we do."

Polito is heading up the reopening task force with representatives from business, cultural and health organizations.

"We've asked them to present to us around their readiness, and given the particular nature of their work," she said. "Some have a readiness level that is different. We've asked them to talk about the barriers in terms of how do they make their workplace safer. ... What are some of the key enablers that they know are important for their workforce to be able to even return to work."

The group has so far heard and met virtually with stakeholders in 23 different industry associations representing more than 100,000 businesses and more than 1.4 million workers. Baker said there has been an emphasize on the guidance and information they need to safely reopen.

"What that means is that only sectors of the economy that can implement the appropriate health guidance will be opening in the first phase," the governor said. "There won't be anyone firing a starting gun on May 18 and saying everybody's off to the races.

"But we do hope that certain types of businesses and workplaces will be able to begin resuming operations, under the guidelines established through this process."

There have been indications of downward trends in some parts of the state. The rate of new infections has been below 20 percent even as testing capacity has increased. More than 300,000 patients have been hospitalized for COVID-19 related issues to date but the number of hospitalizations has begun to trend in the right direction, Baker said.

"It's also important to note that different parts of Massachusetts are in different stages," he said. "For example, COVID hospitalizations and ICU bed days related to COVID have gone down in Western Mass, and on the Cape, but remain high in Worcester and on the south coast, and flat in Boston."

In reference to a question about a protest calling for reopening being held in front of the State House that afternoon, the governor said the strategy pursued by the state has been consistent with that of other regions that had been successful in containing the coronavirus to the point they could plan for safely reopening.

He acknowledged the economic strain and pointed to the efforts in cranking up the unemployment insurance system to a volume it had not been prepared for. But, he said, restarting a lot of nonessential businesses too early would have the potential for reigniting the pandemic within the Bay State.

The governor also seemed to dismiss the idea that parts of the state seeing significant downward trends would be able to open sooner than other regions.

"I don't think it makes a lot of sense in a state that's as small as ours, where people can move around, to think about any of this stuff on anything other than a statewide basis," he said. "I don't want to take a place that seems to be making progress and create a problem for it."
OTTAWA COUNTY, MI Wendell Popejoys first-degree murder conviction in the shooting of nuisance neighbor Sheila Bonge was upheld by a state Court of Appeals panel.

Popejoy, 65, said Bonge, 59 had pushed him to his limit before he sneaked behind her and shot her in the head while she was snow blowing her driveway.

The killing happened Dec. 26, 2017, in a rural neighborhood on 104th Avenue in Ottawa Countys Crockery Township. It followed years of a bitter feud between Bonge and her neighbors.

Popejoy told investigators he killed Bonge in the spur of the moment when he looked outside and saw her snowblowing her driveway. She would blow snow into neighbors driveways to aggravate them, trial testimony showed.

In his appeal, Popejoy said that an Ottawa County Circuit Court jury that convicted him of first-degree murder - which requires a showing of premeditation and deliberation - should have been instructed on a lesser charge, voluntary manslaughter, because he acted in the heat of passion.

The appeals panel said that overwhelming evidence at trial indicated that Bonge was a neighborhood nuisance. However, defendant and Bonge had not even interacted with each other on the day Bonge was killed.

Sheila Bonge

Popejoy was drinking coffee in his kitchen when he looked outside and saw Bonge. He got his gun out of his bedroom, walked down his driveway then hid behind a stand of trees. He sneaked behind Bonge and fired a shot into the back of her head.

No one doubted that Bonge upset neighbors over the course of years, appellate judges Jane Markey, Kathleen Jansen and Mark Boonstra wrote in their opinion.

The (trial) record reflected that Bonge repeatedly harassed neighbors by name-calling, yelling, flipping the bird, trespassing, snow blowing snow onto her neighbors driveways, honking her horn as she drove by their homes, driving on their grass, riling up her neighbors animals, and was even engaged in civil litigation with one set of neighbors over an easement at the time of her death, the appeals judges said.

But, the panel said: A rational review of this evidence does not support a finding that the killing occurred in the heat of passion; rather, defendant had ample time to plan the killing.

They said that Judge Karen Miedema acted properly in refusing to let jurors consider manslaughter as a possible verdict.

Popejoy, who had no previous criminal record, is serving life in prison without possibility for parole.

After he killed Bonge, he put her snowblower back and put her body on a sled, dumping it down a hill behind his house. He removed her clothes and burned them in a burn barrel.

His girlfriend, Rhonda Clark, said she and Wendell lived in hell because of Bonge. He just snapped, she said after his sentencing.

Bonges family disputed neighbors characterization of her and said she was a very selfless person.

Read more:

Life sentence for killing neighbor helps but doesnt bring her back

Man regrets killing nuisance neighbor blowing snow in his driveway

After shooting abusive neighbor: Not really sorry shes gone

Neighborhood nuisance didnt deserve bullet to her head, prosecutor says
New Delhi, May 4 : With the country entering lockdown 3.0 with further relaxation, the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) and mobile manufacturers on Monday reiterated that the Noida-Greater Noida manufacturing belt need to reopen slowly so that supply chain can be streamlined and the 'Make in India initiative can be put back on track.

According to Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman, ICEA, the normalcy up to 30 per cent in mobile manufacturing will return by the end of May if factories are allowed to function.

"All state governments are trying very hard to come up with calibrated permissions, balancing economic requirement and health and safety of their employees. All these efforts will concretize this week," Mohindroo told IANS on Monday.

The numbers speak for themselves if we look at the Noida/Greater Noida area.

The region is set to produce about 30 per cent of an estimated 100 crore mobile phones the country will produce annually by 2025.

Approximately 80 mobile manufacturing factories are currently operating in this region, with an estimated total employment of 50,000 people, according to the top mobile industry body.

These 80 units produce mobile handsets as well as components for handsets such as chargers/adapters, battery packs, etc.

South Korean tech giant Samsung, which has the world's biggest mobile factory at Sector 81, aimed to double its mobile phones manufacturing capacity in Noida from 6.8 crore to 12 crore units a year by the end of this year.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer OPPO, which is currently manufacturing 5 crore smartphones annually at its Kasna-based factory in Greater Noida, aimed to double the capacity to 10 crore units by this year.

Realme India is awaiting the nod to open its factory at Greater Noida.

"We have reached out to the government for approval on opening of factory and now await their decision. We will abide by the government's order strictly, while prioritising people's health," said Madhav Sheth, Vice President, Realme and CEO, Realme India.

Other key smartphone players are currently in touch with the UP government to facilitate the opening of factories.

"Noida/Greater Noida/YEW (Yamuna Expressway) are envisaged to be a global hub of mobile phone and component manufacturing," according to Mohindroo.

"We estimate that out of the targeted $190 billion value production and 100 crore volume of phones to be produced by 2025, at least 30 per cent will be made here -- over $57 billion production of just phones which is a near four-fold jump from the present numbers," Mohindroo told IANS in a recent interview.

"We estimate a component and sub-assembly industry of at least $20-25 billion developing here in 4-5 years," he added.

According to Tarun Pathak, Associate Director, Counterpoint Research, handset manufacturing in India is skewed more in favour of north India by volumes.

"Hence, it is very important to clear the air about resuming operations. We believe that it should be done simultaneously across the country and that too with planned resumption which includes giving proper guidelines, strength of workers and other SoPs," Pathak told IANS.

Union Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on April 29 exhorted the electronics industry to explore new opportunities that are arising out of adversity and make the country the global hub of electronics manufacturing.

Prasad asked the electronics industry to take advantage of the opportunity and new schemes notified by the ministry, attract global investment and strengthen the sector.

According to industry experts, to avoid another month with zero smartphone shipments/sales as the country witnessed in April, factories must start functioning so that the industry limps back to normal for the third quarter, and the most important festive sale season later.

"The resumption of work at factories in North India is critical for handset exports too," said Pathak.
During the last recession, many people who'd lost their jobs displayed extraordinary creativity to become the new self-employed, successfully producing wonderful food products.

Now they're the core of our artisan food industry, and boy have they stepped up to the plate in this current emergency, deploying their creativity once again, to get their food to those who need it. They too are front-line heroes. Rally around them, buy Irish, buy local. You'll never eat better or cleaner.

THE FOOD BOX

"I'd be home two hours earlier if I didn't talk so much," laughed Sean Ring, of Ring's Farm in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, as he delivered my order of organic chickens.

"There've been Rings in Castlecomer since 1730," Sean says. He inherited the farm from his Uncle Joseph, a bachelor, in 1995. "I was always there and around with him when I was a child." Sean lives there now with his wife Mary and two young daughters, who both love the chickens.

He supplies top restaurants, including Avalon in Castlecomer, the Michelin-starred restaurants Chapter One and Liath in Dublin, plus Locks, Bang, Jamie Oliver's and Bread 41. "We were really getting well established, but we've changed our direction since March to home deliveries, as well as our butcher customers. I'm reasonably optimistic, but there are a lot of challenges ahead."

Sean supplies organic and free range whole chickens as well as chicken supremes, Kievs and goujons. "The minimum order is 50, and we always give a few extra chickens for orders of 150 upwards. We're putting out home delivery packs with the emphasis on sharing with family, neighbours, and especially the vulnerable."

They also aim to provide BBQ packs for the summer.

ringsfarm.ie

THE PRODUCER

Nora Egan, of Inch House in Thurles, is a powerhouse and founding member of the Tipperary Food Producers. When black pudding took a leap from the breakfast plate to fine dining, Nora started producing Inch House black pudding from her mother's old recipe. It took off and has been on virtually every restaurant menu in the country since, paired with everything from scallops to apples.

A couple of years ago Nora handed over the reins of her pudding empire to daughter Mairin Byrne, who is now producing it in Templemore. And, guess who's a new admirer of the pud? None other than the Domestic Goddess herself, Nigella Lawson.

Mairin says with the loss of food-service customers she's down about 50pc, but that "people have been wonderful through their support. I'm holding my own and keeping costs and overheads down as much as possible".

Like many other small food producers, Mairin has aligned with larger distributors like Hussey Farm, James Whelan Butchers and Ardkeen Stores.

inchhouse.ie

THE RESTAURANT

Since chef Ahmet Dede came to Ireland in 2009, he has worked in three amazing Dublin Michelin-starred restaurants - Chapter One, The Green House, and Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. He moved to Amsterdam to work at the 2-star &moshik, but he came back to take up the role of head chef at Mews in Baltimore, where he achieved a Michelin star in 2018.

This week he announced his new restaurant Dede at The Customs House in Baltimore. I suppose its superfluous to say that plan A, opening for fine dining, has gone out the window for now, but the lucky denizens are in for a treat as he's launched a contactless menu to go. "We decided to open the takeaway to produce delicious food as a treat for people at home. We hope to put a smile on their faces. It's not intended to be complex, it's just delicious food." The menu (20) includes a main, a side, bread and dessert and a little surprise in the bag that's different each week. Think of dishes like Lamb Anatolian-style with sour Turkish flat bread, or steamed hake with foraged seaweeds cooked in seaweed butter, and to-die-for walnut Baklava with pistachio cream.

"The response from our community has been fantastic. This is why I love West Cork. It's my home and where my heart is." Delicious food from a Michelin-starred chef for 20. It's the bargain of the year.

Tel: (028) 48248. Available Fri/Sat from 4pm-8pm and Sun from 3pm-7pm.

customshousebaltimore.com

THE HOTEL

There's no greater advocate of Limerick food and its producers than Tom Flavin, executive chef of the Limerick Strand Hotel, overlooking the mighty River Shannon in the heart of the city.

Tom grew up on a farm in West Limerick. "I had my first business up and running when I was eight years old, milking my own goats and selling the milk to neighbours. This all gave me a deep appreciation of what goes into producing good food." Tom travelled widely after catering college and was the youngest ever sous chef at London's top-notch Dorchester Hotel.

Tom is committed to buying from local producers, including Caroline Rigney's Curraghchase free-range pork; Pat Barry's beef; Sean Duggan's free range eggs and honey; Kevin Wallace's vegetables and Seamus Leahy's goat's cheese. "I see local sourcing as something that contributes not only to the food offering of a hotel, but also the local economy, which comes back to the hotel in business loyalty."

The hotel may be currently closed but, with two young children, Tom hasn't been idle. His wife Mary works on the front-line in UCH Limerick heading up the ICU, where sometimes staff aren't getting to eat on a 16-hour shift. So, when the hotel temporarily closed, the staff cooked up more than 100 hot lunches for the workers in the ICU.

This week Tom is back behind the stove having launched a call and collect service of his casual favourite foods at the Limerick Strand. You know the rules by now. It's contactless call and pay. Food will be delivered to your car door (outside main entrance of hotel). Available daily 4pm-9pm. Tel: (061) 421800.

strandhotellimerick.ie
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in a virtual summit on Monday and reaffirmed India's intent to assist the world in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. In his opening remarks, PM Modi said that humanity faces its most severe crisis in many decades, and NAM has to retain its role of being the "world's moral wise" and must remain inclusive.

"India accounts for one/sixth of humanity. During this crisis, we have shown how democracy, discipline, and decisiveness can come together to create a genuine people's movement. India's civilization sees the whole world as one family. We are extending help to other countries. To counter COVID-19, we have promoted cooperation in our immediate neighbourhood and organizing online training to share India's medical expertise with others," PM Modi said.

READ | PM Modi Participates In NAM Virtual Summit To Discuss COVID-19 Pandemic

India, the world's pharmacy

PM Modi highlighted that India is regarded as the "pharmacy of the world", especially for affordable medicines, and despite its domestic needs, it has ensured medical supplies to over 123 partner countries including 59 members of NAM. "We are active in global efforts to develop remedies and vaccines," the PM asserted.

READ | President Kovind & PM Modi Laud Armed Forces' Gesture Of Honouring COVID-19 Warriors

Covert attack on Pakistan, fake news peddlers

PM Modi also hit out at "some people" for being busy to "spread the virus of terrorism" in an apparent reference to Pakistan, which sent terrorists in Kashmir to disturb peace and attacked Indian Army jawans over the weekend. He also hit out at those spreading fake news and doctored videos which "divided countries and communities".

READ | Handwara Encounter: PM Modi Pays Tribute To Martyrs, Hails Their Valour & Sacrifice

Reform policies

PM Modi further called for international institutions to be more representative of today's world and asked leaders to focus on promoting human welfare and not just on economic growth. He mentioned some of the India-led initiatives on the world stage, like International Solar Alliance and International Day of Yoga that promotes international cooperation and engagement.

"Many countries organise military drills, but India has taken the initiative to organise disaster management drills in our region and beyond. NAM should call upon the international community and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to focus on building health facilities in developing countries. We should develop a platform for all NAM countries to pool our experience, best practices, crisis management protocols, research and resources," PM Modi said.

READ | NCP's Sharad Pawar Questions PM Modi For Choosing Gandhinagar Over Mumbai For IFSC Centre
NYPD officer Francisco Garcia arresting Donni Wright.

Facebook/ Daquan Owens

A New York City police officer identified as Francisco Garcia was filmed pointing a stun gun at a man and violently punching him during an incident the NYPD says started as social distancing enforcement.

Police told The New York Post that a tussle broke out when officers tried to break up a group of people gathering in the East Village on Saturday.

Video of the incident shows a bystander, identified as Donni Wright, walking toward police. Garcia then was seen pointing a stun gun at him, pulling him to the ground, and punching him.

The NYPD has put Garcia on desk duty and stripped him of his gun and badge while authorities investigate the incident.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A New York City police officer has been placed on desk duty after he was filmed pointing a stun gun at a man and violently punching him while making arrests over social distancing violations.

Police told The New York Post that officers were breaking up a gathering in the East Village on Saturday when two people, identified by the paper as Shakiem Brunsom and Ashley Serrano, refused to leave the area. Officers told The Post that they then tried to arrest Brunsom and Serrano, but a tussle ensued when they resisted.

A bystander, identified by police as 33-year-old Donni Wright, tried to walk toward the NYPD officers, and a plainclothes officer not wearing a mask, identified by The Post as Francisco Garcia, approached him with a stun gun.

Video from the incident shows Garcia dragging Wright to the ground, slapping him in the face, and punching his shoulder. The clip then shows Garcia kneeling on Wright's head while another officer handcuffed him.

The NYPD told Gothamist that officials are investigating the incident. According to the Associated Press, Garcia was put on desk duty and stripped of his gun and badge.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea told Gothamist that Brunsom, Serrano, and Wright were all arrested and that the incident, "started out as a social distancing enforcement" to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Story continues

Brunsom was charged with resisting arrest and marijuana possession, Serrano was charged with resisting arrest and criminal possession of a weapon in connection to a stun gun police say she was carrying, and Wright was charged with assault of a police officer and resisting arrest.

A spokesperson for the NYPD told The Post that Wright had struck a fighting stance not seen in video of the incident and that Garcia felt threatened.

Daquan Owens, who filmed the incident, told Gothamist that Brunsom and Serrano had been standing six feet apart when police tried to break them up. Security footage posted online showed Brunsom and Serrano standing on opposite sides of a sidewalk while talking, only moving to the same side seconds before police arrived.

Owens said that Wright "wasn't being aggressive" when he approached the officers.

"He was just talking," Owens told Gothamist. "He never raised his hands or hit him. Cop just took it upon himself to start beating on him. I was standing right next to him. I could hear everything."

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter that he had watched the video of the incident.

"Saw the video from the Lower East Side and was really disturbed by it," he wrote. "The behavior I saw in that video is simply not acceptable."

Shea said in a press conference that 43 summonses were issued on Saturday for failing to maintain social distancing, according to The Post.

"I would just reiterate that we had tens of thousands of interactions with people all across the city yesterday, most of them without having to issue any type of enforcement activity, whether it's a summons or arrest," Shea told press.

Read the original article on Insider
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Apriza Pinandita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 15:52 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5d33c4 1 National COVID-19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,social-assistance-funds,social-aid,Jokowi Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has called for transparency in the distribution of social assistance in response to the COVID-19 outbreak amid mounting issues surrounding the delivery of aid.

For instance, Jokowi stressed that the public should know the details about those who are eligible to receive the aid and what type of aid is being distributed.

I want the social assistance recipient data to be transparently available [for the public], Jokowi said during a COVID-19 task force virtual meeting on Monday.

The President also urged stakeholders to accelerate distribution, saying he wants all of [the aid] to be received this week".

He also called on the relevant authorities, including the social affairs minister, regional leaders, district and village heads to closely supervise the distribution of social assistance.

The timing [of the distribution] must be well-managed as there is aid from the central government and local governments [] a hotline must be created so that everyone can report possible embezzlement, Jokowi said.

Read also: COVID-19 aid stalled, used for political stunts

While the central government has claimed that the distribution of various forms of social assistance is underway, problems have emerged in the data for determining those who are eligible. Some poor families have complained they have not received assistance when those in well-off neighborhoods had.



In Batam, Riau Islands, many residents have not received aid. In East Java, municipalities and regencies in the province have not yet submitted the names of eligible recipients.

Meanwhile, in the country's COVID-19 epicenter, Jakarta, there have been reports that several companies appointed by the government to help pack staple foods for distribution to affected families had experienced delays caused by a shortage of special bags printed with a message from the President.

Analysts have also raised concerns about the lack of human resources needed for the government to achieve 100 percent accuracy in its poverty data  saying that the process for updating data was not optimal and had caused confusion over who was eligible to receive the aid.

They also warned about potential illicit practices, from illegal fees to price gouging, highlighting the lack of supervision of the distribution.
YEREVAN.  Even the actual state of emergency does not preclude an extended but eased regime of COVID-19-related restrictions in Armenia. The Minister of Health, Arsen Torosyan, said this in a conversation with journalists on Monday.

When asked whether he agrees with the lifting of some of the state of emergency restrictions and to the reports that with this step, the government puts the accountability on the citizens, Torosyan said. "The government is a collegial body, decisions are made often by consensus, sometimes by voting. The opinion of a member of the government does not always become a basis for a final decision. If I look [at this matter] strictly professionally, yes, it is desirable for us that the restrictions remain long in place. But can the state live long under the regime of restrictions? The answer to that question is no, it can't.

The state of emergency allows us to both ease and, if necessary, again tighten those restrictions, which is always possible. Even the actual state of emergency does not preclude an extended but eased regime of restrictions.

The government never puts the accountability on others."
Germany's coronavirus death rate is around 10 times lower than the rate calculated using official figures, according to an antibody surveillance scheme.

University of Bonn experts estimate 1.8million people across the country could have already contracted the killer infection.

But the official case count stands at 165,759 while 6,800 patients have died - a death rate of around 4 per cent.

Germany's death rate is much lower than other European nations, including the UK (15 per cent) because of its rigorous testing regime.

But the experts - who analysed blood samples in one small town where the country's outbreak began - claim the real death rate is around 0.37 per cent.

Results showed around 15 per cent of the population of Gangelt had been infected, and that a fifth of infected people had not shown any symptoms.

When the same death rate is applied to the UK, it suggests the true number of cases could be in the region of 12million - only 190,000 Brits have actually tested positive.

Data suggests the UK's true death toll is 55 higher than the Department of Health's daily updates - suggesting around 44,500 people have already died.

Other estimates based on antibody surveillance data in New York State suggest the death rate is 0.79 per cent, which would translate to 5.6million cases in the UK.

Germany's daily number of coronavirus cases, shown on this graph, fell to just 679 today - the lowest figure since March 11

The daily number of deaths was below 100 for the third day running today, falling to 43 - its lowest since March 24

Germany's rate of transmission (R) - which shows how many people are infected by the typical virus patient - has fallen to 0.74 after briefly returning to 1.0 last week

More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, a study suggests. It comes the same day as Germany opens its barbers and hairdressers (pictured), shops, schools and religious institutions

The publication of the methodology of the study comes as Germany today opened its barbers and hairdressers, shops, schools and religious institutions.

The country is relaxing its lockdown measures originally enacted in March following a decline in new cases.

Germany has recorded its lowest number of new coronavirus cases since March 11, after only 679 people were added to the tally today.

GERMANY RECORDS LOWEST NEW CASES Germany has recorded its lowest number of new coronavirus cases since March 11 after only 679 people were added to the tally today. The increase from 162,496 to 163,175 confirmed cases is a rise of just 0.4 per cent, possibly influenced by a long May Day weekend. The daily death toll was only 43, the fewest since March 25, bringing the total number in Germany from 6,649 to 6,692. Meanwhile, the closely-watched R rate fell to 0.74 yesterday, meaning that one virus patient is infecting another 0.74 people on average. Germany has identified an R rate below 1.0 as the key indicator of whether the epidemic is under control, and therefore whether restrictions can be eased. Angela Merkel has warned that even a small increase above 1.0 could leave Germany's hospitals overwhelmed as soon as this summer. There was some concern last week when the rate momentarily rose back to 1.0, but it has since fallen again and yesterday dropped from 0.78 to 0.74. The figure means that 100 virus patients will typically infect another 74 people between them, causing the number of cases to fall over time. The R rate is calculated by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases, which gathers the daily coronavirus figures. For any given day, the R rate is defined as the number of new cases divided by the same figure four days earlier. The RKI warns that its figures are based on statistical modelling and not merely the official figures, which can be erratic at weekends. 'If every case leads to two more cases on average (R=2), then the number of new infections will double,' the RKI explains. Health officials say the figure was around 3.0 at the start of March, but had stabilised at around 1.0 by around March 22. It remained below the 1.0 threshold for most of April as Germany imposed a nationwide lockdown. Advertisement

But the study from Gangelt, in Heinsberg district, suggests the outbreak is much greater than official figures show.

Following Gangelter Carnival on February 15, which had some 300 visitors, the town suffered a coronavirus outbreak.

The Dutch-bordering municipality is in North Rhine-Westphalia, which has 33,560 diagnosed COVID-19 cases and 1,290 deaths.

The state became one of the first areas in Germany where the pathogen - called SARS-CoV-2 - spread and infected a large number of people.

For the study, originally published last month, a total of 600 randomly selected households in Gangelt were written to and asked to participate in the study.

Some 919 study participants from 405 households were interviewed and tested between March 30th and April 6th, six weeks after the outbreak of the infection.

Researchers took throat swabs, which detects genetic viral material in the acute phase of the infection in the first one or two weeks.

They also did antibody blood tests, known as serology testing, which can identify who has had the coronavirus and recovered.

Two or three weeks after the infection takes place, the immune system builds antibody responses against the virus, which can be detected by a lab test called ELISA.

The preliminary study results, which have yet to be peer reviewed for publication in a scientific journal but have presented online, suggests 15 per cent of Gangelt - which has some 13,000 inhabitants - had the virus at some stage.

The town had also recorded seven deaths out of 1,800 confirmed cases, which equates to a death rate of around 0.37 per cent.

But the last day of the study was on April 6, meaning the overall outbreak could be even bigger by now.

Based on the IFR and the number of deaths, estimations about the total number of infections across Germany can be made.

'With an extrapolation based on 6,700 SARS-CoV-2 associated deaths in Germany, a total of 1.8million infections can be assumed,' Professor Hendrik Streeck and team said.

The study is an expansion of the first pilot study which involved 500 people in Ganglet, the findings of which were published on April 10.

Germany is relaxing its lockdown measures originally enacted in March following a decline in new cases. Pictured, a pupil at GutsMuths Grundschule elementary school, Berlin, May 4

Millions of cases of the coronavirus worldwide, and not just in Germany, have been unaccounted for because testing capacity cannot reach everyone. Pictured, Berlin today

WHAT CAN ANTIBODY TESTS SHOW US ABOUT THE VIRUS'S TRUE DEATH RATE? The true death rate of COVID-19 is unknown because of the way the virus is being tracked around the world. Most countries are only diagnosing people in hospitals or those with bad symptoms, meaning the number of cases is much lower than the reality. Many patients, scientists say, develop only mild illnesses or don't get any symptoms at all, meaning they are never tested and never counted. As a result, the ratio of people dying to people diagnosed is artificially high. Using antibody tests to understand the true size of an outbreak, and working out what proportion of them have died, will provide more accurate death rates. Early antibody surveys have already started to shine light in this area: HELSINKI, FINLAND Finnish researchers analysed around 150 blood samples by mid-April and found 3.4 per cent had antibodies for the coronavirus. The samples were all taken from the region of Uusima, which is home to approximately 1.7million people - most of whom live in the capital of Helsinki. At the time, only 2,000 cases had been confirmed by laboratory tests. But 3.4 per of the region's population would equate to around 57,800. Only 110 deaths have been registered in Uusima to-date - suggesting that the true fatality rate is closer to the 0.19 per cent mark. The study was released on April 15 - but the region's death toll has barely changed in the past week. It was not published in a journal. Advertisement

Commenting on the findings, Keith Neal, an emeritus professor in the epidemiology of infectious diseases, University of Nottingham, said: 'As they mention a 15 per cent rate of past infection will on its own slow the spread of the virus, probably by about 20 per cent.'

Millions of cases of the coronavirus worldwide have been unaccounted for because testing capacity cannot reach everyone.

Antibody testing is considered key to filling gaps in understanding how many of the population have been infected.

Large-scale studies are being conducted to gauge a better idea of infection rates, including by Public Health England.

The study in Germany also found that one in five coronavirus cases - both current and elapsed - were asymptomatic.

It means people would have been spreading the virus without even knowing they had it.

Martin Exner, head of Bonn University's Institute for Hygiene and Public Health and co-author of the study, said: 'The fact that apparently every fifth infection progresses without noticeable disease symptoms suggests that infected persons who shed the virus and who can thereby infect others cannot be reliably identified on the basis of recognisable disease symptoms.'

Researchers noted that this underlined the importance of maintaining a social distance as well as basic hygiene practices to keep the disease at bay.

'Every supposedly healthy person we encounter can unknowingly carry the virus. We must be aware of this and act accordingly,' said Dr Exner.

The results of the study have been pre-published before being reviewed by other scientists. It will be published in a journal at a later date.
Fears of covid19 has Angola increasing surveillance along its Congo border. In northern Angola (Zaire province), Angolan medical personnel detected two covid19 cases on April 30 in a Congolese community near the Congo border. The two infected people got covid19 while in Kinshasa (the Congo capital). The Angolan government now fears a covid19 outbreak may occur in the cities of Boma and Muanda.

May 2, 2020: In March it looked like the Ebola virus epidemic was over, but in April Congo had a handful of Ebola virus cases. That epidemic was the second-worst Ebola epidemic in history, with 2,262 dead. However, the numbers say the Ebola outbreak is waning. Not so the measles epidemic in eastern Congo. As of April 26 the measles had killed, 6,200 people in eastern Congo (North Kivu, South Kivu and part of Ituri province). 5,300 of those killed by measles are children. As of April 26, Congo had around 450 cases of covid19 and 28 deaths.

May 1, 2020: In Congo, foreign medical experts believe Congos prison are high-risk areas for covid19 outbreaks. Congolese prisons have more prisoners than space. UN peacekeepers estimate that the average Congolese prison is at 400 percent of capacity. Kinshasa's Ndolo prison has already had a small outbreak. The impact of covid19 on prison inmates depends on the health of the prisoners. In the West, the average healthy prisoner will survive a covid19 outbreak. Most wont even notice it and few will come down with what appears to be a bad case of the annual influenza epidemic. For prisoners already ill for whatever reason, there is the possibility of death. Western prisons have a lot of older prisoners who are vulnerable. African prisons have few older inmates but a lot more who are ill from the poor conditions in the prison.

April 30, 2020: Congo now expects the covid19 pandemic will cause its economy to contract during 2020. Mining industry output will drop six percent because quarantines to halt the spread of the virus will shut down production.

April 28, 2020: Rwanda accused the Burundian government of waging war in Congo in the Rwanda-Congo border area. In eastern Congo (North Kivu) Rwandan troops are accused of crossing the border to attack the FDLR rebels, who are extremist Rwandan Hutus. Rwanda denied the charge and said no Rwandan troops are operating inside Congo. However, Burundian soldiers are violating Congolese territory. Rwanda accused the FDLR of being involved in the recent attacks in North Kivus Virunga National Park.

April 27, 2020: In eastern Congo (North Kivu) peacekeepers confirm that over the last three days at least 43 have been killed in a series of armed clashes. On April 26 ADF Islamist rebels killed six people outside the city of Beni. In neighboring northeastern Congo (Ituri province near the Uganda border) soldiers fought a militia that had killed two civilians. The army claimed it lost two soldiers in the firefight and killed 12 militiamen. On April 24 a militia killed 21 civilians

Burundis national election campaign officially begins today. However, the intimidation campaign began in late 2019. Thats when opposition leaders and human rights groups began publicly accusing the youth wing of President Pierre Nkurunzizas political party of threatening and physically attacking opposition political party supporters. Nkurunzizas security services had also detained reformers, other critics and reporters. Thats believable. Last year the UN accused Burundi security agents of torturing Nkurunzizas opponents. Most of this violence is organized via the Imbonerakure, the nickname for the CNDD-FDD partys youth wing. Nkurunziza wont be on the ballot. The CNDD-FDD candidate is retired Burundian Army general Evariste Ndayishimiye. He is also his partys general secretary. Burundi media believe the CNL party candidate Agathon Rwasa is the most formidable opposition. The CNL claims that government security personnel have arrested over 200 CNL party members. Others have had their property stolen and crops burned, likely by Imbonerakure thugs.

In the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), across the Congo River from the larger Congo Republic, there have been 200 cases of covid19 since mid-March. The virus has killed eight people. Not surprisingly, the government is assuring the country that the virus has disrupted oil production. The Congo Republic, produces about 190,000 barrels of crude per day. That is a major source of foreign exchange.

April 26, 2020: In eastern Congo (North Kivu) Burundian troops operating with Rwandan Hutu RDLR rebels were reported to be fighting RED-Tabara rebels fighters inside Congolese territory. Another militia called the Gumino rebel group may also be allied with Burundi. A firefight did occur in South Kivu provinces Uvira area, possibly at a locale called Masango. There are few details regarding the firefight, though its timing is obvious. Burundi has a presidential election in May and the official campaign begins April 27. The RED-Tabara rebels the current Burundi president (Pierre Nkurunziza). RED-Tabara stands for Resistance for the Rule of Law in Burundi. Several former Burundian Army officers joined the rebel group when it was formed in 2015. The organization formed after the failed 2015 coup and Nkurunzizas purge of Burundian security forces. The Burundian government claims Alexis Sinduhije directs it. Spokesmen for RED-Tabara deny Sinduhije is involved. A fierce opponent of Nkurunziza, Sinduhije heads a Burundian opposition political party (Movement for Solidarity and Democracy.) In October 2019 a large firefight between the Burundian Army and a RED-Tabara force occurred near the Burundi-Congo border. The government claimed its forces killed 14 rebels, who were caught while crossing the border from their bases in Congo. A RED-Tabara spokesman said the battle marked the beginning of resistance to Nkurunziza with the goal of establishing the rule of law in Burundi. The RED-Tabara group is unofficially allied with the Popular Forces of Burundi (FPB) which is a larger rebel organization. The FPB is led by two former Burundian Army officers, Major General Jeremie Ntiranyibagira and LTC Edouard Nshimirimana. The FPB also formed in 2015. (Austin Bay)

In eastern Congo (South Kivu) peacekeepers have rescued over 2,000 people stranded by heavy floods that disrupted the lives of some 75,000 people.

April 24, 2020: In eastern Congo (South Kivu) a battle in Virunga National Park left twelve park rangers and five civilians dead. Security officials believe Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels launched the attack. Park rangers carry weapons but they are not soldiers and do not belong to a military organization. They work for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, a state agency.

April 23, 2020: Congos parliament voted to extend the covid19 state of emergency for another 15 days.

In western Congo (Kongo-Central province) a series of violent clashes occurred between police and members of the BDM tribal-religious sect., leaving 14 sect members dead. Two police officers were injured in one incident, seven injured in another. Police have seized weapons, ammunition and poison-tipped arrows. The BDM was formerly called the Bundu dia Kongo (BDK). The movement seeks the independence of the Bas-Congo region (western Congo) from the rest of Congo. Its adherents have to renounce western and eastern religions. It also wants to revive the pre-colonial Kongo Kingdom which controlled the mouth of the Congo River, parts of Congo, Angola, the Congo Republic (Brazzaville) and Gabon. A former member of parliament, Ne Muanda Nsemi, leads the BDM. His followers call him a prophet. (Austin Bay)

April 21, 2020: In CAR (Central African Republic) the UN imposed individual economic and political sanctions on former rebel leader Abdoulaye Miskin, who heads the FDPC. He signed the February 2019 peace agreement and was given a position in the CAR government. However, he has violated the deal.

April 20, 2020: Congo is pursuing its controversial effort to control small-scale (artisanal) cobalt mining. The government has worked out a partnership deal with a Berlin-based company, RCS Global that monitors supply chains. Volvo Cars and Huayou Cobalt have helped fund the program.

April 17, 2020: In eastern Congo (North Kivu) foreign health experts confirmed five new Ebola infections occurred during the last seven days. The infected individuals have been quarantined.

April 15, 2020: In eastern Congo (North Kivu) CODECO rebels killed 22 Hema tribesmen. CODECO is an extremist Lendu tribal organization. ADF terrorists killed two Congolese soldiers and one civilian in an attack near Beni city. The army claimed its troops killed five ADF terrorists in that incident.

April 13, 2020: Burundi reopened has its borders for goods moving between Rwanda and Congo. In March Burundi blocked the border to cargo trucks transiting Rwanda. The ostensible reason was the covid19 virus. However, Burundis border with Tanzania remained open. Rwanda then informed Uganda and Kenya that it would not let trucks going to Burundi to enter Rwanda because they would be stranded on the Rwanda-Burundi border.

April 12, 2020: In eastern Congo (North Kivu) there was a second death from Ebola in the city of Beni. The first death was three days ago in Beni.

April 11, 2020: In northeastern Congo (Ituri province) soldiers fought the CODECO militia in a series of firefights. Two soldiers and 33 militiamen were killed and several soldiers wounded. The army seized five AK-47s and two PKM machine guns.

April 9, 2020: Ugandan farmers expect another plague of desert locusts. Six days ago two new swarms entered northern Ugandas Amudat from Kenya.

April 8, 2020: Congolese police arrested Vital Kamerhe, President Felix Tshisekedis chief of staff. He is suspected of misappropriating (stealing) government funds. Tshisekedi has promised to fight corruption in Congo.

April 7, 2020: Congos capital, Kinshasa has been shut down for two weeks. The government is trying to stop a covid19 virus outbreak in the city of 12 million before it starts.

April 6, 2020: In northeastern Congo (Ituri province) gunmen killed three Chinese citizens, which was quickly reported to the Chinese embassy by other Chinese in Ituri. There are many Chinese in eastern Congo, working in mining or mining support activities.

April 5, 2020: A Rwandan forensics team has found a mass grave that may contain as many as 30,000 bodies. The site is near an earth dam in a valley near the capital, Kigali.

April 3, 2020: In CAR (Central African Republic) foreign medical aid workers warn that should covid19 break out in there are a total of three ventilators in the entire country. Covid19 is often misdiagnosed as pneumonia because the infected have trouble breathing. Death can be delayed by using a ventilator. A few percent of people infected with covid19 become ill enough to require a ventilator and about half of them die anyway. Most Africans have a genetic characteristic that makes their lungs less vulnerable to covid19 damage.
'I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far," Kurt Vonnegut said, "but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival." Marianne Faithfull's life story surely disproves this theory. Last week the iconic singer was discharged from hospital in London, 22 days after being admitted with symptoms of Covid-19 and having contracted pneumonia. The 73-year-old, who once played God in Absolutely Fabulous, was not going to be done in by a virus

This is possibly because Marianne Faithfull has seen off, in her time, heroin addiction in the 1970s and the mid-80s, breast cancer (she underwent surgery in 2006), hepatitis C, liver disease, clinical depression (culminating in several suicide attempts in the late 1960s and early 1970s) and anorexia, as well as two abortions, three miscarriages, a nervous breakdown, three marriages and a coma. The beautiful ingenue who sang her first hit As Tears Go By as a 17-year-old was even homeless, dossing in squats and on the streets of London for a few years in the early 1970s.

"Suddenly," she recalled, "when I was living on the streets in St Anne's Court [in Soho], I realised that human beings were really good. The Chinese restaurant let me wash my clothes there. The man who had the tea stall gave me cups of tea. The meth drinkers looked out for me."

The angelic-looking blonde who for a moment personified the cool of the Sixties was on an NHS drugs programme and got her daily fix on prescription from a chemist. "She had one of the highest dosages going - 25 jacks of heroin a day. It left her with poor circulation which is still evident in her angry red, mottled arms," wrote The Observer's Lynn Barber a tad bitchily in 2001.

Expand Close Mick and Marianne in 1967 / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mick and Marianne in 1967

In 2006, at the Cannes Film Festival, Marianne collapsed from a kidney infection and was in a coma for three days. On waking, she was delighted to be told she had lost 10 kilograms. "It's almost worth a near-death experience to lose 10 kilos!" she laughed.

She also nearly died when she fell down the stairs of her house in Wicklow in 2000 after an intimate supper with Daniel Day-Lewis and his wife Rebecca Miller. She thought she was going to break her neck and die. She managed, she said, at the last minute to turn her body in mid-air and land on her shoulder instead. "It was sheer vanity," she told the Evening Standard. "I couldn't bear the thought of being found dead upside down in red fishnets."

The term survivor is one Marianne has a particular disdain for. "I hate that word. I am very strong physically. My mother must have looked after herself when she was pregnant," she said of Eva von Sacher-Masoch, who died in 1991.

Eva, who was a ballerina in Berlin before World War II broke out, moved to live with her aristocratic parents in Vienna, where she met Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, a British army officer and spy. Married in 1946, they separated in 1951. It was said Eva only married him to escape occupied Austria to England. Marianne was born on December 29, 1946 in London.

Marianne said that when she left home to be with The Beatles' favourite art dealer John Dunbar, whom she married on May 6, 1965, when she was a mere 18-year-old, it broke her ultra-possessive mother's heart, "but I couldn't help it. A legacy of my convent school days, though, is that I still feel so much guilt about it."

There was more guilt, too, that the son, Nicholas, she had with Dunbar on November 10, 1965, would be taken away from her when she "disappeared down the rabbit hole of heroin" after her relationship with Rolling Stone Mick Jagger - whom she left Dunbar for in 1966 - ended brutally after a suicide attempt in late 1969 (she swallowed 150 Tuinal barbiturates.)

Expand Close Lucy Boynton plays her in the upcoming biopic / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Lucy Boynton plays her in the upcoming biopic

Video of the Day

"None of us has ever got over it, really, not even Nicholas," Marianne said later. "I always thought maybe they did the right thing, but now I think that having Nicholas with me through those difficult years might have helped me. Perhaps it wouldn't have helped him? But people have to do what they have to do."

Life went downhill after her relationship with Jagger ended and she was homeless for four years. Things started to improve, in 1985, after treatment for heroin addiction at Hazelden, the Minnesota clinic, when Marianne permanently stopped "the desire to destroy myself daily".

Even allowing for exaggeration, Marianne has lived an extraordinary life. Unsurprisingly, a film is being made based on her 1994 memoir, starring Bohemian Rhapsody star Lucy Boynton. "Marianne is an extraordinary woman who rebelled against the male-dominated music industry," director Ian Bonhote said. "The film will explore female issues as well as the injustices she suffered in her quest to be recognised as an artist."

She was the inspiration for Wild Horses and You Can't Always Get What You Want, two Rolling Stone masterpieces. Marianne was "the epicentre of what Diana Vreeland named the 'youthquake'," Salman Rushdie wrote in the introduction to her 2014 photobook, Marianne: A Life On Record, "with the voice of a slightly zoned-out chorister."

She told Vogue a few years ago that her pal Nick Cave wrote Late Victorian Holocaust (from her 2014 album Give My Love To London) "just for me, and it meant so much to me, it's such an incredible song. You know, we're both ex-junkies, we've both kicked smack, and it's okay for us to make a song about it now."

The list of artists who have worked with Faithfull over the years gives some indication of the respect in which she is held. Further back in the mists of time, Marianne as an inter-galactic nun opposite David Bowie, in drag as Ziggy Stardust, duetted on a slightly bonkers rendering of Sonny & Cher's I Got You Babe. Harvey, Cave and Warren Ellis from the Bad Seeds performed on her 2005 album Before the Poison; on 2018's Negative Capability, her 21st album, she worked with Cave and Ellis again. "She's like a punk rocker in a way," Ellis said, "she's always been at odds with the world that surrounded her. She sings in spite of herself."

On Sliding Through Life On Charm from her sublime 2002 album Kissin' Time (which featured everyone from Beck to Damon Albarn to Jarvis Cocker), she sang: "I wonder why schools don't teach anything useful these days/ Like how to fall from grace/ And slide with elegance from a pedestal/ I never asked to be on in the first place."

"Jarvis wrote that," Marianne told me, proudly, in 2002. "There are one or two really key lines: 'I am a muse, not a mistress, not a whore'. And the other one that is terribly important is, 'I had to know how far was going too far'."

Over lunch in a 5-star hotel in Dublin in August 2002, Marianne smoked Marlboro constantly and was brittle if highly entertaining company. She was very open to being asked about her past, even though I was nervous she was going to snap at any moment and order me out of the restaurant.

"In my real life, in my love life - and that is still going on - I am aware that I am easy to love. I know how to love, and I have got fantastic good points," she said, "but I am quite difficult, and I know that, but the thing about choosing the wrong person is you can't blame them. They can't help that if they are not right for me. I should have known better."

When I said that she was the original rock chick who helped make the Sixties in London swing - and as such paved the way for Kate Moss and other Brit supermodels - Marianne cackled like one of Macbeth's witches.

"We never got a penny! If that were Kate or Christy now they would be paid. It wasn't like that then! My parents didn't bring me up to be interested in money. They didn't have any money," she said, adding that she was brought up in "a sort of 1940s Iris Murdoch house, but it suited me perfectly."

I said to Marianne in between the plumes of smoke that without her there possibly would be no Annie Lennox, no Debbie Harry, no Courtney Love. "I do have pity and compassion for Courtney," she replied. "She is doing the best she can. When I met her I said, 'straighten up and fly right'."

It's a pity nobody ever said that to you in 1970, I said. "Nobody knew about it then," she smiled, "we didn't know about mental health then. I was anorexic. I was on heroin and I was homeless. I am again homeless!" she laughed, "but it is completely different. And I am certainly not anorexic!" she laughed again, gazing at the healthy dimensions of her thighs.

I had met Marianne in Cooke's Cafe on South William Street, Dublin, with Van Morrison and Michelle Rocca in 1995. I spilled a hot Irish coffee in your lap, by accident, and you stormed out, I reminded her nervously in 2002 - very nervously. "That sounds about right!" she cackled.

When talk turned to her home life, Marianne said: "I just had to let go of my lovely, lovely flat in Ballsbridge."

You had to sell your apartment?

"Sell?" she gasped with laughter, Marlboro aglow, at my naivete with her regard to her financial savvy. "I never owned an apartment. I owned nothing".

In Marianne's art-deco apartment in Montparnasse in Paris, there is a framed letter from her father, sent to her in 1994, in which he writes after reading her autobiography: "It was a strange wartime marriage of two people that produced you, darling. I feel proud, not only of your achievement in making a successful career, but of your success in growing into such a nice and mature person."

The late Anita Pallenberg was probably closer to the truth when she wrote in the blurb for the book about her friend: "Marianne has always been cruel - especially to herself."

Marianne, however, nailed the misogyny of the so-called liberating Sixties when she wrote in the book about the infamous police raid at Rolling Stone Keith Richards's home in 1967, when, so the story goes, she was wearing nothing but a fur rug: "They [Richards and Jagger] emerged with their reputations amplified as dangerous, glamorous outlaws. I was destroyed by the very things that enhanced them."

There was also a bit of self-destruction. The convent girl led a Dionysian life that almost ruined her. In 1968 at the Roundhouse in London, when she played Ophelia in Hamlet, with Anjelica Huston as her understudy, Marianne threw herself into the role. "Just before the mad scene, I took smack," she told Time Out. "I could have done the mad scene just as well without it."

However, she said in 2002: "One of the misconceptions about me is that I am sort of a tragedy queen. It's so sad. I am not that at all. My life has not been tragic. I have had the most amazing life."

In a 1980 interview with Ann Bardach of High Times, Marianne said that contrary to myth, she was not some sort of victim-waif in the aftermath of her breakdown with Jagger.

"Our conditioning is that you're a victim," she explained. "There is another thing I can talk about till I'm blue in the face but no one will ever believe it, and I don't want to hurt Mick because it's important for his macho trip. He likes people to think I was left miserable. But in fact it was mutual it wasn't really mutual because I did go off to do something else, which was to be an addict [laughs]. I never felt that I'd been betrayed and lost and left at all."

Nevertheless, Listening to Why D'Ya Do It? from Marianne's classic Broken English album in 1979, the fury about betrayal is primal, as she spits the words:

Every time I see your d*** I see her c*** in my bed

Why'd ya do it, she said, why'd ya do what you did?

Betray my little oyster for such a low bitch

"It is perfectly obvious what I mean in that song," Marianne told me when I asked her about it in 2002. "It says what it says." And is it just as obvious who the song is addressing? "Of course! Yes!"

Years earlier, Marianne admitted that she "drew on all that" - meaning her recent past with Jagger - "to get to that level" of fury. "And I don't think anyone will ever see me as a victim again, which is very important. Because it always pissed me off so much." She added that at that time she heard that when people would ask, 'How is Marianne?', he would say, "It's so sad, she's gone mad. She is just crazy now."

"I was so angry about it. Then after Australia," Marianne said - Jagger had been starring in the movie Ned Kelly in 1969, "it was quite clear I was very sick . My mother came to Australia and Mick had to go on working. I went to Switzerland with my mother and Nicholas. And I went to see this doctor, who I told about the miscarriage [she had been pregnant with Jagger's baby]. She checked me out and found out that when I had had Nicholas they hadn't gotten my muscles back together. So when the baby got to seven months I lost it. And that was that. It was dreadful because I felt very guilty about it, you see"

Her pain could only have hardened when, not long after their break-up, Jagger married model Bianca Perez-Mora Macias in 1971. After that marriage fell apart, Marianne told People magazine in 1980 that Bianca's heavy divorce litigation was not her style: "I've never been somebody to crawl to men for money."

Never for money, Marianne was married to musician Ben Brierley from 1979 to 1985, and then to writer Giorgio Della Terza from 1988 until 1991. She had a 15-year relationship with record producer Francois Ravard until 2009.

In the mid-1990s, my friend Ian Galvin took me with him to visit Marianne in hospital in Dublin. A few weeks later we were invited to a party at Marianne's rented abode, Shell Cottage in Co Wicklow.

In 2005 Marianne had surgery for breast cancer. There is a story she tells that upon regaining consciousness in hospital at 2am, she was handed the phone. "This voice came on: 'Hello, Marian, how are you?' I'd know that voice anywhere, and he's the only one who ever called me Marian."

"Rebellion," she once said, "is the only thing that keeps us alive." Whatever it is, Marianne Faithfull appears to have nine lives. Long may she purr.
Congress to bear cost of rail travel of every needy migrant worker: Sonia Gandhi

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, May 04: The Congress on Monday said its state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrant workers and labourers stranded at their workplaces due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown and seeking to return home.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a statement announced the party's decision and said this would be the Congress' humble contribution in standing shoulder to shoulder with these workers. She also accused the central government and the Railways of completely ignoring the demands made by the Congress for ensuring the safe and free travel of migrant workers and labourers to their homes.

"There needs to be provisions for the safe and free rail travel of migrant workers and labourers to their home-towns. However, despite our repeated demands, the central government and the Rail Ministry have chosen to completely ignore the same. "The Indian National Congress has, therefore, taken a decision that every Pradesh Congress Committee shall bear the cost for the rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labourer and shall take necessary steps in this regard," she said in a statement.

Gandhi noted that lakhs of migrants continue to walk hundreds of kilometres to reach back their homes without food, water, medicines and cash.

She criticised the central government for not recognising its responsibility and said if it can bring back free of cost citizens stranded abroad by air, why can't the same responsibility be shown towards the poor migrants who are considered ambassadors of the nation's growth.
After the exchange of words in April between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), following accusations of senior PA officials that Israel is purposely spreading the coronavirus among Palestinians, things seem to have calmed a bit, and the new arrangement to allow Palestinian workers into Israel attests to this. The arrangement is meant to rescue the Israeli construction industry from a harsh blow because of the shortage of workers, and to provide economic relief to tens of thousands of Palestinian families.

The start of the coronavirus outbreak actually saw close cooperation between Israel and the PA. Palestinian medical personnel entered Israel from the West Bank and from the Gaza Strip, with Hamas permission, in order to receive training to treat the virus that causes COVID-19 at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon and Shiba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, which are now specialized medical centers.

Israel transferred a great amount of medical equipment to the PA, most of it aid that arrived from abroad, and shared supplies from Israeli emergency stockpiles in order to help the Palestinians prevent a wide outbreak of the pandemic. Such an outbreak could have been a real humanitarian disaster because of the small number of ventilators in hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza  about 250 in the West Bank and 90 in Gaza  and the crowded conditions in refugee camps.

The contact between the Israeli Ministry of Health and Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila, a doctor by profession, grew closer, and any equipment or help she requested soon arrived. But after it became clear that some of the Palestinian patients caught the virus in Israel, while working, some senior PA officials made provocative statements, and the PA mouthpieces, such as the daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, published columns and caricatures in this vein. One showed an Israeli soldier shooting corona bullets at a Palestinian village. Abdallah Kamil, governor of Salfit region, accused ultra-Orthodox Jews of spreading the coronavirus purposely among Palestinian workers, and even Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh claimed that soldiers are spreading the virus intentionally among Palestinians by spitting at cars at checkpoints.

Israel responded forcefully to these accusations. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the senior contact person with the Palestinians, Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukon, warned in a message April 16, We are witnessing and being exposed to all sorts of unfounded claims from senior PA officials, verging on defamation and slander of the Israel Defense Forces, the security establishment, the State of Israel and the Israeli public. These shameful statements have no basis or foundation and completely contradict reality and the Israeli devotion and willingness to help, as much as possible, in regional efforts to stop the spread of the pandemic in Israel and the Palestinian arena. We see these statements and accusations as crossing a red line and damaging the enormous efforts made in Israel for the sake of the common challenge and crisis that has visited the entire region. I call on the Palestinian leadership to take back these baseless statements and caution that they could have ramifications on various areas.

A practical step and a warning sign from Israel was the refusal of the request of the East Jerusalem power company that provides electricity to all of the West Bank to freeze its debts to the Israel Electric Company in light of the coronavirus crisis.

In the past 10 days, things have calmed a bit, with the help of the mediation of United Nations envoy to the region Nickolay Mladenov, especially because of the urgent common interest of the two sides to allow the workers to get back to work in Israel. Before the pandemic, about 130,000 Palestinian workers were employed in Israel as well as in the West Bank settlements, mostly in construction, manufacturing and agriculture. They bring in a large part of the income in the Palestinian market, and the salaries they earn are much higher than the average salaries in the West Bank. Without them, the Palestinian market would be nearly paralyzed. Most of the foreign workers who were in Israel at the start of the pandemic  Chinese, Turks and other nationalities  have returned to their countries, and construction has been halted. According to the Ministry of Construction and Housing, every day that passes without workers costs the Israeli market between 100 million to 130 million Israeli shekels ($28 million to $37 million); indirectly the damage is even greater.

In March, Israel permitted about 60,000 Palestinian workers to enter, most of them in construction, but also in health care and agriculture. Leading up to the Passover holiday (April 9) most workers returned home, some of whom were infected with the coronavirus taking it into PA-administered territories  thus supplying "ammunition" to its officials. Most of the claims had no real basis, but the fact was that some workplaces did not take precautions with proper protective gear.

Ali Matnaja, a worker at a factory in an industrial zone in north Jerusalem, told Al-Monitor that the factorys management didnt provide protective measures, didnt distribute masks and gloves, and didnt separate workers. This worker and more than 10 of his coworkers at the factory were infected by an Israeli worker who turned out to be sick with the virus.

Thus, in contacts between PA and Israeli representatives more stringent conditions and limitations were set for returning to work. According to the agreements, Israel and the PA coordinated the entry of about 50,000 Palestinian workers for early this week. The workers will stay within the Green Line for three weeks until Eid al-Fitr (May 24), the holiday that concludes the month of Ramadan.

Workers who will enter will be checked for the virus at their place of work in Israel, which will be the responsibility of employers, who will guarantee this, and they will receive authorization to spend the night in Israel for the month of Ramadan. The workers will stay in groups of up to 10 and will receive protective gear such as masks and gloves, and will stay for the entire time either in the building they are working on or in other sleeping quarters provided by their employer. Medical staff will check the workers every few days, and their temperature will be taken at the beginning and end of the day. The workers will receive their salaries as a direct deposit into their bank accounts, and not in cash, so that their families could use the money while they stay in Israel.

However, Israel refused the request of the PA to provide health care for workers infected with the virus, and so any workers who fall sick will return to the West Bank and get treated there.

This arrangement is part of the Israeli and Palestinian attempt to return, even partially, to normal, and it attests that when there is mutual interest the two sides know how to talk. But there is suspicion and doubt between the sides, and Israels intention to annex West Bank settlements more than suggests that the practical cooperation on the coronavirus will not see a continuation on the diplomatic level.
Mount Moriah Cemetery in Southwest Philadelphia, where the bodies of two men were found in a crypt April 3. Read more

Philadelphia police have arrested and charged a 47-year-old Delaware County man in connection with the discovery last month in Mount Moriah Cemetery of the body of a Drexel Hill musician who they believe was killed in a building owned by the Warlocks Motorcycle Club.

Billy Gibson, a former boxer who fought under the name Billy Mastrangelo, was arraigned early Saturday on charges of conspiracy, hindering apprehension, and abuse of corpse, and related offenses. The body of Keith Palumbo, 36, was one of two found by police in a crypt in the closed cemetery on April 3.

Homicide Capt. Jason Smith said Monday that Palumbo, who went missing Feb. 6, was believed to have been shot inside a building on the 7000 block of Woodland Avenue in the Paschall section of Southwest Philadelphia. There was blood inside that residence on the first floor, he said.

Smith said the location is linked to the Warlocks. Property records for the two-story apartment building say it is owned by Warlocks MC LLC.

Philadelphia police also have issued an arrest warrant for Michael DeLuca, 38, previously of Drexel Hill, an alleged Warlocks member, on charges of murder, conspiracy, abuse of corpse, and related offenses in Palumbos death. DeLuca was staying in the first-floor apartment at the time of the shooting, sources said.

On April 2, the day before Palumbos body was found, DeLuca was arrested in Cheyenne, Wyo., where police detained him during a traffic stop after finding a loaded .40-caliber pistol under the drivers seat of his black Cadillac. He was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and is in federal custody as he awaits hearings in the Wyoming case and extradition to face expected charges in Philadelphia.

Smith said the second body in the crypt is believed to be that of David Rossillo. He said police do not believe DeLuca is responsible for his death, the cause of which has not been determined. Relatives of Rossillo, who was from Drexel Hill, declined to comment last week when called by a reporter.

A relative of Palumbos has said that Palumbo knew DeLuca from childhood in Drexel Hill. Palumbo, a musician and tattoo artist, hung out with DeLuca and others, who were members of the Warlocks, but had no interest in becoming a member, the relative said.

Gibson, who public records indicate has lived in Drexel Hill and Philadelphia, was arrested Friday. His bail was set at $500,000 and he is in custody at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. A spokesperson for the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which is listed as representing Gibson, declined to comment on his case Monday.

DeLuca had been paroled from a Pennsylvania state prison in May 2019 in the 2013 shooting of his then-girlfriend. He had been charged with attempted criminal homicide and related offenses, but pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and gun charges, and was sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison plus five years probation.

A few weeks after his release, he was recommitted for six months because of parole violations for drug use and possession of a weapon, before being re-released toward the end of last year, according to state parole records.

Kevin Ryan, a private investigator hired by Palumbos family, said Monday of Gibsons arrest: It looks like justice is being served.
Queensland Police were forced to break up multiple house parties this weekend and issue hefty fines for violating coronavirus restrictions.

While Queensland announced some restrictions were going to be relaxed as of last weekend, including some recreational activities, large social gatherings are still not permitted, nor are house parties.

One of the house parties police crashed was a birthday party at Carrara on the Gold Coast, and to the polices disappointment, the revellers were issued infringements two nights in a row.

Police were called to the Carrara address on May 1 at around 11.30pm after receiving a noise complaint.

Queensland Police broke up several parties over the weekend and issued fines for breaching directives. Source: Queensland Police

One of the residents at the address was hosting a party for their birthday and a group of people aged in their 20s were celebrating.

Queenslanders are permitted to have two people over at a time, as per the Queensland Governments guidelines.

The group admitted to police they rented the home for the sole purpose of celebrating, despite being aware of the Chief Health Officers (CHO) directives.

Seven males aged between 21 and 25 were issued with infringement notices of $1,334 and a noise abatement direction was issued, Queensland Police said in a statement.

Disappointingly, police were again called to the residence the following night in response to a noise complaint.

On the second night police were called to the Carrara address, they found another large group, five of which were fined the previous night.

Who do you think you are? a partygoer is heard asking a police officer, to which a police officer responds with the exact same question.

Im the birthday boy, a man is heard telling police.

A police officer is then heard wishing the man a happy birthday.

A further 18 infringement notices were handed out to 12 men aged between 19 and 25, and six women aged 19 to 21, police said.

At the Carrara residence a notice to appear for obstructing an officer was also issued, in addition to the 18 pins.

Attending crews also seized stereo equipment to ensure compliance with the previous noise abatement direction.

Story continues

Police responded to another noise complaint on May 2 and witnessed dozens of people fleeing the residence in Pimpama, just north of the Gold Coast.

In the video, there seems to be some confusion as to what the directives entail.

No, they eased the restrictions last night at 12 oclock, one person said to police when asked if they were aware of the COVID-19 restrictions, confusing the easing of restrictions around Queenslanders being able to go out for recreational activities, which were eased Friday night.

The 28-year-old man who was hosting the gathering copped an infringement notice for failing to comply with the CHOs directive.

Police also issued five women and four men all aged in their 20s with infringement notices after officers responded to reports of nine people celebrating a birthday in Banyo in Brisbanes north on Saturday evening in a small unit.

Police responded to reports of nine people having a party in a small unit in Banyo on Saturday. Source: Queensland Police

An officer is conducting a headcount and then asks who out of the nine lives in the unit, to which only one person raised their hand.

Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler was frustrated to see the revellers flouting restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Its especially disappointing considering the vast majority of Gold Coast residents are doing the right thing and following the rules in line with the easing of restrictions across the weekend, he said.

Blatant disregard of the COVID-19 directives will not be tolerated, as has been demonstrated by fines being issued on each of these occasions.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play.
One of the largest Arab populations outside the Middle East could miss out on federal programmes funded by census data.

At a Michigan gas station, the message is obvious  at least to Arabic speakers: Be counted in the 2020 census.

Provide your community with more/additional opportunities, the advertisement on the pump handle reads in Arabic. In the fine print, next to United States Census 2020, it adds: To shape your future with your own hands, start here.

As state officials and non-profit groups target hard-to-count groups like immigrants, people of colour and those in poverty, many Arab Americans say the undercount is even more pronounced for them. That means one of the largest and most concentrated Arab populations outside the Middle East  those in the Detroit area  could be missing out on federal funding for education, healthcare, crime prevention and other programmes that the census determines how to divvy up.

That also includes money to help states address the fallout from the coronavirus.

We are trying to encourage people not just to fill it out because of all the reasons we had given before, where theres education and healthcare and all of that, but also because it is essential for the federal government to know who is in Michigan at this point more than ever before, said Rima Meroueh, director of policy and advocacy for the Dearborn-based Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), one of the largest Arab-American advocacy non-profits in the country.

The Arab-American community checks many boxes that census and non-profit officials say are hallmarks of the hardest-to-count communities: large numbers of young children, non-English speakers, recent immigrants and those who often live in multifamily or rental housing.

Arabs arrived en masse to the US as the auto industry ramped up and worker demand grew. By the time those jobs began to decline in more recent decades, communities with strong Middle Eastern cultural roots had been firmly established in the Detroit area. It has remained a destination for people from across the Middle East who are fleeing conflict, reconnecting with family or simply seeking a better life. Even those who resettle elsewhere often first make their way to Detroit and surrounding cities.

Advocates have pressed ahead with get out the count campaigns despite restrictions designed to curb COVID-19. The pandemic has forced the US Census Bureau to push back its deadline for finishing the 2020 count from the end of July to the end of October. It is also asking the US Congress for permission to delay deadlines next year for giving census data to the states so they can draw new voting maps.

Workers at ACCESS, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, help with meals for the Arab community in Dearborn, Michigan [Carlos Osorio/AP Photo]

With the changes, ACCESS is stepping up its social media effort, mirroring it to focus as much on the once-a-decade count as their offices, which had been plastered with census posters, Meroueh said.

If you check out our social media, its very census-heavy, she said.

But groups face a hurdle after the Trump administration decided not to include a category that counts people from the Middle East or North Africa as their own group. The Census Bureau recommended the so-called MENA box in 2017 after years of research and decades of advocacy.

The decision to scrap the choice angers many Arab Americans, who say it hinders representation and needed funding. Democratic US Representative Rashida Tlaib, an Arab American representing part of Detroit and several suburbs, expressed her displeasure while questioning Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham on Capitol Hill in February.

The community did it right  they went through the process, she said. Youre making us invisible.

Dillingham said the form would have a write-in box, allowing people to describe their ethnicity. It falls short for Tlaib, but Matthew Jaber Stiffler, a University of Michigan lecturer and research and content manager at the Arab American National Museum, said it is better than nothing. Advocates will have to push harder to get people counted, he said.

The onus is on community organisations and local and state governments to get the people to complete the form, because it doesnt say, Are you Middle Eastern or North African?' Stiffler said. Well get really good data if enough people fill it out.

Even though the MENA option is not there, Stiffler says census officials did preparatory work for it. If someone writes Syrian on their form, for instance, Stiffler has been told that the census will code that within the larger MENA ancestry group.

That is precisely what Abdullah Haydar did when he filled out his census form electronically, which he said took five minutes.

I definitely filled it out as soon as I got it. I believe in representation, said Haydar, a 44-year-old from Canton Township, Michigan, who works in LinkedIns software engineering department.





But support for the census is not unanimous. Some in the Arab community have raised concerns about government questions over their citizenship status if they participate, though that is not part of the form. Many have reported extra scrutiny since the administration of US President Donald Trump issued a ban on travellers from several predominantly Muslim countries in 2017  creating an overall chilling effect when it comes to interacting with the government.

They dont trust the current administration. They dont trust what theyre going to do with the information. And when you look at the so-called Muslim ban that was put in, people dont want to be on the governments radar, said Haydar, who assisted some elderly relatives in filling out their forms.

I just told them, Look, yes, there may be abuses. Theres always a risk of that. This administration seems to be pushing boundaries. But at the end of the day, this is the basis of our system of government, for people to count,' he said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, left, wants the Board of Supervisors to hear public testimony during remote meetings, as required by law. Board chair Kathryn Barger and the other three supervisors, not so much. (File photos)

Last month, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn stood up for the public and its right to address the Board of Supervisors in real time on the countys management of the COVID-19 emergency and the ensuing budget and economic crises.

She was perhaps a little too polite about the whole thing. She would have been within her rights to excoriate her four board colleagues for shamefully, unlawfully and repeatedly excluding live public testimony from the three virtual sessions held since the beginning of the current health emergency. She could have expressed outrage over the shockingly inadequate April 27 report from the boards Executive Office  six pages of worry over the baffling, futuristic technology (telephones!) needed to permit members of the public to testify remotely at board meetings. She could have called out the county's unconscionable delay tactics  two weeks to produce a report on teleconferencing options, followed by another two weeks of waiting before the issue could be put on the board agenda for discussion on May 12.

But thats not how Hahn rolls. Instead, she gently chided her colleagues by noting:

It feels like were in a tightly run conference call, not a public meeting where we are really listening to the public and we deliberate and sometimes we change our minds  based on what somebody says in the public.

Thats exactly right, supervisor. The boards three sessions have been private calls  one-way affairs that allow constituents to listen in, but to be neither seen nor heard.

Pretty much every other government body in the state subject to the Ralph M. Brown Act  which requires discussions, debates and decisions about public business to be conducted in public with real-time public input  has figured it out. They use Zoom, or Facetime, or plain old phones to accommodate public testimony. Its not always pretty. Some Los Angeles City Council meetings have gone on for 10 or 12 hours, and yes, some time is taken to deal with technical challenges. (Speaker, are you there? Speaker?) But they work it out. They get it done. They obey the law. They permit the public to weigh in on questions of crucial importance regarding orders that affect public behavior, public rights, public money, public access.

Story continues

But not the Board of Supervisors, which heads the nations largest local government agency, with 10 million constituents and a $35-billion budget.

The board discussed that budget on April 28, taking note of the terrible revenue shortfalls that would require deep cuts to make up a loss of $1.3 billion in the current fiscal year and to eliminate a deficit of more than $1 billion in the year that begins July 1. Every dollar cut is going to affect someone's job or services, so maybe, just maybe, members of the public might have some thoughts about which programs to slash and which to keep whole. Would they want to speak up for extended foster care? Or mental health services? Or the entire program still being hammered out to develop alternatives to incarceration?

The board also talked about lifting stay-at-home orders, considered a plan to revive the economy, agreed to send vote-by-mail ballots to every voter  in fact they took up a host of weighty, controversial subjects that affect millions of lives.

No disrespect to the city of Los Angeles, but L.A. County government affects more people, more money, and more government service than any California city and any county in America. Yet with all of its resources it cant run a public teleconference.

At a time when necessity requires suspending the 1st Amendment right to assemble and sharply limits citizens' ability to petition their government, the supervisors should be working hard to find ways to protect and enhance public participation. Instead, they seem to be relishing the opportunity to shut the public up.

The governor issued an order March 12 allowing local governments to do their business by teleconference, but someone quickly noticed that the law would require the supervisors to let the public come to their homes to testify. So a follow-up March 17 order made it clear that officials didnt have to reveal their locations or allow any strangers to watch them speak in person.

But the governor did not waive the Brown Acts requirement to accommodate public testimony. City councils get it. Planning commissions get it. School boards get it. Janice Hahn gets it. Why not the rest of the Board of Supervisors?




Ukrainian border guards have thwarted an attempt to smuggle into Poland about 200,000 polyethylene gloves subject to export bans, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service has reported.

"There were two attempts yesterday to smuggle into Poland across the Yahodyn checkpoint the goods that are subject to the export ban according to Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine resolution No. 214 of March 14, 2020. Border guards of the Lutsk detachment, together with SBU and customs officers, prevented the violation," the report reads.

It notes that in the first case, an attempt was made to transport 150,000 polyethylene gloves in a truck with Polish license plates, which was crossing the border as "empty."

Subsequently, a joint interagency review group found 40,000 of such gloves among the cargo of "wooden pallets."

Customs officers seized all 190,000 gloves. They are estimated to be worth almost UAH 26,000.

op
Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images for Turner

Congratulations to you chosen ones, Tom Hanks told the graduating class of Wright State University this weekend via a remote commencement speech. Or, if you need that kind of inspirational message to get you through the next month or six of the coronavirus pandemic, go ahead and pretend Tom Hanks is addressing you specifically, and be uplifted yourself. The actors message was played for the Dayton, Ohio colleges virtual graduation on May 2 for students of the schools Department of Theatre, Dance, and Motion Pictures.

I am calling you chosen ones because you have been chosen in many ways, says Hanks. First, by the temperament and discipline youve lived by. By the creative fires that are inside of you, and the instinctive lunges of your desires. There is something about you, all of you, in your upbringing and your background and your conscious memories and your ongoing mysteries. Something that has driven you to complete your courses and achieve your selected challenges and cross the rubicon of your time there.

Concludes the actor, The future is always uncertain, but we who celebrate what you have done, who celebrate all of your achievements, we are certain of one thing on this day: you will not let us down. Thank you. Congratulations. Way to go. You can watch (and hopefully be gladdened by) his full graduation message below.
A series of emergency field hospitals established in the UK to combat the coronavirus pandemic have remained largely empty and are now being scaled back, despite more than 4,000 new deaths from the virus in the past week alone.

Ten Nightingale field hospitalsnamed after Crimean war nurse Florence Nightingalewere announced by the Johnson Conservative government between March 24 and April 10. Seven were scheduled to be built in England, one in Wales, one in Scotland and another in Northern Ireland.

The hospitals in London and Birmingham were opened with considerable fanfare by members of the Royal Family. But more than three weeks later, most have received only a handful of patients, and in some cases none at all.

The Nightingale Hospital North West at Manchester's main exhibition centre

The London Nightingale, in east Londons ExCel exhibition centre, treated just 51 coronavirus patients during its first three weeks, despite having a 4,000-bed capacity. According to unconfirmed reports by the BBC, thirteen of these patients died from coronavirus. Only 19 patients remained at the hospital on Friday, according to a report in Saturdays Independent .

Nightingale hospitals in Birmingham, Manchester and Harrogate have seen similar patient numbers, while Sunderlands hospital, a 460-bed facility, may never open, the newspaper reported.

In Saturdays exclusive story, the Independent reported that Londons Nightingale is effectively being wound down with staff told to expect a decision on its future within days. But doctors and other healthcare professionals have told the World Socialist Web Site the closures will make no real difference as the field hospitals have been an utter failure.

Even if current NHS [National Health Service] hospitals were completely overwhelmed, they would have been no help, a general physician from a hospital in Wales told the WSWS, saying the field hospitals lacked basic equipment, infrastructure and staff.

They knew these hospitals could not function properly. COVID-19 patients could never be managed properly there. They did not build air ventilation and air-conditioning systems that are needed in ITU [intensive therapy unit] to safely ventilate patients. They were largely unsafe for other patientsthey would spread the infection very quickly.

The Nightingale Hospital North West with staff entrance padlocked shut

He described the field hospitals as cynical face-saving by the government, They were only built because of public opposition to the governments herd immunity policies and anger over the loss of so many lives but they were built as a temporary measure without any plan. The most important part of any hospital is the staffingbut even existing hospitals are lacking staff. Weve seen more than 100,000 staff vacancies and due to government austerity, the number of hospital beds has been reduced by more than 30,000 since 2008.

Londons Nightingale has turned away dozens of patients due to staffing shortages or lack of suitable medical equipment. Around 50 patients were rejected by the London Nightingale after it opened, the Guardian reported on April 21. Of these, around 30 patients could not be accepted due to lack of available staff.

A further 20 or so patients were rejected on medical grounds. This included the patients being too unwell to transfer, having had a tube inserted into their throat to help them breathe or because they did not meet the hospitals admission criteria, according to NHS documents seen by the Guardian.

Patients who require specialist care have been excluded from London Nightingale as the facility has no specialist staff or equipment. One critical care doctor speaking to the Financial Times explained that many COVID-19 patients need renal or surgical support, which the Nightingale is not equipped to provide.

According to medical staff, the London facility would need 16,000 staff to operate at full capacity, with one medical worker telling the Guardian, There are plenty of people working here, including plenty of doctors. But there arent enough critical care nurses That leads to patients having to be rejected.

Having gutted the NHS and slashed the number of nurses, the Johnson government has turned to the army to staff the new facilities. This includes 135 combat medical technicianswho normally provide battlefield first aidto the Harrogate and Bristol Nightingales. Another 160 military personnel were deployed to assist with porterage, maintaining equipment, stores management and distribution. As of mid-April, there were 2,842 military personnel deployed to assist UK civil authorities with their response to coronavirus.

According to the Unison trade union, by the end of last year there were 106,000 staff vacancies across NHS England, including over 44,000 nursing vacanciesa product of decades of underfunding and privatisation.

The Nightingale Hospital North West with the main ambulance entry gate padlocked shut

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has hailed the empty Nightingale hospitals as a success story, supposedly showing that existing hospitals had more than enough ventilators and other equipment to cope. A spokesman from the Department of Health and Social Care claimed, thanks to the great work of selfless NHS staff, there is spare capacity in existing London hospitals to treat all coronavirus patients there instead.

In fact, with no real overflow facility, London hospitals have struggled to cope. Northwick Park hospital in north-west London was unable to transfer more than 30 coronavirus patients to the Nightingale hospital and was forced to declare a critical incident and shut its doors.

Documents viewed by the Guardian showed that the Royal Free Hospital in Camden, north London, also abandoned plans to transfer around 15 patients to the Nightingale due to lack of staff. London hospitals including St Marys, the Royal London and North Middlesex, also had transfer requests rejected.

Two London hospital trustsImperial College Healthcare Trust and University College London Hospitals Foundation Trustwere at near full capacity in critical care wards over the Easter bank holiday weekend, at 95 percent and 91 percent occupancy, respectively. Both trusts occupancy rates remain well above the 85 percent maximum recommended limit set by the NHS to ensure safe and efficient patient care.

If hospitals were not overrun, it was only because thousands of sick and dying people were refused admission and instructed to self-isolate and stay at home.

At the same time, elderly people recovering from COVID-19 were discharged from hospitals back into care homes. Two government policy documents, published March 19 and April 2, instructed NHS trusts to transfer COVID-19 patients back into care homes to recuperate. Care England estimates at least 7,500 elderly people have died of coronavirus in these facilities.

A Financial Times analysis of Office for National Statistics data reported last week that that a conservative estimate of UK excess deaths was as least 47,000.

The growing demands of the government and big business for a return to work must inevitably lead to a second wave of infections. The government is fully aware that outright closure of the field hospitals, under conditions of further mass deaths, would provoke a huge public backlash.

According to the Independent, the London Nightingale may be either repurposed for use as a step-down facility for recovering patients or mothballed but retained for any potential second waves of infection after the UKs lockdown is lifted.

The newspaper cited fears among senior health officials over hospital capacity, with one saying: We are still well above intensive care capacity in London overall. We dont have a fully functioning NHS in London that is coping with strokes, cancer, heart disease and coronavirus. If we mothball the Nightingale and need it again, standing it back up becomes that bit harder.
WASHINGTON  U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said enormous evidence shows the novel coronavirus outbreak began in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and that Beijing has refused to give international scientists access to learn what happened.

I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan, Pompeo said on ABCs This Week, broadcast Sunday. These are not the first times that weve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab.

Pompeo stopped short of saying the virus was human-made, noting that he agreed with a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that ruled out genetic modification or it having been human-made.

The viruss origin has become a flash point in the pandemic and ratcheted up tensions between the U.S. and China. President Donald Trump has escalated efforts to attach blame to China as U.S. pandemic deaths pass 66,000.

Ive seen what the intelligence community has said, said Pompeo. I have no reason to believe that theyve got it wrong. Pompeo declined to say whether the Chinese intentionally released the virus.

Trump and his aides sharpened their criticism of Beijing last week, demanding answers about the viruss origin. The president tweeted Friday that some U.S. television networks are Chinese puppets, while his super-political action committee unleashed anti-China ads.

China behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and confuse, Pompeo said on ABC. It employed the World Health Organization as a tool to do the same.

The secretary said China continued to block access by health experts from the WHO, as well as U.S. scientists, from getting access to samples of the virus needed for study.

This is an ongoing threat, an ongoing pandemic, Pompeo said. The Chinese Communist Party continues to block access to the Western world, the worlds best scientists, to figure out exactly what happened.



2020 Bloomberg News
In 1980 the supergroup Fleetwood Mac was on yet another one of its extravagant world tours. Band patriarch Mick Fleetwood was dating Sara Recor at the time, and this was problematic simply because Fleetwood had taken up with Recor while seeing bandmate (and close Recor friend) Stevie Nicks on the relative quiet. Nicks said she wouldnt go on tour if her ex-friend were traveling with Fleetwood.

Nickss ultimatum ultimately proved expensive (in a relative sense, of course) for the band during its tour stop in Japan. One night Fleetwood, having another row with a frustrated-to-be-left-at-home Recor, stayed up all night arguing with her and presumably placating her. Keep in mind that this was the 1980s. The call cost $2,000.

Forty years later Fleetwoods spats while on tour would cost next-to-nothing. Better yet, the calls could be made in person in a sense via Skype, Zoom, and now, Portal from Facebook. So abundant has investment in technology been since the 1980s that the cost of communication has been shrunk to next to nothing.

While cross-continent communication in 1866 (when it first took place) cost $10/word with a 10-word minimum, now we can connect by voice and video with individuals populating the earths four corners via WiFi connections that more and more come free of charge. To be clear, this is economic growth.

In other words, the surest sign of surging economic growth is falling prices for everything. How we know this is that it was copious investment for decades (and centuries, realistically) that brought down the price of communication. Along with everything else. Figure that the original laser printer marketed by Xerox cost $17,000, the first flat-screen TVs fetched $25,000 and above, while the original window unit air conditioners that nowadays can be found in the poorest of poor U.S. neighborhoods used to set back the richest of the rich anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 in the 1930s.

Thanks to investment capital matched with creative minds, everything the rich enjoy exclusively is always and everywhere a preview of what well all enjoy in the future. Through their venture buying of products and services at nosebleed prices, the rich signal to entrepreneurs what is useful, and what will enrich them if they mass produce it.

Entrepreneurs, seeing what the rich uniquely enjoy and that is coveted by the poor and middle, then get to work. Through investment they turn scarcity into major abundance that reveals itself through rapidly falling prices.

Along these lines, readers can rest assured that the private flight that in so many ways symbolizes superrich will soon enough be common. We know thats the case simply because private flight is too desirable for entrepreneurs to not seek billionaire-variety wealth by mass producing it. To achieve the latter, theyll have to attract the investment that, by democratizing private flight, will wildly enhance the productivity and living standards of all.

So while its already been said that falling prices signal economic growth, at the same time it will be confidently asserted that periods of flat prices for lifes obscurities signal a lack of growth. For obvious reasons. Investment powers the productivity that brings down prices, while a lack of investment limits investment such that market prices remain flat, and by extension, out of reach for most.

All of this requires mention at the moment as economists and journalists roll out their all-too-familiar laments about the threat of falling prices. Of the Keynesian view that consumption powers economic growth, they claim that rising demand leads to rising prices during boom times. No, demand is a consequence of production, and thanks to copious investment, production of exponentially more with fewer hands. During boom periods, surging consumption is a consequence of surging production of endless plenty at prices that continue to fall.

Looking at the present, politicians have crushed economic activity through the imposition of command-and-control, lockdowns, along with government spending itself. Indeed, while this column predicts a big economic rebound once the hideous lockdowns end, it should be made clear that the extraction of $2.9 trillion (and counting) by Congress in response to a contraction caused by politicians will restrain what would have otherwise been a much bigger economic rebound. Central planning always fails, and $2.9 trillion worth of politicized resource allocation on top of the prior imposition of command-and-control will sadly shrink future growth. It will not erase it, but oh what might have been. As a consequence, future prices will not fall as quickly as they otherwise would have thanks to the reduced investment.

Some will point out that amid this forced political contraction there will be a fair amount of inventory clearing, going-out-of-business selling, along with falling prices for labor. With tens of millions forced into unemployment alongside mass bankruptcy, some of whats already been produced will change hands at lower prices. So will the unemployed migrate, ideally as quickly as possible, to new opportunities. Workers will in many instances offer up their services at wages that dont match what they previously earned. Politicians have a way of wrecking things in tragic fashion.

Still, even here it should be said that the falling prices of whats already been produced similarly signal rebirth contrary to what economists and pundits believe. Low-cost everything makes it possible for liquid entrepreneurs and businesses to purchase and hire high value assets on the relative cheap, thus propelling them toward profitability much faster. Lest readers forget, no business or entrepreneur seeks money as much they seek what money can be exchanged for in order to create what they envision. Falling prices not only signal economic growth, but theyre the friend of recovery.

Ideally this will be kept in mind in the coming months. The chattering classes will endlessly lament falling prices, and use words they dont understand like deflation. Ignore them. They know not of what they speak.
NEW YORK, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Brooge Energy Limited (Brooge Energy or the Company) (BROG), a midstream oil storage and service provider strategically located outside the Strait of Hormuz, adjacent to the Port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through its wholly-owned subsidiary Brooge Petroleum and Gas Investment Company FZE (BPGIC), announced today it has signed an offtake contract with an oil trading company which is one of the Super major oil companies in the world, to provide oil storage in Phase I for an initial six month period commencing on 28th April 2020. The contract is renewable for another six months subject to agreement from both parties.

Nicolaas L. Paardenkooper, CEO of Brooge Energy and BPGIC, said, The recent and significant increase in the worlds oil supply at a time when demand for oil has fallen has caused oil storage capacity worldwide to rapidly fill up, and storage tanks in Fujairah to reach full capacity. As a result of these new market dynamics, we successfully negotiated with our existing Phase I offtake customer for the return of 129,000 cbm of storage capacity, which we have now fully contracted in order to accommodate the requirements of the super major oil company. We are pleased to kick start this partnership alongside executing on our long-term expansion plans, which are expected to position us as the largest independent storage provider in Fujairah upon completion of our Phase III build-out.

BPGIC is a key independent storage provider in Fujairah, UAE, conveniently situated in the East-coast port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, which owns capacity to store Clean Petroleum Products and Fuel Oil using some of the latest technology to maximize company performance and efficiency, while reducing operating costs. Through the development of its Phase II and Phase III facilities, it is also building capacity to store crude oil using similar technology.

About Brooge Energy Limited

Story continues

Brooge Energy, formerly known as Brooge Holdings, conducts all of its business and operations through its wholly-owned subsidiary Brooge Petroleum and Gas Investment Company FZE (BPGIC), a Fujairah Free Zone Entity. BPGIC is a midstream oil storage and service provider strategically located outside the Strait of Hormuz adjacent to the Port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. BPGICs oil storage business differentiates itself from competitors by providing its customers with fast order processing times, excellent customer service and high accuracy blending services with low oil losses. For more information please visit www.broogeholdings.com .

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, that involve risks and uncertainties concerning BPGICs and Brooge Energys expected financial performance, as well as their strategic and operational plans. The actual results may differ materially from expectations, estimates and projections due to a number of risks and uncertainties and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as expect, estimate, project, budget, forecast, anticipate, intend, plan, may, will, would, could, should, believes, predicts, potential, continue, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: (1) the ultimate geographic spread, duration and severity of the coronavirus outbreak and the effectiveness of actions taken, or actions that may be taken, by governmental authorities to contain the outbreak or ameliorate its effects; (2) BPGICs ability to obtain financing for Phase III on commercially reasonable terms; (3) BPGICs ability to negotiate and enter into development and offtake agreements on commercially reasonable terms; (4) the results of technical and design feasibility studies, including the Phase III FEED study; (5) the loss of any end-users; (6) changes in customer demand with respect to ancillary services provided by BPGIC including throughput, blending, heating, and intertank transfers; (7) BPGICs ability to effectively manage the risks and expenses associated with the construction of Phase II, Phase III and other growth and expansion projects; and (8) other risks and uncertainties indicated from time to time in filings with or submissions to the SEC by Brooge Energy. Readers are referred to the most recent reports filed with or furnished to the SEC by Brooge Energy. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Investor Contact

KCSA Strategic Communications

Valter Pinto / Elizabeth Barker

+1 212-896-1254 or +1 212-896-1203

BROG@kcsa.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday announced it will investigate whether imports of foreign electrical transformer parts threaten national security by circumventing tariffs meant to protect domestic steelmakers.

Legislators from Ohio and Pennsylvania sought the probe to assist Cleveland Cliffs subsidiary AK Steel, which is the only U.S. producer of grain-oriented steel of the type used in electrical transformers. AK Steel has a grain-oriented electrical steel production line in Butler, Pennsylvania and a finishing line in Zanesville, Ohio.

The Department of Commerce will conduct a thorough, fair, and transparent review to determine the effects on the national security from imports of laminations for stacked cores for incorporation into transformers, stacked and wound cores for incorporation into transformers, electrical transformers, and transformer regulators, said a statement from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

A letter from U.S. Senators Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, and Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, told Ross that without relief, AK Steel might have to shutter the nations last production line of grain-oriented electrical steel, a key component of the power transformers that make up our critical infrastructure.

They argued the transformer parts at issue are essentially just electrical steel sheets stacked, wound and slit, and excluding them from tariffs encourages exporters to instead send transformer parts made from foreign steel to the United States, bypassing the tariffs and undermining "domestic production of electrical steel and cores which are of national security significance.

If the Commerce Department finds that the imports pose a national security threat, it can propose any number of different import restrictions, such as tariffs, to the president. Trade laws give the Commerce Department 270 days to conduct its probe. Initial data suggests the transformer parts are entering the United States from Canada and Mexico, said Portman, who issued a statement thanking the Trump administration for taking decisive action designed to save Americas last producer of grain-oriented electrical steel.

He called the investigation "a responsible and necessary step to safeguard our countrys national security and support the 1,500 workers who make this vital product.

With threats of foreign steel companies undercutting quality American products, its more important than ever to make sure we protect the American steel industry and the hard working Ohioans that depend on it, said a statement from Portman.

A statement from Brown said hes glad the Trump administration decided to launch the probe.

I urge the Administration to complete the investigation as soon as possible and to take all actions necessary to ensure these workers are able to compete on a level playing field, said Brown.

Republican Rep. Troy Balderson of Zanesville said the investigation will be critical in assessing whether foreign grain-oriented steel manufacturers are circumventing tariffs by manufacturing the product overseas before shipping it to Mexico or Canada for minimal finishing alterations. Since foreign steel makers discovered this loophole, he said the amount of minimally altered grain-oriented steel from China and other foreign countries has entered the United States through Mexico and Canada in the form of transformer components, such as laminations, cores, and core assemblies.

"If AK Steels manufacturing of electrical steel is edged out by importers who dodge tariffs and undercut prices, not only will Ohioans lose their jobs, but the integrity of the American electrical grid will be in peril, said a statement from Balderson. We cannot allow our critical infrastructure, including our electrical grid, to be completely reliant on and susceptible to harm by foreign manufacturers.

More coverage:

Groups pushing to reopen after coronavirus give Gov. Mike DeWines efforts a C

Sen. Sherrod Brown wants child care bailout in next coronavirus bill

Sen. Rob Portman asks Treasury Department to make coronavirus loans available to small business owners with criminal records

Ford Motor Company will require that workers wear face masks and have their temperatures taken when it reopens U.S. plants

Coronavirus drains Ohio municipal treasuries; Mayors seek federal aid to avoid cuts

Christina Hagan on track to challenge Rep. Tim Ryan: See who won Ohios congressional primaries

Ohios plan to reopen after coronavirus is more cautious than many other states

NASA Glenn is helping local company develop a fogging system to decontaminate rooms and ambulances for coronavirus

House approves refill of coronavirus aid fund and backs panel to oversee coronavirus spending

Rep. Jim Jordan, refusing to wear mask at contentious hearing, calls proposed coronavirus oversight subcommittee a Democratic plot to attack Trump

Q & A: CEO of Clevelands U.S. Cotton explains why regular Q-tips wont work for coronavirus testing

Cleveland company approved to make swabs for coronavirus testing

Senate approves deal on extra coronavirus funding for small businesses and hospitals

Whats in President Trumps three-phase plan for reopening the country, and will it work for Ohio?
San Francisco | $1.595 Million

A condominium unit in a Victorian house built in 1900 and recently renovated, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms

This house, which now contains two residential units, was built in 1900 and recently renovated by Jeff Schlarb Design Studio. (Mr. Schlarbs studio occupies the buildings ground-floor commercial space.) It is in the Presidio Heights neighborhood, within walking distance of well-known restaurants, the Sacramento Street Shopping District, known for its concentration of high-end design stores, and the Laurel Heights campus of the University of California, San Francisco. The Presidio, an 18th-century Spanish fort and the beloved outdoor space that surrounds it, is four blocks away.

Size: 1,435 square feet

Price per square foot: $1,111

Indoors: A short staircase leads from the ground level to the units front door and a foyer with a frosted-glass window and refinished hardwood floors. Down a hallway is an open living-and-dining area with graphic wallpaper on one wall, a marble fireplace and sliding-glass doors that open to a deck. The dining space flows into a windowed kitchen with marble counters, room for a breakfast table and an adjacent pantry space.

The bedrooms are also off the main hallway. Closest to the living area is a guest room with three windows and space for a queen-size bed. Across the hall is a bathroom with a stall shower and a single vanity.

At the end of the hall is the master suite, with a decorative fireplace and a bay of windows looking out at the Victorian houses across the street. A small adjoining room could be used as an office or a nursery. The en suite bathroom has a double vanity and a combination tub and shower.
No one ever expected the Tesla CEO to fall for the awkward and strange pop-techno musician Grimes, but the two have been together since 2018. And it all began with a tweet. While Elon Musk was going to make an inside joke that few would understand, he found that Grimes had already tweeted the joke several years earlier. After messaging her, the two hit it off  and now, theyre ready to welcome their first child together into the world, as Grimes is nine months pregnant.

Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, is more vocal about her music, her relationship, and her soon-to-be-born baby than ever before. While she and Musk arent married, the pregnancy appears to be a conscious choice. Heres what she said about why she wanted to have a child.

Grimes announced her pregnancy via Instagram

Musk hasnt spoken about his upcoming child much, but he did recently tweet about Grimes and the baby. On May 1, he told a Twitter follower that the babys due date is May 4. Baby due on Monday, the tweet simply stated.

As for Grimes, shes been much more vocal about how she feels while pregnant. On Jan. 8, 2020, she posted a photo of herself thats edited to show a fetus in her womb  and no one knew if it was a real pregnancy announcement or just an attention-grabbing post. Then, on Jan. 9, she posted another photo of herself clearly showing off her pregnant belly. And she openly discussed her pregnancy with a post added to Instagram on Jan. 31.

Fake or real? Haha. Wow Im starting to feel bad, she wrote on the gram. Had some complications early on, a decent second trimester but starting to hurt everywhere at 25 wksz. What were yalls experience w this stuff like? I feel like I was woefully ill prepared cuz I dunno if pregnancy is as visible or discussed as it should be.

Elon Musk already has 5 children

Elon Musk and Grimes arrive for the 2018 Met Gala | Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

This is Grimes first child, but its certainly not Musks. Musk has been married twice, and he welcomed his first child, Nevada, back in 2002 with his first wife, Justine Wilson. Unfortunately, Nevada passed away due to SIDS, Distractify reports. The couple then went through IVF to have more children. This resulted in twins, Griffin and Xavier, in 2004, and triplets, Saxon, Kai, and Damian, in 2006.

Musk and Wilson couldnt make their marriage last much longer after the birth of the triplets, though. They divorced in 2008  and Wilson has spoken out against Musk since then. And she noted Nevadas death was a serious point of contention in their marriage.

Elon made it clear that he did not want to talk about Nevadas death. I didnt understand this, just as he didnt understand why I grieved openly, which he regarded as emotionally manipulative,' Wilson wrote for Marie Claire. I buried my feelings instead, coping with Nevadas death by making my first visit to an IVF clinic less than two months later.

Grimes explained why she wanted to have a child with Musk

Elon Musk (L) and Canadian musician Grimes (Claire Boucher) attend the 2018 Space X Hyperloop Pod Competition | Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Wilson clearly doesnt have much good to share about her marriage to Musk. But it doesnt appear to rattle Grimes. Grimes talked to Rolling Stone about her pregnancy, and she explained why she wanted to have a baby.

For a girl, its sacrificing your body and your freedom, she told Rolling Stone. Its a pretty crazy sacrifice and only half of the population has to do it. It was really profound to me when I decided I was going to do it, to actually go through the act of  like, yknow, unprotected sex. Im just like, I have sacrificed my power in this moment.

After noting that allowing a baby to grow in her body was a profound commitment, she also noted something quite simple. I do actually just really love my boyfriend. So I was like, You know, sure.'

Were not sure if Grimes and Musk are planning to ever wed. But were all excited to see how they raise their child in their blended family.

Check out Showbiz Cheat Sheet on Facebook!
Member of Parliament for Dome Kwabenya has issued a public plea to the New Patriotic Party(NPP) national executive to step into an ongoing fracas that has engulfed the Constituency ahead of the parliamentary primary.



The national party, the MP warned, need to call for an order before the chaos that has erupted in the constituency lead to fatalities.



Hon. Sarah Adwoa Safo, who is facing stiff competition from Ghanas Ambassador to India has lamented that her life is in danger.



According to her, an attempt on her person last week backfired when assailants who thought she was in the Constituency Chairmans residence, launched an assault on the house.



She indicated that when they failed to get her, they turned their chagrin on the next best target, the Chairman, and beat him to pulp and in the process vandalized his house.



The MP, who is also Deputy majority leader in Parliament, stated that the situation has come to a head because her opponents have only one motive in the contest, and that is to get her out by any means necessary.



She alleged the driver of the Speaker of Parliament who has thrown his support behind her opponent is leading the charge against her candidature and indeed her life too.



She said, This lawlessness and indiscipline must stop. They thought I was in my Chairmans house so I was the target."



The perpetrator is Speakers driver. His supporters went and attacked my chairman and vandalized his house.



The party must stop this because my life is being threatened, she added.



An inferno is raging through the Dome Kwabenya Constituency NPP ahead of the parliamentary primaries to select candidates to represent the party in the 2020 elections.



Accusations and counter-accusations are flying all over the constituency with supporters of the two contestants alleging the hijacking of the electoral album of the constituency.



The incumbent MP, Sarah Adwoa Safo, is facing stiff competition from Michael Oquaye Junior, Ghana Ambassador to India and son of the Speaker of Parliament.



Supporters of Mr. Mike Oquaye Junior have, however, accused the MP of attempting to manipulate the constituencys electoral register to favor her.



They alleged that one electoral coordinator and a known NPP serial caller named Frimpong Asoriba hijacked the register with the help of the Special Aid of the MP.



They noted that if these two who are known close associates of the MP mustered the courage to seize the register, then the MP should have put them to the act.



We got information that before they went to Chairman Osei Bonsus house with the register, Hon. Adwoa Safo and her Special Aide were there.



Sarah Adwoa Safo had a hand in what happened at the constituency and the chairman, who is aware of what is going on, has given his tacit approval for these illegalities to be carried out, one angry delegate alleged.



He warned that unless the constituency party ensures fairness for all the contestants in the

primary, they will not accept the result of the election.

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
Having passed 60,000, eclipsing every other countrys losses as well as our casualties in Vietnam, the known count of U.S. coronavirus deaths is high by any measure except perhaps one: the actual toll.

The evidence is mounting that many more Americans have died of coronavirus complications than we know. Its the grimmest of many unknowns about the pandemic whose spread could accelerate again as the president and some state and local officials push to resume business as usual.

Californias deaths have exceeded projections by 9% this year, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released last week. That amounts to about 4,500 so-called excess deaths in the state, more than four times the CDCs count of coronavirus deaths and more than twice the total from local reports reflected in The Chronicles tracker as of last week.

Seven other states with high numbers of infections saw deaths exceed expectations by still more in the early weeks of the pandemic, with 15% to 72% more fatalities than projected in March and early April. Four of the states had at least twice as many unexpected deaths as were attributed to the coronavirus at the time, suggesting a total of 9,000 uncounted fatalities at that point. Federal statistics also show a recent surge in pneumonia deaths not attributed to COVID-19, though the disease is likely to be a cause of many such cases.

Such questions were at the heart of a recent back-and-forth between the United States and Belgium, of all places, after President Trump displayed a chart showing that a few European countries have suffered more coronavirus deaths per capita than the United States. Even for Europe, Belgium has recorded an extraordinary number of deaths partly because it counts suspected but unconfirmed coronavirus deaths, particularly at nursing homes.

The additional U.S. deaths may not be entirely or directly attributable to the coronavirus. The pandemics tendency to overwhelm hospitals and other health care providers  while discouraging people from seeking care for other illnesses  could lead to more deaths from other causes. But while excess deaths are an inexact measure, they are often considered a more accurate gauge of the true toll of a natural disaster, especially in the presence of significant doubt about official reporting.

That is certainly the case here. Santa Clara County officials recently found that the coronavirus was responsible for a San Jose womans death in early February, weeks before any previously known U.S. fatality from the epidemic. That indicated the contagion was spreading undetected in the Bay Area soon after the year began.

Thats not surprising given that California and the country are still struggling to mount the testing capacity that has allowed countries such as South Korea to detect and contain new cases. Given the paucity of testing and prevalence of asymptomatic cases, the gap between known and actual infections is thought to be even greater than the discrepancy in deaths. Preliminary studies have estimated that the number of U.S. infections may be 10 or more times the number reported.

Unlike the uncounted deaths, the unknown infections have encouraging aspects. They mean the virus is less deadly as a proportion of those infected, and they could put the population closer to the level of immunity that can slow a virus spread.

Unfortunately, even the highest estimates of the extent of the contagion suggest its significantly more deadly than seasonal flu and that most of us remain vulnerable. We know enough, that is, to proceed cautiously.

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.
Student Government Associations on the University of North Georgia's (UNG) campuses will morph from four individual governing bodies to a single unified entity in fall 2020.

The merger will begin with the election of a single president to represent all of UNG. All five campuses also will elect a vice president for that specific campus.

"Even though each campus has its own nuances and culture, we are one UNG," said Dr. James Conneely, vice president of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. "And a collective voice is a stronger one for the student body."

Mallory Rodriguez, director of student leadership, explained the new SGA structure will mimic the consolidation efforts between the two institutions that formed UNG.

"UNG's Faculty Senate and Staff Councils combined, and the departments and colleges combined, too," Rodriguez said. This year, the SGAs were asked to consider the option."

Walter "Walt" Chapeau took the message to heart. The senior pursuing a degree in business management with a concentration in supply chain turned the unification into his legacy project from the Leaving a Legacy of Leadership Summit that he attended in summer 2018.

"We had just finished our SGA budget process in Dahlonega when I noticed groups based on both campuses were allocated different amounts of money based on different campus funding guidelines," Chapeau said. "I thought 'How could we could work together on this?'"

In spring 2019, the native of Nicholson, Georgia, was elected as SGA president of the Dahlonega Campus for the 2019-20 academic year. He joined forces with his fellow SGA presidents to develop a plan to unify all four SGAs and allow for the Blue Ridge Campus to have an easy entrance into the structure when the time comes.

"We had a lot of lively debate on how to accomplish this unification," said Jelma Flores-Mota, SGA president on the Gainesville Campus. "But we worked hard to ensure all of the students were represented."

The result led to the formation of three tiers for SGA: the executive council, the legislative branch and campus governance.

The executive council features the president, five vice presidents, and Senate chair as well as four appointed directors. Directors manage marketing and communication, finance, elections, and diversity and inclusion.

"For the higher level positions like president and vice president, the candidate must have previous SGA experience," Rodriguez said.

The legislative branch will feature elected and commissioned senators. The 19 elected senators plus a Senate chair will represent UNG's colleges and campuses. One senator each will represent the College of Arts & Letters, College of Education, College of Health & Sciences, Institute of Environmental and Spatial Analysis, Mike Cottrell College of Business, College of Science & Mathematics and University College. The other 12 senators will represent the five campuses. Blue Ridge and Cumming will have one each, Oconee will have two, and Dahlonega and Gainesville each will have four.

Commissioned senators will be appointed to represent specific populations. They include commuters, the Corps of Cadets, dual-enrolled students, first-year experience, fraternity and sorority life, international students, LGBTQIA, multicultural, residential, student-athletes, students with disabilities, student organizations, transfer, and veteran and adult learners. Freshmen can also run for First-Year Senate.

Campus governance will feature three elected officers to manage communications, election and finance on each campus. These officers and campus senators will govern the daily operations such as new club approval, mini-grants and budgets.

"The goal is to unify the different SGAs to give a voice to each student and still honor each campus's culture and identity, because each is unique," Rodriguez said.

Elections will occur in the fall. If a student is interested, contact the UNG Student Government Association at sga@ung.edu.
When it comes to good credit, Colorado's got it. That was the good news from State Treasurer Dave Young Thursday afternoon, as his office gets ready to sell notes to borrow $1.1 billion for K-12 schools and state operations.
The Holiday Inn Express at 13th and Walnut in Center City is barricaded on Saturday, March 28, 2020. The city turned the hotel into Philadelphias first coronavirus quarantine site, and has used it to house homeless people who test positive for the virus. Read more

The Center City Holiday Inn Express, Philadelphias hastily organized quarantine site for people who cant isolate in their homes  or have no homes  is having problems meeting the medical and personal needs of the people it is housing, say residents and staffers.

Though grateful for a place to lay their heads during the pandemic, some residents note that they lack cleaning supplies (theres no maid service), they sometimes cannot get their prescription medications refilled, and food has been meager.

City officials have stressed the hotel, which has been up and running in its current use for just under a month, is not intended to be a medical facility. But staffers say some residents have medical needs they cannot fully accommodate.

Such concerns, officials say, are the growing pains associated with such an unprecedented housing effort, but they are learning from their mistakes. The city, which is spending $170,000 a month to rent the Holiday Inn, in April began renting a second quarantine space for $119,000 at a Fairfield Inn several blocks away.

The Fairfield Inn quarantine facility has been hosting first responders who cannot quarantine at home since opening nearly a month ago. But its now accepting people over age 65 or with an underlying medical condition, or people who have been exposed to the virus while living in a congregate setting like a homeless shelter. Residents must all have been exposed to the virus, though they do not have to test positive to be eligible.

A member of the citys Medical Reserve Corps, a federally funded volunteer medical support team that has helped staff a number of coronavirus-related initiatives, said the facility desperately needs more medical staff. The deputy managing director for health and human services, Eva Gladstein, said additional health-care staffers were assigned to the building in the last week, and the city is looking to hire more, as well as increase behavioral health services.

 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.

Even though city officials have turned away 57 people with higher-level health-care needs, the volunteer, who asked for anonymity fearing professional repercussions, said important needs still arent being met.

Its not being discussed as a health-care facility, yet everyone has health-care needs," the volunteer said. Some of the guests are in opioid addiction, or have chronic health problems that frequently accompany living on the streets. Theres so many different health-care dynamics that are not being addressed, because they dont have the staff to address it.

Staff at the hotel cannot visit each person daily, and can only call them on the room phones to see how they are doing, the volunteer said. Guests experiencing shortness of breath  one of the hallmarks of a severe COVID-19 case  have been instructed to call 911 on their own, the volunteer said.

The lack of personal contact is a particular concern when overdosing is a risk. (The city has worked to get patients with addiction medication-assisted treatment to quell cravings for opioids, and patient navigators from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital have been delivering daily doses of methadone to some patients.)

Its at the discretion of who is there to go and check on people not answering their room phones. Security is supposed to be looking out for who takes in their meals and who doesnt as a red flag. But theres not a sense of urgency about that, the volunteer said.

No ones getting deliveries in. But people get drugs into prisons," the volunteer added.

No one has died in the Holiday Inn quarantine, city officials said, though an undisclosed number of residents have been transferred to hospitals.

One resident, Shane Meyer, 42, said hed waited four days for psychiatric medications to be delivered. He had been pacing the room, his anxiety through the roof. He was living at a halfway house when he first went to the hospital two weeks ago, for complications related to his kidney disease. But Meyer tested positive for COVID-19 at the hospital, and his halfway house refused to take him back.

Speaking over the phone from his hotel room last week, he said he was not sure where he would go when he left quarantine: A Harrisburg native, he barely knows the city.

Locked in their rooms, connected to the outside world only via the room phones, several guests described problems calling the front desk for help, or just toilet paper.

The rooms have no cleaning supplies  though Gladstein said the city is working to get some  and residents were washing clothes in bathtubs because theyre not allowed to use the hotels laundry facilities.

Residents must rely on food being sent to their rooms, but some say they are not getting enough to eat. Bienvendio Gutierrez, who arrived at the Holiday Inn last week from a Port Richmond addiction treatment center hit hard by the virus, said he had stopped taking medication for his depression because it makes him too hungry.

Alone in his room, he has taped photos of his three daughters to the walls in an effort to stay positive.

You can imagine how homesick I am, he said. Ive never been suicidal or nothing like that. But being hungry, not sleeping, and having a lot of depression? If there wasnt no lock on the windows, Id probably have been out of it.

Gladstein said the quality and quantity of the meals on offer at the Holiday Inn had deteriorated," and that additional food has been added to every meal. Staffers at the front desk, she said, who are hired by a contractor with the city, have been replaced by people with more of a customer service-oriented background.

I dont want to delegitimize complaints. We agree with a number of them, she said. Obviously, this is urgent, and in urgent situations you try to stand up resources and facilities as soon as you can, and you know that you will probably, by doing that, make some mistakes or leave some gaps, and you will correct that as rapidly as you can."
Neymar is reportedly willing to accept a 50 per cent wage cut to secure a summer move from Paris Saint-Germain back to Barcelona.

The Brazilian star has been regularly linked with a return to the Nou Camp though PSG's 175million asking price was likely to prove a stumbling block.

However, Monday's edition of Mundo Deportivo reports that Neymar is determined to force through his return to Catalonia and will make a financial sacrifice.

Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo lead on Neymar's willingness to accept a 50 per cent pay reduction in order to force through a move from PSG back to Barcelona

The Brazilian is determined to get his move back to the Nou Camp after three years at PSG

Neymar earns 600,000-a-week under his current contract at PSG but, according to the report, is willing to reduce this to 300,000-a-week back at Barcelona.

It comes despite Neymar being one of the players who rejected planned wage cuts at PSG amid the coronavirus crisis.

Back in November, the 28-year-old, who cost a world record 198m when PSG signed him from Barcelona in 2017, rejected a new contract offer worth 90m to stay at the Parc des Princes.

His existing deal runs until 2022 and this offer would have tied him to PSG until 2025 but Neymar appears set on returning to Barcelona.

Neymar spent four years at Barcelona between 2013 and 2017, achieving great success

The Brazilian forward has scored 18 goals and contributed 10 assists for PSG this season

Mundo Deportivo also report that PSG could reduce their asking price to around 132m in the coming days now the player has made clear he doesn't want to stay beyond this summer.

Barcelona are open to bringing Neymar back but also want to sign Inter Milan's Argentine striker Lautaro Martinez, who has a 98m release clause.

And while Barcelona have previously been bullish about their ability to sign both players, the financial impact of the Covid-19 shutdown, which has already seen their squad accept a 70 per cent pay cut, may mean it is no longer possible.

Barcelona are determined to sign Inter Milan's Lautaro Martinez when the window opens

Reports over the weekend suggested that Barcelona have already lost 124m as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

Neymar has enjoyed a fine season for PSG, scoring 18 goals and contributing 10 assists in 22 matches across all competitions.

They have been awarded the title following the cancellation of the Ligue 1 season amid the coronavirus pandemic and had made it into the quarter-finals of the Champions League, should the competition resume later in the year.
Local stocks are poised for weak start as trading resumes after a long weekend. Trading of Nifty 50 index futures on the Singapore stock exchange indicates that the Nifty could slide 225 points at the opening bell.

On May 1, the government announced extension of nationwide lockdown for two more weeks starting from May 4. However, several relaxations will be allowed as per zones. Apart from zone-wise restriction, there is a limited number of activities that will remain prohibited throughout the country, irrespective of zones

On the macro front, Markit Manufacturing PMI for April will be declared today, 4 May 2020.

The output of eight Core Industries comprise 40.27% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) dipped by 6.5% in March 2020. The cumulative output rose marginally by 0.6% in April-March FY2020.

Overseas, Asian stocks were trading lower as US-China tensions weigh on investor sentiment. Markets in China, Japan and Thailand are closed on Monday for holidays.

Meanwhile, tensions are rising between Washington and Beijing, as U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly said Sunday that he believed that a mistake in China was the cause of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, though he did not present any evidence for the claim.

In US, Wall Street sold off sharply on Friday after President Donald Trump revived a threat of new tariffs against China in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought global economies to a grinding halt.

Back home, domestic shares extended gains for the fourth straight session on Thursday, tracking positive global cues. The barometer S&P BSE Sensex gained 997.46 points or 3.05% at 33,717.62. The Nifty 50 index added 306.55 points or 3.21% at 9,859.90. Trading was volatile on account of the monthly F&O expiry.

Domestic stock markets were closed on Friday, 1 May 2020 on account of Maharashtra Day.

The trading activity on that day showed that the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1,968.80 crore on 30 April 2020, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 579.03 crore on 30 April 2020, as per provisional data.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Carts block the entrance to the parking lot of Ralphs in Hollywood on Friday as store workers, UFCW 770 representatives and community members hold a rally. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Amid an outbreak at one of its stores in Southern California, the largest U.S. grocery chain has announced it will provide free coronavirus testing for all its frontline associates who have symptoms or medical needs that make them eligible for testing under guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kroger, which operates multiple supermarket chains, including Kroger, Ralphs and Food 4 Less, said Monday it will begin offering the testing this month through its healthcare division, Kroger Health. The tests will be provided through a combination of self-administered kits and public drive-through sites, the company said.

The resilience of the Kroger family is unparalleled, and were doing all we can to keep our team healthy and safe, Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health, said in a statement. The widespread availability of diagnostic testing will now allow our associates to feel more empowered and knowledgeable about their health, creating safer stores and facilities.

The company did not immediately respond to questions about how many employees are considered frontline associates and how many will be tested as a result of the announcement.

Kroger also has supplied masks to all associates, stepped up cleanings, installed plexiglass partitions at checkout lanes and reduced customer capacity limits, according to the release.

The announcement comes as an outbreak at a Ralphs in Hollywood marks the largest cluster of infections at a retail store recorded by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

Of the Sunset Boulevard store's 158 employees, 21 have tested positive for the virus, John Votava, spokesman for the grocery chain, said Monday. Theyve been self-quarantining since April 21, he said.

The store was closed early for deep cleaning and sanitizing by a CDC-approved third party on April 15, 21 and 30, Votava said. The company has also instituted mandatory pre-shift temperature and symptom checks for employees at that location, he said.

Story continues

With regular visits from the Los Angeles County Health Department, weve affirmed that our processes continue to live up to our high safety standards in protecting our more than 20,000 associates and the millions of customers that visit our 188 stores each week, Votava said in an email.

Rae Campos, 51, who has worked as a cashier at the Hollywood Ralphs for over a year, said she thinks the store should shut down for a full 24 hours.

We would like for it to be sterilized and cleaned out so that we dont have to be afraid anymore to go to work, because its a scary time, she said.

She said the store began doing temperature checks in mid-April but could not provide enough gloves or masks for employees to wear new ones each shift. She would often take her mask home and spray it with Lysol so she could use it the next day, she said.

Campos took a leave of absence on April 16, when between 15 and 17 of her coworkers had tested positive, she said. She lives with her mother and stepfather, who have compromised immune systems, and she worried she could bring the virus home.

I love everybody in the store, she said. Theyre like a family, and I really really hated going out, but they were not taking care of us.

In addition to making sure that employees have enough supplies, she'd like to see the store do more to reduce crowding. She said that on one occasion, she had to direct security to close the doors because there were too many customers.

Kroger has increased its investment in personal protective equipment, and employees at the Hollywood Ralphs are currently being supplied with a pair of gloves and a face covering for each shift, Votava said. The store also has limited its customer capacity to 25% of normal, allowing for one person for every 180 feet of store space, he said.

Ahead of the testing announcement, Campos and other employees protested Friday outside the Hollywood Ralphs in a May Day rally organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which represents more than 20,000 grocery workers in Southern California. They called on the company to do more to protect associates by providing testing and instituting a response protocol for positive results.

John Grant, president of UFCW Local 770, said Monday in a statement that Krogers decision to test employees was a significant victory for the union but that the company had yet to provide specific details on how the strategy would work.

Without that information, we cant properly assess their plan, Grant said. We are glad they are listening to workers and taking steps to protect everyone in the stores. We will continue to work to ensure that testing will be quick, accurate and cost-free for UFCW members.

In addition to testing, the union is calling for a 24-hour closure for deep cleaning each time an employee tests positive, a protocol following a positive test that includes notifying affected workers and evaluating whom to quarantine, and a joint labor-management health and safety committee in each store.

"At Ralphs, our associates are like family," Votava said. "We are in communication with our associates that have tested positive to assist in their needs."
Federal Appeals Court Rules Kansas Cannot Make Voters Prove Citizenship

A federal appeals court has determined that Kansas cant make voters produce proof of citizenship when they register to vote, marking a setback in efforts by largely conservative activists to safeguard integrity in the electoral process.

In a case cited as Fish v. Schwab, a panel of the Salt Lake City-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decided April 29 to uphold a June 18, 2018, ruling by U.S. District Judge Julie A. Robinson, who was appointed in 2001 by President George W. Bush. The appeals court decision affects other states such as Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah that are within the geographical boundaries of the circuit.

In 2011, the Kansas legislature approved the Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) Act, which introduced a requirement that the states residents present documentary proof of citizenship when applying to register to vote. The plaintiffs challenged the statute as it applied to motor voter applicants, which refers to individuals applying to register to vote at the same time they apply for or renew their drivers license online or at a Division of Motor Vehicles office. They claimed it placed undue burdens on would-be registrants and in the process infringed on their constitutional rights.

Activist groups largely on the left claimed the documentary proof-of-citizenship statute inflicted damage on voter rolls, deprived tens of thousands of individuals of the vote, and undermined confidence in Kansas elections.

The 10th Circuit found the SAFE Act that was signed into law by then-Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican whom President Donald Trump later appointed U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, ran afoul of the U.S. Constitutions Equal Protection Clause and the National Voter Registration Act, known popularly as the motor-voter law.

Robinson blocked Kansas from enforcing the law in question.

The appeals court last week found that there was a significant burden quantified by the 31,089 voters who had their registration applications cancelled or suspended in Kansas, and that the state had failed to justify the burden imposed on the right to vote.

Kansas argued it has what lawyers call a compelling interest in preventing voter fraud and that its proof-of-citizenship requirement wasnt a significant burden to voters. The state said the requirement safeguards the integrity of elections and the accuracy of state voter rolls.

While the appeals court said it agreed in the abstract that Kansas has a legitimate interest in making sure only the votes of eligible voters are counted, it made it clear it wasnt convinced there was any justification for imposing a burden on voters. The appeals court stated that the lower court had given the states electoral system a clean bill of health.

The appeals court determined that, at most, 67 noncitizens registered or attempted to register in the state in the preceding 19 years.

Thus we are left with this incredibly slight evidence that Kansass interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters is under threat, the ruling stated. Indeed, even as to those 39 noncitizens who appear on the Kansas voter rolls, the district court found that administrative anomalies could account for the presence of manyor perhaps even mostof them there.

Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is now running for a U.S. Senate seat in Kansas as a Republican, defended the SAFE Act, telling The Kansas City Star he disagreed with the appellate courts decision.

The opinion is clearly wrong, and I have a high level of confidence that it will be overturned by the Supreme Court if the Attorney General appeals it to the Supreme Court, he said.

Kobach said the 10th Circuit judges didnt grasp how the SAFE Act actually worked, and he said it succeeded in preventing noncitizens from voting.

Some of those individuals were not actually U.S. citizens, so they never should have been registered, Kobach said. So for the court to seize on that 30,000 figure shows that the court didnt actually understand how the law operated.

The American Civil Liberties Union called on current Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, also a Republican, to not pursue an appeal and turn the page on Kris Kobachs sorry legacy of voter suppression.

Schwab told reporters his office hasnt yet decided if it will appeal the ruling.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, told reporters she favors not appealing the decision.
Heres how Italians quaranteamed 700 years ago CNN (The Rev Kev). The word quarintine comes from the Italian, referring to the forty day period Venice required ships to wait before they could enter the port.

#COVID-19

The Quarantine is Failing because Our Institutions Werent Built For It Benjamin Studebker (UserFriendly)

Elixirs for times of plague and bullion shortage Nature

Aprils dumbest and most dangerous coronavirus declarations The Hill (re/silC))

How Cybercriminals are Weathering COVID-19 Krebs on Security. BC: Fascinating info, especially the last paragraph that scammers are feeling ethical pangs (honor among thieves) against stealing from healthcare providers or using COVID19 as a part of a scam.

In the future, touchscreens will be obsolete. This lab designs whats next Digital Trends (The Rev Kev)

Trump warns Maine after business punished for reopening as more devastated owners defy lockdown RT (The Rev Kev)

Anti-Vaccination Activists Are Growing Force at Virus Protests NYT

Covid-19 has blown apart the myth of Silicon Valley innovation MIT Technology Review. This conclusion will come as no surprise to our regular readers.

Phoning it in: Pandemic forces Supreme Court to hear cases in a new way Reuters

Trump Isnt the First to Threaten WHO, but His Threat Is the Most Dangerous Inside Sources (micael)

Hundreds of cruise crew members have been stuck on ships for months, and they say theres no end in sight Business Insider (The Rev Kev)

As lockdowns lift, new hazards lurk in the water Nature
Chennai, May 4 : The city's Koyambedu wholesale market has turned into 'Corona wholesale market' with bulk of the 527 persons who tested positive for coronavirus over the past 24 hours were linked to it, the state Health Department said on Monday.

It also said that one Covid-19 patient died, taking the total death toll to 31.

In a statement issued here, the Health Department said 527 persons tested positive for coronavirus taking the total infected persons' tally to 3,550.

The statement said a large number of cases were connected to Koyambedu market and the number of active Covid-19 cases in the state stands at 2,107.

With retail sales at Koyambedu market shut down, many workers had gone to their native districts and were tested positive there.

The districts - Cuddalore, Villupuram, Chennai, Perambalur and Ariyalur- have the major concentration of Covid-19 patients connected to Koyambedu market.

According to officials, the names of truckers, loaders, vendors and others who were present and dealing business at Koyambedu have been sent to their respective districts for tracing and testing.

Over the past 24-hours, a total of 12,863 samples were tested in the state.

A total of 30 Covid-19 patients were discharged from various hospitals in the state taking the total tally to 1,409 persons.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
The party has long been wary of public grief and the dangers it could pose to its rule.

In 2008, after an earthquake in Sichuan Province killed at least 69,000 people, Chinese officials offered hush money to parents whose children died. Following a deadly train crash in the city of Wenzhou in 2011, officials prevented relatives from visiting the site. Each June, the authorities in Beijing silence family members of protesters who were killed in the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.

Now, some say the government is imposing the same kind of collective amnesia around the outbreak.

Three volunteers involved in Terminus2049, an online project that archived censored news articles about the outbreak, went missing in Beijing last month and are presumed to have been detained.

Image Chen Mei Credit... Chen Kun

I had previously told him: You guys probably face some risk doing this project. But I didnt know how much, said Chen Kun, whose brother, Chen Mei, is one of the volunteers who disappeared.

I had said that maybe he would be summoned by the police for a talk, and they would ask him to take down the site, he said. I didnt think it would be this serious.

Mr. Chen said he had no information about his brothers disappearance. But he had spoken to the relatives of one of the other missing volunteers, Cai Wei, who said that Mr. Cai and his girlfriend had been detained and accused of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, a vague charge that the government often uses against dissidents.

Reached by telephone on Tuesday, an employee at a police station in the Beijing district where Chen Mei lives said he was unclear about the case. The groups site on GitHub, a platform popular with coders, is now blocked in China.
Raveena Tandon Says Her Heart Is Heavy

The Mohra actress told IANS, "I have not worked with him in many movies but my dad has worked with him a lot. I have seen him since I was a child. I literally grew up in front of his eyes. My heart is heavy right now."

Rishi Kapoor's Death Is A Huge Blow For Her Father

She told the news agency, "Rishi sir's death is a huge blow for my father. My father has lost one more friend from his inner circle. I clearly remember how my dad, Pancham uncle (RD Burman), Ramesh Behl uncle and Rishiji used to hang out together. After his demise, my dad has been feeling very down."

Raveena Shares Details About Her Last Encounter With Rishi Kapoor

Raveena also shared her last memory of the Bobby star and revealed that she met him during Ganpati pooja at Rishi Kapoor's sister Rima Jain's house in Mumbai.

The actress said, "I was at Rima's house for Ganpati pooja. When I was about to leave, Rima told me to wait as Chintu ji's coming. I waited for him because I had not seen him for a long time since he was in New York. He came, we did aarti and had a good talk. That was my last and final memory of him. I will miss him a lot. May his soul rest in peace."

Raveena Tandon's Childhood Memories Of Her 'Chintu Uncle'

Earlier, Raveena took to her Twitter page to mourn the actor's demise, remembering the first walkie talkie doll he bought for her as a gift from Paris.

"Just totally love you ! Seems like a part of my life, my childhood memories, my now..all taken away so fast. Not fair Chintu uncle. Not fair on all of us..could not even say a goodbye. We will miss you terribly. His infectious laughter, his wit, incidents, even when he used to scold me on sets when working with him. Still seeing me, as the same 5 year old he knew, my first walkie talkie doll he bought from Paris, a make-up gift for getting engaged to Neetu aunty without telling me," Raveena recalled in her tweet.
U-Haul is celebrating 75 years of service in 2020. WWII Navy veteran L.S. "Sam" Shoen and his wife, Anna Mary Carty Shoen, conceived U-Haul in June 1945 when they recognized a basic need while moving up the West Coast, having abandoned most of their belongings since one-way trailer rentals did not yet exist.

From that idea, an industry was born and a new level of mobility became attainable for every American family. U-Haul was founded in Ridgefield, Wash., just 20 miles north of Portland, with the first Company-built trailers being assembled in the Carty family ranch milk barn.

To commemorate both anniversaries, U-Haul is celebrating former Team Members and U-Haul neighborhood dealers who served in WWII, such as Portland native Ralph Shivers.

Man of Service

Shivers was born in January 1926. He attended West Linn High School, graduating in 1943. He and a friend spent the summer of 1943 hitchhiking around the country, hopping rides on a couple of freight trains in the process. That fall, he returned home to Portland and worked as a welder's assistant. In January 1944, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve.

In October 1944, Shivers was assigned to the USS Craven (DD382), a Gridley-class destroyer, as a fire controlman. He boarded the Craven in Pearl Harbor while it was undergoing an overhaul. In January 1945, the Craven transitioned to the Atlantic Theater through the Panama Canal.

The Craven performed convoy duty from New York to France until the war in Europe ended that May. Afterward, the Craven ranged throughout the Mediterranean Sea on escort, training and transport duties until January 1946.

For his service, Shivers was awarded the Victory, American Theater, Asiatic-Pacific Theater and European Theater medals. He was honorably discharged in May 1946.

Shivers went on to enroll at Oregon State University and began working part time for U-Haul, doing repair work and hooking up trailers in Portland. He graduated from OSU with a bachelor's degree in geography and transportation.

U-Haul Career

In January 1951, Shivers began working full-time for U-Haul on an Oakland, Calif., rental lot. That August, he became one of only three U-Haul fieldmen, blanketing the entire U.S. for his route. Shivers and his bride of four months, Mary, embarked on a nine-month "honeymoon" servicing U-Haul neighborhood dealers across the country. Mary did her part by learning how to repair electrical wiring on trailers.

Over the next 20 years, Shivers served in a number of key capacities, including field director responsible for establishing and developing U-Haul companies in various parts of the country. He established the first U-Haul Traffic Department in Portland; served as U-Haul Company of Alabama president; U-Haul International vice president; U-Haul International president; and vice president of distribution services  the title he held upon leaving the Company in 1974.

The Shivers have been married for 68 years and live in Hood River. They have a son, Steve, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

The Shoens started U-Haul upon Sam's discharge with $4,000 of accumulated Navy pay and the courage formed by the cauldron of WWII. With the help of other veterans, the young couple forged their new enterprise from the freedom that victory produced.

Veteran Initiative

Today, U-Haul serves all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces, helping an estimated 11 million families move every year. Shivers is one of the many veterans who laid the foundation for the present prosperity U-Haul enjoys.

U-Haul continues to aggressively recruit veterans and gives them preference in the hiring process, having been recognized repeatedly as one of the nation's top veteran-friendly employers. U-Haul is also committed to honoring veterans and supporting veteran causes. This is accomplished through direct assistance to veteran groups, as well as participation and sponsorship of Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades, and Pearl Harbor tributes.

These 2020 tributes will peak triumphantly with the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum's dedication of the renovated Ford Island Control Tower on Aug. 29. U-Haul Pacific Theater veterans' bios and photos will be displayed in the tower lobby. The tower will offer a new elevator, gifted by U-Haul CEO Joe Shoen, providing public access to the observation deck where America's lone WWII aviation battlefield can be revered and our heroes remembered.

U-Haul is one of a myriad of companies built by these incredible veterans, who are to be saluted and remembered during this 75th anniversary celebration. Thank you, Ralph.

Find more veteran tributes in the History and Culture section of myuhaulstory.com.

About U-Haul

Since 1945, U-Haul has been the No. 1 choice of do-it-yourself movers, with a network of 22,000 locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. U-Haul Truck Share 24/7 offers secure access to U-Haul trucks every hour of every day through the customer dispatch option on their smartphones and our proprietary Live Verify technology. Our customers' patronage has enabled the U-Haul fleet to grow to approximately 167,000 trucks, 120,000 trailers and 43,000 towing devices. U-Haul offers nearly 697,000 rooms and 60.7 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities throughout North America. U-Haul is the largest installer of permanent trailer hitches in the automotive aftermarket industry, and is the largest retailer of propane in the U.S.

For our COVID-19 information page, click on uhaul.com/announcement.

Contact:

Jeff Lockridge

Sebastien Reyes

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: 602-760-4941

Website: uhaul.com

SOURCE U-Haul

Related Links

https://www.uhaul.com


ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Cargill High River, Alta. meat facility reopened Monday, but industry and union leaders are urging workplaces that plan to reopen to start small and implement nuanced safety procedures.

Michael Hughes, the communications coordinator for the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union Local 401, said Cargills workers in High River are terrified to go back to work.

He added that, according to a recent survey, 80 per cent of Cargill workers do not want the meat facility to reopen, and 85 per cent say they are afraid.

The facility had more than 900, out of 2,000, employees test positive for COVID-19.

We need to overcome that fear and the only way we can do that is if we have assurances that the plant is safe, he said. Taking an approach to workplace health and safety that is more than ticking boxes. If masks are provided we need to actually be able to see what kind of masks are provided and who gets them and how often they get changed.

Hughes said that Cargills facility in High River is not designed around social distancing and that workers are typically in close proximity with others.

Cargill said in an emailed statement that the plant opened with two shifts on May 4 and that employees who are healthy and able to work are asked to report back.

In keeping with our extensive focus on safety, we want to emphasize that employees should be healthy and not had contact with anyone with the COVID-19 virus for 14 days, Cargill said. According to health officials, the majority of our employees remain healthy or have recovered.

Cargill said in a memo that it was going to provide masks, implement employee screening, and that they plan to offer changes to locker room and lunch room workflows. There also plans to add barriers in bathrooms and continued extensive cleaning of the facility.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during his daily press briefing that the federal government is working closely with provinces on ensuring that there are adequate safeguards put in place in the agriculture industry.

Story continues

This is a provincial area of responsibility...but we will be there to support the provinces in its work to ensure both the continued flow of supply chains for our food, but also the protection of workers who could be vulnerable, he said.

Alberta, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec have plans put in place on re-opening specific businesses.

Small businesses should re-open, but it will be messy

Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation for Independent Businesses, said it wouldnt be a bad idea for certain small businesses to start reopening, but added that they need to take incremental steps.

Weve learned a lot from the last six weeks of the shutdown from the grocery sector. Now stores are limiting the number of people that can come in at any given time to prevent lineups. Theyre also putting in cleaning procedures...and many are adopting barriers between the employee and the customer, he said.

Those are the kinds of common-sense modifications that we believe more and more small companies can use in order to get them open.

He said the reopening of these small businesses will help slow the curve. Instead of customers only having the option of shopping at big-box stores to buy essentials, it could be helpful to have smaller stores open with modified practices to serve customers.

Kelly said that the process wont be easy; its going to be messy.

If we wait for every single element to be firmly in place, well be waiting forever, he said.

We're going to have to allow some trial and error here. I know the consequences are significant and thats why we have to all take the advice of medical officers of health seriously.

Kelly added that many provinces are also starting to talk about adjusting safety and health regulations for businesses post-pandemic.

Most provinces have begun, including Ontario to lay out the roadmap for different industry sectors of what they have to do in order to protect employees and customer safety, he said, adding that it likely wont be a one size fits all model.

However, while the CFIB is pushing for certain small businesses to open, Trudeau did indicate that the country is still not ready to fully have workers go back to their jobs yet.

We are not there yet. Were very much still trying to make sure that people are getting the support they need. Even as the economy is starting to gradually reopen, our focus is on keeping people safe and ensuring that they have the ability to stay home and pay for groceries and pay their rents and support each other, he said.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android and sign up for the Yahoo Finance Canada Weekly Brief.
L ondon's Nightingale hospital will be put on standby within days as a result of the capital passing the peak of coronavirus cases.

Staff at the hospital, at the ExCeL conference centre in Docklands, received the news today as they were thanked for their efforts.

Professor Charles Knight, the hospitals chief executive, told them: It is likely that in the coming days we will not need to be admitting patients to the London Nightingale, while coronavirus in the capital remains under control.

As a result, after the last of this our first group of patients leaves, the hospital will be placed on standby, ready to resume operations as and when needed in the weeks and potentially months to come.

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

Downing Street later confirmed the news, saying no new Covid-19 admissions are expected in the coming days. 

The spokesman said: Its not likely that in the coming days we will need to be admitting patients to the London Nightingale while coronavirus in the capital remains under control.

Thats obviously a very positive thing and we remain grateful to everybody in London for following the Governments advice in helping to protect the NHS.

What the Nightingale will be is effectively placed on standby so it would be ready to receive patients should that be required, but we are not anticipating that will be the case.

The Nightingale was commissioned on March 23, at a time when it was predicted that London would need 7,500 intensive care beds - almost 10 times its capacity at the time. The vision was for the Nightingale to have as many as 4,000 beds.

But more beds were quickly added in conventional hospitals, enabling them to cope with the peak without having to transfer many patients.

Coronavirus peaked in London on April 8 when 4,813 patients were being treated in hospital.

The Nightingale opened on April 3 and received its first patient on April 7. Only about 60 patients, all of whom were on ventilators, are thought to have been treated at the Nightingale.

Loading....

NHS England sources insisted the Nightingale was not being mothballed and that it would stand ready should the capita suffer a second wave of cases. On Saturday the number of covid-19 patients in London hospitals was just above 2,000.

Professor Knight said he wanted to say a huge thank you to all who had helped to plan and build the Nightingale, which was overseen by Barts Health NHS Trust and built with help from the military. Professor Knight was himself seconded from St Bartholomews hospital, where he is managing director.

He said: I am so proud of the culture we have developed among clinicians and other staff brought together from across the NHS in London and beyond to mobilise this new type of hospital.

It has been an incredibly humbling experience to see so many people from so many disciplines unite for this mission. It is a privilege to be part of this Nightingale story. We are proud of you, and you should be proud of yourselves.

London during Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures 1 /66 London during Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures A woman jogging near City Hall, London, the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK in lockdown PA An image of Queen Elizabeth II and quotes from her broadcast on Sunday to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London's Piccadilly Circus PA A pedestrian walks past a billboard reading "Please believe these days will pass" on Broadway Market in east London AFP via Getty Images Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge Getty Images Boris Johnson Jeremy Selwyn Sun-seekers cool off in the water and sunbathe on the riverbank at Hackney Marshes in east London AFP via Getty Images Ed Davey is shown on screens as he speaks via videolink during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, London PA A herd of fallow deer graze on the lawns in front of a housing estate in Harold Hill in east London AFP via Getty Images A woman wearing a mask crosses a bridge over Camden Lock, London PA An empty Millenium Bridge PA A sign advertising a book titled "How Will We Survive On Earth?" is seen on an underground station platform Getty Images People push to enter the Niketown shop in Londo AP Jo Proudlove and daughter Eve, 9, follow the daily online "PE with Joe" Joe Wickes' exercise class on "Fancy dress Friday Reuters Police in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Waterloo station looking empty PA Getty Images A quiet Parliament Square Getty Images PABest A man walks along a passageway at London's Oxford Street Underground station the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK in lockdown to help curb the spread of the Coronavirus PA Social distancing markers around the camel enclosure at ZSL London Zoo PA A police car patrols Greenwich Park in London PA The Premier League in action in front of empty stands AP Novikov restaurant in London with its shutters pulled down while the restaurant is closed. A deserted Piccadilly Circus PA A general view is seen of a deserted Trafalgar Square AFP via Getty Images Getty Images The iconic Abbey Road crossing is seen after a re-paint by a Highways Maintenance team as they take advantage of the COVID-19 coronavirus lockdown and quiet streets to refresh the markings Getty Images A view of 20 Fenchurch Street (the 'Walkie Talkie' building) in the City of London, the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK in lockdown to help curb the spread of the coronavirus PA A deserted Chinatown PA A person looks at graffiti on a JD Wetherspoon pub in Crystal Palace, south London. Wetherspoons workers have described founder Tim Martin's lack of support for his chain's 40,000 employees as "absolutely outrageous" PA The London ExCel centre that has been turned into a makeshift NHS Hospital and critical care unit to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic PA The Palace Theatre, which usually shows the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play, sits in a deserted Shaftesbury Avenue PA The Sondheim Theatre, which usually shows the Les Miserables musical, sits in a deserted Shaftesbury Avenue PA Two members of a British Army mounted regiment exercise their horses in Parliament Square AP Westminster Bridge is deserted PA A quiet Canary Wharf Underground Station PA An empty street and bus stop at St James's Park AFP via Getty Images Whitehall Jeremy Selwyn A quiet Canary Wharf Underground Station PA A single pedestrian walks past The national Gallery AFP via Getty Images London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn Kings Cross and St Pancras Jeremy Selwyn Buckingham Palace looking empty in London, PA London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn Kings Cross and St Pancras Jeremy Selwyn London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn London's Carnaby Street empty as shops closed after a lockdown was announced in the latest bid to stop the spread of coronavirus through the UK AP A quiet Jubilee line westbound train carriage PA A single pedestrian walks past The national Gallery AFP via Getty Images A quiet Canary Wharf Underground Station PA Empty Embankment Jeremy Selwyn

Thanks to the determination and sacrifice of Londoners in following the expert advice to stay home and save lives we have not had to expand the Nightingales capacity beyond the first ward.

As the Prime Minister has said, we are now past the first peak in coronavirus cases and the NHS is therefore moving into the second phase of its response to this global pandemic.

So this does not mean our role in Londons response to the virus is over. We must be ready for the possibility that the number of Covid-19 cases rise again if and when the Government eases social distancing rules. That is why the London Nightingale will stand ready should it again be needed.

Work is also underway to consider how the Nightingales role may further adapt as the NHS seeks to resume activity that had to be paused in the first phase of our response to the pandemic.

Loading....

The future of the Nightingale could see it take coronavirus patients to enable other NHS hospitals in London return to normal business and restart cancer treatment and elective surgery. There is a need to create clean hospitals where patients are not at risk of contracting Covid-19 during treatment for another condition.

However the Nightingale has been controversial  with some hospitals reluctant to transfer staff to it and thus placing themselves under greater pressure. Some figures said the Nightingales staff and equipment would now be better used in conventional hospitals, amid concerns ventilators were standing idle.

Yesterday Professor Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS England, insisted theNightingale hospitals were not build in error.

He said it would have been "foolish" not to plan for extra capacity to tackle coronavirus.

Coronavirus in numbers: UK death toll rises to 28,446

Speaking at the daily Covid-19 press conference on Sunday, he said the extra capacity provided by Nightingale hospitals may still be needed.

Asked at the Government's daily press briefing if the hospitals were built in error, Prof Powis said: "Absolutely 100 per cent not.

"If you wind the clock back a month or two, we were looking at an increase in the number of cases, infections, in the UK.

"We were watching images from around the world of health systems that were overwhelmed and we had not put in place, were about to put in place, a series of social distancing measures not absolutely knowing how the public would respond to that.

"And it would have been foolish to have not planned for extra capacity within the NHS. We did that in a number of ways including the Nightingales."

Prof Powis continued: "The fact that we have not needed to use all that capacity is actually good news because it means that the public have complied with the social distancing measures, they've started to flatten that curve and we've seen fewer admissions and ultimately fewer deaths than we might have seen if this virus had just been left to spread unchecked.

"And the very early worst case scenarios that no country has let play out would have meant many, many, many deaths and an awful lot of pressure on health services.

Listen to The Leader: Coronavirus Daily podcast

"So I think you would have been a hundred, a thousand times more critical if the NHS had not put in that extra capacity and had become overwhelmed.
As Georgias Republican governor, Brian Kemp, rushed last week to open such businesses as tattoo parlors and barbershops, Demetrius Young, a city commissioner in Albany, was apoplectic. According to The Washington Post, he vented his vexation with this musing: For black folks, its like a setup.

Are you trying to kill us?

Youngs frustration is understandable. In Georgia, COVID-19 has struck black citizens disproportionately. According to available data, black Georgians have accounted for more than 50% of the deaths, though they make up only about 30% of the states population.

And so it is in every state or city where racial data are available: The deaths of black Americans are disproportionate to our numbers in the population. In Michigan, for example, black people make up 14% of the population but account for about 40% of deaths. In Wisconsin, black people are 7% of the population but 33% of the deaths.

In Mississippi, black people are 38% of the population but 61% of the deaths.

In Louisiana, black residents account for about 32% of the population but a staggering 70% of the deaths from COVID-19.

For medical authorities, there should not be any great surprise in these numbers. Black Americans have always had poorer health outcomes than white Americans. The novel coronavirus has simply brought those disparities into stark relief, into the headlines, into full view for any person with a conscience to see and to despair.

That clearly does not apply to President Donald J. Trump, whose lack of empathy for those who have suffered the worst of the pandemic has been explicit. And it may not apply to many of his supporters, either, including the overwhelmingly white crowds of protestors demanding that states drop their restrictive orders.

Even as politicians like Trump and Kemp continue with their heedless plans, the catastrophic death rate from coronavirus in black America ought to compel public health officials and the medical establishment to finally commit to systemic change. Many of the best among us have been dying too soon for much too long.

Thats especially true for black men. In the actuarial tables, black women have been slowly catching up to white women for the past few decades. According to a 2016 report published by the American Journal of Public Health, by 2011, the life expectancy for white women was 81.1 years; for black women, 78.2 years. But the gap between white and black men was larger  76.6 years for white men, but 72.2 years for black men.

The poorer health outcomes for black Americans have their roots in the racist foundations of this nation: Slaves were valuable property but could be replaced if they fell ill. The poverty that has dogged us since then has limited the black populations access to health care. Its no wonder, then, that black Americans have higher rates of the underlying conditions on which the coronavirus feasts, including hypertension, heart disease, diabetes.

In some Southern states with high rates of poverty  including Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi  Republican politicians have refused to expand Medicaid, which would have helped during this crisis.

Black Americans are also disproportionately employed in the essential occupations that force showing up for work in a physical location  grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, bus drivers, hospital nursing assistants and janitors, postal clerks. This pandemic has been one more explicit reminder of the gap between Americas professional class and its wage laborers.

But the legacy of racism isnt the only malicious force at work here. So is ongoing racism. There is now increasing evidence that black people with COVID-19 symptoms are turned away more frequently when they request a test. A biotech data firm recently reviewed insurance billing information from several states and found that black people are less likely to be able to get a test, according to National Public Radio.

The heartbreaking story of 30-year-old Rana Zoe Mungin, a Brooklyn schoolteacher, is just one example. Despite a fever and shortness of breath, she was turned away from an emergency room twice. She was finally admitted to a hospital five days after her first attempt to get tested. She died after a month on a ventilator.

Had she been white, her family might not be grieving.

Email Cynthia Tucker at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com
Hundreds of Missouri residents have had their personal details shared online after the publication of a document that recorded reports made against those flouting lockdown measures.

Some people are now concerned that they will face consequences for snitching on coronavirus rulebreakers in St Louis County, Missouri.

It comes after St Louis County authorities called on people to report businesses and persons not following statewide lockdown measures, last month.

The names and addresses of almost 900 people were shared on Facebook to name-and-shame them after authorities had released the data following a media request under the states Sunshine Law, which requires authorities to release information submitted to public agencies.

Im not only worried about COVID, Im worried about someone showing up at my door, showing up at my workplace or me getting fired for doing what is right, said a woman named Patricia, who had made a report, to KSDK news.

When there is something that happens next time, Im not going to feel safe or protected enough to call the local authorities.

The complaints resulted in 29 businesses receiving court summons in April, leaving some concerned that they will face dismissal at work after reporting on rule breaking at their own workplace.

Were in a society where doing whats right doesnt always get rewarded, added Patricia. We have to be extra careful because we dont have the strength to fight this.

The Missouri resident told KSDK news that she had asked to be made anonymous, but that did not stop the complete publication of the documents.

Jared Totsch, who shared the personal details online, wrote on Facebook: If they are worried about retaliation, they should have read the fine print which stated their tips would be open public record subject to a Sunshine request, and should not have submitted tips in that manner to begin with.

I released the info in an attempt to discourage such behaviour in the future, added Totsch, who claimed that those who had snitched to local authorities caused job losses to others.

Those comments came despite St Louis County having confirmed the most cases and deaths of Covid-19 in Missouri.

Doug Moore, St Louis County executives director of communications, said that details could not be redacted from the document that was shared online.

In this particular instance, our county counselors office consulted with the [attorney general]s office on releasing the list of those who had filed complaints against county businesses, Mr Moore told KSDK news.

He added: Withholding information goes against what journalists push us to be  as transparent as possible.

Totsch, who has also shared other unfounded claims on Facebook - including one post that called Covid-19 a 'media driven pandemic' - said that he had seen the documents shared on another Facebook group before posting about the snitches.

It comes as some Missouri businesses begin reopening on Monday.

Last month, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was criticised over the launch of a messaging service that encouraged New Yorkers to report on those breaking lockdown measures.

The app was shut down within hours, after it was inundated with memes and complaints about Mayor de Blasio.
ABC NewsBy ADAM KELSEY, ABC News

(WASHINGTON) -- Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez addressed the accusation of sexual assault against the party's presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, comparing the controversy to another that dogged the party's 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton, which some in the party believe contributed to her defeat in that year's election.



"This is like the Hillary emails, because there was nothing there," Perez told ABC's This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz, referring to the former secretary of state's criticized use of a private email server as he addressed an allegation of sexual assault from Tara Reade, a former staffer who served in Bidens Washington Senate office for a brief period in 1993. Biden has denied the assault occurred.



In defending the former vice president, Perez cited the "exhaustive" review of Biden conducted by the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign, which the party chair said did not uncover such an accusation or else the senator from Delaware would not have been selected to join that year's ticket.



"The most comprehensive investigation of the vice president was when he was vetted by Barack Obama in 2008. I'm very familiar with vice presidential vetting process," said Perez, who was himself considered for the role by Clinton. "They look at everything about you. They looked at the entire history of Joe Biden, his entire career, and I will tell you, if Barack Obama had any indication that there was an issue, Barack Obama would not have had him as his vice president."

The delay in Biden's response to -- and widespread media coverage of -- the accusation, was the target of criticism by Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who also appeared on This Week Sunday, comparing the situation to the allegations faced by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and blasting what she characterized as a double standard.



"It has been appalling the hypocrisy as to how Brett Kavanaugh was treated versus Joe Biden," McDaniel said. "Brett Kavanaugh -- every accuser was put on TV, it was wall-to-wall coverage, they went into his high school yearbook, they said they needed an FBI investigation."



"It went from 'me too,' 'me too,' 'me too,' to 'move on,' 'move on,' 'move on' in a nanosecond because he's a Democrat and the hypocrisy is appalling," the chairwoman added.



The Trump campaign has used the issue to attack Biden and the Democratic Party as a whole on what they view as dueling positions regarding those allegations, releasing a digital ad on the controversy Friday. But that same day, the president -- who has faced several sexual assault accusations himself, all of which he has denied -- offered encouragement to Biden, saying he was "sticking up for him" and that the former vice president should "go out and fight it."



Asked about that quote Sunday, McDaniel expanded the discussion to a broader argument about "due process" in the aftermath of such complaints.



"Due process and the presumption of innocence has no longer been the standard in this country when it comes to Republicans, and now Democrats are suddenly embracing those legal standards that we have made the cornerstone of our -- of our country when it comes to Joe Biden, but they threw it out the window when it came to Brett Kavanaugh," she said.

The assault allegation by Reade has, in some ways, supplanted Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis as the focus of much of the Democratic Party's attention in recent days, after Perez and the DNC spent weeks blasting the administration's handling of the pandemic and amplifying relief proposals and positions on related issues, such as vote-by-mail and the president's relationship with China, all while continuing to prepare for November's elections.



"This president has been chronically inept at handling this coronavirus," Perez said on This Week Sunday. "He needs to be the commander-in-chief not the tweeter-in-chief, he needs to understand that the buck stops with him, and that's what we're going to talk about in this campaign: accountability. We're going to talk about leadership."



On the Republican side, Trump's stewardship of the country during the crisis appears to be affecting his polling, with reports in recent days claiming that the president berated his campaign manager Brad Parscale when presented with sliding numbers. Both Trump and Parscale have denied details of the reports and McDaniel brushed aside concerns over polling Sunday.



"You know, I don't really rely on polling this far out  the polling is going to fluctuate and we all know the polling today is not going to be what we see on Nov. 3," McDaniel said on This Week, later adding that the president is "optimistic" about the race.



"He feels very good about where he stands, he's had record approval with the Republican Party  and we think Joe Biden is hiding," she said.



Under McDaniel's leadership, the Republican National Committee has been a fundraising juggernaut, teaming with the Trump reelection campaign to raise over $200 million in the first quarter of 2020. Democrats have expressed concerns about their rivals' fundraising advantage and the unprecedented partnership between party and presidential campaign, originally formed in 2016, allowing donors to contribute to both groups simultaneously. In April, the DNC entered into a similar agreement with presumptive presidential nominee Biden.



Beyond the fundraising shortfall, Democrats are also raising questions about Biden's efficacy as a campaigner amid the unprecedented limitations imposed by the pandemic. Perez did not provide a specific timeline for the former vice president's return to traditional campaign events, but argued the party can be, and has been, successful nevertheless.



"We're going to make sure that we do everything in a safe and intelligent manner. We have changed our tactics, we have been out in the field digitally, we have our digital clipboards out, we won a very important race recently in Wisconsin because we out-hustled the other side," he said, referring to Wisconsin's Supreme Court election last month.



"When the situation clears we will be out, but we are not going to put voters in harm's way. We won't do that until it is appropriate to do so," he added.



Wisconsin is also serving the role as the host of the Democratic National Convention, which is scheduled to take place in Milwaukee in mid-August, after the party decided last month to postpone the event from its original mid-July date. Asked Sunday if the party planned to move ahead with an in-person convention, Perez answered positively.



"We do, and we're not going to put our public health head in the sand, but I'm optimistic that we can do so," he said.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
The 2020 Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship program was originally scheduled for July 2020 in Cape Town, South Africa. However, due to the global impact of COVID-19, this cohort of Fellows will study abroad in 2021 instead.

"Now more than ever, the world needs individuals with strong leadership skills who have the ability to work across cultural divides," said James Pellow, CIEE's president and CEO. "Frederick Douglass was transformed by his international experience, and returned to the States in 1847 as a free man who spent the next 50 years of his life agitating for positive change in our world. We hope that the lives of these Fellows are changed as well, and that this experience will prepare them to become bold, globally conscious, service-oriented leaders."

The Frederick Douglass Fellowship, which launched in 2017, is representative of efforts by CIEE to expand access to an international education to underrepresented students. Nettie Washington Douglass, chairwoman and co-founder of Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, and the great, great granddaughter of Frederick Douglass and great granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, declared, "My grandfathers realized the importance of education and how it changes lives, especially when that education includes developing the wisdom gained through an international perspective. We are excited to partner with CIEE in the development of leaders that are taught the value of intercultural awareness and molded to be change agents in their communities like Frederick Douglass."

To extend the impact of the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship program, CIEE also awards all qualified applicants a $1,500 Summer Scholars grant that can be used toward any CIEE summer '21 program, as well as a $500 travel grant for airfare. Sixty five students studied abroad as Summer Scholars in summer 2020.

To learn more about the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship, visit ciee.org/fdgf.

About the Council on International Educational Exchange

CIEE, the country's oldest and largest nonprofit study abroad and intercultural exchange organization, transforms lives and builds bridges by promoting the exchange of ideas and experiences. To help people develop skills for living in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world, CIEE sponsors a wide variety of opportunities for cultural exchange, including work exchange programs, teach abroad programs, and a worldwide portfolio of study abroad and internship programs for college and high school students. www.ciee.org.

Contact: Leslie Taylor, (207) 553-4274, [email protected]

SOURCE Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE)

Related Links

www.ciee.org


PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 06:29:01

Over the next decade, nickel will see demand growth underpinned by stainless steel and Li-ion batteries for the EV market, the latter the new kid on the block. Developments over the course of 2019 have reshaped the industry and impacted the outlook for the next 10 years. Back in September 2019, the Indonesian government confirmed widespread market expectations that it would bring forward its export ban of nickel ores and concentrates to January 2020 (from the scheduled 2022). It did this to incentivise further investment in domestic refining capacity, following a previous ban in 2014 that saw Indonesia become a growing presence in refined nickel and stainless steel production. In Indonesia, further investment in nickel pig iron (NPI) capacity means that by 2029 Indonesia will account for a third of global refined nickel supply, according to Roskill.

London, UK, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Last years announcement sent the LME nickel price spiking to US$18,620/t in early September amid fears of a supply squeeze, but this was not long-lived, with the LME cash price for December averaging at US$13,794/t. With this change in Indonesian export policy, Chinese NPI producers have lost a major source of ores to feed their furnaces. This news comes off the back of a record NPI total of 590kt Ni by Chinese producers in 2019. As a result of the ban, through 2020, Chinese NPI producers will have to process their accumulated stockpiles of ore as well as material at the ports, built up in anticipation of the ban. China will also become even more reliant on ore supply from the Philippines, New Caledonia and Guatemala. In contrast, major additional investment in Indonesian NPI capacity will need to ramp up to serve the stainless steel market, replacing the loss of Chinese NPI. Chinese groups Tsingshan, Jiangsu Delong and Jinchuan are well placed to do so, continuing to ramp up NPI production at their smelters in Indonesia through the year. Despite this, the Indonesian export ban will apply pressure to global nickel supply, in a market that has already experienced several years of deficit.

Refined nickel supply outside of China and Indonesia fared less well in 2019, recording at 2.4% y-o-y decrease for the year. There were falls in Canada, Australia and New Caledonia all linked to production variability and maintenance. This is not a new trend, with yearly falls for supply outside China and Indonesia occurring since 2016. In Australia, nickel supply was down 6% y-o-y following BHP Nickel West undertaking quadrennial maintenance at the Kwinana refinery in Q4 2019. New Caledonia also recorded a drop in supply of almost 20% with decreases in output from all three major producers. In a significant development for New Caledonian refined supply, in early December 2019, Vale announced that it was seeking to exit from its Vale Nouvelle-Caledonie (VNC) operations at Goro. Vale, which owns 95% of the operation, is said to be pushing for an exit due to the plant being unable to meet intended production levels and problems with the associated high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) plant, which could be operated by a company with more HPAL experience.

On the demand side, consumption increased by 4.4% y-o-y in 2019, driven by steady demand from the stainless steel industry. Most of this demand growth has come from Chinese stainless steel mills, as these remain reliant on primary nickel units in the form of NPI. The nickel market continues to be dominated by demand from stainless steel but Roskill expects the share from electric vehicle (EV) batteries, containing higher nickel chemistries, to grow substantially over the next decade. Supplying nickel units for this EV demand will require increased output of battery-grade nickel intermediates from HPAL plants, suitable for use in nickel sulphate production. There are several HPAL plants which are at various stages of development in Indonesia. Crucially for the development of these projects, they received environmental approvals back in January 2020, giving them the green light to proceed with construction.

The nickel market already demonstrates dynamic supply/demand fundamentals, and an additional challenge to the market in 2020 comes from the COVID-19 pandemic, which is already starting to impact the industry. Currently, owing to the fast-moving developments associated with the spread of the virus, uncertainty exists in terms of just how severe the pandemics impacts will be.

As is the case with other commodities, COVID-19 is not expected to impact the long-term outlook for nickel and Roskills forecast fundamentals remain largely in place for the stainless steel and electric vehicle sectors. Any rebound will see a return to the long-term trend over the course of 2021. Just how much impact the virus has on the nickel market will depend largely on whether the virus re-emerges in China. At the epicentre of the outbreak, reported logistical challenges in China have resulted in a reduction in NPI supply in January 2020. Significantly, China accounts for 55% of primary nickel demand and approximately 35% of refined supply. In Indonesia, projects targeting battery-grade nickel intermediates as well as operations ramping up existing NPI capacity, are tied to Chinese expertise, and progress is likely to have been slowed by quarantine measure imposed in Q1.

Feedstock shutdowns in the rest of the world, combined with sustained shutdowns in mine producing regions could lead to a tightening market. Outside of China, through Q1 2020, a number of nickel producers have lined up to make announcements as to how they intend to respond to the outbreak, including placing mines on temporary care and maintenance. Much will depend on the length of the shutdowns of supply outside of China, which is likely to depend on the level of accumulated feedstock at smelters and refineries.

Roskill continues to closely monitor developments in the industry, adjusting supply/demand forecasts accordingly throughout the year. These updates will be provided in conjunction with Roskills most recent nickel report which addresses many of the key questions facing the industry:

How will the Indonesian export ban impact Chinese NPI supply?

How quickly can the Indonesian NPI industry ramp up?

How are the impacts of COVID-19 likely to be felt by the nickel market through 2020?

How will nickel demand from stainless steel compete with EV battery market growth?

Will the battery markets nickel requirements limit availability for the stainless steel industry?

How are prices likely to evolve over the outlook period?
U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger delivers a speech in Chinese to an on-line video conference on the 101st anniversary of pivotal citizens' protests in China, May 4, 2020.

U.S. President Donald Trumps top Asia adviser deployed fluent Chinese Monday in a speech chastising Chinas rulers for thwarting their peoples century-long quest for democracy--likening censored coronavirus doctors and Hong Kong protesters to key figures in a long-running struggle for the soul of modern China.

Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger used the anniversary of the May 4, 1919 protests--which were sparked by popular anger at the concession of a huge tract of Chinese territory to Japan after World War One--to raise concerns about Chinese repression and nationalism and to laud persecuted foes of Beijing.

The movement ignited by those students exactly 101 years ago was about much more than nationalist outrage at unequal treaties, said Pottinger.

The movement galvanized a long-running struggle for the soul of modern China, he said, as he gave a brief summary of what he called heroes in the modernization of China after the last dynasty fell in 1911.

Without touching on the specifics of thorny U.S.-China disputes over issues such as the origin and handling of the coronavirus pandemic, trade or geopolitics, Pottinger highlighted similarities between the Communist Party and authorities 100 years earlier in their response to democratic demands and reformist citizens.

Such elitist chauvinism wasand some would argue still remainsa headwind impeding the democratic ideals espoused by the May Fourth Movement, said the former foreign correspondent in Beijing and U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Still, May Fourth leaders were constantly sapped of energy by accusations, sometimes leveled by government officials or their proxies among the literati, that the movement was slavishly pro-Western, insufficiently Chinese, or even unpatriotic, said Pottinger.

Democratic Taiwan refutes threadbare mistruth

He noted that a Chinese diplomat named P.C. Chang (Peng Chun Chang) served on the original UN Commission on Human Rights and played an important role in its drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, a year before the Republic of China that Chang represented was overthrown by Mao Zedongs communists.





Pottinger noted that Chang drew on Chinese traditions in his contributions to the main U.N. human rights instrument and said his example, as well as that of Taiwans thriving democracy, undermine Chinas assertion that democracy is not suitable for the Chinese people.

The cliche that Chinese people cant be trusted with democracy was  the most unpatriotic idea of all. Taiwan today is a living repudiation of that threadbare mistruth, he said.

Pottinger, who spoke from the White House to an online symposium on U.S.-China relations organized by the University of Virginia, praised present-day figures who have faced Communist Party repression.

The heirs of May Fourth are civic-minded citizens who commit small acts of bravery. And sometimes big acts of bravery, he said.

Wuhan whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang, who was silenced after posting early warnings about the coronavirus and later died of COVID-19, was such a person, he said.

He was an ophthalmologist and a young father who committed a small act of bravery and then a big act of bravery, said Pottinger.

Moral and physical courage

Li, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, had shared information from a patient's medical records in a WeChat group on Dec. 30, showing signs of infection with a SARS-like coronavirus.

Detained and reprimanded by police on Jan. 3 for spreading rumors, Li was among eight people to be detained and questioned in Wuhan over "rumor-mongering" around the new disease. He died in early February and was exonerated in late March.

Dr. Lis comment to a reporter from his deathbed still rings in our ears: I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, and I don't approve of using public power for excessive interference, said Pottinger.

Pottinger, who reported from Beijing for Reuters news agency and The Wall Street Journal, lamented tightening media and free speech restrictions under the tenure of Chinese Communist Party head Xi Jinping.

Citizen journalists who tried to shed light on the outbreak in Wuhan went missing, including Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua, he said, referring to Wuhan residents who challenged censorship to publish real-time news.

More foreign reporters were expelled in recent months than the Soviet Union expelled over decades, he added in reference to 13 U.S. journalists Beijing kicked out of the country in March.

Pottinger also hailed big acts of moral and physical courage by a list of jailed activists, intellectuals and critics of Xi including Xu Zhangrun, Ren Zhiqiang, Xu Zhiyong, and Ilham Tohti.

Those figures, underground Catholic priests, and millions of Hong Kong citizens who peacefully demonstrated for the rule of law last year, are the successors of the May Fourth Movement heroes, Pottinger told the video conference.

Will the movements democratic aspirations remain unfulfilled for another century? Will its core ideas be deleted or distorted through official censorship and disinformation? Will its champions be slandered as unpatriotic, pro-American, subversive? he asked.

We know the Communist Party will do its best to make it so.

Chinese writer Murong Xuecun, a prominent critic of censorship in his country, told RFAs Mandarin Service that after the May Fourth Movement, China was still on the difficult path of pursuing democracy and science and we have not made much progress.

"In recent years, China's position in the world economic and trade system has become more and more important, but at home, the heirs to the May 4th spirit who are determined to pursue democracy face increasing difficulty, and Western countries seem to have lost their enthusiasm for the democratic cause for China.

By clearly showing that he cares about China's democratic cause, I believe Pottinger will certainly inspire many people, said Murong Xuecun.

Reported by Jane Tang for RFAs Mandarin Service. Written by Paul Eckert.
New research by UC and UC Health experts shows that doctors can perform immediate surgery to treat stroke in COVID-19 patients by using enhanced disinfection methods, according to their paper published in the journal Stroke. But the surgery also can present an ethical issue because not every COVID-19 patient is a good candidate for the invasive, anti-stroke treatment.

Aaron Grossman, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the department of neurology and rehabilitative medicine at the UC College of Medicine and a UC Health physician who is also the corresponding author on the report, is quoted.

Read more here.

The report was covered in Healthline. Grossman and Matthew Smith, MD, lead author of the report, neurocritical care fellow and UC Health physician, provided details.

Cincinnati's NPR affiliate WVXU-FM, 91.7, also hosted Grossman and Smith for a half-hour segment to discuss stroke in the COVID-19 era.

Read the UC release.

Read about other COVID-19 research being conducted at UC.

Featured photo/Tommy Campbell/UC Health
New Delhi, May 4 : BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Monday lashed out at the Centre for charging the stranded migrant labourers. But within five minutes of his attacking tweet, he took out another saying that the Railway Minister's office had clarified to him that the migrant labourers won't be charged.

In an unusually strongly worded tweet, Swamy hit out at the BJP-led Centre. He sent out a tweet at 9.11 a.m. saying: "How moronic of the Government of India to charge steep rail fares from the half starved migrant labourers! Indians stranded abroad were brought back free by Air India. If Railways refuse to budge then why not make PM CARES pay instead?" The railways has earlier said that it was charging the state governments for the Shramik special train tickets, which are meant for "nominated people" identified and registered by the state governments and the railways will not issue any tickets to any individual or entertain any request from any groups.

However, within just five minutes of his first salvo at the Centre, Swamy followed it up with another tweet, this time claiming to have talked to the office of Piyush Goyal, the Union Railway Minister. According to Swamy, he said he has been clarified by his office that migrant labourers won't be charged at all and instead the bill will be split between the Centre and the state, with the Centre bearing the bulk of it.

Precisely at 9.16 a.m., just five minutes after his strongly worded first tweet, the BJP MP tweeted; "Piyush Goel office. Govt will pay 85% and State Govt 15%. Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement." The railways has started to run the Shramik Special trains for transporting the labourers from May 1, almost 40 days after the passenger, mail and Express trains services were suspended. Till now the national transporter has run over a dozen of Shramik Special trains on the request of the state governments to ferry the migrant labourers.

Interestingly, the tweet salvo came closely on the heels of Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi announcing that the party will bear the cost of the rail tickets. "What is particularly disturbing is that the Central government and the rail ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis," she said while adding "The Congress has, therefore, taken a decision that every Pradesh Congress Committee (state unit) shall bear the cost for the rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labourer and shall take necessary steps in this regard." According to the prevalent guidelines, sending states will pay the consolidated fare to the Railways which they (sending states) can bear or charge the labourers or take it from the receiving states.
Victoria has recorded another 22 coronavirus cases as community-wide testing ramps up.

The jump is the state's biggest spike in new daily cases since April 11 when 24 people were diagnosed.

Nineteen of the new cases are connected to an outbreak at Cedar Meats abattoir in Brooklyn, Melbourne.

The facility is linked with 34 cases in total.

Victoria has recorded another 22 coronavirus cases as community-wide testing ramps up. Pictured: A woman gets a test in Melbourne on May 1

Nineteen of the new cases are connected to an outbreak at Cedar Meats abattoir in Brooklyn, Melbourne

Cedar Meats General Manager Tony Kairouz said: 'All workers are self-quarantining and we are working closely with the Victorian health authorities.

'All meat processed at our facilities is processed in accordance with Australian Standards for food safety and our customers can be confident that the meat processed at our facilities is safe to eat.'

Two of the new cases are returned travellers while one other case still being investigated.

There were 13,000 tests on Sunday alone, the largest amount of any state in one day.

There are now 1,406 cases in total in Victoria.

Victoria's state of alarm is set to finish on May 11, the earliest date the government will consider relaxing current social distancing restrictions.

The has launched a testing blitz that aims to complete 100,000 checks before next Monday.

Medical staff take down details after performing tests for the COVID-19 coronavirus on people who used a drive-through testing site in a Melbourne carpark on May 1

On Sunday the government confirmed a teacher at Meadow Glen primary school in Epping had coronavirus and the school will be shut from Monday to Wednesday.

The teacher's infection was reported after Education Minister Dan Tehan accused Mr Andrews of failing in his leadership by keeping schools shut.

Mr Tehan later issued a statement withdrawing the remarks, saying he had overstepped the mark.
Over the next decade, nickel will see demand growth underpinned by stainless steel and Li-ion batteries for the EV market, the latter the new kid on the block. Developments over the course of 2019 have reshaped the industry and impacted the outlook for the next 10 years. Back in September 2019, the Indonesian government confirmed widespread market expectations that it would bring forward its export ban of nickel ores and concentrates to January 2020 (from the scheduled 2022). It did this to incentivise further investment in domestic refining capacity, following a previous ban in 2014 that saw Indonesia become a growing presence in refined nickel and stainless steel production. In Indonesia, further investment in nickel pig iron (NPI) capacity means that by 2029 Indonesia will account for a third of global refined nickel supply, according to Roskill.

London, UK, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Last year's announcement sent the LME nickel price spiking to US$18,620/t in early September amid fears of a supply squeeze, but this was not long-lived, with the LME cash price for December averaging at US$13,794/t. With this change in Indonesian export policy, Chinese NPI producers have lost a major source of ores to feed their furnaces. This news comes off the back of a record NPI total of 590kt Ni by Chinese producers in 2019. As a result of the ban, through 2020, Chinese NPI producers will have to process their accumulated stockpiles of ore as well as material at the ports, built up in anticipation of the ban. China will also become even more reliant on ore supply from the Philippines, New Caledonia and Guatemala. In contrast, major additional investment in Indonesian NPI capacity will need to ramp up to serve the stainless steel market, replacing the loss of Chinese NPI. Chinese groups Tsingshan, Jiangsu Delong and Jinchuan are well placed to do so, continuing to ramp up NPI production at their smelters in Indonesia through the year. Despite this, the Indonesian export ban will apply pressure to global nickel supply, in a market that has already experienced several years of deficit.

Refined nickel supply outside of China and Indonesia fared less well in 2019, recording at 2.4% y-o-y decrease for the year. There were falls in Canada, Australia and New Caledonia all linked to production variability and maintenance. This is not a new trend, with yearly falls for supply outside China and Indonesia occurring since 2016. In Australia, nickel supply was down 6% y-o-y following BHP Nickel West undertaking quadrennial maintenance at the Kwinana refinery in Q4 2019. New Caledonia also recorded a drop in supply of almost 20% with decreases in output from all three major producers. In a significant development for New Caledonian refined supply, in early December 2019, Vale announced that it was seeking to exit from its Vale Nouvelle-Caledonie (VNC) operations at Goro. Vale, which owns 95% of the operation, is said to be pushing for an exit due to the plant being unable to meet intended production levels and problems with the associated high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) plant, which could be operated by a company with more HPAL experience.

On the demand side, consumption increased by 4.4% y-o-y in 2019, driven by steady demand from the stainless steel industry. Most of this demand growth has come from Chinese stainless steel mills, as these remain reliant on primary nickel units in the form of NPI. The nickel market continues to be dominated by demand from stainless steel but Roskill expects the share from electric vehicle (EV) batteries, containing higher nickel chemistries, to grow substantially over the next decade. Supplying nickel units for this EV demand will require increased output of battery-grade nickel intermediates from HPAL plants, suitable for use in nickel sulphate production. There are several HPAL plants which are at various stages of development in Indonesia. Crucially for the development of these projects, they received environmental approvals back in January 2020, giving them the green light to proceed with construction.

The nickel market already demonstrates dynamic supply/demand fundamentals, and an additional challenge to the market in 2020 comes from the COVID-19 pandemic, which is already starting to impact the industry. Currently, owing to the fast-moving developments associated with the spread of the virus, uncertainty exists in terms of just how severe the pandemic's impacts will be.

As is the case with other commodities, COVID-19 is not expected to impact the long-term outlook for nickel and Roskill's forecast fundamentals remain largely in place for the stainless steel and electric vehicle sectors. Any rebound will see a return to the long-term trend over the course of 2021. Just how much impact the virus has on the nickel market will depend largely on whether the virus re-emerges in China. At the epicentre of the outbreak, reported logistical challenges in China have resulted in a reduction in NPI supply in January 2020. Significantly, China accounts for 55% of primary nickel demand and approximately 35% of refined supply. In Indonesia, projects targeting battery-grade nickel intermediates as well as operations ramping up existing NPI capacity, are tied to Chinese expertise, and progress is likely to have been slowed by quarantine measure imposed in Q1.

Feedstock shutdowns in the rest of the world, combined with sustained shutdowns in mine producing regions could lead to a tightening market. Outside of China, through Q1 2020, a number of nickel producers have lined up to make announcements as to how they intend to respond to the outbreak, including placing mines on temporary care and maintenance. Much will depend on the length of the shutdowns of supply outside of China, which is likely to depend on the level of accumulated feedstock at smelters and refineries.

Roskill continues to closely monitor developments in the industry, adjusting supply/demand forecasts accordingly throughout the year. These updates will be provided in conjunction with Roskill's most recent nickel report which addresses many of the key questions facing the industry:
L Brands shares tumbled 15% in extended trading Monday after the company announced it struck an agreement with Sycamore Partners to terminate its Victoria's Secret deal.

The company said it is "implementing significant cost reduction actions and performance improvements at Victoria's Secret," which will include "proactive measures" to ensure liquidity "in light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic." Like many other retailers, L Brands has been forced to shutter its stores as restrictions are implemented to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

In February, private equity firm Sycamore had agreed to acquire a 55% share in Victoria's Secret for $525 million, allowing the brand to go private. L Brands was hoping to focus on running its better-performing store, Bath & Body Works.

Sycamore said in its statement that as part of the mutual agreement, neither party in the deal is required to pay the other a termination fee.

"In connection with the termination of the Victoria's Secret transaction agreement, Sycamore Partners and L Brands agreed to settle all pending litigation and mutually release all claims," the firm added.

L Brands said it made its decision to avoid "costly and distracting litigation to force a partnership with Sycamore."

Sycamore Partners tried to end the deal with L Brands in April, citing store closures and missed rent payments in April, according to a lawsuit filed in a Delaware court.

The retailer announced that it is still interested in "establishing Bath & Body Works as a pure-play public company" and it hopes to prepare its Victoria's Secret businesses to operate as a standalone company.

Bath & Body Works has shown a consistent track record of delivering strong results, the company said. Even though nearly all stores closed temporarily to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the brand continues to serve customers online.

"It is continuing to build on its pre-pandemic momentum to fuel greater long-term growth and profitability," said L Brands.

In addition, the company announced several leadership changes that will be effective on May 14.

Leslie Wexner will step down as CEO and chairman but will remain on the board as chairman emeritus.

Andrew Meslow, the CEO of Bath & Body Works, will become CEO of L Brands and join the board.

Sarah Nash will become chair of the board, while Allan Tessler, current lead independent director, Gordon Gee and Raymond Zimmerman will retire from the board.

The board also tapped Stuart Burgdoerfer, currently L Brands' chief financial officer, as interim CEO of Victoria's Secret, effective immediately.

L Brands, which has a market value of $3.3 billion, has seen its stock fall nearly 34% since the start of the year and nearly 54% over the past year.

The company drew down $950 million from its revolving facility on March 16 to bolster its liquidity during the global pandemic. The company has also suspended its quarterly cash dividend and furloughed the majority of its store workers.
SHELTON  The citys positive coronavirus tests eclipsed 400, with two laboratory-confirmed deaths, according to Naugatuck Valley Health District data released Friday.

Shelton now has 417 positives, by far the highest total in the Valley, along with 83 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19-related deaths. Adding in probable coronavirus-related deaths brings the citys total to 100.

Today, NVHD learned of one laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 associated death who was a female nursing home resident in Shelton, said heath district Director Jessica Stelmaszek on Friday, adding that the Valley now has 1,101 positive cases since the first case was reported in mid-March. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.

Stelmaszek stated that the addition of probable COVID-19 associated death data is now being reported in response to the state of Connecticut now reporting probable death data.

Data, as of Friday, shows that 289, or 27 percent, of the 1,084 confirmed cases among Valley residents are individuals who currently reside in a nursing home, assisted living facility, group home or similar setting. Overall, 191 of Sheltons 417 confirmed COVID-19 cases are residents of nursing or assisting living facilities.

According to NVHDs Friday data, 103, or 36 percent, of the 289 individuals have died due to COVID-19 complications.

Statewide, positive cases sit at more than 29,000 with 2,495 deaths from COVID-19-related complications. Overall, there are 1,488 people  a drop of 63 in 24 hours  hospitalized with COVID-19. The numbers have prompted Gov. Ned Lamont to order that all residents wear masks or facial coverings when in public while also maintaining social distancing if leaving their home is necessary.

For public health surveillance, laboratory-confirmed COVID-19-associated deaths are defined as patients who tested positive for COVID-19 around the time of death, said Stelmaszek, adding that this is not a determination of the cause of death.

Area health district officials are continuing to urge residents to stay home as much as possible and practice social distancing by keeping 6 feet between you and others if you must go out. To minimize the amount of people who can be exposed, Stelmaszek said families should designate one person per household to do grocery shopping or other necessary errands.

Of the Valley laboratory-confirmed COVID-19-related deaths, 87 were people 80 and older, 24 were between 70 and 79, six were between 60 and 69 years of age, and one was between 40 and 49.

Beside Sheltons 417 positive cases reported Saturday, there were 187 in Naugatuck, 181 in Ansonia, 164 in Seymour, 113 in Derby and 39 in Beacon Falls.

Positive cases cover a wide range of ages, with Valley data showing that 214 people are 80 and older; 100 are between 70 and 79; 169 are between 60 and 69; 180 are between 50 and 59; 169 are between 40 and 49; 143 are between 30 and 39; 111 are between 20 and 29; 14 between 10 and 19 years of age; and one between ages 0 and 9.

Lamonts executive orders have shuttered all schools until at least May 20 and directed employees at nonessential businesses to stay home until further notice. Gatherings of more than five people are prohibited. The governor has stated that schools may remain closed until the fall.

Residents should continue to heed the advice of their chief elected officials and stay home as much as possible and continue to practice social distancing to avoid exposure and further spread of the virus, Stelmaszek said.

The state Department of Public Health now publishes a report at ct.gov/coronavirus that breaks down positive COVID-19 cases by town.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
3 400 level students of the University of Port harcourt were kidnapped and killed by a group of cultists in Rivers state.

The late undergraduates, Joy Adoki, Nelson Nwafor and Fortune Obimba, were declared missing by the police on April 19 after Adokis brother, Umor, filed a compliant at Eleme Police Division.

It was gathered that the victims were kidnapped on April 7, on the order of one Bright, who told the kidnappers that the victims betrayed him after money was paid into the account of one of them.

Friday Akpan finally confessed that he and his group members killed and buried the three undergraduates after raping the female among them, Joy Adoki.

He also took policemen to a shallow grave in Etoo, Eleme Local Government area of Rivers state, where the decomposed bodies of the victims were recovered.
It is not known whether Mr. McConnell had been in touch with Judge Griffith, a former Senate legal counsel who was nominated to the appeals court in 2004 by President George W. Bush, and on Monday a top aide to the majority leader refused to say.

Judge Walker of Louisville, who was named last month, is to face Senate questioners at a confirmation hearing set for Wednesday that was already expected to be contentious. The new court order is likely to become another point of conflict between Republicans backing Judge Walker and Democrats who have criticized his ideology as well as the decision by Senate Republicans to push ahead with the hearing despite the pandemic.

In his order, Judge Srinivasan, who was placed on the appeals court by President Barack Obama, said he decided to request review and disposition of the complaint by a judicial council in another circuit to avoid any question of bias about the outcome.

The organizations request for an inquiry concerns the decision of a judge of this court to retire from service and the resulting creation of a vacancy on this court, which would be filled by a future colleague on this court, the judge wrote. He said the circumstances made it obvious that it should be reviewed outside the D.C. circuit court.

Judge Srinivasan said he made his ruling without any inquiry by this court into the statements contained in the unverified correspondence or the questions posited by the organization in the correspondence about the possibility of judicial misconduct. He said he decided to make his order public to show that the accusations were not being ignored since the questions raised by the group about the possibility of judicial misconduct have been reported in various major news outlets.
You can now debunk thousands of coronavirus-related hoaxes with a few texts on WhatsApp .

Poynter Institute, a non-profit organization that supports journalism, today launched a bot on the Facebook -owned service that will allow people across the globe to debunk over 4,000 hoaxes surrounding the pandemic such as whether the infectious disease originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. (A belief popular in many circles, though no conclusive evidence to support this claim has been disclosed to the public yet -- so a no for now. That's what the bot -- citing fact-checking organizations -- also says, for the record.)

The chatbot relies on information supplied by over 100 independent fact-checkers in more than 70 countries. Its the largest database of debunked falsehoods related to COVID-19, said Poynter Institute. The service is currently available in English, but support for other languages including Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese are in the works, said WhatsApp.

Users can test the chatbot by either saving +1 (727) 2912606 as a contact number and texting the word "hi." Alternatively, they can click on http://poy.nu/ifcnbot that does not require one to save the chatbots number to their phonebook.

Once they have texted "hi" to the bot, sending "1" prompts a new message from the chatbot that asks them to enter the keyword or a short sentence of their query. Then you can type origin, garlic (to know if there is any evidence that this herb helps in fighting with coronavirus -- there isnt) or any other keyword that is on your mind. (You may have to wait for 2-3 seconds every time you engage with this chatbot and let it respond to your query before you ask a new question.)

The chatbot identifies a users country (by checking their mobile country code), and provides them with information that has been fact-checked by an organization that is closest to them. It also shares general tips to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

Story continues

The service, which is free and works round the clock, says in its terms of condition that it may aggregate and share anonymous results of user queries and other interactions with the research community and program partners. But your personal information, however, will never be shared.

In a statement, Baybars Orsek, IFCN's Director, said, Billions of users rely on WhatsApp to stay in touch with their friends and families every month. Since bad actors use every single platform to disseminate falsehoods, to mislead others during such troubling times, fact-checkers work is more important than ever.

The new chatbot is the latest effort from WhatsApp, used by more than 2 billion people, to curb the spread of misinformation on its platform. In recent months, WhatsApp has also collaborated with the WHO to launch an information service that reached more than 10 million users within days. The Facebook-owned service is also working with federal and state governments in many markets to help them deliver authoritative information about the infectious disease in many countries.

WhatsApp, which recently introduced new limit on forwarding messages on its app that has significantly cut down the number of forwards it sees on the platform, donated $1 million to Poynter Institutes International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in March.
Chron.com is following the latest headlines on the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Houston area.

3:30 p.m.

Montgomery County health officials are expecting a spike in COVID-19 cases on Tuesday now that an equipment malfunction that delayed the receipt of laboratory results has been fixed.

The glitch led to a small increase of new confirmed cases on Monday; only six new cases were reported, bringing the total for the county to 640.

Health officials did not provide details on the malfunction.

12:30 p.m.

A second mobile testing site is set to open in Montgomery County on Sunday, the Houston Chronicle's Catherine Dominguez reports.

Testing is available by appointment only and interested patients must be symptomatic for COVID-19.

Tests will be available 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, 9333 Airport Road. To register for an appointment visit www.txcovidtest.org or call 512-883-2400.

7:30 a.m.

The Republican county judge presiding over Liberty County warned its residents that while state authorities have eased restrictions on social distancing efforts and opened up retail stores, the threat from COVID-19 is far from over.

Testing for the virus has just ramped up in the county, and Judge Jay Knight said there's a struggle to know how many cases there are because of how delayed test results can be.

REOPENING WEEKEND: Heres how Houstonians celebrated Phase One this weekend

The time thats spent in interviewing the person who has just been diagnosed with the virus could be days before they release the information, he said.

Some tests in Liberty County took nearly 13 days to come back, the judge said.

In other headlines, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo urged those venturing outside of their homes to report any businesses violating Gov. Greg Abbott's restriction on limiting capacity to 25 percent.

Check back for updates as they come in.
The Food and Drug Administration announced plans Monday to bolster oversight of antibody tests by requiring commercial testmakers to meet new standards of accuracy and submit information proving the testing quality.

The agency reversed its March 16 policy that allowed antibody testmakers to sell their products without the normal step of sharing data with the agency to validate accuracy.

The agency said commercial testmakers will have 10 business days to submit data and seek the agency's emergency use authorization. The agency will recommend testmakers meet accuracy, or "sensitivity and specificity," thresholds as part of the tighter oversight.

Public health experts questioned the precision of antibody tests deployed in communities nationwide. Public heath officials warned that elected officials, business leaders and consumers should be careful about making decisions based on antibody test results.

Association of Public Health Laboratories CEO Scott Becker, who was critical of the FDA's initial policy, said the agency made the right decision.

Weve long been concerned that allowing tests on the market that have not been approved and authorized for use is a recipe for disaster," Becker said. "This revised policy makes a lot of sense and should have been in place over the last six weeks."

Coronavirus live updates: Senate reconvenes; J.Crew, Gold's Gym file for bankruptcy; hotels prep for return of guests

The FDA's initial policy that allowed test developers to validate their own data "never meant we would allow fraud," according to a statement from Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs Anand Shah and Director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health Jeffrey Shuren.

"We unfortunately see unscrupulous actors marketing fraudulent test kits and using the pandemic as an opportunity to take advantage of Americans anxiety," the statement said.

Also called serology tests, these blood tests are designed to detect whether a person has developed antibodies to fend off SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The tests are different from the molecular PCR tests used to diagnose COVID-19.

Story continues

Large community antibody testing projects from New York to California aim to more accurately reflect how many people have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. The tests might reveal whether someone develops immunity that protects from infections, but scientists are unclear whether that immunity is temporary or long-lasting.

On April 24, the World Health Organization warned against issuing "immunity passports" to people who believe they are safe based on positive antibody tests. In a statement, the WHO said theres no evidence those who recover from COVID-19 and develop antibodies will be immune from a follow-up infection.

'It makes no sense': Feds consider relaxing infection control in US nursing homes

More than 200 testmakers notified the FDA of plans to market antibody tests under the agency's March 16 policy. The companies or labs were allowed to market the tests if they validated their own data and notified the FDA, but they were not allowed to claim the FDA authorized the tests and had to include disclaimers about the tests.

The FDA officials said some companies falsely claimed their antibody tests were approved or authorized. Others claimed the tests could diagnose COVID-19 or could be used at home, neither of which are allowed under the agency's policy.

What states are reopening:States are constantly changing their restrictions  here's a list

The agency said it is aware that "a concerning number of commercial serology tests are being promoted inappropriately, including for diagnostic use, or are performing poorly based on an independent evaluation" conducted by the National Institutes of Health.

The FDA has reviewed and authorized 12 antibody tests for emergency use.

A woman's blood is collected for testing of coronavirus antibodies at a drive-thru testing site in Hempstead, N.Y., on April 14.

To evaluate other antibody tests being marketed, the FDA teamed up with the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The FDA said the National Cancer Institute evaluated and shared data on 13 test kits. The FDA said it will publicly report the data once it's been reviewed.

The data can be used to authorize the tests or ask the testing company for more information to continue marketing the tests. The agency can order the companies to discontinue selling tests that performed poorly.

The FDA said it will publicly share information on companies that sell tests without seeking emergency use authorization within 10 business days. If companies seek to import illegally marketed tests, the FDA will detain those kits and bar entry into the USA. Several Chinese companies notified the United States of plans to sell tests under the March 16 policy.

Teacher Appreciation Week:It only took a coronavirus pandemic and worldwide economic collapse for teachers to get what they deserve

Peter Pitts, a former FDA associate commissioner and co-founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, said the FDA's action shows the agency is responding quickly to an unprecedented public health crisis.

For example, the agency authorized doctors to use Strategic National Stockpile-donated supplies of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine on COVID-19 patients. When reports emerged about heart rhythm problems associated with the drug, the agency issued a safety alert.

"Desperate times require creative regulatory measures," Pitts said. "The only goals here are advancing public health and saving lives."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus: FDA tightens oversight of antibody tests after fraud
The Minority in Parliament wants an amendment to the law governing the Social Security National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to allow contributors draw on their pensions during the hard times of COVID-19.

The Minority says allowing contributors to withdraw bits of their contribution during these moments will mitigate their plight.

A similar proposal from former President John Dramani Mahama was rejected by SSNIT.

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in job losses and most businesses collapsing.

Speaking on the Floor of Parliament, Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Cassel Ato Forson said an amendment is needed urgently.

The spirit of the National Pension Regulatory Authority Act was to save for the future when they are in pension. Mr. Speakerwhat stops us from changing the same legislation on SSNIT so that SSNIT will also be able to support these workers in times like this, he demanded.

About SSNIT

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) is a statutory public Trust charged under the National Pensions Act, 2008 Act 766 with the administration of Ghana's Basic National Social Security Scheme. Its mandate is to cater for the First Tier of the Three-Tier Pension Scheme.

The primary responsibility of the Trust is to replace part of lost income of workers in Ghana due to old age, invalidity or death of a member where dependants receive lump sum payment.

The Pension Scheme as administered by SSNIT has an active membership of over 1,622,748 million as at December, 2019 with over 208,753 pensioners who regularly receive their monthly pensions from SSNIT.

SSNIT and Mahama

Former President John Mahama had called on SSNIT to consider paying some monies to contributors to ease the COVID-19-induced hardships they may be facing.

Speaking during his maiden digital conversation, he said SSNIT contributions are not only meant for pensioners but also works as a form of insurance to cushion members from difficult times such as COVID-19.

But SSNIT in response to this noted that giving such support to the contributors would be illegal.

It stated that the Trust is a creature of law emanating from the National Pensions Act, 2008, Act 766 which governs the administration of SSNIT and all other pension schemes in the country.

The Trust continued, The benefits His Excellency is suggesting that we pay do not exist in law. To do so will constitute an illegality and a contravention of the provisions of the National Pensions Act, 2008, Act 766.

Restructure SSNIT pension scheme  CLOSAG

Meanwhile, the Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana (CLOSAG) is appealing to President Akufo-Addo to ensure the restructuring of the SSNIT pension scheme to ensure the welfare of beneficiaries.

Following a revision of the Pensions Act for SSNIT to stop the payment of lump-sum benefits to pensioners from January 2020 under PNDC Law 247, workers who turn 60 years will no longer receive lump-sum payments from the Social Security and National Insurance Trust. Such contributors will now have to turn to the fund managers of their second-tier contribution for lump-sums.

Speaking at its closed-door 2020 May Day virtual celebration, the Executive Secretary of CLOGSAG, Isaac Bampoe-Addo said he believes a review of the scheme will improve the welfare of pensioners.

---citinewsroom
While many migrant workers have been stranded in different parts of the country due to the continuing lockdown, some are using the opportunity to learn and write.

In a heartening episode that has come to light, teachers of a government school in a remote village of Rajasthan Nagaur district have done something incredible - by educating the stranded migrant workers who were quarantined in the village school.

Representational Image

According to PTI, about 19 migrants from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan's Baran district, quarantined in the Government Senior Higher Secondary School, Dodiyana in Nagaur have benefitted from daily classes during the quarantine and they can now read and write their names and understand counting from 0 to 10.



One of the school teachers told PTI that following imposition of the country-wide lockdown which has now been extended until May 18, the workers had undertaken long march to their homes, but they were stopped by the authorities and quarantined in the school.

Representational Image/PTI

"We thought of giving 'akshar gyan' to them during their quarantine. Except a few, all workers learnt to read and write their names and counting from zero to ten and have now become able to at least search, dial and save numbers in their mobile phones," Kumar was quoted saying by PTI.



This was not the sole case of migrant workers putting their quarantine period to constructive use.

Representational Image/PTI

Earlier, a group of 74 migrant workers, stopped midway their long march to their villages in Madhya Pradesh and quarantined in a school building in Kotputli near Japipur mended, plastered and painted the building walls to express their gratitude for being taken good care of during quarantine.



As the government eases restrictions, states are also arranging for special trains to ferry the stranded migrants workers back to their hometowns.
The miniseries, Waco, dropped on Netflix on April 16, 2020, although it originally premiered on Paramount Network Jan. 24, 2018. Its rising in popularity on Netflix, so viewers of the series all want to know more about David Thibodeau and the other survivors.

Thibodeau  portrayed by Rory Culkin in the show  recently shared in an interview that, to this day, he still does not believe David Koresh (Taylor Kitsch) was a con-man.

What is the miniseries Waco about on Netflix?

David Thibodeau | Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Viacom

Waco documents the 51-day standoff that happened in 1993 in Waco, Texas. The dramatization begins with background information on the Branch Davidians  a religious group led by Koresh. The Davidians live together at their Mount Carmel Center, learning scripture through Bible studies conducted by Koresh.

Koresh also performs with a small group in a cover band at a local bar, where he meets Thibodeau. He invites the young man back to the Mount Carmel Center to learn scripture with him. Thibodeau ends up staying to the bitter end of the Waco tragedy.

Meanwhile, viewers also get some background about an 11-day siege on Ruby Ridge. Gary Noesner, head of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit, helped to diffuse the situation after the ATF killed several of the people in the house at Ruby Ridge.

Noesner is also the head negotiator for the FBI after the ATF attempts to serve a warrant with full tactical gear  guns blazing. After the death of four ATF agents and six of the Branch Davidians, the 51-day standoff ensued. The standoff ended when the FBI sent tear gas into the building. The remaining 76 people who did not get out died, including 25 children who were trapped inside.

The media and FBI painted Koresh as a con man, but Thibodeau does not believe he was

During the last few days of the standoff, Thibodeau went to Koresh and asked to take Michelle Jones (Julia Garner) and her daughter off the premise with him. However, Koresh refused to let Michelle go because he was married to her. Koresh was married to many of the women at Mount Carmel and had numerous children with them. Thibodeau was also wed to Michelle in the days before the ATF raid.

To many people, it seems like Koresh kept the men, women, and children at the center during the standoff, putting them in harms way. However, Thibodeau believed that people followed him to learn the Seven Seals, but because he was conning them.

He wasnt a con man, he knew the scripture inside and out, from Genesis to Revelation, Thibodeau told The Brown Political Review. When he gave a study, it was like he lived it. It was believable; in fact, it was more than belief.

What happened to Thibodeau after the tragic standoff and fire in Waco?

Thibodeau was 23 when he survived the fire. He was only one of four people who survived the fire that was not sentenced to prison time. After the tragedy, Thibodeau spoke publicly about his story. He released A Place Called Waco: A Survivors Story in 1999, which told his recount of the siege and his involvement with the Branch Davidians.

However, several years later, he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress when he found out that people were shot as they were trying to escape the burning building. He became angry and upset.

I went from being someone who could talk about everything publicly in front of an audience to being the angry *sshole that could no longer control himself because I would go over my story and become so angry that I would raise my voice, just totally lose it.

He continues to take out his frustrations by drumming. He was happy to make the 6-part mini-series so that people can continue to remember and honor those that died.
Bruce Tutvedt

1. When it comes to providing state-funded financial aid for college students, Montana ranks 49th in the nation. Do you think the state should contribute more toward higher education funding or should it be the responsibility of the student to fund his/her own college education?

Montana works to keep tuition low for all students with state funding going directly to the university system instead of through the financial aid process. I have voted for the tuition freeze and will in the future. Additionally the funding formula for MUS is driven by colleges doing well for Montana families by decreasing time to degree and increasing graduation rates among other metrics. Funding through financial aid doesnt do this. All of my daughters and I graduated from MSU or UM. I am a strong supporter of the higher education system in Montana.

2. Do you think the state of Montana should increase state funding for affordable housing? Why or why not?

Affordable housing is a real issue in many parts of Montana but not all. I believe we need to take a serious look at planning department regulations and the costs they add to new housing. Local governments have a huge impact on the cost and availability of housing. A nearby seven-lot subdivision had regulation adding almost $20,000 to the cost of each lot. Passing local cost drivers to be funded by the state is not fiscally responsible as the incentives are distorted.

3. What, in your view, is the largest issue with management of Montanas public lands? What should be done about it?

The catastrophic fires we have been dealing with cost millions of dollars to control, destroy resources and have real public health costs. Montana must do a better job of managing our public lands to minimize catastrophic fire. We must manage our public lands for multiple use in a sustainable manner that allows for public access.

You must be logged in to react.

Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1
Srinagar, May 4 : Three CRPF troopers were killed in action after terrorists attacked a party of the paramilitary force at Handwara in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, officials said.

According to details, the brief exchange of fire took place at Kralgund area of Handwara.

Security forces have cordoned off the area and search for other attackers have been launched.

The attack comes days after a colonel, a major, two soldiers and a police sub inspector besides two terrorists were killed in an encounter in Handwara.
Shrinking snow caps in the Himalayas are causing the spread of toxic green algae blooms so big they can be seen from space, a new study has found.

US research based on NASA images found blooms of the marine species Noctiluca scintillans, known as sea sparkle, lining coastlines around the Arabian Sea.

Noctiluca scintillans, a millimetre-size planktonic organism with the ability to thrive in coastal waters, forms thick green swirls and filaments.

The resilient organism, which was all but unheard of 20 years ago, has been proliferating at an alarming pace around of India, Pakistan and other nations.

But the glowing Noctiluca blooms, which occur annually and last for months, force out plankton that play a vital part in the Arabian Seas food chain.

This threatens the abundance of fish in the waters and the continued function of fisheries that sustain 150 million people.

Noctiluca blooms in the Arabian Sea, as seen from space, affecting coasts of nations including India, and Pakistan

The shrinking of glaciers and snow cover in the Himalayas means monsoon winds blowing offshore from land are warmer and moister, which is preferable for Noctiluca scintillans

Researchers have said the continued loss of snow over the Himalayan-Tibbetan Plateu region is fuelling Noctilucas expansion by making ocean surfaces warmer.

NASA satellite imagery links the rise of Noctiluca in the Arbian Sea with melting glaciers and a weakened winter monsoon.

This is probably one of the most dramatic changes that we have seen that's related to climate change, said Joaquim Goes from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

We are seeing Noctiluca in Southeast Asia, off the coasts of Thailand and Vietnam, and as far south as the Seychelles, and everywhere it blooms it is becoming a problem.

Noctiluca scintillans, a millimetre-size organism that can both perform photosynthesis and hunt down other organisms for food

The sheer size of Noctiluca blooms, which first appeared in the late 1990s, threaten the Arabian Sea's already vulnerable food chain.

It also harms water quality and causes a lot of fish mortality, Goes said.

Using lab experiments, field data and decades of NASA satellite imagery, the researchers were able to link the rise of Noctiluca in the Arabian Sea with melting glaciers and a weakened winter monsoon.

Normally, cold winter monsoon winds blowing from the Himalayas cool the surface of the oceans.

Once cooled, these waters sink and are replaced with nutrient-rich waters from below, which support phytoplankton  the primary producers of the food chain.

Murky green coastal waters in Chonburi, Thailand in this image taken in 2017, caused by Noctiluca scintillans blooms

Phytoplankton thrive in these warn, sunlit, nutrient-rich upper layers of the ocean and are a food source for fish.

However, the shrinking of glaciers and snow cover in the Himalayas makes the monsoon winds blowing from the land warmer and moister  which disrupts the process and leads to fewer nutrients at the surface.

This benefits Noctiluca, which doesnt rely on sunlight and nutrients, but can survive by eating other organisms.

Noctiluca propel themselves with two or more flagella  a whip-like feature that propels it forward and lets it grabs any microscopic plankton from the surrounding water.

Co-author of the study Khalid Al-Hashmi of Oman's Sultan Qaboos University holds a Noctiluca-fouled bottle of seawater

Noctiluca also hosts thousands of photosynthesising endosymbionts  organisms that live within Noctilucas bulbous, transparent greenhouse-like cell.

Noctilucas endosymbionts accumulate a lot of ammonia in Noctilucas cell to carry nitrogen-rich nutrients  but also making it unpalatable to larger grazers like fish.

Only jellyfish and salps  an odd translucent marine invertebrate  seem to find Noctiluca palatable.

In Oman, desalination plants, oil refineries and natural gas plants are forced to scale down operations because they are choked by Noctiluca blooms and the jellyfish that swarm to feed on them.

The resulting pressure on the marine food supply, and economic security may also have fuelled the rise in shipping piracy in countries like Yemen and Somalia.

Continued loss of snow over the Himalayas fuels the expansion of this destructive algal bloom

Loss of fishery resources has the potential to further exacerbate socio-economic turmoil for countries in the region that are already gripped by war and poverty.

The study provides new evidence of the cascading impacts of global warming on the Indian monsoons, they conclude.

Most studies related to climate change and ocean biology are focused on the polar and temperate waters, and changes in the topics are going largely unnoticed, said Goes.

The research has been published in Scientific Reports.
Two teenagers have appeared in court charged with the murder of an NHS worker who died after he was stabbed eight times outside his east London home.

Muhammad Jalloh, 18, and a 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named, allegedly killed David Gomoh in a 'random' attack moments after he left his family home at 10.25pm on 26 April.

The 24-year-old, who studied at Southbank University, worked on the frontline of the coronavirus crisis supplying equipment for NHS staff at St Bartholomew Hospital.

The marketing graduate was attacked on Freemasons Road, close to the NHS Nightingale hospital at the ExCel centre.

Two teenagers have appeared in court charged with the murder of David Gomoh, who died after he was stabbed eight times outside his east London home

Hospital worker Mr Gomoh was stabbed to death in Newham just days before he was due to attend the funeral of his father Ken Gomoh (right) who had passed away after contracting Covid-19 (Pictured left: Marian Gomoh)

The attackers were said to have ambushed Mr Gomoh as he chatted to his girlfriend on the phone, Thames Magistrates' Court heard.

The hospital worker died days before he was due to attend the funeral of his father, Ken Gomoh, who passed away after contracting coronavirus.

Neighbours who heard the attack rushed outside to administer first aid before medics arrived to find the victim with eight stab wounds.

The two teenagers appeared in the dock at Thames Magistrates' Court today in consecutive hearings charged with murder.

The teenagers spoke only to confirm their names and dates of birth during the brief hearings.

Recounting the events, prosecutor Andre Nwadikwa said: 'He was on the phone to his girlfriend he told her he was headed to a late night store to pick up some goods.'

Pictured: Police at the scene in east London on April 27 after the fatal knife attack

Pictured: Flowers at the scene of the stabbing on Freemasons Road in Newham, East London

District Judge Gareth Branston remanded Jalloh and the 16-year-old in custody ahead of a further hearing at the Old Bailey on Wednesday.

Jalloh, of no fixed address, and the 16-year-old, from Telford, are each charged with murder and conspiracy to commit cause grievous bodily harm.

Mr Gomoh's mother Marian, who is a labour ward matron at Newham University Hospital, spoke of the family's 'devastation' at the loss of her son and husband last week.

She told MailOnline: 'My son was not able to bury his father and we lost them both so close to each other. You cannot imagine how devastated the whole family is.

'For any family one death is bad enough but to suffer two in short a short space of time is so painful that I cannot put it into words. I am devastated, we all are and it's difficult to be strong at this time, but we are trying.'

Only ten mourners were present at her husband Ken's funeral, as per current coronavirus guidelines.

Ms Gomoh sobbed: 'We were crying for Ken and David, who were the two most important men in my life. Not having all our friends and family there made things much worse.

'David was a good son, he had a lot to look forward to but now we are preparing for his funeral. His life was cruelly taken away from him and we still don't know who did it. All we want is justice.'
Surrounded by his family, Angwin resident Ethan Jeffcoat, 17, died shortly after 3 p.m. on April 9 at his mothers home.

Ethan, who at age 9 was diagnosed with the rare genetic brain disease Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), was in a hospital bed that had been moved to the front room. With him were his mother, Robyn, his father, Daryl, and his two brothers, Grant, 24, and Wyatt, 22, who are both currently out of work.

We played music for him and the last movie he watched was The Greatest Showman, Robyn said. He made it through the whole movie, it ended, and 20 minutes later he was gone. We didnt even know it was happening. We just looked over at him and his lips started turning white. Daryl listened and heard his hearts last thump and that was it.

Daryl added his youngest son passed peacefully. We were all standing right there, he was in no pain at the time, it was just a very relaxed transition for him, which gives us some peace, because the last six months to a year were just brutal on him. He was ready to go and he was ready for us to let him go.

Ethan was down to skin and bones, and because his body couldnt digest food anymore  even Pedialyte  he was losing weight. His mother said his body was shutting down and in the days before his death, family members came, wearing masks to say goodbye. You could tell he was tired and he was just done, she said.

Days after his death, family friend Erika Mueller began a GoFundMe campaign seeking to raise $10,000 to pay for cremation and a headstone. As of Friday, 59 donors had contributed $6,647.

A private family memorial will be held, with a planned public celebration of Ethans life this fall. Because of the shelter-in-place orders, the public celebration will have to wait until those sanctions are lifted, Daryl said. He envisions a party with 300, 400 or 500 people.

The community obviously will be involved  theyve been such a huge support for Ethan and the family. Originally, they thought the bash should be on Ethans birthday in August, but because of the current coronavirus pandemic, they decided to wait to pick a date.

In the days before Ethans death, Robyn said the Rev. Amy Denney-Zuniga, rector of St. Helenas Grace Episcopal Church, had come to her home and offered a prayer for Ethan. The Rev. William Father Mac McIlmoyl, the former rector of Grace Church, also had called and offered a prayer, she added. Ethan liked to attend church at Grace, although it had probably been at least five years since Robyn and his brothers brought him in a wheelchair. Robyn said, He would always say, lets go to church and get some body and blood. (Holy Eucharist.) It was so funny. He loved church, he loved life, he was just such a happy kid, all the time.

Daryl, too, remembers his sons zest for life. I think Ethan had a very unique energy about him. He was just a very bright kid. I dont know how to explain it. He just exuded a good vibe all the time. He had his moments, of course, but overall, I think he had a great demeanor all around, he just seemed to put a smile on anyones face.

Doctors diagnosed Ethan with ALD when he was 9 years old. Daryl said the St. Helena community has been so supportive of the family, in part, because a lot of people knew Ethan before the diagnosis. At the time, doctors gave Ethan six months to a year to live  two years at the most. But, Ethan was a fighter and lived almost eight years after the diagnosis.

Daryl said his son would pull through some of the most extraordinary health circumstances that most people wouldnt be able to get out of, including fighting off a bout of pneumonia. He was so resilient, Daryl said. His mom and I and my other boys flooded him with love. I think thats the biggest thing, that he was hanging onto. He knew we were there, we loved him and we cared for him every day, he added. Daryl has spent the past 28 years as a mail carrier in St. Helena and spent the past eight working for the St. Helena Fire Department.

Robyn, though, remembers it differently, saying Ethan was healthy during the eight years she took care of him. Not once did he get sick, she said. He never got a cold, the flu, pneumonia, he was healthy the entire time. We were very, very protective of him and it worked.

Robyn said shed like it if people remembered her son as that spunky little kid that smiled, loved to entertain people and tell jokes. He loved to play jokes on people and he loved to make people smile and laugh. He just had this amazing energy.

When he was first diagnosed and for a few years after, Robyn made sure to take Ethan and his brothers everywhere: to Maui, twice to Florida, to Disneyland and Universal Studios and to Santa Cruz. Right at the beginning, we just traveled everywhere with him. And did everything that he loved to do while he could still enjoy it, she said.

You may have read about the Jeffcoat family in the past in the St. Helena Star. Since Ethan was diagnosed with ALD, his brothers were tested and both have the genetic disease, passed from their mother.

Grant, 24, was working at the Farmhouse Inn in Forestville before he was laid off. He is asymptomatic and takes steroids for his adrenal gland dysfunction, his father said.

Wyatt, 22, was working in the parts department at a Santa Rosa Chevrolet dealer before he was laid off. Originally, he was doing mechanics work but medical staff told him he could no longer do that work because of the possibility of cuts and resulting infections. Daryl said the two boys are together, trying to figure out what comes next.

In June 2018, doctors treated Wyatts ALD with a stem cell implant, designed to stop the progression of the disease in his brain. It was totally successful, Daryl said, although time is needed for Wyatts immune system to rebuild itself, since chemotherapy was used to kill it before the stem cells were implanted. Hes got the right markers for his immunity growing, but Wyatt is still easily susceptible to infection, Daryl said.

This month, Wyatt is scheduled for his yearly checkup at Stanfords Lucille Packard Childrens Hospital, which includes an MRI and two or three days of tests. Robyn said this year, shes glad she will get to go with Wyatt to all of these appointments, because I have the freedom now to be able to do that.

Two years ago, after the stem cell implant, Daryl, Robyn and Grant were taking turns caring for both Ethan in Angwin and Wyatt in Palo Alto. The schedule was brutal, because they were 100 miles apart and needed care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Daryl said it was a crazy time, but added, It worked out, but it was a very trying schedule.

For this reporter, I want to remember Ethan as he appears in a photograph. He is a boy of 8 or 9, wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt, buttoned at the collar with a dark tie that is askew. Looking out at the camera, he has a lovely smile, rosy cheeks and a cheeriness in his dark eyes. Hes not yet in a wheelchair and I imagine hes about to tell a joke, to make me laugh, to ease my pain. Goodbye, Ethan. Youll not be forgotten anytime soon.

You may reach David Stoneberg at 967-6800 or editor@sthelenastar.com

Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
A General Electric GE9X engine is pictured on a Boeing 777X airplane as it taxis for the first flight, which had to be rescheduled due to weather, at Paine Field in Everett, Washington on January 24, 2020.

General Electric's aviation unit revealed plans on Monday to slash its workforce by 25%  roughly 13,000 jobs  this year as the coronavirus pandemic threatens to drive down demand for new aircraft.

The unit manufactures some of the most commonly used passenger and military aircraft engines and provides services including engine overhauls to the aviation sector.

"To protect our business, we have responded with difficult cost-cutting actions over the last two months. Unfortunately, more is required as we scale the business to the realities of our commercial market," GE Aviation CEO David Joyce told employees in a memo.

The reductions will include voluntary measures like early retirements.

General Electric fell more than 4% on Monday to close at $6.21, while the S&P 500 ended 0.4% higher.
04.05.2020 LISTEN

Seven new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the Sissala East Municipality of the Upper West region bringing the regions case count from eight to 17 in less than a week.

This includes two males and five females who have tested positive of the deadly virus.

The Municipal Chief Executive for Sissala East, Hon. Karim Nanyua who made the announcement in the Municipal capital Tumu when he convened an emergency meeting with the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Committee.

Mr Nanyua who is the Chairman of the Committee disclosed that through routine surveillance and enhanced testing and contact tracing, seven samples from the municipality confirmed positive of coronavirus.

He mentioned that the municipality is expected to receive additional test samples to be able to ascertain the level of infection in the area.

Checks by Starr News indicates that all the confirmed cases are natives of the municipality who have travelling history from heavily affected Greater Accra, Kumasi and Tamale and are asymptomatic.

The MCE urged residents to remain calm as the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Committee works assiduously to contain the spread of the virus and cautioned them to desist from stigmatizing affected persons and their families.

He entreated the residents of the various communities to continue to practice the safety measures including adhering to social distancing protocols, wearing nose mask and washing hands frequently with soap under running water as well using alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

The Chairman of the Committee appealed to residents across the border communities to report strangers and natives who have travelled back to their communities from areas hardly hit by Covid-19 to the security agencies and the health authorities for intensive medical screening.

---starrfmonline
Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy will reportedly attempt to settle their legal dispute this week following their explosive WAG war.

The wife of Wayne Rooney, 34, and wife of Jamie Vardy, 38, are said to be holding an arbitration hearing via Zoom in a bid to avoid an expensive court case after racking up legal costs in the 'five figures'.

In October, Coleen publicly accused Rebekah in an explosive statement of selling fake stories about her, sparking an angry denial from the then pregnant WAG.

WAG-gate: Coleen Rooney, pictured left in 2018, and Rebekah Vardy, pictured right in February, will reportedly attempt to settle their legal dispute this week

Rebekah has allegedly 'threatened to sue for libel' while Coleen has warned she will hit back with a 'countersue for breach of privacy'. The two WAGs will reportedly appear at the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) with their lawyers.

A source told The Sun: 'This is a final roll of the dice to prevent a court case  but both Becky and Coleen are still as determined as ever to be proven right.

'They have both been strongly advised to reach an agreement but they're both totally determined to stick to their guns.

'Unless they can agree to walk away, the costs are only going to continue climbing.'

Avoiding court: The wife of Wayne Rooney, 34, and wife of Jamie Vardy, 38, are said to be holding an arbitration hearing via Zoom in a bid to avoid an expensive court case after racking up legal costs in the 'five figures' (pictured together in 2016)

MailOnline has contacted both Coleen and Rebekah's representatives for comment.

In October, Coleen publicly accused Rebekah in an explosive statement of selling fake stories about her, sparking an angry denial from the then pregnant WAG.

The mother-of-four took to social media to reveal she had suspected someone close to her had been betraying her for years and admitted she had been planting false Instagram stories on her private page to catch Rebekah.

Coleen admitted that stories about her basement flooding, returning to TV and gender selection were only viewed by Rebekah and these were subsequently followed by media outlets, including MailOnline.

Accusations: In October, Coleen (pictured in 2018) publicly accused Rebekah in an explosive statement of selling fake stories about her, sparking an angry denial from the then pregnant WAG

Rebekah, who denies all allegations, cut her family holiday to Dubai short after Coleen's dramatic accusation, which captured Britain in the so-called 'war of the WAGs' and earned Coleen the nickname of 'Wagatha Christie' by fans.

At the time, sources close to Rebekah said leading law firm, Kingsley Napley, had sent Coleen a letter on her behalf demanding she provides them with the evidence she has against Becky so that she can complete her investigation.

Becky is said to have called in a forensic team to analyse her Instagram account following the explosive claims. The aim is to identify the mole who sold fake stories to The Sun from Coleen's Instagram account.

Coleen wrote on October 9: 'For a few years now someone who I trusted to follow me on my personal Instagram account has been consistently informing The Sun newspaper of my private posts and stories.

'Libel': Rebekah (pictured in 2019) has allegedly 'threatened to sue for libel' while Coleen has warned she will hit back with a 'countersue for breach of privacy'. The two WAGs will reportedly appear at the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) with their lawyers

'There has been so much information given to them about me, my friends and my family - all without my permission or knowledge.

'After a long time of trying to figure out who it could be, for various reasons, I had a suspicion. To try and prove this, I came up with an idea, I blocked everyone from viewing Instagram except ONE account.'

She continued: '(Those on my private account must have been wondering why I haven't had stories on there for a while).

'Over the past five months I have posted a series of false stories to see if they made their way into the Sun newspaper.

'And you know what, they did! The story about gender selection in Mexico, the story about returning to TV and then the latest story about the basement flood in my new house.

The statement: Coleen made these claims on Instagram on October 9 after discovering she had been betrayed by someone close to her and she concluded that it was Rebekah's account

Cryptic: Coleen tweeted these words back in January, highlighting how she has been trying to get to the bottom of who was leaking stories on her life for some time

'It's been tough keeping it to myself and not making any comment at all, especially when the stories have been leaked, however I had to. Now I know for certain which account/individual it's come from.

'I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It's......... Rebekah Vardy's account.'

She also wrote: 'This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it......'

Rebekah hit back minutes later on social media and denied the accusations, she wrote: 'Can't believe I'm even having to write this. I'm pregnant & on holiday & am at a loss to why she would do this.

'I don't need the money': Rebekah denied all accusations against her minutes after the post and said she had nothing to gain and had no financial motivation

'I'm now having to take legal advice as I can't deal with this stress myself when I'm this pregnant. As I have just said to you on the phone, I wish you had called me if you thought this.

'I never speak to anyone about you as various journalists who have asked me to over the years can vouch for. If you thought this was happening you can could have told me & I could have changed my passwords to see if it stopped.'

She continued: 'Over the years various people have had access to my Insta & just this week I found I was following people I didn't know and have never followed myself.

'I'm not being funny but I don't need the money, what would I gain from selling stories on you? I liked you a lot Coleen & I'm so upset that you have chosen to do this especially when I'm heavily pregnant.

'I'm disgusted that I'm even having to deny this. You should have called me the first time this happened.'
A man from Northern Ireland living in Shanghai believes towns here should develop their own boundaries in a similar way to China as it emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown.

Stephen Graham (58), from Lisburn, moved to China to teach English in 1996 and has been living in the country's largest city since 2001.

Since then, he has set up Graham Education Business Consulting Company, which helps young people learn English before travelling abroad to study.

With the UK passing the peak of the virus, Boris Johnson will this week outline a roadmap to reopening the country.

Stephen has watched how China has moved to lift its restrictions in recent weeks, amid a sense of real caution.

Reflecting on the staged approach China has introduced as the country attempts to return to normality after its 12-week lockdown, Stephen said that Northern Ireland could adopt similar measures when the coronavirus regulations begin to phase out here.

Along with his wife, Christina Wu, from Shanghai, and their sons, Patrick (15) and Clark (11), Stephen has been living under tight regulations since the outbreak of the virus.

Last Monday, schools in Shanghai began welcoming back students in fourth form and upper sixth, while on May 6, other classes will return before primary and secondary schools open their doors on May 18.

However, with strict social distancing measures in place, Stephen explained that if one pupil developed symptoms of coronavirus, an entire school would not have to shut - just that particular section.

According to Stephen, another Chinese example Northern Ireland could learn from when the time comes to end the lockdown regulations is to look at the boundaries the government has put in place around sections of Shanghai.

Living in a "Dunmurry type" area of the city, Stephen stated that only those living in that block can move freely within the cordon.

Over time, the boundaries will begin to expand and, using Lisburn as an example, Stephen said it has resulted in communities looking after one another.

He stressed, however, that this all comes down to the information that is provided to the public.

"China has been great in that they can tell you exactly how many people have had the virus in Shanghai, how many people are in hospital and how many new cases there are," Stephen said.

"When I check Northern Ireland, they tell you how many people altogether in each area, but I couldn't find how many people have died in Lisburn, for example.

"They tell you that Belfast is the worst hit area and Lisburn and Armagh are maybe second, but if there was more detailed information about the areas, people would be then more aware of what's happening and which places to avoid.

"People could be confined to the boundaries of the city of Lisburn and you could go wherever you want in the city, so it's each area looking after themselves. That's what China has done.

"Shanghai was practically on lockdown and you couldn't get into the city for the first four weeks, no matter where you came from. They just blocked all roads and motorways.

"In Wuhan, they locked down the Hubei area and wouldn't let people out. Unfortunately, the day they decided to lock it down, a lot of people had already left the day before because it was Chinese New Year.

"These are the people who spread the virus worldwide."

Over the last three weeks, people have returned to work in stages in Shanghai.

Using a government-sanctioned QR code, citizens in the city can gain access to certain areas depending on the colour of their code, which is available on their mobile device.

If the QR code is green, that person can use amenities such as public transport and restaurants within their boundary, however, if it is yellow or red, movement becomes much more restricted.

"Everybody wears a mask," Stephen continued. "If you go out in public they're all still wearing masks.

"I live in a rural part of Shanghai and people are wearing masks when out on the streets, even though there's very few people there.

"People are taking the underground and public transport, but they're wearing masks.

"People are still very cautious and I'm guessing that will remain so for the next few weeks until they have the confidence that they can do it without a problem.

"That QR code allows you to go on public transport, it allows you to go into restaurants and allows you to travel.

"If you have been in an area that is suspected of having a virus, you might get a yellow code, which restricts your travel. If you maybe had the virus, you will get a red one."

On hearing the news that a minority of people are beginning to flout the lockdown regulations back home, Stephen said that complacency is one of the biggest dangers.

Referring to China's progress in flattening the curve, he explained that over the last five weeks, most confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country are people coming into the nation.

"If you've worked hard or tried hard to keep the system of lockdown, quarantine, isolation and social distancing for this length of time, it would be stupid just to let it all go and then have to do it again," Stephen continued.

"It really is a step by step approach to all of this.

"China is lucky in that these past four or five weeks, there has been very limited person-to-person contagion.

"Nearly all of the cases of the virus have come from outside China.

"About a month ago, the Chinese government said they would not accept anymore foreigners coming back into China - only Chinese passport holders.

"Anybody that does arrive back into the country will immediately be tested at the airport, they're sent to a government-run hotel, where they are isolated for two weeks and they are checked a couple of times with doctors at hand.

"After two weeks, if they're free of the virus, they can go home. All of these procedures are in place to make sure that there are no more viruses coming into the country."

Meanwhile, as part of his role as head of a group called 'Friends of Northern Ireland in China', the English teacher has helped raise 20,000 to help buy personal protection equipment (PPE) for those who need it back home.

The initiative was organised by all of the different Irish groups living in China and a share of the funds will be distributed by the Northern Ireland Bureau to those who need it here.

"The idea was started by Fiona Sheehan, who is president of LeCheile, which is the Irish community group here, and supported by Therese Healey, the Irish Consul General, and the leaders of the other groups," Stephen added.

"We just asked for donations and within a week, we had received 20,000 from the community here.

"The PPE will be divided between places in or around Dublin and Belfast."
Major retail outlets will be required to give customers face masks under Government plans to reopen the country.

Guidelines for the public on using face masks or coverings are still being drafted by health officials.

However, it has emerged plans for reopening the economy may involve large supermarket chains and department stores being told to provide their customers with face masks.

There are no plans to make face masks mandatory, but businesses may be asked to provide them to limit the spread of the virus, according to senior figures in the Department of Health.

"We are looking at asking large retailers to provide some form of disposable face masks for customers," a source said.

There are currently no standard Covid-19 hygiene regulations for retailers. However, some have been offering gloves and disinfectant to customers.

Separately, the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation is drafting national guidance for employers and employees to help the country get back to work.

The plan covers areas such as hand and respiratory hygiene, physical distancing, personal protective equipment (PPE) and the role of the worker.

The draft plan does not insist that retailers provide customers with face masks.

Workplaces will be asked to appoint a lead worker representative charged with ensuring that Covid-19 measures are strictly adhered to.

The new guidelines will be monitored by the Health and Safety Authority which will have the power to shut down businesses for failing to comply with the new standards.

On 'The Late Late Show' on Friday night, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the National Public Health Emergency Team was working on face mask guidelines.

He said they would not be made mandatory but recommendations may be made to wear them while shopping or on public transport.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said he needed to ensure face mask supplies for health workers were protected when making a decision on their use for the public.

Yesterday, Labour Party leader Alan Kelly called for "clear guidance" on what rules on masks would be required for the public when they go back to work and use public transport, and how supply would be regulated to protect healthcare workers.

"A large number of countries have introduced mandatory mask wearing in public," he said. "If such a policy is to be adopted here, we need honest answers for the public, including advice on how to make your own.

"The key issue here is that the need for the public to wear simple masks or face coverings doesn't impact on supply for front line health workers."

HSE chief operations officer Anne O'Connor said eight million pieces of PPE arrived in Ireland over the past week, of which 62pc had been sent to long-term residential care homes and home care. She said 600 deliveries were being made every day, of which 220 were to residential care, 113 to GPs and 37 to acute hospitals.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 00:01:10|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

WARSAW, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The construction of the Baltic Pipe pipeline project to bring Norwegian gas from Denmark to Poland is due to commence in the next few days, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced here on Monday.

The pipeline will run along the Baltic Sea bed, first from the Norwegian shelf to Denmark and then through Denmark to Trzesacz on the Polish coast, Duda was quoted by the Polish Press Agency as saying. He called the project "a milestone towards the full diversification of gas supplies."

On April 30, Poland's gas network operator Gaz-System signed a contract for the construction of the underwater stretch of the Baltic Pipe with the Italian oilfield services company Saipem.

According to Duda, the full diversification of Poland's gas supplies is possible thanks to the Baltic Pipe on one hand, and to the LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal in Swinoujscie sea port on the other, whose handling capacity is currently being expanded to 17.5 billion cubic meters a year.

The full launch of the gas pipeline is planned for Oct. 1, 2022. Enditem
India will give "proportionate response" to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and support to terrorism by Pakistan

New Delhi: Pakistan is still following its "myopic" and "limited" agenda of pushing terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir, and India will respond appropriately with precision unless the neighbouring country gives up its policy of state sponsored terrorism, Army Chief Gen MM Naravane said here.

In an exclusive interview to PTI, the chief of the 1.3 million-strong Army said India will give "proportionate response" to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and support to terrorism by Pakistan.

On the Handwara encounter, Gen. Naravane said India is proud of the five security personnel who laid down their lives saving civilians from terrorists at a village in the North Kashmir locality and particularly complimented Col Ashutosh Sharma who led the operation.

"I would like to emphasise that Indian Army will give proportionate response to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and its (Pakistan's) support to terrorism. The onus remains with Pakistan to bring peace in the region," the Chief of Army Staff said.

"Unless Pakistan gives up its policy of state sponsored terrorism, we will continue to respond appropriately and with precision," he added.

Gen Naravane said the recent infiltration attempts by Pakistan along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir showed that Pakistan is not interested in battling the coronavirus pandemic and is still following its "own myopic and limited agenda of pushing terrorists inside India."

"The low priority given to the Pakistani citizens by its own government and the army is apparent by the exponential rise in cases and massive shortages of medical equipment and supplies in Pakistan," he said.

The Army Chief said even during the SAARC video conference, Pakistan's narrow-mindedness was on full display when it used the platform to complain about "non-existent" violations of human rights in Kashmir instead of finding ways to keep its citizens safe from the pandemic.

"The increased intensity of ceasefire violations by the Pakistan army, where its targets innocent civilians on the LoC, just shows that the country is a global risk and is not interested in providing relief to its own citizens," he said.

"In fact, Pakistan's removal of names of hardcore terrorists from the terror watch list just proves that it still believes in exporting terrorism as an instrument of state policy," he added.

On implementation of recommendations of terror anti-terror watchdog FATF, Gen Naravane said Pakistan has sought to "blindside" the international community by making superficial changes and amendments to its "non-existent" checks on terror financing and money laundering.

"It still continues to employ proxies to inflict terror and violence not only inside India but also in Afghanistan where it supports the Taliban militarily and financially," he said.

"The sudden spurts in violence against Afghan security forces are indicative of the illegal and illicit drug and money laundering networks that fuel the conflict," Gen Naravane added.
Europe 'Naive' About China Amid 'Existential' Crisis Spawned by COVID-19, Claims EU Diplomatic Chief

Sputnik News

15:21 GMT 03.05.2020(updated 16:12 GMT 03.05.2020)

Amid the continuing spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, top European Union diplomat Josep Borrell acknowledged that China had tried to pressure the EU into watering down a coronavirus disinformation report, claiming China's actions were "normal diplomacy"

The European Union's chief diplomat, Josep Borrell has claimed that Europe was "a little naive" in its relationship with China but is gradually adopting a more realistic approach, speaking in an interview with France's Le Journal du Dimanche on Sunday.

The High Representative of the European Union believes that China is to be perceived as not only an economic partner, but as a "systemic rival that seeks to promote an alternative model of governance".

Borrell who succeeded Italy's Federica Mogherini to the post, emphasized that while the EU and China advocate multilateralism, this would suggest they are "on the same side," yet at a time of global crisis, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, this does not necessarily signify the two perceive global governance in the same way.

The EU foreign affairs chief underscored that China has a "different understanding of the international order."

"We Europeans support effective multilateralism with the United Nations at the centre China, on the other hand, has a selective multilateralism that wants, and is based on, a different understanding of the international order," said Borrell.

The official added:

"We have to see what is behind the word."

US-China Rivalry

In the interview, Borrell added that the global health crisis generated by the coronavirus epidemic had taken the rivalry between Washington and Beijing to a new level, with the two trading accusations and blaming one another for the pandemic.

Borrell also took issue with the US President's perception of multilateralism.

"[He] sees it as a zero-sum game where America would have everything to lose. This view is false," said the official.

The European Union's leading diplomat dismissed US President Donald Trump's theory that the novel coronavirus had escaped a Chinese laboratory, when questioned on the issue.

"One must always take the statements of the president of the United States with care," said Borell, reminding in his interview that "a few days ago, he recommended that we drink disinfectant to fight the coronavirus."

Donald Trump has been criticising China for allegedly concealing vital data about the spread of the coronavirus during its initial stage and ordered an investigation into reports that the pandemic had been caused by an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Trump has also been lambasting the World Health Organization for reportedly covering up the scope of the infection after it was first reported in China, and in April halted US funding to the WHO.

China has been vehemently rejecting all accusations levelled against it, stressing that it has been transparent while reporting on the coronavirus pandemic.

Borrell urged an independent study of what happened in connection to the origins of the virus, whilst steering clear of the "battlelines" between China and the United States.

When asked if the EU was in favor of an international inquiry into the origins of the virus, Borrell acknowledged that there were plans to request an independent review of lessons learned from the international health response to better prepare for the next epidemic.

The European Union and its member states, he said, have drafted a resolution which will be presented on 18 May to the World Health Assembly (WHA), defining what should be the coordinated international response to the spread of the coronavirus.

Coronavirus Report Concerns

The official was also asked to comment on his 30 April statement to the European Parliament in Brussels that China had been trying to assert influence on the EU's coronavirus disinformation report that was critical of its actions.

The EU diplomat had denied watering down the report, according to the South China Morning Post, dismissing the moves as normal diplomacy, and adding the "pressure" hadn't been successful.

"Did China put pressure? They expressed their concerns through the diplomatic channels I can assure you that no changes had been introduced to the report published last week to align the concerns of a third party, in this case, China. There is no watering down of our findings. We have not bowed to anyone," said Borrell, according to the outlet.

The report, which first made headlines on 24 April after The New York Times claimed pressure from China had led to it being softened, included information about Beijing's attempts to limi the COVID-19 spread to Wuhan, the city where the epidemic started.

The Times cited emails from EU diplomats, including one from Lutz Gullner, who was said to have written to his peers:

"The Chinese are already threatening us with reactions if the report comes out."

While the first report said that China had "continued to run a global disinformation campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak of the pandemic", according to the outlet, the second report's language was softened, to scrub the words "global disinformation", while still voicing criticism of China.

Borrell insisted the amended version was part of a typical editing process.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Sonam Chandwani

At a time when India cheers in unison lauding the efforts of medical professionals, a doctor, who succumbed to coronavirus in Chennai, in Tamil Nadu, was denied his right to a decent burial earmarked for that purpose. In this scenario we ask: Is clapping hands enough?

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only presented a health, safety and financial crisis, but also a crisis of faith in the final journey of humans. The Right to Life is an extensive concept, which states that no person shall be deprived of his/her life or liberty or property, except according to procedure established by law. In a first, Supreme Court in the case of Kharak Singh, 1963 considered the expanse of Article 21 by hinting at the treatment of corpses in the following words  it is every kind of deprivation that is hit by Article 21, whether such deprivation is permanent or temporary.

Cementing this notion, the Madras High Court held that the fundamental right to life guaranteed under the Article 21 includes the right to decent burial or cremation. Tamil Nadu went a step ahead by issuance of an ordinance imposing a three-year jail term on anyone found in violation of the same.

Similar incidents cropped up in Meghalaya and the high court directed the state government to sensitise public, especially where the burial or cremation grounds are situated, to avoid any further unfortunate incidents. Our judiciary, on several occasions, stood for right to burial with dignity and further clarified that a corpse must be treated with the same dignity as a living being. Moreover, the corpse must be buried according to his/her culture and tradition.

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

Despite the subsisting right, people dying on account of the pandemic have been denied their fundamental right with the impeding fears that the virus may spread through the burial or cremation of the corpse. Realising this, Ministry Of Health and Family Welfare issued guidelines on dead body management to safeguard the right of human corpse, which are in line with guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO). The guidelines also permit relatives of deceased to see the body, albeit subject to adherence of infection prevention control practices, which include a total restrain on physical contact with the dead body.

The right to a dignified burial has raised controversies world over. Recently, Sri Lanka mandated the cremation of dead bodies of COVID-19 patients or suspects; however this has been resented by the Muslims, who, by custom, follow the burial method. In response to such protests, the government cited the deadly nature of the virus to override religious customs for dead body management.

Moreover, the United Kingdom introduced the Coronavirus Act 2020 permitting the local authority to disregard Section 46(3) of the Public Health (Control and Disease) Act, 1984, aimed to preclude local authority from being able to cremate the body against the wishes of deceased overbearing his/her beliefs. Countries worldover share the sentiment of public health and safety over adherence of religious rituals, which may potentially have dire consequences on the mortality and financial wellbeing of the economy at large.

Apart from a high number of positive cases and mortality rates, the COVID-19 outbreak has led to mass unemployment, stock market uncertainties and hints at an impending economic gloom worldwide. Loss of loved ones can be disturbing, disconcerting and difficult to process, particularly with so many unknowns at present.

State government orders overriding religious customs for dead bodies should in no way be deemed discriminatory, but is a proportionate measure to curb infections and deaths in the pretext of the virus, while simultaneously ensuring public safety and economic wellbeing of India. It is important to remember that this is temporary, and is the modus Vivendi to navigating the rough waters of COVID-19, individually but together.
In the African-American community, Sunday dinner is very important. This is when we fellowship with family and church families. Some of the younger women at Mt. Zion United Church of God on Banner Avenue cooked and delivered dinners to all the older saints.

During stay-at-home, churches are shut down and elder saints cant go to the dining room at church, so thank you for remembering us. You have made it easier on caregivers, too.

Thank you for making us happy.

 Barbara J. Shuler

Greensboro

The Good Stuff appears Mondays. To submit an item, send an email to robyn.taylor@greensboro.com, or address a note to The Good Stuff, News & Record, 200 E. Market St., Greensboro, 27420. Please include your name and the town you live in.
Actor Salman Khan has shared multiple videos from his farmhouse in Panvel where he can be seen loading and sending off ration on bullock carts, tractors and assorted other vehicles to nearby villages. The actor is accompanied by actor Jacqueline Fernandez, alleged girlfriend Iulia Vantur, Waluscha De Sousa, Niketan Madhok, Kamaal Khan and others who are with him at the farmhouse.

While in one video, Salman along with his friends, can be seen loading food on the vehicles, the second one sees him flagging off the vehicles later in the night. The actor has been at the farmhouse ever since the countrywide lockdown was announced to stem the spread of coronavirus pandemic. Most of his family, including father Salim Khan, is in Mumbai.

Taking to Instagram, Salman wrote, Thanks for the contribution... thank you all @jacquelinef143 @vanturiulia @rahulnarainkanal @imkamaalkhan @niketan_m @waluschaa @abhiraj88.

Salman, through his Being Human charity, has been transferring funds directly to the accounts of thousands of daily wage earners associated with Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) who lost work due to the lockdown. The bodys president BN Tiwari said earlier, After we approached Salman Khan, he asked us to give him a count of the most affected workers from our association and we told him there were 25,000 such artistes. He has decided to contribute for them. We will be sending him the list in the evening, said Tiwari, according to a report in indianexpress.com.

He is also providing financial aid to 25000 specially-abled artistes in the film industry. An artiste Pravin Rana was quoted as saying in a report, Nobody cares much for us, but Salman bhai stood by us during these trying times. We were surprised when we learnt that Rs 3,000 had been deposited into our accounts on Tuesday. No other actor has come forward to help us.
Police found 12 dead dogs and cats inside a 'no kill' animal shelter's freezer in Kentucky, and seized more than 100 animals living in horrific conditions from the owner who was already set to stand trial for animal cruelty.

Seven cats and five dogs were discovered in the wooden freezer of The Trixie Foundation shelter on Saturday in Webbville. The shelter's owner, Randy Skaggs, was cited with 12 counts of improperly disposing dead animals but was not arrested.

Photos taken at the scene show several animals removed from the freezer and placed outside on a tarp while authorities investigate the shelter.

Kentucky State Police said seven cats and five dogs were found dead inside an animal shelter's freezer on Saturday

Police obtained a search warrant for The Trixie Foundation after receiving reports of animal cruelty in April

Kentucky State Police said they initially seized an additional 90 dogs from the shelter.

Lex18 reports that volunteers at the scene said the total number of animals was actually 108, including 104 dogs and four cats.

The animals were taken Saturday because of 'poor living conditions' at the Trixie Foundation's shelter.

Shelter owner Randy Skaggs, 68, claimed that the animals were placed in the freezer because of a high workload.

'I've not intentionally done anything except try to help these animals,' Skaggs said.

'Everyone makes mistakes, and I've made plenty of them.'

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES Some of the five dogs removed from a freezer at the Trixie Foundation in Webbville, Kentucky

The shelter's website advertises itself as an 'Eden' for animals and the 'best kept secret in animal welfare'.

Police obtained a search warrant after receiving complaints about the shelter in April, the Herald-Ledger reported.

Melissa Bowman, president of Kentuckians Vote for Animals, accompanied police during the raid.

She told the Lexington Herald-Ledger that the dogs suffered 'medical neglect.'

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES A number of dogs needed to be tranquilized before taking them from the shelter and one animal was euthanized

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES: Skaggs said 'I've not intentionally done anything except try to help these animals. Everyone makes mistakes, and I've made plenty of them.'

Pictured: two women tend to a dog found at The Trixie Foundation in Kentucky

Other dogs had to be tranquilized before leaving the shelter, and one dog was euthanized at the facility.

Penny Menz, who helped retrieve animals from the shelter on Sunday, called it the worst sight she's ever seen.

'There was a dog that they had to call the vet for immediately. She had to be euthanized. She was lifeless but still breathing,' said Menz.

'They're suffering and we need to put them down.'

She suspects that more animals will perish once veterinarians asses their health conditions.

Many of them have glaring medical issues, including mouth tumors, eye infections and other ailments.

Jenny Jones, a former staffer of eight months at The Trixie Foundation, was also on the scene to assist with animals.

Randy Skaggs (pictured) was cited with 12 counts of improperly disposing dead animals, but not arrested

Jones said she had no idea Skaggs was allegedly committing animal cruelty when she was hired.

'I didn't want to leave the animals alone with him,' she said.

'I'm so excited for their future. They actually have a good future now.'

Julie Sharp, a volunteer and advocate, was dismayed at the bad condition one dog was in.

'She is beyond filthy, she is matted, she has advanced, advanced dental disease, it looks like her jaw is literally rotting out,' she told Fox 56.

'She is blind and she is deaf, and she is caked with mud, so this little one was been laying there, waiting to die.'

Sharp hopes that Skaggs is punished for his alleged actions.

'I have taken dogs so many times out of rescue out of horrible conditions, and they get a slap on the wrist and nobody monitors this, and so it's got to change it's got to change, this can't happen again,' she said.

'Justice would be him in jail for the rest of his life.'

Pictured: a section of The Trixie Foundation in Kentucky

Local Jenny Jones has a Facebook page titled 'STOP The Trixie Foundation aka the Gulag,' that has monitored the shelter's alleged animal cruelty for years.

She's currently asking for extra volunteers and pet supply donations as they attempt to care for the displaced animals.

'The quicker we can get them assessed, the quicker they can go to foster homes because they can't leave here until we've documented everything that's wrong with every single dog,' she said.

They're currently in need of blankets, cleaning supplies, wet and dry food, and vaccines.

Skaggs, who said he provides medical care when the animals need it, was cited with 12 counts of improperly disposing dead animals.

More than 100 additional animals were seized from the facility as volunteers work to find adequate supplies

He was not arrested and Skaggs intends to fight all charges.

A trial date for this latest crime has not been set. More charges are pending the results of veterinarian records.

Skaggs was previously charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty in 2018 and is scheduled to face trial on June 23.

He was charged with 179 counts of animal cruelty and 179 counts of failing to vaccinate dogs for rabies.

Skaggs blames critics of his no-euthanization policy with influencing this latest raid, to pressure him to plead guilty to the earlier charges.

Inquiries about volunteering and donations can be sent to the Facebook page.
Senior Colonel Wu Qian, Director General of the Information Office of China's Ministry of National Defense (MND) and Spokesperson for the MND, answers reporters' questions at a regular press conference on April 30, 2020. (eng.mod.gov.cn/Photo by Li Xiaowei)

(The following English text of the press conference is for reference. In case of any divergence of interpretation, the Chinese text shall prevail.)

Question: The military medical teams to Hubei have recently returned after successfully accomplishing their tasks. Could you please tell us what achievements the military has made in supporting the fight against COVID-19? And whats your comment?

Answer: With the approval of President Xi Jinping, also Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the military medical teams to Hubei have successively returned after accomplishing their tasks. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the whole military has resolutely implemented the decisions and orders of the CPC Central Committee, CMC, and President Xi Jinping, and lived up to its duties and missions regardless of daunting difficulties, making a great contribution to winning the people's war against the virus. The military medical teams came to Hubei on January 24 and withdrew on April 16 from the three designated hospitals under their charge. Thanks to their arduous efforts for more than 80 days, great results have been achieved while not a single team member was infected.

First, the task of curing COVID-19 patients was successfully accomplished. Wuhan-based Huoshenshan Hospital, Wuhan Taikang Tongji Hospital, and Guanggu Branch of Hubei Maternal and Child Health Hospital provided 2,856 sickbeds, received 7,198 confirmed COVID-19 patients in total, and cured 346 patients aged over 80, the oldest being 100 years old. The Huoshenshan Hospital created a record of receiving 421 patients in a single day.

Second, important progress was made in scientific research. Scientists at the PLA Academy of Military Sciences worked against time on scientific research breakthroughs and the recombinant COVID-19 vaccine they developed has passed registration and review for clinical research and entered the second phase of clinical trials, playing a critical role in winning the battle against the virus.

Third, rich experience in epidemic prevention and control was garnered. While scientifically treating the patients, the military also makes a point of gathering experience in medical treatment, nursing, prevention and control, and logistic support, so as to lay a solid foundation for next-step virus containment and international cooperation in this field.

We strongly believe that under the firm leadership of the CPC Central Committee, CMC, and President Xi, the Chinese military and people will certainly defeat the virus and achieve the final victory in this grave war through concerted efforts and unity.

Question: As COVID-19 is still spreading across the world, many countries have asked China for help. Please brief us on the foreign assistance provided by the Chinese military.

Answer: China highly appreciates the help and assistance that many foreign defense authorities and militaries have provided to us since the outbreak of the epidemic. "You give me a peach, and I will return you a white jade for friendship." It is China's traditional virtue to repay goodwill with greater kindness. Upholding the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind advocated by President Xi Jinping, the Chinese side has provide the international community with assistance as its capacity permits while continuing to promote domestic epidemic prevention and control.

As of April 30, the Chinese military has provided material aid or sent medical experts to a number of foreign militaries, namely Iran, Pakistan, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Lebanon. Medical experts of the Chinese military have also held video conferences with their counterparts in Pakistan, Singapore and Russia to share experience on pandemic control.

The virus knows no borders. All countries in the world live in a community with a shared future and face a common enemy of the pandemic. Only through unity can the world defeat the enemy. The Chinese military will continue to strengthen disease control and prevention cooperation with the defense authorities and militaries of other countries, and stand with them to overcome the difficulties, so that we can drive away the pandemic through cooperation and protect our common homeland through concerted efforts.

Question: China and Pakistan, as well as their militaries, have had frequent interactions since the COVID-19 outbreak to give each other strong support. Could you please brief us on that and make a comment?

Answer: China and Pakistan are good friends, neighbors, partners, and brothers. Mutual help is a tradition between the two countries and the two militaries. As "iron brothers", we can achieve great things with the same mind.

We will not forget that when China was at the most difficult time of fighting the disease, Pakistan's state and military leaders wrote us letters of sympathy at the first opportunity and Pakistani President Arif Alvi paid a special visit to China. The Pakistani government and society did their very best to help us.

Likewise, the Chinese people are concerned about the pandemic in Pakistan now. The Chinese government and military have provided batches of medical supplies to Pakistan and sent experts to help contain the spread of the virus. Medical experts in the two militaries also held video conferences to share experience in COVID-19 prevention and control.

Only the toughest grass can stand strong winds. People of worth show their morality during hardships. China and Pakistan have an all-weather strategic partnership of cooperation, which means they will always stand by each other.

We firmly believe that bilateral and mil-to-mil relations between the two countries will embrace new and greater developments through the joint battle against COVID-19.

Question: Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the US defense and military leaders have repeatedly accused China of withholding information, claiming that the information from the Chinese Communist Party has misled the public. What is your comment on that?

Answer: Since the COVID-19 broke out, some politicians in the US, including US defense leaders, have been continuously attacking China in an attempt to stigmatize it. China is firmly opposed to that.

China has maintained an open, transparent, and responsible attitude in the fight against the COVID-19. We notified the WHO of the pandemic, shared the genome sequencing of the virus, and carried out international cooperation in pandemic containment, all at the earliest time possible. What China has done is widely appreciated by the international community.

Some American politicians' eager attempt to shift the blame is completely out of political and personal purposes, which is extremely selfish and irresponsible. China's position on this has always been clear and consistent - we will not take the blame for the US.

You mentioned the Community Party of China in your question. I must emphasize that the CPC has served as the mainstay during the fight against the COVID-19. The CPC Central Committee has exercised firm leadership. President Xi Jinping, the core of the CPC Central Committee, commander-in-chief of the military and leader of the people, has personally directed and deployed the national response. CPC branches at all levels have acted proactively with a strong sense of responsibility, and CPC members have been working on the front line. Almost all of the PLA supporting team members are CPC members. If you know something about Chinese history, you will understand that the CPC comes from the people, takes roots among the people, and serves the people. CPC and Chinese people are of one mind and share a common destiny. Any attempt to disrupt or sever the ties between the Party and the people are doomed to failure.

The pandemic is a touchstone and a magic mirror that reveals the true and the false, the right and the wrong, the kind and the vicious. Only through unity and cooperation can we defeat the pandemic. China stands ready to join hands with all the peoples in the world, including the American people, who love peace, pursue justice, and aspire for a beautiful life to win this global war against the virus.

Question: According to Japanese media, Japan's Minister of Defense Taro Kono mentioned the task force of Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning passing through the Miyako Strait in his recent speech, saying that in past few years, the Chinese military has been increasingly active and as a result, the responding frequency of Japanese Self-Defense Force's scrambling fighter jets has been rising since 2019. He also commented that Chinas operations are extremely disgraceful in the context of the international cooperation against the COVID-19. What is your comment?

Answer: The Chinese military conducted training exercises in accordance with the annual training plan, which is in full compliance with international laws and practice. The accusations from the Japanese side are totally unjustified and highly inappropriate. The Chinese military will continue to organize training exercises in relevant air and sea areas in accordance with the law.

Question: Recently, we noticed the news that the military medical teams to Hubei quietly withdrew. There were neither police cars escorting them, nor people lining the road to see them off. Some netizens said they "rushed to help in winter snow and left quietly in the spring breeze." Some netizens also noticed on social media the clean and spotless hospitals, the orderly-positioned medical equipment, and the neatly arranged personal bedding they left behind. There were comments saying it reflected the return of the fine tradition of the Red Army in a new era. Do you have any comment on this?

Answer: With the joint efforts of the whole nation, there have been positive results in disease prevention and control and the most difficult time has passed. We owe this achievement to the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, to the great strength of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, to the growing overall national strength since reform and opening up, and to the unity of the people and the military.

With regard to the quiet withdrawal you mentioned, I would like to underline that the PLA is a people's military under the absolute leadership of the CPC. Serving the people wholeheartedly is the purpose of our military and a glorious tradition passed down from generation to generation. In the face of the peoples interests, the military will always follow the Party's command, be able to fight and win battles, and stick to a good style of conduct. Quiet withdrawal is a true portrayal of the close relationship between the people and the army.

Question: Many touching stories of the PLA medics are circulating online during the pandemic. Their strong will, bravery, and dedication moved many people and also inspired many to join the military and serve the country. Could you please introduce the overall conscription arrangement of this year?

Answer: Based on the overall plan of national disease prevention and control and with the approval of the State Council and the CMC, conscription in the first half of this year has been postponed to the second half, with the recruitment task merged to be completed in the second half. At present, the conscription registration for the second half-year has started. People of draft age can visit the official website designated by the Conscription Office of the MND, National Conscription Website (http://www.gfbzb.gov.cn), to register. The online registration for females will start at the end of June. Those who have registered in the first half-year and eligible for recruitment will automatically be registered for the second half. The deadline for registration is August 15. Male college graduates can register any time before the deadline and visit local conscription stations for medical examination.

We welcome more aspiring young people to join the big family of the armed forces, and make their efforts to create a better future for the motherland, contribute to the military and be the most-admired people in the new era.

Question: The US State Department issued an arms control report claiming that China may have conducted a secret underground nuclear test recently. Could you please confirm that and whats your comment?

Answer: The US report is not true and is full of fabricated facts. On international arms control, unlike the US, China has always been faithful to its commitments and true to its words.

Question: It is reported that the Chinese military sent military aircraft to transport medical supplies to Pakistan. The mission was conducted by Chinas indigenous Y-20 large military transport aircraft, nicknamed "Chubby Girl" by fellow netizens. Comment has it that it was Y-20's first overseas mission. Please confirm it.

Answer: Thanks for your interest. It is true that Y-20 large military transport aircraft were deployed to transport medical supplies and Chinese expert teams to Pakistan. It marked the first overseas mission of Y-20. The official name of the "Chubby Girl" as you mentioned is "Kunpeng". Like Kunpeng, a mythical bird that can fly for thousands of miles, I firmly believe Y-20 will play a greater role in the military.

Question: It was reported that the US military recently conducted frequent military operations in the sea and air areas surrounding China. US warships and aircraft conducted training for several consecutive days in the South China Sea and had military drills with the Australian Navy. What's your comment on this?

Answer: We pay close attention to and stay highly vigilant about the movements of the US and Australian forces. For some time, some countries outside the region such as the US and Australia have frequently carried out military activities in the South China Sea to strengthen their military presence in the region. This approach is not conducive to the security and stability in the South China Sea and we are firmly opposed to this. Facts have repeatedly proved that the US is the biggest promoter of militarization in the South China Sea and a troublemaker for regional peace and stability. The PLA has always maintained a high degree of vigilance and will resolutely defend national sovereignty, security and development interests, and resolutely safeguard regional peace, stability, and prosperity.

Question: The US Naval Institute (USNI) Journal recently published an article saying that the US should issue letters of marque to the privateers, which allows the privateers to capture the Chinese merchant ships and goods when bilateral conflicts occur between China and the US. What is your comment?

AnswerThe so-called "letters of marquee" is actually an act of piracy and a criminal activity forbidden in international laws. The activity is opposed and by the international community. In todays society, it is appalling that someone encourage piracy activities and there was a journal publish these ideas. The international community should stay vigilant to the power politics and the Law of the Jungle mindsets behind such words and deeds.

Question: As a result of the COVID-19, the national college entrance examination in 2020 will be postponed. Many senior high school students preparing for the exam are concerned whether there will be corresponding adjustments to the 2020 military college enrollment policies and plans? Please brief us on it.

Answer: The national college entrance examination for 2020 will be postponed for one month. The enrollment of military colleges will follow the overall requirements of national disease prevention and control. The political assessment, physical examination, interviews, admission and other arrangements will follow the territorial principle, and be jointly determined by the enrollment offices of provincial military command and provincial authorities under the guidance of local party committees and government.

In 2020, the enrollment of all military colleges will further promote the "sunshine initiative" in college entrance exams, and strictly implementing the seven transparent requirements concerning policy and regulation, admission plan, qualification, exam result, admission information, complaint channels and violation handling. During the pandemic, we will unify competitive resources and take advantage of the "Sunshine Initiative" website of the Ministry of Education, PLA Daily, WeChat official account and other multimedia platforms to promote enrollment publicity on the Internet. Enrollment information will be published and interpreted through out the process to ensure openness and fairness.

Question: Will there be any corresponding adjustment to the entrance examination of military academies designated for enlisted personnel in 2020?

Answer: This year's academic examination for the admission of enlisted personnel to military schools is scheduled to be held from July 7 to 8 and the examinations on common military subjects, in principle, will be held no earlier than June 1. The arrangement has been made to keep in alignment with the requirements of national disease prevention and control, and to ensure orderly and smooth admission. The examinations on common military subjects will be organized by the theater commands, services, Academy of Military Sciences, National Defense Universities, National University of Defense Technology and the People's Armed Police Force separately. They will take place in units of or above division/brigade level at their convenience or in the forms of examination tour.

Question: Taiwan media reported that Taiwan "defense officials" recently claimed that the PLA has threatened the island by offensive words and show of force. They said that Taiwan is well prepared for any potential war between the two sides across the Strait. What is your comment?

Answer: Taiwan is an integral part of China. The PLA organized related military operations to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity and protect the well-being of compatriots in Taiwan from "Taiwan independence" attempts. They are not targeted at the compatriots in Taiwan, but at a small number of "Taiwan independence" separatists and their activities. I should emphasize that any attempt to resist reunification with force is doomed to failure and will damage the interests of the Chinese nation.

Question: At present, China's disease prevention and control situation is gradually improving. However, the task of maintaining the momentum and preventing a rebound is still heavy. What prevention and control tasks are being undertaken by the military and what will be the focus of the military in the future?

Answer: At present, COVID-19 is basically contained in China. In accordance with the decision of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, the Chinese military has been following the development of the pandemic and implementing regular control and prevention measures. We will continue to play an active role in the fight against COVID-19.

First, we will strengthen the pandemic prevention and control of overseas military personnel, establish and improve the response mechanism, strictly strengthen personnel management and control, and do a good job in material collection and medical treatment. Second, we will make efforts to strengthen disease prevention and control at border areas, and increase medical preparedness. Third, we will promote international military cooperation in disease control and prevention and provide strong support for the armed forces of relevant countries by sending experts and medical supplies and hosting video conferences. Fourth, we will carry out a patriotic public health campaign within the military and launch the 32nd patriotic public health month under the theme of "promoting traditions, eradicating bad habits and fostering new habits".
New Delhi, May 4 : With the Delhi government opening around 150 select state-run liquor shops in the city, long queues and violation of social distancing norms were witness at many places in the national capital on Monday, forcing many such stores to close down.

Interestingly, queues of Bacchus worshipers were seen outside many shops which were not even allowed to reopen due to precautionary norms.

Buyers had begun to gather outside many liquor shops, allowed to operate, as early as 8.30 in the morning leading to long queues.

"When the first lockdown was announced (from March 24 midnight), we thought things will be under control within days. So, we never stocked liquor. It has since been over 40 days now. So, the first thing to do for me in the morning was to get some stock," said Prashant Mehra, as he waited patiently outside a liquor shop in East of Kailash.

Mehra was leading a queue which stretched to a few metres, while an even longer queue had started to form at a nearby liquor store.

However, to his utter disappointment, a security guard posted at a nearby ATM informed him and others that both the shops were actually not allowed to re-open yet.

In Kapashera, which has seen a cluster outbreak of COVID-19 in recent days, a state- run wine and beer shop had to be closed after a long queue flouted social distancing norms forcing.

"There is no point in opening liquor shops if a few policemen cannot monitor the queues. The consumers will certainly flout social distancing norms," an attendant at the shop said.

According to a Delhi government official, about 150 liquor shops have been allowed to open in accordance with the latest lockdown relaxations given by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

There are around 850 liquor shops in the city, including those run by government agencies and private individuals.

In the order that allowed these shops to be reopened, the Delhi government instructed all shop incharges and other staff to report at their respective shops at 7 am sharp from Monday onwards.

The sale of liquor has been capped at 9 litres and 1 beer case for one customer.

"It is mandatory for all the staff of the liquor shops to wear face covers and gloves. Adequate stock of such face covers & gloves also shall be made available at the shops," the Delhi government order issued on Sunday night had said.

"All the persons working in the liquor shop shall ensure social distancing as per the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, both within and outside the shops, during sale of liquor," the order added.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi: Interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday said that the party would bear the cost for the rail travel of migrant workers and labourers as she slammed the Centre for double standards over helping stranded Indians amid the coronavirus crisis.

In a statement, Sonia Gandhi described the situation as a "tragedy with a massive human cost" and added that because of the Centres four-hour notice of the lockdown necessitated due to the coronavirus, workers and migrant labourers were denied the opportunity to return to their homes.

Post the partition of 1947, this is the first time India witnessed a tragedy with such a massive human cost as thousands of migrant workers and labourers were forced to walk home several hundred kilometres on foot- without food, without medicines, without money, without transportation, without anything except for the desire to return to their families and loved ones.

She said that the Congress party had repeatedly asked for the provision of safe and free rail travel for migrant workers and labourers to their home-towns, but their demands had been ignored by the central government and rail ministry.

The Indian National Congress has, therefore, taken a decision that every Pradesh Congress Committee shall bear the cost for the rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labourer and shall take necessary steps in this regard, the statement said.

It added that this would be the partys humble contribution in service of migrant workers and to stand "shoulder to shoulder in solidarity" with them.

Questioning the central governments handling of the situation, Gandhi said that it was disturbing that the migrants were being charged for the train tickets in this hour of crisis.

But what is the responsibility of our Government? Even today, lakhs of workers and migrant labourers are languishing in different parts of the country and wish to return to their homes and families but there is neither adequate money nor provision for free transport. What is particularly disturbing is that the Central Government and the Rail Ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis, the statement read.

The Congress matriarch further criticised the Centre and asked that if the government could recognise its responsibility by arranging free air travel for citizens stranded abroad, then why the migrant workers, couldnt be given a fraction of the same courtesy?

When our Government can recognise its responsibility by arranging free air travel for our citizens stranded abroad when the Government can spend nearly Rs 100 crores on transport and food etc. for just one public programme in Gujarat, when the rail ministry has the largesse to donate Rs 151 crores to the PMs Corona fund, then why cant these essential members of our nations fabric be given a fraction of the same courtesy, especially free rail travel, at this hour of acute distress? the statement added.

Meanwhile, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in a tweet, also slammed the Railways Ministry for charging the fare of tickets from the stranded migrant workers.

                        151           ! pic.twitter.com/qaN0k5NwpG  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 4, 2020

"On the one hand, the Railways is charging ticket fares from the labourers stranded in different states, while on the other hand, the Ministry of Railways is giving Rs 151 crore to the PM Care Fund. Just solve this mystery."

The Indian Railways had issued a set of guidelines for Shramik Special trains being run to ferry the migrants stranded across the country, saying the trains will ply only if they have 90 per cent occupancy and the "states should collect the ticket fare", inviting criticism for charging for their services.
Quarantine restrictions in the regions, which are the leaders in the number of COVID-19 cases, will be tougher than in general all over the state, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said during a government meeting on Monday.

"On May 11, it will be necessary to convene commissions in the regions, to hold the National Commission on Technological and Environmental Safety and Emergency Situations and to make a decision depending on the situation as of May 11 in the three leading regions (according to the incidence of COVID-19) regarding introducing of the certain quarantine restrictions in the regions where the epidemiological situation is worse than in the whole country. We will use such an adoptive quarantine mechanism during the year," he added.

Health Minister Maksym Stepanov, for his part, reported about elaboration of the clear criteria of adoptive quarantine.

"We want to propose criteria for adoptive quarantine. We have Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk regions with a very high incidence rate and a very large number of diseases registered every day. Of course, we cannot afford such ease as in other areas. Here we need an adoptive quarantine mechanism: if somewhere we open a large variety of means of trade, somewhere there should be less. We will continue to analyze the situation: if we see a negative trend, we will narrow the restrictions," he said.
According to the Tennessee Hospital Association, the states 144 member hospitals lost a billion dollars during just the month of April. Sure, it was because of the way COVID-19 has mauled the United States but what hit Tennessee hospitals far worse was the virus of fear. Erlanger had to cut emergency room staff because it turned into the home of the lonely  you wouldnt go there on a lost bet, for fear of becoming COVID-positive. Nothing could be worse from the truth. Now our doctors are warning us that COVID-phobic is more dangerous. A new study of nine major hospitals in the U.S. just revealed the number of severe heart attacks has dropped nearly 40 percent.

That cant be. It is impossible, with 269,583 heart-related deaths nationwide in the last sustainable year, 2017. But the virus of fear has kept people from going to the hospital and Americas entire medical community is asking, Where are our patients?

As Chattanoogas three largest hospitals resume elective surgeries today, I can absolutely guarantee Erlanger, Memorial, and Parkridge are the safest places in our community to be as the COVID-19 continues to lurk in our extended tri-state area. Hamilton County has had 181 confirmed cases and 13 deaths from the coronavirus.

Again, 181 confirmed cases in Hamilton County and Erlangers census (patient beds) are down to 30 percent of capacity, when in 2019 it was over 90 percent almost every week. Memorial and Parkridge were also victims but what is unexplainable is what happened to the heart attacks, the cancer, the diabetes? Now our medical community fears a tsunami of people who will be much sicker than they were when last seen by their physicians and those with chronic illnesses need medical care. If you want to save your life, please return to those who have thus far kept your health manageable. The diagnostic tests, the pharmaceutical levels, and your lifestyle habits beg to be monitored by professionals, and the new safeguards youll find, leave little or no room for COVID to attack you.

In New York City, at the height of the virus, EMTs reported four times the number of ambulance calls for cardiac reasons between March 30 and April 5, and the majority of the victims could not be revived. Granted, some were COVID but others were untreated heart disease or strokes. Well never know the truth because the medical examiners office is still overwhelmed, but the ambulance teams believe there were many non-virus deaths.

In Connecticut last week a cardiologist tweeted his 50-year-old brother died of a heart attack. He lived alone but his brother faulted his COVID phobia for his death. The victim was smart, surely aware he was experiencing a health dilemma, but fear is what killed him.

In the past several weeks the Chattanooga hospitals have met repeatedly to stiffen the coronavirus defense. When you go to any of the largest three, your temperature will be taken immediately, you will be required to wear a mask, and you will call your doctors office to announce your arrival. Someone from your doctors office will meet you at a designated place in the hospital and will usher you to the office, but waiting rooms are in the past. Instead, you will be ushered directly into a treatment room where you will be seen by your physician almost immediately. If labs or blood draws are necessary, they too will be done in short order, and then you will be escorted from the building.

Last week I had my first televised appointment with my doctor via my cell phone. Using Facetime, we went over my meds, making necessary changes, discussed my present medical health, answered each others questions, and discussed going forward. Total time: 12 minutes, all from where I write my stories each day. I had no contact with another person, I did not have to drive my car, pay for parking, or wait to be seen. It was terrific, incredibly efficient, and my next appointment in June will be an office visit  although I love the new social media method where I can be one-and-done in less than 15 minutes with no chance of contracting the infection. No poking, no prodding, no stethoscope, no pants-dropping  this is the deal.

Youve only got one life. To lose it out of fear will sadden everybody who loves you because you could have prevented it. Go see your doctor. I promise, it is safe. Call your doctors office today.

* * *

HOW MANY LIVES WILL COVID-19 CLAIM IN 2020?

Because we have had no experience with the COVID-19 infection, death projections for the year-end 2020 are all over the map. Now experts in the United States project we will have between 100,000 and 240,000 coronavirus cases through December, depending on the source. At 7 p.m. on Sunday, we have had 3,502,126 confirmed cases worldwide and, in the USA, we had had 1,156,924 cases. In the world there have 247,107 deaths (this from Johns Hopkins dashboard at 7:05 p.m. on Sunday), and 68,089 deaths in the U.S.

So, by the end of this year, statisticians at STAT.com believe the top causes of death, will be:

* -- Heart disease: 269,583 (based on 2017 statistics)

* -- Cancer: 252,500 (2017 model)

* -- Stroke: 60,833 (2017 model)

* -- COVID-19: 60,000-to-240,00 estimated

* -- Alzheimers diseases: 50,417 (2017 model)

* --Drug overdose: 29,265 (2017 model)

* -- Suicide: 19,583 (2017 model)

* * *

Of the 95 counties in Tennessee, more than 20 have had fewer than 10 coronavirus cases thus far.

* * *

THIS FROM THE WEBSITE,  THEHILL.COM 

NOTE: The following opinion was written by Scott W. Atlas, MD, who is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution, and who is the former chief of neuro-radiology at Stanford University Medical Center.

- - -

The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.

Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown:

FACT NO. 1  THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE ANY SIGNIFICANT RISK OF DYING FROM COVID-19

The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies.

In New York City, an epicenter of the pandemic with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the rate of death for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01 percent, or 10 per 100,000 in the population. On the other hand, people aged 75 and over have a death rate 80 times that. For people under 18 years old, the rate of death is zero per 100,000.

Of all fatal cases in New York state, two-thirds were in patients over 70 years of age; more than 95 percent were over 50 years of age; and about 90 percent of all fatal cases had an underlying illness. Of 6,570 confirmed COVID-19 deaths fully investigated for underlying conditions to date, 6,520, or 99.2 percent, had an underlying illness. If you do not already have an underlying chronic condition, your chances of dying are small, regardless of age. And young adults and children in normal health have almost no risk of any serious illness from COVID-19.

FACT NO. 2  PROTECTING OLDER, AT RISK PEOPLE ELIMINATED HOSPITAL OVERCROWDING

We can learn about hospital utilization from data from New York City, the hotbed of COVID-19 with more than 34,600 hospitalizations to date. For those under 18 years of age, hospitalization from the virus is 0.01 percent, or 11 per 100,000 people; for those 18 to 44 years old, hospitalization is 0.1 percent. Even for people ages 65 to 74, only 1.7 percent were hospitalized. Of 4,103 confirmed COVID-19 patients with symptoms bad enough to seek medical care, Dr. Leora Horwitz of NYU Medical Center concluded "age is far and away the strongest risk factor for hospitalization." Even early WHO reports noted that 80 percent of all cases were mild, and more recent studies show a far more widespread rate of infection and lower rate of serious illness. Half of all people testing positive for infection have no symptoms at all. The vast majority of younger, otherwise healthy people do not need significant medical care if they catch this infection.

FACT NO. 3  VITAL POPULATION IMMUNITY IS PREVENTED BY TOTAL ISOLATION, PROLONGING THE PROBLEM

We know from decades of medical science that infection itself allows people to generate an immune response  antibodies  so that the infection is controlled throughout the population by herd immunity. Indeed, that is the main purpose of widespread immunization in other viral diseases  to assist with population immunity. In this virus, we know that medical care is not even necessary for the vast majority of people who are infected. It is so mild that half of infected people are asymptomatic, shown in early data from the Diamond Princess ship, and then in Iceland and Italy. That has been falsely portrayed as a problem requiring mass isolation. In fact, infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity. By transmitting the virus to others in the low-risk group who then generate antibodies, they block the network of pathways toward the most vulnerable people, ultimately ending the threat. Extending whole-population isolation would directly prevent that widespread immunity from developing.

FACT NO. 4  PEOPLE ARE DYING BECAUSE OTHER MEDICAL CARE IS NOT GETTING DONE DUE TO HYPOTHETICAL PROJECTIONS

Critical health care for millions of Americans is being ignored and people are dying to accommodate potential COVID-19 patients and for fear of spreading the disease. Most states and many hospitals abruptly stopped nonessential procedures and surgery. That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases, like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and potentially deadly brain aneurysms. Treatments, including emergency care, for the most serious illnesses were also missed. Cancer patients deferred chemotherapy. An estimated 80 percent of brain surgery cases were skipped. Acute stroke and heart attack patients missed their only chances for treatment, some dying and many now facing permanent disability.

FACT NO. 5  WE HAVE CLEARLY DEFINED POPULATION AT RISK WHO CAN BE PROTECTED WITH TARGETED MEASURES

The overwhelming evidence all over the world consistently shows that a clearly defined group  older people and others with underlying conditions  is more likely to have a serious illness requiring hospitalization and more likely to die from COVID-19. Knowing that, it is a commonsense, achievable goal to target isolation policy to that group, including strictly monitoring those who interact with them. Nursing home residents, the highest risk, should be the most straightforward to systematically protect from infected people, given that they already live in confined places with highly restricted entry.

The appropriate policy, based on fundamental biology and the evidence already in hand, is to institute a more focused strategy like some outlined in the first place: Strictly protect the known vulnerable, self-isolate the mildly sick and open most workplaces and small businesses with some prudent large-group precautions. This would allow the essential socializing to generate immunity among those with minimal risk of serious consequence, while saving lives, preventing overcrowding of hospitals and limiting the enormous harms compounded by continued total isolation.

Lets stop under-emphasizing empirical evidence while instead doubling down on hypothetical models. Facts matter.
The first of several Islamic State (IS) attacks in Iraq started just before suhoor on May 2, the pre-dawn meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan prior to fasting, and lasted several hours, Salahuddin council member Subhan Jiyad told Al-Monitor via WhatsApp later in the day.

Most of those killed were Sunni locals from the Albu Issa tribe, according to another source who sent a list of the names of those martyred.

This first of several attacks in the area over a 24-hour period happened in Mukashifa, a town northwest of Samarra along the main road linking Baghdad and Tikrit. Samarra is a Sunni-majority city in central Iraq known for its Al-Askari Shrine, or Golden Dome Mosque, a place of pilgrimage for Shiite Muslims. The town is also the birthplace of former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Six members of the local Popular Mobilization Units [PMU] were killed in the attack on a checkpoint, council member Jiyad added. Then, when reinforcements were sent in, three more were killed by an improvised explosive device [IED] set by IS.

Another pre-dawn attack happened in Tal al-Dhahab in the Yathrib district southeast of Samarra.

The two attacks killed a total of 11 PMU fighters, Al-Monitor was told by a fighter previously deployed to the area with Saraya al-Salam that maintains an extensive network of contacts in the area.

The Yathrib district is in Salahuddin but borders on Diyala province, which has seen an uptick in attacks in recent months and which stretches from north and east of the capital to the Iranian border.

Capt. Isser Ali Rabea al-Azzawi, a border forces officer, had been assassinated in his home in Yathrib on April 30, also reportedly by IS.

After iftar on May 2, the post-fasting meal just after sundown, there were other attacks in Salahuddin province. No casualties were reported.

IS fighters then allegedly tried to approach Karbala from the direction of the southern Anbar town of al-Nukhyab, which lies between Iraqs Saudi border and the city revered by Shiite Muslims for its holy shrines and historical importance, but were pushed back by PMU linked to the shrines.

In Diyala, meanwhile, there was an IED attack on a military vehicle post-iftar that resulted in one death, while three policemen were shot and killed and two others were wounded in an IS attack on a police station in al-Abara area of the regional capital of Baqubah.

The flurry of attacks was accompanied by initially inflated casualty counts for those that did happen and reports about other incidents that never even occurred, such as rumors of one in Isahaqi on May 2.

Iraqi security expert Hisham al-Hashimi noted in a tweet that the seemingly coordinated attacks serve to boost media coverage for the international terrorist group, and that takfiri groups hold Ramadan to be of special importance for combat operations.

Meanwhile, various Iran-linked PMU claimed, as they long have, that the United States is helping IS and that the latest attacks prove this.

The PMU had demanded even more strongly than previously that all foreign forces leave the country after the US drone strike on Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3 at Baghdad airport. Members of parliament were reportedly warned to vote for a parliamentary resolution calling for this withdrawal or suffer unspecified consequences.

After a suicide attack on Kirkuk intelligence offices April 28, a parliamentarian from the province warned that international coalition intelligence had previously served to prevent such attacks, but that there is now a lack of such support after their withdrawal from a base in the area in late March.

In Salahuddin, local forces received support from Iran-backed factions when military aid from the United States initially failed to materialize in the immediate wake of IS taking over a major part of the province in 2014. The face of Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killed by a US drone strike Jan. 3 near the airport in Baghdad, has long figured heavily on billboards across the province.

Meanwhile, coalition airstrikes continue to target IS in Iraq. On April 25, Britain announced it had conducted its first anti-IS airstrikes in seven months on April 10, near Tuz Khurmato in Kirkuk province. International coalition spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III tweeted April 30, Bombs away!  linking to a video showing what he said was an airstrike on the Hamreen mountains the previous day.

The chairman of the Salahhuddin regional council, Ahmed al-Krayem, told Al-Monitor in a WhatsApp exchange in the early morning hours of May 3 that the previous days attack had been a reaction by IS after an airstrike a week ago hit 15 IS [fighters] and two IS leaders were arrested  one a Turkish national and the other from Mosul, adding that the area had always been a target for terrorism due to its geographical position linking the eastern and western parts of the country.

Krayem added, There have been problems between the Albu Issa tribe and IS [i.e., its predecessors] since 2007, when the tribe attacked al-Qaeda and killed some [of them].

He claimed these attacks had simply strengthened the resolve of Albu Issa to fight IS.

The view that the uptick in attacks is a reaction to stronger action against IS hideouts and remnants would seem to coincide with that espoused by Caggins, who had told Al-Monitor on April 26 that greater activity by IS was partially due to the Iraqi security forces direct action against Daesh [IS] hideouts in the mountainous regions and rural areas in north central Iraq.

However, the extent and apparently coordinated nature of the attacks may point to an attempt at resurgence amid a continuing governmental void and lingering issues between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central government in Baghdad.
EDWARDSVILLE  Former Edwardsville Mayor Gary Niebur passed away Saturday. A lifelong resident of Edwardsville, he was 64 years old.

Edwardsville Mayor Hal Patton confirmed Nieburs death on Sunday, and the Edwardsville YMCA announced the passing of Niebur on its Facebook page Sunday morning. Niebur retired in February 2018 from his position as Chief Executive Officer at the Edwardsville YMCA, where he was in charge for 35 years.

Niebur served as mayor for five terms from 1993-2013 before announcing he wouldnt seek a sixth term in office. He is the longest-serving mayor in the citys history. Niebur was elected into office following an uncontested race in 1993 after Dennis DeToyes decision not to run for re-election.

Prior to his time as mayor, Niebur was on the city council from 1985-1993 as an alderman and was the citys Parks and Recreation Department Director.

Niebur recently won Democratic primary for the Madison County Board District 17 seat. He defeated Victor Valentine Jr. in the March vote.

During Nieburs time at the YMCA, he raised $10 million in private donations, which allowed the expansion into the three facilities today. By his retirement, YMCA memberships grew from less than 1,000 when he started to nearly 19,200.

Niebur has been the recipient of numerous community service awards, including the Jaycees Ten Outstanding Young Persons in the State of Illinois; Rotary Club International Paul Harris Fellowship Award; the Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen Award; SIUE Religious Center Interfaith Award, and the Edwardsville Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award.

Niebur served as a charter board member of the Greater Edwardsville Area Foundation, president of the Illinois Municipal League in 2002, vice-president of the Metro East Park and Recreation District since 2017, and has been a member of the Edwardsville Rotary Club since 1983. He was added to the Anderson Hospital Foundation Board of Directors in March 2019.

Niebur is survived by his wife, Debby, and their four children. On Sunday afternoon, the family issued a statement acknowledging his death.

Gary was admired by his wife, son, daughters and Papa to his grandchildren, who will miss him terribly, the statement read. We thank the community, which he loved so dearly, for your kindness and support at this time.
 Flash

U.S. governors, facing persistent if not escalating protests in their respective states against coronavirus-related lockdown measures, have become increasingly frustrated, with a top White House official tasked with tackling the pandemic calling the demonstrators' behaviors "devastatingly worrisome."



White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Deborah Birx said Sunday that it was "devastatingly worrisome" that those who protested at state Capitols demanding resumption of normal life didn't wear masks or keep social distance, as they should have been doing according to the White House's guidelines aimed at containing the spread of the virus.

Speaking during Fox News's "Fox News Sunday," Birx warned that in doing so the protesters risked transmitting the contagion to their relatives who are vulnerable to the disease.

"It's devastatingly worrisome to me personally because if they go home and they infect their grandmother or grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or very unfortunate outcome they will feel guilty for the rest of their lives," she said. "So we need to protect each other at the same time as we're voicing our discontent."

Birx's remarks came as protests against stay-at-home orders were taking place in several states, demanding the reopening of the economy, a process a number of states have already started but is still at the initial phase.

Asked whether it was safe for businesses such as hair salons to reopen for the time being, Birx said it was "safer" if the barber and customer both wore masks. She added, however, that it was "clear that that's not a good phase one activity," referring to the four-phase gradual reopening that the White House previously unveiled.

One of the most controversial protests erupted Thursday in Michigan, where hundreds of angry demonstrators, some even armed with assault weapons, gathered at the Michigan State Capitol in the city of Lansing to protest the statewide stay-at-home order.

On-the-scene photos showed that the crowd stormed into the legislative building, attempting to get onto the House floor as state police and House sergeants blocked them from stepping further.

The Republican-controlled legislature voted later in the day not to extend the state's state of emergency declaration before it expired at midnight, prompting Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer to immediately issue an order declaring new 28-day states of emergency and disaster.

Whitmer told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday what the protesters did depicted some of the "worst racism and awful parts" of the nation's history.

"Some of the outrageousness of what happened at our capitol depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country," she said. "The behavior you've seen in all of the clips is not representative of who we are in Michigan."

In addition to Michigan, other states have also seen escalating tensions between government officials and the general public as similar anti-lockdown protests are ongoing.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said a now-reversed face mask mandate was "a bridge too far." Noting that people in his state "were not going to accept the government telling them what to do," the governor said his ability to communicate with Ohioans "was going to be really impeded."

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said "it's too early to tell" if his state will reopen by Memorial Day on May 25. With respect to demonstrations, Murphy said, "I don't begrudge their right to protest," adding that the "biggest issue is they were congregating without face masks."

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves defended steps taken by his state to reopen the economy without meeting the White House's guidelines of two-week decline in cases, saying that situations vary by state.

"You have to understand that Mississippi is different than New York and New Jersey," Reeves said on "Fox News Sunday." "What we have seen is for the last 35-40 days, we've been between 200 and 300 cases without a spike. Our hospital system is not stressed, we have less than 100 people in our state on ventilators."

In terms of the White House guidelines, Reeves said "sometimes the models are just different for different stats ... we believe that particular gating criteria just doesn't work in states like ours."
Investors in WESCO International, Inc. (NYSE:WCC) had a good week, as its shares rose 7.9% to close at US$26.95 following the release of its quarterly results. Revenues were in line with forecasts, at US$2.0b, although statutory earnings per share came in 13% below what the analysts expected, at US$0.82 per share. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on WESCO International after the latest results.

See our latest analysis for WESCO International

NYSE:WCC Past and Future Earnings May 4th 2020

Taking into account the latest results, the eleven analysts covering WESCO International provided consensus estimates of US$7.65b revenue in 2020, which would reflect a not inconsiderable 8.6% decline on its sales over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are forecast to nosedive 31% to US$3.50 in the same period. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of US$7.59b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.72 in 2020. So it looks like there's been a small decline in overall sentiment after the recent results - there's been no major change to revenue estimates, but the analysts did make a minor downgrade to their earnings per share forecasts.

The average price target fell 6.8% to US$43.64, with reduced earnings forecasts clearly tied to a lower valuation estimate. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. Currently, the most bullish analyst values WESCO International at US$87.00 per share, while the most bearish prices it at US$27.00. As you can see the range of estimates is wide, with the lowest valuation coming in at less than half the most bullish estimate, suggesting there are some strongly diverging views on how analysts think this business will perform. With this in mind, we wouldn't rely too heavily the consensus price target, as it is just an average and analysts clearly have some deeply divergent views on the business.

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 WESCO International's past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would highlight that sales are expected to reverse, with the forecast 8.6% revenue decline a notable change from historical growth of 2.2% 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 4.8% next year. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - WESCO International is expected to lag the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The biggest concern is that the analysts reduced their earnings per share estimates, suggesting business headwinds could lay ahead for WESCO International. Fortunately, the analysts also reconfirmed their revenue estimates, suggesting sales are tracking in line with expectations - although our data does suggest that WESCO International's revenues are expected to perform worse than the wider industry. Furthermore, the analysts also cut their price targets, suggesting that the latest news has led to greater pessimism about the intrinsic value of the business.

Keeping that in mind, we still think that the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for investors to consider. We have forecasts for WESCO International going out to 2024, and you can see them free on our platform here.

You still need to take note of risks, for example - WESCO International has 2 warning signs (and 1 which is a bit concerning) we think you should know about.

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 CIOs are brought deeper into the executive fold, theyre increasingly being called upon to think about something not traditionally in their wheel-house: culture.

Greater investment in and reliance on technology in business means its more important than ever that staff play their role in realising its full potential.

According to Gartner research VP Elise Olding, theres a long history of IT deployments that have either failed or not gone as well as they might of because not enough was done to affect the subtle cultural and behavioural shifts in adapting to new systems and processes.

Co-author of a recent report on CIOs and workplace culture, she calls for a rethink of how the IT and HR departments should be working together to shape and maintain corporate culture for the good of the firm and makes the bold prediction that by 2021, CIOs will be as responsible for leading workplace culture as their peers in HR.

Olding notes as workers are given newer technologies designed to empower them, expectations  and perceptions  can change, officially or otherwise. Yet rarely are job descriptions or key performance indicators (KPIs) updated, meaning staff dont actually think or act any differently.

A new sales system might be implemented with the goal of enabling broader market reach and/or deeper audience engagement, but if that workers KPIs dont change, theyll just keep doing what theyre doing. This can throw efforts to measure results of IT deployments into disarray.

Theres a cognitive dissonance between what the CEO is saying and how performance is measured, Olding says, adding a closer relationship between IT and HR would go a long way to solving the problem.

Rohan Penman, CIO with bespoke hot beverages company T2 Tea has experienced this first hand.

When we have extended functionality, sometimes it takes time take into account how those KPIs are rejigged, he tells CIO Australia. Often product owners want to report in old fashioned ways even its not applicable: Its a funny juggling act.

T2 Rohan Penman

One of the biggest changes to T2 Teas operations amid COVID-19 is an exponential ramping up of its so-called click-and-collect sales model, whereby customers shop and pay online, but pop into the store to collect their order.

This requires changes in shop layout as well as inventory and storage. It also requires that staff work and think differently.

How does that impact physical store layout, storage of items and even how a person then goes about their to-do-list in a given day?, Penman asks. There might be set times when they need to jump to click and collect. Do they ignore phone calls? Or people in the store?

He explains that while T2 has a click and collect window of around 3 hours, other retailers have turn-around windows as short as 30 minutes, demanding even sharper shifts from existing processes and work culture.

Olding reckons 80 per cent of all change that occurs within organisations has its genesis in technology.

If you have a CEO who says we need to be more customer-centric, the CIO has a big role to play in achieving this.

By extension, CIOs need to bring HR into their decision processes more. Often they get brought in at the end but they need to be in on the front line.

For example, CIOs will instinctively allocate system access and privileges according to the job description/role as provided by HR. Its easy to say you have this job so you see this part of the data, Olding explains.

However, CEOs are increasingly being urged to help break down silos and encourage broader collaboration. Workers, faced with this dilemma will usually find ways to access and share information beyond the firewall and company security policies, potentially creating major security problems.

If theyre not given access to broader data sets they need .. theyre going to find ways to share it that might go against security policies, she notes.

According to Kevin Russo, lead partner, tech strategy and transformation with Deloitte Australia, CIOs have been undergoing a major cultural transition over the past several years in parallel with their ascendancy to the enterprise c-suite.

He notes while CIOs performed  or were seen to perform  the role of trusted operators, they are increasingly required to function as business cocreators and change instigators as technology plays a more central role in driving business success.

As COVID-19 has forced many CIOs to take immediate responsibility for everything from enabling remote working, to reengineering supply chains and other core functions, this transition may be accelerated, especially for organisations with more advanced digital strategies already in place.

The CIOs that have embarked on tech/digital transformation pre-COVID, will have the role of business co-creator and change instigator accelerated, while the companies that have yet to modernise or transform, will be stuck in execution and delivery mode to try and catch-up, Russo said.

Whether this results in a closer relationship between IT and HR remains to be seen.

Claudine Ogilvie, former CIO with Jetstar tells CIO Australia: Culture is such an integral part of the business these days and if its not, it should be. I cant think of a business that isnt driven in some way by technology and whose strategy and customers isnt impacted in some way by technology.

Culture is top-down, the board, the CIO and the executive should be across the culture, driving the culture, Its the role of every executive to drive culture alongside the CIO and the board. And its never been more important for CIOs to drive culture because technology has become more important than ever.

Emotional intelligence

Organisations need to examine more closely how they are using technology and helping people to change behaviour, which requires a collaboration between the CEO, CIO and HR, Olding believes.

But you have the CEO saying they want people collaborating and working on problems. This is where IT comes in.

Organisations that want to affect real change need to first take stock of their corporate values and culture, and how are they reflected in their existing technology footprint. And it needs to occur on a truly personal level.

Unlike HR professionals, CIOs tend not to be as focussed on so-called soft skills. But Olding sees encouraging signs of change.

I see a lot more savvy CIOs who have that human side; theyve got higher emotional intelligence.

Brett Cowan, executive director with Brisbane-based consultancy AgileXperts asks: Have CIOs ever not been as responsible for culture as HR?

An experienced systems engineer working across industries including healthcare and manufacturing, he says companeis that fail to bring people along on the journey when implementing major new systems do so at their peril.

Even if you have best ideas in the world, if you dont bring those people along with you, youre guaranteed its going to fail.

He notes that the manufacturing sector appears to have developed the right philosophy where this is concerned, because theres such an obvious and immediate correlation between people being able operate new technologies and ROI.

If we want to improve a system process you ask the people who use it each and every day.

Post-COVID, Olding predicts that employee engagement levels will fall by 10 per cent.

Initially there will be euphoria as everyone gets back to work.

But then theres going to be a lot of discontent after the glow wears off, she says.

With everyone working from home, cultural patterns and attitudes are being shaped that will be hard to undo.

Its not just staff working from home per se: people are working more independently with less direct management. At the same time, they have been made to feel more needed and important because of the way in which management feels compelled to regularly check-in and make itself more available, T2 Teas Penman explains.

On the other hand, he says: Many people at T2 have been higher maintenance because theres no back and forth or general banter and quick conversations that can be had during normal times.

Ultimately the new normal is going to look and feel quite different when it comes to office and workplace culture post COVID-19.

I think micro managers are doomed, Penman predicts.
CHICAGO, May 4 (Reuters) - Smithfield Foods Inc, the world's biggest pork processor, resumed limited operations on Monday at a massive South Dakota slaughterhouse it closed last month because of the coronavirus pandemic, the union representing plant employees said.

The closure of the plant and other slaughterhouses due to coronavirus cases among employees has led to temporary shortages of U.S. meat products and left farmers without markets for their hogs, forcing some to euthanize livestock.

Smithfield, owned by China's WH Group Ltd, reopened the ground seasoned pork and night cleanup departments at the plant in Sioux Falls, about three weeks after saying the facility would shut indefinitely, a spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers said.

About 250 of the plant's 3,700 workers went back to work, she said. The company plans to gradually restart more operations and has not resumed slaughtering hogs, according to the union.

The company said in an emailed statement it had not resumed operations at the facility, which accounted for about 5% of U.S. pork production.

Smithfield made coronavirus testing optional for employees to go back to work, South Dakota Health Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdony said on the webcast of a news conference. State and union officials are urging employees to be tested.

South Dakota will hold a mass testing event for Smithfield employees and their dependents, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said on the webcast.

"One of the most effective things that we can do is test Smithfield employees to make sure they are COVID negative before they're going back into work," Noem said. "We do encourage every single one of them to participate."

The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a walk-through of the plant on Monday morning, Noem said.

The CDC has said 19 states reported COVID-19 cases in 115 meat and poultry processing facilities. Among about 130,000 workers at the facilities, about 5,000 cases and 20 deaths occurred. COVID-19 is the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

"As testing becomes more widely available, consideration should be given to its role in rapidly identifying and addressing COVID-19 in this occupational setting," the CDC said. (Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan talks to reporters during a news briefing about the COVID-19 pandemic in Annapolis, Md., on April 17, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Maryland Lawmakers File Lawsuit Against Governor After Reported Threat of Arrest

A group including Maryland lawmakers, pastors, and military members filed a lawsuit against Gov. Larry Hogan after he reportedly threatened to arrest a delegate who planned to speak at a protest on May 2.

Delegate Dan Cox, a Republican in the Maryland House of Delegates, was going to address the crowd at the event, where people were gathered to protest Hogans stay-at-home order.

The order, implemented in March to try to slow the spread of the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, forced the closure of so-called nonessential businesses and largely restricted people to staying at home.

Cox said he was warned by a senior law enforcement official that Hogan has his sights on you and that if Cox attended the protest he might be arrested, according to the lawsuit (pdf). Cox received confirmation that he might be arrested from Hogans senior adviser Andrew Cassilly and chief counsel Mike Pedone.

Hogans office and the Maryland State Police didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

Soldiers with the Maryland Army National Guard distribute food to those in need in Windsor Mill, Md., during the COVID-19 pandemic, on May 2, 2020. (Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images)

The officials referred to Hogans order and said Cox could receive up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

Cox with the suit is requesting immediate relief permitting him to leave his home, speak and attend a political rally in Maryland in his political district and throughout Maryland.

Other parties to the suit are also requesting relief from the lockdown, including a campground, an amusement park, and a military member.

On behalf of thousands of Marylanders represented by 18 brave plaintiffs I regrettably had to file suit to seek to rein in the overreaching of the governors orders, Cox said in a statement.

Delegate Neil Parrott, who joined the suit, said in a video statement that the executive branch is violating the Maryland Constitution. Hogans order requiring that masks be worn in public is an example, he said.

An empty parking lot and beach in Ocean City, Maryland, on April 27, 2020. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Hogan responded to the suit on CNNs State of the Union on May 3, saying he was more alarmed with large crowds in the District of Columbia than those that gathered in Salisbury and Frederick.

Sadly, we had far more people die yesterday in Maryland than we had protesters, he said.

Twenty-six patients were confirmed to have died overnight from COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus, the state Department of Health stated on May 3. Four others were described as probable COVID-19 deaths.

Pictures and video footage from the protests showed dozens of people rallying.

Look, were very anxious to get our state reopened in a safe way as soon as we possibly can, because people are getting frustrated, and theyve been inside their homes, Hogan said.

Unfortunately, the pressure is to do it in a not safe way, and thats something were very concerned about.

A biohazard sign on the body of a COVID-19 victim in a casket at the Stauffer Funeral Homes in Frederick, Maryland, on May 1, 2020. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Hogan, a Republican, is one of a dwindling number of governors who have not set a date that they will or hope to allow reopening to start. Dozens of governors across the country have loosened harsh restrictions to let some businesses restart.

The state has seen about 1,000 new confirmed CCP virus cases each day, according to state officials. As of May 4, 1,649 people were hospitalized with the illness, including 563 in intensive care.

Nearly 1,700 patients have been released from isolation in the state, which has 26,408 confirmed cases.

The protests were led by a group called Reopen Maryland. Protesters told WMDT they believe all businesses are essential and asked for more transparency around the harsh orders.

Were asking for transparency in the models that he uses; we want to know the data and the decisions that hes using and other things that he didnt consider, said Tim Walters, co-founder of the group.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's tally of the coronavirus cases crossed the 20,000-mark on Monday after 1,083 new infections were diagnosed, the health ministry said.

In the last 24 hours, 1,083 new cases were reported, taking the total to 20,186 patients.

There were 22 deaths during this period, upping the fatalities to 462.

A total of 5,590 patients have recovered in the country, the ministry said.

The authorities have so far conducted 212,511 tests, including 9,522 during the period.

The Ministry of National Health Services said that out of the total number of patients, Punjab province reported 7,524 cases, Sindh 7,465, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 3,129, Balochistan 1,218, Islamabad 415, Gilgit-Baltistan 364 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 71 cases.

ALSO READ | India tried to persuade Pakistan through back channel to release Kulbhushan Jadhav: Harish Salve

Pakistan's total COVID-19 tally so far stood at 20,186.

According to a report in the Dawn newspaper, a critical coronavirus patient in the Hyderabad city of Sindh, as an experimental therapy, was injected with convalescent plasma of a recovered person to treat the disease.

The development was confirmed by the Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) isolation ward's focal person Aftab Hussain Phull.

The plasma was donated by a recovered coronavirus patient to the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory at the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences.

"He was given the plasma after managing his condition as best as possible under the given circumstances," Phull said.

On April 30, the Sindh government allowed three hospitals in the province to carry out clinical trials for the "experimental use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma for passive immunisation."

The hospitals included Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital in Karachi, the National Institute of Blood Diseases (NIBD) in Karachi and LUH, a government facility in Hyderabad.

Prior to this, the government had approved clinical trials for plasma therapy in addition to approving locally made ventilators for treating critically ill patients and granting permission for manufacturing sanitisers and chloroquine, the report said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the nation was coming out of the fear of the pandemic due to a well-devised strategy adopted by the government to cope with the health crisis.

The prime minister made the remarks during a meeting with his Adviser on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan at his Banigala residence on Sunday to discuss the COVID-19 crisis, the relief package for the poor and sessions of the parliament requisitioned by the opposition for May 6.
Michelle Obama opens up about her working-class upbringing on the South Side of Chicago and her struggles as a black woman in the new trailer for the upcoming Netflix documentary 'Becoming.'

Taking place roughly two years after she and her family left the White House, the film chronicles the former first lady's 34-city tour for her best-selling memoir of the same name as she reflects on her past and how it shaped her.

'I am from the South Side of Chicago. That tells you as much about me as you need to know,' Obama, 56, says at the start of the trailer for the documentary, which drops on May 6.

Candid: Michelle Obama opens up about her working-class upbringing in the South Side of Chicago in the new trailer for her upcoming Netflix documentary 'Becoming'

Set to Alicia Keys' 'Girl on Fire,' the video features old photos of Obama as a child in the neighborhood, including pictures of her with her parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson.

'It was a typical working-class community: some good music, some good barbecue, some good times,' she recalls of her formative years.

The trailer cuts to Michelle looking back on her time as first lady while speaking at a community engagement.

'So little of who I am happened in those eight years. So much more of who I was happened before,' she explains.

Director Nadia Hallgren weaved together Obama's commentary on her life with behind-the-scenes footage of her tour and her on-stage interviews.

Looking back: Set to Alicia Keys' 'Girl on Fire,' the trailer features old photos of Obama as a child in her neighborhood, including pictures of her with her parents

Memories: The former first lady recalls her community having 'some good music, some good barbecue, [and] some good times'

The promotional tour, managed by the concert promoter Live Nation, had the scale of a rock tour, with a string of dates at sold-out arenas.

Many of the moderators were A-list celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Stephen Colbert.

The trailer highlights the struggles Obama has faced as a black woman. During one interview with journalist Michelle Norris, she recalls how her high school guidance counselor thought she was 'reaching too high.'

'We can't afford to wait for the world to be equal to start feeling seen,' she says after being asked how she persevered as a black woman. 'I feel like I got to share with you all that the energy that's out there is much better than what we see.'

Obama also opens up about becoming a media target when she was candid and vulnerable on the campaign trail.

Focus: The documentary takes place roughly two years after the former first lady and her family left the White House and chronicles her 34-city tour for her best-selling memoir

Real: The trailer highlights the struggles she has faced as a black woman. During one interview, she recalls how her high school guidance counselor thought she was 'reaching too high'

'The only thing I can share is that it hurts. That changes the shape of a person's soul,' she says in the documentary, according to the Associated Press.

In the trailer, she quotes her mother as she claims that she and her husband, former President Barack Obama, are not extraordinary people.

'As my mother would say, Michelle and Barack Obama aren't special. There are millions of Michelle and Barack Obamas all over the world,' she says as footage shows her husband giving her a sweet kiss on the cheek.

'If we can open up a little bit more to each other and share our stories, that's what breaks down barriers,' she adds.

The trailer ends with a crowd cheering for Obama at one of her sell-out book tour events.

Honest: The former first lady hares that her mother, Marian Shields Robinson (pictured), always says 'Michelle and Barack Obama aren't special'

Message: 'There are millions of Michelle and Barack Obamas all over the world,' she says as footage shows her husband giving her a sweet kiss on the cheek

'This is totally me, unplugged for the first time,' she says.

Netflix made the surprise announcement about the release of the documentary last Monday, describing the film as 'an intimate look into the life' of the former first lady.

In a statement, Obama said the experience of the tour 'drove home the idea that what we share in common is deep and real and can't be messed with.'

Hit: Obama's memoir, 'Becoming,' has sold more than 11 million copies and been translated into more than 20 languages

'We processed the past and imagined a better future. In talking about the idea of "becoming," many of us dared to say our hopes out loud,' she explained.

'I treasure the memories and that sense of connection now more than ever, as we struggle together to weather this pandemic, as we care for our loved ones, tend to our communities, and try to keep up with work and school while coping with huge amounts of loss, confusion, and uncertainty.'

The documentary is the latest release from Higher Ground Productions, the production company created by Obamas. Their exclusive multi-film deal with Netflix has already proven fruitful.

Their first film, 'American Factory,' by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, won the Academy Award for best documentary earlier this year. The Obamas did not attend the Oscars, nor received a statuette.

Higher Ground was also behind the acclaimed recently released documentary 'Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution,' by James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham.

Obama's memoir, 'Becoming,' has sold more than 11 million copies and been translated into more than 20 languages. The former first lady's popularity has made her a potentially pivotal figure in the 2020 presidential campaign.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, recently said that he'd pick her as a running mate 'in a heartbeat,' before adding that he didn't think she 'has any desire to live in the White House again.'
South African Travelers Happy to Be Heading Home Trip Concierge went above and beyond in every aspect. Thank you for all the hard work and the time you have taken to make this trip less stressful.

Trip Concierge Inc. announced today that it was able to successfully and safely repatriate three dozen South Africans, ranging in age from mid-20s to early 30s, after all commercial flights to South Africa ceased due to a government imposed lock down.

It was far from the smooth conclusion to their U.S. experience they had envisioned when they arrived here in early January. Part of Staffing Accountants (SAPRO), they had each flown across the Atlantic full of optimism about a terrific opportunity: to fulfill a short-term work commitment with a respected U.S. accounting firm, thus enhancing their work credentials while enjoying the cultural experience of living in an exciting foreign city.

But when the coronavirus began slamming into communities across the United States back in mid-March, members of the group found themselves suddenly let go, as the companies they were working with abruptly cut back on expenses in the face of the looming economic crisis. Subsequently, the South African Government announced that, as of March 26, it was closing its borders to anyone trying to enter the country. And in a swift third blow, every commercial flight into South Africa was cancelled through June.

We were checking in with each of our consultants daily, says SAPRO co-founder and co-CEO Dario Grassini. We wanted to make sure they were safe; physically, mentally, and emotionally. And at the same time we were calling on one of our secret weapons, Trip Concierge, whose CEO Thomas Schneider coordinated transporting all our people from across the country and housing them in various Marriott Hotels, while we worked tirelessly to find them a way home to South Africa.

Eventually, through the combined efforts of Trip Concierge, SAPRO and Workaway, a large employer of young South Africans to work in the hospitality industry in Florida, a private charter flight was arranged with Ethiopian Airlines and permits received from the South African government. After a health screening at Miami International Airport, all passengers embarked on their return flight on Thursday, arriving safely in Johannesburg last Friday.

ABOUT TRIP CONCIERGE

Based in Las Vegas, Nevada Trip Concierge is an award-winning business travel agency committed to reducing stress and anxiety for the business traveler, while offering the worlds best travel experience. The Company is an independent affiliate of Nexion, a subsidiary of Travel Leaders, the largest network of professional travel agents in North America. The co-founders of Trip Concierge are successful entrepreneurs who previously IPOed their last company on the Toronto Venture Exchange and are joined by a development team that hail from global Fortune 500 companies like Facebook, Procter & Gamble and SAP.

ABOUT SAPRO STAFFING ACCOUNTANTS

SAPRO Staffing Accountants, based in New York City with offices in Johannesburg and Brisbane, is a global talent mobility and training company. Its core focus is supporting public accounting firms with experienced contingent audit, accounting, advisory, and tax resources, while providing its consultants with ongoing professional development and enriching cultural experiences.
Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 04.05.2020:

 The number of COVID-19 cases has reached 2,507 in Armenia.

And 1,071 COVID-19 patients have recovered thus far, whereas 39 others have died in Armenia from the disease, as the death toll has risen by four in the past day.

As health ministry noted, the patients were 71, 83, 66, and 79 years old. They had concomitant chronic illnesses.

The countrys health minister Arsen Torosyan noted that by the end of May, Armenia may have 10,000 COVID-19 cases.

In the meantime, most restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have been lifted in Armenia as of Monday. For example, there is no need for a document to authorize the free movement of people, and the activities of many sectors have been allowed again.

 The health minister also noted on Monday that the production of a large number of three-layer medical masks has launched in Armenia.

According to him, Armenia plans to begin production of even N95 masks.

Another manufacturer has begun production of protective clothing for health workers for preliminary about 100,000 sets, the minister noted.

 Armenian FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on Monday spoke about the Armenian humanitarian mission in Syria, Karabakh conflict settlement, and issues with Russia.

The humanitarian mission of Armenia in Syria operates in a natural rhythm, said Armenian FM on Monday at the parliament. The FM noted he is in constant contact with the defense minister in this regard.

Touching upon the issue of the unilateral concessions on Karabakh, the FM added that Armenia has always said that the solution to the problem is based on the principle of mutual concessions.

The FM noted that Armenia does not refuse to participate in Artsakh talks. He highlighted the importance of humanitarian programs and creating an atmosphere of trust.

It is impossible to reach a settlement if you hold talks on the one hand and shoot on the other, the FM added.

Touching upon the gas prices issue, Mnatsakanyan noted that the price of Russian natural gas is of extremely great importance for Armenia, and the government will continue to discuss the matter with Russia.

 The Yerevan court of general jurisdiction ruled to arrest the son of the State Revenue Committee ex-head, co-founder of the Galaxy group of Companies, chair of Ucom board of directors Gurgen Khachatryan.

Earlier, Gurgen Khachatryan announced that senior officials in the country had demanded to sell Ucomwhich is also part of Galaxy, but he added that they will not give in to these pressures, and Ucom will not be sold. This statement was followed by a large-scale investigation by law enforcement agencies, which conducted searches at the residences and business offices of the Khachatryan family.

In addition, a new charge was brought against Gurgen Khachatryan.

 The oldest resident of Armenia lives in the Gladzor community, the latter's community administration wrote on its Facebook congratulating the woman on her birthday.

The woman turned 115 on Sunday.
Punjab Transport Minister Razi Sultana on Monday trashed a Maharashtra Congress leader's reported statement that the state bus drivers who brought Sikh pilgrims from the Nanded may have infected them with coronavirus.

Maharashtra PWD Minister and a senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan had reportedly made the remarks after a large number of pilgrims were found to be infected with the infection after returning to the state.

So far, 609 of the around 4,000 stranded pilgrims who returned to Punjab from the Nanded's Sikh shrine have tested positive for coronavirus, taking the state's infection tally to over 1,000.

According to a government statement, Sultana described Chavan's statement as misleading and bereft of facts.

She said a person holding a constitutional post must not act irresponsibly and give any statement without verifying facts.

Sultana said the first batch of 31 vehicles which brought 860 pilgrims to the state had Maharashtra crew.

She said the first three groups of pilgrims came in private buses arranged in Nanded Sahib.

The first batch of seven buses sent by the Takht Sri Hazur Sahib Trust started its journey for Punjab on the night of April 23.

Sultana said the second batch of 11 tempo travellers started the journey on April 24 late night and reached the state on April 26.

Similarly, the third batch of 13 buses started their journey from the Sikh shrine on April 25 and 26 and reached Punjab on April 27 and 28.

The transport minister said the Punjab government buses left for Nanded Sahib on April 25 and reached there April 27 morning.

These buses started their return journey on the night of April 27 and reached Bathinda on April 29 afternoon and April 30 early morning, she said.

It is a matter of fact that a few private vehicles had left Nanded Sahib even before the Punjab buses started bringing the pilgrims, Sultana said.

The passengers who travelled in these private vehicles tested positive, including one of the drivers belonging to Nanded, she said.

On Sunday, a war of words had erupted between Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu and Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia over the repatriation of Sikh pilgrims from Nanded in Maharashtra.

While Majithia had accused the state government of "mismanaging" the return of the pilgrims and sought the minister's sacking, Sidhu hit back at the Akali leadership, accusing them of misleading propaganda.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan has become the first Libertarian member of Congress. The move comes just days after the Republican-turned-independent announced his intention to run for president. Libertarians will select a nominee at the party's convention, which begins May 22.

To focus on his presidential bid, Amash also announced last week that he would not stand for reelection to his current seat. This may have reflected a political reality - his prospects for winning a 6th term had grown dimmer. In addition, Michigan law precludes someone from running simultaneously for both offices.

U.S. House

With the move by Amash, the U.S. House now has 232 Democrats, 196 Republicans and one Libertarian. There are six vacancies. One of these, in Maryland's 7th district, will be filled by Democrat Kweisi Mfume, who won a special election there last week. Special elections to fill two other seats are upcoming next Tuesday, May 12. These are in California's 25th district and Wisconsin's 7th district.
As the world reels under the new novel coronavirus crisis, countries in Africa are already importing a 'cure.'

The countries of Tanzania, Congo-Brazzaville, and Guinea-Bissau in Africa are importing a herbal tonic from Madagascar which is being dubbed as the cure to coronavirus, even though the World Health Organization has remained firm on its stand that there are no proof of any definite cure yet.

The tonic is produced from the artemisia plant, which is one of the sources of an ingredient used in a malaria treatment, reports the BBC.

The drink which has been launched as Covid-Organics was being marketed after being tested on fewer than 20 people over a period of three weeks, the Tanzanian president's chief of staff Lova Hasinirina Ranoromaro told the BBC.

Artemisia is cultivated in Cameroon, Kenya,Ethiopia, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia  all in high-altitude regions and regions with a pronounced cool period.

The Covid-Organics will be distributed free of charge to our most vulnerable compatriots and sold at very low prices to others. All profits will be donated to IMRA to finance scientific research, the president of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, wrote on Twitter.

Lenvoye special du President de la Guinee equatoriale, le Vice-ministre de la sante @MitohaOndo est arrive sur le sol Malagasy pour recuperer le Tambavy CovidOrganics / preventif et curatif . #Madagascar est la pour venir en aide a tous les pays amis contre le #COVID19.   pic.twitter.com/VzaQ8DqcEF Andry Rajoelina (@SE_Rajoelina) April 30, 2020

The US based National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health has also warned against 'remedies' for coronavirus, including herbal therapies and teas, maintaning that the best way to avoid the virus was to avoid exposure.
President Zelensky voiced his desire to create a state-owned airline company, which would be no worse than Turkish or Singapore Airlines

illustrative material Open source

Recently, President Zelensky voiced his desire to create a state-owned airline company, which would be no worse than Turkish or Singapore Airlines. Moreover, according to the presidents plan, it would use domestic aircraft.

Some would say this is just a guarantors dream, but it turned out that the plan is quite precise. Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy said that the purchase of aircraft has already been agreed with Antonov state enterprise.

Will the state be able to make money on the presidents dream, or are we dealing with a new version of the long-suffering hyperloop?

Why Ukraine needs a national carrier

The idea of having a high-quality state-owned airline, which would promote the image of Ukraine abroad, is extremely attractive.

In the context of the global pandemic, it became clear: if one of the Ukrainian companies did not evacuate our citizens, the state would be completely isolated and our people would remain in China, Serhiy Kyrylenko, an expert in the infrastructural issues, said.

In addition, Ukraine definitely has to save its aircraft industry. Our country is one of the ten countries in the world that own the full cycle of creating aviation equipment. Nevertheless, for a long time, the state-owned enterprise Antonov has not been engaged in serial production. The last An-158 aircraft was released five years ago. Only the small aircraft industry is flourishing due to the ultra-light aircraft of domestic private designers.

But it is strange enough that a new state company is created during total privatization under the slogan of the inefficiency of the state as an owner. Ex-First Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Volodymyr Shulmeister believes that Zelenskys new dream also has political implications.

UIA really suffered greatly from quarantine restrictions and the closure of flights. Its leadership has already requested a stabilization loan from the government in the amount of $ 50 million at 5-6%. However, experts doubt that financial assistance will save it from further bankruptcy. For example, Virgin Airlines and South African Airways, which did not receive government support, have already filed for bankruptcy.

Theoretically, one could not create a new airline, but nationalize one of the existing ones. But Infrastructure Minister Krykliy emphasized that this is not the case. And Zelensky, hinting at UIA, said: "they will not get this benefit." However, Oleksiy Kushch, financial analyst and expert at the Growford Institute, believes that UIA management can still benefit from the creation of a new low-cost airline.

Airplanes first

There might be some problems with the resumption of the production of Antonov State Enterprise. In 2017, it was estimated that $ 770 million was needed for this purpose. Such money was never found. In addition, the company lacks human resources. Most of the production facilities were closed or mothballed, and employees left the country and work in Russia, the USA, and Europe.

Even if we assume that the country has found money to modernize production, and also returned professional staff, it needs to prepare decent money for the aircraft itself.

The cost of building one AN-148 and AN-158 aircraft at the Antonov price list is $ 30 million. The company might sell the aircraft to the state for approximately $ 25 million. Thus, the country will need hundreds of millions. It is not surprising that in 2006-2009 the government did not find money in the state budget to buy even two An-148s for transporting the first persons of the state. Interestingly, UIA claimed that the cost of the aircraft was overestimated.

Of course, there is an option not to purchase vehicles, but lease them, as most airlines do. Which is also not too cheap (about 4,000 USD per hour). But in this case, it will be necessary to amend the legislation and create a leasing company.

The leasing company would credit the purchase of aircraft with a national low-cost airline, which would give an impetus to Antonov to produce ten aircraft per year, Oleksiy Kushch assures. Such a number of aircraft, according to the expert, would be enough to gradually fill in domestic airlines, and in the future, regional medium-range ones. When the aircraft show efficiency, it will be possible to connect state-owned banks to lend to buyers of aircraft.

But the question of creating a leasing company is not easy. During Viktor Yushchenkos presidency, several An-140s were already leased to Aeromost-Kharkiv and Odesa Airlines, and without state support, this was more expensive than buying on credit. A leasing company such as Antonov-Finance, created under Yanukovych, needs at least 150 million USD per year.

Antonovs planes can take off from unprepared soil, but with long-term operation we would not get far. Ukraine needs airports, not all regions have them.

For example, in Kryvyi Rih, the native city of president Zelensky, about 19 million USD is needed for the reconstruction of the airport. Zelensky knows this because he himself asked the business to invest this money in modernization without reinforcing such a request, however, with no counter promises.

Zhytomyr airport is not working. And minister Krykliy received open letters asking him to allocate almost 15 million USD for repairs. Money for this is not pledged. And financing for the reconstruction of the airport in Izmail (Odesa region) was removed from plans for 2020 after the coronavirus outbreak.

Everything new is long forgotten old. In 2016, the idea had already been voiced to create a national airline on the basis of An aircraft, only for domestic flights though. It turned out that modernization would cost 38 million USD, and the idea was postponed. So the implementation of Zelenskys dream in life depends on large-scale financing.

Boing instead of An

You cant earn much on domestic transportation. The share of domestic traffic for Ukrainian airlines is only about 10%. The capacity of the local market is not enough to recoup the costs of the development and production of the aircraft.

For example, Turkish Airlines is primarily a holding company, created with the aim of capturing foreign markets. But would we be able to establish international transport? Economist Mykhailo Kukhar assures that we can get flights to other countries, following the open-gate "gate to gate" rule. The national operator automatically receives the same number of "flights" to world airports, as we give to Boryspil. However, not a single American or Asian company flies to us, and British Airways, Finnair, AirFrance, Alitalia close flights.

Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure is sure that international flights aircraft should belong to the foreign companies. Perhaps the reason is that Antonovs products are highly likely to be suitable only for domestic transportation.

If we talk about the procurement of foreign vehicles, we could buy Boing-767, but it would be many times more expensive than domestic aircraft. The average amount is 120-220 million USD. However, because of the crisis, many companies are abandoning aircraft, which will make it possible to get them from lessors at a discount.

Cost of the presidents dream

Establishing production and buying an airplane is only the half of the problem. We should not forget about the repair of the vehicles. Pilots and stewards, who must undergo mandatory certification, should receive about $ 15 million a year. Air navigation costs more than $ 1,000 per hour. There are also airport charges - from 6,000 to 25,000 USD per flight. Banks and agencies need to pay a commission for selling tickets. Fuel is another 11,000 USD per hour. It is not necessary to hope for a repetition of the situation with the negative cost of oil.

The company will also have to receive state preferences, which will artificially limit competition in the market. However, fully state-owned airlines do not bring money to their owners but exist through subsidies. 51% of Turkish Airlines company, recalled by president Zelensky, is owned by private owners (after a series of reorganizations).

Its very difficult to even calculate how much a new state airline might cost. According to experts, the idea of Zelensky might cost hundreds of millions of dollars. And the ex-Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan mentions the sum of 10 billion USD. This figure is commensurate with the 2020 budget deficit planned after its sequestration.

Zelenskys team understands this, so it talks about a mythical investor who to sponsor the idea of the Ukrainian president. The Minister of Infrastructure speaks of a partnership "with other large industrial companies that would like to focus on the Eastern European market."

Due to the ban on import of parts from the Russian Federation, Ukraine cannot fulfill its old obligations to Kazakhstan for the supply of An-74, despite an advance of $ 15 million. We do not refund the advance; we do not want to purchase components. If we use import substitution, on paper it will be a completely new plane, and then we will have to carry out expensive certification. This issue seems to be unresolvable.

Even if we manage to find an investor, the costs will be gigantic. Moreover, even now the project of cooperation between Ukrainian Railways and Deutsche Bahn has been paused since there is no 3 million USD in the budget for this.

Would new An-aircraft fly?

A few years ago, economist Oleksiy Kushch described the idea of resuscitation of the aviation industry by creating domestic low-cost carriers. He suggested: if production grows, it will be possible to saturate the market in five years. Even if we are working on launching the company now, it is unlikely that Zelensky will launch it until the end of his cadence.

Kusch does not believe in the implementation of the idea under the rule of the Ze-team.

Ukraine has already had its own airline company. "Ukraine Airlines" existed from 1992 to 2002. The state constantly allocated the most profitable types of its activities to individual enterprises, privatizing Airlines using schemes. Profitable directions were transferred to the UIA subsidiary in the countries of Western Europe, "Aerosvit" - all the most profitable destinations in the countries of the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, and the CIS, the "Ukraine" company took the best technology. Every year, Ukraine Airlines used fewer and fewer aircraft, and before the bankruptcy, it had only three Tu-134 planes and one Tu-154.

Dniproavia company also belonged to the state, most of its shares in 2009 were transferred to the private company Galtera, which is associated with oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.

A number of experts suggest that the president switch his attention from passenger to cargo transportation, and establish production of the An-70. If you look at how Antonovs planes are actively used today, then quarantine really is the delivery of humanitarian supplies. Five An-124 Ruslan and An-225 Mriya aircraft are chartered for a month by EU countries.

Transport and regional aviation have always been the hallmark of Ukraine, and one of the leaders of the American military-industrial corporation Lockheed Martin said that in the world only two companies can produce transporters. Resumption of production - a chance to return to its former glory. At least transport aircraft are needed by the country itself since all of our 55 copies are still Soviet-made.
College students and parents across Georgia are asking the University System of Georgia Board of Regents to allow them to opt in to a pass-fail grading system this spring semester.

But, in contrast with many U.S. colleges, the university system has refused, saying students should rise to the challenge after campuses were shut down because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The closures forced colleges to hastily devise a patchwork of distance learning methods that students say often dont measure up.

For many University of Georgia and other state college students, the spring semester has become a disaster of its own on top of the public health disaster, students said in a recent online town hall meeting organized by a state legislator.

University of Georgia students take part on a conference call in their front yard along Milledge Avenue where they're sheltering-in-place due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Athens, Ga. UGA has moved all classes online for the remainder of spring semester due to the pandemic.

Students raised many complaints: Those in rural areas struggle with poor or no internet access; some professors ask students scattered in many time zones to come to virtual classrooms at the same time; and some professors who might be great in a classroom just arent very good at distance lecturing.

Tuition refund?: Student sues New Jersey university for 'subpar' online classes

Over the past few weeks, more than 10,000 people have signed a petition calling for the regents to allow a pass-fail grading option. The student governments of the University of Georgia, Georgia State University and Georgia Tech have passed resolutions calling for the regents to allow opt-in.

We think its an important issue of ethics, not politics, said Briana Hayes, one of the student organizers of the campaign.

The Faculty Senate of the University of Georgia's College of Education will meet next week to decide whether to ask for the pass-fail option. Students could elect to continue with letter grades.

We are confident our students will rise to the challenge, according to a statement the university system released in March, promising students help for their situations. In times of adversity, we should reach higher, not lower.

Story continues

The university system last week reaffirmed that it would not allow pass-fail in a similar statement released after state Rep. David Wilkerson and several other legislators met virtually with students asking for the change, including leaders of both student Democratic and Republican party chapters at the University of Georgia.

The firm stance makes the Georgia system an outlier among public colleges, many of which have allowed students to choose pass or fail grades after a semester that has turned many students lives upside down.

The empty intersection of Sanford Drive and Baldwin Street on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga, on Thursday, April 2, 2020. During a class change the intersection is one of the busiest spots at UGA but all classes have been moved online for the remainder of spring and summer semesters as well as canceling spring commencement in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Speaking during the online town forum, University of Georgia student Candler Jones said students with disabilities have had it particularly tough this semester, with many of them having to work harder than other students even in normal times.

I feel discriminated against because I have a disability, she said, saying it took the University of Georgia two weeks to set up her accommodations after the campus shut down. When she first asked for help, she got a printout.

Coronavirus and colleges: Citing 'zero lethal threat' to students, Purdue works to reopen college for fall 2020

Things werent handled right," she added. "We dont have an equal playing field.

Ciera Thomas, another Georgia student, cited difficulties such as parents caring for children when day cares are closed, students who are immunocompromised or trapped in circumstances beyond their control.

This is not about our ability to reach higher or meet the challenge, Thomas said.

The student who started the pass-fail petition, Olivia Richardson, spoke of students who may be trapped in abusive homes by social distancing guidelines. No one should have to come forward with the heartbreaking circumstances many are facing right now, she said.

Bryson Henriott of the University of Georgia's College Republicans chapter said none of the regents have responded to the students.

Most of them do not know whats going on at the universities, he said. Quite frankly, they dont understand the horrible consequences that could come from their decision.

The Board of Regents is a volunteer panel that oversees the states 26 public colleges and universities. Members are appointed by Georgia governors to seven-year terms, and the prestigious posts often go to wealthy campaign donors.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Coronavirus: Georgia denies pass-fail option for college students
With the sudden death of Rishi Kapoor on April 30, the film fraternity is still struggling to cope with his loss. Friends and family members have been sharing remembering the actor fondly, sharing their memories of him on social media.

Actor Sanjay Dutt found himself reminiscing the good old days with the late Bollywood star, sharing a throwback photo of himself with Rishi and his son Ranbir Kapoor. Ranbir played the role of Sanjay Dutt in his biopic Sanju.

Sharing the candid shot that shows the three hugging each other, Says said, "One thing that Chintu Sir taught me was to always do things with a smile on our face! It's going to take some time to sink in that Chintu Sir is not with us anymore. He has always been an elder brother to me. Can't believe he is gone!"

When news broke of Rishi's demise, Sanjay Dutt took to his handle to pen a heartfelt note describing their relationship over the years. "Dear Chintu sir, You have been an inspiration to me throughout my life and career. You have taught me to live life to the fullest and to face life even when I was going through my low days. I had the honour to work with you in many films where you always guided me. You fight against cancer has been long. But you never made me feel once that you were suffering even when I spoke to you in New York... even at that time, you were so full of life."

Follow @News18Movies for more
"This is recognition of our teams track record of delivering unmatched experiences while helping clients realize tangible benefit from their Microsoft investment," said Maurice Faison, who leads Centrics Microsoft Practice.

Microsoft named Centric Consulting, a business and technology consulting firm, a Microsoft FastTrack Ready Partner  becoming one of only 80 approved FastTrack Ready partners in the United States.

Microsofts FastTrack program provides eligible customers with access to the expertise needed to accelerate deployment and end-user adoption of their Microsoft 365 solutions.

Were extremely excited to be named as a FastTrack Ready partner, further deepening our partnership with Microsoft, said Maurice Faison, who leads Centrics Microsoft Practice. This is recognition of our teams track record of delivering unmatched experiences while helping clients realize tangible benefit from their Microsoft investment.

Microsoft FastTrack Ready partners, often seen as Microsofts top-performing partners, have proven success using best practice methodologies for envisioning, on-boarding and adoption of Microsoft 365 technologies and solutions.

About Us

Centric Consulting is a management consulting firm that guides you in the search for answers to complex digital, business and technology problems by asking tough questions, leading crucial conversations and blending our experts with yours. Together we optimize your processes, elevate your technology, and help you compete in a digital world.

Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio with locations across the country, weve earned Microsofts highest partner status, Managed Gold Competency Partner, in recognition of our expert ability to develop, deliver, and support Microsoft Cloud solutions using the latest technologies that help clients boost productivity. We also have a practice that specializes in Enterprise Collaboration, helping employees work better together.

Visit http://www.centricconsulting.com to learn more.

Connect with Centric Consulting: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
Today, we discuss Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, but in the 80s and 90s, Princess Diana and Sarah, Duchess of York were the most-discussed women in the British royal family. Though Kate and Meghan seem happy and content in their respective lives, things didnt end romantically for the Princess of Wales or the Duchess of York.

Princess Diana and Sarah, Duchess of York were very close for a long time. Unfortunately, they were also very different women and that could put them at odds. While the princess struggled to find her footing in the royal family, the duchess thrived and was accepted by the royals. However, as their respective marriages came to a close, the royal familys opinions of them also changed.

When Prince Charles affair with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall was exposed, Princess Dianas profile was elevated by the press and public. The royal family also extended a hand to her. In contrast, the Yorks divorce was set off when the duchess was photographed topless with oil tycoon, John Bryan. Bryan was also sucking Fergies toes in the pictures. To say the royals did not react well to this was an understatement. In fact, respective divorce settlements reveal that the Duchess of York made pennies in comparison to the Princess of Wales.

Diana, Princess of Wales (1961  1997) with Sarah Ferguson at the Guards Polo Club, Windsor, June 1983. The Princess is wearing a jumper with a sheep motif from the London shop, Warm And Wonderful | Georges De Keerle/Getty Images

Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson leaned on each other amid their unhappy marriages

By the time Princess Diana and Sarah announced their split in 1992, their marriage had grown tense and unhappy. The princess felt like a third wheel in her own relationship while the duchess was struggling with intense loneliness amid Prince Andrews naval commitments.

[1991] was the year we first put words to the unspeakable idea that had been nudging us in the ribs for some time: that one or both of us might leave the royal family, the Duchess of York revealed in her 1996 autobiography, My Story: Sarah the Duchess of York. We burned the phone wires into the night, trading secrets and jokes that no-one else would understand.

Things truly hit the fan for both women the following year.

The Prince And Princess Of Wales During A Visit To Ottawa In Canada | Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

Princess Diana got a healthy and fair divorce settlement

In 1992, a leaked phone call revealed Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwalls adulterous affair. Queen Elizabeth finally granted permission for the Wales to separate, eventually allowing them to divorce in 1996.

Though Princess Diana was forced to give up her HRH title, the princess did not leave the marriage empty-handed. She received a spacious three-level apartment at Kensington Palace, the same one Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge live in today.

She also got access to the royal jets for travel, $22.5 million in cash, her extensive jewelry collection, and a $600,000 annual salary to pay for her private office and staff. In the end, the princess and Prince Charles wanted a harmonious living situation for their young sons.

Sarah, Duchess Of York With Prince Andrew, Duke Of York, Watching A Fashion Show At The Royal York Hotel In Ontario, Canada, 17th July 1987. | John Shelley Collection/Avalon/Getty Images

Sarah Ferguson only got pennies in her divorce from Prince Andrew

Though Princess Diana was well-taken care of amid her divorce, after publically humiliating the royal family and Prince Andrew, the Duchess of York was cast aside. Her divorce settlement was pennies in comparison to her sisters-in-laws.

The Sunday Telegraph revealed that Sarah was given a mere $20,000 a year from the royal family and given $660,000 to buy a new house. She also received around $1.8 million to start trust funds for Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, $462,000 in cash, and an agreement that Prince Andrew would pay for their daughters education.

This was a long way away from Princess Dianas settlement. Unfortunately, it would not be enough for the duchess to maintain her lavish lifestyle and she would run into major debt in the following years.
A Wisconsin mother who was arrested in late March after the body of her young son was found dead in her cars trunk has now been charged in the boys death.

Sagal Hussein, 25, of Howard, is currently being held in Brown County jail on a $500,000 cash bond and is due back in court on May 7 after her first appearance in court on April 29. She faces nine counts, including chronic neglect of a child causing death, hiding the corpse of a child, and obstruction of an officer, The Associated Press reported.

The body of 5-year-old Josias Marquez, who had not been seen since November 2019 by anyone but Hussein, had likely been dead for months when authorities found his decomposed body on March 31 in the trunk of his mothers car, The Dane County Medical Examiners Office said.

Josiasa special needs child with life-long medical issueswas found to be significantly undernourished. He weighed just 20 pounds, which would have caused significant risk of death, but the cause of the boys death could not be confirmed until further investigation, the medical examiners office said.

Police said the boy was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and epilepsy. According to a 26-page complaint (pdf), Josias used a wheelchair and was dependent on others for feeding.

Husseins public defender did not return a request for comment Thursday.

Missing for Months

Authorities with the Brown County Sheriffs Office were called to Husseins home in the Village of Howard in Green Bay on Jan. 26, after a neighbor called because two of her other children were reportedly left unsupervised outside.

After responding officers arrived at the home, the eldest child told police her mother left them alone the other night and that the children also did not know where she was. Once police found Hussein, she told the officers the children were alone for only about 40 minutes.

Brown County Child Protective Services later took the two children into temporary custody, Crimeonline reported.

Authorities later learned that Hussein also had a third childJosiaswho she initially claimed was with his father, Miguel Marcello, who was allegedly in another state. Authorities, however, could not verify the claim.

The father of Husseins other two children, James Marquez of California, said he had no idea who Marcello is. Marquez said he is the father of Josias, though Hussein denies this and is certain Marcello is the father.

James knew in the beginning that JJM [Josias] wasnt his child, but said that James told her he didnt care if he was the actual father or not he would take care of JJM as his own, Hussein said according to the complaint.

Hussein told investigators there was never a DNA test completed and that based on the conversations she had with Marquez, he was acting as if he was the father to Josias. Hussein proceeded with an elaborate description of why she hadnt been able to make contact with Josias while he was in Marcellos care.

Police arrested Hussein on March 30 due to the discrepancies in her story and her lack of cooperation, officials said. A search warrant was issued for her residence and vehicle and Josiass semi-decomposed body was found the next day in the trunk of her car.

Marquez told investigators he wouldnt believe Hussein would ever intentionally hurt the boy, but he could see her stop providing care for him because she never liked caring for him, according to the complaint.

Amal Ishamel, Husseins mother, said she was in shock after learning about the news. and that she wouldnt intentionally kill her own son.

What I know is my daughter, Sagal, is that she was a loving mother and she didnt kill her own son and what I believe is it was not her intention to hurt or kill her own child, Ishamel said.

Husseins other two children are currently in foster care, Ishamel said at the time.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Pompeo: 'Enormous Evidence' Coronavirus Originated in Chinese Lab

By Ken Bredemeier May 03, 2020

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday there is "enormous evidence" that the coronavirus pandemic originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, not a nearby market, but declined to say whether the U.S. believes the virus was intentionally released.

U.S. intelligence officials said last week that it is investigating whether the initial COVID-19 outbreak was the result of exposure to wild animals or a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

"Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories," Pompeo said on ABC News's "This Week." "These are not the first times that we've had a world exposed to viruses as the result of failures in a Chinese lab."

The top U.S. diplomat said there is a "high degree of confidence" that the virus came from the Wuhan lab, which was studying the presence of the virus in bats.

"There's enormous evidence that that's where this began," Pompeo said.

Pompeo said he has no reason to doubt the U.S. intelligence community's consensus that the virus was "not manmade or genetically modified."

But he blamed China for delays in informing the world of the emerging threat of Covid-19.

He said the worldwide number of cases  now more than 3.4 million, with a death toll of nearly 245,000  would not have been so extensive had China not "attempted to conceal and hide and confuse. It employed the World Health Organization as a tool to do the same.

"We can confirm that the Chinese communist party did all that it could to make sure world didn't learn in a timely fashion about was taking place," he said. "There's lots of evidence of that."

Pompeo said that U.S. and international scientists have not been allowed to visit the Wuhan laboratory and that China has not provided a sample of the original virus.

"We have said from the beginning, that this was a virus that originated in Wuhan, China," Pompeo said. "We took a lot of grief for that from the outset."

Now, he said, China has embarked on a campaign to keep the world from further investigating its role in the pandemic's origin.

"We've seen the fact they've kicked journalists out," Pompeo said. "We saw the fact that those who were trying to report on this, medical professionals inside of China, were silenced.

"This is a classic communist disinformation effort that created enormous risk," he said. "And now you can see hundreds of thousands of people around the world and tens of thousands in the U.S." who have contracted the virus.

He said U.S. President Donald Trump is "very clear: we're going to hold those responsible, accountable. We'll do so on a timeline that is ours."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on Monday credited the governor of Rhode Island for inspiring the company to develop a newly launched batch of tools to help businesses reopen their workplaces during the global health crisis.

The company earlier that day announced the launch of Work.com, a platform to help firms mitigate the spread of coronavirus as employers ask employees to return to offices.

The state of Rhode Island was "impactful" in the development of the program, thanks to Gov. Gina Raimondo's leadership, Benioff said in a "Mad Money" interview.

"She had the vision that she needed to couple contact tracing with [coronavirus] testing," Benioff told Jim Cramer, adding that it helped the software maker to understand that "every organization is going to need to be able to deploy information technology, like contact tracing, to mitigate the spread of the virus as we enter phase two, which is what we're getting ready to do now, getting ready to get back to work safely."

As part of its response to the Covid-19 outbreak, the state of Rhode Island contracted Salesforce in April to develop a database to execute efficient contact tracing. The relationship also called for a process to let physicians order coronavirus testing at National Guard testing sites. Contact tracing is a method to identify individuals who came into contact with people infected with a virus in an effort to stop diseases from spreading further.

Contact tracing is seen as a critical factor in reopening workplaces as states lift stay-at-home sanctions. The White House is encouraging state officials to follow criteria to reopen economic activity in phases, which hinge on a decline in new Covid-19 infection rates across 14 days.

Employers are asked to continue to allow remote work if possible, but workers can be called back to the office if infection rates do not rebound, according to White House guidelines.

"We need to do things that are going to help us to mitigate our interaction with the virus during phase two," Benioff said.

Benioff pledged to make personal protective equipment available on site for employees and take the temperatures of people coming into Salesforce work sites.

Social distancing standards will also be enforced, including asking employees and customers to work 6 feet away from one another, he said. The Work.com platform will help businesses ensure the workplace is safe, he added.

Workplaces are "not going to bring everybody back at once. They're going to bring them back in shifts, because if [a person in] one shift gets the virus, they're going to quarantine that shift and keep the others going," Benioff said. "All of these things are kind of next-generation apps, and we're going to need to deploy those rapidly to our customers."

Shares of Salesforce climbed 3% to $161.47 in Monday's trading session.
KENT, Ohio -- More than 100 people showed up at Kent State University to remember the four people who were killed and nine wounded 50 years ago on May 4, 1970, despite the campus being closed Monday due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The visitors walked around the memorials in the parking lot and wandered around Taylor Hall near the Freedom Bell to take in the sites of the historic event that took place 50 years ago when National Guardsmen fired shots at college students protesting the Vietnam War. On-campus events were canceled.

Visitors stopped to pay their respects at the memorials in the Prentice Hall parking lot for the four students who were killed -- Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder.

I saw it all, the insanity of it all," said Gary, who said he was there at the time. That it could happen, it still gives shivers 50 years later.

Carol Meyer of West Palm Beach, Fla., stood holding a candle on the spot where Miller was killed. Meyer, who was not on the campus during the shootings, has been to Kent State many times to pay respect for those who were killed. I knew Jeffrey Millers brother, Russ, Meyer said as he began to choke up. Meyer was photographed in 1991 at the memorial for Krause and the photo ran on the cover of the May 5, 1991 Plain Dealer.

And, although there were not official events taking place on the campus, retired sociology professor Jerry Lewis came to ring the freedom bell at exactly 12:24 p.m. to commemorate the event. Lewis was teaching on campus that day and was trying to get the students to leave before more were hurt.

Kent State held various online virtual events Monday to mark the 50th anniversary.

More on the Kent State shootings:

Kent State University marks 50 years since seminal shooting

Now and then: See how Kent State University looked in May 1970, compared to today

Kent State students studying shooting 50 years later, reflect on its significance

Now and then: See how Kent State University looked in May 1970, compared to today

Take a virtual tour of Kent States May 4 museum

See a graphic timeline of the Kent State shootings

Kent State University survivors tell their stories 50 years later

And everything was just frozen in this chaos in horror and screaming: Gerald Casale remembers May 4, 1970

I just curled over and I just started shrieking: Theyre shooting their guns: Laura Davis remembers May 4, 1970

My immediate response was I dont know how I missed getting shot: John Filo remembers May 4, 1970

It was then that we realized it was live ammunition: Roseann Chic Canfora remembers May 4, 1970

I have great pride in the revolt: Kent State University shooting victim Alan Canfora recounts events leading to May 4, 1970

No matter what your politics at the time, the events of May 4, 1970, haunt all who were there: Ted Diadiun

See and hear how people remember May 4, 1970

The failures and lies behind the student killings of 1968 and 1970 are still with us, just in other forms

I saw the muzzle flashes. Oh, my god.   Couple implored students to avoid Kent State protest, then watched shootings in horror

Kent residents cant ignore history, impact of May 4th shootings 50 years ago

How the Kent State University shooting happened (graphic)
The US has again prodded Pakistan by seeking justice for murdered American journalist Daniel Pearl, days after his family filed an appeal before the Supreme Court against a verdict by a court in Sindh province which acquitted the prime accused and British-born top al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three others in the case.

Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story in 2002 on the alleged links between the country's powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda.

On April 2, a two-judge Sindh High Court bench overturned the death sentence of 46-year-old al-Qaeda leader Sheikh, who was convicted in the abduction and murder of Pearl in 2002. He has been in jail for the past 18 years.

The court also acquitted his three aides - Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil- serving life sentences in the case. The bench announced the verdict on the appeals filed by the four convicts 18 years ago.

"On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, we honour the legacy of journalist Daniel Pearl. We appreciate the Govt of Pakistan's 4/22 appeal to reinstate guilty verdicts against Daniel's murderers, now buttressed by the filing of the Pearl family's appeal before the Supreme Court," State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells tweeted on Sunday.

On April 22, Pakistan's Sindh government challenged in the Supreme Court the provincial high court's verdict that acquitted Sheikh and three others in the abduction and murder of Pearl. And on April 28, the government asked for an early hearing.

On May 2, the parents of Pearl filed an appeal to Pakistan's Supreme Court seeking reversal of the Sindh High Court verdict that overturned convictions of four men in their son's kidnapping and murder case.

Two criminal petitions have been filed by renowned lawyer Faisal Siddiqi on behalf of the parents - Ruth Pearl and Judie Pearl - against the acquittal and release of the four accused.

"The decision by the Sindh High Court to free the men in the murder of Daniel Pearl is a complete miscarriage of justice...," the lawyer said.

According to the petition, the Sindh High Court has failed to note that this was a brutal murder as a result of international terrorism and the principle of the standard of proof, as well as the benefit of doubt in cases of international terrorism, has to be applied keeping in the context that the nature and type of evidence available in such terrorism cases cannot be equated with cases involving non-terrorism crimes."



Last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also mounted pressure on Pakistan by demanding justice for murdered American journalist Pearl.

The United States will not forget Daniel Pearl, Pompeo tweeted on April 3.

We continue to honour his legacy as a courageous journalist and demand justice for his brutal murder, he had said.

Pearl's murder took place three years after Sheikh, along with Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, was released by India in 1999 and given safe passage to Afghanistan in exchange for the nearly 150 passengers of hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814. He was serving a prison term in India for kidnappings of Western tourists in the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Global deaths from the coronavirus pandemic topped a quarter-million on Monday, mostly in the US and Europe even as both regions slowly moved away from lockdown and world leaders raised billions towards a vaccine. An AFP tally of official figures showed that Europe is the hardest-hit continent with around 145,000 fatalities, and the United States recorded close to 68,700 -- together accounting for more than 85 percent of global fatalities. An internal government estimate in Washington forecast an even worsening number of fatalities for the country. It said the daily COVID-19 death toll could double by the end of May. In Europe, though, governments believe they have passed the peak of the disease with deaths in the continent's worst affected countries having dropped as a result of nearly two months of confinement. Restaurants in Italy partially reopened and Germans queued for haircuts in a Europe edging gingerly out of lockdown. Half of the planet has been under orders to shelter in place, and much of the world remained cautious even as countries from India to Nigeria sought to ease restrictions so that businesses can remain afloat and workers earn a wage after the pandemic-induced economic crash. "Today is wonderful," Lagos fruit and vegetable vendor Adewale Oluwa said, opening his stall in Africa's largest city after a five-week lockdown. - Russia infections surge - Still, confirmed cases since the disease surfaced in China late last year rose to almost 3.6 million across 195 countries and territories. Infections continued to surge in Russia, now adding more than 10,000 a day. "The threat is apparently on the rise," Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin told citizens. But the United States remains far more severely affected than any other nation, although deaths in the past 24 hours rose by the lowest figure in a month -- 1,015. An internal study by the US government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that new coronavirus cases will surge more than eight-fold to 200,000 per day by June 1, and the toll could rise to 3,000 a day, up from the current 1,000-2,000. That could more than double the number of US coronavirus deaths, now at about 69,000, over the next few months, according to the study first reported by The New York Times and The Washington Post. It underscored the tough, politically-tinged debate over reopening that pits Trump and his allies against many governors and community leaders worried that social distancing and quarantines need to remain in place longer. The study suggested that the surge in infections could come from mid-May in states and localities that had not implemented tough distancing measures or were loosening up too early. On Sunday Trump acknowledged that deaths would go beyond his earlier prediction of 60,000, saying "we're going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people." The White House downplayed the CDC forecast as an "internal" document which had not been vetted by the task force, which is led by Vice President Mike Pence. - 'Joy and fear' - In Europe there was still caution as countries allowed people to return to the streets and some businesses to open. "We are feeling a mix of joy and fear," 40-year-old Stefano Milano said in Rome as Italian restaurants reopened for takeaway orders -- though bars and ice cream parlours will remain shut. Spain and Portugal made face masks mandatory on public transport starting Monday as they further eased their lockdowns. Slovenia, Poland and Hungary also allowed public spaces and businesses to partially reopen. "I looked like Robinson Crusoe," joked 87-year-old Helmut Wichter, emerging clean shaven from a barber in Berlin. - Vaccine telethon - A special telethon backed by the World Health Organization but snubbed by Washington pulled in 7.4 billion euros ($8.1 billion) to support international efforts to develop and manufacture a vaccine to slow the coronavirus spread. Leaders of major European powers, Japan and Canada made the biggest pledges, along with philanthropists including Bill and Melinda Gates, at the videoconference hosted by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. "This was a powerful and inspiring demonstration of global solidarity," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of the donations. Seeming to defend its non-participation, the US State Department issued a statement declaring that the United States is "leading" the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and said it has spent more than $1 billion together with US drug companies to work on a vaccine. Trump claimed Sunday that the United States will have a coronavirus vaccine ready by the end of the year. The war of words between the United States and China over responsibility for the pandemic continued, with China's state broadcaster attacking US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for "insane" remarks in which he said the virus originated at a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic first emerged. The WHO said it had received no evidence on the "speculative" Wuhan lab claims. burs-pmh/it/bgs
The World Health Organization said Monday that Washington had provided no evidence to support "speculative" claims by the US president that the new coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab.

"We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus -- so from our perspective, this remains speculative," WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual briefing.

Scientists believe the killer virus jumped from animals to humans, emerging in China late last year, possibly from a market in Wuhan selling exotic animals for meat.

But US President Donald Trump, increasingly critical of China's management of the first outbreak, claims to have proof it started in a Wuhan laboratory.

And US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said "enormous evidence" backed up that claim, which China has vehemently denied.

"Like any evidence-based organisation, we would be very willing to receive any information that purports to the origin of the virus," Ryan said, stressing that this was "a very important piece of public health information for future control.

"If that data and evidence is available, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared, but it is difficult for the WHO to operate in an information vacuum in that regard," he added.

- Science at the centre -

The UN health agency -- which has also faced scathing criticism from Trump over accusations it initially downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak to shield China -- has repeatedly said the virus clearly appears to have originated naturally from an animal source.

WHO expert Maria Van Kerkhove stressed during Monday's briefing that there were some 15,000 full genome sequences of the novel coronavirus available, and "from all of the evidence that we have seen... this virus is of natural origin".

While coronaviruses generally originate in bats, both Van Kerkhove and Ryan stressed the importance of discovering how the virus that causes COVID-19 crossed over to humans, and what animal served as an "intermediary host" along the way.

"We need to understand more about that natural origin, and particularly about intermediate hosts," Ryan said.

It was important to know "so that we can put in place the right public health and animal-human interface policies that will prevent this happening again", he stressed.

The WHO said last week it wanted to be invited to take part in Chinese investigations into the animal origins of the pandemic, which in a matter of months has killed nearly 250,000 people worldwide.

"We have offered, as we do with every case in every country, assistance with carrying out those investigations," Ryan said Monday.

"We can learn from Chinese scientists," he said.

But he warned that if questions about the virus origin were "projected as aggressive investigation of wrongdoing, than I believe that's much more difficult to deal with. That is a political issue.

"Science needs to be at the centre," he said.

"If we have a science-based investigation and a science-based enquiry as to what the origin species and the intermediate species are, then that will benefit everybody on the planet."

Search Keywords:

Short link:


French English





Paris, May 4, 2020 - Tarkett is the victim of a cyber-attack that has affected part of its operations since April 29th despite the IT security measures implemented by the Group.

In response, Tarkett immediately shut down its information technology systems and put in place the necessary preventive measures to protect its operations as well as the data of its employees, customers and partners.

Tarkett's teams are currently fully mobilized with the support of leading third-party IT experts and forensics to return operations to normal as soon as possible. Commercial and production operations currently remain disrupted.

Tarkett is in contact with the relevant authorities and has notified its cybersecurity insurer.

Tarkett will provide updates as the situation evolves.

Investor Relations Contact

Tarkett  Emilie Megel  emilie.megel@tarkett.com - Tel. : +33 (0)6 33 47 32 45

Media contacts

Tarkett - Veronique Bouchard Bienayme - communication@tarkett.com

Brunswick - tarkett@brunswickgroup.com - Tel.: +33 (0) 1 53 96 83 83

Hugues Boeton  Tel. : +33 (0)6 79 99 27 15  Benoit Grange  Tel. : +33 (0)6 14 45 09 26

About Tarkett

With a history of 140 years, Tarkett is a worldwide leader in innovative flooring and sports surface solutions, with net sales of 3 billion in 2019. Offering a wide range of products including vinyl, linoleum, rubber, carpet, wood, laminate, artificial turf and athletics tracks, the Group serves customers in over 100 countries across the globe. Tarkett has 12,500 employees and 33 industrial sites, and sells 1.3 million square meters of flooring every day, for hospitals, schools, housing, hotels, offices, stores and sports fields. Committed to change the game with circular economy, the Group has implemented an eco-innovation strategy based on Cradle to Cradle principles, with the ultimate goal of contributing to peoples health and wellbeing, and preserving natural capital. Tarkett is listed on Euronext Paris (compartment B, ISIN: FR0004188670, ticker: TKTT) and is included in the following indices: SBF 120 and CAC Mid 60. www.tarkett.com .





Attachment
The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has donated One Million US dollars towards the construction of an infectious disease isolation and treatment facility at the Ga East Hospital.



The construction of the facility is being spearheaded by the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund, which expects it to be ready for use by the end of May  six weeks after the sod was cut for the project to start.



When completed, the facility will be the main treatment centre in Ghana for people who become critically ill after contracting COVID-19.



Approval



The Chief Executive Officer of the GNPC, Dr Kofi Koduah Sarpong, said it was very easy to convince his board to approve the donation of One million US dollars in support of the facility as part of its corporate social responsibility.



The project is estimated to cost about 4.5 million US dollars and Dr Sarpong says the GNPC is very proud to have contributed almost a quarter of the project cost.



The donation of the one million was approved by our board of directors for us to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. Indeed, we came to a conclusion that if during the fight against Ebola steps had been taken to put in place an infectious diseases treatment centre in the country, maybe we wont be caught with the situation we have on hand where we dont have any dedicated facility for such disease.



So, we saw the initiative from the private sector as a good one for us to join so that at least some legacy can be left from the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Sarpong said.



Similar projects



After the completion of the project in Accra, the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund is promising to construct similar infectious disease centres in Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale. The President of the Republic, Nana Akufo-Addo, has lauded the initiatives of the fund as very important components of the national effort to contain and stop the spread of COVID-19.



Dr Sarpong said the GNPC was open to supporting the construction of the facilities outside Accra as well.



Subject to the approval of my board of directors, which I dont think they will withhold, we will be joining the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund in their bid to do similar constructions in Kumasi, Tamale and the western part of this country where the oil comes from. We are joining them in this regard to make sure that specifically our contribution will be towards the delivery of these treatment facilities, he said.



He added: We need to encourage the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund. We need to work with them. It is good that they are embracing the public sector like the GNPC. Im sure there are other organisations which can help them deliver.



Dr Sarpong said the good thing about the private sector was that they got things done as quickly as possible and that s one of the motivations why we joined them.



I want to congratulate the Private Sector Fund Trustees for taking the initiative. People thought that the fight was that of government alone but they have demonstrated that together with the government a lot more can be done, Dr Sarpong said.



GNPC commended



The Managing Trustee of the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund, Mr Senyo Hosi, commended the GNPC for contributing to make the vision of an isolation and treatment facility real in Ghana.



The nation wins when the public sector joins hands with the private sector and what the GNPC has done is a clear example that together we can achieve more and that together we can overcome COVID-19, Mr Hosi said. We are very grateful to the GNPC for seeing the wisdom in this initiative and supporting us with the funds to help bring this vision to fruition. We will deliver this project in good time to make us all proud, he said.

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
Editor's Note: With so much market volatility, stay on top of daily news! Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news and expert opinions. Sign up here!

(Kitco News) - With Endeavour Mining's acquisition of SEMAFO last month, CEO Sebastien de Montessus said production should tip 1 million gold ounces.

Montessus spoke to Kitco on Tuesday. Endeavour (TSX:EDV) is a mid-tier west African gold miner. Montessus made headlines late last year when his company took a failed run at Centamin, offering $1.92 billion for the Egyptian gold miner.

Endeavour settled for SEMAFO. The acquisition was announced late March, and the transaction between the two companies should be completed within the next 1-2 months. Before the SEMAFO transaction, Montessus said Endeavour was targetting about 700,000 gold ounces of production.

Regarding COVID-19 containment, Endeavour said it had a "handful of employees" who tested positive back in March. The employees were quarantined. Endeavour also hired an epidemiologist to help develop protocols.

The top challenge when running a mining company while managing COVID-19 is mobility, said Montessus.

"The key challenge has been probably the movement of people, in particular with borders closing, so making sure that you have the right people on-site at any point in time," said Montessus.

Montessus previously worked at AREVA before coming to Endeavour.
Ward is allegedly linked by CCTV evidence from ATM machines.

Fraudsters took more than 800 from a Belfast pensioner's bank account after persuading him to leave a card and PIN number on his doorstep due to the Covid-19 lockdown, a court heard today.

Police claimed he was targeted along with another 70 elderly members of the community in a scam involving callers posing as detectives probing fictitious crime.

The case is also linked to the alleged extortion of 17,500 from a man in England suffering from cerebral palsy.

Details emerged as a 31-year-old man appeared at Belfast Magistrates' Court on charges connected to the investigation.

John Ward, of Carrington Street in the city, is charged with conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to commit blackmail, and acquiring criminal property.

A detective from the PSNI's Economic Crime Unit said a gang has been contacting vulnerable people, pretending to be from the police or utility companies, and urging them to move money from bank accounts to avoid being defrauded.

Since January a total of 71 attempts have been made to persuade elderly potential victims to transfer cash, the court heard.

In the latest alleged incident, on April 24, a Belfast man in his eighties was told criminals would be able to clear out his account, taking up to 15,000, unless he assisted the bogus investigation.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic he was put under pressure to leave his bank card and PIN number on his doorstep, according to the detective.

They were collected and used at two different ATMs, with 820 taken within an hour before the pensioner realised what was going on.

Ward is allegedly linked by CCTV evidence from the bank machines.

It was claimed that a similar method was used in other incidents for which he has not been charged.

Scammers managed to get another four victims to make attempts at withdrawing money, snatching cash in one incident.

District Judge George Conner was also told the same gang is thought to have blackmailed a man in England into handing over 17,500 last year.

That victim, who has cerebral palsy, was threatened with being exposed as a paedophile following online contact with someone who then claimed to be aged 15.

A number of requests for cash were then made from the man.

"He believed he was paying for an online paedophile course to stop him going to jail," the detective said.

Defence solicitor Diarmaid Kelly stressed Ward is only charged in connection with one of 71 pensioners allegedly targeted.

"The height of the prosecution case is that he withdrew money from various bank machines relating to this one complainant," the lawyer submitted.

Bail was granted to Ward on conditions including a ban on accessing ATM machines or the internet.

Judge Conner also cautioned the public to remain vigilant.

He said: "I cannot envisage any circumstances where people would need to leave a bank card on a front doorstep.

"People need to take greater care of their own details, to protect their own privacy." ends
CBS News '60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stahl said Sunday that she's finally feeling well after a battle with COVID-19 that left her hospitalized for a week.

Stahl said she was 'really scared' after fighting pneumonia caused by the coronavirus for two weeks at home before going to the hospital.

'One of the rules of journalism is `dont become part of the story,'' Stahl said at the end of Sunday's broadcast. 'But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more-than-one-million Americans who did become part of it.'

'60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stahl revealed Sunday night that she recently recovered from a bout of coronavirus

Stahl, seen at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York on Oct. 10, said she spent two weeks at home fighting pneumonia before checking into the hospital

Stahl saluted the medical workers who nursed her back to health

Stahl, 78, is the dean of correspondents at television's best-known newsmagazine. She joined '60 Minutes' in March 1991, and before that was moderator of the Sunday talk show 'Face the Nation' and a Washington correspondent.

She landed the first television interview with Donald Trump after he was elected president, and the first with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she become speaker - both in 2007 and again in 2019.

Stahl said there was a cluster of '60 Minutes' employees with the virus. One 'had almost no symptoms while others had almost every symptom you can imagine,' she said. 'Each case is different.'

Stahl said she found an overworked and nearly overwhelmed staff when she was hospitalized but paid tribute to their care, and said she was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers when discharged.

'In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs,' she said.

'This valiant army in scrubs and masks was not just doing a job. They were fulfilling a mission, answering the call', she said.

Medical workers turn over a patient with coronavirus in Stamford Hospital in Connecticut. Stahl, who did not say which hospital she was treated at, praised medical workers' commitment and described them as a 'valiant army in scrubs'

Medical workers congregate at Stamford Hospital. 'We all owe them our gratitude, our admiration and, in some cases, our lives', Stahl said

60 Minutes declined to name the hospital involved.

'Thanks to them, like so many other patients, I am well now,' she said. 'Tonight, we all owe them our gratitude, our admiration and, in some cases, our lives.'

Stahl is arguably the most prominent television journalist to disclose they had the disease. CNN hosts Chris Cuomo and Brooke Baldwin have tested positive, the former continuing his prime-time show while fighting symptoms. ABC 'Good Morning America' host George Stephanopoulos had it, but like many infected, had only mild symptoms.

The virus has infected 3.5 million people and killed more than 246,000 worldwide, including more than 68,000 dead in the United States.
Dani Venn was eliminated from MasterChef Australia: Back To Win on Sunday night while wearing the show's only immunity pin.

And on Monday, the chef, 34, admitted that she didn't perform her best because she put 'a lot of pressure' on herself'.

Speaking on Channel Ten's The Project, Dani said: 'I really did miss my kids and I feel like when you are not performing as well as you want to, you question why you are there'.

'It all just got a little bit too much for me': Ousted MasterChef contestant Dani Venn (pictured) has said she 'put pressure on herself' after being eliminated from the show

'It all got just a little bit too much for me,' she told the show's hosts.

Dani also explained that wearing the immunity pin does 'put a lot of pressure on your shoulders' to perform well.

'You want to be as good as that first cook where you really deserved that immunity pin and I just felt like I just didn't hit the mark.'

On Sunday, Dani was undone by runny eggs in her Thai street food staple, son-in-law-eggs, with the judges complaining that the dish was undercooked.

Oh no: Dani Venn (pictured) was eliminated from MasterChef Australia: Back To Win on Sunday night while wearing the show's only immunity pin

Dani told Ten Daily on Sunday: 'Of course, on reflection, I could have used [the pin but] I think what I'm more upset about is, I could have cooked a different dish!

The cook also admitted, 'The egg was a stupid idea.'

The cook says that she felt it was too early to use the pin: 'I didn't play the pin because I felt like if I'm going to play the pin at this point in the competition there's not really much point in me being there. There's still 20 people in the competition'.

The chef then joked that she'll have to sell her immunity pin - which the show has let her keep.

Bad move: The 34-year-old was undone by runny eggs in her Thai street food staple, son-in-law-eggs, with the judges complaining that the dish was undercooked

Dani said after her elimination: 'On reflection, I could have used [the pin but] I think what I'm more upset about is... I could have cooked a different dish! The cook also admitted, 'The egg was a stupid idea'

Jokes: The chef then joked that she'll have to sell her immunity pin. She said: 'I still have the pin... and it's going straight on eBay. I'm kidding. They tried to make me give it back and I was like nope, this is mine. I'm taking it'

She said: 'I still have the pin... and it's going straight on eBay. I'm kidding. They tried to make me give it back and I was like nope, this is mine. I'm taking it.'

Fans were devastated for Dani, with one person Tweeting: 'I feel for Dani. She looked a bit run down and that she was struggling with illness and obviously missing her kids a lot.'

Another wrote: 'Gutted to see Dani left the kitchen with the one and only immunity pin. Aarrgghhh!! Nonetheless, she will always be remembered for her positivity in doing all kinds of challenge.'

MasterChef continues Tuesday at 7.30pm on Channel Ten
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 01:08:34|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A man wearing a face mask walks by a store in Lisbon, Portugal, May 4, 2020. Portugal started to revive its economy and society on Monday after nearly 50 days of lockdown under the state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the phase one of the three-step deconfinement from Monday to May 18, commercial centers up to 200 square meters and street stores are allowed to reopen with strict sanitary measures. (Photo by Pedro Fiuza/Xinhua)

LISBON, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Portugal started to revive its economy and society on Monday after nearly 50 days of lockdown under the state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the phase one of the three-step deconfinement from Monday to May 18, commercial centers up to 200 square meters and street stores are allowed to reopen with strict sanitary measures.

Streets have been no longer deserted with more and more pedestrians wearing masks. The use of a mask is mandatory in public transport, public services, schools and commercial establishments, while security forces have been monitoring the entry of passengers at public transport stations.

The first morning of new rules in public transport is "going very well", said Minister of Environment Joao Matos Fernandes.

He said that until 8 a.m. 30 people were found not wearing a mask at a metro entrance in Lisbon, but they agreed to buy one before entry. Those not in compliance with the mandatory use of a mask in public transport can be fined between 120 and 350 euros.

Also on Monday, in an interview with Radio Montanha on the Azorean islands, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa warned that the COVID-19 pandemic "did not disappear by miracle" and has yet to be won.

The president stressed the "fundamental role" of the European Union in the fight against the pandemic, calling for "quick action" and "big decision" from the EU.

As of Monday, Portugal has registered 1,063 COVID-19 deaths and 25,524 confirmed cases, the health authorities said.
There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. That, yet again, was the Justice Departments message as it intervened on Sunday on the side of a Virginia church, which is suing Governor Ralph Northams lockdown against communal worship.

As I related back in April (here and here), Attorney General Bill Barr has admonished states and municipalities that the Justice Department stands ready to take action against social-distancing edicts that unduly restrict fundamental constitutional rights. The DOJs Civil Division has been paying particular attention to restrictions on the free exercise of religion  specifically, heavy restrictions or outright bans on communal worship.

A number of governors and mayors, particularly in blue states and cities, have decreed that, in their considered opinion, religious observance is not sufficiently essential to be indulged while the authorities are trying to stop the spread of COVID-19, the potentially lethal infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus. State and municipal executives are relying on their emergency powers to dictate draconian restrictions (i.e., these are not legislative enactments).

We need not speculate whether insufficient weight has been accorded the Constitution in the fashioning of various prohibitions on worship, work, and assembly. As New Jersey governor Phil Murphy smugly put it when questioned by Foxs Tucker Carlson, the Constitution is above my pay grade, so I wasnt thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this. His Honor was relying on a purportedly higher authority: scientists.

The U.S. attorney general has countered that federal constitutional law is dispositive on this subject. Consequently, it is not the burden of Americans to prove that the exercise of their fundamental rights is essential; the burden is on the state to demonstrate that the right in question cannot be exercised safely under any conditions less severe than those the state is imposing.

Story continues

While no one questions that the state has a compelling interest in preventing the spread of infectious disease, its restrictions on fundamental rights, such as communal worship, must be the least restrictive means practically available. The state must pursue its legitimate public-safety goal while remaining solicitous of the rights that governments are created to protect. If the state social-distancing restrictions are capricious or discriminatory, in their letter or in the way they are enforced, they are unconstitutional. That is, if the state is permitting social interaction for commercial or other purposes, but denying similar social interaction in religious exercise, it is perforce not using the least restrictive means to regulate First Amendment-protected activity.

In the Virginia case, the Justice Departments submission notes that the Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Chincoteague Island specializes in serving the socioeconomically disadvantaged. These include recovering drug addicts and former prostitutes who do not have easy Internet access to stream services. For many congregants, the church community is the only family they have. In the church, which can seat 225, the pastor was conducting services for 16 people. This enabled physical separation between worshippers well in excess of social-distancing guidelines touted by our esteemed scientists. Yet, it violated Governor Northams prohibition on religious gatherings of more than ten people. The pastor has been threatened with arrest, imprisonment for up to a year, and a $2,500 fine.

By contrast, Northam permits the operation of non-retail businesses offering professional services. A law or accounting firm, for example, faces no restrictions on conference room meetings at which people may be crowded together considerably closer than they are in the church. Virginia also permits the operation of retail businesses (e.g., liquor stores, building-supply retailers, dry cleaners), at which customers pass each other and transact business at close quarters.

The Justice Department acknowledges that, in its 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a state may quarantine people against their will if there is a factual basis to believe they would otherwise spread an infectious disease (in that case, yellow fever). In 1944, the Court explicitly stated in Prince v. Massachusetts that the right to practice religion freely does not include the liberty to expose the community . . . to communicable disease. Consequently, in a recent case involving Texass social-distancing measures, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals construed the High Courts precedents to allow the state to restrict, for example, ones right to peaceably assemble, to publicly worship, to travel, and even to leave ones home.

Nevertheless, Jacobson and its progeny make clear that the power to regulate is not the end of the matter. When there is a plain, palpable invasion of fundamental liberties, a court must act if the measure in question has no real or substantial relation to public health, or if it is enforced in a discriminatory manner. In Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah (1993), the Supreme Court put it this way: The principle that government, in pursuit of legitimate interests, cannot in a selective manner impose burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief is essential to the protection of the rights guaranteed by the Free Exercise Clause.

Obviously, Northams rules impose selective burdens on religious exercise. The Justice Department is not saying that a state could never ban gatherings of more than ten people. Nor is it saying that courts should second-guess the wisdom of policies put in place by political officials accountable to the people who elected them. It is simply saying that the Constitution forbids a state from subjecting religion to more burdensome restrictions than it imposes on other activities.

The Virginia restrictions run afoul of the First Amendment. Likely, that is why the state has not tried to defend them in court. Moreover, the Justice Department points out that the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Saturday granted an injunction against similarly capricious restrictions that Democratic governor Andy Beshear has attempted to enforce in Kentucky.

The federal district court in Virginia should follow the Sixth Circuits lead. In the unlikely event it does not, the church, as supported by the Justice Department, should prevail if it appeals to the Fourth Circuit. Hopefully things will not get that far. Governor Northam should back down. And state and municipal executives should stop thinking of the Constitution as above their pay grade  when they think about it at all.

More from National Review
Pull Quote They have no morals, he said on his April 28 radio show.

Giulianis radio show features frequent rants promoting conspiracy theories that blame China for pandemic

Presidential lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has largely fallen out of the public eye since his starring role in President Donald Trumps impeachment. But Giuliani hasnt gone silent.

Instead, hes in his home, doing a call-in radio show and a podcast  Common Sense  during which he has repeatedly gone on bigoted rants about China and its government.

They have no morals, he said on his April 28 radio show. Theyre amoral in the sense that human life means something in Western civilization, it means a lot. Human life doesnt mean the same thing to them.

Giuliani has also speculated that the spread of the coronavirus may be a plot by the Chinese government.

For example, Giuliani has raised the possibility that China purposely released the virus from a biological lab in Wuhan. We have to say accidentally, Giuliani said in a recent radio broadcast. But I dont think as responsible investigators we can rule out that it wasnt done deliberately.

Experts say theres no public evidence the virus came from the lab. Amid a reported White House push, U.S. intelligence agencies have said they are investigating the origins of the virus.

Scapegoating China

Giuliani is also fixated on the idea that the Chinese government sent sick people overseas. In an April 27 episode of his podcast, he said that China allowed over a million people from Wuhan travel to us, to the United States, to England to France to Italy to Germany. He added, I hope the people there have the same reaction we have to the value of human life and the loss of human life.

When they found out about this terrible virus that escaped, assuming they didnt do it on purpose, Giuliani said a day later on his radio show, they were going to make sure the West suffered as much if not more than they did and jumped on top of an opportunity, its not a big assumption to make. And there isnt a contrary explanation.

The New York Times found that thousands, not millions, of people flew internationally out of Wuhan.

Asked about his comments, Giuliani did not respond.

The comments by Giuliani have come as discrimination against Asian Americans has spiked. And they reinforce the White Houses emerging push to blame China for the pandemic.

Giuliani has said hes spoken to the president a number of times about the coronavirus. Two days after Giuliani said he was sure the virus came from the Wuhan lab, Trump said he has evidence of the same. (The president declined to give the evidence, saying its secret.)

Giuliani appears to have found a receptive wider audience too. An advertising executive at 77 WABC, which airs Giulianis radio show, said feedback has been amazing and online listening has skyrocketed.

The stations parent company, Red Apple Media, did not respond to a request for comment.

In an April 23 radio show, Giuliani interviewed Gordon Chang, a conservative pundit who frequently predicts the collapse of the Chinese government. Chang said if China released the virus accidentally  for which, again, theres no evidence  it then decided to create a global pandemic. I think what Xi Jinping did was he decided he was going to spread the virus so that he would level the playing field so that China would not be in such a hole, Chang said, referring to Chinas president.

Pull Quote The comments by Giuliani have come as discrimination against Asian Americans has spiked.

Wow, Giuliani responded. So he saw an opportunity, if that theory is correct, and it wasnt a bioweapon to start with, he saw an opportunity that was sort of accidentally presented to him, and then he took advantage of it. It was opportunistic.

Chang acknowledged, We cant know what was in Xi Jinpings mind for sure. But then he went on, It looks more like they were deliberate and malicious and that means Mr. Mayor ... this is a crime against all of humanity.

Giuliani ended the interview by inviting Chang to be a guest on his other show, the podcast.

Unproven treatments

Giuliani has also said hed use his access to help guests on his show move ahead with exploratory treatments. Talking with one pharmaceutical executive on his show in late March, Giuliani told his guest, Ill use whatever my yelling and screaming can do to do it faster, to help you.

As the Times reported, the executives company received initial trial approval from the Food and Drug Administration soon after. (The FDA has said the application was subject to internal scientific review. And Giuliani has said he has no business connection to the company.)

I dont lobby the government, Giuliani emailed in response to a request for comment. I do hope, however, that they and others are successful.

Giuliani appears to have strong feelings about the governments process for approving drugs.

In an April 23 broadcast, Mark, a pharmacist from New Jersey, called in to report on his informal study of the patients who have used a drug cocktail that includes hydroxychloroquine  the anti-malaria drug that Trump long has touted.

Giuliani was excited when Mark reported that none of his patients had been hospitalized: Why doesnt this count with all these geniuses in Washington? The double-blind study and the triple-blind study and this study and that study, we dont have time for that, weve got to go to people like Mark in New Jersey!

In fact, the FDA has warned against widespread use of the drug, noting that it can cause heart problems.

The discussions with his listeners, though, often come back to China.

Reminds me of the Mafia

One caller to Giulianis radio show, identifying himself as George from Bay Ridge, went on a rant against Chinese people, likening them to serial killers with no conscience who are attempting to take over businesses all over the world.

Giuliani responded, George, Ive been getting complaints about this for a long time. He added: It almost reminds me of the Mafia. You know, they say, if you do business with America its one thing. If you do business with China you dont realize, all of a sudden you start owing them too much and they believe they own you.

Note: If you develop emergency warning signs for COVID-19, such as difficulty breathing or bluish lips, get medical attention immediately. The CDC has more information on what to do if you are sick.
Myanmar & COVID-19 Myanmar Migrants Stranded Without Cash in Thailand by COVID-19

Migrant returnees queue for health and immigration checks at the Myawaddy border on May 4. / Kolin Nld / Facebook

Although there were expectations that more than 15,000 Myanmar migrants would flood land border checkpoints in Thailand in May, after four days only 158 people have crossed the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border due to Thai travel restrictions to curb COVID-19.

Thailand and Myanmar officials are still discussing allowing the returnees to reach the border.

Thailand, which has around 3,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and has had 54 fatalities, has imposed a 10 pm to 4 am curfew and restricted movement between provinces to stop the spread of coronavirus. Migrants often take night buses to reach Mae Sot by the morning before Thailands curfew was imposed.

Myanmar last week said returnees would be able to come back from May 3 after negotiations with the Thai authorities on the travel issues. Myanmar as of Monday has had 161 COVID-19 confirmed cases with six deaths.

On Monday, U Thant Zin Aung, the Karen State parliamentarian for Myawaddy, said 44 people had crossed the border at Myawaddy. Some would stay in the towns quarantine centers and others would travel to centers in their townships, he said.

Thai restrictions have trapped many migrants in the country without work.

Counting the days to return home

When can we return homes? is the frequent question being asked by migrants to Thai-based migrant labor rights groups, according to U Aung Kyaw, the chairman of the Mahachai-based Migrant Workers Rights Network (MWRN).

He said the embassy in Bangkok is in negotiation with the Thai authorities to allow migrants to take early morning buses to Mae Sot, Ranong or other borders to allow them to cross the following afternoon.

We are expecting a decision soon, he said, adding that the process was slow because the Thai government is currently experiencing executive holidays.

Except for seafood factories, migrant workers in construction and at garments, furniture, plastics and electronics factories have lost their jobs because of COVID-19. At least 5,000 migrants who contacted MWRN are unemployed, he added.

In Chiang Mai, where nearly 120,000 registered migrants were working, many have lost their jobs and are waiting to return home. In the meantime, hundreds are struggling for food and to pay the rent.

They were excited about going back on May 1, but the extension of the travel restrictions last week has kept them here, said Ko Johny from the Chiang Mai-based Gurkha Youth Association. Every day many people contacted them to ask about the latest Thai government guidelines and when to travel.

They need support for food and they cannot pay the rent, said Ko Johny.

Stuck without an income

Ko Maung Maung Htoo, who worked at a hotel on Koh Tao until a month ago, plans to return.

He told The Irrawaddy on Monday that he and others are waiting for a boat to be allowed to leave the island. They hope to cross the border at Ranong to Kawthaung at the southern tip of Myanmar.

He said they were told the boat from Koh Tao would leave on May 7.

Although he just extended his one-year work visa for10,500 baht (454,000 kyats) in late March, Ko Maung Maung Htoo has no choice except to return due to the downturn in tourism.

We have to pay for rent, food and other costs, and without a regular income, we cannot afford it in the long run, he said after more than seven years working in tourism.

Some workplaces provide accommodation for their employees but others stay with their families and can no longer pay their bills.

U Min Oo, a migrant rights advocate at the Foundation for Education and Development (FED) in southern Thailand, said migrants would be able to return only when Phuket, Phang Nga and Ranong provinces lifted their lockdown measures.

Migrant workers and at least 10 million Thai citizens have lost their jobs due to coronavirus.

U Min Oo said the high cost of accommodation for migrants in tourist areas was a heavy burden.

Some humanitarian groups can only contribute food but not provide free accommodation, he said.

More than 70,000 migrants from Myanmar were working in the southern Thai tourist sector, according to FED.

FED said they were waiting for advice from the Myanmar Embassy.

Due to the pandemic, sick migrants were nervous about seeking medical help for conditions like HIV and tuberculosis, U Min Oo said.

While the travel restriction are still in place, U Min Oo said they are trying to help return sick migrants first.

You may also like these stories:

Myanmar Govt Lists Essential Businesses Prioritized for Reopening Amid COVID-19

Myanmar Tourism Sector Braced for 50% Job Cuts Amid COVID-19 Downturn

Myanmar Govt Offers to Pay Factory Workers 40% During COVID-19 Inspection Closures
Maharashtra government has moved the Supreme Court alleging that Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, facing probe in criminal cases for his alleged comments in shows on the Palghar lynching, has been "browbeating the police which needs to be insulated from his pressure and threat.

The top court had on April 24 granted protection against any coercive steps for three weeks to Goswami in connection with some FIRs lodged against him in various states for alleged defamatory statement on the Palghar mob-lynching of three persons including two saints in Maharashtra.

The bench had transferred a case lodged against Goswami from Nagpur to Mumbai and stayed the investigation in other similar criminal cases. It had asked the Mumbai police to probe the FIR of Goswami against some youth Congress workers together.

The fresh plea filed by a Deputy Commissioner of Mumbai police has sought a direction to Goswami to insulate the investigating agency from any pressure, threat and coercion and to enable the investigating agency to carry out its lawful obligations in a fair and transparent manner.

The plea, filed through Maharashtra's lawyer Sachin Patil, has also sought a direction to restrain him from abusing the interim protection.

The police has narrated the sequence of FIRs and investigation carried out so far and referred to a show on the Hindi channel of the media house and said, The statement on his debate on his Republic Bharat channel are aimed browbeating, terrorizing and intimidating the investigating officer.

The plea referred to certain tweets and the contents of the show and said, The petitioner had gone on air narrating his story and also carried his entourage of reporters, cameraman etc inside police station where he virtually commanded the police to do certain things and act in a certain way..

Earlier, the senior journalist had moved the apex court seeking quashing of the Complaints/FIRs filed against him by Congress leaders in different states across the country.

In his plea, Goswami had also sought direction that no cognizance of any complaint would be taken by any court nor any fresh FIR registered by the police. He also sought security for family members and colleagues of his channels.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
When it comes to getting her child to wear a mask, Erika Setzer is fairly lucky.

She has a 12-year-old daughter and, while children that age arent exactly known for doing what theyre told, they are old enough to understand the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to realize how wearing a mask can help slow the spread of the illness.

My daughter wears the masks, said Setzer, patient services manager for the childrens emergency department at Yale New Haven Childrens Hospital. She sees me do it, and knows its the right thing to do.

But Setzer realizes it can be more difficult to get younger children to wear masks. Everyone is required to wear a mask upon entering the hospital, and certain children are more open to it than others, she said.

We dont really have a problem with the 6 and older population, Setzer said. For the most part, school-aged children are pretty compliant because theyre smart and resilient and they see whats going on around them. There is an element of fear in younger children of, Why am I wearing this? 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends masks for all children older than 2 to help protect themselves and others. For those younger than 2, Setzer said, the mask can be considered a suffocation risk.

But even with that age restriction, there are still children as young as 3 or 4 being told to wear masks, and Setzer agreed that can be scary for them.

Fortunately, she said, in most situations, social distancing is enough protection for children without the mask. The American Academy of Pediatrics agreed, saying in a statement on its website that if a child is at home with the usual residents and hasnt been exposed to COVID-19, the mask isnt necessary.

If children can be kept at least 6 feet away from others, and not be in contact with surfaces that could harbor the virus, then they do not need a mask for the protection of themselves or others, the site reads. For example, during a walk outdoors, as long as children can maintain social distancing of more than 6 feet and do not touch tables, water fountains, playground equipment or other things that infected people might have touched, then they will not acquire the infection and would not need masks.

If a child does have to wear a mask  for instance, in a hospital or another place where social distancing isnt possible  Setzer has tips for making them more comfortable. First, she tries to get a parent or guardian to put the mask on, as a child will be more likely to wear the mask if theyre with someone they trust.

She also suggested putting a mask on a stuffed animal to show the child what it looks like and to make it less scary.

With older children, Setzer said parents should try to be as honest as is appropriate about why the mask is necessary.

In addition to fear and intimidation, another issue with masks and children is having it fit properly. Setzer said she still sees too many people  children and adults  wearing masks improperly.

It shouldnt stick out too far on the face, Setzer said. You can tell when someone has put an adult mask on a child. It sticks out on their face.

As with any mask, she said, a childs mask should be secure against the cheeks and under the chin. They should cover the mouth and nose and not have any straps hanging loose.

Its not protecting you if it doesnt fit right, Setzer said.
Our Divisions

Copyright  2021-22 DB Corp ltd., All Rights Reserved

This website follows the DNPA Code of Ethics.
South Korea says it'll allow schools to have their students back in their classrooms, staring from next week, amid signs that the coronavirus outbreak in the country is waning.

Minister Yoo Eun-hae said Monday high school seniors will return to schools on May 13 and other lower grade students in phased steps from May 20.

She says about 5.4 million students in South Korea have been taking classes online since April 9 due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.

South Korea's caseload has continuously been declining in recent weeks, prompting authorities to relax its social distancing rules. Earlier Monday, South Korea reported eight additional virus cases, taking its national tally over 10,800.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (Reuters) London  Mon, May 4, 2020 20:04 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5e826b 2 People Duchess-of-Cambridge,Kate-Middleton,Prince-William,royals,mental-health,coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

British royal Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, has video-called a number of new parents, midwives and other maternity service professionals to promote her message of mental health awareness during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a video posted on Twitter by Kensington Palace, the residence and office of Kate and her husband Prince William, the mother-of-three could be seen chatting via video-link with a woman who had given birth the night before, a midwife, and various others.

"As organizations you're playing such a vital role, giving key information, you're hugely trusted by the public in general, and therefore the information that you provide is a lifeline to many people at this time," Kate told professionals from not-for-profit mental health organisations on a group call.

 The Duchess of Cambridge has spoken with midwives, health visitors, parents and leading sector experts ahead of the UKs Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week #MaternalMHmatters pic.twitter.com/Oup43xquXX  Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) May 2, 2020

The video was issued to mark Britain's Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week.

In a separate snippet, Kate could be seen chatting with a new mother on her hospital bed, congratulating her on the birth of her son and acknowledging the strangeness of having the conversation via video-link due to social distancing measures.

"This is definitely a first," she said, laughing along with the new mother.

Read also: Prince William admits virus fears for Charles, queen

A midwife also appeared from a hospital ward on the video-montage, asking whether Kate could tell that she was smiling underneath her protective face mask. "With your eyes, yes I can," the duchess replied.

Kate and William have long campaigned to raise awareness of mental health issues. Last week, the couple launched a new service called OurFrontline, which provides round-the-clock mental health support to key workers involved in the response to the coronavirus crisis.

William's grandmother, 94-year-old Queen Elizabeth, has issued a number of rallying messages to the nation since it went into lockdown in March, including a televised address that was only the fifth of her 68-year reign.

More than 28,000 people have died of COVID-19 across the United Kingdom.
Ultra-luxury resort collection One&Only has gone above and beyond to bring the magic of its worldwide resorts into the people's home despite being under quarantine. Early last month, it started its online series titled, "At Home with One&Only."

The series features at-home tips on cooking, relaxation, and more from its global connection of experts. And now, the popular resort collection is on a mission to guarantee your celebrations of Cinco de Mayo are as grand as ever, even if you are celebrating it from a distance.

One&Only Palmilla, the beloved Baja escape of Cabo, has developed a useful guide to the celebration, the resort said in its statement, encouraging everyone to be their own fiesta's host.

One&Only added that while memorializing the victory of Mexico at the Battle of Pueblo during the 1862 Franco-Mexican War, this holiday is celebrating the Mexican culture from its delectable cuisine and festive music to the traditional crafts.



A Suite of Recipes and Activities to Check Out

In support of all the celebrations of the Cinco de Mayo, One&Only Palmilla offers a suite of recipes and activities for the people to enjoy. And everyone is invited to the digital party is planned. These online celebration tools comprise of cocktail recipes from the mixologists of the hotel.

The recipes include One&Only Palmilla's mouthwatering avocado margarita, and the refreshing Katrina, which comes with pineapple and "mescal." Additionally, the mixologists shared the recipes, too, for the "ultra-fresh Palomas," and their bestselling "tropical coconut margarita."

The celebration does not stop mixing cocktails. The hotel curated a playlist on Spotify as well to set that at-home party mood.

Additionally, it also enlisted its executive chef, Sandro Falbo's assistance, to teach everyone how to prepare some of the hotel's most sumptuous dishes "to bring the flavors of Mexico to tables at home."

Among the recipes, Chef Sandro shared included the classic guacamole, the hotel's specialty fish tacos, and the undoubtedly tasty tequila or mescal salted chocolates, a treat for the people with a sweet tooth.

Kids are part of the celebration, too. That is why the executive chef shared his hands-on recipe for a Mexican pizza.



Cinco de Mayo: A Mexican Tradition

Cinco de Mayo, which means the fifth of May, is a holiday in Mexico, celebrating the date of the victory of the Mexican army, on May 5, 1862. This year, Cinco de Mayo, which is also known as the Battle of Puebla Day, falls on Tuesday.

While it is comparatively a minor holiday in Mexico in the US, Cinco de May has progressed into a celebration of Mexican heritage and culture, specifically in areas that have large populations of the Mexican-Americans.

Essentially, Cinco de Mayo is not Independence Day in Mexico as to how it is commonly mistaken to be. Instead, it celebrates a memorable battle. History has it that back in 1861, lawyer and a Zapotec tribe member, Benito Juarez, was elected Mexico president.

During this time, the country was experiencing financial hardship after so many years of internal conflict, and the new president was obliged to default on payments of debts to the European governments.



Check these out!
A coronavirus vaccine could be manufactured in Australia by the start of next year.

That's according to Federal Science Minister Karen Andrews, who on Monday reiterated a COVID-19 vaccine was Australia's only ticket to a return to pre-virus life.

'It's entirely possible that by the end of this year or early next year we will have a vaccine for COVID-19,' she said.

Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is fast-tracking the testing of two candidate vaccines, one from the US and one from the UK.

The CSIRO is fast-tracking testing to get a working coronavirus vaccine. Pictured: Scientists testing coronavirus vaccine candidates at the CSIRO lab in Geelong, Victoria, on April 2

The CSIRO was the first research organisation outside of China to generate sufficient stocks of the virus to enable research.

Thanks to rapid work is CSIRO now at the stage of pre-clinical trials - a position that typically takes up to two years to reach.

To reach a vaccine within 15 months would be record time as vaccine development is typically a long and complex process that can take up to 15 years.

In ordinary times, a vaccine must pass through the pre-clinical stage, animal testing, then two phases of human trials to study the safety, immunogenicity, proposed doses and method of delivery.

If the vaccine passes these hurdles it moves to larger Phase III trials typically involving tens of thousands of people to catch any rare side-effects. Only then is it submitted for approval.

CSIRO is in preclinical trials: a position that typically takes up to two years to get to, thanks to rapid work on the virus. The CSIRO was the first lab outside China to grow stocks for research

Pictured: the CSIRO's high-containment bio-research facility in Geelong, Victoria. Preclinical testing is expected to take about three months

Because of the extraordinary urgency of the coronavirus pandemic, the CSIRO is fast-tracking vaccine testing as much as possible.

The federal government research agency is now conducting the pre-clinical vaccine trials to test the safety of the vaccine candidates on ferrets before they move on to human trials.

The human trials will then be done by Oxford University for the UK vaccine candidate and Inovio Pharmaceuticals for the US candidate, to determine whether the vaccine works.

Normally it takes up to two years to get to this stage of testing, a CSIRO spokesman said in a video media briefing.

Scientists working on preliminary tests of coronavirus vaccine candidates at the CSIRO lab in Geelong. Human trials will be done by Oxford University, UK, and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, US

'Testing is expected to take about three months,' a CSIRO spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on Monday.

'CSIRO is testing the COVID-19 vaccine candidates for efficacy, but also evaluating the best way to give the vaccine for better protection, including an intra-muscular injection and innovative approaches like a nasal spray.

'CSIRO is carefully balancing operating at speed with the critical need for safety in response to this global public health emergency.'

Scientists at the University of Queensland are also looking for a third vaccine with the 'incredibly ambitious' goal of having a working prototype by September.

Project leader Trent Munro said the September goal was a realistic possibility, but that there were many more hurdles their drug had to jump through before it was available to the Australian public, and that it would not be available for widespread use until 2021.

Scientists have never made a working coronavirus vaccine before, making the task more difficult than for a new influenza vaccine.

CSIRO director of health and biosecurity Rob Grenfell said it was important to make sure the vaccine did not make the disease worse, as was found when working with SARS.

Pictured: CSIRO scientists test coronavirus vaccine candidates at the Geelong lab in April. Once a vaccine is found, herd immunity can be achieved through immunisation

'So it's very important particularly in the context of this disease that we examine our animal model very carefully for this effect, and its all to do with an overreaction of certain arms of the immune system,' he said.

Another hurdle is that the virus infects the upper respiratory tract, which the human immune system is not great at protecting, ABC News reported.

'It's a separate immune system, if you like, which isn't easily accessible by vaccine technology ... It's a bit like trying to get a vaccine to kill a virus on the surface of your skin,' said University of Queensland Professor Ian Frazer, who helped develop the human papilloma virus vaccine.

Science Minister Karen Andrews said Australia was collaborating with international partners to find a working vaccine as quickly as possible.

'The scientific community right across the world is united as one to make sure that there is a vaccine discovered, developed, tested as soon as there possibly can,' she said.

Science Minister Karen Andrews says the plan is to make the vaccines in Australia

Once a vaccine is produced, herd immunity can be achieved by vaccinating the population.

Herd immunity means enough people have antibodies to the virus so it cannot spread.

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

Some high profile proponents of herd immunity such as Nobel-prize-winning mathematical modeller Michael Levitt do not want to wait for a vaccine and have proposed instead that people cease lockdowns and get sick, achieving herd immunity the hard way.

However medical scientists and epidemiologists have rejected this argument saying herd immunity would require up to 80 percent of the population to be infected which would completely overwhelm the healthcare system and push up the death rate dramatically.

Minister Andrews said the quick development of a vaccine was vital to easing restrictions.

'Quite frankly, until such time as we have a vaccine, life is not going to return to normal,' she said.

'So whilst we have seen some easing of restrictions, particularly over the last weekend, we still have a long way to go and it's very important that we all take baby steps.'

The National Cabinet has agreed to meet a week early on Friday to discuss the gradual easing of lockdown rules.

Ms Andrews said the government wants people to get back to work and to restart the economy as soon as possible, effectively and safely.

'That work is underway now and of course that's going to be a topic at National Cabinet later this week so we are very keen to get restrictions eased - but to do that sensibly and based on the best medical advice available.'

Scientists at work at the CSIRO biosecurity lab in Geelong. The pre-clinical trials will establish whether the candidate vaccines are safe before they move to human trials

Ms Andrews had an encouraging message for Australian industry saying that the government planned to manufacture any vaccines developed in Australia.

Australia's vulnerability to overseas supply chains was made clear by a shortage of facemasks in January when China stopped exporting and bought up local supplies to send to coronavirus-stricken Hubei province.

Australia had no factories to mass produce personal protective equipment.

In a sign the government has recognised this vulnerability, Ms Andrews said the plan was to have the vaccine made in Australia.

'From Australia's point of view, I'm very keen that we continue to do our work in collaboration with other nations to develop the vaccine here - and of course the next step for us will be to be able to manufacture it right here in Australia so I'm working on that,' she said.

Worldwide there were 3,579,479 coronavirus cases as of Monday night with 248,445 deaths, 2,172,078 active cases and 1,158,956 people recovered.

The USA is the most afflicted country by volume with 1,188,421 total cases and 68,062 dead, followed by Spain on 247,122 cases, Italy on 210,717, the UK on 186,599 and France on 168,693.

Australia had a total of 6823 confirmed cases with 96 dead, 864 active cases and 5863 people recovered.
Another large store is closing at The Point at Carlisle Plaza.

OfficeMax will close its store at 650 E. High St., Suite 600, in Carlisle. The store is on the grounds of the mall, but is not located within the mall. The store is scheduled to close on Saturday, May 16, as Office Depot Inc. continues to optimize its retail footprint, according to a company spokesperson. Office Depot owns OfficeMax.

It was the last OfficeMax left in Cumberland County. And there are no more OfficeMax stores left in Dauphin County.

OfficeMax closed a store at 6416 Carlisle Pike in Silver Spring Township in 2018. The OfficeMax store in the Colonial Commons shopping center at 5098 Jonestown Road in Lower Paxton Township closed in 2016. OfficeMax also previously had a location in the Union Square shopping center on Union Deposit Road in Susquehanna Township for many years.

There are 16 OfficeMax/Office Depot locations in Pennsylvania including the one Carlisle, according to the company website including OfficeMax stores in the Lancaster and Reading areas.

READ MORE:

With this latest OfficeMax closing, it will be another hit for this Cumberland County mall. JoAnn Fabrics closed its store inside the mall in March.

A PennLive reporter counted 14 vacancies at the mall in February before the JoAnn Fabrics store closed. A former Bon-Ton store closed at the mall in 2018. The mall is owned by The Giant Company.

--Business Buzz

--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
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
The Serbian Ministry for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure has drafted several strategies to financially assist the countrys national carrier which has been grounded by the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic since March 20 and has so far incurred over thirty million euros in losses. According to the ministry, the country will provide direct fiscal support as its main mode of assistance. The amount will depend on the final financial fallout from Covid-19, as well as the sum required to strengthen Air Serbias role in the wider Balkans, which it notes is currently very plausible. It said it was difficult to approximate an exact sum the state would invest in the national carrier but noted the assistance would be continuous and in line with the governments priorities, needs and possibilities.





Four different aid proposals have been made for Air Serbia. One of them is providing assistance in overcoming existing losses the airline has incurred due to the ban on commercial flights during the duration of the recession in the air transport sector. Another is to cover the losses for the transport of passengers and cargo, the Ministry for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure said. It added, First and foremost we will discuss relief for taxes and utilities, especially those payable to the state. A decision on whether and when the state would increase its ownership stake in Air Serbia would depend on the conditions and our financial capabilities after the the state of emergency is lifted in the country (expected later this week).





The ministry also noted it would cover damages caused to the interior of Air Serbias aircraft which have been transporting tons of medical supplies and equipment from China over the past month on almost thirty flights. Air Serbia will report all the costs and damages associated with these flights, the ministry said. According to the countrys Deputy Prime Minister, Zorana Mihajlovic, the airline is estimated to record a sixty-million-euro loss from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Air Serbia has tentatively scheduled its resumption of flights for May 18 when the countrys airports are expected to open. A Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) - an aviation document informing all carriers of important and urgent messages  issued by the Serbia and Montenegro Air Traffic Services Agency last week banning all commercial flights in and out of the country until May 30 has been revised and brought forward to May 18.





The International Air Transport Association (IATA) - the representative body for the global airline industry - and Airports Council International (ACI) - which represents the worlds airports - issued a joint appeal to governments last Thursday to rapidly provide financial support to airlines and airport operators due to the severe effects on both sectors of the travel restrictions and lockdowns imposed by many countries. Governments will depend on aviation to be ready to lead an economic recovery when this pandemic is behind us, IATA Director General and CEO, Alexandre de Juniac, said. He added, Governments must act now with financial lifelines that only they can provide for airlines and airports to see them through these extraordinary times. The head of ACI World, Angela Gittens, said, The financial impact of the current crisis is unlike anything we have ever seen and requires urgent action by governments to assist the aviation industry to protect jobs, ensure essential operations, and plan for recovery. Urgent tax relief and direct financial assistance that is to the benefit of the entire aviation ecosystem is needed to help preserve millions of jobs, protect essential operations, and foster a balanced recovery. IATA and ACI jointly called on governments to provide tax relief for airlines and airports. This would include reducing or waiving payroll taxes, corporate taxes and other levies on the sector. They also appealed for loans, loan guarantees or direct support to ensure the aviation ecosystem maintained financial liquidity.




Today marks a changing of the guard at the Calera Police Department with the longtime chief leaving and new veteran lawman stepping in.

Chief Sean Lemley is retiring after 25 years with the department, the last 13 of those spent as chief. David Hyche, recently retired as ATFs assistant special agent in charge of Alabama and Tennessee, will take over as the citys new top cop.

I love my job. I love what Ive done. I just want to do something different with the last third of my life, Lemley said. My family has always supported me but Im ready for a change. I want to do something different and Im not exactly sure what that will be.

Lemley began his law enforcement career in Calera. He was the 10th officer to join the force which has since tripled in size.

Im proud of the quality of staff we have here. Its extremely professional and top rate and second to none, Lemley said. Weve gotten a vehicle replacement plan in place, weve added an Investigations Division and an investigations building, weve gotten our pay rate to among the top paid in the state of Alabama.

Lemley said Calera PD is also leading the charge in technology-driven techniques. Weve got excellent benefits, excellent equipment and excellent facilities, he said. Im just proud to see where we came from and where we are.

Id like to take credit for everything but in reality, its been a team effort, he said. Im only as good as the people around me and the mayor and the council have been extremely supportive of me and this police department. Everything I needed Ive always gotten and thats attributed to the mayor and council.

Lemley has been planning his retirement for the past year. Im leaving on excellent terms. This is kind of one of those weird scenarios  Im not upset with anybody and nobody is upset with me, he said. I love what I do, Ive got a passion for it and Ive given it 100 percent. I have nothing but respect for anybody here.

David Hyche, who retired from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after 31 years, has been named Calera police chief. (Contributed)

Hyche will be sworn in tonight. He began his law enforcement career as a dispatcher while in college and went through the police academy while working at the University of Alabama Police Department. When he graduated, he immediately went to work for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He started with ATF in Atlanta, and also served in Washington, D.C. as well as two tours in Birmingham. He just retired after 31 years of federal service.

I had other opportunities for jobs that would have taken me out of Shelby County, but I didnt want to leave, and this is absolutely a blessing for me and my family, Hyche said. Ive been in Shelby County for 21 years and I dont want to live anywhere else.

He said the Calera Police Department has always had a stellar reputation. Everybody knows this is a squared-away department and they have excellent people, he said. I am extremely blessed and grateful to be able to stay here and work here. Everybody here cares about Calera, they really do. Nobody more so than Chief Sean Lemley. He has gone out of his way to help me and he doesnt have to do this. He really wants this to be a smooth transition.

Hyche has been working violent crime in Alabama for 21 years and said the relationships hes made will carry into his new role. Ive got relationships with federal, state and local law enforcement. Its not like Im somebody coming in for a foreign area, he said. I wont have to establish relationships  theyre already there.

Lemley said Hyche is the right person for the job. The thing Ive always said is that when I leave here, I want whoever takes over to do the job better. I dont want anybody to come in who is going to keep it steady, or do it worse or do it as good, he said. I want them to do better. The people, the community, the department deserve that, and Dave is the right guy to do that.

I feel confident he is not only going to be successful in taking over my position, he is going to do better and that is what we want,'' he said. "I fully believe he is the right guy for it.
Thai security personnel inspect the site of a car bomb after if exploded in front of the governments Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center in Yala, March 17, 2020.

A COVID-19 ceasefire announced by the largest insurgent group in Thailands Deep South appears to have crumbled after four people were killed during attacks at the weekend that followed a deadly raid by government forces against suspected rebels last week.

Authorities still were trying to determine who was behind the killings of two civilians on Saturday and two soldiers on Sunday, said Maj. Gen. Pramote Prom-in, the Thai armys regional spokesman.

[I] cannot identify the culprits. We need to investigate the cases in detail and examine information, Pramote told BenarNews by phone on Monday, referring to the weekend attacks.

On Thursday, Thai forces killed three suspected insurgents who were later identified by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (the National Revolutionary Front or BRN) rebel group as its fighters.

When BRN announced in early April that it was temporarily ceasing its operations on humanitarian grounds because of the coronavirus pandemic, the group warned it would resume them if Thai security forces attacked its fighters.

On Saturday evening, two men were shot and killed in Narathiwat province, according to local police. The initial investigation showed that the victims were returning home on a motorcycle when they were shot by gunmen who escaped.

The next day, unidentified gunmen shot and killed two soldiers who manned a COVID-19 checkpoint in nearby Pattani province.

From the initial investigation, two soldiers who supported activities at a COVID-19 check point  were shot at by unknown attackers riding a motorcycle, said police Col. Mana Dechawarit, the chief of the Sai Buri police station. We believe insurgents were responsible for the attack as revenge for their comrades deaths.

In other news from Thailands southern border region on Monday, officials said 18 Rohingya who were being held at an immigration detention center in Sadao, a district of Songkhla province, had tested positive for the coronavirus disease.

Peace efforts

The deadly violence in the far south during the past several days took place amid efforts by nearby Malaysia to facilitate peace talks, while the troubled region has also been reeling from the viral outbreak.

More than 7,000 people have died since the separatist insurgency reignited in 2004. And as of May 4, provinces and districts that make up the Deep South have recorded 374 coronavirus infections, or 12.5 percent out of 2,987 cases confirmed nationwide.

Only early this year did BRN agree to hold direct peace talks with government.

Since then, BRN leaders declared a truce on April 3 to allow the government to combat the pandemic. Pramote later dismissed the declaration as irrelevant to military efforts to curb violent activities in the southern border region.

On April 30, after the three insurgents were killed at a suspected hideout in Pattani province, BRN spokesman Abdul Karim Khalid posted a YouTube video, which blamed the government for taking advantage of the pandemic to launch the raid.

Thus BRN condemns the Thai government for this inhumanity and we hope that all people are looking forward to managing their villages against the outbreaks and the abusive regime, he said.

On May 1, the rebel group followed up with a written statement.

BRN strongly condemns the actions of the RTG (Royal Thai Government) that failed to respect the hardships faced by the people of Pattani during the COVID-19 outbreak. It shows that the RTG does not care about the humanitarian needs of the people of Pattani, the rebels said in a news release.

BRN categorically denies any statement by the RTG that we violated our ongoing humanitarian pause, it said while calling on the government to prioritize COVID-19 prevention. BRN also hopes the people of Pattani will be able to perform their Ramadan rituals successfully and that any threats by the RTG forces can be avoided.

Rohingya COVID-19 cases

Meanwhile, authorities on Monday reported that 17 Rohingya women and a 10-year-old boy detained at the immigration center in Sadao had tested positive for COVID-19, according to the provincial governor who said the boys mother was not infected.

Songkhla Gov. Jaruwat Kliangklao said that the province had sent a medical team as part of a proactive measure to contain the virus at the Sadao Immigration Detention Center, where 28 Rohingya detainees were being housed.

If anyone is found with symptoms of pneumonia, they will be referred to Hat Yai hospital. Those with mild symptoms will be treated at a field hospital at the detention center, Jaruwat told BenarNews.

Those 18 cases were the only new ones recorded in Thailand on Monday, where a total of 2,987 coronavirus infections have been recorded. The death toll remains unchanged from last week at 54.

Globally, more than 3.5 million have been infected by COVID-19 and nearly 250,000 have died, according to data compiled by disease experts at U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

Late last week, human rights advocacy group Fortify Rights called on the Thai government to release the Rohingya and other detainees held at the immigration center in Sadao and other detention centers across the country. The group said as many as 200 refugees were being held in 22 centers.

The continued detention of refugees and migrants is not only a human rights concern, but also a public health concern, Fortify Rights Executive Director Amy Smith said in a news release posted on its website Friday. With a global health crisis underway, Thai authorities should prioritize potential COVID-19 hotspots, such as detention facilities, to prevent transmission.
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951

/var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f04851dacc0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f0487f53220)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f04851dacc0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f0487f53220)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f04851ed7e8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f0487f53220)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f0487f53220)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f0484cc2d30)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f0485625c60)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f0485625c60)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
A man wearing a mask walks past the US Federal Reserve building in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 29, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Some US politicians are making the COVID-19 pandemic a political show, from repeatedly politicizing the disease and stigmatizing other countries, to the lousy cliche of claiming compensation.

The political farce staged again and again by the US, a major country that touts itself as an "international leader", is astonishing people around the world.

Even American media outlets outlined the need for joint anti-pandemic efforts from the international society, the mission to save lives, and the trend to conduct anti-pandemic cooperation. However, trying to divert people's attention, the US politicians showed no conscience, and they shall never be tolerated for undermining international cooperation.

The US side once said openly that it greatly appreciates China's efforts and transparency, and the data China shared are helpful for the US efforts against the epidemic. However, Washington just had a U-turn, and some US politicians thought they could escape their due responsibilities by doing so.

According to the best practices for naming new human infectious diseases jointly made by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations, disease names shall not include countries or regions. However, the US politicians blatantly violated the rules and called the novel coronavirus "Chinese virus" and "Wuhan virus." While the international society is generally lauding China's contribution made at huge sacrifice, they are forming cliques for blackmailing.

What they have done is an affront to international law and justice. The terms about sovereign immunity in the international law stipulate that the practices and treasure of a country are not bound to the legislation, jurisdiction or administration of other countries. More importantly, the sudden outbreak of an epidemic is a global public health incidence, which is considered force majeure in legal context. China is the first to report COVID-19 infection, but the origin of the virus needs further science-based studies.

Facts indicate that China's containment efforts do not have any causality with the outbreak in the US Even former Counselor on International Law Chimene Keitner in the US Department of State couldn't tolerate the practices of some US politicians. She said any professionals with actual working experience about sovereign immunity would find that the US courts have no jurisdiction as long as they take a look at the titles of the lawsuits.

However, some US politicians did not drop the idea at all to claim compensation, and they resorted to exceptions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Lea Brilmayer, professor of international law at Yale Law School called such practice "a last-ditch effort to do something to respond to the political situation," and Keitner considered it a "total nightmare."

China firstly reported the disease doesn't suggest the virus originated in the country. The source of the virus is a serious scientific issue that can only be studied by scientists and medical experts, not the crazy imagination by certain American politicians. In order to reach political goals, the US politicians illogically fantasized about the virus' existence in China, and such groundless assumption driven by politics is not even agreed by authoritative infection control specialists in the US who said such blame goes against facts.

It is globally recognized that China has always responded to the epidemic and shared relevant information in an open, transparent, timely and responsible manner, and the country was hailed by the WHO for its moves' high speed and massive scale which are rarely seen in the world. China's all-out efforts have established a strong line of defense. The political manipulation by certain Americans who ignore facts and fabricate data has no moral baseline and deviates from humanity.

According to US media, the White House National Security Council instigated US officials to shift the blames to China for the coronavirus, and the Senate Republican campaign arm distributed a 57-page messaging strategy that urged Republican candidates to blame China for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Tom Ginsburg of political science at the University of Chicago saw through the plot, saying the lawsuits against China aim to "cover up for the US government's own errors" and offer political support for the Republicans in the November election.

Blatantly trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and damaging the international rule of law with supremacy, the US is standing on the totally opposite side of international justice. It deeply worried Georgetown University professor David Stewart who remarked that"All those folks looking at China ought to be looking over their shoulder saying, 'Wait a minute, can we be sued?' "

The 1918 flu pandemic originated in the US and caused a huge humanitarian disaster, and who is to blame for that? The first AIDS infection emerged in the US and later the virus spread to over 75 million people around the world and led to 35 million deaths, and who should compensate for the loss? The Wall Street Journal is the origin of the 2008 financial crisis, so when will the US compensate the world for the losses over trillions of dollars?

There are also questions that need to be raised to the US Why are the CT images of the patients of electronic cigarette pneumonia that broke out last August in the US resemble those of the COVID-19 patients? What on earth happened in the bioweapons lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland? When did the earliest COVID-19 infection happen in the US, since a COVID-19 patient without travel history to China died on Feb. 6? Why are American scientists silenced for publishing COVID-19 studies in the US which always brags about its freedom of speech? Chinese and European scientists have published multiple genetic sequencing results of the novel coronavirus, and why doesn't the US release its studies as the top power in biogenetic studies? The US politicians must give answers.

WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that countries seeking to politicize the Covid-19 pandemic are "playing with fire." "If you don't want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it," he said.

US politicians should listen to the sincere advice from the civilized world, as the continuing farce would only lead to fewer supports and self-humiliation.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People's Daily to express its views on foreign policy.)
A ustralia's Great Barrier Reef has experienced its third coral bleaching event in five years, according to researchers who blamed the rapid warming of the planet due to human emissions.

A bleaching event occurs when coral expels a type of algae that provides up to 90 per cent of their energy and gives them their colour.

This expulsion can happen when coral is under stress due to warm ocean temperatures.

Now, a new survey has found the south of the reef is bleaching extensively for the first time.

Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University said: "We surveyed 1,036 reefs from the air during the last two weeks in March, to measure the extent and severity of coral bleaching throughout the Barrier Reef region.

"For the first time, severe bleaching has struck all three regions of the Great Barrier Reef - the northern, central and now large parts of the southern sectors."

Taking 11 flights over nine days in March, Professor Hughes navigated the full length of the Great Barrier Reef to survey reefs from the air.

According to aerial analysis, coastal reefs along its entire length - a stretch of about 1,500 miles (2,300 kilometers) from the northern Torres Strait to the reef's southern boundary - have been severely bleached.

Bleached Acropora on Lizard Island / Kristen Brown/ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

In February, researchers said the area recorded its highest monthly sea surface temperatures since records began in 1900.

Professor Hughes said: "We are all in shock really at how quick this has happened. Three severe bleaching events in five years is not something we anticipated happening until the middle of the century."

Professor Morgan Pratchett, also from Coral CoE at JCU, led studies to determine how bad the recent bleaching event has been.

He said: "A pale or lightly bleached coral typically regains its colour within a few weeks or months and survives.

"We will go back underwater later this year to assess the losses of corals from this most recent event.

"The north was the worst affected region in 2016, followed by the central region in 2017. In 2020, the cumulative footprint of bleaching has expanded further to include the south."

Experts have also observed how the time frame between these bleaching events is shrinking, so the coral reef has less time to fully recover.

A white tipped shark swimming over bleached acropora cora / Morgan Pratchett/ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

The bleaching event this year is not only the largest, but also the most severe on record, with much of the damage likely to be irreparable.

Professor Hughes also added that the number of reefs avoiding bleaching is dwindling each year.

He said: "As summers grow hotter and hotter, we no longer need an El Nino event to trigger mass bleaching at the scale of the Great Barrier Reef.

"Of the five events we have seen so far, only 1998 and 2016 occurred during El Nino conditions.

"We have already seen the first example of back-to-back bleaching-in the consecutive summers of 2016 and 2017."
Red Cross employees measuring body temperature at Vienna Airport Vienna this February. Photo by Martin Juen/SEPA.Media /Getty Images

Vienna Airport has begun offering Covid-19 tests that can, if the results are negative, enable passengers to bypass a 14-day quarantine.

Results of the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, which are scheduled by appointment and available to arriving and departing passengers, should be available within three hours, it says.

"In this way, flights are now safer and easier - regardless of whether they involve business trips or urgent trips with on-demand aircraft," the airport said in a statement.

PCR tests differ from antibody tests, in that they confirm a Covid-19 infection rather than a person's exposure to it in the past.

The results are considered valid only for a short period of time.

Tests will only be carried out on people without coronavirus symptoms (e.g. fever or cough), the airport says, and specimens will be taken "from deep inside a persons throat or nose".

Travellers arriving into Austria must currently present a medical certificate confirming a negative PCR test result within the previous four days, or face a 14-day quarantine.

A negative result from a PCR test shortly after arrival, however, would mean they are issued with a medical certificate to prove they are not infected, and thus avoid quarantine.

A positive result would be reported to public authorities, in accordance with Austrian law, the airport says.

At present Vienna is operating a reduced scheduled flights to Doha, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Lisbon, Minsk and Sofia.

The airport requires all passengers and employees to wear face masks, distancing markers are in place, and check-in, boarding and information desks have plexiglass social distancing shields, it says.

Covid-19 testing, whether PCR or for antibodies, has been widely discussed as a health protocol that could help travel get back up and running.

In Dubai, Emirates has tested passengers using "rapid Covid-19" tests before boarding, with results available within 10 minutes, the airline has said.

Airports in Hong Kong and Seoul, South Korea, have also been screening passengers for coronavirus as they arrive.

In Ireland, arriving passengers - including Irish citizens - are currently required to self-isolate for 14 days.

All passengers are asked to complete a Public Health Passenger Locator Form before they leave the airport, and may be contacted during the 14-day period to confirm that quarantine is taking place.

The Irish Government continues to advise against all non-essential travel overseas until further notice.

Sign up for our free travel newsletter!

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.
Hero MotoCorp on Monday said that it's resuming operations in a graded manner at three of its manufacturing plants - Gurugram and Dharuhera (both in Haryana), Haridwar (Uttarakhand) and additionally the Global Parts Center (GPC) at Neemrana in Rajasthan. It comes after the government last week announced fresh relaxations amid ongoing coronavirus lockdown. The manufacturing plants will reopen from today and begin production from Wednesday, Hero MotoCorp said in an exchange filing.

"Only the essential staff will come to work at all the other facilities and corporate offices, observing social distancing and all prescribed safety measures. The remaining employees across all locations in India will continue to Work from Home (WFH) till further notice," Hero MotoCorp also said.

Also read: Do not need stimulus or govt support: Pankaj Munjal

Hero MotoCorp suspended operations across its manufacturing facilities and made work from home (WFH) mandatory for all its offices from March 22. In April, the manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters didn't produce any units and dispatched them to dealers.

"We are now ready to hit the ground sprinting as we commence the re-opening of our facilities. The well being of the citizens continues to be our focus and the running of our economic engines is crucial to ensure their health and prosperity. With meticulous planning and enthusiasm, we are set to recommence operations. I am optimistic that business and the economy will begin the trajectory of its gradual recovery from here," said Pawan Munjal, Chairman, Hero MotoCorp.

The company also said that the majority of its dealerships, workshops and the secondary network, are expected to open from today. Shares of Hero MotoCorp were trading at Rs 2,009.33, down 157.35 points, or 7.26 per cent on NSE at the time of reporting.

Also read: Coronavirus India live updates: People queue up outside liquor shops amid lockdown 3.0; 42,533 total cases
India has conveyed its strong protest to Pakistan over an order by that country's supreme court allowing the conduct of general elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The Ministry of External Affairs said Pakistan was told that entire Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India and that Islamabad should immediately vacate the areas under its illegal occupation.

In a recent order, the Pakistan Supreme Court allowed the amendment to the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 to conduct the general elections in the region.

"India demarched senior Pakistan diplomat and lodged a strong protest to Pakistan against Supreme Court of Pakistan order on the so-called 'Gilgit-Baltistan'," the MEA said in a statement.

"It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession," it said.

The MEA said the government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories "illegally and forcibly" occupied by it.

"India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir," it said.

"Instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation," it added.

The MEA said Pakistan's recent actions can neither hide the "illegal occupation" of parts of union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh by it nor the "grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom" to the people residing in these areas for the past seven decades.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Around 150 liquor shops located outside COVID-19 containment zones in the national capital are likely to open from Monday as the Delhi government has announced implementation of the latest lockdown relaxations.

According to an official, four government-run agencies, which are responsible for sale of liquor in Delhi, have submitted the list of the liquor shops which can be allowed to open following coronavirus guidelines.

"About 150 liquor shops are likely to open in Delhi from Monday," the official said, adding that these are likely remain open till 7 in evening.

On Saturday, the excise department directed these four agencies to identify liquor outlets which fulfil all conditions prescribed by the the Ministry of Home Affairs.

However, liquor shops will not be allowed to open in COVID-19 containment zones.

Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation, Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation, Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited and Delhi Consumer's Cooperative Wholesale Store have been given the permission to open liquor shops in public places, except malls and market complexes.

The agencies will also have to give an undertaking stating that liquor shops being allowed to open will fulfil all conditions prescribed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), according to the excise department.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!!

Topics
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Sithanonxay Suvannaphakdy (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Mon, May 4, 2020 10:39 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5bb18a 3 Opinion ASEAN,PPE,COVID-19,coronavirus,medical-supplies Free

One initiative resulting from the April 14 Special ASEAN Summit video conference was the proposed establishment of the COVID-19 ASEAN Response Fund, which was widely supported by ASEAN leaders. ASEAN countries can use the fund to buy medical supplies during disease outbreaks in the future. But do we know who supplies personal protective equipment (PPE) in ASEAN?



As ASEAN member countries use numerous measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, trade can serve as a powerful, low-cost tool to improve access to PPE. To protect themselves and their patients from being infected and infecting others, health workers need PPE products including gloves, hair covers, face masks and shields, goggles and gowns. Here, I argue that ASEAN countries import some PPE products from countries outside the region, but most ASEAN countries heavily tax imports of these products.



In the pre-COVID-19 period, the United Nations trade data for 2018 revealed that ASEAN countries not only manufactured PPE products to trade regionally, but also for export to the rest of the world. At least one ASEAN country was listed in the top five global exporters of each relevant product of PPE in 2018. This includes Vietnam for gowns, hair covers, masks and gloves; and Malaysia and Thailand for gloves.



The total value of global exports of PPE products was US$47.5 billion in 2018. The majority of such exports consisted of gloves, masks and gowns. More than 60 percent of these exports were supplied by the top five exporters. Global export of gloves was recorded at $15.6 billion, 76 percent of which was supplied by China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Belgium. Global export of masks (i.e. textile masks and gas masks) totaled $13.6 billion, 63 percent of which was supplied by China, Germany, the United States, Vietnam and Mexico. China was also the top-ranked global exporter of other PPE products.



The total value of ASEAN exports of PPE products was $8.5 billion or 18 percent of global exports in 2018. The majority or 80 percent of such exports was in gloves and gowns (13 percent). The largest exporter of PPE products was Malaysia ($4.6 billion), followed by Vietnam ($1.7 billion) and Thailand ($1.4 billion).



Meanwhile, ASEAN countries also imported PPE products worth of about $1 billion. The majority of such imports was in gloves, gowns and masks. The largest importer of PPE products was Vietnam ($256 million), followed by Indonesia ($167 million) and Malaysia ($160 million).



However, not every ASEAN country produces all the PPE products needed by healthcare workers to tackle the COVID-19. Thailand and Vietnam were net exporters (value of exports minus value of imports) of gloves, goggles, gowns and hair covers, while being net importers of masks. Cambodia and Indonesia were net exporters of gloves, gowns and hair covers, while being net importers of goggles and masks. Malaysia was a net exporter of gloves and goggles. Myanmar was a net exporter of gowns and hair covers.



Other ASEAN countries were small net exporters of one PPE product such as Brunei for goggles, Laos for gowns, the Philippines for hair covers and Singapore for masks.



An individual country cannot produce all PPE products and hence relies on sourcing from within and outside the region. For example, ASEANs total imports of face masks reached $104 million in 2018, 91 percent of which was sourced from non-ASEAN countries. Major suppliers of masks outside ASEAN include China, South Korea, Japan, European Union, Taiwan and the US. Major suppliers of masks within ASEAN include Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.



During the current COVID-19 period, however, sourcing PPE products from overseas has become increasingly challenging for ASEAN countries. Some ASEAN countries that can produce PPE themselves still face shortages as the containment measures to curb the virus spread prevent workers from working in the factories that are producing these products.



The widespread work-from-home directives under the COVID-19 control measures mean that many service tasks can be done remotely, but most production of goods such as COVID-19 PPE requires social proximity, not social distancing. These measures have therefore reduced labor inputs in the production process and hence lowered the outputs of COVID-19 PPE.



Furthermore, imports of PPE products from trading partners that do not have a free trade agreement (FTA) with ASEAN face high tariff barriers. Data from ASEAN Tariff Finder reveals that most ASEAN countries heavily tax imports of PPE products from non-FTA partners. Seven out of 10 ASEAN countries charge an average most-favored-nation (MFN) tariff rate of 9 percent or more on PPE products. These include Thailand (17.1 percent), Vietnam (15.3 percent), Myanmar (13.1 percent), Cambodia (12.3 percent), Indonesia (11.4 percent), the Philippines (11.4 percent), and Laos (9.6 percent). Brunei and Malaysia tax imports of PPE products less than 3 percent, while Singapore has eliminated all tariffs on these products.



In conclusion, ASEAN countries export one or more PPE products, but none of them can produce all the PPE products needed by healthcare workers to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. They have sourced PPE products from each other, China, the US and European countries. However, imports from the US and the European Union face high tariffs. Higher tariff rates increase prices of imported PPE products, resulting in larger public expenditure for healthcare interventions.



Eliminating tariffs on imports of PPE products from non-FTA partners could reduce the costs of healthcare interventions and improve access to PPE products in ASEAN.

---

Lead researcher in economic affairs at the ASEAN Studies Center, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies  Yusof Ishak Institute.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
Dissuaded from visiting clinics but armed with blood pressure cuffs, fetal heart rate Doppler monitors and smartphones, many pregnant women are being taught to self-monitor. For many parents-to-be, its the first time we have been involved in collecting our own data or had direct communication with our care teams outside of face-to-face appointments. For some, collecting information about their pregnancy symptoms, blood pressure, weight and fetal heart rates can be oddly empowering at this uncertain time  but only if a person has the resources to do it properly.

Niha Zubair, a data scientist, signed up for a TeleOB program through the University of Washington School of Medicine that provides a blood pressure cuff and fetal monitor, along with instructions, to participating expectant mothers. Even before the Seattle area was hit hard by the coronavirus, these women regularly met their doctors and midwives on video-conferencing calls between their in-person appointments. Its a huge time saver. I have a full-time job and two small children, and it means not having to drag kids to an appointment if I dont have child care, Zubair said. And now, she also has the benefit of avoiding medical facilities where she could be exposed to the coronavirus, she said.

But TaNefer Camara, a lactation consultant based in Oakland, Calif., said she was disappointed to have one of her prenatal appointments moved to Zoom recently and to learn that her midwife would limit most in-person meetings to one per trimester. Regular prenatal care in this country already feels like it lacks connection. Already it feels so impersonal, said Camara, adding that as a health care provider herself, she understands the need to limit in-person visits. But other women may not have the level of access and information she has, she said.

The danger for people whose pregnancies were already risky

Dr. Peahl said that the countrys less advantaged institutions and patients would probably miss out on some opportunities that higher-income patients have. Many blood pressure cuffs start at $25, and fetal heart rate monitors are not covered by Medicaid.

Dr. Jennifer McLeland, M.D., an obstetrician with Vivi Womens Health in Fort Worth, said that without opportunities to meet in person or access to tools to self-monitor, some conditions might be missed in financially vulnerable expectant mothers, particularly in their third trimesters. She said patients in this population already experience higher rates of preeclampsia, a potentially fatal condition that can be indicated by changes in blood pressure, protein in urine, swelling and other symptoms. Individualizing care for people in these higher-risk categories and with underlying medical conditions is crucial, Dr. McLeland said.

Monica McLemore, Ph.D., a family health care nursing professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said that we have already seen things we never expected because of the coronavirus. Lets maintain that orientation. We must work together to fix this system for people with the capacity for pregnancy, she said. She suggested mental health check-ins and regular self-monitoring. Because successful telemedicine requires access to a device, internet connectivity and technical savviness that not all patients have, Dr. McLemore suggests that clinics or philanthropic foundations provide devices and data plans not just for providers but also for patients who need them.

This pandemic is, of course, highlighting myriad existing health care gaps, whose roots include systemic racism and classism.
- Somalia is yet to close mosques despite having recorded over 700 cases of COVID-19

- Mandera residents, who are majorly muslims, have been crossing over to Somalia for their routine prayers

- The northern counties have been listed as being at risk of imported coronavirus cases

Police in Mandera are looking into reports that hundreds of locals crossed the border into Somalia to perform Taraweeh prayers in mosques.

Despite having recorded over 700 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 32 deaths, Somalia is yet to close down mosques or implement the social distance.

READ ALSO: Homa Bay: Chiefs on the spot for beating, gouging out mans eye during curfew

Mandera governor Ali Roba. Kenyans in Mandera are sneaking into Somalia to perform Taraweeh. Photo: Ali Roba

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Kenyan newspaper review for May 4: Late Keroche CEO's daughter Tecra fell from stairs, new reports claim

In a report by the Daily Nation, the opening of mosques in Somalia has attracted many Muslims who are now sneaking into the country for prayers and worship.

Confirming the reports, Mandera county commissioner Onesmus Kyatha issued a warning to the locals saying all those found sneaking into Somalia would be quarantined at their own cost and later prosecuted.

We have information that several residents of Mandera have been crossing into Somalia to perform prayers in mosques there. We have activated our security operation, and anybody found will be arrested and prosecuted after completing a 14-day quarantine, said Kyatha.

Mandera county commissioner Onesmus Kyatha during Jamhuri Day celebrations in December 2019. Photo: Daily Nation

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Anerlisa Muigai remembers late sister Tecra with heartwarming photos

Officials are also looking into the Wajir and Garissa counties which are also major links between Kenya and the neighbouring country and are at high risk of imported cases.

Already, Wajir has reported two coronavirus cases, which were imported from Somalia.

The two traders, who hail from Garissa, had travelled for a livestock trading trip before they were intercepted by security agencies in Diff, at the Kenya-Somalia border, on their way back to Kenya.

Wajir governor Mohammed Abdi during a past event at the Supreme Court. Photo: Daily Nation

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: David Riungu: Passionate nurse courageously crosses flooded river to serve villagers

Wajir governor Mohammed Abdi dispatched a team of health personnel to Diff, Dadajabula and other towns to screen residents and fumigate public places.

Garissa governor Ali Bunow Korane ordered immediate closure of the Dagahley livestock market in Dadaab following confirmed reports of the virus in Wajir.

"The closure is informed by the risk level of the market since traders are known to move across the border to Somalia to get stock," Health Executive Ahmednadir Omar Sheikh said

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
YAVNE, Israel, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MediWound Ltd. (MDWD), a fully-integrated biopharmaceutical company bringing innovative therapies to address unmet medical needs in severe burn and wound management, today announced the expansion of its NexoBrid European presence with distribution agreements granting GENFA MEDICA SA, its distributer in Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic countries, the exclusive right to market and distribute NexoBrid in France and Switzerland and Specialty Therapeutics PC the exclusive right to market and distribute NexoBrid in Greece, Bulgaria, Malta and Cyprus.



NexoBrid, currently approved in the European Union and other international markets, is a topically-administered biologic product that removes eschar in patients with deep partial and full-thickness thermal burns. Commercialization of NexoBrid in these additional regions will commence upon securing authorities approval for market access, which is expected within the next 12 months.

"We are very pleased to strengthen NexoBrids European presence by signing new distribution agreements for additional six countries in Europe, said Sharon Malka, Chief Executive Officer of MediWound. The addition of these distribution agreements, which cover lucrative European markets, is an extension of our commercial strategy in Europe, driven by our direct sales force accompanied with local distribution agreements, to maximize NexoBrid market potential as we continue to expand the commercialization of NexoBrid towards a substantive cash generating product. We are delighted that NexoBrid will soon be available to treat patients who are suffering from severe burns in these countries."

Yael Duberstein, Director of GENFA MEDICA SA stated, "We are thrilled at this opportunity to bring NexoBrid to the considerable market of France and to Switzerland . We are confident that Nexobrid will play a major role in the future of burn care in these new markets. We are committed to bringing innovative and life changing therapies to patients in these countries and look forward to expanding our collaboration with MediWound.

Story continues

George Pavlakis, CEO of Specialty Therapeutics PC stated, For us, as an innovative therapeutic company, NexoBrid brings a new paradigm for burn care patients, both in improving quality of care and cost of care. We are excited about this collaboration and look forward to launching NexoBrid in Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Bulgaria.

About NexoBrid

NexoBrid is a topically-administered biological product that enzymatically removes nonviable burn tissue, or eschar, in patients with deep partial and full-thickness thermal burns within four hours of application without harming viable tissue. NexoBrid is approved in the European Union and other international markets and has been designated as an orphan biologic in the United States, European Union and other international markets.



In January 2019, MediWound announced positive top-line results from the acute phase of the pivotal Phase 3 U.S. clinical study (DETECT) of NexoBrid in adult patients with deep partial- and full-thickness thermal burns up to 30% of total body surface area. The study met its primary endpoint of complete eschar removal compared to gel vehicle as well as all secondary endpoints compared to standard of care (SOC), including shorter time to eschar removal, a lower incidence of surgical eschar removal, and lower blood loss during eschar removal. Safety endpoints, including the key safety endpoint of non-inferiority in time to complete wound closure compared with patients treated with SOC, were also achieved. In addition, the twelve-month follow-up safety data of cosmesis and function were found to be comparable between the treatment and SOC arms, and no new safety signals were observed. Filling of the Biological License Application (BLA) to the U.S. food and Drugs Administration is expected in by mid-year 2020.

About MediWound Ltd.

MediWound is a fully-integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing novel therapeutics based on its patented proteolytic enzyme technology to address unmet needs in the fields of severe burns, chronic and other hard-to-heal wounds. MediWounds first innovative biopharmaceutical product, NexoBrid, non-surgically and rapidly removes burn eschar without harming viable tissue. The product has received marketing authorization from the European Medicines Agency as well as the Israeli, Argentinian, South Korean, Russian and Peruvian Ministries of Health. MediWounds second innovative product, EscharEx is a topical biological drug candidate for the debridement of chronic and other hard-to-heal wounds using the same proteolytic enzyme technology as NexoBrid. In two Phase 2 studies, EscharEx has demonstrated safety and efficacy in the debridement of various chronic and other hard-to-heal wounds, within a few daily applications. For more information, please visit www.mediwound.com .

About GENFA MEDICA SA

Genfa Medica SA is a swiss company engaged in R&D, regulatory, support and marketing of specialty products, via its strategic partnerships with research based organizations and leading distributors in the selected markets.

For more information, please visit www.genfamedica.com

About Specialty Therapeutics PC

Specialty Therapeutics is a Greek pharmaceutical company, committed to bring innovative products in Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, offering highly specialized products to address the unmet medical needs of patients in Oncology/Haematology/Radiotherapy, Endocrinology/Gynaecology, Nuclear Medicine, Immunology, Rare diseases, Wound and Burn Care area.

Specialty Therapeutics is the partner of choice for 13 multinational and specialty pharma Companies representing 23 innovative products, covering 6 countries with a population of 50 million.

For more information, please visit www.specialtytherapeutics.gr/index.html

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Section 21E of the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, such as statements regarding assumptions and results related to possibility of obtaining marketing approvals in France and Switzerland, the ability to successfully commercialize NexoBrid in these countries as well as in Greece, Bulgaria, Malta and Cyprus and the time of filing the BLA. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as believe, may, estimate, continue, anticipate, intend, should, plan, expect, predict, potential, or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on MediWounds current knowledge and its present beliefs and expectations regarding possible future events and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of several important factors. In particular, you should consider Genfa Medica's or Specialty Therapeutics' ability to obtain marketing approval of NexoBrid in the relevant markets; the clinical utility, potential advantages and timing or likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals of NexoBrid; the expectations regarding future growth; the ability to submit to FDA a BLA in the timeframe expected; the ability to fund the development of NexoBrid until BLA submission; FDA may not accept part or all of the BLA; FDA may not provide marketing approval for NexoBrid in the United States; the possibility of unfavorable pricing regulations or lack of coverage by third parties and reimbursement policies; and the additional risks discussed under the heading Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2019, quarterly reports on Form 6-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee that future results, levels of activity, performance and events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or will occur. The forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date of this announcement and MediWound undertakes no obligation to update publicly such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as otherwise required by law.
Women being forced to turn to unregulated sources of contraception during lockdown is deeply worrying, a charity has said.

Clinics have reduced their opening hours or shut entirely during the pandemic, meaning many women are struggling to access family planning services.

Tracey Forsyth, lead contraceptive nurse the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, is urging women to avoid buying contraception from unverified sources online.

Medication purchased on sites like eBay might be fake, may offer no protection against unplanned pregnancy, and could be unsafe, she said.

There is no guarantee that the pills in the packet are what is being advertised.

Recommended How contraception shortages are affecting women in the UK

If women are struggling to get their usual method through their usual route, they should seek help from regulated online pharmacies who can provide up to a 6-month supply of the contraceptive pill, delivered to their door.

The Independent found one seller on eBay, based in the UK, who had listed a month supply of unbranded "contraceptive pill" for 10.99.

Another seller, also based in the UK, according to their eBay profile, is listing the Gynaecosid contraceptive emergency tablet pill for 10.00.

Sexual health clinics have been shut or are running skeleton services during the pandemic, as staff have been deployed to help in other areas of hospitals surgeries.

An unverified seller listing the morning after pill on eBay (eBay)

Contraceptive pill listed by unverified seller on eBay

High absence rates among GPs has also resulted in missed appointments at clinics.

Last month, a study carried out by the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV found that 86 per cent of clinics could not offer effective long-acting contraceptive choices such as the coil or implant.

Only two-thirds could still fit a coil for emergency contraception, according to the study.

Peter Greenhouse, spokesperson for the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, said: The longer the lockdown goes on, the worse the situation will get for womens sexual health.

Anything that limits availability and choice of contraception harms womens health and Covids had a huge impact on sexual health services.

He added: Our UK-wide live survey found that two-thirds of clinics had less than 20 per cent capacity for face-to-face consultations.

A third of services have stopped giving three-monthly contraceptive injections (Depoprovera), 86 per cent of clinics couldnt offer the most effective long-acting choices of a coil or an implant, and only two-thirds could still fit a coil for emergency contraception.

Although 90 per cent offer telephone advice on choice and supply of pills, switching methods during the current crisis is more difficult and only one in five clinics can provide pills or patches online.

So while social distancing is reducing opportunities for the spread of STIs, women who need to adjust their contraception, or manage heavy or severely painful periods, will have a much more challenging time.
- Stivo Simple Boy found himself in the middle of a Nigeria vs Uganda Twitter battle after his photo looking dapper in a suit was used as a meme

- The musician's picture was used to compare the designs made from Uganda and Nigeria with tweeps describing him as Nigerian

- This was the second time the artiste found himself in a Twitter battle

Kenyan artiste Stivo Simple Boy has found himself in the middle of a battle that he does not even understand how it started.

The Mihadarati hitmaker was used as a meme in a Twitter battle pitting Uganda vs Nigeria on Sunday, May 3.

READ ALSO: Video of Mombasa residents eating from one plate during Ramadhan baffles man

READ ALSO: Break up?: TV anchor Willis Raburu, wife Marya Prude reportedly separate months after losing newborn

His picture looking dapper in a dark blue suit was used to compare the designs made from Uganda and Nigeria with several tweeps describing him as Nigerian.

He was also used as a comparison between Ugandan news anchors and Nigerian ones, where he was also set out to be a Nigerian news anchor.

Kenyans came across the photos and found it hilarious that they had dragged Stivo into a war he knew nothing about.

READ ALSO: Even if I have 10 boyfriends, they're mine - Lilian Muli claps back at troll

READ ALSO: Polisi wa kafyu auawa na genge la majambazi huku mwenzake akifaulu kuhepa

Some netizens also noted that they were trying to provoke Kenyans into getting into a Twitter battle which generally is never a good idea.

The two countries were on a Twitter war for a while as they compared several things from flags, presidents, personalities, and towns.

This was not the first time that Stivo found himself trending on social media with the previous one being compared to a South African DJ.

Daniel Marven, a musician, and producer from South Africa, shared a photo of Stivo Simple Boy comparing him to one of South African's popular entertainers, DJ Euphonik.

After being confronted with a Stivo Simple Boy Twitter parody account asking that he deletes the photo and puts his effort into good use, Marven lashed out claiming he was neither talking to Stivo nor about him.

This evoked many Kenyans who started a Twitter beef leading to several comparisons between South Africans and Kenyans under the hashtag #KenyanvsSouthAfrica.

The tag went viral with many joining in to try to win the Twitter battle for their country.

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.

My life is in danger, get me out of Saudi Arabia- Sheila Andalo | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) held an international online rally on Saturday to mark May Day 2020. Speakers from eleven countries addressed the livestreamed event, which was followed by an audience from throughout the world.

The May Day 2020 rally took place under conditions of the global coronavirus pandemic, which has so far claimed the lives, according to official countries, of approximately a quarter of a million people worldwide.

The May Day rally featured speakers from the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Sri Lanka, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Brazil, Costa Rica and Canada.

Over 3,000 people watched all or part of the rally online live, and more than 4,200 people have viewed it on YouTube since. The full video can be watched here.

The rally, which began at 11:00 am US Eastern Time, was introduced and moderated by Norissa Santa Cruz, the Socialist Equality Partys candidate for US Vice President in the 2020 elections. Norissa welcomed the workers and young people from around the world in attendance and introduced each of the speakers.

David North, the national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party in the US and chairman of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS, gave the opening address to the rally and placed the present global crisis in historical context.

The pandemic is a historic event that is exposing the economic, political, social and moral bankruptcy of capitalist society, North said. It is laying bare the unbridgeable chasm that exists between the corporate-financial oligarchs that control and determine the policies of capitalist governments and the needs and interests of the working class.

In summing up the conclusions that the international working class must draw from to COVID-19 crisis, North said, The pandemic is a world experience, requiring a world solution. In the fight against the coronavirus, issues of race, ethnicity, nationality and gender fade into insignificance. The struggle against the pandemic demands the surmounting of all national barriers that inhibit the productive and progressive collaboration of humanity.

Rally participants posted comments to the online discussion during the event. Some participants posted greetings to the rally and others provided more extensive comments. One worker posted: Yesthese deaths are a fact of life under capitalism. The essence of the lie is that this is independent of the political system in power. Socialism will put the needs of the masses first and prevent the immense suffering we are going through now and plan a future where science is used to end human suffering.

Another viewer wrote, Watching Trotskyist leaders on my telly is the new normal. If there were any doubt, the ICFI is the only political force on the planet capable of organising the international working class for the revolutionary overthrow of the detested, outmoded and rotten capitalist profit system. Forward to socialism join and build the SEP in your country.

A worker from New York wrote: As a member of the working class, I am terrified. Many of us are frightened and angry. We have waited 6 weeks for unemployment benefits and told by [New York Governor Andrew] Cuomo to just get essential work and sacrifice ourselves. Many are starting to realize that the ruling class does not care if we live or die. Essential workers already have been sacrificed and soon more of us will follow. We (the working class) have to do something. The issue is many of us feel intimidated by academic language because the ruling class has led us to believe that we are uneducated and dumb. We are not!

The event on May 2 marked an important milestone in the history of the international socialist movement. While the ICFI has held international online May Day rallies for the past six years, marking the international holiday of the working class, this is the first time that the speakers were streamed in a live video from each of the countries where they were located.

The first-time participation in the international online May Day rally of speakers from Turkey, Brazil and Costa Rica shows the growing support for the program of world socialist revolution fought for by the ICFI, the world Trotskyist movement.

Over the next days, we will be publishing the transcripts of each of the May Day rally speeches on the WSWS. Today, we begin with the opening report by David North, National Chairman of the SEP (US) and Chairman of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS and the remarks by Tom Peters of the Socialist Equality Group in New Zealand.
SACRAMENTO  California retailers can begin to reopen their businesses to curbside pickup as soon as the end of this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday, while some regions of the state with few coronavirus cases will be able to go even further in loosening restrictions on public life.

We are entering into the next phase, Newsom said at a news conference. This is a very positive sign, and it is happening for only one reason: The data says it can happen.

It may be a while, however, before the Bay Area takes those steps. Six Bay Area counties are under a stay-at-home order through the end of May that is separate from the states shutdown, and Newsom said such counties could keep their stricter rules in place past Friday if they choose.

We are not preempting their guidelines, he said. We will still allow them to move forward.

Representatives of several Bay Area counties said they were reviewing Newsoms announcement and considering whether they felt comfortable easing some restrictions on businesses based on their local health data.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she is really excited about it and we want to see people get back to work especially, but we want to do it responsibly. She said she could not guarantee that it would happen by Friday.

If there is a way to accomplish the public health goal of keeping people safe with also allowing businesses to operate, but to operate differently with certain guidelines, I think that we can definitely work together to achieve that goal and get to a better place, Breed said.

Contra Costa County plans to stick to tracking progress on key public health indicators before relaxing the stay-at-home order it issued along with five other counties and Berkeley, which will be in place through the end of May, said Contra Costa public health spokesman Will Harper.

Newsom said he would put out guidelines that stores across the state could adopt to sell clothing, books, music, toys, sporting goods and flowers again starting Friday. Those guidelines will not be unveiled until Thursday, but Newsom said they would include providing curbside pickup rather than allowing customers back into stores.

Manufacturers and suppliers for retailers that can begin curbside service will also be eligible to resume operations Friday, Newsom said.

Shopping malls, dine-in restaurants and office buildings will stay closed for now. However, counties will soon be able to ask the state for permission to reopen restaurants and some other businesses on a local basis.

The governor said he would emphasize a regional approach to restarting the economy. Thats something that a number of mostly rural counties have sought in their eagerness to reopen faster than allowed under the indefinite statewide stay-at-home order Newsom put in place in March.

More Information Here's what can and can't open this week Gov. Gavin Newsom says that some retail stores will be able to reopen for curbside service Friday and that in some areas, officials will soon be able to seek state approval to go further. Details on reopening guidelines will be released Thursday. Opening: Businesses that will be able to open include clothing stores, bookstores, sporting goods stores and florists. Manufacturers and suppliers of those goods can also resume with modifications to their operations. But:Places with stricter stay-at-home orders, such as the Bay Area, can keep their rules in place. If they do, stores will remain closed, even if other regions open up. Still closed: Not eligible for reopening Friday under the new state rules are offices, shopping malls and dine-in restaurants. But: Counties can soon begin applying to the state to reopen some of those businesses. Newsom said the counties will have to show they have few COVID-19 cases, that they meet testing and contact tracing criteria that the state will establish, that their health care systems can handle any surge in cases, and that they have plans to protect vulnerable populations. See More Collapse

Modoc County, in the northeastern corner of the state, acted on its own last week, giving restaurants, bars, hair salons, movie theaters, churches and shops permission to reopen in defiance of Newsoms order. Sutter and Yuba counties, north of Sacramento, allowed a narrower reopening on Monday.

Newsom said his administration would work with those counties to bring them into compliance with his criteria to reopen. He said he was very impressed with the social distancing requirements they had maintained, including extending a stay-home recommendation for seniors, who are at risk of the most severe health effects of the coronavirus.

Thats the spirit of what were looking for. We just need a more formal process, Newsom said. A lot of that work is already being done. Some were ready, fire, aim as opposed to ready, aim, fire. But well work with them.

Other counties in California that have low rates of infection, including Stanislaus and San Luis Obispo, have similarly expressed interest in beginning a faster reopening of their economies.

Newsom said the state public health director will decide whether to let counties reopen more widely based on their plans to test for the virus and trace its spread, their guidelines for physical distancing and sanitation at businesses, and how they will protect the most vulnerable residents.

Representatives for rural counties said Newsom was listening to their demands for flexibility.

Were not going to wait for San Francisco and Los Angeles in order to reopen, Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher, whose district includes Yuba and Sutter counties, said in a statement. Our local small business owners deserve a sigh of relief and shouldnt have to worry about the heavy hand of state government cracking down on them.

California had reported more than 55,700 confirmed coronavirus cases and 2,253 deaths as of Monday. But Newsom said weeks of stability in the number of hospitalizations and intensive care patients, and the fact that hospitals have not been overwhelmed, indicated the state was ready to move toward reopening the economy.

The state also reached its goal of averaging more than 25,000 daily coronavirus tests over the past week, Newsom said, though that rate will ultimately need to reach 60,000 to 80,000 to allow for a full reopening.

The governor announced a partnership with UCSF and UCLA to train up to 3,000 people a week to trace the contacts of coronavirus patients, so the state can isolate and quarantine those who may have been exposed to the virus. Newsom said he ultimately plans to add 20,000 new contact tracers.

This is all foundational so we can more quickly move to modify our stay-at-home order, he said.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Erin Allday and Dominic Fracassa contributed to this report.

Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @akoseff
A man has been jailed after he spat in a police officers face, and threatened to kill the staff of a hotel in London.

In a statement Scotland Yard said police were called at 2.30pm on March 23 to Empire Way, Brent, after Nicolae-Raul Cozacu threatened hotel staff.

The 43-year-old, of no fixed address, had been caught by the staff urinating against the wall of the hotel.

When he was asked to leave the area, he refused to do so. Eventually he was escorted off the premises, which police claim prompted his behaviour to become "abusive and threatening."

According to police, Mr Cozacu smashed a bottle, and "tried to chase staff members, threatening that he would kill them.

When a member of the hotels staff tried to reason with him, Mr Cozacu spat in the persons face.

Police arrived and arrested him, after which he became unwell and was taken to hospital where he spat in the face of an officer.

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

He was arrested on discharge from the hospital and appeared at Willesden Magistrates Court on Friday where he pleaded guilty to three charges including common assault of an emergency worker, police said.

He was sentenced to 26 weeks in prison.

North West Command Units Inspector Sammi Elfituri said: Spitting at people, including emergency workers, is thoroughly disgusting and completely unacceptable behaviour, especially given the current climate.

I am glad the courts have taken a robust stance to protect both the public and our staff.
Ben Lambert / Hearst Connecticut Media

NEW HAVEN  Police made nine arrests and seized 12 ATVS and dirt bikes in a joint crackdown across New Haven and West Haven on Sunday.

During the daylong effort, New Haven officers made seven arrests and seized a total of eight ATVs and dirt bikes. West Haven police reported two additional arrests and a total of four ATV/dirt-bike seizures as well.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 19:45:29|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

A flag-raising ceremony is held to mark the Chinese Youth Day at Peking University in Beijing, capital of China, May 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

The young Chinese have become backbones in the country's battle against COVID-19 and its mission to do away with absolute poverty.

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Monday marks the 101st anniversary of the May Fourth Movement in China. It bears a special meaning this year as the country is fighting the coronavirus as well as the "political virus" disseminated by some Western politicians.

The May Fourth Movement started with mass student protests on May 4, 1919, against the government's response to the Treaty of Versailles that imposed unfair treaties on China and undermined the country's sovereignty after the World War I. It then triggered a national campaign to overthrow the old society and promote new ideas, including science, democracy and Marxism.

The May Fourth spirit refers to patriotism, progress, democracy and science, with patriotism at the core.

It offers the Chinese people, especially the young people who are backbones at the frontline of the battle, with spiritual strength to fight the disease.

Zhang Hongbo, a physical education student, measures the body temperature of a vehicle driver at a COVID-19 checkpoint at one of the entrances to her home city of Suifenhe, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, April 28, 2020. (Photo by Zhang Tao/Xinhua)

Young Chinese have played a pivotal role in the anti-virus battle with their firm convictions and expertise. Their perseverance, resilience and full devotion to the crisis response has won recognition of all walks of life in China, injecting vigor and hope into the country's cause of building a great nation.

The May Fourth spirit also shone through China's resolve at hitting back at the U.S. smear campaign against China. Lies, threats, bully and hegemonism by the United States will only prompt wide indignation among the Chinese people and boost their national pride.

Chinese youths are giving higher scores to their national pride as the country gathered in solidarity amid the fight against the epidemic. The average score of national pride among young Chinese aged 18 to 35 is 9.57 out of 10, up from 9.18 in a similar survey in 2019, according to a recent survey by the China Youth Daily.

Li Zuyi (L), a 31-year-old village official of Wenjia Village, talks with a villager about cattle raising in Baxu Township of Nandan County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, April 29, 2020. In Guangxi, many young people are entrusted with the task of strengthening the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the grassroots level and aiding in poverty alleviation. (Xinhua/Cao Yiming)

The U.S. administration should quit its addiction to scapegoating and stop hurting the feelings of the Chinese people for the sake of its short-sighted and narrow-minded political gains. A great nation can only be built upon genuine strength, not passing the buck.

The year 2020 is a critical year for China to secure a decisive victory in the fight to eradicate absolute poverty and build a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

The coronavirus epidemic has created new challenges, but with the solidarity, devotion and strength shown by China's young people during the epidemic, we have every confidence in achieving the goals, for the first time in the country's history. 
Chief Conservator of Forests Julius Kamau responds to questions from the public via Sunday Nation.

1. The decision of the national government to ban logging all over Kenya adversely affected the timber industry and saw the closure of timber factories, sawmills and loss of jobs for hundreds of people who either directly or indirectly depended on this sector. What do you have to say, taking into consideration that this was a legal venture with huge economic benefits to our country?

The moratorium on logging was a government decision that is in force to date. I do agree that the commercial plantations managed by KFS supplied roundwood to the forest industry, which is key to socio-economic development of the country. It is also important to appreciate that one of the recommendations of the Task Force Report, 2018 on logging activities in Kenya was to have a paradigm shift in the way in which the forest materials are disposed of to deter loss of public revenue.

In implementing this recommendation, KFS has, during the moratorium period, been reforming and strengthening its administrative and governance systems such as the development of standard operating procedures, systems integration and e-registration platform for saw millers to provide an efficient, transparent and accountable forest material disposal process in readiness to as and when the government lifts the moratorium.

Currently, most of the forest industries source wood from farmlands, and as such supporting livelihoods of thousands of farmers. While appreciating that the KFS commercial plantations of about 135,000 hectares cannot meet the countrys wood demand, and in order to complement this supply, it is important that saw millers consider investing in out-grower schemes with farmers around their geographical location to complement wood supply from the public forests. This is the only way the sustainability of the forest industry in Kenya can be guaranteed.

2. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, little has been heard about the reclamation of the Maasai Mau Forest, which was just taking shape. Sir, what is the status of this all-important operation which aimed at restoring a crucial water tower? What challenges have you encountered as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in so far as restoration of the water tower is concerned?

Moris Komen, Eldoret

Yes, much could not have been heard, but much is being done. It is a conservation fact that reclamation is noisy while restoration is silent. In this silence, and since November 1, 2019, when restoration was launched by the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Forestry Keriako Tobiko, more than a million tree seedlings have been planted, and this has not been KFS alone but with other agencies including the Ministry of Environment, Kenya Water Towers Agency (KWTA), National Environment Management Agency (NEMA), Ewaso Nyiro South Development Authority (ENSDA), Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI) and Toyota Kenya, among others.

Indeed, the restoration activities of land preparation, planting and maintenance is being done by the community members who were affected by the reclamation and this has been a major source of livelihood for them at this critical time of the coronavirus pandemic. KFS is in the process of establishing a community forest association to participate in the restoration and management of the forest in line with the Forest Conservation and Management Act (FCMA), 2016.

One of the challenges we have encountered is a positive one, the fact that forest rangers have ensured that there is no reinvasion nor grazing. There is intense undergrowth which means increased cost of maintenance to ensure optimal survival. We are also calling upon other partners to join us in the restoration process.

3. There are communities who have lived in forests since time immemorial but the threat to nature and the need to conserve forests conflicts with their desire to keep their homes and ancestral land. How do you balance between livelihoods and cultures of these people and conservation of these forests for the future?

Shem Onderi, Kisii

The FCMA, 2016 provides a clear legal framework that ensures balance between forest conservation and community livelihoods and culture, though very delicate. On one hand, the law does not allow any individual or a community to reside inside a public forest.

On the other hand, it requires that a Community Forest Association (CFA) be formed in every forest station and to participate in forest management through a participatory forest management plan and forest a management agreement between KFS and the CFA.

This participatory management regime ensures that the forest adjacent community has specific user rights to forest resources.

4. There are very many sawmillers who had paid for materials before the ban on logging came into effect. At the time, some of the timber had been cut but is now being stolen or rotting out in the field because of the ban. Do you have plans to compensate these millers or would you allow them to collect the timber that had been cut and paid for?

John Wakaba, National Secretary, Timber Manufacturers Association

KFS urges that any sawmiller whose transactions were not concluded at the time the moratorium came into force needs to present their documentary evidence to the respective forest station. The service will then verify each claim on a case-by-case basis.

5. Blatant destruction of forests through logging undermines Kenyas push to realise 10 per cent forest cover as recommended by the United Nations. What measures have you taken to tackle the menace?

Raphael Obonyo, Nairobi

Based on our forest crime trend analysis, cases of forest destruction have significantly reduced.

Notably, though, is that, during the Covid-19, KFS has witnessed increased pressure of forest resources but the enforcement unit has firmly been able to detect and deter such attempts. Thanks to members of the public for complementing our efforts by conveying critical information on forest illegalities.

This is as a result of various measures and interventions that KFS has instituted including enhanced patrol and surveillance of forests by the forest rangers, enhanced community forest association participation in the management of forest resources, multi-agency security operations and the use of technology such as Forest 2020 App used for registering forest crimes.

6. There are concerns that Kenya Forest Service management has failed to protect the countrys forest from wanton destruction. Corruption among forest officers has been identified as a leading cause of forest destruction. What strategies have you put in place to streamline the agency?

Raphael Obonyo, Nairobi

Addressing corruption highly depends on the leadership of any organisation. As such, with the support of the ministry and the board, I have instituted a leadership of integrity, a leadership that has ensured that every forest officer is responsible in his/her area of jurisdiction but equally held personally accountable for any act of commission or omission in collusion or aiding acts of forests destruction.

With a staff level of more than 4,300, it is possible to encounter a few cases of collusion, but KFS has put in firm measures to detect and deter such cases in real time. KFS also works closely with other government agencies in the fight against corruption.

Further, KFS appreciates that forest protection is a collective responsibility for all Kenyans and in line with this, KFS has enhanced its partnership and relationship with the forest adjacent communities with an aim of turning them into our allies in forest protection.

7. Sir, with regards to the plan to increase Kenyas forest coverage to the globally recommended 10 per cent, where are we currently? Could you make an assessment on the issue in terms of the percentage achieved so far?

Francis Njuguna, Kibichoi

Kenyas forest cover stands at 7.2 per cent of the countrys land area. The Service is implementing a strategy to achieve 10 percent tree cover by 2022 which is being coordinated by the ministry of Environment and Forestry in collaboration with other ministries, departments and agencies of government, county governments, private sector, non-state actors, learning institutions, communities and the public.

Public forest accounts for four per cent of the forest cover and, therefore, if the country is to attain 10 per cent tree cover, there is need to promote tree planting on available land in various government institutions like schools and farmlands. Indeed, I wish to urge all Kenyans to comply with the Farm Forestry Rules 2009, which require that all land owners are required to plant trees on 10 per cent of their land.

If all Kenyans did this then, we would surpass the 10 per cent target. I am therefore urging all Kenyans to take advantage of the current rains to plant trees in their farms while observing government directive on Covid- 19.

8. I am a son of one of the victims of land injustice who were victimised and denied land allocation in the 1959 demarcation. Currently, I am a squatter living in a slum in Kikuyu constituency, just 500 metres from Thogoto/Ngong forest. Is it true that there are some 200 acres of land to be carved out of the forest to settle these genuine squatters? If not, what do these squatters who have been made to believe there is land somewhere meant for them do?

Samuel Ngigi, Kikuyu

Thogoto/Ngong Road forest are gazetted public forests and therefore there is no land for settlement. All matters of settlement and/or resettlement are under the jurisdiction of the ministry of Lands and the National Land Commission.

However, I encourage you to join the Community Forest Association so that you can effectively participate in the management of the forests.

9. I am mobilising young girls and women in Kandara sub-county, Muranga County, to plant trees in the water towers. What permits do we need? What procedures do we need to follow?

Njeri Muathe, Muranga County

Thank you. Recently, KFS and the ministry of Environment formulated adopt a forest framework. The intention of the framework is to ensure that our partners initiatives of growing trees in our forest like yourselves are sustainable and not one off planting without follow-up and maintenance like it has been the case before.

Therefore, all you need to do is register your interest with the Service and the Service will consider your request and allocate a specific area in the forest for planting and maintenance for not less than three years. So far, we are encouraged by the very many partners who have engaged with us through this modality and we encourage others to do the same.

10. Since the moratorium on logging was issued in 2018 (and subsequent extensions thereafter), has an audit been done to see if indeed it is helping to meet the intended objective  to increase forest cover from seven to 15 per cent by 2022?

Howard Akimala, Njoro

Forest cover assessment is a very elaborate and scientific process and currently there is an ongoing national forest cover assessment.

11. Community Forest Associations (CFAs) complement KFS efforts in forest conservation but only benefit marginally. Would it not be prudent for such CFAs to get a percentage of income accrued from such forests as opposed to being limited to collecting firewood and hanging beehives?

Howard Akimala, Njoro

Participatory forest management between KFS and the Community Forest Associations is provided for in the Forest Conservation and Management Act, 2016 and is executed through Participatory Forest Management Plans and Forest Management Agreement which is a negotiated process between KFS and the CFA. The Plan clearly identifies the Community User Rights and Responsibilities. The User Rights are prescribed in the FCMA 2016 and includes income generating activities such as apiary, eco-tourism, recreational activities, and contractual labour to carry out specified forestry operations including PELIS which greatly support the livelihoods of the forest adjacent communities.

12. What measures are you implementing to modernise and professionalise the Service to respond to the challenges of our time facing the environment, including climate change?

James Gichuki

KFS has a Climate Change Unit whose work is to integrate climate change aspect in all its programmes and support the Service in implementing the national, regional and international Climate Change obligations relating to the forest sector.

In the new organisational structure, which is at an advanced stage this unit has further been strengthened to adequately respond to the increasing relevant climate discourse in the forest sector.

In addition, our Kenya Forest College Londiani has revised its curriculum to include aspects of Climate Change to ensure that its certificate, diploma and in-house graduates are well prepared to tackle Climate Change and forest discourse.

13. Forests in Kenya play a pivotal role both in human and animal lives. However, they are under threat from illegal logging. What mechanisms have you put in place to stop the illegal logging?

Bernard Chetambe Lipesa, Nairobi

Kenya Forest Service is responsible for approximately 2.59 million hectares of gazetted forests across the country and further provides technical and capacity building support to the County Governments in protection of community forests and promoting farm forestry. Our forest officers and rangers continue to conserve, manage and protect these forest resources from various pressures including illegal logging, over grazing, encroachment and forest fires.

KFS officers and rangers are at the forefront protecting these resources and sometime putting their lives on the line to protect them for the common good of all Kenyans. I wish to thank them for this! It is therefore, important to appreciate that even though KFS is the lead agency, we will never have enough rangers to guard every tree and therefore we have developed forest information systems and technology application such as Forest 2020 App to help in monitoring, detecting and responding to forest crime incidences.

Indeed KFS has been piloting the use of drones in forest surveillance to complement our air wing capabilities. In addition, KFS continues to deepen its collaboration with other national security agencies, county governments and forest adjacent communities to ensure that forests are protected.

14. Sir, is there a programme to involve schools especially primary and secondary schools in planting of trees in the many empty spaces available?

Samuel Maina

Yes, under the national tree cover strategy schools are part of the planting programmes to date, hundreds of learning institutions have participated in tree growing and plans are underway to intensify the participation of school children and youth, through collaboration with the Ministry of Education and County Governments.
Planes of Vietnam Airlines at Van Don International Airport in Quang Ninh province

(Photo for illustration - Source: VNA)



Nearly 300 Vietnamese citizens were repatriated from Canada on April 30th under the coordination among Vietnams relevant agencies, the Vietnamese Embassy in Canada, national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and Canadian authorities.

They included many under 18, elderly people, those with illnesses, tourists who had been stuck and students who did not have accommodation due to school closures. The Vietnamese Embassy in Ottawa had also sent staff to Toronto to directly support the citizens at the airport.

Upon arriving at Van Don International Airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh, all the passengers and flight crew underwent health checks and were put in quarantine in line with Vietnams regulations on COVID-19 prevention and control.

Previously, Vietnamese agencies and the Canadian Embassy in Vietnam worked together to bring some Canadian nationals back home on the flight to the North American country.

Based on citizens wishes, the local quarantine capacity, as well as the pandemics developments, authorities and airlines will continue to conduct commercial flights to repatriate more Vietnamese citizens in the time ahead./.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 19:11:20|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

- - - -

BERLIN -- The rate of new COVID-19 infections continued to fall in Germany as the number of confirmed cases increased by 679 within one day to 163,175, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said on Monday.

At the height of the outbreak in Germany, more than 6,000 new infections were recorded by the RKI on a single day.

- - - -

KIEV -- Ukraine on Monday reported 418 new cases, raising its total to 12,331 with 303 deaths, according to the country's health ministry.

As of Monday, 855 children and 2,387 health workers have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and 1,619 patients have recovered, said the ministry.

- - - -

MANILA -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has imposed additional 10 percent tariffs on imported crude oil and refined petroleum products to fund his administration's efforts to combat the COVID-19 epidemic, a government document released on Monday showed.

In an executive order dated May 2, Duterte said "there is an urgent need to augment the government resources to sufficiently finance the programs and measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 situation, and launch the country towards recovery and rehabilitation."

- - - -

NEW DELHI -- Around 2,000 migrant workers hailing from India's northern state Uttar Pradesh but stranded in south-western state Maharashtra over the past 40 days, returned to their respective homes on Monday, confirmed an Indian Railways official in Delhi to Xinhua.

India has been under Lockdown since March 25, and has extended it twice, on April 14 for 19 days and then on May 1 for two weeks, in a bid to check novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic spread.

- - - -

LAGOS -- Swiss-based international food giant Nestle on Monday announced that it is supporting more than 850,000 vulnerable people in central and west Africa as part of a 3.4 million U.S. dollars effort to help countries in the region fight COVID-19.

"We're offering our full support to families across Central and West Africa during these challenging times, and to those who are battling to keep them safe," said Remy Ejel, chief executive officer of Nestle in Central and West Africa, in a statement reaching Xinhua.

- - - -

BEIJING -- The number of existing confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland has dropped below 500, a record low since Jan. 23, a Chinese health official said Monday.

A total of 481 COVID-19 patients remained hospitalized on the mainland, according to the daily report of the National Health Commission (NHC).

- - - -

TOKYO -- The Japanese government on Monday officially announced its decision to extend the nationwide state of emergency for COVID-19 by nearly a month until May 31.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, scheduled to hold a press conference at 6 p.m. local time, made the formal decision to extend the state of emergency beyond May 6, the last day of Japan's Golden Week holiday. Enditem
Like last summer, protective measures will be implemented as soon as any eggs are laid, Clemency said. An Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologist will place a cage over the nest to deter prowling predators while Monty and Rose take turns on incubation duty. USDA biologists will also put up a camera for nest monitoring.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made it clear on Monday that his government will bear full expenses towards the homeward journey of students and migrant workers stranded outside the state because of the lockdown, in a rebuff to the opposition which has accused him of leaving them in the lurch.

In a video message, the chief minister said train fares of students were being paid directly by his government to the railways, while migrant workers will be reimbursed the entire expenses they incurred on the journey once they have completed their 21-day quarantine after reaching Bihar.

Every migrant worker will be taken to the block headquarter concerned from the railway station where they will have to stay in quarantine for 21 days. Upon discharge, they will be reimbursed the money they would have spent for the travel in addition to an aid of Rs 500 each. Each migrant worker will be getting a minimum of Rs 1000 from the state government, Kumar said.

Regarding students, he said, no money is being charged to them for their return.

"Some trains have come from Kota..the money is being paid by the state government. But since there is some bayanbaazi (political muckraking) on the issue, dispelling the confusion has become necessary.

Kumars statement was preceded by an offer from the leader of the opposition in the Bihar assembly Tejashwi Yadav for footing the bill for 50 such trains in the next five days.

The RJD leader had also taunted the government over revenue losses on account of prohibition, besides "splurging" on government advertisements and schemes like Jal-Jeevan- Hariyali that proposes to combat climate change.

The RJD leader had earlier accused the government of indifference towards students and migrants when it expressed its inability to bring them back by the busloads, like many other states did, citing lockdown restrictions and lack of adequate number of buses.

The chief minister, however, maintained that scrupulous adherence to the lockdown by his government has ensured that the COVID 19 outbreak remained under control in the state, the second most populous in the country. Bihar has reported less than 600 cases and just four casualties so far, Kumar said.

He also said 19 lakh migrant workers stranded outside the state had been provided a financial assistance by his government during the lockdown period. "More such applications are being processed, while we are also bringing back those who want to return home."



Meanwhile, RJD national spokesman and Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha seen as a mentor to the 30-year-old Yadav in the absence of the latters politically astute father came out with a statement, alleging Kumar often acted under pressure from the opposition and he had done the same again.

"We can see his past record of four to six months. Nonetheless, we are happy that he has displayed a belated readiness to help out the migrant workers, Jha said.

He said the government should now ensure that as many trains as possible are run and the return of migrants picks up speed.

"Let our poor brethren feel that their life is not without value in a world which is made beautiful by their toil but where they have been left high and dry, Jha said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Covid-19: A Coup de Grace for the Feeble Cuban Economy? The island's economic engines have been brought to a standstill, and there does not appear to be a plan for what comes after this, experts tell DIARIO DE CUBA.

Long before March 11, the day the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus a global pandemic, and the first three infected people were detected in Cuba, the island's economy was already in the throes of what some consider to be the greatest crisis since the "Special Period" of the 90s.

One of the facts supporting this thesis is that during the last seven years the country's GDP has posted almost zero growth. The pandemic arrived against this already dismal backdrop.

The decline in the economy could reach close to 6% of GDP, "almost double what the CEPAL economic commission estimates, and slightly above other countries in the region," economist Elias Amor told DIARIO DE CUBA.

"The engines of the economy (tourism, remittances, foreign investment, exports, oil imports and internal consumption by families) have been brought to a halt by the confinement, and there are no alternatives to recover growth, as revenue from the sale of medical services doctors is insufficient."

In his opinion, it is also worrisome that "the Government has not presented a plan for what comes after this."

"It keeps talking about the plan for 2030 and the guidelines (of the Communist Party), and all that has been rendered obsolete by the advent of Covid-19. We have to carry out deep structural reforms that, unfortunately, are nowhere in sight."

Private sector

Fellow economist Pedro Monreal, in a text published on April 28 on his blog, underscores the importance of the private sector, which, in his opinion, could be one of the keys to easing the impact of the crisis, but "capitalizing on it would require legalising the operation of small and medium-sized companies."

One of the factors Monreal cites to assert the importance of this sector (to which the Government refers using the euphemism "Self-Employment") is that since 2008 it has been the only one that has seen a net increase in employment in Cuba, with a rise of some 4.9% per year, in 2019 accounting for some 31.8% of the country's employment  despite being shackled by restrictions imposed by the Cuban government.

The island's authorities continue to constrain the development of businesses that merit categorisation as companies. As a result, many economists and businesspeople are demanding a Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) law.

This format, Monreal points out, "would offer technical-productive advantages superior to the ambiguous 'Self-Employment' (SE) scheme today. Its 'form' would resemble that of individual and family operations, but it would allow for the hiring of employees, even if national private companies are not recognized."

In addition, the economist stresses that, along with the legalisation of SMEs, the "nominal system of licenses (narrow and primitive), which precludes the deployment of the technical capabilities of part of the SE workforce, must be eliminated."

Tourism, remittances and medical services

The Tourism sector, to which the Government and the military have made a commitment, with the construction of hotels and infrastructure in recent years, has been stopped in its tracks by the border closure triggered by the pandemic.

This area, which boasted significant growth (visits to the Island doubled between 2007 and 2017), had already been suffering considerable drops, mainly due to the measures imposed by the Trump Administration.

Communications expert and sociologist Lenier Gonzalez Mederos, in an article published in The Dialogue, stresses that the current border closure will affect this sector in an unprecedented way, generating massive losses on the island, which "will have high-impact implications, given the sector's connections to other areas of the Cuban economy."

Asked about it by DIARIO DE CUBA, economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago estimated that the losses could come to some three billion dollars.

Monreal believes that, in an eventual economic recovery in 2021, "Tourism, which went from being an 'engine' to an 'accelerating' factor of the recession, is likely to function as a factor 'retarding' recovery, because there are no signs suggesting a secure and substantial revival of tourism volume in 2020 and 2021."

Remittances, one of the island's main sources of income, are also estimated to decrease by more than $ 1.18 billion, according to estimates by The Havana Consulting Group (HCG). These figures are credible if we consider the impact that the pandemic is having on the economies of the United States and European countries, such as Spain and Italy, where a major community of Cuban emigrants lives. For this reason, Emilio Morales, president of the HCG, believes that these money transfers could drop between 20% and 30%.

The sale of professional services abroad, mostly health personnel with contracts that many compare to conditions of slavery, has been the main source of government revenue in recent years, despite having fallen from 13.8 % of GDP to 8.3% between 2012 and 2017.

To this decrease we must add the cancellation of agreements with Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador in the last two years, and the reduction of personnel in Venezuela, which, according to Mesa-Lago's statements to DDC, will not be offset by the recent brigades sent to some twenty countries.

This scenario is further exacerbated by the worsening of the economic crisis in Venezuela  a country that, in 2012, for example, was estimated to have contributed approximately $14 billion to the Cuban State.

Nor can good news be expected in the area of commerce, since the products that generate the most revenue for the country, such as nickel, have plummeted on the international market. Something similar may be said of the tobacco sector, where exports in 2019 were up just 2%, the weakest growth in the last six years.

The Economic Intelligence Unit, the division in charge of research, analysis and forecasting for the group behind The Economist, calculates that the export of goods and services from Cuba will decline by 16% in 2020.

In general, economists's opinions augur more tough times for a country with extremely deteriorated infrastructure; crises in transport, food, housing and even its water supply, all this compounded by an exodus of its young people that continues to give the island one of the oldest populations in the region.
The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee on Monday said it will provide free packed food to migrant workers, pilgrims and students travelling home in special non-stop trains after being stranded for over a month due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The Sikh body will provide vegetarian food kits to all homebound passengers, sufficient for the entire travel period, its president Manjinder Singh Sirsa said.

He said DSGMC volunteers will start distributing food packets to passengers at New Delhi Railway Station, Old Delhi Railway Station, Nizammudin, Anand Vihar Railway Station on Monday, depending on the route of the train.

The volunteers will coordinate with railway authorities to ensure timely distribution of food packets among passengers.

"Every effort will be made to provide fresh, hot and nutritious langar meal to homebound passengers to make their journey comfortable," Sirsa said.

The food will be prepared by professionals working in gurdwaras for several years. In the past couple of weeks, these cooks have been working 15-16 hours every day to meet the growing demand for meals, he said.

A mini truck will be used to transport food to various railways stations from time to time.

Last week, a Delhi Police team led by Central DCP Eish Singhal undertook 'parikrama' of Gurdwara Bangla Sahib to express gratitude to the DSGMC for their commitment and support in fighting COVID-19.

The DSGMC has also provided accommodation to around 200 doctors and paramedical staff deployed on COVID-19 duties in AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, Ram Manohar Lohia, Lady Hardinge Hospital, at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj, Gurdwara Moti Bag and Gurdwara Bangla Sahib.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - German stocks fell sharply on Monday after Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. warned of uncertainty ahead due to the coronavirus and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday there was 'a significant amount of evidence' that the new coronavirus originated in China, raising fresh concerns about trade war.



The benchmark DAX dropped 331 points, or over 3 percent, to 10,530 as traders returned to their desks after a long holiday weekend.



Thyssenkrupp shares plunged 15 percent. According to the Financial Times, private equity firms Cinven and Advent are seeking other investors for the 17.2 billion euro deal for its elevators business.



Financial services company Allianz declined 2.4 percent after withdrawing its 2020 profit outlook.



Freenet, a telecommunications and web content provider, plummeted 12 percent. The company said it is not yet possible to predict the extent to which the global supply shock induced by so-called lockdowns will translate into a systemic economic crisis.



Kloeckner lost 10 percent after widening its first-quarter loss.



In economic news, the euro area manufacturing sector contracted at a record pace in April as government restrictions to limit the spread of the global coronavirus weighed on activity, final survey results from IHS Markit showed.



The final Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 33.4 from 44.5 in March. The score was also below the flash estimate of 33.6. The score was the lowest ever recorded by the series, surpassing readings seen during the depths of the global financial crisis.



Germany's IHS Markit/BME manufacturing PMI fell to 34.5 from 45.4 in March. Though the lowest since March 2009, this compared with a reading of 19.7 for the survey's output index. The flash reading was 34.4.



Meanwhile, Eurozone investor confidence rose marginally in May but the current situation fell to a record low due to coronavirus pandemic, survey data from the behavioral research firm Sentix revealed.



The headline Sentix investor confidence index rose to -41.8 in May from -42.9 in the previous month. Nonetheless, this was below economists' forecast of -33.5.



The current situation index declined to a record low 73.0 from -66.0 in April, while the expectations index rose to -3.0 from -15.8 a month ago.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
2020 is not going well for "Aquaman" actress Amber Heard.

In an Instagram post she published on Sunday, the actress is mourning the death of her mom, Paige Heard.

"I am heartbroken and devastated beyond belief at the loss of my mom, Paige Heard. She left us too early, clasping onto the memory of her beautiful, gentle soul. She will be missed from the very depths of our hearts forever," Amber wrote the caption alongside two throwback photos of her with her mom.

The 34-year-old didn't make clear what her mother's cause of death was.

"It's hard to imagine and even more difficult to say, but I feel truly lucky to have been her daughter and been given the gift of having the light she shone on everyone, fall on me for nearly 34 years."

Amber Heard described this period in her life as an "unbelievable painful time," adding that she is reminded by how love survives everything.

Cara Delevingne commented on the actress' Instagram photo with heart emojis, as well as actress Andie MacDowell saying, "I'm so sorry for your loss, dear one."

Amber Heard often shares photos of her and her mother, Paige, on her Instagram. The most recent one was a selfie of the duo along with Amber's sister Whit celebrating "International Women's Day."

Paige Heard raised both her children in Austin, Texas. When Amber was 17, she left the state to pursue a career in acting in New York.

As we previously reported, Amber Heard is currently in a legal battle against her ex-husband Johnny Depp.

In text messages obtained by The Blast of the ongoing lawsuit, the "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" actor was texting Paige Heard after the couple had broken up.

In one of the texts, Paige explained to Johnny that the only reason her daughter filed for a restraining order against him was to protect her from being evicted from the couple's apartment.

The text said, "It's the lawyers on both sides doing this, not Amber. I heard the whole story very teary - if I could talk to Johnny. She didn't want this. Friggin lawyers on BOTH sides!! This was not her idea, not her wishes. She was told she would be evicted and out in 30 days if she did not do this."

It is believed that Amber Heard has been faking a lot of accusations towards her ex-husband to gain sympathy.

Johnny Depp claimed that the blonde bombshell once faked a bloody nose injury by dumping red nail polish on a tissue after an alleged domestic violence abuse.

Amber also claimed that Johnny beat her so bad that the bed broke. She reportedly ended up a split lip, broken nose, and black eyes.

Another accusation was that Johnny Depp reportedly cut his own finger that resulted in a shattered bone and a severed fingertip.

However, most of Amber Heard's claims were proven wrong, after a recording of her admitting to hitting her ex-husband surfaced.

"I f******* was hitting you. I don't know what the motion of my hand was, but you're fine, I did not hurt you, I did not punch you, I was hitting you."

She was even heard telling Johnny, "You are such a baby. Grow the f*** up!"
The World Health Organisation on Monday told member states that it will soon start sending out formal invites for the truncated version of its annual meet later this month.

The World Health Assemblys virtual meet comes at a time the global health body chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is at the centre of a huge row over its initial response to the outbreak of coronavirus disease in Chinas Wuhan.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been accused by the United States of helping China play down the disease in the early stages.

Last month, Donald Trump declared that the US would hold back $ 400 million funding to the Geneva-headquartered WHO. A fortnight later, the US Director of National Intelligence issued a rare statement announcing a review of intercepted communications and other data to determine whether China, and possibly the WHO, concealed information about coronavirus.

Diplomats in Washington and Geneva suggest that the WHO meet might eventually be a staid affair because it would have a very limited agenda. It is not clear if there would be an opportunity to discuss the impact of the United States suspension of funding on the global health bodys projects since the meeting of the Programme, Budget and Administration committee has been indefinitely deferred.

But diplomats insist the effort to mount pressure on Tedros, who still has one more year to go, would continue to mount.

The Ethopian politician, who was the health minister between 2005 and 2012 before taking over as foreign minister for the next four years in the government then run by his party, Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, has a doctoral degree in community health.

The WHO chief already has letters of support issued by the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Union leadership, a signal that he wasnt willing to stand down.

Neither is the United States.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has continued to pile pressure on China on Sunday, insisting that there was enormous evidence to show that the coronavirus outbreak began in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

That renewed offensive spooked investors who saw signs of a flare-up in US-China tensions and contributed to southeast Asian stocks slipping on Monday.

To be sure, the US decision to hold back money committed to the WHO has been criticised by many countries. But it has put the focus back on the initial response by China, and by default, the chief of WHO that calls itself the global guardian of public health.

Tedros praise for China fuels criticism

Some of the criticism aimed at Tedros is powered by his statements too. Like the one made two days after a closed-door meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on 28 January.

On 30 January, Tedros told the world that China is setting a new standard for outbreak control. A few hours after his effusive praise, the WHO declared the disease that may have originated from one wet market in Chinas Wuhan a Public Health Emergency of International Concern for the world.

Three months later, the disease, according to news agency AFP, has killed over 245,000 people, infected 3.4 million, forced half of humanity to live under some form of lockdown and pushed the global economy towards its worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Complication over Taiwan

Long before the Tedros-led World Health Organisation begins the annual meet, it has found itself in another bit of a complication, also involving China and the United States.

The self-ruled island, which Beijing considers a wayward province awaiting reunification, has been excluded from WHO membership due to objections from China. Taiwan has attended the assembly as an observer from 2009-2016 when Taipei-Beijing relations warmed, but China blocked further participation after the election of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who China views as a separatist. Taipei rejects that stand and insists that its exclusion creates a glaring gap in the global fight against the coronavirus.

Taiwan has reported far fewer cases of the new coronavirus than many of its neighbours, due to early and effective detection and prevention work.

The United States has already supported Taiwans participation at the assembly as an observer calling its exclusion an affront to UN principles, provoking a sharp outburst by the Chinese foreign ministry which expressed strong outrage and firm opposition.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Many Australians, like me, are understandably angry and deeply saddened at COVID-19 and the situation we find ourselves in. We have become victims of a crisis we had no hand in creating.

As of this week, more than 90 Australians are dead and millions out of work. Australians are hurting and are looking to point their anger somewhere.

It is obvious that the coronavirus outbreak started in Wuhan and it appears some serious mistakes were initially made, resulting in its transmission around the world.

Liberal MP Gladys Liu supports an independent inquiry into COVID-19. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The Prime Ministers call for a credible and independent inquiry is the sensible and right thing to do so we can respond better next time theres a pandemic. We cannot let something like this happen again. The communist government of China, the World Health Organisation and governments around the world need to be accountable for the decisions made during this crisis.
Kazakhstan Politics FILE- In this file photo taken on Tuesday, April 23, 2019, Kazakhstan's interim President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, center, stands as former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, right, and Dariga Nazarbayeva, daughter of Kazakhstan's former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, left, applaud to him during the Nur Otan party congress in Nur-Sultan, the capital city of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan's president on Monday May 4, 2020, put his aide in charge of the country's senate, moving to tighten his grip on power in the energy-rich Central Asian nation. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's move follows his decree stripping the daughter of his predecessor of the speaker's job over the weekend. (AP Photo, File)

MOSCOW (AP)  Kazakhstan's president on Monday put his aide in charge of the country's senate, moving to tighten his grip on power in the energy-rich Central Asian nation.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's move follows his decree stripping the daughter of his predecessor of the speaker's job over the weekend.

Dariga Nazarbayeva became senate speaker in March 2019 on the same day that her father, Nursultan Nazarbayev, unexpectedly resigned.

Nazarbayev had led Kazakhstan first as its Communist boss and, after the 1991 Soviet collapse, as its president. His daughter, who held a succession of official jobs, was widely expected to succeed him, but Nazarbayev named Tokayev as acting president and supported his election to the presidency in June.

Until that moment, Nazarbayev was believed to be continuing to call the shots as the head of the nation's Security Council and the chairman of the ruling party.

The 79-year-old Nazarbayev hasn't commented on his daughter's ouster from the nation's No. 2 job, and it wasn't immediately clear if Tokayev had consulted him on the move.

On Monday, Tokayev named his first deputy chief of staff, Maulen Ashimbayev, as a member of the senate. Senate members then quickly elected him speaker.

Addressing senate members, Tokayev emphasized the need to ensure "coordinated actions of all branches of government. He thanked Nazarbayeva for her work as speaker but didn't say anything about her political future.
On this day 60 years ago, a black man driving a white woman was pulled over in a traffic stop that would change the course of American history.

The incident was unknown to most at the time and has been largely forgotten.

The man was Martin Luther King Jr., and his citation on May 4, 1960, led to him being sentenced, illegally, to a chain gang.

Georgia's segregationist politicians sought to silence King before he could mobilize great masses of people.

But it backfired as the mistreatment rocked the 1960 presidential race, prompting blacks to vote Democrat and help end Jim Crow laws in the Deep South.

Today, there's still a lot at stake for blacks, who are still urging presidential candidates to earn their votes while fighting against new ballot restrictions.

King's "willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice" proved to be the catalyst for change, said Maurice C. Daniels, who wrote a biography of King's lawyer, Saving the Soul of Georgia: Donald L Hollowell and the Struggle for Civil Rights.

Here we are in 2020 and we see there are systemic, institutionalized mechanisms, just as there were in 1960, to stall, derail and to deny citizens their franchise," Daniels said.

Alicia Garza, whose Black Futures Lab is promoting a Black Agenda 2020, sees lessons for today's activists in how King responded to the traffic stop as he challenged the powerful to provide decent jobs and affordable housing and health care for minorities.

That story means everything, Garza said.

Yes we do need to put it all on the line, but bigger than that we need to change the rules that are rigged. I think we will have a rude awakening in November 2020 if we do not get very intentional about Democratic priorities.

King and his wife, Coretta, hosted the writer Lillian Smith for dinner and he was driving her back to Emory University for her cancer treatments when they were pulled over in DeKalb County, just outside Atlanta.

Smith later wrote that they were stopped because the officer saw her white face with a black man.

But King may have been followed: The Associated Press had reported that Georgia's segregationist Gov.

Ernest Vandiver vowed to keep the Montgomery bus boycott leader under surveillance at all times.

King paid a USD 25 fine that September to settle the false charge of driving without a license, but said he wasn't aware that he was put on probation, threatening prison if he broke any laws.

Days later, King joined the Atlanta Student Movement 's sit-ins campaign, and was charged with trespassing in a whites-only restaurant at Rich's Department store.

Atlanta's leaders soon buckled as Fulton County's jails filled, agreeing to desegregate in exchange for ending the boycotts crippling white-owned businesses.

Charges were dropped and everyone was freed except King.

The AP reported on October 25, 1960, that over 300 people crowded into the Decatur courtroom to watch Judge J Oscar Mitchell sentence King to four months, even though King's Alabama license was valid until 1962.

I watched in horror as Martin was immediately taken from the courtroom, his hands in metal cuffs behind his back, Coretta Scott King recalled in her autobiography.

Martin later told me that the terrors of southern justice, wherein scores of black men were plucked from their cells and never seen again, ran through his mind.

King urged his wife to be strong in a letter from a Georgia prison.

Three years before Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he wrote: this is the cross that we must bear for the freedom of our people.

With days left in the race, the campaigns of Richard M Nixon and John F Kennedy sought to downplay civil rights issues for fear of losing southern white votes.

Blacks had mostly voted Republican, since Abraham Lincoln. Nixon had just been endorsed by Martin Luther King Sr, the leader of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

But Nixon ignored their pleas for help, while Kennedy called Coretta to express his sympathy.

Historians Taylor Branch and David Garrow wrote that Robert F Kennedy threw a fit, telling aides who fed her number to his brother that they cost him the presidency, but he called Mitchell, who reversed his denial of bond, immediately freeing King.

King's father switched his endorsement, saying Kennedy had the moral courage to stand up for what's right.

That quote, and others, appeared in a blue-papered pamphlet titled No Comment Nixon Versus a Candidate with a Heart, Senator Kennedy.

Unnoticed by the national media, Kennedy aides and King supporters distributed the pamphlet in black churches around the nation the Sunday before Election Day.

Blacks had voted 60-40 Republican just four years earlier; this time they voted 70-30 for the Democrat, providing more than enough for Kennedy to win the electoral college and the popular vote by a narrow 113,000 margin nationwide, according to Theodore H. White in The Making of the Presidency 1960.

It's a really interesting and nuanced history, said political organizer Mary Hooks, co-director of Southerners on New Ground.

The booby traps that Dr. King was experiencing during that time are the same ones that are still trapping up our people every day.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 13-year-old boy is in critical condition after authorities say gunmen chased him through yards, hopping fences, until they caught up with him and shot him numerous times.

The incident occurred Sunday afternoon in Chester, NBC 10 is reporting.

Police were called to the 400 block of East 20th Street and found the boy with gunshot wounds to the head and abdomen, reports indicate. He was rushed to an area hospital.

According to reports, witnesses saw the boy dashing through yards and leaping over fences while the gunmen chased him and opened fire.

After the shooting, witnesses say the suspects took off in a 2007 Acura RDX with Delaware tags, Action News 6 ABC reports.

No arrests have been made. Anyone with information should call the police, 610-447-8431.

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.
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred an enormous demand for security guards, whose job descriptions have been expanded to include temperature checks, grocery store crowd control and  in at least one case  removing bodies from a morgue.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 3/5/2020 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A grocery store security guard takes peoples temperatures prior to allowing them into the store in downtown Vancouver on Wednesday, April 29, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred an enormous demand for security guards, whose job descriptions have been expanded to include temperature checks, grocery store crowd control and, in at least one case, removing bodies from a morgue. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred an enormous demand for security guards, whose job descriptions have been expanded to include temperature checks, grocery store crowd control and  in at least one case  removing bodies from a morgue.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 333 says 1,500 security jobs are immediately available in Ontario, many of them well-paying.

But union secretary-treasurer Jeff Ketelaars said would-be guards can't take licence tests because government offices are closed. He has written to Premier Doug Ford urging an alternative like Quebec's temporary online system.

"There's a lot of Canadians that would rather be working, would rather be doing social good, would rather be protecting their neighbourhoods and their family and friends than sitting at home and not working," Ketelaars said.

He added other union members who have been laid off from hotel jobs are keen to get into security, but can't until licensing is worked out.

Ketelaars said security guards often earn minimum wage, making it tough for many to justify going for those jobs when there's equivalent government aid.

And the pandemic has increased stress on guards, he added.

"Members of the public have just been absolutely brutal to them to the point where some of our members have been assaulted at work where they usually wouldn't."

The union intervened in one Ontario case where guards were asked to remove bodies from a hospital because funeral home staff did not want to expose themselves to the virus.

Scott Young, with security firm Garda World, said there were initial problems with guards booking off because they feared for their safety, but the company has worked to allay those concerns.

"We're seeing less and less of that and the guards are really stepping up in a major way across the country to fill this increased need that we're facing," said Young, Garda's vice-president for the Prairies.

Young added his company has been pressing clients to pay wage premiums.

"Some have been able to and some haven't," he said. "We're doing what we can to support the staff in the front lines as much as possible."

Young said Garda's billable hours are up 25 per cent over the past eight weeks, as the need from essential retail outlets and hospitals by far offsets the drop from special events and airports.

Over the past two months, Garda has hired 2,500 staff, about double what it normally would over that time period.

Young added training guards has been a challenge as first-aid, handcuff and non-violent crisis intervention courses are done in-person.

It's also becoming the new normal to have guards check temperatures to avoid sick people entering buildings. Garda has equipment that can be integrated into metal-detector archways or card-access turnstiles.

Calgary-based security consultant Glen Kitteringham said guards are having to do more patrols of empty buildings because employees and visitors  their usual eyes and ears  aren't around to report anything suspicious.

He said he's also heard from guard company clients that shoplifting is up, but police have understandably been too preoccupied to get involved.

He said staffing has been an issue as guards exposed to COVID-19 have to isolate. Within a pool of 1,000 or so guards his client base represents, between 130 and 180 have been off work at any given time during the past six weeks.

Kitteringham said he hopes there's a newfound appreciation for security guards, who normally fade into the background.

"What I hope that comes out of all this is a true recognition of the value that they bring to the organization all the time, and not just during emergencies when it's glaringly obvious that they're providing a valuable service."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on May 3, 2020.




Good Morning, Nigeria, Welcome To Naija News Roundup Of Top Newspaper Headlines In Nigeria For Today Monday, 4th May 2020

The President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of a substantive Commissioner for Insurance/CEO, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM).

Naija News reports Mr. Sunday Thomas was appointed to replace Mallam Mohammed Kari, the immediate past acting commissioner for the Commission.

The death has been reported of Prof. Isa Hashim, a senior counsellor in the Kano Emirate Council until his passing away.

Naija News understands Hashim, who was the Jarman Kano, died on Sunday morning after a brief illness at the age of 86.

The death has been reported of Alhaji Mohammed Asha, Emir of Kaura-Namoda in Zamfara State.

Naija News understands the traditional ruler died on Sunday as a result of complications from the COVID-19 infection.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported 170 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

The details of the new cases from different states were reported by the NCDC on Sunday night.

Former Minister of Aviation Femi Fani-Kayode has berated the World Health Organisation (WHO) for planning to begin Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine trials in Nigeria.

Naija News had earlier reported that WHO had revealed that Nigeria will be part of the global solidarity drug trial to combat coronavirus.

The leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has refused to let go of his belief that the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has been replaced by a body double.

On several occasions, Kanu has insisted that Buhari is dead and the person currently occupying Aso Rock as Nigerias President is one Jubril from Sudan put there by the assumed cabals.

Mr. Sule Adamu, a member of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly representing Nasarawa central has died of coronavirus infection.

The development was confirmed by the state Governor, Abdullahi Sule on Sunday while in a chat with newsmen.

The Lagos State government has confirmed that three more people have died in its facilities as a result of the coronavirus infection.

Akin Abayomi, Lagos commissioner of health, broke the news via his Twitter account on Sunday.

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Femi Fani-Kayode, has condemned the Group Managing Director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, for sacking some his workers.

Naija News reports that the bank had announced plans to sack its workers as a result of the negative impact of the Coronavirus outbreak.

10. CBN, Banks Halts Mass Sack of Workers

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that no bank in Nigeria will retrench or lay-off any staff of any cadre (including full-time and part-time).

This was made known in a statement on Sunday evening by Isaac Okorafor, CBN Director, Corporate Communications.

Thats the top Nigerian newspaper headlines for today. Read more Nigerian news on Naija News. See you again tomorrow.

Share this post with your Friends on
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

As Pennsylvanians prepare for the eighth week of social distancing under Gov. Tom Wolf's stay-at-home order, psychologists warn that "caution fatigue" may start to affect people's choice to make safe decisions for themselves and their communities.

People who experience caution fatigue become desensitized to warnings because their brain has adjusted to the alarms it's receiving, explained Jacqueline Gollan, an associate professor in psychiatry and behavioral science at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

"When a person is exposed to a warning repeatedly, they start to pay less attention to it and that can lead to either ignoring the alarms or not responding as quickly to them," Gollan said. "We are adjusting how we perceive that threatthe threat can seem uncertain, or we have a hard time understanding the true threat."

Already, some people have become more relaxed about social distancing. Researchers at the University of Maryland's Transportation Institute reported a recent nationwide decline in their Social Distancing Index, which uses location-based service data from cell phones to track compliance with restrictions meant to contain the outbreak.

The decline, which started April 17 and has continued since, is the first since social distancing measures began in March in the United States. This was seen last weekend, when people flocked to the beaches in California and New York despite pleas from both states' governors to stay home. In Pennsylvania, hundreds of people gathered outside the state Capitol on April 20, calling for Wolf to reopen the commonwealth.

Eric Zillmer, a professor in neuropsychology at Drexel University, says that not only do people become numb to danger over time, the COVID-19 crisis also has been "abstract."

"It is an invisible enemy and it targets specific vulnerable populations more than others," Zillmer wrote in an email. "So some, younger populations for example, may not feel particularly threatened. Wearing masks or the energy it takes to comply with safety guidelines gets old very quickly."

Additionally, when people are worried about things they cannot control, Zillmer said, the body engages in the "fight or flight" response, which can cause feelings of anxiety, depression, apathy, and despair.

"Fight or flight is meant to be temporary, not permanent," he said. "Prolonged stress creates a weakened immune system and mental dysfunction."

Gollan said the negative emotions people are experiencing in response to prolonged social distancing measures can sway judgment. When people make a COVID-related decision, such as whether to stay home or travel to a family gathering, they weigh safety against the things that they're giving up, she said.

"These are complex processes and they take up energy," Gollan said. "People don't want to continue making these decisions, so I expect the decline in safety behaviors to continue as people start to show increased stress over the economic strain they're experiencing."

To avoid caution fatigue, Gollan said to focus on things that provide a sense of physical and emotional strength, such as exercising more, eating well, and setting attainable goals. Diversifying where you receive credible sources of information may also be helpful, since people pay more attention to news with variety, Gollan said.

"It can help to ask yourself questions when making a decision during this time, like, "Do I care about being a citizen? Do I care about being part of a team? Do I respect other people?'" she said. "That can help you make a better decision and hold off on the temptations when we want to bend the guidance that we're being given."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

2020 The Philadelphia Inquirer

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Your browser does not support the audio element.

Two investigators had a one-in-a-million job of tailing an aged cattle raiser in Nam Dinh Province, as per the request of his very daughter. It turned out that the old man simply wanted an upgraded earning for their familys finance.

For months, silence has billowed over the family of Tuong, a cattle raiser living in Nam Truc District, Nam Dinh, located in northern Vietnam.

Not a single member of the family has been talking to the others.

Every meal they had was in utter silence, as if the house were badly haunted.

After many failed attempts to dig into what had occurred to her father, Thuy  his eldest daughter  opted to leave for Hanoi to seek a detective agency.

Intuition told her that papa might have been having an affair, for it was quite the norm around her neighborhood.

Two months earlier, Tuong had sold more than a dozen pigs. Then he took the money to the capital for some secret transactions.

He went on to sell his cows.

Nobody knew what the old man was up to.

Even the strip of land he once promised to be the dowry for his daughters wedding was gone. As he was an authoritarian patriarch, nobody dared to speak up.

Does he often go out? asked a detective from the agency.

Yes, hes been frequently going out around 2:00 pm, but he always gets home for dinner, Thuy said, sobbing.

The investigator ruled out the chance of an extramarital affair.

Based on his analysis, the man was still healthy and he spent the nights at home.

He did not enjoy socializing, and did not use his phone in a secret manner.

That is a total far cry from those fornicators who would stick their phones around and set up new passwords to deny their wives and children access.

Other hypotheses were discussed. Could it be something bad that he was not willing to share even with his dearest family members? Could he have been blackmailed for something he had done?

The detective team believed Tuong was being coerced into spending money.

If that was the case, the job should not be pure investigation, but a rescue attempt.

They marked the case as one that might require the police force.

Two agents were sent to work undercover in Nam Dinh Province.

Detective Minh pretended to be a shoe peddler, and Detective Hung a door-to-door leaflet deliveryman for a cattle food company.

Minh was hanging around lottery stations in the commune to sniff around, but nobody ever mentioned Tuong.

He was not gambling at all, so they ruled out the chance that he was deep in debt.

Another investigator approached the bank and concluded that Tuong had no bank accounts. So it was not a loan case, either.

Hung knocked on Tuongs door with a pile of brochures and gave him a presentation, after which the old farmer sighed, Come back here when I have bought a new female cow.

The investigators guessed that he might have entrusted someone with his money, for it seemed that he still wanted to keep the cows and make some money out of them.

Judging from his saddened eyes, the team thought he might be involved in something against his will.

According to them, he was definitely being a victim. Where could he have taken the money?

A page from the diary of Thuy, the eldest daughter of a farmer who dabbled his feet in the stock market. Photo: Vu Tuan / Tuoi Tre

The stock

One Wednesday morning, the man borrowed around US$500 from his daughter, saying he had something in banking business to attend to. She gave him the money and texted the detectives.

He took the familys bicycle and took off. Minh, the shoe peddler agent, tailed him closely.

The man pulled up after a 10km ride, in front of a stock exchange.

Hung kept a watch outside while Minh sneaked in. The old man fixated his eyes on the changing numbers on the trading screen.

It turned out that the man simply dabbled his feet in a field he had not fully understood.

The detectives quickly notified the daughter of all that occurred.

The man returned home to find his daughter and wife awaiting at the gate.

They locked him in a tearful embrace.

Daddy, please dont buy stocks anymore.

A few months ago, one of his business partners from the city picked a huge winning stock. Their earnings were way more than what he could get in a year of raising cattle.

Not contented with the way things were, he decided to sell his swine herd for some funds. But his stocks were all negative.

He kept his family in the dark lest they might discover his losses, and sold the cows hoping he could win it back.

Yet the losses snowballed.

Now, their family meal that day was no longer silent. The daughters called their husbands and children home to celebrate the return of their prodigal father.

They planned to take out a bank loan and buy him a pig herd as well as a calf pair.

The two detectives came home. They could not believe that the stock market had already made it to the peaceful country.

At least, the farmer could still make it out of the hole, back into his familys loving arms.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Funds for native American tribes who have been badly hit by coronavirus are flooding in from Ireland as they repay a debt dating back to the 19th-century famine.

At least 41 people have fallen victim to Covid-19 in the Navajo Nation, which straddles parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

The rise in cases is partly attributed to a water crisis.

An estimated 40pc of the Navajo do not have running water at home, and a drought in the south-west exacerbated the crisis.

As the pandemic intensified, the Navajo and Hopi families set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise cash to pay for bottled water. Already more than $1.3m (1.2m) has been raised, with donations flooding in from Ireland.

The generosity dates back to a gesture made in March 1847 when the Choctaw tribe, which was gradually re-establishing itself in Oklahoma having been ousted from its ancestral lands in Mississippi, heard of the Great Famine.

Meeting in a building in Skullyville, Oklahoma, the Choctaw were asked to dig deep for people miles away they had never met. They did and the donations poured in.

Now, 173 years later, the gesture is being repaid with donors from Ireland.

"The Choctaw and Navajo people helped the Irish during the Great Famine, despite their own suffering," wrote Michael Corkery, who donated $200.

"When I learned about it, I never forgot it. It's history now, but we are still grateful. Thank you!"
North Korean defectors are facing criticism for wrongly claiming the death of Kim Jong Un following his public appearance reported by the state media. Kim Jong Uns absence from major events led to intense speculations over his health and some media reports claimed that he fell ill after cardiovascular surgery.

On May 2, the state-controlled KNCA published pictures of North Korea's Supreme Leader attending an event at a fertilizer factory in South Pyongyang. After demands of video footage, the North Korean media released a video clip of the event, where Kim can be seen in attendance. Pictures and videos show that the event was attended by several top party leaders including his sister Kim Yo Jang.

#WATCH North Korea's Kim Jong Un makes first public appearance in 20 days, at the completion of a fertilisers plant in Pyongyang pic.twitter.com/1OY8W8ORD7  ANI (@ANI) May 2, 2020

'I apologise to everyone'

Some high-profile defectors who had speculated grave illness and even the death of Kim Jong Un suffered a huge blow to their credibility. Former Norths envoy to Britain Thae Yong-ho, who had fled to South Korea in 2016 and was elected to the parliament last month, apologised for his inaccurate analysis of the situation.

I am aware that one of the reasons why many of you voted for me as a lawmaker is with the expectations of an accurate analysis and projections on North Korean issues, said Thae in a statement. Whatever the reasons, I apologise to everyone, he added.

Read: WATCH: Kim Jong-Un Attending Fertilizer Factory Opening Event In North Korea's Pyongyang

Another North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho had thrown his weight behind the rumours by stating that he is sure that Kim is dead. The defector told media he had been informed that Kim Jong Un died last week after cardiovascular surgery, claiming he is not 100 per cent certain but the possibility is 99 per cent.

Read: North Korea's Kim Jong-un Makes First Public Appearance Since 'surgery', SEE PICTURES Here

Kim was present during a Politburo meeting on April 11 and missed key events since then that paved the way for speculations around his medical condition. The North Korean legislature held its third session on April 12 in the absence of its Supreme Leader. Kim also remained absent from commemorations of his grandfathers birth anniversary, triggering speculations around unusual break away from traditions.

Read: Kim Jong Un Appears In Public For First Time In 20 Days, North Korean State Media Reports

Read: North Korea Defector Says He Is '99% Sure' Of Kim Jong Un's Death: Report

(With agency inputs | Image: AP)
Unfazed by the COVID-19 risks, farm scientists from two Lucknow-based ICAR institutes are on the front line to control a fungal disease in banana crop especially in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar ahead of the planting season.

Fusarium wilt with tropical race 4 (TR4) strain is a soil-borne fungal disease that affects mainly cavendish varieties of banana. Signs of fungus were first spotted three years back in Uttar Pradesh and later spread to Bihar, putting the region on high alert.

While farm scientists from the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) and the Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture (CISH) together have developed a bioformulation called 'ICAR-FUSICONT' to fight the fungus, the lockdown has limited the scale of production.

"The production was happening on a small scale earlier but it came to a halt due to the COVID-19 crisis. However, we took special permission and began production. Our scientists are braving all odds to come for work during the lockdown period," ICAR-Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture (CISH) Director Shailendra Rajan told PTI.

The CISH director developed the bioformulation along with CSSRI Principal Scientist T Damodaran. They are awaiting regulatory approval for commercial production, though parent body ICAR has asked them to scale up the output to ensure its availability to farmers at a cheaper rate.

Stating that it was necessary to put into motion the production of this product in this lockdown, Damodaran said because it has to be applied before the banana planting begins from June in these two states. Its application during May is of utmost important.

He further said that the disease is highly transmissible and easily spreads through the exchange of planting materials (banana suckers), water, and movement of people and equipment. About 50 per cent crop has been lost to this disease in the last two years, hitting the farmers income.

Since the lockdown limited direct interaction with farmers, Damodaran said the CSSRI-CISH scientists began using an online Zoom App to hold meetings with banana growers and support them in crop management.

"I think awareness about COVID-19 among farmers helped them understand with greater seriousness the fungal disease in banana crops. They began to take seriously the importance of sanitisation of tractors, footwear and equipment...," he stated.

In Uttar Pradesh, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Ayodhya, and Sant Kabir Nagar are four highly infected districts. The secondary infection has spread to other three districts of Ambedkar Nagar, Sitapur and Barabanki, according to CSSRI-CISH.

In Bihar, the disease spread first from Katihar to Purnia, Bhagalpur, Hazipur and Naugachia districts. The secondary transmission has taken place in Sitamarhi district.

Banana grower Bipin Singh from Sitamarhi district of Bihar, who is preparing his land for banana plantation in four acres, said, "I am struggling to get my hands on this new formulation which has to be applied this month. I don't know how will I manage to get the supply in this lockdown. Is there a way the government can help?"



Many farmers are demanding the government to improve the supply of this new product ICAR-FUSICONT', which can help them save the crop and reduce losses.

According to Damodaran, the production has been undertaken right now for meeting the demand of growers in highly infected areas of the two states.

The CSSRI-CISH are producing 1,000 kg a month, against the requirement of 1,500 kg. So far, 800 kg has been supplied to Uttar Pradesh only. No supply could be made to Bihar due to hurdles in inter-state movement of goods, he said.

Another batch of 500 kg of the formulation is ready for dispatch on May 11, he said adding that a Delhi-based company has also been asked to manufacture about 500 kg.

Besides, CSSRI-CISH has another way to control the disease. It is experimenting with plant-led vaccination.

"We have come up with an immuniser and we will be validating 50,000 planters this year. We have arranged passes for distribution of tissue culture material for experimentation in Ayodhya," Damodaran added.

With the fungus disease spreading now to parts of Madhya Pradesh and a milder strain of TR-4 in Surat area of Gujarat, Damodaran emphasised on the need to scale up production of new formulation at a faster rate.

India is the largest producer of bananas and accounts for 29.1 per cent of the global output.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to citizens about complaints and requests for help that he received from doctors from all over the country.

"Facebook, Instagram, and my desktop are filled with requests from medical teams from all over the country. They all relate to the second stage of medical reform. Usually, we turn to doctors for help. Today our doctors beg for help," Zelensky said.

The president also said that he had heard about medical reform good and bad things, and, having assembled an expert committee of Ukrainian academics, professors, and doctors, he came to the conclusion that the reform has both advantages and obvious disadvantages.

Our task is to preserve all the positive aspects and urgently correct mistakes, Zelensky emphasized.

The guarantor said that 50,000 healthcare workers might be left without work due to the new funding mechanism. Also, in 2020, about a thousand hospitals will receive less funding than in 2019, and 332 medical institutions throughout Ukraine were at risk of closure.

Emergency medical care, multidisciplinary hospitals, oncology centers, veteran hospitals, most children's hospitals, psychiatric and tuberculosis services were at risk of underfunding.

"All this raises a number of questions. Why, instead of saving the lives of other people, doctors are forced to think about their own survival? Why were the tariffs made not by specialized doctors, but by officials, without a deep understanding of the process? How did one ambulance call actually cost as much as $ 3? Why is the amount on paper at least half the price for a stroke and heart attack? According to the new mechanism, some hospitals only have a door lock and a poster: "We're closed." Hold on. Good luck," Zelensky said.

As we reported earlier, Volodymyr Zelensky called on Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov, chairman of the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada and chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine Viktor Lyashko to immediately make proposals for improving the second phase of the medical reform.
Building a brand new spacecraft means knowing when to innovate and when to stick to flight-proven methods, and for Crew Dragon, SpaceX decided to ditch the buttons and dials and go full touchscreen. The astronauts who will fly it later this month have had likewise to ditch years of training and muscle memory  but it's not all bad, they say.

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, the two astronauts soon to launch to the International Space Station aboard a Dragon capsule, will be the first to actually fly the craft in space.

"It's probably a dream of every test pilot school student to have the opportunity to fly on a brand-new spaceship, and Im lucky enough to get that opportunity with my good friend here," said Behnken in a press interview broadcast by NASA .

Of course they're more than adequately prepared  not only have they spent countless hours in simulators, but they collaborated with SpaceX from the early days.

"It was on the order of at least 5 or 6 years ago that we went out to SpaceX and evaluated a bunch of different control mechanisms," said Hurley. "They were looking at every which way of flying the vehicle, and ultimately they decided on a touchscreen interface."

"Of course, you know, growing up as a pilot my whole career, having a certain way to control the vehicle, this is certainly different," he continued. "But we went into it with a very open mind, I think, and worked with them to define the way you interface with it  the way your touches actually registered on the display, in order to be able to fly it cleanly and not make mistakes touching it, not potentially putting in a wrong input."

Compare the photo at the top of the story with the following shot of the physical simulator where astronauts learn to pilot the Russian Soyuz capsule:

Not a lot of leg room in either one, to be honest.

Story continues

And of course even modern aircraft are still a mess of physical controls, no doubt familiar to the pilot but inarguably dated in design.

Behnke pointed out that these spacecraft are made with a very specific purpose in mind: Going to and docking with the ISS. No one is going to Mars in one of these things, and that impacts how they're designed and piloted.

"The flying task is very unique: To come close to the space station and fly in proximity, then slowly come into contact, is maybe a little bit different from what you would see for flying a space shuttle or an aircraft," said Behnke, with characteristic understatement (the difference is night and day). "When we evaluated the touchscreen interface we really did focus on the task at hand and trying to get good performance for that specific task."

A prototype Crew Dragon has already launched to the ISS and returned, having been piloted both autonomously and remotely.

"It was challenging for us and for them at first to work through those different design issues, but we got to a point where the vehicle, from the manual flying standpoint with the touchscreen, flies very well," said Hurley.

"The difference is you've got to be very deliberate when you're putting in input, relative to what you would do with a stick," he continued. "Because you know, when you're flying an airplane for example, if I push the stick forward it's going to go down. I actually have to make a concerted effort to do that with the touchscreen, if that makes sense."

"I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to say that the right answer for all flying is not to switch to a touchscreen, necessarily," said Behnke. "But for the task that we have and to keep ourselves safe flying close to the ISS, the touchscreen is gonna provide us that capability just fine."

Hurley pointed out that one major advantage is that the controls and readouts are all in the same place: "You're seeing the docking target, for example, right in the same place you're looking to fly the vehicle. So it is a little bit different way of doing it, but the design in general has worked out very well."

There's only so much one can learn in a simulator, though, and this first crewed flight is still very much a test, the feedback from which will inform the next iteration of the capsule. It's easier, after all, to push a software update than to rewire the pots of 20 different knobs in a system that goes back decades.

"We specifically, as part of this test flight, designed in some time in the preflight phase, as well as closer to space station, so we can test out actual manual flying capability of the vehicle," Hurley explained. "Just to see and verify that it handles the way we expect it to, and the way the simulator shows it to fly. It's a prudent part of our flight test just like anything else, in case the eventuality happened that a future crew needed to take over manually and fly the spacecraft. So we're just doing our part, to kinda test out all the different capabilities of the Crew Dragon."

We are sure to hear more about the version of Crew Dragon that will be flying later this month if everything goes according to plan. In the meantime, I have asked both SpaceX and NASA for more information on the control scheme and its development.
<! Prof. Akin Abayomi, Lagos Commissioner for Health >

The deadly Coronavirus disease has struck two more Lagosians dead, taking its total deaths to 30.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi disclosed this on Monday on his twitter handle.

He said this brought to 30, the total number of people who have been killed by the virus in Lagos.

39 new #COVID19 Infections were confirmed in Lagos. The commissioner added that as at Sunday,

He said the total number of confirmed #COVID19 cases in Lagos was now 1,123.
Neetu Kapoor on Monday expressed her gratitude to the medical staff for taking care of her husband, veteran actor Rishi Kapoor, during his battle with leukemia.

Rishi Kapoor died at the age of 67 on April 30 at H N Reliance hospital in south Mumbai, after a two year long battle with leukaemia.

As a family we have a deep sense of loss When we sit together and look back at the past few months what we also feel is immense gratitude - gratitude towards the doctors at HN reliance hospital!



The whole team of doctors, brothers and nurses headed by Dr Tarang Gianchandani treated my husband like he was their own - they advised us like we were their own. And for all that and more I thank them from the bottom of my heart, she posted on Instagram alongside two photographs of the late actor.

Rishi Kapoor's ashes were immersed in Banganga tank here on Sunday in presence of his family members, including Neetu, son Ranbir Kapoor and daughter Riddhima Kapoor Sahani.

A prayer meet was held on Saturday at the veteran star's house, which was attended by close family members.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Warren Buffett (Image: Reuters)

You could always count on the folksy and cheery optimism of Warren Buffett.

But if you listened closely to Buffett over the weekend during Berkshire Hathaways shareholders meeting  his annual Woodstock for Capitalists was conducted virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic  his words often betrayed a deep sense of concern about the immediate future. That should be a warning to all investors and policymakers.

While many of the headlines about the meeting were about Buffetts positive aphorisms  Nothing can basically stop America, You can bet on America  underneath those long-term proclamations was a decidedly different message.

Each year for the last decade, I sat onstage at this big meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, with Buffett and his best friend, Charlie Munger, as one of several journalists asking him questions sent in by the public. His positivity, even during difficult economic moments, always radiated with a clear sense of certainty. After all, he is known as the Oracle of Omaha.

Thats why it was unsettling to hear him on May 2 repeatedly say I dont know. He was careful to say the markets would improve in the long term  though his time frame for certainty was decades, not months or not even necessarily years from now. About the current climate, he said, You can bet on America, but you kind of have to be careful about how you bet. He added simply because markets can do anything.

At a time when the stock market has been buoyed by politicians pushing to reopen America and hopeful investors often willing to overlook the immediate economic carnage, Buffett sounded a note of realism about the challenges ahead.

He talked about the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus infections. He acknowledged that the world might profoundly change for years to come. And he spent a notable portion of the meeting detailing the economys performance since 1789, with a particular focus on the years between 1929 and 1951, a period in which the stock market took 22 years to get back to its highs.

More than his words, he spoke with his wallet. He usually relishes a down stock market to take advantage of lower prices. Not this time. He hadnt made any purchases recently; he didnt buy up stocks when they had fallen last month during what felt like a mini-panic: We have not done anything, because we dont see anything that attractive to do.

Juxtapose that with his actions in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008. Back then, he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times a month after Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy: In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary. So  Ive been buying American stocks.

This time, he is husbanding his capital. Our position will be to stay a Fort Knox, he said.

In other words, he is hoping to protect the company if things get worse, and he is clearly worried enough that it might.

He said the $137 billion he had on hand isnt all that huge when you think about worst-case possibilities.

Let that seep in. He added: We dont prepare ourselves for a single problem, we prepare ourselves for problems that sometimes create their own momentum.

Thats coming from the same man who once famously said, Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, its imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons.

In this crisis, he has done the opposite: He sold his entire stake in the nations four major airlines. His rationale seemed to have larger economic implications for the globe and country than simply airlines financial challenges.

I dont know whether two or three years from now that as many people will fly as many passenger miles as they did last year, he said. They may and they may not, but the future is much less clear to me.

A drop in travel, depending on its depth, would have a huge domino effect on the larger economy and employment: Fewer people traveling means fewer jobs in all sorts of industries.

He also said the energy, real estate and retail industries are all facing problems that could reverberate throughout the economy, and into the banking system.

With oil prices so low, loans to energy companies could squeeze banks balance sheets, he said, and you can imagine what happens to equity holders.

About real estate, he added, If youve owned a shopping centre, youve got a bunch of tenants that dont want to pay you right now, and the supply and demand for retail space may change fairly significantly. He described a worst-case cascade: Landlords not paying their mortgages could ultimately create problems for banks. Berkshire has investments in JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Still, he said the banks were much better prepared for challenges than in 2008.

One statement might have offered his most immediate insight: This is a very good time to borrow money, which means it may not be such a great time to lend money.

In truth, he has always been cautious. He has always been more willing to lose out on an opportunity than to jump too soon. I dont worry about the things that I miss, he often says.

If there is a silver lining, it is that Buffett was not predicting doom and gloom, just that he wasnt sure which way we are headed, though, of course, he is wishing for the best. If the right deal came along, he would jump, he said.

The American miracle, the American magic has always prevailed and it will do so again, he said.

At a time of such polarised political battles about reopening and seeming uncertainty among many business leaders and investors about what should happen next, Buffetts humble approach is something we should all take to heart: I dont believe anyone knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
SheerID is tremendously proud to support those who have served or are currently serving, said Jake Weatherly, CEO of SheerID. By providing gated, exclusive offers to the military community, brands are recognizing their service to our country.

Our current global situation, while extremely challenging, is a great reminder to show our appreciation for those that sacrifice so much to keep us safe. And our members of the military, past and present, know just what this means. Our gratitude towards them, however, does not go unnoticed; A recent survey with Military Times revealed that 90% of the military have taken advantage of a military offer, with 96% of the military having shared a personalized offer with other members of the military.

SheerID is tremendously proud to support those who have served or are currently serving, said Jake Weatherly, CEO of SheerID. By providing gated, exclusive offers to the military community, brands are recognizing their service to our country.

In recognition of Military Appreciation Month, SheerID has partnered with a number of organizations that recognize and support the sacrifices that the members of our military make.

"We're excited to honor the military during Military Appreciation Month and beyond, said Ashanna St. John, sr. brand & product marketing manager at Pandora. To show our support and gratitude for their service, we've partnered with SheerID to use their digital verification service to extend an exclusive Pandora offer for members of the military community."

The following brands have provided an offer that, with the help of SheerIDs Identity Marketing Platform, ensures rewards are instantly and securely provided to eligible recipients.

ASCM: The Association for Supply Chain Management is proud to offer discounted membership to our active duty service members working in supply chain, operations management, transportation and logistics, and all other areas of the supply chain field. Save 50% on membership today!

CheapCaribbean: Military receive $150 off your next vacation! We want to reward your dedication to our country with more time on soft sands, soaking up the sun. Sign up for this exclusive offer.

Costco: Join Costco as a new member and receive a $30 Costco Shop Card. Sign up for this special promotion.

LEGOLAND California: Military save up to 50% and receive a day free at LEGOLAND California! LEGOLAND California is a theme park with more than 60 rides, attractions, and shows located just north of San Diego, California. LEGOLAND California is temporarily closed due to COVID-19, but tickets may be purchased in advance. Click here for your exclusive savings.

Madame Tussauds: Military save up to 40% off admission tickets. Step into famous fun and meet your favorite celebrities at our Las Vegas, Hollywood, or San Francisco locations. Get up close and personal with your favorite stars in this amazing, must-see, interactive experience!

Pandora: Pandora is offering a discounted Premium plan to all active-duty military, veterans, and immediate family members. Get the same features as our full-priced subscriptionad-free music, no caps on skips and replays, playlists, and morefor the price of $7.99/month. Sign up today.

Rollick: Military members can take advantage of special pricing and save up to $1,300 in bonus savings on new or used powersports vehicles, RVs, motorcycles, boats, and more, plus savings on gear and accessories. Take advantage of special pricing!

San Francisco Dungeon: Military save up to 40% off admission tickets. This amazing, spooky attraction comes to life before your eyes as you experience nine interactive shows about San Franciscos dark and sinful past! Get tickets.

Targus: Targus thanks you for your service! Save 25% on Targus.com with your military discount. From laptop bags to docking stations Targus has everything you need to carry, connect, and protect your tech. Claim your 25% Targus.com discount now.

vineyard vines: vineyard vines is proud to show their appreciation for the brave military servicemen and servicewomen who serve our country. Visit vineyardvines.com today to receive your 15% military discount.

To learn more about SheerIDs Identity Marketing Platform and military verification, please visit sheerid.com. If youre a member of the military looking for more great deals, check out our list of military offers on SheerID for Shoppers.

About SheerID

SheerID is the leader in identity marketing. With SheerID, brands identify and acquire consumer tribes  such as the military, students, teachers, and more  with personalized offers, gated by instant verification from the largest set of authoritative data worldwide. SheerID instantly verifies customers via 9,000 authoritative data sources and 1.3 billion identity attributes; provides global insights from over 200 of the worlds leading brands; and never shares or sells customer data. As a result, the worlds biggest brands  including Amazon, Lowes, Spotify, and T-Mobile  rely on SheerID as their identity marketing partner. Founded in 2011, SheerID is backed by Arnold Venture Group, Centana Growth Partners, CVC Growth Partners, and Voyager Capital.
KYODO NEWS - May 4, 2020 - 08:50 | All, World, Coronavirus

A number of Japanese groups offering humanitarian assistance abroad have recently been forced to evacuate staff due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, casting a shadow over their support for refugees and poverty-stricken regions.

The nongovernmental organizations have repatriated some Japanese workers due to tighter travel restrictions and poor health care systems in the countries where they operate.

Japan's state of emergency, declared in early April, has compounded the uncertainty over when the repatriated aid workers can be dispatched again.

"Sanitation is poor in refugee settlements and the virus could spread rapidly," said Aya Fujita, who worked in Uganda as a member of the Association for Aid and Relief, Japan.

The 29-year-old, who had supported refugees from conflict-torn South Sudan, returned to Japan in late March when Uganda began limiting domestic travel and international flights.

She worked in a remote area without well-equipped hospitals located more than 10 hours by car from the capital Kampala.

"Our lives would be in danger if we became infected," Fujita said. "What's more, we definitely need to avoid becoming a source of infection."

Fujita had heard reports that local authorities were using violence to force people to stay at home and she felt the security situation had "rapidly deteriorated."

With school closures and gatherings banned, the NGO was unable to continue its educational support programs.

Before Fujita returned to Japan, a refugee leader said there was a shortage of soap and disinfectant necessary to prevent the spread of the virus.

"Their situation is dire enough, so it's crushing to have to cancel even a portion of the support activities," she said.

Fujita is currently working from her home in the Tokyo metropolitan area to support the refugees through local staff.

"I'm especially worried about the children and women," she said. "The world is in a hard place (due to the virus) but I don't want people to forget those in more vulnerable positions."

Senior Managing Director Yoshiteru Horie, 51, said AAR Japan, which operates in around 10 countries, had no choice but to ask many of its workers to return temporarily to Japan.

Japan International Volunteer Center said staff dispatched to Cambodia and Laos had also evacuated. Workers in areas where airports have closed, such as Sudan, remain in place but their domestic travel has been restricted, according to the NGO.

The group, known by the acronym JVC, has continued to work with local organizations to improve the nutrition of young children and support educational programs.

"We're worried about the effects of the long absence of our workers in the field," said JVC Secretary General Takatoshi Hasebe, 47.

Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres Japan has kept approximately 40 workers in around 20 countries, mostly in the Middle East and Africa.

Those dispatched will continue to provide normal medical aid in addition to implementing measures to prevent the spread of the virus. However, its workers have been compelled to stay at their locations beyond their stints due to travel restrictions.

"(Those countries) are in crucial need of medical assistance," said an MSF Japan spokesperson. "We are therefore unable to evacuate."
With the government lifting some of the restrictions imposed to check the coronavirus spread in non-containment zones, people in parts of Rajasthan ventured out of their homes to attend offices, purchase grocery and stationery items.

People also thronged liquor vends but at many places, these were shut due to the violation of social distancing norms.

Shops repairing electronic items were also opened.

Deserted roads came alive with some people taking out personal vehicles to reach their offices or shops.

However, in many Jaipur areas, people rode pillion in violation of the government orders.

I stepped out today for resuming work from office. Since there are restrictions on the number of staffers, there is limited staff. It's good to be back to the normal office routine, Mahesh Kumar, who runs an IT consultancy, said.

The government has given some relaxations during the third phase of the lockdown in the areas marked as green and orange zones.

The high-risk areas have been identified as red zones with more restrictions.

As on May 2, seven districts of Baran, Bundi, Ganganagar, Jalore, Sirohi, Pratapgarh and Churu were identified as green zones while eight districts of Jaipur, Jodhpur, Ajmer, Nagaur, Bharatpur, Banswara, Jhalawar and Kota are in red zone.

The remaining 18 districts have been classified as orange zones.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The head of the European Union agency for disease control said on Monday Britain was one of five European countries yet to begin a downward trend in its coronavirus outbreak, contradicting the British government's line, WHTC News reports.

As of May 4, Britain had recorded nearly 190,000 coronavirus cases and almost 28,500 deaths. Only Italy in Europe has so far counted more deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who returned to work last week after himself being seriously ill from COVID-19, said on Thursday Britain had past the peak and was "on the downward slope".

Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), told EU lawmakers Bulgaria was still recording an increase in cases, while for Britain, Poland, Romania and Sweden the agency had seen "no substantial changes in the last 14 days".

For all other European countries, there was a drop in cases, she said. "As of Saturday, it appears that the initial wave of transmission (in Europe) has passed its peak," Ammon told lawmakers in a videoconference.

The ECDC monitors all 27 EU member countries plus Britain, Norway, Liechtenstein and Island.

The ECDC's assessment on Britain is in line with data on the overall increase of deaths from all causes reported by EuroMOMO, an EU-backed monitoring project on mortality.
MIDDLETOWN  State, federal and local officials converged on Connecticut Valley Hospital Wednesday afternoon to praise the efforts of staff amid the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim and others praised these heroes.

Our state is so grateful. You put your lives on the line to take care of others. You have our greatest respect and appreciation, Bysiewicz said in a video of the event.

You are here every day despite the threat, despite the sickness. Family members whom you leave at home, they sacrifice, too. We owe you more than words, Blumenthal added.

South District Fire first responders attended the event to support the occasion.

Blumenthal announced a proposal by Senate Democrats to create a Heroes Fund, which would pay these types of workers $13 an hour retroactive from Jan. 27 as a pandemic premium pay increase for essential front-line workers.

Florsheim said Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services staff and others are working to solve the hardest problems there are in this crisis.

He recognized the sacrifices CVH employees make in the simple act of going into work every day as pandemic challenges continue.

Those whom we dont get to see have to tackle those tightly tangled and complicated knots that this situation causes, the mayor added.

Figures released by DMHAS May 5 show 128 individuals  60 patients and 68 staff  have tested positive for COVID-19 at seven of its eight facilities.

To date, 10 patients at Connecticut Valley Hospital and nine patients at Whiting Forensic Hospital have recovered from the virus. Additionally, 28 staff members have provided medical documentation showing they have recovered from COVID-19, allowing them to return safely to work, according to a press release.

The agency announced April 30 that a patient in one of its in-patient psychiatric facilities died due to complications related to the coronavirus. The person was a patient at CVH but was transferred to an acute care hospital, where they died, DMHAS reported.

It was the first patient death involving a person in the DMHAS-operated psychiatric hospital.

Sadly, we are not immune to the devastation of coronavirus. The family and health care providers of this patient are in our thoughts and prayers as they deal with the devastating loss of their loved one, Commissioner Miriam Delphin-Rittmon said in a statement. We will provide support to the family in any way possible, she added.
Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all.

Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe

Our news is free on LAist. To make sure you get our coverage: Sign up for our daily newsletters. To support our non-profit public service journalism: Donate Now.

Christopher Knight, the longtime art critic for The Los Angeles Times, won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism on Monday for his writing about the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, while the Long Beach Opera was cited for premiering music prize-winner Anthony Davis' "The Central Park Five.".

Times reporter Molly O'Toole shared in the Pulitzer for audio reporting with the staff of "This American Life" and Vice News freelancer Emily Green for "The Out Crowd," a look at Donald Trump's Mexico policy.

The Times was a finalist in three other categories, while the top Pulitzer -- for public service -- was awarded to the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica for a series about lawlessness in Alaska. The New York Times won the most prizes, with three.

icon

DON'T MISS ANY L.A. CORONAVIRUS NEWS

Get our daily newsletters for the latest on COVID-19 and other top local headlines.

Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Knight, who had been a Pulitzer finalist three times before, was honored for his often unsparing criticism of LACMA, particularly about its troubled expansion.

In a column published a year ago, Knight wrote: "LACMA has become the Incredible Shrinking Museum. I couldn't name another art museum anywhere that has ever raised hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on reducing its collection space."

The Pulitzer jurors said that Davis' "The Central Park Five," which premiered at Long Beach Opera in June of 2019, was "a courageous operatic work, marked by powerful vocal writing and sensitive orchestration, that skillfully transforms a notorious example of contemporary injustice into something empathetic and hopeful." (Richard Wesley wrote the libretto.)

The annual awards, presented by Columbia University for excellence in journalism, books, music and drama, were revealed from the living room of administrator Dana Canedy, owing to the pandemic.

WE LOVE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS
The state of Maryland on Saturday terminated a $12.5 million contract for personal protective equipment with a firm started this spring by two well-connected Republican operatives.

State officials said the company, Blue Flame Medical, failed to deliver masks and ventilators as promised and that the matter has been referred to Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, for review.

Blue Flame received a nearly $6.3 million down payment from Maryland in early April - after promising to provide within weeks desperately needed personal protective equipment for front-line medical personnel dealing with the novel coronavirus.

Ethan Bearman, the Los Angeles attorney for Blue Flame Medical, said Saturday he was unaware the state was unhappy with the firm.

"This comes as a surprise," Bearman said when told that the attorney general had confirmed receiving a referral about the company from the state General Services Department. "This does not comport with what I know of Blue Flame Medical."

However, a letter sent to the firm Thursday by Danny Mays, Maryland's director of procurement, revealed deep frustration.

"Despite numerous requests for information and order status, Blue Flame Medical has yet to deliver any items under this order, or provide any pertinent data as to a pending shipment," Mays wrote. "As Blue Flame Medical LLC has failed to honor its delivery commitment under the terms and conditions, [the Department of General Services] is now formally requiring Blue Flame Medical to cure this deficiency."

Bearman acknowledged that delays had occurred in filling the order but said such problems have become commonplace this spring during the chaotic rush to locate masks and other protective equipment.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the contract's cancellation Saturday.

Blue Flame was started in late March by Michael Gula, a Republican fundraising and lobbying consultant in Washington, and John Thomas, a California political consultant.

Before moving in to the medical supply business, Gula was known in GOP circles for his political fundraising prowess. His firm has raised campaign funds for Sens. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, Steve Daines of Montana, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and dozens of other influential Republicans. He startled some longtime clients in March when he announced he was quitting the fundraising world during an election year to start the medical supply business with Thomas.

Thomas recently worked as a strategist and fundraiser for Republican Don Sedgwick, who sought to run against Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., but lost in the March primary.

The two Republican consultants incorporated their firm in Delaware on March 23 and a week later received the contract from Maryland.

Gula used a connection to a staffer in the administration of Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, to initially make a pitch for the sale, according to a Maryland official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive legal matter. After Gula started using that staffer's name on a reference sheet to seek contracts with other states, the official said, the staffer referred the matter to the chief legal counsel for Hogan, Mike Pedone.

Pedone then referred the matter on April 9 to Frosh's office, the official said.

Gula and Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.

The April 1 purchase order, which was obtained by The Washington Post, identifies June 30 as the delivery deadline. But the Maryland official said that is only because June 30 is the end of the current fiscal year. The agreed upon shipping date for the masks and ventilators was April 14, this person said. Bearman did not respond to a request for comment on this complaint.

The order shows that Blue Flame agreed to provide 1.5 million N95 masks and 110 ventilators, and that the state wired the company nearly $6.3 million as a deposit.

Michael Ricci, a spokesman for Hogan, said in an interview Friday that none of the masks and ventilators had arrived.

"We placed this order on April 1, and we haven't gotten anything," Ricci said. "We received no shipping confirmation. Obviously, that's a concern. That's not been the case with any of our other vendors."

The price Blue Flame was charging at the time for N95 masks - $4.52 each - was much higher than the list price provided by manufacturers.

Frosh confirmed Saturday the matter had been referred to his office.

Frosh would not comment on the contract, the investigation or what precipitated the referral.

Asked about the delays in fulfilling the contract, Bearman said: "I know Blue Flame Medical wanted to deliver the shipment [masks and ventilators] in April. I know, too, of actions by the Chinese government. Their supplier in China wrote a letter to Blue Flame Medical informing them that the Chinese government interfered with the supplier's ability to ship."

Bearman said his client "has done everything in its power to fulfill, and has alternate suppliers to fulfill the order as written. And they so informed the state of Maryland."

The Hogan administration has been aggressively working to shore up the state's supplies of equipment needed to fight the pandemic, including the purchase of 500,000 coronavirus tests from South Korea last month.

Local officials in Maryland were frustrated that those tests were not made available for their use, in part because of a lack of swabs, reagents and other testing supplies.

- - -

The Washington Post's Desmond Butler, Alice Crites and Ovetta Wiggins contributed to this report.
SEMINOLE, Fla., May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Superior Group of Companies, Inc. (SGC) has announced it will donate $5 million of WonderWink and Fashion Seal Healthcare branded scrubs to hospitals and healthcare facilities in areas severely impacted by COVID-19.

Leveraging its global and domestic supply chains, SGC is partnering with Governor Andrew M. Cuomos Central Coordinating Team to distribute scrubs to various New York hospitals, as well as to various Texas hospitals in conjunction with the Texas Division of Emergency Management, and throughout Arkansas with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

The Company is also distributing essential scrubs and masks to hospitals and facilities in Haiti through its local operating company Superior Sourcing, and El Salvador, where SGC has a significant presence with The Office Gurus, a global provider of custom call center support and business process solutions.

Superior Group of Companies has been outfitting essential healthcare professionals in quality work apparel for 100 years, so we are proud to carry on that rich tradition in this moment of need, said Michael Benstock, Chief Executive Officer of Superior Group of Companies. With these scrubs, we hope to help the frontline professionals who continue their heroic care of patients battling COVID-19.

In addition to these donations, SGC is relying on its robust supply chain, as it continues to support healthcare institutions and workers around the world through retailers, distributors and healthcare laundries.

About Superior Group of Companies, Inc. (SGC):

Superior Group of Companies , formerly Superior Uniform Group, established in 1920, is a combination of companies that help customers unlock the power of their brands by creating extraordinary brand experiences for employees and customers. It provides customized support for each of its divisions through its shared services model.

Fashion Seal Healthcare , HPI  and CID Resources are signature uniform brands of Superior Group of Companies. Each is one of Americas leading providers of uniforms and image apparel in the markets it serves. They specialize in innovative uniform program design, global manufacturing, and state-of-the-art distribution. Every day, more than 6 million Americans go to work wearing a uniform from Superior Group of Companies.

Story continues

Visit https://superiorgroupofcompanies.com/ for more information.

###

Contact:



Andrew D. Demott, Jr.

COO, CFO & Treasurer

(727) 803-7135



OR



Hala Elsherbini

Halliburton Investor Relations

(972) 458-8000
Advertisement

From a skateboarding grandather to little girls running through a lavender field, the world's largest photography competition has released 20 heartwarming pictures from last year's contest to 'spread some joy' amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The CEWE Photo Award, released amazing snaps from around the world submitted for last year's theme, Our World Is Beautiful, to mark the launch of the 2020 contest on 18th May.

In 2019, it received 448,152 submissions from all around the globe, which were reviewed by a jury made of experts.

Free to enter and open to both professional and amateur photographers, CEWE gave away 250,000 worth of prizes and ten winners were announced in an exclusive awards ceremony in Vienna in September 2019.

From Hungary to Tanzania, photographers captured simple pleasures of daily life, such as a bedtime story from Granddad in Hungary or splashing in puddles near London's Tower Bridge, in images that showcase of love and happiness.

From two boys wearins face paint in Ethiopia, beaming at each other with flowers in their mouths to a laughing -couple in the kitchen embracing in Tanzania, these heartwarming images are a much-needed tonic in uncertain times.

The CEWE Photo Award, released amazing snaps from around the world submitted for last year's theme, Our World Is Beautiful, to mark the launch of the 2020 contest on 18th May. Among the heartwarming entries was this snap taken by Gabor Varga in Pecs, Hungary, of two children listening intently while listening to a bedtime story

The couple that cooks together: In Nungwi, Tanzania, this joyful pair were immortalised warmly embracing in a kitchen by Anna Ziety

Granddaddy Cool! A grandfather hopped on a skateboard to play with his granddaughters in Sierning, Austria, photographed by Josef Hinterleitner

Simple moments: Children playing jumping elastics games in this lovely picture taken by Krunoslav Vecenaj, in Koprivnica, Croatia

In Kalaw, Myanmart, two boys could not hide their joy as they played with small tires while running in the street, pictured by Eric Tkindt

No raining on their parade! Two little girls make the most of playtime at home on a particularly drizzly day in Strzebielino, Poland, captured by Emilia Wilgosz-Pete

Two boys in painted faces smile at each other while holding flowers between their teeth in Ethiopia, photographed by Miroslaw Mlynarczyk

On the beach in Knokke-Heist, Germany, friends throw some sand in the air at sunset, captured by Tanja Zech

Little boys play around before a fun day at school in Livingstone, Zambia, in this photo by Carina Pilz, from Germany

In the pink! A little girl is delighted as she plays outdoors with balloons in in Prague, Czech Republic, photographed by Monika Vaskova

A toddler eats his breakfast like a grown up while on the phone, photographed in Poland, taken by Joanna Peciak

The eyes have it! Two children look into the camera and smile for Monika Messavilla in Rangun, Myanmar

Purple haze! Two girls wearing white dresses run in a field in Valensole, France, in this beautiful snap from Boris Jufer

Joyful moments! A little boy and girl laugh out loud in this photo by Pierre-Etienne Vincent, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Playtime! A boy chases a red ball while playing in the sun in this aerial shot by Jean Fraipont, taken in Chiusi, Italy

A toddler laughs in his mother's arms behind a window in Bag, Hungary, in a photo captioned Hide and Seek, by Maria Szabo

Children splash around in the summer sunshine in this photo by Krunoslav Vecenaj in Heresin Croatia

Fun in the puddles: A family shields from the rain by Tower Bridge in London, photographed by by Patrycja Gorecka
According to president, if you do not make serious adjustments to medical reform, then it will soon be called sabotage

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called on Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov, chairman of the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada and chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine Viktor Lyashko to immediately make proposals for improving the second phase of medical reform. The president announced this during his traditional appeal to the Ukrainians.

During the speech, the head of state noted that now most of the TB hospitals and dispensaries are on the verge of closure. Regional children's hospitals would receive less than $7,4 million.

"I just cant allow this. I cant allow the reduction of ambulance crews. And situations when a person became ill on Monday and an ambulance arrived on Tuesday. Or if you are a resident of the conventional Sumy region, then you better not get sick, because Ill have to go for treatment for 200 kilometers, I cant allow qualified childrens doctors to go abroad and there will be a catastrophic increase in child mortality, or so that the incidence of tuberculosis will increase by one third in the next two years. It cannot be called reform, but sabotage," the president said.

That is why, according to the president, he calls on the Minister of Health, the chairman of the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada and the chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine to immediately propose solutions to these issues.

We do not need to curtail the reform but to improve it. Admitting mistakes and correcting them. Im sure that there is one global requirement, and its very simple: both patients and physicians of all levels should be happy with the reform," Zelensky said.

The president emphasized that now he cannot allow 50,000 Ukrainian doctors to remain on the street.

As we reported before, Zelensky during an online briefing said that there is no threat to cooperation between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund, because MPs have unblocked the adoption of banking law.
DIXON ON COMPULSORY UNIONISM

The legislation of the NSW Labor Government providing for absolute preference for unionists is meeting with bitter opposition from the Liberal-Country Party leaders, the capitalist press and the employers.

Noel Counihans Farmer  Worker Unity, 1940.

These enemies of trade unionism denounce the legislation as a violation of human rights and of the freedom of the trade unions.

[Liberal Opposition Leader] Mr Treatt says the legislation is a violation of the basic human right to work, but did not tell us when or where the capitalists had ever conceded to the workers the right to work.

Everyone knows the Menzies Government and the employers want a pool of unemployed in order to strengthen their attacks on the trade union movement and the conditions of the workers.

One of the gems of Treatts speech was his concern at Government interference in union affairs.

Government interference and control in union affairs which this Bill is starting, said Treatt, is only the beginning of the road to disaster for free and independent unionism.

After that warning, Mr Treatt should tell the Menzies Government, and also the Cahill Government, to repeal all the legislation, that is, all the compulsory laws, limiting the activities of the trade unions. He should especially denounce the legislation under which the Menzies Government, in collaboration with the Industrial Groups, compels unions to hand their ballots over to the control of the Government.

It is quite clear that the opposition of the boss class to compulsory unionism has its basis in their hatred of trade unionism, their fear of the working class.

STRIKE-BREAKERS

We agree with the Labor Minister, Mr Landa, that they are the spiritual descendants of those who deported the Tolpuddle Martyrs for organising a trade union and who did everything in their power to prevent the growth of trade Unionism.

These loud-mouthed advocates of freedom do not want strong, free and independent unions. Their brand of freedom is freedom for non-unionists, freedom for strike breakers. They want to be free to disrupt and destroy the unions.

At the same time the question must be asked: is compulsory unionism in the best interests of the working class?

The Communist Party believes that every worker should be a member of a trade union. We agree entirely with those Labor Party members who point out that the non-unionist gets the benefit of all the conditions won by the trade unions but contributes nothing in the form of cash support.

Does this mean, however, that the trade unions should turn to the capitalist State, which has always been used against them, to build the unions?

Should the boss class, the mortal enemies of trade unionism, be called upon to force reluctant employees into unions?

POOR OUTLOOK

If the trade unions are to depend upon this form of compulsion, as provided for in the Labor Governments legislation, then the outlook is poor indeed. Such compulsion will not make for strong and independent Unions. It will weaken the trade unions and make them more and more dependent on the capitalist State.

There are a number of industries  mining, maritime, metal, building, railways, etc.  in which all, or nearly all, the workers are organised in the trade unions. The workers do not need the intervention of either the State or the employers. Indeed they would oppose such interference. Any worker who resists joining a union after the reasons are explained to him is compelled by the rank and file of the union to join or leave the job.

In these industries the trade unions are strong because the workers are convinced trade unionists.

The unions most anxious for compulsory unionism are the right-wing controlled Australian Workers Union (AWU), Clerks and Shop Assistants Unions.

COLLABORATION

The officials of these organisations are not concerned with arousing Union consciousness or the building of fighting unions. They collaborate with the boss and want the union members to be passive instead of active.

With compulsory unionism the work of collecting union dues will be simplified for them, as the employer will be expected, by law, to see that his employees are financial unionists. With the unions finances assured, there will be less need than ever for the right-wing officials to contact and consult with their rank and file.

Compulsory unionism, therefore, will result in a more powerful and entrenched bureaucracy in these unions and less democracy for the rank and file.

Compulsory unionism increases the interference of the capitalist State in the internal affairs of the unions. Already there are the powers enabling the Government to take control of union ballots, to enforce awards unsatisfactory to the workers, to suppress strikes, to impose heavy penalties on unions and to jail union officials and members who defend the interests of the workers against attacks on living standards and so on.

MANY DANGERS

It is time the trade unions took up the fight against Government interference instead of seeking to extend it.

Compulsory unionism has many dangers for the working class and should be rejected.

The trade unions can be soundly built only in the struggle against capital. Membership of the Unions should be on a voluntary basis and the control of union affairs should be centred on the rank and file.

This article appeared in Tribune November, 1953.
The Internal Revenue Service has set a deadline of May 5 for veterans to register for dependent payouts, after initially saying they would have only two days. But the guidance, along with warnings that veterans who don't complete the form now will have to wait until next year for their stimulus funds, has left some confused and scrambling.

"We have several veterans with no Internet access," one email received by Military.com said. "Are you able to get at least 25 copies of this IRS form mailed to us?"

The email came in response to a how-to article on COVID-19 stimulus checks for those who don't file a tax return, including low-income veterans with dependents who may qualify for additional funding of $500 each.

Related: Some Veterans Need to Fill Out This Form ASAP to Get Their Stimulus Payment

The sender, Pam Brooks, is a resident and veteran at a residential rehabilitation program at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical facility in Bonham, Texas -- a "domiciliary" that provides housing and rehabilitation programs for veterans dealing with homelessness, psychological issues and substance-abuse disorders.

A veteran with split time in the U.S. Navy and Army from 1998 to 2010, Brooks said some domiciliary residents don't have devices that connect to Wi-Fi and lack access to printers, so they won't make the IRS deadline to apply for the additional funds.

"We are stressed out. We need some help," Brooks told Military.com.

The Treasury Department announced last month that veterans with dependents must register them with the IRS. The announcement was one of several efforts designed to provide stimulus payments to veterans who don't file taxes because they fall below the income thresholds.

Most veterans who file tax returns have had their stimulus check deposited in their bank accounts, while many low-income vets who don't file taxes but receive VA disability benefits are to get theirs with their monthly payments.

But veterans with dependents who don't pay taxes must complete the IRS' online form to receive the extra funds, since IRS officials don't know which veterans have dependents. The requirement also applies to students who use the GI Bill and individuals receiving supplemental security income from the Social Security Administration.

Lawmakers have wondered why the VA can't just contact the Treasury Department and let it know which veterans on disability also have dependents.

"Veterans who do not file annual tax returns are among the most vulnerable, and many of them are staring down the start of a new month without having received the money that President Trump and Congress provided to help them stay afloat during this crisis," Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tennessee, ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said April 24.

Early last week, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Takano, D-California, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, saying the online form solution is "not complete."

Making veterans who can't fill out the online form wait until 2021 for their stimulus checks, when they can file a tax return that includes dependents, is "incompatible with the goals" of the stimulus money, Takano said.

"It is vital that everyone receive the entire amount of their stimulus payment this year for both themselves and their dependents without unnecessary complications or delay," he wrote.

Brooks said that, at the domiciliary at the Sam Rayburn Memorial Veterans Center where she lives, veterans normally have access to computers and printers at the facility's library. But the library has been shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Many of us really need this money now," she said.

A person who answered the phone at the facility said that Brooks' assessment of the situation is incorrect. And Jeffrey Clapper, a spokesman for the VA North Texas Health Care System, said its facilities all have decent Wi-Fi.

"Each veteran with a personal device capable of internet connectivity has access, thanks to WIFI at all of our campuses in North Texas," Clapper said in an email. "We are proud of our campus-wide WIFI."

Those who don't have devices can see their case manager, who can help with accessing the web or printing forms, he added. The onsite library is "open to patients who request it through their assigned social worker (which every patient has) on an appointment basis."

Takano said the online form requirement puts the most vulnerable veteran families at risk.

Nearly 7% of U.S. veterans live below the poverty level, and more than two million veteran households lack fixed or mobile broadband connections at home, according to a Federal Communications Commission study released last year.

Veterans also are less likely to have a smartphone than non-veterans (62% versus 72% as of June 2018) that they could utilize at a public hot spot to connect to the internet, according to the study.

Veterans with dependents who have not yet received their initial $1,200 stimulus check can register them through the IRS portal. When they will receive their stimulus is unclear.

The IRS has distributed stimulus to 90 million Americans, paying $157.96 billion to date. It began issuing paper checks last week, expecting to mail five million checks per week for up to 20 weeks.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

Read more: Army Probe Calls for New Procedures After Deadly Ranger Parachute Accident
LONDON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- London-headquartered firm CS Global Partners advises individuals and families seeking second citizenship that now is the most opportune moment to apply for St Kitts and Nevis' Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme. The company, a leader in investor immigration and holder of the St Kitts and Nevis government mandate, says that the temporary measures to accept online submissions allow investor to get a head start on their applications and, if successful, receive citizenship this summer.

In March, the country's Citizenship by Investment Unit (CIU) allowed for complete applications to be submitted electronically. This enables the CIU to start the due diligence checks, which all applicants must first pass before making their investment and qualifying for citizenship. Choosing the fund option and adding the optional Accelerated Application Process feature makes obtaining citizenship from St Kitts and Nevis currently the fastest in the world.

"Many investors are naturally waiting for the right time before committing to new assets," says Paul Singh, Director of CS Global Partners. "We can confidently recommend them that this is the perfect time to apply for second citizenship from St Kitts and Nevis through the fund option. Besides the obvious safety and security this citizenship offers, investors and their families have the rare chance to apply for citizenship from home," he adds.

St Kitts and Nevis does not require applicants to have resided on the islands for any minimal time period, nor are there any culture or language tests to pass. However, the key factor in deciding who is eligible for citizenship is whether that person raises any integrity, reputational or security concerns.

Successful applicants become lifetime citizens of a well-connected and investor-friendly country. St Kitts and Nevis citizens can normally travel without a pre-departure visa to 156 destinations. Though it is the smallest island in the Western Hemisphere, it has visa-waiver agreements with two thirds of the world, with more countries being added regularly thanks to the diplomatic relations Foreign Minister Mark Brantley establishes.

Prime Minister Timothy Harris introduced the Sustainable Growth Fund under the CBI Programme two years ago as the fastest and most secure route to citizenship. Qualifying investments start at US$150,000 and applications are submitted only through agents listed on the CIU website.

Contact Details:

[email protected]

www.csglobalpartners.com

SOURCE CS Global Partners

Related Links

http://www.csglobalpartners.com


A London-based eye doctor who warned about the dangers of underestimating Covid-19 has died after contracting the disease.

Dr Paul Kabasele, a much-loved ophthalmologist, died after fighting the virus for a month in hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said.

In a statement, the trust said the 58-year-old was a truly gifted and hard-working doctor who had worked at its Croydon Hospital site for a decade.

He provided an exceptional level of care to his patients, thanks to his warm, reassuring and generous nature, it added.

Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr Kabasele was also said to work tirelessly to improve the eye health of people in his home country.

Aside from his work in the NHS, Dr Kabasele was a church pastor for more than 30 years and regularly gave sermons for the Rock of Ages Christian Assembly in south-east London.

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Dr Paul Kabasele. Alongside his NHS work, Paul worked tirelessly to improve the eye health of people living in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our thoughts are with his family. May he rest in peace. https://t.co/1C8ZiKLWgX  Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (@Moorfields) May 4, 2020

In an online video filmed before his illness, Dr Kabasele urged the churchs followers to take the virus seriously and not put others lives in danger.

Rock of Ages said it was supporting the doctors family after his death, adding: We have lost a great role model and a father but we are rejoicing for he has played his part and now in peace with our lord Jesus Christ.

One follower responded: Dr Paul was a pastor full of humility. I miss the mellow tone of his voice. He was a role model. May God help us follow his path.

David Probert, chief executive at Moorfields Eye Hospital, said: Paul was a much-loved member of the Moorfields family. Through the past decade, he provided an exceptional level of care to his patients.

He was incredibly hardworking, kind, gentle and a joy to work with. He will be sorely missed by many and his death is a huge loss to us all. Our thoughts are with Pauls family and friends at this incredibly difficult and heart-breaking time.
Sergio Chapa / Houston Chronicle

Houston liquefied natural gas company Freeport LNG has placed the third of three production units into commercial service at its $13.5 billion export terminal in Brazoria County.

Crews with general contractors McDermott Interionational, Chiyoda International and the Zachry Group wrapped up their work on Train 3, saying Monday that it was ready to enter commercial service.
Beijing may have 'groomed' prominent Australians like Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest and Kerry Stokes in the hope they will advance its agenda, a China expert claims.

The mining magnate and media mogul drew widespread outrage for calling on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to dump an inquiry into the origin of coronavirus.

Mr Forrest even invited a Chinese diplomat and former spy to gatecrash a government press conference, who then spewed propaganda.

Both billionaires made their fortunes from China's insatiable appetite for Australian iron ore and long histories of positive statements about Chinese policy.

Mining magnate Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest (left) invited Victoria Consul-General of China Long Zhou (centre) to a government press conference where he spewed Chinese propaganda

Charles Sturt University professor Clive Hamilton said Beijing targeted prominent elites who stood to gain from being friends of China.

'China has been grooming senior Australian business and political leaders in the expectation they will become advocates, and effective spokesmen for the Chinese Communist Party,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'We've seen that this week with Mr Forrest and Mr Stokes acting as megaphones for Beijing's messaging in Australia.

'In this case, they are pressuring the Morrison Government to back down on its push for an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus.'

Professor Hamilton said they both made their fortunes in dealing with China and Mr Stokes was a personal friend of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

'Chinese diplomats have for years been quietly building their support in Australian business, universities, and politics, and they've done well given how many of our elites count themselves as friends of China,' he said.

'China has powerful Australians who are (unwittingly) doing its work, and that's been extremely damaging to our interests.'

China is accused of covering up the severity of the epidemic after it started in a live exotic animal market in Wuhan, costing the world vital weeks of preparation. Pictured: A bat in a wet market in Indonesia

Professor Hamilton said this was evident in Mr Forrest's 'embarrassing' stunt in ambushing Health Minister Greg Hunt on Wednesday night.

Mr Forrest and Mr Hunt were announcing a $320 million deal to bring 10 million coronavirus testing kits to Australia from China, financed by the mining boss' foundation.

However, Mr Forrest brought along Victorian Chinese Consul-General Zhou Long, whom Mr Hunt thought was a Chinese business contact.

Before moving to Australia, Mr Long was co-ordinator of cyber affairs at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, helping Beijing's global digital attacks.

Once he took the podium, standing just a metre away from a stunned Mr Hunt, he grabbed the opportunity to praise Beijing's handling of the crisis.

'The Chinese government has released information related to COVID-19 in open, transparent and a responsible manner,' he claimed.

'We have worked closely with the WHO and other countries. Including sharing experiences and providing assistance within our capacity.

'China very much appreciates and is thankful to the compassion, support and sympathy of the Australian people.'

Mr Forrest brought along Victorian Chinese Consul-General Zhou Long, without Mr Hunt's knowledge, who took the opportunity to praise Beijing's handling of coronavirus crisis

Once Mr Long (right) took the podium, standing just a metre away from a stunned Mr Hunt (left), he grabbed the opportunity the praise Beijing's handling of the crisis

Mr Forrest was widely condemned for the stunt and Mr Hunt cancelled a follow-up event at a Melbourne hospital on Thursday.

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie said Mr Forrest allowed the Chinese Communist Party to 'ambush the press conference'.

'This guy drops out of the sky in his private jet and enables the Chinese Communist Party to ambush a commonwealth press conference. Yeah, we're not happy,' he said.

Mr Forrest's stunt, particularly given Mr Long is a former spy, has reportedly done massive damage to his relationship with the government.

The conference came amid tensions between Australia and China over Prime Minister Scott Morrison's push for an inquiry into the origin of COVID-19.

The deadly pandemic is believed to have started in an exotic animal market in Wuhan, but China is dead against the inquiry happening.

Chinese Ambassador Jingye Cheng last Monday warned a continued push for the inquiry would prompt a boycott of Australian goods, tourism, and universities.

Chinese Ambassador Jingye Cheng on Monday warned a continued push for an inquiry into coronavirus in China's wet markets would prompt a boycott of Australian goods, tourism, and universities

The deadly pandemic is believed to have started in an exotic animal market in Wuhan, but China is dead against the inquiry happening

Both business tycoons stand to add to their incredible fortunes thanks to China, and both have in the past 24 hours done Beijing's bidding on coronavirus. Australians were not impressed

Mr Forrest's personal fortunes has jumped $3 billion from March 9 as his company Fortescue Metals Group's share price ballooned.

But the billionaire replied that the backlash was a 'complete non-story' and he didn't see what all the fuss was about.

'China has really stepped up so I brought the Chinese consulate along because they've helped Australia,' he said.

'Mums and dads and boys and girls are now able to get tested across our country.

'I brought the consulate along when we broke the back of the PPE [personal protective equipment] crisis in Perth so I brought him along again in Melbourne.'

Mr Forrest earlier suggested that coronavirus may have started anywhere in the world - even Britain or Australia.

'I don't know if this virus started in China or somewhere else and frankly I don't care... because it just might be Australia, it just might be Britain, it just might be China,' he said.

Mr Forrest and his wife Nicola donated $70 million to bushfire relief in January, but only $10 million of that was for immediate help to hard-hit communities.

Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest (pictured) is seen looking on at the controversial press conference in Melbourne on April 29

A wet market is seen up and running in Wuhan, where the COVID-19 pandemic broke out (pictured on April 29) despite scientists warning this is how the outbreak began

Mr Morrison rubbished this claim as 'nonsense', insisting the facts were clear that coronavirus started in China and the world needed to find out exactly how.

'I don't think anybody is in any fantasyland about where it started, it started in China,' he told 2GB.

'It started in China. That is not a statement of accusation or criticism, it's just a statement of fact.'

Mr Forrest's procurement of Chinese medical equipment is also useful self-promotion with limited risk.

The mining boss' Minderoo Foundation bought the gear in advance and paid for it to be flown to Australia, but will be reimbursed by the government as it is used.

Some of the medical equipment in not even high enough grade to be suitable for hospital use, WA Health Minister Roger Cook admitted.

Mr Forrest and his wife Nicola donated $70 million to bushfire relief in January, but only $10 million of that was for immediate help to hard-hit communities.

Another $10 million was for 1,200 volunteers from the mining and agriculture sectors for reconstruction, and the remaining $50 million to Minderoo for a nebulous 'resilience blueprint'.

Mr Stokes, through a front page article in Seven West-owned The West Australian, advocated for Mr Morrison to dump his inquiry.

'China probably owes the world an explanation on the origins of COVID-19... (but) we need to stop making accusations,' he said.

'If we're going to go into the biggest debt we've had in our life and then simultaneously poke our biggest provider of income in the eye it's not necessarily the smartest thing you can do.'

Seven West Media boss Kerry Stokes called on the government not to 'poke our biggest provider of income in the eye' on the front page of a newspaper he owns

Australians were outraged by Mr Stokes' defence of China in the current diplomatic climate

Mr Stokes also warned if China cut off its trade the Australian dollar would plunge to US25c and make it even harder to pay off our debt.

The media mogul has been a consistent China booster, last September expressing concern about Australia-China relations 'and what it means for our trading position'.

'Australia's entire future is based on our ability to trade and China is our largest trading partner,' he told the Australian.

'Our whole standard of living is virtually determined by the exports we make to China.'

Mr Stokes cut down Seven West Media's interest in China in 2017 by selling off its WesTrac China operations to Lei Shing Hong Machinery for $540 million.

However, the rest of the WesTrac sells machinery to the same mining companies that earn billions from selling iron ore to China.

WesTrac was about $3 billion of Seven West's $4.1 billion revenue in the 2019 financial year.

Mr Stokes also caused controversy recently when he and his wife were allowed to fly back to Australia from a holiday in Aspen on April 8 without enduring 14 days locked in hotel quarantine like everyone else.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also warned Mr Morrison he should simmer down and not provoke China, but did not advocate scrapping the inquiry.

'An Australian prime minister who ends up in conflict with China cannot expect any support or solidarity from the Australian business community,' he wrote on Twitter on Wednesday night.

'Overwhelmingly, they're totally invested in the economic benefits of the relationship.'

Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) shakes hands with Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to the G20 Summit in 2016

AMBASSADOR'S ECONOMIC THREAT TO AUSTRALIA In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Ambassador Cheng slammed Australia's push for a global inquiry as 'political' and warned Chinese consumers could boycott the country. Answering a question about whether China could boycott Australian iron ore or gas, Mr Cheng instead focused on China's contribution to Australia's agriculture, tourism and education sectors. Mr Cheng said: 'I think if the mood is going from bad to worse, people would think why we should go to such a country while it's not so friendly to China. 'The tourists may have second thoughts. Maybe the parents of the students would also think whether this place, which they find is not so friendly, even hostile, is the best place to send their kids to. 'So it's up to the public, the people to decide. And also, maybe the ordinary people will think why they should drink Australian wine or eat Australian beef.' Advertisement

Mr Turnbull is not considered to be overwhelmingly pro-China, especially as he was the one who banned Chinese state-linked tech firm Huawei from being part of Australian's 5G network on security grounds.

The same cannot be said for Mr Stokes, who in the same West Australian interview urged a rethink of the ban.

'It's no good rolling out dud 5G technology, we actually need to have the very latest and best 5G technology and I don't think you can end up with the best 5G technology unless Huawei is in the mix,' he said.

Huawei quickly praised his words as 'sage advice'.

Ambassador Cheng's original comments to the Australian Financial Review claimed Mr Morrison pushing for an inquiry was 'dangerous'.

'I think in the long term... if the mood is going from bad to worse, people would think 'Why should we go to such a country that is not so friendly to China? The tourists may have second thoughts.

'The parents of the students would also think whether this place which they found is not so friendly, even hostile, whether this is the best place to send their kids here.

New Deloitte Access Economics modelling estimates $8.1 billion could be wiped from the accommodation and food services sector in the months from April to August

This graph shows the percentage of employees put out of work during the coronavirus crisis according to new modelling

'It is up to the people to decide. Maybe the ordinary people will say 'Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?''

Hu Xijin, editor of the state-run Global Times, on Tuesday night threw fuel on the fire by making even less veiled boycott threats.

'Australia is always there, making trouble. It is a bit like chewing gum stuck on the sole of China's shoes. Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off,' he said.

Professor Hamilton said Mr Xijin's extraordinary comments helped expose the lie that was China's professed friendship with Australia.

'They show how the the Chinese Communist Party has always thought of Australia,' he said.

'It's important to acknowledge that because so many prominent Australians have fallen for the friendship trap and talk in these dreamy-eyed ways about how China is our friend and we have to behave like friends.

'No, China is not our friend, it is hostile towards Australia and our interests and we should go into negotiations with them understanding that.'

Professor Hamilton said China had for many years quietly and insidiously influenced Australian policy and Mr Cheng's outbursts finally brought it into the open.
National Communication Officer of the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi has poked the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration for attaining an abysmal score under the World Press Freedom Index.



"President Akufo-Addo will go down as the worst-performing President in Ghanas history," he said in a statement.



The World Press Freedom Day was declared by the United Nations General Assembly and celebrated on May 3rd to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression of the media.



Sunday, May 3, 2020 marked this year's World Press Freedom Day.



Following the celebration of the Press Day, the NDC Communications Officer has copied a statement to Peacefmonline.com disclosing how President Akufo-Addo and his government have performed in observing the freedom of press.



In the statement, the government scored 22.26 which is the worst score ever since 2013.



"This international disgrace has been occasioned by the gruesome murder of investigative Journalist, Ahmed Suale and governments nonchalant posturing towards investigations into that heinous crime, the high-handed closure of radio stations and the harassment of journalists like Manesseh Azuri Awuni and Edward Adeti, under the watch of President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo who prides himself as a vainglorious paragon of free speech'', the statement highlighted.



Read full statement below:



As we celebrate World Press Freedom Day, its important that we take stock of our performance under the World Press Freedom Index, compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders.



Note that the higher the score, the poorer ones performance. See https://rsf.org/en/detailed-methodology



YEAR - SCORE



 2013 - 17.27



 2014 - 16.27



 2015 - 15.50



 2016 - 17.95



 2017 - 17.95



 2018 - 18.41



 2019 - 20.81



 2020 - 22.26



It can be gleaned from the above, that Ghanas poorest score/performance under the World Press Freedom Index, is a score of 22.26, recorded this year, 2020, under the leadership of President William Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.



This international disgrace has been occasioned by the gruesome murder of investigative Journalist, Ahmed Suale and governments nonchalant posturing towards investigations into that heinous crime, the high-handed closure of radio stations and the harassment of journalists like Manesseh Azure Awuni and Edward Adeti, under the watch of President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo who prides himself as a vainglorious paragon of free speech.



This is why President Akufo-Addo will go down as the worst-performing President in Ghanas history relative to the protection of press freedom.



SAMMY GYAMFI Esq.





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
C Shivakumar By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has been brought to its knees in its battle against COVID-19 as the Koyambedu wholesale market has emerged as a hotspot, with people connected to it testing positive in large numbers across the state. This was a disaster waiting to happen as social distancing was never implemented at the market even after the nationwide lockdown from March 24.

On the first day of the lockdown, adhering to the guidelines of the Ministry of Home Affairs to decongest such spaces, officials announced that the retail vegetable market will not function there and a small banner was erected at the gate to announce this.

However, when this reporter visited the Koyambedu wholesale market on Day 1 of the lockdown, much to his surprise the retail vegetable market was functioning with even children and women visiting it. When this was pointed out to officials, they tried to close the market, asking people and traders to leave.

But rather than shutting the retail trade, authorities allowed it to function during the second day saying there are no such restrictions. As a result, the retail market continued to thrive -- often staying open beyond 1 pm -- as officials turned a Nelson's eye to social distancing norms, forcing some traders to fret and others

to remain indoors fearing the spread of COVID-19.

While markets across the state have been asked to move out of the closed premises to open areas to ensure social distancing is maintained, Koyambedu wholesale market continued to operate in a closed space with no social distancing norms and no checks.

With the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority failing to implement any social distancing norms given its limited manpower and having no inkling of how to handle a pandemic, the authorities failed to gauge the threat of the coronavirus. The Essential Commodities Act was also an issue as it needs to be amended to bring the market under the control of Chennai Corporation, which had already moved many markets under its control to open spaces.

According to traders, as thousands of customers flock everyday to the market, a sneeze or cough from someone infected by COVID-19 could spread it to hundreds of people who in turn may spread it to their neighbours.

The situation became grave when the second phase of the lockdown was to be implemented. Nearly one lakh people visited the market and started buying vegetables and fruits prior to this as CMDA officials and police remained mere spectators.

The worst was a day prior to the intensified lockdown when all the vegetables were sold out in the retail market for nearly double or triple the wholesale price. "The crowd was extraordinary and there was no space to move," says Bhaskar, an onion trader.

It was only a day before the end of the intensified lockdown -- with Covid-19 cases from the Koyambedu wholesale market coming to light -- that a meeting was held with the traders, who opposed the shifting of the retail trade. The wholesale traders too wanted to stay put.

The meeting was attended by Housing Secretary Rajesh Lakhani and CMDA member secretary D Karthikeyan. For nearly a day, confusion prevailed and later only the wholesale market was allowed to function from Koyambedu.

However, by then the majority of traders, workers and even officials had become potential carriers of the virus, with Koyambedu becoming the source of community transmission. Even a Market Management Committee electrician tested positive thus putting a scanner on the entire MMC. On Monday, 18 MMC staff underwent tests.

K P Subramanian, a former professor of urban engineering at Anna University, told Express that the episode is a bad lesson for the CMDA. "They are a planning body and should have focused on fundamental and statutory obligations -- that is planning and development of the metropolitan area -- rather than managing a wholesale market or bus terminus. Interestingly, the same issue was highlighted by then Municipal and Water Supply Secretary K Phanindra Reddy in 2015."

The minutes of the meeting that took place in 2015 reasoned why CMDA cannot manage such a huge market. It read, "Being a development agency, CMDA is required to take up development works envisaged in the masterplan. As CMDA does not have required manpower or financial capabilities and is not empowered under the Tamil Nadu Town and country Planning Act to continue operating such development projects, the possibility of transfer of the market and Chennai Moffusil Bus Terminus to the Corporation needs to be considered."
Vietnam has an opportunity to become the food supplier of the world, according to Truong Gia Binh, an influential businessman.

Binh is chair of the Private Sector Development Center (PSDC) of the Advisory Council on Procedures Reform, and President of FPT Corporation.





Covid-19 poses a high risk to us, but there are always opportunities in challenges, and the opportunity is global, said Binh, who is also chair of the Vietnam Digital Agriculture Association (VIDA).



We can see that many countries are meeting difficulties in the struggle against the epidemic, he said.



These are countries with high population densities where health services are not really developed, and many social problems exist.



Binh said this situation "breaks the defenses of socio-economic mechanisms" and "they will face difficulties in production, consumption, and export".

Vietnam has been doing well in the fight against Covid-19, and this has created favorable conditions for enterprises that make and supply farm produce.

Vietnam has been doing well in the fight against Covid-19, and this has created favorable conditions for enterprises that make and supply farm produce.



Vietnam can become a food supplier not only to Vietnam, but also to the whole world, Binh said, stressing that this is the greatest opportunity for the countrys agriculture.



Regarding capital allocation, Binh said money should be given to enterprises meeting difficulties, but also to enterprises with favorable conditions to develop in Covid-19.



Agriculture is the sector which can absorb the capital well, Binh said.



Covid-19 brings both challenges and opportunities to Vietnams farm, forestry, seafood produce. This is the right time for enterprises to restructure their production organization and apply high technologies, especially digital technology, he said.



Vo Quan Huy, dubbed the Banana King, director of Huy Long An Co Ltd, said at an online conference on the action program and solutions for Covid-19 held in early April that besides great challenges, the epidemic can bring opportunities.



Because of the epidemic, Vietnamese people now favor domestic farm produce rather than imports.



This is a great opportunity for agribusinesses, Huy said.

Nguyen Manh Hung, chair of Nafoods, said the groups output in Q1 grew by 40 percent in the epidemic, thanks to reasonable measures.



Phan Minh Thong, chair of Phuc Sinh JSC, said the company has maintained its usual export of farm produce in recent months, thanks to a strategy on product diversification.



Meanwhile, the Hung Nhon Group expects a 3-5 percent growth rate and plans production expansion.

Thanh Mai

Room for Vietnamese farm produce exports to Singapore amid COVID-19 Vietnamese enterprises shipped around 500 tonnes of goods, including coffee, instant noodles, sweet potato, cabbage, pineapple, watermelon, and dragon fruit, to Singapore in March, according to the Vietnamese Trade Office in Singapore.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 09:37:29|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese health authority said Monday that no new domestically transmitted cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported on the Chinese mainland on Sunday.

The National Health Commission received reports of three new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on Sunday, all of which were imported.

One suspected case arriving from overseas was reported in Shanghai, the commission said in its daily report.

No deaths related to the disease were reported, according to the commission.

Altogether 53 people were discharged from hospitals after recovery Sunday, while the number of severe cases decreased by one to 33.

As of Sunday, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 82,880, including 481 patients who were still being treated, 77,766 people who had been discharged after recovery, and 4,633 people who died of the disease.

By Sunday, the mainland had reported a total of 1,675 imported cases. Of the cases, 1,273 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 402 remained hospitalized with five in severe conditions. No deaths from the imported cases had been reported.

The commission said three people, all from abroad, were still suspected of being infected with the virus.

According to the commission, 7,392 close contacts were still under medical observation after 632 people were discharged from medical observation on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, 13 new asymptomatic cases, including two imported ones, were reported on the mainland. No cases were re-categorized as confirmed cases, and 19 such cases, including two from abroad, were discharged from medical observation, according to the commission.

The commission said 962 asymptomatic cases, including 98 from abroad, were still under medical observation.

By Sunday, 1,039 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 45 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR, and 436 in Taiwan including six deaths.

A total of 879 patients in Hong Kong, 39 in Macao, and 332 in Taiwan had been discharged from hospitals after recovery. Enditem
At an odd jobs market in the capital of Tajikistan, the crowds of desperate men hoping to land work are growing. If Tajikistan's key economic partner, Russia, had not sealed its border in March to slow the spread of the coronavirus, many of the men would be seeking work there. Instead they are trapped in the poorest country to emerge from the Soviet collapse, where money sent home by migrants -- mostly from Russia -- normally makes up 30 percent of gross domestic product. For 30-year-old Djomi Sharipov, who was seeking "any type of work", Russia's anti-virus measures that have brought the economy to a grinding halt could not have come at a worse time. Sharipov had just got clear of a four-year entry ban from Russia for a migration violation and had secured work at a pasta factory outside Moscow. "Events conspired against me, against all of us," Sharipov told AFP at one of several job markets in Dushanbe. "If before there were 15 or 20 people standing in this line, now it is 80 or 100." - Sleeping in airports - Russia's measures against the coronavirus, which has ripped through the country in recent weeks, have left hundreds of thousands of migrants unemployed, yet trapped inside the country. The most desperate took to sleeping in airports early in the crisis as flights were cancelled, hoping for a reversal of fortunes. Migration centres in Moscow and Saint Petersburg have descended into chaos as crowds of migrants engulfed them wanting to renew work and residence permits. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in April exempting millions of guest workers from labour permit payments until mid-June. That eased the bureaucratic strain on stranded migrants, but has done little to cushion the devastating economic impact of the lockdown, now more than a month old. Elvira Kurbanova, a 57-year-old from Kyrgyzstan, said she had no desire to return home to Central Asia's most remittance-dependent economy, where she earned less than $200 a month as a bookkeeper. She just wants the Asian restaurant in Moscow where she and her son were hired last autumn to reopen so she can return to a life that was "falling into place", she told AFP by telephone. Kurbanova and her son each earned $400 a month at the restaurant and sent around a third of that to help her parents supplement their "tiny pensions". "But now our landlord wants 20,000 rubles ($265) for the rent. We still haven't received our salaries for February," she said. - No salary, no food - With coronavirus cases topping 130,000 and not expected to peak until mid-May, Putin has said Russia will not consider easing virus restrictions until later this month. Uncertainty over the price of oil also hangs over the countries that live in the economic shadow of their former imperial master and key oil producer. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in an April report that any recession in Russia "will have an impact on the demand for labour, invariably affecting many households across Central Asia". Mirali Davlatov, a 65-year-old pensioner queuing at a bank in Dushanbe, said the earnings that his two brothers, grandson and son-in-law make from construction in Russia feed his family of 20, including five small children. But after losing work "they can't get a salary or buy food for themselves, which means they can't send us any money," Davlatov said. Migrant workers in Russia who are still able to work during the lockdown will continue to do so, said Yan Matusevich, a researcher on migration, because they cannot afford to put their health first. Central Asians make up a "significant proportion of essential workers" in Russia, with jobs in food processing, manufacturing and the service industry, which have avoided full quarantine, Matusevich said. Delivery workers, taxi drivers and cashiers often suffer poor working conditions, "and are now particularly exposed to COVID-19", the researcher told AFP. At the bank, Davlatov said he hoped to God that the pandemic would cease to "torment" not only his family but the whole world. "Otherwise, there will be no normal life for anyone." Tajikistan is the poorest country to emerge from the Soviet collapse, and money sent home by migrants -- mostly from Russia -- normally makes up 30 percent of GDP
Any startup that is building a product intended to help in the fight against the coronavirus can apply for free development hours of front-end, back-end, or other engineers available at the agencies, get free UX consultancy, or even QA support.

YouTeam, the premier online marketplace for building remote software development teams, along with 10 Ukrainian IT outsourcing partner agencies, launches an initiative to fight COVID-19. The announcement comes with the publication of a directory called Volunteer Developers (http://volunteer-developers.com) where COVID-battling startups can find relevant tech help to aid them in their fight against the deadly disease.

The list of companies participating in the charity includes leading Ukrainian software development agencies such as Lionwood Software, LightIT, JustCoded, Unicreo, ElifTech, Sigma Software, Clockwise Software, Computools and OpenGeeksLab, all vetted independently by YouTeam. Any startup that is building a product intended to help in the fight against the coronavirus can apply for free development hours of front-end, back-end, or other engineers available at the agencies, get free UX consultancy, or even QA support.

Most offers are valid until June 1, 2020  when quarantine is expected to be ended or relaxed in many western countries. Volunteer time of software engineers usually needs to be booked a few days in advance, and comes on a first come, first served basis. However, the representatives of some agencies have not eliminated the possibility of providing more than promised to inspiring companies really making a change in the world.

Yura Riphyak, YouTeams co-CEO, explains how the idea came to life: I'm from Ukraine, where IT outsourcing is a really huge business  adding up to around 3% of GDP. Ukraine is also where YouTeam was founded and where our own development and support teams are located. The quality of engineering talent is exceptional and the percentage of software engineers in the population is the highest in the world. When we reached out to our most trusted partner agencies there with the idea of volunteering during the COVID-19 crisis, they instantly jumped at the opportunity to offer a helping hand in these uncertain times.

For more information on the volunteer development help available, please visit http://volunteer-developers.com.

About YouTeam: YouTeam is a platform for building remote development teams from Eastern Europe and Latin America. The startup operates a talent pool of around 20,000 vetted software engineers available to start working next week. YouTeam brings convenience to outsourcing by leveraging the dynamic availability of engineers within dev shops. The startup has been backed by Y Combinator in the Winter batch 2018, as well as u.ventures, DigitalFuture and a number of prominent angels.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Sounds Off

NEWS PROVIDED BY

May 4, 2020

NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 / Christian Newswire / -- Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a new book that is bound to be controversial:

We will have to wait until November before the English version of a biography of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is available, but the book by Peter Seewald is already generating controversy. Benedict says his writings have been misrepresented beyond recognition, so much so that it has devolved into a "malignant distortion of reality." Worse, attempts to silence him have been ongoing.

Sexuality and the life issues are what angers his most vociferous critics. That's because they touch on the most sacred ground coveted by secularists. "One hundred years ago," Benedict says, "everybody would have considered it to be absurd to speak of a homosexual marriage." The same goes for "abortion and to the creation of human beings in the laboratory."

Pink News, a gay media outlet from the U.K., was not happy with Benedict's statement on gay marriage. It also accused him of "aggressively oppos[ing] same-sex marriage" during his tenure as pontiff. It contends he was replaced by Pope Francis who, while not changing Church teachings on marriage, has "pursued a more outwardly liberal PR drive."

The fact is there is zero difference between Benedict and Pope Francis on the subject of gay marriage. Here is what Francis has said: "Children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child's development and emotional maturity." He knows how important this is. "At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother, and children."

What is most distressing are the attempts to silence Benedict. His critics want him to stay in a retirement home and watch TV. But he won't do that. Indeed, he is happily defiant. But he is not naive. Those who do not accept gay marriage, he notes, must be prepared to suffer the consequences. "Today one is being excommunicated by society if one opposes it."

Benedict does not exaggerate. It is virtually impossible for any academic to get tenure if it is disclosed that he does not approve of two men marrying. Similarly, if it is discovered that a candidate for a junior position supports the Judeo-Christian understanding of sexuality, he will never be seated.

"Modern society is in the middle of formulating an anti-Christian creed," Benedict says, "and if one opposes it, one is being punished by society with excommunication." With few exceptions, no one who sits on the editorial board of any major newspaper would be allowed to keep his place at the table if he decided to become pro-life. He would be shown the gate.

Attacks on marriage, properly understood, are commonplace. So are efforts to protect the sanctity of life de novo. Campaigns against genetic engineering are similarly condemned. Benedict sees this as the work of the "spiritual power of the Anti-Christ."

Benedict claims that those who sought to silence him when he was pope came less from within the Church than from without. "Blockages came more from the outside than from the Curia." This was certainly true when 67 professors from Rome's La Sapienza University protested his scheduled address in 2008. His speech was cancelled because his writings on science angered the "tolerant" ones.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is a true gift from God. He is a man of powerful intellect, and, just as important, he is a man of tremendous courage. His thuggish foes can scream all they want, but he will not be silenced.

SOURCE Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

Related Links
We know how to social distance; we know how to wash our hands, not touch our face. Those are the responsibilities each of us bear to one another not to spread this virus, said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). But make no mistake, self-government is essential under any construction, any definition of that word. Our system was not made to run on autopilot. So its appropriate that we show up and we do our job.
Now that millions of professionals have proven they're able to do their jobs remotely, many experts agree it will become more common for people to split their time between working from home and going into an office.

But what will that office look like once they get there?

In a post-pandemic economy, it's possible only the biggest companies will have the budget to maintain headquarters, while businesses without the financial resources may scrap the idea of having a physical location altogether. Others may decentralize their physical presence and open regional hubs wherever their workers are located, whether that's in the suburbs, mid-sized cities or across the country entirely.

While the future remote workforce is expected to grow, many will still want a place to connect with others in person. Co-working and community spaces are uniquely positioned to fill the void.

"Co-working spaces have the potential to provide vital business services to support the remote workforce closer to where they are, especially as residual anxieties linger over taking public transit," says Brent Capron, design director of interiors at architecture firm Perkins and Will's New York studio.

Prior to the pandemic, co-working spaces were the fastest-growing type of office space in commercial real estate. While they currently comprise less than 5% of the market, they're expected to make up 30% by 2030, according to real-estate company JLL.

In order for co-working companies to continue their expansion, they'll have to be designed to address workers' concerns over spacing and sanitation, Capron tells CNBC Make It. Members may gravitate toward spaces where they have assigned seating at desks that are farther apart. They'll expect access to cleaning supplies, as well as frequent deep cleaning protocols, and generally environments that are attuned to keeping members healthy and safe.

With these precautions in place, experts think workers will be more likely to leave their home offices for a work environment that offers more than just desk space.

"People will always need, and will be looking for, a place to connect, find community, and to find a purpose," says Amy Nelson, founder and CEO of co-working company The Riveter. "That's what brought people to co-working spaces in the first place."

Nelson originally launched The Riveter to provide professional services, networking opportunities and fundraising support to women growing their own small businesses. While people of all genders make up its membership, The Riveter is built by women and oriented toward their needs.

As governors across the country issued closures of non-essential businesses, The Riveter pivoted to offer its usual lineup of events, programming, conversations and access to experts online. These digital offerings were originally planned to launch prior to the pandemic and through a paid membership, but Nelson says they are now available to everyone at no cost.

These community spaces can provide what traditional offices can't in terms of a tight-knit network of support, even after the pandemic subsides, she says.

"As women are facing the impacts of Covid-19, the platform will focus on what working women need now. For example: how to work from home, childcare and homeschooling your children, helping individuals find a job if they've gotten laid off, self-care through the crisis. But we're also looking ahead to what working women will need after the crisis, focusing on how what we can do to make sure that working women's interests are represented in the response."

As networking moves online, some experts worry a digital networking divide could result in a gap between the types of workers who get face time to build their professional circle. "Are in-person gatherings going to be reserved for people we really want to see, and expanding networks is reserved for things we do online?" says Lakshmi Rengarajan, a workplace connection consultant formerly of WeWork and Match.com.

"I hope the groups of people interacting in-person is democratized, and it's not just people at the top getting together."

The desire for deeper connection in a virtual working world could help more intimate networks thrive, even as they expand farther geographically.

Naj Austin closed the doors to Ethel's Club, a professional and creative community space designed for people of color, in early March. Within four days, however, she and her team launched a digital membership model "to keep connection and community alive." The club, which had 300 members for its Brooklyn location, added another 400 creatives and professionals around the world to its base.

"People all over still need a space like this," Austin says.

Online, the club hosts three events per day, including book club discussions, speakers, concert series, networking and more.

The intentional and intimate nature of such social clubs could be a huge draw for people to build relationships if they're not going into an office every day.

"We were always an intimate space that gathered people in small groups," Austin says. "It's hard to create a safe space when the space is 30,000 people full. Specificity is important. I think on the outside of this, people will want that community even more."

Check out: The best credit cards of 2021 could earn you over $1,000 in 5 years

Don't miss:
A lame-duck Texas regulator who proposed mandatory oil-output cuts said the effort is "dead" a day before the biggest U.S. crude-producing state was set to vote on the measure.

Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton said in an interview on Bloomberg TV that the three-member agency wasn't prepared to vote on curtailing supplies in a process known as "pro-rationing." His comments likely mark the end of a month-and-a-half-long saga that divided the shale industry over whether regulators should adopt OPEC-style production caps amid a historic collapse in crude prices.

The unprecedented implosion of the entire oil industry has been so swift and severe that American companies have been turning off drilling rigs, demobilizing fracking crews, slashing jobs and shutting wells without the need for a government order. Fracking activity in U.S. fields has slumped 82% in the past seven weeks, while oil drilling is down 52%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

"At this point we still are not ready to act, and so it's too late, so there is no proposal to make," Sitton, one of three Republicans on the commission, said Monday. "I think that pro-ration is now dead."

Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips plan to curb as much as 660,000 barrels a day of combined American output by the end of June. Permian Basin producer Concho Resources Inc. has shut in about 4% to 5% of total output and warned last week that it will likely be forced to curtail even more.

"The market forces are stronger than the threat of proration ever was," said Cye Wagner, chairman of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, which was opposed to state quotas. "It would be more harmful to the industry than the market-driven response that's coming."

Sitton, who lost the primary election for his own seat earlier this year, had been the only member of the Texas Railroad Commission -- the state's chief energy regulator -- to come out in favor of production caps. Chairman Wayne Christian recently stated his opposition to cuts in an opinion piece for the Houston Chronicle, and Commissioner Christi Craddick had expressed numerous concerns during the agency's most recent meeting.

Among oil companies, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and Parsley Energy Inc., founded by a father and his son, had been the biggest champions of instituting mandated cuts.

But Exxon Mobil and Chevron, along with a long list of independent producers, had argued that the market was already driving curtailments and that it was best for the government to stay out of it. The chief executive officer of Enterprise Products Partners even went so far as to say that quota-supporting producers were simply trying to skirt contractual obligations.

Sitton's proposal called for a 20% cutback in the state's output, conditional on other states and nations making similar moves. The measure would have penalized producers who exceeded quotas to the tune of $1,000 a barrel. But Christian and Craddick both said they feared legal repercussions that would make such an effort ineffective.

"I may be the only lawyer in the group, but I guarantee you this is going to the courthouse," Craddick said last month.

While the debate over production caps may be sidelined in Texas, other states are still considering whether such a response is warranted. Oklahoma is scheduled to discuss quotas on May 11 and North Dakota will take up the issue on May 20. Still, those efforts are likely a long shot without Texas on board.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 5)  President Rodrigo Duterte appealed to local government units to accept returning overseas Filipino workers in their areas amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

The national government will insist that you accept the OFWs, said Duterte in his taped message aired late Monday night.

The President lamented that some LGUs are not accepting returning Filipinos abroad back to their localities.

Duterte understood the concern of the LGUs that returning OFWs may spread the virus in their area. But he responded that it is their duty to help and protect their constituents.

Duterte also mentioned that every Filipino has the constitutional right to travel, as enshrined in Section 3 of the Bill of Rights under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which cannot be taken away by the LGUs.

The President also urged LGUs to provide them with a temporary place to stay in their towns in order to avoid further spread the disease.

Rather just leave them there stranded, they have money for their pockets intended as savings for their family. Their money will run out and they would go home with their pockets empty. We do not want that to happen, said Duterte.

Duterte suspended yesterday the collection of higher premiums for OFWs from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation to ease their burden amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The Department of Labor and Employment also offered a one-time 10,000 cash aid for repatriated OFWs. The department confirmed that some 86,000 overseas workers are qualified to receive the financial assistance.

OFWs must submit to their respective Philippine Overseas Labor Office an accomplished application form for the special cash assistance downloadable from the website or social media account of the said office.

The workers must also submit a photocopy of passport and/or travel documents such as residence ID or visa, proof of overseas employment, proof of loss of employment on account of the virus, and proof of a pending case that caused their current undocumented status such as case reference number and case endorsement stamped by the POLO.
The government of Iran is said to have issued a license to Turkey-based iMiner to mine bitcoin in Iran.

Local media outlet Tabnak reported the news last week, saying that the license given by Irans Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade will allow iMiner to deploy 6,000 bitcoin mining machines in the countrys Semnan city. (Iran currently has a total of over 148,000 bitcoin mining machines in use)

The new deployment will lead iMiner to operate at a total capacity of 96,000 terahashes per second (TH/s), per the report. iMiner has invested 311 billion rials ($7.3 million) to set up the farm, which is said to be the largest mining facility in Iran.

iMiner already has an office in Irans Tehran city for administrative purposes only and had been providing services only in an informal manner, per its website. The license could be the official go-ahead to its operations in the country.



iMiner claims to have over seven years of experience in bitcoin mining, and also operates a miner rental service in Turkey, Russia, the U.S., Canada and Iran, per its website.

Iran authorized crypto mining as industrial activity in July 2019, and since then, the countrys government has issued over 1,000 licenses to crypto mining firms. Irans subsidized electricity rates have led to several miners flocking to the country. Miners are reportedly charged ~$0.11 for one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy. During the peak summer season (June to September), however, the charges are higher at ~$0.46 per kWh.



A person with knowledge of the matter, however, told The Block that bitcoin miners in Iran are actually charged in the range of $.005 to $.015 for one kWh of electricity.

Update: This story has been updated to include comments from a source





 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
The Covid-19 epidemic has found our world smart and progressive, ready more than ever to deal with an epidemic, but unfortunately, not enough to prevent its eruption on a global scale.

Eran Brown, CTO of EMEA at Infinidat

Medicine 3.0: The challenge that the Covid-19 brought to the forefront

A change in access to information infrastructure is required

While many medical institutions around the world are collaborating, most are still built on computing infrastructures that are not designed to support sudden, urgent and high-level computing projects. These days, only hospitals that operate their infrastructure as an elastic cloud can better respond to the needs of rapid research and reach significant breakthroughs.The Covid-19 epidemic (or any pandemic) erupted surprisingly around the world. While medical institutions were not able to prepare for it with timely technological infrastructure, it brought to the forefront of the new challenge that medical institutions face: promoting innovations and breakthroughs through information-based research.Medicine has advanced to a new generation - it started from herbal remedies, continued to chemical and biological proven drugs, and is currently moving through a sharp transition to information-based medicine as a medical diagnostic tool.Whether it is a study that includes widespread information or personalised medicine, it includes exponential amounts of information, which requires rethinking of technological infrastructure.Take, for example, the imaging tests that are routinely performed using MRIs - every time a technological breakthrough increases the power of the devices, the resolution increases, the software's ability to detect templates increases, and the demand for computing infrastructures increases.Now, add to that all the other imaging tools that have evolved in recent years, the images and reports that are getting better every year and collected every day about each patient and every patient, and you have received a huge volume of information, which is growing and collected every day in every medical tender.A medical institution that wants to advance research based on the medical information it has accumulated, must understand that if it does not ensure high access to information, it will be left behind. It must be able to give biotech companies (from startups to giant companies) quick and secure access to information for the purpose of conducting an initial feasibility study for their research, of course, under the privacy restrictions and regulations.That is, it must become a "cloud provider" of medical information, and allow access to information that was accumulated for an industry that produces innovation through machine vision, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc.Medical centres interested in research collaborations must take into consideration that a company that is engaged in medical research and studies of innovative therapies and imaging tools, will want access to large volumes of information.However, slow access to this information can be devastating for it in the existing market competition. It would prefer to work with a hospital that provides a smaller volume of information, provided the access to it is fast and immediate. Quick access will shorten the time it takes to start the research itself and allow it to reach the market and patent first.That's why companies are looking for collaborations with those hospitals that hold enough information, but more importantly, they're looking for hospitals that can collaborate at the information infrastructure level that provides quick access.Anyone familiar with the procurement systems in the medical world knows that these are complicated, lengthy processes that are not suitable for cloud management.Every procurement is a tender, every procurement is for the near term and then start from scratch. There is a discrepancy between the acquisition model of medical organisations in Israel and around the world and the requirements of a cloud infrastructure capable of supporting the required scale of innovation.Medical research institutes that understand this and start adjusting their procurement processes can run faster in any research: starting research faster where the emphasis is on immediate start without waiting, through large calculation/analysis processes, where the emphasis is on high and immediate resource availability and the ability to grow and decrease dynamically as the research progresses.Advantages of research collaborations for the hospital are immense - from adopting lifesaving treatments to everyone, through the ability to attract better doctors and researchers to a hospital where research is worthwhile and to access the latest technologies (Bleeding Edge).On the other hand, a hospital - and especially a public hospital - must ask itself where the funding for these infrastructures will come from. The first option is self-financing, taking the infrastructure risk on the hospital, and it is not easy.Another option is choosing technology partners who take the risk on them. Partners who understand the size of the requirements know how to produce flexible procurement solutions that are suitable for the 21st century and do not require the hospital to pay upfront but allow it to roll the costs over to the companies seeking access to the information.Such "pay-as-you-go" models that have existed in the cloud world for years must form the economic basis for such collaborations to allow us to drive the next wave of medicine.Imagine a hospital with such a cloud infrastructure beginning to explore the Covid-19, and the ability to accelerate research processes, and routinely, 365 days a year utilize this infrastructure to advance the next generation of medicine.
DHS Report: China Hid Viruss Severity While Hoarding Supplies

U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the CCP virus outbreakand how contagious the disease isto stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.

Chinese leaders intentionally concealed the severity of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying on May 3 that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping visits Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the CCP virus outbreak, Hubei province, China, on March 10, 2020. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via Reuters)

Not classified but marked for official use only, the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the CCP virus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data, the analysis states.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the CCP virus was a contagion for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroadand that its imports of masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

Those conclusions are based on the 95 percent probability that Chinas changes in imports and export behavior were not within normal range, according to the report.

China informed the WHO of the outbreak on Dec. 31. It contacted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Jan. 3 and publicly identified the pathogen as a novel coronavirus on Jan. 8.

Medical staff treat patients infected by the CCP virus at a hospital in Wuhan, China, on Feb. 24, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese officials muffled doctors who warned about the CCP virus early on and repeatedly downplayed the threat of the outbreak. However, many of the Chinese regimes missteps appear to have been due to bureaucratic hurdles, tight controls on information, and officials hesitant to report bad news. There is no public evidence to suggest it was an intentional plot to buy up the worlds medical supplies.

In a tweet on Sunday, the president appeared to blame U.S. intelligence officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential virus outbreak could be.

Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S., Trump wrote. Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner.

Trump had previously speculated that China may have unleashed the CCP virus due to some kind of horrible mistake. His intelligence agencies say they are still examining whether the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.

President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on May 3, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Speaking Sunday on ABCs This Week, Pompeo said he had no reason to believe that the CCP virus was deliberately spread. But he added, Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories.

These are not the first times that weve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab, Pompeo said. And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.

The secretary of state appeared to be referring to previous outbreaks of respiratory viruses, like SARS, which started in China.

Some experts say the CCP virus arose naturally in bats, and that they believe it wasnt human-made. Many virologists say the chance that the outbreak was caused by a lab accident is low, though scientists are still working to determine a point at which it may have jumped from animals to humans.

By Will Weissert

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.




Haiti - COVID-19 : Reaction of the International Trade Union Confederation on the reopening of factories in Haiti





In an open letter to President Jovenel Moise, the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Sharan Burrow, who represents 332 national affiliated organizations in 163 countries and territories, informed by the Confederation of Haitian Workers, by the Confederation of Workers of the Public and Private Sectors and by the Haitian Trade Union Coordination, that "since April 20, 2020 the Haitian Government had authorized the reopening of factories in the textile sector" https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30541-haiti-economy-pm-jouthe-announces-a-gradual-resumption-of-activities-in-the-textile-sector.html writes "[...] The ITUC is extremely concerned that today there dozens of people tested positive for Covid-19, so the situation has worsened as the garment factories are reopened []



The ITUC is alarmed by the lack of appropriate measures to protect workers [read : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30419-haiti-covid-19-list-of-factories-authorized-to-operate.html ] including transportation.



The crowd of workers in front of the factories is of great concern to the Confederation. It is unacceptable that the factories are reopened without planning the transportation of workers and their lunch while respecting barrier gestures, social distancing and all the generally general standards of WHO in the context of the pandemic [...]"< /I>



Fearing the spread of Covid-19 in the textile sector, the ITUC to avoid a health tragedy made several recommendations to President Moise.



ITUC Recommendations :

"

That the transportation of workers be planned by the government and the employers so that transportation can respect social distancing measures and barrier gestures;



That a brigade be made up of labor inspectors and police to inspect the transportation of workers;



That arrangements be made to enforce ILO Convention 81 on Labor Inspection, as well as the provisions of the Labor Code relating to labor inspection;



That the National Old Age Insurance Office (ONA) give unemployment benefits to workers on technical unemployment;



That the wages of all workers be protected



That special measures be taken to ensure social distancing and the protection of pregnant women and other workers most at risk



That the most representative unions be consulted before the implementation of any measure likely to have an impact on workers.

[...]

See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30541-haiti-economy-pm-jouthe-announces-a-gradual-resumption-of-activities-in-the-textile-sector.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30419-haiti-covid-19-list-of-factories-authorized-to-operate.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















This president has no right to be our commander in chief. He incessantly denigrated the late Sen. John McCain, a certified war hero and respected legislator. His administration removed the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelts Capt. Brett Crozier for standing up for his crew when President Trumps inept acting Navy secretary would not act. And Trump made it terminally uncomfortable for two four-star generals, proven top administrators and honorable men, to continue to serve in his Cabinet.

Many more examples exist, but the trend is clear. President Trump has no regard for our war fighters and is bad for morale.

After two Vietnam combat tours as a lieutenant junior grade on destroyers, I know how tightly packed 5,000 sailors are on an aircraft carrier. If a cruise ship, with private staterooms, is a breeding ground for COVID-19, the packed berthing areas and mess halls on a Navy ship become an incubator for the disease.

Capt. Croziers medical staff knew that, and the captain tried to move his ailing and endangered crew off the ship. He was denied that opportunity by his superiors. With the virus spreading within his crew, with over 800 ultimately infected, including Capt. Crozier, and one of whom later died, he sent an open plea for help and was finally allowed to debark the endangered crew.

For that act of courage and concern, Capt. Crozier was relieved of command and publicly criticized for being too stupid to command a Navy ship. Then that acting Navy secretary flew halfway around the world to chastise the ships crew for cheering its captain as he left the ship. How could any president appoint such an inept, unfeeling person?

Capt. Crozier must be commended and returned to his command.

That episode horrified us ex-military folks as did the presidents periodic criticism of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chief of Staff John Kelly, who performed honorably though sometimes tactfully disagreeing with the president. The president made their jobs untenable; each resigned. If both of those distinguished combat commanders, administrators of billion-dollar budgets, and negotiators at the top multinational level cant please this president, the fault must be his.

Finally, and most egregiously, Trumps continued denigration of McCain was abhorrent. Navy carrier pilots are the most skilled fighters in the world. Then Lt. Cmdr. McCain was shot down on a mission over Hanoi, grievously injured, given inadequate medical care as a prisoner, then tortured and detained in solitary confinement in Hanoi for over five years. He could have been released earlier but refused until his fellow captives were also freed. He suffered through extensive surgery and rehab then continued to serve as a thoughtful, ethical, often nonpartisan Senate leader, capping his career with an honorable run for the presidency.

Our president heaped obnoxious and disrespectful scorn upon Sen. McCain, even on his deathbed. That rude, unpatriotic attitude obviously extends to other military leaders if they dont toe the presidents line.

The problem may be that most highly qualified, honor-bound talent wont accept an appointment on the presidents leadership team. According to the November issue of Fortune magazine, in less than three years, this president had 28 acting Cabinet members. In less than three years! That compares with only 23 in the full eight years of the Obama presidency. Are those unconfirmed and questionably qualified acting Cabinet members serving the pubic honorably or just trying to survive the presidents next tirade?

A commanding officers first duty is to protect his troops. President Trump flunks that time-honored test and does not deserve to retain his command.

Rod Diridon Sr.s extensive public service after his military service included elected positions on the Saratoga City Council and the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Santa Clara Countys main train station is named in his honor.
Image: Twitter/ @PrakashJavdekar

Top executives from the automobile industry met Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprise Prakash Javadekar again on May 5, less than five days after their first meeting on April 30.

The automotive industry is seeking urgent government help to tide over the crises, which has seen every company post zero sales in April  a first in its history  as most manufacturing plants remain shut across the country awaiting clearances from authorities.

Cut in Goods & Services Tax (GST), liquidity support, fiscal stimulus were some of the demands made to the minister, a top executive of one of the companies involved in the meeting told Moneycontrol.

Understandably the minister could not commit anything to us immediately, but he expressed concern and was willing to understand the measures the government needs to take to revive the auto industry. He has promised to discuss our demands with other ministries to help find a way, the executive said.

At its previous meeting, Javadekar had agreed that the sector needs to be brought back on its wheels without giving any firm commitment to any of the industrys demands.

So far there havent been any large scale job losses within the auto sector, following a plea made by the prime minister. Several companies have paid salaries in full for April. However, due to uncertainty surrounding demand as well as over production, auto companies have shown no such commitment for May and June.

By FY20-end India stood as the fourth biggest automotive market in the world, with the sector contributing 7.1 to the countrys GDP, providing employment to over 35 million (including that by auto component), data provided by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry revealed.

The lockdown ordered by the Centre on March 25, whose second phase was to end on May 3, saw more than 25,000 dealerships pull down their shutters overnight. The dealer community employs around 4 million at dealerships and service centers, as per data shared by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association.

Vehicle manufacturers have not been able to operate their factories because of uneven manufacture of auto parts as many companies lie in the Red zone. Without an interrupted supply of auto parts, it is impossible for vehicle manufacturers to resume production.

Vehicle makers have been demanding opening up of the entire value chain so that there is no hindrance in any production stage.
[May 04, 2020] Sequana Medical Announces the Appointment of Dr. Oliver Godje as Chief Medical Officer

GHENT, Belgium, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sequana Medical NV (Euronext Brussels: SEQUA), an innovator in the management of fluid overload in liver disease, malignant ascites and heart failure, today announces the appointment of Oliver Godje, MD, PhD, as Chief Medical Officer, with immediate effect. Dr Godje replaces Gijs Klarenbeek, MD, who remains with Sequana Medical as Senior Medical Advisor.

Dr Godje is a highly experienced clinician and medtech industry executive with 18 years of international experience in medical and commercial roles. Prior to joining Sequana Medical, Dr Godje served as Chief Medical Officer at Humedics GmbH, Medical Director and VP Sales & Marketing at Hepa Wash GmbH, and Medical & Marketing Director of PULSION Medical Systems AG, all medtech companies in the liver or cardiovascular field. Dr Godje holds a PhD and Professorship in Human Medicine and built an extensive knowledge of cardiology during his time as a Cardiac Surgeon at leading German Universities. He was a Consultant and Vice Chairman of the Department of Cardiac Surgery at the University Hospital of Ulm until 2002. Ian Crosbie, CEO of Sequana Medical, said: I am very pleased to welcome Dr Godje to Sequana Medical. His extensive clinical experience, particularly in the heart and liver space, and his international business expertise will be invaluable as we approach a number of key milestones in our alfapump U.S. NASH and alfapump DSR heart failure development programmes. I am delighted he will be able to work alongside Gijs Klarenbeek who will continue to work extensively with us, leveraging the tremendous experience we have built up in these large potential markets. Dr Oliver Godje, CMO of Sequana Medical, added: I am very glad and honoured to be taking on this important role at Sequana Medical at such an exciting time for the company. Having built an extensive knowledge of both cardiac and hepatic disease over the years, I can see the enormous potential for the alfapump platform to treat fluid overload in liver disease and heart failure, as well as other potential opportunities. There is a clear unmet clinical need in those large patient populations where diuretic drugs are no longer effective. For more information, please contact:

Sequana Medical

Lies Vanneste, Director R







Email: [email protected] Consilium Strategic Communications

Amber Fennell, Sukaina Virji, Melissa Gardiner

Tel: +44 203 709 5000

Email: [email protected] LifeSci Advisors

Chris Maggos

Tel: +41 79 367 6254

Email: [email protected] About Sequana Medical Sequana Medical is a commercial stage medical device company developing the alfapump platform for the management of fluid overload in liver disease, malignant ascites and heart failure. Fluid overload is a fast growing complication of advanced liver disease driven by NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) related cirrhosis and a common complication in heart failure. The U.S. market for the alfapump resulting from NASH-related cirrhosis is forecast to exceed 3 billion annually within the next 10-20 years. The heart failure market for the alfapump DSR (Direct Sodium Removal) is estimated to be over 5 billion annually in the U.S. and EU5 by 2026. Both indications leverage Sequana Medical's alfapump, a unique, fully implanted wireless device that automatically pumps fluid from the abdomen into the bladder, where it is naturally eliminated through urination.

In the U.S., the company's key growth market, the alfapump has been granted breakthrough device designation by the FDA. The North American pivotal study (POSEIDON) in recurrent and refractory ascites due to liver cirrhosis is currently underway, and is intended to support approval of the alfapump in the U.S. and Canada. In Europe, the alfapump is CE-marked for the management of refractory ascites due to liver cirrhosis and malignant ascites and is included in key clinical practice guidelines. Over 750 alfapump systems have been implanted to date. Building on its proven alfapump platform, Sequana Medical is developing alfapump DSR, a breakthrough, proprietary approach to fluid overload due to heart failure. Clinical proof-of-concept was achieved in a first-in-human single dose DSR study and a repeated dose alfapump DSR study (RED DESERT) in heart failure patients is currently underway. Sequana Medical is headquartered in Ghent, Belgium. For further information, please visit www.sequanamedical.com . Important Regulatory Disclaimers The alfapump has not yet received regulatory approval in the U.S. and Canada. Any statement in this press release about safety and efficacy of the alfapump does not apply to the U.S. and Canada because the device is currently undergoing clinical investigation in these territories. DSR therapy and alfapump DSR are still in development and it should be noted that any statements in this press release regarding safety and efficacy arise from pre-clinical studies and ongoing clinical investigations which have yet to be completed. There is no link between DSR therapy, alfapump DSR and ongoing investigations with the alfapump system in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Forward-looking statements This press release may contain predictions, estimates or other information that might be considered forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. These forward-looking statements represent the current judgment of Sequana Medical on what the future holds, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Sequana Medical expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release, except if specifically required to do so by law or regulation. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflect the opinions of Sequana Medical only as of the date of this press release.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
ARCHIVED - Revised prices of tobacco products in Spain



The BOE publishes amended fixed prices for cigars, cigarettes and rolling tobacco

On Saturday May 2nd the BOE published the latest modifications made by the Spanish government for cigars, cigarettes and rolling tobacco as proposed by the corresponding manufacturers and importers.

The prices vary depending on the brand and apply to mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands, coming into force from the date of publication of the BOE on Saturday 2nd May.

The main brands are as follows.

Lucky Strike Gold Sun and Silver Bay:  4.35 / pack

- Churchill 16 units:  3.30

- Lonsdale 16 units:  2.90

- Yamasa Petit Churchill 14 units:  9.70

- Connecticut Corona 16 units:  3.30

- Pack Flandria for rolling 30g:  5.20

- Hamptons Pipe Green 30 g pipe bite:  2.30

The sale of packs of cigarettes increased by 0.5% in 2019, reaching 2,243 million units. This increase represents the first rise after ten consecutive years of declining sales in Spain, according to the Commissioner for the Tobacco Market (CMT).

The Autonomous Region of Cataluna leads the ranking with about 427 million packets sold, well ahead of Andalusia (361.3 million) and Madrid (282.9 million).

Cigarette sales generated revenues of 10,201 million euros in 2019, 0.3% more than the previous year.

Follow Murcia Today on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest news, events and information in the Murcia region: https://www.facebook.com/MurciaToday/
The Trinamool Congress on Monday joined the opposition chorus in criticising the Union government for its decision to charge money from migrant labourers to ferry them home in trains and said the Centre should ensure the workers get to return to their native places without any hassle.

"The labourers should be brought back home for free. Why is the railway ministry charging them? It is the duty of the Central government to ensure safe and free travel of the migrant workers to their homes," senior TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi said during a virtual press meet here.

Referring to the Centre's decision to send health teams to places with high incidence of COVID-19, Derek O'Brien, another senior leader of the party, said the fact that only one team has been sent to Bengal proves that the situation here is far better than other states.

"One central health team has been sent to Bengal, and two to other states. It proves that the situation in Bengal is better than other states. The team will be visiting Kolkata.

"We hope that BJP will now shut down its fake factory aimed at spreading canards against Bengal," O'Brien, the leader of the TMC in Rajya Sabha, said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
He has enjoyed being able to spend time with his partner Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and their two-year-old son Jack.

But Jason Statham, 52, enjoyed some time away from the family as he went on a bike ride in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The Hollywood hardman looked stylish in a green Nike cap and shades as he rode in the sunshine.

Fast and furious: Jason Statham, 52, headed out on his bike in Los Angeles on Sunday amid the coronavirus lockdown

The action hero wore a plain black T-shirt, showing off his muscular figure, and black jeans for the outing.

The Fast and Furious star completed the monochromatic look with a pair of black and white Nike trainers.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, Jason joined his glamorous model partner Rosie in celebrating her 33rd birthday last week.

Hollywood Hardman: The action hero wore a plain black T-shirt, showing off his muscular figure, and black jeans for the outing

Rosie took part in a candid Q&A session ahead of her birthday, revealing all about life during lockdown with her family.

Among the highlights of her sharing, Rosie revealed how she first met Jason, that they want more children and that she is proud their son has a 'proper' English accent despite living in the US.

Talking about Jason, she divulged: 'We met at a party in London in 2009! It was instant chemistry,' Rosie wrote over a picture of Jason trying on clothes in a fitting room.

Meanwhile, Rosie gave an update on her son Jack saying he's doing 'great' amid the current pandemic: 'We are lucky to be enjoying lots of family time together at the moment.'

Love: Jason raises Jack with partner Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Pictured in December 2019

Revealing: Last weekm Rosie took part in a candid Q&A session ahead of her 33rd birthday, revealing all about life during lockdown with her family

Family matters: Rosie revealed how her son Jack, who is about to turn three, is coping in the current pandemic

She added: 'He's turning 3 in a few months which I can't believe. Currently we are attempting potty training!'

Asked if Jack has an American accent, Rosie replied: 'I'm really proud to say he has a proper English accent and he does have the same booming loud voice as Jason, the pair of them are sooo noisy!'

Rosie said of her son: 'He looks very much like me when I was young but with Jason's eye colour.'

She also revealed that they have turned their garage into a 'make-shift gym' and is following work-outs by celebrity trainer Simone De La Rue to keep fit.

Other tidbits from Q&A included Rosie revealing that she and Jason would 'love' more children, and that their 20-year age gap as a couple isn't a problem, stating: 'Nope! Never been an issue! Age is nothing but a number!'

Telling-all: Rosie spoke candidly about her fiance Jason, as well as explaining her tattoos

Unseen pics: Rosie shared this snap of her as a child, as she told fans she will turn 33 on Saturday
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 21:22:48|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BAGHDAD, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi paramilitary tribal fighters on Monday killed two suicide bombers after chasing them in the western province of Anbar, a security source said.

The tribal fighters, who are part of the government-backed Hashd Shaabi brigades, surrounded two Islamic State (IS) militants wearing explosive belts inside a mosque at a village near the town of Haditha, some 200 km northwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Qasim al-Mohammedi, Commander of al-Jazira Operations Command, told Xinhua.

The tribal fighters fought fierce clash with the suicide bombers and blew up their explosive belts, al-Mohammedi said, adding that the two blasts caused huge damage to the mosque.

During the past few days, the attacks by the extremist IS militants have increased against the Iraqi security forces, particularly, against the tribal fighters, in the Sunni provinces, which once were seized by the militants, leaving dozens of them killed and wounded.

The security situation in Iraq has been improved since Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017.

However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Enditem
Update: When the city of Miami opened applications for its financial relief programs at noon Monday, the business assistance programs quickly reached capacity and applications were closed later in the afternoon. Read more here.

Residents and business owners in the cities of Miami and Hialeah can on Monday begin applying for grants and loans to help pay the rent with financial aid programs created to lessen the blow of the economic decline brought on during the coronavirus pandemic.

The economy mostly shuttered during lockdowns meant to curb the spread of COVID-19, triggering massive job losses across the U.S. As of Sunday, more than 1 million Floridians have filed for unemployment.

Both Miami and Hialeahs city governments are allocating millions in federal grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to aid proprietors and tenants. Congress approved the grants as part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

The cities will begin accepting applications on Monday. Applications are available online in both cities. Miami residents without internet access can file an application over the phone. In Hialeah, paper applications will be available at John F. Kennedy Library beginning at 8 a.m. Monday.

Miamis rental assistance program

In Miami, administrators are planning to distribute $2.2 million in federal grants to people who have lost their job as a result of the pandemic and need help paying the bills.

People who live inside city limits who have lost their jobs and need help paying their rent and electricity, water or gas bills can apply to receive one-time payments of up to $1,500. Telephone, internet and cable bills are not eligible expenses under the grant program.

The city will pay landlords and utility companies directly. Landlords must be willing to participate in the program and able to provide the city with completed W-9s and ACH/Direct Deposit forms.

Under the program, residents can qualify if they have previously had an income at or below 60% of the areas median income before losing work. According to figures provided by the city, an individual making $38,400 and a family of four with a household income of $54,840 would qualify.

Story continues

Applications will be available starting at noon Monday. The grants will be available on a first-come, first-served basis until all of the money is committed. Residents can apply online at the website for the Miami CARES Act Relief Fund, which can be found on miamigov.com. To apply, people will need several documents including proof of job loss, bank statements and proof of legal residency.

Those without computer access can call a city hotline, 305-416-2080, to have an operator fill out the application by proxy over the phone.

This program is only available only for people living in the city of Miami, not for residents of other municipalities or in unincorporated Miami-Dade County.

Business loans and grants in Miami

Miamis city government is using another $1 million in federal grants to create two aid programs for struggling businesses. The application period for both programs opens at noon Monday.

Of that money, $400,000 will be directed to micro businesses, establishments with five or fewer employees. In the Business Continuity Micro Enterprise Program, these businesses can apply for grants of up to $10,000 to pay for salaries, rents and other bills. Owners of such businesses must have an income that is less than or equal to 80% of the area median income, depending on the size of the owners household.

The micro-business grants will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.

Under a separate Small Business Emergency Loan Program, $600,000 in emergency loans will be doled out to for-profit businesses located within Miamis city limits who have 20 employees or fewer. Eligible proprietors can receive loans ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 to pay for salaries, rent/mortgage, utilities and insurance costs.

The loans could become grants if at least one permanent full-time job for a low-to-moderate income individuals is retained for at least one year.

Unlike the micro-enterprise grants, the small business loans will be awarded based on merit, based on the businesss financial viability prior to Feb. 15, 2020, the potential to retain low-income jobs, the quality of the management operations and the ability of the business to repay the loan, if it becomes one.

A three-member committee appointed by the citys director of housing and community development, George Mensah, will meet virtually within three days of receiving an application to determine if the business qualifies for the assistance.

For both business programs, those who do not have computer access can call 305-416-2080 to have file an application over the phone.

Recreational park leader Nicole Nieblas, 18, hands out a paper unemployment form to a Miami-Dade County resident after he waited in line at Slade park in Hialeah, Florida on Tuesday, April 7, 2020.

Hialeahs grant programs for coronavirus relief

Miami-Dade Countys second largest city, Hialeah, is using $3 million from the federal government to open two grant programs to help residential tenants and business owners pay their rents.

The Save Our Business Fund will distribute grants of up to $5,000 to help business make lease payments for up to three months. The city estimates the program can help about 400 small, local businesses of 25 or fewer employees  no chains of franchises. Other types of businesses that are not eligible include medical facilities, law offices, real estate companies, clerical business, small schools, day cares or other teaching institutions.

To be eligible, owners must be current on taxes and fees for business licenses, they must have been active for at least one year and they must guarantee they will retain at least one employee.

Applications for the business fund will only be available online starting at 8 a.m. Monday. A link to the application process will be available at http://www.hialeahfl.gov/690/Funding-Opportunities. Applicants with questions can call the citys helpline at 305-883-2940.

The Landlord-Tenant Relief Fund will use $1 million to give residential renters up to $1,000 per month for up to three months. Like in Miami, the city would pay landlords directly.

The landlord-tenant fund will take online and paper applications. Beginning at 8 a.m Monday, people can pick up paper applications at the John F. Kennedy Library, 190 West 49th Street, Hialeah, FL 33012. For safety purposes, the city will set up a drive-through, where people will not be able to exit their vehicle.

Online applications will be taken at the same time and web address as the business fund.

To qualify, applicants must live within Hialeahs city limits, have proof they have lost work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and have previously earned an income of 60% of the area median income. Applicants will need to provide a copy of the lease.
The lies never end when it comes to demonizing conservatives.

On April 20, entrepreneurs and their supporters participated in simultaneous rallies in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg to send a message to Governor Wolf that it was time to safely reopen Pennsylvania businesses. Organized by PA Small Businesses Against Governor Wolf Shutdown, the rallies boasted hundreds in Pittsburgh and in Harrisburg and were meant to send a clear message to Harrisburg: "Pennsylvanians want to get back to work again." Governor Wolf ordered a shutdown of nonessential businesses in mid-March.

One of the drive-in participants in the rally to call for the reopening of the state was Jill Cooper of Murrysville, Pa. Jill has been a longtime conservative activist since 2008. She held the office of chair for the Westmoreland County Republican Party from 2012 to 2014 and is currently a Pennsylvania GOP Committee member. She was twice a delegate to a GOP Convention and is currently running as a PA Trump campaign delegate.

Jill knows that small business is the heart and soul of this country and essential for economic growth. With her background as a former executive director of the Murrysville Economic Community and Development Corporation, she shares a passion for small businesses and an understanding of their struggles. Jill said she was very frustrated when she attempted a call to the Office of the Governor but ended up being routed to the Department of Health, only to discover she was being connected to a call center. It was during her conversation with that call center that she realized she couldn't be sure they were logging her complaint and getting it to the governor. Frustrated, it was then that she decided to join the rally to be sure her voice would be heard.

Her husband drove her to the rally so she could wave her homemade sign; "Free Small Business." Andrew Rush, senior staff photographer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, photographed Jill with her sign. It was later posted on his Twitter page (@andrewrush). (Upper right corner  click on the photo to enlarge.)

Hundreds of protestors outside the City County Building in Pittsburgh supporting the opening of non-life sustaining businesses pic.twitter.com/BobJhx1XYv  Andrew Rush (@andrewrush) April 20, 2020

On May 1 at 5:32 P.M., Talia Lavin, former writer for the New Yorker, posted the photo, but with a doctored sign that read, "Work Sets You Free." A slogan on the sign posted above the Auschwitz concentration camp, "Arbeit Macht Frei," accompanied the forgery. Andy Ngo tweeted out the fraud:

Journalist and far-right expert, Talia Lavin, doing what she does best. pic.twitter.com/LWKmOeKcDK  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 2, 2020

So who doctored the picture that Talia tweeted and has since been retweeted with the Nazi slogan? Talia is currently pitching her new book on white supremacy online. In a Twitter post, she writes, "I believe it is a first of its kind book that tells the grim story of hate's metastasis in the past half-decade with humor, courage, a first-person intimate perspective, and a guide to fighting back: 'Warlords, My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy.'" So convenient that a doctored photo should end up in her possession to help drive home her agenda.

Until June of 2018, Talia was ironically a fact-checker for the New Yorker but resigned from her position after controversy surrounded several photos she posted on Twitter implying that ICE agent Justin Gaertner had a Nazi tattoo. Turned out the tattoo was from when he had served in Afghanistan. It was a Titan 2 symbol for his platoon.

She was informed of her mistake and deleted her tweet. As a follow-up, she tweeted; "To Justin Gaertner, I apologize, sincerely: all I saw in you was the photo ICE tweeted, and not the human being depicted inside it. It was uncharitable, and the hasty deletion doesn't change that. I'm sorry and I have voluntarily resigned after three years at the New Yorker."

Of the altered photo of her, Cooper said, "I felt violated when I saw the photo. I couldn't believe that someone would blatantly doctor a photo of me to make me appear as a Nazi supporter. How evil. What has world come too [sic] if you lie and distort to get your false message out about Trump supporters and OPEN PA protesters. I am just furious."



It appears, sadly, that Jill Cooper, another "human being," has been treated unjustly, or, in Talia's words, in an "uncharitable" way.

We don't know who first doctored the original photo of Jill, but we do know that that doctored photo was tweeted by Talia and then retweeted many times over, with thousands of likes on her page alone. Makes one wonder, doesn't it: just how many other examples in Talia's forthcoming book of white supremacy may have been altered or doctored?

Rose Tennent of Pennsylvania is on the Advisory Board for the Women for Trump Coalition and has been a prominent figure for 20 years as a syndicated conservative political talk show host. 2020 Delegate Candidate for PA 14th District. www.roseunplugged.com @rose_unplugged
Lori Vallow, the 'Cult Mom' asked her fiancee Chad Daybell, to see if her children had 'light or dark spirits', a year before they disappeared. These disturbing details were retrieved from Vallow's email.

Sometime on October 30, 2018, Daybell sent an email back for her request of 'family history documents'. He added rubric about light and dark spirits, with a grade on all her relatives.

Vallow, a doomsday enthusiast receives this message, current numbers on Earth at this time of each estate level. These totals represent the 'light' spirits. The 'dark' has equal parts.

Daybell rated 17-year-old Tylee as a '4.1 dark spirit', and seven-year-old son Joshua 'JJ' was seen to be 'a light spirit, level 4.2.'

It was noted that the sent email is less than 11 months when Tylee and JJ disappeared, from September 2019, nothing was seen of them.

This email was discovered by Justin Lum, that was published by FOX 10 soon after. Julie Rowe told FOX 10 that Daybell can see if a person has a light or dark spirit.

She added that these gifts are confusing because one can be living in multiple directions, according to her Chad has two near-death experiences that keep him open.

How long Vallow and Daybell were corresponding before the October 2018 email was sent to her. Both were married to different people then.

When the two were married in November 2019, after Tylee and Joshua were last seen alive.

Vallow is incarcerated in an Idaho prison with two felony counts of desertion and non-support of two dependent children. Friday a judge denied a motion to lower her bond from $1 million to between $100,000 and $250,000.

Also read: Father Who Stabbed His Two Children to Death Arrested During Lockdown

Things got worse for 'Cult mom' as her niece alleged she never saw the two kids, when they moved next to the family in Idaho, and never asked where they are.

Members of a dangerous doomsday cult

Other aspects of the case caught attention with the police linking four homicides that might be traceable to the Lori and Chad, with allegations that the couple is part of a deadly doomsday cult.

One case is the death of Lori's third spouse, Joseph Ryan who passed away because of a heart attack in 2018. Last month, the FBI was snooping around checking Ryan's death, this includes the disappearance of Tylee and JJ.

Next in their list of suspicious death is Lori's fourth husband, Charles Vallow. He was fatally shot by Alex Cox on July 11 in Arizona.

Reports say that Charles and Lori were arguing when picking up JJ, from his mother's home in Chandler. Soon after Lori's brother shot Charles in her house.

The shooting was seen to be self-defence but was reopened after the search for JJ and Tylee, both moved to Idaho, where Chad stayed with their mom in August.

Chad's wife Tammy Daybell was discovered dead in Salem, Idaho on October 9. It was said she passed away in her sleep, but he did not allow an autopsy on his wife

On December 12, Alex Cox was discovered dead in a location at Gilbert Arizona.

A death in 1998 was that of her older sister Stacey Lynne Cox Cope, who is the mom of Melani Pawlowski, who alleged that Loria and Chad are part of a doomsday cult.

The children of Lori Vallow 'the cult mom' are missing as the Children had 'Light or Dark Spirits' according to Chad Daybell. And several murders later, there is a need to prove it.

Related article: Wife Accidentally Kills Husband in Utah But Further Investigation Reveals a Different Story

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Subscriber content preview

SEATTLE (AP)  Alaska Airlines says passengers will soon need to wear face masks on flights due to the threat from coronavirus.

In a statement Friday, the Seattle-based airline said face masks will be mandatory beginning May 11. And employees who can't maintain six feet of distance between passengers and other employees will also be required to wear masks.





. . .
A 36-year-old Chinese man has been slashed repeatedly by his 65-year-old stepfather during a heated row after failing to flush the toilet properly.

The victim, who remains unidentified, started to argue with the pensioner after the latter was infuriated by his hygienic habit and began to curse his wife.

The attacker insulted the victim's mother by accusing her of 'having affairs with more than 20 men' before launching the stabbing spree all of sudden, according to reports.

The stepson was left with a 15-centimetre (5.9 inches) deep cut on his right ear and face after the elderly man hacked him with a kitchen knife. His hand was also injured when he was trying to defend himself.

The victim, who remains unidentified, started to argue with the pensioner after the latter was infuriated by his hygienic habit and began to curse his wife. The wedding picture shows the pensioner with the victim's mother, Ms Li

The stepfather, who is also anonymous, has been detained by police. An investigation for the case has been underway.

The shocking incident took place on May 1 in the south-western Chinese city Chongqing.

The injured resident told the press that his stepfather was scolding him for not flushing the toilet 'correctly' after using the bathroom.

The stepson explained that he did flush the toilet, but the water tank had been broken for some time.

He ignored his stepparent at first, but the pair got into a row after the elderly man accused his wife of 'having affairs with more than 20 men'.

The injured resident told the press that his stepfather was scolding him for not flushing the toilet 'correctly' after using the bathroom. The picture shows the victim at a hospital

The attacker insulted the victim's mother by accusing her of 'having affairs with more than 20 men' before launching the stabbing spree all of sudden, according to reports. The picture shows the bedroom where the incident took place

'He hacked me four times. I tried to defend myself with a kettle for the first two times,' the stepson told the press. 'The kettle broke on the third time, and my hand was injured.'

The Chinese man was left with a nearly six-inch deep cut on his right ear, according to his medical records.

The resident's mother, known by her surname Li, said that her husband had been very paranoid since they married over ten years ago. But she couldn't understand why he carried out such a brutal attack on her son.

'When I saw him with the police, he didn't say anything to me,' Ms Li said.

Chongqing police have detained the stepfather, and local authorities are investigating the incident, Chinese media report.
Four dogs have been seized by the police following a series of sheep worrying incidents in Warwickshire last month.

Out-of-control dogs involved in livestock worrying were forcibly taken by officers near Coleshill on Sunday 3 May.

Attempts to educate and advise the owners 'failed', according to Warwickshire Police.

Livestock worrying is a criminal offence and comes under the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953.

It is not just an animal welfare issue, but also a threat to a farmer or livestock owners livelihood.

PC Andy Timmins, of the Warwickshire Police Rural Crime Team, investigated offences of sheep worrying in North Warwickshire last month.

"In some cases sheep had been killed by dogs that were not under control of their owner," he explained.

"Links were made to specific dogs during the course of the investigation.

"Coleshill SNT have been engaging with the local farming community and victims to keep them up to date.

"Investigations are ongoing and I also continue to work with other agencies to help prevent further offences."

It comes as recent figures show that livestock worrying cost farmers 1.2 million last year.

Despite sharp falls in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, rises in England contribute to the continued high cost of attacks.
Bahrain lacks the oil and financial resources of its neighbours, and its state finances are among the regions weakest.

Bahrain may need more financial aid from fellow Gulf Arab states as soon as this year, but its wealthier neighbours could themselves be hamstrung by low oil prices and the economic impact of the new coronavirus, bankers and analysts said.

Bahrain, whose sovereign bonds have been rated junk by major credit rating agencies, in 2018 received a $10bn aid package over five years from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to help it avoid a credit crunch in a deal tied to fiscal reform.

But the US-allied island state, a small oil producer, could need a larger amount than allotted for 2020 to fill bigger financing needs with petroleum prices at $20 to $30 a barrel.

Bahrain announced in March an $11bn stimulus package including plans to spend $570m on private-sector salaries to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy.

Our estimates point to Bahrain needing additional funding in 2020 from the $10bn support package they got in 2018, said Sara Grut, emerging market strategist at Goldman Sachs.

The finance ministry declined to comment about when it expects to receive this years tranche of the five-year $10bn aid, which would equal $1.76bn according to official plans announced last year.

Bahrains fiscal deficit is expected to jump to 15.7 percent of gross domestic product this year from 10.6 percent in 2019, according to the International Monetary Fund. Bahrains preliminary estimates in February forecast the 2019 deficit at 4.7 percent of GDP.

A debt banker in the Gulf said Bahrains financing gap would be tiny, especially with additional assistance, but that its neighbours support might not be so forthcoming this time.

Bahrain lacks the ample oil and financial resources of its neighbours, and its state finances are among the weakest in the region. But its Gulf Arab allies have provided political and economic support to maintain its stability over the years due to its importance in countering Iranian influence in the region.

Headquarters of the US Navys Fifth Fleet, Bahrain shares with Riyadh a concern about discontent among some Shia Muslims citizens against their ruling Sunni dynasties, and accuse Shia Iran of fomenting it  a charge Iran denies.

Toby Iles, a director at Fitch Ratings, said Bahrains small size and strategic importance favour ongoing support from Gulf allies, but Manama would need to use the remainder of the package more quickly.

On the fence

The finance ministry said fiscal measures, including a 30 percent reduction in ministries administrative budgets and postponing large-scale infrastructure projects, would ensure government spending remains within the budget ceiling for 2020.

Bahrain plans to issue international bonds twice this year, the ministry said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Manama secured a loan of about $1bn to repay a $1.25bn bond due at the end of March, banking sources had told Reuters, after suspending plans to issue international bonds as market conditions worsened.

But it had to rely on local banks to get the deal done, two banking sources said. International banks that would normally lend to Bahrain were sitting on the fence for this one, said one of them.

With $3.4bn in central bank foreign reserves as of the end of February, some are questioning Bahrains ability to defend its currency peg to the US dollar.

I have seen some recommendations to short the Saudi riyal, but more obvious ones in the region I guess would be the Omani rial and the Bahraini dinar, Tim Ash, emerging markets senior sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, said in an emailed comment to contacts last month.

Yields of Bahrains dollar bonds due in 2047 have risen sharply by some 180 basis points since the beginning of March.

Manamas foreign reserves are likely to be insufcient to absorb the deterioration in its current account if oil stays around $30 this year, Goldman Sachs said in a research note.

Bahrain has already done reforms, so what room realistically is left? asked a Dubai-based fund manager, referring to subsidy cuts and introduction of value-added tax under a programme to achieve budget balance by 2022.

It would all come down to oil prices, he said, noting, If it stays at $20 I think you can forget all about [Gulf] support.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

By Ilkin Seyfaddini  Trend:

Being one of the largest private banks in Uzbekistan, Ipak Yuli Bank is a strong partner in IFC's efforts to increase access to finance for small and medium enterprises and support growth and financial inclusion in the country, Cassandra Colbert, Regional Manager for Central Asia of International Financial Corporation (IFC) told Trend.

Colbert added that IFC first partnered with Ipak Yuli Bank in 2018 when the corporation provided a senior loan of $15 million denominated in Uzbek soum.

"In March IFC provided a trade finance-guarantee facility to Ipak Yuli Bank to increase the banks international trade-finance business. With that, Ipak Yuli Bank became the third Uzbek bank to join IFCs Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP)," she said.

"IFCs GTFP provides risk mitigation under a $5 billion envelope by guaranteeing trade-related payment obligations of banks in developing economies. The guarantees are transaction-specific and can be supported by a variety of underlying instruments such as letters of credit, trade-related promissory notes, accepted drafts, bills of exchange, guarantees, bid and performance bonds, and advance-payment guarantees," Colbert stressed.

As she said, the corporations advisory services team is working with a number of ministries, state agencies, and other public and private institutions of Uzbekistan to assist on piloting public-private partnerships (PPPs) in a number of sectors, on developing financial infrastructure, promoting agri-financing, and modernizing the cotton sector.

"The IFC is also helping state-owned banks with their institutional transformation into commercial financial institutions," Colbert said.

"Our investment services are focused on sustainable private enterprises. We financed Indorama Kokand Textile, to date our largest investment project in the country, to help expand its existing cotton yarn-spinning complex in Kokand. IFC is working with several of the countrys private banks to expand local currency lending to small businesses," Colbert stated.

Talking about the modernization of Uzbekistan's airports, she said that IFC is ready to provide whatever support is needed to help the Uzbek government attract investors to help modernize and operate Uzbekistans airports.

"The corporation is also willing to support the investors themselves, as part of IFC mandate to promote private sector development," she pointed out.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
SAN FRANCISCO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Verpex, a high performance web hosting solution, today announced the launch of the industry's first "co-cloud" hosting services. Clients on their hosting plans may see benefits to uptime, site deliver speed and even search engine rankings. Verpex uses several different cloud datacenter providers including Amazon AWS, Google Cloud and Digital Ocean which increases the amount of global server locations, allowing end users to choose the optimal location of their server. Verpex also amplifies customer performance through the use of outbound mail filtering which ensures a clean email reputation with better email deliverability, reducing the amount of emails being sent to spam.

Verpex, a high performance web hosting solution, today announced the launch of the industry's first "co-cloud" hosting services. Verpex uses several different cloud datacenter providers including Amazon AWS, Google Cloud and Digital Ocean which increases the amount of global server locations, allowing end users to choose the optimal location of their server.

Since distance of the datacenter can play a factor in the overall performance of a site, choosing a server located closer to the site's visitors reduces the potential for lost data and other issues which can slow down site load speed. The geographic IP address of a website also has an impact on a website's SEO rankings. Companies will see increased visibility and traffic to their site when using a server located near their visitors.

"The entire world is moving away from the model of physical datacenters towards cloud computing, and now web hosting has joined in," says Kris Erdelsk, a Senior Systems Engineer at Verpex Hosting. "Through our new co-cloud hosting plans in conjunction with several of the best in class cloud providers, we can ensure that our customers and their visitors have the best overall web experience."

Verpex was founded in 2018 and has employees based in three continents who are available 24/7 for live-chat and phone support. Verpex considers their clients as family and provides ample onboarding assistance, helping them get their email up and running, answering any questions regarding WordPress and other software and will fully migrate any websites from their previous hosting provider.

Verpex is powered by cPanel, the industry's best web hosting control panel. Using Softaculous, WordPress can be installed with one-click, giving clients full access to upload themes, plugins and more. Verpex servers are configured so that the end user doesn't encounter bugs or timeouts, and with free SSL certificates and malware-scanning, websites will stay secure and safe. Hundreds of other software applications can be installed with one-click through the cPanel including Magento, Joomla!, Drupal, PrestaShop, OpenCart and more.

A variety of plans are available with pricing ranging from $3.99/month for a simple web hosting site suited for blogs and small shops to $79/month for companies that need their own dedicated and customizable infrastructure. All plans are set up instantly and include a free domain registration or transfer, unlimited SSL security certificates, free managed migrations and the cPanel control panel. And with Verpex's twice daily backups, mistakes can be easily recovered. A 30-day money back guarantee is also put into place to make certain of customer satisfaction.

To learn more about Verpex, visit https://verpex.com/ .

About Verpex

Verpex is a global hosting provider with infrastructure spread over five continents and is the first co-cloud hosting provider, allowing end users to choose the location of their server, enhancing speed and performance and increasing SEO. Verpex is a customer-centric company that provides a 24/7 customer service desk helpline to assist with any questions. Click here to learn more about Verpex.

Media Contact:

Nicole Boyd

Firecracker PR

[email protected]

1-888-317-4687 ext. 702

SOURCE Verpex

Related Links

https://verpex.com


Robert Paul Long - who carried out one of Australia's most horrific mass killings - could be freed in weeks two decades after burning 15 backpackers alive at a rural hostel

One of Australia's worst mass killers could be freed from jail in a matter of weeks just 20 years after he burned 15 backpackers alive at a rural hostel.

Homeless fruit picker Robert Paul Long received a life sentence with a 20-year non-parole period after starting a fire in the Palace Backpackers hostel in Childers 300km north of Brisbane on June 23, 2000.

The drifter, now 56, lit the fire in a bin in the lounge of the hostel just after midnight while 88 people were inside, having spoken earlier that evening of his desire to 'bash' a backpacker.

He was convicted in 2002 of killing 15 people, but found guilty of murdering only two of the victims - Australian twins Stacey and Kelly Slarke.

Firemen examine the Palace Backpacker Hostel on June 23, 2000 after Long torched the building by lighting a fire in a bin

Pictured: The gutted interior of the Childers hostel. Long is eligible for parole almost two decades after he torched the 100-year-old building

A fireman is pictured running from the scene of the fire in the early hours of June 23, 2000

The lawyer who represented the killer Terry O'Gorman said police only levelled two murder charges against Long in case he was acquitted - at which point he could then be charged with murdering the other victims.

The attorney-general called for Long to spend a minimum of 25 years in jail but the appeal was refused.

Almost two decades after he torched the 100-year-old building - reducing it to a charred wreck - Long is eligible for parole.

The fire also killed seven backpackers from Britain, two from the Netherlands, another Australian and one each from Ireland, South Korea and Japan.

The regional mayor of Isis Shire - which covered Childers at the time - said he hoped Long could stay behind bars for the rest of his life.

'It's not something you expect to happen particularly in a small country town like this but it keeps bringing back the fact that without Robert Long, this would have never have happened,' former mayor Bill Trevor told 9News.

Pictured: A painting of the 15 young backpackers who died in the fire which was unveiled in the restored Childers Palace Memorial

Police officers inspect the top floor verandah of the Palace Backpackers Hostel on June 25, 2000

Survivors of the Palace Backpackers Hostel fire join each other on stage and embrace during a memorial service for the 15 victims in Childers two days after the fire

'l'll truly never understand how someone could do what Robert Long did and particularly wait downstairs to make sure the place was on fire.

'It's one of the most despicable acts that I think another can do to a human being.'

Long had fled the scene of the fire but five days later was tracked down by police - who he lunged at with a knife.

An officer shot him in the ear - at which point the murderer mistakenly said: 'I'm dying anyway, I started the fire.'

His confession was scrawled down on a $10 note by a police officer as he had nothing else to hand.
- The Kenya National Union of Nurses said they wanted the harmonisation of risk allowances across all cadres and also the provision of PPEs to all medics

- They urged the government to address their grievances urgently and before 14 days elapsed

- The unions accused the Ministry of Health of provoking the nurses and clinical workers to abandon their duties

Nurses and clinical workers have issued a two-week strike notice to the government as the country grapples with COVID-19.

Among other issues, the medics said they wanted the government to harmonise their risk allowances to KSh 30,000 across all cadres and also provide Personal Protective Equipment( PPE) to the workers.

READ ALSO: Explainer: Forces behind sudden water rise in Lake Victoria

File photo. The nurses said they wanted Personal Protective Equipment. Photo: UGC.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Kind bodaboda rider begs Kenyans to help homeless man found sleeping in empty matatu

According to the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) secretary general Seth Panyako, the Ministry of Health was frustrating KNUN to abandon their duties as it happened in Zimbabwe.

"Your excellency the president, we support you and your commitment towards fighting COVID-19 but we want to tell you provocation has been brought by the health ministry," Panyako said.

READ ALSO: Maria series actor Victor proves humility is attractive in 9 tantalising photos

Seth Panyako said the Ministry of Health was provoking nurses and clinical officers. Photo: Citizen TV.

Source: UGC

Kenya Union of Clinical Workers (KUCO) echoed Panyako's utterances and said their matter was not being treated as a matter of urgency.

"We urge the government to address these issues within 24 hours and failure to which it the unions will commence a nationwide strike," Panyako said.

This unfolded at a time the number of COVID-19 cases in the country was rising exponentially and the need for medic workers cannot be understated.

In the last three days, the cases were being announced in double digits and today, Monday, May 4, the government announced 30 new cases.

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
One in four A-level students preparing to go to university this year are not being given any work to do by their schools, according to research, as a survey revealed a fifth of prospective students had changed their mind about going at all.

Students, including those taking A-levels, will be graded by teachers after exams were cancelled amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Exam regulator, Ofqual, later announced that students can sit their exams in autumn if they are unhappy with their grade.

But now a survey by the Sutton Trust, an educational charity, has found that a quarter of students are not being given work by their schools.

Around half of students also fear the situation will harm their chances of getting into their first choice university.

Charity bosses say the situation with exams is 'very unsettling' for young people, while a university advocacy group says it has asked universities to 'be flexible' this year.

One in four A-level students preparing to go to university this year are not being given any work to do by their schools, according to research. Pictured: Students from Cambridge University on Graduation day (library image)

The survey found that private schools were twice as likely to be still teaching A-level content as state schools, while about three fifths of university applicants at independent schools are receiving regular work and feedback from teachers.

This is compared with three tenths of those at state schools.

Meanwhile, nearly one in five prospective students have changed their mind about going to university this autumn, or they are now uncertain, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the survey suggests.

Almost half 48 per cent of university applicants think that the coronavirus crisis will damage their chances of getting into their first-choice institution, according to the Sutton Trust survey.

Students from working-class backgrounds 51 per cent are more likely to think it will have a negative impact on them than their peers from middle-class backgrounds 43 per cent.

The majority of would-be students 72 per cent think the new 'calculated grade' system is less fair than in previous years  and more than two in five 43 per cent think their A-level grades will be worse as a result of the plans.

The poll, of 511 university applicants aged 17 to 19, shows that 19 per cent have changed their mind about their university attendance this autumn, or they have yet to decide whether to go.

Some students are planning to take gap years while others have changed their preferred university amid the Covid-19 outbreak, according to the report.

It comes after vice-chancellors warned that universities may face 'financial failure' amid the Covid-19 crisis due to a predicted sharp fall in international students this year.

Schools were closed in March to students, apart from children of keyworkers, following the outbreak of coronavirus in the UK.

Exams were later cancelled over fears of spreading the virus, which has so far killed 28,446 people in the UK and infected more than 187,000.

School and college teachers were later told to provide calculated grades for students which reflect the results they would have been most likely to achieve if the exams had gone ahead.

They will also rank pupils within each grade for each subject for their A-levels, but they are not allowed to share these with families until final results are issued in August.

Students who are unhappy with grades will have the opportunity to sit exams in the autumn.

Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: 'There is a huge degree of worry and uncertainty amongst university applicants and current students about how the current crisis will affect them.

'There are no easy solutions to this unprecedented situation. But what is of upmost importance is that the poorest students don't lose out.'

The charity has called for any potential cap on student numbers to be carefully implemented so that it does not disadvantage poorer students.

It has also called on exams regulator Ofqual to monitor any attainment gaps and consider adjustments under the new grading system.

Students, including those taking A-levels, will be graded by teachers after exams were cancelled amid the coronavirus outbreak. Pictured: Students taking exams (library image)

Chris Millward, director for fair access and participation at the Office for Students (OfS), said: 'This is clearly a very unsettling time for young people making decisions about their future, so they need good information and advice to make the right decisions for them about their futures.

'Universities and colleges have an important role to play here, by ensuring that their admissions processes take into account the context in which grades have been awarded and identify their potential to succeed.'

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: 'We understand the anxiety felt by some university applicants that A-levels will be graded this year in a way that none of us expected, but we would reassure them that everybody is committed to ensuring that results are fair and accurate for all students.

'Their schools and colleges know them well and will be able to provide centre-assessed grades to a high degree of accuracy.'

A Universities UK (UUK) spokesman said: 'It's important to remember that places will not be decided on predicted grades alone, with information in personal statements and references part of the decision-making process, along with any interview, portfolio, audition or other information relevant.

'We have also asked universities to be flexible this year and to recognise applicants' contexts now more than ever, in recognition of the impact that a disrupted education may have on their applicants.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 01:45:49|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIRUT, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab urged on Monday the United Nations and the international community to assist Lebanon in alleviating poverty and maintaining security and stability in the country, the National News Agency reported.

"Lebanon is burdened by hosting a big number of Syrian refugees. Today, we count more than ever on the United Nations and the international community to share this burden that cannot be taken by Lebanon alone," Diab said during a meeting at Grand Serail with Lebanese officials, representatives of the United Nations agencies in Lebanon and ambassadors of different countries.

Diab said that Lebanon will continue to count on the support by the international community as the country moves forward on the path of implementing financial reforms and economic development. Enditem
Increase in profitability and industry-beating performance can be essential considerations in a stock for some investors. In this article, I will take a look at Vienna Insurance Group AG's (WBAG:VIG) track record on a high level, to give you some insight into how the company has been performing against its historical trend and its industry peers.

View our latest analysis for Vienna Insurance Group

Could VIG beat the long-term trend and outperform its industry?

VIG's trailing twelve-month earnings (from 31 December 2019) of 331m has jumped 27% compared to the previous year.

Furthermore, this one-year growth rate has exceeded its 5-year annual growth average of 12%, indicating the rate at which VIG is growing has accelerated. What's the driver of this growth? Let's see if it is only due to an industry uplift, or if Vienna Insurance Group has experienced some company-specific growth.

WBAG:VIG Income Statement May 4th 2020

In terms of returns from investment, Vienna Insurance Group has fallen short of achieving a 20% return on equity (ROE), recording 8.0% instead. Furthermore, its return on assets (ROA) of 0.9% is below the AT Insurance industry of 1.4%, indicating Vienna Insurance Group's are utilized less efficiently. However, its return on capital (ROC), which also accounts for Vienna Insurance Groups debt level, has increased over the past 3 years from 1.1% to 1.8%.

What does this mean?

While past data is useful, it doesnt tell the whole story. Positive growth and profitability are what investors like to see in a companys track record, but how do we properly assess sustainability? I suggest you continue to research Vienna Insurance Group to get a better picture of the stock by looking at:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for VIGs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for VIGs outlook. Financial Health: Are VIGs operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why weve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the trailing twelve months from 31 December 2019. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

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 Mathias Hariyadi

The neighbours of a doctor under self-isolation blocked the road to his house, demanding he be quarantined in a hospital. The latest incident highlights the growing intolerance towards healthcare professionals who test positive for the coronavirus. Eyewitness talked to AsiaNews about the climate of hostility. So far, at least 24 medical doctors and 13 nurses have died in the pandemic.

Jakarta (AsiaNews)  Another healthcare professional was the victim of an act of intolerance after he tested positive to the coronavirus virus in the hospital where he works.

Last Friday, the medical doctor self-isolated himself at his home in Polewali (West Sulawesi province), but his neighbours (pictured) took to the streets to protest against his presence, telling him to isolate himself in a hospital.

Asrianto, a protest leader, said he was afraid of getting infected. "My house Is just 50 metres from his. Although he tried to calm fellow protesters to avoid things turning ugly after they blocked the road leading to the doctor's house, he asked the latter to go the hospital for quarantine.

Acts of intolerance have occurred as panic spread across the country. One of the casualties of the pandemic was the traditional mudik festival. In mid-April, the burial of a nurse in the cemetery of a Central Java village sparked opposition.

A doctor spoke to AsiaNews about the problem. Like other healthcare workers, she and her husband, also a medical practitioner, experienced hostility during their convalescence. Still, during this period, I recovered my strength, taking some medicines and vitamins.

Both likely caught the virus from patients who were unaware of being infected or from those who did not disclose their condition fearing the quarantine, of being isolated from the world and their loved ones, family and home. This, unfortunately, means that the chain of contagion does not stop.

A nun in Kalimantan said that she chose self-isolation at the general house after coming into contact with an infected person. A trained nurse working in a remote area of the province, she had to travel over six hours from her home to the place chosen for quarantine.

I isolated myself from others, she said. Food and drink were left outside my room without contacts or talking with the outside.

So far, at least 24 healthcare workers, including doctors and interns, have died due to COVID-19 in Indonesia. Thirteen of the dead are 13 nurses. Most deaths are related to fatigue and excess work.

In total, almost 12,000 cases have been reported in the country with 860 deaths.
A convicted stalker has admitted assaulting emergency workers after spitting blood in the faces of police officers while shouting about coronavirus.

The spray of blood and spit went into the mouth of one policeman while another was also hit in the face as four officers went to arrest Samuel Konneh.

Konneh, 38, on Monday pleaded guilty at a brief hearing held via Skype at Manchester Crown Court to four counts of assaulting an emergency worker and a single count of stalking on March 26.

Judge Tony Cross QC told the defendant via video link to HMP Forest Bank that he will be sentenced on June 29, following the preparation of a psychiatric and a pre-sentence report.

At an earlier hearing, a court heard Konneh, of Withington, was arrested just days after the UK went into lockdown.

He had been stalking a woman who rebuffed his attentions and police were called to an address on Yew Tree Road, Withington, south Manchester, the court was told.

As police broke down a door it hit Konneh, who was stood behind it, in the mouth, causing him to bleed. He then popped his head through the gap and spat at the officers.

During the incident Konneh, was shouting about the coronavirus, the court heard.

Judge Cross told the defendant: All sentencing options are open to the sentencing judge.
Australian shoppers have voted for their favourite yoghurt brands - and the winner costs from as little as $2.50 per tub.

Consumer review website Canstar Blue put 18 well known supermarket brands to the test to find the best tasting yoghurts on the market.

More than 2,100 shoppers surveyed in the annual review were asked to rate the snack based on taste, texture and consistency, value for money, variety, packaging and overall customer satisfaction.

Gippsland Dairy came out on top after hitting every sweet spot to score five stars for taste, texture, variety, packaging design and overall satisfaction - but fell short in value for money with three stars.

Gippsland Dairy (left) came out on top after hitting every sweet spot to score five stars across all categories, while Jalna (right) finished as the runner-up

Best-rated supermarket yoghurts 1. Gippsland Dairy 2. Jalna 3. Farmers Union 4. ALDI Lyttos 5. Tamar Valley 6. Dairy Farmers 7. ALDI Brooklea 8. ALDI Dairy Dream 9. Vaalia 10. Ski 11. Danone 12. Chobani 13. Yoplait 14. Five:AM 15. Woolworths 16. ALDI Just Organic 17. Activia 18. Coles Advertisement

The yoghurt brand impressed consumers for the third year in a row for offering unique flavours such as mango & blood orange, watermelon & strawberry, toffee & honeycomb, and apple & rhubarb.

Perfect for breakfast or dessert, the yoghurts, available in 160g ($2.50) and 720g ($7) tubs, are sold at all major supermarkets and local grocers.

Jalna finished as the runner-up, scoring four stars across taste, texture, value for money, variety, packaging and overall satisfaction.

The brand offers a wide range of flavours including vanilla, strawberry, coconut, natural low fat and Greek style yoghurts. The products are available in 170g ($1.95), 1kg ($7) and 2kg ($11.95).

In third place, Farmers Union (left) earned a five-star rating for texture, while Aldi's Lyttos (right) scored a five-star rating for value for money

Tamar Valley (left) scored four stars for taste, texture, variety, packaging and overall satisfaction, while Australian-grown milk brand Dairy Farmers (right) achieved four-star ratings across taste, texture, value for money, variety, packaging and overall satisfaction

In third place, Farmers Union earned a five-star rating for texture, four stars for taste, value for money, packaging and overall satisfaction but received a three-star rating for variety.

The yoghurts come in sizes ranging across 950g ($5.50), 500g ($4.80), and 200g ($2.30) tubs, or a four pack for $5.

Lyttos, which is one of Aldi's exclusive brands, scored a five-star rating for value for money, four stars for taste, texture, packaging and overall satisfaction but three stars for variety.

A 1kg tub of Lyttos Greek Style Natural Yogurt costs just $3.69.

Tamar Valley scored four stars for taste, texture, variety, packaging and overall satisfaction but received a three-star rating in the value for money category.

The brand offers natural, fat free and no added sugar varieties in plain, flavoured, and fruit mixes, sold in sizes from 170g ($2.20) and 1kg ($6.20).

Australian-grown milk brand Dairy Farmers achieved four-star ratings across taste, texture, value for money, variety, packaging and overall satisfaction.

The range comes in 150g single-serve ($2.20) or 600g tubs ($4.50) in eight different fruit and dessert flavours.

Aldi's Brooklea (left) scored four stars for taste, texture, value for money, packaging design and overall satisfaction, while Vaalia (right) received four stars for all categories

Aldi's brand of 'regular' yoghurts, Brooklea scored four stars for taste, texture, value for money, packaging design and overall satisfaction but achieved only three stars for variety.

The German supermarket's Dairy Dream range also made the top list, scoring five stars for value for money, four stars for taste, texture, packaging design and overall satisfaction but received three stars for variety.

Vaalia received four stars for all categories, including value for money, taste, variety and overall satisfaction.

The brand has a wide range of products and flavours and come in sizes ranging from 900g ($5.50) or a four pack of 150g of yoghurt for $4.

Other brands named in the top 18 include Chobani, Yoplait, Activia and supermarket-own labels Coles and Woolworths.

The survey was conducted in 2019 after more than 2,000 consumers shared their verdict on their favourite yoghurt brands.
When money is tight, the first thing to go is advertising. Account supervisor Mark Pereira and his colleagues at the Houston-based ad agency the Lee Group know this all too well. So when the coronavirus pandemic hit and their clients started cutting back on advertising services, they came up with a plan of action: offering them for free.

Were a small business, just like all the countless other small businesses in Houston, said Pereira. Our team was like: Why dont we put our money where our mouth is and show businesses what we can do?

Houston Rallies, the Lee Groups new campaign, offers a week of advertising on a rotating basis to small businesses that are struggling during the pandemic. This includes a feature published on the Houston Rallies website, digital and social media advertising, as well as use of the Lee Groups PR services. The aim is to tell each companys unique story and how theyre faring in the age of shutdowns and social distancing  all free of charge.

The first week, the team highlighted Pinkertons Barbecue. Owner and pitmaster Grant Pinkerton had pivoted to to-go and delivery service, something the barbecue joint had never done before. He changed his menu to focus on short-order items to accommodate the switch. The team is also donating food to COVID-19 testing sites.

We are just doing our part to help those who are putting themselves at risk to help get this thing under control, Pinkerton says in the featured story on Houston Rallies website.

Come Monday, Prison Break Tattoos will enjoy its time in the spotlight. The parlor, which had to put down its needles and ink for the stay-at-home order, has turned into a donation center for first responders.

Harolds, a restaurant, bar and general store in the Heights, will soon join the rotation to discuss resiliency in the face of hurricanes and other unfortunate events.

So will Ledge Lounger, a maker of in-pool furniture that had to adapt to its hotel and resort clients drying up by ramping up production of direct-to-consumer goods.

Another future participant, Cornerstone Automotive, will tell the tale of how the business changed ownership in the middle of the pandemic.

Businesses can apply for Houston Rallies pro-bono services through the Join the Movement form on the website. The Lee Group team is intentionally choosing a diverse set of companies that have compelling stories to tell. They cant offer the whole gamut to everyone, but theyre also committing to smaller gestures such as shoutouts on social media for people who arent picked.

While its taking a lot of resources and person-power to keep the Houston Rallies campaign running, mentions of the Lee Group on promotional material is subtle or non-existent. We really want the focus to be on the small businesses, we dont want to be self-serving, said Pereira.

That being said, the agency is open about its hopes of getting some business from this down the line. There are no expectations for any of the Houston Rallies beneficiaries to become clients of the Lee Group, but the team wants to show off what they can do for prospective clients who may catch wind of their efforts during this difficult time.

The philosophy is: Lets get our hands dirty together and help each other out, so we can get through this together, Pereira said. At the end of the day, we want our business to succeed.

Additionally, the aspiration is to keep Houston Rallies going long after the end of the pandemic  if they can get it funded. The group is currently trying to figure out how to make this a sustainable and lasting endeavor. One idea is to get big companies to sponsor the initiative: They support small businesses, which makes them look good, and in turn the Lee Group has money to continue the campaign. Its a win-win-win.

Even after this coronavirus pandemic and the economy comes back up, Houston will always have a need for small businesses to thrive, said Pereira. We would love to have this be a campaign that goes on for years to come.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 5, 2020 06:01 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5ebdbb 1 National COVID-19-in-Indonesia,domestic-abuse,bogor-west-java,KDRT,Banten Free

A 17-year-old woman from Rangkasbitung, Banten, fled her husband's rented house in Bogor, West Java, on Saturday. She said she had been locked up, starved and beaten for the last three years.

The woman, identified as SM, managed to flee the house by climbing out of the bathroom window and jumping to the ground below.

Once she was out, SM asked for help from her neighbors, who accompanied her to the local neighborhood unit head.

"She [SM] fled her house at about 4 p.m. on Saturday and asked residents for help. The residents took her to my house," Saban, the neighborhood unit head, told kompas.com on Monday.

Saban said SM managed to flee the house because her husband, a 37-year-old bread seller identified as AA, was not home at the time. SM said she had been locked up in one of the houses bedrooms and had been starved.

"When residents found her she was very pale and thin, and she also smelled really bad. We saw bruises and wounds on her temples," he said.

Read also: Jakarta records spike in domestic violence reports during work-from-home period

"He had been renting a house here for less than a year. AA never reported that he lived with his wife. We didn't have any suspicion whatsoever since he was very nice and friendly," Saban added.

He said SM told him that the couple had moved a lot over the last three years. "She said every time they moved, he always locked her up."

According to Saban, AA was considered a hard worker. He was also very polite and friendly to the neighbors. However, he noted that AAs attitude changed after COVID-19 pandemic as he could no longer work as a bread seller.

Saban reported the incident to Parung Panjang Police.

"Residents gathered to capture AA, but he fled by motorcycle. Police officers ran after him. He stopped after police officers fired two warning shots," he said.

Parung Panjang Police chief Comr. Nundun Radiaman said his team was investigating the case. (nal)
Hearings in the U.S. extradition case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will resume in September after being postponed from later this month because of the coronavirus outbreak, a London court said on Monday.

Assange is wanted by U.S. authorities to stand trial for conspiring to hack government computers and espionage. His extradition case began in February for a week before being adjourned until May 18 for another three weeks of arguments.

Last week, Judge Vanessa Baraitser said it would not be possible for it to recommence this month because of strict restrictions on gatherings to curb the spread of COVID-19.

At a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday - which journalists listening to remotely were unable to follow live - it was agreed that September would be the most convenient date for the hearings to resume, although an exact date and an appropriate venue was yet to be decided, a spokesman said.

Assange was not able to attend Monday's hearing via medialink because his lawyers said he was not well enough to appear.

The 48-year-old, an Australian citizen, says he could spend decades in prison if convicted, and calls the case against him political and a threat to free speech. The United States says he put the lives of informants in danger by publishing secret diplomatic cables.

Last week, Assange's partner, lawyer Stella Moris, said his life was at severe risk from COVID-19 in London's Belmarsh Prison where he is currently being held.

Assange was dragged from the Ecuador embassy in London last April after spending seven years there in a bid to avoid being sent to the United States, during which time he had two children with Moris.




Cletus Chisom

A 22-year old man, Cletus Chisom has died after being stabbed to death on Monday by a security guard in a market in Onitsha, Anambra State.

According to TheNation, the suspect, Ibuchi Nwoju, a native of Abia state, but reside in Onitsha, allegedly stabbed the deceased on the chest with a knife following an altercation.

The Nation gathered the sister to the deceased was at the market with the mother to purchase some items when the suspect confronted her for failure to put on a facemask.

The mother was said to have later bought the facemask for the daughter after the suspect insisted she would only be allowed access to the market with a facemask.

Trouble was said to have started after the girl reportedly rushed home and mobilised her elder brother who came to attack the suspect.

The Nation however learnt that it was during the brawl that the suspect drew a knife and stabbed the deceased on the chest, leading to his death.

Confirming the incident, Police spokesperson, Haruna Mohammed said the Commissioner of Police, John Abang has ordered for immediate transfer of the Case to State CID Awka for discreet investigation.

He said: Today being 4/5/2020 at about 8:45am, Police operatives from Okpoko Division in Onitsha arrested a private Security guard attached to COCA-COLA Market Onitsha, one Ibuchi Nwoju m aged 26 years of Asa village, Abia State but reside in Onitsha, Anambra State.

Suspect allegedly had an altercation with one Cletus Chisom m aged 22 years of Ekekwe Street Awada and stabbed him with a knife on his chest.

Consequently, victim became unconscious and was rushed to Goodnews Hospital Onitsha where he was confirmed dead on arrival by a medical doctor.

Corpse was deposited at Toronto Hospital Mortuary for autopsy.
12 Christians killed, couple kidnapped from church during wedding in Nigeria

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Muslim Fulani herdsmen in northwest Nigeria killed 12 Christians and kidnapped a couple from their church wedding ceremony in attacks this month, sources said.

In Tegina Kabata village in Niger state's Shiroro County, herdsmen attacked a church site where a wedding was taking place on April 12, abducting the couple and some church members, area resident Danjuma Iliya told Morning Star News.

"As the pastor was officiating during the wedding solemnization, the herdsmen stormed the church and took away everyone who was unable to escape from the church building, including the bride and groom," Iliya said. "In that village, five Christians were killed in the series of attacks carried out by the herdsmen."

Two other Christians were killed by herdsmen in Niger state's Gidigori village, Kusherki District, in Rafi County, on April 20, area resident James Ayuba said. They were two of seven Christians killed in three herdsmen attacks over five days in Rafi County, he said.

Others were injured in herdsmen attacks in the county's Madaka and Sabon Gari villages on April 20-21, he said.

Church Elder Abducted

Also in Niger state, five missionaries kidnapped on March 2 were released on April 22, sources said. In a short statement on April 22 that gave no details, leaders of Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) expressed joy that their missionaries had just been released.

"Please rejoice with us as the remaining five of our missionaries kidnapped in Kamuku Field, Niger state 52 days ago are now safely back to freedom," the statement read.

The missionaries were abducted when armed Muslim Fulani herdsmen on March 2 raided a school in Maruba, Shiroro County, run by CAPRO.

The announcement came the same day that a church elder in north-central Nigeria's Kaduna state had been kidnapped. Armed Fulani herdsmen abducted Emmanuel Iliya Agiya, elder and treasurer of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Atang village, Jema'a County on April 22, area resident Aku Joshua Shai told Morning Star News by phone.

After shooting into the air to send villagers scampering into the bushes, the herdsmen broke into Iliya's house that night and took him away at gunpoint, he said.

"The armed herdsmen first tried to forcefully gain entry into the house of the brother of the victim but were unsuccessful," Shai said. "They then proceeded to the next house, the victim's house, dragged him out, and then took him away at gunpoint."

Iliya is son of community leader Chief Iliya Agiya, Shai added.

Christian killed

Also in Kaduna state's Jema'a County, armed Fulani herdsmen on April 14 attacked Zakkan village, killing one Christian and wounding two others, Shai said.

Abel Danjuma, 40, was killed, and his two brothers, 45-year-old Henry Tuta, 50-year-old Chairman Tuta were injured. Henry Tuta was treated and discharged from Kafanchan General Hospital, while Chairman Tuta's serious injuries required that he be transferred to Jos University Teaching Hospital, Jos, Shai said.

"The three victims are members of the Catholic Church at Zakkan village," he said. "The herdsmen, too, blocked the Abuja-Jos route at Zakkan village and kidnapped two young girls who were traveling from Abuja to Taraba state. The girls were later rescued and set free by Christians from Zakkan village who went in pursuit of the herdsmen and rescued the girls."

On Jan. 30 Christian Solidarity International (CSI) issued a genocide warning for Nigeria, calling on the Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council to take action. CSI issued the call in response to "a rising tide of violence directed against Nigerian Christians and others classified as 'infidels' by Islamist militants in the country's north and middle belt regions.'"

Nigeria ranked 12th on Open Doors' 2020 World Watch List of countries where Christians suffer the most persecution but second in the number of Christians killed for their faith, behind Pakistan.

This piece was originally published at Christian Today
The police have received at least 15,500 applications for registration of migrant labourers who wish to go back home. The applications are coming in based on central government directions even though the local police have allowed for construction work to begin, provided the labourers are provided accommodation on site.

I do not wish for an exodus to take place. I urge the labourers to stay back as construction sites with in-situ labourers are allowed. The work is going to begin and they should wait for it, said Ravindra Shisve, joint commissioner of Pune police.

The latest Pune police order, in keeping with state governments advice, has granted permission for construction work to begin wherever in-situ workers are available. However, the central government had ordered all states to coordinate with each other to facilitate return of labourers to their respective home states. The two conflicting orders have created a tough situation for the construction sites in the city.

In the city, the highest number of applications came from natives of Uttar Pradesh followed by Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh. Applications were made by natives of 17 states on Sunday and Monday after announcements were made various modes including public announcement systems and loud speakers.

The applicants are given a four-page form to fill and their contact numbers, along with Aadhaar number, current address and destination address is noted down. The forms are being accepted, however, they will be processed only after a practicing medical professional provides health certificate to the applicant.

In the first two days, maximum number of labourers registered at Bharati Vidyapeeth police station.

We have over 7,000 applications on day 1 alone. Most of the workers here are from Uttar Pradesh. There is a sense of trust among the labourers towards the police. Therefore, such a huge number of applications could be recorded without any hassles. The process of medical check-up, however, will need some time, said Sarjerao Babar, assistant commissioner of police, Swargate division, Pune police.

One other police station which received a large number of applications was Chandannagar.

We have received applications from about 3,000 people. There are around 7,000-8,000 labourers in our jurisdiction. Therefore, more are expected, said senior police inspector Shankar Khatke of Chandannagar police station.

The officials of Warje Malwadi, which has received around 1,200 applications so far, witnessed a display of restlessness from the labourers.

We had put up a board at the labour pick-up point (majur adda) for the website link that can help the labourers with online applications. A check post is located nearby. They all gathered there to see the board while some started asking for their forms to be filled by the police who were deployed at the check-post. That led to a disagreement and the atmosphere turned tense so they had to be dispersed. No lathi charge was done, said senior police inspector Ashok Kadam of Warje Malwadi police station.

The permission of starting work with in-situ workers, however, has provided hope for the builders. The builders will be expected to take care of accommodation, food, and sanitation needs for the labourers.

No site has started today (Monday), but everybody has started mobilising. First, we need to organise workers. Before that we need supervisory staff to visit sites. Staff is living in different areas - Pune rural, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Pune city jurisdiction. We also need permission to bring some raw material. We also suggested that the supervisory staff be given identity cards which will help them move around. We are hopeful that the process will begin soon, said Suhas Merchant, president of Credai, Pune.

For companies (which have factories outside PMC) and construction work (in-situ) - movement of staff (from non-containment area) is allowed in dedicated vehicle- bus rather than individual vehicles; facilitated through punepolice.in, said K Venkatesham, commissioner of Pune police in a tweet.
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

Giants gain high finance.

Progress of L4 autonomous driving is greatly hampered over the recent two years, causing OEMs' and Tier 1 suppliers' delay in L4 launches. Yet, the top L4 companies still raised huge funds in the past year.







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05890404/?utm_source=PRN







In 2019, Baidu, Pony.ai and WeRide succeeded in commercial pilot of Robotaxi on complex urban roads in limited areas, a crucial step for L4 autonomous driving in China.



L4 autonomous driving technologies starts to find real application but gets deployed by most players first in one scenario or two as the current L4 cannot be perfectly suited to all driving scenarios.



It is shown from the planning of the OEMs and the providers of technical solutions for autonomous driving that L4 autonomous driving will be commercialized in limited scenarios ahead of open scenarios in the following three to five years.



Baidu, UISEE, DeepBlue and Trunk Tech all have conducted L4 trials in limited scenarios such as parks, ports, and airports. Besides, Baidu, Momenta, Bosch, ZongMu and UISEE are vigorously deploying in the parking lot scenario.



Deployments in open scenarios cover Robotaxi on urban roads and autonomous trucks on the expressways. In the Robotaxi field, Waymo, Baidu, Pony.ai, and WeRide have carried out pilot projects in both China and the U.S. in specific areas of a city, manned by safety officers, and they are not open to the public yet. Software & hardware technology iteration and larger-scale tests are essential for open Robotaxi in wider areas.



Technically, the current L4 autonomous vehicles for tests (or trial operation) are largely provided with the single-car intelligence solution. For safer autonomous driving, solution providers make vehicle's environment perception capability optimized ever. For instance, Voyage's G2 autonomous vehicle carries Velodyne's VLS-128 LiDAR system with a detection range up to 300 meters, tripling the capability of the 64-channel LiDAR installed on the 1st-Gen autonomous vehicle. Boasting 29 cameras, Waymo's next-generation autonomous driving system enables a detection range of 500 meters whist improving LiDARs' performance significantly.



Also, it is of vital importance to enhance vehicle's motion perception competence. High-precision positioning can be realized by integrating high-precision positioning modules (composed of 5G modules, IMU and HD maps).



In the short term, either single-car intelligence solution or strong field terminal solution fulfills L4 autonomous driving in the confined areas, but in the long run, collaborative vehicle infrastructure system (CVIS) is the mainstream technology roadmap for L4 autonomous driving. Through CVIS, the vehicle is fully connected to the "X" as spatiotemporal dynamic traffic information are collected and integrated whilst the active safety control of vehicle and the collaborative management on roads are done for safer running of autonomous vehicle.



By analyzing the test data, Baidu concludes that CVIS can solve 54% of the problems encountered in road tests and 62% of the takeovers incurred by single-car intelligence, adding redundancy for autonomous driving safety.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05890404/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

www.reportlinker.com


GBP/NZD Exchange Rate Steady Desite US-China Coronavirus Controversy

The Pound New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate remained flat Monday afternoon. This left the pairing trading at around NZ$2.0626.

Pound Sterling (GBP) remained muted against New Zealand Dollar (NZD) despite slumping against a handful of other currencies as traders flocked back to the safety of the US Dollar (USD).

Risk appetite slumped today, as the US government made a fresh attempt to blame China for the coronavirus pandemic. This left both the Pound and NZD under pressure.

On Sunday night, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said there was evidence Covid-19 was created in a lab in Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated.

Mr. Pompeo did not provide any evidence or dispute a US intelligence conclusion that noted the virus was not man-made.

However, the comments come as the number of deaths in the US increases and the economic chaos continues.

This boosted the safe-haven US Dollar at the start of this weeks session and weighed on both GBP and the risk-sensitive Kiwi.

This offset the increased optimism as further countries were beginning to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

According to Monex Europes currency analyst, Simon Harvey:

This mornings session is being dominated by risk-averse trading as investors weigh the negative consequences to global growth from another escalation in U.S.-China tensions.

The headlines of further tariffs and supply-chain disruptions come at a time where global growth expectations are already fragile, causing currencies such as Sterling and the Euro to trade on the back foot this morning despite exit measures set to be announced or implemented in their respective economies.

Pound (GBP) Struggles on Lack of Clear Brexit Progress

Meanwhile, the Pound (GBP) was also left under pressure as Britain struggled to make progress during Brexit negotiations.

Markets also feared that Britain was falling significantly behind the rest of Europe in easing lockdown restrictions which would allow for an economic recovery.

The resurfacing of tensions between the US and China was the main catalyst for movement of the New Zealand Dollar.

The Kiwi fell despite rating agency S&P Global affirming New Zealands AA/A-1+ foreign currency and AA+/A-1+ local sovereign credit ratings and kept a positive outlook for the short-term future.

S&P said:

The positive outlook reflects our view that New Zealand's strong fundamentals would allow its fiscal profile to strengthen after the Covid-19 outbreak subsides, leading to a rating upgrade in the next one to two years.

However, the ratings agency also noted that the country was almost certainly in a recession, and said:

The Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent government lockdown has delivered a severe economic and fiscal shock to New Zealand. We believe the economy is in recession, and the government's fiscal position is weakening substantially more than it was forecast to do following the December 2019 midyear budget.

GBP/NZD Forecast: US-China Relations and UK Services PMI in Focus

Looking ahead, the Pound (GBP) could slump against the New Zealand Dollar (NZD) following the release of the UKs services PMI.

If the services PMI plummets further than expected, falling to a record low, Sterling will suffer losses.

However, if risk appetite continues to decline this week it could leave the risk-sensitive Kiwi under pressure.

If US-China tensions increase further, and China responds to Washingtons accusations, the Pound New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate will remain largely flat.
A coalition of immigrant justice advocates and health experts are pushing for the release of 18 immigrants from a federal detention center in Alabama, saying those detained individuals are vulnerable to the coronavirus due to their health, according to a federal lawsuit.

Adelante Alabama Worker Center, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights are petitioning a judge to release the detained individuals who have multiple health issues at the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden.

In a 65-page complaint, advocates detail multiple reasons detained individuals at the facility are in danger of becoming ill during the coronavirus pandemic, including the inability to follow social distancing regulations, insufficient testing and screening protocols and failure to adhere to federal health guidelines.

Plaintiffs fear for their lives because they have medical conditions, the petition states. And for good reason: they are trapped in a facility that can only be described as a breeding ground for the disease.

The complaint, along with a request temporary restraining order, was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama on April 27 against Etowah County Sheriff Jonathan Horton and Chief Deputy Keith Peek. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials such as Dianne Witte, interim director of the New Orleans Field Office, which includes Alabama, are also named as defendants in the case.

Advocates say the 18 detained individuals listed plaintiffs in the case are more vulnerable to the virus due their compromised immune systems caused by chronic health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and kidney disease. One of the men detained has prostate cancer. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention said immunocompromised people are more likely to suffer from severe symptoms if they contract the virus.

The complaint states it is unconstitutional to keep detained people in crowded areas where they are vulnerable to an infectious disease because it counts as cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited under the eighth amendment. Authorities are also violating detained individuals fifth amendment right to due process, Adelante Alabama Executive Director Jessica Vosburgh said.

Regardless of our immigration status or where we come from, when we are under government custody and care, the government needs to ensure they are looking after our basic safety, Vosburgh said. If not, that is a violation of our constitutional rights.

Bakhodir Madjitov, an Uzbekistan citizen who has been detained without bond since 2017 and has a chronic heart condition, said in a press release from Adelante Alabama that he has worried about his and his familys life since the pandemic started. His wife lost her job because of the coronavirus and she wonders how she is going to provide for their three sons alone. If he passes away in jail, he cant help his family after his release.

I am scared of dying in here, Madjitov said. What will my family do?

Horton did not comment about the lawsuit and directed questions to ICE spokesman Bryan Cox since it involves ICEs detainees. Cox said ICE doesnt comment on pending litigation, but did call the claims unsubstantiated due to protocols ICE has put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

However, both medical experts and advocates say the protocols contradict guidelines prisons, jails and detention facilities. Advocates said those detained at the facility are usually housed in two units. They said conditions have become worse during the pandemic because the detained individuals have been crowded into a single housing unit within the jail, the lawsuit states. Meaning the six-foot social distancing rule cannot be enforced in a unit where more than 100 people are sharing dining and recreational areas as well as communal showers. They also cant adhere to frequent hand washing rules because there is limited access to soap at the facility.

Infectious disease and public health experts from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Yale University, and Tulane University stated their concerns in declarations filed in court on Wednesday.

Dr. Ellen Eaton, assistant professor of medicine at UAB who is also coordinating medical response for Birminghams at-risk populations during the outbreak, said the Etowah County facility is not equipped to prevent, manage or treat an outbreak. Eaton has worked with those who have been a part of the criminal justice system for seven years, and she said it is impossible for people to practice social distancing rules in congregate facilities.

Because the Etowah facility holds hundreds of detainees in group housing units, it is also impossible for detainees to avoid the gatherings of more than ten people that are prohibited by public health and state and federal officials, Eaton said.

ICEs protocols urge facilities to follow CDC rules for cleaning and sanitizing, but the CDC states that incarcerated and detained individuals who are cleaning should wear personal protective equipment (PPE). But advocates say cleaning staff, which is typically those who are detained or incarcerated, arent given personal protestive equipment. Eaton said Covid-19 can survive on stainless steel and plastic surfaces for up to 72 hours.

Horton used emergency funds from the U.S. Department of Justice to purchase a fogger machine to disinfect the jail. Eaton is concerned about fogging practices because its not recommended by the CDC and the Health Care Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee. Fogging doesnt kill viruses or bacteria, she said.

Worse still, the hazardous and toxic chemicals used in fogging harm people who work or live in the facilities that have been fogged, Eaton said. Jail staff, as well as the public at large, will be better protected from infection if detainees are released to private homes and allowed to practice appropriate social distancing and hygiene measures recommended by the CDC and required by Alabama and other states public health orders.

If the plaintiffs are released, the complaint states they will reside with family members. The document details several federal court rulings from March and early April that have led to the release of thousands of medically vulnerable immigrants who were detained in facilities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and other states. The issues listed in those lawsuits are similar to the ones found in the Alabama complaint.

Cox said ICEs detained population nationwide has declined since the beginning of March from 38,537 on February 29 to 29,675 as of April 25. Detainment for the New Orleans field office, which includes Alabama, is about 5,200 persons currently, Cox said. Thats about 920 less people than the end of March.

While Cox said he couldnt break down testing numbers locally, ICE reports on its website that 1,073 detained individuals have been tested nationwide. Thats only 3.6 percent of ICEs detainment population. Of the ones tested, 522 were positive for the coronavirus.

ICE officials told Al.com last week there werent any positive cases of COVID-19 at the facility. But according to ICEs website, which is updated weekly, one person at the Etowah detention facility has tested positive for the virus.

Advocates stress ICEs inability to prevent an outbreaks spread due to lack of 24-hour medical care and overcrowding. The lawsuit also alleges that new detainees and county inmates are still being brought to the jail and detainees are being transferred to different detention centers without sufficient testing or screening protocols.

The way ICE detention functions across the country, and the way the Etowah County Jail and the ICE unit within the Etowah County Jail is set up, theres really no way for them to make tweaks on these conditions that would protect these peoples safety, Vosburgh said. Thats why their release is necessary.

The lawsuit details instances when the virus spread within jails, prisons and other detention centers. The Mobile County sheriffs office announced earlier this month that 10 inmates and 10 correctional officers tested positive for COVID-19. The Alabama Department of Corrections reported on Tuesday that two staff members, one at Ventress Correctional Facility and another at Kilby Correctional Facility, have also tested positive.

It is only a short matter of time before the disease becomes widespread among people detained in close, unsanitary conditions, advocates say in the complaint.

Cox said ICE will start receiving more than 2,000 COVID-19 tests per month from the Department of Health and Human Services to determine detainee health and fitness for travel, while in custody, and prior to removal.

Currently, ICE is putting the appropriate logistics in place and training medical staff to utilize expanded testing, he said.

ICEs COVID-19 protocols state newly detained individuals and staff receive both verbal and temperature screenings when they arrive at detention facilities. Detainees experiencing fevers or respiratory symptoms are isolated and monitored for a certain period.

However, Eaton doesnt believe screening is enough and stressed the need for aggressive testing. Healthcare facilities and shelters are now requiring people to take a COVID-19 test before entering because 30 to 50 percent of infected individuals show no symptoms, she said.

The same policy should be applied to detainees who reside in congregate criminal justice and/or ICE settings, Eaton said. Because it is now recognized that a significant number of COVID transmissions are spread from asymptomatic persons, it unlikely that screening based on symptoms alone will prevent an outbreak of COVID-19.

Advocates said detainees fifth amendment right to due process is also being violated because of prolonged detainment without review. The plaintiffs in the case have been detained for long periods of time, ranging between 13 months and nine years.

According to the complaint, detainment is considered unreasonable if it last six months to a year. Afterwards, the government must release the individual unless it can show that their removal is likely to happen in the foreseeable future. But each detainee in this case is either challenging their removal before federal courts or faces barriers to removal. One of the detainees was an attempted murder victim and has a pending application for a U Visa. The visa is specifically for victims who assist law enforcement during the investigation of a crime.

Vosburgh hopes to have a hearing on the case by this week. She said immigration detention was originally created to last a few hours, days or maybe weeks as the government makes a decision about whether to remove the detained immigrants or let them remain in the country. But Vosburgh said there are other ways to ensure the person attends hearings or report for deportation.

For everyone in Etowah, ICE has much less intrusive means than putting someone in a cage for months or years to reliably meet that goal. For example, setting a reasonable bond, requiring regularly reporting, ankle monitors, home confinement, she said.

Since prolonged detention times has been a problem before the pandemic, advocates representing the detainees believe they should be released especially considered the heightened risk of contracting the coronavirus.

The conditions and treatment at ECDC have created a dangerous situation that threatens Plaintiffs lives, as well as the wellbeing of staff, others in the surrounding community, and the general public, they said in the lawsuit.
Parents of Leah Sharibu, who was abducted two years ago by Boko Haram insurgents, have said the Federal Government has been deceiving Nigerians and the international community with promises of rescuing her from captivity.

The spokesperson for the family and President, Leadership Empowerment Advocacy and Humanitarian (LEAH) Foundation, Dr Gloria Samdi Puldu, explained this in an interview with The Punch.

She said Nathan and Rebecca Sharibu were still in great pains because Leah is still not home.



Born on May 14, 2003, Leah Sharibu, the young Christian girl who refused to renounce her Christian faith has had her 15th and 16th birthday while in ISIS-WA captivity, this is a reproachful memory. Will she spend another birthday in captivity?

It is impossible for any parent to keep hearing different hurtful reports about their daughter and not become heartbroken. It is even more traumatic to hear that she has been forced into motherhood in captivity, she stated.

According to her, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), should rise up to his responsibility of rescuing Leah like he did when he ensured the freedom of all other Muslim girls abducted with Leah just a month after their abduction.

She was responding to enquiries on the update about Leah Sharibu whose 17th birthday would be on May 14.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
In early March, Rene Olivo Sangabriel was just one among the thousands of Cook County Jail inmates who would soon find themselves in the devastating path of COVID-19. He and his attorney determined the risk that immigration officials would find him was higher in the Illinois Department of Corrections so they wanted him to burn time as possible at the jail, where they told a judge he wanted to stay to finish a drug and alcohol treatment program. In the end, it was COVID-19 that caught Sangabriel.
The World Association of Press Councils has urged media persons to remain careful in disseminating about coronavirus and called on governments to provide all help to the journalists involved in the "war" against the pandemic.

The World Association of Press Councils, an umbrella organization of Press Councils and similar bodies of various countries, organized a unique on-line meeting on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day on Sunday on the topic 'Media before and after the coronavirus pandemic'.

Prof Sule Aker, President of the WAPC, advised fellow media persons to remain careful and disseminate authentic about the disease, a statement said.

She also urged all governments and media houses to keep the interest of the media persons at the top of their minds.

Kishor Shrestha, Secretary General of the WAPC and Chairman of the Nepal Press Council, gave details of the work done by the council in his country.

He also urged all governments to come to the aid of the journalists who are fighting the "war" against the virus like scores of health professionals and others.

Members from Northern Cyprus, Turkey, Nepal, Azerbaijan, India, Tanzania, Kenya, Iraq, Kosovo and many other countries participated in the conference.

Concluding the conference, Aker said there is a universal acknowledgement of the need for a free and unrestricted flow of information beyond the boundaries with the media embracing the role of a public trust.

United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 to be World Press Freedom Day to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.

So should International Bethlehem Mining (CVE:IBC.H) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.

See our latest analysis for International Bethlehem Mining

Does International Bethlehem Mining Have A Long Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. As at September 2019, International Bethlehem Mining had cash of CA$2.3k and no debt. Importantly, its cash burn was CA$148k over the trailing twelve months. So it seems to us it had a cash runway of less than two months from September 2019. To be frank we are alarmed by how short that cash runway is! The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

TSXV:IBC.H Historical Debt May 4th 2020

How Is International Bethlehem Mining's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

Because International Bethlehem Mining isn't currently generating revenue, we consider it an early-stage business. So while we can't look to sales to understand growth, we can look at how the cash burn is changing to understand how expenditure is trending over time. The 61% reduction in its cash burn over the last twelve months could be interpreted as a sign that management are worried about running out of cash. International Bethlehem Mining makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.

Story continues

How Easily Can International Bethlehem Mining Raise Cash?

While we're comforted by the recent reduction evident from our analysis of International Bethlehem Mining's cash burn, it is still worth considering how easily the company could raise more funds, if it wanted to accelerate spending to drive growth. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash to drive growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

Since it has a market capitalisation of CA$209k, International Bethlehem Mining's CA$148k in cash burn equates to about 71% of its market value. Given how large that cash burn is, relative to the market value of the entire company, we'd consider it to be a high risk stock, with the real possibility of extreme dilution.

Is International Bethlehem Mining's Cash Burn A Worry?

As you can probably tell by now, we're rather concerned about International Bethlehem Mining's cash burn. Take, for example, its cash runway, which suggests the company may have difficulty funding itself, in the future. But the silver lining was its cash burn reduction, which was encouraging. Looking at the metrics in this article all together, we consider its cash burn situation to be rather dangerous, and likely to cost shareholders one way or the other. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 6 warning signs for International Bethlehem Mining (of which 3 are a bit concerning!) you should know about.

If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.

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.
You know it is mostly a boob-ass talk and how easy women are if they agree to sleep with men. Many just want to look and sound cool, tells Rahul (name changed) a professor at Delhi University, when asked about typical man behaviour in a group chat among men.

Lurking beneath the temporary global pandemic is a pervasive epidemic which has been haunting womankind for centuries. The discussion around it may have taken a backseat for a couple of months, considering that the world is fighting a deadly virus which threatens the very existence of humankind. But it is back in the limelight.

This morning, many woke up to the news of an Instagram chat group called Bois Locker Room, with hundreds of boys from South Delhi, getting leaked. The group was allegedly used for sharing photos of underage girls, objectifying them, and planning gang rapes, revealed a Twitter user.

A screenshot of the chat group was shared by a South Delhi girl on Twitter. A group of south delhi guys aged 17-18 types have this ig gc named boy's locker room where they shit on, objectify and morph pictures of girls their age. 2 boys from my school are a part of it. MY FRIENDS AND I ARE FREAKING OUT THIS IS SO EWWW AND NOW MY MOM WANTS ME TO QUIT IG (sic), she wrote.

The chat revealed that boys, many of whom are underage, had made statements such as -- We can rape her easily and I will come whenever you say. We will gang rape her. The group chat was full of morphed pictures of underage girls, slut-shaming and body-shaming them.

There have been similar incidents in the past. In 2019, a top-ranked Mumbai school suspended eight boys, aged 13 and 14, for making violent, explicit and derogatory remarks about their female classmates on a WhatsApp group.

The infamous DPS MMS scandal from 2004 had sent shockwaves across the country. An underage male student shot a video of a fellow female student, scantily dressed and performing a fellatio on him. The clip went viral on porn sites and later found a way on India's leading online auction website Baazee.com. An exlusive newspiece had mentioned - "India's biggest online trading portal baazee.com had listed the said MMS clip under the title 'DPS girls having fun' with the member ID of 27877408."

Evidently, little has changed since 2004.

While discussions around sexism, casual sexism, harassment and abuse have become more vigorous and impactful, it is almost disheartening to see that testosterone-soaked culture is very much alive and thriving. We are living in the times when it is decreasingly cool to be sexist, but in a parallel world such as these groups, it can't get any cooler.

Arjun (name changed), who is currently a filmmaker in Mumbai, admits that over the time, conversations around women have become subtle. During school days, the conversation was entirely limited to women's bodies. But that has changed drastically now. We definitely look down upon men who do not respect women and are comfortable making derogatory comments against them, he says.

Sexualising women is as easy as breathing. It comes naturally to a privileged gender.

Rahul admits that there are times when people who claim to respect women tend to objectify women who are not their girlfriends or partners. They are comfortable abusing women who arent their friends or girlfriends. Of course, there are men who do not support such conversations but would prefer to keep mum only to save themselves from getting into an argument.

A staggering number of men claim to be feminists but their feminism is restricted to women around them, boastful social media posts and I Am A Feminist t-shirts. Because looking cool is hep.

Many would say sports, automobiles and occasionally literature, unites men. But going by a generic social media behaviour, nothing unites most men like an orgy of immoral and explicit conversations about women. Calling women prosititutes, feminist r*andiyaan, rape-worthy, objectifying and hyper-sexualising female bodies is a staple.

Most men find an unnerving ease when uniting over the treatment of women. It assumes a shape of a subtext of male bond itself. And there are people who believe that education is the key to uprooting such behaviour. The most common argument is that such behaviour exists in men who arent educated and do menial jobs.



And it is a flaccid narrative.

The incident in question today comes from a high-class society. Education does expose us to a better understanding of the world and society, but imbibing that understanding is clearly an individual choice. What changes with education is only the language of abuse. It gets refined over time. But the underlying idea of sexism and abuse doesnt fade. It remains the same.

It #boyslockerroom throws a harsh light on a pervasive rape culture. The problem is so deep-rooted that even if these boys assault women in the future, the society is wired to point fingers to women and hold them responsible for getting assaulted or raped.

When boys hardly 18, sexualise girls who are barely 15, and normalise a conversation around rape and gangrape, it exposes a deeply flawed and a failed society. It forces us to rethink how society raises its sons. This objectification comes from a deep sense of entitlement, across economic, education and societal hierarchy barriers. It will continue unless patriarchy, privilege and toxic masculinity is not addressed and uprooted. It is a systemic problem which requires systemic solution.


It would have been overly optimistic for anyone to expect that the government would do away with all restrictions lock, stock and barrel on May 3. Given the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and its destructive course, this would not have been possible. The main takeaway from these fraught times is that this virus is now an inextricable part of our lives for some time to come and we need to work around this.

As the third lockdown begins, the government has tried to ease things for people in several ways. Many restrictions have been lifted in the orange and green zones. Local administrations have been given the responsibility of deciding to what extent restrictions can be relaxed, depending on conditions in different areas. But, many would argue that this is not nearly enough.

The decision to extend the lockdown was taken on May 1, Labour Day. This is a day to honour the contributions of the labour force but this time around, we could do little to ease their suffering and deprivation from job losses and their inability, in many cases, to get back to their distant homes. While we are proud of Indias achievements as an emerging economy, the grim reality is that a huge percentage of its workforce lives under the pressure of economic uncertainties. They live in harsh conditions in slums around industrial townships and megacities. Now, the government has allowed them to go back home. Some of the shramik special trains have even reached their destinations. This brings hope for them during this difficult time. Hopefully, more measures, to ensure the safety and well-being of these workers, will follow.

But what happens once these desperate people reach their villages? What are their avenues of income generation? There are only a few opportunities for them in villages, which prompted them to move out of the village in the first place, often leaving behind their families, to brave the harsh conditions of cities. They do this to make a life for themselves and support their families. Cities cannot do without them, and yet, their plight remains understated. Will there be opportunities for them?

However, with every crisis, there is hope for a solution. The Covid-19 crisis seems to be an appropriate, even opportune, moment to revive Indias artisan traditions, handicrafts and also rural agro-industries. This is the time for a renewed focus on the Make in India initiative. This may not generate jobs for everyone, but it will bring hope and long-term gain in rural India.

Can villages be a big part of the new growth story? Despite the naysayers, a village-focused approach will bring about a turnaround. They often have interesting cultures and traditions that do not find a place in cities. There are many success stories about initiatives taken in our villages and mofussil towns. Let me relate one of these.

A few years ago, in a village in Nainital, I was on my way to a market with a friend. When we reached the part of the road where the ascent began, my friend, who was older than me, ran out of breath. Both of us had to stop for a while. Within two minutes, a car that passed us, stopped at some distance. A charming young man, who turned out to be an acquaintance of my friend, approached us. He asked us where we were going. Luckily for us, our destination was the same as his. We got into his car and accompanied him to the market. En route, my friend introduced us. The young man had earlier worked in a multinational company, but left his lucrative job to return to his village and start a horticulture business, selling cut flowers. He ran a medical store there with his wife. He told me that while he was earlier an employee, he was now an owner. Now, many local men and women worked for him. I asked him how he accomplished this.

His answer was philosophical. He said , jo raasta gaon se shahar ko jaata hai, wohi raasta shahar se gaon ke lautta bhi hai (the same road that goes to the city from the village, also comes back to the village from the city). I did not tell him that this was a famous dialogue from a popular television show. This young man was living the words articulated by the actor in the show. I thought to myself that new communication resources and expanding road networks opened up many paths for the younger generation. Now, they can get work on the Internet and deliver their products anywhere, by road, rail or air. This must continue, but for it to work effectively, there has to be greater synergy between people, their elected representatives and government policies.

The crisis has begun and will continue to force us in the future to think innovatively. We have to decide for ourselves whether this pandemic is an unmitigated disaster or whether we can make the best use of the opportunities that will come in its wake. This is what will help decide which path India will take.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan

The views expressed are personal
Putting International Small-Caps On the Map

Our goal in this paper is to provide an introduction for asset allocators to the international small-cap asset class by detailing its attributes in terms of performance, volatility, correlation, and fundamentals.

Because asset allocators often compare international small-cap with international large-cap, we thought it was particularly important to examine the long-term relative performance of these two asset classes to highlight the regular frequency with which international small-caps outperformed their large-cap siblings.





Knowing that the risk/return trade-off is always relevant when analyzing different asset classes, we also include volatility comparisons which show that international small-cap's superior performance record came with less incremental volatility than many financial professionals might expect.

We then go on to examine how the two asset classes fared in different market environments, such as rising and falling equity markets and rising and falling interest rates periods, which showed that certain periods resulted in even wider positive relative return spreads for international small-caps.

To enhance international small-cap's attractive attributes on a standalone basis, we demonstrate the benefits of adding the asset class to a global multi-asset portfolio. International small-caps have historically had a lower correlation to U.S. large-caps than either international large-caps or U.S. small-caps. This lower correlation allowed international small-caps to be additive on both an absolute and risk-adjusted return basis to a global multi-asset portfolio.

Finally, we look at some indicators that suggest, at least to us, why the current period offers a compelling and timely opportunity. We conclude by highlighting some fundamental factors that we believe make the asset class potentially fertile ground for active management.

Story continues

Introducing a Large Opportunity in International Small-Caps

Considering that less than 1%1 of mutual fund assets in the U.S. are invested in small-caps outside the U.S., we suspect that many asset allocators think of international small-caps (if they think of them at all) as a nearly indistinguishable subset of the large non-U.S. equity universe. If this is correct, international small-caps would seem to be facing an uphill climb toward recognition as an accepted asset class, much like their stateside cousins did more than two decades ago. However, the facts tell a story that should level that hill. Many asset allocators will be surprised to learn that the total market value of the companies in the MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap Index, our proxy for international small-caps, is twice as large as that market capitalization of the Russell 2000 Index.

1 Source: Morningstar

Compared with U.S. small-caps, there are:

Number of Stock in International Small-Cap

International Small-Cap Market Value

Source: FactSet as of 3/31/20 "U.S. Small-Cap" is represented by Russell 2000, and "International Small-Cap" by MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap .

Strong Long-Term Relative and Absolute Performance

By market value alone, international small-caps would seem to merit consideration for inclusion in a globally diversified portfolio. However, their performance record makes an even stronger case for its inclusion as part of an overall equity allocation. (All of the results that follow begin with the first full month of performance for the MSCI ACWI ex USA Index on 5/31/94).

Averages of Monthly Rolling Annualized 10-Year Returns



From MSCI ACWI Index's First Full Month (Ended 5/31/94) through 3/31/20

10-Year Returns Global Indexes

Past Performance is no guarantee of future results. "U.S. Large-Cap" is represented by Russell 1000, "International Large-Cap" by MSCI ACWI ex USA Large Cap, "U.S. Small-Cap" is represented by Russell 2000, and "International Small-Cap" by MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap.

Annualized rolling monthly 10-year returns for the international small-cap index exceeded the MSCI ACWI ex USA Large-Cap Index (our proxy for international large-cap stocks), and nearly matched its domestic counterpart in the Russell 2000. For additional context, we also looked at results for the large-cap Russell 1000 over these same periods.

Beyond this strong relative long-term performance record, international small-caps have additional attractive attributes that might be of particular relevance for asset allocators.

Lower Volatility and Attractive Risk-Adjusted Returns

Like their domestic peers, international small-caps have a reputation for high volatility. Even in the context of strong performance, more cautious asset allocators might not consider an investment for fear of taking on an unacceptable level of risk for their clients. The data, however, supports a very different conclusion.

In fact, international small-caps have lower volatility than the U.S. small-caps and only marginally higher volatility than international large-caps, based on rolling 10-year standard deviation.

Attractive Risk/Return Trade-Off



Average of Monthly Rolling 10-Year Periods from 5/31/94 through 3/31/20

Intl-small-cap-total-return-v-standard-deviation

Past Performance is no guarantee of future results. "U.S. Large-Cap" is represented by Russell 1000, "International Large-Cap" by MSCI ACWI ex USA Large Cap, "U.S. Small-Cap" is represented by Russell 2000, and "International Small-Cap" by MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap.

Additionally, over this same rolling 10-year period, international small-caps had comparable risk-adjusted returns to U.S. large-caps and small-caps, as well as higher than international large-caps, as measured by Sharpe ratio.

Monthly Rolling Annualized 10-Year Sharpe Ratios



From Indexes First Full Month (Ended 5/31/94) through 3/31/20

Sharpe-ratio-global-indexes

"U.S. Large-Cap" is represented by Russell 1000, "International Large-Cap" by MSCI ACWI ex USA Large Cap, "U.S. Small-Cap" is represented by Russell 2000, and "International Small-Cap" by MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap.

When considering the volatility of the international small-cap index, we think it's useful to recall that it is composed of a globally diverse set of companies in 46 countries that rarely occupy the same place in their respective economic cycles. This geographic diversification helps to dampen the price volatility of any specific security, and in our view, compensates for the lower average market cap for the international small-cap index versus U.S. small-cap index. Also helping to potentially reduce volatility is the prevalence of dividend-paying companies. Approximately 87% of the international small-cap index paid dividends as of 3/31/20.1

1 There can be no assurance that companies that currently pay a dividend will continue to do so in the future.

Historical Portfolio Benefits of Low Correlation

As one might expect, international small-caps have a lower correlation to U.S. larger-caps than either international large-caps or U.S. small-caps.

Correlation-to-large-cap

1 Correlation of monthly returns from 5/31/94 through 3/31/20

To test the performance and volatility effects this lower correlation might have, we ran results for two hypothetical multi-asset portfolios. For each, we charted hypothetical returns (measured by the growth of $10,000), standard deviation, and Sharpe ratio. Both portfolios were rebalanced quarterly and encompassed the same time period, 5/31/94-3/31/20.

The first portfolio we constructed had 40% of its assets in bonds and 60% in stocks, with the latter allocated evenly among domestic large-caps, domestic small-caps, and international large-caps.

In the second portfolio, we made only one change--we swapped the international large-cap allocation for an allocation to international small-caps.

Hypothetical Portfolios -- Asset Allocation



Quarterly Rebalanced, From 5/31/94 through 3/31/20

Hypothetical-asset-allocation

While both multi-asset hypothetical portfolios showed strong standard and risk-adjusted performance, the portfolio with the international small-cap allocation had higher absolute and risk-adjusted returns as well as lower volatility.

This is as strong an argument as we believe can be made in favor of allocating to international small-cap stocks.

"Bonds" are represented by Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate, "U.S. Large-Cap" by Russell 1000, "U.S. Small-Cap" by Russell 2000, "Int'l Large-Cap" by MSCI ACWI x USA LC, "Int'l Small-Cap" by MSCI ACWI x USA Small Cap. The above chart is shown for illustrative purposes only and does not reflect the past performance, or project the future performance, of any investment. The performance of an index, such as those used above, does not represent any particular investment as you cannot invest in an index.



The Sharpe Ratio is calculated for a specified period by dividing an investment's annualized excess returns by its annualized standard deviation. The higher the Sharpe Ratio, the better the investment's historical risk-adjusted performance.

Persistence in Beating Large-Caps

Because many investors split their international equity allocation between small- and large-cap stocks, we think it's important to be aware of the longer-term relative performance history. International small-caps have beaten their large-cap siblings in 68% of rolling three-year periods, 82% of rolling five-year periods, and 95% of rolling 10-year periods.

Batting Average of International Small-Cap vs International-Large Cap



MSCI ACWI ex USA SC vs MSCI ACWI ex USA LC Monthly Rolling Average Annual Return Periods from the Index Inception (5/31/94) through 3/31/20

10-5-3-yr-intl-small-v-intl-large





International Small-Cap Results in Different Environments

Analyzing monthly trailing one-year returns from 5/31/94-3/31/20, which consists of 296 periods, we found that while international small-caps outperformed large-caps over most rolling time periods, there were market conditions in which the performance spread was greater than others.

We first examined both positive and negative return periods for the international all-cap index to see how non-U.S. small-caps performed versus their large-cap peers. The result was a relative advantage for the international small-cap index in both negative and positive return periods for non-U.S. stocks. We then broadened our scope, examining returns for the international small- and large-cap indexes when the 10-year German Bund yield was rising and falling:

International Small-Cap vs International Large-Cap in Different Market EnvironmentsMSCI ACWI ex USA SC vs MSCI ACWI ex USA LC Monthly Rolling Trailing 1-year Periods from 5/31/94 through 3/31/20 MARKET ENVIRONMENTS PERIODS INT'L SMALL-CAP BEAT INT'L LARGE-CAP BATTING AVG INT'L SMALL-CAP INT'L LARGE-CAP AVG SPREAD International Equity Positive 126/196 64% 19.3% 17.2% 2.0% Negative 51/100 50% -13.7% -14.1% 0.3% 10-Year German Bund Rising 69/93 74% 22.4% 18.9% 3.5% Falling 108/203 53% 1.5% 1.0% 0.5%







"International Equity" is represented by the MSCI ACWI ex USA IMI Index.

International small-caps outperformed their large-cap counterparts in both rising and falling rate environments, but the absolute return level and relative return spread were each significantly different. The best results for U.S. dollar investors came when German Bund Yields were rising, which is possibly due to three overlapping factors: bond yields usually rise when economies are improving, international small-caps have more cyclical exposure than international large-caps, and rising Bund Yields often occur in periods of U.S. dollar weakness, resulting in enhanced gains for U.S. dollar investors.

In each of the four scenarios shown above, the advantage went to international small-cap. We think the results of our research therefore present a strong argument for making a strategic allocation to this asset class.

The Current Opportunity

Among the other compelling reasons to consider allocating to international small-caps is the timeliness of the opportunity. Over the long-term, international small-caps and U.S. small-caps have experienced rotating periods of outperformance with minimal long-term difference between the indexes. However more recently, international small-caps have underperformed which we think has increased the probability for future international outperformance.

International Small-Caps Poised for a Rebound?



MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap vs Russell 2000 Annualized Trailing 10-Year Relative Return Spread from 5/31/94 through 3/31/20

10-yr-spread-intl-small-vs-small

The 10-year average annual total return through 3/31/20 was 2.79% for the MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap and 6.90% for the Russell 2000, -4.12% represents the difference.

It's worth mentioning that when non-U.S. stocks as a group outpaced their domestic cousins, international small-cap outperformed their large-cap peers 80% of the time--and by an average spread of 6.2%--for all monthly rolling one-year periods from 5/31/94 through 3/31/20.

When International Has Outperformed U.S.



Monthly Rolling Trailing 1-year Periods from the Index Inception (5/31/94) through 3/31/20

when-int'l-outperforms

"U.S." is represented by the Russell 3000 Index and "International" by the MSCI ACWI ex USA IMI Index. "Int'l Large-Cap" is represented by the MSCI ACWI ex USA Large-Cap Index and "Int'l Small-Cap" by the MSCI ACWI ex USA Small-Cap Index.

The historical data suggests, then, that relatively good periods for international stocks mean relatively better periods for international small-caps. So while there is no guarantee of the course of future returns, we think the long-term performance history of the two small-cap indexes suggests that a multi-year run for international small-caps is possible. In our view, this is especially relevant when evaluating the opportunity in non-U.S. small-caps.

The Case for Active Management in International Small-Caps

Do the attractive attributes of international small-caps also offer the potential for active managers to improve on these results? We believe they do, based on the following:

A Large and Diverse Asset Class

There are more than twice as many international small-caps as domestic small-caps, providing ample opportunity for active managers to search for mispriced stocks. Further, international small-caps offer access to local, regional, and global businesses hailing from a diverse group of 46 countries.

An Inefficient Asset Class

About 31% of the companies in the MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap were receiving one or no sell-side analyst coverage versus 15% for those in the Russell 2000 as of 3/31/20.1 This provides an active manager with a potentially sizable analytic advantage.

High ROIC Companies

Historical returns of the international small-cap index's high-profitability companies, based on ROIC, have markedly exceeded those for the index as a whole. The average annual total return for the top ROIC decile of non-U.S. small-cap stocks was 15.7% from 1/31/032-3/31/20, compared to 10.2% for the overall index over the same period. This suggests to us that an active management approach focusing on companies with higher profitability and sustainability can enhance the potential for higher returns.3

Companies with Earnings

Loss-making international small-cap companies have historically lagged. In fact, companies with positive earnings have outperformed the international small-cap index, gaining 12.1% versus 10.2% on an average annual total return basis from 1/31/03-3/31/20. A manager who focuses on non-U.S. small-caps with established histories of earnings may therefore also be able to potentially enhance returns.

1 Source: Factset



2 January 2003 is the first month which Royce has access to fundamental data on MSCI indexes.



3 Return on Invested Capital is calculated by dividing a company's past 12 months of operating income (earnings before interest and taxes) by its average invested capital (total equity, less cash and cash equivalents, plus total debt, minority interest, and preferred stock). The portfolio calculation is a simple weighted average that excludes cash, all non-equity securities, investment companies, and securities in the Financials sector with the exceptions of the asset management & custody banks and insurance brokers sub-industries. The portfolio calculation also eliminates outliers by applying the inter-quartile method of outlier removal.

Historical Performance of Active International Small-Cap Funds

Our next step was to ask what history can tell us about the potential advantages for active management in the international small-cap space. We compared performance for the average international small-cap mutual fund, using Morningstar's International Small/Mid Cap Blend average, to the MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap index over rolling five-year periods. The majority of the time, 62% of the 250 periods since the index's inception in 1994, the average international small-cap blend fund beat the index with average annual five-year returns that were about 200 basis points higher net of all fees for the mutual funds. This shows that the actual relative performance history aligns with our research--both suggest that international small-caps may present a fruitful opportunity for active managers.

U.S. Fund Foreign Small/Mid Blend Outperformed the MSCI ACWI ex USA Small Cap Index



Monthly Rolling Average Annual Return 5-Year Periods From 5/31/94 through 3/31/20

active-intl-historical-outperf

active-intl-historical-avg-5yr

This research also shows that the universe of non-U.S. small-cap stocks is a fruitful starting point, giving active managers a number of opportunities to potentially prune the list of investment candidates.

?There were 269 US Fund Foreign Small/Mid Blend Funds tracked by Morningstar with at least five years of performance history as of 3/31/20.



The performance data and trends outlined in this presentation are presented for illustrative purposes only. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Historical market trends are not necessarily indicative of future market movements.



Source: Morningstar





Conclusion

We think that the combination of strong absolute and relative performance, low correlation to both international large-caps and U.S. small-caps, and strong results in a number of different market environments makes a very strong case for including international small-caps in a globally diversified portfolio. In our view, the timeliness of the opportunity serves to bolster an already compelling case. We suggest that asset allocators consider the potential advantages active management can offer within the asset class based on both the historical strength of certain fundamentals and the overall inefficiency of this large and diverse group of small-cap stocks.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






 Flash

The Japanese government on Monday officially announced its decision to extend the nationwide state of emergency for COVID-19 by nearly a month until May 31.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, scheduled to hold a press conference at 6:00 p.m. local time, made the formal decision to extend the state of emergency beyond May 6, the last day of Japan's Golden Week holiday.

After an advisory panel of medical experts approved the extension in the morning, the government notified the parliament of the decision.

Economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told the parliament that the pace of the declining of newly confirmed cases is not fast enough, though the number of new cases has been on a downward trend.

"We need to see a further reduction in new cases," Nishimura said.

The extension comes as the medical system has come under mounting pressure with increasing cases and sluggish economic activities due to stay-at-home requests and business closure.
Norwegian Air shareholders backed its financial survival plan today, with more than 95pc of votes cast supporting the conversion of nearly $1bn of debt into equity and raising more cash from its owners.

The budget carriers shares rallied 46pc on news of the plans approval even though owners face significant dilution of their stakes as lenders gain control of the firm.

The scheme is a vital part of the struggling airlines plan to tap government credit guarantees as it seeks to overcome the coronavirus crisis, which has compounded its already deep financial problems.

Airlines around the world have been hit hard by the impact on travel of the pandemic, with many forced to turn to governments for state aid to avoid bankruptcy.

Norwegian, which at the end of last year had amassed debts of around $8bn, said ahead of the meeting that it had won strong support from aircraft lessors for its plan.

With 95pc of its fleet grounded due to the coronavirus pandemic, Norwegian Air has said it could run out of cash by mid-May unless shareholders supported the plan.

On Sunday it said bondholders had signed up to the plan, which was narrowly rejected in a vote on Thursday.

Norwegian Air said lessors are now willing to convert at least $730m of debt into equity, up from $550m earlier, and talks are ongoing for possible further conversion.

With the significant contributions from lessors and bondholders, the company expects to convert more than 10bn crowns ($958m) in debt to equity, it said.

Based on the results from the shareholders meeting, the company will now proceed with the conversion of bonds and lease debt to shares, as well as the public offering of up to $38.4m from the sale of new stock, it said.

The debt conversion and share sale will allow Norwegian Air to tap government guarantees of up to 2.7bn crowns, which hinge on a reduction in leverage, on top of 300m crowns it has already received.

The plan will hand majority ownership to the airlines creditors and could leave current shareholders with just 5.2pc.
As Thais enjoy easing of COVID-19 restrictions, many remain reliant on food handouts from charities and local communities.

Thailand has begun lifting restrictions after a steady decline in the number of coronavirus infections.

But many people still need help putting food on the table and some businesses are expected to struggle.

The government will evaluate the situation every two weeks  determining to further ease the restrictions  or, if there is a spike in confirmed cases, they will reimpose some of the restrictions.

Al Jazeeras Scott Heidler reports from Bangkok.
Boris Johnson has revealed that the fear of never seeing his newborn son drove him in his battle against coronavirus.

The Prime Minister, 55, spent a week in April at St Thomas's Hospital in London fighting the virus, including three days in intensive care, and admitted yesterday that doctors had prepared to announce his death.

Now, in an interview with the Sun, he has opened up further on his fight against the virus, saying he focused on 'positive thoughts' about pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds and the impending birth of their child.

He said: 'We've all got a lot to live for, a lot to do, and I won't hide it from you, I was thinking about that, yes.'

His son, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, was born last Wednesday, just over two weeks after the Prime Minister was released from hospital.

Mr Johnson added in the interview that he was 'thrilled' with the birth and also described his hospital experience in greater detail.

Boris Johnson (pictured arriving back at Downing Street after the birth of his son) has admitted he thought about his unborn child as he battled coronavirus in intensive care

The PM said he focused on 'positive thoughts' about pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds and the impending birth of their child (pictured is Ms Symonds with baby Wilfred)

A heart-warming caption revealed the boy's full name as Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, with Lawrie a reference to Ms Symond's grandfather and Nicholas a tribute to the two doctors that 'saved Boris' life'

He said he jumped on his hospital bed wearing only his boxer shorts to 'clap like crazy' for the NHS  just two hours after leaving intensive care.

He added: 'It was a Thursday when I came out of ICU and with me I had a nurse called Becky and a nurse called, I think, Angel.

'I was just in my boxers, nothing else. We stood up and there was this big window looking out on the Thames and we saw the Met and the Fire Brigade do this display with their boats.

'It was just fantastic.'

He also praised the NHS staff who treated him at St Thomas' Hospital, saying they 'pulled my chestnuts out of the fire, no question'.

Speaking today, Donald Trump revealed that he and Mr Johnson had discussed the latter's battle with the virus.

He told Fox News: 'He [Mr Johnson] was a victim (of this thing). He thought it was all over.'

Mr Johnson said he was wheeled out of intensive care around 6pm on April 9 and on to a general ward.

He said: 'It was an amazing moment. They clapped me out of the bit I was in. It's something they have done for many patients  but it is really the doctors and nurses who deserve it most.

'I was fantastically lucky. It certainly gave me a really good understanding of the disease and what goes on and how you tackle it.'

And he said he was 'so lucky by comparison' with other victims he encountered.

He said: 'I saw a lot of victims both going in and going out. 'I felt so lucky by comparison. I am lucky because so many people have suffered so much.

Carrie Symonds (pictured on March 9) revealed the name of her and Boris Johnson's newborn son as Wilfred, after the Prime Minister's grandfather

The couple revealed the boy's full name as Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, with the first name a tribute to Mr Johnson's paternal grandfather, Osman Wilfred Kemal (pictured)

'I want to stress this. So many people have suffered so much more than I did.

'There are people that I know well who are still on ventilation, who are still in comas.

'There are so many who have suffered, so many families who are still facing huge anxiety, so many who have lost loved ones.

'So if you ask me, am I driven by a desire to stop other people suffering? Yes, I absolutely am.'

But he never once thought he might not pull through.

He added: 'I suppose there was some natural buoyancy or refusal to give in or harbour negative thoughts.

'I never really thought that I wouldn't come back from it. It was more frustration.

Mr Johnson praised the NHS staff who treated him at St Thomas' Hospital, saying they 'pulled my chestnuts out of the fire, no question

The UK has announced 315 new coronavirus deaths today, bringing total fatalities to 28,446 and putting the country on course to become the hardest hit in Europe

'What I can say is that I've seen the NHS save life and I've seen the NHS bring new life into the world in the last month. My love and admiration for that institution is boundless, that's all I'll say.'

Yesterday, the PM revealed how close he had come to death in his fight against the virus.

As his chances of survival balanced on a knife-edge, he said he was given 'litres and litres' of oxygen as medics fought to keep him alive in intensive care.

At one point, he added, his doctors even prepared a statement in case he died.

The PM and his partner Ms Symonds revealed their new son's full name as Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson last week, with the first name a tribute to Mr Johnson's paternal grandfather, Osman Wilfred Kemal, and Lawrie a reference to Ms Symonds' grandfather.

In a heart-warming Instagram post, Ms Symonds' said that the middle name Nicholas was a tribute to two NHS doctors 'that saved Boris' life last month' following his battle with coronavirus.

Accompanying the caption was a photograph in which the first-time mother was seen tightly cradling her son, who sported an extraordinary full head of hair not dissimilar to that of his father.

The 32-year-old fiancee of Mr Johnson, who boasted 'my heart is full' in the caption, also revealed for the first time that Wilfred had been born at the maternity wing of the NHS's University College Hospital in central London.

The caption read: 'Introducing Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas born on 29.04.20 at 9am. Wilfred after Boris' grandfather Lawrie after my grandfather Nicholas after Dr Nick Price and Dr Nick Hart - the two doctors that saved Boris' life last month.

'Thank you so, so much to the incredible NHS maternity team at UCLH that looked after us so well. I couldn't be happier. My heart is full.'
Alazo a couple of weeks ago drove from his home in Pennsylvania in the middle of the night, drove past the embassy, noted the Cuban flag there, then went home, Allen said, in what he suggested was a dry run. In the early morning hours of April 30, prosecutors alleged, Alazo returned with the rifle, driving his SUV to the embassy in the Adams Morgan neighborhood on 16th Street, north of Meridian Hill Park.
By Express News Service

KOLKATA: A BSF driver, who escorted the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) in Kolkata and its adjoining areas, tested positive for Covid-19. He has been admitted to an isolation facility. Over 50 personnel of the force have been quarantined and 20 of them have been tested till now and their reports are awaited.

The six-member IMCT in Kolkata was staying at the BSF guest house in Kolkata and all its required logistics such as vehicles, security personnel, and food were provided by the paramilitary force. The central team flew to Delhi on Monday. Kolkata is the headquarters of the BSFs South Bengal frontier that guards over 950 km of the India-Bangladesh border.

According to BSF officials, the constable was attached to the IMCT that travelled in Kolkata and other places to review the Covid-19 outbreak situation in Bengal. "The BSF driver fell ill on April 30 and tested positive on Sunday. He has now been admitted to an isolation facility of the state government. Over 50 persons, who were in touch with the infected jawan, have been quarantined," said a BSF official.

The official said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been informed about the BSF constables infection.

The IMCT arrived Kolkata on April 20, a day after the MHA announced its Bengal visit in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic situation in the state. Since then, it stayed at the guest house located on the premises of the paramilitarys forces south Bengal frontier headquarters in Ballygunge.
On 30 April 1970, Richard Nixon gave a televised address explaining that despite his wish to draw down American forces from Vietnam, and despite the majority of the American people wanting the war to end, the US military was going to mount operations in Cambodia. The president explained that since the North Vietnamese were using Cambodian territory to plan and execute attacks within Vietnam, the US had no realistic choice but to destroy their presence there by military force.

We take this action not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia, he said, but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam, and winning the just peace we all desire.

Those words did nothing to convince the USs anti-war movement that Nixon had peaceful intentions. The announcement roused furious protests across a country already rent asunder by the politics of the Vietnam War  and just a few days later, at a demonstration on an Ohio university campus, four students would be shot dead by the National Guard.

At the time Nixon made his address, the war was at its height, and so was nationwide feeling against it. The massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians by American troops at My Lai had come to light a few months earlier, and on 15 November 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium Committee had staged what remains possibly the largest anti-war protest in American history.

By the following spring, the mood was febrile. Journalist Howard Means, author of 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence, told C-Span in a recent interview that at Kent State, all the toxic orders of the Sixties flowed together.

It was an age of hate, an age of mistrust, a generational divide  You had Richard Nixons speech on intimidation on that Thursday, in which he announced the extension of the war into Cambodia after saying he was going to bring home 150,000 troops  that was a time bomb waiting to erupt, and it did the next evening on the streets of Kent.

The day after the presidents TV address, students held a demonstration against the war, symbolically burying a copy of the US Constitution to protest its murder at the hands of the Nixon administration and the military-industrial complex. That warm Friday night saw a crowd of drunk students venting their indignation in downtown Kent; at the mayors request, people were herded back to campus by police using tear gas.

Over the weekend, the atmosphere grew more heated. Students surrounded the campuss ROTC building, which was set on fire; Governor Jim Rhodes, who would describe the students as the worst type of people that we harbour in America, called in the National Guard, who occupied the campus. Suddenly, the student protesters were being told to disperse by uniformed men armed with military weapons.

Further scuffles broke out between guardsmen and protesters on Sunday, with tear gas used again  but by Monday, the protesters were more determined than ever to hold the rally theyd planned.

As some two thousand people gathered on the campus at around noon, the guard began using tear gas and bayonets to move the crowd  and as they tried to retrace their line of march, 28 guardsmen fired on the protesters.

In just 13 seconds, they fired more than 60 shots; 13 students were injured, four of them fatally.

Speaking to CBS News shortly after the killings, one student injured at the protest described the scene:

A few kids were throwing sticks and stones  that was only a handful, not more than ten, 15. And then the guards shot some tear gas up on the hill to disperse the crowd, and the kids picked it up and threw it back.

And all of a sudden I heard them shooting. And then I saw people dropping to the ground, and I fell to the ground also, because I couldnt walk any more.

The students shot dead were Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, William Knox Schroeder, and Sandra Lee Scheuer. Another, Dean R. Kahler, was permanently paralysed from the chest down.

Documented by photographers in shocking images that remain some of the most infamous of their era, the massacre sparked a nationwide student strike. Violence between authorities and police broke out on other campuses, including Mississippis Jackson State College, where the National Guard and local police fired more than 150 shots into a dormitory where they claimed a sniper (never proven to exist) was hiding. Two students were killed.

For his part, Richard Nixon issued a statement via his press secretary that called on all involved to take responsibility for what was happening: This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy.

It is my hope that this tragic and unfortunate incident will strengthen the determination of all the Nations campuses  administrators, faculty, and students alike  to stand firmly for the right that exists in this country to dissent and just as firmly against the resort to violence as a means of such expression.

In the midst of the fury that greeted the massacre, he set up a panel to try and understand why such protests were persisting, and why they seemed to be getting more dangerous. The Presidents Commission on Campus Unrest gave the president a stark message about what was happening not just at Kent State, but across the country, pointing to a generational rift that had the potential to tear the US apart:

If this crisis of understanding endures, the very survival of this nation will be threatened. A nation driven to use the weapons of war upon its youth is a nation on the edge of chaos.

A nation that has lost the allegiance of part of its youth is a nation that has lost part of its future.

A nation whose young have become intolerant of diversity, intolerant of the rest of its citizenry and intolerant of all traditional values simply because they are traditional, has no generation worthy or capable of assuming leadership in the years to come.

The massacres cultural footprint is a deep one. A month later, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released their single Ohio, written by Neil Young in response to the shootings (Tin soldiers and Nixon coming/Were finally on our own/This summer I hear the drumming/Four dead in Ohio).

The still-shocking images of the massacres aftermath have lodged in the collective memory, and the sight of idealistic students met with state brutality  as has happened more than once in recent years  always evokes the events of May 1970.

At the other end of the scale, the shootings have inevitably been commodified and exploited on occasion. Most infamously, apparel chain Urban Outfitters was roundly condemned for selling a vintage Kent State sweatshirt that featured what some took to be artificial bloodstains. The store pulled the item from its site.

Nixons Cambodian incursion has since become one of the most notorious episodes of the Vietnam War, and Its legality remains highly disputed. The country was bombed well into the remainder of the Nixon administration, and the USs campaign there is now credited with spurring the rise of the Khmer Rouge  a communist guerilla movement that would later take dictatorial control of Cambodia and murder some two million people.

The students of Kent State, meanwhile, have not been forgotten. Their university hosts a museum to their memory, and even offers an undergraduate class on the events of 4 May  events that to this day remain a nadir of the Vietnam Wars consequences at home.
RALEIGH  Two high school seniors from Forsyth County will attend N.C. State University in the fall on its most prestigious scholarship.

The university has announced that Sami Atassi of the Early College of Forsyth and Jeanine Ikekhua of Salem Academy have won Park Scholarships for the class of 2024.

Sami Atassi is vice president of his senior class at the Early College and a Crosby Scholar. He also has been a volunteer at The SECU Family House for three years and is a member of both the National Honor Society and Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society for students at two-year colleges. He lives in Clemmons and is the son of Amer Atassi and Reem Farra. At N.C. State, Atassi plans to major in biology with a pre-medicine track.

Jeanine Ikekhua serves as president of the Model United Nations team, president of the Black Student Union and secretary of the debate team at Salem Academy. Ikekhua also is a volunteer at her local library. She lives in Winston-Salem and is the daughter of Ibitayo Ikekhua. At N.C. State, Ikekhua plans to major in international studies.
Its up to us to make it happen, Moss said. The food is free, no one is going to be turned away. Dont have to prove any need. We just want to get healthy food to people and let people know this really is in response to the specific needs being demonstrated, coming to light because of COVID-19.
New Delhi, May 4 : Calling the chaos and overcrowding in front of shops unfortunate, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said his government will revoke relaxations and seal areas if social distancing was not followed.

Speaking to the media, Kejriwal said like dengue, the government and people will have to work together to defeat coronavirus.

He requested the people of Delhi to practice social distancing across the city, following the relaxations that were announced in Delhi as per the central government guidelines.

"It was unfortunate that chaos and overcrowding were reported outside shops at various locations in Delhi," the Chief Minister said.

Kejriwal said what needs to be realised is the risk of contracting the virus that comes with these actions.

"Such action put families of those people at high risk too. These actions are not acceptable. If needed, we will have to take stringent decisions like sealing areas where the social distancing protocol is not followed by the people, and I will have to withdraw all the relaxations announced on Monday," Kejriwal said.

He said the central government has given some relaxations in various parts of the country during the nationwide lockdown.

"India has also been divided into red zones, green zones, and orange zones. Major relaxations have been observed in green zones, with lesser relaxations in orange zones, and minimal relaxations in red zones. The whole of Delhi is in the red zone, and hence, very few activities are allowed. We have decided to adhere to the central government guidelines for the red zones and allowed activities in Delhi." He said markets, malls, and market complexes in Delhi have not opened, except standalone shops in residential areas and a few industrial areas. Self-employed people such as technicians, electricians, plumbers, and others can begin their services.

"The government alone cannot fight a battle against corona, as it needs the support of its people. The people of Delhi have always supported the Delhi government in everything, including its fight against dengue last year... We have to defeat corona now." He said the government has allowed only a few activities in Delhi as of now.

"We will only be able to allow more activities in Delhi if we are able to defeat coronavirus. We cannot live in lockdown for long." He urged people to take care of three things -- wear masks, ensure social distancing and wash hands as frequently as possible with soaps or sanitisers.

Kejriwal said that these relaxations have been made to restart the economy and bring the lives of the people back on track.

"If there are violations, we will have no option but to revoke these relaxations. Shopkeepers should take responsibility for the same, or we will have to seal those shops where violations are being reported. I have full faith in the people of Delhi and I am sure that we will be able to defeat corona in the same way as we were able to defeat dengue," he said.

Delhi has reported more than 4,500 COVID-19 cases so far.
This is not merely a theoretical issue. The Louisville and Sixth Circuit cases are only two of several that involve challenges to restrictive orders on religious grounds. In addition, judges have reviewed stay-at-home orders that allegedly violated constitutional rights to speech and assembly (by shutting the campaign office of a state legislative candidate), gun possession (by forcing firearms stores to close) and property (by requiring other businesses to shut down), among other rights. (In one case, a court ruled that the closing of a gun range violated the Second Amendment.) Even when ruling for the government, courts have frequently suggested that in the future they will be less willing to uphold strict stay-at-home orders. In the midst of a public health crisis and extreme uncertainty about how the virus works, the burden on governments is great.
Holcim Philippines funds local hospitals in COVID-19 fight

04 May 2020

To contribute to the Philippine's fight against COVID-19, Holcim Philippines Inc is donating part of its corporate citizenship budget for funds towards medical supplies for hospitals assigned to treat coronavirus patients and relief items to its affected communities.



The company has allocated a substantial share of the budget for corporate citizenship programme Holcim Helps to buy protective equipment such as surgical masks, respirators and face shields to be donated to the Lung Center of the Philippines (Quezon City) and Dr Jose N Rodriguez Memorial Hospital (Caloocan City). Approximately 1500 families and government front line workers have benefitted from the first batch of distribution completed as of 14 April.



Holcim President and CEO, John Stull, said: "Holcim Philippines is one with the country in fighting COVID-19. We are very proud of our people who are actively contributing to their communities and the country in pushing back against this disease. Guided by our overarching value of Health and Safety, our company has taken actions to support the efforts to contain the spread of the disease and ensure the well-being of our people, partners and our communities.



"Holcim Philippines will continue to support the country's efforts against COVID-19 and follow the guidance of health authorities on this matter. Our thoughts go to everyone affected by this. We wish everyone safety and good health in these trying times."

Published under
Launch of the new initiative follows dialogue and collaboration with Wyndham franchisees, members of its Franchise Advisory Councils, leading industry partners, and key trade organizations like the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). The immediate focus is to further elevate health and safety protocols at Wyndham hotels in the wake of COVID-19, shore up critical supply chains and introduce new standards, training and guidelines grounded in guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Wyndham will also partner with industry leader Ecolab on requiring consistent use of Ecolab's EPA-approved disinfectants in hotel guestrooms and public spaces nationwide.

"We want the everyday traveler to know they can count on us to put their health and safety first," said Geoff Ballotti, president and CEO, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. "Over 90% of our hotels in the U.S. today are open and welcoming essential business, government, healthcare and emergency responders every night. We salute these everyday heroes who are keeping our nation running. We know that people will also travel again for leisure and to see family and friends. And when they do, Wyndham will be ready to welcome them back."

Key early components of the new initiativedesigned to be cost neutral when combined with other recent operational changesare slated to begin rolling out in the coming weeks and include:

Enhanced Cleaning and Disinfection of Guestrooms and Public Spaces

Through expansion of a decades-long relationship with industry leader Ecolab, Wyndham will require consistent use of Ecolab's EPA-approved disinfectants in all U.S. hotel guestrooms and public spaces. Building on the already high operational standards at its hotels, the move is anticipated to help deliver an elevated and more consistent cleaning experience nationwide while providing hotel owners and their team members with access to Ecolab's best-in-class training and resources, including a field team of more than 2,000 on-the-ground experts ready to assist hotels.

A global leader in water, hygiene and infection prevention technologies and services with nearly 100 years of experience, Ecolab develops its products with a rigorous, science-based approach to infection prevention that helps enable hotels to consistently achieve the highest cleaning standards. In recent years, Wyndham's brand operations teams have spent significant time in Ecolab's research and development facilities, increasing their education on best practices and offering perspective on real-world use and how to create a better, cleaner stay for guests.

Easy Access to COVID-19 Health Essentials

In response to the growing challenges that many small businesses and individuals face as they try to secure essential health supplies that meet CDC guidelines, Wyndham will leverage its scale and relationships with world class distributors to begin drop-shipping critical products to its more than 6,000 hotels across the U.S. within the next 30 days. Items will include face masks for hotel team members, hand sanitizer for distribution in public areas and guestrooms, and disinfectant wipes for guests. Leveraging volume discounts pre-negotiated by Wyndham, these items will be made available at cost to hotel owners with the Company financing all initial shipments and deferring payments from hotels until September 1, 2020.

Delivering on the Promise of a "Safe Stay"

As a member of The AHLA Safe Stay Advisory Council, Wyndham has joined with other industry leaders as well as public health experts, scientists and medical leaders to develop a series of industry best practices and guidelines that focus on enhanced hotel cleaning practices, social interactions, and workplace protocols to meet the new health and safety challenges presented by COVID-19. In coordination with the rollout of these guidelines, Wyndham will be implementing a series of mandatory virtual trainings for all hotels while providing additional resources like housekeeping checklists, which hotels can use with team members to ensure consistency and accountability in execution.

A Visible Commitment to Guests

Recognizing the importance of building trust and instilling confidence, Wyndham is also taking steps to ensure guests and hotel team members can physically see the above efforts and trust in their impact. On property, guests will be offered sanitizing wipes along with their keycards at check in, notice social distancing enhancing measures in public spaces, observe increased frequent cleaning and disinfecting of high-touch areas, and can utilize complimentary travel-size hand sanitizer in each room. To further amplify these efforts, Wyndham will make available to hotels a suite of branded collateral emphasizing key safety measures. Similar messaging will also make its way onto the Company's brand websites, emails and social channels.

"At a time when our industry is facing unprecedented challenges, Wyndham has once again proven itself to be an unwavering partner and advocate for me and for my business," said Ajit Patel, chairman of the Days Inn by Wyndham Franchise Advisory Council and a 21-year Wyndham franchisee. "By consistently putting first the needs of its franchisees, Wyndham enables us to always do what is best for our hotel and in turn, what is best for our team members and our guests."

Count on Us is an extension of Wyndham's signature Count on Me service culture and is the latest in a growing list of efforts by the Company to help hotels, team members and guests affected by the global impact of COVID-19. In the last month alone, Wyndham has taken unprecedented steps to provide substantial financial assistance to its thousands of hotel owners; united with leading companies to offer alternative employment opportunities to displaced Wyndham team members; updated its policies to provide travelers and Wyndham Rewards members with increased travel flexibility; and launched #EverydayHeroes, a new initiative honoring essential workers on the frontlines of COVID-19. In the months to come, the Company will look for new ways to bring Count on Us to life, including exploring opportunities to expand the initiative to its hotels around the world.

About Wyndham Hotels & Resorts

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: WH) is the world's largest hotel franchising company by number of properties with approximately 9,300 hotels across approximately 90 countries on six continents. Through its network of over 831,000 rooms appealing to the everyday traveler, Wyndham commands a leading presence in the economy and midscale segments of the lodging industry. The Company operates a portfolio of 20 hotel brands, including Super 8, Days Inn, Ramada, Microtel Inn & Suites, La Quinta, Baymont, Wingate, AmericInn, Hawthorn Suites, The Trademark Collection and Wyndham. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is also a leading provider of hotel management services, with approximately 400 properties under management. The Company's award-winning Wyndham Rewards loyalty program offers approximately 81 million enrolled members the opportunity to redeem points at thousands of hotels, vacation club resorts and vacation rentals globally. For more information, visit www.wyndhamhotels.com.

Media Contact:

Rob Myers

Sr. Director, Global Communications

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts

+1 (973) 753-7086

[email protected]

SOURCE Wyndham Hotels & Resorts

Related Links

http://www.wyndhamhotels.com


(Photo : Jair Lazaro on Unsplash ) Apple Watch Saves 80-Year-Old With Heart Problem That Hospital Said She Doesn't Have (Photo : Ankush Minda on Unsplash ) Apple Watch Saves 80-Year-Old With Heart Problem That Hospital Said She Doesn't Have

An 80-year-old woman from Germany was recently diagnosed with a heart problem. How she discovered her illness, however, was not based in operation or check-up from her hospital-- but through her Apple Watch!

Apple Watch saves lives! How this device changed the life of an 80-year-old woman

As first reported via 9to5mac, an 80-year-old woman from Mainz, Germany felt an unusual pain, irregular heart rhythm, and lightheadedness. Due to this, she decided to visit a doctor in her hospital. Since the chest pains suggested a heart problem, the doctors performed a traditional 12-channel electrocardiogram or ECG to the patient.

After getting the results, the doctors found "no evidence for ischemia" or when a person experiences a decreased blood flow and oxygen to the heart muscle.

Luckily, the 80-year-old has her Apple Watch ECG test results showing that she has "tracings with marked ST-segment depression" and showed it to her doctors. She then was seen with myocardial ischemia and was transferred to the catheterization lab, which showed "left main stem stenosis and a left anterior descending/diagonal bifurcation lesion."

The woman was then treated with the right procedure with her diagnosed heart problem and discharged from the hospital the next day.

Smartwatches may save lives, according to experts

The European Health Journal that released the story suggests that if the older woman has no access to an Apple Watch, her illness might get worse, or she could die due to heart failure.

However, the report clarifies that Apple Watch has not yet had the same feature as a real ECG in a hospital. It could be seen as a great accessory to determine early illnesses, but it should not be a basis to conduct an early diagnosis.

"Thus, the Apple Watch may be used not only to detect atrial fibrillation or atrioventricular-conduction disturbances but also to detect myocardial ischemia. An apple a day may keep myocardial infarction away," said on the report.

According to experts in the New England Journal of Medicine, smartwatches like Apple Watch are seen with tremendous accuracy in detecting heart problems faster within its users.

Apple Watch had done it again!

Last Feb, Tech Times also reported that an Oklahoma teenager with undetected heart failure thanked his Apple Watch for detecting his coronary heart rate-- before its too late.

The teenager did not know what the notification from his Apple Watch means, but his mom rushed him immediately to the hospital after seeing the device. While on the way to the hospital, the kid felt a huge rush from his heartbeat.

"From the time this happened until his heart surgery, his cardiologist called and stated his coronary heart rate got up to 280 in the middle of the night," his mom said.

Thankfully, the kid continued to live despite his heart problem.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A 45-year-old Delhi Police staff and his 35-year-old friend were allegedly shot dead by unidentified assailants near Line Par area in Jhajjars Bahadurgarh on Monday.

The victims have been identified as Delhi Police constable Manoj of Bahadurgarh and his friend Ramesh Kumar from Kalanda village in the district.

The incident took place when the duo had gone for a walk near the Line Par area and unidentified assailants shot them dead.

Bahadurgarh DSP Ajayab Singh said that the family members of the Delhi cop had accused a man named Ranbir Singh of plotting the murder.

Prime facie it appears that the policeman and his friend were killed due to an extra marital affair. We have registered a case of murder against Ranbir Singh and started investigation into the killing, DSP Singh added.
She failed to find long-lasting love with her TV husband Josh Pihlak on Nine's controversial series, Married At First Sight.

And after exclusively revealing she had a new boyfriend to Daily Mail Australia in April, bride Cathy Evans has now shared the mystery man's identity.

Sharing their first couple picture with NW magazine on Monday, the 26-year-old said the pair have already discussed marriage, children and buying a home together.

Scroll down for video

'I want a big Thai wedding': MAFS star Cathy Evans has debuted a photo of her new police officer boyfriend Richard in NW while teasing a baby announcement on Monday

Despite only dating police officer Richard for three months, Cathy has known her boyfriend since before appearing as a reality TV star on MAFS.

Cathy briefly dated Richard, who's surname is unknown, after matching on a dating app in early 2019. While they stopped dating before her time on TV, they reunited a few weeks after she left MAFS.

'I think I fell in love with every aspect of Richie's being. He is so supportive and believes in me and that makes me so excited,' she told the publication.

Cathy added: 'I want a big Thai wedding with loud drums.'

'I fell in love with every aspect of Richie's being': Despite only dating police officer Richard for three months, Cathy has known her boyfriend since before appearing as a reality TV star

'I've hit the jackpot! He gets me and everything feels so natural. It's easy,' Cathy added cheerfully.

The couple are already picturing a future together as Cathy says they've discussed buying or building a house together and whether or not they want children.

'Kids will happen. No dates yet, but standby,' she cheekily hinted.

'Kids will happen. No dates yet, but standby,' Cathy cheekily hinted to starting a family soon, and admitted the pair had already discussed marriage and house ownership

'Nothing has ever felt so right when I'm with him,: The logistics investigator and makeup artist revealed she had a boyfriend to Daily Mail Australia last month

'Nothing has ever felt so right when I'm with him,' the logistics investigator and makeup artist said to Daily Mail Australia last month.

Cathy added that her experience on the Channel Nine series has made her appreciate a more quiet life.

'We are a private couple, and after the public dating machine that is MAFS, I'm really appreciating this away from the spotlight,' she explained.
With 85:15 ratio, Centre explains to Sonia Gandhi about subsidy for migrant trains

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, May 04: The Centre has issued a strong rebuttal after Congress president Sonia Gandhi went on the offensive with the manner in which the stranded migrants were being handled.

The railways said that they were charging the state governments just 15 per cent of the calculated train fare for the special trains and it was stated to bear this cost or get the migrant worker to pay.

Sonia Gandhi had earlier asked Congress workers to raise funds to pay the fare on behalf of the migrants. However, railway officials have said that the Centre was only charging the state 15 per cent of the fare. This facility has been made available so that the migrant workers who are stranded due to the lockdown could reach their destination.

Coronavirus lockdown: Over 800 UP migrant labourers reach Lucknow in a special train from Nashik

On the other hand, the railways is bearing 85 per cent of the cost. In addition to the basic subsidies built into the passenger fare, these trains carry only 60 per cent of the capacity due to social distancing norms. Moreover, the trains also have a team of paramedics and railway security officials to ensure that none get off the train and return midway.

The Centre has been advising states not to encourage migrant workers to travel. It would slow down the economic revival process and the recovery process would also take longer.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had also told the Supreme Court that the migrants can stay where they are. They were being looked after well the MHA had also said.

Congress to bear cost of rail travel of every needy migrant worker: Sonia Gandhi

However, there was too much pressure from the states, following which the travel by bus was allowed. A few days later, the Centre also allowed the travel of migrants by trains.
Ride-share companies trying to improve safety for their drivers during the coronavirus pandemic by giving them protective equipment may breach workplace laws that allow them to employ workers as independent contractors.

Gig-economy businesses such as Uber and Deliveroo rely on independent contractors, who do not get sick leave or unfair dismissal protections, to give them a cheaper, flexible workforce.

The ride-sharing service Ola has offered drivers protective equipment if they spend 50 hours a week on the platform. Credit:Ryan Stuart

But employment law experts warn that giving those workers more equipment means courts are more likely to see them as employees, who are entitled to superannuation and leave.

Ola, an Uber competitor, last week announced a pilot program called Ola Pro that offers drivers personal protective equipment and a screen to separate themselves from passengers if they work at least 50 hours a week and accept 75 per cent of rides. The company's head of international, Simon Smith, said while demand had dropped because of COVID-19, the pro service was helping people take "critical" journeys.
The bosses of two of Britain's biggest gambling companies have refused to take pay cuts despite using taxpayer money to prop up their businesses.

William Hill is benefiting to the tune of more than 5m per month from the wage subsidy scheme and the business rates holiday, while Paddy Power is saving 400,000 per month in business rates.

The companies' bosses have been slammed for failing to follow the lead of rivals by taking pay cuts, as a way of sharing the pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic with taxpayers and low-paid staff.

Ladbrokes' boss, Kenny Alexander, has broken ranks by cutting his full 816,000 salary by 20 per cent for three months and ditched his 2020 bonuses, after this newspaper reported his company was benefiting from 20m of taxpayer support per month.

But Ulrik Bengtsson, the boss of William Hill, will keep his full 600,000 salary this year, and has instead only offered to cancel a planned pay rise and his annual bonuses.

His firm is using the wage subsidy scheme to pay the majority of the 8,000 staff who are staying at home from its 1,568 shuttered shops.

Peter Jackson, the boss of Paddy Power's owner Flutter, will also keep his 737,000 salary despite his company benefiting to the tune of 400,000 per month from the business rates holiday.

The 44-year-old was, however, praised for choosing to pay staff in its 350 UK shops who are not working, despite his firm being eligible for the furlough scheme.

The wage subsidy scheme allows businesses to claim 80 per cent of their workers' salaries, up to a maximum of 2,500 per month, if they are not working.

This week MPs said their failure to take a pay cut while accepting taxpayer handouts was 'shameful'.

Shadow Treasury Minister Wes Streeting MP said: 'It's really important that high-paid bosses are leading by example, and where they are asking the workforce to take a hit that this pain is being felt by everyone.

'The schemes need to be used responsibly. At some point we are all going to have to face up to the cost of these extraordinary and necessary measures.

'It will sit in the throat if high paid executives aren't taking any of the pain at all whilst the workforce are put into furlough.'

Bosses at Betfred and casino group Rank have taken pay cuts after furloughing staff, whereas online operators Bet365, Betway and 888 have not needed to use Government support.

Bosses at Skybet have taken a pay cut despite not using the help.

William Hill said 'along with other retailers' it is 'grateful' for the Government support for jobs.

Flutter declined to comment.
THE House of Representatives set down health protocols to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) at the resumption of its session on Monday, May 4.

The session was attended by 25 lawmakers who were physically present at the hall and 276 members who joined via video conferencing.

A quorum was declared with a total of 301 lawmakers present.

Under the Houses general guidelines, a two-meter physical distance must be maintained between two persons.

The guidelines also prohibit non-essential activities and mass gatherings that will be participated by 50 people or more.

People who wish to enter the House shall undergo appropriate health screening, sanitation, and disinfection protocols.

Only guests with confirmed appointments are allowed to enter the premises and buildings of the House.

People with temperature reading of 37.5 degree Celsius or higher will be denied entry.

Flexible work arrangements and schedules shall be adopted depending on the functions, circumstances, and deliverables of each department.

At the plenary session, only 25 members are allowed to physically attend. The total number of secretariat employees, media personnel, and guests are also limited to 25.

All committee hearings and press conferences shall still be conducted through video conferencing, unless the secretary general allows physical meetings.

In these extraordinary times, people look to Congress not just so that they can be represented, but that we may provide answers and or provide solutions. We are called upon to adapt, innovate, and manage," House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said in his opening speech.

We call on the whole government to work together, not against each other--we have to agree that red tape, inefficiency, and corruption has no place in serving our people, whether or not there is a crisis, he added. (SunStar Philippines)
According to intelligence data, one member of Russia-led forces was killed and another one was wounded.

Russia's hybrid military forces on May 3 mounted 11 attacks on Ukrainian Army positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as wounded in action.

"The Russian Federation's armed groups violated the ceasefire 11 times in the past day," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation Headquarters said on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on May 4. "As a result of enemy shelling, one soldier was wounded, and another three had combat-related injuries."

Read alsoUkraine sees spike in enemy attacks in Donbas

Russian-led forces opened fire from proscribed 82mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and rifles.

Under attack were Ukrainian positions near the town of Avdiyivka, and the villages of Shyrokyne, Bohdanivka, Kamianka, Pyshchevyk, Starohnativka, Orikhove, and Krymske.

Joint Forces returned fire to each enemy shelling. According to intelligence data, one member of Russia-led forces was killed and another one was wounded.

"Since Monday midnight, Russia-led forces have attacked Ukrainian positions near Krymske, using 120mm mortars and tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns," the update said.

No Ukrainian army casualties have been reported since Monday midnight.
A total of 21,500 migrant



workers and their family members stranded in Gujarat for over 40 days due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown were sent back to their native states, including UP and Bihar, through 18 trains in the last three days, a senior official said on Monday.

The 18 trains, each carrying about 1200 migrants, left for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand from different stations in Gujarat on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, said Ashwani Kumar, secretary in the office of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.

Of the total 18 trains, seven trains made their journey to Odisha, six to Uttar Pradesh, four to Bihar and one to Jharkhand, he said.

"These 18 trains carrying 21,500 migrants left for other states during the last three days from Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Nadiad and Palanpur stations," Kumar said in a video message.

He said respective district collectors in Gujarat are coordinating with Railways authorities and bringing migrants to railway stations in buses from different places.

"In addition, hundreds of migrants from adjoining states have also left Gujarat in private buses and other vehicles after getting permission from authorities," Kumar informed.

After addressing the issue of inter-state travel of migrants, the state government is now focussing on allowing intra-state travel of thousands of migrants from Saurashtra region working in Surat in diamond polishing units.

"Diamond workers in Surat mainly hail from Amreli, Bhavnagar and Botad districts of Saurashtra region. Since they too want to go back to their native places, Surat district collector is coordinating with his counterparts in these districts to work out a plan. A formal announcement will be made soon by the government," said Kumar.

He said those people who will be allowed to travel to their native places will be barred from coming back to Surat for one month.

"We need to make sure that coronavirus does not spread in those districts. Thus, we will not allow anyone having symptoms to travel. Upon reaching there, each (worker and others) will be required to undergo home quarantine for 14 days. They will not be allowed to come back for at least one month," Kumar added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
PATRICK SEMANSKY / POOL/AFP via Getty Images

East Bay Rep. Mark DeSaulnier left the hospital over the weekend after a nearly two-month fight against pneumonia, his sons said.

DeSaulnier, D-Concord, had been hospitalized since March 13 with pneumonia that grew out of complications from a broken rib he suffered when he fell while running. DeSaulnier tested negative for the coronavirus, his office said.
A third of police officers will have less than three years of experience by 2023, leaving forces with a headache as to how to replace the growing number of officers who have left since 2010.

Analysis shows that despite plans to increase numbers by more than 145,000 in England and Wales over the course of the next three years, 'over 32 per cent' will be inexperienced.

The analysis, first revealed by The Times, serves to highlight the problem police forces all over the country face. Thousands of senior officers have left the force since 2010 due to natural attrition or budget cuts and, due to austerity, have not been replaced.

A third of police officers will have less than three years' experience by 2023, as forces are left with a headache as to how replace the growing number of officers who have left since 2010

There are also concerns as to the level of experience of those who are joining the force. Boris Johnson's government has vowed to enlist 20,000 officers in three years, however experts say that those new recruits will require years to build up the experience of their recently departed colleagues.

Damningly, the report also states that in order to recruit those 20,000 officers, a total of 53,000 have to actually be recruited, because of high attrition rates as around 9,000 officers leave the force every year.

There are concerns among police forces that they do not have the manpower to consistently achieve results. Crime-solving rates are low while forces have struggled to solve complex cases such as fraud.

The government are looking to recruit 20,000 new officers over the next three years, although there are concerns that it will take years for those officers to gain the necessary experience

Martin Hewitt, National Police chairman, has welcomed the addition of 20,000 new recruits

It comes during a time where the public are rapidly losing faith in the ability of the force to combat crime.

In February, Matt Parr, Her Majestys Inspectorate of Constabulary, revealed that the public is not reporting certain crime types, such as car crime, due to a lack of faith that the offence will be resolved.

'I think particularly in the volume crime area the public has rumbled that the police capacity to deal with this is extremely limited,' he said.

'There are some strikingly low figures about car crime resolution meaning most of the public simply give up reporting it because the chances of anything positive happening are so slim.'

The Home Office remains optimistic that it will reach its recruiting targets. Last week, they announced that they were on track to enlist 6,000 new officers by March, although coronavirus constraints may derail those plans.

Martin Hewitt, the National Police Chief's Council's chairman, told The Times: 'The addition of 20,000 new police officers is welcomed. Policing has not proactively recruited at scale for a number of years.'
Turkey will relax confinement rules on people aged 65 and over, and those under 20, as the country moves to a "new normal", President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.

Since March 21, around 7.5 million senior citizens have been under lockdown, forbidden from going outside in a measure taken to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.

The same restriction was brought in by the government for people aged under 20 on April 4.

"We will gradually return to normal life," Erdogan said in Istanbul after a cabinet meeting held by videoconference.

"But this will be a new normal," he warned.

Barbers, hairdressers and shopping centres will be able to reopen on May 11, said Erdogan.

From Sunday, those aged more than 64 will be able to go out for fours a day, between 0800 and 1200 GMT, he added.

From May 13, the same four-hour window will be extended to children under 15 -- and to those aged between 15 and 20 from May 15, said Erdogan.

Turkey's death toll from the coronavirus is 3,461, according to the official figures as of Monday, while the number of cases has passed 127,000.

The government hopes the domestic tourism sector can start in June after the Eid holiday, which follows the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

But Erdogan insisted that all-day weekend curfews in 31 cities, including Ankara and Istanbul, would continue.

After recording more than 5,000 new cases in a single day in mid-April, the number of infections in a 24-hour period has declined substantially, with recoveries now overtaking new infections.
75 years ago these days, all the columns and walls of the Reichstag were dotted with inscriptions in which Soviet victorious soldiers expressed a sense of joy. There is also such an inscription "I am from Baku. Javadov. 05/08/45". Abdulag Javadov went through the whole war, and distinguished himself not only in the military, but also in the peaceful military, having worked all his life in the oil industry of Azerbaijan.

He was born in 1920 in the family of an oilman. Immediately after the outbreak of the war, he was eager for the front, but he was ordered to stay in the oil industry, the production of which was so necessary for the army. However, already at the end of 1941 the reservation was removed  the situation at the fronts was too difficult. Javadov did not have a military specialty, but he managed to finish courses at the medical college before the war. So he was recorded as a medical instructor. "When the Germans attack, you are a shooter. Slightly quiet, you are a medical officer - you help the wounded, evacuate them from the front line, and then immediately back. And you dont know what you have to do - shoot or bandage," said veteran Javadov after the war.

Our division as part of the Southern Front participated in the liberation of Donetsk, Makeevka, Gorlovka. Our Fifth Army was called the shock. As part of the Second, then Fourth Ukrainian armies, Ukraine was liberated, as part of the First Belorussian Front, Belarus and Warsaw, recalls Javadov.

In one of the battles, the medical instructor himself was wounded and shell-shocked. He was awarded the medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus", and, having lain in the hospital for two months, already in the rank of sergeant a tank brigade was sent as the commander of the reception and sorting platoon of the medical battalion.

Javadov reached Berlin already as a senior lieutenant, although he did not have a military education. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the medal "For Military Merit".

After the war, Javadov returned to Baku and immediately began to prepare for university exams. He graduated with honors from the Geological Prospecting Department of the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute (now it is the Azerbaijan State University of Oil and Industry) with a degree in mining geology. He worked as a geologist at Balakhanneft, defended his thesis on "Geology and oil and gas fields in the Sabunchi region. Effective ways to develop them." In 1954-1974 he worked as the chief geologist of the OGPD Garadagnef. In 1970, Javadov defended his doctoral dissertation "Geology and oil and gas potential of productive formations in the south-west of Absheron", becoming the only oil geologist in Azerbaijan who defended his doctorate while working in production.

In 1974-1978, he headed the Laboratory of Formation Physics, became a professor in the department of geology, exploration and exploration of oil and gas fields of the Azerbaijan Petrochemical Institute, then dean of the faculty of industrial consumption organization. In 1981-1986 he worked as head of the department of geology, exploration and exploration of oil and gas fields. Abdulaga Javadov was directly involved in the development of the oil fields of Dashlari, Guneshli and other fields, and was awarded the State Prize for professionalism in mineral exploration and great achievements in the oil industry.

In 2014, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, who arrived in Baku, personally presented the Security Council of the Russian Federation with a prize from Abdulag Javadov.
Evacuation of Nigerians stranded in the U.S. due to the novel coronavirus pandemic is to begin on May 10, according to the Consulate-General of Nigeria in New York.

The consulate-general disclosed this in a notice signed by the Consul-General, Benaoyagha Okoyen, on behalf of the Nigerian Missions in the U.S., on Sunday.

According to the notice, no fewer than 700 Nigerians have registered with the missions in the U.S. for evacuation, which will be done in batches.

It said that the first batch of 270 evacuees would be transported to Abuja through an Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 509.

The plane is expected to depart the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey at 9.15 p.m., and fly directly to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

As earlier announced by the federal government, the flight is at the expense of the evacuees, who will all fly economy class, according to the notice.

The projected cost for the one-way economy ticket is between 1,300 dollars (N488,800) and 1,700 dollars (N639,200) per adult.

Please note that over 700 Nigerian nationals have registered with our missions in the USA to be evacuated.

However, only 270 passengers shall be accommodated in this batch of evacuation.

Missions will, therefore, attend to applicants on a first come, first served basis and shall prioritise the list of evacuees according to their immigration status.

This includes the need to consider those stranded with proof of short stay visas, the elderly, families with children and returning students, it said.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York, Okoyen said that the dates for subsequent batches would be announced in due course.

To curb the spread of COVID-19, the federal government on March 18 imposed restrictions on travels from 13 countries with high burdens.

The countries are China, Iran, South Korea, Germany, Italy, U.S. United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, France, Japan, Australia and Sweden.

Consequently, many Nigerians, who were on short-term visits to the affected countries, became stranded.

(NAN)
Donald Trump has once again blundered through an account of the Spanish Flu after wrongly claiming it started in 1917 and ended World War One.

The President has frequently drawn comparisons between the early 20th Century influenza pandemic and coronavirus but has repeatedly muddled his history.

Speaking at last night's Fox News virtual town hall meeting at the Lincoln Memorial, he said: 'So in 1917 we had a horrible flu, the Spanish flu. So much has been written about it...

'It killed between 50 to 100 million people and probably ended the First World War because all the soldiers were getting sick. It was the worst the world has ever seen, that we know of.'

His version of events raised eyebrows from viewers who were quick to point out that the Spanish Flu broke out in 1918 - it is even commonly referred to as the 1918 pandemic.

Donald Trump has once again blundered through an account of the Spanish Flu after wrongly claiming it started in 1917 and ended World War One

Mask-wearing women hold stretchers near ambulances during the Spanish Flu pandemic in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. in October 1918

Viewers also took to social media to express surprise none of Trump's aides had told him the Spanish Flu started in 1918 after he previously made the mistake from the podium of the White House press briefings.

Dr Dena Grayson tweeted: 'Donald Trump has repeatedly and wrongly claimed that the Spanish Flu influenza pandemic was in 1917, yet the first case was diagnosed in 1918. Weirdly, no one has corrected him.'

The Spanish Flu is also not widely credited with bringing the curtain down on the First World War.

Although there are multiple factors heralded as ending the war - not least the Allies' bolstered firepower following the intervention of the United States - the pandemic is not among those mooted by scholars.

While the President's errors drew some scorn on social media, the remarks were largely eclipsed by his attacks on China, swipes at Democrats and hopes of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020

Spanish Flu came in three waves - spring 1918, fall 1918 and winter 1919.

The second and deadliest wave of the pandemic came when the Great War was winding down.

News of the virus was largely suppressed during the war by both the Allies and the Central Powers to keep morale on the frontline high.

Spain, a neutral nation, broke ranks and became a near lone voice in publishing information about it, lending it the name Spanish Flu.

While the President's errors drew some scorn on social media, the remarks were largely eclipsed by his attacks on China, swipes at Democrats and hopes of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020.
NEW YORK, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VORNADO REALTY TRUST (NYSE: VNO) reported today:

Quarter Ended March 31, 2020 Financial Results

NET INCOME attributable to common shareholders for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 was $4,963,000, or $0.03 per diluted share, compared to $181,488,000, or $0.95 per diluted share, for the prior year's quarter. Adjusting for the items that impact period-to-period comparability listed in the table below, net income attributable to common shareholders, as adjusted (non-GAAP) for the quarters ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 was $20,233,000 and $24,814,000, or $0.11 and $0.13 per diluted share, respectively.

FUNDS FROM OPERATIONS ("FFO") attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions (non-GAAP) for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 was $130,360,000, or $0.68 per diluted share, compared to $247,684,000, or $1.30 per diluted share, for the prior year's quarter. Adjusting for the items that impact period-to-period comparability listed in the table on the following page, FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions, as adjusted (non-GAAP) for the quarters ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 was $137,567,000 and $149,939,000, or $0.72 and $0.79 per diluted share, respectively.

The following table reconciles our net income attributable to common shareholders to net income attributable to common shareholders, as adjusted (non-GAAP):



(Amounts in thousands, except per share amounts) For the Three Months Ended

March 31, 2020 2019 Net income attributable to common shareholders $ 4,963 $ 181,488 Per diluted share $ 0.03 $ 0.95 Certain (income) expense items that impact net income attributable to common shareholders: After-tax net gain on sale of 220 Central Park South ("220 CPS") condominium units $ (59,911 ) $ (130,954 ) Our share of loss from real estate fund investments 56,158 2,904 Credit losses on loans receivable resulting from a new GAAP accounting standard effective January 1, 2020 7,261  Mark-to-market decrease in Pennsylvania Real Estate Trust Investment ("PREIT") common shares (accounted for as a marketable security from March 12, 2019 and sold on January 23, 2020) 4,938 15,649 Net gain from sale of Urban Edge Properties ("UE") common shares (sold on March 4, 2019)  (62,395 ) Prepayment penalty in connection with redemption of $400 million 5.00% senior unsecured notes due January 2022  22,540 Mark-to-market increase in Lexington Realty Trust ("Lexington") common shares (sold on March 1, 2019)  (16,068 ) Other 7,896 1,152 16,342 (167,172 ) Noncontrolling interests' share of above adjustments (1,072 ) 10,498 Total of certain expense (income) items that impact net income attributable to common shareholders $ 15,270 $ (156,674 ) Net income attributable to common shareholders, as adjusted (non-GAAP) $ 20,233 $ 24,814 Per diluted share (non-GAAP) $ 0.11 $ 0.13

The following table reconciles our FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions (non-GAAP) to FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions, as adjusted (non-GAAP):



(Amounts in thousands, except per share amounts) For the Three Months Ended

March 31, 2020 2019 FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions (non-GAAP)(1) $ 130,360 $ 247,684 Per diluted share (non-GAAP) $ 0.68 $ 1.30 Certain (income) expense items that impact FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions: After-tax net gain on sale of 220 CPS condominium units $ (59,911 ) $ (130,954 ) Our share of loss from real estate fund investments 56,158 2,904 Credit losses on loans receivable resulting from a new GAAP accounting standard effective January 1, 2020 7,261  Prepayment penalty in connection with redemption of $400 million 5.00% senior unsecured notes due January 2022  22,540 Other 4,205 1,206 7,713 (104,304 ) Noncontrolling interests' share of above adjustments (506 ) 6,559 Total of certain expense (income) items that impact FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions, net $ 7,207 $ (97,745 ) FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions, as adjusted (non-GAAP) $ 137,567 $ 149,939 Per diluted share (non-GAAP) $ 0.72 $ 0.79

____________________________________________________________

(1) See page 9 for a reconciliation of our net income attributable to common shareholders to FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions (non-GAAP) for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019.

COVID-19 Pandemic



In December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus (COVID-19) was identified in Wuhan, China and by March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization had declared it a global pandemic. Many states in the U.S., including New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California have implemented stay-at-home orders for all "non-essential" business and activity in an aggressive effort to curb the spread of the virus. Consequently, the U.S. economy has suffered and there has been significant volatility in the financial markets. Many U.S. industries and businesses have been negatively affected and millions of people have filed for unemployment.

As our first priority, we are following strict protocols and taking all measures to protect our employees, tenants, and communities.

Our properties, which are concentrated in New York City, and in Chicago and San Francisco, have been adversely affected as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the preventive measures taken to curb the spread. Some of the effects on us include the following:

With the exception of grocery stores and other "essential" businesses, substantially all of our retail tenants have closed their stores and many are seeking rent relief.

While our office buildings remain open, substantially all of our office tenants are working remotely.

We have temporarily closed the Hotel Pennsylvania.

We have postponed trade shows at theMART for the remainder of 2020.

Because certain of our development projects are deemed "non-essential," they have been temporarily paused due to New York State executive orders.

Closings on the sale of condominium units at 220 Central Park South have continued. During April 2020 we closed on the sale of four condominium units for net proceeds of $157,747,000. However, future closings may be temporarily delayed to the extent we cannot complete the buildout and obtain temporary certificates of occupancy on time.

We placed 1,803 employees on temporary furlough, including 1,293 employees of Building Maintenance Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary, which provides cleaning, security and engineering services primarily to our New York properties, 414 employees at the Hotel Pennsylvania and 96 corporate staff employees.

Effective April 1, 2020, our executive officers waived portions of their annual base salary for the remainder of 2020.

Effective April 1, 2020, each non-management member of our Board of Trustees agreed to forgo his or her $75,000 annual cash retainer for the remainder of 2020.

We have collected substantially all of the rent due for March 2020 and collected 90% of rent due from our office tenants for the month of April 2020 and 53% of the rent due from our retail tenants for the month of April 2020, or 83% in the aggregate. Many of our retail tenants and some of our office tenants have requested rent relief and/or rent deferral for April 2020 and beyond. While we believe that our tenants are required to pay rent under their leases, we have implemented and will continue to consider temporary rent deferrals on a case-by-case basis.

In light of the evolving health, social, economic, and business environment, governmental regulation or mandates, and business disruptions that have occurred and may continue to occur, the impact of COVID-19 on our financial condition and operating results remains highly uncertain but the impact could be material. The impact on us includes lower rental income and potentially lower occupancy levels at our properties which will result in less cash flow available for operating costs, to pay our indebtedness and for distribution to our shareholders. In addition, the value of our real estate assets may decline, which may result in non-cash impairment charges in future periods and that impact could be material.

Dispositions:

PREIT

On January 23, 2020, we sold all of our 6,250,000 common shares of PREIT, realizing net proceeds of $28,375,000. We recorded a $4,938,000 loss (mark-to-market decrease) for the three months ended March 31, 2020.

220 CPS

During the three months ended March 31, 2020, we closed on the sale of seven condominium units at 220 CPS for net proceeds aggregating $191,216,000 resulting in a financial statement net gain of $68,589,000 which is included in "net gains on disposition of wholly owned and partially owned assets" on our consolidated statements of income. In connection with these sales, $8,678,000 of income tax expense was recognized on our consolidated statements of income. From inception to March 31, 2020, we closed on the sale of 72 units for aggregate net proceeds of $2,011,348,000.

Financings:

Unsecured Term Loan

On February 28, 2020, we increased our unsecured term loan balance to $800,000,000 (from $750,000,000) by exercising an accordion feature. Pursuant to an existing swap agreement, $750,000,000 of the loan bears interest at a fixed rate of 3.87% through October 2023, and the balance of $50,000,000 floats at a rate of LIBOR plus 1.00% (1.94% as of March 31, 2020). The entire $800,000,000 will float thereafter for the duration of the loan through February 2024.

Leasing Activity For The Three Months Ended March 31, 2020:

311,000 square feet of New York Office space (297,000 square feet at share) at an initial rent of $90.47 per square foot and a weighted average lease term of 6.6 years. The change in the GAAP and cash mark-to-market rent on the 275,000 square feet of second generation space were negative 3.3% and positive 0.8%, respectively. Tenant improvements and leasing commissions were $11.69 per square foot per annum, or 12.9% of initial rent.

15,000 square feet of New York Retail space (13,000 square feet at share) at an initial rent of $416.36 per square foot and a weighted average lease term of 9.7 years. The change in the GAAP and cash mark-to-market rent on the 9,000 square feet of second generation space were positive 126.6% and 104.6%, respectively. Tenant improvements and leasing commissions were $48.18 per square foot per annum, or 11.6% of initial rent.

231,000 square feet at theMART at an initial rent of $47.31 per square foot and a weighted average lease term of 10.3 years. The change in the GAAP and cash mark-to-market rent on the 228,000 square feet of second generation space were positive 2.6% and negative 1.2%, respectively. Tenant improvements and leasing commissions were $4.44 per square foot per annum, or 9.4% of initial rent.

6,000 square feet at 555 California Street (4,000 square feet at share) at an initial rent of $117.00 per square foot and a weighted average lease term of 1.4 years. The change in the GAAP and cash mark-to-market rent on the 4,000 square feet of second generation space were positive 44.5% and 29.7%, respectively. Tenant improvements and leasing commissions were $2.91 per square foot per annum, or 2.5% of initial rent.

Same Store Net Operating Income ("NOI") At Share:

The percentage (decrease) increase in same store NOI at share and same store NOI at share - cash basis of our New York segment, theMART and 555 California Street are summarized below.

Total New York(2) theMART(3) 555 California Street Same store NOI at share % (decrease) increase(1): Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 (2.5 )% (1.9 )% (13.3 )% 5.6 % Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019 (8.2 )% (9.0 )% (8.2 )% 5.1 % Same store NOI at share - cash basis % (decrease) increase(1): Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 (1.5 )% (0.7 )% (11.8 )% 3.7 % Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019 (7.0 )% (7.6 )% (9.0 )% 5.8 %

____________________

(1) See pages 11 through 14 for same store NOI at share and same store NOI at share - cash basis reconciliations. (2) As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have temporarily closed the Hotel Pennsylvania. Excluding the Hotel Pennsylvania, same store NOI at share % decrease: Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 (0.3)% Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019 (2.7)% Excluding the Hotel Pennsylvania, same store NOI at share - cash basis % increase (decrease): Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 0.9% Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019 (1.0)%





(3) The decrease is primarily due to the cancellation of trade shows resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Excluding trade shows, same store NOI at share % increase (decrease): Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 1.1% Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019 (2.8)% Excluding trade shows, same store NOI at share - cash basis % increase (decrease): Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 2.0% Three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019 (4.0)%

NOI At Share:

The elements of our New York and Other NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the three months ended December 31, 2019 are summarized below.

(Amounts in thousands) For the Three Months Ended March 31, December 31,

2019 2020 2019 New York: Office(1) $ 183,205 $ 183,540 $ 183,925 Retail(1) 52,018 88,267 59,728 Residential 6,200 6,045 5,835 Alexander's Inc. ("Alexander's") 10,492 11,322 10,626 Hotel Pennsylvania(2) (9,356 ) (5,816 ) 6,170 Total New York 242,559 283,358 266,284 Other: theMART 21,113 23,523 22,712 555 California Street 15,231 14,501 14,533 Other investments(3) 2,010 16,390 2,037 Total Other 38,354 54,414 39,282 NOI at share $ 280,913 $ 337,772 $ 305,566

____________________

(1) Reflects the transfer of 45.4% of common equity in the properties contributed to the Fifth Avenue and Times Square JV on April 18, 2019. (2) The decrease in NOI at share is primarily due to seasonality of operations and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hotel Pennsylvania was temporarily closed commencing on April 1, 2020 as result of the pandemic. (3) The three months ended March 31, 2019 includes our share of PREIT (accounted for as a marketable security from March 12, 2019 and sold on January 23, 2020) and Urban Edge Properties (sold on March 4, 2019).

NOI At Share - Cash Basis:



The elements of our New York and Other NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the three months ended December 31, 2019 are summarized below.

(Amounts in thousands) For the Three Months Ended March 31, December 31,

2019 2020 2019 New York: Office(1) $ 187,035 $ 184,370 $ 180,762 Retail(1) 49,041 80,936 54,357 Residential 5,859 5,771 5,763 Alexander's 11,094 11,527 10,773 Hotel Pennsylvania(2) (9,364 ) (5,864 ) 6,052 Total New York 243,665 276,740 257,707 Other: theMART 22,705 24,912 24,646 555 California Street 15,435 14,745 14,491 Other investments(3) 2,184 16,194 2,132 Total Other 40,324 55,851 41,269 NOI at share - cash basis $ 283,989 $ 332,591 $ 298,976

____________________

(1) Reflects the transfer of 45.4% of common equity in the properties contributed to the Fifth Avenue and Times Square JV on April 18, 2019. (2) The decrease in NOI at share - cash basis is primarily due to seasonality of operations and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hotel Pennsylvania was temporarily closed commencing on April 1, 2020 as result of the pandemic. (3) The three months ended March 31, 2019 includes our share of PREIT (accounted for as a marketable security from March 12, 2019 and sold on January 23, 2020) and Urban Edge Properties (sold on March 4, 2019).

Penn District - Active Development/Redevelopment Summary as of March 31, 2020



(Amounts in thousands of dollars, except square feet) Property

Rentable

Sq. Ft. Projected Incremental Cash Yield Active Penn District Projects Segment Budget(1) Amount

Expended Remainder to be Expended Stabilization Year Farley (95% interest) New York 844,000 1,030,000 (2) 650,506 379,494 2022 7.4% PENN2 - as expanded(3) New York 1,795,000 750,000 52,911 697,089 2024 8.4% PENN1(4) New York 2,546,000 325,000 95,919 229,081 N/A 13.5%(4)(5) Districtwide Improvements New York N/A 100,000 7,360 92,640 N/A N/A Total Active Penn District Projects 2,205,000 806,696 1,398,304 (6) 8.3%

________________________________

(1) Excluding debt and equity carry. (2) Net of anticipated historic tax credits. (3) PENN2 (including signage) estimated impact on cash basis NOI and FFO of square feet taken out of service:





2020 2021 2022 Square feet out of service at end of year 1,140,000 1,190,000 1,200,000 Year-over-year reduction in Cash Basis NOI(i) (25,000 ) (14,000 )  Year-over-year reduction in FFO(ii) (19,000 )  

________________________________

(i) After capitalization of real estate taxes and operating expenses on space out of service.

(ii) Net of capitalized interest on space out of service under redevelopment.

(4) Property is ground leased through 2098, as fully extended. Fair market value resets occur in 2023, 2048 and 2073. The 13.5% projected return is before the ground rent reset in 2023, which may be material. (5) Achieved as existing leases roll; average remaining lease term 4.9 years. (6) Expected to be funded from 220 CPS net sales proceeds and existing cash.

There can be no assurance that the above projects will be completed, completed on schedule or within budget. In addition, there can be no assurance that the Company will be successful in leasing the properties on the expected schedule or at the assumed rental rates.

Conference Call and Audio Webcast

As previously announced, the Company will host a quarterly earnings conference call and an audio webcast on Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time (ET). The conference call can be accessed by dialing 877-690-9905 (domestic) or 720-405-3394 (international) and indicating to the operator the passcode 5868218. A telephonic replay of the conference call will be available from 2:00 p.m. ET on May 5, 2020 through June 5, 2020. To access the replay, please dial 855- 859-2056 and enter the passcode 5868218. A live webcast of the conference call will be available on the Companys website at www.vno.com and an online playback of the webcast will be available on the website following the conference call.

Contact

Joseph Macnow

(212) 894-7000

Supplemental Financial Information

Further details regarding results of operations, properties and tenants can be accessed at the Companys website www.vno.com . Vornado Realty Trust is a fully - integrated equity real estate investment trust.

Certain statements contained herein may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could materially affect the outcome of our forward-looking statements and our future results and financial condition, see Risk Factors in Part I, Item 1A, of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 and "Item 1A. Risk Factors" in Part II of our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended March 31, 2020. Such factors include, among others, risks associated with the timing of and costs associated with property improvements, financing commitments and general competitive factors. Currently, one of the most significant factors is the ongoing adverse effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, operating performance and the effect it will have on our tenants, the global, national, regional and local economies and financial markets and the real estate market in general. The extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will depend on future developments, including the duration of the pandemic, which are highly uncertain at this time but that impact could be material. Moreover, you are cautioned that the COVID-19 pandemic will heighten many of the risks identified in "Item 1A. Risk Factors" in Part I of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, as well as the risks set forth in "Item 1A. Risk Factors" in Part II of our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended March 31, 2020.





VORNADO REALTY TRUST

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(Amounts in thousands, except unit, share, and per share amounts) As of March 31, 2020 December 31, 2019 ASSETS Real estate, at cost: Land $ 2,589,800 $ 2,591,261 Buildings and improvements 7,946,523 7,953,163 Development costs and construction in progress 1,532,828 1,490,614 Moynihan Train Hall development expenditures 972,199 914,960 Leasehold improvements and equipment 126,910 124,014 Total 13,168,260 13,074,012 Less accumulated depreciation and amortization (3,049,609 ) (3,015,958 ) Real estate, net 10,118,651 10,058,054 Right-of-use assets 378,257 379,546 Cash and cash equivalents 1,586,738 1,515,012 Restricted cash 80,570 92,119 Marketable securities  33,313 Tenant and other receivables 115,795 95,733 Investments in partially owned entities 3,970,791 3,999,165 Real estate fund investments 45,129 222,649 220 Central Park South condominium units ready for sale 393,417 408,918 Receivable arising from the straight-lining of rents 731,807 742,206 Deferred leasing costs, net of accumulated amortization of $188,976 and $196,229 353,467 353,986 Identified intangible assets, net of accumulated amortization of $100,298 and $98,587 29,123 30,965 Other assets 405,914 355,347 $ 18,209,659 $ 18,287,013 LIABILITIES, REDEEMABLE NONCONTROLLING INTERESTS AND EQUITY Mortgages payable, net $ 5,643,707 $ 5,639,897 Senior unsecured notes, net 446,076 445,872 Unsecured term loan, net 795,974 745,840 Unsecured revolving credit facilities 1,075,000 575,000 Lease liabilities 497,531 498,254 Moynihan Train Hall obligation 972,199 914,960 Special dividend/distribution payable  398,292 Accounts payable and accrued expenses 407,598 440,049 Deferred revenue 54,992 59,429 Deferred compensation plan 90,888 103,773 Other liabilities 308,683 265,754 Total liabilities 10,292,648 10,087,120 Commitments and contingencies Redeemable noncontrolling interests: Class A units - 13,748,709 and 13,298,956 units outstanding 619,264 884,380 Series D cumulative redeemable preferred units - 141,401 units outstanding 4,535 4,535 Total redeemable noncontrolling interests 623,799 888,915 Shareholders' equity: Preferred shares of beneficial interest: no par value per share; authorized 110,000,000 shares; issued and outstanding 36,795,540 and 36,795,640 shares 891,211 891,214 Common shares of beneficial interest: $0.04 par value per share; authorized 250,000,000 shares; issued and outstanding 191,115,726 and 190,985,677 shares 7,624 7,618 Additional capital 8,112,523 7,827,697 Earnings less than distributions (2,091,612 ) (1,954,266 ) Accumulated other comprehensive loss (82,719 ) (40,233 ) Total shareholders' equity 6,837,027 6,732,030 Noncontrolling interests in consolidated subsidiaries 456,185 578,948 Total equity 7,293,212 7,310,978 $ 18,209,659 $ 18,287,013





VORNADO REALTY TRUST

OPERATING RESULTS

(Amounts in thousands, except per share amounts) For the Three Months Ended

March 31, 2020 2019 Revenues $ 444,532 $ 534,668 (Loss) income from continuing operations $ (104,503 ) $ 213,181 Loss from discontinued operations  (137 ) Net (loss) income (104,503 ) 213,044 Less net loss (income) attributable to noncontrolling interests in: Consolidated subsidiaries 122,387 (6,820 ) Operating Partnership (390 ) (12,202 ) Net income attributable to Vornado 17,494 194,022 Preferred share dividends (12,531 ) (12,534 ) Net income attributable to common shareholders $ 4,963 $ 181,488 Income per common share - basic: Net income per common share $ 0.03 $ 0.95 Weighted average shares outstanding 191,038 190,689 Income per common share - diluted: Net income per common share $ 0.03 $ 0.95 Weighted average shares outstanding 191,113 190,996 FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions (non-GAAP) $ 130,360 $ 247,684 Per diluted share (non-GAAP) $ 0.68 $ 1.30 FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions, as adjusted (non-GAAP) $ 137,567 $ 149,939 Per diluted share (non-GAAP) $ 0.72 $ 0.79 Weighted average shares used in determining FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions per diluted share 191,143 190,996





VORNADO REALTY TRUST

NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS

The following table reconciles net income attributable to common shareholders to FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions:

(Amounts in thousands, except per share amounts) For the Three Months Ended

March 31, 2020 2019 Reconciliation of our net income attributable to common shareholders to FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions: Net income attributable to common shareholders $ 4,963 $ 181,488 Per diluted share $ 0.03 $ 0.95 FFO adjustments: Depreciation and amortization of real property $ 85,136 $ 108,483 Net gain from sale of UE common shares (sold on March 4, 2019)  (62,395 ) Decrease (increase) in fair value of marketable securities: PREIT (accounted for as a marketable security from March 12, 2019 and sold on January 23, 2020) 4,938 15,649 Lexington (sold on March 1, 2019)  (16,068 ) Other  (42 ) Proportionate share of adjustments to equity in net income of partially owned entities to arrive at FFO: Depreciation and amortization of real property 40,423 24,990 Decrease (increase) in fair value of marketable securities 3,691 (12 ) 134,188 70,605 Noncontrolling interests' share of above adjustments (8,804 ) (4,424 ) FFO adjustments, net $ 125,384 $ 66,181 FFO attributable to common shareholders 130,347 247,669 Convertible preferred share dividends 13 15 FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions $ 130,360 $ 247,684 Per diluted share $ 0.68 $ 1.30 Reconciliation of weighted average shares outstanding: Weighted average common shares outstanding 191,038 190,689 Effect of dilutive securities: Employee stock options and restricted share awards 75 271 Convertible preferred shares 30 36 Denominator for FFO per diluted share 191,143 190,996

FFO is computed in accordance with the definition adopted by the Board of Governors of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT). NAREIT defines FFO as GAAP net income or loss adjusted to exclude net gains from sales of depreciable real estate assets, real estate impairment losses, depreciation and amortization expense from real estate assets and other specified items, including the pro rata share of such adjustments of unconsolidated subsidiaries. FFO and FFO per diluted share are non-GAAP financial measures used by management, investors and analysts to facilitate meaningful comparisons of operating performance between periods and among our peers because it excludes the effect of real estate depreciation and amortization and net gains on sales, which are based on historical costs and implicitly assume that the value of real estate diminishes predictably over time, rather than fluctuating based on existing market conditions. FFO does not represent cash generated from operating activities and is not necessarily indicative of cash available to fund cash requirements and should not be considered as an alternative to net income as a performance measure or cash flow as a liquidity measure. FFO may not be comparable to similarly titled measures employed by other companies. A reconciliation of our net income attributable to common shareholders to FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions is provided above. In addition to FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions, we also disclose FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions, as adjusted. Although this non-GAAP measure clearly differs from NAREITs definition of FFO, we believe it provides a meaningful presentation of operating performance. Reconciliations of FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions to FFO attributable to common shareholders plus assumed conversions, as adjusted are provided on page 2 of this press release.





VORNADO REALTY TRUST

NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS - CONTINUED

Below is a reconciliation of net (loss) income to NOI at share and NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the three months ended December 31, 2019.

For the Three Months Ended (Amounts in thousands) March 31, December 31, 2019 2020 2019 Net (loss) income $ (104,503 ) $ 213,044 $ 160,676 Depreciation and amortization expense 92,793 116,709 92,926 General and administrative expense 52,834 58,020 39,791 Transaction related costs and other 71 149 3,223 Income from partially owned entities (19,103 ) (7,320 ) (22,726 ) Loss from real estate fund investments 183,463 167 90,302 Interest and other investment loss (income), net 5,904 (5,045 ) (5,889 ) Interest and debt expense 58,842 102,463 59,683 Net gains on disposition of wholly owned and partially owned assets (68,589 ) (220,294 ) (203,835 ) Income tax expense 12,813 29,743 22,897 Loss (income) from discontinued operations  137 (55 ) NOI from partially owned entities 81,881 67,402 85,990 NOI attributable to noncontrolling interests in consolidated subsidiaries (15,493 ) (17,403 ) (17,417 ) NOI at share 280,913 337,772 305,566 Non cash adjustments for straight-line rents, amortization of acquired below-market leases, net and other 3,076 (5,181 ) (6,590 ) NOI at share - cash basis $ 283,989 $ 332,591 $ 298,976

NOI at share represents total revenues less operating expenses including our share of partially owned entities. NOI at share - cash basis represents NOI at share adjusted to exclude straight-line rental income and expense, amortization of acquired below and above market leases, net and other non-cash adjustments. We consider NOI at share - cash basis to be the primary non-GAAP financial measure for making decisions and assessing the unlevered performance of our segments as it relates to the total return on assets as opposed to the levered return on equity. As properties are bought and sold based on NOI at share - cash basis, we utilize this measure to make investment decisions as well as to compare the performance of our assets to that of our peers. NOI at share and NOI at share - cash basis should not be considered alternatives to net income or cash flow from operations and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures employed by other companies.

VORNADO REALTY TRUST

NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS - CONTINUED

Below are reconciliations of NOI at share to same store NOI at share for our New York segment, theMART, 555 California Street and other investments for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019.

(Amounts in thousands) Total New York theMART 555 California Street Other NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2020 $ 280,913 $ 242,559 $ 21,113 $ 15,231 $ 2,010 Less NOI at share from: Acquisitions (369 ) (369 )    Development properties (14,266 ) (14,266 )    Other non-same store (income) expense, net (7,791 ) (5,520 ) (422 ) 161 (2,010 ) Same store NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2020 $ 258,487 $ 222,404 $ 20,691 $ 15,392 $  NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2019 $ 337,772 $ 283,358 $ 23,523 $ 14,501 $ 16,390 Less NOI at share from: Change in ownership interests in properties contributed to Fifth Avenue and Times Square JV (30,292 ) (30,292 )    Dispositions (3,399 ) (3,399 )    Development properties (20,593 ) (20,593 )    Other non-same store (income) expense, net (18,378 ) (2,405 ) 339 78 (16,390 ) Same store NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2019 $ 265,110 $ 226,669 $ 23,862 $ 14,579 $  (Decrease) increase in same store NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 $ (6,623 ) $ (4,265 ) $ (3,171 ) $ 813 $  % (decrease) increase in same store NOI at share (2.5 )% (1.9 )% (1) (13.3 )% (2) 5.6 %  %

____________________

(1) As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have temporarily closed the Hotel Pennsylvania. Excluding the Hotel Pennsylvania, same store NOI decreased by 0.3%. (2) The decrease is primarily due to the cancellation of trade shows resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Excluding trade shows, same store NOI at share increased by 1.1%.

Same store NOI at share represents NOI at share from operations which are in service in both the current and prior year reporting periods. Same store NOI at share - cash basis is same store NOI at share adjusted to exclude straight-line rental income and expense, amortization of acquired below and above market leases, net and other non-cash adjustments. We present these non-GAAP measures to (i) facilitate meaningful comparisons of the operational performance of our properties and segments, (ii) make decisions on whether to buy, sell or refinance properties, and (iii) compare the performance of our properties and segments to those of our peers. Same store NOI at share and same store NOI at share - cash basis should not be considered alternatives to net income or cash flow from operations and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures employed by other companies.

VORNADO REALTY TRUST

NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS - CONTINUED

Below are reconciliations of NOI at share - cash basis to same store NOI at share - cash basis for our New York segment, theMART, 555 California Street and other investments for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019.

(Amounts in thousands) Total New York theMART 555 California Street Other NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2020 $ 283,989 $ 243,665 $ 22,705 $ 15,435 $ 2,184 Less NOI at share - cash basis from: Acquisitions (348 ) (348 )    Development properties (18,117 ) (18,117 )    Other non-same store income, net (12,607 ) (9,944 ) (422 ) (57 ) (2,184 ) Same store NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2020 $ 252,917 $ 215,256 $ 22,283 $ 15,378 $  NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2019 $ 332,591 $ 276,740 $ 24,912 $ 14,745 $ 16,194 Less NOI at share - cash basis from: Change in ownership interests in properties contributed to Fifth Avenue and Times Square JV (27,722 ) (27,722 )    Dispositions (3,581 ) (3,581 )    Development properties (24,339 ) (24,339 )    Other non-same store (income) expense, net (20,163 ) (4,386 ) 339 78 (16,194 ) Same store NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2019 $ 256,786 $ 216,712 $ 25,251 $ 14,823 $  (Decrease) increase in same store NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to March 31, 2019 $ (3,869 ) $ (1,456 ) $ (2,968 ) $ 555 $  % (decrease) increase in same store NOI at share - cash basis (1.5 )% (0.7 )% (1) (11.8 )% (2) 3.7 %  %

____________________

(1) As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have temporarily closed the Hotel Pennsylvania. Excluding the Hotel Pennsylvania, same store NOI at share - cash basis increased by 0.9%. (2) The decrease is primarily due to the cancellation of trade shows resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Excluding trade shows, same store NOI at share - cash basis increased by 2.0%.



VORNADO REALTY TRUST

NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS - CONTINUED

Below are reconciliations of NOI at share to same store NOI at share for our New York segment, theMART, 555 California Street and other investments for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019.

(Amounts in thousands) Total New York theMART 555 California Street Other NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2020 $ 280,913 $ 242,559 $ 21,113 $ 15,231 $ 2,010 Less NOI at share from: Acquisitions (364 ) (364 )    Development properties (14,271 ) (14,271 )    Other non-same store (income) expense, net (7,477 ) (5,160 ) (422 ) 115 (2,010 ) Same store NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2020 $ 258,801 $ 222,764 $ 20,691 $ 15,346 $  NOI at share for the three months ended December 31, 2019 $ 305,566 $ 266,284 $ 22,712 $ 14,533 $ 2,037 Less NOI at share from: Acquisitions (118 ) (118 )    Development properties (15,894 ) (15,894 )    Other non-same store (income) expense, net (7,665 ) (5,530 ) (172 ) 74 (2,037 ) Same store NOI at share for the three months ended December 31, 2019 $ 281,889 $ 244,742 $ 22,540 $ 14,607 $  (Decrease) increase in same store NOI at share for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019 $ (23,088 ) $ (21,978 ) $ (1,849 ) $ 739 $  % (decrease) increase in same store NOI at share (8.2 )% (9.0 )% (1) (8.2 )% (2) 5.1 %  %

____________________

(1) As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have temporarily closed the Hotel Pennsylvania. Excluding the Hotel Pennsylvania, same store NOI at share decreased by 2.7%. (2) The decrease is primarily due to the cancellation of trade shows resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Excluding trade shows, same store NOI at share decreased by 2.8%.



VORNADO REALTY TRUST

NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS - CONTINUED

Below are reconciliations of NOI at share - cash basis to same store NOI at share - cash basis for our New York segment, theMART, 555 California Street and other investments for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019.

(Amounts in thousands) Total New York theMART 555 California Street Other NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2020 $ 283,989 $ 243,665 $ 22,705 $ 15,435 $ 2,184 Less NOI at share - cash basis from: Acquisitions (343 ) (343 )    Development properties (18,122 ) (18,122 )    Other non-same store income, net (12,293 ) (9,584 ) (422 ) (103 ) (2,184 ) Same store NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2020 $ 253,231 $ 215,616 $ 22,283 $ 15,332 $  NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended December 31, 2019 $ 298,976 $ 257,707 $ 24,646 $ 14,491 $ 2,132 Less NOI at share - cash basis from: Acquisitions (49 ) (49 )    Development properties (17,310 ) (17,310 )    Other non-same store income, net (9,244 ) (6,940 ) (172 )  (2,132 ) Same store NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended December 31, 2019 $ 272,373 $ 233,408 $ 24,474 $ 14,491 $  (Decrease) increase in same store NOI at share - cash basis for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019 $ (19,142 ) $ (17,792 ) $ (2,191 ) $ 841 $  % (decrease) increase in same store NOI at share - cash basis (7.0 )% (7.6 )% (1) (9.0 )% (2) 5.8 %  %

____________________

(1) As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have temporarily closed the Hotel Pennsylvania. Excluding the Hotel Pennsylvania, same store NOI at share - cash basis decreased by 1.0%. (2) The decrease is primarily due to the cancellation of trade shows resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Excluding trade shows, same store NOI at share - cash basis decreased by 4.0%.




In your case, you might want to avoid doing anything that requires resanding and refinishing. The nail stains you see could be a sign that the floor is already sanded down about as far as it can go before the nails themselves begin to show. And theres the complication about what color to choose for the filler. On a new floor, installers just need to match it to one of the colors in the wood. Youre dealing with both the wood color and the dark stains. If you match the filler to the wood, you could wind up with light-colored plugs at each nail hole, surrounded by a halo of dark wood.
Several commercial airlines in the US including the American Airlines, the Delta Airlines and the United Airlines on Thursday announced that they have made it mandatory for passengers and crew members to wear masks in their flights.

The announcement comes days after three European airlines  Lufthansa Airlines, Swiss Airlines and Austrian Airlines  made masks mandatory for their passengers during their flights.

The Jet Blue and the Frontier Airlines from the US had also made a similar announcement early this week.

The Southwest Airlines, which is the only major airlines left in the US to do so, on Thursday said that an announcement in this regard is coming.

The American Airlines said that starting May 11, it will require all customers travelling to wear a face-covering (or mask) while on board the aircraft.

This new requirement is part of the airline's ongoing commitment to prioritizing customers' and team members' wellbeing in the face of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it said.

Flight attendants would be required to wear masks from May 1. "We ask customers to bring their own masks or face-coverings they're comfortable with when they travel. American is working to procure face masks and hand sanitizer as a supplement," said Kurt Stache, senior vice president of Customer Experience, American Airlines.

Delta said that starting May 4, all customers are required to wear a face mask or appropriate face covering when travelling with it. "We believe this change will give customers and employees some additional comfort when travelling with us," said Bill Lentsch, the Chief Customer Experience Officer of Delta Airlines.

The United Airlines said that it will provide masks to all its passengers. "Our flight attendants are required to wear masks on board and, beginning in early May, we will make face masks available to our customers as well," it said.

A union for flight attendants welcomed the move. "We're happy to see airlines taking action to require masks or face coverings for passengers, crew and other frontline employees," said Sara Nelson, the head of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

Congressman Oeter DeFazio Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Thursday urged the FAA to require masks or other face-coverings for all crew-members and passengers on US flights.

"I further urged him to require airlines to adopt reasonable, sound procedures for ensuring that passengers are spaced at safe distances from one another, given new medical findings regarding the transmissibility of this insidious disease," he said.

"I believe, these measures are not only well within the FAA's jurisdiction, but are also essential to protect frontline airline employees as well as the members of the flying public who still must travel during the pandemic," DeFazio said.
DAKOTA CITY -- Tyson Fresh Meats on Monday postponed the reopening of its Dakota City beef plant as the meatpacker awaited complete results of COVID-19 tests for its workers.

"The health and safety of our team members is our top priority, and we take this responsibility extremely seriously," Tyson said in a statement Monday afternoon. "We continue to work through processing the large amount of testing data for our 4,300 team members, and therefore have decided to temporarily delay the reopening of our Dakota City facility.

"We are notifying team members with report for work instructions based on individuals test results and care and will provide additional updates on our revised re-opening timeline shortly.

The plant, which has been idle since Friday, had been scheduled to restart production Tuesday.

As of Thursday, 669 workers at the plant had tested positive for COVID-19, a source familiar with the situation told The Journal.

Tyson has finished testing all its Dakota City workers for the novel coronavirus, a company spokesperson said. The Nebraska National Guard assisted at the special test site.

Three of the five metro Sioux City residents to die from the virus were Dakota City plant workers.

The Springdale, Arkansas-based company has acknowledged some employees testing positive for the virus, but has repeatedly refused to disclose a number of cases. State and county health officials also have repeatedly side stepped questions about whether the plant is linked to a recent spike in novel coronavirus cases in the metro area.

During a conference call with reporters Monday, Tyson Foods' Dean Banks said the company continues to believe the plant is not a focal point of infection.

"We have not seen evidence of the spread being any different than in the rest of the community," said Banks, who noted the company has been working closely with local and state health officials.

The plant, Tyson's largest beef facility, is easily the metro area's largest employer.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Theo Hayez's family say they have not given up hope of finding the missing backpacker nearly a year after his disappearance.

The Belgian backpacker went missing on May 31 last year after leaving Cheeky Monkey's bar in Byron Bay in northern New South Wales and has never been found.

Theo's family have revealed search efforts for the 19-year-old have continued throughout 2020, including police providing the DNA test results of hair in what they believe is Theo's grey cap, which was found in bushland off Tallows Beach.

They posted a heartfelt message in the Looking for Theo Facebook group giving thanks to the effort to find the backpacker - and gave an insight into the police investigation.

Theo Hayez (pictured with his girlfriend) went missing on May 31 after leaving Cheeky Monkey's bar in Byron Bay in northern NSW

'Since the beginning of the year, we have spoken less publicly about developments,' the post reads.

'Far from us giving up hope or dedication, the main reason is because the ongoing police process means we need to be careful about what we say.

'We think about Theo every minute and would like to share any information that may help to find out what happened to him but we have to be careful that we also give the police the best chance of finding this out.

'It breaks our hearts every day and we hope that they will soon have some clarity for us. The police investigation is ongoing and we are grateful for this but we have been asked not to provide details.

'New searches have taken place and police have provided us with the results from the DNA testing conducted on the two hairs found in the cap.'

The hat was found by a member of the public in the same area where the last 'ping' from Theo's phone was recorded on June 1 around the Cape Byron Lighthouse.

A grey Puma cap was found in bushland at Tallows Beach, with Theo's family confirming the cap belonged to the missing backpacker

A search party trawls through the Tyagarah Nature Reserve looking for Theo in June 2019

Data fro Theo's phone has traced this route as his last known movements before he vanished on the night of May 31 2019

Theo's family have not given up hope on finding him and have launched a new website to broaden their voice to more international audience

Theo's family is certain the hat is his - but DNA testing on the material was inconclusive.

The family have urged anyone with information on the backpacker's disappearance to contact them and police.

They have maintained the though that Theo was not alone on the night he disappeared and believe anyone with new information should come forward.

A new website has been launched to help the family extend their voice to reach a more broad international audience to find any leads to track down Theo.

'It will soon be one year (since his disappearance) and it is still important that you keep talking about Theo,' the post continues.

'We still believe that someone out there could help us to find out what really happened by providing us with some information about that night.'

Parents Laurent Hayez and Vinciane Delforge believe he was not alone on the night of his disappearance

The leading theory in Theo's disappearance is that he fell while trying to climb cliffs near Tallows Beach and his body washed away.

Theo was travelling Australia on a gap year after finishing school in Belgium.

Police began a land, sea and air search when they were alerted to his disappearance by staff at the Wake Up! Hostel in Byron Bay on June 6.

The hostel staff raise the alarm after finding his belongings, including his passport, left there untouched.

Theo's father, Laurent Hayez, flew into Australia that month and made an emotional public appeal to help find his son.

'I promised Theo's little brother that I would bring his brother home. Please, help me keep my promise to him,' he told reporters through tears at Tweed Heads Police Station.

Theo's disappearance made headlines around the world and several volunteer groups formed to search for him.

The case has been referred to the NSW coroner.
China has recorded the lowest number of active confirmed COVID-19 cases since January 23 when authorities enforced full lockdown on the city of Wuhan, officials said.

A spokesman from National Health Commission claimed today that there are only 481 coronavirus patients receiving treatment in mainland China.

The health official also declared that the infection tally of imported cases has declined for three consecutive weeks.

But there is widespread disbelief at Beijing's figures from global leaders who accuse Beijing of covering up the true scale of its outbreak and letting the coronavirus sweep across the world.

Pictured, a medical worker named Cheng Wei takes care of a COVID-19 patient whose nucleic acid test result has turned negative at the Union Hospital affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan on April 24

The city of Wuhan, where the virus was believed to be originated, was driven into a draconian lockdown on January 23, with no one allowed to enter or leave. A man riding a bike passes by the front a makeshift barricade built during the lockdown in Wuhan on April 21

Overall, China has reported 82,880 coronavirus infections and 4,633 deaths. More than 77,000 patients have recovered from the deadly disease, according to official figures.

Mi Feng, a spokesperson from China's National Health Commission, said Monday that the number of active infections in China dropped below 500 for the first time since January 23.

The city of Wuhan, where the virus was believed to be originated, was driven into a draconian lockdown on January 23, with no one allowed to enter or leave.

The tally of imported cases from abroad has also decreased for three weeks in a row, said Mi during a press conference today.

China recorded 92 new confirmed imported cases in the past two weeks, bringing the total number of infections to 1,675.

China recorded 92 new confirmed imported cases in the past two weeks, bringing the total number of infections to 1,675. The photo taken on February 16 shows a doctor looking at a CT image as he checks a COVID-19 patient at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital

The country has enforced a clampdown on inbound travellers from abroad amid fears of a second wave of the outbreak after seeing a spike of imported cases in March and April. A worker in protective suits take the temperature of a traveller in Beijing on April 19

The country has enforced a clampdown on inbound travellers from abroad amid fears of a second wave of the outbreak after seeing a spike of imported cases in March and April.

In late April, the communist government adopted draconian quarantine measures in Harbin of 10 million people, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang in north-eastern China.

The government released a directive to instruct further restrictions on its residents, visitors and inbound traffic.

Before entering any public facilities and residential complexes, people must use a government-approved health app to prove they don't have the virus, have their temperature taken and wear a face mask, the notice says.

Harbin, a city of around 10 million people in north-eastern China's Heilongjiang province, has adopted draconian quarantine measures against the coronavirus. The picture shows a man keeping watch at a checkpoint in the border city of Suifenhe, in Heilongjiang, on April 21

The country also closed all entry and exit points on its 4,296-kilometre (2,670-mile) land border with Russia to stop the spread of the bug.

Russia has become China's largest source of imported cases, according to state media. Most of the patients are Chinese citizens doing business in the neighbouring country.

There are currently 402 active coronavirus patients from abroad, according to the health official today. Zero deaths were reported from China's imported cases and 1,273 of such patients have been discharged from hospitals.

But China's daily coronavirus figures have been much disputed as the officials are accused by world leaders of lying about the outbreak to avoid embarrassment.

The accusations come as sources claim that Ministers were told 'not to believe Beijing's claims' and to pour cold water on all information coming out of China.

Britain's intelligence agencies knew what was 'really happening' from the beginning and had made London 'fully aware', according to The Daily Telegraph.

It is likely that Boris Johnson received intelligence briefings on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei, before ordering the lockdown (pictured, January 24, 2020)

President Donald Trump suggested that the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe is the result of a 'horrible mistake' made by China

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump last night pinned the global coronavirus outbreak squarely upon China, which he accused of a state cover-up after making a 'horrible mistake'.

The president continued to point the finger at Beijing and fuelled growing suggestions that COVID-19 spread from a Wuhan laboratory before snowballing into a worldwide pandemic.

His fiery remarks at Sunday's Fox News virtual town hall meeting at Washington's Lincoln Memorial came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was a 'significant amount of evidence' the disease had escaped.

Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the global community.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump last night pinned the global coronavirus outbreak squarely upon China, which he accused of a state cover-up after making a 'horrible mistake'. FILE: Workers are seen inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan on February 23, 2017

'Well, I don't think there's any question about it. We wanted to go in, they didn't want us to go in. Things are coming out that are pretty compelling. I don't think there's any question,' the president said Sunday.

'Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn't want to admit it,' he added.

His comments came as a Department of Homeland Security report shared on Sunday revealed US officials believe China 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic in early January and hoarded medical supplies.

The four-page report dated May 1 that was obtained by the Associated Press notes that China downplayed the virus publicly but increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.




In the days following the birth of her daughter, River, on April 10, Stevie Browne says she struggled physically and mentally.

Discharged from hospital the day after the birth, the first-time mother from Mudgee was having difficulty breastfeeding her baby and needed help. However, social distancing measures introduced to stall the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic meant midwives and community health nurses were not making the home visits that new mothers usually receive after birth.

New mothers are missing out on vital connection as a result of social distancing. Credit:iStock

In desperation, an exhausted Browne returned to the maternity ward to ask for advice. There, the midwife explained that she was experiencing engorgement, a common issue during the early days of breastfeeding. The next day, five days postpartum, a community health nurse contacted Browne for the first time to organise a visit that afternoon. It was an opportunity for Browne to ask some of the many questions she had about her new baby. She wanted to know if it was normal for a baby to be up all night crying, even after a nappy change and a feed.

I dont know whether shes in pain, I dont know anything  Im not familiar with the cues, Browne says. And I dont know anyone else who has a newborn to compare.
" " Americans love their ice cream so much that the average American eats more than 23 pounds (10 kilograms) of the stuff every year! Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images

Ice cream is arguably the best offering in the frozen aisle, but it's so much more than a chilly dessert. It's an experience. A bite of nostalgia. A spark for the senses. That's why the average American consumes more than 23 pounds (10 kilograms) of ice cream every year, according to the International Dairy Foods Association.

That's also why craft ice cream enthusiast and founder of Ohio-based Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, Jeni Britton Bauer, launched her now-national brand in the first place. (Of course that booming $11 billion ice cream industry didn't hurt.)

"It's like poetry to me," Britton Bauer says in an email. "Ice cream is all about scent. You can tell stories and transport people. Higher butterfat ice creams hold and carry more scent. The flavor blooms and builds as you eat it."

While ice cream has been around for centuries  Alexander the Great liked his snow and ice with honey and nectar while Nero Claudius Caesar seasoned his mountain snow with fruits, according to the IDFA  it's not the only frozen indulgence on the menu. Similar options like gelato, frozen custard and frozen yogurt also vie for every sugar-lover's attention. But can they come close to the deliciousness that is real ice cream? We talked with frozen dessert experts Jeni Britton Bauer and Bob Graeter of artisanal ice cream brand Graeter's to find out.

Advertisement

We All Scream for Ice Cream

America had its first accounted taste of ice cream in the 1740s, according to a letter dated 1744. The dessert went on to impress some of the most recognized figures in American history, including George Washington, who purchased $200 worth of ice cream in 1790, according to IDFA. Ice cream rose in popularity and accessibility as technologies evolved. But as the base of ice cream fans grew, so did the number of phonies. That's why the government standardized the dessert as part 135.110 in the Food and Drug Administration's Code of Federal Regulations, which includes stipulations on ingredients, production and composition.

"There were a lot of people making things that weren't really ice cream that they called ice cream, so the government defined it," says Bob Graeter, whose 150-year-old ice cream brand has built a cultlike following across the Midwest. "If somebody is selling ice cream, it has to meet this minimum standard. You can be better, but you can't be any less than that."

The core ingredients for ice cream are milk, cream, sugar and air. Yes, air. This fourth ingredient can make up between 30 and 50 percent of the ice cream's volume, according to the American Chemical Society. Overrun, the measurement of air volume compared to initial base volume, must be less than 100 percent. Premium ice creams typically have 50 percent overrun or less. The higher quality the ice cream, the less air it will have  so look for weight as a quality indicator for your next ice cream fix.

Ice cream is thick and creamy for a reason: It typically runs around 14 to 25 percent butterfat, according to The Food Network. (Gelato, for comparison, has 4 to 9 percent.) This composition "carries more scent to your nose ... and is more conducive to holding other ingredients like pastries and swirls," Britton Bauer says.

Advertisement

That Gelato's Delizioso

While ice cream is standardized by the U.S. government, gelato, which has no standardization, is like the wild, wild west. "Frozen vegetable oil and flavorings could technically pass as gelato in America," Britton Bauer says.

Of course, real gelato  the kind with milk, cream and sugar  is just as artisanal as ice cream. This dessert also has a deep history. According to Italy Magazine, slave runners traveled more than 60 miles (97 kilometers) to gather ice and snow for cooling banquet drinks. The gelato we know and love today began in the Renaissance, when an alchemist presented the sugary treat to the court of Florence's Medici Family. It's been a staple of Italian culture  and, slowly, worldwide dessert menus  ever since.

Production and freshness are two main points of distinction for this Italian dessert. "Typically it's made fresh, served fresh, it's lower in fat and high in solids. It's made in the back of the shops and merchandised out of case," Graeter says. "There are things packaged like ice cream that they call gelato because that's what they want to market it as, but there's not any standard of identity [like ice cream]."

Body is another differentiator between gelato and other frozen desserts. "The biggest difference is body," Britton Bauer says. "Most of the time, gelato is pasteurized but not homogenized. Homogenization gives body to ice cream."

" " Gelato is typically lower in fat and higher in solids than other frozen desserts. Graeter's

Advertisement

Tart and Tangy FroYo!

True to its name, frozen yogurt often has the same live cultures (Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilis) as regular, refrigerated yogurt. While it's often marketed as a healthier alternative to ice cream or other frozen desserts, this largely depends on which flavor you pick, and how you dress it. According to Shape, one 16-ounce (453-gram) cup of original frozen yogurt can weigh in at 380 calories and 76 grams of sugar  and that's before you add any toppings.

While yogurt has been around for thousands of years, it didn't enter the dessert category until 1970, when entrepreneur H.P. Hood introduced "frogurt" soft-serve, according to Frozen Dessert Supplies. Capitalizing on consumers' desire for healthy foods, companies like TCBY took frozen yogurt mainstream in the 1980s. Similar to fashion fads, the froyo trend rises and falls in a 30-year cycle, Graeter says.

"Frozen yogurt is the dessert that refuses to die," he explains. "In the late '90s and early 2000s, yogurt shops were all over the place. Now, they're going away. That happens about every 30 years. Every generation discovers it then goes back to ice cream."

Flavor-wise, frozen yogurt does have its perks. Tartness makes it one of the best dessert options for frozen berries and fruit flavors, Graeter says. He also notes the froyo style is not stipulated under the Code of Federal Regulations.

" " Frozen yogurt has a distinctive tangy taste that pairs perfectly with fruit toppings. Or Hiltch/Getty Images

Advertisement

It's All About the Eggs in Custard

Frozen custard is similar to ice cream in ingredients and flavors, but according to the Code of Federal Regulations part 135.110(f), the correct nomenclature is ice cream unless it includes more than 1.4 percent egg yolk. If it has more, it's frozen custard.

"Frozen custard can be chewier because of the addition of egg yolks," Britton Bauer says. "Eggs play a role in the flavor as well." This thick, creamy and eggy dessert pairs well with flavors and add-ins like caramel, chocolates, cookie dough and peanut butter. According to Scooter's, a custard shop in Chicago, frozen custard often has a lower overrun percentage than ice cream.

While Wisconsin considers itself the custard capital, this frozen dessert actually made its first commercial debut in Coney Island, New York. Here, the Kohr brothers introduced the world to frozen custard, marketed as a creamier, slower-to-melt ice cream alternative, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. But custard hardly caught on in New York like it did in the Midwest. Many regard the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago as the catalyst for frozen custard, although the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Wisconsin's custard industry was already well established before that.

Either way, reports show Milwaukee now has the highest concentration of custard shops in not just America, but the world.

NOW THAT'S INTERESTING Ice cream is delicious anywhere, but for the ultimate experience, you'll have to leave Earth's atmosphere. According to the Smithsonian, the space station's stable temperature and microgravity make it the perfect environment for a mess-free scoop.

Advertisement

Originally Published: May 18, 2010
Sharing the spotlight among 16 restaurants coast to coast, San Antonios Jamaican walkup joint The Jerk Shack has earned a place on GQ magazines list of Best New Restaurants.

New might be a generous application here, but its an honor nonetheless for The Jerk Shack, which opened in 2018, earning praise from the Express-News for its jerk chicken, braised oxtails and off-the-charts chicken wings and securing a place in the Express-News Top 100 Dining & Drinks guide. The restaurant also made Esquire magazines list of best new restaurants in 2019.
A coronavirus contact-tracing app will be trialled on the Isle of Wight this week. (Getty Images)

The brains behind the coronavirus contact-tracing app have stressed privacy is at the heart of its development.

The free app, which will be trialled on the Isle of Wight this week, uses Bluetooth to track when users come into contact with each other.

If a user logs the tell-tale fever or cough, the app could trigger an anonymous alert to others who have been close to the patient, enabling them to self-isolate or seek testing.

The app aims to limit the risk of a second peak in coronavirus infections and could even help ease the UK out of lockdown.

Critics have raised concerns, however, about the government and third parties potentially having access to users personal data.

Early research suggests the coronavirus is mild in four out of five cases, however, it can trigger a respiratory disease called COVID-19.

People wear masks while walking in a park in Paris. (Getty Images)

Contact tracing will become part of our daily lives

Experts have reassured privacy is not a concern with the contact-tracing app.

The app is designed so you dont have to give your personal details, just the first half of your postcode, said Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX.

It doesnt know who you are, who youve been near.

It assigns random identifiers to its users.

Your Bluetooth remembers the random identifiers of those who youve been near who also have the app.

Latest coronavirus news, updates and advice

Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the world

Fact-checker: The number of COVID-19 cases in your local area

Explained: Symptoms, latest advice and how it compares to the flu

Experts have stressed the potential of the app in helping to keep the virus basic reproduction number, or its R, below one.

The R is the number of people a patient statistically goes on to infect.

For example, if the number is three, every patient is expected to pass the virus to three others.

If the basic reproduction number is less than one, the outbreak dies out.

Were confident the R is significantly below one, said Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England.

Story continues

We want to keep it below one as we try and ease social distancing.

Its very likely we will have to live with this virus to a greater or lesser extent until we find an effective vaccine.

Contact tracing will become part of our daily lives.

Despite the apps potential, experts have stressed downloading it is voluntary.

You choose to download it and upload data, said Gould. You can choose to delete it.

It is unclear when the app may be rolled out in the rest of the UK.

Gould also stressed the apps manufacturers have been as transparent as they can.

We will open the code of the app, we will publish a privacy notice and security model, he said.

Professor Sir Jonathan Montgomery, chair of the ethics advisory board for the app, added: The apps code and underlying algorithms will be made public.

A man cycles while wearing a mask in Norena, Spain. (Getty Images)

App is not a panacea

Transport secretary Grant Shapps told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show all Britons will be asked to download the app to assist the automation of the tracking.

Epidemiologists advising the NHS claimed around 56% of the UK population, or 80% of smartphone owners, must use the technology to suppress the coronavirus.

During a Science Media Centre briefing, experts were reluctant to put a figure on the downloads required.

We need a significant proportion of the population [to download the app] to give us an additional oomph in the contact-tracing space, said Professor Van-Tam.

Gould added, however, the technology is not a silver bullet standalone solution.

Its part of a wider [contact tracing] strategy alongside the expansion of testing, he said.

Critics have claimed the app-approach assumes everyone has a smartphone.

Professor John Newton, national coordinator of the UK coronavirus testing programme, argued: Its part of the package [of contact tracing], its not a panacea.

The government has also promised to recruit 18,000 people to do manual contact tracing.

When it comes to the apps success, however, experts have stressed it depends on the level of uptake.

If people want to carry on saving lives, protecting the NHS and get the country back on its feet, downloading the app is one way they can do that, said Gould.

Professor Van-Tam added: The market research weve done suggests people will engage with something that protects the NHS.

Gould stressed, however, even if downloads are not very high, the app could still be fantastically valuable.

There isnt a minimum [level of downloads] above which the app becomes effective, he said.

The more we use the app, the more insight it gives us.

It is useful even at low levels but as levels climb, it gets more and more useful.

In order to achieve this climb, the team are acutely conscious we need to win the confidence of the public.

We have privacy at the heart of the app, said Gould.

We can say to the public, You can really help by downloading the app and youre not compromising your privacy by doing it.

When asked about the risk of hacking, Professor Montgomery said: If you get into the database, you will not find any identifiable information about the users.

Speaking at the briefing, the experts also stressed the app is subject to change.

When we launch it wont be perfect, it will definitely evolve, said Gould.

As our understanding of the virus changes, so will the app.

Some have criticised the decision to make the app centralised.

This means data will reside on a centrally-owned database controlled by a company. This is compared to a decentralised approach where data is stored on a shared database in many locations controlled by no single entity.

The experts argued the centralised approach will allow them to better understand the coronavirus via machine learning.

The apps Bluetooth technology helps us understand proximity, said Professor Van-Tam.

We can learn if 30 minutes of exposure at close quarters to a case on day one of their symptoms is equivalent to two hours exposure 1.5 days before symptoms began, or three days after symptoms began when virus load is starting to decline.

Gould added a centralised app will also allow the team to better identify hot spots of infection.

Another advantage is we can see anonymous patterns if someone is trying to use this [app] for malign intent, he said.

Other experts have largely welcomed the app, but also voiced concerns.

The contact-tracing app could constitute the way out of the lockdown because of its potential to collect real time big health data about individuals current health condition, said Dr Dimitra Petrakaki from the University of Sussex Business School.

This is information that is difficult, if not impossible, to collect otherwise.

Dr Petrakaki added, however, the app assumes people will accurately report their symptoms.

A florist wears a mask in Patras, Greece. (Getty Images)

What is the coronavirus?

The coronavirus is one of seven strains of a virus class that are known to infect humans.

Others cause everything from the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which killed 774 people during its 2002/3 outbreak.

Since the outbreak was identified, more than 3.5 million cases have been confirmed worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Of these cases, over 1.1 million are known to have recovered.

Globally, the death toll has exceeded 248,100.

The coronavirus mainly spreads face to face via infected droplets expelled in a cough or sneeze.

There is also evidence it is transmitted in faeces and survives on surfaces.

The coronavirus has no set treatment, with most patients naturally fighting off the infection.

Those requiring hospitalisation are given supportive care, like ventilation, while their immune system gets to work.

Officials have urged people to ward off infection by washing their hands regularly and maintaining social distancing.
Proving 'where there is a will, there's a way', celebrity chef Vikas Khanna has been extending help to those in need during the time of crisis and feeding people by organising rations for old age homes and orphanages in India.

What's inspiring is that he has been doing all this while he is himself in New York.

Sharing how the journey of helping people began, Vikas Khanna told Bombay Times, he was duped at his first attempt.

"I came across a family in Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh), who had no ration. I promised them that before Iftar, I will make food available to them. However, I failed miserably. Later, someone approached me with a picture on my phone saying that a particular old age home was in need of money. After I transferred money to the needy, I came to know that I got duped," he was quoted as saying by TOI.



A correction.

2.47 Million Dry Ration Meal are 165 Quintals.

Lets make it happen.

 https://t.co/w9Xx0i1Xyf  Vikas Khanna (@TheVikasKhanna) May 4, 2020

This incident made him realise that he needs to help those in need, and so taking the responsibility on his shoulders, he catered to the NGOs and other people who approached him. He made some calls and connected with people in India to procure and send rations to remote villages.



This morning I got a call from New York. An unexpected benefactor. @ChefVikasKhanna heard about us from @ssghosal and organised 100 kilos of rice. Weekly rations for many families in Sonarpur.



Thank you much. Many will be blessing you. pic.twitter.com/NdGcEXzFCl  WeCareInitiative (@WeCareinitiativ) April 29, 2020

"I am personally buying stuff and with the help of National Disaster Response Force the food is being distributed at various cities and remote areas," he said.

Thankful to @NDRFHQ @satyaprad1 for the Heroes of National Disaster Response Force appreciate the exemplary work & support done by dearest @TheVikasKhanna Kudos! you have stood rock solid for the needy during troubled times pic.twitter.com/1wRahXi7Ol  Asif Bhamla (@Asifbhamlaa) May 4, 2020

For the unversed, Vikas had previously donated 1000 PPE kits the Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, built in the memory of Lata Mangeshkar's late father. Mangeshkar had expressed her gratitude to Khanna on Twitter.

Namaskaar,

Michelin Star Chef Shri @TheVikasKhanna ji ne hamare Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital ko 1000 PPE KITS donate kiye hai. Hum sab Mangeshkar aur hamara Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital pariwar unke aabhari hain.  Lata Mangeshkar (@mangeshkarlata) April 27, 2020

Dear All.

We are equipping ourselves with Dry Ration Distributions for BIHAR right now.

Ive added NGOS who r feeding souls suggested by you 

Pls chk ur neighbourhood Orphanages and Old-Age Homes if they need any rations. info@vkhanna.com@NDRFHQ @Sanjay97odisha @satyaprad1 pic.twitter.com/cE5nCB8b3d  Vikas Khanna (@TheVikasKhanna) May 4, 2020

While the situation in the US is getting worse day by day, Vikas Khanna is aiming to keep himself positive. He says he has lost a lot of people.

Ive lost about 100 of my friends in New York to the pandemic, including my closest aunt and my first contact in the US."







Please call-check with local old-age homes, orphanages or hospitals in your city if they need dry rations.

We are creating a supply chain to help them as much as we can. 

Forward info to info@vkhanna.com  Vikas Khanna (@TheVikasKhanna) April 23, 2020

Its difficult to stay positive in such times but Vikas Khanna has been doing what he thinks he should do.
The leave to appeal to the Supreme Court is on a point of law of general public importance, which according to experts is a very high threshold that is not often met.

Vijay Mallya on Monday filed an application seeking leave to appeal in the UK Supreme Court, exactly two weeks after the embattled liquor baron lost his London High Court appeal against an extradition order to India on charges of fraud and money laundering related to unrecovered loans to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The 64-year-old businessman had 14 days to file this application to seek permission to move the higher court on the High Court judgment from April 20, which dismissed his appeal against a Westminster Magistrates' Court extradition order certified by the UK Home Secretary.

"The leave to appeal has been filed. We have until May 14 to respond, said a spokesperson for the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which represents the Indian authorities in the legal process of the extradition.

The leave to appeal to the Supreme Court is on a point of law of general public importance, which according to experts is a very high threshold that is not often met.

"The high court effectively ruled that even if the approach of the Chief Magistrate was wrong, her decision was not wrong.

It is therefore clear that Mallya now faces a significant hurdle in getting it to the Supreme Court, notes Toby Cadman, co-founder of Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers and an extradition specialist.

As a further step, in principle, Mallya can also apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to prevent his extradition on the basis that he will not receive a fair trial and that he will be detained in conditions that breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory.

The threshold for an ECHR appeal is also extremely high, with very limited chance of success in Mallya's case because he would also have to demonstrate that his arguments on those grounds before the UK courts have been previously rejected.

Therefore, the dismissal of the high court appeal last month marked a major turning point for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) case against the businessman, who has been on bail in the UK since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April 2017.

"We have held there is a prima facie case both of misrepresentation and of conspiracy, and thus there is also a prima facie case of money laundering, Lord Justice Stephen Irwin and Justice Elisabeth Laing, the two-member bench at the Royal Courts of Justice in London presiding over the appeal, had ruled last month.

Mallya had expressed his disappointment at the ruling and indicated plans for further legal remedies and also challenged the alleged Rs 9,000 crore figure of the unpaid loans to India's state-owned banks led by State Bank of India (CBI).

I am disappointed with the media narrative which states that I must face trial in India for a fraud of Rs 9,000 crore.

Please note that the allegations against me and others are specifically and only related to three tranches of borrowing from IDBI Bank for a total of Rs 900 crore in 2009, he said.

I have repeatedly offered to repay the banks in full, but sadly to no avail, he said.

Mallya, declared a fugitive by India, has been based in the UK since March 2016 and remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard on April 18, 2017.

The high court verdict upheld the 2018 ruling by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the end of a year-long extradition trial in December 2018 that the flashy former Kingfisher Airlines boss had a case to answer in the Indian courts.

She found there was clear evidence of dispersal and misapplication of the loan funds and accepted a prima facie case of fraud and a conspiracy to launder money against Mallya, which has now also been accepted by the high court.

The Chief Magistrate had also dismissed any bars to extradition on the grounds of the prison conditions under which the businessman would be held, as she accepted the Indian government's assurances that he would receive all necessary medical care behind bars at Barrack 12 in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai.

India and the UK have an Extradition Treaty signed in 1992 and in force since November 1993.

Two major extraditions have taken place under this Treaty so far  Samirbhai Vinubhai Patel, who was sent back to India in 2016 to face trial in connection with his involvement in the post-Godhra riots of 2002, and more recently alleged bookie Sanjeev Chawla, sent back in February this year to face match-fixing charges.

Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters
Iran is operating an airlift to Venezuela By Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall

An Airbus A340 of Irans Mahan Air landed on April 26 at Las Piedras Airport, which is in Punto Fijo in the Venezuelan state of Falcon. The local media reported that this was the third flight in a week (the previous ones occurred on April 22-23, some via China). This may be connected to an agreement that was signed between President Maduro and Iran. Despite the sweeping prohibition on flights declared by Maduro, the Iranian airlift to Venezuela is expected to continue, with 20 flights slated. Mahan inaugurated the flights to Venezuela about a year ago. A Russian plane also landed there despite the restrictions related to the coronavirus. Venezuelas deputy minister for refineries and petrochemicals said Iran had transferred technical equipment and materials to the Cardon refinery, which is near the airport, with the aim of reactivating it. Some Iranian technicians are also supposed to be flown in. With the collapse of its refineries, Venezuela is suffering a severe fuel shortage, and a rehabilitation of the Cardon refinery, which can refine about 300,000 barrels of oil per day, can help it somewhat alleviate the countrys ongoing energy crisis after years of neglect and U.S. sanctions. Opposition leader Juan Guaido warned of the resumption of the Mahan flights; the airline is under U.S. sanctions because of its ties to drug cartels. Mahan serves the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps by transferring weapons to the Houthis in Yemen and Syria, and also in ferrying IRGC personnel and foreign fighters between Irans Middle Eastern theaters of activity (Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon). Guaido says Iran is one of the main epicenters of the coronavirus and implies that the flights to Venezuela endanger its citizens. He claims these flights are perceived as carrying medical crews. Venezuela and Iran, both of which are under U.S. maximal sanctions, continue to maintain a kind of strategic alliance amid this ongoing pressure and keep defying the United States. After Venezuelas outrageous 2018 elections, in which the opposition candidates were prevented from running, the United States formed an anti-Maduro coalition of 60 countries. Iran regards its activity and presence in Venezuela  Americas backyard  as a key anchor for its endeavors in Central America. Iran is trying to create symmetry in its conflict with the United States, and it views its defiant presence facing U.S. shores as a response to the U.S. activity in the Persian Gulf and the U.S. military and diplomatic presence in the Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates). With the election of former Iranian President Ahmadinejad in 2005, his visits to Venezuela, and his good relations with Hugo Chavez (who died in 2013), Iran and Venezuela enhanced their ties. As they saw it, they were cooperating in fighting North American imperialism. Chavez visited Iran in 2010.

Hispan TV: an Iranian anti-American propaganda channel in Spanish Alongside its economic activity and covert military presence in Venezuela, Iran is using Hispan TV to bolster its influence in Venezuela and in South America generally. Despite its different culture and religion, Iran is using propaganda in Spanish to disseminate anti-American themes that portray the United States in a negative and anti-Western light. The broadcasts present Iran as manning the front line against the global arrogance (the United States) and the harm it wreaks in the South American countries. Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, all of which are under the criminal and terrorist U.S. sanctions, are described as standing firm against the United States depredations. The station also offers films that present Maduro in a positive light and the United States as trying to topple him because of his opposition to its policy. The Iranian flights to Venezuela will likely further exacerbate the mounting U.S.-Iranian tensions against the backdrop of the continuing sanctions, the tensions in the Gulf amid several recent incidents, and the attempts to form a government in Iraq. IDF Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael (Mickey) Segall, an expert on strategic issues with a focus on Iran, terrorism, and the Middle East, is a senior analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and at Acumen Risk Advisors. Home
Hunger is gnawing at the poorest in America and meat supplies have dropped to historic lows amid fears that the re-opening of plants won't help.

One Baltimore family said they have hung a red towel over the door of their apartment 'to show the angel of death to pass over our home.'

Honduran immigrants Janeth and her husband Roberto lost their restaurant jobs at the start of lockdown and have little means to provide food for their young family.

It comes as cattle slaughter dropped 37 percent last week compared to a year ago, while pig slaughter was down 35 percent. These figures compare to the shutdown of around 25 percent of meat plants, belying the scale of the shrinking industry.

Janeth, center, brings a bag of food to her sister Arely, as Janeth's daughter Allison, 5, plays, Tuesday, April 14, 2020, in Baltimore. With both of her parents out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic the family looks each day for donated food to share. Most days it is a question of whether to pay for food or bills with the dwindling funds they have remaining. Job loss, ineligibility for federal programs, language barriers, unfamiliarity with the charity network, and a lack of access to technology can keep some immigrants from accessing available food aid

After cooking their one meal for the day of beans, egg, and handmade tortillas, Janeth worries while standing in her kitchen, Wednesday, April 15, 2020, in Washington. 'Where can we get enough food? How can we pay our bills? We have never had to ask for help before,' says Janeth, with tears winding their way down her cheeks

And despite President Donald Trump's executive order to reopen the facilities, social-distancing and quarantine measures are likely to prevent traction.

At night, it's the worry over food that keeps Janeth's mind racing, and her heart, she says, hurting. 'I spend hours thinking, thinking, about what we will do the next day, where we will find food the next day,' she says weeks into the coronavirus outbreak, her familys food and cash both dwindling.

Janeth and her husband, Roberto, are part of the greatest surge in unemployment in the U.S. since the Depression, setting off a wave of hunger that is swamping food programs nationwide. The couple and every adult member of their extended family in the U.S. have lost their jobs in the economic lockdown prompted by the pandemic.

They are among the tens of millions in America - more than 1 out of every 6 workers - abruptly cut off from paychecks.

The Associated Press is withholding the couples full names because they are in the country illegally and could face deportation. Their immigration status, their problems with English and scanty access to the Internet all combine to block them from accessing the U.S. government benefit programs that millions more newly jobless citizens are able to turn to during the outbreak.

Cattle slaughter dropped 37 percent last week compared to a year ago, while pig slaughter was down 35 percent. These figures compare to the shutdown of around 25 percent at meat plants, belying the scale of the shrinking industry

From left, Roberto, holding Henry the family dog, Janeth, and their daughter Allison, 5, pose for a portrait with Janeth's sister Arely, and her children Roberto, 5, Dora, 11, and Sirus, 14, outside Arely's rented apartment in Baltimore

Before the pandemic, food policy experts say, roughly one out of every eight or nine Americans struggled to stay fed. Now as many as one out of every four are projected to join the ranks of the hungry, said Giridhar Mallya, senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for public health.

Immigrants, African Americans, Native Americans, households with young children and newly jobless gig workers are among those most at risk, said Joelle Johnson, senior policy associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

'Theyre more vulnerable to begin with and this situation has just exacerbated that situation,' she said.

When the global economy clamped down, Roberto, a cook in his mid-30s, and Janeth, who keeps water glasses filled at another restaurant and is in her mid-40s, spent $450 out of their final paychecks to stock up. Weeks later, their diminished cache includes two half-full five-pound bags of rice, an assortment of ramen noodles, a half-eaten bag of pasta, two boxes of cornbread mix, four boxes of raisins and cans of beans, pineapple, tuna, corn and soup.

Allison, 5, walks past a sign advertising carryout pizza, as her parents carry bags of donated food from the food bank, Martha's Table, Tuesday, April 21, 2020, in Washington. With both parents out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic, and ineligible for government assistance, the extended family will look each day for donated food to share. Most days it is a question of whether to pay for food or bills with the dwindling funds they have remaining. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Allison, 5, holds two bananas next to her mother Janeth, left, as a volunteer at the food bank Martha's Table waits to help the next guest, Tuesday, April 21, 2020, in Washington. Allison hopefully asked the volunteers for cereal but there was none available at the food bank that day, and she was handed a pair of bananas instead. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Allison, 5, wears a painter's mask to protect her against the coronavirus, Tuesday, April 21, 2020, after her parents visited a food bank in Washington. With both parents out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic, they look each day for donated food to share with their extended family. Most days it is a question of whether to pay for food or bills with the dwindling funds they have remaining. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

'Cookies?' Roberto and Janeths 5-year-old, gap-toothed daughter Allison still asks them, always getting a gentle 'no' back. 'Ice cream?'

Janeth and Roberto have cut down to one meal a day themselves, skipping meals to keep their daughter fed.

On a good day recently, after Roberto landed four hours of work preparing take-home meals for a grocery store, they had enough for what constitutes a feast these days - a can of refried beans split three ways and two eggs each, scrambled. Janeth also made tortillas from their last half-bag of masa flour.

Janeth placed aluminum foil over two of the plates; she and Roberto would eat later. Tears sprang from her eyes as she watched her daughter wolf down the meal.

'Where can we get enough food? How can we pay our bills?' she asked. Then she repeated something she and her husband emphasized again and again over the course of several days: They are hard-working people.

'We have never had to ask for help before,' she said.

Janeth and Roberto also have three adult children and, as the oldest of three sisters here, she and Roberto are trying to keep a half-dozen households in the United States and Honduras fed.

By day, they race in their second-hand pickup truck from food pantries and churches to relatives houses. They chase tips about food giveaways or temporary jobs. They share their painstakingly acquired cartons of food with her two sisters, who themselves have a total of five young children to feed, and call their grown children with leads on food lines.

And they fight off despair. 'We dont have help. We dont know how it will end,' Janeth said.

On a recent day, Janet and Robertos breakfast is coffee and a few crackers. Allison eats cereal, a favorite provided by a food bank.

Janeth is handed a bag of donated food from a Methodist church, Tuesday, April 21, 2020, in Washington. She was pleased that the bag contained a bit of chicken and rice to cook. When she went home she cooked the chicken immediately. Most food giveaways have been of fresh produce, which they are grateful for, but doesn't keep them full for long. The couple finds most food banks by word of mouth, or driving and looking for lines of people. Language barriers, unfamiliarity with the charity network, and a lack of access to technology can keep some immigrants from accessing food aid. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

In a chilly wind, Allison, 5, leans into her mother Janeth, as her father Roberto stands in line to receive a bag of donated food at a Methodist church, Tuesday, April 21, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus, Roberto, left, and Janeth, right, sit for a portrait with their daughter Allison, 5, and dog Henry, Tuesday, April 21, 2020, outside their rented basement apartment in Washington. The family has placed a red towel in their doorway hoping that the 'angel of death will pass over our home,' says Janeth

Soon after, Roberto and Allison, who is sporting pink sparkly sneakers, are among the first in line outside a DC food pantry. In line with them: a young African American man newly unemployed and seeking aid for the first time and two foreign-born nannies with their clients children in tow. The women now are only intermittently used - and paid - by their employers and need help feeding their own children at home.

Roberto is happy to leave with a bag of bananas, some spaghetti, tomato sauce and other staples.

Another day, Roberto and Allison stay inside the truck while Janeth heads out in a cold drizzle to approach a church said to be providing food. She struggles to read the sign in English posted on the door, then calls the numbers listed. No one answers.

Later, loading their pickup truck to take food to Janeths sisters, husband and wife dip into the pockets of their jeans to display the cash they have left - $110 total.

That's gas money. Without that, living on the outskirts of town, theres no getting to food banks, to one-day cash jobs, to stranded relatives facing eviction and hoping for food.

On the drive to Janeths sisters in Baltimore, Janeth hands Allison a small container of applesauce. The girl savors each taste, dipping in her finger, licking every last bit. 'More?' she asks hopefully, tilting the container toward her mother.

Janeth answers regretfully, tenderly. No more.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit people in different ways with many having to adapt and postpone long-held plans, while adjusting to a new way of living.

One group hit with major disruption are couples with a wedding booked. Some brides and grooms have seen their weddings delayed, others have had to abandon their plans altogether, often leading to a financial loss.

To make matters worse, some wedding venues have not been holding up their end of the bargain, charging customers a cancellation fee - despite the circumstances -and not allowing for any other course of action.

This is Money, with the help of experts, reveals what your options are if you have a wedding booked  and what your rights are in this difficult time.

Many bride and grooms wedding plans have been halted, due to the coronavirus pandemic

What to do if a venue is refusing to refund you

One of the most common issues plaguing some parties is that venues are not being flexible with their plans - either not letting customers move dates, charging them for cancelling or cancelling the date themselves.

In this situation, as the consumer is not cancelling, the venue is, the venue is in breach of contract and should make a full refund.

However, a number of them are charging a cancellation fee, stating that it is in their terms and conditions.

This could be deemed an unfair contract term and condition under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Helen Dewdney, consumer expert and also known as The Complaining Cow, reveals what you can do to try and get your money back:

1. Write. Always write to the venue so that you have an evidence trail. Try writing to the chief executive. Whilst you are unlikely to get a response from the chief executive, it will help to escalate the matter.

2. In the current circumstances it would help to support businesses if you accepted a new date for the event, at no extra cost, if you can.

3. If you are not able to do this, state that you require a full refund under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, as the company is in breach of contract.

4. Include in your email the date by which you expect to hear back from them and what you will do if you do not receive a satisfactory response.

5. Say that if you are not fully satisfied with their response, you will not hesitate in taking the matter further.

This will include, but not be limited to, reporting them to the CMA, sharing your experience on social media and seeking redress through the Small Claims Court.

Dewdney said: 'It is outrageous that companies are treating customers this way.

'Ultimately it will backfire, as now more than ever consumers are taking note of which companies are doing the right thing by their customers and which ones are not.

'Consumers can only rely on the law and the law should be upheld. Ultimately only a court can decide if a company is in breach of consumer law.

'However, it is unlikely any company in breach of contract would want to go to court and let the flood gates open.'

'20 of our guests now can't make the wedding' Megan House, 22, from Essex, and her fiancee, Liam Dorian, are one such couple whose wedding has been affected by the pandemic. Megan, 22, and her fiancee, Liam, have had to change the date of their wedding They originally had their wedding planned for May 16 at a venue in Cornwall but the venue decided to move the date to August 8, now saying if that isn't possible, the couple cannot move it to next year. Instead, if it doesn't go ahead in August, they will have to have a mid-week winter wedding with the venue refusing to refund anything, despite the fact they have paid for a Saturday May date. Despite taking out wedding insurance to cover any issues such as this, her insurer has said it won't cover the change in date, despite originally saying they would. Megan said: 'We originally had 120 guests due to come, however, by moving the date over, 20 people now can't make it, including an usher and bridesmaid. 'All of our suppliers except the florist and cake aren't available on the new date. 'We've lost deposits from the hairdresser, makeup artist, band, videographer and photographer. 'We've also paid out for a bridesmaid dress for the one who can't attend anymore and had favours personalised with the date. 'So far, we've lost approximately 2,500, potentially slightly more.'

Is wedding insurance worth it?

Many prospective bride and grooms will be looking at purchasing wedding insurance which should help them should a venue cancel or a supplier fail.

Those who have insurance are advised to contact their insurer to see what they can claim back on if they find their wedding has been disrupted.

However, some are finding that their insurer won't pay out now, claiming their terms and conditions don't cover pandemics.

So is it worth forking out even more money for your big day?

Charlotte Ricard-Quesada, founder of La Fete, a wedding planning firm, said: 'Wedding insurance should, in my opinion, be included in any budget. However, in the wake of Covid-19, dependent on the provider, there is no coverage standard set out.

'It seems as though if your venue closes and is unable to host your wedding or if a close relative were forced to self-isolate or passed away, then you would be entitled to compensation.

'Air travel, accommodation and personal choice to cancel do not seem to be covered.'

She said that if customers can postpone their weddings, rather than cancel, this is a better idea.

Charlotte said: 'If you want to ensure that your suppliers can keep their companies afloat during this difficult time, don't cancel.

'Speak to them openly about your concerns and negotiate a middle ground, such as keeping your already-made payments as credit with them to use for your wedding, once a date has been set.'

Several insurers, including John Lewis Finance, Debenhams and Emerald Life, have now said, however, they cannot take on any new wedding insurance customers, leaving some couples in a tricky spot.

'Our wedding insurance says we won't be covered if we change dates' Bride-to-be, Monika Ciezarek, was meant to get married to her fiancee, Liam, on Sunday 12 April, a bank holiday weekend, in Chelmsford, Essex. They were due to have 150 guests for the day plus an additional 50 for the evening with family due to fly over from Ireland and Poland. Monika and her fiancee Liam were due to get married in April but had to postpone it Monika, 28, from London, said: 'We've spent approximately 30,000 but will now have to fork out on new favours and signs that has the old date. We've also had to pay extra to move our honeymoon to New York and Jamaica. 'We've now moved it to Sunday 4 October but obviously there is no guarantee it will still happen or if our family from abroad will be able to make it, including my dad and grandmother. 'Also, everyone will have to now book the day off work on Monday if they want to make the most of things which we wanted to avoid. I'm worried my mum will have to go into work the next day too given she's a teacher.' Fortunately, she said her wedding venue has been exceptional and they've not lost a single penny by moving the date. However, her wedding insurer has been less than helpful. Monika added: 'We did have wedding insurance for 12 April but they've been extremely difficult to get hold off and their terms and conditions state that if we move it to a new date we're now not covered and we're struggling to find new wedding insurance providers amongst all this mess. 'Now we're just holding tight to see what happens for October but I feel like I can't get excited for it, it's the fear of this all happening again.'

What if your wedding was due to be abroad?

Some wedding planners have had more to contend with than others - especially for those who had planned to have their ceremony abroad.

With lockdown still in place and UK citizens banned from any but essential travel, these couples have had no choice but to abandon their plans.

Honor Jackson was due to get married to her fiancee in Marbella on 22 May with 120 guests but has had to postpone the ceremony until June 2021.

However, her fears were amplified as the location she had chosen to get married in was due to be demolished at the end of 2020 and rebuilt.

Honor said: 'We had actually agreed that we wouldn't plan another wedding, as we had spent so much money and time planning this one, and we didn't think another venue could live up to it.'

Change: Honor and her fiancee's wedding location was due to be demolished this year

Fortunately, the owners decided to push back the demolition by one year to ensure all the events could go ahead.

However, they are still unsure of what will happen next as they will need to reorganise transport.

Wedding woes Is your big day up in the air - and are you struggling with suppliers, venues and insurers? Get in touch: grace.gausden@thisismoney.co.uk

She said: 'We are still in limbo about our flights, as are our many guests.

'It's really stressful for everyone involved, as the new date for the wedding is over the 12 month change time that most people are being offered by airlines.'

Customers with outstanding plane journeys are currently being offered vouchers, rebooking within 12 months or, in some cases, a cash refund.

However, for those who don't know when they want to rebook for, this leaves them in a difficult situation.

Charlotte Ricard-Quesada said: 'If you have booked a wedding abroad, my advice would be to postpone for no less than a year from your original wedding date.

'Hopefully the issue will resolve quicker, but you need to have some breathing room to get back on track with planning and allow your suppliers to deal with the backlog of events.'
| By Laura Lee

When Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced the closure of all nonessential businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Laura Beth Resnick immediately began to worry.

Laura Beth Resnick, owner of Butterbee Farm, with her blooms. Photo: Julie Hove Andersen Photography

Resnick owns Butterbee Farm, a 5-acre farm in Baltimore County that supplies sustainably grown local flowers to florists. The farm operates year-round, growing over a hundred varieties of blossoms, including feverfew and larkspur in the spring; zinnias and snapdragons in the summer; and dahlias, celosia, and heirloom mums in the fall.

Florists in Baltimore, Washington, and Northern Virginia have come to depend on her fresh local blooms, which travel fewer than 50 miles from farm to their destination. In fact, demand for Butterbee Farms flowers has spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the breakdown of the supply chain of the global floral industry. Currently, Butterbee Farm is one of the only flower games in town.

The governors March 23 announcement was a dark day for Resnick, who wondered whether she would have to shut down her operation and lay off her staff. We werent really sure what to do, she recalls. We dont grow vegetables, so I wasnt sure if we were essential.

The lack of clarity prompted her to reach out to Sarah Everhart, JD, Agriculture Law Education Initiative (ALEI) senior legal specialist and managing director of the program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Since 2013, ALEI, a University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State program, has been helping Maryland farmers navigate state, federal, and local laws that impact their operations. ALEI is composed of the combined legal and agricultural expertise of the Carey School of Law, the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

The onset of COVID-19 has made ALEI an even more important resource for farmers grappling with rapidly changing regulations. As soon as the governor started shutting down businesses, we started getting calls from the agricultural community about how this was going to affect their operations, Everhart says.

ALEIs working group quickly mobilized to answer individual questions but also created a frequently updated COVID-19 Resources webpage to address common issues such as paid sick leave for agricultural employees, force majeure clauses in contracts, and the newly instituted federal Paycheck Protection Program.

Everhart says ALEI legal specialists have been keeping their ears to the ground to ensure they are providing answers to farmers concerns in real time. They anticipate calls in the coming weeks from Delmarva poultry farmers who will be impacted by the closure of production plants and the subsequent disruption of the supply chain.

The issues are all over the map, says Paul Goeringer, JD, LLM, MS, extension legal specialist, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Maryland, and an ALEI member. Goeringer has assisted farmers with queries ranging from labor issues to managing contracts canceled due to COVID-19. Were dealing with questions as they come up, he says.

In addition to his role at ALEI, Goeringer hosts the popular weekly Maryland Risk Management Education Podcast, which brings in agriculture experts from across the country to discuss important farming issues. Recent topics include Poultry Markets During Coronavirus: A Conversation with Dr. Jordan Shockley and a podcast about the importance of estate planning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Resnicks case, her answer came almost two days later when Everhart emailed her updated guidance clarifying that, in addition to farms being declared essential businesses, nurseries and greenhouses, although subject to social distancing requirements, also were considered essential businesses. The days of not knowing were an awful, really sad and scary time, she says. Armed with information from ALEI, We realized we were good to go. It was such a relief, Resnick adds.

As a small business owner, Resnick says she is grateful for the service that ALEI provides. Were a small farm, we dont make a lot of money, and lawyers are expensive, so having ALEI as a resource is a huge comfort.
Currently, COVID-19 is affecting Missouris families in extraordinary ways. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will become more evident over time in all aspects of the lives of Missouris children. Missouri KIDS COUNT (MKC), an annual snapshot on the well-being of the states children first released in 1993, includes indicators tracked longitudinally and collected and analyzed prior to the COVID-19 crisis.

While the data on the well-being of Missouris children shows a generally positive trajectory, in light of the pandemic, the 2020 MKC release will serve as a baseline for tracking the fallout of the infection and the policies implemented to manage its spread.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children and teens are among those most likely to react more strongly to stress during an infectious disease outbreak. Parents and caregivers may notice some of the following:

Fear and worry about their health or the health of their loved ones

Changes in sleep or eating patterns

Difficulty sleeping or concentrating

Worsening of chronic health problems

In order to support the physical and mental well-being of children during the outbreak, parents and caregivers are encouraged to talk with their children often, providing reassurance and answering any questions they may have. Share suggestions for how they can deal with their emotions and concerns. Try and keep a consistent routine in place for them and avoid overstimulating them with too much news or social media. And be open to using community resources to assist if they find themselves out of work or in need of food assistance.

Before the outbreak, data indicated that from an economic perspective, fewer Missouri children were living in poverty in 2018 as compared to 2014. Child homelessness, however, increased by more than 17% over that same time period. We know that kids living in underserved, higher poverty, less-resourced areas of Missouri are already at higher risk for worse outcomes. Over time, the COVID-19 pandemic will provide a stark contrast between those parts of Missouri with easy access to resources versus those without.

Like we anticipate of the COVID-19 virus itself, we expect the impact of the pandemic will affect Missouris children and families in waves. Today we are focused on ensuring children are safe in their homes as well as in childcare to allow our essential workforce to serve and protect Missourians. Down the road, we anticipate the economic impact on Missouri families will be substantial for many. The primary goal of Missouri KIDS COUNT is to provide trustworthy, accurate information to support the unprecedented challenges faced by our local and state policymakers and providers., said Tracy Greever-Rice, FACTs KIDS COUNT Program Director.

While some indicators of physical well-being improved between 2014 and 2018, preventable hospitalizations and child deaths between the ages of 1 and 14 decreased, the indicators that worsened are concerning. These indicators include low birthweight infants and an increasing adolescent death rate, importantly attributable to an increase in suicides. The number of young people under age 20 who committed suicide doubled during this five-year period. We are concerned that this growing problem will be exacerbated by the economic impact on job and educational opportunities created by the COVID-19 crisis.

In addition to the states current battle against COVID-19, the 2020 decennial census is under way, intended to count all people living in the U.S. State leaders have expressed concern because around 10% of Missouris children live in hard-to-count areas. For every person not counted in the census, Missouri will lose $1,300 per person in federal funds each year. Much of the funding goes to programs that support Missouris kids. Information about the census in Missouri can be found at https://census.mo.gov/. There are more ways than ever for households to take part in the census, including online, by phone, or through the mail.

FACT is Missouris KIDS COUNT affiliate. It is the state level, private/public organization that governs a network of 20 Community Partnerships focused on achieving better results for children and families. To read data informed stories and access specific data and information about the well-being of children in Missouri visit mokidscount.org.
JAZZ NOTES

Charlie never had to wonder what he would be. Aged just two he was already singing on the radio every day: Little Charlie, the Yodelling Cowboy, held up to the microphone by his mother. The youngest member of Carl Haden and the Haden Family, his world was alive with harmonies, the best ear-training a kid could have. What Charlie wasn't so sure about was being a cowboy.

Charlie Haden's unlikely introduction to music began when he was just two years old.

Later, when he dressed up, he donned a trilby and trench-coat; pretended he was downtown, rather than in Missouri's boondocks. In his teens he devoured his older brother's jazz records and learned double bass. At 20 he cut out, chasing a dream on a Greyhound bus to LA, where he plunged into the deep end with scalding bebop saxophonist Art Pepper. Within months Haden heard the man who changed the course not just of his life, but of music: another saxophonist, Ornette Coleman.

Coleman's radical reimagining of jazz was scorned by most, but Charlie had the ears to hear the concept's inner beauty. They first jammed at Ornette's place  his compositions covering the floor, furniture and even the bath  and didn't stop for three days. When they hit New York in 1960 it was a revolution in jazz to match Picasso's in art: with no written chord changes, Haden played spur-of-the moment chords implied by the soloing of Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry. Everyone from Miles Davis to Leonard Bernstein came to hear what the fuss was about, the latter subsequently even gatecrashing a rehearsal.
President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Meeting on the Elbe

Washington, DC - April 25, 2020, marks the 75th Anniversary of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops, who shook hands on the damaged bridge over the Elbe River. This event heralded the decisive defeat of the Nazi regime.

The meeting on the Elbe represented a culmination of tremendous efforts by the many countries and peoples that joined forces under the framework of the United Nations Declaration of 1942. This common struggle required enormous sacrifice by millions of soldiers, sailors, and citizens in multiple theaters of war.

We also recognize the contributions from millions of men and women on the home front, who forged vast quantities of war materials for use around the world. Workers and manufacturers played a crucial role in supplying the allied forces with the tools necessary for victory.

The Spirit of the Elbe is an example of how our countries can put aside differences, build trust, and cooperate in pursuit of a greater cause. As we work today to confront the most important challenges of the 21st century, we pay tribute to the valor and courage of all those who fought together to defeat fascism. Their heroic feat will never be forgotten.
New Testament prof. says Christians shouldn't be pushing for economy to reopen, even if unemployed

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

A renowned New Testament scholar rebuked Christians who are protesting states' stay-at-home orders amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying that one's right to life supersedes another's right to work.

More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment since state lockdowns were enforced, according to U.S. Department of Labor figures released Thursday.

In a post on Patheos, Asbury Theological Seminary professor Ben Witherington III criticized those who are publicly demanding that the economy reopen, particularly believers who identify as pro-life.

Witherington said that because the new coronavirus puts the most vulnerable at risk and in the absence of a vaccine, Christians shouldn't be demanding the country reopen before extensive testing is done to determine who all is carrying the virus. "It is not safe to either stay ignorant nor ignore the warnings of Drs. Fauci and Birx and others just because you are currently not working," he said in the April 22 post.

"As far as I can see, there is nothing in the [C]onstitution that says thou hast an inalienable right to work. And whats even more maddening is that the very same persons who are out protesting abortion while protesting stay at home orders, the so-called right to lifers, dont realize the blatant contradiction involved in what they are doing," Witherington said in his piece on Patheos.

He added that vulnerable populations such as the sick and the elderly, those with pre-existing conditions, the poor, the homeless also have a right to live, and their right so life always takes precedent over someone's right to work.

"Otherwise, you are simply violating part of the great commandment  to love your neighbor as yourself," he said. "And as for right wing political groups that claim to be Christ-centered and Biblically-based, SHAME ON YOU FOR URGING PEOPLE TO VIOLATE THE GREAT COMMANDMENT, and ignore the vulnerability of your neighbor. This is not at all what Jesus would do."

The theologian also expressed empathy for those who are now unemployed and listed the steps the government has taken thus far to help.

"I do understand and empathize with those who are out of work now. Fortunately the government has done and is doing something to help the unemployed with stimulus checks and unemployment checks and the Payment Protection Plan. These temporary remedies are not enough, but they do help ..." Witherington added.

Asked to elaborate in light of concerns about those who are unemployed and a prolonged shutdown of the economy, Witherington said in an email to The Christian Post on Wednesday that the church always has a responsibility to help the poor, the homeless, the ill, the infirm, and not just during pandemics.

"The Gospel and Jesus are quite clear about all this. So on the one hand, of course, the church should be helping the unemployed among them. As for the more general response to unemployment, the church should be advocating for things like the PPP, things like small business forgivable loans and the like from the government," he said.

"Under this condition, the response to the virus, if done state-by-state, will in no way reflect the importance and equality of all human lives. Every person's life is of sacred worth. Here's where I quote that great minister and theologian, John Donne  'every man's death diminishes me/for I am a part of mankind. Therefore, do not ask to know for whom the bell tolls/ it tolls for thee.' We are indeed all in this together, as we are all God's creatures increasingly interconnected in a global economy and humanity," he said.

Within Christian circles considerable debate has transpired as to the best approach to responding to a public health crisis while preserving protected freedoms set forth in the U.S. Constitution, particularly in light of how the infection and death rates are demonstrably higher in certain cities and states. Much of the conversation has centered around whether or not the government has the legitimate authority to force businesses and other public gatherings to be shut down, particularly churches, deeming them "non-essential" in an attempt to prevent further spread of the disease.
MAY DAY 2020 GREETING

Comrades come rally!

Today we remember the Chicago martyrs and all those workers who have fought against great injustices for workers rights. Today I pay tribute to all those front-line workers who are saving lives fighting against COVID-19 all over the world often putting their lives at risk without access to personal protective equipment (PPE).

This is a very different May Day. For over 130 years workers have taken to the streets in demand of their rights at work. Some, more political, have gone even further to achieve political rights and even political power.

This May Day humanity fights a common enemy in the Coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has exposed the failures of capitalism and all the neoliberal policies that have privatised essential services such as health, education, banks, transport and social security.

At the same time, governments are undermining workers organisation by a ferocious attack on workers rights, unions and the right to strike.

Governments have also used the excuse of the pandemic to further erode civil and democratic rights. Furthermore, the introduction of legislation aimed at preventing people from getting together and the use of fearmongering to introduce a tracing app in the guise of security for workers who agree to being tracked.

Despite this, we have seen workers mobilising in a number of countries to fight for safety on the job, job security, food and other necessities. In Australia people have organised their right to protest using car cavalcades organised by the Maritime Union of Australia in Fremantle and the M1 Movement in Sydney and Melbourne. These actions attracted a lot of support from workers and the community at large, but the protesters in Melbourne faced charges and massive fines. Workers must be able to exercise their democratic right to protest, and this must be won on the streets through action.

On this day of international solidarity among all workers of the world we reaffirm our commitment to build a better world for all.

Workers acting as a class are the only force capable of demonstrating that workers are essential and bosses are not. The billions used to save the capitalist system from collapsing is the greatest weaknesses of the ruling class. Theyve acted in their class interest and the interest of this profit-making system that tries to convince the people that we are all together in this. This is a lie.

Only workers coming together as a class in the struggle against the pandemic and for workers rights will see a new society for all.

Long live May Day

Long live the Australian working class!

Workers of all countries unite!
A 26-year-old woman has been found dead in a South Melbourne home and the homicide squad is investigating.

Police were called to Park Street about 2.15pm on Monday and made the grim discovery.

The exact circumstances surrounding the woman's death are yet to be determined but homicide squad detectives are on scene and investigating.
NEW YORK - The Latest on the announcement of the 2020 Pulitzer Prizes (all times local):

4:15 p.m.

The board of the Pulitzer Prizes issued a special citation Monday to Ida B. Wells, the trail-blazing African American investigative journalist.

The Pulitzer board said the citation comes with a bequest of at least $50,000 in support of Wells mission, with recipients to be announced.

In honouring her during the prize announcements, the board noted her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.

Wells, born and raised in the south, was a civil rights activist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who campaigned against lynching, which she showed in her writing was used as oppression against African Americans. She later moved north, and continued her activism.

___

3:50 p.m.

The Pulitzer Prize for public service went to a collaboration between the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica for coverage of policing in Alaska villages.

The stories, which Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy described as riveting, showed how severely public safety is lacking in Alaska, with one-third of villages having no police protection and dozens of communities hiring officers with criminal records of their own.

The coverage brought in funding and inspired legislative change.

___

3:45 p.m.

Michael R. Jacksons musical A Strange Loop, a musical about a man trying to write a musical, has won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Jackson, who wrote the music, story and lyrics, centres on an overweight, overwhelmed ball of black confusion trying to navigate the worlds of white, black, gay as well as his familys religion.

No one cares about a writer who is struggling to write, sings the anxiety-ridden lead character, Usher.

The Pulitzer board called it a meditation on universal human fears and insecurities. The play was seen off-Broadway in 2019 at Playwrights Horizons.

The Pulitzer drama award is for a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life, according to the guidelines. Musicals rarely claim the Pulitzer, with only Next to Normal and Hamilton winning since 2010.

___

3:40 p.m.

The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize in public service Monday for illuminating the sparse policing of many Alaska villages.

The New York Times won the investigative reporting prize for an expose of predatory lending in the New York City taxi industry, while the staff of The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, took the breaking news reporting award for quickly unpacking racial disparities and other issues in a spate of governors pardons.

A first-ever award for audio reporting went to This American Life, the Los Angeles Times and Vice News for The Out Crowd, an examination of the Trump administrations remain in Mexico immigration policy.

___

3:30 p.m.

Colson Whitehead became the rare writer to win Pulitzers for consecutive books.

His novel about a brutal Florida reform school, The Nickel Boys, received the fiction prize Monday. Whiteheads most recent previous book, The Underground Railroad, won for fiction in 2017.

He is also known for such acclaimed works as John Henry Days and The Intuitionist.

The drama winner was Michael R. Jacksons musical A Strange Loop. Benjamin Mosers Sontag: Her Life and Work, about the late Susan Sontag, won for biography.

There were two winners in general nonfiction: Greg Grandons The End of the Myth and Ann Boyers The Undying.

In history, W. Caleb McDaniel won for Sweet Taste of Liberty. The poetry winner was Jericho Browns The Tradition.

In music, the winner was Anthony Davis opera The Central Park Five, about the five young men wrongly imprisoned for sexual assault. __

This item has been corrected to show that the fiction prize winners first name is Colson, not Colton.

___

3:20 p.m.

The Associated Press won a Pulitzer in feature photography for images made during Indias clampdown on Kashmir, where a sweeping curfew and shutdowns of phone and internet service added to the challenges of telling showing the world what was happening in the region of 7 million people.

AP Photographers Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand snaked around roadblocks, sometimes took cover in strangers homes and hid cameras in vegetable bags to capture images of protests, police and paramilitary action and daily life. Then they headed to an airport to persuade travellers to carry the photo files out with them and get them to APs office in New Delhi.

It was always cat-and-mouse, Yasin said, later adding: These things made us more determined than ever to never be silenced.
(Bloomberg) -- Telefonica SA and John Malones Liberty Global Plc have never been closer to finally creating the U.K.s biggest telecom operator after flirting with various combinations over the years.

Racing for a potential announcement as early as this week, talks hinge in part on striking equal control for the merger of O2 and Virgin Media, while structuring a deal thatll help the Spanish giant pay down its huge debt pile, according to people familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified because the talks are private.

In a statement Monday, Telefonica confirmed that talks are ongoing on a potential integration of their respective telecommunications businesses in the United Kingdom and there is no guarantee that an agreement can be reached.

Liberty Globals New York A-class shares surged 15% on Friday after Bloomberg revealed the talks, the biggest jump since 2009, and were up 6% in premarket trading Monday to $23.62. Telefonica shares rose 4.2% at 2:41 p.m. Madrid time Monday, while rival BT Group Plc rose 1.1%, rebounding from a drop earlier in the day.

Clinching a deal this month amid a collapse in global deal-making would be no small feat. A combination of O2 and Virgin Media could create a business with an estimated enterprise value of about $30 billion, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which could make it the largest deal struck since the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic.

Telefonica may seek a payment from Liberty Global of between 6.2 billion euros ($6.8 billion) and 8.5 billion euros, an amount which may keep its leverage ratio from climbing from pre-deal levels, Deutsche Bank analysts Keval Khiroya and Robert Grindle said in a note to clients. They see 6 billion pounds ($7.5 billion) of synergies, and value O2 at 11 billion pounds and Virgin Media at 16 billion pounds.

Telefonica, currently trading at close to a 25-year-low, is demanding the two companies have equal voting rights in the new venture, one of the people said. Executives and advisers must reconcile that with Telefonicas need to pay down 38 billion euros of debt, which means its unlikely to put cash into the deal, said analysts at New Street Research.

Story continues

Liberty is likely to make a significant cash payment to Telefonica as part of the transaction, two of the people said.

Although the talks are advanced, executives on both sides are being cautious following recent strategic upsets, the people said. Telefonicas plan to sell its U.K. business to CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. was blocked by regulators in May 2016. It then started working on plans for an initial public offering of O2, but they were shelved by Brexit and the subsequent market turmoil. The company never said officially that it was scrapping the IPO plans.

Liberty Global declined to comment.

New Rivals

Liberty Global Chief Executive Officer Mike Fries said in September that buying a U.K. mobile operator would bring hundreds of millions of dollars in synergies. Extra cash would flow from combining infrastructure and back-office savings, and eliminating the need to pay for access to networks they dont own.

Previous joint ventures have cut costs such as Liberty Globals 2016 deal with Vodafone Group Plc in the Netherlands. As of February that partnership was yielding 85% of a planned 210 million euros in synergies, a year ahead of schedule.

The combined entities would take 34% of Britains telecom service revenues between them, eclipsing the current No. 1 operator BT Group Plc, according to research from Goldman Sachs published Friday. If successful, the new venture would be BTs only rival that owns both fixed-line and mobile services.

BTs leading position in the U.K. communications market would be threatened by a merger of rivals O2 and Virgin Media, we believe. A second, scaled fixed-mobile carrier would pressure BTs consumer-broadband and enterprise-mobile market share, and boost investment in alternative full-fiber infrastructure to rival Openreachs own expansion plans.

-- Matthew Bloxham, BI telecom analyst

Vodafone and Liberty Globals close relationship -- solidified by their Dutch joint venture -- has previously fueled speculation that the two groups could do a U.K. deal. Vodafone recently won BTs contract to wholesale mobile services to Libertys U.K. customers, a deal which would have to be re-examined if Virgin merged with O2.

Vodafone would be the big potential loser from a Virgin-O2 match-up, said New Street analyst James Ratzer in a note Friday, adding they would miss out on the synergies and also lose wholesale payments from Virgin.

Musical Chairs

Matchmaking the U.K.s fixed and mobile operators has been a favorite game of bankers and executives for years as Britain lagged neighbors in a global telecommunication trend of convergence, which has seen companies meld cable and radio networks together. A wave of investors are being drawn to the infrastructure-like returns of fiber optics. Startups are also building U.K. fiber and consolidating.

Executives at the leading U.K. telecom companies have regularly spoken about potential combinations, with advisers pitching Virgin Media as a partner to both Vodafone and Comcast Corp.s Sky unit, in addition to Telefonica, people familiar with the talks said.

Libertys investors have been waiting to learn what the company plans to do with what remains of $11 billion in proceeds from selling its Germany and eastern European operations. In November, Libertys Chief Financial Officer Charlie Bracken said the company is looking at the merits of listing local units to unlock more value, as the companys stock price has wilted.

While Telefonica has never publicly said it wanted to move into the U.K.s fixed market, it has always advocated for consolidation in its markets, and internally the company has been open to considering options for the U.K. O2 was born as a joint venture controlled by BT called Cellnet, before it was bought by Telefonica in 2006 for 18 billion pounds. BT looked at buying O2 in 2014 but opted instead to buy EE, the joint venture built by Deutsche Telekom AG and Orange SA.

For Telefonica, a U.K. merger would advance a sweeping strategy change announced in November. Its focusing on four core markets of Spain, Brazil, the U.K. and Germany and considering all options for the rest of its Latin American units. It also announced the creation of new tech and infrastructure units. Its looking for ways to accelerate growth in those core markets and the latter new divisions through partnerships and deals.

(Updates share prices in fourth paragraph, adds analyst comment in sixth paragraph, detail on O2 history in ninth paragraph.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
In a modern-day version of the big lie, the Trump administration is claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic is the product of the deliberate actions of the Chinese government.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump, in a town hall with Fox News, accused China of taking actions specifically intended to infect millions of Europeans and Americans.

After repeating the false claim that the novel coronavirus originated in a research laboratory in Wuhan, which he said China tried to cover up, Trump declared: They didnt stop people going into the USA and all over the world... They said, hey look, this is going to have a huge impact on China, and we might as well let the rest of the world become infected.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump at Osan Air Base, Korea in 2019. (Image Credit: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

They allowed this to go into our country, they allowed it to go into other countries, Trump said.

Such claims have been asserted repeatedly in recent days by top administration officials. On Sunday morning, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that there is enormous evidence that the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory, adding, Remember, China has a history of infecting the world.

In a separate interview Sunday, White House advisor Peter Navarro declared that China seeded the world with what became the pandemic. He added, I did write a book in 2006 called The Coming China Wars. On page 150, I predicted that the Chinese Communist Party would create a viral pandemic that would kill millions of people worldwide. It is now beyond my wildest nightmare what China has inflicted on the world.

These are brazen and unsubstantiated lies. Neither Trump, Pompeo, Navarro or anyone else has provided a shred of evidence to substantiate their claims.

The method recalls that of Nazi Germany, which collapsed 75 years ago this month. Hitler, who committed suicide on April 30, 1945, amid the rubble of the Third Reich, used it to justify the invasions of Poland and Czechoslovakia and other crimes.

The aim of the big lie is to intimidate through its sheer brazenness. According to Wikipedia, it is a propaganda technique and logical fallacy. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.

Trumps utilization of this method comes at the very point where the American government is abandoning any systematic effort to slow the spread of the pandemic, effectively allowing large sections of the population to become infected.

The Trump administration is seeking to provide itself with an escape hatch. Whatever happens, it is Chinas fault. Knowing that its program will lead to a rapid and substantial growth of fatalities, the White House is hoping that when the butchers bill of its disastrous policies comes due, it will be able to direct social tensions outward against China.

These allegations have a definite logic. If the Chinese government deliberately allowed and encouraged the coronavirus to infect the United States and Europe, this would be an act of biological warfare that goes far beyond the terrorist attacks of September 11. It would mean that China had carried out an act of war against the United States.

With unbridled recklessness, in order to justify its own criminal indifference to the lives of millions of people, the Trump administration is setting up a situation that can make military confrontation with China unavoidable.

These claims are undermined even by the findings of Trumps own intelligence agencies. The New York Times noted in an article published April 30, Most intelligence agencies remain skeptical that conclusive evidence of a link to a lab can be found, and scientists who have studied the genetics of the coronavirus say that the overwhelming probability is that it leapt from animal to human in a nonlaboratory setting, as was the case with H.I.V., Ebola and SARS.

The administrations lies, however, are facilitated by the media and the political establishment as a whole, which do not expose them as fabrications but rather present them as legitimate positions. Whatever differences they may have, the anti-China campaign serves definite geo-strategic interests and domestic political imperatives supported by the entire ruling class.

In a Sunday editorial, the Democratic Party-aligned Washington Post condemned Chinas effort to avoid accountability for the novel coronavirus pandemic through a global propaganda campaign. It declared, The response to such belligerence cannot be appeasement. Last month, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden released an ad attacking Trump for rolling over to the Chinese government in relation to the coronavirus.

All variants of the anti-China narrativethe theory that China deliberately created the virus as a bio-weapon, the claim that the virus escaped from a laboratory and the allegations that China concealed knowledge of the disease from the worldare contradicted by publicly available information.

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission publicly reported a cluster of pneumonia cases on December 31, 2019. China identified the virus that causes COVID-19 on January 7, 2020, and Chinese scientists warned that the disease could be capable of human-to-human transmission.

But it was not until nearly eight weeks after the first public statements by Chinese health officials that any systematic testing for COVID-19 began in the United States. The US had conducted only 1,000 COVID-19 tests by March 4, two months after the first warnings by Chinese officials. China, South Korea and other Asian countries had carried out millions of tests by early February.

Even as the virus was ripping through the United States, Trump, the media and Congress systematically downplayed the significance of the disease. As late as February 28, Trump was still claiming that the coronavirus is going to disappear like a miracle. He condemned those saying that COVID-19 was rapidly spreading throughout the country, declaring, This is their new hoax.

The Trump administration, acting as the representative of the financial oligarchy, did nothing to protect the population from the pandemic. After utilizing the crisis to orchestrate a massive handout to Wall Street, the ruling class has launched a back-to-work campaign that will cost tens or hundreds of thousands of lives.

The big lie against China is both an excuse for its own criminal negligence and an attempt to cover for the criminal policies it is now implementing.
Studies say such move would entail "shocking consequences".

If Ukraine returns to its usual rhythm of life too soon, it could potentially lead to another 120,000 lethal coronavirus cases before the end of this year, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said in his latest video address to the nation.

Zelensky has called on Ukrainians to remain patient and "to observe quarantine and wait for a situation to become safe."

"Look at the stats in countries where governments either introduced no quarantine measures or made them mild. This resulted in thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of new cases daily. Quarantine does have a negative impact on the economy. Losses are painful. But the potential losses from high incidence and the death toll would be catastrophic," Zelensky said.

He referred to studies stating that such a move would entail "shocking consequences"

"If tomorrow we return to our usual rhythm of life, this potentially equals plus 120,000 deaths by year-end. That's why quarantine easing can't be premature. It will be phased, and the first mitigation stage will be introduced soon, on May 11. In particular, we'll reopen parks, squares, beauty salons, summer terraces in cafes and restaurants," Zelensky said.

Read alsoZelensky: medics beg for help, while Ukrainian health care system "one step short of a coma"

Current stat "gives us hope for the future," said the president. "However, the situation could've been different."

"We could've had 200,000 cases instead of 12,000. There are two reasons why we avoided the critical scenario. The first reason is that measures have been taken on time. They were tough but correct, as time has shown. The second reason is thanks to our Ukrainian medics, their professionalism, courage, and dedication at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus," said the head of state.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to extend the national quarantine until May 22, with certain easing being introduced from May 11.
Hot Girl Summer rapper Megan Thee Stallion gave her 28.7M social media following a glimpse of her red thong and shapely derriere in her latest thirst trap on Monday.

'If you don't jump to put jeans on baby you don't feel my pain,' the 25-year-old twerk queen captioned her snap.

'Living room hottie. Keep streaming #savageremix.'

Cheeky: Hot Girl Summer rapper Megan Thee Stallion gave her 28.7M social media following a glimpse of her red thong and shapely derriere in her latest thirst trap on Monday

In the snaps - which were technically taken on Sunday - Megan was wearing a 'bronde' bob wig by her regular hairstylist Kellon Deryck.

Stallion (born Pete) is celebrating her first-ever Billboard Top 10 hit - a remix of Savage featuring guest vocals from 24-time Grammy winner Beyonce Knowles-Carter.

'I really want to cry right now like oh my god!' the Houston hip-hop star gushed on Instagram.

'This is my first top 10 b**** my first top 5! Likeeeeee hottiessss we really doing this s***! We ain't never give up we doing everything they said we wouldn't! I said [J. White Did It] give me a beat I can go off on and he did. Thank you @beyonce! I'm just happy to be here man.'

The 25-year-old twerk queen captioned her snap: 'If you don't jump to put jeans on baby you don't feel my pain'

'Living room hottie': In the snaps - which were technically taken on Sunday - Megan was wearing a 'bronde' bob wig by her regular hairstylist Kellon Deryck

Megan's viral TikTok hit from March has surpassed 100M streams on Spotify, and it sold over 1M units in the US - all of which benefits Houston COVID-19 charity, Bread of Life.

Stallion originally met the 38-year-old R&B diva, as well as her eight-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter, at their lavish home on New Year's Eve.

'Oh my god we really danced, like, all night. I was really in there cutting up. I was like "Wow, Beyonce accepts my turn up she likes ratchet Megs" and I love it,' the Texas Southern University student told Apple Music host Ebro Darden last Friday.

'I really can't believe it, because being from Houston Beyonce is just Queen. That's all you know. There's no debate, there's nothing else to say - who's better than Beyonce?'

Success! Stallion is celebrating her first-ever Billboard Top 10 hit - a remix of Savage featuring guest vocals from 24-time Grammy winner Beyonce Knowles-Carter

The Houston hip-hop star gushed on Instagram: 'This is my first top 10 b**** my first top 5...I said [J. White Did It] give me a beat I can go off on and he did. Thank you @beyonce! I'm just happy to be here man'

Charity: Megan's viral TikTok hit from March has surpassed 100M streams on Spotify, and it sold over 1M units in the US - all of which benefits Houston COVID-19 charity, Bread of Life

Megan was already acquainted with the Destiny's Child alum's husband Jay-Z since she's managed by his company RocNation.

'I talked to [Beyonce] after the song came out. She was just super supportive. Every time I see her she's always like telling me, "Keep going, keep going hard, you really got it. Do you,"' Stallion gushed.

'Nobody knew I was working on the song, nobody knew we was working on the song. I didn't tell my best friend, I didn't tell nobody on my team. I didn't tell anybody.'

'We really danced all night!' Stallion originally met the 38-year-old R&B diva (M), as well as her eight-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter (L), at their lavish home on New Year's Eve (pictured December 31)
Twilight fans are finally getting the long-awaited retelling of the vampire romance 15 years after the release of the first book.

Author Stephanie Meyer announced the release of the Midnight Sun on Monday morning during a chat with Good Morning America.

The book will follow the love story between vampire Edward Cullen and human Bella Swan, but this time from his perspective - also offering insight into his life before meeting his soulmate.

New addition: Twilight fans are rejoicing after author Stephanie Meyer announces the release of the highly anticipated Midnight Sun

Meyer explained why she chose to announce the book - which will come out on August 4th - right now.

'I hope this book gives my readers a little pleasure to anticipate and, if it arrives, a chance to live in an imaginary world for a while.

'It's a crazy time right now and I wasn't sure if this was the right time to put this book out, but some of you have been waiting for just so, so long,' she told fans.

'It didn't seem fair to make you wait anymore. Sorry about the bad timing. Hopefully this book can be a distraction from the real world.'

'I'm so excited to finally be able to share it with you,' she went on.

Flipping the script: The book will follow the love story between vampire Edward Cullen and human Bella Swan (played by Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson above) but this time from his perspective - also offering insight into his life before meeting his soulmate

Timing: Meyer explained why she chose to announce the book - which will come out on August 4th - right now. She's seen in 2015 above

She shared a similar sentiment in a press release, saying: 'I hope this book gives my readers a little pleasure to anticipate and, if it arrives, a chance to live in an imaginary world for a while.

'I cant express how much I appreciate the patience of my readers, and their support over the years it took to finish Midnight Sun.'

The original Twilight came out in 2005 and was an international sensation, selling over 100million copies worldwide and leading to the sequels New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

A series of movie adaptations starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson grossed an amazing $3.3 billion in ticket sales.

Sensational: The original Twilight came out in 2005 and was an international sensation, selling over 100million copies worldwide and leading to the sequels New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn

Cha-ching! The film series grossed $3.3 billion in ticket sales.

Midnight Sun has been in the works for quite some time.

Meyer released a draft of the story's first chapter 'First Sight' on her blog back in 2008, a time while Twilight mania was reaching a fever pitch. Later more chapters of the book were leaked, causing the author to shelve the project.

'There is so much more to his side of the story than there is to Bellas in that first chapter,' Meyer told readers at the time.

'His side of Bellas first day at Forks High School is a hundred times more exciting than her own.'

Midnight Sun comes out August 4th 2020.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 5 2020

Homegrown decacorn Gojek has announced that it has acquired Indonesian payments start-up Moka to boost the digital operations of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), especially during the epidemic.



Gojek co-CEO Andre Soelistyo said online businesses had better resilience than their offline counterparts during the COVID-19 pandemic as offline stores were highly dependent on the physical arrival of consumers.



We want to help more offline businesses go online through this collaboration with Moka, he said in a written statement on Thursday. We want to help MSMEs to grow and be better equipped to face competition in the digital era.



The deal, which had reportedly been in discussions since last year, is worth US$130 million, sources familiar with the issue told Bloomberg.com. Gojek chief of corporate affairs Nila Marita declined to comment on the value of acquisition when contacted by The Jakarta Post.



Moka cofounder and CEO Haryanto Tanjo said that, through the acquisition, the two companies could combine their services by using Mokas point-of-sales system to accept food delivery orders from GoFood.



Being a part of Gojeks ecosystem will give us access to its user networks and hopefully help our users to become successful in both online and offline business  an important survival and recovery aspect in times of pandemic, he said.

______



We want to help more offline businesses go online through this collaboration with Moka.

______



Moka will continue operating as part of Gojeks ecosystem but will retain its independent entity. The start-up was established in 2014 and has 40,000 users in 200 cities across Indonesia. Its application offers programs ranging from bookkeeping and inventory to sales analysis.



Meanwhile, the app-based service has secured Rp 14.5 billion ($963,297) in fresh capital injection from seven investors during the last four to five months, paving the way for the companys super app expansion plans while attracting new investors.



Currently valued at $10 billion, the company raised a combined total of Rp 1.4 billion in its series P funding round from three new investors: Rp 1.2 billion from Jakarta-based East Ventures, Rp 97.5 million from Mandiri Capital Indonesia and Rp 113 million from Silicon Valley-based Fenox Venture Capital, kontan.co.id reported.



Earlier in February, PT Pusaka Citra Djokosoetono also purchased 5,941 shares in the series P funding worth Rp 2.9 billion. The company is the majority shareholder of the Blue Bird Group, the holding company that operates Blue Bird taxi, Gojeks erstwhile rival.



Also, in February, PT Aplikasi Karya Anak Bangsa, the company that owns the Gojek brand, acquired 4.33 percent of shares in the Blue Bird taxi company from Pusaka Citra Djokosoetono, worth Rp 450 billion, as reported by Bloomberg.



The acquisition was widely viewed as part of Gojeks strategy to manage competition with its primary rival, Singapore-based ride-hailing company Grab Holdings, while expanding its food delivery and digital payment businesses.



Gojeks existing investors have also increased their investment through the series P funding this year, with tech giant Google Asia Pacific purchasing 11,883 additional shares worth Rp 5.9 billion. The latest acquisition increases Googles ownership in Gojek to 8.69 percent, from 2.59 percent in the series I round of funding and 5.24 percent in the series M round.



Meanwhile, SMDV II SG, the Sinar Mas Groups Singapore-based venture capital arm, has invested Rp 1.4 billion in the company through the series P funding this year. In November 2019, Unilever Swiss Holdings acquired 5,530 shares in Gojek worth Rp 2.77 billion.



Gojek released 45,552 shares for the first part of its series P funding round in June 2019, which were acquired by the United States Visa International Service Association and Japans Mitsubishi UFJ Lease and Finance at Rp 500,000 per share for a total value of Rp 22.8 billion.



The ride-hailing company has issued 1.7 million shares in funding rounds from series A to series P, with paid-up capital totaling Rp 689.87 billion. The company has around 130 institutional and individual investors listed as registered shareholders in its updated articles of association dated April 23.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login
By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 22 times, Trend reports referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

The Armenian armed forces were using large-caliber machine guns and 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
LOS ANGELES  Housing for the homeless. Criminal justice reform. Addressing the digital divide for schoolchildren in rural areas.

Propelled by the urgency of the coronavirus crisis, and despite severe economic headwinds, liberal Californians see this moment as an opening to push through an agenda that addresses some of the states most intractable and long-debated problems.

Already, thousands of people have been let out of the states jails and prisons, cash bail has been eliminated for most crimes, thousands of homeless people now have roofs over their heads, and children in rural and poor areas of the state are being sent tens of thousands of laptop computers for distance learning  temporary measures to confront the pandemic that leaders are hoping will become durable solutions to long-standing problems of inequity.

While many in the country talk about returning to normal, a common refrain is emerging among Californias powerful political left wing and many liberal leaders across America: Normal wasnt working.

Whether you are talking about homelessness or whether you are talking about the criminal justice system and incarceration, we are doing things today that should have been done a long time ago, said George Gascon, a former San Francisco district attorney who is now running for the same office in Los Angeles. He has been at the vanguard of a national movement of prosecutors looking to reduce mass incarceration.

The pandemic has forced a lot of things that were being talked about to actually take place at a very rapid pace, Gascon said. The reset button was pushed and I dont see us coming back.

Even as the pandemic continues its march across the country, with more than 60,000 dead, California is already giving a glimpse of one side of the debate that will emerge from the crisis similar to the aftermath of great disruptions like the Great Depression and world wars: How should America change?

Yet grand ambitions are also coming up against stark realities. Though California is deeply blue, with Democrats holding all the top offices and a supermajority in the Legislature, the state has failed for decades to tackle some of the biggest issues surrounding inequality. By one measure, California has the nations highest poverty rate. Some Californians wonder whether the will to enact significant change will endure past the initial stage of the coronavirus crisis.

Analysts also question whether a liberal vision will be durable at a time when the state government will almost certainly be forced to shrink its services in the face of budget shortfalls. Already, parts of a progressive agenda formulated months ago when Californias coffers were full  financing medical care for immigrants in the country illegally and providing greater access to child care are two examples  may now need to be scaled back.

And even amid the pandemic, there is conservative pushback in California, with Republicans arguing that holding down spending should be the priority. One group has sued Gov. Gavin Newsom over a new program to provide Californians in the country illegally with unemployment payments.

As California cautiously reopens, it is in a relatively strong position, with far fewer deaths or infections per capita than New York and other hard-hit East Coast states. Californias politicians are proud of the speed and alacrity with which they have moved to address problems that for years eluded them.

Its the spirit of our times, Newsom said last week. What often takes a year, now we need to do in months.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti has proposed using the crisis as a catalyst to achieve free higher education and to mitigate inequality. Invoking Franklin D. Roosevelt and the social welfare programs that he championed, Garcetti said, the shock to our economy and our lives recalls the scale and the challenges faced by the generation who sacrificed through the Great Depression and World War II.

Before this crisis, on a normal day in the United States, we could see the federal minimum wage stand still for years while executive compensation knew no limit, Garcetti said in a recent address to the city. We must ask of our city and our nation, at this time, is normal really what we want to come back to?

The pandemic in California has accelerated efforts to reduce prison populations, after decades when the state led the nation in get-tough-on-crime policies. Nearly 10,000 inmates have been released from state prisons or jails over the last few weeks.

Advocates for ending mass incarceration have seized on the coronavirus crisis to push for more inmate releases. They hope that once the pandemic passes, part of its legacy will be to show America that it incarcerates too many people. And they will have another potent argument: as state and local budgets collapse, the high cost of incarceration with be tougher to justify.

Lenore Anderson, a former prosecutor in San Francisco and president of Californians for Safety and Justice, noted in a recent column that spending on prisons in California grew 65% faster over the last 20 years than spending on hospitals did  a gap exposed by the pandemic, as hospitals found themselves scrambling to cope.

With the safe release of a few thousand more people, and maintaining these declines permanently, California could come out of this crisis with the ability to do the previously impossible: close a prison, Anderson wrote.

Among the most significant moves was a recent order from the states judicial council to end cash bail for most criminal charges, allowing thousands of people awaiting trial to be released from jails. For decades, cash bail has been held out by activists as an exemplar of unfairness in the criminal justice system, with wealth the primary factor that determines whether someone is in jail or free. (California voters in November will weigh a measure to permanently end cash bail and replace it with a system of risk assessment tools.)

On Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, tent encampments and squalor still overpower the streets, even though thousands of people who were homeless have been moved indoors since the pandemic began spreading in the city.

Long-standing shelters like the Union Rescue Mission, which has faced an outbreak among its residents and staff  two people have died  have had to reduce their capacity to comply with social distancing guidelines.

But a program backed by FEMA called Project Roomkey has picked up the slack, opening up thousands of motel rooms for older homeless residents.

For years, people in Los Angeles like Andy Bales, who runs the Union Rescue Mission and has worked in homeless services for decades, have called for a disaster declaration to fight the citys escalating homeless crisis.

Its unfortunate it took a pandemic, but Im thankful everyone is responding the way they are, Bales said. It absolutely has energized and mobilized our city, county and state in a way that we have been crying out for a long time.

Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Los Angeles County supervisor and co-chair of a statewide homelessness task force, is pushing a plan to keep those who have been housed during the pandemic indoors once the crisis abates.

We are aiming for the fences, he said. We are playing the long game.

At the same time, there was more evidence of the states failure to protect its homeless during the crisis. In San Francisco, where tent encampments have proliferated, Ian Carrier, 36, died in his wheelchair on a sidewalk last Tuesday night, according to April Slone, his sister. Carrier had been suffering from kidney problems and other ailments and had been recently released from the hospital.

My brother died on the street, and might not be dead if hed had a bed to lie in, Slone said.

Members of the board of supervisors in San Francisco have clashed with Mayor London Breed over what they say has been a slow takeup of the thousands of hotel rooms that the city earmarked for the homeless during the crisis. Many people have also questioned the viability of hotel rooms as a long-term solution to Californias homeless crisis.

The question of durability also extends to efforts to get students the equipment they need to study from home. The state has so far relied largely on donations. Google and other technology companies donated 70,000 devices for students, both in poorer urban neighborhood and remote rural ones.

Rural California has been screaming from the top of our lungs about the digital divide for years, said state Sen. Mike McGuire, who represents a large swath of territory in Californias far north. Theres never been a time in my lifetime where internet connectivity has been as crucial as it is now.

McGuire is part of a task force led by the states superintendent of education, Tony Thurmond, which is seeking to use the crisis as a springboard.

Thurmond organized a meeting in mid-April with telecommunications providers, imploring them to extend their high-speed services to remote areas.

McGuire said he had consulted lawyers to investigate whether the state has the authority to force companies to allow access to their high-speed fiber lines if the lines run through state-owned land.

We see a moonshot opportunity, Thurmond said of the attention that the crisis has brought to the digital access issue. He says the state is asking for the cooperation of big telecommunications companies to better serve poorer and rural areas, but more forceful measures are being considered, too.

If theyre not willing, were not afraid to use legislation, public pressure or whatever else is needed, he said.

In all the progressive initiatives currently underway in California, Jim Newton, a lecturer in public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, sees an abiding tension between accelerated momentum toward Democratic goals and a constrained ability to finance them.

Going back to a normal in which those problems just return doesnt feel acceptable, particularly to the left, Newton said.

But the crisis, he said, both emphasizes the needs and highlights the big price tag.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
President Donald Trump's executive order last week requiring meat processing plants to stay open to ward off shortages may not be a cure-all for the food industry segment that has been hardest hit by novel coronavirus outbreaks.

On Monday morning, Tyson Foods said during an investor call that U.S. hog processing capacity had dropped by 50%.

The company has been severely affected. Three of Tyson's six main U.S. processing facilities remain closed and three others are operating at reduced capacity, the company said.

Steve Meyer, an economist for Kerns and Associates, an agricultural risk management firm, said Tyson's production numbers may be even more dire.

"By my calculations, last Friday, pork production was down 42.9% for all U.S. companies," he said by phone Monday. "Tyson, by my calculations, was down by 57,780 hogs processed per day from a capacity of 78,500 processed per day. That's 74% short."

Tyson declined to give further details.

Tyson closed its Columbus Junction, Iowa, plant on April 6 after recording 200 novel-coronavirus infections and at least two employee deaths. (The facility is open now and running at three-quarters capacity, Meyer said.) Next, the company suspended operations at its Perry, Iowa, pork plant on April 20 for deep cleaning. The company slowed and then closed its largest pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa, on April 22 after 182 cases of the coronavirus were linked to the facility. And a fourth pork plant, in Logansport, Indiana, halted operations April 25 after nearly 900 employees, or 40% of its workforce, tested positive for the coronavirus.

Although pork processing was most affected, the Tyson beef supply is also threatened, with sick workers forcing shutdowns. The Tyson Fresh Meats beef plant in Pasco, Washington, closed, and Tyson said last week that it would temporarily suspend operations at its Dakota City, Nebraska, beef processing plant after a surge of hundreds of coronavirus cases linked to the facility.

According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, 115 meat and poultry processing facilities in 19 states have reported coronavirus cases as of Friday. Among about 130,000 workers at these facilities, 4,913 cases and 20 deaths have been recorded.

Dermot Hayes, an economist at Iowa State University, said Tyson has been hit particularly hard for two reasons. It was hit first, so the spread has had longer to play out. And more recently, Tyson has been checking everyone at its plants and finding many workers testing positive for the virus.

"At one in Missouri, they tested 2,000 workers and 350 workers were positive," Hayes said. "None of them had symptoms."

Tyson announced last week that it plans to resume limited production this week at the Logansport facility, after a plant tour with local health and government officials, a union representative and medical professionals.

"We've taken additional precautions to reassure team members that they are returning to a safe work environment and have made additional changes to continue supporting them during this global health crisis," said Todd Neff, senior vice president. "While the facility was idled, we added more workstation barriers, installed more hand sanitizer dispensers and did additional deep cleaning and sanitation. We're also now screening employees for additional symptoms."

But according to Meyer, if consumers' neighborhood grocery stores have exclusive purchasing contracts with any of the multinational corporations that have been hit particularly hard, there could be shortages.

"You're going to see empty shelves," he said. "Not all the time, and it won't last forever."

Hayes said part of what will increase prices is that consumers will probably see a scarcity of pork, beef and chicken at the same time because of the plant closures. Consumers can't just substitute a cheaper animal protein, because all are likely to cost more.

"Usually pork loin is $2 per pound at Costco," he said. "That could go to $3."

Costco announced on Monday some restrictions as supply tightens, saying fresh-meat purchases are temporarily limited to three items per warehouse member among the beef, pork and poultry products.

If prices increase significantly, Hayes said, exports will fall.

"We export huge quantities of meat all over the world, about 30% of what we produce," he explained. "Those export customers are much more price sensitive, so price increases will results in less exports."

He said it remains to be seen whether that would boost quantities available for domestic retail.

The president invoked the Defense Production Act last week to classify meat processing plants as "critical infrastructure," a move that was widely seen as giving processors protection from liability for workers who fall ill on the job.

"If it works," said Hayes, "consumers will see a modest increase in prices. If it doesn't work, they'll see a big increase."

The executive order came on the heels of Tyson Foods taking out full-page advertisements in The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, with company Chairman John Tyson warning that the U.S. "food supply chain is breaking."
Conservatives first became aware of journalist Kurt Eichenwald when he appeared on Tucker Carlson's show, carrying a literal binder full of Carlson's alleged "falsehoods," only to have Carlson shred him instead. Three months later, Eichenwald reported that someone who knew about his epilepsy had sent him a tweet with a blind strobe light, which triggered a seizure. And three months after that, Eichenwald grabbed headlines for being caught viewing Japanese anime octopus tentacle porn.

On Saturday, Eichenwald abandoned the leftist's "believe all women" shtick to tweet out an utterly vile thread asserting that, because Tara Reade's allegations don't match his own experience when he was raped in the early 1980s, she's a "liar" and should "rot in hell." That tweet would be an ugly nothing were it not for the fact that he had a very different approach to Christine Blasey Ford.

Ford alleged that a man with a sterling reputation had attempted to rape her when both were teenagers. She had never met him before the incident nor ever saw him again afterward. She couldn't remember in which year the alleged assault happened, where it happened, who was present, or any surrounding circumstances. The witnesses she identified all denied knowing anything about it. A fanatical abortion-supporter, she first mentioned the incident over twenty years later, when Kavanaugh, who she knew had grown up near her, was being bandied about as a potential Supreme Court justice. Ford's father supported Kavanaugh, not his daughter.

On September 20, 2018, Eichenwald wrote a Twitter thread recounting his own rape, which he viewed as so close to Ford's experience that he knew she was telling the truth. In the thread, which is too long to repeat here, he says he too couldn't remember anything about the sexual assault or the events surrounding it, and he also was silent about his experience for almost three decades.

Fast-forward eighteen months to Tara Reade. Reade has alleged that Biden, a man she knew and worked for, sexually assaulted her with his fingers. Biden routinely fondles women and children in public, was close friends with men who sexually assaulted a waitress, and had a reputation for assaulting women in the Senate building. She remembers when and where the assault occurred and told at least seven people within two years of the attack. Her mother's phone call to Larry King in 1993 provides contemporaneous evidence that Reade immediately told people what had happened.

So what does Eichenwald do? He savagely attacks Reade as a liar. His Twitter thread is too long, graphic, and offensive to post here, but there are a few salient points to make. After having said Ford could be forgiven for having no memory of anything because his memories of his rape were a "blur," he suddenly tweets out that he has all sorts of precise memories of everything but the date of his assault. He accuses Reade of being a Putin puppet and says Reade  a lifelong Democrat  is on a political mission to destroy Biden.

Eichenwald attacks Reade for slowly revealing more details about the assault because she initially said only that Biden touched her in ways that made her feel uncomfortable. He says Reade's a liar because she remembers now that she limited her employee complaint to a harassment claim. According to him, even if you don't remember the rape, you remember the police report and, if it was rape, you'd mention that fact. Lastly, he argues that Reade's continued show of respect for Biden proves she's a liar.

Eichenwald has forgotten Harvey Weinstein's rape trial. Then, when Weinstein's victims were shown to have downplayed what happened, told different versions of events, or maintained contact with their attacker, the #MeTo/Believe All Women crowd told us this is normal behavior for victims of sexual assault:

A forensic psychiatrist, Barbara Ziv, testified for the prosecution that it is common for victims of a sexual assault to not report the crime to law enforcement and to remain in contact with their attacker. In some cases, Dr. Ziv said, victims worry that their assaulter might ruin their reputation or job. Sometimes the victim maintains a relationship with the perpetrator because they have a connection to the person. "Those women do not always leave," Dr. Ziv said. "In fact, they frequently do not leave and they stay for a long period of time, and they may think about it but they don't do it."

Also, Eichenwald seems incapable of distinguishing between a rape so violent that there was blood everywhere (his claimed experience) and a truly disgusting, but not violent, sexual assault. In 1983, a diffident young woman might not have realized that what had happened to her was both criminally and morally different from, and worse than, sexual harassment.

Eichenwald presents as a troubled man with a significant health issue and a severe trauma in his past. Like his fellow leftists, his principles seem closely aligned with the pursuit of political power. It is, therefore, unsurprising that he is willing to manipulate the worst experience in his life to achieve a political goal.
Island to observe two-minute silence on VE Day



Manx Womens Land Army meeting the King and Queen on Tynwald Day 1945.

The Isle of Man will join the UK in observing a two-minute silence at 11am on Friday to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day.

This will be an opportunity to remember the immense sacrifices made both on the battlefield and at home that led to victory over Nazi forces in Europe in 1945.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle will deliver a statement of commemoration on behalf of the Government and people of the Isle of Man.

A bugler and a piper will play The Last Post, Battles Oer and VE Day 75 from the summit of Snaefell. The same pieces will be performed at the highest peaks in the UK and hundreds of other locations around the world.
A-10 continues operations after engineers assess battlefield repair

By Daryl Mayer, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Public Affairs / Published May 03, 2020

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio (AFNS) -- An A-10 Thunderbolt II damaged in a deployed location was quickly returned to service after a remote engineering assessment, while disbursed in response to COVID-19.

After a mission, maintenance crews needed to repair battle damage on an A-10 consisting of a bullet hole in the underbelly skin with an unknown exit point for the projectile.

Despite the challenge of teleworking, an Air Force Life Cycle Management Center team of engineers from the A-10 Division at Hill Air Force Base, Utah was formed to assess the damage.

"The team tested the teleworking capabilities during the previous weeks in anticipation of such an event," said Pamela Lee, A-10 division chief at Hill AFB. "Because of this preparation, engineering was able to keep the lines of communication open with the unit to support the expedient response to this emergency repair."

The entire operation was managed by email, file sharing over the global virtual private network, and telephone with none of the team members actually meeting face-to-face. Basically, the team accomplished the mission from their bedrooms, basements and home offices while flattening the virus curve by working from home.

The team lead, Ariane Aniban, directed 1st Lt. James Zhen and Reed Fawcett to develop a plan. They needed more details and directed the maintainers on the ground how to investigate further. After cutting a 3-inch hole in the underbelly, a crack in the structure with three sheared fasteners was found, along with the bullet lodged in the fuel cell cavity floor crack.

The engineer team studied the maintainer's findings, including photos, and directed a plan of action to repair the damage. Once the steps were followed at the site, the package was assessed for airworthiness by Tim Allred and Greg Stowe, who determined the aircraft could safely return to operations.

"The disposition and flight waiver from the chief engineer were then released back to the unit in less than 24 hours," Lee said. "I'm proud to know our team helped keep this vital aircraft in the air, performing its close-air support mission that is so important to our forces on the ground."

Upon return to its home station, the aircraft will undergo final repairs.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Subscriber content preview

WASHINGTON (AP)  U.S. construction spending edged up 0.9% in March as building activity escaped the early impacts of the coronavirus shutdowns.

The Commerce Department said that the increase followed a 2.5% drop in spending in February. Economists had been forecasting another decline in March as the efforts to contain the spread of the virus started to take hold.





. . .
(Newser)  Colson Whitehead became the rare author to receive Pulitzers for consecutive books when his novel about a brutal Florida reform school during the Jim Crow era, The Nickel Boys, was awarded the fiction prize Monday. Three years ago, he won for his Civil War era novel The Underground Railroad. Pulitzer judges praised The Nickel Boys as "a spare and devastating exploration of abuse that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption," the AP reports. Whitehead, 50, is known for his experimental narratives and immersion in American history and folklore. His previous works include John Henry Days and The Intuitionist. In a statement issued through publisher Doubleday, Whitehead said the news of his winning Monday was "pretty nuts!"

story continues below

"Obviously Im very honored and I hope that it raises awareness of the real life model for the novelthe Dozier School for Boysso that the victims and their stories are not forgotten," he said. William Faulkner and John Updike are among the previous fiction writers to win more than one Pulitzer, but not for books that immediately followed the other. Other winners announced Monday:

National Reporting: T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose, and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica for their investigation into Americas 7th Fleet after a series of deadly naval accidents in the Pacific, and Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker, and Lewis Kamb of the Seattle Times for stories that exposed design flaws in the Boeing 737 Max.

T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose, and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica for their investigation into Americas 7th Fleet after a series of deadly naval accidents in the Pacific, and Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker, and Lewis Kamb of the Seattle Times for stories that exposed design flaws in the Boeing 737 Max. International Reporting: The staff of the New York Times, for " a set of enthralling stories, reported at great risk, exposing the predations of Vladimir Putins regime.

The staff of the New York Times, for " a set of enthralling stories, reported at great risk, exposing the predations of Vladimir Putins regime. Breaking News Reporting : The staff of the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., for "rapid coverage of hundreds of last-minute pardons by Kentuckys governor, showing how the process was marked by opacity, racial disparities and violations of legal norms."

: The staff of the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., for "rapid coverage of hundreds of last-minute pardons by Kentuckys governor, showing how the process was marked by opacity, racial disparities and violations of legal norms." Investigative Reporting : Brian M. Rosenthal of the New York Times for an expose of the city's taxi industry that led to federal and state investigations.

: Brian M. Rosenthal of the New York Times for an expose of the city's taxi industry that led to federal and state investigations. Public Service : A collaboration between the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica for coverage of policing in Alaska villages.

: A collaboration between the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica for coverage of policing in Alaska villages. Music. Anthony Davis' opera The Central Park Five, which tells of the wrongful conviction of five black and Latino teenagers for the 1989 assault on a white female jogger in Central Park.



A full list of winners can be seen here.

(Read more Pulitzer Prize stories.)
Just when everybody thought Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is cooking some bombshell tell-all interview, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are actually up for something even better.

Over the weekend, it was revealed that the 38-year-old former Hollywood actress and 35-year-old Duke is set to release an autobiography book called "Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making Of A Modern Royal Family."

Based on the Amazon listing, the book, which has a hardcover and Kindle version, will be available for sale on August 11, 2020. Moreover, it is already expected to be a global bestseller.

The autobiography promises to give readers an honest and closer look at Meghan and Harry's royal life and the details that led them to their controversial decision to step down as senior members of the royal family earlier this 2020.

"While the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have continued to make headlines-from their engagement, wedding, and (the) birth of their son Archie to their unprecedented decision to step back from their royal lives-few know the true story of Harry and Meghan," the book description read.

"Finding Freedom is an honest, up-close, and disarming portrait of a confident, influential, and forward-thinking couple who are unafraid to break with tradition, determined to create a new path away from the spotlight, and dedicated to building a humanitarian legacy that will make a profound difference in the world."

The cover of the book features Prince Harry and Meghan Markle when they first visited their namesake country last October 2018.

The Authors

Meghan and Harry worked with journalists Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand to work on the 320-page biography. Scobie is a London-based writer and royal commentator, who also serves as Harper's Bazaar's royal editor and contributor for ABC News and Good Morning America.

Durand, on the other hand, is an award-winning producer who spent the last two decades covering the royal family from Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Clarence House, and other major royal events.

According to sources, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat down to give an interview for both authors even before moving to North America.

However, a Deadline report claimed that the couple did not speak to the authors for any interviews.

Expectations

Since Meghan and Harry reportedly cooperated in working on this book, Palace insiders are expecting that the biography will paint a flattering image of the couple despite the negative publicity brought by their royal exit.

Meanwhile, others fear that the book may also include some uncomfortable details of their painful decision to quit as senior royals, which may further strain their relationship with the royal family.

"Finding Freedom" is also expected to echo Princess Diana's secret involvement to the best-selling biography "Diana: Her True Story - In Her Own Words," where she encouraged her friends to speak to author Andrew Morton. There are also speculations that Meghan's inner circle were contacted to add insightful details to Scoobie and Durand.
BBC viewers were shown heartbreaking images of gibbons in tiny cages on last night's episode of Primates.

The six-part wildlife documentary series shone a light on the issue of wild gibbons and other monkeys being kept in captivity and sold as pets.

The segment focused on the situation in Malaysia, where the capture of infant gibbons is decimating the wild population.

BBC viewers were shown heartbreaking images of gibbons in tiny cages on last night's episode of Primates. Pictured, an example of the conditions facing baby gibbons in the pet trade

The six-part wildlife documentary series shone a light on the issue of wild gibbons and other monkeys being kept in captivity and sold as pets, as seen above

The distressing images struck a chord with viewers, who praised the BBC for not shying away from the topic, pictured

It is estimated that for every baby gibbon that is taken, 10 die.

Many gibbons are traded via social media and grabs shown by the BBC revealed how they are marketed through dedicated groups.

The distressing images struck a chord with viewers, who praised the BBC for not shying away from the topic.

One tweeted: 'Really impressed with #Primates not shying away from showing some of the conservation threats facing primates. Found the final segment on the effects of the primate pet trade particularly impressive and an important exposure of why #primatesarenotpets.'

The segment focused on the situation in Malaysia, where the capture of infant gibbons is decimating the wild population. Pictured, a gibbon at a rehabilitation centre

Cameras heard from conservationist Mariani 'Bam' Ramli, of the founder of Gibbon Protection Society Malaysia, which works to rescue and rehabilitate gibbons sold as pets, as well as prosecute offenders. Pictured, Bam with gibbons and BBC crew

Another posted: 'So happy #Primates is taking the time to raise awareness of the primate pet trade. Primates are NOT in any sense of the word, pets. Its a hugely damaging trade to not just the individual, but also to the species as a whole.'

A third wrote: 'I can't explain how happy it makes me that the issue of pet trade through social media is being highlighted. Thank you @BBCEarth for showing people how dangerous just simply liking a photo or video of facebook can be. #Primates.'

Cameras heard from conservationist Mariani 'Bam' Ramli, of the founder of Gibbon Protection Society Malaysia, which works to rescue and rehabilitate gibbons sold as pets, as well as prosecute offenders.

Many gibbons are traded via social media and grabs shown by the BBC revealed how they are marketed through dedicated groups, pictured

Infant gibbons form a close bond with their primary carer, whether that is their parent or a human, which makes them vulnerable.

However by the time the gibbon is a year old it is increasingly independent and can become destructive if kept indoors without enough stimulation and space.

As a result these gibbons are often abandoned and left to fend for themselves, despite having no experience of living in the wild.

'Bam' and her team work to reintroduce the gibbons to the wild.
California's Gov. Gavin Newsom's closure of Orange County beaches is an effort to distract the public from the state's "tens of billions of dollars" financial free fall.

Newsom's April 30 executive order closing Orange County beaches to stop the coronavirus sparked a series of viral protests this weekend that brought out thousands of mostly young and very angry demonstrators shouting "U-S-A" and waving "Freedom: We the people" and "Recall Gavin Newsom" signs.

OC beach closures distracted the public from Newsom's real crisis, which is a tanking state budget that he just acknowledged has gone from a "$21.4 billion budget surplus" to "tens of billions of dollars in deficit," according to Bloomberg.

Newsom knows that with polls claiming that 80% of Americans are still in support of closing nonessential businesses, America's 50 governors have been the biggest political winners for handling the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a new Harvard/Northeastern/Rutgers study, governors received a 66-percent average approval rating for handling of the outbreak, versus a 44-percent approval for President Trump.

The Harvard study found that Newsom had one of the highest scores for "Reacting about right" to the COVID-19 outbreak with a score of 78, three points higher than the score of 75 for New York governor Andrew Cuomo. The two lowest scoring governors in the survey were Florida governor Ron DeSantis with a score of 60 and Hawaii governor David Ige with a score of 55  both were blamed for failing to close beaches.

Newsom's rise is especially impressive, given that the average of the Morning Consult, Monmouth University, and Quinnipiac University pre-pandemic poll approval rating of just 42 percent, 5 points lower than the 47 percent for Cuomo. Newsom's response to the pandemic kicked his approval up by 41 points, versus a 31-percent gain for Cuomo.

Orange County sheriff Don Barnes responded to the governors' order by stating: "The photographs I saw, quite honestly, were a stark contrast to what the governor's acting on." Sheriff Barnes emphasized: "I have no desire to enforce ... through arrest."

Newsom has the authority to use California state troopers, park rangers, and the National Guard to enforce his beach closures, but he risks confrontations with frustrated young people that could quickly get out of control and then turn violent.

Responding to Vietnam War protests 50 years ago, popular Ohio governor James A. Rhodes declared a "state of emergency" and then sent in the National Guard to restore order on May 2. The 1,000 National Guard troopers and the students kept their distance for two days. But with classes resuming on May 4, antiwar protestors screamed, "Pigs off campus" and hurled rocks at 75 advancing Guardsmen brandishing rifles with bayonets. Twenty-nine soldiers eventually opened fire, killing four of the students and creating a national crisis.

Newsom knows the risks he faces if the Orange County protests create a violent confrontation. But he also is keenly aware that former vice president Joe Biden's bid for the Democrat Party presidential nomination may collapse over "#MeToo" sexual assault charges by former staffer Tara Reade after a disastrous MSNBC interview when Biden refused to allow access to 1,875 boxes of documents and 415 gigabytes of electronic records from his Senate tenure now held at the University of Delaware.

Newsom appears to be the Democrats' most competitive replacement if Biden continues to stumble and he could use the campaign to attack President Trump for refusing to agree to a $1 trillion state of local government bailout.

California's non-partisan legislative analyst Gabriel Petek told state senators on April 30 that the 202021 budget shortfall would total about $35 billion in 202021 and could metastasize to an additional $85 billion in the following years.

But with temperatures rising and tens of thousands of young people embittered by the statewide coronavirus lockdown, Gavin Newsom had better hope those beach protests do not turn violent and destroy his political future.
President Donald Trump has promised a conclusive report on the US investigation into Chinas handling of the coronavirus outbreak and he once against revised projections for US toll, which he said, could now hit 100,000.

Were going to be giving a very strong report as to exactly what we think happened. And I think it will be very conclusive, Trump said a virtual town hall hosted Sunday by Fox News. My opinion is they made a mistake. They tried to cover it, they tried to put it out., just like a fire.

The US has disputed the Chinese version of the origin of Covid-19  from a meats and fresh produce market in Wuhan  and alleged it started instead at a virology lab in the same city. And it has also accused Beijing of delaying alerting the rest of the world and of suppressing the true extent of its epidemic.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has said the US has enormous evidence of the outbreak began at the Wuhan lab. He has not shared any evidence, and neither has any US official thus far, despite continued and rising rhetoric against China, with threats of punitive measures, including making China pay for it.

China has dismissed these allegations and called them last Thursday an effort by the Trump administration to shift their own responsibility for the poor handling of the epidemic.

The Trump administration has indeed faced questions about its response to the epidemic, essentially for squandering time gained by the earlyFebruary ban on travelers from China. The president has pushed back and insisted he was, in fact, ahead of the curve, citing the same travel restrictions.

At the Fox New town hall, the president sought to shift the blame somewhat on to Anthony Fauci, a top epidemiologist and member of the presidents task force on the outbreak  everybody, even Tony Fauci, was saying its going to pass, not going to be a big deal.

It did not. And the United States has borne the brunt of the pandemic with 1.15 million confirmed and reported infections till Monday morning, a third of the cases worldwide; and 67,710 fatalities, close to a quarter or the global toll. The US numbers went up in the last 24 hours 25,501 infections and 1,313 deaths.

President Trump said the town hall he fears the fatalities will go up further, revising upwards his earlier assessments. Were going to lose anywhere from 75-, 80- to 100,000 people, Trump said. Thats a horrible thing. We shouldnt lose one person over this. This shouldve been stopped in China.

The president had last week that the toll will hopefully wind up under 100,000, changing his earlier assessments of 240,000 way back in March before issuing lockdown guidelines to 60,000 and 70,000 in recent days and weeks, as he has sought to frame the reducing numbers as an achievement.

Without the mitigation measures ordered by him the numbers would have been far higher, he has argued.

Even at 100,000, his new projection, is way in excess of the 72,433 Covid-19 deaths projected by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), whose modeling and numbers have been cited often by the Whit House. The IHME projected number if for August, at the current levels of mitigation.

With many states rolling back restrictions and reopening some businesses, with the very public backing of the president, experts fear a resurgence, specially those that ignore the federal reopening guidelines and and end up leapfrogging conditions laid down for graduating from one phase to another.
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 18:26:03

Press Release - Boston, London, Nice, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, May 4, 2020

Scientific Beta warns against design flaws in European Commission proposals on Climate Benchmarks and Sustainability Disclosures

This draft regulation makes the weights of stocks in the new climate indices depend more on their stock market performance than on their ecological performance

In the context of the ongoing consultation on the draft delegated acts implementing the November 2019 update of the EU Benchmarks Regulation, the smart beta index provider Scientific Beta takes exception to key provisions of the European Commission's projects and puts forward remedial proposals.

In a letter dated May 4 addressed to the European Commission in response to the call for feedback that it carried out on these draft delegated acts, and which will also be sent to the European Council and the European Parliament, Scientific Beta criticises the lack of a serious study and the significant flaws in this draft regulation. In particular, Scientific Beta worries about the substitution of enterprise value for revenues in the definition of carbon intensity, which introduces capital market biases (e.g. real estate development, software, and online retailing will be particularly favoured) and instability into carbon metric measurement. It observes that the dramatic rise in carbon intensity sustained by index products that embarked the new metric vindicates its earlier warnings that these products would fall foul of the decarbonisation trajectory of the regulatory proposal if faced with a significant fall in equity markets. Last but not least, it explains that the insistence on incorporating value-chain emissions data of insufficient quality to support security selection will lead to financial decisions that will disregard the greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts in the real economy, which it calls a travesty of the objectives of the Regulation. Scientific Beta recommends giving administrators flexibility in sector allocations while neutralising sector effects to assess decarbonisation, to use the standard version of carbon intensity and to incorporate important value-chain considerations with metrics of sufficient granularity.

Scientific Beta questions the authority of the Commission with respect to the imposition of extensive and expensive sustainability disclosures and warns against officially condoning indicators, (ESG ratings) whose inherent divergence has been described in academic literature as an impediment to prudent decision-making. Scientific Beta calls for sustainability disclosures not only to be theoretically relevant but also be to be fully specified and highly standardised to permit comparisons. In this spirit and to minimise costs to investors, it calls for the creation of an administrative body to produce the data required for sustainability disclosures, including in respect of controversies, in the manner of the Council of Ethics set up to support Nordic reserve funds. Instead of being a business opportunity for the ESG data and service providers that drove the work of the Commission, this act should be the occasion to build a stronger European Union identity on matters of sustainability.

Commenting on the company's stand, its CEO, Professor Noel Amenc, states that "Like all providers that are highly active in the area of ESG, and particularly Low Carbon, investing, we support initiatives that aim to favour the adoption of high standards. Unfortunately, this proposal does not go in the right direction and our previous criticism of the proposal from the Technical expert group on sustainable finance (TEG) remains relevant for the most part. Even though we have planned to provide versions of our flagship indices that will comply with these standards, which will be a business opportunity for us, we will not recommend that our clients adopt these indices. Scientific Beta was set up by an academic institution to advance state-of-the-art equity investing based on scientific ethics and we believe that it is our duty to highlight the flaws and risks that this draft regulation poses for the fight against climate change. In very concrete terms, the new carbon metric will allow a company that has a better stock market performance than the market average to participate proportionally more in the emission of greenhouse gases than others. Ultimately, this regulation makes the weights of stocks depend more on their stock market performance than on their ecological performance."

For more details, please refer to the following documents:

Scientific Beta Letter to the European Commission, May 4, 2020

Unsustainable Proposals, A Critical Appraisal of the TEG Final Report, Scientific Beta Publication, February 2020

As part of its policy of transferring know-how to the industry, EDHEC-Risk Institute has set up Scientific Beta. Scientific Beta is an original initiative which aims to favour the adoption of the latest advances in smart beta design and implementation by the whole investment industry. Its academic origin provides the foundation for its strategy: offer, in the best economic conditions possible, the smart beta solutions that are most proven scientifically with full transparency of both the methods and the associated risks.

Scientific Beta, 1 George Street, #15-02, Singapore 049145. For further information, please contact: contact@scientificbeta.com, Web: www.scientificbeta.com.

Attachment
A rising number of community colleges in California are planning to provide all fall classes online for the protection of staff and students from COVID-19.

Specifically, nine colleges in the Los Angeles Community District, Sierra College, Santa Rosa Junior College, Sierra College of the Desert, and Santa Monica College announced this week, most of their classes would be provided remotely in the fall.

Relatively, UCLA officials are planning to provide the students with the choice of how they would want to attend their classes for fall this year.

College of Desert president Joel Kinnamon said, the students, staff, and faculty's health and safety, as well as "maintaining the quality of our learning and teaching programs are of the greatest importance for the college," which has roughly 10,000 undergraduate students in Palm Desert.

Incidentally, with a rise in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the service area of the college, combined with the absence of a vaccine and the probability of the second wave of contagions, Kinnamon said they felt "this was the most practical path."

Purely Online

The said announcements indicated the decisions the other colleges in California may also end up making, which include the 111 other community colleges of the state. To date, Calbright is the state's lone purely-online community college.

A lot of colleges are considering how classes will be offered this fall.

Nevertheless, just a handful of institutions have already decided on the things they'd do, despite the rising anxiety from families and students over the impact of such decisions in them.

Gene Block, UCLA Chancellor, and Emily Carter, a provost to the university and executive vice chancellor, said though it might be impossible for some of their students to travel safely to campus, "We plan to provide the option of remote learning," at least for fall, even though some classes are conducted in person.

Sierra College

Meanwhile, the Sierra College officials, mainly in the Sacramento area, said via Twitter that they wanted to offer the students "as much advance notice as possible," and therefore, decided for online-only classes this fall.

The college said, making such a decision earlier allows them to be more prepared for online learning. It also gives the staff ample time to be prepared for this format.

Sierra College currently has roughly 16,000 enrollees. With the probability of a recurrence of the virus this season, the College continued, students will not have to worry anymore about making a rapid transition to remote or online learning.

Nevertheless, the college officials explained, some classes cannot take place virtually or via online. They added, they will keep on searching for substitutes like a combination of in-person and virtual classes, to assist the students in completing their courses.

Los Angeles Community College District and Santa Monica College

Los Angeles Community College District chancellor, Francisco Rodriguez, on the other hand, said they have been doing all they can to look for "flexible solutions for classes that require clinical experience, labs, or any other hands-on requirement."

The Santa Monica College, with roughly 26,000 students, earlier this week, decided that its almost 3,000 classes would be offered online starting August 31, this fall quarter.

The decision to continue the purely-online instruction this whole fall quarter was said to have been based on two factors. First was that the officials of Santa Monica don't think vaccines for COVID-19 will be available until next year.

Second, it would be almost impossible for the college, described as "open-access" to observe and determine the differences between people who have COVID-19 and those who have the usual flu.

Santa Rosa Junior College

Frank Chong, the president of Santa Rosa Junior College, issued a statement on Thursday saying, the college would also be offering online classes this fall quarter.

He said some courses would require face-to-face or in-person learning like the hands-on labs and those that the Public Safety Training Center offers. But where possible, he continued, they would work "alongside staff and faculty in these areas to provide in-person instruction" using the social distancing procedures of the college.

Check these out!
Montgomery County health officials confirm the countys 15 death and just six new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total for the county to 640.

The death was a 70-year-old Montgomery man who had been hospitalized.

As of Monday, there are 462 cases including 55 people still hospitalized. A total of 163 people have fully recovered.

According to Montgomery County Public Health officials, the low number of new cases was due to an equipment malfunction that delayed of the receipt of laboratory results. The district said it expects a spike in Tuesday cases now that the equipment is functional. Health officials did not provide details on the malfunction.

Residents with symptoms of COVID-19 also will get a second chance to be tested at a mobile testing site in Conroe.

The testing, which will be appointment only, will be 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday at the Montgomery County Fair Grounds, 9333 Airport Road.

To get an appointment a patient must be symptomatic for COVID-19. Symptoms include: fever or chills, cough, fatigue, body aches or sore joints, shortness of breath, sore throat, headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, nasal congestion, and loss of taste or smell.

The testing site comes on the heels of a first site last week at Woodforest Stadium in Shenandoah. About 200 people were tested according to the Montgomery County Public Health District.

To register for an appointment visit www.txcovidtest.org or call 512-883-2400.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
P olice have launched an investigation after 23 cows and calves were reported missing from a farm in Cornwall.

The Jersey cows went missing from Lower Bodiniel Farm in Bodmin some time between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning last week.

The herd includes 10 cows which all have a calf each, and three heifers, a spokeswoman for Devon and Cornwall Police said.

Officers believe the cows have been stolen and are continuing to appeal for information about the "unusual" disappearance of the animals.

PC Chris Collins, Rural Affairs Officer for Cornwall, said: Thefts of sheep are reported to us from time-to-time but it is particularly unusual for cows to go missing.

Our initial enquiries, and efforts by the farmer to locate his animals, have led us to believe that the cows were stolen, rather than being lost.

Dairy cows are more used to being moved around than beef cattle, so if they were taken, they would probably have been quite amenable when loaded onto a transporter.

The loss of so many animals has had a significant financial impact on the farmer.

We appreciate the publics support and would like to hear from anyone who was in the area at the time of the cows going missing and may have any information which could assist our enquiries, to get in touch.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police via 101 quoting CR/034605/20.
The tally of the coronavirus cases



in Mumbai crossed the 9,000-mark and jumped to 9,123 on Monday with the addition of 510 new patients, while 18 more died due to the viral infection, the city civic body said.

The new cases were reported in the last 24 hours.

According to a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) release, the death toll reached 361 as 18 more patients succumbed in the past 24 hours.

The BMC said 436 new suspected coronavirus patients were admitted to various hospitals in the city.

Also, during the period, 104 people recovered from the disease and were discharged from hospitals.

According to the release, so far 1,908 people have recovered from COVID-19 in the metropolis.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Apriza Pinandita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 18:28 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5e4195 1 National COVID-19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,Jokowi,COVID-19-cluster Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has called for stringent monitoring of several clusters of COVID-19 cases to curb the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Indonesia.

The President noted that clusters had been recorded among influxes of migrant workers returning home, Tablighi Jamaat members, factory workers and people returning to their hometowns.

These [clusters] must be well-monitored, Jokowi said during the virtual meeting with the COVID-19 task force on Monday.

He highlighted migrant workers as an example.

I have been told that around 89,000 Indonesian migrant workers have returned [to the country] and there will be more of them, possibly reaching 16,000 people [] This is something we must pay attention to, he said.

Read also: COVID-19: Govt must ensure well-being of returning migrant workers, advocacy group says

The number is larger than was predicted by the Indonesia Migrant Worker Protection Agency (BP2MI), which estimated that around 37,000 Indonesian migrant workers had returned home after their contracts ended in April and May, Antara news agency reported.

Of the returning migrant workers, BP2MI recorded that around 15,400 had returned from Malaysia, 11,300 from Hong Kong and 3,507 from Singapore.

Recently, tobacco giant HM Sampoerna temporarily shut down its factory in Rungkut district of Surabaya, East Java, following reports that two workers had died from COVID-19 and that dozens of other workers had tested positive for the virus that causes the disease.

The cigarette factory was identified as a new COVID-19 cluster in Surabaya when the two workers' test results came back positive after their deaths on April 14.

Surabaya  along with its satellite areas of Gresik and Sidoarjo  imposed a 14-day period of large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) on April 28.

Read also: High influx of Indonesian migrant workers from Malaysia, despite call to stay amid outbreak

In addition, Jokowi urged authorities to closely monitor industrial areas, especially in regions that have imposed large-scale social restrictions (PSBB).

We must do inspections [if needed] to ensure they follow the health protocols, the President said.

Jokowi stressed on Monday that there needed to be an evaluation of PSBB measures, which are currently in place in four provinces and 22 cities. The restrictions that are aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, he said, must be evaluated to ensure they were being implemented effectively.
ELCA faces criticism for posting prayer to 'Mother God' on Facebook, Twitter

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America garnered controversy this week for posting a prayer on their Twitter and Facebook accounts addressing God as Mother" instead of Father.

Mother God, you have fed us with the nourishment of your spiritual food. Raise us up into salvation and rid us of our bitterness, so that we may share the sweetness of your holy word with all the world, the ELCA tweeted on Tuesday as part of their #Bread4theday series of Twitter posts.

The tweet has gotten a fair amount of negative attention. Hans Fiene, a conservative pastor who oversees the popular Lutheran Satire YouTube channel, took issue with the post.

Leave the ELCA, he succinctly replied on Wednesday when retweeting the ELCA post, getting 207 likes as of Friday morning and several comments in agreement.

Also posted to Facebook, the prayer was criticized by the website Exposing the ELCA, which said: the ELCA has rejected Jesus' own way of referring to God as Father.

They must know better than Him, Exposing the ELCA declared. This is not just a one-time thing. It has been happening for a while.

Jeff Walton of the theologically conservative Institute on Religion & Democracy told The Christian Post that he was concerned about the prayer as well.

Church mystics including Julian of Norwich  who is commemorated next week in the ELCA and the Episcopal Church  and Bernard of Clairvaux likened divine love to motherly love, Walton said.

My concern with this ELCA prayer is that it does not focus upon an attribute of Gods character and instead simply declares God Mother. It prompts me to ask if there's an agenda in doing so.

Walton also told CP that theologically liberal mainline Protestant denominations in general have all to some degree dabbled in this stuff.

It has ranged from politicized statements against patriarchy all the way to outright goddess worship in events like the infamous reimagining conference of the 1990s in which prayers were offered in the name of Sophia, he said.

The Christian Post reached out to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and will update this piece if a response is received.
New Delhi, May 4 : Digital technology has helped in a big way to enable provision of banking services at the grassroots level during the period lockdown, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.

This can be gauged from the popularity of the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) during this difficult period with average daily transactions doubling to 113 lakhs over the last 40 days.

According to Department of Financial Services (DFS) in the Finance Ministry, a total of 43 crore transactions of Rs 16,101 crore were made during the lockdown. This is double the rate prior to this period.

"Avg. daily AePS transactions doubled to 113 Lakh: Total 43 Cr. tran sactions of Rs. 16,101 Cr. made during the lockdown. DFS Congratulates the whole banking system & lauds BCs/CSPs for making it possible by providing services via biometric devices even in remote areas," DFS said in tweet on Monday.

AePS is a bank-led model which allows basic interoperable banking transactions at point of sale (PoS or MicroATM) through the business correspondent of any bank by using Aadhaar authentication.

Using this system, a bank customer can use Aadhaar as identity to access respective Aadhaar-enabled bank account and perform basic banking transactions like cash withdrawal, intrabank or interbank fund transfer and balance enquiry.

From the customer point, the only things required to complete a transaction are the name of the customer's bank, Aadhaar number and fingerprint captured during enrollment.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 21:03:41|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

RAMALLAH, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Palestine on Monday slammed Israel's decision to seize the land in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Israeli Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett's approval to seize the land in the Old City of Hebron to build a road and set up an elevator to allow settlers' access to the mosque is an attempt to alter the Arab and Islamic features of the holy site.

"Israel used the coronavirus pandemic outbreak to implement this move," the statement said, warning that Palestine will complain to the International Criminal Court on the decision by Bennett.

On Sunday, Bennett gave the final approval to the building of a new path to the mosque which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority according to a 1997 agreement between the two sides.

The Ibrahimi Mosque and the Old City of Hebron that contains the mosque were listed by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a Palestinian world heritage in 2017.

Considered by Muslims the fourth holiest site, the about 1,000-year-old Ibrahimi Mosque enshrines the tombs of Prophet Abraham, his son Isaac, as well as his grandson Jacob and their wives.

Israelis believe the mosque compound as a shared faith site but have for a long time imposed restrictions on the access of Palestinians into the mosque by surrounding it with soldiers, gates and a checkpoint system. Enditem
RESIDENTS taking part in the weekly applause for NHS workers are being encouraged not to set off fireworks.

Erik DArcy-Donnelly, a veterinary surgeon at the Henley Veterinary Surgery, is urging people to be more considerate of animals, which are scared and sometimes injured by fireworks.

The Clap for Carers initiative began last month. Most households have kept their celebrations to clapping and cheering but others have taken to using fireworks.

Mr DArcy-Donnelly said: I am all for clapping the NHS and the essential workers on Thursday evenings but letting off fireworks is not acceptable.

A lot of people dont even think about the stress and anxiety that it caues pets or the chance of them being injured.

We would rather not see an animal because of something that can be prevented. Some people are also letting off Chinese lanterns and these can be just as dangerous.

Animals dont understand what is happening. Their natural instinct is fear and they might feel they have to escape and then they might get run over.

Last year, during Henley Festival, they let off the fireworks at the end and I know a dog escaped and was run over and killed.

As well as being potentially harmful to both domestic pets and wildlife, fireworks could also put a strain on the fire and rescue service if crews are called to rescue an escaped animal.

The surgery in Reading Road is operating on an emergency only basis and is attempting to handle as many cases as possible without having to interact with clients. If an owner suspects their pet may be injured or unwell, they are encouraged to call the surgery and then send a photo or video by email to allow staff to assess the nature of the condition.

They will then receive a follow-up call and medication will be sent by post. In more serious cases, clients can come to the surgery car park and medication will be dropped off at a safe distance.

Mr DArcy-Donnelly said: We are not doing our full range of services and we have to make sure we are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Los Angeles, May 4 : A northern California city official was ousted after he claimed on social media that sick, old and homeless people should be left to meet their "natural course in nature" during the coronavirus pandemic, local media reported.

According to a local news channel, city council members in Antioch voted unanimously Friday night via a Zoom meeting to remove Ken Turnage II from his post as chairman of the city's planning commission, for his unacceptable comments.

He wrote on Facebook: "the World has been introduced to a new phrase Herd Immunity which is a good one. In my opinion we need to adapt a Herd Mentality. A herd gathers its ranks, it allows the sick, the old, the injured to meet its natural course in nature," reported Xinhua news agency on Sunday.

"If we were to live our lives, let nature run its course, yes we will all feel hardship, we will all feel loss," he wrote, but "as a species," the deaths would alleviate strain on the United States' healthcare and Social Security systems and free up jobs and housing.

Turnage later deleted the post but refused to resign or back down from his comments.

He was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that despite his history of "provoking dialogue and discussion" on his Facebook page, he knew these comments were "a little more edgy" as he wrote them.

He argued his personal views had no bearing on his duties as a planning commissioner and removing him would violate his freedom of speech.

But city officials said that his posting caused a loss in confidence and created a disruption to the city.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Weather balloons launched in the Arctic this winter measured up to 90% drop in concentrations of ozone in the ozone layer, 9 to 22 miles (15 to 35 km) above Earth. By late March, the largest ozone hole ever observed in the Arctic had formed, covering an area more than three times the size of Greenland.

Meanwhile, air temperatures were the warmest ever observed during December, January, and February. Temperatures in Europe and Asia were nearly 5.8F (3.2C) warmer than the average from 1951 to 1980 and 1.4F (0.8C) warmer than the previous record set in 2011. The northern-hemisphere winter that ended on March 20th was the warmest ever recorded on land.

Temperatures were average throughout November but then continued at November levels. The balmiest weather of all was in Moscow where daily average lows in January were 28F (-2C), far warmer that the customary 9F (-13C). In Tokyo, temperatures averaged 41F (5C) rather than the usual 32F (0C). Even in Boston, daily lows in January averaged 32F (0C) instead of normally hovering around 21F (-6C). Cherry blossoms bloomed in January in New York City, months ahead of schedule. Temperatures were no longer cold enough in Germany to harvest ice wine.

This winter, we set all-time temperature and ozone depletion records by a wide margin, according to Dr. Peter L. Ward, Chief Scientist at Science Is Never Settled, Inc. Ward has been studying the relationship between ozone levels and global temperatures for more than a decade. He wonders whether these extraordinary atmospheric phenomena could be related.

The relationship between ozone depletion and increasing temperature is complicated by the observation that ozone accumulates in polar regions during winterJanuary to April in the Arctic as shown in the second figure. It is during this yearly peak in ozone that depletion is observed to occur. While the greatest depletion is within the Arctic, substantial depletion also occurs at mid-latitudes. It is this seasonal peak in ozone that confuses the apparent correlation of increasing temperature with increasing ozone in the first figure.

The ozone layer absorbs most solar ultraviolet-B radiation, protecting life on Earth from this very energetic and very hot radiation that causes sunburn, skin cancer, cataracts, and mutations. When the ozone layer is depleted, more ultraviolet-B than usual is observed to reach Earth, cooling the ozone layer and warming Earth.

Between 1965 and 1998, Ward explains, we humans unwittingly carried out the most definitive experiment ever done relating global warming to concentrations of gases in the atmosphere. Still to this day, no one has ever shown by experiment, a cornerstone of the scientific method, that increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations can actually cause global warming.

Beginning around 1965, we began manufacturing large volumes of chlorofluorocarbon gases (CFCs) for use as refrigerants, spray-can propellants, solvents, and foam-blowing agents. By 1970, depletion of the ozone layer and average global temperatures began increasing.

In 1974, scientists discovered that when CFCs reach the stratosphere, they can be broken down by solar ultraviolet radiation to release atoms of chlorine. One atom of chlorine, especially during winter months, can destroy more than 100,000 molecules of ozone.

In 1985, with discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, scientists realized ozone depletion was a much bigger problem than they had thought. So they worked very effectively with political leaders at the United Nations to pass the Montreal Protocol in 1987 mandating major cutbacks in production of CFCs beginning in 1989. Sure enough, by 1993, increases in CFCs stopped. By 1995, increases in ozone depletion stopped. By 1998, increases in average global temperatures stopped. Between 1970 and 1998, the world warmed on average 1.1F (0.6C), approximately two-thirds of all warming observed since 1950. Humans had accidentally caused global warming and then took the action necessary to stop this increase in warming.

Without the Montreal Protocol, Ward explains, average global temperatures today would probably be at least 0.9F (0.5C) warmer.

Volcanoes also deplete ozone when they emit large amounts of chlorine into the atmosphere. The largest explosive eruption since 1912 was from Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991. During the following winter, total column ozone in Switzerland was depleted more than 15 Dobson units, warming parts of Europe and northern Asia as much as 5.4F (3C). But then aerosols formed in the lower stratosphere from erupted water and sulfur dioxide. These aerosols reflected and scattered sunlight, cooling Earth as much as 0.9F (0.5C) for a few years.

In 2014, Bararbunga volcano in central Iceland extruded basaltic lava flows over an area of 33 square miles (85 square kilometers), the size of Manhattan, the largest basaltic lava flow since 1783. Global temperatures increased very rapidly 0.5F (0.3C) by 2016, which is still the hottest year on record.

Then in 2018, the lower Puna eruption on the East rift of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii extruded nearly half as much basaltic lava as Bararbunga. The net effect of Bararbunga and the lower Puna eruption is most likely the explanation for the severe ozone depletion and warming observed since December 2019.

Throughout Earth history, whenever we find evidence of large basaltic lava flows covering tens, to thousands, to millions of square miles, we find evidence of major global warming and widespread mass extinctionsthe larger the basalt flow, the longer it took them to form, and the greater the observed warming. Basaltic lava flows emit ten times more chlorine as explosive volcanoes such as Pinatubo. Their very hot temperatures of around 2200F (1200C) provide a way to convect chlorine rapidly into the stratosphere.

We still have much to learn about the precise chemical paths causing ozone depletion, how they vary by season, and why these effects are usually greatest during the second winter after an eruption. Ward, in his paper Ozone depletion explains global warming, concludes that a decrease in ozone concentrations at mid latitudes by 30 Dobson units typically leads to global warming of approximately 1.6F (0.9C).

ABOUT DR. PETER L WARD:

Dr. Ward is a respected senior geophysicist who led a group of 140 scientists, helped develop a major national research program, testified twice before Congress, and chaired a committee at the White House. He has worked full time in retirement since 2006, at his own expense, carefully re-examining all the assumptions made regarding the physics of global warming.

Dr. Ward provides much more detail in his book What Really Causes Global Warming? and his extensive website WhyClimateChanges.com.

For media inquiries email:

Erin Klein

erin.climatepr@gmail.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio  Residents of Ohio nursing homes, mental-health facilities and other congregate living settings who show symptoms of coronavirus now have a new higher priority for testing, state officials announced Monday.

State officials on Monday announced an expanded priority list, made possible as Ohio ramps up its capacity to perform the tests. After struggling with testing availability for months, things have approved lately, thanks to agreements state officials struck last week with medical supply companies.

The state defines congregate living" as a setting where six or more people live together. This can include veterans homes, youth homes, psychiatric and assisted living facilities, group homes and prisons and jails. Residents and staff at these facilities without symptoms will get priority for testing if theyre directly exposed to an outbreak.

Also joining these residents and staff for second-tier testing priority are:

- Those 65 and older

- First responders and critical infrastructure workers

- People with underlying conditions that make them at risk for COVID-19 developing into a severe illness

Gov. Mike DeWine said Ohio by next week will be able to test up to 22,000 people a day. To date, about 152,000 people have been tested for COVID-19, about 18,700 of which tested positive, according to state health officials.

This expanded testing is key really to be able to protect Ohioans, DeWine said Monday. And its particularly key as we go to this re-opening phase of our economy. It will give us a better ability to determine who is sick and how best to respond.

Testing is a crucial part of the states coronavirus response, since it could be two years or more until an effective vaccine is developed to give widespread immunity to the coronavirus. In the meantime, rapid testing will allow health officials to quickly isolate small outbreaks and prevent them from becoming big ones. The DeWine administration last week announced they are moving to hire 1,800 contact tracers," workers tasked with identifying those who test positive for the coronavirus, and then interviewing them to find out where theyve gone and with whom theyve come into close contact.

The White Houses official economic re-opening plan also is contingent on states meeting data points, like flat or decreasing numbers of confirmed cases, that can only be collected by comprehensive testing.

As has been the case for weeks, the first tier for coronavirus testing are the hospitalized and front-line health-care workers, like doctors, nurses and EMTs.

Also in the second tier for priority testing will be those designated by public-health officials trying to manage a community outbreak. Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton said this could happen in a workplace setting, and would come in response to a request from local health officials.

So when we have an outbreak, perhaps like weve heard about in a meat-packing plant, it will really mean business coming together, along with local health departments. Theyll reach out to the state health department and well come alongside, she said.

A third tier of testing priority will include people undergoing non-essential surgeries or medical procedures. Acton said doctors will help decide whether a COVID-19 test is necessary.

Some procedures wont need it, she said. If youre getting perhaps a shot in your hip for some arthritis, we might not need to test you for COVID. But if youre getting a high risk procedure like a bronchoscopy, well definitely want to test you.

Eventually, Ohio hopes to routinely test people with signs of mild illness who arent in an at-risk population, or even asymptomatic people, to help manage the spread of COVID-19, according to Acton. But until then, priority will be assigned based on tiers developed by state health officials.

Read recent coverage by cleveland.com:

Ohio will ramp up coronavirus test kit assembly, expand testing efforts, Gov. Mike DeWine says

Ohios private labs again available for coronavirus testing after clearing backlog, Gov. Mike DeWine says

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine calls for federal coronavirus testing help in national TV interview

Ohio plans random population testing to help determine how many people have coronavirus
On Aug. 3, 1979, tensions that had been building for years between Vietnamese refugees and white local fishermen in a coastal Texas town called Seadrift erupted in a fatal shooting.

It's a little-known episode in history that filmmaker Tim Tsai shed light on in his 2019 documentary, Seadrift.

Vietnamese refugees had begun migrating to the United States after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. But they weren't welcomed with open arms.

For some local residents, the refugees served as an unwanted reminder of the war and the divisions it had sown. Their presence also increased competition for crab fishing in the small town.

Seadrift will have its broadcast premiere on PBS on Monday night: times vary according to individual PBS stations. It is also streaming free on PBS until June 3.

Tsai was a student at the University of Texas, Austin, in 2010 when he first learned about the incident in a book, Asian Texans: Our Histories and Our Lives. He said he was drawn to the story because stories of Asian Americans in the South are rare.

Image: Director/Producer Tim Tsai (Courtesy Title 8 Productions)

The fact that a resurgence of the KKK was due to an Asian American group just totally blew my mind, he said.

Local white fishermen interviewed in the film note that the Vietnamese didn't observe fishing customs, including times of the day locals would stop fishing, and that they sold seafood at cheaper prices.

Tensions between the two groups grew until Sau Van Nguyen, a Vietnamese fisherman, fatally shot a white fisherman, Billy Joe Aplin.

Nguyen was charged with murder but acquitted on grounds of self-defense. The Ku Klux Klan subsequently became involved, holding demonstrations and burning Vietnamese boats.

Seadrift was a seven-year project that Tsai said he felt fortunate to see to fruition. He said he initially wasn't sure he'd be able to tell the story on film, but decided to move forward once he found enough archival footage and gained access to residents of Seadrift who were there at the time of the shooting.

Story continues

As a Taiwanese American who lived in cities for most of his life, he was an outsider to both sides of the story, he said. So he enlisted the help of the father of Thao Ha, who wrote the chapter about Seadrift in Asian Texans. Ha's father, who was in the military during the Vietnam War, was a crucial connection that helped Tsai land interviews with two Vietnamese crabbers who were featured in the film, he said.

Image: Crab fisherman Bang Nguyen (Courtesy Title 8 Productions)

When he came closer to filming interviews about the shooting, Tsai struggled to secure interviews with white residents. It was in his third year of production that he connected with Beth Aplin-Martin, Aplin's daughter.

Even that came with its own set of challenges.

It took some convincing before Aplin-Martin agreed to talk to Tsai on camera, but the interview was so emotionally detached, he wasn't able to use it, and she repeatedly declined subsequent requests for another interview, he said. He nearly decided to produce the documentary without her voice.

But six to nine months later, Aplin-Martin agreed to Tsai's request to scan family photos at her home. It was there that he unexpectedly managed to get a second interview that he was able to use and during which she revealed that she had kept the shirt her father was wearing when he was fatally shot.

While gaining access was difficult, funding was the biggest production hurdle, Tsai said. Yet it was that obstacle that allowed him to obtain the interview he needed with Aplin-Martin.

If I had full funding and we were pushing forward, I wouldve had to go without Beth's interview, I think, he said. The fact that I had that time to be able to keep pursuing her story, thats what allowed us to present her side of the story as part of this film.

More than 40 years after the shooting, Seadrift residents appear to have learned to coexist and work with one another, Tsai said. Toward the end of the film, the Seadrift community is shown celebrating the Vietnamese New Year. He said he noticed that the Vietnamese community remains somewhat segregated in the town, but there no longer appears to be the day-to-day tension that used to exist.

Even though the incident took place decades ago, Tsai said it remains relevant today. He noted that most of the documentary was filmed before the 2016 election, after which the United States saw a rise in anti-immigrant and white nationalist rhetoric.

As I was working on finishing the film, it was really surreal to see archival footage of the Klan rallies where their anti-Vietnamese refugee speech reflected a lot of what's being said today, he said. Its just against different groups. So it really got me to question: How far has our society moved since the '70s?

The way residents of the Texas town managed to overcome their differences and move forward, however, gives him hope.

One Seadrift resident interviewed in the film, Butch Hodges, is a Vietnam War veteran who said he did not want to see Vietnamese in his hometown. Yet at the end of the film, he says, it took me a long time to realize that these were the people we were fighting for and not the people we were fighting against.

For Tsai, the most striking individual transformation in the film is in Aplin-Martin, who, despite her father being killed by a refugee, doesn't blame the Vietnamese and has come to a place of reconciliation.

Tsai noted that stories of the Vietnam War that include Vietnamese refugees usually portray them as victims or promote them for having successfully integrated in the U.S.

I see this film as providing something beyond that, that looks at a situation where the integration was not smooth, he said. And hopefully we can learn from that experience.
My name is Mark Goodfield. Welcome to The Blunt Bean Counter , a blog that shares my thoughts on income taxes, finance and the psychology of money. I am a Chartered Professional Accountant. This blog is meant for everyone, but in particular for high net worth individuals and owners of private corporations. My posts are blunt, opinionated and even have a twist of humour/sarcasm. You've been warned. Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law.
Virtual fundraising event aims to pool resources to develop a vaccine and effective treatments against COVID-19.

World leaders are due to hold a virtual conference to raise $8.3bn for efforts to develop a vaccine and treatments against the new coronavirus.

The United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the European Commission, are co-hosting the online event, which is part of a month-long international investment drive before the Global Vaccine Summit on June 4. Mondays conference is scheduled to start at 14:00 GMT.

The fundraising drive aims to pool resources worldwide to develop a vaccine and effective treatments as quickly as possible and to make them universally available at affordable prices.

The funds will mainly be allocated to established international health organisations and research networks.

The funds raised will kickstart an unprecedented global cooperation between scientists and regulators, industry and governments, international organisations, foundations and healthcare professionals, European leaders backing the initiative said in an open letter published in weekend newspapers.

The letter was signed by European Council President Charles Michel, Italys Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, French President Emmanuel Macron, Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel and Norways Prime Minister, Erna Solberg,

However, the leaders warned that more money would still be needed to manufacture and deliver available, accessible and affordable medicines across the world.

If we can develop a vaccine that is produced by the world, for the whole world, this will be a unique global public good of the 21st century, they added.

Desperate for vaccine

Scientists around the world are racing against time to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, a highly infectious respiratory disease. To date, there have been more than 3.5 million known infections and at least 247,000 deaths globally.





As many as 100 potential COVID-19 vaccines are in development around the world, and at least five have started human clinical trials  in the United States, China, the UK and Germany.

Last week, British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced a partnership with Oxford University for the large-scale manufacture and potential distribution of a vaccine currently on trial.

Mark Jit, professor of vaccine epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the world is desperate to have a coronavirus vaccine.

They (vaccines) are being developed in many countries. I think the largest number is in the US followed by China, Jit told Al Jazeera.

The bad news is that the usual timeframe to develop a vaccine  from the time of initial discovery to actually having a vaccine to be given on a population level  is usually about 10 to 20 years.

At Mondays conference, the UK is expected to pledge 388 million pounds ($482m) and Germany has promised a significant financial contribution, expected to be in the hundreds of millions.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spent three nights in intensive care with COVID-19, said finding a treatment was the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes.
United Kingdom health ministers are weighing a plan to create immunity passports for workers, which would use coronavirus testing and facial recognition to certify someones identity and indicate whether they have already had the virus and can safely return to the workplace.

The tech firm Onfido, which specializes in identity verification through facial biometrics, has presented the British government with detailed plans for the passports, the company said. The company said it has the capacity to implement a system within months, which is said could be the linchpin of the new normality.

An immunity passport is a presentable proof of immunity. It is designed to help an individual prove that they have been tested and that their test result belongs to them, but without having to share any personal information, Onfido CEO and co-founder Husayn Kassai said in a statement.

Were in talks with governments and employers to make this process as fast, secure and simple as possible. Our technology is used to tie a physical human being to their digital identity using just a photo of their ID and a selfie video. Once this is bound to a test result, the digital certificate could be displayed similar to a smartphone boarding pass, Kassai said of the companys proposal.

The health passports could use either antigen testing, which indicates whether a person has coronavirus currently, or antibody testing, which indicates if someone has already had the virus. Onfidos technology would be embedded in another companys application to verify identity. A selfie photo would be matched with the persons government ID picture and linked to a coronavirus test, the result of which their employer would be able to see when they go in to work.

The immunity passport proposal, which is still in the early stages of discussion within the UK government, has raised concerns among critics about data security and privacy.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who survived the coronavirus himself after being moved to the ICU briefly, is scheduled to address the nation on Sunday to offer details on how to unlock the various parts of the UK economy. Johnson said last week that it is still too early to know when social distancing measures will be able to be lifted, but he assured that plans to reopen schools and other public spaces soon are in the works.

More from National Review
Mikael Minasian, former President Serzh Sarkisians fugitive son-in-law, has claimed that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian offered last year to guarantee his immunity from prosecution if he pays cash and stops challenging the Armenian government.

In a weekend video message posted on Facebook, Minasian said that the offer was personally communicated to him in February 2019 by Artur Vanetsian, the then director of Armenias National Security Service (NSS), at a meeting held in Rome.

He said that we have an offer to your and that offer is as follows: you pay a symbolic amount [of money] and then you never come to Armenia, at least in the coming years; all those people who are linked to you in one way or another and listen to you stop fighting against Nikol Pashinian; you become an apolitical person  but as soon as we reach agreement all criminal proceedings will be immediately discontinued, he alleged, referring to pending corruption cases against his fugitive father, prominent surgeon Ara Minasian, and friends.

Minasian said that he rejected the offer because he believes Pashinian is leading Armenia to a great disaster. I can never make deals with people whom I considered and consider  irresponsible liars, traitors of the people and enemies of the state, he charged.

Pashinian did not react to the allegations. His spokeswoman, Mane Gevorgian, told Factor.am that the prime ministers office will comment when necessary.

The parliamentary leader of Pashinians My Step bloc, Lilit Makunts, also declined a comment, saying that it is up to law-enforcement authorities to deal with Minasians claims.

Armenias Office of the Prosecutor-General told RFE/RLs Armenian service on Monday that it has assigned another law-enforcement agency to look into the claims and decide whether they warrant a criminal inquiry.

For his part, Vanetsian only said through a spokeswoman that he stands by comments on Minasian which he made shortly after resigning as NSS director in September 2019. He said at the time that Sarkisians son-in-law is someone who must still answer many questions.

Vanetsian, who is now a harsh critic of Pashinian, subsequently claimed that he met with Minasian once while in office and that the prime minister knew about their conversation beforehand. But he never gave any details.

Minasian enjoyed considerable political and economic influence throughout Sarkisians decade-long rule. The 42-year-old served as Armenias ambassador to the Vatican from 2013 to 2018. He was sacked in November 2018 six months after his father-in-law was toppled in the Velvet Revolution led by Pashinian.

Late last month, Armenian tax authorities charged Minasian with illegal enrichment, false asset disclosure and money laundering. The latters lawyers rejected the charges as baseless and politically motivated.

Minasian apparently left Armenia shortly after his sacking. He did not disclose his current place of residence in his video statement.

Over the past year Minasian has increasingly attacked Pashinian with articles posted on his Facebook page and disseminated by Armenian media outlets believed to be controlled by him.

For his part, Pashinian has repeatedly accused Minasian of illegally making a huge fortune during Sarkisians rule.

Also, the prime ministers spokeswoman claimed last week that according to the governments information Vanetsian abused his NSS position to buy Minasians minority stake in Armenias largest mining company. Vanetsian strongly denied that.
The Chhattisgarh health department



has asked personnel of the paramilitary forces and Army to remain quarantined for 14 days after their return to the state on completion of trainingor duties in other parts of the country.

State health secretary Niharika Barik Singh wrote letters on Sunday to senior officials of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Indian Army and Service Selection Board (SSB), to ensure compliance of the quarantine protocols.

In the letter, Singh said it has come to the notice of the health department that security personnel of the units concerned are out of the state for various reasons like training, leave, duty, and others.

It has been directed that whenever the personnel return to the state, the departments concerned must ensure they compulsorily follow 14-day quarantine, the official said.

On their arrival from other states, information should be given to collectors and chief medical and health officers of the respective districts and their health test must be conducted.

The armed units and paramilitary forces should make arrangements of separate rooms with attached toilet facilities for the stay of the personnel during the 14-day quarantine and their health check-up should be done daily, the letter said.

In case of detection of any symptoms related to COVID-19, it should be brought to the notice of the health department immediately, Singh said in the letter.

In case of non-availability of their respective unit doctors, they can take services of the state health department staff for daily screening, the official added.

A large number of paramilitary forces are deployed in Chhattisgarh, particularly in Bastar region, for carrying out anti-Naxal operations.

The headquarters of the Armys Chhattisgarh and Odisha Sub Area (COSA) is located in Raipur.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indias tally of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) stood at 42,553 on Monday morning as 2,553 new infections and 72 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, according to the Union health ministry.

There are 29,453 active cases, 11,706 people who have been cured and 1,373 patients died so far, the Union health ministrys Covid-19 dashboard showed at 8am.

Indias tally of Covid-19 had crossed the 40,000-mark on Sunday, 11 days after the cases had breached the 20,000-mark. The cases had crossed the 30,000-mark on April 29, while 15,000-mark was breached on April 19.

It had taken seven days for the cases to cross the 20,000-mark from 10,000.

The Centre has stressed that the country is on the right path in controlling the infections and that the spread of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is slowing down.

Data shows that Indias doubling rate  the average period it takes for infections to double  has gone up from four days at the beginning of April to around 11.5 days as of Sunday.

If in last 14 days, the doubling rate was 10.5 days, then today it is around 12 days, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan told reporters in Delhi on Sunday.

He said Indias mortality rate, which is 3.2%, is among the lowest in the world and added that the country was on the path of success to win the war against Covid-19.

Globally, more than 3.5 million people have contracted the coronavirus disease and 247,431 have died.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Koyambedu, one of the countrys largest perishable fruit and vegetable wholesale market with over 3000 shops was shut down on Monday after at least 300 of the 527 new cases reported in Tamil Nadu on Monday were linked to it, making it one of the biggest coronavirus hotspots in the state.

We are shutting [Koyambedu] down temporarily till further orders, a senior official from the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) who did not wish to be named, told Hindustan Times. We are going to take those people who work there to a quarantine facility. They will be tested, and those found positive will be treated as per standard protocol. The market premises will be disinfected over the next two days, officials said.

The market was already running at a decreased capacity on account of the national lockdown, which was recently extended to May 17. The first case linked to the Koyambedu cluster emerged on April 19.

The sudden shutdown will have an effect on the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables in the city of 10.5 million people, wholesalers said. The officials came here at around 4 pm and ordered the markets closure without any warning whatsoever. Produce valued at 5 crore is stuck inside the market and 250 trucks with 10 crore worth of vegetables are on their way to Koyambedu. This is not a small roadside operation that we can simply push our carts back home, said GD Rajasekaran, president, Koyambedu Periyar Market Association.

Koyambedu spread over 295 acres, is one of the largest vegetable, flower and fruit market complexes in India. It houses more than 1000 wholesalers and 2000 retail shops. In non-pandemic times, Koyambedu receives nearly 1,500 truckloads of horticultural produce and at least 100,000 visitors, daily. During the lockdown, around 400 trucks visited the market daily.

State officials said Monday that 600 people linked to the market would be taken to quarantine facilities  there are four in Chennai  but several others who worked at the market have returned to their villages across Chennai, Kancheepuram, Cuddalore, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu. Officials said that the total number of workers was unclear at present.

Many people who worked at the market have also returned to their native villages, the CMDA official said. We dont know how many people have returned home. At present, we have about 600 people who we are going to send to quarantine, he added.

The Koyambedu cluster had so far recorded at least 300 cases, including Mondays cases reported from Villipuram (49) and Perambalur (25). Officials surmise that the number of contacts who will need to be traced would be several times those traced in connection with the Tablighi Jamaat religious conference held in New Delhi in March, from which over 1000 attendees had returned to the state. The conference was a hotspot and several states were involved in tracing the attendees and their contacts to track the spread of the coronavirus infection.

CMDA officials said that they had urged traders at Koyambedu to move to another location within the city, as traders in other parts of the state like Trichy and Tirunelveli had done once the lockdown was implemented in March. It is a private trade so unless they come forward and cooperate we could not do anything. We have been meeting with them regularly, they were simply not interested, one official told HT.

However, wholesalers claimed that there was no communication from the government, let alone alternative arrangements. On April 28, retail traders and fruit sellers from Koyambedu had been relocated to the bus terminus at Madhavaram, a suburb in the citys northwest. Asking wholesalers to do likewise would be difficult as few open spaces in the city have the capacity to handle 3000 tonnes of vegetables each day, Rajasekaran said. According to government sources, the wholesale market would be relocated to Tirumazhisai, on the western outskirts of the city, about 15 km from Koyambedu.

Another point of infection was a barber who owned a salon in Koyambedu, the official pointed out. The barber had come in contact with over 100 customers either at their homes or when they visited his salon. Efforts are on to trace his contacts, as well.

The government anticipates a major disruption in supplies for at least the next three days. According to a senior official in the agriculture ministry, the government has asked farmer producer companies (FPC) that already supply about 12 tonnes of vegetables from farms directly to consumers to increase their supplies 10-fold. That according to the official would take care of 60% of the the citys vegetable demand. However, the capacity of FPCs to scale up deliveries so much at such short notice is doubtful.
Federal funding will fuel new innovations combining basic science and clinical care; brings total support to $140 million since institute opened in 2010

The Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI) at University of California San Diego has received a five-year, $54.7 million Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The new grant is the third such award since ACTRI opened in 2010, bringing total funding support to approximately $144 million.

"The first CTSA laid the foundation for transforming our institution. It built the early infrastructure that would help change the way we thought about moving discoveries from the lab to the clinic," said Gary S. Firestein, MD, founding director of ACTRI and dean and associate vice chancellor of clinical and translational research at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

"The second CTSA focused on making ACTRI the hub for clinical research and clinical trials at UC San Diego."

The latest CTSA, said Firestein, will refine the fundamental work of the past decade and provide new resources that will launch a new wave of discovery and transformation.

"The next five years will be about bringing together basic scientists, engineers and clinicians to create a pipeline of innovation. This effort builds on our Tricorder XPRIZE competition and will bring together multidisciplinary teams of clinicians and scientists."

The new funding will also be used to continue a scholar program supporting young faculty members establishing careers, expand ACTRI's "Game Center," a program that uses virtual reality games to train investigators in team science and create new mentoring programs in grant-writing, the financial lifeblood of research.

New efforts include the Dissemination & Implementation Science Center, which will help investigators move their ideas into the community and a new Team Science Core. Mobile apps will be developed to help integrate clinical trials and the electronic health record, improving safety for research participants.

The Center for Life Course and Vulnerable Population Research will expand to engage communities and ensure vulnerable and underserved populations are part of the research and clinical enterprise. The Center for Clinical Research will provide dedicated project managers, ethics support and clinical research infrastructure. Two new centers will be launched: the Device Acceleration Center and Center for Excellence in Immunogenomics, both intended to bring scientists and clinicians together in teams to address unmet medical needs, specifically in the science and medicine of immunity.

"Science and medicine often operate in parallel universes," said Firestein. "We've taken steps to bring them together, but we want to go farther in integrating research and clinical care. For example, combining data from clinical trials with health records would benefit researchers, but even more so trial participants and patients. It would make clinical trials even safer."

ACTRI is an essential partner in most clinical trials conducted at UC San Diego Health, providing support in the form of informatics tools, work space and trained personnel, an infusion center, an investigational drug pharmacy, a Phase I drug testing unit and education and training programs. Nearly 1,000 clinical and translational research faculty and staff are housed in the 7-story, 359,000-square-foot Altman CTRI building, which opened in 2016.

There are approximately 2,400 ongoing clinical trials at UC San Diego Health, involving an estimated 7,000 participants in active treatment. Approximately 250 new trials begin each year, including most recently COVID-19-related trials investigating an antiviral drug, an arthritis drug and a medication for hypertension.

Firestein, an internationally recognized translational researcher, is co-leader of the NCATS' Accrual to Clinical Trials platform, which links electronic medical records of more than 50 academic medical centers across the country and has been expanded to provide comprehensive medical data to COVID-19 researchers. The ACTRI has also created an institutional COVID-19 biobank to enable development of novel diagnostics and treatment for the virus and has collaborated with UC San Diego Health to screen all health care workers and assure a safe workplace.

Part of a national CTSA consortium, ACTRI members have affiliations that include UC San Diego, San Diego State University, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System and numerous nonprofits and biotech/pharma.

###
Millicom has terminated its share purchase agreement to acquire Telefonicas Costa Rican unit, in accordance with the terms of the original deal.

The companies agreed to a US$1.65 billion deal in February 2019 that would see Millicom take over several of Telefonicas Latin American operations, including units in Nicaragua and Panama. Costa Rican regulator Sutel cleared Millicoms US$570 million acquisition of Telefonicas local unit in September 2019.

However, under the terms of the SPA, Millicoms takeover of Telefonica Costa Rica required additional regulatory approvals to be issued by 1st May 2020  a fact that Millicom has now used to its advantage.

Last week, Telefonica informed Millicom of its frustration over the latters apparent inactivity in closing the deal, warning that it would take the necessary legal action to ensure the acquisition went ahead as planned.

However, Millicom countered that the deadline for the necessary regulatory approvals was looming, and that it intended to terminate the SPA in accordance with the terms if the approvals were not received  a threat on which it has now followed through.
Five Hamilton County Schools are among 22 state-wide awarded the Tennessee STEM School Designation for 2020 in a recent announcement by the Tennessee Department of Education. Red Bank Elementary, Harrison Elementary, Red Bank High, Hixson Middle, and Normal Park Park Museum Magnet are the five schools in Hamilton County Schools earning the state designation for their work in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM.) The Tennessee Department of Education and the STEM Leadership Council worked together to develop the designation as a way to identify and recognize schools for their commitment to teaching STEM or STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) and for their work to prepare students for college and career success. The selection of five schools in Hamilton County is the most from one district in the state for 2020. The five schools join STEM School Chattanooga as district schools with the Tennessee STEM School Designation.



"The selection of five schools by the state is a reflection of the commitment by our district and schools to provide learning opportunities that will ensure that our students are Future Ready," said Dr.

Bryan Johnson, superintendent, Hamilton County Schools. "The Hamilton County Board of Education's five-year plan Future Ready 2023, addresses the need to provide Future Ready Students in Action Area 2, and the designation of these five schools demonstrates our progress in this vital area."The Tennessee STEM School Designation provides not only recognition but also a roadmap for schools to successfully implement a STEM or STEAM education plan at the local level. Schools that receive the Tennessee STEM School Designation serve as models from which other schools may visit and learn. All K12 schools serving students in Tennessee are eligible.When Hamilton County Schools launched the Office of Innovation and Choice last June, one of Superintendent Dr. Bryan Johnson's goals was for the district to increase STEM opportunities and designations. The Office of Innovation launched a STEM Cohort and provided year-long support to schools pursuing the state designation. The STEM focus addressed Accelerating Student Achievement and Future Ready Students, two key areas in the Future Ready 2023 five-year plan."The five recognized schools did an outstanding job this year of building on their already strong programs and increasing STEM and STEAM learning for kids," said Jill Levine, chief of Innovation and Choice, Hamilton County Schools. "Achieving STEM designation is a huge honor and means that these schools are now models for others throughout the state. To have five in one year is a big accomplishment for the schools and district."Each school that was awarded the Tennessee STEM School Designation was evaluated through a rigorous application process. Schools were asked to complete a self-evaluation, participate in interviews, and host site visits with the Tennessee STEM Designation review team. The designation criteria included five focus areas: infrastructure, curriculum and instruction, professional development, achievement, and community and post-secondary partnerships. As a part of the process, schools were required to submit a plan of action for implementing and sustaining STEM or STEAM education for the next five years.Locally, The Public Education Foundation worked with the district and schools through the application process. Each school committed at least two teacher leaders to participate in STEM Fellows through PEF. The innovative year-long fellowship helps teachers grow as instructional experts, teacher leaders, and community connectors. PEF has partnered with Hamilton County Schools since 2012 in the fellowship program."For schools to equip students with a STEM mindset to solve problems in a dynamic setting, it is clear that they need strong leaders and teachers," said Michael Stone, director of Innovative Learning at PEF. "Thanks to support from the Benwood Foundation, PEF was able to partner with HCS to provide wrap-around supports designed to synchronously empower teachers and administrators to push their schools to earn STEM Designation from the state."

"STEM or STEAM education is a unique approach to teaching and learning that fosters creativity and innovative thinking in all students," officials said. "The learning process is focused on building critical and creative thinking and analysis skills by addressing how students view and experience the world around them. STEM or STEAM education is a diverse, interdisciplinary curriculum in which activities in one class complement those in other courses."



"Schools that earn STEM Designation incorporate strong STEM teaching and learning experiences that rest on inquiry, technology integration, work-based learning, and project/problem-based learning strategies tied to the world around us," said Brandi Stroecker, director of TSIN. "Each school has a unique STEM program, yet incorporates a similar approach by providing diverse, transdisciplinary teaching practices where students become the drivers of their learning. These schools consistently provide students with learning experiences that shape their aspirations for the future."
There are over 2,000 foreign



nationals in Goa even after 6,000 were evacuated in the midst of the coronavirus-induced lockdown, a Foreigner Regional Registration official said on Monday.

FRRO Superintendent of Police Bosco George said there were 8,0000 foreign nationals in Goa when lockdown began in the last week of March.

"Those on tourist visas are not registered with the FRRO. However, those who were are here on business visas are registered. While 6,000 left for their native countries with the help of the Ministry of Home Affairs, over 2,0000 foreign nationals are still in Goa, a sizable number being that of Russians," George informed.

He said several foreigners were living in unauthorized guest houses when lockdown was announced and it was tough to trace many of them initially.

He said many foreigners who arrived in the state were holidaying in Gokarn beach in neighbouring Karnataka when the lockdown was announced.

The SP said several foreign nationals, especially from European countries, are reluctant to go back and have applied for visa extension here.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi: India has identified a total area of 4,61,589 hectares to lure businesses moving out of China, the area is almost double of that Luxembourg.

This includes 1,15,131 hectares of existing industrial land in states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, a report by Bloomberg stated.

The land has been one of the biggest impediments for companies looking to invest in India, with the plans of Saudi Aramco to Posco frustrated by delays in the acquisition process.

Prime Minister Narendra Modis administration is working with state governments to change this, as investors seek to reduce reliance on China as a manufacturing base in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak and the resultant supply disruption. The PMs Office, Niti Aayog and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade are firming up a plan to offer incentives in order to attract companies looking to shift manufacturing units out of China.

The benefits will be on the lines of those given to manufacture electronic and medical devices. These may include production-linked incentives such as capital expenditure benefits.

There is a growing realisation among multinational companies after the COVID-19 pandemic that capacities cannot be concentrated at one place. India has set up dedicated groups to directly interact with firms that may want to diversify out of China. The government has already reached about 100 multinational companies that have manufacturing units in China and may be keen to move out.
Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong checks out display panels supporting QD-OLED viewing technology during his recent visit to Samsung Display's plant in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, in this file photo. Korea Times file



By Kim Yoo-chul



Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, the de facto head of the Samsung group, is set to issue a public apology for previous misdeeds by the conglomerate in helping him "inherit" the top job there from his father Chairman Lee Kun-hee.



On Monday, senior Samsung sources contacted by The Korea Times said they expect the vice chairman to make a public apology before a May 11 deadline set by the group's external compliance monitoring committee.



"Honestly, lots of scenarios are under constant review. But one viable option is for the vice chairman to make a public apology by reading a prepared statement. It's all about timing and if the vice chairman makes the deadline, then it will probably have an impact, which I cautiously think would be pretty positive," one of the sources said requesting anonymity.



Regarding the details of any possible apology, a company spokesman commented, "Like we have said multiple times, Samsung is tackling the issue very prudently and thoroughly. We will make an announcement if we have to."



Previously an earlier deadline had been set, but Samsung Electronics asked the compliance committee to extend this to May 11 citing the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to review procedural issues. Upon launching the internal committee, Samsung said it would strictly abide by its recommendations to improve group-wide management transparency. The committee asked Lee to apologize for the alleged involvement of group executives in the succession issue and the group's anti-union activities.



Another source very familiar with Samsung issues said Lee won't ask for a further delay. "The reason I think is because the ruling party won a landslide victory in the recent general election. Thanks to its victory, President Moon Jae-in is seeking the help of leaders of large conglomerates to get the fragile economy back on track," he said.



President Moon shifts toward economy



President Moon and his economic team have been doing quite well in handling "everything relating to COVID-19," according to a senior source. Based on their confidence following the election win, the government and Cheong Wa Dae will cooperate to improve the local economy by initiating support programs for top conglomerates.



The sources agreed if the vice chairman proffers an apology, then that would be a "good point" to persuade Moon's supporters to accelerate efforts to improve the economy with Samsung playing a "major role." Moon earlier thanked Samsung for its efforts at a recent ceremony unveiling an $11 billion investment in OLED display technologies.



In addition, Moon and Cheong Wa Dae have stressed Samsung's role in Korea's trade feud with Japan in terms of increasing the localization of materials and parts crucial to the country's manufacturing industry. This came after Tokyo decided to remove Seoul from its list of preferred trading partners.



"While the ruling Democratic Party of Korea promised greater and increased checking of top conglomerates during the election campaign, President Moon and Cheong Wa Dae are battling the country's economic troubles. The backbone of the economy is not in good shape. While liberal activist groups are expected to oppose any suggestion of government support for conglomerates, now is the time to search for clues. Lee's apology could be used for that," said Philip Jeon, an economics professor at Hanyang University.



Economic indices are flashing warning lights. The number of workers on payrolls dropped by nearly 200,000 in March from a year earlier, the largest decline since May 2009. Exports, which underpin the economy, incurred a 19 percent year-on-year fall in the first 10 days of April.



"The vice chairman is likely to make an apology because he doesn't want to go to prison if he fails to follow the orders of the court," said Lee Phil-sang, a professor at Seoul National University. "Now it's the vice chairman's decision as to what he should do for Samsung."



In 2019, the country's Supreme Court overturned an appellate court verdict on Lee and sent it back to the Seoul High Court for a review.






In a comprehensive ecological study, a team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena examined three different species of the genus Drosophila and their interactions with their natural food resources, in particular the yeasts associated with these substrates. They found that vinegar flies do not necessarily prefer yeasts they know from their natural environments, but were also attracted by yeasts found in a foreign habitat. Female flies sometimes even decided to lay their eggs in presence of previously unknown yeast communities, although their offspring had less chance of survival there. Such processes in nature could be a key factor that leads to the flies populating new habitats and, provided that the larvae also survive there, the formation of niches and, ultimately, the evolution of new species (OIKOS, doi: 10.1111/oik.07180).

Everyone knows the common vinegar fly (Drosophila melanogaster), which - often not quite correctly called a "fruit fly" - is naturally found in swarms on fruit during the hot season, especially when bananas, apples, pears and other fruits are overripe and fermentation processes start. This is because the flies are attracted primarily by the odor of the yeasts involved in fermentation, rather than by the fruits themselves. Not only do the flies feed on these yeasts; the microorganisms also provide a first-class breeding substrate on which they lay their eggs and on which their larvae thrive. More than 1500 different species of the genus Drosophila are known. Many of the fly species are specialized for specific habitats; they feed, for example, exclusively on certain fruits and lay their eggs there.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology wanted to know more about the role of the yeasts that grow on the respective hosts play in the host selection of the flies, and whether a partnership or mutual dependency between flies and these yeasts had developed in the process of co-evolution. "We asked ourselves: Would the fly species remain faithful to their yeasts, or would they also be attracted towards other yeasts, and would that influence the reproductive success of their species?" Sarah Koerte, first author and doctoral researcher in the Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology, summarizes the initial question.

In addition to Drosophila melanogaster, the team took a closer look at two other species of the genus Drosophila, their host substrates and the associated yeasts: Drosophila mojavensis, a species first described in the Mojave Desert in the southwest of the USA, which thrives on cacti, especially necrotic cactus tissue, and Drosophila putrida, a species found in the Midwestern USA, which reproduces exclusively on fungi.

Female flies make decisions with negative consequences for their offspring

In behavioral experiments, the scientists tested the preferences of adult flies of all three species for yeasts, which grow either on fruit (the baker's or brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae), on cacti (Pichia cactophila) or on fungi (Vanrija humicola), and are thus part of the naturally associated microbial communities for each of the fly species. In addition, the influence of different yeast species on the egg laying behavior of mated female flies was observed.

Surprisingly, the flies did not necessarily prefer yeasts from their familiar habitat, but were also attracted towards the other yeasts. Females of the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster preferred to lay their eggs on a substrate with yeasts found on cacti, while female flies of the fungus specialist Drosophila putrida preferred fruit-specific yeasts for egg deposition. A real surprise was that female flies laid their eggs in the presence of yeasts which even had a negative effect on the development of their offspring, as experiments with Drosophila larvae on different brood substrates showed: Larvae of the Drosophila species that had specialized in cacti or fungi actually thrived best on yeasts associated with the familiar habitat, while yeasts from unknown environments tended to cause poor larval development and high mortality. In contrast to the two species with a limited host spectrum, Drosophila melanogaster larvae developed equally well on all tested yeasts, as this species is a generalist with a more flexible lifestyle.

The yeasts help the flies to decompose the plant or fungal substrate. The flies, on the other hand, excrete the yeasts undigested with their frass, and as a consequence the yeasts can spread further. The researchers suspected that the yeasts might be involved to different degrees in the decomposition of the respective substrates. Analyses of the sugar contents and the degradation rates showed that flies and yeasts together accelerated the decomposition. However, there was no evidence that the interaction of a specific fly species with its associated yeast was beneficial.

"Our results show that flies with a broad host spectrum were also more tolerant to different yeasts in food sources and at oviposition sites. Interestingly, the flies did not care much which yeasts were present when laying their eggs, while the hatching larvae were often only able to grow on the yeasts they would have encountered in nature," said Markus Knaden, head of the study. However, if larvae survive on a new host and the host-specific yeasts, this might enable the flies to adapt to new environments, which might lead to the evolution of new species.

"The evolutionary success of Drosophila might be linked to the ability to adapt rapidly to new habitats. Insect-associated microbial communities could be the evolutionary keys to unlock new doors and pathways towards conquering unknown environments and establishing new ecological niches," says Sarah Koerte.

###

Original Publication: Koerte, S., Keesey, I. W., Easson, M. L. A. E., Gershenzon, J., Hansson, B. S., Knaden, M. (2020). Variable dependency on associated yeast communities influences host range in Drosophila species. OIKOS, DOI 10.1111/oik.07180 https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.07180

Data Availability: Edmond, the Open Access Data Repository of the Max Planck Society, https://dx.doi.org/10.17617/3.3p

Further Information: Dr. Markus Knaden, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Hans-Knoll-Str. 8, 07745 Jena, Germany, Tel. +49 3641 57 1421, E-Mail: mknaden [at] ice.mpg.de ,

Contact and Media Requests: Angela Overmeyer M.A., Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Hans-Knoll-Str. 8, 07745 Jena, +49 3641 57-2110, E-Mail overmeyer@ice.mpg.de

Download of high resolution images via http://www.ice.mpg.de/ext/downloads2020.html
Demand for packaging paper is expected to increase by 14-18 percent per annum in the next 5-10 years, according to the Vietnam Paper and Pulp Association (VPPA).

Analysts say the paper industry is supported by a high export growth rate and robust economy. In 2019, Vietnams export turnover for the first time exceeded the $500 billion threshold.





Meanwhile, about 5.4 million tons of paper were exported in the year, an increase of 9.8 percent compared with the year before.



Environmentally friendly paper products have become favored, which promises great potential for the industry, especially demand for paper packaging for food which replaces plastic packaging.



FTAs also bring opportunities to export Vietnams packaging paper and packaging to markets which offer preferential tariffs to Vietnam. The Chinese move of shutting down a series of paper plants will also benefit Vietnamese enterprises.



However, analysts said there are many great challenges Vietnam is facing. There are 300 paper manufacturers in Vietnam, but most of them are small and utilize backward technology. Not many enterprises can make high-end packaging paper.

In order to satisfy increasingly high demand, the paper industry needs to expand their production scale. And the enterprises with advantages in making packaging paper need to be pioneers.

In order to satisfy increasingly high demand, the paper industry needs to expand their production scale. And the enterprises with advantages in making packaging paper need to be pioneers.



These enterprises are mostly foreign invested. Lee & Man Vietnam (420,000 tons a year), Vina Kraft (500,000 tons) and Chanh Duong (550,000 tons) make up nearly 50 percent of total packaging paper output.



Lee & Man has advantages in making Krafliner and Whitetopliner meeting standards for export. Whitetopliner is a kind of paper made on high-technology production line and Lee & Man is the only enterprise which can make this kind of paper in Vietnam.



To satisfy demand for packaging, plants need to run at full capacity or increase capacity. The national plan on the paper industry development says the packaging paper output would be 6.035 million tons by 2025, twice as much as 2019.



Some paper manufacturers have taken first steps to expand their plants. In 2017, Vina Kraft inaugurated its second packaging paper plant in Binh Duong, raising the capacity of the two plants in the province to 500,000 tons.



The second plant uses green technologies which minimize the use of water and energy consumed.



However, not many paper manufacturers can find capital to invest in such paper plants with high capacity. In terms of production expansion, foreign invested enterprises have greater advantages.



Lee & Man Vietnam, which receives financial support from its holding company Lee & Man Hong Kong, for example, has invested $650 million in a hi-tech packaging paper production line.

Le Ha

8th graders make paper bags of banana tree trunks, consider a start up Two students in HCM City plan to set up a business making environmentally friendly paper bags from banana tree trunks.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 14:28:23|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BISHKEK, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan reported on Monday 35 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number to 830.

Ainura Akmatova, head of the public health department of the country's Health Ministry, told a news briefing that the newly infected people include nine medical workers.

A total of 216 coronavirus cases have been registered among medical workers, with 139 recoveries, said Akmatova.

In addition, 908 people who have contact with infected patients are still under medical observation, while 11 others recovered in the past day.

A total of 575 patients have recovered and discharged from hospitals throughout the country, while 10 have died. Enditem
Help India!

Nazish Hussain, TwoCircles.net

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Saturday summoned another member of Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) Mohammed Tasleem for questioning in relation with Delhi violence that broke out earlier this year.

Support TwoCircles



Twenty-six-year-old Tasleem is a second-year student of M.A International Relations at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi.

A student leader from Jamia, Ramees confirmed to TwoCircles.net that Tasleem had been called in for questioning. On Saturday at around 3 p.m. Tasleem texted from Jamia Nagar police station on a WhatsApp group about his interrogation, Ramees said.

Tasleem has been actively covering Jamia protests against CAA since December last year. He runs a social media channel called Jamia World on Facebook and YouTube and has been covering anti-CAA protests in Jamia and Shaheen Bagh.

On 3 pm on Saturday, Tasleem posted on Jamia World that Delhi Police special cell wants to interrogate me on Delhi violence, whereas I was not in Delhi during the period from 19 February to 6 March.

Tasleem had clarified that he was only doing mobile journalism.

He is an activist-journalist. Even before the protests, he has been covering things from Jamia, says Ramees.

Tasleem originally hails from Bettiah, West Champaran, Bihar. He has been residing in Batla House in Delhi, as per Shahe Alam, a Jamia student.

Tasleem was released on Saturday night, but he has been further asked to report on Monday, said Ramees.

Delhi police special cell has been calling people for interrogation in relation with the Delhi violence.

A student activist from Jamia Shaheen Abdullah told TwoCirlces.net that two police cases are going on currently.

One is Jamia violence and the other is northeast Delhi violence. In Jamia violence, most of the students are giving statements as witnesses. For northeast Delhi violence, JCC members are being picked up and interrogated. All the students have gone underground for fear of getting arrested or being tortured by the police. They are not speaking with fellow students or using WhatsApp for fear of surveillance, he said.

On 15 April, the Indian Express reported that more than 50 people have been served notice in relation with Delhi violence. Many Muslim residents of North East Delhi where violence broke out have also been called by Police for interrogation.

Ramees fears that the Delhi police is connecting everything with violence that occurred in North East Delhi. Whatever happened, they will connect it to Delhi violence, Ramees said.

Shaheen says that Jamia students were only focused on what was happening inside the university premises. Students here never had any proper link or proper coordination with any protests happening outside. It is very strange, but one of the reasons is to crackdown the student movement. The potential of Jamia protest was that it made a ripple effect all over India, that could be one of the reasons but we dont know what exactly happened, he said.

Earlier, three JCC members  Meeran Haider, Safoora Zargar, and Shafa-ur-Rehman were arrested and charged with Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a legislation that has been criticized by rights groups.

Meeran, 35, is a PhD student at Jamia and was arrested on April 2. Meeran is the president of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) youth wing Delhi Unit. He has been accused of hatching a conspiracy to incite communal violence in northeast Delhi.

Safoora Zargar, 27, is an M.Phil student from Jamia and was arrested on April 10. Safoora, who is also three months pregnant, was arrested for allegedly obstructing the road near Jaffrabad metro station. She has been charged under UAPA.

Shafa-ur-Rahman, a JCC member and president of Alumni Association of Jamia Millia Islamia, (AAJMI) was arrested on 26 April, in relation to northeast Delhi violence. He has been charged with UAPA and sent to jail.

Commenting on the UAPA charges on students, Abubakr Sabbaq, a Supreme Court lawyer told TwoCircles.net that the use of draconian laws against students is not only unjustified but arbitrary, inhuman and unjust. These students like Safoora and Meeran only raised their voice against the law this government passed and they wanted it to be repealed. Charging them under UAPA for the same is the misuse of law, he said.

Amnesty International has also criticized Indias use of UAPA against students and activists, terming it a tool to repress dissent.

Various other human rights organizations and activists groups have called UAPA a draconian law and condemning its use against students.

Hum Bharat Ke Log, an umbrella group of civil society organizations have said that the invocation of UAPA and the colonial sedition laws are inherently illegal.

Supreme Court lawyer Sabbaq said that in a democracy the independence of the judiciary is paramount.

When the Delhi High Court judge asked to register an FIR, the police had to file an FIR but instead of filing FIR the judge was transferred, he said.

Sabbaq is referring to Delhi High court Judge Justice S Muralidhar, who was hearing the Delhi violence case. In late February, the bench headed by him expressed anguish over Delhi police failure to register FIR against alleged hate speeches by three BJP leaders including Kapil Mishra. Subsequently, the Judge was transferred and a row erupted.

It is loud and clear how this government is protecting its people. And, if the judiciary is independent, Sabbaq said.

Citing examples of police discrimination against Muslims, Abubakr Sabbaq mentions two cases  the Bijnor Bomb Blast case of 2014 and Saifullah encounter in Lucknow of 2017.

The accomplices in these cases were both Hindus and Muslims. While Hindus were charged separately under minor cases, Muslims got booked under sedition and UAPA, he says.
The passing of one of Hindi film industry's stellar actors, Irrfan Khan, has left a huge hole in the hearts of his fans and colleagues from the industry. Tributes for Irrfan have been pouring in from other Bollywood celebs. Recently, Anil Kapoor took to his Twitter handle to remember his Slumdog Millionaire co-star. Sharing a few pictures, Anil wrote how Irrfan had one of the most contagious smiles.

Sharing pictures from their Slumdog Millionaire days, of film promotions, when they went to the 81st Academy Awards, and a picture of the cast at the SAG Awards, Anil wrote on Twitter, "These pictures bring back so many memories! There was something about his smile that would instantly make everyone around him smile... One of the many things I'll always remember about Irrfan...." (sic).

These pictures bring back so many memories! There was something about his smile that would instantly make everyone around him smile... One of the many things Ill always remember about Irrfan.... pic.twitter.com/Y4tzrodUBs  Anil Kapoor (@AnilKapoor) May 4, 2020

Irrfan and Anil's 2009 movie Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, won numerous Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The film's director, Danny Boyle, also payed a tribute to Irrfan recently. Calling him a wonderful actor, Danny said that Irrfan was a pivotal figure in the making of Slumdog Millionaire. He said that Irrfan's role as a police officer was not a very big one on paper, but he guided the audience through his grace, dignity, charm, and calmness.

Irrfan breathed his last on April 29, 2020. The actor was battling neuroendocrine tumor for two years and had sought treatment for it in the United Kingdom.

Irrfan was last seen in the film Angrezi Medium, starring alongside Deepak Dobriyal, Radhika Madan, Pankaj Tripathi, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Dimple Kapadia. Directed by Homi Adajania, the film saw limited theatrical release due to the Coronavirus lockdown.

ALSO READ: Irrfan Khan's Funeral Attended By Kapil Sharma, Mika Singh And Others

ALSO READ: Paulo Coelho Remembers Irrfan Khan: Pays Tribute To Actor With Quote From Bhagavad Gita
Outside of New York, New Jersey is the state that has been hit hardest by the pandemic. WSJ visited a recent emergency food distribution event in Newark to speak with New Jerseyans about food insecurity during the pandemic.
The IHME model produced by the University of Washington and funded largely, I believe, by Bill Gates, is widely referred to by journalists and politicians. I have followed that model and its predictions for a while, and have concluded that it is more or less useless, for the following reasons.

First, the IHME model abdicates just where policymakersi.e., governorsneed information. The model has projected deaths, along with demand for hospital beds and ICU rooms, up to August 4, 2020. This is a typical chart you will find on the IHME web site:

Further, the models web site has said, with respect to each U.S. state, Social distancing assumed until infections minimized and containment implemented. Presumably the IHME modelers think that social distancing makes a difference. In each state, they show new deaths leveling off to around zero well before August 4.

But what happens when the current lockdowns end? That is what governors really need to know. It seems obvious that, if one assumes the lockdowns have slowed the spread of the virus, when the lockdowns are eased the virus will again spread more rapidly. And, as a result, more people will get sick and more will die. Governors understand this, while most in the general public dont, naively believing that lockdowns will end when it is safe for us to emerge from our homes.

On the key decision that confronts policymakers, the IHME model resolutely refuses to give any guidance. Does it matter whether the lockdowns end tomorrow, or continue for another three months? And what increase in infections should people be prepared to expect when our economic and social life resumes? The IHME model is silent.

But this makes no sense. If the model assumes social distancing, it must incorporate a mathematical calculation that is different from what it would be in the absence of social distancing. Nevertheless, the modelers decline to explain their logic or to enlighten policymakers.

Second, the IHME model, when examined on a state by state basis, produces results so whimsical that a governor would be foolish to rely on them. I have written about this before, most recently in Coronavirus In Five States (3). I have followed the models predictions with regard to the five states of the Upper Midwest, but I am sure that you would see similarly unhelpful results if you looked closely at other states. Here are the fatality totals that the IHME model has predicted at various times for four of the Upper Midwestern states:

Minnesota

April 11: 442

April 15: 656

April 22: 360

April 29: 741

The IHME projection for Minnesota was cut by nearly 50% between April 15 and April 22, then more than doubled in the next week, April 22 to April 29. Why? Not because of any such wild fluctuations in Minnesotas statistics. At any time during the past month, our governor would have been foolish to base any decision on IHMEs projections.

Iowa

April 11: 743

April 15: 618

April 22: 365

April 29: 302

The IHME model was grotesquely wrong about Iowa, and has been adjusted repeatedly to bring it more in line with reality. At least it is getting closer: according to IHME, Iowa had 136 deaths as of April 28. Any action Iowas governor might have taken in early April, relying on the IHME model, would have been misguided.

North Dakota

April 11: 369

April 15: 32

April 22: 356

April 29: 136

Little need be said about these wild gyrations. They apparently result from changes in the IHME model, not from anything actually happening in North Dakota. Total number of COVID-19 deaths as of April 28, per the IHME? 19. The governor of North Dakota and his public health officials would have been crazy to pay any heed to the IHME model, at any time.

South Dakota

South Dakota is an interesting case. These are IHMEs predictions of South Dakota fatalities through August 4, on the following dates:

April 11: 356

April 15: 181

April 22: 93

Again, IHME was dead wrong. Its South Dakota projection has now dropped all the way down to 17, but that projection only runs through May 7, next Thursday. Why? Apparently because South Dakotas governor, Kristi Noem, has declined to order a shutdown. IHME says:

Long-term projections are unavailable for this location. Our model does not account for easing social distancing or quantify the risk of resurgence.

But then, what good is it? This is the point I made earlier.

In any event, South Dakotas governor would have been badly misled if she had relied on the IHME model a month ago. They were wrong and she was right, and the modelers have drastically reduced their projection to approach nearer to the reality on the ground.

South Dakota appears to be one of only a few statesTennessee and Alaska are the others I have notedfor which IHME disdains to make a prediction beyond next week, apparently on the ground that those states have eased social distancing requirements (or, in South Dakotas case, never mandated most of them). Still, inconsistencies abound. North Dakota, like South Dakota, has implemented two of IHMEs six measures of social distancing. Yet, if you go to IHMEs North Dakota page, the modelers continue to project deaths through August 4, and there is no disclaimer as to [l]ong-term projections [being] unavailable for this location. What is the difference?

I will leave it to others to speculate. In any event, for the reasons stated, I think the IHME model is more or less completely useless.
CLEVELAND, April 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A medical device based on technology developed by three faculty members from Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UH) has won a prestigious 2020 Edison Best New Product Award.

EsoCheck, a device designed to help detect precancerous changes in the esophagus, was named a "Silver" winner of the 2020 Edison Best New Product Awards in the "Medical/Dental - Testing Solutions" subcategory.

Esophageal adenocarcinomas have increased more than five-fold in recent years and are a highly lethal cancer, with less than 20% 5-year survival. These cancers arise from a precursor lesion of Barrett's esophagus (BE), which is an abnormal cell type that arises in the lower esophagus.

EsoCheck is a swallowable balloon-based device that, in a simple five-minute outpatient exam, can collect cells from the lower region of the esophagus to help determine if Barrett's disease is present. Unlike endoscopy, the current method for examining the esophagus, EsoCheck does not require a patient to undergo sedation, lose a day of work or need a companion for transportation.

The EsoCheck device works together with EsoGuard, a companion molecular assay that tests the DNA from the cells retrieved by EsoCheck for the presence of genetic changes indicative of the presence or absence of Barrett's disease.

Lucid Diagnostics, a subsidiary of New York-based PAVmed Inc., licensed the EsoCheck and EsoGuard technology through the Case Western Reserve University Technology Transfer Office in 2018.

The EsoCheck device and EsoGuard DNA test were co-invented by Amitabh Chak, MD, (Professor of Medicine at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and gastroenterologist at the University Hospitals Digestive Health Institute); Sanford Markowitz, MD, PhD, (Ingalls Professor of Cancer Genetics and Medicine at the School of Medicine and an oncologist at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center); and Joseph Willis, MD,(Professor of Pathology at the School of Medicine and Pathology Vice-Chair for translational research at UH).

The technology was developed as part of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center's GI SPORE (Gastrointestinal Specialized Program of Research Excellence) and BETRNet (Barrett's Esophagus Translational Research Network) programs led by Markowitz and Chak, and was first tested in humans in a clinical trial led by Chak at University Hospitals.

Further support for the clinical assay development was derived from a National Cancer Institute award led by Willis. The development was also supported by the Case-Coulter partnership and the State of Ohio Third Frontier Technology Validation Start-up Fund.

Last fall, the new EsoCheck method for examining the esophagus received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clinical use, and, this February, the companion EsoGuard DNA test for Barrett's detection received breakthrough designation from the FDA.

Since 1987, the Edison Awards, named after Thomas Alva Edison, have recognized some of the most innovative products and business leaders in the world. They're among the most prestigious accolades, honoring excellence in new product and service development, marketing, design and innovation.

About University Hospitals / Cleveland, Ohio

Founded in 1866, University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of 18 hospitals, more than 50 health centers and outpatient facilities, and 200 physician offices in 16 counties throughout northern Ohio. The system's flagship academic medical center, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, located in Cleveland's University Circle, is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The main campus also includes University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation; University Hospitals MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, a high-volume national referral center for complex cardiovascular procedures; and University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. UH is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research programs in the nation, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopedics, radiology, neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, digestive health, transplantation and urology. UH Cleveland Medical Center is perennially among the highest performers in national ranking surveys, including "America's Best Hospitals" from U.S. News & World Report. UH is also home to Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals - part of The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development. UH is one of the largest employers in Northeast Ohio with 28,000 physicians and employees. Advancing the Science of Health and the Art of Compassion is UH's vision for benefitting its patients into the future, and the organization's unwavering mission is To Heal. To Teach. To Discover. Follow UH on LinkedIn, Facebook @UniversityHospitals and Twitter @UHhospitals. For more information, visit UHhospitals.org .

About Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is one of the country's leading private research institutions. Located in Cleveland, we offer a unique combination of forward-thinking educational opportunities in an inspiring cultural setting. Our leading-edge faculty engage in teaching and research in a collaborative, hands-on environment. Our nationally recognized programs include arts and sciences, dental medicine, engineering, law, management, medicine, nursing and social work. About 5,100 undergraduate and 6,700 graduate students comprise our student body. Visit case.edu to see how Case Western Reserve thinks beyond the possible.

SOURCE University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Related Links

http://UHhospitals.org


The state of Montana is rewriting its elk management plan, and as an initial step in that process, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is forming an advisory committee.

Montana last updated its elk management plan in 2005 and first wrote a plan in 1992. The nearly 400-page document lays out the states strategy for managing elk as a species given diverse land ownerships, habitats and role of hunting in keeping populations in check.

Since 2005 many changes have happened in the state, said Lindsey Parsons, FWPs deer/elk coordinator. Land use has changed, populations and where they occupy, large carnivore recovery in the state, so a lot of things have happened that affect elk populations and habitat but also our ability to harvest them.

The current plan is an overarching framework of 44 elk management units with population goals called objectives, that FWP believes the units can support. Objectives are based on a balance of maintaining healthy herds and habitat while also addressing conflicts and damage to private land. The plan specifies that the six-week archery and five-week general hunting seasons be the primary hunting opportunities for controlling populations.

FWP often cites the management plan when it comes to its hunting season recommendations that go before the Fish and Wildlife Commission for approval. The plan is also required by law and FWP is required to manage elk to those objectives. But the objectives themselves as well as the management tools used have become a challenging and contentious issue at times, as the commission dealt with passion on both sides of issues such as extended seasons and access to private lands.

Populations in some parts of Montana grew well above objectives in recent years and FWP introduced shoulder seasons in an effort to bring those populations down. An additional antlerless B license has also been offered and most recently as a result of legislative action, a third elk license is available for some units.

Of course its difficult, Parsons said of writing an elk plan with so many interests to consider in as diverse a place as Montana. While the new plan could look similar to the current plan, FWP is essentially starting at ground zero in rewriting the plan, she said, and not going into the process with preconceptions about what the final product will be.

To begin to address the diversity of concerns, FWP is soliciting membership applications for a 10-12 person advisory committee. Applicants may be members of organizations or the general public so long as they have an interest in elk management and are open and willing to listen to and engage with other members, Parsons said.

The group is not responsible for recommendations on specific strategies or population targets, but rather offering initial guidance on what principles should drive elk management in the state.

While opinion on elk numbers and management certainly varies, Parsons sees some common philosophies. Most Montanans want elk and good habitat. But for a hunter or wildlife watcher that can mean wanting higher numbers of elk while a rancher may want to see lower numbers due to game damage and competition with livestock.

Organizations that keep close tabs on elk issues seem to agree that it is time for FWP to take another look at the plan.

We do think its time for an update to the statewide elk management plan  a tremendous amount has changed in those 15 years, said Nick Gevock with the Montana Wildlife Federation.

Gevock believes the population objectives will be one of the biggest issues, as well as preserving historic migration routes, getting elk onto public lands, minimizing impacts on private lands and disease transmission. One issue his organization is particularly passionate about is seeing the bulk of elk harvest take place during the archery and general season rather than extended seasons.

FWP is constantly walking that tightrope, he said. Were hopeful that whatever comes out of this council and the elk plan may be a whole new approach for those goals that we all want to achieve.

Brian Ohs with the Montana Stockgrowers Association recognized some of the sticky conversations that have taken place over elk shoulder seasons in recent years and is interested in specifics of the plan rather than talking hypotheticals. His group has generally supported the FWP policy of managing to population objectives and says the top priority at this early stage of the plans rewrite is to push for strong landowner representation on the advisory committee.

We definitely want to do our part to make sure landowner representation and concerns are part of the discussion, he said.

Individuals interested in serving on the committee must be willing to commit to two multi-day meetings during the summer of 2020. Applications are online at http://fwp.mt.gov/fishAndWildlife/management/elk/ or paper applications are available upon request by calling 406-444-2612. Members will be selected by FWP Director Martha Williams with input from staff.

Applications must be received no later than May 25. Call 406-594-8278 or email FWPWLD@mt.gov with any questions.

Reporter Tom Kuglin can be reached at 447-4076 @IR_TomKuglin

Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 2 Sad 1 Angry 2

Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
gettyimagesbank



By Nam Hyun-woo





Celltrion Chairman Seo Jung-jin

Korea's top two biopharmaceutical companies, Celltrion and Samsung BioLogics, are successfully defying the economic fallout of COVID-19, as each posted or will likely post satisfying numbers in their first-quarter earnings.



According to analysts, Monday, Celltrion is expected to post 354.1 billion won ($288.45 million) in sales for the first quarter, up 59.7 percent from a year earlier. During the same period, its operating profit is anticipated to have expanded 75.9 percent to 136 billion won. Celltrion will announce its first-quarter earnings later this month.



Along with Celltrion, its sales and developing affiliate, Celltrion Healthcare, is expected to generate handsome numbers during the three-month period, with earnings up 66 percent and operating profit, 474 percent, year-on-year.



This is in contrast to the earnings downtrend weighing down for most Korean businesses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.



Analysts said Celltrion's earnings have suffered only a limited impact, as its portfolio is focused on biosimilar drugs treating life-threatening conditions.



"Most Celltrion products are immuno-oncology, anticancer and other drugs that are related to life-threatening diseases, thus the COVID-19 impact on sales will remain at a limited level," SK Securities analyst Lee Tal-mi said. "Since the company is making efforts to secure inventories through partnerships with overseas contract manufacturing organizations, there seem to be no serious logistics issues on exporting drugs eithert."



One of the drugs that buoyed Celltrion's first-quarter earnings was Remsima, a biosimilar used for rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and a series of other diseases. According to Pfizer, which is selling the drug exclusively in the U.S., the drug's U.S. sales for the first quarter stood at $84 million, up 46 percent from $57 million a year earlier.





Samsung BioLogics CEO Kim Tae-han
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that the state is now "on the other side of the mountain" as the daily number of hospitalizations, rate of new infections and deaths related to Covid-19 continue to decline.

Cuomo said the state was hoping for a faster drop in the number of hospitalizations than it's currently experiencing. However, the number is still falling, which is "good news," he said.

The governor outlined some criteria the state can use to begin rolling back restrictions, and said some parts of the state could reach these benchmarks earlier than others. New York's so-called pause order ends May 15, but local governments will need show they meet the criteria before social distancing restrictions can be lifted.

The state reported 9,647 total hospitalizations on Sunday, down from 9,786, Cuomo said.

An additional 226 people died from Covid-19 on Sunday, he said, which makes four consecutive days that daily figure has been below 300. The last time the number of deaths was below 300 was on March 31. The state recorded its deadliest day on April 10 when 799 people died.

The three-day rolling average number of people who have been hospitalized with Covid-19 has also declined to 717, which is also good news because it had plateaued around 900 for a few days, he said.

"You see that mountain that we went up, now we're on the other side of the mountain. You start to see the shape of the mountain, unfortunately the decline from the mountain is not as steep as the incline," Cuomo said while referencing a chart of total hospitalizations in the state related to Covid-19.
Last summer, the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS) took the decision to launch a gold open-access academic journal, titled Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS). Then, IAVS signed a contract with the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft and its self-developed innovative, fast-track scholarly platform ARPHA.

Now, VCS is officially online with the publication of its first six research articles and an exhaustive editorial, written by its four Chief Editors: Prof Dr Florian Jansen, Dr Idoia Biurrun, Prof Dr Jurgen Dengler and Dr Wolfgang Willner. They explain the mission and key features of the new journal. They also address the advantages and challenges of Open Access and share the ways VCS is to handle those.

VCS focuses on vegetation typologies and vegetation classification systems, their methodological foundation, development and application at any organisational and spatial scale. No restrictions are imposed on the methodological approaches used.

Apart from original research papers that develop new vegetation typologies, the journal publishes applied studies that use such typologies, for example, in vegetation mapping, ecosystem modelling, nature conservation, land use management, or monitoring. Particularly encouraged are methodological studies that design and compare tools or algorithms for vegetation classification and mapping, vegetation databases and nomenclatural principles. Papers dealing with conceptual and theoretical bases of vegetation survey and classification are also welcome.

"We are delighted to welcome the latest journal by IAVS to the families of ARPHA and Pensoft. We are eager to support this wonderful Open Science initiative to facilitate access and uptake of research in this emerging field of vegetation science," comments Prof Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO of ARPHA and Pensoft.

Amongst the appealing features of the new journal are its two permanent special collections: Ecoinformatics and Phytosociological Nomenclature. The former invites papers presenting vegetation-plot databases and other ecoinformatics data sources relevant for vegetation classification as well as concepts, methods and tools for using these, while the latter focuses on nomenclature issues of syntaxa.

Another novelty introduced by VCS is the implementation of double-blind peer review meant to reduce potential biases in academia.

Proving the international focus of VCS, the first published articles cover research from five continents.

A Chinese study, conducted by the team of Dr Cindy Q. Tang (Yunnan University) analyses the forest structure, regeneration and growth trends of the commercially, culturally and economically important Yunnan pine tree.

The research team of Maged Abutaha (Desert Research Center) provides the first phytosociological classification of the vegetation units of Gebel Elba - an important arid mountain in Egypt - and the environmental factors controlling their distribution.

In their paper, Dr John Hunter (University of New England) and Vanessa Hunter use unsupervised techniques to produce a hierarchical classification of montane mires within the New England Tablelands Bioregion (NETB) of eastern Australia.

A national-scale phytosociological research of freshwater lake vegetation in Greece was conducted by the team of Dimitrios Zervas (Greek Biotope/Wetland Centre).

A Finite Mixture Model is proposed as an additional approach for classifying large datasets of georeferenced vegetation plots from complex vegetation systems by a large research team, led by Dr Fabio Attorre of the Sapienza University of Rome.

A description of the remaining native vegetation of the Espinal province in central Argentina, presented by a research team, led by Dr Sebastian Zeballos (Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biologia Vegetal, UNC-CONICET), calls for conservation measures to be taken to preserve the remaining forest patches. They also urge for the establishment of new protected natural areas.

"We would like to see more profound vegetation studies from species-rich regions, from both natural and anthropogenically influenced vegetation types," say the editors.

###

Thanks to support from IAVS, VCS will be offering particularly attractive article processing charges (APCs) for submissions during the first two years. Moreover, significant discounts are available for IAVS members, members of the Editorial team and authors from low-income countries or with other financial constraints.

Follow Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) on Twitter and Facebook.

Check out the official blog of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS), where authors in any of the three IAVS journals are invited to submit blog contributions providing further insights into their work.

Contacts:

Prof Dr Jurgen Dengler, Chief Editor at VCS

Email: juergen.dengler@uni-bayreuth.de

Prof Dr Florian Jansen, Chief Editor at VCS

Email: florian.jansen@uni-rostock.de

Prof Dr Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at Pensoft and ARPHA

Email: penev@pensoft.net
From lockdown to lock-in By Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, exclusively for the Sunday Times in Sri Lanka View(s): View(s):

WASHINGTON, DC  At first glance, COVID-19 seemed to be a shared global experience, in terms of both the incidence of the disease and how countries responded. But now it has become clear that countries are diverging significantly in terms of strategy and outcomes. This means that, as the world exits from lockdowns, it will enter another difficult phase: Lock-ins that severely limit international travel.

Tourism, trade, and travel more broadly will never be the same again. The full pattern remains unclear, but lock-ins are likely to slow the global economic recovery  and to create another round of crisis, at least in small island economies that depend on short-stay international visitors.

Today, national COVID-19 strategies can be broadly separated into three categories: eradication, herd immunity, and suppression of the coronavirus until a vaccine or cure is discovered.

Eradication is the hardest to achieve. New Zealand claims to have gotten there; and Australia aspires to do the same. This approach is most likely to succeed in pristine and relatively remote areas, such as the northern Canadian territory of Nunavut, which currently has no reported cases.

By contrast, some countries will end up  for various reasons  with what epidemiologists call herd immunity. In these places, enough people will become infected and survive  and, it is hoped, acquire some degree of immunity  that the disease will no longer be able to spread like wildfire.

Swedens technocrats appear to have chosen to pursue herd immunity for their country. Japans official communications have been less clear, but the limited lockdown  and the failure of contact tracing in some contexts  suggests that herd immunity will occur. Brazils president calls this same approach vertical isolation. India, much of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America seem to be on a similar path. If the basic reproduction rate (the now ubiquitous R0, which measures infectiousness) is 2.5, then 60% of the population in these countries likely need to get the disease before herd immunity is established. If R0 is higher, more people need to become infected and survive for herd immunity to occur. In any case, billions of new infections presumably still await.

The third category comprises countries that, while unable to eradicate the disease, are trying hard to suppress outbreaks for as long as possible. These countries, which include the United States, most of Canada, and Europe (other than Sweden), are in a tough spot. Although they have lowered the number of new cases with indiscriminate lockdowns, they have already shrunk economic activity by 10-25%, and now they enter a long slog to suppress R0.

South Korea and China demonstrate that, with social cooperation and authoritarian zeal, countries can rapidly identify the newly infected, trace all their contacts, and quarantine the exposed until the danger of disease is well past. These methods are being attempted but are much less likely to succeed comprehensively in the US and other developed countries, owing to varying access to health care, mixed confidence in the authorities, and wide income disparities. Some residents will be reluctant to report symptoms for fear of losing income, being taken away from their children, or having to pay high health-care costs. Pockets of disease will rise and fall.

How does this affect global mobility and national economies?

Consider the mythical island of New Cookland. Having eradicated COVID-19, the islands residents now  correctly  see outsiders as a potential Trojan Horse. Anyone arriving by plane will likely be welcomed by agents in hazmat suits, who will escort them to special quarantine zones, where all newcomers will be required to wait out the viruss incubation period, and then be tested. A negative result is required to enter the country, and those who test positive will be quarantined for a further 15 days. Such restrictions and uncertainties will make travel to and from New Cookland quite unappealing.

In the real world, all countries striving to suppress R0 will impose similar restrictions on international arrivals. Their quarantine, self-isolation, and testing rules will be just as onerous as New Cooklands.

By contrast, countries seeking to establish herd immunity wont fear foreign visitors. The Swedes will be happy to invite us in, including for short stays. But if they invite themselves to other countries, that wont please the eradicators and suppressors, who will fear herd immunity people. After all, herd immunity does not eradicate the disease, it just means there will be fewer cases of it, and little risk of an epidemic  but only in places where sufficient immunity has been established.

Gone are the days of short international travel, or long trips visiting multiple countries. We will all fear that a false positive test result will land us in an unnecessary quarantine for 15 days. Sterilisation of freight and other shipments will be similarly tough, especially for cargo coming into eradicators like New Cookland.

Tests establishing the presence of antibodies might ultimately lead to some relaxation of travel restrictions, depending on the extent of immunity that past infection is found to confer. But, in the absence of universal vaccination, tighter constraints on human mobility will presumably remain in place  perhaps for a long time.

Peter Boone is Chairman of Effective Intervention at the London School of Economics Center for Economic Performance. Simon Johnson is a professor at MIT Sloan and co-chair (with Retsef Levi) of the COVID-19 Policy Alliance, focused on actionable intelligence and operational recommendations to limit the human damage from the pandemic.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020.

www.project-syndicate.org
2020 is getting from bad to worse to downright dreadful, from the looks of it. Weve seen how with every passing month this year has been filled with non-stop bad news.

And while COVID-19 pandemic is surely the worst of the lot, a new problem might be on the brink of surfacing, posing new challenges to human life.

Washington State University

USs Washington State and Canada has spotted murder hornets surfacing in large numbers. In case you were wondering hornets arent technically harmful except for their painful sting, only the ones resurging in North America arent the normal kind.

Theyre Asian Giant Hornets (yeah I know the name makes everything a whole lot worse) and as their name suggests theyre quite large than normal hornets. But thats not all.

The murder hornets

The murder hornets are also known for their stings -- theyre venomous. The stings are in fact known to kill around 50 people every year in Japan.

And they can be truly regarded as the monsters of the bug world as these feed themselves by actually tearing apart heads off bees and actually flying their headless body to the young hornets to feed.

Washington State University

Their stings deliver potent venom that is as deadly as a venomous snake bite, but only if youre attacked by a swarm. Unlike bees, they can puncture you multiple times using stingers nearly as long as a hypodermic needle.



How did it come to the US?

Whats more astonishing is that they arent supposed to be in the US as theyre mostly found in Asia. And researchers arent able to find out why this is the case. They feel that they were transported in International cargo, either accidentally or deliberately.

Susan Cobey, a bee breeder with Washington State Universitys Department of Entomology, in a recent statement. Theyre like something out of a monster cartoon with this huge yellow-orange face.

But in case you were wondering we should be now ready with powerful bug spray to keep these hornets away, the biggest problem is for the bees. You see, Asian Giant Hornets feast on honey bees.

Todd Murray, an entomologist and invasive species specialist with the university states, Its a shockingly large hornet. Its a health hazard, and more importantly, a significant predator of honey bees.

Washington State University

They feast on bees

These hornets are capable of destroying an entire beehive full of hundreds of honey bees in a matter of hours. While their population is already endangered due to several issues, the Asian Giant Hornets will only make matters worse.

Officials have teamed up to stop the hornet population from rising. Usually, around April the queen comes out of hibernation while other male hornets scout and build underground dens to nest. Theyre the most destructive during late summer as they desperately hunt for food to sustain food for next years queen.

Stopping their population from rising

According to Chris Looney, an entomologist with Washington State Department of Agriculture, in a conversation with New York Times, This is our window to keep it from establishing. If we cant do it in the next couple of years, it probably cant be done.

Getty Images

Theyve created makeshift traps to catch these large bugs. Moreover, theyre also teaming up with local beekeepers as well as scientists with WSU to keep a track on the population.

According to Murray, We need to teach people how to recognize and identify this hornet while populations are small so that we can eradicate it while we still have a chance.

Is climate change to blame for this?

While there is no clear answer to their rising population in a region theyre not found, is climate change responsible for this? It wont be surprising considering it has already caused several animals to change the way they function -- bears arent hibernating, snow leopards are being spotted in human-populated areas. It wont be surprising if this really is the case. What do you feel? Tell us in the comments section below.
In what has been the most challenging past weeks in South Africa's economy due to Covid-19 pandemic, it continues to be business unusual for most business environments and the radio space is no exception. Even with the current challenges, it was that time of the year again when the country's biggest regional commercial radio station, Gagasi FM, kicked off its new season for 2020/21 on Friday, 1 May 2020.

The six-to-six weekday offering has done exceptionally well in the past year resulting in the stability of the traditional on-air channel. To ensure consistency and unlocking of further growth, the six-to-six on-air team has remained unchanged with the addition of DJ Lab as a content producer toon a full-time basis. Lab has been working with the show in an acting capacity over the past few months.The few changes for the new season include the ever smooth Cohen Zondo replacing Mondli Ngcobo onon Mondays between 8pm and 10pm. Gagasi FM would like to thank Ngcobo for his contribution to the station over the past year and wish him all the best for his future endeavours.DJ Vumar takes overbetween 8pm and 10pm. DJ Vumar will also continue with his trademark Saturday show,, who now also joins him on Trendy Sunday between 6pm and 10pm. A new and exciting combination sees Sonic teaming up with the mesmerizing Zola Zee Lovin on Nayi le Vibe every Friday between 7pm and 10pm as well as on Saturday between 4pm and 7pm. Sphe Live and Hope Mbhele will now co-hoston Saturday andon Sunday. The shows will air from 7am to 10am and 2pm to 6pm respectively.Over the years, the development of fresh talent has been the station's DNA and, this year, Gagasi FM extends a warm welcome to Harrison Mkhize and Luyanda Khambule. Mkhize will take over theon Saturdays and Sundays between 1am and 4am, while Khambule will do Saturdays between 4am and 7am as well as Sundays between 4am and 6am."Despite forced changes in some of our prime time shows over the past year, we maintain a solid show offering which has also been well received by our audience. Our approach for the new season is to retain our core offering while Introducing new and exciting combinations to our weekend shows. We also maintain our long-standing tradition of introducing new talent and are confident that Harrison and Luyanda will add value as they develop and grow as Gagasi FM personalities. Our audience can look forward to another exciting year of Gagasi FM," says programmes manager Mimi Kesaris.With the nationwide lockdown currently in force, it means that Gagasi FM will not be embarking on its annual #WeGotTalent tour, which is the campaign aimed at introducing the new season to consumers through on the ground activations. But not all is lost. Gagasi FM will be launching the exciting online 'Make The Combos Communicate' campaign that will be live on all the station's digital platforms. The campaign will run throughout the month of May and listeners will stand a chance to win amazing prizes including cash by participating.Stay tuned to Gagasi FM and check out the digital platforms for more information.For further information, please contact:Senior Executive: Marketing, PR and Stakeholder ManagementTel: 031 584 5300Cell: 083 792 5737Email: az.oc.599isagag@sinakeluhk PR and Trade Marketing OfficerTel: 031 584 5300Cell: 081 411 0832Email: az.oc.599isagag@ikistn
Investors should be very cautious of the underlying asset class and its product category. As an informed investor, he should know the asset class cycle, underlying investments and probable risk in case of a trade war between the US and China post-COVID-19, Amit Jain, Co-Founder & CEO at Ashika Wealth Advisors said in an interview to Moneycontrol's Sunil Shankar Matkar.

edited excerpts:

Q) Do you expect the market rally to continue in May? Also is it a bear rally?

A) This rally apparently looks like a bear market rally which is more driven by news flow relating to the stimulus by government or possible cure of COVID-19 rather than fundamental recovery of the global economy. The rally may hold for short period, however, it may fizzle out once the technical factors in F&O market settle down.

Q) After a 32 percent rally from March lows, are you still advising clients to continue buying quality stocks?

A) If you see our last view shared with Moneycontrol, we advised 30 percent allocation in the market in the first week of April and the rest in a staggered way. We believe this strategy has worked very well for our investors and we continue to believe in the same strategy of staggering investments in next 6 months, as we are fearful of strong retaliation by America in form of Trade war or a currency war by the end of the year.

If any fresh investments are to be made, then we advise waiting for better entry points with the right diversification strategy in appropriate asset class.

Q) What are the major factors to watch out for in May on domestic as well as global front?

A) Globally we are expecting another stimulus package by central government. Also, there are high hopes in the market for vaccines and a possible cure for COVID-19 is around the corner. Once this emotional hysteria passes, the GDP numbers would be the next thing to watch out for. along with currency fluctuations, forex reserves and possible scope demand revival.

Q) Given the fiscal stress, do you think the government will be able to announce a large stimulus package for the economy?

A) Announcing a further stimulus is really critical for our economy and particularly for survival of some of the mid-sized industries. This further stimulus may affect our fiscal deficit negatively, however, we have limited options.

Our currency has already depreciated by 7 percent YTD which has already put pressure of 3.5 lakh crore of additional interest on foreign borrowings. So, in our view, the government should focus more on curbing the rupee depreciation and save outgoing interest cost on their foreign borrowings. This possible cost saving should be utilised by the government to provide further stimulus for the SME segment.

Q) What should be the investment strategy under current market and economic conditions?

A) In our view, investors should be very cautious of the underlying asset class and its product category. As an informed investor, he should know the asset class cycle, underlying investments and probable risk in case of a trade war between the US and China post-COVID-19.

As of now, we suggest that each investor should have the right asset class mix along with the right product category. Also, investors should know when they need to switch or exit from their existing portfolio. Investors should have an active approach and should rebalance their portfolio at medium-term intervals. Also, we advise, each investor should follow a systematic approach of investment rather than one-time investment.

Q) Have you seen any change in investor/trader behaviour in the last four months?

A) FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is what usually triggers these behavioural changes in investors. Investors should focus on building up the portfolio in a systematic approach by diversifying the investments across asset class, product categories and across the time period. Investors should understand the fundamentals of the underlying businesses & Industries and their Financials before investing in any mutual fund & stock category.

: 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.
European stocks closed lower on Monday amid rising U.S.-China tensions around the source of the coronavirus outbreak.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 provisionally closed down 2.5%. Oil and gas stocks slipped almost 5% to lead losses as all sectors and major bourses slid into negative territory.

Activity in the euro zone's manufacturing sector contracted at a record rate in April with Covid-19 related measures impacting heavily on demand and production, a survey showed on Monday.

IHS Markit's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for manufacturing fell to 33.4 in April from 44.5 in March, with anything under 50 representing a contraction.

European stocks are following the negative trend set by their Asian counterparts Monday where markets traded lower in reaction to rising tensions between Washington and Beijing.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that he believed that a "mistake" in China was the cause of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, though he did not present any evidence for the claim. Speaking during a Fox News town hall, Trump said, "I think they made a horrible mistake and didn't want to admit it."

The nation's top spy agency said Thursday that it had determined that the virus was not man-made, but was still investigating whether it was caused by "an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan." China has rejected claims that the virus escaped a research center in Wuhan.
Three Maryland counties have filed lawsuits against the e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc., arguing the company intentionally marketed its products to underage customers and contributed to a youth vaping epidemic, court documents detail.

Howard, Anne Arundel and Garrett counties filed separate federal lawsuits in April, The Baltimore Sun reported. They joined Montgomery County and numerous other counties and states who filed similar suits against the multibillion-dollar vaping startup last year.

The new lawsuits allege Juul violated Maryland public nuisance laws and federal racketeering statutes by launching a marketing campaign for its vaping products that targeted youth, using advertising on social media sites and other deceptive sales tactics to hook them on the addictive, nicotine-containing products.

Juul is accused of explicitly studying and following 'Big Tobaccos playbook' and launching a 'blatantly youth-oriented campaign' that local governments are now struggling to combat.

Such measures have been said to include courting social-media influencers with hashtags and taking out targeted ads on youth-centered websites.

The counties say the purported youth focus allowed the company to operate an even more pervasive, insidious, and successful viral marketing campaign than its predecessors in the tobacco industry.

Three Maryland counties have filed lawsuits against the e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc., arguing the company intentionally marketed its products to underage customers and contributed to a youth vaping epidemic, court documents detail

The counties say the purported youth focus allowed the company to operate an even more pervasive, insidious, and successful viral marketing campaign than its predecessors in the tobacco industry'

The lawsuits goes as far as accusing Juul of compelling a generation of youth, who were never cigarette smokers, into nicotine addiction and forced local governments to spend significant amounts of time and resources combating the youth vaping crisis sweeping their communities.

As questions were raised over the company and regulators began to take notice, the lawsuits say that Juul later tried to deny its products were designed for young people to maintain their 'market dominance  which would not be possible if the customer base were in fact only adult smokers seeking to quit.

The company has since maintained that its target audience are adults and that it does not intend to attract underage users.

Juul said it has also pulled television, print and digital ads and eliminated most of its flavors in response to concerns by government officials and others across the country.

We will continue to reset the vapor category in the U.S. and seek to earn the trust of society by working cooperatively with attorneys general, regulators, public health officials, and other stakeholders to combat underage use and transition adult smokers from combustible cigarettes, Juul said in a statement to the Baltimore Sun.

The Maryland counties' lawsuits comes just six months Montgomery County filed a separate lawsuit in October. In that filing, Juul were accused of negligence and unjust enrichment.

The lawsuit claimed that the company designed their e-cigarettes and their packaging to appeal to kids, adding that the products can be easily concealed among their schoolwork and electronics.

Such measures have been said to include courting social-media influencers with hashtags and taking out targeted ads on youth-centered websites (examples of Juuls online advertisements is shown right)

The counties say the purported tactics employed allowed the company to operate an even more pervasive, insidious, and successful viral marketing campaign than its predecessors in the tobacco industry'

Adding to the companys woes, in February a coalition of 39 states announced it would look into the marketing and sales of Juul vaping products, including whether the company targeted youths and made misleading claims about the nicotine content in its devices.

The Federal Trade Commission has also sued Juul and Marlboros parent company Altria Group  who invested almost $13 billion in the company in 2018  on April 1, accusing the companies of deciding to stop competing so Altria would make a substantial investment in Juul.

Last year, Maryland introduced a bill prohibiting the sale of tobacco products and e-cigarettes to anyone under 21, except for those enrolled in the military.

New York and New Jersey both banned the sale of flavoured vaping products in May, which took effect on July 1 last year. Several other states took similar measures in the weeks after.

This years priority was getting the ban on flavored e-cigarettes because we know that those flavors attract young people to vaping and open the pathway to nicotine addiction without them even realizing it, Karen dePeyster from Tobacco-Free Action of Columbia and Greene Counties said at the time.

The problem has gotten so bad that 40% of high school seniors report using vape products, and the sad part is that most of these are young people who would never touch a cigarette. The flavor ban will take away a lot of the appeal of e-cigarettes and we expect the numbers using vape products to decrease.

President Trump later followed suit by signing in a law raising the minimum age to purchase all tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21 nationwide.

At the time, Juul voiced support for the measure, saying it was important to curb underage vaping.

Adding to the companys woes, in February a coalition of 39 states announced it would look into the marketing and sales of Juul vaping products, including whether the company targeted youths and made misleading claims about the nicotine content in its devices

The suits allege that Juul explicitly studied and followed Big Tobaccos playbook and launched a 'blatantly youth-oriented campaign' that local governments are struggling to combat (side by side ad comparisons between the two companies are shown in the lawsuit above)

Juul responded to the backlash in November by announcing it would cease production of its mint, fruit and other flavoured pods, and would stick selling only Virginia Tobacco, Classic Tobacco and Menthol flavors in the United States.

They pledged to stop accepting retail orders for the flavors until retailers could adopt age-verification technology to stop teen vaping

The company cited a study published in the medical journal JAMA, which found that nearly 60% of high school students who vape use Juul, the market leader, and mint was the most popular flavor among 10th and 12th graders in the US.

Following its successive woes, now Juul is reportedly planning to lay off a third of its workforce amid the series of regulatory crackdowns that have severely stunted its growth.

The vaping company is set to cut between 800 and 950 jobs from its 3000-strong workforce to stem the bleed from its declining market share. Juul previously fired 650 employees in late 2019 when mango, fruit, creme and cucumber flavours were pulled from production.

As part of our ongoing reset, we are constantly evaluating our operations and the best way to position our company for the long term, a Juul spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. We remain focused on earning the trust of our stakeholders to advance the potential for harm reduction for adult smokers while combating underage use.
Jaipur, May 4 : The mortal remains of Col Ashutosh Sharma of 21 Rashtriya Rifles who dired fighting terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir were brought to Jaipur on Monday. His military funeral will be performed here on Tuesday morning, said Army officials.

Wreath laying and paying of last respects ceremony for Col Sharma will be held at 61 Cavalry location, Jaipur Military Station on Tuesday at 9 am, said Col Sombit Ghosh, PRO Defence, Rajasthan.

Col Sharma's wife Pallavi Sharma, daughter Tamanna, his brother Piyush and mother were present at the airport when his mortal remains were brought to Jaipur.

A fleet of around 10 vehicles brought his remains to Army Hospital.

State minister Pratap Khachriyawas was also present at the airport to pay respect to the martyr on behalf of the state government.
Kim Park says the riots pushed Korean-Americans to become more politically active: Courtesy of Kim Park

Kim Park was aged 12 and worked as a cashier in a bullet-proof booth at her mothers petrol station in Compton when the Los Angeles riots erupted.

After her father died and her mother decided to sell a number of his franchises, she decided to hold onto the one in the historic black neighbourhood, south of the city centre. It survived, but only narrowly.

The racism and the events leading up to the riots were multi-faceted, says Park, now aged 40. The riots were Americas first multi-ethnic riots. Prior to this we were always looking at things from a black-white paradigm.

While the role on the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King in triggering the riots is well known, less widely appreciated was the impact of the shooting dead of a black teenager, Latasha Harlins, by a Korean-American storekeeper on 16 March, 1991, less than two weeks after video was broadcast of the beating of King.

Tensions between the Asian-American and black communities had been worsening for decades, says Park. The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act made it much easier for people from Asia to move to the US, resulting in many cities seeing large demographic shifts.

In Los Angeles, as Park details in her 2017 book Memoir of a Cashier: Korean Americans, Racism, and Riots, Korean-Americans had faced discrimination from African Americans because they were seen as a buffer between blacks and the hegemonic white community.

She says the racism that prevented African-Americans rising in the corporate sector also stopped Korean-Americans. Instead, pressured to pursue the American dream, many opened businesses as an alternative, including in a number of traditionally black neighbourhoods. They come in and they set up their shops and there are cultural differences and theres miscommunication, she says.

Kim Park says the riots pushed Korean-Americans to become more politically active (Courtesy of Kim Park)

She adds: They were being basically blamed. And they took the brunt of this blame. And when the LA riots broke out, this was the frustration that was vented towards the Korean community, whose businesses were targeted and torched and burnt down and damaged.

Story continues

In the violence that ensured after the April 29 court ruling, says Park, of 4,000 business that were destroyed, around 2,300 belonged to Korean-Americans. Of the estimated $1bn of damage perpetrated, 40 per cent was inflicted on Asian-Americans, who armed themselves and formed self-help groups as the police failed for days to stop the killing and looting.

Edward Chang, professor of ethnic studies and founding director of the Young Oak Kim Centre for Korean American studies at the University of California, Riverside, says Korean-Americans suffered disproportionately high economic losses.

Park, herself a researcher at the University of California, says among her most powerful memories of the period was phoning a friend one night who lived near their petrol station to see if it was still standing.

She was like, Well, let me look out the window.And I could see her being very cautious because you know, you dont want to get hit by a random bullet or draw attention to yourself. And she looked out the window and she said Its still there, but it looks like something across the street is burning.

Park says the relationship with African-Americans has altered as the demographics of Compton and other neighbourhoods have shifted and become more Latino. Another reason is that Korean Americans have become more politically active.

Prior to the LA riots, Korean-Americans were not as visible. They were not as politically active. He did not have a voice. But after the riots, we realised we must have that voice. And that meant getting involved with politics, coalition building, she says.

Today if you look at the Korean-American community, we are visible. We are in politics. David Ryu is the fist person of Korean descent on the LA city council.

Other things, she say, remain unaltered.

When we come to talk about racial strife, has that changed? I would say, in general, no, we have not learned the lessons of racism. Structural racism, institutionalised racism, and all these various things within our communities, she says.

If you look at our current climate, especially given the pandemic, and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, that gives us all the answers we need. We are just going back to the days of yellow peril, when we viewed Asian-Americans as a threat. So has racism changed? No. I think its still an issue and we have a long way to go before we can actually fix this.
ROME - Italians strolled in the park, grabbed take-out cappuccinos and paid their respects to the astonishing number of dead Monday as the European epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic gingerly woke up from the continents first and longest lockdown.

Greece, Portugal and Belgium also eased virus restrictions, while Britain was poised to soon overtake Italy as the country with the most confirmed COVID-19 dead in Europe.

Officially, 4.4 million Italians were allowed to go back to work at construction sites, factories and manufacturing jobs deemed to be at lowest risk for contagion. Traffic ticked up in city centres, commuter and long-distance trains sold out and more people ventured out after restrictions on movement eased for the first time since Italy locked down March 11.

We are being careful, trying not to do too many things, but at least we are finally outside and breathing some fresh air, said Daniele Bianchi as he strolled through Romes Villa Borghese park.

Italy has begun easing key restrictions after a two-month coronavirus shutdown. 4.4 million Italians are able to return to work and some limits on movement have been removed in the first European country to impose a lockdown during the pandemic. (May 4) (The Associated Press)

Across the Tiber in Villa Sciarra, Valerio Pileri stood by the stroller as his 2 1/2 year-old grandson scampered in the grass.

He was going around and around again on the terrace with his bike, but its not the same as the villa, Pileri said.

Protective masks were ubiquitous  even the Swiss Guards started wearing them at the Vatican  and were required on public transport and inside cafes, restaurants and gelato shops that opened for take-out service.

But not all businesses that could reopen did, a sign that some owners decided it wasnt worth it to serve a handful of customers or hadnt managed to implement new social distancing and hygiene standards.

And any newfound sense of freedom was clouded by the first comprehensive reckoning of just how great a toll COVID-19 had taken.

Italys national statistics agency reported Monday that 49% more people died in March than the average over the past five years, with some 25,354 excess deaths registered from Feb. 20-March 31, the height of Italys outbreak.

Since only 13,700 of those deaths were confirmed positive for the virus, Italys official COVID-19 toll of 29,000 is likely off by more than 10,000. The other deaths likely involved infected people who were never tested or people who died as an indirect result of the pandemic because the hospital system collapsed in the north, ISTAT said.

For the first time in two months, Italians were able to honour some of those dead with funerals, though attendance was limited to 15 people. Cemeteries also reopened for visits, with mourners told to keep their distances from one another.

I feel a bit out of my comfort zone but my daughter is here, and as soon as the cemetery opened I came, said Paola Lazzaro as she visited her daughters grave at Romes Flaminio cemetery.

In Milan, passengers on sold-out south-bound trains had their temperatures taken before they boarded, and commuter Gabriella Fusca said she felt safe making the trip to Rome.

All the distances were respected. Everybody was wearing face masks, she said.

Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala praised the morning commuters, saying access to the metro had to be blocked just a few times and that some buses had to skip stops because they were too full to take on new passengers.

Milanesi behaved in a very diligent way, he said.

Luxury carmaker Ferrari relaunched production Monday, after purchasing 800 blood tests for Ferrari employees and their families to use on a voluntary basis. The company is also developing its own contact tracing system, so workers can determine if they have been in contact with anyone who tested positive.

Italy is also planning to test 150,000 with a pilot antibody test and roll out a mobile contact-tracing application, but both initiatives are behind schedule and missed the start of the countrys economic reboot.

In Greece, after 42 days of lockdown, people were no longer required to send an SMS or carry a self-written permit justifying why they were outdoors. Greece has been credited with keeping its number of deaths and critically ill down with its early lockdown, registering just 144 victims and 37 in intensive care.

Some businesses were also allowed to re-open, with hairdressers appearing among the most popular.

Konstantina Harisiadi installed plexiglass barriers at the reception and manicure stations and a sign read Silence is security to discourage chit-chat and limit the potential for virus transmission.

Things are different. Theres no spontaneity - we cant greet each other, speak, laugh. Were entering a new era, she said.

The sentiment was shared in Italy.

The future is a big question mark, said Gianni Berra as he served his first cappuccinos of the day to a take-out only customers in Rome. The normal welcoming bar environment will not be there anymore.

___

Elena Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. AP writers Colleen Barry in Milan and Trisha Thomas, Francesco Sportelli and Paolo Santalucia contributed from Rome.
A 22-year-old man has been allegedly stabbed to death by a private security guard attached to Coca-Cola market, Onitsha, Anambra State.

Daily Sun gathered that the deceased, one Cletus Chisom, had an altercation with the security guard over face mask observance before the guard stabbed him in his chest leading to his instant death.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr Haruna Mohammed, who confirmed the incident, said that the security guard had been arrested while the body was deposited at Toronto Hospital Mortuary for autopsy.

He said: Police operatives from Okpoko Division in Onitsha arrested a private security guard attached to Coca-Cola Market Onitsha, one Ibuchi Nwoju, m, aged 26 years of Asa village, Abia State, but resides in Onitsha Anambra State.



Suspect allegedly had an altercation with one Cletus Chisom, m, aged 22 years of Ekekwe Street Awada, and stabbed him with a knife in his chest.

Consequently, the victim became unconscious and was rushed to Goodnews Hospital Onitsha where he was confirmed dead on arrival by a medical doctor. Corpse was deposited at Toronto Hospital Mortuary for autopsy.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner of Police, Mr John Abang, has ordered for immediate transfer of the case to State CID Awka for discreet investigation, Mohammed stated.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
: Construction activities of the



Telangana Super Thermal Power Project in Telangana resumedon Monday after the PeddapalliDistrict Administration gave permission to NTPCfollowing the guidelines issued by the Centre,



The District Administration at a meetingon May 3 decided to give permission for the construction activities ofNTPC - Telangana Super Thermal Power Project Phase-I, which was put on hold from March 25, 2020 following nationwide lockdown to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

While restartingthe construction activities, NTPC has put in place stringent safety measures for the workers at the project site.

"Construction activities are carried out in a staggered manner in two-sifts to limit the number of people while maintaining social distancing norms at all work sites.

The masks have been provided to all workers, employees and CISF personnel andsanitizers are placed at many places," an official release from the power producer said.

Thermal screeningand medical checkupis done for those who are enteringthe workplace while making adequate arrangements for personal hygiene such as hand sanitizers and placement of hand wash facilities at work places, NTPC said.

The 1600 MW Telangana Super Thermal Power Project Phase-I is on fast track towards completion and generation of power with Telangana as major beneficiary.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indonesia has stepped up measures in anticipation of an influx of migrant workers returning from abroad either to celebrate Ramzan with family or because they have been affected by the pandemic.

President Joko Widodo raised concerns at Monday's Cabinet meeting about possible imported cases aiming returnees.

Widodo said he received reports that about 89,000 migrant workers had returned in recent weeks and 16,000 more were expected to return in the coming days.

Widodo called for strict health screenings for returnees and 14-day quarantines.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The COVID-19 mortality rate in West Bengal is the highest in the country at 12.8 per cent and reflects "low testing and weak surveillance" while tackling the pandemic, the Centre's inter-ministerial team that visited the state to assess the situation said on Monday.

Before wrapping up its two-week trip, the IMCT also accused the state's TMC government of being "antagonistic" to the panel.

Extremely high mortality rate of 12.8 per cent is a clear indication of low testing and weak surveillance and tracking. This is the highest in the country," the team led by Apurva Chandra, an additional secretary rank officer in the Defence Ministry, said in a stinging indictment of the state government.

In his parting shot, the IAS officer said though the state government claimed "very high level" of daily surveillance of individuals in containment zones, no database was shown or results were made available to the team.

"Collating and evaluating a database of this magnitude requires a very robust system to be in place. However, no such evidence was available," he wrote in a letter to the state's chief secretary Rajiva Sinha.

The state, he said, needs to be transparent and consistent in reporting figures and not downplay the spread of the virus.

The ruling TMC reacted angrily, alleging that the two central teams dispatched to take stock of the situation had worked with a malafide intention of maligning Bengal in order to please their BJP bosses.

Since the day the teams arrived, they have been working with a malafide intention to malign the state and its efforts to tackle the pandemic. The BJP has sent these teams with a motive to malign the people of the state, TMC Rajya Sabha MP and senior leader Santanu Sen said.

The two teams which arrived in Bengal on April 20, allegedly without prior intimation to the state government, were stationed in Kolkata and in Siliguri in North Bengal.

They had flagged alleged instances of non-cooperation by the state government in providing logistical support and relevant information during field visits.

A discrepancy has been brought out in the number of COVID cases reported by the state in its medical bulletins and its communications with the Government of India, Chandra wrote in the letter.

The bulletin of April 30 showed active COVID cases as 572, discharged after treatment - 139 and expired due to Covid-19 - 33, making a total of 744. In a communication to union health secretary on the same day, total number of cases was indicated to be 931 leading to a discrepancy of 187 cases, the letter said.

Chandra said despite his insistence on meeting officials of the Home, Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, and Food and Civil Supplies that did not materialise.

....the IMCT could interact only with the principal secretary health through a video conference... There has been no response or interaction with any other department of the state government. In short, the state government has taken an antagonistic view to the IMCT and has not supported the IMCT in the performance of its duties," he wrote.

He said it was in "absolute contrast" to the experience of central teams on similar assignment to other states.

The team, however, appreciated the state government for raising the number of tests from 400 a day till April 20 to 2,410 on May 2.

Chandra said he will submit his report to the Ministry of Home Affairs and hoped the state government will take the suggestions in the right spirit.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Oil prices will top $30 a barrel this summer as demand will start to recover slowly, Alexander Dyukov, chief executive at Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft, told a Russian television channel in an interview on Friday.

Dyukov, head of Gazproms oil arm, said that he hoped oil prices would exceed $30 a barrel in the summer and approach $40 per barrel by the end of this year.

The manager, however, noted that demand recovery would not be V-shaped, and there would not be a jump in prices in May, although this is the month in which the new OPEC+ cuts enter into force.

Last month, Dyukov told Russian business daily Kommersant that if US states ease lockdowns and oil demand improves, oil prices could recover to $40-$45 a barrel by the end of this year.

As part of the OPEC+ deal, Russia pledged to cut its production to 8.5 million bpd in May and June from a February 2020 baseline, or by around 2 million bpd, or by 19 percent, from February 2020, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told Interfax in an interview earlier this week. Assuming full compliance, Russia could see its oil production decline by 15 percent annually in 2020, according to Novak. As per Reuters estimates, a drop in 2020 production would be the first decline in Russias oil output since 2008.

According to Gazprom Nefts Dyukov, Russian companies cutting so much production as per the OPEC+ deal would not be an easy task, but it is achievable.

Russia has rarely complied 100 percent with the previous OPEC+ pacts over the past three and a half years.

Even though the OPEC+ deal begins on May 1, oil prices will not rise much in the near future because of very high global inventories, minister Novak said in an article published in the ministrys publication Energy Policy this week.

China is already showing signs of recovering economic activity, and we hope that other economies could see positive developments in a few months, too, Novak said, but warned:

Nevertheless, you should not expect a jump in oil prices in the near term, due to the current oversupply on the market.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The coronavirus by Monday (May 4, 2020) evening infected more than 36 lakh people across the world with over 2.5 lakh dying after contracting COVID-19.

As of 10:30 PM IST on Monday, approximately 36,09,990 people have been tested COVID-19 positive and over 2,50,090 people have lost their lives due to the coronavirus, according to the COVID-19 data provided by Worldometers website.

There were around 46,200 new confirmed cases and 1,951 deaths due to COVID-19 in the world in the last 24 hours.

The number of recoveries on Monday increased to 11,70,403 while the number of active cases touched 21,89,460.

The United States (US) being the worst-hit country in the world reported close to 10,000 cases in a day and now has 11,97,900 coronavirus patients in the country.

Spain on the second spot saw a jump of 1,179 cases in 24 hours and the total number of confirmed cases surged to 2,48,300.

Spain is followed by Italy where close to 2,12,000 positive cases have been recorded to date. Italy on Monday witnessed 1,220 infections.

The United Kingdom with 3,985 new patients has now recorded 1,90,580 cases so far.

France being the fifth worst-hit country has 1,68,690 total infections in the country where 93,010 cases are still active.

Germany with less than 100 cases in the last 24 hours has 1,65,745 confirmed cases.

Russia with 10,580 cases within a day reported the most number of COVID-19 cases in the world on Monday. The country's total count has now increased to 1,45,260.

Turkey (1,26,045 cases), Brazil (1,01,820), Iran (98,640), and China (82,880) have also been severely hit by the dangerous virus.

Countries with most COVID-19 deaths:

The US remained on top with more than 69,000 COVID-19 deaths. The US death toll on Monday increased by 413. Were going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. Thats a horrible thing, US President Donald Trump said on Fox News on Sunday night. As recently as Friday the President had said he hoped fewer than 1,00,000 Americans would die and earlier in the week had talked of 60,000 to 70,000 deaths.

As of last week, the University of Washington`s IHME predictive model, often cited by White House officials and state public health authorities, projected the first wave of 72,400 coronavirus deaths in the United States.

On second spot, Italy's death count increased by 195 deaths to 29,079 on Monday.

The UK on the third spot recorded the most number of deaths on Monday after the US. Over 288 people died due to coronavirus in the last 24 hours in the UK. The total number of deaths has jumped to 28,734. According to figures announced by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, the increase was the smallest since late March. He added that it's expected to rise in the coming days as the numbers tended to be lower during the weekend.

Spain with 164 new deaths has now lost 25,428 of its citizens while France's has reported close to 25,000 COVID-19 deaths.
In 2000, a virus also shook the world, however, unlike SARS-CoV-2, it did not target humans but gathered their information through computers.

Known as the 'Love Bug' or the 'I Love You' virus was the first major computer virus to invade computers all over the world. The so-called 'Love Bug' pandemic started on May 4, 2000. Twenty years later, the man behind the outbreak admitted his guilt.

Onel de Guzman, was only 24 years old when he made the said virus. Now, at 44 years old, the Filipino computer geek said that he only made released the computer worm in order to steal passwords and use the internet without paying.

De Guzman claimed that he did not intend for the virus to spread and cause a global mishap and he regrets the damage that he caused whilst only aiming to save a few hundred pesos on internet bills.

According to BBC, during an interview for an upcoming book on cybercrime, Crime Dot Com, de Guzman said that he never expected his code to reach the United States and Europe.

Deceitful 'I Love You'.

Victims of the 'I Love You' virus reported that they received an email that said "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU." Upon opening the email they found a malicious code which then overwrote their files, stole their passwords and sent copies of the virus to the contacts in the victim's address book.

In a span of only 24 hours, the virus has already caused a major problem all over the world after it reportedly infected at least 45 million machines globally. Email systems of organizations were overwhelmed forcing IT managers to disconnect parts of their infrastructure in order to prevent those from getting infected.

Read also: The Best Amazon Fire Tablet For You

The 'Love Bug' caused damage and disruption worth billions of pounds. In the United Kingdom, the Parliament was prompted to shut down its email network for several hours. Even the Pentagon, America's most secure facility was reportedly infiltrated.

Investigators then began to look for the source of the malicious email and they were able to trace it back to an email address registered in the Philippines. Specifically to an apartment in the country's capital Manila.

De Guzman's brother was the one who was registered as the occupant of the apartment. De Guzman was only an undergraduate student of computer science then, but he was also a member of Grammersoft, an underground hacking group, making him the lead suspect in the investigation.

However, during that time the Philippines did not have a law that covers cybercrimes, thus, nobody was prosecuted.

Where is De Guzman now?

Twenty years after causing a cyber pandemic, De Guzman was tracked working in a cellphone repair booth in a mall in Manila. That is when he admitted to being the creator of the "I Love You' virus. However, he said that initially, he coded the virus to get free internet by hacking into passwords of dial-up internets within his area.

In addition, he also stated that the 'Love Bug' was only the revamped version of his internet password-stealing code. He admitted into making a few tweaks on his code and making a title for the email attachment that would prompt people to open it.

According to De Guzman, calling it the 'I Love You' virus stemmed from his observation that many people are romantics and that the idea of receiving a love letter may immediately tempt people to open the email.

Related article: Huawei Struggles Amidst Coronavirus as Sales in China Plummet While Still in US Blacklist

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Americas public school system is arguably one of our nations greatest democratic achievements. The pandemic has only reinforced the importance of schools as the collective centers where we attend to students academic, physical, emotional, and social needs, including for students with disabilities.

With most school buildings across the country closed, the challenges we currently face should not undermine what weve accomplished over the last 60 years to protect students with disabilities. Instead, we must take a collaborative approach to the challenges laid bare. To do so, students, parents, teachers, and school officials must align ourselves together so that we can provide the necessary services and support to students with disabilities in the uncertain weeks and months ahead.

In Nebraska, as in the rest of the nation, families are concerned that childrens special needs are going unmet in this disrupted school environmentrightly so in many cases. Parents and advocates know that students will be hurt by the lack of individual and collective services. Schools are struggling to meet legal requirements that guarantee special-needs students are properly served.

Its worth remembering how far weve come.

Consider my familys story. In a very small rural community in Nebraska, my Uncle Eldon was born with Down syndrome. He was the joy of my grandparents life. Although Eldon passed away months before I was born, his presence in my life was real.

Instead of running from this moment in fear of litigation or reprisal, we should be running forward."

Eldon could not nurse as a newborn. The doctor told my grandmother, Helen, that he would die within days. My grandmothers instinct took over. It wouldnt be the last time she defied the odds.

As Eldon grew up, my paternal grandparents celebrated birthday after birthday. School officials said that there was little that people like Eldon could accomplish in the classroom. He was one of many students who was denied educational opportunities. My grandmother insisted that Eldon deserved an education. It was not up for dispute. Grandma, who only had an 8th grade education herself, organized several families in the area to buy a small house and run a school well before the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was passed in 1975.

In Nebraska during the late 1950s and early 1960s, special-needs education was driven by the demands of engaged parents and families. I can imagine how demanding my grandmother was.

Ive only seen silent footage of that school, where eight to 10 students from the area were taught for a couple years. My Uncle Eldon can bring a smile to my face even today as I watch him laughing and dancing in the footage. That right to an education that was so obvious to my grandmother remains so obvious to me.

My grandmother is on my mind constantly right now.

Educationdare I say schoolis not just a place but a responsibility that we must uphold as a nation. Federal, state, and local education leaders; policy advocates; and policymakers must embrace a commitment to serve special-needs students, especially in the face of great challenges.

Now is a perfect moment for positive change, to get better at connecting with parents and families. Instead of running from this moment in fear of litigation or reprisal, we should be running forward to ensure that principles of equity are more fully realized.

No one has perfect solutions immediately. Nevertheless, I pray we have the energy to meet the challenge. I pray we take this opportunity to work together to find a collective passion to resolve and overcome the barriers to providing special education services and protect the principles of equity established in the IDEA. Now is the time to think like allies, not adversaries. This will take ongoing cooperation, to address educational needs as best we can now and to recover the time lost.

Specifically, schools and parents should open lines of communication and share the resolve to address each childs needs and balance those needs with the difficult reality we now face. Although statutory and regulatory timelines are important, more important is open dialogue and earnest efforts to meet each students unique needs. This effort matters both on the part of school officials and parents or guardians who want what is best for their children.

In Nebraska, we are meeting regularly with several of our disability advocates and have also asked our schools to submit continuity-of-learning plans for the remainder of the school year that ask two basic questions: 1) How do you plan to serve students? and, 2) How do you plan to serve students with disabilities? These two questions are intended to make this plain and simple. We both understand the challenge but expect local leaders to address the needs of students with disabilities.

Like all states, Nebraska is realizing that there will need to be compensatory educational opportunities and new efforts to meet each childs needs. We need more accessible digital and remote-learning opportunities and we need to scale such resources quickly. It is time for us all to channel my grandmother and ask, How can we solve this problem right now for students with disabilities?
We cannot wait longer now: SC to hear Vijay Mallyas contempt case in January for final disposal

Vijay Mallya seeks to approach UK Supreme Court on extradition case

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, May 04: Liquor baron Vijay Mallya has sought permission to appeal in the United Kingdom Supreme Court, days after he lost a petition in the London High Court against his extradition to India to face charges of fraud connected to unpaid loans to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The dismissal of the appeal by the high court had cleared the way for Vijay Mallya's extradition to India to face the charges in the Indian courts. He had 14 days to apply for permission to appeal in the UK Supreme Court.

"The leave to appeal has been filed. We have until May 14 to respond," a spokesperson for the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which represents the Indian authorities in the legal process of the extradition, was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

The UK Home Office would now wait for the outcome of that appeal before finalising his extradition to India.

The 64-year-old, whose business interests have ranged from aviation to liquor, is wanted in India over Rs 9,000 crore in loans Kingfisher took out from banks which the authorities argue he had no intention of repaying. Vijay Mallya denies the charges against him and is currently on bail.

He had fled to the UK in 2016.

A two-strong bench at the UK court had last month ruled that there were prima facie cases of misrepresentation, conspiracy and money laundering.

Vijay Mallya had said the allegations against him were related to the borrowing of Rs 900 crore only.

"I am disappointed with the media narrative which states that I must face trial in India for a fraud of Rs 9,000 crores. Please note that the allegations against me and others are specifically and only related to three tranches of borrowing from IDBI Bank for a total of Rs 900 crores in 2009," he was quoted as saying news agency PTI.

Vijay Mallya says he has offered the banks to repay the loans but to no avail.
At least ten soldiers and officers were killed or wounded in a blast that hit a military vehicle. In response, the army killed two jihadis. Egypts Catholic Church stands in "full solidarity" with the government against such evil terrorism".

Cairo (AsiaNews)  Egypts Catholic Church, through her blessed Patriarch Ibrahim Ishaq Sedrak, condemned Thursdays terrorist attack against the army in North Sinai. The latter was claimed overnight by the Islamic State group. At least 10 military personnel were either killed or wounded; two jihadi attackers were killed in the armys counterattack.

In a statement, the Council of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops in Egypt, referred to the "martyrdom and wounding" of eight soldiers, a non-commissioned officer and an officer. Expressing full solidarity" with the government against such evil terrorism, it offers the Catholic Churchs "sincerest condolences to the families of the martyrs" who died in active duty". For the Council, This action breaks all religious and human laws, values and rules.

In last Thursdays incident, an explosive device detonated under an armoured vehicle in the town of Bir al-Abd, North Sinai governorate. An officer died, a non-commissioned officer and eight soldiers were wounded.

In retaliation, the army went after Islamic State cells thought to be in a farming area not far from the site of the attack. Two jihadists were killed in the ensuing gun battle. A machine gun, mobile phones, and ammunition were seized.

For years, northern Sinai has been the scene of a low-intensity war carried out by extremist Islamist groups. The overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and the rise of the Islamic State group in 2014 saw the fighting escalate.

Christians were also caught up in the violence. Several were killed in targeted attacks against individuals and groups.

In February 2018, Egyptian security forces, military and police launched a massive offensive against armed groups and jihadists in the North Sinai area; in just over two years, more than 840 terrorist suspects and more than 60 military personnel were killed.
Irvine is seeing strong demand for technicians' skills. Employers in the industry posted 78 new jobs over the past week, and 276 in the last month, more than for any other job category in the area, according to ZipRecruiter, a leading online employment marketplace.

Local technician also came in second in terms of local employers adding new jobs by occupation. In the past month, 72 companies listed open jobs for Irvine-based workers in the industry.

Top companies seeking local technicians include OCAutoJobs, Fusion Solutions and South Coast Baking. A recent job opening by Fusion Solutions states, "At Fusion Solutions, we put our passion to work every day in a variety of challenging and rewarding telecom careers. If you enjoy pushing yourself to meet challenging goals, managing projects or teams, solving complex problems, building relationships with people, making a difference and leaving your imprint on something...we need to talk!"

Fusion Solutions also posted jobs for business analysts.

This story was created automatically using local jobs data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.
Turkmenistan delivered humanitarian aid to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in compliance with the decree signed by President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on April 30.

Leaders and representatives of Faryab province of the neighboring country welcomed the aid from the Turkmen people and expressed sincere gratitude to Turkmenistan for the comprehensive support and attention to the needs of the people of Afghanistan. The humanitarian aid consists of food products made in Turkmenistan.

Successfully implementing a policy of permanent neutrality, Turkmenistan maintains friendly relations with all countries of the world and its immediate neighbors in particular. Actively participating in international processes aimed at maintaining peace, stability and security in the region, Turkmenistan makes an important contribution to the regional and international socio-economic integration of neighboring Afghanistan.

 TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2022
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Provinces and territories are starting to reopen businesses and other services as new cases of COVID-19 appear to have peaked. Ramping up testing is an essential part of many of these plans, but governments continue to struggle to meet promised targets. Meanwhile, Quebec's decision to reopen schools has been controversial, especially given concern about COVID-19-related inflammatory symptoms in kids and recent reports that children may be just as infectious as adults.

To put these developments in perspective, CMAJ reached out to infectious disease specialists Dr. Srinivas Murthy of BC Children's Hospital and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Dr. Matthew Oughton of Jewish General Hospital and McGill University in Montreal, and Dr. Alon Vaisman of the University Health Network in Toronto.

CMAJ: What recent developments in Canada's pandemic response are most promising and what are most concerning?

Oughton: The most promising sign in recent days has been the indication that the curves of new cases are flattening in many provinces. Flattening these curves is a necessary first step, but not the last, before mitigation measures can be safely relaxed. [However,] remote communities, including First Nations reservations, are beginning to report index cases and some outbreaks. Given the chronic infrastructure problems that exist in many communities rapid spread of disease may occur, with limited capacity to handle the more severe cases.

Vaisman: On the acute care side, numbers of admissions have been stabilizing or already peaked. The overall system hasn't been overwhelmed to the point where we're not able to provide critical care for patients. The capacity of most hospitals remains high.

Murthy: It's going to be fascinating to watch over the coming weeks as 10 different provinces have 10 different approaches to reopening and seeing how things work out. Is now the right time to reopen? No one can know.

CMAJ: What do you think about the different strategies the provinces are taking to reopen? What restrictions can we safely lift first?

Oughton: Relaxing some of the mitigation measures while SARS-CoV-2 is still circulating in a largely non-immune population is rather like walking into the forest to gather firewood while wolves are nearby; it must be done cautiously, with vigilant monitoring everywhere and the ability to respond quickly. It makes sense to have a step-wise plan that begins with removal of some restrictions in low-risk populations but that absolutely must be accompanied by vigilant monitoring of those populations, availability of facilities and reagents to quickly test those populations, capacity to perform rapid contact tracing and the ability of local health care facilities to assess people if new disease arises. All these factors, not just some, must be in place before restrictions are relaxed.

Vaisman: With no vaccine and a lack of clarity around herd immunity I do wonder what the end game is. Long-term care outbreaks have to be dealt with before things open up, because if there's ongoing transmission in those settings you're always going to have, in the background, the chance of an epidemic [resurgence]. Any work setting where you can't social distance are the ones that shouldn't be opened, but areas where you can, like a factory in a remote setting where people drive in and wear PPE already, that makes sense to reopen.

Murthy: Everyone has competing interests in this and policy makers are struggling to figure out the best approach because the science is not there to guide them. Over the past few weeks we've said groceries and health care are essential to remain open, and now education and expanding health care infrastructure seems to be the next things that would be important to re-institute.  I'd like to see new case counts go down faster than they have. When you look at Canada-wide numbers they seem too flat to me, although that may be a factor of increased testing capability.

CMAJ: How has our understanding about children and COVID-19 evolved since the beginning of the pandemic and how does that complicate plans to reopen schools?

Murthy: There are all sorts of conflicting data out there about COVID-19 disease and children and whether they're vectors for transmission. Some modeling studies say you ignore the kids, they're irrelevant. Other studies have found children have substantial viral load. Anyone who says it's definitively one way or the other is incorrect and we'll have to figure this out as we go forward. Ideally, we'll collect detailed data on how things play out in different regions with good community level tracing of kids and their families.

Vaisman: We know that children carry numerous respiratory infections and we know they carry them for longer than an adult will, so the same may be true with COVID-19. How that affects the rest of the population is hard to know at this point because children are rarely swabbed, they rarely have symptoms. We may get an answer soon based on clusters developing in Canada and other countries.

Oughton: Until we have more robust data, any reopening must be done with an abundance of caution, and school attendance should remain voluntary in order to protect students and school staff who may be at high risk of acquiring COVID-19 or having severe complications from it.

CMAJ: What should our testing capacity be and what will be required to meet that standard?

Murthy: Scientists are of varying viewpoints on the target number of tests to comfortably reopen. There are some American folks who say every single person should be tested every two weeks and that's the only way, and there are others who say it should be based on symptoms or a link to an ongoing outbreak. Probably somewhere in the middle is the right spot.

Oughton: Dr. Theresa Tam recently stated a federal target of 60,000 tests per day, and present performance is only about one-third of that. The major challenge for Canada is that most of our tests are RT-PCR, which requires reagents and swabs for which we are in competition with countries around the world. We need better domestic capacity to manufacture these reagents, as well as other diagnostic assays, including accurate and affordable point-of-care tests for remote areas.

Vaisman: More important than looking at the number of tests is looking at the number of people who need a test. If you're still turning away people who are mildly symptomatic, or folks in long-term care facilities are not getting swabbed, or there are remote villages and reserves that don't have timely access, then you know the number of tests you're doing is not enough. You can do all the tests you want without making a dent in the problem if you're not testing the right people.

CMAJ: Given that Canada has been locked down for weeks, why are we still seeing so many new cases reported?

Vaisman: Intuitively it doesn't make sense, but there's a huge delay that occurs because [the virus has] already burned through the population, and people who never had symptomswhich we're understanding now is probably a good chunk of themare transmitting the virus without even knowing it, and now it's made it's way to people who are showing symptoms. And then there's probably a lack of proper social distancing going on.

Murthy: There are a lot of people who do not have the capacity to isolate themselves. The bulk of cases and deaths have been in places where people are unable to avoid contact with others, specifically jails, meat-processing plants and long-term care facilities.

Oughton: COVID-19 seems to be affecting different segments of our population over time. In March, most cases were travel-associated, often in patients with the relative youth and health required for most travel. In April, the affected population became older with multiple medical comorbidities, reflecting the devastation this disease has caused in long-term care facilities that were vulnerable due to chronic understaffing and under-preparation. I am concerned that May will be the month that our Indigenous populations become increasingly affected; housing and medical facilities [on reserves] are vulnerable in many of the same ways that our long-term care facilities are.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak
For the first time since early 2014 smartphone makers shipped less than 300 million units in a quarter. This is a sharp 13% drop compared to the shipments of Q1 last year. The analysts at Counterpoint Research note that China was hit hard both in terms of smartphones (down 27% year on year) and smartphone components. This may lead some makers to diversify their supply chains, shifting larger parts to India and Vietnam.

The analysts predict a change in consumer behavior  even after the lock-downs are lifted (which will be done gradually), people will prefer more affordable devices bought online.

5G phones proved fairly resilient to this crisis and they made up 8% of all smartphones shipped in Q1 this year, up from 1% during the last three months of 2019. The percentage will grow even higher, boosted by the upcoming sub-$300 5G phones.

Realme showed massive growth (157% compared to last year), but the brand is quite young. Established player Xiaomi was the only other brand to grow (by 7%). This is because Indias lockdown came relatively late and that is the main market for both brands.

The analysts believe that the premium segment will be affected the least while shipments of entry-level phones in emerging markets will decline as their target audience faces a financial crunch. The mid-range phones will be the ones driving the shipping volumes up, same as before.

Samsung remains the largest smartphone maker in the world, but its Q1 shipments suffered an 18% decline year on year. Counterpoint predicts that the Q2 decline will be even worse.

Huawei enjoyed a strong performance in China, but still fell 17% YoY. As the country will be among the first to recover, brands with a large presence there (like Huawei) will also recover quickly. Brands with little market share in China will have to wait on their key markets to recover.

Apple saw only a 5% decline in iPhone shipments and 7% decline in iPhone revenues, suggesting a mild shift towards more affordable models. Xiaomi went up 7% thanks to growth in India, where it is the leading brand with 30% market share.

This brings us the HMD and its Nokia-branded phones. Most of the volume is made up of feature phones, but they fell 34% compared to Q1 last year with a total of 8.6 million shipped.

Nokia smartphones are not doing any better, showing a steady decline since Q2 2019. In the first three months of 2020, HMD shipped only 1.7 million Nokia smartphones, a precipitous 45% drop compared to Q1 of last year.

While other vendors can point to the COVID-19 outbreak as the reason for the Q1 decline, the situation with HMD clearly involves other factors.

Source | Via
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (Reuters) Paris  Mon, May 4, 2020 11:06 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5bc97b 2 News France,travel,travelers,quarantine,coronavirus,COVID-19,Schengen Free

Travelers to France who arrive from a country in Europe's Schengen open-border area or Britain will be exempt from a planned compulsory two-week quarantine, the French consulate in Britain said on Sunday.

The new quarantine rules will apply to travelers, whether French or foreigners, as part of the fight against the new coronavirus.

Details will be provided in a decree specifying measures laid out in a bill extending a state of emergency until July 24. The move allows the government to restrict freedom of movement to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

"People entering the French territory from countries in the European area (EU/Schengen and United Kingdom) will NOT be affected by the quarantine measure announced in France, the details of which will be specified shortly," the French consulate in Britain said on Twitter on a verified account.

Read also: COVID-19 pandemic makes it harder to get Schengen visa: Report

France, which has been the fifth-hardest hit country with 24,895 deaths from COVID-19, is preparing to gradually lift lockdown measures from May 11.

The French presidency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

French government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said earlier on Sunday that a list of "countries at risk" would soon be issued, without giving details.

"We'll establish a list of countries at risk and... when people come from risk areas, whether they are French or foreigners, we'll have mandatory quarantine measures," she said on France Inter radio station.
The Governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, on Monday appointed Umar Ibn Shehu Kyari Ibn Umar Elkanemi as the new Shehu of Bama.

Mr Kyari is the eldest son of the late Shehu who died last week in Maiduguri, a government statement said.

The late monarch, Kyari Elkanemi, died on April 27 in Maiduguri where he fled to about six years ago after Boko Haram took over his domain.

But the governor has instructed the new monarch to remain in Bama and not in Maiduguri where his father lived during the last years of his rule.

The governor in the letter signed by him said the new monarch, a businessman, was appointed based on the recommendations of the Bama kingmakers.

The Secretary to the Borno State Government, Usman Jidda, presented the letter to Mr Kyari on behalf of the governor at the Shehus palace in Bama on Monday afternoon.

I am directed by His Excellency to direct you to remain in Bama so that you can give a sense of belonging to the people, your role as a leader is very crucial and principal to the establishment of civil authorities in Bama.

READ ALSO:

Your appointment was based on your proven integrity impeccable record of service to the people of Bama Local Government, and in particular service to humanity in general.

Your royal highness sir, this appointment is conferred on you by the executive Governor of Borno State, you are hereby expected to exhibit a high sense of justice, equity, fairness to all people of Bama.

The Kaigama of Bama, Baba Kaigama, who responded on behalf of the new monarch, conveyed the emirs gratitude to Governor Zulum for choosing Shehu Umar as the new emir of Bama.
In 2003, Neil Campbell was appointed CEO of Inspiration Healthcare Group plc (LON:IHC). This report will, first, examine the CEO compensation levels in comparison to CEO compensation at companies of similar size. After that, we will consider the growth in the business. Third, we'll reflect on the total return to shareholders over three years, as a second measure of business performance. The aim of all this is to consider the appropriateness of CEO pay levels.

View our latest analysis for Inspiration Healthcare Group

How Does Neil Campbell's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

At the time of writing, our data says that Inspiration Healthcare Group plc has a market cap of UK24m, and reported total annual CEO compensation of UK179k for the year to January 2019. While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at UK147k. We examined a group of similar sized companies, with market capitalizations of below UK160m. The median CEO total compensation in that group is UK267k.

Next, let's break down remuneration compositions to understand how the industry and company compare with each other. Talking in terms of the sector, salary represented approximately 66% of total compensation out of all the companies we analysed, while other remuneration made up 34% of the pie. Our data reveals that Inspiration Healthcare Group allocates salary in line with the wider market.

Most shareholders would consider it a positive that Neil Campbell takes less total compensation than the CEOs of most similar size companies, leaving more for shareholders. However, before we heap on the praise, we should delve deeper to understand business performance. You can see, below, how CEO compensation at Inspiration Healthcare Group has changed over time.

AIM:IHC CEO Compensation May 4th 2020

Is Inspiration Healthcare Group plc Growing?

Over the last three years Inspiration Healthcare Group plc has seen earnings per share (EPS) move in a positive direction by an average of 19% per year (using a line of best fit). In the last year, its revenue is up 15%.

Story continues

This shows that the company has improved itself over the last few years. Good news for shareholders. It's a real positive to see this sort of growth in a single year. That suggests a healthy and growing business. It could be important to check this free visual depiction of what analysts expect for the future.

Has Inspiration Healthcare Group plc Been A Good Investment?

Inspiration Healthcare Group plc has generated a total shareholder return of 11% over three years, so most shareholders would be reasonably content. But they probably don't want to see the CEO paid more than is normal for companies around the same size.

In Summary...

It looks like Inspiration Healthcare Group plc pays its CEO less than similar sized companies.

Since the business is growing, many would argue this suggests the pay is modest. While returns over the last few years haven't been top notch, there is nothing to suggest to us that Neil Campbell is overcompensated. It's good to see reasonable payment of the CEO, even while the business improves. But for me, it's even better if insiders are also buying shares with their own cold, hard, cash. Looking into other areas, we've picked out 4 warning signs for Inspiration Healthcare Group that investors should think about before committing capital to this stock.

Important note: Inspiration Healthcare Group may not be the best stock to buy. You might find something better in this list of interesting companies with high ROE 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.
Justice Mafusire stated After considering the matter, the judgment by Manzunzu J, and after considering the notice of opposition, first personally I have misgivings and with all due respect, I say this with all due respect, I have misgivings about Paragraph 4 of the order of Manzunzu J,. Paragraph 4 of the 16 April 2020 court order states Failure of which, this order shall serve as a warrant of arrest for the First Respondent throughout Zimbabwe for him to be brought before the court to show cause why he should not be found to be in contempt of court of this order, Wilcock said.
Israel's top court heard challenges Monday to a power-sharing coalition deal that would see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu serve a controversial fifth term.

After three inconclusive elections, Netanyahus Likud and opposition leader Benny Gantz Blue and White parties reached an unprecedented agreement last month to end a year of political deadlock in the country. Under the proposed deal, Netanyahu would serve as premier for the first 18 months before handing the reins to Gantz, who would then act as prime minister with Netanyahu as his deputy.

In hearings broadcast live on Monday, 11 judges on the High Court of Justice heard eight separate petitions challenging the former rivals' unity deal, which critics say would unlawfully protect Netanyahu from prosecution in his upcoming corruption trial.

The prime minister, who resisted calls to step down ahead of his May 24 trial date, is facing criminal charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The investigation alleges Israels longest-serving prime minister accepted lavish gifts from wealthy businessmen and offered regulatory favors to media tycoons in exchange for favorable coverage.

On Saturday, about 1,000 Israelis took to Tel Avivs Rabin Square to protest the coalition deal ahead of the High Courts deliberations. A similar socially distant demonstration took place the weekend prior, with protesters carrying black flags against what they see as an attack on Israels democracy.

Reuters reports that rulings on the petitions are expected by Thursday. If the court strikes down the proposed government, Israel would be plunged into its fourth round of elections since April 2019.
Indian Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane on Monday said Pakistan was pushing terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir under its myopic and limited agenda even during the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak, and warned that India will respond appropriately and with precision to state-sponsored terrorism.

The chiefs comments came two days after five security personnel, including a colonel and a major, were killed in an encounter in north Kashmirs Handwara.

I would like to emphasise that Indian Army will give proportionate response to all acts of infringement of ceasefire and its (Pakistans) support to terrorism. The onus remains with Pakistan to bring peace in the region. Unless Pakistan gives up its policy of state-sponsored terrorism, we will continue to respond appropriately and with precision, news agency PTI quoted the army chief as saying in an interview.

There has been an unusual spike in ceasefire violations by the Pakistan Army at the Line of Control (LoC) this year to help infiltrators sneak into Jammu and Kashmir compared to border violations over recent years. The neighbouring army has violated the ceasefire about 1,400 times already this year. Violations by the Pakistan Army numbered 3,168 in 2019 and 1,629 in 2018.

The army chief reiterated that the infiltration attempts by Pakistan along the LoC clearly indicated that the neighbouring army was not interested in battling the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic and was pursuing its own myopic and limited agenda of pushing terrorists inside India.

On the Handwara encounter, Naravane said the country was proud of Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, the commanding officer of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles battalion, and the four other security personnel who lost their lives while saving civilians from terrorists. A group of terrorists held civilian hostages inside a house at Changimulla village in the Rajwar forest when a five-man joint army-police team, led by Colonel Sharma, swung into action to rescue the hostages on Saturday. Sharmas team was able to extricate the hostages but at the cost of their own lives.

Even in the hinterland, Pakistan-backed terrorists are resorting to targeting innocent civilians with an aim to coerce them into following their azadi narrative. Pakistan claims to be a friend of Kashmiris; I want to ask what sort of friend resorts to killing and spreads terror, the PTI report quoted Naravane as saying.

As reported by Hindustan Times on May 2, the nationwide lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic has not affected counter-insurgency operations in J&K. Instead, these operations have intensified and resulted in the killing of the highest number of terrorists belonging to different Pakistan-based outfits in April. On the implementation of recommendations of the anti-terror watchdog Financial Action Task Force by Pakistan, the army chief said Islamabad had made superficial changes to its non-existent checks on terror financing and money laundering.

It still continues to employ proxies to inflict terror and violence not only inside India but also in Afghanistan, where it supports the Taliban militarily and financially, the army chief said.
Photo credit: VICTORIA JONES - Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry released a letter cutting off four major UK tabloids.

The letter says, There will be no corroboration and zero engagement.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have officially cut ties with four major tabloids in the United Kingdom (The Sun, the Daily Mail, The Mirror, and The Express) and made their feelings more than clear by releasing a public letter about why theyll no longer be working with the publications.

The letter, published Sunday night, reads, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have watched people they knowas well as complete strangershave their lives completely pulled apart for no good reason, other than the fact that salacious gossip boosts advertising revenue. With that said, please note that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not be engaging with your outlet. There will be no corroboration and zero engagement. This is also a policy being instated for their communications team, in order to protect that team from the side of the industry that readers never see.

Photo credit: VICTORIA JONES - Getty Images

The couple maintains that this new policy isnt about stopping the free press or protecting themselves from unwanted criticism: This policy is not about avoiding criticism. Its not about shutting down public conversation or censoring accurate reporting, the letter read. Media have every right to report on and indeed have an opinion on The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, good or bad. But it cant be based on a lie. They also want to be very clear: This is not in any way a blanket policy for all media.

They concluded with, What they wont do is offer themselves up as currency for an economy of clickbait and distortion. We are encouraged that this new approach will be heard and respected.

Read the full letter (via People) below:

As The Duke and Duchess of Sussex now settle into the next chapter of their lives and no longer receive any publicly funded support, we are writing to set a new media relations policy, specifically as it pertains to your organisation.



Like you, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex believe that a free press is a cornerstone to any democracyparticularly in moments of crisis. At its best, this free press shines a light on dark places, telling stories that would otherwise go untold, standing up for whats right, challenging power, and holding those who abuse the system to account.



It has been said that journalisms first obligation is to the truth. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex agree wholeheartedly.



It is gravely concerning that an influential slice of the media, over many years, has sought to insulate themselves from taking accountability for what they say or printeven when they know it will be distorted, false, or invasive beyond reason. When power is enjoyed without responsibility, the trust we all place in this much-needed industry is degraded.



There is a real human cost to this way of doing business and it affects every corner of society.



The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have watched people they knowas well as complete strangershave their lives completely pulled apart for no good reason, other than the fact that salacious gossip boosts advertising revenue.



With that said, please note that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not be engaging with your outlet. There will be no corroboration and zero engagement. This is also a policy being instated for their communications team, in order to protect that team from the side of the industry that readers never see.



This policy is not about avoiding criticism. Its not about shutting down public conversation or censoring accurate reporting. Media have every right to report on and indeed have an opinion on The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, good or bad. But it cant be based on a lie. They also want to be very clear: This is not in any way a blanket policy for all media.



The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are looking forward to working with journalists and media organisations all over the world, engaging with grassroots media, regional and local media, and young, up-and-coming journalists, to spotlight issues and causes that so desperately need acknowledging. And they look forward to doing whatever they can to help further opportunities for more diverse and underrepresented voices, who are needed now more than ever.



What they wont do is offer themselves up as currency for an economy of clickbait and distortion.



We are encouraged that this new approach will be heard and respected.

You Might Also Like
Prepare for an onslaught.

The numbers dont lie. Mr. Trump, who lost the popular vote by three million in 2016, is the only president in history to go an entire first term without cracking 50 percent approval. Even in those battleground states he narrowly won to capture the presidency, his numbers have lagged. Now the virus has raised glaring questions about his erratic handling of an epochal crisis and wrecked the robust economy he was counting on as the linchpin of his re-election strategy.

Mr. Trumps team knows they cant win a referendum on his leadership, so they will try to disqualify Mr. Biden. That process has already begun with an extensive campaign, led by the president, regularly questioning the mental acuity and physical stamina of the man he has branded Sleepy Joe. The Trump campaign and its surrogates are relentlessly pushing this and other scurrilous attacks online.

Negative online memes are toxic and, unanswered, will rapidly spread. The current furor over allegations of sexual assault against Mr. Biden by a former staffer, Tara Reade, is an example of how far negative stories can travel in the absence of a quick, decisive response. The Biden campaign will need a more robust rapid response operation to monitor and counter Mr. Trumps attacks and arm his millions of supporters with the material they need to push back.

Expand your digital footprint.

It will be hard in six months to reach social media parity with Mr. Trump. But Mr. Biden can rapidly expand his reach with a little help from his friends. In a recent blog post, Steve Rosenthal, a veteran Democratic organizer, suggested that the biggest social media stars in Mr. Bidens stable  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others  should commit two days a week to sharing Mr. Bidens posts on their own channels on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. This would instantly and exponentially multiply Mr. Bidens reach.

Image A screen grab from a video released by BidenForPresident showing former President Barack Obama endorsing Joe Bidens White House bid through a video message on April 14. Credit... BidenForPresident/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images

Focus on content.

Of course, it is not enough to appear in social media if the content does not attract interest and promote sharing. So activate a virtual content production studio and establish a unique content calendar for each major social media platform. The creative community heavily leans progressive and is rife with world-class talent who want to help. With many idled by Covid-19, they have plenty of time to contribute. Enlist them and dedicate the resources to relentless, platform-specific production.

Deploy surrogates.

For content to be effective, Mr. Biden doesnt always have to be the star and he shouldnt have to carry the load. Utilize the army of well-known and well-liked surrogates at his disposal to help deliver digital messages on the campaigns behalf. This will require a substantial operation, working closely with other elected officials. content creators and the campaigns communications shop. But its worth the investment. Biden in the Basement is not a strong enough show to hold the audience.
HIGHLAND  Tammy Brink is well known in her community for her sewing abilities. You can likely find her at the Buckle store in Fairview Heights hemming jeans for local customers or creating beautiful pieces at her home through her alterations and custom sewing business.

Most recently, she has been busy sewing over 1,300 masks for area businesses and community members to keep them protected during the COVID-19 pandemic and doesnt show signs of slowing down.

I have loved to sew since the age of 11 when I enrolled in sewing as a project in 4-H, Tammy said.

She gives credit to her mom and a very special Aunt, Jean Klaus, for sharing their talent and time with her. Their passion quickly transferred to Tammy and she has not stopped since.

When asked how she got started creating masks she said that she had free time with prom being canceled, weddings postponed and Buckle closed due to COVID-19. Tammy was asked to make cloth home-sewn mask by some hospitals, businesses and many individuals surrounding her.

Since March 22nd, the first day she began sewing masks, she has made over 1,000 for the local area. They range in color, pattern and material, depending on what is available for purchase. She mentioned a shortage of elastic but friends and family quickly sourced her extra rolls so she could continue providing for those in need.

Her masks have traveled to Alton, Granite City, Edwardsville, St. Louis and many places in between. She simply charges enough money to cover the cost of material and donates her time and talent to support those on the frontline keeping us safe and healthy.

She, and husband Larry of 37 years, live on a farm in rural highland. They have both been involved in the pork industry since they were 4-H members. They enjoy raising mostly Berkshire hogs and spending time with their family.

Tammy and Larry enjoy helping their grandkids raise and show pigs along with giving back to the youth in the swine industry. They are active with the Illinois Pork Producers Association where they help promote pork products and the farmers that raise them. Their dedication to the next generation of pork producers and leaders does not go unnoticed.
The Ghanaian movie industry has been thrown into a state of shock and sorrow following the sudden demise of award-winning actor Bishop Bernard Nyarko.

Bishop Bernard Nyarko died at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital ( Ridge Hospital) on Saturday May 2,2020 where he had been admitted for a while for allegedly battling colon cancer.

The late Kumawood actor, a month ago was reported to have said he has quit acting and nothing will make him rescind the decision when he was struck with the illness.

Bishop Nyarko, in a viral video sighted by RazzNews.com, was heard telling his congregation that he has decided to follow the steps of actor Majid Michelle, emphasising that the movie industry is full of evil.

His comment did not go down well with most of his colleague actors. Popular actress and host of United Showbiz on UTV; Nana Ama Mcbrown who was also not enthused with the late actors proclamation vented her spleen on her show.

Per Nana Ama Mcbrowns explanation, the late Bishop was just envious of how Majid Michelle was traveling around the world as a pastor hence the decision to also quit acting.

According to RazzNews.coms source,Nana Ama Mcbrown who was extremely peeved, after the show allegedly vowed never to set her eyes on the late legendary actor again.

It has emerged that Bishop Nyarko, before his demise prevented his colleagues from visiting him at the hospital where he was on admission.

To augment that report, Nana Ama McBrown reacting to the demise of the late actor accentuated that, they had made several efforts to visit him at the hospital but all proved unproductive.

She indicated that Bishop Bernard Nyarko kept making up excuses on why they should hold on and at the appropriate time, they will be given an opportunity to visit him.

The hostess of United Showbiz said they were waiting for a response so they could pay their colleague a visit only to hear of his demise.

RazzNews.com is reliably informed that Nana Ama Mcbrowns swipe against the late actor was one of the utmost motives he never desired to meet them. The late versatile actor really felt break faith with the action of his colleague.

Well, the late Bishop Bernard Nyarko, who was born and raised in Kumasi, before his demise had starred in over hundred movies. Ghanaians will remember him for his comic acting and his cogency in acting.

His exceptional abilities in motion pictures made him an easily recognised name in the Ghanaian movie industry.The family is yet to come out with his burial and funeral arrangements.

Source:RazzNews.com
The shows are a proxy for the Trump TV network the president considered launching had he lost the 2016 election, and they create an echo chamber for true believers. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

US President Donald Trump's re-election team is airing live shows online to replace his trademark rallies made impossible by the coronavirus pandemic.

Hosted by top campaign officials, prominent Republicans and "Make America Great Again" luminaries, the freewheeling shows offer reality according to Mr Trump.

The shows are an effort to stay connected with core supporters and maintain enthusiasm for a suspended campaign.

A review of a week's worth of the 8pm broadcasts reveals a concerted effort to test attacks on Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. But the limited effort also raises questions whether the campaign can replace the gold mines of potentially new voter data that the rallies delivered as Mr Trump attempts to reverse a recent slide in a number of battleground states.

Seized

The shows are a proxy for the 'Trump TV' network the president considered launching had he lost the 2016 election, and they create an echo chamber for true believers.

"Joe Biden had the coveted Osama bin Laden endorsement. That's sort of a big deal," said Donald Trump Jr, host for the night on April 24.

Mr Trump Jr had seized on an oddly timed recent Fox News story, which in itself was drawn from 2012 reporting that bin Laden, the late al-Qa'ida leader, had once proposed assassinating President Barack Obama because Mr Biden would be thrust into power. The then-vice president was "totally unprepared for that post," in bin Laden's estimation.

Since the Trump campaign went virtual on March 13, the videos have been seen 300 million times.
A man has admitted assaulting emergency workers after spitting blood in the faces of police officers while screaming about coronavirus.

Samuel Konneh was arrested just days after the UK went into lockdown, for stalking a woman who rebuffed his attentions.

But the 38-year-old spat blood into the mouth of one of the officers as police went to arrest him at his home in Withington, south Manchester.

Samuel Konneh pleaded guilty to four counts of assaulting an emergency worker and a single count of stalking at Manchester Crown Court

As police broke down a door it hit Konneh in the mouth, causing him to bleed. He then popped his head through the gap and spat at the officers.

The spray of blood and spit hit another office in the face, as Konneh screamed about coronavirus, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Konneh today pleaded guilty at a brief hearing held via Skype, to four counts of assaulting an emergency worker and a single count of stalking on March 26.

Judge Tony Cross QC told the defendant via video link to HMP Forest Bank that he will be sentenced on June 29, following the preparation of a psychiatric and a pre-sentence report.

In a separate incident, a man has been jailed after he spat in a police officer's face and threatened to kill the staff at a London hotel on the day the lockdown was introduced.

Nicolae-Raul Cozacu smashed a bottle and threatened to kill employees at the hotel near Wembley Stadium in north west London.

The 43-year-old then spat at one of the workers when they tried to calm him down.

Nicolae-Raul Cozacu, 43, has been jailed after spitting at hotel staff and police in north-west London

The incident happened on March 23 at around 2.30pm, just hours before Boris Johnson addressed the nation to announce the lockdown.

Cozacu was caught by a member of staff urinating against the wall of the hotel and was told to leave, which he refused to do, before trying to get into the laundry area.

Cozacu grabbed a bottle of alcohol, smashed it and tried to chase staff members, threatening he would kill them.

A member of staff tried to reason with Cozacu and negotiate with him, but he spat in his face.

Cozacu was arrested and taken to hospital, where he again became aggressive and abusive and spat in the face of an officer.

Cozacu, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to common assault and using threatening behaviour with intent to cause fear or provoke unlawful violence. He also pleaded guilty to common assault of an emergency worker.

He was sentenced to 26 weeks in prison at Willesden Magistrates' Court on Friday.
EXIM Bank Ghana is collaborating with Entrance Pharmaceuticals and Research Centre, a member of the Tobinco Group of Companies, to produce hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin locally for the management of COVID-19 cases.



The bank said it was ready to advance a $5 million facility to the company for the production of the drugs locally.



COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are said to recover quickly but the drugs are not available locally on a large scale.



Furthermore, the cost of the drug has shot up on the international market.



Visit



During a visit by members of the Exim Bank Credit Subcommittee to the Entrance Pharmaceuticals and Research Centre, the Board Chairman of the bank, Mr Kwadwo Boateng Genfi, said the bank took great interest in the national efforts to contain the pandemic.



Ghana Exim was highly impressed with Tobincos utilisation of a previous grant extended to the group and, therefore, was ready to advance a new $5 million to help tackle the pandemic in the country, he said.



WHO position



Chloroquine, and a related derivative, hydroxychloroquine, have gained global attention in the treatment of COVID-19, although the World Health Organisation (WHO) says there is no definitive evidence that they cure COVID-19 patients.



The prospect of using hydroxychloroquine to facilitate the process of treating COVID-19 amid the pandemic has sparked heated disagreement among politicians and scientists.



Nonetheless, indications are that while the drug is effective in treating COVID-19, tests are yet to be subjected to the due diligence of extensive clinical trials.



Trump proposes drug



In the United States, for instance, which has recorded an extensive number of cases, President Donald Trump urged doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to COVID-19 patients.



Mr Trump used one of his daily White House coronavirus briefings on March 29 to urge Americans to take hydroxychloroquine.



What do you have to lose? Take it, Mr Trump said, and emphasised that the US had gathered 29 million doses of the drug.



Although journalists questioned him about the promotion of an unproven treatment, he argued that his belief was premised on clinical trials, citing France, where they had a very good test.



President Trump later asserted in a tweet that the use of the drug in combination with azithromycin, an antibiotic, could be one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine.



But, a top US infectious disease doctor, Dr Anthony Fauci, warned that there was no conclusive evidence to support that argument.



Evaluation



Nevertheless, the Chairman of the Exim Bank Credit Subcommittee, Nana Dr Appiagyei Dankawoso II, told the Daily Graphic that it had now become so critical that if you have to import those drugs from outside and you dont get the supply, and you can do it internally, that is important.



He said currently everybody was trying to look at home-based production, adding that: In fact, this has been a clarion call from our side.



Background



In line with the Presidents vision of industrialising the economy and supporting local businesses, the Exim Bank has identified 10 areas of the economy to extend support to in order to drive the agenda.



These areas include pharmaceuticals, poultry, agro processing (fruits and juices, non-alcoholic production, agribusiness including maize production, youth in green house project, and cashew and shea butter production on a large scale).



The objectives of these thematic areas are to generate employment, increase export to other West African countries and drive import substitution.



On pharmaceuticals, the aim is to support companies which are into manufacturing, production and distribution of products within the subregion.

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
H aving your temperature checked on the way into a restaurant or office could become part of normal life as the UK attempts to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Today, Vodafone UK is launching a Heat Detection Camera in partnership with the company Digital Barriers as part of Vodafone's Business 5G accelerator, which will be used by organisations looking to get back to work.

The camera can screen the temperature of up to 100 people per minute and is accurate to within +/- 0.3 degrees. These thermal images are streamed securely over Vodafones Internet of Things (IoT) network in real-time to a laptop or mobile device and can provide an alert if someone has a raised temperature.

A high temperature is one of the main symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

Temperature screening has become commonplace in countries such as China, with thermometer guns in use at airports and retail stores. However, they have been criticised for their inaccuracy  as the guns have to be administered in person, screeners may hold them at the wrong distance or use them in the wrong environment.

In comparison, Vodafones Heat Detection Camera can be set up remotely to monitor people as they walk through a door so no one needs to administer it in person. It can be installed at any entry point and then stream the images over the IoT network, so this can be encrypted and sent to another location in the building.

One of the benefits here is that youre protecting staff who are coming into contact with a large number of people at any one time, explains Steve Everett, senior product manager at Vodafone UK.

Vodafone is going to be deploying the cameras within its own locations and is also in talks with other organisations, including in the public sector, travel, and retail such as supermarkets, to install the cameras there.

Images from the thermal detection cameras are streamed over Vodafone's IoT network / Vodafone

Vodafone isnt the only organisation working on body thermal detection technology. Business equipment and controls company, Johnson Controls is also working on this technology.

Its not a medical device looking to diagnose anyone, explains Lee Jasper, head of product solutions. What its looking to do is allow people to get some additional strength to the required social distancing.

Warehouses are already using Johnson Controls tech, as well as manufacturing plants which have stayed open during the lockdown. One hospital is also using the cameras too, and Jasper says it could work for transport.

The UK government is expected to reveal its plans to help the UK move out of lockdown later this week. There have been over 187,000 confirmed cases with nearly 29,000 deaths. Though many people are itching to get back to normal life, there are concerns that the numbers havent fallen enough to justify lifting the lockdown.

However, companies are discovering ways of using tech to help prevent the spread of the virus, such as safety wearables that buzz when someone comes too close, or contact tracing tech. The thermal imaging cameras are just one part of this toolkit that could help with this aim.

This isnt a magic bullet. Its not to replace social distancing and the advice were getting. Its just another layer on top that will allow properties to function more efficiently in terms of the throughput of people, says Jasper.

Everett agrees. Its about supporting businesses when they want to go back to work when its right for them. Its about giving reassurance to employees and to businesses as they return to work.
Punish the deplorables By Robert T. Smith

It is hard not to notice the disproportionate amount of Governor-inflicted financial pain caused by the Wuhan Bioweapon Flu has been borne by the base of Trump supporters, small businesses and their employees. Is it possible that the apparent glee at which the liberal media, elites, and some Democrat Governors have embraced the economic shut down and its continuance isnt in some way related to this fact? Every business is important, necessary, and indispensable to the owner and employees, and comprise the puzzle pieces of the mosaic of our society and economy in general. Tens of thousands of these businesses have been Governor-assigned as non-essential businesses as the target of the shutdown, not the billionaires of the tech companies, Amazon, big box stores, or Wall Street financial firms. It is the backbone of the economy small businesses that have been shuttered to their, and their employees detriment. Protests against this force-of-government economic martyrdom have begun and are increasing. Poster-child for the typical leftist Democrat response to the protests is alleged comedian-actor Patton Oswalt, whose compassion for his fellow citizen, or in Democrat parlance irredeemable class plight was tweeted out from his rather shallow spider hole hiding place. Anne Frank spent 2 years hiding in an attic and weve been home for just over a month with Netflix, food delivery & video games and there are people risking viral death by storming state capital buildings & screaming, Open Fuddruckers! Apparently unknown to Mr. Oswalt and his cohorts, as example the now out of work waitress at Fuddruckers with two kids to support, an apartment rental, utility, and car payment due, and only a couple days of food left may not be enjoying the time off to the same extent as others. While Mr. Oswalt and his ilk hunker down to suffer through another season of Ozark while awaiting their wagyu steak dinner delivery, many are wondering how to feed and support themselves and family, both in the short term and long term now that their jobs or business and life savings are gone or severely diminished by Governor-decree. While busying herself blocking funding for those who have been forced to close their businesses, in an almost unbelievable lack of self-awareness the declared but not proven wicked witch of the west, Nancy Pelosi, advertised her predicament caused by the shutdown, by agonizing over her selection of gourmet ice cream from her home freezer. At the same time many of the bitter clinger protestors cannot go to their freezer and find more than an ice tray. Faced with the same reality as the now out-of-work Americans are experiencing, perhaps the Patton Oswalts of the world and their Democrat benefactors would view the lockdown a bit differently if their survival were less meaty and closer to the bone. Lets put on a mask and get back to work wouldnt seem like such a revolutionary idea to the chosen-ones if their ability to eat was in jeopardy. Such scorn for their fellow fly-over country citizens from those who claim to be the caring and compassionate ones. Fealty to an all-powerful government from whom all benefits flow is a cornerstone on which the modern Democrat party is built. Illegal non-citizens should vote, vote-by-mail, no identification needed to vote, ballot harvesting, criminals should vote, an adolescent-minded 16-year old should vote, no need to clean-up the voter registration rolls, ad infinitum, are the mechanisms to achieve their goal of a free-and-fair election. What better time to have a vote-by-mail fraud election than a health emergency, if only the Democrats and their liberal-bullshit-speak main stream media propaganda arm can keep the peasant class fearful of death by Beijing Bat-Gobbler Disease until November. In the end, the China Lung Rot response by some gives every appearance of an effort to punish the deplorables for having the audacity to want to put their country, America first. Consistent with the recent fake news allegation and media words of the ignoble Howard Stern, the deplorables and their President can all take disinfectant and all drop dead. Robert T. Smith is an environmental scientist who spends his days enjoying life and the pursuit of happiness with his family. He confesses to cling to his liberty, guns and religion, with antipathy toward the arrogant ruling elites throughout the country. Home
Middletown Homes continuing care retirement community residents have expressed a longing to see friends and family members during the coronavirus quarantine. In response, the Middletown Home Activities Staff has created ways to entertain their residents while adhering to the CDC safety guidelines.

Imagine the residents delight last week when some very unusual visitors arrived and went window to window to visit each one. Rosie and Lenny, two horses from Justamere Farm, Middletown, seemed to gallop in to save the day. Lenox, aka Lenny, is a rescue horse owned by Samantha Horn. And Rosie, once labeled an untamable mustang, is owned by Olivia Bort who adopted her through the Bureau of Land Management.

The Middletown Home also hosted a puppy parade featuring service dogs from Susquehanna Service Dogs. They were Safari, an 11-month-old golden retriever; Guinness, a year and a half old black lab, and the Middletown Homes facility dog Blanche, a 5-year-old golden retriever.

Susquehanna Service Dogs and horses from Justamere Farm in Middletown, Pa., visit each window at The Middletown Home retirement community the last week of April 2020. The home's staff are creating ways to entertain residents during their coronavirus isolation. (Photos courtesy of The Middletown Home)

In a press release from the home, officials said to better connect residents with their families, the Middletown Home started a Family Video Call Program. As anyone can imagine, residents' faces light up when they see their family members on the screen talking with them and sharing stories.

In addition, staff at the home has created activity packets that include word searches, crossword puzzles, poems, stories and coloring pages. Pastors have been meeting with residents daily and spending time with them, talking and reflecting on truths and encouragements found in the Bible.

"We hope that this quarantine will be over soon, but we certainly have learned a lot about the strength there is in community, the importance of connection, and the love that can overcome any distance," says Louis Vogel III, chief executive officer at Middletown Home.

Middletown Home wasnt the only senior residence receiving window visitors. On Friday, ManorCare Health Services in Lebanon was treated to a similar serenade when Joanne Light and her daughter Rebecca pranced up to each window with their ponies.

Among the positive responses on Facebook is one saying a resident named Wilma called her to tell her there were horses outside her window. She replied, I thought she was crazy,  followed by the joy Emoji.

Awww... thank you Joanie Light and Rebecca Light for coming out and making our day!! Posted by Sheila Nieves on Friday, May 1, 2020

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.

Read more:
SAN ANTONIO - Cornerstone Church and Catholic Charities are among the San Antonio churches and faith-based organizations stepping up this week to help those in need during the coronavirus pandemic.

Cornerstone will partner with the San Antonio Food Bank on Tuesday to distribute approximately 50,000 pounds of food at a mass drive-thru distribution beginning at 9 a.m. at Traders Village on the Southwest Side.

Our faith teaches that we are mandated by God to help those in need, said John Hagee, Cornerstones senior pastor and founder of Hagee Ministries.

During challenging times, the faith community has a unique and vital role to play, and Cornerstone will continue to follow Gods word by working with local organizations to help our neighbors.

Cornerstone has been involved in several humanitarian services during the pandemic, including engaging in food delivery and transportation services for those in need of help getting medical care or buying groceries. Cornerstone also has provided more than 6,000 care boxes totaling more than 240,000 pounds of non-perishable food and other items to those in need.

In addition, Cornerstone Christian Schools in March served more than 30,000 hot meals to area residents.

"We are blessed to have an active congregation committed to being a positive force in the community and to have organizations like the San Antonio Food Bank working every day to improve the lives of those who need a helping hand. Every family that is fed as a result of these efforts is a credit to the love God has placed in our hearts," Cornerstone Lead Pastor Matt Hagee said.

On Wednesday, Catholic Charities will partner with area nonprofits and private-sector organizations to provide 2,000 food bundles, diapers and masks at its Food from the Heart initiative.

The event does not require pre-registration and is set for 5:30 p.m. at St. Stephens CARE Center, 2127 S. Zarzamora St.

Catholic Charities staffers and volunteers will wear masks, use hand sanitizers and practice social distancing during the distribution to protect others.

Those interested in receiving from Food from the Heart should call 210-222-1294 for more information.
/ -- The Energy Market Authority today announced "Creating Our Low Carbon Energy Future Together" as the theme for Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) 2020.

2.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented challenge for the energy industry with the uncertain economic and energy demand outlook. At the same time, this crisis could help accelerate the transition to a more secure and sustainable energy future when the global economy recovers. Despite a temporary drop in emissions caused by COVID-19, the urgent need to combat climate change remains. How can we seize new growth opportunities and work together towards a low carbon energy future? Against this backdrop, SIEW 2020 will provide a platform for global energy stakeholders to share best practices and effect change across the energy industry.

3.

On the SIEW 2020 theme, Dr Koh Poh Koon, Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Trade and Industry, said: "The theme highlights how governments and industries are faced with the urgent challenge of growing the economy in a sustainable manner. The uncertain global economic outlook would present even more challenges for the energy sector. I look forward to the meaningful discussions at SIEW on how we can create a low carbon energy future together."



4.

EMA announced the theme at the inaugural SIEW 2020 Global Launch webinar. Speakers at the launch included Mr Neil Atkinson, Head of Oil Industry & Markets Division, International Energy Agency (IEA), and Mr Tan Cheng Guan, Head of Renewables & Environment, Sembcorp Industries. Moderating the discussion was Ms Goh Swee Chen, President, Global Compact Network Singapore.

Highlights at SIEW 2020



5.

The Singapore Energy Summit will see a high-level panel comprising ministers and industry leaders delving deeper into the theme. This includes discussions on the pathways to our low carbon energy transition, the impact on the economy, and how we can tap into low carbon alternatives.

6.

For the first time, Singapore and the IEA will co-host the 2nd Global Ministerial Conference on System Integration of Renewable Energy at SIEW. Dr Fatih Birol, IEA's Executive Director, said: "The integration of variable renewable energy is a key part of strengthening modern, sustainable, and affordable energy systems. I am very pleased that the IEA will co-host the 2020 IEA System Integration of Renewable Energy Ministerial Meeting with the Government of Singapore at Southeast Asia's premier energy sector event, SIEW."



7. "This year -- during the IEA's year of Clean Energy Transitions -- we will bring together ministers and business leaders to discuss real world solutions and the latest developments to integrate growing shares of renewables -- a critical part of the effort to enhance energy security, sustainability and affordability. Now, more than ever, governments and energy sector actors should prioritise the security of energy systems and this important event is designed to assist with this imperative," added Dr Birol.

8.

S&P Global Platts will host a new conference on LNG & Hydrogen Gas Markets in Asia, with a special focus on the growth and development of hydrogen in the region. Returning partner event Asia Clean Energy Summit will examine clean energy alternatives including floating solar photovoltaics. Asian Downstream Summit 2020 will be co-located with the Asian Refining Technology Conference, with a focus on sustainability & productivity in refining & petrochemicals.

9.

Delegates can also look forward to report launches at the SIEW Energy Insights and SIEW Thinktank Roundtables. Returning roundtable hosts include the Agora Energiewende; the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N); the Energy Studies Institute (ESI); and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ).

10.

SIEW 2020 will be held at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, from 26 to 30 October 2020. More updates will be shared when registration for SIEW opens in July.

About Singapore International Energy Week



Now in its 13th edition, the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) is a premier platform in Asia for energy insights, partnerships and dialogues. The conference brings together the world's leading conferences, exhibitions and roundtables in one week, one location. SIEW enriches the global energy conversation by convening political, business, academic and energy industry thought leaders to advance solutions and actions across the energy spectrum of oil & gas, clean and renewable energy, and energy infrastructure financing.

Website: www.siew.sg | Follow us: www.facebook.com/SIEW.sg | Twitter: @SIEW_SG | LinkedIn: SIEW



About the Energy Market Authority



The Energy Market Authority (EMA) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Our main goals are to ensure a reliable and secure energy supply, promote effective competition in the energy market and develop a dynamic energy sector in Singapore. Through our work, we seek to forge a progressive energy landscape for sustained growth.

Website: www.ema.gov.sg | Follow us: Instagram: @EMA_Singapore | Facebook: facebook.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Colin Packham and Praveen Menon (Reuters) Sydney, Australia/Wellington, New Zealand  Mon, May 4, 2020 12:05 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c049e 2 World New-Zealand,Australia,coronavirus,travel,COVID-19,pandemic,COVID-19-travel-ban,COVID-19-travel-restriction Free

New Zealand and Australia are discussing the potential creation of a "travel bubble" between the two countries, sources said on Monday, even as Australia reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in two weeks.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will take part in a meeting of Australia's emergency coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday, the Australian government said, stoking speculation that two-way travel could be permitted in the near future.

"The idea of a bubble with Australia was floated two weeks ago, and this is an example of the sort of action that could happen within it, while always ensuring the protection of public health," New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.

"Officials in both countries are considering all aspects of the trans-Tasman concept, and planning how this could happen more broadly," Peters added.

The prospect of two-way travel was first proposed by Peters, though Ardern in April insisted it was a "long-term goal" and would need to include other Pacific countries.

Australia and New Zealand have both slowed the spread of coronavirus in recent weeks to levels significantly below the those reported in the United States, Britain and Europe. Both governments attribute their success to social distancing restrictions and widespread testing.

However, Australia on Monday reported 26 new cases, including a seven-year-old boy, its biggest daily jump in two weeks. That could rise as more states report throughout the day. New Zealand recorded no new cases on Monday for the first time since March 16.

Overall, Australia has recorded around 6,800 infections and 95 deaths, and New Zealand 1,137 cases and 20 fatalities.

On Sunday, a New Zealand rugby league team arrived in Australia to self-isolate before joining Australia's tournament later this month, after receiving special permission, a move that Peters said could pave the way for a trans-Tasman bubble.

Ardern and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison are expected to discuss their strategies to slow the spread of coronavirus at Tuesday's meeting, one source familiar with the details of the meeting told Reuters.

New Zealand does not have a contact tracing app like the one launched by Australia last week to find and inform people who have been in contact with confirmed infected people.

Just over 4 million Australians have downloaded the CovidSafe app so far, well short of Morrison's previously announced target of 40% of the country's estimated 16 million smartphone owners.

Morrison has made wider adoption of the app a prerequisite to further ease strict social distancing regulations in Australia.

Schools debate

The rise in Australia's death toll was largely due to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in the state of Victoria.

The infection of the seven-year-old boy in New South Wales (NSW) state, which closed his Sydney school, has drawn attention to the contentious question of whether children should attend school during the outbreak.

The federal government has said schools should stay open since children are low-risk carriers of the virus, while some state governments have urged parents to keep children at home.

NSW will reopen schools on a staggered basis from next week, while Victoria has asked parents to keep children at home until the middle of the year.

The states and territories are also moving at different speeds to lift movement restrictions: NSW has allowed people to make house visits in groups of up to two, while Victoria is retaining its stay-home order until at least May 11.

"This is a struggle and ... it's not easy to live this way, but none of us can assume, just because we're frustrated, that this is over," Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Monday. "This is far from over. We have to stay the course."
Reports on social media and other media outlets entreats the public to log into a website (https://bit.ly/Ghana-funds) to access an amount of one thousand, two hundred Ghana Cedis (GHc1,200.00) as a relief from Government to sustain the Ghanaian public during the COVID-19 crises.

The purported amount was to be disbursed by the Ministry as a cushioning package in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, a statement issued on Monday by the Public Affairs Unit of the Ministry and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the purported reports were false, and therefore, should be disregarded by the public.

The Ministry wishes to inform the general public that it is not in charge of any such disbursement. It is being perpetrated by fraudsters and should be disregarded.

The statement also urged the public to take note of the only website operated by the Ministry that is: www.melr.gov.gh to avoid falling victim of such reports.

---GNA
Venezuela's Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino pledged 'absolute loyalty' to President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas after the thwarted attack - Ministry of Communications, Venezuela

Venezuela says it thwarted an armed incursion on Sunday by mercenaries who organized and trained in Colombia, killing eight people and capturing two others as they attempted to arrive on the countrys coast via speedboat.

This was an attempt to invade our coasts by a group of mercenary terrorists, Minister Nestor Reverol said on state TV. The goal was to commit terrorist acts, kill government leaders, and end in a coup.

Former American Green Beret Jordan Goudreau claimed responsibility for the attack in a video posted online alongside exiled Venezuelan soldier Javier Nieto.

In what they called operation Gideon, Goudreau said they had launched an amphibious raid from the border of Colombia deep into the heart of Caracas. He said units had been launched around the country and were fighting government forces. There was no immediate sign of rebellion in the country.

On Friday the Associated Press reported that Goudreau had set up camps with dozens of defected Venezuelan soldiers in Colombia with plans to launch an invasion across the border. That plan apparently collapsed in late March when Goudreaus Venezuelan accomplice, former Maduro loyalist Cliver Alcala, was indicted in the US for narco trafficking and extradited.

An exiled Venezuelan soldier not participating in the operation told The Telegraph on Friday he had been unable to contact those formerly living in Goudreaus camps.

Nicolas Maduros government portrayed the incident as a success for the countrys military in its struggle against the US and more than 50 other countries who do not recognize him as the rightful president.

We are declaring ourselves in permanent rebellion against American imperialism, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said on state TV flanked by heavily armed soldiers. We have confronted with tenacity this attempted invasion.

Story continues

Theyre still underestimating our people and our security forces, said president of the pro-Maduro Constituent Assembly Diosdado Cabello said at the legislative palace. He attributed the attack to the United States, Colombian oligarchy, and narcotraffickers.

But the US State Department and Colombian government have both denied involvement in the operation. Maduros internal opposition has called it an attempt to distract from a surge in violent incidents across the country. Photos posted on social media by state media workers of the items confiscated suggest a less than sophisticated operation, showing a few automatic weapons, a helmet with a US flag patch, and Venezuelan debit cards.

We reject these claims made by the dictatorial regime of Nicolas Maduro that are an attempt to blame our country for these supposed acts of destabilization, which are actually an attempt to divert attention away from the actual problems facing Venezuelan people, a statement from the Colombian foreign ministry said.

Nicolas Maduro often accuses Colombia of attempts to overthrow his government in conjunction with the US, sometimes with little evidence. Over 50 countries recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the rightful interim president of the country, claiming Maduros 2018 re-election was fraudulent.
The day each country is waiting for desperately, New Zealand is already there. The country has recorded its first day of no new cases of COVID-19 after a month-long strict lockdown was put in place.

Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealands director-general of health said, It is cause for celebration... It is important that we reflect that it is symbolic of the effort that everybody has put in."



However, he also added that despite of new cases, the country's citizens must proceed forward with caution. He said, I dont want to downplay that but once again, we need to be continuing vigilance.

NZME

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also warned the people that they should not be 'jeapordising' the situation by breaching the lockdown rules. She said, Any gains youve seen at the moment are actually from the lockdown period. We need to not get ahead of ourselves, stick to our bubble, and finish what we started."

PM Ardern also mentioned that she will be revisiting the number later this week once the more relaxed rules of the lockdown have had time to set in.

AFP

New Zealand has had a total number of 1,487 confirmed cases with 86% of them now recovered. While two people have lost their lives, seven still remain in the hospital. As of Monday, no additional cases have been reported.



Bloomfield also added, We are still wanting to be sure that there is no undetected community transmission."



New Zealand's efficient government is being praised around the world including from the World Health Organisation for their strict lockdown which was able to contain the spreading of the deadly virus. There were no deaths at the time the lockdown was imposed since it was done so swiftly.



Time

Last week, the country witnessed slight relaxations in its lockdown rules and freedom of movement was granted to people while some businesses were allowed to resume work, given everything was contactless.

However, there were also some breaches of the rules as more than 500 people were reprimanded by the police.

Bloomfield also said, Its not just the number of cases or the pattern. But the level to which people are taking seriously the expectations, particularly around physical distancing, hygiene measures and not really squandering the advantage weve created for ourselves.

AFP

We really hope this day reaches all our countries soon so that we can finally win against this novel pandemic.
Allegiant Airlines came first in a long-running annual study that ranks U.S airlines by how often flights arrive on time and other statistical measures.

Hawaiian Airlines ranked second, followed by Southwest Airlines and last year's winner, Delta Air Lines.

Out of the 10 carriers that were ranked, American Airlines was bottom of the pile.

Allegiant Airlines came first in a long-running annual study that ranks U.S airlines

THE 2020 AIRLINE QUALITY RATING RANKING 1. Allegiant Airlines (new for 2020) 2. Hawaiian Airlines (5th last year) 3. Southwest Airlines (3) 4. Delta Air Lines (1) 5. Alaska Airlines (4) 6. JetBlue (2) 7. Frontier Airlines (9) 8. Spirit Airlines (7) 9. United Airlines (6) 10. American Airlines (8) Source: Airline Quality Rating Advertisement

The study - the Airline Quality Rating ranking - is now in its 30th year. It comes from academics at Wichita State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, who released the 2020 report today.

They used 2019 data collected by the U.S. Transportation Department not only to analyse punctuality, but to determine consumer complaint volumes and rates of mishandled baggage and passenger bumping.

Top-ranked Allegiant was a new addition to the ranking this year.

It came top for baggage service with a mishandled baggage rate of 1.75 per 1,000 checked bags in 2019, which the report pointed out was 'noticeably better' than the industry rate of 5.57 mishandled bags per 1,000 checked bags.

In the punctuality category it ranked sixth, with an on-time arrival percentage of 78.7 per cent.

It was seventh for customer satisfaction, with a customer complaint rate of 1.55 per 100,000 passengers - higher than the industry rate of 1.06 per 100,000 passengers.

Its involuntary denied boarding rate, meanwhile, was 0.42 per 10,000 passengers - placing it ninth in this list.

At the other end of the ranking, American Airlines saw its scores decline across all four criteria.

Hawaiian Airlines ranked second in the study by academics at Wichita State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Southwest Airlines came third in the ranking, which is created using data collected by the U.S. Transportation Department on rates of on-time arrivals, mishandled baggage and passenger-bumping, plus consumer complaint volumes

Out of the 10 airlines, it was worst for baggage handling, with a mishandled baggage rate of 8.6 per 1,000 checked bags in 2019, compared to 3.8 per 1,000 bags in 2018.

It also came bottom for involuntary denied boardings with 0.57 per 10,000 passengers bumped from flights last year compared to 0.2 per 10,000 passengers in 2018.

On-time arrivals slipped to 77 per cent in 2019 compared to 78.4 per cent in 2018, while customer complaints were 1.64 per 100,000 passengers, up from 1.38 per 100,000 passengers in 2018. American Airlines was eighth out of 10 in both of these categories.

The report also noted that another seven airlines had seen declines in their overall scores for 2019.

They were Alaska, Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit and United. Frontier had no change in its overall score from last year.

Out of the 10 carriers that were ranked, American Airlines was bottom of the pile

The report added: 'The consumer complaint rate across the industry increased slightly to 1.06 per 100,000 passengers in 2019 from 1.04 per 100,000 passengers in 2018.

'Of the 9,547 complaints registered with the DOT regarding all U.S domestic carriers, 74 per cent were for flight problems, baggage problems, reservation, ticketing and boarding issues, or customer service problems.

'Lack of improvement in industry performance in all four areas tracked in the ratings is not a positive sign for consumers.'

As a result of the coronavirus chaos, next year's results will likely be somewhat unpredictable.

American Airlines said in response to the results: 'In 2019, we faced significant operational challenges that impacted our results, including the grounding of the Max and, most significantly, a higher number of out-of-service aircraft.

'Over the past several months  prior to disruption of our operation due to Covid-19  our operational performance showed significant improvement. These results included our best-ever performance for the holiday peak travel period and best operational quarter on record.

'Were proud of what our team accomplished in 2019 in spite of the operational challenges  especially in the fourth quarter  and the way theyve continued to care for our customers in 2020 throughout Covid-19.'
Donald Trump doubled down his attacks on the World Health Organisation last night and branded its handling of the pandemic a 'disaster'.

The President lashed out at the UN agency for blindly regurgitating information from Beijing and said it has 'missed every single call'.

He said the United States had been 'foolishly' pouring money into the WHO and justified his decision to cut its funding.

Trump made his scathing assessment of the WHO in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC at a Fox News virtual town hall meeting.

He said: 'The World Health organisation has been a disaster everything they said was wrong and they're China-centric.

Donald Trump doubled down his attacks on the World Health Organisation last night and branded its handling of the pandemic a 'disaster'

Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hailed China as an exemplar of how to handle an emergency despite widespread skepticism of the country's official coronavirus death toll

Trump made his scathing assessment of the WHO in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC at a Fox News virtual town hall meeting

'All they do is agree with China, whatever China wants to do. So our country, perhaps foolishly in retrospect has been paying $450million a year to the World Health Organisation and China's been paying $38million a year but they were more political than all of our leaders previously.

'What they did, what World Health did, was they missed every single call and we're not going to put up with it.'

Relations between Washington and the WHO has soured throughout the crisis after Trump consistently accused the bodyof siding with China, saying it has been hand-in-glove with Xi Jinping in covering up the outbreak.

Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hailed China as an exemplar of how to handle an emergency despite widespread skepticism of the country's official coronavirus death toll.

Trump last night pinned the global coronavirus outbreak squarely upon China, which he accused of a state cover-up after making a 'horrible mistake'.

The president continued to point the finger at Beijing and fueled growing suggestions that COVID-19 spread from a Wuhan laboratory before snowballing into a worldwide pandemic.

The President lashed out at the UN agency for blindly regurgitating false information being pumped out by Beijing and said it has 'missed every single call'

Counselor to the president Hope Hicks (left), who recently rejoined the administration, and new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (center, speak to President Trump during a commercial break during Sunday night's Fox News Channel town hall

Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the global community.

'Well, I don't think there's any question about it. We wanted to go in, they didn't want us to go in. Things are coming out that are pretty compelling. I don't think there's any question,' the president said Sunday.

'Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn't want to admit it,' he added.

His comments came as a Department of Homeland Security report shared on Sunday revealed US officials believe China 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic in early January and hoarded medical supplies.

The four-page report dated May 1 that was obtained by the Associated Press notes that China downplayed the virus publicly but increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.

President Trump holds still during a commercial break at Sunday night's Fox News Channel town hall that was filmed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington

The document accuses China of covering their tracks by 'denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data.'

It lends weight to a leaked dossier drawn up by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance which describes how Beijing made whistleblowers 'disappear', destroyed early virus samples and scrubbed the internet of any mention of the disease in the early stages.

In Sunday's virtual town hall, Trump said that China failed to admit their mistake in refusing to accept global aid.

'We wanted to go in, but they didn't want us there. Even World Health wanted to go in - they were admitted but much later, not immediately. They made a mistake, they tried to cover it, like a fireThey couldn't put out the fire,' Trump said.

He condemned the Communist nation for not alerting global leaders on the severity of the outbreak while continuing to allow flights to exit China.

'What they really treated the world badly on, they stopped people from going into China but they didn't stop people from going into the USA and all the rest of the world.'

'They knew they had a problem, I think they were embarrassed by the problem,' Trump added.

When asked about President Xi, Trump said 'I'm not going to say anything' but 'this should never have happened'.
On March 3, 1977, PBS broadcast the familiar image of William F. Buckley, Jr. atop a small dais. His guestsEduardo Roca, the former Argentine ambassador to the United States, and Robert Hill, the US ambassador to Argentinasat in matching leather chairs to his left. Hill leaned toward Buckley; Buckley regarded his guest down the bridge of his nose. A photogenic coterie of young peopleprobably students at Lincoln School in Buenos Aires, where the episodes were filmedsat on the floor, as Hill explained to Buckley and his diplomatic counterpart that Western reporting had downplayed the brutality of Argentinas left wing and failed to account for the positive aspects of the countrys government, which was under international condemnation for brutal murders and disappearances of civilian dissidents.

And thats why your visit here is very important, Hill told Buckley, the founding editor of conservative weekly The National Review, earnestly. Because youre respected in this country and youre well known in international circles. And the opinions that you convey in the United States about your impressions of Argentina are a lot more important than Ambassador Roca and myself. So anything that you ask us today about Argentina were prepared to answer.

Okay. Okay, Buckley said, fiddling with his pen. Why is it that the Argentina story is so widely unknown in the United States in your opinion?

In my opinion, Mr. Buckley, I think one of the problems the Argentine government has is their lack of understanding of public relations, Hill said. Weve talked about this several times with Argentine friends. Theyve recently retained a well-known firm in New York to represent them.

It was the last of four episodes of Buckleys Emmy-winning talk show Firing Line filmed in Buenos Aires. For Buckley, perhaps the single most significant intellectual influence on modern American conservatism, the trip held the prospect of a chance to weigh in authoritatively on what would come to be known as the Dirty War; it would also provide a chance for him to be seen with no less a literary light than Jorge Luis Borgesan interviewee for one of the four showswho was, during the 1970s, a vocal supporter of the Argentine military junta and its leader, president Jorge Videla.

According to documents obtained by CJR, the entire trip was a carefully stage-managed project of the junta itself, working with the American marketing and PR firm Burson-Marsteller, which kept a list of potentially sympathetic journalists for the use of the junta. On the list, next to Buckleys name, someone from the firm had written, could be convinced to make the trip to Argentina after the US elections. And now, here he was.

By cross-referencing contracts and other documents from the PR campaign with episodes of Firing Line, diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010, and the NSA Archive Project, it is possible to gain a fuller picture of the role Buckley, and international media in general, played in helping to paper over the atrocities of the Argentine government.



The full Burson-Marsteller program in Spanish. For the PDF and related documents, click here.

A more favorable image

The government had implemented a highly controlled communications structure that gagged the press inside Argentina. Beginning in June 1976, just three months after the junta took power, publicists at Burson-Marsteller signed a contract with the government to provide public relations services. In October of 1976, they delivered a 155 page document titled An International Communications Program for Argentina, describing how they planned to gain the help of international media in whitewashing the dictatorships crimes.

By August, those crimes were impossible for diplomats to ignore. Vicious counter-terrorist reaction from security forces acting clandestinely including killing several priests and dumping of slaughtered bodies all over Buenos Aires, shocked many Argentines into new awareness of just how far things have gone, wrote Max Chaplin in a cable to the State Department dated August 30, 1976. Right-wing death squads driving around in green Ford Falcons were operating in broad daylight. Buckleys broadcasts were filmed just just a few months later. Subsequent counter-terrorist kidnappings and murders, which now considerably overshadow efforts of leftist terrorists, have struck home among politicians and churchmen.

Borges himself was mentioned in Burson-Marstellers communication program, under the tourism section, offered as a sort of cultural attraction for visitors. As one of the most famous Argentine writers and a fan of Videla, Borges was a perfect pawn for the public relations campaign. Burson-Marsteller had promised the junta it would emphasize left-wing terrorism by providing vivid evidence of the brutality of the guerrillas or terrorists; Hill, the U.S. ambassador, represented its interests faithfully in the Firing Line broadcasts:

Hill: What caused the human rights problem, Mr. Buckley, in your opinion, in Argentina?

Buckley: Well, what caused the human rights problem is a series of reports by people who are allegedly innocent who have disappeared, essentially, and the failure of the government to release the names of those who have disappeared.

Hill: No thats not correct, in my opinion. The human rights problem was caused by the terrorists. They were killing innocent people. The first week I was in Argentina I left the residence one morning at quarter of nine and within three blocks a body was thrown in front of our automobile. Now the object of course was to have us run over the body and then blame the United States ambassador and the chauffeur for this incident. I sent toWashington in November ten pages of terrorist activity since I came to Argentina, ten pages. Some of them were frightening.

Buckley comes to town

Uki Goni worked from 1975 to 1983 for a small English-language newspaper called the Buenos Aires Herald, now famous for publishing names of disappeared people when virtually no other press inside Argentina would. Goni remembered Burson-Marstellers work; journalists used to translate financial reports for them for extra money, he told CJR. Besides the publicity Buckleys broadcasts and his columns helpful to the Junta, Goni believes having a powerful PR firm from New York, and Buckley visiting, was a morale boost for the dictatorship and simultaneously demoralized journalists. At the time of Burson-Marstellers PR push, Robert Cox edited the Herald. Cox, who appeared on one of the four broadcasts, told CJR he had been warned by friends not to go on the show but thought he might be able to get some of the true, grim reality across to a US audience.

The prevailing impression outsideand probably more so in Argentinawas that it had been a bloodless velvet coup, Cox said. Cox didnt know Burson-Marsteller was involved in the press junket, but was aware of their work in Argentina. I think its fair to say that Burson-Marstellers sophisticated propaganda helped to fabricate a web of lies that allowed the military to commit atrocities with complete impunity, he said. With a compliant press and total control of the air waves, the dictatorship was able to use Burson-Marsteller in creating a false image of Argentina at home and abroad.

On January 31, 1977, Buckley interviewed Jose Alfredo Martinez de Hoz, the then-former Minister of the Economy during the dictatorship, who had signed several of the Burson-Marsteller contracts himself. Martinez de Hoz promoted the economic plans for Argentina, and stayed on message with the communications program, projecting an image of an improving, stable economy and a country that was ripe for foreign investment.

Martinez de Hoz was the first civlian former cabinet member to be arrested for crimes associated with the dictatorship. He was detained in 1988 but was later pardoned in 1990 under President Menems blanket amnesty laws. He was re-arrested in 2010, after those laws were declared unconstitutional, and accused of collaborating in the commission of crimes against humanity, specifically the 1976 kidnapping of father-and-son cotton export businessmen Federico and Miguel Gutheim, whose company, Sideco, was allegedly coerced into deals that favored the Videla regime, according to the New York Times. He died under house arrest in 2013 without being convicted.

Hill died in 1978. According to US diplomat Tex Harris, who died shortly after being interviewed for this story, the US embassys policy at the time was not to interview victims of human rights abusesfor fear of interfering in Argentine affairs.

Follow up and retraction

After filming in Buenos Aires, Buckley wrote a syndicated column describing left-wing militants in explicit detail and portraying General Videla as an unusual creature and a reluctant president.

He wrote two short sentences towards the end about right-wing violence: It is extremely difficult to fine-tune an anti-terrorist campaign. People who reach for their pistols or their shotguns at the sight of a terrorist or a suspected terrorist are not trained at West Point.

The content of [the column] was about 100 percent consistent with [Burson-Marstellers] objective of defending the reputation of the Videla dictatorship. writes Juan Mendez, a former detainee of the junta and former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, in his book Taking a Stand.

Years later in June 1985, Buckley published a retraction in the Washington Post. He didnt mention Burson-Marsteller but he blamed the 77-year-old Borges and Cox for influencing his opinion.

Cox said that Buckley called him later on and asked, Were we conned?

Many more journalists and newspapers were mentioned by name in Burson-Marstellers program including Edwin Darby, then of the Chicago Sun-Times, syndicated columnist Ernest Cuneo, and Michael Frenchman of the Times of London. Buckleys visit was just one component of a years-long campaign to influence public opinion and portray a brutal military dictatorship in a more positive light. But it is the most thoroughly preserved.

What long-term effects does this kind of propaganda have on our collective memory? How can the damage of high level disinformation spread by professional spin doctors be measured in retrospect? I remember how I hated [Burston-Marsteller] for lies that cost lives and for which they were paid huge sums, Cox told CJR. Nothing can bring 30,000 disappeared people back or provide closure for their families who will never know what happened to them, but can the damage done by the propaganda campaign waged against the victims be undone?

In 1985, Argentina used its own criminal code to convict the leaders of the dictatorship of war crimes in the historic Trial of the Juntas. Dozens of former military personnel and some civilians have since been sentenced for crimes against humanity they committed during the dictatorship. One hundred and thirty people who were stolen as babies by the Junta have had their identities restored thanks to human rights organizations which have worked tirelessly for almost forty years. But its likely impossible to fully correct the record after all this time.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Erin Gallagher is a disinformation researcher, translator and multimedia artist with a BA in Integrative Media, whose translations have been published in Global Voices. She studied with Rotary International in Argentina.
43 Shares Share

I was in medical school when the world saw the news of the Zika and Ebola viruses, but never have I seen mass hysteria to this level for COVID-19. No longer is coronavirus what is depicted in a copy of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1, where it says coronavirus is a cause for the common cold. Intense coverage of the virus has been sensationalized to the point where you cannot be in any public or private place without hearing coronavirus uttered.

Moreover, what is not talked about is the high-risk health care workers take in caring for COVID-19 patients. Back then, and what the news is not reporting, is that COVID-19 is not the first coronavirus outbreak. It is, in fact, the third. There was SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012, where nosocomial transmission affected thousands of frontline health care workers. As of right now, COVID-19 is not a hospital-based outbreak like SARS and MERS, but because it is a novel coronavirus and bears similarities to SARS and MERS, the risk for hospital outbreaks still exists. What we do know is that COVID-19 is the ease of spread and that symptoms are nonspecific. If we do not remain vigilant and exercise precautionary measures like social distancing and limiting non-essential travel, then we risk the health of frontline hospitalists, and the spread of the virus will escalate in response.

As a medical student, I understand the necessity of staying calm in the face of an emergency, as do my peers and colleagues. A few weeks ago, a health care worker in Houston caused widespread hysteria that a hospital was caring for a coronavirus patient by posting to social media, which led to people posting on Twitter and thousands of people sharing the Tweets. That hospitals administration then promptly responded categorically that this was a false rumor and cautioned the use of social media in stirring hysteria and panic.

Whats even more incredulous is thousands of people choosing not to practice patience and to stay calm during these times. Calling for barbershops and saloons to reopen to get haircuts. Flocking state parks and beaches. Organizing protests to reopen the economy. Endangering the lives of others seems to be a popular new hobby, and it scares me that well see second waves of the virus in places where people purposefully choose not to practice social distancing.

It is thus up to our health care providers with influence, like Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Leana Wen, Dr. Deborah Birx, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, to educate as many people as possible on the necessary steps that each person can take to help in this effort against the spread of COVID-19. It is also, unfortunately, up to medical professionals to dispel false claims perpetuated by the Trump administration. Action without education and choosing to not understand why we do things will lead to wasted time, resources, and ultimately leaving thousands of more people infected and dead.

Yes, COVID-19 is scary, but its not the end of human life. Did you know that over 18,000 Americans died of the flu this season? Now is not the time to press the panic button. COVID-19, like many others, including influenza viruses, is a contagious respiratory virus, and because the world has not been exposed to this virus before, we do have the immunity to fight it off. If we follow CDC guidelines and guidance from our local governments, we will make it to the end of this pandemic.

Overall, the public is looking to the medical profession for guidance, so lets take on that responsibility and educate the masses on the following:

You can be completely asymptomatic (showing no symptoms of COVID-19) and still spread the virus to those around you. If you infect one person, that person can infect two more people, and so and so forth. Thats why New York and several big cities got slammed with cases. In short, practice social distancing!

Wash your hands frequently when you are out in public and do the same when you return home. Remind others to do the same as this is the easiest thing everyone can do.

Buying bottles of hand sanitizer provides a false sense of security and is not a substitute for traditional soap & water handwashing.

Are you feeling sick? Dont push yourself beyond your limits. Go see a doctor.

Cover your coughs and sneeze into your elbow/tissue and not into your hand.

Clean often touched surfaces (doorknobs, desks, locks, etc.) with some sort of disinfectant because virus-containing droplets from coughs or sneezes can land on these surfaces (Viruses are spread in more ways than just in the air.) And dont drink disinfectant, theres no logic in doing that.

Personal protective equipment, like N95 masks, is for health care workers and not for the general public. Moreover, N95 masks are to be used only for true airborne droplet precautions, and to be effective, you must be fit-tested for them. Lastly, people do not know how to put on and take off the masks properly, which is more of a problem than a solution.

There is no vaccine as of now, but get the vaccine once it becomes available.

Try to understand the virus rather than feeding into the hysteria.

Ton La, Jr. is a medical student, can be reached on LinkedIn, and is affiliated with GetUsPPE.org.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
John Lichfield did not have to go far to discover a page one story.

Dispatched by The Independent from Washington DC to cover the growing violence in Los Angeles sparked by the acquittal of four police officers who had savagely beaten a black motorist, he soon found himself in neighbourhoods seething with anger. Along with a photographer and her boyfriend, Lichfield began driving down streets dotted by petrol stations and shops ablaze.

Several black residents warned him and his colleagues, who were also white, that they were not safe and should turn around.

It was surreal scenes, driving down those big, wide Los Angeles boulevards and avenues, and traffic moving normally and then stopping at traffic lights, he says.

And then you come across a supermarket that was on fire or a petrol station on fire, and people were just driving past. There was a certain amount of looting and rioting going onAs you got further into the neighbourhood, various people sort of wound down their windows next to me and said you shouldnt be here.

LA Riots Anniversary Show all 10 1 /10 LA Riots Anniversary LA Riots Anniversary A member of the National Guard stands near burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April of 1992, after a jury acquitted the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, riots broke out throughout South Central Los Angeles, killing 55 people, injuring another 2,000, and causing more than $1 billion in damag Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Smoke Billowing from Burning Buildings During Los Angeles Riot Corbis via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary A car burns as looters take to the streets at the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues, April 29, 1992, This intersection is considered the flashpoint of the Los Angeles riots WireImage LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. Mother and child amidst mayhem, businesses burning, bystanders watching raging fires, pedestrian walking in the street drinking from a 40-ounce at intersection of Pico Boulevard and Hayworth Avenue in West Hollywood, the sky black with smoke in daylight on April 30, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Korean grocer Soon Ja Du fatally shot Latasha Harlins after a scuffle an Soon's store. 1992 Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag LA Riots Anniversary Harlins Family LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King Riot. A view of homeless person sleeping at bus stop on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, graffiti stating FUCK THE POLICE, also graffiti referencing Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, 15-year-old girl shot in the head by Korean shopkeeper 13 days after videotaped beating of Rodney King, killed for suspected shoplifting orange juice though the girl had money in her hand to pay. The jury recommended maximum sentence of 16 years for manslaughter, but the judge instead sentenced the shopkeeper to 5 years probation. When the riot broke out, Korean businesses were targeted early to be looted and burned in response. Graffiti remaining at bus stop after the Rodney King Riots the night of May 2 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Los Angeles police officer Laurence Powell (L), one of the four defendants in the Rodney King case, waits for the start of his hearing 15 May 1992 in Los Angeles, CA. Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled in favor of a second trial for Powell on brutality charges. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey Koon grins during a press conference 04 August, 1993 following his sentencing to a two and a half year prison term. Koon and former police officer Laurence Powell were found guilty of violating Rodney King's civil rights. Powell also was sentenced to two and a half years. AFP via Getty Images LA Riots Anniversary Rodney King arives at EsoWon bookstore to sign copies of his new book, "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption," on April 30, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. King is best known as the victim of a brutal police beating that took place in Los Angeles. Itas been 20 years since the Rodney King verdict that sparked infamous L.A. Riots. Getty Images

On the citys Manchester Boulevard - Lichfield was born in the UK city which is one of the reasons he remembers the location - the journalists were stopped when he heard a knock on the car window right alongside him. There was a young man armed with a gun, pointing the weapon at his head and indicating he should wind down the window.

He wanted us to get out and, you know, there were all sorts of thoughts crossing your head at that moment. But if we got out of the car, there wasn't much chance for us. So I sort of shook my head and refused.

 1992 LA riots: Please, nothing has changed' says Henry Keith Watson in 2012

Lichfield, now aged 70 and long based in France where he continues to work as a journalist, says the young man then smashed the window with the heel of the pistol, and in panic he drove off, hitting the car in front but somehow managing to avoid other traffic.

The other cars must have seen what was was going on and they all pulled out of the way and I drove off and he didnt shoot me. He didnt shoot at the car.

Recommended How The Independent covered the LA riots on this day in history

Lichfield, who had previously written about social justice, civil rights and the African American community in Washington DC and Chicago, likened the anger and outrage he and others witnessed to that on display during the Paris riots of 2005, when disenfranchised and marginalised residents of the outer suburbs took to the streets for three weeks of violence and destruction.

There he reported on young people, mainly of North African descent, setting fire to cars and public buildings.

It was very hit and run, and of groups of kids showing off to each other by attacking targets and so on, he says. That reminded me very much of the LA riots, but with one big difference - there were no guns in Paris.

Lichfield says during the week he spent in Los Angeles working with other Independent journalists, including Phil Reeves, he spoke to countless residents who outlined how the anger had built over years with black residents forced to live in squalor and deprivation. To this day, Los Angeles includes some of the wealthiest and some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the nation.

Over the course of several days of rioting, only ended by the dispatch of the National Guard, at least 63 people were killed. The cost of the damage caused by the violence was estimated at $1bn.

A sort of pressure cooker had to go off at some point. And that was brought about by the by very unfair [acquittal] of the police officers.

Lichfield says he returned to Los Angeles several times though was not able to find the precise location where the gun was pulled on him. He never met the young man carrying the weapon.

In all my long career in journalism that was the first time and and only time I've ever been in a situation like that, where I was threatened by a gun.

Lichfield says he had technically been dispatched to Los Angles by the Independent on Sunday. Yet he realised his first-hand insight into the hopelessness and anger that was fuelling the riots could not be sat on. He filed it for the daily paper which promptly put it on the next days front page under the headline For some reason the boy did not shoot me.

The [Sunday foreign editor] was furious that I did it for the daily, says Lichfield. But you could not sit on something like that for three or four days.
Page Content

This assistance was requested due to foreseen challenges with the COVID19 Crisis





On Friday May 1, 2020, Philipsburg, the Honourable Minister of Justice Anna E. Richardson, welcomed and swore in a number of Royal Netherlands Marechaussee Officers, Police Officers and Royal Dutch Marines who arrived on April 27th, 2020 from the Netherlands and will be here in St. Maarten until August 2020. All had been tested for COVID-19 before their departure from the Netherlands and again once they arrived in Sint Maarten.





The request for military assistance was made to ensure that public order and public safety are further maintained. Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs, Chair of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), was consulted in the request which was formally submitted through His Excellency Governor Eugene Holiday. Additionally, military assistance will serve to support our local law enforcement officers, who have all been working diligently to maintain a strong presence throughout our districts enforcing compliance of the lockdown measures.





As such, the assistance will also help to bolster current efforts by our local police force in maintaining a zero-tolerance approach to those who show blatant disregard for the lockdown regulations. It must be emphasized that under the current measures amidst this global public health crisis, congregations of people in large groups as well as driving on the public road without authorization on lockdown days will not be tolerated and those in violation will be dealt with according to the law.





Minister Richardson expressed her appreciation on behalf of the Council of Ministers (COM) and by extension the people of Sint Maarten, to all those involved in supporting the request for assistance, in particular the Dutch Minister of Defence Ank Bijleveld. In addition, Minister Richardson thanked the officers who have come to assist our country during this very challenging time.





I commend and applaud the efforts of law enforcement, whom despite working tirelessly each and every day understand their civic duty and continue to make the best out of our current situation. It is therefore important that all citizens and residents return the favor by continuing to persevere and do their part by adhering to the measures put forth by CPS and the EOC during this lockdown period, said Minister Richardson.




If you werent managing your money well before the COVID-19 crisis, you might be now given the prolonged period of financial uncertainty were all facing.

Here are four pandemic financial habits that are probably worth keeping after the worst of it has passed.

Paying closer attention to your banking and credit card transactions

Youve probably noticed some changes to whats flowing through your accounts. You might be fascinated by how much youre saving while laying low during quarantine, or you may be monitoring the timing of money coming in so you can meet your basic financial obligations. After the crisis, lean in to your new habit, and review your account transactions at least twice per week. Studies show this activity helps you stay on track with your spending and can protect you from fraud. Unfortunately, fraudulent activity increases dramatically any time money is flowing from the government to individuals and businesses (EI, CERB, wage subsidies and tax refunds).

A keenness to invest money now for the long-term

A slump in the investment market has investors (and potential ones, too) eager to get serious about socking away money for the long term; lower investment prices means greater value. Investing wisely is a healthy habit because retirement is expensive, and relying solely on CPP and OAS wont make for a comfortable living. The best practice is to try to invest at least 10 per cent of your annual earnings in a properly diversified portfolio and as early in your life as possible.

There are three basic buying techniques investors are currently using. The first is dollar cost averaging (DCA), and its a suitable strategy for just about anyone, especially if youre new to investing. It works like this; you buy into an investment, typically an ETF or mutual fund portfolio, at regular automatic intervals, such as every paycheque, regardless of the price of the investment on the day youre buying. Over time, and with many small purchases, you take advantage of an average price of the investments youre buying. The average can sometimes be a better price than if you were to try to time your purchases on a down day in the market.

The second is laddering in, and its a suitable strategy for people who have excess cash waiting to be invested or those on commission-style pay (less predictable). With this technique, investors buy less frequently (say every eight weeks), and typically with slightly larger amounts compared to DCA. Some laddering investors hope to purchase funds, stocks or bonds on down days in the market. However, if they dont succeed at timing the market, which is extremely hard to do, their somewhat regular purchases form an average price, similar to DCA.

Lump-sum buying is the third approach and is suitable for skilled investors who already have a well-established investment portfolio. Thats because large chunks are invested all at once, typically when the market has had a series of down days. To be effective, these investors diligently track their potential investments and are willing to take the risk that they might not time their purchase at the lowest price. On the flip side, they might buy a good-quality stock at a bargain price. Its important to note that not even professional money managers know the precise timing to buy funds, stocks or bonds at the lowest price.

Greater focus on the need for emergency savings and insurance

Emergency funds and proper insurance are more important than ever. Statistically speaking, emergencies happen every seven years. Will there be another pandemic? No one knows. But being financially prepared will help. As a best practice, build up at least three months worth of essential costs in a savings account. This money should not be invested in the market!

Of equal importance is having a thorough understanding of your insurance protection; home, auto, life, critical illness and disability coverage. While youre in quarantine, review your policies virtually with an insurance professional and dont skimp out on having the right protection.

Spend based on what gives you the greatest value and joy

When cuts to spending have to be made, it forces you to prioritize what matters most to you. As we resume our normal lives, hopefully in the not-too-distant-future, why not continue to live frugally? Trim expenses that dont bring you joy or contribute to a healthy way of living.
In the midst of a global pandemic, advisory firm offers opportunities for investors to support solutions, employment

TOKYO, JAPAN / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Recognizing a critical need for investment in companies fighting the global coronavirus pandemic, one global advisory firm is developing strategic relationships between businesses, governments, and private investors to provide profitable and winning solutions.

FGC Group has been working with select businesses invested in fighting the spread of COVID-19, particularly in the areas of clean technology, telemedicine, and payment systems. FGC is leveraging its extensive global network to connect investors with businesses looking to raise capital for coronavirus-related projects.

Through FGC Group's COVID-19 investment services, the firm aims to help businesses and governments raise the capital to launch solutions to this problem while creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process. This will be critical at a time when unemployment numbers are skyrocketing worldwide.

"Our mission is to forge relationships between organizations equipped to fight the coronavirus pandemic with investors looking to invest in profitable solutions that save lives," said Kingsley Kobayashi, Co-Founder of FGC Group. "Through our team's research and due diligence, we have unearthed exciting new areas of opportunity ripe for investment.'

Tony Evans Co-Founder of FGC Groups also added "We look forward to partnering with businesses to connect them with qualified investors."

For more information about FGC Group's COVID-19 investment services, contact contactus@f-g-c.com.

ABOUT FGC GROUP

FGC Group is a global advisory firm managing more than $350 million in assets. The firm specializes in consulting and services for business, digital assets, digital currency, tokens, blockchain-related projects, and crypto-assets. As one of the world's premier investment and advisory firms serving both individual and institutional investors, FGC Group creates opportunities for clients to generate and maintain wealth through boutique services integrating leading-edge technologies. Learn more at FGC Group at www.f-g-c.com. Follow the company on Facebook (@fgcgroupholdings), Instagram (@fgcgroup), and Twitter (@fgcgroup).

Contact Name: James Davies

Organization: FGC GROUP

Email: press@f-g-c.com

Address: Tokyo, Japan

Website: https://f-g-c.com/

SOURCE: FGC GROUP

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/588199/FGC-Group-partners-with-COVID-fighting-businesses-to-raise-capital-provide-investment-opportunities
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

The global intumescent coatings market size is expected to reach USD 1.31 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is projected to expand at a CAGR of 5.1% over the forecast period. Extensive usage of passive fire protection for steel structures used in offshore and onshore extraction and purification and refining in the oil & gas industry is the key factor boosting the market growth. In addition, rising shale gas exploration coupled with expanding oil & gas industry in Asia Pacific is expected to propel demand over the forecast period. The industry is characterized by the presence of a large number of raw material suppliers leading to an increase in the switching ability of the manufacturers and high bargaining power.

However, volatile prices of the raw materials, such as epoxy resins is expected to restrain the growth to some extent. Moreover, several regulations limiting the presence of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the formulation will also hinder market growth. On the other hand, development of advanced products that are compliant with the regulations set by the European Commission is expected to drive the demand over the next nine years. The market in Asia Pacific witnessed a significant expansion owing to increased oil & gas exploration activities, particularly in the South China Sea. Furthermore, infrastructure development in emerging economies including India, Indonesia, and Vietnam is likely to contribute to the market development over the forecast period.

Further key findings from the study suggest :

Water-based coatings is expected to be the fastest-growing technology segment of the global intumescent coatings market from 2019 to 2025

Oil & gas end-use segment held the largest share of the market in 2018 and is expected to continue its dominance over the forecast period

Asia Pacific was the largest market in 2018 and is projected to expand further at the highest CAGR during the forecast years

Cellulosic is projected to be the largest, as well as the fastest-growing, application segment over the next few years

Request a Sample Copy of the Global Intumescent Coatings Market Research Report @ www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/intumescent-coatings-industry/request/rs1

Grand View Research has segmented the global intumescent coatings market on the basis of technology, application, end use, and region:

Intumescent Coatings Technology Outlook (Volume, Kilotons; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

Water-based

Solvent-based

Epoxy-based

Intumescent Coatings Application Outlook (Volume, Kilotons; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

Hydrocarbons

cellulosic

Intumescent Coatings End Use Outlook (Volume, Kilotons; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

Oil & Gas

Construction

Automotive

Others

Intumescent Coatings Regional Outlook (Volume, Kilotons; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

North America US Canada mexico

europe UK germany france spain Denmark finland italy belgium Netherlands Russia sweden Romania poland

Asia Pacific china japan India

Central & South America brazil Argentine

Middle East & Africa Saudi Arabia South Africa



Access full research report on global intumescent coatings market:

www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/intumescent-coatings-industry
A 12-hour curfew will be imposed from 6 pm in Assam during the third phase of the lockdown beginning from Monday, Assam Health and Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Sunday. The curfew will be strictly enforced with no movement allowed from 6 pm to 6 am and the police will take strict action against those violating it, the minister said at a press conference here

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting with Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and "we have taken certain conservative measures as allowed by the Union Home Ministry guidelines, to contain the spread of COVID-19", Sarma said. All people, except those working in pharmacies, medical services, fire services, ambulances, media and government employees engaged in essential services, must return to their homes by 6 pm, he said.

Private medical clinics, doctor chambers, veterinary clinics, dental clinics, laboratories will open from Monday but they will close at 5 pm. Stand-alone shops in both urban and rural areas will open from Monday while shops in rows, one-third shops will open which will be decided by the respective Market Associations in consultation with the Deputy Commissioners, he said. Pharmacies, grocery shops and book stalls, however, will not come within the one-third consideration and all will remain open.

Market places and shopping malls, weekly markets, fish and markets will also remain closed. "All those allowed to reopen will, however, close by 5 pm so that people working there can reach their homes before curfew begins at 6 pm", the minister said. City buses, intra-district and inter-district buses shall operate with 50 per cent capacity. Private buses can also operate with 50 per cent capacity but with the authority or permission of the Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC), he said.

There will be no movement of buses in the Red and Orange zones but those crossing these districts can pass through the national or state highways without stopping, Sarma said. Waterways will remain closed but the Deputy Commissioners can discuss this with the ferry owners on whether it can be started by maintaining social distancing, he said.

Autorickshaws, cycle rickshaws and taxis are allowed with one driver and two passengers maintaining social distancing and private four wheelers are allowed with driver and two others. For two wheelers, pillion riding is allowed either with one female or one child up to the age of 12 years.

Livestock carrying trucks will not be allowed to enter the state but if any vehicle headed for any state outside Assam with livestock may be allowed to move to their destination without stopping in the state, he said. All government and private offices shall operate with 50 per cent employees but women employees with children below the age of five will not attend office till May 17 when this will be reviewed again, he said.

All construction work will be allowed in urban areas with a maximum of 50 per cent work force. All tea shops, restaurants, ice-cream parlours and cooked food outlets can operate on takeaway or home delivery basis only, he said. Barber shops, saloons and parlours will remain closed but their home visits are allowed after following hygiene and sanitisation norms. Gyms, cinemas, multiplexes, bars and swimming pools will remain closed.

Movement of persons above the age of 65 and children below the age ten years shall be restricted in public spaces except for medical purposes, he said. Wearing of masks is mandatory at all places while maintaining social distancing and arrangement for thermal scanning and hand sanitization shall be the responsibility of the heads of both public and private organisations, the Minister asserted.

All other provisions applicable during the third phase of the lockdown in the state will be as per the guidelines of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, Sarma added.

Also read: Coronavirus India live updates: Lockdown 3.0 begins today, some relaxations eased, total COVID-19 cases 42,533

Also read: Coronavirus lockdown 3.0: UP govt spells out relaxations to be given from May 4
Database migration services help administrators rehost, replatform, or refactor legacy databases

CHELMSFORD, United Kingdom, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Data Intensity today announced the launch of Safe-Switch, a life-cycle approach to migrating and managing Oracle Application and Database platforms on the Microsoft Azure Cloud platform. In response to the Oracle and Microsoft Cloud Interoperability Partnership announcement, Safe-Switch was created to help customers accelerate their consumption of heterogenous cloud adoption, with freedom of choice and seamless integration for Oracle and Microsoft workloads.

The Data Intensity Safe-Switch Program is founded on 20 years of professional and managed services experience migrating, upgrading and managing highly customized Oracle workloads across hybrid and multi-cloud architectures. As both an Oracle Platinum Partner and Microsoft Gold Partner, Data Intensity has successfully executed 250+ workload migrations.

"The primary challenge facing most customers is bridging the skill-set gaps associated with deep Oracle knowledge and proper Azure reference architectures to accurately migrate workloads to improve cost, service capabilities and agility," said Phil LaForge, President and CEO of Data Intensity.

The Safe-Switch Discovery Workshop is the first step towards the identification, prioritization and migration of Oracle workloads for the right cloud delivery model. Safe-Switch customers will benefit from a prescriptive roadmap covering Oracle license compliance, fault-tolerant application performance architectures, secure Azure Cloud Reference mapped to a combined migration strategy and managed services bundle.

"From start to finish Data Intensity were highly professional, the design phase through to go live ran smoothly and efficiently," said Alan Horne, Team Lead for Cory Brothers. "A deep knowledge of both Oracle and Azure enabled the project to be successful."

Data Intensity is currently providing a fixed price Azure Safe-Switch Discovery Workshop, which includes a series of collaborative, data-driven assessments to provides a prescriptive migration road-map based on standardized methodologies. Data Intensity's Safe-Switch complements the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework by providing businesses with the ability and processes to migrate workloads in a safe and secure manner.

Learn more about Oracle-to-Azure Safe-Switch from Data Intensity.

About Data Intensity

Data Intensity is a trusted Managed Services Provider, delivering business transformative solutions and services tailored to help our customers succeed in a hybrid, multi-cloud world. Our purpose-built solutions and services target the technologies and platforms that power our customers' business transformations - from front-end strategy and design to implementation and migration to ongoing support and operation - all from a single provider. Customers choose us - and stay with us - because working with Data Intensity allows them to focus on their critical business needs while we focus on their applications and multi-cloud investments to drive faster time-to-value.

Data Intensity is an Oracle Platinum Partner and a Microsoft Gold Competency Partner for several Cloud and Database Platforms and Applications.

Foto - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1163030/Data_Intensity_Cory_Brothers_Shipping_Case_Study.jpg

Foto - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1163031/Data_Intensity_Oracle_Platinum_Partner.jpg

PDF - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1163032/Data_Intensity_Oracle_to_Azure_Safe_Switch.pdf

PDF - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1163033/Data_Intensity_and_Cory_Brothers_Shipping_Migrate_Platforms.pdf

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/543413/Data_Intensity_Logo.jpg
In a bilateral decision, New Zealand and Australia might reportedly form a "travel bubble" that would enable the travellers across both countries to resume international trips without the 14-day mandatory quarantine. The unique discussion, led by New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern and Australias PM Scott Morrison and state premiers will be held in a meeting scheduled for May 5, as per media reports. Both countries want to adopt a co-operative approach towards the restoration of normalcy as they emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Australias national cabinet meeting would table the trans-Tasman reopening proposal, PM Scott Morrison told the press conference, saying that the two countries have held the dialogue and managed to deploy some successful strategies. Further, he said, New Zealands Ardern was invited to attend the administrations discussions last week, adding, that the New Zealands flattened curve with zero cases of COVID-19 manifested positive signs for the travel deal.

Meanwhile, Ardern told the news conference in Wellington that New Zealanders must expect the deal as a long-term provision. She said, the deal would not be executed in a matter of a couple of weeks or three, but the two nations had to ensure the health safety of the people to achieve the gains. The enviable position of the two nations having curbed the transmission rate led to the economic resumption plans in the next stages that include this engagement in the strategy, Ardern was quoted saying. Both the nations have a strong record for fighting the novel coronavirus, she added, while speaking at the conference.

Read: 'We Don't Know How It Will End': Hunger Stalks Amid Coronavirus Crisis In America

Read: Coronavirus Outbreak: Worldwide Cases Cross 3.5 Million, Death Toll At 248,291

Rugby team permitted to Australia

Earlier, Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield announced that New Zealand has witnessed no additional virus-related fatalities since March 16. Further, he said, it was symbolic of the effort the countrys administration, healthcare, and frontline system and the citizens had put in. It was the first day of recording zero cases in New Zealand, and the country wants to keep it that day before it restores normalcy, Bloomfield said. A New Zealand rugby team was permitted to travel to Australia to begin training for a tournament while undergoing 14 days of quarantine, according to media reports.

Read: Isolated By Oceans: Hawaii, Other Islands Tamp Down Coronavirus Outbreak

Read: New Mexico Reports 118 New Coronavirus Cases, 12 More Deaths
: The Union Territory, which



currently has three active cases of COVID-19, limped back to normalcy on Monday following easing of the lockdown.

However, confusion surfaced among the traders and merchants in busy shopping centres as to whether the business establishments could restart business.

A spokesman of the Federation of Traders of Union Territory of Puducherry told PTI that lack of clarity on the part of the government as to which shops would be permitted and would not has landed the businessmen in utter chaos.

He said the neighbouring Tamil Nadu government had come out with clear announcements leaving no space for uncertainty or confusion.

"Based on the general announcement, the territorial Chief Minister made Sunday shopowners at Jawaharlal Nehru Street, a shopping hub in the town, keeping their fingers crossed whether or notthey could re-open the establishments," he said.

The spokesman also pointed out that while businessmen attempted to restart activity on Nehru street some police personnel intervened and directed them not to open them. "Thus a difference of opinion has emerged between the businessmen and the authorities, which should be clarified by the government," he said.

He said there were standard operating procedures evolved by the Centre which should be followed while the Union Territory continued to have lockdown with restrictions being eased.

In the meanwhile, the opposition AIADMK legislator Vayyapuri Manikandan held talks with the merchants and traders on Nehru street in a bid to help them wriggle out of the chaos.

Liquor shops remained closed as the Chief Minister V Narayanasamy had at the end of his cabinet meeting on Sunday said no decision has been taken on the question of re-opening liquor shops.

He had said the government was watching the prevailing situation in other states on the question of resuming liquor business and would then take a decision.

Hotels resumed business although only takeaways were permitted. A section of jewellery shops and also tailor marts in some pockets and industries were among those which recommenced work in the wake of the announcement by the Chief Minister on Sunday.

Traffic resumed in most of the pockets and loading and unloading of commodities like rice was back to normal in the town.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The report provided three scenarios with loss estimates for those classes  an optimistic scenario, a moderate scenario, and a severe scenario.

In the optimistic scenario, which presumes a return to a pre-COVID-19 state following three months of social distancing, Willis Towers Watson estimated there would be up to US$11 billion in COVID-19 insured losses within the selected lines.

In the moderate scenario  a gradual return to a pre-COVID-19 state following six months of social distancing  the company estimated there would be US$32 billion in COVID-19 insured losses.

In the severe scenario  health impacts approaching the scale of the 1918 flu pandemic  the company estimated US$80 billion in COVID-19 insured losses for the selected lines and geographies.

Beyond its devastating human cost, the COVID-19 pandemic has swiftly upended economic activity around the world, said Alice Underwood, global leader for insurance consulting and technology at Willis Towers Watson. At this point, it appears that the industry-wide level of insurance loss could exceed that resulting from the 2001 World Trade Center event. Given the potential scale and systemic nature of pandemic loss, discussions about the need for some sort of government backstop to address future pandemic risk have already begun.

The UK insurance industry has already begun discussions with the UK government-backed terrorism reinsurance pooling arrangement, Pool Re, to provide pandemic cover. The French government has set up a working group to investigate how insurance for black swan events can be provided in the future, Willis Towers Watson said.

The report also estimated the potential offset effect on US and UK auto insurance. For insurers with large auto insurance books  especially in the US  the report predicted that social distancing policies would reduce the number of miles driven and result in a material drop in incurred claims. This would enable significant premium rebates, Willis Towers Watson said.

Based on our moderate scenario, we estimate a potential drop in US personal auto losses of US$40 billion relative to expectations going into 2020, said Christopher Bozman, senior director at Willis Towers Watson. However, premium rebates given by auto insurers already may exceed US$10 billion and continue to grow. The ultimate extent of rebates is highly uncertain and will depend on insurers reactions to emerging data related to frequency reductions.

Portfolio management is also becoming increasingly important, Willis Towers Watson said. The company stressed that top-quartile organisations should manage their portfolios by engaging in forward-looking management rather than simply reacting in the aftermath of an event.

With the world heading towards a recession, the length of which our scenarios range between six months and three years  with falling payroll, GDP, global trade and travel  it has never been more important for insurers to perform a strategic assessment of their portfolios, said Richard Clarkson, Willis Towers Watson head of London market consulting. Expected reductions in premium income opportunities, combined with changing risk profiles, will challenge any insurers pre-COVID-19 business plans. We see strategic portfolio management as a major area of focus to achieve adequate returns, and indeed profitable growth, over the next three years.

Last week, Willis Towers Watson stated that that the COVID-19 outbreak had not had a material adverse impact on its financial results for Q1. However, the company said that it expected the pandemic could negatively impact its revenue and operating results for the remainder of the year.
According to Ukraines State Border Guard Service, 13,000 people have arrived in the country over the last 24 hours

Terminal B of Ukraine's biggest airport Open source

During the last day, more than 350 Ukrainians have returned to their homeland from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, according to Ukraines State Border Guard Service.

They arrived via two flights from Sharm el-Sheikh and Dubai, went through temperature screening, and installed Diya application.

"Over the last 24 hours, the State Border Guard officers have registered 13,000 people for entry and exit at the border crossing points at the state border," the statement said.

It is worth noting that 300 Ukrainian citizens returned from Italy, Armenia and Sweden on April 29.

As we reported earlier, on May 2, employees of Ukraine's State Border Guard Service checked about 15,000 people for entry and exit: more than 550 of them returned to Ukraine via special flights.

More than 550 passengers arrived in Ukraine with these airplanes. Among the arrivals, no people with fever or complaints of symptoms of acute respiratory viral infections were found. Passengers of these flights chose the quarantined restrictions using the application Diy Udoma. After checking the registration service in the application, these officers the persons went to a two-week self-isolation at the addresses indicated by them," the statement said.
Pulitzer winners Christopher Knight and Molly O'Toole. (Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Times has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for art critic Christopher Knight's watchdog coverage of plans for the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and reporter Molly O'Toole's audio story about U.S. asylum officers' discontent with President Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy.

The prizes were awarded Monday in the criticism and audio reporting categories. O'Toole and The Times shared the audio prize with journalists from "This American Life" and Vice.

The Times was also a finalist in three other categories:

 In breaking news reporting, for the staff's coverage of the Conception boat fire, which killed 34 people off Santa Barbara in September. The Pulitzer board cited "dynamic coverage that expertly blended multimedia components, frequent updates and rich narrative."

 In commentary, for Steve Lopez's "purposeful columns about rising homelessness in Los Angeles, which amplified calls for government action to deal with a long-visible public crisis." It marked the fourth time since 2012 that Lopez has been a finalist for his columns.

 In explanatory reporting, for "a deeply researched examination of the difficult choices Californians must make as climate change erodes precious coastline." The project, which included an interactive game showing the threat posed by rising seas, was produced by environmental reporter Rosanna Xia, graphics and data journalist Swetha Kannan, and news application developer Terry Castleman.

The Times has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes, the first coming in 1942.

The Pulitzer judges cited O'Toole and Vice freelancer Emily Green for The Out Crowd, broadcast on NPR's "This American Life," for "revelatory, intimate journalism that illuminates the personal impact of the Trump administrations 'Remain in Mexico' policy."

O'Toole, 33, had covered immigration and border security for a decade and decided to look closely at a new policy targeting asylum seekers, not just people who had illegally crossed the border.

Story continues

She found veteran asylum officers deeply troubled by directives that effectively forced them to push many Mexican and Central American immigrants back to deadly violence in their home countries.

"The officers felt very strongly about refugee asylum and the idea of the U.S. as a safe haven," she said. "Now they were taking part in a policy that they felt was wrong, morally and legally. But they had few choices, either continue being part of this administration or quit and lose their career."

Audio reporting is a new Pulitzer category in 2020.

In honoring Knight, the board cited his work "for demonstrating extraordinary service by a critic, applying his expertise and enterprise to critique a proposed overhaul of the L.A. County Museum of Art and its effect on the institution's mission."

Knight, who had been a Pulitzer finalist three times since he joined The Times in 1989, first noticed that most of the coverage of the project focused on the museum's architecture and aesthetics with no regard for the purpose it was supposed to serve.

"The building design was going to have a profound effect on how the campus was going to operate in the future," Knight said. "No one was discussing that."

Knight, 69, noted a dramatic loss of exhibition space, and that the new layout would have curators working in a building across the street from the museum, separated from the art. Then there were the gallery walls.

He wrote a May column that began:

How do you hang paintings on concrete walls?

With great difficulty is the joke answer.

With great difficulty" is the serious answer too. Hanging paintings on cast concrete isnt easy.

But thats apparently what the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has in mind, beginning in four or five years, when a controversial $650-million structure opens on the Wilshire Boulevard campus. ... The gallery walls will be made of the stuff.

Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine congratulated Knight and O'Toole for their prizes during a video staff meeting, rather than the traditional champagne celebration in the newsroom  an accommodation for coronavirus restrictions.

"I also want to note that we were finalists in five different categories," Pearlstine said, "which to my mind was an extraordinary reflection on all of the good work that was done last year under what  until this year  I would have called extraordinarily difficult circumstances. But really, through all of the year, the one thing that was constant was the commitment to great quality journalism and I think everyone in the organization did extraordinary work on extraordinary stories."

In other categories, the prestigious public service prize was awarded to the Anchorage Daily News, with contributions from ProPublica, for a series revealing that a third of Alaskas villages had no police protection.

The New York Times took home three prizes, including one for investigative reporting, for an expose of New York Citys taxi industry showing "how lenders profited from predatory loans that shattered the lives of vulnerable drivers."

Lalo Alcaraz, a Los Angeles resident and creator of the daily comic strip "La Cucaracha," which appears in The Times, was a finalist for editorial cartooning "for his irreverent and poignant cartoon commentary for local and national issues from a distinctly Latinx perspective."

"Ear Hustle," a podcast about life behind bars produced by inmates of San Quentin State Prison, was a finalist in audio reporting. It was created by Nigel Poor, an artist who volunteered at the prison, and inmates Earlonne Woods and Rahsann Thomas.

In the arts, "The Central Park Five," by Anthony Davis, which premiered at the Long Beach Opera, won for music.

Author Colson Whitehead won the fiction category for "Nickel Boys," a "spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption."

A special citation was given to Ida B. Wells, the freed-slave turned investigative journalist and civil rights activist who helped found the NAACP, "for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching." Wells died in 1931.

The citation comes with a bequest by the Pulitzer Prize board of at least $50,000 in support of her mission, the board announced.

Dana Canedy, administrator of the Pulitzers, noted the logistical difficulties in getting top journalists and critics together to make this year's selections.

"In the past, we have announced the prizes from Columbia Universitys journalism school," she said. "This year, of course, is different. Im speaking to you today from my living room."
(Newser)  If you're bold enough to want to take a cruise this summer, you may be able to via Carnival Cruise Line. NBC News reports that on Monday the company announced that select North American cruises would go back online beginning Aug. 1, with eight ships leaving ports in Miami and Port Canaveral, Florida, and Galveston, Texas. In a statement posted to Twitter after its announcement, the company faulted some media reports "that have not fully conveyed the contents of our previous media statement ... Carnival reiterates that this is our current contingent plan ... Any resumption of cruise operationswhenever that may beis fully dependent on our continued efforts in cooperation with federal, state, local, and international governments."

story continues below

All other North American operations will remain on ice through Aug. 31. NPR reports all cruise lines have been prevented from leaving US ports due to a No Sail Order issued by the CDC in March; it is currently in effect through July 24 or when the Secretary of Health and Human Services determines COVID-19 is no longer a public health emergency. In its earlier statement, Carnival gave explained it is "focusing our return to service on a select number of homeports where we have more significant operations that are easily accessible by car for the majority of our guests." Bloomberg reports there are steals to be had: It spotted a 5-day cruise from Galveston to Cozmel, Mexico, at the start of August for about $28 per daya figure that includes your food. (Read more Carnival Cruise Lines stories.)
New Delhi: Wine and beer shops in Ghaziabad will open from Tuesday (May 5, 2020) after over 40 days of dry spell due to the coronavirus lockdown across the country. The district administration has prepared a list of shops that will open from Tuesday.

The timing for the liquor shops to function has been set between 10 am to 7 pm.

The administration has also issued strict guidelines which would include:

- More than five customers will not be able to go to the liquor store at one time.

- A face mask will be mandatory for shopkeepers and customers.

- There will be no facility for drinking liquor at retail shops and model shops.

- The canteens inside the shop will remain closed.

The people living in the COVID-19 hotspot areas in Ghaziabad will have to wait longer to get alcohol as the doors of the beer and wine shops will remain shut in such areas.

The liquor shops across the country were re-opened on Monday where the customers were also seen breaking the social distancing norms, forcing authorities to shut the stores in some places. Many places like New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Lucknow also witnessed chaotic queues outside the government-run alcohol shops.

On the other hand, Karnataka on Monday collected over 45 crores through its first-day liquor sale.
YEREVAN.  If a referendum to amend one article of the Constitution were held in Armenia, the majority of polling stations would be equipped with video surveillance cameras. Tigran Mukuchyan, Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), said this at Mondays sitting of the parliamentary Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs.

But Mukuchyan admitted that it would be impossible to provide all the polling stations with such cameras, as then serious technical problems would arise. The head of the CEC noted that they will be able to provide a corresponding connection only for 92-93% of polling stations. He explained that it is technically very difficult to ensure such connection in remote settlements.

He recalled, however, that in addition to political parties, there are many NGOs in Armenia, noting that the latter are able to send their proxies to those remote polling stations to ensure the legitimacy of the voting process.
English Lithuanian

The Management Board of PLLC Kauno Energija (hereinafter  the Company) (code  235014830) assessed the results of Companys business activity of the 1 quarter of the year 2020 and financial state as at March 31, 2020 and approved PLLC Kauno Energija consolidated and Companys non-audited results of the 1 quarter of the year 2020.

The result of Companys business activities of the 1 quarter of the year 2020 according to the International Financial Reporting Standards is profit (before taxes) in amount of EUR 1,901 thousand (the profit of the 1 quarter of the year 2019 was EUR 4,631 thousand), turnover from sales is EUR 20,214 thousand (in the 1 quarter of the year 2019 it was EUR 28,372 thousand). The profit of the Group which consists of PLLC Kauno Energija and its subsidiaries LLC Kauno Energija NT (code  303042623) and LLC Petrasiunu katiline (code  304217723), amounts to EUR 2,228 thousand (before taxes) (the profit of the 1 quarter of the year 2019 amounts to EUR 5,086 thousand), turnover from sales amounts to EUR 20,210 thousand (turnover from sales of the 1 quarter of the year 2019 amounted to EUR 28,366 thousand).

The rate of critical liquidity of the Company that makes comparison between short term assets without stocks and short term liabilities as at the end of reporting period (March 31, 2020), increased from 0.95 to 1.29 during the period from the end of 2019 (the rate of the Group increased from 0.92 to 1.28). The EBITDA of the Company of the 1 quarter of the year 2020 is EUR 3,758 thousand (EBITDA of the 1 quarter of the year 2019 was EUR 6,423 thousand), and EBITDA of the Group is EUR 4,239 thousand (EBITDA of the 1 quarter of the year 2019 was EUR 7,032 thousand).

Companys turnover from sales of the 1 quarter of the year 2020 decreased by 28.8 per cent in comparison with the same period of the year 2019 due to the 11.7 per cent less amount of heat sold and due to 18.6 per cent decreased average heat selling price.

We hereby present an Interim Non-Audited Financial Statements of the 1 quarter of the year 2020 together with confirmation of responsible persons.

Loreta Miliauskiene, Senior Economist of Technology and Economic Analysis Department, tel. +370 37 305 855

Attachment
The coronavirus pandemic caught African leaders unprepared. As the situation escalated rapidly, with the global death toll reaching tens of thousands in a matter of weeks, they were unable to come up with and implement homegrown solutions to stem the spread of the disease in their countries.

As a result, they went on to copy the strategies of other countries, imposing strict lockdowns and closing their borders. The rushed and broadly contentious imposition of rigid lockdowns in Africa, however, unleashed widespread social instability, hunger and profound economic uncertainty, leaving vendors, small-scale farmers and undocumented migrants struggling to survive.

On April 16, for example, informal vendors rallied against a proposed 21-day coronavirus lockdown in Malawi. A day after the march, in response to a petition filed by the Malawi Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC), Malawis High Court temporarily barred the government from implementing a 21-day lockdown. The crux of the HRDCs opposition to a lockdown in Malawi is the lack of adequate social safety measures to support underprivileged people.

Zimbabwe, meanwhile, is also struggling to maintain a lockdown which has caused immense hardships for vendors and small traders who are restricted from working.

This could not have happened at a worse time: Zimbabwe is overwhelmed by economic and humanitarian challenges. According to the World Food Programme, 7.7 million people, roughly half of the countrys population, are food insecure. Clearly, a hastily convened British-style lockdown is exacerbating a crippling food crisis and compounding a litany of long-established economic problems.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that at 60.6 percent, Zimbabwe has the largest informal economy in Africa. And in a nation where 90 percent of the population is reliant on informal employment, any extended, unsubsidised absence from work is certainly a recipe for disaster.

The National Vendors Union Zimbabwe has revealed that informal vendors are going through a tough period and facing extreme hunger, especially without government support to lean on.

To the east of Zimbabwe, Mozambique is hardly faring any better. There, the peasantry constitutes 80 percent of the economically active population, producing 90 percent of the food available in the country.

A 30-day state of emergency, beginning on April 1, declared by President Filipe Nyusi, has, according to the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, bred devastating consequences for small-scale farmers in three ways.

Peasant farmers are selling their products way below the market price as the supply chain has broken down. They are struggling to buy basic commodities due to reduced income from crop sales. And the lockdown regulations have affected the supply of agrarian labour in rural areas.

Elsewhere, in South Africa, the questionable classification of essential workers and services has left many vendors, small business owners and traders reeling from the loss of business enforced by a national shutdown. Yet it is township-based businesses and self-styled traders that stand to suffer the most.

Although registered spaza shops (informal convenience shops usually run from private residences) have been allowed to operate during an extended lockdown, not every informal trader or spaza is catered for.

Small Business Development Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, under the pretext of safeguarding the quality of food and surety of the quality of products, cast doubt on whether foreign-owned spaza shops would be allowed to operate during the lockdown.

Yet any exclusionary measures might spell financial doom for migrant-owned spaza shops which have long been targets of xenophobic looting. Ntshavheni, nevertheless, also did not clarify whether thousands of migrant-owned spaza shops can seek economic aid from the 500 million South African rands ($26.5m) relief fund established for small businesses.

The all-round, critical desperation for help is palpable and the government is inundated with requests for food parcels. Although the Unemployment Insurance Fund is processing applications to subside incomes for unpaid employees, experts estimate 45 percent of all workers are not eligible for financial aid.

Undocumented migrants, however, cannot apply to receive financial aid or food parcels, and the government has not provided clarity on how undocumented migrants can access essential healthcare services or possibly much-needed money.

South Africas unprecedented $26.5bn coronavirus support package includes a special six-month-long COVID-19 grant of 350 rands ($18) for the unemployed. Despite this vital intervention, the National School Nutrition Programme remains shut, potentially leaving nine million children vulnerable to hunger.

Critics of the governments handling of the lockdown contend more must be done to help poor people. The South African Federation of Trade Unions and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union believe the $18 benefit falls way short of meeting the monthly needs of unemployed and historically disadvantaged individuals residing in townships and marginalised informal settlements.

The comprehensive problems associated with lockdowns in Southern Africa have resulted in empty food markets in Ghana and Uganda. In Nigeria, a combination of corruption at roadblocks, regulations and an extended lockdown in Lagos, have increased transport and operational costs for vendors and farmers, leaving many with depressed financial returns.

African governments must find local, workable solutions to enforce social distancing that would allow crucial economic activities to flourish.

That large, wealthy agricultural and food manufacturing companies have been allowed to operate while poor and essential service providers in townships and rural areas grapple with red tape and adverse regulations is a sad indictment on agreed national commitments to facilitating inclusive economic participation.

Post-COVID-19, many African states might struggle to meet the growing expectations of citizens whose livelihoods have been severely disrupted or irretrievably destroyed by the unintended consequences of enacting unworkable lockdowns.

Going forward, governments must consider establishing a universal basic income grant and formally recognising the importance of informal economies to Africas social and economic wellbeing and development.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Theatres may have to keep their doors bolted until next year, producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh has warned.

The billionaire West End titan, who produced acclaimed musicals including Les Miserables and Hamilton, cautioned that it was impossible for theatres to plan for the future as long as social distancing measures are in place.

Theatres have been forced to cancel performances until May 31, as the world remains in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some have gone online including the National Theatre, which has started streaming performances of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Sir Cameron Mackintosh said that theatres may have to remain closed until next year. He is pictured above at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, after winning the Lebedev Award in 2018

Theatres in the West End have been bolted since the UK's coronavirus lockdown began

Sir Mackintosh told Michael Ball on BBC Radio 2 it would be tough to get the venues open again because, 'we want the audience to feel safe, and we want the actors to feel safe.'

'For major productions both sides of the Atlantic, the truth is until social distancing doesn't exist any more, we can't even plan to reopen.

'We will be back, but we need time to get back. If we don't hear (about lifting lockdown) in a few weeks, I think the truth is we won't be able to come back until early next year.

'I think that's quite clear.'

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber warned at the start of April theatres were likely to remain closed until September at the earliest. 'I'm hoping for maybe October on Broadway,' he added.

National Theatre director Rufus Norris said it would be 'completely irresponsible' for venues not to consider the 'worst-case scenario'.

'We can't deny the fact that getting 1,000 people in a room together for three hours inside isn't what people are thinking about doing at the moment,' he said.

Andrew Lloyd Webber warned at the start of April theatres may have to remain closed until September at the earliest

Playwright James Graham, pictured at The Olivier Awards at London's Royal Albert Hall, said an 'aggressive bailout' of the sector will be needed due to the lockdown

Birmingham Hippodrome is among those planning not to re-open until late spring 2021, reports The Stage.

Many theatres have taken advantage of the government's furlough scheme - under which it will pay 80 per cent of employees wages - but this will run out in June.

Playwright James Graham warned on April 13 that an 'aggressive bailout' of the theatre sector is needed to help it survive the lockdown period.

He said that in a few months 'all the reserves will have dried up and there will be no money left'.

'I don't even know if there will be a theatre and film industry that we can recognise when this is all over,' he said.

The UK economy has been in shutdown for six weeks owing to the coronavirus outbreak, with the government warning it is unlikely to be lifted in the near future.

Scotland dismissed calls to ease the lockdown today, saying there is no prospect of 'meaningful' change this week. Nicola Sturgeon said the situation is so delicate curbs cannot be significantly erased.

The Prime Minister is expected to unveil an exit strategy to the nation, having previously delayed the announcement as frantic work continues in Whitehall.

He posted a video to Twitter today saying the 'worst thing' that could be done is to 'ease up' too soon.
Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia Edgars Rinkevics discussed the development of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries despite the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The foreign ministers of the two countries discussed these issues in a phone call on Monday, the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported.

We need to redouble our efforts to support business and exporters and promote trade between our countries. This will help the economies of Ukraine and Latvia overcome the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kuleba said.

In this context, he welcomed the launch in Latvia of the interactive electronic platform Ukrainian Trade House, which began working in April. The platform creates additional opportunities for processing commercial offers of Ukrainian exporters, promoting Ukrainian products on the European market and concluding direct contracts.

The Ukrainian foreign minister also commended the decision of the Government of Latvia to restore the work of the Latvian Investment and Development Agency in Ukraine.

The ministers spoke in favor of promptly agreeing on the date of the next meeting of the Ukrainian-Latvian Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Industrial, Scientific and Technical Cooperation as soon as the quarantine restrictions imposed in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic are lifted.

The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Latvia discussed the security situation in Donbas, the state of the negotiation process in the Normandy format.

Edgars Rinkevics reaffirmed Latvia's consistent support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The ministers agreed that the sanctions policy towards Russia should be maintained until the complete de-occupation of Ukrainian territories and the full implementation of the Minsk agreements.

The interlocutors noted the effective cooperation of Ukraine and Latvia in international organizations, in particular the UN General Assembly. Dmytro Kuleba and Edgars Rinkevics emphasized the importance of a joint struggle for historical truth.

Kuleba congratulated his Latvian colleague on the 30th anniversary of the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia.

According to the Foreign Ministry, bilateral trade volumes at the end of 2019 amounted to USD 564 million.

ish
Delhi BJP leaders on Monday asked the AAP government to reconsider its decision on opening of liquor shops in the national capital, saying it may lead to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Leader ofOpposition inDelhi Assembly, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri criticised the Delhi government's decision to open liquor shops, claiming it can increase coronavirus positive cases by up to 10 per cent.

About 150 government liquor outlets opened across the city for the first time since the lockdown was imposed by the city government on March 23 in Delhi.

Queues as long as 1-3 kilometres were seen outside liquor stores, with people paying scant attention towards wearing masks and maintaining social distancing norms.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor asked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Commissioner of Police A K Srivastava to review the decision of opening liquor shops.

In a letter to both Kejriwal and Srivastava, he said policemen should not be deployed to handle people outside liquor stores as they run the risk of contracting the infection.

Bidhuri who had on Sunday, written a letter to Kejriwal against his government's decision to open liquor shops, said lockdown restrictions were being violated outside such stores.

"Opening of liquor shops in the capital caused huge crowds which completely broke the lockdown norms. There were reports of police resorting to lathicharge to control the situation. There has been an open violation of the rules of social distancing," he said in another letter to Kejriwal on Monday.

He said both liquor sellers and buyers are at risk of being infected in the wake of cash transactions during the sale and purchase of alcohol.

He urged the chief ministerto reconsider the decision to open liquor shops in view of the serious condition of coronavirus in the city. Sale of liquor should be immediately stopped, he added.

Delhi BJP MLA Vijender Gupta tweeted,"The scenes outside liquor shops in Delhi are worrying. It seems CM @arvindkejriwal did not have a contingency plan to deal with the situation at hands. People gathering in large numbers shows mishandling of the situation by the administration.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An Ohio resident prepares to vote in Columbus, Ohio, on April 28, 2020. (Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images)

Ohio Governor Reversed Mask Order Because It Went Too Far

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said an order he issued requiring residents wear masks inside stores went too far.

DeWine announced the order on April 27 but reversed it the next day before it went into effect.

It became clear to me that that was just a bridge too far, that people were not going to accept the government telling them what to do, DeWine said May 3 during an appearance on ABCs This Week.

And so we put out dozens and dozens of orders, that was one that it just went too far.

While customers arent required to wear masks in the updated guidance, they are encouraged to do so.

Unless you have a physical reason you cant wear the mask, and we understand that, but when you go into a retail store, that is the kind thing to do, DeWine said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gives his victory speech after winning the Ohio gubernatorial race at the Sheraton Capitol Square in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 6, 2018. (Justin Merriman/Getty Images)

Wearing masks helps protect grocery store workers and others who interact frequently with the general public, according to health experts.

Ohios mask recommendations center around the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

The virus is believed to primarily spread between people within six feet of each other through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Federal officials began recommending in April that people wear masks in places such as grocery stores where maintaining six feet between themselves and others is difficult. They cited a growing body of evidence pointing to some transmission of the virus coming from people who are infected but dont show symptoms.

DeWine said at an April 28 press conference that he reversed his order after hearing from a lot of different people, including a mother who has an autistic son and said it would be a problem for him.

Those people felt that I may wear a mask, or I may not wear a mask, but the government should not be telling me what to do, DeWine told reporters. Were going to leave it up to the individual customer.

Businesses can bar customers from entering if a customer arrives without a mask, state officials said.

A family protests outside the Ohio statehouse in opposition of Gov. Mike DeWines stay-at-home order in Columbus, Ohio, on May 1, 2020. (Brad Lee/AFP via Getty Images)

After an ABC host noted on May 3 a poll that showed that Republican respondents were more likely to go out to restaurants and other establishments as the country begins to reopen, DeWine said that GOP members are, in general, less inclined to have the government tell them what to do.

And thats generally how I am. Im a conservative Republican. I think were better off not having the government tell us what to do, he said.

Ohio had 19,094 confirmed CCP virus cases as of May 3. The state doesnt release figures on how many patients have recovered.

Most people who become infected recover without hospital care. The virus primarily causes severe illness in the elderly and those with underlying health conditions such as obesity, cancer, and kidney disease.

Nearly 3,800 people have been hospitalized in Ohio, including 1,078 intensive care unit admissions.

State officials have recorded 957 deaths from COVID-19, as well as 81 probable deaths.
<! Abachas loot >

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

The Nigerian government on Monday said it has received $311.7 million looted by the late despotic leader, Gen. Sani Abacha from the United States.

The loot was reportedly repatriated from the United States and the Bailiwick of Jersey.

A statement issued by Dr Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Attorney General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami on Monday stated that the government received approximately $311,797,866.11 of the Abacha loot from the US and Jersey.

The statement said the amount increased significantly from over $308m as stated in a press release in February to over $311m because of the interest that accrued from February 3, 2020, to 28th April, 2020, when the fund was transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The government said the litigation process for the return of these assets titled Abacha III began in 2014, while the diplomatic process leading to the signing of the Asset Return Agreement on February 3, 2020, by the governments of Nigeria, the US and Jersey kicked-off in 2018.

According to the government, this agreement was based on international law and cooperation measures that set out the procedures for the repatriation, transfer, disposition and management of the assets.

Read the full statement:

*FG RECEIVES OVER $311M ABACHA III RECOVERED ASSETS FROM US, THE BAILIWICK OF JERSEY*

Attorney-General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami said the Federal Republic of Nigeria on Monday 4th May, 2020 confirmed the receipt of approximately three hundred and eleven million, seven hundred and ninety-seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty-six dollars and eleven cents ($311,797,866.11) of the Abacha assets repatriated from the United States and the Bailiwick of Jersey.

This is contained in a press release issued by Dr Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, and made available to newsmen in Abuja on Monday 4th May, 2020

According to Malami, the amount increased significantly from over $308million mentioned in the press release issued in February, 2020 to over $311million because of the interest that accrued from 3rd February, 2020 to 28th April, 2020 when the fund was transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

He noted that the litigation process for the return of these assets titled Abacha III commenced in 2014 while the diplomatic process that culminated into the signing of the Asset Return Agreement on 3rd February, 2020 by the Governments of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, United States of America and the Bailiwick of Jersey commenced in 2018.

This Agreement is based on international law and cooperation measures

that sets out the procedures for the repatriation, transfer, disposition and management of the assets, he said.

The recovery effort further consolidates on the established record of

the administration of president Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government which has a history of recovery of $322m from Switzerland

in 2018 which is being transparently and judiciously deployed in supporting indigent Nigerians as specified in the agreement signed with the Switzerland and the World Bank.

The Attorney General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice who led the negotiation team noted that the Tripartite Agreement and the process towards the implementation represents a major watershed in

International Asset Recovery and Repatriation as it seeks to provide benefit to the victims of corruption.

In line with the 2020 Asset Return Agreement, the fund has been transferred to a Central Bank of Nigeria Asset Recovery designated

account and would be paid to the National Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) within the next fourteen days. The NSIA is responsible for the management and execution of the projects to which

the funds will be applied, the Minister has said.

Malami said the government of Nigeria has committed that the assets will support and assist in expediting the construction of three major infrastructure projects across Nigeria, namely:

1) The Lagos  Ibadan Expressway,

2) Abuja  Kano Road, and

3) The Second Niger Bridge.

He said, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is in the process of establishing a Project Monitoring Team to oversee the implementation

of the projects and report regularly on progress made to the public.

To ensure transparent management of the returned assets, the Nigerian

government will also engage a Civil Society Organisation, who has combined expertise in substantial infrastructure projects, civil

engineering, anti-corruption compliance, anti-human trafficking compliance, and procurement to provide additional monitoring and

oversight. The process for the engagement of the CSO monitor has already commenced with the adverts placed in two Nigeria newspapers 

Daily Trust and the Punch (4th March, 2020 and a Notice of Extension on 17th April, 2020), the Federal Tender Journal (9th and 23rd March,2020), the Economist (14th March, 2020). The advert can also be found on the website of the Federal Ministry of Justice  www.justice.gov.ng

It may be recalled that the recovered funds were laundered through the U.S. banking system and then held in bank accounts in the Bailiwick of Jersey. In 2014, a U.S. Federal Court in Washington D.C. forfeited the money as property involved in the illicit laundering of the proceeds of corruption arising in Nigeria during the period from 1993 to 1998

when General Abacha was Head of State. In 2017, the FRN filed a case

in the Bailiwick of Jersey to assert its authority as the owner of these funds and as the victim of the action of General Abacha.

Malami urged for greater cooperation and mutual respect amongst countries in the implementation of expeditious cooperation measures already set out in the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and in the implementation of the Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR) principles on the repatriation of stolen assets.

He further assured Nigerians that the Federal Government would ensure

that the returned assets are transparently managed.

Information regarding the implementation of this project can be

obtained by sending an email to: asset.project@justice.gov.ng

Signed

*Dr. Umar Jibrilu Gwandu*

(Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations,

Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice)

Monday 4th May, 2020
The physical limits of our world have grown very small in the last few months. A life that was once open to a multitude of surroundings is now confined to a handful of locations  ones home, the nearby supermarket, a local park. Smartphones that once registered a plethora of geolocations and accessed a different countrys mobile service provider every other week are now locked in monogamy with the neighbourhood cell tower. Some of us havent seen our families in months.

Without the physical presence of our nearest and dearest, we rely increasingly on the support of the digital communities of which we are a part, using technologies that allow us to remain close to the people that we are accustomed to seeing around us. Families congregate at home, and the natural congregation point for the WorldTempus family is the WorldTempus homepage.

Creating a home takes a lot of work (ask any parent). Since were just a couple of days past 1 May, which is Labour Day, Id like to take this opportunity to tell you more about the people who tirelessly maintain this ever-growing home for our ever-growing family.

In the editorial team, Michele Brunner is the most experienced and longest-serving member of WorldTempus. Its due to her that our home is continually updated with new things for you to discover, that theyre in the right place at the right time (and in the right language). Keeping things upbeat with a big dose of millennial energy is our newest full-time member, Jordy Bellido, who has induced even the most jaded among us to rediscover watchmaking through the eyes of a fresh enthusiast. Joy Corthesy is a multi-talented writer and photographer with a keen eye for design, and while shes been more of a neighbour who pops in to visit once in a while (in keeping with our metaphor of domesticity), Im happy to say youll all be experiencing the joy of her presence a lot more in the near future. Rounding out the crew is our intern Ana Arroja, whose bright and spirited efforts keep our essential Watchfinder supplies well stocked and has even written some of the more cheerful articles youll find lying around our home.

Behind the scenes, the power duo of Cyrille Ouanich and Liah Millasson-Banon keep electricity running and put food on the table. Without them, this house would be on very shaky foundations indeed. The two Davids (Libert and Schneider) run SEO and design respectively, making sure that no matter how lost you are on the World Wide Web, youll always find your way back to our beautiful home. Every household needs a builder, someone who can do anything from add a new floor to fix a leaky pipe, and thats our programmer Paul-Emile Digbeu. Populating our homes away from home is Isaline Peiry, who is continually finding new ways to take care of the WorldTempus family members who prefer hanging out on Facebook or Instagram. Last but certainly not least is, of course, our grand-patriarch Brice Lechevalier, who, despite having his hands full with running an entire publishing group, still finds the time to make sure were thriving and to chime in with his veteran perspective.

The world outside may be getting smaller, but WorldTempus certainly isnt, and our doors are always open. Welcome home.
The militants opened fire on a naka party of the CRPF at Wangam-Qaziabad in Kralgund area of the district, the officials said

Srinagar: Three CRPF personnel were killed and two others injured when militants opened fire on them at a checkpoint in Kupwara, officials said on Monday, a day after five security personnel lost their lives during an encounter in the district.

A teenaged civilian, reportedly of unsound mental condition, was also killed in the exchange of fire between the security forces and the ultras on Monday, they said.

The militants opened fire on a naka party of the Central Reserve Police Force at Wangam-Qaziabad in Kralgund area of the district, the officials said. They said three CRPF jawans were killed on the spot.

A brief shootout ensued as the CRPF personnel opened retaliatory firing, the officials said.

A 15-year-old civilian boy, identified as Mohammad Hazim Bhat, was also found dead at the scene of the incident, they said, adding he was reportedly mentally challenged.

The area has been cordoned off and additional forces rushed there to track down the assailants, the officials said.

This was second major damage inflicted by militants on security forces in Kupwara district within 48 hours. Five army personnel including two officers and a Jammu and Kashmir policeman were killed during an encounter with militants on Saturday in Handwara area.
A panoramic view of the Milky Way's core, captured from the Atacama Desert in Chile. Emission nebulas are shown in pink, and the blue spots are reflection nebulas. (Image credit: Miguel Claro

Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical "Skyscapes" that connect both Earth and night sky. Join Miguel here as he takes us through his photograph, "The Starry Dusty Field from the Core of Our Milky Way Galaxy."

While astrophotographers typically use long exposures to capture detailed views of stars, galaxies and nebulas, this panorama of the Milky Way galaxy shows how a little exposure can go a long way.

The panorama, which was featured as NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, is composed of only nine 60-second shots that I captured with a 105mm lens at f/1.8 during my recent trip to Atacama Desert in Chile. It reveals a wide, deep-sky field from the core region of our galaxy.

Related: Our Milky Way galaxy's core revealed (photos)

An annotated version of the same image shows where to find nebulas, star clusters and other Milky Way features. (Image credit: Miguel Claro

Against the star-filled background, we can easily recognize many well known deep-sky objects, including several emission nebulas  glowing clouds of interstellar dust and gas  like the Eagle Nebula (also known as Messier 16, or M16), the Omega Nebula (M17), the Lagoon Nebula (M8) and NGC 6357.

The colorful panorama also features some reflection nebulas, or nebulas that emit no light of their own and glow by reflecting light from local stars, and dark nebulas that block light from passing through. All three types of nebulas  emission, reflection and dark nebulas  can be seen together here in the Trifid Nebula (M20).

The image also shows many star clusters, like Messier 23. The blue star pair glowing brightly on the right side of the image is Shaula and Lesath, while are located on the tail of the constellation Scorpius, the scorpion. Above it are two red emission nebulas, NGC 6357 and the Cat's Paw (NGC 6334). In the top right corner, we can see another "pink" object known as the Prawn Nebula, or IC 4628.

The Milky Way's galactic core and all of the objects shown in this image are visible in the night sky this time of year; skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere can see it after midnight and before dawn, while those in the Southern Hemisphere can see it all night long.

To get a print of Claro's amazing astrophotography, visit his fine-art prints store at www.miguelclaro.com/prints. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
ABC NewsBy ASHLEY BROWN, CONOR FINNEGAN and JACK ARNHOLZ, ABC News



(WASHINGTON) -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there are "enormous" signs that the novel coronavirus outbreak originated in a biomedical laboratory in Wuhan, China -- the city where cases first exploded.



"I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan," Pompeo said on ABCs This Week Sunday.



"Do you think they intentionally released that virus, or it was an accident in the lab?" Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz pressed.



"I can't answer your question about that," he said, "because the Chinese Communist Party has refused to cooperate with world health experts."



The White House last week ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to look into whether China concealed information early on about the novel coronavirus, two administration officials told ABC News last week.



Pompeo on Sunday agreed the virus was not manmade.



A recent press release from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that said, "The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified."



Pompeo said that he has "no reason to disbelieve" the intelligence community, adding, "I've seen their analysis. I've seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly. I have no reason to doubt that that is accurate."



The ODNI statement said the intelligence community was investigating whether the outbreak was the result of a lab accident.



The announcement that the ODNI is investigating a possible lab accident as the source of the pandemic is a boost for the unproven theory that President Donald Trump, Pompeo and many senior U.S. officials have pushed for weeks now, even as epidemiological experts say its likelihood is rare.



Several public health and epidemiological experts have told ABC News it is "vastly more likely" that the first infection -- what's called "zoonotic spillover" -- occurred in the wild, given the "huge barriers between people and viruses in the laboratory setting," according to Dr. Christine Johnson, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development's Predict project and a professor at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.



Pompeo has been central to the administrations pushback against the Chinese government for weeks, earning him vitriol from Chinese state media, which called him an "enemy of mankind" last week.



"China behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and confuse," Pompeo said.



Xinhua, China's state-run news, reported late Saturday that there are neither rational nor legal grounds for U.S. politicians' accusations regarding China's response, "it is only an absurd claim featuring typical U.S. bullying."



"Like the rest of the world, China is a victim of the pandemic, not an accomplice with the virus," the report said.



China said they have done what "should be and needs to be done" in the face of a pandemic.



A report from the Department of Homeland Security claims that "the Chinese government intentionally concealed the severity of COVID-19 from the international community in early January while it stockpiled medical supplies by both increasing imports and decreasing exports."



"China likely cut its exports of medical supplies prior to its January WHO notification that COVID-19 is a contagion," according to the report, which was shared with law enforcement and government agencies on Friday.



Pompeo also spoke to reports Sunday about North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, who appeared to surface in new images on Friday after a three-week absence from the public eye.



"We've seen the same images from yesterday that the world saw. It looks like Chairman Kim is alive and well. Regardless of any of that our mission has remained the same. To convince the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons," Pompeo said.



Talks to dismantle North Koreas nuclear weapons program have been all but dead for months and Kim has announced his intention to pursue new nuclear and missile testing. Working-level negotiators last met in October, but neither side has been willing to move first, leaving them deadlocked.



In the meantime, North Korea continues to advance its nuclear weapons program. But Trump continues to tout his relationship with Kim and point to a lack of long-range missile testing as signs of a successful policy.



Amid speculation about Kims health, Trump was among those pouring cold water on the apparent rumors of his being in "grave condition," telling reporters he didnt want to share what information he had and that he simply wished him well.



"We don't know why he chose to leave at that moment. We know there are other extended periods of time which Chairman Kim's been out of public view as well so it's not unprecedented," Pompeo added.



The leader was shown in photos and videos distributed by North Korean media cutting the ribbon at the opening ceremony of a new fertilizer plant.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
With school closed and graduation cancelled, the principal of a high school in suburban Dallas set out April 17 with his wife, a bag of Snickers bars and a mission: visiting each of the 612 seniors at their homes.

Virdie Montgomery, principal of Wylie High School in Wylie, Texas, said he thought it would take only a couple days to see each student, deliver a note and a candy bar, and ask how they were doing. It ended up taking 79 hours across a dozen days, and about 800 miles travelled.

Wearing a mask covered in skulls and crossbones  a tribute to the schools pirate mascot  Montgomery, 66, took a selfie with each student. He told them the school was a much less happy place in their absence, but that one day they would look back on this and snicker.

Then he handed them a candy bar.

I delivered the same lame joke more than 600 times, Montgomery said.

Across the country, high school teachers and administrators are going out of their way to recognize their seniors as the coronavirus pandemic has closed schools and forced the cancellation of proms and graduation ceremonies.

In Texas, a statewide stay-at-home mandate went into effect April 2. At first, Montgomery said, Wylie High School extended its spring break. But when the school was forced to close for the rest of the year, students attitudes changed, he said.

Prom, scholar banquets and other senior traditions were all cancelled.

We are a tradition-laden school, Montgomery said. And golly, they were on the floor with their hearts.

One of the seniors designed a class shirt, the school board delivered signs to every seniors yard, and the school hosted a drive-by cap-and-gown pickup for a graduation ceremony that has yet to be rescheduled. But Montgomery said he did not think it was enough.

The absolute most important thing is that they know that theyre cared about, he said. And it has to be authentic. The most valuable gift that you can give to someone is time. I was basically telling them that I care about them.
We began the month of May with a necessary interview with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, about a sexual-assault allegation. The questioning, of course, came after an introduction that included the unholy litany of accusations against the current president of the United States.

The Biden interview came a few days after a midnight tweet from the president ridiculing a number of media personalities in cruel ways, including the journalist interviewing Biden. And before that tweet was another from the president, announcing that he would be virtually attending Mass at St. Patricks Cathedral the next morning. During the Mass, Cardinal Timothy Dolan acknowledged the president, which predictably incited some anger and politics in the comments on YouTube. But I saw that over 20,000 people were watching, and couldnt help but pray that miracles were happening: little seeds of encounter with God, even through a screen.

I normally work overtime not to let life  or even a column  revolve around tweets, even presidential ones. But I think these two particular ones offer a critical chance for national reflection.

Weve had our lives upended in many ways. Coronavirus has become the priority. Even if we are trying to live as normally as possible, the differences  the kids not being in school, the work meetings via Zoom, the physical masks we wear in a world of too many figurative masks  expose the reality. Many of us know that things wont be the same as before, even as we begin to emerge from quarantine in some places. And yet, you get the sense that the same-old is about to rear its head again  that we are going to fall into the same old politics that bring out the worst in so many of us.

That St. Patricks Mass with so many people tuned in gives me some hope that seeds are being planted. Youve got to wonder, though, when a few days later, the president is back behaving badly on Twitter. But miracles can happen. We are desperately in need of some tone-changing.

During that Mass, Cardinal Dolan preached on the Gospel reading for the day, about the road to Emmaus. Thats the road Christians are meant to be on, always: walking with Jesus, recognizing God in His creations, even when we cant be present for the sacraments of the church.

Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden talk about Christianity. Joe Biden professes to be Catholic, despite his position on abortion, the killing of the innocent unborn. Donald Trump said at the March for Life this January that everyone is made in the image and likeness of God. Does that include those he tweets about and insults? Even those in the media? Even Nancy Pelosi and Sleepy Joe? These are not moral equivalents, to be sure, but how do we look to our fellow man, really?

What this pandemic should be reminding us is that we are all equally vulnerable. Yes, some of us are more susceptible than others to COVID-19, but we will all be vulnerable to something in the end; we are all mortal beings. While some know death is coming sooner rather than later, are any of us ready? Can virtue be seen from our lives? Do we treat people with respect and defend life? I think we have to do both. This time could draw us together, instead of more violently apart, to love our neighbor and protect the vulnerable. Lets do it for real  whether through the potentially noble service of politics, or through the gifts of family or community.

I dont know if Joe Biden is guilty or not, but I do know we need to restart our cultures stance on virtue. We are all sinners, but a society that values goodness and decency would be one that flushes many poisons out of our system. There needs to be a reboot. We probably cant expect it from politics or from those with the loudest microphones, but we can start it by the choices we make, the conversations we engage in and the way we live our lives. May all these virtual encounters with faith, and thoughts and prayers, bear real fruit. As we reopen, let it be a Beatitudinal reset  a start in the virtues.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living.
Venezuela Reports Attempted Naval Invasion by Mercenaries From Colombia  Photos, Videos

Sputnik News

14:41 GMT 03.05.2020(updated 14:43 GMT 03.05.2020)

Venezuela and Colombia have had strained relations for years, with Caracas accusing Bogota of financing and otherwise supporting political forces seeking to overthrow the Maduro government.

The Venezuelan armed forces and police have thwarted an attempted naval invasion by mercenaries attempting to enter the country by sea from neighbouring Colombia, Venezuelan Interior Minister Nestor Reverol has announced.

"We would like to inform and denounce to the national and international community that early this morning, May 3, 2020, a group of terrorist mercenaries coming from Colombia attempted a sea invasion, with the objective to commit terrorist attacks in our country, assassinate leaders of the revolutionary government and to increase the spiral of violence, generate chaos and confusion among the population, and with this, to attempt a new coup d'etat," Reverol said, speaking on Venezuelan television Sunday morning.

According to the interior minister, the mercenaries "attempted to come into the country through fast boats on the coast of Ojeda. But thanks to the fast and effective actions of our armed forces, and of the police task force, some were brought down, and others are now imprisoned," he added.

According to the official, weapons belonging to the mercenaries have also been confiscated.

An investigation is now said to be ongoing into the incident.

Local media have reported that as many as 8 mercenaries have been killed, with two others captured.

Unauthenticated photo evidence has appeared online, purportedly showing some of the mercenaries' equipment, weapons and vehicles. Video footage in the area where the landing attempt was made shows an increased security forces presence, with other footage apparently taken from a local urban area featuring the sound of gunfire and flares lighting up the night sky.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly denounced groups receiving support from Colombia and the US, accusing them of seeking "to undermine the stability of our homeland with violent actions." Last month, Maduro announced the mobilization of artillery in strategic areas to protect the country from incursion.

The latest escalation in tensions between Venezuela, the US and its allies comes after Washington slapped Maduro with "narco-terrorism" charges in March, and posted a $15 million reward for his capture or prosecution.

The long-running Venezuelan crisis escalated in early 2019, when opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido proclaimed himself 'interim president' and called on the democratically elected Maduro government to step down. Maduro has refused to do so, accusing Guiado of trying to carry out a botched coup with the aim of robbing Venezuela of its vast oil and mineral resources.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Ask Bobby Ehrig about his life, and you quickly learn that its all about homeless veterans  from helping them find housing and jobs to cooking for them on camp outings during his off time to talking them down off the ledge when things get really tough.

Ehrigs mission as head of the nonprofit Veterans Integration Centers in Albuquerque is also about saving himself.

Ehrig, an Army master sergeant, was in Ramadi, Iraq, in August 2006 when a suicide bomber driving a flatbed truck with 100 tanks of propane detonated the load. The fireball caused injuries to 56 U.S. and Iraqi personnel and resulted in 16 Iraqi deaths.

Ehrig says he literally died and had to be resuscitated more than once when he was evacuated from Iraq and taken to San Antonio, Texas, where he is from. He underwent 31 surgeries in less than five years to deal with third-degree burns on 40% of his body.

He suffers from neuropathy, or numbness, and is unable to perspire over much of his body. He has hearing loss, corneal scarring, which makes him light-sensitive, and inhalation burns to his throat and lungs.

As for the scarring, My entire head is not bald by design, he says. Im bald because this is all scar tissue.

Also, the 47-year-old decorated veteran says, his wounds include traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

And thats where his work with other veterans comes in.

I have PTSD, but Ive learned to cope with it and deal with it and figure it out, Ehrig says. But its a constant struggle. Part of my recovery is mentoring other guys and gals with their trauma, because they tend not to listen to anybody but other vets.

The center recently moved to a location off Gibson that can provide transitional housing for up to 42 veterans, plus family members. Residents get support services, such as counseling and job help. Other emergency housing options accommodate as many as 75 on any given day.

At the same time, Ehrig and his staff try to educate local businesses about veterans and homelessness in a way that allows us to break barriers to obtaining employment.

A lot of the issue of struggle is that businesses dont know how to easily adapt to hire people in need, Ehrig says. Thats everywhere  not just for military  but just understanding that some people are coming with a little bit of baggage. So we try and work with businesses who are interested in hiring our veterans from our program and letting them know we have supporting services like a family for that individual.

Why do you do this work? I signed up for the military when I was 17, a junior in high school. All I wanted to do was be in the military and be a cop, and I actually got to do both of those in the military. My career got ended abruptly because of my injuries, or Id probably still be in the military. I ended up in the nonprofit business after I got medical retirement in 2008, just because somehow by virtue of my rank, soldiers who were injured used to call me all the time and ask me for guidance and advice. And somehow that transcended over to the nonprofit business, which is probably the closest thing you can get to the military by way of selfless service and helping others in need.

Being in a veteran nonprofit was kind of crucial to me as far as my adult life and then continuing to be able to serve.

Are there any specific cases that youre particularly proud of?

One of the things we do are peer support outings. We have a little campfire talk at the end of each day, and a gentleman who was in program for about three months just all of a sudden  kind of thanked everybody because he said we had saved his life. He said, Five days ago, I was thinking of killing myself. Nothing works. I feel like theres no hope. After getting involved with you guys and actually coming to this event, I see something  that theres light at the end of the tunnel. And thats why we created the programs we did.

Is there a situation that stands out as particularly sad?

We had a gentleman, about 56, 57. He had struggled with drugs the last 15, 18 years. He was the second time in our program. You could see the change in him physically, losing weight and other things. He was remorseful. He was in about five months the second time, and he was doing well but then all of a sudden, he disappeared. Time goes by, and we find out that he passed. We have maybe one or two of those cases a year because people are still people. Things dont always go the right way as much as you try and as much as the resources you give somebody, that happens sometimes with us.

Whats the best advice youve ever gotten?

One of my supervisors in the military sat me down before I went to Iraq the second time and told me, Dont assume that each day is going to work out. And by that he meant no matter what I did, it still might be a bad day. And I have to accept that and process it and kind of just wake up the next day and start all over again. And thats kind of what I do in the nonprofit business.

What were you like as a kid?

My father was in at the end of Vietnam. Im a first-generation Korean-American because my mom was from Korea. My entire family served  in the U.S. or Korean military. When I was a kid, I was always aggressive and assertive. I guess I was Type A. I always helped people. I didnt realize that until I got hurt, and my parents reflected on that. Even if it was as simple as helping someone pick up their groceries, walking the kid who always gets picked on across the street or something. You know, when we deploy, its an opportunity to also do community service projects in the combat zone. People dont realize that you dont just go and fight. When I was in Bosnia, we actually rebuilt a school and got school supplies. When I was in Iraq, we used to help the super-impoverished neighborhoods and try to clean them up and take care of those things.

Whats been your most embarrassing moment?

In my recovery, having my kids have to take care of me. I was basically wrapped up like a mummy. Every time I walked, I was in pain and my son basically had to take me to the bathroom all the time. That was probably the worst thing.

What makes you laugh?

I think probably just life in general. In the business of helping others, you can do the same thing the right way more than once, and it doesnt work. You can talk to somebody, and I could give testimony and do everything perfect to try to get help for veterans, and it doesnt work. Sometimes youve just got to laugh at it.

One-on-One

with Bobby Ehrig
A plastic children's toy has sparked a war amongst the Married At First Sight cast.

Stacey Hampton lashed out at her ex-'husband', Michael Goonan, and his new girlfriend, KC Osborne, on Monday after the pair uploaded a TikTok video in which they played with her son's Nerf gun.

The 26-year-old law graduate said she had left the toy at Michael's house after their split in January and wanted him to return it.

The most pathetic feud in Married At First Sight history: Stacey Hampton is locked in a bitter Instagram war with KC Osborne (left) over a Nerf gun (right, carried by Michael Goonan)

In a since-deleted Instagram Story, Stacey said she was unhappy that Michael and KC had her son's Nerf gun, and she wanted it back.

She then accused KC of imitating her fashion sense by wearing the same thigh-high Stuart Weitzman boots that she owns.

Bizarrely, she also said the former Pussycat Dolls backup dancer was copying her by staying at her preferred hotel in Melbourne, Crown Towers.

She's not happy! Stacey (pictured) lashed out after Michael and KC uploaded a TikTok video on Monday in which they played with her son's Nerf gun. The law graduate, 26, said she had left the toy at Michael's house after their split in January and wanted him to return it

Frustrated by Stacey's claims, KC responded with her own Instagram Story rant, saying she did not know to whom the toy belonged.

She also denied she was copying her by wearing Stuart Weitzman boots and staying at Crown Towers.

'I'm really, really over explaining myself but again, here I am. Firstly, apologies that it was her son's Nerf gun that we used in the video,' said KC, who had just assumed the toy belonged to Michael's two-year-old son, Connor.

'Over explaining myself': Frustrated by Stacey's claims, KC responded with her own Instagram Story rant, saying she did not know to whom the toy belonged

As for the designer boots, she posted a photo of herself wearing them in 2018 as proof she'd owned her pair for two years.

KC also clarified she had stayed at Crown Towers, where Stacey stays during her fortnightly business trips to Melbourne, for strictly work purposes.

'Stop thinking everything is about you, because it's not. I wished you well, I've never come out and said anything nasty about you. If you could just leave me alone, that'd be really good,' she concluded.

Who wore it better? KC also denied copying Stacey by wearing Stuart Weitzman boots, saying she had owned her pair for years. Pictured left: KC in the boots in 2018, and right: Stacey wearing them in 2020

KC also shared a screenshot of a private message Stacey had allegedly sent somebody comparing the 2018 picture of KC wearing the boots to a photo you'd see on 'an escort page'.

'Mean girl much? Calling her out for the mean girl she is! Who puts women down like this?' KC wrote, adding the hashtag #MeanGirlStaceyHampton.

Stacey responded with yet another post to her Instagram Story, which read: 'Do not claim to be the bigger person then use a hashtag to put somebody down.

'I've tried to contact her yet she uses social media to call me out. Contact me please.'

'Mean girl': KC also shared a screenshot of a private message Stacey had allegedly sent somebody comparing the 2018 picture of KC wearing the boots to a photo you'd see on 'an escort page'

Michael later shared his side of the story, which included background information about the Nerf gun that supposedly belonged to Stacey's son.

'I'm getting a lot of messages here to return a Nerf gun to Stacey. To set the record straight, I purchased that Nerf gun in a pack of five,' he said.

'I will return the Nerf gun - except I refuse to pay postage. I ain't sending it express.'

Michael had met Stacey's two sons, Kosta and Kruz, weeks before their relationship ended in January - something Stacey now regrets.
PISCATAWAY, NJ - When alcohol bottles come with conspicuous labels providing information on the risks of alcohol consumption or drinking guidelines, people are better informed about alcohol's harms and may cut down their drinking, according to a series of studies in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

"The results provide the first real-world evidence that relatively large, bright yellow alcohol labels with rotating health messages get noticed by consumers and can increase awareness of national drinking guidelines, improve knowledge of alcohol-related health risks, such as cancer, and reduce alcohol sales compared to control sites without the labels," says Erin Hobin, Ph.D., affiliated scientist at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She is principal investigator on the studies in this series.

The Canadian research, called the Northern Territories Alcohol Label Study, involved placing bright-colored labels on bottles of beer, wine and distilled spirits with one of three brief messages: One label displayed scientific evidence regarding the established link between alcohol and cancer, the second contained the Canadian government's low-risk drinking guidelines and the third provided information about the number of standard drinks in the container.

One of the studies, led by Jinhui Zhao, Ph.D., and Tim Stockwell, Ph.D., both of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, found that adding such labels to alcohol bottles (300,000 labels in all) decreased total sales of alcohol by 6.9% compared with sales in regions without the new labels.

In another article, researchers led by Nour Schoueri-Mychasiw, Ph.D., of Public Health Ontario, found that, among 2,049 participants, awareness of Canada's low-risk drinking guidelines increased nearly three times in the site in which the labels were placed compared with a control location. (Canada recommends no more than two drinks a day for women, no more than three for men and at least two alcohol-free days per week.)

A third study generated controversy. Here, Hobin and her colleagues queried the same 2,049 participants about their knowledge of the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. (The cancer label read, "Chief Medical Officer of Health advises alcohol can cause cancer, including breast and colon cancer.")

Before the label intervention, only about 25% of participants knew alcohol consumption can cause cancer. After the labeling, awareness in Yukon rose to 42%, a 10% greater increase in awareness of the alcohol-cancer link relative to the control site in neighboring Northwest Territories.

However, the cancer label part of these studies was cut short because the alcohol industry protested about the placement of labels on their products. The industry complained that the Yukon Government, who helped coordinate the study and is responsible for alcohol distribution and sales in the territory, did not have legal authority to place such labels, that the labels violated industry's freedom of expression and that the government was defaming alcohol manufacturers.

Under pressure, the Yukon Government shut down the cancer label research in December 2017, only one month after the study's launch.

"I'd describe this study as a David versus Goliath scenario," says Hobin. "Our Yukon partners and research team members worked tirelessly to execute this study and persevered, despite tremendous adversity."

After consultation with legal experts, Stockwell and colleagues concluded, "none of the industry's claims had any merit." In fact, they note that provincial and territorial governments in Canada could be held liable if they do not warn consumers about the link between alcohol and cancer. (The World Health Organization declared alcohol as a human carcinogen more than 30 years ago.)

"Warning labels help drinkers to be better informed about alcohols health risks and prompted many to cut down their drinking, says Stockwell, co-lead on the studies. "This is an especially vital public health intervention now, as we see people at risk of increasing their alcohol intake as they isolate at home during the COVID-19 outbreak."

###

Babor, T. F. (2020). The arrogance of power: Alcohol industry interference with warning label research. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 222-224. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.222

Zhao, J., Stockwell, T., Vallance, K., & Hobin, E. (2020). The effects of alcohol warning labels on population alcohol consumption: An interrupted time series analysis of alcohol sales in Yukon, Canada. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 225-237. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.225

Vallance, K., Stockwell, T., Zhao, J., Shokar, S., Schoueri-Mychasiw, N., Hammond, D., Greenfield, T. K., McGavock, J., Weerasinghe, A., & Hobin, E. (2020). Baseline assessment of alcohol-related knowledge of and support for alcohol warning labels among alcohol consumers in northern Canada and associations with key sociodemographic characteristics. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 238-248. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.238

Hobin, E., Weerasinghe, A., Vallance, K., Hammond, D., McGavock, J., Greenfield, T. K., Schoueri-Mychasiw, N., Paradis, C., & Stockwell, T. (2020). Testing alcohol labels as a tool to communicate cancer risk to drinkers: a real-world quasi-experimental study. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 249-261. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.249

Schoueri-Mychasiw, N., Weerasinghe, A., Vallance, K., Stockwell, T., Zhao, J., Hammond, D., McGavock, J., Greenfield, T. K., Paradis, C., & Hobin, E. (2020). Examining the impact of alcohol labels on awareness and knowledge of national drinking guidelines: A real-world study in Yukon, Canada. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 262-272. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.262

Vallance, K., Vincent, A., Schoueri-Mychasiw, N., Stockwell, T., Hammond, D., Greenfield, T. K., McGavock, J., & Hobin, E. (2020). News media and the influence of the alcohol industry: An analysis of media coverage of alcohol warning labels with a cancer message in Canada and Ireland. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 273-283. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.273

Stockwell, T., Solomon, R., O'Brien, P., Vallance, K., & Hobin, E. (2020). Cancer warning labels on alcohol containers: A consumer's right to know, a government's responsibility to inform, and an industry's power to thwart. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 284-292. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.284

To arrange an interview with Erin Hobin, Ph.D., please contact Nicole Bodnar at 289-259-5080 or nicole.bodnar@utoronto.ca.

To arrange an interview with Tim Stockwell, Ph.D., please contact Amanda Farrell-Low at farlow@uvic.ca or 250-472-5445

The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (http://www.jsad.com) is published by the Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. It is the oldest substance-related journal published in the United States.

To learn about education and training opportunities for addiction counselors and others at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies, please visit https://education.alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu/education-training.

The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs considers this press release to be in the public domain. Editors may publish this press release in print or electronic form without legal restriction. Please include proper attribution and byline.

By Paul Candon
N ew Zealand has recorded no new coronavirus cases for the first day since a national lockdown came into force more than a month ago.

The Ministry of Health on Monday confirmed no infections had been recorded in the preceding 24 hours, signalling another significant step forwards in the country's battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is the first day weve has no new cases, and we want to keep it that way, Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told reporters in Wellington.

It is cause for celebration. Its important that we reflect that it is symbolic of the effort everyone has put in.

New Zealand has to date reported 1,487 confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 / Getty Images

The last time there were no new Covid-19 cases on a single day in New Zealand was on March 16.

The country has to date reported 1,487 confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19, with 86 per cent of those infected since having recovered. Twenty people have died.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week eased strict lockdown rules put in place on March 25 to limit the outbreak, downgrading the level four lockdown by one degree after several days during which reported cases hovered in single figures.

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

Speaking at the time, Ms Ardern said there was "no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand", adding the country had "won that battle".

The government is now due to decide whether to move to level two on May 11.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week compared hunting down the last few cases of the virus in New Zealand to 'looking for a needle in a haystack' / Getty Images

The move to level three has allowed some-non essential businesses to resume trading and afforded people slightly greater freedom of movement.

But it has also led to a surge in breaches of lockdown rules, police said, with officers and Ms Ardern expressing frustration at those flouting the restrictions.

We need to not get ahead of ourselves, stick to our bubble, and finish what we started, she said.

Mr Bloomfield meanwhile cautioned that the next test of New Zealand's success in battling the pandemic will come later this week - when any fresh cases resulting from the easing of restrictions a week ago will likely become apparent.
Borders connecting Gurugram and Delhi remained sealed on Monday morning with entry allowed only for people in essential services carrying valid passes.

Over 400 people, who came to the border to cross over in anticipation of relaxations on the day lockdown 3.0 began in India, were turned away from Sirhaul and Aya Nagar borders by 11am, the police said.

The Gurugram police said on Sunday that intradistrict movement will be allowed, but there would no movement of people between states.

Gurugram, a satellite city of the national capital in Haryana, is in orange zone. Its 11 borders with Delhi, which is in red zone, were sealed last week.

Over 50 police personnel were deployed at the main borders such as Sirhaul, Aya Nagar and Kapashera, which generally witness a large flow of people from Delhi coming to work in corporate houses and industrial areas in the IT hub.

Within the city, however, barricading was removed early Monday morning. Over 103 police posts, which were set up in residential areas, were lifted after the district administration issued fresh orders on Sunday saying there will be relaxation during the day for residents between 7am and 7pm.

Karan Goel, assistant commissioner of police (DLF), said Monday morning was one of the most challenging days in terms of maintaining the rush at the border during the lockdown as hundreds of people thought there will be relaxations. New federal guidelines have allowed private companies to resume operations, albeit with restrictions.

Staff of salons, beauty parlours and shops were not allowed to cross the border. Rajni Singh, a resident of Saket in Delhi who works in a parlour in Sector 49 ,was one of them.

We had received a call from our employer that we have to resume work from Monday. We are not paid salary for last month, and its difficult to make ends meet. We really need to get back to work as soon as possible, she said.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Leena Dhankhar Leena Dhankhar has worked with Hindustan Times for five years. She has covered crime, traffic and excise. She now reports on civic issues and grievances of residents. ...view detail
China continues to persecute Early Rain Covenant Church, orders members to cease online services

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Chinas communist government has continued to monitor and persecute Sichuan provinces Early Rain Covenant Church, demanding church members cease all online worship services.

Over two years after shuttering the 5,000-member church, breaking down the doors of church members and leaders homes and arresting more than 100 people, police have continued to harass ERCC members, according to a new report from China Aid.

A Christian, who did not reveal her name, told the persecution watchdog that over the weekend, police brought in ERCC members in charge of church activities and online services and demanded that they stop all activities.

Among those brought in to the police station was Ran Yunfei, who had originally been scheduled to give a testimony during a church service Friday. Ran was escorted home only after the service ended.

Because police only summoned Christians during the churchs online services, the source who informed China Aid believes police are still monitoring the church.

In April, several members of the church were arrested by the Public Security Bureau for participating in an online Easter worship service on Zoom and ordered to cease all religious activity.

A supporter of ERCC shared on Twitter, 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 ERCCs imprisoned pastor Wang Yi, they immediately shut it down.

Her account was corroborated by church leader Zhang Jiangqing, who was warned by the police at his house, saying, Dont participate in already banned [religious] activities anymore! Dont listen to pastor [Wang]s sermons anymore! If you do this again, we will deal with it seriously and take you away!

ERCC, led by pastor Wang Yi, has not been able to gather in person since the communist regime shut down the church in 2018 and arrested their pastor and other leaders. Pastor Wang was later sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of subversion of power and illegal business operations.

Church members have continued to face harassment from authorities, even amid the countrys coronavirus outbreak.

According to International Christian Concern, Pastor Wangs son, Shuya Wang, celebrated his 13th birthday on March 9 without his father. Forced to attend a public school since last year, he has been escorted in a police car each day. During the coronavirus pandemic, with schools closed, Shuya and his mother are reportedly still being monitored by police.

Open Doors USAs World Watch List ranks China as one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians. The organization notes that all churches are perceived as a threat if they become too large, too political or invite foreign guests.

In addition to Early Rain Covenant Church, the Chinese Communist Party has shuttered a number of well-known churches, including Rongguili Church in Guangzhou and Xunsiding Church in Xiamen.

China has also been labeled by the U.S. State Department as a country of particular concern for continuing to engage in particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

In its annual report released last week, the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom called the country the worlds foremost violator of human rights and religious freedom. The report cited the Chinese governments harassment of human rights advocates outside its border as well as the CCPs continued persecution of Christians, Muslim-majority Uighurs, and other ethnic minorities.

Addressing the report, commissioner Johnnie Moore said that while China has the capability of being a nation we can all admire, the CCP has chosen to violate inherent human rights ... any chance they can.

Enough is enough, he stressed. And we've said enough is enough.

Moore warned that China is exporting their intolerance around the world. The light is blinking red, and its time for the Chinese government to take a different path.
It was announced on Monday that her show Love Island was cancelled this year amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

But Laura Whitmore brushed off the drama as she enjoyed a spot of roller skating in a fun video clip shared on Instagram.

The presenter, who was celebrating her 35th birthday, showcased her slender pins in denim shorts as she zipped along on the skates she received as a birthday gift.

They see me rollin': Laura Whitmore brushed off the Love Island cancellation drama as she enjoyed a spot of roller skating in a fun video clip shared on Instagram on Monday

Laura didn't appear to have a care in the world as she whizzed down the street in the funny boomerang clip.

The star teamed her shorts with a black AC/DC jumper and long white socks, while she shielded her eyes with dark shades.

Captioning the clip, Laura wrote: 'Daily exercise was a bit different today....'

Looking good: The presenter, who was celebrating her 35th birthday, showcased her slender pins in denim shorts as she zipped along on the skates she received as a birthday gift

Her joyful skate session comes hours after she promised Love Island will return next year better than ever after ITV pulled the plug on the summer series.

Bosses revealed it was a logistical impossibility to safeguard 'the wellbeing of everyone involved' amid the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic.

But Laura didn't let the axing get her down as she celebrated her 35th birthday at home with fiance Iain Stirling.

On a roll: Laura didn't appear to have a care in the world as she whizzed down the street in the funny boomerang clip

Fun times: The star teamed her shorts with a black AC/DC jumper and long white socks, while she shielded her eyes with dark shades

Laura tweeted: 'Like with a lot of things because of restrictions with travel, social distancing and unable to plan ahead, Love Island is postponed until 2021.

'Great news is that there have been more applications then any other series! Next year is going to be BIG. Stay safe.'

The Irish beauty also uploaded a snap of herself from the winter series finale in the African villa.

Laura promised Love Island will return next year better than ever after ITV pulled the plug on the summer series on Monday

The Irish beauty also uploaded a snap of herself from her time in the African villa, from this year's winter series

Laura later posted a make-up free selfie in front of her hoards of presents, with a cup of tea in hand.

Determined to not let the summer axing upset her, she captioned the post: 'Have I mentioned its my birthday?'.

Love Island last aired on screens at the beginning of this year when ITV2 commissioned the show's first ever winter series, filmed in South Africa.

Laura took over as host from her friend Caroline Flack, who went onto tragically take her own life in February.

Always remembered: Laura took over as host from her friend Caroline Flack, who went onto tragically take her own life in February (pictured in 2018)

Shortly after the show came off air that month, the global coronavirus pandemic spread around the world, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson enforcing a lockdown on 23 March.

Despite these concerns, the number of applications for the summer series is anything to go by, fans hoped the ITV2 dating show does return as potential islanders are at a record high.

But Kevin Lygo, Director of Television at ITV, said on Monday: 'We have tried every which way to make Love Island this summer but logistically it's just not possible to produce it in a way that safeguards the wellbeing of everyone involved and that for us is the priority.

'In normal circumstances we would be preparing very soon to travel out to the location in Mallorca to get the villa ready but clearly thats now out of the question.

'We are very sorry for fans of the show but making it safely is our prime concern and Love Island will be back stronger than ever in 2021. In the meantime Love Island fans can still enjoy all six series of Love Island on BritBox.'
Australia and New Zealand discuss possible trans-Tasman 'travel bubble' FILE PHOTO: Bondi Beach drive-through testing centre for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Sydney

By Colin Packham and Praveen Menon

SYDNEY/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand and Australia are discussing the potential creation of a "travel bubble" between the two countries, even as Australia on Monday reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in two weeks.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she has accepted an invite from Australian Premier Scott Morrison to take part in a meeting of Australia's emergency coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday, stoking anticipation of a travel deal.

The neighbouring countries have claimed success in substantially slowing the progress of the coronavirus epidemic to a level well below the United States, Britain and Europe.

Still, Ardern warned that more health measures needed to be put in place before trans-Tasman travel could restart.

"I wouldn't say it would be in the very, very near short term," Ardern said at a news conference in Wellington.

"Don't expect this to happen in a couple of weeks time. We need to make sure we are locking in the gains all New Zealanders have helped us achieve and make sure we have health precautions in place."

Australia has recorded around 6,800 infections and 96 deaths, and New Zealand 1,137 cases and 20 fatalities. Both have a COVID-19 mortality rate of just 1% and have maintained low single digit rises in new cases for weeks, successes they attribute to social distancing regulations and widespread testing.

"Both our countries' strong record of fighting the virus has placed us in the enviable position of being able to plan the next stage in our economic rebuild and to include trans-Tasman travel and engagement in our strategy," Ardern said.

A New Zealand rugby league team arrived in Australia on Sunday to self-isolate for two weeks before joining Australia's tournament later this month, after receiving special permission.

The leaders will discuss ongoing measures to prevent the possibility of a second wave of COVID-19 infections as they start to ease restrictions that have shut businesses and hobbled their economies.

Story continues

Australia on Monday reported 27 cases, including a seven-year-old boy, in its biggest daily jump in two weeks. That could rise as more states report throughout the day. New Zealand recorded no new cases on Monday for the first time since March 16.

New Zealand does not have a contact tracing app like the one launched by Australia last week to find and inform people who have been in contact with confirmed infected people.

About 4.5 million Australians have downloaded the CovidSafe app so far, well short of Morrison's previously announced target of 40% of the country's estimated 16 million smartphone owners.

Morrison has made wider adoption of the app a prerequisite to further ease strict social distancing regulations in Australia.

SCHOOLS DEBATE

The rise in Australia's death toll was largely due to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in the state of Victoria.

The infection of the seven-year-old boy in New South Wales (NSW) state, which closed his Sydney school, has drawn attention to the contentious question of whether children should attend school during the outbreak.

The federal government has said schools should stay open since children are low-risk carriers of the virus, while some state governments have urged parents to keep children at home.

NSW will reopen schools on a staggered basis from next week, while Victoria has asked parents to keep children at home until the middle of the year.

The states and territories are also moving at different speeds to lift movement restrictions: NSW has allowed people to make house visits in groups of up to two, while Victoria is retaining its stay-home order until at least May 11.

"This is a struggle and ... it's not easy to live this way, but none of us can assume, just because we're frustrated, that this is over," Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Monday. "This is far from over. We have to stay the course."

(Reporting by Byron Kaye, Colin Packham and Praveen Menon; Editing by Sam Holmes and Jane Wardell)
The work contained a wide range of possibilities and modeling was not complete, according to Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who created the model. He said he didnt know how the update was turned into a slide deck by government officials and shared with news organizations. The data was first reported by the New York Times.
Former ambassador to head newly established Global Affairs unit

Schaeffler, a global automotive and industrial supplier, has announced it has recruited the diplomat Dr. Peter Wittig to head its newly created Global Affairs unit. After retiring from active service in the German Foreign Office this year, Dr. Wittig joined the Schaeffler Group on May 1st, 2020. His place of employment is Berlin.

The top German diplomat can look back on a wide-ranging international career. Since joining the Foreign Service in the 1980s he has served in numerous assignments in conflict regions in Europe, the Middle East and in multilateral diplomacy. From 2009 to 2014 he represented Germany at the United Nations in New York, including two years on the Security Council, the highest body in world politics. He then moved to Washington as ambassador, where he represented German interests during the Obama and Trump presidencies. Protectionism, trade conflicts and sanctions laws became a focus of his work there. In 2018, he was sent to London as ambassador  under the sign of Brexit, the most important crisis post in Europe.

"We are very pleased that we have been able to recruit Dr. Wittig, an internationally very experienced diplomat, for the Schaeffler Group. He will advise and support the Executive Board of Schaeffler AG in adapting the Schaeffler Group to the emerging changes," said Georg F. W. Schaeffler, family shareholder and chairman of the Supervisory Board of Schaeffler AG.

Klaus Rosenfeld, CEO of Schaeffler AG, added: "The coming years will become very challenging for us as an automotive and industrial supplier with global reach. In this environment the understanding of political developments and global risks is becoming increasingly important. With Dr. Wittig, an outstanding expert in this field is joining us."

In his new role, Dr. Peter Wittig reports directly to Klaus Rosenfeld. The new Global Affairs unit will include, in addition to political communication and the coordination of associations, a newly created function Global Risks, which will be dedicated to the analysis of global risks and macroeconomic developments. The third pillar of this unit will focus on the public funding of technology, innovation and research. While the functional responsibility for these areas will remain with the respective members of the Executive Board, the newly created unit will take responsibility for the coordination of the activities for all four regions of Schaeffler Group.

Hans-Christian Maa, the longstanding head of the Berlin representative office, retired on April 30, 2020. He had overseen the Berlin office since 2015 as the authorised representative of the Management Board. His successor will be announced shortly.

"In recent years Mr. Maa has represented the interests of the Schaeffler Group in an excellent manner and has promoted cooperation with decision-makers from politics and associations in a very constructive manner. We thank Mr. Maa for his great commitment and wish him all the best for his well-deserved retirement," said Klaus Rosenfeld, CEO of Schaeffler AG.
Washington, May 4 : The US government has "enormous evidence" that the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pandemic erupted last December, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.

"There is significant evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan," Efe news quoted Pompeo as saying to ABC News on Sunday.

He went to suggest that it was man-made, saying that "the best experts so far seem to think it was man-made".

"I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point," he said although he cited no evidence to back up that statement.

"China has a history of infecting the world," Pompeo said, adding that Beijing's laboratories were "substandard" in terms of their cleanliness and their security procedures.

However, when Pompeo was reminded that US intelligence services last week issued a formal statement asserting the opposite - that the scientific consensus was that the virus was not man-made or genetically modified - he replied: "That's right. I agree with that." Although China was the origin country of the deadly disease, the US currently accounts for the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the world.

As of Monday, there were 1,158,040 cases, with 67,682 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
The 90th anniversary of aviation pioneer Amy Johnson becoming the first female pilot to fly solo from Britain to Australia will be celebrated with an online daily diary of her journey.

Miss Johnson left Croydon Airport in a second-hand de Havilland Gipsy Moth, called Jason, on May 5 1930 and arrived in Darwin 20 days later on May 24.

The historic flight will be documented in a first-person account  based on Ms Johnsons records, press reports at the time, and the telegrams she sent back to her parents in Hull  released online to mark the anniversary of her achievement.

SAVE THE DATES: Join us daily 5-24 May for an online celebration of the 90th anniversary of Hull hero Amy Johnsons solo flight from the UK to Australia. Dont miss a mile of her journey @amyjohnsonarts 

Here's Amy and friends at London Aeroplane Club, where she trained. pic.twitter.com/PfQDwZuS4E  Amy Johnson Arts Trust (@amyjohnsonarts) April 19, 2020

The diary  titled Twenty Days and described as a story of Hollywood proportions by author Dave Windass  will be released in daily instalments on the Amy Johnson Arts Trust website.

It will feature all the highs and lows of the journey  which was undertaken with no radio link to the ground, no reliable information about the weather and basic maps to guide her over uncharted land and some of the worlds most inhospitable terrain.

Mr Windass said: Amy Johnsons story is the story of a hero from Hull, a story of Hollywood proportions.

Never mind the fact that she was the first woman to make the journey, the solo flight itself was just brilliant and bizarre, with lots of humorous moments, as well as grave danger.

Its extraordinary for many reasons, not least because shed never done a long flight before she set off for Australia and, evidently, was a notoriously bad lander of planes.

The personification of her plane, Jason, adds another dimension to the solo flight  we know from telegrams she sent home to her family in Hull for example that she talked to Jason as if he was her friend, as though he was going to look after her.

Expand Close Amy Johnson was the first woman to gain an Air Ministrys Ground Engineers license at the London Aeroplane club (PA) PA / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Amy Johnson was the first woman to gain an Air Ministrys Ground Engineers license at the London Aeroplane club (PA)

Rick Welton, director of Amy Johnson Arts Trust, said: The 90th anniversary of Amy Johnsons solo flight to Australia is a great opportunity to celebrate this amazing Hull woman.

Its a chance for us all to stop and reflect on everything she achieved in a world that was very different to ours today.

As the current global coronavirus lockdown highlights how small and closely intertwined our world has become, we can remind ourselves that, in Amys day, global flight was an amazing thing for anyone, woman or man, to achieve.

Twenty Days will be released daily on social media @amyjohnsonarts and on amyjohnsonartstrust.co.uk
In a sudden spurt of COVID-19



cases in the green zone district of Davangere, 22 out of 37 new cases in Karnataka were reported from the region Monday, taking the tally to 651 in the state on a day when two deaths due to coronavirus infection were recorded and the government eased lockdown restrictions in non-containment zones.

As on Monday, the state has more recovered cases than active cases.

With the two COVID-19 deaths, the death toll has gone up to 27.

Meanwhile, Department of Finance has issued an order to cover all anganwadi workers/helpers, police officers/staff, home guards, civil defense force, fire brigade staffs/officers, jail staff, municipal/sanitation workers , related vehicle drivers/loaders under the Pradhana Manthri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana.

This will make them eligible for Rs 30 lakh relief, if they are involved and died due to COVID-19 infection, the department said.

"When we segregate 37 new cases, 22 cases have come from Davangere alone.

When we analyse the spurt in cases from the district, except one patient with history of influenza Like Illness (ILI), the remaining 21 cases are traced to two persons (patients)," Minister S Suresh Kumar, who is spokesperson for COVID-19 in Karnataka, told reporters.

Nineteen of these 22 cases from Davangere are contacts of a patient, who is a nurse, he said, adding that she has 25 primary contacts and 127 secondary contacts (mostly relatives).

A total of 1,147 samples have been tested in Davangere, out of which 847 are negative, 31 are positive, and results of 269 are awaited.

He said 61 people are in isolation in the district, while 124 people under institutional quarantine.

Meanwhile to help people, including large number of labourers from Karnataka stranded within the state due to the COVID-19 lockdown, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa today said free bus services for them to reach their native places, will be extended for two days (till Thursday).

The Chief Minister had on Sunday said, free bus services will be available for three days till Tuesday, and the expenses will be borne by the government.

On the other hand life was limping back to normalcy in most parts of Karnataka with easing of COVID-19-induced restrictions on Monday as the state headed into the third phase of lockdown.

Among the two persons who died of coronavirus infection in the state on Monday, one of them --a 48-year-old woman from Davangere ---was the secondary contact of the nurse, who is source of spurt in number of cases in the district, Kumar said.

The deceased woman got admitted on May 1 and was diagnosed with SARI(severe acute respiratory illness), known case of hypertension, diabetes and hypothyroidism.

She died at the designated hospital.

The other person who died is a 56-year-old man from Kalaburagi, a known case of SARI, and was admitted on April 29, with complaints of cough and fever.

According to a health department bulletin "As of 5:00 PM on May 4, cumulatively 651 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state and it includes 27 deaths and 321 discharges.

Out of 302 active cases, 296 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 6 are in ICU.

It said 28 patients who recovered were discharged today.

The remaining 15 new cases other than those from Davangere include, seven from Bidar, two each from Mandya and Kalaburagi, and one each from Chikkaballapura, Haveri, Bengaluru Urban and Vijayapura.

Ten of them are contact of patients already tested positive, three of them are with travel history to Mumbai and one to Hyderabad, and the other's contact history is being traced.

From across the state most number of infections have been reported in Bengaluru urban with 150 cases, followed by Mysuru 88 and Belagavi 71.

Out of total 321 patients discharged maximum 77 are from Mysuru, 75 from Bengaluru urban, twenty six from Belagavi.

A total of 79,193 samples were tested, out of which 4,295 were tested on Monday alone.

So far 74,664 samples have reported negative, 3,666 alone on Monday.

The government has issued order to all private medical colleges in Karnataka and ESIC Medical Colleges functioning at Bengaluru and Kalaburgi districts to establish the RT-PCR Laboratories for the diagnosis of COVID-19.

In a bid to help people, including large number of labourers from Karnataka stranded within the state due to the COVID-19 lockdown, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Monday said free bus services for them to reach their native places, will be extended for two days (till Thursday).

The Chief Minister had on Sunday said, free bus services will be available for three days till Tuesday, and the expenses will be borne by the government.

On the other hand life was limping back to normalcy in most parts of Karnataka with easing of COVID-19-induced restrictions on Monday as the state headed into the third phase of lockdown.

With sale of liquor being allowed at the designated shops after a gap of over 40 days, long queues were found in front of them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Disturbing footage shows a car slamming into a group of thugs in a large violent brawl on west London.

The shocking scene was captured on Saturday in Harrow, and saw a man carrying a metal pole attack another person in broad daylight. The incident has led to seven arrests.

In the clip, filmed by a horrified resident, a group of men are seen brawling on the street corner as traffic lines up metres away.

A woman shrieks 'Oh my God, call the police!' as the fighting escalates.

One of the men raises a bar high above his head and smashes it down on his victim, who falls to the floor.

A blue Ford car is then seen slamming into the group before pulling away and then doing the same action again. It is not known whether anyone involved in the brawl was injured because of this.

The car also crashes into another stationary vehicle, sending shards of glass flying.

A large violent brawl of men carrying bats and knives in broad daylight on College Hill Road in Harrow, west London on Saturday has led to seven arrests

A man carrying a bat can be seen holding his leg and attempting to get away shortly afterwards.

As the car reverses the men immediately begin fighting again, with one man punching another in the face.

As the clip ends, the men disperse, hobbling away from the scene.

The shocking videos were uploaded to social media last night captioned: 'Disturbing scenes in Harrow.'

Footage shows a blue Ford car slamming into the group before pulling away and then doing the same action again. It is not known if anyone was injured in the incident

A Met Police spokeswoman said: 'Police were called at 18:25hrs on Saturday, 2 May to reports of a large fight involving people with weapons on College Hill Road in Harrow.

'Officers and the London Ambulance Service attended. College Hill Road was cordoned off by police following the fight.

'Seven people were arrested on suspicion of violent disorder. Five people have been taken to hospital for treatment; none of the injuries are believed to be life-threatening.

'Enquiries continue.'
Families and communities need Americas schools to be ready to reopen as soon as public-health officials signal that its safe. The nation has recently been reminded just how vital schools are. They connect students with peers and mentors, channel youthful energy into productive pursuits, teach essential academic skills and knowledge, and give overwhelmed parents room to breathe and work. Todays packets and remote learning efforts are at best an inferior substitute for a small portion of this.

This makes it urgent that schools find a way to reopen this fall in a way that adapts to the challenges posed by COVID-19. Of course, reopening in a manner thats safe and responsive will involve novel challenges. Thats why leaders must begin planning immediately. But lets be clear: Leading public- health officialsincluding the habitually cautious Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseaseshave indicated that they expect schools will be able to reopen this fall.

What will it take to get schools ready, amidst enormous uncertainty? Together with a group of 19 accomplished educational leadersincluding former state chiefs, superintendents, federal education officials, and school leaderswe have sketched a blueprint that can help educators, communities, and state and federal officials rise to the challenge.

What will it take to get schools ready, amidst enormous uncertainty?

The blueprint is informed by the following assumptions, all drawn on the most current guidance from health officials:

 Schools will remain closed this spring but will reopen in the fall (albeit with the potential of localized, 14- to 28-day rolling closures triggered by new outbreaks).

 Reopened schools will need modifications based on guidance from national and state health officials, which could include physical distancing, temperature screenings, and frequent disinfecting of classrooms.

 Accommodations will be needed for teachers, administrators, school staff, and students who may be at heightened risk from COVID-19 because of their age or other health conditions.

 A vaccine might not be available for 18 months or more, meaning that plans should take into account both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years.

In planning for the contingencies implied by these assumptions, there are four principles that should guide preparations to reopen Americas schools:

 While governors have the authority to close and open schools, these decisions are best made by consulting with school leaders, health officials, and community leaders.

 Schools are responsible for meeting the needs of all students, including the distinctive needs of students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and English-language learners.

 Schools are obliged to find ways to serve all students, even during times of disruption when remote learning requires students to connect from home.

 Given that school systems cannot reasonably have been expected to plan for the current situation, state and federal officials must help provide the resources schools need to help weather the crisis.

While readers should refer to the blueprint for the particulars, there are at least six key buckets of work ahead.

1. General considerations. Coordination, communication, flexibility, and privacy protections will be crucial. Schools will have to coordinate closely with state and local health officials to develop a unified public-health strategy. Theyll need to communicate with stakeholders so that students, families, educators, and community members are clear on expectations for academics and public health. Theyll need flexibility as they adapt to unprecedented challenges. And theyll need to review privacy policies with an eye to both remote learning and community health.

2. School operations. Schools will have to examine every aspect of the school dayfrom classroom spaces to class schedulesand adjust to address new public-health guidance. Gaps in meal service and distribution plans should be assessed and strengthened. And as for transportation, schools need to devise plans that reflect physical-distancing protocols. All of this will have obvious implications for staffing and costs and is a budget line that Washington should help address.

3. Whole-child supports. Students are experiencing the pandemic in different ways with many going through significant trauma from school closures, friends and family members lost to the virus, and the insecurity created from parents losing jobs. Social-emotional learning and trauma supports will be critical not only during this period of remote learning but also in the next academic years.

4. School personnel. Many educators may be vulnerable to COVID-19, raising questions about how to protect them. Meanwhile, districts and teachers unions should work together to revisit aspects of their labor agreements to help schools adapt to social distancing and to ensure that vulnerable teachers are able to work in ways that are safe and productive. And as school budgets, responsibilities, and models evolve, schools and districts must be prepared to re-evaluate their staffing needs.

5. Academics. Disrupting the school year has created broad academic challenges for students, particularly those most vulnerable before the crisis occurred. Schools should prepare for possible intermittent closures next year and have a continuity-of-learning plan in place that serves all kids with either online resources or printed materials. And states need to consider potential assessment challenges, including the implications for traditional accountability measures.

6. Distance learning. The sudden shift to remote learning in the spring revealed the stark challenges students faced if they were unable to connect to the online content or video conferences with their teachers. The coming months provide an opportunity to assess what worked and didnt work with remote learning, address home-connectivity gaps, and provide teachers the training they need to succeed next year.

This is a moment when all of useducators, families, and communitiesmust find ways to ensure that children get back the schools, experiences, and relationships so important to their young lives. Americas schools have the opportunity to give children the things that are uniquely possible in the brick-and-mortar schoolhouse while exploring new ways to more fully use technology and community partnerships. When schools get the green light to go, they need to be ready. That work starts now.
(Photo : YOUNG KWAK on Reuters ) COVID-19: Anti-Quarantine Groups Found New Home After Being Banned to Facebook (Photo : Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash) COVID-19: Anti-Quarantine Groups Found New Home After Being Banned on Facebook

After a social media network, Facebook bans all groups and posts about anti-Coronavirus quarantine, some of them now shift to another platform. A report found out that several anti-quarantine groups originally from Facebook are now switching to a less-popular website called MeWe.

After Facebook, here's where Anti-Quarantine groups will be right now

Since the start of the implementation of stay-at-home orders due to the spread of Coronavirus, it is expected that not everyone will be happy due to this solution.

Due to this, several anti-quarantine groups and posts were made online-- especially in the United States. Unfortunately, most of these groups also cater to fake news.

As a way to fight against them, Facebook now bans most of the groups from their platform. Facebook now requires all events to tell attendees to adhere to social distancing guidelines explicitly and has banned groups that encourage users to break state mandates.

However, not all social media platforms apply the same rules, and that's where anti-quarantines want to join in.

Where will they join now?

After Facebook officially bans all groups and posts that will encourage violators within the quarantine period, organizers of the groups now switch to another social media site called MeWe.

Unlike Facebook, Subscription-based social site MeWe has been a home for conspiracy theories and other groups with contents that are prohibited from being showcased on other social media platforms. Some of the groups seen on MeWe are flat-Earthers, white supremacists, and even anti-vaxxers.

Business Insider finds out that MeWe is becoming the new home for groups like Open Texas Now!, #ReOpenFL, and other anti-quarantine groups.

MeWe started in 2012, has already attracted 8 million users from the past years. The website's spokesperson David Westreich has said that their users have the freedom to post anything they like, compared to Facebook.

"Unlike Facebook, MeWe respects its members as customers to serve and delight, not data to target or sell to advertisers, marketers, or politicians," Westreich told Business Insider. "MeWe members have total control of their data, news feeds, and privacy."

Though everyone has the freedom to post anything on MeWe, Westreich said that every content being posted on their platform is still being reviewed by their moderators every time. In the case of the anti-quarantine groups, the spokesperson said that they were "likey" reviewed by moderators, but none of the groups are being taken down yet.

"False information about anything is concerning at MeWe and so we take a systemic approach to the solution," Westreich said. "If you've found such content on MeWe, then it's likely it hasn't yet been reported to our Trust and Safety Team team or it may already be pending review."

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Nigerian government, on Monday, confirmed the receipt of $311 million looted by a late dictator, Sani Abacha.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, Umar Gwandu, said approximately $311,797,866.11 of the Abacha loot was repatriated from the US and Jersey.

According to Mr Malami, The amount increased significantly from over $308 million as stated in a press release in February to over $311 million because of the interest that accrued from February 3, 2020, to 28th April, 2020, when the fund was transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The justice minister noted that the litigation process for the return of these asset titled Abacha III commenced in 2014, while the diplomatic process that culminated in the signing of the Asset Return Agreement on February 3, 2020, by the governments of Nigeria, the US and Jersey commenced in 2018.

This agreement is based on international law and cooperation measures that set out the procedures for the repatriation, transfer, disposition and management of the assets, he said.

The recovery effort further consolidates on the established record of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government which has a history of recovery of $322m from Switzerland in 2018 which is being transparently and judiciously deployed in supporting indigent Nigerians as specified in the agreement signed with the Switzerland and the World Bank.

READ ALSO:

Mr Malami, who led the negotiation team, noted that the Tripartite Agreement and the process towards the implementation represents a major watershed in International Asset Recovery and Repatriation as it seeks to provide benefit to the victims of corruption.

In line with the 2020 Asset Return Agreement, the fund has been transferred to a Central Bank of Nigeria Asset Recovery designated account and would be paid to the National Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) within the next fourteen days. The NSIA is responsible for the management and execution of the projects to which the funds will be applied, the Minister has said.

The AGF said the Nigerian government has committed that the asset will support and assist in expediting the construction of three major infrastructure projects across Nigeria, namely: The Lagos  Ibadan Expressway, Abuja  Kano Road, and the Second Niger Bridge.

He further said that the country was in the process of establishing a Project Monitoring Team to oversee the implementation of the projects and report regularly on progress made to the public.

To ensure transparent management of the returned assets, the Nigerian government will also engage a civil society organisation, who has combined expertise in substantial infrastructure projects, civil engineering, anti-corruption compliance, anti-human trafficking compliance, and procurement to provide additional monitoring and oversight.

The process for the engagement of the CSO monitor has already commenced with the adverts placed in two Nigeria newspapers  Daily Trust and The PUNCH (4th March, 2020 and a Notice of Extension on 17th April, 2020), the Federal Tender Journal (9th and 23rd March, 2020), the Economist (14th March, 2020). The advert can also be found on the website of the Federal Ministry of Justice.

It may be recalled that the recovered funds were laundered through the US banking system and then held in bank accounts in the Bailiwick of Jersey. In 2014, a US Federal Court in Washington D.C. forfeited the money as property involved in the illicit laundering of the proceeds of corruption arising in Nigeria during the period from 1993 to 1998 when General Abacha was Head of State, the statement added
Too risky to come home, crew of 'clean' US warship in coronavirus limbo

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 03 May 2020 1:12 AM

On any given day, the US aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman can be found off the Atlantic coast of the United States, probably somewhere between Virginia and Florida. Its crew would love to come home to their families. But they can't. They're just too valuable right now.

That's because the Truman is a "clean" ship, free from the coronavirus thanks to a longer-than-expected deployment at sea that started in November. The deployment has kept its battle-ready 4,500 crew out of reach of a pandemic that is wreaking havoc elsewhere in the Navy.

Captain Kavon "Hak" Hakimzadeh and members of his crew described to Reuters in exclusive interviews the mixed emotions of being so close to home, but too precious to pull into port, as the Truman settles into a pandemic-driven operational limbo.

The crew members interviewed said they understood why the Truman needed to remain offshore to ensure combat readiness. The virus ripped through another carrier, the Theodore Roosevelt, infecting more than 1,100 sailors.

The hope is that once the Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group is up and running, the Truman can finally come home. But with the coronavirus proving dangerous and the world being unpredictable, the Navy doesn't want to put a date on the Truman's return.

Being so close to home is a constant reminder for sailors of the strain on their families in the United States, where in just months coronavirus-related deaths have reached at least 62,800, surpassing the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War.

The Pentagon has been trying to warn adversaries that ships such as the Truman are by no means the exception and the US military remains ready for war despite the pandemic.

In some ways, the Truman is perhaps one of the world's biggest quarantine bubbles. Beyond an increased pace of disinfections on board, the ship's day-to-day activities are much the same as before the pandemic - no testing, no six-feet of space between sailors, according to crew members.

Every entry onto the ship carries risk, so the Truman has stopped everything but essential resupply flights, and under tight controls.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






A 4,000-bed mega hospital built in nine days in London with the help of the military in April was on Monday put on standby after a fall in the number of patients stricken by coronavirus in recent days meant that most of its capacity remains unutilised.

The hospital, called NHS Nightingale Hospital, came up in the sprawling ExCel Centre in east London. It is one among seven new Nightingale hospitals across the UK. There has been a sustained fall in cases, particularly in the hotspot of London in recent days.

As of Sunday evening, the UK-wide cumulative death toll was 28,446, with 186,599 cases, and 14,248 people currently in hospitals. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last week that the UK is now past the peak.

A Downing Street spokesman said on Monday that the Nightingale hospital in London was put on standby due to limited demand: Its not likely that in the coming days we will need to be admitting patients to the London Nightingale while coronavirus in the capital remains under control.

Thats obviously a very positive thing and we remain grateful to everybody in London for following the governments advice in helping to protect the NHS. What the Nightingale will be is effectively placed on standby so it would be ready to receive patients should that be required, but we are not anticipating that will be the case.

Similar mega hospitals have been set up in Manchester, Birmingham, Harrogate and Bristol, with two more due to open shortly in Sunderland and Exeter.

The spokesman said: Manchester has taken some patients already; Birmingham, Harrogate and Bristol are ready to take patients if neededPeople followed the advice to stay at home, thats slowed the rate of infection and meant that the NHS wasnt overwhelmed.

The UKs hospital system not being overwhelmed by the pandemic is one of the five tests the government has set before easing lockdown restrictions are considered. The others are: that the daily death rate falls sustainably and consistently; that the rate of infection is falling; that the operational challenges have been met and most importantly, that there is no risk of a second peak.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ProtectAllKids, a New York charity, is investing millions of dollars in benefiting Americans as part of their life after COVID-19 Relief Program.

Seeking a way to help those who have been negatively impacted by the pandemic, ProtectAllKids created its Crisis Relief Program. This program incorporates an economy stabilization initiative and a public health protection plan. Under the economy stabilization initiative, the nonprofit created a platform for new jobs, scholarships, and internships for students who were unable to secure a 2020 summer internship due to the pandemic and for unemployed Americans in dire need who do not receive unemployment benefits.

ProtectAllKids partnered with two key corporations: Oracle Taleo and Paychex. The former is the most utilized job recruitment platform and the world's most extensive applicant tracking system. The latter is a powerhouse payroll processor for new businesses.

The total salary of the new employees participating in the program is $3,000 for three months or longer. Paychex ensures that interns and employees receive their paychecks on time.

Creative American Award

Driven by a desire to show people they can contribute to economic recovery, ProtectAllKids established the Creative American Award. Participants who submit their creative pieces or business ideas can win a $250,000 grand prize. A vote by the American public will determine the winner based on the promise the submission shows for economic strength and improvement.

Harvard Business Online CORe Scholarship

ProtectAllKids will cover the tuition of those who receive an acceptance offer from Harvard University Business School's online CORe program. This program offers a unique and engaging way for people to learn vital business concepts. Those who earn a CORe certificate can leverage it to earn a promotion, advance their career, or explore alternative career paths.

The online application for the CORe program is free. Those who are interested must apply between May 1, 2020, and May 11, 2020, to be eligible for tuition assistance. After receiving approval of their application, those who are approved must send their acceptance letter to [email protected]. The CORe 2020 program begins May 19, 2020 and ends July 30, 2020.

Columbia Engineering Digital Marketing Scholarship.

ProtectAllKids is offering a $10,000 scholarship to the first scholar who applies by May 11, 2020 and receives an offer letter from the Columbia Engineering Digital Marketing Boot Camp program.

Other ProtectAllKids Scholarships.

ProtectAllKids is also offering other scholarships for Johns Hopkins University Signals and Systems 525.202.81 online class, Certified Medical Assistant scholarship at U.S. Career Institute, and Udemy for Business Scholarship.

Tutor of the Month Award

ProtectAllKids created the Tutor of the Month Award to encourage people to share their knowledge and promote education. The $10,000 award will go to the individual who consistently posts about education in a thoughtful way on their social media accounts. Participants should post about the knowledge they acquire, mention @ProtectAllKids and include the following hashtags: #ProtectAllKidsTalent, #ProtectAllKidsTutor #ProtectAllKidsTeachers #ProtectAllKidsEducation, #ProtectAllKidsCreativeAmerican #EndActiveSchoolShootings2020.

ProtectAllKids End Active School Shootings Campaign.

ProtectAllKids is committed to ending active school shootings. The 501(c)(3) charity organization hires school security specialists, installs bullet-resistant doors, and baggage scanners to provide a safe learning environment for children. ProtectAllKids believes that a peaceful, safe school environment promotes children's cognitive aspects of learning by providing them with a sense of security and comfort, and allowing them to focus on getting a high-quality, meaningful education.

ProtectAllKids puts measures in place at schools to prevent active shooters from gaining access to hallways, classrooms, and common areas. The most effective tactic is hiring skilled security specialists to guard school entryways and to apprehend shooters before they inflict harm on school kids. The strict hiring criteria imposed are based on qualifications, experience, temperament, and background. Security specialists are trained to disarm active shooters and neutralize those who pose terrorist threats. Every candidate must pass a rigorous security clearance and medical clearance.

ProtectAllKids will work with GS4 to recruit these security guards and pay them competitive wages to attract and retain top-tier talent. Security specialists also receive comprehensive health and benefits insurance that includes worker's compensation, 401(k) plans, section 125, and flexible spending plans and semi-annual bonuses for outstanding performance.

"Our carefully screened security specialists are fully prepared to stand in the line of fire to protect students and mitigate security threats on school premises," Ms. Chieastre said.

ProtectAllKids installs sophisticated, high-performance x-ray baggage scanners at every participating school. The ORION 918CX is a compact and versatile tunnel x-ray screening system with exceptional image quality and excellent threat detection alert capabilities. Scanning luggage and backpacks prevent active shooters from concealing and sneaking deadly weapons into schools. The result is a weapon-free learning environment.

ProtectAllKids works with individuals, companies, governments, and other nonprofit organizations to address the complex challenges that educational institutions face on a national scale. The organization's partners and supporters contribute critical funding, ideas, volunteer power, and in-kind support that helps improve the quality of the fundamental standard of school safety. Together with its partners, ProtectAllKids engages individuals to improve the safety of all students and the well-being of school staff.

About ProtectAllKids

ProtectAllKids is a 501(c)(3) Charity organization on a mission to end active school shootings, promote quality education, and provide solutions to the childcare crisis in America. Solutions include creating new jobs, internships, and scholarships. Hiring skilled and carefully screened security specialists and installing advanced X-ray baggage scanners at participating schools. Learn more at protectallkids.org.

SOURCE ProtectAllKids

Related Links

https://protectallkids.org


Mosques reopen to worshippers in about a third of Irans administrative divisions which are considered low-risk.

Iran has reopened mosques in parts of the country deemed at low risk from coronavirus, as it said almost 80,000 people hospitalised with the illness had recovered and been released.

Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said on Monday that 74 new fatalities brought to 6,277 the total number officially recorded in Iran since mid-February, when it first reported cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Another 1,223 cases of COVID-19 infections were recorded in the past 24 hours, Jahanpour said, raising the total to 98,647.

Mosques were allowed to reopen to worshippers in 132, or around a third, of Irans administrative divisions which are considered low-risk.

The country has started using a colour-coded system of white, yellow and red for different areas to classify the virus risk.

Worshippers were obliged to enter mosques with masks and gloves and told they could only stay for half an hour during prayer times, said the health ministry.

Mosques were told to refrain from offering them food and drinks, provide hand sanitisers and disinfect all surfaces, it said in a statement published by ISNA news agency.

According to Jahanpour, 79,397 of those hospitalised with the disease since Iran reported its first cases in mid-February have been discharged, while 2,676 are in critical condition.

He said Iran was among top five countries in the world with the highest number of recoveries, without elaborating.

Experts and officials both in Iran and abroad have cast doubts over the countrys COVID-19 figures, saying the real number of cases could be much higher than reported.

President Hassan Rouhani said Iran had succeeded in effectively preventing the spread of this virus in many parts of the country.

Speaking at a televised videoconference meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, Rouhani said Irans response to the outbreak has in instances been evaluated to be beyond international standards.

But the US anti-human rights sanctions against the Islamic republic had hampered its efforts to control the virus, he added, noting that they prevented companies from selling Iran its medical needs.

US President Donald Trump withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Iran in 2018, targeting key oil and banking sectors.

Humanitarian goods, especially medicine and medical equipment, are technically exempt.

But international purchases of such supplies are forestalled by banks wary of conducting any business with Iran for fear of falling foul of the US sanctions.
Tech companies around the world are facing the same difficulties in maintaining their businesses as everywhere else. Over the weekend, crowdfunding site Kickstarter has discussed layoffs as the COVID-19 pandemic ravages both projects and backers. The company has confirmed plans to cut a large portion of its workforce after the union representing Kickstarter employees said it had ratified a layoff agreement on May 1st. Layoffs could affect up to 45 percent of Kickstarter staff.

Last week, Lyft laid off nearly 1,000 of its employees, and rumors suggest Uber may have to address its headcount, again, soon. GoPro and Magic Leap have also adjusted their staffing levels due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Its a time of mixed fortunes. Were in the middle of earnings season, and tech companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Apple have had mixed fortunes. The latter has suffered from reduced hardware sales -- that happens when your stores are closed -- while Microsoft saw minimal impact on its business and Facebook has seen a jump in its audience figures as people stay indoors and connect to their screens.

-Mat

Tesla has applied for a license to become a UK energy provider

The company may bring its PowerPack battery technology to Britain.

Tesla

Tesla has reportedly applied for a license to become an energy provider in the UK. That means it might bring its PowerPack battery technology to Britain, much as it did with its 100-megawatt installation in South Australia. It may also be a way for the company to introduce a platform called Autobidder, which allows renewable power suppliers to trade energy.

The company hasnt confirmed any plans for large-scale PowerPacks in the UK, but the country generates 40 percent of its energy from renewables, including wind and solar, which means the system would make sense, smoothing out gaps in renewable energy production.

Tesla could also deploy its new platform, Autobidder, which uses machine-learning tech and cloud platforms to optimize power distribution. Its a dry topic but could make power production more efficient. Continue reading.

Story continues

Google is working on 4K/HDR streaming to Android TV for Stadia

And a built-in messenger

Stadia

Stadia, Googles game streaming service has already rolled out 4K streaming on the web and 5.1 surround sound for players using a browser? So whats next? Something pretty interesting, according to code dug up by 9to5Google. As theres only a handful of Android phones with a 4K-ready display, these settings are likely in preparation for Stadias Android TV app. The company may be preparing to add the option of 4K and HDR-quality streaming on Android-powered TVs, as well as built-in messaging to match other modern gaming services. Continue reading.

Juul may exit France, Spain and other European markets

It reportedly has nothing to do with COVID-19.

Juul

Juul is preparing to leave five European countries within the year. Unlike all the shutdowns and layoffs reported over the past months, BuzzFeeds source says the decision didnt have anything to do with the coronavirus pandemic.

The e-cigarette maker is reportedly planning to pull out of Austria, Belgium, Portugal and Spain in July, followed by France at the end of the year. Juul enjoys relatively high sales in Spain and France compared to the rest of the continent, but not high enough to justify the costs and the trouble of dealing with regulators. The European Union has stringent requirements when it comes to e-cigarette products, as the publication notes, requiring companies to stick to a nicotine limit of 20 milligrams per milliliter of fluid. Meanwhile, in the US, a single Juul pod can contain up to 59 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter. Continue reading.

Sponsored Content by Stack Commerce

Stack Commerce

'Half-Life: Alyx' added nearly 1 million VR users to Steam

It's a start.

Half Life

Half-Life: Alyx appears to have given VR gaming a serious boost. Road to VR has used historical data and direct Valve data to calculate that Steam users added nearly 950,000 VR headsets in April  a huge spike over March. The data also provides some insight into what headsets people were using: Valves own Index headset did see more adoption, but not by nearly as much. Most gamers are using either Oculus or HTC headsets. Continue reading.

Google's original Home smart speaker is on sale for $30

You're getting a better speaker than the Google Nest Mini for similar money.

Google Home

Best Buy (and Google) are selling the original Google Home speaker for just $30, or less than a third of its official $100 price. At $30, its a better value than just about anything else in Googles lineup, including the newer, less powerful Nest Mini  and rival speakers like Amazons Echo. Continue reading.

Recommended Reading: The life of a dropshipper

Virgin and O2 might merge to create a UK telecom giant

Why people are choosing Amazons Fire TV Stick
A mother-of-two diagnosed with terminal cancer during lockdown has told how it was the 'worst timing' because she can't see her friends and family and has to go through chemotherapy alone.

Yvonne Brennan, 40, from Milton Keynes, was dealt the devastating blow she has just six months to live, with the possibility of an extra six months with treatment, last month.

She has linitis plastic, a rare form of stomach cancer, which has spread to the lymph nodes around her stomach, chest and abdominal wall.

Yvonne, who is currently home-schooling her two daughters, aged 10 and six, said she is trying to remain positive but admitted it's incredibly difficult being unable to see anyone while on lockdown.

Yvonne Brennan, 40, from Milton Keynes, pictured with her partner Ricky Owen, 37, was dealt the devastating blow she has just six months to live, with the possibility of an extra six months with treatment, last month

'It's horrendous. It's the worst time to receive this news. It's never a good time I don't imagine, but even harder when you can't see people,' she told FEMAIL.

'Luckily I've got a lot of support, friends ringing me all the time and messaging me, but I can't see them. If they've dropped a food parcel off at the door I can't hug them.

'I can't see my mum or dad; we spoke at a distance, I can imagine that's very hard for them. I'm only 40, it just seems so cruel.'

Yvonne began experiencing symptoms last summer. She recalled: 'Every time I ate I was getting a crushing feeling under my breasts.

'I went to the doctors in September and they gave me some tablets. They said it was probably inflammation.'

Yvonne, who is currently home-schooling her two daughters, aged 10 and six, pictured as a family, said she is trying to remain positive but admitted it's incredibly difficult being unable to see anyone while on lockdown

After two months, at which point Yvonne was feeling full from just small amounts of food, she was referred for an endoscopy and doctors performed a breath test to see if she had bacteria present in her stomach, after which she was given antibiotics.

During the endoscopy, biopsies were taken but the results came back clear. Yvonne was treated for gastritis, but when her symptoms persisted she was sent for a CT scan.

Yvonne started chemotherapy last week, but due to the current restrictions her partner Ricky Owen, 37, wasn't able to accompany her

'That picked up that my stomach lining was three times thicker than it should have been,' she explained.

'They referred me to a specialist hospital in Oxford where they told me it was cancer. I was sent for a positron emission tomography (PET) scan which showed the cancer. They weren't sure if it was in my stomach or lymphoma.

'I was sent for more biopsies, and that's when I had the appointment with my oncologist, two weeks ago on Thursday, who said it was in my stomach, stage four and inoperable.

'I asked if chemo was going to cure me and he said no, it'll just give me more time.'

Linitis plastica doesn't usually cause symptoms until it has grown quite large or spread. Because of this it can be difficult to diagnose early, which then makes it harder to treat.

Yvonne started chemotherapy last week, but due to the current restrictions her partner Ricky Owen, 37, wasn't able to accompany her.

'To be honest I was expecting to feel horrid while I was having it, but I feel fine, and I still feel fine, but it may be the calm before the storm,' she said.

Yvonne's friend Emma Johnson has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the family to make lasting memories

'I go in every three weeks, have three rounds and another scan, and I'm also on eight chemo tablets a day, four in the morning and four in the evening.'

Yvonne said her daughters know she has cancer but aren't aware of her bleak prognosis, and she isn't putting any pressure on herself with regard to their schooling provided they're 'happy and content'.

'I have cried in front of the children, I've done the whole "I wish it wasn't me, I wish I wasn't poorly", and they said if they had one wish it would be that I wasn't sick - its heartbreaking,' she said.

What is linitis plastica? Linitis plastica is a type of adenocarcinoma. Adenocarcinoma is the most common form of stomach cancer. Linitis plastica spreads to the muscles of the stomach wall and makes it thicker and more rigid. This means that the stomach can't hold as much and doesnt stretch or move as it should when you're digesting food. This stiff walled stomach is sometimes called a leather bottle stomach. When it does cause symptoms, they are similar to stomach cancer symptoms. The main treatments for linitis plastic are surgery or chemotherapy. You might also have radiotherapy to help relieve your symptoms. Unfortunately, most people won't be able to have surgery. This is because linitis plastica is fast growing and often found to have spread at diagnosis. Advertisement

'But I think I'm quite a positive person, I'm quite strong, and I have to be - you can't just mope around and feel sorry for yourself.'

Yvonne's friend Emma Johnson has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the family to make lasting memories.

The money will also help them during this difficult period, as the couple - who run their own heating and ventilation business - are not able to work currently as Yvonne is in the high risk category when it comes to coronavirus due to her chemo.

The page has received 18,592 in donations in under a week, and Yvonne said she's overwhelmed by people's generosity.

She said: 'Ricky and I plan on getting married - we've been together 12 years - and the amount of people who have donated things, we pretty much have everything covered.

'As soon as lockdown is lifted and we can get a date set, everything else is pretty much in motion. We also want to take the girls to Disneyland Paris.

'We plan on making as many memories as we can, and obviously my partner's not been able to work, so [it's a relief] for him to have some money and not have to worry.

'My friends are also looking at treatment options elsewhere and seeing what other possibilities there are.'
The downtown tent encampment near City Hall was never going to be a solution for anything. It would never have been allowed to exist in pre-pandemic times. Under current conditions, its existence was an invitation for a health disaster. Using the coronavirus crisis as a platform to advance a blatant political agenda is shameless, whether its done by incumbent politicians seeking election in November or advocates looking for ways to elevate awareness of the homeless problem.

The encampment involving around 100 tent occupants at Poelker Park didnt arise by accident. Its obvious from the circumstances that organizers provided tents and helped direct individuals to congregate where they could provide as much visibility as possible. The political agenda couldnt be clearer when a volunteer group calling itself Tent City STL purports to speak for the park occupants.

U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk was correct to deny a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the city from clearing the encampment over the weekend. A lawsuit by the ArchCity Defenders legal advocacy group, asserting that clearing the encampment constituted cruel and unusual punishment, had minimal merit.
Quotient Limited (Eysins, Switzerland) has completed the process for declaring conformity to the essential requirements of the In Vitro Diagnostics Directive (IVDD 98/79/EC) and has CE marked (Conformite Europeene) its SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) antibody microarray.Quotient, a commercial-stage diagnostics company, has developed MosaiQ, its proprietary multiplex microarray technology, which offers the worlds first fully automated, consolidated testing platform, allowing for multiple tests across different modalities. The companys MosaiQ COVID-19 Antibody Microarray is designed as a serological disease screen specific to COVID-19. The assay detects the IgG and IgM antibodies directed at SARS-CoV-2. In addition to the concordance studies, the company observed seroconversions (the generation of antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2) in two patients where diagnosis was supported by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay on the patients at the time of symptoms. In one patient, the antibody negative status changed to positive one day after the PCR positive result, and in another patient, the antibody negative status changed to positive four days post PCR result. This demonstrates that the MosaiQ antibody test can detect antibodies very early in seroconversion process. The test is now available for sale in Europe and Switzerland.We are very pleased to report the completion of the CE marking process for the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) assay in record time with a 100% sensitivity and 99.8% specificity claim. The test has the best in class performance and overall agreement published to date. The ability to quickly test whether people have developed antibodies due to infection is critical in supporting the response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, said Franz Walt, Chief Executive Officer of Quotient.During our final preparations for achieving the CE Mark, our R&D team was able to further optimize one image analysis parameter, which further improved the assay specificity without changing the sensitivity, said Ed Farrell, Chief Operating Officer.
FP Trending

Manu Jain, the Global VP of Xiaomi and the companys India head, has issued a statement refuting a news report claiming that the Mi Browser collects recordings of web and phone use on its devices and sends user data to other countries.

The report by Forbes claimed that the Chinese mobile giant was recording the usage data of millions of people.

The article mentioned a cybersecurity researcher reportedly using the Redmi Note 8 (Review), and claiming that the device was recording his web history even in incognito mode. The researcher claimed that the recorded data was being sent to "remote servers in Singapore and Russia."

Terming the claims incorrect and not true, Jain has said that Xiaomi takes user privacy extremely seriously and it does not collect any data that the user has not explicitly given permission or consent to.

In incognito mode, all user data is completely encrypted and anonymised. Mi Browser will never know what you browse in incognito mode and can't identify you basis incognito browsing, he said.

At #Xiaomi, data privacy & security are of utmost importance!@XiaomiIndia had moved all it's data to local servers in #India ~2 years ago. * We do NOT collect data w/o consent

* Data is encrypted

* India data stays in India News article from 2 yrs ago: https://t.co/kcghUcZiUu  Manu Kumar Jain (@manukumarjain) May 2, 2020



The Xiaomi India MD said that reputed and international third-party companies have certified the security and privacy practices of the companys smartphones and the Mi Browser.

Jain has also posted a video on his YouTube page dismissing all claims made by the report.



Earlier, Xiaomi had issued a blog post where it denied the claims. The company said that other internet firms too collect data, and that Xiaomi's data collection is no different from others.
The question hanging over Europe is whether the virus will come racing back as restrictions loosen. With its school reopening, Germany is trying to limit the risk by sending only certain grades back to class, by reducing class sizes, by spacing desks apart. Students are attending in shifts, meaning it takes more hours to teach the same number of kids. Teachers over 60 and those with other vulnerabilities are staying home. The Theodor Heuss School simply doesnt have the staff levels for everyone to come back with distancing rules maintained, Bruske-Dierker said.
Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler used her private plane and her vast fortune as an upside in new political ads after facing criticism for offloading stocks amid the pandemic after receiving secret Senate briefings on the coronavirus.

Loeffler is spending $4 million on ads that accuse the left of unfairly targeting her - just like President Trump - as the story of her dumping stocks has plummeted her chances of keeping her seat in November.

'Kelly donated her Senate pay to fight coronavirus. Kelly used her personal plane to bring stranded Georgians home safely. And Kelly gave a $1 million to keep a Georgia hospital,' one of the three new ad says.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler released three news ads that say she's been unfairly targeted by the left and showcase her vast fortune, including her private jet. Loeffler has taken heat for offloading stocks before the coronavirus crisis crashed the stock market

Two of Sen. Kelly Loeffler's new ads showcase her private jet - and the new spots discuss how she donated her Senate pay to efforts to combat the coronavirus

Two of the new ads include visuals of her private jet - which are a departure from most re-election spots, which tend to feature a lawmaker's Congressional record over his or her personal wealth.

Loeffler is new to Congress having been appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson. She's a multi-millionaire and the wife of Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.

Loeffler arrived on Capitol Hill in early January and will serve less than a year before she's on the ballot again.

A special election will take place the same day as Georgia's general election in November to fill Isakson's seat for the last two years of his term. A run-off election is planned for January 5, 2021 if no candidate on the ballot earns a majority.

Currently there are several Republicans and Democrats running to fill Loeffler's seat.

Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee during impeachment, is running against Sen. Kelly Loeffler in the November special election to win the last two years of retired Sen. Johnny Isakson's term

The most prominent is Rep. Doug Collins, who served as the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee during Trump's impeachment hearings.

An internal GOP poll obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that Collins topped the bipartisan field earning 29 per cent of the vote.

Among Republicans, he outperforms Loeffler by a 62-18 per cent margin.

Among all Georgian voters, Loeffler gets about 11 per cent of the vote, which is about the same level of support Democrats Matt Lieberman and Raphael Warnock are currently receiving.

Trump has continued to back Loeffler publicly despite her stock dump.

Asked by DailyMail.com why she was included in the bipartisan coronavirus taskforce of lawmakers, Trump answered last month, 'Well, because she's the senator from a great state, a state that I love: Georgia.'

The president had invited every Republican senator to be on the taskforce, except Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted for one of the articles of impeachment against Trump in February.

Trump said he didn't know much about her stock trading.

'I don't know. I really don't know about that. But she's a senator from Georgia and she was included on the list, absolutely,' he answered.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 04:04:16|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The lockdown programs in Wuhan and other parts of China have proven successful and helpful for other countries for the effective control and prevention of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a world-renowned expert has said.

"I have called them (lockdown programs) before the largest public health experiment in the history of humankind. And you know, I think the experiment was a success, because it clearly, now we have evidence, reduced very much the transmission of this highly contagious virus," William Schaffner, an influential infectious disease specialist, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Schaffner is professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy as well as Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee.

"And so we're trying to model, what we're doing along the lines of what happened in China. We're not as severe, but the principles are the same and going forward, other countries are also learning from that part of the China experience," said Schaffner, referring to the stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures taken by U.S. states to curb the spread of the COVID-19.

The public health expert cautioned Americans to exercise proper social distancing practices as a number of states began reopening their economies with more set to lift restrictions in the coming week.

"It's no longer a matter of whether we're going to do it, but when and how. So some people have gone first. Perhaps they're a little bit early. But the trick is to balance the medical side with the economic, social, and cultural side," Schaffner said.

"And that's going to be very tricky. If we open up, we have to maintain social distancing. The use of masks, for example, six feet, good hand hygiene, taking temperatures before you go into a store. All of those things will be very important and still, staying home, not going out so much, " he said.

"I think we must still obey the rules and the recommendations and be conservative, not be so eager to get out because we don't want suddenly more coronavirus and then a second wave, right?" he said.

On April 8, China lifted outbound travel restrictions on Wuhan, the city hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, ending a lockdown that sealed off around 10 million people from the rest of the world for 76 days.

Over 1.4 million infections and 56,000 deaths might have been avoided as a result of the national and provincial public health measures imposed in late January in China, according to a new study led by Xi Chen, a professor at Yale School of Public Health and published in the Journal of Population Economics on April 9.

"In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history," said a report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19 released in late February. Enditem
Thirteen Northwood University students received recognition by National Collegiate DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America), an association of marketing students that encourages the development of business and leadership skills through academic conferences and competitions. These students were each presented with the Gold level DECA Leadership Passport Program Award, which is the highest honor given at the national level. Northwood students were recognized for their contributions to the advancement of both high school and collegiate DECA.

The Collegiate DECA Leadership Passport Program encourages local chapters and individual members to plan activities and participate in events that enhance the experiences of members. The leadership passport rewards action taken by members and chapters that build personal and professional skill sets focused around the organization's four attributes and values: competence, innovation, integrity and teamwork.
MADRID, May 3 (Xinhua) -- A Boeing 777 plane carrying 56 tons of sanitary material from China for Community of Madrid, one of the 17 autonomous communities of Spain, landed at Madrid-Barajas Airport late on Saturday night, the regional government has informed.

Among the equipment on the aircraft, which came from Shanghai, were 315 multi-parameter monitors, which are used in intensive care units.

The material was shipped to Pavilion 10 at the IFEMA exhibition center in Madrid, which is being used as a warehouse for sanitary equipment during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, and will subsequently be distributed among the region's hospitals.

Saturday's arrival was the sixth shipment of sanitary material which has arrived in Madrid from China since April 2, bringing a total of 18 million items, such as facemasks, protective gowns and shoe coverings.

Apart from the monitors, Saturday's arrival contained 1.5 million face masks (including 560,000 FFP2 masks), 560,000 gloves and 158,000 protective gowns.

Madrid is the worst-hit region of Spain by the pandemic with over 62,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 8,332 deaths.
In the 1980s, when marriage and adopting children seemed impossible dreams for gay men, the psychoanalyst Richard C. Friedman became their champion.

His 1988 book, Male Homosexuality: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective, showed that sexual orientation was largely biological and presented a case that helped undermine the belief held by most Freudian analysts at the time that homosexuality was a pathology that could somehow be cured.

I felt an ethical obligation to find the reasons for anti-homosexual prejudice, he once told an interviewer. His wife, Susan Matorin, a clinical social worker at the Weill Medical College of Cornell, put it more plainly: Straight people had the same personality issues, and they got away with murder, but gay people were stigmatized, and he didnt think that was right.

Dr. Friedmans motivation wasnt political. He very much felt like you followed the science, and it didnt matter what the political backdrop was, his son, Jeremiah, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, said in a phone interview.
Highlights Vodafone, Airtel and Reliance Jio users across the country will receive calls from the government to check whether they have COVID-19 related symptoms or not.

The users having the Aarogya Setu app and even the feature phone users are likely to get contacted by the government.

The Indian government will team up with telecom giants Vodafone, Airtel and Reliance Jio to enable contact tracing through calls.

Soon Vodafone, Airtel and Reliance Jio users across the country will receive calls from the government to check whether they have COVID-19 related symptoms or not. The reports suggest that the government might get in touch with over 900 million citizens. The users having the Aarogya Setu app and even the feature phone users are likely to get contacted by the government.

As per an ET report, the Indian government will team up with telecom giants Vodafone, Airtel and Reliance Jio to enable contact tracing through calls. The govt is planning to expand the Aarogya Setu app to nearly 550 million feature phone users. As of now, the Aarogya Setu app is only available for smartphone users but it was found that the majority still uses features phone so now this cannot be a smartphone-only app.

Talking about how contact tracing through voice calls will happen, Abhishek Singh, CEO of MyGov told the daily that the voice calls will be available in all Indian languages. There will be an IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), which will interact with the users and check if they have any COVID-19 symptoms or not. It will then alert the local authorities if any of the users are found to be showing the symptoms of COVID-19. The government is also contemplating a pan-India rollout of the IVRS so that the users can update the authorities about their health.

"All smartphone users who have not yet downloaded the application will also be getting notifications from their service providers to download it," he added.

The Aarogya Setu app is being hailed by the government as a major tool that could contain the spread of the virus. The medical team of Ayushhman Bharat is contacting people who have shared their health status on the app or declared their symptoms, using the data provided by the Aarogya Setu app. So far 75,000 calls have been made by the Ayushmann Bharat. The government is also planning to bring the app to Jio Phones as there are currently over 150 million Jiophone users in the country.

The app was recently made mandatory for all the central government employees and they were advised to come to the office only if their status on the app shows low risk or no risk. However, if their status shows high risk or moderate risk, they are advised to stay at home.

The Aarogya Setu app was also being made mandatory for migrant workers. The government had said that the workers should "be encouraged to download the app through which their health status can be tracked and monitored".
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Recent sleep surveys show that Singaporeans are among the world's most sleep-deprived people. Scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS) and the University of Tokyo provide new evidence, which supports the presence of a key mechanism that regulates our biological clock. In the study published in PNAS, the team used preclinical models to validate that mutations in PER2 protein can alter the balance of the circadian period, which can lead to sleep disorders.

Biological clocks are an organism's innate timing device. It is composed of specific proteins called clock proteins, which interact in cells throughout the body. Biological clocks produce and regulate circadian rhythmsthe physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a daily cycle. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of the circadian clock provides a huge potential to identify therapeutic interventions to mitigate circadian disruption, and its long-term consequences such as diabetes, obesity and cancer among shift workers, who undergo frequent circadian disruption and are more prone to these diseases.

The Duke-NUS scientists had previously discovered that mutations in a specific protein (called casein kinase 1) alters the core clock protein (called PERIOD or PER), and this changes the timing of the biological clock. In this study, preclinical models were used to investigate the role of PER2 (a type of PER protein) in clock regulation to further understand and strengthen the model.

"The study findings clearly demonstrated that targeted mutations in the PER2 protein can alter the balance of biological clock and can significantly lengthen the circadian period in preclinical models," said Dr. Rajesh Narasimamurthy, Principal Research Scientist at the Duke-NUS' Cancer and Stem Cell Biology (CSCB) program.

"People's sleep/wake patterns play a significant role in determining their cognitive skills, social behavior and their responses to drug," said Professor David Virshup, Director of the Duke-NUS' CSCB program and corresponding author of this study.

"Our study helps us understand and validate the genetic and biochemical regulation of our circadian sleep/wake cycles, which can produce a morning lark or night owl effect. Understanding how the clock works can help in the development of new therapeutic interventions for treating people with sleep disorders," Prof Virshup added.

"Sleep disorders are increasingly recognized as a major public health concern. This important study by our researchers could open new possibilities and strategies to treat sleep disorders, and improve the quality of life among affected individuals in Singapore and beyond," said Professor Patrick Casey, Senior Vice Dean for Research at Duke-NUS.

The team is currently investigating other factors that can cause mutation in PER2 protein and regulate the clock speed.

Explore further The discovery of new compounds for acting on the circadian clock

More information: Shusaku Masuda et al. Mutation of a PER2 phosphodegron perturbs the circadian phosphoswitch, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Shusaku Masuda et al. Mutation of a PER2 phosphodegron perturbs the circadian phosphoswitch,(2020). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2000266117
1. L-thyroxine did not improve symptoms or tiredness in older persons with subclinical hypothyroidism and high symptom burden

Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M19-3193

Free patient summary: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/P20-0005 URL goes live when the embargo lifts

In older adults with subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) and high symptom burden, L-thyroxine did not improve symptoms or relieve tiredness compared with placebo. These results do not support routine use of L-thyroxine in this population. Findings from a secondary analysis of a randomized trial are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Subclinical hypothyroidism is an early form of a condition where the thyroid gland doesn't make enough thyroid hormone, resulting in slightly abnormal hormone levels. The recent TRUST trial (Thyroid hormone Replacement for Untreated older adults with Subclinical hypothyroidism Trial) compared thyroid hormone treatment with placebo among older adults with SCH and found no difference in symptoms. However, whether a subset of patients with subclinical hypothyroidism who have greater symptoms might still benefit continues to be debated.

Researchers from Bern University Hospital and University of Bern, Switzerland studied 638 persons aged 65 years or older with persistent SCH to determine whether L-thyroxine could improve hypothyroid symptoms and tiredness among older adults with SCH and high symptom burden. The researchers found that patients who were treated with thyroid medication did not experience greater improvement in symptoms, quality of life, or handgrip strength regardless of the severity of their symptoms before treatment. In the absence of another randomized clinical trial specifically designed for persons with SCH and high symptom burden, these results do not support routine use of L-thyroxine therapy for these patients.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF please contact Lauren Evans at laevans@acponline.org. To speak with the lead author, Maria de Montmollin, MD, can be reached directly at maria.demontmollin@insel.ch.

2. Three-drug combination, RHB-105, effectively eradicates H pylori infection in adults

Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M19-3734

URL goes live when the embargo lifts

The three-drug combination of omeprazole, amoxicillin, and rifabutin in one capsule, RHB-105, effectively eradicates Helicobacter pylori infection in adults. The novel formulation was found to still be effective and well-tolerated in an environment of clinically significant antibiotic resistance. Findings from a double-blind randomized trial are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

H. pylori infection is the main cause of gastrointestinal diseases, such as peptic ulcer, gastritis, and gastric cancer. Current guidelines recommend eradication of the infection, but it is difficult to treat because success with previously effective therapies has declined, related largely to the worldwide increase in antibiotic resistance. Both the World Health Organization and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have designated clarithromycin-resistant H pylori as a focus for new drug development, and the FDA included it as a pathogen with "the potential to pose a serious threat to public health."

Researchers at 55 clinical research sites in the United States, led by researchers from the Michael E. De-Bakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, randomly assigned 455 treatment-naive adults with epigastric discomfort and confirmed H pylori infection to triple therapy with RBH-105 or dual therapy of amoxicillin/omeprazole to assess the effectiveness of RHB-105 for H pylori eradication. The researchers found that H. pylori eradication rate was significantly greater following treatment with the rifabutin-based triple therapy than with high-dose amoxicillin/omeprazole dual therapy. Eradication rates were not affected by H. pylori resistance to clarithromycin or metronidazole, which suggests that RHB-105 should be considered as a first-line empirical therapy of H pylori infection.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF please contact Lauren Evans at laevans@acponline.org. To speak with the lead author, David Graham, MD, please contact Sandy Norris at norriscommunicationsgroup@comcast.net.

3. HIV-positive men who have sex with men not getting recommended STD prevention services Men also report engaging in risky sexual behaviors

Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M19-4051

URL goes live when the embargo lifts

Men who have sex with men (MSM) that are being treated for HIV are not getting recommended prevention services or annual sexually transmitted disease (STD) testing. These same men report engaging in risky sexual behaviors, which puts them at increased risk for acquiring and spreading infection. Findings from a large, nationally representative survey are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe results from the Medical Monitoring Project, an annual, 2-stage, complex sample survey designed to produce national representative estimates of behavioral and clinical characteristics of adults in the U.S. diagnosed with HIV. The survey of 4,000 people assessed self-reported behaviors for STD transmission, including sexual behaviors, drug and alcohol use before or during sex, and receipt of HIV or STD prevention services during the past 12 months. Among people with diagnosed HIV, two-thirds reported having anal sex without a condom in the past year, putting them at risk for acquiring STDs and potentially transmitting HIV and STDs, including hepatitis C. However, many did not receive recommended prevention services and STD testing. Risk behaviors for acquiring STDs were similar among patients being treated at all facilities, but those being treated at Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program-funded facilities were more likely to receive recommended STD prevention services and STD testing.

According to the researchers these finding suggest that closer adherence to guidelines for delivering prevention services and STD testing to HIV-positive men is needed. Meeting these requirements is necessary for helping to prevent STDs and end the HIV epidemic.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF please contact Lauren Evans at laevans@acponline.org. The lead author, John Weiser, MD, can be reached at jweiser@cdc.gov.

Also new in this issue:

Eosinophilic Esophagitis

David A. Katzka, MD

In the Clinic

Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/AITC202005050

A Cautionary Tale: The 2019 Orphaning of Hahnemann's Graduate Medical Trainees

David Jacob Aizenberg, MD; William C. Boyer, DHSc, MS; and Lia Suzanne Logio, MD

Academia and the Profession http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M20-0043

###
By Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Sunday he would not rule out anything in a new relief bill to ease the 'tremendous hardships' of the coronavirus outbreak, including more money for state and local governments and small businesses.

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Sunday he would not rule out anything in a new relief bill to ease the "tremendous hardships" of the coronavirus outbreak, including more money for state and local governments and small businesses.

More than 30 million Americans have joined the unemployment benefit rolls over the past six weeks and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are discussing a fourth coronavirus relief bill.

Democrats are pushing for additional aid to help cities and states cope with lost revenue from a shut-down economy and some governors have warned of massive layoffs if they fail to get it.

Some advisers to Republican President Donald Trump have said the need for another stimulus bill is not yet clear. But Kudlow said "there may well be additional legislation" as officials study how the billions included in the last bill take effect.

"We know the economy is still in a terrible, contractionary phase, tremendous hardships, everywhere," Kudlow said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"We're trying to work through this. I don't want to rule in or out anything right now. We are in discussions internally and with leading members of Congress."

Congress has not met in regular session since March, though it has passed major coronavirus relief bills worth nearly $3 trillion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said money for states and cities would be the core of the next legislative package Democrats draft to respond to the virus.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said on Sunday federal help to states that have taken a big revenue hit from coronavirus would make a "huge difference."

"This is about firefighters, police, EMS, teachers at the point of attack. We're already seeing some layoffs in New Jersey," Murphy said on "Fox News Sunday." "We need a big slug of federal, direct cash assistance."

All 50 states are suffering from the lack of revenue over the past two months, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said in response to Trump's argument that states with budget woes before the coronavirus outbreak should not get bailed out.

"Coronavirus has caused that. All of us are having to spend more on social services and healthcare to take care of people," Pritzker said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Kudlow said authorities need to see the results of the previous funding efforts before deciding on the next steps.

"Then we'll see, we will see in a couple of weeks, what needs to be done and perhaps how to do it," Kudlow said.

Kudlow was asked whether more aid aid would be given to small businesses.

"It may be," Kudlow said. "We haven't made a decision yet."

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Tom Brown)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
S tories about daring to be different, the merits of being a mouse, and using imagination to transform a cramped flat into an exotic jungle are on the shortlist for this years Oscars Book Prize.

There were a record 128 entries for this years award, which seeks to find the best book published in 2019 for children aged five or under.

The judges, including X Factor host and childrens writer Dermot OLeary, Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon, and childrens book consultant Jake Hope, debated for almost two hours before whittling the candidates down to a shortlist of six to compete for the 5,000 prize.

The annual award was set up in 2014 in memory of Oscar Ashton, the son of the Evening Standards former City editor James Ashton, who died in 2012 at the age of three-and-a-half. It pays tribute to Oscars love of stories and childrens imagination. Oscars father and mother Viveka Alvestrand, also on the panel, were joined this year by Simon Johnson, UK director of books at Amazon.

This years shortlist announced today is made up of:

Tad by Benji Davies

The Suitcase by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros

A Mouse Called Julian by Joe Todd Stanton

Alphonse, Theres Mud on the Ceiling! by Daisy Hirst

I Am a Tiger by Karl Newson and Ross Collins

The Runaway Pea by Kjartan Poskitt and Alex Willmore

OLeary said: Ive only written four books, so part of me wonders whether I should be judging anything else, but I was so flattered and its felt a privilege to be a judge. There were lots of brilliant books to choose from, with grumpy characters, timeless tales of wildlife and the concept of growth, stories of inanimate objects and animals being given personalities and all the amazing illustrations So many of the themes really resonated with me.

What the judges have said about the Oscar's Book Prize shortlist A Mouse Called Julian: A fun, evocative tale of not judging a book by its cover, and one that encourages readers to value their own company. - Dermot OLeary I Am a Tiger: The subtle message was very powerful. Dont let other people define who you are. I laughed a lot when I read it and can see it being read again and again. - Francesca Simon The Runaway Pea: Beautifully illustrated and made me and my sons laugh out loud. I particularly enjoyed the naughty fruit hiding under the fridge. - Simon Johnson Tad: There are ample opportunities for curious minds to discover more about the world with the building blocks laid for counting and lifecycles and readers will feel like they have really hopped along on a journey alongside Tad. - Jake Hope The Suitcase: This book touched my heart. It has a melancholy about it. The illustrations are wonderfully simple and emotive and - crucially - the sad beginning is replaced with a happy ending! - Viveka Alvestrand Alphonse, Theres Mud on the Ceiling!:  A whimsical tale of a siblings day out, brilliantly told in a language kids can relate to. - James Ashton

Princess Beatrice, a judge in 2016, is patron for the prize. The award is supported by Amazon, the Evening Standard and the National Literacy Trust, with the winner being announced on May 25. oscarsbookprize.co.uk
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 07:46:02

BERN, Switzerland, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Casino777.ch has welcomed PostFinance to its ever-growing family of payment providers, in turn making life a lot simpler for our Casino777.ch customers.



The collaboration came about in January, and since then the transition has made life easier for our Swiss market, who can use this system to make one-off or recurring payments easily and safely though PostFinance.

Casino777.ch prides itself on the partnerships it makes with payment providers who make life more accessible for the casinos customers. Therefore, this could be the start of a long and very fruitful relationship between Casino777.ch and PostFinance.

Casino777.ch Online Casino Manager, Leonard Huguenin, says: We are so pleased to welcome PostFinance to our set of payment providers. This shows that Casino777.ch continues to evolve and leads the way in working with some of the best and safest brands in Switzerland.

Contact: pr@casino777.ch
By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Monday that China has questions to answer over the information it shared about the novel coronavirus outbreak, but refused to comment on reports that a U.S.-led intelligence consortium had a accused Beijing of a cover-up.

The United States has scaled up its rhetoric over Chinese culpability for the novel coronavirus in recent days, with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying on Sunday there was evidence the disease emerged from a Chinese lab.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded the virus was not man-made or genetically modified. Washington has so far presented no evidence publicly that the virus came from a lab, which Beijing strongly denies.

The Australian Telegraph reported the U.S.-led Five Eyes intelligence consortium had in a 15-page research dossier said that China had deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak in an "assault on international transparency" that cost tens of thousands of lives.

The Five Eyes groups U.S., British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand intelligence services.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: "Every day I get intelligence bulletins from our agencies around the world. I don't comment on individual bulletins, what I have and haven't seen. That would be wrong."

Asked if China had questions to answer over how quickly it made the world aware of the extent of the crisis, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: "I think it does."

"China needs to be open and transparent about what it leant, it's short comings but also it's successes," Wallace said, adding that the time for a post mortem was after the outbreak.

Reuters has not seen the Five Eyes dossier and was unable to immediately verify the Australian Telegraph report. One Western intelligence source said it was now widely accepted that China had not been fully transparent.

CHINA

Story continues

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was confident the coronavirus originated in a Chinese virology lab. He told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday he was looking at options in terms of consequences for Beijing over the virus.

Pompeo said on Sunday there was "a significant amount of evidence" that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, although he also said he did not dispute U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusion that it was not man-made.

The Australian Telegraph said the Five Eyes document accused China of endangering other countries by covering up news of the virus, silencing or disappearing doctors who spoke out, destroying evidence in laboratories and refusing to provide live samples to international scientists working on a vaccine.

"Virus samples ordered destroyed at genomics labs, wildlife market stalls bleached, the genome sequence not shared publicly, the Shanghai lab closure for rectification," the Telegraph quoted the document as saying.

China has repeatedly denied that it covered up any details about the novel coronavirus outbreak, and says Washington is pointing the finger because of its own flawed response. The United States has the most cases and the most fatalities in the world.

"As we repeatedly point out, China has been fighting COVID-19 in an open, transparent and responsible manner," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular daily briefing on April 24.

China's ambassador to London last month said the United States should not seek to bully the People's Republic in a manner reminiscent of the 19th century European colonial war.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton; Editing by Michael Holden and Peter Graff)
Sri Lanka is yet to receive any monetary foreign assistance in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic despite signing an agreement with the World Bank, a statement from the finance ministry said on Monday.

"Sri Lanka had inked an agreement with the World Bank for USD 127 million assistance for its operation against coronavirus fight but the money remains yet to be received," the statement said, quoting a senior bureaucrat of the finance ministry, the portfolio held by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Sri Lanka has 718 confirmed cases of coronavirus with 7 deaths, local media reported.

Rajapaksa had convened a meeting of parliamentarians of the last parliament to discuss the COVID-19 situation in view of the government's rejection of the opposition request to reconvene the dissolved parliament.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declined a request from the opposition parties on May 1 to reconvene the dissolved Parliament, saying they are trying to make a political gain at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the country.

Rajapaksa on March 2 dissolved the Parliament, six months ahead of schedule, and called a snap election initially for April 25 which later was changed to June 20.

However, the new date was also left in balance on Saturday as a special meeting of political parties to firm up the date ended inconclusive.

The opposition claims that public expenditure was legally permitted only until April 30 and Parliament must be reconvened to regularise the use of money from the consolidated fund.

On Monday, the main Tamil party Tamil National Alliance was the only opposition political outfit to take part in the new meeting with Rajapaksa.

The TNA said they urged Rajapaksa to reconvene Parliament to deal with constitutional and legal issues that had surfaced.

All major parties other than the TNA had boycotted Rajapaksa's meeting due to President Rajapaksa's refusal to reconvene parliament based on a joint request which came from 7 opposition party leaders.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Lockdown 3.0: Stringent curbs continue at Noida-Delhi border

Stringent restrictions continued to be in place at the Delhi-Gautam Budh Nagar (GBN) border on Monday, the day lockdown 3.0 began in India with area-specific relaxations.GBN district magistrate (DM) Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj tweeted the dos and donts of interstate travel on Sunday. Read more.

India lodges strong protest over Pakistan SCs poll order on Gilgit-Baltistan

India has lodged a strong protest with Islamabad against Pakistan Supreme Courts order allowing general elections in the so-called Gilgit-Baltistan region and asked it to immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation. Read more.

Nearly 12,000 Covid-19 patients recover in India, daily testing capacity rises fivefold

The number of coronavirus cases in India has breached the 42,000-mark. On Monday, the Ministry of Health updated the countrys Covid-19 tally at 42,553. 2,553 new infections and 72 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours in India. Read more.

US has very conclusive report on Covid-19s China origins, says Trump

President Donald Trump promised a conclusive report from the U.S. government on the Chinese origins of the coronavirus outbreak, adding that he has little doubt that Beijing misled the world about the scale and risk of the disease before it became a global pandemic. Read more.

Wouldve given my life for him: Gautam Gambhir narrates Australia series story to credit India legend

That former India opener Gautam Gambhir refers legendary India spinner Anil Kumble as the best captain he has played under, is not a secret anymore. Read more.

Silver Lake-Reliance Jio deal: 5 key things you need to know

US-based private equity firm Silver Lake will invest Rs 5,655.75 crore in Jio platforms, said Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Jio Platforms Limited on Monday. Read more.

Anushka Sharma, Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif: Throwback to the best metallic trends

One of the most dazzling trends of 2019, metallic tones have been on the style radar for a while now and not only for its celebrity-like glamorous appeal but also for its texture and dramatic appeal. Read more.

Ratan Tata takes on fake news again, says didnt write quote attributed to him

Ratan Tata has once again taken on fakes news by busting a news article falsely attributed to him. In a tweet posted last evening, the Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons took to Twitter to share a clip of the article and denied saying or writing the quotes attributed to him. Im afraid this too, has not been said by me, he wrote in his tweet. Read more.

Does covid-19 affect children differently, how airports will be different: Top 5 from HT

Hindustan Times National Political Editor, Sunetra Choudhury brings you the top 5 stories you need to know. In todays episode, Sunetra talks about the number of Covid-19 cases in India, impact of lockdown on Indias economy, effect of covid-19 on children, how airports will be different and more. Watch here.
Individual and institutional investors, as well as advisors and analysts, are invited to attend real-time, interactive presentations on VirtualInvestorConferences.com

TORONTO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- VirtualInvestorConferences.com today announced that Paul Pint, President of Troilus Gold Corp. (TSX: TLG;OTCQB: CHXMF) ("Troilus" or the "Company"), will present live at VirtualInvestorConferences.com on May 6th, 2020. Troilus is a Toronto-based, Quebec focused, advanced stage exploration and early-development company focused on the mineral expansion and potential mine re-start of the former gold and copper Troilus mine.

DATE: Wednesday, May 6th

TIME: 4:30 PM ET

LINK: https://tinyurl.com/MayResourceVIC-PR



This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.

It is recommended that investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates.

Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com.

Recent Company Highlights

Low risk jurisdiction in Quebec, Canada

Production infrastructure in place, includes an extensive network of roads, sub-station and power lines, permitted tailings facility and an operational water treatment facility

+80,500 metres drilled in 2 years

Mineral Resource estimate grew ~129% to 4.71 Moz AuEq (Indicated) and 1.76 Moz AuEq (Inferred) from 2017 to 2020 1

Five fold increase in total land position to 83,385 ha. Troilus is the largest mineral claims holder in the highly prospective Frotet-Evans Greenstone Belt2

1See Troilus Gold Corp. press release dated November 12, 2019

2See Troilus Gold Corp. press release dated April 21, 2020

Qualified Person

The technical and scientific information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Bertrand Brassard, M.Sc., P.Geo., Senior Project Geologist, who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Brassard is an employee of Troilus and is not independent of the Company under National Instrument 43-101.

About Troilus Gold Corp.

Troilus is a Toronto-based, Quebec focused, advanced stage exploration and early-development company focused on the mineral expansion and potential mine re-start of the former gold and copper Troilus mine. The 83,385-hectare Troilus property is located northeast of Chibougamau, within the Frotet-Evans Greenstone Belt in Quebec, Canada. From 1996 to 2010, Inmet Mining Corporation operated the Troilus project as an open pit mine, producing more than 2,000,000 ounces of gold and nearly 70,000 tonnes of copper.

About Virtual Investor Conferences

Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly-traded companies to meet and present directly with investors.

A real-time solution for investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences is part of OTC Market Group's suite of investor relations services specifically designed for more efficient Investor Access. Replicating the look and feel of on-site investor conferences, Virtual Investor Conferences combine leading-edge conferencing and investor communications capabilities with a comprehensive global investor audience network.

Cautionary statements

This press release contains "forwardlooking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forwardlooking 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". Forwardlooking 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 Troilus to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forwardlooking information, including but not limited to: there being no assurance that the exploration program will result in expanded mineral resources; risks and uncertainties inherent to mineral resource estimates; receipt of necessary approvals; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; future prices of mineral prices; accidents, labour disputes and shortages; environmental and other risks of the mining industry, including without limitation, risks and uncertainties discussed in the Technical Report and other continuous disclosure documents of the Company available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com . Although Troilus 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 forwardlooking information. Pitchblack and Troilus do not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE VirtualInvestorConferences.com
Over 20 Indians stuck in Nepal due to a lockdown in both the countries have appealed to the Union government to facilitate their return home.

They include tourists and those who had gone to the neighbouring country to meet their relatives before March 25, when the lockdown came into force in India, officials said.

The group has urged Indian authorities to talk to their Nepalese counterparts to ensure they are able to cross the bridge in Dharchula in Uttarakhand that separates the two countries, SDM A K Shukla said.

According to the SDM, besides these citizens, over 30 animals and their owners, tribal villagers from Chand Valley, are also stuck in Nepal. They had taken the animals to the high-altitude areas for grazing.

They too have applied to the Indian administration to facilitate their return, the SDM said.

Nepalese officials have assured Indian authorities that people stuck across the border are taken care of.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection (CHP) reported no new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with the total number remaining at 1,039.

Hong Kong has no new local infection for 14 consecutive days.

Financial Secretary of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government Paul Chan said in his blog on Sunday that as the COVID-19 pandemic has eased recently in Hong Kong, some measures are expected to be gradually relaxed, allowing social life and business operations to return to normal. However, while the pandemic in the world is still not over, the society needs to remain cautious.

Chan said as Hong Kong's economic activities can only resume in a limited and gradual manner and the economies of Europe, the United States and other places are dragged down by the pandemic, Hong Kong's domestic demand, exports and investment are unlikely to improve significantly for the time being.

He said that Hong Kong's economy is in the midst of a deep recession, and the forthcoming forecast for annual GDP growth in the first quarter will be even worse due to the continuous violent protests and the lingering of the pandemic.

If the pandemic continues to be under control and pandemic preventive measures for various industries to be relaxed step by step, it will help all walks of life to regain their vitality, Chan said, stressing that a stable and peaceful social atmosphere is essential for the economy to regain its momentum.
Dr. Bernard Oko-Boaye

04.05.2020 LISTEN

Government has expanded the number of Covid-19 testing facilities in the country with two more laboratories within few weeks, Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Bernard Oko-Boaye, has disclosed.

The additions are the Korle-Bu Public Health Reference Laboratory and the University of Health and Allied Sciences Laboratory in the Volta Region.

In a statement delivered in Parliament on Thursday, Dr. Oko-Boye said the Navrongo Reference Laboratory in the Upper East Region had been earmarked for upgrade to be added to the centres for testing Covid-19.

According to him, the Navrongo Reference Laboratory and other facilities will be equipped to add on to the diagnostic capacities not only for Covid-19, but also for CSM and other disease conditions regarding modern sophisticated laboratories with the capacity to do Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.

The Deputy Minister explained that the government was facilitating speedy testing of Covid-19 samples that were yet to be done following the stepping up of the contact tracing efforts to identify possible cases of the virus in the country.

Until the new additions, the Noguchi Medical Research Institute in Accra and the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research were the only testing centres in the country.

I am happy to say that apart from Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Accra and KCCR in Kumasi, the Akufo-Addo government has worked hard to ensure that, within these few weeks, Korle-Bu Public Health Reference Laboratory and the UHAS Laboratory in the Volta Region, have been added to the centres for testing Covid-19.

Very soon, Navrongo Reference Laboratory and other facilities will be equipped to add on to our diagnostic capacities for CSM, Covid-19 and other disease conditions regarding modern sophisticated laboratories with the capacity to do Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.

---Daily Guide
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 20:13:05|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close





--China is winning its war against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) which scientists say is natural in origin, but the country has to battle another "political virus" that is viciously manipulated by U.S. politicians.

--When it only takes a straightforward comparison of the death tolls to understand the U.S. administration's awkward performance in handling the disease, the Washington politicians beefed up their "China cover-up" theory.

--China has taken the most comprehensive, strictest, and most thorough prevention and control measures to battle the epidemic. The government has always stressed that epidemic information must be reported in time and released in an open, transparent, and truthful manner.

By Xinhua writers Sun Wenji, Li Zhihui

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- China is winning its war against the novel coronavirus which scientists say is natural in origin, but the country has to battle another "political virus" that is viciously manipulated by U.S. politicians.

China is seeing a spike in travelers during the May Day holiday, a positive sign of public confidence in the progress in combatting COVID-19 after months of arduous nationwide efforts. While the achievements serve as a signal and encouragement for the world that the epidemic can be overcome, the U.S. administration sharpens its rhetoric on China.

Some U.S. politicians have suggested that China should be held accountable for the global pandemic, accusing China of covering up information about the outbreak.

However, this "cover-up" label should be put on the U.S. administration as its incapability in handling the disease is clear for all to see. The time of smearing China should have been spent on better controlling its domestic epidemic situation.

OPENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY FALL ON DEAF EARS

In the narrative of U.S. politicians fanning anti-China flames, Zhang Jixian, the doctor who first alerted the medical system of the novel coronavirus in late December in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, has been seldom mentioned.

On Dec. 27 last year, Zhang, director of the respiratory and critical care medicine department of the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, filed a report to the hospital, which soon submitted it to the district-level center for disease control and prevention.

"The report is about us discovering a viral disease, probably infectious," Zhang told Xinhua.

Zhang Jixian (2nd R), director of the respiratory and critical care medicine department of Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, communicates with her colleagues at the hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 11, 2020. (Photo by Ke Hao/Xinhua)

The virus came all of a sudden and knowledge of it was scarce back then. No one knew the exact source and transmission route at the very beginning.

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on Dec. 30 sent out an urgent notification about an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown causes in the city. The National Health Commission dispatched a working group and an expert team in the wee hours of Dec. 31 to Wuhan to guide epidemic response and conduct on-site investigations.

The country was quick to share information with the world, too. Since Jan. 3, China has been regularly informing the World Health Organization (WHO) and relevant countries, including the United States, on the latest development of the situation. On Jan. 12, China shared with the WHO information on the genome sequence of the novel coronavirus, which has laid a solid basis for global efforts of scientific research and vaccine development.

China has taken the most comprehensive, strictest and most thorough prevention and control measures to battle the epidemic. The government has always stressed that epidemic information must be reported in time and released in an open, transparent and truthful manner.

On April 17, Wuhan, which was hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, revised its numbers of confirmed cases and fatalities in the city to include those that were previously uncounted.

Due to the insufficiency in admission and treatment capability in Wuhan in the early period of the outbreak, a few medical institutions failed to connect with the disease prevention and control system in time, while hospitals were overloaded and medics were overwhelmed with patients. As a result, belated, missed and mistaken reporting occurred, according to an official of the Wuhan municipal headquarters for COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control.

The revision demonstrated once again China's respect for every single life and its adherence to facts.

Aerial photo taken on Jan. 26, 2020 shows the Yellow Crane Tower and the Yangtze River Bridge during a lockdown to contain the epidemic in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Xiong Qi)

China's control measures worked. The U.S. politicians, however, are not willing to admit that China has managed to curb the epidemic in a relatively short time.

When it only takes a straightforward comparison of the death tolls to understand the U.S. administration's awkward performance in handling the disease, the Washington politicians beefed up their "China cover-up" theory.

"The record is clear: China got the epidemic under control while the United States did not. China implemented a strict national lockdown while the United States did not," Jeffrey Sachs, a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said in a recent opinion piece. "In fact, (U.S. President Donald) Trump repeatedly praised China during February, only turning on China when the situation got tough in the United States."

TIME TELLS

China has put the achievement of its COVID-19 fight to the test of time and the people.

The country will start the annual sessions of the national legislature and top political advisory body in May. Such courage and action is a confident reply to those who doubt China's anti-virus success, as the large-scale gathering in Beijing requires all-out efforts to ensure no epidemic resurgence.

The government's judgment on the situation of epidemic control has been endorsed by the public, as shown by the work resumption and the spike in tourism.

In April, the number of tourists who made online bookings has quadrupled from March, according to Trip.com Group.

On Friday, the first day of the May Day holiday, 7,394 trains were in operation in China, carrying 7.37 million travelers, a record daily high since the Lunar New Year, according to the China State Railway Group.

Tourists visit the reopened Palace Museum in Beijing, capital of China, May 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Zhonghao)

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that 98.5 percent of China's large and medium-sized enterprises had resumed production as of April 25.

China's reopening of its economy has preconditions that the safety of life is guaranteed, in sharp contrast with the U.S. administration which pushed to relax the country's shutdown even as coronavirus deaths remained high, leading to some public health experts reminding Americans of exercising proper social distancing.

Employees work at a highway construction site in Pingyi County of Linyi City, east China's Shandong Province, May 1, 2020. (Photo by Wu Jiquan/Xinhua)

WHO IS REALLY COVERING UP?

When China struggled to fight the virus, the alarm bells kept ringing to the world. But the U.S. administration seemed to care more about its political agenda than public health, without telling the public the truth about the severity of the disease.

Some experts shared the view that the nearly two-month time window won by China was squandered by the U.S. politicians because of misjudgment and insufficient preparation. China's warnings have fallen on deaf ears.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gives a speech via video during a virtual Briefing on China's Experience on COVID-19 Response in Beijing, capital of China, March 12, 2020. (National Health Commission/Handout via Xinhua)

To shift public criticism, they adopted the old tactic of blaming others and even resorted to conspiracy theories.

Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet medical journal, said the conspiracy theory could undermine the global response to the virus. "It is very important to understand the origins of the virus, study those origins scientifically and not to allow such conspiracy theories to contaminate our thinking."

While the smearing attacks against China and other targets to distract attention continue, the real image of an incompetent administration has been clear to the world.

"The United States needs to ask their president for the truth," a Twitter user named "archie" said, commenting on a short animation titled "Once Upon a Virus" that briefly compared China's proactive epidemic response with the U.S. administration's indifference and inactivity. 

(Xinhua reporter Zhao Jiasong also contributed to the story. Video reporters: Yu Guoqing, Yang Zhigang, Hou Wenkun, Xie E, Wang Jiangang, Guo Wei, Tan Yixiao, Hu Yousong; Video editor: Liu Yuting)
Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae speaks at a media briefing at the Government Complex in Seoul, Monday, announcing the dates when students can to return to school. Yonhap



By Jun Ji-hye



The government has decided to gradually reopen schools across the country, starting May 13, based on the judgment that the nation's coronavirus infection rate has been plateauing, Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae said Monday.



High school seniors will be prioritized and allowed to return to school May 13 as it is urgent for them to prepare for the annual College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). The national college entrance exam has been postponed to Dec. 3 this year due to the pandemic  it is usually held in November.



"Middle school seniors and juniors at high schools in addition to elementary grades 1 and 2 will return to school, May 20, followed by freshmen at high schools, juniors at middle schools and elementary grades 3 and 4, May 27," Yoo said during a briefing.



Freshmen at middle schools and elementary grades 5 and 6 will return to school, June 1, she noted.



The minister added that the decision on the date of school reopening was made in consideration of the possible impact of the so-called "golden holiday" between April 30 and May 5 with Buddha's Birthday, Labor Day and Children Day's all falling close together.



Many citizens are expected to travel across the country during the holiday at a time when the risk of infection still exists.



The health authorities believe that the coronavirus' incubation period is about 10 to 14 days.



The decision on reopening schools comes as the government decided to further loosen its guidelines on social distancing, beginning Wednesday, amid clear signs of a slowdown in the number of new COVID-19 infections here.



Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Sunday that the nation will move on to a "distancing in daily life" plan, which will allow the phased reopening of facilities that have been shut down amid the coronavirus pandemic.



The relaxed guidelines come about 40 days after the government intensified its social distancing drive, March 22, asking churches and other facilities to suspend operations, while advising citizens to refrain from going outside and gathering in large groups.



The nation's elementary, middle and high schools that usually start the new school year in early March have also remained closed for about two months.



The ministry initially postponed the new school term to April as part of precautionary measures.



Even after the beginning of the new school term, the ministry did not have students physically attend them. Instead, students resumed classes online in phases, beginning with high school and middle school seniors, April 9.



The education ministry has so far collected opinions from local education superintendents, teachers and parents as well as the health authorities on when to resume school operations.



Meanwhile, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Jung Eun-kyeong warned about the possibility of infection clusters after the resumption of school operations, especially among lower grade students.



"In preparation for the risk, the health authorities, together with the education ministry, have drawn up various guidelines," she said.


People make their way across the Peace Bridge in Londonderry.

A 700 million package to support city deal projects in Northern Ireland will help rebuild the regions post-coronavirus economy, Stormonts leaders have said.

Arlene Foster and Michelle ONeill said the planned investment was more important than ever, given the economic damage inflicted by the health crisis.

The majority of the money fulfils the executives commitment to match cash already offered by the Treasury for city deal projects in the region.

City and Growth Deals are bespoke investment agreements struck between local authorities and the Government aimed at boosting economic investment in specific areas.

Belfast and Londonderry are among the areas in Northern Ireland that have secured a deal.

 Finance Minister @conormurphysf outlines how the 700m+ funding announced today will build a productive, regionally balanced and inclusive economy  pic.twitter.com/QMVFnVbRWX  Dept of Finance (@dptfinance) May 4, 2020

The 700 million signed off by executive ministers on Monday includes 562 million for city deals and 55 million for the Inclusive Future Fund, an initiative aimed at tackling deprivation and employment issues in the north west.

Those mirror commitments made by the Government last year, at a point when the powersharing executive was in cold storage due to a long-running political impasse.

Another 100 million has been made available by the executive for capital projects which complement the city deal proposals.

First Minister Arlene Foster said: The crisis imposed upon us by coronavirus has had devastating consequences across our society and upended the economy.

Prior to the emergency, the executive had a very clear focus on growing the economy. This has become even more important as we seek to rebuild as part of our recovery plan.

We hope this significant investment will act as a catalyst for growth, maximising economic impact and boosting productivity.

Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill said: While we are still very much in the midst of a crisis, it is important that we work towards rebuilding our society and the economy.

This investment of more than 700 million by the executive will be transformative for our regional economy. It will boost jobs and deliver much-needed projects across the north.

Finance minister Conor Murphy said: This investment package signals our desire to build a productive, regionally balanced and inclusive economy.

The executive is currently reacting to the Covid-19 emergency. We have already provided over 500 million in grants and rates relief to support businesses survive the ongoing pandemic.

We also need to plan for the longer term. This investment of over 700 million provides investment in local areas and much-needed jobs and offers hope for the future.
A spiritual awakening, in regards to Christianity, is a period of time characterized by largescale, widespread revival, and the supernatural moving of the Spirit of God in such a way that produces an intense hunger for Christ and Christianity.

Typically, hundreds of people, if not thousands, will come to faith in Christ during a spiritual awakening. Churchleaders.com explain it this way:

During a spiritual revival, God supernaturally transforms believers and nonbelievers in a church, locale, region, nation or the world through sudden, intense enthusiasm for Christianity. People sense the presence of God powerfully; conviction, despair, contrition, repentance and prayer come easily; people thirst for Gods word; many authentic conversions occur and backsliders are renewed.

Revival and awakening are, generally, synonyms. The larger the geography a revival covers, the greater the tendency to call it an awakening.

According to Decision Magazine,

The Churchs first great revival occurred when 3,000 Jews came to Christ on the day of Pentecost, likely on May 24, A.D. 33.

Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off  for all whom the Lord our God will call. With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day (Acts 2:38-41).

That awesome beginning was a foretaste of what would happen time after time throughout history. By the year 300, approximately 14 million called themselves Christian, and by 500 the number neared 40 million. Since the early 1700s, God has brought about a number of notable revivals.

The following are six of the most famous revivals or awakenings in history. Excluding The Great Moravian Revival, all information is referenced from Decision Magazine.

1. The Great Moravian Revival (1727)

This revival in Herrnhut, Germany spread to England and America. This was not the greatest revival in numerical growth or geographical scope. Nevertheless, it well deserves the name because it was the first discernible occasion that Gods Spirit was outpoured simultaneously across different nations.

2. The Great Awakening (1725-1840)

Focused on those who were already churchgoers, The Great Awakening was a series of revivals that swept across the New World. Under preachers like Gilbert Tennent, Jonathan Edwards, and English evangelist George Whitefield, the revivals reached their peak from 1740 to 1742. At the same time as the Great Awakening in America was the Wesleyan revival in England.

3. The Second Great Awakening (1790-1840)

Americas next revival began in 1801 at the Cane Ridge camp meeting in Kentucky, whereas many as 3,000 were converted. The banner year for camp meetings was 1811 when approximately one-third of all Americans attended one of them.

By 1806, the Awakening had reached Williams College in Massachusetts. There, five students prayed during a thunderstorm in the shelter of a haystack, four of the five committing themselves to become missionaries. The Haystack Prayer Meeting, as it came to be called, was the beginning of the American foreign mission movement.

4. The Prayer Meeting Revival (1857-1858)

Also called the Businessmens Revival, this revival started as a prayer meeting of six people on Fulton Street in New York City. Over the next two years, a million converts were added to American churches and a million to churches in England and Ireland.

5. The Welsh Revival (1904-1905)

The Welsh Revival began in 1904 under the preaching of Evan Roberts. Within two years, 100,000 converts were added to the Welsh Church. More than five million came to Christ as the revival spread throughout the world.

As part of this same outpouring of the Spirit, revival came in 1906 to a mission led by William Seymour in a dilapidated building on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. The Azusa Street Revival was the formative event of early Pentecostalism.

6. Modern-Day Revival in China

Perhaps the most remarkable revival has taken place in China since the last missionaries left in 1953. In 1980, there were two million Christian believers in China  and by 2000 there were approximately 75 million.

A Spiritual Awakening Today

The word awakening of course implies that the Church was previously in a state of spiritual sleep or slumber and needed to be awakened. Just as in the case of the Day of Pentecost, almost every great revival or awakening has been preceded by an intense season of fervent prayer.

So, are we currently experiencing a spiritual awakening, or are we in a state of spiritual sleep or slumber? I think it is safe to say that God is certainly attempting to shake the world awake using a global pandemic.

While many nations on earth are currently turning a deaf ear to God and literally ignoring Him, they are facing an unprecedented crisis, paralyzing fear, and economic recession. Is this what its going to take to shake us awake?

Europe, for instance, is stumbling around in utter spiritual darkness. European Initiative has this to say:

It is one of the spiritually darkest continents of our time and one of the least evangelized in the world. Currently, less than 2.5% of Europeans are evangelical Christians (Operation World). Atheism, agnosticism, secularism, and Islam are on the rise. Within Europe, there are villages without a single life-giving church. Thousands have never even seen or held a Bible. Millions will spend eternity apart from God unless the Gospel reaches them.

Europe is in desperate need of a spiritual awakening, but maybe the same can be said of the majority of the nations on earth.

Greg Laurie recently wrote an article for Christianity Today titled, Will COVID-19 Lead to the Next Great American Awakening? In it, he wrote, I think we finally are beginning to realize we need God. Is he right or will it take something much worse than a pandemic to rouse us from our spiritual coma?

What Does This Mean?

Perhaps the truly honest thing to say is that we dont know for sure. The answer is prayer. We need to come together and pray for the supernatural moving of the Spirit of God in such a way that produces an intense hunger for Christ and Christianity!

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:13-14).

That is our only hope for healing from this pandemic and for a spiritual awakening.

iStock/Getty Images Plus/Boonyachoat

Kristi Walker has been a missionary in Berlin, Germany for over 15 years working with an international church as the Director of Student Ministries. She is the author of two books - Disappointment: A Subtle Path Away from Christ and Convinced. Applying Biblical Principles to Lifes Choices.
AND WE'RE BACK!!!

Nick Picks Local Stories

Nick's Picks: Reopening Week Comes With Many Questions A new month comes with new questions about how to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting today, the state of Missouri reopens after a more than month-long shutdown. The state of Kansas is also easing restrictions to allow restaurants, retailers and places of worship to open their doors.

Golden Ghetto Agreement After Weed Bust Gone Wrong

Leawood Family That Was The Target Of A Botched SWAT Raid Settles Lawsuit For $150,000 A Leawood family that was the target of a botched SWAT raid eight years ago when sheriff's deputies barged through their front door looking for a marijuana growing operation has settled its lawsuit for $150,000. The settlement was unveiled Thursday in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas.

Pandemic Life Lesson

This Kansas City Man's Mother Died Alone, But He Finds Lessons In How She Lived For This Pandemic Era Norman Rasmussen, 59, is a cheery IT professional who is also an interim pastor at Vineyard Church, which is located north of the river in Kansas City, Missouri. He and his three siblings lost their dad a few years ago. That was a blow, but they still had their mom.

Prez Trump Tests Congress

Trump takes swipe after Pelosi, McConnell decline coronavirus testing offer President Trump on Monday appeared to take a swipe at congressional leaders on Monday, calling it "interesting" that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would turn down a White House offer to implement rapid coronavirus testing at the Capitol as lawmakers return to work.

Rally Around The Veep

Secretary of Senate declines to disclose information on Tara Reade complaint against Biden The Secretary of the Senate has informed Vice President Joe Biden Joe Biden Whitmer says she believes Biden on assault allegation Republicans' dangerous weaponization of Tara Reade's allegation against Joe Biden Biden accuses Trump of 'all-out assault on the media' during World Press Freedom Day MORE that it has "no discretion to disclose" the existence of former aide Tara Reade's complaint of sexual harassment against the senator in 1993.

European Reopen Stinks

Europe is in a new phase of reopening, but it's hardly a return to normal Millions of people across Europe were returning to some semblance of their former lives Monday as more countries across the continent began to reopen after weeks or months of coronavirus-related lockdowns. But not everyone is happy with how the "new normal" looks.

Reality Check: Prez Trump White House Talks 3K A Day Coronavirus Death Toll

Coronavirus US live: Trump says 'we may have to put out a fire' if second wave hits as deaths reach 67,000 The president claimed he had 'saved hundreds of thousands of lives' at a Sunday Town Hall, after revising his death estimate as US figures climb

Biz Leaders Demand Prez Pause On China Trade Fight

Cramer says Trump can't raise tariffs on China with 30 million unemployed: 'That is 1932' CNBC's Jim Cramer warned Monday that the U.S. economy may be too weak right now to handle another trade fight with China and discouraged the Trump administration from imposing a new wave of tariffs against Beijing.

Coco Well Remembered

Ice-T's Wife Coco Pulls Down Red Panties To Reveal Thick Booty In Racy Throwback Mega / Instagram Coco Austin isn't shy about showcasing her hourglass figure and is reminding everyone where she got her start. The 41-year-old made her followers drool when she posted a thirsty throwback where she appeared nearly nude ahead of the weekend.

Local Hipsters Keep Tradition

Our mandatory 'May The Fourth' content is the tale of a cat birthday party A perfect birthday baby. // Photo by Brock Wilbur Today is "May The Fourth", a day for the traditional celebration of the Disney IP Star Wars. It is based on the saying "May the Force be with you" from the movies. I doubt I needed to explain that to you, but you never know.

Police Help Colleagues Grieve

Local officers to fill shifts so Overland Park officers can take the day off, grieve loss of officer killed in line of duty OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - The Overland Park Police Department will give all of their officers the day off Monday to grieve the loss of Officer Mike Mosher who was killed in the line of duty Sunday, Police Chief Frank Donchez said. Officers from Johnson County and Wyandotte County will fill all of the department's open [...]

After The Storm

Your Storm Track 5 Daily Forecast Today is a Storm Track 5 Weather Alert Day. We are tracking an 80% chance for scattered storms today with a high in the middle 60s. Large hail and damaging

Hottieinspires this midday peek at pop culture, community news & more as many locals return to work and are in the thick of it right now . . .is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . .
In my small seminar course, we use Zoom to recreate the classroom experience as best we can. As we discuss our readings, I observe the posters, photos and tapestries that decorate my students walls. I watch their partners and pets moving like shadows in the background. I see work areas improvised out of cramped and awkward spaces. I hear distracting background noises when a student unmutes her microphone to speak.

These Zoom intimacies are often endearing, and at times I welcome the strange, unexpected ways this period of enforced isolation brings about new kinds of closeness with others. I like knowing that this student drinks tea from a big ceramic mug, while that one seems to be good with houseplants. But Im also aware that these glimpses into my students homes violate the implicit contract of the classroom, where students have some measure of control over what parts of their lives outside of school come into view.

Its not that the classroom is ever sealed off from the outside world  nor should it be. When students bring their divergent life experiences to bear on our discussions, they make insightful connections and render abstract ideas vividly concrete. One of my favorite parts of teaching is seeing students link the concepts I teach to the lives they lead. I often feel that my primary role is to give them a vocabulary to think about  and put into words  what they already know.

Sometimes their personal lives leak into the classroom in less welcome ways. A student apologizes for falling asleep in class; he has increased his hours working at night as an Uber driver because his father was laid off from his job. Another misses class, explaining later that he had to translate for his mother at her doctors appointment. One student apologetically asks permission to keep her phone on her desk during class so she can watch for texts from her son, who is sick at home. Another comes to my office in tears, worried she will fail my course. She has been unable to study since her family was evicted from their apartment.

These are ordinary occurrences when one teaches at a public, commuter school like Queens College. And now comes the pandemic, which both reveals and worsens the inequities in our city and country, rendering lower-income people of color  the majority of CUNY students  more vulnerable in terms of health and livelihood. I see this clearly in my inbox, which has been flooded with emails from students who are ill or tending to stricken family members. A student misses a quiz because he has to rush his grandmother to the hospital; a few days later he writes to tell me she has died. Some students are working longer hours as essential workers, while others have lost their jobs. I worry most about the ones I havent heard from at all.
Munich, Germany -- The specialised knowledge and skills that geoscientists possess are crucial for providing the essential resources and healthy environments that humanity needs to thrive. To highlight this relevance, six of the world's largest geoscience societies have endorsed a declaration affirming the commitment of the international geoscience community to apply its expertise to meet societal challenges and pledging to work together to support essential geoscience research.

In the Declaration of the Significance of Geoscience Expertise to Meet Global Societal Challenges, the organisations emphasise that humanity's ability to both anticipate and meet current and future challenges depends upon the development of innovative science and technology, to understand their origins and to implement successful strategies for addressing them. In the document, the societies also recognise their shared responsibility to utilise scientific research results to increase humanity's resilience to single, as well as multiple and interrelated, societal challenges, whose cascading effects can only be understood by carrying out complex analyses with which geoscientists have particular expertise.

In addition to reaffirming their commitment to use science to help humanity prevent, prepare for, and recover from regional and global crises, the organisations pledge to effectively communicate research results to improve the public trust in science. The societies, including the European Geosciences Union, The American Geophysical Union, the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society, the Geological Society of America, the Japan Geoscience Union and The Geological Society of London, further agree to support policymakers and evidence-informed decision-making for the benefit of society and the planet.

"As the scope, complexity and urgency of challenges like the coronavirus outbreak or environmental change escalate, the expertise of geoscientists becomes increasingly relevant and important," says EGU President Alberto Montanari. "Due to their unique skillsets, Earth, planetary and space scientists have a duty, as well as an obligation, to openly and transparently address key societal issues that are of everyday relevance to people around the globe."

The declaration was issued today to coincide with the start of the European Geosciences Union's annual General Assembly. Traditionally held in Vienna each spring, the meeting this year will instead be conducted virtually due to the ongoing pandemic. This change will enable a large community of scientists, policymakers and journalists as well as members of the public to learn about the latest results of thousands of geoscience research projects taking place around the globe.

"By working together," says Montanari, "geoscientists will leverage our ability to implement feasible solutions to help realise a sustainable and just future for people, our shared planet and its vital ecosystems."

###
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

Trend:

On the initiative of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Ilham Aliyev, a Summit of the NAM's Contact Group will be held today through videoconference. The Summit under the motto "United against COVID-19" will focus on the fight against coronavirus pandemic.

Chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement has passed to Azerbaijan at the 18th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the NAM member countries which was held in Azerbaijan on October 25-26, 2019. Azerbaijan will chair the organization during 2019-2022.

Given that the Non-Aligned Movement includes 120 countries, the Summit will be held in the format of a Contact Group with the participation of countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, based on the principle of geographical representation.

The videoconference, to be attended by heads of state and government of more than 40 member states, will also be joined by the UN Secretary-General, President of the UN General Assembly, President of the African Union, WHO Director-General and High Representative of the European Union.

The extraordinary Summit of the Turkic Council was held on April 10 through videoconference on the initiative of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, chairman of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States Ilham Aliyev.

The Turkic Council is the first international organization in the globe that has held a summit on the coronavirus pandemic at the level of heads of state.
Huawei introduced its updated Mate Xs foldable smartphone during an event in Barcelona that was supposed to be part of MWC 2020. Even if it feels like a decade ago, back when social distancing wasnt a thing, it actually happened just two months ago. Now, the phone arrived with us where it will undergo our lengthy process of tests for the full review.

We already have a hands-on video and an actual hands-on review, but this time we get to spend more quality time with the Huawei Mate Xs putting it through our full review process. We'll examine its camera in detail, do all the benchmarks and give our thoughts on how the Huawei Mobile Services are doing.

The Huawei Mate X was the first-gen device, and the Mate Xs here should tell us how much progress the company made in the half-year between the market releases of the two phones. Huawei obviously likes its chances as it's selling the new phone virtually everywhere (aside from this one country that rhymes with Erica).

The Mate Xs comes with a 4,500 mAh battery and 55W SuperCharge power block in the retail box - this isnt strictly new but remains the fastest available on Huawei phones and we cant wait to test it and see how it stacks against other fast-charging solutions. The company advertises that it can give you an 85% charge in 30 minutes and we will definitely put these claims to the test.

Another improvement Huawei made with its second-generation foldable phone is the software - it comes with a modification of EMUI 10 that allows picture-in-picture apps, and some of them even can be opened twice with a certain feature called App Multiplier. The company reveals plenty of app developers are creating their products with this solution in mind, and Booking.com is already working in this direction - you can open two windows at the same time and easily navigate between them.

The Huawei Mate Xs is selling for 2,499, which is as high as smartphones go these days, not counting those coated in pure gold and precious stones. It might sound like a hard sell, but this is a novelty phone with plenty of unique features, not something youd gift your mother for her birthday. Stay around for our verdict whether the Mate Xs is worth its massive price tag.
STOCKHOLM, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Swedish Match AB announced today that Rich Flaherty has decided to retire from his position as President, US Division, effective October 2, 2020. Rich joined Swedish Match in 2000 as the CFO for the US Division and has led the business since 2008. The US business has been a key growth contributor for Swedish Match during Rich's tenure to the point where the majority of the Group's sales and profits are now derived from the US.

Tom Hayes will transition from his current position as Group CFO, effective August 1, 2020, to take on the role of President, US Division. Tom has served in his current role since 2018. He joined Swedish Match in 2006 and was previously the CFO for the US Division.

Effective August 1, 2020, Anders Larsson will be appointed CFO of the Swedish Match Group. Anders joined Swedish Match in 2008 and his current position is Vice President, Group Finance.

"Rich has been a driving force behind the phenomenal success of our US business and his leadership will be missed. On behalf of all the employees of Swedish Match, I wish Rich and his family the very best for the future. We have a comprehensive succession planning process in place at Swedish Match and have been well prepared for this transition. Tom spent most of his time at the company with the US Division and has been a great contributor these past few years in his current role. Anders has been working closely with Tom since 2018 and is well prepared for his move to the CFO role." said President and CEO Lars Dahlgren.

CONTACT:

Contacts:

Lars Dahlgren, President and Chief Executive Officer

Office +46-8-658-0441

Emmett Harrison, Senior Vice President Investor Relations

Office +46-70-938-0173

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/swedish-match/r/swedish-match-announces-organizational-changes,c3103620

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE Swedish Match
Bhopal, May 4 : With 43 fresh corona positive cases reported overnight, Indore took a U-turn on the first day of lockdown 3 on Monday.

The state government had on Saturday claimed to have arrested the spread of the virus, but Indore, Bhopal with 31 new cases and Ujjain with 10 have given fresh reasons for worry.

Ujjain has witnessed a spurt of corona activity since the past one week with 35 deaths. With 2,942 patients testing positive and 165 deaths, Madhya Pradesh is on top with a 5.34 per cent death rate - even ahead of Gujarat's 4.99 and Maharashtra's 4.21 per cent.

The government has replaced Ujjain District Collector Shashank Mishra with Indore Municipal Commissioner Ashish Singh.

Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur and Ujjain have remained in the red zone while most other parts of the state have stirred into action. The other districts in the western part of the state that have stayed in the red zone are Barwani, Dhar, Dewas, Khargone and Khandwa.

In Indore, the hottest spot, the number rose from 1,568 to 1,611 in Indore on Monday morning. So far 77 persons have died and 362 patients have recovered. On Sunday night, one death was confirmed from corona-related complications. The victim was an 82-year-old person.

After three days of a declining curve, there was an upward trend in virus-infected cases. Over 10 percent of the 428 patients have tested positive in the latest round.

The state health department had stepped up testing by sending samples to Puducherry and Ahmedabad laboratories. However, the reports from them were not received on Sunday and the figure could go up.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 06:12:39|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BRASILIA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has appointed Rolando Alexandre de Souza as the new director general of the Federal Police (PF), according to a decree published on Monday in a special edition of the Official Gazette.

De Souza's nomination was made official five days after Supreme Federal Court (STF) judge Alexandre de Moraes suspended Alexandre Ramagem's nomination for the position, calling his nomination an alleged "deviation from purpose," as Ramagem is a friend of the president's children and was the head of Bolsonaro's security team during his campaign and through his inauguration.

Ramagem was initially selected by Bolsonaro to replace Mauricio Valeixo, a man trusted by the former Minister of Justice and Public Security, Sergio Moro.

Moro resigned in protest on April 24 over the dismissal of Valeixo, accusing Bolsonaro of trying to interfere in the PF, which has caused the most serious political crisis since the president assumed power in January 2019.

Alexandre de Souza is a career officer and also held leadership positions in the Division of Combating Financial Crimes within the PF.

In September 2019, Alexandre de Souza became Secretary of Planning and Management for the Brazilian Intelligence Agency at the invitation of Ramagem. Enditem
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the announcement by Somalias President to repeal harsh laws which criminalised freedom of expression and journalism.

Speaking on World Press Freedom Day, and responding to an appeal from the IFJs affiliate, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo committed to scrap Somalias excessively harsh and severe Penal Code which was enacted in 1964 to ensure it is not used against journalists.

President Farmaajo said his administration fully supports the decriminalisation of journalism and free expression through legal reform and will not tolerate any infringement against the press.

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: We commend President Farmaajo for making this important declaration to repeal the Penal Code of Somalia with the explicit intention of protecting journalists and freedom of expression. This is a crucial achievement not only for journalism in Somalia, but a great encouragement for enjoying the right to freedom of expression.

According to NUSOJ, the Somali Penal Code is one of the biggest threats to media freedom in Somalia as it contains provisions outlawing insult, false news, sedition and certain types of defamation, which expressly criminalise various types of expression, preventing the media from reporting fairly on matters of public concern and citizens from debating such matters. This archaic law is routinely used to arrest and jail journalists, leading to self-censorship and a stifling of public debate on critical issues.

The harassment of journalists with criminal prosecutions and hefty fines has led to widespread self-censorship and threatened independent journalism in all regions of Somalia. This situation has seriously hampered the ability of citizens to freely express themselves added Bellanger. Somalia needs new and progressive legal tools to safeguard media freedom.

In light of the announcement, the IFJ has backed calls by NUSOJ to drop criminal charges against Mukhtar Mohamed Atosh of Voice of America  Somali Service and Abdiasis Ahmed Gurbiye of Goobjoog Media Group who were released on bail but still face criminal charges brought by the Offices of the Attorney Generals in Baidoa and Mogadishu.

Omar Faruk Osman, NUSOJ Secretary General said: Most imprisoned journalists have been convicted under this Penal Code. The full and unhindered practice of journalism and the right to free expression have been undermined by a flurry of criminal charges that have resulted in excessively prohibitive judgments. Journalists have been at the receiving end of prison sentences and crippling fines for the dissemination of information deemed uncomfortable.

The IFJ has urged Somali journalists and media organisations to observe journalistic ethics and standards in discharging their professional responsibilities.

Somali journalists are working in dreadful working conditions and they are not remunerated properly which is undermining quality journalism and their public service duty. As the legal system of the country improves, labour rights of journalists must be strengthened which will reinforce their ability to promote and sustain ethical journalism, stressed Bellanger.

The IFJ will continue working with NUSOJ to improve journalists' working conditions & the quality of journalism.
Ho Chi Minh City, May 4, 2020, CapitaLand Limited (CapitaLand), together with Thien Duc Trading-Construction Company Limited (Thien Duc), have commenced the handover of apartments at Feliz en Vista.

Located in Thanh My Loi Ward, District 2 of Ho Chi Minh City, Feliz en Vista has three residential towers, Altaz, Berdaz and Cruz towers, and one serviced residence tower. The apartments are scheduled to be handed over in phases, with the first phase comprising of apartments in Berdaz and Cruz Towers. The entire project offers 973 residential units and the serviced residence, Somerset Feliz Ho Chi Minh City, will comprise of 154 serviced apartments managed by The Ascott Limited, CapitaLand's lodging business unit.
Bengaluru, May 4 : A 56-year-old-man from Kalaburagi succumbed to COVID-19 even as 28 new positive cases emerged in Karnataka, including 21 from Davangere alone, in the past 19 hours raising the state's tally to 642, an official said on Monday.

With the new death, COVID-19 toll in Kalaburagi has risen to six.

"Positive case 587, 56-year-old resident of Kalaburagia died at designated hospital," the official said.

The deceased man is the state's 26th Covid death, who was admitted to a hospital on Wednesday with the known case of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), cough and fever.

His X-ray examinations also diagnosed bilateral patchy Pneumonitis.

Kalaburagi is 575 km north of Bengaluru in this southern state.

Meanwhile, a spike in Covid cases in Davangere contributed 21 of the 28 new cases which emerged in the past 19 hours.

Except one case with Influenza Like Illness (ILI), rest all from Davangere were contacts of earlier cases, mostly from case 533 and two from 556.

Among the Davangere cases, 12 are men and eight women, including three children below 17.

Until Sunday 5 p.m., Davangere recorded only 10 cases, out of which two were discharged, seven active and one dead.

With the sudden spike, Davangere is now battling 28 active cases.

It is 266 km northwest of the city.

The balance seven cases of the 28 new emerged from Mandya and Kalaburagi, 2 each, Chikkaballapura, Haveri and Vijayapura, 1 each.

Of the seven, three had a travel history to Mumbai, one to Hyderabad and the remaining two were contacts of earlier cases.

Altogether on Monday morning, 15 men 13 women turned Covid positive.

Currently, out of 642 confirmed cases, 311 are active, 304 recovered and 26 dead in Karnataka.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Exxon posted its first quarterly loss in more than 30 years. But even as debt mounts and questions arise about peak oil demand, the oil supermajor nevertheless vowed to protect its dividend while also aiming to grow indefinitely into the future. Exxon lost $610 million in the first quarter, down from a profit of $2.4 billion a year earlier. Worse, the period only included a few weeks of oil prices at catastrophically low levels. As a result, the second quarter is bound to lead dramatically worse numbers.

On an earnings call with investors and analysts, Exxons CEO noted the extreme uncertainty in the oil market, but aside from spending cuts and a slowdown on operations, the companys long-term plans remain mostly unaltered.

An excellent profile of ExxonMobil in Bloomberg Businessweek pointed out all the missteps that the company has made over the past decade, such as vastly overpaying for XTO Energy to get into shale gas late; a costly bet on Canadian oil sands that didnt pan out; gambling big on Arctic Russia, only to be forced out by sanctions; and again, getting into the Permian relatively late.

One of the familiar refrains from multiple Exxon executives during each downturn or each poor quarterly performance is to reassure skittish investors not to worry, and to reiterate the bright prospects over the long-term  an inexorable increase in population, GDP, and thus, oil demand. The Bloomberg Businessweek article even pointed out the absurdity of making such a claim in early April, just as the market was falling apart. You could almost feel Woods gritting his teeth in the companys statement that day, the Bloomberg Businessweek reporters wrote, referring to Exxons CEO waiving away concerns about the companys trajectory as he pointed to steady long-term demand growth.

Announcing first quarter results on May 1, Woods did it again. Ever the optimist, he looked to the future. The long-term fundamentals that drive our business have not changed. Despite the current uncertainty and volatility, the fundamentals that underpin our business remains strong, Woods said on an earnings call.

However, the current crisis is arguably the most uncertain time in the history of the oil market. Any claims to knowing the future are not worth much. It could take years for oil demand to rebound  or, demand may have already hit a peak.

In the short run, the oil majors are shutting in production, in part because they have operations that are located in multiple OPEC+ countries that agreed to reducing output. Chevron and ExxonMobil together are shutting in around 800,000 barrels per day. ConocoPhillips also said it would cut over 400,000 bpd.

Related: The Most Critical Oil Storage In The United States



Steep spending cuts are concentrated in the Permian. Still, Exxon and Chevron, which have tried to outdo each other in the Permian, both reiterated that the current downturn is temporary. We would intend to bring activity back to the Permian when we see prices recover, Chevrons CFO Pierre Breber told Reuters.

Both also refused to touch their dividends. The dividend is secure, Wirth said, according to the FT. I dont look to what Shell is doing to decide our dividend policy, Exxons Darren Woods defensively told investors, referring to Shells decision to cut shareholder payouts.

However, such an approach is costly. ExxonMobil needs oil prices to average around $75 per barrel in order for it to break even and fund its dividend. Its rivals need roughly $50 per barrel, according to RBC Europe Limited and Reuters. To fund the payouts, Exxon needs to sell assets and take on debt.

But the asset sale strategy will prove difficult because few companies are in a position to buy assets that the majors do not want. Its going to be harder to do that in an environment like this, where people are strapped of cash, so I would expect to see that divestment program slow, Woods said. Exxon will delay its attempts to sell off some $2 billion in North Sea assets.

That leaves debt as a source of fundraising. Exxon has taken on billions of dollars of debt in the past two months alone.

Meanwhile, the European majors  namely Shell, BP and Equinor  are beginning to change their strategy, eyeing long-term uncertainty. Shell and Equinor just slashed their dividends by roughly two-thirds, each. BPs debt rose to a record high as it chose to defend its dividend, but even the British oil giant warned of an energy transition coming.

The pandemic only adds to the challenge of oil in the future therefore the question has to be: Will consumers consume less? And I think theres a real possibility of that, BP CEO Bernard Looney said on an earnings call last week. Shells CEO Ben van Beurden made headlines talking about the uncertainty of peak demand.

The European majors are pressing forward with their plans to transition into lower-carbon companies, at least on paper. The moves are still relatively minor, but they are at least rhetorically committing themselves to strategies of becoming net-zero carbon emitters by 2050 or earlier.

ExxonMobil and Chevron are resisting such a transformation. Both companies have slashed spending by 30 percent, but described the downturn as a temporary obstacle. It feels like we're finding the bottom right now, Chevrons chief executive, Mike Wirth, said.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
She has been keeping a low profile since her public break-up with Blake Garvey more than four years ago.

And on Sunday, former Bachelor star Louise Pillidge resurfaced on Instagram for the first time in seven months.

The real estate agent, 31, shared a photo of herself looking very different to how she had appeared on the Channel 10 dating show in 2014.

Remember me? The Bachelor's Louise Pillidge looks very different after seven months in hiding - as she moves on from THAT Blake Garvey scandal. Pictured in 2014

Louise was ready for a workout in a black crop top and pulled her newly-brunette hair back into a tight ponytail.

'Happy Sunday. Have an amazing day,' she captioned the selfie.

She rarely posts on Instagram these days, and her last photo was uploaded in October 2019.

Makeover: On Sunday, Louise shared this photo of herself looking very different to how she had appeared on The Bachelor in 2014. She was ready for a workout in a black crop top and pulled her newly-brunette hair back into a tight ponytail

She posed in a floral chiffon dress and white pointy-toe stilettos at her brother's wedding in Ireland.

'Such a perfect day! Congratulations to my brother Simon and his beautiful wife Clare,' she captioned the post.

Before her brother's wedding, her last post had been in July. The one before that had been five months earlier, on her birthday.

Wedding belle: Louise rarely posts on Instagram these days, and her last photo was uploaded in October 2019. She posed in a floral chiffon dress at her brother's wedding in Ireland

Louise was a contestant on season two of The Bachelor, starring Perth-based auctioneer Blake Garvey.

She placed third in the competition, but resumed her relationship with Blake after he had controversially dumped the show's winner, Sam Frost.

The pair went on to date for 18 months before breaking up in April 2016. Blake has also since retreated from the spotlight.

The term 'pulling a Blake Garvey' soon entered the public lexicon, referring to when a Bachelor dumps his winner and hooks up with a runner-up.

Scandal: Louise was a contestant on season two of The Bachelor, starring Blake Garvey (left). She placed third in the competition, but resumed her relationship with Blake after he had controversially dumped the show's winner, Sam Frost (right)
The transfer of 16 tonnes of COVID-fighting respirator masks, face shields and goggles from Canadian medical stockpiles to China on Feb. 4 marked a key plot point in Canadas pandemic narrative.

Initially, the countrys humanitarian gesture became a rallying cry for angry Canadian doctors, nurses and personal care workers alleging shortages that have exposed them to avoidable  and potentially deadly  COVID-19 transmission.

But more recently, it has served as backdrop for a quietly expressed hypothesis among researchers and public health experts: Did a shortage of personal protective equipment influence Canadas decision to hold back on aggressive protective protocols for health-care workers other countries have adopted?

Public health agencies in Canada have told health-care workers that N95 respirator masks arent necessary for routine care of patients during the pandemic  a policy that contrasts with advice provided to their colleagues in the U.S., Europe, Australia and China, a Star analysis has found.

The approach has generated criticism as new evidence emerges that the coronavirus might spread through the air. And it has conjured fresh reminders from the 2006 Commission report into the SARS outbreak that urged future public health officials to adopt a precautionary principle to health-care worker protection.

Scientific uncertainty and scientific debate can go on forever, wrote Justice Archie Campbell at the conclusion of a public inquiry he led into Ontarios handling of the SARS outbreak that killed dozens and sickened hundreds nearly two decades ago.

What we need to do is to follow the precautionary approach that reasonable steps to reduce risk need not await scientific certainty  There is no longer any excuse for governments and hospitals to be caught off guard and no longer any excuse for health-care workers not to have the maximum level of protection through appropriate equipment and training.

Since January, nearly 14 per cent of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ontario  2,144  have been health-care workers, according to Public Health Ontario. Those working in nursing homes have been hardest hit with an infection rate twice that of the patients theyre caring for, according to provincial data released last Wednesday.

At this rate, this could prove to be catastrophic, says Mario Possamai, a forensic investigator who served as a senior adviser for the SARS commission. When you see the devastation, it really breaks my heart that the precautionary principle was not adhered to.

Around the world, there are different standards and guidance for what health-care workers need as personal protective equipment (PPE). Consensus has been undermined by still-unsettled science over whether the virus can spread through tiny droplets expelled into the air by breathing, talking or coughing and remain aloft until inhaled by others.

Initially dismissed, the theory of airborne transmission has been gaining credibility through a string of published studies, most recently in the journal Nature on Monday, which reported traces of the virus found in airborne droplets inside two hospitals in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.

The still-developing evidence of airborne transmission has prompted many governments to take the precautions for health-care workers conducting routine care of patients.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends PPE, including N95 respirators to protect health-care workers. Even as shortages emerged in the U.S., the agency remained cautious, telling health-care workers to reuse of N95 masks or use them beyond their expiry date only until supplies are restored.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, in a March 12 technical report on COVID-19 prevention, advises that health-care workers who contact even suspected cases of the virus should wear PPE for contact, droplet and airborne transmission of pathogens.

Australias health officials recommendations N95 masks be used for prolonged or very close contact with patients in routine care.

The Public Health Agency of Canada, meanwhile, continues to recommend surgical masks  which offer less robust protection from airborne transmission  as acceptable protection for health-care workers treating COVID patients.

The agencys April 15 technical brief also notes ongoing concerns about diminishing supplies of PPE in Canadian hospitals and increasing focus on strategies to conserve existing PPE.

Ontarios public health agency, Public Health Ontario, initially recommended N95 use for health-care workers in January citing the precautionary principle.

Then, on April 6, the province pulled back after concluding that global clinical experience and updated scientific and epidemiological evidence shows there is no evidence that COVID-19 is transmitted through the airborne route, a ministry of health statement reads.

The province did caution that a health-care worker who believes added protections are required for the work theyre doing shall have access to the appropriate health and safety control measures, including an N95 respirator. The employer will not unreasonably deny access to the appropriate PPE.

Health-care workers report a different reality on the ground.

K.B., a nurse working at a GTA hospital who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution on the job, says that when her colleagues raise concerns about a lack of N95 masks with managers, they are told the equipment isnt mandated.

Its only provided in situations of Code Blue, she says. And we arent allowed to order anymore. I was recently told we have a six- to 20-day supply. But I dont know how realistic that is.

There has been plenty of speculation among her colleagues about PPE shortages impacting N95 guidelines, she says.

At first, it was suggested that (COVID-19) was airborne and we should wear N95 masks. And it felt like days later I was deployed and it was a (surgical) mask. The struggle nurses have had is that you dont feel protected but it is shoved in your face that this is your job and this is what youre expected to do and if you dont, youre abandoning patients. So, weve just done what we needed to do.

Overall, she calls Canadas response to health-care worker safety during the outbreak reactive.

Ive heard staff being told by managers, This is what you signed up for. But I think there were warning signs that things were coming and I dont understand why we didnt do something sooner. Now we dont have enough PPE and it was on the backs of the nurses.

In a written statement, the provincial ministry of health said the decision to withdraw the N95 recommendation for health-care workers in April was based on, a better understanding of the epidemiology of the virus and the spectrum of illness that it causes and has nothing to do with the supply of Personal Protective Equipment.

Dr. Gary Garber, infection prevention and control physician with the agency, says it is closely following scientific debate over airborne transmission of COVID-19 and is aware of theoretical information about the spread through air.

We dont want people to think we are ignoring these issues. Weve very aware of it, he told the Star. If we see something compellingly different we will act on it ... Science evolves. Knowledge evolves. And sometimes, the guidance, policies, implementation often take longer to evolve than sometimes the evidence does.

PHOs April decision to remove N95 recommendations for health-care workers was based on scientific literature reviews by a committee of experts, including Garber, who recommended the change to the ministry.

It was becoming more clear that this was not an airborne disease. In terms of the specific wording (of the public statement), the correct wording would be there is no epidemiologic evidence for airborne transmission.

He also said N95 masks are not without their own risks. Because they are uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time, many health-care workers end up with headaches or repeatedly touching their faces to adjust the devices for comfort.

Any theoretical advantage is often eliminated because of those issues, he said.

Lydia Bourouiba is a Canadian associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of the newly published article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases that concludes the weight of combined evidence supports airborne precautions for the occupational health and safety of health workers treating patients with COVID-19.

That means use of a high-grade respirator like N95 masks in a health-care setting, Bourouiba said in an interview.

Her theory on why that hasnt happened in countries such as Canada  echoed by seven other researchers and public health experts interviewed by the Star  explores the delicate tensions between science and public policy.

I cannot help but think that (the shortages of PPE) could be a factor in driving some of these decisions. There could be political aspects. If you mandate it but cant provide it that could be a liability issue. That needs to be corrected.

Managing shortages is a legitimate challenge, she said. But from a scientific perspective, mounting evidence has made clear the need for greater health-care worker protections.

I think about this at night. I know what the reality is. The toll on health-care workers is going to be clear. Its heartbreaking. I wish we were doing a lot more. Its understandable that policy takes time. But the precautionary principle should be in place.

Vicki McKenna, president of the Ontario Nurses Association, has thought a lot about why Canada has stuck to a lower protection standard rather than a precautionary approach.

In my own mind, I ask the question, is this hesitance to take the proper steps to protect health-care workers about supply? she said in an interview. Some organizations, like hospitals or long-term-care facilities, had a month of supply, others had a week  If theres an issue about supply, lets not get into a spin cycle around N95.

On April 17, McKenna and the ONA filed legal action on behalf of health-care workers inside several long-term-care homes in Ontario hit hard by COVID-19 infections and deaths. They allege N95 respirators were unavailable or locked up.

A lack of available N95 protection, the claim alleges, represents a denial to provide scientifically accepted, life-saving personal protective equipment, the unproven allegations read.

For a contrasting approach, McKenna points to China.

When you see whats happening in China and places that are ahead of us in the COVID situation, theyre in full HAZMAT suits in their ICUs, and where theyre not in an ICU they are in N95 or above with full respirator hoods.

While the early days of the outbreak in China featured dramatic spikes in health-care worker infections, Chinese officials quickly imposed mandatory N95 mask use in January that dramatically decreased infections among health-care workers there.

Transmission within health-care settings and amongst health-care workers does not appear to be a major transmission feature of COVID-19 in China, a February World Health Organization report concludes. Surveillance among health-care workers identified factors early in the outbreak that placed (health-care workers) at higher risk of infection, and this information has been used to modify policies to improve protection of (health-care workers).

At the same time that Chinese officials were taking action, Possamai wrote to federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu on Jan. 31 urging her to adopt precautionary protections for health-care workers.

I am profoundly disappointed that the Public Health Agency of Canada is risking health worker safety by recommending lower protections against the novel coronavirus, the letter reads.

Failing to act with tougher policies would be to do a grave injustice to the victims of SARS and their families. Half of SARS victims in Ontario were health workers.

That day, Hajdu appeared on CBC responding to questions about Canadas preparedness and said: Were comfortable that were completely up to date in terms of our approach and what the science says. There is a very low risk to Canadians.

Behind the scenes that same day, an internal government email indicates Hajdu provided notional agreement to the Chinese donation of PPE gear.

We have some stock in (a) national emergency stockpile (incl. stuff that is expiring in Feb and March) that we are able to donate without compromising Cdn supply, reads the Jan. 31 email written by Public Health Agency of Canada chief of staff Marnie Johnstone.

Possamai, who says his letter to Hajdu did not receive a response, says a flat-footed Canadian response to COVID-19 has ignored compelling evidence about airborne transmission.

It is preposterous to claim that surgical masks are sufficient protection, says Possamai. What you have is a scientific approach in the public health agencies of Canada and Ontario that is really rigid and not open to new findings. They say the science is settled  (But) they're ignoring a huge body of science that is growing and is very persuasive.

A few days before Canadas first shipment of PPE to China, the World Health Organization had warned of an international public health emergency from the global spread of the virus. A handful of Canadian COVID-19 cases had been confirmed and a global run on N95 masks was beginning.

A press release from Global Affairs Canada at the time announced the shipment to China was vital to helping those affected and protecting the health and safety of people around the world.

The donation has been since explained by Canadian officials as an act of altruism with payoffs for Canada.

Any effort that could be made to limit the exportation of cases to the rest of the world was directly of benefit to all countries, including Canada, Tina Namiesniowski, president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, told a House of Commons committee on March 3.

On Feb. 6, two days after the initial shipment, a Chinese study recommended virtually every Chinese hospital employee, from administrative staff and assistants to medical staff in wards, wear N95 masks, coveralls, eye protection, latex gloves and barrier gowns.

Not long after, doctors, nurses and other health-care staff in Canada began speaking out about supply shortfalls and mixed messaging on proper safety measures.

A survey of nearly 5,000 doctors by the Canadian Medical Association in late March reported one in five said they had run out of N95 respirators or would within two days or less without stock replenishment.

There was also confusion over proper safety protocols.

If there were national or even international guidelines based on good quality evidence, I think that would go a long way to easing some of this uncertainty, says Montreal-based epidemiologist Christopher Labos, who has been closely monitoring the pandemic from its beginnings. The problem is a lot of this is based on consensus opinion rather than randomized trials that can prove one way or the other if one type of mask or PPE is really needed.

There has been a steady drum beat of studies into COVID transmission in recent weeks, many calling for precautionary respirator use in the absence of scientific certainty.

A paper published March 1 in The Lancet calls for N95 masks, goggles and protective gowns by health-care workers even around patients who dont show symptoms.

These findings warrant aggressive measures  to ensure the safety of health-care workers during this COVID-19 outbreak, as well as future outbreaks, especially in the initial stages where limited information about the transmission and infective potency of the virus is available, the paper reads.

Dr. Charles Dela Cruz, a co-author and associate professor at Yale School of Medicine, says science has provided clear evidence that health-care workers need strong protective equipment in treating COVID-19 patients. What remains is policy that reflects it.

The science should not be compromised because of policy issues with regards to supply, said Dela Cruz, who grew up in Toronto. Science is science. I think the confusion comes when you start changing your bar in terms of what is needed and neglect what science and medicine tells you.

Another article posted earlier this month in the academic journal Environment International predicts failure to protect against transmission through the air will result in additional cases of infection in the coming weeks and months, which would not occur if these actions were taken 

Based on the trend in the increase of infections, and understanding the basic science of viral infection spread, we strongly believe that the virus is likely to be spreading through the air. If this is the case, it will take at least several months for this to be confirmed by science. This is valuable time lost that could be used to properly control the epidemic  and prevent more infections and loss of life.

The paper issues a plea to the international and national authorities to impose protective measures, including personal protective equipment.

Evidence of airborne transmission of coronavirus dates back at least 15 years to a key Toronto study in the aftermath of SARS, when the same questions about the travel route of the virus were being debated.

The 2005 study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases confirmed the possibility of airborne droplet transmission which emphasizes the need for adequate respiratory protection, the study concludes, noting that 51 per cent of 144 SARS cases in Toronto occurred among health-care workers.

Confirmation that the SARS virus can be shed into the air of a patient room will guide the response to any future SARS outbreaks.

Little appears to have been retained from SARS, says Dela Cruz.

Experiences like SARS should have alerted us how to do this, he says. Its unfortunate that we havent really learned much.

A reading of the SARS Commission Final Report might have discouraged the emptying of medical equipment closets in Canada and a safer-than-sorry policy approach.

After the outbreak, a survey of 1,536 Ontario nurses found 54 per cent expressed concern with the protection they were given.

Their specific concerns echo many heard from health-care workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak: a lack of equipment, changing protocols and general confusion.

Overall, 46 per cent of respondents surveyed felt that the supply of masks and other PPE equipment during the SARS crisis was inadequate.

Current ONA president McKenna, reminded of those survey results this week, said the conclusions take my breath away.

It feels like deja vu, said McKenna, who worked as a nurse in Ontario during SARS. Here we are again. Weve repeated some of the same mistakes. We let down our guard. And we cant allow that to happen again. Ever.


Borsa Italiana non ha responsabilita per il contenuto del sito a cui sta per accedere e non ha responsabilita per le informazioni contenute.

Accedendo a questo link, Borsa Italiana non intende sollecitare acquisti o offerte in alcun paese da parte di nessuno.

Sarai automaticamente diretto al link in cinque secondi.
The condition of the Houston police officer injured in Saturdays deadly helicopter crash has been upgraded from critical to serious, Memorial Hermann Hospital spokeswoman Natasha Barrett said Sunday.

Chase Cormier, the helicopter pilot, underwent long hours of surgery on Saturday. Friends say his injuries included a broken back, broken ribs and a concussion. Joe Gamaldi, head of the Houston Police Officers Union, said he is improving but still has a long road of recovery ahead of him.

The crash early Saturday morning in Greenspoint killed Jason Knox, a respected officer who last year fulfilled his goal of joining the departments Air and Marine Division.

Cormiers wife, Brooke Cormier, wrote a heartfelt Facebook post Sunday about an encounter at the hospital with Knoxs wife, Keira, a Cypress-Fairbanks Fire Department dispatcher.

While her entire world crumbled around her in the matter of minutes, she still had the compassion and kindness to actually look for ME before she left the hospital, according to a portion of the post. She wanted to find me to hug me tightly and let me know how hard she was praying for my husbands recovery and we just both cried hysterically together. I have no words. I just am completely rocked by the selflessness that she showed during the absolute worst time in her life. 

No new details about the crash investigation were released Sunday. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the NTSB has not been sending representatives to crash sites, officials said. The FAA, however, responded to the crash and will send their findings to the NTSB through a joint investigation.

Around 2 a.m. Saturday, Knox and Cormier were flying over Greenspoint searching for a body in a bayou when the helicopter spiraled out of control. The aircraft careened into an apartment complex clubhouse, becoming the first fatal helicopter crash in HPD history.

The wreckage has since been removed from the apartment complex, leaving behind speckles of blue paint from the crashed chopper. Fire extinguishers were also scattered around the scene.

Local authorities said there was no indication yet on what caused the crash.

The union offered a way to donate to the officers families at assisttheofficer.com. Houston police spokesman Kese Smith said funeral arrangements are still being planned for Knox.

julian.gill@chron.com

nicole.hensley@chron.com
Ever since the world started to go wobbly, Jesus Chuy Munoz has had the urge to talk to family and friends in San Antonio, across the country and even in Mexico. So he calls them on the phone.

I want to know how theyre doing, how theyre going through these hard times, said Munoz, 87, a former Kelly Air Force Base civil servant. Im the senior of the family, so I feel like its my responsibility.

Munoz is like a lot of people these days: unmoored by the COVID-19 pandemic, grappling for a lifeline and finding one in the familiar conversational rhythms of an old-fashioned phone call.

Unlike a text, email or even a video conference, voice calls provide immediate feedback and a stronger bond than these more impersonal electronic forms of communication.

To borrow a tagline from an 1980s AT&T ad campaign, Americans are are reaching out and touching someone more than they have in years.

AT&T recently reported that mobile phone minutes were up 32 percent compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, and that calls made on mobile phones and completed over home wi-fi rather than the cellular network had almost doubled.

At its peak, Verizons network was handling an average of 800 million wireless voice calls daily, double the volume of a typical Mother's Day, which is usually the busiest calling day of the year. As states begin to open up, however, call volumes are starting to decline, according to a company spokeswoman. Customers placed 14 percent fewer wireless voice calls then during the peak, and wireless calls are now 3 percent shorter in duration.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio mariachi musicians worry about their future in a post-pandemic world

Since the stay-at-home orders went into effect, retired web designer Ray Fuller has found himself scrolling through his mobile phone contact list and randomly calling people he hasnt spoken to in a while.

Hes talked to former work colleagues, the widow of a friend he didnt know had died and another friend in Houston who is living in an apartment by himself.

I called a friend in Seattle I havent seen in a year and it turns out hes having some health issues - not COVID-19, Fuller said. I tried calling another friend Ive known since we were 10 years old. But when he didnt answer, I texted his wife. When we finally connected we talked for, like, an hour and a half.

Fuller does this, he said, because of a lesson he learned during a cancer scare several years ago.

A lot of people wouldnt call me because they thought it was a private thing, he said. But whenever a friend would call, it made me feel pretty good. So thats why I do it now.

After Trinity Baptist Church stopped celebrating in its sanctuary and went to virtual services, the pastoral staff and the church deacons decided to begin phoning members to see if they needed anything.

It helped us to make that contact, to make sure everyone is doing OK, more so than by text or email, said deacon Phyllis Patterson, who estimated shes made about 30 calls. Weve prayed with people and contacted several of our newer members to help keep them connected with the church family.

This rush to phone home is a very human response to a time of societal stress, according to James Bray, a clinical psychologist at the University of Texas at San Antonio. And theyre good for both caller and recipient.

Social distancing required to deal with the COVID-19 would certainly lead people to use technology to stay connected with others, he said. So its not surprising that people want to hear the voice of their friends and loved ones to make them feel more connected.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio homeowners making improvements during their coronavirus down time

When a friend had to drive from San Antonio to Houston to attend her brothers funeral, Cecilia Elizondo Herrera used the phone to go along with her, in a way.

We talked on the phone almost the whole time she was driving there and back, said Elizondo Herrera, who was recently named the national chairwoman of the advisory committee of the new Institute of Mexican American History of Civil Rights at Our Lady of the Lake University. It was especially tough for her because, when they got to the grave site, they had to wait in the car until enough people left before they could go to it.

Carol Hornbuckle said shed be very depressed if she didnt have the option of picking up the telephone and calling her friends and family, including her five grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

I make one call a day, and especially with the younger people, its interesting to hear what their lives are like, said Hornbuckle, 84, who resides in an independent living facility in New York state where most activities have been canceled and residents must take meals in their rooms. I guess I never realized how much I like interacting with people.

One unintended benefit of this sudden need for personal connections is that it has made Elizabeth Masons job a little easier. An independent job recruiter specializing in oil and gas, Mason has for years been making plenty of telephone calls to clients and potential candidates.

People usually let my calls go to voicemail, thinking they were spam, she said. But now they pick right up, even when they dont recognize my number on their phone.

Richard A. Marini is a features writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Richard A., become a subscriber. rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini
Costco said on Monday it had limited the number of beef, pork and poultry products customers can buy.

Grocery stores are preparing for massive shortages of meat supplies following coronavirus induced supply disruptions.

Some of the biggest slaughterhouses in the United States have closed over the last few weeks as COVID-19 spread widely through meat processing facilities. That has cut beef slaughter capacity 10 percent and pork slaughter capacity by 25 percent.

Costco said it would temporarily limit fresh beef, pork and poultry purchases to a total of three items per Costco member, following Kroger Co, which has put purchase limits on ground beef and fresh pork at some of its stores.

And, with experts warning the food supply chain is breaking, data shows as many as one out of every four Americans are projected to join the ranks of the hungry.

Before the pandemic, food policy experts say, roughly one out of every eight or nine people across the nation struggled to stay fed.

Starting Monday, Costco will also require all shoppers to wear masks or face coverings to reduce the chances of transmission of the virus.

John Tyson, chairman of the United States' largest meat processing company Tyson Foods Inc said last week the food supply chain was 'breaking' and millions of pounds of meat would vanish from grocery stores in the country.

Costco said on Monday it had limited the number of beef, pork and poultry products customers can buy. Signs in a Costco Wholesale store in Dallas on Thursday

Dallas Texas, Thursday: Grocery stores are preparing for massive shortages of meat supplies following coronavirus induced supply disruptions

Donald Trump has ordered meat processing plants to stay open to protect food supplies, a move that drew backlash from unions that said at-risk workers needed more protection.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.3 million food and retail workers, said earlier this week that 20 food-processing and meatpacking union workers in the US have died of the virus.

An estimated 6,500 are sick or have been exposed while working near someone who tested positive, the union said.

One Tyson employee, a Texas woman in her 30s, wrote in Medium post that Trump was sacrificing lives for profit.

'He says we're part of critical infrastructure, that we're essential workers. Well, I don't feel critical. I don't feel essential. I feel sacrificial,' she wrote.

'This is about money. This is what they're always telling us: If the production chain stops for a minute, the company loses $700,000.

'This is about how if Tyson had to close to handle the virus, they would have to pay us while we stayed home.

'It's not about the food supply chain.

'We have enough meat in America to last us a couple weeks, or a month. People could also just not eat bacon burgers for a little bit. Tyson could clean out the plant and make sure the workers were healthy. This is about money.'

'I'm not naive, but it's hard to accept that to Tyson corporate, we are completely replaceable. If I died today, there'd be somebody in my job tomorrow. To my loved ones, I am not replaceable.'

Healthcare workers run a coronavirus testing site for Smithfield employees in the Washington High School parking lot on Monday, May 4, 2020 in Sioux Falls, S.D

As two departments opened at the Sioux Falls plant operated by Smithfield Foods, employees filed through a tent where they were screened for fever and other signs of COVID-19

A South Dakota pork processing plant took its first steps toward reopening Monday after being shuttered for over two weeks because of a coronavirus outbreak that infected more than 800 employees.

As two departments opened at the Sioux Falls plant operated by Smithfield Foods, employees filed through a tent where they were screened for fever and other signs of COVID-19.

Arkansas-based Tyson Foods was also resuming 'limited production' Monday at its pork processing plant in Logansport, Indiana, where nearly 900 employees had tested positive.

And the JBS pork plant in Worthington, Minnesota - just an hour east of Smithfield's South Dakota plant - planned a partial reopening on Wednesday.

Virginia-based Smithfield is offering COVID-19 testing to all employees and their family members, according to a text message sent to employees and seen by The Associated Press.

The message told employees to report to a local high school to be tested. It wasn't clear if testing was required before employees could return, and Smithfield didn't immediately respond to questions.

Shoppers wait in a line to enter a Costco store Friday, May 1, 2020, in Franklin, Tenn.

A long line of people at Costco in Long Island City Queens, New York on May 2

Costco will limit meat purchases to three items per member. A Chicago store is pictured

Some of the biggest slaughterhouses in the United States have closed over the last few weeks as COVID-19 spread widely through meat processing facilities. Chicago Costco is pictured

Tyson Foods Inc expects to continue idling meat plants and slowing production because of the new coronavirus, the company said on Monday, signaling more disruptions to the U.S. food supply.

Tyson reported lower-than-expected earnings and revenue for the quarter ended on March 28, before meat processors began shutting plants as the respiratory illness spread through slaughterhouses.

And while retail sales have surged for Tyson foods, it hasn't made up for sales to the food-service industry, which have fallen off a cliff.

The company posted quarterly earnings Monday, and shares plunged 8% as it warned of continued slowdowns.

Shares of the Jimmy Dean sausages maker fell 7% as the company said increased demand for meat at grocery stores had not completely offset lost sales to restaurants.

The president last week deemed meat-packing plants 'critical infrastructure' that must stay open, in an executive order to protect the nation's supply.

Tyson, Smithfield Foods Inc and JBS USA have shuttered plants in recent weeks, limiting pork and beef production and fueling fears about shortages.

'We have and expect to continue to face slowdowns and temporary idling of production facilities from team member shortages or choices we make to ensure operational safety,' Tyson said in a statement.

Worries over the country's meat supply chain are mounting as at least 20 meatpacking plants have closed over the past two months. A closed Tyson Fresh Meats plant pictured in Logansport, Indiana on April 23

IS MEAT FROM AFFECTED FACTORIES SAFE TO EAT? Experts agree that there is little to no risk of contracting coronavirus from food, even from meat packing plants affected by worker outbreaks. Coronavirus is transmitted mostly through close contact with contagious individuals. 'Currently there is no evidence to support the transmission of COVID-19 associated with food,' the USDA said in a statement. The FDA says: 'We want to reassure consumers that there is currently no evidence of human or animal food or food packaging being associated with transmission of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.' As well, coronavirus is known to be quickly killed at temperatures above 135 degrees. Cooking meat according to instructions should kill any harmful pathogens present. Advertisement

Tyson warned prior to Trump's order that millions of pounds of beef, pork and chicken would vanish from U.S. grocery stores because of plant shutdowns. Its chairman said the U.S. 'food supply chain is breaking' as farmers have been euthanizing livestock because they lost markets for them.

Tyson projected meat sales will fall in the second half of the year as restaurants and other food outlets suffer as consumers stay at home during the pandemic. The company said it does not expect chicken prices will improve for the rest of its fiscal year.

'The volume increases in retail have not been sufficient to offset the losses in foodservice and as a result, we expect decreases in volumes in the second half of fiscal 2020,' Tyson said.

The company's sales rose 4.3% to $10.89 billion, in the second quarter ended March 28. Analysts had expected revenue of $10.96 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Net income attributable to Tyson fell to $364 million, or $1 per share, from $426 million, or $1.17 per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned 77 cents per share, missing estimates of a profit $1.04 per share. Its shares fell 3% in early trading on Monday.

Meatpackers cautiously reopen plants amid coronavirus fears

A South Dakota pork processing plant took its first steps toward reopening Monday after being shuttered for over two weeks because of a coronavirus outbreak that infected more than 800 employees.

As two departments opened at the Sioux Falls plant operated by Smithfield Foods, employees filed through a tent where they were screened for fever and other signs of COVID-19.

Some said they felt Smithfield would protect their safety with measures aimed at preventing another virus outbreak, while others said they were not confident that infections could be halted in a crowded plant.

Lydia Toby, who works in the ground seasoned pork department, said she was 'kind of worried' as she entered the plant before 6 a.m. for her first shift in over two weeks.

The company met employees in her department Friday and explained they had installed dividers on the production line and would require everyone to wear masks.

'I think it's going to be OK,' she said.

In the wake of an executive order from President Donald Trump ordering meat plants to remain open, Arkansas-based Tyson Foods was also resuming 'limited production' Monday at its pork processing plant in Logansport, Indiana, where nearly 900 employees had tested positive.

And the JBS pork plant in Worthington, Minnesota - just an hour east of Smithfield's South Dakota plant - planned a partial reopening on Wednesday.

Virginia-based Smithfield is offering COVID-19 testing to all employees and their family members, according to a text message sent to employees and seen by The Associated Press.

The message told employees to report to a local high school to be tested. It wasn't clear if testing was required before employees could return, and Smithfield didn't immediately respond to questions.

Employees of two departments at the Smithfield pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D. report to work on Monday, May 4, 2020, as the plant moved to reopen

About 250 employees were told to report to work on Monday, according to the union that represents them. The plant employees about 3,700 workers and produces roughly 5% of the nation's pork.

Salaheldin Ahmed, who works in a department that has not yet reopened, said he was called in by plant management to look at the changes that have been made in the plant.

'They fixed a lot of things,' he said, describing how workers would be spread apart where possible.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union has called for stricter measures than CDC recommendations, including mandating that workers be spaced six feet apart on production lines.

It has appealed to governors for help enforcing worker safety rules. The union also wants to get rid of waivers that allow some plants to operate at faster speeds.

373 asymptomatic workers test positive for COVID-19 at a single Triumph meat packing plant in Missouri

Nearly 400 asymptomatic employees have tested positive for COVID 19 at a single Triumph meat packing plant on the Kansas Missouri border.

The local health department started testing all of the more than 2,200 workers at the plant after 92 asymptomatic employees tested positive.

As of Sunday 373 employees and contract workers of Triumph Foods, who presented for testing sample collection with no related symptoms, have received positive results for COVID-19, local health officials confirmed.

'We continue to work this weekend contacting these asymptomatic patients and have initiated the process of contact tracing with those determined to be close contacts of our positive cases,' said Dr. Randall Williams, director of DHSS.

Two dozen meat processing plants across America have been forced to close at some point in the last two months while many others have been forced to slow output after workers got sick.

America's mounting meat crisis has been laid bare in pictures showing empty store shelves across the country after processing plants were forced to slow production or close amid outbreaks of coronavirus.

Nearly 400 asymptomatic employees have tested positive for COVID 19 at Triumph Foods, a pork processing plant, in St. Joseph, Missouri, pictured

The local health department started testing, pictured, all of the more than 2,200 workers at the plant after 92 asymptomatic employees tested positive

At least 20 workers have died and another 6,500 have fallen ill as cramped working conditions with employees often standing shoulder-to-shoulder on production lines has caused coronavirus to run rampant.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.3 million food and retail workers, said earlier this week that 20 food-processing and meatpacking union workers in the US have died of the virus.

An estimated 6,500 are sick or have been exposed while working near someone who tested positive, the union said.

A slew of new cases of the virus were reported at a beef plant in Greeley, Colorado, which started operating last Friday after it was closed for about two weeks following an outbreak among workers.

'The uptick in cases in a matter of days shows how serious this crisis is and the dangers that workers are facing every day just trying to do their jobs,' Kim Cordova, leader of the local United Food and Commercial Workers International Union chapter, said in a news release.

Some of the largest slaughterhouses and processing plants across the United States have been forced to close in recent weeks due to outbreaks among workers.

Others plants have slowed production as workers have fallen ill or stayed home to avoid getting sick.

The temporary closures across the country has stoked global fears of a meat shortage amid the coronavirus pandemic as farmers are forced to cull livestock because they're running short of space to house animals.
(Photo : Photo by Jay Wennington on Unsplash) Chinese Tech Xiaomi Admits Collecting Data on Users But Said Its Necessary (Photo : Moritz Kindler on Unsplash ) Chinese Tech Xiaomi Admits Collecting Data on Users But Said Its Necessary

A Forbes article was recently published on their website accusing Chinese tech company Xiaomi in collecting information, web domains, and even listing private 'incognito' data of their users. Apparently, the issue made a worldwide impact, but after a few days, Xiaomi has now released a statement regarding the issue and admits the accusations. However, the company stands that this collection of data is a necessity. Here's why.

Chinese phone Xiaomi collects your data-- Yup, they admitted it!

On Apr. 30, Forbes news website published a report allegedly pointing out the security flaws of Xiaomi's tech. As said, data of each Mi users are being collected every time. Each web domains, search engine queries, and every item on the Xiaomi's feed feature are all being harvested by the company.

Worse, even if a user sets the search engine websites to private 'incognito' mode, the data will still be saved on the Chinese company's database.

The data collected are said to be sent to remote servers hosted by another famous Chinese tech company, Alibaba.

On Saturday, May 2, Xiaomi finally clarified the accusations and admitted the claims. But, here's where Forbes got it wrong.

Xiaomi lashes against Forbes saying they're 'disappointed' with the report

Xiaomi is one of the most famous and producer of the cheapest smartphones around the world. This means that a lot of people are Mi users.

Based on the statement that the Xiaomi company released, the recent Forbes article was only a "misunderstood" article. The officials of the Chinese firm said that "user's privacy and internet security is of top priority at Xiaomi."

However, they admitted that they collect data from their users. Forbes, on the other hand, had mistaken to clarify that all websites or tech software do the same thing.

"The collection of aggregated usage statistics data is used for internal analysis, and we do not link any personally identifiable information to any of this data. Furthermore, this is a common solution adopted by internet companies around the world to improve the overall user experience of various products while safeguarding user privacy and data security," written on the official Xiaomi website.

The Chinese tech also clarifies that every data they collected from their users are "based on permission and consent given explicitly by its users."

If you're still worried about your data, Xiaomi said that the whole process of data collection is anonymous and encrypted-- meaning that it is hard to steal this info by non-owners.

The company, however, did not explain why even 'incognito' user data are being saved.

How to stop Xiaomi from snooping on your phone?

If you're owning a Xiaomi smartphone, here's what you have to do to stop it from saving your data.

According to Xiaomi, software updates of all of their device are now available online. These software updates include an option in incognito mode for all users of both browsers to switch on/off the aggregated data collection. And that's it!

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Supreme Court Monday asked the Bombay High Court to decide the plea, preferably within two weeks, opposing the burial of people dying of COVID-19 in a cemetery in Mumbai's Bandra west locality on the ground that it might spread infection in adjoining areas.

A bench comprising Justices R F Nariman and Indira Banerjee passed the order while hearing through video-conferencing an appeal filed against the April 27 interim order of the high court.

The order had refused to grant interim relief on a plea challenging Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) permission to use three cemeteries in the Bandra West to bury bodies of COVID-19 victims.

"The impugned interim order by the single judge of the Bombay High Court dated April 27 has denied ad-interim relief in the writ petition filed," the apex court said in its order.

"Concerning the fact that the writ petitioner and his family members are worried about the spread of COVID-19 thanks to burials taking place in the immediately adjacent burial ground, we feel that this is a matter in which the motion itself should be taken up and disposed of at the earliest, preferably within a period of two weeks from today," the bench said while disposing of the plea.

The plea, filed in the high court by Mumbai-resident Pradeep Gandhy and others who are residing near the Konkani Muslim Kabrastan in suburban Bandra west, had claimed that locals were afraid of community spread of the virus, if the burial was not done properly.

Later, a Muslim body had sought intervention in the appeal filed by Ghandy in the top court, and said that the apprehension about alleged spread of infection due to burial of bodies of those infected with COVID-19 was unfounded as there was no risk of the spread of virus.

It is submitted that the burial of dead bodies is essential to the religion of Islam as well as in other religions such as Christianity. Such a right forms part of the right to practice one's religion under Article 25 of the Constitution of India, the Muslim body had said in its plea.

In its order passed on Monday, the apex court noted, "Application for impleadment/intervention is disposed of in view of the fact that the special leave petition itself has been disposed of.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
For Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature, now comes the hard part: the governors revised final proposed state budget is due later this month. To say the world is different now than it was just four months ago when the governor first proposed the budget for the next fiscal year is an understatement akin to saying Mount Everest is a hill in Asia.

When Newsom released his January budget, the states piggy bank was overflowing, unemployment was low, and the stock market high. With befitting optimism, the governors January budget proposed a variety of new and worthwhile initiatives. In addition, the $20 billion rainy day fund inherited from Jerry Brown was intact, ready for rain.

Then, COVID-19 happened, and we face not rain, but a budget hurricane. Never in modern history has an economy crunched so far so fast. Cuts will have to be made. Lots of people will need help.

But for Newsom and the Legislature, Californias children must be their priority.

An adult, even one who is destitute or aged, is almost always better positioned to fend for him or herself than a child. The property of adults cannot legally be taken from them without due process. Adults have a greater ability to exercise their First Amendment freedoms than children. Adults can legally drive, earn wages, vote and lobby. If a 30-old-man leaves an abusive house, the police will not drag him back home. Children are smaller, physically vulnerable. Adults also have years of experience navigating the worlds practical challenges.

Children depend upon elected officials more than adults do. While children may have parents who wish to advocate for them politically that advocacy is unorganized. In contrast, adults run or are stockholders in corporations and run or are members of trade associations that dominate politics.

Simply put, Newsom and the Legislature must cut programs aimed at adults before cutting programs aimed at still-growing children. Such programs include those that keep families  and hence children  out of poverty.

Highest priority of all are the states foster children. Here, we are their parents. That is not a metaphor. These children have our judges as their legal parents. Our elected and appointed officials, our taxes, and our state and local agencies decide their fate in excruciating detail  where they will live, go to school, who they may see, and much more.

And, to protect children from cuts we must end also close the tax loopholes of the super rich who have amassed sums so large they are not spent or invested to stimulate the economy. They must pay their fair share before any child program is cut.

Prioritizing children is not just the right thing to do. For us adults, it is the smart thing to do. We are spending trillions to prop up our wobbly economy. The debt will exceed the debt from World War II. Who will have to generate the vast new wealth to ensure we wont need to raid the Medicare and Social Security to pay the foreign nations that will own all this debt? Our children who will need to be educated and have healthy upbringings to do so.

Sacramentos powerful special interests will hate children as the priority. They will spend millions on lobbyists to bend the budget away from children. Only a clarity of purpose from the governor and legislative leaders akin to the single-mindedness they are showing in meeting the COVID-19 moment will allow children to prevail against special interests.

Newsom and the Legislature are passing the pandemic test. They have saved countless lives. But the virus has no lobbyists. Let us hope they meet this political moment with the same grit and success as they are meeting the immediate biological one. Our children and our future hang in the balance.

Robert C. Fellmeth is Price professor of public interest law, University of San Diego School of Law, executive director of the Childrens Advocacy Institute; Jessica K. Heldman is Fellmeth-Peterson professor-in-residence in child rights, University of San Diego School of Law.
The government also overlooked the fact that a majority of the stranded labourers who are from the unorganised sector are either vulnerable or extremely vulnerable.

On 1 May, Gulshan Kumar, a 22-year-old youth who came to Hyderabad looking for a job with 25 other men from Bihars Bhagalpur, was trying to call numbers provided by the Central government to assist stranded migrants in getting home. He got them as a WhatsApp forward. There are 15 state-wise numbers. But we cant get through any of them, he says. Gulshan is among the hundreds of thousands of migrant labourers stranded in various parts of India, figuring out their way to reach home. Gulshan says despite all the efforts of the government, the lockdown has been a nightmare for him and others in a similar situation.

India is now in the sixth week of COVID-19 lockdown which began after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the first 21-day nationwide shutdown on 24 March, 2020. According to government estimates, the total number of coronavirus positive patients in India has crossed the 42,500 mark with over 1,300 deaths so far.

The centrepiece of this crisis unfolding in the subcontinent, however, is the hapless labour class  most of them migrant workforce  which after over a month in lockdown, find themselves facing worse hardships despite "welfare" measures announced by Central and state governments. In fact, the unfolding humanitarian crisis has unmasked the nations abject apathy towards the people who not only form 90 percent of Indias workforce but also are the mainstay of the national labour force. They are our own.

The goal of nation-building in the early decades of the Indian republic was largely a shared vision, and thus, while the Indian State did not necessarily become a worker or proletarian state, its adoption of a state-led mixed economy (combining capitalist and socialist principles) and an overall, a pro-poor welfare orientation was able to accommodate the labour question, so to speak, within its overall development paradigm, says Professor Vandana Swami, a faculty member at the Azim Premji University in Bengaluru. Essentially, what it means is we were supposed to take care of our own.

The media has extensively covered the topic, especially since it has impacted the migrant workforce most across the subcontinent. Migrant labour, while bearing many of the consequences of the lockdown, remain largely invisible  Who are they? What is the nature of their work? How many migrant workers currently are in India? Do they vote? What is their contribution to the Indian economy?  there is no substantial data to answer any of these vital questions. We only have estimates. These migrants are barely considered in the policy-making decisions taken.

Labour law is a vast and complex subject in Indian polity. The Constitution provides certain laws and acts to ensure workers safety, wage security and other social security benefits. Even though the right to work is not legally enforceable, it is part of the Directive Principle of State Policy, and it is read along with the right to life, guaranteed in Article 21. While the cluster of labour protection laws is limited, they do contain reasonable starting points. For instance, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; Workers Compensation Act, 1923; Contract Labour Act, 1970; Bonded Labour Act, 1976; Inter-state Migrant Workers Act, 1979; Factories Act and some others have sought to provide safeguards for workers.

Speaking to Firstpost, Vandana says, In practice though, they are marked by several loopholes and weak enforcement of provisions, so much so that labour protection often meets with all kinds of violations. The fact that over the decades, almost 90 percent of the Indian workforce is employed in the informal, unorganised and unregulated sector makes it extremely hard to implement and follow up on these laws. In recent years, the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, 2008, has tried to remedy this situation, although it remains weak and diluted and the possibility that this Act could be an aid to workers remains heavily in doubt.

Benoy Peter, executive director at the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID) points at the obvious malady. There is no government data on Indias migrant population, he says.

The last survey done by the NSSO in 2007-08 estimated the migrant population in India to be 15.2 million. The data is outdated and useless to design any strategy to help the labourers. Experts said that given that measuring migration patterns is tricky, the survey gives no clear picture and as an exercise was not even followed up. Its a gross underestimation, Peter says.

According to Peter, the exclusion of the migrant workforce from policy-making and our collective consciousness has been brought to focus during this pandemic. Their emergence in such numbers from the shadows of megacities is an urgent reminder to reimagine our society anchored in constitutional principles, he says. Its also clear that various regimes have repeatedly left them behind. Year after year we have favoured urbanisation and disengaged with rural India. The regimes have favoured neo-liberal policies which gratify the capitalists, says Peter.

Migrants are the most difficult to reach because of their trans-localism and location in the labour market, says Professor Ravi Srivastava, director of Centre for Employment Studies at the Institute for Human Development. This pandemic has exposed faultlines in the labour market and in society with migrants facing discrimination and lack of citizenship rights, he adds.

Tokenism in the name of relief

Ajay Prasad, a migrant labourer from Jharkhands Latehar district, has been stranded in Uttar Pradeshs Meerut with 25 other men since early March. All of them hail from Latehar and are circular migrants -- those who travel back and forth between the host and the source state in search of employment which also represents an established pattern of population mobility. Ajay, who has been in touch with this reporter for over a month now, called in distress soon after the Ministry of Home Affairs allowed migrants to return home by buses. Kuch number diyen hain, lekin lag ek bhi nahi raha hai (We were given a few numbers but none of them are reachable), says Ajay. He added that the others are frantic to leave as well, but there is no information.

Ajay forwarded two messages that he received on WhatsApp. He said both messages came from random sources. The messages read: Honorable Chief Minister Hemant Soren Ji has appointed Nodal Officers for all the states to assist children in other states who are stranded in Jharkhand. For any assistance, contact the following appointed officials. Fifteen numbers were provided under it. Ajay says he called but there was no response.

Ajay was not the only one trying to make sense of the ad hoc and vague Central government order. It should also be kept in mind that most of the migrant labourers who seek to return dont have a way of receiving, reading or even comprehending these orders.

Shravan Bharadwaj, a 25-year-old youth from Uttar Pradeshs Azamgarh is in Maharashtras Thane, and his condition is better than Ajays, but only marginally. I used to go home only once in a year, but without any income, paying Rs 10,000 in rent is very difficult, Shravan told Firstpost over the phone. When told that the government has instructed landlords not to ask for rent, Shravan says, par baad mein dena toh padega. Kahan se layenge paisa? (but the money has to be eventually paid. Where will I get it from?). He, too, like Ajay, got numbers of nodal officers whose numbers were either defunct or just weren't working. No one has any information on how to go back or whom to ask for information.

The Centres decision to finally allow stranded migrants was riddled not only with vagueness but also no clear information on any important issue - when will the process begin; which state department is in charge; where will you get additional information. The orders are lacking in details.

MHA Order dated 29 April on... by Devparna Acharya on Scribd

MHA letter to Chief Secreta... by Devparna Acharya on Scribd

The government also overlooked the fact that a majority of the stranded labourers who are from the unorganised sector are either vulnerable or extremely vulnerable. They are too poor to afford a phone with an active internet connection. Most of the relief funds or measures announced by the Centre and some state governments include downloading an app and in some cases, downloading PDFs.

The West Bengal governments initiative Snehar Paras to transfer Rs 1,000 to stranded labourers required downloading the app on Google Play Store or from the West Bengal government website. The criteria to avail the cash were:

Person has to be a resident of West Bengal and have documentary proof like Aadhar, Voter card or ration card; register a name with their mobile number - one scheme request per mobile number; a bank account in any bank; all details must be filled for successful application.

Officials at the state government should perhaps have asked themselves how the vulnerable migrant could scan and upload his ID and bank account details on an app while sitting in the middle of nowhere during a nationwide lockdown. Several such initiatives were taken by the state governments of Odisha, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. The neediest, however, never got any money. Some were even unaware of these relief funds.

Click here to for Coronavirus Outbreak LIVE Updates

Between 25 of us, only 10 have phones and we get the internet. But who will send us this news? Our family, living in villages, know nothing, Ajay said and added that they get information when they speak to journalists or activists who are helping them on the ground.

Varun Agarwal, founder and lead at India Migration Now criticised the administration for widespread indifference towards migrant workers, especially the destination states. Its a constitutional right to work, the governments have to stop demonising labourers who travel miles for employment. The lockdown has shown us that the government needs to involve relevant stakeholders  civil society organisations, state governments, private players, village panchayats and even block pramukhs  to override this situation. Every crisis is an opportunity, he said. Varun further added that the lack of a centralised mechanism makes disbursement of any relief fund impossible.

Criticising the Centre for poorly-targeted relief packages for the poor, Professor Srivastava said, The Central government's package, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna was poorly-targeted considering that the society's most-severely impacted were those in the urban informal economy. This was even more the case with circular migrants who lost their incomes, and in many cases, their places of residence, with the lockdown. These circular migrants are not part of any social safety net and even the limited measures announced were not designed even to reach a small proportion of them. This has been brought clearly in the many reports that have come out since the lockdown."

The Centre did issue a direction for ex-gratia payments to be made from the Construction Workers Welfare Board Funds. However, registration under these boards is problematic and does not cover the vast majority of inter-state migrants. Subsequently, some states have announced small ex-gratia payments to migrant workers. Mostly these are source states. Telangana and Kerala are two destination states which have announced such payments. Delhi has announced limited support to specific sections. These have provided limited but inadequate support to a proportion of stranded migrant workers, Srivastava said.

Migrant workers need cash income support to meet existing and past obligations, including the debt obligations from contractors. These meagre transfers are not sufficient even when they do reach some migrants, he said.

According to Srivastava, the Centre mishandled the situation by micro-managing it. He was specifically talking about the MHAs order of allowing migrants to return. Every part of this is bizarre. Its impossible to micro-manage the situation, which is what the Centre has done. They have also put the entire onus of their return on the state governments and the poor migrant labourer. I read reports on how the labourer has to pay Rs 500 to return home. Its inhuman, ironic and barbaric. Micro-managing it is the worst idea, he said.

The former JNU professor, who has worked in the field for over 40 years now, asked what was stopping the Centre in running 10-15 special trains just for the migrants. They arrange for these special trains during festivals and pilgrimage. Why cant they do it now? The Centre should discuss financial responsibilities with states and Indian Railways and divide the expenses. The Centre basically enforced a lockdown and asked the states and the labourers to figure out their return. The Centre can mobilise NDMA and NDRF instead of leaving it to ordinary law enforcement officers who have no idea what they are doing, said Srivastava adding that Centres lack of transparency is adding to the issues on the ground.

A point that everyone agreed on unanimously is that the current migration policy crisis is a wilful mess by the State over the decades since Independence. To remedy it requires funding and political will. Experts in civil society organisations said that the government should also incentivise working with various stakeholders to come up with innovative policy solutions for the crisis.

Migration is a means of empowerment, social emancipation and liberation, provided migration is an informed choice. But the migrant labour has no bargaining power and it will not change unless we see migration as a solution rather than a problem.
Sammy Gyamfi, the National Communications Director of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has exposed Akufo-Addos government poor performance in maintaining Ghanas position on the press freedom rankings which used to be number one in Africa under the previous Mahama Administration.

This comes after former President John Dramani Mahama on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day said during his Presidency, Ghana became the country with the highest levels of press freedom in Africa. At the time, we were ranked number one out of 54 countries in Africa. We placed 23rd on the global ranking among 180 countries.

Three and half years later, we have slumped seven places on the global ranking and lost the number one spot in Africa to Namibia and Cape Verde. We have unfortunately lost this priceless status that made all of us veryproud.

The former President's statement did not go down well with some members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) who have taken to social media to describe Mr. Mahama as a pathological liar.

But the NDC firebrand Sammy Gyamfi in his usual composure ridicules the Akufo-Addos government with facts and figures as evidence to back John Mahamas statement on Ghanas sinking image on world press freedom under President Akufo-Addo, who is globally touted as Human Rights Champion.

This international disgrace has been occasioned by the gruesome murder of investigative Journalist, Ahmed Suale and governments nonchalant posturing towards investigations into that heinous crime, the high-handed closure of radio stations and the harassment of journalists like Manesseh Azuri Awuni and Edward Adeti, under the watch of President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo who prides himself as a vainglorious paragon of free speech, he stated.

Read full statement below:

Ghanas Raw Scores under the World Press Freedom Index since its inception in the year 2013.

Folks, as we celebrate World Press Freedom Day, its important that we take stock of our performance under the World Press Freedom Index, compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders.

Note that the higher the score, the poorer ones performance. See https://rsf.org/en/detailed-methodology

YEAR - SCORE

 2013 - 17.27

 2014 - 16.27

 2015 - 15.50

 2016 - 17.95

 2017 - 17.95

 2018 - 18.41

 2019 - 20.81

 2020 - 22.26

It can be gleaned from the above, that Ghanas poorest score/performance under the World Press Freedom Index, is a score of 22.26, recorded this year, 2020, under the leadership of President William Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

This international disgrace has been occasioned by the gruesome murder of investigative Journalist, Ahmed Suale and governments nonchalant posturing towards investigations into that heinous crime, the high-handed closure of radio stations and the harassment of journalists like Manasseh Azuri Awuni and Edward Adeti, under the watch of President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo who prides himself as a vainglorious paragon of free speech.

This is why President Akufo-Addo will go down as the worst-performing President in Ghanas history relative to the protection of press freedom.

SAMMY GYAMFI Esq.
Gene Simmons was surprised by German media, Bild, who shown him documents related to his mother's release from a Nazi concentration camp.

Simmons' mother, Flora Klein, was aged 19 when American troops liberated the Mauthausen camp on 5th May 1945, just three days before World War II ended. Her Jewish family had been subject to Nazi Germany's attempts to wipe out her race and Klein was the only survivor of her family. She lived a long life afterwards and had passed away in 2018 aged 93.

She fought all of this on her own.

When discovered and revealed by Bild to mark the anniversary today, Simmons became very emotional upon reading her victim impact statement. "She was strong," the KISS band leader said as he shed tears from time to time.

"... If somebody says that all of this was in the past - that's not true. It was yesterday. It all happened just now. When you see what recently happened at many elections, that's not good."

In the statement, Klein wrote that after her family was ordered to leave Budapest, Hungary, she was sent to a "Yellow House" to live in 1944. She was then moved to the concentration camp in Ravensbruch where she worked gathering potatoes and lived in a hut that was "surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by the SS". A year later in January, she was moved yet again to another camp and then to Mauthausen via forced marching and overcrowded train carriages. She had also written that many died during the journey. You can see the statement at the end of the article.
Washington fans anti-China rhetoric to shift responsibility for COVID-19 crisis

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 15:52, May 03, 2020

WASHINGTON, May 3 (Xinhua) -- With COVID-19 cases and deaths mounting daily, the U.S. government has intensified attempts to fan the flames of anti-China rhetoric to divert attention from its direct responsibility for the crisis.

The number of COVID-19 deaths in the country reached 66,369 as of Saturday night, with total infections at 1,132,539, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

Instead of doing everything they can to save as many Americans as possible, President Donald Trump's administration and its supporters in Congress are working furiously to frame Beijing as the original culprit and use China as a scapegoat for its own missteps.

"Don't defend Trump, other than the China Travel Ban -- attack China," a detailed memo sent by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to GOP campaigns has advised, urging Republican candidates to address the COVID-19 pandemic by aggressively attacking China.

The 57-page strategy document, obtained by Politico recently, includes advice on everything from how to tie Democratic candidates to the Chinese government to how to deal with accusations of racism.

The April 17 memo is focused on three main lines of assault -- China caused the virus "by covering it up," Democrats are "soft on China," and Republicans will "push for sanctions on China for its role in spreading this pandemic," Politico summarized.

Citing current and former U.S. officials, The New York Times reported on April 30 that senior Trump administration officials pushed intelligence agencies to hunt for evidence to support a theory that a lab in Wuhan was the origin of the outbreak as the president escalated a public campaign to blame China for the pandemic.

But many scientists argue that the evidence tilts firmly toward a natural transmission -- a still-unknown interaction in late fall that allowed the virus to jump from a bat or another animal to a human.

There is "no scientific backing" for the two claims floated recently by some U.S. politicians and media outlets that COVID-19 could be human-made and have escaped from a laboratory, said a report by Buzzfeed citing interviews with several scientists on April 22.

Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, told BuzzFeed that he wasn't even comfortable calling the idea that the lab was the source of the outbreak a theory. "A theory is based on results," he said. "I think it's driven by politics, frankly."

Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, said there is currently no evidence that the coronavirus originated in a lab -- either as a deliberate creation or an accidental release.

World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Fadela Chaib told a news briefing On April 21 that "all available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not manipulated or constructed in a lab or somewhere else."

The U.S. intelligence community "concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a statement on April 30.

Jeffrey Sachs, a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University said in a recent opinion piece that the White House "will continue to fulminate against WHO and China and any other targets to distract attention."

"Yet the record is clear: China got the epidemic under control while the U.S. did not. China implemented a strict national lockdown while the U.S. did not. China deployed its top technologists and companies to do the job. In fact, Trump repeatedly praised China during February, only turning on China when the situation got tough in the U.S.," Sachs wrote.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Impact on Consumer Behavior in the Americas: COVID-19 Survey Snapshot



Summary



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05890972/?utm_source=PRN



The analyst is carrying out weekly consumer surveys in 11 countries between 25th March and 31st May 2020, to track consumer sentiment and shopping behavior during the Coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic. The sample size is 500 respondents per country, per week.



The two countries in scope for the Americas are Brazil and the USA.Questions are consistent every week, and cover consumer opinions about COVID-19, buying behavior and product choices and impact of the Coronavirus (COVID19) outbreak on consumers' lifestyle and activities.



This report summarizes the key findings from responses in week 3.



Key Highlights

- Over half of Americans (52%) and Brazilians (53%) are extremely concerned about the coronavirus outbreak. The US now has the most confirmed cases globally, which will undoubtedly be contributing to concern amongst citizens. Whilst in Brazil, it is expected that the true number of COVID-19 cases in much higher, due to a lack of testing and failure to report cases[1]. This uncertainty will continue to cause concern amongst citizens.

- 66% of Brazilians are now spending more time browsing social media than before the COVID-19 outbreak, with an enormous 31% saying they spend all day using social media.

- Unsurprisingly, the figures for fast food/casual restaurants reads very similar to fine-dining. A vast majority of Brazilians and Americans have stopped going or are going significantly less to casual restaurants. However, 8% of Brazilians and 11% of Americans are going to casual restaurants more frequently then before the coronavirus epidemic.

- The Consumer Survey shows that Brazilian tourists favor Western and South American products, over those from China, Asia and Africa. European products are seen as the most trustworthy with 83% respondents finding them reliable, closely followed by the USA with 82%.



Scope

- This report provides an insight into how the coronavirus pandemic is shaping consumer sentiment in Brazil and the USA.

- It summarizes key findings from the survey 's responses and offers insight into how destinations and industry players can adapt to meet changing demands and needs.



Reasons to Buy

- Gain access to primary survey data results.

- Understand how the coronavirus pandemic is changing consumer attitudes.

- Assess how you can adapt your business plans and strategies to better meet these changing needs.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05890972/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

www.reportlinker.com


Why IFJ is monitoring Cambodias media

In January 2020, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen celebrated his 35th year in power, making him Asias longest-serving leader. At a meeting with local journalists on January 14, 2020, he boldly declared that he had no intention of stepping down and would be prime minister for the next 10 years.

As a constitutional monarchy, Cambodias constitution proclaims the country a liberal, multiparty democracy. However, the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) are intent on securing leadership by undermining political opposition, civil society groups and the independent media.

Hun Sen entered the cabinet as a foreign minister for the Peoples Republic of Kampuchea, a new government installed by Vietnam, in 1979. In 1985, when he was 32 years old he was unanimously elected as prime minister by the National Assembly to replace Chan Sy, who passed away while in office in December 1984.

In 1991, the four warring factions, including CPP agreed to sign the Paris Peace Accords which consisted of political settlements to end the conflict in the country. Article 15 in the agreement requires all sides to observe and respect human rights and fundamental freedoms. As part of the Paris Peace Accords, free and fair elections were overseen by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in May 1993. While Hun Sen lost the elections, he refused to accept the results. In a fragile power sharing arrangement, Hun Sen shared power with his political rival, the Funcinpec Party's Prince Norodom Ranariddh. In July 1997, Hun Sen staged a military coup, ousted his co-prime minister and killed Princes military and political allies.

While Hun Sen boasts about the Cambodias democratic credentials, the reality tells a different story. He has told journalists and civil society groups to hold the government to account by reporting on corruption and injustice, yet crackdowns on freedom of expression and punishes those critical of the government.

A Cambodian staff (C) of Radio France Internationale (RFI) in Khmer Service, works during the Inauguration of Radio France Internationale (RFI) in Khmer Service station in Phnom Penh on June 20, 2013. Credit: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP

The steep decline of Cambodias democracy intensified in the lead up to the 2018 election. There has been increasing pressure on independent media following the closure of numerous independent news outlets.

The politicised judiciary has enabled abuses of power by the government, and the introduction of restrictive legislations has raised concerns. These have included amendments to articles 34 and 42 of Cambodias Constitution to require that every Cambodian defend the motherland and empower the government to take action against political parties if they do not place the country and nations interest first. And Cambodias lese-majeste law which was adopted by parliament in February 2018 This law requires political parties as well as Khmer citizens to primarily uphold the national interest. This law, with a punishment of up to five years in prison and a US$2,000 fine, has since been used to silence government critics and restrict press freedom.

Freedom of expression has been further curtailed, as the government has extended its power to monitor and control online news content, including websites and social media. This aims to obstruct and prevent the publication of content that the government says is intended to create turmoil and to undermine national defence, national security, relations with other countries, the economy, public order and nations cultural.

The broad term fake news has been used to suppress government critics. A proposed Fake News Law will tackle articles that cause hostility or anger or writing that makes the problem become worse. But it appears the law is more geared towards punishing journalists who expose injustice and corruption in Cambodian society. There are also concerns with access to information. Officials are able to reject requests for information that may harm national security. This has led to a refusal to provide information, hampering the ability of journalists to reporting freely, safely and independently.

With a worrying decline in press freedom and democratic rights in Cambodia, the IFJ and its affiliate in Cambodia will continue on its mission to promote press freedom and the peoples right to know.
"That's no moon, it's a space station..." Actually Obi Wan, that IS a moon, it's Saturns moon Mimas. It simply resembles the "Death Star" from Star Wars. (Or that's what the Sith Lord would have us believe.)

A long, long time ago (a little over 40 years ago), the world was introduced to Jedi knights, lightsabers, droids, Wookies and the Force. "Star Wars" exploded into movie theaters in 1977 and became an instant hit, eventually spawning a pop-culture empire, including sequels, prequels, books, comics, video games, television series and radio shows.

And before long, elements of the space fantasy began influencing the development of real-life space technology.

Here's a brief overview of the franchise and its effect on space technology.

Franchise overview

The "Star Wars" franchise is divided into three sets of films  the originals, the prequels and the sequels  as well as myriad off-canon television series, video games, radio shows and other forms of media.

The tale, from "a galaxy far, far away," concerns the adventures of young Luke Skywalker, the nephew of a moisture farmer who lives on a desert planet called Tatooine. Luke learns that he is adept at harnessing the Force, described as an "energy field  that binds the galaxy together."

Related: 'Star Wars'! 40 Surprising facts from a galaxy far, far away

He eventually joins the rebellion against the Galactic Empire, along with his newfound allies  two robots ("droids"), C-3PO and R2-D2; Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi knight in seclusion; a smuggler, Han Solo, and his Wookie co-pilot, a large sentient beast named Chewbacca; and a princess and rebel leader, Leia Organa. Luke also encounters Darth Vader, a Jedi knight who has fallen to the dark side, and (spoiler alert!) turns out to be Luke's father.

With the help of his allies and others in the rebellion, Luke destroys the Death Star, a planet-killing satellite, as well as its bigger, more powerful replacement. In a final showdown, Luke confronts the Emperor and battles Darth Vader, who redeems himself by turning against the Emperor and aiding his son.

After discussing his future plans with his Uncle Owen, Luke Skywalker leaves the Lars Homestead and heads towards the vista to watch the twin suns of Tatooine set while he reflects upon his destiny. (Image credit:  Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.)

The original trilogy  later subtitled "A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi"  was released into theaters between 1977 and 1983. Director George Lucas expressed frustration with the technology of the 1970s and 1980s, and when digital technology came along in the 1990s, he chose to re-edit the originals and in some cases, alter or add scenes. (The most infamous scene came in the first movie. The original version of "A New Hope" has Han Solo shooting the bounty hunter Greedo, while the re-mastered version has Greedo firing first.)

Lucas also released three prequels between 1999 and 2005  "The Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"  to chart the path of Darth Vader's rise and fall, and the birth of Luke and (another spoiler alert!) his twin sister, Leia.

Related: Stuck at home? Take a tour through Disney's (empty) Star Wars, Pandora and space-age parks

In 2012, Disney announced that it would take over the franchise's production and subsequently released a set of sequel films between 2015 and 2019: "The Force Awakens," "The Last Jedi" and "The Rise of Skywalker." The films follow the story of a scavenger named Rey, as she trains to use the Force under the guidance of an aged and reluctant Luke Skywalker, then defeats Emperor Palpatine, helping the Resistance to end the evil reign of the First Order.

In 2020, Disney released ""Star Wars: The Mandalorian," the first live-action "Star Wars" television series for their Disney+ streaming service. The show follows a Mandalorian bounty hunter as he rescues a child of the same species as Yoda. The company also has plans to release another series called "Star Wars: Obi-Wan."

Related: The best Disney Plus movies and shows for space fans: Star Wars, sci-fi and more

Space fantasy meets space fact

As popular culture became entrenched in "Star Wars" references, words, phrases and ideas from the franchise entered the vernacular of science and technology.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, which would use ground- and space-based lasers, particle beams, missiles and other weapons to help protect the United States from attack by nuclear missiles. Critics derisively referred to it as "Star Wars."

The defense system would have some parts of it based in space. One idea, according to Encyclopedia Britannica , was a laser system that could shoot down missiles before they reached their target. The proposal also called for surface-to-air missiles placed beside strategically important locations (such as intercontinental ballistic missile silos). The program led to the development of items such as the Extended Range Interceptor, which successfully caught a missile in-flight in testing in 1987. The U.S. Army also had a successful hit-to-kill on a target on the fourth try with a Minuteman missile, in 1984.

The program was eventually abandoned. There were concerns that the program violated the anti-ballistic missile treaty that was part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Then there were budget cuts before any real progress was made. After $30 billion spent, no laser and mirror system was ever used.

In 2007, shuttle Discovery launched Luke Skywalker's lightsaber into space to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the franchise. The ceremonies on the ground surrounding its handover to NASA included appearances by Chewbacca and Imperial stormtroopers.

The first-generation Robonaut looks more than a little bit like the bounty hunter Boba Fett from "Star Wars." (Image credit: NASA; Disney/Lucasfilm)

Look-alikes

Close-up images of Saturn's moon Mimas revealed it looks similar to the Death Star , which had a distinctive circle on one side of its sphere shape. In real life, the moons that have these large circles are actually showing off the remnants of a large asteroid that smacked into the surface and left behind an enormous crater.

NASA has also referenced "Star Wars" when talking about Iapetus , another one of Saturn's moons. "The moon Iapetus, like the 'force' in Star Wars, has both a light side and a dark side," the agency wrote in 2015.

Related: The force of 'Star Wars': The staying power of a sci-fi icon explained

"Star Wars" is also referenced frequently when speaking about planets with two suns, similar to Luke's home planet, Tatooine. Most of the planets that orbit two stars are huge gas giants , but a handful of planets similar to Earth have been found as well, such as Kepler 16b, Kepler-34b, Kepler 35b. In 2015, a study from the University of Utah suggested these sorts of planets might be more common than was once thought. Simulations showed it was possible that planetesimals  the precursors to planets  could safely orbit in an oval around two stars without necessarily crashing into each other.

A TIE fighter from "Star Wars." (Image credit: Disney/Lucasfilm)

Droids and robots

Today, there is a real-life R2-D2  at least the 21stt-century equivalent of it  on the International Space Station (ISS). NASA's humanoid Robonaut 2 is sometimes called R2. It is still in testing, but R2 is intended to flip switches and do other simple science experiments and free up time for the astronauts to do more complicated things. In the future, NASA hopes to outfit a version of the robot to do work outside the space station, rather than sending astronauts out on risky spacewalks.

C-3PO's role was to serve as a translator for his human companions. While robots aren't quite at that stage yet, in 2013 a Japanese child-like robot called Kirobo (created by university researchers in association with Toyota) had a chat with ISS commander Koichi Wakata about their journey into space. Kirobo is intended to be an interactive robot for lonely people, whether they are astronauts in space far from home, or isolated seniors who are unable to get out of the house very easily.

Related: In photos: Robonaut 2, NASA's robot butler for astronauts

In 2006, NASA launched a set of droids to the space station to test synchronized flying in space, and the technology was used by several ISS crews. The droids are intended to be aware of each other and to synchronize their flying so as not to crash into each other, which is technology that could be useful for satellites. In "Star Wars," robots like these were used for lightsaber training.

There are other, less obvious uses of technology from "Star Wars" being used in space:

For example, the Empire's TIE fighter spacecraft appear to have solar panels on their outer hulls, which is a technology that NASA uses for many of its Mars probes (including the Opportunity rover on the surface) as well as the ISS. Solar panels are most useful on spacecraft that are closer to the sun. This means that a mission such as Rosetta  which chased a comet beyond Mars' orbit  had to have extremely large solar panels to catch the sunlight required. Spacecraft operating farther away require nuclear power.

And while lasers are used for combat in "Star Wars," NASA is testing out lasers for high-speed communications between space and the ground. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter probe, for example, tested out a laser system from the moon and received a picture of the Mona Lisa sent from Earth. NASA is discussing doing laser tests from the ISS to increase the flow of communications from the orbiting complex. This would be particularly useful for experiments, which send out quite a large amount of data for investigators back home.

Additional resources:

Read about 8 sci-fi inventions in "Star Wars" and their real-life counterparts, from Live Science.

Learn more about the Strategic Defense Initiative and its parallels to "Star Wars", from the Cold War Museum.

Here are even more connections between NASA and Star Wars.

This article was updated on May 3, 2020 by Space.com Reference Editor Kimberly Hickok.
EVEN as COVID-19 has put much of the economy into shutdown and caused a run at grocery stores on some staples, most of us remain generally well-supplied with food. Thats something to be thankful for.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

EVEN as COVID-19 has put much of the economy into shutdown and caused a run at grocery stores on some staples, most of us remain generally well-supplied with food. Thats something to be thankful for.

Its one of the significant wonders of the modern economic system that most people, very few of whom are directly involved in the production of food, have such great access to it. So abundant is the food produced that we usually take it for granted.

How the economic system so successfully delivers food to the masses was pondered by French economist Frederic Bastiat in his book Economic Sophisms, first published in 1845.

"On coming to Paris for a visit," wrote Bastiat, "I said to myself: Here are a million human beings who would all die in a few days if supplies of all sorts did not flow into this great metropolis.... And yet all are sleeping peacefully at this moment, without being disturbed for a single instant by the idea of so frightful a prospect."

How does it happen that every day, the necessary food and other supplies flow into the city?

How the people of Paris were fed in 1845 is the same as the answer to how the people of Toronto, Vancouver or any other Canadian city are fed in 2020. Its the result of voluntary exchanges between millions of people around the world.

Millions of workers and companies make their plans independently, out of self-interest. Their actions arent planned, dictated or co-ordinated by any central planning authority.

Producing a loaf of bread and getting it to the consumer, for example, requires the work of farmers, millers, bakers, truck drivers, grocery store managers and cashiers. And we need to include the workers who construct the necessary buildings, bankers who allocate the capital for all these operations, information technology workers who make sure the grocery stores computer systems work smoothly, and so on.

Millions of workers and companies make their plans independently, out of self-interest. Their actions arent planned, dictated or co-ordinated by any central planning authority. But the result is that all these actions combine in the free market to produce the abundance of food we normally see on grocery-store shelves.

COVID-19 has meant shortages of some items at grocery stores. But overall, even in this economic and health crisis, were mostly well supplied. For this we must thank the supply chains developed over decades and the productivity-raising division of labour made possible under the capitalist system.

What if instead of a largely free-market system, all these millions of workers  farmers, bakers, truck drivers, construction workers, and so on  were controlled by a central planner?

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.

Would our economy be better organized and more prosperous?

Quite the opposite, noted Bastiat. If some government cabinet minister, however smart, decided to take control of the economic system "to determine by whom, where, how, and under what conditions everything should be produced, transported, exchanged, and consumed," the certain result would be widespread "misery, despair, and perhaps starvation."

The current shortage of some items as a result of COVID-19 pales in comparison to the persistent shortages and lack of food in the poorest countries with the least amount of economic freedom.

We should be thankful that shortages are the exception instead of the rule in Canada. And we should thank our free-market system.

Matthew Lau is a research associate with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

 Troy Media
Elle Fanning, left, and Timothee Chalamet in a scene from "A Rainy Day in New York" / Courtesy of Green Narae Media



By Kwak Yeon-soo



Woody Allen's new film "A Rainy Day in New York," showing a young couple's romantic getaway in New York turning into a nightmare, is set to hit Korean theaters May 6 despite the controversy over the sexual abuse allegation made against the director.



In the light of the controversies surrounding Allen, who allegedly molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow when she was seven years old in the early 1990s, the film was unable to be released in the U.S.



His history came under renewed scrutiny as the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse grew in the wake of allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2017.



The film's local distributor Green Narae Media faced criticism for going forward with its release plan in Korea. To downplay criticism, it wrote the "Midnight in Paris production team," instead of the director's name on the film's official poster.



In "A Rainy Day in New York," Oscar-nominee Timothee Chalamet plays Gatsby Welles, a young, wealthy New Yorker attending Yardley, a fictional liberal arts college.



Gatsby plans a weekend trip to New York with his girlfriend Ashleigh (Elle Fanning), a journalism major who's landed an interview with renowned film director Roland Pollard (Liev Schreiber) in the city.



However, their entire plan goes up in smoke, with Ashleigh tied up with her big scoop and Gatsby wandering the streets while trying to avoid family members who are in town for his mother's annual gala dinner. The couple barely spend any time together over the course of one long and rainy day.



The film portrays the world of New York's upper class, delivering witty jokes about pretentious pseudo-intellectuals such as Gatsby's mother.





A poster for film "A Rainy Day in New York" / Courtesy of Green Narae Media
Resolution Requesting the NC General Assembly to Take an Active Role in Keeping Our Voting Process Safe from Voter Fraud

Resolution Requesting the NC General Assembly to Enact Legislation to Limit the Powers of the North Carolina Governor from Acting Unilaterally for an Extended Period

Due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, should Beaufort County and North Carolina continue to remain closed except for "essential" businesses favored by Governor Cooper? Yes, Beaufort County and all of North Carolina should remain closed until Governor Cooper grants his executive permission. No, Beaufort County and North Carolina should reopen NOW, in measured increments, especially in counties where the Coronavirus has had little impact. I don't care about the local economy; I have Netflix, plenty of money, fattening foods, and enough toilet paper to outlast this pandemic. 224 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



The NC general assembly was back in session on Tuesday, April 28, 2020, and much will be asked of them here in this Age of Coronavirus. Point of fact, on May 4, 2020 , I will ask these Beaufort County Commissioners to pass two short, but incredibly important resolutions to be sent the North Carolina General Assembly.The first resolution concerns the ruminations emanating from the State Board of Elections, regarding their resolve to make voting easier by mail amid theas revealed in their rambling "Op-ed" . While this discourse appeared long on sincerity, it was frighteningly short on any convincing substance.The unconvincing "op-ed" notwithstanding, there is another infamous event of a current nature: North Carolina is being sued by Judicial Watch for not clearing all of its 100 counties voting rolls of ineligable voters, whileJudicial Watch is claiming that North Carolina has one million inactive voters remaining on its roles of registered voters.Leftists continue to promote the specious argument that North Carolina's government seeks to make elections too restrictive, while all other citizens realize that the right to vote is sacrosanct to continuing a Constitutional Republic, and Voter Fraud is the greatest threat to the sanctity of free and fair elections.Hopefully, the NC general assembly will be as resolved as is necessary to continue and enhance all protections to do so.the Beaufort County Commissioners are a body politic of the state government of North Carolina and constitutionally sanctioned to govern as its agent at the local level on many issues important to the People of North Carolina, and;Beaufort County government is charged with administering the electing of local and federal government political representatives, as are all of North Carolina's 100 county governments so similarly charged to do so, and;North Carolina's State Board of Elections has publicly expressed that they are seeking remedy from their perceived threat of the Coronavirus Pandemic that could make voting in North Carolina's counties more restrictive in person, with Absentee Voting provisions, already sanctioned by North Carolina's general assembly and already established as a remedy to not having the capacity to vote in person, as also too restrictive, and;North Carolina's State Board of Elections has publicly stated that they will beg North Carolina's general assembly to legislate new law making Absentee Voting less restrictive, with, however, a sure unintended consequence arising from such action creating a possibility that Absentee Voting would be less secure from Voter Fraud, and;North Carolina's State Board of Elections and North Carolina's government is currently being sued by government transparency "watchdog" Judicial Watch for keeping a million inactive voters on its county's voting rolls, whilethus creating, however unintended, an enriched environment whereby Voter Fraud may occur, and;North Carolina's system of voting for elected office has recently been embroiled in scandal, however unintended, where the process of Absentee Voting ballet harvesting produced an unreliable outcome in a congressional election, forcing a second election while leaving that congressional district unrepresented for many months,that The Beaufort County Commissioners adamantly request that North Carolina's general assembly take no action, at this critical juncture of this Coronavirus Pandemic, to change and thereby weaken North Carolina's general statutes pertaining to elections.Similarly in this Age of the Coronavirus Pandemic, to continue the proper functioning of the People's government in North Carolina, a resolution is offered to the Beaufort County Commissioners to request that the NC general assembly deeply concern themselves with Governor Roy Cooper's handling of his executive duties by enforcing the NC general statue 166A-19.2.2, The Emergency Powers Act, without the concurrence of North Carolina's and while this legislative body was out of session.At this critical juncture in governing North Carolina and Beaufort County, it would be wise for Beaufort County's government to express their concern as to the Governor's arbitrary and capricious use of NC general statue 166A-19.2.2 to enact Executive Order 121 closing all businesses, consideredby Governor Cooper, and eliminating all public assembly that this Governor considersWhile it is imperative that North Carolina's governors have executive powers to enact emergency orders to deal with exogenous threats to our state's citizens, it is equally imperative that the general statute allowing such measures be written in a way to leave no doubt as to the limits of governors' power to do so. We citizens of Beaufort County should expect the North Carolina General Assembly to review NC general statue 166A-19.2.2, and perform whatever legislative oversight necessary to bring that general statute into full compliance with the ideal of good and proper governance.during this period of the Coronavirus Pandemic, and while the NC general assembly was out of session, NC Governor Cooper acted unilaterally, without the consent of North Carolina's council of state, to first close North Carolina's public schools, and then many of North Carolina's private businesses, while limiting, and, in some cases, eliminated North Carolina's citizens' United States Constitutional right to assemble, and;during this extended period of closures, which has been twice extended by this Governor, acting unilaterally, by misapplying the Emergency Powers Act, which was never intended to be misapplied to this extent to promote into fruition these terrible consequences of a destroyed North Carolina economy, and;North Carolina Governor Cooper has acted unilaterally without the benefit of specific knowledge, irrespective that the best knowledge is still yet unknown,that Beaufort County Commissioners respectively request that North Carolina's general assembly begin the process of writing general statutes to better define the Emergency Powers Act, and act now to initiate the process to stop future North Carolina Governors from acting unilaterally, unchecked, for extended periods of time.If you are interested in our Archive of the Beaufort County Commissioners' General Meetings can be found here in this aforementioned enhanced format.Additionally, if you wish to catch up on some of the most important Beaufort County Commissioners meeting of 2019 through 2022, click here
Congratulations, aaonline.net got a very good Social Media Impact Score! Show it by adding this HTML code on your site:

Aaonline.net scored 72 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 3.5/5.0 Stars by Social Team

This CoolSocial report was updated on 11 Jan 2013, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.

The total number of people who shared the aaonline homepage on StumbleUpon. The total number of people who shared the aaonline homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the aaonline homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if aaonline has a Facebook fan page). The total number of people who shared the aaonline homepage on Delicious. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the aaonline homepage on Twitter + the total number of aaonline followers (if aaonline has a Twitter account).

Basic Information

PAGE TITLE AAOnline.net--Realtime Open AA Meetings on the Internet DESCRIPTION KEYWORDS OTHER KEYWORDS aaonline, meetings, meeting, alcoholics, alcoholics anonymous, anonymous, every day



The title found in the head section of the homepage. CoolSocial advanced keyword analysis tool is able to detect and analyze every keyword on each page of a site. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of the site. The description meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. The keywords meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage.

Domain and Server

DOCTYPE CHARSET AND LANGUAGE DETECTED LANGUAGE English English SERVER Apache OPERATIVE SYSTEM Linux Linux

Character set and language of the site. The language of aaonline.net as detected by CoolSocial algorithms. Represents HTML declared type (e.g.: XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.0, the new HTML 5.0) Type of server and offered services. Operative System running on the server.

Site Traffic trend during the last year. Only available for sites ranked <= 100000 in the world.

Referring domains for aaonline.net by MajesticSeo. High values are a sign of site importance over the web and on web engines.

Facebook link

FACEBOOK PAGE LINK NOT FOUND

The description of the Facebook page describes website and its services to the social media users. The type of Facebook page. A Facebook page link can be found in the homepage or in the robots.txt file. The total number of people who like website Facebook page. The URL of the found Facebook page. The total number of people who tagged or talked about website Facebook page in the last 7-10 days. Facebook Timeline is the new layout of Facebook pages.

Twitter account link

TWITTER PAGE LINK NOT FOUND
The Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) and the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) have written to the Government accepting their invitation to discuss the Government Roadmap and its implications for pubs as a matter of urgency.

This follows commitments made by Ministers over the weekend that the Government will meet with the two representative bodies for publicans over course of the coming week.



As part of their discussions with the Government, the two organisations will be pressing for pubs to reopen at the same time and on the same basis as cafes and restaurants. Recognising the challenge of maintaining social distancing in a hospitality environment, the organisations will also be putting forward radical changes to the normal operations of bars in order to protect public health.



These measures include:

 Bars will become dispense bars only with no sitting, standing, ordering, payment or drinking at the bar allowed.

 Table service will be a requirement with pubs only serving customers seated at tables.

 The numbers on the premises would be confined to no more than 4 per every 10 square metres.

 A maximum of 6 people would be permitted at any one table.

 Customers will be required to use hand sanitiser upon entry.

 All customers must remain seated.

 Staff will be fully trained in the new procedures. They will also be asked to maintain a safe distance from customers when taking orders and to wash their hands thoroughly every 30 minutes.

 The utilisation of outdoor spaces to enhance social distancing.

 Procedures implemented to ensure safe use of toilet facilities, which may include limits on the numbers using toilets at any one time.

 No live music or DJs.

 Gardai / HSE will have the power to close any business who is flouting the public health guidelines.



The two organisations will also stress they remain fully committed to doing what is necessary to protect the health and safety of all staff and customers.



Strict protocols setting out how staff and customers are required to comply with social distancing in hospitality businesses will be developed in conjunction with National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) and the Department of Health. Those protocols would apply to all hospitality businesses. The publican groups would look to have the temporary measures reviewed by NPHET on an ongoing basis, with a view to resuming normal trading when it is safe to do so.



Speaking about the proposed measures, Donall OKeeffe, Chief Executive of the LVA said, We fully respect the need to continue to protect the public health. We have repeatedly proven this commitment, not least in the fact that our sector was the first to close across the country. We also believe that if other venues who serve food and alcohol are allowed to reopen in Phase 3, then pubs should be granted the same opportunity to trade. We dont believe it is in any way appropriate that the Government should apply one rule for some hospitality businesses and another rule for others.



We are making a series of radical proposals to how bars should operate for the reopening scenario. Trading will be extremely difficult under these circumstances. There is no doubt that the pub experience as we know it will have to change dramatically. Many pubs may choose not to reopen as it simply wont be financially viable under these conditions. However, for those who want to trade, these measures will have the essential impact of protecting the health and wellbeing of staff and customers alike, Mr. OKeeffe said.



Padraig Cribben, Chief Executive of the VFI said, We were pleased to see Minister Humphreys and Minister Harris commit to organising a meeting this week to discuss the reopening of pubs in line with restaurants and cafes. We have now written to the Government to ensure this meeting happens at the earliest possible opportunity. What is clear is that the current roadmap plan isnt tenable and will lead to confusion in the hospitality sector if it is not addressed.



The public health restrictions will present real challenges to all hospitality venues, it doesnt matter if they are a pub, a restaurant, a cafe or a hotel. There is no denying that and there is no getting around it. Addressing those public health requirements will be necessary for all hospitality businesses whenever they reopen. Pubs across Ireland are up to that challenge and will do what is required for maintaining a safe and healthy place of business, Mr. Cribben concluded.
With the Delhi government allowing electricians and other self-employed people to resume operations amid a national lockdown to control the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), there was a surge in the demand for air-conditioner (AC) repairs and maintenance requests on Monday, prompting even some electricians to double up as AC technicians in the Capital.

The self-employed technicians in Delhi began responding to customer requests even as representative of some AC manufacturers and sellers said they were not accepting repair and maintenance requests due to the lockdown restrictions.

Dinesh Kumar (45), an electrician in Mayur Vihar, said he received four calls on Sunday evening for AC repairs across homes, adding that the uptick in work at his service centre came after a period of one-and-a-half months.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal locked down the national capital to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, which has killed at least 250,000 people across the world, on March 23, days before the central government announced similar restrictions.

On Monday morning, Kumar sent a team of workers to carry out the repair and maintenance work.During the lockdown period, we got a few orders, but it was all minor work, such as fixing tube lights or repairing plug points. Finally, we are now getting big orders, he said.

Those running AC repair shops said they get the bulk of their work orders in March, when temperatures begin to rise, but the Covid-19 lockdown this year didnt allow any activity. Now that work orders have begun coming in, the technicians are preparing for a surge in requests and concerned about arranging spare parts.

Amit Aggarwal (53), a resident of Vasant Kunj, said he had no option during the lockdown but to conduct basic maintenance of AC units in his house on his own. Most AC manufacturing companies had suspended repair and maintenance services due to the lockdown. We couldnt call a company expert to do the repair and servicing. Even the local shops were closed, said Aggarwal.

According to technicians, the most common repair work in ACs is to replenish its cooling gas or repair coils, in case of damage, which results in a leakage of the gas. But with most spare parts shops closed, especially in wholesale markets, it is now proving to be a challenge.

Despite public demand, many local AC repair and service shops are not allowed to open as they are located in markets. They are taking orders over the phone and sending their staffers to the work site.

Nitish Gaba, who runs an AC repair shop in east Delhi, said: We cant open the shop right now. We are getting orders to repair ACs, but it is difficult to arrange spare parts. We are also finding it difficult to procure the gas used in ACs, as we usually bought it from the shops providing spare parts.

Mukesh Kashyap (29), an electrician who owns a store in Rohini, said he has to source materials, such as motor parts, which has not been possible as not all shops have reopened.

I got a call from a client to repair and install their AC. The motor was not functional. I had to call up several people for four days before I could get the spare part for repair. This way, even if we get work, I dont know how much we will be able to do, said Kashyap.

Aamir Khan, who repairs ACs at his shop at Bhogal, said his work took a hit this year as people were still reluctant to allow outsiders in their houses. He said they were also being stopped by some police officials while on the way to work. People are letting us enter their houses only after making several enquires. Customers are asking for our names, whether we are coming from a containment zone and insisting that we do the work either on the terrace or in the balcony, but not inside the house, he said, adding that he was facing a financial crunch due to the lockdown.
Nursing homes are right in the middle of the deadly coronavirus pandemic hitting the U.S, with more than 20%, or 11,000, of the nations COVID-19 deaths happening in these long term care facilities, according to a mid-April report by The Associated Press.

As of 2016, there were 15,600 nursing homes in the country. The New York Times reported April 17 that the virus had been found in at least 4,100 American nursing homes and other long term care facilities. The virus has had a devastating effect on elderly or immunocompromised residents of these facilities in particular.

It has been a struggle for the long term care industry, encompassing assisted living facilities, independent living facilities, nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities, as well as continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs), as it faces staffing shortages, a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) and inadequate testing.

The insurance industry is well aware of these struggles.

(See: How Brokers, Carries Are Trying to Help)

Theyre just overwhelmed, said Michael Spaan, president of Inlight Insurance Services of Oklahoma, which specializes in commercial healthcare risks, writing about $30 million in premium in the space. Theyre already overwhelmed, and theyre already overworked and now, I dont see how theyre doing it.  Its very problematic for a long term care provider. I think theyve got the toughest situation in healthcare with this particular pandemic.

The insurance market for these businesses was already strained before the current crisis.

In its 2019 long term care providers study, insurance broker Aon estimated that losses would increase by 5% and claim frequency would go up by 2% annually. Annual claims costs in 2020 would average $2,300 and increase by 5% annually, Aon forecasted.

Increasing frequency and severity of professional and general liability claims resulted in substantial rate increases in these lines for 2020. Insurance Journal reported in January that some brokers saw increases of at least 12% to 15% for senior living facilities, even on accounts with no loss histories. Capacity took a hit as well. Agents in the space reported the number of carriers writing the business had started to decrease way before COVID-19 gave insurers another reason to be wary of the market.

Unprofitable Market

James McNitt is area president for Risk Placement Services (RPS) Healthcare Division in Chicago, a wholesaler writing about $100 million in premium for long term care facilities that places business with the segments major carriers such as CNA, Chubb, MedPro, and others.

McNitt said there was significant movement in 2019 towards a hardening marketplace demonstrated by carrier consolidation, a focus on building deductibles and retentions, and excess limit capacity constraints.

The marketplace has been historically unprofitable, he said, with some carriers operating at combined ratios of over 200% in the past five years.

[Carriers] have not been able to write their way out of it, McNitt said. We ended 2019 with a market that was speeding down the highway towards a very hardening spot, and here we are with a whole new reason to have an even more tough time writing in this space.

Insurance specialists in the class say the facilities are doing the best they can considering they lack proper resources, such as PPE.

The federal response for the elder care community has been really disappointing, said Michael Stoop, president of Metropolitan Risk Advisory in Irvington, N.Y., who noted his clients have had to figure out on their own how to acquire PPE to protect staff and residents and get testing in place to stem outbreaks in the facilities.

Its a lack of resources that is really contributing to and exacerbating the issue in these nursing homes, he said. They have to be fully resourced and they arent, which is why it is spreading like wildfire there and these [residents] just cant take it.

Steve Spina, executive vice president of underwriting at TDC Specialty Underwriters, said theyve heard from insureds who are using trash bags and hotel shower caps as PPE, as well as homemade masks for protection.

They are MacGyvering their way through this, even though there isnt a lot available to them in terms of the equipment that they need. These people are really putting their lives on the line, said Spina whose firm, TDCSU, is part of The Doctors Company Group, a mutual insurance company that insures about 2,000 nursing homes and has a book of business of about $50 million in that space.

Negative media stories about what is happening at long term care facilities has made it harder, said Shelagh Grubb, producer with Plasteridge Insurance Agency, which insures about 800 facilities in Florida. I think [the staff] are superheroes and theyre not really getting the recognition or support that they should be getting, said Grubb, also a board member of the Florida Assisted Living Association.

Carrier Response

Not surprisingly given the pandemic, the cracks in the long term care industry insurance market that were already evident have been getting worse. Carriers in the space have been pulling back on capacity and coverage due to increasing claims frequency and severity since the beginning of the year.

Before March, going into 2020 the market was already distressed for long term care providers. Now I would say its about as difficult of a market that Ive ever seen, Spaan said.

McNitt is worried that the potential liability some nursing homes may face will make a difficult insurance situation even more difficult.

My concern is that the nursing home space is going to continue to have a deteriorating reputation as a result of this and their occupancy rates are going to be way down  therefore making less money  and they are already not able to pay their insurance premiums, McNitt said. Their insurance isnt going to go down, in fact, its going to go up and they already cant even afford it. Its going to be a bad time to be a nursing home operator.

When we get on the other side of COVID and what does that industry look like  it is going to be absolutely decimated, said Stoop. How many families are going to want to put their families in a nursing home after what just happened? And staffing is going to be a huge issue for them, and it was already an issue before. There are so many unanswered questions.

Some agents say it is too early to tell what the eventual effect on the insurance market will be as the situation is changing daily.

This is not only new for the world, its also new for the insurance industry. So right now, it is kind of a waiting game to see what happens, said Grubb. Its really going to depend on how the courts decipher some of this policy language to really speak to what the exposures are going to look like.  Its going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out.

Too soon or not, the liability concerns are on the forefront of the minds of many working with this class, particularly carriers.

According to McNitt, some carriers have already implemented COVID-19 specific applications that require the long term care facility to state if theyre aware of positive virus cases among staff or residents. This is a dangerous move for the insured, he said, because if someone tests positive after the application goes through to the carrier, they could say that it was a potential misrepresentation.

If a facility does state [they have no cases] theyre putting themselves on the hook to make sure that theyre being honest, and you cant honestly expect any nursing home in the entire country to not have a case today, he said. If they dont know about it yet, they just havent found it.

Carriers are reportedly also enacting broad COVID-19 exclusions on new and renewal business, placing moratoriums on writing medical professional liability business until mid-May, or being extremely selective on what types of facilities they will write and where they will do business. States like New York, New Jersey, California and Florida are considered highly litigious and particularly difficult to find coverage for right now.

Instead of trying to figure out what the premium needs to be to write it, theyre just electing to not quote it, said Spaan. Because of markets pulling out already before all this started, the ones that are left are being very, very, very, very selective. If its not a completely stellar five-star facility, then carriers are declining to quote in many cases, particularly if its in a state thats litigious.

Carriers are afraid right now  I used to get a tremendous amount of calls from carriers and they have been silent, said Stoop. They see a really fragile glass vase on the mantle and just the slightest movement is going to send everything crashing.

Florida agent Matt Baker, president of Thompson Baker, said he has been unable to renew a policy that expires in May for a single location nonprofit skilled nursing facility with just over 200 beds that has operated in the community for 100 years.

His agency began the renewal process back in January and received non-renewals from three different carriers  one on the D&O policy, one on the general and professional liability coverage, and one for workers compensation. Now that the country is in a full-fledged pandemic, he has been unable to get quotes from other carriers.

The feedback that Im getting is that this isnt just a Florida problem, its certainly not just an issue with my particular account, this is a burgeoning thing nationwide to the extent that facilities could be faced with a financial decision that may lead them to go bare, Baker said.

He is still hopeful he will be able to place the business but expects that when he does the terms of any coverage will be dramatically different.

I think the market was already changing a little bit, but I think were in the early stages of seeing that the virus is really making things  at least in the near term  worse from a coverability standpoint, he said. It was already getting more challenging, but this has really made it a lot more challenging,

Spina said there are still competitors and capacity in the market, and it is a long way off from an affordability crisis. He acknowledges that nursing homes are financially squeezed and may not be able to take on additional premiums so they may choose to self-insure some layers of coverage to keep costs down, but he doesnt think rates will go up more than they were before the virus hit.

The hardening has already happened, and its a matter of how hard it gets. There may be pockets where nursing homes cannot find coverage, because of either where they reside or how bad their loss experience has been, he said. But if what I believe is going to happen happens, in terms of the crisis being limited largely to defense costs, then I dont see an Armageddon insurance environment.

Liability Issues

The level of liability the segment may face when the crisis subsides is top of mind for the industry and its insurers.

Professional liability defense attorney Constance Endelicato, vice chair of the Medical Device and Health Law Committee of the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC), described the COVID-19 exposures as endless, and said the facilities vulnerability to exposure has been riddled with various complicating factors.

Some of those complicating factors include: how quickly a facility locked down to outside visitors; how strictly the facilities followed proper policies and procedures to contain the virus spread; if exposed and asymptomatic workers spread the virus unknowingly; challenges controlling the spread of the virus; lack of treatment options for patients; staffing shortages because of infection; refusal to come to work or walk-outs; and lack of adequate PPE, to name a few.

The lack of testing capability, the delayed symptoms, the ongoing admission of new residents, and the residents fundamental rights to have family and friends as visitors, may also play a role in exposure as these factors are thought to be ways in which the virus can spread, said Endelicato, who is also partner at law firm Wood Smith Henning & Berman in Los Angeles where she defends physicians, hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.

Although individual policy considerations will vary, some policies may have specific exclusions or defined terms which could  limit or negate coverage for losses associated with COVID-19, she noted. As an example, property policies may have specific virus exclusions, while business interruption policies may require a demonstration of a direct physical loss.'

Attorney Alan Levine of Levine and Associates in Florida, who litigates malpractice claims against nursing homes, said he doesnt think COVID-19 creates a slam dunk for lawsuits by plaintiff attorneys. He personally will look at several key factors before filing suits, such as the timing of someones infection  was it in January or March  and what actions were taken to counter the virus spread.

Once you determine how it got in  then the liability is looked at: What did they do once it got in to protect these people? If they didnt do anything, you could go after it from that aspect, he said. Its two different phases and thats where you kind of fall into the general policies versus the professional policies.

The unknowns in terms of how the virus is spread and when people show symptoms further complicates any general liability claims against the facilities, he said.

When youre looking at it from the liability aspect, its did they violate their policy and procedures? What did they do that allowed that virus into their facility that they knew or should have known about? And thats going to be really, quite frankly, hard to prove. But again, if there were elements of it or they were aware of it, you could pin liability, he said.

Levine said there is a financial deterrent to attorneys filing frivolous suits against nursing homes because the cases are very expensive and difficult to litigate. The costs can outweigh the benefits.

In any kind of civil case, or even a nursing home case, you need two things from a plaintiffs side to be successful  you need liability, you need damages, he said. In todays world, from a plaintiffs perspective, its all about the insurance coverage. If youve got good insurance coverage and the case is decent, you move forward with it. But a lot of times youre just running into very, very low insurance coverage, if any at all.

TDCSUs Spina said he thinks the main exposures will likely fall under professional liability and whether the facilities did what they were supposed to do to protect the residents as best that they could against a standard of care.

This is a widely held axiom of the professional liability world. Whether its healthcare or its non-healthcare, there is a standard of care that is the measuring stick upon which liability is established. Given the unique set of circumstances that this virus provides, how do you measure or hold accountable an organization against the standard of care that really doesnt exist? he asked.

Spina thinks there will likely be a rash of claims but also believes nursing homes are not defenseless. [Theres] just a whole bunch of defenses available to them, not just in terms of a measurement against the standard of care, but theres also causation. Exactly how is it spread? How do you get the virus? In a nursing home, it really comes in four ways  from visitors who come into the facilities, appointments that they might have to take outside for, any new admissions, and staff, he added.

Still, the long term care industry would like to see more done to limit facilities liability. The American Healthcare Association and the National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL), which represents more than 14,000 facilities, told Insurance Journal that it is concerned about the potential liability to long term care facilities who are responding to the pandemic and providing high quality patient care while following updated guidance that has been issued by federal agencies such as CDC and CMS.

Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of AHCA/NCAL, said legislation like the CARES Act and the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) include language that provides additional federal liability protections for volunteer healthcare professionals or broad immunity protections to healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 emergency response. Additionally, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has urged state governors to take action to protect healthcare professionals from medical liability.

While we appreciate these initial steps and support from the federal government, more needs to be done to afford appropriate legal protection to those that are working hard to prevent and contain this virus from spreading, Atkinson said.

AHCA/NCAL is encouraging every state to extend sovereign immunity provisions to long term care providers and other healthcare sectors providing care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inlight Insurance Services Spaan argues that immunity protection for these facilities should absolutely be passed at the federal level because the losses will be devastating to this class if civil litigation is allowed to go unchecked.

Immunity has to happen. I dont think theres any other remedy that will provide the long term care providers with the solutions that they need right now, he said. I think you could have the best nursing home in the country doing everything correctly and they could still have an outbreak in their facility.

Immunity would be helpful, said Spina, but there will always be a carve-out for the gross negligence and the sensational headlines of these terrible situations that should never happen.

[Immunity] is not something you can rely upon because it can always be challenged. But I do think that more immunity is going to happen.

Topics Carriers Trends Agencies Florida Claims Market Homeowners Medical Professional Liability
By Modupe Coker

Before COVID-19, the HIV outbreak was the last pandemic in modern memory to indelibly change how we communicated about contagious illnesses and how public health measures slowed them. Although the scope and rate of HIV infection dont begin to match the new coronavirus, both pandemics have forced us to confront how fear, misinformation and stigmatization can fuel the transmission and impact of a communicable disease.

Our battle with HIV/AIDS helped us overcome ignorance and hatred. It led to safer sex practices, more widespread sex education in schools, successful public education and worldwide public health support. Some of these gains are guiding our evolving response to COVID-19 and can provide hope in the struggle against the virus. We must continue to learn from these breakthroughs.

The fear surrounding COVID-19 is unprecedented. However, reports from the early days of HIV/AIDS were not very different. The panic was rooted in misinformation, along with the tendency for people to isolate themselves from populations at risk.

At the dawn of the HIV pandemic in the early to mid-1980s, political and personal agendas muddled information reaching the public. As a result, little attention was paid to AIDS beyond gay communities in New York and San Francisco. With COVID-19, the early focus was on travelers from China rather than the impending threat of community transmission. But due to the rapid rate of infection, it became impossible to ignore the need to quickly implement public health and education strategies.

For the new coronavirus, public health campaigns have shown success in convincing most Americans of the severity of the disease. Efforts to stress the critical importance of social distancing have already slowed the spread. Along with this has come increased personal hygiene measures, especially hand washing, and a heightened awareness of how illnesses can be transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces and people who are infected but asymptomatic. There have been gains in countering false beliefs that COVID-19 is no more harmful than the flu and only affects the elderly and those with underlying conditions.

In the case of HIV, public health education had an enormous impact, although it unfolded over years instead of weeks. Safe sex campaigns aimed at the general public and early education in schools lowered the rate of transmission and heightened health literacy. Educational efforts helped people living with HIV/AIDS and their families to gain a better understanding of the disease, empowering them to maintain their health.

Public health education has also been critical in addressing xenophobia, homophobia and racism unleashed by both pandemics. Both were dogged by the initial public perception that they disproportionately affected minority groups. In both cases, those groups were scapegoated and abused.

In the United States, Asians have been attacked and denigrated by people who blame them for the virus, which originated in Wuhan, China. HIV, emerging from primates in Africa, fueled prejudice and violence against Africans and Haitians. In the early days of HIV, some media targeted and stereotyped gay men.

The hostility subsided when Americans understood that HIV was universal. Media coverage also increased awareness of how vehemently racism and fear of outsiders can surface during an outbreak, a message that in the case of COVID-19 needs to be underscored by public health officials and politicians.

At the height of fear and animosity surrounding HIV, 13-year old hemophiliac Ryan White contracted the disease through a blood transfusion and Americans became aware of other modes of transmission. His story significantly reduced HIV-associated stigma.

In the era of COVID-19, global celebrities and public figures like Tom Hanks, Chris Cuomo and Idris Elba have openly declared that they had the virus, showing that everyone is at risk. Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, who was also infected, humorously documented their period of self-quarantine and recovery, reassuring an anxious public that most who test positive get better. The journalist Chris Cuomo has shared vivid descriptions of his symptoms, helping Americans understand how the virus can manifest itself.

While public health education has been crucial in combatting COVID-19, there are still challenges in conveying information that stays abreast of the latest research when there is still so much we dont know about the virus.

In terms of public healthcare, the need is tremendous. This was crucial in slowing the HIV pandemic and sorely needed in this age of COVID-19. The ease and scale-up of HIV-testing were a resoundingly successful public health strategy and must be implemented to reduce the transmission rate of the new coronavirus.

Global access to effective therapy and treatment has also been a major weapon against HIV. Treatment is now available at no cost to millions of people living with the disease. This has dramatically reduced the infection rate and degree of suffering, even in populations with a high prevalence like Nigeria. Here in the United States, there is close to 0% mother-to-child transmission rate as a result of these interventions. When therapeutic advances yield effective treatment against COVID-19, in addition to a vaccine, they must be made affordable and accessible.

While the war against HIV is not over, we have won many battles against the disease. If we draw upon the past, we can accomplish the same with COVID-19.

Dr. Modupe Coker is an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine whose work in sub-Saharan Africa explores why children born to HIV-infected mothers have higher rates of dental caries and what that can reveal about the nature of the disease.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

The Star-Ledger/NJ.com encourages submissions of opinion. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters.
MADISON  Wisconsin received a donation of 10,000 procedural masks and 1,000 medical outfits from the Heilongjiang Province of China. Heilongjiang and Wisconsin have considered each other "sister states" since 1982.

Gov. Tony Evers stated that seeking out this donation is another example of how his administration is "pursuing every avenue  state, national and international  to obtain the resources necessary for our (pandemic) response."

The donation was orchestrated in-part by Carolyn Brady, the University of Wisconsin-River Falls' coordinator of international partnership and outreach programs. Brady independently reached out to a foreign affairs office in Heilongjiang to see if any masks were available.

The governor of Heilongjiang, Wang Xiankui, sending the shipment of the 11,000 pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) to help his sister state fight off the virus that first appeared in his country.

This generous gift in response to our need is just one evidence of their warm regard, for which we, and I trust all of the direct recipients, are most grateful," Brady stated.

While there has been criticism of how China responded to the COVID-19 pandemic at the outbreak, the country has begun returning to normal after the novel coronavirus broke out there in late 2019.

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation coordinated the shipment with help from the Chinese government while the Wisconsin Technical College System Foundation received the goods and immediately donated them to the state, which eliminated "the need for duty payments," according to the Office of the Governor.

The Wisconsin Technical College System Foundation is honored to able to play a part in bringing PPE donations to Wisconsin at this crucial time, Paul Gabriel, executive director of the Wisconsin Technical College System Foundation, said in a press release. We appreciate being part of a dedicated and diverse can do effort to bring in protective masks and gowns under Governor Evers leadership.

Evers and several other governors have been critical of how PPE is distributed within the U.S., with states feeling they have been pitted against one another to get the potentially life saving equipment. These kinds of donations help circumvent that interstate battle.

Competition for COVID-19 supplies is intense," Evers stated.

The state is still seeking continuing donations of PPE and is willing to purchase equipment too. For more info to donate or to sell through the state's buyback program, visit: covid19supplies.wi.gov/Donations.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Advertisement

London's flagship Nightingale hospital will be mothballed to new patients and placed on standby, it has been revealed today.

Staff were sent an email this morning from chief executive, Professor Charles Knight, who told them the hospital would be placed on standby, 'ready to resume operations as and when needed in the weeks and potentially months to come.'

The facility at the ExCeL Centre in east London, which opened on April 3, has 4,000 beds but has remained largely empty, treating around 51 patients in its first three weeks.

The remaining 20 patients currently at the facility will be transferred to other hospitals in the next four days, it is understood.

NHS England has not revealed how much has been spent so far on the Nightingale hospitals which have already opened.

The facility at the ExCeL Centre in east London, which opened on April 3, has the capacity to provide around 4,000 beds

Staff were sent an email this morning from chief executive, Professor Charles Knight, who told them the hospital would be placed on standby

A security guard stands at a barrier outside the NHS Nightingale Hospital today. The facility is set to be mothballed to new patients and placed on standby

In other developments in the coronavirus crisis today:

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced a package of support worth almost 3billion to help universities weather the coronavirus crisis;

A smartphone app to trace the spread of coronavirus will be trialled on the Isle of Wight this week before being rolled out more widely later this month;

A new 'fast and accurate' coronavirus antibody test has been developed by scientists in Edinburgh, although the company fears the NHS could miss out amid interest in Europe for the machines;

Heathrow Airport has warned travellers could face queues a kilometre long to board flights;

Former Government chief scientific adviser Sir David King has assembled a group of experts to look at how the UK could work its way out of the lockdown in response to concerns over the 'lack of transparency' coming from the Sage group of advisers;

Rail unions have today been accused of trying to stymie Britain's recovery while holding the country to ransom after they said it was 'premature' to open up the country's public transport network when the lockdown eases

How many nightingale hospitals are being built and which are open? NHS England has announced several temporary hospitals to aid in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. The hospitals are in London, Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Harrogate, Tyne and Wear, Yorkshire, Belfast and Bristol. LONDON: Opened on April 3, the London hospital was opened by Prince Charles via video link but from today will stop receiving patients. CARDIFF: Opened on April 20, The temporary hospital at Cardiff's Principality Stadium has 2,000 beds inside the 74,000-seater sports ground. Called Dragon's Heart Hospital, it is the second biggest in Britain after the Nightingale hospital at the Excel centre in London. It remains unclear how many patients have been treated. MANCHESTER: Opened on April 19, the Manchester facility located in the main central hall of the former Manchester Central railway station, is equipped to take 750 coronavirus patients. It has not yet been confirmed if it has any patients. BIRMINGHAM: Opened on April 16, the Birmingham hospital set up in the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) has a 500 bed capacity, that can be increased to 1,500 if necessary. It had not treated any patients by April 26 and remains unclear if any have been admitted since. BRISTOL: Opened on April 27, the hospital at the University of the West of England, is able to look after up to 1,000 patients. It had no patients by May 1. YORKSHIRE AND THE HUMBER: Opened on April 21, the hospital at the Harrogate Convention centre will be able to care for up to 500. It has not yet been confirmed if it has had any patients. GLASGOW: The NHS Louisa Jordan at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) in Glasgow became the seventh named NHS Nightingale site. EXETER AND TYNE AND WEAR: The Exeter and Tyne and Wear sites are both expected to be open in May and will add up to 700 beds. The hospital in Exeter will occupy a former Homebase store. BELFAST: Belfast City Hospital's tower block has been transformed into Northern Ireland's first Nightingale hospital - a 230-bed unit staffed by a team drawn from across Northern Ireland. Advertisement

The Prime Ministers official spokesman told MailOnline: In relation to London, it is not likely that in the coming days we will need to be admitting patients to the London Nightingale while coronavirus in the capital remains under control.

That is obviously a very positive thing and we are grateful to everybody in London for following the governments advice and helping to protect the NHS.

What the Nightingale will be is effectively placed on stand by so it would be ready to receive patients should that be required but we are not anticipating that will be the case.

When asked what will happen to the other Nightingale hospitals, the spokesman added: I think five of the seven are open and they provide hundreds of extra beds if local services need them.

Manchester has taken some patients already and Birmingham, Harrogate and Bristol are ready to take patients if needed. The other two are Sunderland and Exeter and they are due to open shortly.

He added: We view the fact that the Nightingales have not had to be used in a significant way as something that is positive and we are grateful to the public for its role in that.

He said he 'absolutely did not' agree with critics who said the hospitals were a waste of money.

Staff at the hospital were told at a meeting on Friday that a decision on its future was expected to be made early this week.

Professor Knight told them today: 'Thanks to the determination of Londoners following expert advice to stay home and save lives, we haven't had to expand Nightingale's capacity.

'Our appreciation to all who have been involved in making the Nightingale a key part of the NHS' whole London COVID-19 response.

'This is a significant point in how the NHS is managing this pandemic. It does not mean our role in London's response to the virus is over.'

A leaked internal email, obtained by the Daily Mail, said that while the hospital remained open and 'in theory accepting admissions' it now looked likely that the initial peak of the coronavirus outbreak had passed.

It added: 'Therefore one possible outcome is for this site to be put into hibernation - ready to come out of hibernation, but not requiring staffing.'

It is understood that all staff and volunteers that have worked at the site will be given a thank you item, such as a lanyard or T-shirt, when it closes down.

Five Nightingale hospitals have been opened so far in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate, but they have received a very small number of patients.

NHS England's national medical director yesterday said it would have been 'foolish' not to plan for extra capacity to tackle the coronavirus.

Professor Stephen Powis said that the extra capacity provided by the newly built Nightingale hospitals may still be needed.

Asked at the Government's daily press briefing if the hospitals were built in error, Professor Powis said: 'Absolutely 100% not.

'If you wind the clock back a month or two, we were looking at an increase in the number of cases, infections, in the UK.

'We were watching images from around the world of health systems that were overwhelmed and we had not put in place, were about to put in place, a series of social distancing measures not absolutely knowing how the public would respond to that.

'And it would have been foolish to have not planned for extra capacity within the NHS. We did that in a number of ways including the Nightingales.'

There were also plans for two more in Exeter and Tyne and Wear, but it is believed these may now be scrapped. Pictured: An ambulance outside the NHS Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre, in London

Professor Powis continued: 'The fact that we have not needed to use all that capacity is actually good news because it means that the public have complied with the social distancing measures, they've started to flatten that curve and we've seen fewer admissions and ultimately fewer deaths than we might have seen if this virus had just been left to spread unchecked.

'And the very early worst case scenarios that no country has let play out would have meant many, many, many deaths and an awful lot of pressure on health services.

'So I think you would have been a hundred, a thousand times more critical if the NHS had not put in that extra capacity and had become overwhelmed.

'You would be quite rightly asking us why we had not gone every mile that we could possibly go to, to put in that extra capacity.'

He concluded: 'So the Nightingales were not built in error and we may still need them.

'We are not through this yet and although government policy and the scientific advice is to try and ensure that the virus does not start to spread widely again, we can never absolutely be certain.

'And therefore for the months ahead, we need to maintain that extra capacity until we have more certainty.'
Police say theyve solved the 21-year-old killing of Portland resident Mark Jeffrey Dribin by matching crime scene DNA evidence to data in a public genealogy site, leading to a murder indictment against a 52-year-old man.

Christopher Lovrien of Portland was arrested at 7:46 a.m. Monday in the 12000 block of Southeast Foster Road and booked on an allegation of second-degree murder, accused of intentionally causing Dribins death.

Its not clear how the two men knew each other. At the time, police said they suspected the killing resulted from a relationship gone bad.

DNA evidence from the crime was matched to a DNA profile through a private lab using the same forensic genealogy technology that Portland police detectives used last year to make an arrest in a 40-year-old homicide case.

Dribin, 42, disappeared between July 2 and July 6 in 1999. He was reported missing after he failed to show up at his job as a United Airlines cargo worker at Portland International Airport. Port of Portland police began an investigation, but Portland Police Bureau homicide detectives soon took over the case.

Detectives checked his home in the 3600 block of Northeast 137th Avenue and then-Detective Sgt. John Minnis said they discovered evidence suggesting Dribin had been killed there.

Investigators found a substantial amount of blood on the walls of his home, along with evidence that somebody had tried to clean it off. There was no sign of forced entry into the home.

Dribins car, which had been stolen from his home, was found several days later at Southeast Division Street and 43rd Avenue.

Lovrien was arrested in Southeast Portland at 7:46 a.m. on Mon., May 4, 2020, accused of second-degree murder. He's being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center on the one-count indictment.

Dribins father, Ken, now 87, and his older brother, Terry, both of Los Angeles, continued over the years to press for information on the case.

About two years after Mark Dribins disappearance, they held a news conference at the Police Bureau and offered a reward for information in his disappearance. His body still hadnt been found.

Naturally, after this long period of time, the family would just like to have some closure, some justice, Ken Dribin said then.

In March 2019, the Police Bureaus cold case unit reopened the case and submitted DNA evidence from Dribins case to a private lab for forensic genealogy analysis after not getting any matches to DNA profiles in a national crime database.

The private lab compared the evidence to DNA in publicly available databases, including profiles from those who share their information from consumer DNA testing companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com to search for relatives who have submitted their DNA.

The investigative leads from the genealogy analysis led to an indictment against Lovrien.

Oregon State Police forensic scientist Janelle Moore and Portland Detective Brendan McGuire were called to present information to a grand jury, which returned an indictment last Thursday.

Portland police had success earlier in 2019 using the Virginia-based Parabon NanoLabs to make an arrest in the strangulation death of 20-year-old Anna Marie Hlavka, who was found dead in her Northeast Portland apartment in 1979.

Cold case detectives are still seeking information regarding the Dribin homicide. McGuire can be reached at 503-823-0869 or by email at brendan.mcguire@portlandoregon.gov.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

Subscribe to Facebook page

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.

Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter
Lawmakers could be called into the Massachusetts State House on Tuesday for a formal session  far exceeding the 10-person limit on public gatherings  if House Republicans and Democrats cannot reach an agreement on the new emergency rules for conducting business during the coronavirus pandemic.

House Democrats say they expect to be called in for formal session Tuesday or Wednesday if members dont reach an agreement Monday during an informal session to pass the order on emergency rules, which Republicans opposed because they feel it favors the Democratic majority and limits opportunities for debate. The fight over emergency rules also means the Legislature hasnt taken up Gov. Charlie Bakers short-term borrowing bill, which would help the state cover costs under the new tax deadline.

Weve been negotiating in good faith. We hope they do not force us to bring membership in, but well be prepared to do so early next week, said Rep. Jon Santiago, a Boston Democrat who serves on the Houses COVID-19 working group and an emergency room doctor at Boston Medical Center.

Our state is running out of money, while there is this unnecessary partisan fight when we have moved as a commonwealth in a bipartisan way every step of the way since the governor declared the state of emergency, were now devolving into some kind of partisan vote that is unnecessary and is hurting our commonwealth, said Rep. Denise Garlick, a Needham Democrat and also a member of the working group.

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted how lawmakers conduct business on Beacon Hill. Most House members have avoided entering the State House since the governor declared a state of emergency, which was followed by a stay-at-home advisory and an executive order banning gatherings of 10 or more people. They have tuned in for informal sessions but are unable to participate in formal sessions, including in roll call votes, because they are not physically present.

The Houses COVID-19 working group drafted temporary emergency rules in hopes that lawmakers could resume taking up complex bills from their homes until the state of emergency ends or until the end of the year.

Republicans raised concerns about the new rules, including the parameters for debate and the higher threshold for members to trigger a roll call. The initial draft required a lawmaker to have support from 39 other members before calling for a roll call vote on a bill or amendment, up from the 16 members usually required, Commonwealth Magazine reported. The threshold has since dropped back to a minimum of 16 members.

House Minority Leader Brad Jones said other concerns remain unresolved. The North Reading Republican told the State House News Service he disagreed with the limit on how often a member can be recognized, the 10 a.m. deadline to sign up to speak, and the lack of details on how long a break could last.

Jones blocked the rules from passing on Wednesday and Thursday. He also proposed an amendment to adopt the emergency rules temporarily, lifting them after passing the governors borrowing bill. When his amendment was rejected, he questioned whether the House had a quorum and effectively ended the session.

Basically, well even take your crappy order that youre ramming down peoples throats, and well get that bill done and then well come back and well use that from time [to time] to see if we can reach a consensus. They decided against that," Jones told reporters last week.

Jones also questioned why House leaders waited a month after Baker filed the borrowing bill, taking it up the same week that the new emergency rules would be voted on.

Jones acknowledged the order was revised to lower the roll call threshold and allow both the House speaker and monitory leader to have a staff member on the chamber floor, but he said they didnt reach a compromise on his other concerns. He said he hopes cooler heads prevail.

Jones did not respond to an email from MassLive seeking comment.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo blasted the Republican opposition Thursday, calling it an example of both recklessness and fiscal irresponsibility. He said Jones and the Baker administration were briefed on the rule changes and described the efforts to block the rules "a partisan political move meant to enhance their power at the expense of the taxpayer and the safety of the public.

When asked about Jones issues with the emergency rules, Deleos spokeswoman Catherine Williams said in a statement, the speaker, committee on rules, and COVID-19 working group seek to put in place a voting system that will enable the House to debate and meet safely in formal session to take action on the full array of important issues that require timely votes for the people of the Commonwealth.

Williams did answer to questions about whether the members would be called in for an in-person session on Tuesday.

House members have passed a series of coronavirus-related bills through informal session over the past six weeks, but legislating through informal sessions means dealing with the possibility that any member could stop a bill or end a session due to procedural issues, as Jones did.

Rep. Shawn Dooley blocked a bill granting a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures last month, raising concerns about the impact on the small-time property owner, before ultimately letting the legislation move forward.

While negotiations over the rules remain at an impasse, Bakers bill authorizing the treasurer to borrow money for costs incurred during the rest of the fiscal year remains untouched. Baker said he was hoping to see the bill land on his desk by May 1 to show credit rating agencies the state would be able to pay its bills despite the tax deadline being moved to July 15.

I think it really needs to happen sometime in the month of May so that we have the month of June to actually execute on the transaction and be in a position by the end of June to say that weve done what we needed to do to deal with the transition associated with moving the final tax filing from April to July, Baker told reporters Thursday during a news conference at the State House.

Santiago said he hopes to see the House implement the temporary rules and take up the governors bill this week remotely.

One person can halt these informal sessions, and so the nature of these informal sessions is not probably suitable to having these robust conversations where we can pass these legislations, Santiago told MassLive. Thats why we need to suggest to me and many of us why we need to pass these new, temporary rules as soon as possible."

Rep. Ed Coppinger, a Boston Democrat, said he has tuned into the sessions remotely but stayed home because a kidney transplant in 2015 left him immunocompromised.

I want to partake and be able to make sure I can vote on behalf of my constituents, and I really appreciated what the speaker did to allow the opportunity to do it remotely and in person, Coppinger said.

Coppinger said he wasnt sure what he could do if the members are called in this week for a formal session, but that he hopes Republicans and Democrats can reach an agreement on Monday so they can continue conducting business remotely.

I think the biggest concerns is I think on both sides  and I think the speaker has taken this into consideration  is the public health risk thats involved in this, and I feel like the minority leader is just bringing it into the forefront and not paying attention to the people that do have the pre-existing conditions like myself.

Related Content:
This is the ex-boyfriend Tiger King's Carole Baskin tried to evict before he filed a restraining order against her, claiming she told him 'dead bodies can not talk' in reference to her missing husband.

Jay Baykal, 67, filed for his petition on October 18, 2002, claiming he was in fear of his life - just two days after Baskin had filed eviction papers against him, according to documents seen by DailyMail.com.

The textile buyer listed his address as Baskin's home in Tampa, Florida, stating he was a joint owner of the property, and noted he was wary of Baskin's two loaded handguns, which she kept in her truck and the home.

In his written statement, Baykal wrote: 'I honestly fear I am in danger of death or serious bodily injury because her prior husband is missing and presumed dead.'

Baskin's second husband Don Lewis vanished without a trace in 1997.

A few months before his disappearance, he had also filed a restraining order against Baskin, claiming his much younger wife had threatened to kill him on two separate occasions and that she had hidden his gun.

Tiger King's Carole Baskin tried to evict her live-in boyfriend Jay Baykal in October 2002, according to documents obtained by DailyMail.com. The textile buyer listed his address as Baskin's home in Tampa, Florida, stating he was a joint owner of the property, and noted he was wary of Baskin's two loaded handguns, which she kept in her truck and the home

Jay Baykal, 67, filed for his petition on October 18, 2002, claiming he was in fear of his life - just two days after Baskin had filed eviction papers against him, according to documents seen by DailyMail.com

Baskin's second husband Don Lewis (pictured together) vanished without a trace in 1997. A few months before his disappearance, he had also filed a restraining order against Baskin, claiming his much younger wife had threatened to kill him on two separate occasions

Baykal's request for a restraining order was first uncovered by author Robert Moor, who spent four years covering the drama between Baskin and Joe Exotic, former owner of Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park and who is serving 22 years in prison in part for a plot to kill Baskin.

DailyMail.com has learned that in addition to attempting to evict Baykal, she also filed several other petitions to evict other men from her properties throughout the years.

When DailyMail.com contacted Baykal for comment, he said, 'Oh, shut up' and hung up.

Baskin did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Interest in Lewis' disappearance has surged in the wake of Netflix's hit docuseries, where zoo owner Joe Exotic referenced a rumor that Baskin killed Lewis, put his remains through a meat grinder and then fed them to the big cats at her rescue center.

Due to the frenzy, the local sheriff has asked for fresh leads in Lewis' disappearance.

Baskin has vehemently denied any involvement in Lewis' disappearance. At the time Lewis went missing, she suggested he could have gone to Costa Rica, where he frequently traveled to.

In his written statement, Baykal wrote: 'I honestly fear I am in danger of death or serious bodily injury because her prior husband is missing and presumed dead'

In Baykal's petition, he claims he asked Baskin what would happen if Lewis unexpectedly came back. He wrote her chilling response was 'dead bodies can not talk'

Baykal's request for a restraining order was denied by a judge on the grounds there were 'no facts of violence or specific credible threat of imminent fear'. Pictured: Baskin's petition to evict Baykal from their home

In Baykal's petition, he claims he asked Baskin what would happen if Lewis unexpectedly came back. He wrote her chilling response was 'dead bodies can not talk'.

Baykal added: 'Her former husband's daughter told me she could be dangerous and watch my back.

'[Baskin] carries two guns loaded always, one in her truck and one in her residence.

'She said she was a suspect in her husband's disappearance. Recently (3-4 days ago) she told me human bones were found near lazy days RV center, she said she hopes it's not on her property or she will be in deep s**t'.

Baykal's request for a restraining order was denied by a judge on the grounds there were 'no facts of violence or specific credible threat of imminent fear'.

Last month, a Florida sheriff said he believes Lewis was likely killed and more than one person was behind what could be a murder-for-hire plot.

Baskin met Lewis in the 1980s and they married in 1991, however they had a rocky last few years of marriage as she claimed he was obsessed with sex and had multiple affairs.

Baskin has denied any involvement in Lewis' disappearance. At the time Lewis went missing, she suggested he could have gone to Costa Rica, where he frequently traveled to

Interest in Lewis' disappearance has surged in the wake of Netflix's hit docuseries, where zoo owner Joe Exotic referenced a rumor that Baskin killed Lewis, put his remains through a meat grinder and then fed them to the big cats at her rescue center. Due to the frenzy, the local sheriff has asked for fresh leads in Lewis' disappearance

Baskin went on to meet her current husband Howard Baskin (pictured together) in November 2002 - a month after her split with Baykal - and they married in November 2004

Lewis, a real estate businessman, was declared legally dead in 2002, leaving behind $5 million in assets.

Baskin went on to meet her current husband Howard Baskin in November 2002 - a month after her split with Baykal - and they married in November 2004.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister says he believes Lewis was likely murdered and admitted he is suspicious of Baskin, but believes other people were in on the murder plot.

'I'm extremely suspicious but not just of her, of this whole circle here,' Chronister said to TMZ.

'I don't want to allude to the fact or insinuate that she's our person of interest we're focusing on. I'm not comfortable saying that yet,' he added.

'There's normally not one person that commits a homicide, it's always a couple people. This had to be extremely planned out, this had to be well thought out.

'There's someone else involved in this. There's someone who was paid to do it, there's someone who helped do it,' he said.
An unheard demo track believed to be the only song composed by Paul McCartney with Ringo Star has been listed for auction.

Recorded after The Beatles split, Angel in Disguise was recorded as a demo for Starrs 1992 solo album Time Takes Time, but failed to make the final cut.

The cassette, which has never been heard by the public, is being sold by former Radio Luxembourg DJ Tony Prince, who was asked to find artists to record alternative versions of the track after Starr rejected it.

Paul Fairweather, from Omega Auctions, said: Its fantastic to be able to bring to the market a previously unheard and unreleased track.

We think the track certainly had enough about it to be included in the album and I am sure if Paul was to release this himself it would certainly prove a hit with fans.

The cassette contains two versions of the song  the first is a lo-fi demo with McCartney on vocals, the other is a fuller mix with Starr singing, plus instrumentation on harmonica and guitar, and backing vocals.

Another demo of the outtake Everyone Wins is also included, along with printed lyrics and notation for Angel in Disguise.
The Duchess of Cambridge penned a letter to all of the staff at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to let them know she is thinking of them at this 'difficult time.'

Taking to Twitter, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists shared a letter written by Kate Middleton, 38, and captioned the post:

'Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge, Royal Patron of the RCOG, has written a thoughtful letter to thank the College for their work on #coronavirus.'

In the letter, dated 14th April, the royal praised staff for their 'longstanding expertise in supporting the delivery of high quality women's healthcare' - adding it could not be more 'crucial' now we are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Kate Middleton, 38, penned a letter to all of the staff at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Pictured, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, accompanied by the Chief Executive of the London Ambulance Service, Garrett Emmerson (right) during a visit to the London Ambulance Service 111 control room in Croydon on 20 March

The mother-of-three praised staff for 'supporting the delivery of high quality women's healthcare' which she says could not be more 'crucial' now we are in the midst of this global pandemic (pictured)

The mother-of-three expressed her gratitude to staff working tirelessly during the pandemic, and highlighted what she had learnt during her Early Years work.

The duchess penned: 'I know that the guidance and resources you have developed to inform and support both healthcare professionals and the general public on coronavirus infection are of fundamental importance to ensure pregnant women are given the best possible care over the coming weeks and months.

'Through my work around early childhood, I have learnt that our experiences during our earliest years, even while we are still in the womb, shape not only our evolving minds and bodies but all aspects of our development.'

'At this particularly anxious time, it is therefore more crucial than ever that we provide the right care for pregnant woman and new mothers.'

Taking to Twitter, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists penned: 'Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge, Royal Patron of the RCOG, has written a thoughtful letter to thank the College for their work on #coronavirus' (pictured)

Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis clap for NHS carers as part of the BBC Children In Need and Comic Relief 'Big Night In at London on April 23, 2020 in London

'Care that supports women's emotional, as well as physical, health, to ensure that mothers prioritise their own mental well-being when they are under so much pressure.'

The royal went on to thank staff for their 'continued work,' before sending her 'very best wishes for the months ahead.'

It comes a week after the Duchess of Cambridge penned a letter to express her 'sincere appreciation' to staff working at Action For Children.

In the letter shared by the charity on Twitter, the royal wrote: 'I'm writing to express my sincere appreciation to all of you at Action for Children during this hugely unsettling time.'

And just a day earlier, Evelina London Children's Hospital took to social media and commented: 'It was wonderful to receive an uplifting message from our Patron HRH, The Duchess of Cambridge, for all our hardworking staff and volunteers.'

In the letter the mother-of-three penned: 'It is heartening to know you are still very much open for business and continuing to provide expert care to sick children despite the challenging circumstances.'
The Road to 270 is a weekly column leading up to the presidential election. Each installment is dedicated to understanding one states political landscape and how that might influence which party will win its electoral votes in 2020. Well do these roughly in order of expected competitiveness, moving toward the most intensely contested battlegrounds as election day nears.

The Road to 270 will be published every Monday. The column is written by Drew Savicki, a 270toWin elections and politics contributor. Contact Drew via email or on Twitter @DrewSav.

In the closing days of the 1960 presidential election, Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon were racing towards the finish line. In what turned out to be one of the closest elections in American history, the decisive state may well have been one of the newest: Alaska.

As Alaska and Hawaii were both admitted to the Union in 1959, the presidential election of 1960 became the first to feature all 50 states. In an anecdote that political analyst Kyle Kondik recalls in his 2016 book, Nixon pledged to visit every state. After putting it off, the Republican finally made the trek up to Alaska on November 6th, 1960, two days before the election. Nixons visit likely helped him secure the states three electoral votes, as he carried the state 51%-49%.

Still, what if Nixon had, instead, spent that time making his final pitch to voters in states with more electoral votes, like Illinois, Missouri, or New Jersey? Kennedys final victory hinged on his razor-thin margins in those states.

While Alaska is more safely Republican in presidential races these days, its politics is a fascinating mix of elastic coalitions, large personalities, and occasional family feuds.

A Right (Write?) of Center State

Since Nixons narrow 1960 win there, the Last Frontier has voted for Republican presidential nominees in all but one election -- Lyndon Johnson took it, in his 1964 landslide. The 2008 campaign put Alaska into the spotlight: its governor at the time, Sarah Palin, was tapped to be the GOPs vice presidential nominee that year. The state's economic position on industries like oil has made it an odd fit for the Democratic Party, which has gradually embraced environmentalism from the mid-20th century onward. Owing to its history, Alaska's brand of Republican politics can be described as libertarian conservatism.

To understand the quirky nature of Alaska politics, look no further than its 2010 Senate election. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) faced the challenge of a lifetime in her primary, from Tea Party-backed attorney Joe Miller. Miller had the support of notable figures like Palin (by then out of office) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), two darlings of the nascent Tea Party movement. In the months and weeks leading up to the GOP primary, Miller began to close the gap with Murkowski in private polling. In what Palin called a miracle on ice, Miller won that primary 51%-49%.

Following her primary loss, Murkowski carefully evaluated her options and made the decision to stage a write-in campaign for the general election. Framing herself as the pragmatic candidate, she cited the extremism of Miller and the inexperience of the Democratic nominee, Scott McAdams (then mayor of the small city of Sitka). As the Republican nominee, Miller received full support from both the Alaska Republican Party and the Senate Republican conference. Murkowski's write-in campaign led to an iconic ad which featured a young girl spelling out her name at a spelling bee.

Murkowskis ad paid off: 39% of voters wrote her name in on their ballots, placing her ahead of Miller, who took 35%. As she pointed out frequently, that was the first successful write-in campaign for a Senate seat since the late Sen. Strom Thurmonds 1954 effort in South Carolina.

As wacky as that election was, it was typical in one sense: Alaska voters have a history of doing their own thing.

Geography

Lacking counties, Alaskas geography is more complex than that of other states. Alaska is divided up into five geographic regions and 20 boroughs (19 organized and one unorganized). The five regions of Alaska are:

Southwest. With the bulk of Alaska's ports, the southwest region is home to commercial fishing and Native fishing villages that dot the landscape. The largest population center in this region is Kodiak.

Far North. The home of the Inuit people, this is one of the more remote regions of Alaska. The annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race runs from Anchorage to Nome, covering the vast Alaska wilderness. Also of note in the Far North is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area the state's congressional delegation has long pushed to open up to drilling for oil.

Interior. Interior Alaska features much of the state's road network, which connects Fairbanks and its surrounding suburbs to Anchorage. As Alaska's second largest city, Fairbanks is home to the main campus of the University of Alaska and a number of military installations. The Interior region is one of Alaska's most educated.

Southcentral. 65% of Alaska's population calls this region home. Anchorage is Alaska's largest city and one of the most politically divided areas in the state, with the city sending nine Republicans and seven Democrats to the Alaska House of Representatives.

Southeast. This heavily-forested region houses the state capital of Juneau, along with indigenous communities and a once robust mining presence.

Congressional Politics

With just three Electoral College votes, Alaska has one of the smallest congressional delegations in the nation, but two of its members carry outsized importance in Congress. Representing all of Alaska in the House of Representatives since 1973 is the oft-cantankerous Rep. Don Young (R). Young is a colorful character known for his off-the-cuff comments and larger-than-life personality. Now Dean of the House -- due to his status as the longest-serving member of the body -- Young is a passionate supporter of Alaska's industries. He came to Congress in a 1973 special election, held in the aftermath of the death of Rep. Nick Begich (D). Young, then a state senator, ran for the seat in 1972, but Begich won reelection, despite disappearing during a plane trip weeks before (he was later presumed dead).

Young has been attentive to local concerns over the years, which has earned him the support of many Alaska Natives. Ideologically, Young is a moderate Republican with a history of bucking his party. Although he remains a highly influential figure in Congress, his status has declined in recent years. House Republican term limits means he no longer occupies the top spot on the Natural Resources Committee and the abolition of earmarks substantially reduced his clout. Unlike many of his GOP colleagues, Young is no stranger to the House minority -- he worked under Democratic rule for his first 22 years in the chamber.

In 2012, Young made waves with a rare bipartisan endorsement video of now-Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI). At the time, Hirono served with him in the House and was in a competitive Senate primary in Hawaii. The ad is a reminder that the delegations from the countrys two non-contiguous states often have reason to work together on Capitol Hill.

Young has faced a few close races over the years. Although he is a perennial prospect on national Democrats retirement watch list, the Dean of the House, at age 86, shows no signs of slowing down. Young is likely to remain in office as long as voters want him to.

In the Senate, after surviving that turbulent 2010 election, Lisa Murkowski is the states senior Senator. Her father, Frank Murkowski, served in the Senate from 1981 until his 2002 election as governor. Upon taking office as Governor, Murkowski appointed his daughter -- then-State Representative Lisa Murkowski -- to the Senate seat he was vacating. Her appointment was controversial and it resulted in voters later stripping their governors of the ability to fill vacancies in the Senate via appointment. Perceived nepotism may have been a factor in the elder Murkowskis defeat -- in his 2006 primary, he placed third in a field led by then-Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin (the families have a rocky relationship).

Since then, Lisa Murkowski has had better electoral fortunes than her father, though her races have been competitive. She faced voters for the first time, at the statewide level, in 2004. She began by successfully turning back a primary challenge from then-State Senate President Mike Miller. Though President Bush carried the state 61%-36%, Murkowski faced a strong general election challenge from the state's previous governor, Democrat Tony Knowles. Still, she was elected in her own right, 49%-46%.

As one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, Murkowski is often a pivotal vote for the majority. In the summer of 2017, she was one three Republicans -- along with the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) -- who voted against repeal of the Affordable Care Act. In fact, Collins and Murkowski are the only two pro-choice Republicans currently serving in the chamber. When it comes to guns and environmental issues, Murkowski's views reflect her libertarian state well.

In 2016, running with the Republican nomination, Murkowski faced a rematch, of sorts. Her 2010 GOP opponent, Joe Miller, ran as a Libertarian. She was reelected with 44% to Millers 29%. As a result, Murkowski is the only senator to win three terms with less than 50% of the vote each time.

Alaska's junior Senator is Republican Dan Sullivan. Elected in the red wave of 2014, Sullivan defeated Democratic incumbent Mark Begich that year -- Begich is the son of the man Rep. Young replaced in Congress. Unlike Young and Murkowski, Sullivan is a reliable party line vote. During his 2014 campaign, Sullivan espoused a number of differences between himself and Murkowski. The previous year, Murkowski came out in favor of same sex marriage. Sullivan also ran on his opposition to abortion rights, another difference between himself and his state's senior Senator.

Sullivan's background in the Marine Corps is an asset in this military-heavy state. A lawyer, Sullivan clerked for several judges in the state before joining the Bush administration in 2002. He was appointed state Attorney General under Gov. Palin and then continued in that position until 2010. Palins successor, Gov. Sean Parnell, appointed Sullivan to Alaska's Department of Natural Resources, which he led until he launched his Senate campaign in 2013.

Senator Sullivan is up for reelection this year and could potentially face a competitive race. His likely opponent is neurosurgeon Al Gross, who is running as an independent with the support of the Democratic Party. He has fundraised well, outraising Dan Sullivan in the most recent quarter and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball recently shifted the race from 'Safe Republican to 'Likely Republican'. Sullivan is still the clear favorite but the race merits watching.

Analyst Eric Cunningham last year wrote an article on the increasing trend of the parties running independents rather than a candidate with a party label. In the 2012 US Senate election in Maine, former Governor Angus King ran with no party affiliation just as he did in his two gubernatorial bids and did not receive support from either party committee. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) spent in Maine but did not endorse King or the Democratic nominee that year. In the Senate, King caucuses with Democrats but remains an independent.

State Level Politics

Alaska, at the state level, is quite unique. It is one of the few states in the nation that elects no statewide officeholders, besides the Governor. With one exception, Republicans have held the Governorship from December 2002 (in Alaska and Hawaii, governors take their oaths of office in December) to present.

From 2014 to 2018, the Governor was an independent, Bill Walker. Walker, a former Republican Mayor of Valdez, ran on a unity ticket with Democrat Byron Mallott. Owing to his unpopularity, Gov. Walker suspended his bid for reelection in 2018 and endorsed the Democratic nominee, former Sen. Mark Begich. The Governors Mansion fell back into GOP hands, as Begich lost 51%-44% to then-State Sen. Mike Dunleavy (who is currently the subject of a recall campaign).

In the legislature, Republicans hold a supermajority in the state Senate while the state House is controlled by a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Whether the coalition remains depends on if its Republican members are successful in their primaries this year.

The Native Vote

Native Americans account for 15% of the population in Alaska, the largest in the nation. Alaska Natives have increasingly voted Democratic in the past few presidential races, but certain Republicans are able to win them over. In 2016, Sen. Murkowski was stronger in the Native-heavy western half of the state than in the whiter eastern parts. In the 2018 U.S. House race, Don Young was able to win some crossover support from this group while Begich easily won them in his unsuccessful gubernatorial bid.

Presidential Outlook

There is little doubt that Alaska will vote for President Trump in the fall. One thing to watch, though, is the states affinity for third parties. In 2016, Trump carried the state 51%-37%, with the remaining 12% going to third parties. Only Utah, Idaho, and Vermont gave third parties a higher aggregate share. In 2000, Green Party nominee Ralph Nader -- who is often accused of spoiling the election in favor of Bush -- took 10% in Alaska, his best showing of any state.

Next Week: Montana


Samsung has reportedly reached out to Chrome Unboxed to confirm that it is not only aware of battery problems associated with the Galaxy Chromebook. Its also actively looking for a fix.

The company isnt outlining exactly what fixes it might have on offer. So it isnt clear if it plans to reduce the power consumption of the two-in-one laptop. There are a number of ways it could work to accomplish that. But it is said to be working directly with Google to find a fix.

Also unclear is exactly when the company plans to deliver the improvements. However, Samsung does indicate that the problem is a high-priority matter. So it should be included in an update to the gadget relatively quickly.

Advertisement

What Galaxy Chromebook battery problems need to be addressed?

The battery problems associated with the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook arent the worst the company has ever faced. The South Korean tech giant was forced to discontinue its Galaxy Note 7 flagship smartphone in 2016, for instance. That was after the device was found to have a serious battery defect causing some units to explode.

This time around, the issue is battery life, as hinted above. The company claimed, at the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook, that its device would last users up to 10-hours on a single charge. While thats certainly possible, attaining that requires serious sacrifice on behalf of users. The source notes, for instance, that the laptop can achieve 6-hours of battery life at around 50-percent screen brightness.

That isnt going to be feasible for every user, though. Some users will need to press brightness of the display closer to 60- or 70-percent brightness. Under those circumstances, sources have reported battery life well under four hours. Thats a long way from the all-day battery life Samsung promised from this Chromebook.

Advertisement

Why are there battery problems at all?

Now, there are several reasons why the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook is likely to suffer from a shortened lifespan. Not least of all, this is the first Chromebook to pack an AMOLED display panel and thats been set to a 4K resolution. The battery is also pushing power to a relatively powerful 10th-gen Core i5 U-series processor.

The final possible problem is the size of the battery. Samsungs latest Chromebook is super thin, at just 9.9mm thick. Thats just over the size of the average smartphone. And that leaves only a limited amount of space internally for a battery. The battery used, in this case, is a 49.2Wh battery.

The problem with pointing to those as underlying issues is that this isnt the only Chromebook with those specs. Looking past the AMOLED display.

Advertisement

Plenty of Chromebooks come with a 4K display panel and at least a few of those ships with similarly powerful internal hardware. So it isnt clear exactly why this Chromebook drains so much power.

That leaves a lot of room for speculation with regard to how Samsung will fix the issue. It has plenty of options ranging from changing how the display works at lower resolutions to reducing the performance of some components.

On the other hand, it may opt to include a low-power or power-saving mode. The latter solution has already been spotted in the Chromium Gerrit. So, to some extent, it seems the most likely to be used.
COVID-19 could have stamped a person "uninsurable" if not for the Affordable Care Act. The ban on insurers using preexisting conditions to deny coverage is a key part of the Obama-era law that the Trump administration still seeks to overturn.

Without the law, people who recovered from COVID-19 and tried to purchase an individual health insurance policy could be turned down, charged higher premiums or have follow-up care excluded from coverage. Those considered vulnerable because of conditions such as respiratory problems or early-stage diabetes would have run into a wall of insurer suspicion.

Yet as defenders of the ACA submit written arguments to the Supreme Court next week countering the latest challenge to its existence, the Trump administration remains adamant that former President Barack Obama's health law, known as "Obamacare," must go.

"A global pandemic does not change what Americans know: Obamacare has been an unlawful failure and further illustrates the need to focus on patient care," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.

Deere asserted that the law limits patient choice, has premiums that are too expensive and restricts patients with high-risk conditions from going to the doctors and hospitals they need. Trump has said he would protect people with preexisting conditions, as have other Republicans, but he hasn't spelled out a plan.

Some GOP lawmakers in contested races this fall are unnerved by the prospect of Trump administration lawyers asking the Supreme Court during the coronavirus outbreak to toss out a law that provides coverage to at least 20 million Americans.

"The ACA remains the law of the land, and it is the Department of Justice's duty to defend it," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "That is especially true during the current public health crisis our country is facing due to COVID-19."

She is among those urging the administration not to get rid of the law but instead make broader use of it to cover uninsured people during the pandemic. Collins is considered among the most endangered incumbents as Republicans try to keep their Senate majority.

It's unclear whether the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments before the November election. A group of GOP-led states contends that because Congress repealed an ACA tax penalty, the law's requirement for individuals to carry health insurance is unconstitutional. If the insurance mandate is unconstitutional, their argument goes, then the rest of the law must collapse like a house of cards.

The administration agrees, but has also suggested that federal judges could decide to keep some parts of the law. The Supreme Court took the case after a federal appeals court in New Orleans said the ACA's insurance mandate is unconstitutional, but did not rule on the rest of the law.

From nearly 12 million people to 35 million could lose their workplace coverage due to layoffs in the coronavirus shutdown, according to an estimate by the consulting firm Health Management Associates. They have more options because of the Obama-era law.

They are entitled to a special sign-up opportunity for coverage through HealthCare.gov or their state insurance market, and may qualify for financial assistance with premiums and other costs. They cannot be asked about health problems. In states that expanded Medicaid, some may qualify for that program, usually at little or no cost.

Before the law, people who lost their jobs and wanted to keep their employer health insurance could do so under a law known as COBRA. It's still on the books, but it requires them to pay the full premium, plus an administrative fee. That's often cost-prohibitive.

Karen Pollitz of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation said people seeking an individual health insurance policy "would have been very much at risk in today's pandemic" were it not for the health law.

"The conditions associated with a more complicated case of COVID-19 would have been especially radioactive," she said.

For Republicans, the Supreme Court case "has to be the ultimate in 'be careful you don't get what you wish for,' " said health industry consultant Robert Laszewski.

Part of the reason Trump failed to repeal and replace the law in 2017 was that Republicans didn't have a plan they could agree on, he said.

"Before COVID, if they won the suit, then what?" asked Laszewski. "And now with COVID ... in the face of a major medical crisis, and depression-level unemployment, and people losing their health insurance? Yikes!"

Last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some 30 health groups called on Congress to help maintain health insurance coverage during the economic shutdown caused by the pandemic. They urged a broad approach that includes subsidies for COBRA, opening up the ACA to more people and allowing those with tax-sheltered health accounts to use that money for premiums.

But the White House is resisting anything that includes "Obamacare." Instead the administration is using a health system relief fund created by Congress to reimburse hospitals for treating uninsured patients with COVID-19.

That "is way less than adequate," said Richard Pollack, president of the American Hospital Association. "What we need to do is provide coverage in a more comprehensive way for people."
Punjab on Monday reported 132 fresh coronavirus cases, all but eight of them Nanded-returned pilgrims, taking the total number to 1,232 in the state, officials said.

A total of 795 of around 4,100 pilgrims who returned from Hazur Sahib in Maharashtra's Nanded have tested positive for the infection so far, a health official said on Monday.

The test reports of around 1,800 pilgrims are still awaited, an official further said.

Many Sikh pilgrims testing positive for coronavirus have become a major issue in Punjab with the ruling Congress and the opposition Shiromani Akali Dal trading charges.

The Nanded-returned pilgrims accounted for about 65 per cent of the total COVID-19 tally of 1,232 in the state.

The SAD has accused the state government of mis-managing the return of pilgrims, while Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu charged the opposition party with spreading "misleading propaganda".

Transport Minister Razia Sultana on Monday trashed the reported statement of Maharashtra minister Ashok Chavan who had claimed that the pilgrims might have caught the disease from the Punjab bus driver who ferried them back.

Among fresh cases on Monday, 52 were reported from Sangrur, 26 from Tarn Taran, 15 from Barnala, 13 from Ferozepur, 12 from Faridkot, six from Gurdaspur, four from Jalandhar, two from Pathankot and one each from Bathinda and Mansa, as per a bulletin issued on Monday.

The bulletin also recorded to deaths that happened on Sunday: 62-year-old woman from Ludhiana and 65-year-old man from Phagwara in Kapurthala.

The Sunday deaths took the total number of coronavirsu fatalities in the state to 23.

Amritsar continued to top the COVID-19 tally in the state with 218 cases, followed by Jalandhar (128), Ludhiana (110), Mohali (95), Hoshiarpur (88), Patiala (86) and SBS Nagar (85).

Among other places, Sangrur reported 63 cases, Muktsar 49, Ferozepur 42, Tarn Taran 40, Gurdaspur and Bathinda 36 each, Moga 28, Pathankot 27, Barnala 19, Faridkot 18, Mansa 17, Fatehgarh Sahib 16 , Rupnagar 14, Kapurthala 13 and Fazilka four, as per the bulletin.

Of the total cases, 23 have died while 128 have fully cured of the infection, the bulletin said, adding three patients are critical and are on ventilator support.

A total of 28,545 samples have been taken so far in the state and of which, 21,295 have returned negative and 6,018 reports are still awaited.

There are 1,081 active cases in the state, as per bulletin.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Monika Monalisa By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: As a stage artiste, Diya Naidu is used to being under the spotlight. But the last few weeks have been particularly overwhelming for the COVID-19 survivor, who is one of the first plasma donors from Karnataka.

Her phone has been buzzing ever since she took to Instagram to talk about donating plasma for coronavirus treatment trials. More so, after her aunt, veteran actor Nafisa Ali, posted about it as well.

Pic: Dannilla Correya

In convalescent plasma therapy, antibodies from the blood of a recovered COVID-19 patient are used to treat those affected by the virus.

There have been many times I thought this is the last time I was going to speak about my journey. But I continued to do it as the doctors suggested this would help reduce the fear people had about the virus and it could help them get more donors too, says the 36-year-old dancer-choreographer.

Living in the city alone meant there was no one to accompany her for medical procedures.

I was nervous initially. But it seemed like a regular process and the medical staff also put me at ease, says Naidu.

The process was carried out in three cycles, in intervals.

Though not painful, the donation can make one momentarily weak, she says.

I take dance classes in the mornings and evenings. I had to cancel some of the evening sessions because I had to take it easy for a few days since my body was still recovering, says Naidu, who probably contracted the virus on her way back to Bengaluru from Switzerland after a dance project in March.

She returned to India on March 9 and tested positive on March 16.

Though asymptomatic, she had lost her sense of taste and smell, leading some doctors to initially believe that it could have just been a sign of sinus.

We were learning things one day at a time but now we are better informed, says Naidu, who stayed in the hospital for 20 days.

While her immediate contacts were also taken for testing, their results came out negative.

Love and wishes from friends and family members were plenty but Naidu encountered peoples meaner side too.

Afraid of having infected others, the artiste had taken to social media to urge people to get tested if they had got in touch with her.

I did that out of genuine concern but instead, I was trolled for not quarantining myself on my return, recalls Naidu, adding that at that time, only those returning from Iran, China, Italy and Singapore were required to self-isolate. But she isnt one to hold grudges.

This behaviour is coming from a place of fear, she says. Right now, my only request to everyone is to be compassionate and show support for those on the frontline.
Official figures from the Health Ministry released on Monday showed that there were 164 coronavirus-related fatalities in the last 24 hours, the same number as were reported on Sunday, and in keeping with the falling trend of recent weeks.

The number should, however, be viewed with some caution given that since the crisis began there has been underreporting of the data on weekends and also when there are holidays. May 1 was a holiday in all of Spain, as was May 2 in the Madrid region.

According to the latest data, there were 356 new infections as confirmed by the more reliable PCR tests, compared to 838 on Sunday. This represents a rise of 0.16% of the total. Since the crisis began, there have been a total of 218,011 infections in Spain confirmed by PCR tests, while 121,343 patients have recovered. The number of daily hospital admissions fell to 394 on Monday, down from the 547 reported yesterday.

We have to be clear that the risk of a new outbreak has not been eliminated Fernando Simon, director of the Health Ministrys Coordination Center for Health Alerts and Emergencies

The total number of official coronavirus-related deaths in Spain now stands at 25,428.

For the first time since the state of alarm was declared on March 14, three Spanish regions  Valencia, Murcia and the Balearic Islands  have recorded no coronavirus fatalities. Several regions, as well as the exclave cities of Melilla and Ceuta in North Africa, also reported no intensive care admissions in the past 24 hours.

Over the past two weeks, the contagion rate in six regions, as well as Melilla and Ceuta, has fallen to under 28 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Speaking at the governments daily press conference on Monday, Fernando Simon, the director of the Health Ministrys Coordination Center for Health Alerts and Emergencies, said the figures are good, but we have to be cautious after a long weekend. We have to be clear that the risk of a new outbreak has not been eliminated.

On Saturday, adults in Spain were allowed to go outside for a walk or for exercise as part of the deescalation of the coronavirus confinement measures. The scenes of pedestrians, cyclists and runners out on the streets raised concern that the country could face a new spike in cases. It is a question that involves us all. Every one of us has an important responsibility, said Simon, in reference to the need to respect strict safety measures.

The health official added that 10 of Spains 17 regions recorded fewer than 10 hospital admissions, 14 had fewer than two intensive care admissions, and eight had fewer than two coronavirus fatalities.

Small businesses

Small businesses in Spain reopened on Monday as part of a gradual relaxation of confinement measures. Most of the country except for four islands remains on Phase 0 of the governments deescalation plan. Under this phase, small businesses such as bookshops, hardware stores and auto repair shops are able to accept customers who make an appointment, with one customer permitted per employee, and special timetables for seniors.

The BoliBloc bookshop in Barcelona opened for business on Monday.

The BoliBloc bookshop, near the famous Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, opened on Monday to a waiting list of customers, and passers-by also stopped by to make purchases. Anna Sola, the owner of the store, said she was not sure whether she could attend to the latter, but explained: I am selling to whoever comes by, but I only accept card payments.

Pedro Sola opened his electrics store Electrica Minerva, located in the Barcelona neighborhood of Clot, for the first time in six weeks. He said that he has been selling batteries, light bulbs and internet cables. Sola complained that he was not able to open his store during lockdown. With people at home, things break. I have been missed by customers just as much as they have missed me.

Pedro Sola at his electrics store Electrica Minerva in Barcelona.

In the eastern region of Valencia, hairdresser Maria Jose said her salon, Les Tissores de Mapari, has been booked up for the entire week. The truth is I cant complain, she said. But its also true that it is harder to attend to clients one by one. Since the coronavirus confinement measures were introduced in mid-March, Maria Jose has only attended to two senior customers in their homes.

On Monday, the Spanish islands of Formentera, El Hierro, La Graciosa and La Gomera moved directly to Phase 1, which allows sidewalk cafes to open at 50% capacity, and social gatherings of up to 10 people.

Opposition to extending state of alarm

The leader of the Popular Party (PP), Pablo Casado, said in a radio interview on Monday morning that extending the state of alarm beyond 60 days does not make any sense. The state of alarm, declared on March 14 in a bid to control the coronavirus outbreak, must be approved by Congress every two weeks, and the current period is set to end on May 9.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who heads a minority coalition government with junior partner Unidas Podemos, will need the support of other groups, such as the PP, if he is to secure the required votes in Spains lower house of parliament on Wednesday for a further two weeks of the state of alarm. The prime minister is expected to call the PP leader on Monday to ask for his support.

Casado did not confirm how his party would vote, but said in the interview: Today, with the information that we have, we cannot support this extension [of the state of alarm]. If the PP abstains from the vote, instead of voting in favor, the measure would still be able to pass.

The news comes after several regional leaders told Sanchez on Sunday that they also opposed another extension of the state of alarm. Health Minister Salvador Illa said on Monday that extending the state of alarm was imperative to the deescalation of coronavirus confinement measures. The state of alarm is a constitutional tool that has shown it works effectively. That is why the average rise [in infection rate] has fallen from 35% to 0.16%, he said. As health minister, I am telling you it is better not to experiment with what could lead us to chaos.

English version by Melissa Kitson.








Our hope is that this funding will get in the hands of very small businesses and independent contactors during this second go around, said Elliot Richardson, a Chicago attorney who heads the Small Business Advocacy Council. But small businesses are still concerned that they may not be able to obtain funding before the money in the second round of the PPP program runs out.
Bay of Plenty

Have you got your Class 2 manual license and are looking to get your foot in the door of a well renowned company? Read on!This...



View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz
[May 04, 2020] Grain Management-Backed Hunter Communications Names Industry Veteran Michael Wynschenk As CEO

WASHINGTON and MEDFORD, Ore., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hunter Communications ("Hunter"), the leading regional bandwidth infrastructure provider in southern Oregon and northern California, announced that Michael Wynschenk has been appointed Chief Executive Officer. Hunter is a portfolio company of Grain Management, LLC ("Grain"), a leading Washington, D.C.-based investment firm focused on the global communications sector. Mr. Wynschenk is a seasoned executive with senior leadership experience spanning wireline and wireless carriers, more than 30 years of experience in the telecommunications and cable industry, and a strong track record of growth acceleration and value creation. Most recently, he was a regional business operations leader in the northeastern U.S. at Altice Technical Services (acquired by Cablevision). He has also held leadership roles at Frontier Communications, BendBroadband, Alaska Communications, Verizon Business, and AT&T/Lucent Technologies. "Hunter is very pleased to appoint a leader with Michael's deep industry experience and poven track record driving growth and expansion in organizations like ours," said Sam Ackley, Chief Operating Officer of Hunter Communications. "Along with his impressive professional background, Michael has deep roots in the Oregon community, and we are excited to have him join the Hunter family, working alongside us and the Grain team to guide the business forward to continued success."



"Michael brings a strong combination of sales leadership skills, strategic vision, and operational discipline," said Michael McKenzie, Managing Director at Grain. "We believe his appointment will help enable Hunter to advance its position as a leading regional connectivity provider." About Hunter Communications

Hunter Communications, Inc., an Oregon based telecommunications company, was founded in 1992, providing service for local area networks, wide area networks, and everything in between. In 2000 Hunter started building an all-fiber network throughout Medford with the vision of a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) throughout rural Southern Oregon, Southeastern Oregon and Northern California. Hunter now owns the largest privately held fiber optic network in the State of Oregon and has expanded to provide advanced technical support and engineering solutions with the intent of becoming a sole source provider, capable of handling any telecommunications or networking need. Learn more at hunterfiber.com.

About Grain Management

Grain Management, LLC is a leading investor focused on the global communications sector. The firm was founded in 2007 with the objective of bringing a differentiated approach to the industry characterized by expansive sector knowledge, rigorous analytics, and dedicated, in-house operating and financial professionals. Grain is directed by a team of highly experienced investment professionals with deep industry knowledge and a specialized skill set, marked by extensive operating history, quantitative and analytical proficiency, and regulatory expertise. For more information visit graingp.com. For more information: Grain Management

Caroline Luz

[email protected]

203-656-2829 Hunter Communications

Sam Ackley

[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/grain-management-backed-hunter-communications-names-industry-veteran-michael-wynschenk-as-ceo-301052162.html SOURCE Grain Management, LLC

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
LAGUNA BEACH, CA - MAY 05: People stroll along Laguna Beach on Tuesday morning as city with State's blessings reopened its beaches for active use only. The first phase of the reopening includes 6-10 a.m. hours Mondays through Fridays. in Laguna Beach on Tuesday, May 5, 2020 in Laguna Beach, CA. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) (Irfan Khan/Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

After days of protest and a spat over the use of Orange County beaches, Gov. Gavin Newsom signaled the first concrete steps toward a return to a more normalized California on Monday when he described how some of the state's stay-at-home rules could be eased.

Newsom's announcement came as several communities and individual businesses began to reopen early in defiance of local and state orders.

Some businesses  including bookstores, florists and sporting goods retailers  could reopen as early as Friday, Newsom said.

But as Newsom struck an optimistic tone in Sacramento, Los Angeles County officials confirmed an additional 568 cases and 28 new deaths linked to the virus, bringing the county's total number of deaths to 1,256.

About 49% of those who died were residents of institutional settings. The majority of that group were living in nursing facilities.

The total number of individuals who have been infected by the virus in L.A. County is 26,217.

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that officials will outline plans to modify restrictions in L.A. County later this week, but reminded the public that while social distancing practices have slowed the spread of the virus, it still remains easily transmissible.

"The virus has not changed," she said. "More people die in L.A. County every day from COVID-19 than any other disease."

Roughly 5,019 people who tested positive for the virus have been hospitalized at some point, Ferrer said. There are currently 1,819 individuals who are hospitalized, including 30% who are in intensive care.

Newsom's bid to keep Orange County beaches closed over the past weekend appears to have worked. Although the beaches drew some protesters and much media attention, they were not overrun by visitors, and officials said those who did venture out usually practiced social distancing.

State officials announced Monday that two beach cities have been granted permission to reopen their beaches.

Story continues

Laguna Beach and San Clemente submitted plans last week that would allow the public to immediately access the coastline for swimming, surfing and running on the sand, among other recreational activities. The plans include measures to avoid overcrowding.

We appreciate the governors willingness to work with us to provide a responsible, gradual approach to reopening all beaches in Laguna Beach for active recreation, Mayor Bob Whalen said in a prepared statement. This will allow people the opportunity to walk, jog, swim and surf and get some fresh air and exercise on a limited basis, but not congregate or gather in large groups.

Under new guidelines, Newsom said that bookstores, music stores, toy stores, florists, sporting goods retailers and others can reopen for pickup as early as Friday. He said more detailed guidelines on the businesses that can reopen would be released later this week.

This is a very positive sign and its happened only for one reason: The data says it can happen," the governor said.

The plan allows some communities to move further into the second phase of the order. Such counties would first be required to meet certain requirements for hospitals beds, testing kits and the ability to track infected individuals and trace their contacts, Newsom said.

Polls have shown support for the governor's stay-at-home rules, even as they have devastated the economy.

The governor has previously urged Californians to stay the course, saying the state is moving in the right direction but needs more time in the fight against the spread of the coronavirus.

I just want folks to know were getting very close to making really meaningful augmentations to that stay-at-home order, Newsom said Friday. I want to say many days, not weeks, as long as we continue to be prudent and thoughtful.

Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the Trump administrations corornavirus task force, also urged caution in reopening.

Federal guidelines are a pretty firm policy of what we think is important from a public health standpoint, Birx said Sunday on Fox News. As states reopen, we really want them to follow the gating criteria.

Birx said people still needed to practice social distancing.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also said Monday that different cities will need to take different steps to emerge from the pandemic-induced shutdown.

Our timing on opening may vary from other parts of the state," he said. I will reopen our city with careful consideration, guided by public health professionals.

Garcetti said he did not expect city businesses to be able to offer curbside delivery on Friday in step with Newsom's comments. The city's "Safer At Home" order is in effect until May 15, and Garcetti said he hoped steps restricting commerce could begin to be rolled back by then.

California has not yet seen a steady two-week decline in cases. The weekly number of new infections appeared to flatten for several weeks in early April, with about 8,000 to 8,500 cases every week. But from April 19 to April 25, the state recorded 11,777 new cases, and in the seven days ending Saturday, 11,041 new cases were recorded.

Statewide figures have begun to show a week-over-week decline in deaths. Whether that trend will continue, however, is uncertain. Between April 19 and April 25, 547 coronavirus deaths were reported in California, and last week, 497 fatalities were reported, a 9% decrease.

Yuba and Sutter counties in Northern California were set to allow many businesses to reopen Monday in defiance of Newsoms statewide stay-at-home order.

The two counties near the states capital join a sparsely populated county in Californias northeastern corner in reopening. Modoc County , with fewer than 9,000 residents, allowed all businesses, schools and churches to reopen Friday as long as people inside could stay six feet apart.

The move by Yuba and Sutter counties  with a combined population of 171,000 people and just 50 coronavirus cases and three deaths  came as other California counties on the Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley were demanding to reopen more businesses.

In Victorville, 24-hour fitness studio the Gym reopened Friday with an 8-by-10-foot printout of the Constitution posted by the front door. Employees changed the colors of the studios sign to red, white and blue and hung banners that read #GymsAreEssential and #ReopenAmerica, according to owner Jacob D. Lewis.

Lewis said he chose to reopen after hearing from members who were struggling with issues ranging from flare-ups of chronic health conditions to declines in mental health since they had been unable to patronize his gym.

He also feels that some media outlets and government officials have exaggerated the scope of the COVID-19 outbreak to justify what he views as an overblown response that infringes on peoples personal freedom.

San Clemente restaurant Nomads Canteen reopened for dine-in service at noon Friday. The owner, Jeff Gourley, could not be reached for comment Sunday.

The restaurant has been outspoken about the reopening on its Facebook account.

On Friday, it posted a meme of a flag recalling the Dont tread on me logo, except the snake was wrapped around a bottle of tequila. Take back your freedom, go for a surf, open your business, have a cold beer with your friends, it read.

In San Clemente, sheriffs deputies on Friday visited Nomads Canteen with officials from the Orange County Health Care Agency, said Carrie Braun, spokeswoman for the county sheriffs department.

Our Environmental Health division was able to reach the owner, who understood that he is operating in violation of the governors order, Jessica Good, public information manager for the Health Care Agency, wrote Sunday in an email. A written warning will be issued, which could lead to permit suspension.

Newsoms stay-at-home order, issued March 19, was the first to be issued by any governor in the nation, and experts credit that with helping California see a fraction of the deaths of places like New York state, which has recorded more than 24,000 fatalities. That compares with over 2,100 deaths in the Golden State, with 55% of those occurring in Los Angeles County .

A poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies last week showed that California voters gave broad approval to Newsom amid the coronavirus crisis, despite widely felt economic pain.

Voters want officials to take their time in ending restrictions on business and public gatherings. By 70% to 30%, the states voters say theyre more worried that shelter-in-place orders will end too soon, causing the illness to spread more, than they are that such orders will continue for too long and damage the economy.

Two weeks ago, 75% of people surveyed wanted the order to continue as long as it was needed, according to a California Health Care Foundation/Ipsos survey. Only 11% wanted to stop the stay-at-home order, while 13% had no opinion. Among low-income residents, support was even stronger: 78% supported the stay-at-home order, and only 3% opposed it.

Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 10:24:36|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Photo taken on March 16, 2020 shows the White House Visitor Center in Washington D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Five questions Washington needs to answer:



- Where did the virus in U.S. originate?

- Did U.S. fail to notice virus transmission at an early stage?

- Was the U.S. slow in early response to the pandemic?



- Did U.S. response lead to wider spread worldwide?

- What is the intention behind buck-passing?

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The United States has confirmed over 1 million COVID-19 cases in just some 100 days after it reported the first case on Jan. 21, making itself the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic worldwide.

Facing criticism at home, some U.S. politicians have been irresponsibly attacking a certain country and the World Health Organization (WHO), hampering global efforts against the pandemic.

Their actions have drawn questions from around the world, and Washington should provide clear answers.

A healthcare worker takes a sample at a New York State Department of Health COVID-19 antibody testing center at Steve's 9th Street Market in Brooklyn, New York, the United States, April 25, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

WHERE DID THE VIRUS IN U.S. ORIGINATE?

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has restored the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, a military center for biological research in Maryland State, to full operation, local media reported in late March.

The institution was ordered by the CDC to halt research involving biological select agents or toxins last summer. An online petition was later submitted on the White House petition site demanding the U.S. government clarify the shutdown of the institution.

The public is waiting for Washington to provide a clear explanation to the sudden halt and resumption of the research.

According to a report by the CDC in late February, there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses in the country in the 2019-2020 flu season.

On March 11, CDC Director Robert Redfield told a hearing on Capitol Hill that some COVID-19 deaths have been diagnosed as flu-related in the United States.

Washington needs to clarify the number of COVID-19 cases previously diagnosed as the flu, and make public the samples and genetic sequence of the influenza virus in the country.

Photo taken on May 1, 2020 shows a lion statue with a mask in front of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, the United States. (Photo by Joel Lerner/Xinhua)

DID U.S. FAIL TO NOTICE VIRUS TRANSMISSION AT AN EARLY STAGE?

In late April, health authorities of Santa Clara County in California State confirmed that two patients had died of COVID-19 at least three weeks before the first known U.S. death from the virus on Feb. 29.

Jeffrey V. Smith, Santa Clara county executive, told Xinhua that the patients "apparently contracted the illness from community spread. This suggests that the virus was circulating in the Bay Area in January at least, probably earlier."

Neeraj Sood, a professor at the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that the virus has been in the community for a long time.

"When you start seeing the first death, actually, the number of cases in the population is probably pretty high already," Sood said.

Washington needs to answer if it failed to notice community spread of the virus.

A woman wearing a scarf runs along the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 26, 2020. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

WAS THE U.S. SLOW IN EARLY RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC?

According to a report by The Washington Post on April 4, the CDC "learned of a cluster of cases in China on Dec. 31," and the U.S. side received a call from the Chinese side on Jan. 3 warning against the disease.

On Jan. 8, heads of Chinese and U.S. CDCs talked over phone to discuss technological exchanges and cooperation, a detailed timeline of China's response to COVID-19 showed.

On Feb. 16, the China-WHO joint expert team started a nine-day field visit in China. The team consists of 25 experts, including Cliff Lane, a researcher with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The U.S. government, however, repeatedly downplayed the severity of the epidemic to the public at that time. U.S. media reported that the U.S. administration had squandered more than two months' time since it received initial notification on the virus.

Washington needs to explain why it took so long to take action to combat the virus.

Photo taken on March 10, 2020 shows a stop sign and a plane approaching to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

DID U.S. RESPONSE LEAD TO WIDER SPREAD WORLDWIDE?

The Washington Post said that the U.S. National Security Council had pushed for a travel ban restricting travelers from Italy and other countries in the European Union, but was met with resistance from some officials from the administration.

When the ban was finally issued over a month later, "hundreds of thousands of people crossed the Atlantic during that interval," it said.

A report published on April 11 in The New York Times also revealed that the U.S. government's plan to establish a surveillance system in some cities to measure the spread of the virus was delayed for weeks, leaving officials "with almost no insight into how rapidly the virus was spreading."

In March, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the United States has been the country of origin for most of COVID-19 cases in his country.

Washington must respond to the concern that the belated and chaotic U.S. response has actually accelerated the spread of the virus to more places around the world.

People wearing masks walk near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 26, 2020. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

WHAT IS THE INTENTION BEHIND BUCK-PASSING?

The U.S. government has criticized a so-called lack of transparency from China regarding the information on COVID-19. However, the facts speak otherwise.

The CDC said on its website that Chinese health officials reported cases of acute respiratory illness in persons associated with a seafood and animal market in the city of Wuhan on Dec. 31.

Since Jan. 3, China began to inform the United States of the outbreak and response measures on a regular basis, the timeline of China's response to COVID-19 showed.

On Jan. 24, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that China "has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus," and that "the United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency."

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also told a coronavirus briefing in late January that China has been "quite transparent" with the world on the virus.

However, some U.S. politicians have stigmatized China with racist remarks, fabricated lies on China's role in the global fight against the virus, and disrupted global solidarity and cooperation in combatting the disease.

The world needs a clear explanation from Washington on why it chose to pass the buck. 
Shekhar Suman opened up about his life during lockdown and sabbatical from television during a candid chat with Fever Digital as a part of their new initiative, 100 Hours 100 Stars.

When Shekhar was asked about when he took some time off work to just spend some time at home, he said, I think this is almost an extended sabbatical for me. Last year, I took a sabbatical, saying that I have done a hell lot of work. I need some peace to think after 30 years of continuously working, day in and day out, in television. Every single day I was working.

Shekhar said that being in the studio all the time could get frustrating and while he was still working on his plays, he consciously avoided the studio for a while. That had a very calming effect on me because your nerves are frayed, there is so much pressure on you when you are in the studio, he said.

Shekhar hosted the popular late-night show Movers and Shakers from 1997 to 2012. There was talk of reviving the show, but he requested a little more time, as it would mean getting back into the hustle and bustle of television, curating news and sitting with writers every day, and he wanted some time off from the studio.

Also see | Pakistani TV host apologises after insensitive joke on Irrfan Khan and Sridevis demise, watch video

Talking about the simple joys of his life during the lockdown, Shekhar said that he is enjoying spending time with his mother, who has come down from Patna to live with them. He is also keeping busy with board games, making TikTok videos and working out with son Adhyayan, cooking and cleaning.

100 Hours 100 Stars, an initiative by Fever Digital, salutes the heroes working tirelessly amid the coronavirus pandemic. The non-stop digital fest will raise money towards the Prime Ministers Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM-Cares) fund.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
CHICAGO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to MarketsandMarkets analysis on the "COVID-19 Impact on Edge AI Software Market by Application (Autonomous Vehicles, Access Management, Video Surveillance, Remote Monitoring & Predictive Maintenance, Telemetry and Energy Management), Data Source, Vertical and Region - Global Forecast to 2021", the COVID-19 Impact on Edge AI Software Market size is expected to result in the market growing from USD 470 million in 2019 to USD 665 million by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19% during the forecast period.

Over the years, organizations have enhanced the level of innovation; and with the outbreak of COVID-19, a majority of operations have been compromised. This has forced organizations to function in a non-optimized manner, as a result of which they are looking for innovative areas that can improve their revenue by a small percentage.

Browse in-depth TOC on "COVID-19 Impact On Edge AI Software Market"

8  Tables

33  Figures

62  Pages

Request for PDF Brochure:

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=107961723

Video surveillance application to witness the highest growth during the forecast period within the global edge AI software market

The use of video surveillance has been extended from operations rooms to mobile devices; COVID-19 has expediated the use of video surveillance use cases. Telehealth in the healthcare sector has become a new norm, as health organizations around the world, such as WHO, and CDC have presented guidelines for its use. Thus, many healthcare organizations are utilizing telehealth to keep their workers safe and treat patients. Private doctors and healthcare institutions are providing online consulting amidst country lockdowns.

Government across the globe are making use of advanced video surveillance techniques such as drones, CCTV cameras to manage social distancing, monitor quarantined people and track the spread of virus. China, Russia and South Korea are making use of video analytics to closely monitor its citizens and potentially protect them from virus. Once the lockdown eases, many more industries are expected to see a higher adoption of video analytics tools, making video surveillance market to grow at higher rate than earlier expected.

The biometrics data source is expected to witness below-average growth during the forecast period in the global edge AI software market

Current biometrics system comprises touch-based systems, the outbreak of COVID-19 is projected to set a new norm by rejecting the use of touch-based systems and adoption of touchless biometrics system, as it helps in limiting the spread of virus. Non-invasive biometrics system such as computer image processing, face scanner is being adopted by the organizations in near future.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries entering a lockdown phase to contain the spread of the virus, which has resulted in the shutting down of manufacturing activities in the country. This has led to a significantly declining usage of biometrics systems. This has reduced the overall usage of edge AI software across the industry.

North America edge AI software market to witness a higher impact of COVID-19 and will show a steady growth during the forecast period

COVID-19 pandemic has the highest impact on North America. Businesses & organizations in North America are facing significant pressure on revenue and cash flows, which is adversely impacting enterprise IT spend. North America, a manufacturing-driven economy, has already felt the impact of COVID-19. For instance, Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler have closed all their US manufacturing plants to slow the spread of virus and demand has been reduced drastically.

Request more details on:

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_BuyingNew.asp?id=107961723

However, North America, being one of the most developed regions, has invested substantially in advanced technologies such as AI, ML and analytics. The developed infrastructure and growth in demand for digitalized technologies across North America is supposed to drive the adoption of edge AI software once the lockdown period ends. Government and private organizations have already started to making strides. The US government is using edge AI to procure location data from smartphones to help to track the spread of COVID-19 infections. Industries are using AI tools to create different predictive models to prepare themselves in the post-pandemic world.

The major vendors in the edge AI software market include Google (US), Microsoft (US), AWS (US), IBM (US), Nutanix (US), TIBCO (US), Octonion (US), SWIM AI (US), Imagibob (US), Anagog (Israel), Veea (US), Foghorn Systems (US), Xnor.AI (US), Bragi (US), Invision AI (US), Tact AI (US),

Related Reports:

AI in IoT Market by Component (Platforms, Software Solutions, and Services), Technology (ML and Deep Learning, and NLP), Vertical (Transportation and Mobility, Energy and Utilities, Manufacturing, and Retail), and Region - Global Forecast to 2024

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/ai-in-iot-market-43388726.html

Edge AI Hardware Market by Device (Smartphones, Cameras, Robots, Automobile, Smart Speakers, Wearables, and Smart Mirror), Processor (CPU, GPU, ASIC and Others), Power Consumption, Process, End User Industry, and Region - Global Forecast to 2024

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/edge-ai-hardware-market-158498281.html

About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions.

Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model  GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.

MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets.

Contact:

Mr. Aashish Mehra

MarketsandMarkets INC.

630 Dundee Road

Suite 430

Northbrook, IL 60062

USA: +1-888-600-6441

Email: [email protected]

Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/covid-19-impact-on-edge-ai-software-market.asp

Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/covid-19-impact-on-edge-ai-software.asp

SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
Airbus plans to test an electronic nose device that uses biological cells to mimic what bomb-sniffing dogs can do, reports the Financial Times. The company will deploy jellyfish-shaped sensors, developed by Silicon Valley startup Koniku, in several airport screening tunnels later in 2020.

The technology uses silicon processors bolstered by living cells. We have developed a technology that is able to detect smell  its breathing the air, and its essentially telling you whats in the air, Koniku founder Oshiorenoya Agabi told the FT. What we do is we take biological cells, either Hek cells or astrocytes  brain cells  and we genetically modify them to have olfactory receptors.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the companies are also looking into ways to detect biological hazards like contagious viruses. Koniku has touted security as well as medical applications, with sniffers that can detect signs of cancer  in much the same way dogs can detect prostate cancer with extreme accuracy. You wake up in the morning, you breathe on our device... and we are analyzing, in a longitudinal fashion, your state of health. That is one of our big visions, Agabi said.

Devices that can supposedly test travelers for traces of dangerous chemicals have met with very limited success, so its easy to be skeptical about any new tech. However, the fact that its being tested by Airbus is a good sign for Koniku, a relatively small company with just 20 employees. Airbus has been working with Koniku since 2017 and said they plan to create a game-changing, end-to-end security solution.
Restrictive measures to operate until May 11 in Ukraine, but preparation for quitting quarantine starts this week  Zelensky

Restrictive measures to combat COVID-19 will remain in force in Ukraine until May 11, as was previously planned, but the country is already preparing to exit quarantine.

According to the press service of the President of Ukraine, this was discussed at a daily conference call to prevent the spread of coronavirus, chaired by Volodymyr Zelensky, on Monday.

"We must keep in force restrictive measures until May 11, as promised, because people's health is the most important. The stable situation with the spread of COVID-19 and the absence of a critical number of patients are possible only thanks to timely quarantine measures. But since businesses need to prepare for quarantine, i.e. to buy goods, to carry out disinfection, to warn people, we will be preparing for this all over the country this week," Zelensky said.
C ar dealer giant Pendragon on Monday confirmed that it had approached rival Lookers about a tie-up, but said talks had fallen flat.

Pendragon, the owner of dealers such as Evans Halshaw and Stratstone, said it thought discussing the merits of a combination would have proved beneficial.

Collectively the pair would have had annual sales of nearly 10 billion.

A deal might have given the companies room for cost savings amid tough market conditions, as forecourt closures and weak consumer confidence hit trading.

Lookers decision not to engage was due to its boards existing workload, Sky News reported. Lookers warned in March it had identified potentially fraudulent transactions in one of its divisions.

Shares in Pendragon slipped 0.4p, or 4.89%, to7.78p. Shares in Lookers edged up 0.3p, or 1.26%, to 24.05p.

Pendragon said it remains well-positioned having already taken significant steps to reshape the business and to cut costs both in advance, and as a result, of the recent events which have temporarily curtailed business activity.

Elsewhere today, car dealer Inchcape named Duncan Tait as its next chief executive, to take over from Stefan Bomhard who is joining Imperial Brands. Tait was most recently on the board of directors at tech giant Fujitsu.
The Rajasthan government will bear the cost of rail fares for migrant workers returning from the state to their homes in different parts of the country besides not charging any money to drop them by buses within the boundaries of the state.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Monday, while addressing a video conference with officials, said thestate government will bear the cost of return ofthe migrant workers who were stranded in Rajasthan due to the lockdown and want to go back to their homes in different states.

He said the state government will ensure that the workers stranded in this hour of crisis do not have to pay the travel fare themselves to go home. The state government will pay the rail fare, he said.

At the same time, the Rajasthan government will also make arrangements to transport those going by road to the border of Rajasthan without charging any fare, Gehlot said.

He directed officials to ensure compliance offresh guidelines issued by theUnion Ministry of Home Affairs for the inter-state transport of migrant workers.

The Chief Minister said to prevent infection, migrants and workers from other states would necessarily have to live in quarantine.

Gehlot directed that strict action should be taken against private hospitals which are not fulfilling their moral obligation of treating patients during the health crisis. District Collectors should take strict action against complaints against such private hospitals, he said.

The CM asked the officials to ensure strict compliance of Lockdown 3.0.

Deputy Chief Minister and Panchayati Raj Minister Sachin Pilot on the other hand demanded that the Centre bear the full fares of the migrant workers returning to their homes after staying away for 40 days under the lockdown.

He said when people from abroad can be brought to the country in chartered planes, then migrant workers can also be sent back to their homes without charging them for the fares.

Pilot also thanked Congress President Sonia Gandhi for taking the decision that the Congress party will bear the travel expenses of the migrant workers if the central government cannot.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tarl Robinson, CEO of Plexus Worldwide, a leading direct selling health and wellness company focused on health and happiness  has announced this week that he will donate his salary and bonuses for the remainder of 2020 as an extra bonus to the 400+ Plexus employees.

Robinson made the announcement to forgo his compensation this week as an extended commitment to Plexus Worldwide employees amid the COVID- 19 pandemic. Fortunately, as an essential business, Plexus has not furloughed any employees as a result of the global crisis and the company is dedicated to ensuring the job security of their current staff. Plexus' primary company core value, 'We Are One Plexus' is what the company prides itself on. 'One Plexus', is working together as one team regardless of each role in the organization, this true act of kindness is the epitome of this core value.

Robinson shared that he recognizes employees have significant others, families and friends who have been financially affected by the crisis. With this added financial support, Robinson hopes that they can help their families or pay it forward to those in need.

"I am sincerely grateful to Plexus employees across the organization, especially those who continue to show up every day to ensure products are being shipped on schedule. Good nutrition is so critical right now and we continue to get our products to customers doorsteps on time. Their commitment not only allows us to sustain our business, but also allows Plexus to continue our philanthropic initiatives, such as Nourish One. With every bag of our Plexus Lean purchased, we provide the equivalent of 14 meals to make a real difference in the fight against hunger in partnership with Feeding America," said Tarl Robinson.

About Plexus Worldwide:

Plexus Worldwide, LLC is a leading health and happiness company featuring health and wellness products that enable people to improve their lives and well-being. With hundreds of thousands of independent business owners ("Ambassadors") worldwide, Plexus is among the top 25 global companies according to Direct Selling News. The combination of Plexus products and opportunities help individuals to meet their health-wellness and financial goals. For more information about us visit www.plexusworldwide.com

Please contact Pierce Mattie for further information, if needed:

Chanelle Fairweather

[email protected]

SOURCE Plexus Worldwide

Related Links

http://www.plexusworldwide.com


Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Riska Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 14:51 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5cc022 2 Business jasa-marga,toll-road,financial-performance,profit Free

State-owned toll road operator PT Jasa Marga booked no growth in profit last year despite double-digit growth in toll revenue and gains from divestments.

The countrys biggest toll road operator booked Rp 2.21 trillion (US$145.5 million) in net profit last year, up a mere 0.2 percent year-on-year (yoy), even though its toll income surged 12.11 percent yoy to Rp 10.13 trillion, its financial statement shows.

Jasa Marga attributed the surge in the toll revenue to the operation of new toll roads.

Revenue from the new toll roads that started operations between 2016 to 2019 has contributed to the growth in toll revenue, Jasa Marga corporate secretary M. Agus Setiawan said in the statement on Thursday.

Read also: Jasa Marga to close Jakarta-Cikampek elevated toll road following mudik ban

The firm operated six new toll roads last year, including new sections of the Medan-Kualanamu-Tebing Tinggi road in North Sumatra, of the Pandaan-Malang in East Java,as well as of the Balikpapan-Samarinda road in East Kalimantan.

The company operated an additional 161.58 kilometers of toll roads last year, bringing its total operational toll roads to 1,162 km.

Jasa Marga consistently expands to maintain continuous business growth, Agus added.

The companys gains from divestments last year, which surged by 17.17 percent to Rp 1.03 trillion, didnt help to increase profit but prevented what would otherwise have been a drop in profit.

Read also: Jasa Marga develops IoT laboratory as part of digital transformation push

The company failed to increase profit last year as its revenue contracted by 28.75 percent to Rp 26.35 trillion, due to plunging construction revenue, as the company had completed many of its toll road projects.

The company did, however, record a rise in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 14.26 percent yoy to Rp 6.88 trillion.
He passed away Saturday morning, May 2 due to natural causes, report says.

US media reports suggest that an ex-chief Communications officer of CBS, Gil Schwartz, has died.

Mr Schwartz was a novelist and humorist.

Reports say he died Saturday morning at age 68 at his home in Santa Monica, California.

His passing was unexpected, but he died of natural causes, Deadline reports.

According to reports,

Schwartz retired as Senior EVP and Chief Communications Officer of CBS Corporation, in November 2018.

He spent nearly 40 years at CBS, Viacom and Westinghouse Broadcasting.

During his tenure, he oversaw the public relations, media relations, and also the corporate and internal communications functions during CBS's rise to become America's most-watched network.

He accordingly joined CBS as SVP, Communications in 1996, following 14 years with Westinghouse Broadcasting (Group W).

He oversaw communications for that Group W before its merger with CBS.

He was a columnist and author for many years, using Stanley Bing as his pen name.

Schwartz was born on May 20, 1951 in New York City to Bill and Ruth Schwartz.

---Daily Guide
WASHINGTON - Three months into the coronavirus pandemic, America is on the verge of another health crisis, with daily doses of death, isolation and fear generating widespread psychological trauma.

Federal agencies and experts warn that a historic wave of mental health problems is approaching: depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.

Just as the initial coronavirus outbreak caught hospitals unprepared, the country's mental health system - vastly underfunded, fragmented and difficult to access before the pandemic - is even less prepared to handle this coming surge.

"That's what is keeping me up at night," said Susan Borja, who leads the traumatic stress research program at the National Institute of Mental Health. "I worry about the people the system just won't absorb or won't reach. I worry about the suffering that's going to go untreated on such a large scale."

Data show depression and anxiety are already roiling the nation.

Nearly half of Americans report the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. A federal emergency hotline for people in emotional distress registered an 891% increase in March compared with the same time last year. Calls and messages to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's hotline grew 338% in March from a month earlier, before state lockdowns began.

Online therapy company Talkspace reported a 65% jump in clients since mid-February. Text messages and transcribed therapy sessions collected anonymously by the company show coronavirus-related anxiety dominating patients' concerns.

"People are really afraid," Talkspace co-founder and CEO Oren Frank said. The increasing demand for services, he said, follows almost exactly the geographic march of the virus across the United States. "What's shocking to me is how little leaders are talking about this. There are no White House briefings about it. There is no plan."

The suicides of two New York health-care workers highlight the risks, especially to those combating the pandemic. Lorna Breen, a top New York emergency room doctor, had spent weeks contending with coronavirus patients flooding her hospital and sometimes dying before they could be removed from ambulances. She had no history of mental illness, her relatives have said in interviews, but struggled increasingly with the emotional weight of the outbreak before she died. Days later, reports emerged that a Bronx EMT also killed himself.

Researchers have created models - based on data collected after natural disasters, terrorist attacks and economic downturns - that show a likely increase in suicides, overdose deaths and substance use disorders.

And yet, out of the trillions of dollars Congress passed in emergency coronavirus funding, only a tiny portion is allocated for mental health. At the same time, therapists have struggled to bring their practices online and to reach vulnerable groups because of restrictions on licensing and reimbursement. Community behavioral health centers - which treat populations most at risk - are struggling to stay financially solvent and have begun closing programs.

"If we don't do something about it now, people are going to be suffering from these mental health impacts for years to come," said Paul Gionfriddo, president of the advocacy group Mental Health America. That could further harm the economy as stress and anxiety become debilitating among workers and strain the medical system as people flock to emergency rooms with panic attacks, overdoses and depression, he said.

Just as the country took drastic steps to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by infections, experts say, it needs to brace for the coming wave of behavioral health needs by providing widespread mental health screenings, better access to services through telehealth, and a sizable infusion of federal dollars.

- - -

When diseases strike, experts say, they cast a shadow pandemic of psychological and societal injuries. The shadow often trails the disease by weeks, months, even years. And it receives scant attention compared with the physical symptoms, even though it, too, wreaks carnage, devastates families, harms and kills.

Mental health experts are especially worried about the ongoing economic devastation. Research has established a strong link between economic upheaval and suicide and substance use. A study of the Great Recession that began in late 2007 found that for every percentage point increase in the unemployment rate, there was about a 1.6% increase in the suicide rate.

Using such estimations, a Texas nonprofit - Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute - created models that suggest if unemployment amid the coronavirus pandemic ends up rising 5 percentage points to a level similar to the Great Recession, an additional 4,000 people could die from suicide and an additional 5,500 from drug overdoses.

But if unemployment rises by 20 percentage points - to levels recorded during the 1930s Great Depression - suicides could increase by 18,000 and overdose deaths by more than 22,000, according to Meadows.

"These projections are not intended to question the necessity of virus mitigation efforts," cautioned authors of the Meadows report, "but rather to inform health system planning."

Suicide experts and prevention groups have deliberately refrained from discussing too widely death projections such as those from the Meadows Institute. Research has shown reporting excessively or sensationally on suicide can lead to increases in suicide attempts, an effect known as contagion. And the factors involved in any suicide are often complex, they point out.

"Could the numbers go up? Yes, but it isn't inevitable. We know suicide is preventable," said Christine Moutier, chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Research has shown interventions make a marked difference, such as limiting access to guns and lethal drugs, screening patients for suicidal thoughts, treating underlying mental conditions and ensuring access to therapy and crisis lines to call and text. "That's why we need to act now," Moutier said.

On Wednesday, a coalition representing more than 250 mental health groups announced it was convening a national response to the problem of pandemic suicide - an effort that will include at least one federal agency, the National Institute for Mental Health.

- - -

Front-line workers - health-care providers, grocery store workers, delivery people - are especially vulnerable to the coming storm of mental health problems.

"We're used to dealing with sick people and seeing terrible things, but what's devastating with covid is the sheer volume. It's like drinking from a poisonous fire hydrant," said Flavia Nobay, an emergency room doctor.

With infections soaring in March in New York, Nobay took leave from her duties at the University of Rochester Medical Center to volunteer as an ER doctor in Queens.

Weeks later, the experience haunts her: Watching families crumple in the ambulance bay knowing they may never see relatives again. Hearing the relentless alerts every few minutes of crashing patients and respiratory arrest. Sending patients home because they weren't quite sick enough, knowing they may be coming right back. Or even worse, the chance they may not make it back.

"It chips away at your soul," Nobay said. "You have to hold on to the positive and how you're helping in the ways you can. That hope is like medicine. It's as important and tangible as Tylenol."

A study of 1,257 doctors and nurses in China during that country's coronavirus peak found that half reported depression, 45% anxiety and 34% insomnia.

Pre-pandemic, doctors and nurses were already prone to burnout, research shows, because of the workload, pressure, chaos and increasingly dysfunctional health-care system.

"We're now hitting a period of uncertainty where a lot of people are asking themselves how long they can keep it up," said Liselotte Dyrbye, a Mayo Clinic doctor and leading researcher on burnout. "The teapot can only boil for so long."

- - -

This approaching wave of mental injuries will be met in coming months by a severely broken system.

In the United States, 1 in 5 adults endure the consequences of mental illness each year. Yet less than half receive treatment, federal statistics show. As suicide rates have fallen globally, the rate in the United States has climbed every year since 1999, increasing 33% in the past two decades.

Part of the problem, experts say, is the markedly different way the United States treats mental illness compared with physical illness.

In normal times, a heart attack patient rarely has trouble securing a cardiologist, operating table and hospital bed. But patients in mental crisis, studies show, struggle to get their insurance to pay for care. Even with insurance, they struggle to find therapists and psychiatrists willing to take that payment. Those who can afford it often end up paying out of pocket.

Experts warn that such parity and access problems may only worsen with the pandemic, which has upended the functions of hospitals, insurance companies and mental health centers.

In a joint letter Wednesday, leaders in mental health and substance abuse treatment pleaded for the Trump administration's help. The letter - signed by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and 12 other organizations - asked federal officials to save community mental health centers facing financial collapse.

The letter also asked the government to lift reimbursement restrictions that have prevented therapists from using phone calls to treat patients. On Thursday, the Trump administration indicated it would do so.

A survey of local mental health and drug addiction centers showed the pandemic has left many on the brink of financial collapse, preventing them from providing services that generate much of their reimbursement revenue. More than 60% said they would run out of funding in less than three months and had already closed some programs.

In a letter to Congress in early April, mental health organizations estimated that $38.5 billion is needed to save treatment providers and centers and that $10 billion more is needed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, the federal substance abuse and mental health agency said it had received less than 1% of the amount advocated by mental health groups - $425 million in emergency funding - and has awarded $375 million to states and local organizations.

While Congress recently authorized $100 billion in emergency funds for hospitals and medical providers, very little will reach mental health and addiction service providers because they mainly receive funding through Medicaid. Most of the emergency money provided by Congress is being distributed through Medicare.

"We are facing the loss of mental health centers and programs at a time when we are going to need them more than ever," said Chuck Ingoglia, president of the National Council for Behavioral Health, which represents 3,326 treatment organizations.

- - -

There are glimmers of hope, experts say, amid the gloomy outlook.

The sudden push into telemedicine could make services more accessible in years to come. And the national mental health crisis could spark reforms and movement toward better treatment.

And while almost everyone is experiencing increased stress, the effect for many will be transient - trouble sleeping, shorter fuses.

The difficulty is identifying and treating those who develop deeper, worrisome mental problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression.

"To control the virus, it's all about testing, testing, testing. And for the mental health problems ahead, it's gonna be all about screening, screening, screening," said Gionfriddo of Mental Health America.

For years, Gionfriddo's nonprofit has offered questionnaires on its website - widely used in medicine - to help people screen themselves for mental health problems. Since the pandemic began, those daily screenings have jumped 60 to 70%. And since February, the number of people screening positive for moderate to severe anxiety and depression has jumped by an additional 18,000 people compared with January.

Speaking from her parents' home in Pittsburgh, Ananya Cleetus said she has felt the increased strain.

First came the closure of her school, the University of Illinois, bringing to an end her ambitious plans for the semester in computer engineering. Then came the loss of her therapist, forbidden by licensing rules from treating her across state lines. And social media didn't help - all those posts of people baking bread, picking up hobbies and living their best #quarantinelife, making hers feel all the more pitiful.

It was getting harder to even get out of bed, said Cleetus, 23, who has a bipolar disorder and helps lead a student advocacy group.

"It took me a few weeks and talking to friends to finally realize this wasn't just something wrong with me," Cleetus said. Since then, she has poured her energies into creating a daily routine and an online guide for fellow students struggling with the pandemic and mental health.

"This virus is messing with everyone. The anxiety, isolation, uncertainty, lack of structure," she said. "Everyone's struggling with it in one way or another."
The Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwesi Amoako Atta has said that the current NPP government inherited a deteriorated road network in 2017, describing the situation as a great challenge to the entire nation.



He said Ghana has a total size of 76,000 Km road network and out of the size, only 23% are paved with the remaining 77% remaining in gravel or earth state.



Speaking during a press conference prior to his tour of some road networks in the Ashanti Region, Mr. Amoako Atta said declaring the year 2020 as a year of roads is not just a mere slogan.



He said currently, the government is undertaking road construction in all the 16 regions and 260 districts in the country to boost the road network.



He admitted that the government cannot complete all the poor roads but he assured that the country would significantly see the improvement of roads in no time.



"The President has declared 2020 as the year of roads, and commencement certificates to the tune of 6.6 billion cedis have been issued by the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Roads and Highways to undertake the rehabilitation of critical roads throughout the country, he said.



The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, cut sod for work to begin on the First Phase of the Rehabilitation and Auxiliary Infrastructure of Kumasi Inner City Road and Adjacent Streets Project.



Other road works undertaken in the region since 2017 include asphalt overlay of 70km of a planned 200km of roads within Kumasi, expected to be completed in 2020; minor upgrading and rehabilitation of 24km of roads completed within Ejisu, Juaben, Ayigya, and Effiduase.

Source: Prince Kwadwo Boadu/Hello Fm









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
Jacksonville LGBT ordinance struck down

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

A Florida appellate court has ruled that amendments made to Jacksonvilles anti-discrimination ordinance by adding sexual orientation and gender identity are null and void. The city says it will fight to defend the law.

In a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel, Floridas 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that the expansion of the citys Human Rights Ordinance to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity violated state law because the entire ordinance was not completely written when it was passed, according to Action News Jax.

On behalf of Jacksonville residents and businesses, the conservative Christian legal nonprofit Liberty Counsel also argued that they had suffered or will suffer injuries to their rights of privacy, religious conscience, and business interests under the (city) code as amended.

Its authors and sponsors illegally hid the effects of the ordinance through intentionally deceptive drafting and messaging, the legal firm said in a statement.

The trial court twice dismissed Liberty Counsels case against the ordinance, saying the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to file the lawsuit because they were not injured yet or enough by the citys illegal act, the organization said.

Jacksonvilles General Counsel called the appellate courts decision mindboggling and bizarre, according to Florida Politics.

Its a hyper-technical ruling with some bizarre findings, Jason Gabriel, the citys head lawyer, was quoted as saying. The city appropriately published (didnt drop the ball in any way). Rules have been on the books for enforcement in their entirety since the law was passed in early 2017 For anyone to think the city dropped some part of this (and didnt fix it for that matter) in the subsequent three years since its passage is mindboggling to me.

Incoming City Council President Tommy Hazouri, also the legislations sponsor, said it was potentially possible to pass the law again.

Roger Gannam, Liberty Counsel assistant vice president of Legal Affairs, said the appellate courts decision exposes the deception of the HRO authors and sponsors and rejects the citys attempt to cover it up with its own deception in the form of clever procedural maneuvers in the city council.

Legislation passed without openness and honesty cannot be good for anyone, Gannam added.

The fair and honest people of Jacksonville should not be forced to participate in others celebrations of same-sex relationships under threat of fines or loss of their businesses, and Jacksonvilles women and young girls should feel safe from predatory men in their own restrooms and facilities, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 08:59:52|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese mainland reported three new imported cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Sunday, bringing the total number of imported cases to 1,675, the National Health Commission said Monday.

Of the three cases, two were reported in Shanghai and one in Shandong Province, the commission said.

One suspected case imported from abroad was reported in Shanghai.

Of the total imported cases, 1,273 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 402 remained hospitalized with five in severe conditions, the commission said.

No deaths had been reported from the imported cases. Enditem
WALLINGFORD  Police are investigating a possible murder after the body of 17-year-old boy was found in the Quinnipiac River on Sunday afternoon.

Police said the two kayakers found the body of Nolvin Diaz in the Community Lake behind the senior center in Wallingford around 1 p.m. Sunday, Lt. Cheryl Bradley said in a release Monday.
A damning photo showing crowds of Queenslanders packed into a local park after the state relaxed restrictions could result in further lockdowns.

Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said people defied social distancing orders at Burleigh Hill on the Gold Coast on Sunday to watch the sunset.

Just one day earlier, the state eased lockdown restrictions in celebration of appearing to flatten the curve of coronavirus infections.

Six new cases of the deadly respiratory virus have been identified in Queensland in the past seven days.

A photo showing crowds of Queenslanders packed into a local park after the state relaxed restrictions could result in further lockdowns. People flocked to Burleigh Hill on Sunday for the sunset (pictured)

Queensland Police handed out 146 fines across the weekend for 'reckless and terrible behaviour', Commissioner Carroll said. She said most people were doing the right thing. Daily Mail does not suggest the people in this photo were fined

Commissioner Carroll said the restrictions could be put in place again if residents in the Sunshine State continue to flout the rules.

'We are asking people to stay apart,' she said.

'If an area is very busy, please stay away from there so we can maintain that social distancing.'

Commissioner Carroll said despite 'tremendous efforts' being taken by most across the weekend, the photos taken on the hill could derail the progress.

Queensland is celebrating a public holiday on Monday, but Commissioner Carroll said families and social groups should avoid repeating the antics of Sunday.

'Officers are on the lookout for those breaking the rules... Please don't do it again this afternoon, there will be more police out,' the commissioner said on the Today Show on Monday morning.

People flocked to the beach following the easing of restrictions on the Gold Coast this weekend

Exercise has been considered an 'essential' reason to leave the house throughout the lockdown. Pictured: People walking along Miami foreshore on the Gold Coast on May 2 to exercise

Queenslanders were permitted to travel within 50km of their homes from Friday onwards following the government's eased restrictions.

They were also able to participate in activities that had been forbidden for weeks, like picnics, shopping and visiting the beach.

But they were also warned that social distancing measures were still in place - and would remain that way for the foreseeable future as the nation works to avoid a second wave of COVID-19.

The national cabinet will meet this Friday to discuss relaxing nationwide baseline restrictions as numbers of active cases plummet.

At present, there are 885 active cases of COVID-19, meaning 5,817 of the 6,799 diagnosed patients have recovered. So far, 95 people have died.

At present, there are 885 active cases of COVID-19, 6,799 have been diagnosed in total while 95 people have died

Sasha Mielczarek from the Bachelorette (standing on the right) was spoken to by police for breaking social distancing rules

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

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison has previously said he would delay easing restrictions if Australians weren't following the rules, and urged more people to download the COVID-19 contact tracing app.

Nearly 4.5million people have downloaded the app but Mr Morrison previously said 40 per cent of the population need to be using it to effectively trace cases of the virus.

Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy on Sunday said health experts would recommend a slow, staggered process of bringing Australia out of lockdown.

Professor Murphy said each stage of restriction easing would need to be in place for multiple weeks to review how effective they are before any further loosening of rules is considered.

He flagged a partial reopening of universities, said national cabinet had advised sending kids to school was safe, and said authorities were considering options to restart community sport and lift limits on gatherings.

Queensland Police handed out 146 fines across the weekend for 'reckless and terrible behaviour', Commissioner Carroll said.

Some of those fines included seven people at an Airbnb, and 10 people at a house party in Brisbane.
Mumbai, May 4 : Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, daughter of the late actor Rishi Kapoor, has shared a throwback family photograph on Instagram.

In the picture Rishi and Neetu Singh can be seen twinning in white T-shirt and blue jeans.

Image Source: IANS News

Neetu can be seen holding little Ranbir Kapoor while Riddhima is smiling at the camera.

Riddhima arrived in Mumbai from New Delhi on May 2 by road to be with her mother and Ranbir Kapoor. She did not get permission to fly down due to the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, and could not be in Mumbai on time to attend her father's last rites.

Riddhima came along with her daughter Samara.

Rishi Kapoor breathed his last on Thursday morning after battling with cancer. The last rites were performed at around 4 pm in the city's Chandanwadi crematorium.

-- Syndicated from IANS
President of Luxembourg's association of property developers Jean-Mark Kieffer spoke to RTL this Monday morning.

According to Kieffer, the relaunch of Luxembourg's construction sites was off to a bumpy start. "We did not have a lot of time to prepare ourselves," he summarised the initial challenge. As a reminder, construction sites across the country resumed two weeks ago after they had been put to a temporary slumber due to the pandemic.

The situation has now normalised, Kieffer explained. Workers are wearing face masks, copious amounts of disinfectant are being used, and construction workers are adhering to the new safety regulations, he said. The association nevertheless demands exhaustive testing to be carried out in the entire construction sector.

The impact of the pandemic on the construction sector is substantial, Kieffer lamented. The sector is facing negative margins. Even before the outbreak of the pandemic, the profit margins had been low due to tough and occasionally unfair competition from foreign firms.

Kieffer concluded that it cannot be ruled out that clients may have to cover a part of the expenses linked to new safety measures.
Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja, on Monday, granted bail to a former Minister of Special Duties and Inter Governmental Affairs, Kabiru Turaki, on self-recognisance.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had arraigned Mr Turaki, his aide and two companies on 16-count charge of unlawful and criminal misappropriation of funds.

Others listed as defendants are Sampson Okpetu who served as the former ministers special assistant, as well as Samtee Essentials Limited and Pasco Investment Limited which allegedly belong to Okpetu.

Upon arraignment, the former minister and Mr Okpetu pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Mr Turaki, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria,presided over the Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs from 2013 to 2015 and served as the Supervising Minister of Labour from 2014 to 2015 in the former President Goodluck Jonathans administration

Bail

While adopting the administrative bail terms granted to Mr Turaki on Monday, Justice Ekwo ordered him not to travel outside the jurisdiction of the court without permission.

The court also ordered the EFCC to deposit the International passport of the defendants with the registrar of the court.

The defendants are expected to report to the anti-graft agency on a periodic basis.

The court has fixed June 22, 23, 24 and 25 for trial.
Beauty lovers all over the world - alongside celebrities such as Alexa Chung, Amal Clooney and Emma Roberts - are obsessed with Charlotte Tilbury's eponymous makeup and skincare line.

From the suits-all shade of Pillow Talk lipstick to the renowned Magic Cream (that Charlotte refers to as a 'push-up bra in a jar'), the beauty brand is stacked with best sellers.

Whether you've been dying to try Charlotte's namesake brand or you're looking to refresh your beauty stash, today is your lucky day - now, you too can glow like a supermodel thanks to Charlotte Tilbury's Pillow Talk Glow in a Box.

The Pillow Talk Glow In A Box contains six full-size products including Luxury Palette of Pops in Pillow Talk, Full Fat Lashes mascara, Cheek to Chic blush in Pillow Talk Original, Lip Cheat lip liner in Pillow Talk Original, Pillow Talk Diamonds lipstick and Lip Lustre lip gloss in Pillow Talk

MailOnline readers can buy the Pillow Talk Glow in a Box 48 hours before its official release. Just wait until you see what's inside.

The bundle allows you to save 20 per cent on the cost of buying all the products separately. So rather than spending 156, you get all six products for 124.

It's full to the brim with a brand new edit of Charlotte's Pillow Talk favourites. So if you're looking for a beauty gift for a friend, or for yourself, this is a sure bet.

The full line-up in the Pillow Talk Glow in a Box looks like this: Luxury Palette of Pops in Pillow Talk, Full Fat Lashes Mascara, Cheek to Chic blush in Pillow Talk Original, Lip Cheat lip liner in Pillow Talk Original, Pillow Talk Diamonds lipstick and Lip Lustre lip gloss in Pillow Talk.

In the words of Charlotte Tilbury, this bundle is all you need to create a 'fresh, glowing, universally-flattering Pillow Talk look'.

If you like a generous dose of sparkle, you'll love Charlotte's Luxury Palette of Pops in Pillow Talk. The palm-sized palette contains four shimmery shades from a soft peach to a coppery brown.

Each hue is infused with pearl pigments, glossy ester and mica for a multidimensional shine. Use all four shimmer shades together or sweep across bare eyes to give your look a luminous touch with minimal effort.

At the Oscars this year Emma Roberts (left) and dancer Violetta Komyshan (right) were spotted wearing perfectly polished makeup looks created using the Pillow Talk collection

No eye look is complete without lashings of mascara. Enter Charlotte's Full Fat Lashes mascara a one-stop-shop for glossy black, volumised and lengthened eyelashes. Plus, it won't run, smudge or flake.

Nothing gives life to lacklustre skin quite like a complexion boosting blusher. Give cheeks rosy definition by dusting a little Cheek to Chic blush in Pillow Talk Original over your cheekbones. The multi-tonal blush will add a youthful lit-within-glow.

WHAT'S IN PILLOW TALK GLOW IN A BOX? Luxury Palette of Pops in Pillow Talk Full Fat Lashes mascara Cheek to Chic blush in Pillow Talk Original Lip Cheat lip liner in Pillow Talk Original Pillow Talk Diamonds lipstick Lip Lustre lip gloss in Pillow Talk Advertisement

For a high-shine pout this spring, contour and shape the lips with Charlotte's Lip Cheat lip liner in Pillow Talk Original - an award-winning nude-pink shade.

'When you apply, look into the mirror and smile, tightening the skin on the lips to see exactly where to apply the pencil,' recommends Charlotte.

'Starting on the outer corners trace the liner just outside the natural lip line. This will help cheat a fuller pout, create symmetry to the lips and help to stop the lipstick bleeding, without looking unnatural.

'For even longer-lasting power, you can also use a lip liner as a stencil all over the lips.'

Then fill your lips in with Pillow Talk Diamonds lipstick topped with Lip Lustre lip gloss in Pillow Talk.

Get your Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk Glow In A Box HERE.

MailOnline may earn commission on sales from the links on this page.
STEUBENVILLE, OH / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Career paths and the journey to success rarely follow a straight line. Andrew Plesich, a landman from Jefferson County, Ohio, exemplifies that notion. As someone with a nonstop improvement mindset, Plesich has always taken on new challenges and opportunities. Through a series of academic experiences and unexpected career choices, he gained valuable takeaways that molded him into the person he is today. Looking back, not only did his education and career provide excellent professional development - they unlocked new passions and built his character.

Born, raised, and currently living in Jefferson County, Plesich completed his undergraduate education at the University of Akron. After which, he went on to complete a Master's of Business Administration at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a nationally recognized Catholic institution. He then pursued teaching, a career he found so rewarding that he proudly accepted the offer to continue teaching at his alma mater, even after being accepted to a doctorate program at Robert Morris University. Coming full circle, he joined the adjunct faculty at the University of Akron to teach business ethics and leadership classes.

Having studied Human Resource Management in collaborative, stimulating environments, Plesich learned early on that interpersonal skills are the foundation for both personal and professional success.

"Learning how to effectively manage and lead people shaped my approach to work and collaboration," he said. "People skills aren't necessarily taught, but nurtured over time."

Plesich's teachings at the University of Akron and Eastern Gateway Community College included Leadership Principles and Practices, Business Law, Organizational Behavior, Small Business Management, and Entrepreneurship - courses that not only lie in his area of expertise, but that he deems essential and empowering as well. He also served on the Business Studies Advisory Board at West Virginia Community College, which consults local businesses and deliberates changes to the college's business curriculum.

Story continues

"To me, leadership, business, and entrepreneurship skills are life skills," Plesich said. "I was able to teach principles I'm passionate about and believe are important, and gained new perspectives along the way."

The former instructor also enlightened students through online and Interactive Video Distance Learning (IVDL) classes. IVDL classes are essentially video conferences in classroom settings, allowing faculty members to include students from off-site locations as if they were in the same room. This disruption to the traditional lecture hall provided an opportunity for Plesich to learn alongside his students.

"The different teaching environment improved my leadership and communication styles," Plesich noted. "Emotional intelligence is involved with all kinds of teaching, but it was imperative for me to reach and engage with my off-site students as if we were in a regular classroom."

Plesich's education and passion for business opened the door to nine years of teaching. What inspired his move to the oil and gas industry was his work in the Jefferson County Courthouse. As a title examiner, he researches courthouse records for both real estate and oil and gas titles. The work has been the one constant for Plesich amid the turbulent industries in Jefferson County. The challenge of finding consistent work spurred him to pursue different experiences and even start his own business as a contract landman.

Being a teacher lent Plesich skills that he is now able to leverage in new ways as a landman. His talent for managing people was recognized early on, and he was invited to lead a team of contractors through complex undertakings, including a multimillion-dollar title-research project across multiple courthouses. Teaching assisted with public speaking as well - a skill honed mostly, if not completely, by experience. Plesich's business savvy comes in handy now, too. Teaching enterprise courses and serving on the Business Studies Advisory Board enriched his ability to share the value of business and entrepreneurship - which is key to creating and maintaining beneficial partnerships between landowners and oil and gas companies. And most importantly, Plesich honed his active listening, a gift in which a little goes a long way.

"Empathy is more than just putting yourself in someone else's shoes," Plesich remarked. "It's about recognizing their needs and doing whatever you can to meet them."

Plesich's real estate background, also motivated by his work in the courthouse, provided an exciting challenge and some transferable skills in title work. He has experience executing real estate closings, completing title work as a licensed title insurance agent, and even accomplished the necessary courses to become a real estate agent. Although he transitioned to the oil and gas industry, the knowledge was advantageous.

"Title work enabled me to learn about the history and value of property in Jefferson County," he said. "It makes my work as a landman very meaningful."

Plesich's pursuit of new skills created a pattern of extremely valuable learning opportunities. A spirit of diligence encouraged him to view challenges as chances to improve. At every step of the way, he gained wisdom that shaped him into a well-rounded individual. Now, he is welcoming yet another new opportunity as a candidate for Jefferson County Clerk of Courts. It's not only his education and career that qualify him - it's his character.

"The variety of opportunities I've taken in my career have made the most rewarding experiences," Plesich said. "I never want to stop learning and growing, personally and professionally."

For more information, please reach out to Isys Caffey-Horne at isys.caffeyhorne@stripereputation.com.

SOURCE: Andrew Plesich





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/588289/Andrew-Plesich-A-Career-of-Building-Character




In uncertain times like these, we are truly learning what the word essential means. We have been honoring our armed forces for quite some time now, and rightfully so.

As of late, we have found out how crucial our doctors, nurses, first responders and grocery store employees are to us. We have drive-by parades, signs, posters, and even church bells ringing to honor these people and let them know how necessary and important they are to our daily existence.

All of these wonderful people deserve our appreciation during this pandemic, and every day thereafter. We acknowledge their tireless help and support in our communities.

However, we are forgetting another very vital group that has been working to ensure we get our mail, stimulus checks and packages, while we are unable to physically shop in many places. We take these deliverers for granted, but they are out working during the pandemic, putting their health on the line.

I recently learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes on these jobs, and how detailed and exhausting these jobs truly are. We need to show our appreciation and support to these crucial workers as well. They also are needed today, tomorrow and always  during the pandemic and beyond.

Deanna Filipovits

Bushkill Township
In recognition of the spirit of service that they have demonstrated in their communities, Isobel and Darius  along with 100 other top youth volunteers from across the country  were also each given $2,500 to donate toward the local COVID-19 response efforts of a nonprofit organization of their choice. These funds come in addition to the $1,000 scholarship and engraved silver medallion they earned as New Jersey's top youth volunteers of 2020.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, sponsored by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), named Isobel and Darius New Jersey's top high school and middle level youth volunteers in February.

"Over the past 25 years, this program has honored students spanning three generations, and the common thread between them has been the determination of young people to respond to the challenges of the moment," said Charles Lowrey, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial. "Who better than this group of young leaders from all over the country to help identify and direct resources to community needs arising from COVID-19?"

As State Honorees, Isobel and Darius also earned an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the program's annual national recognition events; the trip, however, was canceled due to COVID-19 and changed to a three-day online celebration this past weekend. In addition to remarks and congratulations from actress Kristen Bell, honorees had opportunities to connect with each other through online project-sharing sessions, learn about service and advocacy from accomplished past Spirit of Community honorees, hear congratulatory remarks from Lowrey and NASSP Executive Director and CEO JoAnn Bartoletti, and more.

"We admire these young leaders for their ability to assess the needs of the communities they serve and find meaningful ways to address them," said Bartoletti. "At a time when everyone is looking for optimism, these students are a bright light for their peers and the adults in their lives."

About the Honorees

Isobel (pictured left), a senior at Newton High School, sends home bags of weekend food and hygiene items with more than a hundred elementary and middle schoolers in need at seven Sussex County schools, providing more than 10,000 meals last year alone. In the fall of 2016, when she was a freshman, Isobel heard kids at school talking about not having food or basic items on the weekends, when they didn't have access to free meals at school. "The issue of juvenile food insufficiency is important because it is extremely hard to educate a student with an empty stomach who is not comfortable or focused enough to learn," said Isobel.

With help from her mother and sisters and permission from her school district, Isobel started providing 28 children with food bags filled with items that she and her family shopped for and then packed at home. As more children were identified by a school liaison, it became clear that she needed help. So she formed a nonprofit called "The Weekend Bag Program Inc.," recruited student and adult volunteers to join her, and found a permanent space to store and pack food bags. She also established relationships with churches, scout troops, 4-H clubs and community organizations to help collect donations and raise money. On average, Isobel spends about 15 hours a week on her program. After she and fellow volunteers pack the bags, she delivers them to the schools participating in the program, which then distribute them anonymously to children who might otherwise go hungry.

Darius (pictured right), a seventh-grader at North Star Academy, is the founder of "Beaux & Paws," an initiative through which he has helped hundreds of dogs find loving homes by making stylish bow ties for them, donating these handmade creations to animal shelters across the country and in the United Kingdom, and promoting dressed-up dogs on his social media accounts. When he was 8, Darius, who was born with speech, fine motor skills and comprehension delay, began working to develop his motor skills by cutting fabric for the hair bows his older sister was making. "I discovered my love for fashion and started making bow ties for myself," he said. Then, after he heard about all the dogs that were displaced and sent to shelters in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in 2017, "I decided to use my passion for making bow ties to help dogs look cute and dapper so they are more likely to get adopted faster," he said.

Darius began making canine bow ties and donating them to an ASPCA shelter. He also posted pictures of shelter dogs wearing his bow ties on his Instagram page, which now has more than 50,000 followers. As his project expanded, he founded an initiative called "PAW-SOME MISSION," raised funds online to cover expenses, and started shipping his bow ties to animal shelters all over the country. Darius also has visited shelters in seven states to help with adoption events. He figures his efforts have made it possible to find permanent homes for hundreds of dogs that might otherwise have been euthanized. "Dogs deserve to live a good life and be happy and loved, just as humans [do]," he said.

About The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program was created in 1995 to identify and recognize young people for outstanding volunteer service  and, in so doing, inspire others to volunteer, too. In the past 25 years, the program has honored more than 130,000 young volunteers at the local, state and national level. For more information about The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and this year's honorees, visit http://spirit.prudential.com. For more information about the National Association of Secondary School Principals, visit www.nassp.org. For more information about Prudential Financial, visit www.news.prudential.com.

Learn more at spirit.prudential.com

SOURCE Prudential Financial, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.prudential.com


People  mostly white, sometimes armed, occasionally carrying Confederate flags or hoisting placards emblazoned with a Nazi slogan from the Holocaust  have been loudly protesting to push their state governments to reopen business and spaces before enough progress has been made to contain the coronavirus. This is yet another illustration of the race and class divide this pandemic has illuminated in this country.

For some, a reopened economy and recreational landscape will mean the option to run a business, return to work, go to the park or beach, or have a night on the town at a nice restaurant or swanky bar. But for many on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, it will only force them back into compulsory exposure to more people, often in occupations that make it hard to protect oneself and that pay little for the risk.

Georgia was on the forefront of state reopenings. The first businesses that were allowed to reopen were, for the most part, those that provide low-wage jobs that require significant contact  like tattoo parlors, barbershops and hair salons, and nail shops.

These are the struggling workers who entertain and aestheticize people of means. These businesses were by no means essential, and they put these workers in danger. There is absolutely no way to practice social distancing while inking someone a tattoo. (Also, what are you so desperate to stamp on your body that you would risk it all during a pandemic?)
Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan Monday urged scientists to keep in mind the affordability factor of various drugs, vaccines and medical equipment amidst the country's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vardhan, who is also the Minister for Health and Family Welfare, reviewed initiatives taken by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) towards mitigation of the COVID-19, a government statement said.

The minster was informed that a major development from the CSIR efforts is that synthesis of Key Starting Materials (KSMs) on kilo scale and gram scale of Remdesivir, a drug recently approved by the US-FDA for emergency use in COVID-19 patients, has been achieved by the CSIR-IICT (Indian Institute of Chemical Technology).

Technology demonstration to Indian industry is going on, the statement said, adding the CSIR is working with private sector for clinical trial and launch of Favipiravir, another promising drug for COVID-19, in India.

"The affordability factor of various drugs, vaccines and other diagnostic & therapeutic equipment should also be considered," the statement said, quoting Vardhan.

The CSIR has devised five verticals: Digital and Molecular Surveillance; Rapid and Economical Diagnostics; New Drugs /Repurposing of Drugs Vaccines; Hospital Assistive Devices and PPEs; Supply Chain and Logistics Support Systems in order to develop requisite Science & Technology based solutions to combat COVID-19.

Significant developments in each of the five verticals were presented by the Vertical Coordinating Directors during the review.

"Scientific departments should develop enhanced synergy and good quality coordination for quicker and better results. All Scientists and institutions should prioritise the requirements of the time and also contribute in finding quick and deployable solutions," the statement quoting Vardhan said.

He also appreciated the CSIR for submitting 53 sequences of COVID-19 genomes to the Global Coronavirus Genome Database, the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID).

Vardhan also released Guidelines for Public Transport and Feeder Modes considering social distancing norms developed by CSIR-CRRI (Central Road Research Institute).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The HSE is planning to use the country's private hospitals to carry out urgent non-coronavirus procedures over the coming weeks.

The health authority's chief executive, Paul Reid, said 241 private hospital consultants had signed up to work in the public sector during the crisis.

Mr Reid, who was speaking at a media briefing, said the original plan was for private hospitals to accommodate an anticipated surge in Covid-19 cases but that had had not happened.

However, they had to proceed very cautiously because the World Health Organisation had advised that countries should prepare on the basis of a second potential surge in Covid-19 cases.

In a pandemic hospital occupancy levels should be maintained at about 80% and they would still have to plan for that.

The agreement with 18 private hospital groups had made 2,000 additional beds available, together with 54 critical care beds and an extra 200 ventilators.

Mr Reid said the private hospitals would be used to reduce the number of patients on waiting lists and to carry other priority work not related to Covid-19.

HSE chief operations manager, Anne O'Connor, said the health authority was working with private hospitals and the National Treatment Purchase Fund to ensure that the most urgent cases were being seen.

We are working closely with the NTPF and private hospitals to ensure continued activity across all private hospitals,she said.

Obviously, we have been focusing on the most urgent cases in terms of oncology, cardiac procedures and other occurrences in making sure that people are being seen.

At a local level, acute public hospitals were working with private hospitals to ensure the transfer of suitable patients to private hospitals.

We expect to see that increased significantly over the coming week, said Ms O'Connor.

On Saturday night there were 688 confirmed Covid-19 patients in hospital and 98 were in critical care units.

HSE national lead for integrated care, Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, said there had been a reluctance for patients to come forward for be treated for conditions needing to be treated in a timely manner.

Dr Ni Bhriain said there was also anecdotal evidence that patients were not undergoing tests, such as colonoscopies, because they were afraid of catching Covid-19

If you are contacted for any test please do attend. It means the service is available and is able to look after you in a safe way, she said.

HSE national Covid-19 lead for primary care, Dr John Browne, said there had been very significant falls in the number of patients attending general practice.

He urged people with serious health conditions other than Covid-19 to contact their GP who would be able to deal with them in a safe way.

Mr Reid said that testing for Covid-19 had taken place in 80% of nursing homes, with testing completed in 84% of homes that had an outbreak.

Over 176,000 tests had been completed last Friday putting Ireland among the top five or six European countries for testing.
This Friday, May 8, marks the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Queen Elizabeth will give a rare address to mark this historic occasion, and you can prep for her speech by catching the premiere of PBS's new documentary: The Queen at War.

The movie, which debuts on Tuesday, May 5, at 8 p.m. EST on PBS, focuses on the entirety of WWII as well as the monarchy's role in the conflict. It even reveals footage of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret during their relocation to the English countryside during the Blitz.

"She was evacuated, her home was bombed, she lost a family member and she volunteered to help the war effort," the PBS description reads.

The documentary features interviews with the people who were there, alongside historians, journalists and royal commentators.

It also includes rare footage of the royal family during and after King George VI's historic announcement that Germany had surrendered to the Allies which Elizabeth's father gave from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Afterward, then-Princess Elizabeth and her sister persuaded their parents to allow them to join the throngs of people celebrating in the streets of London, an experience the queen later called "the most exciting night of her life."

Speaking to Town & Country, The Queen at War executive producer Chris Granlund called the moment "unprecedented."

"There is no existing footage of the Queen in the crowd that we know of. She was in uniform; she was with a small group, but we certainly didn't find any," he said.

Granlund went on to say that this was probably the first time the queen was allowed to wander freely in a crowd of this size without the ceremonial hand-shaking and waving, calling it "quite extraordinary."

If you're going to be drinking margs and eating tacos instead of glued to the TV on May 5 (although, who says you can't do both?!), you can preorder the DVD from PBS.org for $20. It will ship on May 26, 2020.

But, if you're like us, you won't be able to wait that long. We'll be in front of the telly (with marg in hand, obvs).

RELATED: Princess Anne Gives Us a Rare Glimpse Inside Her Home in Brand-New Video
Photo: RCC

The Canadian retail sector will see a two-part return to business, with essential retailers getting back to work before their non-essential counterparts, says Retail Council of Canada president Diane Brisebois.

The key question that the sector is trying to answer, she said, is: How do you try to mitigate and ensure commerce with citizens on a regular basis so you know theyre safe and protected?

And, said industry watcher Craig Patterson of Retail Insider, that return could be in a few weeks if not a couple of months.

In mid-April, B.C. officials publicly floated the idea of easing restrictions by mid-May.

Saskatchewan on April 23 released its Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan, which aims to loosen by May 4 regulations for medical services and low-risk recreation, then to loosen restrictions on retail services by May 19. Dates for further phases of reopening have not been announced.

Whether B.C. follows a similar pattern remains to be seen.

Brisebois said provincial governments reached out to the council for feedback on how retailers could be managed in an overall return to normal.

Even as restrictions ease, Brisebois said, business operators are going to have change the way they operate. The changes most obvious to consumers will be those theyve already seen  social distancing and the transparent barriers at checkouts.

Store traffic will have to be monitored and staff would have to be retrained on cleaning procedures.

First, Brisebois said, the curve of COVID-19 infection needs to flatten.

We need increased testing before we move ahead, she said.

Then, all sectors need to coordinate how they will return to business. Companies will have to ask, Is everyone involved? Brisebois said, citing the Saskatchewan case. Is the chain of command singing off the same hymn book so citizens are not confused?

And, she said, bureaucratic interference needs to be kept to a minimum.

Businesses, she said, need co-operation rather than hindrance from government agencies and bylaw services  They need to reach out; they need to come together.

In terms of physical operations, retailers need to deal with rules governing apparel fitting rooms, use of payment keypads and procedures for product returns, as well as overarching concerns about employees, taxes and rent.

The greatest challenge for them is to ensure that their employees remain healthy and protected, Brisebois said.

Patterson said May could be too late for businesses that were already struggling as they came out of 2019.

We did see a decrease in retail sales, he said. We saw a decrease in foot traffic in malls.

What COVID-19 may have done to the retail sector, Patterson said, is move more people to online shopping. The period may have been long enough to entrench e-commerce habits in some consumers, he explained.
Carnival said on Monday that it plans to restart some of its cruise trips from North America in August as it tries to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said it planned to resume cruises on eight ships from Miami, Port Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida, and Galveston, Texas, on August 1.

In Galveston, the Carnival Dream, Freedom and Vista are among those expected to set sail in August.

Scroll down for video

Carnival said on Monday that it plans to restart some of its cruise trips from North America in August as it tries to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The Carnival Panorama is seen docked in California

The Carnival Horizon, Carnival Magic and Carnival Sensation in Miami along with the Carnival Breeze and Elation in Port Canaveral will also resume on August 1.

Operations in all other North American and Australian markets would remain suspended through August 31.

In a statement, the company said: 'We are committed to supporting all public health efforts to manage the COVID-19 situation.

'We are taking a measured approach, focusing our return to service on a select number of homeports where we have more significant operations that are easily accessible by car for the majority of our guests.'

It's unclear how many customers have booked August dates with Carnival and a DailyMail.com request for comment was not immediately returned as of Monday afternoon.

However, in mid-April travel agents and industry observers, reported that bookings for cruise trips in 2021 are up considerably.

CruiseCompete.com, a web site that compares prices of cruise tickets, reported a 40 per cent increase in booking for 2021 compared with 2019, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Heidi M. Allison, the president of CruiseCompete.com, said that just 11 per cent of the bookings are by people who had their trips canceled in 2020.

British cruise lines P&O Cruises and Cunard  which are also part of the Carnival group  announced last month that its sailings are suspended until at least the end of July.

P&O Cruises said passengers will need to pass 'rigorous' medical checks before being allowed to board ships once operations resume.

The cruise line is developing plans to introduce a series of 'stringent measures' to ensure it obeys international health guidelines when it restarts operations once the coronavirus pandemic recedes.

Other changes being considered include reducing the capacity of ships, scrapping self-service buffets and implementing one-way systems on board.

British cruise lines P&O Cruises and Cunard  which are also part of the Carnival group  announced last month that its sailings are suspended until at least the end of July. P&O Cruises said passengers will need to pass 'rigorous' medical checks before being allowed to board

On March 11, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, around 550,000 passengers were on cruises.

Two days later, more than 50 cruise lines announced they were suspending operations to and from the US due to the pandemic.

On March 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a no-sail order in US waters.

At the time, there were ships still at sea and some vessels left just before the order was announced.

Eventually, ships from the world's largest cruise lines - Carnival, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and MSC Cruises - started reporting outbreaks.

Last week, data compiled by the Miami Herald revealed that one-fifth of all global ocean cruise ships were infected with coronavirus, leaving at least 2,592 crew and passengers infected and killing at least 66 people.

Cases of the deadly virus can be directly linked to at least 54 cruise ships, as they continued to travel the waters while the pandemic ravaged communities on land.

At least 922 of those infected and 12 who died were crew members working on the ships.

As of Friday, there are a total of 100,000 crew members still stuck on ships across the globe, according to an investigation by the Guardian. Fifty of those ships have reported cases of the coronavirus.

There are more than 1.1 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the US with at least 69,154 deaths

The crew members have been stuck aboard the ships since the industry canceled new cruises on March 13.

Cruise company executives must sign an agreement with the CDC to repatriate crew from onboard their ships but many company officials have complained arranging transport is 'too expensive'.

The CDC told DailyMail.com that under its no-sail order 'cruise lines must develop and implement a comprehensive plan to prevent, detect, respond, and contain COVID-19 on cruise ships for both passengers and crew'.

It went on to explain that 'CDC permits cruise ships to disembark their crew members if cruise line executives - including the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Compliance Officer, and the Chief Executive Officer - attest that the cruise line has complied with requirements for the safe disembarkation of crew.

'CDC has informed all cruise lines operating ships in US waters of these safety requirements, which includes arranging non-public transportation.

'Given the unprecedented nature of COVID-19 pandemic and the high risk of COVID-19 spread on cruise ships, it is critical for cruise lines to attest that they have taken the necessary steps to safeguard Americas health and safety when disembarking crew,' the statement added.

Royal Caribbean told DailyMail.com in a statement: 'We have already been able to help many of our crew members return safely home on commercial flights, charter flights and direct sailing to their home countries.

'We are working hard to repatriate everyone else who wants to return home as soon as governments allow. We very much appreciate their patience, understanding and good spirit.'

Third crew member of Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas cruise ship dies from COVID-19

Over the weekend, Royal Caribbean's CEO Michael Bayley announced the death of a third crew member from the Oasis of the Seas cruise ship.

Carlo Baluran, from the Philippines, was hospitalized in Broward County several weeks ago with COVID-19, according to the Miami Herald.

Bayley said Baluran showed signs of recovering before his death on Sunday morning.

Carlo Baluran (left), from the Philippines, became the third crew member of the Oasis of the Seas cruise ship to die on Sunday from COVID-19. Baluran's colleagues, Dexter Joyosa (center), 43, from the Philippines, and Iputu Sugiartha (right), 41, from Indonesia

'Our hearts and prayers go out to his family, friends and colleagues, including his two brothers, who also work for the Royal Caribbean family,' Bayley said.

Fourteen members from the Oasis of the Seas ship have tested positive for the coronavirus.

According to the Herald, at least six other crew members from Royal Caribbean and Carnival cruise ships died from COVID-19 in South Florida hospitals in March and April.

Two of those deaths include Balurans colleagues from the Oasis of the Seas, Dexter Joyosa, 43, from the Philippines, and Iputu Sugiartha, 41, from Indonesia.
In recognition of the spirit of service that they have demonstrated in their communities, Anik and Dominic  along with 100 other top youth volunteers from across the country  were also each given $2,500 to donate toward the local COVID-19 response efforts of a nonprofit organization of their choice. These funds come in addition to the $1,000 scholarship and engraved silver medallion they earned as Florida's top youth volunteers of 2020.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, sponsored by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), named Anik and Dominic Florida's top high school and middle level youth volunteers in February.

"Over the past 25 years, this program has honored students spanning three generations, and the common thread between them has been the determination of young people to respond to the challenges of the moment," said Charles Lowrey, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial. "Who better than this group of young leaders from all over the country to help identify and direct resources to community needs arising from COVID-19?"

As State Honorees, Anik and Dominic also earned an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the program's annual national recognition events; the trip, however, was canceled due to COVID-19 and changed to a three-day online celebration this past weekend. In addition to remarks and congratulations from actress Kristen Bell, honorees had opportunities to connect with each other through online project-sharing sessions, learn about service and advocacy from accomplished past Spirit of Community honorees, hear congratulatory remarks from Lowrey and NASSP Executive Director and CEO JoAnn Bartoletti, and more.

"We admire these young leaders for their ability to assess the needs of the communities they serve and find meaningful ways to address them," said Bartoletti. "At a time when everyone is looking for optimism, these students are a bright light for their peers and the adults in their lives."

About the Honorees

Anik (pictured left), a senior at Coral Reef Senior High School, organized a weekly reading program at a homeless shelter, pairing student tutors from her high school with young readers to improve their literacy skills during a time in their lives when academic development is often disrupted. When Anik was in middle school, she volunteered at the Chapman Partnership Homeless Shelter to help put on a play and found that many of the children there could not read their scripts. "I soon learned that homeless children experience a lot of inconsistencies in their education as a result of often moving between shelters and subsequently switching schools many times in the period of one year," said Anik. To address this issue, she created an organization called "H.E.R.O." (Homeless Empowerment and Reading Opportunities).

Once a week, Anik and students she has recruited through various clubs at school provide one-on-one tutoring for an hour at the homeless shelter. She brings an assortment of books, allowing each child to choose an age-appropriate one. Also, to motivate them, she gives each young reader a token after 15 minutes of reading, which they can use at the end of the session to "purchase" a toy or other item from a gift shop she sets up. In addition to scheduling volunteers and working with the shelter's staff to coordinate activities, Anik has organized several book and toy drives to keep her program well-supplied. She estimates that she and her volunteers have made a difference in the lives of several hundred children in her community, and has laid the groundwork for nearby counties to adopt similar programs.

Dominic (pictured right), an eighth-grader at Walker Middle Magnet School, works with his family on the activities of a nonprofit called "Kids 4 A Cause," with a goal of raising at least $1,000 a month to support a variety of charities and causes. "I was raised in a family that always placed a high value on community service," said Dominic. When his family lived in South Africa, they frequently supported orphanages and food programs in underserved communities, inspired by the example of Nelson Mandela, he said. After immigrating to the U.S., "we wanted to continue to be of service."

In his role at Kids 4 A Cause, Dominic spends time researching organizations that need support, developing and selling products such as organic soaps and essential oils to raise money, promoting his organization's mission through speeches and news media coverage, and recruiting local businesses to help. Some of the organization's projects include: donating $1,000 to buy food and basic necessities for a children's home; sponsoring eight children for a grief camp; helping to clean up around the Hillsborough River; supplying 145 supply bags for people experiencing homelessness; and donating $3,000 to provide necessary items and help cover expenses for patients undergoing treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. "The most memorable moment each month is when the check is presented to the organization we are supporting," said Dominic. "The happiness and gratitude on everyone's faces gives me great joy."

About The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program was created in 1995 to identify and recognize young people for outstanding volunteer service  and, in so doing, inspire others to volunteer, too. In the past 25 years, the program has honored more than 130,000 young volunteers at the local, state and national level.

For more information about The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and this year's honorees, visit http://spirit.prudential.com. For more information about the National Association of Secondary School Principals, visit www.nassp.org. For more information about Prudential Financial, visit www.news.prudential.com.

Learn more at spirit.prudential.com

SOURCE Prudential Financial, Inc.
UK COVID-19 deaths top 28,000 as government pledges support for "most vulnerable"

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:59, May 03, 2020

LONDON, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Another 621 COVID-19 patients have died in Britain, bringing the total coronavirus-related death toll in the country to 28,131, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said Saturday.

The figures include deaths in hospitals, care homes and the wider community.

Chairing Saturday's Downing Street briefing, Jenrick said 182,260 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Britain.

Meanwhile, 105,937 tests were carried out on Friday, Jenrick said. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Friday that the country has met the goal of 100,000 tests per day.

The communities secretary also announced a package of 76 million pounds (about 95 million U.S. dollars) to support "the most vulnerable" in society.

The fund would go to charities to address such issues as domestic abuse, vulnerable children and modern-day slavery, he said.

Jenny Harries, England's deputy chief medical officer, confirmed that "the pressure on the NHS (National Health Service) is now moving down" as the number of hospital admissions has been declining.

The number of people in hospitals has decreased by 13 percent in the last week, she said.

The daily death rate is "starting to come down very gradually, very slowly - it's very important we continue to practice social distancing," she said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday that the country was "past the peak" of the COVID-19 outbreak and a "comprehensive" plan will be published next week on "how we can continue to suppress disease" while restarting the economy.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






They went to work every day and built a life for themselves, put money away in a savings plan and paid their taxes. And then they got divorced or hurt on the job or sick or widowed or just plain unlucky - and found themselves in the same boat as millions of Americans who are now approaching retirement with most of the financial props knocked out from under them.

As the big bulge of baby boomers head into old age, as many as half are coming face-to-face with a new American economic reality: Retirement means a descent into relative hard times, because the systems put in place when this generation was just entering its peak earning years have failed.

And one way or another the whole country will feel the consequences.

We talked to six Americans who have come to the end of their work lives with no financial cushion, no nest egg. The oldest is 74, the youngest 57: just about the exact span of the baby-boom generation. They are liberal and conservative, rural and urban, blue collar and white.

The coronavirus pandemic has scrambled the lives of these six boomers just as it has everyone else's, though with no savings to worry about at least it hasn't directly hurt them financially. Some have hunkered down, as best they can in sometimes tight spaces. For others, the pandemic has brought a surprising twist to their lives.

For others of their generation who have lost their jobs in the coronavirus shutdown, the odds against regaining employment, and being able to keep saving, have grown longer and longer.

None of these stories is an outlier. Half of American families in the 56-to-61 age bracket had less than $21,000 in retirement savings in 2016, according to a longitudinal study by the Economic Policy Institute that used the most recent available figures. A less formal survey last year found that little had changed. Forty percent of Americans over the age of 60 who are no longer working full-time rely solely on Social Security for their income - the median annual benefit is about $17,000.

Every day, 10,000 Americans reach the age of 65. (In 2024, that number will crest at about 12,000 a day.) And every year, fewer and fewer of them have traditional employer-sponsored pensions to support them. The system that was supposed to provide for them is shot through with holes.

"We've probably peaked in terms of retirement security - and it's not great," said Monique Morrisey, of the Economic Policy Institute. "And now it's all downhill. Unless something changes, we're going to start seeing much more hardship."

Thirty million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits since the pandemic struck. But for laid-off workers in their 50s and 60s - and 70s - finding employment again will be tough.

"How many older workers are going to permanently lose their jobs and retire earlier than they planned?" Morrisey asked. The ranks of those drawing down what savings they now have are certain to grow.

The impact will reach far beyond the more than 70 million living members of the baby-boom generation. It will affect everything from employment patterns to the price of real estate. With life spans lengthening, in concert with medical bills, financially strapped baby boomers entering the years of serious physical decline will put an immense burden down the road on Medicaid and on their families.

"Their children are looking around and wondering what this means for them," said Jan Mutchler, at University of Massachusetts at Boston.

"It will be felt down the family chain," said Alicia Munnell, a professor of management sciences at Boston College. "People are going to be anxious. There's going to be some intergenerational ripple."

---

By some comparisons, Nancy Koch, a 70-year-old retired psychiatric nurse, counts herself lucky. She had some good jobs over the years. She's married - for the third time, after two divorces, each of which involved lawyers, the need to set up new households, and a general drain on savings. Her husband, Terry Koch, 69, was a technical writer who worked most recently for a company that makes labels, though his real love is the piano. He's the improviser; she's the organizer. She has recovered better than expected from a health scare a decade ago, when back surgery led to unexpected complications. They have an apartment in West Allis, Wisconsin, in a senior living complex that is subsidized through the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit. What they don't have is any money.

"We were completely not prepared," she said, for the life they are now living.

A sizable minority of Americans have struggled all their lives with low incomes. But now, millions more who were solidly middle class - like the Kochs - are looking at a financial fall. Half of Americans are at risk of not being able to maintain their standard of living in retirement, according to a Boston College study that was completed before the pandemic hit and potentially made the prospects even worse.

Dozens of factors have contributed to this, most having to do with lack of access to retirement savings plans, unexpected large financial hits, layoffs and declines in health. A study at Stanford University found the baby boomers have, in real terms, about 20% less in savings, 20% lower household wealth and 100% more debt than the generation born during World War II.

Terry and Nancy Koch (pronounced "Cook") are part of that 40% of retired Americans who have Social Security as their only income. Between them, it comes to about $2,500 a month. Rent for their subsidized two-bedroom apartment, across the street from an abandoned bowling alley, is $975, plus a $20 pet fee for their cat Sam. The rent is about to go up by $30. Premiums for Medicare and supplemental insurance policies cost about $450 a month for the two of them. Beyond Social Security, their retirement savings plans are - totally tapped out. They have no cushion, no nest egg.

Although they are above the official poverty line, their monthly income falls $750 short of the amount that "constitutes adequacy as opposed to destitution" for Milwaukee county, said Mutchler, whose team at the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging has calculated an "Elder Index" for every county in the nation.

West Allis, just outside Milwaukee, was once the headquarters of the Allis-Chalmers Co., which manufactured industrial machinery, employed 31,000 unionized workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere, supported a solid standard of living for its workers for nearly eight decades, and paid them pensions when they retired. That's gone.

The Kochs moved there from the leafy suburb of Bay View because of the affordable rent. They have no friends there. Nancy's adult son lives alone north of Milwaukee.

In Terry Koch's view, part of the reason they have no money is rooted in the changes that have swept the country, starting with the culture of their own generation, a legacy of the 1960s.

"It was perhaps the first generation to start thinking that we didn't want to just get jobs to plug in to get our pensions and to, you know, to be a--holes when we were 70 and beat up our kids and then retire and go to Hawaii or something," he said. "We were a people who said we kind of like to have job satisfaction up front. And so we didn't think about the long run of things. To not be thinking about the future, to be more of a Zen thing, you know we live [for] today. And it wasn't pure hedonism. There was some purity. And we're still very much that way. I would rather be happy today than miserable 25 years from now. And so I made choices based on that rather than on the economics, which, you know, one could argue fairly successfully that I made some pretty stupid decisions."

His wife Nancy said, laughing, "Yeah, we were so stupid."

Music is what makes him happy, Terry Koch said. "It's a heck of a lot more important than making good labels for potato chip bags for 40 years."

The Kochs met when they both worked at a bank - one of those small local banks that formerly kept the economy going in cities and towns across America. She was the daughter of a Motorola vice president - "money driven," is how she described him, a man who'd fight with her mother and then buy her a new car, or fur coat. Nancy was a mother and already on her first divorce by the time she was 20. Terry moved around a lot as a boy; he didn't know his father. Nancy said he was a "juvenile delinquent," then burst out laughing. "Yeah, I was a long-haired creep," he countered, deadpan.

Nancy Koch's second husband was a law student. They couldn't save any money while he was paying tuition. As soon as he graduated he split.

In 1983, Nancy and Terry married. By the end of that decade the bank had gone south, so both these 40-something college dropouts decided to go back and get their degrees. Student loans made it possible. Nancy studied nursing. Terry studied English and history but soon drifted into computer work.

After college he got a job at Blue Cross, she landed an entry-level position at a Milwaukee hospital. She was 47. Three years later, he got a well-paying position as a writer for a defense subcontractor in Providence, Rhode Island. For the next seven years, Nancy worked as a nurse at a series of community health centers around Rhode Island. She loved the work, unconditionally. The pay wasn't bad - about $50,000 - but the benefits were scanty. Terry wasn't so happy: The Pentagon contract was canceled, and then the bursting of the tech bubble made it impossible to find similar full-time work.

"All my contacts were saying, you know, just ride it out, just ride it out, just ride it out. And eventually I stopped riding," Terry Koch said. "And then all the people that I had as contacts lost their jobs."

He took one temporary job after another. By 2007, Nancy Koch had wrecked her back: nursing is a physical profession. They felt they couldn't afford to stay in New England, so they moved back to Wisconsin, where Nancy had a series of operations on her hip, back and neck.

Terry and Nancy Koch once had a retirement account, though today they can't agree as to whether it had $10,000 or $20,000 in it. No matter; they cashed it in, paying taxes and the early-withdrawal penalty, and now it's about gone.

He found a temp job in customer service for a company that made labels. Five years later he was still working there, still a temp.

"We never saved a lot of money," Nancy Koch said, "because there wasn't any to save."

Terry Koch had an operation for kidney stones and was handed a bill for $50,000, he said. "Are you kidding me? I told them I wasn't going to pay them," he said. "You know, good luck trying to collect it from me." Eventually, he said, the hospital gave up.

He managed to get his student loans suspended; Nancy Koch's were forgiven, because she went into nursing, but she had to count the outstanding balance as income, and pay taxes on it.

As early as he could - when he turned 62 in 2012 - Terry Koch began taking Social Security. There's a cost to that: his benefit is just under $1,000 a month. "His monthly check is, like, nonexistent," Nancy said sarcastically. "It doesn't pay for anything."

If he could have waited he'd be getting considerably more, because the benefit increases 6.75% for every year that it is deferred, up to age 70. Most Americans do not wait that long. The average Social Security benefit is about $1,461 a month.

Nancy Koch has tried to go back to work. "I'm looking, but nobody wants a 70-year-old," she said. "I've applied for a zillion jobs. It's completely impersonal." Last year she had a temporary, part-time job at the local public television station arranging its annual auction, and when it ended she was able to collect some unemployment insurance, but that's over now.

---

More and more people in their 60s are, like Nancy, staying at work or trying to return to the workforce. Economists argue over the impact this has on younger workers - whether it suppresses wages for all, or blocks chances for advancement, or strengthens the economy. But only about one-quarter of employed Americans work continuously through their 50s and their early 60s in jobs with benefits, according to a study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

"It was surprising bad news," said Munnell, who conducted the study. Many older workers are being pushed out of old jobs, with benefits, and taking whatever they can find. Or were before the coronavirus hit.

In 2019, the number of employed Americans over the age of 65 grew by more than 700,000, to 10.6 million. That accounted for 36% of the country's job growth.

But covid-19 could halt that trend. "If older workers can't work in high-contact areas," said Teresa Ghilarducci, who studies aging and employment issues at the New School University in New York, "employers will have to make accommodations for them." That's an expense. They'll have to accept worse working conditions or lower pay - or see those jobs go to younger people, she said.

"We're going to see a lot of disruption - political and economic," she said. "There is nothing that will slow down the desperation of older workers."

People in their 50s and 60s have come to be seen as more vulnerable because of the disease, Munnell said, and those who have lost their jobs this spring will be less attractive to potential employers. "It has just made the prospects more dismal," she said. "I think they're going to have a harder time reentering."

With covid-19, the Kochs' lives have contracted even further. Terry has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so he has barely left the apartment. They watched incredulously as protesters demonstrated against Wisconsin's shutdown orders.

Yet they are remarkably good-humored about their predicament. They are, after all, children of the post-war generation, raised in an era of growing prosperity and ever-higher expectations. And some of the irreverence that marked the 1960s refuses to be stamped out.

"You know, frankly, neither of us thought we'd be alive at this age," said Nancy Koch, her face lighting up in delight.

Actuaries have a term for that: longevity risk. In other words, there's a risk that you'll live too long.

That's what befell Gregory Bates - and he's only 61.

Bates went to work for the local utility company in Milwaukee - now called WE Energies - when he was 18, as a file clerk, and, after four years in the Air Force, eventually worked his way up to budget analyst. He was the only black man in his office, and he never felt comfortable there. He had to take a medical leave when he developed stomach cancer. After he recovered and returned to work, he came down with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He figured he didn't have long to live and was fed up anyway with life in "corporate America." So at the age of 52, he retired.

He sold his house and cashed in his 401(k), which had about $100,000 in it. The company that handled it for him neglected to withhold the early-withdrawal penalty, and by the time the IRS caught up with him several years later, he owed $46,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties.

By that time the money had all been spent. He bought a new car, gave some money to family members who needed it and, yes, went on a cruise because he thought he'd soon die.

"I went through a lot of money very quickly," he said.

Bates, who is single and has moved in with his elderly mother, went back to college after he recovered his health for a second time, with the help of a student loan. He got a master's degree and then worked for two years as a special-education teacher in the Milwaukee public schools, making about $40,000 a year. In October he had to go on leave because of a herniated disc in his back, but even as the pandemic was building this spring he was able to take a part-time job, paying $12 an hour, as a personal care provider with the nonprofit Volunteers of America. He still owes about $30,000 on the student loans.

He's regretful and optimistic at the same time.

At first, he said, "I just took menial jobs because I didn't feel like I could do those other jobs. I didn't feel like I was qualified, or they were meant for me. So I think around 45, I found out that if I set my mind to it, I could do anything I want to do."

He is determined to get a Ph.D. before he dies.

"But I wish I had been more prepared for retirement," he said. "When you're not prepared for it, when you're young, you feel like you're never going to be sick. You're never going to be on disability. It's a lack of preparation, education. You're never invincible. You never know. So just be prepared."

---

At one time, especially in a manufacturing state like Wisconsin, millions of retirees could count on pensions from their employers, to be added to Social Security benefits and personal savings. But pensions have been dwindling for 40 years, long since surpassed by individual retirement accounts. Such accounts are voluntary, which is a problem, and not accessible to everyone, which is a bigger problem.

Just 40% of working Americans aged 55-64 participate in a job-related retirement plan, according to a Stanford University study. Since the pandemic struck, as many as half of those workplaces have at least temporarily stopped making employer contributions - including Amtrak, Marriott and major universities, Ghilarducci said. She expects to see more and more people tapping into their 401(k)s early, putting themselves on the path to downward mobility in retirement.

The National Institute on Retirement Security argues that retirement accounts in the best of times are half as "efficient" as pensions. The strength of a pension system is that pensions stop when the recipient dies. Thus those who die earlier help indirectly subsidize those who live longer.

With 401(k)s and other individual savings accounts, which collectively are more expensive to manage than a pension plan, each worker has to provide for an unknowable number of years in retirement.

"Systems that depend on people making hundreds of decisions and getting them all right - they're not going to succeed," said Dan Doonan, head of the institute.

Julie Wegener is a 74-year-old retired physician and former college music director. She and her 84-year-old husband have a one-bedroom apartment in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. She calls herself a social justice activist, a dedicated campaigner for single-payer health insurance.

Her first husband was an artist, and when he died of cancer he left no money behind. For years, she had a practice in Piermont, New York, where, she said, she was the go-to doctor for Medicaid patients. The payments she collected from Medicaid were so low that she never made much money: In New York in those years, before the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid fees were less than 60% of Medicare fees.

Eventually she gave up and followed her first love - music - and got a part-time job directing the music program at Dutchess Community College. She made about $40,000 a year. She and her current husband, a retired arborist, lived in New Paltz, New York. In 2013, they sold their house and bought the apartment in Manhattan, where they can live without owning a car. She retired the next year.

They pay $1,000 a month in condo fees and about the same amount for medical insurance and co-pays. "It's a crazy amount of money," she said, and it eats up a large part of their Social Security, even though she waited until she was 70 to begin taking hers. They never eat out, never go to a movie, never take a cab.

In retirement she has been giving private piano lessons, to students who range in age from 8 to 88, and she made about $32,000 last year.

"I really have to work for the rest of my life," Wegener said. "Because you're not allowed to jump off the George Washington Bridge legally."

As the coronavirus spread in New York, even just going to the laundry room in the apartment house began to seem too risky. As a doctor, she worried about bringing the virus into their home, about her husband coming down with covid-19.

On March 21 they decided to move in with her son and his family in Portland, Oregon. The next day, they left, with only carry-on luggage to cut down on waiting time in the airport.

They're still there, and she has no idea when they can return. Her son, who works for a company that makes environmentally friendly doors, works from home now and has had his hours cut back. She's giving piano lessons to her students in New York - on WhatsApp or FaceTime or Google Duo.

"I'm still working as much as possible, and still in the political struggle as much as possible," she said. "I feel sad and guilty that I'm not saving lives, but it would be a suicide pact if I were practicing medicine."

The disease, she said, has revealed an illness in American culture, in the disparities stemming from race and wealth, and in so doing highlighted the need for a single-payer system.

"We can't go to Albany in person. Or hold rallies," she said. "We're not on the streets, we're not passing out literature. But we're spreading the word as much as we can."

---

David Longabaugh, 62, retired in January from his job as a truck driver for a gravel firm in upstate Brooktondale, New York. He has about $10,000 in his 401(k). He has a $12,000 judgment against him for unpaid medical bills.

"I decided to retire now because my body's been beat up so bad after 40 years of driving," he said.

"The hardest part," said his wife Tammy, 57, who is unable to work full-time because of a back injury she sustained while working in a dry cleaner's, "has been when you're fighting the big medical bills, even though you have insurance - OK? - and it's hard to find money for anything else. And now that he's retired it's going to be even harder."

They pay $1,000 a month in rent. David Longabaugh said he plans to go back to driving part-time in the summer, assuming the pandemic has abated, so he can make some money and keep his medical insurance. Tammy cleans house for an elderly man in their neighborhood.

David Longabaugh has COPD, so with the coronavirus at large he has been sticking to the house. "We keep him away from everybody," Tammy said. She has been doing the grocery shopping for half a dozen of their older neighbors.

She believes she had covid-19 back in January. "It was nasty. I've never had anything like it before." She didn't seek treatment, because "me and hospitals just don't agree," but made an old-fashioned mustard plaster the way her grandmother taught her and wore it on her chest for two days. "I got through it OK," she said.

David plans to take Social Security this year, the earliest he can. He'll receive $1,136 a month. He counts himself as a conservative and thinks Congress should just get out of President Trump's way. Covid-19 has had a silver lining for him - under a provision of the Cares Act that some Republicans tried unsuccessfully to kill, he will receive an extra $600 a week in unemployment insurance through at least the end of July.

Unlike Gregory Bates, who lives with his mother, or Julie Wegener, who moved in with her son's family, the Longabaughs have been able to stay in their own home. Their two grown daughters live several hours away in Pennsylvania. But Tammy was denied when she tried to make a disability claim because of her back, and she's at least five years away from getting Social Security. David's desire to keep working part-time is tempered by the nature of his work.

The problem is that physical and cognitive decline, which inevitably come with age, tend to arrive earlier for people with fewer economic resources. They are also harder for blue-collar workers to compensate for, or disguise. Sticky notes as reminders, working from home a few days a week, software to make computer screens more readable - these are not options an aging truck driver can turn to.

Still, David and Tammy are remarkably good-humored about their lot in life, much as the Kochs are. What can you do but laugh, David seems to be saying, when events have conspired to reward you at the end of your long and diligent working career with poor health, no resources and a big tear in the social fabric?

Social Security isn't much, but he'll take it, even if he'd get more by waiting. "I'm going to get it now, because God only knows what's going to happen in the next few years," he said, and then started chortling. "Thank you, America." A sigh. "Well, I still love my country."
When Wyoming geologist Julia Lemaster was laid off in March after nearly a decade with a Casper-based consulting firm, she felt overwhelmed. The oil and gas sector was in shambles, the pandemic was spreading unabated, and she needed a job to support her family.

So Lemaster did what had to be done: She sprang into action, hunting for new work. The accomplished geoscientist updated her resume, attended several virtual job fairs and tapped into her network.

As it turns out, the recent crash in oil prices, which has nearly stalled all production across Wyoming, also left hundreds of geologists and engineers working in energy unemployed or furloughed.

Honestly, looking for a new job is just as much time if not more than working in a job, she said.

But her persistent search landed her in a group of fellow jobless energy scientists, called Members in Transition. The group sought to extend resources to colleagues itching to put their hard-earned skills to work. Its led by American Association of Petroleum Geologist members Gretchen Gillis and Susan Morrice and President Mike Party.

Though Lemaster knew she was not alone, she still felt as if the volume of available information made the job-searching process cumbersome and taxing. She wanted to create a one-stop shop where unemployed geologists and engineers could find for some support.

Determined to make the job search easier for her field, she launched a new website, called Petroleum Pivoters, with the dream of helping colleagues in a similar position to her navigate the job market. The site went live on Thursday and can be accessed at petroleumpivoters.wixsite.com/website-1.

What I hope is that (visitors) recognize that there are resources out there, and I hope they can really utilize the website to help tailor and focus down their own job search, or potentially look at what skills they have through a different lens, Lemaster said.

The platform includes hundreds of professional development resources  from links to job boards, webinars and sister organizations, to resume and cover letter tips.

I was able to tap into engineers and geologists from all over the U.S. to help build out content, she said.

The Rocky Mountain committee of the Members in Transition plans to host webinars the third Thursday of each month at noon. More information will be available on the wesbite, Petroleum Pivoters.

The Society of Petroleum Engineers Gulf Coast Section is also organizing a Member in Transition webinar on Friday.

Follow the latest on Wyomings energy industry at @camillereports

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
The U.K. and U.S. will launch talks on a free-trade agreement on Tuesday, Politico reports.

International Trade Secretary Liz Truss will hold an initial video call with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, with around 100 officials listening in from both sides.

Truss pledged to drive a "hard bargain" with Washington and insisted a trade deal was "essential' to ease the economic burden of the coronavirus.

The first round of talks is set to take two weeks, with further rounds roughly every six weeks. Britain hopes to win lower goods tariffs on its exports to the U.S. on things like cars and ceramics, as well as a package on services, among other things.

Ministers hope negotiations with Washington will pile pressure on the EU in the Brexit trade talks, where the two sides are at an impasse over key sticking points such as fisheries and level playing field rules to limit competition.

Truss said: As we kick off trade negotiations this week, we will drive a hard bargain that benefits every part of the U.K. and works for the small businesses who are suffering most in this difficult period.

Jeff Emerson, the spokesman for the U.S. trade representative, added: "I can confirm the talks start Tuesday by video-conference."

On the U.K. side, the talks will be led by negotiator Oliver Griffiths and overseen by Chief Trade Negotiation Adviser Crawford Falconer. The talks will be held remotely until travel becomes possible.
The full moon as seen from the Earth, with the Ocean of Storms (Oceanus Procellarum) border structures superimposed in red. Scientists now think this huge feature on the moon was formed by lunar lava early in the moon's formation, and not a cataclysmic impact. New research shows that there could could be active tectonic systems on the moon today.

The moon isn't "dead" after all. Newly discovered ridges on the moon's surface are leading scientists to think that the moon might have an active tectonic system.

Using data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), researchers have discovered a number of ridges with exposed bedrock, free of lunar regolith , or powdery lunar "soil," spread across the moon's nearside surface. These ridges, speckled with boulders, could be evidence that, not too long ago, tectonic activity broke apart the moon's surface.

While most of the moon's surface is covered in lunar regolith, there are a few, rare patches of this exposed bedrock. But, because regolith builds up quickly on the surface, there must be something creating these ridges with exposed bedrock on the moon, Peter Schultz, a professor in Brown University's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and co-author of a new study describing the findings, said in a statement .

Related: Moon dust could be a problem for future lunar explorers

Infrared (upper left) and other images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show spots on the moon with ridges and no regolith. These observations could be evidence that there is active tectonic activity on the moon today. (Image credit: NASA)

While ridges with exposed bedrock have been seen before, they could be explained by evidence showing that lava once flowed there, its weight and movement creating the ridges, Schultz added. But in this new study, ridges have been found that can't be explained by ancient volcanic activity and seem to be related to more recent tectonic activity. "The distribution that we found here begs for a different explanation," he said.

"There's this assumption that the moon is long dead, but we keep finding that that's not the case," Shultz said in the same statement. "From this paper, it appears that the moon may still be creaking and cracking  potentially in the present day  and we can see the evidence on these ridges."

To make these observations, the team  led by Adomas Valantinas, a graduate student at the University of Bern in Switzerland who conducted this research while a visiting student at Brown  used the LRO's Diviner instrument, which measures the temperature on the moon's surface. Diviner data allowed them to determine what types of rocks and what types of surfaces lay in specific areas because areas covered in lunar regolith tend to be colder than exposed areas of bedrock free of regolith.

Using these observations, the team was able to spot 500 patches of exposed bedrock on narrow ridges across the moon's surface near the lunar maria (large dark patches on the moon). Valantinas and Schultz mapped out all of these exposed ridges, and it turns out that they line up perfectly with ancient cracks in the moon's crust spotted by NASA's GRAIL mission in 2014. Magma once flowed through these cracks to the moon's surface.

"It's almost a one-to-one correlation," Schultz said. "That makes us think that what we're seeing is an ongoing process driven by things happening in the moon's interior."

Schultz and Valantinas suggest that what they've found is an Active Nearside Tectonic System, or ANTS for short. Within this system, they suggest that the ridges that sit above the ancient cracks found by GRAIL are still today moving upward, with their surface cracking and allowing regolith to fall into cracks leaving the bedrock exposed.

They think that ANTS may have begun billions of years ago when the moon experienced a significant impact, because regolith usually covers the surface quickly. But such activity could still be going on today, continuously pushing the ridges up, cracking them and leaving the bedrock exposed, the researchers said.

"Giant impacts have long-lasting effects. The moon has a long memory. What we're seeing on the surface today is testimony to its long memory and secrets it still holds," Schultz said.

The new study, which was published April 13 in the journal Geology, isn't the only evidence for recent tectonic activity on the moon. For example, seismometers installed on the lunar surface by Apollo astronauts in the late 1960s and early 1970s picked up numerous quakes, which scientists have traced to the moon's long-term cooling. This cooling causes shrinkage, which in turn causes the brittle lunar crust to crack and shake .
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 06:45:22|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BRUSSELS, May 5, 2020 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, attends the Coronavirus Global Response pledging event via video conferencing in Brussels, Belgium, May 4, 2020. (China Mission to the EU/Handout via Xinhua)

BRUSSELS, May 4 (Xinhua) -- China will take further steps, including expanding the special fund on COVID-19 cooperation as necessary and considering donating to the United Nations Global Humanitarian Response Plan, to strengthen global cooperation and defeat the pandemic at an early date, a Chinese envoy said at the Coronavirus Global Response pledging event Monday.

On behalf of the Chinese government, Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, said China will take an active part in the COVID-19 ACT Accelerator program launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other parties, and step up research cooperation with Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance) and other international agencies in terms of pharmaceuticals, vaccine and testing, with a view to jointly building ironclad defense against the virus.

Zhang said despite the daunting task of outbreak response at home, China is doing its best to help those countries in need.

The Chinese government has set up a special fund on COVID-19 cooperation worth 2 billion yuan (283 million U.S. dollars), and has provided much-needed supplies to over 150 countries and international organizations. Chinese local governments, charity organizations, NGOs and business communities have given aid overseas worth more than 2.5 billion yuan, he said.

According to Zhang, the Chinese government has invested over 1 billion yuan to scientific research on COVID-19, and the Chinese research institutes and companies have invested far more. China also supports other countries in getting commercial access to medical supplies in China. In the past two months, Chinese companies have supplied 24 billion face masks, 120 million protective suits, and 44,000 ventilators overseas.

Zhang noted that the WHO has played a central role in coordinating the global response to COVID-19, and China will as always support the organization. China has donated 20 million U.S. dollars to the WHO to support response to COVID-19 and recently announced another donation of 30 million dollars.

The envoy said as the first country to have reported the outbreak to the international community and to have made major progress in prevention and control, China is sharing experience and protocol guidance and diagnostics and treatment with the rest of the world without any reservation and has set up its online COVID-19 knowledge center that is open to all countries.

China has held over 120 video conferences with health experts from over 160 countries and international organizations, and has sent 19 medical teams to 17 countries, he said.

Zhang said developing countries should not become the weak link in the outbreak response. China has, in light of the evolving situation and the needs and requests of some countries, helped them shore up the public health system and strengthen their response capacity. Going forward, China will suspend debt payment due by 77 developing countries from May 1 to the end of this year, to help them ease economic pressure.

China calls on the international community to jointly support developing countries, and stands ready to step up trilateral and multi-party cooperation in this regard, he added.

The Coronavirus Global Response pledging event, hosted by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, registered 7.4 billion euros (8.07 billion U.S. dollars) in pledges from donors worldwide, including a pledge of 1.4 billion euros by the EU's executive arm.

The pledging event was co-convened by the EU, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (also holding the G20 presidency), Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Among the major countries, no representative from the U.S. spoke at the event.

It is a response to the call from the WHO and a group of health actors for global collaboration for the accelerated development, production, and equitable global access to essential health technologies dealing with the new coronavirus. Enditem
The UK government has pledged 330 million a year over the next five years to the global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) to help fund immunisation of 75 million children in the worlds poorest countries.



The funding makes the UK the largest supporter of GAVI, which vaccinates children against deadly diseases such as measles, polio and typhoid, saving millions of lives.



GAVI has so far helped vaccinate more than 760 million children, preventing more than 13 million deaths.



The UK government said that such a vaccination programme was supporting healthcare systems in developing countries so they could cope with rising coronavirus cases.



The International Development Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, told British MPs: The coronavirus pandemic shows us now more than ever the vital role vaccines play in protecting us all.



As coronavirus vaccine trials begin, we need to make sure any successful vaccine will be available to everyone.



GAVI will be integral to achieving this, so we can protect the UK and the NHS [National Health Service] from future waves of infection.



Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI, said an investment in the organisation was an investment in a safer, healthier world.



He said that apart from protecting hundreds of millions of children against disease, it will also help health systems to repair and rebuild after the enormous impact of COVID-19 has subsided.



This is our best shield against future pandemics which, as we have seen all too clearly in recent months, do not respect borders, Dr Berkley added.



He said the money would help GAVI to continue its work leading international efforts to ensure universal access to a COVID-19 vaccine, as well as to maintain the infrastructure needed to deploy it at scale around the world, which offers our best means of ending this crisis.



Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said: When the world beats the COVID-19 pandemic and life returns to normal, GAVI  and the UKs support of it  will be a major reason why.



He said that GAVIs work over the past 20 years had been incredibly effective, and with this new funding, theyll be able to continue their work when a COVID vaccine is ready.



Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chair of the GAVI Board, said the alliance was currently playing a vital role [in] keeping immunisation programmes going across the world, reducing the chances of there being further global disease outbreaks, as well as helping developing countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.



She added: As long as there are still pockets of this disease somewhere, everywhere is at risk.



The UK has been a long-standing donor to GAVI since its formation in 2000, and the funding announcement comes as the government prepares to hold a virtual Global Vaccine Summit on June 4 hosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.



It will bring countries together to help raise $7.4 billion for GAVIs work.

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.

Featured Video
A Loveland, Colorado man who claimed to be angry at the state's COVID-19 restrictions has been arrested after federal agents say they discovered pipe bombs in his home.

Bradley Bunn, 53, is identified as one of a group of people who were organizing an armed protest to demand the state lift anti-coronavirus measures that are intended to limit the pandemic's death toll.



Here is the Justice Department's Sunday statement announcing the arrest:

Northern Colorado Man Arrested For Possessing Pipe Bombs

Here's an excerpt:

During the search of Bunn's residence, FBI agents discovered four pipe bombs. Separately, the technicians found two one-pound containers of .308 caliber cartridge reloading gunpowder in Bunn's vehicle, which is a potential pipe bomb component. Bomb technicians transported the destructive devices to a range where they were successfully rendered safe. Bunn has been charged with the possession of destructive devices. If convicted he faces not more than 10 years in federal prison, and up to a $250,000 fine. A criminal complaint is a probable cause charging document. Anyone accused of committing a federal crime has a Constitutional right to be indicted by a grand jury.

And ABC News reports:

FBI and ATF agents served search warrants Friday morning at the Loveland, Colorado, home of Bradley Bunn, 53. Agents discovered four pipe bombs and potential pipe bomb components inside the house, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Attorney for Colorado Jason Dunn. It is not clear what, if anything, Bunn planned to do with the pipe bombs, the official said. Bunn came to the attention of law enforcement after using social media to encourage people to bring assault rifles to a planned May 1 rally at the Colorado capitol building, ABC News has learned. In the days leading up to the protest, investigators discovered social media posts described as angry and aggressive, the official said. Soon after, investigators received information that he was in possession of pipe bombs. Bunn was arrested before he could attend Friday's rally.

Read more:

Colorado man planning armed protest against state's coronavirus restrictions arrested for pipe bombs
Michigan hospitals are set to receive nearly $1.3 billion in federal funds for treating COVID-19 patients during the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says.

The grants include $900 million to 30 high-impact provider" hospitals that treated more than 100 COVID-19 patients as of April 10, the third largest allocation nationwide; $95 million to Wayne County for treatment of low-income patients; and $326 million to 259 healthcare providers in Michigans rural communities.

In total, the federal government plans to divvy up $24 billion dollars, including $12 billion to 395 hospitals nationally that treated more than 100 patients as of April 10, $2 billion to hospitals that treated low-income patients, and $10 billion to hospitals in rural communities.

These new payments are being distributed to healthcare providers who have been hardest hit by the virus ..." HHS Secretary Alex Azar said. HHS has put these funds out as quickly as possible, after gathering data to ensure that they are going to the providers who need them the most.

"With another $75 billion recently appropriated by Congress, the Trump Administration will continue doing everything we can to support Americas heroic healthcare providers on the frontlines of this war on the virus.

HHS declined to release a list of Michigan hospitals receiving the funds or the specific amounts but said a database that includes that information is being created.

Only New York, which received $5 billion, and New Jersey, which received $1.7 billion received more for high-impact hospitals.

As of Sunday, May 3, Michigan had 43,754 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,049 deaths, the third most in the nation.

The $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act includes a 20% increase in Medicare payments to hospitals that treat coronavirus patients and more for those who end up on ventilators. With the large pool of federal money awaiting recipients, some conspiracy theorists believe hospitals may be incentivized to inflate death and cases data.

While medical experts whove spoken to MLive agree the coronavirus death toll likely isnt entirely accurate, they disagree on whether its inflated or lower than the true number.

I think a lot of clinicians are putting that condition (COVID-19) on death certificates when it might not be accurate because they died with coronavirus and not of coronavirus, Macomb County Chief Medical Examiner Daniel Spitz said last month. Are they entirely accurate? No. Are people dying of it? Absolutely. Are people dying of other things and coronavirus is maybe getting credit? Yeah, probably.

Sorry, but your browser does not support frames.

Despite being bombarded with new coronavirus patients during the pandemic, health care providers have instituted layoffs and furloughs in order to offset lost revenues due to Gov. Gretchen Whitmers executive order closing medical centers and dental offices, while requiring hospitals to temporarily postpone non-essential procedures.

Terminating lucrative non-emergency services while prioritizing the treatment of COVID-19 patients left hospitals strained for cash.

Beaumont Health announced the layoffs of 2,475 workers -- 6.5% of its employees -- and said it would permanently eliminate 450 positions.

Henry Ford Health System reported a $43 million drop in operating income for March and a 50% decline in revenue from patient services for the last week in April as it announced furloughs for 2,800 Henry Ford employees, 9% of its workforce.

Trinity Health, a non-profit Catholic health system with hospitals in West Michigan and metro Detroit, announced layoffs for 2,800 staff -- around 10% of its Michigan workforce. President and CEO Rob Casalou said the health care system has experienced a 70% drop in patient activity, resulting in revenue declines of $50 million in March, $112 million in April, and estimated declines of $112 million in May.

Michigan hospitals reported steep losses in March and April; in some cases revenue dropped between 50% and 70%. The Michigan Health and Hospital Association estimated hospitals are losing more than $300 million a week while spending $100 million on supplies, protective equipment, staffing and other costs associated with a surge of COVID-19 patients.

The federal grant funds take into account that inpatient admissions are a primary driver of costs to hospitals related to COVID-19, HHS said.

Read more Michigan coronavirus coverage here

COVID-19 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

Monday, May 4: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Gretchen Whitmer is a national figure now. What you need to know about The woman in Michigan'

From closing restaurants to requiring masks, Gov. Whitmer has issued 69 executive orders in 56 days

Michigan districts are meeting students where they are as schools adapt to remote learning

Gov. Whitmer says protest 'depicted some of the worst racism and doesnt represent Michigan

SNL star blown away by Michigan care package from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
We simply have to trust the cooks, Szablowski writes, with the kind of analysis the book could use more of. Just as we would trust them if we met them and they cooked for us. We must allow them to tell their stories  and remember them just as they wish to be remembered.
One man was killed and two others were injured in a triple shooting Sunday night in Roxbury amid an uptick in gun violence during the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said.

Police responded to 52 Kensington Park shortly before 10:40 p.m. after hearing gunshots and receiving a report of a person shot, Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said during a late night press conference.

They located three adult males in an outdoor crime scene suffering from apparent gunshot wounds, Gross said. The three adult males were taken to area hospitals, where unfortunately, one of the males was pronounced [dead].

The man who died was not identified, and authorities did not specify the ages of any of the victims.

Gross thanked community members who called 911, which allowed police to respond to the shooting, arrive in such a timely manner and potentially save the other two victims lives, he said.

He also rebuked the violence during the COVID-19 outbreak, arguing that violent offenders should not be released from prison regardless of the health risks posed by staying incarcerated.

No suspects have been arrested in the shooting.

People who have been locked up for violent offenses and carrying a firearm should not be released on personals, and I could care less if they get sick in jail or not, Gross said. "They are a danger to the community, and theyre sending the wrong mentality.

Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins, who also spoke at Sunday nights press conference, noted there has been a rise in gun violence during the pandemic.

People need to be sheltering in place essentially, and they arent complying, she said. To what the commissioner said, people need to hear, if you have a legal firearm, if you are brandishing a firearm, you will be held accountable. You will be arrested, and you will be sent to jail.

Rollins added that criminals will be sent to correction facilities, where they will be at a higher risk of contracting the viral respiratory infection.

Nobody wants you harmed there, but you will not be able to remain outside in the community. We will hold you accountable and send you away, she said.

The incident remains under investigation. People with information about the shooting can call the Boston Police Department anonymously at 1 (800) 494-TIPS.
For six-and-half years, Colonel Ashutosh Sharma made 12 unsuccessful attempts to join the Army. It was in the 13th attempt, a number considered unlucky by many, that he fulfilled his dream of donning the olive green uniform.

Col Sharma, who was among five security forces personnel killed during an encounter with terrorists in north Kashmir late on Saturday night, is the second commanding officer of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles who lost his life in anti-terror operation.

The decorated army officer was part of a number of successful counter-terrorism operations in Kashmir.

Remembering Col Sharma, his elder brother Piush says that he always used to have his way, come what may. "It was like my way or the highway for him. His only dream was the Army and nothing else," says Piush, who works for a pharmaceutical company in Jaipur.

"He had waged a war to join the Army one way or the other, until he finally achieved success in his 13th attempt. From that day, there was no looking back for Ashu (Col Sharma)," Piush told PTI over the phone.

Col Sharma joined the Army in the early 2000s.

Putting up a brave face, Piush recalled a conversation that he had with his brother, three years younger to him, him on May 1.

"It was the Raising Day of the Rashtriya Rifles and he informed us about how they had celebrated it amid the COVID-19 pandemic. I used to caution him many a timeand he had a standard reply -- 'muje kuch nahi hoga, bhaiya' (nothing will happen to me, brother)...," he said, struggling to hold back his tears.

Col Sharma had sent some pictures and that is the last memory that the family hasof him, Piush said, adding, "Had I known that I am speaking to him for the last time, I would not have ended that call at all."



His friend Vijay Kumar, who is a Deputy Commandant in CISF, said, "I advised him to look for other paramilitary forces but it was all Greek to him. It has to be only Army and Army, and the army was his reply always."



"His mannerism was always at its best and I have never seen anyone raising any complaints against him when we used to live in Bulandshahr (Uttar Pradesh)," he said.

Holding on to Col Sharma's daughter Tamanna, who studies in class six, Piush said she could not yet understand how the realities have changed for her overnight.

"But, she is a brave child of a brave father and she will be fine," he said.

Remembering his nature of going out of the way for his jawans and solving all their problems, Piush said, "The only regret Ashu had was that he could not join the Special Forces.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi: As the noose around China is tightening in the wake of allegations that it hided information related to coronavirus leak from Wuhan's lab, the Communist nation has now stepped up efforts to garner support in its favour.

China's Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi recently called on Prime Minister of Nepal KP Sharma and met various leaders seeking the Himalayan nation's support against International efforts to politicise the issue of COVID-19 pandemic, as many countries including the United States are trying to hold it accountable for the deadly virus.

Chinese ambassador to Nepal Hou Yani has recently met Nepal's Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli at his residence in Baluwatar.

According to Kathmandu Post report, "Hou discussed three primary issues the ongoing internal crisis in the ruling party, Chinas assistance to Nepal to fight Covid-19, and Nepals support against the international politicisation of Covid-19 where a number of countries are trying to hold China accountable for the pandemic."

China has asked its embassies around the world to counter world narrative mainly of Western countries on allegations of a cover-up of the outbreak.

On Thursday, the Chinese embassy in France released a video on his official Twitter handle and mocked the United States America with a short animated video entitled "Once upon a Virus". The video describes that America didn't need a warning from the Chinese government that the virus was dangerous.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, said evidence showed that the new coronavirus originated from the lab of Wuhan.

US officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak and how contagious the disease is just to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, according to intelligence documents.

Chinese leaders intentionally concealed the severity of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security report on May 1, said The Associated Press citing the report.

The report also said that China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus was a contagion for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

Those conclusions are based on the 95 per cent probability that China's changes in imports and export behaviour were not within the normal range, said the report.

Chinese media stated that coronavirus spread to humans through animals but experts believe that it takes many years for the virus to spread from any animal to humans. The spread of dangerous disease virus-like SARS took more than ten years.

Larry Kleiman, Co-founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, has alleged that COVID-19 is a biological weapon made in Wuhan, China, and filed a $20 trillion lawsuit against the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan.
Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The escalating row between Washington and Beijing over blame for the coronavirus pandemic is fast becoming a battle over the Chinese Communist partys legitimacy, raising the stakes in an already fraught relationship.

In castigating Beijing for its failure to contain the outbreak, senior Trump administration officials have gone out of their way to portray the crisis as a deadly illustration of the threat that Communist party rule poses the Chinese people  and the world beyond.

Related: Mike Pompeo: 'enormous evidence' coronavirus came from Chinese lab

In a speech delivered on Monday morning in fluent Mandarin, the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Pottinger, warned Beijing that its efforts to suppress internal criticism were doomed to backfire.

When small acts of bravery are stamped out by governments, big acts of bravery follow, Pottinger said in the remarks delivered by video to a University of Virginia webinar, to commemorate Chinas May the Fourth movement, a student-led populist uprising in the wake of the first world war.

Pottinger asked whether China today would benefit from a little less nationalism and a little more populism.

Democratic populism is less about left versus right than top versus bottom. Its about reminding a few that they need the consent of many to govern. When a privileged few grow too remote and self-interested, populism is what pulls them back or pitches them overboard, he added.

To me its the most remarkable speech weve ever seen from anyone in the Trump administration, said Bonnie Glaser, director of the China power project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

If youre a member of the Chinese Communist party, you might read [the invocation of the May the Fourth movement] as encouraging people to challenge some of the existing parts of your political system. It didnt quite say overthrow your leaders, but it certainly encouraged the rise of the masses, shall we say.

Story continues

There are signs that Beijings rulers see in the pandemic, and the US-led response to it, a direct challenge to the partys hold on power. An internal report produced by the ministry of state security, cited by Reuters on Monday, warned that China should be prepared for a worst-case scenario of armed confrontation.

There are two potential flashpoints where the two nuclear powers face off. One is in the South China Sea, where the US navy conducts freedom of navigation patrols  most recently with a destroyer last week  to challenge Chinas territorial claims to the chains of islands and reefs.

At the height of the pandemic, China has also become far more aggressive in testing the air and sea defences of Taiwan. The US maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity over whether it would come to Taiwans defence, but the Trump administration is under internal and external pressure to toughen that stance.

Both Washington and Beijing have been careful not to push military brinksmanship too far, and Donald Trumps own affinity and admiration for Xi Jinping has been a counterweight to China hawks in his administration, like Pottinger (a former Beijing-based journalist who reportedly led a push for US officials to insist on the term Wuhan virus) and the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

But as Trump approaches Novembers election with his own delayed and chaotic response to the pandemic under scrutiny, that moderating influence looks likely to wane.

Pompeo has so far led the charge against China, issuing an inflammatory tweet on Sunday, declaring: China has a history of infecting the world and they have a history of running substandard laboratories.

Pompeo claimed there was enormous evidence that the Sars-CoV-2 virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory. The evidence has not been presented, and most experts say the disease most likely evolved from interaction between animals and humans.

There is little doubt that the suppression by party authorities of early warnings from Wuhan about the danger and the delay in Beijings response meant an opportunity to contain the outbreak was lost. Chinas refusal to share samples and to cooperate with World Health Organization investigators has contributed to international distrust.

Related: US intelligence agencies under pressure to link coronavirus to Chinese labs

A US department of homeland security intelligence assessment, quoted by the Associated Press, alleged that the Chinese government had played down the danger of the virus so that it could build up its own stockpile of medical supplies. Beijing has denied withholding any information, but such reports are likely to fuel the anti-China backlash around the world.

The Trump administrations campaign against China in the coming months will be both economic and diplomatic. The president has said he is contemplating punitive measures, reportedly exploring whether the US might sue China or cancel some of its debt to China as reparations.

US officials are meanwhile developing a plan to switch production and supply chains used by US companies out of China, providing incentives to move to friendly nations, in an economic prosperity network, which ironically resembles the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Trump withdrew the US from in the first months of his presidency.

On the diplomatic front, as well as focusing global attention on Chinese culpability, the US is pushing to upgrade Taiwans status on the world stage, beginning with a campaign to have the Taipei government invited to the World Health Assembly (the governing body of the WHO) later this month. That is anathema to Beijing, which depicts Taiwan as a renegade province.

Theres more of a worry at the top in Beijing that what the party has been paranoid about for a really long time is now coming to pass, which is that the US and other nations dont want the party to rule China, said Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at the Asia Societys Center on US-China Relations.

Stone Fish said that the cold war-era policy of pushing for a peaceful evolution away from Communist party rule was now coming back into fashion.

There is a growing awareness in DC that the Chinese Communist party doesnt serve Americas interest, that it doesnt serve the interests of many people in China, and theres growing debate about what the US should do about that, he said.

Much will depend now on how seriously Xi takes that challenge and how he responds. Glaser said there has been evidence that Beijing is seeking to tamp down militaristic nationalism focused on the reconquest of Taiwan. But Fish argues that calculus could change as the pressure increases.

If Xi Jinping or other members of the party feel like theyre facing existential threat in terms of legitimacy domestically, going to war with Taiwan could be a very sound strategy for them, in ways that would have a lot of awful impacts globally.
Nearly two decades after conflict in Sudans Darfur region triggered armed attacks against civilians, serious human rights abuses and widespread displacement, about 1.6 million people are unable to return home as these areas remain insecure.

Bandit attacks and inter-ethnic violence make it too dangerous for many people to risk returning to restart their lives. People like Ahmed Ishag Babiker. It has been 17 years since armed men arrived in his village in north Darfur.

We were seated under a tree when suddenly we heard gunshots. Lorries with armed men were approaching. I ran towards the house to look for my children, recounted the 54-year-old father of six.

Ahmeds wife was tending the family farm. His eldest son was herding the familys flock of sheep and goats.

I took my other children and ran to the mountains where we hid for several days, he said. He found his wife and son three days later.

Armed men came from everywhere  from the desert, the valleys and the mountains.

Like Ahmed, Zahra Abdulrahman was forced to flee after armed men attacked her village at the foot of the Jebel Si mountains, 35 kilometers east of Kabkabiya.

Armed men came from everywhere  from the desert, the valleys and the mountains, she said. I saw people getting killed so I ran.

Ahmed recalled that the armed men ransacked and looted everything in the once peaceful village of Wadi Bare, some two hours drive from Kabkabiya town. He lost everything.

The attacks went on for days. His family came out only at night to look for food and water.

We couldnt leave the village because it was locked down by the armed men. If you tried to escape, they would shoot, he said. The village was blockaded for nearly a year.

Ahmed eventually gathered enough courage and approached some men at a security checkpoint.

I made up a story and told them I was unwell. They allowed me to leave for Kabkabiya to seek medical attention, he said. I left with nothing.

Ahmed Ishag Babiker, 54, sits in his compound in Kabkabiya town in North Darfur, Sudan, with his children. He and his family were displaced when armed militias attacked his village in Wadi Bare in 2004.  UNHCR/Will Swanson

Ahmed Ishag Babiker, 54, piles up firewood in his compound in Kabkabiya in North Darfur, Sudan. He and his family were displaced when armed militias attacked his village in Wadi Bare in 2004.  UNHCR/Will Swanson

A young Sudanese boy sits in the shade of a disused school building in the village of Dady near Kabkabiya in North Darfur, Sudan.  UNHCR/Will Swanson

A convoy of UNHCR vehicles travels through the Jebel Mara mountain range on its way to Kabkabiya, North Darfur. The mountainous region saw extreme violence and displacement in the mid-2000s.  UNHCR/Will Swanson

Zahra Abdurahman Musa Omer, 55, sits in her compound in Abu Shouk camp near El Fasher town in North Darfur, Sudan. She was displaced by conflict in Darfur in 2004.  UNHCR/Will Swanson

He found work and after some months, his family finally joined him in the town, where thousands of others had also fled. Later, he moved to Sudans capital, Khartoum, where he worked for a year.

But he moved back to Kabkabiya when the local authorities there started allocating plots of land to internally displaced people, or IDPs, allowing them to build houses.

Over 50,000 other displaced Sudanese have arrived in the town over the years, most recently in 2016. Ahmed worries constantly about his children as he struggles to make ends meet.

While peace has slowly returned to Darfur since 2003, the situation remains fragile in some parts of the region. Numerous abandoned villages dot the empty landscape surrounding Kabkabiya and other places in North Darfur.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and partner agencies are providing humanitarian assistance, including schools.

Many of the youth are not educated, particularly those who grew up during the conflict. They need skills to be able to contribute to the economy, explains Fortunata Ngonyani, UNHCRs Senior Protection Officer in El Fasher.

According to a report published this week by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), the number of people fleeing conflict or violence but remaining within their own countries reached an all-time high of 45.7 million in 2019.

UNHCR recently launched the IDP initiative to step up the response to internal displacement situations through the course of this year and 2021. It focuses on nine countries: Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Colombia.

The initiative aims to generate greater visibility to the impact of internal displacement on those affected, secure more resources for IDP responses and strengthen UNHCRs support to operations in these nine countries.

See also: Conflicts push internal displacement to record high

As humanitarian agencies, we are trying together with the government, to assist the displaced but so far, the situation is still dire. People need a lot of support so that they can move forward, adds UNHCR's Ngonyani.

Zahra recounted how she had fled on foot with her family to Korma, a small desert town, north-east of Kabkabiya. After nearly three months, she was relocated to Abu Shouk IDP camp  one of the biggest IDP camps in North Darfur, with over 90,000 inhabitants.

I swear if there is peace, I can go back right now.

But some 15 years later she is still there, struggling to care for her family.

We still need help. We need jobs. I have no goats, no farm, nothing, she said.

Ahmed too misses his life as a farmer.

I always remember my land because it was ever green. Apart from sugar and salt, everything else came from my farm, he said sadly. I swear if there is peace, I can go back right now. We will go back so that we can live the way we used to and develop our place.
Doctors have reminded people to be careful during the weekly clap for carers to avoid injuries.

There have been interesting little peaks in accident rates after Thursdays national clapping event for key workers during the coronavirus outbreak, according to Dr John Wright from Bradford Royal Infirmary.

People might need to be a bit more cautious, especially if theyve been sitting down all day and then get up to clap, he wrote in the BBC.

It might be one of the only times older people come outside and so there is a risk of falling.

He said people should remember to take care during the deeply moving tribute for key workers amid the pandemic.

Richard Pilling, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Harrogate District Hospital, said people could get injured if they started getting competitive about the applause.

The clap for carers has made us a little busier, he said, according to the BBC.

Its very nice that everyone is very enthusiastic about showing support but its escalated, so people are coming out banging pans and seeing who can clap the loudest, and therein accidents lie.

People have been celebrating NHS staff and other key workers facing the coronavirus outbreak on the frontline by clapping at 8pm every Thursday.

On top of the national applause, some members of the public have played instruments and set off fireworks to show their appreciation.

The UK has been in lockdown since March as it tackles the Covid-19 outbreak, with people ordered to stay at home unless it is necessary and all non-essential businesses closed.

More than 186,500 people have tested positive for coronavirus  a disease which can give carriers flu-like symptoms and develop into pneumonia  in the UK as of Monday.

Meanwhile, around 28,400 Covid-19 patients have died, according to health ministry figures.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he now believes as many as 100,000 Americans could die in the coronavirus pandemic, after the death toll passed his earlier estimates, but said he was confident a vaccine would be developed by the years end.

Trump alternated during a two-hour virtual town hall broadcast by FOX News between forecasting a rapid recovery for the U.S. economy and casting blame for the pandemics spread on China, where the disease is believed to have originated.

The COVID-19 illness, caused by the new coronavirus, has sickened more than 1.1 million in the United States and killed more than 67,000 Americans, shut wide swaths of society, including most schools and many businesses. tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T

Were going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. Thats a horrible thing, said Trump, who as recently on Friday had said he hoped fewer than 100,000 Americans would die and earlier in the week had talked about 60,000 to 70,000 deaths.

About half the states have now moved toward at least partial lifting of shutdowns as the number of new cases of the COVID-19 illness has begun to drop or level off and as citizens agitate for relief from restrictions that have sent the economy into a tailspin.

We cant stay closed as a country (or) were not gonna have a country left, Trump said.

Trump has criticized FOX recently, casting the conservative-leaning network as insufficiently supportive. He faced few tough questions in the event, which gave him a new format to reach the public while he is unable to hold campaign rallies and after he faced widespread criticism for his combative daily briefings.

In an assessment that clashes with those of some public health experts, Trump said he believed that by the end of the year there would be a vaccine against COVID-19.

I think were going to have a vaccine by the end of the year. The doctors would say, well you shouldnt say that, Trump said. Ill say what I think ... I think well have a vaccine sooner than later.

Many health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, have cautioned that a vaccine is likely a year to 18 months away.

There is an incredibly small chance of having a highly effective vaccine or treatment for the coronavirus within the next year, Englands Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on April 22.

Trump also said he wanted students to return to schools and colleges in the autumn, even as he acknowledged the possibility of a resurgence of the disease.

Well put out the embers, well put out whatever it may be. We may have to put out a fire, he said.
Boris Johnson is likely to need extra time to set out a blueprint for easing the lockdown, No 10 says, hinting the public should not expect an update this week.

The government is required by law to review the restrictions by Thursday, when it was expected to confirm they will remain in place or tweak the rules slightly, depending on scientific advice on the coronavirus.

But the prime ministers spokesman appeared to confirm he will make a major speech on Sunday  and that no announcement on extending the lockdown would be made before then.

We are at a critical moment in the fight against this virus and it is going to be crucial that we get the advice to the public right, he said.

If it means taking some extra time to do that, then thats what we will do.

The spokesman said ministers were only required to carry out the review by 7 May  not make the decision public by that date  adding: We might not announce anything on Thursday.

Any period of silence will leave Mr Johnson at risk of being usurped by Nicola Sturgeon, who has regularly spoken out ahead of Downing Street as the crisis has unfolded.

The Scottish first minister hinted she expected to make an announcement on Thursday, while saying she did not expect to announce any meaningful changes at this point.

No 10 has faced growing criticism that it has failed to come clean with the public on the options for relaxing restrictions, whether in schools, workplaces or in other public places.

Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Show all 18 1 /18 Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, wearing PPE before going into rooms Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, speaks to a carer at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Carers working at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care worker wearing PPE opens a drink carton Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, sits with a carer Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care staff member wearing PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home looks after a resident SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE uses a speaker Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer helps Jack Dodsley, 79, from his chair Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE helps Jack Dodsley, 79 Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer brings food to a resident at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member puts on PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, puts on PPE before she enters a room SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A bench at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS

Most other European countries have set out detailed timetables  but Mr Johnsons promised roadmap is likely to merely outline alternatives, without any possible dates attached.

It has been clear for two weeks that the main features of the lockdown  strict social distancing, not mixing with households and only leaving the house for legitimate reasons  will remain after Thursday.

Ministers are awaiting evidence that there is no risk of a second spike of infections, and have yet to start the contact tracing vital to isolate new cases.

Despite No 10 trying to keep a lid on its options, a leak has already revealed that businesses will be allowed to relax the two-metre rule if other safeguards are in place, once the go-ahead is given.

One of seven draft plans urges employers to reduce hot-desking, close canteens and cut staff numbers by staggering shift times while maximising home-working.

Similarly, it is widely expected that pupils in the top year of primary schools will go back first, possibly on 1 June.

The prime ministers spokesman again underlined the cautious approach, warning that lifting the lockdown too soon would be the worst thing that could be done.

The British public have sacrificed an enormous amount to fight this virus, to protect the NHS and to save lives, he said.

We are at a critical point and the worst thing that we could do is lift the measures too soon and risk a second peak which overwhelms the NHS.
Australians who don't have the COVIDSafe tracking app may be forced to hand over their personal details to cafes and restaurants under proposed guidelines.

Re-opening guidelines for the hospitality industry in Queensland were submitted last week by Restaurant and Catering Australia CEO Wes Lambert.

Mr Lambert, who is hopeful eateries can reopen in June, put forward a range of new rules designed to ensure venues comply with safety protocols amid the global pandemic.

Among the suggestions was a 'sign in' order for customers who do not have the government's coronavirus tracking app.

The COVIDSafe app aims to slow the spread of COVID-19 by using Bluetooth connections to trace who infected people came into close contact with.

Re-opening guidelines for the hospitality industry in Queensland were submitted last week by Restaurant and Catering Australia CEO Wes Lambert. Pictured: an empty restaurant in Brisbane amid COVID-19 pandemic

The proposed rules would require patrons to sign in to a restaurant with their name and phone number so they could be contracted if another customer tested positive to the virus, The Australian reported.

'It's not a complicated thing. It's an "I don't have the COVIDSafe app, I'll give you my details quickly so I can sit down for an hour". We fully advocate the tracking app, in the absence of that the best practice is tracking or tracing,' Mr Lambert said.

PROPOSED GUIDELINES FOR CAFES AND RESTAURANTS  1.5m between tables.  All patrons must have the COVIDSafe app. If not, they would have sign in with their name and phone number in case someone near them contracts the virus.  Social distancing in waiting areas.  Removing the limit on tap and go payments, having wipes available for patrons to wipe down the cash register keypad before use.  No condiments on tables.  Disposable or chalkboard menus, or laminated if they can be cleaned.  Commercial dishwashers that can sanitise cutlery and crockery to 80C, or recyclable cutlery and crockery.  Hand sanitisers throughout the venue.  Staff practising WHO and state/federal health guidelines, including wiping down tables and chairs between each patron, no bar service. Source: The Australian Advertisement

He also suggested a range of 'practical, low-cost' measures, disposable menus, condiment-free tables, bottles of hand sanitisers and enforced social distancing in waiting areas.

A distance of 1.5m between tables was also suggested - allowing venues to operate at bout 50 or 60 per cent capacity.

It is a step down from the government's suggestion of 4sq/m between tables, which would only allow eateries to function at 25 per cent capacity.

'At 25 per cent capacity they just cant open or cant make money or trade effectively,' he said.

It is understood that restaurants and cafes will not be allowed to operate at 100 per cent capacity until there is a vaccine.

Restaurants, pubs and cafes have been closed or restricted to takeaway services since March when the nation went into lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Four million Australians have downloaded COVIDSafe since its launch last Sunday night, well short of the 40 per cent the government said it needed.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison appealed to the public last week telling Australians that they should download the app if they want to go back to the pub.

The National Cabinet is scheduled to meet on Tuesday and Friday with the aim of making an announcement on May 8 about lifting baseline restrictions.

All restrictions will be reviewed, from pub visits to shopping centre operations.

COVIDSafe only works on smartphones and can be downloaded from the Apple or Google app stores

COVIDSafe only works on smartphones and can be downloaded from the Apple or Google app stores. The use of the app is currently voluntary, but has been met with resistance from some critics due to privacy concerns.

The app uses Bluetooth signal strength of other COVIDSafe users you come into contact with which logged every two hours in the National COVIDSafe data store.

No location data will be collected at any time and contact data stored on a device will be deleted after 21 days.

Mr Morrison said he was eager to get Australians back to work as the number of new coronavirus cases remains consistently below 20 every day.


WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court convened by telephone Monday for the world to hear, a step into the 21st century prompted by the pandemic.

For the first time in its 230-year history, the high court offered a live audio stream of an oral argument, going far beyond its usual protocol and giving advocates of greater transparency hope it will become a trend.

More: Supreme Court makes historic change to hear oral arguments over the phone and stream them live

To begin two weeks of telephonic oral arguments necessitated by the court's inability to pack its marble courtroom during the novel coronavirus pandemic, the justices selected a rather mundane and technical case: Can the hotel reservation website Booking.com trademark its name?

Within minutes, it became clear this would not be a typical debate for the high court: Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who almost never asks questions in open court, had queries for both sides.

These are the most important decisions before the Supreme Court this year.

It also wasn't the usual case because the lawyers for both sides were women, who make up only a small percentage of the court's advocates. Veteran appellate attorney Lisa Blatt, who has argued more cases there (39) than any other woman, opposed Assistant Solicitor General Erica Ross. This time, Blatt was in her dining room and Ross in her government office.

For decades, the court ignored most of the technological and transparency advancements adopted by other branches of government. Even as lower federal and state courts began livestreaming and broadcasting sessions for public consumption, the highest court in the land remained cloistered.

Not only was live audio shunned  it was big news in legal circles a decade ago when the justices agreed to release recordings of their oral arguments once a week, rather than once a year.

The coronavirus pandemic has imposed social distancing imperatives on a court whose average age is 67, putting most justices in the risk category for COVID-19. It last heard oral argument inside the courtroom on March 4.

Story continues

Two months of scheduled oral arguments were postponed, and the court scheduled half of them for the next two weeks. The rest were pushed to the court's next term, beginning in October.

The Supreme Court's first telephonic oral argument, broadcast live, featured questions from Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who almost never opens up in open court.

It turned out that putting nine justices and two attorneys on a live broadcast was no big deal. Supreme Court Marshal Pamela Talkin's traditional cry of "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" at 10:01 a.m. started things off. Chief Justice John Roberts called on Ross to begin, then kept a tight hold on the clock, cutting off justices and lawyers to assure the argument didn't run overly long. (It lasted 17 minutes beyond the usual hour.)

Remind me why they havent been doing this all along? asked Gabe Roth, executive director of the advocacy group Fix the Court.

The days of restricting the court's proceedings to VIPs, the press and a few dozen members of the public are over, Roth said in a statement released shortly after the hearing. Now that we know with certainty that live audio does not impair its functioning, theres no reason for the court to return to its outmoded policy of weeks-end audio releases once we're past the pandemic.

There were very few technical glitches  no dropped calls, no muted lines. Associate Justice Stephen Breyer's voice was too muffled. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor didn't pick up on Roberts' invitation to begin her questioning, coming in only at the second invitation with "I'm sorry, Chief."

It was a good test run for the court, which will hear nine more cases by phone over the next nine days. By far the most controversial will be two cases May 12, when President Donald Trump's lawyers will seek to keep his tax returns and financial records from congressional investigators and New York prosecutors.

Wednesday, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco and a highly renowned predecessor, Paul Clement, who has argued 101 Supreme Court cases, will be on the phone to argue that the Affordable Care Act cannot force religious objectors to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives.

Other important cases to be argued by phone include:

 Whether the largely unknown men and women appointed to cast their states' official electoral votes for president a month after the November election should be required to stick with the winner of the popular vote, rather than going rogue as "faithless electors."

 Whether religious schools can fire teachers without regard to employment discrimination laws because they have "ministerial exceptions."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court hears first oral argument by phone, with live audio
Plane carrying 56 tons of sanitary material from China arrives in Madrid

Global Times

Source:Xinhua Published: 2020/5/3 20:32:47

A Boeing 777 plane carrying 56 tons of sanitary material from China for Community of Madrid, one of the 17 autonomous communities of Spain, landed at Madrid-Barajas Airport late on Saturday night, the regional government has informed.

Among the equipment on the aircraft, which came from Shanghai, were 315 multi-parameter monitors, which are used in intensive care units.

The material was shipped to Pavilion 10 at the IFEMA exhibition center in Madrid, which is being used as a warehouse for sanitary equipment during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, and will subsequently be distributed among the region's hospitals.

Saturday's arrival was the sixth shipment of sanitary material which has arrived in Madrid from China since April 2, bringing a total of 18 million items, such as facemasks, protective gowns and shoe coverings.

Apart from the monitors, Saturday's arrival contained 1.5 million face masks (including 560,000 FFP2 masks), 560,000 gloves and 158,000 protective gowns.

Madrid is the worst-hit region of Spain by the pandemic with over 62,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 8,332 deaths.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






AUSTRALIA PLAYED BIG PART IN DEFEAT OF NAZISM

Australians will ever be proud that our famous Ninth Division played a major part in Field-Marshal Montgomerys first step on the march which ended on the River Elbe, Germany, with the capitulation of 2,500,000 fascist troops.

On July 10, 1942, the Ninth Division of the AIF joined in attack at El Alamein (Egypt) with Montys Eighth Army.

It was the turning point of the war in Africa, just as Stalingrad was for eastern front.

Montys Eighth went on to drive Rommel out of Africa and followed his troops into Italy.

Monty transferred to the Command of the British forces which opened the Second Front just two years after Alamein.

In that memorable battle the Ninth division faced the main mass of Rommels Panzer Corps.

The British official report on the battle stated: The Ninth Australian division put up a magnificent effort. They fought themselves and the enemy to a standstill, till flesh, and blood could stand no more. Then they went on fighting.

At the parade of the Division at Gaza on December 22, 1942, General Alexander said:

The battle of El Alamein will make history and you are in the proud position of having taken a major part in that great victory.

Your reputation as fighters has always been famous, but I do not believe that you have ever fought with greater bravery or distinction than you did during that battle, when you broke the German and Italian Armies in the Western Desert.

In February the Ninth Division returned to Australia, to carry on the same fight but in a different sector of the war  a fight that still goes on today as our men face the enemy in Borneo, New Guinea and Bougainville.

BARDIA VICTORY

But the Ninth Divvy boys were not the only Australians to take part in the fighting against the Germans and Italian fascists.

When the Second AIF first went into action at Bardia a few days before Christmas, 1940, the Diggers marched into battle gladly, knowing that they were fighting fascism.

Advance guards of the Sixth Division had been in the Middle East since January, 1940, but Bardia was the first action, with Sixth Division units fighting alongside British Tommies.

Bardia, considered impregnable by Mussolini and his generals, fell in a few days. The Diggers had gloriously raised once more the flag that had won the admiration of the world on the rugged slopes of Gallipoli.

THE RATS OF TOBRUK

From Bardia the Australians and Tommies moved on to Tobruk, which fell in a few days. The 16th brigade stayed in Tobruk, with some seventh Division engineers. The advance across the desert continued for miles. The Ninth Division now fed the Sixth in Cyrenaica, the Sixth going to Greece.

Short of vehicles and weapons, the ninth were forced back, and then came epic siege of Tobruk. When the Italians failed to break through our defences, the Germans tried with tanks, flame-throwers, machine-guns,

But the Diggers, contemptuously referred to as Rats of Tobruk by Lord Haw-Haw, changed the name into a title of glory.

GREECE AND CRETE

Sixth Division landed in Greece in beginning of April, 1941. The Germans invaded Greece on April 6, with overwhelming ground and air superiority.

The Australians, fighting without sufficient equipment or reserves, under fire of their flanks, ceaselessly strafed from the air, were forced to withdraw and finally evacuate [from] April 24.

Many men had been killed, wounded, and left behind, and much equipment lost.

From Greece the Australians went to Crete, again to find themselves short of equipment. The Germans attacked with dive-bombers, paratroops, [among others].

Although short of food and water, Australians and New Zealanders (including Maoris) fought a successful counter-attack near Canea.

But it was a hopeless a fight, without proper ammunition, equipment, food, water, rest. It was not possible to evacuate all our men.

In Greece and Crete, our men had won glory in defeat.

The Axis had many advantages in Syria, where Vinchy leaders had taken control of all key positions, with [...] German technicians who were infiltrating into the country.

The Seventh Division, however, carried through its campaign successfully in five weeks, marching alongside Indians, British and Fighting French of [Brigadier general] Gaulle, and suffering 1600 casualties.

The came the story of El Alamein.

RAAF MEN FAMOUS

An outstanding feature of the war has been the magnificent contribution of Australian airmen to the European battles as well as to the conflicts nearer home. Our RAAF men have become famous and popular in every corner of the world.

Although increasing numbers of RAAF personnel are returning to Australia to take part in the mounting offensive against Japan, there are still [thousands of] RAAF air crew in the British theatre.

Of these, nearly 2000 are in Australian squadrons. Since their formation, RAAF squadrons in the United Kingdom have flown [countless] miles, and dropped 52,000 on Nazi-occupied territories.

Enemy trains, transformed stations, motor transports, and tanks have been destroyed by Australian Spitfires and Mosquito squadrons over France and Germany.

The first air squadron from a British Dominion to go into action against the Axis came from Australia. It was the now famous No. 10 Squadron of the RAAF.

Of three RAAF Spitfire squadrons in the United Kingdom, the best known was at one time led by the late Wing-Commander Paddy Finucane. The late Squadron-Leader Bluey Truscott was another member of this squadron, which shot down sixty-two enemy aircraft in eight months, and was the top-scoring squadron in Fighter Command for three months.

Development of the RAAF to forty times its pre-war strength has cost the Commonwealth Government over 350,000,000.

Apart from operations over Europe and the Middle East, the RAAF has played an important part in the war against Japan both in the Pacific and in India and Burma. And it will continue to do so.

NAVY IN ALL SEAS

When Australia entered the war in September, 1939, she had fifteen commissioned ships in her Navy. Today, the fighting tonnage of the RAN is more than 600 per cent greater, and her naval exploits have contributed to victory in all war theatres.

In the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Australian naval men have helped to man almost every type of ship in the British Navy. Over 200 of them took part in the invasion of Europe.

For 12 months HMAS Sydney fought up and down the Mediterranean, among her victims being the crack Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni.

At Tobruk, during the world-famous siege, five Australian destroyers and one sloop played a vital part in maintaining the famous Tobruk ferry service, one destroyer and the sloop being lost.

This article appeared in Tribune May, 1945.
(Boston)--Researchers have published a new study that suggests a signaling pathway called ROBO2 is a therapeutic target for kidney diseases, specifically kidney podocyte injury and glomerular diseases.

Kidney podocytes are special octopus-like cells that are critical in maintaining the kidney glomerular filtering system and normal kidney function. This is the first time the ROBO2 pathway has been linked to glomerular diseases such as membranous nephropathy (affecting the filters) and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (scarring in the kidney).

Chronic kidney disease affects an estimated 37 million people in the United States and more than 850 million people worldwide, and causes substantial morbidity and mortality worldwide. A significant proportion of patients with chronic kidney disease eventually will develop kidney failure and need dialysis or kidney transplantation to prolong their life.

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) analyzed two induced kidney podocyte injury experimental models and found that those models without the ROBO2 gene were protected from kidney injury, while those with the ROBO2 gene developed severe kidney damage after kidney injury. Using cell culture analysis, they also found that higher ROBO2 protein levels resulted in reduced podocyte adhesion.

"As ROBO2 podocyte expression is well conserved among different mammalian species, our research suggests that ROBO2 is a novel drug target for glomerular diseases such as membranous nephropathy and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, which is one of the most common causes of kidney failure in patients with no cure or treatment currently available," said corresponding author, Weining Lu, MD, associate professor of medicine and pathology & laboratory medicine at BUSM.

In collaboration with Pfizer, Lu's research has led to a compound targeting the ROBO2 pathway, which is currently being tested in phase 2 clinical trials for chronic kidney disease. "The study may ultimately lead to new treatment for patients so they can live to normal life expectancy on their own kidney and avoid dialysis or kidney transplantation."

###

These findings appear online in the American Journal of Pathology.

Funding for this study was provided in part by a National Institute of Health grant R01DK078226 (WL), R01DK090029 (DJS), research funding from Pfizer's Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (WL), and a cooperative matching grant from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (WL).

Note to Editors: Dr. Lu's work has been partially funded by Pfizer's Centers for Therapeutic Innovation. He and other authors from Boston University School of Medicine receive no other compensations or owns stock in the company. KC, CTB, DHS, SRA, HY, SPB are Pfizer employees and receive compensation from the company.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 4, 2020) - Aurania Resources Ltd. (TSXV: ARU) (OTCQB: AUIAF) (FSE: 20Q) ("Aurania" or the "Company") announces that Dr. Richard Spencer, President, will present live at VirtualInvestorConferences.com on May 7th, 2020. Aurania invites individual and institutional investors, shareholders, as well as advisors and analysts, to attend real-time, interactive presentations on VirtualInvestorConferences.com

Aurania's Virtual Presentation Details

DATE: Thursday, May 7th

TIME: 2:00pm ET

LINK: https://tinyurl.com/MayResourceVIC-PR

This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the Company questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.

It is recommended that investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates.

Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com.

About Aurania

Aurania is a mineral exploration company engaged in the identification, evaluation, acquisition and exploration of mineral property interests, with a focus on precious metals and copper. Its flagship asset, The Lost Cities - Cutucu Project, is located in the Jurassic Metallogenic Belt in the eastern foothills of the Andes mountain range of southeastern Ecuador.

Aurania's exploration is focused on gold, silver and copper in an area of Ecuador that has not been systematically explored since colonial Spanish times. Drawn to the area in search of the gold mines at Sevilla de Oro and Logrono de los Caballeros (the 'lost cities'), which produced gold from around 1565 to 1600, Aurania is exploring a large, 500,000-acre tract of land using modern techniques. Aurania has identified numerous targets for gold, silver and copper, and is directing its efforts on making a gold, silver or copper discovery in those areas.

Information on Aurania and technical reports are available at www.aurania.com and www.sedar.com, as well as on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/auranialtd/, Twitter at https://twitter.com/auranialtd, and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/aurania-resources-ltd-.

For further information, please contact:

Carolyn Muir

VP Investor Relations

Aurania Resources Ltd.

(416) 367-3200

carolyn.muir@aurania.com

Dr. Richard Spencer

President

Aurania Resources Ltd.

(416) 367-3200

richard.spencer@aurania.com

About Virtual Investor Conferences

Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly-traded companies to meet and present directly with investors.



A real-time solution for investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences is part of OTC Market Group's suite of investor relations services specifically designed for more efficient Investor Access. Replicating the look and feel of on-site investor conferences, Virtual Investor Conferences combine leading-edge conferencing and investor communications capabilities with a comprehensive global investor audience network.

Virtual Investor Conferences

John M. Viglotti

SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access

OTC Markets Group

(212) 220-2221

johnv@otcmarkets.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/55341
New Delhi, May 4 : India has once again asked Pakistan to immediately vacate all areas of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh under its illegal occupation.

The reiteration of India's statement comes a day after Pakistan-backed terrorists killed five Indian security personnel in a terror attack in Handwara, Kashmir.

A Ministry of External Affairs statement said that India demarched senior Pakistan diplomat and lodged a strong protest against the Supreme Court of Pakistan's order on Gilgit-Baltistan, a part of former state of Jammu and Kashmir, under occupation since 1947.

In an order in January, Pakistan's apex court had said that Gilgit-Baltistan comes within its domain after the Imran Khan government took a series of steps to constitutionally strengthen its hold on to the region last year.

Islamabad tightened its grip on Gilgit-Baltistan in view of the passage of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through the region.

On Monday, the government in New Delhi said that it has conveyed to Islamabad that "such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh by Pakistan nor the grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan occupied territories for the past seven decades".

The government has conveyed to Pakistan that India's position in the matter, "is reflected in the resolution passed by Parliament in 1994 by consensus".

The resolution has unanimously declared that the entire Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession.

The Ministry said: "The government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it. India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu & Kashmir." Last week, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) slammed the Imran Khan-led government for continuing with the policy of subjugation of the Gilgit Baltistan region.

In a searing commentary, the commission recalled that the Gilgit Baltistan's province-like status granted in 2009 as per the Empowerment and Self-Governance Order was nullified by an order in 2018, withdrawing whatever "negligible powers" that had been delegated to the region in 2009.

Lamenting the disenfranchisement of people in Gilgit Baltistan, the HRCP said the 2018 order annulled the Gilgit Baltistan Council which had local representation, and gave too many powers to the country's Prime Minister.
PM&C secretary Phil Gaetjens. Credit:Illustration: John Shakespeare

No doubt Commonwealth bean counters will be scouring for budget savings once the pandemic-induced spendathon comes to an end. Here's some advice. Start with the spinners!

The Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet, now led by Prime Minister Scott Morrisons former chief-of-staff Phil Gaetjens, is currently being assisted on the public relations front by former Liberal operator Jason Aldworths Civic Group. For the privilege of Aldworths help, PM&C are handing Civic $2650  per day.

The department has published few details about the contract  which runs for two months and began on February 27  except to note it is for public relations, communications [and] marketing. By way of comparison, Tourism Australia pays public relations giant Ogilvy, now known as opr, around $750 per day for the life of its two-year contract.

Civic is run by Aldworth, the former Victorian Liberal Party vice-president, and campaigns boss Rora Furman. The company appears on various lobbyist registers with clients including retail landlord Vicinity Centres and energy company Powershop. Last year they assisted Israel Folau during his stoush with Rugby Australia.
SHELTON  Living across the street from the White Hills Fire House, Ilona Camarota and her family said they have had a front row seat to how hard the company volunteers work every day.

While the family certainly recognized the volunteers efforts in the past, the Camarotas said they began to have an even greater appreciation of the crews dedication to the community during the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the familys gratitude is on display for all passersby to see.
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began on April 23 at sunset and will end on May 24 with Eid Al Fitr celebrations. However, Ramadan is not only about fasting. This is a month of reading and studying the Quran, reflecting on the holy book and, of course, following it.

It is believed that fasting during daylight hours is necessary for purification, and the night worship - praying and reading the Quran is needed to brighten the soul.



It was during the month of Ramadan when the Quran was revealed to Muslims as a guide for all people, as a guiding star to help separate truth from lies.



With the advent of Ramadan, theologians abandoned all their affairs and studied only the speech of Allah. Some managed to finish reading the book of Allah several times a month.

It is interesting that not only Muslims were carried away by the Quran, but also the best minds holding different religions. Thus, Pushkin, who became acquainted with Islam while traveling in the Caucasus, did not hide his interest in this religion: he visited the cultural monuments of Muslims, listened to their prayers and thought a lot about Islam. These reflections resulted in his several works, including 'Imitation of the Quran'.
By Akbar Mammadov

Iran has changed its national currency from "rial" to "toman", Iran's News Agency (IRNA) said on May 4.

"The Iranian lawmakers voted on Monday for the details of an amendment to the Monetary and Banking Act of Iran that would change the official currency to 'toman'. The new law tasks Central Bank of Iran with recalculating foreign exchange ratio with 'toman' taking into consideration the currency reserve and the country's commitments to the International Monetary Fund," the agency said.

According to the report, the law also articulates that 'rial' will remain credible alongside 'toman' for two years, during which the old coins and bills will be gradually collected and new ones will replace them.

"Central Bank of Iran has been required to do preparatory work for the implementation of the new law within two years from its enactment", the report concluded.

It should be noted in December 2016, the Iranian government announced the country's currency would be changed from the Rial to the commonly used Toman. Such a move had required the approval of the Iranian Parliament. In 2019, Iranian government ministers passed a bill to drop four zeros, as well as revalue one toman to equal one hundred parsehs instead of the previous ten rials.

----

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Paul Ricard boss Stephane Clair says he is disappointed that racing in France will not be able to resume until August at the earliest.

The French GP organisers recently postponed their official date on the original 2020 calendar, even though they would have liked to join the 'ghost racing' action.

However, events like that can only be considered in France after August 1, according to the French motor racing federation.

"At Paul Ricard, we are very embarrassed by this recommendation," circuit boss Clair told Auto Hebdo.

"We were told that after July 15 everything could resume, so this is what caused the big uncertainty regarding the possibility of organising our race or not because it was only a handful of days apart," he added.

"So this news is terribly embarrassing for the race organisers, for the teams, for everyone.

"We do not want to cause additional problems, but it is a shame that everyone except us can restart."

(GMM)
GUATEMALA CITY - Guatemala said Monday it will receive three flights this week carrying a total of 175 deported migrants after the United States agreed to test all those being deported for coronavirus.

The flights scheduled for Monday, Wednesday and Friday mark a resumption of such deportations after Guatemala suspended themn because many migrants were later found to be suffering from the new coronavirus.

Guatemalas Foreign Relations Ministry said the returning migrants will carry with them a medical certificate that states they have been tested for COVID-19, with negative results.

The first planeload of 89 previously tested migrants from Texas arrived in Guatemala last week.

Alejandra Mena, the spokesperson for the countrys Migration Institute, said the migrants will be tested 72 hours before being deported and will be isolated before boarding flights. Unaccompanied minors detained at the U.S. border are also to be returned.

The returning migrants will also get health checks and may be monitored for up to 96 hours for symptoms.

The policy marks a major change in how the U.S. handles its deportation flights to Guatemala.

The Central American nations government suspended the flights after at least 44 deportees on an April 13 flight from Louisiana tested positive for the virus.

President Alejandro Giammattei recently referred to it as that damned flight, showing his frustration with a topic that has become sensitive domestically as the countrys teetering health system tries to confront the virus spread and there have been reports of harassment of deportees because other people feared they carried the virus.

Last week, Giammattei said in an interview that some countries were helping Guatemala with financial and medical resources to confront the virus while others have sent us infected deportees, but not a dime.

At least 100 Guatemalans deported from the U.S. between late March and mid-April have tested positive for the virus.

Since at least March, the government had been asking its U.S. counterparts to certify the health of deportees before putting them on flights. Until now, that had meant only checking their temperature or looking for other symptoms.

Last week, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it plans to test all migrants before they are deported from the U.S., as well as all those in its custody, but doesnt yet have enough tests to do so. Its receiving about 2,000 a month from the Department of Health and Human Services, it said.

The agency said it will prioritize testing based on evolving operational considerations, without providing details.

As of Thursday, ICE had confirmed 490 virus cases among detainees since the outbreak began and had conducted 1,030 tests. ICE has nearly 30,000 people in immigration custody across the U.S.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday (April 3) urged the Centre to not charge railway fare from migrant labourers who are returning home due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

CM Thackeray tweeted the request late on Sunday mentioning that the labourers are from an extremely poor background and the Central govenrment must keep this in mind. They have been financially affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Taking a humanitarian approach, the Railways should not charge them ticket fare, he said.

The government also made it clear that no special train for stranded migrant labourers will leave from Mumbai as the city has several containment zones. It is to be noted that Maharashtra has been sending hundreds of migrant labourers home on special trains running from Nashik and Bhiwandi in the last few days. There are thousands of migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Punjab, Karnataka, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh who are stranded in different parts of Maharashtra.

As per the Maharashtra government, around five lakh labourers were provided shelter at different shelter homes across the state for the last 40 days and the state government will take proper care of these migrant labourers till they are sent home.

Meanwhile, CM Thackeray has also ordered the officials to update the list of migrant labourers in shelter homes and remain ready in case special trains are started from Pune, Mumbai or Thane by the Centre to take migrant labourers home.

Several migrants were stranded in places across the country since the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 25 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to curb the spread of coronavirus in India. Many migrants were seen even attempting to walk home hundreds of kilometres to reach their home.
Australian border restrictions won't be lifted until the start of 2021 at the very earliest, nearly 90% of Australian economists forecasted in a survey conducted by Finder.

Of the 31 consulted, two even expected it wouldn't be until 2022 that free travel returns.

That's with the exception of travel between Australia and New Zealand, which the two governments have discussed as a likely exemption once they are satisfied with COVID-19 containment efforts.

Visit Business Insider Australia's homepage for more stories.

Australians hoping to revive international holidays plans ought to find something else to cling onto in quarantine.

With the possible exception of New Zealand, there's not a chance in hell of getting out of the country, according to the majority of economists.

In a survey of 31 economists conducted by Finder, just four suspected Australian borders could open before the end of the year.

The other 27, or 87%, forecast travel restrictions were at an absolute minimum seven months away from being relaxed. Of those, estimates differed widely on when Australians might be able to venture out to far flung lands.

Around four in ten say it'll be before March, while more than half say it'll be by June. Eight in ten say September 2021 by the latest. If that sounds a long way away, two cynics even claim the calendar will read 2022 before we can travel freely again.

Given international tourists throw more than $45 billion into the Australian economy each year according to official figures, it's money the country will miss as much as it misses travelling itself. One possible silver lining could be that when vistiors are able to holiday again, Australia rises to top of their list.

"Australia has definitely put health ahead of the economy - unlike most of the rest of the world [and] there are a number of positives that could come out of this," Elder home loans head John Rolfe said in a statement issued to Business Insider Australia.

Story continues

"The biggest being that... Australia could be seen by future international travellers as 'the safest' destination from a health perspective."

As for us, while the federal government hasn't indicated how long current travel restrictions might apply, the Prime Minister has signalled it will be some time before we can go abroad again.

"I can't see international travel occurring anytime soon. I can't see that. The risks there are obvious," Scott Morrison told media last week. "The only exception to that, as I have flagged, is potentially with New Zealand, and we have had some good discussions about that. But outside of that, that is unlikely."

With a government set to begin relaxing some restrictions on Friday, a New Zealand-Australia travel bubble may not be all that far off. Even closer at hand will likely be the ability to travel domestically, with that more than likely to be the first travel relaxation when health departments are content with progress on national containment.

It may be welcome news for those parts of regional Australia hit hard by the ferocity of the bushfire season. While COVID-19 may have thrust that emergency from the minds of those in the cities, those still trying to rebuild have not forgotten. Particularly when 44 cents of every dollar spent on tourism in Australia is used in regional destinations.

Domestic tourism campaigns launched by Tourism Australia in their aftermath, and put on pause by stay-at-home orders, will be ready to kick off again when the government deems it feasible.

So too will home-weary Australians be desperate to get out of their own bubble for the first time in months.
Photo: (Photo : pexels.com)

Students nowadays - seniors, especially - are stuck at home with their online classes and distance learning. Stripped of their traditional graduation rite, they are left contemplating whether they still want to go to college or whether going to college is still worth it.

This dilemma adds to the fact that seniors must decide when, where, and whether to attend college. However, with the pandemic, these difficult decisions have become futile for these prospective college students attempting to account for circumstances that are beyond their control.





Opting for community and technical colleges to save money

Katrina Stevenson, a senior, living in Colorado, received her acceptance letter to Colorado State University in December and was committed to attending the school in early February. She also planned to earn a degree in English education.

Stevenson calculated that with a room, board, and tuition, it would cost her more than $20,000 a year for four years. She admitted that her family is already struggling with finances, and although she will be the one handling her school finances, she did not want to add to the stress.

Because of this, she opted to a local community college to study business administration while keeping her job at Domino's to save money. She said that she would save up money to enroll in a four-year institution later on. But for now, she wanted to see how schools will start to put themselves back together after the pandemic.





Is tuition worth it if you cannot be on campus?

Since it is still unsure whether schools will open in the fall, seniors were left to ponder whether putting down deposits for online learning is worth it.

Jacqueline Caulfield was granted a dual degree program with Trinity College Dublin and Columbia University, in which students spend two years of their college careers studying at each institution.

Caulfield said that her parents do not want to pay for her tuition if it is going to be online, as they feel weary that it will not be the same experience. She also added that schools have not agreed to make the tuition cheaper, and the thought of paying to stare and sit on a computer at home made her rethink things.





Seeing new opportunities within the community

As others finalize their post-graduation plans, Diego Castillo, a high school senior based in McAllen, Texas, has seen the opportunities within his community.

Castillo decided to commit to The University of Texas Rio Grande Honors College despite being accepted to his dream school, Boston University.

He said that he was failing to see the opportunity in his town and discrediting it. Castillo added that in terms of universities, it is not always about prestige and popularity. He said that it is vital for people to reflect and analyze what they truly want out of their lives and what the basis of their decision is.

Finally, the aspiring neurosurgeon said that he would have plenty of opportunities to go out of state for medical school and residency if that is what he wants.
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio -- In just a months time, a volunteer group has created its own manufacturing and supply chain to donate more than 6,000 protective face masks in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Face Mask Makers Ohio got off to a fitting start in March on Facebook, where membership has since grown to nearly 1,200 members -- strictly those who want to be part of the effort in making the masks and getting them where they are needed.

That has, so far, included donations to area institutions and agencies such as:

-- Catholic Charities

-- Euclid Hospital

-- Geauga County Board of Developmental Disabilities

-- University Hospitals

-- Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities

-- Visiting Nurses Association of Ohio

-- the Woodmere Police Department

At first, we were making masks only for frontline workers in hospitals and doctors offices, along with first responders, one of the groups founders, Kristina Alaei, said in a press release. "After our system was in place, we expanded to nursing homes, essential workers, the immunocompromised and eventually to the general public.

Seeing the immediate need for personal protective equipment (PPE) in the community, Alaei formed the Face Mask Makers Ohio group with fellow Bainbridge Township resident Hedy Laverdiere and Beth Darrah of Reminderville, who already had experience working together on charitable events in the past.

Together, they enlisted the help of volunteers not only to make masks, but manage the logistics of donations, wash donated materials, iron, cut patterns, sew components together and coordinate deliveries, depending on their respective areas of expertise.

"In other words, our mask makers all perform individual tasks where they have strengths," Alaei said. "For example, one might have a logistics or a 'pipeline' background. Another might sew. Another might deliver, and so on."

Alaei noted that all masks are free, but donations are accepted to assist with replenishing materials.

And please do not join the group for the purpose of requesting a face mask, the programs Facebook page states. Use our face mask request form at https://forms.gle/AZpWJgWW6TgiGCm37.

Different approach, same outcome

The initiative provides a refreshing contrast to recent reports of price gouging by a Chagrin Falls businessman who was sued by the Ohio Attorney Generals Office.

His attorney explained that he had bought 2,800 N95 masks last year for his construction company, and when business plummeted during Ohios stay-at-home order, he took to eBay and started to sell the previously $2 masks for $36 apiece (in 10-packs for $360).

He has since agreed to refund $15,000 to customers, donate hundreds of remaining masks to hospitals and first responders, and pay the state $1,500 for the cost of the investigation that led to the lawsuit.

Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
Hackers Attack Israels Water Infrastructure

The Israeli government says that hackers have targeted its water supply and treatment facilities and has issued an alert to all organisations in the water sector following a series of cyber-attacks aimed at water facilities.

According to news published by Israels National Cyber Directorate, the attacks targeted supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems at wastewater treatment plants, pumping stations and sewage facilities.

In a security alert sent by the Israeli National Cyber-Directorate (INCD), the agency is urging personnel at companies active in the energy and water sectors to change passwords for all internet-connected systems. If passwords can't be changed, the agency recommended taking systems offline until proper security systems can be put in place.

The Israeli government has issued these alerts in an attempt to improve the cyber-security posture of its industrial infrastructure, but also after it received a report from cyber-security firm ClearSky. The company is said to have identified an Islamic hacktivist group active on social media. Named the Jerusalem Electronic Army, the group has a presence on all major social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Telegram, where it often posts screenshots from targets they claim to have hacked.

On some of these sites, the group has claimed to have gained access to various Israeli universities and government systems.

Organisations in the water and energy sectors have been advised to immediately change the passwords of internet-accessible control systems, reduce internet exposure, and ensure that all control system software is up to date.

There are a number of potential options for this initial access breach.

Most local water supply and waste-water facilities are small sites and most of them are connected via cellular-based communication to the Internet for maintenance and other purposes. These cellular routers are rarely hardened in terms of password control, disabling unsecure management interfaces and facing public IP address. So, it is believed that that cyber-criminal activity had been conducted remotely by scanning for known vulnerabilities, open ports, and exploiting weak or default passwords.

According to local media reports, the attacks targeted facilities across the country and Israels Water Authority claimed the attacks did not cause any operational damage. Organisations have been advised to immediately report incidents that result in disruption.

Hackers targeting water and other vital utilities is a rel threat and experts have issued warnings that internet-exposed industrial control systems (ICS) often leave such facilities at risk.

Times of Israel: radiflow: ZDNet: Security Week:

You Might Also Read:

Selecting The Right SCADA Technology:






With revenues dwindling during the lockdown, private hospital chains are now gearing up to return to business as usual as the country gets ready to live with new coronavirus. Most feel as the movement of people normalises, the in-patient volumes will grow and by the end of May, occupancy should be around 50 per cent, and 75 per cent over a period of time.

Another pillar of the post-lockdown strategy is to aggressively test patients who come for even day-care admission. Analysts feel this would not only protect front line healthcare workers from asymptomatic ...
Photo: The Canadian Press This photo showing an area the gunman travelled in a replica RCMP vehicle in rural is displayed at a media briefing RCMP headquarters in Dartmouth, N.S., Tuesday, April 28, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

A provincial court judge says she'll push to hold hearings as quickly as possible on the public release of search warrants from the investigation into the recent mass shooting in Nova Scotia.

Judge Laurel Halfpenny MacQuarrie said Monday she's concerned courts will become very busy in early summer in the event pandemic restrictions are relaxed.

In a conference call Monday morning, Halfpenny MacQuarrie told Crown prosecutors and a lawyer representing a media consortium that she's expecting the parties to provide their positions on the release of the search warrants by next Monday morning.

"The court now has the time to deal with it," the judge said.

"I will be pushing to get this done as quickly as possible, giving everyone the full benefit of as much time as we can so they can properly put their positions before the court."

She granted a one-week delay in proceedings after federal lawyers representing the Canada Border Services Agency said they hadn't had time to review the warrants.

Lawyer David Coles, representing a variety of news organizations including The Canadian Press, said he's hoping the provincial and federal Crowns can provide portions of the search warrants that don't require redaction by next week.

However, provincial Crown Mark Heerema said prosecutors are unlikely to provide documents that soon, and he will be seeking dates for further court hearings.

As of Monday, four warrants had been executed and resulted in materials being seized after a gunman went on a rampage through five Nova Scotia communities on April 18 and 19, killing 22 people.

The gunman was shot and killed by police in Enfield, N.S., but investigators are still looking into how he obtained his weapons and whether he had any assistance in creating a replica RCMP vehicle and acquiring a police uniform.

Two other orders have been executed, but police haven't yet indicated if evidence was seized. There is one more warrant open for execution until midnight Monday.

During an April 24 news conference, RCMP Supt. Darren Campbell said the RCMP has a responsibility to determine the actions of the gunman over the almost 13 hours of the rampage, and the investigation must meet the same standards as any criminal probe that would lead to a trial.

He said the priority was to determine the gunman's movements and whether anyone assisted him prior to the attacks. Campbell said the Mounties had identified more than 435 witnesses and completed "more than 20 legal applications."

Heerema noted the investigation is in its early stages, and more warrants may be issued in the future. However, the judge noted she wasn't prepared at this stage to include any future warrants in her decision.

The key legal principles on when search warrants can be released stem from a landmark 1982 Supreme Court of Canada decision, in a case launched by investigative reporter Linden MacIntyre.

The highest court ruled that once a search warrant is carried out, the warrant and supporting documents must be made public, but exceptions can be made such as protecting innocent parties if the search didn't yield evidence.

In his ruling, Justice Brian Dickson wrote, "the rule should be one of public accessibility and concomitant judicial accountability," and public access should only be restricted "to protect social values of superordinate importance."

In a later 2005 decision, Supreme Court of Canada Justice Morris Fish further commented on search warrants, stating the administration of justice "thrives on exposure to light and withers under a cloud of secrecy."
Even as the number of coronavirus cases and deaths ticks up, the Districts 911 center is fielding fewer calls than usual. Requests for ambulances are down 16 percent this year, and emergency calls that typically number about 6,700 over a two-week period have fallen by about 1,000. Donahue attributes that to all the people on lockdown. Also, the Districts population, which once doubled on an average weekday, taking into account commuters, federal workers and tourists, is now without many of those people.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has challenged the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to list its achievement since the last five years that President Muhammadu Buhari has been in power.

The opposition party was reacting to APCs response to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakars advice to Buharis government on how to diversify the nations economy.

KanyiDaily recalls that the APC had slammed Atiku for failing to acknowledge the efforts of Buharis administration in the last five years towards diversification of the economy and the many positive gains the country has recorded.

The ruling party lamented that Nigerias economy got worse during Atikus tenure with Olusegun Obasanjo when the international oil price was stable.

In reaction in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP listed some of its achievements across the various sectors of the economy and challenged the APC to do same.

Our attention has been drawn to a knee-jerk reaction by the APC, to the well-received suggestions by former Vice President and PDPs candidate in the 2019 Presidential election, Alhaji Abubakar, on how to revamp our ailing economy. While the PDP had chosen not to allow the APC to distract us from our focus, particularly in finding solutions for the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot keep quiet and allow those who had reversed all our national gains in a space of five years, to continue to engage in distortions, outright lies and appropriation of projects executed by the PDP to continually spit on the memories of Nigerians. It is sad that a patriotic and non-partisan rescue effort by Atiku Abubakar was met with insults, animus and aspersions by an administration under which Nigeria is collapsing economically, just because it lacks the required competence and brilliance for modern governance. This is a government under which our nation has become the poverty capital of the world; our foreign debts have quintupled from $7 billion in 2015 to $30 billion today; our once highly rated banking sector is now shedding its workforce; our service sector has collapsed, with the health sector now begging Elon Musk for medical supplies on Twitter. This is an administration under which our currency is listed as the fourth worst performing currency on earth, and has been devalued 112% from its 2015 value; a government that is now footing its basic bills via foreign borrowings with corruption festering so much that our agencies had literally become Automated Teller Machine ,ATM, for its officials and cabals. It indeed speaks volumes that the same day that the Times of London carried a headline Nigerias President Buhari Appoints Dead Man to Run Government Agency, was the day the APC had the gall to accuse former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of being a part of an administration that achieved little. It is sad that the APC would take this route. The PDP gladly accepts the challenge by the APC to list a few of the many achievements of the Obasanjo-Atiku administration. In doing this, we also counter challenge the APC to name three projects initiated, started, and completed by the Buhari administration in its almost five years of governance.

ALSO READ: No Living Nigerian Has Given Much To The Country Like Obasanjo  Atiku
Higher death toll

President Trump predicted on Sunday night that the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the country might reach as high as 100,000 in the United States, far higher than he had forecast just weeks ago, even as he pressed states to begin reopening the shuttered economy.

Mr. Trump, who last month forecast that 60,000 lives would be lost, acknowledged that the virus had proved more devastating than he had expected but said he believed parks and beaches should begin reopening and schools should resume classes in person by this fall.

During the two-hour broadcast, he also acknowledged that he was warned about the coronavirus in his regular intelligence briefing on Jan. 23, but he asserted that the information was characterized as if it was not a big deal. (New York Times)

Featured stories

The housing market faces its next crisis as May rent and mortgages come due (Washington Post)

Birx says protesters not practicing social distancing are devastatingly worrisome (NBC News)

Italy cautiously emerges from worlds longest lockdown (ABC News)

U.S. intel thinks China stayed mum on virus early on to grab supplies (CBS News)

National news

A Message from President George W. Bush@TheCalltoUnite pic.twitter.com/FIn9wuOPTF  George W. Bush Presidential Center (@TheBushCenter) May 2, 2020

Donald Trump attacks George W. Bush after the latter does a coronavirus video (USA Today)

Pence: I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic (Politico)

More than 370 workers at a pork plant in Missouri tested positive for coronavirus. All were asymptomatic (CNN)

Cuomo announces 7-state coalition for purchasing medical equipment (CBS News)

Whitmer says Michigan protests 'depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history (The Hill)

Oklahoma city backs off mask mandate after threats, as officials struggle to enforce public health rules (Washington Post)

Video shows NYPD officer punching man after alleged social distancing violation (NBC News)

A woman in South Carolina is dead after an alligator encounter, authorities say (CNN)

Invasive giant hornets have been spotted in the U.S. for the first time (CNN)

World news

Gunfire exchanged in DMZ across border between North and South Korea (CNN)

Global coronavirus cases surpass 3.5 million amid underreporting fears (Reuters)

Coronavirus: New lows for deaths in France, Spain and Italy (BBC)

Boris Johnson heralds Britains coronavirus successes. The numbers tell a different story (NBC News)

Coronavirus cases in Russia rise by record daily amount, mortality rate slows (Reuters)

Japan indicates could ease some coronavirus-related curbs (Reuters)

Top Israeli court hears challenge to Netanyahu forming government (The Guardian)

Pentagon warns Taliban of responses if violence continues (The Hill)
ALBANY  Local retailers from all across the state are hoping to get a boost from a new partnership between the state's main retail advocacy group and the marketing company Vericast.

Two Vericast businesses, RetailMeNot and LocalFlavor.com, will work with the Retail Council of New York State's website RetailNewYork.com to boost online sales of New York items.

RetailNewYork.com currently features more than 400 stores that have been shut due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This is a significant boost for independent merchants in every part of New York state, said RetailNewYork.com CEO Ted Potrikus, who also heads the Retail Council of New York State. RetailMeNot and LocalFlavor.com will introduce customers everywhere to New Yorks finest independent merchants, and were honored to partner with them.

According to the Retail Council, Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave the RetailNewYork.com website a key boost by making "order fulfillment" businesses essential under the state's stay-at-home orders that have shut many businesses.

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

Gov. Cuomo and the Empire State Development (the state's main economic development agency) recognized from the start of the crisis the need to give retailers the opportunity to do what they could to continue to serve their customers, Potrikus said. Vericast gives us a platform to show that New Yorks Main Street is still open and able to ship and deliver safely right to the shoppers door. This is an amazing example of business helping business.

Vericast is based in San Antonio and is a marketing company that works with 70,000 businesses to expand their sales and brand awareness. It operates the RetailMeNot and LocalFlavor web sites.

Vericast is honored to work together with RetailNewYork to help build awareness for local businesses in the great state of New York,John OMalley, the CEO of Vericast, said in a statement. We are proud to support the recovery of these businesses, that bring growth and innovation to the communities they serve, with our unique ability to reach millions of customers.




The family of a French tourist who mysteriously vanished in New Zealand say the teenager was lonely and 'quite disturbed'.

Eloi Jean Rolland, 18, moved to Auckland last September to study English before he went missing in Piha - 45 minutes east of the city - on March 6.

Mr Rolland's family said he wasn't coping in the months leading up to his disappearance, and suffered 'sentimental setbacks' while in New Zealand.

'He was determined to return to France as quickly as possible, explaining to everyone that he was homesick,' his sister Aurore Allogho-Boundzanga told the NZ Herald.

Eloi Jean Rolland, 18, moved to Auckland last September to study English before he went missing in Piha - 45 minutes east of the city - on March 6

At 6.30am on the day Mr Rolland went missing, he was captured on CCTV footage boarding a train from Britomart Station in Auckland's CBD

'Personally, I found him quite disturbed in the last months preceding his disappearance.

'So suicide? An accident ? A bad meeting? A settlement of accounts? Since March 6, the question remains completely in suspense.'

'He assured me that he wanted to see his missing friends again, that he felt too lonely and that he preferred to return as soon as possible to prepare for a test in view of joining the Air Force.'

Ms Allogho-Boundzanga said her brother had been through 'several sentimental disappointments' and 'expressed the desire to return to France as quickly as possible'.

Mr Rolland's family said he was most likely went to the seaside village to collect the area's famed black sand to take home.

The French teen was staying with a host family an hour away in Birkenhead, but failed to return home.

At 6.30am on the day Mr Rolland went missing, he was captured on CCTV footage boarding a train from Britomart Station in Auckland's CBD.

Nearly an hour late he got off the train at Fruitvale Station at New Lynn.

Police believe he may have then walked around 10km to Piha Road, where his phone pinged, at 9.18am.

Mr Rolland hasn't been spotted since and his phone stopped transmitting shortly after.

Police are forensically testing a t shirt that was found 7km south of Piha to determine if it belongs to Mr Rolland.

Detective Senior Sergeant Callum McNeill said police aren't ruling out anything when it comes to how Mr Rolland disappeared.
An Iranian lawmaker has quoted a deputy defense minister as saying that more than 30 Iranians "active in military affairs" have been in jail outside Iran, but currently there are five individuals in prison abroad on charges of "military activity."

Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, the spokesman for the Iranian Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, who made the remarks on Monday May 4 did not elaborate on the ranks or positions of the detainees and where they are detained.

However, Naqavi Hosseini said that the five individuals are in jail as a result of "the United States' hostile behavior."

U.S. forces are present in the Persian Gulf region, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan in the vicinity of Iran so the five Iranians linked to military activities, who might be military personnel, are possibly jailed in one of those countries.

Naqavi Hosseini refused to say in which country they were arrested, what are exactly the charges against them and how many of them have been freed. However, he said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been doing its best to help.

According to the lawmaker, the unidentified deputy defense minister has said that "Around five Iranians have been detained for military and defensive activities with ambiguous charges." However, the Persian term "Asir" he used to describe the five, means prisoner of war.

Last year Iran's Foreign Minister said in a couple of instances that Tehran has presented a list to the US government suggesting a prisoner swap. The Spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday that "this suggestion is still on the table," which confirms there are US citizens in jail in Iran.

Iran is known for holding dual nationals and foreign citizens in jail as hostages and using them for political gain or prisoner swap.
After a phase of suspension of production and short-time work caused by the Covid-19- pandemic, Mercedes-Benz, one of the largest manufacturers of premium passenger cars, has restarted production at its car plants in Unterturkheim, Berlin, Hamburg, Sindelfingen and Bremen in Germany.

The car manufacturer said that on April 20, the engine and component plants in Unterturkheim, Hamburg and Berlin gradually recommenced production, followed by the Mercedes-Benz car plants in Bremen and Sindelfingen, last week.

Today (May 4), the Mercedes-Benz car plant in Rastatt will also gradually restart, it said in a statement. The plants in Kolleda and Arnstadt (MDC Power and MDC Technology), as well as selected international Mercedes-Benz car plants, will also restart production on a step-by-step basis. These include the plants in Sebes/Cugir (Romania), Kecskemet (Hungary) and Tuscaloosa (USA). The restart will be on a flexible basis so that ongoing developments can be taken into account, it said.

Jorg Burzer, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz AG, Production and Supply Chain Management: "Together with the whole team, I am glad that we are gradually restarting our production in a coordinated manner. Flexibility is what counts here: the flexibility of our plants is one of our focal strategic topics in production and it helps us in this restarting phase now. Our first priority is to contain the spread of the Covid-19- pandemic and to provide a safe working environment for our employees, suppliers and service providers. We are producing in compliance with extensive safety measures and we are increasing our production step by step."

With this production ramp-up, Mercedes-Benz is continuing its product and electric initiative. The company is seeing a significant increase in demand in China, as its largest sales market.

The Unterturkheim plant produces engines and components that are required for the production of Mercedes-Benz vehicles in China and for the gradually restarting Mercedes-Benz assembly plants. For the same reason the Mercedes-Benz plant in Berlin has recommenced production of Camtronic engine management units, among others.

The plant in Hamburg produces axles and axle components for Mercedes-Benz vehicle production around the world. The battery plants in Kamenz, where batteries for the EQ family, drive batteries for plug-in hybrid vehicles and 48 V batteries are produced, continued to operate during the suspension of production and short-time work phases as important strategic aspects of the electric initiative by Mercedes-Benz - on a two-shift basis with strictly segregated shifts and extensive safety measures for the employees.

At the Mercedes-Benz car plant in Bremen the production capacities are gradually being increased for the entire product range, for example the Mercedes-Benz GLC, the bestselling SUV last year, it said. At the same time production of the EQC (combined electrical consumption: 20.819.7 kWh/100 km; combined CO2 emissions: 0 g/km) is being increased on the same line as part of the electric initiative. The Sindelfingen plant is responsible for production of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and the S-Class Saloon, the world's bestselling luxury saloon in 2019, for which China was the largest market last year. The electrified models of the E-Class and S-Class, and also the hybrid and plug-in variants, are also produced at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen.

To protect the employees, the company has taken precautions to prevent infection and has agreed on a comprehensive package of measures with the General Works Council, introducing these in the plants. These include hygiene and cleaning standards, regulations to maintain a minimum safety distance of 1.5 metres and the use of masks covering mouth and nose in production.

Daimler has decided to suspend most of its production as well as work in selected administrative areas in Europe for an initial period of two weeks (March 23 to April 5, 2020). This was followed by short-time work in Germany starting April 6. The situation continues to differ within the company. Short-time work will continue in some areas .The short-time work affects the Groups car, van and commercial vehicle plants in Germany. Necessary basic functions as well as future plans and strategic projects are excluded from short-time work so that we can quickly get back to work after the crisis.

Country-specific arrangements apply for the international locations, it said. In this respect the company is following the recommendations of international, national and local authorities. Daimlers management continues to monitor the situation constantly and are ready to take further measures as required.

Frank Dei, Head of Powertrain Production Mercedes-Benz Cars and Location Manager for the Mercedes-Benz plant in Unterturkheim: "Our powertrain plants supply the Mercedes-Benz car plants all over the world. To safeguard the necessary production capacities there, we gradually restarted operations at the powertrain plants in Hamburg, Berlin and Unterturkheim, last week. This affects e.g. Camtronic production at the Mercedes-Benz pant in Berlin, where engine management components are produced for our production in China. I want to thank the highly motivated team that made the successful restart of our plants possible."

Michael Haberle, Chairman of the Works Council, Mercedes-Benz plant in Unterturkheim: "We developed and implemented extensive safety measures at our facility within a very short time. These need to be constantly adapted now  and for this we greatly value the feedback from our colleagues. Everything that is currently happening is part of a major learning process. Because the right protection already begins on the way to work, and the safety concepts apply just as much in the offices and during breaks as in production. These numerous measures are no doubt unfamiliar in some respects  but they are important to safeguard every individual. I am glad to see that we are all pulling in the same direction!"

Michael Bauer, Head of Production at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen and Site Manager: "As of this week we have been gradually and flexibly restarting assembly of our E-Class and S-Class, so that we can respond promptly to ongoing developments. We will gradually increase our production volumes in the next days and weeks, so that we are able to get to full speed as rapidly as possible. Our highly qualified, committed and motivated personnel are the key to successful management of a coordinated restart."

Ergun Lumali, Chairman of the Works Council at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen: "Protecting the health of our employees is of the utmost priority when restarting production. To this end we have put together an extensive package of protective and hygiene measures which have been well accepted by the workforce. These range from compliance with hygiene rules and safety distances to the wearing of masks covering mouth and nose. Our aim is to ensure that when returning to the plant, our employees feel safer at work than in public areas. This production restart is a positive signal for all of us." TradeArabia News Service
Mohamed El-Erian told CNBC on Monday that he worries that unprecedented action by the Federal Reserve in response to the coronavirus crisis could have an impact on a critical characteristic of the U.S. economy.

"The Fed opened up the high-yield market for almost everybody and that raises the specter of of zombie companies," the Allianz chief economic advisor said on "Squawk Box." "We've got to be careful about this because that eats away at what makes America special. That's the reason why we don't ever bet against America, because of its dynamism."

The Fed in early April expanded its list of programs designed to support the U.S. economy as it grappled with the shock from the Covid-19 pandemic. The central bank said it may possibly buy exchange-traded funds of high-yield bonds, often called junk bonds. The Fed has not actually bought any yet. But it did provide investors the assurance that the Fed would be there if the market faltered. That has set corporate bond offerings on fire across all investments grades.

"My own sense is the Fed went too far in going into the high-yield market, but I understand why they did it," El-Erian said, noting the extraordinary times. "But on the other hand, you get people who shouldn't be borrowing raising money."

El-Erian's comments Monday came after Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting on Saturday, during which legendary investor Warren Buffett issued a strong message for people who are worried about the consequences of the coronavirus.

"Nothing can basically stop America," Buffett said. "The American miracle, the American magic has always prevailed, and it will do so again."

Buffett also praised the leadership of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, contending the quick action by the central bank has been a significant boost to financial markets.

"Every one of those people that issued bonds in late March and April ought to send a thank you letter to the Fed because it wouldn't have happened if they hadn't operated with really unprecedented speed and determination," Buffett said.

El-Erian said Buffett rightly pointed out that the Fed's response to the crisis has helped in "normalizing markets quickly."
An open-source design from the University of Bath gives schools, homes and labs the chance to 3D print their own precision microscopes

For the first time, labs around the world can 3D print their own precision microscopes to analyse samples and detect diseases , thanks to an open-source design created at the University of Bath.

The OpenFlexure Microscope, described in Biomedical Optics Express, is a fully automated, laboratory-grade instrument with motorised sample positioning and focus control. It is unique among 3D-printed microscope in its ability to yield high-quality images. It has been designed to be easy to use, with an intuitive software interface and simplified alignment procedures. It is also highly customisable, meaning it can be adapted for laboratory, school and home use.

Best of all, the Bath design is a lot more affordable than a commercial microscope, both in terms of the upfront cost and the maintenance costs of the equipment. A commercial microscope intended for lab use can sell for tens of thousands of pounds. An OpenFlexure microscope can be constructed for as little as 15 or US$18 (this would cover the cost of the printed plastic, a camera and some fastening hardware). A top-end version would cost a couple of hundred pounds to produce, and would include a microscope objective and an embedded Raspberry Pi computer.

Dr Joel Collins, co-creator of the microscope and physics researcher at the University of Bath, said, "We want these microscopes to be used around the world - in schools, in research laboratories, in clinics and in people's homes if they want a microscope just to play with. You need to be able to pick it up and use it straight away. You also need it to be affordable."

To date, over 100 OpenFlexure microscopes have been printed in Tanzania and Kenya, demonstrating the viability of a complex piece of hardware being conceptualised in one part of the world and manufactured elsewhere.

Co-creator Dr Richard Bowman said, "Our Tanzanian partners, STICLab, have modified the design to better suit their local market, demonstrating another key strength of open source hardware - the ability to customise, improve, and take ownership of a product."

COVID-19 AND 3D PRINTED MEDICAL DEVICES

There has been a surge of interest in 3D printers since the onset of the pandemic, with many projects springing up around the world to develop low-cost, open-source 3D ventilators - or ventilator parts - to address the global shortage.

However, a piece of medical hardware requires years of detailed safety checks before it can be trusted for medical or laboratory use - the OpenFlexure Microscope project, for instance, has taken five years to complete. The Bath team believes it is highly unlikely that a new ventilator will be designed and approved during the course of this pandemic. They say it is much more likely that modifications of existing designs will be chosen by health authorities, where this is an option.

Dr Bowman, who has been working on the OpenFlexure project since its inception, first from the University of Cambridge and then from the Department of Physics at Bath, said, "Building a safety-critical medical device like a ventilator takes years for an organisation with hundreds of experienced engineers and an established quality management system. Making a ventilator that works in a few weeks is an impressive achievement, but ensuring it complies with even the relaxed, emergency version of the rules takes a lot longer than creating the initial design. Demonstrating to a regulator that the design and the manufacturing process meet all the requirements will be even harder."

He added, "The flip side is that the medical device industry is very conservatively regulated, and it would be a good thing if all of this new attention (in 3D printed hardware) means there's some rethinking done about how we can uphold high safety standards but make it easier to build something if you're not a mega corporation."

###
You can listen to the latest episode of Today in Pa 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 | May 4, 2020

A woman was jailed for not self-isolating after testing positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, the CDC says Pennsylvania has the most cases of COVID-19 among meat production workers. Pennsylvania joins forces with 6 other states to buy personal protective equipment. Plan to reopen state parks announced.

Those are the stories we cover in the latest 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.

Todays episode refers to the following articles:

If you enjoy Today in Pa, consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Amazon. Reviews help others find the show and, besides, we like to know what you think of the program.

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.
Steve wrote earlier today about President Trumps re-election prospects. This is, of course, a subject to which we will return many times between now and November. For now I want to make a few big-picture points and post a couple of videos.

Three months ago, I was confident that Trump would be re-elected. Any president wants to run for re-election on a platform of peace and prosperity, and Trump was perfectly poised to do that, buoyed by perhaps the strongest economy in our nations history. But the Wuhan virus changed the landscape dramatically, in two ways.

First, the shutdowns that resulted from the virus (rightly or wrongly) have taken the best argument for re-electionour strong economyoff the table. Trump will run in the context, not of unprecedented prosperity, record employment and strong wage gains, but of a deep recession and a stock market crash that perhaps has not yet bottomed out. Whether this was Trumps fault or notit wasntis beside the point. With peace and prosperity no longer the winning formula, the entire deck has been reshuffled and the Democrats now have an opening.

Second, the Wuhan virus has introduced a new and unpredictable issue into the campaign: the administrations response to the epidemic. This should be seen as Act III in the Democrats determined effort to take out Donald Trump. Act 1 was the impeachment hoax. Act II was the Ukraine kerfuffle. Both failed, and it looked as though the Democrats had nothing left. But now, their press minions are launching daily attacks on the president related to the virus. Act III. No matter that these attacks are mostly ludicrous, along the lines of the president urging us all to drink toxic aquarium cleaner or inject ourselves with Clorox. The attacks may be silly, but they play on the fear that millions of Americans are currently feeling.

So, unlike the situation three months ago, the Democrats now have a shot at unseating President Trump. But, as in 2016, there is one overwhelming problem: they dont have a candidate. That, too, is a subject we will return to many times. But I think it is widely recognized, including among Democrats, that Joe Biden is simply inadequate. Whether and how the Democrats can get him off the ticket remains to be seen. But even if they can replace him, the question remains, with whom? The Democrats have no good substitute, nor, perhaps, do they have an alternative to whom they can turn without alienating a large segment of their base. So in the end, they may be stuck with Biden.

The Trump campaign released this video yesterday. It is the beginning of Trumps effort to put the Wuhan epidemic and resulting problems in a positive light:

Under @realDonaldTrump the United States is writing the greatest comeback story ever seen. The unyielding resolve of the American people will carry us through. And with President Trump, we will #MakeAmericaGreatAgain. New inspirational @TeamTrump ad: pic.twitter.com/WlRoKqnPeT  Brad Parscale  Download our Trump 2020 App today! (@parscale) May 3, 2020



I like the ad, although it seems a bit disjointed. I like the comeback theme: we did it before, we can do it again. But how voters will respondemotionally more than intellectuallyto the changed landscape of 2020, remains to be seen.

Finally, this video came out today. Not being a Star Wars aficionado, I dont entirely get it, but I take it that Trump is Yoda and he dispatches CNN and MSNBC.

May The 4th Be With You! pic.twitter.com/TdFY5ojlgN  Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) May 4, 2020



This is the kind of thing that Trumps fans mostly love, and his enemies all hate. We will see a lot more of it between now and November.
Moscow: The multi-millionaire daughter of Kazakhstan's former president has been stripped of powers that would have put her first in line for the leadership of the oil-rich central Asian nation.

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the current president, gave no reason for Dariga Nazarbayeva's surprise dismissal as senate speaker, but the decision comes shortly after a high-profile London court battle that exposed details of her vast personal fortune.

Ousted: Dariga Nazarbayeva, daughter of the outgoing leader of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in Astana, Kazakhstan. Credit:AP

Nazarbayeva was made senate speaker last year when her father Nursultan Nazarbayev stepped down after almost 30 years as president, handing over to his protege Tokayev.

The speaker automatically takes power if the president resigns or is incapacitated, leading to speculation that 56-year-old Nazarbayeva was positioning to succeed her father.
Failure to vaccinate everyone will give rise to new variants, says UN chief

Faith vs safety in burials: COVID-19 remains in dead bodies for 9 days says Centre

COVID-19 must not become excuse for creation of 'surveillance state': Tharoor on Aarogya Setu app

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, May 04: The government making the Aarogya Setu mobile application mandatory for all employees raises serious data protection questions, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Monday, asserting that COVID-19 must not become an excuse for the creation of a "surveillance state" in India.

The mobile application helps users identify whether they are at risk of the COVID-19 infection. It also provides people with important information, including ways to avoid the coronavirus and its symptoms.

"The government's requirement that the Aarogya Setu app is now mandatory for all employees, public or private, raises serious privacy and data protection questions. COVID-19 must not become an excuse for creation of a 'surveillance state' in India," Tharoor tweeted.

'To track citizens: Rahul Gandhi on compulsory use of Aarogya Setu app

The central government has made it compulsory for all its employees to download the app and urged private entitles to also ask their employees to use it.

Tharoor's attack on the government came two days after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the Aarogya Setu mobile application is a "sophisticated surveillance system" outsourced to a private operator, raising serious data security and privacy concerns.
Four-time Golden Globe nominee Cameron Diaz flashed her effervescent, mega-watt grin during the first-ever RuPaul's Digital DragCon on Sunday.

'Hey everybody, hi! It's Cameron. I was so looking forward to my first DragCon ever,' the 47-year-old new mother said of the May 1-3 LA event canceled due to COVID-19.

'But I'm so happy we can all connect here virtually to celebrate you, my queens. I am such a huge fan and what you do brings so much happiness and joy to so many people.'

'Hey everybody, hi!' Four-time Golden Globe nominee Cameron Diaz flashed her effervescent, mega-watt grin during the first-ever RuPaul's Digital DragCon on Sunday

The 47-year-old new mother gushed: 'I'm so happy we can all connect here virtually to celebrate you, my queens. I am such a huge fan and what you do brings so much happiness and joy to so many people'

It was a week after Cameron told Gucci Westman the 59-year-old drag icon was her 'spirit animal' and called his Emmy-winning competition RuPaul's Drag Race her 'true joy right now.'

And while Mama Ru was a no show - his BFF Michelle Visage made a cameo alongside Rebecca Black, Jake Shears, Tony Hale, Adore Delano, Alaska, Aquaria, Honey Davenport, and Manila Luzon.

All queer content streamed free of charge on WOW Presents YouTube channel - including season 12 contestant Jackie Cox's impression of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna.

The 56-year-old reality star tweeted her approval of the Canadian 34-year-old's (born Darius Rose) impersonation on Sunday: 'Love this. That @qvc duster is everything!'

Big fan: It was a week after Cameron said the 59-year-old drag icon (2-R) was her 'spirit animal' and called his Emmy-winning competition RuPaul's Drag Race her 'true joy right now'

Streaming now! And while Mama Ru was a no show - his BFF Michelle Visage made a cameo alongside Rebecca Black, Jake Shears, Tony Hale, Adore Delano, Alaska, Aquaria, Honey Davenport, and Manila Luzon

Snatch game! All queer content streamed free of charge on WOW Presents YouTube channel - including season 12 contestant Jackie Cox's impression of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna

The 56-year-old reality star tweeted her approval of the Canadian 34-year-old's (born Darius Rose) impersonation on Sunday: 'Love this. That @qvc duster is everything!'

On Monday, Diaz will interview her 'bestie' and longtime stunt double, Kimberly Shannon Murphy, for her Happy Hour series streaming 4pm PST.

The two-time SAG Award nominee doubled Cameron in What Happens in Vegas (2008), The Box (2009), Knight and Day (2010), Bad Teacher (2011), and The Other Woman (2014).

'I have put my life in her hands and she has risked hers for me,' the SoCal native - who boasts 13.5M social media followers - wrote.

'We'll be talking stunts [and] behind the scenes of the #BossB****FightChallenge [as well as] fitness and motherhood.'

'Cheers to that!' On Monday, Diaz will interview her 'bestie' and longtime stunt double, Kimberly Shannon Murphy, for her Happy Hour series streaming 4pm PST

'We'll be talking stunts!' Both ladies took part in Kiwi stuntwoman Zoe Bell's viral Boss B**** Fight Challenge on Friday in order to kick 'lockdown boredom'

Both Diaz and Murphy took part in Kiwi stuntwoman Zoe Bell's viral Boss B**** Fight Challenge on Friday in order to kick 'lockdown boredom.'

Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, Drew Barrymore, Halle Berry, Florence Pugh, Rosie Perez, Zoe Saldana, Rosario Dawson, and Juliette Lewis also stepped up for the challenge.

Cameron - who published four lifestyle books from 2013-2018 - all but retired from acting following her dismally-reviewed roles in Annie, Sex Tape, and The Other Woman way back in 2014.

Catch more T and shade on the 12th season of RuPaul's Drag Race, which airs Fridays on VH1.

Will she ever act again? The SoCal native - who published four lifestyle books from 2013-2018 - all but retired from acting following her dismally-reviewed roles in Annie (pictured), Sex Tape, and The Other Woman way back in 2014
Illinois College recognized excellence award recipients Friday during its 10th annual Celebration of Excellence and its Honors Convocation.

The events took place online because of an epidemic outbreak-related state order limiting the number of people who can gather in one location.

President Barbara A. Farley said each person was awarded for high achievements and leadership within the school.

Their collective work demonstrates excellence in all areas of the college, and those being honored  have reached a level of achievement that is both inspiring and empowering, Farley said. Let this occasion serve as a reminder that although we cannot be together physically, we are still a connected community of scholars.

Alonzo Ward, assistant professor of history, was presented the Harry Joy Dunbaugh Distinguished Professor Award, one of the highest honors for the schools faculty.

Incoming seniors Sergio Pena and Ayden Thomas were chosen as student marshals for the next academic year. They were selected based on academic excellence and campus leadership.

Eleven students were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa  Akua Adu, Charlotte Crofton, Cameron Doerr, Sabrina Doyle, Luigi Erba, Anthony Hand, Katelyn Hodgson, Jakob Kording, Rabea Rachow, Cassy Roat and Aurhianna Sandefur. Seven students received the Julian M. Sturtevant Campus Leadership and Service Award  Stacy Bile, Dominic Caldieraro, Charlotte Crofton, Nely Munoz, Natasha Polak, Rabea Rachow and Brenda Ruiz.

Samantha Sauer, archivist and curator for the Paul Findley Congressional Museum, received the Don P. Filson Faculty Award for Vision for the Future for her work in improving the college.

Robert Kunath, professor of history, received the Enkykilios Award for excellence in teaching, professional engagement and service.

The Celebration of Excellence showcased 49 presentations by 80 students in various student fields.

 Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree
To the Editor:

Re Investigate Tara Reades Allegations (editorial, May 2):

Thank you for this editorial. For the record, Im a lifelong Democrat and will vote Democratic this fall, regardless. Defeating Donald Trump and saving our democracy is the most important thing. However, we still need a full, transparent investigation.

Making allegations of sexual assault is not easy. Those who do so deserve fair and thorough investigations. We demanded one with Brett Kavanaugh, and its no different now. As a party, we cannot say we stand for sexual assault survivors, yet turn our backs when its something we dont want to hear.

Im disgusted by the attacks on Tara Reade, the insufficient mainstream media coverage, the slanted headlines and the flimsy excuses, such as that Joe Biden was already vetted when he ran for vice president. Hypocrisy looks bad no matter what side youre on. Innocent people have nothing to hide. They encourage full transparency. Yes, that means we need to look at the University of Delaware files. We deserve the truth, no matter what it is.

Sara Durnan

Madrid

To the Editor:

I totally disagree with this editorial. I dont want an investigation. I want a coronation of Joe Biden. Would he make a great president? Unlikely. Would he make a good president? Good enough. Would he make a better president than the present occupant? Absolutely. I dont want justice, whatever that may be. I want a win, the removal of Donald Trump from office, and Mr. Biden is our best chance.
Over the past 20 years, the US has provided Vietnam with more than 1.8 billion USD,

ncluding more than 706 million USD for health. (Source: VNA)

The funds will be utilised to bring much needed resources to bear immediately, including supporting private sector recovery by mitigating the financial impacts of the pandemic on small and medium-sized-sized enterprises (SMEs), addressing the non-financial impacts facing SMEs, and partnering with Government of Vietnam stakeholders to bolster the governments relief interventions.

The US aid package also includes a previously announced 4.5-million-USD medical assistance for the Vietnamese Government to prepare laboratory systems and activate case-finding and event-based surveillance.

It also covers the support for experts in response to COVID-19, community education and engagement, infection prevention for healthcare settings, public health screening at points of entry, and more.

Over the past 20 years, the US has invested more than 1.8 billion USD in total assistance for Vietnam, including over 706 million USD for health.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the US Government has pledged 775 million USD for medical emergency, humanitarian, economic and developmental assistance to help governments, international organisations and non-governmental organisations to beat the pandemic./.
Photo: The Canadian Press

B.C. nurses are getting anxious as provincial supplies of personal protective equipment run low during the pandemic.

The BC Nurses Union says they have received 1,700 complaints since March 20 from nurses who are increasingly concerned that employers are unable to provide gear such as gowns, gloves, face shields and N95 respirator masks.

BCNU president Christine Sorensen says employers are asking nurses to take questionable measures to preserve PPE.

Nurses are getting only one mask per shift. Others have been told to leave their used mask on a piece of paper towel when they go on a break, she says.

Sorensen says the BCNU is questioning what the state of B.C.s pandemic response measures or other disease transmission before the crisis began.

Respirators, masks and other PPE are meant to be the last line of defense for care providers, after all other control measures are in place, explains Sorensen. The fact that some hospital emergency rooms still have triage desks without plexi-glass barriers, like the ones now present in grocery stores and food processing plants, is quite simply beyond me.

Health Minister Adrian Dix has spoken at length about the challenges sourcing PPE on the global market. On April 20, he said the province is getting close to having to deploy alternative PPE gear.

We are approaching that point, where we will need to introduce alternative PPE. Our healthcare workers have done a great job extending use and conserving products, Dix said.

But it is running low. Like other jurisdictions, we are struggling to find products in the context of all this global demand.

He assured healthcare workers that rigorous testing and certification is being undertaken for PPE coming from new vendors.
"We appreciate the rare mid-year addition of the Hyundai Venue to Consumer Guides' widely respected 2020 Best Buy list," said Scott Margason, director, Product Planning, Hyundai Motor North America. "The recognition reinforces the embodiment of value and functionality in a small, charismatic product offering, during a time in which extravagant purchases have been put on hold."

According to Consumer Guide judges, multiple factors contributed to Venue's addition to the list. The Venue's subcompact size makes it one of the smallest and most affordable vehicles in the class, while also offering more passenger and cargo room than expected, and an impressive list of standard and available comfort/convenience and safety features.

"The new Hyundai Venue takes aim at the penny-pinching end of this segment, undercutting the starting price of the Kicks by about $1500," Said Tom Appel, publisher Consumer Guide. "Though its ride quality, engine noise levels, and extra-tidy overall dimensions will remind you you're in a bargain-priced vehicle, the Venue wins us over nonetheless with its spunky design personality, pleasant interior ambiance, fuel economy, and passenger/cargo versatility."

Consumer Guide evaluates numerous vehicles during the year to determine which ones prove their value and available features. Vehicles selected for the Automotive Awards offer a combination of features and options plus the dynamic qualities that make for safe, enjoyable and reliable transportation choices.

Hyundai's Retail Operations

Hyundai dealers across the country enhanced their safety measures and adapted their businesses to comply with social distancing guidelines by leveraging Shopper Assurance and Hyundai's Click to Buy capability. The 'Click to Buy' tool makes car buying easy with transparent pricing, flexible test drive, a streamlined purchase and three day worry free exchange, each available from the comfort of your home.

HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA

At Hyundai Motor America, we believe everyone deserves better. From the way we design and build our cars to the way we treat the people who drive them, making things better is at the heart of everything we do. Hyundai's technology-rich product lineup of cars, SUVs and alternative-powered electric and fuel cell vehicles is backed by Hyundai Assuranceour promise to create a better experience for customers. Hyundai vehicles are sold and serviced through more than 820 dealerships nationwide and nearly half of those sold in the U.S. are built at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama. Hyundai Motor America is headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, and is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company of Korea.

Please visit our media website at www.HyundaiNews.com

Hyundai Motor America on Twitter | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

SOURCE Hyundai Motor America

Related Links

www.hyundainews.com


Stories of companies such as Mahindra switching up their manufacturing plants to help create more pandemic-specific necessities have been pouring in since March, although when it comes to taking care of their employees, no Indian conglomerate has set the bar as high as Rajiv Bajajs Bajaj Auto.

 BCCL

A fortnight after announcing that he would be forgoing 100% of his salary to help keep the company and its employees afloat, the MDs Human Resources department released a letter last weekend that firmly enforced an employees-first approach to managing the coronavirus crisis.



Read the full letter below:

Dear Colleagues, Friends,

'The heart usually knows what to do. The challenge is to silence the mind'.

Today, in the context of the proposed organisation wide voluntary wage cut for 15th - 30th Apr 2020, we discussed the argument for reciprocity in the relationship between an organisation & its employees ie that just as both share in the gain in the good times so must they also share in the pain in the bad times.

Equally we asked ourselves whether a large & profitable company like Bajaj Auto ought not to cushion against the impact of this pandemic & the associated lockdown it's people who have earned it the distinction of becoming the World's Favourite Indian, with industry leading metrics.

We have come to the conclusion that this is a time when we must act more from our hearts than from our minds.

Our business depends first & foremost upon each & every one of us, from the top to the bottom. Thus before we reach out to support our larger society, we are obliged to first secure our own; so long as we can help it, not a single child of the last contract worker must sleep hungry on our watch.

We have hence concluded that everyone including all of the contract labour engaged by us will be paid their full salary for Apr 2020. We will next review this matter towards the end of May taking into account the degree of positive impact on our business of the implementation of the progressive unlocking that is anticipated.

So for the moment, without the added burden of any wage related financial stress, we can hopefully better focus all of our energy on the safety & well being of our families.

And then, as soon as we're open for business, we shall as always as one spirited team have Bajaj Auto roaring back upon global roads full throttle!

We send you our love, prayers, & good wishes.

Earlier, the company had proposed a 10% wage cut across the board to conserve cash after all business activities were halted due to the lockdown to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. After dismal sales figures across the sector in April, Bajaj Auto suffered a massive, near-25% slash to stock price from March to May, according to Google Finance.

Managing director Rajiv Bajaj had decided to forego his entire salary for the period - along with cutting costs in marketing, travel and other key business activities, this managed to save the company a reported 150-200 crores by the end of April.

How Are Other Companies Keeping Up?

While Bajaj Auto clearly seems to be leading the pack when it comes to prioritising the financial and psychological well-being of its staff, other companies have been making things work with varying levels of success.

While industry leaders Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro have announced delaying wage-hike plans, other players such as Infosys and HCL Technologies are expected to follow suit, according to industry insiders.

In the startup sector however, with investors jumping ship, it isnt surprising to see massive layoffs across the board, with sectors such as travel and tourism taking the biggest hits. Supporting this narrative are the figures for online grocery delivery app Grofers vs. startup hotel chains Treebo and FabHotels - while the former has currently laid off 2.5% of their workforce, the hotel chains have seen massive slashes of 30% so far.

 BCCL/Treebo

Basically, the company culture is at play, shares CIEL HR CEO, Aditya Mishra with The Business Standard. 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. Many Indian firms, even without a single penny of revenue at this point of time, are not laying off people



 Reuters

At the moment, most major Indian companies have hunkered down with respect to employee salaries and promotions in particular. It is certainly not happening in the first quarter, said Saurabh Govel, Chief HR Officer at Wipro. We will take a call based on how the business moves and are not in a position to give guidance.



Whats interesting is that while Indian companies have mostly shown a strategy of cautious stagnation, multinational employees are enjoying proactive measures from their upper management to help boost productivity and keep the workforce happy - even if it means laying off a few short ends.

French IT services firm Capgemini rolled out high single-digit hikes for 70% 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 paid accommodation. Similarly, US-based Cognizant has introduced 25% pay hikes for Indian and Filipino employees - labelled as a sign of gratitude for continuing work through the lockdown.

Depending on where you work, chances are you may be saying goodbye to this years increments and promotions - or will receive compensation at the risk of potential layoffs.



Its a hard reality for us all to face, no doubt.
Just before the coronavirus lockdown was announced, the sink in Tama Knights student property in London overflowed, filling the kitchen with used water and cutting off the power in the whole building.

Fearing she couldnt effectively self-isolate while sharing facilities in a huge communal block amid the maintenance issues, she moved in with her partner and faced paying double rent.

Now, she is now one of thousands across the country who have joined a rent strike in protest at university accommodation providers who have refused to cancel bills during lockdown. As the movement gains momentum, many non-student tenants are also negotiating with landlords for rent reductions or starting to withhold rent until the pandemic subsides.

Were fighting for the students who face dropping out of university if they have to pay rent, for the people who have lost their jobs and the people who need to self-isolate to protect themselves and their families, the 24-year-old LSE masters student from Canada said.

For many of us on rent strike, this is about survival.

Coronavirus: London on lockdown Show all 29 1 /29 Coronavirus: London on lockdown Coronavirus: London on lockdown A man walks down a deserted Camden High Street Photos Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Goodge Street Station is one of the many stations closed to help reduce the spread Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown An empty street in the heart of Chinatown Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown People in masks in Chinatown a day after the lockdown Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A near-empty Piccadilly Circus during the first week of lockdown Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Sonja, my neighbour, who I photographed while taking a short walk. It was nice to briefly chat even from a distance Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A couple sit on the empty steps of the statue Eros in Piccadilly Circus Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Making sure I stay two-meters apart  DArblay Street, Soho Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A mannequin behind a shop window. UK stores have closed until further notice Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A notice displayed on a shop window in Camden Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown As part of the lockdown, all non-essential shops have been ordered to close.Image from Camden High Street Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A skateboarder wearing a mask utilises his exercise allowance in the Camden area Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Communities have been coming together in a time of need Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A woman stands alone in a deserted Oxford Street. Up until a few weeks ago, on average, half a million people visited the street per day Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A couple walk hand in hand down a street in Soho, a day before the stricter lockdown was announced Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown During the first week of March, shoppers focused on stockpiling necessities ahead of a countrywide lockdown Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Many supermarkers are operating a queuing system to make sure only a limited amount of customers are allowed in at anyone time Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Stay Safe  Curzon cinemas are temporarily closed under the new measures Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Pubs, restaurants and bars were ordered to shut as part of the lockdown Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Camden High Street There are fears that coronavirus could lead to permanent closure of struggling shops Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Camden Town is eerily silent on a normal working day Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Shops and supermarkets ran out of hand sanitisers in the first week of the lockdown. As we approach the end of the second week most shops now have started to stock up Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Empty streets around Soho Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A noticeboard on Camden High Street urges the public to stay at home Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Camden High Street, one of Londons busiest tourist streets turns quiet Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Thriller Live confirmed its West End run ended in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown Empty and eerie Soho streets after stricter rules on social distancing announced Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A woman pauses for a cigarette on Hanway Street, behind Tottenham Court Road Angela Christofilou Coronavirus: London on lockdown A man steps outside onto Hanway Street, that sits behind what is usually a bustling retail hub Angela Christofilou

Unable to return to her family home in Toronto, with both her mother and sister at high risk from coronavirus, Tama joined more than 300 students in asking their private accommodation provider to waive rents. She said they were compelled to go on rent strike after accommodation provider Sanctuary Students refused to discuss their demands.

While many universities have waived rent for the final term of the year, or even the whole year, many private providers have refused to release students from their contracts. According to the Office for Students, only 19 per cent of students live in university-managed accommodation, with the vast majority renting from private providers.

A spokesperson for Sanctuary Students, a subsidiary of the major housing association group Sanctuary, said: While we understand that some students and parents are disappointed, the decision [to not cancel student contracts] was made with the wider interests of our customers and communities at the forefront of our minds.

Posters advocating a rent strike in Bristol (PA) (Ben Birchall/PA Wire/PA Images)

We continue to house a significant number of national and international students in our properties in various locations and for many of these, our accommodation is their primary home. All our sites remain open, and without our accommodation, these students may become homeless. It is essential we continue to provide them with support staff and access to a safe, secure, managed place to live.

Sanctuary Students added that students will receive student loan payments as normal and says they are offering flexible payment options to students with financial concerns.

But Tama pointed out that for many students, their maintenance loans do not cover their rent and they have lost part-time jobs vital to funding their living costs. Meanwhile, international students do not receive student loans at all.

It is ridiculous to expect all students to be able to pay their rent as normal in the middle of a global pandemic, Tama said. Theres this overwhelming feeling of being left behind, by the private providers, by the universities, by the government.

Charlotte, a 29-year-old freelancer from London, also feels that the struggles many renters face during the pandemic are being ignored by the government.

It feels like were still being used to make a profit from in the middle of a pandemic

After she and her partner lost more than 80 per cent of their income since lockdown began and discovered they were ineligible for the governments self-employment income support scheme, they started withholding rent from their landlord.

My landlord refused to accept that we had no savings and just couldnt pay the rent that month. They said they were trying to be compassionate, but suggested we take out a loan to pay the rent. It feels like were still being used to make a profit from in the middle of a pandemic.

While she feels relieved that the government suspended evictions during lockdown, she said renters are still treated like second-class citizens, with government help correlating to how many assets you have.

Last month, the government announced a three-month suspension on evictions to protect tenants who have lost income due to coronavirus. Landlords are also able to apply for a three-month mortgage holiday if their tenants are under financial strain.

However, housing campaigners say that this does not go far enough, and are calling on the government to suspend all rent payments and waive all arrears until the pandemic is over.

The London Renters Union claims that unless these measures are introduced, thousands of renters could see their tenancies end as soon as the emergency eviction suspension does. The group has raised concerns that many renters are not eligible for the governments income support schemes  and even for those who are entitled to 80 per cent of their salary, this might not be enough to cover rent as well as food and other essentials.



The New Economics Foundation has also recommended that private rent should be suspended to help around 1.2 million at renters at risk of losing their jobs during the pandemic. The think tanks report recommends a three-month suspension to protect those facing severe financial hardship.

In an open letter addressed to health secretary Matt Hancock and housing secretary Robert Jenrick, the LRU also warned that the governments policies are undermining public health as people are forced to leave the house because of the pressure to continue to pay rent.

Dr Alex Baker, a postdoctoral researcher in urban studies and planning at the University of Sheffield, also warns that we could see a fresh wave of evictions and claims once the courts are back in session.

Secondly, rent arrears dont go away, he said. Many, if not most, tenancies include charges for arrears, and theres nothing to stop arrears and interest accruing during this time.

In practice, while the [evictions] suspension keeps people off the streets right now, it may do more to help flatten the curve for the court system than it does to protect tenants from eviction.

Meanwhile, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has called for the government to make up shortfalls in rent payments, and said the capital faced a ticking timebomb of debt, arrears and widespread evictions once the emergency measures are lifted.

While the evictions suspension keeps people off the streets right now, it may do more to help flatten the curve for the court system than it does protect tenants

But a government spokesperson said it had put in place unprecedented measures to support tenants facing financial hardship because of coronavirus.

Tenants still have an obligation to pay their rent and should continue to do so wherever possible, they said. We urge any tenants who may be experiencing problems to contact their landlord at the earliest opportunity and for parties to reach an agreement if there are issues with payment.

Meanwhile, many students feel left behind without access to the governments income support schemes. In response, the National Union of Students (NUS) has called on the government to supply a 60m hardship fund to students with living costs, such as rent, during lockdown.

A Department for Education spokesperson said it encourages universities and private landlords to consider students interests and fairness in their decisions about rent charges for this period.

They said the DfE has worked with the Office for Students to help universities use an existing 46m across April and May towards their hardship funds for students, including international students.

A white sheet bearing the slogan rent strike now hangs from a window in Hackney, east London (Rent Strike London) (London Rent Strike)

They also noted that those in part-time employment may be eligible for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, and students will continue to receive maintenance loan payments.

Unless more government support is offered, many students and tenants feel compelled to join strike action or demand rent reductions in order to protect themselves. But as they push back, some say their demands are being met with derision and aggression by landlords.

More than 100 residents living in a block in Somerford Grove, east London, are now considering going on rent strike after their request for a 20 per cent reduction in rent was refused, and the letting agent refused to agree that no tenant would be evicted during the pandemic.

The letting agent, Tower Quay, told the tenants that their request was unreasonable and said they should use the money they would have spent on lunches and holidays to pay the full amount due. The agent added that wear and tear in properties is increasing during lockdown, which meant that there was no justification for a reduction in rent.

Marc Sutton, 41, one of the residents who signed the letter, described Tower Quays response as completely out of touch.

I think Im very typical of residents in the building with many of us working as freelancers or with multiple jobs in gig work, he said. Were finding fewer jobs and theyre paying less and less, and some tenants are now on universal credit.

Marc added that since residents sent the letter requesting a rent reduction, the landlord has stepped up security around the block with people being filmed by guards.

Several residents have said they feel like theyre in prison and a few who havent been involved have told me theyre having panic attacks and feel afraid to leave their flats, he said.

Tower Quay did not respond to a request for comment. There is no suggestion that the landlord, billionaire John Christodolou, knew about the contents of the letter.

Meanwhile, students at Warwick University said some private landlords have suggested they should take out personal credit loans or that their parents go on universal credit to help them pay rent.

Alfie Brepotra, a second-year management student at Warwick and one of the organisers of the student rent strike group that has gathered 650 members, said: Landlords are taking advantage of students who are in a very precarious position during the coronavirus crisis.

Its ridiculous to suggest that parents should apply for universal credit, especially given that the amount that two adults might receive would only just cover some students rent.

He added: Lining the pockets of property investment companies and landlords is not our priority in these difficult times.

While Warwick University has cancelled contracts for students renting on campus, many of those renting off-campus from private landlords are still obliged to pay. However, many of the rentals will have been arranged via the universitys property management agency.

Lining the pockets of property investment companies and landlords is not our priority in these difficult times

A Warwick University spokesperson said: Off-campus renting during the current situation continues to present complex challenges to everyone concerned.

Our principal and immediate focus is on student hardship, ensuring that students with real financial support needs can access the support they need through the universitys students hardship scheme, rather than taking any other action that could lead them into potentially costly, and lengthy, legal disputes, particularly with private sector landlords.

Despite the pushback they have faced from landlords, many rent strikers hope that the movement forged during the pandemic will help them push for greater protections for tenants once it is over.

David Murphy, one of the organisers of the Lancaster University rent strike and a communications officer for Acorn renters union, said the coronavirus crisis has laid bare the power disparity between landlords and tenants.

In our case, weve seen the university has put its desire to make profit over the wellbeing of its students during a public health emergency, he said.

The 22-year-old international relations masters student added: People tend to romanticise the idea of a rent strike and have it as your pinnacle goal, but ultimately we want to get better protections for renters even after the pandemic is over.

David said that in the last few weeks, the Lancaster branch of Acorn tenants union has seen a big intake of members as more than 200 students joined the rent strike. The strikers are calling for cancellation of rents for summer term university accommodation for all students, not just those who have completely vacated their rooms.

A spokesperson from Lancaster University said: As part of our plan to support students through Covid-19, Lancaster University took the decision to offer reduced accommodation fees to many of our students in university-managed accommodation this term. We appreciate this is a very challenging time for our community and we hope this helps ease the financial burden for some students.

But for many renters like David, access to affordable housing was precarious long before coronavirus. And as we face the economic fallout of lockdown with up to 6.5 million job losses, they say more will need to be done to protect the rights of renters.

Charlotte, who has lost 80 per cent of her income since lockdown began, said: The pandemic has created a window for change for renters.

It makes you realise how much there is to fight for, even after lockdown ends.
Delhi: Two floors of BSF headquarters sealed after staff member contracts COVID-19

India

pti-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, May 04: Two floors of the Border Security Force headquarters in Delhi have been sealed after a staff member was tested positive for COVID-19, officials said on Monday.

The eight-storeyed BSF head office is located in the CGOs complex on Lodhi road that also houses the CRPF headquarters, which was placed under similar sealing on Sunday after two staffers tested positive.

"A head constable of the BSF working in the force headquarters has been found COVID-19 positive late night on May 3. He last attended office on May 1," a BSF spokesperson said. "He was working in an office on the 2nd floor. Offices on first and second floors of the headquarters have been closed as a precaution," he said.

All those who came in his contact have been identified and quarantined. They will also be tested for coronavirus, he added.

The BSF head office houses the office of its Director General (DG) and other senior commanders apart from its operational and administrative wings. Prior to the detection of the case, the spokesperson said the headquarters was closed early by 4.00 pm on Friday as a special precautionary measure.

Officials said this was done as the head constable had then exhibited some illness symptoms and he was immediately sent for medical care. All attending staff vacated offices and the entire office complex was thoroughly sanitised with prescribed disinfectants, the spokesperson said. The head office was closed on Saturday and Sunday and "no staff other than the security personnel and the control room members in limited numbers worked in the headquarters", he said.

"The disinfection of complete Block 10 of the CGO complex (where BSF force headquarters is located) will be done again in the afternoon today in light of the latest COVID-19 positive case. "Identification of secondary and tertiary contacts as per the protocol is being carried out and all protocols are being followed," the spokesperson said.

A total of 54 troops of the border guarding force have been detected with the disease till now, the maximum 31 from a unit that performed law and order duties in Jama Majid and Chandni Mahal areas of Delhi.

The 2.5-lakh-personnel-strong BSF is primarily tasked with guarding the Indian borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, apart from rendering a variety of duties in the country's internal security domain.
A series of clay objects supposedly from the ancient Middle East have been identified as fakes by the British Museum.

Two trunks containing as many as 190 tablets, each individually packed in bubble wrap, were seized by Border Force at Heathrow airport in July last year after they were sent from Bahrain to a private address in the UK.

The range of items included votive mace-heads, inscribed dedicatory wall cones, a royal inscription referring to the late Assyrian king Adadnirari, a mathematical tablet and an inscribed amulet resembling a unique example excavated at the Assyrian capital of Nimrud.

But suspicions were raised by experts from the Middle East department at the British Museum, who found that the tablets seemed to represent an almost complete range of basic items known from ancient Mesopotamia.

Upon examination, it was discovered many of the cuneiform inscriptions were a jumble of signs, some invented and others upside-down, which made no sense when read.

The objects, claimed to be from the ancient Middle East, were sent in bubble wrap / PA

Experts also found the clay used was all of a similar type, which would be impossible for genuine articles, and they had all been fired consistently to a high temperature in a modern kiln, rather than dried in the sun as the authentic items would have been.

The sizes and thicknesses of the tablets also did not match those of the originals, which they said is a common error of a forger working from photographs in a book.

The fakes are set to go in display in the museum when it reopens, and will now be used for teaching and training purposes.

St John Simpson, curator at the British Museum, said: These seizures confirm an emerging trend: capitalising on interest in the purchase of antiquities, unscrupulous traders are faking Middle Eastern objects for sale.

These consignments confirm the importance of vigilance on the part of our law enforcement agencies and the role that museums need to play in the identification of these objects.

Richard Nixon, senior Border Force officer at Heathrow, added: Organised crime gangs are usually the drivers behind the counterfeit trade and, by making this seizure, our experienced officers have taken a substantial amount of money out of the hands of criminals.

The links we have forged with experts at the British Museum were a vital part of this case and we will continue to work closely with them, as well as law enforcement partners, to stop counterfeit goods.

Additional reporting by Press Association
Israels political system was glued to TV screens May 4 as the High Court discussion on petitions against a unity government was broadcast live. Thus, few took the time to watch Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participating in the Coronavirus Global Response videoconference hosted by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The European Union and its partners hosted an international pledging conference with the aim of raising the equivalent of $8 billion to kick-start global cooperation against the coronavirus and for finding a vaccine. French President Emmanuel Macron, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and many other world leaders, including Netanyahu, took part in this drive.

On April 24, several of these same world leaders participated in a videoconference dedicated to creating tools to battle the coronavirus. Israel was apparently not part of this initiative. Was it not invited on purpose? Did the fact that President Donald Trump did not participate play a role? Whatever the reasons, official sources in Israel said Jerusalem was not really aware of the event. In fact, Netanyahu participated at a videoconference of his own just hours earlier that day, discussing the coronavirus threat with leaders of Central and Eastern Europe.

This time was different, and Jerusalem made sure to be in the loop. On May 1, Netanyahu spoke on the phone with von der Leyen, who invited him to take part in the meeting. And so, on May, 4 the prime minister offered a concise message relating to the world Israels achievement of limiting the spread of the virus. "I am confident that Israels leading research institutions, its world-renowned scientists and our unique culture of innovation can enable us to play an important role in advancing solution, said Netanyahu, who pledged $60 million for research into a vaccine.

Netanyahus pledge comes as Israels Foreign Ministry multiplies its efforts to contribute to the global campaign against COVID-19. After bringing home all stranded Israeli tourists, the ministry turned its focus to international cooperation. On May 6, Israels Foreign Ministry together with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction will hold an international conference addressing ways of coping with the coronavirus pandemic and the possibility of additional waves of outbreaks. Meirav Eilon Shahar, the coordination and policy planning deputy director general, will open the digital meeting, in which 20 countries are expected to participate.

All this is happening while Israels state comptroller published his latest report, which also refers to the management of the countrys foreign policy. The report not only says that Israels foreign policy apparatus is woefully underfunded, but also notes that many of its responsibilities have been transferred elsewhere over the years. The report says there are more than 35 governmental agencies other than the Foreign Ministry that deal with international relations.

State Comptroller Matanyahu Engelman was appointed by Netanyahu personally, and the report contains no direct criticism of the prime minister. Still, with Israel focusing on international cooperation to battle the coronavirus, Netanyahu will evidently need to share the stage.
The Federal government has received $311,797,866.11, the third tranche of the former head of state, late General Sani Abacha loot, from the United States and the Bailiwick of Jersey.



Attorney-General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, disclosed this in a statement released today May 4 by his Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, Dr Umar Gwandu.



According to Malami, the amount increased significantly from over $308 million mentioned in an earlier statement in February to over $311million as a result of the interest that accrued from February 3 to April 28, when the fund was transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria.



Malami said the latest recovery would support and assist in expediting the construction of three major infrastructure projects across Nigeria  Lagos  Ibadan Expressway, Abuja  Kano Road, and the Second Niger Bridge. He revealed that the government was in the process of establishing a Project Monitoring Team to oversee the implementation of the projects and report regularly on progress made to the public.



In order to ensure transparent management of the returned assets, Malami said the government would engage a Civil Society Organisation who has combined expertise in substantial infrastructure projects, civil engineering, anti-corruption compliance, anti-human trafficking compliance, and procurement to provide additional monitoring and oversight.



He noted that the process for the engagement of the CSO monitor has already commenced with the adverts placed in two local newspapers.



The recovered funds, according to the minister, were laundered through the U.S. banking system and then held in bank accounts in the Bailiwick of Jersey.





Source: LIB









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
T he Covid-19 pandemic has affected people from all walks of life, including university students who were set to graduate in 2020.

Some further educational settings were forced to cancel or postpone ceremonies while others opted to wait until nearer the time to make a decision.

Several have decided to hold the event online, with one institution using robots with paired tablets to allow students to individually attend the ceremony via laptop controlled artificial intelligence.

The strain has also deterred prospective students, with one in five being undecided about starting in September, new research indicates.

Here, we take a look at how coronavirus will affect graduation ceremonies in the UK around the world.

The pandemic has changed 2020 graduation ceremonies around the world / PA

The University of Oxford:

The University of Oxford said all summer graduation ceremonies have been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A spokeswoman for the institution said, after consulting will all its colleges, graduating students will now have a choice to either have their degree conferred in absentia or to attend a ceremony at a later date.

A graduate celebrates in her car / Getty Images

"These are challenging circumstances, but completing a university degree is a landmark experience, especially at an institution as historic as Oxford," she added.

"Upholding the traditions enjoyed by past alumni is especially important to our students, and they deserve to have the opportunity to celebrate and honour the completion of their Oxford story as they see fit."

The University of Cambridge:

The historic univerity has decided to wait and see how lockdown progresses before making any announcements.

Students might have to have alternative graduation ceremonies due to coronavirus / PA

A spokesman said: "It's too early to make any comment on graduation ceremonies."

The University of Edinburgh:

This university has informed students that it will not be holding graduation ceremonies this summer.

A spokesman added: "We regret that graduation ceremonies in summer 2020 will not be running.

"We currently expect that degree certificates for students entitled to graduate this summer will be printed and mailed by the end of July 2020, with graduates being offered a series of options."

Some universities are deferring their ceremonies while others are conducting them online / PA

The spokesman explained that students can either defer to an in-person ceremony in winter 2020 or summer 2021, attend a virtual graduation, or receive their certificate and not attend a ceremony.

Aberystwyth University:

The university confirmed that July's graduation ceremony has been postponed.

A spokesman told the Evening Standard that it will update staff and students with a new plan once it has been deemed safe and responsible to hold such event.

Japan:

Spring graduation ceremonies in Japan have been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, but students at one school were able to attend remotely by controlling avatar robots while logged on at home.

The robots, dubbed Newme by developer ANA Holdings, were dressed in graduation caps and gowns for the ceremony at the Business Breakthrough University in Tokyo.

Robots were used at one ceremony with graduating students controlling their movements / Reuters

One by one, the robots motored towards the podium to receive their diplomas. School staff clapped and said congratulations! as University President Kenichi Ohmae placed the diplomas on a rack mounted on the robots midsection.

I think this is truly a novel experience to receive a certificate in a public area while I am in a private space, Kazuki Tamura said via his computer avatar when receiving his masters degree diploma.

One in five 'uncertain' about starting university in September:

Nearly one in five prospective students have changed their mind or are uncertain about going to university this autumn, a survey suggests.

Almost half (48 per cent) of university applicants think that the coronavirus crisis will damage their chances of getting into their first-choice institution, according to a poll from the Sutton Trust.

Students from working-class backgrounds (51 per cent) are more likely to think it will have a negative impact on them than their peers from middle-class backgrounds (43 per cent ).

The majority of would-be students (72 per cent) think the new calculated grade system is less fair than in previous years  and more than two in five (43 per cent) think their A-level grades will be worse as a result of the plans.

The poll, of 511 university applicants aged 17 to 19, shows that 19 per cent have changed their mind about their university attendance this autumn, or they have yet to decide whether to go.

Some students are planning to take gap years while others have changed their preferred university amid the Covid-19 outbreak, according to the report.

University support from the Government:

The Government is to provide financial support to universities as part of efforts to stabilise admissions and safeguard students.

A total of 2.6 billion in forecast tuition fee payments will be brought forward to help address cash flow concerns, along with 100 million in Government funding to help protect research activities.

The changes will mean higher education providers in England will be able to recruit full-time undergraduate UK and EU students for 2020-21 up to a temporary set level, based on their forecasts for the next academic year plus an additional 5 per cent.

The numbers will be controlled by the Government via the student finance system, with ministers also having discretion to allocate an additional 10,000 places.

A total of 5,000 places will be ring-fenced for nursing, midwifery or allied health courses to support the UKs public services.

UCAS will also develop a new, personalised clearing system for students this summer, including a clearing plus service to match students to universities or other opportunities based on their achievements and course interests.
Our weekly roundup of books that should be on your radar.

We love stories, and even in the age of Netflix-and-chill, there's nothing like a good book that promises a couple of hours of absorption  whether curled up in bed, in your favourite coffeehouse, or that long (and tiresome) commute to work. Every Sunday, we'll have a succinct pick of books, across diverse genres, that have been newly made available for your reading pleasure. Get them wherever you get your books  the friendly neighbourhood bookseller, e-retail website, chain store  and in whatever form you prefer. Happy reading!

For more of our weekly book recommendations, click here.

***

 FICTION

Shameless

By Taslima Nasreen; translated by Arunava Sinha

HarperCollins India | Rs 399 | 296 pages

Translated by Ashoka University professor Arunava Sinha, author Taslima Nasreens Shameless is the sequel to her bestselling novel Lajja (Shame), and looks at the lives of ordinary people in troubled times. The protagonist Suranjan and his family, having been persecuted in Bangladesh, have now moved to Calcutta. Here, however, they lead incomplete, exploited lives, with the haunting memories of communal history.

Read more about the book here.

Three Impossible Wishes

By Anmol Malik

HarperCollins India | Rs 299 | 372 pages

Writer Anmol Maliks book follows 19-year-old Arya Mahtani, who has been accepted to the University of Westley. She begins college life plagued by self-doubt, navigating relationships with Sahil, Vladimir Petrov, and her father. A lighthearted read, Three Impossible Wishes is a story about finding love and learning to love yourself.

Read more about the book here.

 NON-FICTION

Kudankulam: The Story of an Indo-Russian Nuclear Power Plant

By Raminder Kaur

OUP India | Rs 1,395 | 392 pages

Professor of anthropology and cultural studies at the University of Sussex, Raminder Kaurs book focuses on the multiple forms of resistance Tamil Nadus Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant has faced since the 1980s. An ethnographic study of the anti-nuclear campaign, the book also attempts to create a knowledge base in response to insufficient or unavailable data about Indias public health and the environment.

Read more about the book here.

The Minority Conundrum: Living in Majoritarian Times

Edited by Tanweer Fazal

Penguin Random House India | Rs 499 | 256 pages

Edited by Tanweer Fazal, author and sociology professor at the University of Hyderabad, the essays in the book discuss what it means to be a minority through identifying vulnerabilities that prevent one from substantive citizenship. Second in Penguins Rethinking India series, topics in the book range from education and employment opportunities to violence by the state and vigilante groups, and from language to receding political voices of minorities.

Read more about the book here.

Indias World: How Prime Ministers Shaped Foreign Policy

By Rajiv Dogra

Rupa Publications | Rs 595 | 248 pages

Foreign service officer Rajiv Dogras book talks about some of the greatest challenges and triumphs of the country, and discusses how certain prime ministers have contributed to Indias rise. It looks at Indias place in the world, with messages about the role of an ideal prime minister.

Read more about the book here.

 CURRENT EVENTS

Coronavirus: A Book for Children

By Elizabeth Jenner, Kate Wilson, and Nia Roberts; illustrations by Axel Scheffler

HarperCollins and Nosy Crow | Available for free | 15 pages

Appropriate for children aged five to nine, three teachers have put together this book to answer key questions readers might have, from what is the coronavirus? to what can I do to help? and more. With illustrations by Axel Scheffler, the book also has expert input from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines Professor Graham Medley, and from a child psychologist.

Read more about the book and download the PDF for free here.
Joe Biden finally spoke out about the charges of sexual assault levied against him by former staffer Tara Reade, and he did about as well as he could. He firmly repeated earlier denials that he had ever attacked her, and noted that her story has some inconsistencies. He said his Senate papers at the University of Delaware wouldnt contain a copy of the complaint she says she filed, and an official with National Archives said they wouldnt have it either. If it exists, it would still be in the possession of the U.S. Senate.

So for now, we have a stalemate in the story. Reade says Biden pinned her up against a wall and put his fingers inside her in 1993 in a Senate room, and he vehemently denies the charge. It may or may not be true, and without further evidence, it is impossible to prove.

But this story is not going away, and it could nag Biden all the way until the election. Even though Donald Trump has a longer and sleazier record on this issue, the charge undercuts Biden appeal as a moral alternative to the abuser-in-chief. Fairly or unfairly, some voters will conclude that Biden is just like Trump when it comes to harassing women, or at least not very different. Some of those people wont vote for Biden, and in a close election like 2016s, that could matter.

Then theres Brett Kavanaugh. When he was nominated for the Supreme Court in 2018, he too faced a murky assault charge from decades ago. Just like Tara Reade this time, parts of Christine Blasey Fords story seemed compelling, and others seemed shaky. It became a national Rorschach test; you could look at the same evidence and pronounce Kavanaugh a victim of a smear campaign or a creep who didnt deserve higher office.

Virtually every prominent Democrat came down on the latter side, just as their Republican counterparts pronounced Kavanaugh innocent. But all the things those Democrats said then about believing and trusting the woman in these cases is going to be flung back in their faces this time.

They do not believe or trust Tara Reade; theyre siding with the guy who said he didnt do nuthin. And not just any guy, but a guy who has a history of touching and squeezing women  innocently, he maintained, though he also says he now realizes this kind of contact is no longer appropriate.

Bidens defenders may truly doubt the charge against him. But they also really, really want to get Trump out of the White House, and they are frankly willing to bend their #MeToo principles if Biden is the only vehicle to accomplish that. Thats understandable in a tactical sense. But get ready to see these quotes and others from 2018 resurrected again and again in this campaign:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.: I believe (Ford) because she is telling the truth and you know it by her story.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.: I believe Professor Ford. I think shes credible.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii: I believe Dr. Ford because she makes a very credible case. It is really difficult for someone to come forward in this way.

Strong words, and every one of them could be justified. But now those same Democrats dont instinctively believe Reade over Biden. Worse, some are now redefining the word believe to mean listening sincerely and respectfully to someone claiming sexual assault  but not actually believing her.

Again, Joe Biden could be completely innocent of this lurid accusation. But you havent heard the last of this, partly because Trump and Fox News will flog it relentlessly, and partly because it is eerily similar to the Kavanaugh-Ford debate.

The only thing that would change the dynamic is someone digging out a written copy of the complaint Reade said she made. Thats a longshot, but if it happens, this story will get a burst of new life and news coverage. In the ultimate irony, it could re-elect a president who bragged about grabbing women by their private parts.

Thomas Taschinger, TTaschinger@BeaumontEnterprise.com, is the editorial page editor of The Beaumont Enterprise. Follow him on Twitter at @PoliticalTom
ONSHORE GAS REPORT (22/04/2020)

By the Climate Fraction of CPA Melbourne Branch

The moratorium on onshore gas was introduced in 2014 after various environmental and farmers organisations, such as Friends of the Earth, Lock the Gate, and the Victorian Farmers Federation pressured the government to ban unconventional gas extraction and introduce a moratorium on conventional gas exploration. This moratorium is set to expire on June 30, 2020, and will open up Victoria to onshore gas exploration. The moratorium on onshore gas to protect the environment is important for the following reasons:

Gas plants emit fifty per cent CO 2 of a comparable coal plant;

of a comparable coal plant; Gas drilling and production can leak methane gas (CH 4 ) which is another greenhouse gas that can cause thirty-four times the impact CO 2 causes over 100 years.

Onshore gas production can devastate the local environment and land, which can affect:

Farmers in regional Victoria;

Regional communities;

The traditional owners of the land.

It is important to invest in renewables and implement a just transition to limit a rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees as per the Paris Agreement. Currently, Australia is projected to remain in the category of a three-degree increase in temperature that will have devastating effects on the environment according to Climate Action Tracker.

One of the reasons that the Victorian government wants to expand onshore gas projects is because of a so-called gas shortage. However, this is not because of a lack of projects and production, but rather because of the mismanagement of resources under a capitalist system. Gas and electricity prices have been skyrocketing since 2000 and are approximately three times greater than the Consumer Price Index (See Figure 1). Household prices for individual energy consumption has been increasing at a much greater rate than than the cost of living. This jump in the cost of energy at around the year 2000 is clearly a result of the privatisation of our energy resources in the mid to late 1990s across the country.

Figure 1.

Now prices for gas in Australia, and Victoria, are much higher compared to overseas markets, costing approximately $8-10/GJ (See Figure 2). For comparison, the United States price of gas is $2-4/GJ. The problem is not a lack of production; it is that we are exporting gas, and importing overseas gas. Opening the Gippsland Basin up to new onshore gas projects does not solve this problem. It is simply a way to increase the profits of the multinationals who have their hands on Victorias energy industry.

Figure 2.

Australia does not have any duty to the world to flood export markets with our gas. Exports of LNG are currently forecast to rise to 81m tonnes in 2020/21, according to Mining Weekly. Australia only consumes 3.9 per cent of our natural gas production (including conventional and unconventional), and approximately fifteen per cent of what we consume comes from imports (see Figures 3 and 4). According to ABC News, the highest estimate of the proposed gas fields in VIC put yields at 830 petajoules in both the Otway Basin and Gippsland Victorias annual consumption of gas is 220 petajoules. This gas is meant to serve Victorian homes and businesses first, according to our Premier, Mr Andrews.

Figure 3.

Figure 4.

It is not effective enough to simply demand a moratorium on onshore gas since many workers rely on jobs within the industry, especially in Gippsland where energy production has been at the heart of its economy since 1924. A transition to renewables needs to have workers at the forefront. If we simply argue for climate justice and restructuring of the energy industry without workers rights, it will position workers to get the short end of the stick, lose their livelihoods, and increase unemployment in regional Victoria. This happened when the Northern coal plant closed in South Australia in 2016, and was the case in Victoria as a result of the transition from public to private energy over the past twenty-five years. This transition resulted in the closure of Hazelwood power station in 2017. Prioritising workers is especially important in tackling climate because the fear of unemployment and loss of livelihoods can cause workers to reject climate justice and vote for conservative politicians.

To transition to clean energy and good jobs, we need:

The manufacturing industry to be stimulated by renewables. This would create thousands of permanent jobs that wouldnt exist if a renewables project relied on overseas manufacturing, as pointed out in Victorian Trades Halls document Putting the Justice in Just Transition.

The Star of the South project to go ahead as an example of a renewables project that could create thousands of jobs in Gippsland under a just transition.

Complete public ownership of any new energy projects.

Training through free TAFE courses.

Legislation and enforcement for efficiency and safety standards.

For communities to be on board, engaged and all production transparent/

The direct permission and involvement of traditional owners of the land.

A national energy plan for a complete transition that involves unions and workers at the forefront

OUR DEMANDS:
PG&E Corp. will sweep out three quarters of its board of directors to start with a mostly clean slate when it emerges from a bankruptcy case triggered by deadly wildfires ignited in Northern California by the utilitys neglected electrical grid.

The decision announced last week will leave just three of Pacific Gas and Electrics 14 current board members in place if the San Francisco company is able to win bankruptcy court approval of its plan. The plan includes $25.5 billion to cover losses from 2017 and 2018 wildfires that devastated parts of its sprawling service territory.

The purge of its board of directors still falls shy of meeting the demands of Gov. Gavin Newsom and the head of the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&Es chief regulator. Neither Newsom nor the PUC immediately responded to requests for comment Friday.

The board departures include CEO Bill Johnson, who recently disclosed his plan to surrender the reins after just 14 months on the job.

When Johnson departs this summer, he will be replaced by former AT&T executive Bill Smith, one of the three current board members staying on. The others are two executives with past experience in the energy sector: Cheryl Campbell and John Woolard.

One of the departing directors, Jeffrey L. Bleich, left the board Friday. The others will depart after PG&E emerges from bankruptcy, which its aiming to do by June 30 to qualify for coverage from Californias new wildfire insurance fund.

Most of the departing board members assumed their positions after PG&E filed for bankruptcy 16 months ago.

PG&Es choices for its future board will be closely scrutinized. Newsom, PUC President Marybel Batjer and company critics are pushing for directors from California and want them to have safety expertise to help prevent the neglect under past management and led to the wildfires that killed nearly 130 people. PG&E plans to plead guilty this month to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for a 2018 fire that destroyed the town of Paradise.

Besides disclosing the board shake-up, PG&E also announced Friday its financial results for the first three months of the year. The company earned $374 million during the first quarter, more than doubling its profit from the same time last year.

PG&E would have made even more more money if not for $219 million in bankruptcy costs and another $226 million in expenses tied to past wildfires.

The company may soon be facing even more costs as part of an ongoing crackdown on its business practices. Thats because a federal judge overseeing a five-year criminal probation from another lethal disaster caused by an explosion in its natural gas lines ordered PG&E earlier this week to hire more inspectors to check on potential problems in its transmission system and also wants other improvements made in the way it trims trees near its power lines.

PG&E has until May 28 to outline its plans for complying with U.S. District Judge William Alsups order.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics California Catastrophe Natural Disasters Wildfire
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 5)  In an attempt to ramp up the countrys testing capacity, the government targets to accredit 58 more COVID-19 testing laboratories by the end of May.

To date, the Department of Health has certified a total of 22 laboratories nationwide to perform real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing for COVID-19, with UP-PGH Medical Research Laboratory and the Singapore Diagnostic recently joining the list of licensed facilities.

According to Bases Conversion and Development Authority president Vince Dizon, they are aiming to operate at least 78 laboratories by May 30, which would be "strategically located" across the country to address future surges in the communities.

A total of 58 laboratories are now currently on stages 3 to 5 of the accreditation process, based on a report released by the DOH on Sunday. Under stage 3, hospital personnel undergo training for coronavirus testing. Stage 4 is tagged as the proficiency stage, while stage 5 is the full scale implementation stage and the point in which a laboratory is considered certified.

We need to speed up the accreditation of these laboratories in order for them to begin operation within the month of May, Dizon said Monday in an aired Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases meeting presided by President Rodrigo Duterte.

The BCDA president, who is also deputy COVID-19 task force implementer, stressed the need for a more aggressive testing in the country so as to immediately identify and isolate those infected with the viral disease. This, he said, is the only way that the government can confidently start easing lockdown restrictions.

Dizon pointed to the swift response of the governments of New Zealand, Korea, Vietnam, and Germany which have tested broadly and have seen positive progress in their fight against the pandemic.

Germany is ahead, with 120,000 tests per day. Very, very aggressive at talagang gumastos sila nang todo-todo rito, he said, adding that while the RT-PCR tests kits are not cheap, they are absolutely necessary.

The Philippines may also draw from the experience of Vietnam, Dizon noted. From having only three laboratories in January, the said Southeast Asian neighbour now has 112 laboratories to test for the deadly virus.

We need to really invest in the testing capacity also because we know that a vaccine is not forthcoming soon, Dizon said.

On April 28, the DOH announced that the country can now conduct up to 6,320 COVID-19 tests daily. The department was not able to reach its target daily testing capacity of 8,000 by the end of April, citing problems in services, including the week-long stoppage of operations of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.

It earlier also said it is targeting a 30,000 daily testing capacity by May 30.

Nationwide, health officials have recorded 9,485 confirmed cases of the viral illness, with the country logging its highest single-day number of recoveries at 101 on Monday. The country has also so far recorded a total of 623 deaths and 1,315 recoveries.
White supremacists using coronavirus crisis as rallying call for new recruits: Report

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 03 May 2020 3:44 PM

America's extremists and white supremacists are exploiting the coronavirus crisis to ramp up their recruitment efforts both online and on the streets of state capitals, encouraging followers to conduct various acts of violence, according to a new report.

"Although the protests that have broken out across the country have drawn out a wide variety of people pressing to lift stay-at-home orders, the presence of extremists cannot be missed, with their anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic signs and coded messages aimed at inspiring the faithful," The New York Times reported on Saturday.

White supremacists are generally most active in April, using Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, in which 168 people died, as a rallying call for new recruits.

This April, the extremists have turned the coronavirus pandemic into a battle cry by spreading disinformation on the transmission of the virus and urging loyalists to defy stay-at-home orders.

"They are being very effective in capitalizing on the pandemic," Devin Burghart, a senior researcher of white nationalists who runs the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, told the Times.

It is not yet clear whether the white nationalists have had much success in their recruitment efforts. However, research shows that an increased number of people are consuming extremist material while under coronavirus lockdown.

Their messaging often occurs on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, while those banned from mainstream platforms resort to less-policed venues such as Telegram, Reddit and gaming sites.

There have also been a rise in violent incidents linked to white supremacists who are enraged over aspects of the pandemic response.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement officials across the country of violent extremists mobilizing in response to lockdown measures, a senior law enforcement official and congressional staff member told the Times on condition of anonymity.

A number of extremists have been arrested for threatening government officials implementing coronavirus-related regulations, according to a DHS memo dated April 23 which was distributed to law enforcement centers and congressional committees.

The white supremacists have echoed President Donald Trump when it comes to spreading misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump, who faces accusations of being sympathetic with white supremacists, had initially dismissed the coronavirus as a hoax designed by Democrats to destroy his reelection chances, and later as the virus spread throughout the US, described it as a disease spread by immigrants.

Last month, Trump urged his supporters in a series of tweets to "liberate" Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, stirring accusations that the president was encouraging domestic rebellion against Democratic governors in those states.

The president later defended the controversial posts, accusing those states of doing "too much" and saying he was not worried about protesters defying social distancing guidelines.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






It's hard to work out just how different pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world will be, because it's changing so comprehensively. Consider movie theaters. The first-order effect seems obvious: they're doomed! Even after they reopen, they can't make money with 50% of their capacity. How will they pay their rents?

Wrong question ... or, more accurately, right question, but wrong scale. Yes, AMC and co. will probably go bankrupt, and in a just world their shareholders will get wiped out and their bondholders will take a haircut -- that's capitalism, baby, or at least it should be.

The U.S. shouldnt bail out billionaires and hedge funds during the coronavirus pandemic, Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya says. Who cares? Let them get wiped out. https://t.co/dIbizumtqG pic.twitter.com/u8BSVvr0B1  CNBC (@CNBC) April 9, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

But let's consider the second-order effects. Inability to pay rent is only catastrophic if your landlord can rent your space to someone else. Who's going to rent massive theater spaces during a pandemic? Who's going to rent them during the recession which follows the pandemic? It's not just movies; it's basically every retail and theatrical space.

As the old joke goes: "If you owe the bank a million dollars, then you have a problem; but if you owe the bank a billion dollars, then the bank has a problem." You may think it's bad to be a movie theater, a restaurant, or a retail store, and it is ... but the second-order effect is that it's even worse to be in commercial real estate. One struggling tenant is a headache. All struggling tenants is a catastrophe.

But hey, at least you've got office space, right? Except that we just might find that a lot of companies forced to try out working from home might discover it's actually highly cost-effective:

Story continues

Talked to a public company board member. 3% of their expenses are real estate. WFH is fairly effective so after this is over, they plan to downsize RE by 30% and drop 1% straight to the bottom line   Sundeep Peechu (@speechu) April 27, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The same is true of retail space everywhere. Remember, "retailpocalypse" was headline fodder even before the virus prompted everyone to start getting everything delivered from the Internet. The same is true of restaurants, who were struggling to come to terms with food delivery services (please, stop using GrubHub and Seamless) even before the virus hit.

So, the first-order hit is to the obvious suspects: theaters, stadiums, restaurants, retail, gyms. The second-order hits are to owners of commercial real estate. wholesalers, service providers, etc. The third-order hit is to taxes paid to, and therefore budgets of, governments. We'll see comparable effects elsewhere, too -- e.g. first-order to airlines and buses, second-order to hotels and rental cars and events and cargo shippers, third-order to airports and governments again.

But let's focus on one particular interesting question. What happens next?

Consider San Francisco, everyone's favorite overpriced, overcrowded, inequality poster child. It has roughly 150 million square feet of combined office and retail space at the moment. If the COVID-19 lockdown-then-recession eventually eats 20% of that -- which is plausible between the retailpocalypse and what I will christen the "officepocalypse," i.e. the revealed cost savings of working from home -- that's 30 million square feet of empty space.

If converted to housing, this could increase the city's total housing stock by well over 10%. That would drive prices and rents, already pressured by the recession, way down -- while presumably still remaining simultaneously profitable, since current prices are so high. Needless to say this conversion would also create a lot of jobs. (Although, in some cases, no conversion will be required.)

While you're at it, you could take a couple million feet of those space and convert them to 200 sq. ft. mini-apartments to house every homeless person in San Francisco. (It's not that crazy a notion. New York City has been legally required to house every homeless person in its five boroughs, and it has plenty of apartments that small which people pay good money for.)

This is no panacea, of course. Nothing will be. Converting retail and office to residential will be very expensive ... although not as expensive as letting them lie there worthless without collecting any rent at all. But if our post-COVID-19 world is one in which demand for office and retail space plummets, which seems likely, let's take advantage of that space to help deal with the housing crisis which has plagued wealthy cities across the world.

Ultimately, tech companies, long blamed for gentrification and spiraling prices in San Francisco and many other cities, could become a major part of the solution to that problem, by making the tools (and setting the examples) for freeing up office space by working from home. Sadly, we can preemptively rely on this dark irony being lost on the usual outraged suspects.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

When Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sold its entire stake in the four largest US airlines in April, it dropped a hint to investors in other parts that the investment climate for the airline stocks might have change amid COVID-19 outbreak.

Chairman Warren Buffett said on Saturday at the companys annual meeting that the the world has changed for the aviation industry. The conglomerate had held sizeable positions in the airlines, including an 11 percent stake in Delta Air Lines, 10 percent of American Airlines Co., 10 percent of Southwest Airlines Co., and 9 percent of United Airlines at the end of 2019, according to its annual report and company filings, Reuters reported.

Buffett said he made a mistake investing in the sector, which the pandemic has changed in a very major way with no fault of the airlines, leaving limited upside for investors, a Reuters report quoted.

The 89-year-old Buffett, popularly known as Oracle of Omaha is followed by investors across the globe including India. A complete selloff could also turn investors back in India slightly cautious about the airline sector, suggest experts.

Companies would avoid official travel and would rather prefer conducting meetings over video conference. People, at large, will also avoid leisure travel (to the extent possible) at least for the next 6 to 12 months, suggest experts.

I, therefore, agree with the views of Oracle of Omaha that the airlines industry might not be a very lucrative sector in the short term. In India as well, the airline sectors recovery will depend on a stimulus from the government as the margins in the sector are paper-thin, Gaurav Garg, Head of Research, CapitalVia Global Research Limited-Investment Advisor told Moneycontrol.

Warren Buffet has previously said that during the times when dark clouds fill the economic skies and rain gold, one should come out with buckets and not tablespoons, I would suggest to continue following the same in these times too, he said.

Two of the listed companies have also taken a beating  InterGlobe Aviation has plunged a little over 25 percent so far in 2020 while SpiceJet is down by a little over 60 percent in the same period.

As airlines and airports prepare to resume operations, once the lockdown is lifted and the government gives the green signal  experts feel that it would not be the same. There is a likelihood of prices moving higher, and demand for travel is expected to remain low amid COVID-19 fears.

Given that the majority of the airlines companies are burdened with considerable debt in the balance sheet coupled with higher fixed cost in form of rental and other operating costs, the current pandemic is expected to pose further challenges for the aviation companies for an extended period, suggest experts.

Experts advise investors to bring down their exposure to the airline. If they are long term investor then they could hold the stock, they say.

The travel restrictions across the world have put many related industries into a severe economic crisis which also includes the airlines business that has remained shut in India since late March. And the decision to divest the entire stake in US airlines stock by legendary investors (Warren Buffett) will certainly have a negative feedback loop for the aviation industry as a whole, Dinesh Rohira is a Founder & CEO of 5nance.com told Moneycontrol.

With the mounting challenges ahead with subdued demand, short term investors should ideally exit or reduce to extreme levels from airline stocks to be invested in defensive play, he said.

Rohira further added that nevertheless, the lower commodity price coupled with the re-opening of the economy should help revive the businesses in the next 1-2 years from now, and therefore, investors with longer duration can still allocate capital to relatively quality stocks.

: 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.
Midland Public Schools Superintendent Michael Sharrow says the district "has every intention" to resume in-person learning at its school buildings this coming fall, dependent on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer allowing Michigan schools to be reopened.

School buildings have been closed since March 16, and Whitmer has ordered them to be closed through the end of this school year.

Sharrow opened his Superintendent Communique email on Monday morning with the following message:

"During the past two months, we have seen our world, country, state and community change in many ways. Information is coming at us from all directions  sometimes accurately, sometimes not so accurately.

"Please allow me to address a large misconception that was brought to my attention late last week regarding the 2020-21 school year.

"Misconception: MPS plans to offer only on-line learning this fall.

"Fact: Midland Public Schools has every intention of having students attend classes this fall in all 11 MPS schools!

"Having said that, please know ...

 MPS is not planning online education as a replacement for the in-person classroom. However, MPS is anticipating the many possible scenarios that we may face and/or that parents may request when we return this fall. Preparing for all scenarios should be expected of us by MPS stakeholders!

 Our district wants to meet all MPS parent and student educational needs going forward. We are making plans to give the parents who may not want their children to attend school physically (out of concerns for health/safety) to have a quality virtual option. (As an FYI: For the past several years, MPS has successfully offered virtual learning to approximately 100 students each year who were not able to excel in the traditional classroom.)

 Midland Public Schools plans to open all 11 school buildings this fall. However, (needless to say), this is dependent upon the Governors Executive Order allowing face-to-face PreK-Grade 12 instruction."

In an interview with the Daily News on Monday afternoon, Sharrow said MPS is working to be prepared for many possible scenarios when the 2020-21 school year begins on its scheduled date of Aug. 31.

"We're trying to at least have an outline of everything that could be thrown at us," Sharrow said.

"Who knows? We could be set to to go with school (being conducted as it always has been)," he continued. "(But) even under that scenario, maybe we will have students who did well during the school closure and others who didn't. Best-case scenario (is) that we have very few safety protocols, but we still have to remediate some kids going forward."

Or schools could open with many new health and safety protocols in place, Sharrow said.

These could include any of the following:

 Having students do social distancing and keep out of large gathering areas such as gyms and cafeterias;

 Temperature screenings;

 Wearing masks;

 Deep cleaning of common touch points;

 Scattered schedules in which some students in a school would attend three days one week and two days the next week, and the rest would attend vice versa.

"The other thing we have to be aware of is, if school starts and COVID repeats (in a second wave), we could be shut down again for a short period of time," Sharrow said.

And, as the superintendent mentioned in the communique, he anticipates that some parents may not want to send their children to school right away even when the buildings do reopen.

"A few parents may say, 'I'm not (sending my child to school) no matter what.' We want to be prepared to provide (a learning option) to that group as well," Sharrow said.

He added that while school districts normally prefer to operate as independently as possible, in this case, they are awaiting directives from the governor about when they can reopen and what safety guidelines will need to be in place.

"We're speculating and trying to prepare, but we are completely dependent on what (the governor says) we can or cannot do," Sharrow said.
Ly Son Island off the coast of Quang Ngai Province in Central Vietnam is said to be the azure island as the seawater is so azure and pure that it gives visitors a feeling of seeing through the seabed.
There's way too much bad news out there. Brighten your day with Jake G. and Josey Baker on IGTV!

Plus, the mother of the AIDS Memorial Quilt is making masks for hospital workers using fabric remnants, new updates for iPhone include COVID-19 tracking, and black artists from around the globe have donated to an auction in support of SF's Museum of the African Diaspora, and more good news.





Did you know Josey Baker and Jake Gyllenhaal are buds? Check out this IGTV vid above in which Jake G. promotes Baker's black pepper parmesan bread. Plus, here's Gyllenhaal talking sourdough starter with Stephen Colbert.





Apple iOS Update To Include Fix For Face ID With Masks, New Contact-Tracing Software for COVID-19, SFist

The next iOS update, 13.5 for iPhone, is set to include new software that uses Bluetooth to identify if you've been in close contact with someone who's tested positive for COVID-19, and also a fix for Face ID not working when you're wearing a mask. Read more.





'Mother' of AIDS quilt stitches familiar fabric for coronavirus masks, San Francisco Chronicle

Over the past two months, Gert McMullin has sewn more 1,000 masks for hospital workers made from fabric left over from the famous AIDS Memorial Quilt. Read more.





Stimulus Loan Allows Benu to Expand Its Korean Takeout Program, SF Eater

A green light on chef Corey Lee's application for the Payroll Protection Program means he's been able to reinstate several of his furloughed staffers and will begin serving Korean barbecue from his new concept, San Ho Wan, at about $48 a person. Read more.





Black artists from around the globe donate their work for online auction to help SF's MoAD, Datebook

About 30 artists have donated new and previously displayed works for the auction, which is hosted through Artsy through May 5th. Read more.
There is no Act of Parliament, there are no structures and there is therefore no framework for public funds accountability. How did they pay these and these are salaries for doing what job? This smacks of bad governance, said Dr Tsaora.
The BJP said on Monday the railways has subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers and the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent, soon after the Congress attacked the central government over the issue.

The state government concerned can also pay for the tickets, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.

He said the Madhya Pradesh government is doing so and asked Rahul Gandhi to tell the Congress-ruled states to follow suit.

He was responding to Congress leader Rahul Gandhis attack on the railways for charging poor migrant labourers ticket fare, even as it donated over Rs 151 crore to the PM-CARES Fund.

Rahul Gandhi ji, I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that No tickets to be sold at any station. Railways has subsidised 85% & state govt to pay 15%. The state govt can pay for the tickets (Madhya Pradeshs BJP govt is paying). Ask Cong state govts to follow suit, Patra tweeted.

The BJP leader further clarified that for each Shramik Express, special trains being run for migrants, about 1,200 tickets to the destination are handed by the railways to the state government concerned. State governments are supposed to clear the ticket price and hand over the tickets to workers, he said.

Seeking to corner the central government, the Congress on Monday said its state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy migrant workers and labourers stranded at their workplaces due to the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a statement announced the partys decision and said this would be the Congress humble contribution in standing shoulder to shoulder with these workers.

In a tweet, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy claimed that migrant workers returning home will not have to pay money as the rail travel will be free from now onwards.

Swamy, in a tweet, said, Talked to Piyush Goel office. Govt will pay 85% and State Govt 15%. Migrant labour will go free. Ministry will clarify with an official statement.
The energy sector, already reeling from a collapse in demand and prices, faces steeper losses ahead as the full impact of business shutdowns and social distancing are felt over the next few months, the nation's biggest oil companies said Friday.

Even as Texas joined 15 other states in starting to reopen its economy Friday, oil and gas companies said they expect demand for petroleum to power cars, trucks and planes will rebound slowly from the unprecedented plunge in energy consumption related to the coronavirus pandemic. For Houston, home to scores of energy companies and tens of thousands energy workers, that could mean more deeper spending cuts, more layoffs and another difficult climb from an oil bust.

It will take time for businesses to recover and for consumer confidence to return, Darren Woods, chief executive of Irving-based Exxon Mobil, a major employer Houston, told analysts in a conference call Friday. Its going to be a very challenging summer and a sloppy market.

Global demand for oil  at 100 million barrels per day before the novel coronavirus hit  has plunged 25 percent as consumers around the world hunkered down at home to slow the virus spread, leaving cars parked in driveways and planes sitting on tarmacs. U.S. gasoline demand has plummeted by more than 40 percent from a year ago, while inventories are 10 percent above the average for this time of year, the Energy Department said Wednesday. U.S. refineries are operating at 70 percent of their capacity.

The sharp decline in demand has exacerbated the global oil glut, so much so that producers are having trouble finding places to store it. The price of oil has plunged 70 percent since the start of the year, with the impact spreading broadly across the oil and gas industry, hitting producers, refiners and oil field services companies.

U.S. benchmark crude settled Friday at $19.78, well below the $50 and $60 per barrel needed for most U.S. producers to turn a profit.

The U.S. oil industry, even the global oil industry, cant work at $15 crude, Dane Gregoris, senior vice president with Calgary-based RS Energy said. I dont think its going to be $15 forever, but the real question is can you make it to the other side? The supermajors can, but what shape will they come out?

Exxon, Chevron and the Houston refiner Phillips 66 on Friday reported wildly divergent earnings during the first quarter, which ended March 31, shortly after oil prices began to collapse and states started imposing stay-at-home orders. The quarter, hit only at the end by the twin shocks, masked the full extent of the pain wrought by the coronavirus.

Exxon Mobil said it lost $610 million in the first quarter, its first quarterly loss since the company was formed by the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999. Phillips 66, the Houston refining and pipeline company, reported a first-quarter loss of $2.5 billion, compared with a $204 million profit it reported a year ago.

On Thursday, Houston-based ConocoPhillips said it lost $1.7 billion in the first quarter, compared with a $1.8 billion profit a year ago.

Some of the losses could be attributed to billions of dollars in write-downs of the value of businesses in the face of lower prices for crude oil and petroleum products.

Chevron reported earnings of $3.6 billion, a nearly 40 percent jump from the $2.6 billion profit a year ago, but still struck a somber note. The company warned investors to expect depressed financial results in future quarters as long as oil prices remain low.

Im an optimist. I believe that the world will return to some post-coronavirus form of normal, Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth told analysts Friday. That means economic activity, growth and travel. But the pace and pattern at which we re-emerge is open to a wide range of views and I dont think anybody can predict that.

Energy companies revised their financial outlook and announced additional cuts to their 2020 capital spending budgets used to fund oil exploration and production. Chevron on Friday said it will cut an additional $2 billion, leaving its capital budget at $14 billion.

Concho Resources, a Midland, Texas-based driller, said it would cut its capital spending 40 percent to $1.6 billion.

Nearly 30,000 pink slips

With oil companies tightening their belts, drilling rig operators are getting pink slips in shale plays across the United States. Some 43 energy companies have disclosed nearly 30,000 so far this year, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of company filings and state employment notices. The vast majority of publicly announced layoffs are from the oil field services sector.

Tulsa, Okla.-based drilling rig operator Helmerich & Payne on Friday said it decommissioned 37 rigs and laid off 2,800 people across the United States during the first three months of the year.

Helmerich & Payne has 262 rigs remaining in U.S. oil fields but the companys chief financial officer Mark Smith said he expects to end the third quarter with fewer than 70 rigs in operation.

The frac sand industry is one of the hardest hit in the oilfield service sector. Sand is used in vast quantities in hyrdraulic fracturing, which blasts a high-pressure slurry of sand, water and chemicals into wells to free oil and gas from shale rock.

Houston frac sand company U.S. Silica posted a $72.6 million loss in the first quarter, nearly four times larger than the $19.3 million loss one year earlier. The company has idled seven sand mines and reduced capacity at six more over the past year, resulting in a 75 percent reduction of the company's production capacity, New York investment advisory firm Evercore reported.

U.S. Silica laid off 105 people in Midland last month but the company is not alone. Black Mountain Sand, Covia, Signal Peak Silica and Capital Proppants laid off another 451 people over the past three weeks as they either shut down or scaled back operations in Texas and Oklahoma.

Pipeline companies with available crude oil storage appear to be doing the best in this market environment. Houston pipeline and export terminal operator Enterprise Products Partners recorded a $1.4 billion profit in the first quarter - the highest profit in the companys 52-year history.

Over the past two months, Enterprise has been switching ethane, propane and butane tanks over to hold crude oil as customers seek to store oil until prices return higher. And with some of the last remaining crude oil storage in the United States, Enterprise is expected to collect some handsome fees.

We think our storage is worth its weight in gold, Teague said.

Energy companies said they will wait to see strong and stable demand in oil markets before ramping up production and refining.

Bob Herman, Phillips 66s executive vice president of refining told analysts: The last thing we or anybody else wants to do is start a unit up and then shut it down a week later or a couple of weeks later.

paul.takahashi@chron.com

sergio.chapa@chron.com

lynn.sixel@chron.com
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4) - A business process outsourcing (BPO) company executive said that Philippine offshore gaming operators or POGOs cannot be considered part of the industry because they do not generate jobs and business in the Philippines.

Contact Center Association of the Philippines President Jojo Uligan told CNN Philippines that companies set up operations in the Philippines primarily to make use of local talent, generating jobs for Filipinos.

POGOs, on the other hand, they bring all the work here, they also bring the people to work here, so they offshored the business and also offshored the people," Uligan said in an interview with CNN Philippines.

Uligan added that the two cannot be compared because they make use of very different dynamics and are covered by different rules.

BPOs are registered with the either the Philippine Economic Zone Authority or the Board of Investments, which fall under the Department of Trade and Industry, while POGOs get their license to operate from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation.

"POGOs are different, they're into gaming," Uligan said. "It's like utilizing technology for them to operate their business, because such business is prohibited in the country they are in, that's why they go to a country that will allow them to operate."

The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines, or IBPAP, the umbrella industry group of BPOs, issued a statement on Saturday saying POGOs cannot be considered as BPO.

This in response to Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque's announcement that POGOs were allowed to resume partial operations, as part of the BPO sector, which is allowed to open under the new quarantine rules.

READ: Gov't allows POGOs to partially reopen amid community quarantine

IBPAP also pointed out that BPO firms invest in Filipino workers while the great majority of workers in POGOs are said to be Chinese nationals who cater to gaming clients in the Chinese mainland.

Several lawmakers criticized the government's decision to ease the quarantine rules in favor of POGOs, despite their many violations.

Senators are investigating the mounting allegations of corruption, money laundering, and sex trafficking surrounding the POGO sector, while the Bureau of Internal Revenue revealed that over 27 billion worth of tax liabilities remain uncollected from POGO companies in the Philippines.
TRAINS returned on the Limerick to Ennis corridor this week following a three-month closure.

The first service between Limerick and Clares county town left Colbert station at 5:55 on Tuesday morning following a successful test from Irish Rail on Monday.

The railway line had been closed since late January due to flooding at Ballycar near Newmarket.

A spokesperson for Irish Rail confirmed the news to the Limerick Leader.

They said: We just had to inspect the infrastructure and run the test train over it. But all is in order. We are operating a revised schedule due to the coronavirus right across our network.

He urged passengers to only travel along the line if it is absolutely essential.

Flood waters rose to a maximum height of 1.60m above the railway track during some flood events, despite works which saw Iarnrod Eireann has previously raised the track level by 60 centimetres at Ballycar in 2003 to mitigate against the effects of flooding.

In addition to causing disruption to rail services, these flood events also caused disruption to the water supply to Newmarket on Fergus as well as blocking local roads and restricting access to farming lands.

Ballycar Lough and its environs lie within a geological and hydrogeological environment where the underlying limestone rock and thin covering of soil and bedrock exposure combine to produce a shallow network of springs, turloughs and disappearing streams.

The causes of flooding at Ballycar Lough are mainly the prolonged sustained rainfall in Ballycar Lough catchment and the slow outflow stream of Ballycar Lough located between the swallow hole and the spring.

Five outbound services and six return trains connect Limerick to Ennis daily, the majority of them linking to Galway city.

While they were off, a replacement bus service was in operation. The line re-open a decade ago.
Members of Coalition of Aggrieved Customers of some Fifty-three (53) collapsed Fund Management Companies (CACFM) have renewed pressure amid calls on Government to expedite action and pay them their locked up investments or risk losing massively in the upcoming General Elections.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November last year revoked the licences of some 53 Fund Management Companies over some regulatory breaches.

Customers of the affected companies were taken through a validation process for onwards payment but almost five months down the line, they say they have not been paid.

In an interview with an Accra-based Radio Station on Wednesday, Spokesperson for the Coalition, Charles Nyame said Government needs to as a matter of urgency need to start disbursement of funds or risk losing the upcoming General Elections. We were made to go through the validation processes from 18th November, 2019 till 15th January, 2020

He added it has been over three months of which members expected payment but they have not heard anything from SEC.

The Spokesperson also revealed they were told by SEC, the claims filed is in an excess of GHc4 Billion of the data it had.

This means that the data that they have sums up to GHc8 Billion and Customers have filed claims almost up to GHc12 Billion, therefore they need more time to pay he disclosed.

Mr. Nyame added that the argument by SEC on the issue at hand is baseless adding they have been through a lot during the lockdown and need their monies back.

He added that some members of the Coalition have sort to begging since they do not have money to feed themselves likewise their families.

He says he believes, not all customers have problems with the data which has been filed.

He called on the Securities and Exchange Company to start with the payment of the data since it can help save the lives of dying customers.

Pay that so that later we will go and solve the relevant issues with the disparities and differences. This is a common logical sense that anybody who is willing to help its citizens should be able to do he fumed.

Mr. Charles Nyame further added he is disappointed authorities are not dealing with the issue but rather buying time.

I want to remind the Director-General of SEC, Revd Ogame Tetteh and Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta that they are sitting in their seats because NPP is in power and some of we the citizens are not pleased with what they are taking us through. The General Elections is around the corner he said.
The Justice Department is pushing back against Virginia Governor Ralph Northams stay at home order, arguing that churches have been unfairly affected.

The DOJ filed a statement of interest on Sunday in federal court in support of a Chincoteague, Virginia church that sued the state after its pastor was issued a criminal citation for holding a service with 16 people, six more than Northams order allows. Meanwhile, other establishments such as liquor stores and law offices are allowed to hold gatherings of more than ten people.

The United States believes that the church has set forth a strong case that the Orders, by exempting other activities permitting similar opportunities for in-person gatherings of more than 10 individuals, while at the same time prohibiting churches from gathering in groups of more than 10  even with social distancing measures and other precautions  has impermissibly interfered with the churchs free exercise of religion, the DOJ wrote in a court filing.

Unless the Commonwealth can prove that its disparate treatment of religious gatherings is justified by a compelling reason and is pursued through the least restrictive means, this disparate treatment violates the Free Exercise Clause, and the Orders may not be enforced against the church, the Justice Department added.

Lighthouse Fellowship Church requested a temporary restraining order against the Democratic governor as well as an injunction to suspend enforcement of the order after the churchs pastor, Kevin Wilson, was served a summons carrying the possibility of a year in jail or a $2,500 fine.

U.S. District Court Judge Arenda Allen denied the churchs request, ruling that in incidental disruption of normal practice does not convert the Governors broadly applicable Orders into a substantial burden on Plaintiffs right to practice its religion.

The exception to the 10 person limit for some businesses is essential to prevent joblessness at a time when people desperately need to retain their incomes and healthcare, and at a time when unemployment is drastically rising, the judge added.

Story continues

Virginia Solicitor General Toby Heytens, representing Northam, argued in a preliminary response filed Sunday evening that the governors stay at home order did not operate in the manner the plaintiff and the federal government describe.

More from National Review
The abrupt dismissal from parliament of Darigha Nazarbaeva -- the powerful chairwoman of the Senate and eldest daughter of Kazakhstan's founding father, Nursultan Nazarbaev -- has raised questions about the country's political leadership and the future of the ruling family.

The brief statement on Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev's website on May 2 announcing that Nazarbaeva was relieved of her post as speaker injected a great deal more confusion into a country already experiencing its share of woes as it combats the coronavirus and copes with a major revenue loss due to the drop in world prices for oil, one of the country's main exports.

The appointment of Nazarbaeva as chair of the Senate came on the heels of her father's March 19, 2019, announcement resigning as leader. Nazarbaev had ruled Kazakhstan for nearly 30 years, since before it gained independence following the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The Senate leader wields little real power but the holder of the post is next in line for the presidency, according to the Kazakh Constitution, should the president be unable to perform his duties.

Nazarbaeva's surprise dismissal left many wondering if Toqaev is attempting to move out of the shadow of the Nazarbaev family or is simply reshuffling Nazarbaev loyalists.

The president's promotion on May 4 of Maulen Ashimbaev as the new chairman of the Senate did little to answer that question. Ashimbaev had served as first deputy head of the presidential administration since December and has been loyal to the ruling, Nazarbaev-controlled Nur-Otan party for at least 15 years.

He was also Toqaev's campaign manager when he ran for president in the snap election in June.

That service plus Ashimbaev's rapid rise under Toqaev's short rule as president suggests the loyalty of the new Senate leader might lay with the current president and not necessarily with Nazarbaev.

Other changes in the aftermath of Nazarbaeva's demotion were Information and Social Development Minister Dauren Abaev being named the new deputy head of the presidential administration, replacing Ashimbaev, and Aida Balaeva being moved from her position as presidential aide to replace Abaev.



These latest events do not seem to be part of the managed transition that started after Nazarbaev stepped down as president and if there is indeed a shift in power in Kazakhstan, the Nazarbaev family fortunes could be on the wane.



But that will only become apparent if there are moves in the coming days to limit the influence of other Nazarbaev family members, notable among them Timur Kulibaev, the husband of Nazarbaevs second daughter, Dinara.

Kulibaev has amassed a great amount of wealth and is extremely influential in Kazakhstan's business world. He had previously been mentioned as a possible stage-managed successor to Nazarbaev.

Why Was She Dumped?

There are at least several possible reasons for action to remove Nazarbaeva and the dismissal does not bode well for her future.

Nazarbaeva, who will turn 57 on May 7, had been in politics for some 20 years.

She founded the Asar political party in 2003 and headed it until 2006 when it merged with her father's Otan (now Nur-Otan) party. Nazarbaeva was elected to parliament twice, she was deputy chairwoman of the Mazhilis, the lower house of parliament, served as deputy prime minister, and then was a deputy in the Senate, the upper house of parliament.

Her ascension to the post of Senate leader after her father formally ceded the presidency seemed a logical step that protected the Nazarbaev family's interests and preserved her father's legacy, even though Nazarbaev has remained active in politics as head of the Security Council, a position that was given extra power in the months prior to his resignation.

While some described Nazarbaev's resignation last year as sudden, the sequence of events that immediately followed indicated the transition of power had been planned well in advance. Toqaev would later claim that preparations for Nazarbaev to leave office started some three years earlier.

Nazarbaev stepped down, Toqaev stepped in, and Nazarbaeva was named Senate chairwoman in rapid succession.

The hierarchy seemed to be established according to plan, which is what makes Nazarbaeva's sudden ouster so unusual.

Was It The Wealth?

Nazarbaeva has been in several reports in international media recently, almost always connected to some scandal.

In early April, lawyers for Nazarbaeva and her oldest son, Nurali Aliev, successfully fended off an attempt by Britain's National Crime Agency to seize property the two owned in Britain worth a combined $100 million under the unexplained wealth orders (UWO) law.

Though Nazarbaeva and her son kept their London mansion and other properties, the media attention put the entire Nazarbaev family in an unwelcome spotlight that several family members, including Nazarbaeva, had been under for months.

In the first weeks of 2020, Nazarbaeva's younger son, Aisultan, who has been battling drug problems, posted on social networks and gave interviews alleging bizarre things like that his mother was trying to kill him and that his grandfather was really his father.

While these well-publicized scandals might have added fuel to the fire of a reason to dismiss Nazarbaeva, they are unlikely to be the sole cause of her sudden change in fortunes.

Nazarbaeva has been well-known in Kazakhstan as a child of privilege for all its years as an independent country.

In the 1990s, she owned some of Kazakhstan's most prominent TV and radio stations and along with her former husband, Rakhat Aliev, she had interests in leading businesses in Kazakhstan.

But everyone in Kazakhstan always knew that she had lots of money and she was able to survive several of the later scandals that surrounded her former husband.

Rakhat Aliev was accused of being behind the murders of political and business rivals and was finally accused by the government of plotting to overthrow Nazarbaev, his father-in-law.

Nazarbaeva divorced Aliev in 2007 after he had been sent into a form of exile as Kazakhstan's ambassador to Austria and representative to international organizations that are headquartered in Vienna.

Aliev spent the following years doing everything he could to tarnish Nazarbaev's reputation, even publishing a book in 2009, Godfather-In-Law, that told of alleged corrupt practices under Nazarbaev's rule.

Aliev died under mysterious circumstances while being held in an Austrian prison in 2015. Officially ruled a suicide, there were many credible reports that suggest Aliev did not take his own life.

Nazarbaeva faded from political life not long after her divorce from Aliev until she again took a seat in parliament in 2012 as a member and eventually the head of the Nur-Otan faction in parliament.

The fact that she was married to a person who was convicted of murder and plotting the overthrow of the government did not affect her rise later to the country's No. 2 position -- suggesting that the family scandals by themselves are probably not the reason she was dismissed as Senate head.

The Work Of Enemies?

During her career in politics, Nazarbaeva has made several enemies.

One of those is Adilbek Jaksybekov, a confidant of Nazarbaev since the early days of independence who has held several top positions, including head of the presidential administration, a post he abruptly lost in September 2018, barely 14 months after Nazarbaev expressed confidence in him and extended his term by another five years.

Jaksybekov had seemed untouchable, but Rakhat Aliev had worked in the National Security Service (KNB) and, after divorcing Nazarbaeva, Aliev released audio recordings he claimed someone in the KNB made of conversations between leading political and business figures in Kazakhstan, mainly conversations involving his former father-in-law.

But one recording that Aliev released was allegedly a conversation between Jaksybekov and businessman Bulat Utemuratov from 2007, shortly after Nazarbaeva and Aliev divorced, in which Jaksybekov spoke of the need to prevent Nazarbaeva from climbing any higher in politics.

When Jaksybekov was suddenly cast out of politics, some felt Nazarbaeva had played a part in his removal.

There are undoubtedly others in Kazakhstan who have run afoul of the first president's first daughter at some point in the past.

What Did Dad Know?

One of the biggest questions hanging over Nazarbaeva's dismissal is what role did her father have, if any at all?

Nazarbaev has been in seclusion since the first cases of the coronavirus were officially registered in Kazakhstan on March 13. He continues to make statements through a spokesman, but he has not been seen in public for nearly two months.

Some believe the decision to relieve Nazarbaeva of her post could not have been made without her father's approval and parallels have been drawn between Nazarbaeva's recent scandals and those of Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan's first president, Islam Karimov.

Karimova was also named in dubious business deals abroad and eventually she was detained in Uzbekistan and placed under house arrest.

But Karimova also caused a commotion by publicly posting accusations against serving Uzbek officials, alleging they were deceiving her father. She even attacked her mother and sister in some of her social-media posts.

And other than a few essentially diplomatic postings, Karimova was never a top government official.

Many felt the appointment of Nazarbaeva as Senate chairwoman was a guarantee she would not end up sharing Karimova's fate, as after Karimov's death, his daughter was swiftly tried, convicted of financial crimes, and sent to prison.

There are two other big questions surrounding Nazarbaev.

How good are his lines of communication while he stays in isolation?

State media reports that he meets with various officials and, as mentioned, his spokesman sometimes issues statements for him.

But it is Toqaev who is out traveling and meeting with officials and health workers, clearly trying to show he has taken charge in the fight against the spread of the coronavirus, alleviating the fallout of the falling oil prices on Kazakhstan's economy, and dealing with other issues such as the flooding in the south caused by a dam breaking in neighboring Uzbekistan.

Exactly what Nazarbaev hears in his bunker and who tells it to him is unclear.

And how is Nazarbaevs health?

There is always the possibility, as some of his most ardent political foes have hinted, that Nazarbaev's health could be poor at the moment.

There are also almost surely some behind-the-scenes political struggles going on despite the planned transition and -- with Nazarbaev turning 80 in July -- the jostling for the top spots in Kazakhstan after Nazarbaev's death could be heating up.

If Nazarbaeva does still have her own political opponents, Kazakhstans current problems coupled with the marginalization of her father's influence could have given them an opportunity to go after her and seek her ouster from the Senate.

Officially, Nazarbaeva is supposed to be transferred to another post.

But she was the No. 2 person in the government hierarchy, so whatever post she might receive will definitely be a demotion.
All it took was a few days for Never Have I Ever to become part of the current Netflix chatter, form a fan base, and get folks clamoring for season 2.

More than that, a number of viewers are going gaga for some of the teen comedys actors, one of whom is Darren Barnet, aka Paxton Hall-Yoshida. It didnt take long for the 29-year-old to endear himself to fans, but whos the man playing Devis love interest?

Darren Barnet as Paxton in Never I Have I Ever | Lara Solankin/Netflix

Barnet has two sisters

No doubt if youve scrolled through Barnets Instagram feed, youve probably seen some photos of him from childhood. He routinely tags his sisters, Jen and Emily, in his posts and hes very close with them.

He writes shows too

During an interview with DCFilmGirl, Barnet shared that he is passing quarantine time by writing scripts and is currently working on a pilot. But even before COVID-19 lockdowns, he was actively creating scripts for films and TV.

Barnet is a college graduate

A native of California, Barnet moved to Florida as a pre-teen where he attended high school. He was very much into sports, and according to MTV, he was captain of his lacrosse team.

After high school, Barnet attended Berry College in Georgia on a full scholarship. He graduated with a degree in the arts in 2013, and soon made his way back to California to pursue his dreams.

Hes a jack of all trades

MTV also unearthed Barnets old SoundCloud handle: Charlie Sound. Under that moniker, he made hip-hop beats and even rapped over some of them. Dont go looking for any new tracks because the account isnt active.

Additionally, the outlet learned that Barnet also possesses a California real estate license, an achievement he celebrated on Instagram.

Barnet isnt new to acting

According to IMDb, before landing this part in Never Have I Ever, Barnet had small roles in shorts and TV series such as Criminal Minds, This Is Us, S.W.A.T. and Turnt.

But Barnets come a long way and is grateful for his journey so far. In a heartwarming Instagram post, he shared that he used to work at Soul Cycle on Sunset Boulevard and parked a mile away where it was free.

Id walk to work every day seeing all of the ads for new shows and movies. I had zero credits under my belt. The climb certainly continues but I cannot express what a milestone it is for me so see our show @neverhaveiever all up and down Sunset today.

He speaks multiple languages

If youve already watched Never Have I Ever, youll note Barnets characters last name is Hall-Yoshida. Its nod to his Japanese heritage, and Mindy Kaling decided to adapt his character for that reason.

Barnet told Metro News UK that his mother is Japanese, and his grandmother spoke the language, but he also wound up taking it in school.

One day, Kaling overheard him speaking with the shows assistant director in Japanese.

My characters name originally was Paxton Hall. But when Mindy caught wind that I was speaking Japanese, Mindy and Lang came up to me. They were like, Hey, were you speaking in Japanese with our AD? Do you mind if we make your character match what your real ethnicity is? I was like, I love that and thats when Paxton Hall-Yoshida was born.

Barnet also speaks Spanish and spent some time studying French.
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said authorities arrested two U.S. citizens among a group of mercenaries on Monday, a day after a beach raid purportedly aimed at capturing the socialist leader that authorities say they foiled.

Maduro held up a pair of blue U.S. passports, reading off the names and birth dates on them in a nationwide broadcast on state television. He showed images of the fishing boats the alleged attackers rode in on and equipment like walkie-talkies and night-vision glasses collected in what Maduro called an intense couple of days. He blamed the attacks on the Trump administration and neighbouring Colombia, both of which have denied involvement.

The United States government is fully and completely involved in this defeated raid, Maduro said, praising members of a fishing village for cornering one group in the sweep netting the professional American mercenaries.

Before dawn on Sunday, officials say the first attack started on a beach near Venezuelas port city of La Guaira, when security forces made the first two arrests and killed eight others attempting to make a landing by speedboats.

The two U.S. citizens arrested Monday were identified as as Luke Denman and Airan Berry, both former U.S. special forces soldiers.

Florida-based ex-Green Beret Jordan Goudreau said earlier Monday that he was working with the two men in a mission intending to detain Maduro and liberate Venezuela. Goudreau has claimed responsibility for the operation.

The two served in Iraq and Afghanistan with him in the U.S. military, Goudreau said, adding that they were part of this alleged mission in Venezuela called Operation Gideon. The aim was to capture Maduro.

Venezuela has been in a deepening political and economic crisis under Maduros rule. Crumbling public services such as running water, electricity and medical care have driven nearly 5 million to migrate. But Maduro still controls all levers of power despite a U.S.-led campaign to oust him. It recently indicted Maduro as a drug trafficker and offered a $15 million reward for his arrest.

Venezuela and the United States broke diplomatic ties last year amid heightened tensions, so there is no U.S. embassy in Caracas. Officials from the U.S. State Department did not respond Monday to a request by The Associated Press for comment.

Ive tried to engage everybody I know at every level, Goudreau said of the attempt to help his detained colleagues. Nobodys returning my calls. Its a nightmare.

Goudreaus account of the confusing raid has at times seemed contradictory  for example, he says he was plotting a rebellion for months while claiming not to have received a single penny. Meanwhile, a self-aggrandizing Maduro has thrived broadcasting videos on state TV of what he says was a flawless defence of the nations sovereignty.

Kay Denman, the mother of one of the Americans, said the last time she heard from her son was a few weeks when he texted her from an undisclosed location to ask how she was coping with the coronavirus pandemic. She said she never heard her son discuss Venezuela and only learned of his possible capture there after his friends called when they saw the reports on social media.

The first time I heard Jordan Goudreaus name was today, she said when reached at her home in Austin, Texas.

Goudreau has said he reached an agreement with the U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido to overthrow Maduro, which Guaido has denied. The opposition leader said he had nothing to do with Sundays raid.

Goudreau says Guaido never fulfilled the agreement, but the former Green Beret pushed ahead with an underfunded operation with just 60 fighters, including the two U.S. veterans.

He said he last communicated with Denman and Berry when they were adrift in a boat hugging the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. They were still in their boat following an initial confrontation with the Venezuelan Navy early Sunday, he said.

They were running dangerously low on fuel, Goudreau said. If they had gone onto landfall, they would have gone to a safe house.

Goudreau said the two were waiting for a boat on the Caribbean island of Aruba with emergency fuel to help extract them.

Venezuelan state TV showed showed images on state TV of several unidentified men handcuffed and lying prone in a street. One video clip showed authorities handling a shirtless man in handcuffs.

He was identified as a National Guardsman Capt. Antonio Sequea, who participated in a barracks revolt against Maduro a year ago. Goudreau said Sequea was a commander working with him in recent days on the ground in Venezuela.

Maduro ally and Attorney General Tarek William Saab said that in total theyve arrested 114 people suspected in the attempted attack and they are on the hunt of 92 others.

Goudreau, a three-time Bronze Star U.S. combat veteran, claims to have helped organize the deadly seaborne raid from Colombia. Goudreau said the operation had received no aid from Guaido or the U.S. or Colombian governments.

Opposition politicians and U.S. authorities issued statements suggesting Maduros allies had fabricated the assault to draw attention away from the countrys problems.

Goudreau said by telephone earlier Monday that 52 other fighters had infiltrated Venezuelan territory and were in the first stage of a mission to recruit members of the security forces to join their cause.

An AP investigation published Friday found that Goudreau had been working with a retired Venezuelan army general  who now faces U.S. narcotics charges  to train dozens of deserters from Venezuelas security forces at secret camps inside neighbouring Colombia. The goal was to mount a cross-border raid that would end in Maduros arrest.

___

Investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
With relaxed restrictions amid lockdown 3.0 from May 4, technology companies are looking at reaching out to potential customers without putting them at risk. Chinese technology company Xiaomi is introducing Mi Commerce, a new offline-to-online model. Amid rising cases of coronavirus in the country, consumers are likely to be sceptical to step out to shop. Mi Commerce will help retail partners connect with potential customers, and even facilitate offline purchases.

"The 'Mi Commerce' is a web application, which enables a hyper-local experience. Essentially it's a very simple URL, which is exclusive stores - be it Mi Home, Mi Store, Mi Studio that can sell and promote pretty much on any media, or they can take and popularize this URL on their WhatsApp groups on Facebook, on Twitter, on Google ads, and more," explained Muralikrishnan B, Chief Operating Officer, Xiaomi India during a virtual press briefing.

As the consumer navigates to the URL, the location is automatically detected to be connected to the nearest Xiaomi store available. Once this happens, the existing Xiaomi inventory in that store is presented as a simple e-commerce experience on the browser of the consumer. Consumers can navigate as one can search by category, find a specific product of the liking and express interest to purchase it. The specific interest will be communicated to the store owner through the existing proprietary store systems, post which the store owner can get in touch with the consumer, and arrange for delivery at a mutually convenient time. It eliminates the need for the user to step out of the house or even search for the nearest store. Even for payments, Xiaomi is promoting digital, contactless payments that might be collected using a UPI QR Code.

The deliveries under Mi Commerce will be carried out by following local and state regulations. It will be a contactless delivery and delivery boys will be sanitised, will get masks and we will ensure that the entire process is completely safe.

"We are super excited about the solution. We had introduced this solution to all of our Mi store partners earlier last week, and they're extremely excited with the potential that this holds, especially in the current situation when consumers are going to be extremely reluctant to come to visit our stores. Mi Commerce has the potential to maybe completely redefined the way shopping for electronics or pretty much any other category can happen. We're extremely proud to introduce this at such a large scale. This solution is getting piloted in Kerala, and this week shall be rolled out across all green and orange zones in India," adds Muralikrishnan B.

On the inventory front, the company confirmed that they keep a couple of weeks inventory in the channel. Xiaomi is hopeful that the manufacturing will resume soon. The Foxconn facility in Andhra Pradesh, where Xiaomi smartphones are assembled, has got its approval and should open soon. Xiaomi is also looking at getting approvals for other factories and once that comes, production should start over the course of the next few days.

The current nationwide lockdown has impacted the sales of smartphones and consumer durables. However, Manu Kumar Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi and Managing Director, Xiaomi India, is hopeful that the smartphone industry in India will bounce back by the second half of the year. "Second quarter of this year might be a difficult time for us, but people are still expecting similar levels what was forecast earlier for Q3, Q4 and Diwali."

To fight the ongoing pandemic, Xiaomi India has pledged Rs 15 crore to relief funds. While many companies have been reporting about handing over pink slips to their employees, there won't be any lay-offs at Xiaomi India. The company is retaining all its 50,000-plus employees, even at the bottom of the pyramid which includes promoters.

Also Read: BT BUZZ: MHA order to make Aarogya Setu mandatory weak on legal ground

Also Read: 5-star hotels go the Zomato-Swiggy way! Launch home delivery, takeaway services

Also Read: Coronavirus lockdown impact: Weekly unemployment rate spikes to 27.1%, says CMIE
Rishabh Saxena, a Class 9 student of a south Delhi school, wakes up around 7am and, an hour later, plonks himself in front of the computer. He is in front of the screen until noon, attending one online class after another. Every evening, Rishabh spends up to three hours more on the computer to complete his class assignments.

The daily routine of Shashwat Vinayak, a Class 10 student of another south Delhi school, isnt much different. Face-to-face teaching, he says, helps students understand their lessons better, and is sorry that he and his peers have to spend so much time learning lessons online.



Rishabh and Shashwant cant help it. The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak shut down schools indefinitely before many completed their curriculums for the academic year, prompting them to start online lessons in a hurry. Parents are concerned that their children arent receiving in-depth education and are spending a little too long in front of the computer or mobile phone screen, questioning how much of a good thing is actually good.

Ekta Saxena, Rishabhs mother, says her sons generation anyway tends to be glued to multiple screens, and it isnt clear how healthy it is for children to sit for so long in front of the computer daily. Will such a lifestyle lead to lethargy setting in? We are absolutely concerned about what the long-term impact of this new kind of lifestyle and teaching can be, she said.

Many parents are hoping that this is a temporary phenomenon that will fade with the lifting of the lockdown and the reopening of schools. But some say that online education is set to become the new normal in a post-Covid world.

Increased screen time can cause increased sedentary behaviour in children and teens, decreased metabolism, disturbance in sleep cycle, more distractibility and perhaps lower well- being, said Dr Kanika Ahuja, who teaches psychology at Delhis Lady Shri Ram College. The key question is how much is too much? We have no clear answers. There is an urgent need for research in India considering that a large part of education will be shifted online for at least 1-2 years.

Over the past two decades, several studies have linked too much of screen time with social isolation and depression, but newer studies say the link is tenuous.

The association we find between digital technology use and adolescent well-being is negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being. Taking the broader context of the data into account suggests that these effects are too small to warrant policy change, according to a study on the association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use by researchers at the University of Oxford published in the journal, Nature Human Behaviour, in January 2019.

Rajesh Sagar, professor, department of psychiatry, All India Institute Of Medical Sciences-Delhi, said ideally children below two years of age should not be exposed to gadgets. And children above two should not be staring at a computer screen for more than 30 minutes in one go, he said, adding that they should take breaks every half-an-hour in case they need to sit longer.

PM Narendra Modi warned students against addiction to electronic gadgets earlier this year. In his Pareeksha pe Charcha (discussion on examinations) interaction with students in January, Modi said, Im all for using technology to advance our lives but lets not allow ourselves to be enslaved by technology, the PM said.

A senior official at the ministry of human resource development, said the online effort is meant to ensure that the academic calendar is rolled out and the school session remains on track. Based on feedback, the ministry will take steps to address any emerging concerns
People across Iran have been shocked by grisly videos posted online in mid-April that show chicken farmers burying thousands of baby chicks alive. While the videos led to a massive outcry, one farmer told the FRANCE 24 Observers why the economic crisis caused by Covid-19 left many of his fellow farmers with no choice.



WARNING: SOME READERS MAY FIND THE FOLLOWING FOOTAGE SHOCKING



Thousands of chicks became the latest collateral damage of the Covid-19 epidemic that is sweeping Iran. At least 6,277 people in Iran have died of the virus and 98,647 have fallen ill, according to official statistics announced May 4. However, many medical staff working in Iran, as well as international NGOs, have cast doubt on these numbers, claiming that they are in reality much higher.



A dozen or so upsetting videos posted online show farmers tossing newborn chicks into plastic sacks. Most of the baby animals seem to be alive, judging from their peeping. People across Iran reacted in horror to these videos and the methods used by the farmers.





"They are killing these chicks to increase the market price and to get more money, wrote one Twitter user. There is nothing more vile than human beings.

No official estimate of the number of chicks killed over the last week in Iran has been released, however, the Iranian Association of Poultry Farmers reacted to the scandal on April 18 by banning farmers from killing poultry for economic reasons.



However, the France 24 Observers spoke to one poultry farmer who said that he and his fellow farmers were faced with a stark choice-- either fire their workers and temporarily close their farms or cull some of their flock.

"[Its] an economic mafia-- in the midst of a pandemic and an economic crisis, they kill these chickens in mass to increase the price, alleges the man who posted this video. He cites the name of one farm where he says that 232,000 chicks were killed over a period of two days.



This is the first time in my life that Ive heard of Iranian farmers who have to get rid of stock"

Story continues



Kaveh (not his real name) owns a small poultry farm in northern Iran. Luckily, there is still demand for his poultry from local markets, so he hasnt culled any chicks. However, he said that he has lost revenue.



This is the first time in my life that Ive heard of Iranian farmers who have to get rid of their stock. In general, chicken farmers follow a strict calendar that is dictated by the market. They need to know the number of birds that the market will need at least 40 days in advance [Editors note: Thats how long it takes for a chick to be hatched, grow up and be sent to the slaughterhouse]. Any obstacle that gets in the way of this system and schedule can lead to economic losses.



At the moment, there are problems at all different stages of the production system. In Iran, 90% of chicken feed is imported. The pandemic has slowed production in countries like China and has also led to transportation issues. Chicken feed has actually become a rare commodity, which is particularly problematic for large poultry farms.



The price of chicken feed has skyrocketed. Before Covid-10, I could buy enough to feed my animals for about 3,000 tomans a kilo [18 euro cents]. The price has doubled. At the same time, I cant sell my chickens to distributors for more than 6,200 tomans a kilo [37 euro cents]. If you add in the expenses, then I end up losing 3,000 tomans per chicken.

"They are killing chickens to regulate the market, says this social media user.



According to the Statistical Centre for Iran, the average market price for chickens in January, just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, was 12,800 tomans per kilo, or 77 euro cents. By April, the price had fallen to 9,500 tomans, equivalent to 57 euro cents, a decrease of nearly 25%.

"No one knows what will happen in the next 40 days"

We are in the middle of a pandemic. The restaurants, the fast food chains, even the prisons who were our customers are no longer buying. The main importers of our products, Iraq, Afghanistan and Qatar, arent buying either. What are we supposed to do? Feed the chicks until they weigh between 1.2 and 1.8 kilos, which is the market standard? Only to never sell them?

This farmer in Urmia, which is located in northwestern Iran, is protesting in front of the governors office because he doesnt have anything left to feed his chickens.



We dont see things getting any better in the near future. No one knows what might happen in the next 40 days. Will we be able to buy chicken feed at a decent price? Will we be able to export it abroad? Will there be a second wave of Covid-19?



Lots of my fellow farmers have already killed their chicks. Faced with the choice of either killing them or spending the money to feed them for 40 days, only to then have to sell them for next to nothing, most of them decided to kill them.





This video shows farmers destroying their eggs so they dont get too many chicks.



Of course, this footage is just horrible. They could use a much less painful method to kill the animals. But these farmers have to choose between letting their employees go or killing these chicks.

Videos spark widespread criticism of farmers



Many people on social media didnt buy the economic arguments made by the farmers and reacted angrily on Twitter or Telegram. "They could give these chicks to poor families who could feed and raise them themselves and then eat them later, one commented. Another suggested that the chickens should be set free so that they can participate in the natural cycle and be eaten by predators.



Kaveh responded to this criticism:



Before judging, you need to know what you are talking about. Lots of zoonotic diseases [Editors note: diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans] can be transmitted from chickens to humans. Giving these chickens away could cause another health crisis in addition to the one we are already experiencing. These chickens need to be vaccinated first, and that costs money. And chicks need special care. Around 90% of them would die in the first few days if we just gave them away.



There are similar reasons for why we cant just let these animals go wild. They might spread diseases to other animals, including Newcastle disease [Editors note: a disease that causes digestive problems and listlessness in chickens.] This could kill a variety of species in nature.



The videos of farmers slaughtering chicks ended up having an impact. On April 19, President Hassan Rohani ordered the Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi to identify and charge the farmers responsible for these mass killings.



Article by Ershad Alijani
The discovery of a common neural mechanism in speech and ASL errors -- one that occurs in just 40 milliseconds -- could improve recovery in deaf signers after a stroke

When we speak, we give little thought to how the words form in our brain before we say them. It's similar for deaf people using sign language.

Speaking and signing come naturally, except when we stumble over words, or swap one word for another when we speak or sign too quickly, are tired or preoccupied.

Fluency and the occasional disfluency both happen because of how we choose what to say or sign, when a neural mechanism takes place in our brains as we make decisions and monitor how we communicate.

It's this mechanism that fascinates San Diego State University researchers Stephanie Ries and Karen Emmorey in the School of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. Their analysis could help inform rehabilitation therapy for those relearning how to speak or sign after a stroke.

Using electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings, they studied how hearing and deaf signers process the act of signing and found the same monitoring mechanism took place in the brains of both groups. Among deaf signers, it was more prevalent with those for whom American Sign Language (ASL) is their first language.

"When we are doing an action, whether it's speaking, signing, pressing buttons or typing, we see the same mechanism," Ries said. "Any time we are making a decision to do something, this neural mechanism comes into play."

Their study, published by MIT Press in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience on April 30, may advance our understanding of how deaf individuals recover their ability to sign after a traumatic brain injury or stroke, when they suffer aphasia: the inability to understand others or express themselves due to brain damage.

"When stroke victims are more aware of their speech errors and have a better functioning speech monitoring mechanism, they have a better chance of recovering than those who don't have that awareness," Ries said. "This study helped us extend that understanding to signing ability for deaf people."

Melding speech with sign language expertise

The work also represents a long-held dream to combine the skills and training of two researchers with niche expertise in complementary fields - speech monitoring and sign monitoring.

Ries is an assistant professor specializing in the neuroscience of speech and language disorders who first met Emmorey at a workshop on language production in 2007 when Ries was a Ph.D. student in Marseille. Emmorey, a distinguished professor, sign language expert and director of the Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience at SDSU, presented a study about sign monitoring which sparked an abiding interest in Ries, who wanted to work with Emmorey. When they crossed paths at another conference five years ago, Emmorey urged her to apply for the assistant professorship at SDSU, and they eventually began working together.

"I've always been interested in what inner signing would be like, and if it's similar to inner speech," said Emmorey, the study's senior author. "It's an internal process. When you speak, you can hear yourself. But if you're signing, are you seeing yourself like in a mirror, or is it a mental image of you signing, or a motor representation so you can feel how you sign?"

These were the underlying aspects of signing no one quite understood, and it has long been Emmorey's goal to tease them apart so we truly understand what sign language processing is like. Knowing this will help sign language educators figure out the best learning strategy for signers, much like the techniques used to teach hearing people foreign languages.

Since Ries was already working on speech monitoring with hearing people in France, when she joined SDSU, the two researchers combined their expertise to study sign monitoring in hearing and deaf people.

Monitoring for self-editing

They used the EEG data recorded with 21 hearing signers and 26 deaf signers in the Neurocognition Lab of Philip Holcomb and Katherine Midgley, colleagues in the psychology department. The participants were shown pictures to identify by signing, while wearing an EEG cap with 32-channel tin electrodes to monitor the mechanism behind signing.

"We wanted to study sign monitoring in-depth to understand the underlying mechanism and whether it's universal," Ries said. "Before people start to sign, you see this component rising, and we observed it happen with hearing signers as well, except it wasn't as clear."

This difference was possibly because deaf signers were more proficient in ASL than hearing signers. It's important to note that both deaf and hearing signers are bilingual in English and ASL, except ASL is more dominant for deaf signers.

"When we're speaking we catch ourselves when we are about to make an error. That's thanks to this monitoring process which is located in the medial frontal cortex of the brain," Ries said. "It peaks 40 milliseconds after you begin speaking, so it's extremely fast. We make an error because we may not have selected the right word when semantically related words are competing in your brain."

Words that share similar meanings such as 'oven' and 'fridge' or names may be switched in the brain (e.g., swapping your children's names). Other times, syllables get transposed.

Such errors can happen in signing too, when signs for different words are mixed up or an incorrect handshape is swapped for the desired handshape, which indicates signers are actually assembling phonological units during language production, similar to assembling the phonemes in a spoken word.

"Learning how sign production is represented in the brain will help us understand sign language disorders, and if a signer needs epileptic surgery we will know which part of the brain processes sign," Emmorey said.

###

The study's co-authors include Linda Nadalet and Soren Mickelson, who were master's students in speech language pathology, and Megan Mott, who was a master's student in psychology.

Funding came from a grant from the SDSU Center for Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, designed to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations across campus. Emmorey and Ries are also funded by grants from the National Institute for Deafness and other Communication Disorders within the National Institutes for Health.
Ontario colleges and universities hope students can attend classes on campus this fall  but professors have been told to prepare for online learning.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the move to virtual learning until the end of the year, at least, is required to ensure staff and student safety  but its also a move fraught with uncertainty.

While professors have quietly been told to keep lessons online, it remains unclear if that will cause a dip in new enrolment and returning students, who generally view online learning as substandard, especially when it comes to labs and hands-on courses.

Already in the U.S., worried about their numbers, institutions have had to extend traditional May acceptance deadlines into June. With Ontarios own deadlines also approaching in June, colleges and universities are unsure what will happen.

Will students want  or even be able to afford  tuition and accompanying fees when they arent getting the full, on-campus experience? Petitions demanding breaks have already started online. Will international students  a cash cow for institutions  be able to leave their home countries to study here, or even want to amid an ongoing outbreak?

Our members are hearing, informally, that there is a recognition that the (fall) term is going to start online, start remotely and that, by the end of the fall term, they are hoping to transition to on campus, said Michael Conlon, executive director of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.

Its the reality of what the experts are saying, and health and safety must come first, he said. They are expecting a second wave in the fall. Even if its not drastic, it could scuttle any plans for face-to-face instruction at an institution until at least January 2021.

For students, there is a loss and I think its really the wider experience that is missing: being on campus, and the reality of intellectual and social life that students have on campus. Thats irreplaceable.

Colleges and Universities Minister Ross Romano speaks daily with leaders in the sector and the ministry is actively working with Ontarios post-secondary institutions to ensure they have the resources they need to safely respond to COVID-19 and maintain program continuity for their students, said a ministry spokesperson.

The province previously announced a $25-million fund to help with COVID-19 costs, and has also temporarily suspended student loan repayments and interest until the end of September, matching a move by the federal government to give stressed students some relief.

Working on the advice of the chief medical officer of health, Ontarios post-secondary institutions are developing their plans for the fall term  exploring a range of delivery options depending on the trajectory of COVID-19, said ministry spokesperson Ciara Byrne.

But one veteran higher education expert said he is worried because Im not sure every campus of every college and university will be viable if there are revenue shortfalls from tuition, residence fees or if international student enrolment wanes.

The pandemic has already impacted some institutions bottom lines, including Mohawk College in Hamilton and Sudburys Laurentian University, both facing millions in cutbacks.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said without more help from the provincial government, cuts to jobs, courses, opportunities for students and our provinces research capacity will be devastating to the schools and local economies.

Overseas, as some universities begin to open their doors, students wear masks and have their temperatures taken before entering class, where they sit far apart. In the U.S., there has been talk of holding larger classes online and moving smaller ones into big theatres so students can sit several seats apart. Some have mused about taking classes or labs outside, where feasible.

The College Student Alliance, an advocacy group, said many institutions are looking to complete at least part of the fall semester online  This is obviously not the preferred method as hands-on programs are not experiencing the same quality of career-oriented education, but student safety is always of utmost importance to us.

The alliances own survey has found mixed feelings about online learning but that most students plan to attend in the fall regardless, according to a statement to the Star from president Jecema Hewitt Vasil.

Students will still opt for online classes over nothing  we dont want students going back early if it is not safe.

But it remains unknown when plans for the fall will be finalized.

Ultimately, we want to make sure everything is smooth, but theres so much uncertainty, said Sally Meseret, a Grade 12 student in Durham Region who will attend university this fall to study political science. Theres a level of worry because we dont know what to expect.

Catherine Dunne, who heads the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, said there must be significant enough heads up so students can put arrangements in place. I think it would definitely be too late by August.

With enough time to plan, online learning can be of high quality and students can have a sense of purpose and something to do  The spring (move to online) was a very quick transition and not the quality some students had hoped for.

Linda Franklin, president and CEO of Colleges Ontario, said meetings are happening several times a week, and administrators are talking to public health officials about what it looks like if campus is brought back to life gradually.

Labs that typically run with 20 students might have to shrink to five at a time, depending on how social distancing rules evolve. Hands-on apprenticeship training will be a challenge, she added.

I dont think there are easy answers yet or quick solutions.

She noted that tuition deposits for the fall are due June 15 and we need to be in a position to tell students what this is going to look like in the fall.

David Lindsay, president and CEO of the Council of Ontario Universities, said institutions are committed to providing a fall term and ensuring high-quality education for our students. We know there will be challenges, however we are focused on finding innovative ways to ensure an enriching university experience.
"We've rediscovered the neighbourhood, the importance of the immediate location  our street, our apartment block," says Mackay. "Even people who haven't known each other as neighbours have stepped up to be helpful, do a bit of shopping, or go to the chemist for a frail elderly person whose presence they previously might not have even registered." Mackay, 82, lives in a Canberra apartment block where some of the younger couples have offered to run errands for the older residents or take care of their shopping. It's a gesture he happily accepted once when he needed a book. "Our role as neighbours has come back into our consciousness and I don't think we'll want to let that go," Mackay says. More time for things that matter Inevitably, as the pace of life has slowed and most of us have ditched the daily commute to work from home, we have found ourselves with more spare time. It's not a thrill for everyone. Some are pulling their hair out with boredom, desperately awaiting the return of the work functions and the social events their lives revolved around. Some are feeling guilty for being lazy and unproductive.

But others are relishing the emptier schedule. Weekends that once involved herculean efforts to ferry children to sporting matches have been replaced by activities at home that actually foster bonds rather than break them down with stress and anxiety. Time once spent behind the wheel is now time spent on the phone, talking to loved ones or friends who had dropped off the radar. When prompted, 74 per cent of the Newgate respondents said they would "check in" with friends and family more often once the crisis is over, and 72 per cent said they would spend more time with family. Those convictions are showing up across all the firm's research, says Vercoe. On the move: people jogging along the Bay Run at Lilyfield. Credit:Kate Geraghty Some of the intentions expressed seem contradictory, or even mutually exclusive. We want to be more socially engaged but we also like staying at home, with 53 per cent saying they would stay home more and 59 per cent saying they would "minimise contact with others [and] maintain some level of social distancing" once the pandemic is behind us. 'We had a situation in which this pathogen kind of revealed the flaws in our social organisation.' Dr Bryan Mukandi

Different lifestyle choices The other big changes we want to make involve our health and lifestyle. Seventy per cent affirmed they want to eat more healthily, and 69 per cent said they wanted to cook at home more often (of course, some of us cannot wait for restaurants to reopen and have vowed to never enter a kitchen again). Two-thirds said they would take more regular exercise. Certainly, the lockdown has been bad for a lot of people's waistlines and health, with a lot less movement and a lot more snacking. But there are some aspects we'll surely want to keep. While the gym junkies restlessly wait to jump back on their machines, others have discovered the joy of exercising outdoors. Switching from the treadmill to the footpath is a great way to discover new parts of your suburb or city  and with more and more people pounding the pavement, your chances of running into a friend or colleague while out running or exercising have dramatically increased. Fitness has gone from a private chore to a collective experience. And while there were complaints about a lack of physical distancing on the popular Bay Run in Sydney's inner west  and threats from mayors about having to shut it down  the better view is surely to welcome the renaissance of our public spaces as a natural gymnasium.

More flexible working arrangements Much more divisive is the dramatic uptake of working from home. It's an option many essential workers don't have. For those who do, it can be a gift and a curse. Many of us cannot wait to get back to the daily grind, complete with its frustrating commutes, tiresome water-cooler conversations and petty corporate politics. For all those ills, at least it's something to do. And we're rapidly losing patience with shaky internet connections, tedious Zoom conferences and that one person who can never seem to negotiate the technology. But the experience has demonstrated that more flexible working arrangements are possible and potentially beneficial. It has proven you don't need to be in the office to be productive, and may have eroded the stigma that says "working from home" is just a euphemism for lounging around watching daytime television.

"I think that feeling of flexibility is likely to continue," says Mackay. "Now we've seen it working on a huge scale. People are more likely to say, 'I'll work from home tomorrow morning, because now we know we can do it, and I'll come in in the afternoon'." Mackay predicts hot-desking will come back into fashion, with companies using it as a way to cut down on floor space. But the demise of the office doesn't necessarily mean the end of workplace culture. "What we really miss is the kind of corridor conversations  the chit chat that isn't really about the work  that really oils the wheels of the organisation," Mackay says. "We've been finding ways even via email or Zoom or the phone to compensate for that. People are tending to write longer emails, including more personal stuff as well as the work." Avoid the commute: more flexible work arrangements may help alleviate the peak hour public transport crush. Credit:Peter Rae Compassion for the disadvantaged

As much as the lockdown has changed the way we work, it has also thrown a lot of people out of work and on to the dole queue. The government stepped in with numerous social security measures  doubling the jobseekers' allowance, and introducing a new payment, JobKeeper, to support workers who were stood down or were at risk of being stood down. These measures are supposed to be temporary, but the underlying sensibilities don't have to be. "I think the stigma that was kicking around about unemployment has vanished, has been washed away by all this, as it should be," says Mackay. "A change in attitudes to the unemployed is now going to occur, and I think we're going to be proud of ourselves for making that change." Dr Bryan Mukandi, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Queensland who specialises in public health and philosophy, says the pandemic is a timely reminder of the Kantian aphorism that "ought implies can". In order for people to have a moral obligation to do something, they must first have the means. "If we think that people ought to do a bunch of things, if we hope that people do a bunch of things, we need to make sure they have the ability and resources to do them," Mukandi says.

"I think there was a recognition on multiple levels that certain things need to be in place in order for people to be able to socially distance ... structural things need to be in place in order for people to maintain healthy behaviours." Most of us have a complex attitude to government. We want to rely on it when we need it; we want it out of the way when it annoys us. In a crisis, we always come crawling back. Mackay says we've seen "a conservative government acting like a socialist government", and we've responded positively to the compassion that entails. He believes we'll want this to continue, too. "There's going to be not a revolution but a shift in the direction of being more compassionate and expecting institutions like government and banks and the media to be more compassionate." Newfound resilience

Loading In an essay for The Critic last month, British journalist and author Ella Whelan said resilience had become "a dirty word these days". Prior to the pandemic, a "fetishisation of mental health" among Millennials had led people to pathologise the routine swings and roundabouts of life and celebrate vulnerability. "This cult of vulnerability  in which no one is allowed to be resilient for fear of offending those who aren't  is becoming the norm," Whelan wrote. Whether or not you accept that, it might be nice to hang on to a slither of the resilience this virus has fostered. Mackay certainly thinks so. He says it was evident in the generation that survived the Great Depression. "People said it really did clarify their values and their priorities, and that stayed with them," he says. "There's going to be a whole generation of young adults now whose resilience will be really [lifted] up by living through these months of the pandemic. Like [after] the Great Depression, I think it will not be a dramatic change but it will be a permanent change." Of course, the danger in this is that our best intentions come to nought and we regress to the way things were before. After all, all these things were possible before COVID-19. But as the economist Paul Samuelson showed, our "revealed preferences"  the ones we show through our behaviours and choices  often say a lot more than our stated preferences, the things we claim we want.
Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money.

Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.
A man tried to smuggle 36 illegal immigrants through the Interstate 35 checkpoint in a sealed tractor-trailer, authorities said.

Agents said the case unfolded early Thursday, when a commercial 18-wheeler arrived at the Border Patrol checkpoint on mile marker 29.
In the biggest loss in recent years, two senior Army officers, including a colonel, were among five security personnel killed during an encounter with terrorists in north Kashmir, officials said on Sunday.

The encounter in Handwara in Kupwara district claimed the lives of Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh and Lance Naik Dinesh, all from the Brigade of the Guards regiment, and at present part of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles, who were deployed to counter terrorism in the hinterland. A Jammu and Kashmir Police Sub-Inspector, Sageer Ahmad Pathan alias Qazi, also fell victim to the bullets of terrorists.

Also Read: Colonel, Major, police officer among seven killed in terrorist encounter in Kashmirs Handwara

Meanwhile, here are things to know about Colonel Sharma:

1) Colonel is originally from Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh and is survived by his wife and his 12-year-old daughter.

2) Col Sharma had been part of several successful counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir in the past. He served Kashmir for a long time and was twice awarded Sena medal for gallantry, including one for bravery as CO.

3) He received the gallantry award as a CO when he shot a militant-- who was rushing towards his men on a road with a grenade hidden in his clothes-- at close range.

4) Col Sharma is the first CO or a colonel rank officer in the last five years to have lost life in an encounter with militants. Before this, the Army had lost two colonel-ranking officers in separate terror incidents in 2015.

5) He had told his colleagues that he would nab or gun down the Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, according to India Today.

6) Attempting to get into the army for six-and-a-half years, Col Sharma successfully joined the Army in his thirteenth attempt.

7) Col Sharma used to go out of the way for his jawans and solve their problems, reported Economic Times.

8) Before the encounter, intelligence inputs indicated the presence of the same group of terrorists inside a house at Changimulla village, prompting Col Sharma to launch a cordon-and-search operation along with his team and Qazi.

9) According to the officials, the team came under heavy fire after rescuing the civilians and all communication link with Col Sharma and his team was snapped.

10) A wreath-laying ceremony would be held on May 5 in Srinagar after which the bodies would be flown to their native places where they will be cremated keeping the coronavirus safety protocols in mind.
Venezuelas government said it foiled a marine incursion on Sunday by terrorist mercenaries who attempted to enter the country on speedboats from neighboring Colombia, adding security forces killed eight of the assailants

Caracas: Venezuelas government said it foiled a marine incursion on Sunday by terrorist mercenaries who attempted to enter the country on speedboats from neighboring Colombia, adding security forces killed eight of the assailants.

President Nicolas Maduro frequently accuses political adversaries of attempting to overthrow his administration with the support of the United States, which has vowed to force him from office through sanctions that have crippled the OPEC nations oil exports.

Critics of the ruling Socialist Party often dismiss such accusations as stunts used as an excuse to detain opponents of the government.

The group landed early on Sunday on the coast of La Guaira, about 20 miles (32 km) from the capital Caracas, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in a televised address.

They tried to carry out an invasion by sea, a group of terrorist mercenaries from Colombia, in order to commit terrorist acts in the country, murdering leaders of the revolutionary government, he said.

Socialist Party leader Diosdado Cabello said eight people were killed and two were detained. We have deactivated an attempted incursion of our territory, thanks to intelligence efforts, Cabello told reporters.

Maduro has overseen a six-year economic crisis that has left many citizens unable to obtain basic food and medicine and forced nearly five million people to emigrate.

The United States and more than fifty other countries disavowed Maduro after his disputed 2018 election, which they say was rigged, and instead have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the nations legitimate interim leader.

But Maduro retains the backing of the countrys armed forces as well as countries including China and Russia, which have harshly criticized the US sanctions.
The four royals of the Akuapem Traditional Area in the Eastern Region who were picked up by the Police for flouting social distancing protocols will be put before court on Tuesday.

The four have already been granted police inquiry bail but officials say they are to report to the police station today [Monday] to be processed for court on Tuesday.

They were released on bail because it has fallen into the long weekend and we can't let them be overdue in cellsOur method is straight forward, we will send them to court, latest by Tuesday, the Eastern Regional Police Crime Officer, Chief Superintendent David Gyabaa told Citi News.

According to the Police and the Akuapem North Municipal Assembly, the four spearheaded the enstoolment of the Paramount Chief of the Akuapem Traditional area, Odehye Kwadwo Kesse, which was under strict police supervision.

Some Ghanaians on Friday took to social media to criticise the action by the traditional council which they said was in clear breach of the President's directive on the ban on all forms of social gatherings.

Chief Supt. David Gyabaa also said calm has returned to the Akropong Community following the tension in the area.

The situation is calm now on the ground. That is what we are working to maintain. The little peace we have there, we are working to build it and make sure it improves, he said.

There was also a chieftaincy dispute in the area following a misunderstanding between factions in the Sakyiabea Royal Gate over whose turn it was to produce the next Okuapehene.

Last Thursday, the Judicial Committee of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs declared the installation of Odehyee Kwasi Akuffo as the Okuapehene by the Queen-mother of the area as null and void.

At the same time, the Abrewatia had nominated Odehye Kesse to be heir to the throne to succeed the late Oseeadeyo Addo Dankwa III.

Unsatisfied about events, the Abrewatia petitioned the Regional House of Chiefs, challenging the traditional capacity of the Paramount Queen in nominating and installing a Paramount Chief.

---citinewsroom
MPs said the extension is a necessity to stand up to new security and health challenges facing Egypt at the moment

Egypt's parliament  the House of Representatives  approved Monday on a presidential decree (168/2020) extending the countrys state of emergency for three more months.

The extension started on 1pm, 28 April 2020.

The approval came one day after Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly delivered a statement before parliament saying that the extension reflects a necessity to help the state eliminate rogue and terrorist elements targeting the security of the country.

Madbouly argued that the state of emergency also helps the government address the health and economic dangers emanating from the spread of the coronavirus infections.

The emergency law was amended two weeks ago to give the president new powers necessary to contain the virus and help businesses face the crisis.

Madbouly's statement was discussed in a meeting by parliament's general committee on Monday morning.

"After deliberating on the prime minister's statement before the House on Sunday, the general committee recommends that MPs approve the new extension of the state of emergency for another three months," said the general committee report, adding that "it is a necessity to address the current security and health challenges facing Egypt at the present time and to support the state's efforts in uprooting terrorism."

The approval comes few days after army forces clashed with terrorist elements operating in North Sinai.

The military spokesperson Tamer El-Rifaie said in a statement on Sunday that the Armed Forces killed 126 takfiris in northern and central Sinai during operations in the past period, and the operations resulted in the death or injury of 15 army personnel.

The state of emergency was first imposed in April 2017 after two church bombings which killed 47 people, and has been continually extended since.

Article 2 of the decree allows security forces to take [measures] necessary to confront the dangers and funding of terrorism and safeguard security in all parts of the country.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Union leaders have warned the governments draft plans to get staff back to work during the coronavirus crisis have been thrown together in a hurry and would put people at risk.

Staggered shift hours, rearranged offices, and communication over radio are proposed in draft guidelines sent to business groups, major employers and unions.

An end to hot-desking, continued home working, and one-way systems in buildings also reportedly form part of proposals revealed days before Boris Johnson unveils the governments roadmap out of lockdown on Sunday.

But Britains trade union body raised urgent concerns about the plans, expected to be finalised in the coming days, which they said contained no requirements on employers to keep people safe at work.

The TUC said ministers had made no commitment to increase enforcement to stop companies flouting the law and putting staff in danger.

It noted the guidance repeatedly says employers should consider actions such as enabling social distancing or providing handwashing facilities but also suggests individual employers can decide to ignore that advice.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove and business secretary Alok Sharma are said to have drawn up seven documents for different industries and settings: hotels and restaurants; work in other peoples homes; factories; working outdoors; working in vehicles; shops; and offices.

The guidance, also seen by the BBC and Buzzfeed News, will reportedly urge employers to minimise the number of people using communal equipment, introduce protective screens in some situations, and put additional hygiene rules in place.

Shifts and break times could be staggered to reduce crowding at entrances, workers may be told to work facing away from each other, and staff canteens might be told to shut.

Office staff will be told to work from home where possible, while critical workers who cannot should work further apart, the plans reportedly state.

Under the draft proposals, companies with more than five employees will be required to submit a written risk assessment if they wish to reopen during the pandemic.

But TUC general secretary Frances OGrady said safe working will not be guaranteed under the plans as they stand, adding that unions could be expected to support the guidance without any recommendations on the use of personal protective equipment.

Prospect union general secretary Mike Clancy added: We all want to get back to work, but there is no point in easing the lockdown if the guidelines put people at risk, potentially causing a spike in cases and another full-scale lockdown.

John Phillips, acting general secretary of the GMB Union, said the guidance was thrown together in a hurry and it shows.

They cannot just flick a switch, say its safe to work within two metres of other people without PPE and expect them to head merrily off to work, he said.

He added unions and employers had been given only 12 hours to respond to the draft guidelines which means crucial changes will not be made.

The criticism came after transport minister Grant Shapps outlined what the easing of the lockdown may look like over the weekend.

Mr Shapps said workers who do end up heading back to their jobs may have to travel in at different times throughout the day in order to aid social distancing and give people more room on public transport.

Things like staggering work times [are] very important to avoid those morning peaks. The crushes would be completely at odds with social distancing, he told Sky News.

He also suggested trains, buses and transport interchanges could be equipped with hand sanitiser, and maintained that handwashing remains more important in preventing the spread of the disease than wearing face masks, which some countries have mandated.

He also said there is no firm plan yet for when schools can reopen.

Its no secret that of course we want kids to be able to go back to school, but Id be over-egging it to say theres a date in place [and] a plan.

Speaking about the governments roadmap, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said at the daily news conference in Downing Street on Sunday evening: Were consulting with employers and unions, professionals and public health experts, to establish how we can ensure that we have the safest possible working environments, and the prime minister will be saying more later this week.

But he warned the public the end of lockdown would not be like flicking a switch and going ... back to the old normal.

He said there would be a phased approach ... which allows us to monitor the impact that those changes are having on public health.

The NHS will also begin a pilot of its new coronavirus app this week with initial trials for the contact tracing system taking place on the Isle of Wight.

But the government has indicated its success depends on a very high uptake among the population. Between 50 to 60 per cent of the entire population will have to use it in order for it to have a real impact. That figure means the app will need to become as ubiquitous as WhatsApp in the space of just a few months.

Mr Gove said that the more people who download the app the better and was optimistic that people would decide to download it.

Its striking how publicly spirited people have been throughout the crisis, and knowing that this is a contribution all of us can make to help keep our neighbours and our communities safer is a very powerful incentive, I think, he said.

On Sunday the government said 28,466 people are now known to have died due to coronavirus in the UK  a rise of 315 since Saturday.

The figure puts the UK death toll higher than that of Spain, which has the greatest number of known cases of Covid-19 in Europe and just below Italys which is currently at 28,884.

The UK is on course to become the worst affected country in Europe and the second-worst in the world, in terms of deaths, after the United States where 68,602 people have died.
[May 04, 2020] New Corona Antibody Test Made in Germany "99.8% Accurate"

BERLIN, May 4, 2020 /CNW/ -- Roche launched the new serological (antibody-based) test at the company's Penzberg laboratory on Monday, May 4 at a press conference attended by German Health Minister Jens Spahn and Bavarian state premier Markus Soder. On May 3, the test received emergency approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. According to company data, the test is 99.8 percent accurate  far better than other tests of its kind. "This is not just a regional event  it's an important international step in the fight against the coronavirus," said Soder. "The solutions to the crisis will be scientific ones, and this is a major milestone." Spahn underscored that the test had set new standards in both specificity to the Sars-CoV-2 virus and the sensitivity of positive and negative results in those tested. He added that 3 million tests would be produced this month and 5 million per month in future for use in Germany. Roche said hundreds of millions of tests would be made available internationally wherever they're needed. "Tests like these are important to find out what percentage of the population have been affected beyond the official numbers thus far," Spahn told reporters.



400 million euros in its Penzberg facility, and Soder said the state of Bavaria would chip in 40 million of its own to expand operations there. "The expansion by Roche is a great testimonial for Germany as Europe's leading biotechnology location," says Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) Director of Chemicals and Health Marcus Schmidt. "With more than 5000 employees, Penzberg in southern Bavaria is already the Swiss pharmaceutical company's largest biotech research, development and production center worldwide. We are also delighted to hear that the regional Bavarian government will further strengthen the greater Munich life-science cluster by funding a new pandemic research institute."

GTAI Health Expert Gregor Kemper pointed out that Roche's Monday announcement had been a long time in the making. "With the successful development of an antibody test with especially high specificity and selectivity, the investment Roche made in Penzberg over the last several years is paying off," Kemper explains. "It also shows that the medical research landscape in Germany is capable of coming up with quick solutions in crisis cases." Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) is the economic development agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. GTAI supports German companies setting up in foreign markets, promotes Germany as a business location and assists foreign companies setting up in Germany. Contact: Jefferson Chase

Senior Manager, Communications

Germany Trade & Invest

Friedrichstrae 60

10117 Berlin

+49 30200099170

[email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-corona-antibody-test-made-in-germany-99-8-accurate-301051939.html SOURCE Germany Trade & Invest

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Suspected COVID-19 sufferers in Osaka Prefecture were forced to wait up to 10 days in mid-April before they were given polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which detect infection, Jiji Press learned Sunday.

As of Friday, some people in Osaka still had to wait about five days before getting tested.

The long waiting times reflect a surge in the overall number of possible virus carriers and the preference given to the testing of severely ill patients and people connected to infection clusters, according to officials with the cityas public health center.

Osaka Prefecture, where the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases has exceeded 1,600, has the capacity to conduct 420 PCR tests per day. It plans to boost the daily number to some 890 with the help of private-sector testing bodies.

In response to the outbreak, a clinic in Osaka Prefecture has asked patients with fevers to visit during specific times of day when they will be seen by staff members in protective suits.

The head of the clinic complained that local health centers are rejecting most testing requests for patients recognized by doctors as in need of being tested.
These are the schools that have canceled classes for Jan. 18

Some school districts across the county are virtual today. Others will make up the snow day.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4)  Tax payments for 2019 can still be settled until June 14 without any penalties, the Bureau of Internal Revenue announced over the weekend.

BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay and Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III issued Revenue Regulations No. 11-2020 last week, which extended the filing of income tax returns as well as the settlement of other duties for a third time.

This is two months beyond the original April 15 deadline set by law. The agency had to postpone the due date as it fell right after the first stretch of the COVID-19 lockdown in Luzon, the countrys main business hub.

The fresh reprieve followed President Rodrigo Dutertes announcement of another two-week extension of the enhanced community quarantine in select areas in the country, including the biggest financial centers  Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and Cebu  as the government sought to contain the spread of the deadly disease.

Some 49 other types of tax payments covering quarterly and monthly filings also saw deadlines pushed back. Companies and individual taxpayers can delay these submissions and tax payments without being charged interest or any additional fees. Among those covered are value-added tax collections and refunds, audited financial statements, excise taxes, and tax amnesty returns.

The BIR added that the payment deadlines will again be pushed back by 15 days if the ECQ, set to end May 15, is extended further.

Employees, the self-employed, and companies usually flock to the BIRs district offices leading up to the due date, even if payments are being accepted as early as January. BIR officials earlier appealed to taxpayers to settle their accounts ahead of the deadline to avoid huge crowds, with the agency encouraging online payments through their partner banks and financial firms.

The Department of Finance earlier estimated the delay in tax payments to lead to a 145-billion shortfall in tax collections, which would mean less funds for government at a time when authorities are scrambling to give subsidies and other interventions to soften the impact of COVID-19 to families and the economy.

READ: DBM chief assures gov't can fund cash aid program

The government has resorted to borrowing from foreign sources to fund the budget deficit.
<! Genevieve Nnaji: marks another year >

By Our Reporter

Genevieve Nnaji, actress, movie director and producer, who turned 41, earned the encomiums and well wishes of Nollywood stars on Sunday as they celebrated her.

Funke Akindele, Sola Sobowale and Rachael Okonkwo were among the stars who felicitated with Nnaji.

They all prayed for Nnajis success in all endeavours.

Funke Akindele said:  Happy birthday my darling sister. Here is wishing you many more fruitful years on earth. Keep soaring Genny.

Similarly, Sobowale, with a display of Genevieve Nnajis picture on her page wrote: I congratulate you for all you have accomplished, today another year has been added on to you.

I celebrate you.

In this new age, you will say there is a lifting up. May the divine joy and peace of the Lord continue to abide in you. May He renew your strength and grant the desires of your heart.

 Happy birthday my darling Genevieve. Love you always.

Rachael Okonkwo wrote:  Happy birthday to you my legendary Genevieve Nnaji. Thanks for being a huge inspiration and role model. May God continue to keep you in wisdom and good health.

The ageless Genevieve Nnaji blazed the trail in the movie industry by winning the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actress in a leading role in 2005.

In 2011, she was honoured as a member of the Order of the Federal Republic by the Nigerian government for her contributions to the film industry.

Nnajis directorial debut movie, Lionheart, was the first Netflix original from Nigeria and first Nigerian submission for the Oscars.

She had starred in over 200 Nollywood movies, since she began appearing in movies at the age of 19.

Nnaji was born in Mbaise, Imo State, the fourth of eight children of the family.

However, she grew up in Lagos.

She attended Methodist Girls College in Yaba, Lagos and went on to attend the University of Lagos. She graduated with a bachelors degree in creative arts.

While at the university, she began auditioning for acting jobs in Nollywood.

But her acting career predated Nollywood. She had starred as a child actor in the then-popular television soap opera Ripples at the age of 8.

In 1998, at the age of 19, she was introduced into the growing Nigerian film industry with the movie Most Wanted.
Canadas federal and provincial governments, with the full backing of big business, are recklessly pushing to reopen the economy amid a raging pandemic. The aggressive drive to lift restrictions that were only reluctantly imposed in the first place will gather pace with the reopening of shops across most of Quebec today, and schools and day cares May 11.

Even Quebecs top public health official has admitted the provincial Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) governments plan to force hundreds of thousands of workers in non-essential industries back on the job over the next three weeks is a risky bet. Yet other provinces are using it as political cover to accelerate their own reopening plans.

On Friday, just days after saying Ontario would not ease lockdown restrictions until the daily number of new COVID-19 cases had been declining for two weeks, Premier Doug Ford announced that large numbers of businesses, including most building sites, will be allowed to reopen today.

The lives of workers and their families are being placed in jeopardy so as to enable big business and investors to resume amassing huge profits off their labour. None of the conditions the World Health Organization (WHO) and other medical experts have said are necessary to ensure the easing of social-distancing measures doesnt lead to a second, even more lethal wave of COVID-19 infections are in place. These include: provisions for systematic mass-testing and contacttracing, protective equipment for workers, and surge capacity in the health care system.

The politicians and corporate media are claiming the pandemic has peaked, yet the number of confirmed cases and deaths continue to surge. Total coronavirus cases in Canada have already surpassed 59,000, with the death toll reaching more than 3,675. Close to 200 people are dying, on average, every day.

Workers who spoke to the World Socialist Web Site in recent weeks have emphasized that even when the lockdown measures were in place, the authorities were totally incapable of dealing with the catastrophic impact of the pandemic. The terrible working conditions that they described in the health and social care sectors will worsen still further if these critical social services, which have been starved of funding for decades, buckle under the crush of patients that will be unleashed by a second wave of the coronavirus triggered by a premature return to work.

Julianne is a respiratory therapist in a hospital on the south shore of Montreal. As a cardio-respiratory specialist, she works directly with people with COVID-19. Her youngest patient is in his early 40s.

Because elective surgeries have been on hold, management has transferred workers from the operating room to other departments such as intensive care, she said. The procedures are very different, but we've had only one day of reorientation to learn the procedures and where the equipment is.

The refusal of governments at all levels to take adequate preparatory measures is forcing health care workers to risk their lives by deviating from World Health Organization recommendations for treating highly-infectious COVID-19 patients. We are told to limit the use of N95 masks, she added. Instead of taking one N95 for each patient as we should do, we take an N95 mask and put it with all the other equipment, then add a procedure mask on top of the N95 that we throw away between each patient. The procedure mask and the visor we have to wear protect the N95 from droplets. At least that's what they tell us, but we don't know. The mask company doesn't recommend this procedure anyway.

Julianne has seen workers use acetates (plastic sheets) in which they have made two small holes and put a string through them as a fastener. One of my colleagues was wearing such a visor. She had to maneuver on a ventilated patient and unfortunately the circuit was disconnected. The air from the ventilator made the acetate fly and my colleague was extremely exposed to the patient's secretions, she told the WSWS .

Julianne also described how her facility is struggling with staff shortages, which are the product of decades of savage austerity measures. In an ideal world, as long as you're exposed, you should be taken off work, but that's not the reality, she continued. As long as you don't have symptoms or a positive test, you have to keep working, even though you know the incubation period is two weeks. During this time, an infected person goes to work and potentially infects colleagues or other patients.

Julianne also drew the connection between the current situation and years of health care budget cuts, commenting, There have been so many cuts in recent years. The budget is becoming a matter of priority over patients' health. You don't replace those who are absent because it costs too much. So we are forced to work mandatory overtime.

Chris has worked for 15 years as an intervener for the deaf and blind. He now works for a non-profit group home for adults with disabilities, most of whom are seniors.

The masks and PPE have been a disaster, thats for sure, Chris said. Weve been provided with gloves, which we always have and nothing else.

He also took aim at the failure of the Canadian Union of Public Employees trade union to ensure the provision of proper equipment. Theres no real protection available. I have sent the message to the union (CUPE) and of course theyre working on it, remarked Chris sarcastically. I just got a message this week saying theyre having meetings about it now.

Chris also told us about the unsafe and inadequate living conditions the people he cares for are exposed to. In the house the patients are in, theyre all crammed into the living room, he said. Management sent a memo telling us to put them all in separate places. But we cant put them in their rooms for 24 hours a day, because they have no idea of the importance of this and theyre already getting really angry. So its becoming more dangerous for the staff.

The other thing is that if we became sick we would have to use our sick days and a lot of people dont have sick days left. Then we would be forced to use our vacation pay to cover coronavirus illness.

Marianne works as a program assistant with 20 other staff at a non-profit community health center in the Ottawa area for people with dementia and other mental health issues.

She described the impact the virus has had on her work. Things are massively changed since the COVID outbreak and now we are totally shut down, she said. Its all gone on to the Zoom [platform] and phone-calls, since the middle of March. We had no PPE before we closed. The week before we were really ramping up the hand sanitizing, but there was never any mask usage.

She also commented on the low wages paid in the non-profit sector. Our wages are shitty. I clear about $2,000 a month. Dont ask what our CEO makes, its really bad, she added. He had the nerve to send out a video at Easter with his family romping around their backyard with Easter bunny ears and his house is palatialand Im thinking, you know this is going out to workers who are working two jobs that you pay shit wages to and who are barely making ends meet.

Marianne also addressed the utter failure of politicians to prepare for the pandemic, in spite of repeated warnings and Canadas own experience with the SARS epidemic in 2003. I feel that everywhere clearly there was some kind of denial in place that something like this could happen, she told the WSWS. There shouldve been strategies and supplies in place in case of something like this. It should never have been treated as a far out possibility that something like this could happen. Since the beginning of time thereve been pandemics.
The Srdcom Doma organisation questions the constitutionality of some steps adopted to fight the coronavirus.

Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled

The Srdcom Doma organisation has voiced concerns over mandatory state quarantine and the country's declaration of a state of emergency. It wants the Constitutional Court to check the constitutionality of the steps taken by the Public Health Authority (UVZ) and the Governments Office.

Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement

Related article

Related article FAQ: Crossing the borders amid COVID-19 measures in Slovakia Read more

In a blog post published on May 2, the organisations head Samuel Zubo pointed to the fact that a state of emergency can be declared to a necessary extent and for a necessary period of time, but no longer than 90 days, citing the Slovak Constitution.

The Peter Pellegrini government, however, declared an unlimited state of emergency, while the incumbent government of Igor Matovic has adopted several changes, without setting the deadline for their validity.

Permission for people to enter
Armenia will not make unilateral concessions on Karabakh, said Armenian FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan.

According to him, Armenia has always said that the solution to the problem is based on the principle of mutual concessions.

No one can expect any steps from Armenia, involving concessions, and that could harm our national security, Mnatsakanyan said.

According to him, it is clear that the issue is being actively discussed in the domestic political field, "domestic policy remains domestic policy, and you cannot run away from it."

The FM recalled that he had already commented on the statement of his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

According to the minister, the security of the people of Karabakh has been declared a priority by the Armenian side, and the primary task of Armenia is to ensure existential security.

There will be no repetition of April 2016, there will be no 1991-1994. For this we have enough determination, the Foreign Minister noted, adding that there is a national consensus on this issue, which only strengthens the position of the Armenian side.
Tom Hanks surprised the graduating class of Wright State University in Ohio with a video message. The actor gave everyone an inspiring speech about hope amid the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

A Message Of Hope

The graduating batch of the Wright State University could not gather together for the usual graduation ceremony due to the world health crisis. However, they still received an inspiring message of hope from the "Cast Away" actor himself, Tom Hanks.

On Saturday, the Oscar-winning actor sent a personal video message to the graduating class of 2020. He referred to them as the "chosen ones," saying that they will be entering the real world amid the ongoing global health concern.

"You are the chosen ones because of a fate unimagined when you began your Wright State adventures," the 63-year old actor said.

Hanks also emphasized that the graduates have lived in the world before the Great Pandemic of 2020, so they could survive this health challenge, too.

"You started in the olden times, in a world back before the Great Pandemic of 2020. You will talk of those earlier years in your lives in just that way," Hanks added.

The actor, who was honored by the school in 2016 through the Tom Hanks Center for Motion Pictures, added that the graduating batch will have their own narrative to tell.

"Part of your lives will forever be identified as 'before,' in the same way other generations tell time like 'that was before the war, or 'that was before the internet,' or 'that was before Beyonce.' The word 'before' is going to carry great weight with you," Hanks furthered.

After which, he told them of the great responsibility they have amid the challenging times.

"You've gone from student to graduate with more that is expected of you than to just be an American. You've had to be responsible Americans. You've had to be good Americans. Good Americans that have made sacrifices that have saved lives," Hanks continued.

"You'll reference these past weeks for how many other weeks there are to come as 'during the pandemic,' " he said. "During the COVID-19, during the lockdown, the quarantine, the shelter-in-place.' But you're 'after' is not going to look the same as your during and you're 'before."

Hanks also pointed out the enlightenment the pandemic has brought in their lives. It is something no program in college could ever give.

"You will be enlightened in ways your degree never held in promise," Hanks said. "You will have made it through a time of great sacrifice and great need. No one will be more fresh to the task of restarting our normalcy than you - our chosen ones."

In Full Recovery

Tom Hanks, along with his wife Rita Wilson, was the first to come forward to admit he has contracted the coronavirus. They were both in Australia at that time, where Hanks was in a pre-production meeting for a film.

They self-isolated themselves in Australia for two weeks, but they have since returned to Los Angeles. While they are already on their way to full recovery, the actor could not help but look back at how truly challenging the experience was.

Tom and Rita have been very open about sharing their experience with the contagious respiratory condition. Last week, the couple shared pictures of themselves donating blood and plasma to help find a vaccince or cure for COVID-19.
Before the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Adam Friedman, professor and interim chair of dermatology at George Washington University, rarely wore a face mask. Today, working full days at the GWU outpatient facility, he wears one up to eight hours a day. As a result, his face has become perennially inflamed with an angry red rash.

"I'm now a dermatologist and a patient at the same time," he says.

While he isn't seeing many patients in person - only urgent cases - he's still around his co-workers all day, so the mask must stay on. "These masks are super uncomfortable," he says.

Skin irritation from wearing personal protective equipment is a hazard already familiar to health-care providers working in settings where infection control is critical. Now it has also become familiar to many people wearing masks in public, and frequently washing their hands. (Even bandannas and cloth masks, different from medical masks, can cause reactions, depending on the cloth, dyes and the detergent used to clean them, experts say.)

Friedman applies moisturizer to his face several times a day to decrease friction between his skin and the mask, useful advice for everyone, he says.

"It's all about the barrier," he says. "We need to protect our biological armor. This means not overwashing, especially with soap, and applying a moisturizer, preferably a thicker lotion or cream, to damp skin to lock moisture in where it's needed, and to add an extra layer of protection from all the nasty things out there."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone wear face masks or cloth coverings over the mouth and nose when in public, especially where social distancing may be difficult, so it's probably wise to take steps to protect the skin to prevent or alleviate problems.

"I think we will be wearing masks for months to come, given the smoldering nature of this viral pandemic," Friedman says. "These skin issues, without good preventive and treatment strategies - which we have - will likely persist and become more prevalent."

Dawn Davis, a dermatologist with the Mayo Clinic, says the skin, which is the body's largest organ, protects us from the environment but can become damaged when it cannot respond fast enough to stresses.

"The skin is a very active organ of the body, just like any other organ," she says. "In contrast to many other organs, it continually regenerates and produces its own moisturization. Our skin is very busy on a day-to-day basis on a level we don't think about. It's a full-time job."

She compares skin to beleaguered feet that end up in ill-fitting or too tight shoes.

"The skin compensates by creating calluses," she says. "The difference between the foot and the hands and face is that the bottom surface of the foot is much thicker than the skin on the backs of hands and on the face, so it doesn't have the natural mechanism to form a callus. Instead, you get irritation, dryness, friction and dermatitis."

She suggests using hypoallergenic soaps and washing hands and face in warm - not scalding - water. Pat dry, using linen or cotton, less abrasive than a paper towel. For hands, if moisturizing with cream or lotion alone doesn't work, she recommends covering the lotion layer with an ointment, like petroleum jelly, then putting cotton socks over the hands overnight.

And if that's not enough, try what she calls the "skin burrito," a technique that adds additional moisture. Wash your hands, pat them dry and apply two layers of hypoallergenic lotion or cream. Put a teaspoon of white vinegar into a glass or small bowl of warm water and soak two clean washcloths in the solution. Wring them out, wrap them around your hands and cover them with socks.

The advice is similar for the face. Wash, pat dry and apply hypoallergenic moisturizer - lotion or cream - twice, leaving a thick layer. The vinegar soak works here, too. Lay the wet cloths across the irritated parts of the face for about 15 minutes, three or four times a day.

Davis also likes zinc oxide - which fights inflammation - the same stuff lifeguards put on their noses to prevent sunburn, and parents put on babies' bottoms to treat diaper rash. Put a thin layer in facial areas where the mask rubs.

It's also important to remember that broken skin is a portal for infection, and that ignoring skin problems can cause long-lasting, although treatable, skin discoloration, or require prescription medications. Moreover, mask wearing can worsen existing primary skin diseases, such as seborrheic dermatitis, or red scaly skin, rosacea, or red patches and visible blood vessels, eczema, an itchy inflammation, and perioral dermatitis, an acnelike redness around the mouth.

"Many of the masks that people - and myself - have at home are these fairly hard cone masks that can be very irritating from the pressure," says Brian Kim, a dermatologist and co-director of Center for the Study of Itch and Sensory Disorders at Washington University School of Medicine. "Usually these masks are used very transiently while people are doing housework that creates dust.

"However, during covid-19, people are wearing them all day," Kim says. "My face had long pressure lines, with redness, soreness, and my face was also very flushed underneath. I also have some mild rosacea, which was getting exacerbated by the heat and humidity and causing my face to get unusually red."

Karen Ousey, director of the Institute of Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention at the University of Huddersfield in England and the author of a recent paper describing the skin issues among health-care workers, urges them to ensure masks are fitted correctly and aren't too tight.

Apply moisturizer at least 30 minutes before putting on the mask, to avoid an improper fit, she says. She also warns that paraffin products are flammable, so anyone using them should not smoke. Finally, "if possible and safe to do so," she says, remove masks every two hours to relieve pressure.

Most of these problems are preventable and easily treated, Friedman says.

"In this unprecedented time, we all need to do our part to protect ourselves and those around us," he said. "Face masks save lives. Moisturizers save skin. Apply both to your daily routine."


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Switzerland stock market ended sharply lower on Monday amid an escalation in U.S.-China tensions over the origin of the coronavirus outbreak.



Worries about a deep recession due to the impact of the virus pandemic continued to hurt stocks.



The benchmark SMI ended down 239.13 points, or 2.48%, at 9,390.27.



Swiss Re and Credit Suisse both ended lower by more than 6%. UBS Group, Zurich Insurance Group, Alcon, Geberit, ABB, Swiss Life Holding, Swatch Group, LafargeHolcim, SGS and Richemont lost 4 to 5.6%.



Adecco, Novartis and Nestle also ended sharply lower.



Lonza Group shares moved up by about 3.2%. Roche Group ended modestly higher after the company said it has won emergency approval from the USFDA for an antibody test to determine whether people have ever been infected with the coronavirus.



Roche also reportedly said that it aims to more than double production of its new coronavirus antibody test to 'significantly more than' 100 million tests a month by the end of the year.



In the midcap section, Flughafen Zurich tumbled more than 7%, while Dufry and Georg Fischer lost 6.3% and 5.6%, respectively.



Clariant, Julius Baer, Straumann Holding, OC Oerlikon Corp, Kuehne & Nagel, VAT Group, Vifor Pharma and Helvetia lost 4.4 to 5%.



In economic news, the procure.ch Manufacturing PMI in Switzerland dropped to 40.7 in April of 2020 from 43.7 in the previous month. That was above market expectations of 34.6, but the sharpest contraction since May of 2009.



Trade war fears returned to the fore after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday there was 'a significant amount of evidence' that the new coronavirus originated in China.



U.S. President Donald Trump, who had threatened earlier last week that he would impose fresh tariffs on China over the coronavirus outbreak, said again on Sunday that he believed that a 'mistake' in China was the cause of the virus pandemic. However, he did not provide any evidence for the claim.



China's Global Times said in an editorial that Pompeo was 'bluffing' and called on the United States to present its evidence.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Vijay Mallya on Monday filed an application seeking leave to appeal in the UK Supreme Court, exactly two weeks after the embattled liquor baron lost his London High Court appeal against an extradition order to India on charges of fraud and money laundering related to unrecovered loans to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The 64-year-old businessman had 14 days to file this application to seek permission to move the higher court on the High Court judgment from April 20, which dismissed his appeal against a Westminster Magistrates' Court extradition order certified by the UK Home Secretary.

"The leave to appeal has been filed. We have until May 14 to respond, said a spokesperson for the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which represents the Indian authorities in the legal process of the extradition.

The leave to appeal to the Supreme Court is on a point of law of general public importance, which according to experts is a very high threshold that is not often met.

"The High Court effectively ruled that even if the approach of the Chief Magistrate was wrong, her decision was not wrong. It is therefore clear that Mallya now faces a significant hurdle in getting it to the Supreme Court, notes Toby Cadman, co-founder of Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers and an extradition specialist.

As a further step, in principle, Mallya can also apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to prevent his extradition on the basis that he will not receive a fair trial and that he will be detained in conditions that breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory.

The threshold for an ECHR appeal is also extremely high, with very limited chance of success in Mallya's case because he would also have to demonstrate that his arguments on those grounds before the UK courts have been previously rejected.

Therefore, the dismissal of the High Court appeal last month marked a major turning point for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) case against the businessman, who has been on bail in the UK since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April 2017.

"We have held there is a prima facie case both of misrepresentation and of conspiracy, and thus there is also a prima facie case of money laundering, Lord Justice Stephen Irwin and Justice Elisabeth Laing, the two-member bench at the Royal Courts of Justice in London presiding over the appeal, had ruled last month.

Mallya had expressed his disappointment at the ruling and indicated plans for further legal remedies and also challenged the alleged Rs 9,000 crore figure of the unpaid loans to India's state-owned banks led by State Bank of India (CBI).

I am disappointed with the media narrative which states that I must face trial in India for a fraud of Rs 9,000 crores. Please note that the allegations against me and others are specifically and only related to three tranches of borrowing from IDBI Bank for a total of Rs 900 crores in 2009, he said.

I have repeatedly offered to repay the banks in full, but sadly to no avail, he said.

Mallya, declared a fugitive by India, has been based in the UK since March 2016 and remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard on April 18, 2017.

The High Court verdict upheld the 2018 ruling by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the end of a year-long extradition trial in December 2018 that the flashy former Kingfisher Airlines boss had a case to answer in the Indian courts.

She found there was clear evidence of dispersal and misapplication of the loan funds and accepted a prima facie case of fraud and a conspiracy to launder money against Mallya, which has now also been accepted by the High Court.

The Chief Magistrate had also dismissed any bars to extradition on the grounds of the prison conditions under which the businessman would be held, as she accepted the Indian government's assurances that he would receive all necessary medical care behind bars at Barrack 12 in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai.

India and the UK have an Extradition Treaty signed in 1992 and in force since November 1993. Two major extraditions have taken place under this Treaty so far Samirbhai Vinubhai Patel, who was sent back to India in 2016 to face trial in connection with his involvement in the post-Godhra riots of 2002, and more recently alleged bookie Sanjeev Chawla, sent back in February this year to face match-fixing charges.
A care worker has revealed she was denied entry into a convenience store because she was wearing her uniform.

Emily Challinor, 20, from Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, who had stopped to purchase a snack during her shift, described feeling 'appalled' and 'so upset' when she was told by staff at the Premier in Staffordshire, that she could not enter in her carer's uniform.

However the shop later insisted they had taken the precautionary measure due to the risk of Covid-19 seen in care homes and the 'duty of care' it had to all its employees and customers.

The care worker, who was asked to leave the store on May 1, said: 'I was on a five-minute break in my shift which started at 3.30pm and went on until 10pm when it happened.

Emily Challinor, 20, from Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, was refused entry into a convenience store as she was wearing her carer's uniform

The care worker had visited the Premier store in, Chesterton, Staffordshire, when she was told she could not enter in her uniform

'I pulled into the local Premier to get a drink and some crisps to snack on.

'I went to go in and the lady asked me to wait until a customer had exited the shop.

'But then when I tried to go in again, she asked me what uniform I was in, to which I replied ''sorry what?''.

'She then said ''well are you a carer or the NHS?'. I said ''I'm a carer'', and that's when she said I wasn't allowed into the shop, stating ''no carers allowed''.

'I watched as they let every other person in, including five different people in work uniforms but apparently if you're in a carers' uniform you aren't allowed in. I ended up just leaving.'

The care worker went on to explain that she was 'not trying to hurt the business' but instead make others aware of the challenges they might face if entering the store in uniform.

Ms Challinor added: 'I've been in this shop plenty of times in my uniform, talking to the owners. Only last week I was laughing with the woman about her husband buying her a hoover and she was excited.

'It was a lady who I hadn't seen before behind the counter who refused me entry. I'm not trying to hurt the business.

'I just wanted to make people aware if you're in the area and working not to go into the shop to save the embarrassment.

'Having said that, I won't be going back there ever again. I've never felt so upset just doing my job!'

Ms Challinor explained that she had previously been in the store while wearing her uniform but on this occasion was told by a member of staff behind the counter she could not enter

The care worker later took to Facebook to explain she had stopped at the store to purchase a drink and snacks during her shift

The care worker later took to Facebook to write: 'I had a five minute gap between clients-I'm a community care worker- so I went to the shop. I cannot get changed to travel and and from work as I travel all day.

'I had my coat on over my tunic and this was still not enough for the staff member.'

The store has since explained that they offered Ms Challinor the option to return to the shop once she had changed, asked her friend who was in the car with her to come into the shop instead or said they could deliver the items to the car.

A spokesman for Premier said: 'I have asked my members of staff not to allow anyone in wearing a carers' uniform. I have a duty of care to all my employees and customers.

'We did give this young woman the option of coming back when she had changed, asking her friend who was in the car with her to come into the shop instead or we could deliver the items to the car.

'We are here for the interests of everybody. Unfortunately there have been a high number of cases in care homes so I was only taking the steps needed to protect people.

'From my understanding, care workers are being asked to change at work.

'We are all in this together and we are here to help people in any way we can.'

The store's policy come after shoppers queued up to pay for the groceries of two paramedics in uniform as the pair stopped off for food at a Sainsbury's store in Loughton, Essex, last month.

The two NHS workers were buying food at a store in Loughton, Essex, when they were met with a show of support from shoppers

However earlier this month the frozen food chain Iceland was criticised for telling NHS workers they must buy products if they touch them while browsing inside its supermarkets.

The company posted a message on its website that read: 'If NHS workers touch products they have to buy them, they can't put them back.'

The chain, which claimed this was to 'reduce the risk of contamination' and help protect staff working inside Iceland supermarkets', later deleted its message.

A spokesman for Iceland later said: 'This was an error and should not have been posted on our website. We sincerely apologise for the offence this has clearly caused, and have immediately withdrawn this guidance.

'We are deeply grateful to the NHS and all key workers for everything they are doing to keep the country running.'

Elsewhere a Booths supermarket in Fulwood, Lancashire, was seen turning away NHS staff and carers dressed in uniform over fears they would spread coronavirus.

Joe-Ann Whitaker, who works for Direct Health and visits elderly people in their homes, was refused entry when she tried to buy a sandwich on her half-an-hour lunch break.

She told the Lancashire Evening Post: 'It was embarrassing and upsetting. What was I supposed to do, get changed in the car park?

'We're working long hours at the moment in very difficult circumstances and we don't have the time to get changed.

'We only get a half hour break for lunch. And there's no way I'm taking my clothes off in a supermarket car park.'

Following the incident, Booths said it was following guidance issued by the Royal Preston and Fulwood Hall hospitals to prevent infection but said it could have done more for Mrs Whitaker.

A spokesperson said: 'It is hugely regrettable that the customer felt unappreciated at this time. Booths pride themselves on looking after all customers within their communities.

'We have now made practical arrangements in store to help accommodate similar situations in the future.

'These are stressful and unprecedented times for health care workers, customers and our colleagues working hard to provide food.

Iceland sparked outrage by saying once workers had touched items 'they can't put them back' to reduce the risk of contamination during the coronavirus outbreak

One care worker said she was wasn't allowed inside a store in Fulwood, Lancashire (pictured) this month

'Our amazing teams are adapting daily to meet the unprecedented multiple demands of this crisis and working night and day in very difficult circumstances to serve our customers safely.

'At Booths we value the enormous contribution of all health workers, particularly at this critical time. However, Booths do need to stress the vital importance of good hygiene practices and ask that all health workers wear civilian clothes when in store.

'Booths must prioritise the safety of all their colleagues and customers at all times.

'This policy is to protect colleagues and customers from possible infection and is part of a range of hygiene and social distancing measures in place as directed from Public Health England. Booths are respecting the guidance that has been provided.'

Government advice currently states it is best practice that NHS workers change into and out of uniforms at work and not wear them while travelling, however this does not apply to community health workers who are required to travel between patients.

Information provided by Public Health England and the NHS reads: 'It is best practice to change into and out of uniforms at work and not wear them when travelling; this is based on public perception rather than evidence of an infection risk.

'This does not apply to community health workers who are required to travel between patients in the same uniform.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'Care workers and all other frontline staff are entirely entitled to go into any shop while wearing their uniform. This is in line with current government guidelines.'

To support the NHS please visit https://www.thanksamillionnhs.co.uk/
A former Hadley policemans plea for a COVID-19 related early release from prison has been rejected by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni noted that Christopher Roeder of Agawam had served less than half of his 14-month sentence and that remaining incarcerated does not put him at greater risk of exposure to the disease.

A lawyer for Roeder had filed the request on April 8 following Attorney General William Barrs April 3 memorandum to the director of the federal bureau of prisons titled: Increasing Use of Home Confinement at Institutions Most Affected by COVID-19.

Barr wrote, We should do everything we can to protect inmates in our care, but that we must do so in a careful and individualized way. . . to protect the public and the law enforcement officers who protect us all.

The Barr Memorandum was among documents Roeder submitted as part of his motion for early release. It also included an affidavit from his wife that said their home has sufficient space such that, whenever he is released, Chris could fully self-isolate for whatever period is necessary to ensure he is COVID-19 free.

Roeders motion for early release does not say he has contracted the disease, but argues that he is now at risk and meets the criteria for release now, owing to the increased dangers inmates face from coming into contact with a carrier of COVID-19.

He began serving the 14-month sentence in November, after the U.S. Department of Justice successfully convicted him of civil rights violations for breaking a South Hadley mans nose who was in custody, which incident was recorded at Hadley police station. He was also convicted by the jury of falsifying his police report in an attempt to justify what he had done.

Roeder is presently scheduled for release to home confinement on Sept. 22 with a home confinement plan already approved by the Bureau of Prisons, his motion says.

The court recognizes the virus can appear suddenly and spread quickly in the prison population, but after considering these factors as they relate to Defendant, the court concludes he has not demonstrated extraordinary circumstances exist, Mastroianni wrote in rejecting Roeders bid for early release.

(The) defendant has not identified any specific risk he faces due to an underlying health condition or other individual health concerns. Nor has he identified any specific conditions at the facility where he is being held that suggest his continued incarceration exposes him to significant risk, the judge wrote.

Roeder was sentenced to serve his sentence at the low-security Loretto, Pennsylvania, Federal Correctional Institution.

He is currently seeking to appeal the conviction.

A civil case against him, filed at federal district court in Springfield in February by the man whose nose he broke, Nickolas Peters is pending. No trial date has been set. Peters is also suing Hadley Police Chief Michael Mason and the town for $750,000 in damages.
Los Angeles, May 4 : Actor John Boyega, who made his final appearance as Stormtrooper-turned-hero Finn in "Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker", recalled shooting for the franchise.

In an interview with CinemaBlend, the 28-year-old shared how he keeps on thinking about his 'Star Wars' moments amid the lockdown, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

"I've still got my audition scripts. I've still got notes for what time I'm supposed to get to the audition and schedule, all of that stuff.

"So it's more of a time, for me anyway, to just kind of be a bit nostalgic and really take in the moments that I was able to enjoy. Now I have time for family, so it's really, really a win-win," John said.

He also spoke about how leaving the sci-fi series behind allowed him to reflect on the changes in his career.

"I think for me, honestly, it's all been good. It's been great because I've been able to go home and ask that fundamental question that I couldn't answer through the six years (which) was, 'What just happened to me?'," John added.
The 360 shows you diverse perspectives on the days top stories and debates.

Whats happening

President Trump last week urged the nations governors to seriously consider reopening schools as part of a larger push to revive the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the presidents prodding, most of the schools in the United States will remain closed for at least several months. A total of 45 states and Washington, D.C., have ordered or recommended school building closures through the end of the academic year and shifted their focus to possibly resuming in-person instruction in the fall.

The impact of shifting to distance learning has been significant. Students, especially those in vulnerable groups, are missing out on important academic and social development. Meanwhile, many parents are unable to work without a reliable place to send their kids every day. Experts agree that reopening schools will be one of the most important steps in getting the country back to normal.

Why theres debate

Optimistic forecasters suggest schools will be able to safely reopen on time in the fall, though day-to-day instruction will likely look very different. A vaccine wont be widely available for another year at the very earliest, health experts say, meaning the coronavirus will be a threat through the entirety of the next school year. Most models for a return to instruction call for social distancing measures to protect students, teachers and parents at home from infection. Suggested changes include limiting class sizes to keep desks far apart, staggered schedules to limit the number of kids on campus and a blend of online and in-person learning.

The next few months will also provide important data on the viability of reopening schools. Theres significant evidence that the virus poses less risk to young children than adults. Some epidemiologists say theres reason to believe kids are also less likely to pass it on to others, though theres not enough research to know for sure yet. The U.S. will also learn a lot about the impact of reopening from schools in other countries, some of which are already bringing students back.

Story continues

Others point to a long list of logistical hurdles that need to be resolved before schools can open. The biggest challenge will be lack of resources, some argue. Many of the countrys 13,000 school districts were struggling to operate before the pandemic, a problem that will only be exacerbated amid the economic downturn caused by the virus. Without proper funding, there wont be enough space or staff available to enact distancing measures, some administrators argue. Any plan to return will also need to be approved by the teachers unions. The biggest unions in the United States have already suggested they would strike if proper safety measures werent in place when schools return.

Another point of view suggests schools should only reopen when testing is widely available and technology to effectively track outbreaks is in use, even if that takes well beyond the start of the next school year.

Whats next

A number of national education associations have banded together to lobby Congress for $200 billion to prop up state budgets and ensure that schools have the resources to reopen safely. Funding for states is expected to be a major point of debate as lawmakers in Washington consider yet another massive stimulus bill in the coming days and weeks.

Perspectives

Distancing measures need to be put in place

Whenever students do come back, classes are unlikely to look anything like the school days they remember. There may be staggered half-day classes or one-day-on, one-day-off schedules so desks can be spread out and buses can run half-empty.  Shawn Hubler, Erica L. Green and Dana Goldstein, New York Times

Schools shouldnt open until testing is widely available

Like so much else right now, the opening of schools seems to depend most of all on the availability of testing, either at the community or school level, on a scale that seems impossible as long as the Trump administration fails to act.  Dan Froomkin, Salon

There may be a mix of in-person and online learning

It might be easier to do one month on, one month off. It might be easier, in some cases, to do a semester online, a semester in class. There are a lot of complications that need to be thought through in the process.  former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein to Yahoo News

The decision needs to be about whats best for children, not the economy

If you think youre going to keep kids 6 feet apart during the course of a school day, youre dreaming. It almost shows a disregard for the safety of kids, because what seems to be the most important element here is that schools be open to serve their childcare function, so that parents can get back to work.  American Association of School Administrators executive director Dan Domenech to USA Today

There are many hurdles that need to be cleared before schools return

The ideas being considered will require political will and logistical savvy, and they are already facing resistance from teachers and parents. Theyll also require money, and lots of it, at a time when a cratering economy is devastating state and local budgets, with plunging tax collections and rising costs.  Laura Meckler, Valerie Strauss and Joe Heim, Washington Post

The decision will be made on a state-by-state basis

Remarkably, there appears to be little discussion taking place in Washington about when and how to reopen our public schools. This mammoth challenge may fall upon governors  to pick up the slack and protect the health of students and staff, and to ensure that a generation of children is not denied their shot at the American dream.  Mario Ramirez and Andrew Buher, CNN

Schools need to be ready to help kids recover from the disruption of so much time away

If education leaders do not use the time while schools are closed to aggressively increase our schools capacities to personalize and accelerate learning for all students, especially our most vulnerable, then our schools will be overwhelmed in the fall, and our teachers will be forced to make heartbreaking triage decisions about which students can be caught up, and which are too far behind.  Laura Boyce, Philadelphia Inquirer

Schools should be one of the first things reopened

Closing schools may bring some benefit in slowing the spread of the disease, but less than other measures. Against this are stacked the heavy costs to childrens development, to their parents and to the economy.  As countries ease social distancing, schools should be among the first places to unlock.  Economist

More evidence that kids dont spread the virus could accelerate the process

SARS-CoV-2 has only circulated in human populations for a few months, and much remains to be learned about its transmission and prevention. But already there is substantial reason to suspect that young children are not major contributors to the COVID-19 epidemic and may not need to be kept from school any longer.  epidemiologists Jay S. Kaufman and Joanna Merckx, National Post (Canada)

Younger children should be the first to go back

Unless parents want to live for years without in-person schooling while researchers try to come up with a vaccine, there will have to be some way to enact a gradual return. It makes sense to start with the population whose absence from school has the most acute effect on learning, places the largest burden on working parents, and has the least obvious risk from a public health perspective.  Philip Klein, Washington Examiner

Leaders need to acknowledge that the harm of distance learning outweighs the benefits

Reopening schools in September will be a daunting challenge. In the best of circumstances, there will be a degree of risk, given that a coronavirus vaccine is unlikely to be available by then and another flu season will be upon us. Educators will have to revamp every aspect of daily school life, creating a new normal. But to call remote learning an acceptable alternative is to grade it on a generous curve.  editorial, Chicago Sun-Times

Teachers unions must sign off on any plan to reopen

Teachers unions are warning that sending educators into crowded buildings without widespread testing for coronavirus will amount to an unacceptable risk.  Kalyn Belsha, Chalkbeat

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: Getty Images
Boris Johnson thought it was over when he was hospitalised with coronavirus, US president Donald Trump has said.

Trump said that the prime minister confided in him about his experience with the potentially fatal virus in a phone call on 21 April, a week after he left intensive care at St Thomas Hospital in London.

The presidents comments come after Mr Johnson insisted in an interview with The Sun that he never really thought that I wouldnt come back.

The prime minister said that thoughts of the impending birth of his son Wilfred - who arrived last Wednesday just 17 days after his fathers discharge from hospital - gave him an added drive to shake off the illness.

Asked if he feared at any point that he might not live to see his new child, the PM replied: "Well, yes, of course. We've all got a lot to live for, a lot to do, and I won't hide it from you, I was thinking about that, yes."

Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Show all 30 1 /30 Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff react outside Salford Royal Hospital in Manchester during a minute's silence to pay tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff inside Camberwell bus depot in London, during a minute's silence PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus NHS staff at the Mater hospital in Belfast, during a minute's silence to pay tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak. PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Shoppers observe a minute's silence in Tescos in Shoreham Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Firefighters outside Godstone fire station PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Salford Royal Hospital Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Salford Royal Hospital PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Hospital workers take part in a protest calling on the British government to provide PPE across Britain for all workers in care, the NHS and other vital public services after a nationwide minute's silence at University College Hospital in London AP Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus A school children's poster hanging outside Glenfield Hospital during a minute's silence Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus A man holds a placard that reads "People's health before profit" outside St Thomas hospital Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff members applaud outside the Royal Derby Hospital, following a minute's silence PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill, Prime minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, stand inside 10 Downing Street, London, to observe a minutes silence in tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus University College Hospital, London Hospital workers hold placards with the names of their colleagues who have died from coronavirus as they take part in a protest calling on the British government to provide PPE AP Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff at Waterloo Station in London, stand to observe a minute's silence, to pay tribute to NHS and key workers who have died with coronavirus AP Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Medical staff at the Louisa Jordan hospital stand during a UK wide minutes silence to commemorate the key workers who have died with coronavirus in Glasgow Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus London An NHS worker observes a minute's silence at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Reuters Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London AFP via Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Belfast, Northern Ireland NHS staff observe a minutes silence at Mater Infirmorum Hospital Reuters Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Plymouth NHS workers hold a minute's silence outside the main entrance of Derriford Hospital Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus NHS Frimley Park Hospital staff at the A&E department observe a minute's silence Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Mater Infirmorum Hospital People applaud after a minutes silence in honour of key workers Reuters Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Waterloo Station, London AP Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Wreaths laid outside Sheffield town hall PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus A group of trade unionists and supporters standing outside Sheffield town hall PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stands outside St Andrew's House in Edinburgh to observe a minute's silence in tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff stand outside the Royal Derby Hospital, during a minutes silence PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus London Police officers observe a minutes silence at Guy's Hospital Reuters Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus A woman standing outside Sheffield town hall PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Royal Derby Hospital PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Leicester, NHS workers during a minute's silence outside Glenfield Hospital Getty

But he added: I suppose there was some terrible, as I say, some natural buoyancy or refusal to give in or harbour negative thoughts. I never really thought that I wouldn't come back from it. It was more frustration."

Speaking to Fox News at a virtual town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Mr Trump said: I spoke the other day to the prime minister of United Kingdom, Boris.

He was a victim of what happened. He thought it was over.

He thought it was over, it was vicious, and he made it.

Hes a great guy and he made it, but he has first-hand experience - the ultimate first-hand experience.
The university honored him with the opening in 2016 of the Tom Hanks Center for Motion Pictures.

And on Saturday, Tom Hanks paid it forward by delivering a commencement address for the Class of 2020 at Ohio's Wright State University Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Picture.

In the speech, played on video during the virtual graduation ceremony and posted to YouTube, Hanks paid tribute to the graduates calling them the 'chosen ones'.

Virtual ceremony: Tom Hanks delivered a commencement address for the Class of 2020 at Ohio's Wright State University Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Picture on Saturday

The double Oscar winner, 63, began by saying: 'I'm here to say congratulations. Congratulations to you chosen ones.'

'And I am calling you 'chosen ones' because you have been chosen in many ways. First, by the temperament and discipline you've lived by. By the creative fires that are inside of you. And the instinctive lunges of your desires.'

'You succeeded because of the aid and the love of others that are in your lives, without a doubt. But you have succeeded mostly because you and you alone chose to do so. You are the chosen ones.'

Thoughtful: The double Oscar winner, 63, reflected that the graduating students had begun their studies in 'olden times', the time before the coronavirus pandemic

Inspiring: 'You will have made it through a time of great sacrifice and great need and no one will be more fresh to the task of restarting our measure of normalcy than you, you chosen ones,' Hanks said

The actor reflected that the graduating students had begun their studies at Wright State University in 'olden times', the time before the coronavirus pandemic.

'You will talk about your lives just that way: 'Well, that was back before the COVID-19. That was before the great pandemic,'' Hanks said.

'Part of your lives will forever be identified as 'before' in the same way other generations tell time like, 'Well, that was before the war,' or 'That was before the internet,' or That was before Beyonce.' The word 'before' is going to carry great weight with you.'

He reassured them that a time will come when they will be in the 'after', the period to come when COVID-19 will no longer pose such a dangerous threat.

'You will have made it through a time of great sacrifice and great need and no one will be more fresh to the task of restarting our measure of normalcy than you, you chosen ones,' Hanks concluded.

'The future is always uncertain, but we who celebrate what you have done, who celebrate all of your achievements, we are certain of one thing on this day: You will not let us down.'

Feted: In 2016, Hanks had been honored by Wright State University with the opening of the Tom Hanks Center for Motion Pictures

Hanks recently had cause to celebrate for his own personal reasons.

Last Thursday, he and Wilson marked their 32nd wedding anniversary.

He's also revealed that he is donating plasma containing COVID-19 antibodies to help researchers develop a vaccine for the virus.

Hanks was the first celebrity to share publicly in March that he had tested positive for COVID-19.

He and wife Rita Wilson, also positive, were hospitalized in Australia where they were treated for the coronavirus and ultimately recovered.

Still together: Hanks recently had cause to celebrate for his own personal reasons. Last Thursday, he and Wilson marked their 32nd wedding anniversary
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 13:59:31|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

TRIPOLI, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Sunday called for protection of journalists and media workers in Libya, who are witnessing deadly armed conflicts between the eastern-based army and the UN-backed government.

"I call on the Libyan authorities and all parties to the conflict to protect journalists and media workers, guarantee the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information to the public," said Stephanie Williams, the UN secretary-general's acting special representative for Libya, in a statement.

The UN official also renewed calls for journalists and media workers to join forces in fighting misinformation, hate speech and incitement.

Williams warned that threatening or detaining journalists for carrying out their duties violates international human rights law and contradicts the obligation to ensure an enabling environment for the media.

"UNSMIL (the UN Support Mission in Libya) condemns all attacks on journalists and calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice," the statement said.

Journalists and media workers in Libya are frequently subject to intimidation, harassment, and death threats, according to UNSMIL.

Since May 1, 2019, UNSMIL has documented at least nine cases in the east and west of Libya in which journalists and bloggers have been subject to abduction, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and torture. Enditem




By Jung Min-ho







The Bucheon city government is offering stimulus money to foreigners, including undocumented ones, to help them cope with the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.





The ordinance passed by the city council on April 29 states marriage immigrants, permanent residents and all the other foreign residents recognized by the mayor as those in need of aid are eligible to receive 50,000 won ($41) each just like Korean residents.





In early drafts, foreigners, except F-5 and F-6 visa holders, were excluded from the benefit. But councilor Jung Jae-hyun said undocumented foreigners should also be included. Among 33 other council members, 26 consented.





"It is right to support all members of our community, including foreigners, as they financially struggle during the pandemic," councilor Kim Dong-hee said in a statement.





Beneficiaries of the city's policy can apply separately for stimulus money from the Gyeonggi provincial government.
"Like others that have issued safer-at-home orders, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health requires anyone visiting essential businesses, which includes ONT, to keep their faces covered to limit the spread of coronavirus," said Atif Elkadi, Deputy Chief Executive Officer. "We at ONT have done much to prevent the spread of the disease and must remain vigilant in our efforts."

The San Bernardino County order describes scarves of dense fabric without holes, bandanas and neck gaiters as appropriate coverings. The county public health order also discourages non-essential workers from using personal protective equipment such as N95 masks for non-medical reasons.

In addition to wearing face coverings, everyone at ONT should continue to wash hands with soap and water regularly, avoid touching their faces, and cough into their sleeves  all common-sense measures which will help to protect themselves and others from the virus, according to public health officials.

Elkadi noted that enhanced efforts to keep ONT clean and germ-free continue. Public and employee areas of the airport, such as restrooms, lunchrooms and retail and dining concessions, undergo deep cleaning with high-powered disinfectant more frequently with increased focus on high-touch surfaces such as doorknobs, hand railings and counters. More hand sanitizer stations are positioned throughout the airport while new passenger screening trays treated with powerful antimicrobial technology to inhibit the growth of bacteria on tray surfaces remain in use at security checkpoints. Equally important, ONT has installed floor stickers six feet apart throughout the public terminals to encourage social distancing.

Ontario has directed its contractor, Diverse Facility Solutions, to spray every surface of the airport nightly with a highly effective disinfectant using Protexus, a cordless electrostatic backpack sprayer that charges a dilution of a 3M disinfectant product known to be effective against C. diff and coronaviruses. The very fine mist adheres to hard non-porous surfaces as well as to soft surfaces such as fabrics and upholstery. The electrostatic charge allows the spray to attract to the surface, rather than float in the air, bringing 360-degree, touchless disinfection and sanitizing capabilities. The product dries in 10 minutes.

"We are doing everything in our power to maintain ONT during this national emergency and we will be ready for a return to full operations as state and county governments ease safer-at-home orders," Elkadi said. "We look forward to welcoming customers back to Ontario when they resume more normal travel routines."

More information about traveling through ONT safely is available here.

About Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport (ONT) is the fastest growing airport in the United States, according to Global Traveler, a leading publication for frequent fliers. Located in the Inland Empire, ONT is approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of Southern California. It is a full-service airport which, before the coronavirus pandemic, offered nonstop commercial jet service to 26 major airports in the U.S., Mexico and Taiwan. More information is available at www.flyOntario.com. Follow @flyONT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario City Council Member Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario City Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

OIAA Media Contact:

Steve Lambert, (909) 841-7527 [email protected]

SOURCE Ontario International Airport

Related Links

http://www.flyontario.com


A Florida sheriff who admitted to killing a man when he was 14 years old in self defense was partying up a storm in tight boxer briefs alongside his topless wife at swinger parties in Miami, photos seen by DailyMail.com reveal.

Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony was handpicked by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to lead the agency in early 2019 after it was accused of bungling the emergency response to the Parkland high school shooting in 2018.

Tony was photographed posing happily in various unsheriff-like situations, showing off his toned physique with his equally in-shape wife Holly, a registered nurse.

The series of 11 snapshots of couple-swapping parties in Miami are accessible to the general public on a website that 'organizes erotic events' and shows the 41-year-old hugging his wife from behind with his hands cupping her bare breasts.

Another photo shows the lawman laughing while lying down as Holly places her face on one side of his muscular chest and an unidentified man places his face on the other side.

In yet another picture, the husband and wife are in a foursome, posing with another couple. Both women are topless but their nipples are covered with pasties.

Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony is seen partying in boxer briefs alongside his topless wife at swinger parties, photos seen by DailyMail.com reveal. The series of 11 snapshots of couple-swapping parties in Miami are accessible to the general public on a website and show the 41-year-old hugging his wife from behind with his hands cupping her bare breasts

Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony, who was handpicked by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, was photographed showing off his toned physique and his equally-in-shape wife Holly, a registered nurse, in various unsheriff-like situations

Another photo shows the lawman laughing while laying down as Holly places her face on one side of his muscular chest and an unidentified man places his face on the other side. In yet another picture, the husband and wife are in a foursome, posing with another couple. Both women are topless but their nipples are covered with pasties

And in another snapshot, the sheriff's wife is kissing another topless woman while cupping her breasts into her hands.

When approached by DailyMail.com, Tony refused to confirm o r deny thatthe photos were of him and his wife and declined comment. He referred questions to his personal attorney in Tallahassee, Natalie Kato.

Kato said on Monday morning: 'I have no motherf**king comment. I'm not authorized to give any statement.'

She did, however, appear to confirm the photos were indeed of Tony and his wife, saying: 'Whoever is going to use these photos will risk legal action. His wife and the other people on the photos are not a public persons. Only he is.'

Kato also said the photos were on a members-only website, an inaccurate statement.

The photos were taken in August 2015 and April 2016 at monthly 'Liquid Bliss' parties in a secret location in downtown Miami only revealed to couples vetted by organizers for their physical appearance.

Tony was a sergeant in the Coral Springs police department at the time. He was appointed sheriff in January 2019 when the governor suspended Scott Israel, the elected sheriff.

Israel had been criticized after an investigation revealed several of his deputies refused to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and confront former student Nikolas Cruz who, armed with an assault rifle, killed 17 people and injuring 17 others.

In suspending Israel, DeSantis cited incompetence and dereliction of duty in his agency's response to the massacre.

Tony as appointed sheriff in January 2019 when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (left) suspended Scott Israel (right), the elected sheriff. Israel had been criticized when an investigation revealed several of his deputies refused to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Gunman Nikolas Cruz (pictured) who, armed with an assault rifle, killed 17 people and injuring 17 others on February 14, 2018

Tony took over a beleaguered Broward County Sheriff's Office and was tasked with lifting up the spirits of 5,400 generally demoralized employees, a daunting endeavor where leftover Israel political appointees ruled.

His deputies, however, turned against him. On April 20, they cast a vote of no-confidence against him.

Meanwhile, the sex parties Tony and his wife attended were run by local DJ Nathan Bliss and hundreds of photos of each party, up to 12 a year, are posted on the website VIPBliss.com.

VIP Bliss bills itself as an organizer of 'erotic events' and 'the world's premier party organization for bi-sexy women and select couples.'

To attend, candidates must apply with up to six full-body photos  'G rated photos are OK,' the website reads  and provide height, weight, age and notes about experience at parties 'of this genre' for each applicant.

'While not all our members are models,' the website notes, 'we look for people that are youthful and fit into the South Florida nightclub scene, that take care of themselves, take pride in their fitness and physical appearance, and try to be the best they can be.'

Once the applicants are approved, they are given the address of the venue for the upcoming party, often a hotel pool or a nightclub.

When reached by text message, Bliss didn't respond to requests for comment.

Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony, who was handpicked by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, was photographed showing off his toned physique and his equally-in-shape wife Holly, a registered nurse, in various unsheriff-like situations

Meanwhile, the sex parties Tony and his wife attended were run by local DJ Nathan Bliss and hundreds of photos of each party, up to 12 a year, are posted on the website VIPBliss.com

The website, however, took down the sheriff's photos overnight but left those of his topless wife for anyone to see.

'I don't comment on a person's private life,' said Broward County Commissioner Mark Bogen.

The sexy revelations pop up at a bad time for the sheriff. He is in the middle of a re-election campaign against Israel, who was in his second term when Tony replaced him.

Over the weekend, the investigative journalism non-profit website Florida Bulldog published a story revealing Tony had killed a man in his hometown of Philadelphia when he was 14 years old in 1993.

A jury found Tony not guilty after a trial, but because the case was handled by a juvenile court, records were sealed and Tony kept the homicide a secret from DeSantis and his previous employer, the Coral Springs Police Department.

Tony claimed he killed an armed 18-year-old Hector Rodriguez with his father's gun in self-defense. But the Rodriguez family told Florida Bulldog a different story, one where Rodriguez was unarmed, and his only crime was to have made fun of Tony.

In an televised interview Tony claimed Rodriguez tried to kill him and his brother outside their home and he responded in self-defence.

'Unfortunately, we had a dispute with him  my brother and me  in front of our home and he made threats to kill us and he literally pulled out a gun. He had no problem with shooting us right there,' Tony said.

In an interview with Local 10 Sunday Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony (pictured) addressed a report that was published on Saturday by a watchdog news group that revealed he shot and killed a man in 1993

The photos were taken in August 2015 and April 2016 at monthly 'Liquid Bliss' parties in a secret location in downtown Miami only revealed to couples vetted by organizers for their physical appearance

'There was no crime, no arrest and this was considered a self-defence case, as it should have been,' he added.

He was appointed head of the Broward Sheriff's Office in 2019 but said in the application process 'it doesn't require you to bring it up'.

Tony added: 'I don't want to be some 14-year-old black kid who survived a shooting. I don't want to be someone's victim.'

The office of the Governor DeSantis did not reply to an email and phone call seeking comments about the homicide and the swingers parties.

In Florida, sheriffs wield tremendous power through total control of their budget and hiring. Law enforcement experience is not mandatory.

South Florida boasts one of the largest swinger communities in the country with a half-dozen clubs between Miami and West Palm Beach.

Many members are known to be police officers and sheriff's deputies, judges, lawyers and medical professionals.

'People's lifestyle is their problem,' said a Broward County Sheriff's deputy who asked to remain anonymous because he feared retribution. 'But not when you're the sheriff of one of the most populated areas in Florida.

'We've heard Sheriff Tony was told about the photos being visible on the website months ago and his answer was ''It's not illegal, is it?'''
Bologna: Millions of Italians will be able to visit each others' homes this week for the first time since the lockdown began eight weeks ago, but there is considerable confusion about which face-to-face reunions will be permitted.

Italy's terrible death toll - 28,884 fatalities from Covid-19 since the outbreak began in mid-February - has prompted its government to adopt a slow and staggered approach to winding back restrictions.

Italy's eight-week lockdown eases this week but there is confusion around the new rules. Credit:AP

Visitation guidelines issued by the government over the weekend quickly became the butt of widespread criticism and mockery on social media.

These said visits to distant relatives will be allowed, including the children of cousins or the cousins of spouses.
Late actor Rishi Kapoor's ashes were immersed in Mumbai's Banganga tank on Sunday. Several pictures and videos have emerged on social media in which Rishi Kapoor's son, actor Ranbir Kapoor, along with the late star's wife Neetu Kapoor and daughter Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, are seen performing the final rites at Banganga tank.

Actress Alia Bhatt and filmmaker Ayan Mukerji were also present with the Kapoor family. Earlier in the day, a prayer meet was held at the Kapoors' residence.

Meanwhile, Riddhima travelled from Delhi to be with her family amidst the lockdown. She was not sanctioned permission to fly down on the same day for the funeral. She reached Mumbai by road for the prayer meet held in memory of her late father on Saturday.

A picture of Ranbir and Neetu with a pooja thali in their hands also surfaced online. The photo showed Ranbir wearing an orange turban sitting next to a garlanded photo frame of his late father.

Rishi Kapoor passed away on April 30 at the H N Reliance Hospital in Mumbai, after a two-year-long battle with leukaemia.
Mumbai, May 4 : Actor Bobby Deol has recited a poem as tribute to Covid-19 warriors.

In the video shot at home by his younger son Dharam Deol, Bobby recites "Chand roz ki baat hai yaaron". The poem is conceptualised by Sanjay Masoomm.

"It makes me very happy to be associated with this positivity, and I appreciate the way this situation has made us all join hands and come together. Who knew that social distancing could bring people together, with all of us checking up on one another and being there for people emotionally, if not in person," said Bobby.

"Although these are tough times faced by everyone around the world, it is heart-warming to see how this has brought us together to fight against a common enemy. We can all be a part of this noble fight by just staying at home and being supportive of our frontline warriors," he added, referring to police force, doctors, nurses, soldiers and NGOs feeding the needy.

Said Sanjay Masoomm: "Chand Roz Ki Baat Hai Yaron' is just our way of showing respect and lending hope and encouragement to all these Covid warriors who are working day and night to keep us safe, while we stay locked inside our houses. This time of crisis also highlights our biggest strength - unity in diversity - and it was important to underline it." "When I wrote the lines, I wanted someone whose voice will add weight to them. I have worked with Bobby Deol in several films and I know he's not only got a powerful voice but also a heart of gold. He's a very emotional man and his voice will help this ode reach out to more people. Bobby has read it out wonderfully with all the feeling and emotions," he added.
PUNE: Large crowds gathered outside liquor shops across the city on Monday morning, a day after the Maharashtra government allowed the functioning of standalone liquor shops in coronavirus disease (Covid-19)-affected Mumbai and Pune on Sunday.

While both the cities are under the red zone, the government notification said standalone liquor shops and those selling non-essential items would be allowed.

Long queues outside liquor shops were seen in areas such as Deccan Gymkhana, Aundh, Bhandarkar road, Wanawdi, Salunke Vihar, NIBM road and Nigdi with residents thronging the shops to buy alcohol. Liquor shops have been shut since the lockdown began more than a month ago in the last week of March.

Excise superintendent Santosh Zagade said the government had permitted shops to open. Even on normal days and Sundays, the liquor shops are crowded. It was natural that there were long queues outside liquor shops as they had opened after a very long time , he said.

Long queues were seen at two of the four wine shops in Aundh near Bremen chowk and Parihar chowk. The police were called in just after the shutters opened and within half an hour one shop closed it shutters while the other was managing the crowds. At one of the shops, the owner had put up a bamboo barrier for queuing up buyers, and had put four bouncers on duty to maintain social distancing.

I set up the barriers in the morning to maintain social distancing. Everyone has been patient and co-operative and there has been no fuss or pushing to get in front. People are buying enough to last for two to three days, said Raju Bagiya, the shop owner at Aundh.

At Deccan Gymkhana, a wine shop had to close shutters when the crowds became unmanageable. Mahendra Ghule, the shop owner said, We had to shut down as the crowds did not observe social distancing.

Amol Ghule, who has a shop at Bavdhan decided to shut his shop 4 pm, when he saw the crowd growing big. We got the orders at 2 pm to open our shop, but by the time we could reach the shop, there was already a big queue. We had to take a decision to shut down to avoid any problems, he said.

In Salunke Vihar, around 300 persons, including women, were seen outside a prominent liquor shop since early morning .However at around 10.30 am, they were dispersed by a group of stick-wielding volunteers who said that social distancing had been completely ignored by the throng of eager shoppers.

Madhumita Khanna, who had queued since morning said police presence should have been ensured at the liquor shops to ensure that social distancing was maintained.

Wine shops at Nigdi chowk opened in the afternoon at around 3 pm and there too, people were waiting in long queues. It does not matter how long I have to wait as I am getting to buy drinks after a long time. The government has taken a good decision as people will at least sit at home now, said Yogesh Bhagat, a resident of Nigdi.

There was not much of rush at liquor shops in the Katraj area. Liquor shops and other shops were also closed on Aundh-Khadki road although medical shops were open.

(with inputs from Prachi Bari and Jigar Hindocha)
Our new online identity reflects our values, showcases our capabilities, and allows our clients to fully understand who we are as an organization. - FSR CEO, Tracy Balazs

Federated Staffing Resources (FSR), a Maryland based government healthcare and human performance organization, announced today an online brand refresh. They unveiled a new website to reflect the organizations wide range of services and to showcase their core values.

For over a decade, the FSR team of expert employees have completed numerous projects for a diverse client base. Their mission is to build relationships with clients while committing to innovation, integrity, and excellence in everything they do. Headquartered in Annapolis Maryland, FSR is most notably known for its award-winning healthcare solutions, recognized by the SBA, Inc 5000, MBE, and numerous organizations for its nationwide services to public and private sector clients.

Our organization has excelled well beyond what our online identity depicts. We invested considerable time searching for a marketing firm that aligned with our core values, and one with a proven track record. After meeting with CC&A Strategic Media, we quickly realized their team could help us achieve our goals. Our new online identity reflects our values, showcases our capabilities, and allows our clients to fully understand who we are as an organization. We couldnt be more pleased with the outcome of this project. said FSR CEO, Tracy Balazs.

FSRs expertise and team of dedicated employees are committed to their mission of being a client-focused business that respects innovation, integrity, and excellence. The FSR team has left their mark throughout the region by exceeding their clients needs in the evolving human resources market and offering comprehensive services across multiple industries.

FSR is a company dedicated to excellence. After our first interactions we quickly realized the level of expertise within their organization is unmatched. While working through the process of building a new online identity, we experienced firsthand their extensive knowledge and capabilities. It is extremely impressive to see FSRs success, and I have no doubt that success will continue for many years to come. Stephen Taormino  CEO of CC&A Strategic Media.

For more information, visit http://www.fsrpeople.com. Please direct all media inquiries and requests to Lauren Aversa at 410-931-6717 or by email at LAversa@cca-mail.com.




Haiti - Cholera : UN response to criticism from independent experts





Following a correspondence from independent United Nations human rights experts gathered in Geneva (Switzerland) on the cholera situation and the inactivity of the UN which deprives Haitians of justice [and compensation] Read : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30681-haiti-politic-the-un-inaction-deprives-haitian-victims-of-cholera-of-justice.html , Stephane Dujarric, Spokesperson for Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a note said :



"[...] I can confirm that we have received a letter from UN Human Rights experts on issues related to cholera in Haiti. We are reviewing the concerns raised in this letter and will be responding in due course.



Since taking office, the Secretary-General has been strongly committed to supporting the people of Haiti and the fight against cholera. He reiterates the United Nations deep regrets for the loss of life and suffering caused by the cholera epidemic.



Since the introduction of the New Approach to Cholera in Haiti, in 2016, we have partnered with Haiti to defeat cholera and have seen progress. Haiti has not had a single laboratory confirmed case of cholera in nearly 15 consecutive months. The Secretary-General welcomes this significant progress towards eliminating the disease. Efforts are now accelerating to achieve another important milestone: three years with no laboratory confirmed cases of cholera, the time required to declare Haiti cholera-free. The two-track approach prioritizes the emergency response to eliminate the transmission of cholera, and support for those most affected by the disease.



Since the beginning of the outbreak, the International community has invested over US$ 705 million to fight cholera, in support of the Governments National Plan, including more than US$139 million mobilized by the UN and its agencies. Investments made in Haitis health, epidemiological, water and sanitation systems to combat the disease are now playing a key role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The United Nations joint efforts with the Government of Haiti, and intensive engagement with urban and rural communities to quickly track, test and treat cases of cholera have always had the additional goal of building resilience and a stronger community health system.



The United Nations remain committed to helping Haiti and its people build a brighter future. The Secretary-General urges Member States to demonstrate their solidarity with the people of Haiti by increasing their contributions to eliminate cholera and provide assistance to those affected."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30681-haiti-politic-the-un-inaction-deprives-haitian-victims-of-cholera-of-justice.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Nigerians on Monday threw all caution to the wind as the gradual relaxation of the lockdown of the federal government began in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states.

Last Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari had announced the gradual easing of the lockdown in the three states from May 4 to 17.

The relaxation was to reduce the negative effects of the lockdown on Nigerians and prevent layoffs as well as reawaken economic activities.

Last week, while explaining how the ease on lockdown will be implemented at the daily PTF briefing, the National Coordinator, Sani Aliyu, said there will be no gatherings of more than 20 persons anywhere per time so as to ensure adherence to physical distancing

One of the overwhelmed business places Monday were banks across the three states where few branches are opened.

People were seen flouting all precautionary measures, especially social distancing.

Banks, which were allowed to operate between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., were visited by large numbers of customers.

Nigerians on Twitter uploaded various pictures of bank entrances in some areas of the three states.

The social distancing directive was obviously flouted while some people were also seen with no face masks at all despite the governments advice

READ ALSO:

While some attributed the crowd at the banks to the desperation of bank customers, some faulted the online banking systems in Nigeria as inefficient.

Below are some of the pictures in tweets.

The crowd today at the banks showed that a lot of Nigerians are yet to embrace mobile banking. Which makes me wonder, why haven't we given telecom companies the license to run mobile money? Not everyone can understand how "apps" work if we are being honest with ourselves  Aproko Doctor (@aproko_doctor) May 4, 2020

The crowd in many banks across Lagos today points to a few things: Online banking in Nigeria is at the infancy stage A lot of people are uneducated & have no access to basic IT infrastructure A lot of Nigerians are stubborn/ difficult to manage. 1 & 2 are opportunities.  Dr. Dipo Awojide (@OgbeniDipo) May 4, 2020

https://twitter.com/YinkaPost/status/1257266638333923328?s=19

https://twitter.com/DrOlufunmilayo/status/1257242190599856128?s=19

Most of the bank customers that spoke with this reporter said they came to the bank to complain about illegal and unresolved debit in their accounts. Some came for ATM-related complaints.

Alex Katsina, a businesswoman who had gone to GTB Area 3 Garki, Abuja to request for an ATM card for her account left the bank area upon arrival.

I got there around 10 am after noticing Wuse branch was closed, they gave me number 564 here.

Banks will close by 2 pm, when will I be attended to.

Another bank customer, Musa Faruq, said he does not transact online as he prefers to come to the bank to make his transaction.

I was debited and I did not make any transaction neither do I have an ATM card

This is not the first time such is happening, he said.
Thae Yong-ho, center, mingles during an event for candidates who have been elected to the National Assembly for the first time arranged by the main opposition United Future Party (UFP) on April 28. Yonhap





By Do Je-hae







Lawmakers-elect who defected from North Korea have come under mounting criticism for their rash claims regarding North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's health.







Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who won a seat in Seoul's Gangnam District on the main opposition United Future Party's (UFP) ticket in the April 15 general election, said last week that Kim's long absence from public view meant something unusual had happened to him. He made the comments following an earlier CNN report that the North Korean leader was "gravely ill." Ji Seong-ho, who won a proportional representation seat as a member of the UFP's satellite Future Korea Party, claimed that he was "99 percent" certain of Kim's death last week, saying that he had personally been informed about it from "sources" who were familiar with issues in North Korea.







Their claims turned out to be completely false when Kim emerged from a 20-day absence, Saturday, appearing healthy and in form, and conducting activities normally. Cheong Wa Dae, which had said that Kim was fine, noted Sunday that the incident will hopefully raise the people's faith in the government's announcements regarding North Korea.







There were expectations that Thae, who formerly served at a senior post at the North Korean Embassy in London, would be named to the 21st National Assembly's committees that deal with foreign affairs or national security. However, calls are rising to exclude him and Ji from the committees that deal with sensitive intelligence, given the fiasco over Kim's health the two caused with the wrong information.







Rep. Kim Boo-kyum of the DPK urged the UFP to exclude them from the defense and intelligence committees, saying they themselves proved they were unfit to be on these. "You've done serious harm to our security, which could cause a national disaster," he wrote on Facebook, Monday.







Lawmaker-elect Ji Seong-ho from the sister party of the UFP speaks during press conference at the National Assembly on May 2. Yonhap





Yun Kun-young, a DPK lawmaker-elect and former presidential aide, said there were concerns over Thae and Ji dealing with sensitive intelligence about the country. "They are not mere defectors anymore but lawmakers-elect, and their remarks now have a different influence," Yun said in a radio interview.







Some experts also point out that Thae and Ji had already lost their credibility even before officially assuming office by spreading unchecked information on the North Korean leaders' health, which has grave implications for President Moon Jae-in's "peace process" and the security situation in the region.







"They won candidate nominations from the main opposition UFP to put the brakes on President Moon's North Korea policy, but this time they went too far," Jeong Se-hyun, a former unification minister and executive vice-chairman of the National Unification Advisory Council, said during a radio interview. "They will not be taken seriously if they take part in North-Korea related interpellation sessions."







The two lawmakers-elect have been slow to admit they were wrong and continued to claim it was too early to draw any conclusion about Kim's health even after his reemergence.







U.S. President Donald Trump retweets a post regarding Kim Jong-un's latest public activity. Yonhap





Thae offered a short apology on social media, Monday. "I know that one of the reasons the people chose me as a lawmaker was for accurate analyses of North Korea," Thae said. "After this incident, I promise to carry out my duties at the National Assembly with a more humble and prudent attitude."


Starting Monday, passengers who fly into Vienna International Airport can get a coronavirus test. If they test negative, they can skip the required 14-day quarantine.

The coronavirus test takes three hours to process. There's one catch: It costs 190 euros, or more than $200.

According to the airport's website, people who test positive will be notified immediately by phone. The result will also be reported to public health authorities.

The tests are only given to people who are showing no symptoms or who have not come in contact with a potentially infected person.

Further, Austria is only admitting people who are European citizens into the country, with limited exceptions for diplomatic personnel, and seasonal, humanitarian and health care workers.

Participants obey social distancing rules during a demonstration against the measures of the Austrian government in Vienna on May 1, 2020. The Austrian government has moved to restrict freedom of movement for people, in an effort to slow the onset of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Before, the only other way to skip the quarantine was to present a medical certificate, no more than four days old, showing a negative test result.

The medical certificate must be in German or English.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, Austria has 15,597 coronavirus cases and 598 deaths. In comparison, 18,925 people have died in New York City.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pricey coronavirus test lets Vienna Airport travelers skip quarantine
- Renowned Ghanaian actor and bishop Bernard Nyarko has passed on

- The event stirred many Twitter reactions after the news broke online

- YEN.com.gh gathers 7 of the top ways Ghanaians reacted online after hearing the news

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Popular Ghanaian Kumawood actor and bishop Bernard Nyarko passed on Saturday, May 2, 2020, after a short illness, with his death causing a massive stir in Ghana.

Many Ghanaians on Twitter went online after hearing of the demise of the renowned actor and bishop to pour out their hearts by way of mourning the celebrity.

YEN.com.gh gathers top seven reactions people in Ghana have given to the sad news.

READ ALSO: Revered Bollywood romance actor Rishi Kapoor succumbs to cancer at 67

1. Somanya Jesus wished the bishop a great rest in peace and added what the incident reminds him of about life.

2. Mina stated how sad she was for Bernard and his family, adding her wish for him to rest in perfect peace

3. The management of ezone57.com also wished the gentleman well in his demise, stating that tomorrow is indeed not promised.

READ ALSO: Top 5 videos that show Bernard Nyarko's real-life outside the movies

4. Oba hemaaBa sounded so surprised by the breaking news and kept wishing the deceased a rest in peace over and over.

5. "2020 has been a bad year," said @the sports-scientist as he dropped crying emojis and wished the man a perfect rest:

6. Fleck Daniels took his time to gather iconic photos of Bernard and indicated that he was very impressive on TV and was dynamic among many others. "RIP, bishop," he added.

7. Saada admitted how Bernard Nyarko entertained Ghanaians as one of the funniest of all the actors. She added he will always be in our hearts.

In a related report, the news of the death of the talented and renowned actor who also served as a bishop caused a great stir with many videos popping up showing the life that the legendary actor lived.

YEN.com.gh gathers five breathtaking videos that show how Bernard Nyarko spent his quality time outside the flashing lights of the movie cameras.

Enjoy reading our stories? Download YEN's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!

Rent advance exceeding 6 months could land you in jail in Ghana - Atta Akyea | #Yencomgh

Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
Authorities in Limestone County are asking the public for help finding missing teenager Kyleigh Bennett.

Bennett, 16, was last at her home in West Limestone on April 30. The Limestone County sheriffs office said Bennett is believed to be a runaway.

Anyone with information is asked to call 256-232-0111.
Hudson, NY (12534)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 13F. NNE winds shifting to S at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 13F. NNE winds shifting to S at 10 to 15 mph.
Ada Fiscu moved to America after finishing high school in 2000 to pursue her lifes dream of becoming a nurse. Born in Romania from a multicultural family of German, Romanian, and Hungarian backgrounds, Fiscu found life in the United States to be very challenging.The transition to a new country was difficult in every aspect from language, food, culture, even road maps. I literally felt as I was dropped to another planet, Fiscu said. I did not speak English. I decided I would learn English from books and from watching Golden Girls, which was my favorite show.

Fiscu worked as a nursing assistant while she took classes at Clark College Washington. In 2009, she graduated with an Associate Degree in Nursing. By then, she had discovered a love for working with elderly patients in nursing home facilities.

I found myself enjoying taking care of them, listening to their lifetime stories, being the help and joy for them each day, she said. I still remember my first patient. She was 100 years old and I took care of her for 5 years. She would always tell me while waking her up, You are my sunshine, your smile, patience, and happiness makes me want to wake up and know it will be an awesome day! Those words meant everything for me. I knew I wanted to become more qualified in my job to be able to provide the best care possible. That is what motivated me to continue my education and become a Register Nurse.

As a six-year veteran nurse now at Park Manor Quail Valley Nursing Home in Missouri City, she now finds herself on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19. The facility changed overnight as visits from family members were no longer allowed and residents were unable to gather for group meals or activities due to social distancing requirements.

A place that was once alive with laughter, music form sing-a-longs, bingo games and visits from residents family and loved ones become a place unknown to me, a place full of isolation gowns, masks, googles in a controlled environment where we are in the fight of our lives against this unmerciful virus, Fiscu said.

RELATED: Missouri City emerging as COVID-19 hot spot

Like hundreds of nursing homes in the United States, residents and health care workers at Park Manor Quail Valley have been hit hard by COVID-19 and on March 31, an outbreak sickened 16 residents and 12 of Fiscus coworkers. For strength, she drew on an experience from college when she fell gravely ill and fell into a coma after developing septic shock, a moment of personal crisis that she says made her a better nurse.

My commitment to nursing is rooted in knowing how I felt when I was a patient and how I would have liked to be treated. That is who I am advocating for, fighting for, to provide the best care for my residents, she said. Today we are dealing with an unprecedented issue that is Covid-19. The demands and expectations are amplified not to just a physical level but also to a mental stress in ensuring the protection of our patients, ourselves, our family, and our community from this new unknown virus threat.

RELATED: More than 1 in 5 coronavirus deaths in Texas linked to nursing homes

Fiscu said she also draws strength and inspiration from her co-workers.

The commitment, care, time, and dedication of the nursing staff here to their patients while being scrutinized, biased against, and accused is just proof to me that the long-term staff are resilient, humanitarian, and compassionate people that are the unknown heroes of our elderly population, she said.

Park Manor Quail Valley Nursing home is owned by HMG Healthcare, a privately-owned company based in The Woodlands that operates over a dozen skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities in Texas and Kansas.

"People like Ada and our care team at Park Manor Quail Valley are dedicated to the residents they have come to know so well. We appreciate all they do for those entrusted in our care. They truly are health care heroes today and everyday," Leticia Caballero, director of government relations for HMG Healthcare said via email Saturday, May 2.

knix@hcnonline.com
Two brothers from New Jersey have been arrested after giving a ride to a group of teenage girls before then offering them a host of drugs and then allegedly raping them.

The group of four girls from Millstone, New Jersey were walking in the early hours of April 22 when Wilson, 21, and his brother Wilfrid Cesaire, 28, both from Asbury Park, pulled over to the side of the road and invited the juveniles into their car.

At least three of them were sexually assaulted, police say.

Wilson Cesaire, 21, and Wilfrid Cesaire, 28, were charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, endangering another person. They face life in prison

The alleged assaults took place at the Cesaires' home where the girls were brought after first stopping at a QuickChek convenience store in Manalapan, according to NJ.com.

Whilst at the home the group were offered marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol.

The victims were reported missing by the following morning and were later found in Asbury Park and Neptune Township.

'This must be repeated over and over again  you do not take rides from strangers.' Monmouth County Prosecutor Chris Gramiccioni said. 'There are predators who will obviously take advantage of any situation as it presents itself.'

The Cesaire brothers have been charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, endangering another person and cruelty and neglect of children after they were arrested on Friday.

The ages of the victims have not been disclosed by the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office.

If convicted, the defendants are facing up to life imprisonment and would be subject to parole supervision for life and required to register under Megans Law.

The Cesaire brothers are being held at the Monmouth County Correctional Institute pending their May 6 detention hearing.
Whats on TV

MY BRILLIANT FRIEND 10 p.m. on HBO. Elena and Lila began their lives in the same poor neighborhood of Naples but over the course of two seasons of television their paths have diverged significantly. Elena (Margherita Mazzucco) has put some distance between herself and her humble origins by successfully pursuing education while Lila (Gaia Girace), despite her intelligence and will, remains largely stuck. The distance between the two has complicated but not diminished their deep connection. This season they traveled together to the island of Ischia for vacation. The time away was supposed to help Lila relax enough to get pregnant by her husband but during the sojourn she connected with Nino, a young man that Elena was drawn to first. After the summer, Elena departed Naples for university and Lila eventually returned to her husband.

BULL 10 p.m. on CBS. As the legal drama genre has evolved, producers and writers have started looking beyond lawyers, judges and law enforcement officers for stories. This series focuses on Jason Bull (Michael Weatherly), a psychologist whose firm helps lawyers manipulate the jury selection process and concoct appealing arguments. During the fourth season, which wraps tonight, Bull became a father with his ex-wife, Isabella (Yara Martinez), and rebuilt his relationship with Benny (Freddy Rodriguez), Isabellas brother and Bulls colleague.

Whats Streaming
LONDON - Freed from the constraints of life as full-time royals  and enmeshed in a feud with Britains tabloid press  Prince Harry and his wife Meghan plan to tell their story in a book penned by sympathetic journalists.

Harper Collins U.K. announced Monday that it will publish Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family in Britain and the Commonwealth on Aug. 11. The book will be published in the U.S. the same day by HarperCollins-owned Dey Street Books.

The book is written by Harpers Bazaar royal editor Omid Scobie and Elle magazine royal correspondent Carolyn Durand, who said they aim to capture the real Harry and Meghan and finally present the truth of misreported stories about them.

The publisher said the book will tackle the many rumours and misconceptions that plague the couple on both sides of the pond. It says the authors have been given unique access and the co-operation of those closest to the couple.

The announcement comes two weeks after Harry and Meghan said they would no longer co-operate with several British tabloid newspapers because of what they called distorted, false or invasive stories.

Meghan is suing publisher Associated Newspapers for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement over a series of articles in the Mail on Sunday that reproduced parts of a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle.

Harry, who is a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and sixth in line to the British throne, married the American actress Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle in May 2018, in a lavish ceremony watched around the world.

The couple later said they found the scrutiny they received from the British media intolerable and claimed it tipped into harassment.

In January, they announced they planned to quit as senior royals, seek financial independence and move to North America. The split became official at the end of March, and the couple have relocated to the Los Angeles area, where Meghan was raised.
Google recently unveiled intentions to partner with Apple on a new coronavirus tracking system. Citizens should proceed with caution before using it. Google's do-good claims have previously proven to come with ulterior motives. This case is unlikely to be an exception as this new product could help them walk away with more user data to grow their ad business and market power.

In its plan, Google proposes to work with government health agencies to develop a Bluetooth-based system that can track distances between people. If someone is confirmed with the virus, users who have encountered that person will be alerted. Despite a universal desire to fight the infection, the prospect of further deepening Google's reach into our private lives is causing considerable unease.

Several criticisms have already emerged, with people questioning privacy protection, data advertising usage, and even the overall effectiveness of the system. Some experts have speculated that businesses could use the technology to track the stores users go to, learning valuable information about shopping habits. Given Google's history, such possibilities naturally raise questions about its endgame aspirations for developing this tracker.

Google has a long record of warping the privacy conversation in its favor. A recent example is the company's ban of third-party cookies. In an attempt to monopolize its online ad business, Google used the dominance of its Chrome browser to effectively block the files that companies use to stay connected to users, improve advertising, and generate research. Its response to criticism was that it was simply protecting user privacy by centralizing cookies. It's just a happy coincidence that the move happened to have financial benefit to the company.

The company has further justified this power play with arguments over security, saying limiting access to data will guard it. This fig leaf of concern is just as pathetic as the one it is using to convince us to provide access to our every movement to power its virus-tracking system.

Google's history with user data, to put it lightly, isn't great. Some of its most prominent platforms spent years exposing private data while it worked to cover it up. When it isn't exposing data, it is collecting them. This has led to a public image of the company as both large and intrusive. Despite the high-minded motivations offered, advertising dollars seem a constant motivation for Google's actions.

Google is indisputably an advertising company, as online ads make up 83% of its revenue. But fierce competition from Amazon has helped push it toward new and ever more controlling ways to stay ahead, and along the way, privacy always seems to suffer in service to profits.

Google has long had designs on accessing Americans' medical data, and the proposed tracker would be a novel way to advance those aims.

Normally, Google's deceitful actions are revealed after the damage has been done. Thankfully, in the case of the company's COVID-19-tracker, legislators are heavily scrutinizing the proposed system before its launch. Led by Missouri senator Josh Hawley, Congress is expressing concern over the potential usage the Bluetooth tracker could have once the virus has been defeated.

Writing to the top executives of Google and Apple, Senator Hawley asked that both firms commit to being held "personally liable if [they] stop protecting privacy, such as by granting advertising companies access to the interface once the pandemic is over." He later expanded that "pairing the data from this project with the GPS data that both your companies already collect could readily reveal individual identities" and that it could "create an extraordinarily precise mechanism for surveillance."

Google thus far has been unwilling to offer strong guarantees of protection, a fact that should alarm consumers and compel decision-makers to accelerate their efforts to defend the citizenry. It is imperative that the tech giant not be allowed to abuse the public's need to stamp out the coronavirus to position itself to further damage user privacy, small online business, and the overall health of the market.

Michael Daugherty, is CEO of The Cyber Education Foundation and founder of The Justice Society. He is author of The Devil Inside the Beltway: The Shocking Expose of the US Government's Surveillance and Overreach Into Cyber-security, Medicine and Small Business.
Costa Rica Coronavirus Update - Coronavirus cases climb to 739, Total Deaths reaches to 6 on 04-May-2020

In Costa Rica total confirmed cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) have increased to 739, while 6 people died due to the growing infection in the country.

Coronavirus (Covid-19) update from around the world:

Gujarat, 02-May-2020: Gujarat reported 333 new COVID-19 positive cases in the past 24 hours raising the total positive cases count to 5,054 in the state. While 262 deaths are reported so far as per Gujarat Health Department.

Tamil Nadu, 02-May-2020: Tamil Nadu government eases the restrictions in non-containment areas as per the Center's fresh guidelines on Covid-19 ongoing lockdown. Tamil Nadu government will allow the resumption of construction activity, road works, opening of SEZs, and some other from May 4 in non-containment areas in the state.

Mumbai, 02-May-2020: Mumbai reported 547 Covid-19 cases and 27 deaths today, raising the total cases of 8,172 and deaths to 322. Over 137 patients have been discharged today which increased the cured patient count to 1704. Public Health Department, Mumbai report provided the details of the patients in the state.

France: France is reporting higher number of deaths but but slightly fewer people with severe conditions were admitted into ICU in past fourth day. France reported 315 deaths last day as compared to 345 deaths the day earlier. In France 133,670 confirmed cases and 14,412 deaths reported so far.

Here are the latest cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in Costa Rica:

Sr. No. Date Total Cases New Cases Total Deaths Deaths 1. 29-Apr-2020 713 8 6 0 2. 30-Apr-2020 719 6 6 0 3. 01-May-2020 725 6 6 0 4. 02-May-2020 733 8 6 0 5. 03-May-2020 739 6 6 0 6. 04-May-2020 739 0 6 0

TOP 10 Deaths by country due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak:



1. Europe (140,812)

2. North America (75,265)

3. USA (68,602)

4. Italy (28,884)

5. UK (28,446)

6. Spain (25,264)

7. France (24,895)

8. Asia (19,674)

9. South America (10,871)

10. Belgium (7,924)

Total Deaths Worldwide (248,555)

Globally till now over 248,555 people died due to the outbreak of deadly Coronavirus (COVID-19). The new infection and death cases are increasing fast. Authorities in the Costa Rica and other countries are taking proper measures to contain the deadly Coronavirus (COVID-19).

As of now Europe is the worst affected country in the world with over 140,812 deaths and 1,460,196 confirmed cases.

Check latest update: Coronaviurs Covid-19 cases around the world
Egypts prestigious Al-Azhar mosque said it would live stream the evening Tarwaeeh prayers on Facebook and Youtube amid a suspension of communal prayers over coronavirus fears.

Taraweeh prayers  typically performed at mosques after the fast-breaking meals during the holy month of Ramadan - will be performed at Al-Azhar mosque during the last ten days of Ramadan but will only be restricted to the mosques imams and workers.

The prayers will be streamed live on the mosques official Facebook page and Youtube channel, Al-Azhar said in its statement.



The last ten days of Ramadan are considered the holiest and most spiritual by Muslims. During them, believers observe Laylat Al Qadr which marks the night on which God revealed the Quran to the Prophet Mohammed for the first time.

Egypt is seeing a Ramadan like never before this year with restrictions to contain the coronavirus pandemic in place including an extended nighttime curfew.

Egypt has banned all congregational religious activities, including the regular communal prayers at mosques, since 21 March.

Other traditional public activities that used to take place in Ramadan, such as charity iftar tables for the poor to break their fast, have also been suspended. The ban also applies to itikaf ritual in which believers seclude themselves in mosques for an extended period.

On Saturday, Egypts religious endowments ministry said it would start Sunday the radio broadcasting of the evening and the Taraweeh prayers from Cairos famous Mosque of Amr Ibn Al-As.

According to the ministry, the prayers will only be attended by the mosques imam and two mosque workers, and will be broadcast on Al-Quran Al-Kareem radio station.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


The Hindi film industry is struggling with the loss of two great actors in a matter of two days. Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor were two icons who cannot be replaced. Tributes and condolence messages continue to pour in for the both of them, as many celebrities take time to cope with the loss.

Recently, Sanjay Dutt paid tribute to Rishi Kapoor in a heartfelt post on his Twitter handle. Sanjay wrote how Rishi has been like an elder brother to him, and remembered the one thing he always taught him.

Sharing a heartwarming picture with Rishi Kapoor and his son Ranbir Kapoor, Sanjay wrote, "One thing that Chintu Sir taught me was to always do things with a smile on our face! It's going to take some time to sink in that Chintu Sir is not with us anymore. He has always been an elder brother to me. Can't believe he is gone."

One thing that Chintu Sir taught me was to always do things with a smile on our face! It's going to take some time to sink in that Chintu Sir is not with us anymore. He has always been an elder brother to me. Can't believe he is gone! pic.twitter.com/O8ifvO2G8L  Sanjay Dutt (@duttsanjay) May 4, 2020

Rishi Kapoor passed away on the morning of April 30, 2020. The actor was rushed to the HN Reliance Foundation Hospital the previous night on account of his health deteriorating. Rishi had battled leukemia for two years.

Rishi's funeral was attended by his wife Neetu Kapoor, son Ranbir Kapoor and his girlfriend Alia Bhatt, brother Randhir Kapoor, niece Kareena Kapoor Khan and her husband Saif Ali Khan, Abhishek Bachchan and a few others. His daughter Riddhima Kapoor Sahani could not make it to the funeral as she was in Delhi at the time, but later travelled to Mumbai to mourn with her family.

ALSO READ: Neetu Kapoor Thanks Medical Staff For Taking Care Of Rishi Kapoor

ALSO READ: Rishi Kapoor's Funeral: Alia Bhatt Held Up Her Phone During The Final Rites For This Reason?
To listen to the podcast, click on the play button below:

Despite the lock down due to Covid-19, a German court in Koblenz is hearing a landmark crimes against humanity case against two people alleged to be former Syrian intelligence officials. This is huge news: first time the Syrian state apparatus is on trial; first time the details of whats been happening in a specific prison in Syria will be described in court; and the very interesting concept of universal jurisdiction is being seen in action.

The two in question are Anwar R. and Eyad A., alleged to have been members of the mukhabarat; specifically, Syrias General Intelligence Directorate.

It was the German human rights organization, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), along with Syrian lawyers, who have pushed this case forward.

For more details of what precisely they are accused of (lots of torture), and how the trial is seen in Syria, we spoke to Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director and Sara Kayyali Syria Researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Do also check out a new podcast from Fritz Steiff Branch 251 which will feature victims, lawyers, details from the trial and asks whether a German court in a city nobody has ever heard of be able to deliver justice.
Chennai, May 4 : The city's Koyambedu wholesale market has turned into 'Corona wholesale market' with bulk of the 527 persons who tested positive for coronavirus over the past 24 hours linked to it, the state Health Department said on Monday.

It also said that one Covid-19 patient died, taking the total death toll to 31.

In a statement issued here, the Health Department said 527 persons, including four children less that two months old, tested positive for coronavirus taking the total infected persons' tally to 3,550.

The total number of children tested positive in the state till date in the age group of 0-12 stands at 190.

The number of new infections in Chennai was at 266, taking the total to 1,724.

The statement said a large number of cases were connected to Koyambedu market and the number of active Covid-19 cases in the state stands at 2,107.

With retail sales at Koyambedu market shut down, many workers had gone to their native districts and were tested positive there.

The districts - Cuddalore, Villupuram, Chennai, Perambalur and Ariyalur - have the major concentration of Covid-19 patients connected to Koyambedu market.

According to officials, the names of truckers, loaders, vendors and others who were present and dealing at Koyambedu have been sent to their respective districts for tracing and testing.

Meanwhile the authorities have ordered closure of Koyambedu market and now vegetable wholesale trade will happen at Thirumazhisai from Thursday onwards.

"There are about 200 wholesale vegetable sellers and over 1,000 retail vegetable sellers operating in Koyambedu. The market also has traders in fruits and flowers. On a normal day, about 7,000 persons would visit these markets," S. Chandran, President, Koyambedu Periyar Market Licensed Merchants' Association told IANS.

Meanwhile, the Health Department also said that over the past 24 hours, a total of 12,863 samples were tested in the state.

A total of 30 Covid-19 patients were discharged from various hospitals in the state, taking the total tally to 1,409 persons.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Mercy Johnson-Okojie and her hubby, Prince Odi Okojie, have welcomed their fourth child, a baby girl. The Nollywood actress gave birth to their baby at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center in Maryland, USA today May 4.

Her hubby who shared the good news online, said the baby has been christined Divine-Mercy Ehinomen Okojie.



''Every Good and Perfect gift is from God. The wait is finally Over, Please share in Our Joy as we announce the arrival of Our Daughter. Divine-Mercy Ehinomen Okojie.''



Mercy and Prince got married in 2011 aand they have three children already, two girls and a boy. Congrats to them!















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
A riot exploded on Friday at a prison in central Venezuela, killing over 40 people and injuring 50 others. Injured individuals, according to authorities, included a National Guard officer who got wounded by an explosion, and the warden, who was hurt by a knife wound.

An inmate protest that was demanding that their relatives be permitted to deliver food to them started upheaval that took place at the Llanos Penitentiary Centre.

Then, according to a lawmaker, Maria Beatriz Martinez, an armed confrontation took place between the guards and the inmates. The lawmaker added, the National Guard officer got injured after a grenade exploded.

Martinez also had access to an early report, which the security forces of the town prepared. Essentially, the prison is situated in the Guanare City, 280 miles, or 450 kilometers southwest of the Caracas capital.

Inmates Allegedly Attacked the Officers

Iris Verela, the minister of penitentiary services of Venezuela, confirmed the riot was explaining to the Ultimas Noticias, the local newspaper, that "a group of inmates attacked officers standing guard" outside the prison.

Meanwhile, the warden was reportedly injured by at least one prisoner who wielded a knife. A formerly wealthy oil nation, Venezuela is currently gripped by a worsening economic and political crisis.

Street violence is said to be typical in the nation that has had almost five million residents escape in recent years as the public services dissolve.

Venezuela has approximately 30 prisons and 500 jails that can accommodate roughly 110,000 prisoners. According to the human rights officials, the prisons are badly overcrowded violent with gangs trafficking weapons, not to mention, "drugs in control."

Specifically, the Venezuelan Prison Observatory, a human rights group, the prison in Guanare was constructed to accommodate only 750 inmates. However, it is now jammed way beyond its capacity that it now houses 2500 inmates.

Massive Escape Attempt due to Lack of Access to Food

As far as the exact figures are concerned, as of this writing, Martinez, who also represents the Portuguesa state, the precise location of the prison, said, at present, they "have been able to confirm 47 dead and 75 wounded."

Martinez also said all of the confirmed dead were detainees of the prison. Also, based on the report from the Army on Friday, the riot started when the prisoners began to destroy the security fences around the boundary in a "massive escape attempt."

The report also said the director of prisons was also wounded. Martinez rebutted the said account, though, saying, a group of prisoners demonstrated the uprising because of lack of access to food.

With the COVID-19 pandemic becoming more rampant, visits from family, friends, and loved ones who frequently bring medicine and food to inmates, have been considerably lessened.

Someone who knows someone inside the prison, Yessica Jimenez, told AFP that what is happening at present "is because of the guards." Jimenez added, the guards are not transferring the food which the families were brought to the inmates.

The detainees killed during the riot were verified, according to Carolina Giron from the OVP, "through the morgue." Giron also thanked the relatives "who recognized the dead in pictures shown to them through a computer."

Check these out!
Faced with 20,000 coronavirus deaths and counting, the nation's nursing homes are pushing back against a potential flood of lawsuits with a sweeping lobbying effort to get states to grant them emergency protection from claims of inadequate care.

In 15 states, governors have signed orders that either explicitly protect nursing homes from civil lawsuits or gives them some form of protection from complaints relating to their treatment of residents during the pandemic.

They are Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

In New York, a lobbying group wrote the first draft of a measure that apparently makes it the only state with specific protection from both civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

Gov. Cuomo and the state legislature approved the The New York law, Emergency Or Disaster Treatment Protection Act in March this year.

It protects hospitals and nursing homes from 'any liability, civil or criminal, for any harm or damages sustained because of an act or omission in the course of arranging for or providing health care services'.

A patient is loaded into the back of an ambulance by emergency medical workers outside Cobble Hill Health Center, Friday, April 17, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York

The only exception is 'an act or omission constituting willful or intentional criminal misconduct, gross negligence, reckless misconduct, or intentional infliction of harm'.

Specifically, it protects against anything that came as a result of staff shortages.

Gov. Cuomo claimed last month, amid growing outrage over the way nursing homes appeared to be operating without any monitoring, that he and the Attorney General are investigating nursing homes for any breach of violations during the pandemic.

The immunity law in New York was drafted by the Greater New York Hospital Association, an influential lobbying group for both hospitals and nursing homes that donated more than $1 million to the state Democratic Party in 2018 and has pumped more than $7 million into lobbying over the past three years.

While the law covering both hospital and nursing care workers doesn't cover intentional misconduct, gross negligence and other such acts, it makes clear those exceptions dont include 'decisions resulting from a resource or staffing shortage.'

Cuomo's administration said the measure was a necessary part of getting the state's entire health care apparatus to work together to respond to the crisis.

'It was a decision made on the merits to help ensure we had every available resource to save lives,' said Rich Azzopardi, a senior advisor to Cuomo. 'Suggesting any other motivation is simply grotesque.'

Now the industry is forging ahead with a campaign to get other states on board with a simple argument: This was an unprecedented crisis and nursing homes should not be liable for events beyond their control, such as shortages of protective equipment and testing, shifting directives from authorities, and sicknesses that have decimated staffs.

'As our care providers make these difficult decisions, they need to know they will not be prosecuted or persecuted,' read a letter sent this month from several major hospital and nursing home groups to their next big goal, California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has yet to make a decision. Other states in their sights include Florida, Pennsylvania and Missouri.

Watchdogs, patient advocates and lawyers argue that immunity orders are misguided. At a time when the crisis is laying bare such chronic industry problems as staffing shortages and poor infection control, they say legal liability is the last safety net to keep facilities accountable.

They also contend nursing homes are taking advantage of the crisis to protect their bottom lines.

Almost 70% of the nations more than 15,000 nursing homes are run by for-profit companies, and hundreds have been bought and sold in recent years by private-equity firms.

'What youre really looking at is an industry that always wanted immunity and now has the opportunity to ask for it under the cloak of saying, "Lets protect our heroes,"' said Mike Dark, an attorney for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

'This has very little to do with the hard work being done by health care providers,' he said, 'and everything to do with protecting the financial interests of these big operators.'

Nationally, the lobbying effort is being led by the American Health Care Association, which represents nearly all of the nations nursing homes and has spent $23 million on lobbying efforts in the past six years.

Other states that have emergency immunity measures are Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts; Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Their provisions vary but largely apply to injuries, deaths and care decisions, sometimes even to property damage. But there are limitations: Most make exceptions for gross negligence and willful misconduct, and they generally apply only during the emergency.

Toby Edelman of the Center for Medicare Advocacy is troubled that homes are getting legal protections while family members aren't being allowed to visit and routine government inspections have been scaled back.

'Nobody is looking at whats happening,' she said, adding that immunity declarations could make even gross or willful negligence suits harder since homes could argue any deficiencies were somehow tied to the pandemic.

'Everything cant be blamed on COVID-19. Other things can happen that are terrible,' she said. 'Just to say were in this pandemic so anything goes, that seems too far.'

Among the situations for which lawyers say nursing homes should be held to account: Homes that flouted federal guidelines to screen workers, cut off visitations and end group activities; those that failed to inform residents and relatives of an outbreak; those that disregarded test results; and homes like one in California, where at least a dozen employees did not show up for work for two straight days, prompting residents to be evacuated.

'Just because you have a pandemic doesn't mean you give a pass on people exercising common sense,' said Dr. Roderick Edmond, an Atlanta lawyer representing families suing over COVID-19 deaths in an assisted-living facility.

'If you take the power of suing away from the families, then anything goes,' said Stella Kazantzas whose husband died in a Massachusetts nursing home with the same owners as the home hit by the nations first such outbreak near Seattle, which killed 43 people.

'They already knew in Washington how quickly this would spread,' she said. 'They should have taken extreme measures, sensible measures. And they were not taken.'

While the federal government has yet to release numbers on how the coronavirus has ravaged the industry, The Associated Press has been keeping its own tally based on state health departments and media reports, finding 20,058 deaths in nursing homes and long-term care facilities nationwide.

All the new immunity laws notwithstanding, there is a potential wave of lawsuits coming. Illinois lawyer Steven Levin said hes received dozens of calls from people considering suing homes over the outbreak. Florida lawyer Michael Brevda said his firm gets 10 to 20 calls a day. And a lawyer in Massachusetts said hes gotten maybe 70 from families with relatives at homes struck by the virus.

'Were getting inundated,' said David Hoey, whose practice near Boston has been suing homes for 25 years. 'Theyre grieving and theyre confused. ... `My loved one just died from COVID. What can I do?'

American Health Care Association CEO Mark Parkinson said the notion of lawyers gearing up for lawsuits in the 'middle of a battle to save the elderly' is 'pathetic' and doesnt consider the hardships nursing home workers have endured.

'The second-guessing of people after a tragedy, if those people did the best that they could under the circumstances, is just wrong,' said Jim Cobb, the New Orleans attorney who successfully defended nursing home owners charged in the deaths of 35 residents who drowned in Hurricane Katrina.

'Theres a lot to be said for someone acting in good faith in the face of a natural disaster and state of emergency, and they should have criminal immunity.'
Vice President Mike Pence admitted during a Fox News town hall Sunday night that he should have worn a mask when visiting the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, last week  a move that violated the clinic's policy and sparked widespread backlash.

Driving the news: Pence initially said he did not wear a mask because CDC guidelines note that masks are helpful for preventing those who have the virus from spreading it. As VP, he's regularly tested for the coronavirus, and everyone around him is also tested.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will join Australia's national cabinet meeting on Tuesday at the invitation of Scott Morrison.

The leaders will discuss a plan to allow travel to resume between the two countries, which is favoured by New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

Ms Ardern is also keen to discuss the COVIDSafe app as New Zealand plans to develop a similar version of the contact tracing platform.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will join Australia's national cabinet meeting on Tuesday

New Zealand has had great success in tackling coronavirus - with no new cases on 4 May

As well as hearing from Ms Ardern, the meeting of state and territory leaders will consider how to relax coronavirus rules before the national baseline restrictions are expected to be eased on Friday.

New Zealand and Australia have seen similar success in tackling coronavirus - even though New Zealand enforced harsher restrictions.

On March 25 the country went into a full lockdown which shut all restaurants and construction businesses and prevented online deliveries except for essential goods.

On April 27 that was eased to a level similar to Australia's eastern states.

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

New Zealand's COVID-19 death toll stands at 20, with 1,137 confirmed nationwide cases.

Just four Kiwis currently require hospital treatment for the virus, with none in intensive care.

On Sunday the country recorded zero new cases for the first time.

Australia has 6,822 cases with 95 deaths as of 12pm on Monday.

The New Zealand Warriors NRL team has already been granted permission to travel from Auckland to Tamworth, New South Wales where players and staff are in quarantine before the season resumes.

On 27 April, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton floated the idea of opening Australia's borders to New Zealand as the 'logical first step'.

But when it comes to opening the borders to other parts of the world such as the US or UK he warned 'that will be sometime off.

Mr Dutton credited Australia's success in containing coronavirus to closing the borders fast.

Infectious disease expert Professor Peter Collignon told Daily Mail Australia that a ban on international travel - with the exception of New Zealand - is likely to remain in place until after winter.

Once it is removed, travellers could still be required to quarantine for two weeks when they return from overseas.

French nationals queue to enter Sydney's international airport to be repatriated back to France on April 2, 2020

On Sunday night Mr Morrison chatted on the phone with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and congratulated him on the birth of his sixth child, Wilfred.

'We swapped notes on our virus responses, how were dealing with restrictions and looking to safely open up our economies and the international issues around the WHO and the need to learn the lessons from the outbreak that has taken so many lives and threatened his own,' Mr Morrison wrote in a tweet.

It comes as an abattoir behind Australia's biggest coronavirus cluster insists that its food is safe to eat.

The Cedar Meats facility in Brooklyn, Melbourne is linked with 34 cases of the deadly disease.

The first case was recorded in early April and a second worker tested positive on April 23, according to 3AW.

The factory closed for a deep clean on Friday and employees, many of whom work in close quarters, were told to get tested.

Nineteen positive results were returned on Sunday, causing Victoria to have its biggest daily total since April 11 when 24 cases were recorded.

The Cedar Meats facility (pictured) in Brooklyn, Melbourne is linked with 34 cases of the deadly disease

One of the workers at the plant had an operation at Melbourne's Sunshine Hospital after a workplace accident on Thursday.

He tested positive for the virus over the weekend, prompting around 20 hospital workers to self-isolate.

Cedar Meats General Manager Tony Kairouz said: 'All workers are self-quarantining and we are working closely with the Victorian health authorities.

'All meat processed at our facilities is processed in accordance with Australian Standards for food safety and our customers can be confident that the meat processed at our facilities is safe to eat.'
Employees work at a local apparel firm. The rise in the number of Chinese investors contributing capital and purchasing shares in Vietnamese firms amid the Covid-19 pandemic has put domestic industry and production at risk  PHOTO: VNA According to data from the Foreign Investment Agency, Chinese investors were involved in more than 100 cases of capital contributions and share purchases at Vietnamese firms last month. This has brought the number of investments from Chinese investors during the year to 557 cases, with over US$230 million being invested in total. Compared with the same period last year, the number of transactions of this kind increased by 154 (over 38%), with an additional US$65 million. As for direct investments, Chinese investors funded 135 projects in the January-April period. This reflects the investors preference for capital contributions and share purchases rather than foreign direct investments. The high number of transactions and capital from Chinese investors mostly target small- and medium-sized Vietnamese enterprises. This investment trend is not a surprise to observers and foreign investment consultants. According to experts, stagnant business and production activities as a result of the pandemic have attracted foreign investors, especially from China, for acquisition opportunities in Vietnam. Truong Thanh Duc, a lawyer from Basico Law Firm, noted that the shares of many domestic firms have lowered in value significantly during the pandemic, allowing foreign investors with financial capacity and experience to quickly buy in. Chinese firms have increased their investments in Vietnam over the past two years, and more opportunities are available for foreign investors due to the difficulties facing domestic firms during the current pandemic, according to Duc. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, domestic firms had contacted Basico for consultation or support in selling their shares or transferring control to Chinese investors. According to Duc, the Foreign Investment Agencys data only reflects the tip of the iceberg, and actual acquisitions by Chinese investors could be even higher. For instance, many Chinese enterprises and individuals, operating as Vietnamese firms, have been buying coastal estates or land in prime locations to convert their land-use purposes. Vietnamese partners with a poor understanding of business and management activities can be exploited through capital contributions. Chinese investors typically invest in sectors that are easy to enter based on similar experiences, where heavy investments, as in the case of service provision or goods production, are not required. However, the acquisition of Vietnamese firms is not the only concern. According to experts, once Chinese investors acquire Vietnamese businesses, it is likely that they will not increase investment and production but will import goods from China for export to a third country under Vietnamese-made labels. Besides this, amid the China-U.S. trade war, Chinas exports to the United States are in trouble. As such, Chinese firms have been incentivized to use Vietnam as a neutral zone to process goods before exporting them to the United States to avoid taxes. This practice would ultimately create problems for Vietnamese producers and attract high tax penalties on Vietnamese goods from importing countries. Duc pointed out that if the pandemic lasts too long, more Vietnamese businesses will be acquired. Instead of registering a new business, which involves several lengthy procedures, investors prefer to acquire operational firms, as this saves time and gives them access to an existing customer base, supply chains and human resources. Apart from Vietnam, Chinese investors have enhanced acquisitions in other countries as well. Many of these countries, including India, have taken steps to control these acquisitions. Experts believe that the domestic market should have effective investment policies in place and must introduce necessary regulations to ensure safe investment attraction and socioeconomic development. SGT
Theres also been a growing gap in funding for research. The current crisis shows why we need to invest more, not less, in research, however the funding we receive from government has continually decreased and falls well short of the level of investment set by countries like the United States and Britain. If we are to be less dependent upon income from international students, as some suggest we should be, we will need very significant additional public investment.

Perhaps even more importantly, international students dont just support our university system financially. They make a huge contribution to the rich diversity of our educational experience. In order to be world-class, we have to draw talented staff and students from around the globe. And our overseas alumni are leaders in government, business and civil society in more than150 countries. Their love for Australia and appreciation for our way of life enhances our international reputation. They are like an enormous volunteer diplomatic corps. Those from the University of Sydney can boast that we are ranked fourth in the world for the employability of our graduates and second in the world for the impact of our research on the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Loading

So it is hard to understand criticism of Australias international education sector. In the current context, there are those who say that universities only have themselves to blame for any financial difficulties we face and that we are too reliant on the international market. Those criticisms have not been levelled at the miners, tourism, retailers or any other exporters. Sometimes it can feel that education is the only industry punished for creating an export market for its services.

Moreover, it is important to spare a thought for the personal stories of some of our international students in the current context. Many of them work, pay taxes and health insurance and contribute to our society in a range of ways. Some have taken out loans just to be able to study in our country and are now facing financial ruin, unemployment and homelessness.
Congress also offered to bear the cost of travel fare of migrants who are willing to return home from different states through train

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday announced that the state government will bear the travel costs of migrants and students who are willing to return home.

I thank the Centre for taking our suggestion to run special trains for people of Bihar who are stranded in other states. Students will not be asked to pay for their tickets as the state government has decided to bear all their travel costs, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said.

He, however, clarified that the migrants returning home will be paid the amount spent on their train ticket after they complete their 21 day quarantine period in camps which have been set up at block headquarters in different districts of the state.

Apart from their travel cost, the state government has also decided to pay Rs. 500 to every migrant after they are discharged from quarantine camps, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said.

His announcement comes amid oppositions allegations that migrants were being asked to pay for their train tickets while returning home in the wake of coronavirus crisis and lockdown.

The opposition parties in Bihar, the RJD and Congress on Monday also offered to bear the cost of travel fare of migrants who are willing to return home from different states through trains.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in a hard-hitting statement said that our party is willing to pay the cost of 50 trains to bring back our poor labourers who want to return home but cant bear their travel cost.

The RJD is making this offer because the double engine government is not capable and making all kind of excuses not to bring migrants who are stuck in other states.

In the same tweet, he also took a dig at Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi and said, Please add the amount and let us know, we will send you the cheque.

In a tweet, Tejashwi Yadav claimed that only 3500 people have returned in five days. It seems that our Chief Minister is not interested in making proper travel arrangements for people who want to return home. Its the state governments responsibility to bring labourers back safely.

According to reports, in the next few days around ten trains carrying Bihari migrants are expected to reach Bihar.

The first train with 1,174 migrants from Jaipur had reached Patna on Friday. On Monday trains are also expected to arrive with stranded students from Kota in Rajasthan, Kerala and Telangana.
May 04 : Jacqueline Fernandez, who is spending her quarantine days at Salman Khans Panvel farmhouse, has been featured on the cover of Harper's Bazaar's digital edition.

Taking to her Instagram handle, the Mrs Serial Killer actress posted a series of pictures that she shot for the magazines May issue. Amidst the lockdown extension, Harper's Bazaar asked the actress to create a cover image to celebrate the things that are bringing joy to all during the pandemic. Jacqueline, who is currently enjoying the nature at the Panvel farmhouse, shot some pictures with Salman Khans horse amid the greenery.

The diva looked mesmerising in a while dress as she posed with Salmans white horse. She told the magazine that amid the coronavirus outbreak, she got the opportunity to connect with nature. Fully aware of the pain and suffering the pandemic has caused for many, the actress is enjoying an enriching experience and is grateful that she is reconnecting with nature and is safe and well.

On the work front, Jacquelines new web film Mrs Serial Killer started streaming on Netflix recently. Directed by Shirish Kunder, the film is produced by Farah Khan. It also stars Manoj Bajpayee and Mohit Raina.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Its almost time for the unofficial kick-off to summer -- Cinco de Mayo, of course!

This Mexican holiday is celebrated every May 5 to commemorate the Mexican Armys victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Nowadays, the holiday is known for cool margaritas and hot eats.

We checked in with the 20 finalists from cleveland.coms 2019 Best Mexican Restaurant contest to see what specials they have will sizzling in the kitchen and from the bar for Tuesdays holiday. While we wont get to dine in at our favorite cantina this year, Mexican eateries are still gearing up to help make your fiesta at home authentic with traditional foods and drinks you can pick up or get delivered. Show your support by ordering local.

Unless noted, all specials are for Tuesday, May 5 only. Alcohol orders are available for carryout only (no delivery).

Ask any longtime Clevelander where to go for authentic Mexican cuisine and Luchita's on the west side is on their list.

Luchitas

Address: 3456 W 117th St., Cleveland

Phone: 216-252-1169

Website: www.luchitas.net

Where they finished in contest: No. 10

Luchitas taste test: Popular West Side of Cleveland Mexican Restaurant

Pick up or delivery with Doordash and Ubereats

Cinco de Mayo specials: Chiles En Nogada -- all three colors of the Mexican flag are featured in this dish, which consists of a stuffed poblano pepper, walnut salsa and pomegranate seeds (or strawberries), plus rice and beans. $15.95

What we recommend: Chicken chimichanga with its nice thin, flaky and crunchy tortilla shell packed with tender and juicy chicken inside.

Chicken Chimichanga with its nice thin, flaky and crunchy tortilla shell packed with tender and juicy chicken inside. We also were fans of the presentation. (Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com)

El Rodeo, a family-run business in North Olmsted, produces a festive and creatively authentic menu. (Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com)

El Rodeo

Address: 23135 Lorain Road, North Olmsted

Phone: 440-686-1250

Website: elrodeomexrestaurant.com

Where they finished in contest: No. 9

El Rodeo taste test: Explosion of color straight from Mexico decorates family-run hot spot

Pick-up only

Cinco de Mayo specials: They expect to offer their full menu on Cinco de Mayo, but suggest you check their Facebook page for updates. Drinks will be limited to traditional lime margaritas on the rocks.

What we recommend: Burrote Gigante: The translation on the menu is bigger than your head. Its a 15-inch flour tortilla burrito filled with your choice of meat, along with rice, black beans, pico, lettuce and melted cheese and covered with red or green salsa.

A 15-inch flour tortilla with your choice of pork, grilled chicken or steak filled with rice, black beans, pico de gallo, lettuce, and melted cheese covered with red or green tomatillo salsa. (Photo by Yadi Rodriguez)

If you are looking for a different twist on traditional Mexican entrees, you need to visit Zocalo Mexican Grill and Tequileria. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

Zocalo

Address: 2071 E 4th St., Cleveland

Phone: 216-781-0420

Website: zocalocleveland.com

Where they finished in contest: No. 6

Zocalo taste test: Sky-high nachos and drink not yet on menu set tone

Takeout or delivery

Cinco de Mayo specials: Taco box of four tacos (your choice of chicken or veggie), chips and salsa and two traditional margaritas for $15.

What we recommend: The nachos are definitely created for sharing. This sky-high dish is constructed of your choice of protein, queso, enchilada sauce, black bean and corn salsa, slaw, jalapenos and chipotle crema.

Constructed of your choice of protein, queso, enchilada sauce, black beans and corn salsa, slaw, jalapenos and chipotle crema. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

Being absent from the Northeast Ohio food scene nine months for a relocation did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of Nuevo Acapulco loyalists in 2019. The new digs have four-times the space. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

Nuevo Acapulco

Address: 21750 Lorain Road, Fairview Park

Phone: 440-734-3100

Website: nuevoacapulco.com

Where they finished in contest: No. 5

Nuevo Acapulco taste test: Popular spot back with a bang at new Fairview Park location

Pick-up and delivery through Grubhub or Doordash

Cinco de Mayo specials: Specials are only for carry-out orders. Food specials, $1.50 side order of corn enchiladas; $2 side order flour enchiladas; Tacos al Carbon meal for $10.50. Drink specials, all bottled beer $3; traditional lime margarita $4; flavored margarita $5; house-made Sangria $5.

What we recommend: Carne Asada made with slices of skirt steak with whole green onions, rice, beans and guacamole.

Made with tender slices of skirt steak and whole grilled green onions. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

Uncle Tito's located in Akron.

Uncle Titos

Address: 2215 E Waterloo Road, Akron

Phone: 330-208-0429

Website: uncletitosspringfield.com

Where they finished in contest: No. 4

Uncle Titos taste test: Huge fajitas platter has us wanting more

Pick-up, curbside or delivery through Doordash.

Cinco de Mayo specials: Family packs will feed a family of four: choose from tacos, fajitas, enchiladas or street tacos priced from $25-$45. Family packs are available daily.

What we recommend: Fajitas Yucatan: Not only do you get the standard veggies of onions and peppers, but the dish also features broccoli, cauliflower, squash and zucchini. Oh, and steak and chicken.

The Fajitas Yucatan at Uncle Tito's. (Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com)

Cozumel has locations in Independence, Lakewood, Broadview Heights, Brunswick and Richfield. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

Cozumel

Address: 5555 Brecksville Road, Independence. Cozumel also has locations in Lakewood, Broadview Heights, Brunswick and Richfield.

Phone: 216-447-1070

Website: cozumel.us

Where they finished in contest: No. 3

Cozumel taste test: Mild mango habanero wings left us wanting many more

Pick-up (call to check for delivery options).

Cinco de Mayo specials: No Cinco de Mayo specials this year, but you can order from their full menu.

What we recommend: The ceviche is not on the menu anymore, but you can ask for it. Be sure to try the ceviche if you are looking for a healthy entree with a lot of taste. Served as a tostada, the shrimp is soaked in lime juice for 12 hours, chopped and then married to fresh onion, tomato and cilantro.

Ceviche at Cozumel. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

Casa del Rio may be unknown to Mexican foodies in other areas of Northeast Ohio, but it is a staple around Medina County. And we want to tell you it's definitely worth the trip. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

Casa del Rio

Address: 839 High St., Wadsworth

Phone: 330-335-4001

Website: casadelriomex.com

Where they finished in contest: No. 2

Casa del Rio taste test: Quesadilla Chipotle alone worth trip to Wadsworth

Curbside pick-up or delivery via Doordash.

Cinco de Mayo specials: No Cinco de Mayo specials but you can order from their full menu. Margaritas will be limited to traditional lime, strawberry or raspberry on the rocks.

What we recommend: The Chipotle Quesadilla was a big favorite of our team. Its a flour tortilla filled with your choice of grilled chicken or steak, chipotle sauce, poblano pepper, onion, cheese and bacon. Yes, bacon!

Chipotle Quesadilla at Casa del Rio.

Open just six months when they won our contest, Blue Habanero Street Tacos and Tequila has quickly gained a foothold in Northeast Ohio's Mexican food scene. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com

Blue Habanero

Address: 6416 Detroit Ave., Cleveland

Phone: 216-465-1818

Website: bluehabanerocleveland.com

Where they finished in contest: No. 1

Blue Habanero taste test: New spot quickly establishes itself as major player

Pick-up only.

Cinco de Mayo specials: Family Pack, which feeds four, for $40. Included are 12 assorted tacos, rice, beans and chips with 16 oz. of guacamole and salsa. You may order up to eight margaritas with the family pack.

What we recommend: The huge steak, chicken and chorizo chimichanga is for those with big appetites (or at least with someone to share it with). Great combo of three meats and just the right amount of cheese sauce.

Steak, chicken and chorizo chimichanga at Blue Habanero. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

BEST OF THE REST:

At Don Ramon in Lyndhurst there's nearly 20 types of tequila displayed on this wall. Decisions, decisions, so many to choose from. (Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com)

Don Ramon

Address: 5708 Mayfield Road, Lyndhurst

Phone: 440-461-9077

Website: donramonlyndhurst.com

Where they finished in contest: Best of the Rest

Don Ramon taste test: Authentic cantina with no shortage of tequila

Pick-up and delivery for orders over $30.

Cinco de Mayo specials: 16 oz. traditional margarita for $5. You can also order from their full menu.

What we recommend: For you shrimp lovers, we recommend the shrimp chimichanga. This was packed full of shrimp and just look at all the cheese on the plate. The shell had a little crunch, which enhanced the dish.

Shrimp chimichanga from Don Ramon in Lyndhurst. (Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com)

Fiesta Jalapenos in North Ridgeville was a finalist in 2019 search for the Best Mexican Restaurant contest - Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com

Fiesta Jalapenos

Address: 33725 Center Ridge Road, North Ridgeville

Phone: 440-327-1431

Website: fiestajalapenos.com

Where they finished in contest: Best of the Rest

Fiesta Jalapenos taste test: Great mole sauce and unique fried peppers

Pick-up, curbside.

Cinco de Mayo specials: Buy one margarita get one 1/2 off, 16 oz. $7.99 and 24 oz. $10.99. The $18 taco special features 12 tacos with rice, beans and tortillas separate, as well as lettuce, tomato and cheese. This is also available every Tuesday.

What we recommend: Lupes Nachos with plenty of toppings and cheese atop a mountain of chips. The chargrilled chicken and chorizo and large pieces of grilled onions meld together perfectly. Just enough shredded cheese and cheese sauce make this dish a winner.

Lupe's Nachos from Fiesta Jalapenos. (Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com)

La Plaza in Cleveland, finalist in Best Mexican Restaurant contest Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer

La Plaza Taqueria

Address: 13609 Lakewood Heights Blvd., Cleveland

Phone: 216-476-8000

Facebook page: La-Plaza-Supermarket

Where they finished in contest: Best of the Rest

La Plaza taste test: New taqueria serving much more than delicious tacos

Pick-up and delivery through Doordash, Grubhub, Ubereats and Postmates.

Cinco de Mayo specials: No Cinco de Mayo specials but you can order from their full menu.

What we recommend: Tacos are a must try. Whether you go with the chorizo, carne asada or barbacoa, you wont be disappointed.

La Plaza Taqueria in Cleveland was a Top 20 Mexican Restaurant finalist in 2019. They are well known for their tacos. - Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com

Mucho Buenos in Brunswick was a finalist in 2019 in our search for the Best Mexican Restaurant. - Photo by Kristen Davis, cleveland.com

Mucho Buenos

Address: 1421 Town Center Blvd., Brunswick

Phone: 330-273-6294

Facebook page: facebook.com/muchobuenos/

Where they finished in contest: Best of the Rest

Mucho Buenos taste test: A hidden gem in a Brunswick shopping plaza

Pick-up, curbside and delivery.

Cinco de Mayo specials: No Cinco de Mayo specials but you can order from their full menu.

What we recommend: This enchilada trio below consisted of chicken covered in verde sauce, cheese in enchilada sauce and beef covered in mole sauce. We all agreed the chicken one was our favorite. It was moist, seasoned well and the green sauce amped it up to another level.

Enchilada trio from Mucho Buenos in Brunswick. (Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com)

Plaza Nueva in Brooklyn was a finalist in cleveland.com's 2019 Best Mexican Restaurant contest - Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com

Plaza Nueva

Address: 7106 Biddulph Road, Brooklyn

Phone: 216-230-2294

Website: plazanuevamexicangrill.com

Where they finished in contest: Best of the Rest

Plaza Nueva taste test: Table-side guacamole adds freshness to this Mexican cantina

Pick-up, curbside.

Cinco de Mayo specials: No Cinco de Mayo specials but you can order from their full menu.

What we recommend: Burrito De La Casa, pictured below. This was the lunch version; we cant imagine how big the dinner version is. Dont fill up on chips if you plan on ordering this burrito. One of their most popular burritos, it is stuffed with chicken, chorizo, rice and beans. Topped with queso, pico and sour cream.

Burrito de la Casa from Plaza Nueva Mexican Grill in Brooklyn. (Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com)

The interior of Si Senor in Seven Hills - Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com

Si Senor

Address: 7729 Broadview Road, Seven Hills

Phone: 216-447-9960

Website: sevenhills.sisenormexicangrill.com

Where they finished in contest: Best of the Rest

Si Senor taste test: A colorful explosion greets you as you walk through the door

Pick-up, delivery via Ubereats

Cinco de Mayo specials: No Cinco de Mayo specials but you can order from their full menu.

What we recommend: Chicken fajitas, which are piled high and loaded with veggies, including peppers, onions and tomatoes.

Chicken fajitas from Si Senor in Seven Hills - Photo by Yadi Rodriguez, cleveland.com

Tacos Mexicanos in Macedonia was a top 20 Best Mexican Restaurant finalist in 2019 - Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com

Tacos Mexicanos

Address: 223 Highland Road E., Macedonia

Phone: 330-467-9205

Website: tacosmexicanos.net

Where they finished in contest: Best of the Rest

Tacos Mexicanos taste test: Sangria margarita, chicken bowl among favorites

Pick-up, curbside and delivery (minimum $10 order).

Cinco de Mayo specials: $1 tacos (choice of shredded chicken or ground beef). You can also order from their full menu.

What we recommend: Queso with chorizo. If you are a fan of chorizo you should order this dish. The creamy cheese sauce is topped with plenty of Mexican sausage and delivers a great kick.

Queso Chorizo from Tacos Mexicanos in Macedonia - Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com

Villa Y Zapata in Cleveland was a top 20 finalist in our search for Best Mexican Restaurant in 2019 - Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com

Villa Y Zapata

Address: 8505-09 Madison Ave., Cleveland

Phone: 216-961-4369

Facebook page: facebook.com/Villa-Y-Zapata

Where they finished in contest: Best of the Rest

Villa y Zapata taste test: Enthusiastic regulars help keep eatery humming for 42 years

Pick-up, curbside.

Cinco de Mayo specials: No Cinco de Mayo specials but you can order from their full menu.

What we recommend: Taco Dorado: A special creation by the owner, this taco is made by stuffing a soft taco with your choice of protein, then rolling it and flash-frying it. The taco is then unrolled and topped with fresh vegetables. The process creates a unique crispy shell.

Taco Dorado from Villa Y Zapata in Cleveland - Photo by Brenda Cain, cleveland.com

Best Mexican Restaurant finalist temporarily closed due to the coronavirus: Momocho in Cleveland

Momocho taste test: Margarita flights left us wanting to sample all the flavors

Best Mexican Restaurant finalists that have closed since the contest: La Fiesta in Richmond Heights and Lopez in Cleveland Heights.

Best Mexican Restaurant finalist we could not reach: La Mesa in Mentor

La Mesa taste test: Authentic and proud family run establishment made us feel at home

More Clevelands Best Mexican Restaurant content:
Rogerwilco, 2021 FM AdFocus Digital Agency of the Year, is an independently owned level 2 B-BBEE full service digital marketing agency with a presence in Cape Town, Johannesburg and London.
Natural gas futures are trading higher on Monday shortly after the regular session opening. The market is trading inside Fridays range and remains inside its five-day range, which suggests investor indecision. Traders continue to battle over supply and demand, causing a choppy two-sided trade.

The front of the markets curve is being pressured by the demand destruction being imposed by the outbreak of the coronavirus, while the back of the curve is being propped up by an expected pullback in production.

At 12:41 GMT, June natural gas futures are trading $1.969, up $0.079 or +4.18%.

Short-Term Weather Outlook

According to NatGasWeather for May 4 to May 10, Weather systems with showers and cooling will sweep across the northern U.S. with highs of 40s to 60s. The Southwest into Texas will be hot Monday with highs of 90s, while warm over the South and Southeast with 80s. Cooler air will push into Texas, the South, and Southeast as the week progresses, dropping highs to be the perfect 70s and 80s. The Southwest will be hot with 90-100s, while mild to warm over the rest of the West with 60s to 80s. Overall, moderate heating demand northern U.S., but lighter cooling demand Texas/South after Monday.

US Energy Information Administration Weekly Storage Report

The U.S. EIA reported last Thursday that domestic supplies of natural gas rose by 70 billion cubic feet (Bcf) for the week-ended April 24. That was in line with average expectations.

Total stocks now stand at 2.210 trillion cubic feet, up 783 billion cubic feet from a year ago, and 360 billion feet above the five-year average, the government said.

Natural Gas Rig Count Drops

The U.S. natural gas rig count dropped four units to fall to 81 during the week-ended Friday May 1, while aggressive retrenchment remained the dominant theme in the oil patch, according to data from Baker Hughes Co.

Daily Forecast

According to NatGasWeather, The Baker-Hughes rigs report Friday afternoon showed another large week over week decline of 53 oil rigs and a loss of 4 gas rigs. This suggests further decreases in nat gas and associated nat gas production to come. But theres also been huge losses in demand due to COVID-19, especially in the industrial and commercial sectors.

Story continues

This should help the deferred contracts gain on the nearby futures contract.

However, one isnt expected to go down and the other up. The nearby contract could find support today due a short-term shift in the weather pattern.

The weather data trended cooler for mid-May late last week and the weekend data trended cooler with it as both the GFS and European models gained 10 Heating Degree Days (HDDs). This is likely helping to support the June natural gas futures contract early Monday.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

More From FXEMPIRE:
A Delta Air Lines jet taxis passes Southwest Airlines jets to be parked with a growing number of jets at Southern California Logistics Airport (SCLA) on March 24, 2020 in Victorville, California.

U.S. airline shares tumbled again on Monday, this time after Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway sold its entire stakes in the four largest U.S. carriers as coronavirus devastates travel demand.

Berkshire was among the largest investors in the four  American, Delta, Southwest and United. Buffett announced on Saturday that the firm dumped those shares. Berkshire posted a net loss of close to $50 billion in the first three months of the year.

American fell 7.7%, Delta fell 6.4% and United dropped 5%. Southwest fell 5.7%.

Buffett had long shunned airlines. In a 2007 shareholder letter, he said investors in those businesses "poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it."

But he returned in 2016 with a surprise bet on the four carriers as the industry was enjoying steady profits and the benefits of strong travel demand and lower fuel costs than in previous years.

The four last month posted their first quarterly losses in years and warned of a slow recovery in demand from prepandemic levels. Delta's CEO said it could take two to three years.

"I mean, believe me, no joy being a CEO of an airline," Buffett said at Berkshire's annual meeting, held virtually this year because of the pandemic. "But the companies we bought were well managed. They did a lot of things right."
DECATUR  Police said they booked a Decatur man on a preliminary charge of battery after a dispute over his refusal to wear a face mask while paying for fuel at a gas station convenience store turned violent.

The 59-year-old customer is accused of shoving a male employee of the Hucks Food & Fuel business at 204 N. 22nd St. on Friday morning, the first day new state requirements kicked in requiring face masks be worn in businesses by customers and staff.

Sgt. Brian Earles with Decatur Police said that the 56-year-old employee, after being shoved in the chest, felt threatened and defended himself by punching the customer in the face.

But the employee also ends up being knocked to the ground at some point, although its not clear how that happened, added Earles.

He said officers arrived around 8:42 a.m. and arrested the customer, who was given a notice to appear in court. All preliminary charges are subject to review by the state attorneys office.

Earles said the trouble began when the customer filled up his pickup truck with $56 in gas and walked into the station convenience store to pay while not wearing a mask.

He was told to put on a mask, that he could not be in the store without one, and that makes the guy mad and he starts yelling and cussing at the employee and starts trying to get into a political discussion, Earles added. Then he tried to pay for the gas with a $100 bill and that also turned out to be a problem as the employee said they didnt have enough change in the cash drawer for that.

Also from the Herald & Review

Earles said the customer stormed out saying that if the gas station couldnt make change, he didnt have to pay for the fuel he had pumped. Both the employee and the customer had gone outside at this point when the wife of the gas stations manager announced over the stations public address system that she had found change for the $100 bill.

Earles said the employee and the customer had been headed back to the convenience store when the conflict escalated into violence.

Earies said a female customer who witnessed the dispute had video taped events on her phone and officers who reviewed it said it confirmed the employees version of what happened.

Earles said businesses are within their rights to refuse service to customers who refuse to wear face masks, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker had ordered through May 30 as part of efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19.

So any business can say No, thank you and you would not be allowed in, Earles said. And, if you choose to remain, you could be arrested for criminal trespass.

Earles said this was the first example hed seen of an argument over face masks boiling over to the point where police had to become involved.

The Herald & Review contacted the Hucks station Sunday but was told no manager was available for comment.

Mug shots from the Herald & Review

Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Net working capital of $36.4 Million CAD at December 31, 2019

CAD at On March 20, 2020 Khiron became the first and only company in Colombia to receive full authorization to manufacture high- and low-THC medical cannabis, and to fill prescriptions for low-THC medical cannabis

Khiron became the first and only company in to receive full authorization to manufacture high- and low-THC medical cannabis, and to fill prescriptions for low-THC medical cannabis Khiron became the only Company authorized to export THC products

Filled first medical cannabis prescriptions ever using cannabis from their fully completed state-of-the-art, 14,000 square foot GMP and ISO 17025 compliant extraction and analysis lab in Ibague, Colombia

Opened European operations, and became the exclusive Latin American provider to Project Twenty21, Europe's largest medical cannabis study with 20,000 patients

largest medical cannabis study with 20,000 patients Khiron's cultivation facilities and health centres remain operational during COVID-19 pandemic under an exemption from the Government of Colombia , without any requirement for further authorization

TORONTO, May 1, 2020 /CNW/ - Khiron Life Sciences Corp. ("Khiron" or the "Company") (TSXV: KHRN ), (OTCQX: KHRNF), (Frankfurt: A2JMZC), a vertically integrated cannabis leader with core operations in Latin America, is pleased to report its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2019. Khiron has filed today its audited consolidated financial statements and related management's discussion and analysis (md&a), both of which are available on Khiron's profile at www.sedar.com. All financial information in this press release is reported in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise indicated.

Summary of key financial results

(Canadian dollars) Years ended December 31 Quarters ended 2019 2018 Q4 2019 Q3 2019 Q2 2019 Q1 2019

$ $



$ $ Revenues ('000s) 9,582 892 2,510 2,773 2,208 2,091 Gross profit ('000s) 2,436 297 1,048 593 382 412 Net loss ('000s) (36,378) (19,807) (7,107) (10,621) (10,646) (8,004) Adjusted EBITDA (1) ('000s) (24,504) (13,969) (6,342) (5,438) (7,056) (5,668) Net loss per share (basic and diluted) (0.36) (0.42) (0.06) (0.09) (0.11) (0.12) Weighted average shares outstanding ('000s) 101,966 48,519 115,399 113,997 95,973 75,895

1. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization or in this case loss) is a non-IFRS measure calculated as net loss as reported under International Financial Reporting Standards and adding back share-based compensation expense, transaction fees, depreciation and non-recurring items. Refer to the Company's md&a for a reconciliation.

Financial Highlights Commentary

The Company recorded a net loss for the year ended December 31, 2019 of $36.4 million ($0.36 per share) compared to a net loss of $19.8 million for the same period in 2018. Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes mostly non-cash items and some non-recurring items, was $24.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2019. The Company ended the year with $36.9 million balance in cash and short-term investments and minimal current debt obligations of $1.0 million, most of which are related to lease payments for office and medical buildings.

Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $24.5 million for 2019 compared to $14.0 million for 2018. In March 2020 the Company received its final certification required to manufacture medical cannabis. The year 2019 focused on moving the Company towards this objective specifically:

Growing and harvesting its first crop for manufacturing medical cannabis, recording approximately $3 million in research and development expenses in 2019.

in research and development expenses in 2019. Raised net equity financing in the amount of $53 million ; as a result, the Company incurred higher professional fees from the transactions and increased its investor relations and marketing efforts concurrently with the increased shareholder base, together increasing costs by approximately $2 million .

; as a result, the Company incurred higher professional fees from the transactions and increased its investor relations and marketing efforts concurrently with the increased shareholder base, together increasing costs by approximately . Prepared for global expansion and first sales of medical cannabis by increasing capacity at its corporate offices, hiring employees and planting a footprint in several Latin American countries and Europe .

. Achieved revenues of $9.3 million and gross profit of $2.2 million at the Company's ILANS clinics, with ILANS selling the Company's first medical cannabis product in March 2020 .

The Company has a strong financial position at December 31, 2019 but must prudently manage its cash and maintain its liquidity amidst the uncertainty of incoming cash flows during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Company's core focus will be on its medical businesses using a predominantly digital strategy to grow its patient network and sell its medical cannabis products both locally in Colombia and globally. Maintaining high quality harvests and extracts at its cultivation site will be critical to the Company's success. Cost reductions in salaries, marketing and other administrative functions have been initiated, and capital expenditure programs have been postponed, where possible.

The Colombian government has resolved to provide health care service companies with financial relief, which could result in the deferral of loan repayments and lease payments by ILANS. While the Company will avail itself of financial relief measures, management believes that the Company should be able to maintain a positive cash balance through 2020. Maintaining liquidity through the crisis and continuing with its core strategy should place the Company in a very strong competitive position once the crisis ends.

Management Commentary

"2019 was a building year for Khiron. Now the focus of the company turns to sales execution, and revenue generation. Khiron has achieved a significant competitive advantage, and in March 2020 Khiron became the first and only company authorized to sell low THC medical cannabis in Colombia. We have much work to do in the months ahead but are positioned to benefit from these significant achievements," commented Alvaro Torres, Khiron CEO and director.

"We recognize the unprecedented global health and economic pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and have acted swiftly, aligning our expenditures, and leveraging our digital capabilities and staff medical teams to give patients access to telemedicine consultations and remote product delivery," added Mr. Torres.

COVID-19

Khiron has established contingency plans in place for all its facilities, including medical facilities which are essential to serving the community. Those plans were put into action and the Company's facilities and supply chain remain operating within strict government guidelines established as a result of the current pandemic.

Khiron's ILANS and Zerenia clinics have been deemed essential services by the government of Colombia and continue to operate without requirement of any further authorization. The Company's recently announced teleconsultation services ensure patients, including those from its ILANS and Zerenia network, have access to clinic services and doctors trained to prescribe medical cannabis and other treatments.

For the time being and until economies stabilize, Khiron has shifted its strategic approach to focus on our highest margin businesses, and revenue opportunities, alter marketing methods and conserve cash, but has maintained its overall strategic direction to improve the quality of life of patients and consumers. The Company continues to prioritize the physical and mental health of its employees, health professionals and partners during this pandemic.

Highlights

Expanded to Europe in October 2019 , and now has teams in Germany and the U.K.

in , and now has teams in and the U.K. Granted approval to cultivate 9.3 tons of THC cannabis, representing 17% of the total allocated quota for Colombia in 2020, subsequent to the year end

in 2020, subsequent to the year end Completed Company's state-of-the-art, 14,000 square foot GMP and ISO 17025 compliant extraction and analysis lab in Ibague, Colombia

Received first Colombian authorization to commercialize high-THC cannabis for domestic and export sales

Authorized in Colombia to manufacture high- and low-THC medical cannabis, and to fill prescriptions for low-THC medical cannabis, effective March 20, 2020

Brazil and Peru

Authorization from the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA) allows for Khiron medical cannabis product to be imported for use on an individual patient basis, subsequent to the year end

Signed a 2-year exclusive agreement to manufacture and distribute Khiron-branded medical cannabis products in Lima, Perus largest city with 8.6 million inhabitants

Research and Development

Participant and exclusive Latin American provider to Project Twenty21, Europe's largest medical cannabis study with 20,000 patients

largest medical cannabis study with 20,000 patients Initiated pre-clinical medical cannabis studies with Universidad de la Republica of Uruguay and Institut Pasteur de Montevideo in Uruguay

Entered an agreement with prominent Colombian research hospital, Centro Dermatologico Federico Lleras Acosta ("CDFLLA"), establishing a clinical research partnership focused on the effectiveness of medical cannabis for dermatological conditions

Education and Awareness

Embraced online education with a signed agreement with Tecnologico de Monterrey, a leading Latin American university (Third Ranked in Latin America) in Mexico bringing Khirons online education program to reach 1,500 physicians and healthcare practitioners

Hosts Canadian Pavilion at Cannamexico World Summit 2019, targeting over 2,000 global cannabusiness leaders

Entered into an agreement with Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, a Peruvian university to sponsor workshops and remote talks in the university's international course on Medicinal Use of Cannabis

Through 2019, participated in more than 30 medical events around Latin America geared towards educating physicians on the use and benefits of medical cannabis

Health Services

Launched Telemedicine, to meet essential patient needs without the need for an in person visit

Acquired 100% of ILANS, a neurological clinic with a network of approximately 120,000 patients in Colombia

Launched Zerenia Clinic, an integrative medical care service clinic, increasing Company's patient capacity in Colombia by 75%, with medical cannabis and other services, subsequent to the year end

by 75%, with medical cannabis and other services, subsequent to the year end Patient network served through Khiron-owned clinics increased to over 155,000 medical transactions

Wellbeing Products

Expanded Kuida CBD-based cosmeceutical brand distribution to over 300 points of sale in Colombia

Received approval from INVIMA, Colombia's health agency, to sell 3 additional Kuida CBD skin care products, expanding on the 7 products already on the market in Colombia

Secured initial Kuida sales in the UK and the US in Q4 2019 and Q1 2020, respectively

Entered into a multi-year agreement with Centro Dermatologico Federico Lleras Acosta (CDFLLA), to jointly conduct medical cannabis research and host educational activities focusing on skin conditions and symptoms

Financing

Closed $28.84 Million bought deal financing on February 28, 2019 , including full exercise of over-allotment option

bought deal financing on , including full exercise of over-allotment option Closed $28.75 Million bought deal financing on May 28, 2019 , including full exercise of over-allotment option

Webcast and Q&A

Khiron invites individual and institutional investors, as well as advisors and analysts, to attend a webcast and Q&A to discuss the Company's 2019 year-end results and corporate update.

DATE: May 4, 2020

TIME: 10:00am ET/7:00am PT

PRESENTERS: Alvaro Torres, Khiron CEO and Director, and Chris Naprawa, Khiron President

FORMAT: Live 20 minutes presentation & Q&A session

REGISTER LINK: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2307088/CDF8CB87D88B5A9CC5D225E0634845EF

About Khiron Life Sciences Corp.

Khiron Life Sciences Corp. is the dominant integrated medical cannabis company in Latin America. Khiron has core operations in Latin America, along with activity in North America and Europe, and is licensed in Colombia for the cultivation, production, domestic distribution, and international export of both tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) medical cannabis. The Company delivers best in class regulatory compliance, has the first approved line of CBD cosmetic products on shelf in Colombia, and is fully authorized to manufacture high- and low-THC medical cannabis, and to fill prescriptions for low-THC medical cannabis in the country.

With a focused regional strategy and patient oriented approach, the Company combines global scientific expertise, agricultural advantages, branded product market entrance experience and education to drive prescription and brand loyalty to address priority medical conditions such as chronic pain, epilepsy, depression and anxiety in the Latin American market of over 620 million people. The Company is led by Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Alvaro Torres, together with an experienced executive team, and a knowledgeable Board of Directors that includes former President of Mexico, Vicente Fox.

Visit Khiron online at www.khiron.ca and on Instagram @khironlife

Cautionary Notes

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. All information contained herein that is not historical in nature may constitute forward-looking information. Khiron undertakes no obligation to comment analyses, expectations or statements made by third-parties in respect of Khiron, its securities, or financial or operating results (as applicable). Although Khiron believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements in this press release are reasonable, such forward-looking statement has been based on expectations, factors and assumptions concerning future events which may prove to be inaccurate and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond Khiron's control, including the risk factors discussed in Khiron's Annual Information Form which is available on Khiron's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and are made as of the date hereof. Khiron disclaims any intention and has no obligation or responsibility, except as required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

United States Disclaimer

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

SOURCE Khiron Life Sciences Corp.

For further information: Investor Contacts: Chris Naprawa, President, T: +1 (416) 705-1144, E: [email protected]; Media Contact: Jon Packer, Vice President, Communications, T: +1 (416) 543-9179, E: [email protected]; Khiron Europe: Tejinder Virk, Europe President, T: +49 160 91225423, E: [email protected]

Related Links

https://www.khiron.ca/en/home


At SFGATE, the editors recently shared in an online brainstorm all the things they miss most about their former lives in the San Francisco Bay Area before the coronavirus brought everything to a stop.

Among them were: massages, "travel literally anywhere," swimming, dive bars, dinner parties, dancing at a house party, Disneyland, haircuts, Yosemite and BART.
A leading eye doctor and church pastor who had warned his congregation of the serious danger posed by Covid-19 has become the latest NHS worker to fall victim to the virus.

Opthalmologist Dr Paul Kabasele, 58, who had worked for Moorfields Eye Hospital at its Croydon site for more than a decade, died at Kings College Hospital on April 24.

His death adds to the growing fatality list among the NHS, which has so far seen the loss of more than 100 staff to coronavirus.

A significant proportion have involved ethnic minority workers and ministers have ordered a review to investigate possible reasons.

Dr Kabasele, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, had been working up until the time he fell ill at the end of March. He self-isolated but his condition deteriorated.

He graduated from a university in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1987 and had 25 years of experience in inflammatory eye diseases and retinal surgery.

He frequently returned to his home country and helped organise medical conferences across the world.

The father of six children, aged 19 to 30, lived in Upper Norwood, near Crystal Palace, with his family.

He had been a church pastor for 30 years and was described by his family as a spiritual man who made a difference everywhere he went.

Shortly before his death, he recorded a video message warning against religious leaders peddling miracle cures within the community, saying: This is something we need to take seriously.

"You would not see a mechanic if you have a problem with your tooth. This virus is killing and you need to listen to the experts.

Younger brother Charles Mwambi, a financial adviser, said: He was a wonderful person who always put others first. He was a selfless hero on the NHS front line.

He said he had no known underlying health problems and had been fit and well and working when he was struck down by the virus for which he tested positive.

Loading....

Dr Omer Kabasele Kosongo, his elder brother, said his death leaves a huge gap and added that his brother was a charismatic pastor who had made several trips to Africa to conduct much needed charity cataracts surgery.

David Probert, the chief executive at Moorfields, said: Through the past decade, he provided an exceptional level of care to his patients.

He was incredibly hardworking, kind, gentle and a joy to work with. He will be sorely missed by many and his death is a huge loss to us all.
According to Ukraines Health Minister, it is necessary to analyze the situation with the spread of the virus and consult with the virologists or specialists to mitigate the quarantine

Health Ministry of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov stated that the mitigation of quarantine in some cities was a political decision of local authorities. The city heads did not consult with the Health Ministry, as 112 Ukraine TV channel reported.

According to the minister, it is necessary to analyze the situation with the spread of the virus and consult with the virologists or specialists to mitigate the lockdown.

The arguments, used by particular mayors of the cities are unknown to me. At least, nobody appealed to us for consultation or to specialists at the local levels. That is why, probably, it is a purely political decision with the clear understanding that starting from May 11, everyone knows and we told it repeatedly that we will offer the mitigation of quarantine events, Stepanov said.

Besides, he noted that according to the law, the imposing of quarantine in the territory of the country is the prerogative of the Cabinet of Ministers.

It is, from the point of view, the violation of the law at least because the bodies of local self-government do not have such authorities, Stepanov added.

On April 30, Cherkasy mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko ordered to weaken the lockdown measures in the city, allowing the citizens to visit parks and most of the shops. President Zelensky, in his address, promised "legal consequences" for such a decision. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov claimed that the response to the weakening of the lockdown in Cherkasy will be a "tough one."

As we reported before, the Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov arrived with a check in Cherkasy in connection with the decision of the city council to cancel quarantine measures.

On May 2, Mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko also said the central government was "afraid of mayors of regional capitals", and the decisions that could be made by the local authority. The same day, the mayor was summoned for interrogation due to the premature mitigation of the quarantine in the city.

Besides, residents of Cherkasy witnessed an increased security mode, as military vehicles and patrol units of the National Guard appeared on the streets. Earlier, the local citizens were urged to come and support their mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko. It was assumed that the government could fear resistance and mass protests in the city, which is why the military stepped in.
I couldnt agree more with Guy Ciarrocchis Guest Column, Its Time To Get Chester County Residents Back To Work. (DLN, May 3, 2020, Page A5) My entire family has learned to practice strict social distancing techniques and abide by the stay-at-home order that is in effect to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

While I remain very concerned for everyone who has, or will contract this virus, at the same time, I am terrified with what Governor Wolfs stay-at-home order and business shutdown policies are doing to our local, county, regional, state and national economies. When he announced the new color-coded phase system for reopening our commonwealths businesses, I felt that it was very unfair to include Chester County with the other collar counties that surround Philadelphia.

While I feel very fortunate to work in an industry deemed essential and life-sustaining, many of my clients, friends and neighbors include several small business owners based in Chester County. They and their employees are hurting and need to get back to work as soon as it safe to do so. If not, I believe that we will not only fall into an economic recession, but possibly a depression.

As a Republican Committeeman, I admit that I was somewhat suspect that sitting down to actually write to a letter to a Governor whose campaign I did not support would be worthwhile. I decided to do it anyway. In my letter, I simply highlighted how I felt that his process for reopening Pennsylvanias businesses region by region was blatantly unfair.

When analyzing the commonwealths 67 countys COVID-19 data metrics, I made the point that including Chester County with the other collar counties surrounding Philadelphia (Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery) was discriminatory to Chester Countys small business community as a whole. As of today, Chester County has a significantly lower COVID-19 data metrics, even lower than our adjacent western neighbors of Lancaster and Berks Counties.

To my delight, a few days after receipt of my letter, Governor Wolf announced that he would reverse his decision to reopen Pennsylvanias businesses region by region and now do it on a county by county basis. Consider my experience a lesson to your readersif you are ever in doubt of the effectiveness of writing to politicians, take a lesson from Nike and JUST DO IT!

Bill Tickner

Willistown Township

16 Fairview Road

(The writer is a member of the Republican Committee of Chester County)
The county has been trying to unload this property for a long time. It will have to wait some more.
Add CoolSocial badge. Show it by adding this HTML code on your site:

Yahoomailsignin.org scored 40 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 2/5.0 Stars by Social Team

This CoolSocial report was updated on 14 Oct 2013, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.

Add a widget like this on your site: click here

This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the yahoomailsignin homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if yahoomailsignin has a Facebook fan page). This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the yahoomailsignin homepage on Twitter + the total number of yahoomailsignin followers (if yahoomailsignin has a Twitter account). The total number of people who shared the yahoomailsignin homepage on StumbleUpon. The total number of people who shared the yahoomailsignin homepage on Delicious. The total number of people who shared the yahoomailsignin homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button.

Basic Information

PAGE TITLE Yahoo mail sign in DESCRIPTION Yahoo mail sign in. Learn to log into your yahoo email account. KEYWORDS yahoo, mail sign in, www.yahoo.com, yahoo mail sign in OTHER KEYWORDS yahoo mail sign in, yahoo mail sign, mail sign in, yahoo mail, mail sign, sign in, yahoo



The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of the site. The keywords meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. The title found in the head section of the homepage. The description meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. CoolSocial advanced keyword analysis tool is able to detect and analyze every keyword on each page of a site.

Domain and Server

DOCTYPE HTML 5.0 CHARSET AND LANGUAGE English (United States) UTF-8English (United States) DETECTED LANGUAGE English English SERVER LiteSpeed OPERATIVE SYSTEM

Represents HTML declared type (e.g.: XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.0, the new HTML 5.0) Operative System running on the server. Character set and language of the site. Type of server and offered services. The language of yahoomailsignin.org as detected by CoolSocial algorithms.

Site Traffic trend during the last year. Only available for sites ranked <= 100000 in the world.

Referring domains for yahoomailsignin.org by MajesticSeo. High values are a sign of site importance over the web and on web engines.

Facebook link

FACEBOOK PAGE LINK NOT FOUND

The URL of the found Facebook page. The total number of people who tagged or talked about website Facebook page in the last 7-10 days. A Facebook page link can be found in the homepage or in the robots.txt file. The total number of people who like website Facebook page. The type of Facebook page. The description of the Facebook page describes website and its services to the social media users. Facebook Timeline is the new layout of Facebook pages.

Twitter account link

TWITTER PAGE LINK NOT FOUND
A conference organised by international leaders to pledge billions of dollars in funding for a coronavirus vaccine will not be attended by the US.

America is facing criticism for its absence and over Donald Trumps cutting of contributions to the World Health Organisation.

The virtual funding conference began with an offer of $1bn (800m) from Norway towards the initial goal of raising $8.2bn. It also began amid recriminations with the countrys prime minister Erna Solberg speaking out against the decision by the US president to suspend payment to the WHO after accusing it of colluding with China to hide the spread of the virus.

Norway also announced it would give $4.8m to the WHO, in addition to its normal annual funding of the organisation. Ms Solberg said: It is a pity the US is not a part of it. When you are in a crisis, you manage it and you do it jointly with others. Everyone will certainly evaluate their work at some point and see what could have been done differently.

But you do this afterwards, not when you are in the middle of it. This is a global problem that needs common solutions between countries, not least with distribution, so that everyone gets access to the vaccine.

No US administration officials are expected to address the conference, according to an official list issued of the speakers. Those due to speak include Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang and WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has been a particular target for blame by Mr Trump and his Republican supporters in Congress.

The European Commission pledged $1.09bn, with its head Ursula von der Leyen saying: I believe the fourth of May will mark a turning point in our fight against coronavirus because today the world is coming together.

Among other contributors, Japan pledged more than $800m, Germany $572m, France $546m, the Netherlands $209, Italy and Spain $110m each and Israel $60m. Saudi Arabia pledged $500m at an earlier stage.

Britain has pledged $482m. Boris Johnson is due to say that the race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries, but the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes, adding: Its humanity against the virus.

As the conference began, there was a warning of the long road ahead in tackling the pandemic in Europe because four countries including Britain continue to experience a large infection rate in the population  despite Boris Johnsons claim that the UK is past the peak.

Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, told a European parliamentary committee that despite substantial decrease in other European states, there were four countries where we see no substantial change in the last 14 days: Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK. As a result, she said, this is not going to end any time soon.

Heads of states and senior officials of the European Union, writing in The Independent, unveiled the plan to work with scientists and international welfare organisations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, to counter the contagion.

The urgent need for international unity in the crisis, and the warning that no country can go it alone, was stressed in the article signed by German chancellor Angela Merkel; French president Emmanuel Macron; Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte; Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg; European Council president Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
Belfast recorded Northern Irelands largest vacancy rate of 33%, with the number of empty properties standing at 1,841, and 3,733 occupied. Photo: Paul Faith/PA

A 210m funding package for the north west has been hailed as potentially "transformational" for the region's economy.

On Monday, the Executive agreed to match UK Government funding for the Londonderry and Strabane City Deal and Inclusive Future Funds.

This brings the total cash injection for the region to 210m, which will be aimed at creating jobs, improving infrastructure and boosting economic growth.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood MP said he hopes some of the money will go towards the expansion of Ulster University's Magee campus in Derry.

"Investing in skills and providing our talented young people with the opportunity to live, work and set down roots here is essential to building sustainable communities that thrive," he added.

This has been a long time coming. We have been forced to wait for far too long for the chance to build more for our people and our communities. Now that weve secured the potential of the City Deal, we cant take our foot off the pedal.

"We need to turn the page on the years of neglect and under-investment by expanding our university, investing in our young people and delivering new opportunities.

Foyle DUP MLA Gary Middleton said the funding will progress some key projects in the area, such as the Maritime Museum at Ebrington, the Walled City Experience and the redevelopment of Queens Quay.

"The DUP ensured that City Deals were part of the confidence and supply agreement in 2017 with the aim of ensuring that all of Northern Ireland benefited. The additional funding for all City Deals announced today is welcome news during this difficult time.

I particularly want to put on record my thanks to my party colleagues within the Executive and all parties who worked collectively with all of the key stakeholders over the past few years to get this over the line. This is a significant step forward.

Sinn Fein MLA Martina Anderson said the package was "transformative for the entire north west region".

Following years of unrelenting Tory austerity which has deprived Derry, Strabane and the wider region of much-needed public services and investment, we can see the clear benefits of having a local Executive in place," she said.

Crucial to this has been the role of Sinn Fein Finance Minister Conor Murphy and his determination to ensure that this administration redresses regional inequalities by investing where it is required.

While we will always have much to do, particularly in the face of a global pandemic crisis, this funding and last weeks rescue package for City of Derry Airport will be central to our economic recovery when the crisis has ended.

It will also be fundamental to ensuring we realise the vast economic potential of the entire north west region in the longer term.

Finance Minister Conor Murphy has also announced funding packages for other Northern Ireland regions, including 700m for the Belfast region (which includes Antrim and Newtownabbey, Ards and North Down, Lisburn and Castlereagh, Mid and East Antrim and Newry and Mourne council areas), 252m for the Mid, South and West, and 72 million for Causeway Coast and Glens.
Gadkari said that he was willing for a leather cluster to be set up on the Delhi-Mumbai highway.

New Delhi: The government will set up a panel to provide necessary clearances needed by businesses within a time-frame of three-months in a bid to attract foreign investment in MSMEs, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Sunday.

Addressing Chartered Accountants Association of India, the minister informed that a Joint Secretary level officer has already been appointed to look after the foreign investment in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

"We are going to formulate a committee where we will give all types of clearances within 3 months and at the same time, there will be no red tape, full transparency, time-bound decision-making process, qualitative approach and no corruption," Gadkari said.

The committee will be set up in coordination with states and the central government as stakeholders, and a policy will be framed in this regard, the minister added.

Earlier in the day, addressing the Dalit Industries Chamber of Commerce of India, he said the government was making efforts towards decentralisation of the industry.

"There is a centralisation of industry in areas like Mumbai, Noida, Gurugram, Bengaluru, Chennai. We need to diversify this and that is the need of the hour," Gadkari said.

He said the government was formulating a policy on how investment can be made more attractive in backward and tribal areas.

Gadkari said that he was willing for a leather cluster to be set up on the Delhi-Mumbai highway.

"We will also give plots and residential accommodation to people residing in Dharavi slums, create a Smart City with airport, port and station connectivity," he said, and asked leather industry representatives to take up the initiative with the help of the Maharashtra government.

He also urged people to move out of Dharavi, observing that the situation there was grim.

Gadkari suggested the leather industry to prepare a plan for the proposed cluster on the Delhi-Mumbai highway.

The minister said he will also talk to the Maharashtra government in this regard.

The cluster will provide a good alternative to people to shift out of Dharavi, he added.
Ausgrid is calling out customers for abusing and threatening workers carrying out essential repairs during the COVID-19 lockdown, forcing the electricity distributor to launch a campaign for greater community understanding.

The social media campaign will feature Ausgrid staff asking the public for support during the pandemic. Starting on Tuesday, the short film will aim to explain why essential maintenance and repairs to poles and wires needs to continue.

Ausgrid chief executive officer Richard Gross said he was disappointed that workers were being threatened doing network maintenance.

Weve seen cases where crews had been physically blocked from doing their work by members of the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, while others have been threatened with spitting and coughing," he said.
Theres 15-year-old Precious from the Netherlands

And Bubble from Australia, age 4

Yeasty Beasty Methuselah, from Twin Falls, Idaho, is estimated to be around 50

Every sourdough starter is special to the ones who made or maintain it, but of the 1000s registered online with Quest for Sourdough, only 125 have earned a permanent place in the Puratos Sourdough Library in Saint-Vith, Belgium. Its the worlds only library dedicated to Sourdough, and you can take a virtual tour here.

Housed in identical jars in a museum-quality refrigerated cabinets, these heritage starters have been carefully selected by librarian Karl De Smedt, above, who travels the world visiting bakeries, tasting bread, and learning the stories behind each sample that enters the collection.





As De Smedt recalls in an interview with the Sourdough Podcast, the idea for the museum began taking shape when a Lebanese baker reached out to Puratos, a hundred-year-old company that supplies commercial bakers and pastry makers with essentials of the trade. The mans sons returned from a baking expo in Paris and informed their dad that when they took over, they planned to retire his time-honored practice of baking with fermented chickpeas in favor of instant yeast. Worried that his prized recipe would be lost to history, he appealed to Puratos to help preserve his protocols.

While fermented chickpeas do not count as sourdougha combination of flour, water, and the resulting microorganisms this marriage gives rise to over timethe company had recently collected and analyzed 43 venerable starters. The bulk came from Italy, including one from Altamura, the city of bread, producer of what Horace called in 37 B.C. the best bread to be had, so good that the wise traveler takes a supply of it for his onward journey.

Thus was a non-circulating library born.

Each specimen is analyzed by food microbiologist Marco Gobbetti from the University of Bolzano and Bari.

A collaboration with North Carolina State University biologists Rob Dunn and Anne Madden revealed that sourdough bakers hands share distinct microbes with their starters.

More than 1100 strains of microorganisms have been recorded so far.

Every two months, the starters are taken out of the fridge and fed, i.e. reactivated, with a combination of water and some of their flour of origin, yearly quantities of which are contributed by their bakers. Without this regular care, the starters will die off.

(The pandemic has De Smedt working from home, but he intimated to The New York Times that he intended to make it back to feed his babies, or mothers as they are known in sourdough circles.)

#72 from Mexico feeds on eggs, lime and beer

#100 from Japan is made of cooked sake rice.

#106 is a veteran of the Gold Rush.

Their consistency is documented along a line that ranges from hard to fluid, with Silly Putty in the middle.

Each year, De Smedt expands the collection with starters from a different area of the world. The latest additions come from Turkey, and are documented in the mouthwatering travelogue above.

For now, of course, hes grounded in Belgium, and using his Instagram account to provide encouragement to other sourdough practitioners, answering rookie questions and showing off some of the loaves produced by his own personal starters, Barbara and Amanda.

Register your starter on Quest for Sourdough here.

If you havent yet taken the sourdough plunge, you can participate in North Carolina State Universitys Wild Sourdough Project by following their instructions on making a starter from scratch and then submitting your data here.

And bide your time until youre cleared to visit the Puratos Sourdough Library in person by taking an interactive virtual tour or watching a complete playlist of De Smedts collecting trips here.

via Atlas Obscura

Related Content:

How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread Dating Back to 79 AD: A Video Primer

An Archive of Handwritten Traditional Mexican Cookbooks Is Now Online

400 Ways to Make a Sandwich: A 1909 Cookbook Full of Creative Recipes

Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, theater maker and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Her current starter, Miss Sourdough, was brought to life with an unholy splash of apple cider. Follow her @AyunHalliday.
This is the shocking moment a small child was forced to cling to the window of a car after police say the youngster's mother drove off.

Jessica Lizette Villarreal, 35, was arrested last week and charged with child endangerment following the incident in late February.

Laredo police say she admitted driving off after the youngster 'misbehaved and refused to get in' the vehicle.

Footage from February 26 shows as the child hangs on to the running board of an SUV while the car is being driven in the parking lot.

Laredo police say she admitted driving off after the youngster 'misbehaved and refused to get in' the vehicle. Footage from February 26 shows as the child hangs on to the running board of an SUV while the car is being driven in the parking lot

Jessica Lizette Villarreal, 35, was arrested last week and charged with child endangerment following the incident in Texas in late February

Police had issued an appeal to find the driver of the GMC Yukon in February. An anonymous tip led to Villarreal's arrest.

Posting the video to Facebook they said: 'The Laredo Police Department is asking the community to help to identify the person driving this car.

'The video shows a small child hanging on to the running board of an SUV while the car is being driven in the parking lot of a local business.'

Footage shows as the car is driven, in the dark, round the parking lot. It appears to speed up before the driver hits the brakes.

Villarreal now faces two jail and a fine of up to $10,000

In a statement police said: 'Ms. Villarreal admitted that her child, a minor (younger than) 10 years old, was misbehaving and refused to get into the car.'
Thirty-two per cent of the COVID-19



patients treated at hospitals in Ernakulam district in Kerala were asymptomatic, official statistics showed on Monday with doctors voicing concern over the trend, saying such silent infections can lead to spread of the contagion.

The statistics were released by the District Surveillance Team here on Monday, days after Ernakulam was declared "Green Zone" by the central government.

According to the team, eight out of 25 people who were treated for COVID-19 in Ernakulam district were asymptomatic.

Doctors warned that undiagnosed asymptomatic infection was dangerous as it may cause spread of virus and complicate efforts to bring it under control.

Ernakulam Government Medical College Hospital Resident Medical Officer Dr Ganesh Mohan said the ability of the novel coronavirus to be transmitted by persons with no symptoms was a major factor for the its spread.

The last patient under treatment for novel coronavirus in Ernakulam was discharged last week, making the district COVID-19 free.

Seven British nationals were treated at the hospital here for novel coronavirus but only one among was symptomatic to COVID-19, officials said.

"Asymptomatic carrier state is dangerous because no one doubts about such persons' health conditions. If there is an asymptomatic carrier, the patient himself will not suspect that he is sick and he will go on with his daily activities and he will spread the disease", Dr Mohan told PTI.

He said asymptomatic carriers should be a focus for disease prevention.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
PORTLAND, Ore., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- V-E Day on May 8 marks the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe. Veterans such as Thomas M. "Tom" O'Donnell returned home to start a new life after the war, and in doing so planted the seeds of prosperity for U-Haul, a product of the peace for which they fought.

U-Haul is celebrating 75 years of service in 2020. WWII Navy veteran L.S. "Sam" Shoen and his wife, Anna Mary Carty Shoen, conceived U-Haul in June 1945 when they recognized a basic need while moving up the West Coast, having abandoned most of their belongings since one-way trailer rentals did not yet exist.

From that idea, an industry was born and a new level of mobility became attainable for every American family. U-Haul was founded in Ridgefield, Wash., just 20 miles north of Portland, with the first Company-built trailers being assembled in the Carty family ranch milk barn.

To commemorate both anniversaries, U-Haul is celebrating former Team Members and U-Haul neighborhood dealers who served in WWII, such as Portland native Tom O'Donnell.

Air Force Pilot

O'Donnell was born in Portland in 1921. In 1940, he graduated from Jefferson High School. Three years later he entered the U.S. Air Force, where he was commissioned and assigned to the 303rd Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force stationed in Molesworth, England.

During WWII, O'Donnell was a B-17 bomber pilot and participated in 35 combat missions over enemy territory. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with five oak leaf clusters, and a Presidential Unit Citation. He also received the European African Middle Eastern Service Medal with three Bronze Stars.

One of the B-17s he piloted, the Thunderbird, flew 112 combat missions during WWII and is depicted in a mural displayed in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

After the war, O'Donnell enrolled in the University of Portland. He graduated cum laude in 1949 with a degree in business.

U-Haul Career

O'Donnell joined ARCOA, Inc. (name for the parent company of U-Haul at the time), in 1952 as a management trainee. Over the years, he held a number of executive management positions, including office manager, general manager, director of marketing and vice president.

He left ARCOA in 1967 when the company moved its corporate headquarters to Phoenix. O'Donnell went to be a partner in the Royal Fork restaurant chain, and later worked in banking, ranching and real estate development.

O'Donnell passed away in 2009 in Portland.

The Shoens started U-Haul upon Sam's discharge with $4,000 of accumulated Navy pay and the courage formed by the cauldron of WWII. With the help of other veterans, the young couple forged their new enterprise from the freedom that victory produced.

Veteran Initiative

Today, U-Haul serves all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces, helping an estimated 11 million families move every year. O'Donnell is one of the many veterans who laid the foundation for the present prosperity U-Haul enjoys.

U-Haul continues to aggressively recruit veterans and gives them preference in the hiring process, having been recognized repeatedly as one of the nation's top veteran-friendly employers. U-Haul is also committed to honoring veterans and supporting veteran causes. This is accomplished through direct assistance to veteran groups, as well as participation and sponsorship of Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades, and Pearl Harbor tributes.

These 2020 tributes will peak triumphantly with the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum's dedication of the renovated Ford Island Control Tower on Aug. 29. U-Haul Pacific Theater veterans' bios and photos will be displayed in the tower lobby. The tower will offer a new elevator, gifted by U-Haul CEO Joe Shoen, providing public access to the observation deck where America's lone WWII aviation battlefield can be revered and our heroes remembered.

U-Haul is one of a myriad of companies built by these incredible veterans, who are to be saluted and remembered during this 75th anniversary celebration. Thank you, Tom.

Find more veteran tributes in the History and Culture section of myuhaulstory.com.

About U-Haul

Since 1945, U-Haul has been the No. 1 choice of do-it-yourself movers, with a network of 22,000 locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. U-Haul Truck Share 24/7 offers secure access to U-Haul trucks every hour of every day through the customer dispatch option on their smartphones and our proprietary Live Verify technology. Our customers' patronage has enabled the U-Haul fleet to grow to approximately 167,000 trucks, 120,000 trailers and 43,000 towing devices. U-Haul offers nearly 697,000 rooms and 60.7 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities throughout North America. U-Haul is the largest installer of permanent trailer hitches in the automotive aftermarket industry, and is the largest retailer of propane in the U.S.

For our COVID-19 information page, click on uhaul.com/announcement.

Contact:

Jeff Lockridge

Sebastien Reyes

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: 602-760-4941

Website: uhaul.com

SOURCE U-Haul

Related Links

www.uhaul.com


Some churches restart in-person services across the country with precautions

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

At Champion Church in Yuma, Arizona, congregants and leaders donned a variety of face masks as they celebrated being back together inside their sanctuary for the first time in six weeks on Sunday.

I dont know about you, I cant speak for you but I can speak for myself. I appreciate the church, Lead Pastor Stephen Bloomfield told attendees in his sermon. "If you want to find out the value of something, just have it taken away. You know, youre just tired of your marriage, well lets see how you do without it for six weeks.

Champion Churchs reopening coincided with a national Reopen Church effort being spearheaded by Christian advocacy organization Liberty Counsel. The group called on churches to open and urged Christians to start meeting again on Sunday, May 3, which is also the beginning of the National Day of Prayer week, which culminates on Thursday. And many churches across the country resumed in-person services on Sunday with precautions.

Arizona residents had been ordered to shelter in place beginning March 31. Gov. Doug Ducey announced last week that he would extend the state's stay-at-home order to May 15 with some changes aimed at slowly reopening Arizona's economy. Churches, however, got some relief when the office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich advised that attendance at a church service is an essential activity," under an executive order put into place by Ducey.

When we got the word that we could actually come back inside  Everybody was jumping up and down, we were so incredibly thankful, Polly Aitken, who has attended Champion Church for 10 years, told Fox 9.

Bloomfield and his congregants had been conducting drive-thru and online services in the churchs parking lot since the shelter in place order became effective so returning to their sanctuary for worship was a major milestone. And at the 10 a.m. service on Sunday, there werent many empty seats, Fox 9 reported.

Were just really, really, blessed that we have this opportunity to open back up to the community and be everything God has called us to be, to just really uplift people's spirits, to bring hope  thats what its truly all about, LaCinda Bloomfield, the pastor's wife and also lead pastor, said.

During the service, Stephen Bloomfield reflected on the 6-week quarantine, telling congregants, "If you  look at it from Gods perspective, there has been a 40-day pause on the planet. What was that about? What was God saying?"

The pastor called it a time of "purification."

"In the Bible 40 days, . 40 years  is often a time of judgment but its also often a time of testing," he preached.

He encouraged the congregation to think about what God has been doing in their lives over the last 40 days in quarantine and stressed that God wants His people to become spiritually strong.

"He wants you to begin to trust Him like never before," Bloomfield said.

While they are not required to follow specific social distancing measures, the church said, they have required that everyone who attends their church wear a mask. The church also provides hand sanitizer at their doors.

We dont have to do these things specifically, they werent in the rules but we have chosen to do that because in an abundance of caution, we want to be a good example, Bloomfield told Fox 9.

In Iowa, those who chose to attend in-person services at Trinity Baptist Church, were also happy.

Being in church felt like coming home, Fran Lehnhoff noted in a report in the Des Moines Register, which said about 14 people had showed up for church and practiced social distancing.

Everyone was very mindful, very safe in how they approached todays service here, Joe Shaw, who does administrative work for the church, said. We need to make sure that continues as people return. We want people to go their own pace, to make sure they feel safe and comfortable during this time, but know that they still have a community here that is open and welcoming to them.

Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel founder and ordained pastor, told Fox News that it was beyond time for churches to have some form of in-person services."

"Churches have always been essential, now more than ever, whether government recognizes them or not. They've been discriminated against with these orders, he said.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus and the imposition of social distancing orders that affected the ability of churches to meet in-person, Liberty Counsel has represented churches defying those orders in several states, including Kentucky and Louisiana.

"I don't think any of these restrictions on churches  and we've reviewed thousands  are constitutional," Staver said. "They can't direct them to have online service or prohibit a drive-in service while people are in Walmart ... that kind of unequal treatment is exactly what Attorney General Barr is speaking against."

In their "Plan for Reopening," the Crossroads megachurch in Texas is requiring people to pre-register for services where they can choose a venue and time. Anyone with "concerns or health issues" is advised to stay home and watch online. The church has also suspended nursery service as well as their childrens and youth ministry.
An innovative new online food programme, from the Local Enterprise Offices, which is open to entrepreneurs across Kildare is set to boost the number of Irish food start-ups. The Digital School of Food is the first of its kind in Europe and gives food entrepreneurs expert advice and guidance, from their home, office or kitchen.



The new Digital School of Food was piloted in the Dublin region in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland and

Bord Bia. Following the successful pilot, it is now available to those with an idea for a food business in

Kildare run by the Local Enterprise Offices.

The online programme is an e-learning initiative that brings producers from idea right through to start-up and grow stages.



The programme will give food entrepreneurs an education in planning a product journey and route to market, through thinking about finance and how to grow sales, right up to expanding the business.

It includes support from experts in the field as each course has a real producer who contributes tips and advice throughout. The programme includes contributions from trade buyers in Supervalu, Musgraves and Spar along with the likes of Domini Kemp of ITSA Food Group and food producers who have been through

the system.



Entrepreneurs who complete the Digital School of Food are then primed to move on to take part in Food

Starter programme offered by the Local Enterprise Offices and subsequently Food Academy, which gives

producers the opportunity to get their product on retail shelves.



Heather Humphreys, T.D., Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, commenting on the new

programme, said: We have a proud heritage of producing world-class food in Ireland. Now, more than

ever, it is vital that we support our food firms and particularly budding entrepreneurs with ambitions to start

a new business. As needs have evolved, these programmes have evolved and the online Digital School of

Food is a testament to that. Aspiring food producers can now begin their journey from their own home.

The Local Enterprise Offices continue to innovate in the way that they are delivering programmes and this

is extremely significant now. They are playing a key role in helping our small businesses in this challenging

economic climate and they will be to the fore as small companies rise up in the coming weeks and

months.



Jacqui McNabb, Head of Enterprise Kildare County Council said: "Irish food is renowned the world over and

we enjoy an enviable reputation for high quality food production. It is important that we continue to cultivate

new food entrepreneurs and start-ups, particularly during these challenging times. The Digital School of

Food is an excellent first step for anyone with an idea to establish a food production business.

It will help them mould that idea to bring it to the next stage. This is particularly significant now, with many potential entrepreneurs at home, they can access this programme from anywhere.

The Digital School of Food is the latest support established for food entrepreneurs in Ireland by the Local

Enterprise Offices, following on from Food Academy and Food Starter. For more information on the Digital

School of Food go to www.DigitalSchoolofFood.ie

Kildare County Councils Local Enterprise Office Covid-19 Response



Kildare County Councils Local Enterprise Office have a suite of supports to help small businesses during

the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. These include the Business Continuity Voucher, which gives businesses

sector specific consultancy for their company to plan to deal with and recover from the current market

issues. The Trading Online Voucher helps companies to get their business online and establish a way of

selling their products to a wider network. The scheme has also been expanded to allow companies apply

for a second Trading Online Voucher if they have previously received one. Local Enterprise Offices are

also providing free business planning and mentoring to all small businesses affected by the Covid-19

pandemic. More information on all the supports can be found on localenterprise.ie/kildare
An Amish family was holding a funeral service on Saturday for four of their children who died in a buggy accident in northeastern Kentucky when authorities arrived with news: The body of a fifth child in the accident, missing for days, had just been found.

The five children, between 1 and 12 years old, had disappeared on Wednesday after their horse-drawn buggy overturned on a bridge in Peasticks, an Amish community in Bath County, about 50 miles northeast of Lexington. Four of the bodies were recovered the same day, while the fifth childs body was found on Saturday morning, the authorities said.

Andrew Owens, the coroner, said in an interview on Monday that members of the Amish community had filled the Hochstetler familys home on Saturday morning. The parents, who have six other children, were seated in the room near the handmade coffins holding the bodies of the four children  three girls and a boy  when they were told the body of the fifth child, a boy, had been found.

Image Father Jim Sichko from the Catholic Diocese in Lexington said he would provide aid to replace the buggy involved in the accident. Credit... Father Jim Sichko

We just came in together and broke the news to them, Mr. Owens, accompanied by state police and other officials, said in an interview. It was difficult for everybody, but there was also a sigh of relief knowing they could all be together. Mixed emotions. They were grieving.
If you invest through a full-service financial adviser, the COVID-19 crisis has tested your advisers ability to help you manage your investments in a smart way.

If they are doing a great job, this is their chance to shine and demonstrate tremendous value. But just as tellingly, the crisis can also reveal their shortcomings.

Heres a thumbnail sketch on what you should expect your adviser to be doing and  and just as importantly  not doing.

Like other tests, a successful outcome starts with proper preparation. A portfolio that was well-designed in the first place should help you withstand the stock market meltdown while still allowing you to achieve a reasonable set of long-term objectives.

If thats the case for you, your adviser should now be helping you stay the course, which involves avoiding the temptation to sell off equities at beaten down prices. You shouldnt have to do much to change up your portfolio, apart from at some point starting to rebalance.

Your advisers most meaningful role in a crisis is usually in providing communication, guidance and support, rather than doing much in the way of buying and selling investments.

The adviser should be creating psychological time and space to absorb, understand and process, says Stephen Horan, managing director for the Americas for the CFA Institute, a global organization of investment professionals.

During market downturns, its easy to get caught up in the prevailing sentiment of anxiety, and sometimes outright panic, but the good adviser counteracts that with an informed, calming presence to focus your attention on doing the right things.

This is where advisers can really add value because the advisers investment philosophy can be this centre of gravity, says Horan, who is also co-author of The New Wealth Management, a guide for financial advisers.

The investment process should have started with your adviser thoroughly understanding your needs and circumstances, then helping you build the right portfolio to match it.

If you are investing for long-term goals such as a comfortable retirement, that generally means creating a balanced portfolio consisting of stocks and relatively safe fixed income in a proportion that reflects your risk tolerance and other individual factors.

While the right combination will vary by individual circumstance, you generally need a sizable proportion in equities to drive most of your long-term returns, but also a chunk in relatively safe fixed income (like investment grade bonds and government-insured GICs) that doesnt earn much income these days but helps cushion your portfolio during a big stock downturn.

Periodic stock downturns are a fact of life, and every investor and adviser needs to be prepared for them to happen with little or no warning.

When stock downturns do happen, no one can reliably predict the path to recovery. The most you can count on is that the recovery can be expected to occur in an unpredictable pattern over what could be months or years.

That uncertainty means that the best approach to long-term investment success is usually to set a long-term asset allocation and largely stick to it through the ups and downs in the market  hence the stay the course approach that also entails a buy and hold approach to investing.

Its tempting to want to bail out of stocks during market sell-offs, but selling at low points turns paper losses that are generally temporary in nature into realized losses that are permanent.

Whether your advisers message is credible now depends on the expectations they developed over your relationship. If your adviser helped you clearly envision the risks and opportunities from the start, the message now should be a timely reminder rather than novel insight. Ideally these communications are made on a foundation that has already been built, says Horan.

In my view, your advisers message now should sound something like this: Remember when we set up your investment plan, I told you that a market downturn like this was likely to happen at some point with little or no advance warning? Remember also the investment plan that we created was designed to weather a storm like this provided you stuck with the plan?

The good adviser should shake up complacency in good times, but calm fears in bad times.

There may be legitimate reasons to revisit your asset allocation if you have a major change in circumstance, such as if youve been thrown out of work. Even then, a well-designed portfolio can help you weather that situation by providing a reasonable amount of cash and other relatively safe investments that can be accessed easily to help you bridge the period until you find another job. People dont think about a safety reserve as investment management, but it really is, says Horan.

If youre a retiree, your adviser can help you structure your portfolio to generate fairly reliable cash flow without the need to sell equities when stock prices are depressed.

While many investors find it difficult enough to stay the course with a buy and hold approach, the good adviser can help you perform even better by rebalancing. That, however, is at the next psychological level, says Horan. It just requires a lot of intestinal fortitude.

The general concept behind rebalancing is that at some point, when stocks have been reduced in value, you should sell investments that have largely maintained their value (like investment grade bonds or cashable GICs) to buy stocks at lowered prices. To explain why, Horan cites the Warren Buffett quip that I like to go shopping when things are on sale. But thats tough to do psychologically because it means acting precisely contrary to the prevailing emotional state that most other people are exhibiting.

Rebalancing is designed to get your asset allocation back to its target after its been thrown out of whack by the stock downturn. So if your target asset allocation is 60 per cent stocks and 40 per cent investment grade bonds, and stocks have declined by 20 per cent while your investment grade bonds are unchanged in value, the resulting asset allocation for now would be 55 per cent stocks and 45 per cent bonds. To rebalance, you would sell bonds and buy stocks until the asset allocation again reached 60 per cent stocks/40 per cent bonds.

There is no one right way to rebalance. Some experts prefer to do it quickly, but it is probably more common to do it gradually. It requires judgment and, with so much uncertainty, no one rebalances perfectly to catch the market bottom except through blind luck.

Although rebalancing isnt easy, it helps achieve superior investment performance in the long run, as Horan points out. Studies show that rebalancing strategically outperforms buy and hold, but buy and hold does outperform reactive trading.

Horan also described some red flags that may indicate your adviser isnt providing the quality of advice you should expect.

The first is someone with an inflated sense of confidence who leads you to believe they can reliably predict what the market is going to do in the near term. The second is the adviser who wants to make wholesale changes to your portfolio, which could indicate they didnt set it up right in the first place. The third is the adviser who exerts pressure, saying something like Markets are moving fast, weve really got to make a decision now.

Can online portfolio managers meet the demand for advice?

The recent market turbulence has also provided a test for online portfolio managers, commonly known as robo-advisers.

Despite the robo name, this relatively new form of low-cost investment management comes with limited amounts of support from fully qualified human advisers.

But investment industry skeptics have long wondered whether robo-advisers can provide enough human advice to meet client requests during periods of financial turmoil, when such demands tend to be at their greatest.

So far during the COVID-19 crisis it appears that robo-advisers have been able to keep up with demand  to a large extent anyway  and provide human advice on a timely basis.

We didnt really have any trouble keeping up with it, says Daniel Tersigni, a portfolio manager at Wealthsimple, by far the largest Canadian robo-adviser.

Clients have been able to book phone calls with Wealthsimple portfolio managers with lead times ranging from same day to a maximum two days, says Tersigni. They have been able to respond to the vast majority of high-priority emails within one business day, he added.

Portfolio managers have worked extended hours and been reassigned from other duties to answer increased inquiries.

Robo-advisers provide easy online account access across multiple devices, streamline processes and automate routine activities like the administrative side of setting up a new account. They typically use ETFs to create balanced portfolios that are matched to client needs in large part based on an online questionnaire.

Once the portfolio is in place, robo-advisers rebalance automatically and typically advocate a stay the course approach to maintaining the target asset allocation. They usually use website blogs and videos, as well as broadcast emails, to re-enforce that message.

Both Wealthsimple and another robo-adviser, Justwealth, say they have seen widespread acceptance among their clients of the stay the course philosophy during the COVID-19 crisis.

James Gauthier, Justwealths chief investment officer, says the firm has received more inquiries from clients interested in increasing their equity positions to take advantage of lowered stock prices than it has from anxious clients tempted to reduce their stock allocation.

Gauthier estimated that about one per cent of the firms clients have reacted emotionally to the stock market decline by insisting on a reduction of their equity exposure.
Laws rushed through by the Andrews government to protect renters have blocked tenants from moving out before their lease ends, unless they hand over their bond or go to the state planning tribunal to prove they are in financial hardship.

Previously, renters could simply give their landlord 28 days notice before leaving a property.

The changes were made under a raft of laws pushed through by the government in April to deal with the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

The government has conceded the error, and a spokeswoman said new regulations would be passed to provide clarity to the laws. She said those laws were intended to increase options for tenants who wanted to end a lease early during the coronavirus pandemic.

Natalie Smith wants to move out of her four-bedroom rental in Mernda. Credit:Eddie Jim

Natalie Smith has been trying to get maintenance done at her Mernda rental property since she moved in with her husband and two young children nine months ago.

With no resolution, the youth worker last week asked to mutually agree to end the lease but was told that wouldn't be possible.

"I think it's a basic right that we should be able to choose where we live, and that we don't have a choice in that is particularly stressful," Ms Smith said.

Read the full story.
Two floors of the Border Security Force (BSF) headquarters in Delhi were sealed on Monday after a staff member was tested positive for coronavirus disease Covid-19.

In a statement, the BSF said that a head constable was found Covid-19 positive on Sunday. He was working in an office on the second floor of BSF headquarters and last attended the office on May 1, the statement further said. It said that the first and second floors of the building have been closed as precaution.

All drills for sanitisation are being undertaken, the BSF said, adding that contact tracing is also underway and only bare minimum staff is working.

The BSF further said in the statement that its headquarters was closed early on Friday as a precautionary measure and the entire office complex was thoroughly sanitised with prescribed solutions of disinfectants.

The eight-storeyed BSF head office in the CGO complex on Lodhi road in central Delhi will be disinfected again today.

The BSF had said on Sunday that 42 of its personnel had been infected with Covid-19 so far. Of these, 31 belong to a 98-member unit that was deployed with Delhi Police at the markaz (centre) of Tablighi Jamaat at Nizamuddin and in Chandni Mahal area.

The BSF, with a strength of 2.5 lakh personnel, is primarily tasked with guarding the Indian borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, apart from rendering a variety of duties in the countrys internal security domain.

On Sunday, the Delhi headquarters of the Central Reserve Police (CRPF) was sealed after one of the staff members - a driver - tested positive for Covid-19. On Saturday, CRPFs 31st battalion in Delhi had reported 135 positive cases.

The central paramilitary forces have been asked by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to maintain safety standards for its personnel, sanitise its work places, work with reduced staff strength wherever possible.
Danielle Armstrong has told how it feels 'really weird' to celebrate her birthday in lockdown without her family and friends.

The former TOWIE star celebrated turning 32 with her fiance Tom Edney amid the ongoing coronavirus lockdown as she shared a picture of her cake on Instagram.

Danielle kept her spirits up as she flashed a peace sign while holding up her chocolate cake and wrote: 'Well this is a birthday to remember #lockdown #pregnant'.

Celebarations: Danielle Armstrong, 32, has told how it feels 'really weird' to celebrate her birthday in lockdown without her family and friends

The TV star, who is pregnant with her first child, also took to her Instagram Stories where she informed her followers she was keeping in virtual contact with her nearest and dearest.

She said: 'Hello my lovelies. Yes, it is my birthday. I am the lovely age of 32. It feels really weird. I know everyone has probably had a birthday in lockdown, there's many of you I've seen.

'But it feels really weird not seeing your friends and your family, having to do it on FaceTime. Usually my birthday is always really close to a bank holiday so we always go out.

'We always used to do pre-drinks at my house and then we'd go out. But this year is very different.'

Danielle said: 'Hello my lovelies. Yes, it is my birthday. I am the lovely age of 32. It feels really weird'

Danielle, who is expecting a girl, also mused about what it would be like if she were to go into labour and give birth on her birthday.

However, the blonde added that she hoped it didn't happen because she wants her daughter to have her own special day.

Several of Danielle's celebrity pals sent their well wishes to the star on her birthday including Jack Fincham, Mario Falcone, Ferne McCann and Billie Faiers.

It comes after the star told fans her 'lips feel huge' as she shared a pregnancy update at the end of last month.

Friends: Several of Danielle's celebrity pals sent their well wishes to the star on her birthday including Jack Fincham, Mario Falcone, Ferne McCann and Billie Faiers

Danielle was relaxing at home in Essex as she took to her Instagram Story to share how some followers thought she had gone into early labour.

She said: 'Hello my lovelies, I've had everyone messaging me... Well not everyone maybe four people saying I've been quiet on social media and asking if I've gone into labour.

'No, I am sitting here I'm just working from home. I've just been putting my feet up, literally.'

The reality star donned a pale grey bodycon dress and looked gorgeous with her blonde tresses styled in bouncy blow-dried curls.

She continued: 'Relaxing and working from home. And getting ready for baby girl to arrive.

Danielle added: 'But it feels really weird not seeing your friends and your family, having to do it on FaceTime'

'I am not actually due until May, so I've got a couple of weeks. She could come early but I'm not going to reveal my exact due date.'

Moving the camera closer to her face, Danielle shared: 'I am all good, my lips feel huge and I've actually got a bit of pigmentation going on. The joys!'

The reality star first announced she is expecting back in November 2019 and revealed her due date is in May.

She and Tommy have been long-term friends for 22 years and first went public with their relationship in September, after he 'swept Danielle off her feet' following her split from her ex-boyfriend Daniel Spiller.

Tommy proposed to Danielle during a trip to Dubai at the beginning of March.

Announcing the news on Instagram, Danielle gushed: 'Feel Like The Luckiest Girl In The World Right Now... I SAID YES #imengaged.'
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 17:10:44

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 901 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / GlobeX Data Ltd. (OTCQB:SWISF) (CSE:SWIS) ("GlobeX" or the "Company"), the leader in Swiss hosted cyber security and Internet privacy solutions for secure data management and secure communications, is pleased to announce that it has launched a new USA and Canada campaign for all its Secure Data Management and Secure Communications services.The sale campaign consists of reaching out to over 300 qualified resellers of cloud and security solutions in the USA and Canada. The demand for secure cloud services has increased exponentially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for corporate employees to use secure cloud services remotely.The services promoted will include:DigitalSafe, the Company's Swiss hosted secure document management and collaboration cloud business tool, which comes with a data backup and recovery, secure file share, collaboration tool, a password manager and a secure email all in one.PrivaTalk, the Company's Swiss hosted secure communications suite, which includes encrypted messaging with self-destruct timer, secure email and encrypted voice and video communications.Custodia, the Company's Swiss hosted end-to-end encrypted email service with its proprietary SecureSend and SecureReply technology.Custodia is already embedded in DigitalSafe and PrivaTalk and it is planned to be sold as well as a standalone service in Q3 2020.Alain Ghiai, CEO of GlobeX Data said: "We are now ready to start the campaign to reach out to US and Canadian resellers. As we increase our product capabilities and as we fill the market need for secure emails and secure cloud data backup and document management in this new post COVID-19 world, we look forward to welcoming new partners all over North America. Additionally, we are starting a new Search Engine Optimization effort over the next six months to increase dramatically our direct to website sales. This permits us to increase the variety of our user base globally and increase our profit margins. We have a lot of demand for our Custodia secure email and our PrivaTalk Messenger services. We plan to launch a website for Custodia in Q3 2020 and sell that service as a standalone service as well." The Company anticipates an increase in demand from businesses looking to guarantee the privacy and security of their data and communications, such as emails. GlobeX Data offers its unique VirtualVaults and HeliX proprietary technologies and its Swiss hosting, benefiting from Swiss data privacy laws, the strictest in the world. GlobeX Data is also launching its new proprietary and revolutionary Private and Secure Email service in Q3 2020 on its own with its own site. The Company expects to put resources to make this service one of the most successful in the industry worldwide.About GlobeX Data Ltd.GlobeX Data Ltd. is a Cybersecurity and Internet privacy provider of Swiss hosted solutions for secure data management and secure communications. The Company distributes a suite of secure cloud-based storage, disaster recovery, document management, encrypted e-mails, and secure communication tools. GlobeX Data Ltd. sells its products through its approved wholesalers and distributors, and telecommunications companies worldwide. GlobeX Data Ltd. serves consumers, businesses and governments worldwide.On behalf of ManagementGLOBEX DATA LTD.Alain GhiaiPresident and Chief Executive Officer+1.416.644.8690corporate@ globexdatagroup.com For more information please contact GlobeX Data at corporate@ globexdatagroup.com or visit us at https://globexdatagroup.com For more information on DigitalSafe visit us at: https://digitalsafe.com . For more information on DigitalSafe visit us at: https://privatalk.com Forward Looking InformationThis news release contains certain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws ("forward-looking statements"). All statements other than statements of present or historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "achieve," "could," "believe," "plan," "intend," "objective," "continuous," "ongoing," "estimate," "outlook," "expect," "project" and similar words, including negatives thereof, suggesting future outcomes or that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations; they are not guarantees of future performance. GlobeX cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond GlobeX's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the future of the Company's business; the success of marketing and sales efforts of the Company; the projections prepared in house and projections delivered by channel partners; the Company's ability to complete the necessary software updates; increases in sales as a result of investments software development technology; consumer interest in the Products; future sales plans and strategies; reliance on large channel partners and expectations of renewals to ongoing agreements with these partners; anticipated events and trends; the economy and other future conditions; and other risks and uncertainties, including those described in GlobeX's prospectus dated May 8, 2019 filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available on www.sedar.com . Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, GlobeX undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.SOURCE: GlobeX Data Ltd.
Just over 60% of doctors here have warned the health situation for non-Covid patients is worsening as the pandemic crisis continues.

The findings come as a further five Covid-19 deaths were confirmed in Northern Ireland yesterday, bringing the death toll to 381.

The Department of Health also reported an additional 78 people have tested positive for the virus, raising the total of confirmed cases to 3,767.

As of yesterday, there were also a total of 32 patients with Covid-19 in intensive care here.

Overall, the number of deaths across the UK rose by 315 to 28,446.

In the Republic, a further 19 people have died with Covid-19 to bring the national total to 1,303.

A major survey published today by the British Medical Association NI found that 60.84% of GPs here believe that the health prospects of those without the deadly virus here are significantly or slightly worsening.

Dr Tom Black, BMA Northern Ireland council chair, said it is imperative the medical needs of patients who do not have the infection are addressed quickly.

His plea comes after official statistics reported by the Belfast Telegraph revealed a spike in excess deaths last month.

Some 180 (43%) of the 410 additional deaths above the average registered in the three weeks up to April 17 were not directly attributed to the deadly virus.

The figures highlight growing concern that the number of people with life-threatening conditions not seeking medical help is growing.

DUP Westminster leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson raised the figures reported by this newspaper in Parliament, appealing to the Government to take action to safeguard non-Covid patients.

Adding to Sir Jeffrey's call, Dr Black said urgent attention needs to be given to getting non-coronavirus patients "back into the system".

"As we move towards the second phase of Covid-19 and what will be a 'new normal', we need to urgently look at how we begin to get patients with non-Covid illnesses back into the system, as well as dealing with ongoing Covid cases and the new Covid cases that will undoubtedly emerge," he said.

The BMA survey also found that 44% of members said their main concern at this time was the longer-term impact on patient clinical demand.

Dr Black said the findings of the survey - the largest of its kind undertaken by medics here so far during the pandemic - show the health authorities must intervene to improve the situation for non-Covid patients.

"Doctors can see that without some type of 'twin track' approach now being developed, the prospects for patients will worsen," he explained.

"The Health Minister (Robin Swann) has acknowledged that we already had a dreadful situation with our waiting lists and that has not got better during the pandemic," added the BMA chairperson.

"But it will be even more challenging now to address those long waits, see new patients who have been reluctant to seek help during the initial pandemic phase and maintain the ability to pivot our services again should we see a second surge in coronavirus cases."

Dr Black said lessons had to be learned from the initial stage of the pandemic, and apply them going forward.

The survey of 652 doctors from across Northern Ireland was carried out between April 28 and 30.

It also found that a quarter of doctors felt they were experiencing increasing levels of depression, anxiety, stress and burnout because of the pandemic.

Just under 57% said that they had either bought PPE or had it donated to them for use due to non-availability of official NHS procurement supplies.

More than half (54%) felt either partly or not at all protected from coronavirus infection in their place of work.

Dr Noel Sharkey, chair of the BMA NI junior doctors committee, said the impact of working amid the pandemic crisis is having a negative impact on their wellbeing.

"It is concerning to see members saying they are feeling increasingly stressed due to the pandemic," he revealed.

"Speaking to my junior doctor colleagues, they are telling me that they have had their rotas changed without proper consultation, they are being asked to work longer and more anti-social hours than before the pandemic and often in a new specialty area. This feeling is reflected in the survey results where over 66% of doctors tell us they were not given a choice to accept redeployment. There is no doubt that this will have a negative impact on mental health."
Rosie ODonnell was a guest on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Sunday night, when she shared a disturbing story about comedian Bill Cosby. According to ODonnell, Cosby sexually harassed an unnamed staff member.

ODonnell hosted her own talk show, The Rosie ODonnell Show, from 1996 to 2002. During that time Cosby made seven guest appearances, but on this occasion he was pretending to be a mystery guest.

A producer prepped Cosby just prior to going on stage, explaining, [Rosie ODonnell]'s not going to know it's you. ODonnell alleged Cosby told the producer, All [ODonnell] has to do is put her hand right here -- and he put his hand near his penis -- and she'll know it's me.

Read more: Bill Cosby reps brands Eddie Murphy 'a Hollywood slave'

ODonnell claims the staff member was so upset over the lewd comment that she began crying and left.

Bill Cosby is escorted out of the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, Tuesday Sept. 25, 2018, in Eagleville, Pa., following his sentencing to three-to-10-year prison sentence for sexual assault. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma)

She went on to say, I was one of those people who knew he was guilty from a long time ago and was not surprised by all of his -- the charges against him.

In the time since this alleged incident, Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by at least 60 women. In 2018 he was convicted on three counts of sexual assault and sentenced to 3 to 10 years in a Pennsylvania prison.

ODonnell also revealed that she wanted to share the story during her time on The View, but was denied. On The View they would not discuss it every time I tried to bring it up, recalled ODonnell, it became a little fight.
by Kim Sang-wook

The denial comes from the Office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in. South Korean Minister for Unification: news of his illness or death is "fake news". Kim reappeared on May 1st during an inauguration. A North Korean exile said he was 99% certain he was dead.

Seoul (AsiaNews) - The Office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in denies that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has recently undergone surgery, not even a minor one.

In recent weeks rumors circulated about his poor health or even his death. Citing national intelligence, South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul spoke of "fake news".

The strong man from Pyongyang reappeared on May 1 while taking part in the inauguration of a fertilizer factory in Sunchon, north of the capital. The images shown by the KNA state agency broke the silence on his fate.

Kim has not appeared in public since April 11, when he chaired a high-level meeting of the Workers' Party, which has been governing North Korea since the end of World War II.

According to Daily NK, a website linked to the South Korean government, Kim underwent to cardiovascular surgery on 12 April for obesity problems, too much smoking and overwork. CNN relaunched the news, claiming that he was in "serious danger".

Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean exile newly elected to the Seoul Parliament, said he was "99% sure" of Kim's death. The failure to attend the ceremony on April 15 for the 108 years since the birth of his grandfather Kim Il-sung, the founder of the regime, had fueled the mass of rumors.

North Korea is one of the most insular countries, where the flow of news is very controlled. The health of its leader is treated as a matter of national security, given the fear of real or alleged coups.
BENTONVILLE, Ark., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- 4media group, Inc., a global integrated communications and market research company, today announced the acquisition of media relations firm News Generation, Inc. The acquisition strengthens the suite of tailored media relations services 4media group offers to clients, including satellite media tours, radio media tours, audio news releases, public service announcements and podcast production.

Ed Cyster, global CEO and President of 4media group, said, "Although we're in unprecedented times, I find confidence in seeing our global team continue to grow. Now more than ever, our business is supporting our clients and helping them communicate during this crisis. We are also keeping a keen eye on the future and are focused on staying at the forefront of integrated media relations as we enter this new chapter."

News Generation, Inc. is an issue-driven media relations firm specializing in broadcast media techniques. Founded in 1997 by Susan Matthews Apgood, News Generation has been a trusted partner to associations, non-profits, government agencies, and corporations for more than 22 years.

"Susan is one of the most respected and dependable media relations professionals in the industry," said Cyster. "She and her team are the go-to for so many incredible organizations looking for assistance communicating their meaningful messages."

The News Generation team, based in Bethesda, Maryland, is looking forward to the opportunity to offer even more value to clients with the resources 4media group is so well-known for.

"4media group has established itself as a true partner in communications and market research and has some of the best talent in the industry on its team. Clients come to them to produce campaigns from research, to content creation, to media relations and more. They deliver results, and we are proud to be a part of this dynamic and growing team," said Apgood.

About 4media group, Inc.

4media group is an integrated communications group specializing in market research, digital, broadcast and public relations. Services they deliver include qualitative and quantitative research, online polling, PR surveys, focus groups, social and influencer engagements, native advertising, satellite media tours, radio media tours, video production, news distribution, public service announcements, and public relations. 4media group's global headquarters are located in London, England, and U.S. headquarters are located in Bentonville, Arkansas with remote offices covering New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando and Washington DC.

Media Contact:

Dan Schwartzberg

Phone: (914) 260 7624

Email: [email protected]

Related Images

4media-group.png

4media group

4media group

Related Links

4media group

News Generation

SOURCE 4media group, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.4media-group.com


More repat flights given green light

THAILAND: A new order issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) yesterday (May 3) has granted permission to operate special international flights between 7am and 7pm each day.

transporttourismCoronavirusCOVID-19health

By The Phuket News

Monday 4 May 2020, 06:08PM

Russian nationals at Phuket Airport awaiting one of the limited repatriation flights on Saturday (May 2). Photo: AoT Phuket

After the resumption of domestic flights on May 1, most airports, except Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang and U-Tapao, have remained closed to international flights.

The CAAT order allows all international airports, including Krabi, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Samui, Surat Thani, Hat Yai and Hua Hin, to handle special status international flights, such as those repatriating foreign nationals or flying home Thai citizens.

Phuket International Airport was not specifically named on the CAAT list but has been operating selected flights for some time now to repatriate overseas citizens.

On Saturday (May 2) an Aeroflot flight flew 296 Russian passengers off the island and back home. The following day, 14 Chinese nationals were repatriated on a specially arranged flight.

Phuket International Airport will continue to be shut to the public until May 15 at the request of Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana but will permit landings and takeoffs of overseas repatriation flights. The island has been one of the COVID-19 hotspots in the South, with 220 infections and two deaths so far since the virus outbreak began.

However, scheduled, commercial flights to and from overseas destinations remain off-limits to international airports after the CAAT extended the ban on them on April 27 until the end of the month in a sustained effort to contain the outbreak.

The CAAT announced earlier that all commercial flight permits granted for this period have now been cancelled.

The agency added that the ban does not apply in special cases such as for state or military aircraft, emergency landings, technical landings without disembarkation, humanitarian aid, medical and relief flights, repatriation flights and cargo flights.

The persons on board aircraft arriving in the country from overseas will be subject to measures under the communicable disease law, such as 14 days of state quarantine and regulations under the emergency decree, according to the order.

Airports are allowed to operate these international flights from 7am to 7pm, which are the same hours that domestic services have been running since May 1.

Airlines are required to inform their customers about the virus containment measures and health check procedures that will be performed at airports.

Passengers must be told of these measures at the point of sale and again when they arrive at the airports to check in for their flights, according to CAAT.

Passengers who are unable to comply with the measures must be rebooked on another flight with no penalty fee incurred.

Limited domestic flights resume

The CAAT ruling comes after limited domestic flights resumed last Friday (May 1). All international passenger flights remain banned.

The news was announced in a notice posted on the official Facebook page of the Airports of Thailand (AoT) management at Phuket airport at 5:50pm on April 29.

Governor Tavipatana explained in the notice that the extension of temporary suspension of operations at the airport was an extension of his request for AoT to cease operations at Phuket airport from April 10 to April 30.

That notice explained that the purpose of the formal notice was to inform CAAT and other tourism-related offices so they could make preparations for the closure.

From the meeting today (Apr 29), the Phuket Communicable Disease Committee all agreed to extend the closure of Phuket International Airport for 15 days, from 00.01am of May 1 until 23.59pm of May 15, the notice explained.

According to COVID outbreak situation, Phuket has the second-highest number of infected people in the country and the highest infection rate (per capita) in the country. Even though the rate of infection is falling, we still have new confirmed cases every day [sic] in many areas of Phuket [sic].

So we still have to screen and observe for people at risk, it added.

Hence, the Phuket Government still has necessary reason to control the port [airport] in order to prevent any outbreak.

We would like to inform the relevant officials to prevent local people and tourists from being affected, and other relevant sectors, who may be affected by this order, the notice assured.

If any relevant officials [are affected] and need to do anything that involves this order, please inform the Phuket Government as quickly as possible so consideration can be taken, it added.

Unprecedented public hygiene measures

Four airlines resumed domestic flights on May 1 with unprecedented public hygiene measures employed to reduce the possibility of COVID-19 transmission.

Nok Air, AirAsia, Thai Lion Air and Thai Vietjet Air were allowed to reinstate flights between 14 provinces after a month-long suspension now that the number of COVID-19 infections was falling.

The 14 provincial airports are in Lampang, Taks Mae Sot, Phitsanulok, Buri Ram, Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom, Roi Et, Khon Kaen, Ubon Ratchathani, Udon Thani, Trang, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani and Krabi, in addition to Don Mueang airport and Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok.

The airlines are required to comply with additional health and safety measures prescribed by CAAT.

Perspex barriers have been installed to block contact between passengers and airport officials, according to Tawee Gasisam-ang, director-general of Department of Airports.

The department has also stipulated that disinfection chemicals must be applied to all contact points and surfaces as well as passengers luggage. Airport staff are required to wear face shields, masks and gloves, and all passengers will be required to pass through a thermal scanning area.

In order to maintain social distancing, the CAAT has reduced the number of passengers allowed on shuttle buses to 20 per trip instead of the usual 60.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 13:12 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c5e4c 1 Business Indonesia,agricultural-commodities,exports,COVID-19,first-quarter-2020,Syahrul-Yasin-Limpo,garlic-import Free

Indonesias exports of agricultural commodities have continued despite logistical disruptions caused by measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Agriculture Ministry officially dispatched a shipment of 94,000 tons of agricultural commodities including mangosteen, ornamental plants, coconut water, nutmeg and cloves last week to 43 countries in Asia and Europe through the countrys nine main ports.

In April, Indonesia exported nearly 1.5 million tons of at least 166 types of agricultural products, which were valued at Rp 26.8 trillion (US$1.7 billion).

We have noticed that our exports have continued amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the ministrys Agriculture Quarantine Agency head, Ali Jamil, said in an online briefing on April 30.

The fast-spreading coronavirus, which has infected over 3 million people worldwide, has forced some countries to temporarily impose lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus, causing logistical disruptions.

The disruptions have in part caused the volume of Indonesias agricultural exports to decline slightly by 0.1 percent year-on-year (yoy) to 9 million tons between January and March. In March, agricultural exports accounted for 2.25 percent of the country's total exports.

However, the ministry reported the export value rose 14.35 percent yoy to around Rp 100 trillion between January and March. Of the four subsectors, only food crop exports showed a decline, losing 14 percent of its value.

With the pandemic having an impact on food availability, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned countries that it is important to ensure that trade restrictions do not distort the global market.

The Trade Ministry temporarily eased the import process for several key commodities by allowing companies to purchase products from overseas without permits. The Agriculture Ministry sped up the issuance of import recommendations for over 460,000 tons of garlic.

I want the Agriculture Ministry to have a deep sense of the crisis as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo said in the same online briefing. We can only fight the coronavirus if food availability is certain.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 14:39 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5cb1b6 1 Food elderly-in-Indonesia,COVID-19,#COVID19,coronavirus,#coronavirus,Heinz-ABC,donation Free

PT Heinz ABC Indonesia, the Indonesian food division of US-based food giant Kraft Heinz Company, has launched an initiative that focuses on helping the elderly amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through "Gerakan untuk Lansia di Bulan Ramadan" (Movement for the Elderly this Ramadan), the company aims to donate Rp 7.5 billion (US$493,000) for seniors citizens, who are "statistically more vulnerable and hence need nutrition and support."

Read also: Why are older people more at risk of coronavirus?

[The initiative] also [aims] to spread good deeds this Ramadan," Steven Debrabandere, managing director of Kraft Heinz Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, said in a statement, adding that the public could join the movement by purchasing ABC products at convenience store chains Alfamart and Alfamidi, as each purchase meant they are donating Rp 1,000 to the cause.

The company collaborates with social organization Foodbank of Indonesia to distribute the donations in Jakarta, Tangerang in Banten, Bekasi and Bandung in West Java, Surakarta in Central Java, Yogyakarta as well as Surabaya and Pasuruan in East Java.

Gerakan untuk Lansia di Bulan Ramadan is slated to run until May 31.

Various initiatives have been launched by companies, communities and individuals to help the public and government weather the pandemic. The government recently disbursed around Rp 70 billion in cash assistance for some 116,000 families using village funds to help them cope with the severe economic and social impacts of the outbreak. (wir/kes)
Nearly seven weeks ago, Dallas announced it was introducing its first restrictions in connection to COVID-19, restricting gatherings to less than 50 people.

Since the announcement, life for the Texans has turned upside down. In just a few weeks, big gatherings were prohibited, daycares, schools, and non-essential businesses closed, and everyone was encouraged to stay home.

Scott Gottlieb from the American Enterprise Institute told Politico that Dallas was flagged "as a city of concern, and he'd be worried about it."

Specifically, the lack of COVID-19 testing in Texas, resulting in a possibly undercount of infections one of the main reasons Gottlieb is worried about Dallas.

He added, the city's hospitals created an eerie feeling of the calm before the storm. Relatively, infections started to spread, and the whole town started bracing for the worst.

The Governor's Order

This will be the first whole week that the order of Gov. Greg Abbot to reopen Texas is taking effect. A choice of industries which include malls, cinemas, and restaurants are allowed to return to the business at 25-percent capacity.

However, it was only recently that the federal government recommended that people store food and self-care products on hand, good for 30 days, in case they couldn't be accessed easily.

Such changes take a level of mental exercises, and there is a need for gentleness and graciousness to come into terms with it.

Generally, the reopening tactic of Texas strikes the proper balance of both health and economic risks. And, while the so-called "coastal elite" may shake their heads at another venture of the state into the wild west, the order seems measured and cautious, unlike the plans, for instance, in Georgia.

Essentially, the staggering of industries that can operate again based on those engaging the least human contacts makes sense, not to mention, opening at smaller and lower capacities to see whether outbreaks are triggered before they open more broadly.

Reassuringly, the economies currently being permitted to open first are frequently in line with the "Johns Hopkins Public Health Principles" reopening that's phased, during the pandemic, ranking sectors by the intensity of human contact.

Low- or less-contact interactions were defined as being from a distance, or brief. High-contract interactions, on the other hand, mean having proximity or prolonged exposure.

Moreover, it is no longer surprising that retail is comparatively low and, therefore, opening first compared to public transit, place of worship, or gyms.

Consequently, a lot of consumers and businesses are possibly to take that "wait-and-see" tactic, so capacity is probably to be below that which is permitted.

Adequate Testing Would Inspire More Confidence

Fundamentally, it would stimulate more confidence if COVID-19 were in place for the assessment of new occurrences of the outbreak. Aside from being nice to have, it is also essential for the whole strategy to work.

In the report from the Gottlieb American Enterprise Institute, about the road map to return to business, the trigger for such a reopening of businesses, whatever type it is, as well as schools, includes having the ability to test everyone with the symptoms of COVID-19 and actively monitor patients and these they've been in contact with.

These conditions are on top of the sustained lessening in COVID-19 cases for at least two weeks. Unfortunately, as observed by some experts, Texas has not achieved those yet.

It seems that Gov. Abbott has taken a bit of a strategy called "divide-and-conquer," rather than completely reopening, to return to business with partial testing partly.

In connection to this, the spacing of Gov. Abbot's phases from which gyms will open on May 18, among other businesses, and there is an increase in capacity to 50 percent, feels quite so short to thoroughly understand the effect of reopening on contagion rates, given the gaps in testing.

Check these out!

Florida Cancer Center to Pay $120 Million in Penalties After Committing Violations

Trump Urges States to Consider Opening of Schools Before the School Year Ends

Texas 'Stay-at-Home' Order Expires on Thursday, Government Details Strategies on Reopening
Crowdsourcing data on when companies are going back will be especially helpful to get a true snapshot of whats really happening across the country.

Currently in a soft-launch status, the new website thestateof.work will be a public resource providing the condition of employment and work in each state. The site was created by Boston-based recruiting firm #twiceasnice Recruiting and encourages people around the country to submit data using the 'your state of work' form to help build out a collective understanding of the state of work. This crowdsourced information along with data gathered from official announcements, will be broken down by each state with color-coded visuals.

#twiceasnice Recruiting started this project for internal use only but saw the benefits it could have for people around the country. We have clients across the US and it was hard to track when each state was reopening and when people would actually be heading back to the office, says President Patrick Cahill. Whether someone is looking for work, trying to sell across the country, or just curious about the trends the goal is collect and share essential data.

What we have found through our work is that while states may be opening, some companies are not ready to get back to normal. Crowdsourcing data on when companies are going back will be especially helpful to get a true snapshot of whats really happening across the country, says Cahill.

Weekly unemployment numbers and when states are 'reopening' is known, but it is unclear when companies will return to business as usual. Will management be nervous? Will employees be scared? Or does everyone just want to get back to seeing their work buddies? How will this all impact the state of work across the US? #twiceasnice Recruiting is hoping that with the publics help this website could help provide more clarification for the country.

About #twiceasnice Recruiting

#twiceasnice Recruiting helps clients save money and hire better with custom built searches, 9.9% fee, and an 18-month guarantee across industries, roles, and North America. Hundreds of clients have trusted #twiceasnice Recruitings unique recruiting approach. https://twonice.com/
Tourism is the "only show in town" for many places across Ireland and will play a key role in revitalising the economy once the pandemic has ended, according to Tim Fenn, CEO of the Irish Hotels Federation.

Despite the wounds being inflicted on the economy during the crisis, Mr Fenn said his association is not seeing the same kind of fallout in the hotel sector that was experienced during the financial crash, when banks pulled the plug on many hotels around the country.

Mr Fenn said that between 2004 and 2008 there had been a 32pc increase in hotel capacity, spurred by generous capital allowance schemes which encouraged investors to pile into the sector.

But the rug wasn't pulled from under those schemes in time.

Mr Fenn warned that if banks were to repeat the wave of hotel repossessions they undertook in the last recession, it would start a "race to the bottom".

"It's going to bring down the value of all our assets and that's not going to be sustainable," he said.

Mr Fenn said that in the short term at least there will be a question over the amount of hotel capacity in the Irish market.

However, he said all that capacity might not be available for some time due to social-distancing requirements which may be needed in hotels and guest houses.

"There's a whole level of unknown in all this," he said.

The Irish Hotels Federation has sought the re-introduction of a 9pc VAT rate for hotel and other sectors, as well as addressing local rates paid by hotels.

But it was left disappointed over the weekend when a 6.5bn package of business supports unveiled by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe didn't include the hoped-for cut.

The federation said the supports aren't sufficient for the tourism sector.

"We want the Government to restore the 9pc rate on a permanent basis," said Mr Fenn.

"We understand the Exchequer is in serious trouble. We just want them to recognise that there are 28 countries in Europe that have lower VAT rates than we have."
Berkshire Hathaways property/casualty insurance and reinsurance businesses reported a first quarter underwriting profit of $747 million before taxes, nearly double the pretax underwriting profit of $377 million recorded for first-quarter 2019.

Property/casualty and life insurance and reinsurance businesses combined recorded $1.7 billion of operating profit after taxes in the first quarter, up from $1.6 billion for the same quarter in 2019.

Across all of Berkshires operations, including those not related to insurance, operating income was $5.9 billion. But unrealized investment losses of more than $55 billion meant a bottom line loss of $50 billion.

The biggest driver of the 7.6 percent jump in insurance profit was a 12 percent increase in investment income compared to first-quarter 2019. Underwriting income fell 6.7 percent to $363 million after taxes, mainly as a result of underwriting losses recorded in Berkshires life reinsurance operations.

In reporting its first-quarter 2020 earnings on Saturday, Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a $230 million provision for COVID-19 related reinsurance losses and prior-year loss development of $212 million in its property/casualty reinsurance business, aggregated together. Although Berkshires 10-Q filing disclosed adverse development of $212 million in Berkshire Hathaways reinsurance operations, which include General Re, favorable prior-year development of $172 million at GEICO and in Berkshires other primary operations nearly offset that.

Not Big in Business Interruption

Berkshires SEC filing for the first quarter gives no further details the $230 million COVID-19 loss provision for the P/C reinsurance operations, and CEO Warren Buffett did not mention it during the conglomerates annual meeting on Saturday. But when asked about the absence of a provision for Berkshires insurance operations, he did note that the primary ops arent big providers of business interruption coverage in the commercial multiple peril line.

We will have claims. We will have litigation costs. But proportionally, its not the same with us as with some other companies which are heavier in writing business interruption as part of a commercial multi-peril policy, he said.

Speaking more generally about the state of the industry on business interruption, Buffett said that many policies quite clearly in the contract language would not respond to claims for businesses shut down by the pandemic.

But other policies do. I think I know of one company, I dont know the details, thats written a fair amount wherecertainly theres a good argument that they cover business interruption that might arise from a pandemic, he said, referring to the company twice without disclosing the name. They are in a very different position than the standard language which says that you recover for business interruption only if [it] involves physical damage to the property.

Giving a mini-lesson in business income insurance coverage, Buffett asserted, You dont automatically get coverage if you have business interruption, offering two situations to illustrate how the coverage works. In one situation, he noted that one of Berkshires properties in France was adjacent to a smaller one that had a fire, which spread to Berkshires plant. It caused a lot of physical damage, and we have business interruption that ties in with that. But if we had some company [that] we were selling auto parts to and they had a strike, our business would be interrupted. But thats not covered. Thats not part of the coverage unless you specifically really buy it, he said.

So, theres some claims that are going to be very valid related to the present situation. There will be an awful lot, [which] there will be litigation on, that wont be valid, he said.

GEICO and Reduced Driving

Buffett was asked whether its biggest insurance operation by premium volume, GEICO, will likely experience unusually high profitability in 2020, even after giving customers a 15 percent credit to reflect reduced driving during the pandemic.

Noting the companies are handling the discounts differently, with GEICO giving 15 percent over a period of six months while other insurers are giving higher discounts over a shorter time period, Buffett asserted that GEICOs total estimated giveback of $2.5 billion is the largest dollar amount. In addition, insurers are giving policyholders more time to pay for insurance. If they cancel their policy or they dont end up paying us, weve, in effect, given them free insurance during that period, he said, also speculating there will be more uninsured motorists driving this year. They cause a disproportionate amount of accidents.

So, theres a lot of variables. We made our best guess as to what were going to do to reflect the current reduced accidents in our premiums that we receive really for the next year, he said, noting that while the discounts apply for the six months from April through October, policies renewing in October extend into April.

Weve made a guess on it. And well see how it works out, Buffett said.

During the first quarter, which ended prior to the start of the discount period, GEICO reported $984 million in pretax underwriting earnings, a 28 percent increase over first-quarter 2019, as written premiums grew 4.5 percent to $9.7 billion. With shelter-in-place actions already impacting claims, frequencies fell 12-14 percent for property damage and collision and 6-8 percent for bodily injury, while claim severities rose 6-9 percent for the property coverages and 4-6 percent for bodily injury.

This is excerpted from a more in-depth report on Berkshire Hathaways 2020 annual meeting published by CarrierManagement.com.

Topics COVID-19 Profit Loss Reinsurance Property Property Casualty
PR-Inside.com: 2020-05-04 19:07:01

MONTREAL, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Optimum Financial Group presented once again excellent financial results at Optimum Group Inc.s annual shareholders meeting on April 30, 2020, with respect to its 2019 financial year.



The Group, whose 2019 year marked its 50th anniversary, continued its growth and achieved revenues of more than one billion dollars for the first time in its history. The shareholders return on equity reached more than 11% and written premiums progressed by 10% in 2019, while total assets grew by 13%.

Furthermore, asset management in Canada, France and the United States totaled nearly 8 billion dollars of assets under management as of March 31, 2020.

The rigorousness of our teams, combined with the performance of our subsidiaries, notably in the sectors of life reinsurance, general insurance and life insurance, have particularly contributed to our success this year, commented Anabelle Blondeau, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Determined to pursue our international development in asset management, we completed in 2019 the acquisition of the assets of a US-based asset management firm and added its team of managers to our teams in Montreal and Paris, continued Ms. Blondeau.

During the financial year, the AM Best agency upgraded from A- to A (Excellent) the financial strength rating of the group's two rated insurance sectors, life reinsurance and property and casualty insurance.

Optimum Financial Group has also bestowed the 2019 Optimum Enterprise Award to Optimum General Inc. for having increased its revenues and improved its profitability, which resulted in a return of 14.5% on its equity value in Optimum Group inc. This annual award recognizes the exceptional contribution of a subsidiary to the Groups overall performance.

About Optimum General Inc.

Since 1976, the team provides insurance to Canadians from its offices located in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia. Optimum General Inc. is a Canadian holding active through its three companies: Optimum Insurance Company Inc., Optimum West Insurance Company Inc. and Optimum Farm Insurance Inc. Optimum General Inc., Canadian-owned, is a subsidiary of Optimum Group Inc., a private and diversified financial group with international operations.

www.optimum-general.com

About Optimum Financial Group

Since 1969, Optimum Groups team of experts has been working to preserve the financial security of its customers. Global and privately-owned, it is diversified in the sectors of life insurance, general insurance, life reinsurance, actuarial consulting, asset management, information technologies and real estate. The Group has more than 600 employees in subsidiaries mainly across Canada, in the United States and in France. Its revenues generate more than one billion dollars and its total assets amount to 5,4 billion dollars. www.optimumgroup.com

For further information, please contact:

Louis Fontaine

Senior Vice President, Legal Affairs and General Secretary

Optimum Group Inc.

+1 514 288-2010
Long queues were seen outside



liquor outlets in Mumbai and Pune on Monday, a day after the state government said shops of non-essential items, including liquor, will be allowed to open in COVID-19 non-containment zones, but to the dismay of the customers, they remained shut.

The confusion was apparently due to a contradictory communication from the excise department, a shop owner said. A senior state government official said no order has been issued to keep these liquor shops closed.

A liquor shop owner from suburban Kalina said the liquor shopwoners got a circular from the excise department on Sunday evening, asking not to open the outlets.

"Our shops have already been sealed by the department. I contacted other liquor shop owners. They are also not going to open the outlets till the excise department gives a clear order," he said.

Tipplers queued up outside liquor shops in Dahisar, Matunga, Santacruz, Malwani, Kandivali and other places since early hours of Monday, but found the outlets closed.

In some areas, police announced that the liquor shops will not open on Monday and asked people to go back home.

Sooraj Pawar from suburban Santacruz said, "We earlier got to know the outlet was going to openfrom Sunday nightso we assembled here. But, we later left when the shop owner said it will be openon Monday morning. Now, we are standing here since early morning, but the shop is closed. We want liquor at any cost.

Local resident Happy Singh said he and others were standing outside a wine shop in Kalina for last six hours, expecting that it would open.

"But now we came to know that the shop is not going to open today," he said.

In Pune also, people started queuing up outside liquor shops in Kothrud, Sinhgad Road, Vishrantwadi and Deccan areas well before 10 am, but no shop opened.

The excise department and the district administration will issue an order on this, an excise official said.

Pune Police have extended prohibitory orders till May 17, but allowed some partial relaxations.

Five shops of non-essential goods on a particular road or lane will be allowed to open between 10 am and 6 pm in non-containment zones, as per a Pune Police order.

Pune Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad said police will take a call on allowing five non-essential shops to remain open on a single road or lane.

The area under COVID-19 containment zones in Pune has reduced, he said.

"As per the revised containment zones, out of 330 sqkm area, only three per cent of area is currently under the containment zones," he said.Z



In the remaining 97 per cent area, normalcy will gradually be back from Monday in terms of daily business, and construction activities will also be allowed to resume there, he said.

Gaikwad also said only one personis allowed to ride a two-wheeler, and three persons, including a driver and two on the back seat, are allowed in a car.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Government has said feasibility studies have been completed to construct additional interchanges to complement the ongoing Sofoline interchange project in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.

The Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwesi Amoako Atta in February this year, assured that the remaining works on the Kumasi Sofoline Interchange will be completed by six months' time, with the return of the contractors of the project, China Geo, to the site.t

The completion of these projects is expected to ease vehicular traffic experienced at major intersections within the Ashanti Region. Suame, Oforikrom, Airport Roundabout, and the Ahodwo-Santasi have been identified as areas the interchange projects will impact.

The Roads and Highways Minister disclosed this at a news conference in Kumasi as part of a tour to inspect ongoing road projects in the Ashanti Region.

Traffic will reduce significantly in Kumasi and by the time we finish this road in conjunction with all the interchanges that I have already mentioned and the improvement of the road generally in Kumasi, Kumasi and Ashanti Region will be a place to visit because people will have driving comfort not only in terms of traffic being eased but you will have a smooth driving surface and you will enjoy driving in Kumasi, the Minister promised.

Gov't declares 2020 as 'year of roads'

Government in its quest to address the poor road networks in major parts of the country declared 2020, as the year of roads.

Delivering the 2020 Budget in Parliament, the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta said the government will largely focus and prioritize road projects to improve infrastructure in that sector and bring an end to the cries of Ghanaians for better roads.

Ridiculing the opposition National Democratic Congress' (NDC) claims of massive road infrastructure in its Green Book, Ofori-Atta indicated that the governing party will revamp the road sector and pay contractors what is owed them.

It is, however, unclear if the government can keep up with its promise due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the country which has led to about GHS9.5 billion in revenue according to the Finance Minister.

---citinewsroom
Bradley County Mayor Gary Davis gave a brief report on the status of several projects to start the May 2020 Commissioners meeting. The Bradley County Courthouse now has a new roof, a project that was only recently completed. He said the demolition project has been put on hold for various reasons.

In regards to storm cleanup, he said the contracts were finished and signed on Friday, and that both companies used are staging the equipment, and that Thompson Engineering will have the monitors for the project in place by the end of Monday afternoon.

The exciting thing is, hopefully things will begin on Tuesday afternoon, said Mayor Davis. If not then, it will begin by Wednesday morning.

The Commission also re-appropriated $8,000 worth of funds to buying new desks and chairs for the Veterans Department. Any money not used to replace furniture will be utilized in restoring the veterans cemetery.

They do have a genuine need, and I am going to ask that the funds are spent on office furniture, and the remainder of those will be toward the veterans cemetery, said Commissioner Kevin Raper. I just feel like were talking about roughly $8,000 that we put our trust in them.

They have desks that theyre having to tape shut because theyre not being closed. Theyre having chairs that are in disrepair. These are not new monies. This comes from not utilizing a part-time personnel person, and were just wanting to switch line items on it.

Ms. Garrett with the Small Business Administration Disaster Field Operation Center informed Bradley County residents that various forms of financial assistance are available for residents.

The terms for these loans for businesses are as low as 3.75 percent, and for homeowners and renters it is as low as 1.563 percent, said Ms. Garrett, who was calling in from Wisconsin. The website is Disasterloanassistance.sba.gov.

She said that while most of the time, the SBA would provide some sort of 1-800 number, any number she could provide has been swamped by calls about COVID-19.
Will the coronavirus pandemic stop kids from going to camp this summer?

Should camps be treated as child care services and be allowed to open?

Or are they businesses that should stay closed because people end up in close quarters or could come to keep from different regions?

For now, camps across Central New York and around New York state can only give one answer about whether they will open: We dont know.

Were all holding our breath, said Marci Erlebacher, executive director of the Jewish Community Center of Syracuse, which runs a summer camp.

And so, as camps wait for answers from state and federal officials, they are registering campers and planning out summer activities in hopes that camp wont be cancelled.

The decision to open or shutter New York summer camps hasnt been made yet.

Instead of a sweeping, statewide decision, each region will determine whether or not day and overnight camps should open, Empire State Development said in a statement. The decisions will be made as part of NY Forward, Gov. Andrew Cuomos plan to reopen the state.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also said it will soon release guidelines about opening kids camps.

Despite the lack of guidance, many CNY camps, including the Syracuse JCCs Camp Joe & Lynne Romano, have started to register campers.

Campers enjoy Lake Temalo at Camp Talooli in Pennellville in 2013.Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.

Erlebacher, executive director of the JCC, said the camp would give students and parents a much-needed reprieve after being isolated indoors during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. So she decided her organization should plan as if the camp will be able to have its 2020 season and allow children to sign up.

Other CNY camps  like Lourdes Camp, of Skaneateles; Camp Talooli, of Pennellville; and the YMCA of Central New York  have also opened registration. Syracuse officials have, for now, delayed registration for the citys day camps.

The uncertainty created by the coronavirus has led some camps to relax their registration rules: The JCC has extended its no-fee withdrawal period for Camp Romano by a month, Erlebacher said. Lourdes Camp will fully refund parents if state guidelines lead the organization to cancel camp, said Mike Preston, director of the camp.

The YMCA of Central New York, which runs camps across Onondaga County, is cautiously hopeful that the organization will get to host campers this summer, said Stefanie Noble, YMCA spokeswoman. But she said the YMCA, like all local CNY organizations that run camps, is waiting to hear from health officials before making a final decision.

We can definitely say, though, that being able to provide safe options for kids to experience the outdoors, build confidence and create social connection, even when possibly needing to physically distance, is more important than ever for families," Noble said. Well be working to find ways to meet those needs, even if it looks different from what weve done in the past.

In this photo from Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard's archives, Tionna Knight and Madison Friedman stand under a mist sprayer near the skate park at Onondaga Lake Park in 2007 during the Jewish Community Center of Syracuse's summer camp.David Lassman

If camps are given a chance to open, directors will face more questions, like: Is it possible for campers to practice social distancing?

The words social distancing and camp dont go together, Erlebacher said. Its camp. Its kids. That is what we do.

The JCC has more questions, the director said: Can we eventually open our pool? Will the number of kids who normally attend camp have to be cut? What will this mean for our budget?

With no set rules to follow, the JCC is coming up with strategies to make camp safe. Theyve bought portable wash basins and masks, Erlebacher said, and are considering getting temperature readers. But until guidelines are released, she said everything is on hold.

Nobody knows what to do, Erlebacher said. Everybody is waiting.

In this 2005 photo from The Post-Standard | Syracuse.com's archives, Brandon Jennings tries archery during the last day of the YMCA's Camp Iroquois in Manlius.Frank Ordonez

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

What businesses might reopen this month amid coronavirus in NY? McMahon offers clues about restart

Cuomo set at least 12 tests for CNY economy to reopen. Heres how we check the boxes

As he struggled to breathe, CNY nursing home wouldnt test for coronavirus, family says

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Staff writer Samantha House covers breaking news, crime and public safety for Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard. Have a tip or a story idea? Contact her at shouse@syracuse.com.
The study noted that despite COVID-19 being the most popular topic at this time, the current advertisements do not focus on COVID-19-related issues

Greater Cairos billboard advertising market saw a 45 percent decline as of the third week of March amid the COVID-19 crisis, although traffic came close to normal levels in the week before Ramadan, according a study published on Monday by AdMazad.

AdMazad is a data-driven solution provider for out-of-home (OOH) advertising operating in Egypt and specialises in analysing real-life data and outdoor media consumption.

The study also found a 100 percent increase in empty large billboards across Greater Cairo in the first week of April 2020, reflective of the spending sentiment of multinationals and large national companies during the COVID-19-induced stay-at-home regulations.

On the other hand, according the study, the only sector that increased its presence in OOH advertising placements was the healthcare sector, in which the number of billboards increased by 70 percent as a result of heightened spending by pharmacies and insurance companies.

The real estate industry made up only 27 percent of Aprils billboard advertising, compared to 43 percent a year before, and utilising 200 fewer billboards, according the study.

Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) advertising fell from 10 percent to just over 4 percent in the same period, while bank advertising decreased from 4.5 percent to 2.1 percent, according the study.

The study noted that despite COVID-19 being the most popular topic at this time, the current advertisements do not focus on COVID-19-related issues.

OOH expenditure also increases during Ramadan; this year driven exclusively by media companies and TV channels, according the study.

In comparison with 2019, the Ramadan 2020 season saw a decline by 30 percent from 201 billboards with one major broadcast network deciding to not use billboards for the first time in five years, according the study.

The study found that the average OOH campaign size of local TV channels declined 20 percent, with the overall number of occupied billboards declining to 120 units.

With the return of traffic, we should expect a slow and steady recovery of OOH advertising by June 2020. However, it will still be significantly underperforming compared to 2019 levels, AdMazed founder Assem Memon said.

He added that the real estate sector typically owns 40 percent of the billboard market share; hence, no immediate full recovery should be expected until late into the second or third quarter of 2020.

According to the study, it is expected in the short-term that advertisements will tackle companies readiness to embrace the impact on the market and support the new normal dictated by the coronavirus.

The study also expected the FMCGs and e-commerce platforms to drive the recovery of the advertising sector, in a bid to direct consumer expenditure to their products and platforms. E-commerce platforms in particular are still adjusting their operations in order to cope with the increased demand.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Bengaluru-based digital lending startup Rupifi has raised an additional round of funds from Xoogler.co to close its pre-seed round of funding. This is the first investment made by Xoogler, a community of former and current Google employees, in India. While the company did not disclose the exact amount raised, Xoogler typically invests between $100,000 and $200,000 (Rs 75 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore) in an early-seed round in companies.

Xoogler is a term used to describe ex-Google executives. The platform brings together angel investors to back companies founded by ex-Google folks.

Rupifi was founded by Anubhav Jain, Ankit Singh and Jawaid Iqbal. Iqbal is the Google connect for Rupifi having worked in the California-based search engine giant for close to a decade being part of its machine learning teams in India. Before this round, the startup had brought in angel investors like Ashneer Grover, co-founder of BharatPe, Kunal Shah, founder of Cred and Ramakant Sharma, founder of Livspace, onto its cap-table.

Till date, the Xoogler syndicate has pumped in seed money into more than 30 companies working across the United States, Australia, Mexico, Europe and now India. It is a community of more than 8,000 spread across the world with more than 1,200 being active investors in the syndicate.

We are trying to leverage the massive network of current and ex-Google employees across the world through these deals, the platform can help starting with an early investment to connecting founders for future investment rounds and partnerships with large corporates, said Christopher Fong, who was with Google for more than eight years and later went on to start Xoogler.co.

Amit Agrawal, who heads the New Delhi chapter for Xoogler and was at Google for almost eight years, said that they invested in Rupifi because of a high quality team, some early traction which they have already seen and good partnerships. There is a massive opportunity in the MSME lending business and Rupifi can grab it effectively, he observes.

Rupifi is a small business lending startup founded in 2019. It has a lending model where it leverages partnerships with aggregators to reach out to businesses which have an online presence. Rupifi has API integrations with lenders which can fund these businesses. It has a partnership with around seven aggregators through which they are connected to a few lakh businesses.

We have signed agreements with a couple of B2B ecommerce players, one of the food delivery platforms, Shuttle, Dressfolk and another home interior platform. The idea around Rupifi is to lend to small businesses operating on these platforms, said Jain, chief executive officer, Rupifi.

While partnerships have been signed, the company is yet to go live with quite a few of them because the COVID-19 pandemic has scuttled their plans.

Commenting on starting a lending startup at a time when a massive financial and health crisis is unfolding globally, Jain said that he is confident of building a scalable business but needed to be cautious. Things could also get more challenging since many of the aggregators are themselves staring at massive revenue loss and partner businesses shutting down.

We will have to be extremely careful while lending, we cannot chase growth at this time rather try to build a resilient system and show that our lending models are working, said Jain.
Merkel calls for global cooperation in coronavirus vaccine development

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:46, May 03, 2020

BERLIN, May 2 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday called for global cooperation in developing a vaccine against coronavirus, stressing the goal of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the fight against the pandemic.

"This epidemic is a pandemic and a worldwide spreading disease that we cannot fight nationally but only together," said Merkel in her weekly podcast speech, referring to the video conference of G20 members in late March when the group decided to fight the pandemic together.

Merkel's remarks came two days before the donor conference for coronavirus vaccine initiated by Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. Germany was invited to the event as a co-host.

"Everyone can get the virus, and that's why we have the task of acting together worldwide. It is not just an opportunity for joint action, but I would say it is a must," said Merkel, adding that it should make sure that vaccine benefits everyone.

"Germany will also make a significant financial contribution. I would like not to announce that today, but I can say that we will then also be very active in observing further development," added Merkel.

The German chancellor said the country wanted to work closely with the WHO, which has a key role in this issue. Merkel also stressed that with only joint efforts and international multilateral actions can countries overcome the pandemic.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Doctors refer to cases where patients were billed thrice the normal rates

Maharashtra govt directs hospitals not to charge exorbitantly, imposes price caps

Hospitals argue that costs treatments are patient-specific and cannot be generalised

Pull up erring hospitals, but do not impose price caps across the board, hospitals plead

Can a COVID-19 patient end up with a hospital bill running as high as Rs 4 lakh for a day's treatment? Yes, say some doctors, referring to bills from some of the leading Indian private hospitals. They point out that most of the charges - be it for pathology, radiology tests or others - are at least three times the usual charges. In some cases, cost of personal protective equipment (PPE) that the patient is billed for is also way beyond the MRP. Therefore, it is not without reason that the Maharashtra government has come up capped charges that hospitals can levy for treatment of coronavirus. [Some of the doctors treating these patients have talked of elements like care and hygiene charges that run into few thousands and the usually long list of consumables getting even longer. Plus lot of miscellaneous charges and expenses getting added.]

The Maharashtra government in a notification has prohibited hospitals "from charging more amount than that applicable to lowest bed category irrespective of the availability of beds in the lowest category". The state government notification further says that "healthcare providers that have agreements with various TPAs will provide treatment at the lowest package rate prevailing among the various TPAs in its facility". It specifically states that "items/services including intraocular lenses (IOL), pacemakers, orthoprosthesis, stents, staplers, guide-wires, catheters, balloons, medical implants, consumables, PPEs (Personal Protective Equipments) shall not charge more than 10 per cent mark up on their net procurement cost incurred".

Some of the leading private corporate hospitals are, however, miffed with the price cap. Their argument is that treatments are all patient-specific and the costs therefore cannot be generalised. Plus, providing COVID-19 treatment was an expensive proposition for hospitals as several additional costs had to be incurred, along with higher financial compensation to the medical staff attending to coronavirus cases, and cost of providing transport facility, separate accommodation and meals to them within the hospital during the period of lockdown. They argue that if there are erring hospitals then the government should take action against them and desist from imposing blanket curbs and price caps across the board. Hospital managements are trying to talk to the state government and represent their case. Hospitals stated that only Maharashtra is the only state that has imposed such price caps.

The Maharashtra government's bid to impose a cap on fees of COVID-19 treatment at private hospitals, has been imposed in keeping with the the Disaster Management Act and Epidemic Act. The state Health Minister Rajesh Tope was also recently reported to have announced that all citizens will be covered under the state government's health scheme, making Maharashtra the first state to provide free and cashless insurance protection to its people.
Tomorrow at 9 AM, tune in to watch my conversation with Nobel Laureate, Abhijit Banerjee on dealing with the economic fall out of the #COVID19 crisis.



To join the conversation & for regular video updates, subscribe to my YouTube channel: https://t.co/4WBysSnKTg Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 4, 2020

10:10 pm: Need new template of globalisation in post-COVID world: PM Modi at NAM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that the novel coronavirus pandemic had exposed the limitations of the current global order and post the pandemic, the world needs a new template of globalisation based on fairness, equality and humanity.

#COVID19 has shown us the limitation of existing international system. In the post COVID world, we need a new template of globalisation based on fairness, equality & humanity. We need international institutions that are more representative of today's world: PM Modi at NAM summit pic.twitter.com/WaOenE9ibh ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

10:00 pm: IGNOU postpones June term end exam due to COVID-19

Indira Gandhi National Open University has postponed the June, 2020 Term End Examinations, which were originally scheduled from 1 June, 2020, in the wake of the lockdown due to COVID-19. The new revised set of dates for exams will be decided later, said Prof. Nageshwar Rao, VC IGNOU.

9:55 pm: Doubling time of COVID-19 cases improves to 12 days from 3.4 before lockdown: Health Ministry

"Doubling time of COVID-19 cases has improved from 3.4 days before lockdown to 12 days today. Lockdown and containment efforts are yielding results, our challenge now is how to further improve these results, to further increase doubling time," says Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare on Monday.

9:50 pm: Telangana reports 3 new cases of COVID-19

Three new cases of coronavirus have been reported in Telangana, taking total number of cases to 1,085. Of this, 471 cases are active, while 29 patients have lost their lives due to the disease, says Telangana Health Department.

9:40 pm: 6 deaths, 175 fresh coronavirus positive cases reported in Rajasthan

As many as six deaths and 175 new COVID-19 positive cases reported in Rajasthan, taking the total number of cases in the state to 3061. A total of 77 deaths have been recorded in the state so far, says state health department.

9.20 pm: Coronavirus latest updates: DRDO develops UV blaster

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed an Ultra Violet (UV) Disinfection Tower for rapid and chemical free disinfection of high infection prone areas. The UV Blaster is useful for surfaces like electronic equipment, computers and other gadgets in laboratories and offices that cannot be disinfected with chemical methods.

9.15 pm: Bringing Indians home

Repatriation of Indian nationals will begin on May 7 with United Arab Emirates. Naval ships will be used to bring back Indian workers from UAE. As far as flight operations are concerned, DGCA had prepared a schedule starting from May 15, reports said.

9.15 pm: Train fare row: Migrant workers charged full fare for Shramik train to UP, says report

Even Gujarat, a BJP-ruled state, took full fare from labourers before allowing them to board the Shramik special train, reported India Today TV. Labourers boarding the special train from Nadiad, near Ahmedabad, to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh were charged Rs 645 for every ticket.

8.52 pm: Coronavirus hotspots in Tamil Nadu

Koyembedu Market Complex in Chennai has been temporarily shut after it emerged as a hotspot for coronavirus cases. A week ago, two traders from the market tested positive for COVID-19. Over the week, more than 300 positive cases across various districts of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, Cuddalore, Ariyalur, Sivagangai, Perambalur, Villupuram and Kanchipuram, were traced to the Koyembedu cluster.

8.19 pm: Coroanvirus India latest updates

Ministry of Civil Aviation has informed that Air India, Alliance Air, IAF and private carriers undertook 443 flights under Lifeline Udan initiative. Air India and Alliance Air conducted 265 of these flights. Cargo weighing 821.07 tonnes has been transported so far.

8.17 pm: Coronavirus cases in Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh Health Department posted 121 new coronavirus cases today. This takes the total number of cases in the state to 2,766. SO far, 754 patients have been cured and discharged, while 50 others have lost their lives to the virus, informed State Health Department.

8.15 pm: Gujarat coronavirus cases latest updates

Gujarat Health Department has reported 376 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases in the state now stands at 5,804, including 1,195 people recoveries and 319 deaths.

8.13 pm: Tamil Nadu coronavirus lockdown latest updates

Tamil Nadu government has announced opening TASMAC outlest, which are state-run liquir shops, from May 7. These outlest will not be opened in coronavirus containment zones, though.

8.04 pm: Dharavi corona cases latest updates

Dharavi region in Mumbai posted 42 new coronavirus cases today, informed Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. This takes the total number of COVID-19 cases in Dharavi to 632, including 20 deaths

7.53 pm: Karnataka COVID-19 latest updates

Karnataka government has asked industries to submit an online self-declaration that they are adhering to the standard operating procedure for resuming operations. Under Lockdown 3.0, state government has allowed certain industries and IT/ITES companies to resume operations in urban areas and all industries in rural areas outside containment zones.

7.52 pm: Jammu and Kashmir coronavirus latest updates

Jammu and Kasmir reported 25 new COVID-19 cases reported in today, including 1 from Jammu division and 24 from Kashmir division. Total coronavirus cases in the Union Territory stands at 726, including 415 active cases, informed Department of Information and Public Relations, Government of Jammu and Kashmir.

7.02 pm: Coronavirus in Punjab latest updates

Punjab has reported 132 new coronavirus cases today, taking the total number of cases in the state to 1,232. As of now, according to Punjab Health Department, there are 1,081 active COVID-19 cases in the state, of which 3 are on ventilator support. Punjab has seen 23 patients succcumb to the virus.

6.47 pm: COVID-19 in Himachal Pradesh latest updates

Himachal Pradesh reported that number of active coronavirus cases in the state has decreased to 1. According to State Health Department, 40 COVID-19 cases were identified in the state so far, out which 1 person succumbed to the virus.

6.43 pm: Coronavirus in Odisha latest updates

Odisha government has allowed inter-dustrict and intra-district movement of buses in green zones. Buses will accomodate only half of their seating capacity.

Odisha govt modifies it's earlier order to allow plying of buses on intra-district & inter district routes in green zones. The buses will ply with passengers up to 50 per cent of their seating capacity. #CoronavirusLockdown pic.twitter.com/zTP38h1G4C ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

6.27 pm: India coronavirus latest updates

India will bring back is nationals stranded abroad in a phased manner, starting May 7. The stranded Indians would be ferried by aircraft and naval ships. Centre stated that a Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) has been prepared in this regard. To this end, Indian Embassies and High Commissions are preparing a list of distressed Indian citizens. It will be a paid facility.

6.20 pm: West Bengal COVID-19 latest updates

West Bengal posted 61 new coronavirus cases today, taking the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state to 1,259. The death toll due to COVID-19 in West Bengal stands at 61, with 11 deaths in the last 24 hours, informed State Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha.

6.18 pm: Delhi Coronavirus updates: CM Arvind Kejriwal talks to denizens of national capital as Lockdown 3.0 begins with certain relaxations

#WATCH I appeal to people of Delhi to ensure three things- wear masks when you step outdoors, practice social distancing and sanitize/wash your hands frequently: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pic.twitter.com/XbFSQ6xC0t ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

6.16 pm: Lockdown 3.0: Railways paying 85% of migrants' train fare, remaining borne by states, says Centre

On the controversy over charging train fare from distressed migrant labourers, Centre clarified that Railways is paying 85 per cent of fare and the remaining 15 per cent is being borne by the states. Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry clarified that all states, except one or two, are cooperating with the Centre on this.

6.03 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:

5.48 pm: Coronavirus in India latest updates

According to latest data from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in India reached 42,836. This includes 29,685 active cases, 1,389 deaths, 11,761 cured or discharged, and 1 maigrated patient. India reported 2,573 new cases and 83 deaths in the past 24 hours.

5.45 pm: Coronavirus in Delhi latest updates

I appeal to people of Delhi to ensure three things- wear masks when you step outdoors, practice social distancing and sanitize/wash your hands frequently, said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

5.25 pm: Coronavirus in Tamil Nadu latest updates

Tamil Nadi Health Department reported 527 more comfirmed COVID-19 cases in the state. This takes the total number of coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu to 3,550.

527 more people have tested positive for #COVID19 in Tamil Nadu taking the total number of cases in the state to 3550: State Health Department pic.twitter.com/XgggpSfi3T ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

5.20 pm: Coronavirus in Karnataka latest updates

37 new #Coronavirus positive cases have been confirmed in Karnataka from 5:00 PM yesterday to 5:00 PM today. Total number of cases in the state stands at 651: State Health Department pic.twitter.com/8ssIIOgSe5 ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

5.15 pm: PM Narendra Modi address Non Alignment Movement Summit via video conferencing on India's strategy to curb coronavirus

Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends 'Non-Aligned Movement' Summit via video conferencing#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/fe7NA9E7ky ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

5.07 pm: Coronavirus in Kerala latest updates

No new cases of coronavirus were reported in Kerala today, informed CM Pinarayi Vijayan. The total number of positive cases in the state is 499, including 34 active cases, he added.

5.03 pm: IN PICTURES: Long queues outside liquor stores in Kolkata

West Bengal: Long queue outside a #liquorshop in Kolkata pic.twitter.com/SjgJIWZK1v ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

5.00 pm: Liquor shops open in Goa

Liquor shops have opened in Goa after more than a month. An official said people observed social distancing rules while standing in queues. "Wine shops across Goa opened on Monday but there was no rush as such by people. We have adopted 'no mask, no liquor' policy to ensure that social distancing norms are followed strictly," said Goa Liquor Traders' Association president Dattaprasad Naik.

4.55 pm: Migrant ticket fare row: TMC bats for free tickets

TMC has said that the Centre should ensure free train travel for migrant workers. "The labourers should be brought back home for free. Why is the railway ministry charging them? It is the duty of the Central government to ensure safe and free travel of the migrant workers to their homes," senior TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi.

4.50 pm: Goa corona updates

A Foreigner Regional Registration official in Goa said that there are over 2,000 foreign nationals in Goa. So far, 6,000 people have been evacuated from the state. There were 8,000 foreign nationals in Goa when the lockdown began.

4.45 pm: Maharashtra coronavirus cases

Maharashtra govt said that 35,000 migrant workers have been sent back home by trains. Medical check-up and other precautions were undertaken before sending the workers home. The govt said that they are sending more people after conducting a primary medical check-up.

4.40 pm: Punjab seeks special trains

Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh has asked Home Minister Amit Shah to intervene and arrange for special trains for the next 10-15 days. He said that there are migrant workers in the state who must be returned to their home states.

4.35 pm: Liquor shops in Andhra Pradesh see long queues

People have crowded outside liquor shops in Andhra Pradesh as police personnel can be seen chasing them away. Social distancing norms have been flouted there also.

#WATCH Andhra Pradesh: Long queue seen outside a liquor shop in Chittoor; social distancing norms flouted. pic.twitter.com/v9IgIrZGqQ ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

4.28 pm: Social distancing must, otherwise cases will spike: MHA

Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agrawal says historically it has been noted that if social distancing is not respected when social mobility is allowed, chances of disease transmission increase rapidly once restrictions are eased.

4.24 pm: Amitabh Kant on aspirational districts

As of now, there are about 610 cases of COVID-19 in 112 aspirational districts which is considered fairly low at less than 2 per cent of the national level of infections. Of these, six districts have reported first case after April 21, says Amitabh Kant, Chairman of Empowered Group 6.

In pandemics such as #COVID19, historically it has been noted that if social distancing is not respected when social mobility is allowed, chances of disease transmission increase rapidly once restrictions are eased: Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agrawal pic.twitter.com/QAWgd9ZESn ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

4.21 pm: India reports highest number cured patients

As of now, as many as 11,706 people have been cured. In the last 24 hours, 1,074 people have been cured. "This is the highest number in terms of cured patients noted till date. Our recovery rate is now 27.52 per cent. The total number of COVID19 cases now stand at 42,533," says Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry.

4.16 pm: MHA on inter-state cargo movement

The MHA has asked states to ensure that there are no issues in inter-state cargo movement. MHA Control Room Number 1930 and NHAI helpline number 1,033 may be used by drivers/transporters to lodge any complaint pertaining to lockdown: MHA Joint Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava.

4.14 pm: Watch health ministry's dealy briefing on coronavirus

As of now, there are about 610 cases of #COVID19 in 112 aspirational districts which is considered fairly low at less than 2 per cent of the national level of infections. Of these, six districts have reported first case after April 21: Amitabh Kant, Chairman of Empowered Group 6 pic.twitter.com/D06HGWElpp ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

4.11 pm: UPSC civil services Prelims 2020 exam postponed

In view of the prevailing coronavirus lockdown, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), on Monday, decided to postpone the civil services preliminary examination "until further notice". The UPSC prelims exams were scheduled to be held on May 31. In a meeting held on Monday, the commission along with its chairman Arvind Saxena said the fresh date of the examination will be made available on May 20, after assessing the situation.

Also read: Coronavirus lockdown: UPSC civil services Prelims 2020 exam, postponed; new announcement on May 20

4.05 pm: 57-year-old Pune ASI dies of coronavirus

A 57-year-old assistant sub inspector of Pune police on Monday died of coronavirus infection in a private hospital, officials said. He had tested positive for the virus in the last week of April and succumbed at around 1pm, Pune Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Shisave said.

4.00 pm: Students not to pay fare; migrants to get full refund: Nitish

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made it clear on Monday that his government will bear full expenses towards the homeward journey of students and migrant workers stranded outside the state because of the lockdown, in a rebuff to the opposition which has accused him of leaving them in the lurch. In a video message, the chief minister said train fares of students were being paid directly by his government to the railways, while migrant workers will be reimbursed the entire expenses they incurred on the journey once they have completed their 21-day quarantine after reaching Bihar. PTI

3.52 pm: Noida containment zones divided into 2 categories

The authorities have divided containment zones in Uttar Pradesh's Noida into two categories -- areas that have at least one positive coronavirus case and those with more than one case. The perimeter of former category areas will be 400 meters, while the perimeter for the other area will be 1 km.

3.39 pm: Most states paying for migrants' travel

Amidst criticism that the railways was charging stranded migrant workers for ferrying them home, sources said payments for 34 Shramik Special trains that have been run so far have been made by the state governments, barring Maharashtra. - PTI

3.32 pm: Remdesivir likely to be available in the US from next week

Antiviral drug Remdesivir, approved by the US food and regulatory body for emergency use to treat the COVID-19 patients, is expected to be available by the next week, the CEO of the company manufacturing the medicine has said. The announcement was made on Sunday by Dan O'Day, CEO of Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical company making the vaccine. The US is the worst-affected country in the world with over 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and more than 67,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.

3.28 pm: Maharashtra Congress on ticket fare row

The Maharashtra Congress has said it will bear fare for migrants being transported to their native states on 'Shramik Special' trains amid COVID-19 lockdown, accuses the Modi government of leaving stranded workers to fend for themselves.

3.15 pm: Clash between police, migrant workers

A clash erupts between migrant workers and police in Surat. The workers are demanding that they be sent back to their native places. The total coronavirus tally in the state stands at 5,428, including 290 deaths.

Till now, 11,706 people have been cured. In the last 24 hours, 1074 people have been cured.This is the highest number in terms of cured patients noted till date. Our recovery rate is now 27.52%. Total number of COVID19 cases is now 42533: Lav Agrawal, Joint Secy, Health Ministry pic.twitter.com/cyf6HDy5VK ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

3.06 pm: Bengal has highest COVID-19 mortality rate: IMCT

West Bengal has the highest mortality rate in the country at 12.8 per cent, Inter Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) chief Apoorva Chandra wrote in his final observations to state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, before leaving for Delhi on Monday. "This extremely high mortality rate is a clear indication of low testing, weak surveillance and tracking," Chandra said in the letter. A discrepancy has been brought to the fore in the number of COVID-19 cases reported by the state in its medical bulletins and its communication with the Union government, the letter said.

3.00 pm: Tripura sends back 33,000 migrant workers

The government of Tripura, along with the help of central government, have decided to sent back 33,000 migrant workers to their respective states by train.

#WATCH Gujarat: A clash erupts between migrant workers & police in Surat. The workers are demanding that they be sent back to their native places. pic.twitter.com/aiMvjHGukY ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.50 pm: BSF jawan in West Bengal contracts corona

A BSF jawan working with the Centre's inter-ministerial team (IMCT) has tested positive. After the diagnosis 50 personnel were put in quarantine. The BSF jawan worked as a driver and was touring with the IMCT to West Bengal. He has been admitted to a state-run isolation facility.

2.45 pm: Maharashtra COVID-19 updates

Total number of cases in Thane district has crossed 1,183 as on Sunday night. There are 300 cases each in Thane and Navi Mumbai municipal corporation limits, while there are 200 cases in Kalyan Dombivli area. In Palghar district, the number of cases are at 177. Maharashtra has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country at 12,974.

2.40 pm: Tripura send 33,000 migrant workers by train

The Tripura government said that the state has 33,000 migrant workers and their families who are stranded. It said that these migrant workers are mostly from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal. They have been sent back to their homes.

#WATCH Gujarat: A clash erupts between migrant workers & police in Surat. The workers are demanding that they be sent back to their native places. pic.twitter.com/aiMvjHGukY ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.35 pm: Himachal Pradesh corona news

As lockdown norms were relaxed in the state of Himachal Pradesh, people flocked to shops. People gathered in large numbers outside shops in Shimla that were opened after 40 days on Monday. Government offices also reopened with 30 per cent staff. Public transport is still shut.

2.33 pm: Jharkhand coronavirus cases: No lockdown relaxations

Jharkhand government has decided not to relax lockdown restrictions. "It was felt that there is a need to take a cautious approach as many of the migrant workers have started entering the state from various states affected severely by COVID-19. It was accordingly decided not to implement any new relaxation in all three zones," according to the minutes of the meeting conducted on Sunday, a copy of which was released to the media.

2.28 pm: Lockdown 3.0: Ola, Uber resume services slowly

Cab aggregators Ola and Uber have resumed services in certain parts of the country, including in Ghaziabad.

We are leaving West Bengal today after 15 days. We visited many locations&made report as per our observation. Report will be submitted to the Centre. Primary observation is that improvement is needed: Vineet Joshi, IMCT Team Leader for Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri&Kalimpong. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/EINEE51hIc ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.23 pm: Salons open in Gurugram

Saloons open in Gurugram following revised lockdown guidelines issued by Ministry of Home Affairs that has been extended till May 17. A salon owner says,"Salon has been sanitised completely.1 worker is present at the salon & only 1 customer is allowed inside at a time."

Govt of Tripura along with the help of Central Govt have decided to sent back 33,000 migrant workers to their respective states from Tripura largely by train: Chief Minister of Tripura Biplab Kumar Deb. #CoronavirusLockdown pic.twitter.com/mEKhWYciN2 ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.17 pm: People outside a liquor vend in Andhra Pradesh

Long queue seen outside a liquor shop in Muppalla village in Chandarlapadu mandal of Krishna District.

Govt of Tripura along with the help of Central Govt have decided to sent back 33,000 migrant workers to their respective states from Tripura largely by train: Chief Minister of Tripura Biplab Kumar Deb. #CoronavirusLockdown pic.twitter.com/mEKhWYciN2 ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

2.14 pm: People throng liquor shops after relaxation

People line up outside liquor shops in Mumbai after the state govt allowed standalone shops, including liquor shops, to open from today except for the containment zones. Several states have reported violation of social distancing norms after scores of people were seen flouting rules.

Ghaziabad: Cab aggregators Ola & Uber resumed their services today. Mani, an Ola driver says, "I suffered losses due to suspension of cab services. Now, I am very happy that the services have been resumed. I will follow social distancing norms during the rides". #lockdown pic.twitter.com/McW5B0fasA ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 4, 2020

2.05 pm: Many liquor shops closed in Delhi after social distancing violations

Authorities decided to shut liquor and wine shops in Karol Bagh and East Delhi after several people were seen flouting social distancing norms as the government decided to open liquor shops. "In Karol Bagh, the Delhi People has closed a certain liquor store after people were seen flouting social distancing norms," Maninder Singh, SHO, Karol Bagh, told News 18.

1.57 pm: Non-essential shops opened in Chennai

As India enters the third phase of the lockdown, mobile phone, electronic and stationery shops have been opened in Chennai based on the guidelines issued by the state government.

Haryana: Salons open in Gurugram following revised lockdown guidelines issued by Ministry of Home Affairs that has been extended till May 17. A salon owner says,Salon has been sanitised completely.1 worker is present at the salon & only 1 customer is allowed inside at a time. pic.twitter.com/iQGGZ56E2w ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

1.53 pm: Jharkhand has not charged migrants for ticket fare, says minister

The Jharkhand government did not charge a single penny, says the state Rural Development Minister. Also, the state has not provided any major relaxation in the lockdown 3.

1.47 pm: Bank credit rises sharply in March

The bank credit growth to various sectors saw a significant surge in March, even as the economic activity halted in the second fortnight of the month. The credit to NBFC sector grew by a steep Rs 1.15 lakh crore, the highest since January 2008, the SBI Research's Ecowrap said.

Also read: Bank credit rises sharply in March, NBFC credit highest since Jan 2008, says SBI report

1.41 pm: Govt faces backlash for collecting ticket fares

The government faced backlash on Monday for collecting ticket fares from migrant workers onboard the Shramik Special trains that are ferrying stranded migrant labourers across the country. As pressure from opposition leaders mounted, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that 85 per cent of the fare has been subsidised and 15 per cent of the fare would be paid by the states.

Also read: Lockdown 3.0: Who pays for migrants' tickets? Here's what Railways' guidelines say

12.30 pm: MP govt not to charge fare from migrant labourers

The MP govt orders that railway fares will not be charged from labours. All state coordinators, who are responsible for their respective states, should convey this message to state nodel officers and railways. The state government will bear the entire railway fare cost.

1.22 pm: Centre's IMCT attacks Bengal govt

The Inter-Ministerial Central Team writes to West Bengal Chief Secretary on its final day in the state. "State needs to be transparent and consistent in reporting figures and not play down spread of virus," writes IMCT leader Apurva Chandra.

#WATCH Andhra Pradesh: Long queue seen outside a liquor shop in Muppalla village in Chandarlapadu mandal of Krishna District. #CoronavirusLockdown pic.twitter.com/1AjAfREqFP ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

1.08 pm: Dr Harsha Vardhan relaxations in Delhi

Visuals at liquor shops in Delhi is disturbing and against the social distancing norms

It is disappointing that such things are happening.

Delhi is in red zone and strictness required here

Every day numbers is going up in Delhi, therefore, control and containment required here

Our Corona curve is stable and our doubling rate is increasing

I don't wish to comment on Sonia Gandhi remarks, but it is Modi govt who has started these special trains on state's request

We are in advance stage in vaccine research and are also manufacturing diagnostic kits in India.

1.04 pm: Don't charge from migrants: Maharashtra CM

Foreign workers are allowed to go home as the lockdown has been relaxed. The Centre is requested not to charge ticket price from migrants as people's financial condition has deteriorated due to coronavirus.

Maharashtra: People line up at liquor shops in Mumbai after state govt allowed standalone shops including liquor shops to open from today except for the containment zones. #CoronavirusLockdown pic.twitter.com/5emiUA73nT ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.57 pm: Economic activity resumes in Karnataka

Several employees and workers of a garment factory in Peenya Industrial Area in Bengaluru could be seen rejoing work after the factories opened amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Tamil Nadu: Mobile phone, electronic and stationery shops have been opened in Chennai based on the guidelines issued by the state government. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/6Lo3rPsSDq ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.48 pm: Punjab-Maharashtra indulge in blame game

Punjab are facing more problems as the Maharashtra government did not conduct testing of people who returned from Hazur Sahib in Nanded. "If they had not conducted tests, then at least they should have informed us about it. We would have acted accordingly," Punjab Health Minister Balbir S Sidhu.Notably, Punjab witnessed a spurt in cases after pilgrims from Hazur Sahib in Nanded returned to the state.

IMCT writes to West Bengal Chief Secretary on their final day in the state. State needs to be transparent & consistent in reporting figures & not play down spread of virus, writes IMCT leader Apurva Chandra pic.twitter.com/u6mtaWRZtt ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.45 pm: Latest visuals from Moolchand

Many vehicles can be seen on roads in the national capital today after Delhi govt announces several relaxations amid coronavirus lockdown. As India officially enters the third phase of lockdown, Delhi has decided to restart some activity.

. , . CMO Maharashtra (@CMOMaharashtra) May 3, 2020

12.37 pm: Stringent action needed in Delhi, says govt

Delhi is one of the places where considering the current status, more stringent action needs to be taken, says Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. His statement came after Delhi allowed many activities to take place despite the Centre placing the national capital under the 'red zone' category.

Karnataka: Employees and workers of a garment factory in Peenya Industrial Area in Bengaluru rejoin work after the factory opens amid #CoronavirusLockdown, following the revised guidelines issued by State and Central Government. pic.twitter.com/08cIo8pVEJ ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.29 pm: Delhi restarts some economic activity

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held first Cabinet meeting in the Delhi Secretariat on Monday after government offices were allowed to be opened by the Delhi government from today. The Delhi has restarted some economic activity from Monday.

#WATCH We are facing more problems as Maharashtra govt did not conduct the test of ppl who returned from Hazur Sahib in Nanded. If they had not conducted tests, then at least they should have informed us about it. We would have acted accordingly:Punjab Health Min Balbir S Sidhu. pic.twitter.com/cMVnooKs2z ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

12.22 pm: Railways clears air around fare of migrant workers

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday said that Indian Railways will pay 85 per cent train fares of migrant workers. The remaining 15 per cent, state governments will have to pay. The move has come after the centre faced a backlash from Congress party, and other opposition leaders for charging migrant labourers during the lockdown. BJP leader Sambit Patra stated that that for each 'Shramik Express' (special trains being run for migrants) about 1,200 tickets to the destination were handed by the railways to the state government concerned.

12.18 pm: West Bengal to yet decide on lockdown relaxations

Despite the Centre allowing the functioning of certain shops and services to give some respite during the third phase of the lockdown that began on Monday, large parts of West Bengal wore a deserted look as the state government is yet to decide on the relaxations in the green and orange zones. Shops, barring those selling essential commodities, remained closed and vehicles were off the roads in most parts of the state in the morning. In the afternoon, a task force led by Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha will decide on the relaxations. - PTI

12.15 pm: Liquor shops reopens today

The Centre has allowed liquor sale across all the country, excluding containment areas, from today. As per the government order, only standalone shops will be allowed to sell liquor; malls or liquor shops in shopping complexes will remain closed. This has prompted people to throng liquor shops in huge numbers, flouting of social distancing norms. Several retailers have also expressed concerns that their existing stock may dry-up soon.

Also read: Liquor shops, wine shops reopen today amid lockdown: Check out timings, status, state-wise details

11.58 pm: Isuzu Motors restart operations

Isuzu Motors Ltd. has got Punjab Government's permission to restart manufacturing operations at Manufacturing Plant, situated at village Asron of Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar District with limited workforce effective from today.

11:50 am: Delhi liquor shops: Police lathicharges

Delhi Police took to lathicharging buyers who had flocked outside a liquor shop in Kashmere Gate. Alcohol customers were found violating social distancing norms as liquor shops open after nearly two months of lockdown.

Delhi: More number of vehicles seen on roads in the national capital today, after Delhi govt announces several relaxations amid #CoronavirusLockdown; Visuals from Moolchand. pic.twitter.com/5orSQBBP4F ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

11:40 am: Rajasthan corona cases: 4 more deaths

Four more deaths have been reported in Rajasthan, along with 123 fresh cases. The death toll in the state has reached 75. Jaipur has reported 44 deaths. Seventy-three cases in Jodhpur, 19 in Chittorgarh, 12 in Jaipur, 11 in Pali, three in Kota, two in Rajsamand and one each in Alwar, Bikaner and Udaipur have been reported.

11:35 am: CM Arvind Kejriwal and ministers hold cabinet meeting

11:30 am: Shramik Special trains subsidised 85%

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that the Indian Railways is subsiding fares by 85 per cent for migrant workers. The state has to pay 15 per cent, stated Patra commenting on Rahul Gandhi's tweet criticising the fare charge for migrant workers.

#WATCH Delhi is one of the places where considering the current status, more stringent action needs to be taken. I think that minimum relaxations should be given by Delhi Govt amid #CoronavirusLockdown to curb the spread of #COVID19: Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan. pic.twitter.com/hHB5xQdXWe ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

11:25 am: Delhi COVID-19 cases: Shops open

Shops selling essential goods open in Delhi's Bengali Market as relaxations ease on Monday. The area was a containment zone earlier but no new cases have been reported in the past 28 days.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held first Cabinet meeting in the Delhi Secretariat today after government offices were allowed to be opened by the Delhi government from today. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/o70R9oTyz5 ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

11:15 am: Corona Delhi news: Govt liquor shops to operate till 6:30pm

The Delhi government has issued an order stating that state-run liquor shops will operate only from 9am to 6:30pm in the city. The order statesthat marshals will be deployed to ensure that social distancing norms are followed strictly. Around 150 liquor shops have been allowed to operate.

11:10 am: Coronavirus Delhi updates

As relaxations come into effect today, construction activities have resumed in Delhi. However, the state has said that only in-situ construction will be allowed, meaning that construction where workers are already available and there's no need to get workers from outside.

11:05 am: Maharashtra coronavirus cases: No liquor sale in 5 districts

As the Centre allows certain relaxations from Monday, liquor shops have opened across the country. However, the Maharashtra government has said that shops selling non-essential commodities, will be allowed apart from five districts in the state. Solapur, Aurangabad, Jalna, Buldhana and Amravati districts have said that liquor shops will not be allowed to open.

11:00 am: Shramik Special trains for migrant workers

Indian Railways sources have told ANI that they are charging only standard fare for this class which is just 15 per cent of the total cost incurred by the railwaya. The Indian Railways is only ferrying passengers that are being brought by the state governments. So far 34 Shramik Special trains have departed from various parts of the country. The government has been criticised for charging ticket fares from migrant workers.

10:55 am: Corona special trains

Indian Railways sources told news agency ANI that the middle berth of the Shramik Special trains have been kept empty to ensure social distancing. Passengers onboard have also been given free food and water for the journey. The government is receving flak for asking migrant workers -- who have had no earnings in the past few weeks -- to pay for their tickets.

10:45 am: Liquor shops open in Chhattisgarh

Rush was seen outside liquor shops in Chhattisgarh as they open for business. People were seen flouting social distancing rules as they flocked to liquor stores to purchase alcohol.

#WATCH: Police resorts to mild lathicharge outside a liquor shop in Kashmere Gate after social distancing norms were flouted by people outside the shop. #Delhi pic.twitter.com/XZKxrr5ThC ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

10:35 am: Coronavirus news updates

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.

10:30 am: Odisha corona news

A new case has been reported from the state's Sundergarh district. The total number of cases in Odisha is 163. Sundergarh has 11 cases, out of which five have recovered. The district is an orange zone.

10:25 am: Corona special trains: Uddhav Thackeray bats for no fares

As the Centre is being criticised for demanding train fares from migrant passengers, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray has also asked the govt to not charge migrant labourers. "These people had no source of income for the past few weeks. Hence, on humanitarian ground, the Centre should not charge them for travelling," the chief minister said. The CM said that nearly 5 lakh migrant labourers have been given food and shelter for 40 days in various state facilities.

10:20 am: Coronavirus Assam updates

As relaxations ease across the country, people have come out of their houses to get their essential businesses in order. In Assam, traffic has increased on Monday after the state government allowed movement. Assam has also imposed a blanket ban of 12 hours from 6pm to 6am every day.

Rahul Gandhi ji,

I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly states that No tickets to be sold at any station

Railways has subsidised 85% & State govt to pay 15%

The State govt can pay for the tickets(Madhya Pradeshs BJP govt is paying)

Ask Cong state govts to follow suit https://t.co/Hc9pQzy8kQ pic.twitter.com/2RIAMyQyjs Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) May 4, 2020

10:10 am: Corona news: FICCI says no restrictions on drone use for govt

FICCI on Saturday said that government agencies and industries should be given blanket exemptions from drone usage till December 31 to monitor and curb spread of coronavirus. "Currently, drones are only allowed to legally fly using permission from Digital Sky (online platform) in six small green zones in remote rural areas of the country. This is insufficient to address the numerous challenges faced by our country in the time of this crisis," it said.

10:00 am: Liquor shops open in Karnataka

People have started queueing up outside liquor shops in Karnataka. As per the new guidelines, liquor shops have been opened for business today.

Delhi: Shops selling essential goods open in Bengali Market which was a containment zone earlier, after Delhi Govt eased the restrictions as no new case has been reported in the area in past 28 days. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/tjWqFdsiJb ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

10:00 am: Maharashtra coronavirus cases: Some offices open

As per the new guidelines of the MHA, some offices have opened in Maharashtra today. Employees must be screened and all necessary social distancing norms must be followed as per the norms.

Chhattisgarh: Social distancing norms being flouted as people in large numbers queue outside a liquor shop in Rajnandgaon. The state govt has allowed liquor shops to open in the state from today except for the containment zones. #CoronavirusLockdown pic.twitter.com/GfTzQP86Ip ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:55 am: Corona cases on the rise in Rajasthan

In Rajasthan, four new deaths have been reported due to coronavirus. The number of positive corona cases in the state has increased to 3,009. The state is also sending home stranded migrant labourers and students via Shramik Special trains.

Assam: Movement of people and vehicles increase in Guwahati after govt announces relaxation in the restrictions amid #CoronavirusLockdown.



The nationwide lockdown imposed to combat #COVID19 has been extended till May 17, 2020. pic.twitter.com/zJFJIR7xhj ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:50 am: Liquor shops open in Delhi

Amid the coronavirus lockdown, the state has allowed certain relaxations including the opening of liquor shops. As the restrictions lift on Monday, customers have queued up outside liquor shops to purchase alcohol. Visuals from Delhi:

Karnataka: People line up at a liquor shop in Bengaluru as state government permits the sale of liquor between 9 am to 7 pm from today. pic.twitter.com/3SmTwlO1w1 ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:40 am: Global coronavirus cases: 3.5 million cases so far

Global coronavirus cases surpassed 3.5 million on Monday, with deaths nearing a quarter of a million. North America and European countries lead the tally with the most number of new cases. However, numbers have increased in smaller bases in Latin America, Africa and Russia as well.

9:35 am: Corona testing in India

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that they have conducted over 11 lakh tests in the country as on May 4, 9am. ICMR has sped up testing of samples as cases in the country continue to rise.

9:30 am: Corona special trains: Rahul Gandhi critices the govt

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has criticised the government for making migrant labourers pay for the ticket fares onboard the Shramik Special trains. He questioned the Indian Railways for donating to the PM CARES fund while asking for fares from needy labourers.

Maharashtra: Employees of an IT company in Nashik are being screened as they rejoin work after their company opens amid #CoronavirusLockdown following revised guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs. pic.twitter.com/1Vh2OpmhKF ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:25 am: Corona news: Subramanian Swamy lashes out at govt

Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy lashed out at the government for making migrant labourers pay for their tickets onboard the Shramik Special trains that's ferrying people across the country. He said why not make PM CARES fund pay the fee.

4 deaths and 123 new #COVID19 cases have been reported in Rajasthan today. Total positive cases stand at 3009 and death toll is 75: Rajasthan Health Department pic.twitter.com/bDOENYkg7I ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:20 am: Karnataka corona cases

Migrant workers arrive in Kalaburagi from different parts of the state. They will be screened and transported home. They have also been given refreshments. Buses carrying migrant workers started arriving at 5am today. Around 70 buses are expected to arrive and the process is likely to go on for the next three days.

People line up outside a liquor shop in Laxmi Nagar after Delhi govt allowed sale of liquor in standalone shops, neighbourhood (colony)shops or shops in residential complexes. pic.twitter.com/ADyPE8ZUYQ ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

9:15 am: Coronavirus latest news: Congress mobilises local sources

Congress leader and Gujarat MP Ahmed Patel has asked Congress party workers to mobilise local sources and help stranded migrants in travelling back to their homes.

9:10 am: Chhattisgarh corona updates: Liquor sales boom

People have already lined up to buy booze in Chhattisgarh as relaxations are eased from today. Liquor shops will also be allowed to sale from Monday onwards. However, customers will have to observe necessary social distancing norms.

How moronic of the Government of India to charge steep rail fares from the half starved migrant labourers! Indians stranded abroad were brought back free by Air India. If Railways refuse to budge then why not make PM CARES pay instead? Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) May 4, 2020

9:05 am: Corona news: Congress to bear cost of migrant's rail travel

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has decided that the party will bear the cost of every needy and migrant labourer's travel on Shramik Special trains. The party has asked every Pradesh Congress Committee to bear the cost of rail travel for the needy. Gandhi said that this will be the party's humble contribution in the service of the compatriots and an attempt to stand in solidarity with them.

9:00 am: Coronavirus in Assam

In the third phase of the lockdown, a 12-hour curfew will be imposed in Assam. The curfew will be enforced from 6pm to 6am every day and there will be nomovement during that time, said Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He added that private medical clinics and doctor chambers, vets, dental clinics and labs can open from today but they will have to shut shop at 5 pm. Standalone shops will be allowed to open.

8:55 am: Delhi coronavirus cases: Airport to resume operations

Terminal 3 of Delhi airport to resume operations today. Commercial passenger flights at Delhi airport will initially operate from Terminal 3 after the lockdown ends, said a senior official of its operator DIAL on Sunday. Vistara and IndiGo passengers would enter the airport through gates 1 and 2, while AirAsia India and Air India have been allotted gates 3 and 4. SpiceJet and GoAir passengers would enter through gate 5.

8:50 am: Coronavirus in Maharashtra

An Aurangabad MP has said that even though the state has allowed liquor shops to reopen, they will not allow liquor sales in Aurangabad. He said that if liquor shops are allowed to reopen then people will not follow restrictions. "This isn't the time to sell liquor and create problems for mothers and sisters," said the MP.

8:45 am: Punjab coronavirus updates

6.44 lakh migrants, most of them labourers, have registered for journey back home. 3.26 lakh from UP and 2.22 lakh from Bihar, besides from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Arunachal Pradesh will be ferried on the Shramik Special trains organised by the government upon the requests of state governments.

8:35 am: Uttar Pradesh coronavirus news

The UP govt on Sunday issued fresh guidelines keeping in mind the relaxations allowed by the Centre. The state govt has asked all people in the red zones to download the govt's Aarogya Setu app. It added that only 20 people will be allowed to gather for weddings and funerals. People over 65 years have been asked to stay at home. Liquor shops not inside shopping malls can be opened from 10 am to 7 pm.

8:30 am: Corona in UP

Special train with 1,200 migrants reach Kanpur from Gujarat today. These trains are being operated on the request of state governments. Only people who have registered and are being brought to the stations by governments can travel in these Shramik trains.
A photographer has taken the world's clearest pictures of the moon's craters by combining multiple shots of the lunar line where light meets dark.

California-based astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy stacked thousands of pictures together over lunar phases to show the moon's surface in all its glory.

The lunar enthusiast took two weeks' worth of frames of the waxing moon  as the amount of illuminated surface seen from Earth increases.

Due to a quirk of the light caused by the 'lunar terminator'  the line between light and dark sides of the moon  features such as craters look elongated.

In a painstaking process, McCarthy took shots of the lunar surface where the effect is most pronounced and combined them into one detailed composite.

Normally only a few can be seen but astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy stacked thousands of pictures together over moon phases to show it off in all its glory

A composite picture of the moon made up from thousands of pictures taken at different moon phases to capture every detail of the craters

The spectacular final result reveals a dazzling array of craters, dimples and imperfections on the Earth's 4.5 billion-year-old neighbour.

Posting to his Instagram account, Mr McCarthy described the snap, titled 'All Terminator', as a 'beast of a project'.

'This moon might look a little funny to you, and that's because it is an impossible scene,' he said on his account, @cosmic_background.

Posting to Instagram, Californian-based Mr McCarthy described the snap, titled All Terminator, as an 'impossible scene'

'From two weeks of images of the waxing moon, I took the section of the picture that has the most contrast (right before the lunar terminator where shadows are the longest), aligned and blended them to show the rich texture across the entire surface,' he said.

'This was exhausting to say the least, namely because the moon doesn't line up day over day, so each image had to be mapped to a 3D sphere and adjusted to make sure each image aligned.

McCarthy, who took the original shots using an ASI1600MM and the Celestron edgeHD 800, might repeat the process for the moon's opposite phase.

'I may or may not try this again for the waning phases depending on feedback,' he said.

A composite picture of the moon made up from thousands of pictures taken at different moon phases to capture every detail of the craters

'Always wondered what the moon would look like using images of the terminator only,' replied ethan_roberts_astronomer02. 'Very interesting result.'

The lunar terminator or 'twilight zone' is the line between light and dark side of the moon.

The sun is closer to the horizon in the terminator, creating long shadows which give the surface a three-dimensional appearance.

Posting to Instagram, Californian-based McCarthy described the snap, titled All Terminator, as an 'impossible scene. The original shots were taken using an ASI1600MM and an edgeHD 800 (pictured)

These shadows make the moon's surface clearer and features like craters more noticeable.

According to NASA, many craters appear near the terminator because their height makes them easier to discern there.

This is just like the line of light and dark on Earth, making shadows lengthen when the sun is low in the sky.

But unlike the Moons well-defined terminators, the ones on Earth appear fuzzy and diffused  leading to dawn and dusk  which is due to the differences in atmosphere.

Posting to social media, McCarthy told his followers that 'this moon might look a little funny to you'

'The suns light bounces off of each microscopic molecule of gas on the way down to us, getting scattered in the process,' says the Old Farmers' Almanac.

'Its this scattering of the suns light that allows us to see some that light prior to sunrise and after sunset each day.

'The Moon has no atmosphere, so the suns light reaches its surface unhindered.'
The employees of Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) have come forward to support the Government's initiative in combating national crisis of COVID-19 pandemic and voluntarily contributed one day's salary- amounting to around Rs. 2.5 crore to the PM CARES Fund. EPFO, as one of World's largest Social Security Organizations, stands committed in the service of the nation in every possible way. The COVID-19, declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization, has posed serious challenges for the health and economic security of millions of Indians. Government of India has set up a public charitable trust under the name of 'Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund' (PM CARES Fund) with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation. Officers and staff of EPFO are also contributing by putting in extra efforts for providing relief by expeditiously processing EPF withdrawal claims including COVID claims under PMGKY package, etc.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As the third phase of the lockdown begins in India, the government has allowed the standalone liquor shops to open outside coronavirus containment areas under certain conditions. (Image: Twitter @ANI)

Chhattisgarh | Men wearing masks buy liquor from a shop in Rajnandgaon. (Image: Twitter @ANI)

Chhattisgarh | People line up outside a liquor shop in Raipur as the government allows liquor shops to open in the state, except in containment zones. (Image: Twitter @ANI)

Mumbai | Social distancing norms being flouted as crowds gather outside liquor shops in Dombivli. (Image: News18)

Mumbai | People line up outside a liquor shop in Thane flouting social distancing rules. (Image: News18)

Mumbai | A large number of people outside a liquor shop in Kalyan. (Image: News18)

Karnataka | People queue up at a liquor shop in Bengaluru. The state government has allowed liquor shops to open from May 4. (Image: Twitter @ANI)

Karanataka | A queue outside a liquor shop in Hubli. The state government has permitted the sale of liquor between 9 am and 7 pm from May 4. (Image: Twitter @ANI)

A long queue to buy liquor outside a wine shop in New Delhi on May 4, 2020. (Image: Reuters)

Delhi | People buying liquor in Laxmi Nagar after the state government allowed its sale in standalone shops outside the COVID-19 containment zones. (Image: Twitter @ANI)

Ghaziabad | People line up outside liquor shops in Indirapuram. (Image: News18)
A new study from the University of Melbourne finds that measures taken by the Australian public and government have effectively contained the spread of COVID-19 in Australia for the present. The paper is published on the preprint server medRxiv* in May 2020.

The study analyses the unfolding of the epidemic and the ensuing public health response, including the "intensity and timing of public health interventions."

Melbourne, Australia - Apr 13, 2020: Beach Closed due to COVID-19. Coronavirus sign at St Kilda beach. Image Credit: Alex Cimbal / Shutterstock

Early Travel Restriction Reduces Importation of Infection

On January 31, 2020, China reported 9,720 cases of COVID-19. However, Australia had only 9 cases that had a travel history or a direct link to Wuhan.

Australia put precautions in place as early as February 1, back when China was the only country where community transmission was reported. All travel from mainland China was restricted, except in the cases of Australian citizens and residents, who were advised to self-quarantine after their arrival.

In addition to this, testing and awareness campaigns became a part of precautionary border measures for arrivals from other countries. These measures were based on a tool developed to evaluate the risk of spread through these means, in early February.

Approximately 200,000 air passengers were expected to land in the country from mainland China. However, due to the restrictions put in place, travel numbers were significantly reduced.

"These restrictions were not intended (and highly unlikely) to prevent the ultimate importation of COVID-19 into Australia. Their purpose was to delay the establishment of an epidemic, buying valuable time for health authorities to plan and prepare," the researchers explain.

In February, the country only saw 12 cases. However, travel restrictions were expanded in March 2020 to cover other countries with uncontained outbreaks like Italy and Iran.

Preventing Community Spread

However, case numbers began rising in the first two weeks of March, most of them linked to overseas returnees. Localized community transmission was reported in Sydney and Melbourne. Infection rate graphs began to look like those in China, Europe, and the US.

The second half of March saw the Australian government introducing a slew of tighter restrictions step by step, all aimed at reducing existing community spread and preventing it where it was not yet operating. These measures included social distancing measures, mandatory self-quarantine for all international arrivals (which included Australian returnees within the next two weeks), and closed international borders to all countries (except for citizens and residents).

By the end of March, the government advised strict social distancing measures, where people were discouraged from leaving their homes for any but essential reasons. It also prohibited public gatherings with more than two people. It worked - cases began falling again.

Australia Holding Its Own

Australia reported over 6,500 confirmed COVID-19 cases by April 18, 2020, with 67 case fatalities. However, the disease curve has been flattening since late March 2020, with fewer infections being reported each day.

The investigators say, "Our analysis suggests that Australia's combined strategy of early, targeted management of the risk of importation, case targeted interventions, and broad-scale social distancing measures applied prior to the onset of detected widespread community transmission has substantially mitigated the first wave of COVID-19. "

Falling Reproduction Number

Researchers used a reproduction number - the number of people whom an infected COVID-19 patient infects, in the presence of public health measures and normal susceptibility to the virus. If the reproduction number was below 1 in a certain area, researchers could safely assume that there would be a drop in the infection rate. This also meant that hospitals and intensive care units would not be overwhelmed by a high number of simultaneous infections.

"We estimate that the effective reproduction number was likely below 1 (the threshold value for control) in each Australian state since mid-March and forecast that hospital ward and intensive care unit occupancy will remain below capacity thresholds over the next two weeks," researchers said.

A worst-case scenario was avoided, researchers add, where daily demand for ICU beds would have been 35,000 ICU beds at the most by May 2020, much like other countries that failed to contain the outbreak. This would have far overwhelmed Australia's health system capacity of approximately 2,200 ICU beds.

Cautious Relaxations To Keep The Curve Flat

The team warned against premature relaxation of containment measures, especially in places where localized transmission has already been reported, as well as high-risk areas like nursing homes for elderly patients, which have reported a high global fatality rate.

While the case detection rate among symptomatic patients is above 77% in Australia, the number of asymptomatic, mild, and undiagnosed infections remains largely unknown, the researchers added. The presence of a high number of asymptomatic cases has been a thorn in the flesh for many countries grappling with the epidemic.

Even if there were a large number of such cases, the Australian population would still be extremely vulnerable to infection because of the low prevalence of COVID-19 so far. However, the time Australia has bought with its early action may empower it to be more prepared when the wave hits, the researchers conclude.

As of today, May 4, 2020, Australia has reported 6,801 cases and 95 deaths. 5,817 cases are reported as recovered. Over 633,000 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted to date.

"For now, Australia is one of the few countries fortunate enough to be able to plan the next steps from a position of relative calm as opposed to crisis," concludes the report.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
At least three Alabama mayors are asking Gov. Kay Ivey and State Health Officer Scott Harris for waivers to current coronavirus restrictions, citing few cases and concerns about economic devastation.

In late March, Ivey closed non-essential businesses, including many retail stores, beauty and barber shops and gyms. The same order limited restaurants to carry-out, curbside or delivery only. Parts of that order expired April 30 and some retailers were allowed to reopen but the restrictions remain in place for close-contact service providers and restaurants. Ivey said the issue will be readdressed May 15.

The limitations are causing undue harm to businesses, the mayors wrote.

Pell City Mayor Bill Pruitt said in a letter to Ivey there is currently only one confirmed case of COVID-19 in his city.

While I am aware that we are not out of the woods yet as it relates to a full recovery from COVID-19, I fear that we are on the brink of a much more devastating end, Pruitt wrote.

Although the temporary economic shutdowns and social restrictions may have been necessary and while it appears to have led to the desired flattening of the curve, it has also yielded an unintended, yet insidious, degradation of the human spirit. Pell City is full of small businesses that are on the verge of collapse."

Pruitt wrote that his city is full of businesses begging for the chance to fight for survival.

"Without such a chance, some of them will not be with us in two weeks, four weeks or whenever we reach of full reopening, Pruitt wrote. I am respectfully requesting you allow the immediate reopening of any business willing to implement, maintain and enforce the protocols you have outlines for the safety of its employees and customers.

Pell City is located in St. Clair County, which, according to the Department of Public Health, has 76 coronavirus cases and no deaths.

In north Alabama, Morgan County has a similar number of cases  76  and no deaths. In his letter, Hartselle Mayor Randy Garrison asked Ivey to consider letting counties, cities and towns with very low numbers to reopen restaurants dining rooms and personal service businesses, such as barber and beauty shops, as long as they maintain strict safety guidelines.

Many of these folks are barely holding on and another two weeks could result in a make or break situation, Garrison wrote.

In Cleburne County, Heflin Mayor Rudy Rooks said his letter to Ivey he believes it is time for a more localized response to COVID-190.

What may be required for a place like Birmingham or Montgomery may not be applicable to a more rural city such as Heflin at this time, Rooks wrote.

We have not seen a new case reported in Cleburne County for 21 days. National guidelines require 14. I am asking Dr. Harris and the Governor to consider allowing Heflin to open up its fitness facilities and commercial gyms, close-contact service providers, and restaurants with appropriate safety measures. The city and its first responders stand ready to assist our businesses in providing the safest environments for our citizens while giving those businesses the ability to recover as well, Rooks said.

Cleburne County, population 15,000, has 12 COVID-19 cases, according to the ADPH.

Trussville Mayor Buddy Choat is holding a press conference today to call on Ivey and state health officials to allow restaurants, hair salons, barber shops, nail salons, fitness centers and similar businesses to re-open.
The regional governors office of Shirak Province of Armenia has posted the following on its Facebook page:

As of May 4, 90 patients are under treatment at the infection hospital in Gyumri, and 84 of them are residents of Shirak Province. Since an increase in the number of coronavirus cases is expected alongside the lifting of restrictions, by the assignment of the Ministry of Health, patients who have positive results, but are asymptomatic will be transported to hotels distinguished from other hotels in Tsaghkadzor for that purpose. Today, 24 patients will be transferred from the infection hospital in Gyumri.

There are 19 patients who have been transported to Yerevan, and overall, 21 patients have recovered and been checked out of the infection hospital. Currently, isolation and self-isolation have been indicated for 338 citizens in Shirak Province.
As of the morning of Sunday 3 May the United States has over 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, 152,000 have recovered and 64,283 have died during the pandemic. New York remains the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., while President Donald Trump is urging all states to reopen the economy and the public schools.

Experts are advising that the country needs to drastically increase its amount of daily Covid-19 testings and on Friday, The Guardian revealed that scientists working for the U.S. military have designed a new test that could potentially identify carriers before they become infectious and spread the disease.

Project coordinators hope the blood-based test will be able to detect the viruss presence as early as 24 hours after infection, before people show symptoms and several days before a carrier is considered capable of spreading it to other people. That is also around four days before current tests can detect the virus.

Tests emerges from a different US project

The test has emerged from a project set up by the US militarys Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) aimed at rapid diagnosis of germ or chemical warfare poisoning. It was hurriedly repurposed when the pandemic broke out and the new test is expected to be put forward for emergency use approval (EUA) by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within a week.

The concept fills a diagnostic gap worldwide, the head of Darpas biological technologies office, Dr Brad Ringeisen, told the Guardian, since it should also fill in testing gaps at later stages of the infection. If given FDA approval, he said, it had the potential to be absolutely a gamechanger.

As the country prepares to slowly reopen the economy and end the quarantine period later this month, Darpa cautioned that it must wait until after FDA approval is given and the test can be put into practise for evidence of exactly how early it can pick up the virus.

He said the testing approach, which looks at the bodys response as it fights Covid-19, should produce earlier results than current nose-swab tests that hunt for the virus itself. Because the immune response to infection develops immediately after infection, a Covid signature is expected to provide more sensitive Covid infection diagnosis earlier, he told the Guardian.

If EUA is granted, the test should start being rolled out in the US in the second half of May. Approval is not guaranteed, but Darpa scientists are enthusiastic about the potential impact as governments loosen lockdowns amid worries about controlling potential second-wave outbreaks.
The Hartfords 2020 first-quarter numbers are yet another example of the coronavirus pandemic not yet affecting underwriting results in a major way. But net income took a big hit.

First-quarter net income came in at $268 million, or $0.74 per diluted share. Thats down 57 percent from the same period in 2019. The Hartford blamed the result largely on realized and unrealized losses from its equity investment portfolio versus net realized capital gains in 2019.

Another factor that dinged income: net unfavorable prior accident year development on legacy Navigators reserves. The Hartford noted that this is covered by reinsurance but was recognized as a deferred gain on retroactive reinsurance.

COVID-19 will make a much bigger financial impact later in the year, The Hartford said, versus a relatively small $50 million pretax hit to the companys underwriting operations for Q1 2020. During the quarter, The Hartford returned $258 million to shareholders as part of a $1 billion share repurchase reauthorization. The company has $650 million to go under the agreement but said it has paused share repurchases as it monitors coronavirus pandemic impacts.

The Hartford said it continues to monitor the effects of COVID-19 and will work closely with its impacted customers as the crisis evolves.

Results beyond that were relatively stable. The Hartford reported a personal lines combined ratio of 86.7 during Q1 versus 93.2 in the 2019 first quarter. Its commercial lines combined ratio was 99.1, up from 96.1 a year ago, something The Hartford said came, in part, from workers compensation rate pressure, though this was partially offset by lower non-catastrophe property losses in the small commercial package business.

Here are other Q1 2020 result highlights:

Commercial lines net written premiums surpassed $2.4 billion, 24 percent higher than the $1.9 billion in premiums produced in Q1 2019. The results were helped in part by the companys $2.1 billion Navigators acquisition, which closed in mid-2019.

Standard commercial rate increases excluding workers compensation grew 9.4 percent, something The Hartford said accelerated during the quarter.

Personal lines net written premiums came in at $744 million during the quarter, 4 percent lower than the $771 million recorded in Q1 2019. The Hartford blamed the result on declines in both auto and homeowners. At the same time, the carrier said that new business premiums of $75 million were about 4 percent higher than a year ago, reflecting new business growth in both areas.

Topics COVID-19 Profit Loss
The Chinese unit of Germany's Tui, the world's biggest tourism group, said it has resumed offering holiday packages in China and the group has urged the European Union to lift travel restrictions in place to curb the coronavirus.

The resumption of business in China, three months after Tui's activities there were halted, is focused on short breaks in the mountains and beach resorts.

Other packages include trips in the vicinity of big cities.

Tui has resumed offering holiday packages in China and urged the European Union to lift travel restrictions in place to curb the coronavirus

Tui chief executive Fritz Joussen said in a statement: 'Our offices in Peking and Shanghai were open during the crisis but were not allowed to sell holiday packages.

'We now see a significant backlog of demand for holidays.

'Tui China will in the coming weeks broaden its offers step by step.'

The global tourism industry is closely watching trends in China for clues to travel patterns in other major markets once the virus, which has infected 3.44million people and killed 243,00 worldwide, is under control and curbs on movement ease.

Since April, there have been signs of a recovery in China's tourism market, and aviation experts expect domestic travel in most markets will recover before international travel.

Travel within China is also complicated by movement curbs retained in some regions, such as Beijing, the capital, to guard against a second wave of infections from aboard.

Joussen urged the EU to put in place a concept that allows for the resumption of holiday travel within the bloc, where border restrictions have been in place since March.

'The EU and its member states should develop a timetable for resuming travel within Europe and make holidays possible in 2020,' he said, citing Greece, Cyprus, Spanish islands, Austria and Bulgaria, which have made progress toward reopening resorts.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer ruled out reopening Germany's border with Austria to holidaymakers in an interview with mass-selling Bild newspaper, citing the risk of a second coronavirus outbreak.

The Ischgl ski resort has been linked to hundreds of coronavirus cases in Germany and Scandinavian countries.

Heathrow Airport pictured last month. The chief executive of the airport has warned that social distancing would require kilometre-long queues for each jumbo jet

Meanwhile, the chief executive of London's Heathrow Airport has warned that implementing social distancing at airports would require kilometre-long queues for each jumbo jet.

John Holland-Kaye says that the UK's major international airports do not have enough space for social distancing to be a solution for safe travel post-lockdown.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he said: 'Forget social distancing - it won't work in aviation or any other form of public transport, and the problem is not the plane, it is the lack of space in the airport.

'Just one jumbo jet would require a queue a kilometre long.'

Mr Holland-Kaye called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to quickly find a 'common international standard' of alternative solutions that could be installed in time for summer.

Mandatory health checks for passengers, increased levels of hygiene and compulsory facemasks are among the options floated by Mr Holland-Kaye in order to open the nation's airports as soon as possible and avoid 'massive job losses in our sector... (and) many other sectors that depend on us'.

He added that social distancing on planes would reduce capacities by more than 50 per cent and mean 'prices would shoot up'.
Help India!

By Musheera Ashraf, TwoCircles.net

ALIGARH: Scores of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) students on Monday alleged facing inconvenience and hardship on their way home after the AMU administration had made travel arrangements for their return to different districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Support TwoCircles



After 38 days of lockdown, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) administration on April 30 had advised its students to take advantage of the proposed relaxation facility announced by the government and return to their hometowns.

In a circular issued by AMU Registrar Abdul Hamid, he said that as per the circular of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the students are allowed to go back to their hometown.

Travel arrangements for students residing in UP have been made by the district administration. Students may contact their respective provost, and dean, student welfare and proctor for any clarification in this regard, he said.

Many students agreed to travel back home to different districts of Uttar Pradesh.

However, scores of students complained of being stranded in Saharanpur and Bareilly, the videos of which went viral on social media.

Talking to TwoCircles.net, a few students who insisted on remaining anonymous, said that they were first taken to shelter homes and faced hardship.

The students were taken to Haroon Nagla shelter home in Bareilly for screening. The authorities told us that we have to stay there for the whole night because the doctor will come in the morning, a student said.

The students were then released around 10:30 a.m. the next day.

The students said, that after reaching Saharanpur, they were told that they will have to wait till the next day to know if they will be quarantined or released.

We were only released after the intervention of some people from Saharanpur, a student from Saharanpur said.

AMU administration claimed that 1890 students belonging to different states of U.P have reached home. 37 buses on the first day carried 1040 students and on the second day, 850 students were sent back in 27 buses, they said.

But the students pointed out carelessness on part of the administration.

The carelessness of the administration shows that they are shirking from their responsibilities, a BA LLB student Hamza Masood said.

As some buses are scheduled to leave for Bihar and Jharkhand tomorrow and day after tomorrow, the students residing at the hostel are demanding that there should be proper arrangements in place to shift them.

The students demanded the buses be sanitised and the admin should ensure their safety.

We dont want to face the same situation as faced by the students who were stranded in Saharanpur and Bareilly, a law student residing in the girls hostel said.

Another student said that while the provost has said that there will be two home guards accompanying us on the bus so that the buses are not halted. But then the buses were stopped at several places and students also faced problems, he said.

The students are demanding to go home only when proper measures of safety and precautions are taken.

We are safe here. What is the fun of travelling from a safe place to a red zone? By doing this, we are putting ourselves and our family in danger, another student said.
David Axelrod and David Plouffe, enjoy the view from a cherry picker as President Barack Obama makes a campaign stop at Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa, on Saturday, September 1, 2012.

Former President Barack Obama's top campaign architects are telling Joe Biden to improve his digital operation if he wants to defeat President Donald Trump this fall.

David Axelrod, who served as Obama's chief campaign strategist in 2008 and 2012, and David Plouffe, who ran the 2008 campaign, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times on Monday encouraging Biden to expand his campaign's overall digital effort and to move on from relying solely on scripted speeches from his basement.

All campaigns have been forced to get off the trail and go fully virtual due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The two men led the way in crafting Obama's digital effort, with a large focus on using data to craft messages that appealed to a large swath of the electorate.

The column shows that top Democratic strategists believe Biden's campaign is still a long way from having the necessary tools to overcome Trump's juggernaut of a campaign that has been established over the course of four years.

"Online speeches from his basement won't cut it. Written pronouncements on this issue or that may have won attention during his many years in office, but will get little pickup now," Axelrod and Plouffe wrote. Obama endorsed his former running mate for president last month after Sen. Bernie Sanders withdrew from the race.

Biden's campaign has at least 25 people on staff focused on the digital side, but the two former senior Obama strategists said the former vice president's operation must start hiring more digital advisors if they want to compete with Trump.

Biden's campaign has been in touch with at least three top digital consulting firms, including Mike Bloomberg's tech company, Hawkfish.

They pointed to Trump's use of Twitter and his ability to use it as a messaging platform to pummel his enemies. They suggested the apparent Democratic nominee could take Trump's efforts and use them against him.

"Mr. Biden can turn the tables on Mr. Trump. To do this, the challenger needs to behave more like an insurgent, building the capacity to wield facts, humor and mockery at lightning speed in those surreal moments of opportunity that Mr. Trump regularly provides," they said. Axelrod and Plouffe pointed to Trump's recent suggestion that perhaps disinfectants could be injected into a person to kill coronavirus as a prime target for such mockery.

The former Obama campaign advisors also pushed Biden to start turning more to his surrogates as a way to connect to voters online, instead of the virtual events being focused solely on him.

They called on the creation of a "virtual content production studio and establish a unique content calendar for each major social media platform," something Trump already has established. They argued for Biden, in the absence of traditional door knocking, to start calling on his supporters to help organize. These supporters could then potentially reach out to voters that are on the fence about participating in the general election, especially those in battleground states such as Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan and Florida.

"This is an urgent need, as Mr. Trump is far ahead of Mr. Biden organizationally in the battleground states," the two advisors said.

The Biden campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Asip Hasani (The Jakarta Post) Surabaya  Mon, May 4, 2020 11:59 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5bfa81 1 National East-Java,East-Java-Police,surabaya,PSBB,COVID-19,coronavirus,Sidoarjo,Gresik Free

One hundred seventy-one people had to spend the night at police stations after they were apprehended for violating a night curfew during the implementation of large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in raids in Greater Surabaya, East Java, over the weekend.

In an operation carried out from Saturday evening to dawn on Sunday, security personnel raided cafes and coffee stalls in several places in Surabaya and arrested 85 people found hanging out.

Greater Surabaya, which comprises of Surabaya city and its satellite regencies Sidoarjo and Gresik, imposed the PSBB on April 28, with local authorities also setting curfews to restrict public activities from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the three areas.

"We detained them for 24 hours and we took their blood samples for COVID-19 rapid testing. Those whose rapid tests come back reactive will be quarantined for 14 days," Surabaya Police chief Sr. Comr. Sandi Nugroho told reporters on Sunday.

He said police had also recorded the identities of the violators in anticipation of any of them breaking the rules again in the future during the PSBB. If they were found to repeat the offense, the authorities would charge them with violating Article 216 of the Criminal Code, Article 93 of the Health Quarantine Law and the Surabaya mayoral decree on the PSBB, which could result in one year of imprisonment.

Read also: Sampoerna factory closes after two COVID-19 deaths, authorities race to trace contacts

East Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Luki Hermawan said a joint force of police, military and Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) personnel conducted similar raids in Sidoarjo and Gresik and arrested another 89 people.

He said security personnel would conduct patrols in the three regions on a daily basis until the end of the PSBB period.

Luki said security personnel at dozens of checkpoints had so far issued formal warnings to 5,496 individuals who broke the PSBB rules in Surabaya, Gresik and Sidoarjo, such as failing to wear a face mask or violating the limitations on vehicle passengers.

East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa also called on the public to obey the PSBB regulations, saying Surabaya had been severely hit by the virus with the number of confirmed cases continuing to increase.

"Surabaya has twice the number of confirmed cases of Bandung. This is a concerning situation," she said.

Surabaya has confirmed 554 cases of COVID-19 with 71 fatalities as of Sunday, while Sidoarjo recorded 119 cases with 13 fatalities and Gresik 32 cases with 5 fatalities.

The number of confirmed cases in Surabaya accounted for half of East Javas tally of 1,114 confirmed cases, and for almost two-thirds of the provinces 111 fatalities, the highest number of cases in the country after the capital city Jakarta.
Good Morning, welcome to Information Nigerias Newspaper headlines for today, 4th May 2020.

Here are the major headlines.

Lagos Records 62 New Cases As FG Relaxes Lockdown

The Lagos State Government has confirmed 62 cases of coronavirus. A tweet by the State Ministry for Health on Sunday, said it has 1,068 confirmed cases in the state.

Advertisement

Many People Believe COVID-19 Is Fake  Borno Deputy Governor

Umar Kadafur, deputy governor of Borno State, says there are some people in the state who strongly believe that COVID-19 is not real.

We Will Get Through This Pandemic In Good Shape  Sanwo-Olu

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the country and its people will emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic stronger.

Rules, Regulations For Post-Lockdown In Lagos, Ogun And FCT

Following the easing of the lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja from May 4 -7, the federal government has given the description of the types of activities allowed under Phase 1.

MC Oluomo Ask Lagos Drivers Not To Pick Passengers With No Facemask

As Lagosians gear up for the relaxation of the lockdown imposed on the state from Monday, 4th May, the state chairman of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) Lagos State Council, Musiliu Akinsanya (aka MC Oluomo), has ordered commercial bus drivers in the state not to pick passengers without face masks.

WHO To Commence Vaccine Trials In Nigeria

The World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that Nigeria has expressed interest to be part of the global solidarity trial of the vaccines being developed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tackle Fake News Vigorously  Buhari Tells Journalists

As journalists celebrate 2020 world freedom day, President Muhammadu Buhari has urged journalists to vigorously tackle fake news and hate speech.

Kogi Government Denies Spending N7bn To Construct Isolation Center

The Kogi State government has dismissed claims that it spent N7 billion naira to construct an isolation center for COVID-19 cases.

Lockdown: FG Orders Release Of 17,500 Metric Tons Of Grains

The federal government has ordered the release of 17,50 metric tonnes of grains to the public as palliative, following the lockdown imposed on the nation.

Movement Not Allowed For Lagos Workers In Ogun State  Dapo Abiodun

Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State has said the COVID-19 lockdown in the state will now end on May 9. The Governor expressed that residents of the state who work in Lagos State are not permitted to move out or into the state as the lockdown eases next week.
Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, has described the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates and wife, Melinda as demonic, satani...





Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, has described the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates and wife, Melinda as demonic, satanic and occultic.





Fani-Kayode said Bill Gates and his wife wont prevail despite their financial and alleged demonic influence.





In a tweet, the former minister wrote:The Bible says the GATES of hell shall not prevail!.





Bill and Melinda, no matter how much money, power and influence you possess and no matter how many demonic, satanic and occultic forces you control, you shall NOT prevail. I say it again, the GATES of hell shall not prevail.

This is coming at a time when some citizens of the United States, US, had called for the arrest of Gate over claims of COVID-19 vaccine.





Recall that Gates had recently revealed a new RNA vaccine for COVID-19 amongst a list of things that must be done for life to return to normal again.





The Microsoft co-owner had said he was excited about pursuing a new approach called RNA vaccine, with code needed to produce viral fragments on its own.
With its silky lip glosses, shimmering eye shadow palettes and dreamy soft blushes, it's not hard to see why Charlotte Tilbury's Pillow Talk collection is so popular among everyone from beauty lovers and bloggers to makeup artists and celebs.

At the Oscars this year, Salma Hayek, Emma Roberts and dancer Violetta Komyshan were all spotted wearing perfectly polished makeup looks created using the Pillow Talk collection, while Amal Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow and Alexa Chung are all known to be fans of the rosy-beige hued lipstick.

And now you can get six of the collection's most popular products all together in the exclusive Pillow Talk Glow In A Box.

The exclusive Pillow Talk Glow In A Box contains six products including Luxury Palette of Pops in Pillow Talk, Full Fat Lashes mascara, Cheek to Chic blush in Pillow Talk Original, Lip Cheat lip liner in Pillow Talk Original, Pillow Talk Diamonds lipstick and Lip Lustre lip gloss in Pillow Talk

At the Oscars this year, Salma Hayek (right) and Emma Roberts (left) were both spotted wearing perfectly polished makeup looks created using the Pillow Talk collection

Best of all, the bundle allows you to save 20 per cent on the cost of buying all the products separately. So rather than spending $200, you get all six products for $160.

The Pillow talk Glow in a Box officially launches on Wednesday May 6, but DailyMail.com readers can get their hands on the bundle of products from today on Charlotte Tilbury.

In the box you'll find the shimmery Luxury Palette of Pops in Pillow Talk, which is a quad dreamy pink, bronze and peachy shades, perfect for creating a sparkling smokey eye.

There's also the Cheek to Chic blush in Pillow Talk Original, which can be used to bring out a soft fresh-faced glow. Charlotte Tilbury recommends using the two-step swish and glow ritual to create the best effect.

She says: 'Swish the brush around the outer shade and run the brush flat, upwards along the cheek bone, starting from the apple of the cheek, to create structure to the face.

Charlotte Tilbury's Pillow Talk collection contains a range of soft, dreamy products including silky lip glosses, shimmering eye shadow palettes and dreamy soft blushes

'Then, glow by dipping the end of the brush into the centre color and apply to the apples of the cheeks to make them pop!'

To help you create the perfect pillowy pout, the Glow in a Box contains Lip Lustre lip gloss in Pillow Talk and the award-winning Pillow Talk Diamonds lipstick, which features a gorgeous veil of sparkle.

WHAT'S IN PILLOW TALK GLOW IN A BOX? Luxury Palette of Pops in Pillow Talk Full Fat Lashes mascara Cheek to Chic blush in Pillow Talk Original Lip Cheat lip liner in Pillow Talk Original Pillow Talk Diamonds lipstick Lip Lustre lip gloss in Pillow Talk

You can complete your lip look with Charlotte's Lip Cheat lip liner in Pillow Talk Original.

She describes how it mimics and enhances the natural hue of the lips, so you can cheat a perfect pout in seconds.

'With my Lip Cheat lip liners, you can create the effect of fuller, wider-looking lips with a flawless finish', the British make-up artist says.

'The wax and oil rich formula works beautifully as a stencil, ensuring lip colour lasts.

'When you apply, look into the mirror and smile, tightening the skin on the lips to see exactly where to apply the pencil.

'Starting on the outer corners trace the liner just outside the natural lip line. This will help cheat a fuller pout, create symmetry to the lips and help to stop the lipstick bleeding, without looking unnatural.'

The sixth and final product in the box is Charlotte Tilbury's award-winning Full Fat Lashes mascara that gives you curl, separation, volume, length and plenty of drama.

To purchase Charlotte Tilbury's Pillow Talk Glow In A Box click HERE.

DailyMail.com may earn commission on sales from the links on this page.
Justice Department Sides With Virginia Church in COVID-19 Restriction Dispute

The Justice Department (DOJ) has sided with a church against Virginia Gov. Ralph Northams stay-at-home order that bars in-person religious services that have more than 10 people during the CCP virus pandemic.

State and local measures to mitigate the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus have recently sparked a debate over how far measures can go to protect public health before they are deemed a violation of constitutional rights and civil liberties.

The department weighed in on the issue in a statement of interest supporting Lighthouse Fellowship Church, a congregation in Chincoteague, Virginia, filed in a federal court on Sunday. DOJ lawyers argued that the church has demonstrated a likelihood of success under its Free Exercise claims because Northams restrictions appear to discriminate against religious groups and institutions.

Lighthouse Fellowship Church, a small congregation that caters to the socioeconomically disadvantaged, sued Northam, alleging that the governor had issued restrictions that improperly singles out religious gatherings at places of worship while allowing comparable secular gatherings, including business operations offering professional rather than retail services. The church is claiming the state had infringed on the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit was filed at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia after the Chincoteague Police Department issued the churchs pastor a criminal citation and summons for holding a 16-person worship service in its 225-seat sanctuary. The church maintains that it had imposed rigorous social-distancing and personal-hygiene protocols during the service.

If found guilty of violating Northams order, the pastor could face a penalty of up to a year in jail or a $2,500 fine, or both.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam gestures during a news conference at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., on April 8, 2020. (Steve Helber/AP Photo)

On May 1, the district court denied (pdf) the churchs request for a temporary restraining order and an injunction to block the enforcement of Northams order. The churchs lawyer subsequently filed an appeal and asked the district court to grant an injunction pending the appeal.

In its statement, the department argued that Virginia had not satisfied its burden of showing that it has compelling reasons to treat the church differently than similar non-religious businesses.

[T]here are good reasons to discourage gatherings of more than ten people and to encourage people to stay home whenever possible. But the Free Exercise Clause generally mandates that restrictions on gatherings be applied equally, the lawyers wrote (pdf).

[B]y exempting other activities permitting similar opportunities for in-person gatherings of more than ten individuals, while at the same time prohibiting churches from gathering in groups of more than teneven with social distancing measures and other precautionshas impermissibly interfered with the churchs free exercise of religion.

The governors lawyers filed a preliminary response (pdf) to the DOJs arguments, arguing that the church and the DOJ had misconstrued the nature of the states gathering ban, adding that the governor would provide an explanation about his order.

Contrary to Plaintiffs and the Federal Governments contention, for example, the orders challenged in this case do not exempt all non-retail businesses, including professional services, from the mass gathering limit,' the governors lawyers wrote.

The lawyers added that the governor also intends to file declarations from public health experts to explain why the gathering ban was and is essential.

Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver welcomed the DOJs statement, saying that the discriminatory targeting of religious worship by limiting congregants to 10 people even with social distancing while allowing similar secular gatherings violates the First Amendment. Liberty Counsel filed the lawsuit on behalf of the church.

Attorney General Bill Barr at the Justice Department in Washington on Jan. 13, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

This statement of interest comes after Attorney General William Barr issued a memorandum directing federal prosecutors to be on the lookout for state and local restrictions that could be running afoul of constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.

In his memo, Barr said in the event an ordinance crosses the line between stopping the spread of the virus and violating constitutional and statutory protections, the DOJ may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court.

Many policies that would be unthinkable in regular times have become commonplace in recent weeks, and we do not want to unduly interfere with the important efforts of state and local officials to protect the public, Barr said. But the Constitution is not suspended in times of crisis.

This is the second time the department has filed a statement of interest in support of a church that appeared to be discriminated in state and local stay-at-home orders. The department previously supported a Mississippi church that appeared to be singled out by a local mayors order against drive-in services.

A demonstrator holds a sign at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Va., on April 16, 2020. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

Matt C. Pinsker, an attorney and an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who teaches constitutional law, told The Epoch Times in an email that he believes for the state to target a church service of 16 people who socially distanced in a sanctuary that of 225 seats is asinine and discriminatory.

While Governors can institute measures to protect people, this example is complete insanity and fails to protect anyone, Pinkster said. The problem with the Governments response is that not all people are equally vulnerable, so it is a manifest injustice to deprive all Americans of their civil liberties.

The way to strike a balance is to enact measures to protect and support the most vulnerable members of our population, while allowing the less vulnerable to resume their normal lives, he added.

Many Americans are frustrated by restrictions that caused them to lose their jobs, while plunging their states into a deep economic slump. In recent weeks, there have been an increase in protests against state and local governments over orders that have stirred controversy, such as Michigan banning the sale of seeds in some stores.
Dawn Foods is offering free social distancing graphics to support bakeries during the coronavirus pandemic.

Each downloadable kit contains posters, counter signs and floor decals to promote bakery offerings and encourage social distancing among customers.

The in-store graphics have been developed for businesses that are opening back up or bakeries that have remained open during this time and are offering a takeaway service, said the company.

The graphics are available in three themes - doughnuts, cupcakes and general bakery items.

Dawn Foods was built on supporting our customers and this support has never been more important as we all face the impact that the Coronavirus is having on the bakery industry. Many of our high street customers are operating in a limited way, diversifying into takeaway or opening a few shops, said Jacqui Passmore, marketing manager UK and Ireland at Dawn Foods.

Bakers and consumers can access the digital artwork files for free via Dawns website and send them to their local printers. Bakers can also download images to use on their social media platforms.

Communication is key to letting consumers know they can still order from you or visit your shop but we all now appreciate that social distancing measures will be in place for some time. We have developed these in-store signage kits for bakers safety and those of their customers by reminding everyone to keep their distance, Passmore added.
Multiple populations of subcutaneous white fat cells each may play different roles in obesity, diabetes and other diseases.

BOSTON - (May 1, 2020) - Excess white fat causes obesity, which in turn can drive diabetes and many other metabolic diseases that are growing at epidemic rates around the world. But all white fat is not born equal. For instance, "intra-abdominal" fat, i.e. fat within the belly, is known to carry higher risks of disease than "subcutaneous" fat that sits under the skin and often accumulates in the hips and thighs. Researchers from Joslin Diabetes Center and Boston University now have discovered different types of white fat cells, even within a single site, that may play distinct roles in disease.

"A central question in our research on metabolic disease is whether white fat cells in different parts of the body, and even within a single part of the body, are different enough that some might predispose you to disease and some might not," says C. Ronald Kahn, MD, Joslin's Chief Academic Officer and Head of the Section on Integrative Physiology and Metabolism. "If so, determining the mechanisms for these differences could lead to development of novel therapies for diabetes, obesity and related conditions."

Earlier studies had identified several types of white fat cells in mice, but this is one of the first to discover multiple types in humans, says Kahn, who is co-senior author on a Nature Communications paper presenting the work and professor at Harvard Medical School.

Within fat tissue, fat cells evolve from "preadipocytes" or precursor cells to mature cells. As they do, their patterns of gene expression change. A technique called single-cell RNA sequencing examines these expression patterns on a cell-by-cell basis, offering an extremely detailed look at how the patterns vary between cells.

The collaboration between Joslin and Boston University began with two sets of single-cell RNA sequencing data on human subcutaneous white fat preadipocytes that progressed into mature stages in culture. Gathered from healthy humans, one data set was collected by scientists at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and the other by the lab of Joslin's Yu-Hua Tseng, PhD.

Simon Kasif, PhD, Boston University professor of biomedical engineering and co-senior author on the paper, then led an integrated analysis of both data sets with a novel mathematical approach to understanding the patterns of gene expression in these cells.

The analysis identified two subtypes of human white subcutaneous fat that displayed quite distinct patterns of gene expression. Among the distinctions, one subtype showed patterns indicating much higher intake of glucose, a crucial resource in metabolism.

Additionally, the investigators found that "zinc nuclear finger" genes, a group of master regulator genes whose function in fat cells is not well understood, were expressed at much higher levels in one class of preadipocytes. This expression may help to control whether the cells become mature fat cells, the scientists suggested.

"We think this research is the tip of the iceberg--if we study more samples of human fat, we will find more subtypes," says Kahn. It would be very helpful, for instance, to examine samples of intra-abdominal fat and fat from people with various metabolic conditions. Broadening the research into white fat cell types would aid in connecting various patterns of obesity with the risks and mechanisms of metabolic disease, he says.

"Body fat is linked to many different conditions beyond diabetes," Kahn emphasizes. "This research could be important for understanding the risk factors for other metabolic diseases such as fatty liver disease and atherosclerosis, and even non-metabolic diseases that are increased by obesity, such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease."

"The study highlights the potential of bringing interdisciplinary expertise from four laboratories to integrate biology, artificial intelligence, systems biology and data obtained from clinical samples to catalyze discovery," says Kasif.

"Metabolic diseases are highly associated with environmental factors," Kasif adds. "This work supports the relatively understudied hypothesis that environmental factors may modify the trajectory of how cells develop and our understanding of how this process may influence biology and metabolic disease."

###

Alfred Ramirez, then a graduate student at Boston University, was first author on the paper. Other contributors included Weikang Cai, Ruidan Xue and Yu-Hua Tseng from Joslin; Bashir Rastegarpanah and Mark Crovella from Boston University; and Simon Dankel from the University of Bergen in Norway. Lead funding for the work came from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

About Joslin Diabetes Center

Joslin Diabetes Center is world-renowned for its deep expertise in diabetes treatment and research. Joslin is dedicated to finding a cure for diabetes and ensuring that people with diabetes live long, healthy lives. We develop and disseminate innovative patient therapies and scientific discoveries throughout the world. Joslin is an independent, non-profit institution affiliated with Harvard Medical School, and one of only 16 NIH-designated Diabetes Research Centers in the U.S.

For more information, visit http://www.joslin.org or follow @joslindiabetes | One Joslin Place, Boston, MA 617-309-2400
With Ghaziabad in the orange zone, the district administration said it was working on a set of guidelines that would define how economic activity would resume while ensuring strict compliance of all measures needed to contain the spread of the Coronavirus disease.

The action plan will be ready by May 4 and will be made public. A meeting was held with officials of different departments Everything directed by the state government will be put in place in a coordinated manner, Ghaziabad district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said.

The guidelines issued by Uttar Pradesh government on Sunday were based on guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs last Friday.

The letter issued by UP chief secretary RK Tiwari, listed the zone-wise permissions and prohibitions. UP has adopted the complete ban on all activity between 7pm to 7am. It is an appeal and order that people above age of 65 years, those with comorbidities, children under 10 years and pregnant women should stay home, UP additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi said.

Among the enterprises allowed to function are standalone liquor shops across zones but outside containment zones from 10am to 7pm with strict adherence to physical distancing.

In containment zones, OPD and medical clinics will not be allowed to open. These will be permitted in Red, Orange and Green zones with the help of health department guidelines. For emergency services, we have given permission to individual hospitals, Awasthi said.

The guidelines allows opening of standalone shops selling essential and non-essential items, but market complexes and markets will remain shut.

The officials said that private four-wheelers with a driver and two passengers, and two persons on a two-wheeler are permitted in Orange zone but within the district. Inter-state and intra-city bus operation will not be allowed in Orange zone, they added.

The industrial activity in urban areas is permitted in Special Economic Zones, export-oriented units and industrial estate/townships. Other industrial units operating at present will continue operation. The factory premises will have to be sanitized and disinfected. In Red and Orange zones, units with more than 50 workers will have to arrange for transport facilities and vehicles will function at 50% of its passenger capacity, Awasthi added.

Units with more than 50 employees will also have to get random testing of at least 5% employees (maximum 25) through RT-PCR kits, he added.

Officials also allowed for operation of private offices with 33% employees and work from home for remaining staff.

The Covid-19 is a highly contagious disease caused by the virus Sars-CoV-2, which attacks the respiratory system. So far, 83 people have been infected in the district. Pan India, the number stands at 40,244, as per the Union Ministry of Home Affairs website late Sunday night.

The number of curbs on human movement amid the Covid-19 pandemic is fewer in the orange zone than red but more than green. Neighbouring districts of Noida, Meerut and Delhi are under the Red zone.

Eight more cases, tally now at 83

The district of Ghaziabad, on Sunday, reported eight more cases of the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19). With this, the tally, which includes the husband of a woman councillor from Vasundhara who had tested positive on April 30, has reached 83, of which 31 are active.

The husband of councillor from Vasundhara also tested positive and he has been admitted to the ESI Hospital in Sahibabad. We are also trying to trace his other contacts. Further, wife and nephew of a Covid-19 patient from Vaishali have also tested positive. A man from Dasna Gate tested positive besides four other persons who were already in a quarantine facility. The four persons are from Islam Nagar and contacts of a positive patient, said chief medical officer (CMO) Dr NK Gupta.

The chief medical officer also said that 12 contacts of a driver of the district fire department tested negative for Covid-19 on Sunday.

The driver is at ESI Hospital in Sahibabad and had tested positive three days ago. All his contacts tested negative on Sunday, he said.

Chief fire officer Sunil Kumar Singh confirmed that the driver had turned positive and all his 12 contacts were negative after test reports received on Sunday.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Australian share market finished higher after recouping early losses on Monday, 04 May 2020, on the back of gains in healthcare and industrial stocks. However, market gains capped amid reigniting tensions between the world's top two economies after U. S. officials tried to pin blame for the coronavirus pandemic on China. At closing bell, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index spurted 73.96 points, or 1.41%, to 5,319.85. The broader All Ordinaries surged by 64.50 points, or 1.21%, to 5,389.47.

Local shares fell in early trade on reigniting tensions between the world's top two economies after U. S. officials tried to pin blame for the coronavirus pandemic on China.

The tensions between world's top two economies reignited after U. S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he believed that a mistake in China was the cause of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, though he did not present any evidence for the claim.

U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday there was "a significant amount of evidence" that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, doubling down on Washington's pressure on China over the virus' origin as U.

S. deaths and economic damage mount. The accusation came after Donald Trump's threat late last week of retaliatory measures against China as punishment for the outbreak, once again sparking tariff fears that rattled markets through much of the last two years.

The US top spy agency said on Thursday that it had determined that the virus was not manmade but was still investigating whether it was caused by an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan. The separate reports stated that U. S. intelligence documents accused China of concealing the severity of the coronavirus outbreak to hoard medical supplies.

Nearly early every sector rose on the Aussie market with only the energy sector slightly weaker as oil prices remain under pressure from excess supply and weak international demand. The IT sector saw the largest percentage gain while improvements for financials, health and consumer staples added most to broader market gains.

Shares of buy-now-pay-later firm Afterpay (APT) rallied 24% on news released late Friday that Chinese tech giant, Tencent, bought a 5% stake in the company. This could open up the Chinese market to APT.

Financials also performed well as the big four banks turned around early declines. The most improved was Westpac (WBC) which lifted 2.8%.

Insurance Australia Group (IAG), which owns NRMA, fell 2% as it announced it was unlikely to pay a final dividend later this year. Flight Centre (FLT) was also weaker by 6% as the travel agent's sales in April have been heavily impacted y COvid-19. FLT's Total Transaction Value (TTV) is only between 5-10% of normal activity

The materials sector struggled with Fortescue closing 1.7% lower, Rio Tinto down 1.6%, and South23 down 2.9%.

Qube Holdings gained 17.7% higher when it resume trading after a $500 million capital raising.

CURRENCY NEWS: The U. S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 99.32 after declining from levels above 100 last week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.6397 after declining from levels above $0.648 last week.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
But municipalities across Pakistan rely on Christian sweepers like Mr. Eric. In the sprawling port city of Karachi, sweepers keep the sewer system flowing, using their bare hands to unclog crumbling drainpipes of feces, plastic bags and hazardous hospital refuse, part of the 1,750 million liters of waste the citys 20 million residents produce daily.

On a recent day Mr. Eric, 40, had been hired to clean three sewers for $6.

Mr. Eric sends his son to school far from the crowded and segregated neighborhood the citys sewer cleaners live in, hoping to free him of the discrimination that forced him into this work. Back home, the neighborhood lacks safe drinking water and schools. Swarms of mosquitoes, piles of garbage and overflowing gutters are the areas only abundance.

While most sweepers like Mr. Eric are illiterate, his generation has been more determined to push their children to attend school to break the cycle of discrimination, just as their ancestors tried to do when they converted. But the children still find themselves discriminated against, forced to adopt the profession of their fathers.

Mary James Gill, a former parliamentarian who runs the Sweepers are Superheroes advocacy group, has lobbied for years to pressure the government to formally ban manual sewage cleaning work. But most of the sweepers are illiterate and unorganized, she said, making it easy for the authorities to pressure them to accept the jobs as their only means of income.

While Christians make up only 1.6 percent of Pakistans population of some 200 million, according to a 1998 government census, rights groups believe they fill about 80 percent of the sweeper jobs. Lower-caste Hindus mostly fill the rest of the slots.

When Karachis municipality tried to recruit Muslims to unclog gutters, they refused to get down into the sewers, instead sweeping the streets. The job was left to Christians like Mr. Eric, known derogatorily as choora, or dirty.

They spend hours inside the citys sewers. Almost all of them develop skin and respiratory problems because of constant contact with human waste and toxic fumes. And for some, the job has been lethal.
New Delhi, May 4 : As many as 13 Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel belonging to 25 Battalion, deputed in Delhi, have tested positive for coronavirus, the force said on Monday.

While reports about eight among the 13 personnel being infected were received on Monday, four were confirmed positive for COVID-19 last week.

The infection was carried by a constable of the 25 Battalion of the SSB based in Ghitorni on the outskirts of the national capital, SSB Spokesperson Vinay Ojha told IANS, adding, he was found positive around 10 days ago.

The infected personnel include one Assistant Sub-Inspector and others of the rank of Head Constable and Constable. They have been shifted to a Delhi government hospital.

A total of 44 SSB personnel, excluding the 13, have been quarantined so far, he Ojha said.

With a strength of over 80,000 personnel, the SSB is mandated to guard the 1,751 km India-Nepal and the 699 km India-Bhutan borders apart from rendering a variety of roles in internal security across the country.

After the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Border Security Force (BSF), the SSB is the third paramilitary force or Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) under the Union Home Ministry whose personnel have got infected with the deadly disease.

So far, over 125 CRPF personnel and 42 BSF troopers in Delhi have been infected with the virus.
Manpower Minister Josephine Teo at the live virtual taskforce press conference on 21 April, 2020. (PHOTO: MCI)

SINGAPORE  Foreign workers have been in the authorities sight early on in the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore at the start of the year, said Manpower Minister Josephine Teo on Monday (4 May).

Delivering a ministerial statement in Parliament, she explained how the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) helped to prevent imported cases by limiting the return of work pass holders and monitoring returnees compliance with Leaves of Absence and Stay-Home Notices, among other things.

Throughout this period, migrant workers were also on our radar, said Teo.

The day after the first confirmed case in Singapore (in January), MOM reached out to dormitory operators to be more vigilant and to step up hygiene. In fact, one of the earliest media conferences that Minister Lawrence Wong and I held was at the Tuas View Dormitory, after we inspected their quarantine facilities (in early February), she said.

Wong helms the National Development Ministry and co-chairs the Multi-Ministry Taskforce tackling the spread of the virus.

Teo added, We produced materials in the workers native languages to encourage them to take steps to protect themselves. Subsequently, non-essential facilities in the dormitories like gyms and TV rooms were closed. Meal-times and recreational hours were staggered. Intermixing between blocks was stopped.

MOM officers also fanned out on weekends, to advise migrant workers to observe safe distancing measures and disperse big groups that were gathering at popular hangouts.

Focus on rooming arrangements on their own may not prevent recurrence

In February, the authorities detected the first COVID-19 cluster involving migrant workers at a construction site at Seletar Aerospace Heights. The five workers stayed at five different locations, only two of which were dormitories, Teo noted.

Thereafter, there was no indication of higher prevalence of COVID-19 among migrant workers, compared to the general community, she said.

Several MPs had raised queries on the outbreak of COVID-19 in dormitories. Jurong GRC MP Ang Wei Neng asked, among other things, about the lessons to be drawn from the management of dormitories and if safe distancing can be practically practised in the existing purpose-built dormitories.

Story continues

Meanwhile, Nee Soon GRC MP Louis Ng asked if MOM would consider raising the minimum gross floor area of 4.5 square metres for each resident in a foreign workers' dormitory; and not including the basic living facilities - such as living quarters, kitchen, dining, and toilet areas - in the computation for the minimum gross floor area.

Nominated MPs Walter Theseira and Anthea Ong also asked if a Committee of Inquiry would be appointed to probe the COVID-19 outbreak in the dormitories.

Responding, Teo said epidemiological findings show that within the dormitories which have clusters, not all blocks or rooms are equally affected. And across the different dormitories, infected workers were linked via common work sites.

At the work sites, it was not uncommon for the infected workers to take breaks together, share food and utensils. Likewise, infected workers from different dormitories had gathered during their rest days to socialise and shop, for example at Mustafa Centre. Back in the dormitories, workers spent time with their friends, cooking, eating and relaxing together, said Teo.

The virus may have spread through all of these activities, much like how it spread among family members, religious groups and even colleagues, she added.

Teo also noted that most infected workers showed mild symptoms of the virus and that many cases were uncovered only due to active case-finding or swab-taking.

This may explain why up to the middle of March, the cases of workers at the dormitories testing positive were few and far between. Once evidence emerged that the virus had spread in the dormitories, we decided to deal with it squarely and quickly, and mobilise whole-of-government resources, the minister said.

She added, Multiple channels of transmission among migrant workers, as appear to be the case, also means that we have to employ a multi-faceted approach to dealing with the outbreak. A focus on rooming arrangements on their own may not prevent a recurrence. This consideration underpins the comprehensive approach of the Taskforce.

NMP Anthea Ong on apology

The Ministry of Health reported a preliminary 573 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore as of Monday noon, bringing the total to 18,778. As of Sunday, more than 15,800 workers living in dormitories have come down with the virus.

Ong also asked whether the authorities would apologise for the large number of COVID-19 cases in the dormitories.

In response, Teo said her ministry interacted very closely with the workers on a very regular basis at and outside the dormitories. The workers wanted to know how the authorities can help in the current situation, such as taking care of them if they were to fall sick, and ensuring that they can get their wages and send the money back home.

These are the things that they have asked of us. I have not come across one single migrant worker himself that has demanded an apology, Teo said.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

Other Singapore stories:

About 40 instances of COVID-19 'fake news' debunked since January: S Iswaran

COVID-19: Singapore to expand testing capacity, 'strategically' deploy resources

COVID-19: Gan Kim Yong outlines 3 indicators for easing circuit breaker measures

COVID-19: Singapore confirms 573 more cases, total at 18,778

COVID-19: All MPs required to wear face masks in Parliament
VANCOUVER - Bored and isolated students are spending too many hours online and some have started using more substances, but all students will need extra emotional support when classes resume, says a psychiatrist who specializes in youth mental health.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A empty hallway is pictured at Eric Hamber Secondary school in Vancouver, B.C. Monday, March 23, 2020. Bored and isolated students are spending too many hours online and some have started using more substances, but all students will need extra emotional support when classes resume, says a psychiatrist who specializes in youth mental health. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

VANCOUVER - Bored and isolated students are spending too many hours online and some have started using more substances, but all students will need extra emotional support when classes resume, says a psychiatrist who specializes in youth mental health.

Dr. Shimi Kang said that while teens typically question authority and act impulsively some are now self-medicating with substances or ignoring physical distancing measures as a way to deal with anxiety resulting from the pandemic.

"I would encourage schools to start with social emotional programming and talk about things like coping skills right in that first week going back, talk about what coping skills people used at home, what they can do now as they're reintegrating," said Kang, a clinical assistant professor at the University of British Columbia's department of psychiatry.

She said academics will have to take a back seat to allowing students to express their thoughts and emotions as part of so-called social emotional learning that is already part of many curriculums across the country as a way to teach students to manage their emotions, learn empathy and compassion and to build resilience as part of a life-long practice.

That type of learning, which is separate from providing mental health supports, may involve students' response to what's happening in their community or around the world and being aware of how they would cope with certain situations, Kang said.

"If there's anything that this pandemic has shown, it is that life skills get us through. It is the adaptability, the resiliency, the communication skills, the emotional regulation skills, the ability to problem solve and have optimism in the face of difficulty. That's where we need to put our focus."

It's no longer good enough for schools to jam in a lesson on social emotional learning to meet the criteria, she said, advising that it should be incorporated into the overall kindergarten-to-Grade 12 curriculum.

Chris Markham, executive director of the non-profit Ontario Physical and Health Education Association, said part of the response to COVID-19 should involve a plan for all provinces to strengthen the social emotional learning components of their curriculums.

"The broader conversation pre-COVID was still on strengthening this curriculum  B.C.'s, Alberta's, Ontario's, they've all got it somewhere," he said of most jurisdictions across the country.

"At this point in time maybe the shiny coin in all of this is how important all those skills are to enabling kids to be resilient and for them to thrive, sometimes in situations that are completely out of their control. This should be a wake-up call to us," Markham said.

"Right now, we're trying to facilitate a conversation with the province about doing that," Markham said of Ontario, adding he recently discussed the importance of students' well-being with Education Minister Stephen Lecce.

Lecce said in a tweet on April 30 that he'd spoken with Markham about "our strong commitment to supporting the health and well-being of every Ontario student through COVID-19."

Ontario's Ministry of Education said in an email it has heard from parents and various groups "who have told us to prioritize well-being and mental health of our students. In collaboration with our education sector partners, we will continue to prioritize well-being and mental health when discussing the transition back to school."

Shelley Morse, president of the Canadian Teachers' Federation, said teachers should be prepared to provide "trauma-informed practices" in response to students' needs, especially those who may be living in fear from having witnessed domestic violence or experienced food shortages during the pandemic.

"We have to make sure that when they come back, we're ready to debrief and deal with those situations and worry about the content at a later time," she said. "We know we're going to have students with trauma, even trauma from going back into the classroom with all the unknowns."

So far, only Quebec has announced plans to reopen schools in mid-May for primary students.

Morse said it's hard to know how younger children will react to seeing teachers in personal protective equipment, if they choose to wear it, as well as not being permitted to get close to the classmates they haven't seen in two months.

"I'm a little concerned about Quebec," she said. "I'm not sure that they've had proper time for that return to school."

The Ministry of Education in Quebec said in a statement that teachers would be vigilant in providing support to students who need it.

"This increased vigilance will also help detect students who have experienced trauma and those who will develop symptoms after returning to class," it said.

British Columbia's ministry said in an email that its social emotional learning program, called Core Competencies, is a central foundation of the curriculum.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2020.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported there were 50,092 confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus in all 67 counties as of 12 p.m., May 4, 2020. There are at least 2,458 reported deaths from the virus.

Click the image to see a data page including an interactive maps for the state. (Please click the link in the previous sentence if you cant see the image)

Click here for a ZIP code breakdown of cases provided by the Pa. Department of Health.

The state is also providing detailed hospital and respirator data here for desktop users and here for mobile users.

PennLive is monitoring the new cases over a two-week period, part of the Wolf administrations criteria for reopening the state. A map and a database for these are below. If you cannot see either embed, please click here for the map and here for the database.

Below is a map of the current reopening status of Pennsylvania counties. Please click here if you cannot see that map.

Adams County

148 positive cases and 1,662 negative results with 4 deaths.

Allegheny County

1,365 positive cases and 17,284 negative results with 102 deaths.

Armstrong County

52 positive cases and 724 negative results with 2 deaths.

Beaver County

458 positive cases and 2,161 negative results with 68 deaths.

Bedford County

24 positive cases and 241 negative results with 1 death.

Berks County

2,948 positive cases and 6,091 negative results with 118 deaths.

Blair County

25 positive cases and 1,131 negative results.

Bradford County

35 positive cases and 716 negative results with 2 deaths.

Bucks County

3,356 positive cases and 9,323 negative results with 240 deaths.

Butler County

180 positive cases and 2,461 negative results with 6 deaths.

Cambria County

34 positive cases and 1,402 negative results with 1 death.

Cameron County

1 positive cases and 62 negative results.

Carbon County

185 positive cases and 1,141 negative results with 15 deaths.

Centre County

105 positive cases and 1,051 negative results with 1 death.

Chester County

1,560 positive cases and 5,883 negative results with 118 deaths.

Clarion County

23 positive cases and 502 negative results with 1 death.

Clearfield County

21 positive cases and 492 negative results.

Clinton County

33 positive cases and 281 negative results.

Columbia County

296 positive cases and 701 negative results with 13 deaths.

Crawford County

19 positive cases and 711 negative results.

Cumberland County

375 positive cases and 1,744 negative results with 18 deaths.

Dauphin County

652 positive cases and 3,997 negative results with 28 deaths.

Delaware County

4,198 positive cases and 9,973 negative results with 258 deaths.

Elk County

4 positive cases and 181 negative results.

Erie County

91 positive cases and 2,133 negative results with 2 deaths.

Fayette County

83 positive cases and 1,957 negative results with 4 deaths.

Forest County

7 positive cases and 30 negative results.

Franklin County

377 positive cases and 3,186 negative results with 8 deaths.

Fulton County

6 positive cases and 96 negative results.

Greene County

27 positive cases and 451 negative results with 1 death.

Huntingdon County

57 positive cases and 330 negative results.

Indiana County

70 positive cases and 773 negative results with 4 deaths.

Jefferson County

6 positive cases and 340 negative results.

Juniata County

86 positive cases and 173 negative results with 1 death.

Lackawanna County

1,017 positive cases and 2,825 negative results with 87 deaths.

Lancaster County

1,991 positive cases and 8,579 negative results with 113 deaths.

The county is reporting 191 deaths as of 1:50 p.m. May 3. Those deaths are in the following municipalities

Christiana: 12 deaths

Columbia: 3 deaths

East Cocalico Township: 3 deaths

East Hempfield Township: 9 deaths

East Lampeter Township: 1 death

Ephrata Township: 1 death

City of Lancaster: 3 deaths

Lancaster Township: 96 deaths

Lititz: 9 deaths

Manheim Township: 35 deaths

New Holland: 2 deaths

Paradise Township: 1 death

Penn Township: 4 deaths

Providence Township: 1 death

Rapho Township: 5 deaths

Salisbury Township: 1 death

Warwick Township: 2 deaths

Three non-residents also passed away in Lancaster County.

Lawrence County

65 positive cases and 789 negative results with 6 deaths.

Lebanon County

756 positive cases and 2,849 negative results with 10 deaths.

Lehigh County

2,963 positive cases and 7,726 negative results with 83 deaths.

Luzerne County

2,255 positive cases and 5,528 negative results with 101 deaths.

Lycoming County

86 positive cases and 1,233 negative results with 3 deaths.

McKean County

6 positive cases and 187 negative results.

Mercer County

66 positive cases and 801 negative results with 1 death.

Mifflin County

39 positive cases and 740 negative results.

Monroe County

1,173 positive cases and 2,940 negative results with 55 deaths.

Montgomery County

4,645 positive cases and 18,464 negative results with 382 deaths.

Montour County

50 positive cases and 2,967 negative results.

Northampton County

2,240 positive cases and 6,763 negative results with 94 deaths.

Northumberland County

100 positive cases and 653 negative results.

Perry County

34 positive cases and 266 negative results with 1 death.

Philadelphia County

13,316 positive cases and 30,855 negative results with 424 deaths.

Pike County

408 positive cases and 1,337 negative results with 17 deaths.

Potter County

4 positive cases and 87 negative results.

Schuylkill County

109 positive cases and 576 negative results with 5 deaths.

Snyder County

33 positive cases and 228 negative results with 1 death.

Somerset County

30 positive cases and 660 negative results with 1 death.

Sullivan County

1 positive cases and 38 negative results.

Susquehanna County

86 positive cases and 327 negative results with 9 deaths.

Tioga County

16 positive cases and 264 negative results with 1 death.

Union County

38 positive cases and 592 negative results.

Venango County

7 positive cases and 265 negative results.

Warren County

1 positive cases and 186 negative results.

Washington County

120 positive cases and 2,300 negative results with 2 deaths.

Wayne County

109 positive cases and 576 negative results with 5 deaths.

Westmoreland County

403 positive cases and 4,979 negative results with 26 deaths.

Wyoming County

27 positive cases and 192 negative results with 2 deaths.

York County

702 positive cases and 7,683 negative results with 11 deaths.

This data is compiled from the Pa. Department of Health. The state will not be providing recovery data at this time.

Several counties have released their own data maps. Information reported at the county level may not be consistent with the state numbers. Those counties include:

Some medical systems have begun releasing discharge data. Those medical systems include:

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.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - After protesters showed up at Dr. Amy Actons house and one accosted a Columbus television reporter, Gov. Mike DeWine spoke out Monday during his daily briefing.

I dont usually comment about demonstrators, DeWine said. And the reason I dont comment on demonstrators is because Ive been in public office for 40 years, I have great respect for their constitutional right to demonstrate," he said. Ive had demonstrators demonstrate against me in most of the offices, if not all of the offices Ive ever held. Theyve done it at many places, many locations. Theyve done it against me many, many different times.

A woman at a Friday Ohio Statehouse coronavirus demonstration followed around and argued with Adrienne Robbins, a reporter for NBC4 in Columbus. She didnt wear a mask and ignored the journalists requests to maintain 6 feet of distance.

DeWine said that reporters and photographers are not fair game.

I am fair game, but I want to talk for a moment about whats not fair game," he said. Its not fair game to disrespect the news media, to be obnoxious to the news media. Its not fair game. You should come after me. Dont come after people who are exercising their First Amendment rights.

After all, the news media provides the information on which the protest movement develops its opinions.

Im the one who makes the policy decisions. Members of my cabinet, Dr. Acton included, work exceedingly, exceedingly hard, he said. But I set the policy.

A small group of demonstrators gathered outside the house of Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Health, on Saturday criticizing the restrictions placed on workers and residents. Shes signed many of the orders under the direction of DeWine.

On Sunday, another group of demonstrators, a group of physicians, showed up at the Statehouse to rally for Acton.

The buck stops with me, DeWine said. Im the responsible person.

Other coverage:

Gov. Mike DeWine gives Mondays coronavirus update: Watch live

Amid coronavirus, state encouraging companies to report workers who dont return, may be kicked off unemployment

Video captures protester accosting Ohio reporter covering coronavirus demonstration

Ohio coronavirus infections exceed 20,000: Gov. Mike DeWines Monday briefing


By Andrew Hammond





Boris Johnson will make the toughest decisions of his premiership this week as he sets out a "roadmap" for the United Kingdom exiting its coronavirus lockdown.



While he has much goodwill from the nation after his brush with death, the government is losing public support and much now rests on him getting his calls right in the coming days.



Before Johnson was struck down by the virus in March, he and the government were riding high in the polls and given the benefit of the doubt over their early handling of the outbreak.



This was despite public concerns about issues such as limited reserves of personal protective equipment (PPE) for front line health care workers, and also the slow start the government made in March and April on testing.



Take the example here of an opinion survey released in late March from Ipsos MORI which found 49 percent of people then thought the government was tackling the crisis well while 35 percent believed it was handling it badly. Fast forward a month and public confidence in the government's ability to handle the exceptionally complex situation has fallen.



Drilling down to the testing issue, in particular, only 15 percent now believe the government has handled this well with some 57 percent disapproving according to research by Opinium.



Several weeks into the crisis, the government is undertaking far less than the quarter of a million tests a day that Johnson had indicated in March would be taking place now.



The testing and PPE issues aside, however, the central decision that Johnson now faces is how far, if at all, he can go in the coming days to start lifting the lockdown he imposed last month, while avoiding a second major wave of infections. While the daily death rate is now plateauing, many scientists assert that the rate of U.K. infection is still high enough to not warrant any big easing up on restrictions.



The daily rate of new infections appears to have peaked last month, but remains relatively high with more than 6,000 new cases on Friday alone.



Multiple scientists say that it would be best to get numbers down to a few hundred new cases per day before a comprehensive easing of restrictions is initiated otherwise the newly enhanced contact tracing and testing system currently being prepared for launch by the government could be overwhelmed.



With U.K. politics continuing to be framed by the pandemic, another reason that the government is on the back foot is that ministers are increasingly being held to account in Westminster not just by a rejuvenated official opposition Labour Party under Keir Starmer's new leadership, but also from MPs across the political spectrum now that Parliament has returned to session after the Easter recess.



The Cabinet is under growing pressure from legislators, including some backbench MPs from the ruling Conservatives who are keen to see the government move faster to rejuvenate the economy.



These Tory MPs are lobbying ministers amidst what one of the Bank of England's top policymakers, Jan Vlieghe, warned recently is already the sharpest shock to the U.K. economy in several hundred years.



The impact is so profound because the virus has created both a supply shock, as people can't work, and a demand shock, because normal consumption patterns are disrupted.



The good news is that Vlieghe reckons the economy could, in principle, return roughly to its pre-virus trajectory once the pandemic is over. Yet, this future growth will be stifled by what is a massive surge in borrowing to cover the cost of the pandemic.



In this context, several economic forecasters, including the EY Item Club think tank, have warned that the economy may not return to its pre-pandemic size for years. Even penciling in a recovery for the second half of the year and significant growth in 2021, the economy may not return to its late-2019 state until 2023.



Yet, despite this gloomy data, the political mood music in Downing Street has remained cautious about any substantial easing of restrictions in May. Senior ministers are concerned about the potential for a second wave of infections as has happened in Singapore.



Yet if the government does proceed with caution in coming days, it will nonetheless have to deliver a very clear and comprehensive roadmap this week for the months ahead.



U.K. ministers are in a tight spot here following the release last month of detailed thinking on these issues from the Scottish administration and its Welsh counterpart underlining that it appears increasingly possible that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could adopt different timelines and approaches for easing the lockdown.



Taken together, Johnson therefore has returned to Downing Street at what could easily prove a "make-or-break" period for his prime ministership.



With the pandemic still having the potential to upend U.K. politics, he could yet be the big beneficiary of this if he gets decisions right, or a major loser if public confidence drains further from the government in the weeks to come.





Andrew Hammond (andrewkorea@outlook.com) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.




DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's Green Party agreed to enter talks about forming a government with the centre-right Fianna Fail and Fine Gael parties on Sunday, but said it would withdraw if it could not agree a policy programme with climate action at its core. Ireland has been in political deadlock since an inconclusive election in February, with the caretaker government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar forced to implement costly and extensive fiscal and political policies by the coronavirus crisis. Varadkar's Fine Gael and traditional rival Fianna Fail reached an initial broad agreement last month to govern together for the first time, but need more support to control parliament and cannot pass any laws until a new prime minister is elected

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's Green Party agreed to enter talks about forming a government with the centre-right Fianna Fail and Fine Gael parties on Sunday, but said it would withdraw if it could not agree a policy programme with climate action at its core.

Ireland has been in political deadlock since an inconclusive election in February, with the caretaker government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar forced to implement costly and extensive fiscal and political policies by the coronavirus crisis.

Varadkar's Fine Gael and traditional rival Fianna Fail reached an initial broad agreement last month to govern together for the first time, but need more support to control parliament and cannot pass any laws until a new prime minister is elected.

If they can get the backing of the Green's 12 lawmakers they would have a majority, which would allow the them to pass laws including those needed to uphold a 6.5 billion euro package to support businesses shuttered by Ireland's lockdown.

Measures to allow affected firms to defer tax liabilities for 12 months and to use a 2 billion euro ($2.2 billion) credit guarantee scheme will require legislation to be passed by June or early July, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said on Sunday.

"We are conscious of the huge challenges facing any government in the Covid-19 crisis," the Green Party said in a statement, after days of talks among its lawmakers.

"Any proposal must be transformative on climate action and commit to strong progress towards a more sustainable and fairer society. If this is not the case Green Party representatives will withdraw from negotiations," it added.

Some Green Party members are sceptical that the two larger parties will pursue ambitious enough environmental policies, with the main sticking point being a commitment to a 7% average annual cut in greenhouse gas emissions.

Even if its lawmakers agree to enter a coalition, any deal must be approved by 66% of the Green Party's grassroots members.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, which both draw support from parts of the agricultural sector opposed to the Greens' target, require the backing of a majority of their wider membership.

"We are absolutely committed to seeing are there ways in which we can significantly improve the ability of our country to reduce emissions," Donohoe told the Newstalk radio station.

"But we do need to understand how that is going to be done and how that will be funded, given all that we have going on in our country," he added.

($1 = 0.9105 euros)

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Alexander Smith)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Gardai are still searching for a second suspect in the burglary

A prolific burglar has been arrested after breaking into a man's home and assaulting him - before cutting his hair.

Gardai are still hunting for a second suspect who remains at large following the bizarre crime in the Carrickmines area of Dublin.

The aggravated burglary happened at 5.15pm last Monday, April 27, when two burglars forced their way into a house on Ballyogan Road.

Two men, aged in their 60s and 20s, were in the house at the time of the break-in.

One of the raiders was armed with a scissors and both victims were threatened before the older man was punched several times.

It is understood the older man's hair was then cut by the burglar armed with the scissors, although he was not stabbed or slashed.

The younger man was then taken from the house and forced into the passenger seat of his own car parked outside.

The burglar then intentionally drove the car into a kerb nearby several times, damaging the vehicle.

Both suspects then fled the scene and gardai were alerted.

Detectives based at Blackrock Garda Station launched an investigation and a suspect was identified. The 23-year-old from the Sandyford area is a suspected serial burglar who is known to gardai in south Dublin.

He was arrested and quizzed about the aggravated burglary before being charged in relation to the incident.

"This individual would be known to gardai since he was only 11 or 12 years old and was quickly identified in this inquiry," a source told the Herald.

"The circumstances surrounding the burglary are unusual and the exact reason for the older male's hair being cut isn't completely clear at this stage.

"Gardai are trying to determine if this was a random incident or a targeted break-in."

The arrested suspect is due to appear before the Dublin District Court this morning.

Gardai are continuing to search for the second suspect.

A spokesman said: "Gardai are appealing for anyone who may have information in relation to this incident to contact them in Blackrock on 01 666 5200 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111."

Meanwhile, a separate investigation is under way into an unrelated assault in north Dublin over the weekend.

A man, aged in his 50s and originally from the Finglas area, was injured after being attacked at an apartment complex on Kilmore Road in Coolock.

Gardai initially received reports of a man being fatally stabbed but when they arrived at the scene they found the victim with non-life-threatening head injuries consistent with a physical assault.

A short time later a man, aged in his 30s and originally from the Artane area, was arrested on suspicion of assault.

It is believed the two men are known to each other.
Sentiment towards global real estate has fallen emphatically among both investors and occupiers following the spread of COVID-19, according to the Q1 2020 RICS Global Commercial Property Monitor.

Globally, confidence among occupiers has deteriorated in the last three months in 33 of the 34 countries surveyed, with the same proportion also now showing negative readings. RICS' Occupier Sentiment Index (OSI), a gauge of sentiment amongst occupiers, has fallen to -48 in South Africa with the global pandemic outbreak and subsequent economic shock pausing any potential for a market recovering in the short term.

With tenant demand reportedly falling across each sector (office, retail and industrial) Nigeria also saw a decline in occupier confidence with the OSI falling from +11 in Q4 to -7 this quarter. This is a sharp turnaround from the positive trends that were cited at the end of 2019.

The same trend is evident among investors too. Confidence has fallen in all countries. RICS' Investor Sentiment Index (ISI), reflecting sentiment among investors, is now in negative territory in majority of countries surveyed. Investor confidence has declined in African countries as well with South Africa's ISI falling to -42 this quarter, and Nigeria's to -15, compared to +15 of the previous quarter. This is mostly due to investor enquiries in Nigeria almost stagnant at the headline level, with a growth in the retail sector being offset by a decline in investor demand for industrial properties.

Outlook weaker yet for real estate market

Both investors and occupiers fear that we are not yet over the worst when it comes to the impact on the real estate sector. The forward-looking metrics show an even more pronounced shift. Looking at the expectations for the next twelve months, in the case of both capital and rental values, respondents expect both to see a sharp decline in South Africa. While, in what appears to be a global trend, industrial properties appear more resilient than office and retail property in the country.

Expectations in Nigeria remain positive on rental growth projections with rents envisaged to rise by 2% over the next year across all prime markets. However, expectations in Lagos are more subdued than they are nationally.

Shift in sentiment in offices most marked, as working patterns shift

While retail is the most depressed across the world, following the impact of global lockdowns, the deterioration in sentiment has been most marked for offices. Anecdotal evidence from survey respondents bear out the sector patterns with some highlighting the scope for agile working to become more commonplace in the aftermath of the virus, lowering the demand for office space. The acceleration in the structural trend towards e-commerce is also noted, with increasing interest in prime logistics space viewed as a likely outcome.

Simon Rubinsohn, RICS Chief Economist, commented: The impact of COVID-19 on sentiment in the commercial property sector was always going to make for painful reading. However, the erosion in confidence is stark. What's even more worrying for investors and occupiers alike is that the full extent of the toll it will take on businesses and the underlying economy is still unclear. Given these conditions, respondents are clear that there will be no quick rebound.

Although hard to generalise, this hostile environment makes government support more vital to underpin a global recovery as lockdowns begin to ease. There is also a strong case for a more collaborative approach between landlords and tenants to manage the challenges presented by the current set of circumstances.

What started as a public health crisis morphed into an economic one, and we will see further structural, long-term change as a result of this pandemic. We have already seen the impact on retail as consumer behaviour changed by necessity, and remote working affecting how office spaces are viewed. The ongoing rise of e-commerce and a shift in supply chains towards 'Just in Case' is likely to trigger a further change in the investment dynamic.

ENDS

Notes for editors:

Global Commercial Property Monitor

RICS' Global Commercial Property Monitor is a quarterly guide to the trends in the commercial property investment and occupier markets. The report is available from the RICS website www.rics.org/economics along with other surveys covering the housing market, residential lettings, commercial property, construction activity and the rural land market.

About RICS

RICS promotes and enforces the highest professional qualifications and standards in the valuation, development and management of land, real estate, construction and infrastructure. Our name promises the consistent delivery of standards - bringing confidence to markets and effecting positive change in the built and natural environments.
[May 04, 2020] The Tech Challenge announces Cisco as presenting sponsor

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tech Challenge, one of the longest-running youth engineering programs in the country, announced that Cisco will return as presenting sponsor in 2021. The Tech Challenge helps engage thousands of young people in hands-on projects that help them develop their 21st century skills. The Tech Challenge,a signature program of The Tech, invites teams of students in Grades 412 to use engineering design to solve a real-world problem, helping them learn about creativity, problem-solving, teamwork and perseverance  skills that are needed now more than ever. The 2021 theme will be announced in October, along with plans to adapt the program to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.



"As we adjust to the realities of our current environment, it's important to provide students with opportunities to learn the value of perseverance and creative problem-solving," said Liz Centoni, Cisco Senior Vice President, Emerging Technologies and Incubation Group. "The Tech Challenge shows how engineering skills can lead to shaping future leaders. These students are doing amazing things, and we're proud to support a program that helps them focus in such fun and engaging ways." For more information visit The Tech Challenge website.

About The Tech Interactive

The Tech Interactive is a family-friendly science and technology center in the heart of downtown San Jose. Our hands-on activities, experimental labs and design challenge experiences empower people to innovate with creativity, curiosity and compassion. The Tech is a world leader in the creation of immersive STEAM education resources to develop the next generation of problem-solvers locally, nationally and globally. We believe that everyone is born an innovator who can change the world for the better. thetech.org View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-tech-challenge-announces-cisco-as-presenting-sponsor-301052341.html SOURCE The Tech Interactive

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Ukraine and Poland marked in April an important date in their history - the 100th anniversary of the signing of an interstate agreement that paved the way for a joint struggle against Bolshevik Russia. Even though this struggle was short and ended in defeat, the agreement became an important document reflecting an understanding of Russia's role in the modern world.

Professor Przemyslaw Zurawski vel Grajewski, a Polish political scientist and an advisor to the Polish foreign minister, spoke in an interview with Ukrinform about the importance of the document signed by Symon Petliura and Jozef Pilsudski, the parallels between the past and the present, Russia's aggressive nature, as well as possible changes in the European political map due to current upheavals.

PETLIURA-PILSUDSKI AGREEMENT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT IN UKRAINIAN-POLISH HISTORY

Question: It has been 100 years since the signing of the agreement between Symon Petliura and Jozef Pilsudski in Warsaw. How do you see this event from today's point of view?

Answer: Very positively. But because of the difficult situation in both countries at the time, it was already at least a year late.

At that time, there were actually two Ukrainian states: the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) and the West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR), which had been in the federation (union) since January 22, 1919. One of them (ZUNR) was at war with Poland, and the other rightly saw Russia as the main enemy. However, there were clashes between Poland and UNR in Volyn, but both sides had neither desire nor strength for that.

On the one side, UNR, which fought for independence with "white" and "red" Russia, and on the other side, ZUNR, which fought with Poland, together separated Poles from Russians south of Prypiat. Instead, north of Prypiat, Polish troops fought against the Bolsheviks. Therefore, in 1919, the situation was the following: Ukraine, which was at war with Russia, struggled with Poland, which also fought with Russia, and they could not agree with each other. As a result of the defeat of the Ukrainian armies in 1920 (ZUNR from the Polish army in Galicia, UNR from the "white" and "red" in the Dnieper region) the only actor that continued to control a small part of the territory around Kamianets-Podilsky was UNR.

In my opinion, Symon Petliura made the most optimal decision in this situation - to form an alliance with Poland. On the night of April 21 to April 22, an agreement was signed and it resulted in a joint campaign of Polish and Ukrainian troops and the liberation of Kyiv. Unfortunately, there was no strength to do more.

The idea was to break up Russian groupings, occupy central Ukraine up to the Dnieper and, with the help of the Polish army, hold this front for as long as it would take the Ukrainians to build their own army and take over the country's defense. The Polish army would have been moved north to Belarus. There, the Poles would have restrained the offensive operation of the Bolshevik troops of Tukhachevsky. Everybody knew about it because Poland broke secret codes and had access to Soviet military plans. However, the Poles could not hold the front along the entire line, staying in Kyiv for a month. Then there was a retreat, a victorious Warsaw battle with the Bolsheviks, but it was impossible to return to Kyiv again to restore Ukrainian statehood. In these circumstances, Poland left its ally and signed the 1921 Treaty of Riga, which divided Ukraine. At that time there was no longer any strength to fight since the war in these territories had been going on since 1914, and the Polish state was then only being formed.

Question: What impact does this event have on current Polish-Ukrainian relations?

Answer: In Polish memory, it is the most important point in relations between Poland and Ukraine. At that time, the Ukrainians were the most important ally of Rzeczpospolita. The culminating moment of the Polish-Bolshevik war, which at that time had been going on for a year, was the battle for Ukraine's independence. The Poles and Ukrainians fought side by side for the independence of their countries. The Poles then managed to build their country. The Ukrainians, unfortunately, did not. There were good examples of the participation of Ukrainian troops in this war, such as UNR General Mark Bezruchko in the defense of the city of Zamosc or General Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko in the defense of the Dniester line.

Today, it is the cornerstone of our history that we can rely on and promote as an example of a responsible and good policy by both peoples.

RUSSIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN DESTABILIZING ITS NEIGHBORS

Question: A whole epoch has passed since then, but the enemy has remained the same. Our country is fighting it in the east, and Poland is supporting us in this fight. Are we doomed to resist the Russian aggressor for centuries?

Answer: Until Russia abandons its imperial ambitions, we will have to fight it. This applies not only to Ukraine and Poland but also to other countries bordering Russia. Russian imperialism has affected everyone - from Central Europe to the Caucasus and the Far East.

We have new graves in Ukraine every day. We have them in Georgia and we can have them in any other place where Russia can destabilize. Since its inception, Russia - from the Moscow Principality - has been exporting destabilization to its neighbors. As long as this happens, joint action will be the best option. The peoples of our region are interested in the collapse of the Russian Empire. Others may negotiate with Russia, but we have nothing to talk about. Such a discussion would only boil down to the question of whether or not we exist.

Question: Today, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Russia is making every effort for the EU to weaken or lift sanctions against Moscow. How realistic is this?

Answer: It is difficult to predict something because sentiment changes a lot. It is clear that Russia is taking advantage of a change in sentiment in Italy, effectively resorting to a demonstrative military operation. Russian troops are in the territory of a NATO member. The Italians did not agree to the Russian military patrolling the cities together with the Italians and imposing fines on the people, but this showed the scale of Russia's ambitions. This situation can be threatening, especially in light of the fact that the EU has not demonstrated its effectiveness in the sanitary and epidemiological sphere. The United States is now also at the epicenter of the epidemic and has its own problems, so it is not necessary to hope for their prompt and important help to Europe. Of course, Russia will use this, emphasizing that the ally has left Europe. And these arguments will seem convincing to someone in the EU. This is the case with countries located far from Russia, which do not have relevant experience with Russia.

I am a little more optimistic about Spain, which remembers Moscow's interference in the Civil War (1936-1939) and now has the problem of Catalan separatism. It is soberer in looking at this situation than Italy. But we do know how Russia is trying to serve everyone in Europe: for conservatives, Putin is a defender of Christianity who fights against "Gayropa," for communists, he is the heir to the fatherland of the world proletariat. Naive people can perceive these narratives, which are selected according to the audience. Russia will tell everyone what they want to hear.

But we Poles, Ukrainians, Balts, Romanians are well aware of what was said when, in March 2014, the Russian parliament granted Putin the right to enter troops into Ukraine. If we confirm this diagnosis and make it clear to Russia that aggression and occupation of one of its neighbors cause only a temporary cooling of relations with Europe, then, of course, it will encourage Moscow to continue such a policy towards its neighbors.

Therefore, aggression must cost much to Russia so that suffers heavy losses until such action is stopped.

UKRAINE HAS THE STRONGEST ARMY IN ITS HISTORY

Question: Russia is currently suffering from a sharp fall in oil prices. Could the Kremlin, while trying to divert attention from the economic crisis inside the country, attempt to unleash a swift war?

Answer: Unfortunately, anything is possible. And it will threaten us all. Putin does not have the resources to deal with the crisis in global oil markets caused by the loss in negotiations with OPEC and the CO VID-19 epidemic. In this situation, the Russians incur great losses, and Putin will have to come up with some kind of "firework" which, in the face of falling living standards, will give Russians a sense of satisfaction with "the collection of Russian lands." This is a very likely scenario.

Question: In what direction can this "firework" be directed?

Answer: Belarus is under the greatest threat. Ukraine has the strongest army in its history. This army is hardened in years of fighting. Therefore, a "firework" called "a small victorious war in Ukraine" would cost too much to Russia. Thus, trying to play such a "performance" in Belarus, at least in the imagination of individuals in the Kremlin, could be more attractive and cheaper, since Belarus is weaker than Ukraine, has less potential and less developed national consciousness.

On the other hand, we know that the situation in Ukraine is not the best either. If the country's regionalization intensifies and parts of it move away from the center, Russia will play a role here. The threat has not passed, and Ukrainians must remember that they are bordering on a bloodthirsty empire and cannot afford the mistakes that cost independence.

EUROPE NOT THREATENED BY DISINTEGRATION

Question: What do you think will be the situation in the EU after COVID-19? Does Europe face disintegration?

Answer: I think it does not. Elections have already taken place in most countries, except for France, where they are scheduled for next year. The European Parliament was formed last year as well. Therefore, I think, there will be no change in either the European Parliament or the European Commission, that is, the European mainstream will remain the same. There will probably be a big controversy over the European budget caused by the consequences of COVID-19.

This epidemic has become the third consecutive crisis in the EU's southern flank. First, we had the eurozone financial crisis that stretched from Greece to Portugal. Later, we had the immigration crisis that hit Greece, Italy, and Italy, and Spain became the center of the pandemic. An important branch of the economy of the countries of southern Europe is tourism, which is now frozen.

Therefore, an attempt will be made to redistribute the flow of funds from Eastern Europe to these countries.

But I do not think that by 2024 when the next elections to the European Parliament take place there will be significant changes in quality. The EU will most likely try to preserve the existing balance of power.

Undoubtedly, the political picture in southern Europe can change. But this will not have much impact on Brussels policy.

Question: Can any southern EU member state have the desire to follow the UK's example?

Answer: I don't think so. Italy may face the dilemma of staying in or out of the euro area. But leaving the EU will not be on the agenda. This country will not financially sustain this situation.

Yuriy Banakhevych, Warsaw

Photo credit: Ukrinform and Defence24
Sexual affairs between British Airways pilots, stewards and stewardesses go on all the time, one of the airline's managers has admitted.

Customer relations boss Joanne Hale told a discrimination tribunal there were 'a lot of relationships' between airline staff.

The tribunal was held in Watford, Hertfordshire, after a gay air steward complained that one of his male superiors had contacted him on dating app Grindr.

An employment tribunal was held after Bartek Wytryszczewski, a former cabin crew member for British Airways claimed he was discriminated against. At the tribunal Joanne Hale, customer relations boss, said there were ' a lot of relationships' between airline staff

Bartek Wytryszczewski, from Poland, launched legal action against British Airways (BA) after he resigned, claiming that he had been 'forced' out as a cabin crew member and discriminated against because of his sexuality, nationality, and because he raised safety concerns.

Mr Wytryszczewski said while on a four-day overseas working trip between December 31, 2017 and January 3, 2018, a superior (Mr X) acted 'inappropriately' when he contacted him on dating app Grindr to tell him he was 'hot' on New Year's Eve.

The pair had a short conversation in the early hours of the morning through the app and Mr Wytryszczewski sent Mr X 'grinning emojis' as well as 'speak tomorrow x'.

The cabin crew member also complained that, while on the trip and standing on an escalator with Mr X and female BA staff member, Mr X said he 'was not going to go to the gym but he was going to have sex instead'.

The tribunal heard Mr Wytryszczewski did not take offence to these issues until after he was given a verbal telling off by Mr X days later following a dispute over a seven-year-old passenger.

Issues involving the air steward continued to mount and in an email Ms Hale said: 'Bartek does not respond well to managers who do not agree with everything he is saying.

'He will manipulate situations to reflect the outcome of his choice. I have concerns about Bartek and his ability to perform the safety aspects of the role of cabin crew.

'Bartek does not respond well to situations which are not in his favour or control.'

Things came to a head in March 2018, eight months after Mr Wytryszczewski began working for BA, when he demanded additional paid leave and in repeated emails, which he copied in CEO Alex Cruz, threatened to leave if he didn't get it.

Mr Wytryszczewski left his job with British Airways in March 2018, just eight months after starting

Karen Slinger, head of the customer services department, was also contacted by the disgruntled employee.

Ann Pilgrim, BA area manager, emailed him: 'I believe the manner and way in which you are approaching this situation is now completely inappropriate and I need this constant contact and harassment towards Karen and Alex to now stop.'

Shortly after he started the Heathrow-based job Mr Wytryszczewski repeatedly raised concerns and later alleged he was treated 'detrimentally' for whistleblowing.

Judge Hyams dismissed all the ex cabin-crew member's claims and criticised him for alleging Mr X offended him only after he was told off.

He said: 'We concluded that at no time did the claimant say or indicate in any way to Mr X that Mr X's attentions were unwanted before Mr X gave the claimant the instant feedback.

'Mr X's attentions towards the claimant did not have the purpose of either violating the claimant's dignity or creating for him an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.'
The United States and China are locked in a race to develop a coronavirus vaccine as fears mount that the latter country would use its success in developing one as economic and diplomatic leverage.

As countries across the globe coordinate to create a vaccine for COVID-19, which has sickened more than 3.3 million people worldwide, the US and China have stuck with a nationalized approach.

'They know that whoever finds a workable vaccine right now basically rules the world,' a national security official told Politico on condition of anonymity.

The outlet published a report about the so-called vaccine war on Sunday, which describes how national security officials and public health experts are increasingly concerned about the prospect of China developing a vaccine first.

Doing so would not only prove invaluable for the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda efforts, but would also give the nation immense leverage in the global community, experts warn.

'Often, Chinese offers of aid come with strings attached,' Matt Kroenig, a former Pentagon and CIA official who recently released a book examining American power competition with China, told Politico.

'So they could use it as a way to try to increase their influence and further push out the US.'

National security officials and public health experts are said to be increasingly concerned about the prospect of China becoming the first nation to develop an effective coronavirus vaccine because it could use it as economic and diplomatic leverage. Pictured: Chinese researchers work on an experimental vaccine at a laboratory in Beijing

The stakes are especially high for the Chinese government as it seeks to repair its reputation amid allegations that it covered up the origins and severity of the outbreak late last year.

One national security official acknowledged that 'China does have a head start' in the global effort to develop a vaccine.

But the official added: 'They also have a pattern of theft and trying to steal everyone else's research. So you would think they'd be very benevolent [with the vaccine] so as not to be seen as a pariah.'

Politico pointed to a spike in hacking attempts on US hospitals and labs, which intelligence and national officials attributed primarily to China, as a sign of the country's desperation.

In addition to providing diplomatic leverage, creating a vaccine first would have substantial economic implications.

For example, being able to vaccinate its own population first would serve as a strong 'economic rudder' for China by allowing it to fully open its economy to global companies, Dr Ross McKinney Jr, the chief scientific officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges, told Politico.

Kroenig emphasized that there is still a question of whether the world would even trust a vaccine produced by China - pointing to the recent episodes of it delivering faulty medical equipment to Europe.

'One of the great advantages the US has in this competition is that we have these 30 formal treaty allies with leading scientific research communities,' Kroenig said.

'So we could and should be doing a much better job of galvanizing allies and bringing them together [on the vaccine issue].'

Research Associate Parsa Parirokh, of RNA medicines company Arcturus Therapeutics, conducts research on a COVID-19 vaccine at a lab in San Diego, California, on March 17

The Politico report noted that American and Chinese scientists have actually been working together on COVID-19 research, even as the feud between their governments escalates.

McKinney said that the collaboration can be positive 'as long as the information flows both ways'.

But, he claimed, that has not always been the case.

'There is some asymmetry going on with regard to the research efforts that I think is the worry,' McKinney said.

President Donald Trump appeared at a virtual town hall meeting hosted by Fox News on Sunday and said he is confident that the US will have a vaccine by the end of this year.

He also addressed the global race to create a vaccine, insisting that the US is working with other countries including the United Kingdom and Australia.

Asked whether 'another country could beat us', Trump said: 'I don't care. I just want to get a vaccine that works. I really don't care. If it's another country, I'll take my hat off to them. We have to come up with a vaccine.'

President Donald Trump appeared at a virtual town hall meeting hosted by Fox News on Sunday and said that he 'doesn't care' which country is first to produce a COVID-19 vaccine

It's unclear if his comments had anything to do with the Politico report, which contended that the Trump administration has shown little interest in cooperating in multi-national efforts to fight COVID-19.

Last month, the US declined to join a virtual meeting called by the World Health Organization where global leaders committed to distributing a future coronavirus vaccine in an internationally equitable way.

On Monday, the European Union is hosting a meeting for countries to pledge funding and research into COVID-19 vaccines and treatments - but the US is not expected to attend that either.

'The Trump administration's apparent lack of interest in cooperation has alarmed global health officials and diplomats as they seek to end a pandemic that has disabled economies and killed more than 240,000 people worldwide,' Politico's Nahal Toosi and Natasha Bertrand wrote.

'The fear is that Trump will be content with allowing the race to develop and distribute the vaccine to devolve into a global contest - and that poorer countries will be left behind in the rush to procure doses.

'In essence: that the president's "America First" view of world affairs as an atavistic scramble for power will lead to unnecessary suffering and death.'
On this date in 1970 in Ohio, around 28 National Guardsmen fired their weapons at an anti-war demonstrators group on the Kent State University campus, killing four students, wounding eight, and paralyzing another.

This tragic event was considered as a turning point for a country separated by conflict in Vietnam and further spurred the anti-war drive.

Two days before the tragedy, precisely on May 2, the troops' National Guard were called to Kent to defeat students who were rioting in protest of the US invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War.

Then, on May 3, the troops dispersed the scattered protests using tear gas. Then, on May 4, classes at Kent State University resumed. By noon on the same day, despite the ban on demonstrations and rallies, roughly 2,000 people gathered on the campus.

The National Guard arrived, ordering the protesting crowd to dissolve. Again, the troops fired tear gas and moved forward against the rallying students "with bayonets fixed on their rifles."

Incidentally, some of the protesters who refused to yield responded by verbally taunting and throwing rocks at the troops.

No Warning Shot Fired

A few minutes after, minus the warning shot, the Guardsmen, fired over 60 rounds toward the demonstrators at a nearby parking lot, wounding nine and killing four.

Meanwhile, the casualty closest was 20 yards away while the farthest nearly 250 yards away. Following a period of shock, disbelief, and attempts at first aid, furious students assembled on a slope nearby, and again, the Guardsmen ordered them to move.

Members of the faculty were able to convince the protesting students to disperse and thus, preventing further bloodshed.

The shootings resulted in protests on different college campuses nationwide. More so, pictures of the massacre became continuing imageries of the anti-war movement.

In 1974, at the criminal investigation's conclusion, a federal court dropped all charges against eight National Guardsmen of Ohio for their role in the deaths of the students.

Important Highlights from Previous Years

On May 4, 1471, the Battle of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, took place. It was the final encounter between the York and Houses of Lancaster

This was the date when Edward of Westminster, the Prince of Wales, was killed, and King Edward IV got restored to his sovereignty. Also, he was able to restore political stability to England until he died in 1483.

This same date in 1814, Spain's King Ferdinand VII signed the "Decree of May 4," which returned the country to absolutism.

The year 1904 marked the beginning of construction by the US on the Panama Canal. Then, on May 4, 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the first woman elected as the United Kingdom's Prime Minister.

This Date in Film, TV, and Music

It was on this date in 1959 when the First Grammy Awards was held to respect and honor the performers' musical accomplishments for the year 1958. On this said music event, Perry Como and Ella Fitzgerald won the first-ever Grammy Awards.

On May 4, 2008, Seth MacFarlane reached a $100-million worth of agreement with Fox to keep the "American Idol" and "Family Guy" on television until 2012, making him the World's highest-paid TV writer.

Check these out!
Rebecca Judd was feeling the '90s nostalgia on Monday - until she realised one of her favourite TV adverts from her childhood wasn't very politically correct.

During a segment on KIIS FM's 3pm Pick-Up about discontinued snacks, the footy WAG brought up the famous 1993 commercial for Muncheros chips.

She remarked that 'you could never get away with' a similar advert these days.

Hasn't aged well: Rebecca Judd was feeling the '90s nostalgia on Monday - until she realised one of her favourite TV adverts from her childhood wasn't very politically correct

The advert features a tribe of Native Americans sitting around a campfire as they discuss hunting grizzly bears.

One tribesman glances at the camera and says in an Australian accent: 'I'd rather much on Muncheros!'

The tribe then begins singing the product's tagline: 'Munch on Muncheros, munch on Munch-eeeeer-os!'

Oh, dear: During a segment on KIIS FM's 3pm Pick-Up about discontinued snacks, the footy WAG brought up the famous 1993 commercial for Muncheros chips (pictured)

Racially insensitive: The advert features a tribe of Native Americans sitting around a campfire as they discuss hunting grizzly bears. One tribesman glances at the camera and says in an Australian accent: 'I'd rather much on Muncheros!'

Rebecca, 37, said she loved the chips and the jingle, but wasn't so fond of the racially insensitive imagery.

'[They were] the best. Where did they go, and why? Because they were delicious. they were kind of like cheesy little Doritos but in a skinny shape,' she said.

'I'd be happy to bring those back... maybe not that ad. They'd never get away with it these days!'

'They'd never get away with it!' Describing the advert as 'so wrong' by today's standards, she expressed disbelief that it had aired 'in 1993 - not that long ago'

Staying home: Rebecca is in lockdown with her husband, retired AFL star Chris Judd, and their four children, Oscar, Billie, Tom and Darcy, at their $7.3million home in Melbourne's south-east

Describing the advert as 'so wrong' by today's standards, she expressed disbelief that it had aired 'in 1993 - not that long ago'.

Rebecca is currently in lockdown with her husband, retired AFL star Chris Judd, and their four children, Oscar, Billie, Tom and Darcy, at their $7.3million home in Melbourne's south-east.

She has been outspoken during the coronavirus pandemic about the importance of staying indoors and downloading the COVIDSafe app to help flatten the curve.
We now offer lithium prices and coverage free for reference. Click here to read all about it. Join our growing community of participants who want to learn more about electrification and how this market is developing.
Mumbai, May 4 : Actor-comedian Gaurav Gera and his friend Rohit Gujjar have rescued a baby parakeet from a crow.

"A few days ago we heard some crows cawing near my apartment window. When my friend Rohit and I went closer we saw a big crow attacking a baby parakeet that was stuck near the windowsill. It was unable to fly and seemed scared. Rohit and I somehow managed to rescue the little bird," said Gaurav.

"As there were no veterinarians available, we decided to nurse the parakeet and provide it with food and water. We then called our friends at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) India. They took the bird for medical check-up and then sent him to a sanctuary," he added.

The two have received 'Hero to Animals Award' from PETA India for helping the bird in need.

"We hope that our friends, family and fans know why it's important to always help an animal in need. If you see an animal in distress, please speak up. Call your local animal welfare group and do everything that you can to help the animal," said Gaurav.
A man in a mask checks his phone in New York's Times Square in March 2020. (AFP/Getty Images)

In the bustling college town of Stillwater, Okla., residents are allowed to visit restaurants and retailers  freedoms that most of the country does not currently enjoy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet when the city issued an emergency proclamation Friday that required citizens to wear face coverings, store employees were threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse, according to a statement released by the city. In response, Stillwater quickly amended its wording to only encourage use of masks.

This has occurred in three short hours and in the face of clear medical evidence that face coverings help contain the spread of COVID-19, Stillwater City Manager Norman McNickle said in a statement. Many of those with objections cite the mistaken belief the requirement is unconstitutional, and under their theory, one cannot be forced to wear a mask. No law or court supports this view.

About a dozen states have reopened more of their economies since Fridays calendar turn to May, with several, including Florida, loosening more restrictions Monday. No matter where a state falls on the reopening spectrum, though, all Americans who choose to go outside are being met with a choice that isnt going away anytime soon: to cover up or not?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says "everyone should wear a cloth face cover when they have to go out in public" to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. The federal agency notes that masks are to protect others and that they are not a substitute for social distancing.

In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine backtracked last week on an order to require masks be worn in stores as too many Ohioans found it offensive.

It became clear to me that was just a bridge too far. People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do, DeWine said Sunday on ABCs This Week.

On Monday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, as part of a tour acknowledging the reopening of most of the state, visited a thrift store in Joplin that is operated by the Disabled American Veterans. The veteran workers wore masks, but Parson did not.

Story continues

"I chose not to," Parson said, when asked at his news briefing why he did not cover his face.

"I think it's up to the individuals. I don't think that's government's role to mandate who wears a mask and who don't. I go back to what I've said all along: It's your personal responsibility."

A food server wearing a mask waits on customers at the Parkshore Grill in St. Petersburg, Fla., on May 4, 2020. (Associated Press )

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis allowed the reopening of most restaurants, retailers, museums and libraries at 25% capacity Monday. DeSantis  who controversially referred to his state, with its large population of older residents, as "God's waiting room" last week  is recommending that employees and customers wear masks, but he is not requiring it.

DeSantis' phased opening plan kept populous South Florida counties Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach closed for most business.

Miami reopened parks to the public last week, but only with the mandatory use of masks. By the end of the weekend, park rangers had handed out more than 7,000 warnings to people not wearing face covers, most of them in the popular South Pointe Park, police said. On Monday, the city closed up the park at the end of South Beach yet again.

New Jersey opened its parks Saturday, and although Gov. Phil Murphy was pleased overall with the social distancing compliance shown by the population, he shared one major complaint Monday.

Not enough masks, he said. Eighty percent to 90% of the folks were not wearing masks.

A cleaning crew member disinfects a New York City subway train on May 4, 2020. (Getty Images)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a mandatory mask order April 15 and said Monday that he believes local governments should have the right to enforce it.

Because you could literally kill someone, Cuomo said. How cruel and irresponsible would that be?  It's not that big of a deal. You dont wear a mask to protect yourself. You wear a mask to protect me. And I wear a mask to protect you.

No one said wear a mask all the time. If you go for a walk in the woods, you dont have to wear a mask. You can have the mask down when walking in the woods, but if you see someone coming the other way, you put the mask on. Its the least we can do.

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 68,600 on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than a third of American losses from the disease were in the state of New York, which has become the epicenter of the pandemic, with more than 24,900 deaths as of Monday afternoon. The global death total has surpassed 250,000.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio began his Monday morning news briefing by talking about how nice the weather had been in the city over the weekend  and how that could lead to a false sense of normality. New York City on Monday reported 13,536 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and 5,373 deaths in which the cause was listed as the disease but the victim was not tested.

De Blasio said he did not have a problem with citizens returning to outside spaces and enjoying the weather as long as they wore a mask and kept social distancing requirements. He announced Monday that the city would be distributing 5 million three-ply nonmedical masks and 2.5 million cloth face coverings for free in the coming weeks.

Wherever you turn, youre going to be offered a face covering, De Blasio said.

De Blasio and New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea were peppered with questions stemming from a video of an officer pointing a Taser at bystanders in lower Manhattan during an arrest of people accused of not social distancing properly. The video shows the officer punching and slapping a man as he brings him to the ground.

This one incident is troubling, but theres been tens of thousands of interactions between police officer and civilians that went very well, De Blasio said. The officer has been placed on modified duty and the incident is being investigated, De Blasio said Sunday.

On Monday he said more face covers could help prevent future violent scenarios from playing out with enforcement, but in this case, the plainclothes officer was also not wearing a mask.

In Oklahoma, Stillwater City Manager McNickle said in a statement that one of the incidents involving the mask requirement included a threat with a firearm.

In Michigan, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has ordered that masks be worn through May, state police investigators are looking into reports that a Flint dollar store security guard was fatally shot Friday after an argument with a customer who had refused to wear a mask in the store, according to the Detroit News.

The man who died leaves behind a wife and eight kids.

"My condolences go out to the family of the security guard," Whitmer said Monday. "It is incredible that people continue to show up to work to protect everyone else. We are mindful of how important it is that people keep a level head, that we do the right things. I ask that all Michiganders keep their wits about them and take actions to protect themselves and others in this incredibly stressful time."
India prepared for the third phase of the national lockdown from Monday with "considerable relaxations" in several districts but curbs will continue in containment areas even as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said people will have to be ready to live with coronavirus and that time has come to re-open the city.

As coronavirus cases in the country jumped by 2,487 in the highest ever 24-hour spike and the fatalities rose by a record 83, officials cautioned against any violation of the lockdown curbs in the extended two-week period so that the gains achieved so far in the battle against COVID-19 are not "squandered away".

The lockdown was imposed on March 25 and is slated to last till May 17 after two extensions. The total duration of the lockdown period will now be 54 days.

Retailers and traders expect to re-open more shops under the new relaxed guidelines although they are still seeking clarity from local authorities.

As he announced the implementation of all lockdown relaxations prescribed by the Centre for the 'Red Zone' in the national capital, Kejriwal said coronavirus is going nowhere and it is impossible that the number of cases in the country will be zero.

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

"Corona(virus) has come. It is impossible that there will be no cases of coronavirus because it has not happened across the country. We will have to be ready to live with coronavirus. We will have to get used to it," he told an online media briefing.

"Time has come to re-open Delhi," the AAP leader noted, as he said the Delhi government will suggest to the Centre that only containment areas in the city be declared as red zones and not the entire district.

At present, all 11 districts in the city have been declared as red zones.

Follow LIVE updates on the COVID-19 pandemic here

Delhi on May 3 registered its highest single-day spike in coronavirus cases with 427 new infections, taking the COVID-19 tally to 4,549, the government said.

No fresh death due to COVID-19 was reported and the number of fatalities in the national capital was put at at 64, it added.

According to the Union Health ministry on May 3, the death toll in the country stood at 1,306 while the total COVID-19 cases climbed to 40,263 on Sunday. The recovery rate was nearly 25 per cent.

A PTI tally based on reports from the states showed that total number of cases was 41,779 while the death toll was 1,391.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan urged people to observe the extended two-week period of lockdown in letter and spirit and treat it as an effective intervention to cut down the chain of transmission of COVID-19.

We are on the path of success and we will win this war against COVID-19, he asserted.

According to the health ministry, as on Friday, there were 130 'Red' zones, maximum of 19 in UP, followed by 14 in Maharashtra. The number of 'Orange' Zones was 284 and 'Green' was 319.

Vardhan said the rate of growth of new COVID-19 cases has been steadying for a while and the recovery rate improving, adding India is on the path of success and will win the war against the pandemic.

According to the data received on Sunday, for the past three days, the doubling rate of the virus is 12.0, for seven days it is 11.7 and for 14 days it is 10.4, the minister was quoted as saying in a statement.

We have crossed over 10 lakh tests till date and are performing over 74,000 tests in a day presently.

He said India is on a "better footing" as compared to other nations, adding the country is capable to tackle any eventuality with more than 2.5 lakh beds in dedicated COVID-19 hospitals and health centres.

Echoing Vardhan's views, Niti Aayog member V K Paul said the continuous rise in the number of people testing positive for coronavirus is expected to stabilise anytime soon.

He also said the rationale behind the government's decision to extend the lockdown by two more weeks after May 3 is to consolidate the gains of the first and second phase of restrictions.

In an interview to PTI, Paul said a sudden spurt in number of coronavirus cases is still amenable to containment strategy.

"The rationale (behind extending the lockdown till May 17) is that the gains of lockdown need to be consolidated in the country...Real goal of lockdown was to suppress the chain of transmission of the virus. So, we will lose that if we abruptly end it," said Paul, who is heading an Empowered Group on medical equipment.

A total of 20 central public health teams have been constituted and are being deployed in as many affected districts having high case load of COVID-19 in nine states and Delhi to identify the gaps and support them in proper implementation of cluster containment plans and surveillance measures.

According to the Union Health Ministry, these teams will be deployed in 20 districts -- Mumbai, Thane, Pune in Maharashtra; Bhopal, Indore in Madhya Pradesh; Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara in Gujarat; South East and Central Districts in Delhi; Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan; Agra and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; Hyderabad in Telangana; Chennai in Tamil Nadu; Kolkata in West Bengal; and Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna in Andhra Pradesh.

Retailers Association of India (RAI) said it will have to be seen how the third phase of lockdown works out at the ground as there is confusion, and many states are yet to come up with guidelines to follow the Centre's decision.

Similarly, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) also claimed they will be in a "dilemma" as there is confusion over "what constitutes a neighbourhood shop and a standalone shop", while organised retailers such as Future Group and V-Mart Retail said they are also seeking permissions from local authorities.

"Some parts of the businesses will reopen. What we see is that there is the possibility of opening of some standalone stores...We will open wherever we can and we will talk to the local authorities to open. We will have to see how it works out.

Fighter jets and transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) carried out fly-pasts over major cities and towns while military choppers showered petals on leading hospitals across the country as part of a mega exercise to express gratitude to lakhs of doctors, paramedics and other front-line workers battling the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the mega exercise, calling it a great gesture.

"Saluting those who are at the forefront, bravely fighting COVID-19. Great gesture by our armed forces," Modi tweeted.

Concerned over scores of frontline security personnel contracting the COVID-19, the Centre has suggested to states to prepare an effective second line of defence by deploying home guards, civil defence and NCC cadets among others wherever feasible to contain its spread.

In a communication to all states and UTs, the Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA) said the police chiefs may consider the option of 'work from home' for personnel not deployed on the frontline, and wherever possible.

In another communication, the MHA also made it clear that the relaxations given for the inter-state movement of people during the lockdown was available only to distressed migrant workers.

Railways also pressed more 'Shramik Special' trains for the third day to ferry stranded migrants back to their native places in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha among other states.

Follow our full coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic here
With the situation due to COVID-19 pandemic evolving every day, the frontline workers are going beyond the call of duty. Network18, Indias most diversified media conglomerate, is back with the second edition of its marquee initiative, Corona Heroes Ko Salaam  Musicathon 2.0.

The virtual event will bring together stalwarts from music fraternity who will salute the dedication and spirit of the unsung heroes who have dedicated their lives for the collective cause while saving precious lives.

Hosted by veteran actor Raveena Tandon, the virtual event will feature leading musicians and artists, including Kailash Kher, Shaan, Mika Singh, Babul Supriyo, Usha Uthup and Ved Sharma to name a few. The artists will also encourage social distancing while performing live from their homes.

Continuing with the channels commitment of delivering impactful initiatives, Musicathon 2.0 aims to appreciate the spirit of the selfless service of these unsung heroes. With its tremendous reach, Network18 will reach out to HNIs, corporates and general public and encourage them to make donations to the PM Relief Fund and contribute generously for the corona victims.

Musicathon 2.0will be telecast live on CNN-News18 and News18 India on 3rd May, 2020 from 16:00 PM to 17:00PM.
Skeena Completes Sale of GJ to Newcrest for C$7.5M

Posted by Publisher Internet

Skeena Resources Limited (TSX.V: SKE, OTCQX: SKREF) (?Skeena? or the ?Company?  https://www.rohstoffnacht-tv.de/mediathek/play/skeena-resources-neustart-von-eskay-creek-mine-in-kanada-laeuft-nach-plan/ ) is pleased to report the completion of the asset purchase agreement, announced February 4, 2020, to sell 100% of the Company?s interest in the GJ Copper-Gold Property (the ?GJ Property?) to Newcrest Red Chris Mining Limited (?Newcrest?) for C$7.5 million of cash.

Under the terms of the asset purchase agreement with Newcrest, dated February 3, 2020, Skeena sold 100% of Skeena?s interest in the GJ Property in consideration for:

A cash payment of C$7,500,000 to Skeena; and

The assumption by Newcrest of future payment obligations and royalties on the GJ Property, including those outlined in the Company?s October 6, 2015 news release.

The transaction is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary consents and approvals, including the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Skeena

Skeena Resources Limited is a junior Canadian mining exploration company focused on developing prospective precious metal properties in the Golden Triangle of northwest British Columbia, Canada. The Company?s primary activities are the exploration and development of the past-producing Eskay Creek mine and Snip mine.

Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements

Certain statements made and information contained herein may constitute ?forward looking information? and ?forward looking statements? within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. These statements and information are based on facts currently available to the Company and there is no assurance that actual results will meet management?s expectations.? Forward-looking statements and information may be identified by such terms as ?future?, ?anticipates?, ?believes?, ?targets?, ?estimates?, ?plans?, ?expects?, ?may?, ?will?, ?could? or ?would?.? Forward-looking statements and information contained herein are based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, the estimation of mineral resources and reserves, the realization of resource and reserve estimates, metal prices, taxation, the estimation, timing and amount of future exploration and development, capital and operating costs, the availability of financing, the receipt of regulatory approvals, environmental risks, title disputes and other matters.? While the Company considers its assumptions to be reasonable as of the date hereof, forward-looking statements and information are not guarantees of future performance and readers should not place undue importance on such statements as actual events and results may differ materially from those described herein. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements or information except as may be required by applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
[May 04, 2020] Turnitin Partners with NewsGuard to Offer Students and Teachers its Media Literacy Tools

Turnitin and NewsGuard today announce a partnership that will help many millions of students and teachers spot and avoid misinformation, improve their research abilities, and develop critical media literacy skills. Turnitin users now have free access to NewsGuard's browser extension and mobile apps, enabling them to read NewsGuard's credibility ratings and detailed "Nutrition Label" reviews that provide background and context about the reliability of online sources. Click to Tweet. "Now more than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic it is critical that students and educators can rely on accurate information from their sources," said Valerie Schreiner, Chief Product Officer at Turnitin. "Turnitin has always been committed to promoting integrity in research and writing. By working with NewsGuard, we now deepen that commitment by also offering our students and teachers a tool to help evaluate the integrity of the sources they are using. Our services are a perfect match." Turnitin's products are used by over 34 million students in over 15,000 secondary and higher education institutions in 140 countries to support academic integrity, to check for text similarity, to verify authorship, and to support teachers and students in developing original thinking skills. Those original research and writing skills include not only how to properly use and cite works, but also how to evaluate the credibility of sources. "We, too, see this as a perfect match," said Gordon Crovitz, co-CEO of NewsGuard. "From the start, our mission has been to help people tell the difference between trustworthy sources and the many online sources that have hidden agendas, publish misinformation, or exist to promote hoaxes. We have heard from many teachers how valuable NewsGuard has been to help students in their research and writing find sources that publish with accuracy and integrity and to stay away from the others. To be able to provide that information to Turnitin's millions of students and teachers is a tremendously important milestone in advancing that mission." "NewsGuard has helped my students become more aware of what they're ingesting," said Turnitin and NewsGuard user Lisa LaBrake, English Teacher at Sweet Home Senior High School in Amherst, New York. "Their Nutrition Labels have prompted valuable discussion and questions about the agenda of different sources." NewsGuard's experienced journalists have reviewed the more than 4,000 news and information websites that account for 95 percent of online engagement, assessing the credibiliy and transparency of each source using nine apolitical criteria of journalistic practice. With the extension installed, NewsGuard's red and green icons indicating a source's general trustworthiness appear next to links in search results and social media feeds. By hovering over each icon, students can read NewsGuard's Nutrition Label for the source, which provides a detailed explanation of the source's background, standards, and its adherence to or violation of NewsGuard's nine criteria.



NewsGuard recently temporarily removed the paywall for its browser extension, which costs $2.95 per month, in response to the "Infodemic" of misinformation that has proliferated in tandem with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. To use the tool for free now until July 1, 2020 visit https://www.newsguardtech.com/turnitin/. After July 1, schools and universities that use Turnitin will have free access codes allowing students and faculty to continue using NewsGuard at no cost until the end of 2020, with the option to extend free access until the end of the school year in 2021. "When we began charging for our browser extension earlier this year, our inboxes were flooded with messages from teachers and librarians expressing how valuable NewsGuard's ratings and reviews had been to their students and patrons," said Steven Brill, co-CEO of NewsGuard. "We are delighted that this partnership with Turnitin will enable many of those students to continue using NewsGuard as an educational tool."

Librarians and teachers worldwide have already embraced NewsGuard as a media literacy resource for teaching research skills. More than 700 public libraries globally - from the Los Angeles Public Library to the Milan Library system in Italy - use NewsGuard's browser extension on the computers they make available to patrons. NewsGuard's news literacy lesson plans and other materials will also be supplied to schools using Turnitin. "Media literacy skills are essential to a healthy democracy, but research shows us that students worldwide are lacking in these abilities," said Sarah Brandt, Vice President of News Literacy Programs at NewsGuard. "By teaching students early how to assess the reliability of sources, and spot those that might be trying to deceive them, we can go a long way toward maintaining trust in media, institutions, and one another." To learn more about the partnership, visit this page, which contains free resources to help educators incorporate media literacy lessons into their classes, including Turnitin's Source (News - Alert) Credibility Packet and NewsGuard's COVID-19 Media Literacy Teacher Packet. About Turnitin Turnitin is your partner in fostering original thinking and supporting authentic learning. Turnitin solutions promote academic integrity, streamline grading and feedback, and improve outcomes across educational levels and content areas. Turnitin leverages cutting-edge technology to provide tools that prevent plagiarism, deliver formative and summative feedback, surface actionable reporting, and investigate academic misconduct. Turnitin serves over 15,000 institutions globally and is headquartered in Oakland, Calif., with international offices in the U.K., Netherlands, Australia, Korea, India, and throughout Latin America. @Turnitin About NewsGuard Launched in March 2018 by media entrepreneur and award-winning journalist Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard provides credibility ratings and detailed "Nutrition Labels" for thousands of news and information websites that account for 95 percent of online engagement across the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Italy. NewsGuard employs journalists to rate each site based on nine apolitical criteria of journalistic practice, including whether a site repeatedly publishes false content, whether it regularly corrects or clarifies errors, and whether it avoids deceptive headlines. Based on the criteria, each site receives a trust score of 0-100 and an overall rating of "Green," indicating the site is generally reliable, or "Red," indicating that it is not reliable. NewsGuard's ratings and Nutrition Labels can be licensed by education technology companies, internet service providers, browsers, news aggregators, and social media and search platforms. Consumers can access NewsGuard's ratings through its browser extension, Android (News - Alert) and iOS apps, and the Edge mobile browser. Over 700 libraries globally use NewsGuard's free media literacy browser extension on their public-access computers for patrons. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005128/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
BBC Studios has hired BBC4 channel editor Cassian Harrison on a nine-month attachment, as SVP Commissioning and Content Global Services.

The new role combines editorial and strategic development around BBC Studios international consumer facing outlets including BBC Earth, BBC Brit and BBC First.

Harrison will work on the creation and distribution of original programming for digital services that BBC Studios owns and operates around the world. He will report into Paul Dempseys Global Distribution Division.

Tim Davie, CEO, BBC Studios said, Cassians extensive experience and excellent track record in creating and commissioning great British television will help supercharge our offering to international viewers as we look to take the premium, original content for which the BBC is world renowned, to an even wider global audience.

Charlotte Moore, Director, BBC Content said, Cassian is an original thinker with an insatiable curiosity and creative edge. Under his leadership, BBC Four has flourished and achieved continued success. He has championed a range of brilliantly innovative programmes from Slow TV to The Secret Life of Landfill and British Historys Biggest Fibs to the award winning Bros documentary and Life Drawing live. His broad range of interests and eclectic taste make him perfectly placed to take on this new global role and I would like to wish him all the best.

Cassian Harrison said, Im hugely looking forward to helping BBC Studios shape our offer to global audiences. Im tremendously proud of BBC4s continuing success, and itll be brilliant to be bringing the BBCs distinctive voices and unrivalled quality to viewers around the world in similarly original and innovative ways. I cant wait to jump in and start working with such a talented Studios team.

Harrison will begin his new role in this month. He is currently Channel Editor of BBC4. Prior to this Harrison spent five years as Commissioning Editor for Science, Natural History and History across BBC One, Two and Four. And prior to that he spent 15 years in the independent sector, working as a Director, Producer and Executive Producer across a variety of genres including history, documentary and current affairs. His programmes have won multiple awards including a Bafta, three Emmys and five RTS awards.

BBC Studios runs a number of linear and digital services around the world including the international channel brands BBC Earth, BBC Brit and BBC First and a digital service, BBC Player, in Singapore and Malaysia.

Share this story
In India, the third phase of ongoing nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus has begun from today with some relaxations in the restrictions. States and Union Territories have drafted their own rules, mostly in line with the guidelines of the central government that have given area-specific relaxations in a graded approach to bring back normalcy amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Click here for complete coverage on coronavirus

The number of Covid-19 cases in India crossed 42,000 on Monday and the death toll stands at 1,389 as per the Union health ministry figures.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has said the United States will have a coronavirus vaccine by the end of this year.

We are very confident that were going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year, Trump said Sunday in a Fox News town hall show broadcast from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

Here are the highlights on coronavirus from India and the world:
Chinese mainland reports 1 new confirmed COVID-19 case

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:07, May 03, 2020

BEIJING, May 2 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese health authority said Saturday that it received reports of one new confirmed COVID-19 case on the Chinese mainland Friday, which was an imported case, marking the lowest increase since Jan. 16.

Two suspected cases, both imported from abroad, were reported, the National Health Commission (NHC) said in a daily report.

No deaths were reported Friday on the mainland, according to the commission.

Altogether 43 patients were discharged from hospital after recovery Friday, while the number of severe cases dropped by one to 37.

As of Friday, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 82,875, including 557 patients who were still being treated and 77,685 people who had been discharged after recovery, the commission said.

Altogether 4,633 people had died of the disease, it said.

By Friday, the mainland had reported a total of 1,671 imported cases. Of the cases, 1,207 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 464 were being treated with seven in severe condition. No deaths from the imported cases had been reported.

The commission said that 11 people, including nine from abroad, were still suspected of being infected with the virus.

According to the commission, 7,873 close contacts were still under medical observation after 650 people were discharged from medical observation on Friday.

Also on Friday, 20 new asymptomatic cases were reported on the mainland. No cases were re-categorized as confirmed cases, and 12 such cases, including three from abroad, were discharged from medical observation, according to the commission.

The commission said 989 asymptomatic cases, including 112 from abroad, were still under medical observation.

By Friday, 1,039 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 45 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR and 429 in Taiwan including six deaths.

A total of 859 patients in Hong Kong, 37 in Macao and 324 in Taiwan had been discharged from hospital after recovery.

Altogether 28 provincial-level areas and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have reported no new domestically transmitted cases for 14 consecutive days, said NHC spokesperson Mi Feng Saturday.

Mi said China has sent 149 medical experts to 16 countries to assist the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Theresa Guidici Conroy, 88, of Roxborough, a podiatrist in Philadelphia and one of the regions earliest female practitioners in the specialty, died Wednesday, April 29, of breast cancer at her home.

Dr. Conroys first practice was in her house in Manayunk. Later she worked from a medical office building on Ridge Avenue. At the same time, she advocated for the foot-care specialty, including as the first female president of the Pennsylvania Podiatric Medical Association.

Theresa was a leader and a member of a generation that propelled the profession of podiatric medicine into the integral role that it plays in todays health-care system, said Michael Davis, the associations executive director. Each of our members owes her a debt of gratitude, and an expression of affection, for the contributions that she made to each of their practices.

Born on Green Lane in Manayunk, Dr. Conroy lived there before moving to Roxborough in 1974.

She graduated from St. John the Baptist High School in Manayunk and attended Immaculata College. In 1954, she earned a medical degree from what is now Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine.

In 1952, she married Michael J. Conroy, one of seven lawyers selected to become judges on the fledgling Municipal Court in 1968. He died in 1995.

Because she knew that breaking into a medical specialty could be difficult, she believed in paving the way for others.

She worked tirelessly to advocate for women podiatrists at the national level, her family said in a statement.

In 1989, Dr. Conroy was elected to the American Podiatric Medical Associations board of trustees. She served in that role for a decade and as the organizations treasurer. She also served on or chaired committees dealing with budget, diabetes, education, member recruitment, and public health issues.

Sabrina Minhas, president of the Pennsylvania Podiatric Medical Association, said Dr. Conroy was ahead of her time in championing public health.

John Mattiacci, dean of the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine, noted her focus on student recruitment.

Theresa was instrumental in recruiting women into the profession, he said. Almost half of our students over the past decade have been women, and Theresa was so proud of the growth in our female graduation rates.

In a 1989 letter to American Podiatric Medical Association members, Dr. Conroy wrote of feeling proud to be a podiatrist, despite never having performed the intricate surgery that some of her colleagues had done.

I see the patients who come in off the street, and the patients who are bedridden in homes, she wrote. I see the patients who are Medicare- and Medicaid-assigned. I see the patients who come to me because I am in the church group that their cousin attends. I represent the core of our profession, the hard-working podiatrist.

She received many awards for her service to podiatry before retiring in the early 2000s.

Dr. Conroy was a member at various times of St. Lucys Roman Catholic Church, Manayunk; Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, Roxborough; and St. Genevieve Parish, Flourtown.

When not at work, she enjoyed shopping, watching old movies, cooking, vacationing at the New Jersey Shore, and spending time with family.

She is survived by daughters Rosemary C. Hughes and Theresa A. Conroy; son Michael G. Conroy; seven grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Services were private. Burial was in Westminster Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd.
J. Crew Files for Bankruptcy as Preppy Retailer Succumbs to COVID-19 Fallout

J. Crew Group filed for bankruptcy protection on May 4 with a plan to hand over control to lenders, adding to a list of brick-and-mortar retailers pushed to the brink by widespread store closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The New York-based chain, known for preppy clothing at times worn by former first lady Michelle Obama, is the first big retailer to fail during the pandemic.

J. Crew filed for bankruptcy in a Virginia federal court with an agreement to eliminate its roughly $1.65 billion of debt in exchange for ceding ownership to creditors.

Anchorage Capital Group, Blackstone Groups GSO Capital Partners, and Davidson Kempner Capital Management hold significant portions of J. Crews senior debt and are in line to take control of the company.

People wearing protective masks walk past a closed retail store in a shopping mall in Singapore on April 6, 2020. (Ore Huiying/Getty Images)

They are also providing about $400 million of fresh financing to aid J. Crews operations, while it navigates Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, the company said in a statement.

In addition to cancelling debt, J. Crew plans to close stores, though the final number it plans to shutter has not yet been determined, a person familiar with the matter said.

The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus outbreak forced the company to temporarily close its nearly 500 J. Crew, J. Crew factory, and Madewell stores. In addition, the economic fallout and market turmoil stemming from the public health crisis resulted in J. Crew shelving plans for an initial public offering of its Madewell business.

Madewell will remain part of J.Crew Group and Libby Wadle will continue in her role as Chief Executive Officer of Madewell, the company added.

J. Crew had planned to use proceeds from the IPO to reduce its debt rather than use bankruptcy to address its strained finances, the person familiar with the matter said.

Before the pandemic, J. Crew was already struggling along with other traditional brick-and-mortar retailers to compete amid a consumer shift to online shopping.

It also suffered after a strategic misstep of raising prices that turned off some shoppers. Talks in 2014 to sell J. Crew to Japans Fast Retailing, the owner of the Uniqlo apparel chain, fell apart.

A woman wearing a mask enters a shopping mall, partially closed to combat the spread of the CCP virus, in Bangkok on April 7, 2020. (Mladen Antonov /AFP via Getty Images)

J. Crew was taken private in 2011 by TPG and Leonard Green & Partners in a roughly $3 billion leveraged buyout, and their investments are now expected to be wiped out, the person familiar with the matter said.

The company had avoided bankruptcy in 2017 in a deal with creditors that reduced total debt and pushed out due dates on obligations.

But its struggles continued. Millard Mickey S. Drexler, a longtime leader of the chain known for his fashion acumen who also at one point helmed Gap, conceded he misjudged how technological developments would alter the retail landscape.

He stepped aside as J. Crews chief executive in 2017, and last year relinquished his seat as board chairman.

J. Crew listed both assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion in the voluntary Chapter 11 document.

By Mike Spector

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.
EgyptAir will operate on Tuesday two flights from Cairo International Airport to bring home stranded Egyptians abroad in view of suspending flights to and from Egypt within the framework of the government's efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

The company will operate one flight to Baghdad and another to New Delhi.

Cairo Air - one the Civil Aviation Ministry's companies - will operate a flight to Dar es Salaam and then to Khartoum.

The three flights will return to Mersa Alam.

Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Ministry will operate flights to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to bring home stranded Egyptians

Search Keywords:

Short link:


They are the forgotten victims of the corona pandemic  patients caught up in a devastating NHS crisis which is costing thousands of lives.

From a seven-year-old girl battling with seizures to a father-of-three who needs cancer surgery, every one of them has had their treatment put on hold while the NHS diverts resources to fight the virus.

And many of them believe it could result in their death.

Last Saturday, the Mail revealed the true scale of this emerging national tragedy.

Two million operations have been cancelled and an estimated 2,700 cancers a week left undiagnosed.

Lyla O'Donovan, 7, has a brain tumour and is 'heartbroken' the surgery she should have had last month is on hold because of the danger of catching Covid-19

In what doctors call the 'collateral damage' of Covid-19, nearly 1,800 extra deaths were recorded by the Office of National Statistics in one week last month, the highest number for nearly 20 years.

The Government wants hospitals to treat people in crucial need of medical help. But, because of the virus, operating theatres have been mothballed and wards closed.

For those who wait, the dreadful truth is that help may come too late.

Lyla O'Donovan, 7

Lyla has a brain tumour and is 'heartbroken' the surgery she should have had last month is on hold because of the danger of catching Covid-19.

The operation is to relieve pressure on her brain and stop her having seizures.

Her father, Paul, 35, a soldier from Co. Durham, says: 'For every seizure she has, we don't know the extent of the brain damage it's doing.'

Reginald Waite, 82

The pensioner from Eaton, Cheshire, was diagnosed with cancer in March after a scan picked up a blockage in his bile duct, but has had a planned operation postponed.

Reginald, a retired electronics engineer, is worried his cancer will spread. 'When are the hospitals going to treat people such as cancer patients and not just concentrate on Covid-19?' he asks.

Reginald Waite, 82, from Eaton, Cheshire, was diagnosed with cancer in March after a scan picked up a blockage in his bile duct, but has had a planned operation postponed

Amelia Jones, 17

Amelia is missing the top of her skull because of emergency surgery after collapsing with a brain haemorrhage on January 3.

The craniotomy procedure was necessary to relieve pressure on her brain, but it has left Amelia with movement and cognitive difficulties.

Her prognosis is poor unless she has a further operation to replace part of her skull, a procedure called cranioplasty, which has been put on hold.

Her father Leighton, who is director of rugby at Marlow Rugby Club, says: 'Amelia has a long way to go, but without this operation she can't start.'

Amelia Jones, 17, is missing the top of her skull because of emergency surgery after collapsing with a brain haemorrhage on January 3

Kieran Crighton, 14

The wheelchair-bound teenager needs two operations  one on his leg to help him walk and another to drain fluid from his brain, but both are on hold.

Kieran, from North Ayrshire, has autism and was diagnosed with five brain tumours two years ago.

His mother, Senga, says: 'I am very anxious for Keiran.'

Kieran Crighton, 14, needs two operations  one on his leg to help him walk and another to drain fluid from his brain, but both are on hold

Ceri Maddock Jones, 39

Mother-of-two Ceri was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer five years ago. Before the virus struck, she'd hoped to go on a med- ical trial.

'The trials are the only option for me. Everything else has been exhausted,' says Ceri, who lives in Ewell, Surrey, with husband Garry and their sons, Austin, six, and Leo, five.

'I don't want to die, for my sons' sake. These trials were my last hope of keeping my family together a bit longer.'

Mother-of-two Ceri Maddock Jones, 39, was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer five years ago

Roland Monger, 39

Roland may have only months to live after his chemotherapy for the skin cancer he has been battling for four years was put on hold.

The university admissions manager from Torpoint, Cornwall, says: 'It is my 40th in July.

I am aiming to make that. Maybe I will see the kids back to school in September.'

Roland Monger, 39, may have only months to live after his chemotherapy for the skin cancer he has been battling for four years was put on hold

Laura Beattie, 31

The fashion business owner, from Manchester needs a lung transplant after cystic fibrosis ravaged her own organs.

Laura has been on the transplant list for two years, but in March she got a letter saying her next test appointment had been 'pushed back' until August 'because of coronavirus'.

Laura Beattie, 31, pictured left with sister Rachel, needs a lung transplant after cystic fibrosis ravaged her own organs

The risk of her getting an infection at the hospital filled with Covid patients is believed to have been the reason.

'I am having monthly appointments over the phone, but the doctors can't measure my lung function properly,' she says.

Which means, crucially, they can't assess whether it is declining because of the disease.

Chris Romney, 64, from Derbyshire, has advanced prostate cancer

Chris Romney, 64

The grandfather from Derbyshire has advanced prostate cancer and has had his surgery at Royal Derby Hospital postponed after facilities were given over to coronavirus patients.

Chris, a retired RAF fighter controller and Nato executive, now fears his life is on the line.

He said: 'Cancer patients have been side-lined. Those like me who need urgent surgery face an increased risk of the cancer spreading, potentially fatally.'

Chris, who lives with his wife, Laura, says the hospital has told him opening up facilities to non-Covid patients will be a 'long, complicated' process.

Rob Martinez, 63

Rob, from Berkshire, suffers from osteoarthritis which is so severe he struggles to climb up and down stairs.

He needs both knee joints replaced, and was forced to take early retirement because of his pain.

Last year, he was given a date for his first knee replacement: April 15, at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey. Rob was overjoyed.

Rob Martinez, 63, from Berkshire, suffers from osteoarthritis which is so severe he struggles to climb up and down stairs

But then he got a call to say all operations had been cancelled for the next three months  starting from the day of his surgery.

'There's going to be such a backlog after all this I dread to think what's going to happen,' he said. 'There's a worry that something like a knee replacement will be forgotten.'

Andy Gower, 53

The businessman from Milton Keynes has only the slimmest chance of surviving his colon cancer if his operation is delayed.

He was due to have surgery this month, but it was cancelled when his hospital was turned over to Covid-19 patients.

Andy Gower, 53, from Milton Keynes, has only the slimmest chance of surviving his colon cancer if his operation is delayed

Now Andy, a father of three, has been told it may be seven weeks before he can have an operation on his stage-three cancer.

He says: 'If I get the operation soon, I have a 75 per cent survival rate, which is quite good.

'But if it has spread to stage four beforehand, then my chances go down to ten per cent.'

www.pancreaticcanceraction.org
Ghana recorded it's first two cases of COVID-19 on 12th March 2020 from two Ghanaian's who returned from Turkey and Norway. Since then the cases have increased to over 2,169 with 18 deaths.



The president of the republic, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo and the government of Ghana have been relentless in their effort in containing the spread.



To decentralise the management of the situation, MLGRD mandated MMDCEs to use their District Health Management team and a COVID-19 task force to prevent the spread of the virus.



It is in light of this that on Thursday, 30th April to Saturday, 2nd May, 2020, the District Health Management Team and Task Force led by the District Chief Executive of Kwahu South, Hon. Emmanuel Atta Ofori Snr embarked on massive public education and enforcement at Ntomem, Asakraka and Nketepa markets for the traders to adhere to COVID-19 protocols.



At Ntomem, the DCE was taken aback by the total disregard of social distance protocol by drivers conveying passengers to the market center.



He used the opportunity to educate the drivers.



The recalcitrant ones were arrested and later discharged to be of good behaviour. The DCE also presented a Veronica bucket donated by the PARTY to the good people of Ntomem.



The DCE and his team continued to Asakraka and Nketepa market. Earlier, the district COVID-19 task force has suspended the sale of nonessential goods at Nketepa market, but there was still a problem of social distance. The team therefore decided to do re-demarcation of the market to ensure that the traders practice the social distance protocol.



In all the market centres the team visited, the DCE distributed free locally made nose masks to the traders and drivers.

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
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Noor Huda Ismail (The Jakarta Post) RSIS Commentary  Mon, May 4, 2020 13:48 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5c746c 3 Opinion terrorists,recidivism,poso Free

As COVID-19 continues to blanket countries around the world, Indonesia has faced a surge in coronavirus cases. With the government preoccupied by the burgeoning domestic health crisis, there have been opportunistic calls from local terrorist networks for followers to launch fresh attacks in the country.

The surge in online activity of extremist groups has so far not been matched by a noticeable uptick in plots. Still, a recent incident saw two local Islamic State (IS)-affiliated terrorists ambush and attempt to kill a member of the Indonesian National Police in broad daylight in Poso, Central Sulawesi.

The April 15, 2020 attack, which resulted in both perpetrators being killed in a shootout with the police, took place only days after the release of an ISIS fatwa. Published in its weekly editorial newsletter, An-Naba, the fatwa called on IS followers and sympathizers to launch attacks in the name of the caliphate and capitalize on its enemies preoccupation with the COVID-19 outbreak.

It was subsequently revealed that one of the Poso attackers, Ali, alias Darwin Gobel, had been on the radar of Indonesian law enforcement, having previously been convicted for planning a terrorist attack in Toli-Toli, Central Sulawesi in 2017.

Released after serving a two-year prison term, it appears Ali lapsed back into extremism and reoffended.

Indonesian National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) sources have revealed to this author that Ali had been engaged in deradicalization programs, when he was in prison.

His case casts a fresh spotlight on Indonesias programs to manage extremists, including prison-based deradicalization initiatives. It also raises two critical questions: was Alis re-engagement in terrorism preventable, and to what extent was he inspired by the recent fatwa issued by IS?

Such questions are timely, given that Indonesias deradicalization programs  which involve various agencies, including BNPT and some private sector NGOs  have had varied results, with recidivism not uncommon. Ali is believed to be one of over 50 recidivists among an estimated 850 terrorists who have been released from prison since 2002.

Another vexing issue has been the lack of effective risk assessment and monitoring strategies both within and outside prisons. With at least a hundred terrorist offenders expected to be released from the prison facilities scattered across the country over the next twelve months, this deluge will exacerbate security risks.

Remitted sentences for good behavior are common in the Indonesian justice system. In this context, some terrorist inmates view participation in the various prison-based deradicalization programs as a necessary cost in order to secure an early release; they would appear to be willing participants, while remaining ideologically hardened.

At the other end of the spectrum, more radicalized inmates may perceive such programs as disadvantageous to them as individuals as well as their wider cause. Such individuals would refuse to be engaged, arguing that as a mujahid (jihadist), it is taboo for them to accept any kind of prison program from the thagut (oppressor), in this case, the Indonesian government.

During his incarceration, Ali appeared to be cooperative while participating in the prison-run programs. However, he continued to be exposed to indoctrination by a senior ISIS inmate. His participation in the recent Poso attack appears to indicate an escalation in his ideological commitment to jihad, compared to 2017, when he was arrested for his peripheral role in planning a terrorist act.

Upon his release from prison in 2019, Ali began, within nine months, to renew his contacts with former social networks actively involved in terrorism. He turned to them apparently after facing rejection and humiliation from mainstream society. He had tried to start a business but it did not work out. Encouragement for recidivism is also present in extremist media outlets such as An-Naba, which provides the inspiration, ideological justifications and praise for all released terrorist inmates by referring to them as mujahid.

Anecdotally speaking, and based on this authors years of field experience in the domain of terrorist rehabilitation, the first-year post-release is when many terrorist offenders actively find themselves weighing up the costs and benefits of returning to the terrorist fold as opposed to starting life afresh.

Those able to get the right support from their families, friends or local NGOs, tend to stand a better chance of permanently disengaging from militancy and starting afresh. Yet, the process of cutting oneself off from old social networks is easier said than done. Extremist groups offer spiritual sanctuaries for former offenders, making them feel both protected and cared for at the same time. Many can find stepping away a daunting prospect, especially if it means acting worldly (secular) rather than according to their interpretation of their faith.

For Ali, a ready-made radical milieu presented itself in Poso, with the region long considered a traditional recruiting ground for extremist groups, and known for sectarian violence.

Several released terrorists who later lapsed into terrorist activity typically served short sentences (less than five years)  a period that may be insufficient for them to be effectively disengaged and deradicalized.

Going forward, the authorities may want to consider administering longer sentences for terrorist offenders to allow the authorities enough time to set them on the right path, while also serving as a deterrence for other would-be extremists.

Larger investment should also be made in upgrading capacities among BNPT prison staff, such that the daily activities they conduct in the prisons can be scaled up more effectively. Crucially, there must be active detection and prevention of in-prison radicalization efforts by IS preachers and ideologues. Staff also need to be trained to detect early signs of re-radicalization among inmates.

Post-release, two types of monitoring programs may be necessary. The first involves open monitoring, whereby local government in the respective regions as well as grassroots organizations and NGOs at the community level assist with the social re-integration of former inmates.

In the second relevant authorities must take steps to closely monitor newly released inmates, given their vulnerabilities and possibility of re-joining their old extremist networks within a year of release. In Indonesia and around the world, terrorist groups such as ISIS will continue to exploit the present restive atmosphere to carry out fresh attacks. Newly-released terrorist offenders present a significant at-risk group for whom a coordinated response from various agencies is required, given their higher propensity for recidivism.

***

Visiting fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and founder of the Institute of International Peace Building in Indonesia.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.

Topics : terrorists recidivism poso
IRD Joins Coalition Letter Asking Trump for US Action Against UN Attack on Religious Freedom, Inalienable Rights

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Institute on Religion and Democracy

May 4, 2020

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- A coalition of individuals and organizations dedicated to freedom of religion is urging President Trump to take action against United Nations' overreach.

Institute on Religion and Democracy President Mark Tooley joins leaders representing the Heritage Foundation, Concerned Women for America, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Family Research Council and others in expressing concern to President Donald Trump about the February 27 report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ahmed Shaheed, to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The letter explains that the report's "dangerous and ill-founded attack on religious freedom" is part of a "broader, troubling trend of U.N. human rights entities politicizing human rights" but this report is "particularly egregious."

The coalition asks President Trump respond by sending guidance from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the State Department to foreign service officers on the correct understanding of religious freedom, women's rights, and erroneous assertions of new rights to abortion or those based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The full statement and signatories can be viewed at: TheIRD.org/international-religious-liberty/

IRD Religious Liberty Program Director Faith J.H. McDonnell, a signatory of the letter, commented:

"Religious freedom is a fundamental and inalienable right, but the United Nations report advances a social narrative that undermines the concept, so we urge President Trump to ensure that our own US Foreign Service officers are clear about what are truly religious freedom issues and women's rights.

"This narrative has long been on the agenda of the U.N.  particularly by countries condemning the concept of the 'universality' of human rights. But it appears to be growing in the U.N. and this social narrative damages the work to defend persecuted Christians and those of other persecuted faiths. We hope that President Trump will inform UN Secretary General Guterres of the U.S. discontent with this report.

"The purpose of Shaheed's report was to address gender-based violence and discrimination in the context of freedom of religion or belief. The report neglects problems faced by women from persecuted, minority religions, including abduction, enslavement, rape, forced conversion, and forced abortion.

"Most of the report heaps condemnation upon the religious beliefs of those who believe in protecting unborn life, marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and even the immutability of biological sex."

SOURCE Institute on Religion and Democracy

CONTACT: Jeff Walton 202-682-4131, jwalton@TheIRD.org

Related Links

TheIRD.org/international-religious-liberty

www.TheIRD.org
ATHENS, Greece (AP)  Environmental groups in Greece are urging the public to join a campaign against plans by the center-right government to overhaul offshore oil and gas exploration rules, which authorities argue will help the country end its dependence on coal.

The proposed changes are due to be put to a vote in parliament Tuesday. They include increasing central government oversight of exploration procedures and the establishment of priority zones for energy activity in protected nature areas.

But on the eve of the vote, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund said they have started an online petition against the draft legislation, which they say would remove vital safeguards for environmental protection.

Greece plans to phase out most lignite-power production by 2023 and fully by 2028, with the additional use of renewable energy sources and natural gas. Authorities argue that the energy reforms will allow them to better target offshore areas that require a high degree of environmental protection.
- A 4Ps member gave a lengthy explanation on where the cash assistance that she receives would go

- This came after many critics of 4Ps surface online, implying that the members receive more than what they deserve

- The member proved bashers wrong by revealing how the program helped her and her husband put their kids to school

- She showed photos, of her kids who are honor students and explained that members need to do their part such as attending seminars and also ensuring that the grades of their kids are high

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed

KAMI had the opportunity to interview a 4Ps member, who decided to talk about how her family, especially her children, benefited from the program.

This came after many critics of the program's members surfaced online, often throwing accusations at members by saying that the government always prioritizes them and implying that 4Ps members just rely on the taxes paid by those who are working hard.

The 4Ps member, Marilou Llobrera, explained that they have four children and that they are living in Valenzuela.

She said that her family was among those affected by the pandemic, with herself being a tailor, clearly it's 'no work, no pay' for her.

According to Marilou, the primary goal of the program is to help families who have children, considering that those who don't have children won't be able to join the program.

Marilou revealed that children are required to study well because the DSWD also checks on them. If the student incurs absences, their allowances would be reduced, in the same manner, if parents would fail to attend the seminars.

"Bawat binibigay ng DSWD na tulong doon sa payout, may katumbas yun na ginagawa ng mga member."

Check out the full story of Marilou here:

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, the government faced problems when they imposed the initial community quarantine, which was elevated into enhanced community quarantine. It also suspended transportation causing massive problems with commuters.

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a conditional cash transfer program of the Philippine Government under the Department of Social Welfare Development. It makes the poorest of the poor the beneficiaries in order to help improve their health, nutrition, and education of children aged 0-18.

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!

Being aware of the correct and relevant information is the first step towards solving any problem. Here we remind you of the major symptoms of the coronavirus disease. The key is not to panic but to be aware. Check out all of the exciting videos on our KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
For many women venturing out during Frances coronavirus lockdown, the absence of crowds has made them easier targets for sexual assault and harassment, a threat that could increase as officials prepare to ease stay-at-home orders.

Feminist advocacy groups are reporting an increase of incidents in broad daylight by aggressors who know their victims are unlikely to be able to summon help.

Fatima Benomar, a 36-year-old rights activist, said she was hounded by several youths on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, a wide-open thoroughfare that has been emptied of cars and passers-by.

They came up because I was ignoring their catcalls, and started insulting and threatening me, Benomar told AFP. It was incredibly scary.

There wasnt any way to escape, all the stores were closed and there was nobody to ask for help, she said.

For Laurene Martin, a 28-year-old nurse, the commute between Paris and a nearby suburb had never caused her alarm, until the lockdown was imposed on March 17.

On the second day of confinement, some guys jumped me in the Metro and stole my phone. I screamed and they ran off, but then the only other person in the train, a man, came up right next to me and asked if I was married, she said.

Other incidents since then convinced her to buy a bicycle to get to work.

Its certainly worse than before, Martin said. There are fewer people to target, and fewer witnesses.

Police, who have been urging victims or witnesses to report any cases, have not released official figures on the number of assault reports during the lockdown.

But prosecutors reported last week that two women were attacked in rare rapes in public spaces within 24 hours of each other -- one in a park, the other on a street -- in Seine-Saint-Denis, just north of Paris.

- Strange atmosphere -

Geraldine Franck, a rights advocate in Paris, said she had tracked numerous accounts on social media by women harassed while trying to take advantage of their rare moments outside.

These moments have turned into an anguishing ordeal, and women quickly return home out of fear, she said.

Day is now just like night, for women theres no longer any difference.

That fear, normally felt only at night, is shared by Daniella Corallo-Martin, 26, who said men had been harassing her daily on her Metro trips since mid-March.

She has adopted a series of precautions for navigating a strange atmosphere, lots of drifters, deranged people, the ones who normally are just part of the crowd.

I keep my eyes open for anyone following me, and on the platform I always find someone to stand next to. I never get in a train thats almost empty, and I dont listen to any music, the migrant aid worker said.

Equality Minister Marlene Schiappa said Thursday that she was worried about a real risk of increased sexual violence from May 11, when the stay-at-home orders are set to be lifted across wide swathes of the country.

She pointed to the risk of pent-up energy among aggressors along with a sense of impunity since streets are still expected to be thinned because people will be working from home and outings will still be discouraged to ensure social distancing.

Her ministry has set up a task force of experts to determine which measures will be taken to protect women once the lockdown begin to be lifted.

(This story has been published from a wire agency without modifications to the text)

Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter
In 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power, having been elected by 17.2 million Germans- the biggest democratic turnout of its time, while demonising their opposition, telling lies of equality and workers rights without guarantees. Hitler did not start killing people instantly, but when he began, he did not want to stop. Apart from the Jews, blacks were among the groups that were not only killed, but sterilised if left to live. In Hitler's Germany, disabled and black people were collected in the back of vans and had gas dropped in with them. However, if the disabled or black person opted for sterilisation, they could not reproduce and share their deformation with the rest of the gene pool in society.

The 1935 Nuremberg laws prohibited marriages between Jews and other Germans. These were later amended to include black people and Roma in the same category as Jews. Black children could be removed out of schools, merely for just being black. Kids and adults could call them monkeys on streets, and the world didnt care, because it was happening almost in all large nations.

A visit to the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam includes a very illuminating presentation of just how the Nazis took hold. Hitler only favoured German people, then he only liked certain people who were German, and kept whittling it down, trying to slaughter more and more of them. His initial draw was that he was anti-establishment.

Adolf succeeded in getting away with the killing because Germans were divided. When you have a separated nation, it is possible. The trick is to split up that nation, the deeper the divide, the easier it is to control. Hitler and his top brass were also the new value of media-controlled propaganda.

Having said that, blacks have not learned anything from their suffering in the past. Yes, Jews, too, have not realized in the sense of the way they treat Palestinians- the ongoing theft of Palestinian land and apartheid treatment of Palestinian people, but blacks need a lot to learn:

1.Black people lack solidarity and do not usually like supporting each others businesses. A black person would rather buy from an Asian or any other race, than from a fellow black.

2.Black people usually dislike the intelligent ones among them. If you are clever, you create a lot of enemies; people see you as different. Even your government will hate your intelligence, such that if they fail to recruit you, they will either kill you, or make life very miserable for you.

3.Most Black people are not tuned to think beyond level 1 of Maslows hierarchy of needs, i.e. air, water, Housing, food, and possibly cars. As soon as someone gets them, they stop thinking anything beyond that- We are not encouraged to save to open factories and big businesses, invest in research, to be more innovative and creative, etc.

4.Most black people hate and find it effortless to murder each other. For instance, I once read a depressing story in a Ugandan newspaper, Bukedde, of one lady working from the USA, who had returned home for a visit, but was murdered by a relative simply because she helps other blood relatives, but not him. There was a genocide in Rwanda in 1990s where Tutsis and Hutus were slaughtering each other, only because of tribalism.How do you murder someone over something they didn't choose to be? The recent attacks by Black South Africans against blacks from other countries, simply because they do not want them in their country. A black person can hate you over something as simple as a Facebook page.

5.Most black people take offence in being corrected, or someone disputing with them. One can make you a life enemy for not agreeing with them politically.

6.Most black people and their govts find it straightforward to brutalize people. Instead of prison camps, as Hitler did, they have safehouses where torture is done. There are recordings of these tortures in several African subhuman countries, including Uganda. Recently, I saw pictures of a Ugandan MP, Francis Zaake, with bodily marks of torture, and it was hurting.

Just an aside. I am not asking blacks to discriminate other people basing on race, because we are all human and deserve a society that care, but we should learn to love our own race, push ourselves hard to think beyond the obvious, and be proud of being black. That is why, I think, the 1930s lesson is so important!
You could always count on the folksy and cheery optimism of Warren Buffett.

But if you listened closely to Buffett over the weekend during Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders' meeting  his annual "Woodstock for Capitalists" was conducted virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic  his words often betrayed a deep sense of concern about the immediate future. That should be a warning to all investors and policymakers.

Warren Buffett has struck a cautious tone during the coronavirus. Credit:AP

While many of the headlines about the meeting were about Buffett's positive aphorisms "Nothing can basically stop America,""You can bet on America" underneath those long-term proclamations was a decidedly different message.

Every year for the last decade, I've sat onstage at this meeting in Omaha with Buffett and his best friend, Charlie Munger, as one of several journalists asking him questions sent in by the public. His positivity, even during difficult economic moments, always radiated with a clear sense of certainty. After all, he is known as the Oracle of Omaha.
The "first battle" against the novel coronavirus has been won in Hungary, the virus had been contained, and the health-care system had successfully prepared itself to handle the crisis, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in an interview on Friday.

The prime minister noted, however, that the virus had not yet been eliminated in Hungary. Weve just prepared to ward off the next attack, he said, citing expert opinion that a second wave was expected around October-November.



Orban said rules for protecting the elderly must be upheld in the next phase of restrictions, and special rules would be needed for Budapest and Pest County. Restrictions will be maintained in the heart of the country, but rules will be eased elsewhere, he said.



He added that if the death rate in Budapest fell, the government would not hesitate to allow residents of the capital to resume a normal life. The easing of restrictions will take place gradually and according to a strict timetable, he said, noting that the government is closely following experiences in Austria and the Czech Republic as guidance.



Orban insisted that new powers handed to the government by parliament did not give it special rights but allowed the cabinet to act swiftly. He said decisions would be made every two weeks during which the effect of changes could be assessed.



Photo courtesy of kormany.hu
After signing the Pentagon peace deal, the Taliban allegedly used it to increase attacks on America Afghan allies, Pentagon's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported.

John Sopko, the SIGAR Inspector general, said after signing the U.S.-Taliban agreement, there was less violence for a week reported the U.S. Coalition, the Afghan government, and Taliban. Soon after the peace deal, more Taliban attacks were done on U.S. allies.

The U.S.-lead international military operation in Afghanistan reported to the inspector general from March 1 and 31 saying,"there were fewer attacks on Coalition forces, but instead the Taliban instituted hostilities against the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces to increased levels, more than the usual" according to CNN.

Sopko added that Taliban attacks were not considered as violations as such, but the expected violence should have been dialed down, not increases which were not in the expectations of the agreement. Otherwise, increased attacks are done instead of the peace deal because there would be no repercussions, compared to attacking coalition forces.

Taliban deliberately attacking Afghan forces and similar data is not released, so as not to cause the Taliban to leave the table and continue negotiating despite Afghan attacks.

Resolute Support added that the inspector general has been told that the data," are now a critical part of deliberative inter-agency discussions regarding ongoing political negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban."

Based on a statement by the Department of Defense, released Friday, it mentions that the data is not classified yet, adding that "it will be releasable to the public when no longer integral to these deliberations, or the deliberations are concluded."

Also read: The US and the Taliban Sign Agreement to End Hostilities After Eighteen Years

U.S., NATO and international partners have been clear that the violence exhibited by the Taliban are unacceptable, especially how the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces are affected by the barbarity of their actions. This was the impression told to CNN by Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell.

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman stated on Friday that the Pentagon and State Department are thinking of diplomatic solutions to reduce the barbarity of the Taliban.

Hoffman said that even without a military operation as a reaction to the Taliban, they are still trying to get the deliberate attacks down by that much. On a news brief to CNN on Friday.

Last March, the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters the Taliban are allegedly committed to lessening the armed attacks, which they claim that has been done.

In a report done by the UB assistance mission in Afghanistan shows another result, they revealed the Taliban have been killing more civilian, not combatants, after signing the deal. This shows that they are taking advantage of the deal, and not being liable for their increased killings of civilians to the U.S. government or any ruling body.

Late February, both U.S. and Taliban signed an agreement to stop the war, but Taliban actions are contrary to it.

Said agreement aims to bring peace to Afghanistan, but Taliban need to fulfill the agreed requirements for peace since it seems that the ceasefire is not going where it should be.

It will take about 14-months for U.S. forces and allies with coalition partners to pull out according to the agreement signed.

The Pentagon is keeping troop levels under wraps and parts of the deal that are not made public.

The Taliban has killed more civilians and Afghan security troops by using the Pentagon Peace deal to add to hostilities instead of achieving peace.

Related article: U.S. Retaliates 'Defensive Strike' Against Talibans After Attack on Afghan Checkpoint

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A teacher patrols the school grounds to remind students to wear masks and keep away from one another.

Tran Viet Hung, a ninth grader, said: "I was so excited to see my friends again, but we only dared to talk to each other from a distance, via the face masks."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 05:56:57|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ALGIERS, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Algerian health authorities on Monday reported 172 new COVID-19 infections and two more death cases, while President Abdelmadjid Tebboune urged for ensuring access to future vaccine to all countries.

Djamel Fourar, head of the COVID-19 Detection and Follow-up Commission, told reporters that the total infected cases in Algeria jumped to 4,648 and the death toll increased to 464.

Fourar further added that 62 patients have recovered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total recoveries to 1,998.

In his remarks to the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on Monday, President Tebboune stressed the importance of "fair and effective" access to any future vaccines to combat the pandemic, especially for developing countries. Enditem
[May 04, 2020] Occupant Classification System (OCS) Market Worth $2.8 Billion by 2025 - Exclusive Report by MarketsandMarkets

CHICAGO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Occupant Classification System (OCS) Market by Sensor (Pressure Sensor, Seat Belt Tension Sensor), Components (ACU, Sensors), Sensor Technology (Wired, Wireless), LDV Class (Economy, Mid-Size, Luxury), EV Type, and Region - Global Forecast to 2025", published by MarketsandMarkets, the global Occupant Classification System Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.7% to reach USD 2.8 billion by 2025 from an estimated USD 2.0 billion in 2020. The increasing sales of mid-size and luxury vehicles in recent years, which is driven by the changing preferences of vehicle types and lifestyle of the young population, is also expected to drive the OCS market. Browse in-depth TOC on "Occupant Classification System (OCS) Market"

133  Tables

54  Figures

154  Pages Download PDF Brochure:

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=257981931 By components: The airbag control unit is the fastest-growing segment of the Occupant Classification System Market during the forecast period The Occupant Classification System Market for the airbag control unit is estimated to be the fastest since it is used in most of the vehicles equipped with occupant sensing technology. Increasing the production of vehicles equipped with smart airbags is likely to drive the growth of this segment. By light-duty vehicle Type: economy class is expected to be the fastest-growing segment in the occupant classification system market The Occupant Classification System Market for an economy class segment of the light-duty vehicle is estimated to be the fastest during the forecast period. Increasing the use of passive safety systems in economy class vehicles is expected to drive the growth of the OCS market. Another factor that is driving the market for economy class is the significant rise in the installation of modern passive safety sysems for getting high NCAP ratings.



Request FREE Sample Report:

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=257981931 By Region: Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest and fastest-growing market for the occupant classification system in 2025

The Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest-growing market for the occupant classification system from 2020 to 2025. The market growth in this region can be attributed to the increasing vehicle production and expansion of leading OEMs and automotive component suppliers. Also, Asia Pacific is projected to be the largest market for the occupant classification system from 2020 to 2025. The market growth in the region can also be attributed to factors such as increasing sales of mid-size and luxury vehicles and government initiatives regarding the use of environment-friendly electric vehicles. Major players like Dana and Lydall are investing and increasing their footprint in the Asia Pacific market. For instance, in 2018, Dana inaugurated a plant that would manufacture thermal management products for conventional and new-energy vehicles in Yancheng, China. The rising penetration of such companies in Asia Pacific will drive the overall market. The Occupant Classification System Market is dominated by a few globally established players such as ZF (Germany), Bosch (Germany), IEE Sensing (Luxembourg), TE Connectivity (Switzerland), and Aptiv (UK). Browse Related Reports: Automotive Airbags & Seatbelts Market by Airbags Type (Frontal, Knee, & Side & Curtain), Seatbelts type (2-point & 3-point), vehicle (PC, LCV, Buses, & Trucks), EV (BEV, PHEV, HEV, & FCEV), and Region - Global Forecast to 2025. Automotive Seats Market by Technology (Heated, Powered, Ventilated, Massage, Memory & Standard), Type (Bucket, Bench), Trim Material (Fabric, Genuine & Synthetic Leather), Component, Vehicle Type (Ice, Electric & Hybrid), Region - Global Forecast to 2025. About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model  GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets' flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact:

Mr. Aashish Mehra

MarketsandMarkets INC.

630 Dundee Road

Suite 430

Northbrook, IL 60062

USA: +1-888-600-6441

Email: [email protected] Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/occupant-classification-system-market.asp

Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com

Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/occupant-classification-system.asp Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Key equity benchmarks were trading in a narrow range with steep losses in early afternoon trade. At 12:24 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 1652.86 points or 4.90% at 32,064.76. The Nifty 50 index was down 472.80 points or 4.80% at 9,387.10.

Global cues were weak following the latest flare up in US-China tensions. Extension of the nationwide lock-down in India for another two-weeks and continuous selling by foreign investors also weighed on the investor sentiment.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 3.82% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index shed 2.74%. Both the indices outperformed the benchmark Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was weak. On the BSE, 485 shares rose and 1702 shares fell. A total of 159 shares were unchanged. In the Nifty 50 index, 4 shares advanced while 46 shares declined.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold Indian equities worth Rs 6802.12 crore in April 2020. The FPIs have sold equities worth Rs 72,927.70 crore in 2020 so far.

Total Covid-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 35,07,424 so far with 247,497 deaths. India reported 29,453 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 1,373 deaths, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Derivatives:

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of market's expectation of volatility over the near term, surged 26.29% to 42.925. The Nifty April 2020 futures were trading at 9,367.15, a discount of 19.95 points compared with the spot at 9,863.85.

On the options front, the Nifty option chain for 28 May 2020 expiry showed maximum call open interest (OI) of 11.56 lakh contracts at the 9,500 strike price. Maximum put OI of 22.92 lakh contracts was seen at 9,000 strike price.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty FMCG index lost 2.75% to 27,880.60, extending its decline after a brief pause. The index rose 0.02% to 29,078.45 in the previous session.

Jyothy Laboratories (down 7.07%), Bajaj Consumer Care (down 4.93%), Colgate Palmolive (India) (down 4.16%), Tata Global Beverages (down 3.26%), Dabur India (down 3.11%), Godrej Consumer Products (down 2.73%), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care (down 2.31%), Britannia Industries (down 1.86%) and Nestle India (down 1.68%) declined.

Marico rose 0.75% ahead of its Q4 March 2020 earnings today.

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) was down 2.83%. On a standalone basis, HUL's net profit declined 1.24% to Rs 1519 crore on a 9.4% decline in net sales to Rs 8,885 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019. HUL said the spread of COVID-19 impacted the business from mid-March, which culminated into scaling down of operations post the national lockdown. Domestic consumer growth declined by 9% with a decline of 7% in underlying volume growth.

EBITDA for Q4 March 2020 stood at Rs 2065 crore, declining 11% year on year from Rs 2321 crore in Q4 March 2019. Reported EBITDA margin reduced by 40 bps (160 bps reduction on comparable basis after adjusting for accounting impact of Ind AS 116). "In this challenging economic context, HUL performance has been competitive with corporate market share gains," the company said.

On a standalone basis, net profit grew at 11.63% to Rs 6738 crore on a 1.63% rise in net sales to Rs 38,273 crore in the year ended March 2020 (FY20) compared with the year ended March 2019 (FY19). The board of directors has proposed a final dividend of Rs 14 per share, subject to the approval of the shareholders at the AGM.

Stocks in Spotlight:

JSW Steel slumped 8.82% to Rs 164.95. The company's crude steel production declined 59.5% to 5.63 lakh tonnes in April 2020 as against 13.93 lakh tonnes in April 2019. The company said it clocked an average capacity utilisation of 38% for the month. Production of flat rolled products fell 64% to 3.44 lakh tonnes in April 2020 from 9.53 lakh tonnes in April 2019. Production of long rolled products tanked 73.5% to 0.89 lakh tonnes in April 2020 from 3.36 lakh tonnes in April 2019.

State-run NMDC skid 7.33% to Rs 74.60 after the iron-ore producing major declared that its annual provisional production tumbled 37.93% to 1.80 million tonnes (MT) in April 2020 over 2.90 MT in April 2019. Provisional iron-ore sales slumped 48.88% to 1.38 million tonnes (MT) in April 2020 as against 2.70 MT in April 2019.

On a month-on-month (M-o-M) basis, NMDC's provisional iron-ore production dropped 34.78% in April 2020 as compared to 2.76 MT in March 2020. The provisional iron-ore sales also witnessed a 48.88% decline in April 2020 from 2.70 MT in March 2020.

Shares of hospital operators declined after the Maharashtra state government reportedly capped the prices of a host of medical procedures for private and charitable hospitals in the state to prevent healthcare providers from hiking their charges during the covid-19 pandemic.

Fortis Healthcare (down 4.80%), Narayana Hrudayalaya (down 4.01%), Max India (down 3.65%) and Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (down 2.25%) edged lower. Meanwhile, Wockhardt was up 2.25%.

The reduction in prices for private healthcare providers reportedly comes at a time when they are dealing with lower hospital occupancy rates, as patients opt to postpone planned medical procedures for after the pandemic, and increased expenses in providing personal protective equipment for all doctors.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Online Desk

An Instagram group named Bois Locker Room has suddenly shot to fame, but for all the wrong reasons possible.

At a time, when we are still debating about consent, this group has earned the dubious distinction of sharing images of underage girls without their knowledge, handing out rape threats and even slut-shaming them. The shocker - the members of this group are just 14-15 years of age.

#BoysLockerRoom has become one of the widely shared hashtags on Twitter from Monday morning.

It all started after an Instagram account by the name of 'niskanagpal' posted a thread of stories filled with activities of a South Delhi boys group. The group had discussed and shared pictures of girls, possibly friends of their mutual friends.

Within hours, screenshots of Niska's Instagram stories went viral on Twitter and other social-media platforms. Her stories exposed the group chats that discussed girls with lewd description.

When Niska and others began to share these chats to reveal their activities, they were met with threats that their nude photos will be leaked. Some even claimed to make a few calls to turn things around.

Despite the threats, women in large numbers vented their outrage and their anger against the 'rape culture' in India. They felt that such activities were responsible for promoting even child pornography which is illegal.

ALSO READ | 'Boys Locker Room' row: Delhi Police, Instagram get DCW notice

Unnerved by all this, the group soon went on to quickly abandon the original group, only to create another Instagram account with the name Boys Locker Room 2.0! They also tried to taint Niska's image by creating fake lewd chats.

It was not long before lawyers involved themselves in the battle, with some coming out in support of Niska, and offering legal aid. The members of the Boys Locker Room group have allegedly been booked under section 66E of the IT Act for Cyber Bullying.

Meanwhile, a group of netizens has accused the girls of hypocrisy. In the chats shared by a user named @crackanksha on Twitter, one Anuvaa can be seen passing vulgar comments about men.

Some have even criticized the girls for talking about the issue. The users have stated that this calling out is nothing less than a 'stunt to increase their followers on Instagram and Twitter.'
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4) The partial reopening of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGOs may pose "high risks" to communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a lawmaker said Monday.

Speaking to CNN Philippines' The Source, Labor Committee Chairman Joel Villanueva also questioned why the online gaming industry has been receiving "VIP treatment" from the government despite the many violations it has committed.

"My only point is that this particular industry, napakadami nang pinakita sa atin na hindi sila sumusunod," Villanueva said. "Now we are giving them this VIP treatment na buksan sila, and forget about the high risk na kumalat itong virus na ito, at tayo na naman ang gagastos."

[Translation: My only point is that this particular industry has shown many instances wherein they didn't follow laws. Now we are giving them this VIP treatment for them to reopen, and forget about the high risk that this virus is still spreading, and we'd be the one to shoulder expenses.]

Villanueva said POGOs are at risk location-wise, with gaming operations conducted in buildings and condominiums. He said a potential outbreak will have to be addressed and shouldered by the government and taxpayers alike.

"'Pag nagkaroon ng outbreak na nanggaling diyan sa POGO, it is still this government ang gagastos, ang mamomroblema," he stressed. "And taxpayers' money ang gagastusin dito. And 'yung gagastusin is far far more than what they're contributing to our economy."

[Translation: If an outbreak comes from the POGO, it is still the government that will shoulder the expenses, that will face problems. Taxpayers' money will be used, and what we'll pay is far far more than what they're contributing to our economy.]

The government's COVID-19 task force has earlier given POGOs the green light to resume partial operations, as the online gaming industry is said to be part of the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.

BPOs are allowed to open under the new quarantine rules, given that only a skeleton workforce -- or only 30 percent of the total number of employees -- will be allowed to report for work.

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) earlier pushed for the reopening of the POGOs, saying the services can help generate additional funds for the government's COVID-19 campaign. ACT-CIS Party-list Rep. Eric Go Yap has shared the sentiment, saying the move will give the country a "much-needed boost" in its tax collection system.

But Villanueva and a number of lawmakers have rejected and disagreed with the move, saying the government must first resolve pending issues with the gaming industry before allowing resumption of its operation.

RELATED: Robredo: Why re-open POGOs before Filipino businesses?

PEZA: POGOs not BPOs, but can help in COVID-19 response

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), for its part, clarified that it does not have the authority to register POGOs or online gambling services in the country.

PEZA Director General Charito Plaza, in a statement, also explained that the offshore gaming services cannot be classified under the BPO industry, which has its own set of sectors, namely:(1) contact center, (2) back office, (3) data transcription, (4) animation, (5) software development, (6) engineering development, (7) digital content, (8) knowledge process outsourcing, (9) game development, (10) information technology outsourcing; and (11) engineering services outsourcing.

However, PEZA said the body supports the government's efforts to let the industry help in raising funds for COVID-19 response.

POGOs contributing?

The gaming sector has faced several issues in the past few months.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue earlier revealed that over 50-billion worth of tax liabilities remain uncollected from POGOs.

The Anti-Money Laundering Council also said POGOs generate only 7 billion in net inflows a value the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee said only translates to a "negligible" 0.04 percent of the domestic economy.

The Blue Ribbon has also opened inquiries into POGO-related crimes in the Philippines, including the controversial money laundering scheme.

Last month, 44 Chinese POGO employees were also arrested in Paranaque City for running operations while a Luzon-wide lockdown is in place.
The Nigerian Government has confirmed the receipt of $311 million looted by late military dictator, General Sani Abacha.

This was made known on Monday by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, Dr Umar Gwandu.

Malami said that the loot was repatriated from the United States and the Bailiwick of Jersey after a recent agreement.

He said the amount increased significantly from over $308m mentioned in an earlier statement in February to over $311m as a result of the interest that accrued from February 3 to April 28, when the fund was transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Malami said the legal process to have the money returned to Nigeria began in 2014 while the diplomatic process which led to the signing of the agreement on February 3, 2020 by the governments of Nigeria, United States, and the Bailiwick of Jersey, started in 2018.

This agreement is based on international law and cooperation measures that set out the procedures for the repatriation, transfer, disposition and management of the assets, he said. In line with the 2020 Asset Return Agreement, the fund has been transferred to a Central Bank of Nigeria Asset Recovery designated account and would be paid to the National Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) within the next fourteen days. The NSIA is responsible for the management and execution of the projects to which the funds will be applied, the Minister has said.

Malami said the money will be used to fund projects including Lagos  Ibadan Expressway, Abuja  Kano Road, and the Second Niger Bridge.

He revealed that the government was in the process of establishing a Project Monitoring Team to oversee the implementation of the projects and report regularly on progress made to the public.

KanyiDaily recalls that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration had claimed it spent the previous recovered Abachas looted funds on lifting poor Nigerians out of poverty.
A total of 2,310 violators of the presidential directives on lockdown and social distancing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), have so far been arrested in five weeks, in Lagos State. Out of the number, 125 were minors.

Some of the suspects were arrested in clubs, parties and during group exercises.

Two thousand, one hundred and eighty-five of the suspects were charged to court and awarded various degrees of punishments ranging from two hours to six months community services and fines between #5,000.00 and #100,000.00.

Others were asked to write undertakings to be of good conducts and apology letters, while the 125 minors were warned and released.



Also, 2,092 vehicles were impounded. Out of the figure, 800 were private vehicles while 1,292 were commercial vehicles. In addition, 1,535 motorcycles and 369 tricycles were also impounded.

Spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command, DSP Elkana Bala, who made the disclosure, explained that the arrests were effected by Tactical units deployed to reinforce the conventional patrol teams manning 14 identified boundaries with neighbouring states.

Speaking on behalf of the Command boss, CP Hakeem Odumosu, he appreciated Lagosians and policemen for their support and professionalism at combating the spread of the Codvid -19 pandemic.

But he was quick to remind that the battle against the dreaded virus was not over yet, and therefore, advised residents to adhere strictly to the guidelines issued by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 and Lagos State Government to stop the spread of the virus.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
The India Meteorological Department (IMD)s long-range forecast for May indicates most parts of northwest, central and east India will record maximum temperatures of over 42 degrees C in the second, third and fourth week of May.

But that may not be the case for northwest India if western disturbances (WDs) continue to affect the region as they have in March and April. There will be several cloudy days and thunderstorm activity, which will keep maximum temperatures down by 2 to 3 degrees, if the current pattern of WDs continues.

IMD scientists said the climate models used for long range forecast of seasons cannot account for the impact of WDs, which can significantly alter weather patterns in northwest India and even in other parts of the country depending on their intensity. They are highly unpredictable and are best tracked only three to four days in advance. So summer temperatures over India this year will continue to remain unpredictable.

These models dont factor in western disturbances. WDs usually affect only the northern part of the country in winter. This time we are seeing some intense WDs even in May, which is unusual. May and June are still there, lets see how WDs affect the temperature in the rest of summer, said M Rajeevan, secretary, ministry of earth sciences.

Rains over India during the pre-monsoon period from March 1 to May 4 have been 24% excess while over NW India it has been 41% excess and 174% excess over Central India. Such wet conditions over NW India during the pre-monsoon period is unusual. We are expecting temperatures to be above normal over NW India and normal and slightly above normal over the rest of India. We cant now talk about the impact of WDs because they can be forecast only three to four days in advance. By May, moisture is expected to reduce over NW India, which then leads to high temperatures but if there is moisture incursion from the Bay of Bengal or Arabian Sea, this will also change, said DS Pai, senior scientist at IMD Pune. IMD uses statistical and dynamic models with various atmospheric and oceanic parameters to assess seasonal weather patterns.

Another IMD scientist who preferred not to be quoted said intense WDs have had an impact all over the country this year. This could not be captured in IMDs seasonal forecast. We have had only two to three occasions of heat waves in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. In previous years, heat waves began in early April. The combination of easterly winds, western disturbances, moisture incursion has changed everything. April and early May are cooler than normal, he said.

WDs are low pressure systems that generally originate over the Mediterranean region and are known to bring winter rain in India. Their intensity reduces in summer when they move to upper latitudes.

The IMD, in its Monday bulletin, said convergence of moist easterly winds can cause widespread thundershowers over entire northwest India over the next three days.

Thundershowers are also likely over Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram. Tripura, sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim during next three or four days. Thundersqualls (50-60 kmph) and hailstorms are also likely over parts of east India.

Experts at Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) advised that the elderly will need extra care during extreme summer heat because of the combined threat of Covid-19 and heat stress. Most people are indoors because of lockdown related restrictions. If power supply is ensured, this summer may be different and better. But due to less pollution, radiation will be high this year. These impacts will have to be studied, said Abhiyant Tiwari, research associate at Indian Institute of Public Health.

The IMD, in its seasonal outlook for March, April, May, and again in an updated outlook for April to June season, had predicted that seasonal average maximum temperatures are likely to be warmer than normal by 0.5 to 1 degree C over northwest India and western peninsular India.
In response to deputies questions during a parliamentary discussion on the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia in 2018 and 2019 today, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said Armenia is ready to engage in dialogue with Ukraine.

According to him, even though there havent been problems with dialogue with Ukraine, certain stances of Ukraine have been a matter of serious concern. This is not a secret. Armenias approach is that dialogue is the only way to keep seeking paths to solve problems in bilateral relations. Armenia and Ukraine have been friendly countries and have worked together for a long time and have a broad agenda. Armenia has a major community in Ukraine, and citizens of Armenia and the Ukrainians serve as a bridge for the development of relations, the minister declared, adding that Armenia is guided by the principle of not establishing relations with a partner at the expense of others.
U.S. practice to claim compensation for COVID-19 outbreak a shame for human civilization

People's Daily Online

By Zhong Sheng (People's Daily) 15:37, May 03, 2020

Some U.S. politicians are making the COVID-19 pandemic a political show, from repeatedly politicizing the disease and stigmatizing other countries, to the lousy cliche of claiming compensation.

The political farce staged again and again by the U.S., a major country that touts itself as an "international leader", is astonishing people around the world.

Even American media outlets outlined the need for joint anti-pandemic efforts from the international society, the mission to save lives, and the trend to conduct anti-pandemic cooperation. However, trying to divert people's attention, the U.S. politicians showed no conscience, and they shall never be tolerated for undermining international cooperation.

The U.S. side once said openly that it greatly appreciates China's efforts and transparency, and the data China shared are helpful for the U.S. efforts against the epidemic. However, Washington just had a U-turn, and some U.S. politicians thought they could escape their due responsibilities by doing so.

According to the best practices for naming new human infectious diseases jointly made by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations, disease names shall not include countries or regions. However, the U.S. politicians blatantly violated the rules and called the novel coronavirus "Chinese virus" and "Wuhan virus." While the international society is generally lauding China's contribution made at huge sacrifice, they are forming cliques for blackmailing.

What they have done is an affront to international law and justice. The terms about sovereign immunity in the international law stipulate that the practices and treasure of a country are not bound to the legislation, jurisdiction or administration of other countries. More importantly, the sudden outbreak of an epidemic is a global public health incidence, which is considered force majeure in legal context. China is the first to report COVID-19 infection, but the origin of the virus needs further science-based studies.

Facts indicate that China's containment efforts do not have any causality with the outbreak in the U.S. Even former Counselor on International Law Chimene Keitner in the U.S. Department of State couldn't tolerate the practices of some U.S. politicians. She said any professionals with actual working experience about sovereign immunity would find that the U.S. courts have no jurisdiction as long as they take a look at the titles of the lawsuits.

However, some U.S. politicians did not drop the idea at all to claim compensation, and they resorted to exceptions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Lea Brilmayer, professor of international law at Yale Law School called such practice "a last-ditch effort to do something to respond to the political situation," and Keitner considered it a "total nightmare."

China firstly reported the disease doesn't suggest the virus originated in the country. The source of the virus is a serious scientific issue that can only be studied by scientists and medical experts, not the crazy imagination by certain American politicians. In order to reach political goals, the U.S. politicians illogically fantasized about the virus' existence in China, and such groundless assumption driven by politics is not even agreed by authoritative infection control specialists in the U.S. who said such blame goes against facts.

It is globally recognized that China has always responded to the epidemic and shared relevant information in an open, transparent, timely and responsible manner, and the country was hailed by the WHO for its moves' high speed and massive scale which are rarely seen in the world. China's all-out efforts have established a strong line of defense. The political manipulation by certain Americans who ignore facts and fabricate data has no moral baseline and deviates from humanity.

According to U.S. media, the White House National Security Council instigated U.S. officials to shift the blames to China for the coronavirus, and the Senate Republican campaign arm distributed a 57-page messaging strategy that urged Republican candidates to blame China for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Tom Ginsburg of political science at the University of Chicago saw through the plot, saying the lawsuits against China aim to "cover up for the U.S. government's own errors" and offer political support for the Republicans in the November election.

Blatantly trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and damaging the international rule of law with supremacy, the U.S. is standing on the totally opposite side of international justice. It deeply worried Georgetown University professor David Stewart who remarked that"All those folks looking at China ought to be looking over their shoulder saying, 'Wait a minute, can we be sued?' "

The 1918 flu pandemic originated in the U.S. and caused a huge humanitarian disaster, and who is to blame for that? The first AIDS infection emerged in the U.S. and later the virus spread to over 75 million people around the world and led to 35 million deaths, and who should compensate for the loss? The Wall Street Journal is the origin of the 2008 financial crisis, so when will the U.S. compensate the world for the losses over trillions of dollars?

There are also questions that need to be raised to the U.S. Why are the CT images of the patients of electronic cigarette pneumonia that broke out last August in the U.S. resemble those of the COVID-19 patients? What on earth happened in the bioweapons lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland? When did the earliest COVID-19 infection happen in the U.S., since a COVID-19 patient without travel history to China died on Feb. 6? Why are American scientists silenced for publishing COVID-19 studies in the U.S. which always brags about its freedom of speech? Chinese and European scientists have published multiple genetic sequencing results of the novel coronavirus, and why doesn't the U.S. release its studies as the top power in biogenetic studies? The U.S. politicians must give answers.

WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that countries seeking to politicize the Covid-19 pandemic are "playing with fire." "If you don't want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it," he said.

U.S. politicians should listen to the sincere advice from the civilized world, as the continuing farce would only lead to fewer supports and self-humiliation.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People's Daily to express its views on foreign policy.)

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Beaches in the south-central province of Khanh Hoa, including those in the tourist hotspot of Nha Trang City, have been reopened to the public after a month-long closure due to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The Peoples Committee of Khanh Hoa on Sunday issued a document officially allowing beach going, activities related to coastal water surface, and seaside parks to resume from Monday.

District-level authorities are responsible for monitoring these activities, stationing life guards on the beaches, and arranging forces to popularize social distancing rules and urge people to uphold best practices.

Meanwhile, beachgoers are asked to wear face masks and not to gather in groups of more than 30 people at seaside parks and on the beaches.

Khanh Hoas administration fenced off its beaches and suspended all beach-related activities in April 1, in adherence to the prime minister's social distancing order to fight COVID-19.

Enhanced social distancing measures, including closing tourist attractions and lodging facilities and banning inter-province commercial passenger transport together with gatherings of more than two people in public spaces, were in place from April 1 to 15 in the entire nation and prolonged through April 22 in 28 provinces and cities.

Businesses have been gradually reopened and commercial transport resumed between provinces and cities in Vietnam, following the relaxing of the social distancing rules from April 23.

Like Khanh Hoa, the northern province of Quang Ninh, the central city of Da Nang, and the south-central province of Binh Thuan have also welcomed back beachgoers.

By contrast, Ba Ria  Vung Tau, where people in southern Vietnam often visit for quick weekend getaways as it is just a two-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City, has kept its beaches closed.

Vietnam has so far reported 271 COVID-19 infections, with the latest patient confirmed on Sunday being an imported case from the UK.

Only 52 patients remain in treatment, including 14 relapse cases, while 219 have recovered.

There has been no death caused by the disease in the country.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Armenian authorities reported the largest daily number of coronavirus deaths to date on Monday as the vast majority of Armenias businesses, including many cafes and restaurants, resumed their work following the end of a nationwide lockdown imposed in late March.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian defended on Sunday his governments decision to lift remaining restrictions on peoples movements and reopen virtually all sectors of the Armenian economy despite the continuing spread of coronavirus in the country. He declared that the onus is now not only on his government but also on ordinary Armenians to contain the virus.

We are announcing a new, decentralized phase of the fight against the novel coronavirus, Pashinian said during a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian and Health Minister Arsen Torosian.

The main reason why we are opting for such a solution is that its now obvious that we will have new coronavirus cases at least until March or April next year, until a vaccine is developed, he said. Therefore, our challenge starting from tomorrow is to do everything  so that we can live with coronavirus, rather than be locked down, because we cannot stay shut down for one year.

The most important nuance of the decentralized struggle is that every citizen of Armenia will shoulder responsibility for the fight against the epidemic, added Pashinian.

The premier renewed his calls for citizens to strictly follow social distancing rules and avoid touching their faces with unwashed hands.

He admitted that the decision to essentially end the lockdown is creating the risk of a faster spread of the virus.

The Armenian Ministry of Health has already reported increased daily numbers of coronavirus cases for the last two weeks. It said on Monday morning that 121 people have tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, taking the countrys COVID-19 total to 2,507.

The ministry also said that four more Armenians have died from the virus, the largest daily increase in fatalities reported so far. The countrys death toll from COVID-19 thus reached 39.

According to Torosian, 35 COVID-19 patients were in a critical condition as of Sunday afternoon.

We can manage 3,000 to 4,000 cases, the health minister told Pashinian. Right now we have 850 patients in hospitals and about 350 others [isolated] in hotels. Our objective is  to not exceed the maximum [hospital capacity] and not have to provide medical assistance in non-hospital conditions.

Torosian repeatedly warned last week that the health authorities will soon be no longer able to hospitalize or isolate all infected persons. He said this will increase the risk of further growth in infections.

Avinian, who leads an ad hoc government body enforcing a coronavirus-related state of emergency in Armenia, said on Sunday that the government could again issue stay-at-home orders and shut down most businesses in case of a deterioration of the situation.

Pashinian did not mention such a possibility when he met with Avinian and Torosian later in the day. He claimed that the government has no choice but to end the lockdown which it imposed on March 24.

If we were sure that we could defeat the epidemic after another month of the toughest lockdown we could opt for such a solution, said the prime minister. But we have concluded that this is not realistic and possible. Our statistics of the last two months shows that.

Critics say that the authorities never strictly enforced the quarantine and began easing restrictions on business activity already on April 13, just three weeks after the start of the economic shutdown. The number of daily coronavirus cases rose significantly later in April amid a gradual reopening of more sectors of the Armenian economy.

With its latest measure which took effect on Monday, the government lifted its ban on all remaining all types of manufacturing, services such as hairdressing and cleaning, and wholesale trade carried out outside shopping malls. Those cafes and restaurants that have outdoor areas were also allowed to reopen.

Other restaurants as well as bars, night clubs and shopping malls will remain closed for the time being. The government is also in no rush to resume public transport services in Yerevan and other cities.

All reopened businesses have to comply with safety requirements set by the Ministry of Health. In particular, employers must ensure physical distancing among their workers and customers, frequently disinfect premises, provide employees with hand sanitizers and measure their temperature on a daily basis. Those who have a fever must immediately leave their workplace and seek medical aid.

Wearing face masks and gloves is obligatory for only some categories of employees, notably waiters.
N early a quarter of employees in Britain have been furloughed in just two weeks, officials have said.

Figures released by HMRC show that hundreds of thousands of employers are taking advantage of the Government's job retention scheme after it launched on April 20.

According to the data, a total of 6.3 million jobs have been subject to furlough, with claims amounting to 8bn by May 3.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) soon after Boris Johnson implemented the nation-wide lockdown on March 3.

Under the Government scheme, workers will be paid 80 per cent of their wages, up to 2,500 a month, and continue to pay tax on their income.

Employers can agree to pay the extra 20 per cent, but do not have to.

Latest official Government figures showed that before the pandemic, the number of employees in the UK stood at 27.9 million, of whom 23 per cent have been furloughed.

Envrionment Secretary says furloughed workers could help harvesting crops

Earlier this month the Resolution Foundation think tank estimated the total cost of the scheme could rise to 40 billion.

The Government also encouraged furloughed workers to assist farmers with harvesting crops.

The news comes as pensions minister Therese Coffey revealed the Government received 1.8 million claims for Universal Credit between March 16 and the end of April.

Updating MPs on her departments efforts, Ms Coffey said: Since 16 March to the end of April we have received over 1.8 million claims to Universal Credit, over 250,000 claims for Jobseekers Allowance and over 20,000 claims for Employment Support Allowance.

Overall, this is six times the volume that we would typically experience and in one week we had a tenfold increase.

Listen to The Leader: Coronavirus Daily



The rate for UC claims appears to have stabilised at about 20-25,000 per day, which is double that of a standard week pre-Covid-19.
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Two NYC job applicants to Fresh Direct, one who had already performed the work of the job for approximately five months, filed a class action lawsuit against the grocery delivery service alleging that they and others who were otherwise qualified to work for FreshDirect were illegally rejected based on the companies criminal history screening process in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law. FreshDirect has "instituted a sham process for evaluating applicants' criminal histories," it says. The complaint alleges violations of New York State and City civil rights laws requiring an individualized assessment of qualifications for employment before an applicant is denied a job because of his or her criminal record. According to the complaint, FreshDirect instead uses "categorical bans on wide swaths of convictions before any individual Article 23-A analysis" while also "excessively weighing certain Article 23-A factors over other factors" and "refusing to solicit relevant information from applicants before performing its analysis as required under the law."

The public policy of New York City and State is to encourage the employment of persons with criminal convictions and "reverse the long history of employment discrimination against" them by "eliminating many of the obstacles to employment." The recently enacted New York City Fair Chance Act codifies even greater protections for such individuals, dictating how an employer must complete its Article 23-A analysis and the steps it must take before denying employment to an applicant because of criminal history. Similar "ban-the-box" laws that bar employers from factoring criminal convictions into employment decisions have been enacted in 35 states and more than 150 cities and counties.

Outten & Golden partner, Ossai Miazad, says: "This lawsuit is crucial to ensuring that the strong protections enacted by the people of New York State and City are put to work for the benefit of all New Yorkers with criminal records." Outten & Golden attorney, Christopher McNerney, adds: "During this unemployment crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is even more vital to ensure that employers that continue to hire workers live up to their obligation to give a fair shake to applicants with criminal records."

Causes of Action: New York City Human Rights Law, New York State Human Rights Law.

Relief: Injunction barring unlawful practices; class certification; compensatory and punitive damages.

Potential Class Size: All job applicants and employees denied employment by Fresh Direct throughout New York State.

Attorneys: Ossai Miazad and Christopher M. McNerney with Outten & Golden LLP filed the complaint.

The case is Soler v. Fresh Direct, Inc., S.D.N.Y., No. 1:20-cv-03431, filed 5/1/2020.

Outten & Golden LLP focuses on advising and representing individuals in employment, partnership, and related workplace matters both domestically and internationally. The firm counsels individuals on employment and severance agreements; handles complex compensation and benefits issues (including bonuses, commissions, and stock/option agreements); and advises professionals (including doctors and lawyers) on contractual matters. It also represents employees with a wide variety of claims, including discrimination and harassment based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, disability, national origin, religion, and age, and retaliation, whistleblower, and contract claims. The firm handles class actions involving a wide range of employment issues, including economic exploitation, gender- and race-based discrimination, wage-and-hour violations, and other systemic workers' rights issues.

Outten & Golden has nine practice groups: Executives & Professionals, Financial Services, Sexual Harassment & Sex Discrimination, Family Responsibilities & Disabilities Discrimination, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Workplace Rights, Discrimination & Retaliation, Whistleblower Retaliation, Class & Collective Actions, and WARN Act.

Outten & Golden has offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

For media inquiries, contact Christopher M. McNerney at (212) 245-1000 or email at [email protected]

SOURCE Outten & Golden LLP
Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider for more details. (26)
Planes land with 22 tons of medical supplies for state to tend to Phase 3

Chetumal, Q.R.  Approximately 22 tons of medical equipment has arrived in several army planes as part of the Plan DN-III for the state. Governor Carlos Joaquin continues to face Phase 3 of the health emergency with hospital expansion and additional supplies.

The state of Quintana Roo has received 22 tons of equipment and supplies for hospital care by the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena). The supplies will be distributed to medical facilities throughout the state to help during the countrys Phase 3.

22 tons of medical supplies land at military base in Chetumal

Carlos Joaquin has announced that one of the three mobile hospitals for Covid-19 installed in the Jesus Kumate Rodriguez General Hospital parking lot of Cancun is now ready, adding that in the next few days, the remaining two will be opening.

To provide better care in Playa del Carmen, Carlos Joaquin reported the conversion of a building near the General Hospital, which will offer approximately 190 beds. In Cozumel, the hospital transformation will have 30 exclusive beds for patients with Covid-19.

In the municipal seat of Tulum, the new community hospital is being enabled, which will be headed by Sedena and include 30 hospital beds and 20 for intensive care.

In Othon P. Blanco, there are two public hospital units, the new Oncology Hospital and the Military Hospital where exclusive care will be given to people with Covid-19. There are 65 beds that have been assigned through Sedena for coronavirus care, of which 45 are intensive care.

Governor Carlos Joaquin highlighted that he signed an agreement with the director general of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), Zoe Robledo Aburto, so that if necessary, the IMSS can attend to people who are without benefits.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that Washington had provided no evidence to support "speculative" claims by the US president that the new coronavirus originated in a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

"We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus, so from our perspective this remains speculative," WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual briefing.

The theory has been heavily pushed by the Donald Trump administration, which has been increasingly critical of China's handling of the outbreak that first emerged in Wuhan late last year.

Since then, the virus has killed more than 247,000 people and 3.5 million have been infected worldwide.

China and the US have repeatedly traded barbs over the virus' origins in an escalating war of words after the Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian in March pushed the conspiracy theory that the US military may have brought the virus to China.

Since then, the two superpowers have accused each other of spreading misinformation as Trump has also attacked China over its alleged lack of transparency.

Trump last week claimed to have proof the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source, appearing to echo speculation fuelled by US right-wing radio commentators about a secret lab.

US news reports say Trump has tasked US spies to find out more about the origins of the virus, as he makes China's handling of the pandemic a centrepiece of his campaign for the November presidential election.

Most scientists believe the virus jumped from animals to humans after emerging in China, possibly from a market in Wuhan selling exotic animals for meat.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 04:30:02|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

DAMASCUS, May 3 (Xinhua) -- A convoy of 30 Turkish military vehicles entered Syria's northern Idlib province on Sunday, a war monitor reported.

The military convoy carried logistic and military gears, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog group said 2,980 Turkish military gears entered Idlib since March 5, when Russia and Turkey established a cease-fire deal in Idlib between the rebels and the Syrian army.

The Syrian government repeatedly called for the withdrawal of foreign forces that entered Syria without the consent of the Syrian government such as the Turkish and the U.S. forces. Enditem
Serbia's president has set June 21 as the date of a parliamentary election which has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The vote was originally scheduled for April 26 but was put on hold after a nationwide state of emergency was proclaimed in mid-March.

Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday that after these difficult times we have to create a democratic atmosphere and select an assembly and government that will serve in the interest of the people.

Vucic has announced that the emergency measures will be lifted later this week because the rate of coronavirus infections decreased sufficiently in the Balkan country.

Analysts believe Vucic, a former ultra-nationalist, is keen to have the vote as soon as possible because of his apparently declining popularity due to harsh lockdown measures his government has implemented during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Most of the democratic opposition parties plan to boycott the vote because of Vucic's firm control of media and the electoral process.

Vucic's right-wing Serbian Progressive party is expected to emerge as an overwhelming winner of the vote and continue its eight years of dominance of the Serbian political scene.

Serbia has recorded over 9,500 coronavirus cases and 197 deaths.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Strella Biotechnology, a Philadelphia, PA-based early stage agriculture technology company, raised $3.3m in seed funding.

The round was led by Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley, the strategic business development and investment arm of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (Tokyo: 7272) and Catapult Ventures with participation from Union Labs, Mark Cuban Red & Blue Ventures, and Art Mesher.

The company intends to use the funds for product expansion into the retail distribution market, refining its technology for on-pallet sensing to allow data streaming throughout transportation to ensure better product selection by distributors and product quality at delivery to grocery stores.

Led by Katherine Sizov, CEO, Strella Biotech has developed a tech platform that combines novel IoT biosensors with actionable insights to maximize freshness and reduce spoilage of fruit. To date, the company has monitored nearly 150 million fruits in the packing segment of the supply chain, where some fruits are stored for up to a year to accommodate for demand. Fruit packers use the technology to predict fruit maturation in storage and schedule shipments to retailers, resulting in reduced food spoilage.

FinSMEs

04/05/2020
She came under fire after tweeting California governor Gavin Newson asking him to reopen hair salons and nail parlors before deleting it.

And Vicki Gunvalson is now using her social media platform for good.

The 58-year-old Real Housewives Of Orange County star took to Instagram to share a throwback image of herself from her childhood in order to help with COVID-19 relief.

Scroll down for video

Giving back: Vicki Gunvalson took to Instagram to share a throwback image of herself from her childhood in order to help with COVID-19 relief

'I'm joining in on the #GoBackGiveBack challenge': The 58-year-old Real Housewives Of Orange County star - seen in December - aalso put a link in her social media bio for further donations

She captioned the image: 'Im joining in on the #GoBackGiveBack challenge. For every throwback photo shared with #GoBackGiveBack and mentioning @goPuff, they will donate $5 to the Boys & Girls Clubs COVID-19 Relief Fund.'

As the Boys & Girls Clubs have been supporting the communities they serve, Gunvalson also put a link in her social media bio for further donations.

Vicki obviously looked very different from her childhood image as she has had several cosmetic procedures as an adult.

She is an an original castmember on Bravo's RHOC which premiere in March 2006 and has been open about having plastic surgery.

Transformation: Vicki obviously looked very different from her childhood image as she has had several cosmetic procedures as an adult, she is seen on the left in 2007 and on the right in December

Fantastic four: She is an an original castmember on Bravo's RHOC which premiere in March 2006 and has been open about having plastic surgery, Tamra Barney, Vicki , Jeana Keough, Lauri Petersen are seen left to right in July 2008

Back in 2018 in an interview with Daily Mail Australia, the star revealed that she will 'keep tweaking' when it comes to her health and body.

'I had a lot of fillers in my face and I didn't feel like it was me anymore,' she told the magazine.

'I had too many doctors, too many different times say ''let's do this, let's do that, let's fill here, let's do Voluma, let's do Sculptra,'' and by the time I was done I looked in the mirror and was like ''I don't even look like myself.''

Not easy: Vicki had surgery on her face again in 2018; she is seen recovering in a still from last season

For seasons on the show, Vicki's facial features - particularly and earlier nose job - had drawn snide comments from fans and other stars of the show.

In season six, Gretchen Rossi's fiance Slade Smiley infamously branded her 'Miss Piggy'.

Though she insisted that Slade's comment was not the only reason she went under the knife, though she said 'Gretchen would kill me' if she blamed Slade, during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live in 2013

Mean: In season six, Gretchen Rossi's fiance Slade Smiley - seen together in October - infamously branded her 'Miss Piggy'

Her most recent post came just days after she was on the receiving end of scrutiny after asking California Governor Gavin Newsom to reopen hair salons and nail parlors.

Vicki, who later deleted her tweet, begged Newsom: 'Let's get America who is healthy back to work.

'We need hairdressers, nail techs, small business's and restaurants to start reopening May 1st. Please?'

Uh oh: Her most recent post came just days after she was on the receiving end of scrutiny after asking California Governor Gavin Newsom to reopen hair salons and nail parlors

Speaking out: As a reality star, she enjoys frequent beauty appointments to get camera ready; Vicki is seen looking glam in November 2019

A follower responded: 'Translation: you need a pamper day out, with the girls. Right? Cause we good and well you're not of the workers you listed.'

Another wrote simply: 'Vicki, no,' to which she replied: 'Never? You think we should stay closed forever?'

Yet another follower responded: 'Vicki wants to 'WHOOP IT UP' while people are dying. Nice'

Vicki defended herself, writing: 'Nope, reread this again. I said nothing about whooping it up.

'I said we need to get back to work. Been in quarantine for 2 months as I'm sure you have.'

Disagreeing: Vicki was attacked by followers, but questioned whether they thought things should 'never' reopen

'Vicki wants to whoop it up': The reality star's tweet caused emotional responses

'Idiotic thinking': Many disagreed with Vicki

Vicki has been staying at home amid California's Shelter At Home order.

She has been keeping in close contact with her nurse daughter Briana, who recently announced her pregnancy after testing negative for coronavirus when she was taken ill at work.

Vicki, 58, shared the good news on Friday, reposting an Instagram photo of four paper clips sitting side by side.

A fifth clip was placed neatly inside one of the larger ones, indicating Briana's bun in the oven.

'Couldn't be more excited to announce #3 is on its way. Congratulations Briana and Ryan,' Vicki gushed, along with the hashtags '#pregnant #baby#3 #prayforhealthybaby.'

The photo was originally posted by Briana's husband Ryan Culberson, who wrote, 'With all the bad news going on in the world hopefully this brings a smile to your face (even if it's behind a mask). November can't come soon enough.'

Briana, 33, and Ryan married in 2011, and share young sons Owen and Troy.
Amber Heard shared her 'heartbreak' on Sunday as she revealed that her mother Paige Heard had died.

The 34-year-old Aquaman star revealed her mother's death in a somber Instagram post featuring vintage photos of the two.

'I am heartbroken and devastated beyond belief at the loss of my mom, Paige Heard,' she began in the caption.

Heartbreaking news: Amber Heard, 34, revealed Sunday that her mother Paige Heard had died in an movie Instagram post featuring vintage photos of the two

'She left us too early, clasping onto the memory of her beautiful, gentle soul. She will be missed from the very depths of our hearts forever,' she continued.

'Her unflinching, open heart made her the most beautiful woman I had ever known. Its hard to imagine and even more difficult to say but I feel truly lucky to have been her daughter and been given the gift of having the light she shone on everyone, fall on me for nearly 34 years.

'This has been an unbelievably painful time but in that, I am reminded of what survives us all, love,' wrote the actress.

'The kindness, support and generosity my sister Whit and I have received from friends and family has been utterly soul-saving.'

Gone too soon: 'She left us too early, clasping onto the memory of her beautiful, gentle soul. She will be missed from the very depths of our hearts forever,' Amber wrote

Amber's post included a sweet throwback photo of herself as a child, while her mother held her.

The Her Smell actress' father David Heard could also be seen in the background.

She also posted a more recent black and white photo in which Paige hugged a fresh-faced Amber.

Paige, 63, and her husband raised Amber in Austin, Texas.

The former wife of Johnny Depp eventually rebelled against the states conservative social codes and moved to New York City to pursue modeling, before going west to Los Angeles to transition into the film industry.

Final photo: The Aquaman star posted a photo of herself as a child with her mother, as well as a more recent black and white photo. Her latest Instagram shot of her mother was a tribute in March for International Women's Day

Red faced: A playful snap from 2018 featured featured Paige and David both kissing Amber on either cheek while she scrunched her face up in mock embarrassment

Mother's day: Earlier that year, the Magic Mike XXL actress posted a sweet photo of her mother resting her head on her in front of a lovely riverside view

Paige was occasionally featured on Amber's Instagram, and she made her most recent appearance on March 8 when Amber posted a raucous photo of her mother, who worked as an internet researcher, and her sister Whit in honor of International Women's Day.

A playful snap from 2018 featured featured Paige and David both kissing Amber on either cheek while she scrunched her face up in mock embarrassment.

Earlier that year, the Magic Mike XXL actress posted a sweet photo of her mother resting her head on her in front of a lovely riverside view.

'Happy Mothers Day! Thank you to the most beautiful, strong, patient and loving woman I know for teaching me what it means to be a woman. Happiest Mothers Day to you and all mamas out there.'

Legal wrangling: Amber's mother was last in the news in December, when text messages she sent to Johnny Depp in 2016 were released that blamed a restraining order Amber filed against him on her lawyers; shown in February

Paige was last in the news in December, when text message she sent to her daughter's ex-husband Johnny Depp in 2016 were released.

She claimed in the texts that a restraining order Heard filed against Depp was initiated solely at the recommendation of her lawyers.

She also said 'I love you, son,' despite Amber's ongoing allegations of domestic violence against the actor and rocker.
Kuwaiti policemen intervened after riots and chaos broke, arresting some of the rioters and referring them to authorities for legal action

Related Egypt to bring back citizens stranded in Kuwaiti accommodation camps

Kuwaiti authorities broke up riots by a group of Egyptian workers demanding repatriation back home at shelters designated for those who had violated the Gulf country's residency laws, arresting several people, the Kuwaiti interior ministry said on Monday.

Kuwaiti policemen intervened after riots and chaos erupted, arresting some of the rioters who had been referred to authorities for legal action, the statement published on Twitter said.

Representatives from the Egyptian Embassy in Kuwait visited the shelter and promised the workers that the embassy would arrange repatriation flights this week, it added.

Kuwait said late in March it would allow expatriates violating its residency laws to leave the country without paying fines or flight tickets.

Around 28,000 foreigners out of an estimated 160,000 who have no legal residencies have registered for repatriation, according to Kuwaiti local media. Those include around 6,500 Egyptians.

The statement by the Gulf country came hours after Egypts Emigration Minister Nabila Makram said in TV comments that the priority for repatriation flights would be given to Egyptians in the Gulf, especially those in Kuwait,

The plan to repatriate Egyptians stranded abroad include humanitarian emergencies, those violating residency laws and workers with terminated contracts, she said.



Search Keywords:

Short link:


If you strip away the politics, the public health lesson from Melbournes primary school coronavirus case is that rock'n'roll is more dangerous than teaching.

Keith Campbell, a 70-year-old retired music teacher whose positive test last weekend prompted the closure of Meadowglen Primary School, believes he contracted the virus way back in March while playing a gig at an Eaglemont pub that has since been traced to about 30 cases.

Mr Campbell says he twice tried to get tested for the virus but was knocked back each time - first by the Austin Hospital and secondly by a Department of Health tracing team - because he wasnt sick enough.

Keith Campbell, a retired music teacher whose positive test for coronavirus prompted the closure of Meadowglen Primary School. Credit:Eddie Jim

However, the Eaglemont contagion was virulent enough to run through three generations of his family, with his daughter, her husband and their three children all contracting COVID-19. The youngest of their children, aged just nine, became seriously ill.
Jamie French handed himself in after warrants were issued

A dad-to-be facing a charge of burgling a launderette has been granted bail after pleading to be allowed to support his partner who was due to give birth.

Jamie French (26), who was identified as a suspect in the alleged burglary through DNA evidence, handed himself in to gardai after warrants were issued for his arrest, a court heard.

Judge Colin Daly adjourned the case at Dublin District Court for the accused to decide how to plead.

Mr French, of Virginia Heights, Springfield, Tallaght, is charged with burglary and other separate theft offences.

A garda sergeant said the DPP had directed summary disposal of the case at district court level, subject to a judge accepting jurisdiction.

He said it was alleged that the accused broke into Heuston Laundry, Heuston South Quarter, Kilmainham, last October 29.

Around 150 in cash was taken from the till, and the accused was later identified from evidence found at the scene, it was alleged.

Petrol

Mr French was separately accused of taking 50 worth of petrol without paying for it in a drive-off theft from a garage.

He was also accused of stealing a large amount of alcohol and clothing worth 350 from a Tesco.

Judge Daly accepted jurisdiction in all cases.

The accused's solicitor Ruth Walsh said Mr French's long-term partner was expecting her first child soon.

This had motivated him, and he had made arrangements to hand himself in to the gardai on warrants.

The warrants were taken in a very short period when the accused was going through a difficult period of his life, Ms Walsh said.

Mr French had a very troubled family life and had lost both parents at a young age, the court heard.

His circumstances had now improved greatly, and he wanted to care for and support his pregnant partner, Ms Walsh told the court.

Judge Daly remanded Mr French in custody to Cloverhill with consent to bail, subject to a cash lodgement.
But for two seismic electoral events in the year 2016, the coronavirus crisis might have done more to hasten a reckoning that is as crucial as it is inevitable.

It is quite remarkable that even now, after long weeks of total national transformation and a mushrooming economic disaster, too little of the nations intellectual energy is being devoted to the China question.

It has been generally accepted wisdom, for decades, that China will be the superpower of the future but, even at this moment, we are shying away from thinking about what that really means.

One crucial reason is that we are understandably distracted. But for Brexit, it is highly unlikely that the UK would have, at the most crucial hour in generations, the worst government in its modern history. A cabinet of nobodies, chosen for no reason beyond a willingness to sign up to a project of suicidal stupidity, finds itself having to handle a disaster of immense complexity, and finds itself unimaginably, horribly wanting.

At this crucial time, few other countries are as preoccupied with the failure of their leaders, because they have not been so badly failed.

And then there is Donald Trump. It shouldnt be ignored, or glossed over, that coronavirus is Chinas failure. In any year in living memory, but for the past three, there would have been no US president to distract the worlds attention from that fact by, for example, suggesting his people drink bleach.

It is only Trump who could ever have somehow transformed this crisis in the eyes of the world into Americas failure.

How China engages with the rest of the world is the question that defines the decades ahead. Weve known that for a long time, but we are not managing to live up to the weight of said question.

On Sunday, Australias Daily Telegraph newspaper published an article which is based on a leaked joint report from the intelligence services of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It states that China suppressed crucial information about coronavirus, and that whistleblowing doctors were disappeared.

The UK government has refused to comment on it, which all but confirms its veracity.

It stops far short of concluding that coronavirus was manmade, and was accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, though it intimates that the US takes a different view on the likelihood of that having happened than the rest of the Five Eyes partners, as the security sharing relationship between those countries is called.

Alarmingly, even on this, the Five Eyes partnership cannot speak with one voice.

Trump has made public claims that the coronavirus came from a lab then, when asked for evidence to support his assertion, only says: I cant tell you that.

Mike Pompeo, his secretary of state for defence, made the same assertion, before having to clarify within seconds that his own intelligence services disagree with him, making clear that, well, he is just saying it for the sake of saying it. That an actual US administration could be so useless was, until very recently, inconceivable.

But how we respond to China is knotty. The question as to whether coronavirus came from a lab is unlikely to ever be known, in the sense that it is highly unlikely that it did, but that conclusion will never be universally accepted. That it suppressed information and was wilfully misleading about human-to-human transmission is almost certainly true. The consequences of that, for human life, are vast, but there is precious little the wider world can do about it.

Gordon Brown has on several occasions in the last few months made the point that the response to coronavirus has to be global, and it is especially miserable that this crisis should have emerged when the global community is more divided than it has been in decades.

But how does it become less divided? Whether a less belligerent United States might have coaxed more international cooperation and more acceptance of culpability from China is by no means certain.

And whether America can be depended on to preserve the liberal democratic values of its allies and itself is a question that wont go away, even if the Trump administration turns out to be in its final few months. Demons have been unleashed across America, people have been radicalised, vicious new methods and tactics of mass communication cemented that will wither come November, whatever happens.

Europe has had little choice but to stand back and watch the US-China trade war. Our instincts, for the most part, are to blame Trump, but Chinas closer neighbours, like Japan, take a more circumspect view.

Ultimately, Chinas future can only be decided by its own people, and that is the most nuanced question of all. They have been growing progressively more affluent, after decades of self-inflicted stagnation, which itself fuelled the terrific US economic boom of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Though coronavirus will be quite the setback, the trajectory is nevertheless upward, and, generally speaking, global history doesnt show that rising affluence suppresses a desire for political and human rights. The opposite tends to be true.

Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Show all 11 1 /11 Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A demonstrator shouts next to two masked security guards at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan during a protest against stay-at-home orders AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Armed members of a milita group at the state Capitol building in Lansing, Michiga, during a protest against coronavirus lockdown measures REUTERS Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester at the state Capitol in Lansing holds a sign comparing Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer to Adolf Hitler during a demonstration against coronavirus lockdown measures AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan An armed protester takes part in a demonstation against lockdown measures at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan AP Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester holds a sign saying 'Bill Gates is evil' at a demonstration against stay-at-home orders at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan. Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and a billionaire philanthropist, has warned of the dangers of viral pandemics AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Protesters take part in a demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan against stay-at-home orders AFP/Getty Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester holds a pro-Trump sign at a demonstration against lockdown measures outside the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Armed protesters take part in a demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan against lockdown measures during the coronavirus pandemic AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester holds a sign reading 'Every job is essential, get workers back to work safely now' during a demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan over lockdown measures AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester with a US flag painted on her face takes part in a demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan against lockdown measures during the coronavirus pandemic AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask holds up a sign reading 'Stay Free' during a demonstration against lockdown measures at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan AP

For a while, after the outbreak in Wuhan, the lazy view to be found doing the rounds over here was that it was easier for China to control the virus because oppressive regimes can lock people down without the kind of concerns that rightly weigh on the minds of democratically elected leaders.

But Chinas efforts to shut down coronavirus were in many respects ingenious. For many weeks, a city of 11 million people had all its food delivered via a centrally planned and controlled system. Tens of millions of people still have a mandatory app on their smartphone, declaring their status as green, yellow or red, which details their risk level and the degree to which they are allowed out of their home.

Sounds appalling. It could never happen here, except that similar innovations are expected to be launched in the UK within days or weeks. Theres also the fact that, ultimately, the British people practically had to demand to be locked down.

For now, China does as it pleases, America wails as it declines, and everybody else just watches. No good will come of coronavirus, none at all, but this crisis will still be around for plenty long enough for us to use this moment to think a lot harder about the questions that matter the most in a future that is already here.
The new year has seen an increase in motor vehicle larceny in the central division with the 
BUFFALO, N.Y. - Many states have policies that attempt to help formerly incarcerated people find work by limiting an employer's ability to access or use criminal records as part of the hiring process.

But there is little evidence that these restrictions are helping non-resident fathers provide financial support to their children, according to Allison Dwyer Emory, a University at Buffalo sociologist and co-author of a new study by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from UB, Rutgers University, Cornell University and Boston University.

"We find fathers with a history of incarceration provide less support to their children and accrue greater arrears," says Dwyer Emory. "Further, in states with more limited access to records, fathers who have never been incarcerated provide less formal support and accrue more arrears, though they seem to compensate with more informal support, possibly due to racial discrimination against black men in the hiring process."

The findings were published in The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, which provides open access to the study.

States that limit access to online criminal record databases may reduce the costs of incarceration for fathers, but at the same time, they may be creating opportunities for a different kind of discrimination if employers, in the absence of information, default to racial stereotypes.

"It's difficult to separate discrimination on the basis of a criminal record from discrimination on the basis of race, and policies that address one without the other may not be able to fully achieve their ends," says Dwyer Emory, an expert on family demography, criminology and social policy.

"Fathers work hard to provide for their kids. When discriminatory labor markets make it difficult for them to pay formal child support, they provide informal cash support to their kids instead -- even as they get in debt for unpaid formal support.

"We have to be careful to ensure that policies support fathers' ability to be there for their kids.

Policy context is critical, according to Dwyer Emory.

"We want to know if these policies are helping fathers to be better parents or making it harder for them to be better parents," she says. "These policies don't seem to be associated with fathers who have a history of incarceration paying more support, but they do seem to be associated with fathers, particularly African American fathers, who have never been incarcerated, providing less formal child support."

The researchers used data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, a sample of predominantly unmarried parents who had a child in a large U.S. city in the 1990s followed over time.

The innovative research also includes state information from every year of the dataset, including which policies were in place for specific states at specific times, while also breaking out both formal and informal support that fathers provide for their child.

Formal child support is a court order that specifies an amount owed each month to a custodial parent. But some couples have informal arrangements, made outside of the courts, where fathers contribute when they have the money either instead of or in addition to formal support.

The researchers also included arrears in their study, which is the debt fathers build up when they don't pay formal child support in full.

"Arrears are particularly important when thinking about fathers with a history of incarceration, because in some states arrears can continue to accrue while a father is incarcerated," says Dwyer Emory. "These fathers start out behind in their payments immediately upon release, which can cause a cycle where high enough arrears puts fathers at greater risk of being incarcerated in the future."

The results, says Dwyer Emory, suggest a cautionary approach.

"These policies are ideally designed to help fathers provide for themselves and their families, but we have to ask and study if they might actually be getting in the way, especially for those likely to encounter discrimination in the labor market. We may instead have to consider different policy approaches that address racial discrimination in hiring directly, removing barriers faced by fathers with criminal records like licensing restrictions, or change the incentives employers have to hire or avoid people with records," she says. "We worry that this could contribute intergenerational cycles of disadvantage and discrimination."

Incarceration and its consequences after prison affect millions of families in the United States, according to Dwyer Emory, who worked with Lenna Nepomnyaschy, an associate professor, and Alexandra Haralampoudis, a PhD candidate, at the Rutgers School of Social Work; Maureen R. Waller, an associate professor at Cornell University; and Daniel P. Miller, an associate professor at the Boston University School of Social Work.

The authors stress the need for additional research if we're to better understand the mechanisms through which these associations operate to determine how policies could better support fathers' ability to provide for their children.

###
BEIJING (Reuters) - An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters.

The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said.

As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report's content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.

The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China's top intelligence body.

Reuters has not seen the briefing paper, but it was described by people who had direct knowledge of its findings.

"I don't have relevant information," the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson's office said in a statement responding to questions from Reuters on the report.

China's Ministry of State Security has no public contact details and could not be reached for comment.

CICIR, an influential think tank that until 1980 was within the Ministry of State Security and advises the Chinese government on foreign and security policy, did not reply to a request for comment.

Reuters couldn't determine to what extent the stark assessment described in the paper reflects positions held by China's state leaders, and to what extent, if at all, it would influence policy. But the presentation of the report shows how seriously Beijing takes the threat of a building backlash that could threaten what China sees as its strategic investments overseas and its view of its security standing.

Story continues

Relations between China and the United States are widely seen to be at their worst point in decades, with deepening mistrust and friction points from U.S. allegations of unfair trade and technology practices to disputes over Hong Kong, Taiwan and contested territories in the South China Sea.

In recent days, U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a more difficult re-election campaign as the coronavirus has claimed tens of thousands of American lives and ravaged the U.S. economy, has been ramping up his criticism of Beijing and threatening new tariffs on China. His administration, meanwhile, is considering retaliatory measures against China over the outbreak, officials said.

It is widely believed in Beijing that the United States wants to contain a rising China, which has become more assertive globally as its economy has grown.

The paper concluded that Washington views China's rise as an economic and national security threat and a challenge to Western democracies, the people said. The report also said the United States was aiming to undercut the ruling Communist Party by undermining public confidence.

Chinese officials had a "special responsibility" to inform their people and the world of the threat posed by the coronavirus "since they were the first to learn of it," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in response to questions from Reuters.

Without directly addressing the assessment made in the Chinese report, Ortagus added: "Beijing's efforts to silence scientists, journalists, and citizens and spread disinformation exacerbated the dangers of this health crisis."

A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council declined to comment.

REPERCUSSIONS

The report described to Reuters warned that anti-China sentiment sparked by the coronavirus could fuel resistance to China's Belt and Road infrastructure investment projects, and that Washington could step up financial and military support for regional allies, making the security situation in Asia more volatile.

Three decades ago, in the aftermath of Tiananmen, the United States and many Western governments imposed sanctions against China including banning or restricting arms sales and technology transfers.

China is far more powerful nowadays.

Xi has revamped China's military strategy to create a fighting force equipped to win modern wars. He is expanding China's air and naval reach in a challenge to more than 70 years of U.S. military dominance in Asia.

In its statement, China's foreign ministry called for cooperation, saying, "the sound and steady development of China-U.S. relations" serve the interests of both countries and the international community.

It added: "any words or actions that engage in political manipulation or stigmatization under the pretext of the pandemic, including taking the opportunity to sow discord between countries, are not conducive to international cooperation against the pandemic."

COLD WAR ECHOES

One of those with knowledge of the report said it was regarded by some in the Chinese intelligence community as China's version of the "Novikov Telegram", a 1946 dispatch by the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Nikolai Novikov, that stressed the dangers of U.S. economic and military ambition in the wake of World War Two.

Novikov's missive was a response to U.S. diplomat George Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow that said the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for peaceful coexistence with the West, and that containment was the best long-term strategy.

The two documents helped set the stage for the strategic thinking that defined both sides of the Cold War.

China has been accused by the United States of suppressing early information on the virus, which was first detected in the central city of Wuhan, and downplaying its risks.

Beijing has repeatedly denied that it covered up the extent or severity of the virus outbreak.

China has managed to contain domestic spread of the virus and has been trying to assert a leading role in the global battle against COVID-19. That has included a propaganda push around its donations and sale of medical supplies to the United States and other countries and sharing of expertise.

But China faces a growing backlash from critics who have called to hold Beijing accountable for its role in the pandemic.

Trump has said he will cut off funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), which he called "very China-centric," something WHO officials have denied.

Australia's government has called for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the virus.

Last month, France summoned China's ambassador to protest a publication on the website of China's embassy that criticized Western handling of coronavirus.

The virus has so far infected more than 3 million people globally and caused more than 200,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

(Editing by Peter Hirschberg)

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK
An ice rink featuring a frozen waterfall in Beijings Changping district has become a popular destination among climbing enthusiasts and newcomers to ice sports. Located in the Huyu Natural Scenic Area, the rink consists of a 40-meter-high climbing area. With the approach to the Beijing Winter Olympics, ice and snow activities are attracting fans across the country. The China Tourism Academy estimated that 305 million people will visit such venues nationwide this season

Jan 18, 2022 05:36 PM
KAABONG  Karamojong cattle rustlers have killed one Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) soldier and drove away unspecified number of cattle in Kaabong district in Karamoja sub region.

The soldier was gunned down on Saturday, May 2 during a five-hour gun battle with the suspected Jie Karamojong cattle rustlers of Kotido who had attacked a protected kraal in Kaabong town council.

Mr. Rex Achila, the Resident District Commissioner Kaabong confirmed the incident describing it as a return of insecurity in Karamoja.

He said the army also managed to put out of action on cattle rustler but the animals could not been recovered after warriors got scattered with animals in the bush.

The warriors attacked the protected Kraal in Kaabong town council on Saturday at around 11pm and they had a fight with UPDF soldiers that are where one soldier lost his life and one warrior was also killed, he said.

According to Mr. Achila who also doubles as the chairperson of the district security committee, the security situation has been made worse by some of the local defence unity personnel who seem to be collaborating with the criminals.

He said the army followed the foot marks of animals from Kaabong and they entered in Kacheri Sub County in Kotido district.

No animal has been recovered but the UPDF is following the animals at close range I believe they will be recovered, he said.

The recruitment of Karamojong as LDUs was directed by president Museveni during 2010 campaigns with the move to help consolidate the peace achieved by security agencies in the region since the disarmament program started in 2001.

However, leaders have raised several complaints against the LDUs saying they have become part of the cattle rustling community since they stay together with their families while armed.

Mr. Samson Lokeris, the Member of Parliament for Dodoth East in Kaabong district said the continuous raiding in Kaabong by the Jie of Kotido warriors has left the district tormented.

According to Lokeris, from January to date, people of Kaabong have lost over 1,000 heads of cattle with many people killed by the armed Jie community.

Related
Scientists have discovered a protein in the blood that could predict which coronavirus patients will need to be put on ventilators.

The protein, known as suPAR, is a marker of disease severity and aggressiveness as well as activating of the immune system.

Researchers found COVID-19 patients with high blood levels of suPAR were the most likely to need breathing machines and were intubated the quickest frim being hospitalized.

The team, from Rush University Medical Centers, says the findings suggest doctors could use suPAR as a predictor for which patients with the virus will need ventilators and can get them the respiratory help they need before it's too late.

The protein, known as suPAR, is a marker of disease severity and aggressiveness as well as activating of the immune system. Pictured: Ventilator tubes attached to a coronavirus patient on the ICU floor of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York City, April 24

Of coronavirus patients with suPAR levels of six ng/mL or higher, 18 - or 85% - required mechanical ventilation or a CPAP machine. Pictured: Two nurses assess the vital signs of a coronavirus using a ventilator on the ICU floor at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York City, April 21

'This is the first report in the world to show that suPAR is elevated in COVID-19 and is predictive,' said co-correspondent author Dr Jochen Resier, chairperson of the department of internal medicine at Rush University Medical Center.

'Since suPAR is a reactant of the innate immune system, it's an indicator of disease severity.'

suPAR, which is short for soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor, is produced by bone marrow immune cells and in the lungs' bronchial tree.

In previous studies, high levels of the protein in the blood were associated with the development of chronic kidney disease.

For the new study, published in the journal Critical Care, the team tested levels of suPAR in 15 patients who were admitted and tested for the virus.

Another 57 had their levels tested and were tracked at the University of Athens Medical School in Greece.

Control patients typically had suPAR levels of five nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) or less, while coronavirus patients had levels usually of six ng/mL or higher.

Of patients with suPAR levels of six ng/mL or higher, 18 - or 85 percent - required mechanical ventilation or a CPAP machine.

Researchers found that patients with a higher levels of suPAR in their plasma were the most likely to be intubated and for longer periods of time.

'The higher the suPAR level, the shorter the time before patients needed intubation,' said Resier.

'There is a body of literature that suPAR is associated with poor outcomes from acute respiratory distress syndrome (a condition in many patients with severe COVID-19) and poor lung functioning in critically ill patients.'

Reiser says the link between suPAR and respiratory failure says this could be a successful way to triage coronavirus patients.

'If we measure suPAR as part of diagnosing COVID-19, we may know whom to watch more and whom to send home,' he said.

'Plasma suPAR levels give us a window into the course of the disease, allowing for an improved monitoring and applying new and supportive treatments early.'

In the US, there are more than 1.1 million confirmed cases of the virus and more than 69,000 deaths.
The Met Gala was supposed to take place this Monday, but with New York still deep in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour is bringing a little piece of fashions biggest night to a socially distanced world courtesy of YouTube.

On Monday and Tuesday, Vogues YouTube page will stream several shows about famous models and stars that have walked the red carpet at the Met over the years, including Liza Koshy, Naomi Campbell and Cardi B. At 6 pm ET/3 pm PT, Wintour will host a special retrospective called A Moment at the Met, where she will be joined with special guests to look back at the famed event.

It would be impossible to recreate the gala on Monday evening, though I have loved hearing how so many are marking the occasion in their own ways, Wintour said in a statement. So instead, I asked a few friends to join me for a simple momentone that I hope will bring us all a bit of joy.

Also Read: 2020 Met Gala Indefinitely Postponed in Light of Coronavirus Pandemic

Created in 1948 as a fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute, the Met Gala has grown into the most exclusive social event in New York and one of the most famous in the world, particularly under the direction of Wintour and her Vogue EIC predecessor Diana Vreeland. The 2020 Gala would have marked Wintours 25th anniversary as chairman of the Costume Institute and organizer of the event. Tickets to get into the exclusive event cost $30,000.

Read original story Met Gala Update: Anna Wintour Has Big Plans for Canceled Fashion Extravaganza on YouTube At TheWrap
NSW Governor David Hurley, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro pose for a picture with on January 23, 2017 in Sydney, Australia.(Daniel Munoz/Getty Images)

NSW Deputy Premier Steps out of Eden-Monaro Running

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro says he will not contest the federal seat of Eden-Monaro in an upcoming by-election, potentially clearing the way for coalition colleague Andrew Constance to shift to federal politics.

The NSW South Coast seat was vacated last week after popular Labor member Mike Kelly retired due to ill health.

Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese says retaining the NSW seat will be a challenge, even though it is 100 years since a government has taken a seat in a by-election. Labor has chosen Bega mayor Kristy McBain to run for the seat.

Barilaro announced on May 4 he would not contest the seat, saying in a statement that he could achieve more as leader of the NSW Nationals.

In politics, ego can quickly skew decisions and sometimes makes you forget what is best for yourself, your family and what could be the best outcome for the people of Eden-Monaro, Barilaro said on Monday.

He said he would continue to fight for residents of the NSW south coast from his position on Macquarie Street.

This opens the way for Constance, the NSW transport minister and Bega MP, to step forward. Constance reportedly told the Liberal state executive he would not have run if Barilaro put his hand up for the seat.

Liberal senator Jim Molan is also reportedly considering standing.

Albanese told Sky News on Sunday McBain was ready to represent the people of her constituency rather than herself.

Sydney
A view of a Starbucks Coffee open only for mobile orders during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City on April 24, 2020. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

Significant Number of Starbucks Stores Reopening Across US

Starbucks locations across the United States and Canada reopened on Monday as part of the chains wider reopening plan.

Some locations remained open throughout the pandemic, providing drive-thru service only.

Many others closed in March as part of efforts to slow the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a novel coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease.

Starbucks reoriented stores to comply with social distancing measures, including inserting an entryway hand-off. Mobile orders can be picked up at the entryways so that customers dont have to enter the store or interact directly with workers, executives said during a call with investors last week.

Only around 30 locations reopening this week will welcome customers inside. Those stores will have no seating.

By augmenting the in-store experience with mobile ordering and contactless pickup, we can serve a significant volume of customers without having the cafe seating area actually opened, Kevin Johnson, Starbucks president and CEO, said on the call.

Customers wait for their order in their car at a Starbucks in Northbrook, Ill., on March 16, 2020. (Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo)

Johnson said that customers are looking for stores that are safe as the country emerges from the near-total lockdown.

The company didnt detail exactly how many stores are reopening Monday but Johnson said during an appearance on CNBCs Squawk on the Street that it was a significant number.

Executives expect to have 90 percent of all company-operated U.S. stores reopened by early June.

Licensees who own Starbucks locations are receiving the safety protocols the company is initiating.

Another aspect of the reopening features employees, who were being paid even if they werent working. Starting this week, employees wont be paid unless theyre working.

Workers will have their temperature taken before starting work and answer a series of questions to validate if theyre ready to work, Rosalind Gates Brewer, Starbucks COO, told investors.

The measures were first deployed in the companys reopening of its stores in China.

Workers are excited about the reopening, she said.
AS the lockdown continues, police are still seeing a large number of unnecessary calls about neighbourly disputes but also, sadly, an increasing number of arrests relating to domestic violence.

I would encourage people to be responsible and not use the restrictions as a way to tackle disputes which existed before the outbreak.

It is good that the rules permit those suffering from domestic abuse to get out of that situation and stay at another household. I have every sympathy for those affected because being enclosed with an abusive partner must be dreadful.

Its important that victims have a means of getting to safety in the initial stages of a crisis and Im pleased that the Government has arranged a process with the police to make travel possible under such circumstances.

Meanwhile, the Thames Valley chief constable tells me only 160 of his staff are self-isolating, a remarkable figure for such a large area.

He also tells me that, unforgivably, many people are running scams, including those surrounding personal protective equipment.

The distribution of PPE to the health service through the army now seems to be working well. From speaking to doctors I know, many of whom work in hospitals treating coronavirus patients, they feel there is a good supply.

Ive also been helping dentists and private or mixed healthcare providers such as physiotherapists and osteopaths to claim financial relief. Theyve had it particularly bad because they perform a mixture of private and NHS work so potentially fall between the two government packages of support.

Theyve having to select elements from both in order to be remunerated for the different types of work so I and a small group of colleagues have written to the Chancellor explaining their difficulties.

The simplest solution would be to extend business rate relief, thereby covering a vast number of people and ensuring we can all get our teeth looked after. These are frontline staff and clearly vital to both our communities and the economy so they deserve our support.

Whatever measures we introduce in the short term, such as the urgent dental care hubs now being set up, we must also look to the long term and ensure these sectors continue to function.

This week, the Chancellor announced the launch of bounce back loans, which will allow small businesses to borrow up to 50,000 and access it within days. Its guaranteed by the Government and interest-free for the first 12 months so this is an important boost.

Its not a huge amount by every businesss standards but is quite a significant chunk to keep them going and was informed by input from the Federation of Small Businesses, the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors and a number of the Chancellors colleagues, including me.

The number of coronavirus deaths being reported in hospitals is steadily decreasing, which is a good thing and has led to much speculation.

However, the Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that we must wait for the next review date on Thursday before considering the next steps.

If we end lockdown too quickly we could be attacked by a second wave of infections, as has occurred in other countries.

Im aware of reports that Britain is yet to meet Health Secretarys Matt Hancocks pledge of testing 100,000 people daily for coronavirus.

Its good to set a big, ambitious target but it may well be that the numbers of people needing a test arent going up significantly.

For example, the coronavirus tracking app developed by Guys and St Thomass hospitals in London shows that only 0.6 per cent of the 5,500 participants in South Oxfordshire would currently require testing based on their reported symptoms. By my calculations, thats only a few dozen people.

Finally, Parliament is back and operating well. Were still establishing how to vote remotely and inevitably there are elements of party politics creeping back into proceedings, which is unfortunate as it really isnt needed right now. It detracts from what were all trying to achieve, which is to bring an end to this terrible disease.
: After being shut for 40 days,



standalone outlets dealing in trades like building material and computers resumed business in non-containment zones across Tamil Nadu following relaxation of curbs,while migrant workers came out in large numbers in their regions of stay, demanding that authorities send them back home.

State-run retail liquor outlet chain (TASMAC-Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation) however, did not resume operations unlike neighbouring Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Neighbourhood shops involved in a variety of businesses like electrical and electronic goods, optical, and stationery opened to throngs of customers and vehicular movement was significantly higher in most towns and cities.

Though police and civic officials continued their patrolling, the markets were abuzz with activity and several people were seen going around without masks.

As liquor stores opened in Karnataka, several consumers from bordering villages in Tamil Nadu's Krishnagiri district and Hosur lined up before shops in Attibele limits to buy booze.

Migrant workers, mostly construction labourers, gathered in large numbers near Avadi and at Alapakkam in suburban Chennai and employees of garment making units at the apparel manufacturing hub of Tirupur in western Tamil Nadu, demanding to be sent back home quickly.

Habib, a worker from Alapakkam construction site, in a voice message circulated to the media through an aid worker, said he and about 1,000 others hailing from states, including Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, wanted to go back home expeditiously and through any means of transport.

Balaji Sampath, the aid volunteer, said the workers were desperate to go back home and were waiting ever since the curbs were first enforced on March 24 evening in Tamil Nadu.

"It seems the government has not decided whether to send the workers back home or not (in view of resumption of work in non-containment areas).

But the workers are clear and firm on their stand that they should be sent back," Balaji told PTI.

The government has said that construction work in non containment zones may resume from today if the workers stayed at the site.

Police and local officials arrived at all the spots where the workers gathered and requested them to disperse, assuring them that their demand to be sent back home would be considered.

Since the Koyambedu market for vegetables, flowers and fruits has emerged as a key hotspot for coronavirus, State Disaster Response Force and Armed Reserve personnel were deployed in the sprawling premises as part of efforts to regulate movement of traders and help prevent the spread of the contagion.

After inspecting the market, Commissioner of Revenue Administration and special nodal officer here for COVID-19 initiatives, J Radhakrishnan told reporters that focused testing was on at the market place under which all the employees were being tested.

In view of targeted testing, the number of positive cases was likely to go up, he said, adding that however the rise in numbers was not a cause for concern as all anti-COVID-19 efforts were being taken by the government.

Pointing out that several people who have tested positive were asymptomatic, he said arrangements were afoot to house such patients in facilities like colleges and the Trade Centre at Nandambakkam, which are designated as Covid Care Centres, rather than in hospitals.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan on Monday reported 694 new cases of coronavirus, taking the total confirmed infections to 20,884 with 476 deaths in the country, the health ministry said.

The Ministry of National Health Services said that out of the total patients, Punjab reported 7,646 cases, Sindh 7,882, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 3,288, Balochistan 1,218, Islamabad 415, Gilgit-Baltistan 364 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir reported 71 cases.

"Pakistan's coronavirus cases reached 20,884 after 694 new patients were diagnosed by Monday evening," said the statement issued by the health ministry.

The new cases came as Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Monday that the nationwide lockdown will be lifted gradually, asserting that Pakistan cannot afford an indefinite closure.

The health ministry said that 14 more patients died on Monday, taking the total toll to 476.

"Another 5,635 recovered so far. The authorities so far had conducted 212,511 tests, including 9,522 in the last 24 hours," the statement said.

Separately, a district and sessions court's judge in Tank area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province was tested positive for the coronavirus, the Peshawar High Court's Protocol Officer said in a statement.

"As per reports received till date no other Judicial Officer or staff of District Judiciary Tank has been found positive for COVID-19," the statement said.

The judge, the first officer of district judiciary to have contracted the virus, is in self-isolation, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Khan telephoned also his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau to discuss the situation arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic and other matters of mutual interest.

He thanked Canada for its support to include Pakistan in the G20's debt relief initiative.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian consumer goods giant ITC has warned some workers of disciplinary action and pay cuts for missing work during the coronavirus crisis, prompting a showdown with at least two unions, letters from both parties show.

The problems at ITC food plants in Pune in Maharashtra and in Karnataka underscore labour issues facing firms in India, where a lockdown forced thousands of workers to return to their villages.

ITC is one of India's top consumer goods companies with annual sales of $11 billion, producing staples such as flour, noodles and biscuits as well as being the country's biggest cigarette manufacturer.

In notices to employees of at least two food factories dated April 29, which were seen by Reuters, ITC said the attendance of some workers in April was irregular while some had not reported at all, even though factories were open.

ITC said in a statement it had seen "tremendous co-operation" by workers to meet the demand of essential goods, and it had taken adequate safety measures at its factories.

And it said more than 50,000 workers have been paid in the last month, irrespective of their presence.

Food production has been classified as essential by the government during the nationwide lockdown.

While ITC had so far not taken any action against workers, the company notices said "absence without leave" would lead to salary cuts and "disciplinary action", without elaborating.

'IN DANGER'

The ITC Foods Employees Union in Pune wrote to the company condemning the move, pointing out that many workers were back in their villages or staying in areas still under lockdown.

While ITC said in its notice it had taken adequate safety measures, the union said some workers were travelling in unsafe conditions without masks and social distancing.

"You are forcing more workers to report to duty which may put us all in danger," the union said in its letter, which was dated April 30 and also seen by Reuters.

The Geneva-based International Union of Food Workers is helping ITC's Pune employees union reach a resolution with local management, IUF India Campaign Officer Pravin Khotkar said.

At ITC's Pune food plant, only around 100 of the 217 factory employees were currently reporting for work, with some still back in their villages around 300 kilometres (186.41 miles) away, a union member told Reuters on Monday.

"People were scared initially so they left," said the union member on condition of anonymity. "They are still scared, but figuring how to come (back) after the company warning."

India on Friday said its lockdown will continue until at least May 17, with some relaxations. But it could take people working or living in far flung areas time to get back to their jobs, with travel delays due to safety concerns.

"It is unfortunate that a few employees ... have chosen to absent themselves from work ... It is disheartening that a union is taking this unfortunate stand to defend the errant workers which undermines the diligent workers," ITC said.

Reacting to a similar warning notice in early April from ITC, the union in Kolar district, Karnataka had written to ITC stating there was panic among families about returning to work, and it urged that no wages should be deducted.

ITC did not comment on whether it had sent similar notices to workers in its other food factories, which number 10 in all according to its 2019 annual report.
A man who claimed to be a member of the notorious Westies gang told a terrified family he would get the gang to riddle their home with bullets and then petrol-bomb them.

Stephen Darby broke into the home of the family in Stranorlar, Co. Donegal, just days before last Christmas.

He was accompanied by another man and they went upstairs to the couple's bedroom and terrorised them.

At one stage Darby, who has 83 previous convictions, picked up two small children under his arms and continued to make threats.

He told the couple that he was a member of the Clondalkin gang and that he would also have them shot in the back of the knees if they didn't do what he said.

The male victim began to scuffle with Darby and the accused tripped and fell down the stairs and was knocked unconscious.

Gardai arrived at the house and he was taken to Letterkenny Garda station before being taken to Letterkenny University Hospital.

The other man with Darby, who claimed he had relatives in the house at Ardmiran Park, was also arrested.

Darby, who is originally from Dublin but who has been living in Donegal on and off, appeared before Letterkenny Circuit Court charged where he pleaded guilty to burglary.

Barrister for Darby, Mr Peter Nolan, said his client had downed a bottle of whiskey and merely thought the other man was calling to the house to change his clothing.

However, when he arrived, the other man kicked the door in and began to shout at the terrified couple and their family.

Mr Nolan claimed his client was trying to calm matters down when he was pushed down the stairs and had little recollection of the events.

However, a victim impact statement from the terrified couple, who asked not to be identified, revealed their fear.

The woman said "It has changed my entire outlook on life, the way someone can make you feel so scared for your life and your loved ones. I was petrified.

"How an uninvited stranger with a knock on your door can come in and put myself and my family through this terrifying ordeal.

"The most hurtful part was when he reached for my boys. If the Gardai had been any later I dread to think what would have happened.

I was always a very strong person but now I suffer from anxiety and pains in my chest. It just broke me.

Barrister Nolan put his client in the witness box and Darby, whose previous convictions include firearms offences, burglary, robbery, escaping from lawful custody, assault, trespass and larceny, apologised to the family.

"I want to apologise to the xxxxxxxxxs. I let myself go and it was never my intention to do that. When I have drink, I don't think," he said.

His mother, Mrs Maureen Crowe, said her son had a terrible life and was beaten as a child by his father.

He was also put into St Joseph's Christian Brothers School in Clonmel where she alleges that he was sexually abused.

Mr Nolan added that his suggestions that he was part of the Westies were just "fantasy".

"He has an appalling record. He has been in prison in some shape or form for 35 of his 47 years of his life. If he was a prison officer he would be out on pension now.

"He has left a trail of disruption but this happened in the throws of alcohol consumption.

"I am asking that a different way can be found rather than a prison sentence as it simply does nothing to help my client from reoffending," he said.

Judge John Aylmer agreed to adjourn the case until next July and ordered both psychiatric and probation reports on Darby.
The parents of a FIFO worker who stabbed seven strangers with a large kitchen knife say they do not hold any grudges against the police officers who shot him dead.

Ashley Fildes, 34, embarked on the terrifying rampage at South Hedland in Western Australia - knifing five people inside the local shopping centre, plus a man at a nearby motel and another in a car at a McDonald's carpark.

Officers opened fire on the father-of-one in what the police union described as a 'textbook' shooting, which was fatal.

Scroll down for video

Ashley Fildes, 34, was gunned down by police after stabbing seven shopper at South Hedland shopping centre in Western Australia on Friday

In a statement to 7NEWS on Monday Fildes' parents said their thoughts were with the victims and their families.

'Our sympathy goes out to everyone in Hedland and all the victims, especially the man still in hospital,' the parents said.

'We hold no grudge against police.'

The father-of-one had been in an altercation with his boss just hours before the violent rampage, according to a distraught relative who did not want to be named.

Fildes had been suffering from a 'deep depression', his marriage had fallen apart and the AAA Asphalt worker had an altercation with his supervisor on the morning of the attack.

Following the dispute, a colleague drove Fildes from the work site and dropped him at the Lodge Motel where he had been staying. It was there the father-of-one grabbed the long knife and began his violent attack.

He chased motel staff and other guests with the knife before stabbing his first victim.

The 34-year-old, wearing high-vis workwear, can be seen pacing through the South Hedland shopping centre in Western Australia on Friday brandishing a large kitchen knife

The violent rampage began at the Lodge Motel, where he was staying, before moving to the shopping centre

He then moved to the McDonald's car park at the shopping centre where he stabbed a man in a car, before continuing through the mall and to Kmart.

Dramatic footage showed Fildes, who was dressed in hi-vis workwear, pacing through the centre brandishing the large kitchen knife.

The attack ended when Fildes was shot dead by police.

Major crime detectives are investigating the rampage in which seven people were stabbed, including a woman pushing her child in a pram.

They will seek to determine if Fildes experienced a psychotic episode. They are also waiting on a toxicology report to see if illicit drugs were a factor.

Fildes, who is the father of a young girl, was on his first week of a new FIFO swing.

David Derschow (pictured, right) said his girlfriend Esther Brooks (left) were stabbed by the knifeman on Friday morning at a Western Australian shopping centre

Esther Brooks (pictured) shared shocking pictures of her wound with Daily Mail Australia, after being stabbed in the back by a crazed stranger

His marriage had broken down in recent years and he suffered from depression.

A relative told The West Australian Fildes was a 'beautiful, beautiful soul' and the violent rampage was out-of-character.

'He's just not that kind of person. He's just mellow and lovely. I know he had a lot of trauma in his life. The last few years have been really tough for him, but he's not a violent person,' she said.

'There is just no way on this earth that Ashley could do something like this. He doesn't hurt people  he helps people.

'He was deeply depressed but never ever in my wildest dreams would I ever think he would hurt another human being.'

The stabbing rampage took place in South Hedland in northern Western Australia (pictured)

Pilbara district superintendent Kim Massam declined to comment on any potential motive for the attack or whether the offender had a history of drug use or mental health issues.

He said social media videos, as well as footage captured on CCTV and on police body-worn cameras, would form a key part of the investigation.

Up to 60 witnesses could be interviewed.

'Those statements will be detailed,' Supt Massam said.

'They are there on behalf of our investigation for the coroner. The coroner will expect a thorough and intrusive investigation is undertaken in relation to the matter.

'I think we'll have a significant contingent of police officers and support staff in Hedland for the majority of this coming week.'
Yata the Pinata mascot. A sombrero-wearing frog carrying a serape. A stuffed pinata bull.

The festive characters were part of the Fiesta Especial Royal Courts high-spirited check presentations recently to several local disability service organizations.

On one Sunday afternoon, residents staked out socially distant safe spots apart from each other on a West Side lawn to honor the contributions of Alexandra Ayala, a page in the royal court, and Caleb Gonzales, who carries a title of duke in the court. Theyre just two of the 10-member Fiesta-affiliated court that raised nearly $40,000 for San Antonios special needs community.

The event was the grand finale of the youth presenting checks in a fun Fiesta fashion. While San Antonios usual Fiesta events have been postponed until November because of all the coronavirus restrictions, the youth in the court were determined to continue with their mission to spread goodwill.

On ExpressNews.com: Parade honors disability community

Each member chose a local, disability service nonprofit to receive 40 percent of their campaign funds. The remaining funds are slated for the Fiesta Especial Celebration Day, postponed to Nov. 10, 2020.

Over several days, the members presented donations to Kinetic Kids, the Autism Treatment Center, The Kabuki Gathering, Family Service Association Elderly & Disability Services, Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children, Morgans Wonderland and even disABILITYsa itself.

Having these 10 royal court members carry a beacon of hope to their chosen charities is a testament to how unique and special our community is, said Melanie Cawthon, disABILITYsa executive director.

On ExpressNews.com: Fiesta Especial aims to include all

The nonprofit educates, engages and advances individuals with disabilities by creating opportunities, sharing information and strengthening groups that support them.

Cawthon said at a time when nonprofits have been adversely affected by the pandemic, the Fiesta Especial Royal Court delivered on its promise to strengthen organizations that serve individuals living with disabilities.

Fiesta Especial, an official Fiesta event, is a community engagement initiative of disABILITYsa. The event was created for children and adults with cognitive, developmental and physical differences.

This month, the court members are making virtual appearances to online classrooms. The youth will talk about how to be disability friendly and how similarities bring people together even when they are differences.

On ExpressNews.com: Inclusion and culture celebrated at Fiesta Especial

When the 2021 Royal Court program starts in September, Fiesta Especial alumni will take part in a campaign workshop to teach the incoming class about lessons learned during their campaigns.

Fiesta Especial Marquess Raquel Whitmire said she participates in the program because she sees the value it adds to those with disabilities and believes it could also adds personal value.

Fiesta Especial will allow me the opportunity to grow my skills to become even more comfortable in social settings, she said. Also, I believe the various tasks, such as planning and raising funds, will help me to learn other skills that are important for my future growth.

Cawthon agreed.

She said the program has helped participants realize their potential, advocate for others and bring visibility to the contribution individuals with disabilities are making in the city.

At disABILITYsa, were helping to develop San Antonios future leaders and philanthropists, she said, while changing the way we think about and define disability.

Vincent T. Davis is a reporter in the Greater San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Vincent, become a subscriber. vtdavis@express-news.net | Twitter: @vincentdavis
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 02:27:38|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BAGHDAD, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi authorities on Monday imposed new health restrictions, including using odd-even vehicle rationing system, to contain the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

A statement by the office of caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said that the Higher Committee for Health and National Safety, headed by Abdul Mahdi, decided to implement the traffic restriction system as of Tuesday in accordance with instructions to be issued later by the Ministry of Interior.

The statement did not give further details about the period of validity of the decision.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Health Ministry said in a statement that it has recorded 50 new cases of COVID-19 during the past 24 hours after using 4,324 test kits across the country, bringing the total number of test kits used so far since the beginning of disease registration in Iraq to 107,586.

So far, Iraq has reported 2,246 COVID-19 cases, out of whom 98 have died while 1,544 recovered, the statement said.

The latest 50 new cases were 31 in the capital Baghdad, 14 in Basra, three in Dhi Qar and two in Muthanna, according to the statement.

The Iraqi authorities have taken several measures to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, including a nationwide curfew.

Earlier in April, the Iraqi authorities decided to partially lift the curfew from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. between April 21 and May 22 except for Friday and Saturday, which covers most of the holy month of Ramadan starting from April 24.

On April 26, a Chinese team of medical experts left Iraq after 50-day stay to support the Iraqi health system to contain the pandemic.

China has also donated medical aid to Iraq to combat the coronavirus pandemic. On March 7, China sent the first batch of medical aid to Iraq, followed by the second batch on April 8, and the third on April 20. Enditem
A special memorial page has been set up in honour of one of the key figures in saving the Derry to Belfast railway line.

Colm Joyce, who had worked for Northern Ireland Railways for many years, died suddenly last week at the age of 48.

The father-of-two had been a leading member of the Into the West group which campaigned for a better local rail service.

Despite coming in to conflict with his bosses, Mr Joyce fought strongly to ensure that the rail link between Derry and Belfast was firstly saved, and then improved.

Speaking on behalf of Into the West, Eamonn McCann said the proposal to close the railway line between Derry and Belfast would have gone ahead had Mr Joyce not alerted him and others to the situation.

"It is not putting it too high to say that if it hadn't been for Colm, there probably wouldn't be a rail link today between Derry and Belfast," he said.

More tributes have been paid to Mr Joyce on an online memorial page set up following his death.

Aaron Herbinson wrote: I've known Colm for 23 years we laughed together discussed traditional music together and ate together in the old Waterside railway rest room. I have nothing but admiration for the man and I cannot believe he's gone.

Campbell Allen wrote: What he done during the Save The Railways campaign, was priceless. He instigated the campaign, and put his own job at risk, to fight to save the Derry, and Larne lines. We owe him a great deal, for saving our jobs, and helping to create more.
HARTFORD  Middlesex County legislators have written to the governor about individuals he appointed to his reopening of Connecticut panel.

State Res. Christie Carpino, R-Cromwell, Irene Haines, R-East Haddam, Noreen Kokoruda, R-Madison, and Jesse MacLachlan, R-Westbrook, all of whom represent Middlesex County, sent a letter to Gov. Ned Lamont urging him to assemble a more inclusive team of individuals advising his Reopen Connecticut group as well as urging greater transparency, according to a press release.

The letter also identified the lack of individuals on the front line having input in the governors plan.

We have a common goal to overcome the virus. As elected officials with accountability to our communities, the legislature must play a clearer role in the planning process to reopen Connecticuts schools and economy, Carpino said in a prepared statement. We interact with constituents daily and they deserve to have both input and transparency in the roadmap of our states future. Gov. Lamont has done his best to protect public health given the unforeseen circumstances. However, community leaders, main street businesses, parents, and elected officials are untapped resources ready to help Connecticut recover.

Residents across our region have worked hard to navigate this crisis, closely following public health recommendations and executive orders. As we begin to talk about reopening, the most important role for a state representative is to listen to constituents and make sure their local concerns are addressed, Haines said in the release.

Because the coronavirus outbreak has impacted the whole of our community, the process of reopening the state requires a measured, inclusive approach, Kokoruda added. I recognize that the governors actions during this outbreak have greatly reduced the toll the virus could have potentially had on our state. Still, its important that going forward, members of the public and their elected representatives have a say in decisions being made on their behalf.

The conversation to reopen Connecticut is a very serious one and I think the preliminary and ongoing conversations we have on how, when, and which precautions we take in order to get Connecticut moving again need to include individuals who directly represent the public, said in the statement.

Although the legislature will not meet in person before May 6, their work for the year is not complete. A special session is being discussed to complete legislative business.
CellMax Life, a diagnostics company with a proprietary technology to detect pre-cancer and cancer cells in the blood, today announced new positive data from its U.S. study (Zenith) evaluating the efficacy of its FirstSight blood test in detecting colorectal adenomas and cancer. While the data was originally planned to be revealed in an oral lecture presentation at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) Symposium in Chicago on May 2-5 prior to the conferences cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now available via the DDW ePosters and ePapers site.

The results from this study show that CellMax Lifes multimodal blood test, based on its proprietary CMxTM platform, can detect pre-cancers (advanced adenomas) with 75.5% (95% CI: 61.7%-86.2%) sensitivity, at a 90% specificity, while successfully detecting colorectal cancer with 100% (95% CI: 71.5%-100%) sensitivity. The abstract titled A Highly Sensitive and Quantitative Multimodal Blood Test for the Detection of Colorectal Adenomas and Cancer, was selected from several thousand abstracts for an oral presentation by the principal investigator, Dr. Shai Friedland, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and Chief of Gastroenterology at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System. Results are from the prospective clinical study, Zenith, CellMax Lifes first U.S. clinical trial, which is being conducted at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System with several leading gastroenterologists. The findings further confirm the proof of concept studies CellMax Life had previously conducted in Asia, which were selected for podium presentation at the 2018 and 2019 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposiums.

Colorectal cancer is among the most preventable cancers when detected early. Yet, it is the second leading cancer killer in the United States. New guidelines from the American Cancer Society recommend screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) starting at age 45, down from age 50. This means that 20 million Americans from the age of 45 to 50 are newly eligible for testing. Furthermore, a shocking 33 million Americans of the eligible 112 million in the 50-plus age group have never been tested.

Until now, colonoscopies have been the only preventive-screening method with the sensitivity to accurately detect adenomas. Unfortunately, due to their invasive nature, only 38% of Americans seek this method of screening. Noninvasive options exist that are either stool- or blood-based; however, these tests miss a majority of pre-cancers  with a sensitivity as low as 22%  eliminating their preventive role per gastroenterology guidelines. It is for these reasons why most colorectal cancers are not detected earlier, when it's either preventable or when more treatment options are available and survival rates higher.

For colon cancer screening to be most effective, it is essential to detect precancerous polyps and then perform a colonoscopy to remove the polyps, said Dr. Friedland. These results are very exciting: no other non-invasive test offers this combination of convenience and high sensitivity for detecting precancerous polyps. Giving patients the option of getting a blood test for screening would undoubtedly increase compliance and thereby reduce mortality from colorectal cancer.

The study enrolled 354 patients with no prior diagnosis of colorectal cancer. Enrolled patients had blood drawn for FirstSight testing, and then immediately after, underwent a colonoscopy. Compared with existing guideline-recommended stool tests, the FirstSight blood test is superior for the detection of advanced and even non-advanced adenomas with high specificity.

There are over 50,000 colorectal cancer deaths per year in the United States. These are preventable, said Atul Sharan, co-founder and CEO of CellMax Life. Outcomes in colorectal cancer can only be changed by having a noninvasive test that can effectively detect adenomas and have high compliance.

CellMax Life continues to enroll patients at the Veterans Affairs Hospital and has now opened the study to additional sites across the United States to further validate the FirstSight blood test. While DDW was canceled, individuals can still visit the website to view the published abstract in detail, as well as CellMaxLife.com to learn more about the FirstSight blood test.

About CellMax Life

CellMax Life is a diagnostics company focused on cancer screening with proprietary technology for detecting precancer and cancer cells, and genomic markers in a single blood sample. CellMax Life is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and has a CLIA certified and CAP accredited laboratory at this location. For more information, visit http://www.cellmaxlife.com.

Media Contact:

Holly Dugan

cellmaxlife@antennagroup.com

201-465-8019
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan, North Sumatra  Mon, May 4, 2020 15:35 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5d1a4b 1 National COVID-19-in-Indonesia,North-Sumatra,healthcare-workers,doctors,nurses,eviction,Accommodation,petugas-medis,diusir,Sumatra-Utara,virus-korona-indonesia Free

The Travel Hub Hotel Kualanamu Airport has asked frontline medical workers to vacate their rooms on Saturday, as the regional government had not paid their hotel bills. The medical workers all work at G.L. Tobing Hospital in Tanjung Morawa district, Deli Serdang regency, North Sumatra, where they are treating COVID-19 patients.

The incident caught the public eye after Facebook user Joniar Nainggolan uploaded a livestream of the eviction on Saturday.

Until today, these medical workers have been working for a month without pay. I wish President Joko Jokowi Widodo would take action on this matter, Joniar wrote in the caption.

Rudi Rahmadsyah Sambas, the chairman of the North Sumatra Indonesian General Practitioners Association (PDUI Sumut) who also volunteers at G.L. Tobing Hospital, confirmed the eviction of medical workers from the hotel.

I was still working that morning when I suddenly got a notification to vacate the hotel room immediately. It confused us, he said.

Read also: Doctors resign from COVID-19 referral hospital in North Sumatra over incentives

North Sumatra Health Agency head Alwi Mujahit Hasibuan said that the provincial administrations troubled finances was partly to blame for the incident.

As we are experiencing a funding shortage, we have asked medical workers to share rooms, one room for two persons. However, they rejected the idea, so the [eviction] happened, Alwi said on Sunday.

Alwi added that the administration had spent nearly Rp 1 billion (US$66,000) on the 80 medical workers it had put up at the hotel, excluding transportation and the workers' salaries. Nonetheless, he promised to settle the medical workers' hotel bills on Monday.

Earlier on April 9, Home Minister Tito Karnavian said that the North Sumatra governor had pledged to triple the region's COVID-19 budget to Rp 1.5 trillion, which also included a stimulus package for the regional economy.

On Sunday, North Sumatra recorded 123 confirmed cases and 13 deaths, while the nationwide tally had increased to 11,192 cases and 845 deaths. (trn)
Terrorists killed in Handwara were active in forests for two weeks

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, May 04: The two terrorists who were killed Handwara were part of a seven member group who tried to infiltrate on April 5. Five of the terrorists were killed while they were trying to infiltrate.

However, two of them escaped and managed to infiltrate. Haider from Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Asif from Handwara were seen in the forested area for the past two weeks. The intelligence had also received inputs about their presence in the area. The two terrorists were heavily armed.

300 terrorists from Pakistan waiting to infiltrate: Intel

Vijay Kumar, IG Kashmir Range, however, said that Haider was not part of the group of seven who had infiltrated. He said that Haider was a top commander of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and had been active in the Lolab, Sogam and Handwara areas. He was the mastermind behind the recent killing of the three CRPF jawans in Sopore, he also said. Haider had also killed several civilians, Kumar also said.
In the category of things some of us hadnt thought enough about before this moment: Vincent was an avid and multilingual reader, a man who could not do without books. In his brief life he devoured hundreds of them in four languages, spanning centuries of art and literature. Throughout his life, his reading habits reflected his various personaeart dealer, preacher, painterand were informed by his desire to learn, discuss, and find his own way to be of service to humanity.  LitHub
A Turkish lady shared her grief of being alone while pregnant for a Nigerian man, in an Instalive conversation with popular comedian, Michael Blackson.



Recounting her ordeal, the lady disclosed that she was bitten on her stomach by the Nigerian man before he fled. She also disclosed that she now ''hates'' Yoruba men because of the incident.



On how she has been surviving after the incident, she said her friends have been helping her out. She also revealed that she wants the Nigerian man to pay for child support, as she has been taking care of their child all alone.



Watch the video below;















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
Director of Elections for the Convention People's Party (CPP), James Kwabena Bomfeh Jnr., is advising media practitioners in the country to be professional in the discharge of the duties, ensuring they become a beacon of truth to the society.



Mr Bomfeh, popularly called Kabilla, was addressing issues regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the Ghanaian economy.



According to him, since the media is regarded as the fourth estate of the realm, and in its mandate, is responsible for disseminating information to masses in the country, it is very crucial what the media feeds the general public with or injects into the society for consumption.



" . . and moreso in light of the outbreak of the Coronavirus, otherwise called COVID-19; the media must embark on a rigorous mission to get the people rightly informed . . . because misreporting could jeopardize the aim and objectives in fighting the virus.



"Since people process what the media shares with them, the role of the media cannot be underrated in all spheres of the economy," he stated.



Making his submissions on Monday edition of 'Kokrokoo' on Peace FM, Kabila reminded the media of the need to be the mirror of the nation, and therefore charged journalists to reflect facts on national issues.



He decried attempts by media practitioners to engage in yellow journalism or sensationalism that tends to distort the truth.



Yellow journalism uses the technique of exaggeration of news to attract readers, listeners or viewers.



Kabilla asked journalists to be circumspect in their reportage emphasizing that "if the practice of journalism mirrors society, we should be careful the kind of mirror we choose to be. We should reports facts and truth. And also as we report the issues, we must provide solutions when they are available not just discussing the problems".





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Research into quantum techniques to more quickly detect explosives and exotic types of quantum camouflage have received funding from the U.S. Department of Defenses 2020 Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program.

The four faculty members who have been awarded projects in the competitive funding program are members of the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute in Purdue's Discovery Park.

The highly competitive, tri-service MURI program is supported by the Army Research Office, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Office of Naval Research. Of the 365 projects nominated, only 26 were chosen via a merit-based review. According to the Department of Defense, the MURI program convenes teams of multiple disciplines to facilitate the growth of new technologies to solve the DoDs unique problems.

Theresa Mayer, executive vice president for research and partnerships, said that these are prestigious awards and reflect the leading research and capabilities of the Quantum Science and Engineering Institute.

"Purdue has a long history of supporting DoD missions, and it continues with these MURI projects to develop quantum technologies," she said. Quantum science and engineering will revolutionize national security, and scientists in Purdue's Quantum Science and Engineering Institute are excited to support these efforts to secure the United States superiority in this area.

Christopher Greene, Purdue's Albert Overhauser Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and co-founder of the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute, will lead Purdue's role in a project titled New Approaches to Quantum Control with Individual Molecule Sensitivity."

"This work will seek to control individual atoms in order to fully embrace and leverage their quantum effects," Greene said. "This could lead to improved detectors for biological, chemical and explosive agents, and precise quantum control that can lead to advanced materials design."

This project is led by Harvard University. Other participating institutions are the University of Colorado, Boulder; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and, the University of Maryland, College Park.

The second project is titled "Novel Light-Matter Interactions in Topologically Non-Trivial Weyl Semimetal Structures and Systems." It is led by Alexandra Boltasseva (Purdue lead), professor of electrical and computer engineering, and an inaugural Discovery Park Fellow; and Yong Chen, Purdue's Karl Lark-Horovitz Professor of Physics and Astronomy, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and the inaugural director of the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute.

"We are very much excited to team up with the leading groups on this exciting topic, Boltasseva said. Led by professor Mercedeh Khajavikhan from University of Southern California, our team will pursue the search of unintuitive new materials and systems that exhibit exotic electronic and optoelectronic properties, specifically those stemming from unique topological states, and truly represent a new phase of matter."

Additional contributors to this project include Vladimir Shalaev, Purdue's Robert and Anne Burnett Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and co-founder of the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute.

This project will be led by researchers from the University of Southern California and conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Central Florida, Northeastern University and the University of Tennessee.

About Discovery Park

Discovery Park is a place where Purdue researchers move beyond traditional boundaries, collaborating across disciplines and with policymakers and business leaders to create solutions for a better world. Grand challenges of global health, global conflict and security, and those that lie at the nexus of sustainable energy, world food supply, water and the environment are the focus of researchers in Discovery Park. The translation of discovery to impact is integrated into the fabric of Discovery Park through entrepreneurship programs and partnerships.

About the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute

Located in Discovery Park, PQSEI fosters the development of practical and impactful aspects of quantum science, and focuses on discovering and studying new materials and basic physical quantum systems that will be suited for integration into tomorrows technology. It encourages interdisciplinary collaboration leading to the design and realization of industry-friendly quantum devices with enhanced functionality and performance close to the fundamental limits. PQSEI lays out strategies for the design of systems based on these devices in order to bring these new levels of functionality and performance to a vast community of users.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked the No. 6 Most Innovative University in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at purdue.edu.

Media Contact: Steve Tally, 765-494-9809, steve@purdue.edu, @sciencewriter

Source: Theresa Mayer, executive vice president for research and partnerships
Monday, May 4th, 2020 (9:41 am) - Score 9,018

The parent of mobile operator O2 UK, Telefonica, has this morning confirmed last weeks speculation  via a brief filing to Spains market regulator  that theyve officially opened merger talks with the parent (Liberty Global) of UK cable broadband ISP and TV operator Virgin Media. But no deal has been agreed and the talks could still fail.

The two paragraph long statement merely confirms that the negotiation phase has started and there is no guarantee, at this point, of its precise terms or its probability of success, although the operator has promised to keep markets informed if a satisfactory agreement can be done.

In the past weve seen similar talks between Vodafone and Virgin Medias parent (here and here), but nothing ever came of those. On the other hand a deal with the behemoth that is Vodafone would be a more complicated proposition, while a deal for O2 might be smoother.

Nevertheless Telefonica have also been linked with similar discussions in the past, which never amounted to anything, but perhaps this time will be different.

TELEFONICA, S.A. (Telefonica) in compliance with the Securities Market legislation, hereby communicates the following: INSIDE INFORMATION In relation to the news published in some media regarding the discussions with Liberty Global on a potential integration of their respective telecommunications businesses in the United Kingdom, Telefonica informs that the process initiated by both parties is in a negotiation phase, not being able to guarantee, to this date, neither the precise terms nor the probability of its success. In the event of a satisfactory agreement on this potential transaction, Telefonica will communicate such information to the markets. Madrid, 4 May 2020. SPANISH NATIONAL SECURITIES MARKET COMMISSION

As weve said before, a deal between Virgin Medias fixed line broadband network and a dedicated mobile operator, such as O2, makes a lot of sense on the convergence front. O2 would gain plenty of access to feed their existing 4G and future 5G mobile network with data capacity from fixed lines, while VM could take on BT (EE) and perhaps develop a seamless all-IP network of its own (between fixed and mobile) with competitive bundles.

The exact structure of any deal is open the speculation, although assuming the agreement doesnt eventually coalesce around a single brand (e.g. BT and EE retained their brands) then we could eventually see O2 re-entering the UK fixed broadband market (after selling their old fixed base to Sky some years ago) via Virgin Medias platform (or Liberty Networks if they proceed with a proposal to split off their fibre into a separate wholesale company).

However, one of several potential problems here could be the fact that Virgin Media has already signed a 5-year contract with Vodafone, which will see the latter taking over their Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) platform from EE (BT).

Under that deal Virgin Mobile will start to transition on to Vodafones network from the end of 2021 (here), but its not too late to change that (provided a merger agreement can be reached soon), although there may be a cost to exiting the contract.

The other issue is that such a deal may result in O2 losing some of their MVNO customers, such as Sky Broadband (Sky Mobile), which may seek to work with Three UK or Vodafone instead. But that might become less contentious if Sky UK also reaches a long rumoured agreement to take a wholesale broadband solution from Virgin Media (most likely as part of a Liberty Networks split).

Telefonica has of course been looking to float or sell O2 UK in order to reduce their debt, although in the past year they appeared to have given up on that course and were instead focusing upon a plan to improve their UK network. In any case we cant see any major regulatory obstacles to a deal with the cable giant, unlike O2 and Three UKs failed attempt to merge a few years ago (blocked by the EU and Ofcom over competition concerns).

One other thing worth mentioning here is Ofcoms forthcoming auction of 5G spectrum, which could have a significant impact on O2s value. In the past Telefonica has suggested that any Initial Public Offering (IPO) might have to wait until that completes, although O2 itself has just threatened a legal challenge that may complicate matters (here).

Any merger would naturally leave Vodafone and Three UK as the only two mobile operators without their own fixed line base, although Vodafone has forged close wholesale ties with both Openreach (BT) and Cityfibre for fibre products. Some have however speculated that the talks with O2 may just be a ploy by Liberty Global to sniff out a better deal with Vodafone, but a deal could work with either operator.

UPDATE 1:38pm

Some readers have asked if we can paste in the full market statement from Telefonica, which Ive done above. We also contacted Virgin Media about this and were given a no comment response, which is interesting because wed normally expect both sides to make such a confirmation.
After rallying over 14 percent in April, all eyes are on the month of May which is often linked with the age-old Wall Street saying Sell in May and Go away.

It is an investment strategy in which investors sell stock in May and re-enter markets in early November. Its based on the belief that the market produces lower returns from May to October.

In terms of benchmark returns, bulls have managed to push the index in the green almost 60 percent of the time in May in the last 10 years, while there has been some selling from foreign investors as they remain net sellers 50 percent of the times in the same period.

Nifty50 closed in the green in 6 out of the last 10 years, data from AceEquity showed.

The Nifty50 jumped nearly 8 percent in May 2014, followed by a 4 percent rally in May 2016 and a 3.4 percent gain in May 2017  three of the biggest gains in May in the last 10 years.

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 the other hand, Nifty fell four times in May in the last 10 years  in 2012 (over 6 percent), 2010 (3.6 percent), 2011 (3.2 percent), and 2018 (0.03 percent).

Most experts feel that the age-old saying might just come true for D-Street in 2020 because the 30 percent rally from the March lows was more of a relief rally, and investors will be better off booking profits at higher levels.

At the current level, we have a cautious view in the market, unless the global health environment improves with a better treatment & vaccination in the future. We term this as a bear rally, the sustainability of which is difficult in the short-term given rising cascading economy effect, Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services told Moneycontrol

We are advising traders to capitalise on this rally and book gains in the near-term. Long-term investors can accumulate in the dip, he said.

Investors wealth rose by nearly Rs 16 lakh crore in April. The average market capitalisation of the BSE-listed companies grew from Rs 113.48 lakh crore from March 31 to Rs 129.41 lakh crore recorded on April 30.

D-Street seems to be taking comfort in the fact that the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) for the investigational antiviral remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients.

Apart from the use of new drugs, investors are also pinning hopes on second stimulus package from the government to cushion the economic impact of COVID-19 on India.

But, a possible Trade War between the US and China could derail the market recovery. The US President Donald Trump said his administration was crafting retaliatory measures against China as punishment for the coronavirus outbreak, once again sparking tariff fears that rattled markets through much of the last two years, said a Reuters report.

Domestic markets have been mirroring the directions from the US markets. Positives start, as the Indian market is taking cues from the international markets, driven by the success of the Gilead drug and expectations of stimulus and partial opening up of the economy in green, Pankaj Bobade, Head- Fundamental Research, Axis Securities Limited told Moneycontrol.

It is too early to talk about the market movements for the month of May. The political activities on the international platforms are heating up, which are likely to have an impact on international market movements, he said.

FII Activity:

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) pulled out more than Rs 65,000 crore from the cash segment of the Indian equity markets in March, as per provisional data, and little over Rs 5,000 crore in April.

If we look at the historical data, they have net sellers about 50 percent of the time in the last 10 years in May. FIIs were net sellers of equities worth nearly Rs 21,000 crore in May 2013, followed by Rs 16,000 crore outflows in May 2014, and nearly Rs 10,000 crore selloff recorded in May 2019.

On the other hand, mutual funds were mostly net buyers in the last ten years in the month of May. They poured in more than Rs 13,000 crore in May 2018, followed by over Rs 9,000 crore buying in May 2017, and over Rs 7,000 crore in May 2016.

: 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.
INTRODUCTION

It is universally acknowledge that justice, equity and fairness to all citizens irrespective of ethnic, religious and political affiliation are pre-requisite for peaceful co-existence and national integration. Consequently, chapter II section 15 subsection (2) of the Constitution of Nigeria as amended Stated: Accordingly, national integration shall be actively encouraged, while discrimination on the grounds of place of origin, sex, religions, ethnic or linguistic association or ties shall be prohibited.

Contrary to this fundamental constitutional provision and international practice, the Tiv people of Southern Taraba State have been facing serious genocide attacks on account of their tribe and faith in the hands of Jukun ethnic group of Southern Taraba who have arrogated to themselves the exclusive right and ownership of the geographical space called Southern Taraba State.

The Tiv communities in the area have been living in difficult conditions due to the persistent state of provocation and insecurity including intimidation, premeditated violence and bloodletting which resulted in the mass killings and total displacement of the Tiv communities in some local government areas such like Bali, Donga, Gassol, Ibi, Takum and Wukari in the last four decades.

The recurrent violence across Southern Taraba has received widespread publicity in the media, including the most recent disturbances in parts of Wukari, Gassol, Donga, Ibi and Takum LGAs.

In order to put the records straight, THE MOVEMENT FOR THE SURVIVAL OF TIV TARABA (MOSTT) wish to state as follows:-

THE RECENT CRISES IN SOUTHERN TARABA STATE

The recent conflicts that are widely reported as the Southern Taraba Killings can be split into three phases: A) the Kente saga; B) the Dan  Anacha incident, and C) the Takum Massacre.

A) THE KENTE SAGA AND ITS RAMIFICATIONS

Kente is a rustic settlement in Wukari area of Taraba, sharing boundary with Ukum local government area of Benue State.

On the 1st April 2019, there was a minor disagreement, arising from sales of yams in a market bordering Taraba and Benue States. This resulted to the burning down of 15 settlements on that fateful day.

These acts of in-justice and hopelessness forced the Tiv communities in the area to respond in self-defense.

There after, there were coordinated attacks on the Tiv communities in Wukari, Ibi and Donga LGAs. At the same time illegal roadblocks were mounted by the Jukun militia along many roads that traversed Southern Taraba State leading to the periodic killing of innocent Tiv people on transit.

Some of the cases recorded from April 2019 to April 2020 include:-

On 09/04/19, the village of late Andrew M. Nenshi, former Chairman of due process Taraba State, in Wukari LGA.was looted and burnt down by the Jukun militia.

On 20/09/19, Tiv passengers were slaughtered opposite Wukari LGA. secretariat.

On 21/09/19, nine (9) Tiv travellers were slaughtered by Jukun militia between Jootar and Wukari.

On 25/09/19, Leke village in Ukum LGA. was attacked by Jukun militia. Two (2) Tiv were killed.

On 10/10/19, Torkuma Atsongoaya in Tor-Musa village in Wukari LGA. was slaughtered.

On 28/09/19, Tse Akume in Donga LGA. was razed down by Jukun militia.

On 17/10/19, four (4) Tiv passengers were killed by Jukun militia in Byepi, after successfully blocking Wukari  Jalingo highway.

On 08/11/19, Tse -Gboo village in Donga LGA. was attacked two (2) Tiv were killed by Jukun militia.

On 13/11/19, Gbor-Gbor settlement in Wukari LGA was attacked one church was destroyed.

On 14/11/19 four (4) Tiv travellers were killed in Gidan Idi by Jukun militia after blocking the highway.

On 19/11/19, Tiv women were attacked in Akwana in Wukari LGA

On 29/11/19 four (4) Tiv travellers were killed by Jukun when they block highway in Byepi Wukari LGA.

On 3/12/19, one Aondoungwa was slaughtered in his farm by Jukun militia in Kasuan Shanu in Wukari LGA.

On 06/12/19,Tse Nembe near Vaase was burnt down by Jukun militia.

On 16/12/19 Tse Karkighir in Wukari LGA. was attacked, one injured.

On 21/12/19 seven (7) Tiv travellers were abducted and killed when their car had a flat tyre in Wukari yam Market.

On 13/01/20, Zegeate village, in Wukari LGA. was attacked one Ukor was killed in his home when he return to rebuild his house in

On 14/01/20, Tse Kyamgbaki was attacked one person was killed. The same day, Jukun militias attacked Kasuan Shanu in Wukari LGA. Three (3) Tiv people were killed.

On 06/02/20, Ibua village Ibi LGA of Taraba State was attacked two (2) people were killed



On 13/02/20 two (2) Tiv killed in Ikyaior in Wukari LGA. when the people had returned to rebuild their homes. Thesame day, two (2) Tiv killed as Jukun militias block highway from Byepi.

On 21/02/20, Tor Iorshagher in Wukari LGA. was attacked where two (2) people lost their lives. The same day, one Clement Kosum was attacked in Wukari metropolis where he attended a peace meeting,

but was rescued by the police.

On 26/02/20, Tse Mdondo was attacked, one (1) person was killed in Wukari LGA.

On 11/03/20, Tse Utsea in Wukari LGA. was attacked and four (4) people were killed

On 17/03/2020, Tse Ikyum in Donga LGA. was attacked one (1) person was killed.

On 8 Apri, 2020, Jukun militias attacked Jootar for the second time.

On 22/04/2020, the Nigerian Army in collaboration with Jukun militia attacked and burnt down Tse-Ankough, a Tiv settlement in Mbagen, Torov Ukum Local Government Area of Benue State.

THE DAN-ANACHA INCIDENT

Dan-Anacha is a Tiv settlement in Gassol local government area. It is also the economic backbone of Taraba State. It is situated along Wukari  Jalingo Federal highway.

On 23/11/19, crises started over erection of signboard that changed the name of the town from Dan-Anacha a Tiv name to Kwararafa a Jukun name at a Day secondary School in the town.

Since then there have been series of attacks on the settlement by Jukun militia.



On 26/11/19, Jukun militia attacked Dan-Anacha looting and burning down Samuel Eremtsa house.

On 27-28/11/19 Dan Anacha was again attacked by Jukun militia many houses were razed down and properties destroyed.

On 11/12/19, Agbu Dauda was arrested with his gang members on their way to attack Dan Anacha. However, they were later released by the Nigerian Army.

On 16/12/19, Richard Bawa another notorious Jukun militia was arrested after attacking Dan Anacha, eight (8) houses were destroyed. Bawa was later released by the Nigerian Army.

On 29/12/19, Naguru village in Gassol LGA. was attacked Two were killed.

On 10 /01/20 Dan Anacha was attacked.

12/01/20 Dan Anacha was attacked four (4) people were killed.

On 28/01/20 Daniel Mbaterem house was razed down by Jukun militia in Dan Anacha Gassol LGA.

17/03/20, one (1) person killed in Dan Anacha hospital shooting.



On 06/04/2020 two (2)Tiv people were attacked in their farms in Dan Anacha, Gassol LGA.

THE TAKUM MASSACRE

Takum local government area of Taraba State is home to Governor Darius and T.Y Danjuma.

Trouble started on Tuesday morning July 30th 2019, when a Jukun man was killed on his farm along Takum- Wukari road and irate Jukun youths in Takum took the law into their hands. They went on the rampage, killing no fewer than eight (8) Tiv people on that fateful day.

Subsequent attacks on Tiv settlements recorded from July to August 2019, include:-

i. The looting and burning down of Tse-Akenawe.

ii. The looting, burning and demolition of Tortsee market.

iii. The looting and burning down of Tse-Ajayi.

iv. The looting and demolition of Yongogba.

v. The burning and looting of NKST Church Jato.

vi. The looting and burning down of Imade-Ade.

vii. The burning down of Tse-Adekpe near New-Gboko by Nigerian Army.

vii. The burning of Tse-Lijam.

viii. The looting and burning of Akase.

ix. The burning, looting and demolition of Tor-Ikergba village.

x. The total demolition, and looting in Tse-Yange

xi. The demolition of Tse Mhambe.

xii. The burning down of Tse-Wende.

DRIVERS AND AGENTS OF THE RECENT VIOLENCE

Generally the driving factor for the recurrent of violence in Southern Taraba State is a the pathological hatred for Tiv and the fear of domination that has been instilled in the minds of the

Jukuns by their rulers and elites.

Since 1870s Aku Uka Awudu Manu Abiten (1871-1903) was already at war with the growing Tiv factor in his domain.

Regardless of what everybody may think, the Tiv ethnic group have been part and parcel of Southern Taraba for over 300 years.

It is an acknowledge fact that, the 1932 population census in the defunct Wukari Federation which comprises of Wukari district, Takum district and Donga district clearly shows that Tiv population surpassed those of other ethnic groups like the Jukun and Chamba.

SUB-GROUP TOTAL

Abakwariga 1,988

Dinyi (Chamba) 3,609

Fulani 3,125

Hausa 6,066

Bafun 267

Jukun 11,008

Kentu (Ichen) 6,656

Tiv 15,256

Wurbo 1,355

SOURCE: NAK, SNP 13/14, 1932- 33, Wukari Division Annual Report

No.4 by Captain H.S.Bredel, D.O.

The above demographic

representation clearly demonstrates that the Tiv had, at this time, 1932, assumed a central position in Wukari Federation.

Consequently, the 1947 census put the Tiv population as 34% of Wukari Federation, while the Jukun were listed among the others who were 64%.

It was noted that the Tiv people officially outnumbered the Jukun as shown in the table below  hence, the Tiv are the single largest ethnic group in the defunct Wukari Federation :

TRIBEPOPULATION

Tiv4O,400

Kuteb.26,284

Jakun26,284

Ichen.10,867

Hausa6,775

Chamba5,287

Others4,500

Source: National Archives Kaduna (NAK/MAK/Prof. 4377)

RECOMMENDATIONS

We the Tiv ethnic group of Southern Taraba State have suffered undue bloodshed and destruction. Yet we were been unduly prosecuted and marginalized by the media, Government, civil society organizations,without giving us a fair-hearing. Thus, we appeal to media houses, the National Human Rights Commission and NGOs such as Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project among others to always verify facts before coming to conclusion on critical issues like this.

We strongly condemn the taking of innocent lives and support all Government efforts aim at restoring peaceful co-existence.

Thus, we make the following recommendations:

1. Immediate creation of chiefdoms for Tiv in Taraba state, particularly in Wukari, Takum, Donga, Bali, Gassol and Ibi LGAs.

2. The Government should immediately reverse all Tiv Towns and Villages renamed to appropriate Jukun names.

3. The federal government should review, update and enforce all laws relating to citizenship in Nigeria to ensure the equality of all under the law.

4. There is the need for increased security surveillance on the highways and community roads to checkmate the ambush and killing of innocent travellers.

5. Government should consider the payment of compensation to victims and support the resettlement of displace persons affected or displaced from 2001 to date.

CONCLUSION

The contemporary history of the Southern Taraba for the last four (4) decades is a history of violence, bloodshed and gross abuse of fundamental right of the Tiv majority by the Jukun of the area but because the victims are voiceless the matter was always swept under the carpet. We have been crying for justice and the records are well documented.

These sad development in Southern Taraba State negativity the principle of equity, justice and fairness and all the that the constitution guarantees.

SIGNED:

Citizen John Akevi

National President, Movement for the Survival of Tiv Taraba (MOSTT)

Tel: 07037017010, 08188188081
New Delhi, May 4 : As part of his conversation series, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is set hold a talk with Nobel laureate Prof Abhijit Banerjee on the economic impact of COVID-19 on Tuesday which will be streamed live on social media platforms of the party.

The Congress party tweeted: "Rahul Gandhi in conversation with Nobel laureate, Prof Abhijit Banerjee discussing the critical issues of COVID-19 and its economic impact." Rahul Gandhi has started a series of talk shows to speak about Covid-19 and how the country can come back on track economically. In the conversations he has stressed that India needs more testing Last week Rahul Gandhi talked with former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan in which Rajan suggested that Rs 65,000 crore is needed to help the poor in the country.

Rajan had said that there should be effort to give money to the poor through DBT to MNREGA ,old age pension and also support through PDS .

Rajan said that India needs to be cleverer in lifting the lockdown as it has limited capacity to feed the poor.

"There are ways the country can take advantage but I think there will be no positive impact of this situation as there may be rethinking in global economy."
British Sikh doctors are campaigning for a better procurement strategy by the National Health Service for personal protective equipment required on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic in hospitals after a number of them were forced away from key roles due to their beards.

The Sikh Doctors Association had reports of at least five Sikhs being moved out of their usual shift rota at the NHS hospitals for refusing to shave their beards and failing a so-called fit test of critical facial protective gear.

These doctors got in touch with us in some distress for being forced out of their usual roles, which was causing tension among colleagues as they had to cover their work, said Dr Sukhdev Singh, chairperson of the Sikh Doctors Association.

The problem arose due to a shortage of specialist facial protective masks called Powdered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPRs), which is a hood respirator required in critical areas such as intensive care units. The fit tests' and equipment need to be geared towards all staff needs, including orthodox Sikhs with turbans and beards, he said.

All the individual cases of the five British Sikh doctors have since been resolved through acquisition of PAPRs, a more expensive but reusable kit costing around GBP 1,000.

The association is now working with individual NHS Trusts and more widely with the NHS England to ensure there is greater awareness around procuring such specialist protective gear in sufficient quantities well in time. The regular cloth FFP3 masks would not work with beards, a factor that could impact other communities such as Muslims as well.

The system of procurement cannot continue blindly. There has to be greater interaction and surveys done to ensure that specific staff requirements are taken on board so that there is sufficient stock of the right kind of PPE available in times of crisis such as a pandemic, added Singh.

Sikh Council UK has also been liaising with the NHS England alongside the association over the issue and had written to Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive officer of NHS England, last month seeking his intervention over greater clarity on fit tests and taking religious sensitivities into account.

It has come to our attention that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NHS Trusts around the United Kingdom will be carrying out 'fit tests' in which certain medical staff could be asked to remove facial hair, the council said.

For Sikhs, their duty of care is intrinsically interlinked with their faith. Therefore, we ask that no Sikh healthcare professional is forcibly made to choose between breaking their faith or breaking their frontline NHS role, it noted.

NHS England has since confirmed that reasonable adjustments would be made.

I wholeheartedly agree that reasonable adjustments should be made by providers in this area. As such, in my weekly discussions with trust medical directors and chief nurses from NHS trusts I will state this clearly as a reminder, Stephen Powis, the National Medical Director of the NHS England, said in response.

The short supply of PPE has been a major issue for NHS hospitals tackling the highly infectious coronavirus, with the government under considerable pressure over the lack of enough protective gear for frontline staff. Several private fundraising efforts have also been launched to raise enough funds to produce and procure required facial masks and aprons.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mount Sinai Hospital has confirmed reports of new and unusual COVID-19 illness in pediatric patients, NBC Boston reports.

Dr. George Ofori, pediatric critical care director for Mount Sinai Kravis Childrens Hospital, told NBC, "Some of the cases that we are currently treating entered our care presenting with symptoms such as abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and a low-grade fever. Others presented first with a rash, conjunctivitis, and/or cracked lips.

Symptoms include a fever lasting longer than five days, rash, gastrointestinal symptoms, red eyes and swollen hands and feet, NBC reports.

Dr. Ofori noted some patients developed heart problems and low blood pressure, which led to shock. Some of the patients had been diagnosed with COVID-19 two to three weeks before the symptoms developed, NBC reports.

Whether the underlying condition is COVID-19 or the bodys response to COVID-19 is not known at this time," Dr. Ofori told NBC. While it is too early to definitively say what is causing this we believe it is important to alert the public as to what we are seeing.

According to NBC, Cohen Childrens Hospital on Long Island has also seen about a dozen critically ill pediatric patients in the past two weeks with similar inflammatory symptoms.

We now have at least about 12 patients in our hospital that are presenting in a similar fashion, that we think have some relation to a [COVID-19] infection, Dr. James Schneider, director of pediatric critical care at Cohen Childrens Hospital in Nassau, told NBC. Its something were starting to see around the country.

Cohen, NBC reports, is one of several local hospitals with pediatricians concerned about the recent influx of previously healthy children who have developed critical illnesses resembling Toxic Shock Syndrome and Kawasaki disease. Kawasaki disease is an autoimmune disease that is caused by a viral infection, and, if not treated properly, can cause life-threatening damage to the arteries and heart, according to NBC.

Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Nadine Choueiter of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx told NBC the cases are rare, but noted, "Yes, we are seeing them and its important to talk about it to raise awareness so as pediatricians we look for these symptoms and treat them.

According to NBC, Cohen Childrens Hospital currently has a dozen cases, and Mount Sinais number of cases in their pediatric ICU grew by several this week, up from two cases reported on April 28.

Pediatricians, NBC reports, are noting that besides the serious inflammatory symptoms, many children are testing positive for COVID-19 or the antibodies. Some of the children are testing negative for the coronavirus as well, and are believed to have been exposed to the virus by immediate family members. Doctors are working together to figure out if its COVID-19 triggering the immune system.

The interesting part is only now are we seeing these patients show up, Dr. Schneider remarked to NBC. Is this a typical surge in Kawasaki disease or is this the typical post-infectious response to a Covid infection?

Since health officials do not require these symptoms to be tracked in children, its difficult to determine whether or not these cases are related to COVID-19, NBC wrote.

The New York City Health Department is now looking into these cases, according to NBC.

We are looking closely at this, Oxiris Barbot, commissioner of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told NBC. My team has reached out to the pediatric hospitals to get more information about specific cases that they have concerns are indicating an inflammatory cardiovascular response in children that had not been previously observed.

Related Content:
It was stated that only those who had obvious symptoms were tested

"head" of occupation authorities of Crimea RIA Novosti

The "head" of the occupation authorities of the annexed Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, said that there were more people infected with COVID-19 than it had been detected, Crimea. Realities reported.

According to Aksenov, only those who have obvious symptoms of SARS, influenza, and pneumonia are tested for coronavirus.

"In Crimea, there may also be a negative scenario for the development of the coronavirus situation. If the detection process goes with obvious signs, then in theory, in the negative prognosis we can destroy all our observatories and hospitals. Yet, God forbid, healthcare workers will be infected, then we may lose healthcare facilities altogether. This is a negative outlook. Its probability is quite high, he said.

As we reported earlier, commander of Ukraine's Joint Forces Volodymyr Kravchenko stated that district administrations of the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions hid information about the incidence of Covid-19.

He said the vast majority of cases that had similar symptoms to coronavirus were qualified by doctors as pneumonia or SARS.
The office of the secretary of the Senate responded late Monday to say it was advised by legal counsel that even disclosing the existence of such records would amount to a prohibited disclosure under the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991. The office said it was not aware of any exceptions in the law allowing it to disclose any records, even to original participants in a matter. In response to the campaigns third question, the office attached a public document from the time of the alleged complaint titled Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices  the entity which Bauer referred to in his question and which the secretary of the Senate referenced in its initial response to Biden.
Read what is in the news today:

Politics

 Vietnams Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Transport, and representative offices in the United States are actively working to assist national carrier Vietnam Airlines in clearing necessary procedures and looking for suitable options to bring Vietnamese citizens in the U.S. back home at the earliest possible date, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.

Society

 Vietnam logged no new cases of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Monday morning. The national tally remains at 271, with 219 recoveries.

 Vietnams Company for Vaccine and Biological Production No.1 (VABIOTECH), a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Health, has begun testing its COVID-19 vaccine on lab mice, joining around 70-80 COVID-19 vaccine developers in the world that have reached this stage, its director has said.

 The Central Inspection Commission of the Communist Party of Vietnam concluded at a meeting on Sunday that Quang Ngai Provinces Party chief Le Viet Chu and chairman Tran Ngoc Cang had had serious violations and shortcomings in their leadership and direction in the management of land, state budget, public investment projects, and human resources, which calls for disciplinary action.

 Roads connecting Ho Chi Minh City with neighboring Dong Nai Province and the Mekong Delta region were heavily congested on Sunday afternoon as droves of people headed back to the southern metropolis for work after a four-day holiday break.

 All people arriving from abroad in Ho Chi Minh City will from now on be quarantined at centralized facilities and sampled for COVID-19 testing four times  on the first, fifth, tenth, and last day of their mandatory 14-day quarantine period  instead of just two times on the first and last day as before, the municipal Center for Disease Control said on Sunday.

 Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Sunday attended a ceremony to inaugurate a VND1.4 trillion (US$60.2 million) interchange south of Binh Bridge and the Bac Son  Nam Hai arterial road in the northern city of Hai Phong, aiming to connect the northern port citys eastern and western areas.

Lifestyle

 A photo of the Golden Bridge in Da Nang has defeated over 10,000 submissions to win the top prize of $1,000 in the #Architecture2020 photography contest hosted by photo app Agora, which asked photographers to send in snaps of their favorite man-made structures.

Education

 Students in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang are among those returning to school for the first time on Monday after a three-month school closure due to COVID-19.

World News

 The novel coronavirus has infected over 3.56 million people and killed more than 248,100 others around the world, according to statistics. More than 1.15 million patients have recovered from the disease.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
With no fresh case of Covid-19 reported from Mohali on Monday and seven persons were discharged after recovery, the tally of those recovered in the district is now 43. Of the total 95 cases in Mohali, 50 are still battling the infection.

Of the seven patients discharged from Gian Sagar Hospital near Banur, five are from Jawaharpur village in Dera Bassi and the other two belong to Nayagaon.

Mohalis civil surgeon Dr Manjit Singh said the Jawaharpur residents will not be sent home as a precaution. They will stay at a quarantine facility at Nirankari Bhawan in Dera Bassi for another 14 days. The two Nayagaon residents will be sent home but they have been asked to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days. Health teams will keep track of their health regularly, he said.

The doctor added that 27 patients from Jawaharpur alone have recovered so far, and the remaining patients, who are undergoing treatment at Gian Sagar Hospital, are stable.

The civil surgeon again appealed to the public to not leave their homes or visit hospitals unless the need is urgent. Instead, they should contact the health departments helpline 104 for expert advice. He urged people to wash hands frequently and keep a healthy distance from each other.

District epidemiologist Dr Renu Singh and Dr Harmandeep Kaur were also present on the occasion.
04.05.2020 LISTEN

Some 19 Burkinabe nationals have been arrested at the Savelugu inland post in the Northern Region for sneaking into Ghana.

They have subsequently been repatriated.

According to the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), the Burkinabe nationals were onboard an OA transport vehicle with registration number GT 8242-19 en route to Accra when they were arrested.

A statement from the GIS said the Burkinabes who used unapproved routes into the country attempted to bribe the men at the post to allow them to continue their journey, but the officials rejected the offer.

Upon interrogation, it was revealed that they used unapproved routes into the country. Each of them offered GHS100 to the officers to be allowed to continue their journey. This, the officers rejected, the release disclosed.

The officers asked that they are sent back. The driver of the vehicle was very cooperative with the officers. Due to the fact that some Ghanaian nationals who were also onboard the vehicle could be inconvenienced, a call was placed to the manager on the OA Transport company, named Kingsley, who arranged for another vehicle from Tamale to convey them back to the Paga Border post to be repatriated.

Ghana has closed its land, sea, and air borders and is not allowing the movement of public buses except it is transporting goods and cargo.

The move is part of efforts to stop the spread of Coronavirus in the country, yet some foreigners continue to illegally find their way into Ghana.

Since the border closure, about 40 Burkinabe nationals have been arrested in the Northern part of the country using unapproved routes to enter the country.

---citinewsroom
Premier Gladys Berejiklian says all students could be back at school full time by the end of May if the gradual return to class over the next few weeks is a success.

That cannot come quickly enough for HSC students at some Sydney public schools, who worry they are being disadvantaged because their schools are offering as little as one day a week of class time while many other public and private schools are bringing year 12 back full time from Monday.

Year 12 student Gabe Joseph is worried that students at schools giving HSC students more face-to-face teaching will have an advantage Credit:James Brickwood

The government originally planned to have public school students attending one day, then two, and to resume full-time classes by term three, in July. Ms Berejiklian has since said she would like full schooling to resume more quickly, but went a step further on Monday.

"If the first two weeks go well, there is no reason why we can't expedite all students having full-time face-to-face teaching by the end of May," she said. "That's our target. Obviously we'll monitor the situation."
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A University of Toronto researcher is exploring a new diagnostic lung test that could identify COVID-19 patients who are at the greatest risk of severe illness and death.

The test promises to help emergency room staff quickly determine which patients have mild illness and which ones need more urgent care, thereby alleviating pressure on the health-care system.

"We know the big problem with the COVID-19 epidemic is that the majority of people are going to get it and most will be fine, and recover from it," says Shaf Keshavjee, a professor of thoracic surgery at U of T who is director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program and surgeon-in-chief at University Health Network (UHN), where he is also a program medical director of surgery and critical care.

"We need a better way to identify those most likely to get into trouble."

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is providing support for Keshavjee's work as part of a national $54.2 million research funding package.

"Once you know how severely someone will be affected, the second important thing you need to be able to do is triage patients within the emergency room in order to prevent overwhelming of the health-care system," says Keshavjee.

The origins of the Rapid Acute Lung Injury Diagnostic test, or RALI-Dx, are devices designed to measure the lung quality of donor lungs for patients in need of lung transplantation. That test was originally designed by Keshavjee and his team to provide a personalized medicine approach to organ assessment for transplant.

Now, as a result of the funding to Keshavjee and UHN, the research will focus on how the 40-minute test can identify patients at the highest risk of lung failure due to COVID-19, so health-care teams can connect those patients to the most appropriate treatment pathways.

"What kills the patient in SARS and in COVID-19 isn't necessarily the virus itselfit's sometimes the host's response to the virus," Keshavjee says.

"The hosts that have an exaggerated inflammatory response are the ones that are going to get really sick. The ones who don't have an exaggerated response are going to feel badly, but they can go home and self-isolate and get better."

Here's how the test works. Health-care providers take a blood draw from patients who arrive in the emergency room with symptoms of a flu-like illness. The blood then goes to a microbiology lab in the hospital. In the lab, the plasma is spun off and squirted onto a plate, providing health-care providers with a result that shows the extent of an inflammatory injury of the lung.

The diagnostic information can then be used to determine which patients are in need of more urgent care and should be admitted to hospital, and which patients can be discharged to self-isolate at home, thereby preventing the health-care system from becoming overloaded.

"Everyone is in a race to get a test that will diagnose the virus faster, and the presence of the virus faster. But what we are looking at is the impact of the virus, or the implication, in terms of helping clinicians decide what might happen next with a particular patient," Keshavjee says.

Keshavjee says the test, which is being further developed in partnership with the Toronto-based company SQI Diagnostics, is a reflection of the overall move towards personalized medicine.

"What we set out to do is to bring personalized medicine or rapid diagnostics to the field of donor organ management in assessing lungs for transplant," says Keshavjee. "We set out to develop a test to diagnose problems with donor lungs and predict which ones would have a good outcome and which ones wouldn't."

He adds that RALI-Dx was created to deliver results in an accelerated waywithin minutes, not hours or days, like other molecular diagnostic tests. Ultimately, Keshavjee would like to be able to get the results within 10 minutes.

"That's the huge potential value this device brings to the health care systemnot just in diagnosing COVID-19, but in assessing the severity of any flu-like illness," says Keshavjee. "This research can save lives and save valuable resources in the emergency room and a hospital setting, especially in a pandemic that creates such immense strains on the system."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak
Ramadan is primarily thought of as a time when Muslims simply refrain from food and drink during daylight hours. But those who are observing are also encouraged to amp up their compassion, forgiveness and gratitude.

For those of us engaged in anti-racism work, its difficult to forgive those who promote fear, xenophobia and discrimination of any kind. After all, their attempts at spreading division in our communities is harmful, especially when targeting vulnerable people. The hate can also have devastating consequences, as we all know too well.

Then again, we might feel some compassion if we pause to reflect. What is it like to hate people for no other reason than perceived differences? Perhaps a hater has gone through some kind of traumatic experience like the one former right wing extremist Daniel Gallant describes in a video for the Extreme Dialogue project. He grew up in a transient family and watched his stepfather beat and rape his mother. When I grew up, I was told to get peoples respect, they had to fear you, he recalls.

Or maybe its about loneliness and insecurity; research has shown that some people gravitate toward each other when they share the same dislike for specific groups. According to social identity theory, people derive self-esteem through their associations with valued in-groups, in part by viewing members of their in-groups as superior to out-group members, note academics from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at Austin in a 2006 paper published in the journal Personal Relationships.

These are the folks who miss out on learning from the rich diversity of our communities.

Whats easier to feel though is gratitude  not toward those who are hateful but towards those who refuse to let such attitudes dominate our civic experiences.

We dont have to look very far to find them.

This month, several municipalities passed motions permitting the broadcast of the call to prayer over mosque loudspeakers for the duration of Ramadan.

People need comfort and familiarity during this difficult time, posted Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie on Facebook.

I hope this will help our Muslims friends in their observance of this sacred month of devotion and spiritual reflection. Ramadan Mubarak! tweeted Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.

Many in Canadas Muslim communities expressed appreciation, while others worried about the resulting backlash they feared would emerge. And as surely as the sun rises and sets, the haters came out, albeit virtually, with offensive online posts bordering on hate speech and through a petition garnering over thousands of signatures before it was taken down by the hosting platform (though it popped up elsewhere).

Its far too easy to fixate on the horrible responses, or on other Islamophobic acts weve seen this month alone, including an online video of a white supremacist staking out an Edmonton mosque and making threats.

Instead, being grateful for the love and support from the broader public around the decision to broadcast the call to prayer is a far better use of ones time, helping alleviate the mental health distress that racism is known to cause.

Right around the corner from us. I will listen for it and think of our Muslim brothers and sisters. What a good decision, tweeted Ottawa resident Elizabeth Shouldice.

I find the ringing of church bells very comforting so I pray that this will do the same for my brothers and sisters of the Muslim faith, posted Kelly Williams Scott on Facebook.

We can channel this type of positivity into our advocacy for meaningful societal change, including by standing alongside all marginalized communities pushing to dismantle systemic barriers and confronting institutional racism.

Just last week, Ottawas first Black police chief publicly called out the circulation of a racist meme within his force and immediately launched an investigation. Members of the citys racialized communities laud Chief Peter Slolys responsive efforts to tackle racism head on, including his reinstatement of a robust hate crimes unit and the unprecedented creation of a centralized directorate to deal with equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Haters gonna hate but thankfully, its love that makes change.
: TravisBickle (Travis), : USANews

 : 

: BBS  (Sun May 3 00:48:27 2020, )





Delta, United, American Airlines will require all passengers to wear face

masks



Major airlines are gearing up to require all passengers to wear face masks

on flights.



United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue and Frontier

Airlines have all laid out new safety requirements on flights in response to

the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. With few exceptions, the masks need not

be medical-grade  passengers just have to wear a covering over their mouth

and nose.



As of May 11, all American Airlines passengers will be required to wear a

face covering (or mask) while on board the aircraft, the airline said

Thursday. All American Airlines flight attendants are now required to wear

face masks.



United will begin mandating that passengers wear masks starting Monday;

flight attendants have been required to wear masks since April 24, a fact

they proudly herald, stating in a release that they were the first major

US airline to require all flight attendants to wear masks on duty. N95

masks will be available, but will only be allocated to symptomatic customers

and flight attendants who directly help them.



Delta will also begin mandating that passengers wear masks, not just on

flights but from the check-in lobby on, beginning Monday. Flight attendants

for the airline have been required to wear masks since April 27.

http://nypost.com/2020/05/01/delta-united-american-airlines-to-require-passengers-to-wear-face-masks

--

 :WWW  mitbbs.com [FROM: 108.]


One of Mavis Ngallametta's detailed artworks

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains references to a deceased person.

Art lovers unable to attend an exhibition of late Indigenous artist Mavis Ngallametta's work at Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art due to coronavirus restrictions have been treated to a series of videos showcasing the paintings.

The exhibition covers a decade of the artists intricate and animated paintings, bringing together major works from her country and a powerful bushfire series.

GOMA curator of Indigenous art Katina Davidson said Ngallametta, who died in January 2019, was one of the most well-regarded senior community-based artists in Australia.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 17:19:02|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

- - - -

TOKYO -- The Japanese government on Monday officially announced its decision to extend the nationwide state of emergency for COVID-19 by nearly a month until May 31.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, scheduled to hold a press conference at 6 p.m. local time, made the formal decision to extend the state of emergency beyond May 6, the last day of Japan's Golden Week holiday.

- - - -

CANBERRA -- South Australian Premier Steven Marshall has flagged a "golden" opportunity for economic growth as the state began to ease its coronavirus restrictions.

With 438 confirmed cases of COVID-19 to date, South Australia (SA) has moved to ease its coronavirus restrictions ahead of the nation's eastern biggest states, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, which are taking a more cautious approach.

- - - -

WASHINGTON -- CEO of American biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Daniel O'Day said Sunday that he expects the experimental anti-viral drug Remdesivir to be delivered for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the coming days.

"We intend to get that to patients in the early part of this next week, beginning to work with the government, which will determine which cities are most vulnerable and where the patients are that need this medicine," O'Day told U.S. television network CBS.

- - - -

SUVA -- China on Monday donated medical supplies to Fiji to help the South Pacific island nation fight against COVID-19.

Speaking at the handover ceremony of the medical supplies, Chinese Ambassador to Fiji Qian Bo said the Chinese government donated 300,000 U.S. dollars cash to the Fijian government to support its combat against COVID-19.

- - - -

MOSCOW, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Russia has reported 10,581 new COVID-19 confirmed cases over the past 24 hours, with the total number of infections rising to 145,268 as of Monday, the country's coronavirus response center said in a statement.

- - - -

PARIS -- France will test its "StopCOVID" contact tracing app in the week of May 11 when the country starts to ease lockdown measures, Minister for Digital Affairs Cedric O said on Sunday.

According to a Reuters report, the minister presented the state-supported app as a key element of France's strategy to stave off the coronavirus, as authorities grapple with the prospect of mass testing.

- - - -

CAPE TOWN -- South Africa reported on Sunday a sharp surge in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, two days after the easing of restrictions following a five-week lockdown.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa stood at 6,783, an increase of 447 from Saturday, the country's health minister Zweli Mkhize said in a statement.

- - - -

WUHAN -- No new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported in central China's Hubei Province Sunday, the provincial health commission said Monday.

This marks that Hubei has reported no new confirmed COVID-19 cases for 30 consecutive days since April 4.

- - - -

NEW YORK -- Global confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 3.5 million on Sunday, reaching 3,502,126 as of 7 p.m. (2300 GMT), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

A total of 247,107 people worldwide have died of the disease, according to the CSSE.

- - - -

OTTAWA -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an allotment of 240 million Canadian dollars (about 168 million U.S. dollars) on Sunday for moving mental health and primary care services online during the COVID-19 crisis.

During his press conference on Sunday, Trudeau said a new mental health platform will provide strategies for managing stress with specific help for those from marginalized communities.

- - - -

ROME -- On the eve of the easing of the eight-week national lockdown, Italy's daily new deaths from COVID-19 dropped to 174 on Sunday, the lowest level since the start of the lockdown on March 10.

Italy is set to ease its lockdown measures beginning on Monday. The new rules will allow Italians to visit family members living in the same region, and bars and restaurants to offer takeaway options instead of delivery only during the lockdown.

- - - -

ANKARA -- Turkey's total confirmed cases of COVID-19 reached 126,045, with 1,670 new patients reported in the last 24 hours, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Sunday.

The death toll from the novel coronavirus in Turkey reached 3,397 after 61 more lost their lives over the past 24 hours, Koca tweeted.

- - - -

LONDON -- Another 315 COVID-19 patients have died in Britain, bringing the total novel coronavirus-related death toll in the country to 28,446, Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove said Sunday.

The figures include deaths in hospitals, care homes and the wider community. Enditem
LeVar Burton has been reading to children for nearly 40 years, but tonight his story is for the grown-ups.

On a Friday evening in April, tens of thousands of Burton's fans - the ones who can still sing every word of the theme song from his beloved public television program, "Reading Rainbow" - are ending another weary week of pandemic isolation. They've put their kids to bed, and they're pulling out their phones or laptops, curling up on couches or crawling into bed, ready for the voice of their childhoods to carry them elsewhere for a little while.

"Sorry for the delay," Burton says when his Twitter live stream begins, 20 minutes past the announced start time. It is his first broadcast on this platform, and the inaugural attempt is glitchy. "But here we are! And here we go."

Since the middle of March, when the familiar rhythms of American life were upended by the coronavirus pandemic, Burton has felt determined to do something to help, "to fill in some of the time while we're all shut in here at home," he explains to his Twitter audience. He announced a new reading series, live-streaming three times each week - once for kids, once for young readers and once for adults. Now, he makes a promise: He will do this "for as long as we are in this thing together."

For all the time Burton has spent on sets and stages, in director's chairs and recording booths, it may well be here and now - at his family's home in the hills above Los Angeles, in the midst of a historic catastrophe - that his life's work has suddenly been distilled to its fundamental essence. He has always had a particular love for the simple act of reading aloud, he says, a form of human connection that he views as vital, especially in times like these. Confined as we are, unsettled as we feel - when has the sense of possibility, the transportive power of stories, felt more necessary?

He begins with "We Can Get Them for You Wholesale," a dark work of speculative fiction by English author Neil Gaiman. Burton delivers the story with polish and precision, expressive but never distractingly so, careful to make the voices of characters feel distinctive, not over the top.

But then the live stream shudders and freezes. ("A technological disaster," Burton says later, though the opening-night hiccups were swiftly resolved.) Confused viewers tap out worried messages: "Did LeVar break the Twitter because so many people love him?"

When the screen comes alive again several minutes later, Burton's audience is abruptly returned to a reading that never stopped. There is a wave of disorientation - a feeling that has become all too familiar of late: Where are we in this story? How did we get here, and how will this end?

But for now, those questions are quieted by Burton's calm, steady voice, still guiding us through whatever happens next.

Burton is sitting in his crimson-walled home office, the room where he has been hosting most of his live streams. One of the 13 Emmys he won for "Reading Rainbow" gleams on a small table behind him, below the framed cover art of his 1997 debut sci-fi novel, "Aftermath." Burton wears a black T-shirt with a silver pendant around his neck, his look of choice for his recent online appearances, though on this particular afternoon, he is speaking only to a reporter on the other side of the screen.

"It's one of my favorite ways of storytelling, reading aloud. I love it. I am aware that it's something that I don't suck at," he says. His laugh is a rich, slow-building crescendo. "It brings me joy to know that I am in my purpose."

"Reading Rainbow" ended its 26-year run in 2009, but fans who grew up watching have since flocked to Burton's popular podcast, "LeVar Burton Reads," which he launched in 2017. In recent years, he's heard from many who have been listening to him for decades, and he's come to realize "just how powerful that seems to be for people," he says. "They love hearing my voice. It brings them calm. And I think at this time, more than any other, I felt a responsibility to step up, to step into the moment because I could."

Burton's new live-stream series has been helpful for him, too, he says, as he adjusts to his own transformed lifestyle. He refers to himself an "itinerant storyteller," a constant traveler who is typically only home for a week or two at a time, when he might dine out with friends or soak in his favorite local hot spring. Now he is homebound, along with his wife of 27 years, Stephanie Cozart Burton, their 25-year-old daughter, Michaela Burton, and his mother-in-law. In the absence of his usual routine, Burton has found structure and meaning in his weekly Twitter readings, which regularly draw an international audience of more than a million viewers.

"Stories are so innately part of the human condition," he says. "And stories, like music, have the power to bring us together, and I think it's that magnetizing property that is really important right now, especially in this situation where isolation is so much a part of how we are being required to live."

For as long as he can remember, Burton has known that he wanted to be someone who helps others think about the deeper questions: Who are we? What is our purpose here? What will we do in the time we have? He credits his mother, Erma Gene Christian, a schoolteacher, social worker and voracious reader, with instilling a clear sense of purpose in her three children. "I was raised in a family where your life is meant to be about service," Burton says.

At 13, he decided he wanted to become a priest, and he entered a Catholic youth seminary near his family's home in Sacramento. He studied there for four years, reading the works of Soren Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu and Franz Kafka. "It was the books that I was reading that led me out of the decision to be a priest," Burton says. "All of a sudden, the world became so much larger, so much more grand than the Catholic parochial point of view, and I was like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, there's a big, wide world of ideas out there that I feel like I need to explore.' "

He won a scholarship to study drama at the University of Southern California, and his first audition as an undergraduate made him a household name, landing him the starring role of Kunta Kinte in the television miniseries based on Alex Haley's "Roots." By the time Burton made his 1987 debut as chief of engineering Geordi La Forge on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," he was the most famous of the show's cast members, already established as the iconic host of PBS's "Reading Rainbow" and well on the way to becoming a formative role model to an entire generation of children.

Those earliest fans are now in their 30s and 40s, many of them parents themselves, and they write to Burton all the time on social media. He has been thinking about those messages recently, and what it means to reach a multigenerational audience - which in turn makes him think of his own mother, who taught him to love language, who played such a defining role in his own story.

"You know, I think my mother would really love -" he stops, pressing his palm against his chest. His eyes fill with tears. He waits a moment before he continues: "- the direction that my career is going. To know that education, and my love of literature through the inheritance from my mother, that's a lasting gift; it's a lifelong thing."

This isn't the first time he's found himself unexpectedly emotional amid this pandemic, Burton says. As he prepared for a Friday-night reading of fantasy writer Cat Rambo's short story "Magnificent Pigs," he practiced the performance aloud, alone. When he reached the ending - a beautifully surreal gut-punch - he was suddenly overcome. It was the impact of the writing, he says, but it felt especially pronounced against the backdrop of our existence right now, the constant awareness of our own fragility in a situation we cannot control. Stories take us beyond our own lives, but they also return us to ourselves.

So when he read that story for his audience a few hours later, Burton says he wanted to deliver that same opportunity for emotional release.

"We are so busy, we are so distracted from these truths about ourselves most of the time, but we can't hide now," he says. "We have been forced into this state of vulnerability by our circumstances, and that's not a bad thing. I'm trying to embrace it. We're unsettled, and the future is uncertain; it's appropriate that we feel this way."

To be a conduit to connect others to those deeper truths - that is, fundamentally, what he has always wanted, he says.

"I started out my life wanting to be a priest, and what that meant to me - once I was able to get some distance from it and break it down - was I wanted to be an influence in people's lives, one that gave them spiritual succor," he says. "And I feel like I have achieved that through my career, that I am in fact performing what I once interpreted to be a priestly duty."

Burton reads to the children every Monday morning on Twitter, introducing old and new favorites - "Amazing Grace" by Mary Hoffman, "How to Be a Pirate" by Isaac Fitzgerald. Almost always, Burton ends with "The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm," the book he wrote with co-author Susan Schaefer Bernardo and illustrator Courtenay Fletcher.

It is a story within a story, about a little mouse who is scared of a storm outside, and so her father comforts her by telling her the tale of a rhino who survived a raging tempest: The storm crashed through his world and tore it apart, and took away everything dear to his heart. The rhino swallows the storm itself, repressing its destructive power deep within, until a cast of wise new friends teaches him that he must express himself to heal.

"I think it's the perfect book for these times," Burton says, introducing the story during a recent live stream. "It really illustrates for us how we all go through tough times, like we are now, and how we all need help getting through those tough times."

This story is for the kids, but the parents are watching, too. Their messages rise in colorful text boxes across the screen as Burton reads, greetings and gratitude pouring in from families watching together in San Francisco and Calgary, in Georgia and Germany:

"Your voice was my childhood."

"You made so many of us fall in love with books and reading!"

"The world needs LeVar more than ever."

When Burton arrives at the end of his book, he holds it carefully toward the camera, so the children watching at home can clearly see the page. The most salient line in the story is delivered by a mouse, but when Burton reads the words, he may as well be speaking directly to every one of his listeners:

"You're never really alone when bad things happen."
A consortium of three start-ups from various parts of the country is employing more than 5,000 stranded migrant labourers to produce low-cost ventilators and large-scale personal protective equipment (PPE) kits.

Manufacturing over 40,000 kits a day from four factories -- two in Mumbai and two in Kolkata-- the three start-ups have partnered to provide PPE kits to 15 government and private entities across the country. Each kit includes protective gowns, shoe coverings, gloves, masks, goggles, face shield and a garbage bag for the disposal of items after use. All the elements, except goggles that are outsourced, are manufactured in the four sterilised factories.

Workers manufacturing the items have been provided with food, boarding and sanitary items.

The PPE items have to be prepared in a sterilised set up. So it was necessary to provide the workers with hygienic conditions such as lodging and sanitisers. The workers follow social distancing norms in the factories and use masks and gloves, said Hamza Shaikh, co-founder of Indobionics, a three-year-old medtech startup, incubated at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Bengaluru.

The others are Abstract Ideas, an aesthetics start-up incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B), and Agastya Bouyant, incubated at IIM Calcutta, that manufactures inflatables for the cleaning of water surfaces of rivers and sea.

The consortium is also manufacturing low-cost ventilators that can be used in intensive care units (ICUs) across the country. While a high-end ICU ventilator can cost between 10 lakh and 15 lakh, these startups are building basic ICU ventilators at one-tenth the cost.

The key was to cut down on research and development cost and sourcing material hyper locally. This helped save our costs. Our designers studied the designs of ventilators from open-source materials and we replicate the same with inexpensive and locally available material, said Shaikh.
In order to ensure the safety of the workforce during these unprecedented times, Star Rapid has instituted a series of control procedures.

Star Rapid Manufacturing Co., Ltd. announces that they have resumed full production in the wake of the recent mandatory factory closures due to the coronavirus epidemic. All rapid prototying, rapid tooling and low-volume manufacturing services are available for world-wide shipment from their facilities in Guangdong, China.

In order to ensure the safety of the workforce during these unprecedented times, Star Rapid has instituted a series of control procedures. These include full sterilization of all manufacturing, administrative and housing facilities, mandatory daily health screenings and the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for all staff. Visit Star Rapid's Covid-19 page to learn more about the steps the company is taking during the pandemic.

Star Rapid continues to offer its full suite of production services, including rapid prototyping, metal 3D printing, and plastic injection molding. Using state-of-the-art equipment, Star Rapid specializes in helping designers and entrepreneurs make their products a realityon schedules both short and long. With decades of experience in all types of product development, Star Rapid helps clients refine their designs, build fully-realized prototypes, and get their products ready for larger commercial runs.

About Star Rapid: Star Rapid is one of the world's premier rapid prototyping, rapid tooling and low-volume manufacturing service providers. With international sales representatives in North America, Europe, the UK and Asia-Pacific, Star Rapid provides world-class product development solutions with local service and support.

To view Star Rapids past work, visit their Case Studies page. To enquire about Star Rapids services, contact the team or request a quote online.
Top Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray on Monday demanding he review his agency's handling of its investigation into Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Axios.

Why it matters: Sources familiar with the document tell Axios the letter is a direct rebuke of Wray, and that it reflects a growing frustration among congressional Republicans who question whether he can be trusted to expose what they see as a corrupt FBI.

Between the lines: The letter  written by ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), one of Trump's fiercest defenders, and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.)  also casts doubt on Wray's motives for not disclosing what they describe as "the FBI's misconduct," and questions whether he and other top FBI officials intentionally "prevented or delayed the disclosure of additional exculpatory information" regarding Flynn.

"Conservatives really feel like Wray blew the entire Michael Flynn saga, and many on the right want heads to roll," a House GOP aide told Axios.

Details ... The six-page letter demands that Wray:

Turn over all documents and communications relating to the FBI's investigation into Flynn.

Explain when Wray "personally first learned of the FBIs misconduct" with respect to Flynn.

Explain why the public "is learning of the FBIs misconduct with respect to LTG Flynn from court filings rather than from you."

Explain whether Wray and the FBIs senior leadership were involved in keeping this information hidden.

The deadline to turn over these documents is May 18,

The big picture: The letter comes as Trump himself is turning on Wray, who he hand-selected to lead the FBI after firing former director James Comey.

Trump would love to replace Wray, three sources who've discussed the matter with the president tell Axios' Jonathan Swan, and private and public pressure is building among several of the president's allies.

But Trump has been deferring to Attorney General Bill Barr and is unlikely to remove Wray before the election, these sources said.

Read the letter.

Go deeper:
President Donald Trump relaunched his election campaign Sunday with a live television event inside the iconic Lincoln Memorial, promising an early coronavirus vaccine and urging Americans to put the pandemic behind them to embrace an "incredible" future. With the two-hour long Fox News "town hall," Trump sought to wrap himself in the mantle of America's arguably greatest president -- and to persuade a nation battered by death and mass unemployment to look ahead. "We can't stay closed as a country, we're not going to have a country left," he said on the show, where two moderators, as well as ordinary citizens via video, put questions to him in front of the monument. "We're going to have an incredible following year," he said. To a woman who called in expressing fear of financial ruin and eviction, Trump said her job would come back. "You get a job where you make more money," he said. Saying Americans should start going back to beaches this summer and recommending that shuttered schools need to reopen in September, Trump forecast good news on the hunt for a vaccine. "We are very confident that we're going to have a vaccine... by the end of the year," he said, admitting he was getting ahead of his own advisors with the prediction. "I'll say what I think," he said. - Saving his reelection - The businessman Republican is doing poorly in most polls ahead of the November presidential contest against Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who remains shuttered in his Delaware home. Trump faces criticism for his bruising, divisive style during a time of national calamity. He is also accused by some of botching the early response to the COVID-19 virus. Worse, the previously booming US economy, which was seen as a golden ticket to his second term, is now in dire straits due to the nationwide lockdown. With officials saying the viral spread has begun to taper, Trump is itching to return to the campaign trail. However he faces new criticism that he is trying to declare premature victory, even as the illness continues to kill thousands of Americans every week. Having repeatedly minimized the death toll, claiming it will end at around 60,000, Trump conceded that now "we're going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people." His emphasis, however, was not on the dead, but on resurrecting his image as a can-do leader who can end the skyrocketing unemployment caused by the lockdown. That audacious shift began Sunday at possibly the most hallowed monument in the country -- the statue of Abraham Lincoln, who led the country through civil war, urged reconciliation, and was assassinated in his moment of triumph. Trump, who calls himself a "wartime president" denied that the election will turn into a referendum on his handling of the crisis. But he added: "I hope it does because we've done a great job." In the next few days, Trump will follow up by breaking months of self-quarantine with long-distance trips to the key electoral states of Arizona and Ohio. It's a play that will emphasize Trump's massive visibility advantage over Biden and, the White House hopes, rewrite the public relations script after gaffes including the president's suggestion that coronavirus patients ingest disinfectant. - Greater than Lincoln? - Lincoln gambled in 1861 that only war could preserve the United States by ending slavery and restoring the nation's ideals of freedom. He won, becoming a national hero. But Lincoln is remembered as much for reaching out to former foes -- something Trump did not seek to emulate as he spoke at the foot of the iconic statue. Previous presidents, he said, were "stupid" to allow reliance on foreign manufacturers for US medicines. The Democrats, he said, are "radical," claiming they would prefer to see people get sick than see him succeed. Trump pronounced that he had "done more than any president in the history of our country in the first three years." His self-declared greatness is questioned by many Americans. FiveThirtyEight's latest tracking poll showing only 43.4 percent approving Trump's performance and 50.7 percent disapproving. Trump even got in an online tussle with former president George W. Bush earlier Sunday, after the fellow Republican posted a video filled with the kind of empathy and solidarity that many accuse the current White House occupant of failing to show. Trump responded by complaining that Bush was "nowhere to be found" when he was battling off an impeachment attempt in Congress last year. US President Donald Trump went to the Lincoln Memorial to relaunch his campaign and call for an end to the pandemic lockdown US President Donald Trump looks to declare victory, reopen the economy, and move on to his reelection campaign The US Navy Blue Angels and US Air Force Thunderbirds fly over Washington, DC Many consider Abraham Lincoln the greatest US president
By Bethany Mott

Mott is a member of First Steps: The NRVs Early Childhood Education and Development Network and executive director of the Alliance for Better Childcare Strategies.

We ask every representative, policy maker, and community member to consider how you can help sustain the unrecognized foundation of our economy.

Childcare is essential  today, six months ago and six months from now to working families, employers and our broader community and economy. When we emerge from this crisis, childcare will be essential to recovery and the long-term success of our community.

Today in Virginia, almost two-thirds of all childcare centers have had to close their doors. Others, under new stringent regulations, are struggling to remain open to serve essential workers. All centers and family home providers in the New River Valley (NRV) need more government support to remain part of the current and future infrastructure for our region. All health and human services professionals need our support, so they can sustain our most vulnerable families through the crisis.

Even before the current crisis, the NRVs childcare infrastructure was fragile, with insufficient capacity. NRV parents struggled to find care for their infants and toddlers. Only 30% of NRV children birth to age 5, with all parents working, had access to fulltime early care and education.

Childcare providers need financial bolstering NOW to survive. Though our provider capacity is woefully insufficient, the NRV boasts exceptional quality, well worth preserving. While the NRV is home to 1.5% of the states population under age 5, the region is home to 21% of the states highest quality centers, as rated by the Virginia Quality system.

On April 15, Gov. Northam announced an additional $70 million from the Federal CCDBG (Child Care Development Block Grant) to preserve both open and closed childcare programs in Virginia. This critical funding needs to be supplemented with increased emergency funding from local, state, and federal governments.

Who are the heroes of todays pandemic? We celebrate our brave hospital workers and our first responders. We also need to recognize the other heroes of our NRV community  our early childhood professionals. These heroes are courageously working on the front line, providing care and education for children and crucial support for parents working on the front line  doctors and nurses, EMTs, police officers, supermarket employees, delivery drivers, farmers and more.

Childcare providers have been compelled to close their doors without knowing if they will ever be able to reopen. The twelve NRV centers that are still open are in crisis and struggling to continue to serve our community.

We are encouraging Congress to include the Warren-Hill childcare plan in the next COVID-19 stimulus bill, to build immediate and long-term structural support for this essential industry. We also encourage Virginia to look for ways to support our childcare providers. We encourage our local governments to consider what role they can play in preserving and developing our childcare infrastructure, the linchpin of prosperity and economic growth. County, city and town governments in the NRV can support childcare centers and family home providers through supplying PPE and other necessities, providing grants for shared services and earmarking lodging taxes and other funds to support this hub of our economic wheel.

Recently, Rhian Evans Allvin, Chief Executive Officer of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), argued give childcare the investment, time, attention, and creativity required to get through this crisis and help our country get back on its feet. After all, high-quality childcare is the foundation on which all other industries exist.

The New River Valley will emerge from the pandemic. Our childcare industry will likely not survive intact, however, without immediate, substantive financial support. We need this infrastructure to rebuild our economy and nurture the next generation so we can all thrive.
President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters in the East Room of the White House in Washington on April 30, 2020. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

Trump Says US Intelligence Officials Didnt Bring Up CCP Virus Until Late January

President Donald Trump stated on Sunday that U.S. intelligence officials didnt bring up the issue of the CCP virus until late January and didnt highlight the gravity of the threat during the briefing.

On January 23, I was told that there could be a virus coming in but it was of no real import. In other words, it wasnt, Oh we gotta do something, we gotta do something. It was a brief conversation and it was only on January 23, Trump said during a Fox News town hall.

The president said shortly afterward he closed the country to China.

China should have stopped it, but Chinathey didnt know and they wouldnt let us in. We wanted to go into China. They didnt want us to go in because they didnt want to have us see it. Maybe they were worried about competence. Maybe they were worried about something else, said Trump.

The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, originated in China in 2019 before spreading around the world, infecting millions, and killing hundreds of thousands.

Office of the Director of National Intelligence spokesperson Susan Miller confirmed with CNN that the U.S. intelligence communitys first daily briefing about the contagion in China was shared with the president on Jan. 23, three days after the first confirmed case of the virus in the country and that he was then told that the virus was not that deadly.

National security adviser Robert OBrien had also confirmed the same timeline to the media.

And the intelligence agencies  which are now very competently run with some great people  The intelligence agencies will tell you that tomorrow, Trump said Sunday.

The president said when he closed the country to China, 40,000 American citizens came back to the country and were tested. Well, the different states. They were tested. They were quarantined when they were sick, said Trump, adding that at that time they might not all have been tested very well.

Some were tested, probably, not as good as they could have been. I can tell you, Florida tested the people very, very well, and look how low the numbers are in Florida. Theyve done a great job, said the president.

Trump called the pandemic a horrible thing and said it shouldnt have happened.

But the main thing I have to do is bring our country back, and I want to get it back to where it was or maybe beyond where it was. You know, we have tremendous stimulusall the money weve been talking about so far tonight. I think next year is going to be a phenomenal economic year, he said.
Photograph: Barcroft Media/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

As New York saw temperatures climb past the 70s this weekend, a more relaxed approach to social distancing was out in force. New Yorkers, starved for fresh air and sunlight, took advantage of the weather to visit parks and go to the beach. In response, over 1,000 NYPD officers were deployed across New Yorks five borough to enforce social distancing mandates, with police officers reminding people to maintain 6ft of distance and to wear face masks.

But some have complained of a tale of two very different cities when it comes to how those guidelines have been enforced. In particular, outrage has sparked over juxtaposed images that show officers handing out masks to white sunbathers, while another video shows an officer punching a person of color and sitting on him following a dispute about social distancing.

Same city. Same police force.



Passing out masks to white folks not social distancing, while literally having their foots on our necks.



This is beyond ridiculous at this point. pic.twitter.com/pY6kSGVEaZ  zellie (@zellieimani) May 3, 2020

The video footage recorded in Manhattans East Village shows an officer approaching a man and hitting him several times in the face before pushing him to the ground and kneeling on his neck.

The NYPD has confirmed that the officer, now identified as Francisco Garcia, has since been stripped of his badge and his gun and the incident is under internal review.

Daquan Owens, a bystander who uploaded the video of the arrest to social media, told New York Daily News that the police reaction was uncalled for.

The guy that just got slammed to the floor and punched, he was just standing there saying, They didnt do nothing, and actually they didnt do nothing, Owens told the Daily News.

Nothing was going on, nothing provoked the cop. He just got up, pulled his Taser out  The cop, I guess he was frustrated and took his frustration out on the guy, said Owens.

Story continues

In a statement, the NYPD confirmed that the incident concerned social distancing protocol to begin with, but had escalated as marijuana was observed at the scene and that one person took a fighting stance against officer [Garcia].

A group was observed standing on the corner  in violation of social distancing orders. Officers instructed the group disperse and while most complies [sic], some refused. As officers approached, they observed a bag of alleged marijuana in plain view  A third individual was ordered by an officer to disperse and this male took a fighting stance against the officer and was also taken into custody, an official NYPD spokesperson said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea both acknowledged the incident in a joint press briefing Sunday. It started out as a social distancing enforcement  I am aware of the video thats out there, said Shea. Mayor de Blasio said he was really disturbed by the footage in a tweet on Sunday evening.

Saw the video from the Lower East Side and was really disturbed by it. The officer involved has been placed on modified duty and an investigation has begun. The behavior I saw in that video is simply not acceptable.  Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) May 3, 2020

Shea confirmed 43 summonses were made in the park over the weekend, with the majority relating to failures to maintain social distancing protocol.
Ryan Murphy's latest hit show Hollywood, inspired by true life events of the Golden Era, has become the talk of the town among its Netflix viewers.

Set in post-World War II Tinseltown, it follows a group of budding young filmmakers, including director Raymond (played by Darren Criss) and screenwriter Archie (played by Jeremy Pope) trying their luck in Los Angeles.

The group attempt to hit the big time by making a movie about Peg Entwistle, a heartbreaking tale of a young actress who took her own life. But while plot points from the show are largely fictional, the story of Millicent Lillian 'Peg' Entwistle is very much factual.

Entwistle was a British actress who died by suicide in 1932, and subsequently became known as 'the Hollywood sign girl' in tabloids, after throwing herself off the iconic site's 'H' letter.

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed comedienne desperately wanted to be given a shot at more serious roles, but her ambition would only lead to tragedy.

She was born Millicent Lilian 'Peg' Entwistle on February 5, 1908, in Port Talbot, Glamorgan, Wales, to English parents Emily Entwistle (nee Stevenson) and actor Robert Symes Entwistle.

Peg Entwistle is said to have spent her early life in West Kensington, London, before emigrating to America.

Scroll down for video

True life tragedy: Peg Entwistle - who has inspired the new Netflix show Hollywood, jumped off 'H' of Hollywoodland sign in 1932 at age 24

Iconic landmark: Entwistle was a British actress who died by suicide in 1932, after throwing herself off the iconic site's 'H' letter

She faced tragedy early on in her life, after her father became the victim of a hit-and-run accident on Park Avenue in 1922 when she was just 14. Entwistle and her two younger half-brothers were taken in by their uncle.

Entwistle started her career with success on Broadway, starring in a string of highly-acclaimed plays between 1925 and 1932.

Showing great promise early on, she was revered by critics for her performances in The Wild Duck and The Uninvited Guest and in J.M. Barrie's Alice Sit By The Fire.

Even a young Bette Davis - who would go on to win two Oscars - is reported to have said she wanted to be 'exactly like' the actress after watching her in Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck on Broadway in 1925, when Entwistle was just 17.

A year later, Entwistle was accepted into the prestigious New York Theatre Guild.

However, the actress began to suffer personal difficulties after she married Guys & Dolls actor Robert Keith in 1927, as it was later revealed that he fathered a six-year-old son with another woman. They divorced in 1929.

News report: Entwistle's death caused a flurry of media attention across the world

Dreams of a life: In attempt to become a Hollywood star, Entwistle relocated to Los Angeles during the Great Depression in 1932

Still a darling of the critics in New York, with reviews touting her acting as 'better than the show warranted', Entwistle battled on in her career, as she continued to search for more dramatic parts on the silver screen.

In 1929 she is said to have told a reporter: 'I would rather play roles that carry conviction. Maybe it is because they are the easiest and yet the hardest things for me to do. To play any kind of an emotional scene I must work up to a certain pitch.'

'If I reach this in my first word, the rest of the words and lines take care of themselves. But if I fail, I have to build up the balance of the speeches, and in doing this the whole characterisation falls flat. I feel that I am cheating myself. I don't know whether other actresses get this same reaction or not, but it does worry me.'

In attempt to become a Hollywood star, Entwistle relocated to Los Angeles during the Great Depression in 1932, and finally in May that year, she landed a serious supporting role in a play opposite Humphrey Bogart in downtown LA.

Entwistle then secured her first film role as a minor character in Thirteen Women - widely regarded as the first female ensemble movie. Sadly, the director's cut of the movie failed to include much of Entwistle.

The film - centered around a woman's plot to kill twelve others with her supernatural powers - had fared badly with test audiences, hence it being trimmed down in the edit suite, with many of Entwistle's scenes left on the cutting room floor.

Around the same time, the actress found that her contract had been cut short by the film's producers, RKO studios, before it was even released, which is said to have made the local papers.

Murphy's Netflix series touches on this very subject, hinting that it played a part in the downfall of the burgeoning star.

Hit with viewers: Ryan Murphy's latest drama has been a roaring success with Netflix viewers

In Ryan Murphy's series, Camille (Laura Harrier) plays the character inspired by Peg in a fictitious film about the tragic star

But on September 18, 1932, a month before the film opened on October 14, Entwistle - who many have speculated that she likely suffered from depression - told her uncle that she was going to meet some friends at a nearby drug store.

Instead, she hiked into the canyon and climbed up to the sign. Entwistle was later found dead by a female hiker.

The unidentified hiker first found a shoe, jacket, and purse scattered on the mountain below the sign, which then read 'Hollywoodland'.

She then looked about 100 feet down the mountain, saw a body, and called the police.

The tragic star also left a note that read: 'I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.'

Entwistle was identified by her uncle who read her story in a newspaper, and coroners ruled that Entwistle had died from multiple fractures to the pelvis.

But still decades on, Entwistle's legacy remains. Every year, fans flock to the sign to pay tribute to the actress. Many claim that her spirit still haunts the hill.

Murphy is not the first director to try and tackle her story. Rush Hour producer Arthur Sarkissian and American History X director Tony Kaye were reportedly trying to make her life story into a film in 2014.

In the 2017 song 'Lust for Life' by Lana Del Rey, she references the suicide of Entwistle with the lyric: 'climb up the H of the Hollywood Sign.'
Jerusalem: A television series aired by a Saudi broadcaster during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan has sparked controversy by offering a positive depiction of a Jewish community in the Gulf at the time of Israel's creation.

A scene from Umm Haroun, a Saudi-made television series aired during Ramadan that has sparked controversy by offering a positive depiction of a Jewish community in the Gulf that existed before the creation of Israel. Credit:AP

Critics say it and another series aired on the network promote normalisation with Israel even as the Palestinian cause is under threat by US President Donald Trump's Mideast plan, which heavily favours Israel and would allow it to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank.

Relations between Israel and Arab Gulf states have quietly improved in recent years as they have come to see Iran as a shared threat and as Arab leaders have sought to curry favour with the Trump administration. Most TV shows in the Arab world are made by private companies, but producers must heed red lines set by the region's autocratic rulers.

Umm Haroun, Arabic for "Mother of Aaron", is set in an unnamed Gulf country in 1948, when Israel declared its independence and fought a war with Arab states. At that time Jewish communities, some with ancient roots, could be found across the Arab world.
Dan O'Day, CEO of Gilead Sciences, said on Monday that the company had donated its entire supply of remdesivir to the US government to dish out to hospitals across the country

The CEO of Gilead Sciences, the company that makes the promising drug remdesivir, says it will be available to treat COVID-19 patients as early as this week after receiving approval from the FDA.

The drug showed promising results in a study of more than 1,000 people around the world and has been touted as one of the first steps in reopening the economy.

Scientists found that patients who were given it recovered 31 percent faster than those who did not and that the mortality rate among recipients was around three percent lower; it was 8 percent in the drug recipients and 11.6 percent in placebo patients.

In an interview with Face The Nation on CBS on Sunday, Gilead CEO Dan O'Day said the company had donated its entire supply of the drug to the government to roll out to hospitals across the US and that it will also send some overseas.

'We intend to get that to patients in the early part of this next week, beginning to work with the government, which will determine which cities are most vulnerable and where the patients are that need this medicine,' O'Day said.

Stocks for the company rose last week after the results of the study were announced by Dr. Tony Fauci, the White House's foremost coronavirus expert.

O'Day said that the company had now donated 1.5million vials of it to the government.

Depending on the length of a patient's treatment, the supply should cater to between 100,000 and 200,000 people, O'Day said.

The drug, which is ordinarily used in Ebola cases, was effective in a study of more than 1,000 people. Those who got it recovered 31 percent faster than those who were given a placebo

Gilead's share price has risen since its potential success in treating the virus was first reported at the start of the year

'We did that because we acknowledge and recognize the human suffering, the human need here and want to make sure that nothing gets in the way of this getting to patients,' he said.

It is now up to the government to determine where to send the doses and how much each area needs.

It is unclear when more will be ready. O'Day said that the company ramped up production of it in January but did not explain what prompted them to boost manufacturing.

There were scarcely any known COVID-19 cases in the US in January.

President Trump claims China tried to cover up how deadly it was late last year and that it may have even been created in a lab and escaped.

When the US should have known about it much less responded to it to prepare is now a source of political contention.

'We are now firmly focused on getting this medicine to the most urgent patients around the country here in the United States.

Dr. Fauci said last week that while the drug was not full-proof nor was it a cure, it proved for the first time that the virus could be 'stopped' with treatment.

Doctors who took part in the study now want to examine how to use it with other medications to give patients 'tailored' courses of treatment.

It comes amid more promising remarks from President Trump that a vaccine could be ready by 'the end of the year'.

White House coronavirus expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said last week the drug was 'proof' the virus could be stopped by medicine

Trump was speaking at a virtual town hall with Fox News on Sunday when he gave the prediction.

He said the US was working with the UK and Australia to quickly develop a vaccine and that he 'doesn't care' which country makes it first, so long as it works.

'We think we'll have a vaccine by the end of this year. And we're pushing very hard. We're building supply lines now and we don't even have the final vaccine,' Trump said.

He pointed to Johnson & Johnson as one company making a dent. 'Many companies, I think, are close,' he told Fox News hosts in a virtual town hall and said the US was working with the UK and Australia to develop it.

Admitting that it didn't sound like his usual 'America First' rhetoric, Trump answered, 'I don't care,' when asked how he would feel if another country developed a successful vaccine first.

'I really just want to get a vaccine that works,' the president said.

Last week, Dr. Fauci said 'hundreds of millions' of doses of a vaccine could be ready as early as January next year.

Among the companies that are developing vaccines is Moderna Inc. Its CEO dazzled the president during a roundtable with other pharmaceutical executives in March by claiming they could have a vaccine ready to enter phase two of a trial in 'a few months'.

Johnson & Johnson is also developing a vaccine.
The European Union warned on Monday that decisions by some European countries to suspend vaccination of children during the coronavirus epidemic could cause serious problems.

It is very clear we will get pockets of people, children, who have not been vaccinated, Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), told EU lawmakers.

She said most European countries were still providing some of the essential vaccination to children against diseases like measles and poliomyelitis, but also warned that some countries have suspended all vaccinations during the epidemic. She did not name those countries.
BERLIN, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Roche launched the new serological (antibody-based) test at the company's Penzberg laboratory on Monday, May 4 at a press conference attended by German Health Minister Jens Spahn and Bavarian state premier Markus Soder. On May 3, the test received emergency approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. According to company data, the test is 99.8 percent accurate  far better than other tests of its kind.

"This is not just a regional event  it's an important international step in the fight against the coronavirus," said Soder. "The solutions to the crisis will be scientific ones, and this is a major milestone."

Spahn underscored that the test had set new standards in both specificity to the Sars-CoV-2 virus and the sensitivity of positive and negative results in those tested. He added that 3 million tests would be produced this month and 5 million per month in future for use in Germany. Roche said hundreds of millions of tests would be made available internationally wherever they're needed.

"Tests like these are important to find out what percentage of the population have been affected beyond the official numbers thus far," Spahn told reporters.

Roche says it plans to invest 400 million euros in its Penzberg facility, and Soder said the state of Bavaria would chip in 40 million of its own to expand operations there.

"The expansion by Roche is a great testimonial for Germany as Europe's leading biotechnology location," says Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) Director of Chemicals and Health Marcus Schmidt. "With more than 5000 employees, Penzberg in southern Bavaria is already the Swiss pharmaceutical company's largest biotech research, development and production center worldwide. We are also delighted to hear that the regional Bavarian government will further strengthen the greater Munich life-science cluster by funding a new pandemic research institute."

GTAI Health Expert Gregor Kemper pointed out that Roche's Monday announcement had been a long time in the making.

"With the successful development of an antibody test with especially high specificity and selectivity, the investment Roche made in Penzberg over the last several years is paying off," Kemper explains. "It also shows that the medical research landscape in Germany is capable of coming up with quick solutions in crisis cases."

Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) is the economic development agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. GTAI supports German companies setting up in foreign markets, promotes Germany as a business location and assists foreign companies setting up in Germany.

Contact:

Jefferson Chase

Senior Manager, Communications

Germany Trade & Invest

Friedrichstrae 60

10117 Berlin

+49 30200099170

[email protected]

SOURCE Germany Trade & Invest

Related Links

https://www.gtai.de/


State police said the Jeep had been stopped on the right shoulder of the interstate for an unknown reason. The driver of the Jeep began trying to merge back into traffic, into the path of an oncoming 2019 black Freightliner truck-tractor semitrailer combination, officials said. The Freightliner, driven by Heard and traveling in the right lane, struck the rear of the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Westpac is forecasting a 20 per cent plunge in house prices this year in Australia's biggest property markets as coronavirus sparks a recession.

More than 1.4million Chinese tourists last year visited Australia but border closures to slow the spread of COVID-19 have stopped a valuable generator of economic activity.

The worst global health pandemic in 100 years has also meant a temporary end to immigration and foreign students - a key source of rental income for landlords.

Westpac chief executive Peter King feared a property market recovery that began in mid-2019 would be unwound because of coronavirus.

Westpac is forecasting a 20 per cent plunge in house prices in Australia's biggest property markets as coronavirus sparks a recession. Pictured is a deserted beach at Bondi in Sydney's east

'House prices are expected to fall through the remainder of 2020, reversing the recent recoveries, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne,' he told the Australian Securities Exchange on Monday.

'Unfortunately, ongoing international travel restrictions will continue to flatten inbound tourism and impact foreign student arrivals.'

Since bottoming out in July 2019, Sydney's median house price has surged by 19 per cent from $864,993 to $1,026,418 last month, CoreLogic data showed.

This followed a record 17.6 per cent fall, after the market had peaked in mid-2017, in response to an Australian Prudential Regulation Authority crackdown on investor and interest-only loans.

By comparison, Melbourne's median house price has grown by 16 per cent since bottoming out at $708,523 in May 2019.

Mid-point values for a detached home reached $819,611 in March 2020.

Prices in the Victorian capital fell 0.4 per cent in April, with Melbourne so far the worst-affected capital city housing market, the CoreLogic figures showed.

Like Sydney, Melbourne also suffered from a sharp downturn between late 2017 and mid-2019, with its median price falling by 15 per cent.

More than 1.4million Chinese tourists last year visited Australia but border closures to slow the spread of COVID-19 have stopped a valuable revenue source. Pictured is the Sydney Opera House with few visitors in March 2020

Starr Partners chief executive Doug Driscoll, who sells real estate in Sydney, said apartments were likely to take a bigger hit than houses as investors worried about the prospect of not having tenants.

How COVID-19 has affected house prices Melbourne: DOWN 0.4 per cent to $818,806 Sydney: UP 0.3 per cent to $1,026,418 Brisbane: UP 0.3 per cent to $558,372 Adelaide: UP 0.4 per cent to $476,249 Perth: UP 0.3 per cent to $465,521 Hobart: DOWN 0.2 per cent to $512,688 Darwin: UP 1.1 per cent to $473,984 Canberra: UP 0.1 per cent to $702,861 Source: CoreLogic Home Value Index for April based on median house price changes Advertisement

'If there is downward movement in prices, you will see that apartments in the inner city will come down slightly more than some of the houses in Sydney,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'If we're seeing in inverted commas a "rental crisis" - a lot of that is caused by students; if we have fewer overseas students, then there are few people to rent properties and that has an impact on vacancy rates.'

Mr Driscoll predicted the banks would be increasingly reluctant to lend to investors eyeing units near the city, with interest from potential landlords already falling.

'That's going to have an inevitable impact on their ability to borrow money as well,' he said.

'We are already experiencing 60, 70 per cent less investors and when you see numbers of buyers drop away in any category, clearly that's supply and demand and that has a roll-on effect to prices.'

Economists from all the major banks are forecasting a recession in 2020, the first in 29 years, as a result of the coronavirus shutdowns of non-essential businesses.

A separate survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found 72 per cent of surveyed businesses expected COVID-19 to hurt their cash flows during the next two months.

The ABS's head of industry statistics John Shepherd said reduced demand for goods and services was expected to hurt 69 per cent of businesses during the same time frame, with 41 per cent of firms fearing they would have less ability to pay their bills.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 17:06:11|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

SEOUL, May 4 (Xinhua) -- South Korea announced plans Monday to gradually allow students to attend offline classes from next week amid the slowing number of COVID-19 confirmed cases in recent weeks.

According to the education ministry, high school seniors will go to school from May 13 as they are required to prepare for annual college entrance exam and college admission counseling.

High school second graders and junior high school third graders as well as first and second graders of elementary school will go to school from May 20, while high school first graders and junior high school second graders along with third and fourth graders of primary school will be allowed to attend offline classes from May 27.

Junior high school first graders and the fifth and sixth graders of primary school will go to school from June 1.

The reopening of schools came amid the COVID-19 infection slowdown here in recent weeks.

In the latest tally, South Korea reported eight more COVID-19 cases for the past 24 hours, raising the total number to 10,801. The daily caseload stayed below 20 for the 17th consecutive day.

The country began this year's new school year with online classes from April 9 in a gradual manner.

Schools have disinfected classrooms, prepared face masks and thermometers, and arranged desks standing at least one meter away from each other.

Students and teachers will be required to take temperature before entering classrooms and wear masks in school, and students should sit away from each other when have lunch.

Students who show symptoms will be directed to special observation room inside school and then sent to special screening center for diagnostic tests.

If one tests positive for the virus, students and teachers will be put under self-quarantine and school will be closed. Enditem
Former Senator Jinggoy Estrada was arrested yesterday for allegedly violating quarantine rules in the village of Salapan in his hometown of San Juan City, which has been placed under the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

A former San Juan mayor, Jinggoy was nabbed because he was allegedly violating the rules set by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the countrys anti-COVID-19 task force while he was distributing relief goods, Mayor Francis Zamora, his political archrival, said in a statement.

Mr. Jinggoy Estrada is not a person authorized outside his residence (APOR) thus having no authority roaming around the streets. Only persons allowed by the government are allowed to do this, Zamora said.

Next, one of the more recent directives of the DILG is for individuals and organizations intending to conduct relief operations in cities under ECQ to coordinate and secure a certification from the local government unit where the said activity will be held, Mayor Zamora added.

Read: Former senator Jinggoy Estrada allowed to vacation in HK despite plunder case

However, Jinggoy allegedly grossly disregarded and violated the rules set by the government.

Because for several days now, he has been conducting distribution of milkfish in different villages in San Juan in an unsanitary manner with the fish not being put in any plastic or wrapper, possibly adding to the spread of the virus, wherein social distancing is not observed, wherein some people are not wearing masks and lastly, without the proper coordination with the local government unit, Zamora said.

Despite belonging to a rival political clan, the mayor said Jinggoys arrest has nothing to do with politics in San Juan, but has everything to do with law and order. The mayor added that he even approved the permit for a mobile pharmacy, a project of former Vice Mayor Janella Ejercito Estrada, Jinggoys daughter whom Zamora defeated in the 2018 elections.

Story continues

Why cant Mr. Jinggoy Estrada do the same? Why cannot he follow the law? Zamora asked.

Earlier this month, the DILG said groups conducting relief operations have to secure a permit from the local government, reports Rappler. Should they fail to present a permit, they will be stopped by the authorities at checkpoints.

In an interview today with television talk show Umagang Kay Ganda, however, Jinggoy said there are non-government organizations (NGOs) and individuals organizing relief operations in San Juan which didnt secure a permit from City Hall.

Read: Get govt permits first before organizing donation drives, Social Welfare Department says

I was going around different villages in San Juan giving away milkfish when a [police] mobile car passed by in this village that I was in and invited me [for questioning]. I asked them what my violation was. They said I violated certain provisions of the enhanced community quarantine, Jinggoy said in English and Filipino.

I asked, Which one? The one about social distancing, [the police said]. [But] you can see we were observing social distancing when I was giving milkfish to people. Second, they said I didnt have a permit. [They want] a permit when we are in the middle of a pandemic and all I was doing was giving away milkfish. At the same time, there are a lot of Filipinos, private individuals, civilians like me, NGOs, organizations going around San Juan which dont have a permit. So why ask me for a permit? Why single me out? Jinggoy said.

No charges were filed against Jinggoy, but Philippine National Police spokesman Brigadier General Bernard Banac told CNN Philippines that they issued a stern warning against the former lawmaker before he was freed yesterday. The police also told him that he has to coordinate with San Juan City Hall if he wishes to continue giving relief goods to residents.

Jinggoy is facing a plunder case where he was accused of pocketing as much as PHP183 million (US$3.448 million), with the help of businesswoman Janet Napoles from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), which is supposed to be used for various government pet projects. In 2013, the Commission on Audit released a report that allegedly showed Estrada funneling a percentage of his PDAF to fake non-governmental organizations led by Napoles. He is currently out on bail.

This article, Former Senator Estrada arrested for allegedly violating quarantine rules during relief ops, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!
In recognition of the spirit of service that they have demonstrated in their communities, Emily and Margaret  along with 100 other top youth volunteers from across the country  were also each given $2,500 to donate toward the local COVID-19 response efforts of a nonprofit organization of their choice. These funds come in addition to the $1,000 scholarship and engraved silver medallion they earned as Indiana's top youth volunteers of 2020.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, sponsored by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), named Emily and Margaret Indiana's top high school and middle level youth volunteers in February.

"Over the past 25 years, this program has honored students spanning three generations, and the common thread between them has been the determination of young people to respond to the challenges of the moment," said Charles Lowrey, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial. "Who better than this group of young leaders from all over the country to help identify and direct resources to community needs arising from COVID-19?"

As State Honorees, Emily and Margaret also earned an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. for the program's annual national recognition events; the trip, however, was canceled due to COVID-19 and changed to a three-day online celebration this past weekend. In addition to remarks and congratulations from actress Kristen Bell, honorees had opportunities to connect with each other through online project-sharing sessions, learn about service and advocacy from accomplished past Spirit of Community honorees, hear congratulatory remarks from Lowrey and NASSP Executive Director and CEO JoAnn Bartoletti, and more.

"We admire these young leaders for their ability to assess the needs of the communities they serve and find meaningful ways to address them," said Bartoletti. "At a time when everyone is looking for optimism, these students are a bright light for their peers and the adults in their lives."

About the Honorees

Emily (pictured left), a senior at New Prairie High School, founded a nonprofit organization that has delivered more than 35,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies to active and former military personnel at home and abroad over the past decade. When Emily was 6, her mother challenged her to think about how she could use the Girl Scout cookies she was selling to help others. Emily bought several boxes with her own money, solicited donations to buy 600 more, and contacted veterans' organizations to help her ship them to service members. "Active military members are separated from their homes and families," she explained. "I wanted to give them a piece of home, something comforting in the midst of uncertainty."

Now, every year during Girl Scout cookie season, Emily writes letters to companies and organizations to solicit donations, and contacts local Girl Scout troops to enlist their assistance. With help from more than 150 volunteers, Emily purchases over 5,000 boxes of cookies and packs them up at an annual packing event. She ships cookies both to active soldiers and to veterans, and personally hands them out at veterans hospitals, Honor Flights, and at other military and veterans events. In addition to making service members feel appreciated, Emily's "Cookies for Soldiers" organization is teaching younger students about the heroism and sacrifice of those who serve their country. "Military members and veterans who receive a box or shipment are told that there are people who care for them, see them and appreciate them," Emily said.

Margaret (pictured right), an eighth-grader at Zionsville Middle School, established a charity with her sister that has raised more than $13,000 over the past three years to buy instruments, sheet music and other music equipment for schools and music programs across Indiana, and to promote the importance of music education. Meg and her sister, Kate, both began playing the violin at age 3, and since then music has played a big role in their lives. When their parents began shopping for a new violin for Kate, the girls realized how expensive instruments are, and how many young people would not be able to afford to play music. There are so many benefits to learning music at a young age, said Meg. "We wanted to provide as many students as possible with the chance to be exposed to music in their schools or through other programs."

Meg and her sister asked local businesses for support and for opportunities to perform for donations on their premises. The girls were soon playing at ice cream shops, furniture stores, farmers' markets and sporting events, often joined by classmates and community members. They also launched an annual fall letter writing campaign to attract contributions, and requested donations from family and friends in lieu of birthday gifts. Since 2017, more than 20 musicians and vocalists have performed at fundraising events for Meg's foundation, "Notable Measures." And in that time, the organization has made grants of $300 to $1,000 to eight schools and music/arts organizations across the state, and provided scholarships for three students to play in a youth orchestra.

About The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program was created in 1995 to identify and recognize young people for outstanding volunteer service  and, in so doing, inspire others to volunteer, too. In the past 25 years, the program has honored more than 130,000 young volunteers at the local, state and national level.

For more information about The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and this year's honorees, visit http://spirit.prudential.com. For more information about the National Association of Secondary School Principals, visit www.nassp.org. For more information about Prudential Financial, visit www.news.prudential.com.

Learn more at spirit.prudential.com

SOURCE Prudential Financial, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.prudential.com


Hyderabad, May 4 : The Telangana government will decide on Tuesday over extending the lockdown, ending on May 7.

The state cabinet, at its crucial meeting to be presided over by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, will discuss the issue and take a decision on extending the lockdown further in the wake of the Centre extending it for two more weeks from May 4.

The meeting to be held at the Chief Minister's official residence Pragati Bhavan from 2 p.m. is also expected to decide about the relaxations in non-containment zones. Like the Central government, the state is also likely to ease the curbs in green and orange zones.

However, no relaxations are likely in the red zone district. Last week, the Centre categorised Greater Hyderabad and five other districts as red zones. There are 18 districts in the orange zone and nine in the green zone.

There has been a significant decline in the number of positive cases in the state during the last one week but occasional spikes, mainly from Greater Hyderabad, remained a cause of concern for the government.

The Chief Minister has already asked the authorities to strictly enforce the lockdown in red zone districts, especially in containment areas.

At its previous meeting on April 19, the state cabinet had decided against giving any relaxations in the lockdown. It opted not to implement the guidelines issued by the Centre, giving relaxations for some economic activity.

After the cabinet meeting, the Chief Minister had stated that the decision was taken keeping in view the opinion of the majority of people. Rao claimed to have conducted a survey on his own by talking to a cross section of people to obtain their views.

This time too, the Chief Minister is said to have consulted not only his close confidants and senior leaders of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) but also sought the views of eminent people from various walks of life.

Indicating that some relaxations may be announced, the state government has permitted real estate developers to undertake construction activity by securing requisite material and engaging their workers.

The development came after Ministry of Home Affairs issued orders permitting 'in situ' construction in urban areas including those falling in red zones.

Official sources, however, say a decision on allowing other economic activities will be taken after analysing all aspects and their likely implications.

Rao has so far strictly ruled out allowing sale of liquor anywhere in the state. With the Centre allowing sale of liquor and some states starting the sale from Monday, the cabinet is likely to discuss the proposal.

However, KCR is likely to take a decision only after studying the situation in other states including neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, where opening of liquor shops led to long queues and violation of social distancing and other lockdown norms.

Telangana has so far recorded 1082 Covid-19 cases, of which 545 have recovered and 29 have died.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 508.
Data analyst Jeff Gold reports historically low MMR vaccination rates in Belgium likely explain its over 7,844 deaths to date from COVID-19

ATLANTA, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The report MMR Vaccine Link to COVID-19: Fewer Deaths and Milder Cases from SARS-CoV-2 in Measles-Rubella Vaccinated Populations reveals that while death rates from COVID-19 seem to vary wildly by country, they actually correlate closely with historical MMR vaccination rates.



MMR Vaccine:May Lower COVID-19 Risk

Unlike most countries which only give MMR vaccines to children, Hong Kong, has extended many MMR vaccination programs to include adults. Hong Kong, with a population of 7.5 million people, has only seen four COVID-19 deaths.

Belgium, on the other hand, didnt begin MMR vaccinations until 1985, and for the first ten years only gave one MMR vaccination per person not the recommended two. It wasnt until 1995 that Belgium began giving two MMR vaccinations per person.

Even though Belgium has a population just 54% larger than Hong Kong, it has had a staggering 7,844 deaths from COVID-19, compared to Hong Kongs four deaths.

Data analyst and principal investigator Jeff Gold discovered the correlation of MMR Vaccines to COVID-19 morbidity on March 18, 2020. Gold has continued evaluating epidemiological data about MMR vaccination programs from dozens of countries, with each of his findings verified by co-investigator Dr. Larry P. Tilley, a World Organization Advisory Board Member.

COVID-19 survivors are encouraged to join World Organizations COVID-19 MMR Titer Study . Anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19 can apply, even if asymptomatic. Tests will be administered at Quest Diagnostics laboratories across the United States.

Golds MMR vaccine research related to COVID-19 was first posted publicly on March 29, 2020, the same day the NIH forwarded his findings to its COVID-19 Research Team. Corroborating biological evidence was published twelve days later on April 10, 2020 by a team of neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Story continues

About World Organization

World Organization is a 501c3 nonprofit charity based in Atlanta, Georgia.
PARIS (Reuters) - Travellers to France who arrive from a country in Europe's Schengen open-border area or Britain will be exempt from a planned compulsory two-week quarantine, the French consulate in Britain said on Sunday.

The new quarantine rules will apply to travellers, whether French or foreigners, as part of the fight against the new coronavirus.

Details will be provided in a decree specifying measures laid out in a bill extending a state of emergency until July 24. The move allows the government to restrict freedom of movement to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

"People entering the French territory from countries in the European area (EU/Schengen and United Kingdom) will NOT be affected by the quarantine measure announced in France, the details of which will be specified shortly," the French consulate in Britain said on Twitter on a verified account.

France, which has been the fifth-hardest hit country with 24,895 deaths from COVID-19, is preparing to gradually lift lockdown measures from May 11.

The French presidency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

French government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said earlier on Sunday that a list of "countries at risk" would soon be issued, without giving details.

"We'll establish a list of countries at risk and... when people come from risk areas, whether they are French or foreigners, we'll have mandatory quarantine measures," she said on France Inter radio station.

(Reporting by Michel Rose and Mathieu Rosemain, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Anger: A man protests against Mr Netanyahu outside the prime ministers home in Jerusalem. Photo: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Israel's Supreme Court began a two-day hearing yesterday to determine whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's indictment on criminal charges disqualifies him from forming a new government.

A ruling against Mr Netanyahu would be likely to trigger a snap election, the fourth since April 2019.

Mr Netanyahu and main rival Benny Gantz signed an agreement last month to form a unity government under which they would take turns leading Israel, after three elections that neither won.

In power for more than a decade and currently head of a caretaker government, right-wing Mr Netanyahu will serve as prime minister of a new administration for 18 months before handing the reins to centrist Mr Gantz, according to the unity deal.

The pact has support from a majority in parliament but several groups, including opposition parties and democracy watchdogs, have petitioned Israel's highest court to nullify the deal and bar Mr Netanyahu from leading the government, citing the criminal proceedings against him.

Israel's attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, wrote to the court saying there were insufficient legal grounds to disqualify Mr Netanyahu.

He described the case as a "head-on collision" between "on one side the most basic democratic principle of honouring the will of the majority ... (and) on the other integrity in public service, specifically among elected officials".

Eleven justices, wearing face masks and separated by screens as coronavirus precautions, presided over the discussion.

A small group outside the court, also following social-distancing guidelines, carried signs and Israeli flags to protest against government corruption.

Some Israeli analysts have said the court, cast by Mr Netanyahu loyalists as liberal and interventionist, was unlikely to bar the premier from heading a new government.

A ruling is expected to be announced by Thursday.

Mr Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, was indicted in January on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He denies any wrongdoing in all cases and says he is a victim of a political witch-hunt.

Mr Netanyahu's trial is due to start on May 24.

Israeli law says a prime minister under indictment is not obliged to step down until a final conviction. But some legal experts say there are precedents suggesting elected officials indicted with charges that carry moral turpitude should resign.
In this May 20, 2008, file photo John Bogle listens during an interview at The Associated Press in New York. The surge in popularity for index funds is a product of their lower fees, better performance and the preaching of Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Group, which launched the first index mutual fund for individual investors in 1976. Bogle died Jan. 16, 2019, at 89 after pushing for years to keep costs down and widen access to index funds. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) Read more

Wilmington Trust N.A., a unit of M&T Bancorp, has agreed to pay $80 million to settle federal accusations the company overcharged workers at 21 U.S. companies from 2010 to 2017 when they bought Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) shares from their employers.

ESOPs are a favorite way for small manufacturers and midsize professional firms to buy out founders and share ownership among managers and workers, who will then be their own bosses.

W.L. Gore & Co. and Wawa Inc. are among the largest Philadelphia-area companies with ESOPs. Wawa remains under the control of the founding Wood family, while Gore, the Newark, Del.-based developer of breathable Gore-Tex fabrics, is majority staff-owned.

The Wilmington Trust case settles complaints the Trump administration brought against the bank for too readily accepting the overly expensive prices that owners and their paid advisers wanted employees to pay for their shares  instead of investigating and seeking independent valuations, as the Labor Department says professional advisers must.

The company didnt admit any wrongdoing in the settlement. In a statement, it said it was glad to settle the claims and avoid a court fight, and repeated that it hadnt broken any laws.

In an unrelated case, Wilmington Trusts former president, Robert Harra, and three top aides were sentenced to federal prison terms in 2018 for lying to the government and investors about loan losses. But they remain free as the Third Circuit federal appeals court in Philadelphia weighs challenges to their convictions.

Bank lobbyists have complained that the government has not posted clear ESOP rules and is instead using lawsuits to set investment policy.

But the Labor Departments Employee Benefits Security Administration said the bank, with its long experience as a trustee and fiduciary for corporate America, should have worked harder to set a more affordable price for the 3,000 worker-owners at the affected firms who bought out bosses from 2010 to 2017.

The agreement resolves Labor Department lawsuits for ESOP members against Wilmington Trust for its pricing of ESOP shares at Graphite Sales Inc. of Ohio, and HCMC Legal Inc. and Stargate Apparel Inc. of New York.

Other ESOPs in the settlement, which were also investigated by the Labor Department, were concentrated mostly in Ohio, Florida, and New York.

These ESOPs members will split the $80 million. Plus the bank has to pay legal costs of $8 million and additional investigative costs.

At Stargate Apparel, Wilmington Trust hired a conflicted appraisal firm" to value shares for ESOP members to buy  after the firm had already been paid by the sellers to estimate the shares value.

The bank also accepted unaudited financial statements that showed a suspicious sudden increase in Stargate profits leading up to the sale without investigating obvious red flags.

The bank is no longer in the ESOP members advisory business. It set aside the money last year to pay the settlements, according to its 2019 annual report.

Bogles legacy

The late John C. Jack Bogle, the genial, tireless promoter of low-fee index funds who founded whats now the $6 trillion asset Vanguard Group, would be 91 this week. And a group calling itself the Friends of Jack is assembling online Tuesday to discuss his legacy now that Bogles once-revisionist principles have become investor orthodoxy.

"This is perhaps the first such public discussion since his passing in January 2019, says Knut Rostad, an organizer and head of the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard.

Bogle was best known as the face of Malvern-based Vanguard. Though he was retired from the company longer than he headed it, his 12 books and many public appearances relentlessly pushed Vanguard-style passive investments.

But Vanguard doesnt dominate the Friends of Jack: They include Ted Aronson, boss of quantitative investor AJO Partners, a man whos so Philly, he started his career at Michael Milkens Drexel Lambert when it was still based here, and hired future Comcast CEO Brian Roberts as his intern; New York investment firm head Steven Galbraith of Kindred Capital; Princeton economist Alan Blinder and Princeton endowment investments chief Andy Golden; MIT finance prof Andrew Lo; and Mike Nolan, who handled queries for Bogle as his longtime assistant.

At the Tuesday afternoon program, they will hear pioneering personal finance columnist Jane Bryant Quinn tell how Bogle changed my life," and from a panel including investor Rick Ferri who edited the Bogleheads Guide to Retirement Planning and is active on the Bogleheads online investor boards.

Rostad also plans to post the results of a survey that the Friends commissioned, which he says places Bogle a little ahead of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates among respected U.S. business leaders, and further ahead of Steve Jobs, Chuck Schwab, Michael Bloomberg, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

He also said the firm that Bogle headed won higher recognition and positive marks than Schwab or Merrill Lynch. It does, after all, have more customers.
ANN ARBOR, MI  Ann Arbor officials are hoping to find more ways to help residents and businesses facing financial hardship during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

One thing the city can do is waive or reduce penalty charges for late property tax payments.

City Council is expected to vote Monday night, May 4, on a resolution to do just that.

The move could cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue, while significantly reducing penalty fees for residents and businesses, according to the city.

The proposal is being sponsored by Mayor Christopher Taylor and Council Members Jane Lumm, I-2nd Ward, and Ali Ramlawi, D-5th Ward.

Ann Arbors recovery from coronavirus will be a marathon, city predicts huge revenue losses

Summer tax bills are sent out in July and payments are due by July 31.

The city encourages property owners with the means to pay their taxes to do so on time so city, county, school, transit, library and other services remain funded.

But for those who might not be able to pay on time, some relief may be in store.

Normally, the city charges late penalties equal to 1% interest if summer tax bills arent paid as of Aug. 1, then 5% on Sept. 1, 6% on Jan. 1, and 7% on Feb. 1.

The resolution before council calls for waiving the Aug. 1 penalty and half the Sept. 1 penalty.

A waiver of just the Aug. 1 penalty charges would result in a loss of about $50,000 for the citys general fund, according to Matt Horning, the citys interim financial services administrator and chief financial officer.

Additionally, it could reduce the citys investment income by about $87,000, Horning told council in a memo.

A subsequent waiver of half the Sept. 1 penalty  reducing it to 2.5%  would cost the citys general fund about $110,000, plus about $100,000 in lost investment income, Horning said.

City staff reached out to Ann Arbor Public Schools, the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority, Ann Arbor District Library, Downtown Development Authority, Washtenaw Community College, Washtenaw Intermediate School District and Washtenaw County about the fact that the waivers may result in a delay in tax collections, Horning said.

These entities did not indicate that a waiver or potential collection delay would produce significant cash flow issues at this time, he wrote in his memo.

Community leaders discuss wide impacts of coronavirus in Ann Arbor area

City officials are proposing the penalty waivers not apply to tax payments that have been escrowed by financial institutions on behalf of property taxpayers. Those payments are handled under terms of escrow agreements between borrowers and lenders and the agreements generally dont give the taxpayer the benefit of any waiver of late penalties, Horning said.

Council also is expected to vote Monday night on appropriating $250,000 to help the county and the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County fund emergency shelter, case management and other services in response to the pandemic.

The councils virtual meeting starts at 7 p.m. Watch it live on YouTube.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

Should Ann Arbor close streets to cars and open them to pedestrians, cyclists?

No elections in Washtenaw County on May 5

University of Michigan provost cautiously optimistic for in-person fall semester

Pop-up coronavirus testing sites to open in Ypsilanti Township

Im tired of hiding, says Ann Arbor immigrant calling for worker protection amid pandemic
Anglican bishops across Canada say the pandemic has revealed the urgent need for a guaranteed basic income program; and they've written to the prime minister asking him to implement it.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 3/5/2020 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Anglican bishops across Canada say the pandemic has revealed the urgent need for a guaranteed basic income program; and they've written to the prime minister asking him to implement it.

Spearheaded by Geoff Woodcroft, bishop of Ruperts Land, which includes parts of Manitoba and northwestern Ontario, the letter is signed by 28 of 29 of the churchs bishops, along with Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

"Of all the issues the Anglican church has been involved in, this is as unanimous as it gets," said Woodcroft, noting the only reason not all bishops signed is because the Diocese of Athabasca, which includes Fort McMurray, is battling a flood.

"Its totally exciting to see so many solidly behind this."

In the letter, the bishops applaud the government for its response to the pandemic, including the emergency benefit for laid-off workers, but it notes some people are excluded from such programs.

The letter calls a guaranteed basic income an "affordable, just, evidence-based policy option."

Citing the 1970s Manitoba Basic Income Experiment, or Mincome, and recent efforts in Ontario, the letter notes it would provide "beneficial returns in every aspect of our polity, from justice to health, from education to social welfare."

It would not just be "an astute financial policy," it goes on to say, but also would mark "our identity as a country who cares for one another... a new social contract, defining a new relationship among Canadians, through the mediating role of our government."

It would also be a "great, transformational legacy left by this government" out of the pandemic, equal to the creation of universal health insurance.

Woodcroft got the idea when he saw the effect of the pandemic on Manitoba's poor.

"I was watching people struggle, and watched parishes trying to help those falling between the cracks," he said of how Anglican churches in the province were stepping up to provide food and other basic necessities.

"It hit my heart again and again."

He read Hugh Segals book, Bootstraps Need Boots: One Tory's Lonely Fight to End Poverty in Canada, in which the author outlines the case for a guaranteed basic income.

"I devoured it," he said, adding he reached out to other experts on the topic such as Evelyn Forget at the University of Manitoba.

I was watching people struggle, and watched parishes trying to help those falling between the cracks... It hit my heart again and again.  Bishop Geoff Woodcroft

Last week, he organized a Zoom meeting for Anglican bishops and Segal. During that meeting it became apparent there was cross-country interest in the idea.

Following the meeting, Woodcroft wrote a first draft of the letter and then invited response from other bishops. The final copy was sent to the prime minister on the weekend.

"I did it out of a sense of Christian compassion," he said about why he is promoting the idea.

"The call of God on the body of Christ is to look after our neighbours. God wants everyone to have life, and to have it abundantly. (This) is one way to open the door to abundance for everyone."

Woodcroft believes Canadians will support it, and that it will especially resonate in Manitoba where people generously help people living in poverty.

"I also believe they would want to prevent people from becoming poor in first place," he said, of why he believes many will get behind the call.

Forget, an economist and professor in the department of community health sciences at the University of Manitoba, has been researching guaranteed basic income for about a decade. She welcomes the support of the Anglican church.

Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

"I would expect faith communities to be thinking about economics and social justice," she said, noting she isnt surprised to see the pandemic spurring this conversation.

"People should have enough to live on... its a shock to see how little some people are paid to do essential jobs," she noted. "Many of them are not earning enough to be above the poverty line."

Woodcroft said the initiative is not tied to any political party. "This is the work we should be doing. This is the work God calls me to do."

In addition to the Anglican bishops, the letter was signed by Susan Johnson, national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and Jason Zinko, bishop of the same denomination in Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario.

Manitobans are invited to show their support by writing to their MP and the prime minister. More information is available on the dioceses website at www.rupertsland.ca.

faith@freepress.mb.ca
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices fell sharply on Monday as a fresh spat between the United States and China over the origin of the coronavirus added to persistent oversupply concerns. Benchmark Brent crude fell by 83 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $25.61 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down more than 8 percent at $18.19. Trade war fears returned to the fore after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday there was 'a significant amount of evidence' that the new coronavirus originated in China. China's Global Times said in an editorial that Pompeo was 'bluffing' and called on the United States to present its evidence. OPEC production surged by the most in almost 30 years in April, a Bloomberg news agency survey showed, as countries kept pumping vast amounts of crude even after reaching a price-war truce earlier in the month. Weak manufacturing data from Asia and Europe also raised concerns that demand will not recover anytime soon. April Manufacturing PMI's from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam all collapsed to hit historic lows, raising fears of prolonged coronavirus downturn. In Europe, the final Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 33.4 from 44.5 in March. The score was also below the flash estimate of 33.6. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The Philadelphia Experiment is one of the most grotesque military urban legends ever  and it has endured as an infamous World War II conspiracy theory. But is there any truth to it? Let's take a look.

According to legend, on Oct. 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge, a Cannon-class destroyer escort, was conducting top-secret experiments designed to win command of the oceans against the Axis powers. The rumor was that the government was creating technology that would render naval ships invisible to enemy radar, and there in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, it was time to test it out.

Witnesses claim an eerie green-blue glow surrounded the hull of the ship as her generators spun up and then, suddenly, the Eldridge disappeared. The ship was then seen in Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia before disappearing again and reappearing back in Philadelphia.

The legend states that classified military documents reported that the Eldridge crew were affected by the events in disturbing ways. Some went insane. Others developed mysterious illness. But others still were said to have been fused together with the ship; still alive, but with limbs sealed to the metal.

That'll give you nightmares. That's some Event Horizon sh*t right there.

I'll never sleep again. (Event Horizon | Paramount Pictures)

Which is actually a convincing reason why the Eldridge's story gained so much momentum.

In a 1994 article for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Jacques F. Vallee theorized that deep-seated imagery is key to planting a hoax into the minds of the masses and of the educated public.

But before we break down what really happened that day, let's talk about the man behind the myth: Carl M. Allen, who would go by the pseudonym, Carlos Miguel Allende. In 1956, Allende sent a series of letters to Morris K. Jessup, author of the book, The Case for the UFO, in which he argued that unidentified flying objects merit further study.

Jessup apparently included text about unified field theory because this is what Allende latched onto for his correspondences. In the 1950s, unified field theory, which has never been proven, attempted to merge Einstein's general theory of relativity with electromagnetism. In fact, Allende claimed to have been taught by Einstein himself and could prove the unified field theory based on events he witnessed on October 28, 1943.

Allende claimed that he saw the Eldridge disappear from the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and he further insisted that the United States Military had conducted what he called the Philadelphia Experiment  and was trying to cover it up.

Jessup was then contacted by the Navy's Office of Naval Research, who had received a package containing Jessup's book with annotations claiming that extraterrestrial technology allowed the U.S. government to make breakthroughs in unified field theory.

This is one of the weirdest details. The annotations were designed to look like they were written by three different authors  one maybe extraterrestrial? According to Valle's article for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Jessup became obsessed with Allende's revelations, and the disturbed researcher would take his own life in 1959. It wasn't until 1980 that proof of Allende's forgery would be made available.

Inexplicably, two ONR officers had 127 copies of the annotated text printed and privately distributed by the military contractor Varo Manufacturing, giving wings to Allende's story long after Jessup's death.

So, what really happened aboard the USS Eldridge that day?

According to Edward Dudgeon, who served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Engstrom, which was dry-docked in the Philadelphia Naval Yard while the Eldridge was, both ships did have classified devices on board. They were neither invisibility cloaks nor teleportation drives designed by aliens, but instead, they scrambled the magnetic signatures of ships using the degaussing technique, which provided protection from magnetic torpedoes aboard U-boats.

How Stuff Works suggested that the "green glow" reported by witnesses that day could be explained by an electric storm or St. Elmo's Fire which, in addition to being an American coming-of-age film starring the Brat Pack, is a weather phenomenon in which plasma is created in a strong electric field, giving off a bright glow, almost like fire.

Finally, inland canals connected Norfolk to Philadelphia, allowing a ship to travel between the two in a few hours.

The USS Eldridge would be transferred to Greece in 1951 and sold for scrap in the 90s, but Allende's hoax would live on in our effing nightmares forever.

More articles from We Are the Mighty:

6 urban legends about Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

Why Okinawa is the most haunted place in the military

11 scary ghost stories, legends, and haunted military bases

We Are The Mighty (WATM) celebrates service with stories that inspire. WATM is made in Hollywood by veterans. It's military life presented like never before. Check it out at We Are the Mighty.
4 takeaways from Trump virtual town hall: more economic aid, defending govt response

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

On Sunday, President Donald Trump spoke with Fox News correspondents Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as part of a virtual town hall held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The main focus of the event was the administrations response to the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, as well as how the president plans to revive the economy amid the shutdowns.

Baier and MacCallum fielded questions written from people and in videos, with Trump later being joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Here are four important takeaways from the Trump town hall, including the possibility of more economic aid and how the president feels about when churches can reopen.

1

2

3

4

5

Next
While La Ronge, Sask., initially received an exemption from the travel ban blanketing the north due to COVID-19, Councillor Jordan McPhail says council is going to be asking the province to include the town in travel restrictions after all.

They'll also be asking the province to provide data on how many travellers are being let through or being turned away from the checkpoints.

McPhail had previously pointed out that once people were past the initial checkpoint, there would be no way to enforce travel between the communities in the area.

"People have caught on in the event that they're getting to a check stop they're allowed to say that, 'I'm just going to La Ronge,' and with the exemption in place it doesn't matter whether they're really going to Air Ronge, the Lac La Ronge Indian Band. ...

"It's created a bit of a loophole."

Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency said in a statement that people travelling to or from the Town of La Ronge or Stony Rapids are not allowed to stop in any other communities in the Northern Saskatchewan Administration District.

The penalty for disobeying a public health order is $2,000 for individuals and $75,000 for businesses, the agency said.

Google Maps

McPhail voted against the motion asking for an exemption from the travel ban.

He said he wants the community's leadership to focus on the vulnerable in the community.

"My sole concern is the people that are living in overcrowded housing and not necessarily the people that are trying to access their home away from home."

Vast distances and low population

Matt Klassen, the head of a cottage owners-group in La Ronge, said earlier this week that the travel ban doesn't take into account the vast distances and low population in the north.

Klassen said he doesn't think a travel ban is necessary because there have been no recorded cases in the La Ronge area.

McPhail said the travel restrictions would still allow local people to go to their cabins.

"Really, this is advocating for a very select few," McPhail said.

On Sunday, the La Ronge council was set to meet with the government to discuss the checkpoint, and McPhail said he hoped neighbouring communities would be joining the call.
PITTSBURGH, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- "I have lived in several apartments, and I noticed that while houses have shades on their balconies, apartments do not," said an inventor from Sacramento, Calif. "This inspired me to develop a convenient way to create a shaded area on a balcony."

He developed the patent-pending APARTMENT BALCONY SUN/SHADE to provide shade on an apartment balcony. The accessory keeps the balcony area from getting too hot. This ensures that individuals have a comfortable spot to rest and relax. It also makes it possible to enjoy sunsets and sunrises on the balcony. The device is usable for low- and high-rise apartments. Additionally, it is easy to set up.

The original design was submitted to the San Diego sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 18-SOG-392, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com.

SOURCE InventHelp

Related Links

http://www.inventhelp.com


We know, we know - You cant exactly hop in the car and take a leisurely spin to Philadelphia just to order food.

Maybe stash this away for post-coronavirus pandemic food adventures - a Philadelphia spot has been named one of the best new restaurants in America by GQ.

Food writer Brett Martin lauded Laser Wolf in Philadelphia, singling out the Israeli grill" for its array of dips, pickles, and other salatim," including the hummus.

The restaurant is the latest in a line of establishments owned by Michael Solomonov, best known for the award-winning Zahav. That restaurant received a nod in 2019 when named outstanding restaurant by the James Beard Foundation.

READ MORE: IHOP is working on a pancake flavored breakfast cereal that fans appear to be flipping over

Apparently Laser Wolf follows in its footsteps. In Martins mind, you cant go wrong with anything off the menu, whether it be the pleasantly spongy Romanian beef kebab; trim, triangular lamb chops; ruby-bellied strips of tuna.

This isnt the sharing of anxiously dividing up appetizers. Its arms crisscrossing the table as everyone reaches for food, forks stabbing bits from friends plates, a ballet of dishes being passed back and forth as conversation flows. It is what I picture when I dream of returning to restaurants, Martin wrote.

He logged in plenty of miles, traveling to 23 cities and visiting 93 restaurants to compile the list.

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.
Pat Lillis, Kilminchy, Portlaoise, Laois / Doonbeg, Clare



The death took place on Saturday, May 2, of Pat Lillis, Kilminchy, Portlaoise and late of Shragh, Co. Clare.

Died peacefully, surrounded by his loving family. Predeceased by his brother Tom. Deeply regretted by his loving wife Mary, son Paddy. sisters Marion and Mary, brothers in law, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends.

Rest in Peace

Given the exceptional climate and to protect the welfare of everyone who knew him, a private funeral, with immediate family only takes at 12 noon on Monday in SS Peter and Paul's Church, Portlaoise and will be streamed on the webcam. Those who would have liked to attend his funeral, but due to these restrictions cannot, please leave a personal message for the family on the condolence page on RIP.ie or send condolences in the traditional manner. The family thank you for your cooperation, understanding and support during this sensitive time.

Michael (Sonny) Brophy, Russelstown, Attanagh, Laois / Attanagh, Kilkenny



The death took place on Friday, May 1 of Michael (Sonny) Brophy, Russelstown, Attanagh, Laois / Attanagh, Kilkenny

Died peacefully, at St Vincent's hospital Dublin. Husband of the late Bridie. Deeply regretted by his sisters Julia (Phelan), Annie (Butler), Peg & Mary (San Francisco), sisters in law, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and friends.

Rest In Peace

In keeping with government guidelines regarding public gatherings, a private funeral will take place. A Memorial Mass for Sonny will take place at a later date. Those wishing to leave a message of condolence can do so on RIP.ie.

Bridie Kaye (nee Bryan), Rahin, Ballylinan, Laois



The death took place on Saturday, May 2 of Bridie Kaye (nee Bryan), Rahin, Ballylinan, Laois

In her 92nd year. Died peacefully, at her home. Pre-deceased by her husband Willie. Dearly loved mother of Noreen, Mena, Ber, Liz, Mary, Carmel, Tricia and Padraig. Sadly missed by her loving family, brothers, sisters, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, extended family, neighbours and friends.

May she rest in peace

A private family funeral will take place, due to Government advice regarding public gatherings. Those who would have liked to attend the funeral, but due to current restrictions cannot, please leave your personal message in her condolences section on RIP.ie .

Joe MAHON, Gurteen, Ballickmoyler, Laois / Ballickmoyler, Carlow



The death took place on Saturday, May 2 of Joe Mahon of Gurteen, Ballickmoyler, Co. Laois.

Joe passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family at his home.

Beloved husband of Sarah, much loved father of Arnold, Eamonn, Joseph and John, adored grandfather of Cillian, Luke, Julia, Eamonn, Katie, Jack and Tomas and cherished brother of Seamus, Arnold, Vincent, Eileen, Maura, Kathleen, Vera and the late Eugene.

He will be sadly missed by his loving wife, sons, grandchildren, daughters-in-law Jenny, Mary, Maria and Sarah, brothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, uncle Paddy, nephews, nieces, relatives, good neighbours and friends.

May Joes Gentle Soul Rest in Peace

Joes family understand and appreciate that people would like to offer their condolences. However, due to the current situation, all funeral arrangements will be private.

Those who wish to leave a personal message of condolence may do so in the Condolences section on RIP.ie. A celebration of Joes life will take place at a later date.

James Joseph (Squeak) Brady, Ash Trees, Stradbally, Laois



The death took place on Friday, May 1 of James Joseph (Squeak) Brady, Ash Trees, Stradbally, Laois

James passed away peacefully in the company of his loving and devoted family in Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise. Greatly missed by his wife Mary, daughters Mary and Susan, sons Seamus, Richard, Paul and Conor. Sadly missed by his daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and friends.

May James Rest In Peace.

Private family funeral. Covid 19 protocol is in place. Social distancing to be observed. Memorial mass will be organised at a later date. Sympathisers can extend their sympathies on the online Condolence facilities on RIP.ie.

Requiem Mass was streamed on Sunday at 11.30 am in Stradbally church.

The Brady family would like to thank you for your co-operation, understanding and support during this sensitive and difficult time.

Donations if desired to Cancer Research.

Aron Ging, Clonrooske View, Portlaoise, Laois



The death took place on Thursday, April 30 of Aron Ging, Clonrooske View, Portlaoise.

At Tullamore Regional Hospital. Predeceased by his mother Patricia. Deeply regretted by his loving sisters Emma, Lisa and brother Ross, his father Richard, grandparents, uncles, aunts, nephew Michael, cousins, relatives and friends.

May he rest in peace

Given the exceptional climate and to protect the welfare of everyone who knew him, a private funeral, with immediate family only, took place at 12 noon on Saturday in SS Peter and Paul's Church, Portlaoise, streamed on the webcam.

Those who would have liked to attend his funeral, but due to these restrictions cannot, please leave a personal message for the family on the condolence page on RIP.ie, or send condolences in the traditional manner. The family thank you for your cooperation, understanding and support during this sensitive time.

Sean O'Riordan, Church Street, Tullamore, Offaly / Mountmellick, Laois



The death took place on Thursday, April 30 of Sean O'Riordan, Church Street, Tullamore, Co. Offaly and formerly of Mountmellick, Laois.

Died suddenly, at his residence. He will be sadly missed by his son Alan, daughter-in-law Roshni, grandson Noah, and his Ex wife Mary. Deeply regretted by his sisters, brothers, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives and friends.

"May Sean Rest in Peace"

Due to Government advice and Covid 19 protocols regarding public gatherings a private family funeral will take place. If you wish to offer your sympathies to Sean's family, Please use the online condolence page on RIP.ie. Sean's family thank you for your understanding at this very difficult time.

Rosemary Eacrett (nee Reid), Kerry / Roscommon / Laois

The death occurred on Wednesday, April 29 of Rosemary Eacrett (nee Reid)

From Killarney, Kerry / Tarbert, Kerry / Lanesboro, Roscommon / Portarlington, Laois



Peacefully in the loving care of the staff of Heatherlee Nursing Home, Killarney, Rosemary. Beloved wife of the late George and loving mother of Valerie (Hilliard) and Peter. Sadly missed by her family, son-in-law Adrian, daughter-in-law Karen, grandchildren Sarah, Robert, Nathan, Sydney and Quinten, great grandchildren Aoife and Quinn, sister Iris, relatives and friends.

"Safe In The Arms Of Jesus"

In accordance with Government and HSE directives and in the interest of public health, a private funeral will take place for Rosemary with burial in Lea Churchyard, Portarlington, Co Laois.

If you wish to offer your condolences online, please see page on RIP.ie

Joan Lalor, 2 Oak Glen, Stradbally, Laois



The death took place on Monday, April 27 of Joan Lalor, 2 Oak Glen, Stradbally, Laois.

Joan passed away (peacefully) at her home in the company of her devoted and loving family. Predeceased by her loving parents and her son James, dearly loved mother to Marie, Suzanne, Paul,Brian and Adrian, sisters Anne, Theresa, Angela and Mary, brothers Michael and Bill, her much loved grandchildren, daughter-in-law, nieces, nephews, very kind neighbours and a large circle of friends.

May her gentle soul Rest In Peace

Due to government advice regarding public gatherings, a private family funeral will take place. A memorial Mass for Joan will take place at a later date. Condolences can be left on the 'condolences' section of RIP.ie. The family would like to thank everyone for their understanding at this sad time.

Nina McEvoy (nee Mulhare), No. 7 Woodview, Stradbally, Laois

The death took place on Tuesday, April 28 of Nina McEvoy (nee Mulhare), No. 7 Woodview, Stradbally, Laois.

Nina passed away peacefully in the company of her loving family in Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise. Predeceased by her son Sean and brothers Michael and Brendan. Nina will be greatly missed by her husband Nicholas, sons Paul and Mark, grandchildren Ryan and Aaron. Sadly missed by her sisters Magaret Marron, Toni Deegan, Elizabeth Reddin and Breda Dolan, brothers Joe and David, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and friends.

May Nina Rest In Peace.

Private family funeral.

Covid 19 protocol in place. Social distancing to be observed. Memorial Mass will be organised at a later date. Sympathisers can extend their sympathies on the online Condolence facilities at RIP.ie. The Mc Evoy family would like to thank you for your co-operation, understanding and support during this sensitive and difficult time.

Patrick (Pat) Pratt, Gort na Noir, Abbeyleix, Laois

The death took place on Monday, April 27 of Patrick (Pat) Pratt, Gort na Noir, Abbeyleix, Laois.

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our beloved father, Patrick Pratt. He was surrounded by his children, Mark, Susan, Ruaidhri, Sean, Ben and Katie, who he was immensely proud of. With his love, wit and charm, he had a tremendous impact on the lives of all those he knew. From his sister, Mary and her family in Canada, cousin Peggy, his neighbour and dear friend, Sean, to his 20-plus grandchildren and great grandchildren and the great many friends hed made along the way. His life was a true adventure, lived to the full with memories that will live on.

Rest In Peace

Due to Covid-19 Gudelines, a Private Funeral will take place for Family only. Messages of condolence can be left on the online condolence on RIP.ie

Liam Barry, Castlemarket, Ballinakill, Laois



The death took place on Monday, April 27 of Liam Barry.

Liam died peacefully at St. Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny. Predeceased by his son Colm, parents Bill and Mai, sisters Helena and Esther. Sadly missed by Diane, sister Margaret, brother Brendan, brother-in-law Chris, sister-in-law Kathleen, nieces, nephews, relatives and friends.

Rest In Peace

A special word of thanks to the staff at Brookhaven Nursing Home, Ballyragget and the Critical Care unit, St. Lukes Hospital for their tireless care and attention.

Due to current Government/HSE guidelines on social gatherings, Funeral Mass was for immediate family only followed by burial in St Brigid's Cemetery, Ballinakill. A Memorial Mass for Liam will take place at a later date. Please use the online condolence book on RIP.ie to offer your sympathies.

Angeria Kelly, O'Moore Place, Portlaoise, Laois



The death took place on Sunday, April 26 of Angeria Kelly, O'Moore Place, Portlaoise.

Died at the Regional Hospital, Tullamore. Deeply regretted by her loving family Paulie, Donna, Jimmy, Papa, Andy, Ivan and Tammy, sisters Deirdre, Paula, Ann-Marie and Mary Ann, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends.

Rest in Peace

Given the exceptional climate and to protect the welfare of everyone who knew her, a private funeral, with immediate family only took place. Those who would have liked to attend her funeral, but due to these restrictions cannot, please leave a personal message for the family on the condolence page on RIP.ie, or send condolences in the traditional manner. The family thank you for your cooperation, understanding and support during this sensitive time.
Failure to vaccinate everyone will give rise to new variants, says UN chief

COVID-19 crisis: Kerala opens six places to enable its residents return from other states

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Thiruvananthapuram, May 04: Kerala has opened its borders at six places for its residence stranded in other states due to coronavirus lockdown to return to their native.

The stranded Kerala residents can enter the state through border check-posts at Inchivila in Thiruvananthapuram, Aryankavu in Kollam, Kumily in Idukki, Walayar in Palakkad, Muthanga in Wayanad and Manjeshwaram in Kasaragod.

Coronavirus crisis: For the first time, PM Modi to take part in NAM meeting today

On Sunday, NORKA (Non Resident Keralites Affairs) department had said that at least 1.5 lakh Keralites from other states had registered to return after the Centre opens inter- state borders. As per the state government order, it has directed the district administration to ensure a facility at each designated entry points to accommodate at least 500 persons at a time and enough parking space for the vehicles near the borders.

"We have already set up 60 counters to receive the Keralites coming from the other side of the border. We will set up more if required. As of now, school teachers are helping at us the help-desks and police, health and revenue officials are also here," Kasaragod district collector D Sajith Babu told reporters.

Explained: Study claims fatality rate among lung cancer patients due to coronavirus is high

He said the district administration would ensure that everyone maintains social distancing and discouraged those who reach the border without registering with NORKA. He said those who have registered with the NORKA will have a vehicle pass and the persons will be medically examined at the border.

At least 20,869 from Maharashtra have registered with NORKA to return to the state. The state government had earlier said that those who returned from other states will be medically examined at the borders and those who are symptomatic will be isolated and quarantined.

COVID-19: Central Public Health Teams deployed at 20 districts

The government has also said that those who do not have any symptoms will also have to undergo the mandatory quarantine period of 28 days once they enter the border.

In a relief to Kerala, no new cases were reported from the state on Sunday while one person was cured. Till now 499 persons were affected in the state while three deaths were also reported.

Kerala has currently 95 people s under treatment for the deadly coronavirus and cured 401 people of COVID-19.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, May 4, 2020, 13:51 [IST]
Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider for more details. (28)
In the lawsuit, Mark Shaffer of Pennsylvania alleges that his daughters classes have not been as rigorous since the university shuttered and moved classes online, a public health measure designed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Despite this alleged drop-off in quality, the university continues to charge for tuition and fees as if nothing has changed and is reaping the financial benefit of millions of dollars from students, the complaint states.
New Delhi/Islamabad, May 4 : The killings of a Baloch journalist and a Pashtun human rights activist last week, have given credence to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's (HRCP) verdict that the enforced disappearances of Pakistanis were "either for their political or religious affiliations, or for their defence of human rights".

Sajid Hussain, a Baloch and editor of the online magazine Balochistan Times in Sweden, disappeared on March 2. His body was found in a river outside the Swedish city of Uppsala on May 1.

The same day, leader of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) Arif Wazir was shot dead in Wana, South Waziristan.

While Hussain was a significant voice of Baloch people abroad, dedicated to documenting enforced disappearances by the Pakistan Army and Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Wazir was a peace activist demanding an end to human rights violations especially extrajudicial killings and kidnappings in South Waziristan.

The journalist had fled Pakistan in 2012 after receiving threats over his journalistic work in Balochistan province. He was living in Sweden in exile.

The Pashtun rights activist's father, uncle and five others in his family killed in Waziristan in 2007.

The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Sweden suspects that the Baloch might have been kidnapped by the ISI.

Amnesty International has asked Pakistan to conduct an independent investigation into Wazir's killing.

In a scathing report last week, the HRCP pointed out that Pakistan wa yet to criminalise enforced disappearances even though the Imran Khan government has made commitments several times.

The report said that since the inception of the commission of inquiry on enforced disappearances, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), of which South Waziristan is a part, has topped the list in the numbers of missing persons.

Last year at least 2,472 persons were registered as missing in KP.

The enforced disappearances are "either for their political or religious affiliations, or for their defence of human rights", the report said.

The commission of inquiry on enforced disappearances, the HRCP report said, "falls short of being an effective agency to provide relief to the citizens, apportion responsibility and bring perpetrators to justice".

In the same report, the HRCP said curbs on freedom of opinion and expression continued to escalate.

The commission also noted that for journalists in Balochistan and KP in particular, it "had become even more difficult to speak or write openly" if at all "on 'sensitive' issues such as enforced disappearances, or to criticise state policy or security agencies in these areas".
China's 'bullying' in response to Australia's calls for an international coronavirus inquiry has been slammed as 'outrageous' in a fiery Q&A debate.

Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove told the ABC program it was in China's interests to agree to an international investigation after Washington alleged the deadly virus had come from a Wuhan lab in China.

'I think it's in China's interest as well as humanity's interest that we get to the bottom of how this thing that so far has caused a quarter of a million deaths and untold economic damage - how it occurred,' he said on Monday night.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured) is a biosecurity level four laboratory which researched bat coronaviruses and is located not far from the Wuhan wet market

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (pictured) said on Sunday the virus originated in a Wuhan lab. Michael Fullilove said it was in China's interests to have an international inquiry

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said there is 'enormous evidence' the coronavirus outbreak originated in a Chinese laboratory during an interview with US media outlet ABC News on Sunday.

His comments marked an escalation in tensions with China, which has so far refused to allow an independent international investigation into the origins and spread of the devastating pandemic.

Scientists have said they believe the virus jumped from bats to an unidentified intermediary species before infecting humans at a Wuhan wet market where wild animals are kept in cages, slaughtered and killed for meat.

The wet market is located not far from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a biosecurity level four laboratory which researched bat coronaviruses, and the level 2 Wuhan Centre for Disease Control which also collected bat coronavirus samples.

China has been accused by some of covering up the severity of the pandemic after it started, costing the world vital weeks of preparation time.

Dr Fullilove said China was run by a 'Leninist' system and the recent behaviour by its diplomats had been 'outrageous'.

Chinese ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye (pictured) said the Chinese public might stop buying Australian products over Australia's calls for a coronavirus inquiry

Bat soup (pictured) is a delicacy in China. Scientists think the coronavirus jumped species from a bat to an unknown intermediary and then into humans at the Wuhan wet market, where many species were kept in close proximity in unhygienic conditions and slaughtered for food

'What if Australia's ambassador and consuls general behaved in China the way that Chinese diplomats behaved in Australia? I think they'd be given short shrift,' he said.

Dr Fullilove said China had hardened its attitude to the world in recent years and its diplomats were engaging in 'wolf warrior diplomacy' and pushing back hard in an effort to impress President Xi Jinping.

Human Rights Watch Australia director Elaine Pearson said the reason the world is in this predicament is because of China's mishandling of the crisis.

'I think China's showing it's a bully. And I think the way you deal with bullies is you don't just roll over and pike down. You do have to stand up to them,' she said.

Member for Wentworth Devanand 'Dave' Sharma, a former diplomat, downplayed China's threat of economic retaliation, saying it would soon be a footnote to history

China's President Xi Jinping knew about the coronavirus on the 7th of January yet China only shut down the epicentre of the outbreak, Hubei province, on the 23rd of January, after five million people had left to travel through China and the world, spreading the virus.

Australia has called for the World Health Organization (WHO) to support an independent review into how the coronavirus started and spread, and has been lobbying world leaders.

This has angered China which is conducting its own investigation through the Chinese Communist Party, which it says should be enough.

China made its displeasure known on Monday last week when Chinese ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, warned the Chinese public might avoid Australian products and universities if Australia continued to call for international involvement in the investigation.

Human Rights Watch Australia director Elaine Pearson said the reason the world is suffering the pandemic is because of China's mishandling of the crisis.

'Maybe the ordinary people will say 'Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?' Mr Cheng said in the interview on the front page of The Australian Financial Review.

'The parents of the students would also think whether this place which they found is not so friendly, even hostile, whether this is the best place to send our kids.'

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

This was followed by insults from Global Times editor Hu Xijin who last week described Australia as 'always making trouble... A bit like chewing gum stuck on the sole of China's shoes'.

The Global Times newspaper is the English-language tabloid arm of the Chinese Communist Party's newspaper People's Daily, owned by the CCP's central committee.

The tabloid's editorials are widely regarded as the 'voice' of Beijing even when official CCP statements are more reserved.

Further insults flew on Sunday's 60 Minutes program when influential Chinese academic Chen Hong who writes for the Global Times accused Australia of 'stabbing China in the back' with its calls for an independent inquiry.

The diplomatic spat has sparked fears that China could economically punish Australia for its stance.

However Liberal MP Devanand 'Dave' Sharma told QandA that the disagreement would soon be put in the past.

'I think in the broad sweep of history we'll look back on the last week and we won't think much of it,' he said.

'It will be a footnote.'

Mr Sharma, a former diplomat, downplayed fears of an economic retaliation, saying China does not trade with Australia to do it favours.

'They buy ... because it's a good quality reliable supply,' he said.

'If you look at China's import mix, the three countries from whom they import the most goods is South Korea, Japan and Taiwan - not three countries with whom you'd think China normally has good relations. They trade with them extensively because its in their interests to do so.'

Mr Sharma said China's diplomats were speaking partly for a domestic audience in Beijing and that Australia was going to have to work and trade with China despite the differences.

Mr Sharma said the coronavirus investigation should not be about any one country but about whether the international institutions served us well.

AMBASSADOR'S ECONOMIC THREAT TO AUSTRALIA In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Ambassador Cheng slammed Australia's push for a global inquiry as 'political' and warned Chinese consumers could boycott the country. Answering a question about whether China could boycott Australian iron ore or gas, Mr Cheng instead focused on China's contribution to Australia's agriculture, tourism and education sectors. Mr Cheng said: 'I think if the mood is going from bad to worse, people would think why we should go to such a country while it's not so friendly to China. 'The tourists may have second thoughts. Maybe the parents of the students would also think whether this place, which they find is not so friendly, even hostile, is the best place to send their kids to. 'So it's up to the public, the people to decide. And also, maybe the ordinary people will think why they should drink Australian wine or eat Australian beef.' Advertisement

'Did the World Health Organization perform as it should?' he said.

China accounts for 26 per cent of Australia's total trade, worth around $235 billion in 2018/19, and is the biggest single market for Australian exports including coal, iron ore, wine, beef, tourism and tertiary education.

Australia's universities have also been transformed over the last few decades from institutions of learning geared towards Australian citizens to become an export industry for foreign student migrants worth more than $37.6 billion in 2018/19, according to figures from education minister Dan Tehan.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong warned that disengagement with China - economically or geopolitically - was not an option.

'There are differences at times between our interests and we have to constructively and productively navigate those differences,' she said.

Worldwide coronavirus cases rose to 3,604,162 as of Monday night with 250,070 deaths, 2,184,687 active cases and 1,169,405 recovered according to the Worldometers website which tracks the virus statistics.

The US has been the hardest hit with 1,194,456 cases and 69,008 deaths.
With the White House's social distancing guidelines expiring Thursday, leaving states largely in charge of deciding how to move forward, Anthony Fauci warned local leaders to avoid "leapfrogging" critical milestones in an effort to reopen their economies amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"Obviously you could get away with that, but you're making a really significant risk," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday evening on CNN.

Fauci, who has repeatedly cautioned against prematurely easing restrictions, said he already noticed that some states and cities are not adhering to the steps laid out in the White House's recently issued guidance on reopening - a plan that administration officials say will now replace the expired federal social distancing measures.

"If you follow the guidelines, there's a continuity that's safe, that's prudent and that's careful," he said.

But if governors rush to reopen when they aren't ready, Fauci cautioned that the move would likely only set back the progress their states have made.

"There's no doubt in my mind that when you pull back mitigation, you're going to start seeing cases crop up here and there," he said. "If you're not able to handle them, you're going to see another peak, a spike, and then you almost have to turn the clock back to go back to mitigation."

Fauci's comments come as dozens of states have unveiled plans to begin easing stay-at-home orders, with some changes already taking effect despite the number of coronavirus cases and related deaths continuing to rise nationwide. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, for example, weathered intense criticism, including from President Donald Trump, after announcing that he would lift restrictions on a wide range of businesses ranging from tattoo parlors to bowling alleys, allowing them to open their doors a week ago.

The patchwork effort to return to some semblance of normalcy coupled with the absence of stringent social distancing recommendations has left health experts worried, The Washington Post's Yasmeen Abutaleb and Rachel Weiner reported. Attempts to reopen states too soon at a time when social distancing remains the most effective way to stem the spread of the virus could increase the risk of new outbreaks, experts say. According to most recent figures, the United States has more than 1 million cases of covid-19 and nearly 63,000 deaths.

On Thursday, Fauci appeared to echo those concerns, but stressed that major problems could be avoided so long as states adhere to the federal government's reopening guidelines, which he described as "very well thought out and very well delineated."

"I keep trying to articulate to the public and to the leaders, 'Take a look at the guidelines,' " Fauci said on CNN. "They don't tell you because you've reached the end of the 30-day mitigation period that, all of a sudden, you switch a light on and you just go for it. That's not the way to do it. Each state, each city, each region is going to be a little different."

Citing the guidelines, Fauci reiterated that states need to report a steady decrease in coronavirus cases within a 14-day period in addition to meeting other requirements before even thinking about moving on to the first phase of reopening.

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

"The discretion is given to the governors, they know their states. The mayors know their cities, so you want to give them a little wiggle room," he said. "But my recommendation is don't wiggle too much."

While Fauci acknowledged that some local leaders are following the guidance, he said "others are taking a bit of a chance."

"I hope they can actually handle any rebound that they see," he added.

Later in the segment, Fauci was asked by CNN's chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta about whether the rise in cases in states that are reopening would be incremental or exponential. In response, Fauci said that though he doesn't know for sure, he doubted that any area would see "something as explosive as we saw in New York." New York, which has yet to lift restrictions, is the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak with more than 300,000 confirmed cases and roughly 23,600 deaths.

But he warned that states could really find themselves in trouble if infections managed to "spill over into the general community," similar to the way the virus spread in New York.

"If you can't stop that from happening, then I think you're really going to see the sharp peak," Fauci said. "That is going to be very disturbing when that happens because it's really going to take awhile to get it back down."
Despite the ravaging global pandemic, COVID-19, resident doctors of Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, Ogun State, commence a three-day warning strike today.

It would be recalled that the hospital houses one of the isolation centres designated by the government for the management and treatment of the coronavirus, and the centre at present houses about 18 patients.

The doctors, under the aegis of Association of Resident Doctors of OOUTH, said the decision followed the failure of Governor Dapo Abioduns administration to address issues relating to the welfare of the doctors.

The doctors have, however, resolved to exclude members working at the isolation centre from joining the strike action.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
[May 03, 2020] Nokia and Vodafone Hutchison Australia unlock low-band 5G spectrum

Press Release Nokia and Vodafone Hutchison Australia unlock low-band 5G spectrum First 5G low-band NR700Mhz deployment in field test environment in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region

Will enhance customer experience by complementing 3.5Ghz deployment

Will expand Vodafone Australias 5G outdoor and indoor coverage 4 May 2020 Espoo, Finland  Nokia and Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) today announced that they are complementing their 3.5Ghz 5G rollout, with the first deployment of low-band NR700Mhz spectrum in a field test environment in a 5G network in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Once live, the use of 700Mhz spectrum will enhance VHAs 5G network coverage, improve the indoor coverage experience and deliver high-speed 5G connectivity to customers where it is being made available. Combined with its 5G spectrum in the 3.5Ghz band, VHA will be equipped to deliver a compelling combination of speed, capacity and coverage to its customers. The solution utilizes Nokias AirScale product range and is being tested on some of VHAs 5G sites in and around Parramatta in Western Sydney. The 700Mhz spectrum will be rolled out to selected areas as part of VHAs 5G rollout. Nokia Global Services will play a crucial role, providing project planning, installation, and network optimization services. Where it optimises network performance, Nokia and Vodafone experts will repurpose the 700MHz spectrum to 5G 700Mhz enabling the delivery of new 5G services, whilst maintaining the performance of the existing 4G network. Inaki Berroeta, Chief Executive Officer at Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA), said: We are proud to be showcasing this innovative use of the lowest band sectrum available in Australia with the first live test deployment of 5G on low-band 700Mhz spectrum in our region. Our partnership with Nokia has enabled us to deliver an innovative solution with our customers experience front of mind. Incorporating 700Mhz spectrum will complement our existing 5G network plans and help deliver the benefits of 5Gs speed, capacity and coverage.



Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, commented: We have worked closely with Vodafone Hutchison Australia to achieve this important milestone. This demonstrates Nokias continued commitment to delivering innovative services across our 5G portfolio, while meeting Vodafones requirement for widespread 5G coverage. We look forward to continuing this incredible partnership moving forward. Resources

Webpage: Nokia 5G

Webpage: Nokia AirScale





About Nokia

We create the technology to connect the world. Only Nokia offers a comprehensive portfolio of network equipment, software, services and licensing opportunities across the globe. With our commitment to innovation, driven by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs, we are a leader in the development and deployment of 5G networks. Our communications service provider customers support more than 6.4 billion subscriptions with our radio networks, and our enterprise customers have deployed over 1,300 industrial networks worldwide. Adhering to the highest ethical standards, we transform how people live, work and communicate. For our latest updates, please visit us online www.nokia.com and follow us on Twitter @nokia. About Vodafone Hutchison Australia

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) is an Australian telecommunications company providing mobile and fixed broadband services. VHAs 4G mobile network covers more than 22 million Australians, and Vodafone nbn fixed broadband services is available in capital cities and selected regional centres. VHA is a 50:50 joint venture between Vodafone Group Plc and Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) Limited. As at 31 December, 2019, VHAs mobile customer base was more than 5.7 million. Media Inquiries:

Nokia

Communications

Phone:?+358 10 448 4900

Email:? [email protected] Vodafone Hutchison Australia

Sophie Cotterill

Phone: +61 414 960 292

Email: [email protected]

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu has challenged the legality upon which some public institutions in the country are donating the taxpayers' monies to the COVID-19 National Trust Fund.

The Minority Leader says public institutions must seek Parliament's approval before making such donations.

The COVID-19 National Trust Fund has so far bagged millions of Ghana cedis from donations from both public and private institutions.

State institutions such as the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIA), Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Bank of Ghana (BoG), and the Parliament of Ghana among others have all made donations to the COVID-19 Trust Fund.

Haruna Iddrisu, in a Citi News, interview decried what he called the donations without legal backing or with no appropriations in their respective approved budgets.

Now we see every public institution going to donate. Where do they get their approval of Parliament to make such donations? Where do they get their appropriation from and we will question it?

National Health Insurance Scheme; its budget was approved and there was no appropriation for such donation to a trust fund. Parliament; your budget was approved and there was no appropriation for you to go and a make donation to a trust fund and we must make that distinction.

About COVID-19 National Trust Fund

President Nana Akufo-Addo in a late-night address on Friday, March 27, 2020, announced the establishment of a COVID-19 Fund in Ghana.

The Fund is chaired by former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, is to receive public contributions to help improve the lives of the vulnerable who will be worst-hit by the pandemic.

The other members of the Board of trustees of the Fund are Archbishop Justice Ofei Akrofi, Jude Kofi Bucknor, Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie, Elsie Addo-Awadzie, Dr. Ernest Ofori-Sarpong, and Dr. Tanko Collins Asare will act as Secretary to the Board.

GHS34m accrued by National COVID-19 Fund

Meanwhile, the National COVID-19 Fund has as of about a week ago received GHS 34 million in cash donations, according to its chairperson, Justice Sophia Akuffo.

This is a problem which is a nationwide problem and we want to make sure that our funds and the things we receive will reach as widely across the country as possible We have [also] received truckloads of goods. Sometimes it is food items and other things.

Madam Sophia Akuffo has also assured Ghanaians that monies presented to the fund will be accounted for.

The amounts will go into the main Fund. But, in the disbursement, we will make sure that we reach as many communities as possible. The Fund was set up to supplement and complement the government's effort in combatting the virus. Medical centres and frontline activities will benefit and also the poor and vulnerable people in the community will also benefit, she said.

---citinewsroom
Private buses in the green zones



of West Bengal remained off the roads, despite the government granting them permission to ply with a maximum of 20 passengers during the third phase of the lockdown, beginning on Monday.

Bus associations claimed they were not confident of recommencing services as it could lead to more financial losses and other hassles.

Rahul Chatterjee, the general secretary of the Bus Minibus Coordination Committee, said that it was not a viable idea as the money earned from the 20 passengers would not be enough to meet fuel expenses.

"Private buses did not hit the roads in any of the green zones in the state on Monday. We urge the government to place requisition for buses, as is done during elections for movement of polling personnel and security forces. The state can then run the buses and pay a daily fee to the owners.

"We have already informed senior officials of the transport department about our inability to run the buses under the present circumstances," he said.

The state transport department had been running skeletal bus services since the imposition of the lockdown to cater to the emergency needs of people in Kolkata.

According to the Mamata Banerjee government, Bengal has eight districts in green zone, including Cooch Behar, north Dinajpur, south Dinajpur, Purulia and Jhargram.

Chatterjee said buses that ply in these districts usually have 45 to 55 seats, with space to stand in the middle, and ferrying 20 people would mean operators would have to make do with just one-third of the revenue usually earned.

With offices closed and train services suspended owing to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown, buses in the districts may not even get 20 passengers, he noted.

Secretary of Joint Council of Bus Syndicates Tapan Banerjee said there is little possibility of getting passengers in the rural areas, as the government has allowed only intra-district movement of public vehicles.

Banerjee also claimed that a section of bus employees were also wary that they might contract COVID-19 during the course of their journey.

"The government should consider the financial part, since the earnings from sales would not be enough to bear fuel cost, leave alone staff salary and maintenance expenses," he said, adding that 85 per cent of total passengers in the state travel by bus.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Accra, Ghana (PANA) - Human rights advocate, Amnesty International, is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all the prisoners of conscience it is campaigning for worldwide, who are now at heightened risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic




Members of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Vietnam Women's Union (VWU) and KOICA Vietnam Alumni after KOICA delivered emergency relief to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam last month. / Courtesy of KOICA



By Yi Whan-woo



The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the government-affiliated overseas aid agency, has been stepping up support for the needy in Vietnam amid the COVID-19 pandemic.



KOICA said last week it offered emergency relief worth $10,530 in April for women and children, poor and disabled people, patients, migrants, the jobless and others in COVID-19 infected areas.



The relief items ranged from face masks to sanitizers and food.



The support for those in the "blind spot of government support" was made in cooperation with Vietnam Women's Union (VWU).






SAN DIEGO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Viriom Inc (Viriom) announced today the initiation of a Phase 2a study investigating the efficacy of an intramuscular long-acting injectable nanoformulation of VM1500A in HIV-infected patients.

The earlier findings of a Phase 1 study investigating safety and pharmacokinetics with single and multiple dosing of this formulation were presented at a poster session (Abstract 473 "Safety and PK Study of VM-1500A-LAI, a novel long-acting injectable therapy for HIV") at CROI 2020 in Boston.

"We are delighted to report encouraging results of this proof of concept study exploring the potential of delivering therapeutic doses of VM1500A over 4 and 8-week periods," said Dr. Iain Dukes, CEO of Viriom Inc. "Confirmed slow release with sustained therapeutic concentration levels allow us to capture the potential of VM1500A for HIV-1 long acting therapy and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)."

Viriom is conducting a broad development program to evaluate the potential of elsulfavirine/VM1500A for the treatment and prevention of HIV-1 infection. A 20mg daily capsule formulation of elsulfavirine  an orally available prodrug of VM1500A - is approved in Russia (Elpida) and Eurasian Economic Union for the treatment of HIV1 infection in combination with other antiretrovirals. The high efficacy and safety as well as the unique PK properties of the compound enabled the development of the leading programs of a once-weekly oral formulation and a once-monthly or less frequent intramuscular injection for treatment of HIV-1 infection. The initiated randomized Phase 2a study aims to select a therapeutic dose and assess safety and efficacy of VM-1500A-LAI multiple injections in HIV-positive virally suppressed patients comparing to a marketed Elpida-based once-daily regimen. The Data Safety and Monitoring Board (DSMB) will select one of three dosing regimens assessed within the study for further development.

Considering the successful results in the Phase I study and advantageous distribution in lymphoid and epithelial tissues, Viriom is exploring options for PrEP, including low-frequency dosing with oral and parenteral formulations.

Phase 1 VM-1500A-LAI nanoformulation single and multiple ascending dose study results

The Phase 1 open-label study evaluated the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of VM1500A administered intramuscularly, in healthy adult volunteers. Participants were randomized to receive a single intramuscular injection containing VM1500A at doses of 150 mg (n=3), 300 mg (n=6), 600 mg (n=6), 1200 mg (double injection of 600mg, n=6) or multiple injections of 600 mg (two double injections of 300mg, n=6). After a single 4 weeks injection, participants were evaluated for a further week. Participants receiving multiple injections of 600 mg (double injections of 300mg, n=6) received two double injections containing VM1500A at doses 300 mg (n=6) every 4 weeks. After the second double injection participants were evaluated for a further week.

Single dosing of double injection of 300mg (n=6) and single dosing of double injection of 600mg (n=6) as well as multiple dosing of double injection of 300mg (n=6) resulted in plasma concentrations of VM1500A, that remained above the therapeutic pharmacokinetic threshold, established in previous Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies of VM1500A pro-drug administered orally once a day to HIV positive patients for 96 weeks. Based on subsequent modeling, the IM double injection of 300mg of VM1500A was estimated to deliver levels well above the threshold at the 4th week of a single dose and at the 8th week of multiple doses (and even beyond), providing early evidence for its potential as a longer than once monthly injectable. The results of the study also indicate that control of intracellular concentrations can be managed by varying the VM1500A loading in the nanoformulation and volume of an IM injection.

There were no discontinuations due to adverse events (AE) and no severe drug related AEs reported. All drug-associated AEs were assessed to be mild or moderate in severity. No systemic drug associated effects were noted.

About VM1500A and its pro-drug elsulfavirine:

VM1500A is Viriom's investigational non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTi) currently being evaluated in clinical trials for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in combination with other antiretrovirals, as well as for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) of HIV-1 infection as a single investigational agent, across a variety of formulations. Elsulfavirine the pro-drug of VM1500A, is currently being marketed for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in combination with other antiretrovirals in oral 20mg once daily capsule formulation. Elsulfavirine is also being evaluated for the treatment of COVID-19 infection as an oral, once daily tablet.

About Viriom:

Viriom (San Diego, CA) focuses on the treatment, prophylaxis, and eradication of infectious diseases globally. Viriom is developing and commercializing the most innovative and affordable solutions to radically expand global access to the best antiviral treatments. Viriom's broad, proprietary, and partnered pipeline covers therapeutic, prophylactic, and curative medicines for HIV, viral hepatitis and respiratory infections. Learn more at www.viriom.com.

Forward-Looking Statement of Viriom, Inc., San Diego, CA USA

This press release includes forward-looking statements, that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, including the possibility of unfavorable results from clinical trials involving VM1500A and elsulfavirine and the possibility that we may be unable to complete one or more of such trials in the currently anticipated timelines or at all. Further, it is possible that Viriom may make a strategic decision to discontinue development of VM1500A and elsulfavirine for any of their intended and explored indications. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those referred to in the forward-looking statements. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to Viriom, and Viriom assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements.

Media Contacts:

Iain Dukes, DPhil, [email protected]

SOURCE Viriom, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.viriom.com


BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 4

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

Some 40 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in Kazakhstan as of 19:00 (GMT +6) on May 4, 2020, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstans Ministry of Healthcare.

The total number of coronavirus cases confirmed in Kazakhstan since the virus was first confirmed in the country amounted to 4,028 cases. This includes 1,107 people who recovered from the coronavirus, and 27 patients who passed away.

Distribution of overall coronavirus cases in Kazakhstans region is as follows:

Total infected Total recovered Total deaths Nur-Sultan city 701 281 3 Almaty city 1 317 176 8 Shymkent city 213 49 5 Akmola region 101 78 4 Aktobe region 160 16 Almaty region 156 28 Atyrau region 184 76 East Kazakhstan region 29 8 1 Zhambyl region 154 48 West Kazakhstan region 193 31 Karaganda region 159 73 2 Kostanay region 50 6 1 Kyzylorda region 214 138 Manystau region 74 9 1 Pavlodar region 150 11 1 North Kazakhstan region 30 27 Turkestan region 143 52 1 TOTAL 4028 1107 27

The first two cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Kazakhstan among those who arrived in Almaty city from Germany on March 13, 2020.

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 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 the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
Unknown gunmen abducted and killed nine policemen Monday in southern Syria in a rare such attack on a government building in the defeated cradle of the nine-year uprising, a monitor said.

The killings, for which there were no immediate claim of responsibility, occurred in a town called Muzayrib in Daraa province, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Unknown assailants attacked the municipality building... abducting nine members of the security forces before shooting them dead and abandoning their bodies in a square," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Attacks are common in the province, which was retaken by regime forces from rebels in 2018, usually targeting loyalists and civilians working for the state, according to the Observatory.

But the nature of Monday's incident and high toll are unusual.

"Usually attacks against regime forces target checkpoints or patrols, not government buildings," Abdel Rahman said.

Daraa is considered to be the birthplace of the popular uprising that erupted across Syria in 2011, before spiralling into a full-blown conflict.

After its recapture by Russia-backed regime fighters in 2018, state institutions returned but the army is still not deployed in the whole province, says the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria.

Many former rebels stayed instead of evacuating under a Moscow-brokered deal, either joining the army or remaining in control of parts of the province and some neighbourhoods of the provincial capital, also called Daraa.

The Islamic State group has in the past claimed attacks in the area, in July saying it had killed six soldiers at a checkpoint.

The jihadists lost the last scrap of their territorial "caliphate" a year ago, but retain a presence in Syria's vast Badia desert.

The civil war has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions from their homes since starting with the brutal repression of government protests.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


As most of us struggle to get through the week without resembling a feral tearaway, it would seem that the Duchess of Cambridge is having no such issue.

Since lockdown began in March, she's showcased an array of stellar at-home ensembles. From the peachy M&S suit she wore to make a phone call to the CEO of children's mental health charity, Place 2 Be to the zingy lemon Zara jumper she wore for her first-ever public Zoom call, the mother-of-three has effortlessly maintained her perennially put-together look.

And now we have further proof, as in a newly-released video, the Duchess made a virtual bedside visit to new parents, Rebecca Attwood and John Gill, and wore the perfect baby blue wool and cashmere chevron-knit jumper from Tabitha Webb (275, available to pre-order here) to mark the occasion.

This isn't the first time the 38-year-old has sported the British brand; she most recently wore it while launching her Early Years survey in January, when she wore a geometric blouse by Webb (295, available for pre-order here.)

The Duchess wearing Tabitha Webb to launch her Early Years survey in January / REUTERS

British designer Tabitha Webb launched her eponymous womenswear collection in 2015 and has built up a cult following of stars including Pippa Middleton, Jodie Comer and Cara Delevigne, to name just a few.

At a later stage in the video, the royal also appears to change into the sold-out Boden Aurora dress she wore for the Cambridge's Christmas 2019 card.

Kate wore her hair in a chic half-up, half-down 'do, a style that has become hers and the Duchess of Sussex's go-to for virtual appearances,

The Jessie Knit by Tabitha Webb / Tabitha Webb

In the video, which was shared to Kensington Royal's social media channels, Kate chatted to the couple about their new-born baby Max, and when she was told the infant had been born the night before, the royal said: "My goodness, you must be exhausted."

The video call was made on April 22 to staff at the maternity unit of Kingston Hospital in south-west London, where she spent two days on a work placement last November.
Factual evidence will be forwarded through the Office of the Prosecutor General to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Russia-controlled forces have shelled the village of Pavlopil in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, according to the press service of the regional prosecutor's office.

At the hit site in Pavlopil's residential neighborhood, law enforcers discovered what turned out to be an unguided rocket, which is in service with the Russian army.

Read alsoExecutions of troops in Donbas: evidence of Russian atrocities handed to the Hague court

"During the pre-trial investigation, it was established that on May 3, 2020, representatives of the 'DPR' terrorist organization, operating under the control of the Russian Federation, launched rocket fire from proscribed weapons on the residential part of the village of Pavlopil in the Volnovakha district of Donetsk region. During an inspection at the site, an unguided rocket type NUR-80, with a range of about 2 km, which is in service with the Russian Federation, was discovered," prosecutors said in a statement..

The material evidence found has been attached to the case file in criminal proceedings under Art. 438 (violation of laws and customs of war) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Another fact of armed aggression of the Russian Federation has been documented.

Factual evidence will be forwarded through the Office of the Prosecutor General to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Pre-trial investigation is underway.
Melbourne University students in practical courses are pushing for fee reductions, saying they are paying full fees but for limited experience due to coronavirus lockdown rules.

Students in courses including fine arts, music and veterinary medicine - costing up to $250,000 over four years - argue studio or laboratory-based programs cannot be replicated in online classes, which are the only option in Australian universities during the pandemic.

Leyla Moxham, a painter, is in the second year of a visual arts course at the Victorian College of the Arts. Credit:Eddie Jim

As federal Education Minister Dan Tehan pushes for a return to on-campus learning by July, the university insists it is delivering a "top-quality education commensurate with a University of Melbourne degree" in the meantime.

Leyla Moxham, 20, moved from Sydney to Melbourne last year to study visual art, specialising in painting, at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). She said would normally spend up to nine hours a day working and collaborating in the VCA studios.
WOONSOCKET, R.I., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CVS Health today announced its commitment to flattening the "second curve," the less visible but escalating mental health crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. To help address America's expanding mental and emotional wellbeing needs, the company is enhancing its nationwide mental health programming effort with new charitable investments focused on health care workers, essential workers and seniors.

"The wrath of COVID-19 is not just physical. Mental trauma is the deadly undertow of the pandemic's first wave," said Karen S. Lynch, Executive Vice President, CVS Health and President, Aetna Business Unit. "The impact of isolation, fear, uncertainty and loss can be just as deadly as the virus itself. It is silent and can't be seen, but we are all affected by it. We are committed to helping our nation rise above this second wave by first providing support for those who need it most, including heroes on the frontlines and seniors."

Since March 1, CVS Health has seen a 200 percent increase in virtual mental health visits as compared to the same period last year, as well as substantial increases in calls for help with psychological distress including anxiety, grief and loss, and trauma. Health care workers are under extreme stress and anxiety fighting to save lives, while in many cases, isolating themselves after shifts to keep their own family safe. Self-isolation also affects older adults whose only social contacts are outside of their homes. Those who don't have close family or friends living within their personal "safe-zones" and who rely on outside contact through social programs and community activities can be placed at increased risk of mental health problems.

CVS Health will increase access to the following resources through targeted financial support:

Supporting Americares COVID-19 Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Project with a $500,000 contribution from the Aetna Foundation to help frontline health care workers, particularly those who serve low-income populations, improve their mental health awareness, knowledge and resiliency , and understand the mental health concerns impacting their patients.



COVID-19 Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Project with a contribution from the Aetna Foundation to help , and understand the mental health concerns impacting their patients. Expert crisis support for frontline health care and essential workers through Crisis Text Line via a $300,000 grant from the Aetna Foundation. For the Frontlines is a dedicated effort to provide 24/7 confidential direct mental health support for those on the frontlines, including health care workers dealing with the stress, anxiety, fear, depression and/or isolation associated with COVID-19. Health care and essential workers can text FRONTLINE to 741741 from anywhere in the U.S. to communicate with a trained volunteer crisis counselor at no cost.

CVS Health is also making Aetna's Resources for Living (RFL) program available to everyone, which includes:

Real-time phone support to help callers cope with the emotional impact of the pandemic (accessible by calling 1-833-327-AETNA or 1-833-327-2386).

Access to informational content , community referrals and management consultation for organizations (even those who do not partner with Aetna).

, community referrals and management consultation for organizations (even those who do not partner with Aetna). Employers may access this consultation by calling 1-800-243-5240.

Support for basic needs including family meals, access to childcare, and financial guidance.

Partnering with vendors to provide direct access to essential needs for seniors.

Access to Aetna's RFL Toolkit online, which includes live webinars, targeted articles and expert resources on key topics like managing stress, helping young children cope and strategies for medical staff.

Additionally, outpatient counseling for hospital-based employees will be provided through Give An Hour via a $220,000 contribution from CVS Health. Give An Hour will offer no-cost counseling both during and after the pandemic to help health care workers manage trauma responses such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress in some of the most heavily impacted states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Finally, CVS Health is offering increased support for its own employees through various resources that help build mental health resilience, cope with uncertainty, reduce stress and stay connected. These services will be delivered with7 Cups, an online platform that connects people to a caring, emotionally supportive volunteer listener to prevent depression and anxiety.

About CVS Health

CVS Health employees are united around a common goal of becoming the most consumer-centric health company in the world. We're evolving based on changing consumer needs and meeting people where they are, whether that's in the community at one of our nearly 10,000 local touchpoints, in the home, or in the palm of their hand. Our newest offerings  from HealthHUB locations that are redefining what a pharmacy can be, to innovative programs that help manage chronic conditions  are designed to create a higher-quality, simpler and more affordable experience. Learn more about how we're transforming health at https://www.cvshealth.com.

Contact:

Ethan Slavin

860-273-6095

[email protected]

SOURCE CVS Health
COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Site Selection magazine today ranked JobsOhio fifth on its Prosperity Cup state rankings for 2020, which recognizes the state and regional offices that were the most successful in attracting capital investment projects in 2019. The standing is two spots higher than last year and comes on the heels of Ohio ranking No. 1 in Site Selection's annual Governor's Cup rankings for projects per capita.

"During the unprecedented challenges the country has confronted during the last six weeks, Ohio has demonstrated that it is uniquely positioned to assist businesses," said JobsOhio President and CEO J.P. Nauseef. "Ohio's consistent high rankings reflect statewide partnerships and an economic development model that we are confident will provide our state a strong competitive advantage in the months ahead."

Site Selection's ranking methodology is based on an index of data from the proprietary Conway Projects Database, which tracks private-sector facility projects worldwide, and several other global economic data sources.

In addition, JobsOhio regional network partners One Columbus and REDI Cincinnati were recognized with Mac Conway Awards for Excellence in Economic Development. The award is annually given to the top local and regional U.S. economic development groups based on an index of corporate job creation and facility-related capital investment data calculated both cumulatively and per capita.

"Locations throughout the U.S. and in every region of the world compete aggressively for direct investment at home and from abroad," says Site Selection Editor in Chief Mark Arend. "Those appearing on these rankings have demonstrated with actual project numbers and other measures that they have the location attributes most in demand by capital investors."

Site Selection magazine, published by Conway Inc., delivers expansion planning information to 48,000 executives of fast-growing firms. The senior publication in the development field, Site Selection is also available via Site Selection Online. For a full listing of Prosperity Cup and Conway Awards, click here.

JobsOhio is a private nonprofit economic development corporation designed to drive job creation and new capital investment in Ohio through business attraction, retention and expansion. The organization also works to seed talent production in its targeted industries and to attract talent to Ohio though Find Your Ohio. JobsOhio works with six regional partners across Ohio: Dayton Development Coalition, Ohio Southeast, One Columbus, REDI Cincinnati, Regional Growth Partnership and Team NEO. Learn more at www.jobsohio.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

SOURCE JobsOhio

Related Links

https://www.jobsohio.com


Empirical evidence shows that quotas lack transparency and may breed corruption. The export price disparity will benefit those offered the quota  PHOTO: LE HOANG VU Cautious policies are important during this period of uncertainty, but the current mechanism is fraught with shortcomings that need addressing to ensure transparency and fairness. To simplify matters, assume Vietnam is a small food exporter with insignificant impacts on global prices. Reality may be slightly different, but the key principle remains the same, albeit with some adjustments in impacts. When a quota is imposed, as represented by the red demand curve, domestic price will fall to Pq. The welfare loss incurred by food producers is represented by a + b + c + d + e. Local consumer surplus is a + b, those eligible for rice export have a surplus of d and deadweight loss is c + e. If an export tax is imposed instead of a quota, d will belong to the Government. Lack of transparency and fairness in quota Empirical evidence shows that quotas lack transparency and may breed corruption. The export price disparity will benefit those offered the quota. This is significant, so rent-seeking behavior will be rife. Quotas inflict damage on society because an export price tax or quota bidding will enable the Government to gain from the price disparity. Moreover, the disadvantaged group will bear a greater cost. Statistics show that Vietnams rice output in 2019 was about 22 million tons, including 9.3 million tons for local consumption and 6.37 million tons for export (earning US$2.81 billion). The remainder is for manufacturing, animal husbandry, national stockpiling and so on. If corn, sweet potatoes and similar crops are taken into account, the value that producers gain, after self-consumption is considered, can surpass VND200 trillion. Compared with normal rice export, a 10% decrease in the prices of rice and food stuff triggered by rice export restriction will impose a damage surpassing VND20 trillion, equivalent to about one-third of the support package (VND62 trillion). Those benefiting from the restriction include consumers, the Government hoping to have more rice reserves and those eligible for rice export. It is worth noting that rice sellers tend to be farmers and the poor in rural areas while consumers are often the more affluent people. What are the solutions? Transparency and fairness need to be enhanced. First, an export tax ensures transparency and benefits the State budget and society more. The imposition of an export tax will transfer the gains from price disparity to the State budget instead of those eligible for rice export. If one of the objectives of export restriction is to maintain the Governments stockpile at affordable prices, an export tax will be the most effective since the Government can use the tax extracted to offset the purchase of rice for stockpiling; otherwise, the revenue can be given to farmers. If the Government is concerned about excessive export, it can track the quantity exported by asking firms to register immediately after export agreements have been signed, so that the authorities can impose a circuit breaker where necessary. If an export tax is not feasibility, quota bidding should be used. Those with the highest bid can export rice and the revenue extracted from bidding can be used to support farmers. Second, those with agricultural land should be supported to improve fairness. In order not to punish the disadvantaged group more, the Government should consider offering those with agricultural land either a subsidy or a transfer. This mechanism is based on a ceiling such as one hectare per person. Those given land within this range will receive the same subsidy or transfer. The total value of support is the estimated damage arising from export restriction. Ideally, there should be a fee or tax imposed on food consumption, together with the aforementioned export tax, to generate funding for a support package. Taxes should be computed such that the revenue equals the damage incurred by consumers. If this is not feasible, the State budget may be used. However, it will be crucial to balance government revenue and spending in that case. In short, the current export restriction via quotas does not ensure transparency and fairness. The Government needs to make the necessary adjustments to address existing challenges. SGT
By Ryan P. Haygood

In the midst of a devastating pandemic, New Jersey is considering whether our July primary election should be a traditional in-person voting system or all vote-by-mail. Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to make an announcement any day now.

But this is a false choice between two limited options, each of which will suppress a significant number of votes  particularly, as we are already experiencing in this public health crisis, disproportionately impacting Black and other people of color and other vulnerable populations. The coronavirus pandemic has already exposed cracks in our foundation that are causing earthquakes in Black and other communities of color already besieged by structural racism. We must not make that worse.

Instead, we must strengthen our foundation by choosing democracy, and both expand vote-by-mail and have in-person polling places.

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, along with the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, the Center for American Progress, New Jersey State Conference NAACP, New Jersey Policy Perspective, New Jersey Working Families, Salvation and Social Justice, the League of Women Voters of America, UU Faith Action NJ, ACLU-NJ, and other state and national partner organizations have urged Governor Murphy to do just that as part of a package of comprehensive recommendations provided for New Jerseys elections.

First, New Jersey must absolutely expand and encourage people to vote by mail. The state should send every voter a ballot  not just an application  in all relevant languages, with prepaid postage. And we must educate people about how to vote by mail and the fact that voting by mail is secure. People must have the option to vote without putting their health at risk by waiting in crowded polling places as voters recently did in Wisconsin.

Second, New Jersey must accommodate voters for whom voting by mail is not feasible, including people with language challenges, certain disabilities, or without a regular home address where they can receive mail. We must also confront the reality that voting by mail is racialized: Black people, in part because of the long history of voter suppression in this country that endures today, strongly prefer to vote in person. A recent report showed that just 11% of Black voters cast ballots by mail in 2018, compared with 23.5% of white voters.

New Jersey must have enough in-person polling locations to prevent large crowds. Polling places must follow CDC guidelines for safety, including disinfecting all material and machines, providing personal protective equipment to all poll workers, and maintaining social distancing at polling places. We must also have in-person early voting for at least 14 days so as to limit crowds.

Relatedly, we must relax our 21-day voter registration deadline, including adopting same-day registration. With people quarantining, in hospitals, and facing unprecedented daily challenges right now, voters should not have to encounter arbitrary voter registration deadlines.

In this time of crisis, we must ensure that we not only protect against restricting democracy but that we also expand access to it.

An expanded democracy is consistent with the priorities of New Jersey residents, as evident by the progress our state has made through collective advocacy over the last two years.

Together, we secured the passage of historic legislation to restore the fundamental right to vote to 83,000 people who are on probation and parole  a right that had been denied since 1844.

We won an end to prison-based gerrymandering  the modern day 3/5ths Clause that counts incarcerated people at the location of their prison facilities, instead of their home communities, for the purpose of legislative redistricting.

And we secured automatic  and online  voter registration to make the promise of democracy more accessible. The online voter registration law does not go into effect until mid-July  after the primary  but we have urged our elected officials to have that system ready earlier.

All of this remarkable progress took place in one legislative session because together we chose democracy.

And we did so even as we faced one of our most difficult national moments.

Now we face the challenge of making these historic voting rights reforms real  and the opportunity to build upon them  as we simultaneously fight another crisis in the form of the coronavirus pandemic.

We can do that by choosing democracy and providing in-person and expanded vote-by-mail opportunities. We urge you to use your voice to urge Governor Murphy to do the same.

Advocacy works. Indeed, it is what democracy requires.

Ryan P. Haygood is the president & CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. Prior to assuming this role, he litigated civil rights cases before state and federal courts across the country.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

The Star-Ledger/NJ.com encourages submissions of opinion. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters.
Stocks recouped early losses Monday as a rebound in big technology stocks calmed investors, who worried about growing tensions between the U.S. and China.

The Dow Jones industrial average was virtually unchanged after briefly dropping more than 360 points. The blue-chip average edged up 0.1% to close at 23,749.76. The Standard & Poors 500 eked out a gain of 0.2% to end at 2,842.74. The broad index flipped between small gains and losses for much of the day, as steep declines in energy stocks were offset by gains in technology companies.

Tech firms rebounded after sharp losses in the sector brought U.S. markets down at the end of last week. Microsoft, the biggest company in the S&P 500 index, rose about 2.5%. Tech companies make up roughly a quarter of the index by market value, which gives them sway over the market.

Airline stocks came under pressure after billionaire Warren Buffett said over the weekend that Berkshire Hathaway sold all of its airline holdings in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Shares of American Airlines, Delta and United each tumbled 7.7%, 6.4% and 5.1%, respectively.

Get me out of here!: Americans flee crowded cities amid COVID-19, consider permanent moves

Warren Buffett: The Oracle of Omaha tells investors to 'Bet on America,' buying stocks for long-term gain

The recent declines come after stocks posted their best month since 1987 in April. Wall Street has been bracing for a poor showing by companies this earnings season due to the economic shock from the coronavirus. Many companies have pulled their earnings guidance for the rest of the year, citing uncertainty about how much of an impact the outbreak will have on their business and the economy.

Beijing has repeatedly pushed back against U.S. accusations that the outbreak was Chinas fault. Investors fear that growing tensions between Washington and Beijing could threaten to undo the truce in a trade war between the two countries that was struck just before China began shutting much of its economy down in late January to fight the pandemic.

Story continues

The Trump administration threatened to use retaliatory measures against China. Proposals include restricting U.S. government pension funds from investing in Chinese stocks, higher regulatory scrutiny for listed Chinese companies and higher tariffs, according to Lauren Goodwin, economist and multi-asset portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments.

We think this is more about U.S. politics than about China, but the developments are still important, Goodwin said in a note. Restricting investment would be particularly disruptive.

Trader Timothy Nick, left, and specialist Michael Pistillo work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 9. U.S. stocks collapsed after a free fall in oil prices and mounting coronavirus cases ratcheted up fear among investors and threatened to snuff out the longest bull market on the very day it was supposed to turn 11.

Bleak trade and manufacturing data are also discouraging investors, who are on the lookout for upbeat news on steps to stop the pandemic and prevent a resurgence in cases in places that are beginning to reopen after shutdowns.

The biggest risk to the stock market is a premature reopening of the U.S. economy, Marc Chaikin, founder of Chaikin Analytics, a quantitative investment research firm based in Philadelphia, said in a note. If rising COVID-19 curves reemerge and economies are shut down again the damage to the stock markets psyche will be dramatic.

Investors are looking ahead to Fridays April unemployment report for further clues over the direction of the economy. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast 21.3 million jobs were lost in April, with the unemployment rate projected to jump to 16% from 4.4% in the prior month.

While worries over the reopening of states(are) being highlighted for this morning's decline, we suspect, the market is coming off from an overbought situation and jitters from this week's upcoming unemployment data, Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities, said in a note.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 61 cents, or 3.1% to settle at $20.39 per barrel. U.S. crude has plunged from its perch of roughly $60 at the start of the year on worries about a collapse in demand and strained storage facilities. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 76 cents, or 2.9% to $27.20 per barrel.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was little changed at 0.64%. Its still well below the 1.90% it yielded at the start of the year. Yields tend to fall when investors are downgrading their expectations for the economy and inflation.

In Europe, where most markets returned from a long holiday weekend, Germanys DAX dropped 3.6% and the CAC 40 in Paris lost 4.2%. Britains FTSE 100, which was open on Friday, declined 0.2%. In Asia, Hong Kongs Hang Seng index fell 4.2% on Monday. Tokyo, Shanghai and Bangkok were among markets closed for holidays.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dow: Stocks waffle as investors weigh US-China tensions over coronavirus
McCormick has more than 20 years of industry experience. She most recently served as senior vice president and national practice leader at MarketScout. She has held other senior broking positions within the wholesale industry, including at Burns & Wilcox, and with some of the countrys largest retail brokers.

We are thrilled for Laura to rejoin the Burns & Wilcox team in this new leadership capacity following the tremendous experience she has gained across the industry, Derigiotis said. She has proven to be an approachable and motivating leader who makes it a priority to ensure her associates succeed. From program development and underwriting to client management and business growth, she is a strong asset to the team and will be integral to the growth of the networks professional liability capabilities.

Taking on the role of regional practice group leader at Burns & Wilcox is the next step my career has prepared me for, and I am excited for this leadership opportunity, McCormick said. I have always had a passion for building successful teams and developing solutions that result in continuous growth. With a career concentrated in professional liability, I look forward to leveraging that knowledge to drive new business and growth for the practice and the Burns & Wilcox network overall.
A medical staff member is collecting a biological sample at a middle school in Guangzhou city, China on April 21, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Second Wave of Virus Outbreak Spreads Further in Southern China

A district in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou announced more than 10 asymptomatic carriers of the CCP virus in recent days.

A neighboring province and the nearby city of Shenzhen also reported new infections among people who came from Guangzhou, indicating the second wave outbreak was further spreading in southern China.

In late April, over 100 new infections were reported in Guangzhou, as well as dozens among students and teachers in Shenzhen.

Meanwhile, residents of Heilongjiang Province, located in northeastern China, told The Epoch Times that more cities in the province have outbreaks. Authorities have only announced new infections in the cities of Harbin and Mudanjiang recently.

In Wuhanthe central Chinese city where the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, first broke outresidents were unable to enjoy the five-day Labor Day weekend. Social media videos showed long lines in front of hospitals; to visit another city, Wuhan residents must test negative in a virus nucleic acid test before traveling.

Guangzhou

On May 3, the Guangzhou municipal health commission announced one new asymptomatic carrier in Zengcheng district. This is the tenth officially reported infection in the district. Other districts in the bustling metropolis have reported new outbreaks in April.

The commission previously claimed that the first infection in the second wave outbreak in Zengcheng was diagnosed on April 26.

On April 27, the commission announced that one of the newly diagnosed asymptomatic carriers was a 24-year-old woman from Xintang town in Zengcheng.

She received a nucleic acid test at the Nanfang Hospital Zengcheng branch and tested positive, though authorities did not explain why the woman went to the hospital despite not feeling symptoms.

On April 28, the commission announced another seven asymptomatic carriers. Five of them are the young womans family members. Another was her colleague.

The commission later announced more asymptomatic carriers from Xintang town on May 1 and May 2. It noted that the individuals were close contacts of previously diagnosed people, but did not specify whom.

Students are queueing to receive nucleic acid testing for the CCP virus at a middle school in Guangzhou, China on April 21, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

But data from nearby regions indicated that the outbreak in Zengcheng might have occurred earlier than these ten cases.

The Shenzhen city government announced a diagnosed patient on April 29, a 29-year-old man who arrived at Baoan district in Shenzhen from Zengcheng on April 22. He started to develop symptoms on the evening of April 24. His condition deteriorated quickly.

On April 26, the man went to Baoan Peoples Hospital and tested positive in a nucleic acid test. Two days later, he was officially diagnosed. Local authorities currently specify multiple criteria (not just nucleic acid test) before a patient is officially diagnosed COVID-19 positive.

Guangxi Province also announced a new case related to Zengcheng. Xu Wanjie and his wife visited Zengcheng and stayed at a hotel there from April 12 to April 26. After they returned home to Guangxi Province, attended a large-scale funeral reception with at least 35 families, and visited several areas, Guangzhou police called them on April 28.

The police told them that some guests who stayed at the same hotel were diagnosed with the virus. The couple and hundreds of their close contacts must now be placed under quarantine.

Though the Guangzhou police spoke of diagnosed cases in Zengcheng, authorities did not officially announce any diagnosed patients with symptoms in Zengcheng for that time period.

Guangzhou authorities have previously been known to report inconsistent data.

Taxi drivers are queueing to receive nucleic acid testing for the CCP virus in Guangzhou, China on April 20, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Heilongjiang

In northeastern Chinas Heilongjiang Province, official figures show no new infections in Jiamusi city. However, local people described a different situation.

Ms. Zhang lives in the Zhixing neighborhood of Xiangyang district, Jiamusi. She said on May 4: [Authorities] are building walls to isolate each building in the neighborhood. She added that some residential compounds in nearby Qianjin district were locked down as well.

Zhang complained that local government officials have not explained whether there were new diagnosed cases or asymptomatic carriers, but residents are required to have their body temperatures taken and health code app scanned before entering or leaving their compound.

Mr. Li, another resident in Jiamusi, told The Epoch Times: The security people at the checkpoints of our residential compound told us to stay at home because the outbreak is very severe. Some hotels are being used as quarantine centers.

On April 29, the Jiamusi government ordered the city to take extraordinary measures to ensure no infections at hospitals, without providing further details.

Medical personnel are working on nucleic acid testing as part of CCP virus pandemic measures, at a health services centER in Suifenhe in Chinas northeastern Heilongjiang Province on April 24, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Within the province, its capital city Harbin is also undergoing a second wave outbreak. Authorities have admitted to cluster outbreaks at two major hospitals in the city and in neighborhoods of Daowai district.

Mudanjiang, which borders Russia, has also reported outbreaks inside hospitals and initiated strict measures to contain the virus spread, according to leaked documents that The Epoch Times obtained.
PARIS -- Travellers to France who arrive from a country in Europes Schengen open-border area or Britain will be exempt from a planned compulsory two-week quarantine, the French consulate in Britain said on Sunday.

The new quarantine rules will apply to travellers, whether French or foreigners, as part of the fight against the new coronavirus.

Details will be provided in a decree specifying measures laid out in a bill extending a state of emergency until July 24. The move allows the government to restrict freedom of movement to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

People entering the French territory from countries in the European area (EU/Schengen and United Kingdom) will NOT be affected by the quarantine measure announced in France, the details of which will be specified shortly, the French consulate in Britain said on Twitter on a verified account.

France, which has been the fifth-hardest hit country with 24,895 deaths from COVID-19, is preparing to gradually lift lockdown measures from May 11.

The French presidency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

French government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said earlier on Sunday that a list of countries at risk would soon be issued, without giving details.

Well establish a list of countries at risk and... when people come from risk areas, whether they are French or foreigners, well have mandatory quarantine measures, she said on France Inter radio station.
If you are looking for more screen-time options during the pandemic shelter-in-place, I recommend the documentary Hillary, available on Netflix. Released in January and the brainchild of American director Nanette Burstein, the four hour-long episodes present an intimate portrait of Hillary Clinton, warts and all.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

If you are looking for more screen-time options during the pandemic shelter-in-place, I recommend the documentary Hillary, available on Netflix. Released in January and the brainchild of American director Nanette Burstein, the four hour-long episodes present an intimate portrait of Hillary Clinton, warts and all.

Burstein, who obtained full access to Clinton during and after the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, had intended that the documentary would end in triumph with Clintons election as the first woman to become president. But it did not turn out that way.

Each episode goes back and forth in time, re-visiting the ups and downs of the 2016 campaign and then examining in fascinating detail key moments in Clintons life: her childhood, embrace of feminism as a university law student, marriage to the ambitious and more outgoing Bill Clinton, contentious role as first lady during his presidency, successful run as a senator from New York in 2001, her first attempt to become the Democratic Partys presidential nominee in 2008, and appointment as secretary of state in Barack Obamas cabinet.

Throughout, Clintons comments are insightful. She is intelligent, reflective, funny and honest  devastatingly so about the pain she suffered when the story of Bills tryst with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, proved to be true. Bill, too, speaks honestly about his marital transgressions and the pain he caused Hillary and their daughter Chelsea.

The documentary is yet another infuriating reminder of the enormous challenges women still face in public life. Bizarrely (or maybe not), Clinton was widely criticized for her decision to not leave Bill after his relationship with Lewinsky was exposed. She was the victim of a classic double standard  if the reverse had been true and she had cheated on Bill, but he had stuck by her, without a doubt he would have been considered forgiving, even courageous.

But she was widely condemned for being servile and weak for doing exactly that.

Pretty much daily during her Senate and presidential campaigns, she had to deal with inexcusable misogyny from journalists, TV pundits and men who attended her public events. Men (and some women) targeted her appearance, emotional state, intelligence and her fitness for office. In one clip from the 2016 campaign, a man she encounters tells her that she should smile more; while in segments from 2008, idiotic men hold signs at her rallies that say, "Iron My Shirt."

A distracting dark cloud hovers over the documentary, however; a sense of dread that is palpable. Because as you watch this accomplished woman campaign in 2016, you know whats coming at the end of it all. Luke Skywalker does not defeat Darth Vader; Harry Potter does not vanquish Voldemort.

Worse, not only does she lose the presidential contest, she loses to Republican Donald Trump, whose unhinged rants at his campaign rallies, tainted with racism and Mussolini-style nationalism, foretold the three and half years Americans and the rest of the world have now endured during his presidency.

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.

Indeed, Trump has caused so much havoc and spouted so many lies (18,000 as of April 3, as reported by the Washington Post) that it is easy to forget how objectionable a candidate he was. Burstein includes the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape of Trumps vulgar and demeaning diatribe about women. Listening to that again, it is unfathomable how those comments did not do him in as a political contender, especially among women.

And yet, in the 2016 election, 39 per cent of all female voters  and 47 per cent of white women  preferred Trump over Clinton.

Near the end of the documentary, Clinton says her greatest fear in the aftermath of the election was that Trump would not be up for the job. That has proved all too true. Ask yourself, how different the U.S. federal governments response to the COVID-19 pandemic would have been with Hillary Clinton as president. Can you imagine for one minute that she would have declared, as Trump did on March 13 about the lack of coronavirus tests in the U.S., "I dont take responsibility at all."

Or, how about inciting protesters to "LIBERATE" themselves  as if they were under enemy occupation  from stay-at-home orders imposed by state governors to stop the spread of the virus? Neither of these ever would have happened.

Hillary does not gloss over Clintons personal and professional flaws. Shes human, like the rest of us. But it is a powerful reminder of what might have been had she won the 2016 election  as she definitely would have if life were a Hollywood movie.

Now & Then is a column in which historian Allan Levine puts the events of today in a historical context.
With several pilgrims who returned from Nanded testing positive for coronavirus, Punjab Health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Monday claimed that the Maharashtra government had erred in not conducting proper screening and tests of the stranded Sikh devotees.

Due to the failure on the part of the Maharashtra government, the number of positive cases in Punjab rose, Sidhu alleged in a statement here.

Sidhu informed that he had also spoken to his counterpart in Maharashtra government Rajesh Tope, over phone and had expressed displeasure over this development.

"Had the Maharashtra government informed the Punjab government on time, we would have been able to make arrangements accordingly," the minister said in Ludhiana said.

The Maharashtra government simply tested their body temperature, claimed Sidhu.

Had they tested the pilgrims, we would have known how many out of them are positive and negative and subsequently, their travel arrangements would have been made accordingly," he said.

"Had they done this exercise of segregating positive and negative patients, the Punjab government would have brought them separately," he added.

Sidhu further said that Maharashtra has become a COVID-19 hotspot and blamed the "negligence" of the state government there for the spike in the number of coronavirus cases in Punjab.

He assured that the Punjab government is working hard to ensure that people stay safe.

Sidhu has been facing opposition's ire after several people from the state tested positive for COVID-19 following their return from a pilgrimage in Nanded, Maharashtra.

The Akali Dal has accused the state government of mismanaging the return of pilgrims and has sought Sidhu's sacking from the cabinet.

Punjab has continued to witness a steep rise in the number of cases over the last few days on account of pilgrims getting infected with the virus.

A total of 795 of around 4,100 pilgrims returned from Hazur Sahib in Maharashtra have contracted the infection so far, said a health official on Monday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
CHICAGO and WICHITA, Kan., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Vyaire Medical Inc., the world's largest healthcare company fully dedicated to respiratory care, together with Spirit AeroSystems [NYSE: SPR], announced today a new manufacturing and supply collaboration to build critical care ventilators at a converted facility in Wichita, Kan. The temporary special partnership will allow Vyaire to quickly ramp up production of critical care ventilators. This partnership furthers earlier action taken by Vyaire to accelerate production of ventilators and other related respiratory equipment at its primary production facilities based in North America.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has upended our way of life, but this is our opportunity to meet the needs of the American people with this partnership," said Vyaire CEO Gaurav Agarwal. "Spirit's breadth of technical capability, manufacturing prowess and skilled workforce make them ideally suited to support us in scaling our operations to meet this unprecedented demand. On behalf of the entire Vyaire team, I welcome the professionals from Spirit who join us in this cause and extend a deep appreciation for the job they will undertake at this critical time."

Spirit AeroSystems is one of the world's largest non-OEM designers and manufacturers of aerostructures for commercial and defense aircraft and is headquartered in Wichita.

"This collaboration is an opportunity for Spirit to help at a time when our nation needs it most," said Tom Gentile, President and CEO of Spirit AeroSystems. "We are honored to bring our industrial capabilities and skilled workforce to help Vyaire scale up quickly to produce much-needed ventilators during this pandemic."

Spirit has expertise with industrializing and building at high production rates and has a large, well-trained and experienced workforce of assembly mechanics, machinists, factory managers and supply chain professionals already working to support conversion of manufacturing to medical devices. Design of the production system is underway, and teams are readying the facilities with production materials, critical equipment and building infrastructure to stand up manufacturing lines. Training of staff is proceeding and approximately 700 Spirit employees will be assigned to this special project as production ramps up.

The Vyaire/Spirit AeroSystems collaboration is a meaningful action to meet unprecedented demand for ventilation equipment in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vyaire was chosen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide 22,000 of its LTV2 2200 ventilators to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile. In addition to the national stockpile request, Vyaire is working with state and private hospital and health system clients to ensure delivery of ventilators to areas of greatest need. The manufacturing and supply collaboration will help to balance the needs of clinicians urgently treating patients at the bedside with the commitment to fill or replenish strategic stockpiles. Vyaire is working with customers, including the HHS, to ensure patient need is prioritized and that critical care ventilators are distributed to areas in most need.

It is anticipated that more than 1,000 American workers, approximately 700 from Spirit and 300 from Vyaire, will be working in facilities in California and Kansas to manufacture ventilators at the height of this collaboration. For more information, please visit our website, which will be updated as our pandemic response evolves: Vyaire COVID-19 Response Center.

About Vyaire Medical

Vyaire Medical Inc., a global company dedicated to respiratory care, enables, improves and extends lives with an unyielding focus on improving patient outcomes and increasing value for customers. The company consists of a conglomeration of well-known brands and was formed in October 2016 to serve healthcare providers with innovative devices and service solutions across the respiratory and anesthesia continuum of care. Headquartered in suburban Chicago, Vyaire's legacy brands have a 65-year track record of pioneering and advancing respiratory diagnostics, ventilation, and anesthesia delivery & monitoring. From original brands  including Bird, Bear, and JAEGER to industry leaders AirLife, Vital Signs, Viasys, and many others  Vyaire Medical is recognized, trusted and preferred by specialists in respiratory and anesthesiology healthcare worldwide. Learn more at www.vyaire.com.

About Spirit AeroSystems

Spirit AeroSystems designs and builds aerostructures for both commercial and defense customers. With headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, Spirit operates sites in the U.S., U.K., France and Malaysia. The company's core products include fuselages, pylons, nacelles and wing components for the world's premier aircraft. Spirit AeroSystems focuses on affordable, innovative composite and aluminum manufacturing solutions to support customers around the globe. More information is available at www.spiritaero.com.

Contact

For Vyaire Medical

Cheston Turbyfill

Email: [email protected]

For Spirit AeroSystems, Inc.

Keturah Austin

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Vyaire Medical Inc.
DEAR DR. ROACH: My doctor started me on Wellbutrin 150 mg XL for depression, but I have had terrible insomnia. She said it would get better in two to four weeks, but I am having severe anxiety due to not sleeping. Do you have any suggestions?  N.M.N.

ANSWER: Bupropion (Wellbutrin) is an antidepression medicine in another kind of class from medicines like Prozac or Celexa, which are SSRIs and have a very different side-effect profile. Bupropion seldom causes the sexual side effects often noted with SSRIs, and more often causes weight loss than weight gain.

However, bupropion must be used with extreme caution or not at all in people with a seizure disorder. Other side effects include dry mouth, nausea or dizziness, and your doctor is right that most often these will go away within the two to four weeks she mentioned.

Insomnia can be a real problem. The dose of 150 mg is better tolerated than 300 mg, and the XL formulation also tends to reduce side effects. However, in some people, enough of the medicine is left in the system to make it hard to sleep. In that case, one approach is to use a smaller dose of the shorter-acting formulation while the person is getting used to the medication. Behavioral treatments to help sleep  getting regular exercise (but not right before bed), avoiding bright lights and computer or television screens before bed, and avoiding caffeine after noon  may certainly help and are worth trying.

Finally, people who have some anxiety with depression may not do well with bupropion, because it does tend to be stimulating. People with depression and fatigue, and excess sleeping, are excellent candidates for bupropion.

DEAR DR. ROACH: Why are stress tests no longer done on a treadmill? I was quite concerned when my last stress test was a nuclear stress test rather than on the treadmill.  M.E.

ANSWER: Stress tests are mainly used to diagnose blockages in the arteries of the heart. There are many different types of stress tests, but all of them stress the heart, and then look at the heart for any blockages.

Stressing the heart is traditionally done via exercise. On a treadmill or bike, a person exercises, starting off at low effort then building up in intensity until the person can't continue. The most common protocol is called a Bruce protocol on the treadmill, and it gives important prognostic information as well as diagnostic: If you can't complete three minutes on a Bruce protocol, that's a very worrisome sign, but if you can keep going after nine minutes, you have a good prognosis EVEN IF you have blockages.

If a person cannot exercise, usually due to orthopedic or neurological disease, then a pharmacologic stress test is prescribed, using medications to speed up the heart rate, for example. This does not allow for the prognostic ability of finding how much exercise a person can tolerate, and it takes some time for the drugs to wear off.

The heart is always evaluated by the electrocardiogram, but doctors may also use radioactive isotopes to demonstrate blood flow in the heart. The advantage of a nuclear stress test is both better ability to make the diagnosis (sensitivity) and fewer false positives (specificity), but it costs a lot more and exposes the person to some radiation. An echocardiogram allows a doctor to see the heart without using radiation. It is an alternative to a nuclear stress test.

Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth@med.cornell.edu or send mail to 628 Virginia Dr., Orlando, FL 32803.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
Volunteer collective using a network of 3D printers to produce much-needed protective equipment during COVID-19 crisis.

Istanbul, Turkey  Various sounds of whirring and beeping lead the way into a converted office in Istanbul.

Now filled with 3D printing machines and a packaging line, the space has been taken over by 3 Boyutlu Destek  meaning 3D support  in order to 3D print much-needed protective equipment for Turkeys medical staff.

3 Boyutlu Destek is a collective production movement, which started as the coronavirus pandemic hit Turkey in March.

The movement now boasts more than 3,500 volunteers spread across 81 cities in the country and about 4,500 3D printers.

Their primary production is face-shields, printing more than 25,000 in one week and then distributing to more than 250 hospitals.





Healthcare professionals are able to apply to the 3 Boyutlu Destek website in order to receive deliveries of the plastic coverings.

This volunteered assistance is welcome as Turkey has the most COVID-19 infections in the Middle East with nearly 128,000 cases, as well as more than 3,400 deaths.

On April 22, the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) announced 24 healthcare professionals died from coronavirus and 3,474 had been diagnosed with the corresponding disease, COVID-19. Of these cases, 2,005 were in Istanbul.

Immediate PPE need

The Turkish Medical Association has regularly denounced the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) not only in Turkey, but across the world.

Personal protective equipment is one of the most vital items in the delivery of health services, and this equipment has to be supplied to healthcare workers regularly, in sufficient amounts and in proper forms, TTB stated in one of their recent news releases.

Shortage of PPE is an unacceptable situation, and failing to supply it is itself a risk factor.

3 Boyutlu Destek co-founder Ilker Vardarli, an engineer by trade, told Al Jazeera face-shields are the most demanded product from healthcare workers across Turkey, as they provide far more protection than regular cloth masks.

When you are using a mask, you are only saving your mouth and nose, but when you are using a shield, you are saving your skin [and eyes]. When your hands go to your head, the face-shield protects these areas, Vardarli explained.

3D printing technologies and volunteer support are helping meet the personal protective equipment needs of healthcare workers in Turkey [Tessa Fox/Al Jazeera]

Hospitals across Turkey were only able to provide face-shields to surgeons before the 3D printing collective commenced production, now each healthcare worker can have access to this protection by just making a request on the groups website.

The face-shield was originally designed by Prusa 3D, a Czech 3D printing company, though was fine-tuned by Turkish-based volunteers in order to cut the time it takes to print from three hours to just one and a half hours.

Adding to the fast production of face-shields is a service from the Turkish Motorcycle Platform in Istanbul. At least 250 volunteers on bikes travel to producers homes in order to pick up the 3D-printed products, take them to the main office for packaging, and then they are on their way to hospitals for dispersal.





The 3D printer plastic  referred to as filaments  required to make the shields are also donated from supporters around the country. The entire operation is crowdsourced.

Design possibilities

While 3 Boyutlu Destek is currently focused on face-shields to meet the demands of medical workers, it has also designed and printed other equipment.

Vardarli listed a number of products the collective has experimented with, ranging from a hands-free door opener, Venturis valves used for ventilators, and adapters to convert snorkelling masks into non-invasive ventilators.

Laryngoscopes, however, are the product healthcare workers have asked 3 Boyutlu Destek most for after face-shields. This device is placed in the patients mouth in order to view the throat and larynx, or voice box.

This is a really important product because they need to use it for every patient and there isnt enough time now in order to sterilise them, Vardarli explained.

The 3D-printed laryngoscope is one-time use only and takes six hours to print.

Its not an optimal product because you cant sterilise it, but you can use it in a time of shortage, Vardarli said.

The majority of products 3 Boyutlu Destek are designing are non-invasive, otherwise, they would need to seek approval from Turkeys ministry of health.

Open-source information

The emphasis of a volunteer community and open-source information sharing is of high importance to Vardarli, particularly when facing a global pandemic.

If you are sharing your project through an open-source community, everyone can produce your product as soon as possible, at the same time, in different cities and locations, Vardarli said.

Our power is coming from open-source; this is a maker movement, you share what you produce.

Volunteer Deniz Derman is working eight-hour days, printing and packaging face-shields alongside writing her thesis on bio-medical engineering.

Derman agreed 3D printing and information sharing is the best solution to provide PPE in various locations in the shortest amount of time.

Seeing as coronavirus is a global problem, open-source is the best way forward. People all over the world can make something beneficial for doctors and healthcare professionals, Derman told Al Jazeera.
Shah Rukh Khan is a multi-talented star. He delivers not only in movies but also in music. The Bollywood superstar brought down the house with his singing skills at the I for India concert held live on Facebook on Sunday.

The actor closed the concert with a song composed by rapper Badshah and penned by lyricist Sainee Raj. Titled Sab Sahi Ho Jayega, the song is about the perils of being locked up inside homes and the hope that sooner or later the world will be coronavirus free.

"Everybody who knows me knows that I cannot sing to save my life. So thank you for taking a chance on me, everybody. But that's what life is about, it's about good chances, hope, kindness and compassion and that's what we are here to do on this platform to share love and compassion in whatever way we can," Shah Rukh said before breaking forth into singing.

Shah Rukh's son, AbRam, also made an appearance during his performance and the duo put up some adorable dance moves together. Towards the end, when the actor said he could go for "one more", AbRam hilariously said, "Papa, enough now."

Shah Rukh also took to Twitter to share his performance clip with fans. He tweeted, "Extremely grateful to #IforIndia, @Its_Badshah & @cacklerraj for music, lyrics & for working overnight. Thanks Sunil for the edit. All so that I could sing. Ab bhai,lockdown mein mujhe gaate hue bhi jhelna padhega. AbRam is saying 'papa enough now! Par Sab Sahi Ho Jaayega!" (sic)

Have a look:

Extremely grateful to #IforIndia, @Its_Badshah & @cacklerraj for music, lyrics & for working overnight. Thanks Sunil for the edit. All so that I could sing. Ab bhai,lockdown mein mujhe gaate hue bhi jhelna padhega. AbRam is saying 'papa enough now! Par Sab Sahi Ho Jaayega! pic.twitter.com/T7eLzBuC9Q Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) May 3, 2020

Needless to say, SRK's fans had a meltdown upon watching his cute moments with his son.

One user wrote, "Loved seeing you and AbRam. Yes, including the song and singing! You were amazing and the best ending to the initiative!" (sic)

Another said, "You were amazing and so handsome sir, you made my day, loads of love my love." (sic)

Loved seeing you and AbRam. Yes, including the song and singing! You were amazing and the best ending to the initiative!  #IForIndia Tanvi (@iamtanvi) May 3, 2020

Well x3 The Real Voice of SRK I like it! AbRam the hidden gem Thank you! And thanks 2 everyone who helped Now if I could figure out how to save it 4 a pick me up later?? Love you My Shah Good 2 see U & hear ur voice Ur looking good Such a pleasure BLESS YOU/YOURS BIG HUG pic.twitter.com/CjcAtwpfxE Linda Langford (@celestiallite) May 3, 2020
Plas Madoc benefits from pandemic Economic Resilience Fund grant

This article is old - Published: Monday, May 4th, 2020

Plas Madoc Leisure Centre has thanked the Welsh Government for its fantastic support after being awarded a much-needed grant.

The centre found out last week it will receive 55,000 from the Welsh Governments new Economic Resilience Fund, one of a number of funds set up to help businesses and social enterprises during the coronavirus crisis.

Stella Matthews, chair of Splash Community Trust, said: This grant is very important for us and we are very grateful to the Welsh Government for their continued support.

We have been running as a social enterprise for over five years and have made great strides, but the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown could have really set us back. We still have utility bills to pay and the cost of maintaining the pool and keeping the centre in good condition so were ready to open again as soon as were able to.

This funding is so crucial for us and a tremendous boost.

Plas Madoc received a 500,000 grant from the Welsh Government in 2016 which funded key structural work including substantial work on the roof, fixing wiring and insulation, replacing pool plant equipment and upgrading the centres CCTV and fire alarm. The Leisure Centre was named Welsh Social Enterprise of the Year in 2018.

Stella said, We are delighted, we have always had fantastic support from Welsh Government, they have always realised the importance of the Centre to our area, we are very grateful.

The centre was closed by Wrexham Council in 2014 due to budget cuts and threatened with demolition, but reopened that December thanks to the efforts of the local community and volunteers
All India Congress Committee (AICC) Secretary and former urban development minister Sudhir Sharma on Monday accused the state government of misleading the Centre on the Active Case Finding (ACF) campaign, which he said, was a farce.

In a press statement issued here, Sharma said that state government has submitted a false report to the Centre about the campaign under which, it was claimed, that 70 lakh people were screened for coronavirus.

Even, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appreciated the efforts of the HP government and exhorted other states to emulate the model, said Sharma claiming that a real picture was not placed before the PM.

In reality, the residents were not screened for coronavirus but it was a general survey under which Asha workers asked people if they had any flu-like symptoms, he said adding that many people even complained that they were not reached out by the health workers.

Sharma said that the state also lacks proper scanning equipment to screen the people for coronavirus.

A survey cannot be called a screening drive. It is on the basis of these false reports that the government is saying that Himachal Pradesh is becoming coronavirus free, he alleged.

The Congress leader said that at interstate barriers there was no proper arrangement and equipment for screening people arriving in the state and they were being allowed to enter after taking their names, addresses and phone numbers.

This ill-conceived strategy of the state government may result in a dangerous situation in the state.

The government should carry out random testing across the state for Covid-19. Testing should be ramped up. Without tests, we cannot claim to become corona-free, he said.

Sharma also accused the state government of failing to provide necessary safety equipment like masks and PPE kits to the frontline warriors including health staff, police and administrative officers.

Staffs deployed at the borders are either without masks or using old masks. Health staffs have been provided raincoats instead of PPE kits, he said adding that the government is yet to float tenders for purchase of masks, PPE kits and other equipment.
From now on, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ will only receive quarterly security updates. This means that instead of getting a new security patch every month, updates will be bundled and released every three months.

The S8 duo is three years old now, having been released in April 2017. Originally, it ran Android 7.0 Nougat and has since been updated to Android 9 Pie with One UI (the original version). An Android 10 update is not coming.

For comparison, Samsung ended support for 2016s Galaxy S7 duo last month, after they spent two years getting monthly updates and two years on the quarterly schedule. Samsung originally wanted to end support for the S7 phones a year ago, but reconsidered and went on releasing updates for 10 more months.

So, you can expect that your Galaxy S8 or S8+ will be supported at least until 2021.

Source | Via (in Dutch)
The plan to sell Victorias Secret to a private equity firm was mutually terminated on Monday after the buyer, Sycamore Partners, tried to back out of the deal because it said it did not agree with steps the lingerie brand took in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

L Brands, which also owns Bath & Body Works, had agreed in February to sell a majority of Victorias Secret to Sycamore Partners for about $525 million. The transaction was expected to close in the second quarter. But as the pandemic forced Victorias Secret and many other retailers to temporarily close stores and furlough employees, Sycamore had second thoughts. The firm first tried to renegotiate the purchase, and then filed suit in Delaware to terminate the agreement, claiming L Brands had breached the terms of the deal. L Brands countersued, calling the attempt invalid.

In a statement on Monday, Sarah Nash, a director at L Brands and the companys incoming chairwoman, cited the extremely challenging business environment for retailers as part of its decision to put an end to the deal.

Our board believes that it is in the best interests of the company, our stockholders and our associates to focus our efforts entirely on navigating this environment to address those challenges and positioning our brands for success rather than engaging in costly and distracting litigation to force a partnership with Sycamore, Ms. Nash said.
Two floors of the Border Security Force headquarters in Delhi have been sealed after a staff member was tested positive for COVID-19, officials said on Monday.

The eight-storeyed BSF head office is located in the CGOs complex on Lodhi road that also houses the CRPF headquarters which was placed under similar sealing on Sunday after two staffers tested positive.

Two floors of the BSF headquarters have been sealed after a staff member tested positive. All drills for sanitisation are being undertaken, they said.

Contact tracing is also underway and only a bare minimum staff is working, the officials added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
- Ronaldo was expected to leave Portugal for Italy ahead of the potential resumption of Serie A

- But his private jet was grounded in Madrid and has not been cleared to leave the country

- The Juve star is currently in his hometown of Madeira alongside his family

Cristiano Ronaldo is reportedly unable to travel to Italy from his base in Madeira as he is currently stranded.

The Juventus striker is expected to return to his club after spending several weeks with his family in his hometown.

READ ALSO: Billy Gilmour: Chelsea star admits he wears Liverpool shirt when at home

READ ALSO: Victor Wanyama: Kenyan midfielder says a move to Liverpool was not going to happen

But according to Portuguese news media outlet TVI, his KSh 4 billion (30m) private jet has been grounded in Madrid.

It is understood Spanish restrictions is the reason the plane can not leave the country's capital.

Ronaldo was in line to make a return to Juventus to link up with his team-mates. Photo: Instagram/@cristiano.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: David Sesay: England-born talented defender says he is ready to play for Harambee Stars

Reports claim the plane attempted to take off thrice but was blocked, leaving Ronaldo stuck in Madeira.

Ronaldo was expected to be picked from the Atlantic island and travel to Italy ahead of the possible return of Serie A.

Cristiano Ronaldo's Gulfstream G650 is believed to be worth KSh 4 billion. Photo: Gulfstream.

Source: UGC

Teams in Italy are already assembling their players after the government gave a go-ahead for teams to return to training.

Ronaldo on his part has been keeping himself in shape with video clips of his practice sessions posted on social media.

Do you have an inspirational story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Tuko news.

The Kariobangi man raising five weeks old twins on his own | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
The prolific Raghubir Yadav is in no mood to take it slow. The actor has an interesting filmography to his name and has now made his digital debut too with Jitendra Kumar and Neena Gupta on the web show, Panchayat. The Newton actor plays the pradhan pati on the show, which has received love from the audience for displaying the minutiae of the rural life with honesty and empathy.

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Raghubir opened up about his love for village shoots and called it a big reason for choosing rural stories such as Panchayat. He says, I did the show because of its subject. I have seen village panchayats and the show has shown us the fine nuances of a village in a very beautiful way. India is a land of villages. Every village has its speciality and a different environment. How the villagers work hard to earn their livelihood makes their lives stand apart from each other.

Raghubir Yadav (third from right) and Jitendra Kumar (first from right) in Panchayat.

Raghubir shared the screen space with Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan actor Jitendra Kumar in the show and the latter was the one who revealed how Raghubir loves village shoots. I never used to sit in a vanity van. We all live in metro cities and hardly ever get an opportunity to sit under a tree. We have forgotten that air, the energy we get in a trees shade. Whenever I shoot at places where I have an option of relaxing in a vanity van or under a tree, I prefer the latter, confirmed Raghubir while sharing his experience of working in Panchayat.

Raghubir united with his National School of Drama co-student Neena in Panchayat and calls her character dominating. She is the sarpanch but since I am the husband, I take care of her official duties which include paper work, attending meetings and going outdoors. However, she is the one who has her say in decision making.

Ragubir agrees there is a rise in good roles for middle-aged actors these days. This age comes with experience. These characters have lived life thats why we like them. It is fun playing such roles. Earlier, the makers used to focus only on the lead actors as compared to the supporting cast. They must have worked hard to gain such a position. There are many such characters in stories set in villages, he says.

Raghubir has a filmography worth being proud of. He has played pivotal roles in film such as Salaam Bombay!, Lagaan, Water and Newton, all of which were Indias official entries for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards. Enquire him about getting his due, Raghubir makes it clear awards were never on his mind.

Also read: Tiger Shroff sings Varun Dhawans song at i For India concert, earns praise from actor in Jackie Shroffs style

I never think like that. If I get the work which satisfies me, its enough for me. I will be happy if I continue to get good work. I have worked a lot in theatre and this has made me focus more on my work than rewards. If I start thinking about all that, it will be dishonesty with myself. I do my work with honesty and then it gets an award or not, it doesnt bother me. Of course, getting recognition gives me happiness but I dont think about awards, he says.

While many are looking for ways to spend their time during lockdown, Raghubir claims he has enough on his plate. He says, I have so many things to do. I have so many books and musical instruments like harmonium, sitar, mandolin. I have a workshop as I have worked in stagecraft so I keep making some instruments. I brought some bamboos from a shoot and I make flutes out of them. I feel life is too short and there are so many things to do. So since I have got time, I do them. I also do household chores. I love cooking and am enjoying washing clothes.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
Olivia ODell, 8, already has picked out the paint color for her first-ever, very own bedroom.

Yellow, she said. Like her shoes. Her little sister wants purple. And maybe shell be able to get her dream pet, like a hamster or a rabbit. She looks up at her parents: Or maybe a puppy dog.

But a puppy can be expensive, she added.

When the coronavirus pandemic shut down non-essential businesses in March, Jerome Bryant lost his job at Get Air, a popular trampoline place. His partner, Andrea ODell, kept her job as a medical assistant at a doctors office.

But they were sure the shutdown had crushed their dreams of owning their own home. They qualified for a mortgage on March 5 on a $140,000 house in Cicero. Its in a development at the end of a dead-end street. They were supposed to close on May 1.

The family was featured in a Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard story about how the health scare and the crashing economy were affecting the real estate industry  one of Central New Yorks biggest  at its busiest time of year.

Bryant and ODells real estate agent read the story.

Things were moving along at such a great clip, then I saw the article, Vincent Ezzo, of Howard Hanna Real Estate said. I thought, holy crap, what are you doing in the paper?

He shared the story with his network and started making calls to Empower Credit Union.

ODells friend who works at the bank also helped connect the couple with a vice president who handles mortgages. A bank representative did not respond to a request for an interview.

In the end, ODell said she convinced the bank to grant the mortgage on the condition that they would freeze their savings in a separate account in case they miss a payment.

It turns out, Bryant is making more money in his unemployment check than he would be earning at his job. The federal government has added $600 a week in pandemic relief to regular unemployment through July 31.

And as an essential worker, ODell continues to work full time.

They closed on the house Thursday, one day earlier than they originally expected.

The shutdown continues and it seems likely that a germy trampoline place would be among the last to reopen. Bryant is applying for other jobs, but hopes to eventually return to Get Air.

The two posed for a photo in front of a big Sold" sign and sent it to Ezzo. Normally, he would be there.

Home sales can still happen during the shutdown, but there are limits on the number of people who can attend a closing. The pandemic is testing agents creativity as they navigate rules designed to protect health. It has also stressed buyers who are unsure of their financial futures.

People think we sell houses, Ezzo said to a reporter while he was missing the closing. Thats not what we do. We help people move from one chapter in their lives to the next. The trials and tribulations that some of these buyers and sellers go through, its so much.

Olivia circled her family Friday in the front yard, going over her plans for her new room.

The lease expired on the familys apartment and they all moved in to Bryants mothers one-bedroom townhouse in North Syracuse.

They will be there for a few more weeks as they pick out the new paint colors.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

What businesses might reopen this month amid coronavirus in NY? McMahon offers clues about restart

Cuomo set at least 12 tests for CNY economy to reopen. Heres how we check the boxes

As he struggled to breathe, CNY nursing home wouldnt test for coronavirus, family says

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Michelle Breidenbach | mbreidenbach@syracuse.com | 315-470-3186.
What Does it Mean That God Will Comfort as a Mother Comforts?

David Guzik writes that this is a prophecy about a day when the victory will come easily to Jerusalem, when she will be as the promise of Romans 8:37, more than conquerors through Him who loved us. This will be Jerusalems comfort. No one can comfort like a mother, and God will bring that kind of comfort to His people. Guzik quotes Spurgeon: a father can comfort but he is not much at home at the work. When God speaks about his pity, he compares himself to their father, but when he speaks about comfort, he selects the mother.

According to Peter Pett, the new born people of God or Christians as they would come to be known will find the source of full blessing in Gods provision in the heavenly places. All who come to them to drink will find solace. And through them God will supply His comfort, indeed He will comfort them Himself.

The comfort Isaiah wrote about, though compared to that which a mother provides, is still Gods comfort. In the eighth century, His people look forward to an intimate sort of comfort which will come through Christ, the promised Messiah.

Scriptures Related to Isaiah 66:13

Where else is the mothering imagery seen in the Word of God?

The Israelites grumbled to Moses in the desert and he asked God did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant? (Numbers 11:12)

Moses was not a mother, but The Lord spoke of Himself as a nurturer.

He told Ezekiel He would replace the shepherds of Israel (Ezekiel 34:2) who eat the fat [...] but do not feed the sheep. (Ezekiel 34:3). The Lord would tend His people in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There [...] they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down. (Ezekiel 34:14-15)

This verse echoes that gentle, nursing-mother image found in Isaiahs description of Mother Jerusalem.

Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica that just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8)

The Apostles were instruments of Gods nurturing provision towards the new Christians, providing the solace Guzik wrote about.

Photo Credit: Sparrowstock
Before this crisis, on a normal day in the United States, we could see the federal minimum wage stand still for years while executive compensation knew no limit, Mr. Garcetti said in a recent address to the city. We must ask of our city and our nation, at this time, is normal really what we want to come back to?

The pandemic in California has accelerated efforts to reduce prison populations, after decades when the state led the nation in get-tough-on-crime policies. Nearly 10,000 inmates have been released from state prisons or jails over the last few weeks.

Advocates for ending mass incarceration have seized on the coronavirus crisis to push for more inmate releases. They hope that once the pandemic passes, part of its legacy will be to show America that it incarcerates too many people. And they will have another potent argument: As state and local budgets collapse, the high cost of incarceration with be tougher to justify.

Lenore Anderson, a former prosecutor in San Francisco and president of Californians for Safety and Justice, noted in a recent column that spending on prisons in California grew 65 percent faster over the last 20 years than spending on hospitals did  a gap exposed by the pandemic, as hospitals found themselves scrambling to cope.

With the safe release of a few thousand more people, and maintaining these declines permanently, California could come out of this crisis with the ability to do the previously impossible: close a prison, Ms. Anderson wrote.

Among the most significant moves was a recent order from the states judicial council to end cash bail for most criminal charges, allowing thousands of people awaiting trial to be released from jails. For decades, cash bail has been held out by activists as an exemplar of unfairness in the criminal justice system, with wealth the primary factor that determines whether someone is in jail or free. (California voters in November will weigh a measure to permanently end cash bail and replace it with a system of risk assessment tools.)
The U.S. Navy USS America (LHA 6) amphibious assault ship conducts flight operations with MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter from the America Expeditionary Strike Group, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit team.

Aviation Boatswains Mate (Handling) 3rd Class Dominic Webster, from Jersey City, New Jersey, assigned to amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) signals an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to the Island Knights of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 25 to take off from the flight deck. (Picture source U.S. Navy)

The expeditionary strike group (ESG) is a United States Navy concept introduced in the early 1990s, based on the Naval Expeditionary Task Force. The U.S. Navy fields nine expeditionary strike groups and ten carrier strike groups, in addition to surface action groups. ESGs allow the U.S. to provide highly movable and self-sustaining naval forces for missions in various parts of the world.

The ESG concept combines the capabilities of surface action groups, submarines, and maritime patrol aircraft with those of amphibious ready groups and Marine expeditionary units (special operations capable) to provide greater combat capabilities to theater combatant commanders.[1] An expeditionary strike force (ESF) integrates the CSG and ESG with the sea-basing functions provided by the maritime prepositioning force (future) to provide an even more potent capability.

The USS America (LHA-6), is a America-class amphibious assault ship of the United States Navy and the lead ship of her class. USS America was awarded to Ingalls on June 1st, 2007 and saw her keel laid down on July 17th, 2009. She was launched on June 4th, 2012 and officially commissioned on October 11th, 2014.

The LHA 6 is equipped with the AN/SPQ-9B surface-search and Fire Control radar, AN/SPS-48E(V)10 3D air-search radar, the AN/SPS-49(V)1 2D air-search radar and the AN/SPM-43C air traffic control radar. Electronic Warfare (EW) is handled by the AN/SLQ-32B(V)2 fit (Block 1) and the vessel carries 2 x Mk 53 NULKA decoy launchers.

Armament of the LHA 6 includes 2 x Evolved Sea Sparrow medium-range surface-to-air missile launchers, 2 x RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile) short-range launchers , 2 x 20mm Phalanx Close-In Weapon Systems (CIWSs), 2 x 25mm M242 "Bushmaster" chain guns and up to 7 x 0.50 heavy machine guns in twin-gunned mountings.

The Sikorsky MH-60S Sea Hawk is a twin turboshaft engine, multi-mission United States Navy helicopter based on the United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk and a member of the Sikorsky S-70 family. The MH-60S Sea Hawk missions is Anti-Surface Warfare, combat support, humanitarian disaster relief, Combat Search and Rescue, aero medical evacuation, SPECWAR and organic Airborne Mine Countermeasures.

The MH-60S with its glass cockpit incorporates active matrix liquid crystal displays, used to facilitate pilot and co-pilot vertical and horizontal situation presentations. Another major design of the MH-60S is a "common cockpit," which is shared with the MH-60R. This allows pilots to shift from one aircraft to another with minimal re-training.



USS America (LHA-6) with F-35Bs, MV-22 Ospreys, and several helicopters on deck (Picture source Wikimedia)
CEDAR RAPIDS  Democrats running for their partys U.S. Senate nomination agreed that an assault weapons ban should be reinstated, but that didnt stop them from taking shots at their common target, Sen. Joni Ernst.

Not only does Ernst oppose re-establishing the assault weapons ban that was in place from 1994 to 2004, but the first-term Republican is on the wrong side of health care, climate change, agriculture and energy issues, the five Democrats argued in the Prime the Primary virtual forum Sunday afternoon hosted by the Democratic parties in Benton, Iowa and Poweshiek counties.

The Democrats are running, as retired three-star admiral Mike Franken said, to negate the things that got Joni Ernst elected to begin with.

Its ironic that Ernsts make em squeal campaign ad propelled her to victory in 2014, attorney Kimberly Graham said. Rather than take on the special interests, the Democrats said, she has been the tool of corporate interests and fallen in line with President Donald Trump, whose policies on agriculture, trade, renewable fuels and more have hurt Iowans.

Asked about health care, specifically rural health care, Graham said that by voting to end the Affordable Care Act and protections for preexisting conditions, Ernst has not been a friend of regular Iowans.

Graham said shes the only candidate in the field who supports a universal, single-payer health care system because its the only way that we are going to get health care that is truly acceptable.

The COVID-19 crisis has put a spotlight on the inequities in our health care and in particular, when it comes to our rural health care systems, Des Moines businesswoman Theresa Greenfield said. She called for strengthening the Affordable Care Act and adding a public option.

Ernsts opposition to Obamacare would end Medicaid expansion, which would threaten so many of our rural hospitals, she said.

Des Moines businessman Eddie Mauro called for a Peace Corps-like domestic health care program to recruit new and retired health care professionals to work in rural Iowa and other underserved areas.

As a senator, Mauro said he would lead hearings on the privatization of Medicaid, which he called particularly devastating for rural Iowa.

COVID-19 has also demonstrated that we must make sure that health care is there for every American, a massive public health care plan that provides health care for all Americans, because its a human right, he said.

Much of Americas health care problem stems from the fact that 62 cents of every health care dollar is spent on things other than direct patient care, Des Moines businessman Cal Woods said. Twenty cents is spent on marketing and advertising, and on salaries at for-profit insurance companies, he said. Another 12 cents is wasted because of overpaying for prescription drugs.

The United States could have a world-class health care system if Congress would allocate money away from insurance companies, away from administrative costs and away from the amount that we overpaid for pharmaceuticals, he said.

In the near term, Franken argued, rural hospitals need help in the next coronavirus relief bill. Community health centers also need support so they can serve non-COVID-19 patients, he said, and people should be allowed to opt into Medicare on a short-term basis.

The primary election is June 2. The winner will face Ernst in a race the Cook Political Report rated leans Republican.

Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
Coronavirus Lockdown: Congress has decided to pay for the train tickets of migrant workers. Congress Interim President Sonia Gandhi on Monday said that post partition in 1947, India has witnessed such a tragedy with a such human cost for the first time.

Congress Interim President Sonia Gandhi on Monday announced that her party has decided to pay for the rail tickets of every needy migrant worker and labourer returning to their respective hometowns. This will be the partys contribution to the service of compatriots and reasserted that Congress stands shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them.

In a statement issued on Monday morning, the Congress leader said that if the government can arrange free air travel for Indian citizens stranded abroad, spend nearly Rs 100 crore on transport and food for just one public programme in Gujarat, rail ministry can donate Rs 151 crore to PM Cares fund, then why cannot the migrant workers be given a fraction of the same courtesy by arranging free rail travel for them at this hour of acute distress.

She said that India has witnessed such a tragedy with such a massive human cost for the first time after partition in 1947. Migrant workers and labourers were forced to walk back to their respective hometowns on foot without food, medicines, money or transportation just to be with their families and loved ones. Even today, there are lakhs of migrant workers in different parts of the country who wish to return to their hometowns but do not have any money.

Also Read: PM Narendra Modi to participate in NAM virtual summit to discuss Indias COVID-19 strategy today

This will be the Indian National Congress humble contribution in service of our compatriots and to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them: Sonia Gandhi, Congress President https://t.co/j4o56Ok8wp  ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020

Also Read: Coronavirus India: Arvind Kejriwal says Delhi is ready to relax lockdown restrictions, not right to mark entire city under red zone

Sonia Gandhi further slammed Centre and the Railway ministry for charging them for rail tickets in an hour of crisis. After multiple demands and mass gatherings by migrant workers in the hope to return to their native places, the Centre on decided to run special trains to facilitate their travel. In a circular released by the Railway Ministry, local government authorities were asked to collect ticket fare from migrant workers and hand it over to the ministry.

Kerala: A special train, carrying around 1090 migrant workers, left from Kozhikode for Bihar yesterday amid #CoronavirusLockdown. pic.twitter.com/YIGqVlRTc4  ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2020

Telangana: Scores of migrant workers stranded here amid #COVID19 lockdown gathered in Hyderabad today allegedly demanding state government to send them back to their native places. pic.twitter.com/EIgeaqSWxy  ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2020

The migrant workers have been charged Rs 505 for the journey which is very unfair. Central govt should have paid for their tickets from PM CARES Fund. I have personally paid Rs 5 lakh for their tickets: Maharashtra Minister Nitin Raut in Nagpur https://t.co/sTZH8uHsbv pic.twitter.com/nnkh6fITAQ  ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2020

Also Read: Coronavirus update: Total positive cases in India cross 40,000 mark, toll at 1306

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
Penn Presbyterian Medical Center is visible outside the seventh-story window, a presence even when Christine Rolon, an intensive-care nurse, is done with her shifts.

The view is not one that Rolon is used to. Neither is the kitchen where she cooks or the TV that she watches CNN on each night.

Four nights a week, Rolon stays at the Homewood Suites by Hilton in University City, one of the hotels that have opened their doors to Philadelphias doctors and nurses afraid of bringing coronavirus home to their families. Health-care workers, who make up 10% to 20% of coronavirus cases nationally, say treating the citys sickest COVID-19 patients is less frightening than going home afterward.

Were with our friends and were not scared of what were doing. Were able to be with each other," said Rolon, 38. "Were scared of getting our families sick.

Rolons husband, a psychologist, is worried that she could infect their 2-year-old daughter. Rolon, though, is more worried about her 45-year-old husband.

Hes in good health, she said, but the men in this pandemic have not been doing as well.

 READ MORE: For the families of Philadelphias health-care workers, coronavirus brings painful choices and growing anxiety

David Adelman, chief executive of Homewood Suites parent company, Campus Apartments, began offering free rooms for front-line workers in late March. The cost is considerable, he said, about six figures each month.

We made the decision that we didnt want to furlough or lay off hotel workers, Adelman said.

Hilton has since provided health-care workers free accommodations at all their hotels nationwide. In Philadelphia, health-care workers or their employers have made arrangements for stays at hotels, Airbnbs, even friends vacant apartments.

The fact that theyve done this has made it a lot easier on us, Rolon said of the Homewood Suites.

 READ MORE: A Philly hotel owner is trying to survive the coronavirus economy by putting up first responders

Bon Ku, an emergency physician at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, spent a night at the Homewood Suites and more recently has been spending up to four nights a week at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel on Broad Street. He works nights, and walks to Jefferson on streets vacant of all but the citys most indigent, he said. Its so desolate that he feels unsafe at times, but the alternative is the pervasive anxiety that if he went home he could sicken his wife, 14-year-old daughter, and 11-year-old son.

Sometimes I just think I am the biggest risk to my kids right now, he said. Im literally the most dangerous person in the country to my kids.

Rolon, who is studying to become a nurse-practitioner, was so anxious in the early days of the pandemic that she kept on a N95 mask and protective clothes at home.

I cannot be in full hazmat all day and then come home and do schoolwork and be in full hazmat at night, she remembered thinking.

She had been staying at the Sheraton Philadelphia University City, where Penn Medicine booked rooms, but moved to Homewood Suites on March 30. Its only four blocks from the hospital and the rooms have kitchens.

I cant keep living through this with pizza and leftovers, she said.

Both Rolon and Ku experience emotional swings between fear of making their families sick and pain over the separation. When home, Rolon still wears an N95 mask despite the discomfort. Ku is struggling to avoid close contact with his children but suffers when hes away.

I hate hotels, he said. Its a lonely experience being in one.

At Homewood Suites, a third of its 136 rooms are occupied by non-health-care workers, most of them business travelers, Adelman said, so nurses and doctors take precautions to protect other guests and one another.

On a recent night, Hollie Scarboro, 28, arrived at the hotel with a fellow nurse, both still in scrubs and masks. Scarboros Southern drawl gave her away as a newcomer to Philadelphia. She lives in Kentucky, and was placed by an agency at Mercy Philadelphia Hospitals critical-care unit for a month.

Its a pretty cute little town, she said of Philadelphia. I wish more things were open.

She would shower as soon as she entered her room, she said outside the hotel. Ku changes out of scrubs at his office in the hospital, he said, and showers as soon as he gets to his room. Rolon bags her scrubs in her room before showering. She washes them herself at the hotels laundry facilities.

Im doing laundry there every day, she said.

 READ MORE: On the coronavirus front lines, Philly nurses also battle supply shortages and tension with employers

Operations at Homewood Suites have adapted too, said Dan Harrison, the general manager.

The restaurant and pool are closed, and there is no food service to rooms. A plexiglass barrier separates workers at the front desk from people checking in, and staff frequently sanitize such high-touch areas as elevators, the ATM, and door handles.

Guests staying fewer than five nights must do their own housekeeping. Towels, toilet paper, and other supplies are left outside rooms in plastic bags.

When a guest checks out, staff does a deep cleaning while wearing masks and gloves, Adelman said.

Theres really no interaction between guests and service workers, he said.

Hotel representatives declined to say how many workers have tested positive for the coronavirus.

The haven these hotels offer keeps front-line health-care workers isolated even from one another. There are no after-work drinks or socializing. The fear of infection, even though the hotel does not provide rooms to people with COVID-19 symptoms, keeps health-care workers separated when theyre away from work.

Im always wearing my mask as soon as I step out into the hallway, Scarboro said.

Ku wonders how much staying in a hotel really helps. People without symptoms can spread COVID-19 for weeks, and the sense of safety the hotels offer may be more psychological than real. To protect his family, he said, he probably shouldnt be seeing them at all, something he cant bring himself to do.

It doesnt make sense, man, he said. Some of us, we just feel better at least being apart from them for a little bit.
New Delhi, May 4 : "The time for Swadeshi has come," asserted the man who runs the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Singh's economic wing - Swadeshi Jagran Manch. Ashwani Mahajan, the face of the organisation says those opposing the 'Swadeshi' app -- Aarogya Setu should start by speaking up against the popular Chinese TikTok app.

In this interview to IANS, Mahajan declares that the government, however belatedly, has realised the importance of 'Swadeshi' with the COVID-19 pandemic infecting more than 40,000 Indians.

Mahajan also called for an audit of the World Health Organization whose tilt towards China post-COVID-19 has brought disrepute to the world body.

Here is the full interview: Q: You seem to be backing the government's Aarogya Setu app being made compulsory even when you raised concern over TikTok. Why? A: First of all, I want to know, where were these critics who seem to have huge knowledge about privacy laws when TikTok was expanding its market share and Facebook was selling users data? I want to ask Rahul Gandhi, why did he maintain an almost criminal silence all this while the apps like that were ruling the market. As far as Aarogya Setu app is concerned, it has been brought with a clear intent for contact tracing which otherwise would incur huge cost to the government. The intent is to save lives. Many of the critics seem to have no problem with this foreign app but their concern arises when it is an indigenous app brought to contain a pandemic.

Q: PM Modi has been stressing on self sustenance post COVID-19 outbreak. Do you think, finally, the government and SJM are on the same page when it comes to 'Swadeshi'? A: It has not been a sudden change of heart. The government for the last three years have started to realize the importance of self sustenance and have been working towards it. But today, it makes all the more sense amid a growing anti-China feeling internationally. China killed our manufacturing business which creates jobs. So how else will you create jobs? Service sector can't do that. The anti-dumping duty and raising import tariffs were moved in that direction. Today, the importance of Swadeshi has become apparent to all.

There were many who had asked to forget agriculture and instead focus on importing vegetables. Had that been the situation, we would not be able to feed our population during this lockdown. Even the US, Britain are also talking about protectionism. Here onwards, Swadeshi will be the new reality.

Q: You spoke about jobs in manufacturing. There have been innumerable job losses and the economy is in bad shape. What's the way forward? A: Yes, the economy has taken a hit due to the lockdown, but so have the economies of all countries across the globe. But let me give you the silver lining. We are self sufficient with agricultural produce that addresses the main concern of food. Secondly, Indian by virtue of being empathetic, wherever there is news of people going hungry, help is reaching out.

But it's a fact that joblessness is there but it has brought the much needed attention of the government to certain areas like the MSME. Moreover, now increasingly FDIs are coming that are not brown field investment but green field investment which will eventually create jobs. Taking over pharma companies in India doesn't create jobs. When FDI coming to India starts to export from here without disturbing its domestic market, India benefits. In the current scenario, many companies have approached the government of India and state governments.

Q: You have always been against market monopoly. But as and when a vaccine for COVID-19 comes into the market, it is tipped to be priced at a premium.

A: Going by the current infection rate in India, I don't think India can be much exploited. Anyway Indian Patent Act allows any drug to be given compulsory licence in public interest. India has the power to do that after giving reasonable profit. This is to safeguard our interests. Interestingly, the US cannot do the same.

Q: But the role of the World Health Organization itself has come under scrutiny. Do you see the organization taking a pro-people stand on pricing of the COVID vaccine, once it comes out? A: I have once said that WHO should be shut. Today its role is being publicly debated and even the US has brazenly criticised it. Many pharmaceutical companies have been financing the WHO. That's why they should be audited. Then people will come to know how WHO has been misleading the world about vaccines, eating habits and so on.

(Anindya Banerjee can be contacted at anindya.b@ians.in)

Latest updates on Howdy Modi Houston
The recent mass deaths reported in Nigeria's Kano state have been linked to coronavirus by the head of the presidential task force.



Nasiru Sani Gwarzo told journalists that samples taken from bodies that were yet to be buried turned positive.



He said initial mapping showed that the virus may have spread as people visited the sick and attended burials.



"It is necessary for people of Kano to wake up from their slumber... this is a serious issue," he was quoted as saying by local media.



The mysterious deaths were first mentioned by grave diggers who noticed an increase in burials at the cemetery. The Kano state government initially linked the deaths to underlying medical conditions.



The country has 2,558 confirmed cases of the virus, with Kano the second leading in the number of cases after the commercial city of Lagos.

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.

Featured Video
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

There's the COVID-unit nurse whose sister got infected and became a patient. The staffer who works 12-hour shifts, only to come home to unruly and frustrated children. The nurse who felt the added pressure of supporting an unemployed brother.

Dr. Jay Kaplan listens as each staffer shares their fears and problems. He tells them it's OK to get sad or angry over the coronavirus that has sickened so many and upended their lives. He reads them his poems. He shares how, early in the outbreak, he came home one day and cried to his wife, overwhelmed by the deluge of dying patients.

Mostly, Kaplan, 71, an emergency room physician and wellness specialist at LCMC Health system in New Orleans, wants them to know they're not alone.

"We need to break the culture of silence and let people know it's OK not to have it all together all the time," he said.

The psychological risks hospital staffs face during the coronavirus pandemic came into tragic focus this week, when Dr. Lorna Breen, 49, a Manhattan emergency room doctor who treated coronavirus patients and had been infected by the virus, committed suicide.

Kaplan's chats with frontline medical staff in the coronavirus fightknown as "wellness visits"are a key strategy for the New Orleans-based hospital system in preventing its workers from spiraling into depression and post-traumatic stress disorder during the pandemic.

Hospitals across the U.S.from Seattle to New York Cityhave launched similar initiatives in what they see as the next phase in the war against coronavirus: protecting healthcare staff from serious mental fallout after weeks of fighting a relentless virus.

As of Friday, the coronavirus has infected more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. and led to the deaths of nearly 65,000. More than 9,200 healthcare providers have been infected by the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A study released last month looking at the mental health outcomes of 1,257 health care workers attending to COVID-19 patients in 34 hospitals in China, where the outbreak started and where more than 4,600 people have died, found that 50% showed signs of depression, 45% reported anxiety and 72% had some form of psychological distress.

Even before the pandemic, around 60% of emergency physicians experienced burnout at some point in their career, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians. An estimated 400 physicians commit suicide each year.

Healthcare workers are used to dealing with death but rarely witness it in such high numbers, said Dr. Colin West, an internist who has studied physician well-being at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for nearly two decades. Nurses and doctors are also not accustomed to putting themselves at constant risk while treating others, he said.

"Healthcare professionalsphysicians, nursesalready had high levels of stress and high rates of burnout," West said. "A pandemic like this is going to add strain to an already strained group of workers."

Doctors, nurses and technicians usually face "second-hand trauma," where they absorb the trauma of gunshot victims and other patients they treat, said Debbie Minsky-Kelly, a social work professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin who teaches trauma. With the coronavirus, they're also absorbing "first-hand trauma," as they risk infection and witness colleagues get sick and even die, she said.

Unchecked, the trauma could resurface down the road, when caseloads lighten and they have time to think about their experience, Minsky-Kelly said.

"What are going to be the triggers for doctors and nurses for future PTSD?" she said. "The person performing my surgery could suddenly be having a flashback in the middle of my procedure."

Workers at Mount Sinai hospitals in New York City have treated more than 2,000 COVID-19 patients and seen hundreds of their colleagues infected by the virus, said Dr. Jonathan Ripp, the system's wellness chief. Around 20 workers have died from the virus.

Starting in late March, the hospitals ramped up initiatives, such as a 24/7 mental health crisis line and one-on-one counseling, Ripp said. It also launched a wellness and resilience center that will track staffers' mental health long term.

"The number of (coronavirus) deaths we're seeing in this country are higher than deaths we saw during the Vietnam War," Ripp said. "There's reason to be concerned."

Dr. Aisha Terry, a Washington, D.C., emergency physician and board member of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said she routinely fields calls from colleagues who break down in tears over what they're witnessing.

Others are witnessing some of the most traumatic scenes of their career but are self-isolating from family members to avoid infecting them and don't have a support system when they need it the most, she said. Emergency physicians also feel a sense of helplessness in facing a virus with unknown treatments or vaccines.

Her group is offering free online counseling sessions to members and trying to sound the alarm that doctors and nurses in the fight against the coronavirus face serious psychological risks, she said.

"Things cannot go back to business as usual after COVID-19," Terry said. "The mental health of our emergency physician workforce has to be addressed in a definitive way."

Hospital staffers in Seattle, the first epicenter of the virus in the U.S., are starting to see a flattening of the curve and decrease in cases, said Michele Bedard-Gilligan, a University of Washington psychiatrist who has helped lead the university's medical mental wellness efforts.

But hospital administrators are planning to track and treat staffers long term, including for a potential second wave virus outbreak, she said.

"Potentially, we're looking at another year of tolerating increased stress," Bedard-Gilligan said. "How that's going to look like and how it's going to take a toll on us remains to be seen."

In New Orleans, Kaplan, the wellness specialist, begins each group session by sharing information in printed-out colorful graphs: The hospital system has enough ventilators, intensive-care beds and personal protection equipment to see them through the crisis, the graphs show.

Next, he'll share a poem titled, "When Corona Comes Knocking" ("Now death is our greeter as we walk in to work ... sometimes we see it walk in the door, other times it is wheeled in ... "). He penned the poem in his journal as the pandemic hit New Orleans.

Kaplan often ends the 30-minute sessions by asking workers to think of the one thing they did that day that made a difference. Then, he reads from Psalms 23 in the Bible: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

"We are in the valley of the shadow of death right now," Kaplan said. "And we will get through this if we can look into each other eyes and give each other hugs, even if we're six feet apart."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

2020 USA Today

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
People Weve Lost Craig TenBroeck

85 years old

Lived in Malvern

An electrical engineer, he had a beautiful tenor voice More Memorials

It was hard for Trish Hayward to choose which anecdote best captured the personality of her stepfather, Craig TenBroeck.

Was it that he and his wife, Angela (Jill) Shiner TenBroeck, were passionate travelers who visited both Punxsutawney, Pa., to see Phil the famous groundhog, and China, to peek behind the Great Wall? Was it that he returned to his Episcopal Academy reunion year after year despite Parkinsons disease, a wheelchair, and other ailments?

Was it that he loved to lecture about genealogical research or sing with the Savoy Company theater group and St. Davids Church choir? Was it that he founded both the Main Line Genealogy Club and Main Line Apple User Group, and ran Bala Printing in Bala Cynwyd until he retired in 2000?

No, Hayward said. It wasnt what he did, she said. It was how he was. And he was such a gentle soul.

Mr. TenBroeck, 85, died on Tuesday, April 21, at Dunwoody Village in Newtown Square of the coronavirus.

He turned his passions of genealogy and electronics into clubs that brought enthusiasts together.

People just got attached to him, Hayward said. One of his favorite things was to get together with the Birthday Boys every month to celebrate somebodys birthday. He loved being with people.

A member, along with his brother and two sisters, of the sixth generation of TenBroecks in the Philadelphia area, Mr. TenBroeck left his home on Malverns Yellow Springs Road and graduated from Cornell University in 1958 with a degree in electrical engineering. Living with his wife in Radnor for much of his life, he worked at Burroughs Corp. and General Electric Aerospace.

He sang. He studied. He traveled. He turned his passions of genealogy and electronics into clubs that brought enthusiasts together.

And he loved to goof around, Hayward said.

In addition to his wife and stepdaughter, Mr. TenBroeck is survived by daughter Leslie Anne; sons Philip Alexander and Christopher Leigh; stepson J. Kenyon Hayward; two sisters; a brother; two stepchildren, 12 grandchildren and step-grandchildren, one step-great-grandchild and other family and friends. His former wife Joan Thomson TenBroeck preceded him in death. He also had been married to Christina Petrow.

A celebration of life is to be held later.

 Gary Miles
Representative image

Due to the spread of coronavirus and the global lockdown, multilateral organisations and international agencies have been predicting the worst economic downturn since Great Depression. All are almost unanimous on this view for two main reasons. First, the virus has affected both the developed and developing economies simultaneously. Its geographical coverage is now expanding. It is not just China, Europe and the United States; it is now spreading fast into Russia, Turkey, South Asia, West Asia and Latin America.

Second, it has drastically reduced both demand and supply. When the governments themselves have directed industry and services to shut operations, traditional stimulus packages have little meaning.

Now it is not just forecasts, actual GDP numbers for Q1 2020 for some major economies are out. The extent of their decline has surpassed some earlier predictions. The European Unions (EU)s statistical agency, Eurostat, has reported that for the 2020 first quarter, the GDP in 19 Eurozone economies has shrunk by 3.8 percent. The same figure for 27 EU economies is minus 3.5 percent. France, the second-largest economy in the EU, has announced that its GDP has dropped by minus 5.6 percent, its biggest drop since 1949. This drop is much bigger than recorded during the financial crisis in Q1 2009 (1.6 percent) or during political upheaval in Q2 1968 (5.3 percent). Except food, all sectors have seen contraction, with the sharpest decline in engineering goods and construction.

Compared to the previous quarter, the Italian GDP dropped by 4.7 percent. Similarly, the Spanish economy contracted by 5.2 percent and the Austrian economy by 2.5 percent. When released, the German economic numbers may show similar trends. Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), says that the euro area is facing an economic contraction of a magnitude and speed that are unprecedented in peacetime. The ECB now estimates that in 2020, the fall of euro area GDP could be between five and 12 percent.

The United States has also reported that in Q1-2020, its GDP has decreased by minus 4.8 percent. In the previous quarter, the US had shown a healthy growth of 2.1 percent. China, the second-largest economy, which was affected first, earlier declared a 6.8 percent decline in the first three months of 2020 from a year ago. This is the first time China has seen this kind of decline since it started recording quarterly data since 1992.

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

With more than 42,000 infections and already close to six weeks of national lockdown, Indias growth story cannot be very different. Earlier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted about 2 percent GDP growth in India in 2020. With the developing global recession, India will be fortunate if it is able to achieve this. The economy was already weakening when lockdown started. Still, developing economies such as India, may perform slightly better. Agriculture and basic food items are lest affected by lockdowns. Also, a large number of people in these countries still depend on agriculture and spend significant part of their earnings on food items. India is also less integrated with global value chains.

Since lockdowns started in March in many countries, a much bigger downturn is expected in the second quarter. IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath predicts that the cumulative loss from the pandemic to global GDP in 2020 and 2021 could be around $9 trillion, greater than the economies of Japan and Germany, combined.

To offset these impacts, all major economic powers are infusing huge amounts into their economies. The collective response from the EU and its member states is well above 3 trillion euros. The US package of $2trillion include relief to big corporates and small businesses, individuals, states and local governments as well as public health. Japan has announced a $1 trillion relief package. These measures, however, will only be useful if at least some treatment is found by the third quarter and economies start opening up.

Despite massive relief packages, a joint global effort is vital to resolve the health problems first. On May 4, the EU  along with Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and current and future G20 presidency Saudi Arabia and Italy  is hosting a pledging event: the Coronavirus Global Response Initiative.

Co-convened by WHO and World Bank, the initiative aims to garner at least $8 billion for jointly developing solutions to test, treat and prevent the disease from spreading. New diagnostics, treatments and vaccines needs to be affordable and available to all. With its strong pharmaceutical industry, India could be a valuable partner to these global solutions. The hydroxychloroquine episode has already proved its strength.

The first quarter GDP results from major economies indicate the seriousness of the economic recession. The next quarter could be worse. Massive relief packages by major powers could be useful to the global economy. However, they will only work if a joint global effort is successful in developing affordable health solutions soon.
Producer Stephenie Meyer attends Meet The Filmmakers: "Austenland" at the Apple Store Soho on August 13, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)

The Twilight book series will be getting a new instalment later this year as author Stephanie Meyer has confirmed that Midnight Sun will finally be published on 4 August.

The original series told the story of human Bella Swan who fell in love with vampire Edward Cullen, now the new book is set to tell the tale from Edward's perspective.

It comes 12 years after Meyer halted the writing on Midnight Sun after an unfinished manuscript was leaked on the internet in 2008.

Read more: Kristen Stewart thinks people may have got wrong impression of her

In a video message on US talk show Good Morning America, Meyer said: I am very excited to finally, finally announce the release of Midnight Sun on 4 August.

Stephanie Meyer, author of the series of "Twilight" novels, arrives onstage during the Twilight Fan Camp Concert outside Nokia Theater L.A. Live, Saturday, Nov. 10. 2012, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Its a crazy time right now and I wasnt sure if this was the right time to put this book out, but some of you have been waiting for just so, so long. It didnt seem fair to make you wait anymore.

Sorry about the bad timing. Hopefully this book can be a distraction from the real world. Im so excited to finally be able to share it with you.

At the time of the leak, Meyer said: "I did not want my readers to experience Midnight Sun before it was completed, edited and published. I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being."

She went on to say the book would be postponed "indefinitely".

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson attend the UK Premiere of 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2' at Odeon Leicester Square on November 14, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)

The original four books were turned into a five-film series starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson as Bella and Edward. The first instalment hit cinemas in 2008, with the finale released in 2012.

Meyer's announcement comes after a countdown clock appeared on her website in the days prior, hinting that she would be releasing new material.
The construction worker who went on a stabbing rampage in South Hedland, injuring seven people, had stopped taking prescribed anti-psychotic medication before he was shot dead by police.

Police sources say Ashley Fildes suffered from serious mental health issues and had been noticeably deteriorating at work in the months leading up to Fridays horrific stabbing frenzy.

Ashley Fildes was shot dead by police. Credit:Facebook

Detectives have uncovered no evidence of illicit drug use, after searching his accomodation in South Hedland.

A recent drug test Fildes completed for work also came back negative, but the results of a post mortem toxicology report have not yet come back.
Oil prices fell on Monday after strong gains last week, with continued concerns about oversupply and storage capacity due to a coronavirus-triggered demand shock overshadowing massive output cuts. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell about eight percent to trade at $18.19 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude fell three percent to change hands at $25.56 per barrel. Oil markets have been in turmoil for weeks as the virus strangles demand due to business closures and travel restrictions, with US crude at one point falling into negative territory for the first time. Prices staged a massive rally last week, with WTI surging 25 percent two days in a row as top producers started slashing output in line with a major deal, while there were also hopes for a pick-up in demand as economies slowly reopen. But they pulled back Monday as caution returned to markets, tracking a fall in Asian bourses. Analysts said trading was muted as dealers took a breather following the strong gains but were optimistic that markets would find support again soon. "With demand devastation plumbing the depths, any signs of rebalancing, either through economic reopenings or additional forced or agreed upon supply cuts, should ultimately be viewed supportive for oil prices at current levels," said Stephen Innes, chief global markets strategist at AxiCorp. Top producers have agreed to cut output by almost 10 million barrels a day to shore up markets, and the deal took effect Friday. The agreement ended a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, which had added to pressure on markets even as demand evaporated amid the virus outbreak.
A college lecturer from Kharghar lost 2 lakh after a caller told her bank account has been blocked.

Kavita Sawant, 32, received a text message on April 27 that her bank account has been blocked and she needs to contact the customer care.

When Sawant called the phone number mentioned in the text message, a man answered the call and he told her that her savings account will be frozen if she did not update her Know Your Customer (KYC) details.

The man told her she should do it immediately.

To verify if he is actually calling from the bank, she asked him her account statement. When he told her she had 6.5 lakh in her bank account, she believed it to be a genuine call, said the police.

Telling her she needs a new user ID, he created it for her on the call. The woman later received a message from the bank that a payee had been added to her account for transfer of funds.

After 30 minutes, the accused called her again and asked for the one time password (OTP) using which he transferred around 1 lakh twice.

The accused also told her the money would be transferred to her account in six transactions. The mans phone was switched off immediately and the woman realised it was a scam, said an officer from Kharghar police station.

The Kharghar police have registered a case of cheating against the person under the Information Technology Act.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
There appears to be a bloody fight between incumbent Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya, Sarah Adwoa-Safo and her tough contender for the NPP parliamentary ticket, Mike Oquaye Jnr.

Adwoa Safo in a media report had purportedly issued a public plea to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) national executive to step into an ongoing fracas that has engulfed the Constituency ahead of the parliamentary primary.

The national party, the MP warned, need to call for an order before the chaos that has erupted in the constituency leads to fatalities, media reports had quoted.

Sarah Adwoa Safo, who is facing stiff competition from Ghana's High Commissioner to India is lamenting that her life is in danger.

She accordingly stated that an attempt on her person last week backfired when assailants who thought she was in the Constituency Chairman's residence, launched an assault on the house.

But a release by the Communications Team of Mike Oquaye Jnr is rubbishing the claims.

It says the claims are false, stating emphatically that false propaganda and lies does not win elections.

Our attention has been drawn to a false publication in a newspaper called The Ghanaian Publisher with the caption on its banner headline Oquaye's Son Is After My Life- Adwoa Safo.

We wish to state clearly that, the said publication is false and must be treated with the contempt it deserves, the release said.

 Some unscrupulous people have resorted to use social media as well as print and electronic media to denigrate the name of the Oquaye's as far as this Parliamentary Election is concerned in Dome Kwabenya Constituency of the New Patriotic Party.

 The said publication which was read to the listeners of Peace fm radio network this morning in their newspaper review (in local language twi) by one of the reviewers said supporters of Oquaye Junior had besieged the house of the Constituency Chairman for NPP Dome Kwabenya and had arrived at the house with stones and clubs.

How can a scuffle which ensued at the house of the Chairman over a snatched album by a supporter of Adwoa be construed as a threat to her life?, it quizzed.

Did the album snatcher not say to the Regional police commander that he took the album to the Chairman's house after he snatched it?

If this is so then when did this connection emanate from one whole week after the incident? This is propaganda, pure and simple, the statement said.

---Daily Guide
As many as 1,074 COVID-19 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours, the highest number of recoveries recorded in one day, the health ministry said today.

Addressing a press briefing, Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said the recovery rate now stands at 27.52 percent with 11,706 COVID-19 patients cured till now.

He further said the outcome ratio of COVID-19  the ratio of recoveries and deaths of closed cases  was recorded at 90:10.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases in India stand at 42,836. The death toll from the outbreak in India is at 1,389.

Follow our LIVE Updates 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

Here are all the latest updates:

>> Kerala reported zero new cases of coronavirus for the second consecutive day. The state also opened borders at six places to enable Keralites to return from other states.

>> The third phase of the nationwide lockdown began today, but with considerable relaxation in restrictions. Reports also suggested crowds flocking liquor stores, which, too, have been allowed to open in Lockdown 3.0.

>> UPSC deferred civil services preliminary exam, earlier scheduled for May 31.

>> Hundreds of migrant workers seeking to return home clashed with police and pelted stones at them near a village in Gujarat's Surat district.

>> Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said that the party will bear the cost of rail travel of every needy migrant worker, even as the Centre clarified that Railways will bear 85 percent of the cost.

>> Two floors of BSF headquarters in Delhi were sealed after a staff member contracted COVID-19.

>> J&K government declared the entire Kashmir valley and two districts of Jammu as a red zone.
THOMASTON  Melanie Dobos opened her little shop, Stitch on Main, in Thomaston just five months ago, after working many years as a seamstress. While she was planning how to create elaborate wedding gowns and doing alterations for prom dresses, the coronavirus pulled her into a very different path.

I read about the scarcity of face masks for medical staff and I realized I have the store and equipment to do this. I couldnt just sit by and do nothing when the need was so great, she said.

She researched how to make the masks to hospital-specifications since that was her first focus, and then investigated how to most affordably manufacture them en masse since her intent was to give them to those who desperately needed them. She settled on using white cotton only, and purchased in bulk. The most difficult component to find was the elastic to attach them, she said. I had a small supply of elastic, but quickly used that up. A friend donated her own supply of elastic to help me until my back-order came in.

The masks are all the same size and are washable. She decided to sell the masks as well to individuals as a fundraiser to pay for her expenses. When asked if she is also working as a seamstress, she shook her head. There are no Proms now, and everyone understands that what I am doing is the important thing. I am a one-woman show, and although alterations are my main business, I cant squeeze those in right now.

Melanie lives in Thomaston, just around the corner from her shop. Since her two sons  Everet, 8, and Simon, 5,  are home from school. They help their mother by sweeping up and watering her plants.

They both like to organize and color code my fabrics, she said. I do this all assembly-line style, so their help is appreciated. My mother, Judy Olsen, also comes to the shop to help out. She is grateful that her husband Geoffrey is still employed, mostly working from home, so the two of them can take turns watching the children.

She has purchased 80 yards of fabric as of mid-April, and 6,000 yards of thread, equating to 3- miles worth and resulting in 1,000 face masks. Nurses from Bristol Hospital, St. Marys Hospital and Waterbury Hospital have come to pick up the masks, and they have been donated to the Thomaston Fire Department and senior housing.

I will give them to first responders, and anyone who is on the front lines. I only ask that everyone call me first at 860-283-1330.

Stitch on Main is located at 310 South Main Street, Suite #6 in Thomaston. Contacts are @Stitchonmain on Facebook or call 860-283-1330. For those unable to leave the house, donations to Melanies Venmo at stitchonmain will help her continue this mission.
The accounting watchdog has launched an investigation into Ernst & Young (EY) over its audit of scandal-hit NMC Health.

The former FTSE 100 hospitals provider crashed into administration after a series of extraordinary revelations, including that it was harbouring billions of pounds in secret debt.

EY, NMC's auditor since 2012, had repeatedly given the company's books a clean bill of health. Yesterday the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) revealed it was investigating the 2018 audit.

Probe: EY, NMC's auditor since 2012, had repeatedly given the company's books a clean bill of health

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the City watchdog, is already carrying out a separate probe.

The High Court judge who forcibly placed NMC into administration warned 'something had gone very wrong with the management and oversight' of the company.

The crisis at NMC erupted after a research paper published by short seller Muddy Waters raised 'serious doubts' about the Dubai-based firm's accounting practices and claimed they bore 'hallmarks of significant fraud'.

At the time, Muddy Waters claimed EY's relationship with NMC 'raises flags' and likened the firm's board to a 'retirement plan for former EY partners'.

Independent directors Jonathan Bomford and Abdulrahman Basaddiq had formerly worked for the auditor.

It later emerged that NMC founder BR Shetty, the Indian billionaire whose empire also includes Travelex, had not properly disclosed his shareholdings in the company and that more than 3 billion in debts had been concealed from the board and shareholders.

The disclosures sent NMC's shares into freefall and prompted the resignation of chairman Mark Tompkins and sacking of chief executive Prasanth Manghat.

Trading of the company's stock was later suspended in March, with creditors taking legal action to force it to appoint administrators a month later.

Shetty has since claimed that unnamed bosses at NMC and other businesses he is involved in had forged his signature to create loans, personal guarantees, cheques and bank transfers in his name.

The FRC's investigation of EY will focus on the audit work of the big four accountant for NMC in 2018.

EY is already under significant scrutiny from the watchdog, with the company also under investigation over its auditing of collapsed travel giant Thomas Cook.

An EY spokesman said: 'We can confirm that EY has been notified of the FRC's intention to conduct an investigation into the audit of NMC Health for the year ended December 31. We will be fully co-operating with the FRC during their inquiries.

'It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.'
Julia Perkins / Hearst Connecticut Media

DANBURY  The citys housing authority is set to receive almost $253,000 from the federal government as part of the coronavirus relief bill.

More than $10.8 million will go to more than 30 public housing authorities in Connecticut, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Friday.
Photo: iStock

Here's the most recent top news you may have missed in Stockton. Community mourns martial arts teacher killed in hit-and-run Read the full story on FOX40. Man crossing street against red light hit, killed by vehicle Read the full story on CBS13 CBS Sacramento. McLaughlin withdraws from SUSD consideration after outcry from board, community Read the full story on Recordnet.com. Man arrested in attempted stabbing Read the full story on CBS13 CBS Sacramento. Stockton Unified opens clinic for physicals, immunizations Read the full story on Recordnet.com. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.

Flowers, candles and condolences were left outside Rodney Hu Goju Karate in Stockton on Sunday, in honor of the owner. Rodney Hu's family members say he was the man killed outside of Food Source on West Hammer Lane on Saturday afternoon.

The Stockton Police Department said a man who was crossing the street against a red light died after being struck by an oncoming vehicle Saturday night.

Jack McLaughlin, who had a controversial two-year tenure as Stockton Unified superintendent 12 years ago, has withdrawn from consideration in returning to the district.

A man accused of attempting to stab another man during an argument Saturday morning is in custody, according to the Stockton Police Department.
I have also been there as guardian ad litem (representing the best interests of abused and neglected children) advocating for permanency in the form of adoption or guardianship when the parents were unable or unwilling to be the safe family that their children needed, and seeing the joy and love these children experience when they find their forever families who can meet their needs.

I had hoped that my experience and passion, along with my qualifications and temperament, would make me uniquely suited to be an asset to the families of this great state, if I were to get the opportunity to serve as a judge.

What did you think when you learned nine others had applied? How did you set yourself apart?

There were so many experienced, passionate and qualified attorneys who applied, so I was comforted in knowing that no matter who was selected, the families of Lancaster County would be in competent hands.

One aspect that I felt set me apart from the other candidates was my breadth of experience in handling not only every type of juvenile court case that comes before the court, but also my work in handling divorce, custody, adoption and guardianship cases, as well as my training and experience as a mediator.
A container ship sits at the Port of Oakland on April 29, 2020 in Oakland, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

China Promotes Twisted Concept of Democracy to Build Global Influence, Analysts Say

China is promoting both its political and economic model around the world in an effort to gain greater global legitimacy for the Chinese Communist Partys leadership and long-term ambitions, academic, and other experts said last week.

The analysts gathered online to testify before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC).

Whether due to conviction or expediency, China has increasingly used its international influence to gain global acceptance for an alternative China-oriented-and-influenced governance model, said Commissioner Jim Talent, a Republican who formerly represented Missouri in the U.S. Senate.

China, Talent said, is trying to exert influence over international governance, institutions, norms, and values.

Chinas leaders are intent on strengthening what they call discourse power, or the ability to dominate the discussion of sensitive issues and lead the formulation of concepts and norms underpinning the international system, he added.

The USCC was established by Congress in 2000, at a time when policymakers and politicians alike were viewing Chinas impending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) as both an opportunity and a threat.

China ultimately joined the world trade body in December 2001. The subsequent years have brought tremendous growth to the Chinese economy, and the expansion of a middle class approximately the size of the population of the United States.

China Seeks Greater International Influence

Chinas official narrative on its new status as an upper-middle-income country, as designated by the World Bank, is carefully worded to justify the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) tight grip on the Chinese people. The regimes posture is that the current international order still unfairly supports a dominant Western world, led by the United States, according to Nadege Rolland, senior fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research.

Today, as a result of its growth and development, China has a problem with the perceived discrepancy between its newly found material power and its international status and influence, Rolland said.

China, a one-party authoritarian state, uses a twisted concept of democracy to lobby for a more influential role in the world, the analyst suggested.

The communist-led nation is promoting the idea of greater democracy in international relations, which would increase a nations influence in world affairs in proportion to its material power, Rolland said.

By that formula, China believes that its influence should rise, and the role and influence of the West should decline, she said.

David Shullman of the International Republican Institute agrees.

China, like all rising powers throughout history, is dissatisfied that the current distribution of benefits in international politics does not represent its growing power in the international system, he said. China expects greater representation in international institutions, changes in the governance of those institutions, and, in some cases, changes to their underlying rules.

But Chinas desire for greater status and influence on the international stage has a purpose, according to Elizabeth Economy, China expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, and that is to export its China model to countries that by nature are more sympathetic to the CCPs perspective than Western democratic countries.

Threatened by Universal Values

Economy suggests that the export of its model by definition includes the export of Chinas norms and values, and as such, creates a wider base throughout the world in favor of its policies.

Its exactly those norms that China is eager to export, Rolland says, because of their incompatibility with values commonly associated with liberal, Western democracies.

The existing [world] order is rooted in norms intrinsically antagonistic to the organizing principles on which the CCP system is based and are thus an enduring threat to the regimes legitimacy, she said.

Rolland had previously testified that the CCP blames the global promotion of so-called universal values for conflict and disruption worldwidean obvious reflection of its own survival anxieties.

Implications for Decoupling US, Chinese Economies

When asked by Commissioner Michael Wessel if we are going to be on two very separate paths, where its going to be China and its orbit, versus the United States and its orbit, Rolland pointed out one of Beijings major concerns, especially following the CCP virus pandemic.

One way to think about this is to understand that one of the current concerns from Beijing is to keep the global economy open, Rolland said.

The discussion about decoupling, I think, its very, very threatening to Beijing, she continued.

Yes, they would like to have countries in their orbit but they would still like the economy to be open so they can have access to intellectual property, markets, and technology. It sounds paradoxical, but Chinas economy cannot work without open markets.

The paradox Rolland refers to is that China wants to keep access to its own markets closed.

A Conflict of Ideologies

Commissioner Larry Wortzel, a renowned expert on China and Chinas military, focused on the question of ideology.

For me, ideology is a set of beliefs, values, or ideals that form the basis of economic theory, political behavior, and state policy, he said.

Mentioning that he had heard analysts during the hearing call the ideology of the Peoples Republic of China authoritarian capitalism, and international socialism, he noted one expert appeared to shy away from calling Beijings behavior ideological.

The international liberal order is based on an ideology, Wortzel said. Therefore, the promotion of an alternative international order and state system is the promotion of an ideology.

Its important to me, Wortzel continued, that by denying or failing to acknowledge that this is an ideological challenge has the potential for muting both how Congress responds to it, how the executive responds, and how the American people respond.
ROCKVILLE, Md. - May 4, 2020 - The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), the premier global, molecular diagnostic professional society, today submitted a formal response in support of the Citizen Petition from Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, P.C. on behalf of the Coalition to Preserve Access to Pharmacogenomics (PGx) Information. The response builds on AMP's PGx Best Practices Statement and includes a series of recommendations that will rectify recent FDA actions, which have suppressed important patient safety information.

Clinical PGx testing services provide vital medical information that can aid healthcare providers with treatment selections for their patients. These tests are offered by highly qualified, board-certified molecular pathology professionals and are currently held to the same standards as all other laboratory developed testing procedures (LDPs). All supporting clinical validity evidence must be documented before the test is offered to patients. Recently, FDA took suppressive actions that limited the inclusion of clinical interpretation information in PGx test reports. These actions disregarded all of the qualifications of molecular professionals and the well-established clinical evidence for PGx testing. In its response in support of the Citizen Petition, AMP concluded that these actions were unlawful, infringed on the practice of medicine and threatened patient safety.

"AMP is deeply concerned with the numerous examples of FDA overstepping its authority and employing haphazard approaches for regulating LDPs. In the past year, FDA has jeopardized patient safety with these suppressive actions for PGx tests and initially prevented qualified molecular professionals from developing, validating and performing assays to detect SARS-CoV-2 in patients at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Jordan Laser, MD, Medical Director of Long Island Jewish Medical Center - Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Chair of AMP Professional Relations Committee. "AMP's recommendations are based on our collective expertise in this rapidly developing field and reflect our ongoing commitment to improving professional practice and patient care."

The response to the Citizen's Petition is another example of AMP's continuing work to engage key stakeholders as part of its efforts to improve clinical practice for pharmacogenomic tests. During the past year, AMP published a PGx Best Practices Statement and is also publishing a series of evidence-based expert consensus opinion recommendations for frequently used pharmacogenomic genotyping assays.

###

To read AMP's full response to the Citizen Petition on behalf of the Coalition to Preserve Access to PGx Information, please visit https://www.amp.org/AMP_Response_to_PGx_Citizen_Petition

To read AMP's full position statement on pharmacogenomic testing, please visit https://www.amp.org/PGxBestPracticesStatement.

ABOUT AMP

The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) was founded in 1995 to provide structure and leadership to the emerging field of molecular diagnostics. AMP's 2,500+ members practice various disciplines of molecular diagnostics, including bioinformatics, infectious diseases, inherited conditions, and oncology. Our members are pathologists, clinical laboratory directors, basic and translational scientists, technologists, and trainees that practice in a variety of settings, including academic and community medical centers, government, and industry. Through the efforts of its Board of Directors, Committees, Working Groups, and Members, AMP is the primary resource for expertise, education, and collaboration in one of the fastest growing fields in healthcare. AMP members influence policy and regulation on the national and international levels, ultimately serving to advance innovation in the field and protect patient access to high quality, appropriate testing. For more information, visit http://www.amp.org and follow AMP on Twitter: @AMPath.
The US Justice Department is siding with a Virginia church suing Gov. Ralph Northam after its pastor was criminally cited for holding a Palm Sunday service in violation of the state's coronavirus lockdown orders.

The Rev. Kevin Wilson of the Lighthouse Fellowship Church on Chincoteague Island faced a $2,500 fine and possible jail time after police discovered the April 5 service being attended by 16 people inside a sanctuary that could hold about 300.

Despite the congregants being widely separated, police still issued the summons to Wilson. The pastor responded with a lawsuit charging discrimination against the church and violation of the First Amendment.

The US Justice Department is siding with the Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Chincoteague Island, Virginia, in suing Gov. Ralph Northam (pictured) after its pastor was criminally cited for holding a Palm Sunday service in violation of the state's coronavirus lockdown orders

Pastor Kevin Wilson of the Ligthouse Fellowship Church in Chincoteague Island, Virginia, faced a $2,500 fine and jail time for holding a Palm Sunday service in defiance of state lockdown orders. Wilson is pictured with his wife Nicki from an image posted on Facebook

The Lighthouse Fellowship Church on Chincoteague Island in Virginia (pictured) was found by police holding an April 5 service attended by 16 people inside a sanctuary that could hold about 300

The Justice Department on Sunday intervened, by filing a statement of interest supporting the church, reports Fox News.

Attorney General William Barr said in an interview last month that the Justice Department, in some cases, would side with citizens and businesses suing states over coronavirus lockdown orders.

'People bring those lawsuits, we'll take a look at it at that time, and if we think it's, you know, justified, we would take a position. That's what we're doing now. We, you know, we're looking carefully at a number of these rules that are being put into place,' Barr told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt on April 21.

There have been 18,672 confirmed cases in Virginia of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for 660 deaths.

Across the country, there have been more than 1,185,982 confirmed cases in the US of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for 68,390 deaths.

A statement from the DOJ in response to its support of the church suit says that 'the Commonwealth of Virginia has offered no good reason for refusing to trust congregants who promise to use care in worship in the same way it trusts accountants, lawyers, and other workers to do the same,' reports Fox News.

Attorney General William Barr (pictured) said in an interview last month that the Justice Department, in some cases, would side with citizens and businesses suing states over coronavirus lockdown orders

The church is being represented by Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit organization that takes on cases representing evangelical Christian values.

'As important as it is that we stay safe during these challenging times, it is also important for states to remember that we do not abandon all of our freedoms in times of emergency,' Mat Staver, says the chairman and founder of the group.

Matthew Schneider, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said in a statement. 'Unlawful discrimination against people who exercise their right to religion violates the First Amendment, whether we are in a pandemic or not.'

The church is being represented by Liberty Counsel, a non-profit organization that takes on cases representing evangelical Christian values. The group tweeted about the Lighthouse Fellowship lawsuit on April 24 (pictured)

Law enforcement has cracked down on churches across the country that have gone forward with services in defiance of lockdown orders during the outbreak. Many congregations have been encouraged to switch to virtual services while waiting out the pandemic.

Wilson, however, argued that his church did not have that capacity to go virtual as many of his congregants did not have access to the internet.

Despite his claims, the church maintains a Facebook page with several photos and even a video posted by the pastor addressing what he thinks about the coronavirus.

Wilson argued that his church did not have that capacity to do virtual services while many of his congregants did not have access to the internet. Despite his claims, the church maintains a Facebook page with several photos and even a video posted by the pastor (pictured)

'We don't have a man-made solution for a demon-made problem,' Wilson says while holding an inflated globe of the world.

The pastor vows that the coronavirus won't prevail against the church and encourages viewers to turn to Jesus Christ, 'because his presence and power can protect us from all diseases.'

'The virus will die in your hand in his presence.'
Representative Image

The Indian stock market tumbled on May 4 after the government extended the lockdown for another two weeks in an attempt the arrest the spread of coronavirus.

Sensex is down 1,618.22 points or 4.8 percent at 32099.40, and the Nifty fell 464.60 points or 4.71 percent at 9395.30.

Among the sectors, the auto index was down over 6 percent as auto makers declared a dismal set of April sales numbers.

The top losers included Tata Motors which was one of the top index losers. It was down 10 percent and was one of the most active stocks in terms of value on NSE with 5,80,15,737 quantities traded at 11:30 hours.This was followed by Bharat Forge and Motherson Sumi Systems which tanked over 10 percent.

Share price of Maruti Suzuki was down over 7 percent after the company did not sell a single unit in the domestic market last month due to coronavirus-led nationwide lockdown. The company had zero sales in the domestic market in April 2020, MSI said in a statement. The company, however, exported 632 units from Mundra port following resumption of port operations.

S&P BSE Auto shed over 6 percent with the top losers being Motherson Sumi, Tata Motors, Apollo Tyres, Maruti Suzuki and Hero MotoCorp.

Share price of Eicher Motors shed over 4 percent after the company's total sales went down 98 percent at 85 units against 3,961 units (YoY).

Mahindra & Mahindra shares was also down 4 percent intraday on May 4 after the company sold zero units in the domestic market in April due to coronavirus-led nationwide lockdown. It, however, dispatched 733 vehicles to overseas markets during the last month.

Hero MotoCorp in a filing to the exchanges said that the company will commence operations in graded manner at Gurugram, Dharuhera and Haridwar plants, along with Global Parts Centre in Rajasthan. Shares of the company was trading lower by over 7 percent.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Global Solar Panel Coatings Market was valued US$ 3.5 Bn in 2017 and is estimated to reach US$ 19.0 Bn by 2026 at a CAGR of 23.55 %.

Strong government-support to generate renewable energy by using solar panels accelerates the market growth. Solar panels are being extensively utilized in generating energy in residential and utility scale. Solar panel coatings possess an excellent absorption capacity and high light transitivity thereby exhibiting maximum efficiency.

Residential segment is anticipated to dominate the market throughout the forecast period. Rise in the adoption of installation of solar panels for generating energy and rising demand for installing rooftop solar panels for generating solar energy. Rooftop solar panels comprise 80 % share.

Request For Report sample @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/4025

Anti-reflective coatings enhance the absorption capacity, improve light transitivity, and reduce the reflection, thereby improving the overall efficiency of solar panels hence drives the demand for anti-reflective solar panel coatings. Hydrophobic segment is the second largest segment of solar panel coatings market and is estimated to witness considerable demand in the forecast. Excellent property of hydrophobic coatings does not allow the water to remain on the surface of solar panels.

The Asia Pacific is growing at a rapid pace due rise in the demand for solar panels to generate energy. In the Asia Pacific, China is major consumer of solar panel installation, 45% of the capacity is installed by China in the year 2017. Runner-ups in the total installation are United States, Germany, Japan, India and Italy respectively.

Request For Report Discounts @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/4025

The report covers the total market for solar panel coatings and the impact of the different market factors, such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities, challenges key issues SWOT analysis, and technology forecasting is also illustrated in the report. This gives an idea about the key drivers, such as high growth and demand in emerging economies countries.

Scope of the Global Solar Panel Coatings Market



Global Solar Panel Coatings Market, by Product:



Anti-reflective

Hydrophobic

Self-cleaning

Anti-soiling

Anti-abrasion



Global Solar Panel Coatings Market, by End-Use Industry:



Residential

Commercial

Energy

Agriculture

Automotive



Global Solar Panel Coatings Market, by Region:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

South America

Middle East & Africa



Key Players analyzed in the Report:

Arkema Group

Fenzi SpA

NanoTech Products Pty Limited

Koninklijke DSM N.V

3M

PPG Industries Inc.

nanoShell Limited

Unelko Corporation

Optitune Oy

Diamon-Fusion International Inc. (DFI)

Make an Inquiry before Buying@ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/checkout/4025/Single
Revilla to CSC: Issue interim guidelines on safety, prevention and control of COVID-19 in gov't offices, workplace

Senator Ramon Bong Revilla, Jr. on Monday urged the Civil Service Commission to issue interim guidelines on safety, prevention and control of the spread of COVID-19 in government offices and workplaces located in areas under the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) and General Community Quarantine (GCQ).

The veteran legislator pointed out the urgent need to provide such measures to ensure continuous delivery of public service sans putting at risk the health and safety of government employees and their clientele.

He further added that the creation of interim guidelines from CSC will intensify the safety measures being adopted by various local government units, following the implementation of Executive Order No. 112 which allows all agencies and instrumentalities of the government to implement a skeletal workforce during the duration of ECQ and GCQ.

As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Civil Service, Government Reorganization and Professional Regulation, Bong Revilla expressed his willingness to work with CSC in crafting similar guidelines to protect the public sector.

"Napakalaking hamon po ang kinakaharap ng ating mga kawani ng pamahalaan sa panahong ito. Kahit po apektado tayo ng ECQ o GCQ, hindi puwedeng maputol ang pagseserbisyo natin sa taong bayan. Habang ginagampanan ng mga kawani ng gobyerno ang kanilang tungkulin, kailangan tiyakin din natin ang kaligtasan at kapakanan nila. So we are urging the Civil Service Commission to work hand-in-hand with the Senate Committee on Civil Service, Government Reorganization and Professional Regulation to create the necessary guidelines which will ensure that our government workers are protected from COVID-19 while performing their duties," Revilla said.

Revilla earlier commended the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Labor and Employment for coming up with guidelines for companies which will re-open amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Britons are ditching smoking in their thousands during the coronavirus lockdown, according to a recent YouGov survey.

A total of 1,004 people in Britain were quizzed and two per cent of smokers say they had given up the habit.

Scaled up to match the entire UK population, YouGov says this means up to 300,000 Britons may have quit due to concerns the habit puts them at increased risk of suffering severe COVID-19 symptoms.

It has long been known that smokers have worse overall lung-health than non-smokers as the tar, nicotine and other substances in tobacco clog up the airways and cause significant long-lasting damage to the organs.

However, scientists are divided on whether smoking is a benefit or a burden when facing coronavirus, with some studies suggesting fewer smokers are catching the virus while others show those who do catch it care suffering more severe symptoms.

Scroll down for video

Britons are ditching smoking in their thousands during the coronavirus lockdown, according to a recent YouGov survey. A total of 1,004 people in Britain were quizzed and two per cent of smokers say they had given up the habit (stock image)

University of College London reviewed 28 studies and found smoking rates were lower than expected among COVID-19 patients. The graph shows the smoking rate of each country against the percentage of smokers among COVID-19 patients. The lowest figure has been chosen for each country to show the stark comparison discovered by some studies

Elderly smoker quits 30-a-day habit and feels more confident she could 'face the virus' now An elderly woman has successfully given up cigarettes after smoking up to 30 a day for more than 60 years. Tag Doogan, who quit smoking in November to be healthier for her grandchildren, said she feels she has given herself the best chance if she ends up 'facing the virus'. Ms Doogan, who has two young grandsons, Eddie, four, and Louis, six, said: 'Smoking is bad for the grandchildren, and I wanted to be a better, kinder person. 'I was miserable because I was wheezy and couldn't walk a few steps without getting out of breath. 'I wanted to go dancing, I wanted to go exercise, I want to have a good laugh and have a good social life.' Ms Doogan, a retired pattern cutter, said her breathing problems peaked two years ago when she was left gasping for air after a gym session in an air-conditioned room. 'I was in hospital when I went to the gym a couple of years ago, because of the air conditioning  I could hardly breathe,' she said. 'The doctor said to me 'you're half dead' and I was taken to an intensive care ward. Honestly it just didn't seem real.' Ms Doogan, who is originally from Cumbria but has lived in west London for six decades, said the day she quit was precisely three months before her 79th birthday. 'I wanted to be 78 and giving up and not 79 and giving up, that was important,' she said. 'I thought once I might just buy a great big cigar  a Havana thing  and have a couple of puffs on occasions. But I'm never going to buy another packet of fags again.' Ms Doogan said her lung capacity has improved by 130% since quitting, her blood pressure has dropped to a healthy level, and she has experienced 'amazing' mental health benefits. 'I can face the virus because I've given up smoking  it's got all the positives,' she said. 'I would feel so guilty if I was still smoking, and the fact that I might die because of not breathing and being very uncomfortable.' Tag Doogan (pictured) quit smoking in November to be healthier for her grandchildren Advertisement

The survey of Britons, published today, found that up to 300,000 Britons - two per cent of smokers - have successfully quit since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Moreover, more than half a million (eight per cent) have tried to curb the addiction, 2.4 million (36 per cent) have cut down, and 27 per cent said they were now more likely to quit.

A quarter of ex-smokers said they were now less likely to resume smoking, although four per cent say the stress of the pandemic had made them more likely to relapse.

YouGov's UK arm of the international Covid-19 tracker worked with anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) to release the results.

The news comes after a spate of studies found that smokers make up only a tiny fraction of hospitalised COVID-19 patients.

A review of 28 scientific studies by University College London academics found the proportions of smokers among hospital patients were 'lower than expected'.

Twenty-two of the studies were conducted in China, three in the US, one in South Korea, one in France and one was an international study using mostly UK data.

One of the studies showed that in the UK the proportion of smokers among COVID-19 patients was just five per cent, a third of the national rate of 14.4 per cent.

Data from multiple Chinese studies also found that COVID-19 hospital patients contained a smaller proportion of smokers than the general population (6.5 per cent compared to 26.6 per cent), suggesting they were less likely to end up in hospital.

Another study, by America's Centers for Disease Control of over 7,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus, found that just 1.3 per cent of them were smokers - against the 14 per cent of all Americans that the CDC says smoke.

The study also found that the smokers stood no greater chance of ending up in hospital or an ICU.

Scientists cannot explain why smokers might have a lower risk of becoming hospitalised with COVID-19 and call the correlation 'bizarre'.

One public health professor said there was 'something weird going on with smoking and coronavirus' and experts are struggling to explain the connection.

Researchers admit the link between smoking and coronavirus patients may be skewed due to incomplete knowledge of the person's lifestyle, for example, hospitals are probably too busy to record a patients' smoking status properly.

Whatever the reason, health officials are struggling to knock down mounting evidence suggesting an apparent protective effect given by cigarettes, which one expert admitted was 'weird'.

As a result of this, French researchers are set to trial nicotine patches as a treatment for some coronavirus patients in Parisian hospitals.

This last-ditch attempt to improve a patent's prognosis is low-cost, offers no significant downside and, if it works, could be an easy way of improving a person's treatment, according to scientists.

Last month, David Hockney, a world-famous artist now aged 82, penned a letter to the Daily Mail on this topic sparking a global conversation.

Mr Hockney wrote: 'Could it not be that smokers have developed an immune system to this virus? With all these figures coming out, it's beginning to look like that to me.'

Professor Francois Balloux, an infectious disease expert at University College London, said there is 'bizarrely strong' evidence supporting Mr Hockney's hunch.

The survey of Britons found that while more than 300,000 Britons have successfully quit, more than half a million have tried to curb the addiction and 2.4 million have cut down (stock photo)

An elderly woman has successfully given up cigarettes after smoking up to 30 a day for more than 60 years. Tag Doogan, 78, (pictured) quit smoking in November to be healthier for her grandchildren

French doctors set to give nicotine patches to coronavirus patients French researchers are planning to trial whether nicotine patches will help prevent - or lessen the effects of - the deadly coronavirus. Scientists are now questioning whether nicotine could stop the virus from infecting cells, or if it may prevent the immune system overreacting to the infection. Doctors at a major hospital in Paris - who also found low rates of smoking among the infected - are now planning to give nicotine patches to COVID-19 patients. They will also give them to frontline workers to see if the stimulant has any effect on preventing the spread of the virus, according to reports. Research by hospitals in Paris found that smokers were under-represented in both inpatients and outpatients, suggesting that any protective effect could affect anyone, not just those hospitalised by their illness. The French study, performed at Pitie Salpetriere - part of the Hopitaux de Paris, used data from 480 patients who tested positive for the virus. Three hundred and fifty were hospitalized and the remainder recovered at home. Results showed that of the patients hospitalized, with a median age of 65, only 4.4 percent were regular smokers. But among those at home, with a median age of 44, 5.3 percent smoked. By comparison, among the general population, 40 percent of those between ages 44 and 53 smoke, and around 11 percent of those aged 65 to 75 smoke. The researchers determined that far fewer smokers appear to have contracted the virus or, if they have, their symptoms are less serious. 'Our cross-sectional study strongly suggests that those who smoke every day are much less likely to develop a symptomatic or severe infection with Sars-CoV-2 compared with the general population,' the study reads. The reasons for this are unclear and the team says it is not advocating that anyone start smoking because cigarettes have fatal health risks. Governments in the UK and US continue to urge people to stop smoking to protect themselves from the virus, as has been the official guidance for several weeks. Advertisement

However, the evidence also shows smokers who catch COVID-19 and are hospitalised are then more likely to develop the most severe symptoms and require ventilation.

COVID-19 ravages the lungs, causing critical damage to the organ's sensitive and air sacs.

It can cause them to become infected and inflamed, potentially leading to pneumonia and, in the most severe cases, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS.

Dr Panagis Galiatsatos, an expert on lung disease at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, says it can take three months to a year for a person to regain full lung function after a severe bout of COVID-19.

Governments in the UK and US continue to urge people to stop smoking to protect themselves from the virus, as has been the official guidance for several weeks.

The results of the YouGov survey and the decision of thousands to stop smoking during a worldwide pandemic of a killer virus which targets the lungs has been, unsurprisingly, welcomed by health and anti-smoking bodies.

In a statement issued by the #QuitforCOVID Twitter campaign, Britain's foremost smoking experts were relieved to see the public recognising the danger smoking poses to public health.

ASH chairman Nick Hopkinson, a respiratory specialist at Imperial College London, said: 'Smoking harms the immune system and our ability to fight off infections.

'Evidence is growing that smoking is associated with worse outcomes in those admitted to hospital with COVID-19.

'Quitting smoking also rapidly reduces people's risk of other health problems such as heart attacks and strokes  those are bad whenever they happen, so preventing them is an end in itself, but it's especially important at a time like now when everyone is keen to stay out of hospital.'

Ruth Tennant, tobacco lead for the Association of Directors of Public Health, said: 'There are so many reasons to quit smoking but never a more important time than right now during the coronavirus pandemic.'

The founder of the #QuitforCOVID campaign on Twitter, Bristol GP Charlie Kenward, encouraged more people to stop smoking amid the pandemic and beyond.

'Stopping smoking remains the single biggest thing people can do to improve their overall health,' he said.

'It will improve heart and lung health as well as reducing the chances of developing cancer and even improve wound healing after surgery.

'There has never been a better time to quit.'

Last month, David Hockney, a world-famous artist now aged 82, penned a letter to the Daily Mail on this topic sparking a global conversation. This question is now being analysed by scientists are yielding 'bizarre' results

One person who abandoned a deeply-ingrained smoking habit recently is 79-year-old Tag Doogan a retired pattern cutter originally from Cumbria now living in London, who had smoked 30 cigarettes a day for six decades.

Ms Doogan ditched the lifelong addiction in November for her grandchildren and said she feels she has given herself the best chance if she ends up 'facing the virus'.

Ms Doogan, who has two young grandsons, Eddie, four, and Louis, six, said: 'Smoking is bad for the grandchildren, and I wanted to be a better, kinder person.'

After a stint in hospital and a trip to the gym at the medical facility, a doctor witnessed her gasping for breath due to the air conditioning and light exercise, and told Ms Toogan she was 'half dead'.

Since abandoning cigarettes, her lung capacity has improved by 130 per cent her blood pressure has dropped to a healthy level, and she has experienced 'amazing' mental health benefits.

'I can face the virus because I've given up smoking  it's got all the positives,' she said.

'I would feel so guilty if I was still smoking, and the fact that I might die because of not breathing and being very uncomfortable.'

The government has previously pledged to see smoking in England die out by 2030 by offering help quitting and improving education on the hazards posed by tobacco.

And the Local Government Association said councils will play a role in helping this happen.

Community Wellbeing Board chairman Ian Hudspeth said: 'Smokers are at particular risk of COVID-19 and it is encouraging that so many have quit the habit for good.

'Councils can help the Government to achieve its ambition of eliminating smoking in England by 2030, through their tobacco control and other public health and support services, but need certainty over their long-term funding to help do so.'
US officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak and how contagious the disease is to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.

Chinese leaders intentionally concealed the severity of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press.

The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.

The sharper rhetoric coincides with administration critics saying the government's response to the virus was slow and inadequate. President Donald Trump's political opponents have accused him of lashing out at China, a geopolitical foe but critical U.S. trade partner, in an attempt to deflect criticism at home.

Not classified but marked for official use only, the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data, the analysis states.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus was a contagion for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

Those conclusions are based on the 95% probability that China's changes in imports and export behavior were not within normal range, according to the report. China informed the WHO of the outbreak on Dec. 31. It contacted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Jan. 3 and publicly identified the pathogen as a novel coronavirus on January 8.

Chinese officials muffled doctors who warned about the virus early on and repeatedly downplayed the threat of the outbreak. However, many of the Chinese government's missteps appear to have been due to bureaucratic hurdles, tight controls on information, and officials hesitant to report bad

There is no public evidence to suggest it was an intentional plot to buy up the world's medical supplies.

In a tweet on Sunday, the president appeared to blame US intelligence officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential coronavirus outbreak could be. Trump has been defensive over whether he failed to act after receiving early warnings from intelligence officials and others about the coronavirus and its potential impact.

Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the US, Trump wrote without citing specifics.

Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner.

Trump had previously speculated that China may have unleashed the coronavirus due to some kind of horrible mistake. His intelligence agencies say they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.

Speaking Sunday on ABC's This Week, Pompeo said he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories.

These are not the first times that we've had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab, Pompeo said.

And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.

The secretary of state appeared to be referring to previous outbreaks of respiratory viruses, like SARS, which started in China. His remark may be seen as offensive in China. Still, Pompeo repeated the same assertion hours later, via a tweet Sunday afternoon.

Experts say the virus arose naturally in bats, and make it clear that they believe it wasn't man-made. Many virologists say the chance that the outbreak was caused by a lab accident is very low, though scientists are still working to determine a point at which it may have jumped from animals to humans.

Beijing has repeatedly pushed back on US accusations that the outbreak was China's fault, pointing to many missteps made by American officials in their own fight against the outbreak.

China's public announcement on Jan. 20 that the virus was transmissible from person to person left the US nearly two months to prepare for the pandemic, during which the US government failed to bolster medical supplies and deployed flawed testing kits.

The US government has ignored the facts, diverted public attention and engaged in buck-passing in an attempt to shirk its responsibility for incompetence in the fight against the epidemic, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang said Friday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sudan has extended thanks to Egypt over a medical convoy sent by Cairo to Khartoum.

The convoy of medications and medical supplies was sent earlier on Monday under the directives of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to ease the Sudanese people's suffering and help them counter the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Sudanese government spokesman Faisal Mohamed Saleh thanked the Egyptian leadership and people for sending the medical aid, which includes thousands of personal protective equipment for the medical staff and sterilisers, among others.

During his reception of the convoy, Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council member and Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Committee for Health Emergencies, Siddig Tawer, emphasised that such a step confirms the strength and eternity of relations between Sudan and Egypt.

The Egyptian convoy received at Khartoum International Airport included four Egyptian army planes loaded with medical aid to confront the coronavirus pandemic, SUNA reported.

The member of the Sovereign Council pointed out the noble stance of the Egyptian people, indicating the continuous support of the Egyptian people to Sudan in such situations.

Tawer affirmed the appreciation and thanks of the Sudanese leadership to Egypt.

On his part, the Egyptian Ambassador to Sudan, Hossam Issa, noted that relief aid provided by the Egyptian people included all supplies, solutions and medical devices, in addition to oxygen measuring devices, masks, sterilisers, and everything related to the coronavirus pandemic prevention and treatment.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Millions of dollars raised for bushfire victims is yet to reach a single fire-ravaged town, after charities became bogged down by fraudsters and foreign bots.

Up to $200million, raised by donations to three charities, still hasn't been given to those left homeless by this summer's fires.

Charities said the process had been slowed down thanks to the huge number of fraudulent claims, which account for as much as 25 per cent of applications.

There are also concerns that foreign bots are trying to cash in on the donations, which were raised by ordinary Australians horrified by the blazes.

The most recent bushfire season claimed at least 33 lives and destroyed nearly 3,000 homes.

Scroll down for video

Resident Jesse Collins is seen in tears after her community, Cobargo, was devastated by the 2019/2020 bushfires (pictured)

Brian and Elizabeth Blakeman inspect the bushfire damage to their property on January 12 in Wairewa (pictured) after a horrific blaze encircled their home on December 30

A woman is seen defending her home from an out-of-control fire on February 1 at Bredbo North near Canberra (pictured)

Director of Australian programs at the Red Cross, Noel Clement, told 7NEWS that around 1,300 applications have been flagged as 'suspicious'.

This accounts for as many as one in four applications, which are being assessed by a group of 40 Red Cross staff - with some even coming from areas with no bushfires.

The charity has also received hundreds of applications by mysterious foreign bots, automated online accounts set up to pose as real humans.

It has become so difficult to manage the applications, that the Red Cross was forced to bring in dedicated fraud management experts and anti-bot computer software.

Rural Fire Service firefighter Trevor Stewart views a flank of a fire on January 11 in Tumburumba (pictured)

IN NUMBERS: AUSTRALIA'S 'BLACK SUMMER' - 33 deaths - Nearly 3,000 homes destroyed - 12 million hectares of land burnt, although some estimates put it at 17 million hectares. - 7,000 facilities and outbuildings gutted - millions of native animals and plants killed Advertisement

After the devastating fires, which ended in early March, $200million was raised for the Australian Red Cross, but two months later less than $80million has been given out.

At the Salvation Army, just $19million of the $41million raised has been spent.

Meanwhile, the $51million raised by comedian Celeste Barber is still stuck in a political and legal quagmire.

On Wednesday, the matter goes to the NSW Supreme Court, with the money intended to go to victims, firefighters and their families after the immense crowd-funding campaign.

Mr Clement said the Red Cross understood why some victims may be frustrated.

The Clear Range Fire burns near Bredbo North shortly before over running the nearby properties on February 1 (pictured)

'We recognise there are people in really difficult situations, and we understand that people under stress can get details such as bank account numbers wrong or struggle with proof of ownership documents,' he said.

'Those applications that are quite clearly not suspicious are processed straight away.

'But there have been many that are automatically throwing up red flags.'

Of those claims flagged as suspicious, some have been sent by 'multiple people' - but with the same bank account details.

The remains of a burnt down house, destroyed during the bushfire season, are pictured in the community of Wytaliba, New South Wales on January 29 (pictured)

In other instances, hundreds of applications have had fake documents, such as proof of ownership.

To combat this, the Red Cross is using satellite pictures to asses the claims, some of which have come from areas with no reported bushfires.

Of Ms Barber's fund, which was raised on Facebook, not a single penny has reached the Rural Fire Service, after a late realisation about its charity rules.

The comedian is now going to the Supreme Court to seek a variation of the trust's terms, as it currently stipulates that all money must only be spent on firefighting equipment and training.

Rural Fire Service firefighters extinguish a fire on a property on January 23 in Moruya (pictured)

NSW's most recent bushfire season officially ended in early March, having claimed 25 lives and more than 2,000 homes in the state.

Fire crews responded to more than 11,400 bush and grass fires that burnt more than 5.5 million hectares.

A national Royal Commission is now underway to investigate the unprecedented bushfire season.

The six-month inquiry has to deliver a final report by August 31, so recommendations can be acted on before the next fires are due to begin.

Averill Berryman looking at the remains of her real estate and dog grooming businesses which were both destroyed by the New Years Eve bush fire Mogo (pictured on January 15)

Celeste Barber (pictured on February 7) started a Facebook appeal that raised $51 million - but not a penny has yet been given to victims

It is being led by retired defence force chief Mark Binskin, assisted by former Federal Court judge Dr Annabelle Bennett and climate expert Professor Andrew Macintosh.

The three commissioners met with fire-affected communities in South Australia, Victoria, NSW, Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia in March.

Independent inquiries into the bushfires are also underway in NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

The Royal Commission will examine how Australia is prepared for and coordinated across the Commonwealth, states and territories to respond to bushfires and other natural disasters, as well as mitigation and recovery.

Cars are seen gutted by blazes on Kangaroo Island at the edge of the Flinders Chase National Park, which was badly affected by fires (pictured on February 25)

A property ravaged by the 2019/20 bushfires is seen in Karatta on Kangaroo Island on February 25, after huge swathes of the island were destroyed
CapStone Holdings, a business incubator and investment group, today announced a $10 million stake in Birdtown Flats, a new luxury apartment complex in Robbinsdale, MN.

CapStone, utilizing its Stone Opportunity Fund, is one of the largest investors in the apartment project, which is considered one of Minnesotas first completed opportunity zone endeavors and one of the hottest housing markets in the region. Birdtown Flats opened in February 2020 and is more than 65% leased, with unit bids continuing at a fast pace even during the current coronavirus period. The 152-unit pet-friendly apartment complex features studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units as well as a fitness center, business center, underground heated parking, bicycle storage area and rooftop deck.

The Birdtown Flats investment is another ideal opportunity for CapStone. The area is undergoing tremendous redevelopment, plus this project was assembled and completed by an outstanding team, said CapStone Holdings Chairman & Founder Keith J. Stone.

The property was developed by The Beard Group in association with NAI Legacy. Others involved included Minneapolis-based CliftonLarsonAllen Wealth Advisors, which assisted in capital raising efforts. NAI Legacy has targeted projects with high-quality development partners in qualified Opportunity Zones throughout the US.

Todays announcement follows other investments by Capstone in substantial real estate projects around the globe.

CapStone Holdings is a family office structured holding company that provides investment capital and strategic underwriting for real estate projects, global technology businesses and high growth opportunity tech and fin-tech startups. Founded in 2016 as CSI Kickstart, an investment arm of CSI Enterprises, the firm was reestablished in 2019 as CapStone Holdings Inc. after founder Keith J. Stone sold his 30-year-old company, CSI Enterprises, Inc. Today, CapStone Holdings has invested across a wide range of industries and focused philanthropic efforts in areas supporting youth and education. capstoneholdingsinc.com.
Russia registered a near record in new daily coronavirus cases on Monday as total infections topped 145,000, cementing its position as the European country reporting the most new cases. Health officials said there were 10,581 new infections over the last 24 hours, only 52 fewer than Sunday's record, bringing Russia's total to 145,268 cases and 1,356 deaths. Russia is emerging as a new hotspot for the coronavirus as many countries in western Europe begin steps to ease lockdown measures after their rates of new infections and deaths dropped. The number of new cases in Russia is substantially higher than the European country in second place, Britain, which reported another 4,339 infections on Sunday. Despite the sharp rise in cases, Russia's official fatality rate has remained low in comparison to countries including Italy, Spain and the United States. Officials credit quick moves to close the country's borders, as well as widespread testing and tracking of infections, but critics have cast doubts on the numbers. The authorities have extended a non-working quarantine period until May 11 but have also indicated they could then gradually lift confinement measures which vary from region to region. The head of Russia's public health watchdog, Anna Popova, said on Monday that this could happen but cautioned: "Today that's only a hope." If Russians start violating the rules, "by May 12 it will be obvious that we need to tighten them", she said in a televised interview. - 'Harder to stay at home' - Moscow has emerged as the epicentre of the pandemic in Russia, with around half the total coronavirus cases. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is the highest-profile figure to have contracted the virus. He is in hospital but is continuing to work, his spokesman said Sunday. Russian officials have stepped up warnings to stay at home this week with the country currently on public holidays. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin has warned that "the threat is apparently on the rise" and urged residents to respect confinement rules and anti-virus measures over the May holiday period. "The weather is getting warmer and of course it's harder for people to stay home," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Rossiya 24 television on Monday. "Unfortunately when we go out onto the street, there are a lot of people, a lot of cars. Potentially that is a dangerous violation of the lockdown... the curve of new cases could go up again." Putin is set to hold a government meeting on Wednesday after asking officials to come up with a plan for a gradual withdrawal from lockdown, Peskov said. Russia has several public holidays in early May, including Victory Day on May 9 to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Putin had planned a major celebration for this year's 75th anniversary, with world leaders in attendance as thousands of troops and tanks paraded through Red Square. The coronavirus forced him to postpone the parade and the day will now be marked only with military aircraft flying over major cities. Fighter jets roared over Moscow on Monday spurting red, white and blue smoke as they rehearsed for the event. A sign reads "Quarantine COVID-19" outside the village of Pervomaiskoye near Saint Petersburg Fighter jets roar over Moscow as they rehearse for Victory Day marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945
He was laid off on April 24. A week later he was living in a Motel 6.

Rich Jackson, a 54-year-old journalist who worked as the top editor of The Herald-Times, a Gannett-owned newspaper in Bloomington, Ind., received the bad news in the parking lot next to the papers headquarters. He was also told he would have to vacate the apartment in the same building, where he had been living for 10 months.

Unable to go to the newsroom, Mr. Jackson started a blog. He called it The Homeless Editor.

In terms of writing, I always look for key words, and you couldnt have better than those two, he said in a phone interview.

His first four posts have gotten 20,000 page views  high figures for a solitary blog. They describe how, as he put it in one entry, I went from someone to no one in 30 minutes.

The apartment where he had been living was once reserved for the owner of The Herald-Times. If you stand facing the newspaper building from Walnut Street, youll see the entrance to the apartment is on the right and the entrance to the newsroom is on the left.
Federal Office of Communications

Biel/Bienne, 04.05.2020 - Digital radio via DAB+ is becoming increasingly popular. The FM frequencies in Switzerland will be switched off by the end of 2024 at the latest. In order to prepare the population for the switch to digital radio reception, the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) has launched a new DAB+ information campaign.

Better sound quality, a wider range of programme services, larger coverage areas: thanks to these advantages, DAB+ technology has now replaced analogue very high frequency radio waves (VHF-FM) as the standard for listening to radio in Switzerland. DAB+ is already the most widely used transmission channel for radio programme services in Switzerland. Only around 15 percent of people still listen to radio exclusively via FM.

Supporting the switch to DAB+

In order to encourage these listeners to switch to digital reception at home and in their cars, a multi-year information campaign was launched on 4 May 2020. It is intended to support the audience with information and assistance during the upcoming FM phase-out. The campaign will include TV and radio spots, social media activities, out-of-home advertising, measures for equipment dealers and car dealerships, plus a helpdesk to advise the public. The campaign will run until the final FM switch-off.

The FM transmitters will be switched off by the end of 2024 at the latest. The SSR SRG and the private radio stations are jointly considering an earlier FM switch-off. A staggered phase-out from mid-2022 (SSR SRG stations) and early 2023 (private radio stations) is under discussion.

Informing the public as a goal

The Zurich agency Scholz & Friends was commissioned to carry out the campaign following a public invitation to tender. The costs of around CHF five million for the entire duration will be covered from the proceeds of the radio and television reception fee. The campaign will also benefit from free advertising time on SSR SRG television and private radio stations worth several million CHF.

Address for enquiries

Federal Office of Communications OFCOM

Press service, +41 58 460 55 50, media@bakom.admin.ch

Publisher

Federal Office of Communications

http://www.ofcom.admin.ch




The requested page is currently unavailable on this server.

Back to [RTHK News Homepage]
TORONTO - De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. has started a phased return-to-work plan after it suspended manufacturing operations in March due to the pandemic.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO - De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. has started a phased return-to-work plan after it suspended manufacturing operations in March due to 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.

The company says 100 employees are back on the job.

De Havilland Canada says it's focused on resuming pre-flight activities and delivery of Dash 8-400 aircraft.

The company suspended new production of Dash 8-400 and Series 400 Twin Otter aircraft on March 20 in a move that affected nearly 1,000 employees.

During the stop in production and delivery of new aircraft, the company has continued to provide customer support and technical services.

De Havilland Canada is owned by Longview Aviation Capital Corp., which purchased the company last year from Bombardier Inc.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2020.
As of this Monday, German company Cyclomedia is roaming the streets of Luxembourg City.

The company will use special cars equipped with multiple high-resolution cameras to capture 360-degree panoramic views of the city until 30 June.

Representatives of Luxembourg City explained that the photographs will be analysed to gauge the specific needs of the municipality. The panoramic images are used to improve the condition of the city's street network. In other words, the goal of the large-scale enterprise is the maintenance of public infrastructure as well as urban planning.

Privacy will be protected by blurring pictures of registration plates and individuals.
Koyambedu market for vegetables,



fruits and flowers, one of the largest in the country that used to teem with thousands of people every day here, has emerged as the latest hotspot for the spread of coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu.

The development has prompted authorities to shift the market -spread over 295 acres with over 3,000 outlets of which only about 200 of them are presently functional- to suburban Tirumazhisai from Thursday.

Of the 527 positive cases on Monday, a "large number are linked to the Koyambedu market," a bulletin said while rough estimates provided by officials here and in districts pegged at least 450 cases to have a link to the market place.

In Chennai alone, at least 215 of the 266 new cases were linked to the Koyambedu market.

Districts, including Cuddalore, which witnessed return of workers to their native villages from the market place, have seen a similar surge.

Cuddalore reported as many as 122 new cases today from a cumulative figure of just 39 (till May 3 from March 8 when Tamil Nadu reported its first coronavirus case) and at least 124 of them are related to Koyambedu, officials said.

Previously, returnees from a religious congregation in Delhi had led to a spurt in coronavirus cases in the state.

On why the market has emerged as a hotspot, a public health expert told PTI that the spread happened among traders/ shopkeepers and it was not strange as they were in direct contact with a host of others like vendors and truck drivers with a history of continuous travel to several regions with high COVID-19 cases like Maharashtra.

Closing down the market or scaling down operations at the initial stage of lockdown as in the case of other segments was not possible as vegetable was a food staple and such a measure may have scared people, he said.

Hence, the available option of imposing regulations, stipulating social distancing, personal hygiene and protection measures like wearing masks were relentlessly enforced by the authorities, he pointed out.

Ever since a vegetable vendor tested positive from the market last week, Greater Chennai Corporation authorities stepped up surveillance and deployed a team of health personnel and a mobile van for testing purposes.

Besides the vendor, another flower dealer and a hairdresser in the market's vicinity had tested positive for the coronavirus during the same period and following such cases, a new high in the number of infections among those linked to the market is now being witnessed.

Also, effective last Thursday, retail trade was disallowedand flower and fruit vendors too scaled down their operations.

Following the restrictions, there has been a drastic drop in footfalls in the market.

Officials said that approximately 4,900 people from the market place, including owners of outlets and workers, have so far been tested and complete results were yet to be out.

Considering today's trend of a big chunk of them testing positive, there was a chance that several others might also turn positive, they indicated.

Since the market has become a concern for authorities, State Disaster Response Force and Armed Reserve personnel were deployed as part of efforts to regulate movement of traders and help prevent the further spread of the contagion.

After inspecting the market, Commissioner of Revenue Administration and special nodal officer here for COVID-19 initiatives here, J Radhakrishnan told reporters that focused testing was on at the market place under which all the employees were being tested.

In view of targeted testing, the number of positive cases was likely to go up, he said, adding that however the rise in numbers was not a cause for concern as all anti-COVID-19 efforts were being taken by the government.

Pointing out that several people who tested positive were asymptomatic, he said arrangements were on to house such patients in facilities like colleges and the Trade Centre at Nandambakkam, which are designated as Covid Care Centres, rather than in hospitals.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Students participating in this years Delaware Valley Science Fair are going to have an experience unlike any other as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the event to go on virtually.

Were trying to give them as much as we can on what they would get at the physical location within reason given the confines of our capabilities. So far its going I think OK, said John Disston, director of judging and an IT support specialist for the 65th annual science fair.

Disstons father, Henry Disston, Jr., serves as the president and executive director of Delaware Valley Science Fair, Inc.

The nonprofit organization puts on a competition that allows students in sixth through 12th grades to produce experiments and projects from 13 categories in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematical fields, according to the organizations website. Nearly 1,000 students from Delaware, Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey participate each year.

There is approximately $6 million awarded to student victors from scholarships and prize money.

They do some pretty remarkable work that is in a lot of cases college and graduate student level work in their particular field, Disston said.

Additionally, the top high school winners go on to compete in the International Science and Engineering Fair.

Disston said students vying for a spot at the Delaware Valley Science Fair have to first qualify at a smaller level.

In healthier times, the kids would compete in what we call a regional fairs and in many cases theyre kind of the county level science fair, Disston said.

Disston said the annual science fair typically occurs during the first week of April. Students would set up their presentations, speak with judges and other industry professionals.

Disston cited health and safety concerns associated with large gatherings at the competition for the decision to hold a virtual science fair.

Contestants were provided a secure online folder where they could upload PDFs and other documentation about their project for the judges consideration, according to Disston. The students deadline was on April 20.

Disston added that judges received a separate email allowing them to go through their assigned competitors. They had until April 28 to make preliminary decisions.

Disston said an elite group of judges would narrow down the first place winners to determine the top three projects in each grade, according to the organizations website. The judging is expected to be finished in early May.

While Disston said having an in-person competition during healthier times would have been ideal, he said this years event will definitely be different. He added that its unfortunate how students wont have the opportunity to get to know their fellow competitors and receive meaningful feedback from select industry professionals.

However, he said the organization is providing an online form to allow the judges to give students comments on their projects.

We still believe in them and we still want them to be able to improve their craft and showcase their abilities to as many people as possible, he said.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt occasions like the Delaware Valley Science Fair, Disston said he wished the contestants luck. He emphasized the importance of continuing to practice and improve as these students could be the future of the STEM industries.

They are the brightest, they are the best, and mostly the most motivated to do this, and theyre the ones who are going to end up changing the way that the world works, Disston said.

They are going to be the ones to help with the next pandemic. They are going to be the ones that help with technology to build a future that we need to keep us going as a species, he continued.
Iowa begin to reopen some businesses the next week and Illinois opt to keep its stay-at-home order in place through the end of May pending a couple of court challenges.
Congress has unleashed nearly $3 trillion in stimulus to contain the economic damage from the coronavirus, and it has also let loose several watchdogs to police the flood of spending. They are supposed to monitor whether the money makes its way as intended to struggling airlines, corporations, main street businesses and hospitals.

Inspired by the oversight mechanisms put in place after the financial system bailout following the 2008 crash, lawmakers created several accountability panels with overlapping responsibilities to follow the billions that the federal government is doling out on a daily basis.

The work of the panels is just beginning. Here's who is responsible for what.

- Taking in the big picture: The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee has the most sweeping responsibility in accounting for how taxpayer funds are spent and the place where the public will be able to find out the most about where their money is going. It oversees the entirety of spending for the pandemic response, including loans and grants to corporations, the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, lending by the U.S. Federal Reserve, money for airlines, funding for hospitals and health providers and any other stimulus measures Congress may pass.

Who's leading it: The panel is made up of 20 inspectors general from across the federal government. Robert A. Westbrooks, a former inspector general, is the executive director.

Strengths: The committee has the broadest scope of any of the oversight entities overseeing spending related to the coronavirus pandemic and it has wide latitude to conduct its oversight -- including being able to subpoena those inside and outside the government for testimony.

Weaknesses: President Donald Trump has sought to limit the PRAC's authority, which he says infringes on his executive power. The president appoints the inspectors general that serve on the panel, meaning he can effectively oust them at will. In March, Trump removed then-acting Department of Defense Inspector General Glenn Fine, who had been appointed to serve as PRAC chairman. When Trump removed Fine from his role at the Pentagon, he became ineligible to serve on the committee.

Public disclosures: The PRAC's public website is already live. PRAC is also required to notify Congress and executive branch about problems, in addition to twice-a-year reports.

- The big business bailout investigator: The Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery is responsible for oversight of the $500 billion bailout fund for businesses. Operating inside the Treasury Department, the SIGPR will scrutinize and track the loans and transactions made by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The key programs include $454 billion in backstops to lending programs through the Federal Reserve, as well as money for airlines and defense companies.

Who's leading it: Trump's pick to lead this effort, Brian Miller, is awaiting Senate confirmation. Until then, it's unclear just how wide or deep his work might be.

Strengths: Like the PRAC, the special inspector general has broader subpoena powers than is typically granted to government watchdogs. The inspector general can request documents and information from across the federal government and is required to quickly report to Congress if any agency is withholding or delaying information, a provision that Trump objected to when he signed the stimulus bill creating the special inspector general position.

Weaknesses: Democrats are skeptical that Miller will be independent and impartial. He has years of experience as the inspector general for the General Services Administration, but has most recently served as a White House lawyer, including participating in Trump's impeachment defense. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said that Trump chose "the wrong type of person" for this position.

Public disclosures: The SIGPR is required to submit quarterly reports to Congress, starting within 60 days of the watchdog's confirmation.

- The watchdog on Capitol Hill: The Congressional Oversight Commission is five-member panel appointed by congressional leaders that will oversee a half-trillion dollars in virus-related spending through the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, and a portion of aid to the airline industry.

Who's leading it: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have not yet announced their joint selection for the head of the commission. The other four members are:

- Rep. French Hill, R-Ark.;

Bharat Ramamurti, a former top staffer to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts;

- Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.;

- Rep. Donna Shalala, D-Fla.

Strengths: The panel is a product of bipartisan negotiations and contains respected members of both parties, which could give their findings credibility across the political spectrum.

Weaknesses: The panel itself does not have subpoena powers but can rely on existing oversight committees in Congress if it needs to fight for documents from the Trump administration. However, Congress itself has struggled to get the executive branch to comply with information requests and subpoenas -- a battle that's playing out in the courts, indicating the commission might have the same difficulty.

Public disclosures: The panel's first report is due in mid-May, after which it will provide monthly updates.

Others keeping watch:

- Government Accountability Office: The GAO already has broad authority to audit federal agencies and programs - and the $2.2 trillion stimulus package gives it even more latitude and resources to do so.

The GAO has already initiated inquiries related to the national stockpile and distribution of medical equipment, nursing home infections, loans to small businesses and the economic impact payments. It's required to issue reports every 60 days, with the first one due in late June, but also it also issues reports on its findings on a rolling basis.

- House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis: Pelosi created the new committee, operating under the umbrella of the House Oversight Committee, to examine coronavirus spending and look for waste, fraud or mismanagement. It's led by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, and unlike the Congressional Oversight Commission, has subpoena power.

The panel is technically bipartisan though House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hasn't yet appointed any members and says he will wait to do so until he sees what the panel will do. The California Republican has called it duplicative and politically motivated.

- The White House also has its own venue to disclose its views about the economic rescue measures. Trump's top economic advisers, including Mnuchin, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Council of Economic Advisers acting Chairman Tomas J. Philipson are required to issue quarterly reports that detail the impact of the coronavirus response on employment, estimated economic growth, and data about affected industries.
STAUNTON  The Macoupin County Public Health Department on Monday reported four cases of coronavirus have been found at Heritage Health-Staunton.

The report came as Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced another 44 deaths and 2,341 news cases from COVID-19 statewide during the past 24 hours. He said there were now 63,840 cases statewide and 2,662 deaths.

A Macoupin County Public Health Department news release stated that, on April 25, all of the employees and residents of Heritage Health-Staunton were tested. On April 27, testing confirmed two staff members and two residents tested positive for the virus.

Our leadership team at Heritage Health-Staunton continues to work with the Macoupin County Health Department to ensure we are following their guidelines and protocol with the outbreak of positive COVID-19 cases in the building, said Ben Hart, President/CEO of Heritage Operations Group. While the caregiving staff continues to adhere to the infection prevention measures we have in place, they continue to provide uninterrupted services to our residents and stability to their daily routine especially during this coronavirus pandemic.

The Bloomington-based company operates multiple facilities throughout the state, including facilities in Alton, Beardstown, Carlinville and Gillespie.

The Madison County Health Department on Monday announced two more deaths  a woman in her 60s and a man in his 90s  and five new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total 26 and 369 respectively. The Madison County figures include 75 people hospitalized and 99 recovered, meaning they have completed isolation.

Illinois Department of Public Halth Information by ZIP code showed additional cases in the Jerseyville and Madison areas. A total of 96 cases were reported in 62025 (Edwardsville), with 58 in 62040 (Granite City/Pontoon Beach), 50 in 62002 (Alton), 42 in 62034 (Glen Carbon), 30 in 62234 (Collinsville), and 15 in 62294 (Troy).

Eleven cases were reported in 62035 (Godfrey), 62052 (Jerseyville) and 62060 (Madison); 10 in 62249 (Highland) and 62056 (Litchfield); nine in 62095 (Wood River); eight in 62010 (Bethalto); seven in 62024 (East Alton), 62090 (Venice) and 62069 (Mount Olive); six in 62062 (Maryville) and 62088 (Staunton).

More Information Area COVID-19 cases by county St. Clair - 551 (34 deaths) Madison - 369 (26 deaths) Clinton - 114 (5 deaths) Monroe - 73 (12 deaths) Montgomery - 29 (1 death) Jersey - 14 (1 death) Bond - 6 (1 death) Macoupin - 34 Washington - 1 Greene - 3 Calhoun - 1 Sources: Illinois Department of Public Health and Madison County Health Department. See More Collapse

The IDPH is releasing case numbers by ZIP code for areas with more than five cases. Numbers are not released in ZIP codes with fewer cases to protect the privacy of patients.

The information is available online at www.dph.illinois.gov. Click on the coronavirus banner, then COVID-19 statistics in the drop-down menu on the left side.

Additional cases also were reported Monday in Jersey, Macoupin, Montgomery, St. Clair, Clinton and Monroe counties in the Metro East. Additional deaths were also noted in St. Clair and Monroe counties.

For the latest information on COVID-19 or coronavirus resources, visit the Madison County Health Department online at www.madisonchd.org or on Facebook @MadisonCHD. Also visit www.co.madison.il.us for more news and a daily update or on Facebook @MadisonCountyIL.
Items from Victoria Beckham's designer fashion label have appeared on Net-A-Porter discount site The Outnet for up to 70 percent off.

These have cropped up over the past few days which saw Victoria, 46, abandon plans to seek a government bailout to furlough 30 members of staff following a major backlash.

Items on The Outnet include a mint blazer with black lapels, reduced to 158 down from 565 - a 72 percent drop - and a matching purse slashed half-price from 850 to 425.

Bargain! Items from Victoria Beckham's designer fashion label have appeared on Net-A-Porter discount site The Outnet for up to 70 percent off

The Victoria Beckham brand has an ongoing relationship with The Outnet, as do the likes of Valentino, Stella McCartney and Dolce & Gabbana. The appearance of the brand's items on The Outlet is not directly related to the the furloughing situation.

This comes after Victoria and her husband David, 45, risk fresh money fury as a report which alleges they took out a 10 million bank loan to buy their 18 million Miami penthouse has emerged.

The couple - who are worth 335 million - are said to have used their firm, Beckham Brand Limited, to take out the loan last year as part of David's Inter Miami FC project, which they are reportedly paying back over 10 years at a fixed rate of 2.5 per cent.

According to The Sun on Sunday, The Beckhams took out a 10 million bank loan to buy a the luxury property in Miami, America last year, despite having the finances to purchase the 18 million property outright.

After initially questioning the need for the super-wealthy couple to require a loan, a source added: 'If they hadn't borrowed cash to buy yet another pad, perhaps they wouldn't have had to furlough staff in the first place.

Slashed: Items on Outnet include [L-R] a mint blazer with black lapels, reduced to 158 down from 565 - a 72 percent drop - and a matching purse slashed half-price from 850 to 425

Yikes! This comes after Victoria and her husband David, 45, risk fresh money fury as a report which alleges they took out a 10 million bank loan to buy their 18 million Miami penthouse has emerged

'If Victoria could borrow 10million to buy a Miami bolthole, there are probably a few people thinking she could have borrowed money in the first place to pay her staff, rather than try and rely on the taxpayer.'

'While they actually applied for this loan towards the end of last year, the timing of its publication could hardly have been worse.'

MailOnline has contacted Victoria and David Beckham's representatives for comment.

The couple and three of their four children are currently hauled up at their Cotswolds countryside retreat amid the coronavirus lockdown after relocating from their luxury London home.

Second home: Victoria is currently hauled up with husband David and three of their four children at their Cotswolds countryside retreat after relocating from their luxury London home

U-turn: Victoria, who recently posted this Instagram picture of her 'working from home' set-up, has reversed a decision to seek a taxpayer bailout for her fashion firm by furloughing 30 staff

The former Spice Girl, whose family is worth 335million, had planned to use the Government's Covid-19 scheme to pay 80 per cent of the wages of some of her staff.

The fashion brand, which employs 120 people, sent letters to 30 members of staff warning them that they were going to be furloughed under the Government's scheme for two months.

She told The Guardian: 'We will not now be drawing on the government furlough scheme.

'At the beginning of the lockdown the shareholders agreed with senior management to furlough a small proportion of staff.

Previous plans: The former Spice Girl had planned to use the Government's Covid-19 scheme to pay 80 per cent of the wages of some of her staff (pictured in London, February 2020)

'At that point we didn't know how long the lockdown might last or its likely impact on the business. The welfare of my team and our business means everything to me.'

It is understood the firm's application would have cost taxpayers 150,000.

The firm denied the U-turn was a result of the public backlash and instead insisted the board 'now believe that with the support of our shareholders, we can navigate through this crisis without drawing from the furlough scheme'.

Turning to the taxpayer: Jamie Oliver, pictured, has sought taxpayer assistance to pay 80 per cent of the wages of 20 employees

In a statement, the company said: 'Victoria Beckham Ltd has been working hard to protect its people and, while adjusting to the impact of COVID-19 and the government lockdown, our decision to furlough a small number of our staff seemed the most appropriate option in keeping with many other businesses.

'The situation is dynamic, and, with the support of our shareholders, we now believe we can navigate through this crisis without drawing from the government furlough scheme.

'Our application was made in the best interests of trying to protect our staff, and that is still our absolute focus. We are doing everything we can to ensure we can achieve that without using government assistance.'
The state of Michigan is picking up quite the bar tab  more than $3.3 million for a party of 657.

State officials announced the totals for its liquor buyback program on Monday, May 4, in which its purchasing back unopened liquor from bars and restaurants as a form of COVID-19 financial relief.

There are 657 bar and restaurant owners taking part in the program, receiving a total of $3.3 million  which averages to more than $5,000 each.

The Michigan Department of Treasury sent checks to the businesses, once they were approved. Businesses could apply between April 14-24.

The Michigan Liquor Control Commission is buying the liquor back at full price, although the businesses can choose to buy the liquor back, later.

While the state now owns the liquor, its not picking it up right now. The bars and restaurants keep possession of the liquor and will have 90 days from the date the state of emergency ends to buy back some or all of their liquor, interest-free.

I am pleased that through this innovative program, we can provide much-needed cash to hundreds of Michigans bars and restaurants that are struggling right now, to help tide them over until theyre open for business again," Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a news release.

The dining rooms of bars and restaurants have been closed in Michigan since March 16, via an executive order from Whitmer. The closures continue through May 28.

Stories that highlight how our communities are Powering Positivity are being done in partnership with The MediLodge Group, which has skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities throughout Michigan.

COVID-19 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

Monday, May 4: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Gretchen Whitmer is a national figure now. What you need to know about The woman in Michigan'

From closing restaurants to requiring masks, Gov. Whitmer has issued 69 executive orders in 56 days

Michigans coronavirus numbers update delayed by software issue

Gov. Whitmer says protest 'depicted some of the worst racism and doesnt represent Michigan

SNL star blown away by Michigan care package from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday hit out at the Central government for charging migrant workers for rail travel during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Citing a media report, Rahul Gandhi said that the Railways is charging migrants for rail tickets at the same time donating money in the PM-CARES Fund.

On the one hand, the Railways is charging ticket fare from migrant workers stranded in various states of the country, on the other hand, the Ministry of Railways is donating Rs 151 crore in PM-CARES Fund. Solve this puzzle!, Rahul Gandhi tweeted (roughly translated from Hindi).

Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi had earlier today said that her party will bear the cost for rail travel of every needy migrant worker and labourer to their respective home towns during the lockdown.
On Friday, May 1, 1970, just after noon, about 300 students at Kent State University, outside Cleveland, gathered in the grassy campus Commons to protest President Nixons expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. As part of the protest, they buried a copy of the Constitution, a symbol of their outrage that Congress had never formally declared war on Vietnam or Cambodia, and they announced another rally, set for May 4.

Later that night, when the most audacious of the young protesters destroyed commercial property in downtown Kent, the towns mayor asked Governor James Rhodes for assistance. Rhodes called in the National Guard. The next day, around 9 p.m., the campus building used by the Reserve Officer Training Corps, one of the Armys primary recruiting tools during the Vietnam War, was torched, probably by a very small fringe of activists.

Student activists had long been at the forefront of the antiwar movement, and Kent State, with some 21,000 students, boasted a long tradition of radical protest, partly because of its proximity to Cleveland, then a stronghold of progressive labor. Town-gown tensions were palpable at Kent the day after the burning of the ROTC building. Rhodes primed polarized sentiments, calling the protesters worse than the Brown Shirt and the communist element, labeling them the worst type of people that we harbor in America.

On Monday, May 4, activists awaited the noon rally to protest the guards presence on campus, as well as Nixons Cambodia invasion. But with the guard in control of the campus, the university announced the rally was prohibited. The students gathered anyway, facing off across a hilly green against a phalanx of guard soldiers.
Family Dollar Security Guard Killed After Asking Shopper to Wear a Mask

A security guard who was killed on May 1 was shot after asking a shopper at Family Dollar to wear a mask, prosecutors confirmed on Monday.

A woman entered a Family Dollar in Flint, Michigan, with her daughter around 1:40 p.m. According to a police investigation, she got into an altercation with security guard Calvin Munerlyn.

Several witnesses in the Family Dollar said Mr. Munerlyn had got into a verbal altercation with an unknown black female over not wearing a mask before the shooting had taken place. There is surveillance video confirming that altercation, Genesee County prosecutor David Leyton said at a press conference on Monday.

Leyton said the woman, Sharmel Teague, 44, was wearing a mask but her daughter, in her 20s, was not.

Teague spit at Munerlyn when he tried telling her daughter that she needed to wear a mask or covering. The guard ordered them to leave the store after she spit at him, Leyton said. Munerlyn advised the cashier not to provide service to her.

After the altercation, Teague left the store, located on E. Fifth Street in Flint.

According to phone records, she called her husband, Larry Edward Teague Jr. He and another black male, Teagues son Ramonyea Bishop, 23, soon entered the store. One shot the guard in the head.

Workers are producing face masks that will be exported at a factory in Nanchang, China on April 8, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Warrants have been issued for three people involved in the killing: Teague Jr., 45, who was charged with first-degree, premeditated murder, possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a felon, and other crimes; Bishop, who was charged with first-degree, premeditated murder, felony firearm, and other crimes; and Teague, 44, who was charged with first-degree, premeditated murder and other charges.

The trio was also charged with violating Gov. Gretchen Whitmers executive order, which mandates all customers and employees in stores wear masks.

Teague Jr. and Bishop remain at large while Teague is in custody.

Munerlyn left behind a wife and six children.

Genesee County Commissioner Bryant Nolden, is executive director of the Berson Field House, said Munerlyn was a great guy.

When I found out what had happened to him, it really broke my heart, because I know what kind of person he was, Nolden said.

We need to stop this senseless violence in this community. This was totally uncalled for, he added.
CAIRO  An American woman held without trial in an Egyptian prison for more than 300 days, over a Facebook page that criticized Egypts president, has been freed and returned to the United States, her supporters and American officials said on Monday.

The release of the woman, Reem Desouky, which followed months of pressure from the Trump administration, came after the death in January of another imprisoned American, Moustafa Kassem, whose case became a sore point in otherwise warm relations between Washington and the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

The dangers faced by political detainees in Egypts dirty, overcrowded prisons were highlighted this past weekend with the death of Shady Habash, a 24-year-old filmmaker detained for two years for directing a video that mocked Mr. el-Sisi. What caused Mr. Habashs death remains unclear.

Ms. Desouky, 47, an Egyptian-American arts teacher from Pennsylvania, renounced her Egyptian citizenship, likely as a condition of her release, just before she boarded a flight to the United States on Sunday.
NEW YORK - The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize in public service Monday for illuminating the sparse policing of remote Alaska villages, as a delayed awards ceremony recognized writing, photos and  for the first time  audio reporting on topics ranging from climate change to the legacy of slavery.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 4/5/2020 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard as Kashmiri Muslims offer Friday prayers on a street outside a local mosque during curfew like restrictions in Srinagar, India, Aug. 16, 2019. The image was part of a series of photographs by Associated Press photographers which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

NEW YORK - The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize in public service Monday for illuminating the sparse policing of remote Alaska villages, as a delayed awards ceremony recognized writing, photos and  for the first time  audio reporting on topics ranging from climate change to the legacy of slavery.

The public service winners contacted 600 village, tribal and other local governments and travelled by plane, sled and snowmobile to reveal that a third of rural Alaska communities had no local police protection, among other findings.

The riveting series spurred legislative changes and an influx of spending, the judges noted in an announcement postponed several weeks and held online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Anchorage Daily News Editor David Hulen said the series called attention to some really serious problems in Alaska that have needed attention for a long time.

Associated Press photographer Channi Anand watches the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes via video conferencing from his home in Jammu, India, Tuesday, April 5, 2020. Anand was one of three AP photographers who won the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography for their coverage of the conflict in Kashmir and in Jammu, India. (AP Photo)

Theres more to be done, and the paper will keep pursuing the issue, he said in a phone interview.

The New York Times won the investigative reporting prize for an expose of predatory lending in the New York City taxi industry and also took the international reporting award for what the judges called enthralling stories, reported at great risk, about Russian President Vladimir Putins government.

The Times also was awarded the commentary prize for an essay that Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote as part of the papers ambitious 1619 Project, which followed the throughlines of slavery in American life to this day.

Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet told the staff  in a virtual meeting  that this year's prizes were "particularly meaningful because they come as we are managing our lives under great difficulty even as we produce great journalism.

The Washington Posts work on global warming was recognized for explanatory reporting. The newspaper tracked nearly 170 years of temperature records to show that 10% of the planet's surface has already exceeded a rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times, the threshold world leaders have agreed they'd try not to exceed.

Kashmiri men shout freedom slogans during a protest against New Delhi's tightened grip on the disputed region, after Friday prayers on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Aug. 23, 2019. The image was part of a series of photographs by Associated Press photographers which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

While the country is now focused on the coronavirus, another worldwide public-health crisis is upon us as the world warms, Executive Editor Martin Baron said.

Monday's awards recognized reporting last year, before the virus sparked a pandemic.

In a development that recognized how podcasting has brought new attention to reporting aimed at listeners rather than readers or viewers, a first-ever award for audio reporting went to This American Life, the Los Angeles Times and Vice News for The Out Crowd, an examination of the Trump administrations remain in Mexico immigration policy.

In another prize for the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Knight won the criticism award for what the judges called extraordinary community service by a critic in examining a proposal to overhaul of the L.A. County Museum of Art.

The staff of The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, took the breaking news reporting award for unpacking racial disparities and other issues in a spate of governors pardons.

This image released by Doubleday shows a portrait of author Colson Whitehead, author of "The Nickel Boys," winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. (Madeline Whitehead/Doubleday via AP)

Two different projects won the national reporting award: ProPublicas look at deadly accidents in the U.S. Navy and The Seattle Times examination of design flaws in the troubled Boeing 737 MAX jet.

ProPublica Managing Editor Robin Fields said its reporting laid bare the avoidance of responsibility by the militarys most senior leaders."

The local reporting award went to The Baltimore Sun for shedding light on a previously undisclosed financial relationship between the mayor and the public hospital system, which she helped oversee.

The New Yorker took the feature reporting prize for Ben Taubs piece on a detainee at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. New Yorker contributor Barry Blitt got the editorial cartooning award for work that skewers the personalities and policies emanating from the Trump White House, as the judges saw it.

The Associated Press won the feature photography prize for images made during Indias clampdown on Kashmir, where a sweeping curfew and shutdowns of phone and internet service added to the challenges of showing the world what was happening in the region.

This Sept. 2, 2019 photo by Reuters photographer Tyrone Siu, provided by Columbia University, shows an anti-extradition bill protester detained by riot police during skirmishes between the police and protesters outside Mong Kok police station, in Hong Kong, China. The photography staff of Reuters was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, in New York, Monday May 4, 2020, for wide-ranging and illuminating photographs of Hong Kong as citizens protested infringement of their civil liberties and defended the region's autonomy by the Chinese government. (Courtesy of Reuters via AP)

AP photographers Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand snaked around roadblocks, sometimes took cover in strangers homes and hid cameras in vegetable bags to capture images of protests, police and paramilitary action and daily life. Then they headed to an airport to persuade travellers to carry the photo files out with them and get them to the APs office in New Delhi.

"These journalists courage and compelling storytelling show the absolute best of what we do, AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said.

Reuters won the breaking news photography award for its coverage of protests that shook Hong Kong. Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler said the photos brilliantly captured the magnitude of the protests.

While big outlets and collaborations got plenty of recognition, the small Palestine Herald-Press, in East Texas, got a Pulitzer for Jeffery Gerritt's editorials on the deaths of jail inmates awaiting trial.

In the arts categories, Michael R. Jacksons musical A Strange Loop won the drama prize. And Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys" won the fiction prize; he also won in 2017 for The Underground Railroad.

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.

The Pulitzer board also issued a special citation Monday to the trailblazing African American journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, noting her outstanding and courageous reporting on lynchings.

Wells was a journalist and publisher in the late 1800s and later helped found civil rights and womens suffrage groups; she died in 1931. The board said the citation comes with a bequest of at least $50,000 in support of Wells mission, with recipients to be announced.

The initial Pulitzer ceremony, which had been scheduled for April 20, was pushed to give Pulitzer Board members who were busy covering the pandemic more time to evaluate the finalists.

The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism were first awarded in 1917 and are considered the fields most prestigious honour in the U.S.

___

Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela contributed to this report.
Legislation that would compromise the independence of Ukraine's anticorruption institutions threatens the country's reform trajectory, and the support of the international community, the G7 Ambassadors' Support Group in Ukraine said.

"U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and the EU continue our support for Ukraine's independent anticorruption institutions, and their commitment to fighting corruption at the highest levels. Our commitment is rooted in the demands expressed by the Ukrainian people during the Revolution of Dignity and every day since. Legislation that would compromise the independence of these institutions threatens Ukraine's reform trajectory, and the support of the international community," a statement by the G7 Ambassadors posted on Twitter on Monday reads.

As reported, the parliamentary committee on law enforcement recommended that the Verkhovna Rada adopt bill No. 3133 "On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Enhancing Anti-Corruption Effectiveness in Separate Law Enforcement and Other Government Agencies" at the first reading this week. Its authors propose correcting inaccuracies in the laws "On state protection of state authorities of Ukraine and officials," "On the prosecutor's office," "On NABU," "On the State Bureau of Investigations," and also bring the concepts used in these laws into line with the provisions of the law "On the Corruption Prevention."

It is proposed, in particular, to supplement the law "On NABU" with the provision that one of the grounds for dismissing the NABU director (Artem Sytnyk from the moment of its founding) is the entry into force of a court decision on bringing him to administrative responsibility for an offense related to corruption.
[May 04, 2020] COVID-19 Serves as eCommerce Catalyst for North American Consumers

Over half (54%) of US consumers and 44% of Canadians are shopping far more online during the current pandemic, according to new research from Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform. The company's data reveals that North American consumers have also increased their use of contactless card payments in store. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005387/en/ Daniel Kornitzer, Chief Business Development Officer, Paysafe (Photo: Business Wire) The sharp rise in eCommerce in North America has been driven by two main factors, according to Paysafe's latest 'Lost in Transaction' research carried out in the US, Canada and five European countries (UK, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Bulgaria) between April 8th-15th, 2020. The primary driver is the need to replace in-store shopping amidst lockdowns (motivating 54% of US consumers and 44% of Canadians). The second factor supporting eCommerce uptake is the need to buy specialty items consumers would not have needed before the crisis (motivating 46% of Americans and 33% of Canadians). This surge has extended as far as new online consumers, with 25% of Americans shopping for the first time. The data suggests the pandemic could mark a lasting shift in consumer sentiment, with half (49%) of US consumers expecting to maintain their increased level of online shopping this time next year, even f the virus' impact abates.



Credit cards continue to be North Americans' preferred online payment method, with 56% of Americans and 67% of Canadians using one in the last month. Nonetheless, the alternative method of digital wallets has been used over the same time period by 33% of North Americans. eCommerce security and fraud concerns remain. Half (50%) of US consumers still feel uncomfortable entering financial data to make an online payment.

Conversely, in brick-and-mortar stores COVID-19 has raised fears around the contagion risk of cash, with 55% of all North Americans worried about handling cash, and the same amount planning to reduce usage in future. Despite concerns, US consumers are more cash-loyal than Canadians, with 75% of Americans admitting they would be worried if they could no longer access cash compared to 64% of Canadians. The crisis is also having a direct influence on consumer attitudes to contactless payments, with 63% of Americans and Canadians using this payment method more than ever before. This looks set to be an enduring shift, with 60% of North Americans stating that they are now more comfortable using contactless in the future. Also, in store, mobile wallets have gained support in the US due to their advanced security features. Forty-four percent of Americans view Apple (News - Alert) Pay or Google Pay as even more secure than contactless cards due to biometric payment authentication. Daniel Kornitzer, Chief Business Development Officer at Paysafe, said: "This unprecedented time is making many North American consumers re-evaluate their attitudes to online payments, in what will likely be a permanent change. With the rapid growth in eCommerce, the need for robust payment solutions for the card-not-present space is stronger than ever. Kornitzer added: "In the short term, as we continue to navigate the challenges of the current situation, consumers need access to secure and reliable traditional and alternative payment solutions to help them continue their daily lives as safely as possible." ### About the research Paysafe's ongoing Lost in Transaction research reports explore and benchmark payment and financial opinions of both consumers and businesses. Paysafe commissioned Sapio Research to conduct this particular Lost in Transaction study in March and April this year using an online questionnaire. The final results include responses from 8,000 consumers across the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Italy (over 1,000 respondents per market). About Paysafe Paysafe Group (Paysafe) is a leading specialized payments platform. Its core purpose is to enable businesses and consumers to connect and transact seamlessly through industry-leading capabilities in payment processing, digital wallet, card issuing and online cash solutions. With over 20 years of online payment experience, an annualized transactional volume of over US $85 billion, and approximately 3,000 employees located in 12+ global locations, Paysafe connects businesses and consumers across 200 payment types in over 40 currencies around the world. Delivered through an integrated platform, Paysafe solutions are geared toward mobile-initiated transactions, real-time analytics and the convergence between brick-and-mortar and online payments. Visit us at www.paysafe.com Follow Paysafe on Twitter / LinkedIn / Paysafe Insights Blog View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005387/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[May 04, 2020] COVID-19 or Hunger: The Time to Transform Africa's Food Systems is Now

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Governments across Africa have put in place policies to stop the spread of COVID-19 with the first lockdowns resulting in significant restrictions on the movement of people and goods. But the disruption of intermediary businesses in agricultural value chains could have the most consequential impact on food security and livelihoods. This includes reduced supplies of caloric staples and other nutritious foods to consumers (many of whom already spend up to 50% of their income on food), loss of jobs in food processing, and  for those who are farmer-allied  lower incomes and support to smallholder farmers who contribute to more than 80 percent of agricultural production in Africa. Intermediary businesses can include producer cooperatives, aggregators, processors and vertically integrated brands. These linchpin firms are now struggling with COVID-19 related challenges that imperil their continued operation, according to a coalition of international practitioners who support these businesses with capital and technical assistance comprising Bain & Company, TechnoServe, Partners in Food Solutions, Land O'Lakes Venture37, Acumen and Root Capital. A TechnoServe survey of over 100 food processors spanning sub-Saharan Africa, shows that over 60% of these enterprises do not feel adequately prepared, including having limited liquidity, for meeting the challenges presented by COVID-19: For those that have been deemed essential services and can continue to operate, normal levels of production is hindered by COVID-19 related challenges for labour to get to work and operate safely.

There are broad disruptions to demand, with shifting buying habits from stockpiling and reduced consumer incomes, while markets are closed and school feeding programmes halted.

Logistics across the value chain have been affected as curfews and lockdowns are restricting movement of people and goods. As a result, some food processing businesses are shutting down and, according to TechnoServe, only 31% of companies are retaining their full workforce, with the majority putting workers on leave and 17% already making layoffs. "Some companies are trying to pivot," says Jeff Dykstra, CEO of Partners in Food Solutions, "but the expected slowdown in business is limiting investment at a time when innovating for this new operating environment is critical. Also, without sufficient liquidity and working capital, these businesses will not be able to continue making ayments to suppliers and investing in farmers by maintaining extension services or providing farmers with credit."



Food processing businesses advance socio-economic development by providing nourishment, jobs and incomes in Africa, while building more resilient local food systems. They help smallholder farmers withstand global fluctuations in the markets and, where appropriate, reduce reliance on imports. "Supporting these firms and smallholder farmers  which our research shows many of whom are in the 'missing middle' where affordable commercial financing is not readily available and have already struggled with a capital gap pre-COVID-19  is also necessary to strengthen the longer term ability of Africa to feed itself, build more resilient food systems and harness the economic potential of African agriculture and food. All of which are critical to Africa's economic development," says Christopher Mitchell, a partner at Bain & Company and leader of the firm's work in African Food Systems.

The international donor community and African governments have an opportunity to act now to mitigate against a food security crisis arising from the pandemic and to set a path toward food system transformation that would yield greater nutritional, economic, societal and environmental benefits for decades to come: First, African governments need to ensure their COVID-19 response supports food supply chains. This includes declaring agriculture, food processing, logistics, and food retailing essential businesses, and ensuring the availability and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) and even soap and hand sanitiser to all workers across the food system. Second, the full range of capital from public funds, grants from the donor community, debt to equity from investors is required to ensure intermediary businesses such as food processing have the liquidity to continue operating and invest in necessary innovations, such as digital platforms that more efficiently match farmers to markets and support farmer productivity. Capital provision must be coupled with advisory support and technical assistance for business continuity planning. Investment across a range of commodities, including staples such as cereals, legumes, roots and tubers, fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and even export oriented cash crops such as tea, coffee and nuts, are all critical for farmer livelihoods, to feed local populations and generate foreign exchange reserves. Third, NGO implementers and the private sector can provide critical beyond-capital assistance. For example, TechnoServe and Partners in Food Solutions along with private sector partners are providing remote technical assistance to hundreds of food processors in Africa and have published guides on safe operations for workers and food production. Business advice for these processors, on topics such as cash- flow management, contract renegotiation and product adaptation, is also critical to survival. In Malawi , Land O'Lakes Venture37 is providing face masks, hand sanitiser and hand washing stations to dairy cooperatives to ensure that Ministry of Health protocols around COVID-19 prevention can be properly followed and fresh milk continues to be delivered daily. The private sector, particularly large brewers and soft drink companies, have supply and distribution networks that can be leveraged for upstream and downstream logistics to help facilitate a stable, safe food supply. Editor's Note: To arrange an interview, contact Nicola Wilson at [email protected] or +27 71 155 9834 About Bain & Company Bain & Company is a global consultancy that helps the world's most ambitious change makers define the future. Across 58 offices in 37 countries, we work alongside our clients as one team with a shared ambition to achieve extraordinary results, outperform the competition and redefine industries. We complement our tailored, integrated expertise with a vibrant ecosystem of digital innovators to deliver better, faster and more enduring outcomes. In 2015 we committed to invest $1B in pro bono services over 10 years to leading organisations working to solve the most difficult problems in education, economic development and the environment. Learn more at www.bain.com and follow us on Twitter @BainAlerts. Media Contact

Nicola Wilson

Bain & Company

Tel: +27 71 155 9834

[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/covid-19-or-hunger-the-time-to-transform-africas-food-systems-is-now-301051940.html SOURCE Bain & Company

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Just two weeks after ruling that criminal juries in America were always meant to be unanimous, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to swiftly decide whether its decision applies retroactively to thousands of inmates in Louisiana and Oregon who are serving time from earlier convictions by split juries.

The decision suggested to prosecutors and some defense advocates that the high court may be trying to quickly put the retroactivity question to bed, probably in favor of keeping those older convictions intact.

The high courts decision to take up the case of life prisoner Thedrick Edwards, who was convicted by a divided jury of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated kidnapping and five counts of armed robbery from a 2006 crime spree in Baton Rouge, dismayed advocates for some of the 1,800 Louisiana inmates estimated to be serving time on split-jury convictions.

East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore, whose office has defended Edwards conviction, said "Oh, good," when informed of the high courts decision to take up Edwards' case to decide the retroactivity issue.

Moore described Edwards as a bad dude, calling it a case with very egregious facts and circumstances.

The courts 6-3 decision in Ramos v. Louisiana effectively handed new trials to people convicted by split juries who, like Evangelisto Ramos, were still within the window of their direct appeals. It also required unanimous verdicts in all trials going forward.

Louisiana voters decision in 2018 to scrap split juries applied prospectively, only to trials for crimes committed after that year.

In its decision less than two years later in the Ramos case, the Supreme Court left to the future the question of whether it amounted to the kind of watershed ruling that trumps the burden of going back in time.

That future date, it turns out, is coming fast. Oral arguments in Edwards case are likely to be held in the fall.

We anticipated that the court would probably act quickly so they could once and for all address these issues, Moore said. I believe that decision will be that Ramos does not apply to this case and does not apply retroactively.

Defense advocates conceded that the court has made an unusual decision to tackle retroactivity upfront, choosing from several petitions that were pending before the high court while the Ramos case played out.

Typically the (Supreme Court) allows such questions to percolate through the (state) courts because that approach allows the legal issues to be fleshed out fully before it arrives at the Supreme Court, said Thomas Frampton, a Harvard Law School instructor and Louisiana defense attorney who has studied split juries in the state. Here my concern is that the process seems to be short-circuited.

The Supreme Court didnt address the retroactivity question directly in its splintered April 20 ruling in the Ramos case, when it outlawed split verdicts. But several justices, including some who favored ditching split verdicts, seemed to telegraph their skepticism over applying it to so many inmates.

Attorney General Jeff Landrys office, which fought to defend the states anomalous jury system before state voters in 2018 agreed to ban the practice going forward, issued a statement Monday saying, We are glad the Court will resolve the issue of retroactivity.

If the Supreme Court rules in Edwards favor, it would mean new trials or plea deals for anyone who could prove a split jury conviction, advocates said. If it rules against him, all of those inmates would be out of luck, at least in federal court.

Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

They could still seek a ruling on retroactivity from the Louisiana Supreme Court, said Ben Cohen, an attorney with the Promise of Justice Initiative who took Ramos case to the Supreme Court.

Will we be a nation of procedural bars to securing justice or a nation that holds true to the original promises of her constitution?" Cohen asked. "Thats for the United States Supreme Court to decide. It's also for the Louisiana Supreme Court to decide. And its a question that every district court judge, every elected District Attorney needs to answer as well. It will define us.

In a 1992 decision, however, the Louisiana Supreme Court declined to look back at older convictions after a commonly used jury instruction in Orleans Parish defining "reasonable doubt" was deemed unconstitutional. In a 4-3 decision, the court adopted the same standard for retroactivity as the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Edwards case, his attorneys claim the non-unanimous verdicts reflected a prosecution fraught with problems.

Edwards was chained to a wall at the First District police station in Baton Rouge and grilled by detectives who chose to ignore the audio and video gear at their disposal, his attorneys claim. He asked for an attorney but never got one before offering up a confession he says detectives wheedled out of him with false assurances.

The perpetrators wore caps and bandannas, and none of the DNA came back to Edwards. No stolen property was found in a search of his house.

It was a cross-racial identification  a particularly suspect form of evidence, studies show -- by the only one of five witnesses to finger Edwards in a photo lineup, his attorneys said.

The witness was white; Edwards is black.

At his trial, the prosecution used its peremptory challenges to remove all but one potential black juror from the 12-member panel. The sole black juror selected, the attorneys said, lodged a vote for acquittal on each of the charges against Edwards.

Edwards is now serving a life prison sentence. Andre Belanger, the Baton Rouge attorney who filed Edwards' petition, did not immediately return a message Monday.

Edwards' case is not unusual, according to a review of six years of Louisiana trial and jury data by The Advocate.

Published in 2018, the newspapers exhaustive research showed that black defendants were 30 percent more likely than white ones to be convicted by split juries, and that black jurors, notably in the Baton Rouge area where Edwards was convicted, were almost three times as likely as white ones to lodge a dissenting vote.

Louisiana was the first state to break from centuries of Anglo-Saxon legal tradition when a group of openly racist delegates at a convention in 1898, during the Jim Crow era, agreed to allow 9-3 felony convictions while also ridding the voter rolls of nearly all blacks.

Oregon followed suit with split verdicts in 1934, the result of a populist revolt after a jury failed to convict a Jewish man of murder in the killing of a Protestant.

Louisiana changed its law in 1973, raising the bar slightly from nine jurors required to convict to 10. The decision came a year after the Supreme Court upheld split juries in cases from Louisiana and Oregon.

In its April 20, ruling, the high court described both of those decisions as mistakes.
Augusta Capital Limited (Augusta) has today announced that it is conducting a fully underwritten $45 million Equity Raise via a placement (Placement) to certain institutional investors, together with a pro-rata accelerated entitlement offer (Entitlement Offer) (together the Equity Raise).

The Placement component of the Equity Raise of approximately $12.4 million will be conducted this morning at a price of $0.55 per share. All shares issued under the Placement are cum-entitlements.

Augusta is pleased to announce that Centuria Capital and Centuria Funds Management (together Centuria) have committed to taking up an initial holding of 15.6% under the Placement. Centuria has also committed to Augusta to fully subscribe for all of its entitlements under the Entitlement Offer, as well as partially sub-underwrite the Entitlement Offer. Centuria is expected to have a minimum shareholding of 19.0% following completion of the institutional component of the Entitlement Offer. Centurias shareholding will not exceed 24.99% of Augustas shares on issue after completion of the Equity Raise (and is in accordance with the COVID-19 Takeovers Code exemption notice and the terms of the consent granted to Augusta under the Overseas Investment Act).

Board Chair, Paul Duffy, said: Augusta is taking decisive action to strengthen its balance sheet by raising $45 million of equity. The proceeds from the Equity Raise will be used to repay debt, restore financial flexibility for future property fund offerings and allow Augusta to defer development activity and retain property assets until market conditions improve. With the financial flexibility provided by the Equity Raise, Augusta will be able to maximise outcomes from the assets on its balance sheet and is ready to access new opportunities as they become available in a post COVID-19 recovery. While we intend this to be sooner rather than later, the Equity Raise provides Augusta with a great deal of flexibility regarding the timing of future offering activity, whilst Augusta continues to manage the existing portfolio over this uncertain period.

Managing Director, Mark Francis said: We are delighted to welcome Centuria to our register as a strategic shareholder following completion of the Equity Raise. Their support in the Equity Raise reinforces the confidence that we as the Board and Management team have in the Augusta business model and investment thesis.

Key Highlights:

- Augusta is conducting a fully underwritten $45 million Equity Raise via a $12.4 million Placement to certain institutional investors, together with a $32.6 million 1 for 1.9 pro-rata accelerated Entitlement Offer. Both the Placement and Entitlement Offer will be undertaken at a fixed offer price of $0.55 per new share. The Equity Raise is supported by Augustas Board, with Managing Director, Mark Francis committing to subscribe for $3 million of new shares, with the balance of the Equity Raise fully underwritten by Forsyth Barr Group Limited and Jarden Partners Limited.

- The Placement will be completed today in which Centuria will take up an initial stake in Augusta of 15.6%. Centuria has committed to fully subscribe for all of its entitlements under the Entitlement Offer, as well as partially sub-underwrite the Entitlement Offer, with Centurias final shareholding not exceeding 24.99% of Augustas shares on issue following completion of the Equity Raise.

- Augustas investment thesis and long-term fundamentals remain strong notwithstanding the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. As at 31 March 2020 Augusta had total assets under management of $1.83 billion.

- The Equity Raise proceeds will be used to repay existing debt facilities, resulting in a pro forma net cash position of $11 million (as at 31 March 2020), restoring financial flexibility and positioning Augusta to take advantage of future fund offering opportunities as market conditions improve.

- In conjunction with the Equity Raise, Augusta has secured a relief package from its existing lender, including a partial covenant waiver to 31 March 2021 (inclusive) and facility extension such that no ongoing facilities will expire in the 2021 financial year1.

- Augusta has also announced a number of proactive cost reduction initiatives to increase financial flexibility, with overheads now expected to be up to 20% less than original targets. All non-essential expenditure and cash outflow has been deferred.

- The Augusta Board believes it is prudent that no Q4 dividend be paid, with future dividends to be determined by the Board having regard to a sustained recovery in profitability.

- As part of Centurias participation in the Equity Raise, a nominee of Centuria will also be appointed as a non-independent director of Augusta with effect from the date of allotment of the Retail Entitlement Offer.

- As a part of the Boards continued focus on cost reduction a decision has been made to reduce the size of the Augusta Capital Board, with Fiona Oliver and Jonathan Ross having now resigned. The Augusta Capital Board would like to thank them both for their hard work and service to the company.

- Bryce Barnett has also decided to resign from the Augusta Capital Board to ensure a majority of the Board remains independent. Bryce will remain as a director of Augusta Funds Management Limited. The Augusta Capital Board would like to thank Bryce for his continued support and service to the company.

Impacts of and Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on Augusta, including two new fund offerings that did not proceed; the Augusta Property Fund and the Augusta Tourism Fund, resulting in additional strain on the Augusta balance sheet and lost offeror and underwriting fees. Near-term operating earnings are now expected to be near breakeven until Augusta can bring new fund offerings to market.

The withdrawal of the Augusta Property Fund (APF) resulted in no fees realised by Augusta from the planned establishment and ongoing management of the fund. Sunk costs incurred by Augusta in preparation for the APF launch are also now unrecoverable. Augusta had previously paid deposits for the two APF seed assets, with the $4.5 million deposit paid on the Albany Lifestyle Centre now unrecoverable. The $2.75 million deposit paid for the Anglesea Medical Centre has not been able to be recycled by Augusta in the timeframe originally planned, with settlement for this asset now deferred to 30 September 2020 (subject to approval by the vendors shareholders).

The planned Augusta Tourism Fund (ATF) did not proceed resulting in no fees realised by Augusta from the planned establishment and ongoing management of the fund. The development assets that were intended to seed the ATF remain on the Augusta groups balance sheet with further development now deferred. Allocation of capital to these development assets has strained the Augusta balance sheet. The Equity Raise provides flexibility to hold these assets on the Augusta balance sheet until market conditions prove conducive to realising value for these assets.

The withdrawal of the Asset Plus capital raise (announced on 10 March 2020) has led to uncertainty regarding potential one-off leasing fees, additional development fees, management fees or investment income to Augusta that would have resulted. Following the withdrawal of the capital raise, Asset Plus experienced material share price decline resulting in a significant reduction in the fair value of Augustas 18.9% shareholding. The Equity Raise

has been sized to provide Augusta the flexibility to participate in any future Asset Plus capital raise, if and when this should arise.

Augusta has undertaken a number of cost reduction initiatives to provide increased financial flexibility throughout this period of increased uncertainty. All non-essential expenditure and cash outflows (including development expenditure) have been deferred, with overheads expected to decrease by up to 20% from original targets. Augusta has implemented a 10% reduction to Director fees and Senior Management salaries, alongside a 10% reduction in other staff salaries or a reduction in hours worked to 80% for 3 months. A material reduction in operating overheads, amounting to approximately $0.7m annually has been made and a New Zealand Government COVID-19 wage subsidy of $0.3m was received in April. The Augusta Board has decided not to pay the Q4 dividend, with future dividends to be determined by the Board having regard to a sustained recovery in profitability.

Augusta is expected to generate an FY20 NPAT loss of approximately $27 million, predominantly due to material write downs to Augustas investment assets. FY20 Adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) is expected to be near breakeven.2 The FY20 financial information provided is unaudited and subject to change ahead of Augusta releasing its final results for the 2020 financial year in the second half of June 2020.

Equity Raise Details

The fully underwritten $45 million Equity Raise comprises a $12.4 million Placement and a $32.6 million pro-rata accelerated Entitlement Offer. Both the Placement and the Entitlement Offer will be undertaken at a fixed price of $0.55 per share, which represents a discount of 31.3% to the last close price of $0.80 per share on Friday, 1 May 2020 and a 19.2% discount to the theoretical ex-rights price (TERP) of $0.683.

The Equity Raise is supported by Augustas Board, with Managing Director, Mark Francis, committing to subscribe for $3 million of new shares, with the balance of the Equity Raise fully underwritten by Forsyth Barr Group Limited and Jarden Partners Limited.

Placement

The fully underwritten Placement will be conducted this morning through a bookbuild in which institutional and other select investors in New Zealand and Australia will be invited to participate. Under the Placement, Centuria will take up an initial stake of 15.6% in Augusta. A trading halt was granted by NZX prior to the market opening yesterday morning.

The Placement will raise gross proceeds of approximately $12.4 million and is underwritten at a fixed price of $0.55 per share. The Placement will comprise the issue of approximately 22.5 million shares which represents 13.1% of Augustas shares on issue following the completion of the Entitlement Offer.

Settlement of the Placement is scheduled to take place later today (Tuesday, 5 May 2020) for Centuria, and Thursday, 7 May 2020 for other participating institutions, with commencement of trading of new shares on the NZX

taking place shortly after on the same respective days (subject to the trading halt being lifted for the commencement of trading of new shares issued to Centuria). All new shares issued under the Placement are cum-entitlements.

Entitlement Offer

The fully underwritten 1 for 1.9 Entitlement Offer will raise a total of approximately $32.6 million at an application price of $0.55 per share. The Entitlement Offer comprises the issue of approximately 59.2 million shares which represents 34.5% of Augustas shares on issue following the completion of the Entitlement Offer.

The Entitlement Offer will be conducted in two parts, a component to institutional investors (Institutional Entitlement Offer) and a component to retail shareholders (Retail Entitlement Offer). The Entitlement Offer is non-renounceable, and entitlements will not be tradeable or otherwise transferrable.

Eligible shareholders under the Institutional Entitlement Offer include sophisticated, professional and other institutional shareholders located in New Zealand, Australia and select international jurisdictions as at 5.00pm (NZST) on the Record Date of Thursday, 7 May 2020 (Record Date). The Institutional Entitlement Offer will be accelerated and will close on Tuesday, 5 May 2020 for institutions in New Zealand, Australia and Asia, and Wednesday, 6 May 2020 for the rest of the world.

The Retail Entitlement Offer will be offered to eligible retail shareholders with a registered address in New Zealand as at 5.00pm (NZST) on the Record Date. The Retail Entitlement Offer will open on Friday, 8 May 2020, and close on Tuesday, 19 May 2020 (unless extended). If a retail shareholder does not take up all of its entitlements, its current shareholding will be diluted as a result of the issue of new shares. Retail shareholders who take up 100% of their entitlements in the Equity Raise will be diluted by approximately 20%. The Retail Offer Document, containing full details of the Entitlement Offer, will be sent to Eligible Retail Shareholders on Friday, 8 May 2020.

The rights will not be listed on NZX and there will be no shortfall bookbuild for those entitlements not taken up. Those shareholders who do not exercise their entitlements, or who are ineligible to do so, will have their shareholdings diluted.

Retail shareholders are strongly encouraged to complete applications online given the likelihood of delays with the postal system at this time. Those that do apply for shares by postal applications are strongly encouraged to mail their applications as early as possible during the offer period.

Source: Augusta Capital Limited

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

19th January 2022 Morning Report

PaySauce Limited (NZX: PYS) Quarterly Market Update Dec 2021

FTX announced as naming rights sponsor of Australian Blockchain Week 2022

18th January 2022 Morning Report

17th January 2022 Morning Report

Mosaic lands leading corporate trust expert as new partner

14th January 2022 Morning Report

13th January 2022 Morning Report

Pictor's completes successful US clinical trials for unique COVID antibody testing

12th January 2022 Morning Report


WASHINGTON, D.C. - Although recent polls indicate Ohio Gov. Mike DeWines response to the coronavirus pandemic has strong approval in Ohio and throughout the country, a new report from several organizations pushing for more rapid business reopenings around the country gives him a C.

The scorecard released Monday by FreedomWorks and the Committee To Unleash Prosperity awards "A" grades to the governors of Florida, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming, who it says are already moving to restore freedom and opportunity, and trusting individuals to follow best practices or isolate themselves based on their own risk assessments.

The report predicts that millions more Americans will be pushed into unemployment lines, impoverished and forever lose their businesses if restrictions continue, that state and local governments will have to drastically reduce services because of money shortages, and that social pathologies like suicides, depression, stress, drug overdoses, heart attacks, and spousal and child abuse will soar. It gives "F"s to the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, for continuing to arbitrarily ban activities without respect to any sensible risk versus benefit calculation," therefore risking catastrophic economic collapse.

DeWine earned a "C" after extending some of the states stay-at-home measures until May 29. He allowed nonessential medical procedures at hospitals that do not require an overnight stay to resume on Friday, along with dental and veterinary visits. Construction, manufacturing, office and distribution operations are allowed to reopen today, and nonessential retail stores will be allowed to reopen on May 12. Masks are required for employees at businesses, aside from a list of exceptions. A spokesman for DeWine declined comment on the report.

A nationwide poll released last week by Harvard, Rutgers and Northeastern universities showed DeWines coronavirus response had the highest home-state approval of any governor in the nation: 83 percent. Governors of the states who got the new scorecards highest ratings had far worse in-state approval ratings of their coronavirus performance in last weeks poll, ranging from 49 percent for South Dakotas governor to 66 percent for Colorados.

FreedomWorks, a Tea Party group that has urged Republicans in the House of Representatives to make Champaign County GOP Rep. Jim Jordan their leader and has tapped its network to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals to urge reopening, released the report with the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a group co-founded by Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who is a member of President Donald Trumps council to reopen the country.

The states with governors who are opening up their economies now - quickly and safely - are going to have much swifter economic recoveries and less poverty than governors in the Northeast and Midwest with plans to keep their businesses and public places shutdown for many more weeks to come, said a statement from Moore.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who was criticized by people including Trump after he opened gyms, tattoo shops, hair salons and restaurants in his state ahead of the rest of the country, pushed back during an online press conference with Moore, denying that hes put business interests ahead of saving lives.

All the decisions that we have made have been for our citizens safety and public health, said Kemp. "Were getting to the point in our country where the ill effects of people being out of work and people being on the verge of losing their business, losing their home, you know, its hard to shelter in place if you dont have a place to shelter. And that is whats happening in America right now.

Other governors also pushed back when asked about the political considerations behind their decisions.

Theres nothing political about what were dealing with with the coronavirus, said Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. This is about the lives and livelihoods of Iowans and Americans. And thats why every decision that Ive made has been based on data provided to me by a team of experts.

More coverage:

Groups pushing to reopen after coronavirus give Gov. Mike DeWines efforts a C

Sen. Sherrod Brown wants child care bailout in next coronavirus bill

Sen. Rob Portman asks Treasury Department to make coronavirus loans available to small business owners with criminal records

Ford Motor Company will require that workers wear face masks and have their temperatures taken when it reopens U.S. plants

Coronavirus drains Ohio municipal treasuries; Mayors seek federal aid to avoid cuts

Christina Hagan on track to challenge Rep. Tim Ryan: See who won Ohios congressional primaries

Ohios plan to reopen after coronavirus is more cautious than many other states

NASA Glenn is helping local company develop a fogging system to decontaminate rooms and ambulances for coronavirus

House approves refill of coronavirus aid fund and backs panel to oversee coronavirus spending

Rep. Jim Jordan, refusing to wear mask at contentious hearing, calls proposed coronavirus oversight subcommittee a Democratic plot to attack Trump

Q & A: CEO of Clevelands U.S. Cotton explains why regular Q-tips wont work for coronavirus testing

Cleveland company approved to make swabs for coronavirus testing

Senate approves deal on extra coronavirus funding for small businesses and hospitals

Whats in President Trumps three-phase plan for reopening the country, and will it work for Ohio?
Fabi Preslar, founder and president of SPARK Publications This recognition places me in a league of women who are on the leading edge of redefining how we consume information. Its a validation of the passion Ive devoted to my career while building SPARK Publications, and it serves as an inspiring call-to-action for me to continue to evolve and innovate.

Fabi Preslar, founder and president of SPARK Publications, is set to be honored among the publishing industrys most brilliant minds at the 2020 Folio: Top Women in Media awards. The 2020 class is scheduled to receive their awards at a luncheon on September 9, 2020, in New York, N.Y. Preslars honoree peers are distinguished women from Meredith Corporation, Hearst, Bloomberg and other major media organizations.

Preslar is recognized among media industry executives and entrepreneurs who have launched or rebuilt brands or companies and continue to work tirelessly toward their success. The vision for her firm is rooted in everyday resilience and making a difference. Although SPARK Publications is small, the business savvy and industry knowledge Preslar consistently develops places her at the top of her industry.

This is powerful recognition, said Preslar. Folio: is a key resource for my company and our magazine clients. This recognition places me in a league of women who are on the leading edge of redefining how we consume information. Its a validation of the passion Ive devoted to my career while building SPARK Publications, and it serves as an inspiring call-to-action for me to continue to evolve and innovate.

Folio: is more than a media company. It has created a sense of community in the form of news, insights and events that help publishers generate revenue and increase audience engagement. For more information about this years honorees and the company, visit foliotopwomen.com.

About SPARK Publications

SPARK Publications is an award-winning and creative, independent publishing firm. The firm specializes in designing and producing beautiful, effective print and interactive publications (e.g. magazines, books and catalogs). Launched more than 20 years ago in Charlotte, North Carolina by Fabi Preslar, SPARK Publications serves clients in a variety of sectors across the U.S., including entrepreneurial, association, trade and niche markets. The firms accomplished team is consistently recognized for their creative talent, which includes earning more than 200 industry awards. For more information, visit SPARKpublications.com.
Ukraine has made progress in policy coordination, introduction of digital technologies in public administration and ministries reform, but European experts are ready to continue to help to make quality changes in the field.

This was discussed during the EU-Ukraine political dialogue, the press service of the Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine informs.

"European experts emphasized the importance of public administration reform in Ukraine, expressed their readiness to continue supporting it at the expert, technical, and financial level, as well as to provide expert assistance during the discussion of draft laws in Verkhovna Radas relevant committee," the statement reads.

As a result of the meeting, the parties agreed to work towards drafting amendments to the Law of Ukraine On Civil Service, especially with regard to enhancing the stability of the civil service, improving the competitive procedure, reforming remuneration, introducing job classification, enhancing the ability of the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service to protect civil servants' rights and introducing modern personnel management tools.

The experts also intend to submit to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and accompany a bill on administrative procedure that will help to establish more predictable and fair rules of interaction of citizens and business with the state.

As noted, the Ukrainian and European sides agreed on a procedure for preparing government decisions in accordance with the recommendations of the SIGMA Program, in particular regarding strategic planning and implementation of the Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS) in pilot agencies.

In addition, the experts intend to continue to simplify and digitize public services.

ol
Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking enhancement of daily viral testing capacity at the six premier research institutions located in the state and Chandigarh to 2,000 tests.

In a letter, Amarinder on Monday requested the PM to issue directives to the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, IMTECH-CSIR, Chandigarh, Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER), Mohali, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research (NIPER), Mohali, National Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, Mohali and the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, to scale up their testing capacity to assist the state government in its response to Covid-19.

The state government was making all possible efforts to contain the pandemic following the guidelines issued by the Centre, he said.

In the letter, Amarinder said the state government had already requested these institutions to do the needful.
WASHINGTON  Countries hoping to use GPS to track the location of residents to let them know if theyve had contact with someone infected by the coronavirus wont be able to use the new tool being developed by Google and Apple.

The U.S. tech giants shared more details Monday about the technological tools theyve been developing to help governments and public health authorities trace the spread of the coronavirus and notify citizens about exposure, including a set of privacy requirements for use of those tools.

Google and Apple wont be creating the tracing apps themselves. Instead, theyll be offering an application programming interface (API), or programming of technical functions, that will help app developers working with public health authorities and governments create the apps. Developers who adopt Google and Apples model will be able to bypass previous technical hurdles through the API, which will use Bluetooth technology to record contact between users and anonymously notify them when theyve been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

Apple/Google

According to Google and Apples requirements, the apps must be created by or for a government or public health agency and will be able to utilize the companies API only if they dont track users with location information or GPS. Additionally, the apps must seek users permission to notify them of possible exposures and before someone reports a positive diagnosis to be broadcast to other users.

Finally, the data cannot be used for advertising purposes and the functionality will be removed by region as the emergency subsides, according to company representatives speaking on a press call Monday morning.

Countries that do want to use location data to track citizens or want to use a different model to trace contacts will still be able to do so, and those applications will still be available in the Google and Apple app stores, the representatives explained. However, if they want to adopt Google and Apples technology, location services are forbidden. Part of the reason for that rule is to protect privacy, said the representatives, but the companies also believe that GPS is not nearly precise enough to pinpoint when two people have been in close contact for an extended period of time, particularly when they are both inside.

Story continues

Instead, apps using Bluetooth technology will allow users in close contact for more than five minutes to exchange anonymous beacons with each other. If someone later logs a positive diagnosis, users in the area will routinely receive a list of those positive identifiers, which will be matched against the people theyve been in contact with. If there is a match and someone has been exposed to a potentially infectious person, the government or public health agency will be able to provide information to users of the app about how to proceed, through potential self-isolation or by getting a test if one is available, for example.

The data is never stored centrally, further protecting privacy.

Apple/Google

While governments are free to pursue their own routes free of the tech companies help, some have already tried to use different options and have run up against barriers. The French government has sought the ability to use Bluetooth technology to track contacts, but it wants to send all that information to a central repository where the government would have complete information about individual users networks, instead of storing the information locally on devices. A group of cryptographers calling themselves the DP-3T Project have argued strongly against that model, worrying that the central database would be useful in social mapping and would put privacy at risk.

Singapores application, TraceTogether, was one of the first to be deployed and allowed for both decentralized storage and sending data to a central location. The app had trouble functioning because Apple currently doesnt allow its operating system to continuously siphon Bluetooth data from locked phones due to the privacy concern. With the new API, if applications follow the model Apple and Google recommend, those technical hurdles would be resolved.

Apple/Google

In the future, Google and Apple are also working on ways they might be able to build the contact tracing functionality into the operating system so that users wouldnt even have to download the app.

(Thumbnail Photo: Rob Kim/Getty Images)

_____

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:
T here are "questions to be asked" about where coronavirus came from, Boris Johnson's spokesperson has said.

The Government spokesperson told reporters on Wednesday that an investigation would be needed to help stop further similar outbreaks.

Their comments came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there is "a significant amount of evidence" that the virus "came from that laboratory in Wuhan".

And President Donald Trump claimed to have seen evidence from US intelligence agencies that the virus was created in a Chinese laboratory and was created by mistake.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo / POOL/AFP via Getty Images

But the No. 10 spokesperson added that they would not comment on intelligence matters.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace also said that he would not comment on the US allegations - adding that an investigation now would be too soon.

He told the BBC's Today programme; I think the time for post-mortem into this global pandemic viral spread is for once we all have as much data as possible, the testing around the world produces solid and realistic results about who is infected, how it acts with different people, and also when theres potentially a vaccine in place....

By me speculating or talking about what I think about China or anyone else isnt going to help the fight against coronavirus in the UK right now."

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace / REUTERS

Mr Wallace also said that the slow global response to the virus had caused deaths.

He told the LBC radio station: It came from the other side of the world and all of us have been learning on the job and I think if wed known from the outset more about the virus, of course more lives could have been saved.

But I dont think its a country-by-country problem, I think it is a massive problem around how we share intelligence on viruses and learning at pace. 

Mr Wallace's comments come after fellow Cabinet minister Grant Shapps said that more coronavirus testing in the UK early on could have saved lives.

Shapps: more testing would have meant fewer deaths

Asked whether fewer people would have died if testing capacity had been greater sooner, the Transport Secretary told the BBC's Andrew Marr show: "Yes.

"If we had had 100,000 test capacity before this thing started and the knowledge that we now have retrospectively I'm sure many things could have been different."

The origin of coronavirus is still not entirely certain. The Chinese Government account is that it transferred from animals to humans in a "wet market" - a market where live animals are sold - in the city of Wuhan.

But a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that only 45 per cent of the first 425 patients had links to the market.

The majority of scientists who study the virus have rejected the idea that the virus was created in a lab as a "bioweapon".

James Le Duc, the head of the Galveston National Laboratory in the US, told the Guardian: There is convincing evidence that the new virus was not the result of intentional genetic engineering and that it almost certainly originated from nature, given its high similarity to other known bat-associated coronaviruses,
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- In northern Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, microorganisms are able to eke out an existence by extracting water from the rocks they colonize.

An Army-funded project by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, Johns Hopkins University and University of California, Riverside gained an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms by which some cyanobacteria, an ancient group of photosynthetic microbes, survive in harsh environments.

The new insights, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate how life can flourish in places without much water in evidence - including Mars - and how people living in arid regions may someday be able to procure hydration from available minerals.

"The Army has a strong interest in how microorganisms well-adapted to extreme environments can be exploited for novel applications such as material synthesis and power generation within these harsh fielded environments," said Dr. Robert Kokoska, program manager, Army Research Office, an element of U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "This study provides valuable clues for uncovering the evolved design strategies used by these native desert-dwelling microbes to maintain their viability in the face of multiple environmental challenges."

Through work in the field and laboratory experiments, the research team focused on the interactions of Chroococcidiospsis, a desiccation-resistant species of cyanobacteria that is found in deserts around the world, and gypsum, a water containing calcium sulfate-based mineral. The colonizing lifeforms exist beneath a thin layer of rock that gives them a measure of protection against the Atacama's extreme temperature, high solar irradiance and battering winds.

Co-author Jocelyne DiRuggiero, JHU associate professor of biology, traveled to the remote desert to collect gypsum samples and brought them back to her labs in the United States. She cut small pieces, where microorganisms could be found, and sent them to UCI for materials analysis.

In one of the most striking findings of the study, the researchers learned that the microorganisms change the very nature of the rock they occupy. By extracting water, they cause a phase transformation of the material - from gypsum to anhydrite, a dehydrated mineral.

According to DiRuggiero, the impetus for the published work came when Wei Huang, a UCI post-doctoral scholar in materials science & engineering, spotted data showing an overlap in concentrations of anhydrite and cyanobacteria in the gypsum samples collected in the Atacama.

"Our analysis of the regions of rock where microbes were colonized revealed a dehydrated phase of calcium sulfate, suggesting that they extract water from the rock to survive," said David Kisailus, lead author and UCI professor of materials science & engineering. "We wanted to do some more controlled experiments to validate that hypothesis."

DiRuggiero's team then allowed the organisms to colonize half-millimeter cubes of rocks, called coupons, under two different conditions, one in the presence of water, to mimic a high-humidity environment, and the other completely dry. In the midst of moisture, the gypsum did not transform to the anhydrite phase.

"They didn't need water from the rock, they got it from their surroundings," Kisailus said. "But when they were put under stressed conditions, the microbes had no alternative but to extract water from the gypsum, inducing this phase transformation in the material."

Kisailus' team used a combination of advanced microscopy and spectroscopy to examine the interactions between the biological and geological counterparts, finding that the organisms bore into the material like tiny miners by excreting a biofilm containing organic acids, Kisailus said.

Huang used a modified electron microscope equipped with a Raman spectrometer to discover that the organisms used the acid to penetrate the rock in specific crystallographic directions - only along certain planes where they could more easily access water existing between faces of calcium and sulfate ions.

Kisailus said the project was a great demonstration of interdisciplinary research between microbiologists and materials scientists that may, one day, open doors to other forms of scientific discovery.

"Scientists have suspected for a long time that microorganisms might be able to extract water from minerals, but this is the first demonstration of it," DiRuggiero said. "This is an amazing survival strategy for microorganisms living at the dry limit for life, and it provides constraints to guide our search for life elsewhere."

Researchers said this study can benefit the Army Research Lab's efforts in synthetic biology.

"These findings have drawn the interest of our lab as microbial survival mechanisms can be leveraged for biomanufacturing or sensing platforms in harsh military environments," said Dr. Matthew Perisin of the lab's biotechnology branch.

###

In addition to the Army, NASA also provided funding for this project.

CCDC Army Research Laboratory is an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. As the Army's corporate research laboratory, ARL discovers, innovates and transitions science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power. Through collaboration across the command's core technical competencies, CCDC leads in the discovery, development and delivery of the technology-based capabilities required to make Soldiers more lethal to win the nation's wars and come home safely. CCDC is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Futures Command.
She got engaged to the love of her life two years ago.

And Misse Beqiri posted pictures from the magical night her 'soulmate and best friend, former TOWIE star, Jake Hall, 26, proposed to her on Instagram on Sunday.

The Real Housewives of Cheshire star, 33, uploaded the romantic snaps to her 238,000 followers and wrote: 'Two years ago the love of my life asked me to marry him.

I do: Misse Beqiri shared pictures from fiance Jake Hall's proposal in Mauritius two years ago on Instagram on Sunday

'I love you and I cant wait to marry you next year, youve been my rock and my best friend since day one.

'Thru ups and downs Love always came first and I will love you forever ever. My soulmate. Some memories.'

One magical picture revealed how Jake wrote 'Marry me,' in the sand on a beach in Mauritius at night.

Romantic memories: The Real Housewives of Cheshire star, 33, uploaded the romantic snaps to her 238,000 Instagram followers

Love: She accompanied the snaps with this moving post about Jake

Another showed Misse frolicking in a white satin dress with her husband-to-be.

The couple are parents to 17-month-old daughter River and Misse is also a mum to son Julian from a previous relationship.

Jake also proposed to Misse for a second time over Christmas after her brother Flamur was murdered on Christmas Eve, signifying how important family is to them.

A source told MailOnline: The re-proposal signifies a new chapter for them as a family.

The mother-of-two has been using social media in lockdown to document her exercise regime on social media.

Misse has joined most of the United Kingdom in lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, but revealed last month that is currently separated from her son Julian as he remains in Denmark due to the coronavirus restrictions.

The star said: 'It just hit me all of a sudden whats going on... Were taking it really seriously and were staying home and were trying to help everyone that we can help.

Hard: Last month Misse revealed she was currently separated from her son Julian as he remains in Denmark due to restrictions surrounding the coronavirus

'But I just feel like I wish I could do more. My mum is locked in Sweden, I cant help her. My son is locked in Denmark, I cant see him. So I just feel a bit s**t, to be honest

'After everything Ive been through, I feel like Im trying to keep positive and spread positive energy to everyone.'

At the start of the video, the reality star revealed that she was trying to lift her own spirits by pampering herself.

Doting mother: The reality star is pictured with her son Julian, five, and daughter River, two

She said: 'So you guys must think its weird that Ive put makeup on. I just that I need to make a little bit of effort for myself.

'I know that I should take this time and enjoy myself and chill and I love that. Id love to spend more time with River, but I cant help myself to boost myself a little bit, if that makes any sense...'

Thanking her followers for their support, she vowed to share more content in the coming days as she continues to spend time in isolation.
Frederick Johnson, Captain, United States Air Force  or Eric Johnson 20L, as his Emory family knows him  will walk out of Emory Law with his juris doctor with high honors and march into a unique career as a judge advocate. His first assignment is at the legal office at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There, he will join the ranks of the Judge Advocate Generals (JAG) Corps, where every skill hes learned in law school will be put to the test.

As a JAG, Johnsons legal career will span skillsets, giving him the opportunity to prosecute cases under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, provide legal assistance for airmen, advise leaders on legal matters, and more. The Air Force emphasizes that they want their attorneys to be generalists, he says. The possibilities are almost endless for the different types of law Ill have a chance to touch.

After earning his undergraduate degree in political science and masters in public administration from the University of Georgia, and participating in the ROTC, Johnson decided to explore the world: Join the Air Force, his Army Reservist dad recommended. They take good care of their people. He readily admits that his dad was right.

After entering active duty, Johnson trained in Texas and Nebraska before spending the next three years stationed at Royal Air Force Mildenhall in the United Kingdom. While overseas, he deployed to other locations in the European theater and the Middle East. After returning to the states, he served about eight months at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, before he was accepted to the law school as a Robert W. Woodruff Fellow.

Johnsons experiences at Emory Law include participating in the exchange program for Emorys International Humanitarian Law Clinic (IHLC).

Eric is an absolutely outstanding young man and it has truly been a pleasure to get to know him over the past three years, says Laurie Blank, director of the IHLC and the Center for International and Comparative Law. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Eric when he was a student in the International Humanitarian Law Clinic  in addition to his dedication and enthusiasm for his work, what really struck me was how he always thinks at least two or three issues ahead in his research and analysis, a key trait for excellent lawyering.

Johnson feels likewise. Professor Blanks program is, I think, one of the best in the world if you want to study law of armed conflict and similar issues of international law, he says. Through the IHLC exchange program, I got to meet students studying the same subjects but with different approaches  from the Netherlands to Italy to Israel.

Were in this together

His most unforgettable moment at Emory Law was during his first year, when Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor visited. The opportunity to hear a Supreme Court Justice in person is, in itself, an amazing opportunity, but the way she came out in the audience ... listened to people, and answered their questions about the diversity of ideas and legal approaches was insightful, he recalls.

He counts being dubbed a Pinder Kid by Assistant Professor of Practice Kamina A. Pinder among his top experiences, as well. Everyone has a special connection with writing professors, because we have them all year, and were in smaller classes and get to know them better, he explains. But Kamina Pinder takes it to a different level. The whole time youre in law school she supports you.

That kind of support propels Johnson, as does the support of his parents  notably his father, who is also an attorney. He also leans on his girlfriend, who he met at law school, and his longtime friends from the Atlanta area, especially now, as he closes out his time at Emory in an unconventional way.

In the midst of this difficulty, everything I already thought our community had to offer, Ive seen manifest tenfold as weve transitioned to virtual classes, he says. Its not ideal, and the transition has been difficult, but the professors have been really accommodating and supportive of the students as they adapt  and the students have been accommodating to the professors as they learn to teach in this new environment. Everyone seems to recognize that were in this together. Were going to get through this, do the best we can and come out of it with a high-quality education.

For Johnson, that education will likely take him around the world again  this time with a whole new point of view.
A 31-year-old man allegedly murdered his wife and son over a domestic dispute at their home in Hanoi on Saturday morning.

The incident occurred in Buoi Ward, Tay Ho District in the Vietnamese capital, a ward leader confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Sunday.

The alleged murderer is Quach Van Nam, 31, who lives with his wife Duong Khac H., 21, and their two-year-old son Quach Phu T. on Thuy Khue Street.

At around 9:00 am on Saturday, Nam stabbed H. and T. with a knife multiple times following an argument with the wife, according to local authorities.

His wife and son were pronounced dead on the scene.

Nams mother N., who lives in the same house, told Giao Thong (Traffic) newspaper she went to the market that morning and came back home to see her son stumbling out of the house and admitting to having killed his wife and son.

The man then turned himself in to local police, the mother said.

According to their neighbors, Nam was N.s only son and got married two years ago.

His family lived on the second floor of the three-story house on Thuy Khuy Street, owned by Nams 90-year-old grandmother, while the first floor is rented out.

A neighbor told Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper that the married couple had quarreled all the time.

I thought they were having a row with each other as usual [on Saturday morning]. I did not expect Nam to kill his wife and son, the neighbor was quoted as saying.

According to police in Buoi Ward, Nam has a criminal record. He has been arrested for the alleged murder of his wife and son.

Murdering two people is punishable by 12 to 20 years in prison, a life sentence, or the capital punishment, according to Vietnams 2015 Penal Code.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
TAMPA, Fla., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The numbers are staggering. As the unemployment rate soars due to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn, and workers lose their employer-sponsored health insurance, experts predict that enrollment in Medicaid could increase dramatically. Some estimates range from 11 to 23 million new enrollees in Medicaid over the next several months.1 As Medicaid managed care organizations face significant increases in membership, additional resources will be needed to serve these individuals and families. In light of this, Toney HealthCare Consulting (THCC), a leading advisory firm for health plans and other risk-bearing entities, is providing expertise and clinical support for these organizations.

With a team of over 250 experts and experienced clinicians, THCC rapidly deploys to health plans across the country on an interim basis or for longer periods of time. As health plans experience sudden increases in their member rolls, they may find themselves shorthanded in the doctors, nurses and other clinicians who help individuals with care authorizations, coordination of care across providers, and assistance in navigating the healthcare system. THCC's clinical resources include medical doctors and nurses as well as psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses and other behavioral health clinicians, such as clinical social workers and therapists. In a time when social isolation and mental and emotional well-being are critical health factors, Toney HealthCare can support health plan members' physical and behavioral health needs.

While supporting the needs of health plan members, THCC advisors provide leadership and guidance on best practices in clinical operations, quality and regulatory compliance, and help health plans determine the best course of action to serve their members during these challenging times.

"We have been partnering with health plans for over twelve years and stand ready to support them and their members now for as long or short as needed," said Sam Toney, M.D., CEO of Toney HealthCare. "Having served extensively in managed care organizations, our team has an in-depth understanding of how these plans work, especially Medicaid plans. In areas where it is particularly difficult to find, hire and onboard staff, we can quickly plug in with appropriately licensed clinicians and expert advisors to provide leadership and front-line operations to serve individuals and families covered by the health plan."

THCC's Interim Staffing is a short-term solution to provide leadership, management and operational support of essential health plan functions such as Utilization Management, Case Management, Quality Assurance, Accreditation, Compliance and C-suite level leadership. THCC professionals may be deployed individually or as teams to fill specific gaps in a health plan's operations.

In contrast, THCC's Insource Partnership is a long-term solution for health plans that need a full team to assume responsibility for a specific healthcare service, such as Case Management for a Medicaid expansion. An expert THCC unit rapidly deploys and operates within the policies, procedures and systems of the health plan for an extended period.

THCC tailors solutions to the needs of each health plan and, in addition to Medicaid, also serves Medicare Advantage and Commercial populations.

About Toney HealthCare Consulting

Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, Toney HealthCare Consulting (THCC) provides advisory services, hands-on leadership and experts in clinical operations, quality, regulatory and compliance, and accreditation for health plans and other risk-bearing organizations nationwide. Our team consists of over 250 subject matter experts, experienced clinicians and administrative professionals across the spectrum of healthcare services. THCC has been a trusted advisor delivering customized solutions to clients since its founding in 2008. For more information, visit www.toneyhealthcare.com.

Media Contact:

Mike Miniati

Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing

Toney HealthCare Consulting

813.777.6552

[email protected]

www.toneyhealthcare.com

1 https://www.healthmanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/HMA-Estimates-of-COVID-Impact-on-Coverage-public-version-for-April-3-830-CT.pdf

SOURCE Toney HealthCare Consulting

Related Links

http://www.toneyhealthcare.com


A former Tibetan political prisoner has died after suffering years of poor health following his release from a prison term served for challenging Chinese rule in Tibetan areas, Tibetan sources say.



Tsering Bakdro, 51, died on April 26 at his home in Maldro Gongkar (in Chinese, Mozhugongka) county in the Tibet Autonomous Regions Lhasa municipality, a local source told RFAs Tibetan Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.



His untimely death is certainly related to the physical torture and suffering he endured while he was in prison, RFAs source said.



A former monk in Tibets Ganden monastery, Bakdro was arrested in 1992 after launching a protest on June 10 with several others in Tibets regional capital Lhasa in which they called for independence for Tibet and carried the banned Tibetan national flag, the source said.



Local Public Security Bureau officers immediately took them into custody, beating them and dragging them away, the source said, adding that the men were taken first to the Gutsa detention center in Lhasa.



After being sentenced by the Lhasa Peoples Intermediate Court to an eight-year prison term, followed by a deprivation of political rights for a further two years, Bakdro was transferred in November 1992 to Lhasas notorious Drapchi Prison, the source said.



During his time in prison, he experienced physical torture and psychological trauma like the other political prisoners held there, and he was finally released in June 2000 after serving his full term, he said.



He was not really free even after his release, though, the source said. Like other former political prisoners, he lived under constant surveillance by the Chinese authorities, and his movements, activities, and speech were restricted.



Also speaking to RFA, a former Tibetan political prisoner confirmed accounts of the harsh conditions endured by Tibetans arrested for challenging Beijings rule.



Living conditions in the Chinese prisons are extremely poor, the source said, also speaking on condition his name not be used.



Especially while inmates are being pressed to confess under questioning, interrogators use extreme violence against them that is beyond anyones imagining, he said.



Reported by Lhuboom for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.
The Covid-19 pandemic, in certain ways, is altering the world view of people, societies and even countries. India is no exception. The extended lockdown has focused attention on certain invisibles of Indian society and economy viz. the plight of migrant labour whether working in the agriculture fields of Punjab and Haryana, the multi-billion dollar gem & jewellery industry of Surat, textile mills and chemical industries in Gujarat and Maharashtra or the ubiquitous informal sector of service sector in the metros  as labour in grain and farm mandis, plying rickshaws and push carts, loading and unloading trucks etc.

First, we had the spectacle of lakhs of men with their families hitting the road on foot when the lockdown was announced. This was followed by hasty arrangements made by state governments to arrange for their boarding and lodging in school buildings, shelter homes etc.

Still with no work, no money, the initial enthusiasm of donors and state agencies to feed them twice daily waning, the migrant workers are on their way back to their villages in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal among others. Thankfully, state governments have now come forward and the railways have agreed to run Shramik Specials to ferry them back to their states and villages even while maintaining the prescribed physical distance and hygiene during the journey.

It is interesting to note media reports that chief ministers of Karnataka, Telangana and Haryana have appealed to the migrant labourers not to go back to their villages especially when lockdown is being slowly eased and economic activity is set to resume. There were also reports in the media that if labour did not return, some labour-intensive industries would be forced to shift operations closer to places where these labourers stay provided the state government concerned provides suitable support. Of course, export oriented units could not relocate as distance from the ports would add to their costs and make their products non-competitive in the world market.

So what do these seemingly unconnected responses to the issue of migrant labour indicate? First, the fact that these invisible migrant labour are necessary to keep the wheels of our cities and industry moving. Not only manufacturing activity but also the service sector could be severely impacted if the workforce doesnt return. Sectors affected could range from cleaning of drains before the monsoons, sewerage and sanitation work in the towns, services ranging from those provided by semi-skilled to skilled labour i.e. washermen and ubiquitous press men outside or inside all colonies and gated communities, household helps, construction workers, electricians, plumbers, painters, vegetable and fruit vendors, rag pickers etc. Life without them suddenly begins to look more difficult for the average city dweller.

But what have the employers, local bodies or state governments done or given to them to ensure that they stay back? Precious little. These migrant labourers work in the paddy fields undertaking back breaking transplantation of paddy from nurseries to the field at an estimated cost of Rs 2,500 per acre while local workers charge Rs 4,500 per acre. But arrangements for their boarding and lodging are pretty rudimentary, if at all provided by the farmers. In cities where they stay, what they eat, how they commute is not the concern of the employer. The employer demands punctuality, regularity, cleanliness before these people can enter their houses or establishments. The wages paid to them would also be what these labourers are able to negotiate with their employer which is inversely proportional to their desperation for a job.

Now, all that is in the past. What do we do now? How can cities win their trust and get them back? In my view, certain things need to be done urgently. First, identify the areas where these labourers stay, their workplace and locate suitable places where decent accommodation can be built for them. These could be multi-storeyed flats of various dimensions  one-room units with an attached kitchen and bathroom to two-room units with all basic amenities that could be rented out to them at Rs. 500 to Rs 1,000 per month for one-room unit to Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 per month for two-room units with all necessary infrastructure like education, health facility, fair price shops etc. The average distance of these locations from their workplace should not be more than 2 to 3 kms .

It should be the responsibility of the state or local body to provide land for this purpose and the cost of housing units should be shared by the state government, local body, trader and industry associations. Only when society, employers, local bodies and state governments show through concrete action that they care, are ready to look after their well being and recognise their role as a stakeholder in development and prosperity of city and state, that this issue will be truly resolved and vibrancy and cohesiveness of society guaranteed. Future lies in acting as we rather than me.

(VS Pandey is a former IAS officer. He retired as secretary, department of fertilisers in the Government of India)
A Dail Covid-19 committee is close to being finalised but the government is trying to ensure that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Health Minister Simon Harris are excluded from being quizzed by TDs.

The Irish Examiner understands that the setting up of the new body to assess the fight against the virus and any problems will be discussed later this week when the Dail meets for two days.

In a letter to Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail, Labour Party whip Duncan Smith said Covid-19 committee meetings could be held online or virtually.

Labour said it has received legal advice saying this would not preclude any privilege for TDs with hearings.

There is no connection between Leinster House and parliamentary privilege...It has not been suggested that if the Dail does move to the Convention Centre to nominate a Taoiseach that parliamentary privilege would not attach to that sitting, Mr Smith wrote.

Labour also disagrees with demands by other parties that the new committees agenda be dictated by the Dail business committee and in advance.

Furthermore, Labour is pushing back against efforts to exclude senior government members from questioning.

The proposal that the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health should be excluded from the remit of the Committee is completely unacceptable to us. A committee established on that basis would not be worth joining.

We completely understand and accept that Ministers and officials are very busy. In a parliamentary democracy, it is precisely because they are busy that they must give an account of their activities.

"The fact that the Government is acting in a caretaker capacity makes interaction with, and securing support from, the Dail all the more urgent, so as to confer democratic legitimacy on decisions taken during this public health crisis, Mr Smith added.

It is understood that the Greens, Sinn Fein, Solidarity-People Before Profit and the Social Democrats all want the Taoiseach and Minister for Health to attend committee hearings.

Fianna Fail is more reluctant and senior party sources also suggest that any Covid-19 committee could be scrapped in a few weeks or next month if and when government formation talks come to a successful conclusion and a deal is done.

This would see a full schedule of new committees agreed, including ones covering health and the current virus crisis.

If a government is formed, the committee would be defunct as other committees will take over, said a Fianna Fail source.

Parties are set to make decisions on the Covid-19 committee when the Dail business committee meets on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Dail will meet on Wednesday and Thursday this week where more questions will be asked about the response by health authorities and the caretaker government to the pandemic.

It is also expected that final agreement will be reached on restarting the written parliamentary question system, which stopped when the virus crisis began and was replaced by what Dail sources say was a "bureaucratic nightmare" of a system.

Instead, TDs will see a backlog of questions on everything from the economy, to the virus and to local concerns now answered in written form once again.
A burned-out star, called a white dwarf, is the white dot in the center in this Hubble Space Telescope image (HST)

It might not seem the likeliest place to find aliens, but astronomers will soon hunt life on planets orbiting the remains of dead stars, using chemical signatures.

Cornell University researchers said that a spectral fingerprint of chemicals on these planets could show that life exists, even on worlds orbiting white dwarf stars not much bigger than Earth.

White dwarfs are the burnt-out remnants of stars, and are dim and ultra-dense, with a mass similar to our Suns, but crammed into a planet-sized object.

Scientists believe that planets orbiting the dead stars could be at the right temperature to host life.

Read more: Ultra-massive white dwarf with unusually high carbon levels found

The paper, "High-resolution Spectra and Biosignatures of Earth-like Planets Transiting White Dwarfs," was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Telescopes such as the Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in northern Chiles Atacama Desert, and the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2021, will allow astronomers to detect planets passing in front of white dwarf stars.

Professor Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute, said: Rocky planets around white dwarfs are intriguing candidates to characterise because their hosts are not much bigger than Earth-size planets.

Read more: Hidden giant planet found orbiting tiny white dwarf star

The trick is to catch an exoplanet's quick crossing in front of a white dwarf, a small, dense star that has exhausted its energy, Kaltenegger said.

We wanted to know if light from a white dwarf  a long-dead star  would allow us to spot life in a planet's atmosphere if it were there.

This paper indicates that astronomers should be able to see spectral biosignatures, such as methane in combination with ozone or nitrous oxide, if those signs of life are present, Kaltenegger said.

If we would find signs of life on planets orbiting under the light of long-dead stars, the next intriguing question would be whether life survived the star's death or started all over again  a second genesis, if you will."

Doctoral student Thea Kozakis said: If we observe a transit of that kind of planet, scientists can find out what is in its atmosphere, refer back to this paper, match it to spectral fingerprints and look for signs of life.

Publishing this kind of guide allows observers to know what to look for.
People line up to get tested for the coronavirus in Monument Valley - Kristin Murphy/The Deseret News via AP

Donations to native American tribes who have been badly hit by the coronavirus crisis are flooding in from Ireland as they repay a debt dating back to the 19th-century famine.

At least 41 people have fallen victim to Covid-19 in the Navajo nation, with the spike in cases partly attributed to a water crisis. An estimated 40 percent of the Navajo do not have running water at home, and a drought in the south-west has exacerbated the difficulties.

As the crisis intensified, the Navajo and Hopi families set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise cash to pay for bottled water.

Already more than $1.3 million has been raised with donations flooding in from Ireland. The generosity dates back to a gesture made in March 1847 when the Choctaw Tribe, which was gradually re-establishing itself in Oklahoma having been ousted from its ancestral lands in Mississippi, heard news of the Irish Famine across the Atlantic.

Meeting in a building in Skullyville, Oklahoma, the Choctaw were asked to dig deep for people thousands of miles away they had never met. They did, and donations poured in.

Now, 173 years later, the gesture has been repaid with donors from Ireland opening their wallets to help.

"The Choctaw and Navajo First Nation people helped the Irish during the Great Famine, despite their own suffering," wrote Michael Corkery, who donated $200.

"When I learned about it, I never forgot it; they know all people are the same in the end, and showed such decency and humanity. It's history now, but we are still grateful. Thank you!"
A further 19 people have died from Covid-19 the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) confirmed.

There have now been a total of 1,303 deaths in Ireland from the coronavirus.

330 new cases were also confirmed today.

In total there are 21,506 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

According to data provided by the HPSC:

58% are female and 42% are male

the median age of confirmed cases is 49 years

2,825 cases (13%) have been hospitalised

of those hospitalised, 363 cases have been admitted to ICU

6,068 cases are associated with healthcare workers

Dublin has the highest number of cases at 10,406 (49% of all cases) followed by Kildare with 1,242 cases (6%) and then Cork with 1,164 cases (6%)

of those for whom transmission status is known: community transmission accounts for 63%, close contact accounts for 34%, travel abroad accounts for 3%

Earlier today, Dr Mary Favier, President of the Irish College of GPs, welcomed the fall in Covid-19 patients receiving treating in intensive care units (ICU).

Dr Favier said: "If people spend time in intensive care, whether they have had a serious operation or something has happened to them, it's often only a couple of days, this (coronavirus) can be a couple of weeks.

"So we'd expect there to be quite a substantial lag from the time people get the disease, to being admitted to hospital, to going into intensive care, to being discharged.

So it is very good that we are starting to see that line starting to come down, because it means that infections of, say, a month ago or six weeks ago were dropping.

The latest figure for patients in ICU is 98, only the second time it has been less than 100 in the last month.

Meanwhile, the HSE is investigating after the family of a person who died from Covid-19 was given the wrong body by a hospital mortuary last weekend.

The incident happened at Mullingar Regional Hospital on Friday, April 24.

Victims of Covid-19 are put in sealed body bags by morticians due to the nature of the disease, with neither families or undertakers allowed to view the remains.
Jio Platforms Ltd (JPL), which received thunderous response from global investors despite economic lockdowns around the world, is expected to lock in strategic investments to the tune of Rs 1.4 lakh crore by September, say sources in the know. The Silver Lake and Facebook deals are the first in line, for which the initial agreements have been signed, while another 10 per cent stake sale to other strategic investors is in discussion stage. These three strategic deals together will bring around Rs 92,000 crore to the company.

Also Read: Coronavirus Lockdown India Live Updates: Liquor sales soar as states open alcohol shops; COVID-19 cases-49,391

Besides, the digital and telecom company's optical fibre investment trust (InvIT) is up for sale as the parent Reliance Industries (RIL) in talks with foreign private equity players to raise Rs 25,000 crore. Earlier, an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management invested Rs 25,215 crore in the Tower Infrastructure Trust, an infrastructure InvIT, which has 51 per cent stake in Reliance Jio Infratel. If the fibre deal materialises, the capital which comes to the Mukesh Ambani-led firm through the two InvITs will touch Rs 50,000 crore, say the sources. RIL executives were earlier in negotiations with a group led by Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) that included I Squared Capital and GIC of Singapore to sell the fibre InvIT, but it failed to fructify because of differences in commercial and operating terms.

ALSO READ: Silver Lake to invest Rs 5,655 cr in Jio Platforms at higher valuation than Facebook deal

The Indian conglomerate has spent nearly Rs 4 lakh crore to build Reliance Jio. American social media giant Facebook agreed two weeks ago to buy 9.99 per cent stake in JPL for Rs 43,574 crore. The deal will be concluded by June. In the second deal, private equity firm Silver Lake agreed to invest Rs 5,655.75 crore in JPL for a 1.15 per cent stake at an equity value of Rs 4.90 lakh crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.15 lakh crore. The arrived equity valuation is at a 12.5 per cent premium to the earlier valuation at which Facebook announced its investment, RIL said in a statement on Monday. Announcing the financial result for fiscal 2019-20, RIL said that the company is expecting another investment of the same size as Facebook-Jio deal with strategic investors.

Mukesh Ambani said in the last annual general meeting that Jio and retail businesses will go for IPOs within 5 years, which is a long window. Bank of America Securities said in its recent report that JPL will be able to raise $16-17 billion through the IPO of 25 per cent minimum free-float at the present valuation of $65 billion. "By getting financial investors who could own additional 10 per cent of company, RIL could reduce dependence on a future IPO for major cash infusions," the report said.

The telecom arm Reliance Jio, which is a subsidiary of JPL, has grown as one of the largest telecom networks with a subscriber base of 380 million in a short span of three years. In its splendid journey, it disrupted the entire telecom business in the country and many telecom companies either stopped their services, merged with competitors, or filed for bankruptcy.

ALSO READ: Reliance eyes net zero debt status before March 2021; one more Facebook-like deal on anvil

JPL was created as the immediate subsidiary of RIL in October last year to bring together all digital and mobility businesses under one roof. This new entity has become the parent of Reliance Jio Infocomm and applications like MyJio, JioTV, JioCinema, JioNews and JioSaavn, besides content-generation ventures. Thus, the operating company Reliance Jio became a step-down subsidiary of RIL.

For making JPL debt-free, RIL has infused Rs 1.08 lakh crore in it. They want to build JPL like Alibaba and Google, which claim high valuations in the stock markets. The Facebook deal emphasises that JPL will expand as a digital giant for India. RIL has been using the cash flow from its flagship petroleum refining business to build the telecom and retail subsidiaries all these years.

It posted standalone revenue from operations of Rs 54,316 crore in 2019-20, up by 33.6 per cent compared to the previous financial year. The net profit of Rs 5,562 crore was 87.7 per cent higher.

ALSO READ: BT BUZZ: How WhatsApp Pay may throw a spanner in Reliance-Facebook deal
This transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 -- also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19 -- isolated from a patient in the US. Virus particles are shown emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. The spikes on the outer edge of the virus particles give coronaviruses their name, crown-like. Credit: NIAID-RML

Even though there still isn't a vaccine against the coronavirus, researchers and policymakers are already discussing which groups should be protected first. But one thing is clear: As soon as a vaccine is found, it must be produced quickly and in large quantities. Only then will it be possible to contain the COVID-19 pandemic without the current restrictions on social life. Biotechnical processes to produce viruses developed by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg could help. The team from Magdeburg now wants to adapt these methods to the production of a corona vaccine. The researchers from Magdeburg are interested not only in the large-scale production of viruses and their efficient purification for use as a vaccine, but also in the search for suitable immunogens against COVID-19.

The race for a vaccination against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 will take place in two stages. Scientists around the world are diligently searching for a vaccine that will effectively mobilize the human immune system against the COVID-19 pathogen. However, vaccine development will be only an intermediate success. They will then need to produce large quantities of a highly purified vaccine, and do it very quickly. Udo Reichl, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg, and his colleagues are involved in both stages of the race to achieve the broadest possible immunization of the world population.

Different routes to a corona vaccine

In the search for a vaccine, researchers are currently pursuing different approaches. "At present, the most promising approach is probably to incorporate antigens such as the spike S1 protein of the coronavirus, for example, into the MVA virus and thus present it to the human immune system," says Reichl.

The MVA (modified vaccinia Ankara) virus is a harmless virus often used to display proteins from pathogens to the human immune system. Researchers are also testing individual components of the virus such as parts of its genetic blueprint or recombinant proteins as immunogens (i.e., as trainers for the human immune system). In the latter case, many groups are concentrating on the spike S1 protein, which gives the coronaviruses their name because of the characteristic projections that appear like the peaks of a crown.

Other groups are studying live attenuated or inactivated viruses. Vaccine manufacturers would like to avoid the variant of an inactivated virus because this would entail producing actual SARS-CoV-2, which is associated with high safety requirements. However, they may not be able to get around it. For example, the Chinese company Sinovac has just presented the results of its first successful tests with inactivated SARS-CoV-2. "This may be the way to get the best vaccine," says Reichl.

Animal cells as factories for viruses

Viruses and viral vectors, which, like MVA, serve as transporters of pathogen proteins, must be produced in large quantities for vaccine production. Among other things, animal cells can serve as factories. However, these must first be cultured in large numbers. This is the special field of Udo Reichl and Yvonne Genzel, who heads a research group in his Department. The two scientists have developed processes with which the cells of monkeys, hamsters, dogs, or birds can be propagated very efficiently. An important aspect is that the cells are continuously supplied with a fresh nutrient solution and waste products are quickly removed.

"In our processes, we can produce up to 10 or 100 million cells per millilitre," says Reichl. The researchers have already produced influenza, Zika and yellow fever viruses in animal cell suspensions. In some cases, they were able to obtain several billion viruses per millilitre. In the turbo-culture of animal cells, MVA viruses can also be produced on a large scale. The processes could also enable the Magdeburg team to produce the SARS-CoV-2 viruses in large quantities if they prove to be the best immunogen against COVID-19 in either attenuated or inactivated form.

In addition to suspension cells, adherent cells that require a surface for growth are also suitable for the production of coronaviruses. Vero cells, comprising a cell line from an African green monkey, are one such example. Sinovac used this cell line to generate the coronaviruses for its study. Udo Reichl and his team have also designed efficient processes for the culture of Vero cells. The researchers are currently preparing studies to test these methods in the production of coronaviruses, but it is highly challenging. "Because we will be working with highly infectious material, we urgently need an S3 laboratory with negative pressure and double-door systems," says Reichl. There is currently no such a high security laboratory at his institute. He is therefore planning this project together with Judith Gottwein from the University of Copenhagen, which has an S3 laboratory.

A purification method for vaccination viruses with cellulose and polyethylene glycol

If coronaviruses or viral vectors prove to be the most effective immunogens, the mass production of these will not be enough to achieve an effective and readily available vaccine. In order to produce such a vaccine, it must be possible to purify virus particles at a high yield. The Magdeburg team is also focusing on this step. The researchers have developed a process that enables them to achieve a yield of around 95% after purification of a virus from the production medium. They use a special form of chromatography that involves cellulose carriers and polyethylene glycol (PEG). With this method, PEG is added to the virus-containing liquid, which is then passed through several membranes. The high PEG content causes the viruses to attach themselves to the cellulose surface. The impurities, on the other hand, flow straight through the membranes. The researchers then rinse the membranes with a PEG-free solution so that the viruses detach from the cellulose.

Although the production and purification of viruses is the speciality of Reichl's group, the Magdeburg researchers are also involved in the search for suitable immunogens. In particular, they are investigating the glycosylation of the spike S1 protein on the surface of the coronavirus. This protein is not displayed nakedly on the surface of the virus, but is instead covered with sugar molecules (i.e., it is glycosylated).

Which immune response is caused by differently glycosylated spike proteins?

"Glycosylation could strongly influence the effectiveness of a vaccine against the coronavirus," says Reichl. "With some viruses, such as the flu virus, this varies greatly. However, relatively little is known about the corona virus."

Together with Achim Kaasch and Dunja Bruder, professors from the Medical Faculty of the University of Magdeburg, and the company glyXera GmbH, which he co-founded as a spin-off of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, he seeks to change this. The scientists will first produce the spike S1 protein in insect cell cultures, specifically modify glycosylation using synthetic biotechnology methods, and investigate the immune response in mice. If it turns out that a spike S1 protein with a specific sugar envelope prepares the immune system particularly well for an infection with SARS-CoV-2, it could help the scientists to develop an effective vaccine.

It still remains open as to which vaccine will ultimately be used against SARS-CoV-2 and which process will be used to produce it. "With our work, we want to help create more options so that we end up with a vaccine that is as effective as possible and which can be produced in large numbers," says Reichl. "We hope that the COVID-19 pandemic can soon be contained with vaccination and that efficient methods for supplying the world population with inexpensive vaccines will be available for similar challenges."

Explore further Kennel cough virus offers potential route to COVID-19 vaccine
Afterpay soared above any COVID-19 concerns on Monday with the stock trading just short of record highs on hopes that its new Chinese investor, WeChat owner Tencent, could potentially unlock the path for the buy now, pay later company to expand into new markets, including China.

"We believe the big prize is clearly geographic expansion, particularly China, which is obviously a substantial market," said RBC analyst Tim Piper.

"It would have been very hard, if not nearly impossible, for Afterpay to enter China without a strategic partner."

WeChat is one of China's most dominant social media platforms. Credit:AP

The stock soared more than 35 per cent when the market opened to a high of $39.59 in reaction to the news Tencent had acquired a $300 million stake on market and both parties talked of the opportunities flowing from the investment.
A New York City landlord posted a video to TikTok claiming to steal her tenants packages but later said it was a joke.

Abbe Awosanya/TikTok

A New York City landlord went viral after posting a video to TikTok where she claimed to withhold packages sent to her tenants because they were unable to pay their rent.

She later told BuzzFeed News her TikTok video was a joke and that she had never confiscated her tenant's mail, which is a crime.

A 21-year-old student in the UK, who downloaded the video and posted it to Twitter, said Awosanya told her she planned to take legal action against her for sharing her video, which was publicly posted to TikTok and available for download.

People across the US have expressed difficultly paying rent as a result of job losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Visit the Insider's homepage for more stories.

Video: What Happens After Calling 911 for the Coronavirus

A New York City landlord incited backlash on Friday when she posted a TikTok claiming she had confiscated her tenant's packages when they couldn't pay their rent. After she received criticism, she claimed her video was untrue and a joke, and on Sunday the woman allegedly threatened legal action against a person who shared her video.

"My tenant is late on rent and is avoiding me but has money to order," read captions on the viral video of a woman dancing as she held a package. "So I take all their packages until they pay up.

"I'm so petty," another on-screen caption read.

Abbe Awosanya, who confirmed to BuzzFeed News on Saturday that she made the video, told the outlet that she never withheld packages from her tenants and that her video was a "skit" inspired by her previous experiences.

"Honestly, in the past, I had this issue with other tenants and I wished I could do this to them because they were blatantly ignoring me," she told BuzzFeed in a text message. "Nothing to do with current tenants."

Awosanya said if her tenants couldn't currently pay their rent, she would understand, telling the outlet that all of her tenants were presently up-to-date on rent payments.

Story continues

In the comments of the since-deleted video, Awosanya told angry commentators, many of whom noted that withholding with her tenant's mail would be illegal, that the parcels she wielded in the video belonged to her and not ones she had confiscated from her renters.

The video seemed to strike a chord with users on social media, as people around the country have struggled to pay rent amid job losses related to the ongoing pandemic. An Insider poll last week found that 23% of people were unsure whether they'd be able to make their rent or mortgage payments this month. More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the pandemic began in the US, and protestors in New York on Friday called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to cancel rent amid the pandemic.

Awosanya told BuzzFeed people should have "compassion" for both renters and landlords because "we are all going through the pandemic together."

The video had racked up more than 200,000 views on TikTok, BuzzFeed noted. It also garnered exponentially more attention in several versions posted to Twitter by various users. By default, TikTok allows for videos from public accounts to be downloaded to a user's phone  where they can be and often are uploaded to another platform like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook.

Your gay dad  (@xanderthepander) May 2, 2020

Since Awosanya's account and video were both public, there was nothing stopping users from posting her video on other platforms.

The landlord allegedly threatened legal action against someone who posted her video to Twitter

"Landlords are a menace to society," 21-year-old Haaniyah Angus, a student in Oxford in the UK, tweeted alongside the video.

Angus said she came across while scrolling through her "for you page" on TikTok, a seemingly infinite list of videos served up to users by the company's algorithm. Before she deleted her tweet, Angus told Insider it had around 60,000 likes and a "couple thousand retweets."

But it had significantly more views. Angus told Insider the video had approximately five million views, as Twitter allows users to share videos uploaded by other users with their own commentary entirely separate from the original tweet. Angus told Insider she deleted the video and her tweet Sunday because she received harassment from people defending Awosanya.

Angus said the barrage of responses she received were a mix of people defending landlords generally and by people who specifically defended Awosanya. Either way  she felt the harassment wasn't worth it, especially given a previous spat she had with fans of Ariana Grande.

"They were sort of threatening me with suspension and reporting my page," Angus, a self-described culture critic with more than 30,000 followers, said of those defending the landlord. "And I had previously gone through that last year with Ariana Grande stans, and I don't really want to rebuild my entire platform again. I was not going to take the risk, so I took it down."

Hours after deleting the video, Angus told Insider she received a direct message threatening legal actions from who appeared to be the woman who made the video.

"I was surprised," Angus told Insider.

The message from the since-deleted Twitter account allegedly belonging to Awosanya read: "With regards to your post made about my skit, Legal action is being taken. Consulted with my attorney and filed a police report with evidence of aggravated harassment without real cause or verification of the truth."

The message continued, alleging the existence of "snapshots of evidence" that included threats received in direct messages, calls, voicemails, and videos. In the message, the woman claimed her tenants would be able to testify on her behalf.

"Next time verify first," the message read.

Angus, who said she felt the direct message was attempting to "intimidate" her, didn't respond to the message, blocked the account, and tweeted a screenshot of the message. That tweet has been liked more than 40,000 times. Not long after, Awosanya's Twitter account appeared to have been deleted.

"My main thought was like I know she has to be joking," she said. "There's no way you can sue me from the United States when I'm in the UK over a tweet over a public video that you posted on your public platform. This is absolutely insane."

Angus said she felt "awful" that the woman was doxxed and that people shared her public information and contacted both her and her employer.

"I didn't condone that at all," she said. "I wasn't the one doing that, but for some reason, she thinks it's my fault because I was the one who shared the video even though it was going viral on TikTok already."

While Awosanya told BuzzFeed News she had no intention of deleting her video, saying it was "already out there" and there was "no hiding" it, her public TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts all appear to have been deleted as of Monday.

She had approximately 6,000 followers on TikTok and 32,000 on Instagram as of Saturday before deleting the accounts, according to BuzzFeed news.

Awosanya did not return Insider's request for comment.

Insider
- Amid coronavirus and global financial crisis, Algeria has whittled down its budget by "50 per cent"

- But despite the cut, the North African country increased the minimum wage of its citizens from 18,000 dinars ($140) per month to 20,000 dinars

- Algeria has 4,474 Covid-19 cases out of which 463 casualties have been recorded, while 1,936 have recovered

PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Legit.ng News on your Facebook News Feed

Amid global financial crisis occasioned by the fall in oil price, Algeria on Sunday, May, 3, slashed the national budget by half. This is amid the coronavirus pandemic which continues to plunge the world into the cesspit of unrest.

The "50 per cent" cut decision was declared in a statement announced from the office of Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Algerian president, with the oil-producing country hit by the hook of economic pressure, Middle East Eye reports.

But despite this huge decrease, the government also agreed at a cabinet meeting to increase the minimum wage from 18,000 dinars ($140) per month to 20,000 dinars, while income tax will be abolished for those earning 30,000 dinars or less.

Amid coronavirus and global financial crisis, Algeria has whittled down its budget by "50 per cent."

Source: Depositphotos

In another big move, the Algerian government also suspended from Sunday, May 10, consideration of a finance law that seeks to frame a response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Prior to the Covid-19, Algerias foreign exchange reserves had fallen to $62 billion at the end of 2019, from $180 billion in 2014.

Algeria's Saharan Blend was recently trading at less than $20 a barrel, while this year's budget was based on a price of $50 a barrel, with Benchmark international crudes trading at their lowest in about two decades.

Algeria, which has joined Saudi Arabia, Russia and other oil producers in a global deal to curb oil supplies, has repeatedly said it aimed to diversify away from oil and gas.

The country currently has 4,474 Covid-19 cases out of which 463 casualties have been recorded, while 1,936 have recovered according to Worldometre, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read the best news on Nigerias #1 news app

Earlier, Legit.ng reported that more than 44,000 coronavirus cases have been reported in Africa, with over 1,700 deaths, according to the data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday, May 4.

According to the international health organisation, South Africa tops the list of African countries with coronavirus cases as 6,783 have tested positive in the country.

Out of the over 6,000 cases, 131 people have died. Algeria occupies the second spot with 4,474 cases and 463 deaths while Nigeria ranks third on the list with 2,388 cases and 85 deaths.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better

Coronavirus: Are Nigerians really afraid of COVID-19? New survey reveals more | Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
Friends remembered Wilma Williams as fiercely independent, but a stroke left her in a wheelchair and reliant on hearing aides as large as headphones the day her attorney arrived with a plan to divvy up her $1.7 million estate.

The 93-year-old military widow with no children had nieces and nephews, but Bob Machen personally drafted a will that made himself her primary beneficiary and his son - a man she had never met - a possible heir as well.

Machen said the will represented the wishes of a woman who was like a sister to him and whom he helped for years. He says he watched as she affixed a scribbled signature to the document in a Fairfax County, Virginia, rehabilitation center on July 31, 2018.

Williams died 10 days later, and her relatives said they were stunned to eventually learn that Machen was poised to reap a $1.5 million windfall while they would receive modest bequests. They couldn't believe the will truly represented Williams' desires and decided to challenge it in court.

They say the case is a brazen example of the financial exploitation of the elderly, a problem that is rapidly increasing as the senior population grows. The number of people age 65 and older is projected to double between 2018 and 2060, according to government figures. Various estimates put their losses from fraud between $2.9 billion and $36.5 billion each year.

Wilma Williams fits the profile of a prototypical target. A MetLife study reports that twice as many elderly women are taken advantage of as men and that most victims live alone, like Williams did. Her case is likely to be a preview of many to come.

Machen maintains he did nothing wrong.

"Finding out Wilma's will was written by her attorney leaving himself the majority of her estate was a gut punch," said David Williams, Wilma's nephew. "That really made me very determined to see justice done for my aunt."

- - -

David Williams said he was elated when he opened a letter in October 2018 saying that he would receive $30,000 from Williams' estate. He remembered his aunt fondly but never expected to be named an heir.

The letter from an attorney named Mark Kellogg on behalf of Machen never mentioned that Wilma Williams' estate was worth $1.7 million or that Machen drafted the will himself and was to receive an exponentially larger sum.

David Williams said his eye caught one line that left him dumbfounded and wondering how it could be legal.

"It made a statement to the fact that if you contest the will or even complain about the administration of the estate that you are cut out of the will completely," Williams said.

His joy curdled into suspicion. He Googled Machen.

One of the first results left a pit in his stomach: "Robert B. Machen . . . Unethical Attorney" read a Web page someone had built that meticulously listed alleged misconduct by the lawyer dating back years.

Machen has a criminal record. In 1988, he was convicted in federal court in Virginia for doctoring ledgers during an investigation of an IRS employee, according to court records. That IRS employee: Mark Kellogg. Kellogg was never charged in that case and denies any wrongdoing in Wilma Williams' case.

Machen said he had "nothing to do" with altering the financial documents and was wrongly convicted.

Machen's law license was suspended but then quickly reinstated after he served a prison sentence. Machen kept it in the intervening decades, despite subsequent reprimands by the Virginia State Bar, including one for engaging in "conduct for personal advantage, involving deceit." Machen denies wrongdoing in those cases.

Williams said he called his sister to warn her about what he had found, only to discover that she and every other niece and nephew had already returned a release from legal action Machen asked them to sign in order to get their bequests.

Alarmed, the family members reached out to a lawyer named Mark Obenshain. Obenshain said he sent a letter to Kellogg, asking about the size of the will, who wrote it and Williams' mental state at the time. Obenshain said that while there were communications, no answers were provided to those specific questions.

The family decided it was time to challenge the will in court.

- - -

Obenshain told a Fairfax County jury at the outset of the trial in December that their evidence would detail an elaborate scheme by Machen to subvert the last wishes of a dying woman. He said it was a blatant conflict of interest for Machen to author a will that would make himself a millionaire.

"This case is about forgery and fraud and right and wrong," Obenshain said in his opening statement.

Machen's attorney countered that his client had been a trusted caretaker for Williams, one who repeatedly offered a lifeline when she needed it over the years. Naming Machen an heir made sense.

Early witnesses told jurors that Williams had a secret.

She spent so frugally many thought she was on a fixed income, but the retired administrative assistant who lived in a modest split-level home in Annandale was a savvy investor who had built a fortune.

She did not tell her family, scattered across the South, or Machen, a family law attorney she had known since the 1980s, when he helped her navigate a separation from her husband. They remained friends afterward.

Williams suffered a stroke in July 2018 and was admitted to a Fairfax County rehabilitation center, where Machen was a regular visitor. It was there, in Machen's version of events, that one day Williams handed him a handwritten will that named him a beneficiary.

Machen said in an interview that he was stunned. At the time, he said he never expected his bequest to add up to much: He did not know about Williams' nest egg and expected end-of-life care to eat up much of her estate.

"I had no idea what Wilma had," Machen told The Washington Post. "All during this time she never talked about finances."

That changed one day while Machen was visiting Williams.

Laurie Flint, a friend of Williams', came by with a stack of Williams' mail that included a statement detailing her investments, she testified during the trial. Flint testified that Williams told her on several occasions that she trusted Machen but that she should keep an eye on him.

"She really didn't want to let anyone look at that statement, but over the course of the next half an hour or so, Mr. Machen eventually talked her into letting him take a look," Flint told the jury.

Machen said he discovered that Williams had upward of $1 million in a bank account, which he said jump-started an effort to draw up a better will. Machen said he reached out to Kellogg to draft the will but never followed through.

Machen said in an interview that he was pressed for time because efforts were underway to move Williams to a nursing home, so he penned the update himself. The will shows that he named his son as a possible heir and included the "no contest" clause that caught David Williams' attention.

Machen and an old friend chose a stranger at the rehabilitation center to be the third witness to the signing on July 31, 2018. While Machen and the friend testified at trial that Williams willingly signed the will, the stranger offered a different story.

Toni Foreman testified in a deposition played for the jury that Machen presented himself as Williams' son, a claim Machen denies. Foreman testified that she was never told she was witnessing a will signing and never saw Williams actually sign the will.

Medical records listed Williams as "alert" that day, but Foreman said she barely spoke as she sat in a wheelchair in her room.

"[Williams] just sat there listening to her music, looking blank and smiling," Foreman testified.

Machen testified that he told his son the same day that he had named him as a possible heir and executor of the will and gave him power of attorney over Williams, in case Machen passed away. His son was flabbergasted - "Dad, what the hell," Machen testified his son told him. The same day the son resigned as power of attorney. Obenshain said it did not appear Machen had informed his son of his plans to include him in the will beforehand.

The jury deliberated for about six hours before returning a verdict. It sided with Williams' family and nullified the will. Machen is appealing the ruling to Virginia's Supreme Court. A court may ultimately decide how to split up Williams' estate.

The family is gratified by the ruling but still devastated. Machen is still licensed to practice law.

The family says heirlooms went missing from Williams' home during a period when she was in poor health and various people entered her home. One of those was the flag that draped the casket of her husband, who was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Machen said he suspects a crew cleaning up Williams' home took the items.

"I would love to have some of those mementos so I could hand them down to my son," David Williams said. "That was part of our family history."
The Civil Secretariat, seat of the Jammu and Kashmir government, started functioning from the summer capital of Srinagar on Monday, as part of a nearly 150-year-old biannual practice known as the Darbar Move.

Lt Governor Girish Chander Murmu inspected the ceremonial guard of honour at the civil secretariat lawns here in the morning as offices opened here after closing in Jammu in the last week of April.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, employees from Jammu region will be working from their homes, while only a limited number of employees will be attending office in Srinagar.

Although the Union territory is under a lockdown since the third week of March, the local administration had spruced up the city to welcome the Lt Governor's administration to Srinagar.

The lane markers on the city roads were given a fresh coat of paint, while the dust and mud accumulated for the past several months had been removed.

The Civil Secretariat and other Darbar Move offices function in Srinagar for six months of summer and in Jammu, for the remaining six months of the year.

The practice was started by Maharaja Gulab Singh 148 years ago to escape the extreme heat of Jammu during summers and biting cold of winters in Srinagar.

However, the practice has been continued by elected governments post-Independence in order to provide access to the people of both regions -- by turns -- to the seat of power in the state.

The state government spends crores of rupees to shift voluminous records between the two capital cities twice a year, besides paying a similar amount as allowance for the several thousand employees who shift base with the government.

There have been demands from various quarters to abolish the practice and set up permanent civil secretariats in Jammu and Srinagar cities so that people can get redressal to their problems round the year while saving substantial amount of the public exchequer.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ms. Henner has been setting up shop in a dining alcove at her Hollywood Hills home, under a David Warren Gibson painting of the Italian countryside. The location has less to do with privacy than with practicality. My house is like the Bermuda Triangle of Wi-Fi, so you have to find the places that have the best connection, she said. But this spot also happens to have a curved window, so I know Im going to be lit from all sides.

Some things are of course off-limits  You want to angle it so youre not showing toilets, she said  but for an actress who has spent more than 40 years in the spotlight, the new reality of video calls has readjusted the usual filter.

This is the real me, she said. Nobody is putting on a full makeup face, nobody is making sure that they have a stylist. Everybody is doing their own hair. What you see is what you get.

The concept of peeking inside a famous persons life is almost as old as the concept of celebrity itself. In 1873, the actress Sarah Bernhardt allowed herself to be photographed sleeping in a coffin in her Paris bedroom; a few years later, the journalist Edmund Yates published Celebrities at Home, a series of profiles drawn from living room and bedroom interviews. In the all-access digital age, celebrities have capitalized on inviting the public into their homes on shows like MTV Cribs and Keeping Up With the Kardashians, typically with a staged-managed gloss that keeps the audience at a distance while still scratching that voyeuristic itch.

The effect of these new homemade appearances, said Sharon Marcus, a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University and author of The Drama of Celebrity, is that reality suddenly looks realer now the camera crews, makeup teams and lighting artists that normally create that veneer of glamour are stuck in their own homes somewhere else. In a twist on the tabloid Theyre Just Like Us! adage, were now seeing celebrities doing much of what were doing: working from home, with only the resources that were in place before the lockdown to help them.

We really are all at home and in the same boat, and that equalizing is very disruptive to the idea of celebrity, because theyre supposed to be like us, but different, Dr. Marcus said. And theyre less different now.

A lot of it comes down to the need to share space and divide up a home into areas for work and play, an issue that crops up in families whether or not the parents are famous. Mr. Miranda, for one, gave up his blue-walled study so his 5-year-old son could do his schoolwork there. Hes totally taken over, Mr. Miranda said.
May 4, 2020 | New life sciences fund closes in Europe, big investments in VAST Datas all flash storage, AI-written code, Lifebits CloudOS, Scopio Labss digital microscopy, microbiome tests and much more.

$600M: Life Sciences Fund Close

LSP, Amsterdam, has closed LSP 6 at the $600 million hard cap. This is the largest fund ever raised in Europe focused on life sciences ventures. LSP currently has $1.1 billion of capital to invest across LSP 6, the LSP Health Economics Fund and LSPs public fund and mandates. LSP 6 will, like its predecessor funds, invest in 15-18, predominantly European private companies developing new medications or medical technologies, who turn cutting-edge scientific innovations into real-world healthcare solutions. Due to strong investor demand LSP was able to raise $600 million, significantly more than the funds $450 million target. The success of the fundraise was mainly driven by LSPs outstanding 32-year track record. In addition, investors recognized the potential of the large and fast-growing market opportunity in Europe for life sciences companies. LSP is ideally positioned to capitalize on this growth given its leading role in building European companies. The firm has built over 120 companies, many of which have brought breakthrough new medications or technologies to patients in large indications such as oncology, cardiology or diabetes, but also in rare diseases. LSPs active portfolio companies are engaged in more than 100 clinical trials, comparable to the pipeline of the largest global pharmaceutical companies.

$120M: Series B for Technology Platform for Vaccines, Immunotherapies

Affinivax, Cambridge, Mass., has closed a $120 million Series B financing round, led by Viking Global Investors with participation from Bain Capital Life Sciences and Ziff Capital Partners. This represents the first financing round to be completed since the companys founding in June 2014, when Affinivax received an initial seed and Series A equity investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company has leveraged the initial investment, non-dilutive grant funding, and a partnership with Astellas Pharma to advance its novel Multiple Antigen Presentation System (MAPS) vaccine technology into clinical trials. Proceeds from the Series B financing will be used to continue advancing the companys MAPS pneumococcal vaccine program and to advance several additional vaccine candidates targeting hospital-associated infections (HAIs) into clinical studies.

$100M: Series C for all flash storage

VAST Data, New York, has announced $100 million in Series C funding, led by Next47. The round brings the companys total funding to $180 million and includes strong participation from past investors as well as new investors, including 83North, Dell Technologies Capital, Goldman Sachs, Greenfield Partners, Mellanox Capital, Commonfund Capital and Norwest Venture Partners. The new funding will be used to drive global expansion and accelerate the companys next phase of growth. VAST Data has developed the worlds first all flash storage platform that revolutionizes the economics of flash storage to make flash infrastructure affordable for all classes of data, thereby rendering the hard drive and storage tiering obsolete. The power of VASTs platform is applied across a number of industries and is instrumental to organizations tackling the worldwide spread of COVID-19. This includes powering next generation life science advancements and helping financial services organizations stabilize the economy.

$50M: Series B for Diagnostic Algorithm Engine

Dascena, a machine learning diagnostic algorithm company that is targeting early disease intervention to improve patient care outcomes, announced today that it closed a $50 million Series B financing led by Frazier Healthcare Partners with participation from Longitude Capital, existing investor Euclidean Capital and an undisclosed investor.

The Series B financing will enable Dascena to advance a suite of machine learning algorithms to inform patient care strategies and improve outcomes. Dascena algorithms have been validated through eighteen peer-reviewed publications in several studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. In a randomized controlled trial of hospitalized patients in the intensive care unit (ICU), Dascenas InSight algorithm resulted in a 58% reduction in patient mortality and a 21% reduction in length of hospital stay.

$16M: Series B for Digital Microscopy Platform

Scopio Labs, an advanced digital microscopy company, today announced it has completed a $16 million financing round, bringing its total funding to $30 million. The Series B round will enable Scopio Labs to expand commercial operations across human and veterinary care in the United States and Europe, by ramping up manufacturing and sales, and further developing a robust clinical trial pipeline to broaden its portfolio of offerings. Scopio Labs is propelling microscopy into the digital age. Its platform automates the imaging of full microscopy samples into uniquely high resolution digital scans using cutting-edge computational photography techniques. Scopio also built and integrated end-to-end AI and remote consultation solutions for large and small labs and hospitals across the continuum of care to improve diagnostic processes while reducing turn-around time.

$12.9M: data driven solutions for the healthcare industry

H1 has completed its first institutional funding round. Menlo Ventures led the $12.9 million Series A, joined by Novartis dRx, Y Combinator, Baron Davis Enterprises, ClearPoint Investment Partners, Jeff Hammerbacher, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Underscore VC. Greg Yap, partner at Menlo Ventures, will join H1s board of directors. The company will use the capital to grow its existing team, including sales, customer success and engineering, as well as to fuel expansion into additional market segments. The H1 platform provides comprehensive in-depth profiles of more than 8 million healthcare professionals and 16,000 institutions in 70-plus countries, all of which are kept up-to-date weekly. H1 enables users to understand and analyze any healthcare professionals full profile, including expertise, interests, publications, location, conferences and congresses, and clinical trials, and leverages AI to identify the thought leading doctors in a given disease area.

$12M: Series A for Automated Code Suggestions

Codota, Israel, closed a $12M Series A funding round. The round was led by e.ventures, with the participation of existing investor Khosla Ventures, and new investors TPY Capital and Hetz Ventures. To date, Codota has raised over $16M, including a seed round led by Khosla Ventures in 2017. Codota's semantic AI infrastructure emulates the human understanding of computer code and is based on more than a decade of academic research at the Technion, Israels foremost technological institution. Founded in 2015, the company has analyzed millions of code repositories to generate insights at scale and boost developer productivity. Codota automates all predictable parts of the development cycle, such as looking up syntax and applying the best practices for using common libraries, by suggesting the next piece of code the developer would need, just in time, in a similar fashion to Smart Compose on Gmail.

$12M: Real World Data To Recruit, Engage Clinical Trial Participants

Trialbee, Malmo, Sweden, has closed an 11 million investment round to onboard strategic investor MTIP, the European specialist investor in Healthtech scale-up companies. Existing investors Industrifonden and Briban Invest also participated in the round. The additional capital will be used to further accelerate the companys topline growth and enhance the Trialbee technology platform, which integrates real world data and real time analytics to recruit and engage patients. This latest round brings the total amount raised by Trialbee to date to 25 million. The Trialbee solution is proven to accelerate the patient recruitment process and maintain patient engagement by incorporating data-driven digital solutions in clinical trials and optimizing protocol design and site selection.

$12M: Series A to Advance the Use of Digital Twins in Clinical Trials

Unlearn.AI, San Francisco, Calif., has closed a $12 million Series A financing. The financing round was led by 8VC with participation from all the companys existing investors including DCVC, DCVC Bio and Mubadala Capital Ventures. Through its investment, 8VC Principal Francisco Gimenez, Ph.D., has joined the Unlearn Board of Directors. The companys proprietary DiGenesis platform processes historical clinical trial datasets from thousands of patients to build the disease-specific machine learning models used to create Digital Twins and their corresponding virtual medical records. Digital Twin records are longitudinal and include demographic information, common lab tests, and endpoints and/or biomarkers that look identical to actual patient records in a clinical trial. Through this novel approach of generating control patient data, Unlearn aims to reduce the number of patients required to run a trial while maintaining rigorous standards of evidence and study randomization and blinding.

$8.65M: AI-assisted MRI Solutions

HeartVista, Los Altos, Calif., has closed a $8.65M Series A financing round. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, Jeff Rothschild, Leslie Ventures, Open Field Capital, and additional investors. Combined with several grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this latest raise brings the companys total funding to $16.35 million. The additional capital will go towards building AI-guided musculoskeletal and neural packages, expanding HeartVistas sales, marketing and regulatory operations worldwide, deepening strategic partnerships with the worlds most renowned cardiology centers, and enhancing its core One-Click Cardiac Package.

$7.5M: Series A for Genomics Cloud

Lifebit Biotech has closed its Series A funding round of US$7.5M (6 million) led by Idinvest Partners, to fuel ongoing product innovations and global market expansion. Previous investors Pentech Ventures LLP, Beacon Capital, and Connect Ventures also participated in the round. The companys product, Lifebit CloudOS, offers unified and secure genomics research over distributed big data. On top of its core foundation, the platform provides integration to all open-source analysis and visualization tools, as well as a marketplace of proprietary ones, a powerful data and cohort browser, and advanced AI functionality that together are powering discoveries in drugs and personalized medicine. The company just announced ifebit CloudOS 2.0, which integrates the Biobank Data Browser engineered for the extreme scale and complexities of biobank big data.

$2.5M: SBIR Grant for Bone Adhesive

LaunchPad Medical, Lowell, Mass., has been awarded a $2.5 million Direct-to-Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to advance the development of Tetranite, its bone adhesive biomaterial technology, to improve cranial flap fixation procedures. The clinical use of this product is expected to reduce infection rates, enhance bone healing, and improve the overall cosmetic outcome for patients while eliminating the need for metal fixation hardware. This grant will enable the company to complete its pre-clinical research and prepare its regulatory filing with the FDA to start a clinical trial.

$2.1M: Grants for microbiome biomarker test

Bio-Me, Oslo, Norway, has received a total of 2 million Euro in grants and public support from the Norwegian Research Council to develop a companion diagnostic test for immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) cancer treatments. It is well known that the gut microbiome influences the efficacy of ICI treatments. Bio-Me will use its breakthrough PMPPrecision Microbiome Profiling technologyto develop a microbiome-based test that can identify responders to ICI. Test development involves key Norwegian and International partners and a close collaboration between leading clinical experts and academic researchers in the field. The project will run to the end of 2023 and diagnostic test is set to be available shortly after that and is anticipated to significantly improve patient outcomes.

$2M: Partnership to Transform Cancer Care

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will receive $2 million from the UBS Oncology Impact Fund (UBS OIF) managed by MPM Capital as part of an innovative partnership that supports potentially transformative cancer research. The UBS OIF is also making a donation of $2 million to the UBS Optimus Foundation to support access to cancer care in emerging markets. The total donation of $4 million is an annual record for the fund, which is intended to generate compelling returns for its investors while having a measurable social impact.

$1.25M: Grant for Lateral Flow and Rapid Diagnostics

Mologic, Bedfordshire, UK, has been awarded circa 1 million by the Wellcome Trust and the Department for International Development (DFID), as part of the UK governments 46 million international coronavirus (COVID-19) prevention and research funding package. The funding will be used by Mologic and global partners, to develop a point-of-need diagnostic test for the virus, in addition to supporting the Company to initiate research for novel vaccine candidates. Mologic will build on their experience developing a rapid test kit for Ebola, which was also jointly funded by UK aid and the Wellcome Trust, to create a new hand-held diagnostics device to detect COVID-19. This will allow health officials to test for the virus at home or in the community, providing results in 10 minutes, without the need for electricity or a laboratory. Rapid identification of the virus enables quicker quarantine and access to care, to support global efforts in preventing further spreadespecially in vulnerable countries that have limited specialist facilities. Alongside their work on diagnostics, UK aid is also supporting Mologic in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate for further evaluation.

Milestone Payment from Merck for functional antibody repertoire

Serimmune, Goleta, Calif., announced that the company has received a research milestone payment from Merck under its ongoing discovery and development collaboration agreement. Under terms of the previously announced agreement, Serimmune applied its SERA platform to clinical and preclinical specimens provided by Merck. Merck will lead preclinical and clinical development and commercialization of candidates identified from the collaboration. Serimmune is eligible to receive research, development, and regulatory milestone payments and tiered royalties on sales of any products resulting from the collaboration. Serimmunes SERA technology platform reveals the diverse antigens that stimulate immunity. Serimmune is using this platform to create a growing database that can be interrogated to uncover disease information. The company is actively pursuing commercial partnerships for the SERA platform and has a number of ongoing collaborations with government, academic and commercial organizations.
The Congress on Monday said its state units will bear the cost of rail travel of needy home-bound migrants stranded at various places across the country due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

IMAGE: Migrants from Jaipur arrive by Shramik Special train at Danapur junction, in Patna, on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo

Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a statement announced the party's decision and said this would be the Congress' humble contribution in standing shoulder to shoulder with these workers, who are the backbone of the country's economy and have contributed to the nation's development.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also tweeted in Hindi, 'On one hand, the railways is charging ticket fares from labourers stranded in other states while on the other hand, the Railway Ministry is donating Rs 151 crore to the PM-Cares Fund. Just resolve this puzzle.'

Terming the decision as historic, All India Congress Committee general secretary K C Venugopal and chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the Congress state units will pay to the state chief secretaries the cost of train travel of the migrants and there will be no registration of workers as it will lead to further confusion.

The two leaders also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to shed his 'false prestige' and come forward in paying for travel of migrants seeking to return home.

They alleged that the Congress had taken the decision after many such workers and labourers did not have the money to pay for their tickets.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party accused the Congress of doing politics on the issue and claimed that the central and the state governments were bearing the cost of such train travels and no tickets were being charged from the migrants.

Venugopal, however, read out a circular stating state governments will pay the railways after collecting fares from migrant workers.

Surjewala also termed the central government's remark as negative and said it is not the time to play politics.

Sonia Gandhi accused the central government and the Indian Railways of completely ignoring the demands made by the Congress for ensuring the safe and free travel of migrant workers and labourers to their homes.

'There needs to be provisions for the safe and free rail travel of migrant workers and labourers to their home towns. However, despite our repeated demands, the central government and the Railway Ministry have chosen to completely ignore the same.

'The Indian National Congress (INC) has, therefore, taken a decision that every Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) shall bear the cost for the rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labourer and take necessary steps in this regard,' she said in the statement.

She said this will be the Congress' humble contribution in service of the compatriots and to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them.

Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel tweeted, 'As directed by Congress president, in my capacity as treasurer (AICC), I request Pradesh Congress Committees to mobilise all possible local resources to help migrants purchase tickets to get back home.

'Let us make this into a people's movement, please contact AICC if you require assistance," he added.

Congress leader P Chidambaram said the party's decision puts the government to shame.

'The Congress president's decision to direct PCCs to bear the cost of rail transport for migrant workers is a historic decision. Puts the government of India to shame,' he said.

Sonia Gandhi criticised the central government for not recognising its responsibility and said if it can bring back free of cost citizens stranded abroad by air, why can't the same responsibility be shown towards the poor migrants who are considered the ambassadors of the nation's growth.

"But what is the responsibility of our government? Even today, lakhs of workers and migrant labourers are languishing in different parts of the country and wish to return to their homes and families but there is neither adequate money nor provision for free transport.

"What is particularly disturbing is that the central government and the Railway Ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis," she said.

The Congress president said workers and labourers form the backbone of India's economy and their hard work and sacrifice are the foundation of the nation.

She said this is the first time post-partition of 1947 that India witnessed a tragedy as thousands of migrants were forced to walk home.

Venugopal said he has already talked to state Congress chiefs and they are working out the modalities to ensure that migrants stranded reach home safely.

"We have already given direction to state PCCs to have coordination with state chief secretaries and the Railways to arrange for this fare.

"We are not going to have registration of migrant labours as it will add to the confusion," he said.

"We do not want to play politics in this. This is not the time to play politics. Those who are having no money are unable to travel in these trains, that is why our Karnataka PCC has paid for them. This is there in Kerala, where migrants do not have money to pay."

He said the state Pradesh Congress Committee in Karnataka has already made a beginning by depositing Rs 1 crore with the state chief secretary and would provide more in case required to ensure safe return of every migrant labour.

Surjewala also urged the government to wake up from its slumber and come to the aid of migrants.

"Even today we call upon the PM to leave the false prestige and utilise thousands of crores in COVID-19 PM Care Fund. We urge the Railways to withdraw its order issued earlier to ensure travel of every migrant labour and workers is made free," he added.
Serge Bokobza's family did not want him to be buried anywhere but Jerusalem so when he died of coronavirus they transferred the body from France, despite the difficulties during a pandemic. The 70-year-old doctor from a Paris suburb was laid to rest a few weeks ago on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, home to the holiest sites in the Jewish faith. It was a funeral that bore all the hallmarks of the coronavirus age, with gravediggers dressed in sterile coveralls and protective masks. Only one member of his family, the rabbi Shraga Dahan who lives in Israel, was allowed to attend. "I installed the (videoconferencing application) Zoom so that everyone could follow the burial directly," Dahan told AFP. "Hundreds of people were present virtually but at the actual site we were around 10, including the funeral employees. It was very strange." Since the beginning of the new coronavirus outbreak, Israel's skies have been mostly empty with borders almost sealed and few commercial flights. But a number of planes can still be seen on the tarmac at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, some carrying the bodies of Jews who requested to be buried in Israel or Jerusalem. Some families paid large sums to overcome the complications of transporting remains during a pandemic. Due to the few flights to Tel Aviv, some "families had to rent private planes to bring the bodies of their loved ones and paid huge sums," said Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, founder of the Zaka organisation which helps facilitate funerals in Israel for Jews from abroad. Recently a Jewish family in New York paid $250,000 to transport a body, he said. Around 250 foreigners, whether they died of the virus or not, have been brought to Israel since the beginning of the pandemic, Meshi-Zahav said. Normally there are around 1,500 per year, he added. - Eternal burial - All Jews coming from abroad for burial in Israel must reserve a space in a cemetery which in prime Jerusalem locations can cost around 100,000 shekels ($29,000, 26,000 euros). Many Jews want to be buried in the world's only predominantly Jewish state where they think their graves are less likely to be desecrated by anti-Semitic abuse. Tradition also dictates that Jews have the right to an eternal burial. If buried in a municipal cemetery in their country of origin, they run the risk of having their remains moved decades later due to lack of space. Burial in Israel also guarantees them their funeral rites will be fully respected, especially during a virus outbreak. In France, to avoid the potential risks of contamination, washing the bodies of the dead has been temporarily banned. This would be inconceivable for religious Jews whose bodies must be washed before being wrapped in a shroud and buried. Meshi-Zahav said funeral directors and staff had been given special training in sanitary rules. Yves Sportes, a funeral director in France, explained that he places the bodies in two sanitary covers to avoid any contamination. The funeral directors on the Israeli side then "take care of everything according to local health rules". - Honourable end - Sportes said he had facilitated the transfer of around 50 bodies since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, compared with 150 annually normally. The 5,000 euro ($5,500) cost has not changed, he told AFP, despite the additional difficulties. Since the start of the crisis, the Israeli airline El Al has not operated from closed French airports. The bodies must first be transported to Belgium, before being placed in cargo planes since the airline's commercial flights are grounded, Sportes explained. There are now only a couple of El Al flights from Belgium to Israel per week. Last week, the company announced that it would resume more regular flights and therefore place bodies in the hold, allowing more people to be buried in Israel. The company, which charges 3,000 euros for such transport, said it was essential that "any family who wants to bury a loved one in Israel (can) do so in an honourable manner and at a fair price." Many Jews want to be buried in the world's only predominantly Jewish state, where they think their graves are less likely to be desecrated
Meghan Markle has decided that her son, Prince Archie, will have a different upbringing compared to his cousins Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.

A royal expert claimed that Prince Archie will be growing an "American child with an American Accent."

A Different Upbringing

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are finally trying to settle down in Los Angeles. When their resignation as senior members of the royal family was finalized on March 31, the couple soon made the move to the U.S. to pursue their plans of living a private and self-sustaining life.

This big move, however, does not only refer to their desire to be financially independent. It also means that their almost 1-year old son will be growing up in an American environment.

His exposure to the culture, habits, and traditions of America will most likely influence his choices as he grows up. Penny Junor, a royal author, claimed that Archie will be different from the rest of the royal children of his generation because of this.

"He's in a different country so won't grow up around his extended family. Though the royals will be sad about it, they cannot do anything," Junor said.

He also claimed that Archie might even grow up like every other child of an American celebrity. "He will grow up probably with a lot of security," he said.

On the other hand, the expert admitted that although the parents of Archie have relocated, it will not -- in any way -- affect the love and care that he will be provided with. In this interview with The Mirror, the royal author said that Prince Archie would receive a lot of love.

"Harry is fiercely proud of his son. His birth has become a wish come true for the Duke of Sussex," Junor added.

Certainly, both Prince Harry and Meghan will make sure that their child will receive all the love he deserves in this world.

A Simple Birthday

The young prince will be turning one on May 6. Instead of a lavish celebration, Prince Archie will be celebrating his special day with his mom and dad. It will just be the three of them.

The ongoing world health crisis has kept people from gathering together. This year, Prince Archie will be turning one with a rather intimate birthday party.

"Meghan understandably refuses to take any risks with guests or travel," a source previously said.

While it is impossible for Prince Archie to be around his royal relatives soon, Junor believed that both Harry and Meghan will try to keep in touch with them on Archie's birthday.

"On the day they will no doubt make many calls to family. They will have a lovely cake, too," Junor explained.

She also said that the Queen might try to speak to them even while on self-isolation, but she is confident that Archie's grandfather, Prince Charles, will make a call.

Meghan and Harry are expected to publicly celebrate Prince Archie's first birthday by releasing a picture of him on his natal day. However, little is known how the royal couple will be sharing a snap of Archie, as they are no longer allowed to access their "Sussex Royal" social media accounts.

At the moment, the couple has yet to make a new social media branding for themselves. And while they may have admitted to the establishment of the Archewell Charity Foundation, they have since decided to put its launch on hold.

For the time being, they are working with various charitable institutions to continue doing what they can to help everyone at this difficult time.
President Trump participates in a live May 3 Fox News Channel virtual town hall called "America Together: Returning to Work" about response to the coronavirus pandemic, broadcast from inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump is digging in his heels and demanding that further stimulus legislation passed by Congress must include payroll tax cuts for workers.

"We're not doing anything without a payroll tax cut," Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired on Sunday.

The $2 trillion CARES Act implemented by Congress gave employers a temporary reprieve from payroll taxes until the end of the year. That goes for Social Security and certain railroad retirement taxes.

Now the president wants to give workers a similar cut.

More from Personal Finance:

Some stimulus checks go out without $500 for qualifying children

Stimulus checks sent to dead people should be returned, government says

How lawmakers could get more stimulus money into people's hands

Payroll taxes are withheld from workers' wages and are used to fund government programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Currently, employees and employers are each subject to a 6.2% tax for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. Self-employed individuals, meanwhile, make the full contributions on their own: 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare.

Those Social Security taxes phase out after $137,700 in income. If you earn over $200,000 individually, or $250,000 if you're married and file jointly, you pay an additional 0.9% Medicare surtax.

It isn't the first time the president has floated the idea of cutting payroll taxes, which would let American workers take home bigger paychecks.
A group calling itself Ghana Union in Norway has lambasted China for allegedly maltreating Africans in its territory.

The Union, in a statement jointly signed by its Secretary, Joseph Kyei-Boateng; Financial Secretary, Priscilla Serwaah

and Organizer, Joseph Agana, bemoaned the poor inhuman treatment of Africans in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, linked to the global pandemic COVID-19.

It says Our condemnation comes on the backdrop of a story reported by the UK-based media organisation, the Guardian, on the headline: China fails to stop racism against Africans over Covid-19 published on 27.04.2020 ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/china-fails-to-stop-racism-against-africans-over-covid-19?), which caught the attention of the union.

The story mentioned that some of the Africans maltreated by Chinese nationals came from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya.

We find this distasteful in the eyes of respect for humanity. And that we believe for the global population of over 7.7 billion, whether Africans or Asians, North Americans or South Americans, Europeans or Oceanians; we are all one people, one family in the world, the statement said.

And that inhuman treatment on people here in Norway or any other country including China, affects us directly and indirectly.

By this measure, we expect China to resort to diplomacy and ride on the skins of international relations in dealing with foreign nationals in their country.

Even if Africans or others of different race are flouting national rules or laws in China, we expect that Chinese officials deal with them according to the law BUT NOT subjecting them to inhuman treatment.

---Daily Guide
The evaluation of UP board answer sheets will begin only in 20 districts that fall under the green zone from May 5, while evaluation work in orange and red zones will begin later, an official said on Monday.

Deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma said, After much deliberation, it was decided to start evaluation only in green zone keeping in mind safety of teachers. Gradually, we will start evaluation in orange and in red zones.

The green zone districts where evaluation work will begin from Tuesday are Barabanki, Kheri, Hathras, Maharajganj, Shahjahanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Balia, Chandauli, Chitrakoot, Deoria, Farukhabad, Fatehpur, Hamirpur, Kanpur dehat, Kushinagar, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Siddharthnagar, Sonbhadra and Amethi, he said.

Sharma said that the decision to start evaluation in the orange and red zones will be taken only after reviewing the progress of evaluation and assessing the requirements in the green zone.

The decision of not starting the evaluation process in the orange and red zone was taken after teachers belonging to Uttar Pradesh madhyamik shikshak sangh refused to take part in the process. An office-bearer of the sangh, RP Mishra said, We cannot risk the lives of our colleagues amid Covid-19 outbreak that has claimed lives of more than 43 people and over 2650 were infected.

Teachers association had threatened to stay away from evaluation of UP board answer sheets beginning from May 5. This decision was sent to secondary education department officials in a tizzy following which a meeting was held on Monday evening to reach a consensus to start evaluation in the green zone.

Now evaluation will start in 63 centres of 20 green zone districts against 275 evaluation centres in 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh where more than 1.46 lakh teachers were deployed to evaluate answer sheets of 5.6 million high school and intermediate examinees, said UP board secretary, Nina Srivastava.

Teachers who are under medication with a medical history have been exempted from evaluation work, said Srivastava on Monday.

She said district inspectors of schools (DIoS) were asked to take measures like frequent sanitisation of the examination centre and to follow social distancing protocol.

Principal secretary, secondary education, Aradhana Shukla said, Elaborate arrangements will be put into place for evaluation of UP board answer sheets. Social distancing will be maintained at every evaluation centre. Nobody will be allowed to carry a mobile phone inside the centre.

Evaluation work will be done under CCTV camera vigil. Nobody will be allowed to move around 100 mts of the evaluation centre as Section 144 will be imposed and police force will be deployed at every evaluation centre, Shukla said.

Around 5.61 million students had appeared in the high school and intermediate examinations of the UP board that began from February 18. The high school examination was completed in 12 working days (March 3) while intermediate exams concluded in 15 days (March 6).

While 2.586 million students were listed for the intermediate examination, 3.025 million were registered for high school examination.

The results of class 10 and class 12 were earlier to be declared on April 24. But because of lockdown, it will now be delayed, an official said.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Before many of the details were known, I wrote a column in the form of an open letter to the participants, though I knew it was unlikely they would see it. There is nothing else I can say to them, but there is much more they could say to us.
The relevant amendments to the government's resolution were adopted on May 4.

Ukrainian Health Minister Maksym Stepanov has said planned surgery suspended over the coronavirus-related quarantine will be allowed in Ukraine from May 5.

"During our scheduled meeting on Monday I initiated a special government meeting  it was backed by the prime minister and the government; one question was raised, which I consider very important  this is an amendment to Cabinet resolution No. 211, which introduced quarantine measures in Ukraine," he said during an online briefing, citing amendments adopted by the government today, May 4, to the resolution on the introduction of quarantine measures, according to an UNIAN correspondent.

Read alsoRoutine checkups, planned surgery suspended in Ukraine over quarantine  health minister

Stepanov said that planned surgery and hospitalization had been canceled amid the quarantine in Ukraine, but the quarantine period is about 50 days now and there is a need to carry out planned surgery, including for health reasons. "I saw this after talking with our local specialists, with our doctors, including during a trip to Cherkasy region on May 1," he said.

"The government passed an [amended] resolution, and planned surgery, planned hospitalization for health reasons, i.e. if surgery is very necessary for a person's health and life, will be allowed in our country immediately after [its] publication tomorrow, I think," Stepanov said.

At the same time, surgery will be carried out only after patients test for the coronavirus with the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing to prevent healthcare workers from getting infected. "Thus, we will reduce the risk for medical workers to zero," the minister added.
"It is a rare opportunity to be able to work with an iconic group like Grateful Dead and we are excited to be in business together," said Casely CEO and co-founder Mark Stallings. "The band's impact on both music and culture is unmatched and we will strive to uphold the legacy they've created."

Casely will be the first ever tech accessory brand to sell officially licensed Grateful Dead phone cases. The collection includes four unique case designs with sizes available for the iPhone 6 through the iPhone 11 Pro Max. The cases will be available at getcasely.com on May 29th, 2020.

"While we're living in uncertain times, there are still some profound pleasures in life. Food, friends and rock and roll," said Casely co-founder Emily Stallings. "It brought us so much joy during this time to work on this collaboration and we can't wait to share it with the world."

ABOUT CASELY

Founded in 2017, Casely is based in Brooklyn, New York and is the world's only subscription club for designer phone cases. Casely gives back through the #EveryCaseCounts initiative, through which a portion of proceeds from every phone case sold supports a different charity or organization each month. In June, Casely will join Grateful Dead in their continued support of donating to the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund.

SOURCE Casely

Related Links

https://www.getcasely.com


[May 04, 2020] New Wave Design and Verification Acquires FlightWire

MINNEAPOLIS, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- New Wave Design and Verification, LLC. ( New Wave DV ), a leading provider of high-performance digital electronic interface solutions for the Defense/Aerospace market, announced today that it has acquired FlightWire Technology, Inc ., a principal provider of 1394b AS5643 (MIL-1394) solutions. This acquisition combines two premier MIL-1394 companies, considerably expanding the resources, expertise, and offerings of MIL-1394 embedded, test, and maintenance products and services by New Wave DV.

FlightWire is a recognized leader in the MIL-1394 sustainment and laboratory equipment market, stated Richard Mourn, President of FlightWire. By joining forces with New Wave DV, a recognized leader in MIL-1394 embedded and test interface hardware, we are creating endless potential in the aerospace and defense market. Together we will provide a one-stop shop for sustainment and laboratory equipment, flight hardware, and FPGA IP along with testing, validation and training services. Mourn wll join New Wave DV as the Product Line Director of MIL-1394.



Richard has done a fantastic job building and growing FlightWire to become a tremendous value for the industry, stated Josh Dirlam, CEO of New Wave DV. We are excited for FlightWire to join our team and to continue serving our critical partners with exceptional MIL-1394 solutions, support and expertise. The acquisition of FlightWire aligns with New Wave DVs focus on products and services for the Defense/Aerospace high-speed serial interface market. The FlightWire product line will continue to be offered and supported through New Wave DV. FlightWire staff will also transition to New Wave DV, including the Colorado office where FlightWire engineering and manufacturing are currently located. The FlightWire line of products and services is available effective immediately and without interruption through New Wave DV.

About New Wave Design and Verification

The New Wave Design and Verification (New Wave DV) team is made up of passionate professionals who have extensive skill designing, building, testing, and delivering electronic systems for aerospace and defense systems. New Wave DV is focused on high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and specialized networking applications. We uphold our reputation for industry-leading products and services through persistent dedication backed by decades of experience. New Wave DV provides programmable network interface hardware, FPGA IP Cores, and system level products for high-speed serial interfaces used in embedded and test systems. Protocols supported include Ethernet, Fibre Channel, 1394b AS5643, sFPDP, ARINC-818, HSDB, and custom protocols. For more information about New Wave DV and its products and services, call 952-224-9201 or visit www.newwavedv.com . Editorial Contacts: Spencer Bellenger

New Wave Design and Verification

[email protected]

952-224-9207 Wendy Truax

HighPointe Communications

[email protected]

503-351-0103

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Stocks in the news today: Here is a list of top stocks that are likely to be in focus in Monday's trading session based on latest developments. Investors will also be taking cues from the latest released March quarter earnings

Share Market LIVE: Sensex falls 1,500 points, Nifty at 9,488, RIL drops over 2% post Q3 earnings

Key highlights on share market; check the latest stock market news

- On Thursday, BSE Sensex ended 997 points higher at 33,717 and NSE Nifty climbed 306 points to 9,859

- The currency benchmark rupee settled at 75.12 per dollar as compared to its last close of 75.68 per US dollar.

- Financial markets remained closed on Friday on account of Maharashtra Day

- India has reported a total of 2,644 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the toll of total coronavirus cases to 39,980, including 10,632 recoveries and 1,301 deaths.

- USFDA has granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to investigational antiviral remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients.

- Government has announced an extension of the nationwide lockdown till 17 May, 2020.

- March eight core industries growth came in at a fall of 6.5% as compared to 7.1% on a monthly basis.

Sun Pharma: Company announced that one of its employees at Halol plant in Gujarat informed on April 30 that he has tested positive for COVID19.

RBL Bank: Lender board has appointed Deepak Kumar as the Chief Risk Officer of the bank for a period of two years.

Asian Paints: The company announced its foray into the hand sanitizer category with the launch of the Viroprotek range of hand and surface sanitizers.

IDFC First Bank: Lender board has approved raising Rs 2,000 cr through preferential basis.

Blue Star: The company plans to raise Rs 300 crore through the issuance of non-convertible debentures.

PNB Housing: Rating firm CRISIL has revised the company's outlook to negative from stable.

Escorts: Total sales in April 2020 came down 86% at 705 units, as compared to 5,264 units recorded in the same month a year ago. Where exports fell 66.9% to 92 units, domestic sales fell 87.7% to 613 in April, 2020.

Mahindra & Mahindra: Company auto sales stood at 733 units in the export market, while its total domestic sales stood at zero units compared to 41,603 units on a yearly basis. Company total sales for tractors fell by 83% yoy to 4,772 units.

Maruti Suzuki: Company informed the exchanges that it saw zero sales in the domestic market in the month of April as all production was closed.

Mahindra Logistics: Company's board has approved borrowing upto Rs 250 crore.

Zydus Cadila: Company has received tentative approval from USFDA for Empagliflozin and Metformin Hydrochloride tablets.

NHPC: Company board plans to consider borrowing upto Rs 2,000 crore.

Edelweiss Financial Services: CARE reaffirms Commercial Paper Programme rating worth Rs Rs 6,350 crore of company to CARE A1+ (A One Plus). The rating firm has also re-affirmed convertible Debentures Programme of Rs 284 crores to CARE AA- (Double A Minus).

Polycab India: The company announced it has signed an agreement with Trafigura Pte, Singapore to acquire 50% stake in Ryker Base Private, thereby terminating the existing joint venture (JV). The purchase consideration is likely to be around US $ 4 Million (Rs 300 million), the filing added.

Reliance Industries Q4: The company reported 0.59% fall(YoY) in consolidated net profit to Rs 39,354 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020 as against Rs 39,588 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Total income rose 5.7% (YoY) to Rs 6,25,601 crore in the January- March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 5,91,480 crore in the same period last financial year. Company has said it is set to achieve net zero debt status ahead of its own aggressive timeline. Company's board has recommended a dividend of Rs 6.50 per share. Conglomerate's board has also approved rights issues for up to Rs 53,125 cr at Rs 1,257 per share.

In another update, Competition Commission of India has approved a proposed combination between BP Global Investments & Reliance BP Mobility.

Tech Mahindra Q4: IT major's net profit stood at Rs 803.9 cr, dropping 29% as against Rs 1132.5 crore on a yearly basis. Company's total income rose 7.9% yearly to Rs 9775 crore as compared to Rs 9059 crore. Company's board has approved a final dividend of Rs 5 per share.

Hindustan Unilever Q4: The company has reported 3.63% drop in its net profit of Rs 1,515 crore in March 2020 as against Rs 1,572 crore in March FY 2019. Its total income fell 8.13% to Rs 9,475 crore during the period ended March 31, 2020 as compared to Rs 10,314 crore during the period ended March 31, 2019. Company's board recommended a final dividend of Rs 14 per share.

Apollo Pipes Q4: Company's reported 16.6% rise (YoY) in consolidated net profit to Rs 6.18 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020 as against Rs 5.30 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Total income rose 4.75% (YoY) to Rs 96 crore in the January- March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 92 crore in the same period last financial year.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance Q4: The company reported 23.8% rise (YoY) in consolidated net profit to Rs 281 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020 as against Rs 227 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Total income rose 12% (YoY) to Rs 2,850 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 2,543 crore in the same period last financial year.

AU Small Finance Bank Q4: The company reported 3.4% rise (YoY) in consolidated net profit to Rs 122 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020 as against Rs 118 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Total income rose 35% (YoY) to Rs 1,366 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 1,007 crore in the same period last financial year.

HDFC Asset Management Company: The company's board plans to announce Q4, FY20 results, dividend on May 9, 2020.

Adani Green Energy: Company board plans to approve Q4, FY20 results on May 4, 2020.

ICICI Bank: Company board plans to announce Q4, FY2020 results on May 9, 2020.

Marico: Company board plans to consider Q4, FY20 results on May 4, 2020.
- One Tom Aneya was on his way home with his workmate when they were stopped by two chiefs

- Aneya was beaten senseless by the local administrators and their aides, losing an eye in the process

- He was rushed to Homa Bay county referral hospital where he was admitted and was not able to leave the facility over lack of money

- Another resident claimed the administrators forced him to bury her 12-year-old son failure to which she was threatened of being taken to quarantine facility

Two chiefs in Homa Bay county have found themselves at loggerheads with the locals over claims that they beat a man and gouged out his eye for being outside during curfew hours.

Tom Aneya, 55, was on his way home with a colleague from their workplace when they met the area chief and his assistant on April 8.

READ ALSO: Kenyan newspaper review for May 4: Keroche Breweries owners' daughter Tecra Muigai fell from stairs

Aneya was rushed to Homa Bay county referral hospital but is yet to receive medical attention due to lack of money. Photo: K24

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Rais Trump ampongeza Mkenya aliyemtetea mtandaoni baada ya kushambuliwa vikali

Aneya said the chief stopped their motorcycle before they pulled them off and started beating them for defying curfew orders, as reported by Daily Nation.

"I was coming from work at a construction site in the evening. I was riding on a motorcycle with my workmate when we met our chief and his assistant on the way home. They beat us up, saying we had violated the curfew order," Aneya said.

He dragged himself to their home where his wife rushed him to a local dispensary and later referred to Homa Bay county referral hospital.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: Kenya confirms record 30 new positive cases,15 more patients discharged

According to Aneya, the chiefs attacked him with blunt objects and he is yet to receive medical attention because he has no money.

The residents raised concerns over conduct of the two chiefs who they claims have been using violence and intimidation to implement the government's orders in bid to curb spread of COVID-19.

One of the administrators was also accused of forcing a woman to bury her son without a coffin after threatening to quarantine her if she didnt adhere to the orders.

Chiefs during a past meeting Interior CS Fred Matiang'i. Photo: Interior Ministry

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Isiolo governor Mohamed Kuti refutes claims county borrowed ICU beds for photoshoot

Ruth Akinyi said her 12-year-old son succumbed to liver complications and died at home on April 12 at 8pm.

She said the assistant chief visited her home and asked them to bury the deceased by 10am the following day failure to which they would be taken to a quarantine facility.

One of the administrators said he could not comment about the matters. I am not allowed to speak to the media especially on such matters. I have bosses who can address you, he said.

Contacted, Homa Bay county commissioner Yatich Kipkemei said he was not aware of the claims. He advised the aggrieved families to report to police.

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
Iran dismissed as "illegitimate" the US efforts to extend the arms embargo on Tehran, Reuters reported referring to the Iranian MFA spokesperson Abbas Mousavi.

"Iran is not seeking to exit the 2015 nuclear deal with six powers ... America's move is illegitimate and our reaction will be proportionate," Abbas Mousavi said in a TV weekly news conference.

"The United States is not a member of the nuclear deal anymore ... Iran's reaction to America's illegal measures will be firm," Mousavi said.

On May 1, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington was ready to take any measures to prevent Tehran from acquiring Russian or Chinese armored vehicles after the end of the embargo.

The New York Times on April 26 reported the US intends to try to get the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution providing for the preservation of the arms embargo against Iran based on the Iranian deal.
It has been four years since she last saw her family but Gucci, a 14-year-old pit bull, had a reunion in Philadelphia was reunited this week thanks in part to social media, according to reports.

KYW-TV in Philadelphia reported that Gucci was rescued from ACCT Philly by Marvin and Jessica Graaf from Philly Bully Team, a foster-rescue organization.

ACCT Philly, who only recently rescued Gucci, had posted about her to social media and somewhere along the way the post caught the eye of Jodi Chamlee.

Chamlee told the organization she had lost Gucci while her family was moving from Tennessee to Georgia, and ACCT reached back out to Philly Bully Team to connect the two.

Following a long phone conversation and an in-depth look at Guccis markings and characteristics, Philly Bully Team and Chamlee determined they were talking about the same dog.

Philly Bully Team posted about the development, sharing the joy they felt for finding her true family.

Chamlee and her family pack their car and drove from Georgia to Philadelphia last week to reunite, something Chamlee told KYW-TV couldnt wait.

"I couldnt bear the thought of her thinking that mama wasnt going to come for her, Chamlee said.

On Sunday, Philly Bully Team shared their video of the familys reunion:

Read more on PennLive:
Advertisement

Britain's most attractive pubs have been revealed - including a 17th century former butchers and a 150-year-old establishment saved by the local community.

The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has announced the victors of its prestigious Pub Design Awards, which reward best new builds, conversions, conservations and refurbishments.

Taking home the top spot for best refurbishments was the The Farmers Arms, in Woolfardisworthy, Devon, which has been a public house for much of its 300-year life, and the Peterborough Arms, in Dauntsey Lock, Wiltshire, which started out as a farmhouse in the late 18th Century.

Best new build was awarded to the Hall & Woodhouse in Swindon, which showcases canal-side luxury, while the Plau in Preston claimed the Conversion Award, having originally been built in 1668 as a butchers.

The Zetland in Middlesbrough won the Historic England Conservation Award after its owners painstakingly restored the former 19th century hotel in 2017, and the Shakespeare in Bridgnorth, 'a tap-house with beer truly at its heart', was given the Joe Goodwin Award for best street-corner local.

CAMRA is encouraging people to enjoy the winning sites virtually amid the UK's lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. Here, FEMAIL brings you a look at the Pub Design Awards winners...

Canal-side luxury at the Hall & Woodhouse in Swindon - New Build Award

Built as part of a housing expansion, the Hall & Woodhouse (pictured) in Swindon occupies a prominent canal-side site in the town centre and is thought to be an important asset for the emerging community

Inside, guests are treated to a juxtaposition of industrial structure and soft furnishings, with walls adorned with boatbuilding, family and brewing heritage images (pictured)

Andrew Davison, chair of CAMRA's Pub Design Award judging panel, said: 'The New Build award is only awarded rarely, so it is a testament to the quality of the Hall & Woodhouse Wichelstowe (pictured, inside) that it has won!'

The form of the building looked to reflect the architectural heritage of industrial Swindon, adding open trussed roofs to mimic that of the train sheds and warehouses that used to fill the town (pictured)

Built as part of a housing expansion, the Hall & Woodhouse in Swindon occupies a prominent canal-side site in the town centre and is thought to be an important asset for the emerging community.

The form of the building looked to reflect the architectural heritage of industrial Swindon, adding open trussed roofs to mimic that of the train sheds and warehouses that used to fill the town.

Inside, guests are treated to a juxtaposition of industrial structure and soft furnishings, with walls adorned with boatbuilding, family and brewing heritage images.

Andrew Davison, chair of CAMRA's Pub Design Award judging panel, said: 'The New Build award is only awarded rarely, so it is a testament to the quality of the Hall & Woodhouse Wichelstowe that it has won!

'Mackenzie Wheeler Architects, the designers of the building, have drawn inspiration from the location, with a range of gabled roofs at the water's edge evoking the canal side sheds which housed many a traditional boat-building and repairing business, and a taller accommodation block referencing historic canal side warehouses.

'The commitment Hall & Woodhouse make to individual, location-specific design is praiseworthy.'

17th century butcher's shop turned pub, the Plau in Preston - Conversion Award

Originally built in 1668 as a butchers shop, Plau (pictured left, recently) in Preston was converted into a pub in 1795 before closing in 1913 (pictured right). It finally reopened as a pub after a gap of 105 years in 2018

In 2015, it was bought by Jeremy Rowlands, the owner of the Continental and Ferret pubs, who restored the building to its former glory - including bare wood floors (pictured), dark timber panelling on the walls and a marble topped bar

The Northern pub in Lancashire has two floors, with the basement offering a cosy, warm atmosphere and the ground floor (pictured) boasting a sophisticated dining area

Originally built in 1668 as a butcher's shop, Plau in Preston was converted into a pub in 1795 before closing in 1913. It finally reopened as a pub after a gap of 105 years in 2018.

The building was constructed by the Chorley family in 1668 on the site of a previous unknown building. They were butchers and haberdashers by trade and it is thought that the building started life as a butchers shop.

At some point during the next 100 years the building became a public house, with the first written records of its existence being the bribes paid in The Plough Inn, which was the pub's original name, during the 1795 election to elect Lord Derby.

The Plough Inn continued to trade throughout the 19th century and had a varied and colourful history, gaining a reputation as an unruly house. It finally closed as a pub in 1913 before being used as a shop.

In 2015, the structure was bought by Jeremy Rowlands, the owner of the Continental and Ferret pubs, who restored the building to its former glory - including bare wood floors, dark timber panelling on the walls and a marble topped bar.

Former hotel, The Zetland, Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire - Historic England Conservation Award

Originally built in 1860 as a hotel, The Zetland (pictured) in Middlebrough, North Yorkshire, was painstakingly restored in 2017 - which even included sourcing custom-made tiles from the very firm that created them over 120 years ago

The pub (pictured) was given the award, which is sponsored by Historic England, thanks to conserving original features while carrying out changes 'which gave it a viable future as sympathetically as possible'

 Slide me  Following the renovation (pictured right), it retains its remarkable display of round-arched mirrors and mosaic flooring in the entrance - plus hidden under a false ceiling, an eye-catching tiled artwork has now been exposed. Pictured left: The pub before the restoration

Originally built in 1860 as a hotel, The Zetland in Middlebrough, North Yorkshire, was painstakingly restored in 2017 - which even included sourcing custom-made tiles from the very firm that created them over 120 years ago.

Following the renovation, it retains its remarkable display of round-arched mirrors and mosaic flooring in the entrance - plus hidden under a false ceiling, an eye-catching tiled artwork has now been exposed.

The pub was given the award, which is sponsored by Historic England, thanks to conserving original features while carrying out changes 'which gave it a viable future as sympathetically as possible.'

Andrew Davison added: 'At the Zetland, owners Philip and Joanna Christie have carried out a careful refurbishment of a magnificent late Victorian building, which had become rather run down in recent years before closing altogether in 2015.'

Former farmhouse, The Peterborough Arms in Dauntsey Lock, Wiltshire - Refurbishment Award, joint winner

The Peterborough Arms (pictured, the interior) in Dauntsey Lock, Wiltshire, started out as a farmhouse in the late 18th Century before being turned into a pub

In 2013, it was placed on the market, with planning permission for it to be turned into a private house - but as this pub (pictured recently) was only one of two left along the Wilts & Berks Canal, the local Wilts & Berks Canal Trust applied for ownership

After some months of negotiations and a fundraising drive amongst Wilts & Berks Canal Trust members, the pub was transferred to the group in mid-2014. Six volunteers started the restoration in 2015, with the team growing in numbers as the refurbishment continued, until in late 2018 the pub (pictured) reopened

The Peterborough Arms in Dauntsey Lock, Wiltshire, started out as a farmhouse in the late 18th century before being turned into a pub.

In 2013, it was placed on the market, with planning permission for it to be turned into a private house - but as this pub was only one of two left along the Wilts & Berks Canal, the local Wilts & Berks Canal Trust applied for ownership.

After some months of negotiations and a fundraising drive amongst Wilts & Berks Canal Trust members, the pub was transferred to the group in mid-2014.

Six volunteers started the restoration in 2015, with the team growing in numbers as the refurbishment continued, until in late 2018 the pub reopened. It now has a reputation for good ales, food and attentive staff.

The Farmers Arms, a 300-year-old pub in Woolfardisworthy, Devon - Refurbishment Award, joint winner

Having served as a public house for much of the building's 300-year life, The Farmers Arms' new owners have restored the pub to its former glory, retaining its unique character, according to CAMRA. Pictured top: The building before the renovation, and bottom, the pub after the project had been completed

The historic layout (pictured) was retained in refurbishment and restored in areas where the team removed modern additions

Having served as a public house for much of the building's 300-year life, The Farmers Arms' new owners have restored the pub to its former glory, retaining its unique character, according to CAMRA.

The historic layout was retained in refurbishment and restored in areas where the team removed modern additions. They also re-established the original entrances, even though one is only five foot high.

Andrew Davison said: 'After purchasing this Grade II listed building, owners Michael and Xochi Birch commissioned Jonathan Rhind Architects to repair and update the near-derelict pub, a very simple vernacular building, without grand fixtures or fittings.

'They saw that its value lies in its historic fabric, its traditional materials, and its contribution to the streetscape. The result is a pub which is once again at the centre of village life.'

The Shakespeare, Bridgnorth - Joe Goodwin Award for best street-corner local

The Shakespeare (pictured) in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, is said to be a tap-house with beer truly at the heart, with preserved log burners and bespoke stained-glass windows adding to the pub's character

Work on the pub was started in September 2017, with the project hoping to give the tired-looking Shakespeare its character and warmth back. One way in which the renovation did this was by preserving the log burners already in place (pictured)

Andrew Davison said: 'Sited at the heart of a historic market town, this is a pub (pictured) for meeting friends and acquaintances, for indulging in conversation and laughter, or just for watching the world go by'

The Shakespeare in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, is said to be a tap-house with beer truly at the heart, with preserved log burners and bespoke stained-glass windows adding to the pub's character.

Work on the pub was started in early September 2017, with the project hoping to give the tired-looking Shakespeare its character and warmth back.

One way in which the renovation did this was by preserving the log burners already in place and ensuring they were focal points throughout the pub. The addition of bespoke stained-glass windows also added to the character of the structure.

Andrew Davison said: 'Sited at the heart of a historic market town, this is a pub for meeting friends and acquaintances, for indulging in conversation and laughter, or just for watching the world go by.

'The late CAMRA Chairman, for whom this award is named, was a great enthusiast for, and champion of, pubs such as this, and it is a worthy winner of the award named in his memory.'
An essay on Srimanta Sankaradeva by Dr. Sanjib Kumar Borkakoti, a Nagaon-based industrial economist, has been added to Harvard University course material.

According to a New Indian Express report, Dr Sanjib Kumar Borkakotis essay Unique features of Srimanta Sankaradevas religious philosophy Vivaratanvada: Comparison with other Sanatana Hindu philosophies is now a part of the syllabus for the students of its Department of Religions.

Facebook/ Dr Borkakoti/The New Indian Express

Borkakoti has been a researcher of medieval Assamese literature. He uploaded the essay some 10 years back on a blog dedicated to Sankarde.

Borkakoti said that he was unaware of it and he is not sure as for how long the University has been using the essay.

"We have an organization called Society for Srimanta Sankaradeva and it has a website sankaradeva.com. We also have a Facebook group Followers of Srimanta Sankaradeva. We had uploaded the essay in question on both platforms. It appears that Harvard University collected it from one such public domain. They didnt contact me, Dr. Borkakoti told The New Indian Express.



Saint-reformer Sankaradeva/Twitter





"I found out last week when the university uploaded a part of the treatise as Religion S-1010 probably because of pandemic-related online dissemination of course, The Hindu reported quoting the scholar.

He said that he tried to depict in the essay how Sankaradevas philosophy is unique from Indian Hindu philosophies.

Image For Representation/Twitter/Michael Fein/Bloomberg



This is probably the reason why they (Harvard) got attracted. Sankaradeva was the worlds first philosopher who could synthesize the path of knowledge and the path of devotion, Dr. Borkakoti added.

The 60-year-old associate professor of Economics at Nagaons ADP College did his post-graduation in 1983 from JNU. Borkakoti has also authored several books on Sankaradeva, apart from several essays and articles.
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State has blamed the massive outbreak of COVID-19 in the State to the delay in testing suspected cases.

Kano has recorded the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country with 342 patients.

Also Read: Ganduje Relaxes Presidential Lockdown In Kano

Ganduje lamented that the State was in trouble following the uncontrollable spread of Coronavirus Disease in the State.

Advertisement

This was contained in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Abba Anwar.

He quoted the Governor to have said this on Sunday during the presentation of a mobile COVID-19 Testing Centre donated to the state by Aliko Dangote.

He said, There is no doubt that Kano is in trouble.

And there is no doubt that we started on a shaky foundation.

When samples were taken to Abuja for 7 hours and came back again in 7 hours, that was the shaky foundation I am talking about.

We then lodged our complaint to President Muhammadu Buhari, who ordered for the establishment of a Testing Centre at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, which after take-off was shut down for some days if not weeks.

That was what escalated the transmission of the disease up to community transmission.
An Amish family was holding a funeral service Saturday for four of their children who died in a buggy accident in northeastern Kentucky when authorities arrived with news: The body of a fifth child in the accident, missing for days, had just been found.

The five children, between 1 and 12 years old, had disappeared Wednesday after their horse-drawn buggy overturned on a bridge in Peasticks, an Amish community in Bath County, about 50 miles northeast of Lexington. Four of the bodies were recovered the same day, while the fifth childs body was found Saturday morning, authorities said.

Andrew Owens, the coroner, said in an interview Monday that members of the Amish community had filled the Hochstetler familys home Saturday morning. The parents, who have six other children, were seated in the room near the handmade coffins holding the bodies of the four children  three girls and a boy  when they were told the body of the fifth child, a boy, had been found.

We just came in together and broke the news to them, Owens, accompanied by state police and other officials, said in an interview. It was difficult for everybody, but there was also a sigh of relief knowing they could all be together. Mixed emotions. They were grieving.

The fifth child was reunited with the other four, he said. And they were all buried together.

The names of the children and the full names of their parents have not been released, in line with the familys wishes, authorities have said.

The Rev. Jim Sichko, a priest with the Catholic Diocese of Lexington, said he visited the family Friday, when the bodies of the four children were laid out in the home, surrounded by several hundred mourners.

It was very peaceful, he said. Their big thing was they wanted to make sure they found the fifth child before the funeral.

Bobby C. Rogers, the Bath County judge-executive, said in a statement over the weekend that the fifth childs body had been found. The boy was pulled from a waterway Saturday at about 11:22 a.m. near Peasticks, Trooper Scott Ferrell of the Kentucky State Police said Monday.

The five children and their mother were returning home from church Wednesday afternoon when their buggy flipped while they were trying to cross a low-water bridge spanning a branch of a waterway that feeds into the Licking River, Michael Gray, the deputy coroner, said Thursday.

A low-water bridge is a concrete slab with culverts underneath it that let the water pass through.

The mother made her way to the bank of the waterway and summoned help, Gray said. Creeks in the area had been swollen after heavy rain moved into the region Wednesday afternoon, he said.

Ferrell said the bodies of two of the children were found together. He said investigators were not sure what had caused the buggy to overturn. It swept all of them downstream, he said.

There were about 341,900 Amish people living in 31 states and four Canadian provinces as of June 2019, according to statistics compiled by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

About 63% live in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, the center said. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has the largest Amish population in the United States, with about 39,255 people, it said.

In Kentucky, there are about 13,300 Amish people living in 44 settlements, the statistics show.

In 2011, four Amish children were killed when a buggy that was carrying a family of nine home after they used a community telephone toppled in a rain-swollen creek in rural Graves County, Kentucky, The Associated Press reported at the time.

Last year, three Amish children died in Michigan after a car plowed into the back of their horse-drawn buggy, underscoring an all-too-common danger faced by the Amish, who reject automobiles and other modern technology.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The Delhi government has issued an order allowing state-run liquor shops to operate from 9 am to 6.30 pm in the city, and directed deployment of marshals at these outlets to maintain social distancing.

According to a government official, about 150 liquor shops have been allowed to open in accordance with the latest lockdown relaxations given by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

There are around 850 liquor shops in the city including those run by government agencies and private individuals.

In an order on Sunday night, the excise department also directed officials to identify liquor shops, which are being run by private individuals (L-7 licensee) and fulfil conditions laid down by the MHA. The officials have been asked them to submit a report within three days.

The government has so far allowed only those liquor shops (L-7 and L-8) to operate which are being run by four state-run agencies responsible for liquor sale in the national capital.

"All liquor shops in malls and markets will remain closed. The government-run shops allowed will operate from 9 am to 6.30 pm.

"The four agencies will deploy marshals to ensure that not more than 5 people are present at one time at the shop," the official said.

The department has asked agencies to coordinate with the local administration and police to maintain law and order.

According to the order, bonded warehouses have been allowed to resume operation from 7 am to 6.30 pm.

The Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation, the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation, the Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited and the Delhi Consumer''s Cooperative Wholesale Store have been given the permission to open liquor shops in public places, except malls and market complexes.

The agencies will have to give an undertaking stating that liquor shops being allowed to open will fulfil all MHA guidelines, according to the excise department.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Immunity passports risk dividing society, with some moving about freely, with others shut at home, officials worry.

Germany has secured millions of coronavirus antibody tests, Berlin announced on Monday, but it will only use them after taking advice from the nations ethics council.

The blood sample tests could identify those who have already been infected and recovered from the virus which has killed nearly 7,000 people in Germany and around 250,000 worldwide, and who, therefore, may now have some immunity  potentially enabling them to get back to work, socialise and generally enjoy some semblance of normal life.

But officials are concerned over cleaving German society in two and want to consider the ethics of having part of their population able to freely move about, while others remain deprived of their liberty, stuck at home.

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for its testing kits over the weekend, and has agreed to a deal with Germany to supply three million tests in May, and five million a month thereafter. The Basel-based firm, the second-largest drug company in the world, plans to produce 100 million tests a month.





The question of what it means for society when some people are hit by restrictions and others are not, that touches on the foundations of how society functions together, Health Minister Jens Spahn said at an event at a Roche plant in Penzberg in Bavaria.

And a positive test for the presence of coronavirus-fighting antibodies might not necessarily mean local authorities give a person a green light to flout all previous restrictions  meaning many may question why their movements continue to be restricted  while others could inappropriately seek to deliberately infect themselves, should greater freedoms be perceived as on offer to those who have had it and recovered.

Thats why Ive asked the German Ethics Council to deal with this, Spahn added. Until that is cleared up, weve agreed not to undertake any legal regulations.

Globally, there are at least 115 projects working on developing a vaccine, but no one knows how long it will be before one is readily available.

The idea that antibody tests could lead to immunity passports to help economies get fired up again has been popular around the world, but Spahn said such a programme must fulfil its aims while respecting peoples rights.





Questions also remain about to what degree antibodies confer immunity, not least, Quartz reports, because researchers do not yet agree on how long antibodies remain in the bloodstream after an infection  and therefore for how long they provide an effective defence against the virus.

The World Health Organization last month urged caution, saying there was scant evidence that people with antibodies were protected from a second infection.

Roches test relies on people taking it at least two weeks after the infection, so it may be less accurate if the infection is still active in a persons system.

Roche Chairman Christoph Franz announced at the event with Spahn that the Basel-based company will invest 420 million euros ($459m) in its German site, including a four-year plan to create a new diagnostics research and development centre.
A senior police officer has admitted that he killed a man when he was 14-years-old, despite not mentioning it in his job application for his current position.

Broward County sheriff Gregory Tony, who became sheriff in 2019, after Scott Israel was suspended from the position, admitted to the killing after a report that was released on Saturday claimed he killed a man in 1993.

Mr Tony said he shot and killed 18-year-old Hector Rodriguez in self defence, after he attacked him and his brother outside their home in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately, we had a dispute with him  my brother and me  in front of our home and he made threats to kill us and he literally pulled out a gun, he said in an interview with Local 10.

He had no problem with shooting us right there, the sheriff in south Florida added.

Recommended Suspended police chief claimed deputy died from virus for being gay

Mr Rodriguezs then-girlfriend, Maritza Carrasquillo, disputed this claim and told the Florida Bulldog that she believes he was not armed that day.

Hector didnt have a weapon on him that Im aware of, and I never saw him with a weapon, she said.

In a statement, Mr Tony told the publication that he hadnt brought the incident up before, because he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

The juvenile authorities reviewed my actions and cleared my name, he said. This was the most difficult and painful experience of my life and I have never spoken of it publicly.

I worked every day from that time forward to leave the violence that surrounded me in Philadelphia behind.

Mr Tony added to Florida Politics that the incident didnt come up during any background checks, because he was never arrested for the incident.

Under Pennsylvania law, juveniles are not arrested, they go through a petition of delinquency, he said.

It never came up on my background checks or clearances, since I was a juvenile and I didnt commit a crime, as it was self-defence.
Benchmarks Sensex and Nifty traded sharply lower on Monday, tracking weak global markets on fresh cues from US-China trade war.

BSE Sensex traded 1,724 points lower at 31,993 and NSE Nifty fell 500 points lower to 9,358.

UPL, GAIL, Vedanta, Hindalco, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank were among the top losers today, while Cipla, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's Laboratories were among the top gainers on Nifty.

Sectorally, barring pharma, all the other sectors While metal, banking and were in the red. Metal, banking and financial sectors dropped over 7% each, realty and auto were down 6.5%, followed by 5% fall in media and PSU Banking index.

Following weakness in equity markets, Rupee also opened lower in the currency market today at 75.73 per dollar, as against the last closing of 75.12 per US dollar.

Global markets fell as US-China political uncertainty and China currency devaluation against the US Dollar kept the trend cautious.

Domestic indices started off the week sharply bearish on Monday, tracking weak cues from overseas. At the opening bell, BSE Sensex traded 969 points lower at 32,768 and NSE Nifty declined 326 points to 9,553.

Here are the five factors that led to market's decline today

1. Global cues today

Oil prices and global stocks came under pressure in today's session amid rising US-China tensions over the coronavirus. US President Donald Trump has threatened China to impose new tariffs and blamed the country for creating the new coronavirus in a Chinese laboratory.

Where Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.17% lower, S&P 500 lost 0.92% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.28%. Asian markets also started the week on a bearish note, tracking weak cues. Contrary to the weak trend, Shanghai and Set Composite were rising 1.5% today.

Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking said," The news of US president contemplating fresh tariffs on China over its mishandling of the pandemic triggered a sharp decline in the US markets which further worsened with the warning from Apple and Amazon."

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said," The global market is worried about deglobalisation and trade war which will impact further the economy, unemployment and possible bankruptcies in the future."

Brent Crude also fell to $25.8 per barrel, down 2.27%.

2. March earnings

Domestic sentiments were also subdued, taking cues from the latest released March quarter earnings, that were off the street estimates.

Companies that recently announced their March quarter earnings are Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, Apollo Tricoat Tubes, Laurus Labs, Aditya Birla Money, ICICI Lombard, AU Small Finance Bank among others.

Where RIL share price fell 3.22% intraday after Q4 results, Hindustan Unilever fell 5.26%. Tech Mahindra stock lost 7.8% after Q4 earnings.

Apollo Pipes share price was down 7.5%, followed by ICICI Lombard General Insurance that fell 6.6% and AU Small Finance Bank shares that traded 5% lower, respectively.

3. Lockdown extension

In domestic cues, sentiments turned pessimistic after the Modi government extended the nationwide lockdown till 17 May 2020 during the last weekend.

Meanwhile, the nation has reported a total of 42,533 coronavirus cases, including 11,706 cured or discharged and 1,373 deaths.

Expressing views over the lockdown extension and its impact, Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking said," Much to everyone's surprise, the government announced a further extension of lockdown for 2 weeks from May 4 with some easing in select green zones."

4. Weak economic data

India's March eight core industries growth came in at a fall of 6.5% as compared to 7.1% on a monthly basis.

April Manufacturing PMI stood at 27.4 against 51.8 on a month-on-month basis, pointing to the sharpest deterioration in business conditions across the sector since data collection began 15 years ago.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said,"The market has realised a concern, based on latest economic & corporate data, that the cascading effect on the domestic economy and corporate earnings is much more than anticipated.

5. Nifty outlook

In the last week, NIFTY gained in all four trading sessions and finally, ended holiday truncated week on a strong note.

Markets globally ended last week on a bullish note as news about positive trial results of an experimental COVID-19 treatment helped investors shrug off weak economic data. Last week, USFDA granted emergency use authorization (EUA) of antiviral remdesivir for treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Although weak economic data coupled with corporate earnings and monetary policy meeting by central banks turned market to cautious stance, experts said.

For today's outlook, while support is seen at around 9,235 and 9,100 levels, resistance is observed at 9,740 and 9,900 levels.

Ajit Mishra said,"The sharp cut in the index in early trade on Monday could be a shock for many and that might result in erratic swings. Technically, 9200 would be a critical support zone for the Nifty index."

Share Market LIVE: Sensex falls 1,700 points, Nifty at 9,400; Tata Motors loses 12%

Coronavirus India live updates: Lockdown 3.0 begins today, some relaxations eased, total COVID-19 cases 42,533

Stocks in news: RIL, Tech Mahindra, HUL, ICICI Lombard, IDFC First Bank, AU Small Finance Bank and more

Rupee vs Dollar: Rupee plunges 71 paise to 75.80 amid strengthening of US currency
Iran on Saturday denounced recent U.S. allegations that it was providing covert aid to help Venezuela overcome gas shortages as "baseless" without directly addressing them.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week said "multiple aircraft" belonging to Iran's Mahan Air had transferred "unknown support" to Venezuela's government. He called for a halt to the flights and for other countries to bar overflights by Mahan Air.

The Associated Press reported last month that Mahan Air was delivering key chemical components used for producing gasoline to help revive an aging refinery in the South American country, which is in the grip of a severe economic crisis.

Venezuela has been suffering from widespread gasoline shortages despite having the world's largest oil reserves.
People who live within 10 miles of beaches in California are now allowed to come and visit provided that they have to follow new restrictions.

Some Beaches in California Are Now Open

Starting Monday, people who lived 10 miles from some of the beaches in California, like the San Mateo County beaches, are now allowed to come and visit. This means that more people are expected to be seen swimming and surfing.

However, Governor Newsom is closely monitoring the beaches, including the parks, as his office is weighing on how to ease fewer statewide restrictions.

In Santa Cruz County, they allow their residents to visit the beach early in the morning or sunset hours and tighter restrictions are now in place. Meanwhile, they are not allowed to visit any beach from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. to discourage visitors who are driving long distances.

During the daytime hours where residents are allowed to visit the beach, their movements are limited. Surfing and swimming are permitted, but lounging or strolling are not allowed. Meanwhile, people can jog and walk outside those hours, but to congregate in groups will still be prohibited.

People who will violate the new restrictions in an attempt to control the spread of the virus as the state opens its economy under Phase 1 will be warned and cited.

The same as well in the city of Pacifica, police officers have been patrolling the beaches for weeks already. This time, police officers are orienting groups of people they see congregating in the beaches, and those who lived 10 miles away from the city were only warned without any citations handed to them.

However, police officers are giving a heads up to people that lounging will soon no longer be allowed. They also explained to beachgoers that they are allowed to visit the beach but have to move or to watch your children swimming and not to assemble as well.

Some Beaches Remain Closed

However, the situation in Orange County is not the same as with San Mateo or Santa Cruz. Beaches in the county are closed because tens of thousands flocked to the beach without practicing social distancing measures as what is stipulated under Phase 1.

This led Gov. Newsom to order the closure of the beaches in Orange County. But, there was a request from Huntington Beach and others to block the order of Newsom, but it was declined by the Orange County Judge Nathan Scott.

He said: "I weighed the harm the closures caused the city and others, but the virus's threat to public safety should take priority. I will consider the issue again on May 11 after the city, state and, others have briefed the court in more detail."

Newsom ordered almost a month and a half stay-at-home to his people, which is estimated to be more than 40 million. During this time, only essential businesses were opened to make sure that Californians will have the necessities they needed every day.

Non-essential businesses will only be allowed to open until COVID-19 testing, cases, and hospital rate issues related to the virus began to decline.
A lollipop man who filmed himself sexually abusing girls, including a 22-month-old, sent letters to victim's family members from inside jail.

Michael Cyril Hyde was 60 in August when he was jailed for more than 12 years over the abuse, which he committed between 2011 and 2016.

He contacted the sister of one of his victims causing her deep distress and is believed to have used outside help to send the letters, Western Australian authorities say.

Michael Cyril Hyde (pictured) was 60 in August when he was jailed for more than 12 years over the abuse, which he committed between 2011 and 2016

Hyde was hit with a violence restraining order but an investigation is now underway after he was caught sending letters to the teenage girl.

'It looks like he's used a third party,' Corrective Services Commissioner Tony Hassall told 6PR radio on Monday.

'I will be doing what I can to prevent any further heartache to her and this prisoner's victims.

'It's not appropriate, irrespective of any legal prohibitions or any controls that we have in place, for him to be contacting family members of his victims who are already traumatised as a result of his crimes.'

Mr Hassall said the matter was being referred to police as Hyde was subject to a violence restraining order, which usually prohibits any contact with victims.

He is now subject to extra controls in prison as a result of his deliberate deceit.

Opposition corrective services spokesman Sean L'Estrange called for an immediate review of all standard operating procedures and prison guidelines relating to how sex offenders communicate with the outside world.

'Given the depravity of the child sex abuse carried out by Hyde, you would expect robust measures to be in place at the prison, to protect the victims and their family,' Mr L'Estrange said in a statement.
(Photo : BAZ RATNER on Reuters ) COVID-19 Update: NO Vaccine May Happen at All, Reveals Health Expert; Georgia Develops 3D Printer for Nasal Swabs (Photo : Yves Herman on Reuters ) COVID-19 Update: NO Vaccine May Happen at All, Reveals Health Expert; Georgia Develops 3D Printer for Nasal Swabs

Is there a Coronavirus vaccine? As of now, no vaccine has been discovered to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2. Officials around the world have stated that the possibilities of finding the vaccine can happen within the year. However, a health professor at London thinks otherwise.

Health expert: There may not be a Coronavirus vaccine after all

According to the report of CNN, a lot of viruses worldwide still have no vaccines to cure the patients. And human Coronavirus may be one of the examples.

Dr. David Nabarro, a professor of global health at Imperial College London, reveals that everyone must not give false hope of acquiring a Coronavirus vaccine as there are possibilities that there may be none available. He states that not all viruses already have their vaccines.

He also clarified that vaccines on clinical trial periods that pass on safety and effectiveness tests do not mean that they're ready to be used on patients.

"There are some viruses that we still do not have vaccines against," said Nabarro. "It's absolutely essential that all societies everywhere get themselves into a position where they are able to defend against the coronavirus as a constant threat and to be able to go about social life and economic activity with the virus in our midst."





The U.S. Government still believes there'll be vaccine soon

ALSO READ: COVID-19 Doctors Finally Understand the Reason Behind Coronavirus' Deadly Blood Clots

Over 1 million positive cases and less than 70,000 deaths were already recorded in the United States of America. Though Nabarro said that having a vaccine may not happen, after all, the Federal government states otherwise.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that Coronavirus vaccine might come after 12 to 18 months.

"We've never accelerated a vaccine in a year to 18 months," said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "It doesn't mean it's impossible, but it will be quite a heroic achievement.

Georgia donates 3D printer for nasal swab tests

While other experts think different sides regarding the creation of a vaccine, Georgia state has recently deployed 3D printers for the production of nasal swabs.

This was after the state's governor announces lifting of shelter-at-home orders for most people and allowed hair salons, gyms, tattoo parlors, and bowling alleys to reopen and restaurants to resume dine-in service.

Dr. Jeffrey James donates a 3D printer at the dental college wherein he teaches. The target is to create nasal swabs at a rate of 300 per day. But the government of Georgia asked the doctor to produce more numbers and agreed to create 5,000 swabs daily.

"Our goal is to use every single test we've got every single day," said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said the city is expected to surpass 10,000 coronavirus cases on Monday. The tally of COVID-19 positive residents currently stands at 9,929, and 426 people have died.

Officials have now tested roughly 4% of the citys population, or 28,000 people, Walsh said. Boston now has 19 testing sites around the city.

Walsh said roughly 33% of the homeless population is infected with the virus, including 596 homeless individuals.

Those numbers are hard to comprehend in some ways, Walsh said. They represent families who are grieving and people who are struggling.

Walsh said there are indications that the spread is slowing in Boston, noting that the daily increase in the number of cases has flattened out, and that hospitalizations in the city appear to be gradually decreasing.

But Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday said that rates remained relatively unchanged in Boston compared to other parts of the state. Hospitalization rates and ICU-related time spent in the hospital due the virus have decreased in Western Massachusetts and on the Cape & Islands, but remain elevated in Worcester and the South Coast, Baker said.

Walsh said the city is working to plan a reopening phase, but that it is not ready to do business again.

We all have to stay the course right now, he said. If we dont, we risk dealing with a second and even worse wave of this virus.

Related Content:
London, May 4 : Actor Tom Hardy, 42, had to havily work on his look in order to play gangster Al Capone in the upcoming biopic "Capone", as revealed in a new behind-the-scenes photo.

Photographer Greg Williams shared a new behind-the-scenes photo of Hardy that shows his transformation to play an aging Capone after an extensive make-up process, reports dailymail.co.uk.

Hardy also took to Instagram to share the new poster for "Capone", which will release digitally on May 12.

Williams also praised the "amazing make-up" by Audrey Doyle, who served as the make-up and prosthetics designer to Hardy on the movie.

Capone was 48 years old when he died in Palm Island, Florida in January 1947, so the make-up aged the 42-year-old actor slightly for the role.

"Capone" follows the last year of the mobster's life, as he settles down in Florida after spending 10 years behind bars.
Theres a new player in the mobile money remittance space as m-Gurush, South Sudans first mobile money service, launches international remittance services on its Mobile Money platform.

The service, the company claims, will benefit m-Gurush customers, especially business and trading communities sending funds from South Sudan to Kenya, Uganda and the greater East African region. The international remittance service will in fact enable m-Gurush-registered customers to send and receive money to and from a number of countries across the globe.

Customers will be able to send this money digitally, either in US dollars or South Sudanese pounds, from their m-Gurush account.

Sub-Saharan African, and South Sudan in particular, is one of the most expensive remittance corridors in the world. It is hoped that this service will bring down the cost of international remittances in South Sudan.

The service can be accessed by customers dialing *355# on the Zain network and also through the m-Gurush application, which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.

Launched in 2019, m-Gurush has a wide network of agents across South Sudan to enable customers to register, deposit and withdraw money.

The m-Gurush Mobile Money service is offered by Trinity Technologies Limited (TTL) in partnership with Zain. TTL is a local telecommunications company specializing in the design and development of innovative financial services, online transactions and mobile payment systems.

The launch of this remittance service comes at a time where digital money transfer services such as mobile money and electronic banking are being supported by various governments as a way to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Los Angeles, May 4 : Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds gifted a large pizza to every student from his favourite local joint and also gave an inspiring speech to the class of 2020 of his alma mater, Kitsilano Secondary School in Canada, virtually amid lockdown.

Reynolds spoke of friends in and guided the graduates as they step into a new chapter in their lives, reports aceshowbiz.com.

He said: "If I can pass on this one little chestnut of wisdom, it's something that you might want to start if you're not already doing it. Totally up to you, no pressure but one thing that's worked for me is practicing some form of compassion every day whether it's for yourself or someone, especially for someone else, is good." Reynolds added: "You've heard the expression 'divide and conquer,' you see it everywhere and dividing people is just a means to distract them, disarm them, whereby giving one an opportunity to conquer, and the world seems to subsist on this idea more and more and more." He asked everyone to practice empathy.

"It's just overdone and I think that you guys want to be stylish and ahead of the curve. And I believe that your generation will be. So maybe practice the opposite, practice empathy." Meanwhile on the work front, there is substantial speculation over how "Deadpool 3 " will turn out, now that Disney have taken over the franchise,

Disney is not known to make R-Rated films, but "Deadpool" is very much an R-rated movie franchise.

Ryan Reynolds, who stars as the wacky superhero in the franchise, opened on the subject, according to small-screen.co.uk.

"Oh, man, I really don't know," Reynolds told Total Film (via GamesRadar) about "Deadpool 3", according to the website. "It's just all so new with it being over at Marvel now, and, you know, figuring out the ins and outs as much as I can, from where I sit. We'll see," he added.
The Trinamool Congress Monday joined the opposition chorus in criticising the Centre for charging money from migrant labourers to ferry them home in trains, and said the government should ensure their hassle-free return to their native places.

"The labourers should be brought back home for free. Why is the railway ministry charging them? The union government and railways is not doing any favour to the migrants. It is the duty of the Central government to ensure safe and free travel of the migrant workers to their homes," former railway minister and senior TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi said during a virtual press meet here.

"If they can provide relief to business houses, then why not to the poor migrant labourers, they are suffering due to sudden announcement of the lockdown by the centre," he said.

Echoing Trivedi, his TMC colleague and leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha, Derek O'Brien, said the railways asking the state to collect money is a classic example of uncooperative federalism.

"Never forget, this is a government which announced a 21-day lockdown with four hours notice. Read the Railway guidelines. They clearly say that the sending state has to collect the money. So, basically it means to collect the money from the migrant workers. Sad. This is a classic example of uncooperative federalism," he tweeted.

The Centre has a simple theory; when things are good, the union government takes credit, when things get tough, it passes the burden to states, O'Brien claimed.

Referring to the central government's decision to send health teams to places with high COVID-19 cases, O'Brien said the fact that only one team has been sent to Bengal proves that the situation here is far better than other states.

"One central health team has been sent to Bengal, and two to other states. It proves that the situation in Bengal is better than other states... We hope that BJP will now shut down its fake factory aimed at spreading canards against Bengal," he said.

Reacting to O'Brien's comments, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the state has a history of not cooperating with central teams.

"We have seen how the Mamata Banerjee government did not cooperate with the Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) visiting the state. That may be the reason only one team was sent," Ghosh said.

Meanwhile, speaking on the continuing war of words between the chief minister and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar over the state's handling of the pandemic, TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhyay said people are well aware of "what the Raj Bhawan is doing".

"People of Bengal are politically aware, they can see what the Raj Bhawan is doing... How would it have been if the president wrote to the prime minister every day?"



Dhankhar on Monday mounted a fresh attack on Banerjee, accusing her of running a "police state" and saying her "misplaced" stance about constitutional norms reflects "authoritarianism" which has no place in a democracy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
OKLAHOMA CITY  Residents casting absentee ballots in the upcoming elections will not have to get them notarized, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The League of Women Voters of Oklahoma and two individuals challenged the requirement, saying a 2002 change in state law only required voters to submit a signed affidavit under the penalty of perjury.

An Oklahoma Supreme Court referee last week heard oral arguments on the matter.

The League of Women Voters was concerned the notary requirement would hurt voter turnout during the upcoming elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent some from casting ballots.

The League of Women Voters also argued that the law change no longer required absentee voters to have a notarys signature on the paperwork.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court directed State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax to recognize the affidavits.

Respondent is barred from issuing ballot forms, instructions, and material suggesting notarization and/or a notarized affidavit form is the only means through which the requisite affidavit for absentee voting may be accomplished, the order said.
Kodak, Clarence Peters

Clarence Peters girlfriend of 14 years, Jennifer, has spoken out on the arrest of popular Nigerian music video director, Clarence Peters, over the death of Picture Kodak.

According to reports, Picture Kodak was electrocuted in the house of Clarence Peters who has now been arrested and detained by the Lagos state Police command.

Picture Kodak who died on Wednesday, April 29, 2020 was said to have been electrocuted while charging her phone. Reports also claims she was barefooted and sat near the door while operating her phone which was plugged in.

Kodak is said to have suffered chest burns after the phone fell on her and she died before she could be rushed to an hospital.

Speaking on his arrest, Jennifer in a lengthy social media post aired her displeasure over the development as she says the Nigerian police force are destroying peoples reputation.

Read her post below;



It is SICKENING the corruption and laxity in the NIGERIAN POLICE FORCE!

But First, lemme start with you the ones who follow blogs and comment without thinking. That someone earns a living from breaking homes and destroying peoples reputation is something that should naturally be worrisome to you but NO, it refreshes you.

So, as Clarences 14yrs long girlfriend, Lemme state AUTHORITATIVELY that CLARENCE PETERS was invited to police command, YABA and he went there willingly. He was NOT arrested, neither was he CHARGED WITH MURDER as stated by the press statement from the police command through their spokesperson BALA ELKANA!

Just because we chose to keep quiet until the autopsy result comes out before addressing the press and of course the police report to exonerate him was signed and collected.

On friday 2nd of May, 2020 an investigative team led by IPO, MR. POPOOLA, after the on-scene investigation was done, the body visited at the morgue, came to a conclusion they had no case with CLARENCE PETERS(who was not on the scene of incident) SEGUN the business manager, the 4dancers and two other members of staff of CAPITAL DREAMS PICTURES, (all referred to as witnesses), that it was a NATURAL ACCIDENT.

He wrote his report to that effect. Events took a different turn when The DCP- YETUNDE LONGE, came in and asked that the report be torn, he wrote a second one that she tore again. By the third report, then came in MR. OYE and his father Sir Shina Peters and she couldnt continue with her foul play.



She agreed they had NO CASE with him and the rest of the witnesses. So why are u still holding him.. everyone asked, she said she was waiting for the autopsy result so she can attach it. When she saw she had been caught, she sent them to put out a press statement that he was charged for murder. So thinking Nigerians, can someone be CHARGED without an autopsy conducted?

Backtrack a bit, after LD passed on, it took more than 24hrs to seek the consent from her family to conduct that autopsy. By the time the consent was gotten, due to the COVID-19 caused NIGERIAN COURTS CLOSURE, the autopsy was to start on monday being tomorrow.

So again, how are we talking hes being charged for MURDER??? Since they decided to throw the first blow of negativity, lets go ALL OUT with the information. You have all been waiting for a response from him and because he chose to be law abiding, someone who contributes positively to the nigerian economy, they want yo tarnish his name? And artistes, everyone is quiet? Nobody is asking questions other than how can she be electrocuted??? Is it right? Who is going to charge PHCN to court for the SURGE? Yetunde Alonge said if he was an ordinary person she would have let him go but because he and his parents are celebrities that is why.

Since u all seek to know of clarence murdered her, if clarence raped her, why cant you all then march to PANTI and ask your police force questions. Dont sit on blogs spilling fallacies and stamp your imprint by commenting ignorantly. We were going to wait for the results and her family but clearly, everyone is keeping quiet and dragging him in the mud. I WONT! I have NEVER kept quiet in the face of ILLS, i wont start now.

And to CP, Biodun stay strong cos THIS TOO SHALL PASS!!! ?ALWAYS and FOREVER!

And to EVERY BLOG who has gone out of their way to tell a lie- in the slide is the article posted by GLB, she took it down almost immediately before posting the witness account, how do we go from electrocution to RAPE? I dont have an issue with an investigation as it NATURALLY, under NORMAL circumstances should be conducted anywhere in the world, BUT categorically alleging you know people he raped and abused is NOT sth to joke about.

This is how people mIslead the ALREADY IGNORANT PUBLIC. Giving people a reason to form NEGATIVE opinions and i see people who i thought had sense making SNIDE remarks? You want to know how we landed here, it was all your commenting. So kudos to the blogs and YOU ESPECIALLY, the ignorant Lot.

An educative or informative post be put up, you wont see comments. When Dangote truck killed three of my aunts at once, there was no uproar. Then a NATURAL ACCIDENT will occur, u say it was MURDER!

May God forgive US ALL!

May His divine assistance remain always with us and may the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace, AMEN!


The funding makes the United Kingdom (UK) the largest supporter of GAVI, which vaccinates children against deadly diseases such as measles, polio and typhoid, saving millions of lives.

GAVI has so far helped vaccinate more than 760 million children, preventing more than 13 million deaths.

The UK government said that such a vaccination programme was supporting healthcare systems in developing countries so they could cope with rising coronavirus cases.

The International Development Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, told British MPs: The coronavirus pandemic shows us now more than ever the vital role vaccines play in protecting us all.

As coronavirus vaccine trials begin, we need to make sure any successful vaccine will be available to everyone.

GAVI will be integral to achieving this, so we can protect the UK and the NHS [National Health Service] from future waves of infection.

Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI, said an investment in the organisation was an investment in a safer, healthier world.

He said that apart from protecting hundreds of millions of children against disease, it will also help health systems to repair and rebuild after the enormous impact of COVID-19 has subsided.

This is our best shield against future pandemics which, as we have seen all too clearly in recent months, do not respect borders, Dr Berkley added.

He said the money would help GAVI to continue its work leading international efforts to ensure universal access to a COVID-19 vaccine, as well as to maintain the infrastructure needed to deploy it at scale around the world, which offers our best means of ending this crisis.

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said: When the world beats the COVID-19 pandemic and life returns to normal, GAVI  and the UK's support of it  will be a major reason why.

He said that GAVI's work over the past 20 years had been incredibly effective, and with this new funding, they'll be able to continue their work when a COVID vaccine is ready.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chair of the GAVI Board, said the alliance was currently playing a vital role [in] keeping immunisation programmes going across the world, reducing the chances of there being further global disease outbreaks, as well as helping developing countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She added: As long as there are still pockets of this disease somewhere, everywhere is at risk.

The UK has been a long-standing donor to GAVI since its formation in 2000, and the funding announcement comes as the government prepares to hold a virtual Global Vaccine Summit on June 4 hosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

It will bring countries together to help raise $7.4 billion for GAVI's work.

---GNA
Nguyen Kim home appliance distribution chain has been acquired by Central Retail of Thailand.

The deal was made in June 2019, but the information was revealed when Central Retail Corporation (CRC), a subsidiary of Central Group, had an IPO on February 20, 2020.





The prospectus of the company showed that Nguyen Kims business results have been included in CRCs business results since Q3 2019.



Prior to that, another Vietnamese company, Kinh Do, sold its sweets manufacturing to Mondelez International from the US, and Pho 24 was sold to Jollibee from the Philippines. Others were Bibica, sold to Lotte from South Korea, Huda to Carlsberg from Denmark, and Sabeco to Thai Beverage from Thailand.

The General Statistics Office (GSO) reported that the total value of the capital contribution deals reached $9.9 billion in 2018, an increase of 59.8 percent over 2017.

Binh Minh and Tien Phong Plastics were bought by Siam Cement from Thailand, while Hoan My Medical sold 65 percent of shares to Fortis from India.



Analysts note that takeover deals have occurred mostly in the retail sector. The trend has been growing since Vietnam began opening its retail market to foreigners.



Fivimart and Citimart cooperated with Aeon from Japan, while Family Mart, a convenience chain, was taken over by Berli Jucker from Thailand.



The General Statistics Office (GSO) reported that the total value of the capital contribution deals reached $9.9 billion in 2018, an increase of 59.8 percent over 2017.

Of this, the value of the deals of capital contribution which did not lead to charter capital increase was $5.6 billion, accounting for 57 percent.



In 2019, the total value increased sharply by 56.4 percent to $15.5 billion. Though the value of the deals of capital contribution which did not lead to charter capital increase just accounted for 40.6 percent, it was still high at $6.3 billion, up by 12 percent over 2018.



In the first two months of 2020, of 1,483 capital contribution deals made by foreign investors with total value of $827 million, there were 1,318 deals, or 83 percent, worth $544 million, which did not lead to charter capital increase.



The capital contribution deals leading to an increase in businesses charter capital help businesses expand and diversify shareholder structure. But the impact is the reverse for deals not leading to charter capital increase.



The deals were made when domestic shareholders withdrew their capital or businesses sold their company.



The owners of some companies realized that their competitiveness was weak and decided to transfer the companies before it was too late. As for shareholders, they did not have confidence in the development potential of the enterprises.



In the case of Nguyen Kim, the retailer once led the home appliance distribution field for 20 years, but it has been outstripped by Dien May Xanh, its rival, since 2016.

Kim Chi

Tech retailers manage to survive COVID-19 pandemic Many retailers in phone and electronics segments focus on developing online channels to survive the coronavirus pandemic.
The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. The new coronavirus 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.

TOP OF THE HOUR:

 China reports 1 new case of coronavirus, no deaths.

 South Korea reports 3 new virus cases, lowest daily jump since Feb. 18.

 White House restricts coronavirus task force testimony.

 Senate reopens in Capitol largely shuttered by virus.

 Supreme Court makes history over the phone.

___

BEIJING  China reported one new case of coronavirus Tuesday and no deaths, marking three weeks since it recorded a COVID-19 fatality.

The National Health Commission said 395 people remained under treatment in the hospital, while 949 were under isolation and observation for suspected cases or after testing positive despite showing no symptoms.

The latest figures come as China strikes back against accusations from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others that the pandemic may have originated in a lab in the central Chinese city of Wuhan where it was first detected late last year.

The World Health Organization has backed up Chinas refutations and most experts believe the virus developed naturally among bats and was transmitted to humans via an intermediary animal, most likely the armadillo-like pangolin that is sold for human consumption in wet markets, including the one in Wuhan linked to the pandemics origin.

China has reported 4,633 deaths from the virus among 82,881 cases, but strict travel restrictions, testing, quarantining and case tracing policies appear to have stemmed the virus as warm weather arrives in much of the country.

___

SEOUL, South Korea  South Korea has reported three new coronavirus cases, its lowest daily jump since Feb. 18.

The number continues a downward trend as the country restarts professional sports and prepares to reopen schools.

South Koreas Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday reported two more virus-related deaths, bringing national totals to 10,804 cases and 254 fatalities.

Story continues

After reporting around 500 new cases a day in early March, infections have slowed over the past month amid tightened border controls and waning transmissions in the worst-hit city of Daegu, which reported zero new cases Tuesday.

Health authorities still raise concern over a broader quiet spread and plan antibody tests to learn how widespread the virus is.

Amid the slowing caseload, officials have relaxed social distancing guidelines and decided to reopen schools in phased steps, starting with high school seniors on May 13.

South Koreas professional baseball league began its new season without fans in the stands on Tuesday, while the pro soccer league will kick off under similar conditions Friday.

___

TEHRAN, Iran  The new coronavirus pandemic has brought back something unseen in Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution: a drive-in movie theater.

Once decried by revolutionaries for allowing too much privacy for unmarried young couples, a drive-in theater now operates from a parking lot right under Tehrans iconic Milad tower, showing a film in line with the views of hard-liners.

Workers spray disinfectants on cars that line up each night here after buying tickets online for what is called the Cinema Machine in Farsi. They tune into the films audio via an FM station on their car radios.

With stadiums shut and movie theaters closed, this parking-lot screening is the only film being shown in a communal setting amid the virus outbreak in Iran, one of the worlds worst. Iran has reported more than 98,600 cases with over 6,200 deaths, though international and local experts acknowledge the toll is likely far higher.

___

CANBERRA, Australia  The booziest part of Australia is preparing to reopen pubs this month.

Businesses have been asked to prepare COVID-19 safety plans beginning Tuesday ahead of several types of venues reopening in the Northern Territory on May 15 including pubs, restaurants and cafes.

The Northern Territory, also known in Australia as the Top End, has the highest rate of alcohol consumption per capita of any Australian state or territory and is on track to become the first to reopen bars following a national lockdown that began March 23.

But alcohol will only be allowed to be served with food, and patrons wont be able to linger for more than two hours.

The Northern Territory has a population of only 250,000 people in an area twice the size of France. It has recorded 30 cases of COVID-19 and no fatalities.

___

WASHINGTON  A White House memo to congressional committees says no member of the administrations coronavirus task force may agree to testify on Capitol Hill unless the appearance is expressly approved by the presidents chief of staff.

Democrats are bristling at the restriction on gathering information about the nations response to the pandemic. The memo follows a White House move to block Dr. Anthony Fauci from testifying before a House panel while allowing him to appear the following week at a Senate hearing.

The Senate is held by Trumps Republican allies while the House is controlled by Democrats.

___

WASHINGTON  The Senate has reopened in a Capitol largely shuttered by the coronavirus, but prospects for quick action on a new aid package are uncertain.

Lawmakers face a deepening national debate over how best to confront the deadly pandemic and its economic devastation. Senate Republicans are reluctant to spend more money on virus relief. They hope the gradual reopening of the economy will reduce the need for more aid, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to soon unveil a new relief package.

The 100 senators are convening for the first time since March. The House is staying away on doctors orders due to health risks.

___

WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court has made history by hearing arguments by telephone and allowing the world to listen in live, both for the first time.

The arguments on Monday were essentially a high-profile conference call with the nine justices and two arguing lawyers. The session went remarkably smoothly. Thats notable for a high court that clings to tradition and only reluctantly changes the way it operates.

The high court had initially postponed arguments in 20 cases because of the coronavirus pandemic. But the justices ultimately decided to hear 10 cases by phone over six days this month.

___

RIO DE JANEIRO  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says he twice tested negative for the coronavirus but many, including a federal judge, are demanding he share the actual results.

Still, the leader has refused. The surreal standoff is the latest flashpoint in a broader battle between a president who has repeatedly tested the limits of his power and democratic institutions.

There are concerns that as Bolsonaro pushes back, it could spark a constitutional crisis. Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed the coronavirus pandemic and has fiercely criticized efforts by governors and mayors to impose measures to control the virus spread, instead advocating for most people to get back to work.

But the courts have repeatedly curtailed him  on this issue and others.

___

FLINT, Mich.  A woman, her husband and adult son have been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a security guard who refused to let her daughter enter a Family Dollar store in Michigan without a face mask.

Calvin Munerlyn was killed Friday at the store in Flint. Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said Monday that Munerlyn told Sharmel Teagues daughter that she had to leave unless she put on a mask. Teague argued with Munerlyn before leaving. Two men later came to the store. One of the men shot Munerlyn.

Teague has been arrested. Police are seeking her husband and son.

___

SAN FRANCISCO  San Francisco police will wear neutral face coverings to defuse a controversy sparked when officers sent to patrol a protest wore masks adorned with the thin blue line flag.

Police Chief Bill Scott told officers in an email that he considers the blue flag and stripe a meaningful expression to honor fallen officers. But he says some may perceive the symbol as divisive and disrespectful.

The police union ordered and distributed the masks emblazoned with a dark blue flag with a blue stripe across the middle, a symbol associated with the Blue Lives Matter movement.

___

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.  The U.S. Treasury Department has yet to send payments to tribal governments from a coronavirus relief package approved in late March.

The agency says it hasnt determined how to allocate $8 billion in funding that was set aside for tribes. The agency says it will post details on its website, but nothing appeared as of Monday.

The Treasury Department is being sued by tribes seeking to keep the money out of the hands of Alaska Native corporations. The tribes and the federal government disagree over the definition of Indian Tribe that was included in the relief package.

___

YUBA CITY, Calif.  Amid more defiance from local governments, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said some businesses can reopen as early as Friday with restrictions to help prevent spread of the coronavirus.

The plan under the second phase of the governors four-point reopening plan allows retailers such as clothing stores, sporting goods and florists to resume operations with curbside pickup.

It did not immediately include dine-in eating at restaurants and reopening of offices, which were in previously stated Phase 2 plans.

Newsom said a key consideration for entering Phase 2 is the ability for health authorities to test and conduct contact tracing of infections.

The announcement came as businesses in two more Northern California counties reopened. Yuba and Sutter counties followed last weeks lead of rural Modoc County amid pressure to restart Californias economy, even as hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 continue.

Newsoms six-week-old order required nearly 40 million residents to remain mostly at home.

___

PARIS  French president Emmanuel Macron said he is confident the United States will join a global pledge for research to find a vaccine against the new coronavirus.

World leaders, organizations and banks on Monday pledged to give 7.4 billion euros ($8 billion) during a videoconference summit hosted by the European Union. The U.S., along with Russia, were notably absent from the event.

Macron, who donated 500 million euros on behalf of France, noted that the U.S. are on the sidelines but added that it doesnt compromise or slow down the initiative.

Speaking from the Elysee palace, he said he discussed the issue with President Donald Trump and is convinced that the U.S. will at some point join the initiative, consisting in finding a vaccine as quickly as possible and making it available to all countries.

Macron added that his government is in a permanent dialogue with the Trump administration and with American companies.

___

MANILA, Philippines  The brash-talking Philippine president has apologized to two tycoons, whom he once threatened with arrests for alleged economic crimes, and thanked them for helping in the coronavirus pandemic, which he says has humbled" him.

President Rodrigo Duterte, known for his profanity-laced harangues, asked Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala and Manuel Pangilinan for forgiveness in televised remarks late Monday and promised Ill be nice. Duterte added he was open to talking with them,

The Philippine billionaires, through their business empires, have launched massive financial aid to thousands of their employees and helped the government deal with the contagion despite facing huge losses.

COVID humbled me, Duterte said. The painful words I uttered against the Ayalas and to Pangilinan, I apologized for the hurting words. If you can find in your heart to forgive me.

Dutertes administration has scrambled to finance a massive aid program for millions of poor Filipinos he fears may starve while on a lockdown he imposed to fight the spread of the virus that has infected nearly 10,000 people and left 623 others dead.

___

GENEVA  The World Health Organization says it has received no evidence or data from the U.S. government to back up claims by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that they've seen evidence indicating the new coronavirus may have originated at a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

From our perspective, this remains speculative, WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan said. But like any evidence-based organization, we would be very willing to receive any information that purports to the origin of the virus.

Ryan reiterated that the evidence and advice that the U.N. health agency has received suggest that the novel coronavirus is of natural origin. Pompeo and Trump say they have seen evidence suggesting that it could be from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab.

If that data and evidence is available, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared, Ryan told reporters in Geneva. But its difficult for WHO to operate in an information vacuum in that specific regard.

On Sunday, Pompeo told ABCs This Week program that there was a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.

___

HELSINKI  Finland says it will lift some coronavirus restrictions on June 1 including allowing restaurants, cafes and bars to reopen with certain limitations.

The government announced late Monday that it will also ease a ban of public gatherings, permitting meetings of up to 50 people instead of the current maximum of 10 people.

Public services such as libraries, theatres and sports facilities are allowed to start operating again on June. The government had said in April that schools in Finland would be gradually reopened on May 14.

A ban on large public events with more than 500 people such as concerts and sports events remains valid until July 31 in line with the governments earlier decision.

Prime Minister Sanna Marin stressed that relaxing of the COVID-19 restrictions would take place gradually and in a controlled manner in the Nordic country.

Finlands borders will remain partially closed. Work-related and other necessary travel within the European Unions open-border Schengen area will be permitted again on May 14 but with strict guidelines, Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo said.

___

MILAN  The number of people currently positive for coronavirus has dropped under 100,000 in Italy  Europes hardest-hit country.

As the country began a gradually reopening from a two-month-long lockdown on Monday, the number of deaths rose by 195 to 29,079.

Italy also registered the lowest number of new positives since the day the lockdown took effect, at 1,221, bringing the total of coronavirus cases to 211,938 since the first case of domestic transmission of the virus was detected on Feb. 21.

Pressure on Italian hospitals continued to ease, with 419 fewer people hospitalized and 22 fewer in intensive care units. Three regions  Umbria, Basilicata and Molise  registered no new cases, while most were well under 100.

Lombardy, the densely populated northern region that has borne the brunt of the virus, was responsible for nearly half of all new cases in the past 24 hours.

___

NEW ORLEANS  Nearly every woman in a Louisiana prison dormitory has tested positive for COVID-19, and two-thirds of them had no symptoms, state figures show.

The women at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center are housed in a dormitory for some of the inmates moved out of the Louisiana Correctional Womens Institute after floods in 2016, Department of Corrections spokesman Ken Pastorick said last week.

He said 155 women without symptoms were tested after 39 became ill with the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

As of Monday, 192 inmates had tested positive, including 66 who had symptoms, according to Department of Correction statistics. The unit has about 195 inmates, though the number fluctuates, Pastorick said Monday.

The womens dorm inmates make up 64% of those diagnosed with COVID-19 at all of Louisianas state prisons.

___

OKLAHOMA CITY  At least 116 employees at an Oklahoma pork processing plant have tested positive for coronavirus, Seaboard Foods spokesman David Eahart said in a statement Monday.

The plant in Guymon has about 2,700 employees who are advised to stay home if sick, provided face masks and hand-sanitizing stations, and encouraged to maintain social distancing, Eahart said.

Texas County, where Guymon is located about 235 miles (378 kilometers) northwest of Oklahoma City, has 236 confirmed virus cases and two deaths, according to the state Health Department.

Eahart said about 30% of the plants employees do not live in Texas County, Health Department spokeswoman Donelle Harder said all cases and deaths would be attributed to an infected persons county or state of residence.

Guymon is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Texas and about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Kansas.

The Seaboard plant has not closed, as some around the nation have until beginning to reopen under an executive order from President Donald Trump.

___

Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.
Coronavirus patients with mild symptoms are quarantined at hotels in Tokyo staffed by robots.

Five hotels are around the city are using robots to help limit the spread, one being the world's first social humanoid Pepper.

'Please, wear a mask inside,' it says in a perky voice to welcome those moving into the hotel and also offers words of support - 'I hope you recover as quickly as possible.'

Other facilities have employed AI-powered robots that disinfect surfaces to limit the need of human workers who are at risk of being exposed.

Scroll down for video

Coronavirus patients with mild symptoms are quarantined at hotels in Tokyo staffed by robots. Five hotels are around the city are using robots to help limit the spread, one being the world's first social humanoid Pepper (left)

Japan has more than 15,250 cases of coronavirus in the country and more than 550 people have died of the virus.

Government officials struck deals with five hotels in Tokyo that offers about 2,800 rooms for coronavirus patients  200 are currently in use.

The move is to elevate the burden on medical workers in hospitals and provide beds for those with severe symptoms.

Kan Kiyota, marketing director of SoftBank, which makes the Pepper robot, said: 'Since patients are infected with COVID-19, it is not possible to have a real person to interact with.'

Kan Kiyota, marketing director of SoftBank, which makes the Pepper robot, said: 'Since patients are infected with COVID-19, it is not possible to have a real person to interact with

The hotel is also trialing a robot cleaner, named Whiz, which will operate in the lobby without human assistance (left)

'This is where the robot comes in.'

Pepper is being used to 'cheer' patients on as they enter the hotel to begin their quarantine.

The machine is wearing a protect face mask and interacts with humans as they walk in.

It says, 'We are all supporting you' and 'I am cheering for you! Please get lots of rest while you are here and recover!'

But the approximately four-foot tall robot is also there to administer reminders including 'Please do not bring alcohol into the building' and 'The fastest way to recover is to eat a balanced meal, rather than your favorite dishes.'

The hotel is also trialing a robot cleaner, named Whiz, which will operate in the lobby without human assistance.

The coronavirus started in Wuhan, China December 2019 and has since spread to nearly every country around the world. As of Monday, there are more than 3.5 million cases and over 247,000 deaths

Guests can also access health management applications on computers and tablets to record their temperatures and symptoms.

The hotels are also staffed by doctors and nurses, but officials hope the robots can cheer up an otherwise lonely time for guests who are isolated in single rooms for their weeks-long stay.

The coronavirus started in Wuhan, China December 2019 and has since spread to nearly every country around the world.

As of Monday, there are more than 3.5 million cases and over 247,000 deaths.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-05 05:35:42|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

DUBLIN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Ireland on Monday pledged 18 million euros (nearly 20 million U.S. dollars) in support of a global effort to fight against COVID-19, according to a statement from the government.

The pledge was made by Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar earlier in the day while joining world leaders by video for the Coronavirus Global Response International Pledging Event co-hosted by the European Union, said the statement.

The funding pledged by the Irish government will go to GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, for helping its work in procuring vaccines and distributing them to the world's poorest and most vulnerable countries, including a vaccine for COVID-19 when it becomes available, it said.

GAVI is a public and private global partnership with the aim of helping vaccinate children around the world against deadly and infectious diseases.

The latest funding pledged by the Irish government has brought the total that Ireland has already committed to combat COVID-19 to 78 million euros, said the statement.

In a video message to Monday's event, Varadkar said: "The only way we can defeat a global threat is by working together on a multilateral basis. Working together we can develop an effective vaccine, effective treatments, testing systems that work, diagnostics and therapeutics. Ireland wants to play its part in this effort." (1 euro = 1.09 U.S. dollars) Enditem
Italian flag carrier drops New York flights until 31 May.

Alitalia is to suspend all flights between Rome and New York from 5 May until 31 May, reports Italian newspaper of record Corriere della Sera.

The unexpected stop to the service, which is the company's only intercontinental connection to have remained active to date during the coronavirus emergency, comes as Italy enters Phase Two of the coronavirus emergency.

The rumour circulating, according to Italian media, is that the interruption to the flight is due to the fear of cabin crews having to spend the night in New York - in the midst of a covid-19 emergency - as part of their obligatory rest after the outward flight before returning to Rome.

Read also:

However other observers have attributed the suspension of the flights to the low number of passengers.

"The cancellation of the Rome-New York route, if confirmed, is a serious mistake", said a note issued by the Fit-Cisl trade union.

Photo credit: Stefano Garau / Shutterstock.com
Red Nucleus The name change solidifies a stronger presence for Red Nucleus in one of the fastest growing life sciences learning markets in the world. Ian Kelly, President and CEO of Red Nucleus.

Red Nucleus, a leading provider of strategic learning, performance, and process solutions for the life sciences industry, today announced that Informa Training Partners, a life sciences training company acquired by Red Nucleus in October 2019, is officially changing its name to Red Nucleus Boston, effective immediately.

The name change solidifies a stronger presence for Red Nucleus in one of the fastest growing life sciences learning markets in the world, said Ian Kelly, President and CEO of Red Nucleus. Informa Training Partners had been a long-time competitor. Joining forces with them last fall has been a strategic enhancement to our companys mission to deliver our clients the very best resources in life sciences sales training programs. Our combined industry experience spans more than 50 years. We are pleased to have added their talent, innovation, and expertise in the learning space to our leading brand and are happy to officially call them Red Nucleus Boston.

Red Nucleus is a full-service provider of learning and process solutions for the life sciences industry. Through the companys best-in-class approach, technologies, and team, Red Nucleus designs and produces global solutions, including e-learning modules, mobile applications, virtual preceptorships, print modules and job aids, workshop design and facilitation, video production and games, as well as various consultative services. In addition, the Red Nucleus R&D team, located in Malvern, PA, delivers expert capabilities including R&D Strategy & Change, System & Information Management, and overall R&D Operational Services. Red Nucleus Commercial and R&D market share has grown tremendously in the last several years, sparking transformational learning experiences and R&D systems management excellence among biotech, biopharmaceutical, and medical device companies in the US, Europe, India, and Japan.

The name change announced today for the Boston office is part of Red Nucleus vision to deepen its expert training competencies and continue the companys keen focus to stay on top of trends and evolutions in the healthcare industry. I am happy to publicly announce Red Nucleus Boston and extend our presence and support our combined client base in this strategic market, added Kelly. Our unwavering commitment to success is only getting stronger.

We are thrilled to be a part of the Red Nucleus family, said Eileen Mathews, Informas Vice President of Client Services. Combining our more than 50 years of industry expertise will allow us to support both RNs existing clients and legacy Informa clients to continue to provide stellar customer service. Our goal will be to continue to provide best-in-class training to all of our clients, with expanded capabilities and resources.

About Red Nucleus

Red Nucleus is the premier provider of strategic learning, performance, and process solutions exclusively for the life sciences industry. Our global solutions engage and inspire teams across the commercial and R&D spaces and are designed to boost understanding, efficacy, and compliance.

Squarely focused on the life sciences industry for close to 30 years, Red Nucleus takes pride in our long-term relationships with industry leaders, as well as our strategic partnerships with innovative startups. We are focused on developing thoughtful, high- quality solutions that are in accordance with each clients unique culture and process. Our clients trust us to build impactful, award-winning programs that deliver actionable insights and measurable results.

Red Nucleus is headquartered in Yardley, PA. The Red Nucleus R&D office is located in Malvern, PA. The company also has offices in Boston, MA, the United Kingdom, India, and Japan.

Visit http://www.rednucleus.com to learn more
Aside from the sad feelings that greeted the sudden demise of General Sani Abacha on the 8th of June, 1998, and that of President Umoru Yardua on the 5th of May, 2010, the Friday, April 17, 2020, episode remains one of the lowest moments both in the annal of national existence and in the mental archives of the nations keen political watchers.

The reasons are evident.

On that day, at that time and in that place, the chief of staff of Nigerias president and one of the most powerful men in the country, died in a cardiology hospital in Lagos. He was said to be 67. The cause according to media reports was complications of the new coronavirus. Definitely not a democratically elected President, but with his departure, the nations effort to build a more human and humane country may suffer setbacks.

To understand this position more fully, Abba was a banker, lawyer and journalist and a corporate/private sector player before he went into politics, Mr. Kyari was from Borno state in Nigerias northeast. He studied sociology and law in the United Kingdom, where he attended Warwick and Cambridge universities.

By constrast, unlike his predecessors, a critical analysis will reveal that he possessed the ability to understand and make informed judgement about governance in ways profitable to the nation; he accelerated government decision making process. Before assuming the position, he was corporately and socially shaped in particular ways beyond influence by the powerful commercial, governmental and security interests that have for a very long time directed and determined the nations basic leadership architecture. And most importantly, going by commentaries, he functioned in ways that protected the rights and opportunities of the present government and contributed to compatible development approaches.

President Muhammadu Buharis declaration on Monday, August 19, 2019 at the retreat for the ministers that; anyone who wants to see him, including ministers and Nigerias influential state governors, had to go through him, supports the claim on Abbas efficiency and possession of good judgement.

However, despite his virtues and attributes, it is important from these stories to underline also that Kyari was not a perfect man. He made his shares of mistakes and disappointed his shares of people in his life time. He was not an infallible personality, he was ladened with shortcomings. We need to keep these in mind as we think about the broader failures we have not paid attention to as a people.

Separate from the fact that humans are advised not to speak ill about the dead, instead of allowing loopsided commentaries about his life to distract us in our journey to nation building, it will be more rewarding in social and economic terms if Nigerians use this sober moment to study his actions, to see how he conducted himself and to discover the reasons for his victories or defeats so that they can avoid the later and imitate the former.

In this sense, the first lesson to draw by all is that there is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men die and poor men die; old people and young people die; death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty death is an irreducible common denominator of all men.

Secondly, it is also important to underline that even his age  67, according to the president, who knew him for four decades  was subject of much speculation. Little was known about his age and date of birth.

This state of affairs according to reports led many media outlets to estimate his age, putting it at between 60s and 70s, and even 80s. Take as an illustration, while PREMIUM TIMES indicated in its first reporting of his death that Mr Kyaris age was unknown. Reuters said he was in his 70s. Some local broadcast stations like the AIT said Mr Kyari was born in 1938, an estimate that echoed the Wikipedias entry that said he was 81.

Indeed, Kyari is gone and we pray God to rest his soul, but it will not in anyways be characterized as an overstatement to describe the ambiguities and incongruities surrounding his age as an unwelcome departure from normal good and judgement of an elder statesman of his class. Infact, It exposed the root of our national malady which goes deep into the venality and incompetences of successive administrations to manage personal data of her citizens.

With this present development, it is simply no longer possible to ignore such strangeness from the nations political office holders and other civil servants. Definitely, this is quite convincing and its a general feeling that something has fundamentally gone wrong with the nations information management system.

In one way or the other, the entire nation is in this together, yet this collaboration is patently traceable to political office holders. The accuracy of data submitted by those elected or appointed into public offices no longer matters.Their policy directions are essentially common. In-accuracies of data and personal information have become a governing liturgy and a common prayer of invocation-not minding the political party, position or creed.

The stunning thing is that this happened at a time when nations across the globe are redoubling their efforts in such a manner that will promote both accurate and efficient information management system in their countries to help curb corruption and criminality.

The present crop of leaders must draw a lesson from this embarrassment, just as the situation calls for urgent overhauling/quickening of the National Identity management process.

In the same style, the reported claim that the press statements announcing his appointment in 2015 and his reappointment in 2019 did not also indicate his date of birth or age, cannot be described as a very good scorecard on the part of the governments media/information managers.

With this revelation, Nigerians are now convinced that there are countless numbers of reasons why media assistants position in most public offices appear both unnecessary and unproductive. But, perhaps, understandably, the major one centres on the fact that communication from public officials/offices are self-undermining and often always reputed for encouraging complacency as constituents perceive issues raised by the government as already being handled or the priority often always not in conformity with the will/opinion of the people.

If an effort is dedicated to understanding the basic reasons why the existing system is currently accepted and its fundamental assumptions not challenged? More critical questions will emerge.

For instance, are the media Assistants in the first place aware that; every decision they make while discharging their responsibility require value judgement? Are they truly aware that different decisions bring different results; that all decisions have consequences that are direct and indirect, intended and unintended, short term and long term?

Are they conscious that their decisions affect others; that those decisions may influence thousands of peoples opinions on a political issue? Do the Media Assistants have the philosophy to challenge the nations political and economic logic, and capacity to pursue the theory of governance in order to effectively inform their principals?

Finding answers to these questions will have far-reaching implications on both the public officials and the entire Nigerians. As it is laced with the capacity to compel public office holders, engineer socioeconomic prosperity that will be people-purposed while propelling the masses to work together for the greater good.

All these leads to a final observation/lesson- the movement of his body from Lagos to Abuja on Saturday morning and subsequently interred at the military cemetery in the Gudu neighbourhood of the city. An event were senior government officials were reportedly present at the burial. And were roundly criticized by medical officials and Nigerians of course for doing so and for not practicing social distancing, an action considered a breach of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) protocol.

Although members of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, have since expressed regret, saying that lessons had been learnt, the whole saga in my views, remains a pain deepened by the awareness that it was avoidable.

If this line of reasoning is correct, it will necessitate the posers as to; who will in future, stop these government officials that cannot apply the virtue of moderation and sincerity? And who should be the judge? Or must we as a nation allow the useful and the useless like good and evil go on together allowing our nation to reap whatever fruit that comes to us in the nearest future?

As the nation continues to pray for the happy repose of Abba, what this all means is that, today and every day, Nigerians have a responsibility to remember what happened on this day and allow its lessons guide them.

Jerome-Mario Utomi (08032725374), writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
One such resource, which launched for Marsh colleagues in mid-April, is the Marsh Kids Korner. This internal resource page includes activities, stories, exercises, and ideas for educating and entertaining kids at home. The resources are updated weekly and include daily spotlight challenges, including fun cooking tasks (making funny faces with pancakes) and arts and crafts (making puppets out of paper bags), for Marsh children to do together.

The Marsh Kids Korner was born out of personal experience. Julie Katrus, SVP and director of Marshs global events team, is one of many parents having to juggle remote working with 24/7 child care and home schooling while physical distancing measures remain in place to prevent further spread of COVID-19. She said: I have a four-year-old daughter who is at home with me right now, and were doing home schooling. Her teacher is sending us videos of her reading books, and then we do activities and ask questions based on those books. It really inspired me because, with the majority of schools and day care centres closed, many colleagues around the world are having this challenge of balancing work with watching young children.

Our objective with the Marsh Kids Korner was to create a resource page where colleagues can find activities and creative ideas, stories, exercises, and challenges for their kids to enjoy at home. The activities are split into four main categories: create, move, learn, and for parents. They include things like: how to make your own Play-Doh, a Frozen yoga session, bilingual storytelling, virtual tours of places like Central Park in New York City and the Natural History Museum in London, and then short clips on how to teach social distancing with Daniel Tiger and The Wiggles. And for parents, we understand that talking to your kids about COVID-19 is extremely challenging, so we have some great working guides to offer there.

One of the main attractions of the Marsh Kids Korner is the Marsh Reading Dream Team Library, where Marsh colleagues around the world can post videos of themselves reading their favourite childrens books. The virtual library includes a variety of genres, age levels and languages for everyone to enjoy. Engagement in this initiative has been amazing, according to Katrus, who commended her Marsh colleagues, including David Jacob, CEO of Marsh Asia (pictured reading to his daughter below) for their creative storytelling. One recording, sent in by a Marsh Germany colleague, features puppets in pirate hats and is a firm favourite of Katruss young daughter, despite the language barrier.

The Marsh Kids Korner has been very well received by Marsh colleagues. Denise Perlman, executive vice president, business insurance & national partnerships, for Marsh & McLennan Agency, has been working from home in Richmond, VA, with her five-year-old daughter Hope. She told Insurance Business: My five-year-old daughter Hope has absolutely loved Marshs Kids Korner. Working while home schooling has been challenging, so when Marsh released Kids Korner my daughter was an early adopter and soon became hooked on all the creative content that is out there.

Its been very helpful when I have work phone calls as I can easily use Kids Korner to keep my daughter occupied. She has really enjoyed listening to colleagues reading books. Shes even asked me to play book readings from colleagues in various countries so she can hear a different language. My daughter and I even recorded a video of us reading a book together to post! The science experiments and Frozen yoga have also been some favourites. Im lucky to work for a company that not only understands the difficulty many colleagues are facing during this time, but is also providing a worthwhile solution to help us.

The Marsh global events team hasnt stopped with the Kids Korner. The team has rolled out various digital and virtual initiatives to bring Marsh colleagues together in these uncertain times. Theyve set up a #AllInTogether initiative, where Marsh colleagues can post photos, stories, funny moments, articles, and give kudos to one another  all pinned together with the hashtag. In the spirit of #AllInTogether, theyve been doing daily challenges  kicked off by Marsh president and CEO John Doyle with a Share your Quarantine Selfie challenge  which are focused on the firms core priorities: clients, colleagues and communities.

Weve had Wellness Wednesday, where colleagues are encouraged to post about their favourite way to stay active while in isolation, and Thoughtful Thursday, where we shared best practices for engaging clients during the pandemic. We recently had Furry Friends Friday (the day before National Pet Day), where colleagues shared fun photos of their pets while working from home. And then we celebrate communities, so on National Doctors Day we took a moment to celebrate our healthcare workers and everything they do for us, said Katrus. Every day, we also pick a charity champion (at random) who will receive a $50 credit to donate to the charity of his or her choice on our Marsh & McLennan social impact platform. Thats been a really great way to create engagement also by giving back.

Another effort Katrus has spearheaded is a new weekly Sip n Step (and donate) Dance Party, where Marsh colleagues come together for an hour every Friday evening to dance, sip a beverage, and make donations to a local charity (all via Zoom video). Its fun, engaging and community-building events like that which Katrus hopes will continue once things start to get back to normal and people return to their offices. She commented: I think the engagement factor of this could be really powerful down the line. Just having that Sip n Step (and donate) Dance Party to look forward to and to give something back to the community  thats so rewarding.

The Kids Korner is another initiative that Id love to keep going. We need to figure out how we can build on those efforts moving forwards. And #AllInTogether  if everyone can keep engaging and keep that constant positive energy going, its going to make Marsh so much stronger because colleagues will be together and engaged.

Is your company doing anything unique to help colleagues through COVID-19? If so, let us know by reaching out to [email protected]
Kolkata, May 4 : The Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government on Monday held a high-level meeting and came up with fresh guidelines to partially restore services across the state.

The meeting was held between Chief Minister Banerjee, other cabinet colleagues, secretaries and senior officials of various state government departments at the state secretariat Nabbana to discuss the next course of action.

It was called to discuss the guidelines for the partial relaxations, especially in the third phase of the nationwide lockdown that will continue till May 17.

"We have assessed the situation and revised certain guidelines across the state. We have allowed small standalone shops selling essential and non-essential goods to reopen from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. across the state, except for containment zones. But shops located in market complexes won't be allowed to reopen," state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha told a press conference on Monday evening.

He said that mining activities can be restored in the green zones. "Private bus services can be restored in the green zone areas maintaining strict guidelines. Private offices can also reopen and function with 25 per cent of their total staff strength," Sinha said, adding that the state government still encourages the work-from-home mode of operation for all private offices.

However, there were confusions among the private bus owners as they do not know about the proper guidelines to resume services. As a result, private transportation mostly kept off the roads in the districts that are considered as green zones on Monday. The bus owners cited the safety of their staff as reason for not running the services.

The state excise department also released a 15-point guideline for reopening liquor shops. In the notice, it said that all liquor shops will have to maintain strict guidelines while selling alcohol to customers.

The excise department guidelines said that the price of all items should be hung outside the shops; no liquor will be sold to a customer if he or she is not wearing a mask and everyone will have to follow the strict social distancing guidelines.

Interestingly, as the news started doing the rounds since Monday morning, hundreds of people were seen queuing up in front of liquor shops in various pockets of Kolkata and the neighbouring districts. Ignoring the restrictions of wearing masks, buyers gathered outside liquor shops at areas like Nandakumar in East Midnapur, Salt Lake, Dhakuria etc. Police personnel were deployed in the pockets to strictly impose social distancing guidelines.

"The liquor shops will remain open between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.," Sinha said.

He also said that private cars have been allowed to hit the road with valid e-passes. "But there should be only three passengers in a car, including the driver. Tea stalls and small kiosks can also reopen but there should not be any gathering," the Chief Secretary said.

The state government had earlier expressed concern over the agricultural sector and the supply chain management for smooth transportation of farm produce.

According to police sources, as many as 183 people were arrested by the Kolkata Police for violating lockdown guidelines, of which 21 were arrested for publicly spitting on the streets.

Meanwhile, city Mayor Firhad Hakim on Monday held a meeting with the councillors of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), the state's largest civic body.

"We need to sensitise people, especially in the slum areas, in coordination with the local police stations. I have told all the councillors to intervene at the micro-levels and carry out regular drives. People must maintain the social distancing guidelines," he told mediapersons at KMC.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state secretary Dilip Ghosh on Monday appealed to the state government to carry out more Covid-19 tests. "I request the Chief Minister not to cover up the cases and step up the number of rapid tests, else it will be harmful for the citizens of Bengal. I have already sent a letter to the Union Home Minister to look into the issues here in Bengal," he told a press conference at his Salt Lake residence.
SHARING THE ADDRESSES OF THE SICK

INFECTION-DETECTING DRONES

(TNS)  Last month, police departments in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Connecticut unveiled what was initially touted as a potential new tool against a pandemic: drones capable of taking a persons temperature from 300 feet in the air.Both agencies quickly backtracked on using the machines to track the novel coronavirus after backlash from civil liberty groups warning about the implications of a Big Doctor in the sky singling out people simply for running a fever, when it might be nothing more than a more common and less deadly flu.They raised other concerns as well: Are cops supposed to be monitoring health information that is private under federal law? Are drone readings, even with sophisticated infrared sensors, a trustworthy way to protect public health without violating individual rights?It collects data and information on everybody without guaranteeing its accurate, said Kara Gross, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. Not only that, the other people around the person may have COVID. So the information could be bad and inaccurate.The drones are just one example of what some civil rights advocates fear could be a looming wave of intrusive technology and constitutionally questionable measures pushed by governments  from local to state to federal  under the mission of protecting a fearful community.Already, they point out, thermal cameras have been installed at the criminal courthouse in Miami; governors in Massachusetts and Alabama have signed executive orders telling local health agencies to give first responders the addresses of anyone who has t ested positive for COVID-19. Google and Apple are working on cellphone applications that could inform someone on the other end of a call that theyre speaking with a virus carrier.Authoritarian countries like China, already with poor human rights records, have tightened the screws further: Chinese who dont agree to constant surveillance are forced to lock down in their homes, or face arrest.It seems unlikely to go that far in the United States, where President Donald Trump is pressing to reopen the economy. But Gross, for one, pointed to 2001, when less than two months after terrorists struck New York City and Washington, D.C., Congress enacted the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the nations surveillance laws, while reducing checks and balances like judicial oversight  despite a litany of concerns raised about an erosion of civil rights.We need to be very careful given our past history, Gross said.The initial pandemic protections from government, for the most part, have been rolled out as temporary measures  like stay-home and social distancing orders  under guidance from public health authorities. Many of them, polls show, have broad public support, particularly in cities that have become virus hot zones  though there has been pushback in some places, most notably Michigan, where protesters, some armed with high-powered rifles, swarmed the Capitol in opposition of a statewide shutdown.And constitutional experts say, courts have historically sided with governments in the early stages of emergencies and health crises, and have been receptive to arguments that there is a compelling interest for governments to quash some privacy laws for the betterment of society. Over time, they say, the compelling interest will fade. But in the first months, the closing down of businesses and curfews and stay-at-home orders are likely to remain in place without much pushback from the courts.But in March, governors in Massachusetts and Alabama pushed the privacy boundaries further, endorsing measures demanding that local boards of health release the addresses of contagion cases to first responders.Monica Bharel, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, defended the measures, saying the disclosures would only be used during 911 calls and that the information would be discarded after the states emergency declaration came to an end.Its to ensure effective and continued operation of public health and safety services, she told the local news website Patch. But Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney with the conservative Washington, D.C., nonprofit government watchdog group New Civil Liberties Alliance, said both states orders were obvious violations of federal privacy laws.It seems kind of intrusive. Its private health information that is going to be shared and stored. Its sort of like whats happening in China, Kruckenberg said. Im worried theyre going to say things like stay home. Or you have to stay home or youre subject to arrest.During the first week of April, Daytona Beach Police invited the media to the unveiling of a quartet of drones purchased through a combination of confiscated and federal money. One of those drones, Sgt Tim Ehrenfauker told the Daytona Beach News-Journal, had the ability to fly within a few hundred feet of someone in a crowd and detect that persons temperature.If I zoom in on a crowd of people and somebody in there had a ... everybody was 98.6 degrees, or whatever the new normal is 97, and somebody has a 102 fever, he would be red in a crowd of orange people, Ehrenfauker told the paper.Two weeks later, police in Westport, Connecticut, a community hit hard by the virus that is a short distance from the pandemic epicenter in New York City, unveiled the same initiative.But after public backlash, Westport police killed the plan before it was activated. And police in Daytona Beach clarified that the technology hasnt been used to seek out random fevers in public spaces. Daytona Beach Police spokesman Messod Bendayon conceded the drone had been used but not to search public spaces for random fevers. South Florida law enforcement agencies contacted by the Miami Herald say they have no plans to use similar technology for COVID-19 monitoring.When we use the drone, obviously, the infrared is on, Bendayon said. It can read peoples temperatures. But using it for that purpose, no.Within two weeks of the plan announced in Daytona Beach, New Civil Liberties Alliance attorneys sent a four-page letter to Daytona Beach Police Chief Craig Capri and the citys attorney, threatening a lawsuit.Your departments use of drones to conduct mass surveillance of peoples temperatures with the express purpose of discerning whether they may have a virus is plainly unconstitutional, Kruckenberg and fellow attorney Mark Chenoweth said. NCLA therefore urges the department to immediately suspend use of such drones.Westport grounded its plan after concerns were raised by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, which described it as an example of privacy-invading companies using COVID-19 as a chance to market their products and create future business opportunities, according to the Hartford Courant. Any new surveillance measure that isnt being advocated for by public health professionals and restricted solely for public health use should be promptly rejected, and we are naturally skeptical of towns announcing these kinds of partnerships without information about who is operating the drones, what data they will collect, or how, or if that data will be stored, shared, or sold, David McGuire, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut, told the Courant. Draganfly , the Canadian company that built the drone, offered literature that said the technology could also take heart and respiratory rates, find people sneezing and coughing in crowds and detect infectious conditions from a distance of 190 feet.Gross, of Floridas ACLU, called the drones an example of over-reach by policing agencies and expressed concern that private companies looking to turn a profit may keep pushing technologies that would allow governments to more easily monitor citizens for a host of reasons. She warned that more oversight would likely be necessary in the near future to push back on privacy challenges from private firms and federal and local governments.It not only invades someones privacy. We have no idea how that information will be used, she said. The answer is not to just throw drones up in the sky and collect information on everyone. We need to be extremely careful that any efforts to expand the governments authority and the checks and balances are not an over-reach.
President Trump declared the month of May to be Older Americans Month.

Trump was Mondays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words:

This afternoon, Ill sign a proclamation declaring the month of May to be Older Americans Month. I dont know if Im in that category. I have a feeling I am. But I feel good. And our country is making a lot of progress, Alex  I want to tell you that. Making a lot of progress.

As we honor the incredible contributions of our nations seniors, we are here today to discuss the unprecedented steps we that were taking to protect them from the virus. Ill also announce vital new actions to safeguard our nursing homes and most vulnerable citizens as we gradually and safely reopen our country. And its very exciting to see whats happening.

Were joined today by Secretary Alex Azar. Thank you. Secretary Robert Wilkie. Robert, thank you very much. Administrator Seema Verma. Thank you. Great job. FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor and Chief of the National Guard Bureau General Joseph Lengyel. Thanks also to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, my friend. Thank you very much, Bill. Great job youre doing. Its great being with you, too. And many outstanding advocates for Americas seniors who are here with us today. Thank you all very much.

As we tragically have seen, the virus poses the greatest risk to older Americans. Together, as one nation, we mourn for every precious life that has been lost. And there have been many. There have been many. Were so saddened by it.

Through aggressive actions and the devotion of our doctors and nurses, however, we have held our fatality rate far below hard-hit other countries such as Spain and Italy and United Kingdom and Sweden. Were way below other countries.

Were deploying every tool, resource, and power at our disposal to protect our seniors and Americans of every age and background.

Early on, we implemented lifesaving travel restrictions and directed billions of dollars toward the development of therapies and vaccines. And thats moving along rapidly. Weve moved at a speed that people are absolutely stunned to see. We accelerated treatments including remdesivir, which is reportedly showing encouraging preliminary results. That was the very big story yesterday. It was announced by Gilead.

In early March, my administration advised all nursing homes to suspend all medically unnecessary visits to help slow the spread and protect our seniors, and especially in our nursing homes. They are  theyre having a hard time in those nursing homes. We took action to step up enforcement of infectious disease standards at nursing homes all across America.

We also acted swiftly to secure our veterans healthcare facilities and deployed hundreds of VA staff to help out in nursing homes nationwide. And were being helped very greatly by the passage of all the things that we got passed, Robert, especially Choice, so that people can go and see their doctor when they have to and especially our seniors.

We provided nearly one billion dollars in grants to support home-delivered meals, in-home care, and other services that make it impossible [possible] for older people to just do what they want to do. Were helping older people with disabilities, and were helping them to live independently.

We dramatically expanded access to telehealth  a very big deal  for Medicare beneficiaries. The number of Medicare patients using telehealth has increased from roughly 11,000 a week to more than 650,000 people a week. So thats from 11,000 a week to 650,000. Thats almost an impossible number to believe, right? But its really  its really something. They get used to it, and a lot of that is going to be staying with us long after this horrible scourge is gone.

Medicare is also paying for labs to provide seniors with at-home testing, when appropriate, at zero cost to patients.

Weve ensured a ventilator for every patient who needs one. Nobody whos needed a ventilator has been without a ventilator. Its an incredible achievement. And we now have thousands and thousands of ventilators. And other countries are asking us for help, and were helping other countries: allies and some that arent necessarily allies, but theyre in big trouble. And were helping other countries now with ventilators.

Same thing with masks. We have millions and millions of masks. That was something, four weeks ago, was difficult, and now we have millions of masks coming in and already here.

The federal government is also funding over 35,000 members of the National Guard to help states deliver critical supplies to nursing homes and to assist with disinfecting and testing.

Id like to ask General Lengyel to please come up and say a few words about the work of the National Guard. Its been really fantastic. Thank you.

General, please.

GENERAL LENGYEL: Thank you, Mr. President. And good afternoon, everyone. Im very proud of the National Guard and all they are doing to help keep our nation safe here at home and abroad.

Today, over 83,000 men and women in the National Guard are engaged at home and abroad, and 45,000 of those are engaged directly in the COVID-19 response. From running hundreds of testing sites around the country, to screening passengers at airports, to helping manufacturer PPE, to a myriad of other tasks, the National Guard is there.

We know this virus doesnt treat everyone equally, and our senior citizens are at increased risk. In many states, governors have directed National Guard members to help sanitize long-term care facilities, nursing homes, giving older citizens and families and caregivers peace of mind that their environments are safe.

The Georgia National Guard, for instance, has done this  has sanitized over 700 nursing homes, and this has been replicated at many places around the nation and continues to grow.

Additionally, food banks and homeless shelters  in normal times, these are often staffed by our volunteers. Many of them are elderly senior citizens here in America. Now, volunteering puts those great Americans at increased risk. So the National Guard is helping these Americans stay clear of this risk. In doing that, the National Guard is staffing many food banks across the nation where they need  the need for food assistance is increasing across the nation as this virus continues to persist.

The National Guard is a big part of the United States Army and our United States Air Force, and were proud of that. But this role that we play here at home, in the homeland, under the command of the governors in our states, is distinctly and uniquely National Guard business, and were very proud of that.

So, Mr. President, thank you. Thank you for the support that you give our military and the National Guard and all the men and women who serve. They are proud to serve our nation.

Thank you for letting me talk about the Guard today. Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, General. Thats great. Four stars. Thats a lot of stars. Very impressive.

GENERAL LENGYEL: (Inaudible.) (Off-mic.)

THE PRESIDENT: Thats right. But thats okay. Thats very impressive. You deserve them.

I do want to say, you mentioned the word governor, and weve had a lot of great success and relationship with the governors. Weve dealt with our governors very, very well. We have really, I think, gotten to understand each other, know each other. In many cases, really like each other. And thats worked out very well.

We had Phil Murphy here from New Jersey  the Governor of New Jersey, today. Wonderful man. A lot of progress is being made there. And we had John Bel Edwards yesterday from Louisiana, and Ron DeSantis the day before, from Florida, with just tremendous progress. Three very exceptional men, and theyre doing a really good job, as you know. As you know. So  and we have others coming in. Theyll come in one or two a day. And were seeing them, and whatever we can help them with, we help them with, and we help them with very  very quickly, General. Right? So its been very good.

My administration is doing everything possible to support the state-led management of nursing homes. And here today is a governor who I happen to like a lot, and hes done a fantastic job in a fantastic state  a state that I happen to like a lot; its called Tennessee. For some reason, they like me. I havent figured that out, but they like me in Tennessee. So thats good, Bill.

Please come up. Governor Bill Lee, please.

GOVERNOR LEE: Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

GOVERNOR LEE: Thank you very much, Mr. President. And thank you to your team, many in this room that we have worked with. You are guiding America through a tremendous crisis, and youre doing it incredibly well, and America is very grateful for that.

And we are grateful in Tennessee for the partnership  the partnership between the federal government and states like ours. As we work to make our contribution to fighting COVID-19, we can do so because of the work that youre doing and the way that youre supporting what were doing.

So, Mr. President, youve asked states to commit to a goal of testing 2 percent of their population. In April, 2 percent of Tennesseans were tested. And we have tested over 175,000 to date. But as we look to May, to build upon that, were actually strengthening our commitment, particularly to the elderly, the most vulnerable of our citizens, especially those in nursing homes.

You know, theres a scripture that describes being hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. And thats where we are in Tennessee. I think thats where we are in the nation. But the elderly are most hard pressed in this setting, and especially those in long-term care facilities, and they need our help.

So, in Tennessee, were committed to testing every resident and every staff in every one of our 700 long-term care facilities. Itll be a great undertaking, but it honors the value of these lives in those facilities  lives that have protected our country in the hardest of times, the greatest generation, and those that have a loving legacy of being our neighbors and our friends and are grandparents.

And its time for us to protect them. And we should do so by pursuing social distancing, for example, in every way that we can with them. And the distance is sometimes a great goal if I havent hugged my own elderly mom in eight weeks. But were doing right by these citizens, and youre doing right by committing to these citizens to make certain that they  that we do our personal part to make sure that theyre safe and while valuing our freedoms all at the same time.

So while I think as a country we may be hard pressed on many sides, we are not crushed. And we are grateful for your leadership and for this teams leadership, and particularly your commitment to the most vulnerable in our nation. And together, we will get through this.

Thank you very much, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Bill. Thank you very much, Bill. Great governor, by the way.

As we take steps to safely reopen our country, we must remain especially vigilant in sheltering the most vulnerable older Americans. To that end, today I have several important announcements.

First, in addition to all of the supplies weve already distributed, FEMA will send supplemental shipments. And I have to tell you, Pete, what a job youve done. Everybody was  at the last call with the governors, so many of the governors said, I want to thank him for calling  he called on Easter morning and hes calling them all the time. And you call them on Sundays and you call them every time  all the time. And Ill tell you, they really appreciated it. They really do. Youve done a fantastic job. Pete Gaynor, FEMA.

But FEMA will send supplemental shipments of personal protective equipment to all 15,400 Medicaid- and Medicare-certified nursing homes in America. Right, Pete?

Second, CMS is providing states with $81 million from the CARES Act to increase their inspections of nursing homes at this very critical time. We have to do that. We have to do that. Its a  thats a spot. Thats a spot that we have to take care of. I guess you could call it a little bit of a weak spot, because things are happening at the nursing homes, and were not  were not happy about that. We dont want it to happen. So were checking that out very carefully and very methodically.

Third, this week, well be finalizing a new rule requiring information about coronavirus cases in nursing homes to be reported directly to CDC and testing data to be posted online so everyone gets to see it. This rule also requires nursing homes to report cases to residents and their family members.

And finally, to ensure that our nursing homes are prepared for any future outbreaks, were announcing the Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes. This commission will be composed of leading industry experts, doctors, and scientists, resident and patient advocates, family members, infection and prevention control specialists, and state and local authorities. Its a big deal.

The Commission will convene in May and issue recommendations for further steps we can take to protect our nations seniors. My administration will never waver in its relentless commitment to Americas seniors. We owe them a sacred and unbreakable obligation, and we will fulfill that obligation with every resource and power that we have. We are working very hard with our seniors, and were working very hard with our nursing homes. And great progress is being made and will be made. That, I can promise you.

Thats also why we are strongly protecting Medicare and Social Security. We will protect your Social Security. We will protect your Medicare. We will protect you, as American citizens. And that goes even beyond seniors. Were protecting this country.

Our cherished seniors enrich every aspect of our national life. These great citizens have dedicated their entire lives to our families and our communities and our countries. Our country could not be anything near where it is without our incredible seniors. Well show them the same love and loyalty theyve shown us and theyve shown our nation every day of their lives. No effort will be spared to give Americas seniors the care and support and devotion and love they have earned and that they deserve.

In a few moments, Ill sign a proclamation design-  designing a very special  weve designed a very special plan. And its going to designate Older American Month. So this is Older Americans Month.

But first, Id like to ask Secretary Azar, Secretary Wilkie, Administrator Verma, Administrator Gaynor to share what their department and agencies are doing to help our nations seniors.

So, just come on up, and maybe you could say a few words. And youve made a lot of progress.

Alex, why dont you start? Thank you.

SECRETARY AZAR: Well, thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership during this pandemic and for the work youve done throughout your administration to protect older Americans. Id also like to thank the older Americans and advocates we have here today, including those working hard at the state and local level.

As the President described during this pandemic, we have taken every possible effort to keep older Americans healthy and safe. In addition to our public health and healthcare efforts, President Trump has secured historic investments in programs that support older Americans and help them live independently.

Over the past month, HHS has dispersed more than $1 billion in grants to aging and disability networks, which are state and local agencies, like a Council on Aging that provides services for seniors living in the community.

This is more than a 40 percent increase in the annual support that we provide to these critical organizations. Services that we support, they include delivered meals, like my grandmother used to get from Meals on Wheels; help with trips to the grocery store or the doctor; and assistance with chores in the home. Back in March, we put out $250 million in grants specifically for meals, including through Meals on Wheels.

Weve been pleased to see communities get creative with these funds. Some states are ensuring not only that the meals are getting to seniors, but that the meals are coming from local restaurants whose businesses are struggling.

Its not just about meals and services; we also recognize that older Americans may be facing mental health challenges and feeling isolated. Floridas aging network, for instance, is combatting social isolation by providing electronic tablets to nursing home residents to help them communicate with loved ones. Were also working to protect the rights of older Americans in accessing healthcare.

Our Office for Civil Rights has been taking action to ensure that states and healthcare providers do not discriminate on the basis of disability or age and the allocation of medical care. Weve already had two states remove such discriminatory policies from their triaging guidelines as a result of our Office for Civil Rights work.

Finally, as the President and others mentioned, weve worked closely with states to ensure that they can test especially vulnerable populations, like those living in nursing homes and those who care for them. This work to protect seniors and empower them will continue throughout the pandemic as we reopen our country and keep Americas seniors as healthy and as independent as possible.

Thank you all for what you do in this effort. Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Incredible job. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Robert.

SECRETARY WILKIE: Mr. President, thank you. And thank you for everything you have done to transform the Department of Veterans Affairs on behalf of the nations nine and a half million veterans.

Seventy-five years ago, the men of the 28th Marine Regiment raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi. No event better evoked the sacrifices and the triumphs of the 15 million Americans who put on the uniform during World War Two.

A few years after Iwo Jima, the soldiers of the United States Eighth Army defended the Pusan Perimeter, and Marines fought through and out of the Chosin Reservoir. Veterans of those terrible times are still with us today.

Early on in this crisis, President Trump gave me very explicit orders to do everything possible to protect the lives of those precious Americans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has 134 nursing homes, but more than half of the residents in those nursing homes fought in wars with battles with names like Guadalcanal, and the Bulge, and Inchon. Of the 78,000 residents in our nursing homes, we have tested all of them for the coronavirus. We have tested all of our staff in those nursing homes. Our infection rate is low. Many of our homes have few, if any, positive cases.

But still, as the President noted, we had to make a very tough decision early on. After all of these veterans had gone through so much on the battlefield, we had to tell them at this stage in their lives that we were depriving them of the sustenance of their families and friends because we had to protect their lives.

Because of the Presidents directions to me, we have been able to contain the virus in our nursing homes. And now we are taking those lessons that weve learned from VA across the country to protect patients across America.

We are the federal experts in gerontology. We are helping 38 states and territories handle the surge of patients dealing with this virus with our partners and our great partners at FEMA, and even by direct action through the governors. Aiding Americas elderly is central to all of our efforts.

We deployed VA staff, as the President noted, to veterans nursing homes owned and operated by the individual states. Early on, Governors Charlie Baker and Phil Murphy moved to protect their veterans, and they asked us for help. In addition to Massachusetts and New Jersey, we are helping in Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee.

In California and Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas, we have taken in non-veteran nursing home patients and state veterans nursing home patients into our VA facilities. We are helping elderly Americans wherever we find them.

Mr. President, you should be very proud of this VA that you have helped build. Thousands of VA employees have leapt into harms way  VA leaders like Joan McInerney and Martina Parauda in your hometown; Ryan Lilly in Boston; Rima Nelson in Detroit; Vicki Brahm in Illinois and Wisconsin; Fernando Rivera and Skye McDougall in New Orleans; and Miguel LaPuz in Florida.

All of them have put service before self to protect the most vulnerable and deserving. These are the folks who made America strong and free.

Thank you very much, sir. Thank you, sir.

ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you for your commitment to the nations seniors and to the Medicare program. Youve been very clear with me since day one that you wanted to protect and strengthen the Medicare program. And under your leadership, our Medicare Advantage program is seeing premiums at a 13-year low, and in our Part D program, its a 7-year low.

But today I want to focus on nursing homes. In the scheme of life decisions, placing a loved one in a nursing home has to be one of the most difficult decisions. And when you make that decision, you want to know that you can stay connected with your loved one and that theyre going to be safe and have the best quality of life. And thats why the decision to restrict visitation in nursing homes was a heartbreaking decision. And our thoughts and prayers are with the families and the patients during this very uncertain time.

But the tragic reality is that the coronavirus seemed almost tailor-made to put major pressure on nursing homes, and countries across the world have struggled with their nursing home populations. But the Presidents early action around nursing homes has saved countless lives.

And even before the coronavirus, we have been working on a strategy to improve quality in nursing homes. The strategy focused on quality, oversight, enforcement, and transparency for patients and their families so they understand exactly whats going on in nursing homes, about the conditions there, and reducing regulatory burdens so that nursing home providers can focus on providing care to their patients instead of paperwork.

Weve overhauled the entire survey system and implemented a common tool across the entire nation to ensure that our inspectors were being consistent, objective. And thats actually resulted in an increase in the number of fines. And weve updated our websites so that patients and their families have the latest information on the quality in a nursing home and making it very clear when nursing homes have had significant cases of abuse and neglect.

And those improvements that weve made made it possible, when the coronavirus hit, for us to take very rapid action on several fronts. We launched an unprecedented transparency effort, and that requires nursing homes to inform patients and families when theres an outbreak in the nursing home, and to also report that information directly to the CDC. And thats going to be important to our efforts around surveillance going forward as we reopen the country.

And also, we increased reimbursement for labs so that they could do more testing in the nursing home. And thats going to be very critical, as I said before, to our monitoring and surveillance efforts.

Also, starting in February, we issued a series of nine guidance documents specific to coronavirus in controlling infections in nursing homes.

And just for some perspective, normally these types of guidance documents can take months, sometimes years. But the CMS team worked days and nights and weekends to make sure we got this information in the hands of our nursing homes to do everything that we could to protect our vulnerable seniors. And we also host weekly calls with the nursing homes to help them implement our guidance.

But federal action is just one part of the piece. States ultimately license nursing homes. And thats why weve been working with states to investigate outbreaks that have been going on and inspect nursing homes. And our guidance has called upon state and local leaders to support nursing homes in their efforts to control the coronavirus outbreaks.

And I commend Governor Lee and governors across the nation that have implemented our guidance, whether its cleaning their facilities, testing, and creating new COVID facilities. And that helps isolate patients that are sick and keeps other patients safe. And this work has been critical to keeping nursing home residents safe.

And Im pleased to announce that we are putting out new state grants to support state and local efforts to nursing homes. The President has been an advocate of this. He has asked for increased funding to inspect nursing homes every year in his budget. But this is the first time that Congress has provided this funding, and the money couldnt come at a more critical time when itll be important to work with our state partners to ensure safety in our nursing homes.

But the President has directed us to do more. And so, as part of our Opening Up America efforts, we are going to oversee the Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes. And the commission will comprehensively assess the response, it will identify best practices, and also provide recommendations for how we go forward to protect our nursing home residents and make sure we are providing the best quality of life.

And, in closing, I want to speak directly to our nursing home residents, their caretakers, and their families: Your pain is our pain, and we are doing everything we can to support you. And to the healthcare workers on the frontlines providing care and comfort to our nursing home residents: We thank you.

And thank you, Mr. President, for your consistent leadership and unwavering support for our elderly citizens. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Seema, do you want to tell them that youre going to have some big news very soon on insulin?

ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Thats right.

THE PRESIDENT: This is a big  this is a big deal.

ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Were doing everything we can to lower the price of insulin for our seniors, and well have some great announcements coming up very soon to lower the price.

THE PRESIDENT: Some big news. Great news. Good. Thank you.

ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Pete.

ADMINISTRATOR GAYNOR: Thank you, Mr. President, Administrator Verma, and members of the coronavirus task force. Let me focus on the logistics in our effort to deliver personal protective equipment care packages to those citizens at highest risk, in greatest need: those living in our nursing homes across the country.

Thanks to the leadership of the President and the tremendous support of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, FEMA will deliver care packages containing four items of PPE to more than 15,000 Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes nationwide, to include the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Given the lack of availability of PPE necessary for healthcare workers providing support for nursing homes, we will provide a package or a kit containing a seven-day supply of eye protection, masks, gowns, and gloves to these 15 [thousand]-plus nursing homes. Each kit is individualized for each nursing home based on the level of staffing and the seven days of our supply calculation.

Over the course of the next 60 days, well be providing each of the nursing homes with two separate shipments of 7 days of supplies, totaling 14 days of supplies by the beginning of July. The first shipment of supplies begins next week. These initial shipments will focus on metropolitan area sites such as New York City, Northern New Jersey, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The second shipment of supplies begins in early June. The goal is to have all supplies delivered no later than July 4th.

Assisting us in this endeavor is Federal Resources, a small business based out of Stevensville, Maryland, who specializes in chem-bio equipment support with focusing on kitting solutions for the Department of Defense. They will help us distribute the following PPE items: 608,000 pieces of eye protection, 6.9 million surgical masks, 6.4 million gowns, 31.4 million pairs of gloves.

And finally, I would again like to extend my gratitude to the President for his leadership on this project, as well as to thank my fellow members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and their continued partnership. Together, we have turned a critical demand for PPE for our seniors and frontline healthcare workers into reality.

Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Pete. Great job. Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you all very much. I think well sign. If youd like to come up, come on up. Come on up.

(The proclamation is signed.)

Thank you very much.

The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
The Afghan government said it has launched an investigation into claims that migrants attempting to enter Iran drowned after being forced into a river by Iranian border guards.

Dozens of Afghans had crossed into Iran illegally from western Herat province when the incident happened on Friday, local media said.

The Afghan Human Rights Commission on Sunday said it had spoken to survivors who accused Iranian forces of beating and torturing them.

"They were made to cross the Harirud river, as a result a number of them drowned and some survived," it said in a statement.

The Afghan government said Saturday that the foreign ministry was investigating the incident.

A government official who did not want to be named said seven migrants had died and 30 were still missing, according to survivors who returned to Herat.

The Iranian consulate in Herat dismissed the reports and said no Afghan nationals had been arrested in the area.

The Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday that "the incident occurred on Afghanistan's soil and Iran's border patrol has denied anything related to this happened on our country's territory".

"We have investigated this in cooperation with (Afghanistan's) authorities," the statement added.

There are between 1.5 million and three million Afghan refugees living and working in Iran, most of them as wage labourers on construction projects.

Tens of thousands returned to Afghanistan after the coronavirus outbreak, but as restrictions ease in badly-hit Iran, many are again seeking work there.
Arnold Haber beat colon cancer and survived a massive heart attack. He later lost the use of both legs after a severe infection. But even when confined to a wheelchair, the 230-pound U.S. Army veteran managed to stay active, his children said. They called him the "Bionic Man," because nothing could stop him.

In 2017, Haber moved into the New Jersey Veterans Home at Paramus, part of a national network of elder-care facilities for veterans and their families. When the novel coronavirus arrived this year, it ripped the place apart. Of the 281 residents there in early April, at least 189 have tested positive and 65 have died-the most of any nursing home in the hard-hit state.

Among the 670 licensed long-term care facilities in New Jersey, at least 508 have witnessed outbreaks, with 3,733 deaths, close to half of all covid-19 deaths in the state. Nationally, about one-fifth of all Americans who have died from the virus had been in nursing homes. Elected officials have vowed to get to the bottom of what went wrong, to shed light on how months of delays and mistakes allowed the contagion to cut short the lives of America's most vulnerable.

At veterans' nursing facilities, there is an additional layer of sorrow. These homes are the last post for American servicemen and women who are no longer able to care for themselves. Willing to die for their country, many of these former soldiers, sailors and marines are meeting their end bereft not only of the comfort of loved ones, but the dignity and timely military funeral rites that are their due. Haber, an Army corporal who served in Germany during the Korean War, was one of them. He died last month at the age of 91, a victim of the coronavirus.

"My father was very proud to be an American and fight for his country," said Mitchell Haber, 60, a day after his father was buried in a small, short service, with no bugler to play taps or the flag ceremony his family had planned years ago. "This is not the way my father deserved to go."

The U.S. Veterans Health Administration calls itself the "largest integrated health-care system" in the nation. It provides nursing-home care in three settings: VA-owned homes known as community living centers, often part of VA medical centers; facilities owned and operated by the states but regulated by the VA; and through contracts with more than 1,700 public and private locations, known as community nursing homes.

State-run veterans' homes date to the end of the Civil War, when America was overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of men who had been injured or maimed in the bloody defeat of the slave states. Today, every state has at least one, for a total of 157, while the VA runs 134, with a subsidy program for veterans in general-population nursing homes.

Veterans who move into these facilities often do so because they lack the financial resources to afford privately run homes. If veterans need nursing home care because of a military service-connected disability, the VA pays the full cost; otherwise, it pays only part of the expense. About two-thirds of state-run homes participate in Medicare or Medicaid.

The VA system, which includes hospitals, reported 6,672 covid-19 cases and 413 deaths as of April 25. It doesn't report data for specific homes; neither does the National Association of State Veterans Homes, an advocacy group. Only some states publicly disclose such information, and they differ in whether they report only fatalities at the facility or those that occur at hospitals.

Even before the pandemic, the system was under stress. The Government Accountability Office, which had been asked by Congress to examine the program amid concern about quality of care, reported last year that between 2012 and 2017, there were 576 deficiencies at 126 VA-run homes, including infection control, and 192 deficiencies at 148 state-run homes, with problems spanning safety, health assessments and quality of care.

The near-apocalyptic scale of death wrought by the virus on these homes may illustrate the GAO's call for increased oversight. "In the week where we will acknowledge the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, to lose some of these veterans to this thing, after all that they did for our country, is just particularly wrenching," New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on May 2.

Across America, the coronavirus has been detected among residents or staff in veterans' homes run by at least 17 states. Alabama officials said they are assessing procedures at a veterans' home in Alexander City after 64 residents and 23 employees tested positive and eight residents died. In New York, where 59 residents at the Long Island State Veterans' Home died, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered an investigation of all nursing homes in the state. In Pennsylvania, Maine and Louisiana, the story has been the same.

While veterans' homes appear equally susceptible to covid-19 as other elder-care facilities, it was in Massachusetts, at the Soldiers' Home in Holyoke, where the nation first learned of the horrendous toll the pathogen has taken on them. At least 80 residents died, while 160 residents and staff have been infected. Federal and state officials announced investigations of the facility, including for potential civil rights violations.

"There wasn't enough personal-protection equipment," said Cory Bombredi, internal organizer for SEIU Local 888, a union that represents 270 nurses and staff at the Holyoke home. He said they were told: "You don't need a mask. This is like the flu. If you leave, you might as well leave your ID at the door."

Massachusetts officials have boosted staffing and assembled a clinical team, according to Brooke Karanovich, a spokesperson for the state's Executive Office of Health and Human Services. Val Liptak, the new acting administrator of the Holyoke Soldiers' Home, declined to comment on the status of the facility or its staff, though her predecessor has pushed back against criticism by state officials.

In New Jersey, there are three veterans' homes with a combined 900 beds. In normal times, they run at full capacity and have waiting lists, according to Kryn Westhoven, spokesman for the state's Division of Military and Veteran Affairs. The Paramus home where Arnold Haber lived is in Bergen County, a densely populated suburb of New York City-itself ground zero for the pandemic in America.

With close to 16,185 cases and 1,210 deaths of it own, the county has the most cases in New Jersey. A second state veterans' home located in Edison, also near New York City, has had 163 cases and 61 deaths. The third facility, on the southern end of the state in rural Cumberland County, has reported only six infections.

Arnold Haber and his wife Rena raised their family in Paramus. In the years after World War II, he worked in New York City's lingerie industry, starting out as a shipping clerk. After the Korean War, he would eventually buy his own store, Lea's Corset Shop on Broadway. His children would follow in his footsteps a few decades later, opening their own lingerie stores in New Jersey.

When three years ago Haber began to fall and his wife could no longer care for him, he moved into the Paramus veterans' home. Rena Haber, 87, visited him every day, and his kids dropped by several times a week, chatting with other families in the day room. "They had never been apart a day in their life," Loren Haber said of her parents.

That changed on March 12. The home, like so many others, sealed itself off to prevent the spread of the virus. The family said Arnold Haber shared a room with a resident who had tested positive for covid-19, and that staff waited several days before testing their father, even though he was coughing and lethargic. The family's only contact with him was through a caring aide.

On April 18, the aide called from Arnold Haber's bedside. Their father was unconscious and on his deathbed. "He's on the way out," Rena Haber said that night. Early the next morning, Arnold was gone.

Westhoven, the New Jersey state spokesman, said Paramus veterans' home chief executive Matt Schottlander wasn't available for comment. Westhoven said the facility was following U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services guidance issued April 2, which stated that confirmed covid-19 patients aren't to be placed with patients who haven't tested positive.

Steve Mastropietro's father, 91-year-old Thomas Mastropietro, arrived at the Paramus home in February. He also died of the coronavirus last month.

Steve Mastropietro said a nurse told him his father was recovering from the virus, only to call back and say he had in fact died hours earlier. Mastropietro said he received another call later that day: Not only had his father died, but there had been a mixup of identification bracelets, and his body was sent to the wrong funeral home.

Like Haber, the elder Mastropietro served in the Army during the Korean War. Steve Mastropietro said the last time he saw his father was shortly before the March 12 decision by Paramus to bar visitors. At the time, a ward had been sealed off because some residents were having respiratory issues. Over the next few weeks, Mastropietro said he was told there were only a few covid-19 cases among the residents.

Each time he asked about his father, he was told his symptoms were mild. Then, a few days before his father's death, he saw on the news that more than 40 people at Paramus had the virus, and that several had died.

"If I knew how bad it was, I could have taken him home," said Mastropietro, 60, of Hasbrouck Heights. "It's so unfortunate that I put him in there."

During the first two weeks of April, the New Jersey Army National Guard sent 40 combat medics to the Paramus home. On April 14, Gov. Murphy said he had spoken to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie, who agreed to send 90 nurses to assist at all three state veterans' homes.

Haber and Mastropietro said that, before the outbreak, the Paramus veterans' home was clean, the nurses were cordial and their parents seemed happy. In a statement last month, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (whose district includes Paramus) said he was "deeply concerned about the recent performance of the facility and a departure from its regular health and safety standards.''

Mark Piterski, 54, a state deputy commissioner who oversaw the three state veterans' homes before he quit last week, said that after he made a plea to Gottheimer for more nurses, the Democratic congressman instead called for a federal probe of the Paramus home.

"I asked him for nurses; I got an investigation," said Piterski, a retired brigadier general who spent 30 years with the New Jersey Army National Guard. Piterski said he quit his post to run as an independent against Gottheimer in the November election.

"The county, the state, the federal government-they've all fallen short."

Nationwide, people age 75 or older make up 58% of all covid-19 deaths, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data as of April 24. Those in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities make up 18% of all deaths-with almost half having occurred in New York and New Jersey-the two worst-hit states.

The Paramus facility, located on 23 acres across the street from the Bergen New Bridge Medical Center, says its mission is "to honor and serve the military veteran, their spouses and Gold Star Parents by consistently providing the highest quality of resident-directed long term care."

The Trump administration announced last month that it's requiring nursing homes to report to patients and their families if there are covid-19 cases in their facility. As states begin to reopen, federal surveillance around the virus is to begin in nursing homes. Westhoven, the state spokesman, said New Jersey will be doing its own review, and evaluating "how we can be better prepared in the event of another public health crisis."

Claire Hovsepian, 96, who currently lives at the Paramus home, was "one of the lucky ones," said her daughter, Kim Deas. Hovsepian moved into the home less than a year ago and has recovered from covid-19-her husband, a World War II Army veteran who received two purple hearts, lived there until his death in 2015.

Deas, 54, said her mother wasn't eating or drinking very much while she was sick, and was very tired and confused. Deas believes her relentless calling and pushing led to her mother being tested for the virus. "She's on the right track at this point," Deas said.

According to Gottheimer, one of the biggest problems at the Paramus facility was its failure to properly communicate with families. In an April 3 letter from Schottlander, the home's CEO, family members were advised that daily communication with relatives wasn't practical. "If there is an immediate concern or development with your loved one, rest assured, you will be contacted," Schottlander wrote.

"Every day, we were waiting and hoping someone was going to call," Loren Haber, 56, said. "Nobody had the time there." The Paramus facility's lockdown, she said, left her father "and so many others to die alone."

"Did we have a lack of communication? Yes we did," Piterski said. "Because I had the CEO making beds. I had all hands on deck.''

Over the past week, the Paramus veterans' home has regained its footing and arrested the spread of the disease, according to New Jersey officials. But Joe Bosotina, a veteran who lives in Morris County, said the quality of veterans' homes has been declining for some time.

Bosotina, 47, comes from a family of World War II and Vietnam War veterans. He retired from the Army after 25 years, and now works as a sales director for a health services company in New York. He's also an advocate for veterans' services and a member of the Disabled American Veterans. Bosotina said services at the Paramus veterans' home, where his grandfather used to seek medical attention, had slipped over the years.

"The county, the state, the federal government-they've all fallen short in providing services to our nation's heroes during their time of need," he said. "On the surface, America says how much we love our veterans. Then we put them in the corner and leave them alone."
Jeff Lewis and boyfriend Scott Anderson have broken up after a year of dating.

The 49-year-old Lewis discussed the split Monday on Jeff Lewis Live, his SiriusXM show, saying that personality conflicts between the pair paved their way to splitsville.

'It was a lot of negativity and always complaining,' the Flipping Out star said. 'He's had a lot of anxiety, a lot of frustration, and it got to a point where I felt that he was hyper-critical of me.'

It's over: Jeff Lewis and boyfriend Scott Anderson have broken up after a year of dating. The 49-year-old Lewis discussed the split Monday on Jeff Lewis Live, his SiriusXM show

Lewis said he 'worked very hard in the relationship' and 'was very good to' Anderson - who he began seeing in March of 2019 - but that certain aspects of the relationship were just not working out.

'Look, I'll be honest: Sometimes he bugs the s*** out of me - but the positive always outweighs the negative,' Lewis said. 'So I look past things and I let them go.'

He said that problems between he and his beau only got worse amid the lockdown in their native California amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

'It's been like weeks of negativity, and I found that it just started wearing on me,' Lewis said. 'And he just stopped communicating. So then I could feel him next to me, just angry, pouting, seething, resenting me.'

Timeline: The couple began dating in March of 2019 and had a brief split last June

Focused: Lewis said he was generally proud of how he handled himself in the parting

Lewis said that Anderson came to the conclusion that the romance had run its course, telling him, 'I think we should break up.'

Said the Bravo personality: 'It was his idea to break up, which I then agreed because I was just very, very frustrated.'

Lewis said that he didn't feel appreciated or acknowledged in recent times with Anderson.

'There was just a real lack of communication with us,' Lewis said. 'We speak two different languages. And for me, I need more affirmation and acknowledgement and those kinds of things once in awhile.

'The beating me up and the hypercriticism, it just became suffocating to me.'

The union had plenty of ups and downs, as they had parted last June amid Lewis's ongoing custody fight with ex Gage Edward over their three-year-old daughter Monroe.

Not working out: Lewis said that he didn't feel appreciated or acknowledged in recent times with Anderson. He was snapped in LA last year

The TV star said that all things considered, the split was relatively cordial.

'I never have a good breakup: If I'm mad at you, it's going to be easier for me to move on, and that's my M.O., that's my pattern,' he said. 'I took a few swipes, he took a few swipes, and then I checked my behavior.

'So I said, "Look, you are a very nice, kind man and you have been such a positive influence on me over the last year and I'm really grateful and I appreciate how sweet and generous you've been with Monroe. And I wish you the best and I truly mean that, I truly mean that." And so, I said, "Hopefully, eventually we can be friends."'

Lewis said he was proud of himself for taking the high road amid the uncomfortable split.

'Normally I would just annihilate somebody and I would just blow everybody to pieces and that would be it,' he said. 'I'm hoping that he focuses on the nice things and the better parts of the text.'

Jeff Lewis Live airs weekdays at 12 p.m. ET on Radio Andy on SiriusXM.
FILE PHOTO: Chinese and U.S. flags flutter near The Bund in Shanghai

By Humeyra Pamuk and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is "turbocharging" an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, according to officials familiar with U.S. planning.

President Donald Trump, who has stepped up recent attacks on China ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election, has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas.

Now, economic destruction and the U.S. coronavirus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move U.S. production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to other more friendly nations instead, current and former senior U.S. administration officials said.

"Weve been working on (reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China) over the last few years but we are now turbo-charging that initiative," Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the State Department told Reuters.

"I think it is essential to understand where the critical areas are and where critical bottlenecks exist," Krach said, adding that the matter was key to U.S. security and one the government could announce new action on soon.

The U.S. Commerce Department, State and other agencies are looking for ways to push companies to move both sourcing and manufacturing out of China. Tax incentives and potential re-shoring subsidies are among measures being considered to spur changes, the current and former officials told Reuters.

There is a whole of government push on this, said one. Agencies are probing which manufacturing should be deemed "essential" and how to produce these goods outside of China.

Trump's China policy has been defined by behind-the-scenes tussles between pro-trade advisers and China hawks; now the latter say their time has come.

"This moment is a perfect storm; the pandemic has crystallized all the worries that people have had about doing business with China," said another senior U.S. official.

"All the money that people think they made by making deals with China before, now theyve been eclipsed many fold by the economic damage" from the coronavirus, the official said.

Story continues

ECONOMIC PROSPERITY NETWORK

Trump has said repeatedly that he could put new tariffs on top of the up to 25% tax on $370 billion in Chinese goods currently in place.

U.S. companies, which pay the tariffs, are already groaning https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tariffs/trumps-tariffs-add-to-pandemic-induced-turmoil-of-u-s-manufacturers-idUSKBN22C1MY under the existing ones, especially as sales plummet during coronavirus lockdowns.

But that does not mean Trump will balk at new ones, officials say. Other ways to punish China may include sanctions on officials or companies, and closer relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island China considers a province.

Commerce on Monday launched a national security probe that could lead to new U.S. tariffs on imports of key components of power transformers, saying it needed assured domestic access to such goods to be able to respond to power disruptions.

Discussions about moving supply chains are concrete, robust, and, unusually for the Trump administration, multi-lateral.

The United States is pushing to create an alliance of "trusted partners" dubbed the "Economic Prosperity Network," one official said. It would include companies and civil society groups operating under the same set of standards on everything from digital business, energy and infrastructure to research, trade, education and commerce, he said.

The U.S. government is working with Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam to "move the global economy forward," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said April 29.

These discussions include how we restructure ... supply chains to prevent something like this from ever happening again," Pompeo said.

Latin America may play a role, too.

Colombian Ambassador Francisco Santos last month said he was in discussions with the White House, National Security Council, Treasury Department and U.S. Chamber of Commerce about a drive to encourage U.S. companies to move some supply chains out of China and bring them closer to home.

China overtook the United States as the world's top manufacturing country in 2010, and was responsible for 28% of global output in 2018, according to United Nations data.

The pandemic has highlighted China's key role in the supply chain for generic drugs https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-pharmaceuticals-ap/chinas-coronavirus-induced-supply-chain-woes-fan-concerns-of-possible-drug-shortages-idUSKBN20Y1C7 that account for the majority of prescriptions in the United States. It has also shown China's dominance in goods like https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-com-cameras/exclusive-amazon-turns-to-chinese-firm-on-u-s-blacklist-to-meet-thermal-camera-needs-idUSKBN22B1AL the thermal cameras needed to test workers for fevers, and its importance in food supplies.

HARD SELL FOR COMPANIES

Many U.S. companies have invested heavily in Chinese manufacturing and rely on China's 1.4 billion people for a big chunk of their sales.

"Diversification and some redundancy in supply chains will make sense given the level of risk that the pandemic has uncovered," said Doug Barry, spokesman for the U.S.-China Business Council. "But we dont see a wholesale rush for the exits by companies doing business in China."

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Monday said Trump had already signed an order that could allow limits on imports of components for the U.S. power grid from Russia and China, and would soon issue a separate order that would require federal agencies to purchase U.S.-made medical products.

John Murphy, senior vice president for international policy at the Chamber of Commerce, said that U.S. manufacturers already meet 70% of current pharmaceutical demand.

Building new facilities in the United States could take five to eight years, he said. "We're concerned that officials need to get the right fact sets before they start looking at alternatives," Murphy said.

Trump White House pledges to punish China have not always been followed by action.

A move to block global exports of chips to blacklisted Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, for example, favored by hawks in the administration and under consideration since November, has not yet been finalized.

(Additional reporting by Alex Alper, David Lawder, Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; Writing by Heather Timmons; Editing by Tom Brown and Sonya Hepinstall)
The United Arab Emirates had its sights set on Mars the day before it launched its second satellite ever.

The resulting mission, a Mars orbiter dubbed Hope , has finished construction and is scheduled to launch this summer among a rush of spacecraft bound for the Red Planet . If all goes well, the UAE will become the fourth or fifth country to orbit Mars next February. While the country's newly minted scientists are dedicated to learning something new about Mars, inquiry wasn't the motivation for the mission.

"Going to Mars was not the main objective," Omran Sharaf, mission lead for the Hope spacecraft, which is also known as the Emirates Mars Mission, told Space.com. "It's a means for a bigger goal: to expedite the development in our educational sector, academic sector."

Related: Meet Hope: The UAE's first spacecraft bound for Mars is now complete

Sharaf first heard about the Mars plan in November 2013, as he was preparing to see his prior project, an Earth-observing satellite called DubaiSat-2, launch. The Hope mission began with an order from UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum: Send a UAE-built science probe to Mars before the country's 50th anniversary in December 2021, within a set budget.

There were other constraints too: "The science needs to be unique. Whatever you do, it shouldn't be something that's been done before," Sharaf said the prime minister directed. "We should build it and not buy it, and work with others, don't start from scratch."

Jumping from Earth orbit to Mars in less than a decade is quite a leap, but a purposeful one for the UAE, which turned its gaze to spaceflight in 2006. "Only 50% of those missions [to Mars] succeed ," Sarah Al Amiri, science lead for the mission and the UAE's minister of state for advanced sciences, told Space.com. "It provides the mindset that the UAE needed to have in youth who are going to be a vital part of the UAE's post-oil economy. It's about expanding their horizons and putting them in challenges at a time when the UAE is relatively comfortable as a nation."

The mission is, after all, timed to celebrate the nation's 50th anniversary. "We need to catch up with nations that have been around for centuries," Al Amiri said.

Figuring out the science

As the Hope mission grew from proposal to project, team members began building connections with Mars scientists who could help them shape the goals of the spacecraft and with seasoned Mars-goers who could teach them how to design and build the probe.

For the latter, the UAE space center signed on with the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, impressed by center members' experience with Mars missions and demonstrated ability to foster less experienced team members into full-fledged participants.

For help with the science side of things, UAE representatives reached out to the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group , an advisory group convened by NASA that includes scientists from around the world. In particular, the Hope team members needed to identify a scientifically valuable task that was feasible for this mission.

"We're not there just to declare arrival to Mars," Al Amiri said. "It doesn't really make sense to call it planetary exploration and just make it about technology demonstration and about arrival."

From that consultation, Al Amiri and her colleagues found a mission for the mission. "There was a large gap in the complete understanding of the atmosphere of Mars ," she said. "We don't have a full understanding of the weather system of Mars throughout an entire year."

Previous and current missions have gathered observations of the Martian weather , but only a couple of times throughout a day, Al Amiri said. These measurements have often come from surface missions and so are quite limited geographically. Weather is too complex and interconnected for scientists to really get a handle on how it works from such piecemeal data.

So, Hope aims to monitor what's happening in the Martian atmosphere for a full local year, including making connections between layers of the atmosphere. That will help scientists understand not only Martian weather, but also how Mars has lost some of its atmosphere over billions of years of planetary history.

"That science was a sweet spot for us," Al Amari said. "You're complementary to other current missions, so you maximize the benefit that scientists are going to get globally from this mission, because it feeds into the current areas of research and expands on human knowledge as a whole."

The goal of integrating data collected across layers of the Martian atmosphere means that Hope's three instruments  a camera sensitive to optical and ultraviolet wavelengths and spectrometers tuned to infrared and to ultraviolet light  need to take simultaneous measurements that scientists can stack together.

To facilitate that process, Hope carries all its instruments on the same arm. The spacecraft also has a precisely tuned 55 hourlong orbit that enables two different views of Mars: One in which the planet rotates beneath the spacecraft, and one in which the spacecraft keeps pace and watches the same spot over time, Al Amiri said. That combination of views should make it easier for scientists to put together a complete map of the Martian atmosphere, she said.

Emirati personnel work with the Hope spacecraft during thermal vacuum testing. (Image credit: MBRSC)

Coronavirus management

Hope is scheduled to launch in late July or early August  the same window being targeted by NASA's Perseverance rover and China's first Mars mission, Tianwen . Until March, the European Space Agency and Russia were also in on the Red Planet rush with their joint ExoMars mission. But parachute problems had plagued the ExoMars mission for months, and with the travel restrictions prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, mission personnel weren't confident they could be addressed in time. The mission is now scheduled to launch in 2022 .

The Hope mission has also had to contend with pandemic complications, Sharaf said. "The coronavirus has definitely brought a different level of challenge into all this," he said. "We thought that this phase would be the quiet phase, that we would be preparing for the launch, and it turns out that it's not really the quiet phase because of COVID-19 ."

As of late April, the spacecraft has arrived in Japan, from where it will launch aboard a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA rocket. The spacecraft headed over earlier than originally planned to ensure it didn't get caught in a pandemic-related hold-up.

The team also had to adjust its staffing plans. Rather than having teams bounce between the UAE and Japan, the agency sent a smaller team to Japan early enough that they would clear quarantine when the spacecraft arrived; those personnel will remain for three months straight.

Even still, something could go wrong, Sharaf said, potentially interfering with the launch. If everything goes smoothly, Hope should reach Mars sometime in February  the exact date hasn't been set yet. And if everything continues to go smoothly, the spacecraft will spend about two terrestrial years at work around the Red Planet, with a potential mission extension likely to be evaluated a year into orbit.

"I never even fathomed the minute possibility of doing this, I don't think any of us would have proposed to even say that 'OK, let's build a mission to Mars,'" Al Amiri said. "We would have thought incrementally, incrementally what's the next best thing. But incrementally never works here. If you did not leap, if you didn't push the bounds forward really, really fast you're not able to overcome challenges."

When asked how it felt to be looking ahead to the launch, especially with the US and China also targeting the Red Planet on the same time table, Sharaf said he is "Absolutely terrified, to be honest. Proud and optimistic, but terrified."
Washington, D.C., May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia (Commission) issued its annual Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) Report to the D.C. Council. The RPS Report highlights an increase in the number of solar energy generator applications. The increase of applications reflects the Districts aggressive Climate Change and Energy Action Plans as well as solar programs and resources available to District residents and businesses. The RPS Report also notes that there are 8,830 solar energy systems able to meet the Districts RPS solar requirement, with a capacity of about 117.6 megawatts (MW). The current solar capacity, about 91.7 MW certified for the RPS program, in the District is now more than three times the amount of out-of-state solar capacity. In addition, the solar capacity of systems certified in the District increased approximately 45 percent from 63.9 MW in April 2019 to 91.7 MW in April 2020, reflecting the enormous success of this program during the past year in helping to bringing solar energy to every ward in the city.

The increase in renewables directly reflects the Commissions efforts to promote the use of solar energy and to streamline the application process in the District of Columbia, stated Willie L. Phillips, Chairman of the Public Service Commission. Our mission is fully aligned with achieving the Districts public climate commitments, including 100% renewable energy in 2032.

Every year, the Commission is required to provide an update on the status of RPS implementation. The report includes data on the number of renewable generators approved by the Commission and the availability of renewable resources in the District. The report also includes the number of renewable energy credits retired by the electricity suppliers to meet the RPS requirements. This RPS report fulfills the reporting requirements outlined in the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard Act and amended by the CleanEnergy DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018.

For the full RPS Report, please visit the Commission at www.dcpsc.org.

The Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia is an independent agency established by Congress in 1913 to regulate electric, natural gas, and telecommunications companies in the District of Columbia.

Attachment
By Online Desk

In Chhattisgarh, the early preparedness in the wake of Covid-19 outbreak led the state to move on with infection prevention and control to an appreciable extent by assigning a top priority to the health sector. There has been no coronavirus deaths reported in the 10th largest state of the country as the readiness with the apt response actions worked for the state. Out of the 57 positive cases so far, 36 have been cured. The state health minister Tribhuwaneshwar Saran Singhdeo in an interview with Ejaz Kaiser, elucidated how Chhattisgarh got into action mode by presuming the coronavirus spread as pandemic even before the nation perceived.

Q. The COVID-19 positive cases in Chhattisgarh remains low since the beginning. How do you read the prevailing situation?

We proactively traced people coming to the state since last week of January, tested them beyond the protocol provided by the ICMR or the Centre as we speculated it's going to be pandemic, which was declared later. We presumed it might spread throughout the world when it was happening in China during early January. So we were not waiting and got engaged remaining attentive to the opinions of the experts. We were, of course, lucky for not too many people coming from abroad to the state and carrying the deadly virus.



Q. Is India bracing for tough times countering the coronavirus crisis?

I call it a strategic mistake when the country was not prepared. The attitude  when it comes then we will see speaks of laxity. Even the earlier protocols of the Centre appeared quite conservative. In Chhattisgarh, we consciously tried to stay ahead that helped us. At one point of time, we had over 90,000 people quarantined. Our first purchase order for the test kits was given as early as January 13.



Q. How demarcation into red, orange or green zones working for Chhattisgarh? 21 out of the 28 districts remain under the green zone.

The government has to see everything. What should come first  life or work. What should be the priority? The contagious disease shouldnt merely be treated as an ailment that comes and goes. The reality is that there is no cure for coronavirus and we dont know much about how it's going to spread. But we have the choice to prevent it. Countries that thought they will stave off the crisis didnt impose lockdown. European countries and the US perhaps didnt anticipate they would be hit so hard. Presuming that they would tide over it and nothing going to happen was one big mistake.

Q. Most of the Covid-19 cases are from urban or semi-urban areas. Do you see any challenge particularly in the context of the rural segment?

Nothing should be out of the blue. We know there is no cure as of now and secondly, an element of uncertainty persists. Red, orange or green colours put on the map demarcates district-wise mapping of the country. But for me its red, orange or yellow in Chhattisgarh, and purposefully I will not hold or assume any district on to green zone since 80 per cent of those who may catch the virus are going to be asymptomatic if the experts are to be believed. Another theoretical presumption is potential risk remains for around 20-60 per cent of India's 25-80 crore population. In the context of Chhattisgarh, our team of experts arrived on the assumption that 30 per cent of the 3 crore population of Chhattisgarh may be affected. Even if not being so apprehensive and going by just 10 per cent then also it's going to be 30 lakh, which is quite high. So, we need to be prepared. Self protective mechanism in rural areas is good.

Q. Now the lockdown further extended till May 17.

When we dont have enough testing facilities, adequate protective kits or testing materials and the supporting mega set-up, the only option remains is lockdown. Lockdown is a training period that makes you adopt essential habits such as social/physical distancing, washing hands with soaps for 20 seconds, wearing mask among other things. The coronavirus is going to stay for at least 6 months to 2 years, as the experts have affirmed. So when the relaxation starts, we need to be extra cautious.



Q. There was an apparent spurt on hate sentiments, blaming a religious group for the outbreak of coronavirus even in Chhattisgarh. How do you react to this?

Leave aside coronavirus, at any point of time such mentality is unhealthy and perilous for humanity, for the country and for any social setup. And at such a crucial juncture it never augurs well for our country to create a wedge in the society. It can make the task tougher and the situation might exacerbate. We took the religious leaders into confidence telling them not to feel guilty and there is nothing to hide. If any segment gets victimised then its the responsibility of other community, no matter whosoever, to come forward seeking corrective measures and speak out against such ill-natured actions in tandem with the administration.

Q. Are you also engaging private health professionals?

Today its the government hospital, its doctors and staff who are standing with the people. I feel delighted for being associated with such people. The private practitioners have not yet come forward on executed lines in the present scenario. That was a little disappointing. Perhaps owing to a sense of fear or uncertainty or whatsoever. Being much knowledgable and with a high level of expertise, they should have delivered their greater role. We are trying to seek support from more and more qualified doctors.
A lawmaker has been killed by coronavirus in Nasarawa State. The state Governor, Abdullahi Sule, at a media briefing on Sunday in Lafia, announced the death of Adamu Suleiman, a member of Nasarawa State House of Assembly, noting that the legislator died before the result of his test came out positive of coronavirus.

Hon. Suleiman is the first coronavirus death recorded Nasarawa State since Nasarawa reported its index case of the virus. Suleiman was representing Nasarawa Central Constituency at the State House of Assembly.

Governor Sule at the briefing highlighted: There is also one member of the House of Assembly who was admitted in Keffi and started showing signs and after we took his samples, unfortunately, before the results came out, he died and he was buried according to Muslim rites.

However, yesterday by the time his result came out, it turned out to be positive. So, that really complicated our situation because the member had been part of all recent sittings of the members of the house of Assembly.

The governor added that after the COVID-19 status of the lawmaker was detected, members of his family and those living in the house were taken into isolation. Governor Sule said that their samples have been collected for testing by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

Governor Sule stated: Because of his (Suleimans) association and contact, we have decided to close down the House of Assembly until we trace all his contacts.

I am happy to state that all the members of the House of Assembly have agreed to be isolated and samples of some of them have been collected which is to be taken to the NCDC today.

We are also isolating the family of the late member and those who attended the burial, especially, those who gave him the usual ritual bath.

Once more, I want to appeal to the people of Nasarawa for their cooperation during this period.
Signs of hope on boarded-up buildings



Journal Staff Reporter By LYNN PORTER Journal Staff Reporter

Photo by Tess Dickman [enlarge] Sara Thompson of Gensler paints a mural on the plywood that boards up Hillside Bar on Capitol Hill.





Erik Hakkinen boarded up his cocktail bar, called Roquette, at 2232 First Ave. in Seattle with plywood when it closed March 15, one of the many businesses shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Krista Reeder, design director of the brand studio at the Seattle office of architecture firm Gensler, recently brightened up the sterile plywood with a mural as part of a project designed to add color to boarded-up storefronts of closed businesses in the city.

The mural is part of the first initiative in a research project, called Color Speaks, spearheaded by Reeder and Sara Thompson and Ryan Collier on her team. Created pre-pandemic, it studies whether color can improve the collective well-being of people in cities.

So far, the Gensler research team has painted murals at three small businesses in Seattle, and is working on a fourth, and Gensler staff in Portland have painted four boarded-up storefronts there, all on their own time. Reeder said other offices at the firm are also getting involved in the project, for which Gensler provides materials.

Hakkinen said he's incredibly happy with the mural, and praised Reeder's idea of painting High on one of the plywood pieces on either side of the bar's door and Spirits on the other. I think her vision for the design really matches up well with our overall aesthetic.

Photo by Sara Thompson [enlarge] The multicolored mural at Hillside reads Keep Your Head Up.





Hakkinen didn't realize the project was part of a study, but said it and the other murals painted by all sorts of folks at closed-up businesses in Seattle add to the overall mood of hopefulness in the neighborhood and the city.

According to Reeder, the Gensler folks partner with owners to create murals that reflect the personality of the local businesses and convey the promise of better times. It's very important to us to support them, she said.

Besides Belltown's Roquette, they have painted murals at Hillside Bar and Montana at 1520 and 1506 E. Olive Way, respectively. Also on Capitol Hill, they are doing a mural at Belmont at 518 E. Pike St. I think the most rewarding part is working with the business owner, said Reeder.

Gensler does a lot of brand strategy and brand design that incorporates color. Reeder said the research out of the Seattle office looks at three ways people interpret color: emotionally as they recall memories associated with it, physically as the body responds to warmer and cooler colors, and as it's processed by the brain. For instance, color is processed before shape or context, she said

The Seattle research team is tracking the comments it gets about the murals. People have driven by and yelled thank you to the painters, and walkers have expressed their appreciation, Reeder said.

She said responses on Gensler's LinkedIn and Instagram accounts have been positive, with 1,550 and 763 likes, respectively.

Reeder said the project is gaining steam. Individuals and non-profits have expressed interest in doing their own murals and the research team has created a free downloadable tool kit to help them. It contains a list of necessary supplies, a paint-by-number guide, COVID-19 safety measures to use while painting such as the ones the Gensler volunteers are employing, and helpful tips that walk even non-artists through the painting.

So far 30 people have requested the kit, which you can get by visiting the Color Speaks Instagram page (@colorspeaks_).

The kit recommends people create a grid of the area to be painted, draw out their design on that, and denote (with numbers) the colors they want at particular points. We want everybody to take part, Reeder said.

In Belltown, Hakkinen said Roquette had its best month right before it closed. He's not even considering reopening the bar before July 1, he said, to keep his employees and customers safe. Best case scenario, he'll open at 50 percent capacity, he said, but can only remain half-full for so long economically.

Hakkinen said COVID-19 has ravaged the restaurant industry  and it's only going to get to get worse.

The murals painted on the numerous boarded-up storefronts in Seattle speak to hope, he said. I think the city could use a lot of that right now.





Lynn Porter can be reached by email or by phone at (206) 622-8272.




Australian actress Rebel Wilson is self-isolating in style in Sydney.

The 40-year-old is currently living in her $3.7million Birchgrove home, where she recently took part in a flirty photo shoot.

Since finding fame, the self-described 'cashed up bogan' has amassed a property portfolio worth $16million, with homes in Australia, Los Angeles and New York.

Tycoon! Australian actress Rebel Wilson is self-isolating in style in Sydney. The 40-year-old is currently living in her $3.7million Birchgrove home, where she recently took part in a flirty photo shoot

Rebel's $3.7million Sydney Harbour home

When she's not working overseas, Rebel calls her inner-west suburb Birchgrove home.

She purchased a three bedroom property there for $3.76million in November 2014, and has spent an estimated $1million renovating it since.

The star has been posing for Instagram pictures around the property while self-isolating from COVID-19, and recently admitted to fans she spent $70,000 on an elevator last year.

'Who wants to walk up all the time? Sometimes I do, but sometimes I want my own private elevator. So I've got it, and I'm loving it,' she joked at the time.

Cosy! When she's not working overseas, Rebel calls this inner-west property (pictured) in Birchgrove, Sydney home

What a view! She purchased the three bedroom property on Sydney Harbour for $3.76million in November 2014, and has spent an estimated $1million renovating it since

A-list bathroom! The star has been posing for Instagram pictures around the property while self-isolating from COVID-19, and recently admitted to fans she spent $70,000 on an elevator last year

Her $4.6million West Hollywood hideout

Rebel's an A-list actress in America, and has a home reflecting her status there.

The Pitch Perfect star settled on a two-storey West Hollywood home with clapboard sidings and a picket fence in 2016, which cost her $4.6million (USD $2.95million).

Her 4,400 sq ft pad features an open-plan living and dining room with a fireplace.

Hollywood hideout! The Pitch Perfect star settled on this two-storey West Hollywood home (pictured) in 2016, which cost her $4.6million (USD $2.95million)

The $4.6million 'paparazzi proof' New York penthouse

When Rebel was shooting a movie in New York in 2017, she purchased a home to stay in and ended up keeping the apartment.

She splashed out $4.6million (USD $2.95million) on a two-bedroom abode in a luxury Tribeca condominium.

The residences have been dubbed 'paparazzi proof' thanks to its communal indoor amenities, underground secure car park and a 24-hour doorman and concierge.

'I just love New York and since I'm filming a movie here this summer I thought I may as well buy a place,' she told Women's Wear Daily at the time.

Luxury! Rebel splashed out another $4.6million (USD $2.95million) on a two-bedroom apartment inside this luxury Tribeca condominium (pictured) in New York in 2017

Privacy! The residences have been dubbed 'paparazzi proof' thanks to its communal indoor amenities, underground secure car park and a 24-hour doorman and concierge

Rebel's $1.88million Sydney investment property

According to reports, Rebel finalised the purchase of a two bedroom investment apartment in Balmain for $1.88million in December 2018.

The red brick building is a conversion of the Lever Brothers soap factory, which has been transformed into a trendy apartment in the inner-city suburb.

Rebel's two-level home, spread on 150 square metres, features two spacious bedrooms, and likely comes with all the modern fixtures an A-lister would desire.

Investing! According to reports, Rebel finalised the purchase of a two bedroom investment apartment inside this building in Sydney's Balmain (pictured) for $1.88million in 2018

The star's $1.66million sales in Sydney

Rebel sold her two Gladesville investment properties earlier this year.

She sold her first unit for $800,000 in January, after buying it for $740,000 in 2015. The star had been making $595-a-week in rent during her years as landlord.

Similarly, Rebel sold her second unit in the suburb for $880,000 in February, at a slight loss after purchasing it for $885,000 in 2017.

Sold: Rebel sold her Gladesville, Sydney investment unit (pictured) for $800,000 in January, after buying it for $740,000 in 2015. She had been making $595-a-week in rent as landlord
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Contact Center Analytics market worldwide is projected to grow by US$1.5 Billion, driven by a compounded growth of 16.3%. On-Demand, one of the segments analyzed and sized in this study, displays the potential to grow at over 16.7%. The shifting dynamics supporting this growth makes it critical for businesses in this space to keep abreast of the changing pulse of the market. Poised to reach over US$1.5 Billion by the year 2025, On-Demand will bring in healthy gains adding significant momentum to global growth.







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05798241/?utm_source=PRN







- Representing the developed world, the United States will maintain a 17.6% growth momentum. Within Europe, which continues to remain an important element in the world economy, Germany will add over US$59.6 Million to the region's size and clout in the next 5 to 6 years. Over US$74.1 Million worth of projected demand in the region will come from Rest of Europe markets. In Japan, On-Demand will reach a market size of US$109.6 Million by the close of the analysis period. As the world's second largest economy and the new game changer in global markets, China exhibits the potential to grow at 16% over the next couple of years and add approximately US$270.9 Million in terms of addressable opportunity for the picking by aspiring businesses and their astute leaders. Presented in visually rich graphics are these and many more need-to-know quantitative data important in ensuring quality of strategy decisions, be it entry into new markets or allocation of resources within a portfolio. Several macroeconomic factors and internal market forces will shape growth and development of demand patterns in emerging countries in Asia-Pacific. All research viewpoints presented are based on validated engagements from influencers in the market, whose opinions supersede all other research methodologies.



- Competitors identified in this market include, among others,

x, Inc.

CallMiner, Inc.

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Enghouse Interactive

Five9, Inc.

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.

Genpact Ltd.

Mitel Networks Corporation

NICE Ltd.

Oracle Corporation

SAP SE

Servion Global Solutions

Verint Systems, Inc.









Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05798241/?utm_source=PRN



I. INTRODUCTION, METHODOLOGY & REPORT SCOPE



II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



1. MARKET OVERVIEW



Global Competitor Market Shares

Contact Center Analytics Competitor Market Share Scenario

Worldwide (in %): 2019 & 2025





2. FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS



3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS



4. GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE



Table 1: Contact Center Analytics Global Market Estimates and

Forecasts in US$ Thousand by Region/Country: 2018-2025

Table 2: Contact Center Analytics Market Share Shift across Key

Geographies Worldwide: 2019 VS 2025

Table 3: On-Demand (Deployment) World Market by Region/Country

in US$ Thousand: 2018 to 2025

Table 4: On-Demand (Deployment) Market Share Breakdown of

Worldwide Sales by Region/Country: 2019 VS 2025

Table 5: On-Premises (Deployment) Potential Growth Markets

Worldwide in US$ Thousand: 2018 to 2025

Table 6: On-Premises (Deployment) Market Sales Breakdown by

Region/Country in Percentage: 2019 VS 2025

Table 7: Log Management (Application) Global Market Estimates &

Forecasts in US$ Thousand by Region/Country: 2018-2025

Table 8: Log Management (Application) Market Share Breakdown by

Region/Country: 2019 VS 2025

Table 9: Risk and Compliance Management (Application) Demand

Potential Worldwide in US$ Thousand by Region/Country:

2018-2025

Table 10: Risk and Compliance Management (Application) Share

Breakdown Review by Region/Country: 2019 VS 2025

Table 11: Real-Time Monitoring and Reporting (Application)

Worldwide Latent Demand Forecasts in US$ Thousand by

Region/Country: 2018-2025

Table 12: Real-Time Monitoring and Reporting (Application)

Distribution of Global Sales by Region/Country: 2019 VS 2025

Table 13: Workforce Management (Application) Sales Estimates

and Forecasts in US$ Thousand by Region/Country for the Years

2018 through 2025

Table 14: Workforce Management (Application) Global Market

Share Distribution by Region/Country for 2019 and 2025

Table 15: Customer Experience Management (Application) Global

Opportunity Assessment in US$ Thousand by Region/Country:

2018-2025

Table 16: Customer Experience Management (Application)

Percentage Share Breakdown of Global Sales by Region/Country:

2019 VS 2025

Table 17: Other Applications (Application) Worldwide Sales in

US$ Thousand by Region/Country: 2018-2025

Table 18: Other Applications (Application) Market Share Shift

across Key Geographies: 2019 VS 2025





III. MARKET ANALYSIS



GEOGRAPHIC MARKET ANALYSIS

UNITED STATES

Market Facts & Figures

US Contact Center Analytics Market Share (in %) by Company:

2019 & 2025

Market Analytics

Table 19: Contact Center Analytics Market in US$ Thousand in

the United States by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 20: United States Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Breakdown by Deployment: 2019 VS 2025

Table 21: United States Contact Center Analytics Latent Demand

Forecasts in US$ Thousand by Application: 2018 to 2025

Table 22: Contact Center Analytics Market Share Breakdown in

the United States by Application: 2019 VS 2025

CANADA

Table 23: Contact Center Analytics Market Analysis in Canada in

US$ Thousand by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 24: Canadian Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Breakdown by Deployment: 2019 VS 2025

Table 25: Canadian Contact Center Analytics Market Quantitative

Demand Analysis in US$ Thousand by Application: 2018 to 2025

Table 26: Canadian Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Analysis by Application: 2019 VS 2025

JAPAN

Table 27: Japanese Medium & Long-Term Outlook for Contact

Center Analytics Market in US$ Thousand by Deployment:

2018-2025

Table 28: Japanese Contact Center Analytics Market Percentage

Share Distribution by Deployment: 2019 VS 2025

Table 29: Japanese Demand Estimates and Forecasts for Contact

Center Analytics in US$ Thousand by Application: 2018 to 2025

Table 30: Contact Center Analytics Market Share Shift in Japan

by Application: 2019 VS 2025

CHINA

Table 31: Contact Center Analytics Market Estimates and

Forecasts in China in US$ Thousand by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 32: Contact Center Analytics Market in China: Percentage

Share Analysis by Deployment for 2019 and 2025

Table 33: Chinese Demand for Contact Center Analytics in US$

Thousand by Application: 2018 to 2025

Table 34: Chinese Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Breakdown by Application: 2019 VS 2025

EUROPE

Market Facts & Figures

European Contact Center Analytics Market: Competitor Market

Share Scenario (in %) for 2019 & 2025

Market Analytics

Table 35: European Contact Center Analytics Market Demand

Scenario in US$ Thousand by Region/Country: 2018-2025

Table 36: European Contact Center Analytics Market Share Shift

by Region/Country: 2019 VS 2025

Table 37: European Contact Center Analytics Market Assessment

in US$ Thousand by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 38: Contact Center Analytics Market in Europe: Percentage

Breakdown of Sales by Deployment for 2019 and 2025

Table 39: European Contact Center Analytics Addressable Market

Opportunity in US$ Thousand by Application: 2018-2025

Table 40: European Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Analysis by Application: 2019 VS 2025

FRANCE

Table 41: French Contact Center Analytics Market Estimates and

Projections in US$ Thousand by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 42: French Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Breakdown by Deployment: 2019 VS 2025

Table 43: Contact Center Analytics Quantitative Demand Analysis

in France in US$ Thousand by Application: 2018-2025

Table 44: French Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Analysis: A 7-Year Perspective by Application for 2019 and 2025

GERMANY

Table 45: German Contact Center Analytics Latent Demand

Forecasts in US$ Thousand by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 46: German Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Breakdown by Deployment: 2019 VS 2025

Table 47: Contact Center Analytics Market in Germany: Annual

Sales Estimates and Forecasts in US$ Thousand by Application

for the Period 2018-2025

Table 48: Contact Center Analytics Market Share Distribution in

Germany by Application: 2019 VS 2025

ITALY

Table 49: Contact Center Analytics Market Estimates and

Forecasts in Italy in US$ Thousand by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 50: Contact Center Analytics Market in Italy: Percentage

Share Analysis by Deployment for 2019 and 2025

Table 51: Italian Demand for Contact Center Analytics in US$

Thousand by Application: 2018 to 2025

Table 52: Italian Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Breakdown by Application: 2019 VS 2025

UNITED KINGDOM

Table 53: United Kingdom Medium & Long-Term Outlook for Contact

Center Analytics Market in US$ Thousand by Deployment:

2018-2025

Table 54: United Kingdom Contact Center Analytics Market

Percentage Share Distribution by Deployment: 2019 VS 2025

Table 55: United Kingdom Demand Estimates and Forecasts for

Contact Center Analytics in US$ Thousand by Application: 2018

to 2025

Table 56: Contact Center Analytics Market Share Shift in the

United Kingdom by Application: 2019 VS 2025

REST OF EUROPE

Table 57: Rest of Europe Contact Center Analytics Market

Assessment in US$ Thousand by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 58: Contact Center Analytics Market in Rest of Europe:

Percentage Breakdown of Sales by Deployment for 2019 and 2025

Table 59: Rest of Europe Contact Center Analytics Addressable

Market Opportunity in US$ Thousand by Application: 2018-2025

Table 60: Rest of Europe Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Analysis by Application: 2019 VS 2025

ASIA-PACIFIC

Table 61: Asia-Pacific Contact Center Analytics Market

Estimates and Projections in US$ Thousand by Deployment:

2018-2025

Table 62: Asia-Pacific Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Breakdown by Deployment: 2019 VS 2025

Table 63: Contact Center Analytics Quantitative Demand Analysis

in Asia-Pacific in US$ Thousand by Application: 2018-2025

Table 64: Asia-Pacific Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Analysis: A 7-Year Perspective by Application for 2019 and 2025

REST OF WORLD

Table 65: Contact Center Analytics Market Analysis in Rest of

World in US$ Thousand by Deployment: 2018-2025

Table 66: Rest of World Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Breakdown by Deployment: 2019 VS 2025

Table 67: Rest of World Contact Center Analytics Market

Quantitative Demand Analysis in US$ Thousand by Application:

2018 to 2025

Table 68: Rest of World Contact Center Analytics Market Share

Analysis by Application: 2019 VS 2025





IV. COMPETITION



8X8

CALLMINER

CISCO SYSTEMS

ENGHOUSE INTERACTIVE

FIVE9

GENESYS TELECOMMUNICATIONS LABORATORIES

MITEL NETWORKS CORPORATION

NICE

ORACLE CORPORATION

SAP SE

SERVION GLOBAL SOLUTIONS

VERINT SYSTEMS

V. CURATED RESEARCH

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05798241/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

www.reportlinker.com


(TNS)  A northwest suburban 911 dispatch system failed in its bid to force Cook County to share addresses of coronavirus patients on Friday after a judge denied a temporary restraining order, citing privacy and discrimination concerns.The ruling by Cook County Judge Anna Demacopoulos was in response to a lawsuit filed last month by Northwest Central Dispatch System, an Arlington Heights-based consolidation of 911 dispatchers at about a dozen suburban emergency departments.The dispatch system sued the county, the Cook County Department of Public Health and its co-administrators, Kiran Joshi and Rachel Rubin, as well as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle over the refusal to release names and addresses of people infected with COVID-19.Dispatchers wanted that information so first responders can take adequate precautions when they run into coronavirus patients, according to the lawsuit.The lawsuit argues that their proposed address-sharing does not violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) because the threat of the public health emergency surrounding the coronavirus qualifies as an exception to the confidentiality rule.At a hearing Friday, Demacopoulos noted that a list of those with COVID-19 could not be comprehensive enough to ensure first responders safety and could cause harm to residents.The last thing this court would want to do is give our first responders a false sense of security that could lead to tragedy, Demacopoulos said.She also voiced concerns over the privacy concerns of such a list, noting that once that data is exposed, there is no taking it back.Demacopoulos noted the Illinois Department of Public Healths position, supported by Preckwinkle, that releasing addresses wont work because there are so many asymptomatic cases and testing gaps, meaning first responders should just always wear personal protective equipment.Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul had advised that address-sharing is permissible due to the HIPAA exception, but he did not go so far as to recommend the practice.The judge did grant the village of Lincolnwoods motion to intervene and set another hearing for early June.The lawsuit argues that address-sharing would allow first responders to discern when to use PPE  a benefit mentioned by suburban police chiefs who weighed in via written comments during a Cook County Board meeting last week, citing supply shortages.Commissioner Scott Britton had been expected to introduce a resolution recommending the practice. He ended up sending the resolution back to committee pending the dispatch systems lawsuit.The countys Department of Public Health has echoed IDPHs concerns.Having an address isnt going to make someone safer, said Hanna Kite, spokeswoman for the CCDPH, in a Friday statement. We want everyone to be as safe as possible and the best they can do is assume COVID-19 is everywhere and take the proper precautions.Demacopoulos said that logistically, the COVID-19 list would be impractical because 911 dispatchers can already cull real-time information on coronavirus symptoms when responding to a call.A list from the CCDPH would require daily updates on patients who recovered, died, got false-positive results or self-isolated in different locations, she said.Fears over being identified as a COVID-19 patient could also harm black residents and people in the country without legal permission, who have complicated relations with police, Demacopoulos said. She said that those qualms could exacerbate the viruss prevalence in those communities should people feel discouraged of getting tested out of concern of ending up on a list.Advocacy groups, fretting over the harm that address-sharing would sow on police and community relations, decried the practice last week.Michael Rabbitt, founding member of the Northwest Side Coalition Against Racism and Hate, said in a written comment during the Cook County Board meeting that identifying coronavirus patients  who in Cook County are disproportionately black  subjects them to prejudice.From a harm standpoint, we must view this through the lens of the experiences people of color have had with the police, especially black and brown residents of Cook County, Rabbitt wrote. Given the history of systemic racism and shortcomings of police accountability, especially in Chicago, could this increase the risk of harm?Demacopoulos encouraged the parties in the lawsuit to find a solution that balances safety and privacy concerns.These are extraordinary times we are experiencing, Demacopoulos said. Just because the adversarial process results in a rule doesnt mean the conversation between litigants needs to stop.  Now is the time to work together.
Pro-life activists ordered to pay Planned Parenthood over $1.2M for expose on baby body parts scandal

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

A federal judge has ordered a group of pro-life activists behind a series of undercover videos taken at Planned Parenthood facilities and abortion conferences to pay more than $1.2 million in damages to the corporation.

U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California released an order Wednesday against individuals connected to the Center for Medical Progress.

At issue was an Unfair Competition Law claim brought by Planned Parenthood and the plaintiffs California Business & Professions Code.

Orrick ruled in favor of the claim, citing a jury verdict from last November that found CMP, its founder David Daleiden, and activists including Troy Newman of Operation Rescue guilty of violating several laws when investigators went undercover at Planned Parenthood facilities and events.

In addition to issuing an injunction banning those named from attending Planned Parenthood events, Orrick also found them liable for large sums of money.

This includes $1,259,370 in damages related to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, plus other damages and attorneys fees.

 the illegal and fraudulent prongs of the UCL are satisfied given the jurys verdict that defendants engaged in numerous illegal and fraudulent acts in California and emanating from California, against California-based plaintiffs and others, committed in violation of California law, Federal law, and the laws of other jurisdictions, wrote Orrick.

In a statement released Thursday, Operation Rescue noted that Newman intends to appeal the order, arguing that he and his fellow pro-life activists did nothing wrong.

It is no longer in dispute that Planned Parenthood sold aborted baby parts for profit and that our video evidence was authentic. They admitted it during our trial, Newman said.

Now Planned Parenthood wants us pay a price so the world could find out the sordid truth of their illegal babies-for-cash scheme.

In 2015, CMP released a series of videos showing Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers violating the law, including profiting from the sale aborted babies' limbs, tissue and organs.

Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood's senior director of medical services who performs abortions up to 24 week gestation in Los Angeles, was captured in one video filmed at a restaurant on July 25, 2014, saying that clinics perform partial birth abortions to secure fetal body parts. She also detailed how they alter abortion procedures to procure limbs and organs, despite the risks these manipulations my cause to the woman's health.

"We've been very good at getting heart, lung, liver  I'm not gonna crush that part," says Nucatola. "I'm going to basically crush below, "I'm not gonna crush above, and I am gonna see if I can get it all intact."

The undercover videos prompted a wave of pro-life activism at the federal and state level, with pro-abortion critics claiming that the footage was edited to falsely smear abortion providers. However, complete video footage was released to show that none of the videos were selectively edited.

Daleiden, Newman, and other pro-life activists connected to the undercover videos have since found themselves dealing with years of legal battles over their actions.
Tech Mahindra stock, which has fallen by about 30 percent so far in 2020, could see another bout of selling as most brokerages slashed target prices after a muted performance in March quarter.

Some analysts have also downgraded the stock to sell.

Tech Mahindra March quarter results were below analysts estimates, and the pain seen in the March quarter is likely to extend in Q1FY21, suggest experts. The IT company on April 30 posted a 29 percent year-on-year fall in profit at Rs 803.9 crore for the quarter ended March 2020.

The company posted a net profit of Rs 1,132.5 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal and Rs 1,145.9 crore profit in the December quarter of FY20.

EBIT for the quarter came at Rs 949.6 crores and the margin was 10 percent. EBIT was 17.9 percent below, while margin was 180 bps below CNBC-TV18 estimates.

Revenue from operations stood at Rs 9,490.2 crore, down from Rs 9,654.6 crore reported in the December quarter. However, it was up from Rs 8,892.3 crore reported in the March quarter of FY19.

Also Read: Tech Mahindra's profit falls 29% YoY; proposes a final dividend of Rs 5

"Tech Mahindra posted weak results as profit fell by 29 percent YoY. EBIT margin was a big miss too. Telecom is a very important business mix for the company which has a positive outlook due to higher consumer spending in telecom & data," Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services told Moneycontrol.

"We believe that the entire IT space will go through transformation post-COVID-19, and with respect to Tech Mahindra as most companies have delayed their 5G CAPEX that could impact the telecom revenue for the stock. We are downgrading forecast and outlook on the stock, he said.

We have collated views from various experts and brokerage houses on Tech Mahindra post-March quarter results:

Expert: Umesh Mehta, Head of Research, Samco Securities

The pandemic and consequent lockdown in India and across the globe has disrupted the IT industry which will impact Tech Mahindras revenue as well. It would be advisable to 'sell' Tech Mahindra as there are other large players which can provide better-investing opportunities going forward.

Expert: Ashish Chaturmohta, Head of Technical and Derivatives, Sanctum Wealth Management.

COVID-19 led disruptions are bringing extraordinary changes in the business models of the IT industry. Hence, it will be important to see who all are able to adapt to the rapid changes.

While the stock has corrected 35 percent over the last two months, it is not expected to rally in the near term in absence of any strong triggers.

Brokerage Firm: Motilal Oswal downgrades the stock to Neutral

Motilal Oswal downgraded the stock to Neutral with a target price of Rs 590.
India will begin the repatriation of tens of thousands of Indians stranded abroad from May 7, the government announced on Monday. The exercise, billed to be the largest repatriation exercise to bring civilians home, will begin from Gulf countries where 70 percent of non-resident Indians live.

Government officials told Hindustan Times that the first phase would cover as many as 1,900,000 people. As reported by HT, the repatriation exercise will start from the United Arab Emirates, home to 3.4 million Indians, and move next to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. An official statement said the facility, extended to Indians in distress abroad, would be available on payment basis.

Indias evacuation of 1,70,000 civilians from Kuwait during the 1990 Gulf war has been the worlds largest evacuation exercise of civilians by air. India had then operated a little less than 500 flights, mostly by Air India, over two months. More than 25 years later, the feat also inspired the Akshay Kumar-starrer Bollywood flick Airlift.

This one is going to be bigger and a lot more complicated, a senior foreign ministry official said. The government wont just use commercial airlines to run charter flights but also deploy its largest naval warships.

Highlights Indian missions are preparing list of distressed Indians Travel would begin from May in a phased manner Passengers would be screened for Covid-19 before travel Only asymptomatic passengers would be allowed All passengers to install Aarogya Setu app Passengers will be brought to international airport closest to state Will be sent to paid quarantine facility or hospital for 14 days Will be tested for Covid-19 at end of 14 days

Scores of foreign ministry officials have been compiling details of distressed Indian citizens abroad for days, prioritising the list of people who should be put on the initial round of flights.

As first reported by Hindustan Times, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid down the ground rule last month when he told the foreign ministry to give blue collar workers the first priority. Among them, a foreign ministry official said, those who are facing health problems of any nature, have had a bereavement in the family or cite any other humanitarian ground would be taken in the early round of flights.

As first reported by Hindustan Times, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid down the ground rule last month when he told the foreign ministry to give blue collar workers the first priority. Among them, a foreign ministry official said, those who are facing health problems of any nature, have had a bereavement in the family or cite any other humanitarian ground would be taken in the early round of flights.

In this decision, PM Modi had also accounted for the fact that many of the Indians staying in the gulf countries had lost their jobs. Countries such as the UAE and Kuwait had accepted New Delhis requests to accommodate the Indians for some more time since the state governments werent prepared to deal with the large number of people.

Apart from workers in the Gulf countries, officials said, Indian missions had received requests from thousands of students who were stuck in countries across the world, ranging from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States of America to Russia, Singapore and Philippines. In Russia alone, an official said, the total strength of Indian students is about 15,000.

India had suspended international flights in March and told Indians abroad to stay put as the country prepped to enter into a lockdown mode. The foreign ministry announcement came as India moved into the third version of this lockdown on Monday, with a lot more relaxations that had been available in the initial two rounds.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is seen on the television conducting a news conference on the coronavirus at Kellys Irish Times on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call | via Getty Images

Bars and restaurants share a lot in common. Often they both serve drinks and many restaurants have bars, too. The same is true for food. When I visit Erin Rose in New Orleans, I crave a muffaletta sandwich or, at Trick Dog in San Francisco, their signature "Trick Dog" (a burger in a sesame seed hot dog roll). Then there are bars and restaurants that blur the distinction by serving culinary cocktails such as Aviary in Chicago or BarMini in Washington, D.C. There is one other thing independent bars and restaurants have in common: they are both facing extinction. In a survey by the Independent Restaurant Coalition, for which I serve on a subcommittee, 80% of bars and restaurants surveyed believe they cannot reopen after the pandemic without help. I can relate as an owner of the Columbia Room in Washington, D.C. We may be luckier than most, but we are facing the real prospect of losing our business. To-go cocktails and a charity-based food pop-up have helped us regain some ground and rehire a few employees. But, without rent relief, business interruption insurance payouts, and a stabilization fund, there is little chance that we will enter a full year in the books.

An alcohol takeout sign hangs on the bar at Chef Geoff's restaurant in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, March 26, 2020. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg via Getty Image

Scarier than the revenue we are down now is the percentage we expect to be down for the foreseeable future. There will be seat reduction required to facilitate social distancing and a lack of consumer confidence. To be frank, it is scary walking into a bar where bartenders look dressed for surgery and door people are taking temperatures as well as IDs. We found some relief in the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program, which offers low interest, short-term loans with the potential of forgiveness. That relief is not nearly enough. According to the IRC and James Beard Foundation, only 9%of the $349 billion offered in the first round of PPP went to independent bars and restaurants. That is despite those bars and restaurants accounting for 60% of lost jobs. Together, we employ 11 million people. Chains and corporations took the lion's share of the first round, including Fiesta Restaurant Group who received $15 million in loans, though they produced $660.9 million in revenue in 2019. (The company said it would give back the money.) With the second round, which went into effect last week, there remains much uncertainty, and other needs that have not been addressed. Bars and restaurants took the initial brunt of the impact because we are consumer-facing. Even as we reopen, the prospect of being busy seems unlikely. There will be social distancing regulations and tiered opening.

Megan Kyker assists a customer at Cotton & Reed rum distillery in Union Market on Friday, April 3, 2020. Many bars and restaurants are open for takeout orders during the coronavirus outbreak. Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

Meanwhile, some landlords and lenders pretend that the pandemic is only happening to us. Not all, mind you, but many are unwilling to share the pain financially that we are taking with the forced closures of our business and ongoing restrictions. We are all in business together and rely on each other for survival. Empty storefronts help no one. Bars and restaurants need rent abatement while they are shuttered and to renegotiate the terms of their leases in the face of unprecedented losses. We have also been hung out to dry by insurance companies. We believed that our business interruption coverage covered forced closure by the government. It did not, according to insurance companies, basing their claims on often confusing clauses that allow room for ambiguity or even contradict each other. Bars and restaurants are fighting back by taking insurance firms such as Hartford Insurance to court in class action suits. We believe that we should not leave it to insurance firms to interpret contracts for their own benefit. Discernment is better left for the courts. And, lastly, through organizations like the IRC, independent bars and restaurants are hoping to establish a $120 billion dollar stabilization fund. This grant would help bars and restaurants reopen. On top of the financial hit we have taken from rents, utilities, and past due bills, there will be upfront costs to reopening our spaces.

Chairs and tables are seen outside a closed restaurant in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 24, 2020. Liu Jie | Xinhua via Getty Images
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Philippe Alfroy (Agence France-Presse) South Africa  Mon, May 4, 2020 10:01 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5b912f 2 Environment South-Africa,tourism,travel,safari,pandemic,coronavirus,COVID-19,animals,conservation Free

Under the golden, late afternoon South African sun, an elephant emerges from around the curve in a dusty path.

Disturbed, the imposing animal raises its trunk to sniff out the four-wheeled intruder.

"If he passes along the vehicle, just relax, nothing will happen," whispers guide Gert Kruger.

The pachyderm calmly approaches, feels the body of the car, briefly glances inside, before realizing there's nothing to worry about.

With a slow, disdainful U-turn, it walks back to its snack, majestically showing off its wrinkly, muddied backside.

"It's absolutely beautiful to see," says a smiling Kruger, the 49-year-old owner of Kruger Bush Lodge in Balule Game Reserve, some 500 kilometers northeast of Johannesburg.

"By far we are in the best place to be locked down."

For five weeks, South Africa has been in coronavirus lockdown.

For the 17 years that Kruger has taken clients through the thick bushes of Balule private reserve, bordering the famous Kruger Park, he has never grown tired of the charm of such encounters.

Stories of roaring lions and grunting rhinos spill from the pockets of his khaki shorts.

And until a few weeks ago, he planned to add a few more, just to burst the seams.

But then the global pandemic torpedoed his plans.

No sooner had President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the closure of international borders in mid-March than foreign tourists deserted the camp's tents, in panic.

The confinement order that followed two weeks later left Kruger distraught, with no one to show around.

Clients "had to evacuate in a couple of days," he said.

"The coronavirus gave us all a big shock... in the tourism business, it's all our bread and butter," he said.

Read also: South African billionaire Motsepe donates $57 million to fight coronavirus

War on poaching

His camp was fully booked for the peak summer vacation season by tourists from the northern hemisphere.

Last year, Kruger and his six employees hosted 700 safari enthusiasts.

"We had a lot of bookings for the rest of the year," Kruger said.

But he is now counting his losses ahead of the 2021 season following "a lot of cancellations".

Within a few days, all the rooms in the wildlife-rich area were empty and souvenir shops had pulled their shutters.

The all-terrain vehicles -- usually loaded with sunscreen-smeared Europeans or Americans, with cameras slung from their necks -- had to be parked away in garages.

Only patrol vehicles still crisscross the trails of the 55,000-hectare Balule reserve.

The patrols have even been intensified now as animal protection remains an absolute priority despite the lockdown.

"We cannot afford to scale down anything when it comes to security," said the reserve's general manager Ian Nowak.

"Our commitment is to be a nature reserve first," he said.

There's no question of sending the rangers home -- they are confined on the reserve, continuing the war against poachers.

"As far as rhino poaching is concerned, I don't see any reason for a decrease, I don't see a change in that threat," Nowak said.

Rhino horn is still "a high-value item, so we just keep the fight as it was before the lockdown."

And the evidence is there.

Police in neighboring Mpumalanga province on Sunday reported the arrest of three people found in possession of six horns.

'Hunting to eat'

The lockdown has produced another threat too.

Beyond the gangs killing to feed an insatiable appetite on the traditional Asian market for rhino horn, the virus confinement has spawned survival poaching.

"What I call bushmeat poaching is quite different," Nowak said.

People "are not working anymore with the lockdown, they are hungry, they hunt for raw food. They don't care about conservation, they just want to survive."

State veterinarian Christiaan Steinmann said the trend was on the rise.

"There is definitely an increase in poaching, people poaching to survive, they are poaching to eat the meat," he said.

"A lot of the reserves in the area want to cull the animals and give the meat to the communities but there is a problem with the meat safety act... so they don't do that," he added.

Threats such as these keep Balule's dozens of rangers busy.

Chief ranger Rian Ahlers and two colleagues board a small helicopter for their daily patrol.

"Basically we are doing everything that we have been doing but more than before the lockdown," the 39-year-old said, just before take-off.

Shut the doors

Nothing is left to chance.

In addition to the regular aerial surveillance by helicopter or plane, high electric fences enclosing the reserve are also checked to ensure they haven't been tampered with.

Dozens of special intervention unit rangers are on patrols.

From a hilltop, ranger Sam Hlungwani uses binoculars to scan the vast expanse of green forest.

Although he hasn't seen his family for a month, he's happy to be here.

"I really don't want to go out of the park, I'm so scared of the virus," the ranger, in his 60s, said.

"I'm protecting the park... and I'm waiting for all this to be over. I hope it won't last too long," he added, "otherwise I'll end up losing my job. We'll see."

A few kilometers away, Juan Geerts is also worried.

His 100-bed camp is desolate. He has done and re-done his accounts, but they stubbornly remain in the red.

In one month, he already lost 6.5 million rand (US$358,000), or a quarter of his annual turnover, in cancelled bookings.

He shudders at the thought that he may soon have to lay off his 94 employees, most of whom he sent home for the lockdown.

"We have been paying the salaries so far but we have taken the decision to shut down all operations until the 30 of June," sighs the boss of Nyati Lodge.

"But obviously no company can hold up so long to keep all these people employed, the only thing you can do is to retrench," he added.

Trying to ward off bouts of depression that sometimes grip him in his warthog-invaded lodge, Geerts has begun drafting his staff rosters for July onwards.

"Further than July, I don't think that many businesses will survive," he warned.

He's got planning in place for when he can start welcoming his first post-coronavirus guests.

Mandatory wearing of masks for everyone, quarantine cabins and fewer passengers per vehicle are just some of the measures.

Read also: Minister urges travel industry to adapt to 'new normal' post-COVID19

'Keeping the trust'

"Keeping the trust of our guests will be a major part of our recovery efforts," Geerts said, adding "safety and comfort will be a major factor for months and months... to come."

"It's not gonna be a quick fix," agreed Sharon Haussmann, chairwoman of Balule Game Reserve.

"We are looking at a six- to12-months recovery time, even 18 months to get back to the occupancy that we were used to."

Moreover, there will be a budget shortfall from continued overhead costs, such as levies owed to property owners.

"With the travel ban there is a huge hurdle for us," Haussmann, 50, said.

"To make up for the deficit will probably be the biggest challenge we have ever faced and one we were not prepared for in any way."

Under the shade of trees covering his camp from the autumn sun, Kruger is hopeful that the government will not let him down.

Ramaphosa has set aside an unprecedented 200-billion-rand (US$11 billion) relief package for distressed companies, including those in tourism, a key sector which contributes 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has promised that "fiscal" and other stimulus packages for the industry, including payment holidays and tax incentives, will be announced "by the end of the week".

Balule has applied for government relief, "but so far we didn't get any feedback from them", Kruger said.

"I think in the tourism industry we will be the last... to resume," he added.

"If things don't get back to normal within the next three months or so, I have to start... closing some doors."

But that does not mean Balule shutting or Kruger abandoning his passion of spending time in the vast wild outdoors.

"No! I can't imagine myself doing something else," he said, with a smile.
At least 37 ration dealers have



been arrested while the licences of 42 others were "suspended" in West Bengal for their alleged involvement in misappropriation of PDS commodities, police said on Monday,



Strict action would also be taken against all those found responsible in creating and circulating fake over the issue of rationing, it said.

"Free ration for more than 9 crore people was distributed from 21,200 ration shops during April. Licences of 42 modified ration (MR) dealers were suspended and 37 arrested," the West Bengal Police said in a tweet.

There have been reports of clashes outside the public distribution system (PDS) outlets across the state last month, with locals alleging improper distribution of ration material.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced free foodgrains and ration for 7.5 crore people in the state till September.

An additional 2 kg of rice is also being delivered to the residences of students under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the mid-day meal scheme.

The state BJP has alleged anomalies in the PDS and claimed that a section of the poor is not receiving foodgrains and starving.

The party has demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter, and its Alipurduar MP John Barla has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue.

Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, too, had recently expressed concern over the PDS in the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
[May 04, 2020] Bank of America Receives Approval for 265,500 SBA Paycheck Protection Program Loans to Date for Small Businesses

Bank of America announced today that it has received Small Business Administration (SBA) loan approvals for 265,500 small businesses under the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). This represents $24.9 billion in needed relief for small businesses. More than 256,000 of these small businesses have received a loan number since the SBA reopened the PPP funding on April 27. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005613/en/ Of the SBA applications submitted to date: 98% are for companies with fewer than 100 employees.

76% are for companies with fewer than 10 employees.

93% are for less than $350,000.

78% are for less than $100,000.

23% are from low-to-moderate income (LMI) neighborhoods.

The following link provides funding information by state:

https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/system/files/BAC_Paycheck_Protection_Program_Loans_for_Small_Businesses.pdf. Since the SBA reopened on April 27, Bank of America: Has sent 213,000 promissory notes to small businesses indicating SBA loan approval.

Is the number one SBA lender in the second round of funding. "We processed applications for more than 250,000 small businesses during the second phase of this program, and we continue to receive and process new applications. We are happy to see the SBA has been processing submissions at a faster rate, and hopefully there is sufficient funding for everyone in need," said Dean Athanasia, head of Consumer and Small Business at Bank of America. Bank of America continues to povide non-government-related lending to small businesses. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Bank of America is the No. 1 lender to small businesses in the United States.



While no fees related to the PPP have been received from the SBA, the company announced that net proceeds related to PPP fees will be dedicated to support small businesses and the communities and nonprofits we serve. In addition to lending through the PPP, Bank of America is providing support to customers including:

1,320,000 deferrals of mortgages, credit card and auto loans; including 160,000 mortgage deferrals - foreclosure sales have been paused.

Clients can request refunds for late fees, overdraft fees, non-sufficient fund fees and CD early withdrawal fees.

10.5 million government assistance payments (Economic Impact Payments) processed to date, totaling $18 billion.

$2.4 billion in credit extended to small business clients in the first quarter of 2020, up 11% year over year apart from the government's lending program. Bank of America is supporting communities where our clients live and work: $100 million commitment to local communities to purchase medical supplies, food and other priorities in addition to the $250 million provided each year.

$250 million in capital and $10 million in philanthropic grants to community development financial institutions (CDFIs). For questions related to a Bank of America account and the Paycheck Protection Program, clients can contact us at [email protected]. Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world's leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 66 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,300 retail financial centers, including approximately 3,000 lending centers, 2,700 financial centers with a Consumer Investment Financial Solutions Advisor and approximately 2,100 business centers; approximately 16,900 ATMs; and award-winning digital banking with approximately 39 million active users, including approximately 30 million mobile users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and approximately 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements and other important information, visit the Bank of America newsroom. Click here to register for news email alerts. www.bankofamerica.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005613/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
A new health and safety service has been launched which provides working guidance to protect farmers and staff as the Covid-19 crisis continues.

NFU Mutual has put together an 85-strong group of health and safety experts to provide the information farmers need to protect themselves.

The free safety service aims to help farming businesses through one of the most challenging harvests since the Second World War.

Policyholders with NFU Mutual will be able to use the new service free of charge from today (4 May) - over three quarters of the UKs farmers.

The service will be delivered by the firm's Risk Management Services (RMS) who provide guidance to farm businesses and other rural companies.

Farmers can make a request online to get a call back from a consultant and discuss Covid-19 concerns their businesses are dealing with.

They will also be able to download online resources about maintaining social distancing at work and how to manage contractors, visitors and new staff who may have little experience of agriculture.

Ian Jewitt, managing director from RMS, said farmers are under 'intense pressure' to keep the nation fed amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said they 'desperately need' specific information on how they can keep themselves, their families, employees and customers safe during the busiest time in the year.

Bringing in extra workers at harvest now presents huge challenges  from how to regularly wash your hands when youre working in a field to how you sanitise machinery so someone else can use it," Mr Jewitt said.

"Businesses are also providing their services in new ways, from offering drive-thru farm shops to delivering goods directly to customers."

The service will be available to help with coronavirus protection for a wide range of agri-firms ranging from farmers and growers, packers to hauliers, food manufacturers to retailers, as they adapt their working practices.

Mr Jewitt added: We want to encourage businesses to take advantage of this free service to get our customers back on their feet and put them in the safest position for the future.

"Coronavirus has made us all rethink how we put safety first, to protect ourselves and others - and the same goes for risks on the farm.

"By adopting good practices now, we can help the industry to come out better, safer and stronger when the pandemic is over.
By Davide Barbuscia, Aziz El Yaakoubi and Tom Arnold

DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Bahrain may need more financial aid from fellow Gulf Arab states as soon as this year but its wealthier neighbours could themselves be hamstrung by low oil prices and the economic impact of the new coronavirus, bankers and analysts said.

Bahrain, rated junk by major credit rating agencies, in 2018 received a $10 billion aid package over five years from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to help it avoid a credit crunch in a deal tied to fiscal reform.

But the U.S.-allied island state, a small oil producer, could need a larger amount than allotted for 2020 to fill bigger financing needs with petroleum prices at $20-$30 a barrel.

Bahrain announced in March an $11 billion stimulus package including plans to spend $570 million on private sector salaries to mitigate the coronavirus impact on the economy.

"Our estimates point to Bahrain needing additional funding in 2020 from the $10 billion support package they got in 2018," said Sara Grut, emerging market strategist at Goldman Sachs.

The finance ministry declined to comment about when it expects to receive this year's tranche of the five-year $10 billion aid, which would equal $1.76 billion according to official plans announced last year.

Bahrain's fiscal deficit is expected to jump to 15.7% of gross domestic product this year from 10.6% in 2019, according to the International Monetary Fund. Bahrain's preliminary estimates in February forecast the 2019 deficit at 4.7% of GDP.

A debt banker in the Gulf said Bahrain's financing gap would be "tiny", especially with additional assistance, but that its neighbours' support "might not be so forthcoming this time".

Bahrain lacks the ample oil and financial resources of its neighbours, and its state finances are among the weakest in the region. But its Gulf Arab allies have provided political and economic support to maintain its stability over the years due to its importance in countering Iranian influence in the region.

Headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, Bahrain shares with Riyadh a concern about discontent among some Shiite Muslims citizens against their ruling Sunni dynasties, and accuse Shi'ite Iran of fomenting it - a charge Iran denies.

Story continues

Toby Iles, director at Fitch, said Bahrain's "small size and strategic importance favour ongoing support" from Gulf allies, but Manama would need to use the remainder of the package more quickly.

ON THE FENCE

The finance ministry said fiscal measures, including a 30% reduction in ministries' administrative budgets and postponing large-scale infrastructure projects, would "ensure government spending remains within the budget ceiling" for 2020.

Bahrain plans to issue international bonds twice this year, the ministry said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Manama secured a loan of about $1 billion to repay a $1.25 billion bond due at the end of March, banking sources had told Reuters, after suspending plans to issue international bonds as market conditions worsened.

But it had to rely on local banks to get the deal done, two banking sources said. "International banks that would normally lend to Bahrain were sitting on the fence for this one," said one of them.

With $3.4 billion in central bank foreign reserves as of the end of February, some are questioning Bahrain's ability to defend its currency peg to the U.S. dollar.

"I have seen some recommendations to short the Saudi riyal, but more obvious ones in the region I guess would be the Omani rial and the Bahraini dinar," Tim Ash, emerging markets senior sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, said in an emailed comment to contacts last month.

Yields of Bahrain's dollar bonds due in 2047 have risen sharply by some 180 basis points since the beginning of March.

Manama's foreign reserves are likely to be insufcient to absorb the deterioration in its current account if oil stays around $30 this year, Goldman Sachs said in a research note.

"Bahrain has already done reforms, so what room realistically is left?" said a Dubai-based fund manager, referring to subsidy cuts and introduction of value-added tax under a programme to achieve budget balance by 2022.

It would all come down to oil prices, he said. "If it stays at $20 I think you can forget all about (Gulf) support."

(Reporting by Davide Barbuscia, Aziz El Yaakoubi and Tom Arnold; Additional reporting by Yousef Saba and Marc Jones; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous, William Maclean)
President Donald Trump promised a conclusive report from the U.S. government on the Chinese origins of the coronavirus outbreak, adding that he has little doubt that Beijing misled the world about the scale and risk of the disease before it became a global pandemic.

We will be giving a very strong report on what we think happened, and I think it will be very conclusive, Trump said during a virtual town hall hosted by Fox News on Sunday, after he was asked about evidence the virus is related to research conducted in a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Personally, I think they made a very horrible mistake, Trump said of the Chinese. They tried to cover it, they tried to put it out.

The White Houses deputy national security adviser, Matt Pottinger, is scheduled to speak on the U.S. relationship with China on Monday in a webinar hosted by the University of Virginias Miller Center.

Earlier Sunday, the Associated Press reported that U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the outbreak, in part, to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it.

The presidents comments come as U.S.-China tensions climb amid the rising death toll from the virus in the U.S., which has the highest reported numbers of infections and deaths of any country, despite the outbreak first spreading more quickly in Asia and Europe. More than 67,000 people have died from the virus in the U.S. so far, out of a reported 247,000 worldwide.

Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said enormous evidence shows the Covid-19 outbreak began in the Wuhan laboratory, but didnt provide any proof for his claims.

I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan, Pompeo said on ABCs This Week. These are not the first times that weve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab.

While the Wuhan Institute of Virology was studying bat-borne coronaviruses like the one that causes Covid-19 at the time of the first known outbreak nearby, there has so far been no evidence showing it possessed the previously unknown strain. Yuan Zhiming, director of the facilitys high-security Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, said last month that there is absolutely no way that the virus originated from our institute.

Pompeo stopped short of saying the virus was man-made, noting that he agreed with a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that ruled out genetic modification of the pathogen.

Ive seen what the intelligence community has said, Pompeo said. I have no reason to believe that theyve got it wrong.

Pompeo declined to say whether the Chinese intentionally released the virus. I dont have anything to say about that, he said.

Strong Leader

In his town hall event Sunday, Trump declined to directly criticize Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling him a strong leader who he struck a trade deal with just as the outbreak was spreading.

Im not going to say anything, Trump responded when asked about Xi. I had a very good relationship with him.

Although China has reprimanded Wuhan police for punishing doctors who sounded early warnings about the disease and replaced local officials responsible for the initial outbreak, Beijing says its response has been open and transparent. Chinas foreign ministry has cited Trumps tweets praising Xis handling of the outbreak as evidence of U.S. satisfaction with its response.

Trump and his aides sharpened their criticism of Beijing last week, demanding answers about the viruss origin. The president tweeted Friday that some U.S. television networks were Chinese puppets, while his super-political action committee unleashed anti-China ads.

China behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and confuse, Pompeo said on ABC. It employed the World Health Organization as a tool to do the same.

The secretary said China continued to block access by health experts from the WHO, as well as U.S. scientists, from getting access to samples of the virus needed for study.

This is an ongoing threat, an ongoing pandemic, Pompeo said. The Chinese Communist Party continues to block access to the Western world, the worlds best scientists, to figure out exactly what happened.
The Community Food Bank is moving its food distribution location and reduce its distribution hours starting Tuesday to allow for faster and more efficient pickup.

The new site will be outside the Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium, at 2500 E Ajo Way, which offers shade in their parking lot and more space for people to receive their food, the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona said in a news release.

The new space allows us big shaded areas so important for staff, volunteers and National Guard service members to distribute food in a safe and healthy manner, Michael McDonald, CEO of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, said in an email. The new expanded space allows us to serve the same amount of people with shorter lines and fewer traffic tie-ups than what we have been experiencing at our Country Club location.

Food distribution at the stadium will be held from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. every Tuesday and Thursday. The new hours are a reduction but the food bank expects to still be able to serve its demand as cars will be moving through the distribution site faster.

Contact reporter Stephanie Casanova at scasanova@tucson.com. On Twitter: @CasanovaReports

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Photo: Glacier Media

A logging contractor from 100 Mile House is appealing an order to pay the $15 million cost of fighting the Beatton Airport Road wildfire in 2016.

J. Sarver Trucking Ltd. was ordered to pay the costs in April 2019, including $12 million for firefighting, $3.7 million for damage to Crown timber, and $20,000 for an administrative penalty for allegedly causing the fire.

The company held a timber sale licence for the land where the fire began in April 2016, and had been burning debris piles, according to a CBC News report.

The fire ultimately consumed some 16,000 hectares over the course of a month, and forced evacuations, destroyed a major power transmission line and other buildings, and closed the Alaska Highway.

Though the company had registered the burns, fire officials say the company did not ensure its due diligence to establish fuel breaks around the debris piles, and said the fire was not monitored.

The company said there was still snow on the ground when the burn piles were left, and lawyers argue the region had seen extremely unusual weather  with high winds that caused a number of fires to reignite, according to the report.

The company also says the province has not considered the fire was arson, and says it was subject to threats by an adjacent land owner.

Lawyers argue the company was not operating maliciously, and has no similar contraventions over more than three decades of working in environmentally sensitive areas. The company argues that carrying out timber harvesting activities should protect it under the Wildfire Act.
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Leading health experts have warned scientists may not be able to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) at all and pointed that it has happened before in case of HIV and dengue among others, a report has said.

More than 100 vaccines are currently under pre-clinical trials and a couple of those have entered the human trial stageat Oxford University in England made from a chimpanzee virus and in the US for a different vaccine produced by Moderna.

There are some viruses that we still do not have vaccines against, Dr David Nabarro, a professor of global health at Imperial College London, was quoted as saying by CNN on Sunday.

We cant make an absolute assumption that a vaccine will appear at all, or if it does appear, whether it will pass all the tests of efficacy and safety, Nabarro, who also serves as a special envoy to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Covid-19, said.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci is among those who say a vaccine will come along in a year to 18 months, while others have said it may take longer than that.

Most experts are confident that a Covid-19 vaccine will eventually be developed because unlike previous diseases like HIV and malaria, the coronavirus does not mutate rapidly.

Nabarro, however, pointed out the process of developing a vaccine is slow and painful.

You have high hopes, and then your hopes are dashed. Were dealing with biological systems, were not dealing with mechanical systems. It really depends so much on how the body reacts, Nabarro said.

Weve never accelerated a vaccine in a year to 18 months. It doesnt mean its impossible, but it will be quite a heroic achievement. We need plan A, and a plan B, Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told CNN.

A vaccine candidate for Covid-19 has been identified by researchers at the Oxford Vaccine Group and Oxfords Jenner Institute. The potential upcoming vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is based on an adenovirus vaccine vector and the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

According to WHO, from a total of 102 candidate vaccines in the race, eight leading vaccines are in the human testing phase.

A number of treatments are being tested for Covid-19 and scientists are also looking at experimental anti-Ebola drug remdesivir and blood plasma treatments are also being explored. Experts have said hydroxychloroquine, touted as a potential game-changer by US President Donald Trump, has been found not to work on very sick patients.

Till then, Nabarro said preparing ourselves will be an option till a vaccine against Covid-19 is developed.

Its absolutely essential that all societies everywhere get themselves into a position where they are able to defend against the coronavirus as a constant threat and to be able to go about social life and economic activity with the virus in our midst, Nabarro said while speaking to CNN.
A number of staff members were back to work at various government offices here on Monday, registering "normal" to thin attendance according to officials.

"The District Collectorate of Lucknow witnessed normal attendance of employees on Monday with strict adherence to norms of social distancing," District Magistrate of Lucknow Abhishek Prakash told PTI.

He also said, "Stand alone private offices, which are not COVID-19 hotspots in Lucknow will be allowed to re-open on Tuesday. However, they have to ensure that social distancing is strictly complied with and there is proper arrangement for sanitisers. There are around 13 hotspots in the state capital."



A senior UP government official said the departments which come under the ambit of essential services are functioning with "normal" attendance, while the attendance was less in rest of the departments.

Private shops, educational institutes, business establishments, private offices, malls, shops, and public transport remained closed on Monday, officials said.

According to the UP government, the services declared essential include medical, health and family welfare, medical education, home, intelligence/prison administration, police, armed forces and paramilitary forces, personnel department, district administration, energy, urban development, food and civil supplies, disaster relief, fire services, civil defence, information, emergency services, telephone, internet, network services and IT-enabled services.

Postal services, banks, ATMs, insurance companies, e-commerce, media, petrol pumps, LPG and oil agencies, medicine shops, medical equipment shops and medicine producing units, agriculture production and animal fodder too have been classified as essential services.

In Prayagraj, the government's printing press department is working with 30 per cent staff and instructions have been issued to ensure that social distancing is strictly maintained.

Administration officer Rajshri Basak said, "The office re-opened on Monday. On normal days, there are 28 staff members who work in my department. But, today there were only four personnel working in the department. The office will work with 30 per cent staff. Strict instructions have been issued to ensure that social distancing at the work place is followed, and sanitisers are used as a precautionary measure."



Partial attendance of employees was seen in Banda and Shahjahanpur, while in Amethi, only officials are coming to the collectorate.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Democrats, please stick with Biden for your presidential nominee By Rachel Alexander

I used to hope that Bernie Sanders would get the Democratic presidential nomination this year. He is an avowed socialist, so far to the left that he has been unable to get enough Democratic support for the nomination this year and also in 2016. He would be a great candidate to run against Donald Trump because the people in the middle, who decide elections, find him too extreme. But I have changed my mind. Biden has turned into a train wreck and there is zero evidence it's going to stop. Its gotten so bad Ive started regularly posting his gaffes on social media labeling them Biden gaffe of the day. Im not a doctor so I am not going to try and diagnose him. I dont know if its mental illness, dementia, drugs, drinking too much or something else. But there is something funny going on. People that high level in politics are very polished. If they make a gaffe, it is rare. Not every few days. Combine that with his creepy groping of women and young girls and the accusations of sexual assault, and people are becoming really disturbed. The #MeToo movement is still pretty strong, and its shown it will snag Democrats too like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton wouldnt have survived in this environment, considering the horrendous allegations against him from Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey. Bidens maneuvering getting his son a job with a Ukrainian oil company that paid $50,000 a month, even though Hunter Biden had zero experience, is also hurting him. A majority of voters found it inappropriate. And theres the little problem of Bidens plastic surgery. While I dont judge political candidates based on their appearance, plenty of Americans do. Bidens face doesnt look right, and people do not want to look at that every day on their TVs. The Drudge Report (which used to post positive articles about Trump but has turned mainly anti-Trump) frequently posts scare headlines showing Biden ahead of Trump in polls. But the polls showed Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump in 2016 and they were wrong. As weve learned, many of these polls oversample Democrats, instead of having percentages of Democrats and Republicans that reflect their actual numbers. These polls also tend to survey voters instead of likely voters. Regular voters include people who havent voted in awhile. That type is more likely to lean left  and not vote in the upcoming election. And even likely voters doesnt cover the correct demographic, since thats usually just voters who have voted once recently. That category also oversamples Democrats. What they really should be polling is likely likely voters, as one polling firm put it; those who have voted consistently in recent elections. Democrats are loudly musing about replacing Biden with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomos approval ratings are excellent due to his visibility handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Bernie Sanders is still in the race and has shown some recent momentum. The New Republic, a popular site on the left, ran an article on Friday entitled Democrats Arent Stuck With Joe Biden. Biden can drop out. The other candidates who have dropped out could unsuspend their campaigns or choose to endorse someone else. Right now, it looks like Biden will only win about 45% of the delegates by the end of the primaries. Without a majority, there will be a contested convention, where many of the delegates will be free to vote for whoever they choose. On March 16, I wrote an article worried that Trump will not win reelection due to COVID-19. I thought, how is the significant percentage of the working force out of a job going to want to vote for him? The Democrats are doing everything they can to blame Trump no matter what he does to handle the pandemic. But Trump surprised me. He has held press conferences just about every day, which I believe have been effective at getting the message across to the American people that he is doing everything he can. He sent $1,200 stimulus checks to working Americans (including those who lack employment due to COVID-19). He expanded federal unemployment benefits to $600 a week, which even the self-employed or furloughed are eligible for. He provided loans to small businesses, which dont have to be repaid if theyre for payroll (all three of those efforts were done in conjunction with Congress). So the fairer polls out there are showing he is doing great. People are starting to turn their anger toward the Democratic governors who wont allow businesses to reopen yet. Can you imagine Biden's performance in debates with Trump? He makes enough mistakes with a teleprompter, just think how awful he will be unscripted. No one wants a bumbling leader calling the shots when it comes to deciding the most impactful decisions in the country. Americans don't want a leader who is a laughingstock to the rest of the world. So Democrats, stick with convention, stick with a safe moderate, the standard-bearer of your party whose turn has come. Listen to the pundits who tell you it's too risky to go with someone like Cuomo. Don't listen to the naysayers pointing out Biden's gaffes, they're just haters who are being overly critical. Biden's gaffes are just like Trump's, no difference, and you know better than anyone how horrible Trump's gaffes are!



Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, Enter Stage Right and other publications.mericano, ParcBench, Enter Stage Right and other publications. Home
101-Year-Old Woman Born on a Ship During Spanish Flu Survives Cancer and Now CCP Virus

The content is not available due to expiration.
Press Release

4 May 2020

BANGKOK - Vietnam's remarkable reopening of its domestic travel sector is expected to be replicated by focusing on short-haul Asian markets in a quest to restore their international tourism profile. The country has effectively demonstrated a Covid-19 leadership model in Southeast Asia with a focus on the all-important driver of airlift demand.



A newly released survey of qualified travelers from first tier cities in China by leading hospitality consulting group C9 Hotelworks and Delivering Asia Communications, created to understand relevant overseas travel sentiment for the remainder of 2020, analyses demand for Chinese inbound tourism to Vietnam.



Key points highlighted in the study are that nearly half of the respondents want to travel abroad this year, with 45% interested in traveling specifically to Vietnam. Moreover, post Covid-19 Chinese travelers are looking at more mainstream, well-known destinations with top Vietnam picks being Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Nha Trang/Cam Ranh Bay and Halong Bay.

Advertisements

Photo: C9 Hotelworks Ltd.

Speaking about the reopening of Vietnam tourism, C9 Hotelworks Managing Director Bill Barnett said "a post crisis short-term 'fear factor' is expected for extended air travel which will be manifested in a preference for short-haul, door-to-door flights, which is a key opportunity for China outbound to Vietnam."

"Of equal importance is to understand that at the moment, and in the coming months, domestic travel and tourism will define the gradual recovery process. What is significant about the China Vietnam Survey is who are the immediate post-crisis travelers and how can hotels and tourism stakeholders proactively meet their needs. We see a parallel trend in early travelers both domestically and from the China data, which pair up in a new tourism visitor profile," said Barnett.

Putting the market insights to use is an important sentiment voiced by David Johnson, CEO of Delivering Asia Communications, who added: "a 360 view of the results from over 1,000 qualified respondents concludes that tourism for the remainder of the year will be heavily leveraged by younger travelers in the age range of 20-29 years old, who increasingly place an emphasis on booking hotels on digital platforms."

Photo: C9 Hotelworks Ltd.

"Two other significant trends from our China research showed that aside from sightseeing and eating being key activities, nature moved up in preference, which could be a reaction to a post-crisis change in tourism values. Diving into accommodation preferences, the two ends of the price spectrum of budget/economy and five-star hotels drew most positive responses from the Chinese surveyed," he said.

One final takeaway from the survey is how younger travelers are reflected in rising sentiment with 81% saying they would choose independent travel vs. group tours. This fact, coupled by younger Chinese booking travel digitally via WeChat and Fliggy is a new twist in Vietnam's marketing to China inbound tourists.

In addition to the survey, a special free web event is being held on Thursday 7th May at 2:00pm Vietnam time led by C9 Hotelworks and Delivering Asia Communications including leading experts Ken Atkinson, Founder and Senior Advisor of Grant Thornton Vietnam and Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board, Michael Piro, Chief Operating Officer of Indochina Capital and David Keen, Chief Executive Officer, QUO. Register here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HKNCYBqmTW2Ooykp0pJKiA?fbclid=IwAR3IJSEMO6xK3iqYjFqvKAyocK9Ake_cr2VTDAseeVdwbvJwj8zmwOyPhzY=

Read and download the China Vietnam Travel Sentiment Survey 2020 here:

https://www.c9hotelworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/china-vietnam-travel-sentiment-survey-2020-05.pdf
Hyderabad, May 4 : They are at the frontline in the war against Covid-19 but despite risking their lives, they are the lowest paid among the healthcare workers.

Despite the danger of contracting the virus and all odds including the opposition from the family members and the neighbours, ASHA workers are discharging their duties in containment zones or the areas which reported Covid-19 positive cases.

With just a mask and gloves as their protective gear, they go door-to-door in scorching heat to gather details of each household, find out if any family member is carrying suspected symptoms and check their body temperature with a thermal scanner.

ASHA or Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers are like the foot soldiers in the battle against Covid. As the containment area covers about 50 houses around the household with positive cases and even deaths, they run the high risk of contracting the infection.

"What if any of the residents we are screening is positive. This fear always lurks in our mind," ASHA worker Shiva Jyothi told IANS while on duty at a containment centre in Toli Chowki area.

Shiva Jyothi and Lavanya were doing their duty in a colony, where according to them, a household recorded 10 positive cases including three deaths.

"It's a thankless job. We are neither paid properly nor we get any recognition. Even the people here feel that we are spreading the infection. They allow their maids into the house despite this being a containment zone but they are scared of us," said Lavanya.

The ASHA workers face resistance from their own family members. The reports of five ASHA workers in Punjab testing positive have only added to their fears.

"My husband and mother-in-law ask what will happen to the family if you return home with an infection. It is very difficult to convince them," said Shiva Jyothi, 35, who works at a government-run hospital in Filmnagar.

Lavanya, who is from another hospital in Golconda, said even their neighbours raise objections. "They ask probing questions about our work and suspect that we may spread the virus," said the 29-year-old.

Their day starts at 9 a.m. and after going door-to-door in a containment zone till 3 p.m., they have to go to their respective hospitals to submit the daily reports and it will be 6 p.m. by the time they return to their house. "We then get busy in cooking and household works and begin another day with the same challenges," said Jyothi, who has been working as an ASHA worker for 15 years.

She recalled that when she started working she used to get a paltry Rs 50 as monthly remuneration. It was later gradually revised upwards. Though the monthly pay was hiked to Rs 7,500 in 2018, the actual payment will be much less as it will be outcome-based.

"We have to bring four pregnancy cases every month and have to ensure at least two institutional deliveries. They pay Rs 60 to Rs 170 for each case. Similarly we have to meet other targets to be eligible to get the monthly remuneration. How can we get four pregnancy cases from the same area every month," asked Jyothi.

ASHA workers complained that they are not paid for the work taken from them during elections. They are yet to receive the payment for work done during the previous two rounds of pulse polio programmes.

They have been promised Rs.750 per month for the work during Covid-19. "This is the second month but we are yet to get even this amount," said Lavanya.

They said they were not even provided lunch while on duty. "We don't even get water. It's not worth taking such a risk for our lives and also for our near and dear ones," they said.

Telangana has over 27,000 ASHA workers.

(Mohammed Shafeeq can be contacted at m.shafeeq@ians.in)
According to a tally provided by the syndicates affiliates nationwide, the latest number of infected physicians as of Thursday was 90, it said, adding that the number is likely to increase

An Egyptian doctor died after contracting the novel coronavirus, becoming the country's eighth physician to die from the highly contagious disease, Egypt's Medical Syndicate said on Monday.

The syndicate mourned the death of Mahmoud El-Hendawy, a professor of neurological surgery at Al-Azhar University, without providing further details about his infection.

The syndicate said last week that it did not have a tally of the number of doctors who have contracted the virus and that its request to the health ministry for an update on the figure have gone unanswered.

According to a tally provided by the syndicates affiliates nationwide, the latest number of infected physicians as of Thursday was 90, it said, adding that the number is likely to increase.

The World Health Organization said earlier this month that infections among medical staff make up around 13 percent of confirmed coronavirus cases in Egypt.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said in TV comments late on Sunday that only 12 percent of infected medical staff members contracted the virus while on duty at hospitals, while the rest got infected outside medical facilities.

Doctors work 14 days at hospitals and undergo 14 days of home-isolation to protect themselves and patients, he said, adding that the number of infections among medical staff in Egypt are still lower than other countries.

Earlier this week, the syndicate filed a report with the countrys public prosecutor against the head of a quarantine hospital in Alexandria for allegedly compromising the safety of doctors by violating infection control codes and refusing to conduct the coronavirus test for a doctor who came in contact with infected patients.

It also urged the health ministry to ensure the strict implementation of preventive measures to protect medical staff at isolation hospitals from getting infected with the virus.

The spokesman said rapid coronavirus tests are conducted for all medical staff at isolation hospitals, and that infection control teams are present at each isolation hospital to ensure all protective measures are followed.

The health ministry does not provide a breakdown of the number of cases in each governorate or the ages of those infected or who have died because the data is secret and to protect the privacy of patients, he said.

A set of financial incentives has been adopted recently for Egyptian medical staff as part of government efforts to support members of the healthcare sector amid the coronavirus crisis.

Egypt has so for recorded 6,456 infections, including 429 fatalities. Of those, 1,562 have recovered.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


The EU has flatly contradicted Boris Johnsons claim coronavirus is on a downward slope, warning the UK is one of five European countries where infection numbers have yet to significantly decline.

Last Thursday, Johnson declared during the daily coronavirus press conference in Downing Street that the UK is past the peak and on the downward slope of the pandemic.

Referring to the draconian lockdown imposed on 23 March, he added: Your effort and your sacrifice is working.

However, Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), told EU lawmakers on Monday that Britain, Poland, Romania and Sweden had seen "no substantial changes in the last 14 days". It added Bulgaria was still recording an increase in cases.

For all other European countries, she said, there was a drop in cases, adding: "As of Saturday, it appears that the initial wave of transmission (in Europe) has passed its peak.

Britain has not yet reached its coronavirus peak, EU scientists have said. (Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images)

Nearly 190,000 coronavirus cases and almost 28,500 deaths have been recorded in Britain. Italy is the only European country to have had more cases.

The ECDC's assessment on Britain is in line with data on the overall increase of deaths from all causes reported by EuroMOMO, an EU-backed monitoring project on mortality.

England has seen the highest rise in deaths over the five-year average among several European nations screened by EuroMOMO.

As of 26 April, England had Europe's highest rise of so-called "excess deaths"  the number above the forecast average  and recorded an increase from the previous week in the general indicator that tracks death in all ages.

Epidemiologists say these statistics help to build a more complete picture of the overall impact of epidemics, given many fatalities go unreported or are misreported when their number surges dramatically in such short periods.

When contacted by Yahoo News UK about the claims, a Downing Street spokesperson reiterated Boris Johnson's statement that the UK is past the peak.

Story continues

Latest coronavirus news, updates and advice

Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the world

Fact-checker: The number of COVID-19 cases in your local area

6 charts and maps that explain how coronavirus is spreading

Epidemiologists said these statistics help to build a more complete picture of the overall impact of epidemics, given many fatalities go unreported or are misreported when their number surges dramatically in such short periods.

Boris Johnson is expected to extend Britains lockdown period on Thursday, then set out plans for a gradual easing of restrictions from the end of May in a live address on Sunday night.

On Monday, Johnson released a video message warning that lifting lockdown restrictions too soon would be the worst thing we could do.

In a video message on Twitter, the prime minister said it was important to meet the five tests set by the government before easing the lockdown.

Boris Johnson said on Thursday that Britain had 'passed the peak' of coronavirus cases. (Ian Vogler-WPA Pool/Getty Images)

We will only be able to move on to the second phase of this conflict if our five tests have been met, he said.

The tests are: the NHS must have sufficient critical care capacity; there must be a sustained and consistent fall in daily deaths; the infection rate must be decreasing to manageable levels; there must be enough PPE and testing supply; and any adjustments must not lead to a second peak that could overwhelm the health service.

Elsewhere, a body of experts shadowing the governments Sage scientific advisory board has warned the UK to plan for a coronavirus pandemic lasting years to come on Monday.

Deenan Pillay, professor of virology at University College London, said at the bodys first meeting on Monday: It is the mantra here that we somehow need to survive until a vaccine becomes available.

But of course not only is there uncertainty around that, but even when a vaccine becomes available, that vaccine does not infer 100% protection in everyone that is given it.

He added: We're actually thinking for a long-term pandemic with ups and downs, an endemic infection that will come up and down for maybe years to come.

Coronavirus: what happened today
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, chairs a symposium at the School of Medicine at Tsinghua University in Beijing, capital of China, March 2, 2020.

Those conclusions are based on the 95% probability that China's changes in imports and export behavior were not within normal range, according to the report.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus "was a contagion" for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad  and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

Not classified but marked "for official use only," the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by "denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data," the analysis states.

The sharper rhetoric coincides with administration critics saying the government's response to the virus was slow and inadequate. President Donald Trump's political opponents have accused him of lashing out at China, a geopolitical foe but critical U.S. trade partner, in an attempt to deflect criticism at home.

Chinese leaders "intentionally concealed the severity" of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.

U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak  and how contagious the disease is  to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.

China informed the WHO of the outbreak on Dec. 31. It contacted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Jan. 3 and publicly identified the pathogen as a novel coronavirus on Jan. 8.

Chinese officials muffled doctors who warned about the virus early on and repeatedly downplayed the threat of the outbreak. However, many of the Chinese government's missteps appear to have been due to bureaucratic hurdles, tight controls on information, and officials hesitant to report bad news. There is no public evidence to suggest it was an intentional plot to buy up the world's medical supplies.

In a tweet on Sunday, the president appeared to blame U.S. intelligence officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential coronavirus outbreak could be. Trump has been defensive over whether he failed to act after receiving early warnings from intelligence officials and others about the coronavirus and its potential impact.

"Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S.," Trump wrote without citing specifics. "Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner."

Trump had previously speculated that China may have unleashed the coronavirus due to some kind of horrible "mistake." His intelligence agencies say they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.

Speaking Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Pompeo said he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, "Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories."

"These are not the first times that we've had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab," Pompeo said. "And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan."

The secretary of state appeared to be referring to previous outbreaks of respiratory viruses, like SARS, which started in China. His remark may be seen as offensive in China. Still, Pompeo repeated the same assertion hours later, via a tweet Sunday afternoon.

Experts say the virus arose naturally in bats, and make it clear that they believe it wasn't man-made. Many virologists say the chance that the outbreak was caused by a lab accident is very low, though scientists are still working to determine a point at which it may have jumped from animals to humans.

Beijing has repeatedly pushed back on U.S. accusations that the outbreak was China's fault, pointing to many missteps made by American officials in their own fight against the outbreak. China's public announcement on Jan. 20 that the virus was transmissible from person to person left the U.S. nearly two months to prepare for the pandemic, during which the U.S. government failed to bolster medical supplies and deployed flawed testing kits.

"The U.S. government has ignored the facts, diverted public attention and engaged in buck-passing in an attempt to shirk its responsibility for incompetence in the fight against the epidemic," Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang said Friday.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4)  "Aggressive testing" is the primary cause of the surge of COVID-19 cases in Cebu City, its mayor said Monday.

"I think we are the first local government which was able to purchase about 34,000 swab testing kits. Since then, we continuously had our 'swab testing' sa ating mga constituents dito, especially in those areas na may mga positive," Cebu City Mayor Edgar Labella said in an interview with CNN Philippines.

[Translation: I think we are the first local government that was able to purchase about 34,000 swab testing kits. Since then, we continuously had "swab testing" among our constituents, especially in areas with confirmed COVID-19 cases.]

The city mayor emphasized that the administration is conducting "swab testing" and contact tracing on a daily basis.

"We will never stop. We will continue to do this," he told CNN Philippines' Senior Correspondent and Anchor Pinky Webb.

To further ramp up its infection prevention and control measures, Cebu City will also conduct the Food and Drug Administration-approved rapid antibody testing, together with the local governments of Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue, according to Labella.

For coronavirus patients without symptoms, the city official said they have provided 19 isolation centers across different barangays.

Meanwhile, those with mild to moderate cases will be confined in the local quarantine areas. Labella said they have two operating sites, but they are putting up another one to accommodate more infected patients.

"For those serious and severe, they [will be], of course, brought to the hospitals," he added.

Labella told CNN Philippines that Cebu City now has 902 coronavirus cases. Province-wide, there are a total of 1,084 infections, based on data from May 3.

Nationwide, there are 9,485 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 1,315 recoveries and 623 fatalities.
Mahindra Holidays & Resorts to first reopen resorts near metro cities post lockdown

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, May 04: Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd (MHRIL) on Sunday said it plans to first reopen resorts that are at drivable distance from the metro cities once the coronavirus lockdown is lifted.

The Mahindra Group firm has currently suspended operations at its resorts in compliance with the government directives.

"At Club Mahindra we have over 255,000 member families and once travel restrictions are relaxed and state borders open up, and people feel comfortable enough to travel again, we expect our members and their families to start travelling to our resorts in their own vehicles, since we are at drivable distances from major cities," MHRIL MD and CEO Kavinder Singh told PTI.

Coronavirus: Shanghai Disneyland resort shuts as virus outbreak spreads

The company is gearing up for this by putting in place all the necessary safety related standard operating procedures (SOPs). It will ensure the highest levels of hygiene standards (hospital grade) to achieve a quick return to normalcy, he added.

"We will first open resorts that are at a drivable distance from the major metro cities," Singh said. He, however, did not share the number of resorts that would be opened in the first phase.

The company has over 100 resorts in India and abroad.

Asked about the steps the company is taking to ensure the health and safety of guests and employees at the resorts, Singh said: "In view of the current situation we are implementing various SOPs which will cover hygiene and disinfection norms at all the touch points in our resorts."

The company will ensure social distancing norms for members at its resorts. The resorts are much bigger than traditional hotels, have open spaces and are spread out and this helps in facilitating social distancing norms, he added.

"The entire guest experience right from check in to resort experiences including F&B will be contactless. Our best-in-class experiences will help keep our members and their families engaged, while maintaining the highest safety and hygiene standards," Singh said.

Club Mahindra is partnering with experts in the healthcare and technology spaces for implementing these enhanced safety procedures and contactless services, he added.

Asked about the impact of the pandemic and subsequent lockdown on the hospitality industry, Singh said: "COVID-19 is a true Black Swan event that presents an unprecedented challenge to the hospitality and aviation industries in India and globally. It has deeply impacted the hospitality industry with occupancies declining sharply, as India went into lockdown from March 25."

According to recent estimates, the overall revenue of the Indian hotel industry will decline by about Rs 90,000 crore in 2020, erosion of 57 per cent compared to last year. More importantly, it is estimated that there will be around 38 million job losses, he said.

On the way forward for the industry, Singh said the sector expects a slow recovery as there will be many strict travel restrictions even as the lockdown begins to get lifted. Domestic travel will begin much faster than international travel, but both will take some time to fully recover.

He further said the industry is expecting support from the government for its survival.

"Most of the hospitality players have debt on their books and industry is hoping for a debt recast and for the moratorium to be extended to 12 months. This would certainly provide much-needed relief," Singh said.

The industry is also hoping for waiver or deferment of statutory payments and minimum electricity demand charges as this will help it with the working capital situation, he added.

"The industry also employs millions of people, so it would be helpful if there is some level of support for them, such as a direct benefit package for the staff who keep the industry running," Singh said.

For the revival of the industry, the annual leave travel allowance (LTA) should be made tax-free, every year, so that people have more money to spend on travel once things get better, he added.
Everyone arriving in HCMC from abroad will be quarantined for 14 days and tested on the first, fifth, 10th and last days of isolation.

Dr Nguyen Tri Dung, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control, said earlier the city only tested people on the first and last days in accordance with national Covid-19 safety protocols.

"The decision to take samples four times for testing stems from HCMCs evaluation of people entering the city during this period having a higher risk of nCoV infection than before," Dung said.

HCMC and Vietnam's latest case, "Patient 271", diagnosed on Sunday, is a British oil expert who arrived in HCMC from the U.K. in a private jet to work on a Petrovietnam project.

He was quarantined on arrival on April 28 and tested negative. But a test five days later came out positive.

The man has been moved to the city's Cu Chi field hospital for treatment.

He arrived along with 12 other experts, all of whom have tested negative so far.

The city has recorded a total of 55 cases. Six patients relapsed recently after being discharged, taking the number of active cases to eight. The rest recovered and were discharged from hospitals.

Authorities will monitor recovered patients for 30 days after discharge instead of the earlier 14 days, and deploy measures to prevent relapses.

They also monitor international flight crews arriving in the city, and have taken samples from 280 people so far.

Vietnam began day 18 without community transmission on Monday.

The country has 27,409 people in quarantine, including those who arrived from abroad and those who had come into contact with patients. Of them, 238 are in hospitals meant for Covid-19 treatment, 5,871 are in public quarantines and 21,300 are isolated at home.

The pandemic has spread to 212 countries and territories, and claimed more than 248,000 lives.
Advertisement

This Friday marks the 75th anniversary of May 8 1945, also known as Victory in Europe Day. VE Day marks the end of Second World War that had ravaged Europe for almost six years, claiming an estimated 75 million lives on both sides of the conflict by the time it finally came to an end.

Ahead of the historic day, colourised archived images of the Allied liberation of Germany from the Nazis in the run-up to the end of World War Two have been released.

The remarkable archived images show Allied troops making their way through a devastated Germany that saw months of warfare, that ultimately led to Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender being accepted by the Allies on May 8 1945.

The surrender came shortly after the suicide of Nazi Germany's leader, Adolf Hitler, on April 30 1945 in his Berlin bunker, as Allied forces closed in on him during the Battle of Berlin that took place from April 16 1945 to May 2 1945.

Germany's surrender was authorised by Hitler's successor, President Karl Donitz, who headed up the short-lived German government in the days leading-up to and after Germany's surrender. During this time, Donitz aimed to save as many Germans as possible from being captured or killed by advancing Soviet forces.

His plan was partially successful as millions of German solders surrendered to Allied forces, and therefore managed to escape Soviet capture.

The 'act of military surrender' document was first signed at around 2.a.m on May 7 at the headquarters of the Allied forces (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, or SHAEF) in the Netherlands, after which a final version was signed the following day with Soviet Leader Josef Stalin, marking VE Day.

On the day, huge celebrations were seen, particularly in The United Kingdom and The United States of America. More than one million people took to the streets of Great Britain, with crowds massing in Trafalgar Square and up The Mall, all the way to Buckingham Palace.

In London, Winston Churchill gave a speech celebrating the end of the war in Europe, but also reminded people that the war against Japan was still being fought.

Amid the celebrations, many people mourned the deaths of their loved ones who had died fighting overseas. An estimated 16 million Allied military personnel died around the world in the war, with a further 45 million civilians. The Germans saw around 8 million military deaths and 4 million civilian deaths, meaning that for many, VE day was also the mark of a somber occasion as people remembered those who were lost.

These archived photos released ahead of VE Day's 75th show the devastation caused by the war as Nazi forces continued fighting long after Germany's surrender to the Allied forces had become inevitable.

Smoke billows out of a building in a German town as Western Allied infantryman move through the streets in 1945. The men accompany a large armored tank, which has two soldiers in the turret on top of the tank as it drives through the town. Such scenes were seen all across both sides of Germany as Western Allied forces, particularly those from Great Britain and the U.S., moved towards Berlin from the west, as forces from Soviet Russia moved in from the east.

A graveyard of U-Boats: The German U-Boat was one of Nazi Germany's most feared weapons in the war, wreaking havoc on Allied Navy forces around the world. In this picture, the shells of captured U-Boats can be seen in a construction and repair yard during the Allied capture of Germany in 1945

In the run-up to Germany's surrender, which was largely expected, some German soldiers still stood and fought to the very end, even as towns and cities crumbled around them. In this photo, Allied infantrymen move through the rubble to clear the remaining German snipers defending Nuremberg in 1945

VE DAY ANNOUNCED: A German civilian reads of the news that Germany has surrendered to the Allied forces in a 'Golden Acorn News' newspaper. The newspaper was the newsletter for the 87th Infantry Division of the United States Army, the badge symbol of which was a golden acorn

An Allied soldier watches on as German troops are marched westward across the river Rhine, which runs all the way from Switzerland, up through much of Western Germany, through the Netherlands and out to the North Sea. Allied forces were first able to cross the river on 23 March 1945, as part of 'Operation Plunder', which had the objective of crossing the river in a major part of the Allies' effort to reach Berlin

German prisoners are marched along the central reservation of the Autobahn in 1945. Armoured vehicles, including tanks and personnel carriers, drive towards the front in the opposite direction, taking more Allied forces to the action on the front lines as they make their final push to defeat Germany and reach the capital of Berlin

Allied troops fire on an Austrian town from across the German border. Smoke rises from the buildings in the distance as the soldiers aim their rifles across a river. Vienna, Austria's capital, fell on 13 April 1945, during the Soviet Vienna Offensive, just before the total collapse of the Third Reich a few weeks later. Austria's secession from the Third Reich was completed by the Declaration of Independence on 27 April 1945, thee days before Hitler, who was Austrian himself, committed suicide

An Allied infantryman keeps his rifle ready as a Germany soldier walks towards him with his hands in the air, a sign that he is surrendering. In the months leading up to April as the expected surrender of German forces drew nearer, around 800,000 Germany troops surrendered to the Allied forces. Hitler's replacement, President Karl Donitz, hoped that by surrendering to Allied forces, he could keep as many Germans as possible out of the hands of Soviet forces. Soviet records show that 381,067 German Wehrmacht Prisoners of War died in Soviet camps

German solders ride horse-drawn carts and wagons down a road. None appear to be holding weapons, suggesting the soldiers have given up their military equipment, and are perhaps transporting other supplies in the wagons

A German civilian waves a white flag of surrender as an armored half-track vehicle drives towards Geisselhardt, Germany. Buildings in the town can be seen on fire behind the civilian who is showing that the town has surrendered. Geielhardt is a small town in the South of Germany, around 30 miles north of Stuttgart

Military traffic moves across the Main river in Wurzburg, a city in the Bavaria region of Germany. Wurzburg's Fortress Marienberg is a prominent landmark on the Main river, and can be seen in the background behind the bridge that vehicles are crossing. In the foreground, solders and military vehicles can be seen with building materials. The bridge was destroyed by Nazi soldiers to protect their retreat into Germany, so a temporary crossing has been put in place over the river to allow troops and supplies to cross the river

A tank with a 4.5-inch 'T34' Multiple Rocket Launcher mounted on top leads the way through a German town as other military vehicles follow. In the background, solders can be seen sitting on a tank as it follows, and further back in the town other solders are seen with more tanks around the buildings in the village

Allied forces from the 42nd Infantry Division in the U.S. Seventh Army, capture SS Guards in the Coal Yard at Dachau, the infamous Nazi concentration camp. Dachau, which is north on Bavaria's Munich, was the first of Nazi Germany's concentration camps to open in 1933. It was intended to hold 'political prisoners'. 41,500 people are said to have died there at the hands of Nazi forces

A member of the Seventh U.S. Army hands out cigarettes to liberated prisoners at Dachau, the infamous concentration camp. The camp was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945. Before being freed, prisoners lived in constant fear of the brutal treatment they received from the Nazi leaders of the camp. After its opening by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and the imprisonment of Jews, German and Austrian criminals, and prisoners of war

As soldiers make their way through the a ruined town in Germany, and elderly woman stands in the middle of the road. Almost in disbelief, she looks at the demolished buildings around her of her town which has been greatly damaged in the fighting

A lineman - soldiers tasked with fixing and maintaining telephone lines that were installed across Germany as Allied forces advanced towards Berlin to ensure that communication could continue - fastens a wire to an insulator on top of the telegraph pole as he precariously lies on top of the pole tens of feet in the air

U.S. officers and soldiers meet with Russian troops in Germany. As Allied forces advanced towards Berlin from the west, and Soviet troops moved in from the east, many solders met at various points in the middle of Germany, capturing German towns and troops as they went. Relations between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union were tense over what to do with Germany and the nations it annexed after the inevitable VE Day

A prisoner of war enclosure, as seen from above. In contrast to their treatment of British and American prisoners of war, the Nazis had a deliberate police of mistreating Soviet POWs, resulting in roughly 3.3 million deaths. More than 170,000 British POWs were taken by Axis forces during the war.

Liberated slave labourers help themselves to food and supplies in a story, in Hanover, Germany. Slave labour under Nazi rule was carried out on an unprecedented scale, and it was a vital part of the country's war efforts and economic exploitation. Around 10 million people were forced

Solders man a .50-caliber Browning Machine Gun HB M2, alert for Enemy Aircraft flying overhead. In the background, a bridge across a dry riverbed lies in ruins, likely destroyed by Nazi forces to slow the advance of allied troops

Left: Allied troops and armoured vehicles move through the destroyed town of Magdeburg, in central Germany. Some multi-story buildings still stand, while others lie in complete ruin, showing the extent of the destruction caused by the fighting. An RAF bombing raid on the night of 16 January 1945, destroyed much of the city. The death toll is estimated to have been between 2,0002,500. Right: Infantrymen move down the street of a German town that lies in ruin. Smoke from the rubble still rises, as the soldiers pass the shells of buildings that could have been people's homes or shops in the town of Waldenburg, a hilltop town in south-central Germany

An aerial photograph of Magdeburg, Germany, shows the results of the bombing campaign that was carried out to weaken the German resistance as Allies fought Nazi forces on their march to Berlin. The ruins of buildings stretch as far as the eye can see. The shell of a church or cathedral stands out among the ruins, but no building looks to have escaped the damage

Civilians of the German city of Dusseldorf watch as U.S. troops roll through the streets in tanks. The Allied forces reached Dusseldorf in mid-April 1945. The United States 97th Infantry Division captured the city on 18 April 1945 after an anti-Nazi resistance group of Germans launched a mission to surrender the city to the Allies to avoid more destruction from ongoing fighting. Karl August Wiedenhofen led the group, which were able to stop an Allied air raid, reportedly right at the last minute

Transportation corps moving over Bridge that was constructed across the Rhine River at Wesel, Germany. 97 per cent of the city of Wesel was destroyed in allied air raids, and the Nazis destroyed bridges to cover their retreat into Germany, meaning that the allied forces had to build temporary bridges in order to transport troops and equipment across the river. Wesel was finally taken in April 1945

Infantrymen enter the German city of Frankfurt, the fifth largest city in Germany. Frankfurt was also heavily bombed during the war, and the once-famous medieval city centre, by that time the largest in Germany, was almost completely destroyed in air raids as the Nazi forces continued to resist the advancing Allied forces

Much of Frankfut was destroyed in the war. This high-angle shot shows the Main River that runs through the centre of the city. The city's cathedral lies in ruins and surrounding buildings can be seen on both sides of the Main River. The bridge connecting the two sides of the city has been destroyed to slow the advance of Allied troops

American infantrymen and trucks Crossing the Rhine near Worms, Germany, about sixty kilometers south of Frankfurt. A temporary bridge has been built across the river, next to another destroyed bridge to slow the advance of the Allies. A sign next to the bridge reads 'Alexander Patch Bridge "Cross the Rhine" courtesy 85th Eng's'

A number of ten-ton semi-trailers with Four 750-Gallon skid tanks loaded with gasoline to supply Allied military vehicles Germany. Tens of thousands of vehicles were used, on land, air and sea, in the Allies effort to liberate Germany from the Nazis

Vehicles from the armoured division drive through a burning German town. Orange flames can still be seen bursting out of the windows of the building ahead of the vehicles, suggesting fighting has only recently stopped in this area of the town when the photograph was taken in 1945
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI -- Ballot proposals in three Washtenaw County communities have been delayed because of the novel coronavirus outbreak, effectively canceling the Tuesday, May 5 election in Washtenaw County.

Proposals in Dexter, Scio Township and South Lyon Community Schools all were withdrawn after Secretary of State Jocyln Benson recommended delaying the springtime election to avoid unnecessary gatherings that could spread COVID-19.

May ballot proposals postponed in Washtenaw County

A bond proposal to fund a new firehouse and city offices in Dexter will instead appear on the Aug. 4 ballot, along with a parks and pathways millage increase proposal for Scio Township. South Lyons Community Schools, which proposed a bond for school building improvement, is not on the August ballot.

Seven municipalities have submitted ballot proposals for the August election as of April 29, county records show. That contest will also include primary elections for dozens of local and state candidacies.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

Judge rules Michigan stay-at-home order doesnt infringe on constitutional rights

Order to screen workers during COVID-19 extended by Washtenaw County Health Department

Expense reductions due to significant losses from COVID-19 announced by Eastern Michigan University

Michigan hospitals are needed now more than ever. Why are they laying off workers?
TODAY: FREE Twitch For Musicians From Webinar

With 50 million monthly users Twitch has quickly become the live streaming platform of choice for many musicians.

With that in mind, Bandsintown and Twitch put together a free much-needed webinar today to share tips and best practices on how to build an engaged fan base and earn money streaming live performances on Twitch.

The webinar will feature Twitch Senior Music Partnerships Manager Jimmy Whisenhunt, a veteran in the live-streaming industry and is hosted by Bruce Houghton, artist advocate and editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank.

Topics will include how musicians can build and manage a free Twitch channel, why streaming works and how to do it, growing an audience, leveraging partnerships with other streamers to help growth, making money on Twitch and much more.

Plus dont forget that Bandsintown offers free fast track to monetization on Twitch. Details here.

TODAY Wednesday May 6, 2020 12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Register for FREE and learn how to monetize your live streams using Twitch.

Share on:
Convent staff have been left devastated by the deaths, and say they are reflective of the incredible challenges that nursing homes and other aged care facilities face in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our Lady of the Angels Convent suspended all communal activities and enforced social distancing protocols in early March  long before it was mandatory. They do not know how the virus spread the facility, and all five nuns only tested positive to COVID-19 posthumously.

In Wisconsin there are at least 7,661 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 335 deaths.

On April 6, Sister Mary Collins was the first nun at the convent to pass away  just three days after she developed a mild cough.



Vigilant staff had been testing residents for COVID-19, and tried to test Sister Collins. However, the elderly nun had dementia and was too combative to tolerate the invasive process. A post-mortem revealed that she was suffering from the virus.

Then  in the space of just two days  two more nuns at Our Lady of the Angels suddenly passed away.

Sister Skender, 83, died April 7, while Sister Sherburne, 99, died April 9. Posthumous tests revealed they were both infected with COVID-19.

At the same time, the virus was spreading rapidly through Milwaukee.

Wisconsin has 6,854 cases of COVID-19, with nearly half of those clustered within Milwaukee County.

Our Lady of the Angels suffered further heartbreak on April 19, when Sister Holtkamp, 102, passed away. It was later confirmed that she, too, had coronavirus.

Sister Kelter, 88, became the fifth nun at the convent to die from COVID-19 on April 26.

She had previously tested negative for the virus earlier in the month.

Darren Rausch, the director and health officer for the Greenfield Health Department, told The New York Times that convent staff had been on constant contact with him throughout the pandemic.

He theorizes that doctors and nurses at the facility were presented with extra difficulties given the patients suffered from memory loss, and several had dementia.

Its definitely very challenging. They cant always vocalize whats going on, he stated.

An administrator from Our Lady of The Angels told The Times: We welcome prayers for the health and comfort of our residents and staff as we grieve the loss of our sisters.

.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hoag Founders, the Association of Presbyterian Members and the George Hoag Family Foundation, filed litigation against Providence Health seeking to dissolve the affiliation with Providence. The legal action comes after nearly a year of trying to work with Providence to re-align the parties in a way that guarantees Hoag's independence and its ability to focus exclusively on Orange County's needs.

Hoag executives said that restored independence will allow Hoag to maintain and strengthen its local identity as Orange County's most trusted health care networka reputation it has enjoyed for nearly 70 years, and one that is central to its mission.

"Hoag must be able to keep local resources and decision making in Orange County to address all the health needs of community members for years to come," said Robert T. Braithwaite, president and chief executive officer of Hoag. "The current structure of our relationship with Providence, we believe, is not in the best interest of our patients, the community, our physicians and team members. While Hoag has consistently emphasized our desire to collaborate with Providence on specific initiatives going forward, we made no progress on realigning the relationship after almost a year of attempted negotiations. As a result, Hoag's Founders took legal action, we had hoped to avoid, to dissolve the affiliation, which all parties have agreed did not fulfill the measure of its creation."

In 2012, Hoag and St. Joseph Health entered an affiliation with the hope of fundamentally transforming the way health care is delivered in Orange County. However, those plans did not materialize and St. Joseph has since been acquired by Providence Health, a large national health system based in Seattle.

Braithwaite continued: "Under the existing affiliation, Hoag's mission and legacy are at risk of being diluted within a large national hospital system. We must be able to maintain Hoag's unique character and role as Orange County's most trusted health care network, as well as keep local control of community assets."

This decision was made only after careful consideration by Hoag's fiduciary board, in extensive consultation with Hoag's Founders, the physician leadership of Hoag, and Hoag's executive leadership team. Hoag's desire is to restore local control of health care decisions in Orange County and free them of the current constraints on care arising out of the affiliation with Providence.

This has never been more apparent than in the last few months as Hoag has played a critical role in care for our community during the pandemic.

"While we have tried to negotiate a realignment of our affiliation with Providence Health for more than a year, the COVID-19 pandemic underscored our need for independence," said George Wood, Hoag board of directors chair. "We are deeply grateful to Hoag's physicians and staff for their work over the last few months as they have been on the frontlines. Our community has counted on them during this time and we need to make sure we can fulfill our promise to Orange County."

"My grandmother, Grace Hoag, and my father, George Hoag II, had a vision, in collaboration with local Presbyterian leaders, for creating outstanding local health care in Orange County," said Melinda Hoag Smith, president and chief executive officer of George Hoag Family Foundation. "Our family has carried that legacy of meeting the needs of this amazing community over the last 70 years. It is time to ensure we continue that work as Orange County grows and residents' health care needs continue to evolve. Full independence is the best path toward a sustainable and thriving Hoag."

Beryl Smith, moderator of the Association of Presbyterian Members, echoed these sentiments. "This is about honoring the past and securing the future of Hoag."

There will be no impact to patients. The community can continue to access care at Hoag the same way they always have.

ABOUT HOAG

Hoag is a nonprofit, regional health care delivery network in Orange County, California, that treats more than 30,000 inpatients and 480,000 outpatients annually. Hoag consists of two acute-care hospitals  Hoag Hospital Newport Beach, which opened in 1952, and Hoag Hospital Irvine, which opened in 2010  in addition to nine health centers and 13 urgent care centers. Hoag has invested $261 million in programs and services to support the underserved community within the past five years, including areas like mental health, homelessness, transportation for seniors, education, and support for single mothers. Hoag is a designated Magnet hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Hoag offers a comprehensive blend of health care services that includes five institutes providing specialized services in the following areas: cancer , heart and vascular , neurosciences , women's health , and orthopedics through Hoag's affiliate, Hoag Orthopedic Institute , which consists of an orthopedic hospital and two ambulatory surgical centers. Hoag has been named one of the Best Regional Hospitals in the 2019 - 2020 U.S. News & World Report. For an unprecedented 23 years, residents of Orange County have chosen Hoag as one of the county's best hospitals in a local newspaper survey. Visit www.hoag.org for more information.

SOURCE Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian

Related Links

https://www.hoag.org/


The way fragrance is introduced, advertised and sold to the world hasnt changed in nearly a century. No. 5, a seductive scent for the modern woman introduced by Coco Chanel in the 1920s, is marketed similarly to Tom Fords Black Orchid, a modern and alluring potion that came out in 2006. Both designers fragrances depend on an in-store experience that conjures these ideas and feelings through smell, somehow enticing people to spend over $100 on a bottle of scented water.

Because smell is invisible, we are super-reliant on external cues for how we should interpret what it is that were experiencing, said Rachel Herz, a neuroscientist and the author of The Scent of Desire: Discovering Enigmatic Sense of Smell. Verbal and visual information is exactly what we go to to help us identify and interpret and find meaning.

You can get verbal and visual information about scent on your computer. But you cant smell it. And with the coronavirus pandemic forcing most shopping online, this is a problem for the perfume industry.

Already, fragrance is doing worse online than any other beauty category, said Larissa Jensen, vice president of the NPD Group. She described brick and mortar as especially critical for prestige fragrance in the United States, where sales in March of this year were 45 percent less than in March 2019.
HMM Algeciras, the world's largest vessel owned by HMM, sails under the Panamanian flag in April. / Courtesy Embassy of Panama



By Yi Whan-woo



The world's largest container vessel owned by HMM, Korea's largest containers carrier, flies the Panamanian flag, the Panamanian Embassy in Seoul said last week.



The embassy said HMM Algeciras, for convenient international maritime trade, has been flying the Panamanian flag after it was built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) in April and has since been assigned to the Asia-Northern Europe route.



HMM Algeciras is one of the mega-sized 12 vessels that HMM ordered either from DSME or Samsung Heavy Industries. All will carry Panamanian flags. Some vessels have already been built while others are scheduled to be sequentially delivered by September.



All 12 have a capacity of 24,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), a measurement based on a standard-sized 20-foot-long container box.



Still, the embassy noted that HMM Algeciras sailing under its national flag was meaningful because it is the world's first 24,000 TEU-sized merchant ship.



Panamanian Ambassador and General Consul to Korea Athanasio Kosmas noted the Panamanian ship registration was made easier by the recently introduced New Digital Services.



Initiated by the Panama Maritime Authority, New Digital Services allows certificates of registration to be issued electronically and get related information at the authority's 12 global offices and 53 Panamanian consulates around the world.



It has reduced the time for issuance of registration certificates to one or two days  down from three to five days previously.



"All of HMM's new generation mega-ships will sail with the flag of Panama and HMM is making the most of the Panama Registry's Newly Built Incentive Policy," Kosmas said.



The ambassador said New Digital Services was "welcomed by Korean ship owners to solve time and cost issues."



Panama is known for its open registry, with its flag offering easier registration, cheaper foreign labor and no income tax.



For this reason, most merchant ships flying Panama's flag belong to foreign owners wishing to avoid the stricter marine regulations imposed by their own countries.



This has made Panama's shipping fleet the largest in the world, greater than those of the U.S. and China combined.



Of the Korean-origin container ships, the other 11 HMM vessels are: HMM Copenhagen, HMM Dublin, HMM Gdansk, HMM Hamburg, HMM Helsinki and HMM Le Havre, HMM Oslo, HMM Rotterdam, HMM Stockholm, HMM Southampton and HMM St. Petersburg.



All assigned to the Asia-Northern Europe route, also called Far East Europe, and are named after respective European cities.



They will join "The Alliance," a consortium of shipping companies.



The construction of the 12 vessels came as Korea seeks to revive its sluggish shipbuilding industry.

In September 2018, HMM signed a contract for construction of mega container vessels with three shipyards  DSME, Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries.


Olivier Douliery / Agence France Presse

Costco has announced new guidelines for its stores and is requiring all customersage 3 and olderto wear masks before entering stores beginning Monday, May 4.

"In short, we believe this is the right thing to do under the current circumstances," Costco CEO Craig Jelinek said in a statement. "Although some may disagree with this policy or question its effectiveness, were choosing to err on the side of safety in our shopping environments."
Boarding school students across Western Australia will return to their home away from home as of Tuesday after the state government reopened a select few public school residential facilities.

Boarding school students across the state can return from Tuesday. Credit:Arsineh Houspian

The students return comes after the national cabinet declared boarding schools and school-based residential colleges could reopen where student and staff numbers can be managed safely and where health requirements can be met.

Schools will open on a facility-by-facility basis, depending on a range of factors including size, capacity, current enrolments and the ability to adhere to hygiene requirements.

However, all WA Year 12 students will be able to return to every public school boarding facility, including residential boarding colleges and the residential boarding available at the colleges of agriculture.
CAIRO - A Pennsylvania teacher, held in an Egyptian prison for nearly 10 months without trial and on flimsy charges, was released Sunday and returned to the United States with her teenage son, human rights advocates said on Monday.

Reem Mohamed Desouky, a dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen, was arrested last July after arriving in Cairo from Washington with her 13-year-old son, Moustafa. Security officials detained her at the airport, took their phones, and questioned them for hours. Desouky was then jailed. Her alleged crime was criticizing Egypt's government on Facebook.

Desouky was among at least a half-dozen American citizens held inside Egypt's crowded prisons on politically motivated grounds. Her release followed U.S. government pressure on the Egyptian government and came a day after Shady Habash, a video director, was found dead inside Cairo's notorious Tora prison after spending more than two years there for a song that mocked President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Upon her release, Desouky, an applied arts teacher, was reunited with her son, who had refused to leave the country without his mother. The pair arrived at their home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, late on Sunday night, said Mohamed Soltan, development director at the Freedom Initiative, a rights group that worked to free Desouky and brought her case to the attention of senior U.S. officials and lawmakers.

"This is a big win," said Soltan. "It's been almost a year since she's been in prison."

Desouky was one of numerous examples of how Sissi, one of the Trump administration's closest allies, has been silencing critics. The regime, considered the most authoritarian in Egypt's modern history, has jailed activists, poets, artists - anyone perceived to be blemishing the image of Sissi and Egypt.

In the case of Desouky, authorities charged her with administering social media accounts deemed critical of the government, but did not specify which posts were offensive. One Facebook page from which Desouky shared posts, according to her supporters, was a forum mostly about social and economic conditions in Egypt.

Her release, said Soltan, may have been, in part, motivated by the death of Mustafa Kassem, a 54-year-old Egyptian American national, who died in January after spending six years in prison with poor medical care and held on flimsy charges. His death touched off a rare period of tension between Sissi and the Trump administration, which has remained largely silent, at least in public, about the regime's growing abuses.

"The U.S. government has been engaged on her case at a very senior level," said Soltan, referring to Desouky. "That pressure was upped after Mustafa Kassem's death."

As many as 114,000 inmates, including a larger number of prisoners, are being held in Egypt's prison system, which U.N. human rights office says is "overcrowded, unsanitary and suffering from a lack of resources" where "detainees are routinely denied access to adequate medical care and treatment." Human rights advocates and relatives are increasingly concerned that the coronavirus could spread inside Egypt's prisons.

Scores of prisoners have gone on hunger strike, including Mohamed Amashah, a 24-year-old Egyptian American from Jersey City who was arrested in April 2019 for holding up a sign in downtown Cairo that read "Freedom for all prisoners."

Desouky's brother, who was arrested when he came to visit her, remains in prison, said Soltan, adding that he hopes her release will prompt the U.S. government to apply more pressure on the Sissi government to free more of those unjustly imprisoned.

"We hope momentum will build and lead to more political prisoners released," said Soltan.
Carole Baskin has broken her media silence - kind of.

While the Tiger King personality, 58, had kept mum in the month-plus since careening into the national limelight with the success of the Netflix docuseries, she delivered her first interview to a pair of YouTube prank experts named Josh Pieters and Archie Manners.

'In a worldwide exclusive,' Pieters said, 'we bring you Carole Baskin's first worldwide interview - by tricking the Tiger Queen into thinking she was a guest on' The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

The latest: Carole Baskin, 58, gave her first interview since Tiger King to YouTube pranksters Josh Pieters and Archie Manners, who posed as producers for The Tonight Show and impersonated host Jimmy Fallon

Pieters and Manners laid the groundwork for the rib by telling Baskin they represented a production company called Invisible Object that is facilitating guest appearances on talk shows (as guests appear during video conference amid the near-national lockdown due to the coronavirus).

Baskin's, who's been a hot topic amid her ongoing feud with the show's Joe Exotic, first turned down overtures from Pieters and Manners, claiming she was upset with Exotic's allegations, on the Netflix series that she killed her late husband Don Lewis.

Pieters and Manners told Baskin that the interview would be focused on solely cats and not touch upon the Tiger King controversies; and used clips of Fallon speaking about cats to conduct a discussion with Baskin.

After some initial communication complications, Pieters and Manners said they smoothed over legal issues with Baskin's camp, setting her up for the Zoom call.

Tough get: Baskin first turned down overtures from Pieters and Manners, claiming she was upset with Exotic's allegations she killed her late husband Don Lewis

Vendetta: Baskin has been a hot topic amid her ongoing feud with the show's Joe Exotic, pictured in his 2018 mug shot and right with one of his tigers

Sign of the times: The pranksters used Zoom to conduct the elaborate ruse

Real deal: Jimmy Fallon has continued to do interviews with celebrities amid coronavirus lockdowns - though he was not at all involved with the Baskin prank

In the chat, Baskin, who runs the Florida animal sanctuary Big Cat Rescue, said that she had to lay off 50 percent of her workers and is at the location every day to care for the animals.

'My daughter and I still come into the sanctuary every day because we have to take care of all the big cats here,' she said.

'Unfortunately due to the loss of tourism revenue we've had to let go of about half of our staff and thankfully all of our animal care is done by volunteers.'

Tough times: Baskin, who runs the Florida animal sanctuary Big Cat Rescue, said that she had to lay off 50 percent of her workers

Details: Pieters (pictured) and Manners laid the groundwork for the rib by telling Baskin claiming they represented a production company called Invisible Object

She added: 'The animals are still getting their daily care but it means all of us are having to work double time to make sure that happens ... I work seven days a week but I'm a workaholic so I really love doing this work.'

She said that the ongoing shutdown related to the virus might force her to shutter her business with the loss of tourism revenue.

'After Covid-19 I just don't know if we're ever going to be able to do tours again,' she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 19:43:38|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A commentary carried by the Monday edition of the People's Daily slammed some U.S. politicians for smearing China's fight against the COVID-19 epidemic with false accusations of so-called "human rights abuse."

The U.S. move is aimed at covering up their own fault for not putting people's lives first and failing to contain the epidemic in the United States, said the commentary under the byline of Zhong Sheng.

Sparing no effort to save lives is deeply ingrained in the Chinese psyche, which has been fully demonstrated in China's all-out efforts to battle the novel coronavirus, it said.

However, seven U.S. senators recently sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, maliciously slandering China for "engaging in its most egregious human rights abuse" during the epidemic.

The groundless criticism was not echoed by others. John Ross, former director of Economic and Business Policy of London, said that China has "a real understanding of human rights" and "the key human right is to stay alive."

The right to life is among the most basic human rights enshrined in the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" of the United Nations.

The so-called "human rights abuse" fabricated by some ill-intentioned U.S. politicians constitutes an affront to Chinese people's anti-virus fight, the article said.

Noting that the Chinese government has been placing people's lives and health as the top priority, the article gave a clear illustration of how the country went all out to save every COVID-19 patient, regardless of the cost.

It also pointed out that China has taken solid actions to assist other countries and regions in beating the coronavirus and made great contributions to international human rights endeavors.

Starting Jan. 3, China began to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) and countries including the United States of the pneumonia outbreak of unknown cause and response measures on a regular basis. The United States, however, squandered two months that could have been used to prepare for the response measures, the article said.

To curb the spread of the virus, Chinese people had voluntarily stayed at home and governments at all levels in China had taken resolute and effective measures in the anti-virus fight. In contrast, after the numbers of confirmed cases and fatalities surged in the United States, departments of the U.S. government were bickering over appropriations for coronavirus containment.

No wonder American media reports called the U.S. government's response to the crisis "disastrous," the article said.

A self-proclaimed "global human rights defender," the United States is, in fact, notorious in its own human rights record.

As COVID-19 continues to take a heavy toll globally, the United States announced that it would halt funding to the WHO, a move denounced by medical journal The Lancet as "a crime against humanity," the article said, adding that the U.S. sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries have severely impeded the epidemic control efforts in these countries.

"What kind of 'human rights' is this?" the article asked.

Without life or health, human rights cannot be, it said, urging certain U.S. politicians to stop chanting empty slogans and start caring for the lives of U.S. citizens. Enditem
 Flash

The lockdown programs in Wuhan and other parts of China have proven successful and helpful for other countries for the effective control and prevention of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a world-renowned expert has said.



"I have called them (lockdown programs) before the largest public health experiment in the history of humankind. And you know, I think the experiment was a success, because it clearly, now we have evidence, reduced very much the transmission of this highly contagious virus," William Schaffner, an influential infectious disease specialist, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Schaffner is professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy as well as Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee.

"And so we're trying to model, what we're doing along the lines of what happened in China. We're not as severe, but the principles are the same and going forward, other countries are also learning from that part of the China experience," said Schaffner, referring to the stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures taken by U.S. states to curb the spread of the COVID-19.

The public health expert cautioned Americans to exercise proper social distancing practices as a number of states began reopening their economies with more set to lift restrictions in the coming week.

"It's no longer a matter of whether we're going to do it, but when and how. So some people have gone first. Perhaps they're a little bit early. But the trick is to balance the medical side with the economic, social, and cultural side," Schaffner said.

"And that's going to be very tricky. If we open up, we have to maintain social distancing. The use of masks, for example, six feet, good hand hygiene, taking temperatures before you go into a store. All of those things will be very important and still, staying home, not going out so much, " he said.

"I think we must still obey the rules and the recommendations and be conservative, not be so eager to get out because we don't want suddenly more coronavirus and then a second wave, right?" he said.

On April 8, China lifted outbound travel restrictions on Wuhan, the city hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, ending a lockdown that sealed off around 10 million people from the rest of the world for 76 days.

Over 1.4 million infections and 56,000 deaths might have been avoided as a result of the national and provincial public health measures imposed in late January in China, according to a new study led by Xi Chen, a professor at Yale School of Public Health and published in the Journal of Population Economics on April 9.

"In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history," said a report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19 released in late February.
Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all.

Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe

Our news is free on LAist. To make sure you get our coverage: Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter. To support our non-profit public service journalism: Donate Now.

California is about to hit the peak of its strawberry season, with an estimated 70-80 million pounds likely to be harvested every week for six-to-eight weeks.

With restaurants, schools, and hotels closed, demand has plummeted, meaning tens of millions of pounds of berries could end up in the trash, and the farms that grow them could be facing financial peril.

But also hit hard are the farmworkers risking their lives picking those berries.

They have to deal with a double whammy: the threat of getting sick as they interact with others; and the possibility of losing their jobs as farms cut back, with little-to-no safety net to save them.

We spoke with one of those farmworkers, Maria, an undocumented strawberry picker in Oxnard who works year-round. She asked that we not use her full name due to lack of legal status and fear for her job.

A row of strawberries growing in Oxnard, California. Millions of pounds of strawberries are harvested each week during the spring. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)

SAME GRUELING PROCESS EVERY DAY

Every weekday, Maria wakes up in the dark, drops her three youngest kids off at a friend's house, and heads to pick strawberries in a field nearby.

The sun's only just rising as she bends over and plucks berry after berry, which quickly make their way into plastic clamshells, and then to the market before they start to spoil. Row after row, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., the same grueling process for 19 years.

"Your waist gets tired, your back gets tired," said Maria, in Spanish.

Martiza and her coworkers are doing their part with good social distancing as they harvest strawberries in Monterey County CA. Let's hear it for these farm workers to continue to work during the

the #COVID19 pandemic so we can enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables. #WeFeedYou pic.twitter.com/znohI1lj9g  United Farm Workers (@UFWupdates) April 17, 2020

She's been anxiously following the spread of COVID-19 since early March, taking in information from the county, her employer, and Telemundo.

Maria and the other farmworkers are doing their best to stay safe: working more than six feet apart; keeping empty rows between them; covering their faces with bandanas and hands with plastic gloves; wiping everything down with bleach and paper towels -- much of which they were doing before.

Other farms, like those that supply Driscoll's, are cleaning the buses that transport workers twice a day, instead of once a week. Some are staggering lunch breaks.

"I keep working, I keep dealing with other people," Maria said. "I get scared. I get worried that one of my children could get sick."

She's a single mom with three kids to feed and bills to pay. She doesn't have the luxury of self-quarantining.

icon

DON'T MISS ANY L.A. CORONAVIRUS NEWS

Get our daily newsletters for the latest on COVID-19 and other top local headlines.

Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

LOSING HER JOB WOULD BE DEVASTATING

Maria works full-time, year-round, for the company that employs her -- a boon for her job security, especially compared to those who bounce from farm to farm doing seasonal work. Through her employer she gets health insurance and 27 hours of sick leave per year.

However, if her hours get cut or she loses her job, which could very well happen due to the collapse of the strawberry market, that security and financial assurance will quickly disappear.

She'd look to other farms to pick up temporary work, like when her employer shut down in 2018 due to the Woolsey fire.

"They did have a ranch that was doing the summer crop ... but they were only giving us two days a week, and four hours. Can you imagine? Eight hours a week. That's what I was working," Maria said.

It's questionable whether that temporary work would even be available this time around, as other farms are facing major market uncertainty as well, cutting hours for employees.

"The godmother of my kids works in a nursery, with flowers, and she told me her work has dropped a great deal," Maria said. "You know how many hours she's working now? Four to five hours. She tells me they are getting out at 11, at noon. She said, 'Who wants flowers?'"

With demand plummeting due to COVID-19, millions of pounds of strawberries could end up in the trash each week. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)

WHAT ABOUT GOVERNMENT HELP?

Maria's employer told her to take Paid Family Leave if she or one of her family members caught COVID-19.

If her hours were cut, or she lost her job -- as for all undocumented workers in California, who make up an estimated 10% of the state's workforce -- there's a mish-mash of what can be difficult-to-access financial assistance.

If workers are injured, they can apply for state disability insurance and workers' compensation, though many face big hurdles if they choose to do so.

They don't have access to unemployment insurance, but Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced $125 million in assistance for up to 150,000 undocumented workers throughout the state. They'll receive one-time payments of $500 per worker or $1,000 per household, distributed through nonprofit organizations in different communities.

"If we lose hours, yes, it would be a big help," said Maria, assuming she's able to get it.

Some worker advocates have said it's something, but it's not enough.

The state said the program is expected to roll out in mid-May.

SCRAPING EVERYTHING TOGETHER

Maria's also looking at the 805 UndocuFund, a charity that aims to help undocumented families.

Ultimately, she may have to rely on her community for help. That's what happened the last time she lost substantial work. She had to turn to a local church for money and get loans from friends to pay her rent.

"[The landlord] sent me a piece of paper saying that if by this day you don't pay the rent, they can evict you. Can you imagine how that feels? I would cry, thinking about my kids," she said.

She's worried this year could be a repeat.

"It's not just me, it's thousands of people," she said, choking up.

Interviews in Spanish conducted by Leslie Berestein Rojas
The COVID-19 pandemic has, so far, managed to keep a lot of people indoors under a lockdown. These lockdowns aren't limited to just India, as other countries have set up similar social distancing measures in place.

South Korea, however, has been one of the very few countries to have managed to contain the COIVD-19 outbreak to a large extent.

Of course, South Korea isn't "fully safe" from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the country isn't enforcing stay-at-home orders. In fact, most businesses are open and people are confidently walking down the street going about their daily lives. And in case you're wondering, they've managed to take advantage of the technology to curb the spread.

Here's what we think India can learn from them in this situation:

 Reuters

Location-Tracking Bracelet

This sounds like a privacy nightmare, but a bracelet isn't for everybody. These location-tracking bracelets are only for those who violate quarantine. That way, it's easier to keep a track of them and trace all the contact points for better containment.

This method is far more reliable than using a contact-tracing app like Aarogya Setu in which people are easily fake the results.

Infrared Cameras To Detect Fevers

The South Korean government has devoted a ton of money to buy supplies to fight against COVID-19. One of the initiatives has been to install infrared cameras to detect fevers.

This is a great way to monitor a particular area with a lot of footfall and identify potential carriers of the virus.

Something like this could've been extremely handy in India, especially today since a lot of people are rushing to liquor shops to buy alcohol.

 Reuters

'Smart City' To Enhance Contact Tracing Networks

According to a Reuters report, South Korea has already started to build a "smart city" to monitor traffic and population.

They're now going to use the same infrastructure to fight COVID-19. The South Korean Health authorities are going to make use of CCTV footage, travel information and more to keep a track of the patients.

Using the "Smart City" data and the AI, it would not take more than roughly ten minutes to track a patient and his/ her travel history over the course of the day.

This, obviously, sounds like a huge project to undertake with a lot of security concerns, but we have got to start somewhere to reach a point where we can figure out the issues and look for a workaround.

 Reuters

Government's App To Track The Location

Yes, we already have a similar app in India called Aarogya Setu, which is why this is the last point in this story. However, the South Korean government, isn't making it mandatory to download the app for all. There, it's only for the people who arrive from overseas.

They have walk-through facilities that test anyone with symptoms for COVID-19 and the app is installed to make sure they can report back if they have any symptoms. It tracks their location and uses it to trace contact points.

So, while it's not mandatory for everyone, it still works to make sure the virus isn't spreading.

A Way Forward For India

It's worth pointing out that South Korea has very little population compared to that of India, so it's not going to be that simple to ensure the same steps are taken here. However, we have to start somewhere to see some noticeable results.

As of today, the numbers are still growing in India and a contact-tracing app alone isn't going to cut it. Also, Aarogya Setu cannot be perceived as the ultimate solution either. There are a ton of limitations of the app, so we need more solutions in place to start seeing some positive results.
Jean Todt is worried that the upper tiers of motor racing could lose the support of car manufacturers amid the corona crisis.

With countries locked down, racing series halted and an economic recession looming, the FIA president admitted the manufacturers may need to rethink their commitments.

"I don't think that the priority now for a manufacturer is to secure continuity in motor racing," he told Auto magazine.

"I'm sure some teams, suppliers and manufacturers may have to review their programs. They might be constrained to stop.

"I hope team owners and sponsors will keep the motivation. We must encourage them to feel they still like it and need it. On that, we have a responsibility. That's why we should listen to everybody.

"We must be humble. Even if we love motorsport, it is not essential for society. So we have to ensure that we make proper choices and wise decisions. In fact, what's needed is a complete rethink of how we go motor racing.

"We could talk of a 'New Deal' approach, like America had after the Great Depression," Todt said, referring to the government programs instigated by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

A big complication for F1 in particular is that many car manufacturers involved in motor racing are choosing the affordable and 'green' option of Formula E.

"I feel sorry for the guys running F1 now, as they have to consider the impact of Formula E," former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone told Autocar.

"I would have buried it. It would have saved all the arguments. It wouldn't have happened if I had been there.

"But now everyone is only talking about electric cars, so it would be a bit of a courageous thing now to go against it."

(GMM)
Donald Trump has predicted up to 100,000 Americans will die of coronavirus, but believes a vaccine will be available for US citizens by the end of the year.

The US presidents comments came in a Fox News virtual Town Hall on Sunday evening, when the US president fielded questions from viewers.

Were going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. Thats a horrible thing, we shouldnt lose one person over this, Mr Trump said while sat inside the Lincoln Memorial.

This should have been stopped in China. It should have been stopped. But if we didnt do it, the minimum we would have lost is a million-two, a million-four, million-five thats the minimum. We would have lost probably higher, its possible, higher than 2.2.

Asked by Fox News Bret Baier why he had revised his death toll prediction upwards  he had claimed no more than 70,000 deaths until Sunday  Mr Trump said: I used to say 65,000, and now Im saying 80 or 90, and it goes up and it goes up rapidly, but its still going to be no matter how you look at it at the very lower end of the plane if we did the shut down.

The comments came just hours after Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, told Fox News the administrations projection had always been between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives lost.

As of Sunday, there have been more than 68,000 confirmed deaths of people in the US who have contracted coronavirus.

Asked later about treatments for Covid-19, Mr Trump said: We are very confident that were going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year, have a vaccine.

He added: Many companies are I think close, because I meet with the heads of them, and I find it a very interesting subject, because its so important, but I think well have a vaccine by the end of the year.

Pressed on his prediction, Mr Trump said doctors would admonish him for saying so, but that he will say what I think.

Ive met with the heads of the big companies, these are great companies, he said. Yeah, I think were going to have a vaccine much sooner rather than later.

When asked if the vaccine would need to be designed in the US, Mr Turmp said: We have to get a vaccine. Whoever gets it, Im gonna be, Im gonna be their best fan in it, I want it, I need the vaccine, we need, this country needs the vaccine, and youre gonna have it by the end of the year.

Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Show all 11 1 /11 Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A demonstrator shouts next to two masked security guards at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan during a protest against stay-at-home orders AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Armed members of a milita group at the state Capitol building in Lansing, Michiga, during a protest against coronavirus lockdown measures REUTERS Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester at the state Capitol in Lansing holds a sign comparing Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer to Adolf Hitler during a demonstration against coronavirus lockdown measures AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan An armed protester takes part in a demonstation against lockdown measures at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan AP Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester holds a sign saying 'Bill Gates is evil' at a demonstration against stay-at-home orders at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan. Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and a billionaire philanthropist, has warned of the dangers of viral pandemics AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Protesters take part in a demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan against stay-at-home orders AFP/Getty Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester holds a pro-Trump sign at a demonstration against lockdown measures outside the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan Armed protesters take part in a demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan against lockdown measures during the coronavirus pandemic AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester holds a sign reading 'Every job is essential, get workers back to work safely now' during a demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan over lockdown measures AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester with a US flag painted on her face takes part in a demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan against lockdown measures during the coronavirus pandemic AFP via Getty Images Armed protests against stay-at-home coronavirus measures in Michigan A protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask holds up a sign reading 'Stay Free' during a demonstration against lockdown measures at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan AP

The presidents comments come amid an unprecedented national effort, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, to produce a vaccine by the years end.

The programme will pull together private drugs companies, government agencies and the US military in a bid to cut the development time from years to as little as eight months, Bloomberg reported.
When cyclones and other natural disasters strike a city or town, the social and economic impacts locally can be devastating. But these events also have ripple effects that can be felt in distant cities and regions -- even globally -- due to the interconnectedness of the world's urban trade networks.

In fact, a new study by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies finds that local economic impacts -- such as damage to factories and production facilities -- can trigger secondary impacts across the city's production and trade network. For the largest storms, they report, these impacts can account for as much as three-fourths of the total damage.

According to their findings, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, the extent of these secondary costs depends more on the structure of the production and supply networks for a particular city than on its geographic location. Regional cities that are dependent on their urban network for industrial supplies -- and that have access to relatively few suppliers-- are most vulnerable to these secondary impacts. Larger, global cities such as New York and Beijing, meanwhile, are more insulated from risks.

"Cities are strongly connected by flows of people, of energy, and ideas -- but also by the flows of trade and materials," said Chris Shughrue '18 Ph.D., lead author of the study which is based on his dissertation work at Yale. He is now a data scientist at StreetCred Labs in New York. "These connections have implications for vulnerability, particularly as we anticipate cyclones and other natural hazards to become more intense and frequent as a result of climate change over the coming decades."

The paper was co-authored by Karen Seto, a professor of geography and urbanization science at F&ES, and B.T. Werner, a professor from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

"This study is especially important in the context of climate impacts on urban areas," Seto said. "Whereas we tend to consider a city's vulnerability to climate change as limited to local events, this study shows that we need to rethink this conceptualization. It shows that disasters have a domino effect through urban networks."

Using a simulation coupled with a global urban trade network model -- which maps the interdependencies of cities worldwide -- the researchers show how simulated disasters in one location can trigger a catastrophic domino effect.

The global spread of damage was particularly acute when cyclones occurred in cities of North America and East Asia, largely because of their outsize role in global trade networks -- as purchasers and suppliers, respectively -- and because these regions are particularly susceptible to cyclone events.

Often, adverse impacts are primarily caused by a spike in material prices, followed by production losses to purchasers. These production losses eventually can cause industrial shortages, which can then induce additional cycles of price spikes and shortages throughout the production chain.

Similar outcomes have been borne out following real world disasters. For instance, when catastrophic flooding occurred in Queensland, Australia, the impact on coking coal production prompted a 25-percent spike in the global costs. And the economic impacts of Hurricane Katrina extended far beyond New Orleans for several years after the historic storm.

While the example of cyclones can act as a proxy for other isolated disasters -- such as the 2011 tsunami in Japan which caused global economic disruptions, particularly in the auto sector -- the researchers say the findings are particularly relevant in terms of climate-related natural events.

"To be resilient to climate change is not only about building dikes and sea walls, but understanding a city's supply chains and how they are linked to other cities that may be vulnerable," Seto said.

###
The US endpoint of the AMX-1 subsea cable between the US and Brazil is to be hosted by JaxNAP.

Seaborn Networks, a developer-owner-operator of transoceanic subsea fibre optic cable systems, and Jacksonvilles Network Access Point (JaxNAP), servicing specific needs, data centre needs and local area networks in Northeast Florida, have announced that JaxNAP will host Seaborn as the endpoint for the AMX-1 subsea cable between Jacksonville, Florida and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

This system provides customers with a direct, low-latency and high-availability route. Seaborn will offer its full Wavelength suite: highly scaled MEF-compatible ethernet and IP services that provide direct connectivity to its internet backbone (AS13786). High-capacity integration into the Seabras-1 cable system will also enable the company to deliver fully protected services between the US and Brazil.

Jacksonvilles Network Access Point not only offers direct overland connections to Dallas, Atlanta, and all of north-eastern Florida with its 34 carriers. It also connects Central and South America, the Caribbean, and other distant regions via its subsea cable connections.

Seaborn Networks portfolio of submarine fibre optic cable systems includes Seabras-1 between Sao Paulo and New York. Seabras-1 is described as the only direct POP to POP system between Sao Paulo and New York metro, offering the lowest latency route between the B3 exchange in Sao Paulo and the trading exchanges of New Jersey.
Brisbane City Council returns to regular council meetings on Tuesday, a month after the election - but with a difference.

All meetings will be held online and streamed on the council's website, with committee meetings in the morning followed by the major chamber meeting at 2pm.

Brisbane council will return to work on Tuesday. Credit:Lucy Stone

One special council meeting was held shortly after the Electoral Commission of Queensland completed the election count, to swear in the new councillors through online platform Zoom.

Now, for the foreseeable future, the chamber at City Hall will be empty of councillors while some new rules will govern how debate is managed over the council.
04.05.2020 LISTEN

To teach people how to drive a car, use a computer, operate advanced machinery in factories takes a reasonable time. Repeating the information over and over again even helps these people to learn and improve on their performance faster. To teach a smoker to stop smoking for better health, an overweight person to eat less and exercise more, an alcoholic to reduce the intake of wine and spirits and me to reduce the intake of sweets (as my wife constantly complaints); so to change habits, behaviour we are so familiar and comfortable with takes years without end.

For peoples to change as nations is a painful process. Positive results only can be seen over generations to follow based on a constant exposure of the truth and reminding that only the truth eventually will set a nation free and see the light at the end of the tunnel. Lecturers like me know that young children to teach and for them to absorb information and change their mind in the cause of information is a constant effort to repeat information in very small doses while with A-Level or University students information intack is faster as they are trained to receive information, work them through and implement them into their daily life with a changed, improved mind able to build information is constantly on the increase with information basis inherited from others. The success story for any Lecturer is to see his students grow: Correct information, truth and persistence...pressing on always.

History book is a great piece of information and advice. Germans are very familiar that during the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler and during the socialist ear in former East-Germany for people to survive was a life as double-minded people. They had their own opinion but once expressed it could easily end their lives for which they turned to lies during the day while speaking their minds behind closed doors during the night. This was the life-style for Millions "ordinary" Germans but found as well at the top of these two former societies. Fear is never a good advisor but a brave heart and clear, loving mind is (be reminded of King David and Goliath).

African societies are, based on their historic development and unfortunate interference by Whites, in the dark hands of tribalism. While we from Hamburg would never do harm to people from Bavaria for their cultural attitudes rather laugh about each other`s "unexplainable" differences, in Africa this often means villages kill inhabitants of neighbouring villages over land dispute and general hate. Ghana, especially in the North with Military stationed to keep the peace, is no difference.

Unlike other African countries where civil unrest causes deadly clashes, this country lives under a glass dome covering the whole of the country with lies in every corner. Located and isolated in the middle of West Africa surrounded by Muslim or/and French-speaking countries themselves facing poverty, have no place to go in the event of civil war. For them to stay afloat in this situation as not only being peaceful people at heart, they have developed the culture of lies, from top to down and among themselves. Unlike Arab Spring taking people to the streets to end a system that haunted them Ghanaians would, as for now, most likely not do that rather accept loud noise against corrupt leaders to bring out their anger and frustration and in the end vote for the same system/political parties that steal a good future from them over and over again.

Foreign observers listening to conversations between Ghanaians of different levels and backgrounds, their words and ideas used and expressed cannot stop wondering about them but will certainly understand their situation and why Ghana is not moving ahead as it should to be the Leader of Africa and subsequently, in generations to come, the Ruler of the world. For critical and open-minded observers from outside to hear any Ghanaian conversation is a great astonishment, reason to have a good laugh while at the same time good reason to shake its head again and again. Leaders of a country as of now in e.g. Ghana are the expression of the socialisation of a people with the conclusion representatives born in the system and culture of the country can never break the chain. It took Alexander The Great, an outsider, to see the knot of Gordon torching the local people for generations to lift his sword, cut it into half and end misery for the people.

Africa: it is time for you to learn from history and move into the right direction!

NB: From 100 men in Whites society 20-30 cheat on their wives while in Ghana/Africa 70-80 out of 100 men cheat on their wives with Christian rich businessmen having the mentality to marry more than one wife and doing so. My own partner in Accra has a Christian father that married 5 ladies, made 75 children out of which 48 are still alive today.
The Biogen conference in Boston earlier this year that became a major spreader of the coronavirus in Massachusetts is now being recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as having played a notable role in early transmission of COVID-19 nationally.

Of the 175 people who attended the Cambridge-based biotech companys meeting from Feb. 26 to Feb. 27, more than 100 later tested positive for the viral respiratory infection. Cases connected to the conference eventually popped up in other states, including Indiana, North Carolina and Tennessee.

According to a report written by Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, the number of coronavirus cases in the United States were low and contained for most of February. In the last week of the month, though, multiple big social gatherings led the illness to spread significantly.

Various gatherings of persons from different locations, followed by return to their home communities, played a notable role in the early U.S. spread of COVID-19, she wrote. However, during the last week of February, several large events led to further spread of the disease.

Other gatherings that contributed to national transmission of COVID-19 included Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, Louisiana, which garnered more than 1 million attendees, as well as a funeral in Albany, Georgia, which drew more than 100 people.

In the weeks after the three events, amplifications in the host locations led to increasing U.S. case counts. For January and most of February, federal and local jurisdictions did not recommend restrictions on gatherings, but in mid-March officials started issuing restrictions.

The substantial transmissibility of the virus and severity of COVID-19 triggered a series of recommendations, beginning in mid-March, to limit mass gatherings and travel," Schuchat wrote.

The CDC found that continued foreign introduction of the virus contributed to the acceleration of U.S. coronavirus cases in March. Though air travel from China to the United States decreased by 86% from January to February, many passengers were still coming over from Italy, which later became a global epicenter for the illness.

Strains of the virus from northern California in February and March and sequencing of strains in New York City indicated multiple introductions of the disease due to international travel from Europe, according to Schuchat.

During February, 139,305 travelers arrived from Italy and 1.74 million from all Schengen countries, where the outbreak was spreading widely and rapidly, she wrote said. Travelers from Italy and all Schengen countries decreased 74% to 35,877 and 50% to 862,432, respectively, in March.

The Cambridge biotech companys meeting drew several top Biogen managers from throughout the world to the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel. After leaving the city, attendees spread the disease unknowingly. By March 17, half of the Massachusetts total COVID-19 cases were linked to the conference.

As of Sunday, nearly 68,100 people in Massachusetts have been diagnosed with the respiratory infection, and more than 4,000 people have died from the disease, according to the state Department of Public Health.

DPH started including the number of positive diagnosed connected to the meeting in its daily releases of statewide coronavirus data but stopped doing so in late March.

Biogen has since donated millions of dollars to help fight the public health crisis and has provided medical equipment and supplies to Partners HealthCare.

The company also asked employees who were diagnosed with the disease to contribute blood samples to a biobank so scientists can use them to search for potential vaccines and to develop recommended treatments, which do not currently exist.

The Cambridge-based business did not respond to a request for comment from MassLive about the CDCs recent report.

Related Content:
New Delhi: Independent India's largest evacuation effort is all set to begin to get back its citizen stranded abroad due to coronavirus crisis. As many as 1,92,000 people will be evacuated in the first phase of the exercise starting May 7th with the focus being on the gulf.

UAE will be the first country from were India will start the evacuation with the first two Air India flights landing in Kerala on the 7th. One flight will go from Abu Dhabi to Kochi and another from Dubai to Kozhikode on that day. A number of stranded Indians have registered themselves for the evacuation.

India's envoy to UAE Pavan Kapoor told WION, "I am glad that we are starting this process of repatriation for those who urgently need to return to India. We look forward to working closely with the UAE authorities to make this process as smooth and efficient as we can."

India will first start evacuation of its citizens from Maldives and Bangladesh. On 8th May, 700 Indians will be evacuated from Male to Kochi by Indian Naval ship.

In the 2nd phase, India will start evacuation of its citizens from Iran, USA, UK and Malaysia, as Indian missions across the world are already preparing a list of distressed Indian citizens.

Sources told WION, "Data collection ongoing in most Missions, with some looking at dates for evacuation and making all necessary arrangements accordingly."

Several missions have opened registration for the stranded Indians. Around 11,000 stranded Indians have registered with Indian mission in Moscow, 1200 in New Zealand, 390 Indian nationals have so far registered with High Commission of Nairobi. In fact, 5 Indians in Somalia also registered them to come back home.

Only asymptomatic passengers would be allowed to travel and Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) for the evacuation had been prepared in this regard. "State governments are being advised to make arrangements, including for testing, quarantine and onward movement of the returning Indians in their respective States", MHA in a statement said.

The evacuation will only be on "compelling grounds" and will be done via planes and naval ships on payment basis and non-scheduled commercial flights would be arranged for air travel. During the evacuation, all health protocols like social distancing norms will have to be followed.

INS Jalashwa, Indian Navy's largest amphibious platform (Landing Platform Dock), is likely to be sent for the evacuation. It can carry 1000 troops. With the current social distancing, norms can be expected to carry 500-700 people. Two to 3 Landing Ship Tanks (LST) are likely to be deployed. India has 2 class of LST-- Magar class and Shardul.

The evacuees after reaching their destination would have to register on the Aarogya Setu app which has been developed to alert about the novel coronavirus. After being medically screened, they will be quarantined for 14 days in a hospital or in an institutional quarantine on payment-basis by the state governments, followed by the COVID-19 test by end of the given period.

Earlier this year, India brought back approximately 2500 of its citizens and 48 foreign nationals from China, Japan, Iran and Italy in various evacuations it mounted.

2015 Operation Raahat saw India bringing back around 4600 of its citizens while Operation Sankat Mochan of 2016 brought back 600 Indian nationals from South Sudan. In 2011, Operation Safe Homecoming was launched to bring back 15000 Indians from war-torn Libya.

The first decade of the century witnessed Operation Sukoon in which the Indian Navy brought back 1764 Indians in one of the largest evacuation operations conducted by it since World War II.
Tim Felling came from Iowa to attend law school at the University of Oregon about 22 years ago. He was shocked to discover that Oregon didnt require unanimous jury verdicts except in murder cases.

I was totally outraged. I was like, This cant possibly be. Its such a strange thing.  I was floored, said Felling, now an Albany-based criminal defense attorney. I grew up in the Midwest and the unanimous jury verdict is so integral to a fair justice system.

He said that he viewed a unanimous jury verdict as a crucial right for a citizen of the United States.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against non-unanimous jury verdicts in 6-3 vote, and the decision could have far-reaching impacts. Oregon was the only state remaining that allowed split verdicts.

Linn County District Attorney Doug Marteeny said that there wouldnt be much of an effect on day-to-day operations in Linn County Circuit Court. I trust our juries and their abilities to reach right decisions, he added.

However, there would be appeals and new retrials in split verdict cases as a result, Marteeny said. There are only a handful of cases on direct appeal on this issue right now from Linn County, Marteeny said.

The majority of verdicts are unanimous, he said.

Marteeny wondered if verdicts could be overturned where there was a unanimous verdict, however. One case with a unanimous verdict is being appealed because the jury instructions said that a 10-2 verdict was acceptable, Marteeny said.

Felling said that the Oregon Supreme Court was currently reviewing about 75 non-unanimous jury verdict cases around the state.

He celebrated the U.S. Supreme Courts decision, saying that his entire legal career, defense attorneys in Oregon had lobbied against non-unanimous verdicts. Every four years or so, there was a groundswell of challenges, Felling said.

Felling added that he believed minorities were convicted disproportionately higher than whites in non-unanimous jury verdicts, and that Oregon has racism baked into its constitution. Weve been trying to remedy that for years, Felling said.

In 1934, Oregon voters decided to amend the state constitution to allow split-jury verdicts  a decision fueled by white supremacy and anti-minority sentiment.

The Supreme Court decision has finally ended an unjust rule with a shameful past in Oregon, said professor Aliza Kaplan, director of the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland.

The ruling was made on April 20.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the practice is inconsistent with the Constitutions right to a jury trial and that it should be discarded as a vestige of Jim Crow laws in Louisiana and racial, ethnic and religious bigotry that led to its adoption in Oregon in the 1930s.

The Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Evangelisto Ramos. He was sentenced to life in prison in Louisiana for killing a woman after a jury voted 10-2 to convict him in 2016. In 2018, Louisiana voters changed the law for crimes committed beginning in 2019.

Felling wasnt sure of a percentage of Oregon cases where the jury wasnt unanimous. Many defense attorneys didnt poll juries until recent years, when it became clear that the Ramos case could be overturned and impact Oregons unusual non-unanimous verdict law, as well.

The defense community and the prosecutors both saw this coming through the pipeline, Felling said.

Retrials could be difficult, as witnesses must be found again years later, as well as evidence, Felling said. Some victims may not want to go through the trial process again, he said.

The Supreme Courts 6-3 decision didnt occur on typical liberal or conservative lines.

Felling said that the weird alignment of ideologies occurred because the ruling will set a precedent, making it easier for the Supreme Court to overturn its own precedents. The Supreme Court previously decided in favor of Oregon in the matter of non-unanimous verdicts in 1972.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissenting opinion in the recent matter, saying that the doctrine of stare decisis  the principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent  received rough treatment.

Lowering the bar for overruling our precedents, a badly fractured majority casts aside an important and long-established decision with little regard for the enormous reliance the decision has engendered. If the majoritys approach is not just a way to dispose of this one case, the decision marks an important turn, Alito wrote.

Marteeny said that for lawyers, the ruling was fascinating because it could set the tone for how willing the current Supreme Court could be to override itself.

The ruling here will have repercussions far beyond the criminal justice arena, Marteeny said. I predict that any revisiting of the Roe v. Wade decision will cite Ramos, he added.

Sections in this article are by Associated Press reporter Andrew Selsky.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0

Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan Foundation (GJF) says the current COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the continent is exposing the long history of failure of governance in African continent.

The Foundation added that if not addressed promptly it might lead to the collapse of many African states.

The foundation stated this during her first edition of its flagship programme Policy Dialogue Series held during the weekend with the theme COVID-19, Peace and Security in Africa: Impact, Risk and Mitigation.

The foundation said in a communique on Monday that the rationale for the series of dialogue was to create awareness on some of the effects the African continent faced in the wake of the global pandemic.

The communique was signed by its Executive Director, Ann Iyonu.

The dialogue attracted participants from many nations, including Kenya, Gabon, Uganda, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Nigeria and was used to examine the impacts and risks associated with the pandemic on peace and security in Africa.

The online dialogue was also used to seek approaches and strategies for mitigating such impacts in the light of current realities and the fragile nature of some African States.

It, however, called on African leaders to look inward and develop country-specific, original and organic solutions that spoke to peace and security issues, taking advantage of the talents, skills, and experiences that abound within the continent.

It urged African States and the continent as a whole to go beyond rhetoric and start collaborating and leveraging on their comparative advantage.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposes the vulnerability of many communities, placing citizens at a high risk of recruitment by extremist groups.

There is a tendency for African leaders in their attempt to end the cycle of infection of the virus to shift focus or be blind to the peace and security issues facing the continent.

READ ALSO:

Shutting down tertiary institutions during this period of crisis is counterproductive to the growth and development of the continent as the pandemic presents an opportunity for African leaders to leverage on technology and ensure that learning continues.

The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing the long history of failure of governance in the continent and if this is not addressed it may lead to the collapse of many African States.

Economic concerns are beginning to take priority over the health, peace and security of citizens.

The current approach of city-wide lockdowns and movement restriction denies citizens access to their safe spaces and other forms of human rights, increase in reported cases of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the continent.

The needs of women, the youth and other vulnerable groups are often neglected in emergency response situations as posed by the current pandemic.

The dialogue tasked leaders across the continent to develop a robust database and clinical evidence about the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa.

It noted that the measure would help in developing the appropriate approach in tackling the impact and risks associated with the health crisis.

(NAN)
TDT | Manama

Bahrain Diabetes Society (BDS) has organised for the first time a remote ceremony to honour competitors in the Walk Challenge through the Visual Communication Technology (VCT).

It was held under the patronage of Supreme Council of Health (SCH) president Lieutenant General Dr Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Khalifa. In the speech, Dr Shaikh Mohammed stressed that the Walk Challenge contest is one of the key programmes aimed at tackling obesity in the Bahraini society.

He noted that it is one of the main causes of diabetes and other chronic diseases which have social, health and financial effects on individuals, governments and society. Dr Shaikh Mohammed affirmed that the Walk Challenge is a first-of-its-kind initiative in Bahrain and the Gulf.

He added it has received large scale support and saw massive participation from all age categories. He pointed out that the competition has become a comprehensive awareness programme to curb obesity and the complications of diabetes and chronic diseases.

For her part, Public Health assistant undersecretary and BDS vice-president Dr Mariam Al Hajeri said the second edition of the competition was organised over three months, from January 25 to April 23 of this year, starting from Riffa walkway in the Southern Governorate.

She noted that the contest aims to help Bahraini society adopt healthy walking as a lifestyle and maintain a healthy weight to prevent non-communicable diseases in the long run.

At the end of the ceremony, BDS awareness and media committee head Dr Kawthar Al Eid held a raffle draw with prizes for 17 winners who participated in the initiative. Meanwhile, the SCH president inaugurated the BDS website which represents a comprehensive media and awareness platform.
COLUMBUS  Logan Stiner was just days from high school graduation when his brother found him unresponsive in their familys home southwest of Cleveland in May 2014.

Stiner, 18, died of cardiac arrhythmia and seizure from acute caffeine toxicity, a coroner ruled. He had more than 70 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of blood in his system _as much as 23 times the amount found in the system of a typical coffee or soda drinker.

Whats undisputed is that Stiner ingested powdered caffeine given to him by a friend who bought it on Amazon and was using it as a pre-workout boost.

The question is what, if any, liability Amazon had in Stiners death.

The Ohio Supreme Court plans Wednesday to hear arguments for and against a lawsuit brought by Stiners family arguing that the online retail giant, as the company that shipped the product, should be held responsible under Ohio product liability law. A decision isnt expected for several weeks.

Attorneys for Stiners father say the company was not a neutral platform in the powders sale but promoted it, introduced it to Stiners friend as a customer and played an indispensable role in its sale.

The idea that Amazon cannot be a `supplier because it did not physically touch or take title to the product at issue ignores both the manner in which e-commerce is conducted today and Amazons crucial role in recommending the deadly powder, Brian Balser, a lawyer for Dennis Stiner, said in written arguments last year.

Lawyers for Amazon say the company doesnt meet the definition of a supplier under Ohio law _ ownership, control and hands-on actions with a product. They note that Stiners friend has testified she chose to click on the product she then bought.

Amazon never touched the product, and third parties provided all of the website content and delivered the product directly to the purchaser, Joyce Edelman, an attorney for Amazon, said in a December 2019 court filing.

In 2015, the governor at the time, Republican John Kasich, signed into law a bill inspired by Stiners death that banned the sale of pure powdered caffeine in Ohio.

Two lower courts ruled against Stiners family, and both the Ohio and U.S. chambers of commerce have urged the Ohio Supreme Court to uphold those decisions.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia is reviewing a lawsuit against Amazon brought by a Pennsylvania woman who was blinded in one eye after a retractable dog leash she bought snapped and hit her.

In that case, a three-judge panel ruled last year that Amazon could be sued over a defective product sold by one of its third-party vendors. That ruling was then vacated when the full court agreed to hear the case.

The Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers to avoid pure powdered caffeine. Even a teaspoon could be lethal. It is equivalent to about 25 cups of regular coffee, the FDA says.

In 2018, the FDA said supplements consisting of pure or highly concentrated caffeine in powder or liquid forms, often sold in bulk, are generally unlawful when sold directly to consumers.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Construction of the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline starts simultaneously in Poland and Denmark so that Poland and other countries in the region, including Ukraine, could become energy independent of Russia.

A corresponding statement was made at a joint press briefing of President of Poland Andrzej Duda, Polish Government Commissioner for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Piotr Naimski, and CEO of GAZ-SYSTEM Tomasz Stepien in Warsaw on Monday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"There is very good news for Poland not only for short term but  I truly believe  for decades. The construction of the Baltic Pipe starts. This gas pipeline will run from the Norwegian Sea shelf to Denmark and then from Denmark to Poland, on our coast from the Baltic Sea to Trzesacz point," Duda said.

He added that the Baltic Pipe should be put into operation on October 1, 2022.

The Polish leader specified that the annual Baltic Pipe throughput will be about 10 billion cubic meters of gas. This figure exceeds Poland's gas needs so Poland wants to become a "gas hub for this part of Europe". Duda noted that Poland wanted to supply gas from the Norwegian Sea shelf to neighboring countries within the framework of the Three Seas Initiative, as well as to Ukraine, due to the construction of interconnectors.

It is very important that Poland becomes one of the guarantors of Ukraine's energy security, which, as we know, suffered from Russia's gas and energy blackmail for many years. In this regard, this element is very important for sovereignty and full independence, the President of Poland said.

As a reminder, the so-called Yamal Contract between Poland and Russia, signed in 1996, provides for the supply of about 10 billion cubic meters of gas every year. Under the take-or-pay formula imposed by Gazprom on a Polish company, PGNiG must buy at least 8.7 billion cubic meters of gas annually (until 2022). Poland tries to diversify its energy supply sources, reducing dependence on Russia. The construction of the Baltic Pipe is crucial to Poland. Poland also buys liquefied gas from the US, Qatar, and Norway.

Recently, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce ruled that the price of gas in the Yamal Contract failed to reflect the price level on the market and was overstated.

ol
Click here to read the full article.

Saks Fifth Avenue is getting ready to launch a digital mental health initiative as part of its Saks at Home campaign.

The mental health initiatives, which launch Tuesday, will highlight some of the organizations that Saks is partnering with in May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. The Saks Fifth Avenue Foundation aims to increase understanding of the issues around the topic, improve access to care and promote skills that build positive mental health.

On May 5, the charity spotlight will be Glenn Closes organization Bring Change to Mind and will feature Close herself on Saks Instagram Stories. She will share information on her charity as well as some self-care tips on how to promote mental and emotional health during the COVID-19 pandemic. She will also speak about ways the community can help others.

On May 12, Hunter McGrady, a Curve model and body positive activist, will take over Saks social platform for the day on Instagram Stories and the Instagram feed for the Jed Foundation.

On May 19, Jewel will perform on Saks IGTV for the Never Broken charity. She will be singing one new song and one hit, and also explain the importance of mental wellness. Lana Condor, an actress from the Netflix hit To All the Boys Ive Loved Before and X-Men: Apocalypse, will participate on behalf of New York-Presbyterian Youth Anxiety Center on Saks Instagram Stories on May 26.

Emily Essner, senior vice president, marketing and digital at Saks, said, During these challenging times, weve adapted our marketing strategy to fit the current climate while continuing to support our customers and business. We introduced our #SaksAtHome series based on polling data from our followers and we are providing inspiring content across our digital channels.

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we are working with our Saks Fifth Avenue Foundation partners to share messages on the importance of mental wellbeing, tips for self-care and ways to support friends and family, Essner said.

Story continues

The Saks Fifth Avenue Foundation is committed to increasing awareness and improving access to necessary tools and resources. Now more than ever, it is important for Saks to use our platform to make mental health a priority in every community and continue to lessen the stigma often associated with mental health issues, she added.

The Saks at Home series, which launched in March on Instagram and e-mail, has seen some healthy upticks in performance across all the retailers digital platforms. The series features home-centric content, such as cooking, self-care, fitness, organization tips and cozy fashion. Average Instagram Stories impressions for some stories have nearly doubled, and they are seeing an increase in completion rates. Some of the stores more self-care online sales categories have also seen double-digit or triple-digit growth. Sleep/loungewear, for example, is up double digits and beauty/fragrance has seen triple-digit growth, said a Saks spokeswoman.

Since 2017, the foundation has invested more than $3 million in U.S. mental health initiatives and reached nearly 2 million individuals. Saks has recently given more than $900,000 in donations to various organizations to support COVID-19 relief, including New York-Presbyterian, Columbia University Medical Center, Girls Inc., Bring Change to Mind and A Common Thread.

Best of WWD

Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
She welcomed her first child, a daughter named Maven Aria, over four months ago.

And Rachel Riley was enjoying some fresh air when she stepped out with her baby girl on Monday, accompanied by her mother-in-law.

The 34-year-old Countdown star was in high spirits as she strolled along, laughing at a message on her phone.

Stepping out: Rachel Riley was enjoying some fresh air when she stepped out with baby girl on Monday morning

Rachel lovingly cradled baby Maven close to her chest as she headed out with the youngster in a papoose.

The TV personality was dressed down for her outing, wrapping up warm in a cosy faux fur jacket.

She sported comfy jeans and simple trainers for her walk, wearing a pair of shades pushed back on top of her head.

Rachel is currently on maternity leave from her Countdown role and has been spending quality time with her baby daughter and husband Pasha Kovalev.

Animated: The 34-year-old Countdown star was in high spirits as she strolled along, laughing at a message on her phone

Family outing: The star was also accompanied by her mother-in-law during her one-hour outdoor exercise time

Rachel's outing comes after she won the first round in her legal battle against one of Jeremy Corbyn's closest aides.

A High Court judge ruled that the comments posted online by Laura Murray, head of complaints for the Labour party, against the TV star showed a 'defamatory tendency'.

Mr Justice Nicklin also said the description of Rachel was defamatory within common law.

Sweet: Rachel lovingly cradled baby Maven close to her chest as she headed out with the youngster in a papoose

Keeping it casual: The TV personality was dressed down for her outing, wrapping up warm in a cosy faux fur jacket

Maternity leave: Rachel has been spending quality time with her baby daughter and husband Pasha Kovalev

The legal action followed a Twitter row between Riley and Murray, after former Labour leader Corbyn had an egg thrown at him outside a mosque in Finsbury Park, London on March 4 last year.

Murray said a post retweeted by Riley compared Corbyn to a Nazi and inferred he deserved to be attacked.

In a tweet that has since been removed, Murray wrote: 'Today Jeremy Corbyn went to his local mosque for visit my mosque day, and was attacked by a Brexiteer.

'Rachel Riley tweets that Corbyn deserves to be violently attacked because he is a Nazi.

Cute: Little Maven was bundled up in a bear onesie and a leopard print papoose

Legal battle: Rachel's outing comes after she won the first round in her legal battle against one of Jeremy Corbyn's closest aides

'This woman is as dangerous as she is stupid. Nobody should engage with her. Ever.'

In response, Riley - who is Jewish - launched legal action against Murray.

Legal papers lodged at the High Court alleged that the TV star's reputation has been 'seriously damaged' and she has been caused 'substantial anxiety, humiliation, upset and distress' because of Murray's tweet.

Losing the opening round of their legal battle means Murray now potentially faces having to prove that Riley would support violent action against Corbyn to defend the 50,000 libel case.

Riley launched her legal action a year ago as the anti-Semitism row raged within the Labour Party.

Claim: Laura Murray, head of complaints for the Labour party and an aide of Jeremy Corbyn, claimed a post retweeted by Riley compared Corbyn to a Nazi
Home  Just In  Covid-19 tally of Nepalis in Kuwait reaches 84

Kathmandu, May 4

The Nepali Embassy in Kuwait says the number of Nepalis infected with the novel coronavirus in the Gulf country has reached 84 as of Sunday.

Recently, nine Nepalis tested positive for the virus. Kuwaits national tally has reached 4,983.

Meanwhile, the embassy has urged Nepalis working and living in Kuwait to adopt necessary preventative measures to protect themselves from the virus. They have been told to have a medical checkup whenever they suspect themselves of infection.

The embassy says the migrant workers should consult the embassy or their employers when they are deprived of foodstuffs, regular pay, or any essentials there.
A Delhi court Monday dismissed an application offormerJNU studentand anti-CAA activistSharjeel Imam, booked under stringent anti-terror law -- Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act -- seekingbail on the ground that theinvestigationwas not concluded within the statutory period of 90 days.

Imam was arrested on January 28 from Bihar in the case related to violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act near the Jamia Millia Islamia University in December last year.The statutory period 90 days would have concluded on April 27.

In the application, he contended that the trial court'sApril25order extending the period of investigation in the case to 90 days more is bad in law.

Rejecting the contention, Additional Sessions JudgeDharmenderRana, said the orderextendingperiod of investigationwas passed before expiry of statutory time period of 90 days.

Since the time period to conclude investigation has already been extended as per section 43 D (2) of UAPA, I am of the considered opinion that application for release of the accused on statutory bail is bereft of merits and the same is accordingly dismissed, the court said.

Section 43-D (2) of UAPA provides that if it is not possible to complete the investigation within the 90 days period, then upon the report of the public prosecutor indicating the progress of the probe and the specific reasons for the detention of the accused beyond the 90 days period, after satisfaction, the court can extend the period of probe to 180 days.

Imam is currently lodged in Guwahati jail in a case related to UAPA registered by the Assam police.

The counsel for Imam argued thatthe investigating agency did notconcludethe probewithin the specified time limitandhence the accused has an indefeasible right to be released onstatutorybail.

The lawyer submitted that although on April 25, period of investigation was extended for a further period of 90 days by a Roster Judge, that order is notinconsonance withthestatutory provisions.

The counsel further contended thatthecourt which passed the order for extension of probe period wasnot competent enoughand no reportwasfiled by the public prosecutor andthustheorderwas nonest(does not exist)in the eyesoflaw.

Even no notice was served upontheaccused before extension of time and in the absence of any notice, the courtcouldnot have extended the statutory time period, he submitted.

Additional PublicProsecutoropposed the application saying the Roster Judge was empoweredto deal with the application under the UAPAand waswell within his powers to entertain and disposeofthe application of the prosecutor for extension of time.

The prosecutor argued that thecounsel for the accused was duly intimated byway of WhatsApp about the application and despite intimation the counsel opted not to appear before thecourtand now the accused cannot cry foul.

The trial court had on April 25given 90 days more to the police to complete their investigation in the case.

The order was passed after thepolicehad told the court that due to global COVID-19 pandemic in the country and the ongoing lockdown, the pace of investigation was seriously disrupted.

The police further informed the court that they are yet to interrogate the members of WhatsApp group Muslim students of JNU, persons who provided their accounts to arrange for money to get printed the pamphlets and Imam's friendsandpersonswho initially video recorded the speech at Jamia areyettobe identified.

It said thatresultsin respect of hard diskof laptop and the mobile phoneand the alleged videosareyettobe receivedfromthe forensic lab and therepliesfrom Facebook, Twitter and Cert-Inareyet to bereceivedandanalysedand therequisite sanctions are also to be obtained.

Initially a case under section124 A (sedition) and 153AIPC (promoting enmity between classes)and 505(statementsconducing to public mischief)of the Indian Penal Code was registered at the Crime Branch, New Delhi, pursuant tothe alleged speechesaddressedby Imam, allegedly instigating a particular religious section of the society to disrupt/block the access to North East region ofIndia from rest of India, police claimed.

The police had earlier charged Imam with sedition, alleging his speech promoted enmity between people that led to riots.

The mob indulged in large-scale rioting, stone-pelting and arson, and in the process destroyed several public and private properties whilea number ofpolice personnel and people were injured in the riots, thepolice had told thecourt.

Imam was arrested fromBihar''sJehanabad on January 28.

He was involved inorganisingprotests at ShaheenBagh 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.

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.)
The White House is continuing an effort to restrain coronavirus task force members from testifying in Congress  extending a new policy to all members of the team amid scrutiny of the administration's response to the crisis.

The move comes after the White House blocked Dr. Anthony Fauci from testifying before an oversight hearing by the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday, calling the under-oath session 'counter-productive.'

The policy extends through the month, when U.S. coronavirus infections and deaths could be cresting.

'For the month of May, no task force members, or key deputies of task force members, may accept hearing invitations,' according to a White House memo, Real Clear Politics reported, with exceptions only with 'the express approval of the chief of staff.'

Fauci is expected to testify in the Senate, where Republicans are in control, and where clearance has been obtained.

BLOCKED: The White House is not allowing Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before Congress next week. Other officials must limit their appearances without express authorization from the White House chief of staff

It was not immediately clear to what extent the new policy would shut out the House from conducting oversight. The Democratic-run House Oversight Committee is demanding records on a coronavirus outbreak on the USS Roosevelt, but says it has gotten nothing.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted the move, and suggested it was linked to new funding the administration needs while taking a shot at Trump's daily coronavirus briefings.

'I was hoping they would spend more time on the crisis instead of those daily shows that the president put on,' she told CNN. 'We need to allocate resources for this. In order to do that, any appropriations bill must begin in the House, and we have to have the information to act upon,' she added.

'So the fact that they said were too busy being on TV to come to the Capitol is, well, business as usual for them. But it is not business that will be helpful to addressing this.'

The extent of the crackdown was not immediately clear. 'No more than one COVID-related hearing should be agreed to with the departments primary House and Senate authorizing committee and appropriations subcommittee for the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department,' the Hill reported.

Word of the order regarding Fauci, who has built a national profile, broke Friday afternoon, on a week when Fauci appeared at one White House coronavirus task force briefing but had been absent at others.

Coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx called the behavior of Michigan's mask-less protesters 'devastatingly worrisome' on 'Fox News Sunday.' The White House is banning task force members from testifying before Congress under oath without express permission

White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx (L) and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar attend an announcement that the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval for the antiviral drug remdesivir in the Oval Office at the White House May 01, 2020 in Washington, DC

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a meeting between President Donald Trump and Gov. John Bel Edwards, D-La., about the coronavirus response, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, April 29, 2020, in Washington. Task force members have made regular appearances beside Trump

'The Appropriations Committee sought Dr. Anthony Fauci as a witness at next week's Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee hearing on COVID-19 response. We have been informed by an administration official that the White House has blocked Dr. Fauci from testifying,' House Appropriations panel spokesman Evan Hollander said in a statement.

He didn't identify the official who blocked Fauci from appearing at the Wednesday hearing.

Although the House is out of session this week on the recommendation of the Capitol physician, its committees are seeking to resume some oversight, including remotely. The Senate came back in session on Monday.

Fauci is scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee May 12.

White House spokesman Judd Deere confirmed in a statement that the White House opposed his appearance before the powerful subpanel panel, which provides spending for health and labor programs.

'While the Trump Administration continues its whole-of-government response to COVID-19, including safely opening up America again and expediting vaccine development, it is counter-productive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at Congressional hearings,' said Deere.

BUSY SCHEDULE: Dr. Anthony Fauci (L), director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases speaks next to Response coordinator for White House Coronavirus Task Force Deborah Birx, during a meeting with US President Donald Trump and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards D-LA in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on April 29, 2020

Reporters have sometimes quizzed Fauci on controversial statements by President Trump about the virus

Fauci has sometimes attended White House briefings that have gone on for up to two hours, even speaking to the nation about the virus through early morning television interviews. He has also appeared on podcasts and other platforms to communicate with people about the disease.

The clash comes as Trump called for a 'pause' on coronavirus relief, even as Pelosi has called for a trillion dollar effort to aid states and cities.

'I think we want to take a little bit of a pause. But if we do that, we'll have to get something for it,' Trump said Thursday.

'We are committed to working with Congress to offer testimony at the appropriate time,' he said.

Fauci has warned about the risks of lifting social distancing guidelines. At press briefings, reporters frequently try to pose questions that get him to fact-check claims by President Trump  such a statement last week saying people should look at injection of disinfectants as a possible coronavirus cure.

While the Trump Administration continues its whole-of-government response to COVID-19, including safely opening up America again and expediting vaccine development, it is counter-productive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at Congressional hearings  White House spokesman Judd Deere

Trump appeared with Dr. Debbie Birx, who chairs the coronavirus task force on Friday, calling her a leading expert on AIDS.

Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, this week relayed new information about the drug remdesivir. He pointed to 'clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery' of hospitalized coronavirus patients.

Lawmakers are certain to try to grill him under oath about what he believes about the origins of the virus  Trump said Thursday it may have come from a lab in China despite what the Director of National Intelligence announced  as well as the administration's response.

More than 1 million Americans are infected with more than 60,000 deaths due to the coronavirus.

Appropriations Chair Rep. Nita Lowey of New York and subcommittee chair Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut issued a statement that said the nation deserved a 'clear-eyed view' of the way forward but stopped short of bashing the White House for the decision.

'Congress and the American public deserve a clear-eyed view of the path forward for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the short-term, that entails what our federal government is doing on surveillance, testing, contact tracing, quarantining, social distancing, and the production and distribution of personal protective equipment,' they said.
Information is from police reports and may be incomplete depending on the status of an investigation. Phone numbers are nonemergency.
Major investors, Australian superannuation funds and the International Energy Agency are urging governments to seize the green opportunity to drive economic growth after the coronavirus pandemic and avoid the risks they see in high carbon emitting projects.

"Recovery plans that exacerbate climate change would expose investors and national economies to escalating financial, health and social risks in the coming years," said a statement from the Investor Agenda group - an international coalition of institutional investors and asset managers whose members hold more than US$80 trillion under management.

Investors are urging governments to invest in renewable energy and low-emissions industries to drive economic growth after the coronavirus pandemic. Credit:AP/Ben Margot

Large-scale energy generators such as coal and gas fired power plants and their heavy duty transmission networks, as well as gas powered manufacturing facilities, are built to deliver a return on investment over decades.

Investors argue international commitments to tackle climate change and reduce emissions such as the Paris Agreement create an unacceptable risk for long-term investment in emissions intensive projects.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents discovered 36 undocumented immigrants inside a tractor trailer during a traffic stop in Texas.

The incident occurred last Thursday when the immigration officers ordered the commercial truck to stop at a border checkpoint on Interstate 35 in Laredo.

According to a CBP statement, the Border Patrol agents questioned the driver, a United States citizen, before performing a non-intrusive scan of the trailer which detected the presence of the several people inside.

CBP intercepted a tractor trailer ferrying 36 undocumented immigrants last Thursday in Laredo, Texas. The individuals are nationals of Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and were taken into custody for processing The truck driver, a United States citizen, was arrested

The officers subsequently cut the trailer's lock and found the individuals who had been unlawfully ferried across the Mexico-United States border.

CBP identified them as nationals of Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

The large group received medical attention before they were taken into custody for processing. The truck driver was also arrested as part of the investigation.

According to CBP stats released in April, apprehensions have been on the decline in fiscal year 2020, which covers October 2019 to September 2020.

A total of 29,953 undocumented immigrants were detained along the southwest border in March, down from 30,074 in February. Stats for April have not been released yet.

However, the Laredo sector recorded 4,020 arrests in March, a slight increase from 3,945 individuals who were detained in February for unlawfully entering the United States.
The adoption of legislation that would compromise the independence of anticorruption institutions threatens Ukraine's reform trajectory and the support of the international community, G7 ambassadors have said in a statement published on Twitter.

"The United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the EU continue our support for Ukraine's independent anticorruption institutions, and their commitment to fighting corruption at the highest levels. Our commitment is rooted in the demands expressed by the Ukrainian people during the Revolution of Dignity and every day since. Legislation that would compromise the independence of these institutions threatens Ukraine's reform trajectory, and the support of the international community," the diplomats said.

On April 28, the Verkhovna Rada committee on law enforcement activities recommended that bill No. 3133 be adopted at first reading.

The explanatory note to bill No. 3133 introducing amendments to some legislative acts of Ukraine on improving the effectiveness of fighting corruption in certain law enforcement and other state bodies states that the reasons for the dismissal of the NABU director enshrined in Part 4 of Article 6 of the law on the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) do not include the one on the entry into force of a court decision to hold the NABU director administratively responsible for corruption-related offenses. This creates inconsistencies in the clauses of the same law.

The document proposes replacing in separate articles of the laws on the state protection of state authorities of Ukraine and officials, on the prosecutor's office, on the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine and on the State Bureau of Investigation the term "corruption offense," which applies to an administrative offense, with the term "corruption-related offense," which would comply with the provisions of the law on preventing corruption.

It is proposed to supplement Paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Article 13 of the law on the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine with a clause according to which restrictions envisaged by this article apply not only to candidates for a post in the NABU but also to NABU employees.

In addition, it is proposed to supplement Paragraph 8 of Part 4 of Article 6 of the said law with a provision according to which one of the grounds for the dismissal of the NABU director is the entry into force of a court decision to hold him or her administratively responsible for corruption-related offenses.

op

The bill No. 3133 was registered in parliament by a group of people's deputies headed by European Solidarity faction member Oleksiy Honcharenko.

In December 2019, NABU Director Artem Sytnyk lost an appeal at Rivne Court of Appeal against a ruling of the Sarny Court of Rivne Region, which found Sytnyk guilty of an administrative offense during his rest in Rivne region. After that, Sytnyk was included in the register of corrupt officials of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention.
By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first U.S. Supreme Court arguments conducted by teleconference - a break from tradition due to the coronavirus pandemic - played out smoothly on Monday in a case involving hotel reservation website Booking.com, with even the typically silent Justice Clarence Thomas joining the fray.

The pandemic has prompted changes at almost ever level of American society, with the nine justices holding arguments in the trademark case not in their courtroom but by participating remotely using a dial-in format to combat the pathogen's spread.

The arguments began as usual with the marshal of the court's traditional words "Oyez, Oyez, Oyez," and proceeded with Chief Justice Roberts playing the role of traffic cop. Thomas, who usually refrains from asking questions during arguments, posed two rounds of queries. In another first, the court provided a live audio feed, making these the first arguments that the public could hear live.

The technical hiccups were brief, including moments when Roberts had to prompt liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Department lawyer Erica Ross a second time after short silences, suggesting they had not unmuted their phones.

"I'm sorry, chief," Sotomayor said before launching into her questions.

Roberts directed which justice was up to ask questions and cut off lawyers when they went on too long in an effort to keep the arguments close to the scheduled one-hour length. The arguments ran about 15 minutes over the allotted time.

Thomas, a conservative who is the court's longest-serving justice, embraced the new format. Thomas last had asked a question in March 2019, which was three years after his previous one.

But Thomas queried both Ross, who explained why the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office wants to prevent Booking.com from trademarking the site's name, and Lisa Blatt, the lawyer presenting the company, a unit of Norwalk, Connecticut-based Booking Holdings Inc.

Story continues

For example, Thomas asked whether trademarking a website name would be similar to 1-800 toll-free telephone numbers, some of which have received trademarks.

The justices asked both sides tough questions. A number of them - conservatives and liberals - expressed concern that trademarking the name Booking.com would give the company monopoly power that could hurt business rivals as well as consumers.

The Patent and Trademark Office is appealing a lower court decision that had allowed the trademark because by adding ".com" to the generic word "booking" it became eligible for a trademark. The online reservation service filed several trademark applications in 2011 and 2012.

Booking.com, along with the rest of the travel industry, has been slammed by the pandemic, which has caused tourism and business travel to evaporate worldwide.

Several justices asked questions about handing companies an advantage over competitors through trademarks.

"You are seeking a degree of monopoly power that nobody could have had prior to the internet age," conservative Justice Samuel Alito said.

'A BRIDGE TOO FAR'

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan, while sounding skeptical toward some of the company's arguments, also wondered whether siding with the government and creating a rule barring protection for all generic website names is a "bridge too far."

A Patent and Trademark Office tribunal in 2016 rejected the company's trademark applications, concluding that the name Booking.com referred generically to the common meaning of booking lodging and transportation and could not be used exclusively through a federal trademark registration. Under U.S. law, only terms that distinguish a particular product or service from others on the market can be trademarked.

Booking.com appealed, presenting a survey that showed that 74% of consumers identified Booking.com as a brand name. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the company last year.

The court has scheduled teleconference arguments in a total of 10 cases spanning this week and next week. The biggest ones are three that focus on the question of whether President Donald Trump can keep his financial records including tax returns secret. Those cases will be argued on May 12.

The Supreme Court building has been closed to the public since March 13 due to the pandemic. The justices have met only via teleconference, and have issued rulings only online.

The coronavirus has proven to be particularly dangerous in elderly people, especially those with underlying medical issues. Three of the nine justices are over age 70: Ginsburg (87), Justice Stephen Breyer (81) and Thomas (71).

[For a graphic on major cases before the Supreme Court, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2mZn6MJ]

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
Republicans are pressuring Speaker Nancy Pelosi to open the House of Representatives for business as the Senate returns to work in the Capitol Monday afternoon.

Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican and a close ally of President Donald Trump, and some of his GOP colleagues released a plan to combat concerns about the coronavirus while allowing lawmakers to get back to work.

'We believe embracing this approach would achieve the necessary balance between health and institutional concerns  and hopefully build a more resilient and productive legislative branch in the process,' they said.

House Republicans, led by Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is a close ally of President Trump, are pressuring Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reopen the House

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is reopening the Senate on Monday

Speaker Nancy Pelosi postponed the House return after concern from lawmakers about the coronavirus and a warning from the physician of the Capitol

The proposal includes plexiglass dividers in highly trafficked areas like security points or hearing rooms; temperature checks; and testing for the virus.

Also, the Republicans suggested a measured come back, starting with committee hearings and working their way up to the full House, which is 435 members.

'I call it the crawl, walk, run method,' McCarthy told Politico's Playbook in an interview Monday morning.

'I do believe you don't bring all of Congress back at once. Let's just do a few committees, you can do a few other committees so they have bigger rooms, and you'll learn from that too. At the same time, but I do believe it would be critical to have the testing here, because there will be a flare up remember how many people from other parts of the country come to this location,' he added.

Pelosi and Senate Republican Leader McConnell - in a rare joint statement - turned down an offer of testing kits from President Trump, saying they should be used where really needed.

'By Congress not wanting the special 5 minute testing apparatus, they are saying that they are not essential. In any event, we have great testing capacity, and have performed 6.5 million tests, which is more than every country in the world, combined!,' Trump tweeted on Monday morning.

The House was scheduled to return this week but Democrats pushed the date back after objections from some members, who worried about the risk of infection, and a briefing from Attending Physician Dr. Brian Monahan, who warned coronavirus cases in the Washington D.C. area may not peak until mid- or even late May.

Monahan described a 'new normal' that will be in effect when lawmakers do make their return that includes staff spaced out in their offices and taking turns working from home; no more self-service salad bars and coffee machines in the cafeterias; and meetings with constituents over the phone or zoom.

Asked on that call with lawmakers when operations in the Capitol will get back to normal, The Hill newspaper reported Monahan replied: 'Not for years.'

Speaker Pelosi said last week she was eyeing a May 11 return date but President Trump has pushed the country to return to normal, a call McConnell has headed with Monday's return to work even as the Washington D.C. region remains under a stay-at-home order.

'We will continue to stand together for the American people  even as we stand 6 feet apart,' McConnell said last week in addressing concerns about senators returning to the Capitol.

Senators will face new rules, including a recommendation they wear masks - the blue face covers will be provided for them if needed - keep their distance from one another and let most of their staff work from home.

Hand sanitizer will be available around the Capitol and the building remains closed to the public.

President Trump offered testing kits to Congress but, in a rare joint statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell turned him down, saying lawmakers should not get special privileges

House Republicans were criticized for not wearing masks during the last meeting of the House at the of April; above House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and House Republican Conference chair Rep. Liz Cheney arrive at a press conference

Senators will face new rules when they return to enforce social distancing as happened above in April when Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell takes questions from reporters

A cleaning cart sits in the empty hallways outside the Senate Chamber

Additionally, only one person without a mask will be allowed to ride an elevator. Two people can use it if both are wearing masks.

Senate Democrats point out lawmakers are returning to a light agenda, which includes votes on President Trump's nominees to the courts and the executive branch and a confirmation hearing for John Ratcliffe, the Texas Republican congressman who the president nominated to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Their first vote back on Monday will be to confirm Robert Feitel as inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

There is anxiety on both sides of the Capitol about infection. Many lawmakers are in the elderly age group that puts them at greater risk if they catch the disease.

More than 50 of them missed the last vote in the House - held on April 23.

New safety procedures were put in place for that vote, including limiting the number of lawmakers on the House floor during voting, hand sanitizer stations around the chamber and masks available for usage.

Still many observers were shocked at how many Republican lawmakers didn't wear face coverings during that session, increasing concern about proper safety precautions.

McCarthy pointed out the masks are to keep those with the virus from spreading it.

'You don't have to wear a mask. You could, but you don't and you've watched how we dealt with the [House] floor - we made sure there's social distancing people aren't standing next to each other, we're cleaning off the microphone after each time,' he told Politico. 'But when we're walking through the halls you watched members wear masks and others. When I travel onto the plane I'm wearing masks and gloves.'

There are concerns about lawmakers being able to social distance. Above, Reps. Ed Perlmutter, Jim McGovern and Jamie Raskin at a House Rules Committee meeting on April 22

Rep. Jim Jordan at a House Rules Committee meeting on April 22

Democratic Rep. Norma Torres wipes down her microphone with an antibacterial wipe during the April 22 House Rules Committee hearing

Some House committees will meet this week - as committees have been doing - but those hearings are taking place over conference calls and zoom.

Meanwhile, a dozen Capitol Police officers have tested positive for the coronavirus, and officers are concerned about working conditions, Megan Mechak, an attorney at McGillivary Steele Elkin, the law firm that represents the officers' union, told The Wall Street Journal.

'What we've been hearing from the officers is concern about whether the department really cares about their safety,' Mechak said.

Compounding the questions are the lack of testing kits.

Last week, Monahan's office warned senators it does not have enough coronavirus testing kits for all lawmakers, urging senators to self-monitor for symptoms.

Infection has been a concern since Republican Senator Rand Paul tested positive for the disease and had contact with many of his fellow senators between being tested and awaiting the result.

President Trump offered to send tests to Capitol Hill. At the White House, visitors meeting with the president have to take the 15-minute rapid result test before hand.

But, in a rare joint statement on Saturday, McConnell and Pelosi turned down his offer, saying they don't want lawmakers to receive special treatment.

'Congress is grateful for the Administration's generous offer to deploy rapid COVID-19 testing capabilities to Capitol Hill, but we respectfully decline the offer at this time,' McConnell and Pelosi said in their joint statement. 'Our country's testing capacities are continuing to scale up nationwide and Congress wants to keep directing resources to the front-line facilities where they can do the most good the most quickly.'

'No reason to turn it down, except politics,' Trump tweeted in response.
New Delhi, May 4 : A C-Voter nationwide survey indicates that the trust levels of Indians in social media is very low, particularly compared to mainstream media platforms like newspapers and TV channels.

One of the most dangerous phenomenon during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic is the viral spread of misinformation and outright lies through social media platforms. But as per the on going nationwide tracking poll conducted by C-Voter between April 23 and April 30, policy makers in India can sigh a breath of relief. As per the C-Voter survey, the proportion of Indians who display "a lot of trust" in social media platforms is remarkably low, particularly when compared to mainstream media platforms like newspapers and TV channels.

At an aggregated national level, just about 12.5 per cent of the respondents said that they had "a lot of trust" in social media while 30.8 per cent affirmed that they have "no trust at all" in social media. In sharp contrast, 34 per cent of respondents said they had a lot of trust in newspapers while 6.8 per cent said they had "no trust at all". ( It would be worth mentioning here that a strict lockdown has resulted in newspapers not reaching the doorsteps of a large number of households). Television witnessed a more polarised outcome with 42.3 per cent saying they had a lot of trust while as much as 16.1 per cent ( compared to 6.8 per cent for newspapers) saying they had no trust at all.

The lack of trust in social media cuts across geographies and segments like income, education, age, caste and ethnicity. Interestingly, the sections of Indians that are perceived to use social media most widely are the ones that exhibit the lowest levels of trust in social media. When it comes to young Indians below the age of 25 ( a cohort that rarely reads printed newspapers in large urban centres) 36.3 per cent say they have no trust at all in social media, while just 11.7 per cent aver they have a lot of trust. In the same category, 7.3 per cent of young Indians say they have no trust at all while 35.6 per cent said they had a lot of trust in newspapers. Similarly, 14.7 per cent young Indians had no trust at all in TV news while 37.6 per cent had a lot of trust. For highly educated Indians, the results are even more startling with 41.7 per cent saying they have no trust at all while a mere 8.6 per cent said they had a lot of trust. For the same category, 8.3 per cent expressed no trust at all in newspapers while 40.7 per cent expressed a lot of trust. The corresponding figures for TV news were 11.2 per cent and 28.9 per cent respectively. In the case of high income Indians, 33 per cent say they have no trust at all while 7.8 per cent say they have a lot of trust.

The only category of Indians whose "no trust at all" percentage in social media which was below 20 per cent was Indians above the age of 60. Otherwise, Indians across all categories displayed a lack of trust in social media. For instance, 35.2 per cent of Indian Dalits expressed no trust at all in social while 41 per cent of semi urban Indians expressed the same view.

That should come as a sigh of relief for policy makers and law enforcement officials who find it difficult to contain rapidly spreading rumours and their consequences. Many steps have been taken to stop rumours from spreading; one example being the decision of WhatsApp to limit a seemingly viral post to just five forwards per person. But there have been grave consequences. Social media rumours led to the grisly lynching to death of two monks and a driver in the Palghar district of Maharashtra in April, 2020.

And there is a sobering reality check even behind the seemingly good news that trust levels in social media are very low. There are 400 to 500 million social media users in India based in various estimates. The C-Voter survey indicates that 12.5 per ent of all Indians have a lot of trust in social media. That works out to between 50 to 60 million Indians, more than the population of most countries.
In 1980, John Perkins appeared to be successful: he was working as a chief economist for a major consulting firm. While hed been taught that his work provided developing countries with an advantageous economic model, he began to question the broader implications of his role, eventually realizing that his work was a form of new colonialism and that he was an economic hit man.

Boldly setting out to undo the damage he had done, Perkins flashed to an experience from his service in the Peace Corps: in the jungles of Ecuador, hed met a shaman who taught him to touch the jaguar. This experience had changed Perkinss life. It taught him to transform fears into positive actions by changing his perception.

Perkins wrote about his process of self-discovery in Shapeshifting and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. In his new book, Touching the Jaguar, Perkins draws from his experiences to urge readers to confront their fears, accept accountability, and make necessary changes in their lives.

Why was it important to write Touching the Jaguar now?

We live at a time of virus pandemics, climate change, species extinctions, and many other crises. All of them stem from a failing global system. This death economy is driven by the goal that was promoted by a group of economists led by Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman in the 1970s and 1980s, namely, that the only responsibility of business is to maximize short-term profits, regardless of the social and environmental costs. That goal has had a disastrous impact on the world.

The transition from a death economy to a life economy happens through changes in the perceptions that drive values and actions and in the stories we tell around them. Maximize short-term profits, regardless of the social and environmental costs becomes maximize long-term benefits for all people and nature. When groups of consumers, workers, and investors accept the resulting values, take actions to support businesses that promote them, and pressure governments to codify them into laws, the change we need happens.

You say that to shift our perspective, people must embrace personal accountability. How can the power of our perceptions help us change?

We start by realizing that when we change our perceptions, we also forge new values and then take actions that lead us into a different reality. We can look to history and our own experiences for evidence that our perceptions mold reality. Just one example: In 1773,

nearly everyone thought the British army was invincible. But George Washington had seen a British force estimated at 1,500 men and led by one of Englands most experienced generals thoroughly routed by about 900 French and Native Americans during the French and Indian War. The British arent invincible, Washington said. We just need to hide behind trees. That new perception changed history.

What advice do you have for readers eager to change their lives?

I encourage people to dive into understanding what brings them joy (their passion in life) and what skills they most enjoy using, to examine the obstacles (jaguars) that might prevent them from doing thatincluding feeling confined by societal roadblocks or stuck in unfulfilling circumstancesand then to touch those jaguars and receive the inspiration and energy to move forward.

Do you feel that times of uncertainty and disruption, such as what we are living through now with Covid-19, can lead to unexpected opportunities? Absolutely. Heres a little storya true onethat addresses these times of disruption. A person in a group I was leading

to visit indigenous people in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador once asked a female shaman, How do we save the earth? The shaman laughed. The earth is not in danger, she said. We humans are. Were causing many problems for all other species. If we get to be too much of a nuisance, Mother Earth will just shake us off, like so many fleas. She pointed up at the mountain that hovers over her home. Twenty years ago that volcano was covered with a big glacier. The glacier is gone. Mother Earth is twitching. She has not shaken us off yet. But shes demanding that we listen.

What do you want readers to take from Touching the Jaguar?

I hope that readers will come to understand that we can and must change ourselves and the worldand that we can have fun doing it. For more, visit johnperkins.org.
[May 04, 2020] In Response To The COVID-19 Pandemic, Private Sector Groups And Industry Associations, Scientific Societies And Academic Coalitions Unite To Urge Congress To Recommit To Funding And Sustaining The U.S. Scientific Enterprise

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Task Force on American Innovationa coalition of companies, business and university associations, and professional societies that support sustained and robust federal investment in basic science research  joined 17 other business, science, technology, and academic organizations in urging Congress to include the investments necessary to ensure the future health of the U.S. research enterprise in any additional coronavirus response legislation that is considered. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a dramatic reduction in research activity across the country, has stymied the ability of U.S. companies and universities to retain and train our STEM workforce, and has slowed down or stopped research projects of national importance. As the letter states, "...at a time when Congress, the Administration, and state and local leaders are relying on this national asset to find solutions to end this crisis, our nation's research enterprise is in peril." "The letter we are sending to Congress today clearly shows a broad consensus that comprehensive research funding must be included in future stimulus packages. Science and engineering research are key to rebuilding an innovative and globally competitive U.S. economy," said Scott Corley, Executive Director of The Task Force on American Innovation. Corley added, "It is essential that our country's R&D capabilities be fully restored. Now more than ever, we need our labs and research facilities to be fully functioning during this time of unprecedented health and economic challenges." The signatories of the letter outline three specific ways Congress can address the COVID-19 challenge: Significantly increasing scientific research funding across federal science agencies;

Maintaining and growing America's STEM workforce;

Investing in essential research infrastructure. The letter is co-signed by: The Task Force on American Innovation; The Science Coalition; Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research; The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Coalition; The Coalition for Aerospace and Science (CAS); The Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF); The Coalition for National Security Research (CNSR); The Energy Sciences Coalition (ESC); The Friends of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES); Friends of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS); The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI); National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research (NCFAR); National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Constituency Group; The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Coalition; The National Photonics Initiative; Research!America; TechNet; United for Medical Research (UMR). The attached letter is also on the TFAI website, www.innovationtaskforce.org May 4, 2020







Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Office of the Senate Majority Leader US Capitol S-230

Washington, DC 20510 Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer Office of the Senate Democratic Leader US Capitol S-221 Washington, DC 20510 Speaker Nancy Pelosi Office of the Speaker of the House US Capitol H-232 Washington, DC 20515 Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy Office of the House Republican Leader US Capitol H-204 Washington, DC 20515

Dear Majority Leader McConnell, Democratic Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi and Republican Leader McCarthy: America's scientific research enterprise  both public and private  is the most robust in the world and a national asset for economic growth and national security. However, at a time when Congress, the Administration, and state and local leaders are relying on this national asset to find solutions to end this crisis, our nation's research enterprise is in peril. The COVID-19 crisis has severely impacted nearly every part of America's scientific enterprise, from the private sector to our colleges, universities and medical schools to our federally supported research facilities and national laboratories. While it is impossible to determine the full ramifications of the pandemic at this time, it has already resulted in a dramatic reduction of non-COVID-19 related research activity across the country, stymied our ability to retain and train our STEM workforce, and slowed down or stopped research projects of national importance. Many of these concerns are also captured in an April 7 research relief letter to Congress from several higher education associations. Congress must take decisive actions to address the short- and long-term impacts of this nationwide ramp-down and shuttering of labs. As the leaders of 18 broad-based coalitions and groups  representing hundreds of companies, business and university associations, professional societies, and academic institutions committed to ensuring the vitality of the U.S. innovation ecosystem  we want to offer to work together to develop the legislative packages necessary to safely restart and strengthen America's R&D engine. With this in mind, we offer a set of recommendations concerning our research enterprise broadly for any future legislative packages aimed at addressing, mitigating and recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. Specifically, we believe the following three areas should be addressed by Congress in future coronavirus response or economic stimulus supplementals: Significantly Increase Scientific Research Funding Across Federal Science Agencies: An essential part of any economic stimulus must be to strengthen the nation's commitment to the broad, critical scientific research that will enable our effective responses to COVID-19, prevent future health pandemics, and restore our vibrant economy. The scientific research enterprise's response to the COVID-19 pandemic is this era's Manhattan project and requires collaboration across all scientific disciplinesfrom supercomputing to identify novel treatments, to utilizing advanced photonics to characterize the virusall scientific disciplines are needed, and both the public and private sectors must continue to collaborate on research. Congress should provide federal science agencies increased support for direct research programs broadly, in addition to the funding already provided by the CARES Act to specific programs dedicated to fighting and ultimately curing COVID-19. This increase would enable federal agencies to award the supplemental funding necessary to restart labs and experiments and also award current grantees full or partial cost extensions, as necessary. Many researchers will need ramp-up funding to restart their research once their labs reopen and additional funding to complete their grants' original scopes of work due to time lost and resources spent during the crisis. Maintain and Grow our STEM Workforce: Our coalitions are particularly concerned about the acute economic impacts of the pandemic on students, scholars and early career researchers, as well as the pipeline of this STEM talent to the US private sector. As scientists enter an increasingly hamstrung economy and uncertain job market, the expansion of traineeship, fellowship and internship opportunities will be integral to support the human capital at the core of the American research enterprise. By investing in and extending the length of eligibility for key programs  as well as backfilling and bridging existing support  Congress can help patch leaks in the STEM talent pipeline. Invest in Essential Infrastructure: Congress should invest in our nation's aging research infrastructurethe large-scale research facilities, dedicated laboratory buildings and advanced scientific equipment that enable scientific breakthroughs and discoveries central to our global competitiveness and national security. Investing in our research infrastructure would immediately spur our economy, creating jobs across the construction and manufacturing sectors. Such investments would also enable new discoveries and innovations with associated economic benefits, paying dividends for decades to come. Thank you for your leadership at this time of great national crisis. Your bipartisan efforts to swiftly pass three major bills in response to the health and economic challenges facing our country clearly demonstrate that we all stand united in the fight against COVID-19. This fight will be an ongoing challenge, and the federal government will need to continue making the investments necessary to jumpstart and strengthen our economy and prevent future pandemics. We stand ready to work with you and your colleagues to increase our national commitment to the U.S. research enterprise and ensure the U.S. remains a global leader in science, technology and innovation. Sincerely, Maryam Cope Co-Chair Task Force on American Innovation (TFAI) Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) Kathleen N. Kingscott Co-Chair Task Force on American Innovation

(TFAI) IBM Research The Task Force on American Innovation (TFAI) is an alliance of America's leading companies and business associations, research university associations, and scientific societies that advocates on behalf of federal funding of basic research in the physical sciences engineering. Lauren Brookmeyer President The Science Coalition Stony Brook University The Science Coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of more than 50 of the nation's leading public and private research universities. It is dedicated to sustaining the federal government's investment in basic scientific research as a means to stimulate the economy, spur innovation and drive America's economic competitiveness. Tannaz Rasouli Executive Director Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research Association of American Medical Colleges The Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research is a coalition of patient and voluntary health groups, medical and scientific societies, academic and research organizations, and industry that support enhancing the federal investment in the biomedical, behavioral and population-based research conducted and supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Katie Steen Co-Chair Agriculture and Food Research Initiative

(AFRI) Coalition Association of American Universities (AAU) Nichelle Harriott Co-Chair Agriculture and Food Research Initiative

(AFRI) Coalition National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

(NSAC) The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Coalition is a coalition of scientific societies and science advocacy organizations who support full appropriations of the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) competitive grants program. Julia Smith Co-Chair Coalition for Aerospace and Science University of Arizona Ann Zulkosky Co-Chair Coalition for Aerospace and Science Lockheed Martin Corporation The Coalition for Aerospace and Science (CAS) is an alliance of industry, university, and science organizations united in our support for robust and sustainable federal funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Erin Heath Co-Chair Coalition for National

Science Funding (CNSF) American Association for the Advancement of Science

(AAAS) Miriam Quintal Co-Chair Coalition for National

Science Funding (CNSF) Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC Juliane Baron Co-Chair Coalition for National

Science Funding (CNSF) Federation of Associations in

Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS) The Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF) is an alliance of professional organizations, universities, and businesses united in our support for sustained and robust funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF). John Latini Chair Coalition for National Security Research (CNSR) Penn State University The Coalition for National Security Research (CNSR) is a broad-based alliance of more than 100 members from industry, academia, scientific and professional organizations, and non-profits committed to advocating for a strong Defense Science and Technology enterprise. Chris Carter Co-Chair Energy Sciences Coalition (ESC) Lehigh University Leland Cogliani Co-Chair Energy Sciences Coalition (ESC) Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC The Energy Sciences Coalition (ESC) is a broad-based coalition of organizations representing scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in universities, industry, and national laboratories who are committed to supporting and advancing the scientific research programs of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. Felice J. Levine Chair The Friends of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) American Educational Research Association The Friends of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) supports the critical research, data, statistics and evaluation programs at IES. Our mission is to advance the objectives of IES and encourage federal investment to conduct the highest quality education research, data collection, evaluations and dissemination at IES. Nuala Moore Co-Chair Friends of the National Institute of

Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) American Thoracic Society Joe Laakso Co-Chair Friends of the National Institute of

Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Endocrine Society The Friends of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) is a broad coalition of public and environmental health and research-focused organizations who support, follow and call attention to the vital work being done by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Jason Oxman President and CEO The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) is a premier advocacy and policy organization for the world's leading innovation companies and a trusted leader of innovation policy that drives sustainable, ethical, and equitable growth and opportunity for all. R. Thomas (Tom) Van Arsdall Executive Director National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research The National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research is a nonprofit, customer-led coalition seeking to sustain and enhance federal funding for food and agricultural research, extension and education to help bring about research outcomes that provide a range of major public benefits. John Laughner National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Constituency Group Director of the National Coalition for Heart and Stroke Research American Heart Association The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Constituency Group is a coalition of medical professionals and societies focused on supporting NHLBI's world leading research in the fields of heart, lung, blood, and blood vessel diseases as well as sleep disorders. Edward White Steering Committee, Chair National Photonics Initiative AIM Photonics The National Photonics Initiative (NPI) is a collaborative alliance among industry, academia and government seeking to raise awareness of photonics - the application of light - and drive US funding and investment in five key photonics-driven fields critical to US competitiveness and national security: advanced manufacturing, communications and information technology, defense and national security, energy, and health and medicine. Jennifer O'Bryan Co-Chair The NIST Coalition SPIE, the international society for optics and

photonics Brandy Dillingham Co-Chair The NIST Coalition The Optical Society The NIST Coalition advocates for the laboratory programs within the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) that provide foundational research and material development for companies, academic institutions and other federal agencies. The coalition works to raise awareness among congressional leaders of the vital role fulfilled by NIST to drive American economic growth and job creation. Mary Woolley President and CEO Research!America The Research!America alliance advocates for science, discovery, and innovation to achieve better health for all. Linda Moore President and CEO TechNet TechNet is a national, bipartisan network of technology CEOs and senior executives that promotes the growth of the innovation economy. TechNet's diverse membership includes dynamic American businesses ranging from startups to the most iconic companies on the planet. Chol Pak President United for Medical Research (UMR) Thermo Fisher Scientific United for Medical Research (UMR) is a coalition of leading research institutions, patient health advocates, and private industry that have joined together to seek steady increases in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). cc: The White House U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources U.S. House Science Committee View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/in-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-private-sector-groups-and-industry-associations-scientific-societies-and-academic-coalitions-unite-to-urge-congress-to-recommit-to-funding-and-sustaining-the-us-scientific-enterprise-301051986.html SOURCE Task Force on American Innovation

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Dhinesh Kallungal By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has responded to the Centres call to facilitate the return of migrant labourers to their home states.

So far, 11 trains carrying around 12,000 migrant workers have left Kerala for states such as Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha.

However, considering a large number of the migrant population in the state and the current frequency of trains, it would be a herculean task for the state government to send them to their native places.

It would take around two months to send the migrant labourers housed in relief camps alone to their home states.

Even as the state has been working with various governments to facilitate the return of migrant workers, the state is relying on the number of labourers placed in relief camps to get an approximate count of their population here.

ALSO READ | Migrants wont be forced to go back, Kerala government assures builders

However, various NGOs that work at the ground level for migrants say that it would take around six months to send the migrants to their home states as per the current frequency of trains.

If only one train had left for Odisha on May 1, as many as 10 trains conducted services on May 2 and 3 to Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha.

And the state is yet to get NoC from other states. Additional labour commissioner Sreelal K said there were around 4.17 lakh migrant labourers in government relief camps.

A substantial number of them are expected to return based on the progress in getting clearance from other states for evacuation, he said.

The officials hope that around 3.5 lakh people staying in relief camps can be sent back to their home states, for which at least 300-400 trains will be required. With five trains a day, at least two months will be required for the purpose.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID) and Centre for Development Studies, which work among the migrants, said mainly the footloose labourers are placed in the government relief camps. Apart from them, a much smaller group of workers hired by various contractors are also there in these camps.

A sizeable population is still scattered across the state and the government agencies have not taken their number into consideration.

According to labour department officials, around 5.08 lakh migrants have been enrolled in the state under the Aawaz scheme, which is the main database on migrants in the state, and they expect that their actual number would be around 8-10 lakh in Kerala.

Of these, a good number of migrants has left for their home states before the lockdown. So their number would be around less than 5 lakh now, of whom around 3.5 lakh would be going back to their states.

However, Benoy Peter, executive director, CMID, contradicted the claims of the government agencies.

If around 5 lakh guest workers have enrolled in the Aawaz scheme, their actual number would be around fivefold. Going ahead with the government stats would lead to unrest in migrant pockets as more labourers will come forward in the coming days seeking steps to send them back, he said.

The state government should take urgent steps to reach out to migrants by publishing official statements in various languages as it is very important for the state economy to keep them in the state, he said.
The Perspective

Atlanta, Georgia

May 4, 2020



The formation of an Israeli coalition government led by Netanyahu and Gantz, the leaders of Likud and Kahol Lavan respectively, will finally put an end to Israels nearly 18 month-long political paralyzes and, for now, personal rivalry following three elections. Both agreed on a host of important socio-economic and security matters. The most ominous issue they strongly embraced, however, is the annexation of a substantial swath of Palestinian territories based on Trumps Peace to Prosperity plan. Should Israel move to implement the plan, it will lead to ominous consequences and drastically change Israels character as a democratic, Jewish state.

For more than ten years, Netanyahu masterfully used scare tactics to portray the establishment of a Palestinian state as an existential threat to Israel and vowed to never allow that to happen under his watch. The annexation of large swaths of Palestinian territory will foreclose any possibility for the Palestinians to have a state of their own. For Gantz to go along with Netanyahu is deeply disappointing and alarming. As a former Chief of Staff of the IDF, he knows that Israels national security hinges not on military muscles, as time has shown, but on ending the conflict with the Palestinians by establishing an independent and stable Palestinian state that fully collaborates on all security matters that affect both countries.

Sadly though, the Palestinians, especially Hamas, have played directly into Netanyahus hand by refusing to recognize Israels right to exist and by their repeated violent provocations, which gave Netanyahu the ammunition he needs to justify his claim that the Palestinians are out to destroy rather than coexist peacefully with Israel. Besides, the fact that the Palestinians missed several opportunities to strike a peace agreement with Israel and continue to indoctrinate one generation after another with an anti-Israeli sentiment made it easier for Netanyahu to make his case against the Palestinians.

Now that Netanyahu eliminated any serious challenge from the opposition while disregarding the Palestinians vehemence against annexation, he put Israel on the path of perhaps unprecedented violent confrontation with the Palestinians. Indeed, once the annexation comes to pass, it will be impossible to reverse. Israel will build new and expand existing settlements, and it will inescapably violate the Palestinians property rights as it will engage in the demolition of homes and expulsion while controlling natural resources in defiance of international law.

Under such gross human rights abuses, the Palestinians will have little left to lose. Indeed, regardless of Israels overwhelming military power, in a moment of complete desperation and hopelessness, the Palestinians will rise and unite. They will be willing to die an honorable death rather than live in servitude and give up their cherished dream of statehood.

To me and droves of former Israelis from the military and intelligence communities, the prospect of a Palestinian uprising is a given. If Netanyahu and Gantz ignore it, it will be at their peril as they are sowing the seeds of Palestinian revolt; the question will be only when.

Netanyahu, however, is counting on Trump to provide him with political backing and exert pressure on several key Arab states to persuade the Palestinians to go along with the plans. After all, Trumps plan envisions the establishment of a Palestinian state within four years. However, a close look at Trumps deal and the extent of the land annexation it involves exposes that under such a plan, the prospect of creating a Palestinian state is nothing but a hoax.

Part of the agreement between Netanyahu and Gantz includes two articles that indicate the intent of both to annex parts of the West Bank, in line with Trumps Peace to Prosperity plan:

28. The Prime Minister and the Vice Prime Minister will act together and in coordination to advance peace agreements with all our neighbors and to advance regional cooperation in a range of economic spheres.

In everything related to the declaration made by President Trump, the Prime Minister, and the Vice Prime Minister will act in full agreement with the United States, including the issue of the maps vis-a-vis the Americans and engaging in an international dialogue on the issue, while striving to preserve the security and strategic interests of the State of Israel, including the need to maintain regional stability, uphold the peace agreements and pursue future peace agreements.

29. Despite what is written inArticle 28 above, and following discussion and consultation between the Prime Minister and the Vice Prime Minister on the principles outlined above, as of July 1, 2020, the Prime Minister will be able to bring the agreement reached with the United States regarding the extension of sovereignty for discussion by the cabinet and the government and the approval of the government and/or the Knesset. [emphasis added]

The problem is that neither Netanyahu nor Gantz understand Trumps real agenda, or simply ignore it because it doesnt matter to them. Indeed, what matters is that Trump materializes Netanyahus life-long vision, which Gantz seems to share, which is the establishment of Israeli sovereignty and control over the Jews entire biblical land extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. They want to believe that Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital and relocation of the American embassy to the holy city only attests to his commitment to Israels national aspiration, and view his peace plan as a reaffirmation of where he stands.

In reality, Trump does not give a hoot about Israels security and wellbeinghis sole interest is to secure the political support of the significant Evangelical constituency, for whom Israel is the conduit for the return of the Messiah. By the beginning of July, Netanyahu expects to receive the green light from Trump to move ahead with annexation plans, timed to give Trump the political boost he needs as the presidential election campaign goes into high gear. Moreover, given the deadly spread of the coronavirus and the mounting fatalities, coupled with the severe economic downturn and the loss of more than 30 million jobs, Trump needs the Evangelicals support more than ever before.

These developments provide the Palestinians, especially Hamas, the opportunity to preempt Netanyahus and Gantzs scheme by declaring their readiness to enter unconditionally into good faith negotiations that would lead to peace and security based on a two-state solution, as outlined in several previous peace deals agreed to by both sides. The Palestinians cannot afford to miss this opportunity because once Trumps plan is implemented, their prospect of establishing a Palestinian state will diminish if not die altogether, and violence will become the order of the day from which both sides will suffer greatly.

The impact on Israel will not be less dire should Netanyahu and Gantz proceed with these annexation plans. Several developments are certain to take place: the violence between Israel and the Palestinians will only intensify; Jordan and Egypt may well sever their diplomatic relations, if not nullify their peace treaties with Israel; the Gulf states who have been tacitly cooperating with Israel on security and intelligence fronts will end their cooperation; the EU will condemn in the strongest terms Israels blind ambition; scores of countries will recognize the Palestinian state; the BDS movement would significantly intensify; antisemitism will reach new heights unseen before; Israel will become a pariah state, and peace will elude the Israelis for as far as the eye can see.

Anyone who cares about Israels democracy and its future national security and well-being should make their voice heard. Trump will sooner than later leave the political scene, and the wreckage he will leave in his wake, with the help of Netanyahu and Gantz, will be to Israels detriment. Israel will forfeit its founders vision of being a Jewish, democratic, and independent state, and tragically will lose its very reason for being.




Nokias (NOK) strong customer base and upcoming role in the global rollout of 5G networks should see it through COVID-19. So says Canaccord analyst Michael Walkley. The 5-star analyst backs the Finnish telecom equipment maker to deliver longer-term higher margin growth.

Walkley reiterated a Buy rating on Nokia shares, along with a $5.50 price target. Expect upside of a handsome 55%, should the analysts thesis play out in the coming year. (To watch Walkleys track record, click here)

So, whats behind Walkleys confidence? First of all, solid Q1 results, despite COVID-19 related China supply disruption resulting in a miss on the topline. Revenue of 4.91 billion missed by 240 million and exhibited a year-over-year drop of 3%. But on the other hand, in a difficult macro environment, Nokia managed to squeeze out a tiny profit and met EPS estimates of 0.01, with the company benefitting from strong gross margin performance in Mobile Access as well as Software.

Highlights included the progress of Nokias new chipset for 5G networks, ReefShark, which amounted to 17% of 5G shipments, an increase of 10% quarter-over-quarter, and on target for the 2020 goal of 35%.

Nokia now boasts 70 5G wins including 21 live networks, and both Enterprise and Software segments reported strong figures. Enterprise added 30 new logos and Software posted 13% year-over-year operating margin expansion driven by cloud-native efficiencies.

Looking ahead, bucking the current trend to remove guidance, management mostly kept its 2020 guidance as is, with non-IFRS EPS (at the midpoint) bought down a touch from 0.24 to 0.23 and operating margin pared back from 9.5% to 9.0%.

Nokia estimates the current quarter will probably be the worst hit, but with a strong balance sheet and its position as a leader in network infrastructure, Walkley implores investors to focus on the long term. Walkley maintains Nokia will reach its targets through its diversified supplier base to position the company with a more competitive cost structure for 2021 and beyond.

Story continues

The analyst concluded, Despite near-term margin pressure and likely soft 1H/20 results exacerbated by COVID-19 impacting the timing to complete projects given an increasing number of countries under lockdowns, we expect Nokia to emerge as a long-term leader for 5G buildouts with steadily improving margins over the next several years. We believe the risk-reward on the shares is positive for longer-term investors.

What does the rest of the Street make of Nokias prospects? Based on 5 Buys and 3 Holds, the analyst community rates the stock a Moderate Buy. The average price target is $4.64 and suggests gains in the shape of 29% in the next 12 months. (See Nokia 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.

More recent articles from Smarter Analyst:
We know they need the money, Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne said Friday. Theres no doubt in my mind theyve got some qualifying expenses. On the other hand, if they use it incorrectly, I dont want the state to be on the hook.

Gov. Ralph Northam said Friday that the state has distributed about $237 million included in the CARES Act for K-12 education, with 90% of the money going to localities and 10% to special statewide educational initiatives.

Layne said the federal government apparently will make counties receiving the money responsible for allocating it to towns and other municipalities within their borders. For example, he said towns within Fairfax, such as Vienna and Herndon, would have to rely on the countys share of federal funding.

The counties will have to take care of the towns, Layne said.

Lynch said county officials understand their responsibility to incorporated towns within their jurisdictions, but they want to know how much help they are going to get and when it will arrive.

Theyre expending money, theyre doing stuff, he said. We dont know what the plan is for any reimbursement or disbursement.
WALTHAM, Mass., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Seoul Institute of Technology, the leading research institute in technology policy and city administration ran by Seoul, the capital of South Korea, is working with open innovation firm InnoCentive to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.

The Seoul Institute of Technology (SIT) launched the challenge on 21 April and in addition to looking at mask filter technology, will also look to generate ideas around other Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The project will run for 30 days and contributions will be sought from InnoCentive's global network of more than 500,000 expert problem 'solvers', comprised of engineers, technologists, start-ups, material experts, life scientists and business experts. A total award pool of up to $60,000 is available for successful submissions.

"COVID-19 has uncovered some of the toughest challenges the world has had to face and this has highlighted the importance of open innovation and co-creation in generating the best solutions and ideas to address those challenges," said Jon A. Fredrickson, Vice President, Chief Innovation Officer, InnoCentive. "Masks and PPE to prevent transmission of COVID-19 will be vital in the on-going work to come through this crisis and it's an honor for our platform and community to be used by the Seoul Institute of Technology for this purpose."

InnoCentive recently announced a partnership with UK idea management scaleup Wazoku. Wazoku's Idea Spotlight innovation platform has been integrated with InnoCentive's solver network and Challenge Driven Innovation methodology which has created the world's most comprehensive and powerful innovation platform and community.

The two companies recently launched a COVID-19 specific challenge center to address COVID-19 challenges for companies, governments, and NGOs. These were some of the first challenges to be run across the new integrated, best in class innovation platform and community, and one of the initial projects has already resulted in a faster path to create ventilators.

"This new SIT challenge complements our other COVID-19 challenges with clients and governments around the world," continued Jon A. Fredrickson. "Our solvers have a proven track record at finding the unknown unknowns and delivering solutions to these types of challenges. With our partner Wazoku, we now have a more powerful and sophisticated platform to support our community, further enhancing our clients' capabilities for innovative solutions and importantly co-creation."

The SIT came to InnoCentive via Technovation Partners, the leading innovation consultancy and long-term partner to InnoCentive in Korea. Commenting on the challenge, Dr. Youngje Jeong, Principal of Innovative Technology Center of the Seoul Institute of Technology said:

"The Seoul Institute of Technology is looking for new technologies to solve MB filter shortage problems and is interested in anyone that can help with this. Using the InnoCentive community we hope to discover new technologies that can solve issues and help alleviate this current situation."

This is a Theoretical Challenge that requires only a written proposal to be submitted. The Challenge award will be contingent upon theoretical evaluation of the proposal by the Seoul Institute of Technology.

Further details on the Seoul Institute of Technology's challenge can be found here.

For further information about InnoCentive, please visit https://www.innocentive.com

For further information about Wazoku, please visit https://www.wazoku.com

For further information about the Seoul Institute of Technology, please visit https://sit.re.kr

PR Contact:

Paul Allen  Rise PR

+44 (0) 7515 199 487 / [email protected]

SOURCE InnoCentive

Related Links

https://www.innocentive.com


Holcim Philippines sees 29% fall in net profit

04 May 2020

Holcim Philippines has reported a 28.7 per cent fall in its net profit to PHP501.54m (US$9.93m) for the first quarter of 2020, compared to PHP703.86m in the year-ago period.



Net sales also declined 10 per cent to PHP7.27bn due to lower prices and volumes, especially in March.

"Like the rest of the country, our company was significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the government's efforts to address it," said John Stull, Holcim Philippines President and CEO.

The company had closed its Luzon facilities in mid-March and its Davao plant also shut down in April. "Once the government eases the quarantine measures, we are confident that our strong health and safety culture will enable us to protect our people's well-being in our sites and safely resume operations to support our customers and re-start building activity in the country," Mr Stull continued.

Published under
New Delhi: With the extension of lockdown 3.0 to contain coronavirus COVID-19, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued fresh guidelines allowing government-run liquor shops to open with social distancing norms. The police in different states faced a difficult situation to control the unruly crowd.

According to reports, about 150 government-run liquor shops have been allowed to open from 9 am to 6.30 pm in the national capital in accordance with the latest lockdown relaxations.

Let us have look at the economic aspect of liquor for different states, the reason they asked the Centre to allow these shops to open amid ongoing COVID-19 lockdown.

The ban on liquor sales across the board is hitting the government to the tune of Rs 700 crore a day in terms of loss of revenue, according to industry representatives. The central government had prohibited the sale of liquor in the wake of COVID-19 lockdown announced on March 24, causing a revenue loss of Rs 30,000 crore for states in the past month and a half.

In the financial year 2019-20, different states budgeted for Rs 1.70 lakh crore through a tax on the sale of liquor. The taxes from liquor sales accounted for 15-25% of the state's own tax revenue.

In states like Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttarakhand, tax from liquor sale accounted for over 20% of their tax revenue, while the income of state excise in West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Telangana comprised 15-20% of the states' tax revenue.

However, the excise tax on liquor in Kerala, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu accounted for less than 10% of the state total collection of tax revenue.

The overall proportion of taxes from liquor sale in states' total tax revenue come to single-digit primarily because bigger states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu get lower tax collection from the sale of liquor while Gujarat and Bihar earn no revenue due to a ban on liquor in these states.

Delhi, a Union Territory with higher than national per capita income, earns over Rs 5,000 crore annually from liquor sales. Karnataka too earned Rs 21,400 crore from liquor sales in 2019.
Anti-Semitism and the coronavirus By Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser

Since the worldwide spread of the coronavirus, we are witness to anti-Semitic expressions that denote the Jews, in general, and Israel, specifically, as those who have developed the virus and are responsible for its propagation, in order to tighten their control of the world, and to utilize their resources to harm the populations that resist them, above all, the Palestinians. Along with smears by known anti-Semites in Turkey, in Iran, and in the West, the anti-Israel BDS community and the Palestinian establishment have been leveraging the coronavirus to defame Israel. BDS activists are holding an unrelenting succession of Zoom webinars that are meant to present the vile character of Israel, and are distributing caricatures of the propagation of the virus by Israel, or presenting Israel itself as an even more terrible virus than Covid-19. Palestinian Prime Minister Shtayyeh accused IDF soldiers of spitting on Palestinian cars in order to spread the virus, and noted that without a doubt Israel wants its economy to keep running at the expense of the health of the Palestinians. PA spokespersons blamed Israel for trying to contaminate Palestinians with the virus by way of Palestinian workers employed in Israel. They also claim that the occupation prevents the Palestinians from supplying themselves with the necessities to deal with the pandemic. The Palestinians further warn that Israel will be responsible for any disaster that is caused if the virus spreads in Gaza, the PA territories, and east Jerusalem. They claimed that Israel infects Palestinian prisoners with the virus, and prevents adequate treatment for Israeli Arabs. The facts are, of course, unimportant to them. In practice, Israel cooperates with the Palestinians in treating the coronavirus, transfers large amounts of medical equipment for their use, and advises medical teams in Gaza and the West Bank on how to treat the disease. Israel has further encouraged international medical aid to the Palestinians, gave a loan to the PA, and has delayed the execution of the law that offsets money used to pay salaries to terrorists. Israel also follows the same medical treatment policy among all sectors of its population including the Israeli Arab population. Israels cooperation with the Palestinians has been praised by the international community, but this does not interest those who hate Israel and the Jews. They have their own narrative. The most visible figure in the BDS machine is Omar Barghouti, who said in a Zoom webinar that the Palestinians should continue their muqawama  that is, their struggle, against Israel and all its components  even during the period of the coronavirus, in parallel with the struggle against the virus. Yet, he explains that if Israel discovers a vaccine for the coronavirus, it would be permissible for those who struggle against Israel to use it. It is worth noting that Barghouti is a graduate of Tel Aviv University, which he calls to boycott within the framework of the academic boycott against Israel. At least he is consistent in his cynicism. What stands behind the fervor of those who hate us today is, of course, not new. It has characterized many generations of anti-Semites, especially whenever the world must deal with adversity and fear. Firstly, it seems that they identify the virus as an opportunity to promote their familiar messages regarding the awful character of the Jews, in order to hurt them and mainly to deepen Israels negative image for the audiences to whom they are directing their messages. These include the Palestinian public, the Islamic world, and Western extremists  either on the far right or the progressive left  that have turned hatred of Israel into a central issue to which they have become committed since the fall of the Soviet Union and the bankruptcy of communism. They certainly try to convince liberal Westerners to adopt their approach, though their success in the coronavirus context should have been limited and made them look absurd. Their achievements so far include growing anti-Israel attitudes and anti-Semitism in the British Labour party, as well as circles in the Democratic party in the U.S. which embraced Senator Bernie Sanders and his entourage of Israel haters. So far, it seems that liberals have refrained from condemning them and some even adopt their agenda. For example, the International Crisis Group, a liberal think tank headed by Rob Malley, who served as head of the Middle East desk in the National Security Council under President Obama, issued a paper about Gaza and the coronavirus which adopted some of the Israel-haters false claims and demands, which were also supported by some Democratic members of Congress. Secondly, the Israel-haters see this as an appropriate time to harness events to advance their permanent policy aims, such as the removal of the Israeli security blockade on Gaza and the release of imprisoned terrorists. They also use anti-Semitic tropes as a tool to prevent internal criticism of their corruption, their lack of concern for a proper medical system for their citizens, and their decision to use their resources to promote terror instead. But more than the dissemination of vilifications, anti-Semitism reflects the beliefs of those who stand behind these slanders that their accusations are real, and their target audiences tend to believe these fabrications. Anti-Semitic brainwashing throughout history has brought a large public to believe in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the blood libels, and the responsibility of Jews for plagues and for all the other troubles in the world. Hitler, Stalin, and the anti-Semites of our times have made cynical political usage of Jew-hatred, but believed that Jews control the world, and specifically its economics. They believe that Jews are condescending, greedy, sly, xenophobic, plot against those who surround them, and are warmongers. The Palestinian leadership has regularly repeated these claims and they deal in continual incitement of the Palestinian public and forced brainwashing in order to advance the assimilation of these perceptions about Jews in the publics thought and belief and turn them into acceptable diplomatic rhetoric. The Hamas charter contains these claims, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas repeats them in the lessons of historical narrative he presents at Palestinian conferences. He even noted them in writing, in his book about cooperation between Zionists and Nazis (based on his doctoral dissertation), and in his book Zionism  Beginning and End, that presents what he calls the (Ashkenazi) Zionist fraud. Whatever the theme, Prime Minister Shtayyeh, BDS activists, and Hamas leaders all repeat the same mantras. Especially after commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, the new attempt to disseminate Israel-hatred cannot be taken lightly. While continuing cooperation with the Palestinians, we must denounce the brainwashing, the libels, and their disseminators. And we must demand from the international community to condemn them, loud and clear, which has not yet happened. Similarly, we should urge the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which clarifies which manifestations of hatred of the State of Israel are to be considered anti-Semitic. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser is Director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center. He was formerly Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence. Home
Chaos ruled at Chandigarhs borders as curfew imposed to prevent Covid-19 transmission was lifted on Monday. Long vehicle queues formed at the main entry points as police screening slowed things, but many entered the city unchecked because of the heavy traffic buildup.

Stationery shops which opened today were crowded too, all social distancing norms forgotten as people bought books and other essentials for their childrens new school terms.

Panchkula, however, reported no such problem as adequate arrangements were made to stop cars and screen passengers and their documents.

Scores of vehicles from Mohali and Panchkula entered Chandigarh in the morning as shops for non-essential items and offices opened and intercity movement was allowed for people with the requisite permissions and identity cards.

However, because of the rush, police personnel could not screen everyone with thermal scanners. It is difficult screening each and every vehicle entering the city. Today, the flow of vehicles increased tremendously and people were getting impatient when asked to wait. It put us under pressure at the checkpoints. So, some vehicles drove by without screening, said a policeman on duty near the Zirakpur-Chandigarh barrier, requesting anonymity.

Similar problems were reported at the Panchkula-Chandigarh housing board light point.

People were also flouting two-wheel norms and instead of just one rider, two were on the vehicle. In fact, some people were asked to get down from their scooters and motorcycles and walk back home, the policeman added.

Likewise, parents too crowded stationery and book shops without following social distancing norms to buy books, bags and other essentials for their children before the beginning of new school terms.

Very few vehicles, however, moved from Chandigarh to Mohali.

In Panchkula, the police managed to keep a strict vigil at checkpoints, only letting in people with passes issued by the district administration after announcements were made on Friday of very stringent screening processes and sealing of entry points.

We have strict orders not to allow anyone from Chandigarh into Panchkula without a pass. Everyone will go through medical screening. Those without a pass will be sent back, said a police official on duty at the housing board point.

After Chandigarh announced intercity travel from Monday, the Panchkula administration on Sunday imposed strict control on entry of outsiders with the exception of essential services.

On May 1 the deputy commissioner had ordered managements of organisations asking people from outside to come into Panchkula for work to make arrangements for their accommodation within the city/district. Locals who needed to travel too had to make similar arrangements to prevent daily cross-border transit.
Governor Bill Lee announced on Monday that more than 23,000 Tennesseans have received a free COVID-19 test at 67 drive-through sites over the past three weekends, as part of Unified-Command Groups efforts to reduce barriers and widen access to testing for all Tennesseans regardless of symptoms.

Testing remains one of the most important tools for gaining more information in our fight against COVID-19, and the 23,000 tests weve completed over the last three weekends have provided incredibly valuable data, said Governor Lee. Were grateful to the thousands who came out to receive a test this weekend and we continue to remind Tennesseans: when in doubt, get a test.

Soldiers and Airmen from the Tennessee National Guard supported Tennessee Department of Health personnel at 16 sites across the state May 2 and 3 where 5,153 Tennesseans received a free COVID-19 test. Eight sites were operated on Saturday with 2,733 individuals tested and another eight sites on Sunday with 2,420 individuals tested. Hamilton county operated their site both days and tested 1,168 individuals for COVID-19 representing nearly a third of the weekend total.

Our weekend sites have been equipped to meet the demand for free testing across the state, said Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee Department of Health commissioner. With ample capacity at our county health departments during the week, we continue to encourage Tennesseans to take advantage of free testing at these locations.

Unified-Command Group, led by Director Stuart McWhorter, is a partnership between Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessees Adjutant General, Maj. Gen. Jeff Holmes and Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) Director Patrick Sheehan.
April Bergin knows the feelings of anxiety and exhaustion many new mothers experience as she has suffered from post-natal depression since the birth of her daughter last September.

This week is World Maternal Health Awareness Week and aims to highlight the prevalence of mental health issues for women during and after pregnancy.

"After Melanie was born, I was flooded with many emotions," says the 38-year-old.

"I was very much in love with her but also exhausted and overwhelmed. I was sleep- deprived too and often tearful and unsure if I had what it took to be a mother.

"After six weeks those blues were not lifting at all and I felt I was tipping into the realm of post-natal depression as I was finding it difficult to cope with feelings of sadness, stress and anxiety.

"My husband, David, was working long shifts, I'm far away from my own family (in Canada) - I realised I had to do something before it got worse."

The new mother underwent sessions with a counsellor and started taking a low dose antidepressant. She also started going to La Leche League coffee mornings where she found support from both leaders and other mothers was invaluable.

Ms Bergin, a psychotherapist, says the sessions helped enormously and would encourage any new mothers who are feeling low to seek advice sooner rather than later.

A new campaign called #Askheragain from the BabyDoc parenting club is urging partners, family, friends and professionals to keep asking women how they are coping during this vulnerable time.

More than 1,800 women in the digital parenting community participated in research which revealed that more than 55pc experienced baby blues in the first three months, 35pc have experienced perinatal depression while pregnant or in the first year of their baby's life, and 39pc felt their mental wellbeing was never addressed while they were pregnant or as a new mother.

During the current pandemic, many women are feeling an increase in their maternal mental health struggles with almost half surveyed suffering from lack of sleep.

More than 66pc felt overwhelmed and anxious, 80pc were tearful and 79pc experienced a low mood.

Ms Bergin said: "Everyone has been so supportive, so I slowly came off the antidepressants and am beginning to have more energy. I'm very grateful I started to feel better before the pandemic hit, as the worry and isolation has brought its own challenges - but that's a whole other story.

"My advice to mothers feeling the same way would be to go easy on themselves. Having a new baby is hard, hormones are a mess, and life gets complicated. Feeling depressed and anxious is normal but it's important to ask for help.

"Speak to a counsellor, talk to the GP, ask for help and talk, talk, talk."

According to parenting expert Laura Erskine, new mothers overwhelmingly want to share their personal mental health journeys as they say it makes them feel less alone.

As part of the #Askheragain campaign, a range of real-life stories have been included in an eGuide free to download.

During the #Askheragain campaign, BabyDoc Club will encourage people to donate 4 by texting 'PARENT' to 50300.

Visit www.babydocclub.ie or facebook.com/BabyDocClubIRL or instagram.com/babydocclubirl
A musical duo has started playing music from the bed of their pickup for residents of Midland and Odessa. Gabriel Lopez and Ashley Pankey formed Ash and Gab Sing Country Gold to help cheer up people stuck in their homes during the pandemic. Lopez said they have been putting on acoustic guitar performances while practicing social distancing.

Pretty much the house we are at can hear us and maybe their neighbors on each side can hear us and thats it, he said.

Pankey and Lopez stand in the bed of their pickup and people can come out in their yard. They ask that people not approach their truck.

Lopez said he and Pankey previously played in their own bands. Lopez is the frontman for the Texicano Folk Rock Punk, and Pankey also plays bass in that. She plays and sings in ThRipt Britches too. They first met playing in a band together.

Neither of us can play with our full bands anymore, Lopez said. We decided (to) start focusing on this project, which weve done for a wedding or friends going away party.

The duo will perform two to five songs for families or individuals in the Midland and Odessa area. They have been accepting donations and tips through Venmo and Paypal for their performances. He said some people have been very generous with their donations, but its OK if people can give $5 or $10. Anything helps with gas money, he said.

Want a live performance? Contact Gabriel Lopez through email at tfrpmusic@gmail.com See More Collapse

Both of our jobs are gone due to coronavirus, he said. My main gig was working stage crew at the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center, so thats gone. She was in the stage crew with me and also a karaoke jockey.

Lopez said they were inspired by Tejon Street Corner Thieves, friends in Colorado who started doing Truck-a-grams.

Pankey said its been hard not to go crazy during this time.

As artists and creative people, which we are, its good to have the distraction, she said. Its good for us, and its some of the best playing weve ever done. We get into it and we dont have to worry about setting up a sound system.

Before the pandemic, both of their bands had tours scheduled, which included playing in Marfa, San Angelo, San Antonio and Austin during SXSW for unofficial showcases. Lopez said they had saved up to go tour and had stocked up on merchandise.

Its kind of heartbreaking not being able to do parts of that tour or the festival we were playing, he said. Youre looking forward to this and youre excited about it, then it just being ripped out from underneath you. At least being able to get out and do this -- to still perform -- for me, its definitely good for my soul.

The duo has started playing more than country songs.

We do a lot of covers, and we have several originals, he said. Right now, were working on a full list of everything that we can start sending people in advance to let them know what we can play.

Pankey said they can play for anybody because they have played multiple genres.

Thats where we fit in everywhere, she said. We can play for kids We know the songs from Robin Hood. Im wanting to get brave with it and to break Frozen down. I love the Frozen story.

Lopez said they will start playing in Midland once a week because so many people have reached out.
The archbishop of the city issued some directives: no more than 100 faithful at a time; registration; temperature measurements; hand sanitizers; plum blossom arrangement in short alternating; Eucharist followed by the collection of offerings. Taiwan's success in pandemic control: 436 infected and 6 dead.

Taipei (AsiaNews) - After 45 days of lockdown, masses with the people can resume today, according to the Archbishop of Taipei, Mgr. John Hung Shan-chuan.

In his announcement he explains that although the spread of the epidemic "is fairly stable", it is important that the masses follow certain indications of security including the number of participants, the disposition of the faithful, how to receive the Eucharist, how to give make offerings, how to disinfect the place of worship.

The Taiwanese government was among the first to respond to news of the coronavirus epidemic in mainland China. Indeed, according to many testimonies, Taiwanese doctors had warned the World Health Organization already in December 2019 that a virus capable of spreading from man to man was spreading on mainland China.

Perhaps for political reasons - Taiwan is not a member of the WHO - the UN health organization preferred to follow China's command and the announcement of the human-to-human transmission was released only two days before the quarantine imposed on Wuhan (Hubei).

In any case, Taiwan seems to have managed to contain the epidemic. In the past week, Taiwan has recorded only three new cases of infection, bringing the total toll to 436 infected and 6 deaths.

The indications suggested by the archbishop of Taipei on the masses require that for the celebrations indoors there are no more than 100 faithful; reservations are required for each mass by giving your name and surname; for communities with a large number of faithful it is suggested to carry out the masses outdoors and multiply the number to decrease the crowding.

Before entering the church, the faithful must allow for a temperature check, disinfect their hands, and then place themselves in a zigzag ("plum blossom") arrangement in the pews.

Before distributing the Eucharist, the priest must disinfect his hands with alcohol. The collection of offerings takes place as the faithful return to their pews, to avoid too many contact. At the end of each mass the environment will have to be sanitized.
The Federal Government on Monday announced that it would commence the decontamination of schools across the country.

The Minister of Environment, Muhammad Mahmood, disclosed this at the Presidential Task Force briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja.

He said the ministry would get the data of schools nationwide from the Federal Ministry of Education.

Mr. Mahmood said, We are initiating a programme of decontaminating and disinfecting our schools before they open.

Because subsequently in the phases (of easing the lockdown), I believe we will get to that point when we start opening the schools.

So, we will be liaising with the Federal Ministry of Education to make sure we have the needed data to carry out the exercise.

Although the minister did not state when the exercise would start, he said his ministry had been making efforts to commence the programme.

Mr. Mahmood said, Today we will like to brief you on our first video conference with our Environmental Health Sanitation desks across the country, the 36 states plus the FCT.

Also in attendance was a representative of the World Health Organisation, the purpose of which is to build additional capacity and to reiterate adherence to the guidelines in this response to COVID-19.

School Closure

Before the total lockdown of Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States, the Federal Ministry of Education had closed all tertiary, secondary and primary schools nationwide.

This it said was part of its measures to curb the spread of the deadly virus.
Within that area, individuals are entitled to access the water for the traditional purposes of navigation, commerce or fishing. The court also said, at a minimum, walking on the beach is a protected public use, and the General Assembly can decide whether to enact "any enlargement of public rights on the beaches of Lake Michigan"  as it did in House Enrolled Act 1385.

The Long Beach Lakefront Homeowners Association appealed the Gunderson ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court in October 2018.

The nation's high court turned away the case without comment last February, seemingly leaving the Indiana Supreme Court ruling as the final word on Lake Michigan beach ownership.

Nevertheless, the Porter plaintiffs are asking the federal court in Hammond to bar Indiana from enforcing the Gunderson ruling so they once again can control who uses the beach near their homes.

Their claim is based on property deeds showing ownership extending beyond the lake's ordinary high-water mark and historical records of lakefront land sales that contained property now recognized as state-owned, including land purchased for what now is Indiana Dunes National Park.
High street chocolatier Hotel Chocolat has increased its credit facility by another 25million as the retailer admits the closure of its stores due to the Covid-19 virus harmed sales - particularly at Easter.

The Hertfordshire-based chocolate shop says it was 'encouraged by the agility and resilience of the business model' following the rise in online demand for its goods after it shut all its retail stores in late March.

However, they say the online rise in sales was not high enough to mitigate the loss of business from the shutdown of its high street stores, which happened on March 23 and has had a 'material impact' on its business.

Hotel Chocolat has also recently raised 22million as part of an equity fundraiser

It has now secured a 35million revolving credit facility with Lloyds Bank, an upgrade from its previous 10million overdraft facility, thanks to a 25million credit line from the government's Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme.

This follows on the back of a 22million equity fundraiser, which was announced three days before the government-mandated lockdown. The company said the money would go towards 'growth capital investment and to provide operational headroom.'

Hotel Chocolat states it has made numerous changes to its working practices as well as 'a broad range of actions to manage its costs and cash flow.'

These include adapting its distribution warehouses and briefly cutting the number of its products on sale. The company is also not paying dividends, which is part of the terms of its CBILS loan.

Angus Thirlwell: 'The financial headroom gives us greater resilience against ongoing disruption and enables us to move onwards with longer-term growth opportunities'

Angus Thirlwell, the business's co-founder and chief executive, said 'plans are in progress' for the retailer to reopen its stores 'when appropriate, with adjustments in place to make shopping with us safe and pleasurable again'.

He added: 'The financial headroom gives us greater resilience against ongoing disruption and enables us to move onwards with longer-term growth opportunities.

'Our market leadership in digital and subscription chocolate is more valuable than ever, and we will accelerate the planned innovations and investments behind these models.

Hotel Chocolat was doing well before the coronavirus crisis hit the United Kingdom.

In the six months to December 29 2019, it saw revenues jump 14 per cent to 91.7million and profits increase by just over 1million to 14.9million.

Despite this success, Thirwell fervently complained that the business rates regime was 'crazy' and 'archaic,' because of the way it was stifling risk-taking and resulting in retailers paying more in property tax than rent.

Shares in the firm were 0.75 per cent higher at lunchtime at 332.5p
One lakh visitors go to the Koyambedu market in Chennai everyday. (DC Photo)

Chennai: With Chennais eruption of coronavirus cases being linked to the Koyambedu vegetable market, local residents are demanding strong steps to enforce social distancing there.

Ten days after Deccan Chronicle reported on the situation at the market, the Chennai City Corporations commissioner G. Prakash said 65 per cent of the fresh cases reported from Chennai were from six wards linked to the market.

Principal secretary J Radhakrishnan, the special officer to tackle Covid-19 cases in Chennai, told Deccan Chronicle that the Chennai Metro Development Authority (CMDA) has closed the retail segment of the market including flower and fruit shops. The wholesale segment will continue to operate.

After nailing the Koyambedu market as the superspreader of Covid 19, the Chennai City Corporation has identified four more high-risk zones.

One of the corporation zones, Ambattur, had 42 cases till Sunday morning, most of them linked to a man who was a platform vendor selling vegetables at the Koyambedu market. Thirteen people including his family and neighbours have tested positive now, according to an official who chose to remain anonymous.

Of the 69 cases reported from the Valsaravakkam zone, about half of them were linked to the Koyambedu market.

All these cases were people who were shop owners, vendors and workers at the Koyambedu market or their family members living here, said another official.

Chennai currently has 1007 active Covid-19 cases and 98 per cent of them are asymptomatic, according to the commissioner G. Prakash.

Deccan Chronicle had reported on April 19 that vendors in the market had encroached upon the footpaths, resulting in the overcrowding of customers. Most of the vendors and many of the customers were seen wearing no masks and there was no social distancing mainatained.

The 300-acre Koyambdu market complex, as per details available with the CMDA, hosts about 3154 shops that sell vegetables, fruits and flowers. In the pre-corona era, the market had at least one lakh daily visitors.

V. Rama Rao, a social worker from Nanganallur, demanded a shutdown of the market for a fortnight. Alternatively, vegetable shops could be set up in vacant lands in all 15 zones of the corporation.
The number of coronavirus cases in Armenia could quadruple by the end of this month, Health Minister Arsen Torosian said on Monday.

Torosian also warned of the possibility of a prolonged and much deadlier epidemic as he met with Armenian lawmakers and answered their questions.

If we follow [safety and hygiene] rules then we will manage to make progress, he told members of the parliament committee on healthcare. If we dont we will have explosive outbreaks which will result, for example, in 500,000 infected citizens and thousands of deaths. This scenario is not implausible.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Torosian clarified that the staggering numbers cited by him are based on the World Health Organizations projections for the spread of the virus in Armenia made one month ago.

Fortunately, that hasnt happened because we have managed to contain the spread of infections, he said. Whether there will be 500,000, 100,000 or 50,000 cases is hard to tell now  but its our behavior that will determine their number.

A plausible scenario now, he went on, is that Armenia will have 10,000 cases at the end of this month. This number is large in the sense that its more than [the number of infected people] we can keep under control and we will probably send some of them home. But its not large in the sense that we will be able to treat severe and critical cases.

The Ministry of Health reported on Monday morning 121 new cases of the disease which raised Armenias COVID-19 total to 2,507.

The ministry also said that four more Armenians have died from the virus, the largest daily increase in fatalities reported so far. The countrys death toll from COVID-19 thus reached 39.

Torosian issued the stark warnings as the Armenian government largely ended on Monday a nationwide lockdown imposed in late March. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Sunday that Armenians must now share with the government responsibility for tackling the epidemic and minimizing its consequences. Pashinian urged them to abide by social distancing and hygiene rules set by the health authorities.

The government had already gradually reopened some sectors of the Armenian economy and eased restrictions on peoples movements since April 13.

The Ministry of Health has reported growing daily numbers of new COVID-19 infections for the last two weeks. Torosian told Pashinian on Sunday that the increased mobility of the population is one of the reasons for that rise.
Advertisement

The Kent State University shootings on May 4, 1970 was a day that changed America forever.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the watershed moment when the Ohio National Guard sprayed bullets on a crowd of defenseless Kent State students who were protesting the Vietnam War on campus. It only took 13 seconds to fire off 70 rounds of ammunition which resulted in four deaths and nine injuries.

The event left an indelible mark on the nation's history, one that proved to be a defining moment for a country that was dramatically divided over the protracted war. It marked the end of an era and shaped a new generation defined by disillusionment. For those who were there that day, the events remain fresh in their minds.

'It's a dark chapter in our history but it's something that needs to be embraced for the sake of teaching and preventing a similar tragedy in the future,' said Alan Canfora, a campus leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement who was shot through the wrist during the fusillade of bullets.

The May 4, 1970 shootings officially marked the end of an era and shaped a new generation defined by disillusionment. For those who were there that day, the events remain fresh in their minds. Chic Canfora, a witness to the weekend of protests told DailyMail.com: 'It pretty much convinced me that everything I had come to believe and respect about America as a beacon of hope for the world and as one that believes in the right of people t petition our government was just a myth.' Above, three Kent State students run for their lives from a line of soldiers carrying semi-automatic rifles and bayonets

The Ohio governor declared a state emergency and called in the National Guard after Kent State students vandalized store fronts and staged a riot in downtown Kent on May 1 as an immediate response to President Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War in Cambodia. It was the catalyst event that started four days of anti-war revolt which culminated in four fatalities and nine wounded on Monday, May 4

Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway shrieks over the lifeless body of 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller. John Filo, a Kent State photography student won the Pulitzer Prize for taking this image which became a rallying cry and symbol for the anti-war movement and one of the most enduring images from that day

Alan Canfora said he gravitated toward the more 'militant faction' in a national activist organization known as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). 'We were trying to send a message to President Nixon to stop the killing in Vietnam - not only of our soldiers, but also the Asian victims. It was a war of genocide. It was a racist war, so we tried to stop that.'

Just ten days before the shootings, he attended the funeral of a childhood friend that died in Vietnam. He told DailyMail.com: 'While we were at the graveyard, we swore an oath that at our next opportunity we would protest militantly and try to send a message to President Nixon.'

'It was a time when we felt like marching wasn't doing enough and we had to do something much stronger to get Nixon to hear us,' said Alan Canfora's younger sister, Chic, who was also a student at the university at the time. 'We were all still reeling from attending that funeral and seeing the grief in his mother's face when he they handed her the folded flag. And then to know that more mothers would grieve and more young people in our generation would be sacrificed in that war.'

Everyone remembers that May 4, 1970 was a particularly beautiful day in Kent, Ohio. Belying the excitement of the semester's end was intense resentment over a deeply unpopular, deadly and costly war that resulted in a draft of 2.2 million Americans and nearly 60,000 casualties.

Events leading up to the Monday, May 4 shootings began four days earlier after President Richard Nixon announced that he had escalated the Vietnam War into Cambodia. In the infamous, televised speech he cautioned Americans to prepare for retaliatory protests: 'My fellow Americans, we live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home,' he said. 'Even here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed.'

President Nixon's televised announcement of the US invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970 immediately ignited anti-war protests at hundreds of colleges across America opposing the expansion of the Vietnam War that he vowed to end during his 1968 presidential bid. Nixon despised protesters, he called them 'bums' and accused them of being anti-American. In the wake of the Kent State tragedy, Nixon released a statement that condemned the student protesters: 'This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy'

This photo of Alan Canfora waving a black flag at a line of crouching guardsmen across the field was another seminal image taken by John Filo during the Kent State riots. Just ten days before the shootings, Canfora attended the funeral of a childhood friend that died in Vietnam. He told DailyMail.com: 'While we were at the graveyard, we swore an oath that at our next opportunity we would protest militantly and try to send a message to President Nixon'

1,000 soldiers in full riot gear were dispatched to quell the student protesters that greeted them with chants, insults and rocks in the quad. The guardsmen bayoneted students and lobbed tear gas canisters in an attempt to break up the crowd. Just when it seemed like they were retreating, a group of 28 soldiers inexplicably opened fire on the 300 scattered demonstrators that were standing over 60 yards away. Nobody expected the guardsmen to be using live ammunition and to this day, nobody knows exactly why they did it

William Schroeder, Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, and Sandra Lee Scheuer, (L-R) were the four Kent State University students killed on campus by the Ohio National Guard during a Vietnam War protest on May 4, 1970. William Schroeder (left) was killed with a single shot to the back as an innocent bystander. Sandra Scheuer (right) was walking to class when a bullet severed her jugular vein, she bled to death

Kent students organized a demonstration the very next evening on Friday, May 1 in the downtown area that led to the looting and vandalism of some local businesses. Officers in riot-gear used tear gas to disperse the crowds but the Ohio governor declared a state emergency. It was the catalyst event that started four days of anti-war revolt which culminated in four fatalities and nine injured.

Things escalated on Saturday, May 2 when the ROTC building on campus was burned to the ground. 'I was active in all that stuff throughout the weekend,' said Alan. Though his sister Chic is confounded by the entire event: 'All those students had tried to burn it down but they were unsuccessful.' Almost 30 minutes after the police had surrounded the entire building, it mysteriously went up into huge flames. 'There is some evidence that those kinds of actions were done on other campuses by agent provocateurs to justify calling in huge displays of force,' explained Chic to DailyMail.com  the very next day, the Ohio governor sent in the National Guard.

By Sunday morning the campus had been transformed into something that Chic describes as an 'armed military camp.' She told DailyMail.com: 'Looking out the fourth floor of my dormitory window was about 150 pup tents and Jeeps and soldiers at our doors that I knew were not there to protect us.'

The students arranged a peaceful sit-in on Sunday evening, requesting to speak with the President of the university. 'The guardsmen tricked us that night and told us if we got off the street and moved down to the lawn that President White would come out and talk with us.' As soon as the students reached the lawn, the guardsmen advanced on them with tear gas and bayonets. 'Several students were bayoneted in the back and in the legs by guardsmen,' said Chic. 'There was tear gas and helicopters flying overhead; we were a truly in a war zone with no weapons other than our voices.'

Contention between the Kent State students and the National Guard reached a dangerous fever pitch by Monday morning. Commuters that went home for the weekend were back on campus and the group of protesters swelled to 300 with anywhere between 1,000-1,500 bystanders - some who were demonstrating against the invasion of the National Guard on their campus, others who were demonstrating the invasion of Cambodia.

Students responded to the guardsmen trying to break up their rally with rocks, bottles and protest chants. 'We resisted their effort to break up a rally because he felt we had a constitutional right to be there and they advanced on us with tear gas.'

John Filo was a Kent State photography student who missed the entire weekend of protests because he working away on assignment. Slightly disappointed that he missed the opportunity to document what he thought was 'probably the biggest story of my life,' John carried on with his normal Monday routine working in the photo lab on campus.

Teenager Mary Ann Vecchio kneels over the body of Jeffrey Miller who was killed during the 13- second long bloodshed. John Filo was a student and a budding photojournalist on his lunch break when he ventured on campus to document the demonstration. He told DailyMail.com that he almost didn't go to the rally changed his mind when his professors persuaded him that the story morphed into something much bigger, 'It's about student protesters in America now.' The next day the FBI knocked on his door and tried to force Filo into handing over his roll of film from the shootings

By Sunday morning, May 3, the Kent State campus had been transformed into something that Chic Canfora described as an 'armed military camp.' She told DailyMail.com: 'Looking out the fourth floor of my dormitory window was about 150 pup tents and Jeeps and soldiers at our doors that I knew were not there to protect us'

Students above rush to the aid of their classmate injured in the 13-second- long barrage which Chic Canfora said felt like a 'horrifyingly long time.' Chic recalls hiding behind a car during the shooting: 'Car windows were shattering over us and all around us we could hear bullets piercing the bodies of the cars, thumping into the grass and on the pavement'

One day before the shootings, the Ohio Governor James Rhodes sowed discord when he spoke at a press conference and described the Kent State students as: 'worse than the (Nazi) brown shirts and the Communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes. They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America.' Chic told DailyMail.com: 'With that he sent armed gunman onto a college campus to view peaceful student antiwar protesters as an enemy that needed to be eradicated. It's unconscionable that he would send in that kind of military might and put targets on the backs of young people'

Filo had no intention of going to the protest, 'As far as I was concerned the story was already over.' It wasn't until two professors changed his mind: 'They told me, 'No the story has changed, it's about student protests in America now.' With that, Filo set out on his hour-long lunch break with his own 'self- assignment.' Little did he expect to take a photograph so powerful - it would end up becoming the single most defining image of the Kent State Shootings. The photo depicted 14-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio crying out as she knelt over the body of Jeffrey Miller and it would garner Filo a Pulitzer Prize.

Another seminal photograph Filo snapped that day was of Alan Canfora, who was waving a black flag while facing down a line of crouching guardsmen with their guns aimed directly at him. 'I was so naive at that time about guns and weapons, I didn't even know if they were carrying shotguns of BB guns,' said Canfora. 'There was never any kind of a hint that armed law enforcement officials might use their weapons. So that has never entered my mind.'

In fact it never occurred to a lot of people on campus that day that the guardsmen's guns were loaded with real ammunition. 'I thought they were loaded with blanks,' said Filo, 'it wasn't until I saw the metal sculpture in my line of view erupt into a cloud of rust and then a chunk of bark on the tree next to me flew off when I thought, 'holy crap, someone's using live ammunition. This scare tactic has gone bizarrely bad.'

After a tense standoff with Alan Canfora, the guardsmen began to retrace their steps back up the hill in the same direction they came from - much to the delight of cheering crowds who thought the debacle was over. But as soon as they reached the top of the hill at 12:24 pm; 28 of the more than 70 guardsmen inexplicably began firing their semi-automatic rifles.

The spray of bullets lasted for 13 seconds, Chic Canfora ran for her life and ducked behind a car. 'That's when we realized the ammunition was live,' she said. 'Car windows were shattering over us and all around us we could hear bullets piercing the bodies of the cars, thumping into the grass and on the pavement.'

A student throws a tear gas canister back at National Guardsmen during the demonstration held on May 4, 1970. Alan Canfora said that he gravitated toward the more 'militant faction' in a national activist organization known as the Students for a Democratic Society as a student. 'We were trying to send a message to President Nixon to stop the killing in Vietnam - not only of our soldiers, but also the Asian victims. It was a war of genocide. It was a racist war, so we tried to stop that'

National Guardsmen first attempted to disperse the crowd of protesters with tear gas during a tense standoff between the students and soldiers

'There's always been a battle for the truth about what happened at Kent State,' said Alan to DailyMail.com. 'I think we finally won that battle'

'When they stopped and turned and raised their weapons, I thought at that moment, what are they going to do? Are they going to March back toward us? Are they going to shoot? Then I heard the guns going off,' explained Alan who took cover behind an oak tree but was still shot in the wrist.

'I looked at my wrist, I felt the pain, I saw the blood, and I thought to myself, this is just a bad dream. That can't be really be happening,' said Alan to DailyMail.com.

His roommate, Thomas Grace was nearby and also wounded by a bullet that ripped apart his foot. Canfora yelled at him to 'stay down' as he began to sit up and grab his foot. 'Bullets were zipping through the air around both of us and going into a parking lot behind us where the four students were killed,' he said. 'It was a very harrowing situation.'

In 1970, John Filo was honored with the George Polk Memorial Award for magazine reporting along with fellow Kent State photographers, John Darnell and Howard Ruffner. He was flown out to New York City with his mother where they put them up at a fancy hotel for a celebratory dinner at the Time-Life building. 'There I was seated at a table with Walter Cronkite and my mother who whispered to me, 'well now that this is over, wouldn't you like to go back and try to get into dental school?'

After the gunfire stopped, Chic came out from hiding behind the car and saw William Schroeder, 19, three feet behind with blood on his neck and shoulders. 'I learned he died later at the hospital.'

Chic ran toward another female victim, still holding on to the wet rags that protected her from the tear gas, hoping she could help. 'And it was a young woman that I knew,' she told DailyMail.com. 'But I didn't recognize her because she was already so blue and gray having been shot to the juggler vein. I didn't realize it was Sandy Scheuer who had just been in my dorm room recently, I didn't know it was her until I saw her picture on television.'

Seconds after the shooting was over John Filo looked at the carnage around him and triple checked himself to make sure that he wasn't injured. 'I was thinking, 'how the hell they miss me?' I thought to myself, 'I must be in a state of shock.'

There were people wounded on my right and when I turned to my left, there was the body of Jeffrey Miller down the hill on the asphalt and you could immediately tell that he was not alive.'

It was then that John Filo snapped the photo that inevitably came to be a rallying cry for opposition to the war, he told DailyMail.com: 'I saw this girl kneeling next to his body and I could tell that something was building inside of her emotionally.'

'I was running out of film and having this debate in my mind about when I should snap the photo as I was moving closer and more toward the front of her when she let out a scream,' recalled Filo. 'That sort of got me to shoot the picture. I cranked the camera one more time and I was out of film.'

Alan Canfora didn't realize that Jeffrey Miller, 20, was killed when he later saw him laying in the back of an ambulance at the hospital. 'I always knew him as a peaceful guy, thoughtful always smiling,' said Canfora. 'When I saw that gaping hole in his right cheek, I thought to myself, 'well he's going to have to get plastic surgery.' I was hoping that he was okay. I was in a state of shock, I thought he was still alive.'

Alan Canfora remembers feeling 'overwhelmed' by the unfairness of it all in the immediate aftermath of the shootings. 'I just thought to myself, what an unfair fight and how cowardly they were to shoot into a crowd of unarmed students,' he said. John Filo was sent hate mail for months and his family was bombarded with non-stop nasty phone calls. 'We had to take the phone off the hook just to get some sleep.'

Things escalated on Saturday, May 2 when protesters lit the ROTC building on fire. 'I was active in all that stuff throughout the weekend,' said Alan. Though his sister Chic is confounded by the entire event: 'All those students had tried to burn it down but they were unsuccessful.' Almost 30 minutes after the police had surrounded the entire building, it mysteriously went up into huge flames. 'There is some evidence that those kinds of actions were done on other campuses by agent provocateurs to justify calling in huge displays of force,' she said. Indeed, the very next day, the Ohio Governor James Rhodes dispatched 1,000 National Guards

'I think now 50 years later, it's very hard to find anybody who would say that it's justifiable to fire 67 gunshots into a room of students,' said Alan to DailyMail.com. 'So I think time has been on our side, also I'll say that we have fought an effective a movement against the cover-up of murder at Kent state'

None of the students would have guessed that their battle had only just begun. They would have to fight for their voice to be heard and for justice in the court of public opinion. A Gallup Poll taken the day after the shootings showed that 58% of Americans blamed the students.

Chic and Alan recalled a conversation they shared with their aunt that evening at the dinner table when they explained to her what happened. 'Like half of America at the time, she believed that American soldiers would never turn their guns on American people unless you deserved it, unless you had done something to provoke them,' said Chic.

Ohio State Governor James Rhodes said that the demonstrators were 'the worst type of people that we harbor in America.' President Nixon's silent majority endorsed the National Guard, some even rejoiced in their killings. Nixon condemned the students in a statement responding to the tragedy, he said: 'This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy.'

Immediately in the wake of the shootings, Kent State survivors had to dismantle a massive misinformation campaign that pegged blame on the protesting students.

The National Guard went on a PR offensive. They claimed self-defense in two separate televised news conferences. 'Initial reports were making it out to be some gun shootout between the students,' said Filo. The National Guard claimed that there was a sniper on campus and that students were within 5 feet of the soldiers. In reality, the closest victim to the shooters that day was Jeffrey Miller who was approximately 270 feet from the Guard. Allison Krause was 330 feet back, and both William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer was also about 390 feet away from the Guard.

Now all of the investigations have proven that the shootings were unnecessary, unwanted, and inexcusable and that the claims of self defense were fabricated subsequent to the event.

'I think now 50 years later, it's very hard to find anybody who would say that it's justifiable to fire 67 gunshots into a room of students,' said Alan to DailyMail.com. 'So I think time has been on our side, also I'll say that we have fought an effective a movement against the cover-up of murder at Kent state.'

To this day, why a group of soldiers suddenly changed course and decided to fire into a crowd of unarmed students remains one of May 4, 1970's most enduring mysteries.

Chic Canfora is still holding out hope that someone might come forward to reveal the truth. 'Was there an order to fire? Who gave that order and why? Did that order come from the governor? Did that come from Nixon? Was there a planned sacrifice?- As in, maybe they were told if you killed a couple of them, it would quiet the campuses down.' She added, 'Even if the truth is painful to admit, we need to know it so we can learn from it and ensure that that never happens again.'

'I think everyone there that was there that day suffered from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder,' explained Filo who also said that it took a long time for him to wrap his head around what happened. 'When I think about Bill Schroeder who did all the right stuff, laying on the ground with his books over his head but he gets shot through the thoracic cavity and somehow, I don't have a bruise to show for it,' said Filo. 'It just took a long time to come to terms with that.'

Chic Canfora currently works as a crises communications specialist which gave her the opportunity to offer her expertise to Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida after the 2018 shooting. 'The experience for me was really quite healing because I had a chance to see what a community can and should do to help one another heal.'

Due to COVID-19, this year's commemoration is forced to take place online. Chic said that she always knew that the 50th anniversary would be a special one, but she didn't think expect it to be special in this way. Though disappointed, she's looking forward to having all three of her adult children partake in the virtual festivities from her home. As her children grew up, they slowly began to process their mother and uncles role in a pivotal moment in history. 'It's been a remarkable thing for me to watch their growing awareness and they care a great deal. Kent State means a tremendous amount to them.'

Alan Canfora is a new father to an eight week old baby and five year old daughter, both are still too young to grasp the May 4 tragedy. 'But I always tell her that an Oak tree saved my life,' said Canfora. 'Whenever we see the leaves, I point to it and say: 'You see that tree? Well I want to let you know that an Oak tree saved my life one time.'

In the immediate aftermath, Kent State survivors were faced with dismantling a massive misinformation campaign that pegged blame on the protesting students. The National Guard went on a PR offensive and claimed that they fired their weapons in self-defense in two separate televised news conferences. All investigations have proven that the shootings were unnecessary, unwanted, and inexcusable and that the claims of self defense were fabricated subsequent to the event
Algiers, Algeria (PANA) - Algeria has recorded 179 confirmed cases of coronavirus (Covid-19), bringing the number of infections in the country to 4,474, a spokesperson of the Scientific Committee for monitoring the evolution of the Coronavirus pandemic, Djamel Fourar, announced on Sunday
[May 04, 2020] City National Bank Honored by J.D. Power With Customer Satisfaction Award for Third Year in a Row

City National Bank received the highest ranking in customer satisfaction in the north central region in the J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study, claiming the top honor in its region for the third year in a row. City beat out all other banks in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. "There is no greater honor than being recognized by our customers, and to receive recognition on this level for the third consecutive year is just incredible," said President & CEO Skip Hageboeck. "Our most important goal is to provide exceptional personal service, and hearing our customers are satisfied with the service they receive is the best compliment we could receive." Executive Vice President for Retail Craig Stilwell commended City's employees, "This achievement is a testament to all City employees who are committed to making the overall customer experience as efficient, personal and helpful as possible. City's true measure of success is how our customers feel about us, and we are grateful that our team's efforts have been recognized and rewared for the third year in a row."



The U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study, now in its 15th year, measures satisfaction in six factors: account opening; communication and advice; channel activities; convenience; problem resolution; and products and fees. Channel activities include seven sub-factors: ATM; assisted online; branch; call center; IVR; mobile; and website. In addition to ranking highest overall in its region, City also fared best in the factors of "communication and advice," "convenience" and "channel activities."

The study is based on responses from more than 91,950 retail banking customers of 182 of the largest banks in the United States regarding their experiences with their retail bank. To view the full J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study, click here. About City National Bank

Headquartered in Charleston, W. Va., City National Bank operates more than 90 branches in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio. With $5.1 billion in assets, City offers a variety of financial products and services for both consumer and business customers. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005597/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

The fastest growing brand is Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), recording an impressive 42 percent growth to 2.4 billion USD.

VNPT has invested in 4G networks in order to meet customer demand and has ramped up efforts to increase its fibre optic cable speed, while still maintaining tariffs.

The Vietnamese governments plans for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, smart cities, start-ups, and the National Innovation Network Program, 4G and 5G, IoT, and mobile telecommunication networks are supporting the telecoms sector to grow from strength to strength, the report said.
A man in China has been detained after allegedly stealing a black swan from a park and then making a pot of soup out of it.

Surveillance footage captures the moment the man snatched the waterbird from a pond after knocking it out with a wooden stick.

The Chinese resident, known by his surname Wu, claimed that he only attacked the swan after the animal 'pecked him when he was teasing it with a club', according to reports.

He was caught red-handed at his home after police found a pot of half-eaten swan dish in the kitchen.

The culprit was later caught red-handed at his home after police found a pot of half-eaten swan dish in the kitchen

A Chinese man has been captured on camera snatching a black swan from a local park after the waterbird was knocked unconscious by the resident with a wooden stick

Mr Wu has been detained by local police following the incident.

The Cui Lake Park, located in the city of Jinhua, Zhejiang province of eastern China, was home to four black swans for nearly four years.

On April 29, a park keeper phoned the police and said that one of the birds was missing, Chinese media report.

Police looked through the surveillance footage and saw Mr Wu leaving the park in a hurry whilst holding a wooden stick and a red bag.

Mr Wu was later caught by the police in his rented flat  with the leftovers of the swan broth.

The Cui Lake Park, located in the city of Jinhua, Zhejiang province of eastern China, was home to four black swans for nearly four years. The file picture shows the four swans at the park

The furious resident, known by his surname Wu, knocked out the bird with the club before taking it home and turning the swan into a casserole

When confronted by the officers, the thief confessed that he took his wife and children to the park in the afternoon.

Mr Wu claimed that he was upset after being pecked by the black swan when he teased the animal with a club.

The furious resident then knocked out the swan with the wooden stick before taking it home and turning the waterbird into a casserole.

'The black swan meat wasn't tasty, but it did smell very nice,' Mr Wu commented on his dinner.

Mr Wu has been detained by local police following the incident. It remains unclear if he would face any punishment.
NEODESHA, Kan., May 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc. (NYSE American: UAVS), an industry leading provider of unmanned aerial vehicles and advanced aerial imagery, data collection and analytics solutions, has appointed J. Michael Drozd as the Companys new Chief Executive Officer, who shall commence employment on or before June 1, 2020. Drozd will replace current CEO Barrett Mooney, who will soon become Executive Chairman of the Board.



Commenting on the appointment, Mooney stated, After a thorough and extensive nationwide search, we are very pleased to welcome Michael as AgEagles new CEO. He brings to our Company a powerful combination of executive business operations, manufacturing and entrepreneurial experiences, matched by an extraordinary track record of success in Agriculture and Software, among other high growth industries. We are thrilled to have him aboard and fully expect him to play a pivotal role in taking AgEagle to its full and promising growth potential.

For the past three decades, Drozd has earned distinction as an accomplished business leader with a proven reputation for business building, market development, product commercialization, entrepreneurship and innovation. Prior to joining AgEagle, he was recruited by a Denver-based private equity group to serve as the CEO of their Hemp Companies (renamed RYTE). RYTEs holdings include a sizable hemp farm as well as a major CBD extraction and ag processing facility, along with an IP portfolio. During his tenure, Drozd launched RYTE Brands as a diversified portfolio of CBD companies through acquisitions and led the Companys first acquisition, Moksha Chocolate. In addition, he recruited a world class leadership team, optimized CBD extraction to create one of the highest quality CBD crude oil extracts at scale, and helped launch a consumer-facing brand.

From 2015 through 2019, Drozd served as President of Eurofins AgBio Division, a global business focused primarily on testing for the agriculture sector (seeds, plants and animals) with an emphasis on genetic analyses. In this role, he succeeded in transforming the multi-site bio-analytical testing division, increased its global customer base and greatly expanded Eurofins offerings, including hemp testing. From 2014 until his recruitment to Eurofins, he was Chief Operating Officer at Arbiom, a French biotechnology company where he restructured the organization, materially increased overall efficiency and improved resource allocations through numerous initiatives. As President and CEO of Aseptia/Wright Foods from 2011 through 2014, Drozd was credited for growing revenues from $210,000 to over $20 million in just over three years. The company achieved the distinction of being named the fastest growing food company in the U.S. on Inc. 500. In addition, he closed $500 million in customer contracts, including Fortune 500 companies; and negotiated over $81 million in financing transactions.

Earlier in his career, Drozd served as Executive Vice President of CoalTek, a clean tech energy company that he scaled into the largest clean coal processing enterprise in the nation. He also served as President and CEO of Industrial Microwave Systems, where he teamed with a tenured Duke professor to transform research into commercial technology solutions, building an IP portfolio and a revenue generating enterprise. Prior to Industrial Microwave Systems, Drozd was an Associate at Decision Focus Inc., a management consulting firm which focused on logistics and yield management systems. In this role, he designed, implemented and managed the forecasting and yield management system for a major logistics company.

Drozd received dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics from Duke University in 1989 as an AB Duke and General Motors Scholar. He earned his Masters in Optical Engineering from Cambridge University (England) attending as a Churchill Scholar. He also received a Masters degree in Engineering-Economic Systems (Business / Engineering Management) from Stanford University and was a National Science Fellow. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1997.

Drozd commented, I am very pleased to be joining AgEagles leadership team and have great confidence that this is a company capable of achieving many great things, not the least of which is emerging as one of the top advanced drone and Ag tech companies in the country. I was immediately attracted to AgEagle because of the Companys compelling growth prospects and the teams unwavering commitment to industry innovation and transformation. I passionately believe in the enormous commercial potential of drones and Ag tech as well as the ever increasing market demand for efficient logistics. I look forward to leveraging my experience and skillset to help ensure that AgEagle achieves even greater heights.

About AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc.

Founded in 2010 and based in Neodesha, Kansas, AgEagle has earned distinction as one of the industry's leading pioneers of technologically advanced aerial imagery-based data collection and analytics solutions. We are trusted to help the world's growers, consumer packaged goods companies and their supply chain partners, and urban green managers proactively assess and manage the health of commercial crops and green infrastructure, reduce the chemicals in produced foods and products and preserve and protect natural resources. In addition, we are at the leading edge of providing state and territorial departments of agriculture, growers and processors with registration, oversight, compliance/enforcement, and reporting solutions relating to the United States' emerging hemp cultivation industry. For more information, please visit www.ageagle.com.

Contacts:

Gateway Investor Relations

Cody Slach

Sean Mansouri

Phone: 949-574-3860

Email: UAVS@gatewayIR.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2444c82e-3f4c-40a0-814d-bf785fc3cae3
A young woman played a prank on her mother, telling her that the governor of their state was banning all alcohol purchases because of the coronavirus pandemic and they had just two hours to make a quick run to the store before the new edict went into effect.

The video posted to social media shows the mother, Kathy Byczynski, ordering her daughter, Alayna, to get ready to make a run to the store and stock up on some wine.

I told my mom the governor was banning all alcohol purchases in 2 hours, the caption read.

OK, lets go! the mother is heard yelling at her daughter, who is seen mischievously giggling.

Get your clothes on!

Alayna Byczynski of Ottawa, Illinois, played a hilarious prank on her mother, Kathy, telling her that the governor is about to ban the sale of liquor and they had two hours to get to the store before it went into effect

The mother-daughter pair loaded up their shopping cart with eight bottles of red and white wine

Kathy Byczynski, a real estate agent from Ottawa, Illinois, is seen left with her prankster daughter, Alayna

Fortunately for Kathy, she has nothing to worry about since the governor of Illinois has not banned the sale of alcohol

The mother, horrified at the thought of having to spend at least the next few weeks without any alcohol in the house, screams: Oh my god!

The next frame shows a shopping cart filled with about eight bottles of red and white wine as the mom and daughter wait at the checkout line.

The daughter apparently had no plan to let her mother in on the joke, writing a caption which read: False alarm but too late now.

The hilarious post went viral on social media, as commenters noted that the amount of alcohol they bought would only be enough for a few days.

The video was posted by Alayna Byczynski, who pranked her mother, Kathy Byczynski, a real estate agent from Ottawa, Illinois.

Byczynski can rest assured. Her home state has not banned the sale of liquor.

In late March, several Facebook users posted prank news items claiming that the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, was going to ban the sale of alcohol.

Those claims turned out to be false.

Other April Fools jokes also claimed that other states were shutting down the sale of alcohol.

Last month, data indicated that sales of alcohol had increased. In the week ending April, there was a 26 per cent jump in alcohol sales in grocery and convenience stores compared to the same period as last year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Social media erupted with laughter at the clip. 'Someone's an alcoholic,' commented Robert Iotito

Jack Jameson commented that people will 'literally die from the withdrawals if they go cold turkey'

Scott Richards wondered why there weren't more bottles in the shopping cart, tweeting: 'That is only a heavy week for some wine drinkers'

Another Twitter user posted a meme showing Forrest Gump running out to get beer

It was the third straight week that American consumers bought more beer and wine than they did traditional produce.

Alcohol sales were up 22 per cent in the final week of March, not as large an increase as in the two previous weeks, but a rise that is far higher than expected.

Beer, flavored malt and cider sold 17 per cent more than in the same week last year.

But more staggeringly, online sales of alcohol for March increased by 291 per cent on the previous year.

Experts have warned that among the dire impacts of the lockdown on people's health, many turn to alcohol as they become depressed by their diminished quality of life.

Liquor stores have been allowed to remain open across the country despite the lockdown shuttering nonessential businesses.

It is thought that cutting off the sale of alcohol would have seriously adverse health consequences for many who would then need to suffer through an intense period of alcohol withdrawal.
Ex-Ambassador of Armenia to the Holy See Mikayel Minasyan posted on his Facebook a video in which he talks about his meeting with Director of the National Security Service Artur Vanetsyan in Rome in February 2019, stating that Nikol Pashinyan had assigned Vanetsyan to meet with him.

Minasyan stated that he knew Vanetsyan, but they werent close with each other.

During the meeting, Vanetsyan spoke on behalf of Pashinyan and told Minasyan that if he transferred a certain symbolic amount of money to a certain fund, all of the criminal prosecutions against him would be terminated, but he had to leave politics and return to Armenia after a while.

I rejected Nikol Pashinyan because I couldnt forgive myself and live the good life, knowing that my people and homeland are in this situation. Unlike many others, I have always written and said that a great catastrophe awaits us Armenians, not predicted. I can never make deals with people whom I have viewed and still view as simply liars, irresponsible people, traitors of the nation and, I must add, unfortunately, enemies of the state because what is happening to Armenia and the Armenian people today is simply treason, he said.

Minasyan stated that even though he had received many offers from different countries and organizations after his term as ambasasdor ended, he rejected the offers because he couldnt sit back and watch Armenia move towards perdition.

In the current situation, in spite of the several statements of the head of state that I have privatized strategic facilities, plundered and stolen billions, I repeat that there is no fact about plunder and any transaction that will prove that I have plundered. I would like to look into your eyes and make it clear that I have never stolen or plundered or taken money from the state budget of Armenia and I have never done anything that will make me feel ashamed, he said, adding that his sole purpose is to serve the people of Armenia.

In closing, Minasyan addressed the law-enforcement authorities of Armenia and said that everything is on the record and that they wont be able to say they were executing orders when the time comes for them to be sentenced in court.
President Trump waits for the end of a commercial break during a Fox News virtual town hall on May 3. (Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)

For weeks, waves of grief have washed across the country as hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of Americans have died from COVID-19 in the deadliest disease outbreak in a century.

But when President Trump leaves the Washington area on Tuesday for the first time since March, he isn't going to meet with devastated families, as presidents normally do during times of national crisis. He won't console survivors or comfort victims.

He will visit a factory where workers are churning out protective masks in Phoenix. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has extended a statewide stay-at-home order until May 15, but some businesses and two sheriffs have vowed to defy the order  in keeping with Trump's increasingly insistent call for states to reopen their economies.

The danger of opening too soon was clear Monday with reports that the Trump administration is privately projecting a steep increase in deaths this month. The daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double the current number of about 1,750.

The White House said the new projections, based on government modeling compiled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, had not been vetted. But the estimates put Trump's determined efforts to reopen the economy  and his few expressions of compassion for the victims  in sharp relief.

The pandemic, of course, offers limited opportunities for the president to embrace survivors or first responders because any gatherings can spread infections.

There are no public funerals at which Trump can speak, as President Obama did after a racist attack on a black church in Charleston, S.C. in June 2015. Nor can he safely charge into a New York City emergency room and rally the doctors like President George W. Bush did with first responders after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But even hunkered down in the White House, Trump has largely walled himself off from the nation's suffering. He has hosted numerous White House events with business leaders, lawmakers and other visitors, but only one with a handful of survivors.

Story continues

The empathy deficit was on full display in recent days, including a startling positive spin on the nearly 70,000 dead.

After claiming Friday that "our death totals, our numbers, per million people, are really very, very strong" and that he was "very proud," Trump suggested Sunday that his administration deserves credit for preventing much worse.

If we didnt do it, the minimum we would have lost was a million-two, a million-four, a million-five, thats the minimum," Trump said.

After Bush released an affecting video message Saturday that urged Americans to put partisanship aside to fight the pandemic, citing a "spirit of service and sacrifice," Trump slammed the former Republican president for staying silent during his impeachment.

And when Trump held a Fox News "town hall" at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, Trump claimed he was treated worse by the media than the assassinated president.

"They always said, Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln," said Trump, seated beneath Lincoln's giant marble statue. "I believe I am treated worse."

During Trump's frequent White House briefings on the pandemic, his prepared remarks often include sympathy for people who lost loved ones, but he rarely lingers on the issue.

When asked on April 30 if he was considering leading a moment of mourning for the dead, Trump did not directly respond, instead boasting how empathetic he is.

"I dont think anybody can feel any worse than I do about all of the death and destruction thats so needless. Nobody," he said.

Then he shifted to talking about the need to ease lockdown orders so the economy can be revived.

Two days earlier, a reporter asked Trump if he had spoken to the families of people who died from the virus, and whether their stories had affected him.

"Ive spoken to three, maybe, I guess, four families unrelated to me," he said. "I lost a very good friend. I also lost three other friends, two of whom I didn't know as well, but they were friends and people I did business with."

Trump added, "it's a bad death," then segued into more comfortable topics. He mentioned that young people are less vulnerable to the virus and do extraordinarily well. Thats why I think we can start thinking about [reopening] schools.

Two weeks earlier, on April 14, Trump sat down at the White House with several recovered patients. He used the occasion to tout an unproven remedy for the coronavirus, the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine, urging participants to say how much it helped them recover.

Trump didn't linger on the topic of death when Karen Whitsett, a state representative from Michigan, mentioned that she had "lost several family members" to COVID-19.

"No kidding," Trump replied.

The Food and Drug Administration has since cautioned against using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 unless the patient is closely monitored in a hospital or clinical trial because it can cause heart rhythm problems.

While it's hardly a new phenomenon, Trump's obsession with his image during a time of national peril may partly explain the drop in his job approval ratings in recent weeks, in contrast to the "rally around the flag" popularity boost that Bush saw after 9/11.

Trump's public responses "reaffirm that he has no empathy, isn't interested in developing a national consensus for healing, that he needs attention, that he is unwilling to share the spotlight with the real heroes...," said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University. "Donald Trump is a victim of his own shortcomings and we're all paying a price."

Trump lack of apparent empathy may hinder his reelection bid. His presumed Democratic opponent in November, Joe Biden, has spoken and written at length about his family tragedy, and the issue resonates with some voters.

Soon after Biden first won a U.S. Senate seat in 1972, his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident. One of his two sons was stricken with a brain tumor and died in 2015.

Trump also has experienced family tragedy  his older brother was an alcoholic who died at 42 years old in 1981  but he has rarely spoken about it.

By all accounts, he is uncomfortable with any sign of illness. Preoccupied with projecting strength and robust health, he has gotten angry with aides who cough or sniffle around him and has, despite the guidelines from his own coronavirus taskforce, refused to wear a face mask amid the pandemic.

Trump's staff sometimes has to remind him to show a human touch.

After a gunman killed 17 people and wounded 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla, on Feb. 14, 2018, Trump held a meeting with gun violence survivors at the White House, and photographers spotted him holding a list of talking points.

The fifth and final one was, "I hear you."
Since the coronavirus took hold of New York in March, burial rituals in the city have become more complicated. Funeral homes everywhere are backed up and overwhelmed. Many, like Al-Rayaan, have had to rely on refrigerated trucks to store the dead since social distancing restrictions, along with a significant spike in the number of deaths in the city, slowed down the pace of burials. Its particularly disruptive for Muslims, who rarely practice embalming and whose religion dictates that the dead must be buried quickly.

The earth is waiting. Allah is asking for that person to be buried as soon as possible. You never want that grave to wait for you, said Zafar Iqbal, who owns Al-Rayaan with his brother in law, Imtiaz Ahmed.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 15:04:22|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

CANBERRA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been invited to attend the National Cabinet meeting of Australia remotely on Tuesday to ramp-up negotiations on a "travel bubble" between the two countries, local media reported here Monday.

Australia's National Cabinet, which is comprised of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state and territory leaders, is set to meet on Tuesday and again on Friday to discuss easing coronavirus restrictions.

The bubble would enable international travel between Australia and New Zealand possibly later this year, providing a boost for the tourism industry.

As at local time 3:00 p.m. on May 3, a total of 6,801 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 95 deaths and 5,817 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

Over the past week, there has been an average of 13 new cases reported each day, according to the Department of Health.

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has recorded one new case on Monday, its first in recent days.

According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Monday 72 percent of Australian businesses reported that reduced cash flow as a result of the pandemic would impact their operations over the next two months.

More than 40 percent expect a reduced ability to pay operating expenses and 69 percent will be affected by reduced demand for goods and services. Enditem
Landlords throughout the US are bracing for a huge wave of rental defaults after more than 30 million applied for unemployment relief.

In the last week of April rental payments were not far off normal, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council. Ninety-two percent of the rental properties in its data paid or made partial payments, compared with 93 percent in March.

However, the lockdown is now in force throughout the country and people's incomes have been battered. Although eviction moratoriums are in place, many of those will have expired by the end of July, around the same time that supplements to employment benefits will be drying up.

Bruce Brunner, who lives in Minneapolis, said two dozen of his 120 tenants have called to say they won't be able to pay their rent on time.

Crown Heights building tenants Jose Sanchez, Sean Reilly and Stephen Henderson participated in a May Day rent strike urging housing payment freezes for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic

'Six weeks ago, you could name your price and you'd have multiple people applying,' Brunner told the New York Times. 'Now you're deferring and working out payment plans, and it's only going to get worse.'

Sean Reilly, 25, joined thousands of other tenants across New York on Friday for May Day protests demanding rent cancellation.

As Reilly and fellow tenants unfurled banners at their walk-up in the Crown Heights neighborhood, cars surrounded Governor Andrew Cuomo's mansion in New York's state capital Albany for a socially distanced protest.

Similar movements took place across the country, which has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths - more than one million people have been infected and more than 64,000 have died.

The protests, which coincide with May Day, are believed to be the largest such coordinated tenant activity in New York since the 1930s, when mass strikes took aim at rent gouging.

An estimated 12,000 unique tenants across 100 buildings in America's coronavirus epicenter participated in Friday's strike, according to preliminary figures from the advocacy group Housing Justice for All, a lead organizer of the movement.

'I'm not gonna lie, it is scary saying to our landlord, 'we're not paying rent,'' said Reilly, a Democratic Socialists of America member who along with four roommates owes $3,100 per month.

As Sean Reilly and fellow tenants unfurled banners at their walk-up in the Crown Heights neighborhood, cars surrounded the governor's mansion in New York's state capital Albany for a socially distanced protest

'I had a pit in my stomach when we sent that email, but that's what we have to be doing right now,' he told AFP.

Reilly still has work - he declined to go into the specifics of his job for fear of repercussions - but says numerous colleagues lost employment, and he's afraid he will be next.

His neighbor Stephen Henderson - whose household of four roommates splits paying $3,400 in rent each month - moved to the city from Colorado last summer and has lost all his freelance work in the television and film industry.

The 24-year-old received his first unemployment check last week - US jobless numbers have shot past a crippling 30 million claims since confinement measures began - but is still waiting for the $1,200 stimulus promised by the federal government.

More than half the tenants in Henderson and Reilly's five-unit building are striking.

'A lot of us are kind of trying to figure out where we're gonna get the money to eat in another month, let alone pay rent,' said Henderson, wearing a black bandana to guard against coronavirus infection and a hoodie to shield from persistent rain.

Nearly two-thirds of New York's 8.6 million residents rent in a housing market where, according to tracker RentCafe, the average two-bedroom can run from $2,500 per month in Queens to more than $4,000 in Manhattan.

In mid-March Cuomo issued a statewide evictions moratorium until June 20 - but Reilly says that's just 'kicking the can down the road.'

'People aren't getting the wages back that they've lost from losing their jobs,' he said, adding that his household is hoping to devise a payment plan but that without government help the situation is dire.

Their building's manager did not respond to AFP's requests for comment.

Kalman Zimmerman, a landlord and broker who operates throughout Brooklyn, told AFP 'forgiving is very tough' for managers, who he says are also struggling to keep up with property taxes and mortgages.

'I'm totally for a rent freeze, if the government freezes tax payments and mortgages for landlords,' he said.

Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar introduced a recent bill to cancel rent and mortgage payments nationwide until the coronavirus pandemic ends, including relief for landlords.

She's found support among progressive lawmakers including New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but neither Republican President Donald Trump nor leading congressional Democrats have indicated such legislation is in the cards.

Though concrete prospects of a rent freeze might seem distant, Reilly says the longer the crisis lasts, the longer people will 'build consciousness.'

'Our movement is only going to get stronger,' he said. 'We're gonna damn well keep trying until we win.'
Irish, EU, and international human rights law requires the State to provide safe, own-door accommodation for those in direct provision during the Covid-19 crisis, according to some experts.

The legal opinion was drafted by prominent human rights lawyer and senior counsel Michael Lynn and barrister Cillian Bracken for the Irish Refugee Council (IRC). The opinion was distributed widely by the Public Interest Law Alliance (PILA) to NGOs earlier this month.

The IRC sought the advice on what the States legal duties are where people in direct provision and emergency accommodation centres are unable to carry out adequate social distancing.

The legal opinion, which has been sent to Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan and Health Minister Simon Harris, said the States obligation to protect the right to life extends to the provision of single or household occupancy units for those in shared accommodation, given HSE guidelines on reducing contact with people outside your household.

The opinion states: It is not clear how this would be possible to achieve in shared multi-household occupancy accommodation or how else the obligations placed on the State by the Constitution, Convention [European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR)], and Union law, interpreted in light of the Charter [of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the European Union], and ECHR, could be realised. This is particularly the case for those in at-risk those, especially those who should cocoon.

The opinion states that own-door accommodation is required to vindicate a range of other rights under EU directives, European human rights law, and the Irish Constitution, including the right to freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to protection of the person and to bodily integrity, and the right to equality and non-discrimination, among others. It further names the right to health and the right to housing under international human rights law.

The legal opinion also states that there appears to be a particular incoherence in how the State is approaching its obligations to those in accommodation centres.

The [Health] Act of 2020 allows the Minister for Health by regulation to effectively criminalise the sorts of conduct, such as failing to socially distance or self-isolate, that the Department of Justice and Equality seeks to impose upon residents in accommodation centres by failing to provide single or household occupancy accommodation, it states.

It also points out the measures for those in direct provision seem to directly contradict the States own guidelines and seem to be markedly different to that approach being taken to those in homeless emergency accommodation.

The legal advice echoes the open letter to the Government earlier this month signed by more than 920 prominent lawyers, doctors, public health officials, and academics which claimed that the State may be in breach of ECHR obligations unless it provides own-door accommodation to people living in direct provision.

Locals joined more than 90 residents of a direct provision centre in Caherciveen, Co Kerry in asking the Government to move the remaining group out of the centre after a Covid-19 outbreak.

IRC chief Nick Henderson acknowledged measures had been taken to transfer some out of direct provision and to cocoon the vulnerable, but called the Caherciveen situation extremely worrying.
Heal the Healers Now, a national initiative from the David Lynch Foundation to bring the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique to medical professionals who are battling the coronavirus pandemic, is receiving fundraising support from Duran Duran and filmmaker David Lynch, chair of the David Lynch Foundation. In two separate campaigns launching today through the leading online fundraising platform Omaze, Duran Duran and Lynch are offering fans who donate to Heal the Healers Now a chance to win VIP experiences.

Fans can visit omaze.com/duranduran for a chance to score VIP tickets to a future Duran Duran concert (plus flights and hotel accommodations for the trip) as well as a virtual photography session with keyboardist Nick Rhodes. Every donation made through Omaze gives you a chance to win.

Fans can visit omaze.com/coffee to win a coffee date over video chat with legendary filmmaker David Lynch, who will also draw a picture of the winner during the chat.

Duran Duran have been fortunate enough to make music and share it with our fans around the world, over four decades. Right now, when many people are affected by COVID-19 in some way, we all need to find new ways to adapt to life and to help those around us. Healthcare workers who are battling to hold our world together through these traumatic times have been some of the most impacted by the virus, said Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. David Lynch's absolute commitment as an artist has also been reflected in his equal engagement with meditation. Through his foundation he has previously helped many people and I think it is meaningful at this moment that The David Lynch Foundation are offering the opportunity for all medical workers to learn TM for free. We are thrilled to be involved in this initiative through the Omaze campaign. Please join us in supporting Heal the Healers Now.

Transcendental Meditation is an easy-to-learn, enjoyable-to-practice mental technique for deep relaxation and stress reduction that has been successfully offered in medical schools, academic and VA medical centers, hospitals, military academies, substance abuse centers, prisons and other settings, according to the TM.org website.

Instruction in the TM technique for healthcare providers includes eight hours of specialized training by a trauma-informed teacher, which includes one class of personalized instruction, as well as a comprehensive, one-year follow-up program to ensure the provider is gaining maximum results. The technique is practiced for 15-20 minutes twice a day. Training for healthcare professionals battling COVID-19 will begin once health authorities give the greenlight for teaching medical workers onsite.

TM has been shown to reduce stress and trauma, and these healthcare workers need this now more than ever, both during and after this pandemic has passed. Please help us bring this meditation to the heroes on the front lines, said filmmaker David Lynch, chair of the David Lynch Foundation.

Celebrities including Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, Tom Hanks, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Sting, Russell Brand, Laura Dern, Lena Dunham, Naomi Watts, Mary-Louise Parker, Amy Schumer and Bill Hader practice Transcendental Meditation and support the work of the David Lynch Foundation to bring the meditation for free to at-risk adults and youth.

Over 400 peer-reviewed published studies on TM have documented improvements in a wide variety of stress-related disorders, as well as significant improvements in cognitive function and overall health and well-being. The National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense have awarded nearly $30 million in grant support for research on TM.

For more information, and to make a tax-deductible donation directly to Heal the Healers Now Fund, please visit HealtheHealersNow.org or contact Heroes@DavidLynchFoundation.org.

To enter to win VIP experiences with Duran Duran or David Lynch and to support the work of these organizations, visit omaze.com/duranduran or omaze.com/coffee.

For media inquiries, contact Dan Knitzer at The TASC Group at dan@thetascgroup.com or 973-978-3956.

About the David Lynch Foundation

The David Lynch Foundation helps to prevent and eradicate the all-pervasive epidemic of trauma and toxic stress among at-risk populations through promoting widespread implementation of the evidence-based Transcendental Meditation (TM) program in order to improve their health, cognitive capabilities and performance in life. Working in partnership with an international network of specially trained instructors, the David Lynch Foundation works to promote the use of TM to heal trauma and reduce stress.

About Omaze

Omaze is an online fundraising platform that makes giving fun and easy by offering once-in-a-lifetime experiences in support of critical causes. Our campaigns connect influencers, nonprofits and donors to create lasting impact, and have raised funds and awareness for more than 350 charities with donations from over 180 countries.
On Sunday, a few screenshots that were outed on social media revealed the downright horrifying text conversations of a group chat called the Bois Locker Room wherein boys from South Delhi, aged around 17-18, have shared pictures of minor girls using inappropriate and derogatory language.

The group is, allegedly, one of the many such groups that exist on various social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter.

 6-Niska Nagpal/ Instagram

 6-Niska Nagpal/ Instagram

The screenshots also reveal that this particular group, which now has become a trending hashtag on Twitter with over 15,000 tweets, had over 20 members.



A girl, who reportedly goes to the same school as the said boys, has accused the participants of the said group of "morphing pictures of girls their age", and that she and her friends are "freaking out" because of it.

Revealing the details in a post, she wrote, "A group of south delhi guys aged 17-18 types have this ig gc named "boy's locker room" where they shit on, objectify and morph pictures of girls their age. 2 boys from my school are a part of it. MY FRIENDS AND I ARE FREAKING OUT THIS IS SO EWWW AND NOW MY MOM WANTS ME TO QUIT IG"

 6-Niska Nagpal/ Instagram

The screenshots have also revealed that the boys, including the ones who are underage, have made severely disturbing and inappropriate statements, like  We can rape her easily and I will come whenever you say. We will gang rape her.



Their acts are masked as mistakes and not viewed as a violation of someone elses rights & privacy. #boyslockerroom (4/4) pic.twitter.com/dlygK9NW8C  Tanya (@tanyadubeyy) May 3, 2020

Morphing photos and sharing images of peoples private parts would be a violation of Section 66E of the IT Act, as well as Section 354C (voyeurism) of the Indian Penal Code.

As the screenshots have become viral, members of the group have reportedly changed their user names or deleted their accounts. Also, a new Instagram page Bois Locker Room 2.0 has reportedly been created.

 6-Niska Nagpal/ Instagram

Meanwhile, the social media backlash on this disturbing development is continuously increasing.



If I hear even one person saying shit like 'it'll ruin the boys' lives' or 'they're just kids' I'm gonna blow up in you face. You know who else is a kid? Literally all the girls whose photos were being shared. #boyslockerroom  Himani (@paani_pi_ullu) May 3, 2020

Unfortunately, the girls who have outed these screenshots are also receiving hate online.

you know its funny how women at this hour arent surprised with whats been happening. were annoyed & disgusted, yes but can you see how objectification & rape culture is being normalised in such ways? we women have always been subjected to such fuckery, always. #boyslockerroom  vas. (@cloudwhine) May 3, 2020

Another screenshot of a Snapchat conversation that is widely being circulated reads of a supposed 'plan' to gang-rape a woman, however, this has now been clarified as a different incident altogether.

But the alleged conversation is between two members of the same group. This indicated that there are more such boys-only groups out there with similar content found in these two sets of screenshots.

 6-Niska Nagpal/ Instagram

the members of the Boys Locker Room group have been booked under section 66A of IT Act for Cyber Bullying (mention: harassment and offensive messages) :D pic.twitter.com/g2Ay2lcF3s     (@crackanksha) May 3, 2020

Now, legal action has been filed with screenshots as evidence.

This development comes across as nothing but disturbing. And one cannot help but remember how in the Nirbhaya case, the one who had caused the most gruesome injuries to the victim, was the youngest.

Clearly, this calls for action right from homes itself, as parents and guardians need to start being more involved in the lives of their children, especially young boys.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in his Independence Day address in 2014, "Every parent who has a 10-year-old girl at home, you ask them where are they going, when will they come back and tell them to call back home after reaching their place. But have you ever asked as to where is your son going, why are they going and who are their friends?

Every mother and father should keep a tab on their sons and hold them accountable much like the way they put restrictions on girls, he said.

"Let every parent decide to put the same restrictions on their sons as they put on their daughters," the PM said.
Coronavirus crisis: For the first time, PM Modi to take part in NAM meeting today

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, May 04: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday participate in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for the first time to discuss ways to fight the coronavirus pandemic together.

It is reportedly said that the virtual meeting would take place at around 4.30 pm and will also be attended by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Explained: Study claims fatality rate among lung cancer patients due to coronavirus is high

It can be seen that this meeting would be the first time PM Modi will take part since becoming the prime minister in 2014. PM Modi became the first full-time Indian prime minister to skip the NAM summit in 2016 and again in 2019.

In the last two summits, India was represented by the vice president. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh had participated at the Tehran NAM meet in 2012.

Coronavirus: Situation will stabilise anytime soon says Niti Aayog member

Azerbaijan is the president of the grouping till 2022 and the meet is being organised under the leadership of its President Ilham Aliyev.

The Non-Aligned Movement represents the biggest grouping of countries outside the United Nations and has 120 developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America under its fold.
Google on Monday said it blocked and removed 2.7 billion "bad ads" - more than 5,000 bad ads per minute - in 2019, and suspended nearly one million advertiser accounts for policy violations as part of its efforts to protect users from misleading ads.

The tech giant also noted that there has been a sharp spike in fraudulent ads for in-demand products like face masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed lakhs of lives globally.

"Preserving the integrity of the ads on our platforms, as we're doing during the COVID-19 outbreak, is a continuation of the work we do every day to minimise content that violates our policies and stop malicious actors. We have thousands of people working across our teams to make sure we're protecting our users and enabling a safe ecosystem for advertisers and publishers..." Google said in a blogpost.

The post, written by Google Vice President of Product Management Ads Privacy and Safety Scott Spencer, noted that 2.7 billion bad ads were blocked and removed in 2019.

"We also suspended nearly 1 million advertiser accounts for policy violations. On the publisher side, we terminated over 1.2 million accounts and removed ads from over 21 million web pages that are part of our publisher network for violating our policies," the blog said.

It added that terminating accounts - not just removing an individual ad or page - is an especially effective enforcement tool that Google uses if advertisers or publishers engage in egregious policy violations or have a history of violating policy.

"People trust Google when they're looking for information, and we're committed to ensuring they can trust the ads they see on our platforms, too. This commitment is especially important in times of uncertainty, such as the past few months as the world has confronted COVID-19," the blog said.

Google said since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, it has been closely monitoring advertiser behaviour to protect users from ads "looking to take advantage of the crisis".

"These often come from sophisticated actors attempting to evade our enforcement systems with advanced tactics. For example, as the situation evolved, we saw a sharp spike in fraudulent ads for in-demand products like face masks. These ads promoted products listed significantly above market price, misrepresented the product quality to trick people into making a purchase or were placed by merchants who never fulfilled the orders," the blog said.

Google pointed out that there is a dedicated COVID-19 task force that has been working round-the-clock that has built new detection technology and has also improved existing enforcement systems to stop bad actors.

"These concerted efforts are working. We've blocked and removed tens of millions of coronavirus-related ads over the past few months for policy violations including price-gouging, capitalising on global medical supply shortages, making misleading claims about cures and promoting illegitimate unemployment benefits," it added.

Simultaneously, Google is working on ways to allow advertisers across industries to share relevant updates with their audiences. It explained that over the past several weeks, Google has helped NGOs, governments, hospitals and healthcare providers run public service announcements.

"We continue to take a measured approach to adjusting our enforcement to ensure that we are protecting users while prioritising critical information from trusted advertisers. Maintaining trust in the digital advertising ecosystem is a top priority for Google," it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Schoolchildren will be told to sit 6ft apart with strict social distancing measures in place in playgrounds and canteens as they readjust to life after lockdown.

One in five children will be urged to return to the classroom from next week as part of a gradual reopening of schools.

They are expected to follow stringent new rules which will see children split into small groups with siblings in the same class.

More than 1.7million pupils who are vulnerable or whose parents are key workers will be asked to go back.

Students in year six will be first full classes through the doors - potentially from June 1 - to help them prepare for the transition to high school.

Ministers will target later that week for a wider reopening of primary schools, before secondary schools allow pupils in years ten and 12 to return.

Children of key workers comply with social distancing rules while attending a hub school for Edinburgh city centre pupils

Students at Drummond Community High School in Edinburgh are already complying by social distancing rules

In other developments in the coronavirus crisis today:

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced a package of support worth almost 3billion to help universities weather the coronavirus crisis;

A smartphone app to trace the spread of coronavirus will be trialled on the Isle of Wight this week before being rolled out more widely later this month;

A new 'fast and accurate' coronavirus antibody test has been developed by scientists in Edinburgh, although the company fears the NHS could miss out amid interest in Europe for the machines;

Heathrow Airport has warned travellers could face queues a kilometre long to board flights;

Former Government chief scientific adviser Sir David King has assembled a group of experts to look at how the UK could work its way out of the lockdown in response to concerns over the 'lack of transparency' coming from the Sage group of advisers.

Welsh schools could reopen at the start of June, First Minister says Schools in Wales could be allowed to reopen their doors next month in a phased approach, the first minister has said. Mark Drakeford said the earliest point schools could resume would be the beginning of June, with a minimum of three weeks needed to prepare from the time it was decided it is safe for pupils and teachers. Some groups could return earlier than others, he said, using examples of year-six children who are due to move up to secondary school, and Welsh medium pupils who may not have had opportunities to use the language at home during lockdown. Mr Drakeford also said work was under way to make sure social distancing guidance was followed and to persuade parents, teachers and pupils that the school environment was safe, saying 'you certainly can't have schools reopen as they did before'. Advertisement

Social distancing measures are already in place at Drummond Community High School in Edinburgh.

The school is acting as a hub for 12 schools in the city, taking children from P1  the first year of primary  through to S2.

There are 29 children on the register and the headteachers of the 12 schools take it in turn to lead each day, bringing teachers from their own schools with them.

The children have been split into six groups, with no more than six pupils per class, in order to adhere to social-distancing measures, with siblings kept together in the same class.

Social distancing is also in place in the lunch hall, while classes take it in turns to rotate around different areas of the playground.

Stephen Gilhooley, quality improvement officer for schools in north-east Edinburgh, said that teachers are adapting well to the unusual teaching environment and showing impressive dedication.

When not working in the hub school, teachers are working from home with their own classes, through distance learning.

At the school in Edinburgh, teachers are working to ensure social distancing measures are kept in place

The UK announced 315 new coronavirus deaths on Sunday, bringing total fatalities to 28,446 and putting the country on course to become the hardest hit in Europe

Road map for exiting coronavirus lockdown A leaked draft has revealed more details of the shape of the next phase of coronavirus curbs - due to be unveiled by Boris Johnson on Sunday. Key points include: Flexibility around the two metre 'social distancing' rule as long as firms are taking other steps to protect workers.

Installing screens, strict hygiene procedures, and ensuring people are not close together very long are touted as alternative safeguards.

Offices will be ordered to overhaul their rotas, staggering start, finish and break times.

Hot desking will need to end and sharing equipment kept to an absolute minimum.

Staff considered vulnerable who cannot work from home should be put in the 'safest possible roles'. Advertisement

Key workers have been entitled to keep sending their children to class throughout the lockdown, but when schools shut six weeks ago they were urged to look after them at home where possible.

The Government is now preparing to issue guidance that will instead encourage these parents to send their children to school.

Just one parent needs to be a key worker for their child to be eligible but parents will not be fined for not sending them in.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, which counsels the government, is targeting June 1 for all year six pupils to be sent back to lessons.

These children are seen as the priority to get back in class due to them transferring to secondary school in September.

A Whitehall source told the Guardian: 'The focus is getting primary school pupils back first but only if the R [a measure of how the virus is spreading] is at a safe level.

'After primary schools have returned we will then look at years 10 and 12.'

Figures from the Department for Education show that 3.7 per cent of pupils in England attended school on the first day that schools were closed, falling to 1.3 per cent by the beginning of the second week.

What are schools across Europe doing? In April, France revealed plans to begin easing its coronavirus lockdown and begin opening schools from May 11 France, education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said pupils would return gradually over a three-week period starting from that date Under the new plans, classroom will have a maximum of around 15 children per class Meanwhile children in the Netherlands will also start to return on a 'part-time' basis from May 11 In Germany, authorities have prioritised older children who are preparing for summer exams, with students seen returning to schools in Berlin and the eastern state of Saxony last month Other states in Germany will delay the resumption of teaching until May 4 Austria is planning to resume teaching for school leavers in early May and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said other children would start returning to classrooms in a step-by-step process beginning on May 15 In Norway, the youngest children have started returning to pre-schools Meanwhile Spain has yet to authorise a return to school Advertisement

Attendance dropped to 0.4 per cent during the week that would have been the Easter holidays.

But the figures have started to rise with an average of 165,000 children  1.7 per cent of pupils  turning up each day in the week before last.

At the Downing Street press conference last night, Michael Gove said the Government was 'particularly keen to help vulnerable and disadvantaged children to carry on with their education during the pandemic'.

This category includes those at risk of abuse or neglect or with particular special needs.

Schools are expected to start allowing pupils back who are not vulnerable or the children of key workers from the start of June, starting with primary schools.

Officials are looking at options including having classes in on alternate days or weeks to allow them to spread out.

Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman yesterday said there is a 'great deal of logic' in targeting younger children to return to the classroom.

She told Sophy Ridge On Sunday that the younger they are 'the more they need routine'.

But Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: 'While we all want to see a return to some sort of normality, the National Education Union believes it's really premature to talk about a June return date.'
President Trump's top official for public health preparedness, Robert Kadlec, dedicated billions in taxpayer dollars to fight biological and chemical weapons prioritizing that over battling a naturally occurring pandemic, a Washington Post investigation has found.

Kadlec's team, for instance, cut a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion in smallpox vaccine and also purchased anthrax vaccines, while cutting spending on emerging infectious diseases.

His office decided to cancel an initiative under President Obama's administration to manufacture a machine that could pump out 1.5 million N95 masks in a day, in the case of a widespread outbreak, The Post found.

Robert Kadlec (left), the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Preparedness and Response, refocused his office's efforts on preparing for a biological attack rather than a natural pandemic. He appeared with President Trump (right) at a February briefing

Robert Kadlec's office decided to cancel an effort to build a machine that could produce 1.5 million N95 masks daily in case of a mass outbreak in the United States

Instead, Robert Kadlec (center), seen testifying before the House Oversight Committee in March, made moves like add more smallpox and anthrax vaccine to the national stockpile, which is office took over the purchasing power for during his tenure

Kadlec was confirmed to his position of assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Preparedness and Response in August 2017.

Biological weapons had been a central theme in his career as a physician and Air Force Colonel, who worked under Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, on the subcommittee on bioterrorism and public health preparedness.

'There was definitely a shift in thinking, and to some extent a shift in priorities,' one former official told The Post. 'More focus on biologic attacks, intentional attacks, terrorist attacks, and definitely away from natural disease outbreaks.'

In 2018, Kadlec changed the way acquisitions are handled for the Strategic National Stockpile, which was created less than a year after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The stockpile was moved under Kadlec's office - dubbed the ASPR - from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kadlec also slimmed down the number of decision makers who would have input on what was purchased for the stockpile.

'I supported it from the standpoint that it was the right thing to do,' Kadlec said in an interview with the paper. 'And also, quite frankly, it was more efficient.'

Previously a group called the Public Heatlh Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise or PHEMCE came together to make those decisions.

The group consisted of a large number of senior officials from the Defense, Homeland Security and Health departments, among others. Kadlec, as head of ASPR, led the senior council, The Post said.

While some of the newspaper's sources said the process with the large group could be 'laborious' other officials said that it 'ensured expertise.'

But Kadlec found that approach too 'bottom-up' and so decided to initiative a 'top-down' appropach where final buying decisions would be made by a smaller group of officials gathered in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or a SCIF, The Post said.

In his interview with the paper, Kadlec said he did this to shield the discussions from foreign spies.

'There has been foreign penetration by hostile governments stealing not only our intellectual property but our national security information. And that was something that I wanted to correct. So we dont hold it in the open anymore,' he said. 'So that's why that changed dramatically on my watch. And again, I can't say I have any regrets,' he added.

But The Post also pointed out that it was a move supported by government contractors.

The story on Kadlec focuses on his ties to Emergent BioSolutions, the company that inked a deal with the U.S. government to supply smallpox vaccine to the national stockpile.

When Kadlec was being confirmed he did not disclose that he owned a small biodefense company with Emergent's founder and chairman Fuad El-Hibri.

A spokeswoman for Emergent told The Post that Kadlec's work as a 'strategic consultant' and his relationship with El-Hibri had no impact on the smallpox vaccine government contract.

Records obtained by The Post show that Emergent's contracts with ASPR have amounted to $733 million since Kadlec took over the office.

In March, Kadlec was tasked by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to lead the agency's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

He's faced intense scrutiny over shortages of ventilators, respirator masks and other medical supplies.
Samples for SARS-CoV-2 testing. (Photo: VNA)

The 37-year-old man, who is an expert of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, landed in Ho Chi Minh City-based Tan Son Nhat International Airport on April 28 onboard a private plane from the UK with 12 other passengers. They were taken to a concentrated quarantine area in the citys Can Gio district upon their arrival.

The man first tested negative for the novel conoravirus SARS-CoV-2 along with the other people on board but a second test taken on May 2 revealed a positive result.

Patient No. 271 is currently being treated at the Cu Chi COVID-19 treatment hospital in HCM City.

Of the 271 confirmed patients, 131 are imported cases who were quarantined upon their arrival.

Up to 219 patients have made full recovery, while 52 others are being treated at medical establishments nationwide.

Twelve patients were tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 once and nine others tested negative twice or more.

A total of 30,530 people who had close contact with confirmed patients or coming from pandemic-hit regions have been quarantined across the country, including 246 at hospitals, 5,748 at concentrated quarantine areas and 24,192 at home.
After the outbreak of COVID-19, several shoppers are looking for cost-effective solutions and purchasing that does not require them to step out from their homes.

Almowafir (meaning economical), is one such e-commerce application offering savings on a wide range of high-demand products during this time.

The application provides shoppers with access to a variety of exciting deals in English and Arabic, exclusively designed to meet their diverse shopping requirements.

According to a report by Statista, in 2019, retail e-commerce sales worldwide totalled $3.53 trillion, with e-retail revenues projected to grow to approximately $6.54 trillion in 2023.

Almowafir seeks to meet the growing demand of online shopping by providing some exclusive offers from some of the leading brands. Interested shoppers can download the application for absolutely free of cost and instantly get access to some of the hottest deals at reasonable prices.

E-commerce shopping has completely changed the entire shopping experience for buyers, providing them access to a wide variety of items at the click of a button.

Being an extremely convenient alternative, which can be remotely accessed on your devices at the comfort of your homes, its popularity continues to grow considering its easy accessibility.

Through Almowafir, the goal is to meet the ever-increasing demand of online shopping, by providing some of the best deals on one platform. This not only enhances ones shopping experience but guarantees them some great deals with value for money.

The Almowafir application at present has over 300 brands showcasing more than 1,500 offers and coupons. Available for shoppers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the application is very easy to navigate, sorted by brand, category and the discount amount.

All in all, the applications has been designed to help shoppers save money and get their hands on some incredible bargains. -- Tradearabia News Service






Matthew Oldfield and Adam Broadbent

HONG KONG, May 4, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - ZuBlu, a travel platform focusing on scuba diving and underwater adventure travel has successfully secured USD 1 million during its seed funding round. The round was led by Wavemaker Partners, Southeast Asia's leading early-stage venture capital firm investing in enterprise and deep tech companies. Other investors include Mana Impact, She1k, and a number of strategic angel investors.ZuBlu is a unique digital platform that is transforming dive travel globally, with a primary focus on destinations within Asia. Founded in 2017 by British co-founders Adam Broadbent and Matthew Oldfield, the platform aims to empower users to make informed and sustainable travel choices effortlessly, by combining their decades of scuba diving experience and a commitment to ocean conservation, with powerful technology and a market-leading team.Backed by Hong Kong-based startup investor and accelerator, Betatron, since 2019, ZuBlu has grown rapidly and demonstrated enormous potential in this fragmented sector of the travel industry. In 2020 alone, and despite the global impact of COVID19 on the travel sector, ZuBlu has successfully grown its resort partner network and member community by 46% and 425% respectively and says it is primed for the return of travel."We have enjoyed an incredible few years since starting ZuBlu and I have never been more excited for the future of travel. It is no doubt that the industry as a whole is currently undergoing a drastic transformation. Scuba diving and underwater adventure travel - in particular, to remote destinations home to incredible experiences - are uniquely positioned to flourish in a post-coronavirus market. More than ever, we expect people to seek out memorable encounters, to want to escape the crowds, experience new cultures and support sustainable business practices - all of which are central to ZuBlu's ethos," said Adam Broadbent, co-founder of ZuBlu.The scuba diving travel sector in Asia alone is valued at USD 4.5 billion and expected to grow significantly, with the largest provider of scuba diving training and certifications issuing over a million certifications globally each year. Today's experience-led culture is creating increased awareness and demand for ocean adventure travel, with millions of inspirational experiences showcased across social media and other online platforms every day. However, due to its complex nature, this niche travel sector is largely underserved by mainstream tourism operators.Booking dive travel can be lengthy and complicated; understanding the right destination and time of year, identifying the best place to stay, and making sure a responsible operator is selected, are all hurdles faced by dive holidaymakers. ZuBlu says its unique search platform puts the power of discovery in the users' hands, by allowing them to search, compare and book some of the most inspirational eco-friendly operators, exciting destinations and memorable experiences in the world - all at the click of a button. The platform is underpinned by the founding team's deep knowledge and understanding of the sector, unrivalled within the space.With the increasing popularity of this sector, comes an increased need for responsible travel - something that ZuBlu says is at the heart of its offering. Every operator present on the ZuBlu platform is vetted for its commitment to sustainable practices prior to its addition, including those that adhere to the UN-backed Green Fins code of conduct."Scuba divers are typically very passionate, high-value travelers. We were surprised to learn how inconvenient it is for them to find good information to plan and book their trips. Through this pandemic, ZuBlu has experienced strong traction from divers already planning their trips despite the current global slowdown in travel. This combined with the company's high capital efficiency means they can spend time building and refining their platform and onboarding more high-quality travel partners. We are confident they will benefit from unlocking pent-up demand as soon as travel restrictions ease," said Paul Santos, Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners that led the funding.About ZuBluZuBlu is the leading dive travel platform to search, compare and book scuba diving and underwater adventure travel in Asia. Passionate about empowering divers to travel more responsibly, ZuBlu combines some of the most inspirational eco-friendly operators, exciting destinations and memorable experiences in the world -- all at the click of a button. Find out more at www.zublu.com.About Wavemaker PartnersWavemaker Partners was founded in 2003 and dual-headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore. In Southeast Asia, Wavemaker Partners is the leading early-stage venture capital firm investing in enterprise and deep tech companies. https://wavemaker.vc/For media enquiries, please contact: marie@zubludiving.comSource: ZuBluCopyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Before she became one of the most recognizable voices in the Star Wars universe, actress Ashley Eckstein was just a kid in Orlando with an orange shag carpet and a dream.

It was as a toddler that Eckstein, like many '80s babies, discovered the original Star Wars trilogy through the power of VHS tapes. She recalls her mother not being too fond of the orange carpet, but to Eckstein, it was another world.

Tatooine to be exact. The dry planet with two suns that was the childhood home of Darth Vader.

Eckstein, while pretending to be lovable droid R2-D2, would imagine that the carpet was the sands of the desert world that gave us the galaxy's greatest evil. She had no clue at the time that her vocal cords would one day help create someone who is becoming just as iconic to true fans.

Ahsoka Tano is that icon.

Over the animated course of one film and seven seasons of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," Eckstein has been the voice, heart and soul of Ahsoka Tano, the onetime apprentice to future Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker. Ahsoka fought alongside the all-time Jedi great when he was at his most heroic, during the Clone Wars, which take place between Episodes II and III of the Star Wars prequel saga - before his heartbreaking fall to the Dark Side.

The character has grown up and out of the shadow of her former Jedi Master. She is now the moral center of the story as "The Clone Wars," which - after traveling from the initial movie version in theaters to a show on Cartoon Network, then Netflix and now Disney Plus - finally comes to an end.

Six years passed between the series' sixth season on Netflix in 2014 and the final one that began in February. But now that the final episode has begun streaming on Disney Plus, Eckstein is elated to see the tale come to a satisfying close.

"It's definitely been an emotional journey for sure," Eckstein told The Washington Post. "I'm so grateful that we were given the opportunity [for a final season] because not only does Ahsoka Tano deserve a proper ending in 'The Clone Wars,' but the fans deserve it. The fans started the [social media] hashtag #savetheclonewars and even when we gave up on it, the fans never gave up."

The trailer for the final season of "The Clone Wars" ends with doors closing on Ahsoka as she wields two lightsabers in a defensive stance. In a universe that gives so much attention to the Skywalkers, the trailer felt like a graduation of sorts into the ranks of the Star Wars elite. That's a long way from her arrival 12 years ago, which generated a fan response that was indifferent at times, as some thought the young Jedi was too childish or downright annoying.

"Even when she had her haters in the beginning, I asked them for their patience," Eckstein said. "I asked them to just go on this journey with her and enjoy [it]. Because I was always at least a season ahead of what the fans were seeing and so I knew how far she had come just over the course of a single season. It's been incredible to see the evolution [of their response]."

When George Lucas and Dave Filoni created the character for the initial 2008 film "The Clone Wars" and hired Eckstein to voice her, she felt as though she was given the piece to a puzzle that had long been hidden. It wasn't until the film's debut that it was revealed that Anakin Skywalker had an apprentice. She was just as shocked as fans were.

Previously, Eckstein had been seen on the Disney Channel's "That's So Raven" and Nickelodeon's "Drake and Josh." What intrigued her the most about "The Clone Wars" was the chance to be a female Jedi with a leading role - and this was years before Daisy Ridley wielded a lightsaber in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in 2015.

"That was a really big deal. And I wanted to do right by it," Eckstein said. "I wanted to live up to the opportunity that was given to me and the expectations that were put on me."

Another major character "The Clone Wars" can take credit for is Darth Maul, the extremely popular former Sith apprentice who seemingly died at the end of 1999s "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace." "The Clone Wars" revealed that Maul not only beat death, but was rebuilt into an even deadlier galactic adversary. He and Ahsoka had a highly anticipated lightsaber duel in this season's 10th episode, titled "The Phantom Apprentice."

"Ahsoka and Darth Maul have a lot of similarities," Eckstein said. They both became outsiders: Maul was replaced as a Sith after his "death," and Ahsoka walked away from the Jedi after being wrongly accused of a crime. "The meetup between the two of them isn't necessarily what you would think. Their fight is truly, in my opinion, one of the most epic fights in all of Star Wars."

Eckstein will hand off the role to another actress, as it has been reported that Rosario Dawson will play a live-action version in the second season of "The Mandalorian" on Disney Plus. It's a moment Eckstein says she's ready for whenever it happens.

"Ahsoka is bigger than just me. I've always known that there's going to be more team members added to the bench," Eckstein said. "That means that we're going to get more Ahsoka stories. And I will always celebrate more Ahsoka stories."
Nigeria has named a drug, Remdesivir, as having passed clinical trial for the treatment of the Coronavirus Disease in the country.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, was quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria as having said this in an interview on Channels Television on Sunday.

NAN reports that Ihekweazu said that since the outbreak of COVID-19, the agency had been committed to following the science, adding that it was happy about the clinical trial evidence of a drug, Remdesivir.

He said the next step would be to work with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control to make the drug accessible.

He also said the NCDC was working to establish a community transmission tracing team in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, and Lagos and Kano States.

He said this against the backdrop of the gradual lockdown ease in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States, billed to start on Monday (today).

The three have been locked down by President Muhammadu Buhari for five weeks in an effort to curb COVID-19 spread, though Ogun State started a week after.

Mass movement will be gradually scaled up in the three localities from Monday but curfew will be imposed from 8pm to 6am, while the use of face mask will be mandatory in public.

Ihekweazu said the agency had been working hard to increase its testing capacity, adding that the increase in testing capacity would result in a rise in the number of cases.

The DG said the NCDC had increased its laboratories across the country to 18.

He said the NCDC modeling showed that the lockdown was successful in limiting potential wide-scale transmission of COVID-19 in the country.

He said the lockdown enabled the agency to prepare better to tackle the pandemic.

According to him, the primary objective of the lockdown was achieved.

He said the gradual easing of lockdown was because the nations economic activities were linked to livelihoods.

Ihekweazu said: Despite best efforts of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and the state governments, no response measure to control COVID-19 will be adequate until Nigerians resolve to adhere to recommended measures.

I am confident we will get to where we want to be in the fight against the virus.

Ihekweazu hoped that Nigerians would continue to take the safety guidelines as part of their lives after the COVID-19 pandemic.
A monkey has been filmed speeding along on a bicycle before abandoning it to grab a young girl's dress and pull her along an alley.

Witnesses screamed when they saw the monkey 'trying to kidnap' a toddler.

The video, thought to have been filmed in Tanjungsari Village, Indonesia, showed the animal speeding along a narrow street on a bike.

As it reached a bench where a woman and her three young daughters were sitting, the monkey grabbed at one of the girls' dresses and pulled her from the bench.

Social media users could not believe it when this video of a monkey 'trying to kidnap' a toddler, thought to be in Tanjungsari Village in Indonesia, went viral

The situation turned more sinister as the monkey continued to pull the girl along the road.

Eventually another man ran into the shot and scared the monkey away from the toddler. She ran crying back to her mother.

And social media users think they have an explanation for what was happening.

When the video went viral on Reddit one user wrote: 'OK so what really happens is those monkeys get put on a toy bike (that doesn't have an engine) and a collar with a rope on it.

'The owner then yanks the cord so the monkey flies from one end of the street to the other while steering.

'Pretty cruel and that's probably why the monkey is so strung out. You can see the owner trying to pull back on the cord and he pulls the monkey while it hangs on to the kid, and in the start yanking the cord to propel the bike.'

Others were then angry at themselves for finding the video amusing at first.

The monkey abandoned the bicycle (pictured left) and grabbed hold of the young girl's dress, pulling her away from the bench where she was sitting with her mother

Eventually another man ran into the shot and scared the monkey away from the toddler. She ran crying back to her mother

One said: 'Wow, I just rewatched it, and, yes, I absolutely saw the cord. Gross! So that sort of explains why the other guy was filming...he was the training session. Thats so sad.'

Another added: 'Had to watch a few times but that guy at the start definitely seems to be holding the rope and controlling that monkey.'

One wrote: 'The monkey isn't trying to pull the kid with it, it's just trying to grab onto something so it doesn't get pulled away.'

Twitter users were equally shocked by the video, and joked they never expected to ever see anything like it.

One tweeted: 'A monkey pulled up in a monkey motorcycle and tried to kidnap a child. Yes, this is the craziest tweet Ive ever tweeted.'

Another penned: 'A monkey tried to kidnap me is a story no one would believe ... but at least its on video lol.'

One wrote: 'Nothing seems strange any more: Little monkey rides-up on a motorcycle and tries to kidnap a toddler.'
The Delhi Cabinet on Monday approved an ex-gratia of Rs one crore to the family of IB staffer Ankit Sharma who was killed during the northeast Delhi riots earlier this year.

Sharma's body, bearing multiple stab injuries, was fished out from a drain in northeast Delhi's Chand bagh area. A local municipal councilor has been arrested in connection with Sharma's killing.

The cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal approved the ex gratia of Rs one crore to the family of late Ankit Sharma, IB staffer, who lost his life on February 26 in northeast Delhi riots, the government said in a statement.

The ex-gratia of Rs one crore was announced by Kejriwal in March. The chief minister had also promised job to a member of Sharma's family.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Midland County added two new positive coronavirus cases over the weekend, bringing its total to 62 cases and six deaths, according to state daily reports.

Gladwin County had two cases taken away over the weekend and stands at 14 cases and one death. As public health investigations of individual cases continue, there will be corrections to the status and details of referred cases that result in changes to this report, according to the state website.

Bay County over the weekend added seven new cases and Isabella County one, bringing their totals to 157 cases and six deaths and 61 cases and seven deaths, respectively. Saginaw County added 42 cases, bringing its total to 720 cases and 66 deaths.

The state on Sunday added 547 new cases and 29 deaths and on Saturday recorded 851 new cases and 154 deaths. Seventy-five of the 154 deaths are from review of death certificate data conducted by state Department of Health and Human Services staff three times a week, according to the state.

Overall, Michigan is at 43,754 cases and 4,049 deaths.

The average death age is 74.9, according to the state website, mich.gov, with the deceased ranging in age from 5 to 107. The state lists 41% of the deceased as 80-plus and 28% age 70-79. State statistics show 54% of coronavirus deaths are male and 46% are female.

The state lists the total recovered at 15,659 cases, as of May 1, which represents COVID-19 confirmed individuals with an onset date on or prior to April 1, 2020, according to the state website, mich.gov. The numbers will be updated every Saturday.

The state lists the majority of races in positive cases as 32% Black/African American; 33% Caucasian and 21% unknown, and the top three races in deaths as 41% Black/African American; 47% Caucasian and 7% unknown

The total positive cases are 46% men, 53% 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," said Fred Yanoski, Midland County Public Health director/health officer. "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 send an e-mail to: 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.
Paying tributes to the martyrs in Handwara of Jammu and Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, here on Sunday, their valour and sacrifice would never be forgotten.

"Tributes to our courageous soldiers and security personnel martyred in Handwara. Their valour and sacrifice will never be forgotten. They served the nation with utmost dedication and worked tirelessly to protect our citizens. Condolences to their families and friends," Modi tweeted.



Paying tributes to the martyrs, Home Minister Amit Shah tweeted, "I bow to our soldiers and security personnel martyred while protecting our motherland during an encounter with terrorists in Handwara in J&K. Nation will always remain indebted to their supreme sacrifice. My deepest condolences to their bereaved families."





Earlier, offering condolences on martyrdom of five security personnel, including a decorated army colonel, in an encounter with terrorists in J&K, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said their sacrifice and bravery would never never be forgotten.



"The loss of our soldiers and security personnel in Handwara (J&K) is deeply disturbing and painful. They showed exemplary courage in their fight against terrorists and made supreme sacrifice while serving the country. We will never forget their bravery and sacrifice," Singh tweeted.



"My heart goes out to the families who lost their loved ones today. India stands shoulder to shoulder with the families of these brave martyrs," the Minister tweeted.



Saluting the personnel, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat said operations in Handwara highlighted determination of security forces to safeguard the lives of the people.



"Commanding Officer, leading from the front, along with other personnel of the unit and the J&K Police have laid down their lives, living up to the motto -- 'Service Before Self'," General Rawat said.



The armed forces, he said, were proud of their courage as they eliminated terrorists. "We salute these brave personnel and express our deep felt condolences for the bereaved families," he said.



In a statement, the Indian Army said based on the intelligence input that terrorists were taking hostage civilians of a house at Changimulla in Handwara of the Kupwara district, a joint operation was launched by the army and the J&K Police.



"A team, comprising five army and J&K Police personnel entered the target area, occupied by terrorists, to evacuate the civilians. The team extricated the civilians," it said.



During the process, the team was subjected to heavy fire by terrorists. "In the fire-fight two terrorists were eliminated and the team of five army and J&K personnel, comprising two officers, two soldiers and one J&K Police sub-inspector, attained martyrdom," the army said.
Americans urged to pray remotely for revival, God's glory on Nat'l Day of Prayer

Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

On the 69th National Day of Prayer to be observed Thursday, the Southern Baptist Convention is calling on Americans to join in a nationwide, remote prayer gathering for spiritual awakening and revival, and to pray specifically for seven centers of influence.

As the theme for the National Day of Prayer is Pray Gods Glory Across the Earth, SBC is urging Christians to pray for Gods glory into the seven centers of influence: government, military, media & arts, business, education, church and family.

Pray for wisdom (for federal, state and local officials) in all matters related to COVID-19, and the major national and global challenges they address daily. Pray that God will work in them and through them, the prayer guide says. "Ask God for a great spiritual awakening in the United States."

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Christian leaders will gather remotely to observe the day on May 7.

SBC President J.D. Greear will lead the online National Day of Prayer and Fasting event Thursday afternoon. The gathering will be streamed live in several places, including the SBC Executive Committees and Baptist Press Facebook pages.

SBC will be hosting another prayer event this week.

The day before the National Day of Prayer, Ronnie Floyd, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, will be joined by Fred Lunsford (a 95-year-old retired pastor and revivalist who started the prayer movement) Greg Mathis (pastor of Mud Creek Baptist Church in Hendersonville, N.C.), and David Horton (president of Fruitland Baptist Bible College) for Praying on the Mountain, a nationwide remote prayer gathering for spiritual awakening and revival.

Lunsford, Mathis and Horton are among those who have been involved in the effort to gather churches together to pray for a spiritual awakening.

On why he joined the three, Floyd said, As soon as I watched the message on America by Dr. Greg Mathis as well as his compelling interview with 95-year old Pastor Fred Lunsford, I joined the team to pray on May 5th for spiritual awakening in America," according to Baptist Press.

The event, in which more than 100,000 people are expected to pray with Lunsford, will feature an account of how Lunsford initially felt God speaking to him, telling him to pray for revival, and of how Mathis, Horton and others caught the vision.

Two years ago, Lunsford thought it was time for the Lord to take him home, as he had pastored for 70 years, fought World War II and preached at revivals all over the U.S. But God had different plans for his life.

He extended my years for a reason, and He wanted me to pray for spiritual awakening and to get as many people praying as I could, Lunsford said, according to Baptist Press. God spoke into my heart, and I yielded to it. Its not me; its the Lord.

Floyd said that while he has been praying for a spiritual awakening for years, never have I seen a greater moment for this to occur in America than today.
Bernard Anim Piesie, a member of the Communication team of largest opposition NDC, has expressed doubts over claims by the Akufo-Addo government that the economy is robust enough to withstand the impact of the novel Coronavirus pandemic.



Speaking at a press briefing, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah noted that Ghana's economy under the Akufo-Addo regime is resilient and therefore capable of getting back into good shape.



President Nana Akufo-Addo, during his regular update on COVID-19, also promised to construct 88 district and 6 Regional hospitals in one year.



The President's pledge has courted controversies with the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) not believing the promise will see the light of the day and further disclosing that the President has abandoned other existing health facilities that commenced under the erstwhile Mahama government.



But to the Information Minister, the governments ability to introduce various interventions to fight against the virus infections in the country is largely dependent on the robust economy it has built since its inception in 2017.



It makes sense why some may question whether or not Ghana can afford all the interventions the President has outlined in the past about 8 weeks of the Covid-19 response program. This question is justified because looking at our recent economic position, and the gains made recently as a nation, there is the genuine fear that we may be unable to afford the interventions or may end up overstretched if indeed we push through to execute them all.



Between January 2017 and now, however, Ghana has made major strides in correcting the precarious economic conditions it found itself in. Our Fiscal position has improved and our Macro position has significantly improved. The combined effect of improved fiscal position and improved macro position is what enables us to afford the interventions which are being introduced as part of the COVID-19 response program. We have significantly improved national revenues, trimmed our deficit, and yielded a resilient macro position against which we can finance the intervention programs, he said.



Reacting to the government's position of having built a robust economy, Anim Piesie advised Ghanaians to take such claims with a pinch of salt because the government is only dabbling in propaganda.



He told host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' program that this government has decided to blind the people of Ghana to the truth that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed about the leadership of President Akufo-Addo.





He cited the country's health sector and socio-economic fabric being greatly affected by the pandemic that it is nothing short of deception to tell Ghanaians the economy is strong and robust, meanwhile there is clear picture of what the government has been able to achieve over the years which the pandemic has helped to unveil before the eyes of the citizenry."It's time for us to be truthful to the nation when in government. Because if, in one month less than 2 months, COVID shocks can weaken our absorbers and there is no progress, we plead with the NPP to give the true state of our economy. The propaganda is too much. Ruling the nation with propaganda doesn't bring development."The government should stop these rhetorics and make available the necessary resources, provide adequate PPEs and support including the existing facilities that will help to cushion us in these tyring times. They should let that be their priority rather than making empty promises," he said.

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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
Low-cost private airline GoAir has no cash reserves to pay immediate salaries to all its employees, since the company has not yet got any relief from either the government or the countrys banking system, GoAir Chairman Nusli Wadia and MD Jeh Wadia said on Monday.

The Chairman and the Managing Director of GoAir wrote a joint letter to employees of the company indicating that there is no inflow of cash due to both domestic and international travel being suspended for over a month now to contain the spread of Covid-19.

They said that the company has been left with no choice but to pay the pending March salaries over March and April.

The Indian aviation sector has been badly-hit due to the global health crisis which has led to flights being grounded and all international and domestic travel being stalled amid a nationwide lockdown, which has been extended twice.

GoAir has managed to pay full salaries to 40 per cent of total employees (2,500), it said while the remaining employees are getting paid on a graded or deferred basis.

With no inflow of cash, which we are now anticipating will continue through the end of May, a period of over 10 weeks, and with no support forthcoming yet from either the government or the banking system, we were left with no alternative but to make the unfortunate and sad decision to pay the March earned salaries over March and April, the joint letter said.

The limitations on our resources are not of our own making and the sacrifices we are imposing on you are sadly beyond our control, the letter to the employees read.

The private airline, like many others, has been forced to send people on leave without pay due to the current crisis.

The letter also pointed out that GoAirs board members, chairman and managing director were not drawing any remuneration.

Our CEO has taken a 50 per cent pay cut and voluntarily deferred most of his balance compensation. The senior management, too, has taken substantial pay cuts and have also deferred a portion of the compensation, it read.

The management top brass also mentioned how airlines in the United States, Europe, South/East Asia and the Middle East are getting significant support from their respective governments to tide them through this unprecedented crisis.
Former Punjab education board employee OP Bansal, aged 73, joined his hands and closed his eyes in prayer once he reached Sukhna Lake on Monday morning.

As the UT administration lifted the curfew imposed in the city from March 24 to check the transmission of Covid-19, and allowed people to take their morning constitutional, Bansal said being by the lakeside in the early hours was a simple joy that he had missed terribly.

Another walker, O Midha, director, department of laws, Chandigarh University, turned 52 on Monday. Being able to walk at the Sukhna was the best birthday present ever, he said.

Drenched in sweat, 25-year-old Sumedh Kumar, a technician, said nothing could replace the feeling of jogging at the beautiful spot.

Ecstatic at being allowed out after being cooped up indoors for 41 days most regulars reached the lake early in the morning to resume their routine. By 8 am more than 40 people had gathered there to walk, exercise and run.

Anuj Khattar, aged 53, a BPO owner, said he had been walking every morning around the lake for over 35 years. Nothing can compare with the satisfaction I got today as we were missing our lake. Although there are fewer people today as the restrictions have been just been removed, hopefully more people should join us soon.

Finally we can come out for walks, who had imagined that such simple things would be taken away from us. Now we are more appreciative of the good things in life, said Vinod Bansal, aged 40, an engineer.

A third year student at the University Institute of Legal Studies, Panjab University, who did not wish to be named, said, I have come here for fresh air after spending days at home. I havent told my parents as they would get upset, but I really needed this break.

Midha and Alok Sharma, a doctor, both walking partners here since 1997, have seen each other for the first time after the lockdown.

I thank the almighty that I could come here on my birthday to meet my friends, smiled Midha.

And even as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the city, Sharma added, We are aware of the dangers that coronavirus poses and are taking all precautions, including social distancing and wearing masks, but the joy of walking at the lake is unparalleled.
Upstate New York has been spared the worst of the pandemic, but the coronavirus still presents a formidable challenge in pockets of western and central New York. A record number of cases have recently been reported in Syracuse. The limited availability of diagnostic tests could delay the economic reopening of Erie County, the hardest-hit area upstate. An outbreak at a nursing home in Rochester has underscored how easily COVID-19 can strike vulnerable populations.

While challenges remain in central and western New York, it will be a testing ground for eventually reopening downstate. The economic reopening of upstate will begin with construction and manufacturing after May 15. Industries like real estate, retail and finance will follow in a second phase, with restaurants and hotels happening later on, Cuomo told reporters at a Monday press conference in Rochester, his third daily briefing in a row outside the state Capitol.

If upstate has to wait on downstate to be ready, theyre going to be waiting a long time, Cuomo said. We need businesses to reimagine how theyre going to do business and get ready to protect their workforces.

Ongoing efforts to contain the coronavirus underscore how reopening the economy has complications in some areas of upstate where the pandemic remains a concern in the biggest cities. A decrease in cases in Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse could test the effectiveness of the governors regional approach to reopening the state.

Areas of the state must have less than 15 total cases or five new deaths to reopen, Cuomo said Monday, as well as a 14-day decline in total hospitalizations and deaths. There is even a literal formula for determining which areas of the state are ready to reopen. If the rate of infection exceeds 1.1 per person in the upcoming weeks, that areas reopening will be stopped. You reopen unintelligently and you can then have an immediate backlash, Cuomo said. Thats not speculation, that is looking at other countries.

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul has become a visible surrogate on local media upstate in recent weeks as the administration seeks buy-in on its strategy to reopen parts of the economy. Places like the Finger Lakes in western New York and the North Country, the Southern Tier, they will be able to open sooner than downstate at this point, Hochul said in a recent interview on local media in western New York.

As the governors appointed czar for reopening western New York, Hochul (who previously represented the area in Congress) also adds a regional touch to an administration that has struggled at times with overcoming the upstate-downstate divide during the pandemic. Her predecessor, former Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy, who now serves as the president and CEO of the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce, is serving as a Cuomo adviser on reopening the Finger Lakes.

A lot remains unknown about how the pandemic has affected the western parts of the state, where age and health could make the population at-large more vulnerable to infection. There are so many people that havent been infected yet that its a bit like catching fish in a barrel for this virus, Dr. Thomas Russo, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, told The Buffalo News.

Fewer people have been tested in the area compared to downstate, which has injected additional uncertainty into how best to handle the reopening of the economy. A key concept in the governors thinking has been preventing people in areas that are still closed from going to areas that are allowing businesses to reopen. Cases are dropping in Erie County and in the Rochester area, but rising in Syracuse. That could complicate how much economic activity can resume both in those cities but also the rural areas that surround them.

A big test for the state will come when hospitalizations and other key public health metrics improve enough for businesses to begin reopening downstate, the center of the states economic activity. Allowing areas like the North Country (where infection rates and population density are low) to reopen is one thing. Cities like Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester, however, present complications that are much more comparable to New York City and its suburbs.

The danger of a second wave of infections (which has happened in Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) could be worsened if the state adopts the wrong approach to reopening, Cuomo said Monday. While it could take a long time to fully curb the pandemic in upstate cities, chances are those cities will reopen before New York City and its suburbs, which will reopen in consultation with neighboring states like New Jersey and Connecticut.

That suggests that as efforts continue to contain the coronavirus downstate  where more than 200 people are still dying every day  its future reopening could hinge on the lessons learned in areas of central and western New York. While the pandemic did not ravage those areas to the same extent as New York City, the economic pain is similar  and that is at least half the problem with figuring out how to get the state through the challenging times ahead.

People are all talking about reopening, Cuomo said Monday. But reopening is harder than the close down  now, knowing what we know, its more nuanced.
A Google-developed AI that was capable of identifying cases of diabetic retinopathy (DR) with 90 percent accuracy in the testing laboratory has turned out to be much less useful in clinics and hospitals.

In laboratory settings, the AI designed by Google Health performed at the equivalent level of a medical 'specialist,' but in testing at 11 clinics in Thailand between November 2018 and August 2019, it was substantially less effective.

The main challenge for researchers was the quality of images being fed to Google's AI, with 21 percent of the 1,838 photographs taken of patients graded as too low in quality to be processed because of inadequate lighting or unreliable photographic ability of the local clinic workers.

Google Health tested an AI designed to identify diabetic retinopathy at 11 clinics in Thailand, where it performed well below the 90 percent accuracy rating it had in the lab

Another challenge was slow internet speeds, which made the process of uploading and processing images time consuming.

One clinic worker estimating they could only screen around 10 patients in a two hour window, according to a report in Newsweek.

'Poor lighting conditions had always been a factor for nurses taking photos, but only through using the deep learning system did it present a real problem, leading to ungradable images and user frustration,' the team wrote in a summary of their testing.

'Despite being designed to reduce the time needed for patients to receive care, the deployment of the system occasionally caused unnecessary delays for patients.'

In addition to the technical challenges, the researchers discovered a number of cultural hurdles, including the fact that patients who opted into the study and would potentially be diagnosed would have to travel to far away specialists at significant cost to the patient's family.

Diabetic retinopathy is a condition caused by bleeding or swelling in the eye caused by high blood pressure. It's usually diagnosed by having a clinic worker take a photograph, then sending it to a specialist, a process that can take up to 10 weeks

Because of the unreliability of the tech and the potential burden of traveling for further follow-up care, the team found that many nurses had begin recommending patients not use the AI method at all.

'Patients had to consider their means and desire to be potentially referred to a far-away hospital,' the team wrote.

'Nurses had to consider their willingness to follow the study protocol, their trust in the deep learning system's results, and whether or not they felt the system's referral recommendations would unnecessarily burden the patient.'

21 percent of the 1,838 photographs uploaded to Google's AI were unable to be processed because of poor lighting, inadequate image quality, or slow internet speeds

Diabetic retinopathy is a condition marked by swelling or leaks in blood vessels in the eyes, typically caused by high blood pressure.

The conventional method of testing for DR involves a nurse taking a photograph of the retina and sending it to a specialist for further analysis, which can take as long as 10 weeks in Thailand.

Google hoped to shorten the window between a person becoming symptomatic and receiving a formal diagnosis so they could begin receiving treatment sooner.

Despite suboptimal performance of the AI, Google Health consider the study a success . 'A properly conducted study is designed to reveal impacts, both positive and negative, if we hadn't observed challenges, that would be the failure,' Google Health's Emma Beede says

Despite the seemingly discouraging findings, Google Health considers the test a success.

'These studies were successful in their intended purpose: to uncover the factors that can affect AI performance in real world environments and learn how people benefit from the tech, and refine the tech accordingly," Google Health researcher Emma Beede told Newsweek.

'A failure would have been to fully deploy technology without studying how people would actually use and become affected by it.'

'A properly conducted study is designed to reveal impacts, both positive and negative, if we hadn't observed challenges, that would be the failure.'
California Homeless Data System Looks to Hire Tech Talent

New York City Group Releases Census Messaging Guide

Connecticuts Open Data Program Rolls Out Online Programming

As the COVID-19 crisis wears on, government work with data surrounding its impact has evolved along with it.One tangible example of this can be found right now in Pittsburgh, where the Pittsburgh Department of Innovation and Performances GIS team has created a platform to map positive COVID-19 test results by neighborhood. That map can be found here , and its color-coded with a deeper shade of red to represent more positive tests.Pittsburgh, of course, is not alone in creating more precise and localized uses for data within the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the work has extended outside of government as well, with entities in other sectors also using data to visualize the impact of the virus within the United States.The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, a nonprofit organization, has an internal group called the GISCorps , which coordinates volunteer efforts to use data to help communities in need across the country. That group created a new data map that visualizes the locations of COVID-19 testing sites nationwide, which can be found here . Developers also invite government entities and health-care organizations to contribute their own data to the map, which is free and open to all.These are just two examples of similar civic tech work that has taken hold in communities across the country. Data itself is a key part of helping the country recover from the outbreak of an infectious disease pandemic, necessary as it is to gauge related risk factors including chance of infection and risk of exposure to the disease.Data work is not the only tech work within government accelerating to meet new needs accentuated by the crisis. There are myriad examples, one of which is a pair of states  California and Arizona  receiving federal approval to pilot a new program that would allow the recipients of public food assistance benefits to order groceries online and have them delivered, minimizing their need to go out during the pandemic and risk their health.While state and local government budgets have been decimated by the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, one entity at the state level is currently looking to hire tech talent  the California Homeless Data Integration System (HDIS).The job position is a project manager within HDIS, under the general direction of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency information officer and deputy secretary for homelessness in the IT project management domain.In short, California is looking for a project manager to join its Homeless Data Integration System Project. The posting as of now is a 12-month position with the potential to become permanent, and interested parties can learn more about what it all entails here The codifying of such a database is a concept that was recently introduced within the California state Legislature.A lightly discussed aspect of COVID-19 is that it essentially upended months and even years of outreach planning related to the 2020 U.S. Census.As such, a New York City-based Census support entity created a new messaging guide for those still working to get the word out about the importance of the count, which will determine federal support for the communities over the next decade  which is even more important given the damage wrought by the virus.There were massive national and local Census outreach efforts planned throughout April and the weeks to follow to ensure an accurate count of Americans. Many of those efforts were predicated on things that were entirely derailed by the pandemic, including ads during March Madness and the Olympics, ads on public transportation, and in-person conversations at public events, libraries and door-to-door visits.The group that created the messaging guide is the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), which is a nonprofit aimed at supporting growth and renewal in Americas largest city. A key part of a successful Census effort is for larger entities  such as the city of New York or the U.S. Census Bureau  to deputize more grassroots, street-level community organizations to reach people, leveraging their own trust and relationships. This is the role ABNY is essentially playing.With the messaging guide  which is free and can be found here  the goal is to give outreach groups well-researched data, best practices and input to help them make their messaging even more specific.In the wake of the pandemic, the window for the Census has been extended through the end of October, and efforts seem likely to continue right until the end.Finally, the Connecticut Data Collaborative  which supports data-driven decision-making within that state  has joined the growing number of civic tech organizations that are hosting virtual events and other online programming during the pandemic.The full slate of upcoming virtual events can be found here . The topics of the events, which are slated for May and June, are varied, but theyre largely all related to civic technology. These events include workshops on guidelines and practices for survey design, a happy hour event for women in data, and collecting data in ways that will help rather than harm.The events are all free.Government TechnologyGoverning
In Trailblazers: Diaries From The Front Lines Of The 2020 Election, we take an in-depth look at the lives of women working behind the scenes to make our country better every day, whether its on a presidential campaign or political advocacy organization.

Name: Jess Morales Rocketto

Occupation: Political director, National Domestic Workers Alliance

Age: 33

Location: Washington, D.C.

Social Media Handles: Twitter @jesslivmo, Instagram @jesslivmo

Monday, March 30, 2020

7:30 a.m.  Alarm goes off, I snooze.

8 a.m.  My morning routine involves getting dressed, hot water with lemon before coffee, and cuddling. Im running late. Im always running late.

9 a.m.  We go over our campaign plans with the policy, digital, and worker teams. I need to give feedback  coronavirus changes everything, even how to best advocate for people, and so this requires creativity!

10 a.m.  We have a team meeting. One of our folks had coronavirus and is now back for her first day of work! What a relief to have her back, safe, and getting better.

11 a.m. to 3 p.m.  Conference call retreat with the leadership of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. We all cry. This is tough, and what we are experiencing isnt even close to what domestic workers are experiencing. I have a job, Im with my family, I can work from home, and I will probably be okay in this crisis, but Im still terrified. What domestic workers are saying is really scary. Surveying over 10,000 of the folks we work with, we found that over 68% of them had lost 100% of their income. The devastation is only beginning, which is why were fighting so hard right now.

I definitely have to do that dance between I am so hungry, Wow, I really have to pee, Am I hungry or just dehydrated?, Quick, run to the bathroom and make lunch and refill your water bottle in 10 minutes, and Oh, remember to wave hi to your husband! Basic needs are still a thing, no matter how busy you are!

3 to 3:30 p.m.  Talk to a reporter.

Story continues

3:30 to 4:30 p.m.  And now, for our COVID-19 daily standup  were in rapid-response mode!! We start every call discussing what we hear from workers, and its really grounding. Were focused on our Coronavirus Care Fund, where we are trying to raise $4 million to give out one-time $400 emergency assistance to 10,000 workers. Were REALLY close to our goal after just two weeks, so we talk about how to cross the finish line.

I end up with a variety of meetings right until 8 p.m., including on how to talk to employers about this crisis, voting rights, and a coalition call with dozens of other progressive groups who are working together to advocate for relief during COVID-19.

8 p.m.  Run downstairs to snag a beer for happy hour (a great saison!) and FaceTime one of my oldest, dearest friends and mentors. I havent seen him in a few months, and its great to spend some time with him and get his advice on what to do in this moment (none of us have any clue, and thats comforting). I love talking politics with him, but that kind of conversation feels more like fun and less like work than my actual day-to-day.

9 p.m.  Head downstairs to see my husband and sister, who is living with us during COVID-19. Were each in a different room during the day, so I look forward to this time at night when we update each other on our goings-on. Very Honey, Im home!

9:30 p.m.  Were late to Tiger King, so we start that I dont think I was quite ready for that after such a long day!

11:30 p.m.  I never miss my skin-care routine. (Then I Met You cleansers, Biologique Recherche P50, May Coop Raw Sauce as my toner, Peach & Lily Glass Skin Refining Serum, and Bobbi Brown moisturizer, in case you were wondering.) Beauty is my fun: My work is so serious that I find a lot of release from makeup and skin care  something that has no stakes and is just for me.

12 a.m.  Nite-nite!

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

7 a.m.  I wake up early and get right to work. I am NOT a morning person, but were on day two of our retreat, and I have just a couple hours to try to squeeze in a days worth of work. I approve memos, answer emails (I have given up on having a timely inbox, were in a global pandemic!), and check in on loose ends I want to be sure are moving. I can really zero in when I get going, but I cant always get into the wired in flow unless I am super-disciplined.

11 a.m.  Day two of retreat starts! I am giving a presentation about the 2020 electoral landscape post-COVID, and IM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT IT. Im generally enthusiastic, but sometimes you just feel really good about your work, and today I do!!!

3 p.m.  Call with a Virginia legislator about what we can do to help domestic workers and women of color in the state. Care In Action, where Im an executive director, is very focused on Virginia post-2019, where we helped flip the state legislature blue. Its great to see that work bearing fruit in the legislature  electing champions who will fight for women of color when it matters is exactly what weve set out to do!

3:30 p.m.  I forgot to eat lunch and I havent gone to the bathroom today, so getting right on that. One good thing about being cooped up at home is cooking healthy meals, but today I just nuke a frozen thing we have  thank you, Trader Joes! I take a bunch of calls while I do this, checking in with colleagues who need answers on a few things, calling staff in congressional offices about our priorities for the next COVID-19 package, and trying hard to answer emails. Our team does our work on WhatsApp since thats what many domestic workers use to communicate, so I try to get in the chats today and make sure Im digitally present.

4:30 p.m.  Staff meeting! We give an all-staff update on COVID-19, and there are lots of questions and great feedback on what were hearing from workers all over the country.

6 p.m.  I helped organize a digital rally on Sunday, so we debrief. I commit to more work. (Why do I always commit to more work??)

7 p.m.  My friend Nelini, who organized the rally, calls to debrief the call (we cant be the only ones who do that!), and we catch up. A super-unexpected, fun catch-up time with one of my favorite people in the world to scheme with!!

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

8 a.m.  I let myself sleep in a little 

9 to 11 a.m.  Start late today, and this day is all about catch-up. I try to spend 15 minutes at the top of the day organizing myself, which makes me feel a little less frantic. Then, I spend the next two hours answering urgent requests and catching up on all the email I missed these last two days. In the middle of an emergency like COVID-19, that could be anything from read this essential article to weve decided to run this big campaign, so I feel some pressure to make sure Im not missing out on weighing in on something important.

11:15 a.m.  COVID-19 daily stand-up! Today were talking about relief applications: How many people do we have, and have we moved money out the door? Getting relief to people really matters to us, so this is one of the most important areas of work right now.

12 p.m.  Lunch! Rice and beans is what I eat when I need sustenance and also have no time. My coworker starts our call 15 minutes late, so I have a second to make lunch!

12:15 to 1:45 p.m.  Series of calls about COVID-19 items that came up in our stand-up: This is the follow-up from that meeting to make sure we are nimble and responding as we should.

2 p.m.  And now, for our employer-response meeting: How can we make sure that employers pay their workers? How can we make sure workers know their rights?

3 to 3:15 p.m.  Our policy manager pesters me: Have I sent those emails to congressional offices yet about our policy demands for the next COVID-19 package? EEK, must do it quickly! Were getting intel that the next package is moving quickly, so time is of the essence! Its critical to make sure our workers, who make very little money and are often undocumented, are included in the federal relief packages, so theres no such thing as too much outreach or too many reminders.

3:15 to 4 p.m.  Prep for strategy meeting to talk about our next steps on COVID-19 over the next few months. Im lucky to work with a badass group of women of color who are so thoughtful and strategic. Im excited about where we land, even though it means a lot of work. Big questions for me on the election include exactly how voting will work. Voting by mail is great, but we need something like vote by mail plus to accommodate people who cant vote via mail.

4:30 to 7:30 p.m.  I wish I could say I buckled down and did a bunch of work, but instead I responded to a bunch of one-off phone calls. My least favorite thing that happens during the work day! I need time to think! (I have no time to think!) Im trying to carve out time for that this week because shifting your entire strategy as an organization and social movement is REALLY hard.

7:30 p.m.  I could work all night and not catch up, which is how I know that I should shut it down for the night. I warm up a frozen lasagna. (How does this take an hour?!)

9 p.m.  Im so tired I cant even muster up enthusiasm for television.

10:30 p.m.  Go to bed but cant sleep. Try reading a book. Try pushing off the covers. Try meditation.

12 a.m.  Give up and read a romance novel until I fall asleep. Escapist literature is my most important coping mechanism during this time  god bless the romance authors.

Thursday, April 2, 2020

7 a.m.  Aaand Im up, and Im so behind I dont even bother to shower. My first call is at 9 a.m. and I dont stop until 9 p.m.

9 a.m. to 9 p.m.  10 back-to-back conference calls in one day. I dont remember much except that my little sister saved me with a matcha latte. This is one of those days when problems just pile on top of each other.

9 a.m. to 9 p.m.  10 back-to-back conference calls in one day. I dont remember much except that my little sister saved me with a matcha latte.

9 p.m.  I join a virtual happy hour for just a few minutes and learn how to turn myself into a potato via a filter, which makes my entire week.

9:30 p.m.  Leftovers for dinner. Also, a pint of ice cream because its that kind of day.

10 p.m.  Spend some time with my sister, husband, and pets. Its sort of astonishing how much we manage to stay out of each others way during the day.

10:15 p.m.  I feel silly for going to bed this early, but I can barely put sentences together. Not every day in activism is easy, but this one might have kicked my ass completely and I need to finish the week strong. At least theres tomorrow?

Friday, April 3, 2020

7 a.m.  Woken up to the dulcet tones of my cats throwing up. This is a day that calls for two cups of coffee! I need to really focus this morning so that I can try to end the day a little early.

9:30 a.m.  Our team has an optional a.m. stretch together, and I finally make the time to join. This is exactly the breather I needed, and I even get my little sister to join in. I feel connected to my coworkers and thankful for this stretch!

11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.  Conference calls! (Does everything really need to be a video?) Feeling fried, but we end with an exciting meeting that may result in a new partnership around COVID-19 that will make a really big difference to our workers. Crossing my fingers this works out!

5:30 p.m.  I missed a podcast interview at 2:30 p.m. and rescheduled it to now. This is for Georgetown University students, which is why I said yes, and they ask great questions. Talking to folks just getting started on their journey in politics is always energizing, so I try to always say yes.

6:30 p.m.  Emergency call from our development officer who needs multiple things from me urgently that I havent given her yet.

8 p.m.  Wasnt I going to end work early today?

9 p.m.  Shutting it down for the night and resolving NOT to work at all this weekend, even though I could really use the catch-up time.

Dont forget to register to vote!

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Getting Out The Vote While #StayingHome

5 Days On The Campaign Trail With Elizabeth Warren

What It's Like To Be A Climate Change Activist Now
As Hamilton County continues to reopen, Health Department Administrator Becky Barnes urged residents to take a cautious approach to reopening. She said residents need to follow guidelines such as wearing masks, washing hands frequently, and maintaining social distancing. Other guidelines have been laid out by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee.

She said, Reopen responsibly means to follow the guidance that allows businesses and other organizations to reopen, while protecting consumers and employees from COVID-19 infection.

How we reopen our local economy will be the deciding factor, she said. Reopening doesnt mean that we are free and clear of the virus, it is still here and has the potential to rapidly escalate if we dont take the appropriate measures.

"The COVID-19 virus remains an ever-present danger throughout our community. Our success up to this point has been because Hamilton County residents have adopted healthy habits to protect each other. For this reason, it is imperative that residents avoid letting their guard down and continue doing what has been working."

Wearing a face mask shows you care, said Ms. Barnes. Avoid social gatherings of more than 10, and if you are a high-risk person, stay home and away from other people. And if you are sick, please stay home.

Ms. Barnes also asked those able to make face masks to donate them to one of the four drop off locations at fire stations and the Third Street health department building. She said all of the information needed is on Hamilton County Health Departments website.





Hamilton County updated its COVID-19 numbers during Mondays media briefing. According to Ms. Barnes, the statistics now stand at 182 cases and 13 deaths.

Weve added 12 cases Saturday, six Sunday, and one today, said Ms. Barnes. The number recovered is 138, and the health department and contact investigators continue to identify quarantine (candidates) and monitor their contacts.

She said to date, there have been 6,529 negative COVID-19 test results. She cautioned that this number is provisional, as it may contain results from residents outside of Hamilton County.

We also did additional testing over the weekend. Saturday and Sunday, we partnered with the national guard and opened our second weekend community testing site at Riverfront Parkway, said Ms. Barnes. Through this partnership, we tested 1,168 people for COVID-19.

Ms. Barnes said results have begun to filter in, but that the health department does not have complete numbers yet. Monday was the first day of testing at Bonnyshire Drive of the week, where no appointment is needed.

Our primary focus at this testing site is people who are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, and people who are in close contact with people who have tested positive, said Ms. Barnes, citing the fact that only 125 people can be tested there each day. However, we will not turn people away, regardless of the reason they are being tested until we meet our capacity.
Scientists made waves last year after announcing the discovery of a "monster black hole," unlike anything seen before. But, as researchers continue to weigh in, one thing is clear: there is no "monster."

Solar mass black holes, or black holes that form when a star collapses under the influence of its own gravity, are usually about 20-30 times the mass of our sun. So it was breaking news when, in November 2019, scientists led Jifeng Liu of the National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, reported the discovery of a black hole 70 times as massive as our sun.

This would have been the most massive black hole ever discovered (by far)  a groundbreaking find that would have drastically changed our perception of these objects. However, following this work, a number of scientists questioned these findings as they seemed improbable. In fact, there were a handful of studies that found evidence that completely disproved the possibility of such a black hole.

Related: The strangest black holes in the universe

In December 2019, Kareem El-Badry, an astronomy doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a paper published online in the preprint server arXiv providing evidence that this wasn't a 70 solar mass black hole. (The paper was later published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.)

Around the same time, two additional papers disproving the discovery were published on arXiv: one from a team led by J.J. Eldridge, a theoretical astronomer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and another led by Michael Abdul-Masih, a PhD student from the KU Leuven Institute of Astronomy in Belgium.

An artist's depiction of the giant stellar-mass black hole suspected by some researchers to be in the binary system LB1 accreting gas from a nearby blue companion star. In a number of studies, researchers have disproven the probability that the black hole in LB1 is ultramassive. (Image credit: YU Jingchuan, Beijing Planetarium, 2019)

On Wednesday (April 29), Abdul Masih's paper was published in the journal Nature. In this paper, the team analyzed the system in depth and concluded that there is "no evidence for a massive black hole," they wrote in an accompanying commentary.

That same day, Liu's team responded with their own Nature commentary in which, while they disagree with some points made by other researchers, they do agree that there is no 70 solar mass black hole in the system.

The original "discovery"

Liu's team originally found the object in question when they discovered the binary, or two-object system LS V +22 25 (or LB-1 for short), which they described in a peer-reviewed study published Nov. 27, 2019 in Nature. They described a system with a 70 solar mass black hole and an 8 solar mass star orbiting each other. The star, because it was bright and obvious, was easy to spot. But the alleged monster black hole? Not so much.

Usually, in systems with stellar-mass black holes, there is a bright, X-ray emission shooting out of the system that scientists can use to identify it. This emission line is created when a black hole accretes, or pulls material from the other object (in this case a star) in the system. But since LB-1's black hole doesn't accrete material from its partner star, it doesn't create an X-ray emission line, Liu's team found. This made it a little trickier to study.

So, to identify the second object in the system the team had to rely on a more subtle signature known as an H-alpha emission line. This is a spectral line, or a dark line in an object's observed light spectrum that can be used to identify which molecules or atoms make up the material it's coming from.

Liu's team presumed that this H-alpha emission line was coming from an accretion disk, or disk of gas and dust that the black hole pulls in from other objects around the black hole. By observing how this emission line seemed to wobble, they determined the orbital motion and the size of the black hole.

But the interpretation of this subtle wobbling signature, this H-alpha emission line which led Liu's team to determine the existence and massive size of a black hole, is the main finding other researchers have a problem with.

No "monster black hole"

The three papers published initially to the preprint server arXiv in 2019 in response to Liu's alleged discovery found that the movement of this faint H-alpha emission line was actually a kind of optical illusion, and that the orbital motion Liu's team calculated to determine the black hole's size was inaccurate.

"Instead of the wobble coming from the black hole, they found it was more likely a consequence of the orbital motion of the subgiant [its star], thus completely reducing the mass of the black hole," Jackie Faherty, a senior scientist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a co-host of "StarTalk Radio," who wasn't involved in any of these papers, told Space.com in an email.

In their paper, Abdul-Masih's team used observations they have made using the Flemish Mercator telescope at La Palma in the Canary Islands over the last three months (or since their last paper on this subject) and have "found that that the signal that they use to measure the mass of the black-hole was actually fake," co-author and Hugues Sana, a research associate professor at KU Leuven, told Space.com in an email. Sana added that, in this paper, Abdul-Masih "showed that the same apparent signal is produced by the motion of the spectral line of the visible B-star companion."



So, Sana explained, "once we take into account the motion of the B-type star spectrum, the signal used to calculate the high mass of the (putative) black hole disappears and no indication of a high-mass black hole is left in the data."

To summarize their main finding, "We show that this complicated emission line is contaminated by an absorption line associated to the star, which Liu and his team did not account for," Abdul-Masih told Space.com in an email.

But Abdul-Masih's team didn't just find more evidence to prove that this object isn't a 70 solar mass black hole. They also have a better idea of what may actually be in the LB1 system.

"By analyzing these new high-resolution data, we have come to the conclusion that the LB1 binary system is likely formed by a stripped star and a more massive rapidly rotating Be star," Sana said. (Be stars are types of stars with B-type spectral types and emission lines.) "The strong H-alpha emission is coming from the Be star," Sana said. "The Be star signature was not seen in the original data because the spectral lines are very broad, very shallow, and do not move much (because the Be star is more massive than the stripped B-star)."

"Abdul-Masih's team obtained new high-spectral resolution data which helps with the analysis. Reading the paper, it seems like a sound and robust analysis," Faherty added.

Sana concluded that, while this means that LB1 looks a lot different than Liu's team originally suggested, it's still an extremely interesting system. "Such a stripped star+Be star system is very rare, so we are still very excited about what can be learned from LB1," they said.

An agreement and rebuttal

Liu's team was quick to respond to Abdul-Masih's new paper, with their own commentary published in Nature on the same day. In their commentary, which is a direct response to Abdul-Masih's team, Liu and his team "re-examine those arguments, in light of more recent spectroscopic observations and further analysis," they wrote in this piece. However, while Liu's team doesn't agree with all aspects of the new analysis of the system, they do agree on a number of points.

They agree that the possibility of a 70 solar mass black hole in LB1 can be completely ruled out. "The response does not disagree with the possibility of the interpretation by the previously noted authors," Faherty said.

"I am very glad that Liu and his team are receptive to our interpretation of the system. This system is indeed very complex and I think that their analysis of the new near-infrared data could be very informative," Abdul-Masih said.

However, unlike Abdul-Masih and the other researchers who have responded to the original paper, Liu's team still asserts that it's possible that the black hole in this system is between 23 and 65 solar masses. "But that comes with all their caveats," Faherty said.

"The most telling statement that they make in the letter is 'We accept that the interpretation of the H-alpha profile is more complex than originally envisaged.'" Faherty said.

She added that while the system is likely what El-Badry and Abdul-Masih's teams described, "as Liu and co-authors state, the jury is still out. More detailed observations are necessary to pin down what this system might include," she said.

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
President Donald Trumps virtual town hall meeting last night marked a new stage in his administrations drive to force the American population back to work amidst the spreading coronavirus pandemic. That it was held at the Lincoln Memorial, which honors the fight for equality which the 16th president embodied, gave the event an even more politically obscene character.

The primary purpose of the event, titled America Together: Returning to Work and moderated by Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, was to justify forcing workers back to work without any real protection against the deadly virus. It was held after a weekend of meetings at Camp David with Trumps top advisors, reportedly including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, to map out the administrations pivot from the public health disaster to the resumption of corporate profit-making.

While announcing no measures to combat the pandemic, which continues to spread across the country, Trump opened by claiming, I think well have a vaccine by the end of the year, implying that it was now safe for people to be exposed to the virus. Neither Trump nor the moderators made any mention of the warnings by medical experts internationally that a vaccine would likely take at least 18 months to develop.

President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

He then proceeded to demand that schools, colleges and universities reopen by September, and boasted of his executive order to keep meat packing plants open even as the pandemic infects and kills large numbers of workers. When asked about employees worried about getting infected, he said, The employees have to want to work. If they don't want to work, that's one thing. But they are working and they need the money.

Trump tied any possibility of federal support to states and municipalities facing economic collapse to a payroll tax cut, calling it essential to any piece of legislation he would sign. A payroll tax cut would simultaneously provide a further windfall to corporations and the rich and slash revenues that support Social Security and Medicare. The gutting of these core social programs has long been a goal of the financial oligarchy and the Republican right.

There was no suggestion by the president, the moderators or the video-taped and carefully vetted questioners that social distancing measures should be kept in place and non-essential businesses remain closed until the disease was contained.

The continued rise in confirmed coronavirus cases across the country, however, underscores the fact that there is no scientific or medical basis for Trumps drive to force people back to work. The number of new cases in states, including Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming, is trending upwards even as they are reopening, while the number of new cases in Alabama, Florida, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia has stayed relatively constant.

No state has seen a consistent reduction in the number of new COVID-19 cases over the past 14 days, ostensibly the criterion to reopen under Trumps official guidelines.

Just as the number of cases has continued to rise in the United States, currently standing at just under 1.2 million, the number of deaths has also continued to climb, currently at more than 68,500. This includes more than 3,000 over the weekend. Internationally, there are more than 3.5 million officially confirmed cases and nearly 250,000 recorded deaths.

These figures are why Dr. Mike Ryan of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday insisted that to safely loosen social distancing measures and reopen businesses, there had to be in place the capacity for comprehensive testing, contact-tracing and quarantining, something that exists nowhere in the United States. Ryan also said that exiting from public health and social measures requires a very careful, well-planned process thats based on, number one, understanding the exact epidemiology of the disease in your country or at subnational level; so do you understand the problem, do you understand where the virus is?

This is the basic question that is still largely unknown across the world and especially in the United States. One fact rarely mentioned by the media is that as testing has been expanded, the percentage of positive cases to the number of tests has stayed constant. This indicates both that the pandemic is still spreading and that the current level of testing does not capture the full extent of the pandemic in the country.

This has not stopped every section of the American political and media establishment from supporting the reopening drive. The Wall Street Journal on Friday published an editorial titled, Testing Isnt Everything, with the tag line, It wont banish the coronavirus, and its not an excuse for not reopening, directly contradicting the advice the WHO has been giving for months.

The Democratic-aligned Washington Post, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, published an editorial on Sunday under the headline, Managing the reopening.

At a recent news conference, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, lashed out at a reporter who asked whether or not the state had enough testing to reopen. He retorted, Youre still obsessed with testing. He then demanded that people focus on the need to wear masks, the social distancing and protecting our most vulnerable, in order to cover up the fact that the pandemic is still spreading in the state.

The position of the Trump administration itself was spelled out very explicitly by the presidents son-in-law Jared Kushner last Wednesday, when he asserted on Fox that, Were on the other side of the medical aspect of this and I think weve achieved all the different milestones that are needed. So the federal government rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story and I think that thats really what needs to be told.

What success story? Yesterday, in a discussion with Foxs Chris Wallace, White House Coronavirus Task Force Response Coordinator Deborah Birx backtracked from the administrations previous statement that there would only be 60,000 fatalities from the pandemic, claiming that our projections have always been between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives lost. She added that the estimate applies only with full mitigation.

Neither Birx nor Wallace batted an eye at the staggering figure, which is more than the number of American deaths in World War I and about half those in World War II. And, as Birx openly admits, this projection holds only if physical distancing is maintained.

The policies being advocated by Birx, Polis, Kushner and Trump amount to developing some form of herd immunity. By not testing and contact-tracing to know where the virus is, while simultaneously ordering everyone back into the factories, offices and workplaces, they are setting up the majority of the population to be exposed to the deadly contagion.

Even under the most optimistic scenarios, millions will likely die. The most conservative estimates of the infectiousness of the virus state that half of the population will need to become infected and successfully fight off the virus before it will be unable to spread. At a death rate of just 1 percent, about 1.65 million people would die, double the number of soldiers killed in the Civil War.

This at the same time assumes that everyone gets adequate health care. While the medical infrastructure in the most hard-hit places in the USNew York and New Jerseyhas not yet totally collapsed, it no doubt would if the number of cases suddenly increased two-, five- or ten-fold. At that point, data from Italy and Wuhan suggests that up to five percent of people die because there are not enough ventilators and other critical supplies to go around. In this scenario, 8.25 million would die.

Moreover, whether or not a recovered patient remains immune to the coronavirus is still an open question. Immunity from the SARS pandemic in 20022004 lasted on average two years, which means the only reason that virus did not become seasonal is that it was contained. There is concern among epidemiologists that the current coronavirus pandemic will become seasonal, and because there is no immunity or vaccine, it will kill some percentage of the population every year.
State Rep. Cris Dush said Gov. Tom Wolfs lack of transparency in his management of the coronavirus crisis resembles a page out of a socialist playbook.

At Mondays House State Government Committee, the Jefferson County Republican lawmaker criticized the governors reluctance to share information with the press or the public related to decisions his administration has made in response to the pandemic. Dush wants more transparency surrounding the number of COVID-19 patients who have recovered and the waiver application process related to the governors order to close businesses.

More and more I go back to the German Democratic Nationalist Socialist Party, the Nazi party. I go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, Dush said. This is a socialist playbook.

Rep. Kevin Boyle, the ranking Democrat on the committee, immediately interrupted him, calling on committee Chairman Garth Everett to cut Dush off.

Chairman , this is outrageous, said Boyle of Philadelphia. Stop it with these Nazi references. Its offensive and wrong. Stop it.

Dush responded, Its a statement of history. Its history. Its history.

Everett directed Dush to stay focused on the bill that the committee eventually approved that requires the administration to post online its decisions on business waiver requests.

When you start hiding stuff from the public, when you start hiding things from the press and not allowing it to come out, there is a genuine reason for concern, Dush said. This is a socialist playbook and I have to say its important for people of this state to start having access to this information rather than having it pulled off to the side and hidden for an agenda.

Wolf spokeswoman Lindsay Kensinger responded to the statement urging more cooperation from lawmakers.

In the last few days, House Republicans have shared fake reopening plans online and a rank and file member has compared the Administration to Nazis while Republican members have spent time moving legislation to reopen zoos during a global pandemic and rallied with activists who have made threats against the governor, she said. We badly need partners in the Legislature who will take the challenge before them seriously instead of using it to divide the commonwealth.

Dush later apologized later on the House floor for the comment but that wasnt soon enough for a coalition of Jewish-affiliated organizations across the state that condemned the representatives invocation of the Nazi party in talking about the governors COVID-19 response.

While we appreciate that Representative Dush did issue an apology on the House floor several hours later, we are deeply disappointed that he did not immediately retract his comments when the vice-chair of the committee requested that he do so, and that in his floor remarks he did not directly acknowledge what he had said and why it was wrong, according to a coalition statement. "We are grateful for the House members who recognize that even in -- especially in -- heated political debate, this rhetoric is unacceptable. We fervently hope we will never hear such thoughtless language used by a Pennsylvania leader again.

The governor as well as other administration officials have refuted claims they are withholding information although several of their departments say they are closed and are not processing requests filed under the states Right-to-Know Law.

About the patient recovery data, Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine has said hospitals dont report information to the state when coronavirus patients are discharged.

As for the business waiver program, Wolf has declined to publicly provide a complete list of businesses that received waivers. He also has said it would be premature to release information regarding the decision-making process behind whether or not a business was granted an exemption to the closure order until all the waivers were processed.

Meanwhile, a state Senate committee issued a subpoena to the Wolf Administration demanding information about the waiver program be provided to it by May 8.

This step was taken on Thursday after finding the administrations responses lacking to questions posed during a legislative hearing. Lawmakers sought to find clarity behind the methodology used to determine a life sustaining business that was exempt from the governors closure order.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has agreed to perform an audit of the waiver program, which Wolf has said he welcomed.

More than 40,000 companies applied for waivers to reopen their doors. The waiver application period ended early this month.

About one-third of those who applied for waivers were denied, Wolf said in a conference call with news media on Thursday

We actually did this in a way that was meant to be fair and honest, Wolf said Thursday.

Were some mistakes made? Maybe, Wolf said. And if they were, the folks in Pennsylvania have a right to know that.

*This post was updated to include a statement from the governors spokeswoman and to include the statement from coalition of Jewish-affiliated organizations.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

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.
American private equity giant Silver Lake Partners has bought 1 percent of Jio Platforms for Rs 5,655.75 crore ($750 million) in a deal that takes Jio's enterprise value to Rs 5.15 lakh crore  a 12.5 premium to the value indicated by Facebook, which bought 9.99 percent of the digital unit of RIL.

The deal comes less than two weeks after Facebook spent $5.7 billion to buy a 9.99 percent stake in Jio. The Facebook-Jio deal was the social media networks biggest since its $22 billion buyout of WhatsApp in 2014.

Silver Lake shot into prominence after acquiring PC maker Dell Inc along with Michael Dell in 2013. It is a global leader in technology investing, with over $43 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital and a team of approximately 100 investment and operating professionals located around the world in Silicon Valley, New York, Hong Kong and London.

On April 30, Reliance said, "In addition to the Facebook investment, the Board was informed that RIL has received strong interest from other strategic and financial investors and is in good shape to announce a similar sized investment in the coming months."

On April 22, Facebook bought 9.9 percent stake in Jio Platforms for Rs 43,574 crore. That deal valued Jio at Rs 4.62 lakh crore ($65.95 billion).

Since its launch three years ago, Jio - led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani - has grown at a sprinters pace to become Indias largest telecom company. It has accumulated some 340 million customers through a barrage of innovations, including offering cut-throat mobile internet prices and a diverse suite of products and including chat services, movies, games and music.

Also Read: Silver Lake | Here are key things you need to know about the PE fund

The deal will help reduce RILs debt burden, which bulged due to the breakneck expansion of Jio and other businesses. Ambani invested around $40 billion to launch Jio in 2016. RIL is also the largest retail player in India thanks to a series of aggressive expansionary moves into consumer-facing businesses such as e-commerce and grocery.

On April 30, Reliance Industries said it will achieve zero net debt status ahead of schedule, as it announced its quarterly and annual results.

In addition to the investment by Facebook, the company said, it has received strong interest from other strategic and financial investors and is in good shape to announce a similar-sized investment in the coming months.

Follow our complete coverage of the Jio Silver Lake coverage here.

: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
The summer series of Love Island 2020 has been cancelled after showrunners found it logistically impossible to produce amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Kevin Lygo, Director of Television at ITV told The Sun: We have tried every which way to make Love Island this summer but logistically its just not possible to produce it in a way that safeguards the wellbeing of everyone involved and that for us is the priority.

In normal circumstances we would be preparing very soon to travel out to the location in Mallorca to get the villa ready but clearly thats now out of the question.

We are very sorry for fans of the show but making it safely is our prime concern and Love Island will be back stronger than ever in 2021.

In the meantime Love Island fans can still enjoy all six series on BritBox.

Lygo had previously expressed doubts over whether the show could go ahead. In a livestream as part of the Edinburgh TV festival, he said Love Island bosses had considered taking the show to Cornwall, but decided it would not be the same.

What kind of message are sending out if were doing a show where the couples are crammed together all slathering over each other, and the rest of the world is told not to go near anyone in the park? he said.

The Independent has contacted an ITV representative for comment.
The Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) has said that West Bengal has the highest mortality rate in the country at 12.8 per cent. "For a total reported number of 744 + 72 = 816 COVID patients, the mortality rate of 12.8 per cent is by far the highest in the country. This extremely high mortality is a clear indication of low testing and weak surveillance and tracking," said the IMCT report.

The IMCT also pointed out discrepancies in the figures in the medical bulletins and the figures communicated to the Government of India. "The bulletin of 30.04.2020 showed active COVID cases as 572, discharged after treatment 179 and expired due to COVID 33 making a total of 744. In a communication to the Union Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) from the Principal Secretary (Health) the total number of cases was indicated to be 931, leading to a discrepancy of 187 cases," the report stated. The report stated that on April 30, it was admitted that 72 patients have died but classified them as death due to co-morbidities and were not included in the figure of 744.

Also read: Coronavirus Live Updates: Total cases surge to 42,533, 1,074 people cured in 24 hours, says govt

The team's report also said that the state government did not support IMCT in the performance of its duties. IMCT said that it repeatedly sought the state government's assistance in interacting with public, health professionals and government functionaries. It said that it also sought to meet the Principal Secretaries of various departments but could only interact with the Principal Secretary of the Health Department that too through video conferencing.

It also questioned the state's claim of a high level of surveillance. IMCT said that there were no databases to support that claim.

Also read: Lockdown 3.0: Delhi govt giving 'too much' relaxation during lockdown, says Harsh Vardhan

The IMCT also commended the efforts of the Health Department in increasing testing from 400 tests per day on April 20 to 2,410 on May 2. It said that pooling samples have also started in six labs. The IMCT was on a two-week visit to the state before submitting the report to the Chief Secretary of West Bengal.

As on May 4, 8am, West Bengal reported 963 cases, with 35 deaths and 151 discharges.

Also read: 5-star hotels go the Zomato-Swiggy way! Launch home delivery, takeaway services
Just before the pandemic set in Canada, there was much talk among federal decision makers about a well-being budget. Borrowing from New Zealand and elsewhere, Prime Ministers Trudeaus mandate letters encouraged multiple ministers to better incorporate quality of life measurements into government decision-making and budgeting.

The focus on well-being budgets may now seem ironic amid the illness and death caused by COVID-19, but it was also prescient. I believe it helped the federal government respond to the pandemic as comprehensively as it has.

Central to well-being budgets is the idea that health doesnt start with medical care. Health starts with the conditions into which we are born, grow, live, work and age  what my profession calls the social determinants of health.

Many of us are keenly aware of these social determinants more than usual. Physical distancing makes it impossible to ignore how our well-being is fundamentally shaped by the security of our housing situations; the adequacy of our incomes; our access to education, child care, parks, and social networks.

Stuck at home, many people are right to feel viscerally that there is more to health than COVID-19. We can say this without downplaying the risks posed to all demographics by the novel coronavirus, especially our loved-ones who are elderly or have pre-existing conditions.

We should say this as we seek the right balance between slowly phasing out isolation requirements, while preserving progress in flattening the curve.

When the pandemic took root in Canada, I was nervous that governments would respond urgently to the infectious disease, but ignore the social determinants of health, since the two are in tension. Fighting the spread of infection has required us to erode our social determinants through physical distancing that limits access to jobs and incomes needed to pay for shelter, food and other necessities.

Fortunately, the federal government addressed this tension head-on by promoting health in all policies. It married physical distancing requirements with historic investments in income benefits, wage subsidies, and forgivable loans to businesses.

Yes, too many Canadians still fall through cracks. The Canadian Emergency Response Benefit and its sister student benefit are insufficient to pay high housing costs that plagued many of our cities long before the COVID-19 pandemic. Emergency benefits must be increased in regions with more expensive housing to levels adequate to pay local rents. Or policy-makers must support landlords to accept payments that are only a percentage of their renters pandemic-income: for example, 30 per cent, as suggested by widely used definitions of housing affordability.

As we improve the emergency response in the short-term, let us also lock-in for the longer-term the momentum this response has created for well-being budgets. Across governments and their many departments, there is new appreciation that health care providers are the last line of defence in a fight against illness that starts with investments in incomes, housing, child care, etc.

Several factors risk governments casting aside this important insight after the pandemic. Public concern about the readiness of our medical systems is high. So is our appreciation for the health care professionals who work long hours at personal risks to care for COVID-19 patients, including those who do so for low-wages in extended care facilities. Plus, the much higher death rates south of the border motivate Canadian pride to protect our medical systems.

But if future medical increases overshadow other government investments in social programs, the science shows we wont make our population healthier.

This will be especially true for younger Canadians whose social determinants are eroded by the high costs of child care, student debt, precarious work, unaffordable housing and climate change. These policy areas have been neglected in Canadian government budgets over the last four decades by comparison with funds prioritized for medical systems, as shown in a recent study.

By contrast, the COVID-19 emergency response has struck a better balance than governments generally did in the past.

As we aim to renew well-being on the other side of the pandemic, may our governments continue to embrace the science of health promotion by investing in the social determinants of health even more aggressively than it invests in medical care to treat illness.

Dr. Paul Kershaw is a policy professor in the UBC School of Population & Public Health, and director of its Masters of Public Health Program.

Read more about:
What happened

Shares of Spirit AeroSystems Holdings (NYSE:SPR) opened Monday down 10% after the aerospace component supplier announced plans to lay off 1,450 workers. Spirit is a major supplier to Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Airbus (OTC:EADSY), and with airplane production rates scheduled to fall in the quarters to come, Spirit's business is going to take a hit as well.

So what

Spirit, a onetime Boeing subsidiary that makes fuselages and other large components for commercial and military aircraft, has seen its shares fall 70% so far in 2020 on concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic will force airlines to retrench, slowing commercial aircraft sales for years to come. It appears those fears were well founded, as Boeing and Airbus are both planning to make fewer planes in the future.

Fewer planes mean fewer parts needed, and Spirit over the weekend announced it will reduce employment at its factories that support commercial airplane manufacturing.

"Our actions follow reduced demand from our customers, who have lowered production rates as demand for new airplanes declines due to the impact of COVID-19," CEO Tom Gentile said in a statement. "We are focused on ensuring Spirit AeroSystems remains a healthy business and emerges from this crisis with a bright future."

Spirit has offered voluntary layoffs to union workers at its Wichita, Kansas, plant as part of a plan to eliminate 1,450 hourly and salaried positions at the site. The company will also make smaller reductions at other sites, with plans to be announced in the weeks to come.

The company said that its defense work will not be affected by the reductions, and that some workers currently supporting commercial programs could be transferred to defense platforms.

Now what

With the cuts, Spirit is confirming what the markets had already assumed: The commercial aerospace downturn is here, and it is unlikely to be quick. It could take airlines three years or longer to return to pre-pandemic flight schedules.

The company is relatively well positioned to survive the downturn, raising $1.2 billion in fresh liquidity in April. In the statement, Gentile said, "I remain confident in the future of the aviation industry and believe in our ability as a company to weather this pandemic and emerge stronger."

He's likely correct, but Spirit shares are unlikely to push substantially higher until there are clear signs of a recovery. Investors on Monday appeared to have little desire to ride out the storm.
File Photo

Chandigarh: The Punjab Government today vehemently refuted the statement given by Ashok Chavan, PWD Minister, Maharastra in which he claimed that the drivers from Punjab might have infected the pilgrims from Nanded Sahib. In a press statement Razia Sultana, Transport Minister, Punjab dubbed the statement of Ashok Chavan as misleading and bereft of facts.

Punjab governmentRazia Sultana rejected the statement of the Maharastra PWD Minister by saying that a person holding a constitutional post must not act irresponsibly and give any statement without verifying the facts.

Advertisement

Sultana disclosed that actually the first batch of 31 vehicles (20 buses and 11 Tempo Travelers) which ferried 860 pilgrims from Sri Nanded Sahib to Punjab were all Maharashtra Vehicles with Maharashtra crew. She said that the first 3 groups of pilgrims which came via private buses were arranged locally from Sri Nanded Sahib.

She said that 1st batch of 7 buses sent by Takhat Sri Hazoor Sahib Trust started its journey for Punjab at the night of April 23. She disclosed that 2nd batch of 11 Tempo Travelers started moving to Punjab on April 24 late night and reached Punjab on April 26 at late night.

Razia SultanaSimilarly third batch of 13 buses carrying pilgrims started their journey to Punjab from Sri Hazoor Sahib from April 25 late night and April 26 early morning, these buses reached Punjab on April 27 late night and in early morning on April 28.

Advertisement

Razia Sultana further disclosed that Punjab Governments buses left from Punjab to Sri Nanded Sahib on April 25 and reached there early morning on April 27.

She said that these buses started their journey back to Punjab at night on April 27 and started reaching Bathinda on April 29 afternoon onwards till April 30 early morning.

PhotoIt is a matter of fact that few private vehicles had left Sri Nanded Sahib even before the buses started bringing the pilgrims and the passengers who traveled in these private vehicles have tested positive including one of the drivers belonging to Nanded.

Advertisement

It is pertinent to mention that Ashok Chavan, PWD Minister of Maharashtra Government in its interview given to some media platforms had claimed that the possibility of the Punjab drivers, who had ferried pilgrims from a Gurdwara in Nanded in Maharashtra to Punjab in buses, spreading the coronavirus infection among them could not be ruled out.
A 2014-batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre resigned on Monday, citing personal safety on government duty' as the reason for it.

The Opposition Congress termed her resignation 'shocking', asking Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar if it was not a "proof of his failure".

Rani Nagar (35) currently held the charge of the director, Archives Department; and the additional director, social justice and empowerment.

Recently, Nagar had posted on her Facebook page that she will resign after the coronavirus lockdown was lifted.

She sent her resignation to state chief secretary Keshni Anand Arora, requesting her to forward it to a competent authority in the Union government.

The letter has been received at the chief secretary's office, an official said.

However, Nagar did not elaborate on what she meant by the reason of her resignation. The officer could not be contacted over the phone.

Nagar has also sent copies of the resignation to the president, prime minister, Haryana governor and the chief minister through e-mail.

The reason for submitting this resignation is the personal safety on government duty," she said in a letter to the chief secretary.

"I do hereby most humbly submit to you my resignation from the post of Indian Administrative Service with immediate effect, that is effective from May 4, 2020, forenoon," she wrote.

The letter was also posted on her Facebook page. She later left Chandigarh for her hometown Ghaziabad with her sister.

She posted on her Facebook page that she had taken permission to move out of the city.

Commenting on it, Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala termed her resignation a shocking incident.

Hitting out at the BJP-JJP government in the state, Surjewala said, A senior woman IAS officer has given her resignation stating that she feels unsafe.

If a woman IAS officer resigns on the grounds citing personal safety on government duty as the reason, then who will safe in Haryana. Is this not no confidence in your government, is this not a living proof of your failure, Surjewala said hitting out at the chief minister.

Nagar had come into limelight in June 2018, when she accused an additional chief secretary-level bureaucrat of harassing her.

The state government had conducted an inquiry into the allegations, but the charges did not hold against the officer, a senior official said on Monday.

In an earlier post on her Facebook page, Nagar, who was living in the UT guest house of Chandigarh since 2018 along with her sister, had claimed that despite numerous complaints against the senior bureaucrat, no action was taken against him.

Nagar had mentioned that last year, she had lodged a complaint against the bureaucrat before a court and claimed there is a constant threat to our lives" (she and her sister), while requesting her Facebook friends to report the matter to the court, if they go untraceable.

In December 2017, when she was posted as the subdivisional magistrate of Dabawali in Sirsa district, police had lodged a case of tresspass against an unidentified person on her complaint.

Nagar had then posted a video on her Facebook page, alleging that police failed to initiate a prompt action on her compliant.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Entravision Communications Corporation (NYSE: EVC), a diversified global media and advertising technology company serving consumers, announced that it will host a teleconference to discuss its first quarter 2020 financial results on Thursday, May 7, 2020, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

To access the teleconference, please dial 412-317-5440 ten minutes prior to the start time. The teleconference will also be available via live webcast on the investor relations portion of the Company's website located at www.entravision.com.

If you cannot listen to the teleconference at its scheduled time, there will be a replay available through May 28, 2020 which can be accessed by dialing (877) 344-7529 (U.S.) or (412) 317-0088 (Int'l), passcode 10143905. The webcast will also be archived on the Company's website for 30 days.

About Entravision Communications Corporation

Entravision is a diversified global media, advertising technology and data analytics company that reaches and engages consumers in the U.S. and other markets primarily including Mexico, Latin America and Spain. Entravision's portfolio includes digital media properties and advertising technology platforms that deliver performance-based solutions and data insights, along with 55 television stations and 49 radio stations. Entravision's digital and technology businesses include Headway, a leading global provider of mobile, programmatic, data and performance digital marketing solutions. Entravision is the largest affiliate group of both the Univision and UniMas television networks, and its Spanish-language radio stations feature its nationally recognized talent. Entravision shares of Class A Common Stock are traded on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol: EVC. Learn more at: www.entravision.com.

SOURCE Entravision Communications Corporation
LANSING  State Rep. Shane Hernandez of Port Huron has requested the newly formed Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic investigate further into a canceled state contract.

The contract in question was with Every Action VAN and Great Lakes Community Engagement for a contact tracing initiative, which is supposed to track those infected with COVID-19.

Every Action VAN, a voter/individual contact platform used by non-profits, has overlapping executive leadership with NGP VAN, which is used by Democrats, and Great Lakes Community Engagement is connected to President Donald Trump critic Mike Kolehouse.

Hernandez said the governor has been operating the states response to COVID-19 with no oversight, no transparency, and no representation for Michigans residents.

The Legislature will get into the truth of this matter, Hernandez said in a statement. Just because the governor realized a mistake had been made and the contracts were canceled, she cant just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. I am demanding answers from the governor because the people of Michigan are demanding answers.

In handing the matter over to the committee, Hernandez raised his concerns about how Gov. Gretchen Whitmer handled the awarding of the contract and how the administration may have given contradictory or misleading statements to the media.

Hernandez also wants to know if any steps were taken to prevent the health data being collected from being used for political purposes and if any other contracts may be held by political vendors.

The recently formed bipartisan committee is made up of 10 members of both the state House and Senate. It has subpoena powers and can hold people in contempt.

It will look into the states response to the pandemic and investigate various activities, such as the legality of various executive orders, how allocated monies where spent, and how various policies and procedures were utilized.

Contract tracing also involves interviewing friends, family members and other near a possibly infected person about their symptoms and who they have been in contact with.

The Detroit Free Press has reported that more than 3,500 Michiganders have volunteered to help this program.
The 45th and 31st presidents of the United States, who both faced an economic collapse. Photo: Shutterstock/Stock Montage/Getty Images

Before the coronavirus pandemic is finally under control, the U.S. economy will undergo its greatest shock since October 1929, when a stock-market crash initiated a Great Depression that lasted a decade. The unemployment rate will likely reach 15 percent by the end of April and could well drift up into the 20s soon after. So its natural to speculate as to whether the ignominious political fate of Herbert Hoover, the man who sat in the White House as the Great Depression began, awaits Donald Trump when voters deliver a verdict on his tumultuous presidency in November.

Hoover was elected president by a landslide in 1928, beating Democrat Al Smith by a 58/41 popular-vote margin and losing only six Deep South states. He was defeated by FDR in an almost identically sizable landslide (57/40) four years later, this time winning just six states, all in the northeast. His party proceeded to lose the next four presidential elections, and really didnt gain any sort of stable parity with Democrats until the 1980s. Hoovers name was indelibly associated with that legacy of defeat, and Republicans have never quite shaken the reputation for callousness he was thought to have shown as the Depression gripped the country.

The 31st and 45th presidents are similar in a few important ways, beyond a common Republican Party membership. They are the only presidents never to have served in any elected office or in military leadership. They both possessed great personal wealth before becoming president. They both held themselves in high esteem, and were known for stubbornly rejecting sound advice.

The two men also differed significantly in more obvious respects. Hoover was the consummate self-made man; he was orphaned at the age of 11 and performed a host of mentally and physically demanding jobs before he found his destiny as a mining engineer. Trump was the classic silver-spoon scion, and never distinguished himself academically or intellectually. Throughout his life, Hoover was addicted to hard work and believed deeply in science and technical expertise. Trumps work habits have been erratic, and he famously does not trust experts. Hoover was devoted to his only wife, Lou, and never considered remarriage after her death two decades before his own. Trump was a playboy until well into late middle age, if not later.

Their pre-presidential careers couldnt have been more different. Trumps topsy-turvy business career in real estate and hotel development bled over into his real calling as a ubiquitous New York celebrity and then a reality-TV star of the highest order. He didnt really need to accomplish anything more tangible than placing his brand on as many marquees as possible.

Hoover, by contrast, saved lives and fed the world, and was known as the Great Humanitarian, as David Frum recently observed:

Few if any Americans have dedicated more of their lives to the service of others than Hoover. A wealthy man by age 40, he turned his back on opportunities to earn more  and dissipated much of what he had gained  to devote himself to humanitarian work. As a private citizen, he organized food relief for German-occupied Belgium during the First World War. He undertook an even more ambitious task of rescue in Russia and Ukraine during the civil war that followed the Bolshevik seizure of power. Then, as Commerce secretary, he took charge of the response to the devastating flooding of the Mississippi Valley in 1927: floods that drove hundreds of thousands from their homes to temporary camps and left the region in economic shambles.

It wasnt just that Hoover did these things well. He invented the idea that these things could be done at all, or at least done on any large scale.

When Hoover ascended to the presidency  not via some Trumpian upset but as a virtual entitlement  he was arguably engaged in the project of making America great for the first time. As biographer William Leuchtenberg recalled, Hoover knew that his biggest vulnerability was the level of expectation he had aroused:

I have no dread of the ordinary work of the presidency. What I do fear is the  exaggerated idea the people have conceived of me. They have a conviction that I am a sort of superman, that no problem is beyond my capacity  If some unprecedented calamity should come upon the nation  I would be sacrificed to the unreasoning disappointment of a people who expected too much.

The calamity struck just over six months into his presidency. Hoover did not handle it as poorly as posterity recalls, but he did make enough mistakes  mostly attributable to bad macroeconomic assumptions and a deep-seated antipathy to direct federal-government assistance to needy individuals  to very quickly make his reelection all but impossible.

Trump, by contrast, was a superman mostly in his own eyes, and from the very beginning divided the American people into ever-increasingly disparate judgments of his presidency, which barely seemed to correspond to any real developments in national life. Hes never been remotely as popular as Hoover was at the beginning of the Great Humanitarians presidency, and after three years of erratic conduct and chaotic governance, was at best an even bet for reelection when he ignored the early stages of the coronavirus threat. The question now is whether calamity will finally make him as unpopular as Hoover became under similar objective circumstances.

When Hoover was elected president, only two Democrats had occupied the White House since the Civil War. But you could already see the once-powerful GOP coalition beginning to unravel before the Crash demolished it: There had been a farm revolt in the middle of the 1920s; Catholic and Jewish immigrants (represented by Hoovers first opponent, Al Smith) were consolidating power in urban areas; the great experiment of Prohibition had failed; high-tariff economic policies were threatening international trade. Arguably todays GOP has been on the brink of disaster for a good while, with every demographic trend cutting against it, and Trumps race-baiting and xenophobic right-wing populist message making expansion of the party base more difficult every day.

Will Trumps base allow him to ride through calamity relatively unscathed, or will itself be blown to smithereens as the greatest economy ever falls into depression (a term Hoover pioneered as a less-alarming alternative to panic)? At least one academic, Helmuth Norpoth, argues that the economic downturn itself was not necessarily what did Hoover in:

The Great Depression, it appears, was treated by many as a natural disaster, Norpoth writes. Barely half of those voters who abandoned Hoover for FDR held the government at least somewhat responsible for the Depression. In their view, Wall Street was by far the biggest culprit. The government was a minor offender.

An economic collapse caused largely by a global pandemic is in theory easier to treat as a natural disaster than was the Great Depression. But then again, expectations of government activism to counter such a catastrophe are much more widespread, and Trump has far less of a reservoir of goodwill than Hoover did when the stock market crashed.

The economy, moreover, was the one area of public life in which Trump earned relatively favorable assessments before it all went to hell. He and his advisers apparently think they can goose the economy into a steep recovery before he faces voters, at the considerable risk of enabling another, perhaps even deadlier, wave of coronavirus infections. The one thing reasonably clear is that if this gamble fails in any major particular, so will his presidency. Trumps limited popularity is no more durable than Hoovers, and he is a far less plausible unity figure than the most competent and compassionate man of his era, who is now remembered as feckless and cruel. Yes, like Herbert Hoover, Donald Trump has had the bad luck of encountering a national catastrophe that few saw coming. But Trump is unique in that many millions of Americans would view his political demise as a silver lining of that catastrophe, as the rainbow at the end of the flood. If he loses in November, it will be a defeat he has earned every day of his presidency. And his party may face a reckoning for years to come.
Four Turkmen prosecutors have visited Turkey in connection with the deadly poisoning of dozens of Turkmen nationals from bootleg alcohol in Istanbul.

Sources close to law enforcement told RFE/RL on May 4 that the prosecutors returned from Istanbul early in the morning on May 1. They, along with nine crew members of the IL-76 airplane that transported them, are currently in a two-week coronavirus control quarantine.

According to the sources, the main goal of the prosecutors' trip was to focus on Turkmen citizens residing in Turkey and discuss the situation with them.

Some 58 Turkmen citizens died in Istanbul after they drank bootleg alcohol, Turkish media reported in March.

The reports also said that Istanbul police had arrested 11 people, including Turkmen nationals, suspected of selling the counterfeit alcohol.

According to the sources in Turkmenistan, the prosecutors also held talks with Turkish officials on the possible extradition of the Turkmen citizens detained in the case.

Turkmen authorities, including the Turkmen Embassy in Ankara, have not officially commented on the reports.
A. Oh, Lana. ... Its very strange to call her a she. But she was a person for us. She spoke to us, she planned our lives, she paired us with people in group challenges, she revealed our secrets, she gave us rewards. She was like our little host. At the end of the day, even if we didnt like what she was doing at the time, she knew what was best for all of us and every single situation allowed us to grow. She was a little sneaky devil and was watching everything but she genuinely had our backs.
Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Staff at a California hospital are overjoyed after receiving a $1million bonus from an anonymous donor.

Medical providers at the Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz were cheering when they discovered the check designated entirely for employees - nurses, cleaning staff, lab techs, medical records, even mailroom staff and security guards who have worked there for at least a year.

Full-time staff get $800, part-timers receive $600.

Medical providers at the Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz were cheering when they discovered the check designated entirely for employees

The bonuses came alongside a note that showed appreciation for their hard work.

'Thank you for standing up (and staying up!) to care for our community,' it said. 'This humankindness is what makes you heroic.'

Hospital president Dr. Nanette Mickiewicz said the donation is a testament to their employee's clinical excellence and their tireless dedication.

After weeks of hard work, nursing supervisor Amy Loudon said she was amazed at the generosity of a stranger, and especially appreciative it's being shared with all employees this week.

'There are so many people who keep the hospital running,' she said.

'Nurses and doctors are getting the praise, but we couldn't do it without the staff who clean the floors, deliver supplies, fix machines, everything. It's a team, and I'm glad the whole team is getting a thank you.'

She said she plans to treat herself with her own bonus.

'I'm definitely going to spoil myself a little bit,' she said.

The do-gooder made the donation as California battles coronavirus. The state has seen over 53,000 cases and 2,194 deaths as of Monday morning.
Former Energy Minister and MP for Ellembelle, Emmanuel Kofi Armah Buah wants freight forwarders at the country's ports to blame President Akufo-Addo and his government for the confusion at the ports regarding the implementation of the UNIPASS system for the clearing of goods.

Kofi Armah Buah says the introduction of the UNIPASS system was ill-timed and not the best.

Ghana's ports have been in disarray after UNIPASS took over from GCNet and West Blue Consulting.

The development has seen freight forwarders all over the country going up in arms over challenges with the clearance of their goods since the introduction of the UNIPASS system to Ghana's single window platform.

Speaking to Citi News, Kofi Armah Buah said GCNet should be allowed to continue to operate.

The only people to be held responsible is President Akufo-Addo and his government. We warned them to do the right thing for Ghana but they refused. So if today we are seeing confusion at the port, it should be blamed on the government of President Akufo-Addo.

IMANI Africa, which has been also advocating for GCNet to be maintained at the ports has also blamed the government for the ensuing controversies.

Its president, Franklin Cudjoe said the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo is responsible for the challenges regarding the clearing of goods at the ports.

Speaking on The Big Issue on Saturday, he said some orders and directives from the Senior Minister on how the systems should be run at the ports have led to the issues being faced by UNIPASS.

IMANI Africa had notably petitioned President Nana Akufo-Addo asking the government to temporarily suspend operations of UNIPASS and allow GCNet and West Blue to operate for the rest of 2020.

So when orders and letters start coming from the Senior Minister, not the [Economic Management Team] letters will be written suggesting that UNIPASS don't show up [for demonstrations].

I am just looking at the vested interest analysis side and saying the Senior Minister is running counter to the directives of the Vice President.

A member of Parliament's Finance Committee, Isaac Adongo, also cautioned the Senior Minister to desist from forcing the UNIPASS system on the ports in the country.

---citinewsroom
The coronavirus has now infected more than 3.5million people worldwide in the latest grim milestone for the pandemic.

At least 3,506,729 people have been sickened by the virus since it emerged in China late last year, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.

Some 247,381 people have died after contracting the disease, the majority of them (142,667) in Europe.

The United States has the world's highest figures with 1,176,548 known infections and 68,066 deaths.

Governments around the world say that the true figures are likely to be far higher, because many probable virus cases are never confirmed by tests.

Donald Trump has predicted that the US will have a vaccine by the end of the year which would turn the tide against the virus, but experts say it could take far longer.

This map shows the latest picture around the world, with countries in darker red suffering more coronavirus cases

UNITED STATES: A funeral manager crosses a road as she drags a body to a funeral home in New York City, the centre of the world's worst virus outbreak

NEPAL: Health workers wearing protective suits spray disinfectant on a young girl wearing a a mask on a road in Kathmandu yesterday

Half the planet has been living under drastic lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus which would have been unthinkable in democratic countries until only a few weeks ago.

The lockdowns have caused a global economic standstill, leaving tens of millions of people out of work and derailing businesses from airlines to oil producers.

Politicians are now grappling with how to get the wheels turning again without sparking a second wave of infections.

Italy, which has one of the world's worst outbreaks with 210,717 cases and 28,884 deaths, started to lift the lockdown after nearly two months today but many businesses remain closed.

Italy's economy - the eurozone's third-largest - is expected to shrink more than in any year since the global depression of the 1930s.

Germany and Spain are also taking steps to loosen the restrictions, while Britain has yet to make any major concessions.

In the US, weeks of lockdown have left 30million Americans out of work - endangering Trump's re-election bid.

Trump has increasingly taken to blaming China for the outbreak, and says there is proof it started in a Chinese laboratory.

China denies the claims, and the US Director of National Intelligence has said analysts are still examining the exact origin.

Most scientists say the disease arose naturally in the animal kingdom.

SPAIN: A woman covered in plastic film walks along a street in Granada on Saturday, carrying a trolley, after Spain slightly relaxed its lockdown restrictions

CHINA: An engineer looks at a sample of liquid as scientists work on a coronavirus vaccine in Beijing. Donald Trump has predicted that a vaccine could be available by Christmas

But Trump's chief diplomat on Sunday ran with his boss's position, citing 'enormous' evidence that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab.

'I think the whole world can see now, remember, China has a history of infecting the world and running substandard laboratories,' Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.

The renewed anti-Chinese rumblings from Washington set financial markets on edge on Monday, as traders fretted about tensions between the world's two largest economies.

Major market Hong Kong shed four per cent, while other Asian bourses lost two percent, and Europe started the day in the red.

Trump acknowledged that the US death toll would continue to rise, but predicted that a vaccine could come as soon as late 2020.

'We are very confident that we're going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year,' he said.

But, he acknowledged: 'The doctors would say 'well, you shouldn't say that.' I'll say what I think.'

Germany's health minister on Monday poured cold water on that optimism, saying vaccines can 'take years'.

Jens Spahn described the development of effective vaccines as 'one of the most challenging and difficult tasks in medicine'.

Virologists say that until there is an effective vaccine against the coronavirus, life will continue to look different, with social restrictions becoming the norm.

UNITED KINGDOM: A medical worker attends to a patient wearing a mask at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Falkirk as doctors and nurses cope with the coronavirus crisis

INDIA: A police officer raises a baton towards a man accused of breaking social distancing rules in New Delhi today

Many parts of Asia have, however, begun to inch towards a post-pandemic life, with schools in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi reopening on Monday after two weeks without new infections anywhere in the country.

Malaysians headed back to work, while Australia and New Zealand discussed creating a 'trans-Tasman bubble' that would allow travel between the two countries.

But regional heavyweight Japan extended its state of emergency to the end of the month.

Japan has reported a comparatively small-scale outbreak, with 15,000 infections and 510 deaths so far, but there have been persistent fears of a spike in cases.

Russia is rapidly becoming Europe's blackspot, with officials in Moscow urging residents to stay home in an effort to tamp down the growing daily tally of new cases.

'The threat is apparently on the rise,' Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin told citizens.

In parts of the continent further along the infection curve, governments were starting to get to grips with the new normal.

Most are advocating continued social distancing and masks in public, as well as more testing to try to track infections.

Portugal allowed small shops, hair salons and car dealers to resume business from Monday, but ordered facemasks to be worn in stores and on public transport.

Nose and mouth coverings are also mandatory on public transport in neighbouring Spain.

Slovenia, Poland and Hungary joined Germany in allowing public spaces and businesses to partially reopen.
EAST HAVEN  Get ready, East Haven: Mayor Joe Carfora is expected to call for a 1.86-mill tax increase when he passes his budget on to the Town Council at 7 p.m. Wednesday in a rescheduled, virtual special meeting to deliver the State of the Town address.

The meeting will be available to watch via the Zoom teleconferencing site at https://bit.ly/2W3QhNy.

The Board of Finance  Democrats and Republicans alike  unanimously approved Carforas recommended budget in a meeting last Wednesday, according to minutes of the meeting.

Under the budget that Carfora, a Democrat, will forward to the council, taxes would rise from the current 32.42 mills to 34.28 mills.

The increase was largely expected, following past revelations about the towns shrinking fund balance under Republican former Mayor Joe Maturo Jr. and additional budget pressure  and loss of tax revenue  related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Many of East Havens municipal neighbors also are expected to raise taxes.

The median home value in East Haven is $180,000 and the median homes assessed value is $126,000, which means the average East Haven homeowner will see an increase of approximately $25.52 a month, the Carfora administration said in a news release.

That would amount to an additional $306.24 annually.

East Haven is struggling and I fully understand that, Carfora said in the release. Lawsuits and just plain irresponsible behaviors hurt this community. It was put in a hole financially and its reputation tarnished and now the COVID 19 pandemic makes things even worse.

We have work to do, Carfora said. I look forward to speaking to our town this Wednesday.

Carfora could not immediately be reached for additional comment.

In the release, Carfora said he was handed a town in well-documented disrepair  both financially and structurally, adding, All of the hard work that went into this budget to overcome what has been years of neglect resulted in a unanimous (Board of) Finance vote.

I am disappointed that the there is an unavoidable tax increase given the overall situation that we all find ourselves in, but we are faced with no responsible alternative given the conditions that we inherited and the shocking economic impact of COVID 19, Carfora said.

It speaks volumes that this vote was unanimous  no partisanship, Carfora said. It represents that the Board of Finance believes what conditions the past administration left behind and that the members have confidence in our process and the path forward.

The affirmative votes came from Board of Finance Republicans Beth Purcell and Ralph Vitale, as well as Democrats Richard DePalma, Richard Esposito Jr., Al Pyrzycki and Noreen Clough.

I am so pleased that Republicans Beth Purcell and Ralph Vitale joined us, Carfora said. It is clear that everyone put our town and honest government over party affiliations. These are never easy decisions and one that Ill never take lightly.

There remains plenty of work ahead, he said, nonetheless I am committed to keeping taxes stable so that we can again prosper as a community.

Carfora said his administration originally cut $1.5 million from individual department budget requests and painstakingly addressed every single department budget request.

Officials kept attacking this budget from every angle  evaluating personnel needs; you name it, we addressed it. But no matter what we cut, we were committed to protecting our police and fire, Carfora said. The public safety budgets were meticulously evaluated while sitting side by side with our Police Chief Ed Lennon and our Fire Chief Matt Marcarelli.

The Town Charter requires the Board of Finance to return the budget with its recommendations to the mayor, but in this case, members adopted the mayors exact recommendations without changes.

Under Gov. Ned Lamonts executive orders, municipalities have wide latitude in the budget adoption process amid the pandemic, but Carfora said he decided not to forgo the full budget process. Meetings will be be done remotely, however, taking place over Zoom, with web addresses to access the meetings included in agendas posted on the town website.

The next meeting after Wednesday will be Thursday, also at 7 p.m., when Superintendent of Schools Erica Forti will do a presentation on the schools budget for the Town Council.

On Monday at 6:30 p.m., the Council will review 11 department budgets, including Civil Service & Personnel, Planning & Zoning, the Town Council, the Senior Center, the Town Clerk, Board of Finance and Administration & Management.

On Tuesday, May 12, at 6:30 p.m., the council will review 12 more departments, including the Hagaman Memorial Library, Police Department, Fire Department, Animal Shelter, Engineering and Inland Wetlands Commission.

Additional meetings will take place on subsequent days.

Two public hearings are scheduled for May 19 and May 20, both at 7 p.m., and the Town Council is scheduled to adopt a budget and set the tax rate in a special meeting on May 21 at 7 p.m.

mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.com
Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has noted that former President John Dramani Mahama failed in managing the country when he was president.

According to Dr Bawumia, the nation was overwhelmed with a lot of challenges, including the inability of teachers to get ordinary chalk to teach pupils in basic schools.

Common chalk was even a problem in our schools under former President Mahama, Dr Bawumia told journalists on Monday, 4 May 2020.

In 2015, under the presidency of Mr Mahama, Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur, the wife of the then-Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, came under heavy criticism for publicly turning down a request made to her by some teachers to help convince the government to, among other things, provide them with chalk.

The Headmistress of Kukurantumi Presby Primary School, Mrs Juliet Oppong, made the appeal to Mrs Amissah-Arthur after expressing gratitude to her for presenting five sets of computers to the school.

The headmistress had pleaded with the wife of the Vice-President at the time, to lobby the government to provide some basic items like logbooks for teachers and chalk which, she said, were in short supply.

Her request, however, did not go down well with Mrs Amissah-Arthur, who, in anger, advised the school authorities to turn to its alumni for such basic needs.

The Headteacher has shocked meshe said you lack chalk and logbooks...I am very shocked that you are, today, asking me about chalk...how much is a box of chalkI wont give you chalk today, I wont give you chalk tomorrow.

I will not give you chalk today; neither will I give it to you tomorrow. You have teachers; you have the PTA, go and buy chalk for the school, she fumed.

After weeks of backlash, Mrs Amissah-Arthur, at an event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Jack and Jill School in Accra, apologised.

I was completely taken aback when the headmistress asked for chalk. My response was intended to encourage community participation in the school. If what I said has offended people, I use this opportunity to say: Im very sorry, she stated.

---classfmonline
1. Seize the day for diplomacy. Out of the pain and suffering comes a rare opportunity for world leaders to join together against a common, mortal foe. Coronavirus sees no geographic boundaries; it favors no political systems; it exempts no race, religion, gender, or creed. To save lives, nations must share data, resources, knowledge, and equipment. If calls for ceasefires in Yemen, Colombia, the Philippines, and globally are heeded, they could break long-running cycles of violence and pave the way for negotiated settlements. Now is the moment to recommit to multilateralism, building the foundation of treaties and international agreements that reduce the chances of war, and enable broader cooperation on transnational challenges.
A day after the civic administration



gave relaxations in lockdown norms in non-containment zones in the city, Mayor Murlidhar Mohol on Monday expressed his disapproval of the decision and expressed concern over crowding on roads here.

Mohol said he has spoken to Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and asked him to intervene in the matter.

Pawar is also the guardian minister of Pune district.

On Sunday evening, civic commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad issued orders for certain relaxations in lockdown rules in non-containment zones in the city, the second worst-hit by coronavirus in the state after Mumbai.

Gaikwad on Monday sought to allay concerns related to the relaxations and said they will be reviewed regularly.

As per the orders, shops selling non-essential commodities, including liquor, will be allowed to be opened in non-containment zones between 10 am and 6 pm.

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, Mohol stated, "I register my protest to the decision to allow five shops including essential commodities to remain open on a particular road or lane between 10 am to 6 pm."



He said when people are following the lockdown and there is a possibility that the number of COVID-19 cases might come under control, this decision will not be "affordable" for the city.

He stated that since the morning crowding of people on city roads is worrisome.

"I demand that only essential services that too between 10 am and 2 pm be allowed in the whole city. With new timings (10 am to 6 pm ) how are we going to control crowds and it will further bring stress on the police department," he tweeted.

Mohol questioned the decision to allow only five shops in one lane or road to remain open and sought to know the criterion to select these shops.

"By giving such relaxations in Pune in the current times, we are actually inviting more danger," he said.

He said the administration should pay heed to these concerns and rethink over its decision and only allow shops selling essential commodities to remain open from 10 am to 2 pm.

"I have spoken to the guardian minister Ajit Pawar and he has responded positively and I expect that he will intervene in this issue," Mohol tweeted.

Meanwhile, civic chief Gaikwad, replying to a question related to crowding on roads since Monday morning, said all will have to adapt to certain changes.

"This (COVID-19) situation will be with us for the next few months and in that condition, continuous lockdown is not possible.

"In fact, we will have to adopt certain changes in our lifestyles such as wearing masks, gloves and following social distancing norms all the times," he said.

Gaikwad said the relaxations will be reviewed after every four days.

"We will be taking a constant review of the relaxations given in non-containment zones and we will check the public response.

"If there is an increase or decrease in COVID-19 cases in a particular area, we will do necessary changes in in terms of putting more restrictions or giving more relaxations," he added.

The number of areas falling under COVID-19 containment zones in Pune has reduced, he said.

"As per the revised containment zones, out of 330 sq km area, only 3 per cent of it is currently under containment zones," he said.

In the remaining 97 per cent area, normalcy will gradually return from Monday onwards in terms of daily business. Construction activities will also be allowed there, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Antiviral drug Remdesivir, approved by the US food and regulatory body for emergency use to treat the COVID-19 patients, is expected to be available by next week, the CEO of the company manufacturing the medicine has said.

The announcement was made on Sunday by Dan O'Day, CEO of Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical company making the vaccine.

The US is the worst-affected country in the world with over 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and more than 67,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave emergency use authorisation (EUA) for the use of investigational Remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients after some researches, including one led by Indian-American physician Aruna Subramanian, found that the drug helped recover some of the infected cases faster.

The EUA allows for Remdesivir to be distributed in the US and administered intravenously by health care providers, as appropriate, to treat suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalised with severe condition.

We intend to get that to patients in the early part of this next week, O'Day said on CBS' Face of the Nation.

He said that his company has donated its entire available supply of Remdesivir, approximately 1.5 million vials, to the government, which can treat anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 people.

O'Day said the government will determine which cities are most vulnerable and where the patients need this medicine.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump said that his administration has been working with the teams at the FDA, National Institute of Health and Gilead for spearheading this public-private partnership to make this happen very quickly.

In a statement, Gilead had earlier said that the EUA will facilitate broader use of Remdesivir to treat hospitalised patients with severe COVID-19 disease, enabling access to the vaccine at additional hospitals across the country.

Remdesivir is authorised for the treatment of hospitalised patients with severe COVID-19 disease, it said, adding that the optimal duration of treatment is still being studied in ongoing clinical trials.

Under the EUA, both five-day and 10-day treatment durations are suggested, based on the severity of disease. The authorisation is temporary and does not take the place of the formal new drug application submission, review and approval process, Gilead noted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
DES MOINES  As Iowa begins easing restrictions designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Kim Reynolds said increased testing was largely the reason for a record number of new COVID-19 cases on Friday and Saturday.

Health officials reported 739 new positive cases Friday, by far the most in a single day, and an additional eight deaths, one in Bremer County. Saturday marked a new single-day high at 757 cases, pushing the total to 8,461, with five new deaths for a total of 175. That included one death in Tama County, and adult 61 to 80 years of age.

We opened test sites in Des Moines and Waterloo, and this has created a high volume of tests coming into the State Hygenic Lab, Reynolds said. She added that has created a backlog, but she said the lab will get caught up on those test kits over the weekend.

Of the new Friday cases, 516 were from four counties, including Black Hawk and Woodbury  both of which are seeing a surge of slaughterhouse cases  and the Des Moines area counties of Polk and Dallas.

Some 87 percent of new cases Saturday were in the 22 counties where restrictions remain in place, and 493 of the new positive cases were from Black Hawk, Dallas, Polk and Woodbury counties.

Black Hawk County has recorded the most cases in the state  1507  and 14 deaths.

Care homes

Also Friday, officials at Friendship Village reported a resident and four employees have tested positive for COVID-19. A resident at Ravenwood Specialty Care has also tested positive. The Ravenwood case is in addition to two employees who tested positive last week.

Harmony House, in Waterloo has confirmed an outbreak of the disease with 29 cases. Other facilities in Black Hawk County, including Western Home Communities and NewAldaya, have recorded positive cases among staff.

Among the states 24 long-term care facility outbreaks, Bartels Lutheran Retirement Community in Waverly has recorded 29 cases, the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshall County has recorded 22 cases, Premiere Estates of Toledo in Tama County has recorded 52 cases and Westbrook Acres in Tama County has recorded seven cases.

Residents living in nursing, long-term care and assisted living facilities are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 due to age and underlying health conditions.

Lisa Gates, president and chief executive officer of the Friendship Village retirement community, said in a Thursday Facebook post that the affected resident lives in the Pavilion Health Center at Friendship Villages main campus on Park Lane.

Today has been a difficult day for us, Gates said in the post. We have our first resident who tested positive for COVID-19. While we knew that there was a high probability this would happen it still has hit us pretty hard.

Gates said a direct caregiver who works at the Pavilion and a maintenance employee have also tested positive for the disease. Two employees who have been on leaves of absence since April 17 have also contracted COVID-19, she added.

An employee of Friends At Home, a home health agency located at Rosewood Estate, had tested positive for COVID-19. That employee did have direct contact with residents of Rosewood Estate who had contracted for services through Friends At Home.

The two employees on leave live with individuals who work at Tyson Fresh Meats, which closed voluntarily April 22 after an outbreak of coronavirus. Black Hawk County Health Department officials said 90% of the countys cases through Thursday stem from the Tyson plant.

When Gates learned of the outbreak at Tyson, she decided employees who lived with Tyson employees could not work at Friendship Village until it was absolutely clear they were not infected and not in contact with the Tyson employee.

We offered the use of our guest and empty rooms for them to stay in and work at Friendship Village should their person be tested as negative, Gates said.

I wanted to mitigate the possibility of their person becoming infected by continuing working at Tyson and thus spreading COVID, she added. We ended up not allowing anyone to work for us until the 14 days had passed and their person tested negative.

Gates said the Friendship Village communities have been diligent with infection control, cleaning, and enforcing the wearing of personal protective equipment.

Friendship Village set up designated COVID rooms in each of its health centers and Rosewood Estate and designated a COVID team of caregivers, Gates said. Employees were no longer allowed to work two jobs, and the child care center was closed to non-Friendship Village employees.

We have guest and empty apartments that our workers can stay in should they not want to go home, she said. We have probably 10 employees doing this now.

Latest numbers

The governor said she believed the state has met its peak of coronavirus cases. But six counties reported their first coronavirus case Friday, including Floyd County, meaning 91 of Iowas 99 counties now had at least one case.

As of Friday, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health, 48 people were hospitalized in Black Hawk County, one in Floyd County, one in Grundy County, two in Hardin County, one in Mitchell County and eight in Tama County.

Allamakee County added one case for a total of 90 cases and three deaths as of Friday. Fayette County added one case for a total of 21 cases.

Floyd Countys first case is an adult between the ages of 61 and 80 who was hospitalized.

Franklin County added one case for a total of three cases. Hardin County added one case for a total of nine cases.

Mitchell County added one case for a total of three cases. Tama County added four cases for a total of 270 cases and seven deaths.

Winneshiek County added two cases for a total of 17.

The governor also said spiritual and religious gatherings were now open statewide, including in the 22 restricted counties, and said that included weddings except for receptions and funerals except for visitations. Guidance for churches and others was available at coronavirus.iowa.gov.

We know this is a difficult time, and Iowans need to continue to be responsible in protecting the health of themselves and their communities, Reynolds said.

Courier Staff Writers Tim Jamison and Amie Rivers contributed to this report.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
This article is for investors who would like to improve their understanding of price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). We'll apply a basic P/E ratio analysis to Haitian International Holdings Limited's (HKG:1882), to help you decide if the stock is worth further research. Haitian International Holdings has a price to earnings ratio of 11.56, based on the last twelve months. In other words, at today's prices, investors are paying HK$11.56 for every HK$1 in prior year profit.

See our latest analysis for Haitian International Holdings

How Do I Calculate Haitian International Holdings's Price To Earnings Ratio?

The formula for price to earnings is:

Price to Earnings Ratio = Share Price (in reporting currency)  Earnings per Share (EPS)

Or for Haitian International Holdings:

P/E of 11.56 = CN12.679  CN1.097 (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2019.)

(Note: the above calculation uses the share price in the reporting currency, namely CNY and the calculation results may not be precise due to rounding.)

Is A High Price-to-Earnings Ratio Good?

A higher P/E ratio means that investors are paying a higher price for each CN1 of company earnings. That isn't a good or a bad thing on its own, but a high P/E means that buyers have a higher opinion of the business's prospects, relative to stocks with a lower P/E.

How Does Haitian International Holdings's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?

We can get an indication of market expectations by looking at the P/E ratio. The image below shows that Haitian International Holdings has a higher P/E than the average (9.2) P/E for companies in the machinery industry.

SEHK:1882 Price Estimation Relative to Market May 4th 2020

That means that the market expects Haitian International Holdings will outperform other companies in its industry. The market is optimistic about the future, but that doesn't guarantee future growth. So investors should delve deeper. I like to check if company insiders have been buying or selling.

How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios

Story continues

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. Therefore, even if you pay a high multiple of earnings now, that multiple will become lower in the future. And as that P/E ratio drops, the company will look cheap, unless its share price increases.

Haitian International Holdings's earnings per share fell by 8.7% in the last twelve months. But it has grown its earnings per share by 6.0% per year over the last five years.

Don't Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits

It's important to note that the P/E ratio considers the market capitalization, not the enterprise value. So it won't reflect the advantage of cash, or disadvantage of debt. 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).

So What Does Haitian International Holdings's Balance Sheet Tell Us?

Haitian International Holdings has net cash of CN6.4b. This is fairly high at 32% of its market capitalization. That might mean balance sheet strength is important to the business, but should also help push the P/E a bit higher than it would otherwise be.

The Verdict On Haitian International Holdings's P/E Ratio

Haitian International Holdings's P/E is 11.6 which is above average (9.5) in its market. The recent drop in earnings per share might keep value investors away, but the net cash position means the company has time to improve: and the high P/E suggests the market thinks it will.

Investors should be looking to buy stocks that the market is wrong about. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, 'In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. So this free report on the analyst consensus forecasts could help you make a master move on this stock.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates. So take a peek at this free list of companies with modest (or no) debt, trading on a P/E 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.
4 May 2020

RIGHTMOVE PLC

('Rightmove')

RESULTS OF THE 2020 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The Annual General Meeting ('AGM') of Rightmove shareholders was held today at the Company's registered office at 2 Caldecotte Lake Business Park, Caldecotte, Milton Keynes MK7 8LE. To comply with Government guidelines to reduce the spread of Covid-19, the AGM was convened with the minimum necessary quorum of two shareholders, as facilitated by the Company.

The full text of each resolution was included in the Notice of Meeting circulated to shareholders on 27 March 2020. The Company advises that, with the exception of Resolution 4 which was withdrawn, all of the resolutions were proposed and voted upon by poll(1), including shareholder votes submitted electronically or by post before the meeting. The results of the poll are set out below.

Resolution Votes FOR (including discretion) % Votes AGAINST % Withheld(2) Votes cast as a % of capital(3) 1. Receive the Report and Accounts 705,986,320 99.23 5,498,902 0.77 1,267,274 81.49% 2. Approve the Remuneration Report 684,058,225 96.08 27,900,733 3.92 793,538 81.54% 3. Approve the Remuneration Policy 670,870,672 94.18 41,468,750 5.82 413,075 81.59% 4. Declare final dividend 5. Re-appoint KPMG LLP as auditors 692,538,482 97.22 19,818,991 2.78 395,023 81.59% 6. Authorise directors to agree auditors' remuneration 704,298,571 98.87 8,055,940 1.13 397,985 81.59% 7. To elect Andrew Fisher 707,131,039 99.27 5,222,634 0.73 398,824 81.59% 8. To elect Amit Tiwari 712,341,198 100.00 19,885 0.00 391,414 81.59% 9. To re-elect Peter Brooks-Johnson 712,144,468 99.97 216,615 0.03 391,414 81.59% 10. To re-elect Robyn Perriss 709,810,582 99.64 2,550,803 0.36 391,112 81.59% 11. To re-elect Jacqueline de Rojas 712,361,175 100.00 210 0.00 391,112 81.59% 12. To re-elect Rakhi Goss-Custard 712,352,448 100.00 8,635 0.00 391,414 81.59% 13. To re-elect Andrew Findlay 711,324,661 99.85 1,036,422 0.15 391,414 81.59% 14. To re-elect Lorna Tilbian 692,404,692 97.20 19,956,193 2.80 391,612 81.59% 15. To renew authority to allot shares 708,502,119 99.40 4,243,113 0.60 7,265 81.63% 16. Disapply pre-emption rights* 712,212,848 99.92 536,062 0.08 3,587 81.63% 17. Disapply pre-emption rights for capital investments* 705,595,735 99.00 7,148,104 1.00 8,657 81.63% 18. Renew authority to purchase own shares* 704,892,934 99.05 6,731,312 0.95 1,128,250 81.51% 19. Authorise political donations 703,881,368 98.84 8,226,335 1.16 644,794 81.56% 20. Approve 14 days' notice for general meetings* 677,864,354 95.16 34,498,180 4.84 389,953 81.59% 21. Approve 2020 Performance Share Plan 703,837,022 98.75 8,911,617 1.25 3,857 81.63%

* Indicates a Special Resolution requiring a 75% majority

In accordance with the Company's Articles of Association, on a poll every member present in person or by proxy has one vote for every share held. A vote "withheld" is not a vote in law and has not been counted as a vote "for" or "against" a resolution. The votes validly cast by proxy are expressed in the table above as a percentage of Rightmove's issued share capital of 873,102,126 , excluding treasury shares of 13,285,490, as at 4 May 2020.

In accordance with LR 9.6.2, a copy of the resolutions passed, other than resolutions concerning ordinary business, at today's AGM will be submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism

No other resolutions were put to the meeting.

The Board appreciates the support it has received from our shareholders for the AGM resolutions.

Name and contact for queries and authorised official responsible for making this notification:

Sandra Odell

Company Secretary

CompanySecretary@rightmove.co.uk
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, residents of Koforidua in the New Juaben Municipality are increasingly adopting the use of face masks as one of the measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus among residents.



A survey conducted by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Koforidua in the Eastern Region indicates that almost five people out of 10 are seen wearing face masks.



Mr Elvis Attafuah, a resident of Korle Nkwanta, a suburb of Koforidua who shared his experience said, due to the relaxation of the lockdown, the movement of people have become dangerous as one would not know who is the carrier of the virus, so the only way out is to start using the face mask for safety.



He said, the region is also recoding cases of the COVID 19 and this has made it more dangerous and one needed to protect himself.



A resident of Nsukwao, a suburb of Koforidua, Ms Miriam Kwao said, she started wearing the face mask right after the country started recording the cases of coronavirus because she was afraid she may contract the virus as she travels a lot for business and other important duties.



A trader who spoke on anonymity said, she has seen some of her colleagues wear the mask every day, however, she finds it difficult breathing when she put the mask on, so that has prevented her from wearing the mask often.



The New Juaben South Municipal Assembly on April 27, 2020 issued a press statement that wearing of the nose and mouth masks within the municipality is mandatory for everybody.



The statement directed that commercial drivers should ensure that all passengers in their vehicles wear nose and mouth masks before allowing them to board their vehicles.



It said notices of 'NO NOSE MASK, NO ENTRY' should be displayed at vantage points including offices, lorry stations, shops, markets, malls, banks, pharmacy shops, and all public places.

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.

Featured Video
S ecretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that the US has "a significant amount of evidence" that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory.

It comes after Donald Trump told the daily White House press briefing on Friday that he had seen evidence that Covid-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan.

The virus, which first broke out in the Chinese city at the end of last year, has killed around 240,000 people worldwide, including more than 67,000 in the US.

Mr Pompeo said on Sunday that there was evidence the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory although he did not dispute US intelligence agencies' conclusion that it was not man-made.

"There is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan," Mr Pompeo told ABC

The secretary of state then briefly contradicted a statement issued this week by the top US spy agency that said the virus did not appear to be man-made or genetically modified.

New York's Coronavirus outbreak - In pictures 1 /34 New York's Coronavirus outbreak - In pictures The Supermoon rises behind the Empire State Building while it glows red in solidarity with those infected with coronavirus as the outbreak of the disease (COVID-19) continues in the Manhattan borough of New York City Reuters A nearly empty Times Square AFP via Getty Images Riders, some wearing masks and gloves as a protective measure over coronavirus concerns, enter a New York City subway train AP People try to keep a social distance while they enjoy a sunny day at Central Park Reuters Nadia, a 4-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo, that the zoo said on April 5, 2020 has tested positive for coronavirus disease WCS/Handout via Reuters People wear face masks AFP via Getty Images A man crosses a nearly empty 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan Reuters US President Donald Trump looks on during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on March 31, 2020, in Washington, DC AFP via Getty Images Felix Hassebroek waves to his classmates, who he has not seen in 2 weeks through a livestream video meet up during the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Brooklyn, New York Reuters Friends and neighbors, Sarah and Elizabeth, talk about their weekends from opposite sides of the road as they maintain social distance in a neighborhood in Syracuse, New York Reuters Light morning traffic seen on the FDR drive on March 24, 2020 in New York City AFP via Getty Images A subway customer uses a tissue to protect her hand while holding onto a pole AP Workers construct what is believed to be a makeshift morgue behind a hospital during the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the Manhattan borough of New York City Reuters Beds separated by black fabric are set up as a temporary field hospital for Covid-19 patients in Queens, New York AFP via Getty Images New York's Hart Island where the department of corrections is dealing with more burials Reuters Medical workers wait for patients at a special coronavirus intake area in New York Getty Images Patients wear personal protective equipment while maintaining social distancing as they wait in line for a COVID-19 test at Elmhurst Hospital Center AP The One World Trade Center tower in Manhattan is seen illuminated in blue light Reuters Pictures drawn by children as part of the Quarantine Rainbow Project in Brooklyn, New York Reuters U.S. Army National Guard personnel load boxes of free food provided by multiple New York City agencies into a taxi for distribution to local residents in the Harlem neighbourhood of Manhattan during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID19) in New York Reuters Traders work during the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on March 17, 2020 at Wall Street in New York City AFP via Getty Images A man in a wheelchair crosses a nearly empty 7th Avenue in Times Square in Manhattan Reuters Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images REUTERS

That statement undercut conspiracy theories promoted by anti-China activists and some supporters of President Donald Trump who suggest it was developed in a Chinese government biological weapons laboratory.

"The best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point," Mr Pompeo said.

Donald Trump: US government doing a great job handling coronavirus crisis

When the interviewer pointed out that was not the conclusion of US intelligence agencies, Mr Pompeo backtracked, saying, "I've seen what the intelligence community has said.

"I have no reason to believe that they've got it wrong."

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on Mr Pompeo's comments.

Thursday's report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it concurred with "the wide scientific consensus" that the disease was not man-made.

US officials familiar with intelligence reporting and analysis have said for weeks that they do not believe Chinese scientists developed the coronavirus in a government biological weapons lab from which it then escaped.

Rather, they have said they believe it was either introduced through human contact with animals at a meat market in the central city of Wuhan, or could have escaped from one of two Wuhan government laboratories believed to be conducting civilian research into possible biological hazards.
Social distancing norms, which were mandated by the government, were given a toss by people.

IMAGE: A man carries liquor bottles after buying them at a wine shop during an extended nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease in New Delhi. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Liquor shops in large parts of India reopened after almost 40 days on Monday and were shut again in several places as thousands of anxious tipplers broke social distancing protocol -- and some even coconuts -- in their eagerness to end the prolonged dry spell and say cheers again.

Extraordinary scenes of men, and in a few cases women too, standing in snaking queues for hours or joszling restlessly as they waited for the shutters to go up were replayed in Bangalore and Delhi, Mumbai and Lucknow, and in smaller towns and rural centres across the country.

IMAGE: A woman carries liquor bottles after buying them at a wine shop in Kolkata. Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters

As India entered the third phase of the lockdown and some curbs were eased, the cynosure of attention for those deprived their daily or weekly tipple was clearly the alcohol shops.

Coronavirus being the great equaliser, they stood together, the affluent and the not so, united in their urgency to stock up on their favourite tipple, be it single malt and pricey beers and wine, or humbler IMFL and country liquor.

But it didn't always go according to plan, the move to reopen liquor vends leading to chaos

IMAGE: A man carries liquor after buying it at a wine store during an extended nationwide lockdown to slow down the spread of the coronavirus disease in New Delhi. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Like in Delhi, parts of West Bengal, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh where many liquor shops had to be shut just minutes after they opened as restless, edgy crowds milled around, forgetting all about social distancing norms necessary to ward off COVID-19.

In Delhi, an official said about 150 government-run liquor shops were allowed to open from 9 am to 6.30 pm in accordance with the latest lockdown relaxations given by the ministry of home affairs.

IMAGE: A man wear protective mask show alcohols bottles after buying from liquor shop as authorities allowed sale of liquor with certain restrictions in Lucknow. Photograph: ANI Photo

"Shops were asked to shut in places where social distancing norms were violated. At some places, mild force was also used to disperse the crowd," a senior police official said.

"A large number of people gathered even before the shop opened around 10 am and within minutes, we asked the liquor shop to shut," added a senior police official from Shahdara district about a shop near the Apsara border.

IMAGE: People purchase liquor from a wine shop which was opened in accordance with the newly relaxed guidelines of COVID-19 lockdown, in Varanasi. Photograph: PTI Photo

There were many who waited outside liquor shops but were not lucky enough.

"I will wait for the shops to reopen, " said Amit, who had come from Paharganj to the Gole Market area in central Delhi. The three shops were closed by police because of the rush but Amit, in his mid 40s, said he was determined to wait till he could get his hand on a bottle or bottles.

His doggedness found echo in far away Shivamogga in Karnataka.

"Liquor is good for health," 96-year-old Dakamma was heard saying.

IMAGE: Customers forget social distancing norms as they queue up outside a wine shop in Prayagraj. Photograph: PTI Photo

Booze lovers in the southern state ushered in the resumption of liquor sales with a celebration, thronging stores many hours before the shutters went up.

At some places, they performed prayers with flowers, coconuts, incense sticks, camphor and even burst crackers in front of the stores.

About 4,500 standalone liquor outlets outside containment zones were allowed to be opened from Monday from 9 am to 7 pm with some restrictions.

Some came ready for the long haul -- with umbrellas, raincoats, newspapers and books and queued up as early as 3 am.

IMAGE: While many celebrated as liquor shops opened, these people had to keep waiting as this store didn't open. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

At a liquor shop in Salegame Road in Hassan, they lit a traditional lamp and incense sticks, performed an 'aarti' with camphor and decorated the store with flower garlands.

And in Belagavi, eager buyers marked their spot on Sunday night itself, leaving slippers, bags and stones in "social distancing boxes".

In neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, the confusion was compounded by technical glitches in computers in government-run liquor outlets, causing abnormal delays in sales.



In border districts like Chittoor, SPS Nellore, East Godavari and Krishna, tipplers from neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Telangana joined the serpentine queues.

The crowd was so heavy that at a couple of places sales were suspended to maintain order.

IMAGE: A customer carries alcohol after purchasing from a wine shop at Chander Nagar in East Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

"We want our alcohol at any cost," said Sooraj Pawar from Mumbai's suburb Santacruz where there were long queues of people standing perilously close together, shuffling slowly towards the liquor shop but showing no signs that they were leaving.

There were similar scenes in Juhu where police tried to control the restless crowds. To the dismay of customers, many liquor vends in Maharashtra remained shut.



The confusion was apparently due to a contradictory communication from the excise department, a shop owner said.

A large number of people made a beeline in Uttar Pradesh that reopened 26,000 liquor stores, while Rajasthan had to close most shops where social distancing norms were not followed.

IMAGE: Police personnel raise their batons to disperse the crowd outside a wine shop after authorities allowed sale of liquor with certain restrictions at Chander Nagar in East Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

In the Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow, too, caution was abandoned as people gathered from early morning itself and bedlam reigned.

"There is an estimate that on the first day itself, the government is likely to earn Rs 100 crore as revenue," said Sanjay Bhoosreddy, principal secretary of the Excise Department.

There were similar scenes in many other parts of the state, including in Kanpur, Allahabad and Ballia, despite the administration in some places instituting a 'one bottle, one person' rule.

IMAGE: A customer carries alcohol. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

With carry bags in hands, liquor lovers lined up in long queues to purchase liquor after shops reopened in Rajasthan. Some were even seen with plastic sacks to carry the stock of liquor as much as they can.

The state excise department had to order some shops to be shut in laces where social distancing norms were not followed.

"What to do sir, this day has come after a long wait," was the heartfelt response of Shyam Sundar Sharma, a consumer waiting for his turn at a liquor shop in Jaipur.

Policemen were deployed near the shops to ensure that there is no crowd but at most of the places, crowd could be seen.

IMAGE: People purchase alcohol from a wine shop after authorities allowed sale of liquor with certain restrictions, during the ongoing COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, in Lucknow. Photograph: Nand Kumar/PTI Photo

Many states increased the prices of alcohol but that didn't really matter for those who had been deprived of their daily or weekly drink, leading to mild annoyance for some and downright despair for others.

Standalone liquor shops in West Bengal reopened in green, orange and red zones, except in containment areas, but police closed down several within an hour as people started jostling with each other in front of the outlets with social distancing going for a toss.

Some states like Kerala and Madhya Pradesh kept liquor shops closed. They were closed in Puducherry too. The Tamil Nadu government has announced resumption of liquor sales from May 7.



According to All India Brewers' Association Director General Shobhan Roy, the liquor industry contributes around Rs 2.5 lakh crore to the exchequers of the state government.

"It is the revenue of Rs 250 lakh crore which the state government gets from the liquor industry. As liquor is only state subject, Centre does not get any say in that," he said.
Celebrities, world leaders and philanthropists pledged some 7.4 billion euros ($8.1 billion) on Monday for research into coronavirus vaccines, treatments and testing during an EU-led videoconference that was snubbed by the United States.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who hosted the conference, said a vaccine was the best chance of beating the COVID-19 disease, which has so far killed nearly a quarter of a million people around the world  140,000 of them in Europe.

Major European powers, along with Japan and Canada, made the biggest pledges but the lack of US representation raised the prospect of an uncoordinated competition to develop and produce a vaccine.

Some wealthy American individuals did take part, and pop star Madonnas million-dollar contribution was feted by EU officials.

 A down payment 

The conference narrowly missed its target of 7.5 billion euros  although a handful of contributors did not put a sum on their pledges  but UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that much more would be needed, putting the final sum required near 38 billion euros.

These funds are a kind of down payment for the development of new tools at the speed needed, Guterres told the conference. But to reach everyone everywhere we likely need five times that amount.

Nonetheless, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hailed the fundraising as a powerful show of global solidarity.

The donations came from around 40 countries, the UN, research institutes and philanthropic bodies including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

But the initiative was undermined by the absence of the United States, with President Donald Trump at loggerheads with the WHO over its handling of the pandemic.

Trump  fighting for reelection in November  said on Sunday the United States would have a coronavirus vaccine ready by the end of the year.

His prediction was met with scepticism in some quarters, with Germanys Health Minister Jens Spahn warning it could take years for anyone to develop a vaccine.

 US isolating themselves 

While putting an upbeat gloss on the event in public, privately EU officials were disappointed the US did not take part.

The EU responded favourably to a call for global action, the US refused. They are the ones who are isolating themselves, one official said.

Were only at the start of the process. We hope the American government will join the common effort.

A senior US official said Washington welcomed the telethon effort but insisted many of the organisations making pledges had already received substantial American support.

Pressed on why the United States was staying away, the official called the EU event one of many and said Washington was at the forefront of those international efforts.

But other leaders are concerned that Trumps America First approach could lead to a counterproductive transatlantic race to find a vaccine and called instead for a collaborative approach.

While British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the world must work together to build an impregnable shield around all our people, his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe urged the international community to unite to overcome the crisis.

French President Emmanuel Macron said it was vital that once a vaccine has been developed, it is treated as global public property with access available for the whole of the planet.

 Vaccine war 

In March, Germany was forced to insist that the rights to coronavirus vaccine research were not for sale after reports Trump wanted the US to buy exclusive access to one being developed by a German biotech firm.

In recent days the Trump administration has stepped up pressure on China, where the outbreak began, claiming it originated in a laboratory in the city of Wuhan.

Without mentioning Washington, China implicitly hit back at the donor conference, where it was represented by its ambassador to the EU.

Multilateral cooperation in fighting the virus, confidence and solidarity are much more valuable than gold, ambassador Zhang Ming said. Panic and blame game are not useful at all.

Isabelle Marchais of the Delors Institute thinktank said the US was ready to put all its forces into the battle to win a vaccine war.

In an analysis published Monday, she said more than 100 vaccine research projects were going on, including eight clinical trials in the US, China and Europe.

Given the stakes in the current pandemic, some companies  particularly American and Chinese ones  are ready to start production before the end of clinical trials in order to be the first ones to get the vaccine to market, she wrote.

Of the 7.5 billion euros, four billion will go on vaccine development, two billion on the search for a treatment and 1.5 billion for producing tests, the EU said.

SOURCE: AFP
A Delhi Police constable opened fire using his service revolver and left three men injured following a quarrel in North-East Delhis Meet Nagar on Monday night, police said.

The constable, Rajeev, who is posted at the Seelampur police station; has been caught with four other suspects, Ved Prakash Surya, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-East) said.

The officer said that the three injured men have been hospitalized with bullet wounds and it was too premature to say which one of them is likely to survive.

The DCP said that the quarrel between Rajeevs family and another one in his neighbourhood began around 8.30 pm on Monday.

It was during that fight that Rajeev allegedly opened fire at the three others. Some people on Rajeevs side too have been hurt, but there is no clarity on that.

The trigger for the quarrel too remains unclear.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Sweden sticks with controversial COVID-19 approach

by Karen Weintraub

May 04,2020 | Source: WebMD

Sweden has taken a different approach to fighting COVID-19 than most other countries -- and its causing a global stir.



Instead of tight lockdowns, Swedish officials have encouraged citizens to use common sense, work from home if possible, and not gather in crowds over 50. Primary schools are open, as are bars and restaurants, with images showing people enjoying drinks and crowding streets.



Their aim, officials have said, is to slow the pace of the virus, so as not to overwhelm the health care system.



But they also want healthy people to keep getting infected, to eventually build herd immunity, where so many people have survived an infection that they wont be vulnerable to it again.



About 80% of people who become sick with COVID-19 will have relatively mild symptoms; some wont even notice theyre infected.



Theoretically, if enough people could be mildly infected, they would be protected from the virus and not pass it on to others. Outbreaks end when enough people have become infected or protected with vaccines to stop it from spreading. The trick is to infect only people who will have mild infections -- but, of course, no one knows how to do to that.



But there are good reasons, experts say, why nearly every other country on earth has chosen a different path.



And Swedens approach might have made sense if the Nordic country had done something to protect its most vulnerable residents, says William Hanage, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.



Sweden, which has a population of about 10 million, has avoided overwhelming its health care system so far, says Hanage. But instead of the slow burn among healthy people that the Swedish leadership had wanted, the virus has ripped through the nations nursing homes. While outside visitors have been blocked, protections like masks and gloves were not required unless a resident was known to be sick.



As of the end of April, Sweden had reported more than 21,500 confirmed infections and 2,600 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That amounts to about 12% of diagnosed people dying of the disease. Among its neighbors, just 210 people have died in Norway -- less than 3% of those diagnosed; 218, or about 4%, in Finland; and 460, or about 5%, in Denmark.



Experts say these fatality rates are expected to fall as officials gain a better picture of how widespread COVID-19 is. While some early data from antibody testing has suggested COVID-19 prevalence may exceed 10%, the World Health Organization says that based on preliminary data, 2% to 3% of the worlds population has developed antibodies.



In the United States, more than 63,000 people have died out of over 1 million reported infections. Both deaths and infections are likely much undercounted, experts say, and that 9% death rate in the U.S. is expected to fall substantially once the true scope of infections can be determined.



In response to a huge public outcry in Sweden and abroad, Anders Tegnell, PhD, an epidemiologist at Swedens Public Health Agency, has defended the policy he helped design. He has said he doesnt think Swedens perspective is all that different from the rest of the worlds -- except that its based on individual responsibility and voluntary compliance, rather than legal enforcement. Closing borders and schools once an outbreak has arrived doesnt make sense, he said, and Swedish people respond better to nudging than to orders.



Hanage says this approach might have worked if the country had first provided a way to protect its most vulnerable residents. The government might have offered everyone over 70 food and other resources to allow them to stay home, he said. Instead, they were simply advised not to go out.



Nursing homes were also not adequately protected, which Swedish officials now acknowledge. Roughly one-third of Swedens deaths have been in nursing homes, according to published reports.



Whatever they have done [in Sweden] has been leading to more deaths, Hanage says. It does not seem that there were appropriate steps taken to ensure the safety of people in those nursing homes.  If youre going to have a strategy like that, you need to be thinking about your vulnerable population.



Hanage also dismisses the idea that Sweden could reach herd immunity anytime soon. The expectation is that about 60% of the population will need to be infected to achieve any kind of herd immunity, he says. And no one knows how long immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19 will last once someone is infected. If it lasts less than a year, for example, like its relative the common cold, then someone could be reinfected a year from now -- and even if they dont fall very ill, they could still pass on the virus.



The Swedish Public Health Authority announced last month that it expected 26% of the population of Stockholm, the countrys largest city, would have been infected by the virus as of May 1. But with a city population of close to 1 million people, its not clear how it reached that infection rate with just 21,000 diagnosed infections



The United States should definitely not follow Swedens lead, says Tom Frieden, MD, former director of the CDC and president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a global public health initiative.



If the U.S. were to allow the coronavirus to spread and wait for herd immunity, its likely that more than 1 million Americans would die from the infection, he says via email.



Adrienne Randolph, MD, a senior doctor in critical care medicine at Boston Childrens Hospital, says she sees Sweden as providing scientific evidence to the rest of the world.



If they want to perform the experiment for everybody, go for it, and see what happens. Im not going to join in personally, she says, describing Sweden as often taking a more daredevil stance than other countries.



Swedens kind of approach might work in parts of rural America where there are no infections, Randolph says, but if you try it in the very densely populated areas, youre going to have a disaster.



So far, its clear that the Swedish people have suffered more so far from COVID-19 than their neighbors, Hanage says, with many more infections and deaths than its neighbors.



But, like everything else with this pandemic, there are still a lot of unknowns. The only way to know for certain whether Swedens approach was sensible, he says, will be in hindsight.



Its had a worse earlier pandemic than its neighbors, Hanage says. But its early on in the day, and were going to have to look back at this in a few months and see what happens next.

 2005 - 2020 WebMD LLC. All rights reserved.

Theme(s): Others.
Media Release

Basel, May 4, 2020

Ordinary General Meeting of Dufry AG on May 18, 2020 - Change in the Proposed Board Member

The Dufry Board of Directors proposes Mary J. Steele Guilfoile to be elected to the Board of Directors succeeding Andres Holzer Neumann, who will not stand for re-election at the upcoming Ordinary General Meeting.

Mr. Andres Holzer Neumann has decided not to stand for re-election at the Ordinary General Meeting on May 18, 2020, due to unforeseen time constraints from other commitments. Mr. Holzer will however remain a member of the Board of Directors of our NYSE-listed subsidiary, Hudson Ltd.

The Board of Directors therefore proposes to elect Mary J. Steele Guilfoile as an independent member of the Board of Directors for a term of office extending until completion of the next Ordinary General Meeting.

Revised proxy cards will be sent to shareholders in the coming days. Shareholders may also request to be sent the revised proxy card at legal@dufry.com. We kindly ask our shareholders to complete and return the revised proxy card.

Mary J. Steele Guilfoile currently serves as an independent and non-executive member of the board of directors of our NYSE-listed subsidiary, Hudson Ltd., and chairs its audit committee. Ms. Guilfoile is currently also chair of MG Advisors, Inc., a privately owned financial services merger and acquisitions advisory and consulting firm, and is a partner of The Beacon Group, LP, a private investment group. Ms. Guilfoile is also a member of the boards of directors of C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., currently serving as a member of the compensation and governance committees; The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc., currently chairing the audit committee and serving as a member of the corporate governance and executive committees; and Pitney Bowes, Inc., currently serving as a member of the audit and finance committees.

During her career, Ms. Guilfoile held several management positions such as Executive Vice President and Corporate Treasurer at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Chief Administrative Officer of its investment bank from 2000 through 2002. From 1996 through 2000, she was a Partner, CFO and COO of The Beacon Group, LLC, a private equity, strategic advisory and wealth management partnership.

Ms. Guilfoile holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from Boston College Carroll School of Management and a master's degree in business administration from Columbia Business School, and is a certified public accountant.

If elected to the Dufry Board of Directors, Mary J. Steele Guilfoile will step down from the Board of Directors of our NYSE-listed subsidiary, Hudson Ltd.

Juan Carlos Torres, Chairman of Dufry's Board of Directors, said: "We regret but understand Andres' decision. Andres was one of the early investors and founders of the new Dufry. In the name of the Board of Directors, I would like to thank Andres for his outstanding support and dedication for the successful development of Dufry during his 17 years as member of our Board of Directors. Having said this, our Group will continue to benefit from Andres' exceptional experience and insight, as he will remain a member of the Board of Directors of our NYSE-listed subsidiary, Hudson Ltd.

I am very pleased to propose Mary J. Steele Guilfoile for election. She has vast experience and deep insight into the travel industry, logistics services, marketing and finance, and will therefore be a highly valuable addition to our board. At the same time, I am very happy that close to 80% of our proposed board members will be independent and that 45% will be female, further increasing diversity."

For further information please contact:

Renzo Radice Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Phone: +41 61 266 44 19 renzo.radice@dufry.com Sara Lizi Karen Sharpes Investor Relations Americas & Communications Div. 4 Global Media & Events Phone: +55 21 2157 9901 Phone: +44 0 208 624 4326 sara.lizi@br.dufry.com karen.sharpes@dufry.com

Dufry Group - A leading global travel retailer

Dufry AG (SIX: DUFN) is a leading global travel retailer with over 2,400 duty-free and duty-paid shops in airports, cruise lines, seaports, railway stations and downtown tourist areas.

The Company, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, operates in 65 countries in all six continents.

Social Responsibility

Dufry cares for children and supports social projects from SOS Kinderdorf in Brazil, Cambodia, Mexico, Morocco and Ivory Coast. SOS Children's Villages is an independent, non-political and non-demonstrational organization established for orphaned and destitute children all over the world.
The collapse of global tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic could plunge masses of people into poverty in small island states across the Pacific, according to a new report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Thousands of jobs in countries such as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are dependent on visitor numbers, which have fallen to zero.

The report follows a half-yearly forecast by the International Monetary Fund last month, which slashed global growth projections and predicted a slump unparalleled since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Gross domestic product (GDP) per head is expected to fall globally by 4.2 percent in 2020.

The ILO warns that almost half the global workforce1.6 billion peopleis in immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed by the economic crisis triggered by COVID-19. Of the total global working population of 3.3 billion, about 2 billion work in the informal economy, often on short-term contracts or self-employment, and have already suffered a 60 percent collapse in their wages in the first month of the crisis.

The crash will have devastating and long-lasting impacts on Pacific economies. Thousands of jobs have been lost, with resorts and hotels, and even some airports, closing. Fiji, Palau, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga and the Cook Islands are all heavily dependent on tourism.

The ANZ Bank estimates Fiji, where tourism directly employs 150,000 people, will lose about a quarter of all jobs in the country, while Vanuatu will suffer the loss of 40 percent of jobs. In the Cook Islands, tourism makes up 70 percent of the countrys gross domestic product. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), a three-month interruption in travel and trade will mean the Pacific economies contract this year, with Tonga forecast for zero growth.

Workers with previously stable incomes are sliding into poverty. In many Asian and Pacific countries, more than three in four tourism jobs are informal, with few if any social protections if they become unemployed. ILO director general Guy Rider noted that the economic and social effects of the pandemic discriminate above all against those who are at the bottom end of the world of work, those who dont have protection, those who dont have resources and the basics of what we would call the essentials of a normal life.

Even before the pandemic hit, the Pacific economies were extremely fragile due to a legacy of colonialism, poverty and underdevelopment. They are also particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, like last months tropical cyclone Harold that cut a devastating swathe through the region.

The World Bank reported in April that in resource-dependent countries, such as Papua New Guinea, plummeting oil and gas prices are likely to see a collapse of government revenue, with a looming recession. It is something unlike anything we have seen, the banks Pacific economist David Gould said: It is not the global financial crisis ... it is not a huge cyclone ... it is really quite unique and quite historic in its impact.

Australian National University academic Stephen Howes told the Sydney Morning Herald on March 31 that the shutting down of global trade will result in crises of food, water and medicine in the short term, and unemployment, poverty and unrest in the longer term. The Solomon Islands imports 70 percent of its rice from Vietnam, which has stopped trading, while Vanuatu relies on imports for more than 90 percent of its food supply. These vulnerabilities are in the process of turning into acute crises across the South Pacific, Howes warned.

The number of new COVID-19 cases in the region slowed last week, with 259 reported, an increase from 239 on the previous week. The US territory of Guam remains the hardest hit, with a total of 144 registered infections and five deaths. The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which docked in Guam after coronavirus was detected on the ship has had 777 of its crew tested positive.

COVID-19 could rapidly reach epidemic status in the regions largest country, Papua New Guinea (PNG), which has a population of nine million. So far there have been eight cases detected and no deaths. Cases have been reported in four provinces, and the original source of infection is unknown in two places, sparking fears that there may be widespread undetected community transmission.

PNG, which has just 3,000 hospital beds and is already running low on critical supplies required for testing, is not set up to cope if the outbreak worsens. Soldiers were recently dispatched to conduct contact tracing in Western Province, where 152 samples were collected, including those of 10 police officers who were sent to the area without PPE.

In line with the back-to-work offensive by governments around the world, some restrictions imposed during the PNG governments initial State of Emergency have been lifted, including the reopening of schools and resumption of public transport. Restaurants and places of worship have re-opened, with minimal protective measures in place.

Fiji has reported seven active cases of COVID-19 and 18 infections. Again, some restrictions on movement and gatherings have been relaxed, including allowing gatherings of up to 20 people. A curfew remains in place, as does a ban on sporting events.

Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, a former military coup leader, has used the pandemic to tighten his governments rule in the face of sharp austerity measures. In a recent Fiji Sun op-ed a senior military officer, Brigadier-General Jone Kalouniwai, declared that the COVID-19 emergency gave the countrys leaders good reasons to stifle criticism of their policies by curtailing freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The fight against COVID-19, he warned, was likely to end up violating the individual rights and rule of law that are at the heart of any liberal society.

According to New Zealand journalist David Robie, many governments in the Pacific as well as elsewhere are imposing tough controls under cover of fighting the coronavirus pandemic to strengthen creeping authoritarianism. The moves are no doubt in preparation for growing social unrest.

In the Asia Pacific Report, Robie cited PNG, where the Joint Task Force National Operations Centre last week announced that there will be no more media briefings on how the government is handling the coronavirus pandemic.

On March 26, some 150 troops were dispatched to guard the massive Porgera gold mine in Enga province after the PNG government refused to extend the mining lease of Chinese Canadian joint venture Barrick Niugini Limited. Opposition leader Belden Namah accused recently installed Prime Minister James Marape of using the COVID-19 State of Emergency to justify the unconstitutional deployment at the commercial venture.

Concerns have also been raised about Vanuatu, where the government declared it illegal for media outlets to publish reports on coronavirus without government approval, citing the need to prevent the spread of misinformation about the disease.
For those involved in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, these are frightening times. Health care providers, sometimes working in improvised protective equipment, risk exposure to the coronavirus from patients and worry about carrying it home to their families. Even Americans whose jobs dont bring them into contact with COVID-19 patients are frightened of contracting the coronavirus at work, if they still have work to go to.

But Sara Cherry, a microbiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, feels safer at work than almost anywhere else. Thats because she works inside a biosafety level 3 laboratory on the Penn campus in Philadelphia, where she is the scientific director of the High-Throughput Screening Core. Level 3 is used for research on potentially lethal microbes, and ones that can be easily transmitted through the air, including tuberculosis and plague. There is only one higher level, which is required for a few extremely dangerous viruses, including Ebola and smallpox.

Cherrys workplace, with no more than three other people inside at a time, is a sanitized, negative-pressurized space in which ambient air is being continuously expelled from the room. She works in full biohazard gear, including a sealed hood, breathing high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) from a battery-powered blower she carries on her waist.

It takes two months to train someone to work in the lab. Once you get the hang of it, its really not that dangerous, Cherry says modestly. In fact, its probably about the safest place to be. She finds that a hood, which conveys a gentle stream of cool air to her face, is more comfortable than a respirator mask.

Sara Cherry, left, and Holly Ramage in the BSL-3 lab at the University of Pennsylvania. (Courtesy of Sara Cherry)

She is, of course, working on the coronavirus. In March, the university shut down almost all ongoing research, including the work Cherry had been doing on emerging mosquito-borne viruses, including Zika and West Nile. If youre accustomed to handling those in a BSL-3 lab, the coronavirus, although not to be taken lightly, holds no special terror.

Story continues

Researchers around the world are attacking COVID-19 on every imaginable front, and some that are beyond imagining, including irradiating the lungs with ultraviolet light, which was one of the ideas tossed out by President Trump at a recent White House briefing, and which one Colorado medical device company says its researching.

In broad terms, there are two ways to go about the effort. One is a targeted approach, which builds on what we know about the virus. This is the approach of vaccine researchers, who start with the coronavirus genome and try to engineer an agent that resembles the virus in a way that can trick the body into mounting an immune defense against the real thing when it encounters it.

The other is the brute-force approach, which acknowledges that there is a lot we dont know about the virus and amounts to testing thousands of different substances and hoping one of them will work.

For all the advances in biology over the last century, scientists still dont understand many diseases in enough detail to accurately predict what will work against them. Hydroxychloroquine, a drug that is being used experimentally for COVID-19, was originally synthesized to treat malaria, which is caused by a parasite spread by mosquitoes. It was later discovered to work in the treatment of non-infectious autoimmune disorders such as lupus.

What do these diseases have in common with an airborne coronavirus, or with each other? Basically, nothing.

Courtney Comar, a PhD student in cell biology, uses the BSL-3 lab to study SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. (Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania)

Cherry is using the brute-force approach. Her laboratory is one of a handful in the country equipped to do high-throughput screening, an automated process that can test hundreds of compounds at a time to determine if they are active against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus strain, which causes COVID-19. What you need for this, besides the machinery, are the following:

A supply of living cells that can easily be cultured and infected with SARS-CoV-2. Most laboratory research is conducted on cell lines derived from human cancers, because they can replicate themselves outside the body indefinitely. But Cherry found many cell lines were resistant to infection with the coronavirus, making them useless for research. We have a lot more that we cant infect with this than we can, she notes. Finding and growing the right cells is an ongoing process of trial and error. She found that human lung cell lines and normal human lung cells, although harder to keep alive outside the body, make better subjects for research.

A library of drugs for testing that are known to be safe. Were starting with FDA-approved drugs, she says, because the only way to have a big impact now is with a molecule that has already been used in humans and therefore can skip the initial safety testing. These are known as small molecules, with a molecular weight below about 500, which generally can be synthesized and mass-produced easily and taken by mouth.

The other main category of drugs is biologics, much larger and more complex molecules that are generally extracted from living organisms. Hydroxychloroquine is a small molecule; remdesivir, another promising drug being researched, with a molecular weight around 600, has to be administered intravenously, limiting its use (for now) to hospital and clinic settings. Cherrys lab started by testing around 4,000 drugs that have been tested and/or used in animals and humans.

A supply of SARS-CoV-2 viruses. The reference virus for research was obtained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 22 from the first patient diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States, and made available to researchers beginning in February. Cherrys lab grows it in a cell line called vero, derived from African green monkeys, that she calls the virologists workhorse.

The orange SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus emerging from the surface of green cells cultured in the lab. The sample was isolated from a patient in the U.S. (NIAID-RML via AP)

If you have those things, and access to a BSL-3 laboratory, you too could save millions of lives. Put a few thousand human cells  a microscopic quantity  into each of the wells on the machines tray and inoculate them with the coronavirus. Leave some untreated, as a negative control, and treat some with remdesivir as a positive control. Each of the remaining wells  the machine in this lab can test 384 samples at one time  is dosed with one of the small molecules you want to research.

Let the plates incubate for a day or so, then stain them to make the virus visible under a fluorescent microscope, and examine them  using an automated microscope and automated image analysis to count the number of cells and the number of infected cells.

Do this over and over  four times, so far, with more than 4,000 compounds in Cherrys lab  to winnow the field to around 30, and then the real work begins: figuring out how those drugs actually work  by preventing the virus from infecting the cell or inhibiting its replication inside the cell, or by some other mechanism.

And then you might have a candidate for testing in animals, or clinical trials in human subjects. Cherry doesnt know when that will be, but she hopes it will be soon. When it happens, though, it will be someone elses project.

Am I motivated to do this? Very much so, Cherry says. Im working pretty much seven days a week, but Im still putting my daughter to bed at night. We all really want to make a difference. We have this expertise, the screening platform, and Im optimistic we can find something that will benefit.

_____

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:
These are extraordinary times and we all are in uncharted territory. There is a lot of fear and negativity in all spheres due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. While the Corona Warriors are doing a tremendous job fighting from the frontlines, we at Adgully are embarking on an endeavour to highlight the positive developments during these challenging times.

Adgully is featuring a series of brief interactions with industry leaders in India and find out how they are keeping their spirits up as well as keeping their employees motivated, also how they are joining in the fight against the adverse impact of the global pandemic.

Apart from keeping its employees motivated and maintaining their productivity during the lockdown period, Dollar Industries Ltd has also undertaken CSR initiatives and welfare programmes to fulfil its corporate social obligation. Vinod Kumar Gupta, Managing Director, Dollar Industries Ltd, speaks about how to gain the upper hand in this crisis period.

What steps are you and your organisation taking to help out the society at large or those engaged in the war against Covid-19?

At Dollar Industries Ltd, we are always aware and inclined towards our corporate social responsibilities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dollar Industries has pledged to contribute to the society through its CSR initiative and welfare programmes. To fulfil its corporate social obligation, Dollar Foundation joined hands with Kolkata Police and distributed food and medical equipment to the underprivileged across 60 wards. The company distributed 6,000 kg of rice, 40,000 packets of biscuits, 40,000 masks and 10,000 soap bars to the people in need. Additionally, the company is providing food and shelter to 300 migrant workers at their manufacturing unit at Tirupur during the lockdown.

How are you keeping your employees motivated and are encouraging them to give their best, even as they are working from home?

Manpower is of utmost importance to every industry and it is imperative to take care and support them in this crisis situation. We have temporarily discontinued our manufacturing processes. Our team leads and HODs are constantly in touch with our employees for smooth work from home functioning.

What is most needed in challenging times such as these:

(a) From the general public: COVID-19 is a never-seen phenomenon by mankind and is often compared to the last World War. To fight and stay strong against the virus, it is important to break the chain. Social distancing and maintaining utmost hygiene is the key to break the chain of the virus.

(b) From the authorities: The authorities and civic officers are doing their best under this grave and pressing situation. They are providing constant health facilities, basic necessities, medical aid, etc. They are constantly monitoring social distancing norms and are doing a tremendous job in maintaining decorum and harmony.

(c) From business leaders: The current situation has caused ambiguity in everyones lives and the ongoing lockdown has compelled business leaders to plan their marketing and business strategies as per changed consumer behaviour. However, we will take the plunge when we get to the end of the tunnel and once the dust settles.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

The investment by private equity firm Silver Lake into Reliance Industries' Jio Platforms following Facebook deal and rights issue is clearly a confidence booster to shareholders, analysts and corporates when the COVID-19 spoiled the entire environment.

"Facebook deal was on right time and now Silver Lake is definitely positive Reliance. Also it is a big sentiment booster for the stock, though it is a future development and not current development," Ajay Jaiswal, Stock Market Strategist told Moneycontrol.

"Deal is much needed for Reliance Industries when there is a delay in Saudi Aramco deal though the company said due diligence is still on," he said.

Shailendra Kumar, CIO at Narnolia Financial Services also said deals were also showing way for positive momentum for Indian corporates in current environment of COVID-19-led lockdown started in last week of March.

Reliance Industries in its BSE filing on May 4 said Silver Lake would invest Rs 5,655.75 crore into Jio Platforms for over a 1 percent equity stake.

"This investment values Jio Platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.90 lakh crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.15 lakh crore and represents a 12.5 percent premium to the equity valuation of the Facebook investment announced on April 22, 2020," it added.

Last month, Facebook picked up 9.99 percent equity stake in Jio Platforms for Rs 43,574 crore.

Experts feel the deal also indicated that there is lot of demand for such kind of businesses from global investors as RIL moved to next-generation technology company.

"The Silver Lake news coming right after the Rights Issue and Facebook deal is indicative of the fact that there is lot of interest from global players to participate in the digital growth story and people will jump the fence," Prakash Diwan of Altamount Capital Management told CNBC-TV18.

After the Facebook deal, nobody thought that the re-rating could happen in 4 days. It has given tremendous confidence to shareholders of RIL. Silver Lake is an active PE player and has investments in Airbnb, Expedia, and Twitter, etc., he said.

Shailendra Kumar, CIO at Narnolia Financial Services also said the deal clearly indicated that henceforth core business of Reliance is consumer and not oil.

"Reliance Jio and Retail will drive topline and EBITDA going forward. Suddenly the company turned from old-fashioned business to new age company where the whole excitement is coming," he added.

Whatsapp getting local stores connected, where the business opportunity is humongous, and the stock rerating will definitely happen as it is showing confidence to other corporates in the current market environment.

Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, is a next-generation technology company building a Digital Society for India by bringing together Jio's leading digital apps, digital ecosystems and India's #1 high-speed connectivity platform under one umbrella, said Reliance.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, which provides connectivity platform to over 388 million subscribers, will continue to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jio Platforms.

The company said Jio has brought transformational changes in the Indian digital services space and propelled India on the path towards becoming a global technology leader and among the leading digital economies in the world.

"With the imminent carving out of O2C (refining & petrochemicals) business soon; Reliance Jio is well on it's way to emerge as a pure digital play with characteristics akin to a FAANG stock. Jio platform would continue to be the first port of call for investors keen to bet on India's 130 crore strong population that is rapidly embracing digital services including e-commerce," Ajay Bodke, CEO PMS at Prabhudas Lilladher told Moneycontrol.

He remains extremely positive on the Chairmans transformational vision and the leading role played by the next generation of promoters Akash and Isha Ambani in steering this venture.

Given the target of making Reliance net debt free by March 31, 2021 and strong developments towards the target, the re-rating is expected to happen soon, experts feel.

"Whatsapp-Jio getting local stores connected, where the business opportunity is humongous, and hence the stock rerating will definitely happen as it is showing confidence to other corporates in the current market environment. We are eagerly waiting for the company's plan of this deal," Shailendra Kumar said.

Vikas Halan, Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance, Moodys Investors Service said Silver Lake's investment in Jio Platforms further illustrated Reliance Industries' (RI, Baa2 stable) ability and willingness to monetize its digital services business and reinforces the company's commitment to achieve a zero net debt position by March 31, 2021.

"Investment by Silver Lake is priced at a premium to recently announced investment by Facebook Inc. ($5.8 billion) and establishes another pricing benchmark for Jio Platforms. This is credit positive as it enhances RIL's already strong financial flexibility," he added.

Including the recently announced rights issue ($7 billion) and investments by Silver Lake and Facebook Inc, RIL has announced initiatives that could reduce net debt by about $13.6 billion from reported net debt of $21.4 billion as on March 31, 2020, Vikas said.

Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities

Following the clue given by Reliance at the time of Facebook investment that it is in good shape to announce a similar-sized investment in the coming months, the investment by Silver Lake Partners to acquire 1.15 percent stake in Jio Platforms is welcome. The 12.5 percent higher valuation in this round may be due to much smaller investment by Silver Lake (compared to Facebook) and the fact that unlike Facebook they would operationally not bring any benefit on table.

Also currently private equity investors seem to have more capital than they know what to do with. This announcement has helped to partly offset the negative effect on the stock price of subdued Q4FY20 results announced by the company on April 30.

: 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.
SEOUL, May 4 (Reuters) - A former senior North Korean diplomat apologised on Monday after saying leader Kim Jong Un was likely so ill he could not stand, days before he emerged in state media chain smoking and walking briskly at an event attended by hundreds of officials.

Kim disappeared from state media for weeks, sparking a flurry of speculation about his health and whereabouts, and worry about prospects for the nuclear-armed state in the event of an unexpected succession.

But on Saturday, North Korean media published photographs of Kim at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the inauguration of a fertiliser plant.

His re-emergence came as a blow to the credibility of some high-profile defectors from the North who had speculated that Kim was suffering from a grave illness or could even be dead.

One of the defectors, Thae Yong Ho, was North Korea's deputy ambassador to Britain, where he managed secret funds for Kim. Thae fled to South Korea in 2016 and was one of a pair of defectors elected to parliament last month.

"I am aware that one of the reasons why many of you voted for me as a lawmaker is with the expectations of an accurate analysis and projections on North Korean issues," Thae said in a statement. "I feel the blame and heavy responsibility."

"Whatever the reasons, I apologise to everyone."

The other prominent defector elected to parliament, Ji Seong-ho, had said in a media interview he was 99% certain that Kim had died after cardiovascular surgery and an official announcement would come as soon as Saturday.

Ji, who was invited to attend U.S. President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in 2018, could not be reached on Monday.

Ji told Reuters on Friday he had received information about Kim's death from a source he could not disclose. He added he ran for office to bring attention to human rights abuse in the North.

South Korea's ruling Democratic Party criticised the pair for carelessness that it said could do more serious than just misinforming the public.

One party member said they should be excluded from the intelligence and defence committees.

Daily NK, a South Korean news outlet run by North Korean defectors, reported in April that Kim was recovering from a cardiovascular procedure, sparking international speculation about his health. (Reporting by Sangmi Cha and Ju-min Park Editing by Robert Birsel)
Governments have warned that theres not enough air capacity to support efficient mail deliveries as global airline fleets remain grounded due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Universal Postal Union (UPU) had urged governments this morning to do more to support the delivery of mail.

China has already resorted to using mail-only trains to clear a massive backlog of post thats destined for Europe. The first such train from China was unloaded in Lithuania last week carrying mail and two containers of medical supplies. Each train carries about 300 tonnes of mail, with trucks then delivering the post to 30 countries across Europe.

Theres been a 95pc reduction in global passenger flights due to Covid-19, with such services typically used to transport mail.

The pandemic has also seen the level of online shopping soar. IATA said theres been a 25pc to 30pc increase in demand for e-commerce as customers and businesses shop online.

Postal administrators are facing a challenge in sending and delivering international mail, in particular, cross-continental mail, said IATA.

IATA and UPU are calling on governments to facilitate the flexibility that airlines need to meet this critical demand by removing border blockages to ensure trade flows continue, avoiding unnecessary regulations and fast tracking the issuance of permits for chartered operations, the organisations said today .

Additionally, ensuring adequately trained staff are available to process and clear the mail upon arrival is essential, they added.



Airlines have been required to cut passenger services in the fight to stop the spread of Covid-19, said IATA director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac. So, its vital that everything is done to support the smooth movement of mail which is an important component of society.
[May 04, 2020] KT Corp. Files 2019 Annual Report on Form 20-F

SEOUL, South Korea, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- KT Corporation (NYSE: KT), South Korea's largest telephone and Internet company, announced today that it has filed its Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2019 with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States. The report can be accessed on KT's English website at https://corp.kt.com/eng in the Investors section under Business Report as well as the SEC's Edgar database at www.sec.gov. Shareholders may also request a hard copy of the Annual Report that includes audited financial statements of 2019, free of charge, by sending an e-mail to the Company's IR department at [email protected]. About KT Corporation (KRX: 030200; NYSE: KT) KT Corporation, South Korea's largest telecommunications service provider, reestablished in 1981 under the Telecommunications Business Act, is leading the era of innovations in the world's most connected county. The company is leading the 4th industrial revolution with high speed wire/wireless network and new ICT technology. KT launched the world's first nationwide commercial 5G network on April 3, 2019, after successfully showcasing the world's first trial 5G services at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games in February 2018. This is another milestone in KT's continuous efforts to deliver essential products and services as it aspires to be the No.1 ICT Company and People's Company.







Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains "forward-looking statements" that are based on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about us and the industries in which we operate. The forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "project," "should," and similar expressions. Those statements include, among other things, the discussions of our business strategy and expectations concerning our market position, future operations, margins, profitability, liquidity and capital resources. We caution you that reliance on any forward-looking statement involves risks and uncertainties, and that although we believe that the assumptions on which our forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, any of those assumptions could prove to be inaccurate, and, as a result, the forward-looking statements based on those assumptions could be incorrect. The uncertainties in this regard include, but are not limited to, those identified in the risk factors discussed above. In light of these and other uncertainties, you should not conclude that we will necessarily achieve any plans and objectives or projected financial results referred to in any of the forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to release the results of any revisions of these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. For investor inquiries, please contact: Jungkook Lee

IR Staff, KT Corporation

Tel: +82 (2) 3495-5343

Email: [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kt-corp-files-2019-annual-report-on-form-20-f-301051711.html SOURCE KT Corp.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
DNC Chair Dismisses Call to Investigate Sexual Assault Claim Against Biden

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) dismissed calls for his committee to head an investigation into the sexual assault allegation against his partys presumptive presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

Theres been so many investigations of Biden, Tom Perez said on Sunday.

The most comprehensive investigation of the vice president was when he was vetted by Barack Obama in 2008.

Biden was vice president during the Obama administration.

Barack Obama trusted Joe Biden. I trust Joe Biden. And those investigations have been done, Perez said.

Staffers who helped vet or were in touch with the vetting team during the 2008 campaign said Biden was fully vetted and no indication of sexual assault arose.

Former Vice President Joe Biden in a March 15, 2020, file photograph. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Perez also argued against conducting a search for Tara Reade, the name of the woman who filed a complaint against Biden, inside of Bidens Senate records.

The University of Delaware is refusing to unseal the records and Biden said he wouldnt call for a narrow search for Reades name.

Perez took Bidens position on the matter, claiming the documents dont include personnel records.

This is like the Hillary e-mails, because there was nothing there, he said.

After calls for the DNC to establish a panel to look through the records increased in recent days, the committees spokeswoman called the suggestion absurd.

Regardless of whether its the job of DNC to do this kind of thing, its already been done, she said in a statement sent to news outlets.

Joe Biden has been clear in responding to this allegation, he went through a thorough vetting process to be Obamas Vice President in 2008 (which is a vetting process like no other) and lawyers and the press found nothing, and he has asked for transparency by requesting that all relevant documents be released if they exist.

Reade says Biden assaulted her at the U.S. Capitol in 1993 while she was a staffer at his Senate office. He denied the charge last week.

Tara Reade poses for a photo during an interview with The Associated Press in Nevada City, Calif., on April 4, 2019. (Donald Thompson/AP Photo)

Joe Biden has been very clear, Martha, that this did not happen. He was forceful in that, and hes been equally clear that when women come forward with complaints of this nature, they should be taken seriously, their complaints should be investigated, they should be treated with dignity, and hes done exactly that, Perez said on Sunday.

The DNC chair was speaking during an appearance on ABCs This Week.

Perez said Biden wants information on the complaint Reade allegedly filed to come out before he was challenged on the situation with the University of Delaware records. Nearly 1,900 boxes of records relating to Bidens decades in the U.S. Senate were delivered in 2012 to the school, which planned to release them last year. The school now says the documents will be sealed until at least Dec. 31, 2019, or two years after Biden retires from public life.

We are currently curating the collection, a process that takes a significant amount of time. As the curating process is not complete, the papers are not yet available to the public, a spokeswoman told The Epoch Times in an email.

Biden last week said the complaint would be in the National Archives. The National Archives said it would be in the control of the Senate.

Senate lawyers have determined the records in question cannot be released.
The work of custodians and janitors has become even more important  but most do it for low wages and without PPE.

Jackeline Bonett enters the lobby of a 17-storey office tower in downtown Miami, Florida, between 5:30 and 6pm every day, from Monday to Friday. There, a supervisor hands her the tools she will be using over the next four hours: two rags, two mop towels, and some gloves.

The 55-year-old janitor then pairs up with a colleague to clean two floors of offices.

Ill start cleaning the kitchen, the floors, the tables. Ill take out the rubbish. I clean the refrigerator  We go out into the hallway; Ill clean the hallway area, and then we go up to the next office on the next floor, Bonett explains.

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the United States, janitorial workers in many places have been deemed essential workers  and Bonett and her colleagues have continued to work despite fears they could potentially contract the virus on the job.

Bonett is employed by a large cleaning services contractor in South Florida. She says she did not receive any special training to clean during the COVID-19 pandemic, nor has she been provided masks or hand sanitiser.

We have masks because we bring them ourselves, she tells Al Jazeera in Spanish through a translator.

Bonett says she did not receive any special training to clean during the COVID-19 pandemi [Courtesy of Jackeline Bonett]

Being deemed essential has not improved her working conditions or her salary  she gets paid $8.56 an hour, the states minimum wage. We are on a miserable salary for the hard work that we do. It is not just the salary; it is the miserable conditions that were working under.

Bonett is not alone.

More than 40,000 janitors work in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach areas of southern Florida, according to a November 2019 report by SEIU Local 32BJ, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

Miami came in last among major US metropolitan areas for janitorial wages when compared with the cost of living, the report found, and 57 percent of office janitors in the Miami area lived at or below the poverty line.

This is the day in the life of one: office janitor Jaqueline Bonett.

The start of the shift: Insufficient supplies

It takes Bonett 90 minutes on a bus and a train to get to the office building from her home, a one-bedroom apartment she rents for $1,200 a month. She lives there with her husband and one of her three children.

I help pay the rent and the other bills, says Bonett, who arrived in Miami 11 years ago from her native Colombia. She also sends money back to Colombia to support her parents  her mother has a heart condition and her father has problems with his knees  and her two other children.

When she arrives at the building, she says the entire cleaning staff  about eight to 10 people  get into the same lift to go get their supplies in the lobby. They then go up to the floors they are assigned to clean that day.

The rags look dirty, she says. We need more rags because we have so many things to clean. I have to wash the rags myself. Bonett adds that during the pandemic, she has been bringing masks in for herself and her colleagues to use.

I feel like people sometimes look down on us. They look at us as if we're nothing. Jaqueline Bonett

In addition to her janitorial job, she also sews clothes at a Goodwill second-hand clothing store. She works from 7am to 3:30pm at Goodwill every weekday, and then goes to the office to clean until 10pm.

Recently, a colleague at Goodwill fell ill with coronavirus symptoms. It felt like a bucket of cold water being thrown on me. I was thinking about my coworkers and my family. I was speechless, says Bonett, about how she felt when she heard the news.

Even though her colleague did not have a confirmed case of COVID-19, Bonett  who does not have health insurance  says she decided to go into self-quarantine in case. She took 14 unpaid days off work, which put a strain on her family.

Normally, I have to pay for my moms heart medicine, and I have to help my kids who right now dont have jobs, she says. [When] I was self-quarantined, I couldnt pay for any of this. I had to ask someone in Colombia for a loan to buy her [my moms] pills.

I have a big responsibility with my parents and my family, but I still made that decision [to self-quarantine].

The shift: They look at us as if were nothing

Bonett says that one of the biggest challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic is feeling unsupported at work. They havent given us any kind of training, any discussion on social distancing, she tells Al Jazeera.

It would be nice if they would say, Heres a mask, heres some training, heres some hand-sanitiser  but nothing.

While many of the offices she cleans every day are empty, and fewer people are in the building than before the coronavirus outbreak, Bonett says she feels exposed at work.

A custodian cleans the lobby of the Roundabout Theatre Company in Times Square in New York [File: John Minchillo/AP Photo]

With a disease like COVID-19, which can spread easily and rapidly, janitors need to clean things even more thoroughly than before, she explains.

Right now, its a lot of work. But once they reopen the economy, well have more fear, more work, and well need to clean things even better because were talking about 600 people that normally are in this building.

She says that she and her colleagues need better cleaning materials, better pay and better protection to do their jobs properly. And even though they are considered essential workers, Bonett says it often does not feel like they are appreciated.

I feel like people sometimes look down on us. They look at us as if were nothing, she says.

$8.56 an hour is not enough. You can imagine the number of hours that we need to work to survive. [We] should be [paid] extra because they need to recognise us and our value.
Greg Zanis, the Illinois carpenter who spent almost 25 years constructing crosses and traveling the country to honor victims of mass shootings and other national tragedies, died Monday while battling bladder cancer, his daughter said on social media. He was 69.

"R.I.P. Dad," Susie Zanis wrote on Facebook, according to NBC Chicago. "I know you were ready to go but we weren't ready to lose you."

Zanis stepped back in November from his memorial project, Zanis Crosses for Losses, for which he built handmade white crosses that bore the name of each victim killed in a mass shooting, another act of terrorism or a natural disaster. He also made crosses with Stars of David or crescent moons, depending on the victim's religious affiliations.

IMAGE: Paradise does not give up after fire inferno (Barbara Munker / picture alliance via Getty Image)

He told NBC News upon his retirement last year that the effort had been exhausting, and his task grew only more frequent in recent years with the increased scale of mass shootings, including 26 children and adults killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut; nearly 50 people killed in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida; and more than 50 people killed in the Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017.

In February 2019, gun violence hit home in his hometown, Aurora, a Chicago suburb, when a former warehouse employee killed five people and injured six police officers. He built crosses for all of those who died.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

Then, last summer, he made a long journey from Illinois to El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were fatally shot at a Walmart in August. Then he set off for Dayton, Ohio, the following day after another mass shooting.

"I just feel like it was a calling only I could have filled," Zanis said, estimating that he had built 27,000 crosses, each funded out of his own pocket and through donations.

News

Zanis' work began as a tribute to his father-in-law, who was murdered in 1996, he said.

Story continues

He had been doing the work for so long, he said, that his phone would ring almost immediately after a mass shooting because people would look to him as an outlet. He became a recognizable figure at some of the most heartbreaking scenes of death in American history.

While some have criticized his crosses as being overtly religious in instances in which the victims or their families may not have asked for them, Zanis simply said he was trying to bring a measure of comfort and respect as he saw fit.

"This is all they have left," Zanis said of the families in an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt from El Paso after the mass shooting there. "I know it means the world to them."
Help India!

By Yusuf Ansari, TwoCircles.net

New Delhi: Delhi Police on Sunday booked Chairman of Delhi Minorities Commission, Zafarul Islam Khan under sedition charge, two days after Khan was accused of making inflammatory comments in his social media posts.

Support TwoCircles



According to Joint Commissioner of Special Cell, Neeraj Thakur, Khan has been booked under IPC sections 124 A (sedition) and 153 A (has been increasing animosity between the two communities).

An FIR was filed against Zafarul Islam Khan by a resident of Delhis Vasant Kunj. The complainant accused Khans comments on Twitter and Facebook of being inflammatory and aimed at disturbing the communal harmony in the society.

It all began when Khan in his Facebook post on April 28 thanked Kuwait to come to the rescue of persecution of Indian Muslims on Arab social media.

Khan had also said that the day Indian Muslims start complaining Arab countries of atrocities against them in India, it would send out quakes all over. His post went viral.

Many Muslim organizations strongly opposed the statement.

Surrounded by criticism for his last post, Zafarul Islam took to Facebook on Friday and clarified what he meant, simultaneously apologizing for his previous comments. Islam said that he had made an insensitive comment and that it was ill-timed. He said that he had no intention of doing so, however, media had taken it out of context and presented his tweet in a distorted manner. For this, he had sent legal notices to some news channels.

Khans arrest and accusing him of treason has brought the Delhi Police into serious questioning. Pertinently, earlier this year in February, Delhi Police  despite the Delhi High Court orders failed to register FIR against BJP party leaders Anurag Thakur, MP Pravesh Verma and former MLA Kapil Mishra for allegedly making hate speeches.

As the country-wide lockdown is in place due to the rise in coronavirus infections in the country, Delhi Police is busy filing lawsuits against student activists and social workers who were involved in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests.

In its recent action against Muslims, the police are arresting individuals associated with CAA and the latest case is of severe charges against Tablighi Jamaats Maulana Saad. In recent days, Police has also imposed the National Security Act (NSA) against Councilor Tahir Hussain who was suspended on charges of inciting Delhi violence. Sharjeel Imam is already in prison under NSA. Umar Khalid and Safoora Zargar have also been thrown into jails under NSA and UAPA.

Does posting on social media qualify one for being a traitor?

Delhi Polices action of arresting Zafarul Islam has once again launched a debate on what treason really is. One needs an answer to whether social media posts can be a basis of calling someone a traitor? What can only be based on the case of treason to a post on social media? Does one become a traitor by posting inflammatory comments on Facebook? Hence the response of Delhi Police to social media posts should be seriously questioned.

Here are a few things that would help us to understand on what grounds Khan has been charged for treason.

On what basis Delhi Police has based its charge of treason against Islam?

According to Delhi Police, an FIR was registered on receiving a complaint of a person living in Vasant Kunj of Delhi. The person complained regarding Khans post on Twitter and Facebook, alleging it was communal and inflammatory.

What has Zafarul Islam done?

Khan had written a post on April 28 which expressed his gratitude to Kuwait for responding to hate speech against Indian Muslims. He had also said that the day Indian Muslims complain Arab countries of atrocities against them in India, there will earthquakes everywhere.

What is in Section 124 (A)?

Zafarul Islam has been booked under Section 124 (A). Let us have a look at what the section says:

Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in India shall be punished with imprisonment for life to which fine maybe added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.

As you may know Kedarnath Singh in the Supreme Court has made it clear that it makes a case of treason against anyone under 124 (a) only if he/she has incited violence against any government or participated in incited violence.

It was in a 1995 case when two people, accused of raising slogans of Khalistan Zindabad and Hindustan Murdabad that the apex Court had said in its decision that only sloganeering doesnt qualify for a case of treason as slogans dont pose a threat to the government.

The case of treason against Zaraful Islam is very weak

Therefore, the question is whether Zafarul Islam has incited violence or encouraged violence? Has this post threatened the government? What earthquake is Zafarul Islam talking about in his post? If the quake refers to violence, the question is what value does it have? Did it instigate any violence? The clear answer is no, it didnt incite any violence and is likely to not do so.

In his post, Khan was talking of a third country. His mentioning of it has not led any violence, nor it can claim any violence erupted due to it. In that scenario, Zafarul Islams post accounts for no treason.
We acknowledge the Sovereignty of the First Nations Peoples. 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VICTORY OVER NAZI-FASCISM IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM, PEACE AND TRUTH  AGAINST FASCISM AND WAR Statement initiated by the Portuguese CP, signed by the CPA, among others The victory over Nazi-fascism in the Second World War is a major event in history, the memory of which must be preserved and defended in the face of repeated attempts at historical falsification aimed at making us forget the decisive role played by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, by the communists and by anti-fascists from around the world. Generated by capitalism, Nazi-fascism was the most violent and terroristic manifestation of monopoly capital. It was responsible for the outbreak of this war of aggression and plunder that caused close to 75 million deaths, of which approximately 27 million were Soviet citizens, and for the immeasurable suffering and horror of the Nazi concentration camps. The peoples can also not forget dark pages, such as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the USA, without any military justification, which represented a display of power and of their world-wide hegemonistic ambitions. The Second World War (1939-1945) was the result of increasingly acute inter-imperialist contradictions and, at the same time, of the intention to destroy the first Socialist State, the USSR, which was namely expressed in the support and connivance of the United Kingdom, France and the United States with the rearmament and expansionist ambition of Nazi Germany. In commemorating the 75th anniversary of the historic Victory on 9th May, 1945, the undersigned communist and workers parties, certain in the knowledge that they portray the feelings and aspirations of workers and peoples from all over the world: Pay tribute to all those who gave their lives on the battlefields against the Nazi-fascist hordes and in particular to the heroism of the resistance movements and anti-fascist fighters and to the heroic Soviet people and Red Army, led by the Communist Party, whose contribution, written in heroic pages such as the battles of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad, was decisive for the Victory over barbarism;

Consider that the Victory over Nazi Germany and its allies in the Anti-Comintern Pact was achieved thanks to the decisive contribution of the USSR, to the class nature of the Soviet power with the participation of the masses of the people, to the leading role of the Communist Party, to the superiority which was displayed by the Socialist system. That victory is an enormous historical legacy of the revolutionary movement;

Value the outstanding advances in the social and national emancipation of the workers and peoples that the Victory and the resulting advancement of the forces of social progress and peace made possible, extending the sphere of socialism within the countries of Europe, Asia and Latin America, creating the conditions for the advance of the labour movement in capitalist countries, the sweeping development of the national liberation movement and the resulting liquidation of colonial empires;

Denounce and condemn the campaigns that aim to belittle, distort and even deny, the role of the USSR and of the communists in the defeat of Nazi-fascism and also to unjustly and falsely blame the Soviet Union for starting the Second World War, to expunge the responsibilities of big capital and the governments at its service in the promotion and rise of fascism and in unleashing the war, and whitewash and rehabilitate fascism, while destroying the monuments and memory of the liberating Soviet army, promoting anti-communism and criminalising communists and other anti-fascists;

Denounce and condemn the EUs anti-communist resolutions and the slanderous historical falsification which attempts to equate socialism with the fascist monster;

Warn that the most reactionary and aggressive sectors of imperialism are increasingly viewing fascism and war as a way out of the deepening crisis of the capitalist system, whose inhuman character becomes particularly obvious when, even in the face of the very serious epidemic outbreak of Covid-19, imperialism, the USA, NATO, the EU and its allies capitalist powers, continue a criminal policy of blockades and aggressions against countries and peoples;

Consider that the struggle for peace, social progress and socialism are inseparable; and make a commitment to seek a stronger common action of the working class, of the workers and peoples of the world, of the political forces engaged in blocking the path to fascism and in the struggle against imperialism, imperialist aggressions and a new war of tragic proportions. The situation with which the workers and peoples of the world are confronted underlines the importance of strengthening the struggle against imperialism, for the sovereignty of the peoples and the independence of States, for the rights of the workers and peoples, as leading forward to the revolutionary overcoming of the capitalist system, a system which breeds fascism, war, the injustices, dangers and contradictions of the present. As it was 75 years ago, it is today the struggle of the communists and all those facing capitalist exploitation and oppression that will open the way for the future for Humanity. Next article  Letters Back to index page
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.



You should upgrade or use an You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser
A professor at Imperial College London claims there may never be a coronavirus vaccine and that governments will be left to respond to future outbreaks of the pathogen with regional or national lockdowns.



Dr David Nabarro, a special envoy to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Covid-19, said no 'absolute assumption' can be made 'that a vaccine will appear at all'.



The global health professor argued that 'high hopes' are 'dashed' because scientists are 'dealing with biological systems, we're not dealing with mechanical systems'.



He added that restrictions to movement 'may apply to parts of a country, or it may even apply to a whole country' in the face of another outbreak.



Read Full Story .... dailymail.co.uk >>> :

















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
The Hajo Sani Youth Network for Buhari Support (HSYNBS) has declared that Nigerians will miss President Muhammadu Buhari when he leave...





The Hajo Sani Youth Network for Buhari Support (HSYNBS) has declared that Nigerians will miss President Muhammadu Buhari when he leaves office.





This was contained in a statement on Sunday by its Coordinator, Salisu Bala Hassan and Secretary, Nwafor Odochukwu.





Their comment followed outrage over the arrest of some critics of the president in Katsina.





Katsina is the home state of the Nigerian leader.





Police command spokesman, SP Isah Gambo, gave the names/ages of three citizens arrested as Lawal Abdullahi Izala  70; Bahajaje Abu  30 and Hamza Abubakar  27.





Gambo warned that the Police will not fold its arms and watch while disgruntled elements violate the sacred laws of the land.





He added that anyone found to have made disrespectful remarks about others, contrary to the provisions of Cyber Crime Act, will face the wrath of the law.





Reacting, HSYNBS lamented that many other Nigerians had been insulting Buhari on social media.





It was disgusting when we heard that some people from North allegedly insulted the President and the Governor (Aminu Masari) in a viral video, they noted.





A day will come when Nigerians will miss President Muhammadu Buhari. For now, some people dont know how lucky we are to have him.





As for us, we appreciate all he has done for us. May Almighty God make it easy for him and give him the ability to keep doing good for Nigerians.





If we keep running away from our responsibilities of being good citizens, we fear for our fatherland when it is our time to rule. Only a good citizen can make a good leader.
These past six weeks have brought into sharp focus the impact that federal funds can have on states  and each of our daily lives. When the funding flows, the affect can be immensely helpful. When it doesnt, the adverse impact can be just as clear.

What if you knew that you could affect the rate at which federal funds will flow into Connecticut, not for the next few months, but the next 10 years? Would you take action to ensure that our state received more, rather than less, of the money that is to be divided among the states? And if the programs affected included public services and infrastructure like hospitals, emergency response, schools and bridges, would you want to know how to help ensure that Connecticut receives its fair share?

Fortunately, taking action is quick and easy, and the window of opportunity is right now. It is the 2020 U.S. Census  responding takes only 5-to-10 minutes, and can be done either online, by phone or by mail.

Just over half of Connecticut households have responded during the past six weeks, undeterred by the coronavirus pandemic. Because it is that important. The pandemic has been a poignant reminder of the difference federal funding can make.

The Census occurs every 10 years throughout the United States, and has been conducted every decade since 1790. It is mandatory for every household to respond  in fact, it is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The data accumulated serves as the basis for a range of government decisions, at the local, state and national levels, and for decisions by businesses on where to locate, and by nonprofit organizations determining where there are populations in need of services.

This year is the first time households can respond online. Since many of us are at home spending considerable time at a computer, it couldnt be easier. Residences across Connecticut have received letters and postcards from the U.S. Census explaining what to do and how to do it. Even if you havent seen any correspondence, you can go to my2020census.gov, enter your address, and respond to the handful of very brief questions seeking demographic  not personal  information.

So far, some towns are responding more strongly than others. Statewide, Connecticuts response has been 56 percent, just slightly above the national average of 53 percent, and ranking 17th in the nation. Among our cities and towns, the highest ranked are Tolland (72 percent), Marlborough (71 percent), Burlington (71 percent), Cheshire (70 percent), Glastonbury (70 percent), Killingworth (70 percent), and Simsbury (70 percent). The lowest: Salisbury (31 percent), Hartford (35 percent), and Cornwall (34 percent).

More than $675 billion in federal funding flows back to states and local communities each year based on census data. Funding that helps hospitals, schools, and public health programs. Connecticut has received about $10.7 billion annually. Whether that amount  relative to other states  increases or decreases will be determined largely by the accuracy of the count. That is why state and local Complete Count Committees have been working diligently  while social distancing  to encourage residents to be counted.

Later this spring or summer, the Census Bureau will be sending people out, when it is safe to do so, to knock on peoples doors if they have yet to respond. Theyll offer to help in order to reach the highest possible percentage of people being counted. The best way to avoid having a Census-taker at your door? Fill out the census questionnaire now. The online form is compatible with Android and Apple smartphones, or can be only a phone call away to 800-923-8282.

Also, it is important to know that the U.S. Census Bureau does not disclose any personal information. It is against the law for any Census Bureau employee to disclose or publish any census information that identifies an individual. No law enforcement agency can access or use personal information at any time. And the Census Bureau will never ask for a Social Security number, bank or credit card account numbers, or money or donations.

If you havent yet participated in the 2020 Census, it is not too late to respond. Doing so will pay dividends for Connecticut in incalculable ways, for the next 10 years. Ten minutes today brings 10 years of benefit. There couldnt be a better investment of your time, as we look ahead to building a better future.

Michelle Riordan-Nold is Executive Director of the Connecticut Data Collaborative (www.ctdata.org), which is the lead organization for Connecticut in the U.S. Census Bureaus State Data Center Program and Connecticuts official source for Census data related to the 2020 Census.
On May 1, millions of Americans were not able to pay their rent due to the dire social crisis sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic, opening up a housing crisis in which many working class families face a future of debt, eviction and homelessness.

The exact number of people who failed to meet rent or mortgage payments on May 1 has not been published. However, based on statistics gathered by the National Multifamily Housing Council, 31 percent of renters (25.8 million people) across the country will either fail to pay their April rent or will do so belatedly.

Experts predict that the rate will be far higher for the month of May, as the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 crisis deepens. An estimated 44 percent of New York City residents say they cannot pay their May rent, according to a localized survey by PropertyNext.

In addition, 6.4 percent of all active home mortgages are currently in forbearance, temporarily extending the due date on a familys payment, according to financial website Bankrate. This accounts for roughly 8 million households involving mortgages carrying an unpaid principal of $754 billion.

Already, at least 3.8 million homeowners have sought mortgage relief and had stopped making their payments by the end of April, a 2,400 percent increase from early March, according to Black Knight, a mortgage technology and data provider.

According to official figures, more than 30 million people have applied for unemployment benefits over the past six weeks. This is likely an underestimation of the number of people who have been laid off or furloughed due to the inability of many individuals to successfully file a claim, as underfunded and technologically backward state unemployment offices are inundated with requests. The true unemployment rate is estimated at between one-third and one-fourth of the eligible population.

While trillions of dollars are handed over to the financial oligarchy by the political establishment, tens of millions of Americans face unemployment, loss of health care coverage, poverty and hunger. Without jobs and still waiting on stimulus checks and unemployment benefits, thousands are lining up their cars at food banks across the country. Small business owners are among those affected, as are undocumented immigrants, who do not qualify for any benefits.

Emberlea, a veteran with metastatic stage four cancer who is living with her adult son in the Sacramento area of California, spoke with the World Socialist Web Site about the enormous financial hardship produced by the pandemic and the areas high rents.

Emberlea

Our rent is close to $2,000 a month, she explained. That is close to 60 percent of our regular income. We paid only $500 this month for rent because my son hasnt gotten compensation yet. The apartment complex took the $500 and applied the rest over the next eight months, an extra $170 per month.

States such as Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Washington have enacted moratoriums on evictions, preventing landlords from initiating the eviction process for an average of two months. However, families are still responsible for repaying their missed payments on top of their ongoing monthly expenses. This creates a situation of insurmountable debt, which most people will never be able to pay off, given the fact that the majority of the US population did not have enough saved to afford a $1,000 emergency expense before the pandemic.

If you lose your job for two or three months, you might be $3,000 in the hole with no way to really make that up, Matt Desmond, a sociologist and lead investigator at a Princeton University project called Eviction Lab, told National Public Radio. Were faced with millions of families who are behind in rent.

The financial impact will hit renters in major US cities particularly hard, given the enormous cost of living that is difficult to manage even while working a full-time job. To give a sense of the burden, the average monthly cost of a two-bedroom apartment ranges between $974 in St. Louis to $3,629 in San Francisco.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition calculated that 11.5 million or more people will now be spending at least 50 percent of their income on rent, up by 1.5 million people since the mass layoffs and state shutdowns began in March.

Calls for a freeze on rent and mortgage payments have found growing support from renters and homeowners in major cities throughout the United States and parts of Canada. In some cities, tenants are organizing rent strikes to collectively negotiate with their landlords or issue demands to state governments.

Emberlea has been trying to organize her Sacramento neighborhood to collectively withhold their rent and mortgage payments. We have so many people out of work, she said. We have to make it very clear that the capitalist class, the owners, the CEOs, the bankers, the politicians are sucking the lifeblood out of us. They are working us so hard for almost nothing.

She added: How out of touch do you have to be when weve got food banks where there are lines miles and miles long of people needing food? They are destroying crops of food. Theyre pouring milk out at dairies. Theyre crushing eggs because if they cant sell it, they dont need it. This is happening all over California, everywhere.

Facebook groups for tenant coordination are growing and new ones are being established in cities such as Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, New York City, Los Angeles, Kansas City, St. Louis, Jersey City, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Milwaukee, Chicago and Philadelphia, as well as cities in Canada.

In New York City, tenants from 2,000 living units across 57 buildings have organized rent strikes to demand that Governor Andrew Cuomo order a halt to rent payments. The Los Angeles Tenant Union reported a rise in membership from 3,000 before the outbreak to 8,000 by mid-April. As of this writing, nearly 1.8 million people signed a Rent Strike 2020 petition, stating their agreement with the demand for a mortgage and rent freeze along with their intention to withhold rent payments, either voluntarily or because they have no money.

A coalition of pseudo-left and activist groups that stands behind the official Rent Strike 2020 campaign are seeking to subordinate popular opposition to the Democratic Party, under the false claim that Democratic politicians can be pressured to carry out serious measures to address the social crisis.

This role is exemplified by Socialist Alternative member and Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, who is working to channel popular anger behind appeals to Democratic Governor Jay Inslee to enact a temporary cancellation of rent payments. Sawant told her audience at an April 16 town hall that to pressure the Democratic Party, We will need a fighting movement, and a May 1 rent strike will help to build momentum.

To mount an effective fight against evictions and impossibly high rents, the struggle must be consciously directed not to the Democratic Party, but rather to the growing wave of strikes and protests by the working class against the policy of both parties to impose the full cost of the pandemic crisis on the working population, summed up in the drive to force workers back to work without any protection against the virus.

Behind the landlords stand banks and big investors who reap immense profits from the private housing market. Thus, the struggle must be guided by the principle that the health and basic needs of the population must take unconditional priority over private profit. The Socialist Equality Party calls for the formation of workers neighborhood committees to link up with rank-and-file factory and workplace committees, independent of the pro-corporate trade unions and the Democratic Party.

The criminally negligent response to the pandemic on the part of the Trump administration and governments around the world, driven by a class policy of subordinating human life to corporate profits and the stock market, has demonstrated that the fight against COVID-19 is a fight against the capitalist system. It must be guided by a program to unite the working class internationally to put an end to the profit system and establish socialism.
W omen dressed up as nurses have been seen stealing packages from people's porches in Washington State amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to local police.

The Kennewick Police Department on Saturday published images taken from surveillance camera footage showing two individuals thought to be involved in the alleged robberies.

Both can be seen wearing scrubs and what appears to be a lanyard with an identification badge.

They also posted a photo of the car that the two women were allegedly seen in.

"Both appear to dress as nurses and we do not believe they are actual nurses," the force said in a statement posted on Facebook.

"The nurses we are fortunate to know only give their time, lives, and take the vitals of their patients (not their property)."

Police have appealed for anyone who recognises either individual to contact the Kennewick force as part of an ongoing investigation into the "porch piracy".

The incident comes as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Washington State has now reached more than 15,000.

At least 834 people have died in the state after contracting Covid-19, a fraction of the more than 67,800 people killed by the disease throughout the wider US.

Governor Jay Inslee has extended a stay at home order for the duration of May, warning coronavirus will jump right back up and bite us if the state doesnt remain vigilant in its efforts to slow its spread.
It is hard to overstate the mental health strains caused to many people by the coronavirus lockdown. (picture posed by model)

We all need to focus on the many reasons to be cheerful in these early May days with their marvellous light, splendid green hues and the promise of good weather.

There is also the added bonus of a timetable over the coming 97 days, to August 10, when we will hopefully have passed into the fifth phase of business and society's reopening, and a significant step towards a real semblance of normal life in Ireland once again.

It is hard to overstate the mental health strains caused to many people by the coronavirus lockdown. That must be factored in with all the other social and economic costs our people have compliantly paid to curb the scourge of this virus.

The majority of people still support the necessary constraints on normal life. They are also grateful for the official response to the crisis.

Three key goals have so far been achieved: many lives have been saved; our hospital services have not been overrun; and the spread of the virus has been constrained. But we still mourn for the loss of life and also grieve for the many relatives, friends and neighbours who did not have the usual support in bereavement which comes from an Irish funeral.

We will look forward to gathering communally in the late summer to remedy that gap in the death process. It will hopefully give some belated solace to those who have lost loved ones at this time.

So far the public health and scientific experts who have guided our interim Government have done well by the Irish people. But as we move to the next phases, these experts must appreciate that we need more and more openness and fuller explanations.

The experts must not be offended, nor should they be surprised, by the need for extra scrutiny. All going well, the next phase of the coronavirus will be about greater dialogue on how we can fix a badly stalled economy in a way that is fair to everybody in Ireland.

We will need to look at trying to preserve some of the environmental gains which came inadvertently from the coronavirus shutdown. Quite simply we will need a more environmentally friendly economic recovery.

For all of that we will need a new government with a democratic mandate which is united in finding a fair and sustainable way back to prosperity. That government must have a determination to fight for European Union economic and social solidarity in leading the recovery.

Just four days off three months since the people voted in the General Election, the prospect of a government is improved by the Green Party decision to enter talks. But politicians in all parties urgently need to get real here and speed things up.

We also need an active and vocal opposition calling a functioning government to account publicly for their stewardship. So, all the parties and Independents have an important role to play.

Pretty well everyone agrees that we can only go forward again if we have unity of purpose - and this can only be found by maximum openness in all our public discourse.
People work at the office of a tech company in Hanoi. Photo by Reuters/Kham.

Mid-level employees are struggling to find new jobs despite years of relevant experience as the Covid-19 pandemic impacts major industries.

Data from recruitment firm Navigos Search shows that among 1,200 candidates who applied for its coronavirus career support program in April, nearly half were managers, supervisors and team leaders.

As many as 41 percent of the candidates had more than eight years of experience, showing that experienced mid-level employees are having difficulty finding new opportunities, the report said.

The top three industries that candidates seek jobs from are manufacturing, tourism/hospitality and financial services/insurance. Of these, the first two have been major victims of the pandemic, suffering major job cuts from February to April.

Vietnams workforce has taken a huge blow as demand for goods and services falls as a result of social distancing measures, while the disrupted supply chain has cut jobs in manufacturing.

First quarter employment figures fell to a 10-year low with five million Vietnamese having to work less hours or losing their jobs, according to the General Statistics Office.

The number of companies temporarily suspending businesses in the first quarter rose 26 percent year-on-year to 18,600, it said.

Pham Van Viet, deputy chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Association of Garments, Textiles, Embroidery, & Knitwear (AGTEK), said recently that textile manufacturers were struggling to pay salaries and retain employees as orders from foreign buyers were canceled or delayed.

But the labor market is also seeing some improvement. Nguyen Phuong Mai, CEO of Navigos Search, said that as Vietnam loosens strict social distancing measures, recruitment needs have also seen positive changes.

"Some businesses have boosted recruitment activities to quickly recover production and business," Mai said.

As the pandemic makes global businesses realize that they could not depend on the supply from one country, the shift in investment and production to Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, will be more evident, she added.
State Rep. Cris Dush (R., Jefferson) criticized the Wolf administration's transparency, and compared his practices to the Nazi Party and Soviet Russia, during a hearing of the House State Government Committee on Monday, May 4. Read more

State Rep. Cris Dush compared Gov. Tom Wolfs administration to the Nazi Party during a committee hearing Monday.

Dush (R., Jefferson) criticized Wolfs lack of transparency in releasing coronavirus data and information on the states controversial business waiver process and compared his administrations practices to the Nazi regime in Germany and to the Soviet Union.

The press has been having a very difficult time fulfilling its responsibility to the public getting information out because this governor has repeatedly refused all sorts of information, said Dush, who is running for a state Senate seat.

More and more I go back to the Democratic National Socialist Party, the Nazi Party; I go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR. This is a socialist playbook, he said at Mondays House State Government Committee hearing. (The official name of the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers Party.)

State Rep. Kevin Boyle (D., Phila.) immediately interjected and condemned the comparison.

Chairman, this is outrageous, said Boyle. Stop it with the Nazi references. It is offensive and wrong, stop this.

Its history, Dush responded. This is a socialist playbook, and I have to say that its important for the people of this state to start having access to information, rather than having it blown off to the side and hidden for an agenda.

Dush could not immediately be reached for comment.

State Rep. Jared Solomon (D., Phila.) said that after the hearing, on the House floor with all members present, Dush apologized for his remarks. Solomon, who is Jewish, said he was shocked by the statements.

The comparison undercuts the atrocities that the Nazi regime committed against six million Jews across the globe, Solomon said. Its deeper than just being Jewish. Its about being able to relate on a human level with people.

Wolfs office also denounced the comparison.

In the last few days, House Republicans have shared fake reopening plans online and a rank and file member has compared the administration to Nazis while Republican members have spent time moving legislation to reopen zoos during a global pandemic and rallied with activists who have made threats against the governor, a spokesperson for Wolfs office said in an emailed statement.

We badly need partners in the legislature who will take the challenge before them seriously instead of using it to divide the commonwealth, the spokesperson said.

Dush has been a state representative since 2015. In 2018, he introduced a resolution to impeach the four Democrats on Pennsylvanias Supreme Court over the courts decision on the states congressional district map.

The Wolf administration has been criticized for its lack of transparency in coronavirus case data. While other states have publicized data on the race of COVID-19 patients for weeks, Pennsylvania has struggled to collect comprehensive demographics, which experts and some lawmakers say are vital to knowing where to target resources.

 READ MORE: Pa. released figures on the coronavirus and race, but not specific geographic data. Experts say thats a problem.

Last week, Republicans in the state legislature subpoenaed the Wolf administration for documents related to its coronavirus waiver process for businesses, which allowed select businesses to reopen despite the statewide shutdown.

Solomon said hearing Dushs remarks was like an out-of-body experience.

Here I am looking across at a guy I know, and something, my religion, my culture of being Jewish, which is so important to me, did not give him pause, said Solomon.

When you begin to talk about the Nazi regime as a reference point, you undermine the experience of not just the Jews who have perished, not just the Jews who have suffered anti-Semitism, but also their ancestors and Jews today who are constantly trying to make their memory real.
There will be a flight of capital from China in the post COVID-19 period and India could emerge as an attractive investment destination for global giants shifting businesses from the neighbouring country, BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav said on Sunday.

His comments came in the midst of reports that a sizeable number of global giants including Japanese and American companies are considering to shift their manufacturing facilities to other countries from China in the wake of the pandemic. In the post-COVID period, there will be a flight of capital from China, and India will certainly be an attractive destination for them, Madhav told PTI in an interview.

He said Asian democracies like Singapore and South Korea along with India have set a "new example that you don't need to be authoritarian to handle such a big crisis". The senior BJP leader said it will be interesting to see what course China takes in the post-pandemic phase. "What course will China take is a big million dollar question. "The way Chinese leadership conducted itself during the crisis has led the world to believe that it has not done enough.... Will the Chinese leadership rethink about the whole system," Madhav said.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to blame China for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic which was first reported in Chinese province of Hubei before it spread to various parts of the world. The virus has infected 3.4 million people and killed over 2,44,000 globally besides wrecking economies of a large number of countries.

Japan has recently indicated that leading companies from the country may quit China in view of the pandemic. The Japanese government has already announced an economic stimulus package to help its companies shift base from China. A number of countries are mulling steps to protect their economic interests in various countries.

Tightening norms, India last month made prior clearance mandatory for foreign investments from countries that share land border with India, in a move aimed at curbing "opportunistic takeovers" of Indian companies by Chinese firms following fall in their valuation due to the coronavirus-induced economic downturn.

China criticised India for the the new policy, calling it discriminatory and demanded its review. Madhav said the world will "closely watch" the Communist Party of China's upcoming Congress starting May 22 and how it "takes up all these issues". The Indian economy has also been hit by the pandemic. In the last few days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a series of meetings to discuss strategies to attract foreign investment, promote local manufacturing and boost the economy.

Also read: Coronavirus India live updates: Lockdown 3.0 begins today, some relaxations eased, total COVID-19 cases 42,533

Also read: Govt working to identify key sectors for making India a manufacturing hub
Usually, legislation comes out weeks or months in advance, with public hearings and plenty of time to comb through the details. But because the text of the agreement  with a final page count approaching 900  was released hours before the Senate voted unanimously for its passage, many of those journalists were able to give readers only broad outlines of the legislation and the disagreements that were delaying the delivery of aid to Americans. Explaining its full ramifications takes time, and much of that analysis has had to wait until after the Cares Act was signed into law. I do worry that in the future there could be problems from this bill that we dont know about, Desjardins says, because it was passed so quickly and because we didnt get the chance to really press senators about what they knew or didnt know.
Nigerian financial service technology company, OPay, has joined Nigerians and the government in rolling out a series of anti-pandemic and relief efforts. The latest is its support of the Lagos State Governments recently launched initiative #MaskUpLagos, to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

As part of its #DoMore initiative, OPay made a donation of 40,000 medical facemasks to the Lagos State Government, with a commitment to donate another 200,000 facemasks to needed entities in the coming weeks.

The presentation of the facemasks was made on Wednesday, April 29, 2019, at the Lagos State Warehouse facility in Lekki, Lagos.

The Honourable Commissioner of Transport, Dr Fedrick Oladehinde, received the facemasks on behalf of the Lagos State Government.

On behalf of the Lagos State Governor Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, wed like to thank OPay for their donation. It is coming at the right time  we are about to open up Lagos and the facemask is very vital in protecting people from COVID-19, Dr Oladehinde remarked.

Dr Oladehinde added, By working together, we can do great things. Im glad the private sector is joining forces with Lagos State to fight the pandemic and together we will win.

Director of Partnerships at OPay, Oladipo Omogbenigun says The fight against the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria should be a collective effort. That is why OPay is proudly supporting the Lagos State Governments initiatives. We hope to continue in a similar fashion.

OPay Nigerias Country Manager, Iniabasi Akpan, says OPay is firmly committed to Nigeria, and we are conscious of the fact that our growth and success is intertwined with that of Nigerians. As a leading mobile money platform in Nigeria, we will mobilize our resources to help in overcoming the COVID-19 virus in Nigeria and the threat it poses to the health and economic wellbeing of Nigerians who are well known as a resilient people.

Face mask donated by OPay to Lagos State Government

The donation is just one of OPays list of Corporate Social Responsibility efforts happening in the coming weeks. OPay will utilize its international network, its finance, and its digital and agent platforms, to contribute to the anti-pandemic efforts.

L-R Director of Partnerships at OPay  Oladipo Omogbenigun and Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, Frederic Oladeinde.

L-R : Director of Partnerships at OPay  Oladipo Omogbenigun and Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, Frederic Oladeinde.

In other efforts to support the fight against the spread of COVID-19, OPay has dedicated a section of its app to deliver facts, safety and prevention tips to its 5 million-plus registered app users in addition to real-time updates.

About OPay

OPay is a leading mobile money (MMO) and financial technology platform in Nigeria. Currently, it has a network of 300,000 agents, 5 million registered app users, and an ever-increasing range of financial and related services for Nigerians. It has one of the strongest supports from international investors among Nigerian financial technology companies.

OPay launched its mobile payment service in August 2018, creating an infrastructure on which the company is now also adding new services. The agent-centric mobile payment operation focuses on reaching the massive unbanked population of Nigeria. OPays vision is to rapidly support the realization of Nigerias vision for financial inclusion for everyone, through the use of global-leading technology.
Wall Street is experiencing some major deja vu. The tensions between the U.S. and China flared after President Trump threatened to impose new import tariffs. The difference this time? These tariffs would serve as a punishment for Chinas role in the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, stocks posted sharp declines, a rough start to the month of May.

The new week of trading could see more of the same. U.S. stock pointed to losses in Monday's trading session as statements made by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the day before failed to alleviate trade war fears. Going off of the administrations earlier statements, Pompeo supported the Presidents claim that the virus originated in a Wuhan, China laboratory, adding that the country also stocked up on medical supplies while covering up the extent of COVID-19's spread.

The possibility that a trade war could be reignited has spooked market watchers, but for those looking at the glass half full, theres a silver lining. Compelling names have seen their share prices driven lower, presenting investors with more attractive entry points. Seasoned Street veterans argue this is particularly true of the biotech space, with this area of the market holding up better than others.

Bearing this in mind, we set out to find exciting yet affordable opportunities within the biotech industry. Using TipRanks database, we found three stocks trading for under $10 per share that fit the bill, with each offering up Strong Buy consensus ratings from the analyst community and plenty of upside potential. Heres the full scoop.

Aptinyx (APTX)

Using a differentiated approach that involves modulating the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor via a unique mechanism rather than switching it on or off, Aptinyx develops cutting-edge therapies for brain and nervous system disorders. Deemed the comeback kid, at $2.72 per share, now could be the time to pull the trigger before APTX takes off on an upward trajectory.

Story continues

This is the opinion of H.C. Wainwright's Raghuram Selvaraju. The five-star analyst doesnt dispute that shares have been put through the ringer as of late, but he believes Wall Street has reacted unfairly to non-statistically significant Phase 2 trial results for its lead candidate, NYX-2925, in diabetic neuropathic pain (DPN) early last year.

In fact, Selvaraju cites several reasons for his continued optimism. During the DPN trial, there was clear evidence of NYX-2925's activity, which was supported by additional proof of efficacy in a separate Phase 2 study in fibromyalgia. Additionally, NYX-2925's modulation of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor is a validated target in the central nervous system (CNS) space. It should be noted that multiple post-hoc analyses on the Phase 2 DPN data were conducted. NYX-2925 is also in a confirmatory Phase 2b trial that incorporates the discoveries from the Phase 2 study, and the current trial is evaluating a single dose vs. Placebo, making it more robustly powered than the earlier trial.

All of this prompted Selvaraju to comment, From our vantage point, the lack of value being attributed to Aptinyx's technology platform, lead asset and pipeline provides an intriguing entry point for those investors willing to judge the clinical data on its own merits. We also note the precedent cases of gabapentin and duloxetine, which ultimately achieved market entry in neuropathic pain despite setbacks in DPN trials.

If that wasnt enough, Selvaraju sees multiple upcoming clinical data catalysts for not only NYX-2925, but also for its NYX-783 asset and NYX-458 candidate. Speaking to the large market opportunity, he added, We believe that chronic neuropathic painwhether embodied by DPN or fibromyalgiaconstitutes a poorly addressed condition. Furthermore, the recent opioid crisis has made it well-nigh impossible for physicians to rely on opioid drugs for pain management. Accordingly, there is a burgeoning need for non-opioid, non-addictive analgesic agents that work via novel mechanisms. We note that approximately 8 million individuals in the U.S. alone suffer from DPN, while roughly 5 million suffer from fibromyalgia.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Selvaraju decided to join the bulls. To initiate his APTX coverage, he put a Buy rating and $7 price target on the stock, implying 145% upside potential. (To watch Selvarajus track record, click here)

Turning now to the rest of the Street, other analysts agree with Selvaraju. The stock has received only Buy ratings in the last three months, 4 to be exact, so the consensus rating is a Strong Buy. Given the $10.67 average price target, the upside potential comes in at a whopping 274%. (See Aptinyx stock analysis on TipRanks)

Viking Therapeutics (VKTX)

Targeting metabolic and endocrine disorders, Viking Therapeutics technology could be a game changer, with it boasting lead candidate, VK2809, an orally available, liver selective thyroid hormone receptor  (TR) agonist. Given its vast potential in this area of medicine, several members of the Street believe that at $5.45 apiece, its undervalued.

Digging a bit deeper into VKTXs technology, TR agonists are powerful anti-steatotic drugs (reducers of liver fat) that could be capable of reversing NASH and even fibrosis, based on available clinical data. In addition, TRs are safe and convenient oral drugs that demonstrate efficacy close to the levels seen in injectables with significantly less clear safety windows.

Writing for BTIG, analyst Julian Harrison noted, Within the TR space, we believe VK2809 is positioned to be best-in-class with a favorable mix of potency and tolerability/safety, thanks to calculated prodrug chemistry. Competition from Madrigals resmetirom (MGL-3196) has a 2 to 3-year development lead, but in a market of chronic and predominantly asymptomatic disease, safety, tolerability and even ease of administration will matter considerably.

Expounding on the competition with Madrigal, Harrison points out MGL-3196 doesnt limit systemic exposure, while VKTXs VK2809 remains in prodrug form outside the liver. This means that VK2809 can generate truly selective activation in the liver, making the issue of targeting bias a nonissue.

Even though COVID-19 has caused industry-wide delays, twelve-month biopsy data from the Phase 2b trial of VK2809 in patients with biopsy-confirmed NASH shouldnt face much of a disruption.

Overall, we view VK2809s strong clinical data and the enterprise value of only $140 million as a chance for investors to invest in an undervalued asset ahead of de-risked POC readouts, Harrison concluded.

Taking all of this into consideration, Harrison kicked off his VKTX coverage by publishing a Buy rating. The analyst also set a $9 price target, which indicates shares could climb 65% higher in the next year.

Like Harrison, other Wall Street analysts are optimistic about this biotechs long-term growth prospects. With 8 Buys assigned in the last three months compared to no Holds or Sells, the message is clear: VKTX is a Strong Buy. Should the $14.86 average price target be met, a twelve-month gain of 153% could be in the cards. (See Viking stock analysis on TipRanks)

Mersana Therapeutics (MRSN)

Last but not least we have Mersana, a biotech company that develops antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for oncology, with its focus on drug payloads designed to deliver more chemotherapy to the tumors and less to the surrounding tissue, particularly the bone marrow. Ahead of several upcoming data readouts, some analysts believe that its $8.23 per share price tag presents investors with a unique buying opportunity.

Part of the excitement surrounding MRSN is related to its lead program, XMT-1536. The ADC for later-line ovarian cancer (OC) and non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) was designed using two innovative technologies that enable it to spur controlled bystander killing, with it specifically targeting NaPi2b, a clinically validated target over-expressed on several important tumor types. It should be noted that XMT-1536 is already progressing through dose-ranging studies and data has demonstrated it is active in platinum-resistant OC and NSCLC adenocarcinomas.

Representing BTIG, five-star analyst Thomas Shrader argues that key data sets, which are scheduled for release in the second half of 2020, could de-risk XMT-1536 in both OC and NSCLC, as well as fuel even more upside by further validating the Mersana ADC platform and its application in the earlier-stage pipeline. He added, The ~33% ORR seen in very late-line NaPi2b-high OC patients (at dose  30 mg/m2) seems likely to be good enough for accelerated approval and should increase in earlier line patients.

According to Shrader, the potential of ADCs can be taken one step further. We believe the future of ADCs may be to replace the chemo component in chemo + IO combinations. In this approach, Mersanas safety profile seems well placed, as their drugs to date seem particularly gentle on the patients bone marrow while clearly showing tumor killing (and corresponding tumor antigen release). Similarly, the newest focus at Mersana, termed iADCs, should drive increased anti-tumor innate immune responses  an area widely considered to be the next leg of IO, he explained.

When it comes to the balance sheet, MRSN is standing on solid ground. As of Q4 2019, the company had $100 million in cash and cash equivalents, and last month, it exercised its ATM to raise an additional $65 million. This should be enough to support Phase 1 clinical studies of XMT-1536 and Phase 1 dose-expansion studies for its XMT-1592 therapy.

Based on everything MRSN has going for it, its no wonder Shrader decided to initiate coverage. Along with a Buy recommendation, he set the price target at $14, suggesting 70% upside potential. (To watch Shraders track record, click here)

All in all, other Wall Street pros echo the BTIG analysts sentiment. Out of 4 total reviews issued in the last three months, 100% were bullish, making the consensus rating a Strong Buy. The $13 average price target is less aggressive than Shraders, but it still leaves room for shares to gain 53% in the next year. (See Mersana stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good healthcare ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.
WASHINGTONThe Trump administration is turbocharging an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the CCP virus outbreak, according to officials familiar with U.S. planning.

President Donald Trump, who has stepped up criticisms of the Chinese regime amid the pandemic, has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas.

Now, economic destruction and the massive virus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move U.S. production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to other more friendly nations instead, current and former senior U.S. administration officials said.

Weve been working on [reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China] over the last few years but we are now turbo-charging that initiative, Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the U.S. State Department, told Reuters.

I think it is essential to understand where the critical areas are and where critical bottlenecks exist, Krach said, adding that the matter was key to U.S. security and one the government could announce new action on soon.

The U.S. Commerce Department, State Department, and other agencies are looking for ways to push companies to move both sourcing and manufacturing out of China. Tax incentives and potential re-shoring subsidies are among measures being considered to spur changes, the current and former officials told Reuters.

There is a whole of government push on this, said one. Agencies are probing which manufacturing should be deemed essential and how to produce these goods outside of China.

Trumps China policy has been defined by behind-the-scenes tussles between pro-trade advisers and China hawks; now the latter say their time has come.

This moment is a perfect storm; the pandemic has crystallized all the worries that people have had about doing business with China, said another senior U.S. official.

All the money that people think they made by making deals with China before, now theyve been eclipsed many fold by the economic damage from the virus, the official said.

Economic Prosperity Network

Trump has said repeatedly that he could put new tariffs on top of the up to 25 percent tax on $370 billion in Chinese goods currently in place.

That does not mean Trump will balk at new ones, officials say. Other ways to punish China may include sanctions on officials or companies, and closer relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing considers its territory.

But discussions about moving supply chains are concrete, robust, and multi-lateral, sources said.

The United States is pushing to create an alliance of trusted partners dubbed the Economic Prosperity Network, one official said. It would include companies and civil society groups operating under the same set of standards on everything from digital business, energy and infrastructure, to research, trade, education, and commerce, he said.

The U.S. government is working with Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam to move the global economy forward, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said April 29.

These discussions include how we restructure  supply chains to prevent something like this from ever happening again, Pompeo said.

Latin America may play a role, too.

Colombian Ambassador Francisco Santos last month said he was in discussions with the White House, National Security Council, U.S. Treasury Department, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce about a drive to encourage U.S. companies to move some supply chains out of China and bring them closer to home.

China overtook the United States as the worlds top manufacturing country in 2010, and was responsible for 28 percent of global output in 2018, according to United Nations data.

The pandemic has highlighted Chinas key role in the supply chain for generic drugs that account for the majority of prescriptions in the United States. It has also shown Chinas dominance in goods like the thermal cameras needed to test workers for fevers.

Some Companies Reluctant

Many U.S. companies have invested heavily in Chinese manufacturing and rely on Chinas 1.4 billion people for a big chunk of their sales.

Diversification and some redundancy in supply chains will make sense given the level of risk that the pandemic has uncovered, said Doug Barry, spokesman for the U.S.-China Business Council. But we dont see a wholesale rush for the exits by companies doing business in China.

John Murphy, senior vice president for international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that U.S. manufacturers already meet 70 percent of current pharmaceutical demand.

Building new facilities in the United States could take five to eight years, he said. Were concerned that officials need to get the right fact sets before they start looking at alternatives, Murphy said.

By Humeyra Pamuk and Andrea Shalal

NTD staff contributed to this report.
Ram Charan Soran, a 28-year-old policeman, was among the first responders ensuring essentials were supplied to the residents so that they do not have to step out when a hard lockdown was imposed in Jaipurs Covid-19 hotspot of Ramganj to check the spread of the pandemic. He regularly visited the area with teams of health care workers and those distributing food packets. He was also on patrolling duty in Ramganj for some days and worked overtime until April 6 when he developed a mild fever. His worst fears came true four days later when he was tested positive for Covid-19.

Soran said he was shocked to know he had contracted the disease but had no option but to come to terms with it. Now that I was infected, whatever had to happen had happened, said Soran, who joined the Rajasthan police in 2018. Some of us went for voluntary testing because we were working in a hotspot area. My report came on April 10...I tested positive, said Soran. He was discharged from Jaipurs SMS hospital on April 23 and quarantined the same day after he tested negative for the disease twice. He will be released from a quarantine centre in the city as per protocol on May 7.

He said he got up early and did yoga during his hospitalisation. After that, it was mostly about watching videos on my mobile phone and chatting with friends and family. What else could one do there? Doctors came to check us twice daily, he said.

Soran, who was the first policeman to contract the disease in Jaipur, was more worried about the 15 policemen he stayed with at a barrack, and luckily only one of them contracted the disease. Both of them have since recovered and are looking forward to returning to work once their quarantine period is over. I want to return to work, said Soran. He added he was not scared of even returning to Ramganj. I will perform my duty without fear, he said. If my family says anything, I will explain to them also that duty is duty and in whichever area, we have to perform it.

Ramganj had reported 598 out of Jaipurs 924 Covid-19 cases as of Saturday and since then the area-wise break-up of the cases has been unavailable.

Soran said half of Ramganj is under the jurisdiction of his police station and they went there several times for work. Two other policemen, who contracted the disease in Jaipurs walled city area, have also recovered.

Additional police commissioner Ajay Pal Lamba said four policemen tested positive for the virus and three of them have recovered. We are proud of our men. They are working in the hotspots as well as in other areas without any complaints. The policemen who have recovered will return to duty when they get discharged from the quarantine centres, he said.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Lucknow, May 4 : After the opening of stand-alone liquor shops in Uttar Pradesh, it is the "paan" lovers who are now demanding that the paan shops also be allowed to function so that they can savour their favourite not just taste but also for health benefits.

The Yogi Adityanath government has already banned the manufacture and sale of "gutkha" and "paan masala" in the state and those addicted to this, are now clamouring for paan, which is supposedly a healthier option.

According to Ayurveda experts, chewing paan after meals eases digestion as it increases secretion of the digestive juices, reduces bloating of stomach, relieves constipation and destroys intestinal parasites.

A senior bureaucrat, who did not wish to be named, said, "I was addicted to 'gutkha' but the lockdown has helped me give up the habit. However, I do have cravings at times and it would be good if the government allows sale of paan. In fact, paan will help many others give up gutkha, which is more harmful." Kamal Chaurasia, who owns a tiny paan shop in Hazratganj, said that since the past 40 days, he had no earnings. "We are about to finish our savings and if the government does not allow paan shops to reopen, I am finished because I do not have money left to start another venture," he said.

Kamal said that he earned about Rs 2,000 per day and made a neat profit of about Rs 700 to 800 per day.

"My sales dropped after a nearby cinema hall shut business. Earlier, I used to earn almost double of my present income," he said.

He disclosed that some of his 'regular' clients had already shifted to another paan shop owner who was clandestinely supplying paan masala and gutkha to them through a vegetable vendor during the lockdown.

Suresh Agnihotri, a businessman and paan addict, said that without paan, life does not seem complete.

"I used to keep a 'paan daan' at home and would bring my stock of paan to the shop. But now, betel leaves are no longer available and I can even sense a loss of concentration ever since I have stopped eating paan", he said.

Pushkar Pratap Singh, who runs a family paan cafe in the Ashiana locality in Lucknow, said that his venture had proved to be a success because women started frequenting it.

"Women usually love 'meetha paan' but do not want to visit the local 'paanwallah'. The cafe is hygienic, spacious and has a good clientele. We have families visiting us and we feel that the ban on paan is unjustified because betel leaf farming is also big business in Uttar Pradesh," he said.

With the lockdown, the betel leaf farming has also taken a hit.

Betel leaves are wilting on the vines in Mahoba, which is the hub of betel leaf cultivation.

"Betel leaves are harvested in March and April, but the lockdown has had an adverse impact on farmers. There is no demand and no supply. The wedding season meant a peak in demand for betel leaves, but we have no takers now," said Sudhir Chaurasia, a cultivator.

The state has approximately 150,000 betel leaf cultivators. According to the state horticulture department, betel leaf trade in the state has an annual turnover of about Rs 1,000 crore.

Meanwhile, according to a state government spokesman, government is not too inclined to allow paan shops to reopen since spitting has been banned as a safety protocol and paan eaters are usually prone to spitting.
Linda Lusardi arrives at the TRIC Television and Radio Industries Club Awards at The Grosvenor House Hotel on March 12, 2013 in London, England. (Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)

Linda Lusardi is set to join fitness icon Mr Motivator for a week-long stint of televised fitness workouts to raise money for charity.

The workouts will air for five consecutive days on Skys Ideal World channel starting today.

The show will aim to raise cash for Age UK to help older people during the pandemic.

Read more: Linda Lusardi: NHS helpline kept telling me I didn't have coronavirus

Lusardi, herself a COVID-19 survivor, told Sky News: "I know at first hand how debilitating this disease can be.

"It is important to keep your fitness levels up. You know what they say, 'a healthy body, equals a healthy mind', which is so important at these uncertain times.

"That's why I'm looking forward to supporting Mr Motivator this week in raising funds for Age UK."

The workouts have been made to offer gentle exercise for older viewers

The segments will also feature Rustie Lee, Christopher Biggins and stars of The Real Housewives Of Cheshire.

Latest coronavirus news, updates and advice

Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the world

Fact-checker: The number of COVID-19 cases in your local area

Explained: Symptoms, latest advice and how it compares to the flu

Mr Motivator said: Its a challenging time for us all at the moment. But none more so than the older generation, many of whom are feeling particularly isolated.

The 67-year-old, real name Derrick Evans, went on to highlight the importance of staying active, as fitness is key to maintaining both your health and independence.

Derrick Evans, aka Mr Motivator, warms up the mainstage crowd on Day 4 of Bestival at Robin Hill Country Park on September 7, 2014 in Newport, Isle of Wight. (Photo by Ollie Millington/WireImage)

Former model Lusardi and her husband Sam Kane were both hospitalised after contracting COVID-19.

Kane spoke of he scary experience which saw her at deaths door as the virus was at its peak last month.

Read more: Linda Lusardi shares first photo from home after beating COVID-19

After being released from hospital she took to social media to say: "So good to be home. Keep safe. Stay in and try to keep positive in this troubled time."

The fitness segment will be on Ideal World from 12pm today (4 May), running daily until Friday (8 May).

Donations can be made at idealworld.tv/workitout
[May 04, 2020] Analysis on New Product Launches in Covid-19 Related Markets - Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market 2020-2024 | Demand From Commercial Aircraft to Boost Growth | Technavio

Technavio has been monitoring the heads-up display (HUD) market and it is poised to grow by USD 2.18 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of about 11% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005306/en/ Technavio has announced the latest market research report titled Global Heads-up Display (HUD) Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire) Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. BAE Systems Plc, Continental AG, Delphi Technologies Plc, DENSO (News - Alert) Corp., Nippon Seiki Co. Ltd., Panasonic Corp., Pioneer Corp., Robert Bosch GmbH, Visteon Corp., and WayRay AG are some of the major market participants. The demand from commercial aircraft will offer immense growth opportunities. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Demand from commercial aircraft has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market 2020-2024: Segmentation Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market is segmented as below: End-user Aviation Automotive Others

Geographic Landscape APAC Europe MEA North America South America

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=IRTNTR41189 Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market 2020-2024: Sope



Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our heads-up display (HUD) market report covers the following areas: Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market Size

Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market Trends

Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market Industry Analysis This study identifies advances in AR HUD as one of the prime reasons driving the heads-up display (HUD) market growth during the next few years.

Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis We provide a detailed analysis of vendors operating in the heads-up display (HUD) market, including some of the vendors such as BAE Systems (News - Alert) Plc, Continental AG, Delphi Technologies Plc, DENSO Corp., Nippon Seiki Co. Ltd., Panasonic Corp., Pioneer Corp., Robert Bosch GmbH, Visteon Corp., and WayRay AG. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the heads-up display (HUD) market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support. Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports. Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform Heads-Up Display (HUD) Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist heads-up display (HUD) market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the heads-up display (HUD) market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the heads-up display (HUD) market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of heads-up display (HUD) market vendors Table Of Contents: PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT 2.1 Preface

2.2 Preface

2.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ PART 03: MARKET LANDSCAPE Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Market segmentation analysis

Value chain analysis PART 04: MARKET SIZING Market definition

Market sizing 2019

Market outlook

Market size and forecast 2019-2024 PART 05: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition PART 06: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY END-USER Market segmentation by end-user

Comparison by end-user

Aviation - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Automotive - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Others - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by end-user PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Europe - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America - Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES Market drivers

Market challenges PART 11: MARKET TRENDS Growing focus on development of autonomous vehicles

Development of electric aircraft

Advances in AR HUD PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE Overview

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

BAE Systems Plc

Continental AG

Delphi (News - Alert) Technologies Plc

DENSO Corp.

Nippon Seiki Co. Ltd.

Panasonic Corp.

Pioneer Corp.

Robert Bosch GmbH

Visteon Corp.

WayRay AG PART 14: APPENDIX Research methodology

List of abbreviations

Definition of market positioning of vendors PART 15: EXPLORE TECHNAVIO About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005306/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West may be dealing with marriage troubles. According to reports, the two have been constantly arguing while in quarantine.

Trouble In Paradise

Much like everyone else, the family of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are in quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic. The lovely couple is with their four kids: North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm.

Recent reports said that two have been arguing a lot, but a source said that the two are actually fine. A source admitted to Us Weekly that "Kanye has been getting on Kim's nerves," but the 39-year old reality star said she just needed some time alone to focus on the work that she's doing.

In response, the rapper packed the bags and left for their home in Wyoming with all their four kids in tow. This is to help his wife get her much needed time alone.

"Kim really needed a break and some alone time so Kanye took the kids away to give her one," a source told Hollywood Life.

The source emphasized that Kim just has a lot on her plate, juggling motherhood and law school while running her own business.

"She loves the kids so much, but like any mom, she just needed time to herself. She needed a break from the kids and the screaming. She needed peace and quiet and alone time for herself personally, but also because she needed to focus on her law studies and business meetings and decisions which included SKIMS," the source furthered.

The source also revealed that it was Kanye who suggested to take on the trip with the kids. Kanye thought that getting the kids out for a short vacation would help them cope up with the "new normal" that the coronavirus pandemic may have set in place.

"It was Kanye's idea to go. She had work to do and felt she needed peace and quiet so Kanye took them," the source said.

However, critics were quick to conclude that one of Hollywood's power couples is having marriage problems, something the source denied.

"Despite reports, there are no issues in their marriage. They're solid. They're totally fine and doing great as a couple. It frustrates them to see otherwise. Just like any mom, Kim, too, needs time for herself," the insider explained.

Enjoying Quarantine

Before Kanye and the kids left for Wyoming, the "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" star kept her followers updated with new pictures and videos of how she is coping up while in quarantine. Kim is joined by her mini-mes in several exciting activities that the mom of four and the kids enjoyed.

One of her most recent posts featured her and eldest daughter North wearing matching "Kanye" white shirts. The twinning outfit came with text in blue glitters across the front. In the caption, she wrote "What's your favorite thing about quarantine? Let me know...."

Then, the reality star shared her answer to the same question: "Mine is hanging with my babies 24/7."

Fans of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West can now rest with ease. The power couple is doing just fine and is glad that they are able to spend as much time with each other as they could.

Now, everyone is looking forward to the more exciting things this famous family will be up to in the coming weeks.
India prepared on Sunday for the third phase of the ongoing lockdown with states and Union Territories drafting their own rules, mostly in line with federal guidelines that have given area-specific relaxations in a graded approach to bring back normalcy in the backdrop of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

There were some that stood out. Among them was Jharkhand, which announced that there will be no relaxations spelt out by the central government for the three zones in the country --- red, orange and green --- for two weeks beginning Monday.

Migrant workers, students and others are returning home from other states. As a precautionary measure, lockdown would continue in Jharkhand for next two weeks. The new directions of the Centre regarding relaxations would not be implemented in for now, chief minister Hemant Soren said in a Twitter post.

Coronavirus outbreak: Full coverage

In the eastern state, capital Ranchi is in red zone (areas with most Covid-19 cases); 11 districts are in orange zone (places with fewer cases) while the rest of the 12 are in green zone (places with no cases).

The northeastern state of Mizoram promulgated an ordinance making the punishment for violations of lockdown measures more stringent, a day after Rajasthan passed a similar ordinance.

The Assam government announced a complete ban on the movement of non-essential travel between 6pm and 6am for the next two weeks, which covers the extended lockdown period. The central guideline has banned such travels from 7 pm and 7 am.

Directives have been issued to police to take stringent action against curfew violators. Hence, we request everyone to ensure that the restrictions are complied with, health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said. All relaxations are only for districts in green zones... Of Assams 33 districts, 30 are green and three orange zones.

Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, two big states, toed the Centres line.

The Maharashtra government allowed the functioning of standalone liquor shops across the state, barring containment zones (which are areas inside red/orange zones with stricter perimeter control).

According to a government notification, standalone shops selling non-essential items, too, will be allowed in red zones, which include Mumbai and Pune. Construction activities in all red zone districts will be allowed, provided workers are available on site.

In UP, standalone liquor shops can operate from 10 am to 7 pm with social distancing in red zones. The state also allowed all standalone shops and shops in residential complexes.

In line with the central directive, the state allowed private four-wheelers with a maximum of two persons besides the driver for all activities permitted by the government in red zones. Private offices can operate with up to 33% of staff strength in such areas.

Lucknow, the capital of Indias most populous state, Agra and Gautam Budh Nagar (which houses Noida), among other districts in UP, are red zones.

Chhattisgarh, too, allowed liquor shops and was planning to start its home delivery, according to a minister. Liquor shops will be open from 8am to 7pm. To maintain social distancing, we have decided to provide home delivery to some big colonies and settlements, Chhattisgarh excise minister Kawasi Lakhma said. How liquor will be delivered online will be announced on Monday. We are still working on it.

Karnataka, too, permitted the sale of liquor in standalone stores. So did Madhya Pradesh. But a minister in Uttarakhand said liquor shops may not be open in red zones. And Kerala, where per capita consumption is second highest after Punjab, was yet to resume selling liquor.

Karnataka said Bengaluru urban and its four neighbouring districts (Bengaluru Rural, Ramanagara, Chikkaballapur and Kolar) would be treated as a single unit for inter-district movement of individuals and vehicles between 7am to 7pm for permitted activities with the production of letter from the company they are working in and the official identity card. Hence, no other inter-district passes will be required to move across these districts, the order said.

The Goa government agreed to restart public transport, including buses, taxis and auto rickshaws but only with 50% of seating capacity, while restricting their timing from 7am-7pm.

Chief minister Pramod Sawant announced said several services and economic activities will resume in line with the central guidelines since Goa is a green zone. He, however, stressed that all non-essential shops should be closed by 6pm so that people can be home by 7pm.

Only essential workers such as medical workers and other essential services like shops selling milk will be allowed to be open after 7pm, Sawant said.

Restaurants, street eateries, beach shacks and drinking in public places will remain prohibited as these activities banned across the nation.

In Rajasthan, the government prohibited the sale of pan and tobacco products, though the central guidelines have allowed the opening of shops selling tobacco products with strict social-distancing norms.

The Centre first imposed a 21-day lockdown on March 25, and then extended it for 19 days till May 3. On Friday, the government announced another two-week extension, but this time with zone-specific curbs and relaxations though there are some activities banned throught the country.

(With agency inputs)
Bhubaneswar, May 4 : Tension gripped a containment zone in Odisha's Rourkela after people allegedly pelted stones at police personnel and broke barricades on Monday.

Police said a few locals pelted stones at police personnel in Nala Road, which has been declared as containment zone after a few COVID-19 cases were reported from there.

They even damaged the barricades which were put up to shut the entry and exit to the area, said police.

After getting information, senior police officials rushed to the spot and additional force was deployed in the area to disperse crowd and control the situation.

However, the exact reason behind the attack is yet to be ascertained.

In another incident, an FIR has been lodged after a TikTok video was shot inside a quarantine centre in Bhadrak district.

Defying all social distancing norms, a group of inmates filmed TikTok videos inside a quarantine centre.

The FIR has been registered against six persons for violating social distancing norms in quarantine centre at Bhatapara and uploading the video on TikTok.
The routes will connect the capital of United Arab Emirates with Budapest and Bucharest from June 2020 and with Cluj-Napoca, Katowice and Sofia from September 2020, subject to aviation activities being resumed in the respective countries. Wizz Air becomes the first European Low Cost carrier to launch flights to Abu Dhabi.

This announcement supplements the agreement in March formalising the establishment of Wizz Air Abu Dhabi as a local airline based in Abu Dhabi in partnership between ADQ and Wizz Air. It is Wizz Airs first airline established outside of Europe, and is expected to begin operations later this year.

It is intended that Wizz Air will focus on establishing routes to markets in which Wizz Air has existing, high growth operations, namely Central and Eastern and Western Europe, as well as the Indian subcontinent, Middle East and Africa, over the long run.

Shareef Al Hashmi, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Airports, commented: Wizz Airs new routes to Budapest, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Katowice and Sofia highlights our commitment to connecting Abu Dhabi with the most sought after global destinations. These new routes positively reflect the industrys resilience and its capability to continue pushing forward with bold plans that will stimulate consumer demand and the sustained recovery of the aviation market. As our newest landing partner, we welcome Wizz Air and its first routes with open arms as we get set to facilitate the carriers exciting Abu Dhabi expansion plans. Visitors from Hungary, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria can look forward to enjoying our modern terminal facilities with a unique brand of Arabian hospitality before seamlessly heading out to experience the UAEs thriving capital city, Abu Dhabi.

Jozsef Varadi, CEO of Wizz Air Holdings said: Todays announcement underpins our long term dedication to bringing low fares combined with a high quality onboard experience to ever more customers in Abu Dhabi. I am delighted that our operations at Abu Dhabi International Airport will begin in June, subject to lifting the travel bans, connecting the capital of the United Arab Emirates with five major cities of Central and Eastern Europe as Budapest, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Katowice and Sofia. We are convinced that our passengers will appreciate the convenient flight schedules, the easy online booking system and the wide range of tailor-made travel options Wizz Air offers. Wizz Airs mission feeds into Abu Dhabis diversified economic strategy as we continue to stimulate traffic by creating demand to the benefit of growing Abu Dhabis touristic and economic diversity. We look forward to welcoming passengers on board our young, green and ultra-efficient fleet, while we pay extra attention to the health and well-being of our passengers and crew.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 4, 2020 15:16 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5cf605 1 City #Jakarta,PSBB,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,COVID-19-quarantine,virus-corona,pandemic,business-license Free

The Jakarta administration will revoke the business licenses of at least 200 companies that have flouted the implementation of large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in the capital.

Jakarta Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) head Arifin said his agency was currently preparing the dossiers on the companies, which would be submitted to the citys Capital Investment and One Stop Service (DPMPTSP) for the revocation of business licenses.

We have cracked down on these companies. About 200 businesses have been sealed. This means that all of their activities should stop during the PSBB, Arifin said when contacted by kompas.com on Sunday.

Arifin said that the companies were not essential businesses. The regulations on the PSBB require all workplaces to close, except those in the financial, fuel, food, medicine, retail, water, communications and logistics sectors.

Jakarta started implementing the PSBB on April 10 and the restrictions were initially slated to end on April 23. The city extended the PSBB from April 24 to May 22, as the coronavirus outbreak has yet to subside.

Read also: Indonesia to evaluate partial lockdown as companies, factories continue business as usual

The city carried out unannounced inspections from April 14 to April 29. On Friday, the Jakarta Manpower, Transmigration and Energy Agency recorded that 126 non-essential workplaces were still in operation during the PSBB.

The 126 companies, which employ a total of 10,347 workers, are spread across Jakarta, with 35 companies found in South Jakarta, 32 in West Jakarta, 23 in North Jakarta, 21 in Central Jakarta and 15 in East Jakarta.

Arifin said the city administration had repeatedly warned companies operating in Jakarta to comply with the PSBB provisions and cease all office activities, which is also stipulated in Jakarta Gubernatorial Regulation No. 33/2020 on PSBB.

Earlier in April, President Joko Jokowi Widodo instructed an evaluation of the PSBB implementation as many non-essential workplaces were still ignoring the restrictions and demanding that their workers show up for work.

In addition to the revocation of business licenses, the company managements will be subject to the maximum punishment of fines of Rp 100 million (US$ 6,490) and one years imprisonment, in accordance with the 2018 Health Quarantine Law. (syk)
[May 04, 2020] Fiverr Expands International Footprint by Launching Site in French and Spanish

Fiverr International Ltd., (NYSE: FVRR), the company that is changing how the world works together, announced that it has expanded its international footprint and launched its global marketplace in two new languages, French and Spanish. This follows the success of the company's foray into the German language in February. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005181/en/ Fiverr announces the expansion of its international footprint with the launch of its global marketplace in two new languages, French and Spanish. (Graphic: Business Wire) "International expansion continues to be a key growth strategy for Fiverr, and we believe the potential to unlock further opportunity in the European market is huge," said Micha Kaufman, founder and CEO of Fiverr. "Combined, France and Spain have over six million small businesses and an estimated 25 million independent workers. Moreover, given the stay at home mandates and shutdown of most offline businesses in both countries, when looking at the first half of March compared to the first half of April, our marketplace saw a 27% increase in visitors from France and a 42% increase in visitors from Spain. As one of the economic powerouses of Europe and a hub for new technology companies, France provides a fantastic opportunity for growth. The country is also embracing independent work, with self-employed workers in France making up almost 12 percent of the total workforce, according to the latest OECD data. Since France's shelter in place orders went into effect on March 16th, the Fiverr platform saw a 50% increase in new customers from the country, as businesses are working to engage with their customers online and enhance their digital presence.



Also embracing the freelance economy is Spain, with the country's self-employed population making up a whopping 16 percent of the total workforce, according to the OECD. In Spain, Fiverr experienced organic local growth, wherein freelance registrations increased 95% and new customers increased 61% in the first half of April compared to the same period in March. Providing the site in Spanish is expected to open up opportunities for further adoption in Spain and other Spanish speaking countries. In addition to localizing the site for both France and Spain, the company will also increase marketing efforts in both countries. This includes local public relations, targeted performance and ultimately to brand marketing campaigns and community engagement.

About Fiverr Fiverr's mission is to change how the world works together. The Fiverr platform connects businesses of all sizes with skilled freelancers offering digital services in more than 300 categories, across 8 verticals including graphic design, digital marketing, programming, video and animation. In 2019, over 2.4 million customers bought a wide range of services from freelancers working in over 160 countries. We invite you to visit us at fiverr.com, read our blog and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200504005181/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Here's what you need to know about what's happening in Los Angeles. Off-duty officer arrested after friend shot during camping trip Read the full story on ABC7. May Day protests to 'Reopen America' held in Huntington Beach, downtown LA Read the full story on CBS Los Angeles. Pair of earthquakes, hours apart, measuring 3.3 and 3.2, rattle Chatsworth Read the full story on ABC7. Coronavirus cases in LA County near 25,000, with 38 new deaths confirmed Read the full story on NBC LA. Motorcyclist killed in Saturday crash identified Read the full story on Santa Clarita Valley Signal. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.

An off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer was arrested for allegedly shooting another officer while on a camping trip in Apple Valley.

An organization called We Have Rights rallied Saturday in downtown Los Angeles and Huntington Beach, where beaches were closed by order of Gov. Gavin Newsom after large crowds descended last weekend.

Two earthquakes rattled the Chatsworth area on Sunday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Health officials on Saturday announced 38 more deaths in Los Angeles County from the coronavirus and 691 additional cases, bringing the county's totals to 24,894 cases and 1,209 deaths.
Advertisement

By West Kentucky Star Staff

May. 03, 2020 | WESTERN KENTUCKY

By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 03, 2020 | 03:25 PM | WESTERN KENTUCKY

A strong line of storms that blew through the area Sunday afternoon knocked down trees, peeled back roofs and left many western Kentucky residents without power.



The squall line of storms hit southeast Missouri around 2 pm, and caused damage to the roof of New Madrid's city hall.



Drenching rains, lightning and damaging winds crossed the Mississippi River into Hickman County by 2:40 pm and pushed a tree down over I-69. Downed trees and limbs were also common across Carlisle and Fulton counties.



By the time the storms hit Graves County, straight line winds were measured at 64 miles per hour, enough to break down trees onto a home and SUV. Power poles were also snapped in Graves County.



In Calloway County, a roof was peeled off of a horse barn. A tree fell on a power line on Brooks Chapel Road and caused a fire.



At 5:00 pm on Sunday, over 1,800 West Kentucky RECC customors were without power. Most of the outages were in Graves and Calloway counties.



As of Monday morning, power had been restored for all customers.



Another round of storms could be possible for much of the area again Monday night.
NEW YORK, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AMC Health, the leading provider in telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) technology, announced its expanded relationship with long-term client Gallagher Home Health, utilizing AMC's telehealth capabilities to help assess, monitor and triage patients at-home who are chronically ill and at high risk; those living with heart failure, COPD, hypertension and diabetes. AMC and Gallagher have been in partnership since early 2014 and are working closely to help fight the risks and serious impact of COVID-19.

The expanded telehealth services will be provided to Gallagher Home Health and their patients, including new IVR (interactive voice response) and patient Bluetooth peripheral kits, including pulse oximeter and thermometers for patients who are symptomatic and/or diagnosed with COVID-19.

"We are excited to build our long-standing relationship with Gallagher and trust they have in us to help reduce the capacity strain on their doctors and nurses as COVID-19 continues to rapidly escalate. For several months, we have prepared for this crisis, ensuring greater customization for our clients and their patients, including provider-patient video capabilities, real-time tools to assess and monitor patient vitals at-home, and a full suite of IVR solutions that meets the needs of Gallagher Home Health. We don't believe in a one-size-fits-all approach  it's about meeting the needs of our clients when and where they want it," said Nesim Bildirici, CEO of AMC Health.

AMC's telehealth capabilities serve hospitals, health plans, and Veterans, alike. Their platform combines state-of-the-art technology that easily enables their customers, like Gallagher, with fully scalable, integrated, and customized solutions that proactively ensure high-risk patients are monitored from the comfort of their own home.

"AMC Health is a trusted partner that has worked with us to help manage hundreds of patients from the comfort of their own home. Today, in the wake of the COVID crisis, taking care of our patients is priority one and having the ability to reduce the capacity strain for our clinical teams and staff gives us the needed edge on assessing, managing and mitigating the impact of COVID-19. AMC's telehealth capabilities provides us with the means to stay connected to and interact with our patients, monitoring their daily health, while keeping them at home or determining if they should be seen, directly," said Dwain Gahagen, LPN, High Risk Population Health Manager with Gallagher Home Health Services.

About AMC Health

AMC's passion drives their purpose to give everyone the power to live healthier, more independent, lives in their comfort of their own home. For over 17 years, AMC Health has led healthcare transformation using virtual technologies. The company is the leading provider of real-time virtual care solutions. Its FDA Class II cleared platform, end-to-end services, and clinically proven solutions enable healthcare organizations to securely extend their services beyond the four walls of the hospital and ambulatory clinic settings. Providing cost-effective population health management, the company's ever-expanding ecosystem delivers scalable virtual care programs for health systems and payers, connecting to more than 150 devices, apps, and integrations via a single connection. AMC Health's peer-reviewed published studies highlight clinical improvements for conditions like heart failure, diabetes, COPD and hypertension, resulting in reductions in hospital admissions, and solid financial return on investment. For more information, visit www.amchealth.com.

About Gallagher Home Health Services

Gallagher Home Health Services was established in 2005 by Diane L. Karcz, RN and Gary J Gallagher in honor of their Mom, Iva R. Gallagher. As a privately owned company, Gallagher Home Health Services has remained committed to Patients first, Employees next and Company last. That and the philosophy learned from their Mom, to "Treat Everyone Like Family" has led to their success in Western Pennsylvania. Now serving 9 counties with 3 offices, Gallagher Home Health Services continues to be a leader in Home Health, Home Care and Hospice, maximizing use of technology to achieve excellence while providing Nursing, Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapy, Medical Social Workers, Home Health Aides, Spiritual, Bereavement, and Volunteer Services within the communities we serve.

Follow us on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/company/401369/admin/

Follow us on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/AMCHealth1/

Follow us on Twitter  https://twitter.com/AMCHealth

E-mail  [email protected]

Contacts

Media Contact for AMC Health:

Kris Knopf, 877-776-1746

[email protected]

SOURCE AMC Health, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.amchealth.com


New Delhi, May 4 : Denying any wrongdoing regarding its data collection practices, a top Xiaomi executive on Monday said the company was open to any third party audit of its user privacy protection measures and asserted that all data of its smartphone users in the country stay in India.

Cybersecurity researchers last week accused the Chinese smartphone maker of infringing on the privacy of its phone users by recording their "private" web and phone use habits.

In particular, one of the researchers highlighted that the tracking did not appear to stop even when he used the supposedly private "incognito" mode and added that he could easily decode the data being sent to remote servers and feared that Xiaomi could know what he was watching on his phone.

Talking to reporters in a virtual press conference on Monday, Manu Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi and Managing Director, Xiaomi India, denied that the data the company collects through its browsers are personally identifiable.

"We have nothing to hide. We are open to any kind of investigation," Jain said.

Xiaomi, which is India's largest smartphone seller, also said on Monday that it had made software updates available for its browser products including, preloaded Mi Browser, Mi Browser Pro on Google Play, and Mint Browser on Google Play.

These software updates include an option in incognito mode for all users of both browsers to switch on/off the aggregated data collection, the company said.

"Morover, it is wrong to assume that we send data of Indian users to China. All data of Indian smartphone users remain in India," Jain said.

He also said that the recent changes that the Indian government introduced to the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy "should not be a big challenge to the company" as rarely does it require investments from the parent company to support its business in India.

"We make less amount of profit, but we do make profit (in India)," he said.

The Centre last month amended the FDI policy to check opportunistic takeovers of Indian companies amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

It decided to put all FDI proposals from countries sharing border with India under the government approval route. Companies whose beneficial ownership also lies in such countries will have to undergo government scrutiny for any change in foreign holding.

With restrictions easing under lockdown 3.0, Xaiomi is now gearing up to resume its smartphone manufacturing and sales in India and the company announced several measures to help its partners maintain business continuity.

Among these measures included Mi Commerce aimed at blurring the difference between online and offline sales.

Xiaomi also announced that its flagship Mi10 smartphone will be launched on May 8, while the Redmi Note 9 Pro will go on sale on Tuesday.

While the company has resumed its ecommerce operations for Green and Orange zones in India, approximately 50 per cent of its stores in these two zones might open up soon.
In the last fortnight, Philippines has filed two diplomatic protests against China over violations of international law and attack on Philippine sovereignty. In the first instance, a Filipino Navy ship was harassed by a Chinese warship. In the second, China set up two administrative districts in contested Spratly and Paracel islands - in a territory claimed by the Philippines as part of West Philippine Sea.

Last Friday, four Chinese coast guard ships sailed into Japanese waters around the Senkaku littoral in the East China Sea that China claims as its own - calling them Diaoyu islets. This was seventh such transgression this year, prompting Tokyo to lodge strong diplomatic protests with Beijing. The sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel earlier this month by a Chinese frigate in the South China Seas was part of a series of such aggressive acts by the Chinese that according to Vietnamese Coast Guard authorities have damaged or sunk over two dozen small and medium naval assets. The matter was serious enough for Vietnam to raise in the United Nations, as also for the Philippines to join in the protest.

Amid all this, speaking at an ASEAN summit on April 24, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue of a scientific report on Beijing's upstream dam operations that have unilaterally altered flows of the Mekong river, causing a drought-like situation in the riparian nation-states of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Australia tasted the pungency of Chinese diplomacy last week after the Australian Prime Minister called for an investigation into origins of Covid from Wuhan. India has had similar concerns about China tinkering with the flow of Brahmputra in its journey through Tibet as Tsangpo.

Essentially, while the world has been busy fighting the Covid pandemic with its back to the wall, Spreader-in-chief China has been breathing fire in its neighbourhood - hoping to collect the Dragon Scroll like Tai Lung of Kung Fu Panda from the valley of peace. In this case the international waters from Japan to the Philippines to Malaysia and of course the most contested South China Seas.

The ongoing Chinese bullying reminds of an abrasiveness that was last shown perhaps by the United States of America at the peak of their power immediately after the end of the cold war. The Americans could at least put a veneer of ideology and idealism fresh from a victory over Communism. In the case of China its unadulterated resource grab.

Militarily, there is only that much that the world can do. The US has sent a couple of warships through the Taiwan Straits. India has supplied patrol boats to Vietnam, as also refurbished it's Petya class Russian frigates over last few years. Yet, as we watch much of the West lose its commanding civilizational heights to the pandemic, much more needs to be done to make sure that China does not become the new Globocop.

Japan has hinted at how it can be done. Of the US dollar one trillion pandemic stimulus package, it has marked two billion dollars only to assist corporations that might want to shift their facilities out of China. There is a reason why Italy was the first big Covid sufferer out of China - it gleefully participated in the Belt and Road project of Xi Jinping, and hence found itself at the nerve centre of a massive Chinese supply chain that spreads from Wuhan to Lisbon. Goes without saying, Europe too would recalibrate between what it sees as a Panda hug, but can equally be Dragon fire. In the case of America, an already combative Trump administration might scale up its contain-China strategy.

The way things stand, India seems to have managed to stay ahead of the curve in controlling the pandemic. If the mix of zone-specific lockdowns and reasonable relaxations can keep our numbers of infections and deaths below that of China by the time Covid has subsided, for a nation once described as a 'functioning anarchy' by a US diplomat, it would be no mean achievement. India has a real chance to claim a leadership role in the world.

There are a couple of policy stimulations that are immediately needed on the uptake - land and labour reform. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried his hands at both with limited success. An industry-friendly land law was in fact one of the first few policy initiatives of Modi in his first term in which he burnt his fingers due to opposition intransigence. Leaving it to States has not delivered intended results. Ditto for labour reforms that have been piecemeal at best.

While Nirmala Sitharaman stitches sectoral stimulus packages, and Reserve Bank gives fortnightly liquidity placebos, nothing would work like a hardnosed revisiting of the land and labour reforms. Taken together, various national governments and international organizations have announced stimulus packages to the tune of over US dollars 10 trillion already. If we can attract even one per cent of this, it comes to 100 billion dollars - more than the entire FDI of the last decade! As the world changes gears for the post-Covid drive, India has an opportunity of a lifetime to take the wheel.
To the Editor:

Re No Death Sentences for Minor Offenses (editorial, April 24):

Michigan has emerged as a model for prioritizing safe reduction of jail populations. Wayne Countys (Detroits) jail population, which normally hovers around 1,700 people, has fallen below 1,000 for the first time in a generation. Neighboring Macomb County now has fewer than 500 people detained in a 1,200-bed jail.

State and county leaders responded to the pandemic by acknowledging that many people serving short criminal sentences, or jailed while awaiting trial, can safely self-quarantine at home. But even before the pandemic, they were pursuing policy changes to better distinguish at each decision point  from arrest to pretrial release to sentencing  people who pose an immediate threat to public safety from those who can reasonably remain in the community.

In the economically uncertain times ahead, Michigan counties will be hard pressed to come up with the total of half a billion dollars needed to cover the cost of operating the states 81 jails at their pre-Covid-19 levels. Similar financial considerations, along with a commitment to public safety, should inform every states plan for longer term policy change in the years ahead.

Jake Horowitz

Washington

The writer is director of the Pew Charitable Trusts public safety performance project.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  Dubais Expo 2020 worlds fair will be postponed to Oct. 1, 2021, over the new coronavirus pandemic, a Paris-based body behind the events said Monday.

The announcement by the Bureau International des Expositions came just hours after police in Kuwait dispersed what they described as a riot by stranded Egyptians unable to return home amid the coronavirus pandemic. The riot was the first reported sign of unrest from the regions vast population of foreign workers who have lost their jobs over the crisis.

Dubai, a sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates, has bet billions of dollars on Expo 2020 to rejuvenate its troubled economy. Since the pandemic grounded flights by its long-haul carrier Emirates and disrupted its real estate market, Dubai has been seeking to delay the event until next year.

Countries belonging to the bureau had been voting on the requested delay for days, with a final tally expected by the end of May. On Monday, however, the bureau said a required two-thirds of the countries in the organization had voted to approve the delay, meaning it would be granted.

The bureaus executive committee voted unanimously in April to back the proposal, which will see the event run from Oct. 1, 2021, until March 31, 2022.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the chairman and CEO of Emirates who also serves on Dubais Expo committee, welcomed the announcement in a statement.

We are thankful to member states for their continued commitment to contributing to a World Expo in Dubai that will play a pivotal role in shaping our post-pandemic world at a time when it will be most needed, Sheikh Ahmed said.

This skyscraper-studded city won the rights to host the event in 2014. That helped boost Dubais crucial real-estate market and had officials hoping for more tourists in this city-state that is home to the worlds busiest airport for international travel.

Now, the pandemic has jeopardized global tourism and caused further panic in a real-estate market already down by a third since the 2014 announcement.

It remains unclear how the delay will affect its staff, who in theory would need to be paid for at least another year, nor construction. Expo 2020 did not respond to questions from The Associated Press.

However, some countries taking part still are at the preliminary stages of building their pavillions for the expo, giving them much-needed extra time. Among them is the U.S., whose pavillion costing at least $60 million is being built through the generosity of the Emirati government.

Meanwhile, Kuwaits state-run KUNA news agency reported on Monday a confrontation, describing it as a riot carried out by Egyptians corralled at a group shelter.

Security officials intervened and took control, arresting a number of them KUNAs report said.

It did not acknowledge what level of force police used to put down the unrest, nor how many people authorities ultimately arrested after the incident. Kuwaits Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Videos purported to show the Egyptians in a shelter, armed with pieces of furniture at one point of the confrontation. The shelter appeared to be in an industrial setting, surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

KUNA earlier quoted Egypts ambassador to the oil-rich, tiny Kuwait as saying that Cairo planned repatriation flights for those stranded later this week. Kuwaiti officials also have said they would suspend fines and jail time for those who had overstayed visas in order to help those wanting to leave return to their home countries.

Kuwait, like many of the oil-rich Gulf Arab states, relies on a vast population of foreign workers for jobs ranging from domestic help, construction work to white-collar work. Long a lifeline for families back home, those migrant workers now find themselves trapped by the coronavirus pandemic, losing jobs, running out of money and desperate to return to their home countries as COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, stalks their labor camps.

Some 35 million laborers work in the six Arab Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as in Jordan and Lebanon, according to U.N. figures. Foreigners far outnumber locals in the Gulf states, accounting for over 80% of the population in some countries.

In Kuwait in particular, a growing sense of xenophobia has seen authorities push for more deportations of foreigners for everything, including traffic violations.

In all, countries in the Middle East have reported more than 342,000 cases of coronavirus, with at least 11,445 deaths, more than half of them in Iran. Irans health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said Monday that the death toll from COVID-19 rose to 6,277 in Iran, after 74 more people died since the previous day. Iran has reported 98,647 virus cases.

In Sudan, the state minister for transportation and infrastructure, Hashim Ibn Auf, tested positive, the highest-ranking official to do so, the government said late Sunday. Sudan has reported 678 cases and 41 deaths from the virus.

___

Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
The events take place in Lviv, Ukraine, where in January 2020 an elderly American theatre director flew from Chicago to work in a local theatre. While being in Chicago, he contacts his friend from China, who tells him about the events taking place in Wuhan. What is happening in China seems rather remote, thus the director does not change his plans and goes on a trip. While staying in Lviv, 
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2020 / Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc. ("ServiceMaster" or the "Company") (SERV). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.

The investigation concerns whether ServiceMaster 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 October 22, 2019, ServiceMaster announced disappointing preliminary financial results for the third quarter of 2019, having missed both revenue and earnings estimates. ServiceMaster also gave downward adjusted EBITDA guidance of $415 to $425 million, down from $435 to $445 million. The Company's press release attributed the disappointing results partly to "termite damage claims arising primarily from Formosan termite activity," primarily in Mobile, Alabama. ServiceMaster further stated that this had been a known issue, the Company has taken mitigating measures "starting in 2018." Finally, ServiceMaster announced the sudden departure of Matthew J. Stevenson from his role as President of Terminix Residential.

On these announcements, ServiceMaster's stock price fell $11.44 per share, or 20.38%, to close at $44.70 per share on October 22, 2019.

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.

Story continues

SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/588131/SHAREHOLDER-ALERT-Pomerantz-Law-Firm-Investigates-Claims-On-Behalf-of-Investors-of-ServiceMaster-Global-Holdings-Inc--SERV




Only a few weeks ago we were welcoming the European Green Deal, heralding its potential to have life-changing impacts on people and the planet.

Over these recent sad times, the conversation on climate change and biodiversity has been swept aside as the world focuses on saving lives. But early post-recovery discussions have arrived at the topic of a green recovery and the European Green Deal remains more than ever the basis for our future development model.

We in the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament have launched a green recovery paper, ahead of the European Commission's recovery plan launch. We are examining the current crisis, looking ahead to coming out the other side and asking what world do we want to return to?

A green recovery presents us with a short and long-term vision of sustainable jobs for life, with simultaneous improvements socially, environmentally and economically.

It's not about getting back to 'business as usual', to an existence where many struggled to get by in a world endangered by escalating pollution and waste.

A green recovery is one that works for all, where we can move into a fairer, more equal, more socially nurturing world and economy where nobody will be left behind.

One of the big shocks of the current crisis has been the realisation that the provision of much of our most basic needs in areas such as health and food, currently relies on fragile, unsustainable systems.

In health, the lack of stock of protective equipment and medicines was worsened by limited EU production of, in particular, masks and tests.

In food production and fishing, areas particularly relevant to Ireland, the crisis revealed the weaknesses of a system built on highly interconnected and specialised global supply chains.

Diversification and getting back to a more locally based model of food provision needs to happen. We need to reduce long supply chains by supporting the 'farm-to-fork strategy', seeing reductions in pesticide and fertiliser use, a revised Sustainable Use Pesticide Directive and in the future, a new CAP.

At an economic level a green recovery would implement fundamental reform of the current model, by rethinking the economy to ensure it serves the people, with massive sustainable investments paving the way to a sustainable, resilient job-rich economic recovery.

Companies, including financial services, receiving public financial support would align their economic activities to the objective of limiting global warming to under 1.5C.

Just transition plans would be implemented to support workers as they move away from unsustainable practices damaging to the environment.

On the building front, we would see a solar rooftop programme and property owners incentivised to replace fossil-based heating systems.

Public authorities would be encouraged to retain the extra cycle lanes set up during the Covid-19 crisis and extend their coverage.

Coal and fossil-fuel-related direct and indirect subsidies would be stopped, with more favourable financial conditions introduced to support the needed transition.

Already, the impacts of the virus are being borne disproportionately by poor people.

In the recovery we want, the cost of a massive sustainable investment plan would not be borne by the most vulnerable, but instead by those who can afford it.

Public services, particularly in the care and healthcare sectors, would be supported with appropriate funding and everyone would receive at least a poverty-proof minimum income.

Significantly more public investment would go into health, education, access to culture, social housing to name but a few.

Instead of refurbishing a system that has shown its weakness, the EU would revitalise the economy through legally binding targets and targeted investments.

Our re-emergence will be difficult. We will grieve. For some the pain will be acute. Many will be under severe financial pressure.

In many ways the current crisis has left us feeling helpless and with little control. We do still have options though.

In a Europe and an Ireland where a transformative social green recovery was under way, we would mitigate against the even more precarious future that unchecked carbon emissions will cause.

Ciaran Cuffe and Grace O'Sullivan are MEPs for the Green Party
The West Bengal government



allowed standalone liquor shops to reopen from Monday in green, orange and red zones, but not in containment areas.

The guideline issued by the government in this regard said only 'OFF' category shops selling foreign, IMFL, and country spirits will remain functional and not 'ON' shops.

The government also disallowed outlets located in shopping complexes to re-open. Beer pubs, clubs, restaurant- cum-bars and hotel-restaurant-cum-bars will remain closed.

Initially, the government guideline allowed shops to stay open from 10 AM till 6 PM, but later the timing was changed from 3 PM to 6 PM.

It also stated that only those customers wearing masks will be given liquor and social distancing norm has to be strictly followed. There should be a distance of 6 feet between two customers in the queue.

The guideline stated that no more than five customers will be allowed to remain in a shop at one point of time.

Queues are seen in front of several liquor shops in and around Kolkata.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NEW YORK (AP)  The owner of J.Crew is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, two months after the first person in New York tested positive for COVID-19.

The city, where J.Crew Group Inc. is based, went into lockdown soon after, followed by much the country. Retail stores in New York City and across the country shut their doors.

UNEMPLOYMENT EXPANSION: Six reasons allowing Texans to refuse to work

More bankruptcies across the retail sector are expected in coming weeks.

J.Crew, already in trouble before the pandemic and laden with debt, and was acquired by TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners for $3 billion in 2011.

Operations at J.Crew will continue throughout a restructuring and clothing will still be available to purchase online.

The company said Monday that it anticipates its stores will reopen when it's safe to do so.

Retail veteran Mickey Drexler led J.Crew for more than a decade when it become a coveted fashion brand. But the chain appeared to lose its way at some point and Drexler severed his last ties with the company in January 2019.

There are a number of retail chains that were already teetering at the start of the year, but the pandemic is wreaking havoc equally across the entire sector. J.Crew is not the first to seek protection during the coronavirus outbreak, and no one expects it to be the last.

REOPENING SCENES: How Houstonians celebrated Phase One of the city's reopening

J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus are expected to follow J.Crew. Jeans maker True Religion Apparel Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

Clothing store sales plummeted 50.5% in March, according to the latest Commerce Department report, and it has grown worse since.

In its last full year of operations, J.Crew generated $2.5 billion in sales, a 2% increase from the year before.

J.Crew had aimed to spin off its successful Madewell division as a public company and use the proceeds to pay down its debt. The company said Monday that Madewell will remain part of J.Crew Group Inc.

There were 193 J.Crew stores, 172 J.Crew Factory outlets and 132 Madewell locations as of Feb. 1.
STAMFORD  The Stamford-Norwalk Judicial Districts new top prosecutor said he wants to continue initiatives begun by his predecessor, and make the prosecutors office more efficient, transparent and accommodating to the public.

Paul Ferencek took his oath of office Friday morning, sworn in by Richard Colangelo, who Ferencek follows in the position and who recently was named chief states attorney.

One of 13 states attorneys in Connecticut, Ferencek, 59, now oversees more than 15 prosecutors and other Division of Criminal Justice staff assigned to the Superior Courts at Stamford and Norwalk.

I want to continue on with the initiatives put in place by Rich Colangelo, said Ferencek, who joined the Criminal Justice Division 32 years ago, and now becomes the chief law enforcement officer in the district that includes Stamford, Norwalk, Darien, Greenwich, New Canaan, Weston, Westport and Wilton. His salary will be $163,000.

Before being tapped to serve as Connecticuts chief states attorney earlier this year, Colangelo had run the Stamford-Norwalk District since 2015.

All of the candidates were superior and qualified, said Colangelo, who is also a member of the Criminal Justice Commission, which appointed Ferencek. Paul will do a great job expanding the initiatives we worked on when I was there and will be working on new initiatives that will benefit the district.

Stamfords presiding judge Gary White said Ferencek is an outstanding trial lawyer.

Paul has tried many serious felony cases in front of me during the 12 years Ive known him and hes always been knowledgeable about the law, professional in his conduct, and fair toward everyone involved in the trial process, White said. I also know that he did an excellent job supervising the Part A staff in Stamford over the years and Im confident he will continue to give helpful guidance and advice to the entire prosecutorial staff in the J.D. of Stamford in the years to come.

Ferencek joined the Stamford States Attorneys Office in 1998 and was promoted to senior assistant states attorney four years later. He became supervisor of the Part A division, where the most serious crimes are heard, in the Stamford office in 2017.

He has handled a number of high-profile cases during his tenure, including that of Norwalk resident Mary Ann Langley, who murdered her husband in December 2006 by dousing him with gasoline as revenge for his infidelity. He also prosecuted 77-year-old Gerardo Lombardi, getting a 40-year prison term for the Pemberwick resident for stabbing his former daughter-in-law a total of 49 times and shooting her three times in September 2008.

In 2016, Ferencek obtained a 16-year prison term for Stamford landlord Anthony Manousos for arson after he set his rental property on fire and injured a sleeping tenant in 2014. He also prosecuted Cesar Olivero for nearly hacking another mans hand off with a handsaw during a jealous rage in a Springdale apartment in 2015. Olivero was sentenced to 17 years behind bars.

The news of Ferenceks appointment was greeted warmly by the police and members of the defense bar.

Capt. Richard Conklin said he and others in the Stamford Police Department were very happy with the decision.

We have a lot of experience with him. He makes himself very accessible to us at all hours of the day and night when crimes happen and he often responds to homicides, heavy shootings and serious cases like that, said Conklin, who has worked in the Stamford office for 22 years. We have had many years of experience working with him and there is a certain trust and comfort level that has developed between us during that time.

Greenwich attorney Philip Russell said, Paul is well respected and has the experience and maturity this position demands. He earned a reputation as a skillful appellate lawyer before coming here. He is not afraid of going where the evidence takes him or trying difficult cases. In the jury trials where Ive opposed him I have found him to be tenacious but fair. I expect this community will be well served during Pauls term.

Defense attorney Eugene Riccio also praised Ferencek.

I think Paul has an excellent knowledge of criminal law in the state of Connecticut and Im sure he will be a credit to the States Attorneys office in Stamford, Riccio said. I think he brings a wealth of experience to the job, which will enable him to be fair and reasonable in handling criminal cases.

Julie Vanam, Deputy Chief Clerk who works in the criminal clerks office, said she has known Ferencek for 22 years  dating back to when he began working on Part B cases.

Even while working in Part B, attorney Ferencek soon developed a reputation for being one of the premiere attorneys in the prosecutors office, Vanam said. I know firsthand from speaking with judges, defense lawyers and courthouse staff that his reputation as a lawyer and prosecutor has always been of the highest order. I am confident that those who utilize the criminal courts in this jurisdiction, including criminal defendants, victims, the police and defense lawyers will be well served by his appointment.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
A former Secretary to the Imo State Government, Mr. Uche Onyeagucha last week disputed claims by the state governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma that his immediate predecessor, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha appropriated N800 million for the renovation of governors office.

Onyeagucha, also, faulted Uzodinmas claims that his administration increased the states internally generated revenue from N600 million to N1.2 billion within the period he assumed office.

He clarified these claims in a statement he issued last week in response to some issues Uzodinma raised in a state broadcast he addressed to mark his 100 days in office.

In a statement titled Uzodinma lied about his 100 days in office, former SSG said Uzodinmas allegation that Ihedioha administration appropriated N800m in the 2020 Budget for the renovation of the Governors Office is a sham and smacks of ignorance. There is no such subhead.

He noted that Uzodinmas assertion that he raised the states IGR from N600m to N1.2 billion amounted to brazen and flagrant misrepresentation of a well-documented income data of a state, unfitting of a governor.

According to him, the truth is that Ihedioha administration met the IGR at N250 million and scaled it up to N1.187 billion as at December 31, 2019. Ihedioha stated this articulately in his January 1 state broadcast that the IGR had risen to over N1 billion.

Again, Onyeagucha said Uzodinma lied to the people of Imo State by informing them that his administration tackled flooding challenge in Owerri.

He noted that a government that was inaugurated during the dry season like Uzodinmas regime cannot lay claim to grappling with flooding that is yet to manifest.

Ihedioha administration came into existence at the peak of the rainy season. The submerged nature of Owerri at that time forced him to take extensive steps towards confronting the situation, former SSG explained.

He said: Through ENTRACO, the state government desilted Owerri Municipal towards galvanizing the blocked drainage system and it yielded desired results. The government also mobilized relevant professionals who brought their expertise to bear in combating Owerri flooding.

He equally faulted Uzodinmas claim that he had revived ADAPALM and that it was producing 300,000 metric tonnes of oil daily saying this is not only deceptive but a figment of his imagination which speaks volumes of the character of the person at the helm of Imo affairs.

He narrated how the Ihedioha administration undertook a considerable percentage of the rehabilitation process. Production is yet to commence.

In the broadcast, Uzodinma stated that he inherited a sorry state of affairs on assumption of office on January 15. This is obsessive falsehood and inconsistent with comments credited to him on assumption of duty.

In his maiden broadcast, Uzodinma promised Imolites that he would continue with the governance structure, roadmap and foundation laid by Ihedioha government.

Consequently, former SSG noted that Uzodinma has been struggling to clone Ihedioha vision. In the same speech he used to commemorate his 100 days in office, he reiterated his tendency to continue with the 25 roads projects commenced by Ihedioha administration.

It is illogical to claim that he inherited a sorry state of affairs. Besides, it is on record that Ihedioha administration was appraised as the best overall performing state in ICT development by the National Council on Digital Economy.

It was also ranked as the fastest growing economy in Nigeria by Business Day Newspapers, a leading economic journal given the manner the administration revitalized and reformed all the key sectors of Imo economy within seven months.

Uzodinmas claim that he inherited an empty treasury is another fallacy and malice that must be addressed. Let him tell the good people of Imo how he was able to pay salary of workers in January and to offset other government expenses.

It is on record that within the seven months the Ihedioha administration lasted, the government never borrowed a kobo and yet it was able to undertake huge infrastructure development projects including the reconstruction and rehabilitation of 25 roads.

It is regrettable that in less than three months, the Uzodimma government has borrowed billions of naira without concrete achievements to showcase after 100 days, the former SSG explained.
The Odisha government on



Monday partially modified its earlier order and allowed plying of buses on both intra-district and inter-district routes in the green zone with restrictions, an official notification said.

The notification issued by Chief Secretary A K Tripathy said that buses will ply with passengers up to 50 per cent of their seating capacity. "They will ply exclusively within green zone without passing through the territory of any red zone or orange zone," it said.

The notification further said that plying of buses within green zone will be subject to fulfilling other statutory requirements such as route permit, registration certificate, fitness certification, pollution under control certification, insurance and others.

Earlier in the day, Odisha Commerce and Transport minister Padmanabha Behera had said that the department had submitted a proposal to the Chief Ministers Office seeking operation of bus service in the green zone. The state has about 15,000 passenger buses which are idle since the lockdown was imposed in the state on March 22.

Though the MHA guideline allows running of passenger buses in the green zone, the Odisha Bus Owners Association has expressed reluctance to run vehicles with 50 per cent capacity fearing losses, the minister said.

However, the minister said, the government has been considering some relaxation for the bus owners so that they will not sustain loss if they operate the vehicle with 50 per cent of their capacity.

He said now buses will run as usual in 16 districts where there is no impact of COVID-19 now.

Of the 30 districts of Odisha, 16 districts are in the green zone while 11 districts are under orange zone and three other districts - Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation have been categorized as red zone.

The districts which are in the green zone are Angul, Bargarh, Boudh, Sambalpur, Gajapati, Jagatsinghpur, Kandhamal, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Rayagada, Sonepur, Cuttack and Puri.

Similarly, districts like Khurda (except Bhubaneswar), Sundergarh, Kendrapara, Koraput, Keonjhar, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Bolangir, Dhenkanal, Kalahandi and Ganjam are under the orange zone.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
OPEC member Algeria has decided it would slash its budget for this year by 50 percent, due to the drastically lower income from oil after the price crash.

Algeria  which was already feeling a squeeze on foreign exchange reserves even before oil prices collapsed in early May due to the Saudi-Russian oil price war and the global demand crash in the pandemic  is now taking a drastic action to protect its finances this year.

The budget will be slashed by 50 percent in 2020, the office of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune office said in a statement carried by AFP.

Algeria currently pumps around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil. According to OPEC, the oil and gas industry is the backbone of the Algerian economy. Oil and gas represents 20 percent of the countrys gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 85 percent of all exports.

With oil prices so low, however, Algeria is suffering from lower budgetary income, like all major oil-producing countries. Algerian President Tebboune ruled out last week the possibility that the country could turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), noting that accumulating debt harms national sovereignty, as per AFP.

The budget reduction is the second since oil prices crashed in early March. During that month, Algeria had announced it would cut public spending by 30 percent.

The new shock to Algerias finances comes after years of protests, and it threatens to plunge the country into turmoil again, according to analysts and observers who spoke to Reuters last month.

Last week, the price of Algerias crude, Saharan Blend, slumped below the costs for its production, the North Africa Post reported. Officially, the production cost for Saharan Blend is estimated at around $14 a barrel, but an analyst told local media that the true cost of production is $20 per barrel, so a price for Saharan Blend below $20 would mean the country is selling its oil at a loss.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The first confirmed coronavirus infection in Yemen was identified in a 60-year-old man on Good Friday. No additional cases have been reported since then, but that can hardly be for lack of transmission, for its difficult to imagine a country more ill-equipped to fight COVID-19s spread. This small Middle Eastern nation has endured five years of violence, blockade, starvation, and epidemic, and its medical system was ravaged before the pandemic began. The United Nations considers Yemens condition the worlds worst humanitarian crisisand its a crisis to which our government contributes.

Located at the southern edge of Saudi Arabia and bordering the Red Sea, Yemen is thought to be the home of the biblical queen of Sheba, and perhaps only biblical language can adequately convey its confluence of miseries. The prophets mournful condemnations of violence and oppression all find expression in Yemen: The combatants feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their highways.The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths (Isa. 59:78, NRSV). Yemen illustrates all too well the way sin flows from sin (Ps. 7:1416) and how human and natural evil can conspire in our fallen world.

Yemen illustrates all too well the way sin flows from sin and how human and natural evil can conspire in our fallen world.

When Yemens civil war began in 2015, it was little noticed in the United States. Widely ignored too was the Obama administrations decision to support a coalition intervention led by Saudi Arabia to back the Yemeni government and oppose the Houthi rebels challenging its power. Then-President Barack Obama never obtained congressional authorization for US involvement in this war, as required by the Constitution, and President Donald Trump vetoed a bipartisan congressional resolution to end American involvement last year.

While neither administration permanently planted any significant number of US boots on the ground in Yemen, both backed the coalition even as it racked up credible accusations of war crimes. Washington sold the Saudi coalition weapons, including a bomb used in the Saudi school bus strike that killed 40 children. Our militarys intelligence sharing informed the coalitions air campaign as it bombed civilian targets like hospitals, schools, markets, refugee camps, weddings, funerals, food factories, and water treatment plants.

That damage to clean water sources fueled in Yemen the largest cholera outbreak on record in world history. Cholera is a waterborne disease in which diarrhea and vomiting cause catastrophic dehydration, and Yemeni cholera cases are estimated at more than 2 million in a population of 28 million. The same poor hygiene conditions that help cholera spread will spread COVID-19 too.

But the US-backed coalitions single most harmful tactic is its ongoing blockade of Yemens airports and seaports. Ostensibly intended to prevent the Houthis from obtaining weapons from Iran, it has produced famine conditions and severe shortages of medical supplies. Yemen is a desert nation that must import 90 percent of its food, so under siege, Yemen is starving. Photos of malnourished Yemeni children call to mind Holocaust victims. A Yemeni child of five years or younger dies of starvation and other preventable causes every 12 minutes.

Between war casualties, cholera, and starvation, Yemens medical system has long been overwhelmed. Only half its hospitals are functioning normally. Medicine and equipment are in short supply, and many doctors and nurses worked without pay until outside aid groups began to cover some salaries. There is no scenario in which Yemen can be prepared for the coronavirus. There is no scenario in which Yemeni COVID-19 patients will receive the care they need.

Article continues below

But there is a scenario in which the United States could stop adding to Yemens suffering: We could stop assisting the Saudi coalition. Politically, this should be an easy sell: It has bipartisan support in Congress and among Americans aware of the war. It would not jeopardize US securitythe Houthis have only local ambitions, and the power vacuum of civil war helps terrorist organizations rather than curbing them, most notably al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). (AQAP-linked fighters have even obtained American weapons and armored vehicles flowing into Yemen via coalition forces.)

US military withdrawal from Yemens conflict is no guarantor of peace. It will not rebuild hospitals or control epidemics. But it would make the coalition intervention impossible to continue, at least at its current scale. That could push Saudi Arabia and its allies to reach a peace deal or long-term ceasefire with the rebels after multiple failed negotiations. And it could well break the blockade, allowing in vital food and medical aid.

Open ports and a decline in violence in Yemen would give Christians an opportunity to serve the Yemeni people in ways that are now all but impossible. A NGO worker in Yemen told me few of the aid organizations that have managed to stay active in the country are affiliated with churches. That is partly because Yemen is a dangerous place for Christians, this worker emphasized. A mass shooting in 2016 included four nuns and a priest among its victims; international Christian aid workers were kidnapped and killed in 2009; and three Southern Baptist missionaries were martyred in Yemen in 2003. The Yemeni Christian population is extremely small and subject to persecution (conversion from Islam is prohibited). That likely wont change however the civil war concludes, as neither the Yemeni government nor the Houthi rebels respect religious freedom. Yemen needs spiritual care as much medical and economic aid.

In this pandemic and after, amid civil war and after, Yemen desperately needs the church. It needs Christians to imitate our God who will incline [his] ear to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed, so that those from earth may strike terror no more (Ps. 10:1718, NRSV). It needs us to embody Gods self-sacrificial care for the helpless. Yemen needs peace, and it needs our prayers.

Bonnie Kristian is a columnist at Christianity Today, a contributing editor at The Week, a fellow at Defense Priorities, and the author of A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (Hachette).
Airlines made progress toward bolstering their finances over the weekend, with Deutsche Lufthansa AG nearing a deal for state aid and Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA winning bondholders over to a debt-to-equity swap.

Lufthansa expects to finalize talks with the German government on an aid package soon, the company said in a letter to employees seen by Bloomberg. The governments of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium have together been looking at a rescue plan that could top 10 billion euros ($11 billion) in total.

Norwegian Airs agreement with bondholders, reached after some initially failed to support the plan, takes the airline one step closer to securing state loan guarantees needed to keep the struggling carrier afloat.

Such loan guarantees are crucial to getting through the crisis, Norwegian Air Chief Executive Officer Jacob Schram said in a statement on Sunday, ahead of a shareholder meeting Monday to vote on the overall proposal.

Governments have committed more than $85 billion to prop up airlines after the coronavirus pandemic wiped out travel demand and grounded jet fleets.

Heres a roundup of developments over the weekend:

Deutsche Lufthansa

The German group faces a substantial loss in revenue due to the worldwide grounding of most of its fleet. It owns so-called flag carriers in four countries after more than a decade of acquisitions, and is seeking their help with cash in danger of running low.

In the letter, CEO Carsten Spohr told employees that negotiations are an intense and constructive. Bloomberg News reported Friday that Germanys government had settled on a unified position that foresees the state owning at least 25% of the airline and taking a seat on the board, with the possibility of a silent participation for some of the holding.

Lufthansas Swiss unit will need to slash nearly 20% of costs, the director of Switzerlands Federal Finances Administration told newspaper SonntagsZeitung in an interview. The reduction is part of a business plan worked out when the airline secured 1.275 billion francs ($1.3 billion) in loan guarantees from the Swiss government.

Norwegian Air

The debt-for-equity exchange is part of a plan to meet terms set by Norway to give the airline access to a 3 billion-kroner ($290 million) package of loan guarantees. In earlier talks, Norwegian Air had failed to get the required two-thirds majority support from one of its four bondholder groups.

CEO Schram said his main priority now is to reach an agreement with the leasing companies that provide their planes. Norwegian has total debt of about $7.8 billion. Under the conversion plan, lessors would control the largest stake in Norwegian, with existing shareholders retaining about a 5% stake.

Korean Air

Korean Air Lines Co. will hold a board meeting this month to discuss a rights offering as large as one trillion won ($819 million) as part of a restructuring plan, Yonhap News reported. The airline will also consider a potential sale of assets including land to raise an additional 500 billion won, Yonhap said, citing unidentified industry sources.

Icelandair

Iceland may look at taking a stake in Icelandair Group hf if the government injects funds into the airline, Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir told local radio on Sunday. A possible loan is contingent on financial restructuring by the carrier, which is working toward a stock offering this month.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.

(This story has been published from a wire agency without modifications to the text)

Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter
The SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infects lung cells and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The viral spike protein mediates entry of the virus into host cells and harbors an unusual activation sequence. The Infection Biology Unit of the German Primate Center (DPZ) - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research has now shown that this sequence is cleaved by the cellular enzyme furin and that the cleavage is important for the infection of lung cells. These results define new starting points for therapy and vaccine research. In addition, they provide information on how coronaviruses from animals need to change in order to be able to spread in the human population (Molecular Cell).

The new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has been transmitted from animals to humans and is spreading worldwide. It causes the new lung disease COVID-19, which has already killed over 200,000 people. The spike protein on the virus surface serves as a key for the virus to enter host cells. It facilitates viral attachment to cells and fuses the viral with a cellular membrane, thereby allowing the virus to deliver its genome into the cell, which is essential for viral replication. For this, activation sequences of the spike protein need to be cleaved by cellular enzymes, called proteases. The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 carries an activation sequence at the so-called S1/S2 cleavage site, which is similar to those observed in highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, but which has so far not been found in viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2. The importance of this sequence for the virus was so far unknown.

In their current study, the infection biologists of the German Primate Center led by Markus Hoffmann and Stefan Pohlmann were able to show that the S1/S2 activation sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is cleaved by the cellular protease furin and that this cleavage event is essential for the infection of lung cells. It is also important for the fusion of infected cells with non-infected cells, which might allow the virus to spread in the body without leaving the host cell.

"Our results suggest that inhibition of furin should block the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the lung," says Stefan Pohlmann, head of the Infection Biology Unit at DPZ. "Furthermore, our present study and previous work demonstrate that the virus uses a two-step activation mechanism: In infected cells, the spike protein has to be cleaved by the protease furin so that newly formed viruses can then use the protease TMPRSS2 for further cleavage of the spike protein, which is important for the entry into lung cells."

Development of live attenuated vaccines

For a live attenuated vaccine to trigger a strong immune response, it has to be able to replicate in the body to a limited extent, for example locally at the site of injection. "SARS-CoV-2 variants, in which the activation sequence for furin has been removed, could be used as a basis for the development of such live attenuated vaccines, since the lack of cleavage of the spike protein should greatly limit the spread of the virus in the body. A sufficiently attenuated virus would no longer be able to cause disease, but would still enable the immune system to react to the pathogen and, for example, produce neutralizing antibodies," says Markus Hoffmann, first author of the study.

Risk assessment

In wildlife, especially bats, a large number of coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 has been discovered over the past 20 years. However, so far an S1/S2 activation sequence that can be cleaved by furin has only been detected in SARS-CoV-2. "Wildlife sampling and the targeted search for coronaviruses with a focus on the S1/S2 activation sequence is necessary to identify those viruses that have the potential to infect and efficiently spread in humans. In addition, in the case of potential future coronavirus outbreaks, we should specifically analyze the S1/S2 cleavage site as it might serve as a marker for human-to-human transmissibility," says Markus Hoffmann.

###

Contact and notes for editors

Prof. Dr. Stefan Pohlmann

Tel: +49 551 3851-150

Email: spoehlmann@dpz.eu

Dr. Markus Hoffmann

Tel: +49 551 3851 338

Email: mhoffmann@dpz.eu

Dr. Susanne Diederich (Communication)

Tel: +49 551 3851-359

Email: sdiederich@dpz.eu

Printable pictures are available here: http://medien.dpz.eu/pinaccess/pinaccess.do?pinCode=ziTJaTPqvgKo

You will also find the press release on our website (https://www.dpz.eu/en/news/press-releases.html). Please send us a reference copy or link in case of publication.

The German Primate Center GmbH (DPZ) - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research conducts biological and biomedical research on and with primates in the fields of infection research, neuroscience and primate biology. The DPZ also maintains four field stations in the tropics and is a reference and service center for all aspects of primate research. The DPZ is one of the 96 research and infrastructure facilities of the Leibniz Association.
Amanda Calzada, a Chicago teacher who received a DonorsChoose Keep Kids Learning grant as part of a donation from Google.org Day in and day out teachers work tirelessly to provide their students with a high quality education and COVID-19 has only made that harder.

To kick-off Teacher Appreciation Week, DonorsChoose announced today that Google, as part of their broader celebration of teachers, has made a $2 million Google.org grant to the Keep Kids Learning program, an effort to support public school teachers and students as they continue learning from home during nationwide coronavirus-related school closures. The program provides funding credits that teachers can redeem for educational resources including books, basic supplies, art supplies, educational games and kits, and groceries for students who rely on school to provide meals. With this support, thousands of teachers will be able to have these resources shipped directly to students homes while schools remain closed.

"Day in and day out teachers work tirelessly to provide their students with a high quality education and COVID-19 has only made that harder, said Jacquelline Fuller VP, Google and President of Google.org. As longtime supporters of DonorsChoose, we are excited to contribute to their Keep Kids Learning campaign which honors the wisdom of teachers to know exactly what is needed by their students while out of school. This grant is part of our broader $10M Google.org Distance Learning fund which aims to help teachers and parents access resources to provide learning opportunities to children, particularly those from underserved communities during this crisis."

Over 4,000 public school teachers responded to a DonorsChoose survey in early March, in which 97 percent of teachers expected that coronavirus-related school closures would negatively impact students learning this school year. Teachers estimated that 68 percent of their students did not have the proper resources to continue learning from home. To date, over 5,000 teachers have received funding through the Keep Kids Learning program.

Like so many essential workers across the country, teachers are facing unprecedented challenges in providing instruction for their students, as well as the love and emotional support kids need to feel happy and safe, said Charles Best, founder of DonorsChoose. Were so grateful to Google.org for helping us celebrate the start of Teacher Appreciation Week with such generous support for our teacher community and the Keep Kids Learning program.

Amanda Calzada, a kindergarten teacher from Chicago who also serves as a teacher representative to the DonorsChoose Board of Directors, was one of the teachers to receive a Keep Kids Learning grant backed by Google.org. With my Keep Kids Learning grant, I was able to send my students pencils, crayons, picture books, watercolor paints, playdough, and educational games. I am incredibly grateful to Google.org for this support because this means my students will have the tools they need to make learning at home an engaging, effective, and exciting experience.

To support a teacher this Teacher Appreciation Week, please visit http://www.donorschoose.org. Learn more about the DonorsChoose response to coronavirus-related school closures at http://www.donorschoose.org/coronavirus-how-to-help.

ABOUT GOOGLE.ORG

Google.org, Google's philanthropy, supports nonprofits that address humanitarian issues and apply scalable, data-driven innovation to solving the world's biggest challenges. We accelerate their progress by connecting them with a unique blend of support that includes funding, products, and technical expertise from Google volunteers. We engage with these believers-turned-doers who make a significant impact on the communities they represent, and whose work has the potential to produce meaningful change. We want a world that works for everyoneand we believe technology and innovation can move the needle.

ABOUT DONORSCHOOSE

DonorsChoose is the leading way to give to public schools. Since 2000, more than 4.2 million people and partners have contributed $950 million to support 1.6 million teacher requests for classroom resources and experiences. As the most trusted crowdfunding platform for teachers, donors, and district administrators alike, DonorsChoose vets each request, ships the funded resources directly to the classroom, and provides thank yous and reporting to donors and school leaders. Charity Navigator and GuideStar have awarded DonorsChoose, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, their highest ratings for transparency and accountability. For more information, visit http://www.donorschoose.org.
President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on May 3, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Trump Says Some States Arent Going Fast Enough to Lift Lockdowns

'We have to get it back open safely but as quickly as possible,' the president said

President Donald Trump said Sunday that while it is normal for some states to ease restrictions more slowly than others, he believes some are moving too slowly to reopen their economies.

Certain states are going to have to take a little more time in getting open, and theyre doing that, Trump said at a virtual town hall televised by Fox News on Sunday.

Some states, I think, frankly, arent going fast enough, he added, before singling out Virginia Governor Ralph Northam for extending his stay-at-home order to mid-June.

You have some states that, Virginia, they want to close down until the middle of June, Trump said. I really believe that you can go to parks, you can go to beaches  And I really think the public has been incredible. Thats one of the reasons we are successful.

President Donald Trump speaks with news anchor Bret Baier during a Virtual Town Hall inside of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on May 3, 2020. (Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images)

Seeking to spur an economic recovery without risking lives, Trump said that you can satisfy bothgradually lift lockdowns while also protecting people from the pandemic. As of Monday, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, the novel coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 and that emerged from China late last year, has killed tens of thousands of Americans.

At the town hall, Trump gave a revised estimate for the countrys overall COVID-19 death count.

Were going to lose anywhere from 75, 80, to 100,000 people, he said. Thats a horrible thing. We shouldnt lose one person over this.

Acknowledging valid fears on both sides of the issue, with some people worried about getting sick or dying while others devastated by lost jobs or bankrupt businesses, Trump said, We have to get it back open safely but as quickly as possible.

Republican National Committee Deputy Communications Director Cassie Smedile reacted to Trump singling out some states for failing to reopen sufficiently quickly.

The president made a very good point last night when he said that this has to be a balancing act, she said during an appearance on Fox News. The first priority is always going to be the health and well-being of Americans. But part of that is economic well-being.

Responding to a question about whether it is a reasonable goal for lockdowns to continue until there are practically no more deaths from COVID-19, Smedile said absolutely not.

Echoing Trumps earlier remarks that America wasnt built to stay inactive economically, she added, we are a country that wants to work.

Meanwhile, a top public health official cautioned last week that some states may seek to exit lockdowns too quickly.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on April 30 that states that arent able to do contact tracing should proceed to reopen very slowly.

Contact tracing is the practice of identifying everyone who came into contact during a set period of time with a person who tests newly positive for COVID-19.

You cant just leap over things and get into a situation where youre really tempting a rebound, he said. Thats the thing I get concerned about. I hope they dont do that.
Mumbai, May 4 : Actress Vidya Balan says?vncalthough people depend on a lot of things, the coronavirus lockdown has made her understand that there's nothing she can't live without and that she can be self-reliant.

"During these trying times, I have realised that I can be self-reliant. Though we depend on a lot of things generally, I have understood that there's nothing I can't live without. While I know this is an extremely challenging phase, I feel blessed and grateful for everything I have. This is the time to count our blessings," she said.

Talking about how she is contributing in these times in her own way, she shared: "Each one of us can do our bit for society to help overcome the pandemic. I have contributed to CINTAA who are raising funds for out of work actors and other technicians. I am also associated with the non-profit organisation, Roti Bank, who are providing food to homeless, migrant and daily wage workers. We are also raising funds to provide PPEs for medical staff and have raised 5500 kits in just two days. Currently these are the causes I am most passionate about."

On how she is keeping herself busy, the actress said: "I look forward to doing something new every day. I watch a lot of news to keep myself aware and informed. In these testing times, there is a lot of positive news as well that gives us all a ray of hope. I am exploring my love for cooking and doing other household chores, it keeps me occupied and I am far away from boredom." Vidya recently shared her views on the ongoing lockdown during "Onward and Upward - The Big FM Morning Show - Lockdown series".

Latest updates on Lockdown diaries

-- Syndicated from IANS
Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

States are beginning to gradually reopen their economies in line with President Trumps recent guidance. Thats terrific news  and not just for American pocketbooks.

As states evaluate when and how to reopen their economies, some governors may be reticent to reopen because they believe the narrative that this is a question of lives versus money. One New York Times column went so far as to imply that those who want to reopen the economy view people as disposable. By keeping businesses closed, goes the narrative, states can protect the lives of its citizens. And that is understandable to a point. But the longer the shutdowns last, the more it becomes a matter of lives versus lives.

Every life is precious, which is why the organization I represent works hard to protect all life from conception to natural death. As a society, we must do all we can to save each individual who is sickened by this virus. Further, it is important and right that we take reasonable steps to limit the spread to others, especially the most vulnerable among us.

Indeed, we should be grateful to live in a country where life  at least after one is born  is mostly valued. And we can be thankful that, unlike many impoverished nations, we have the resources to briefly pause our economy without immediate, catastrophic consequences.

But as some leaders, including a health advisor to Democrat nominee Joe Biden, openly discuss a need for shutdowns that could last 18 months or more, some serious disconnects are coming into focus.

The original justification for the shutdown was simply to flatten the curve so as not to overwhelm our health system. But now, some seem to be moving the goalposts  saying that as long as people are dying from the virus, it would be irresponsible to reopen the economy.

That viewpoint has two major flaws. First, it implies that Americans should aspire to live lives without risk. That is not an American ideal nor a Judeo-Christian ethic, and its not the way any average American lives. Controlling major risks in the heart of coronavirus hotspots is one thing; keeping an economy closed even in areas where viral impact is minimal is quite another.

Second, the shutdowns themselves are already putting lives at risk, and the longer they go, the worse it will get. Already, economists have projected unemployment as high as 32 percent  just from the current shutdowns. To put that in perspective, the peak unemployment rate during the Great Depression was 24.9 percent. Its no wonder that calls to some suicide and mental health hotlines have already skyrocketed  25,000 per week in Indiana alone, a 25-fold increase.

Continuing the shutdowns any longer than necessary threatens to bring the American economy to its knees. The cost in lives, suffering and mental anguish would be unknown to any recent generation of American families.

Thats why the outlook for states pursuing an imminent and responsible reopening of the American economy is good news indeed for the life of our nation.
Representational picture

Health experts have warned of the possibility that scientists may not be able to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at all, reported Hindustan Times.

There are some viruses that we still do not have vaccines against, Dr David Nabarro, a professor of global health at Imperial College London, was quoted as saying by CNN on May 3.

We cant make an absolute assumption that a vaccine will appear at all, or if it does appear, whether it will pass all the tests of efficacy and safety, Nabarro, who also serves as a special envoy to the World Health Organization (WHO) on COVID-19, said.

Over 100 vaccines are currently under pre-clinical trials and a couple of those have entered the human trial stage  at Oxford University in England made from a chimpanzee virus and in the US for a different vaccine produced by Moderna.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Anthony Fauci is among those who say a vaccine will come along in a year to 18 months, while others have said it may take longer than that.

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

Most experts are confident that a COVID-19 vaccine will eventually be developed because unlike previous diseases like HIV and malaria, the coronavirus does not mutate rapidly.

Nabarro, however, pointed out the process of developing a vaccine is slow and painful. You have high hopes, and then your hopes are dashed. Were dealing with biological systems, were not dealing with mechanical systems. It really depends so much on how the body reacts, Nabarro said.

Weve never accelerated a vaccine in a year to 18 months. It doesnt mean its impossible, but it will be quite a heroic achievement. We need plan A, and a plan B, Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston said.

A vaccine candidate for COVID-19 has been identified by researchers at the Oxford Vaccine Group and Oxfords Jenner Institute. The potential upcoming vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is based on an adenovirus vaccine vector and the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

According to WHO, from a total of 102 candidate vaccines in the race, eight leading vaccines are in the human testing phase. Experts have said hydroxychloroquine, touted as a potential game-changer by US President Donald Trump, has been found not to work on very sick patients. Till then, Nabarro said preparing ourselves will be an option till a vaccine against COVID-19 is developed.
People across the globe have their own varied opinions about Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Some people marvel at the modern couple who took a stance and decided royal life wasnt for them. Others have more complicated opinions about the Sussexes. Still, there seems to be one thing we can all agree on. Meghan and Harry were certainly something to look at.

From their glamourous coordinated wardrobes to the affectionate way they interact with one another, it was clear from the moment they announced their relationship and engagement that they are deeply besotted with each other.

Though their time within the British royal family was rather brief, the photographs that were taken of them will withstand the test of time. In fact, one particular photo during one of their final days as royals is beloved by the couple.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys lives will always be on display

Though they will no longer be members of the royal rota, the Sussexes lives will still be very much on display. Following Megxit, the pair have landed in Meghans hometown, Los Angeles, California. Unfortunately, they wont be able to hide from the overzealous paparazzi. Though royal life wasnt for them, their status did prevent unflattering photos from being published. They wont be given such grace in LA.

In fact, it appears that Prince Harry is already feeling a bit lost in his new life. He cannot believe how his life has been turned upside down, an insider told Daily Mail. Harry has told friends he is really missing the Army as well as his military appointments.

Some people are even concerned that Harry is regretting Megxit. Either way, the pair certainly have some stunning memories.

Inside Prince Harry and Meghan Markles picture-perfect rain photo

One of the most stunning photos of the Sussexes was taken during their final royal engagements in early March 2020. Snapped by Samir Hussein, a longtime Getty photographer who often covers the royal family, the photo captured the couple sharing an umbrella and looking absolutely in love.

It was pouring down with rain, which can be very tricky when shooting flash photography, Hussein told Vogue. [It] also meant Harry and Meghan would be under an umbrella, which usually means its hard to get clean photos of the couple. Little did I know these elements would come together so spectacularly to produce a timeless image. I knew that if that light could be lined up to be right behind as they walked, then it could create a dramatic photo, acting like a backlight in a studio shot. I managed to maneuver myself to line up the flash behind them and then had to work quickly, with just a second or two to get the shot as they smiled wonderfully at each other. Its a one in a million, when all the elements you could wish for as a photographer come togetherperfect timing, great lighting, strong symbolism, and amazing subjects.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry adore the rain photo

Like many of us, the Sussexes were left breathless by the rain photo. The picture that I took of Harry and Meghan in the rain recently, Ive never had a reaction to a picture like that one, Hussein told Us Weekly. In terms of the reaction Ive had from people, thats got to be the most iconic from that point of view. I spoke to some of their team and they were really happy about it and talking about it.

When Meghan and Harry settle into their permanent home, they need to make sure this photo is displayed prominently.
An opposition lawmaker from Portuguesa, Venezuela, stated that at least 46 people have died in a riot at the Los Llanos Penitentiary. According to the National Assembly representative for Portuguesa, Maria Beatriz Martinez, dozens of other inmates were injured in the riot that began during an alleged escape attempt.

Martinez said that a grenade exploded during the attempted escape, causing injuries to numerous inmates and one officer. Carlos Toro, the prison's director, is one of the injured individuals during the riot according to the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, a non- governmental organization that works to improve human rights for prisoners in the country.

Martinez tweeted that the riot at the Los Llanos Penitentiary is a reflection of Venezuela's failed state. She also criticized Iris Varela, the Minister of Penitentiary Affairs in Venezuela, for the prison human reform plan. The Ministry of Penitentiary Affairs and Ministry of Information has yet to comment on the incident.

Riots in prisons

There has been an increase of riot cases in prisons of Latin America, not to mention that most of the prisons are unsanitary and overcrowded which is a problem for the government especially since all are introducing containment measures in order to help slow the spread of coronavirus.

Quarantine measures were also implemented, which means that inmates can't receive food brought by relatives and they can't be visited yet either. The observatory stated that 46 inmates had died and the local hospital's emergency department was flooded with dozens of patients which overwhelmed the system.

Also Read: South Korea's 'Reinfected' COVID-19 Patients May Have Been Results of Faulty Test Kits

Martinez also tweeted that the incident was a massacre and the relatives of the victims understood that their loved ones need to be buried in mass graves. The relatives are demanding the bodies to be returned to them.

Aside from the riots, gang violence, and the coronavirus pandemic, Venezuela is engulfed in a political crisis with two rival politicians who are claiming to be the country's legitimate leader. Under the rule of President Nicolas Maduro, the economy of Venezuela has collapsed and there were shortages of basic commodities that became widespread. Millions of people have fled to neighboring countries, including the U.S.

Venezuela was once a wealthy oil nation that is now gripped by the political and economic crisis. Street violence in the country is common and has had around 5 million residents escape in the past few years as the quality of public services decline. There are 30 prisons and 500 jails in Venezuela and all can hold around 110,000 inmates. Human rights officials say that the prisons are violent and are overcrowded. Gangs that traffic deadly weapons and drugs are in control of the operations.

According to the Venezuelan Prison Observatory, a human rights group, there are prisons that can hold 750 inmates but are currently holding 2,500 inmates. A year ago, a similar riot happened in a nearby jail in the state of Portuguese, where 29 inmates died at a police jail that has hundreds of detainees.

Coronavirus update in Venezuela

With the coronavirus pandemic, it is becoming more and more difficult for Venezuelan prisons to practice social distancing and proper hygiene. The country has a total of 357 reported cases of coronavirus in the country, with 10 confirmed deaths.

Related Article: Gunshot Exchange in DMZ Between North and South Korea: Accidental or Intentional?

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Hot Girl Summer rapper Megan Thee Stallion cried so hard she had call her grandma after hearing 24-time Grammy winner Beyonce Knowles-Carter's remix of her new song, Savage.

'I knew the song was coming out. But, it was still like "Is it really gonna drop? Are we doing this for real for real?"' the 25-year-old twerk queen recalled to Apple Music host Ebro Darden last Friday.

'And I mean I cried, like, I had to call my grandma.'

'I had to call my grandma!' Hot Girl Summer rapper Megan Thee Stallion (L) cried so hard after hearing 24-time Grammy winner Beyonce Knowles-Carter's (R) remix of her new song, Savage

'OMG!' The 25-year-old twerk queen marveled on Monday as her TikTok hit from March managed to score the No. 4 spot on the Billboard Hot 100

Megan marveled on Monday as her TikTok hit from March managed to score the No. 4 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, and all the proceeds benefit Houston COVID-19 charity, Bread of Life.

Stallion (born Pete) also shed tears the first time she met the 38-year-old R&B diva, as well as her eight-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter, at their lavish home on New Year's Eve.

'Oh my god we really danced, like, all night. I was really in there cutting up. I was like "Wow, Beyonce accepts my turn up she likes ratchet Megs" and I love it,' the hip-hop star remembered.

'I really can't believe it, because being from Houston Beyonce is just Queen. That's all you know. There's no debate, there's nothing else to say - who's better than Beyonce?'

'Nobody knew I was working on the song': All the proceeds of the sales of Megan's Savage remix benefit Houston COVID-19 charity, Bread of Life

'We really danced all night!' Stallion also shed tears the first time she met the 38-year-old R&B diva, as well as her eight-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter (L), at their lavish home on New Year's Eve (pictured December 31)

The hip-hop star told Apple Music host Ebro Darden last Friday: 'I really can't believe it, because being from Houston Beyonce is just Queen. That's all you know. There's no debate, there's nothing else to say - who's better than Beyonce?'

The Texas Southern University student was already acquainted with the Destiny's Child alum's husband Jay-Z since she's managed by his company RocNation.

'I talked to [Beyonce] after the song came out. She was just super supportive. Every time I see her she's always like telling me, "Keep going, keep going hard, you really got it. Do you,"' Megan gushed.

'Nobody knew I was working on the song, nobody knew we was working on the song. I didn't tell my best friend, I didn't tell nobody on my team. I didn't tell anybody.'

'She was just super supportive': The Texas Southern University student was already acquainted with the Destiny's Child alum's husband Jay-Z since she's managed by his company RocNation

RIP: Last Saturday, Queen Bey paid tribute to Megan's late mother Holly Thomas - who died in March 2019 after battling brain cancer - by posting a mother-daughter snap on her website

Last Saturday, Queen Bey paid tribute to Stallion's late mother Holly Thomas - who died in March 2019 after battling brain cancer - by posting a mother-daughter snap on her website.

Speaking of which, Knowles-Carter teamed up with her mother Tina Knowles-Lawson on her #IDIDMYPART campaign providing testing and supplies to Houston citizens affected by the coronavirus.

The Homecoming star also donated $6M to BeyGOOD, her newly-launched relief fund for those suffering from the fast-spreading respiratory illness, which has claimed 876 Texan lives as of Monday.

Speaking of which! Knowles-Carter teamed up with her mother Tina Knowles-Lawson on her #IDIDMYPART campaign providing testing and supplies to Houston citizens affected by the coronavirus
- The airplane was flying from Ethiopia to a Somalia town named Baidoa when it was shot down by a rocket propeller

- Two pilots and four passengers who were in the plane all died on the spot

- The crash was confirmed by Southwestern Minister for Transport Hassan Hussein Mohamed who said two of the passengers who perished in the crash are Somalis

A Somali-owned Kenyan airline has crashed in Somalia, killing all six people on board, TUKO.co.ke can authoritatively report.

The plane which is operated by East African Express Airways crashed nears Bardale Town, Somalia on Monday, May 4, evening.

READ ALSO: Comedian Owago Nyiro disclose he was forced to ditch comedy, hawk fish as COVID-19 bites

READ ALSO: Sauti Sol's Poycarp's wife announces first pregnancy with stunning baby bump photo

According to Somali media outlet Baidoa Online, the plane which had on board six four pasengers and two pilots was shot down by unknown people.

Reports from Somalia indicate the cargo plane was hit by a rocket propeller.

The crash was confirmed by Southwestern Minister for Transport Hassan Hussein Mohamed who said bodies of the victims were recovered at the crash site.

The minister confirmed two of the passengers who perished in the crash are Somalis.

TUKO.co.ke has learnt the ill-fated aircraft had just left Mogadishu heading to Baidoa before crashing at Bardale town.

READ ALSO: Senator Stewart Madzayo becomes first politician to defend Kilifi DG Saburi after his COVID-19 case

READ ALSO: Wataalamu wanasema kuna hatari kubwa katika kulala sana, jihadhari hasa kipindi hiki cha coronavirus

According to further reports the airplane which was from Ethiopia was on its way to distribute medical supplies and other equipment in Baidoa.

News about the crash angered a cross section of Kenyans who condemned Somalia for allowing such attrocities on its land.

It should be noted this is not the first time a plane with ties to Kenya crashed in Somalia.

In 2014, a military plane crashed in Somalia in what officials termed as a crash due to technical problems.

However, Somali rebels countered the claims holding they had shot it down with a misile.

The warplane, which had been on a combat mission, came down in the area of the southern port city of Kismayu, where Kenyan troops had been deployed as part of an African Union peacekeeping force battling the Islamist rebel group al Shabaab.

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 iinstantly.

Mulamwah and his girlfriend speak out for the first time after he quit comedy | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Dhaka, May 4 : Authorities in Bangladesh have said that they sent over two dozen Rohingya refugees to an uninhabited remote island after they entered the country in small boats following weeks at the sea.

"Some Rohingya entered in our Teknaf area in small boats. Our villagers detained some of them and informed the coast guard while some others fled. The coast guard took them to Bhasan Char last night," Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told Efe news on Sunday.

The Minister could not provide the number of Rohingya ferried to the island, but a Coast Guard official, preferring to remain unnamed, said the group comprised 29 refugees.

The refugees are believed to be part of a group of 500 women, men, and children, who were stranded in the sea after Malaysian authorities refused to take them in.

The two trawlers were headed towards Bangladesh a week after an earlier vessel carrying nearly 400 Rohingya refugees arrived there on April 15.

The next day, Bangladesh authorities rescued 396 Rohingya who were trying to enter the country in a boat from the southern coast, after 58 days at sea.

Bangladesh said it would not accept any more Rohingya as its priority was now to protect the refugee camp area from the spread of coronavirus.

"We don't want the virus to spread in the refugee camp. We are afraid if somehow coronavirus reaches in the camp, it will spread quickly," said the Minister, adding that the newly-arrived Rohingya will stay in the island until their return to Myanmar.

The island, also known as Thengar Char, emerged from the sea about a decade ago. It covers an area of about 40 square kilometres.

It is accessible through motorboats only and is usually hit by monsoon floods.

Bangladesh undertook a project in November 2017 to develop the island under the responsibility of its navy and claimed to have built 1,440 housing structures, which can shelter some 100,000 people.

However, the plan to relocate the Rohingya to the island was halted in February amid criticisms from rights groups, who asked the authorities not to replace one humanitarian crisis with another.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in March offered the facilities to the country's poor, who wished to stay away from the coronavirus pandemic but an official in charge of any possible relocation said they received only one application for this.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 04:21:37|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BAGHDAD, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Four Islamic State (IS) militants and two security members were killed on Sunday in separate attacks in Iraq, security sources said.

Acting on intelligence reports, the army's helicopter gunships chased a vehicle of IS militants and bombed it after spotting it in the mountainous area of Himreen in the northern part of Salahudin province, Khalil al-Bazi from Salahudin provincial police told Xinhua.

The bombardment resulted in the destruction of the vehicle and the killing of four IS militants aboard, al-Bazi said.

In the eastern province of Diyala, one paramilitary tribal fighter, affiliated with Hashd Shaabi brigades, was killed and four others wounded in an attack by IS militants on a checkpoint manned by the Sunni tribal fighters in Edheim area in the northern part of Diyala, Alaa al-Saadi from the provincial police told Xinhua.

In a separate attack, a soldier was gunned down when IS militants opened fire on a military base near the town of Qara-Tappa, some 175 km northeast the Iraqi capital Baghdad, al-Saadi added.

Despite repeated military operations against the IS remnants, IS militants are still hiding in deserts, rugged areas as well as in Himreen mountain range which extends in the provinces of Diyala, Salahudin and Kirkuk. They are capable of carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Enditem
Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi on Monday (May 4) slammed the Centre for charging train fare from thousands of migrant workers who are returning home due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

Sonia said in a statement that workers and labourers are the ambassadors of India's growth and why they can't be extended " a fraction of the same courtesy" as the ones who were brought back from abroad.

"Our workers and labourers form the backbone of our economy. Their hard work and sacrifice are the foundation of our nation. As the Central Government barely gave a four-hour notice of the lockdown, workers and migrant labourers were denied the opportunity to return to their homes. Post the partition of 1947, this is the first time India witnessed a tragedy with such a massive human cost as thousands of migrant workers and labourers were forced to walk home several hundred kilometres on foot- without food, without medicines, without money, without transportation, without anything except for the desire to return to their families and loved ones. The very thought of their plight is enough to break our hearts as there was also the outpouring of support from fellow Indians for their inspiring resolve," the Conress interim president said in a statement.

"But what is the responsibility of our Government? Even today, lakhs of workers and migrant labourers are languishing in different parts of the country and wish to return to their homes and families but there is neither adequate money nor provision for free transport. What is particularly disturbing is that the Central Government and the Rail Ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis," she added.

Sonia Gandhi also announced that every Pradesh Congress Committee shall bear the cost for the rail travel of every migrant labourer if the government fails to provide support to them. "This will be the Indian National Congress humble contribution in service of our compatriots and to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them," she noted.
More than 500 migrant workers from



other states gathered in Warje area of Pune in Maharashtra on Monday, forcing the police to use mild force to disperse the crowd, an officer said.

He blamed the sudden gathering to the misunderstanding among workers that police had opened a counter to fill online forms which are mandatory to facilitate their return to home states.

"Workers generally gather at a specific location, 'majur adda', under the flyover in Warje area from where they get hired," the Warje police station officer said.

Explaining the sequence of events, he said police had put up boards informing about online links available to fill forms for the convenience of labourers.

A police checkpost is located adjacent to the boards which was occupied by some police personnel on duty, he said.

"Some labourers staying in a shelter home thought that police have opened a counter under the flyover (to fill the forms) and started thronging the spot in afternoon," the officer said.

He said at least 500 people gathered at the spot even as police personnel struggled to clear the confusion.

"We explained to them that it was a not a kiosk for filling forms but they were not ready to go away, which forced us to use mild force on them," the officer said.

Police have now installed four computers at the shelter home and the work to fill the forms is going on, he said, adding that most of the workers hailed from Uttar Pradesh.

The Railways has been running special trains from Maharashtra and other states to Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha to ferry migrant workers, students and tourists who are stranded amidst the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

As per the directives of the Maharashtra government, such workers have to fill online forms and get medical fitness certificate before they can be allowed to go home through trains or private buses.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Alabama Legislature meets today after a shutdown of almost eight weeks caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Lawmakers say the main goals will be to pass state budgets for next year. The pared down agenda includes other bills. Today, the Senate could consider a $1.25 bond issue for capital projects for schools and colleges.

Democratic members of the House of Representatives wont participate in the restart of the session today, House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels of Huntsville announced last week. Daniels said its a mistake to pass budgets now because of uncertainty over how deeply the COVID-19 pandemic will cut into tax revenues. The budgets take effect Oct. 1.

Gov Kay Ivey said she was surprised the Legislature was not waiting to know more about revenues before passing budgets. The state income tax deadline was delayed until July 15 because of the pandemic. About 420,000 Alabamians have filed for unemployment since mid-March.

Republicans hold 77 of the 105 House seats and can conduct business without the Democrats.

Republican leaders have said they know enough about revenue projections to pass budgets for next year and could adjust them, if needed, during a special session this summer.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton said Senate Democrats would take part in the restart of the session, although Singleton said he respected the decisions of any members who decide not to come.

The Alabama State House will be much different than normal for legislative meeting days because of the pandemic. Spacing requirements mean that only about 53 House members can be seated in the chamber. Most of the rest will sit in the gallery overlooking the chamber.

Access for the public and for lobbyists is limited to appointments.

Debate in the House and Senate chambers will be live-streamed on the Legislatures website and on Alabama Public Television, as will committee meetings.

Sixty of the 105 House members answered roll today. They included at least one Democrat, Rep. Rod Scott of Fairfield.
While focus of security agencies in recent years has remained on curbing home-grown militancy in southern Kashmir, Army is suffering more casualties in northern frontier Kupwara district where more battle-hardened Pakistani militants are ready to revive terror-network in the woods.

Infested with heavily-armed foreign terrorists from 1993-2003, Kupwara was known as Gateway of Militancy as most of the militants infiltrated through this district in 1990s. Such was the dominance of militants in 1990s in Kupwara that the Rajwar area in the district was called as Chhota Pakistan, while militants code-name for the picturesque Lolab valley was University.

It took the Army and J&K Police more than ten years to decimate the terror infrastructure and wrest control of the whole Kupwara and by 2005 the district was relatively peaceful. In the last decade the focus of security forces remained more on south Kashmirs Tral, Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama areas as home-grown militancy became a new challenge.

However, the killing of Commanding Officer of Rashtriya Rifles (RR) 21st battalion Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood, two soldiers and a sub inspector of J&K Police in Rajwar belt of Kupwara on Saturday comes after a long period of calm, and is eerily reminiscent of the years between 1993-2005. Earlier in the first week of April, five commandos of Armys elite Para battalion were killed while foiling an infiltration bid in the same district.

In August 2000, Brigadier B S Shergill, Commander of Drugmulla-based 7 Sector and Col Rajender Chauhan Commanding Officer of the same 21-RR, which Col Shamra belonged, were killed in ambush by militants some kilometers away from Saturdays gunfight site.

From early 90s onwards till early 2000's, hordes of battle-hardened militants from Pakistan and Afghanistan had turned the Rajwar belt into a sort of liberated zone. They had set up bases, including concrete bunkers at some places. Sporting combat jackets and with light machine guns and rocket launchers on their shoulders, they reportedly would stop buses and even check photo-identity cards of passengers on the Handwara-Zachaldara-Wudar road.

Pakistan spy agency ISI and its army want to revive that deadly phase of militancy in Kupwara so that it could act as a nerve center of terrorism in Kashmir. With this intention, in recent weeks, Pakistan army increased shelling and firing along the LoC to push in militants into the Valley from four launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kupwara, sources told DH.

They said the newly infiltrated militants were not only more trained and more motivated but can carry sophisticated weapons to inflict more damage on security forces.

However, a senior army officer said its a small group of militants which is under their scanner. Setbacks do come alongside gallantry. Well wipe them out soon and nobody would be allowed to terrorise people again like the 1990's, he asserted.
Cox's Bazaar: Rohingya refugee Shahab Uddin thought the wooden trawler he boarded in February would be his ticket out of a camp in Bangladesh to a better life in Malaysia. Instead, the voyage nearly killed him.

The 20-year-old was among almost 400 survivors pulled from the water, starving, emaciated and traumatized after the boat failed to reach Malaysia and spent weeks adrift before returning to Bangladesh in mid-April.

Hundreds more refugees are stranded on at least two other trawlers, rights groups say, as Southeast Asian governments tighten borders to keep out the new coronavirus, threatening a repeat of a 2015 boat crisis when hundreds of people died.

The United Nations has implored authorities to let the boats land, but anti-refugee sentiment is surging in Malaysia and governments say borders are sealed to keep out the coronavirus.

In interviews with Reuters, seven survivors from the rescued boat recalled two harrowing months. Estimates of the number of people who died on the boat ranged from several dozen to more than 100 - nobody kept count - but their accounts were consistent.

The survivors described hundreds of men, women, and children crammed on the boat, unable to move, squatting in rain and scorching sun until, as food and water ran out, they began to die of starvation, thirst, and beatings, their bodies tossed overboard. Some wept as they spoke. I thought I would not come back home alive, said Uddin. I missed my family, especially my parents.

The group Fortify Rights said in a statement last week the operators of the boat held their victims in conditions similar to slavery for the purposes of exploitation. Reuters was unable to identify or contact the crew for comment.

Amnesty International urged governments to protect stranded Rohingya and allow them to land. It estimated 800 more people were at sea. Several dozen people from one boat landed on the south coast of Bangladesh on Saturday.

Malaysia defends its policy of turning boats away. Authorities have acted lawfully to defend the countrys sovereignty and are ready to do so again, its minister for internal affairs said in a statement on Thursday.

More than a million Rohingya, members of a Muslim minority from Myanmar, live in camps in southern Bangladesh after fleeing from largely Buddhist Myanmars Rakhine State. Most fled an army crackdown in 2017 that the United Nations says was carried out with genocidal intent. Myanmar denies genocide and says it was responding to insurgent attacks.

'Better off in Malaysia'

Although the Rohingya people trace their ancestry in Rakhine back centuries, Myanmar says they are illegal immigrants from South Asia.

For years, Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladesh have fled by boat for Thailand and Malaysia when the seas are calm between October and April. Hundreds died in 2015 after a crackdown in Thailand led smugglers to abandon their human cargo at sea.

In Bangladesh, Uddin made a little money driving motorized tuk-tuks but said refugees were becoming more confined.

The government restricts internet and cell phone access and has begun putting up barbed-wire fences around the camps, citing security. Uddin said it began to feel like prison. I thought going to Malaysia by whatever way would at least save me. Many have made it to Malaysia and are better off.

He said he and several friends met a man in a shanty town who took them by boat to a trawler where hundreds of people were already crowded on board - men on the lower deck, women on the top. Many of the young women were due to be married in Malaysia.

Another refugee, Enamul Hasan, also 20, said an uncle in Malaysia urged him to go there. I wanted to go to Malaysia to end my familys poverty, he said. Six of the seven survivors Reuters interviewed said they had gone willingly. The seventh, aged 16, said he was taken by unknown men against his will.

The misery began as soon as they set out. We ate almost nothing, said Uddin. Little kids would cry for water.

Weeping and praying

After a week the boat arrived off Malaysia, where it waited for several days before the crew said they could not disembark and would have to return to Bangladesh.

They crossed back over the Bay of Bengal. We faced storms three times, said Uddin. He said he was made to serve as an enforcer for the crew and beat anyone who stepped out of line. If I didnt want to beat them, I myself would be beaten, he said.

Meanwhile, some desperate passengers began to drink sea water. By the wonderful grace of God, the water would seem sweet, said Hasan. Many jumped into the water ... everyone was saying that it was much better to die in the water than dying in the ship.

At night, the passengers held one another, weeping and praying.

Eventually the boat stopped again, off Myanmar, survivors said, but again it could not dock. People kept dying and would be thrown overboard, said Hasan. I began to wonder when I would die.

The refugees eventually forced the captain to take them back to Bangladesh where, one night, they made landfall. A coastguard official there at the time said they were a shocking sight: Many of them were stick-thin, some unable to stand.

Muriel Boursier, head of mission for Doctors Without Borders in Bangladesh, who met survivors later, said many could not walk. Some grieved for lost relatives, staring blankly.

Some survivors were taken to hospital but most went to a quarantine camp, unaware of the coronavirus that had taken hold during their voyage. Its difficult to understand that no state is able to open its doors, Boursier said.

Uddin said his parents hardly recognised him but he was thankful to be back, though he had little hope for his future. Its better to die here than to die at sea, he said.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlas Ocean Voyages, the Luxe-AdventureSM cruise brand, today unveiled its inaugural-winter 2021/22, Antarctica-season itineraries. Starting November 19, 2021, World Navigator, Atlas Ocean Voyages' newest, expedition ship, will embark on 15 LuxpeditionSM journeys and bring adventurers, modern explorers and like-spirited travelers to the Southernmost Continent, Patagonia and the South Georgia and Sandwich Islands. Guests will be awestruck by towering icebergs; marvel at breathtaking, serene vistas; and come closer than ever before to penguins, large seabirds, seals and sea lions, whales and more. World Navigator's winter 2021/22 Antarctica season is open for booking, along with her inaugural summer 2021 Holy Land, Black Sea, Mediterranean and South America season.

"Travel is transformative, and there is no region in the world as awe-inspiring as Antarctica," said Alberto Aliberti, President of Atlas Ocean Voyages. "Adventurers, explorers and like-spirited travelers can now plan their late-2021, all-inclusive voyage of a lifetime to the Southern Continent. And the best way to fully experience this unique region is aboard World Navigator, our safe, small, clean and green, expedition ship s ."

Adventurers, modern explorers and like-spirited travelers can save up to $2,000 per suite and stateroom and receive free air travel and more for booking a Luxpedition by June 30, 2020:

$1,000 savings plus FREE business-class air travel per suite guest

savings plus FREE business-class air travel per suite guest $500 savings plus FREE economy-class air per Horizon- or Veranda-stateroom guest

savings plus FREE economy-class air per Horizon- or Veranda-stateroom guest FREE economy-class air per Adventure-stateroom guest

Reduced, 50-percent deposit

FREE changes to any itinerary, departing before March 31, 2022 .

Atlas Supports Travel Advisors

"Travel Agents are working hard these days and, in addition to their 15 percent commission, we can reward them immediately for their outstanding sales with GET PAID NOW," said Brandon Townsley, Vice President of Sales and Trade Partnerships. "This early opening of our inaugural 2021/22 Antarctica season will provide our valued travel advisor partners with more opportunities to discuss future Luxe-Adventure journeys of a lifetime with their clients and immediately earn a $500 or $750 gift card. And their clients can rest assured that if anything changes, they have the freedom to change their itinerary to any other departure through March 2022 at absolutely no cost."

For each deposited booking, Travel Advisors can take advantage of Atlas Ocean Voyages' GET PAID NOW for all World Navigator itineraries, departing July 2021 through March 2022:

A $750 gift card per suite NOW

gift card per suite NOW A $500 gift card per Horizon and Veranda stateroom NOW

gift card per Horizon and Veranda stateroom NOW 15% commission

Adventurers and like-spirited travelers can choose from a dozen round-trip, winter 2021/22 departures on nine-night journeys from Ushuaia, Argentina, to the Antarctic Peninsula. Guests will sail through Neptune's Bellows and land inside Deception Island's caldera; visit the Argentine and Spanish research stations; and see Chinstrap Penguins. Guests also will step onto Antarctica proper at Brown Bluff (Paulet Island as an alternate) at the northern tip of the peninsula, and make landings in Neko Harbour or Paradise Bay, and Cuverville Island or Goudier Island, in the Gerlache Straight.

Two longer journeys, each a distinctive, 12-night, round-trip itinerary from Ushuaia, expand guests' Antarctica adventure. The November 28, 2021, journey will bring guests within the umbra of the Moon on December 4, for a rare, Antarctic-solar eclipse of the sun. Guests also visit the South Shetland Islands, Paulet Island and Brown Bluff, as well as make three landings in the South Georgia and Sandwich Islands. On the February 2, 2022, departure, guests visit all the planned landings as the nine-night itinerary, plus navigate across the Antarctic Circle in pursuit of marine wildlife-spotting for two additional days. Guests will be able to see Antarctic wildlife closer from World Navigator's Water's Edge Lookout, the lowest expedition ship's bow observation area in the industry and the only one with wrap-around, heated benches for extended time out on deck.

World Navigator also will embark on an eight-night Argentine Patagonia and Falkland Islands itinerary, departing November 11, 2021, from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Ushuaia. Guests call at Buenos Aires, Puerto Madryn and Port Stanley, U.K. and explore one of the world's most diverse ecosystems to catch sightings of sea lions, seals, whales, dolphins, and up to five distinct penguin species  King, Magellanic, Gentoo, Rockhopper and Macaroni  along the way.

Atlas Ocean Voyages is an all-inclusive, luxury cruise brand that will be defined by simple elegance and delivering authentic, thrilling, and once-in-a-lifetime Luxe-AdventureSM experiences in the world's most sought-after and remote destinations. Adventurers, explorers and like-spirited travelers will find community aboard Atlas Ocean Voyages' safe, small, all-inclusive luxury ships and come together in welcoming and lively venues to share their day's exploits. Guests indulge in one of 98 luxe suites and staterooms, all with an ocean view and most with a private balcony.

All Atlas Ocean Voyages journeys include complimentary gratuities; alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages; Wi-Fi; L'Occitane bath amenities; a free shore excursion in select ports on every itinerary; binoculars and coffee and tea service in every room; meals and snacks; and butler service in suites; as well as parkas for guests to take home and waterproof boots for use ashore.

World Navigator's construction in Portugal is on schedule and the ship will launch in mid-2021. Safety is the basic building block for the Polar Category-C and Ice Class-1B, expedition ship, and all of the most-modern hygiene and cleanliness measures are incorporated into World Navigator's design. The ship also utilizes underwater, forward-looking sonar to confidently navigate icy polar waters. In addition to propeller propulsion, World Navigator's alternate hydrojet propulsion system, helps guests quietly cruise into wildlife-rich Antarctic harbors and calderas without disturbing marine animals. Furthermore, Atlas Ocean Voyages' ships are among the first to employ the latest conservation and sustainability technologies  leaving nothing behind but footprints in the snow  to help preserve the breathtaking locales and waters they ply for future generations to enjoy. The ship's Rolls-Royce hybrid power management and propulsion system maximizes World Navigator's fuel efficiency, consuming as low as one-fifth the fuel compared to cruise ships with conventional systems.

For more information, adventurers and like-spirited travelers can visit www.AtlasOceanVoyages.com; and follow @AtlasCruises on Facebook and Twitter, and @AtlasOceanVoyages on Instagram. Travel Advisors can call 1-844-44-ATLAS (1-844-442-8527) to book their clients on an unforgettable Luxe-Adventure journey, and visit www.atlasoceanvoyages.com/contact-travel-advisors/ to register as an Atlas Ocean Voyages Advisor.

SOURCE Atlas Ocean Voyages

Related Links

www.atlasoceanvoyages.com


CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's government said it foiled a marine incursion on Sunday by "terrorist mercenaries" who attempted to enter the country on speedboats from neighboring Colombia, which opposition leaders dismissed as a staged incident.

President Nicolas Maduro frequently accuses political adversaries of attempting to overthrow him with the backing of Washington, which has vowed to force him from office through sanctions that have crippled the OPEC nation's oil exports.

Critics of the ruling Socialist Party often dismiss such accusations as stunts used as an excuse to detain opponents of the government.

The group landed early on Sunday on the coast of La Guaira, about 20 miles (32 km) from the capital Caracas, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in a televised address.

"They tried to carry out an invasion by sea, a group of terrorist mercenaries from Colombia, in order to commit terrorist acts in the country, murdering leaders of the revolutionary government," he said.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido said the government was seeking to distract from recent violent events including a deadly prison riot on Friday and bloody Caracas gang battle on Saturday night.

"The regime is seeking to divert attention with a supposed incident (in La Guaira) plagued with inconsistencies, doubts and contradictions," the press team for Guaido said in a statement.

Guaido, who is the head of the opposition-run congress, is recognized by the United States and more than 50 other countries as Venezuela's legitimate leader.

The State Department on Sunday cast doubt on the official version of events and said it continues to support Guaido.

"The Maduro regime has been consistent in its use of misinformation in order to shift focus from its mismanagement of Venezuela," said a State Department spokesman.

"We fully support Interim President Juan Guaido, the National Assembly, and the people of Venezuela in their quest for a peaceful democratic transition."

Story continues

Colombia's foreign ministry said the assertions of Colombian involvement were "unfounded" and were meant to distract from "the true problems that the Venezuelan people are living."

Socialist Party leader Diosdado Cabello said eight people were killed and two detained.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said one of the speedboats had sunk, and that military vessels were searching the coast for survivors.

Maduro has overseen a six-year economic crisis that has left many citizens unable to obtain basic food and medicine and forced nearly five million people to emigrate.

But he retains the backing of the country's armed forces as well as countries including China and Russia, which have harshly criticized the U.S. sanctions.

(Reporting Vivian Sequera, additional reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Diane Craft)
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As April turned to May, more than a dozen states opted to relax coronavirus shutdowns and at least partly reopen their economies. This is not a public health decision, but an economic and social one. Still, they can contribute to public health by providing data all 50 states can use.

Nobody knows exactly what level of restrictions we need to keep Covid-19 from overwhelming hospitals. Georgia, Colorado, Texas and others are conducting a natural experiment. While some scientists fret that reopening too soon could increase infections nationwide, these early birds can still do us a favor: A promise to be our guinea pigs, regularly testing random samples of their populations and providing other kinds of data that will help us understand how the disease spreads. Even without an organized effort, they will be under the microscope.

On a podcast for the New England Journal of Medicine, editor-in-chief Eric Rubin and deputy editor Lindsey Baden discussed how little we still know about the efficacy of the patchwork of stay-at-home and lockdown rules. In the United States, we havent even agreed on the goal of these shutdowns: Is it keeping case numbers as low as possible? Or just preventing hospitals from exceeding capacity? The answer may differ from one community to another, and could determine how strict the restrictions should be.

Even if Covid-19 cases do rise in these reopening states, it could have a benefit: A better way to test vaccines. Experts on vaccine development say there are no shortage of people asking to volunteer for human studies, but its hard to test vaccine candidates on locked down populations. To know if a vaccine works, a certain number of people must be exposed to infection.

In mid-April, public health experts had argued that states that want to reopen should wait until new infections rates have fallen for 14 straight days, and should also have the testing and contact tracing capacity to quarantine those likely to be infected. That could entail Americans getting several million tests every day.

Story continues

But testing wont ramp up to the level needed any time soon, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Beyond the current inadequacies with tests, which he wrote about this week in the New York Times, he wants to address a misunderstanding about the benefit of lockdown-type policies. They dont prevent infections  only delay them. The main benefit for society is that by slowing down the rate of serious illness, we can keep our hospitals from being overwhelmed. Beyond that, as Ive said in previous columns, theres also an upward learning curve so getting sick months from now rather than now means a higher standard of care.

Osterholm is right that its unrealistic for entire populations to remain locked up for 16-20 months. The reality is that this pandemic will only end when some 70% of the population develops immunity  thus creating the so-called herd immunity that can starve the virus of hosts. The bottom line is were going to get there, he said. We might get help from a vaccine, or we might not. But thats the end result.

After various regions allow more activity, he said its possible well see a steady stream of cases, or small peaks and valleys, or well see a large second peak.

A second peak was predicted by epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch and colleagues, in a model published in Science in mid-April. One strategy outlined in the paper was to let some herd immunity build up over the summer while using whatever limited testing capacity we have to do random sampling and monitor for the start of the next wave. Under that plan, wed all have to prepare to go back into lockdown before that wave got too high.

Others, including Osterholm, have been contemplating a way to protect those who are likely to get seriously ill, while allowing more freedom for those who are at very low risk  though not no risk.

This has been Swedens strategy, and while it has its detractors, they have decided on a long-term, sustainable strategy which may win in the long haul in reducing overall pain and suffering. As Osterholm has been saying, were currently only in about the second inning of a nine-inning ballgame.

The fact that some countries and states are behaving differently isnt all bad  just as long as they keep tracking critical data, and offering it to scientists who can do a systematic evaluation of their results.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or 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

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters is gratified by the decision handed down last week by the Civil Court of the City of New York, confirming exclusive rights to control and manage the synagogue space at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, New York, to its rightful owners.

In her decision, the judge, the Honorable Harriet L. Thompson, ruled that the Gabboim have no legal rights to continue in possession, and she further stated that the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson determined the power and authority granted to the owners of these properties, not this Court. His intentions and only his intentions were made clear by granting full authority to the owners, through Boards of Trustees.

In a profound statement, the Court added that It is also clear to this Court that the Grand Rebbe was a brilliant man, full of wisdom, discernment and prophetic. The evidence supports the conclusion of this Court that the corporate structure of both corporations [Agudas Chassidei Chabad and Merkos LInyonei Chinuch] was the legal mechanism that the Rebbe, with the assistance of competent counsel, conceived to maintain control and possession of all the properties including the control of the Synagogue. The Rebbe had foresight beyond his years.

The decision comes after Chabad sought injunctive relief against certain individuals who had defaced a plaque which was affixed to the exterior of the main building commemorating the laying of a cornerstone by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The plaque referred to the Rebbe in Hebrew terms transcribed in English as of blessed memory. These individuals were subsequently joined by the so-called Gabboim  who were attempting to seize control of the synagogue  in challenging Agudas and Merkos rights to operate and administer the entire premises including the synagogue space.

Click here to read the full decision.
Inter-Korean tensions: Cross-border fire exchanged a day after Kim's reemergence

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 03 May 2020 9:59 AM

North and South Korea have exchanged gunfire on the border in a new wave of tensions that broke out shortly after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un showed up, ending a much-discussed weeks-long absence from the public eye.

The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement that multiple gunshots had been fired from North Korea early on Sunday towards a guard post on the South's border.

The statement said South Korean forces had responded to the shooting by firing two shots towards North Korea. There were no casualties in the firefight, it added.

"We are taking actions via inter-Korean communication lines to grasp the detailed situation and to prevent any further incidents. And we also maintain a necessary readiness posture," the statement said.

Later in the day, a South Korean military official with the JCS downplayed the significance of the cross-border firefight, Reuters reported.

The unnamed official said the gunshots did not seem to have been a planned provocation since the area where it occurred was farmland.

"In absence of vision (for the target) and in the fog, would there be an accurate provocation?" the official said.

The incident took place a day after the reappearance of Kim following about 20 days of absence that raised widespread speculation about his health and whereabouts.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Saturday that Kim had inaugurated a fertilizer plant in a region lying north of the capital Pyongyang.

It was the first such report featuring Kim in attendance since April 11.

At the event, Kim was accompanied by several senior North Korean officials and his younger sister Kim Yo-jong, who is regarded as the most likely candidate to step in as successor in case her brother dies or becomes incapacitated.

South Korean Yonhap news agency cited a senior government official as saying on Sunday that Kim had not undergone surgery during his absence.

The official rejected as untrue the reports that Kim may have had surgery, citing some differences in his leg movements, without providing a reason for the absence.

Trump 'glad to see' Kim back

Reacting to the news of Kim's reappearance, US President Donald Trump said he was "glad to see" him back on the scene.

On Saturday, Trump retweeted photos published by the KCNA showing the North Korean leader attending the inauguration ceremony. Trump wrote, "I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well!"

The two Koreas are split along the 248-kilometer-long, 4-kilometer-wide border region called the Demilitarized Zone that was originally created as a buffer.

The zone  which is one of the world's most heavily-fortified border areas  is planted with some two million mines and guarded by barbed wire fences, tank traps and combat troops on both sides.

In late 2018, the two neighbors eased some of those measures as part of steps to reduce tensions, but the peace efforts came to a halt amid an impasse in nuclear negotiations between Kim and Trump.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Kate Porter has had a fever nearly every day for 50 days. She can't shake the extreme exhaustion that hit when she became infected with the coronavirus nearly two months ago.

The longevity of her symptoms are unlike anything she's ever experienced. "I know it sounds crazy," Porter said, "but is this permanent?"

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Since her diagnosis, Porter, 35, has been in her Beverly, Massachusetts, home with her 12-year-old daughter, Adria, who also had symptoms of COVID-19.

Kate Porter (Courtesy of Kate Porter)

Neither has underlying health conditions that would suggest a complicated or drawn-out recovery from the virus, and neither has had to be hospitalized.

According to data collected by Johns Hopkins, more than 180,000 people in the U.S. have recovered from COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers a person recovered if three days have passed since a fever broke without the assistance of medication, and respiratory symptoms, such as cough or shortness of breath, have improved. Negative tests can also signal recovery, but tests can be inaccurate.

After an initial positive COVID-19 test, Porter has since tested negative for the virus, yet symptoms persist.

"I'll feel great one afternoon and think, 'I'm going to read, I'm going to do laundry,'" Porter told NBC News. Inevitably, the fever and fatigue return.

It happens repeatedly, Porter said. "It's like a mind game."

Video: 4 Traveling Doctors Share Stories From Coronavirus Battle

Andrew Dumont, 32, of Seattle, has also tested negative for the virus after a previous positive COVID-19 test. Two months since first falling ill, Dumont still suffers from numbness in his limbs and shortness of breath -- prompting two visits to the emergency room twice in the past week.

CT scans and lung x-rays showed no additional infections.

"It's really scary, because you're just kind of left at home by yourself essentially trying to treat it," Dumont said.

Intense outpatient management

Story continues

COVID-19 patients who are not sick enough to be hospitalized have little guidance on how to recover. There is no specific drug or treatment, other than rest, fluids and fever-reducing medicine such as Tylenol.

But because the virus can smolder in the body for days or weeks before potentially worsening, some physicians are increasing their vigilance for those recovering at home, alone.

"We do frequent telephone calls, checking in and telling patients what to watch out for," Dr. Lara Hall, clinical lead for the Cambridge Health Alliance Respiratory Clinic near Boston. "The thing we really worry about is shortness of breath."

Experts say trouble breathing is a sign that COVID-19 may be wreaking havoc in the body, and usually requires an emergency response.

Hall estimates her clinic has seen about 2,400 patients with symptoms of the coronavirus since it opened nearly seven weeks ago. About 70 percent of those patients have tested positive.

Some patients may require more frequent check-ins. "If someone's over 65 and they have diabetes or high blood pressure or heart disease or obesity, chronic lung disease," Hall said, "those are people in a high risk category that we're calling every day."

"We call this intense outpatient management," she said. Some patients may need to be seen again at Hall's clinic, while others may be urged to seek care at an emergency room.

'I dread going to sleep'

Many COVID-19 patients recovering at home recount similar anecdotes of how the virus acts each day and night.

Mornings tend to begin normally, but as the day progresses, viral symptoms creep in "like clockwork," Porter said.

Temperatures begin to rise. Cognition becomes hazy. Porter describes it as a "weird forgetfulness" as she struggles to find words.

Kate Porter (Courtesy of Kate Porter)

"Nighttime is when things start to flare up a bit more, and I just get nervous."

As night falls, fear takes hold. Despite debilitating exhaustion and fatigue, many patients are unable to get a good night's sleep.

"Honestly, I dread going to sleep," Porter said. She frequently wakes up during the night with her whole body shaking, as if she's been exposed to freezing temperatures. After a subsequent fitful rest, she often wakes up with her hair, sheets and clothes drenched in sweat.

The ongoing symptoms make Porter and other patients worry they've developed a secondary infection. However, subsequent COVID-19 tests have been negative, and other diagnostic screenings have been unable to uncover additional problems.

"I think I'm in the clear, but I'm not sure," Porter said, as she continues to log daily fevers. "It feels never-ending. I am at a loss."

Dumont, too, has suffered sleepless nights because of COVID-19.

"My breathing has been so bad that last week there were three nights where I couldn't even lay down," he said. "I stayed awake without any ability to sleep."

Doctors become patients

Even doctors with a keen understanding of how viruses typically act understand recovering patients' concerns.

"As a physician, I know what can happen," Dr. Michael Saag, a renowned infectious disease expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said. Saag was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March and described the illness as a "horror" that included fever, muscle aches, fatigue and difficulty thinking.

"I would sit awake, counting the minutes until morning almost, wondering if my breathing was going to get worse and I'd end up on a ventilator," he said.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease expert and director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, expressed similar fears after he, too, was diagnosed with COVID-19.

"I was just kind of watching it happen, documenting my symptoms," Creech said. "It was legitimately terrifying."

Creech's wife and three children were also diagnosed with the illness, with symptoms that varied in degree. None had to be hospitalized, and the five family members stuck it out together at first, resting and staying hydrated.

"We had flu-like illness with chills, muscle aches, headaches, but when I would take Motrin or Tylenol, I would feel great," Creech recalled. "We had an epic game of Monopoly going on."

The family started to recover after about a week. But Creech's apparent recovery did not last.

"One of my colleagues warned me that the second week can go sideways," Creech said. Indeed, on day seven, he developed a more substantial cough and a fever that lasted weeks.

"I felt like I was having this inflammatory response that I simply couldn't control," he said.

Patients like Porter and Dumont, who have had long-term symptoms, understand the value of sharing their stories.

"I was desperate for someone to tell me I'm not crazy," Porter said. "It's scary to go through this for so long when there's so many unknowns about the virus."

Dumont shared his COVID-19 symptoms on Twitter, and said he's since received hundreds of messages on the social media site from other patients with similar stories.

'We fall into the category of not critical and dying, but not asymptomatic," Dumont said.

"That's a very lonely, unclear place to be."

Follow NBC HEALTH on Twitter & Facebook.
Jameel Basha, 36, is in a dilemmashould he return to India or not? He has been working as an office assistant in a construction company in Saudi Arabia since 2017, earning the equivalent of Rs 45,000 a month.

His work prospects are now uncertain because of the turbulence caused by the dual shock of the covid-19 pandemic and the plunge in oil prices, the mainstay of the West Asian countrys revenue. My employer hasnt paid us for the past three months. I am unsure whether I will be sacked, Basha said by phone from Dammam.

Sustaining himself in Dammam and sending money home to repay a Rs 8 lakh personal loan, is now a challenge. I came to work here only because salaries are so low in India. If I return home, there is no guarantee I will get work, he said.

Bashas predicament is similar to nearly 10 million Indians, a vast majority of them unskilled or semi-skilled workers, in Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf region. Workers like them sent $83 billion back to India in 2019 as remittances to support families, a vital source of income for countries like India.

Demand for oil has all but dried up as nations shut borders and enforced lockdowns, sending prices plummeting and dealing a blow to West Asian economies, which are dependent in varying degrees on oil revenues. According to the International Monetary Fund, the Middle East and Central Asia region is projected to record minus 2.8% growth in 2020.

Indias envoy to the UAE till last September, Navdeep Suri, said there is no question in my mind that the Indian business community and blue collar workers will be impacted.

India estimates that about 70% of the 10 million Indians in this region are blue-collar workers, with the remainder in white collar jobs. Indian blue collar workers, especially from Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, are competing with Nepalis, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis working as mechanics, plumbers, janitors and drivers besides as helps in restaurants and small businesses.

Talmiz Ahmed, a former Indian ambassador to Oman and Saudi Arabia, expressed doubts whether all those who registered would actually return. Some of those who have registered will be those who have finished their contracts and are wanting to come home, he said. There could be some people who want to send their dependents back. And then there could be those who have lost jobs, Ahmed said.

Recalling the 2007-08 financial crisis, Ahmed said only about 200,000 Indians of an estimated 6 million finally returned from the region.

Acknowledging that the current crisis is different, Ahmed however predicted a revival of the regions economies in about a years time. This is not going to be the situation permanently, he said.

Economist Indira Rajaraman pointed out that the return of several thousands of migrants from the Gulf would have a huge impact on India in socio-economic terms. If there are 300,000-400,000 returnees, the government will have to record who are those with symptoms who would need to be quarantined, and keep in touch with others to see whether they develop symptoms or not. They would have to do contact tracing on a much bigger scale. It is a big burden on the states; especially for states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, she said.

For 32-year-old taxi driver Ahmed Qasim in Kuwait, returning home is the only option as the current crisis has meant going jobless for many days in April. I am using the money that I was supposed to send to my family back home. I am now worried how my family will meet their daily needs, Qasim, who hails from Tamil Nadu, said by phone from Kuwait.

According to Ahmed, a back of the envelope calculation suggests that Indian migrants in the Gulf from the five southern states support approximately 40 million Indians back home. But thanks to the pandemic and decline in oil prices, remittances are expected to decline by 23% in 2020 to $64 billion, the sharpest fall in recent history, according to a World Bank report.
ALBANY  Albany County officials released new fatality and hospitalization data Monday that confirmed what many already suspected: COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on the county's black residents.

Black residents make up 11.4% of the county's population but are being hospitalized and landing in intensive care at higher rates than their white counterparts, who make up 71.6% of the county's population, the data show.

As of Sunday, 26.1% of the 180 county residents who'd been hospitalized with the novel coronavirus were black compared to 57.6% who were white. Similarly, 30.2% of residents who are landing in intensive care units have been black compared to 56.6% who've been white.

Both blacks and whites are dying at rates disproportionate to their population in the county, but the sample size of 47 deaths as of Sunday was smaller so the data may not be as reliable, county officials said. As of Sunday, 78.1% of all deaths in the county were among white residents compared to 19.1% among blacks.

"What we are seeing in the county, we are seeing across the country  that there is a disproportionate burden of illness on our communities of color," County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen. "This is something that we continue to watch and continue to urge those that live in these communities of the importance of trying to contain the illness via the strategies of social distancing and wearing a mask while in public."

Latest coronavirus-related cancellations, postponements

The latest coronavirus numbers in NY

Sign up for the Times Union coronavirus newsletter

Full coronavirus coverage

The county had previously released race and ethnicity data on known cases of the virus in the community, but the hospitalization and fatality breakdowns released Monday paint a more comprehensive picture of the virus' toll on black residents.

As of Sunday, black residents made up 22% of all confirmed cases of the virus in the county, compared to 51% of white residents  a number that again skews disproportionately based on population.

"This is something that we continue to study," Whalen said. "Well learn more about it going forward and hopefully be able to give some more insight into why this is happening. Its likely multi-factorial."

Similar disparities have been seen statewide and nationally.

Data maintained by the state Department of Health show that, outside of New York City, black people make up 9% of the state's population but 18% of its deaths due to coronavirus. White people outside the city make up 74% of the population, but 60% of deaths. In New York City, black people make up 22% of the population but 28% of deaths, compared to white people who make up 32% of the population and 27% of the deaths.

Researchers are studying the disparities, but believe the same structural inequalities that cause other health disparities are behind this one. People of color are also disproportionately employed in essential service jobs that require interactions with the public and occupy a disproportionate share of congregate settings where maintaining social distance may prove difficult, such as jails, prisons and homeless shelters.

To increase testing access in historically underserved communities, including communities of color, Albany County partnered with Whitney M. Young, Jr. Health Center to open walk-up, mobile testing sites throughout the city of Albany, Watervliet and Cohoes. As of Friday, 791 people had been tested at the sites, according to county officials.

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

Also on Monday, County Executive Dan McCoy confirmed that two more residents of the county-run Shaker Place nursing home have died from the virus. One was a woman in her 70s and the other was a woman in her 90s. Both had underlying health issues, he said.

Known cases at the home remained flat Monday, with 48 residents and 24 employees testing positive for the virus to date. Six residents have died. Fifteen employees who have tested positive remain out of work, McCoy said. Nine others have fully recovered and returned to work.

As of Monday, Albany County had:

1,224 confirmed cases of the virus, up 25 from Sunday

1,101 residents under mandatory quarantine

4 residents under precautionary quarantine

621 recoveries

32 currently hospitalized

7 currently in the ICU

49 deaths

Whalen and McCoy also took a closer look at a data dashboard the county developed a few weeks back that shows the county's peak may have occurred April 24, at least when it comes to new daily cases being reported.

Area hospitals say a downward trend in hospitalizations also indicates the region may have passed its peak.

Public health experts are concerned that once businesses and society reopen there will be additional waves of the virus. McCoy said Monday that the county is closely watching reopenings underway in the states of Georgia and Texas, and in the country of Sweden, which have all taken different tacks to reopening.

He said he spent Sunday afternoon talking to a variety of business owners who are alarmed and afraid that they won't be able to reopen anytime soon.

"First and foremost, the safety and health of residents of Albany County are my first priority," McCoy said. "And I understand these business owners and my heart goes out to every one of them. We don't want them to go bankrupt. We dont want them to close their business. They put their sweat and tears into these companies. Theyre part of our family."
Kolkata, May 4 : West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said on Monday that the Covid-19 death toll in the state has touched 61 with as many as 1,259 confirmed cases being reported so far.

"The Covid-19 death toll has touched 61 in Bengal so far. The total number of confirmed cases across the state stands at 1,259. As many as 218 corona affected patients have already been discharged from the hospitals," Sinha told a press conference at the state secretariat Nabanna.

He said that the state administration has ramped up the rapid testing process in the last few days and the results are quite satisfactory.

"The total number of tests per million stood at 109 10 days back while now the figure is 279 per million. The total number of corona patents who are now undergoing treatments in West Bengal is 908 now," he said.

The Chief Secretary said that the corona recovery rate in the state is about 17.32 per cent.

"We are in a comfortable situation now as far as the Covid-19 tests are concerned. As many as 5,755 people are currently home quarantined across West Bengal. Previously, the Covid-19 data collection system was too complicated. A lot of data could not be retrieved due to that. We could not release daily news bulletins because of that only," Sinha said, adding that now the system has been streamlined.

He said that altogether, 25,116 Covid-19 tests have been carried out in the state so far with at least 2,201 corona sample tests in the last 24-hours. "We have received 61 fresh corona cases in the last 24 hours," he said.

Sinha said that initially there were some hiccups in the supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits. "Now we have adequate PPE kits available with us. We have so far distributed 5.8 lakh PPE kits and 3.15 lakh N-95 masks among doctors, medical staff and other officials across the state, besides the distribution of hand sanitisers," he said.

The members of the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT), which left for New Delhi on Monday morning, wrote a letter to Sinha asking the state government not to downplay the spread of the virus and to be transparent and consistent in reporting figures.

"The state needs to be transparent and consistent in reporting figures and not downplay the spread of coronavirus. The bulletins of May 1 and May 2 do not even mention the total number of cases and deaths in the state," Apurva Chandra, Special Secretary to the Government of India, who was heading the central expert team, wrote in a letter.

Chandra also mentioned in the communication that while the state government had claimed very high level of daily surveillance of individuals in the containment zones, no database was shown or results made available.

The IMCT is supposed to submit its final report to the Union Home Minister. "We hope that the suggestions conveyed to the state government through various communications would be seen and taken up for consideration in the right spirit," Chandra said.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 4, 2020) - Roscan Gold Corporation (TSXV: ROS) (FSE: 2OJ) ("Roscan" or the "Company") is pleased to announce depth continuity in mineralization and positive diamond drill results (Figure 1) from an additional 4 holes totaling 771 metres (m) at its Mankouke South Target.

The drill program has extended the depth of the Southern Mankouke Target from 80m in February 2020 to 120m in mid-April 2020 and to 155m currently (Figure 2). Additionally, drillhole DDMan-20-31 depicts the depth potential to the North. The high grades (Figure 3) over large widths shown with these most recent drill holes have extended the depth of this target.

Highlights from Mankouke South Target:

4.84 gpt gold over 62.0m from drill hole DDMan-20-29 from 39.2m ; Including 12.7 gpt gold over 7.0m from 55.2m Including 10.0 gpt gold over 13.0m from 73.2m



2.61 gpt gold over 31.0m from drill hole DDMan-20-29 from 110.2m;

4.76 gpt gold over 46.0m from drill hole DDMan-20-30 from 50.2m ; Including 18.6 gpt gold over 2.0m from 61.2m Including 11.3 gpt gold over 10.0m from 85.2m



2.71gpt gold over 38.0m from drill hole DDMan-20-31 from 127.2m; Including 9.81 gpt gold over 5.0m from 156.2m



2.18 gpt gold over 4.0m from drill hole DDMan-20-31 from 181.2m.

Notes: 1: True width yet to be determined, 2: Table 1 - Assay Highlights, 3: 0.5gpt used as cut-off with 4m internal dilution, and 4: No top-cut 5. Holes have a dip of -50 and azimuth of 270

Nana Sangmuah, President and CEO, stated, "We are very pleased with these wide, high grade diamond drill holes results which represent the highest gram- meter intersections to date. These results support a mineralization to an approximate 155m depth which remains open. The geological understanding at our project is clearly improved with this round of drilling. Based on the current dataset it appears there is a northern plunge which is similar to other major deposits in the surrounding area. We continue to drill deeper and along strike to the North to ascertain the limits of the mineralization."

Story continues





Figure 1: Plan View delineating Strike Length and High Grades at Mankouke South

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4821/55300_ecf556d8e49b79eb_001full.jpg





Figure 2: Longitudinal View of Mankouke South - Depicting Depth Continuity Progression with time

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4821/55300_ecf556d8e49b79eb_002full.jpg





Figure 3: Cross Section depicting Depth and High Grade - DDMan-20-29

To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4821/55300_ecf556d8e49b79eb_003full.jpg

Mankouke South remains open at depth and long strike to the North;

Mankouke South Target drilling program continues to test strike, depth and plunge extensions of the mineralized system;

Geological modelling exercises are currently in progress in order to understand and project this mineralized zone;

Exploration has not been impacted to date by COVID-19 virus to date.

The gold mineralization at Mankouke South is associated with quartz veining (Figure 4) and/or disseminated and stringer pyrite hosted in brecciated, silicified and locally sheared greywackes and mudstones underlain by interbedded limestones and mudstones of the Kofi Formation. Mankouke South is located approximately 25km east of the Fekola mine (B2Gold Corp.). This mineralized system is structurally aligned with the Mankouke South mineralization that occurs in the structural corridor that also hosts the Siribaya deposits to the South (IAMGOLD Corp.), Roscan's Mankouke Central prospect along the 7km long Mankouke Corridor Target, and our neighbors to the North (Oklo Resources Ltd.).





Figure 4: Drill Core Photo DDMan-20-29 showing high grade sections from 55.2-62.2m (gossanous oxidized zone) and 73.2-86.2m (disseminated pyrite zone)

To view an enhanced version of Figure 4, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4821/55300_ecf556d8e49b79eb_004full.jpg

Drilling Contract and Analytical Protocol

The drilling contract was awarded to Target Drilling SARL who employ KL900-1 multi-purpose (AC/RC/DD) rig at Mankouke South. The AC drilling contract was awarded to Geodrill and is currently drilling exploration targets.

All drill samples are sent for preparation to Bureau Veritas Mineral Laboratories in Bamako, Mali and transported by Bureau Veritas to their analytical facility in Abidjan, Ivory Coast for fire assay with atomic absorption finish and by gravimetric finish for grades above 10 gpt Au. Roscan applied industry-standard QA/QC procedures to the program. Certified reference materials, blanks and field duplicates are inserted at appropriate intervals.

Hold ID Section Line From To Interval (m) gpt Au DDMAN20-28 1375850 41.2 42.2 1 0.54 DDMAN20-29 1375900 3.2 8.2 5 2.56 39.2 101.2 62 4.84 including 55.2 62.2 7 12.7 and 73.2 86.2 13 10.0 110.2 141.2 31 2.61 DDMAN20-30 1375800 50.2 96.2 46 4.76 including 61.2 63.2 2 18.6 and 70.2 74.2 4 8.10 and 85.2 95.2 10 11.3 DDMAN20-31 1376000 88.2 114.2 26 1.87 127.2 165.2 38 2.71 including 156.2 161.2 5 9.81 181.2 185.2 4 2.18

Table 1: Drillhole Highlights at Mankouke South (May, 4th 2020)

Qualified Person (QP) and NI43-101 Disclosure

Greg Isenor, P. Geo., Executive Vice-Chairman for the Company, is the designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") and has reviewed and verified that the technical information contained herein is accurate and approves of the written disclosure of same.

About Roscan

Roscan Gold Corporation is a Canadian gold exploration company focused on the exploration and acquisition of gold properties in West Africa. The Company has assembled a significant land position of 100%-owned permits in an area of producing gold mines (including B2 Gold's Fekola Mine which lies in a contiguous property to the west of Kandiole), and major gold deposits, located both north and south of its Kandiole Project in West Mali.

For further information, please contact:

Andrew J. Ramcharan, P.Eng

Executive Vice President - Corporate Development and Investor Relations

Tel: (416) 572-2295

Email: aramcharan@Roscan.ca

Greg Isenor, P.Geo

Executive Vice-Chairman

Tel: (902) 902-221-2329

Email: gpisenor@Roscan.ca

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information is characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, changes in the state of equity and debt markets, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in obtaining required regulatory or governmental approvals, and other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, including those risks set out in the Company's management's discussion and analysis as filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information in this news release is based on the opinions and assumptions of management considered reasonable as of the date hereof, including that all necessary governmental and regulatory approvals will be received as and when expected. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/55300
B oris Johnson has said he feared he would not live to see his son born as he battled coronavirus in hospital last month.

The Prime Minister and his fiance Carrie Symonds announced the birth of a "healthy baby boy at a London hospital" on Wednesday.

It came just two days after Mr Johnson returned to Downing Street having recovered from Covid-19, which saw him admitted into intensive care for three nights.

On Saturday, the PM and Ms Symonds revealed they named their baby boy Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson after two doctors who saved his life.

Boris Johnson (Photo: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images) / Bloomberg via Getty Images

In an interview with The Sun newspaper, Mr Johnson was asked if he had ever feared he might not live to meet Wilfred.

He said: Well, yes, of course. Weve all got a lot to live for, a lot to do, and I wont hide it from you, I was thinking about that, yes.

The Prime Minister and his fiance Carrie Symonds announced the birth of a "healthy baby boy at a London hospital" on Wednesday / Carrie Symonds/Instagram

Mr Johnson told the paper: I was deeply frustrated that I couldnt see the path todo you know what I mean? I just couldnt see the way out of the skip.

But, yeah, I suppose there was some terrible, as I say, some natural buoyancy or refusal to give in or harbour negative thoughts.

I never really thought that I wouldnt come back from it. It was more frustration.

Boris Johnson reveals death announcement plans

The PM first said he tested positive for Covid-19 on March 27 before entering his mandatory period of self-isolation at home.

Due to his symptoms persisting, Mr Johnson was taken to St Thomas' Hospital in London on April 5. Just hours later, he was admitted into intensive care.

Mr Johnson also revealed how he clapped for carers from his hospital ward, hours after being discharged from intensive care.

Mr Johnson also revealed how he clapped for carers from his hospital ward, hours after being discharged from intensive care / PA

He told the Sun: It was a Thursday when I came out of ICU, and with me I had a nurse called Becky and a nurse called, I think, Angel.

I was just in my boxers, nothing else. We stood up and there was this big window looking out of the Thames, and we saw the Met and the Fire Brigade do this display with their boats.

It was just fantastic. And we clapped like crazy for the NHS and for care workers.

Mr Johnson added: I owe my life to our doctors and nurses and the healthcare workers.

They pulled my chestnuts out of the fire, no question.

He told the Sun on Sunday earlier that doctors prepared to announce his death as he battled coronavirus in intensive care.
Moldova Coronavirus Update - Coronavirus cases climb to 4,121, Total Deaths reaches to 125 on 04-May-2020

In Moldova total confirmed cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) have increased to 4,121, while 125 people died due to the growing infection in the country.

Coronavirus (Covid-19) update from around the world:

Gujarat, 02-May-2020: Gujarat reported 333 new COVID-19 positive cases in the past 24 hours raising the total positive cases count to 5,054 in the state. While 262 deaths are reported so far as per Gujarat Health Department.

Tamil Nadu, 02-May-2020: Tamil Nadu government eases the restrictions in non-containment areas as per the Center's fresh guidelines on Covid-19 ongoing lockdown. Tamil Nadu government will allow the resumption of construction activity, road works, opening of SEZs, and some other from May 4 in non-containment areas in the state.

Mumbai, 02-May-2020: Mumbai reported 547 Covid-19 cases and 27 deaths today, raising the total cases of 8,172 and deaths to 322. Over 137 patients have been discharged today which increased the cured patient count to 1704. Public Health Department, Mumbai report provided the details of the patients in the state.

France: France is reporting higher number of deaths but but slightly fewer people with severe conditions were admitted into ICU in past fourth day. France reported 315 deaths last day as compared to 345 deaths the day earlier. In France 133,670 confirmed cases and 14,412 deaths reported so far.

Here are the latest cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in Moldova:

Sr. No. Date Total Cases New Cases Total Deaths Deaths 1. 29-Apr-2020 3,771 133 111 8 2. 30-Apr-2020 3,897 126 116 5 3. 01-May-2020 3,980 83 122 6 4. 02-May-2020 4,052 72 124 2 5. 03-May-2020 4,121 69 125 1 6. 04-May-2020 4,121 0 125 0

TOP 10 Deaths by country due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak:



1. Europe (140,812)

2. North America (75,265)

3. USA (68,602)

4. Italy (28,884)

5. UK (28,446)

6. Spain (25,264)

7. France (24,895)

8. Asia (19,674)

9. South America (10,871)

10. Belgium (7,924)

Total Deaths Worldwide (248,555)

Globally till now over 248,555 people died due to the outbreak of deadly Coronavirus (COVID-19). The new infection and death cases are increasing fast. Authorities in the Moldova and other countries are taking proper measures to contain the deadly Coronavirus (COVID-19).

As of now Europe is the worst affected country in the world with over 140,812 deaths and 1,460,196 confirmed cases.

Check latest update: Coronaviurs Covid-19 cases around the world
VANCOUVER, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers (NYSE and TSX: RBA) ("Ritchie Bros." or the "Company"), the world's largest industrial auctioneer and a leading used equipment seller, announced the appointment of Jim Kessler as Chief Operating Officer (COO). In his new role, Kessler will oversee the day-to-day operations of the Company as well as work in close collaboration with the leadership team and leverage the expertise and capabilities across the enterprise to deliver operational excellence together with an exceptional customer experience. He will serve as a member of Ritchie Bros. Executive Committee and report to Ann Fandozzi, CEO.

"As we continue executing our long-term growth strategy, this is the right time to add a COO to our leadership team," said Ann Fandozzi, Chief Executive Officer of Ritchie Bros. "Jim will play a critical role of driving a seamless, world-class customer experience which will leverage Ritchie Bros.' technologically enabled multi-channel offering. Jim brings a tremendous depth of operational acumen together with business savvy and a relentless customer focus that are essential in a COO to drive continued success and value for our customers and our Company."

Kessler has held various leadership positions in his career including those of President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. He acted as Chief Operating Officer of Abra Auto Body & Glass, where he oversaw operations, procurement and growth initiatives which led to the merger of the first national collision repair provider in the United States. He also held a variety of senior leadership positions at Caliber Collision, vRide and Pep Boys. Most recently, Kessler served as President of Emerging Business for Caliber Collision during which he focused on evaluating and scaling businesses that would complement collision repair services. He holds an undergraduate degree and MBA from Saint Joseph's University.

"I am thrilled to join Ritchie Bros. and looking forward to continuing and enhancing the great customer experience which the company is renowned for. This will be accomplished by having the best trained team, an inspired culture, processes that are easy to manage and cutting-edge technology. I am looking forward for Ritchie Bros. continuing to be a powerhouse industry leader and ensuring we have the infrastructure and flexibility to continue our growth well into the future."

About Ritchie Bros.:

Established in 1958, Ritchie Bros. (NYSE and TSX: RBA) is a global asset management and disposition Company, offering customers end-to-end solutions for buying and selling used heavy equipment, trucks and other assets. Operating in a number of sectors, including construction, transportation, agriculture, energy, oil and gas, mining, and forestry, the Company's selling channels include: Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, the world's largest industrial auctioneer offers live auction events with online bidding; IronPlanet, an online marketplace with featured weekly auctions and providing the exclusive IronClad Assurance equipment condition certification; Marketplace-E, a controlled marketplace offering multiple price and timing options; Mascus, a leading European online equipment listing service; and Ritchie Bros. Private Treaty, offering privately negotiated sales. The Company's suite of multichannel sales solutions also includes RB Asset Solutions, a complete end-to-end asset management and disposition system. Ritchie Bros. also offers sector-specific solutions including GovPlanet, TruckPlanet, and Kruse Energy Auctioneers, plus equipment financing and leasing through Ritchie Bros. Financial Services. For more information about Ritchie Bros., visit RitchieBros.com.

SOURCE Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers

Related Links

http://www.rbauction.com


OTTAWAOttawas emergency financial aid to unemployed workers risks acting as a tranquilizer on the economy by deterring people from taking jobs, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says.

As businesses start to slowly reopen and have shifts to fill, their employees are being forced to turn them down or risk losing their benefits, Scheer told reporters Monday.

At a time when our economy needed stimulus, Justin Trudeau has given it a tranquilizer and risked creating labour shortages across the country.

The Canada Emergency Response Benefit pays people who have lost income due to the virus $500 a week for up to 16 weeks. However, the benefit is cut off if a person earns more than $1,000 a month. By Apr. 28, 7.3-million Canadians had applied for the benefit and it had paid out $25.6 billion.

But Sheer says unemployed workers could face having to choose between returning to work  and losing the benefit  or electing to ride out the uncertainty of the economic recovery for as long their benefits last.

Its not difficult to understand the choice that many will be forced to make, he said.

Scheer called on government to revamp the program so there is a gradual reduction of the benefit tied to income, so people are always better off for taking available work.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didnt reject the idea Monday but said its too soon to consider it.

I really look forward to facing that challenge of how we start to scale back the benefits and help people get back to work. Were not there yet, Trudeau said during his daily pandemic update.

Were very much still trying to make sure that people are getting the support they need even as the economy is starting to gradually reopen.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canadas chief public health officer, said Monday that the country is starting to inch closer towards social and economic reopening.

In some places, the epidemic has been brought under good control and the time is right for cautious reopening. Other areas of the country may not be quite there yet but will soon follow, Tam said.

But with close to 60,000 cases and 3,766 deaths, Tam said that Canadians will have to reconcile themselves with the reality of living with COVID-19 and the public health measures that requires.

Meanwhile, Trudeau said the tremendous uncertainty facing the country and tens of billions of dollars in aid flowing out the door makes it impossible to present a budget with any sort of accuracy.

A budget typically is an expression of what people can expect in the coming year, both in terms of how the economy is going to unfold (and) what sort of measures are going to be brought in, and in normal times, its usually pretty accurate, he said.

Right now, were in a situation where there is a tremendous degree of uncertainty.

Premier Doug Fords government faced a similar predicament in Ontario and opted instead to release a fiscal update in March with a full budget promised for November.

Still, the prime minister insisted that his government has been extremely transparent about its spending and said that reflections on when the government could present a budget or just an economic update are ongoing.

Scheer said his party would like to see a statement of the governments finances soon. Before Parliament adjourns for the summer, I think that an update, a budget, a plan to manage the economy for the next several months is necessary, he said.

Ottawa says it has provided at least $145 billion in direct support and another $85 billion in tax deferrals. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that the federal deficit will be $252.1 billion in 2020-21.

Read more about:
This is the latest attack in Nuevo Laredo by one of the country's most powerful criminal syndicates, the Los Zetas. Currently, authorities suspect the border city was where the criminal organization set the base of their operations as most cartels do so in order to remain in close proximity to the border with the United States.

Nuevo Laredo is currently seeing a surge of attacks against federal authorities and civilians by the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas. Last week, the police rescued two Pakistani migrants who were being held against their will in a stash house.

Latest Shootout the Work of Tropa del Infierno

More recently, while a Mexican military convoy was running rounds in the Nuevo Laredo to enforce mitigation measures against the pandemic, they were immediately attacked by Los Zetas gunmen near Cavazos Lerma Boulevard last Sunday.

The gunmen fled from the scene, only to set up an ambush at the highway overpass for the soldiers. During the shootout, seven of the Los Zetas gunmen were killed, and two of whom were the bodyguards of a cartel leader.

The convoy of the criminal cartel was an assortment of different vehicles. The gunmen themselves equipped their garments with military-style body armors.

In a report by Breitbart, the military said that some of the dead cartel members identified themselves as Tropa 101 and Flako 112, which was a fraction group of the CDN-Los Zetas.

They were known for various acts of war violence like armed attacks, murders, and kidnappings.

Apart from this information, police believe that based on their mode of operations, this group of gunmen were part of the Tropa del Infierno, who worked under Martin El Cadete" Rodriguez Barbosa and Jesus Gerardo "El Huevo" Trevino Chavez.

Check these out!

Police find firearms in an SUV after a shootout with Mexico's Gulf Cartel

Nearby, in Matamoros, state police recovered firearms in an SUV shortly after a gun battle with Mexico's Gulf Cartel.

Federal authorities were patrolling Matamoros when a group of Gulf Cartel gunmen attacked them. The police discovered that the target of the ambush was a law enforcement official leading the patrol of the state police convoy.

With the help of backup, the police chased the criminal convoy along Palmarese Boulevard. When they caught up with one of the vehicles, they recovered the weapons found in the SUV.

According to federal forces, the gunmen who attacked them were members of the Gulf Cartel's splinter group, the Matamoros faction. They were known for their rivalry with other drug cartels in Reynosa over territories and routes in the U.S.-Mexico border.

Last month, they participated in food distribution drives for the rural poor, which was suspected to be a form of recruitment operation to sway the public away from the state.
: Territorial Chief Minister V



Narayanasamy on Monday warned those violating lockdown norms of strict action while making surprise visits to business centres following complaints.

The complaints came over phone from some legislators, political leaders and a section of the public.

During the visit to trade centres, the Chief Minister saw absence of social distancing on the part of the shopping public, lack of sanitisers and virtual crowding on the premises of various shops.

He told a shopowner that "The government will not brook the violations. We will not hesitate to suspend trade licences if you do not adhere to the lockdown norms."



Narayanasamy told one shopkeeper not to let consumers gather in large numbers and should ensure social distancing on their part.

"How can you abstain from using face masks while carrying on business activities," he said after finding a shopowner selling masks.

He told another shopowner: "You have no right to offer room for the pandemic to spread by your negligence; unless you play a pro-active role you will face the music, including booking of cases."



Later speaking to reporters, he said with neighbouring districts of Villupuram and Cuddalore of Tamil Nadu registering a rise in the occurrence of COVID-19, the Union Territory which is close to the districts should be cautious and ensure no intrusion of anyone from these districts into Puducherry.

Already, around 70 people from Puducherry, who had contact with those returning from Koyambedu in Chennai, were subjected to a medical check-up.

The samples collected from them were being examined and the results would be known shortly.

Territorial Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao expressed fear of rise in number of COVID-19 cases, as Puducherry lying close toCuddalore and Villupuram is in a perilous situation.

Rao told a separate press meetthat he had anticipated a threat to the Union Territory as the flow of people from other states would increase once lockdown norms are eased.

He said people's cooperation was not up to the expected level.

The borders between Puducherry and Tamil Nadu have been sealed as a preventive measure to restrain flow of people from other states and also to check people travelling from the Union Territory to other states.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
SAN JOSE, Calif., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- To express their gratefulness to heroes on the front-lines of the Covid-19 pandemic, Lee's Sandwiches is honored to host free "Appreciation Meals" starting Monday, May 4, 2020 through Sunday, May 10, 2020.

Lee's Sandwiches International, Inc.

Healthcare workers and first responders work tirelessly and courageously in the care of the community, particularly during this challenging time. To thank them for their service, Lee's Sandwiches is inviting healthcare workers, police, firefighters and paramedics to pick up any one sandwich of their choice with 16 oz Lee's coffee, soda or Lee's water bottle for FREE at participating locations.

"Appreciation meals are just a small token to express our gratitude for the kindness and noble sacrifice of front-line heroes," said Chieu Le, President of Lee's Sandwiches. "They are willing to risk their lives to care for the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic and we would like to thank them for their service."

The free appreciation meal for front-line workers is available any time between May 4-10, 2020 at any participating Lee's carry-out or drive-thru location. For added convenience, orders may be placed in advance via the leesandwiches.com website or the Lee's mobile app with the pay-at-store selection. By coming to pick up in working uniform or by presenting a healthcare or first responder badge, the appreciation meal will be provided at no cost. Limit one appreciation meal per person per day. Please visit www.leesandwiches.com. for a complete list of participating locations.

About Lee's Sandwiches

Since 1983, Lee's Sandwiches has been committed to providing the freshest and highest quality of Euro-Asian Sandwiches and coffee to their customers. With over 60 stores in five states, the company is the first and only franchising Euro-Asian Sandwich chain. Recently, Lee's Sandwiches has opened the first Lee's Coffee Roastery in Orange County, California. The exciting and interactive Lee's Coffee Roastery is dedicated to providing small batch, freshly roasted, and specialty coffee beans from around the world.

Lee's Sandwiches has been partnering closely with the American Red Cross to aid many relief efforts, such as 9-11, the Indian Ocean Earthquake, the Haiti Earthquake, the Hurricane Katrina, the Japanese Pacific Earthquake, the Typhoon Haiyan, the Typhoon Soudelor, the Hurricane Harvey, and established the Le-Jao Center, donating a total of over one million dollars to the community. For more information, please visit www.leesandwiches.com.

Media contact:

Jimmy Le

(408) 275-0700

SOURCE Lee's Sandwiches International, Inc.
The controversies trailing the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) bill took another twist on Monday with former chairman, senate committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Dino Melaye, dragging the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, before a court over the bill.

Melaye, who had since the presentation of the bill on the floor of House of Representatives kicked against the plan, filed a suit before a Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday.

The former chairman, who lost his Kogi Central senatorial re-election bid to Smart Adeyemi, disclosed the suit, which was said to have been filed on behalf of Nigerians that will be affected by the bill, on his official social media handle.

I have just filed a court action against the Speaker and House of Representatives on the wicked bill initiated by Hon Femi Gbajabiamila this morning at the Federal High Court Abuja. We shall overcome. pic.twitter.com/HCcVQQQO5i

 Senator Dino Melaye. (SDM) (@dino_melaye) May 4, 2020

He said: I have just filed a court action against the Speaker and House of Representatives on the wicked bill initiated by Hon Femi Gbajabiamila this morning at the Federal High Court Abuja. We shall overcome.

Details later
Prince Andrew's ex-girlfriend Lady Victoria Hervey today claimed Ghislaine Maxwell used her as 'bait' to entertain Jeffrey Epstein's friends, saying the paedophile 'kind of sat back and sort of waited for her to sort of go fishing'. The 44-year-old socialite and former 'It Girl', who is the daughter of the 6th Marquess of Bristol and the Duke of York's former love interest, first met the pair 20 years ago and said she was 'really young and naive' at the time. ITV released a clip to MailOnline ahead of tonight's 'Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile' documentary which also featured Lady Victoria describing Maxwell and Epstein as like 'Batman and Robin' and a 'double act'. She said: 'Jeffrey was really the frontman and Ghislaine was the accomplice. It was kind of like a Batman and Robin, and they were a double act. I don't think Jeffrey could have done any of it without Ghislaine.' Presenter Ranvir Singh said: 'And Ghislaine was crucial to getting those girls, was she, do you think to those dinners?' Lady Victoria replied: 'I think he just kind of sat back and sort of waited for her to sort of go fishing and go find however many girls were needed, you know, to entertain his friends. I think I was pretty much used as bait. You know, looking back at, you know I was really young and naive, and she's entertaining these, you know, big businessmen. So I didn't realise it of course at the time, but looking back...' Also pictured: Lady Victoria with Prince Andrew in London in 2002, and with Ghislaine Maxwell in Hollywood in 2004.
By 1900, Midland's population slowly began to increase. The Dow Chemical Co., incorporated just three years earlier, offered steady employment to a growing number of people, with no end in sight for the company's expansion.

People relocated to Midland from nearby towns where the dying lumber industry had not yet been replaced by other industry. As the city began its 20th century growth, new stores and businesses appeared on Main Street to cater to the community's new prosperity.

Midland's future appeared secure.

Recognizing an opportunity, Frank Olmsted and Thomas Somerville purchased the grocery store of W.L. Baker in April, 1901. Plans were announced for the business's expansion and Olmsted & Somerville's Grocery Store began a successful career on Main Street.

By 1904, Olmsted & Somerville's Grocery Store had,indeed, expanded requiring the business to be moved into a new,larger building located at 206 E. Main St. In addition to regular and fancy groceries, the firm expanded its inventory to include clothing, coal and general house-hold goods. The December 18,1904 edition of the Midland Sun described the business's growth and new facilities in detail: "Into New Quarters - Olmsted & Somerville, the enterprising grocers, moved into their handsome new store in the Baker Bank Block on Monday.

"The finishing touches were put on the place Saturday and after he store closed in the evening the process of moving began. When Monday came, the firm was comfortably installed in its new home. This young and enterprising firm has forged rapidly to the front.It has not only retained but largely added to the clientele secured from Mr. Baker, which included the patronage of scores of sturdy and prosperous German farmers who take possession of the store once or twice a week. It has always been a desirable trade and the firm is catering to it.

"Like the average American, Olmsted & Somerville believe heartily in expansion more particularly of their business. When the proper stage was reached it branched out. The old store was dimly lighted and the floor space inadequate; they were always cramped for space. They needed more room and they got it. When Mr. Baker built the Bank Block he laid out the basement and first floor plans to suit the wishes and needs of the firm, reserving only a small portion, the northwest corner, for anew savings bank which will soon be launched on the world. Olmsted & Somerville occupy the entire ground floor, equivalent to two store fronts and the southern wing,arranged especially for the feed business, is large and commodious and is provided with a covered loading platform. In the spring a large warehouse will be built extending to the railroad track where it will be connected by a spur. The warehouse will be used for the storage of lime, cement, hay, feed, etc.

"The place is heated by steam and lighted by electricity and is provided with the latest improved appliances including an electric machine for grinding coffee and patent devices for gauging and filling oil cans and vinegar jugs. Underneath the grocery counter,which is covered with linoleum which is easily washed and kept clean, are deep sliding drawers capable of holding a barrel of sugar. Customers can thus inspect their sweets before buying.

"The east half of the store is given over to groceries and it can be said that the stock carried is perhaps the largest and best ever exhibited in the Saginaw valley. The refrigerator is provided with compartments for butter, lard and smoked meats.

"The dry goods department occupies the west side of the place and is stocked with all the usual staples. Leading off from the dry goods department is a waiting room with toilet accommodations for the use of ladies and children. This is a decided innovation for Midland and ought to prove a popular feature. A corp of competent and obliging clerks helps to make shopping easy in this strictly up-to-date store.

"In the rear on McDonald Street and between the waiting room and the office is located the hardware department where the usual merchandise, building paper and household hardware, can always be found. The office itself is large and airy with plenty of light and commands a full view of the store. It is equipped with the Lamson cash system.

"To enumerate the things sold by Olmsted & Somerville, and not a word has been said regarding coal, both hard and soft types, and blacksmiths' supplies would be like printing a book. Olmsted & Somerville in their new store extend a cordial invitation to the public to call, examine the goods,get prices and become acquainted."

Olmsted & Somerville's Grocery and Dry Goods Store served the Midland community more (than) 15 years. By 1916, the business had been sold to Frank Olmsted's nephew Clifford, who continued to offer groceries, dry goods, and hardware to the Midland community for several years.

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 compiled by Gary F. Skory, retired director of the Midland County Historical Society, and originally published Jan. 6, 1994.


Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
The extended Covid-19 lockdown announced by the Centre comes into force today. The 40-day nationwide lockdown has been extended by two week - until May 17 - but some relaxations are allowed.

These relaxations will come into force from Monday. Here is a list of whats banned and what is allowed from today:

Travel by air, rail and metro and inter-state movement of people by road remains banned all over the country. Schools, hotels, restaurants, bars, shopping malls, cinemas and places of worship are also shut nationally.

However, there will be no restriction on movement of goods between states or on the manufacturing and distribution of essential items.

The Centre has further allowed the state governments to take a call on deciding what needs to be permitted based on the situation in the ground. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his interaction with the chief ministers on April 27, had said that the state governments are the best in judging what should be allowed since they get the ground reports from the district administration.

Also Read: States draw up plan for lockdown 3.0

Thee restrictions in states will be based on the incidence of Covid-19 in different regions, which have been colour-coded accordingly.

Red zones:

All the metro cities, including Delhi, Mumbai Bengaluru - have been designated as red zones where most curbs remain in place. The classification is made based on number of active coronavirus cases, and the increase in the rate of cases.

In urban red zones that are not marked as containment zones - which are areas sealed off due to coronavirus cases - private offices can open at 33 per cent capacity. Construction activity can also resume, as long as workers reside on site. Manufacturing of essential goods and IT hardware is permitted. E-commerce activities are only allowed for essential goods, while standalone shops are able to open.

In accordance with that, the Delhi government had on Sunday allowed opening of standalone liquor shops from Monday. There are 150 such shops, according to news agency PTI, that will remain open till 7 pm.

In rural red zones, all agricultural, construction and industrial activity is permitted.

Orange zones:

In orange zones, all the activities allowed in red zones are permitted. In addition, taxis are allowed, provided they are carrying only two passengers, as is travel between districts for permitted activities.

Green zones:

Areas designated as green zones, or places that have not seen any incidence of Covid-19 in 21 days, are allowed to resume all activities except those prohibited nationally.

Buses are allowed to operate at 50 per cent capacity.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Global Oil Accumulator Market was value US$ 450.50Mn in 2017 and is expected to reach US$ 700.50Mn by 2026, at a CAGR of 5.67% during a forecast period.

An accumulator is a pressure storage tank, which supplies a specific amount of fluid that is under pressure. This fluid is later unconstrained to perform a specific operation in the hydraulic system. The fluid, which is stored via an external source that can either be piston, spring, gas, and fluid. Oil accumulators are used for different purposes, comprising noise reduction as well as pulse dampening. These accumulators are available in different shapes as per the customization.

Request For Report sample @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/4026

Increasing safety concerns and various environmental threats related with oil & gas exploration activities are expected to enhance the growth of the oil accumulator market. Fast exhaustion of crude oil reserves has prompted key players to take up new exploration developments to survive up with increasing demand. Furthermore, technical challenges faced by the manufacturers to produce accumulators to suit the appropriate application coupled with stringent environmental regulations may hamper the oil accumulator market growth.

The bladder segment is expected to dominate the global oil accumulator market the forecast period. The dominance of the market is attributed to increasing demand for bladder accumulators owing to the exploration and production spending and its wide usage in a blowout preventer applications. High investment in onshore and offshore activities by emerging economies will be booming the oil accumulator market. It has high durability compared with other types.

Blowout Preventer & Well Head Control is expected to lead the global oil accumulator market owing to its usage in wide application of accumulators. These accumulators possess the capability to operate blowout preventer & wellhead control in case of a power failure, which is one of the key drivers for its dominance the global oil & gas accumulator market in the Forecast period.

The up to 6,000 psi is estimated to contribute a major share in the oil accumulator market in 2017. The major contribution is driven owing to it is useful for the application of multiple units in place of a single unit to reduce the idle time during production or drilling. Rising investments in the oil & gas industries are increasing the growth of the oil accumulator market.

Request For Report Discounts @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/4026

The report provides a detailed overview of the oil accumulator market including regional analysis information. Geographically, North America is expected to share a significant share of the growth in the oil accumulator market. The growth is attributed to digitalization in the oil & gas industry, and shale gas exploration in this region. The US and Canada are the countries, which are estimated to contribute a large amount of share in the oil accumulator market. Furthermore, Asia Pacific is projected to lead the oil accumulator market owing to the rapid industrialization and the increasing presence of the oil and gas industries in this region.

The Middle East and Africa are also contributing share in the oil accumulator market owing to the presence of the oil and gas industry and the increasing investment in the oil sector.

The report gives a clear representation of the current market scenario of oil accumulator market, which includes projected market size in terms of value and volume, pestle analysis, Porter's analysis factors in the market.



The Scope of the Report for Global Oil Accumulator Market



Global Oil Accumulator Market, By Type



Bladder

Piston

Diaphragm



Global Oil Accumulator Market, By Pressure Type

Up to 6,000 Psi

Above 6,000 Psi



Global Oil Accumulator Market, By Application



Blowout Preventer & Well Head Control

Offshore Rigs

Mud Pumps



Global Oil Accumulator Market, By Geography



North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa

South America



Key players Operating in Global Oil Accumulator Market



Eaton Corporation

GE Oil & Gas

Nippon Accumulator Co., Ltd.

Parker Hannifin Corp.

Bosch Rexroth USA

Technetics

Hydac International GMBH

Tobul Accumulator Inc.

Accumulators Inc.

Airmo Inc.

Bolenz& Schafer Gmbh

Hydril Pressure Control

Hannon Hydraulics

Hydac International Gmbh

Pressure Technologies

Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

Make an Inquiry before Buying@ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/checkout/4026/Single
Mallory Peases contractions grew stronger as her husband, Mitchell, drove her to Oaklawn Hospital in Marshall, Michigan, to give birth to their second child. It had been a routine pregnancy, but she told her doctor shed recently developed a sore throat, aches, coughing and shortness of breath  symptoms her provider knew could indicate COVID-19.

So, when she arrived at the hospital, she was taken to an isolation area, tested for the coronavirus and given oxygen. She took shallow, panting breaths as she delivered her daughter on March 23 in about five hours.

But she could hold little Alivia for only five minutes before the newborn was whisked off to a nursery. Pease, 27, was transferred to a COVID-19 floor, where she was told her test came back positive. By the next morning, she was so ill that her doctors discussed putting her on a ventilator.

As she struggled to breathe and worried for her life, her heart ached to hold her newborn. Instead, she held tight to the memory of that brief glimpse.

When she finally got to cradle Alivia in her arms four days later, she said, it was kind of like meeting her all over again.

Across the U.S., COVID-19 is radically altering medical care, not only for vulnerable elders but also for pregnant women and their babies entering the world. In the last six weeks, our entire world that was known as being normal has completely turned around, said Dr. Edith Cheng, division chief for maternal fetal medicine at the University of Washington.

Hospitals from Seattle to St. Louis are recommending separating infected mothers from their newborns for days, and asking the women to forgo the intimacy of skin-to-skin contact, and sometimes breastfeeding, to help prevent their infants from contracting the disease.

The actions are based on guidance from medical associations. Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had advised separation across the board until updating their guidance on April 4 to consider it case by case.

Separation runs counter to most any parents birth plan  and to the best research on family-centered care. But experts say its important to put protections in place, given the still-evolving understanding of the effects of COVID-19 during pregnancy and childbirth.

Can babies be infected if the mother is infected at birth? The answer is yes, not commonly, but yes, said Dr. Karen Puopolo, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and co-author of the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines on COVID-19 and newborns.

Its not clear how many pregnant women have been infected with COVID-19 across the U.S. They accounted for just 2% of cases tallied in one early report. With more than 830,000 confirmed infections in the U.S. as of Wednesday afternoon, thats still many thousands of expectant women potentially affected by the deadly respiratory virus.

Many pregnant women may be infected and not know it. Of 215 women admitted for delivery at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City from March 22 to April 4, about 15% tested positive for the coronavirus, but the vast majority showed no symptoms upon admission.

Scattered reports of infants possibly being sickened by the coronavirus are surfacing nationwide. A 9-month-old baby in Chicago who tested positive for COVID-19 died in March, though further investigation has raised questions about whether the virus was to blame. This month, a 6-week-old girl who tested positive for the virus died in Connecticut; investigation also continues into her cause of death. Kentuckys governor recently announced that the states new cases included a 10-day-old boy.

Very young babies may be at higher risk for serious complications from COVID-19 than other children. Although those 18 and younger make up fewer than 2% of all COVID-19 cases in the U.S., infants accounted for most of the hospitalizations in pediatric cases, according to the CDC. Of 95 children younger than 1 hospitalized between Feb. 12 and April 2, at least 59 were hospitalized, and five were admitted to the ICU.

That information  plus limited data on infections in babies in China  has shifted the thinking of many obstetrics specialists, said Cheng.

In recent weeks, several pregnant women infected with COVID-19 have delivered babies at Chengs hospital, the UW Medical Center in Seattle. Their newborns were sent to a special section in the neonatal intensive care unit. At other facilities, separation might involve taking the newborn to another room, or letting the mother and baby stay in the same room, but 6 feet apart and often separated by a curtain.

Theyre kept apart from moms  and sometimes dads, who also may be sick  until the parents have had no symptoms for three days or for a week after their first symptoms, whichever is greater.

Given the still-scant data about the effects of COVID-19, some experts question whether separating mothers and newborns is wise or warranted. Disrupting the bonding that occurs in the first days of life could have far-reaching consequences, said Dr. Yalda Afshar, an OB-GYN at UCLA Health in Los Angeles.

Being completely data-blind but counseling women on their outcomes and their babies outcomes is just wrong, she said.

To fill the data void, Afshar and colleagues at the University of California-San Francisco have created a nationwide pregnancy registry to track the effects of COVID-19 on pregnant women and their newborns. Already, more than 1,000 people have signed up for the study.

Silvana Vergara Tobin, 33, who runs an online art gallery in New York City, is among them. Tobin fell ill with COVID-19 in mid-March and is worried about the potential effects on the baby boy she expects to deliver in August.

What really scares me is that I might get it again, said Tobin, whose symptoms included sinus headaches, body aches and a persistent cough. Or that the baby didnt get immunity and he might get it once hes born.

The registry will track women and their babies from early pregnancy through a year postpartum, trying to answer basic questions. Do pregnant women with COVID have more severe, less severe or different disease? Afshar said. Does it transmit in utero? Does it cause birth defects?

Doctors and patients said its frustrating that so much remains unknown.

Alaine Gilpin, who lives near Louisville, Kentucky, tested positive for COVID-19 in early April after coughing for a month but showing no other symptoms. She gave birth at Norton Womens & Childrens Hospital on April 11 at 5 months gestation. The baby boy weighed just 1 pound, 9 ounces and needed the aid of a ventilation machine. She now wonders: Could this be a result of COVID?

To protect moms and babies, many hospitals with enough test kits are starting to test all women who show up to give birth. Dr. Chemen Neal, an OB-GYN with Indiana University Health, said her colleagues bathe the babies of COVID-positive moms just after birth. And like medical professionals elsewhere, they talk to each mom about pumping breast milk for her baby or breastfeeding only after washing her torso and hands and wearing a surgical mask.

At some hospitals, COVID-19 births can be especially challenging. At Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, for example, women with symptoms cant give birth in the normal labor and delivery area because its in a building that also houses severely immunocompromised patients. A triage tent has been set up outside, and moms with known or suspected COVID-19 are routed through the emergency room into a special delivery area.

Another challenge is keeping babies safe after they are discharged from the hospital. Ideally, experts recommend infected moms stay 6 feet from their babies while another caretaker provides daily care, but often this is difficult, particularly for women who lack family support.

Pease worried about passing the virus to her baby after getting home. Before embracing Alivia at her aunts house, and for the next few days, she said, she wore a mask and washed my hands like crazy.

But over time, Peases symptoms have eased and shes gotten stronger. Though she still gets tired in the evenings, shes now able to feed, change and care for her newborn. And she said her bond with the baby is strong.

Alivia is good. Shes happy, Pease said. She never skipped a beat.

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Pro-Brexit parties in Northern Ireland have slammed the EU's bid to maintain a 'mini embassy' in Belfast after the UK's Brexit transition period ends later this year.

The EU says it needs an office in the city to help monitor the UK's implementation of the withdrawal agreement - under which the UK Government agreed to checks on trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

The former EU office in Belfast closed in January. But the row over a new EU presence in the city is fuelling concerns in Brussels about how the UK Withdrawal Agreement will be implemented.

A letter seen by RTE says the UK Government agreed to an EU office in the city in February 2019.

"The UK Government supports the continued presence of EU offices in Edinburgh and Cardiff, alongside London and Belfast, given the longstanding relationship the EU has with all devolved nations," Sir Simon McDonald, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, wrote.

The revelation is thought to be significant because it illustrates collapsing trust between the UK and EU over whether the UK's Withdrawal Agreement with the EU will be implemented.

The UK Government now says an EU office is not necessary and "would in our view be divisive in political and community terms", according to a letter from minister Penny Mordaunt.

DUP Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson MP said that the EU plan was unacceptable, and welcomed the UK Government's rejection of its plan for a new office.

"We've always argued that when we leave the EU, we leave as the whole United Kingdom," Mr Wilson said. "The proposed office would be a physical symbol that Northern Ireland was different from the rest of the UK and was still part of the EU structure and sphere of influence.

"We do not see any point in such an EU office, and we're pleased that the UK Government has said they will not give any credence to this proposal."

Ulster Unionist leader Steve Aiken felt the EU was trying to use Northern Ireland as a bargaining chip.

"The need for a permanent EU presence, with customs, veterinary and 'peace process' inspectors, is not recognised. The idea of EU 'perm reps' with extra jurisdiction powers like the EU had in the Balkans is simply not acceptable in the UK - and it is inconceivable that any EU country would accept that on their sovereign territory.

"It is more than regrettable that what should be a simple administrative arrangement is being used as a 'bargaining' chip, with NI in the middle again."

TUV leader Jim Allister hit out at the "arrogant" EU demand.

"It is critical that the UK Government continues to rebuff the aggressive attempt by the EU to secure a permanent presence in Northern Ireland," he said.

"Just as in the NI Protocol it sought to annex Northern Ireland as an EU satellite state, so, now it wishes to assert authority in this part of the United Kingdom through this proposed presence. Brussels' writ must cease to run in every part of the UK and, therefore there can be no EU headquarters here.

"The fact that the EU even seeks such is confirmation of its disrespect for UK sovereignty and belief in its arrogant right to meddle in a foreign state."

Anti-Brexit parties in Northern Ireland have also backed the EU's proposal.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood told the Irish Times on Sunday that UK Minister Michael Gove wrote to his party, Sinn Fein, Alliance and the Greens saying that such an EU office in Belfast was unnecessary.

Asked about Sir Simon's letter, a Government spokesperson said: "The Government's position is that there's no reason why the commission should require a permanent presence in Belfast to monitor the implementation of the protocol."
A man's body was found late Monday morning in Hamilton County near the Tennessee-Georgia line.

At approximately 11:30 a.m., Hamilton County Sheriff's Office deputies were dispatched to Highway 134 near the 6th mile marker after being notified a body had been located.

Detectives went to the scene to conduct an investigation.

The body will be transferred to the Hamilton County Medical Examiners Office to determine the identity, as well as the cause and manner of death.
By Online Desk

With 2573 new cases and 83 more deaths from coronavirus infection reported in the last 24 hours, the tally in India has climbed to 42,836 on a day when the country entered the second extension of the COVID-19 lockdown with relaxations in orange and green zones. This includes 29,685 active cases and 11,762 discharges. The death toll stands at 1,389.

While Tamil Nadu registered the biggest-ever spike with 527 cases, its neighbouring state Kerala reported no cases for the second day in a row. 'Well, the curve has flattened. No new cases. 61 recoveries. Active cases down at 34...,' chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan stated on Twitter.

In Chennai, the spillover of cases from Koyambedu market, the COVID-19 hotspot, is getting bigger.

Meanwhile, the Centre has announced that it will facilitate the return of Indians stranded abroad. On Monday evening, the Ministry of External Affairs said that the process of repatriation will start from May 7 in a phase manner.
Feel like essential workers should be getting something extra for putting their health on the line during the coronavirus pandemic?

Well, Utah Senator Mitt Romney is right there with you, and he has a plan to make a difference  Patriot Pay.

According to a Newsweek article, Romneys Patriot Pay plan proposes a $12-per-hour bonus for essential workers  from hospital workers to your bagger or cashier down at the local grocery store.

Americas frontline workers are keeping us safe, healthy, and fed during the #COVID19 crisis. #PatriotPay would make sure theyre rewarded for it. https://t.co/NCznX3VgVc  Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney) May 1, 2020

Romney proposed the plan Friday, and it would apply to all essential workers making less than $90,000 if approved. Romneys plan calls for the government to pay for three quarters of the pay raise with employers covering the rest.

According to Newsweek, a refundable payroll tax credit which employers can opt into would help fund Patriot Pay, maxing out at $1,440 per employee per month. So, according to the report, full-time employees would receive up to $1,920 per month extra with 75 percent covered by the government.

Romney called it a matter of fundamental fairness, saying that Patriot Pay is designed to ensure essential workers in the field are making as much as those who stay home during the coronavirus pandemic and collect unemployment.
Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi will provide financial aid to its students who are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sorbonne University works on top of the pandemic situation in line with governments guidelines and instructions by activating both the remote learning and working, the institution seizes to see the bigger picture that its student body is facing amidst the havoc.

The Vice Chancellor of Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, Professor Silvia Serrano, emphasises how the university works to support the students during this pandemic: As it is vital to recognise all the challenges that are arising along the crisis including financial instability, the institution announces to provide financial aid to the students that are hugely affected by the emergence of COVID-19.

Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi has set an ad-hoc procedure of taking case-by-case evaluation of exceptional situations to deliver financial aid to students that are experiencing the impact of the pandemic and are finding difficulties to finance their tuition fees.

We are assuring our students that the University will conduct a comprehensive assessment on their cases and that the University is ready for exceptional assistance, Professor Serrano concluded.

Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi recognises how the crisis affected the society and students financial situation. The institution values the hard work of its students and sees this unfortunate time as an additional challenge.-- Tradearabia News Service
TRENTON  City clerk Dwayne Harris is locking down Trentons daily coronavirus briefings after an unofficial recording of councilwoman Robin Vaughns homophobic diatribe was leaked to The Trentonian.

The city officially released audio of Saturdays 54-minute conference call that showed Vaughn calling openly gay Mayor Reed Gusciora a pedophile and repeatedly telling councilman Joe Harrison to suck Guscioras d**k, but the clerk told council members he wasnt the one who recorded the meeting.

In an email obtained by The Trentonian, Harris told the legislative body that he doesnt consider the daily briefings official meetings, as defined by the Open Public Meetings Act.

So there is no recording from my system and there are not minutes taken, he said. The call recording provided to the Trentonian, in its entirety, was recorded by an individual participating on that call, which is disturbing because they are supposed to be confidential.

Harris said the briefings are not in violation of the OPMA as long as the only subject matter being discussed is related to the emergency only.

He said future calls are not platforms to discuss ANY OTHER CITY business.

That didnt happen Saturday as city leaders discussed Community Development Block Grants and were briefed by city police director Sheilah Coley on a spate of shootings.

At least five council members were on the call, constituting a quorum.

Gusciora admitted Saturdays call, which descended into full-on chaos, likely violated the states OPMA but called the infraction de minimis.

Harris told the governing body that he went through the log from Saturdays call to figure out how audio was recorded and determined 11 unknown participants were the line.

They could have been from directors who were calling in from unidentified cell numbers but there are only nine of them, Harris said.

Moving forward, Harris told council member they will need a passcode to participate in the daily calls.

He directed members of the governing body not to share the codes with anyone and said he planned to change them each day to avoid similar breaches.

Harris also defended himself for not shutting down the call when he was repeatedly asked to do so by council president Kathy McBride. The clerk said he was not a part of the call so thats why there was no response from him when he was directed to end the diatribe.

For the publics benefit, someone was recording the call, which once again thrust Trenton into the national spotlight.

A prominent gay-rights group in New Jersey has called on Vaughn to resign as councilwoman of the West Ward saying shes unfit for office.

Since then, a bandwagon of heavyweight politicians, from Gov. Phil Murphy to U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Robert Menendez, have also demanded the controversial councilwomans ouster.

Hateful language is never acceptable, and audio of the Trenton conference call demonstrates multiple parties engaging in an inappropriate and deeply troubling exchange, Alyana Alfaro, a spokesperson for Murphy, told the New Jersey Globe. Our elected officials must be held to the highest standard and these remarks fly in the face of her office. The Governor believes she should resign immediately.

So far the councilwoman known as Radioactive Robin, previously called upon to resign for downplaying a colleagues anti-Semitic slur as a verb, has remained radio silent other than a statement she posted on her Twitter calling for the release of the tape so Trentonians would have the full context of her hateful rhetoric.

Although it did not exonerate her, the audio showed Gusciora instigating a fight and hurling insults at Vaughn.

Gusciora called Vaughn radioactive, child, idiot, little a**hole and threatened to sue her when she accused him of being an old pedophile and bringing a bunch of young boys into City Hall.
Belgium's Deputy Prime Minister has been filmed putting a face mask on his forehead and over his eyes, in a clip that went viral over the weekend.

Koen Geens was visiting a sewing shop in Wijgmaal, Belgium, where volunteers had made 35,000 fabric masks to help the country's coronavirus efforts.

Unfortunately it seemed he hadn't worn a mask before and needed some guidance on how to put it on.

The best code of practice is to place the mask against the nose and mouth and pull both straps at the same time behind the ears.

Koen Geens (pictured) was visiting a sewing shop in Wijgmaal, Belgium, where volunteers had made 35,000 fabric masks to help the country's coronavirus efforts

But Mr Geens put it on his forehead first, before finding it wouldn't go around his ears, as he made a media appearance at the Ferm Women's sewing workshop.

He then moved it to cover his eyes and tried again before pulling it down to cover his nose and mouth.

Twitter user Bas Toemen, who posted the viral video, captioned the clip: 'Ladies and gentleman, the deputy prime minister of Belgium.'

It was quickly liked and retweeted as others laughed at the deputy prime minister's mishap.

One wrote: 'In all countries it is the same, the most useless are the ones that run the country.'

Another added: 'What is this!!! politicians in Belgium are even worst than politicians here in Spain. ohhh my God . Unbelievable!!!'

Unfortunately it seemed he hadn't worn a mask before and needed some guidance on how to put it on

Twitter user Bas Toemen, who posted the viral video, captioned the clip: 'Ladies and gentleman, the deputy prime minister of Belgium.' Others quickly commented

One penned: 'I actually snorted watching this.'

Another said: 'Much more important question, did he finally succeed???'

It came as Belgium announced face masks would be mandatory on all public transport in the country from today.

But Mr Geens was not the first politician to face embarrassment after failing to put on the vital piece of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Mr Geens tries to put it on his forehead first, before finding it won't go around his ears, as he makes a media appearance at the Ferm Women's sewing workshop

South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa was captured struggling to get his facemask on after delivering a speech on the importance of wearing them, in a blunder livestreamed on Thursday, April 23.

Before suffering the face mask mishap President Ramaphosa announced the nation would be easing some of their lockdown restrictions from next month.

He urged those leaving their homes to travel on public transport to wear face masks, and then attempted to give an instructive demonstration on how to wear a mask - which did not go to plan.

South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa was captured struggling to get his facemask on after delivering a speech on the importance of wearing them in a blunder livestreamed yesterday

Leading by example the president stretched the fabric mask around one of his ears, but struggled to hook the other ear in the elastic.

A second later the mask rebels, pinging off his face before President Ramaphosa firmly places it back over his ears, this time leaving his eyes covered by the mask like a blindfold.

Twitter humorously reacted to the video clip of the president grappling with the mask which was shared widely on social media.

The president stretched the elastic of a fabric mask around one of his ears, but struggled to hook the other ear, leaving his eyes covered by the mask

The president begins his demonstration well but struggles to secure the mask on his right ear

He secures the mask without touching his face, which is the advised way to put on a mask according to Professor of infectious diseases Marc Mendelson at the University of Cape town

[WATCH] President Cyril Ramaphosa responds after his mask blunder goes viral. Courtesy #DStv403 Posted by eNCAnews on Friday, April 24, 2020

Using the hashtags #MaskOnChallenge and #CyrilMaskChallenge people shared posts of themselves incorrectly wearing face masks over their eyes.

Mixo Maluleke, a marketing student from Tshwane, South Africa, share a picture of himself wearing a mask as the president did

Today the president responded to the social media reaction, telling Enca: 'Well for those of you who were laughing at me yesterday, I am going to open a TV channel where I'm going to teach poeple to put on a mask. So you can enroll how a mask is put on.'

One Twitter user posted: 'My family and I laughed. Even the sign language lady was a bit more passionate throughout the whole speech and suddenly at the end she ran out of signs.

Adding: 'I don't think Mr President will mind a little #MaskOnChallenge We have more than enough sulk moments. Let's laugh a little.'

While Roxanne Konkol tweeted: 'Something positive. Thanks Cyril for the giggles #maskchallenge #MaskOnChallenge #Masks #CyrilFridays.'

Some even went as far as creating mock 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' movie posters, which featured the president wearing the mask as a blindfold with the words 'Fifty Shades Of Lockdown'.

Others did not find the jokes about the mask blunder amusing, Busisiwe Ntshingila tweeted: 'Not funny not after all we have been through can you imagine how tired that man must be, where many failed he has protected us, give him a break and show some respect.'

Twitter user Aumento shares a picture of himself trying to put on a homemade mask in a haphazzard way

Mzie Ozias compared the president's new look to an eye mask joking 'we have been doing it wrong'

On March 26 South Africa went into a 21-day lockdown, this has since been extended with most people urged to stay at home, however some measures will be lifted.

The total ban on cigarette sells will also be eased from next month. A total ban on alcohol sales remains in place.

Some schools are expected to reopen with limitations placed on class sizes.

Another politician to fall foul of the mask-wearing challenge was Pedro Duque, an austronaut and aeronautics engineer as well as the minister of science, innovation and universities in Spain.

When he tried to put a mask on while demonstrating how to use the facial covering it pinged away from one of his ears.

The face mask then slipped down to below his nose as he tried to demonstrate how to correctly fit it to the face during the appearance on Spanish television.
Casino stocks have been hit hard by closures and lockdowns tied to the coronavirus pandemic.

MGM Resorts led the decline on Friday after disappointing quarterly earnings, while a massive 97% decline in April gaming revenue in gambling destination in Macao highlighted the industry damage.

However, the worst could be over for the casino stocks, according to Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management. He says Las Vegas Sands is the best example of a name on the rebound.

Las Vegas Sands "stands the best chance to rise from the rubble at this point. Yes, absolutely Macao's gaming has just come to a complete standstill. But that's not the first time in that region for people to be dealing with a pandemic. In Asia, I think the population is just much more adaptive, and as soon as there is a green light or even a yellow caution light, they're going to reenter the arena," Schlossberg said Friday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."

LVS generates the majority of its revenue from Macau  63%. It is one of the most heavily exposed among the U.S. casino names.

"LVS, which has a very strong balance sheet, is going to really be able to capitalize on the position. So, despite the gloom and doom, I think Asia should rebound first and LVS will be the beneficiary," he added. "In the meantime, I think the fact that they have a very strong balance sheet allows them to opportunistically look for other acquisitions. So, overall long term I think they're going to come out of this a winner."

Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler, has his eye on a different casino stock as best positioned to bounce back.

"When I look at a chart like MGM, there's no doubt that  we got to decide when we want to hold them and when we want to fold them. And when I look at this chart, the way that we recovered off the lows, we started a nice upward trending price channel and we're making a nice series of higher highs and higher lows," said Johnson during the same segment.

Even with Friday's decline, MGM ended the week up more than 7%. However, it remains down 55% for the year.

"A lot of the bad news has already been discounted into these stocks and they're well off their highs. And [MGM] is one that I would hold. I think the casinos stocks will do well and MGM would be one that I would be buying," said Johnson.

Disclaimer
It is too early to say whether antibodies guarantee immunity

The "overwhelming majority" of patients who have recovered from coronavirus have been found to produce antibodies - but it is too early to say if they guarantee immunity, England's deputy chief medical officer has said.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam told the daily Downing Street briefing that "we just haven't had this disease around on the planet in humans for long enough" to know whether those who had recovered were immune.

He said antibodies produced in response to other human coronaviruses "don't persist necessarily for years and years and years", although it is unknown what would happen in the case of COVID-19.

Prof Van-Tam said: "Like everybody else in the world we just have to be patient and cautious until we get those answers."

He added that patients who have recovered from coronavirus are being asked to part in a programme to obtain plasma containing antibodies for potential treatments to be trialled.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who recovered from COVID-19 and is taking part in a trial to analyse patients' antibodies, admitted he would "not yet" feel happy being in a crowded room.

He told the briefing at Number 10 that he could not be "comfortable" being in a crowd because "that might trigger a rise in the number of infections if the science turns out to be wrong".

He said there were "very positive" indications about a new antibody test from Swiss company Roche and the government was in discussions with the firm "about a very large-scale roll-out of antibody testing".

But the health secretary acknowledged there had been problems with antibody testing before, having previously said the UK would order 17.5 million home testing kits only to find they did not work.

"There has been false hope before in antibody testing so we will make announcements when we are absolutely ready," Mr Hancock said.

He also played down suggestions that the government may have to make vaccination compulsory once an effective vaccine became available.

Story continues

Mr Hancock added: "I think the extent of the public's reaction following the lockdown shows we will be able to achieve very, very high levels of vaccination without taking that step."

He also cautioned that there was no guarantee that a vaccine would be found.

"We can't assume there will be a vaccine," Mr Hancock told the briefing.

"There is no coronavirus vaccine yet for any of the existing coronaviruses and this is uncertain science."

:: Listen to the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker

Earlier on Monday it was revealed scientists have discovered an antibody which prevents the coronavirus from infecting human cells in "groundbreaking research".

Scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands have identified a potential method of neutralising COVID-19 which could lead to the development of new treatments.

They discovered that an antibody which prevents the SARS virus from infecting human cells could also block the novel coronavirus from infecting human cells too, according a peer reviewed study in the journal Nature Communications.
For the duration of the COVID-19 crisis, Please Explain is coming to you five days a week.

In today's episode, national editor Tory Maguire is joined by climate and environment editor Nick O'Malley to discuss why global emissions aren't falling despite the COVID-19 pandemic halting air traffic and other big emissions contributors.

Our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage.

Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe to The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Franchised new car automobile dealers on Staten Island, through the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association (GNYADA), have stepped up during this harrowing time and made donations of 50,000 face masks to borough residents.

The program, instituted in keeping with Governor Cuomos requirement that face coverings be worn in public places, is part of the donation of half a million masks GNYADA is making to 12 downstate counties, including New York City.

Automobile dealerships, which collectively contribute more than $20 million annually to charitable causes in the downstate region, including community organizations on Staten Island, are once again coming to the aid of those in need.

On Thursday, the group delivered to Borough President James Oddos office the three-ply paper masks. In turn Oddo will distribute them to individuals in need, including seniors, essential workers, and others whose supply may have run out.

The not-for-profits who will benefit from the donation are: AABR Adapt Community Network, a Queens-based 501 C3 non-profit organization, AHRC, New York Citys Employment and Business Services, A Very Special Place, Catholic Charities of Staten Island, Catholic Guardian ServicesCenter for Family Support, Community Resources Constructive Partnership Unlimited (CPU), Crossroads Unlimited Inc., Eden II, Eger Harbor House, Inc., Harbor Terrace Adult Home and Assisted Living (formerly - Anna Erika Assisted Living), HASC Center, Inc., a comprehensive not-for-profit agency, HeartShare Independent Living Association, Modest Community Services Association, New Broadview Manor Home For Adults, NY Foundling, On Your Mark, Parental Loving Care, Inc., Person Centered Care Services, The Brielle at Seaview and The Esplanade Luxury Senior Residences.

Volunteers help unload boxes of masks at Borough Hall, donated by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, to residents of Staten Island. (Courtesy/Dominick Totino)Staten Island Advance

When New Yorkers are in need, time and again, franchise new car dealers and their employees are always there for the communities where they live and work. Auto dealers are the brick-and-mortar backbones of main streets and neighborhoods throughout the region, supporting little leagues, hospitals, schools, senior centers, and many charities large and small, said GNYADA President Mark Schienberg. During this extremely challenging time, when so many New Yorkers are suffering, losing loved ones, losing jobs, and struggling, car dealerships are once again here to contribute.

As a local elected official during the time of COVID-19, our focus has been on ensuring those on the front lines of this fight are equipped with the equipment and support necessary to continue their inspiring, life-saving work, said Oddo. We continue to be in an all-out effort to work with every possible source to acquire the supplies and equipment needed during this trying time. Thank you to the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association for partnering with our office to bring these needed supplies to our essential frontline professionals on Staten Island.

Also present to help with sorting and distribution was Island Auto Group Principal, Marcello Sciarrino, who is part of the association and representing all of New York.

April is the time of year when GNYADA and the auto industry would have been hosting the 120th annual New York International Auto Show at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, which has been converted to overflow hospital space. The popular event is now rescheduled for late August and early September.

Since new car dealers have been declared essential businesses, service departments must fix cars and perform roadside assistance, not only for other essential workers like doctors and nurses, but also for those who need to shop in grocery stores, the pharmacy, and simply carry out the necessities of everyday life.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk listed two of his California homes for sale Sunday, days after announcing that he would get rid of most of his possessions. Hes seeking a combined $39.5 million for the Bel Air properties, including one that was previously owned by the late Gene Wilder, according to the listings on Zillow. Both are for sale by owner. Musk posted more than a dozen tweets in less than 75 minutes on Friday, including one in which he said hes selling almost all of his physical possessions. In another, he said he believed Teslas stock price was too high, prompting a 10 percent plunge on the day.
Despegar May Drop Its Acquisition of Mexican Travel Agency Best Day as Crisis Takes Toll

Events can overtake optimism as shown by the sharp strategy shift since January or Despegar, the largest online travel agency in Latin America.

Despegars chief financial officer Alberto Lopez Gaffney said on March 5, We are very positive, very positive on the year that were looking ahead. At the time, the company was modeling only a mild impact due to the coronavirus pandemic, on the thought that outbound travel from Latin America to Europe and Asia would drop. Executives also continued to tout an acquisition the company had announced in January for Best Day, one of the largest travel agencies in Mexico, for $136 million.

Fast forward to Monday, and Lopez Gaffney told investors during an earnings call that the gross bookings for the online travel agency had contracted during the second half of March by more than 95 percent, year-over-year, by an undisclosed amount. He also said Despegar wanted to exit from the deal or else see significant changes to Best Days valuation and the timing of payments. The purchase price had been 17 times Best Days earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization  a measure of profit  of $8 million last year.

On Monday, CEO Damian Scokin acknowledged the challenging context of the pandemic but believed his company would survive and emerge stronger. Scokin said the companys current cash position, with $225.9 million in cash on hand as of March 31. Despegars minimal debt obligations, such as no long-term debt and only $17.5 million in short-term debt, will provide it flexibility even if it receives zero revenue for the next year, he said.

Get the Latest on Coronavirus and the Travel Industry on Skifts Liveblog

During the three months ending March 31, revenues for the Argentina-based Despegar declined 34 percent, year-over-year, on a currency-adjusted basis to $76.1 million. The companys net income before taxes was a loss of $14.5 million, compared with a gain of $2.6 million in the same period a year earlier.

Story continues

Despegars efforts to respond to the crisis have been similar to online travel companies worldwide. Out of approximately 3,000 workers, Despegar furloughed 387 workers through September, laid off 566 workers, and reduced the working hours of 159 employees.

The company also froze hiring and postponed non-critical investments and expenditures, including ones related to its acquisition of Mexicos Best Day, to save about $90 million by year-end. It also slashed its marketing to save about $35 million by June.

In dealing with travel cancellations related to the pandemic, Despegar provided vouchers for future travel through March 2020, even for non-refundable purchases when suppliers cooperated. The company has set aside $12.5 million for expected cancelations in the second quarter. For more context, read, Latin Americas Despegar Wants to Double Bookings by 2025: How Realistic Is That?

Subscribe to Skift newsletters for essential news about the business of travel.
Boris Johnson was warned by his own Tory MPs today that prolonging the UK's coronavirus lockdown could result in a 'tidal wave of human misery' as the Prime Minister was urged to ease restrictions 'as quickly at possible'.

The PM is expected on Thursday to renew the lockdown before using an address to the nation on Sunday to set out his plan for lifting the current draconian rules.

But many Conservatives are growing increasingly impatient with the government's approach as they fear lasting economic, social and health harm will be caused if measures remain in place for too much longer.

A contact tracing app being developed by the NHS has also sparked concern, with some MPs calling for strict checks on the way the technology will keep track of members of the public.

Tory MPs used a debate in the House of Commons this evening on the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations which were brought in in March to express their disquiet.

Those regulations granted ministers and the police the most sweeping set of restrictive powers ever seen in peacetime in Britain and Tory MPs believe they must be lifted quickly.

Mr Johnson is expected to announce measures to allow the lockdown to be eased in an address to the nation on Sunday, after the lockdown is officially extended for three more weeks on Thursday.

Furious Tory MPs including rank-and-file leader Sir Graham Brady (right) and ex-Brexit minister Steve Baker (left) have demanded an end to the closure as soon as possible.

Tory MP Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) warned business is 'stressed' and that 'lockdown has collapsed demand'.

He said: 'If hundreds of thousands of those businesses go under, or a million or more, we will unleash a tidal wave of human misery. Unemployment of 12 per cent is four million people.'

He added: 'I do think we need to have a frank, open and honest debate about the ethics of trading lives tomorrow to save lives today.'

Sir Charles also warned there could be many waves of coronavirus in the coming years, adding: 'We need an economy that is resilient, that can meet and face that challenge down, so we have to get people back to work as safely as possible.

'Maybe in a few months' time the slogan will be because we want to protect our public services and the things that we value, go to work, wash your hands, save the NHS, because many people, most people find their purpose, their motivation and their happiness in the workplace.'

Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, echoed a similar sentiment as he said: 'I hope that as ministers approach the second 21-day review they will do so always with a view to removing restrictions and removing these arbitrary rules and limitations on freedom as quickly as possible.'

He added: 'It will become even more important that we rely on common sense and voluntary cooperation rather than arbitrary rules.'

There are growing concerns among Tory MPs about the way in which the government could treat the over-70s when lockdown measures are lifted.

Some believe it is likely that the elderly could be asked to adhere to lockdown even when the rest of the nation returns to something approaching normal life.

But Sir Graham said: 'We have today the most healthiest, active elderly generation of all time and it would be tragic if government threatened this by trying to extend a so-called lockdown for those judged to be most at risk based on age.

'Why don't we just give them the best information and advice and let them limit their risk themselves?'

Before the debate, former Brexit minister Steve Baker said 'whatever the necessities, that the rule of law should have been overthrown in this period is extraordinary and deeply troubling,' in an article for the Daily Telegraph.

'Millions of people in our country have been plunged into idleness at public expense and unemployment, facing financial and psychological hardship on a scale never seen before,' he added.

'Thousands of people have missed life-prolonging health appointments. Vulnerable people are isolated and domestic violence has soared. Soon will come the full economic impact on all our lives.'

He went on: 'This is absurd, dystopian and tyrannical. The sooner it is ended, the better.'

Mr Johnson today warned that lifting lockdown restrictions too soon would be 'the worst thing we could do'.

In a video message on Twitter, the Prime Minister said it was important to meet the five tests set by the Government before easing the lockdown.

Mr Davis, who has a long history of speaking out on civil liberties issues, is preparing to challenge the Government over its new contact tracing app, which is due to start trials on the Isle of Wight this week

David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, today expressed concerns about the government's new coronavirus contact tracing app which is set to be trialled on the Isle of Wight.

He has concerns over the app's retention of movement and other data on people who install it - which is used to tell them if someone with a positive test result is nearby.

He said the only way for the app to be acceptable is if the personal data is destroyed over a period of 21 to 28 days and that the technology will be scrapped as soon as it is no longer needed.
FILE PHOTO: The spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York

By Jane Wardell

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Global coronavirus cases surpassed 3.5 million on Monday and deaths neared a quarter of a million, according to a Reuters tally, concerning experts who fear substantial underreporting even as the rate of fatalities and new cases slows.

North America and European countries, where growth rates are easing, still accounted for most of the new infections reported in recent days.

But case numbers were rising from smaller bases in Latin America, Africa and Russia, and experts expressed concern that the overall data falls well short of the true impact of the pandemic.

Globally, there were 74,779 new cases over the past 24 hours, according to the Reuters tally that is based on official government data, taking total cases to around 3.52 million.

That compares with around 3 million to 5 million cases of severe illness caused annually by seasonal influenza, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), but falls far short of the Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and infected an estimated 500 million people.

"We still have to be skeptical about the numbers we get," Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Canberra Hospital, told Reuters. "That's a huge problem."

"The mortality rate is also 10 times higher than for influenza in all age groups."

Cases may cause only mild symptoms and not everyone with symptoms is tested, while most countries only record hospital deaths, meaning many deaths in private homes and nursing homes have not yet been included.

Deaths related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the new virus, stood at 246,920. The first death was reported on Jan. 10 in Wuhan, China, after the virus emerged there in December.

LIFTING LOCKDOWNS?

The daily rate of new cases worldwide has been sitting in a 2%-3% range over the past week, versus a peak of around 13% in mid-March, prompting many countries to begin easing lockdown measures that have upended businesses and crippled the global economy.

Story continues

The loosening of restrictions has proved controversial, however, as experts debate the best strategy to ensure there is no large "second wave" outbreak.

"We could easily have a second or a third wave because a lot of places aren't immune," Collignon said, noting the world was well short of herd immunity, which requires around 60% of the population to have recovered from the disease.

Health officials have also expressed concern about the rising case numbers in countries where there is a shortage of testing and a lack of medical facilities.

While the number of new cases has come off a peak of 104,495 reported in a single day last week, it is still at around 75,000 to 90,000 cases per day globally.

In the United States, around half the country's state governors partially reopened their economies over the weekend, while others, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, declared the move was premature.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who battled COVID-19 last month, said on Sunday the country was over the peak but it was still too early to relax lockdown measures.

Even in countries where the suppression of the disease has been considered successful, such as Australia and New Zealand which have recorded daily rates of new infections in the low single digits for weeks, officials have been cautious.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has predicated a full lifting of curbs on widespread public adoption of a mobile phone tracing app and increased testing levels.

(Reporting By Jane Wardell; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Richard Pullin)
[May 04, 2020] Bank Tech Provider DCI Names Daren Fankhauser to Lead Software Evolution

HUTCHINSON, Kan., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Data Center Inc. (DCI), the privately-owned developer of iCore360 core banking software and related digital technologies for community financial institutions nationwide, has promoted Daren Fankhauser to Senior Vice President, Chief Development Officer and Chief Architect, assuming executive oversight of the company's digital banking software development, particularly iCore360, along with [email protected] online/mobile banking, website hosting, the newly-acquired Vetter digital onboarding solutions and other future products. John Jones, DCI CEO said, "Daren is an extremely talented and visionary software developer who has propelled the depth, breadth and quality of our iCore360 solutions by leaps and bounds during his time at DCI. He has a keen sense of how to build our technology today so it is already where it needs to be for our bankers, tomorrow." Mr. Fankhauser is a 1995 graduate of Fort Hays State University with a B.A. in Computer Information Systems. After a brief engagement with State Farm in Bloomington, IL, he returned to Kansas in 1996, joining DCI as a software developer to help the company become one of the first in its industry to transform its mainframe-based data processing system into an entirely new Windows-based microcomputer client-server platform, released in 2000 under the name iCore. Mr. Fankhauser's expertise quickly led to promotions directing development teams for both front-end user interfaces and back-end Soaris UNIX systems, until 2007 when he once again lead a three-year effort to redesign iCore into a completely new and cloud-based .NET architectureanother industry milestonewhich the company released as iCore360 in 2010.



In 2010 Mr. Fankhauser was promoted to Chief Architect and Technical Systems Officer, quickly followed by his promotion to VP of Research and Development, leading the innovation of new iCore360 features and companion applications. In 2016, Mr. Fankhauser was promoted to Senior VP, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Architect, replacing retiring CTO Robert Ross, while continuing to lead iCore360 user interface development. Commenting on his latest promotion and new role, Mr. Fankhauser states, "The banking industry is undergoing a digital revolution, and I'm eager to keep DCI innovations at the forefrontand ahead of our competitors. You'll see a lot coming from our talented DCI engineers to help community banks and their customers thrive and navigate the future ahead."

Mr. Fankhauser is the husband of Sarah Fankhauser, recently named President and COO at DCI, with whom he has twin daughters attending Kansas State University. About DCI

DCI is the developer of the award-winning iCore360 core banking software and related technologies for community banks nationwide. DCI is privately owned by a group of bank clients, with several clients serving as board members and user group leaders. In addition to iCore360, DCI provides integrated, digital omnichannel solutions for online/mobile/AI banking, onboarding, private ATM network/card management, tellers, remote capture, custom analysis, risk/vendor management, managed IT and more. Among other awards, DCI has been named a FinTech Rankings Top 100 technology provider by IDC Financial Insights, a FinTech ForwardTop 100 technology provider by American Banker and BAI, a multiple winner of the BankNews Innovative Solutions Award and endorsements from multiple regional banking associations. For more information about DCI, visit www.datacenterinc.com or contact [email protected]. Contact: Mark Harris, VP, Marketing

(620) 694-6771 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bank-tech-provider-dci-names-daren-fankhauser-to-lead-software-evolution-301051392.html SOURCE Data Center Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
We are taking precautions in the field, based on the standard guidelines issued by the CDCP to address the spread of COVID-19, said Rick Livingston, President of Intermountain Helicopter in Sonora, California.

As the 2020 fire season approaches, aerial firefighters are instituting more protective measures for their flight crews and mechanics who may be at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus during a wildland fire operation.

We are in unchartered territory, said Robin Rogers, Vice-President of Rogers Helicopters in Fresno, California, although we are following all the Center For Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

Rogers noted that, to date, the US Forest Service has not issued guidelines for COVID-19 protection specifically oriented to aerial firefighters. If the COVID-19 risk extends into the fire season, hopefully there will be procedures in place that will afford protection for all the firefighters, including our flight crews and mechanics in the field.

Rogers Helicopters has two Bell 212s under exclusive use, and two Bell 212s under call when needed contracts with the US Forest Service. All are used for water drops, as well as personnel transport. Two additional fixed wing Turbine Commanders are used for traffic control.

Other aerial firefighting operators have expressed similar concerns, and are taking aggressive measures to protect their employees during a fire event.

We are taking precautions in the field, based on the standard guidelines issued by the CDCP to address the spread of COVID-19, said Rick Livingston, President of Intermountain Helicopter in Sonora, California. That, he explained, includes sanitizing the companys single Bell 212 helicopter by applying any alcohol-based cleaners to any surface people are likely to come in contact with.

We stocked up on a large quantity of hand sanitizers prior to when the pandemic gathered momentum in the US, he noted.

Intermountain Helicopter, said Livingston, deploys the helicopter with one pilot, one mechanic, a fuel truck driver and occasionally a mechanics helper. Since we are a small operation, its really just a matter of doing a lot of self-monitoring, and monitoring each other, he remarked. If anyone shows up with any of the symptoms associated with the coronavirus, I will not allow that person to fly.

Josh Beckham, General Manager of Helimax Aviation, reported that the McClellan, California-based company is encouraging all of its employees to exercise precautionary practicesincluding social distancing and the use of masks. At the same time, the company is limiting its workforce in the field, as well as at its headquarters, to essential employees only.

Currently, the operator has four CH-47D Chinook helicopters available for firefighting, with one under a US Forest Service exclusive use contract. Each helicopter is deployed with two pilots, five mechanics and a fuel truck driver.

In addition to masks, Helimax Aviation is providing cleaning products, such as hand sanitizers and bleach wipes, to its crews in the field, Beckham pointed out. Aircraft are now cleaned after every crew rotation, which takes place every 12 days. However, our crews have also been told to give the aircraft a cleaning sooner, if necessary, he said. This includes cleaning any surface subjected to touchprimarily the controls.

Procurement of cleaning products, said Beckham, has become more challenging in recent weeks. Normally, we procure them on the retail market, and so far, weve been able to get an adequate supply, he noted. But now it takes more effort to find them.

Missoula, Montana-based fixed-wing tanker operator Neptune Aviation Services has developed its own guidance document for procedures and protocols, specifically addressing the COVID-19 risk. Many of the guidelines used for the protocol were incorporated from those published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dan Snyder, the companys Chief Operating Officer explained.

Our document also includes guidance from the FAA as well as BAE Systems, the aircraft manufacturer, he said. Along with travel, and lodging, it also focuses on workplace interaction among crews, as well as with those at tanker bases. Tanker bases, Snyder noted, are areas of higher risk, given the concentration of people.

From BAE Systems, we incorporated their suggested methods of cleaning any surfaces likely to be touched, without risking damage to the aircraft, said Snyder. That includes a normal standard, as well as an enhanced, cleaning process, which would be used in case someone on or around the aircraft becomes ill. Our flight crews and mechanics have been trained to do both, using the appropriate cleaning products and quantities.

Currently, Neptune Aviation Services has nine BAe 146 regional airliners, modified for aerial firefighting, of which four are under USFS exclusive use contracts, with the others available, if needed.

The aerial firefighting operators will continue to take all necessary measures to assure that protective protocols are followed for as long as COVID-19 remains a threat, said George Hill, Executive Director of the American Helicopter Services and Aerial Firefighting Association (AHSAFA). As the pandemic runs its course, the industry will assure the firefighting community that it will minimize any risks of contracting the illness from its flight crews and mechanics at tanker and helicopter bases, while remaining mission ready at the highest levels.

Helimax Aviation, Intermountain Helicopter, Neptune Aviation Services, and Rogers Helicopters are members of AHSAFA, the Washington-based trade association representing the privately operated aerial firefighting industry before the US Forest Service and other agencies tasked with federal wildland management and fire protection.
Koalas drink water by licking moisture that is running down trees, scientists have discovered, a finding they say significantly alters our understanding of the much-loved but enigmatic animal.

It had been thought the tree-dwelling marsupial absorbed most of its fluids from chomping on juicy leaves in Australias eucalyptus forests.

But researchers from the University of Sydney have now documented koalas drinking behaviour in the wild for the first time. In a study published in the journal Ecology, they describe how the marsupials slurp up water running down smooth tree trunks during rain.

For a long time, we thought koalas didnt need to drink much at all because they gained the majority of the water they need to survive in the gum leaves they feed on, said Valentina Mella, a postdoctoral research associate at the universitys School of Life and Environmental Sciences.

But now we have observed them licking water from tree trunks. This significantly alters our understanding of how koalas gain water in the wild. It is very exciting.

Animals rescued during Australia fires Show all 25 1 /25 Animals rescued during Australia fires Animals rescued during Australia fires Wildlife rescuer Simon Adamczyk is seen with a koala rescued at a burning forest near Cape Borda on Kangaroo Island, southwest of Adelaide AAP Image/Reuters Animals rescued during Australia fires Rural Fire Service volunteer firefighter Pat Smith pouring water onto a possum's feet with burns from fires on the outskirts of the town of Tumbarumba in New South Wales Greenpeace Australia-Pacific/AFP Animals rescued during Australia fires Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education volunteer and carer Tracy Dodd holds a kangaroo with burnt feet pads after being rescued from bushfires in Australia's Blue Mountains area Reuters Animals rescued during Australia fires Grey-headed Flying Fox bats prepared for a feeding at the Uralla, Australia, home of Jackie Maisey, a volunteer with Northern Tableands Wildlife Carers. The bats are swaddled in flannel wraps similar to those being made by thousands of crafters worldwide who are using their sewing, knitting and crocheting skills to make items for wildlife injured in the Australian brush fires Jackie Maisey/AP Animals rescued during Australia fires Sara Tilling takes care of a young injured Kangaroo which she and her partner Gary Henderson are nursing back to health in Cobargo EPA Animals rescued during Australia fires Humane Society International Crisis Response Specialist, Kelly Donithan holds a baby Koala she just rescued on Kangaroo Island AFP via Getty Images Animals rescued during Australia fires Tracy Burgess holds a severely burnt brushtail possum Reuters Animals rescued during Australia fires Fire-impacted, orphaned pouch-rescued Eastern Grey Kangaroo joeys are seen at the property of WIRES Carers Kevin and Lorita Clapson in East Lynne, South of Sydney EPA Animals rescued during Australia fires A koala receives water from a cyclist during a severe heatwave that hit the region, in Adelaide Instagram/BIKEBUG2019 via Reuters Animals rescued during Australia fires An orphaned Flying-Fox is fed at the property of WIRES Mid-South Coast Bat Coordinator, Janet Jones, in Tuross Head EPA Animals rescued during Australia fires Humane Society International Crisis Response Specialist, Kelly Donithan checks an injured Koala she had just rescued on Kangaroo Island AFP via Getty Animals rescued during Australia fires A wallabie eating a carrot dropped by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife services over the bushfire affected areas along the South Coast for wallabies NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services Animals rescued during Australia fires A dehydrated and injured Koala receives treatment at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital AFP via Getty Animals rescued during Australia fires Gary Henderson holds the young injured kangaroo he and his partner are nursing back to health EPA Animals rescued during Australia fires A koala drinks water offered from a bottle by a firefighter during bushfires in Cudlee Creek, south Australia Oakbank Balhannah CFS via Reuters Animals rescued during Australia fires WIRES Mid South Coast wombat coordinator Tony De La Fosse with two orphaned pouch-rescued Wombats at his property in Malua Bay EPA Animals rescued during Australia fires Qantas, an orphaned Eastern Grey Kangaroo joey whose feet were burned in recent bushfires, is held by WIRES Carer Kevin Clapson at his property in East Lynne EPA Animals rescued during Australia fires Various completed animal pouches for animals affected by Australia bushfires hang on clothing racks in Regents Park, Queensland Kim Simeon via Reuters Animals rescued during Australia fires An orphaned pouch-rescued Eastern Grey Kangaroo joey hangs in a makeshift pouch at the property of WIRES EPA Animals rescued during Australia fires A rescued koala injured in a bushfire in Kangaroo Island, South Australia Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park/AP Animals rescued during Australia fires WIRES Mid-South Coast Bat Coordinator Janet Jones weighs a rescued Grey-Headed Flying-Fox at her home in Tuross Head EPA Animals rescued during Australia fires A weary kangaroo shelters on a patch of green grass surrounded by burnt bushland along the Princes Highway near in Milton Reuters Animals rescued during Australia fires Various animal wraps for bats affected by bushfires Simone Watts via Reuters Animals rescued during Australia fires A staff member moving a rescued koala to a temporary shelter at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney Taronga Zoo/AFP via Getty Animals rescued during Australia fires A kangaroo jumps in a field amidst smoke from a bushfire in Snowy Valley AFP via Getty Images

Australia is currently enduring its longest dry period ever documented, with little rainfall and record maximum temperatures.

That has prompted koalas  which usually spent most of their time in the safety of the treetops  to climb down in search of water.

The animals suffer severe heat-stress and mass deaths during prolonged hot and dry conditions, and Australian conservationists have set up artificial drinking stations to help them stay hydrated.

The Sydney ecologists say their research could help determine where and when such resources are needed, as well as reinforcing how vital trees are to the koalas survival.

This type of drinking behaviour  licking tree trunks  relies on koalas being able to experience regular rainfall to access free water and indicates that they may suffer serious detrimental effects if lack of rain compromises their ability to access free water, Dr Mella said.

We know koalas use trees for all their main needs, including feeding, sheltering and resting. This study shows that koalas rely on trees also to access free water and highlights the importance of retaining trees for the conservation of the species.

Wild koalas eat around 510g of succulent eucalyptus leaves each day, and the moisture in the foliage they feed on is believed to contribute about three quarters of their water intake.

Koalas have been observed to drink water in captivity, but this behaviour is considered unusual and often put down to disease or severe heat stress.

There are also anecdotal reports of koalas in the wild drinking from waterholes in summer when temperatures exceed 40C, and they have been observed approaching humans to access water during droughts and after fires.

But the koalas documented licking trees did so during a range of weather and even when free-standing water was available nearby.

This suggests koalas were drinking not as a result of heat stress and that this behaviour is likely to represent how koalas naturally access water, said Dr Mella.

The study collated 46 observations supplied by members of the public and independent ecologists in Victoria states You Yangs Regional Park and the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales between 2006 and 2019.

Our observations probably only represent a minority of the drinking that normally takes place in trees during rainfall, said Dr Mella.

She added: As koalas are nocturnal animals and observation of their behaviour rarely occurs during heavy rainfall, it is likely that their drinking behaviour has gone largely unnoticed and has therefore been underestimated in the past.
Pakistan's tally of the coronavirus cases crossed the 20,000-mark on Monday after 1,083 new infections were diagnosed, the health ministry said.

In the last 24 hours, 1,083 new cases were reported, taking the total to 20,186 patients. There were 22 deaths during this period, upping the fatalities to 462. A total of 5,590 patients have recovered in the country, the ministry said.

The authorities have so far conducted 212,511 tests, including 9,522 during the period.

The Ministry of National Health Services said that out of the total number of patients, Punjab province reported 7,524 cases, Sindh 7,465, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 3,129, Balochistan 1,218, Islamabad 415, Gilgit-Baltistan 364 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 71 cases.

Pakistan's total COVID-19 tally so far stood at 20,186.

According to a report in the Dawn newspaper, a critical coronavirus patient in the Hyderabad city of Sindh, as an experimental therapy, was injected with convalescent plasma of a recovered person to treat the disease.

The development was confirmed by the Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) isolation ward's focal person Aftab Hussain Phull.

The plasma was donated by a recovered coronavirus patient to the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory at the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences.

"He was given the plasma after managing his condition as best as possible under the given circumstances," Phull said.

On April 30, the Sindh government allowed three hospitals in the province to carry out clinical trials for the experimental use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma for passive immunisation."



The hospitals included Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital in Karachi, the National Institute of Blood Diseases (NIBD) in Karachi and LUH, a government facility in Hyderabad.

Prior to this, the government had approved clinical trials for plasma therapy in addition to approving locally made ventilators for treating critically ill patients and granting permission for manufacturing sanitisers and chloroquine, the report said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the nation was coming out of the fear of the pandemic due to a well-devised strategy adopted by the government to cope with the health crisis.

The prime minister made the remarks during a meeting with his Adviser on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan at his Banigala residence on Sunday to discuss the COVID-19 crisis, the relief package for the poor and sessions of the parliament requisitioned by the opposition for May 6.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lord Blackwell is not known as the most activist chairman of a High Street bank.

But as someone who once worked in Downing Street under the gaze of Margaret Thatcher, the Lloyds Bank boss has well-tuned political antennae.

By the time be had succeeded Win Bischoff as chairman in 2014, the bank's chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio had rendered the bank safe again after the turmoil of the financial crisis. Blackwell's interventions as chairman have been limited.

Under the microscope: The Treasury is understood to have been exasperated at Lloyds' lacklustre embrace of CBILS

He took charge after Horta-Osorio was involved in a tryst while attending a banking conference in Singapore in 2016.

The chairman also played a key role when Lloyds was less than fastidious in taking responsibility for the way clients of the former HBOS branch in Reading were compensated in the wake of a serious fraud.

In the last week or so, Blackwell has been required to step in again.

The Treasury is understood to have been exasperated at Lloyds' lacklustre embrace of Chancellor Rishi Sunak's Coronavirus Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), designed to keep small- and medium-sized enterprises afloat during lockdown.

Of the 4 billion of loans made since the scheme was up and running, only 618m went to Lloyds clients.

Lloyds put in place a lengthy pre-application process which was forbidding for many borrowers. Blame for a clunky process fell upon Horta-Osorio.

The approach was a big contrast to the slick way in which NatWest's Alison Rose responded to the challenge. The cumbersome UK scheme has been contrasted with the way in which money to SMEs was swiftly processed in Germany and Switzerland.

Blackwell has once again been galvanised and is making sure CBILS lending is up to scratch amid concern about political scarring. It would be unconscionable if there were to be failures among Lloyds' SME clients as a result of the earlier log jams.

Virgin roundup

Deal-making in the midst of a pandemic requires a strong stomach. 'Cable cowboy' John Malone, who once challenged Rupert Murdoch by building a stake in his media empire, has no shortage of that.

Judged on financials alone, a merger of Liberty-owned Virgin Media with Telefonica-controlled UK mobile operator 02 would look to make sense.

Liberty loves deal making and Virgin cut its debts by selling its German and Eastern European operations to Vodafone for 16.7 billion in 2019 after lengthy regulatory scrutiny.

Heavily indebted Telefonica has been trying to ease the burden for several years. It looked at a range of choices, including a merger with Hong-Kong controlled Hutchison's Three network, which was blocked by the European Commission.

The Liberty-Virgin deal would be a neat exit, allowing Telefonica to release 3.5 billion of cash. It would provide Virgin with real purchase in the mobile market, adding 25.8m pre-paid and contract customers to its own 3.3m.

The transaction also raises technology and competition issues. O2 has been an innovator.

It is one of the first movers on 5G networks, long before the conspiracy theorists started to vandalise masts.

Telefonica also chose Britain as the hub for much of its R&D activity. As part of a financially driven Liberty/Virgin, it is not clear this would survive.

Even though Virgin is an also-ran in mobile, allowing the biggest operator, O2, access to an additional 3m-plus customers is not likely to improve price or service choice or competition. Brussels has been very sniffy about mobile mergers.

If jurisdiction has moved back to the UK, one would not expect the revamped Competition and Markets Authority to be the pushover it was when it allowed BT to sweep up EE. Malone will not find lassoing O2 easy.

Loss leader

Warren Buffett's annual meeting was different this year.

Instead of 40,000 worshipful Berkshire Hathaway investors in Omaha, Nebraska, it was just Buffett and a potential successor, Greg Abel, who appeared online.

Buffett's decision to sell out of US airlines captured headlines. But the bigger shock for investors was the paper 44 billion first quarter write-down as a result of the plummeting stock value of big brands such as Coca-Cola.
A railway employee, one of the 22 people to recover after testing positive for coronavirus disease Covid-19 in Jharkhand, has said that being in touch with his family members helped him overcome depression. The man was discharged from the hospital, but is under home quarantine till May 11.

I was frightened of the disease besides being worried about my pregnant wife. However, doctors instilled confidence in me. Constant talks with family members on mobile helped me overcome the sense of fear and depression, said the 32-year-old.

According to the Union health ministry data on Monday, Jharkhand has recorded 115 Covid-19 positive cases, with three people having lost their lives to the pathogen.

The railway employee, a trackman, is one of the two persons who till now have tested positive in Dhanbad district, popularly known as the coal city of the country. Both have recovered and now discharged from the hospital.

The railway employee is now in home quarantine in his official residence at DS colony, which is under complete curfew since April 18.

He is currently living alone as his wife and six-year-old son are with his in-laws in neighbouring Bokaro district. The mans parents and his two siblings are in their native village in Bihar.

His wife has been with her parents since before the lockdown. It had only been few days since he had returned from his in-laws place to Dhanbad, that he was detected Covid-19 positive. His colony in heart of Dhanbad got converted into a containment zone.

Over a dozen primary contacts, including his wife and son were tested, but all of them tested negative for the disease.

I broke down both emotionally and mentally when the doctor in divisional railway hospital (in Dhanbad) informed me that coronavirus has infected me. I had heard about the disease, and mostly bad things. Initially, I had lost hope of recovery. But after getting admitted at the Central Hospital (dedicated Covid-19 hospital), I felt better. Doctors and nursing staff were very encouraging, said the trackman.

Besides the doctors, he also remained in constant touch with his family members. He would call up his family members several times in a day.

I was worried for my wife and family members. But it comforted me when their reports came negative. There was no objection on using the phone any time of the day. Since it was easy to speak to my family members, they were also relieved, he said.

The railway employee said his colleagues and seniors also called him on few occasions to check his condition when in the hospital.

He has now set a routine. Since I am alone in the house, I have engaged myself in cleaning the quarter and other belongings to spend time. I also spend time watching TV besides cooking food and speaking to family members, he added.

On his immediate future plans after completion of his quarantine, he said while he would follow doctors prescription on health front. The man is, however, still undecided if he would meet his family soon after coming out of quarantine.
Editors Note: Lisa Huisman Koops researches how parents incorporate music into everything from daily chores and routines to family and religious practices. Its something she believes has taken on more importance now that families are spending more time together in close quarters due to COVID-19. Here, Koops elaborates on the concept of parenting musically and what it involves.

1. What is parenting musically?

Parenting musically is the way I describe what happens when moms and dads use music for many nonmusical tasks and goals. These activities can involve everyday things or ways to better relate to one another. For example, a mother can sing a song to help cue her kids to brush their teeth. Or a father can use a playlist to make Saturday morning chores more fun. Children can also sing songs with grandparents through videoconferencing as a way to deepen their emotional bonds.

An example of parenting musically - helping a child brush their teeth for a certain amount of time. Author provided (No reuse)1000 KB (download)

An example of parenting musically - helping a child speak about their day. Author provided (No reuse)2.02 MB (download)

These are just some of the ways to get children to see the richness in the ways they can experience the world through music.

2. What are the most interesting examples youve seen?

Several families in my research project used music to help develop their childs identity. For instance, by singing Hungarian folk songs she had learned growing up, one mother encouraged her daughter, Francesca, to sing them over Skype with her grandparents in Hungary.

One couple curated a playlist for their daughter Maggie as a way to nurture her identity as an African American girl growing up in a transracial adoptive family with white parents.

This family intentionally introduced a broad range of musicians, including many who are African American, and talked about the importance of familiarity with music as a form of social meaning.

Story continues

Other families used music for transitions and rituals. One father composed little songs for his son Joel to help him through his bedtime routine. The songs were cues for what each of them needed to do as well as a joyful way to connect.

Another family, who were observant Orthodox Jews, used music throughout their daily and weekly religious practices and holidays. For instance, the children learned songs at home and school about Purim, a Jewish holiday, that explained the background and significance of their celebrations.

3. Does parenting musically involve formal music lessons?

It depends on the family. There can be more than one reason for parents to engage their children in music through formal lessons as well as in everyday life. Ive found that having several reasons for enrolling kids in music lessons might help keep children interested when enthusiasm flags or practicing becomes a struggle.

Parents should communicate whatever their and their childrens hopes and dreams are to music teachers. If a teacher assumes the goal is for my daughter to be the top violinist in a youth orchestra, when my goal is for my daughter to understand and accept that its OK to struggle to master a difficult skill, there can be a mismatch that leads to frustration on all sides.

Theres no one right way to parent musically, and no one best way to be musical. Learning informally with online materials, taking time to explore childrens musical passions through listening to music together or rocking out to quarantine parodies - these are all ways to enjoy and grow with music.

For me personally, the goal of parenting musically is to embrace experiences with my four children today that help us navigate hurdles in life, bring us together as a family and develop skills and interests that will be with them throughout their lives.

[Youre smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversations authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]

<p>Este articulo se vuelve a publicar de <a href="http://theconversation.com/es?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=related-link0&utm_content=article-131182">The Conversation</a>, un medio digital sin fines de lucro dedicado a la diseminacion de la experticia academica.<p> <p><strong>Lee mas:</strong><br><ul><li><a href="http://theconversation.com/5-ways-to-develop-childrens-talents-111041?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=related-link0&utm_content=article-131182">5 ways to develop childrens talents</a></li><li><a href="http://theconversation.com/how-talented-kids-from-low-income-families-become-americas-lost-einsteins-89126?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=related-link1&utm_content=article-131182">How talented kids from low-income families become Americas Lost Einsteins</a></li></ul></p>

Lisa Huisman Koops received funding from the GRAMMY Museum Foundation, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-Advance ACES+ (Academic Careers in Engineering and Science) Advance Opportunity Grant from Case Western Reserve University, and a travel grant from the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, Case Western Reserve University.
A day after the Maharashtra government announced plans to lift certain lockdown restrictions in the state according to the Covid-19 zones, several areas in the city witnessed a surge in public activities. Several citizens complained about long queues outside alcohol shops as well as grocery stores. In some parts of the city, public transport such as autos and buses were also plying as usual.

However, according to the announcement, in red zones, under which Mumbai falls, outside the containment zones, certain activities are still prohibited by the Ministry of Home Affairs. No relaxation was given to cycle rickshaws, autorickshaws, taxis and cab aggregators, intra- and inter-district plying of buses, functioning of barbershops, spas, and salons.

Hakim Kapasi, who owns a medical store at Andheri, had witnessed a long queue to purchase alcohol from a neighbouring wine shop on Monday morning. Kapasi said there were more than 100 people who had gathered, waiting for the shop to open. There was no social distancing and many of them did not wear masks. Some of them were spitting on the street as well. However, the shop didnt open in the morning, said Kapasi.

Pervez Cooper, a resident of Colaba, stopped several people from getting haircuts outside a gym near Colaba Causeway. However, most of the other shops in his area were shut except for a grocery store.

The situation on the streets was ridiculous. Vagrants were sitting on the streets and at least 20 people were getting haircuts without any kind of social distancing, said Cooper.

In Ghatkopar, locals were seen gathering on the streets to chat, while ignoring social distancing guidelines. When Santosh Mehta, an IT professional, stepped out for some essential work, he noticed autos and taxis plying and people gathered on road to talk to each other. It looked like authorities didnt seem to care what was happening. There were so many people on the streets and it looked like most of them did not have any work to be out, said Mehta.
A cashier at an E-mart store in Daegu works behind a sneeze guard, a new private initiative by the company to prevent possible spread of the COVID-19, Wednesday./ Yonhap



By Kim Se-jeong



The likelihood of a COVID-19 pandemic recurrence this fall or winter is high and the government is preparing for a worst case scenario, Jung Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), said Wednesday.



"The possibility is quite high for a second wave of the pandemic to hit us this fall or winter when people's immune systems are depressed, and we don't as yet have vaccines or treatments available for then," Jung said during a daily press briefing at the Sejong Government Complex. "The government is preparing for the worst case scenario where public medical services collapse."



Her comments came the day after the KCDC reported 11 new COVID-19 infections bringing the total number of cases here to 10,694, with 238 fatalities as of Tuesday. Among the 11, six were people who recently returned to Korea from overseas.



Regarding people who had recovered from the coronavirus infection, Jung said random testing of 25 people had revealed that 48 percent carried antibodies for COVID-19, but also DNA remnants. She said additional lab research was underway.



In other countries, research has found that the antibody rates in former patients were as low as 3 percent.






BW Energy Limited today provides an update on operation and development of the operated Dussafu Marin license in Gabon and impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. Production activities in Gabon remain uninterrupted as BW Energy complies with public health regulations at all its locations to protect the health of employees and partners, ensure safe operations and contribute to stopping the spread of coronavirus.



FIELD OPERATIONS IN LINE WITH EXPECTATIONS

Dussafu daily operations continue to perform in line with expectations with four wells (DTM-2H, DTM-3H, DTM-4H and DTM-5H) producing to the FPSO BW Adolo at a current rate of approximately 17,500 bbls/day oil production (gross).

Gross production from Tortue averaged 11,485 bbls/day for the first quarter of 2020 and total gross production was 1,045,100 bbls of oil. One lifting was completed by BW Energy in the quarter realising an average price of about USD 33 per barrel. Production cost (excluding royalty) was USD 21.8 per barrel.

BW Energy share of gross production was 768,150 bbls of oil. Net sold volumes, which are the basis for revenue recognition in the financial statement, were 427,647 bbls, reflecting overlift position of 375,500 bbls at the end of the first quarter. The lifting took place in March and reflected a lower average realised oil price.

In April, one lifting was executed by JV partner Gabon Oil Company on behalf of itself and the State of Gabon. Next lifting for BW Energy is scheduled to take place in June.

REVISED DEVELOPMENT PLANS AND OUTLOOK

Total Dussafu production for 2020 is projected to be 15,000  16,500 bbls/day (gross) based on four producing wells, compared to 11,800 bbls/day on average in 2019, while OPEX per barrel is expected to decrease to approximately USD 16-18 per barrel, compared to USD 21 per barrel on average for 2019.

Drilling of the DTM-6H well was completed in March and the final installation program was previously scheduled for June this year. Due to the COVID-19 situation, it is now uncertain when this well can be hooked up the FPSO BW Adolo. As international travel restrictions limit movement of essential personnel, subcontractors and equipment to and from Gabon, the Company has also suspended drilling of the planned DTM-7H well and the subsequent exploration well.

ENSURING FINANCIAL FLEXIBILITY

As previously announced, BW Energy has decided to defer the Ruche Phase 1 development. BWEs total revised capital spending program for 2020 now amounts to approximately USD 115 million, of which about USD 49 million was spent as of the end of March.

Net cash flow from operating activities for the first quarter of 2020 was USD 49.8 million and total available liquidity amounted to USD 168.3 million in cash with no debt as at 31 March. BW Energy is continuing the process with a reserve-based lending (RBL) facility with a syndicate of leading banks. The RBL facility will have a six-year term, with an initial amount of USD 200 million plus an accordion of USD 100 million.

We have taken decisive action to manage the factors we control by safeguarding people, managing OPEX and deferring investments to ensure our resilience amid the current oil market turmoil, said Carl K. Arnet, the CEO of BW Energy. Our business model enables us to quickly adapt to changing market conditions, preserve financial solidity and sustain low oil prices. When markets normalise, we can quickly resume development activity and increase production.

For further information, please contact:

Knut R. Sthre, CFO BW Energy, +47 91 11 78 76

ir@bwenergy.no

About BW Energy:

BW Energy is a growth E&P company with a differentiated strategy targeting proven offshore oil and gas reservoirs through low risk phased developments. The Company has access to existing FPSOs to reduce time to first oil and cashflow with lower investments than traditional offshore developments. The main assets are 73.5% of the producing Dussafu Marine Permit offshore Gabon and a 95% interest in the Maromba field in Brazil, both operated by the Company. Total net 2P+2C reserves are 247 million barrels at the start of 2020 and gross average production from Dussafu was 11.8 kbopd in 2019.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
Expressing concern over the fatality rate of COVID-19 being high in some districts of Madhya Pradesh, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Monday stressed on aggressive surveillance and strict implementation of measures to prevent occurrence of fresh cases in the state.

Proper interventions, more aggressive surveillance and early diagnosis should be the top priority of the state to reduce the mortality rate due to COVID-19, Vardhan said at a meeting with Madhya Pradesh Health Minister Narottam Mishra and senior officials from both the Centre and the state.

The Union minister also exhorted that state to focus on the non-affected districts by conducting search, surveillance and testing of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and influenza-like illness (ILI) cases, as this may prevent the spread of the virus in other areas.

"It is painful to know that in few districts, the fatality rate is higher than the national average," Vardhan stated.

"The need of the hour is to take preventive, preemptive and comprehensive measures in a systematic manner and follow the protocols laid down by the Centre, to prevent occurrence of fresh cases," he said.

Vardhan added that community volunteers may be identified at ward levels to spread awareness about the preventive measures like hand-washing, social distancing etc., and also play an effective role in removing the stigma prevailing in the society.

"The health ministry would provide full support and hand-hold the state government through the National Health Mission (NHM) as part of the immediate and long-term measures," he stated.

The minister also urged that people aged more than 65 years and those having non-communicable diseases may be diagnosed on priority.

The number of cases in Madhya Pradesh reached 2,942 on Monday, with the death toll rising to 165, according to the Union health ministry data.

Vardhan also asked to ensure that non-COVID-19 services and programmes like the National Tuberculosis Elimination Program (NTEP), maternal and child health, dialysis, chemotherapy, vaccination, immunization etc,. are not hampered due to emphasis on COVID-19 management.

He suggested that the data available with the states on the Health Management Information System (HMIS) for various diseases may be optimally utilised for risk-profiling.

The minister appreciated the Indore administration and health officials for effectively utilising both Sarthak and Aarogya Setu mobile apps and asked other districts to use as well as popularise these applications.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- For many high school seniors, making a decision on where they will spend the next four years for college isnt easy  but throw in a global pandemic, and that decision becomes even more difficult.

Colleges across the United States have closed their campuses and moved to online learning to help curb the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) -- meaning tours, open houses, and incoming freshmen events have been canceled.

A LAST-MINUTE SWITCH

Jenna Quinn, a senior at New Dorp High School, recently changed her college plans.

After several safety concerns were raised about the dorm life at her original choice -- where she was planning to study forensic chemistry -- Quinn decided to make a switch, and will now attend the University at Buffalo in the fall.

She liked the school when we visited, but we heard some concerning things about campus safety, said her mother, Ann Marie Varela, about her daughters first college decision.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

After Quinn received her acceptance letter from University at Buffalo, she said her decision was still a difficult one.

I was concerned because it is a much larger school, we hadnt visited it, and it didnt have the forensic chemistry major, said Varela. But weve been able to see a lot of virtual tours. There is a parent page on Facebook and a Class of 2024 page.

Varela said the decision for Quinn to attend University at Buffalo was last-minute -- she just submitted the deposit last week.

Its sad because if it hadnt been for COVID she might have gone to that overnight event [at the first school] and felt that the campus and dorms were a good fit, said Varela. But without firsthand experience, and without any parent pages on Facebook, and without knowing anyone personally who goes there or knows someone there, we just didnt feel comfortable. Its too far away from home to take chances.

But Quinn said she is excited about her current choice, explaining that University at Buffalo was one of her reach colleges.

NO CAMPUS VISITS

Kaitlynn Intartaglio, a senior at Port Richmond High School and Miss Greater New York Outstanding Teen 2020, said it has been difficult to make a choice for college, because she wasnt able to visit any of the schools she applied to before the pandemic hit -- due to her many extracurricular activities.

The senior said she made the decision on her own just a few weeks ago to attend Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y.

It was also different for me because I did the whole college process on my own, she said. So I had to visit the colleges virtually  send emails to ask questions instead of being in person. It was definitely a struggle and it was so new and different to me.

Kaitlynn Intartaglio, a senior at Port Richmond High School, said she is planning to attend Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. (Courtesy/ Kaitlynn Intartaglio)

Looking into a college online and touring a campus in person are vastly different, Intartaglio said, and it made it so much harder to make my decision.

She added: I really wanted to visit the campus before committing to Le Moyne, but obviously it wasnt possible -- so I took the virtual tour, which was actually pretty helpful."

EXCITED ABOUT GOING AWAY

Nancy Blomquist said her daughter Kayley, a senior at Curtis High School in St. George, is still going away for college to the State University of New York (SUNY) Oneonta.

They havent officially sent out options for virtual learning in the fall, but I obviously know they are there, Blomquist said. She is slowly accepting that graduation and prom and all other senior activities will be postponed. I am happy that she is very excited about the thought of going away. Its something to look forward to.

She explained that the SUNY Oneonta has been communicating virtually with its incoming freshmen, adding that she and her daughter have both joined SUNY Oneonta-related Facebook groups to meet other incoming families.

WHATS AHEAD FOR THE FALL?

But in-person classes at colleges in the fall is still unknown due to the uncertainty of the pandemic.

As of right now, they are still planning on regular classes -- but it all depends on how the summer plays out, Intartaglio said.

Le Moyne College has also been communicating with prospective and incoming students, Intartaglia explained, constantly reaching out and planning Zoom meetings for students to ask questions.

She said she has been communicating with her roommate and purchasing essentials and other items for her dorm room.

For now, her college plans havent changed despite the coronavirus outbreak.

I dont think as of now theres anything to change because I have hope we will get to go to school in the fall, Intartaglio said.

Blomquist said she thinks its too early to tell at this point if the fall semester will be affected by the coronavirus, but she knows all schools are hoping for the best. SUNY Oneonta continued to send students information about whats ahead for them  such as scheduling courses or orientation programs.

Varela said the University at Buffalo has been sending constant email confirmations and reminders, including information about the coronavirus effects on the school community. Quinn will have to attend her freshman orientation virtually.

The college said their goal is to begin in-person classes as soon as state guidelines allow it.

So it seems like theyre preparing for either option, Varela said.

SURVEY: MANY MAY NOT ENROLL IN FALL

Many high school seniors may not enroll in college in the fall, according to a recent survey.

A recent survey from the National Student Survey from SimpsonScarborough, a higher education marketing, branding and research agency, found that about 1 in 5 high school seniors planning to start college in the fall may not attend due to COVID-19.

The survey asked 573 high school students who were expected to attend a four-year residential college for fall 2020 semester. More than half the respondents -- 53% -- said their familys finances were impacted by the pandemic.

While 70% of students said they will continue to plan for college in the fall, COVID-19 is still influencing their decision process.

45 Photos of the pandemic in NYC: Our lives changed forever

FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER.
(TNS)  COVID-19 has laid bare the struggles that some area families face due to limited Internet connection.In Middleport, broadband service is not available to the Vanderwalker's household, so the family has been utilizing a smartphone to create a hot spot, which is an Internet connection created by using the data from a cellphone.On Stone Road north of Route 104, there's no cable, and thus no broadband option for any of the four households on the block."It's a dead-end road, so we have no cable run down our road at all," Alicia Vanderwalker said.Since the pandemic reached New York and the state started issuing stay-at-home orders in mid-March, competition for access to the hot spot in the Vanderwalker home has grown fierce. The children, who previously could access the Internet at school or Royalton-Hartland Community Library, have to take turns doing their school work at home. And their parents need access, too."Now it's just, we basically battle over who's got the hotspot at what time," Vanderwalker said.It has resulted in them having to assign times for Internet usage, with Alicia using the Internet during the day for her work and her children using it at night, during her lunch break or when she's not working.Complicating matters further, this month the family already used up its monthly data limit of 25 gigabytes, so the Internet connection has been slowed to the point that certain content doesn't load."The kids can't pull up the videos or the Zoom meetings or anything like that," Vanderwalker said.That's a problem for her daughter, who takes online classes from Genesee Community College."She sits there forever. She sits in the yard to try and get a better signal," Vanderwalker said. "We can go different places in our yard and the signal gets a little bit better, but there is certain times she just gives up and doesn't do it."Broadband access in rural America has been an issue for years.According to CNN, a 2018 report from the Federal Communications Commission showed that more than 18 million Americans nationwide lack access to high-speed Internet.New York State's Public Service Commission required Spectrum Internet, formed by the Time Warner Cable-Charter Communications merger, to significantly boost Internet speeds upstate and expand broadband service to 145,000 residential units that currently don't have it.Lara Pritchard, a Charter spokesperson, claimed the company has completed the extension of its network to 100,421 new homes and businesses as of Jan. 31, 2020, which she claims is 13,000 ahead of the PSC schedule. Charter plans to meet the state requirement of 145,000 by Sept. 30, 2021, she said."Spectrum is paying 100% of the cost of the 145,000 homes we are building in underserved areas in New York State, and do not receive any government subsidies. We've also committed an additional $12 million to help fund additional broadband to areas that are still without available service," Pritchard said. "We have made a huge commitment to investment in broadband to unserved areas and continue to fulfill on that commitment  ahead of schedule  every day."Niagara County Legislator David Godfrey and Orleans County Legislature Chair Lynn Johnson, who helped start the Niagara-Orleans Regional Alliance, are spearheading an effort to get both counties to 100% Internet connectivity. NORA will be submitting an application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for funding through the ReConnect Loan and Grant program to accomplish broadband expansion in both counties. The application isn't finished yet, so the details have not been finalized.Johnson and Godfrey both indicated the USDA is supportive of the two-county application.An inventory done, about five years ago, showed 4,481 unserved addresses between the two counties, 2,943 in Niagara and 1,538 in Orleans, according to Godfrey.Those numbers do not include properties that are underserved, meaning the Internet connection speed is less than 25 MB per second download speed.Godfrey said he does not have an exact estimate, but believes it could be approach 10,000 or more between the two counties.Data usage limits, like the one affecting the Vanderwalker household, are another barrier.Godfrey also pointed out that the pandemic and the increased usage of the Internet is overloading Internet towers, and at some locations in the county he's done speed tests and gotten less than 1 mb/second download speed."I've gone and done speed tests at 9 o'clock in the morning or 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and at some times I get like a 0.5 mb/second. You literally could go and click on your screen and you might as well go pour yourself a cup of coffee because it takes 2, 3, 4, minutes for a screen to come up," Godfrey said. "The reason is that customer may not be necessarily degraded it's the fact that now there are so many people on that tower during the day. The kids are home. Everybody is working from home. The towers are basically melting because they can't handle the volume."Johnson said Orleans County is experiencing similar problems with Internet towers being overloaded with increased traffic."What little Internet that we had in our rural areas is now drained to the point of what we used to have with the old dial-up connections, that's what it reminds me of," Johnson said.Pritchard said Spectrum's towers have been able to handle the increased traffic."We built our networks to exceed maximum capacity during peak evening usage, and even with the increased network activity we are seeing in the daytime  especially in areas with larger COVID-19 closures  levels remain well below capacity and typical peak evening usage in most markets. Our network continues to perform well downstream and upstream, the growth in both of which have shown signs of stabilizing. We continue to monitor the situation  and our network  closely and are poised to adjust resources as needed to provide the reliable Internet and essential services our customers depend on," Pritchard said.
Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel Shri Dharmendra Pradhan today held a social media live conversation. He addressed concerns of people and answered questions that people sent through social media.

Union Minister said that the country is going through unprecedented times, honorable Prime Minister is leading the way our citizens and our country are dealing with this pandemic. Today the country is entering in the third phase of the lockdown. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi said Jaan hai to Jahaan hai and followed it up with the mantra Jaan bhi aur Jahaan bhi. Everyone have to follow the lockdown while slowly resuming economic activities.

On a question on advice for future job aspirants post-lockdown, he said the world is changing. Take for example how banks have reached the doorsteps of people in villages. In an increasingly digital world, digital literacy will become more and more important. If technology will pervade our lives more, we will need people to run technology. The nature of job will change and newer jobs will be created.

To a question on role of Central and State Governments, he said that he is confident that with the way Central Govt under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and state Governments are working together as a team, country will be able to overcome this challenge.

In Odisha also, the Central and state Government is working in sync with each other to manage the situation. The control we have established over the spread of pandemic till now could not have been possible without the active participation of citizens.

On a question of PM Gareeb Kalyan Yojana, he said that it is ensuring food security and economic assistance to the most vulnerable in this challenging time. 3 free refills under PMUY is providing much needed relief. DBT and PDS network are being leveraged to provide help to the needy.

On a question on oil price and demand, he said world is seeing demand reduction due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. India has also seen almost 70% decline in oil and gas demand. Oil and gas sector is going through unprecedented challenges. Despite challenges, our refineries are operating, supply chain working. India has been able to fill its strategic reserves of petroleum products. Our oil companies have procured almost 7 MMT oil at low prices. Almost 20% of our demand has been stored. This has also led to reduced import bill which will help us free more resources for more public welfare measures.

On a question on PMUY, Shri Pradhan said, In first month itself, almost 4cr 50 lakh PMUY beneficiaries have bene provided LPG cylinders. On a daily basis 50-60 lakh LPG cylinders are delivered across the country. Corona warriors of oil and gas sector are working hard to serve our public even in red zones at great personal risk.

On Odisha fighting this pandemic, he said. People of Odisha have defeated many challenges in the past. This time will be no different. People of Odisha have immense strength and capability to defeat any challenge that comes their way. With a positive mindset we must fight this challenge and prepare ourselves for a changed world. He also lauded NIT Rourkela students who prepared a technology platform for video conferencing.

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
The American College of Cardiology together with other North American cardiovascular societies has issued a framework for ethically and safely reintroducing invasive cardiovascular procedures and diagnostic tests after the initial peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The document was published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced appropriate, but significant, restrictions on routine medical care, including invasive procedures to treat heart disease and diagnostic tests to diagnose heart disease. Many hospitals and practices have attempted to defer and replace these critical procedures with intensified triage and management of patients on waiting lists; however, many patients with untreated cardiovascular disease are at an increased risk of adverse outcomes, and delays in the treatment of patients with confirmed cardiovascular disease can be detrimental. Also, reduced access to diagnostic testing can lead to a high burden of undiagnosed cardiovascular disease that will further delay time to treatment.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women and men worldwide and these patients need prioritization as health care systems return to normal capacity. In this document, North American cardiovascular societies outline how to reintroduce regular cardiovascular care in a progressive manner with appropriate safeguards.

The authors have outlined three areas that must be considered when reintroducing services, including:

Ethical considerations that include maximizing benefits by prioritizing procedures that will ensure the most lives or life years are saved over those that benefit fewer people to a lesser degree, ensuring fairness in how cases are treated, ensuing proportionality so that the risk of further postponing treatment is weighed again exacerbating the spread, and maintaining consistency in reintroduction across populations regardless of ability to pay and assuring health equity.

Collaboration between regional public health officials, health authorities and cardiovascular care providers to manage the dynamic balance between provision of essential cardiovascular care and responding to future fluctuations in COVID-19 infections and hospital admissions.

Protection of patients and health care workers through regions having the necessary critical care capacity, personal protective equipment (PPE), and trained staff available, and a transparent plan for testing and re-testing potential patients and health care workers for COVID-19. Strategies for social distancing between patients and health care workers should also be considered, including virtual pre-procedural clinics, virtual consenting for procedures and diagnostic tests, and minimizing the number of health care workers in physical contact with any given patient.

"Unprecedented times call for unprecedented collaboration, and a collaborative approach will be essential to mitigate the ongoing morbidity and mortality associated with untreated cardiovascular disease," said Athena Poppas, MD, FACC, ACC president and one of the authors on the document. "It is essential that we work together to ensure cardiovascular disease patients are safely cared for during this pandemic and that we don't allow for a new crisis of undiagnosed, untreated or worsening cardiovascular disease to occur in the aftermath of this pandemic."

###

North American Cardiovascular Societies represented on the document are: ACC, American Heart Association, Canadian Cardiovascular Society, Canadian Association of Interventional Cardiology, Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, Heart Valve Society, American Society of Echocardiography, Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Heart Rhythm Society, Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, Society of Nuclear Medicine, Canadian Heart Failure Society, and the Canadian Society of Cardiac Surgeons.

The American College of Cardiology envisions a world where innovation and knowledge optimize cardiovascular care and outcomes. As the professional home for the entire cardiovascular care team, the mission of the College and its 54,000 members is to transform cardiovascular care and to improve heart health. The ACC bestows credentials upon cardiovascular professionals who meet stringent qualifications and leads in the formation of health policy, standards and guidelines. The College also provides professional medical education, disseminates cardiovascular research through its world-renowned JACC Journals, operates national registries to measure and improve care, and offers cardiovascular accreditation to hospitals and institutions. For more, visit acc.org.

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology ranks among the top cardiovascular journals in the world for its scientific impact. JACC is the flagship for a family of journals--JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging, JACC: Heart Failure, JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology, JACC: Basic to Translational Science, JACC: Case Reports and JACC: CardioOncology--that prides themselves in publishing the top peer-reviewed research on all aspects of cardiovascular disease. Learn more at JACC.org.
WASHINGTON - Senate officials said Monday that they cannot legally release any potential records related to a complaint purportedly filed by a former aide to Joe Biden who has since accused him of sexual misconduct, rebuffing a request by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Tara Reade has accused Biden, who was then a senator from Delaware, of sexually assaulting her in 1993, although she has said a formal complaint she filed that year describes only harassment, not assault. Biden, who denies all the allegations, has responded in part by calling on the Senate to release all the documentation pertaining to the complaint that Reade says she filed.

Responding to a letter Biden sent Friday, the secretary of the Senate's office, on the advice of legal counsel, concluded that the "Secretary has no discretion to disclose any such information as requested." The office, which did not confirm or deny the complaint's existence, based its decision in part on a review of confidentiality requirements.

The letter from Biden was related to Reade's allegation that Biden reached up her skirt and penetrated her with his fingers in 1993. Biden unequivocally denied the allegations on Friday, speaking directly about them for the first time. He also said he did not recall any complaint being filed.

Reade has told The Washington Post that her complaint dealt with harassment in the office, not assault. She has said that she cannot recall the office to which she filed her complaint and that she does not have a copy.

Reade was employed in Biden's Senate office for nine months, ending in 1993. She said she filed a complaint that year with a congressional human resources or personnel office. The Senate Office of Fair Employment Practices fielded complaints starting in 1992.

On Friday, Biden said relevant documents would not be found in his Senate papers, which are closed to the public, but would rather be housed at the National Archives.

A spokesperson for the Archives said that it has no control over the release of such records and that any documents "would have remained under the control of the Senate." A Senate resolution requires that such personnel records remain out of public view for 50 years.

On Friday afternoon, Biden's campaign released a copy of a letter the candidate had sent to the secretary of the Senate.

"The Archives now states that the records would have remained under the control of the Senate. Accordingly, I request that you take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this Office, and once they have been located, to direct a search for the alleged complaint and to make public the results of this search," Biden wrote.

He added, "I would ask that the public release include not only a complaint if one exists, but any and all other documents in the records that relate to the allegation."

The latest development adds to the fog surrounding the Reade allegations and illustrates the difficulty of looking into a 27-year-old alleged incident.

After the secretary of the Senate's statement, Biden campaign attorney Bob Bauer responded with follow-up questions about the possibility for a more limited release.

"Is just the existence of any such records subject to the same prohibition on disclosure?" Bauer asked, according to a statement from the campaign.

Without naming Reade, he asked if the accuser might be able to obtain the records: "Is there anyone, such as a complainant, to whom such records, if they exist, could be lawfully disclosed?" Finally, Bauer asked whether the Senate could release "the procedures and related materials" in 1993 for processing a complaint such as the one Reade has described.

The secretary of the Senate's office responded late Monday to say it was advised by legal counsel that even disclosing the existence of such records "would amount to a prohibited disclosure under the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991." The office said it was not aware of any exceptions in the law allowing it to disclose any records, "even to original participants in a matter."

In response to the campaign's third question, the office attached a public document from the time of the alleged complaint titled "Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices" - the entity that Bauer referred to in his question and that the secretary of the Senate's office referenced in its initial response to Biden.

The document outlines the procedure for bringing concerns to the attention of that office. It states that an employee would first submit a request for counseling to the director of the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices, in person, by phone or in writing. Unless the employee and the director agreed in writing to contact the employee's office, the information relating to the counseling would not be disclosed to anyone outside the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices, the document states. If the matter were not resolved, the employee could request mediation, at which point the employee's office would be contacted and involved, the document says. If the matter still remained unresolved after mediation, an employee could file a "formal complaint," according to the document.

Reade did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Over 35 months, which covered Reade's employment period, 479 people sought assistance from the Senate fair employment office, according to congressional testimony in 1995.

Of those, 325 sought informal advice, while 102 went into a five-step process that included counseling and mediation. Only 38 people ended up filing a formal complaint.

If Reade was among those who filed a formal complaint, her record would not normally be available until 2043, based on a Senate resolution passed in 1980 mandating that such information remain private for 50 years.

- - -

The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
Access Bank on Monday confirmed media reports about suspension of operations in some of its branches across the country, although it gave security concerns and regulatory directives by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the action.

The bank, however, said it would begin a phased reopening of such branches.

The confirmation was contained in a regulatory filing at the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Monday to clarify media reports about alleged plans to close over 300 of its branches in Nigeria and downsize about 75 per cent of its workforce.

In the filing, the bank said as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which culminated in government lockdown in many parts of the country, the bank was compelled to suspend normal operations in some branches at different locations in line with the CBN directive.

Also, beyond compliance with regulatory directives, the bank said the decision was informed by the need to protect the health and safety of its customers and employees at vulnerable locations.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, we suspended in-branch operations at different locations as directed by the CBN and in line with business continuity plans at vulnerable spots, whilst we continued to provide services through our alternative digital platforms, the bank said.

The bank did not say how many of such branches were affected, although it acknowledged concerns raised by reports about the decision, especially among its employees, customers, shareholders and the general public.

Beyond the suspension of operations at the branches, the bank said it was yet to apply for nor obtain the approval of the CBN for the closure of any of its branches.

The closure of a bank branch, it explained, is an action that requires the approval of the CBN.

In line with the phased re-opening of the economy beginning May 4, 2020, the bank said it would be resuming normal services at the suspended in-branches in a programmed fashion to ensure the health and safety of its employees and customers were protected.

The Company Secretary, Sunday Ekwochi, said the programmed reopening in affected branches was necessary to provide relevant contingency to the overall bank operations should there be any incident arising from the pandemic.

Bearing in mind that the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic was not yet averted, Mr Ekwochi said, the bank would do all that is required to ensure the safety of all its branches in line with the protocol advised by the health authorities.

He urged the banks customers to leverage more of the digital channels for their transactions, to justify the significant investment made to ensure availability of service outlets throughout the crisis period and beyond.

On report about the banks plan to sack about 75 per cent of its workforce, Mr Ekwochi described it as baseless and twisted speculation, and malicious and a distraction from a genuine and compassionate plan to protect our staff and help keep jobs in the unfolding macroeconomic environment.

But, media reports quoted the banks group Managing Director, Herbert Wigwe, of announcing during its online staff town hall meeting through video conference that his management was planning to dispense with about 75 per cent of the workforce due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Mr Wigwe said with the closure of the banks branches following the lockdown period, it would be difficult to keep all of its staff, including the security and other categories of staff.

Based on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, we do not expect that all our branches will be fully opened for in-branch services until later in the year. This has made it impossible for many of our outsourced workers to perform their duties as usual.

Based on the above-mentioned circumstances, we have commenced engagement with various stakeholders with a view to ensuring that they provide the relevant services and optimum manpower as may be required by the Bank on an on-going basis.

As we navigate the new normal occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, we wish to assure all our esteemed stakeholders that in our traditional manner the Bank will continue to ensure that its actions and decisions are guided by fairness, justice, equity and good conscience, the bank said.
[May 04, 2020] Mediagrif Announces C$10,000,000 Bought Deal Offering

/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO THE U.S. NEWSWIRE OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/ LONGUEUIL, QC, May 4, 2020 /CNW/ - Mediagrif Interactive Technologies Inc. (TSX: MDF) ("Mediagrif" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate led by Echelon Wealth Partners Inc. ("Echelon"), to purchase, on a bought deal basis, 1,818,200 Common Shares (the "Common Shares") of the Company at a price of C$5.50 per Common Share (the "Issue Price") for gross proceeds of approximately C$10,000,000 (the "Offering"). The Company has granted the Underwriters an option (the "Underwriters' Option") to purchase up to an additional 15.0% of the Common Shares sold under the Offering, at the Issue Price. The Underwriters' Option may be exercised in whole or in part to purchase Common Shares upon written notice to te Company at any time up to 48 hours prior to the closing date of the Offering (the "Underwriters' Option").



The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering for working capital and general corporate purposes. The Company has agreed to grant the Underwriters a cash commission equal to 6.0% of the gross proceeds of the Offering (including the Underwriters' Option), and issue to the Underwriters broker warrants ("Broker Warrants") equal to 5.0% of the number of Common Shares sold in the Offering (including the Underwriters' Option), which shall be payable on the closing date of the Offering.

The Offering will be completed (i) by way of a private placement exemption in all of the provinces and territories of Canada, (ii) on a private placement basis in the United States pursuant to exemptions from the registration requirements of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") and (iii) outside Canada and the United States on a basis which does not require the qualification or registration of any of the Company's securities under domestic or foreign securities laws. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. The Offering is expected to close on or about May 21, 2020 or such other date as the Company and Echelon may agree, and is subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval of the securities regulatory authorities and the Toronto Stock Exchange. About Mediagrif Interactive Technologies Inc. Mediagrif Interactive Technologies Inc. (TSX: MDF) is a Canadian leader in information technology offering strategic sourcing and unified commerce solutions as well as B2B marketplaces. Mediagrif's solutions are used by thousands of businesses in North America and around the world. The Company has offices in Canada, the United States, Denmark, Ukraine and China. For more information, please visit us at www.mediagrif.com or call 1-877-677-9088. SOURCE Mediagrif Interactive Technologies Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
One of the Philippines most trending drama series in 2020 is no other than Make It With You. It is a star-studded series, where Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil, one of the Philippines hottest couples, plays the protagonist roles. People instantly got hooked with it, but unfortunately, the shooting and airing of the show stopped in the meantime because of the enhanced community quarantine implementation. In the meantime, one can still watch the Make It With You recap on the internet.

Image: canva.com (modified by author)

Source: Original

Make It With You is a story about two different individuals who, despite having different priorities in life, found love in each other. Still, after a series of encounters set in the country of Croatia, they will have to decide whether it's a love worth choosing.

Casts

The Make it With You cast are well-known actors and actresses. Aside from Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil, Ian Veneracion, Herbert Bautista, Eddie Guttierez, and other veteran actors star in the said series. Aside from the household names on Philippine television, there is also a new breed of actors and actresses starring the TV series, who, even though they are new in the industry, have proven themselves worthy of being part of it.

So below, we listed the lead and main characters of the TV series.

1. Enrique Gil as Gabriel "Gabo" Villarica

Image: instagram.com, @enriquegil17

Source: Instagram

2. Liza Soberano as Belinda "Billy" M. Dimagiba

Image: instagram.com, @lizasoberano

Source: Instagram

3. Khalil Ramos as Atty. Stephen "Sputnik" Perez

Image: instagram.com, @khalilramos

Source: Instagram

4. Fumiya Sankai as Yuta Himura

Image: instagram.com, @23shun_base

Source: Instagram

5. Katarina Rodriguez as Rio Isla

Image: instagram.com, @katarinarodri

Source: Instagram

6. Riva Quenery as Cassandra M. Dimagiba

Image: instagram.com, @riva

Source: Instagram

7. Ian Veneracion as Theodore "Ted" Villarica

Image: instagram.com, @ianveneracion1

Source: Instagram

8. Pokwang as Jessica "Jess" Villarica

Image: instagram.com, @itspokwang27

Source: Instagram

9. Herbert Bautista as Antonio "Tony" Dimagiba

10. Eddie Gutierrez as Agapito "Aga" Dimagiba

11. Vangie Labalan as Iluminada "Iling" Dimagiba

12. Katya Santos as Helen Catapang

13. Anthony Jennings as Rhamboy de Asis

14. Daniela Stranner as Cheska Crismo

15. Jeremiah Lisbo as Xian Isla

16. Jong Cuenco as David

17. Shaira Opsimar as Anna

18. Marnie Lapus as Esmie

19. Franki Russell as Ivanna

20. Michelle Vito as Annarose "Anna" Villalobos

21. Ingrid dela Paz as Georgia

22. Hero Bautista as Monsy Dimagiba

23. Maronne Cruz as Germalynne

How many episodes does Make It With You have so far?

As of this writing, there are 45 Make It With You episodes that are available online. It was debuted on January 13, 2020, with Lets Make It with You as the episode title. According to Abs-Cbn News, the series made it as the number 1 TV program in its timeslot the day it was debuted.

Make It With You ratings seem to always top its rival show. The series pilot episode registered a national TV rating of 27.4%, drawing nearly double the viewership of the rival show.

For its first episode, the lead characters, Billy and Gabo, 2 Filipinos whose lives intersect in Croatia, were introduced. Gabo, who seems to be a mysterious guy, is an illegal immigrant in the country. He was forced to live in the streets of Dubrovnik and make ends meet after his caravan got caught by authorities.

Billy, on the other side, appears to have a more established life in Croatia. She works with a dating service and attempts to trick her matches to take home more of her salary. Some casts were also introduced in its first episode.

Make It With You latest episode entitled Under the Starts was aired on March 13, 2020. The episode is about the rumors between Billy and Gabos relationship spreading in their workplace.

Image: youtube.com, gifrun.com (modified by author)

Source: Original

When Billy told Gabo about the problem, he told her not to allow the rumor to get into her.

Image: youtube.com, gifrun.com (modified by author)

Source: Original

He then addresses the rumors about his relationship with Billy. In front of his workers (as he is their boss), Gabo explained to them that nothing is going on between him and Billy.

Image: youtube.com, gifrun.com (modified by author)

Source: Original

After clearing speaking with his workers, Gabo then asked Billy if she is now okay.

Image: youtube.com, gifrun.com (modified by author)

Source: Original

The episode is a cliff-hanger for its viewers because the airing of the series stopped for a while. Due to the worldwide pandemic caused by COVID-19, the Philippines are now on quarantine, that is why the production of the TV series was put on hold (for everyones safety).

Since you miss the series already, you might want to binge-watch all its episodes. We listed down below all available episodes and titles.

Let's Make It with You Make It Happen with You Make It Work with You Make Pudding with You Make Hopia with You Make New Beginnings Tinapay Wars with You Copy Paste with You Make Asado with You Big Reveal Move On without You Girl On Fire Team Bahay Start Over with You Deja Vu with You Real Talk with You The Big Blow Out with You Make It Complicated with You Game Of Hearts with You Break It with You Game Changer Big Choose Day with You The Big Risk with You Fake It with You Make It Real with You High in Love Heart to Hurt Talk Make It Right with You Hot N Cold Change of Heart Break Down Walls Sacrifice for Love Big Surprise The Choice Breakthrough Make or Break Past Forward Big Reunion GaBing Mainit Final Answer Begin Again Deal or No Deal Hinala Love on Top Under the Stars

When will Make It With You be back?

The avid viewers of the said TV series could not wait for its next airing, but unfortunately, there is no definite time for it. As of this writing, most regions in the country are still on enhanced community quarantine, and there is no assurance as to whether it will soon be lifted or not.

We know that you are all waiting for the next Make It With You episode. Just like you, we cant wait to see how the story of Billy and Gabo will unfold, but for now, let us enjoy watching the series past episodes on YouTube.

READ ALSO: The king eternal monarch: episode 1-4 review, episode 5 teaser, air time, where to watch, cast

Source: KAMI.com.gh
During the filming of the 1939 movie Jesse James, a stuntman and his horse went over a cliff and fell 70 feet into a river. The stuntman was fine; the horse died. This incident is what gave rise to that line at the end of many movies: No animals were harmed in the making of this film. The American Humane Association, which trademarked that saying, worked out a deal with the Screen Actors Guild and the precursor to the Motion Picture Association of America in which filmmakers would vouch that animals were well treated in movies.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) thinks this might be a good model for how the U.S. can push back against Chinas global influence.

In the last decade or so, Hollywood has acquiesced to countless demands from China. In the (horrible) 2012 remake of the movie Red Dawn, the plan was to depict American resistance to a Chinese invasion. (In the original it was a Soviet invasion). After the filming was finished, MGM caved to pressure from China and re-edited the film to turn the invaders into North Koreans for fear of losing access to the Chinese market.

If that were the only example, one might cut the then-cash-strapped studio some slack. But Hollywood does this all the time.

It would be wrong and unworkable to ban movie studios from kowtowing to Chinese demands. Its called show business, not show politics. China is on course to become the biggest single market for film and television, and while it may be cowardly and hypocritical for an industry that wears its idealism on its sleeve to placate a nation that bans free expression and is hauling Uighurs into concentration camps, we shouldnt follow suit by restricting free expression here at home.

But that doesnt mean we cant impose a little truth-in-labeling on the industry. Thats Gallaghers idea (which he proposed on a recent episode of my podcast, The Remnant). Congress should require American studios to disclose whether a film has been altered in any way to meet the approval of Chinas censorious regime. You know how TV networks inform viewers that a film has been altered for television? Why not notify viewers if a film has been changed to conform with Chinese propaganda?

At the beginning or end of a movie, American audiences would have to be informed: This film has been altered to fit the demands of the Chinese Communist Party. Obviously, the Chinese wouldnt allow that disclaimer in their theaters, but at least Americans would know. Hopefully that would apply a little democratic counterpressure to Chinas undemocratic pressure.

Gallagher also suggests that American social media platforms be required to ban officials from nations that ban free speech on their own social media platforms. Why should authoritarian propagandists be afforded privileges that they wont grant their own people?

No one wants a war with China. But we already live in a world where China is exerting itself on America. Right now, we impose little to no costs on them to do so, in part because we live in a free country where businesses, including Hollywood studios, are largely free to cut whatever deals fit their own bottom lines. Curtailing such mercenary practices without mimicking Chinas command-and-control tactics is difficult. Forcing full disclosure on businesses that play such games  perhaps including those that allow their intellectual property to be stolen in order to maintain access to the Chinese market  strikes me as a brilliant way to counter the trend.

Let American consumers know the full truth. If they dont care, the studios can carry on. If they do care, make filmmakers pay the price for their pursuit of profit over principle  not by being dragged off in the middle of the night, but at the box office.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
Vice President Mike Pence admitted Sunday that he should have worn a mask during his heavily criticized visit to the Mayo Clinic last week.

Pence was eviscerated in the public eye following his Tuesday visit where he met with doctors and patients but flouted the Minnesota medical centers rules in refusing to wear a mask.

'I didnt think it was necessary, but I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic,' Pence said on Fox News' virtual town hall on Sunday evening.

Critics slammed the vice president for his decision that undermined efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 that has already killed more than 68,000 across the country.

Following the backlash, Pence sported a face mask just two days later while visiting a General Motors plant in Indiana that is producing ventilators.

Vice President Mike Pence admitted that he should have worn a mask during his heavily criticized visit to the Mayo Clinic last week during a Fox town hall interview Sunday

Pence faced severe backlash for his April 28 visit to the Mayo Clinic where he ignored center rules and failed to wear a mask. Pictured speaking to Dennis Nelson, a patient who survived the coronavirus and was going to give blood at the facility

Pence's decision to not wear a mask was a violation of the world-renowned medical center's policy requiring all people to wear the protective masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19

Pence: I shouldve worn the mask at the Mayo Clinic pic.twitter.com/1EMBw4w2zt  Acyn (@Acyn) May 4, 2020

'I think it really is a statement about the American people, the way people have been willing to step forward, practice social distancing, wear masks in setting where they cant do that,' Pence said during the interview Sunday.

'I couldnt be more grateful to see how the American people responded.'

Pence said because that he and President Trump are tested regularly for the virus he didn't see a need for him to wear the face covering because he was confident he wasn't carrying COVID-19.

In his Tuesday visit to the renowned clinic, he was the sole official to forego wearing a mask. Other coronavirus crisis leaders like Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn were wearing masks.

Following the backlash the vice president sported a face mask just two days later while visiting a General Motors plant in Indiana producing ventilators on Thursday April 30

Vice President Mike Pence listens on a tour of the General Motors/Ventec ventilator production facility to Chris Kiple of Ventec along with GM CEO and Chairman Mary Barra in Kokomo, Indiana on Thursday

His foregoing of the mask was in violation of the clinic's official policy and guidance issued in April that required patients and visitors to wear face coverings in accordance with CDC guidelines.

Social media users and politicians slammed Pence for not wearing a mask, but he and second lady Karen Pence defended his decision, saying he wasn't aware of the policy.

He cited U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that say a mask primarily serves to prevent wearers from spreading the infection, not from guarding against it.

However, a post on the Mayo Clinics Twitter account indicated that Pence was informed about the mask policy before he arrived, but that tweet was later deleted.

The clinic later tweeted it was 'grateful' for the vice president's visit adding it looked 'forward to continued collaboration to develop essential testing and treatment for our patients and communities.'

In Sundays televised town hall meeting from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., President Trump rallied for the country to reopen

In Sundays televised town hall meeting from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., Trump rallied for the country to reopen.

'We have to get it back open safely but as quickly as possible,' the president said.

In the meeting he revealed his projection for the total US death total was 80,000 or 90,000  up by more than 20,000 fatalities from what he suggested a few weeks ago.

Trump also declared that the US will have a vaccine by the end of the year, while the public health officials said the vaccine is probably a year to 18 months away. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations leading expert on infectious diseases, said in late April that if a vaccine is developed it could be distributed as early as January.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Vinahj Harrell will become the first person in her family to get a high school diploma, come hell or high water or pandemic.

Shell make it, she says, but this is not what she and her mother have been so looking forward to.

Shes kind of devastated now because she might not be able to walk across the stage, Quadasia Cauthen said of her daughter. It was a big deal for her and myself.

The 17-year-old Henninger High School student doubled up her coursework this year, which normally would be her junior year, to get the diploma one year early. The work has been difficult, but there was light at the end of the tunnel: Graduation on June 28.

Her mother is alone raising Vinahj and three younger siblings at Pioneer Homes, the public housing complex near downtown. Nothing was easy for the family before the coronavirus outbreak: Money was tight, the neighborhood could be rough, health issues and stress.

But Harrell and her mother found hope in the future, which carried a new career for Cauthen, a new education for Harrell, a new home outside of Pioneer Homes. A new life.

That is all now on hold. Life has gotten much more complicated in their small apartment.

Harrell is committed to doing what is needed to graduate, but she suspects other students wont join her at graduation, even if its held virtually.

The chaos of the end of their senior year could be the final straw for some Syracuse high school students, who were already struggling and now feel more disconnected from school, she said.

Superintendent Jaime Alicea does not expect a drop in graduation rates, he said recently. The district has not yet decided what to do about graduation, but he promised there will be a party of some kind.

We will celebrate, he said. They have my commitment that we will celebrate their graduation.

Despite his optimism, Alicea said some seniors will be challenged to finish the year strong. Technology is especially a problem.

Between 35 and 40% of city school district students dont have reliable access to the Internet, he said. The number of students without their own computers is likely higher, he said. More than 85% of district students are considered economically disadvantaged.

Students do schoolwork online and meet virtually with their teachers and classmates. The district plans Internet hotspots accessible from the parking lots of different school buildings, Alicea said.

And nonprofit organizations have had to adapt quickly to ensure students are educated but also safe, fed and connected.

Hasan Stephens, director of the Good Life Foundation, said the youth mentoring organization is one of several that has donated food, cleaning supplies and other aid. The foundation has helped about 150 families identified by the district as highest need.

Theyve also given students out at least 230 laptops, donated by the Allyn Foundation. The foundation donated 380 of them.

Everybody does not have Internet technology, and if you do have technology, you may not have enough for everyone in the house, Stephens said. So that experience of quarantining or self-isolation is going to be very, very different for people who are economically challenged.

On a recent afternoon, a Syracuse.com reporter joined a foundation employee, Jay Denson, who hand-delivered eight laptops to students. The students had been trying to do homework on their phones, fighting for time on the familys only computer or simply not doing the work, the teens said.

This could make or break whether they graduate, Denson said, as he waved the Chromebook laptop, still in its packaging, before giving it to a student in Ballantyne Apartments.

Until Harrell got a laptop from the foundation, she and her siblings shared a laptop rented to their mother, Quadasia Cauthen, through her cosmetology program at the Continental School of Beauty. Cauthen used it for her schoolwork in the evenings, after getting home from her day job; the kids had it during the day.

Harrell has her laptop now, and her 10-year-old brother got his own loaned from the school district. The devices have been huge helps.

Its like a standstill

Harrells situation shows the way the virus and the shutdown made tough lives tougher.

Cauthen is losing sleep from worry, she said. She lives in the Pioneer Homes housing project near Upstate University Hospital. Late-night ambulances often scream up East Adams Street, jolting her awake, and cast red and blue lights that dance on the walls of their apartment.

Pioneer Homes is usually bustling on sunny days. During the coronavirus outbreak, it's often eerily quiet, Harrell said. (Dennis Nett | Syracuse.com)

Tuition to become a cosmetologist at Continental is thousands of dollars, and salons are now shuttered. How will she make back her money?

It is a struggle knowing that its like a standstill, she said.

She has told her children they might move out of Pioneer Homes if she can get a salon job, but that is on hold.

Its not a good area, but Im not worried (about my kids). They dont really play with the neighborhood kids, she said. I would just like them to be in another area, you know, just because its better.

In the meantime, she keeps her day job cleaning a downtown office building. She helps teach her three children  Vinahj; Jaylen, 15; and Khalique, 10  and cares for 2-year-old Skylar. She praised her kids teachers, but said its been difficult to keep up with the material.

I try to help them out with their assignments, and for some of them I dont really understand it, but I do the best that I can, she said.

Cauthens mother has health issues that make her susceptible to the virus. Cauthen helps there, too: grocery runs and picking up prescriptions, all while staying safe.

Her kids ask to go on walks or visit family. They dont always get along with each other. She disinfects surfaces. She reminds the 10-year-old to wash his hands, tells the 15-year-old to stop playing video games and focus on schoolwork, and takes care of the 2-year-old. Harrells father is in prison and out of the picture.

Harrell said she stays awake most nights until 3 a.m. and gets up at noon to do her schoolwork. During the outbreak, the neighborhood is so quiet, especially at that hour, that it feels like no one lives in the complex, she said.

Cauthen does her best to keep her kids on a schedule, to give them structure, but theres only so much she can do.

Their schedules have totally changed. Before, they went to bed at a regular time, she said. Now, its pretty hard.

Tragedy and commitment

In late March, Harrell noticed her grandfather crying one evening. The next day, she learned the reason.

Darryl Meadows, her great uncle, died March 29 from COVID-19. He lived in New York City, where he was an actor and performer.

He began feeling sick one day and then went to the hospital, she said. Then he went into a coma. It all happened so fast, she said.

They tried to watch his funeral on Zoom. Harrell said she couldnt hear anything.

Everybody was talking at once and crying. You cant really see too much because the cameras keep flipping on and off, Harrell said.

Meadows death added a layer of grief to the last two months of hardship, Harrell said. She misses her friends at school and is getting tired of seeing her family all the time. They were planning a family reunion in New York City in a month or so. No longer.

But what is not in doubt, according to Cauthen and her daughter, is that their family will get through this.

Cauthen will get the job shes wanted her whole life. Harrell will graduate. They will leave Pioneer Homes. It will just have to wait.

In the face of uncertainty, Harrell has focused on her plan: Attend Onondaga Community College for a couple of years, then transfer.

Shes going for a nursing degree. Shes wanted to become a nurse since middle school. In the middle of a health-care calamity, she wants it more than ever.

They just need more nurses and doctors, as well, she said, so I feel like I should be a part of that.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

What businesses might reopen this month amid coronavirus in NY? McMahon offers clues about restart

Cuomo set at least 12 tests for CNY economy to reopen. Heres how we check the boxes

As he struggled to breathe, CNY nursing home wouldnt test for coronavirus, family says

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com
Habeco reports bleak business in the first quarter of 2020

Habeco has published its consolida.ted financial report for the first quarter of this year. Accordingly, its net revenue was VND744 billion ($32.35 million), signifying a decrease of 51 per cent on-year. In addition, it reported loss of VND98.33 billion ($4.28 million) on-year.

Meanwhile, sales expenditures saw a light decrease of 3 per cent to VND185 billion ($8 million) while management costs increased by 4 per cent to VND81 billion ($3.5 million).

As of the first quarter of this year, the total assets were VND6.82 trillion ($296.5 million), down 12 per cent year-to-date. The value of unsold products hiked by 17.5 per cent to VND751 billion ($32.65 million).

Regarding Sabeco  Vietnams largest brewer  Bao Viet Securities (BVSC) believes that 2020 will be a challenging year for the company and has drawn up several scenarios for business in 2020, most of which suggest that revenue will decrease.

In a positive scenario of a 5 per cent increase in beer consumption, Sabeco can achieve a revenue of VND40 trillion ($1.74 billion) and profit of VND5.7 trillion ($247.83 million). In the worst-case scenario of a 20 per cent fall in beer consumption, Sabeco may post a revenue of VND31 trillion ($1.35 billion) and profit of VND4 trillion ($173.9 million), which is the lowest growth in the past three years.

According to BVSC, the two main sources of headwind this year will be Decree No.100/2019/ND-CP and the COVID-19 outbreak that slow down beer and alcohol consumption in Vietnam.

The latest report about the brewery industry by SSI Research also changed its view from neutral in 2020 to negative in the short term when predicting the impact of Decree 100 and the coronavirus outbreak.

When the decree took effect, we warned that beer consumption would decrease considerably. With the coronavirus spread, consumers tend to spend less time on meetings, which will also cause adverse effects to the brewery industry, at least in the first quarter, the report reads.
ADA, Ohio - Today marks 50 years since members of the Ohio National Guard fired their M-1 rifles into hundreds of innocent, unarmed students protesting President Richard Nixons incursion into Cambodia. But, has that often-repeated narrative of the Kent State shootings been fair to the National Guard?

The answer  or, better put, the various answers  to that question are being collected from members of the Ohio Army National Guard who were in Kent on that fateful day a half century ago.

Seeking a meaningful assignment for my public history class at Ohio Northern University last fall, I pitched an idea: record interviews with the National Guardsmen deployed to Kent in early May 1970. But where to begin with such a project? After all, there were over 1,000 Guardsmen in Kent at the time of the shootings.

To limit our initial search, we focused on those men in uniform on Blanket Hill during the 13-second volley of gunfire.

First we had to locate these men. We turned to contemporary news articles and federal government investigation reports to find their names. Hours of scouring internet search tools revealed current addresses for many of these former Guardsmen. My students and I then sent letters inviting the former Guardsmen to interview.

This recruitment process produced a couple small items worth mentioning. First, most of the Guardsmen deployed to Kent in 1970 still live in Ohio. This makes sense. Members of the National Guard live normal lives, excepting the one weekend of training per month and a longer term each summer. Second, for every two addresses my students found, they came across an obituary  both a reminder of the five decades since the infamous events of May 4, and the urgency of the Kent State Guardsmen Oral History Project.

David Strittmatter is an assistant professor of history at Ohio Northern University, where he oversees public history and museum studies initiatives.

When sending off the interview requests, I did not know what kind of response to expect. On one hand, why would someone want to relive one of the worst days of his life? If Guardsmen felt castigated and vilified for years, why would the Guards now-septuagenarian former members want to answer for their actions? On the other, some might think that enough time has passed. Or, perhaps this is the first time that they have ever shared their story outside their immediate family or close friends.

Thankfully for the project, former Guardsmen are coming forward. The first two that interviewed on the ONU campus experienced the aftermath of the shootings in different ways. Mathew McManus, a sergeant from Wooster, was one of the eight Guardsmen indicted and ultimately acquitted in federal court. Raymond Silvey  a private from Cuyahoga Falls who threw down his rifle after the shootings  later applied for conscientious objector status and received an honorable discharge.

While the oral history project began in November, it has continued throughout the spring. The COVID-19 pandemic required that some interviews happen over the phone. A handful of former Guardsmen will interview in person after the state of Ohio lowers social-distancing measures.

I hope that former members of the Guard who were at Kent State in May 1970 reach out to the project and share their memories.

The Kent State Guardsmen Oral History Project will result in an extensive digital archive. A website is currently under development, and the interviews  30 minutes to an hour in length  can also be found on YouTube. Collectively, these oral histories reveal a perspective to the Kent State shootings that has been rarely heard in public.

So, has the narrative of the Kent State shootings been fair to the National Guard? The interviewed former Guardsmen proffer a range of responses to that question. McManus, who was mired in trial proceedings throughout the 1970s, thought for a few seconds before simply answering, Yes.

Keith Crilow  another Guardsman on Blanket Hill during the shootings  responded, Not really, and elaborated on biased news reporting. William Herthneck, a lieutenant from Medina, offered the following comment on media coverage: To me, it left the Guard out there as the evil ones, and the students were the terrible victims. And Im thinking there were victims on both sides.

Since 1970, the Guardsmen that were there have handled their connection in different ways. Many refused to discuss it for fear of social shaming. Jeffrey Jones, a 19-year old private when his company took up its position on Blanket Hill, said, It could have been 20 or 30 years after the fact before I started talking about it with other people.

Other Guardsmen retained links to the university. Arthur Krummel, an infantryman on May 4, later taught courses at Kent State. Ron Snyder  a captain who has expressed his desire to interview for this project after the current pandemic subsides  currently works as a security officer at the fashion and decorative arts museum on campus.

Jerry Damerow, a sergeant in the National Guard in May 1970, was a graduate of Kent State. Two years ago, he and his wife  also a Kent State grad  donated some musical instruments to the KSU School of Music. Nevertheless, Damerow said, The events of May 4th kind of robbed me of those warm feelings about my alma mater.

In listening to these interviews, one hears a range of emotions from former National Guardsmen, from anger and frustration to regret and sympathy.

Around the anniversary of the Kent State shootings, newspapers commonly print recollections from students that were there. A voice rarely heard speak about the tragedy is that of the Guardsmen, and this oral history project intends to address that void.

Incredibly, though protesters and Guardsmen may not have realized it on May 4, they had at least one thing in common: They were participants in a tumultuous episode in American history.

David Strittmatter is an assistant professor of history at Ohio Northern University, where he oversees public history and museum studies initiatives.

If you are a Guardsman who was at Kent State in May 1970 who would like to be interviewed for the Kent State Guardsmen Oral History Project, or for more information, email David Strittmatter at d-strittmatter@onu.edu.
The Proprietor of Royal Beam Preparatory School at Kasoa in the Central Region, Mr Nicholas Issah Wassan, has called on the government to come to the aid of private schools with some financial support to enable them to pay their teachers.



That, he said, was because private schools had been hit severely by the coronavirus as the closure of schools had made it difficult for them to pay teachers and other staff members.



We, owners of private schools, have been vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 than any other private institution in the country.



We pay our workers from the daily feeding and school fees that we receive from parents for their childrens feeding and tuition respectively, Mr Wassan said.



Social distancing



Since the introduction of physical distance in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus, schools were asked to at once stop every school activity.



It came impromptu to every school owner, he said in an appeal to President Nana Akufo-Addo



Mostly, Mr Wassan said, the resources of private schools went into developmental projects and that they hardly saved money.



So since this pandemic has been the first of its kind in our generation, it has affected our lives negatively.



The means of surviving hunger is nowhere available to us and our families, let alone pay our teachers monthly salaries.



For the past two months, (March and April) we have not been able to pay our teachers.



Difficulties



We are hungry and the pressure from our teachers has compounded our situation.



There has been no support from anywhere to any of us as private school owners and our teachers, he said.



In Europe, the proprietor said, where schools could have applied for some support, the virus situation in that part of the world had made things difficult for countries as it had crippled their economies.



Individuals, associations and coalitions have petitioned the government to come to the aid of private schools but we have since heard nothing.



I want to reiterate that the job of educating Ghanaian children is the sole responsibility of the Ghana government but due to lack of infrastructural facilities, private individuals are allowed to establish schools to support the government to execute this all-important national assignment, he said.



President



Mr Wassan, therefore, called on President Akufo-Addo to support private schools through the district and municipal education directorates nationwide to ensure that private schools in the country got support to enable them to keep their schools running.



I have learned a lot from this pandemic and if we survive it I will make sure as an institution, we always have three or more months' salaries of the workers kept untouched.



I will make the washing of hands with soap under running water a culture in our school. Greeting in the palm is not a hygienic practice.



The sitting distance in my classrooms will be checked and increased.



I suggest that a subject on hygiene should be added to what we have now, he said.

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
Here's the interesting bit: GM filed for the Tracker name in the Philippines on February 14. Yes, it's Valentine's, but what's more important is that it was 3 days before GM announced they were pulling out of Thailand. Coincidence? We think not.

That name is the Tracker, and it could be Chevrolet Philippines' upcoming crossover. Of course, Chevrolet Philippines is mum on the matter, but the local registration of the name for intellectual property purposes could be a signal it will be launched here.

Chevrolet may be pulling out in big parts of Southeast Asia, but that doesn't seem to be the case in the Philippines. There might even be a new model on the way here soon, as there has been a recent development with regards to trademarks.

Nevertheless, the Tracker is starting to replace the Trax as Chevrolet's subcompact (or B-segment) crossover. Should it make its way here, there is a possibility that it will be the successor of Trax locally, and serve as the smallest SUV-inspired vehicle Chevrolet Philippines has to offer. If there's any doubt about Chevrolet's future in the Philippines, the registration of the Tracker might just quell that.

The Tracker was introduced in China back in June 2019, and it rides on what's called the Global Emerging Market (GEM) platform. The GEM architecture will be used in models for Latin America and parts of Asia that still sell General Motors vehicles such as the Philippines. Furthermore, the GEM platform is already proving to be a success in Brazil with the Chevrolet Onix being that country's best-selling vehicle.

As for the Tracker itself, it measures in at 4,270 mm long, which puts it right up against the likes of the Suzuki Vitara, Kia Seltos, Hyundai Kona, and Nissan Kicks. It takes the downsized turbo engine route as it's powered by either a 1.0-liter or 1.3-liter mill, both of which are boosted and have three-cylinders. The 1.0-liter is good for 114 PS while the 1.3-liter makes 165 PS. Both shift through a six-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Should Chevrolet bring the Tracker to the country, it will face some stiff competition. But Chevrolet Philippines must have an all-new subcompact crossover in their range as the Trax is no spring chicken. It must be priced competitively too if the Bowtie Brigade wants to see more sales here too.
Ringing was heard throughout the region on Sunday night, as local churches, fire companies, and even a few residents showed their support for local medical personnel.

At 7 p.m. Sunday, bells and sirens rang out in support of an initiative organized by the Pennsylvania State Mayors Association; the three minutes of sound were meant to recognize and honor first responders, healthcare workers and employees of life-sustaining businesses, to show solidarity with elected officials and residents across the state, and to demonstrate a resolve to defeat COVID-19.

To hear those bells tolling for three minutes was very moving, North Wales Mayor Greg DAngelo said Monday.

All churches in the town rang their bells for three minutes, and were joined by the North Penn Volunteer Companys sirens; DAngelo said he stood outside to listen with his wife Roseann and daughter Collette and all three were moved to hear the sounds of support.

Even if you hadnt known about it in advance, you had to realize that something special was happening, he said.

Borough Manager Christine Hart added that the bells of St. Peters Lutheran Church was featured on an NBC10 news broadcast, and said she rang bells from her front porch while watching the towns firehouse ring theirs.

I saw a few cars go by the firehouse with signs in their windows that said Thank you firemen, police and workers,' Hart said.

The men and women on the front lines are true heroes, sacrificing their own health and safety for the protection and care of others. Words cannot express the gratitude that our community has for these individuals and their families who are also affected. I hope ringing the church bells reminded them that they are surrounded by prayer and well wishes, she said.

Lansdale Mayor Garry Herbert posted a photo on his Facebook page of an antique bell he rang to show support, as did councilman Bill Henning and economic development committee member Richard Strahm. Herbert said afterward he heard the bells from Trinity Lutheran Church in the borough ringing, and had heard of others around Main Street, while Henning joked we didnt hear any other bells, but probably because I couldnt hear anything other than our bell ringing.

I am deeply appreciative of everyone in our community who took the time to support our first responders, healthcare workers, and essential employees during this time of crisis, Herbert said Monday.

While ringing a bell does not change the difficulty these professionals face, it shows solidarity, compassion, and community at a time when it is easy to feel alone and overwhelmed. I hope every person on the front lines of this pandemic knows that Lansdale supports them and that we will always support them, he said.

The handbell choir of Sanctuary United Methodist Church of Upper Gwynedd also joined in the response, with members gathering along Hancock Road in Upper Gwynedd, standing several feet apart and sporting masks, as they rung their bells. Those who took part included members Ken Keiser, Karen Albright, Grace Keiser, Pam Buehler, Joyce Hurst, Nicole Albright, Dorothy Powers, Lois Mair, Linda Pavlik, Bob Pavlik, and Jane Nechin, according to the church.
Since this happened, weve reevaluated the process and chemicals to make sure were using the most effective ones in the plant, he said.

Now, the plants common areas, restrooms and locker rooms are sanitized at least three times a day, and employees are given a health screening when they come to work and provided a mask, Jacobsen said.

Further, the plant has slowed down line processing speeds by one-half, he said, to both give employees more space to work and to accommodate a drop in employees.

Employees are crowded so close together because of line speeds, Jacobsen said.

And the company is allowing employees to decide if they want to come to work or not, regardless if they have tested positive for the virus.

We have more than 40 percent of employees that have chosen not to come to work, because they are afraid .. and they are protecting their families, Jacobsen said, and were doing the best we can without them and not penalizing them in any way.
New Delhi/Dehradun, May 4 : Uttarakhand Congress leader Navprabhat has raised questions on the flower showering on hospitals by the air force and said that there is no meaning to it when medics are getting infected due to lack of PPEs.

The former Congress minister asked the BJP government "to learn from Sonia Gandhi and pay heed to advice of Sonia Gandhi." In a statement he said "on whom you are showering flowers the people who are getting infected due to lack of PPEs and government is unable to provide them kits"

He said that government is missing scientific and humanitarian temperament.

The Congress leader raise the issue a day after showering of flowers said that the government is hostile towards people's problems as the Railway Minister has money to tune of 151 crore to give to PM-CARES fund but is charging money from poor migrants.

Slamming the Railways for putting conditions on migrants he said the ministry should show sympathy to the migrants while hailing Sonia Gandhi's decision to bear the cost of travel of the migrants.
04 May 2020, 12:25 PM

Panel in offing to grant clearances to businesses within 3 months: Nitin Gadkari

Union MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari on Sunday said that the central government will set up a panel to provide necessary clearances needed by businesses within three months in a bid to attract foreign investment in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). He said that a Joint Secretary-level officer has already been appointed to look after foreign investments in the MSME sector.

Roche wins U.S. nod for COVID-19 antibody test, aims to boost output

Roche has won emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an antibody test to determine whether people have ever been infected with the coronavirus, the Swiss drugmaker on Sunday. The company aims to more than double production of tests from about 50 million a month to significantly more than 100 million a month by the end of the year.

Share Market LIVE: Sensex slips 1,721 points, Nifty below 9,400; Tata Motors loses 12%

India Inc. expects 40% decline in revenues, fears year-long wait for economic revival

The country-wide lockdown imposed on March 23, while necessary, has had deep ramifications on economic activity. A CII CEOs Snap Poll on Impact of COVID-19 on Economy and Industry has found that Indian industry not only anticipates a significant decline in their topline, but also fears that economic revival and demand recovery may take more than a year. The survey saw participation from more than 300 CEOs, of which nearly two-thirds belonged to MSMEs.

Coronavirus lockdown: Ficci seeks infrastructure status for steel sector

Industry body Ficci has suggested various measures like infrastructure status to the steel industry, zero duty on critical raw materials, and another three-month moratorium to revive the sector, which has been impacted by the lockdown. Granting infrastructure status to the steel industry, it said, will give access to finance at competitive rates from various markets and sources. Besides, the entire supply chain of the sector should be incorporated into essential services, and be allowed to operate with precautionary measures as per the guidelines of the government.

Liquor shops to open in Delhi, other cities

Extending the lockdown for the third time, Centre has allowed some relief to businesses in all zones - red, orange and green. Under staggered relaxation in lockdown restrictions that come in effect from May 4, government has allowed liquor stores and paan shops to reopen in all three zones. However, they will not be allowed to operate in containment zones. Alcohol and paan shops in malls or marketing complexes will also remain closed, even if they are outside containment zones.

Coronavirus impact: Auto sales hit zero in April - first time ever

India's $120 billion automobile industry registered an unprecedented zero sales in the domestic market in the month of April as the lockdown in the country kept all factories and dealerships shut. The only business transaction registered by the companies included some small numbers for exports and sale of tractors that were exempted from the ambit of the lockdown as an essential part of agricultural activity.

Lockdown 3.0 begins; people should be ready to live with COVID-19: Kejriwal

India prepared for the third phase of the national lockdown from Monday with "considerable relaxations" in several districts but curbs will continue in containment areas even as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said people will have to be ready to live with coronavirus and that time has come to re-open the city. Retailers and traders expect to re-open more shops under the new relaxed guidelines although they are still seeking clarity from local authorities.

Lockdown 3.0: What's allowed, what's not allowed in Delhi from today?
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trumps nominee to oversee investigations into federal corporate loans as part of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill is coming under fire by Democrats on the eve of his confirmation hearing.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent Brian Miller, nominated to be special inspector general for pandemic recovery, an 11-page letter Monday, detailing a litany of questions about his role during the impeachment proceedings and his ability to show independence from a president who has reduced the ranks of inspectors general conducting oversight in recent weeks.

Your recent experience as a legal advocate for the president and the White House raises questions about your ability to immediately shift to a position where independence from the White House is a requirement, Warren wrote.

Trump nominated Miller for the oversight role, a position Congress created in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act to oversee $500 billion to be lent out by the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to large companies, on the same night that he fired the Intelligence Committee Inspector General Michael Atkinson. The firing raised alarm bells that the president was retaliating against inspectors general and sending a warning shot to others in oversight positions.

GSA Inspector General Miller testifies at GSA hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington (Kevin Lamarque / Reuters file)

In the letter, Warren, who is a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which will conduct the confirmation hearing, said she plans to ask Miller to clarify his roles in the White House and if he advised the president or any White House official not to turn over documents in response to congressional investigations or inspectors general.

Warren indicated that she also plans to ask Miller if he advised the president to add a signing statement to the CARES Act saying he wouldnt allow inspectors general to turn over information to Congress without the presidents approval.

What action will you take if the president refuses to allow you to report relevant information to Congress, she wrote.

Story continues

Warren and Miller also spoke via phone on Monday where the senator raised some of the issues she expressed in her letter, according to a Warren aide.

Warren is also raising concerns about Millers willingness to operate independently of the president.

Trump last month sidelined the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense, Glenn Fine, who was appointed to lead a coalition of inspectors general to also provide oversight for the coronavirus relief bill. And Friday, he demoted the principal deputy inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, Christi Grimm, after she raised concerns about the lack of personal protective equipment at hospitals.

Miller was previously the inspector general at the General Services Administration for 10 years. He was praised as an effective IG whose investigation in 2008 led to the removal of the agencys head, Lurita Doan, for having given a contract to a friend while a separate investigation revealed excess at the agencys convention in Las Vegas.

After he left the GSA and before he want to work at the White House, Miller worked from 2015 to 2018 in private practice at Rogers Joseph ODonnell, where he advised corporate clients on how to address government investigations and audits.

In her letter, Warren pointed to an opinion piece he wrote in The Hill in August of 2018 where he advocated not complying with congressional requests at times

Warren is not the only Democrat expected to grill Miller on Tuesday. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a ranking member on the banking committee, said in a statement after the announcement of the nomination that he questions how Miller will be able to hold the Trump administration accountable.
More than 500 members of the PSNI were forced to take time off work due to stress-related illness over the last year.

Some 515 officers required sick leave for stress, anxiety or depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder in the 12 months to last April.

The figures were released by the PSNI after a Freedom of Information request.

Last Tuesday, a report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office found sick rates in the PSNI were at their highest level. Reduced officer numbers have "put a strain" on the PSNI, the report said.

Data obtained by this newspaper shows how officers' mental health has been affected.

The highest number of absences recorded in 2018/19 (484) were because of stress, anxiety and depression.

Males accounted for the higher proportion of absenteeism, with 282 men taking sick leave for stress, anxiety or depression compared to 202 females.

A further 31 PSNI officers complained of post-traumatic stress disorder with the number of males (24) absent due to PTSD over three times that of females (7).

Meanwhile, 36 female officers required sick leave for post-natal health concerns.

And 52 more were off work for what was loosely categorised as "other mental disorders" - 30 male and 22 female.

Police Federation chairman Mark Lindsay said the figures "come as no surprise".

"The daily pressures that confront our officers are excessive," he said.

Mr Lindsay also blamed under-staffing within the PSNI and urged positive intervention in the problem.

"There has been no let-up in the upheaval they endure all too regularly. This is because there are too few officers in the PSNI and to maintain a professional service, greater demands are placed on officers.

"Their days off are changed to meet demand. Home life is upset. And, of course, far too many of our men and women are seen as easy targets for assault.

"These figures show just how important it is to both increase officer numbers to provide some relief for officers and to bring in protective measures without delay."

The latest findings come after a report from the NI Audit Office warned that the rate of sick leave in the PSNI has almost doubled since 2010.

It found that average working days lost due to sickness absence increased from eight days in 2010/11 to 14 days in 2018/19.

The number of officers on recuperative and adjusted duties has more than doubled over the same period, from 6% to 13%.

In February, the PSNI launched a recruitment campaign for 600 new student officers, sparked by a commitment in the New Decade, New Approach deal, to increase officer numbers from the current 6,900 total to the 7,500 envisaged in the Patten reforms.

Chief Constable Simon Byrne has said the PSNI requires more funding to modernise the force and recruit new officers and that it will take "two to three years" to reach the 7,500 officers target.

But Mr Lindsay says it is "imperative" that police get to a position where they have the recommended peacetime total in order to reduce excessive pressures and workload on officers.

Responding to the latest figures, PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: "Policing is, by its very nature, a high risk, demanding and challenging working environment.

"The threat from Northern Ireland-related terrorism has remained at severe since 2010 and every day police officers and staff encounter difficult and traumatic circumstances, such as attending sudden deaths, violent incidents, road traffic collisions and serious sexual assaults and can therefore experience high levels of stress, have trauma exposure or mental health difficulties, including PTSD, as a result.

"As an employer, PSNI takes its responsibility in supporting our workforce seriously."

Mr Hamilton said the PSNI has significantly invested to improve its in house Occupational Health and Wellbeing services with an expansion of the team, having seen additional medical advisers, nurses, physiotherapists and mental health professionals being appointed.

He added: "We communicate with GPs to ensure continuity of care and safety plans are in place and have developed a post-incident stress management strategy, expanding our team of post incident de-briefers and are currently training a number of individuals to roll out training throughout PSNI under the supervision of OHW.

"Our aim is to support and improve the health and well-being of all of our police officers and police staff and this will continue to be a priority for us now and in the future."
The union for workers at a southern Alberta meat beef-packing plant that has been the site of the largest single COVID-19 outbreak in North America says it has been unable to stop the facility from reopening on Monday.

There have been 921 cases of the virus at the Cargill plant south of Calgary, which has 2,000 workers. One worker in her 60s died, and her husband was hospitalized with the illness.

Cargill announced April 20 it was temporarily shutting down operations for two weeks at the plant, which provides about 40 per cent of the beef processing in Canada.

It said earlier this week that one shift would resume work on Monday with bolstered safety measures.

Dan McGarvey/CBC

Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw has said Alberta Health Services officials have done on-site inspections and have been assured the facility is safe.

But Thomas Hesse with the United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 401 said workers are scared, and the local tried to get a stop-work order from Alberta Occupational Health and Safety.

On Monday, he said that effort had so far failed, but that negotiations were ongoing.

"Unfortunately, the situation has not been resolved. At this moment, we have been unable to convince any government or legal authority to have the courage to step in and ensure the plant remains closed until safety is assured. Our lawyers are looking at new strategies," Hesse said on the union's website.

WATCH | Employment lawyer tackles tough questions about returning to work

Speaking to reporters Monday outside the facility where he and other union members were on hand to greet workers as they arrived, Hesse said it appeared many employees are staying away.

Cargill

"I have no doubt that it's going to be very slow. People are scared, they're not coming to work. It's a problem for everyone. It's a problem for ranchers, it's a problem for consumers, it's a problem for workers," he said.

"And Cargill needs to fix this, and they need to fix it now."

Story continues

The union held a rally on the edge of the property and handed out black face masks emblazoned with "Safety First" to anyone who needed them.

A statement from Cargill said all employees who are "healthy and eligible to work" have been asked to report for work for the plant's two shifts.

Watch as workers return to the Cargill meat-packing plant despite COVID-19 fears, in the video below.

"According to health officials, the majority of our employees remain healthy or have recovered. We are grateful for our workers' dedication and resilience as our plant and community walks through this heart-wrenching pandemic," said the statement.

On its website, the union told its members: "If you are healthy and have been called and cleared to return to work, you should report to your supervisor. "If you don't really think it is safe to work, then don't."

The union surveyed more than 600 workers in four languages over the weekend; 85 per cent reported they are afraid to return to work, and 80 per cent said they did not want the plant to reopen Monday.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Cargill said representatives with AHS and OHS reviewed the safety measures at the facility and supported reopening.

Health officials at plant

The company said protective barriers have been installed on the production floor to allow for more spacing between employees and face shields have been introduced in places where protective barriers are not possible.

Cargill also said provincial health officials would be at the plant for Monday's reopening.

Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

"Alberta Health Services will be on-site and we will conduct our ongoing screening to safeguard employees and ensure no one exhibiting symptoms enters the facility."

Cargill is limiting plant access to no more than two people per car, one in the front and one in the back. It is also providing buses with protective barriers to reduce the need for carpooling.

Barriers have also been added in bathrooms and lockers have been reassigned to allow for enough spacing.

But Hesse says the union isn't satisfied. Its two priorities are the provision of better protective gear and the institution of regular, ongoing health and safety meetings between workers and company officials.

"It's ridiculous that hundreds of workers can be required to pour into the plant to kill 4,000 to 5,000 cattle a day, while if you climb on the monkey bars in your local park you're going to get a ticket," he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked about the situation at Cargill as he spoke to the media at his regular briefing Monday morning.

"We're working with provinces across the country to ensure that the supply chain for agriculture continues and that worker safety is upheld," he said.

"That is a provincial area of responsibility, but the federal government has a role to play as well, particularly ensuring that there are adequate safeguards and [personal protective equipment] in place."
S ecret Spotify is our series delving into the outer reaches of the streaming service. Every week, we unearth a hidden gem  each with no more than 50,000 plays  and tell you the story behind the music.

This time, it's Taste of Love by Aura.

When Prince scored his first hit single with I Wanna Be Your Lover in 1979, it gave the masses their first introduction to the Minneapolis Sound: a slick, futuristic brand of funk that glistened with a new-wave shine. But for those in the know  Prince chief among them  it was a style of music that had been brewing back in Minneapolis for years before.

That formative scene, populated by the likes of 94 East, Alexander ONeal and countless others, is the focus of a 30-track compilation album called Purple Snow. It was released back in 2013 by the Numero Group, a tireless reissue label dedicated to digging out rare, forgotten music from the second half of the 20th century.

It means that this compilation is an absolute treasure trove. Prince actually features on the first track  the irresistible If You See Me by 94 East  but the release mostly features the music that got lost in the stars ever-growing shadow.

One of those tunes, Taste of Love by Aura, is our Secret Spotify pick of the week. It sounds like a precursor to Princes biggest hits of those first few years, with velvety, sensual vocals and a bubbling groove. The golden moment here though is the chorus. The interplay between the sweetly sung hook and the jinking guitar lick is so simple, but so good  one of those perfect musical marriages.

Loading....

Listen to the track above, and then dig into the rest of the album. If you want the full picture of that Minneapolis scene, get your hands on a physical copy of Purple Snow from Numero Group  the four-LP vinyl is beautifully packaged and comes with a marvellously detailed 144-page booklet to guide listeners through each track.
Four U.S. Navy ships and a British Royal Navy frigate entered the Barents Sea north of Russia on May 4 to conduct Arctic security operations, the Pentagon said.

The move is the first time U.S. Navy surface vessels have entered the Barents Sea since the mid-1980s.

It comes as Russia in recent years has expanded its military capabilities in the Arctic, an area it views as geostrategic for its energy reserves, defense importance, and potentially lucrative northern shipping routes opening due to climate change.

China is also staking out an interest by claiming to be a near Arctic state as it eyes shorter northern shipping routes to Europe.

Allied and partner navies must remain proficient in all operating environments to ensure the continued security and access to the seas, the U.S. Navys 6th Fleet said. This is especially critical in the Arctic, where the austere weather environment demands constant vigilance and practice.

The Russian Defense Ministry was notified ahead of the operation to avoid misperceptions, reduce risk, and prevent inadvertent escalation, the U.S. Navy said.

Russia's Northern Fleet, which includes new icebreakers and nuclear-powered ships and submarines, is tracking the naval vessels, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The U.S. Navy vessels include three Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers and a support ship.

The destroyers are armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles and the sea-based Aegis system, which is part of the U.S.-led NATO ballistic-missile defense system designed to protect Europe from a limited attack from the likes of Iran.

NATOs ballistic-missile defense system has long antagonized Russia, which claims it is designed to alter the strategic balance against Moscows nuclear forces.

The United States and arms experts say the ballistic-missile defense system does not alter the strategic balance.

Last week, two of the U.S. Navy's destroyers, the support ship, a U.S. submarine, a Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, and the British Royal Navy frigate conducted an anti-submarine warfare exercise in the Norwegian Sea above the Arctic Circle.

With reporting by AFP and Interfax
America! I want you to get up right now and go to the window...open it and stick your head out and yell, I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore! That is from the 1976 movie, Network. It is the appropriate response to totalitarian governors, hellbent on keeping their constituents in lock-down bondage to further their anti-Trump agenda.

Folks, I am sick of seeing Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx promise that if we are good, they will feed us teaspoons of our constitutional freedoms at their discretion. I am sick of TV commercials designed to frighten and shame us into obeying tyrannical governors. I am sick of TV images of exhausted health workers to sell the lie that hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients. I am sick of well-meaning people ending conversations with Stay safe as if a unique monster is lurking outside. I am sick of pundits saying we need to reopen America safely and responsibly as if going back to normal life is unthinkable and dangerous. Dr. Ben Carson announced that 98% of people who get coronavirus recover.

Despite all our social distancing, research shows far more people were infected than officially confirmed. This means coronavirus is no way near as lethal as we were told. Health experts say herd immunity is the best way to fight the virus. And yet, stating this scientific truth will get you branded a dangerous nutcase by the media. God designed us to deal with viruses. As usual, arrogant men (typically leftist) believe they know better than God. Meanwhile, doctors are ordered to lie about the numbers by labeling practically all deaths coronavirus. This will keep federal funding coming and Americans panicked.

Evidence confirms that the coronavirus lockdown is a political weapon for Democrats to defeat Trump in November. Fear of this flu virus also gifts them an opportunity to behave like totalitarians, freely implementing their communist agenda.

To end this insane lockdown which is crushing lives and our economy we must push back with protests, protests, and more protests.

That sound of roaring thunder you hear is the resurgence of the Tea Party. Facebook boldly announced that they will shut down pages which promote protests against the lockdown. We beat fake news media in the past and we will beat them again. Despite a media blackout in 2010, the Tea Party drew 1.7 million Americans to Washington D.C. to oppose ObamaCare. We have the power of right on our side and we will not be defeated.

While Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx enjoy their comfortable elitist lifestyles, I hear horrific tales of Americans afraid and suffering; dying not from the virus, but the related stress. Corona-madness has caused suicides to skyrocket. A Maryland friend said 20 cars were broken into in her middle-class neighborhood. People are becoming desperate. The irresponsible promotion of fear has neighbors feuding; mask wearers vs non mask wearers. Neighbors are ratting on those who do not obey social distancing. Are we all experiencing an episode of the Twilight Zone in which Nazi tyrants have taken over our country?

The American people are good, decent, and fair-minded. They consented to sheltering-in-place because we were told two million Americans would die if we did not. Now that health experts and researchers have ripped the mask off the fake news-media-created coronavirus crisis, Americans are demanding their constitutional freedoms back. They want to return to their normal lives. Their desire is neither stupid, irresponsible, or crazy.

As we rebel against this strategic, evil lockdown, please keep our president in your prayers. His heart's desire is to reopen America asap. Democrats and fake news media behaviorally say, Screw the American people! We will demand that the country remain locked down to election day. We will say everything Trump does regarding coronavirus is wrong, crazy, incompetent, and deadly. Democrat and fake news media are pure evil domestic terrorists.

Coronavirus has given Democrats a taste of unbridled power. They ain't gonna give that up. This is why We the People must unite and engage in a nationwide revolt. We must take back our country!

Democrats and fake news media routinely launch a false narrative and bully us into surrendering to it. Their latest unscientifically proven narrative says social distancing is the responsible way to deal with coronavirus. Health experts and scientists who dare to disagree are severely bludgeoned 24/7; bloodied by TV talking heads and social and legacy media. Then, they are dragged into the high-tech public square to be humiliated and seared with a hot branding iron, marked for life as stupid, a hater, and dangerous. We have repeatedly seen them implement this brutal tactic.

To shame us into not protesting their lockdown, Democrats and fake news media say we are racist wackos who reject science. Can you say pot calling the kettle black, boys and girls? Democrats and fake news media viciously demand that we reject science.

For example: Science says sex change is biologically impossible. Stating this scientific fact will get you crucified by Democrats and fake news media. Scientists whose research contradict Democrats and fake news medias' narrative of man-made climate change are threatened with jail time.

Democrats can hardly contain their joy over the power coronavirus has given them to finally implement Obama's failed transformation of America into a socialist/communist country. It is our sacred and patriotic duty to forcibly push the break peddle; fight to defend our Constitution and make America great again. In the words of our 9/11 hero, Todd Beamer, Let's roll!

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American

Help Lloyd Spread the Truth

https://www.trumptrainusa2020.com/

http://LloydMarcus.com
Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Monday that the nationwide lockdown will be lifted gradually, asserting that Pakistan cannot afford an indefinite closure, hours after 1,083 new infections were diagnosed, taking the country's total confirmed COVID-19 cases past 20,000.

Khan addressed a ceremony to launch the Corona Relief Tiger Force, a controversial youth organisation he set up to help the government in identifying the poor to provide help to them.

"We are thinking of gradually easing the lockdown in the coming days," he said, adding that Pakistan cannot afford an indefinite closure.

The current lockdown period will end on May 9. The Prime Minister is expected to chair a meeting of the Cabinet on Tuesday to discuss the lockdown.

Khan said that the Corona Relief Tiger Force was not a political group but a volunteer force to help strike a balance between saving people from the virus and saving them from hunger and unemployment.

"Volunteers will have to register. All those who have lost their jobs due to the lockdown at their respective union councils. Not everyone can register themselves, so that is where the force will come in," he said.

He added that the volunteers will also monitor the 'Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme' and give the centre feedback.

"If you see hoarding anywhere, don't take action yourself but tell the administration. They will take action," he said, adding that the volunteers will not get any salary for their involvement in distribution of cash to the people.

The opposition parties criticised the decision of mobilizing youth as a politically motivated move to launch the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf supporters into political activities.

Special Assistant on Health Dr Zafar Mirza said that 17,000 of the people who had volunteered for the Corona Relief Tiger Force belonged to the medical community.

"No one really knows how long this disease will last and everyone needs to play their role," he said at the ceremony addressed by Khan.

He added that the medical professionals will be given specific roles for the telehealth initiative so that they can help the government in fighting the pandemic.

Pakistan's coronavirus cases reached 20,186 after 1,083 new patients were diagnosed in the last 24 hours.

The Ministry of National Health Services said that out of the total patients, Punjab reported 7,524 cases, Sindh 7,465, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 3,129, Balochistan 1,218, Islamabad 415, Gilgit-Baltistan 364 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 71 cases.

A total of 22 more patients also died in this period, taking the total toll of fatalities to 462. So far, 5,590 have recovered. The authorities have conducted 212,511 tests, including 9,522 in the last 24 hours, it said.

The menace of infection is spreading and gynecology department of Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar was temporarily closed after 35 medics affiliated with it were tested positive, officials said.

The efforts to bring back stranded Pakistanis were going on. A special plane brought 40 people from Sri Lanka, they said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Khan said that the nation was coming out of fear due to a well-devised strategy adopted by the government to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The state of fear is going to be over due to a good strategy adopted by the government," the prime minister said during a meeting with his Adviser on Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan at his Banigala residence on Sunday.

According to a statement issued by the adviser, some important issues - including the COVID-19 crisis, the relief package for the poor and sessions of the Parliament requisitioned by the Opposition for May 6 - were discussed.

Prime Minister Khan also called his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau to discuss the situation arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic and other matters of mutual interest.

He said Pakistan along with other developing countries was confronted with the twin challenge of saving lives and containing the infection, while simultaneously shoring up the economy.

He thanked Canada for its support to include Pakistan in the G20's debt relief initiative.

Separately, the Dawn newspaper reported that a critical coronavirus patient in Hyderabad city of Sindh was administered an experimental therapy involving injecting convalescent plasma for passive immunisation to treat the disease.

The development was confirmed by the Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) isolation ward's focal person Dr Aftab Hussain Phull.

The plasma donated by a recovered coronavirus patient to the Diagnostic and Research Laboratory at the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences was administered to a patient under treatment at the isolation ward.

"He was given the plasma after managing his condition as best as possible under the given circumstances," Phull said.

On April 30, the Sindh government had allowed three hospitals in the province to carry out clinical trials for the "experimental use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma for passive immunisation".

The hospitals included the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital in Karachi, the National Institute of Blood Diseases (NIBD) in Karachi and LUH, a government facility in Hyderabad.

Prior to this, the government had approved clinical trials for plasma therapy in addition to approving locally made ventilators for treating critically ill patients and granting permission for manufacturing sanitisers and producing chloroquine, the report said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India is likely to evacuate 200 of its nationals stranded in Maldives due to lockdown to contain COVID-19 by a ship within a week.

For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click here

The High Commission of India in Male stated that a ship would evacuate 200 Indian citizens, who were stranded in Maldives due to the restrictions imposed on international travels in both the nations to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The ship would ferry the evacuees to Kochi in Kerala where they would be quarantined for at least 14 days before being allowed to move to their respective destinations depending on the extant policy and directives of the Centre and the Government of Kerala regarding the movement of people within and outside the State, it added.

Preference would be accorded to already registered cases with the High Commission on compelling grounds such as medical/pregnancy/elderly/death in family/stranded tourists/workers who lost jobs and destitute cases, High Commission of India in Male stated.

While the first ship would bring home 200 Indians from the archipelago, it has not yet been decided when the next evacuation will take place.

The High Commission forewarned the evacuees that the 48-hour sailing from Male to Kochi might be rough due to pre-monsoon weather conditions and the facilities and medical support on the ship would be basic. The facilities would also be basic where the evacuees would be quarantined on their arrival in Kochi from Male and they would have to pay for it, it added.

India earlier evacuated its nationals from China, Italy, Iran, Afghanistan and Japan in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak and the travel and transport restrictions imposed to contain it.

New Delhi also facilitated the return of Indians stranded in Malaysia and a few other countries.

The government, however, has not carried out any evacuation mission during the past few weeks.

There are around 2000 Indians stranded and in dire straits in Maldives due to lack of funds, food and accommodation and their lives in danger. The epidemic is spreading like wildfire because of population density. Please repatriate on highest priority, Dileep Kumar, a Twitter user, posted on the micro-blogging platform on May 2, drawing the attention of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
Senate officials told Joe Biden that they have "no discretion to disclose any such information" following the former vice president's request for documents related to a complaint from a former staffer who has accused him of sexual assault.

The Senate's legal counsel told the Senate secretary that the office has no such authority.

On Friday, the likely nominee for the Democratic presidential nomination personally addressed an allegation against him from Tara Reade, who alleged that Mr Biden sexually assaulted her while he was a senator in the 1990s. He has denied the allegation.

During an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe, he said that "this, never, ever happened" and called on the National Archives for records of complaints against him.

He said: "It was 27 years ago, this never happened, and when she first made the claim, we made it clear that it never happened, and that's as simple as that."

The National Archives informed his campaign that those records would remain with the Senate.

On Friday, Mr Biden sent a letter requesting the Senate secretary "take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this office, and once they have been located, to direct a search for the alleged complaint and to make public the results of this search."

He said: "I would ask that the public release include not only a complaint if one exists, but any and all other documents in the records that relate to the allegation."

But the contents of Ms Reade's complaint against Mr Biden are related to workplace harassment, not the alleged assault, Ms Reade has said. Ms Reade has alleged seperately that Mr Biden had assaulted her in 1993.

She told the Associated Press that she is unsure what precise language she used in her complaint but feared "retaliation" against her.

"I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable," she said. "I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault."

Several people have corroborated Ms Reade's account, and she said she also complained to several colleagues about uncomfortable behaviour from the then-senator from Delaware while she worked there.

The Senate's legal counsel reviewed "the relevant statute governing the records" for the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices, the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991 and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Records related to any alleged violation are held under strict confidentiality requirements, according to the Government Employee Rights Act.

Legal counsel determined that any evidence of a complaint could not be released "based on the law's strict confidentiality requirements ... and the Senate's own direction that disclosure of Senate Records is not authorised if prohibited by law."

Mr Biden's attorney Bob Bauer reportedly asked the secretary whether the existence of those records is under the same confidentiality requirements, and if there exists a person who could lawfully procure those records. He also asked if the Senate could release the procedures for intake and processing those records.
Russia reported a record number of new coronavirus cases for the fourth consecutive day Sunday, as the virus rapidly spreads in the country, which is fast becoming one of the global epicenters of COVID-19.

There were 10,633 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, some 1,000 more than were reported on Saturday, according to Worldometers data.

A total of 134,687 people have now contracted the coronavirus in Russia, making it the seventh most-infected country on the planet.

While in the early stages of the virus Russia was relatively unscathed, the number of cases is now increasing rapidly.

"The peak is not behind us, we are about to face a new and grueling phase of the pandemic," President Vladimir Putin warned, according to CNN.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ruslan Nazarov, head of the Murmansk Region Branch of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, at a mobile field hospital ready to admit patients with the COVID-19 coronavirus infection in the village of Mezhdurechye, Kola District on April 15, 2020.

Lev Fedoseyev\TASS via Getty Images

Russia reported a record number of new coronavirus cases for the fourth consecutive day Sunday, as the virus rapidly spreads in the country, which is fast becoming one of the global epicenters of COVID-19.

Related: How Location Data Can Track, Stop Spread of COVID-19

There were 10,633 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, some 1,000 more than were reported on Saturday, according to Worldometers data.

A total of 134,687 people are now confirmed to have had coronavirus in Russia, making it the seventh most-infected country on the planet, with significantly more infections than early hotspots for the virus, such as China and Iran. More than half of all cases in Russia have been reported in the capital, Moscow.

Of those 134,687 people, 1,280 have died.

The number of new cases in Russia is accelerating rapidly.

Worldometers

"The daily increase in cases has relatively stabilized but this mustn't calm us down, the situation is still very serious," Putin said, according to CNN.

"The peak is not behind us, we are about to face a new and grueling phase of the pandemic... the deadly threat of the virus remains."

Story continues

In the early phases of the pandemic, Russia appeared to have the virus under control, but the situation has escalated drastically in recent weeks amid a chaotic response from authorities in the country.

As an illustration of how quickly the virus has evolved in Russia, on April 1 it had 2,777 confirmed cases, while at the same time the US had some 220,000. On Sunday May 3, the US has 1.16 million total cases, compared to Russia's 134,000. Russia now has around 11% of the number of US cases.

Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the government via video link at his residence outside Moscow, Russia April 15, 2020.

Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters

The picture in Russia's healthcare system is bleak.

Business Insider's Sophia Ankel reported in late April that ambulances in Moscow were forced to queue for many hours to drop patients off at hospitals, such is the volume of new cases of the virus. One ambulance driver said that he waited up to 15 hours to get to the hospital, The Moscow Times reported.

Doctors have also complained of conditions for medical workers, and even said that the government is covering up the true extent of the crisis, Ankel reported.

Anastasia Vasilyeva, the head of Russia's Alliance of Doctors trade union, said in a video that authorities were referring to coronavirus cases as an ordinary pneumonia, which has caused confusion.

Vasilyeva also said that authorities are refusing to equip medical staff properly or give them accurate information about the virus.

"While the whole world is facing an outbreak of a new coronavirus, Russia is facing an outbreak of community-acquired pneumonia," Vasilyeva said. "And as usual, we're facing the lie of the authorities."

Russian authorities have denied her claims.

Meanwhile, a doctor who complained about shortages of protective equipment plunged from a hospital window, on Saturday night.

Alexander Shulepov, 37, suffered life-threatening injuries in the fall, according to the Mail Online. He had previously attracted the authorities attention by taking part in a video that claimed he was ordered to work despite testing positive for COVID-19. He and colleagues also complained about the lack of PPE in the Vorenezh, a city in southwest Russia.

Two other doctors have died after falling from hospital windows during Russia's coronavirus pandemic.

Business Insider
Appearing impatient to return to their native places, migrant workers pelted stones at police in Surat district of Gujarat on Monday, leaving nearly a dozen personnel injured, one of them an IPS officer, and also held protests elsewhere during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, officials said.

Several labourers came out on a road in Rajkot demanding that they be sent back to their hometowns, while some migrant workers got their heads tonsured in an area of Surat after being unable to go back home.

Police personnel lobbed teargas shells and baton- charged agitated workers from Uttar Pradesh, who pelted stones on them near Vareli village on the outskirts of Surat, an official said.

Migrant workers, numbering more than 1,000, were demanding that arrangements be made to send them back to their native places during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, which has rendered them jobless, he said.

Authorities in Gujarat, one of the states worst hit by coronavirus, have started sending back migrant labourers to their respective home state.

At least 10 policemen along with Inspector General (Surat Range), S Pandian Rajkumar, were injured in the stone pelting, he said, adding police have detained 80 people so far.

The labourers also damaged some vehicles parked on the Surat-Kadodara road, the official said.

They clashed with police and threw stones at them, following which security personnel lobbed teargas shells and used batons to disperse them, he said.

We had asked these migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh to have patience as authorities are still in talks with the UP government for their journey back home.

However, a mob of over 1,000 men suddenly came on roads and started throwing stones on police, injuring around 10 policemen. Even I received minor injuries on my arm, said Rajkumar.

It seems they had planned the attack in advance. We have detained over 80 persons and brought the situation under control, said the IPS officer.

In the morning, around 50 labourers from Uttar Pradesh got their heads tonsured here, saying the buses on which they left for their native state two days back after initial nod were forced to halt at Kosamba in the district for want of valid permission and sent back to Surat.

They said hey have been waiting endlessly for the administration to clear their journey back home.

A worker demanded that the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat co-ordinate their movement without delay, and claimed bus fare, which they arranged with much difficulty, has not been returned to them.

Many of us sold off our watches and mobile phones to arrange for the bus fare. Now we are still at the same place, with no permission given to our buses to move.

We are stranded here with no help from officials. We demand the governments of the two states to coordinate fast for our return back home, he said.

Till Sunday, eight trains carrying migrant workers had left for Uttar Pradesh and Odisha from Gujarat.

Four trains from Ahmedabad, carrying around 1,200 migrant labourers each, travelled to Uttar Pradesh and an equal number of trains from Surat left for Odisha.

In Rajkot, hundreds of migrant workers came out on road in Shapar-Veraval industrial area on the city outskirts, demanding that they be sent back home.

Police said they managed to persuade the workers to call off the protest, and brought the situation under control.

We have reached out to migrants in residential localities and explained to them that they will be allowed to leave after getting a medical check-up done and completing other formalities, Rajkot Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-1) Ravi Mohan Saini said.

Rajkot district collector Ramya Mohan said the administration has been given strict instruction to follow the government-prescribed guidelines while sending migrant workers back to their home states.

We have get the names of migrant workers registered and sent them to the respective state for approval. Then we have to request the Railways for their transit.

Based on our request, the Railways will make arrangements for trains only after the home state concerned gives permission for their return, Mohan said.

These procedures take time and migrant workers need to show patience in returning to their native places, the Rajkot collector said.

Some migrant workers also gathered outside the Rajkot collectors office to fill forms for returning home, saying they had no food and money to sustain their livelihood.

The factory where I worked is closed, and I want to go back to my native place. They say we will have to arrange our our own vehicles to return to our native place, but we want the government to send us back in train, a worker said.

PTI COR PJT KA PD VT GK RSY RSY
A South Melbourne woman may have been dead for a number of days before police found her body on Monday afternoon.

Police were called to a Park Street property about 2.15pm on Monday and found the 26-year-old woman dead.

Homicide detectives are investigating whether the woman was dead for some time before officers made the grim discovery, police sources have told The Age.

Detectives and forensics officers spent more than 24 hours combing the property and surrounding gardens, removing a number of items including a CCTV camera and computer hard drives.
Rami Makhlouf has spoken out about his disagreements with Assad and the pressures on him and his companies writes Alsouria Net.

As Rami Makhlouf, owner of Syriatel, Cham Wings, and a number of other Syrian companies, decided to escalate the dispute against his cousin the head of the Syrian regime, the MTN company agreed to pay money owed to the Assad government.

The Syrian Telecommunications and Post Regulatory Authority, part of the Assad governments Ministry of Communications, said that, Teleinvest, one of the main partners in MTN Syria, expressed its willingness to pay its due, in accordance with its legal interest in the company and the Authoritys decision.

The Authority added that the company, confirmed the eligibility of the demands and the outstanding amounts referred to in the decision, which will be paid according to a timetable agreed upon later.

The Authority said in a statement last week that it had notified the Syrian cellular companies MTN and Syriatel that it had set the following Tuesday as a final deadline for paying money due to the state treasury.

The funds owed amount to 233.8 million Syrian pounds, and the Authority threatened to take all necessary legal actions to guarantee the rights of the state treasury if the money is not paid by the deadline.

With MTN agreeing to pay, Syriatel now sits at the forefront. Rami Makhlouf, Syriatels main owner, is fighting what appears to be major battles and disputes within the family circles that seized power in Syria more than half a century ago.

These disputes were embodied in the rare appearance of videos in which Makhlouf speaks about the states non-entitlement to the payments, adding that he has documentation.

But the Authority replied in a statement last Friday, confirming that, the money required to be paid by cellular companies are due to the state according to clear and existing documents, and they were calculated based on the work of committees specialized in financial, economic, technical and legal affairs.

Makhlouf then appeared in a second video on Sunday, in which he spoke of pressures to remove him from the economic scene and the company that he runs, most importantly Syriatel. He said that the security apparatus is beginning to infringe on peoples freedoms.

He added that the pressures against him began in an unacceptable and inhumane manner, that he was requested to move away from companies and implement instructions, and that he will not concede.

Makhlouf said that the security apparatus began arresting employees of these companies, asking whether anyone expects the security apparatus to come to Rami Makhloufs companies and arrest employees, after Makhlouf was their largest supporter and patron throughout the war.

A former director of Syriatel told Alsouria Net that security forces raided the homes of some of the companys managers and employees in Damascus by night.

The raids took place at around 2 a.m., he added. Intelligence arrested more than one of my acquaintances, employees and managers in the finance and accounting departments. I heard about the arrests from many other departments, but those whom I know personally and communicated with their families, are from the finance and accounting departments.

The former company director, who asked not to be named, said that, the people I know who were arrested from their homes overnight have nothing at all to do with the disputes going on between regime figures. They are employees working within their expertise and skills. I fear they are being used as scapegoats. He estimated that dozens of people had been arrested.

The war between Makhlouf and Assad ignited amid a scandal related to a painting that Bashar al-Assad bought as a gift for his wife Asma for 30 million dollars. Before that Makhlouf was tied to leaks, when ownership of the Takamol company and its returns to Asma were revealed to Russian media. The company is notable for distributing food to Syrians in regime areas via smart cards.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Regulators are pulling back on a decision that allowed scores of coronavirus blood tests to hit the US market without first providing proof that they worked.

On Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it was taking action because some sellers have made false claims about the tests and their accuracy.

Companies will now have to show their tests work or risk having them pulled from the market.

In March, the FDA was under pressure to increase testing options, so the agency essentially allowed companies to begin selling tests as long as they notified the agency of their plans and provided disclaimers, including that they were not FDA-approved.

The policy was intended to allow 'flexibility' needed to quickly ramp up production, according to officials.

The revised rule follows weeks of criticism from doctors, laboratory specialists and members of Congress who said the FDA's lack of oversight created a Wild West of unregulated tests.

In March, the FDA allowed companies to begin selling coronavirus antibody blood tests without first providing proof that they worked. Pictured: A woman holds her hand out to have blood collected for COVID-19 antibodies at a drive-thru site in Hempstead, New York, April 14

Some tests turned out to be inaccurate or frauds while other companies claimed they could be used at home, which the FDA doesn't allow. Pictured: A technician draws blood during an in-home COVID-19 antibody test in New York City, May 1

Companies with tests that don't have FDA authorization will be required to submit formal applications to regulators within 10 business days. Pictured: A team prepares to turn a COVID-19 patient onto his stomach in the ICU at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut on April 24

'However, flexibility never meant we would allow fraud,' Dr Anand Shah, an FDA deputy commissioner, said in a statement.

'We unfortunately see unscrupulous actors marketing fraudulent test kits and using the pandemic as an opportunity to take advantage of Americans.'

Blood tests are different from the nasal swab tests currently used to diagnose active COVID-19 infections.

Instead, the tests look for blood proteins called antibodies, which the body produces days or weeks after fighting an infection. Most use a finger-prick of blood on a test strip.

The agency acknowledged on Monday that there have been problems with deceptive, false marketing among the 160 tests that have been launched in the US.

Some companies have claimed their tests can be used at home, although the FDA has not allowed that use.

Others make unsubstantiated claims about their accuracy. Some US hospitals and local governments have reported buying tests that turned out to be inaccurate or frauds.

So far, the FDA has granted authorization to 11 antibody tests, meaning their methods, materials and accuracy passed muster with agency regulators.

Companies with test kits currently on the market without FDA authorization will now be required to submit formal applications to regulators within 10 business days.

Manufacturers that launch at a later date will have 10 days to turn over their applications after validating their tests.

Health officials have said the test could help scientists understand how many people come into contact with the virus and don't get sick.

But researchers haven't yet been able to answer key questions that are essential to their practical use: what level of antibodies does it take to be immune and how long does that protection last?

Additionally, the FDA had previously advised against using antibody tests to diagnose coronavirus because it takes times for antibodies to develop.

'We're spending a lot of time and resources on something that is not really a panacea for reopening,' said Dr Kamran Kadkhoda, a lab director at the Cleveland Clinic.

For now, the tests are mainly a research tool for scientists trying to determine how widely the coronavirus has spread among the US population.

Those studies are underway but have produced widely different preliminary results, in part, due to variations between tests. Even high-performing tests can produce skewed results when used in a large population where few people have had the virus.

The National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies are also reviewing tests and conducting research into whether they can successfully predict immunity.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement that the government's approach to 'balancing of risks and benefits has shifted from where it was in mid-March' based on new data from FDA and NIH reviews.
There is plenty of competition. Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and North Carolinas Research Triangle all have robust biotechnology sectors, along with many cities abroad. According to the World Health Organization, more than 100 possible vaccines are already being studied, and it will take months, at least, before one is found to be safe, effective and able to be produced in large numbers.
The government of Myanmar has ordered all civil servants to stop using hate speech on social media, a persistent problem in the majority Buddhist country, nearly three years after soldiers and local militias drove more than 740,000 Muslim Rohingya into neighboring Bangladesh.

The order, announced by Presidents Office spokesman Zaw Htay, requires that civil servants monitor and report online behavior to the central government. Critics say the move might be an attempt to clean up Myanmars image ahead of future international hearings on the alleged genocide of Rohingya in the countrys western Rakhine state.

In addition to government employees, security forces and military servicemen are also being directed not to engage in hate speech or incite violence, while participating in anti-hate speech campaigns.

We are trying to build a community with mutual understanding and respect, Win Myat Aye, Myanmars minister of relief, resettlement and social welfare, told RFAs Myanmar Service, adding that the directive was issued in the third week of April.

We should avoid violence that stems from hate speech. We have highlighted the key points in the directives to all [government] employees in 15 states and regions including the Naypyidaw Council, he said.

In war-torn Chin state, municipal minister Soe Htet told RFA that detailed reports on the progress of the initiative were necessary.

We held a meeting to brief all our employees not to engage in hate speech. We urged them to educate their friends and family members to do the same, he said.

I think we will have to report back about the briefing to [our superiors], he said.

Rights groups cautiously applaud orders

Civil groups who have been fighting against hate speech welcomed the government initiative, but expressed doubts that the order is genuine, citing the governments ongoing trial at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Myanmar was brought before the ICJ last year, the Muslim-majority West African nation Gambia filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention during the expulsion of Rohingya to Bangladesh amid the violence targeting the minority community in Rakhine state in 2017.

Thousands of Rohingya perished as a result of the 2017 violence, which included indiscriminate killings, mass rape, torture, and village burnings. More than 740,000 others fled to safety in neighboring Bangladesh where they live in massive displacement camps.

In January, the ICJ ordered Myanmar to implement measures to protect Rohingya Muslims from genocide and to preserve evidence of atrocities allegedly committed against them during a military-led crackdown. Myanmar rejected the request and repeated its denial of the genocide accusations.

Although delayed by coronavirus pandemic countermeasures, ICJ investigations are expected to proceed against Myanmar before long.

We have noticed that the government has issued directives on hate speech in the past few days. This coincides with increasing international pressure, as they will soon submit a report to the ICJ, said Thet Swe Win, executive director of the Center for Youth and Social Harmony.

They may be politically motivated to reduce international pressure, but otherwise these measures are very good in nature, he said.

Besides the government order, they should also try to implement these measures on the ground effectively. If they only intend to use them to alleviate international pressure, its not going to work, Thet Swe Win added.

Aung Thein, a member of parliament, disagreed that the measures were only lip service.

[The government] issued these directives because they are needed, he told RFA.

I dont think they are using them to just alleviate pressure because of the ICJ. Departments like the Presidents Office or the government administration know more about these issues than we do, so they may be issuing orders in response to what they know, he added.

The Rohingya have centuries of history in Myanmar, but they are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denied citizenship, prevented from obtaining jobs and formal education, and restricted from moving freely.

Defining hate speech

A court attorney from Mandalay region also named Aung Thein told RFA he sent a letter to President Win Myint and former President Thein Sein recommending they release an official definition of hate speech.

He suggested including in the definition, discrimination against a group of people who are of different religious beliefs or ethnic backgrounds, including those of mixed heritage, using discriminatory words. But he said the Presidents Office was not working closely with him.

We have to see how far the president and state counselors measures will go, Aung Thein said.

If they only intend to take superficial measures, they will [be ineffective] in the long run, he added.

They should take more sincere actions, like appearing on TV to speak out on the issue, urging people to refrain from using hate speech. Both the president and State Counselor [Aung San Suu Kyi] should do that he said.

The announcement by a mere Presidents Office spokesman is not enough. It wont make a difference, he said.

Hate speech in Myanmar is still prevalent despite previous purported government efforts to stop it.

In March 2019, The United Nations human rights envoy on Myanmar decried the pervasive nature of hate speech targeting Muslims by government officials and school textbooks in Myanmar in a report report she wrote for the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The report cited examples of hate speech used by senior officials, and highlighted examples of hate speech in text books, including a fourth-grade lesson on patriotic spirit that encouraged students to loathe those of mixed blood, claiming they hold back the progression of the dominant race.

In May 2019, Twitter suspended the account of Senior General Min Aung Hlaing for hate speech. Rights groups say the general is the architect of the bloody ethnic cleansing campaign that drove more than 740,000 Muslim Rohingya into Bangladesh in 2017. His Facebook account was suspended for the same reason nine months prior.

These events came after Thura Aung Ko, Myanmar's minister for religious affairs and culture, said the ministry was drafting a bill to counter hate speech in 2017. At that time, the bill had been ordered by the state counselor to be presented in the parliament.

I have not seen any official hate speech bill or discussions in parliament during the current parliamentary sessions, Oo Hla Saw, a lawmaker who represents Rakhine's Mrauk-U township, told RFA.

Civil society groups say the law to counter hate speech should address the management of the crimes related to hate speeches, in addition to preventing them.

Local groups working to fight hate speech say that since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, hate speech has a new target  COVID-19 patients, suspected patients, and volunteers.

Reported by Waimar Tun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Prophet T.B Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCAON, has described the lockdown order as an evil spirit, adding the governm...

Prophet T.B Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCAON, has described the lockdown order as an evil spirit, adding the government doesnt know this.





The cleric said what the government is trying to protect people from (COVID-19) is not as dangerous as they are portraying it.





T. B Joshua warned that lockdown is an evil spirit that could lead to laziness, depression and suicide.





He said the government has succeeded in putting the spirit of fear, addiction and the spirit of violence in the people.





Our government doesnt know that lockdown is a spirit, an evil spirit  spirit of laziness, spirit of depression, spirit of suicide, he said during a live Sunday worship.





Those who once surrounded themselves with people find themselves surrounded only by four empty walls. This can cause depression and suicidal thoughts.





Those who never stayed on a spot are now confined to one spot. Our government doesnt know this. They think they are protecting us from the spirit of COVID19 but what is COVID19 in comparison to the repercussion?





Our government, our leaders, our presidents, you are doing good for the world but what you are trying to protect us from is not as dangerous as what you are putting us into.





That spirit that has entered your life  spirit of fear, spirit of addiction, spirit of violence  be cast out! Be cast out! In the name of Jesus! 




Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 20:43:12|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

LUSAKA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Zambia on Monday reported 13 new C0VID-19 cases, bringing the total of confirmed cases to 137.

The new cases have been picked from 811 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, Health Minister Chitalu Chilufya said.

Zambia has also reported three deaths related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Enditem
Italys daily COVID-19 death toll fell to the lowest level in nearly two months on Sunday, the eve of the first easing of a strict novel coronavirus lockdown.

The death tally rose by 174 to 28,884, the Civil Protection Agency said in its daily bulletin.

The last time daily fatalities were below that figure was on March 10, with 168 deaths.

March 10 was also the start date of the lockdown.

The total number of infections rose by a record-low 0.66 per cent, to 210,717; active cases dropped by more than 500, to 100,179; and intensive care patients fell by 38 to 1,501.

On Monday, the construction and manufacturing sectors are resuming activities, and bars and restaurants can reopen, but only for takeaway service.

Some were already active for home deliveries.

Some 4.5 million people are estimated to be returning to work.

Mask-wearing in enclosed public spaces, including public transport, is becoming compulsory.

The situation has definitely improved compared to the past but we are not still out of the epidemic, so the utmost caution is needed, Health Minister Roberto Speranza told RAI public television.

People will be allowed to do more outdoor exercise, and visit their loved ones  but there has been confusion on who falls under that category.

The government eventually signalled that people can see their partners, relatives, but not close friends, as initially suggested by a junior health minister.

More confusion is coming from some regions seeking faster lockdown exit plans.

The central government has threatened legal action against them. (dpa/NAN)
Mountain View, California, USA - March 28, 2018: Google sign at Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley. Photo: Getty Creative

The coronavirus pandemic has hit startups hard, and travel startups in particular, with pre-booked trips and tours all suddenly cancelled as travel bans and lockdowns from March brought most of the world to a total standstill.

Many German travel startups, like GetYourGuide and Tourlane, immediately refunded customers for the trips and experiences they now could not take. Then the companies, who have had to put hundreds of staff on short-time hours, hunkered down to figure out how to ride out a year likely without much or any revenue.

Now these travel firms have a bone to pick with Google (GOOG), whom they say has refused to show any flexibility in terms of restructuring their ad payments from the first quarter. They accuse the tech giant of not showing solidarity by helping shoulder the immediate economic impact from the crisis.

In a letter from the German Startups Association to Googles Chief Business Officer seen by Yahoo Finance UK, the heads of the countrys eight biggest travel startups, including unicorns GetYourGuide and Flixbus, appeal to Google to throw them a lifeline.

By selectively enforcing strict payment terms on larger partners  especially from the travel & transportation industry  for its services provided to market those products, Google is opting out of sharing the responsibility to do right by consumers, German Startups Association president Christian Miele writes in the letter.

He writes that the startups made a big contribution to Google being the leading player in the digital economy, noting that the eight startups represent more than $80m (63.9m) in ad revenues for Google in the first quarter of 2020  and appeals to the tech giant to demonstrate the solidarity necessary to navigate us all through this challenging time.

05 March 2020, Berlin: Chairman of the Association of German Startups Christian Miele speaks at the opening ceremony of the German Startup Awards of the Association. Photo: Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images

Google parent Alphabet last week reported a 13% growth in first-quarter revenue to $41.16 billion, but also suffered a significant slowdown in Google ad revenues in March.

Story continues

Specifically, the travel startups want Google to allow them to restructure or postpone payment terms for ad services incurred in the first quarter of 2020, and March in particular. They also want Google to stop insisting on payments from companies that have received taxpayer-funded government aid from the German government.

Google did not respond specifically to a request for comment on the startups letter. Our travel partners are facing unprecedented challenges and were working with partners to help protect their businesses, including helping them surface their cancellation policies in our travel search products and expanding our pay per stay pilot earlier this month to all hotel ads partners globally to shift the cancellation risk from our partners to us, a Google spokesperson told Yahoo Finance UK via email.

Miele would prefer to see flexible payments however, since the companies he represents all acted in their own customers interests.

"Despite doing the right thing in issuing refunds for holidays cancelled by coronavirus, the companies represented by the German Startups Association have not been offered a penny of credit from Google toward their advertising bills. Miele said. Instead of paying us lip service by touting support packages, Google should offer a consistent and flexible repayment policy toward its partners."

GetYourGuide chief executive Johannes Reck said that when his company asked Google for a discount for all the cancelled March bookings, or if they could have the repayments deferred or restructured, Google said no and insisted on being paid within thirty days.

"We want Google to recognise that it played an active part in our customers' trip planning, and to take a participatory role in the refunds we had to issue for those trips, rather than excusing itself from responsibility, Reck said. We're not even asking for full debt forgiveness; we just want a way to restructure our payments according to a policy that is consistent and fair."

Government aid flows to Google

In his letter to Google, Miele points out that many start-ups are now going to be reliant on German government aid to stay solvent during the crisis, and badly-needed funding will flow into Googles coffers on the backs of taxpayers in Germany and around the world.

As part of its more than 600bn economic stabilisation fund, the German government allocated 400bn to guarantee loans to companies from the KfW state development bank

Christian Lindner, head of the Free Democrats (FDP) had a go at Google last week, saying that the company, which has no problems and keeps making profit, is showing its character.

Google acts like a monopolist who defines the rules himself and who doesn't have to fear competition," Lindner told Bild newspaper.
Oakland

A truck in the May Day caravan with a Spanish sign that reads "Keep DACA, get rid of Trump." | Photos: Zack Haber/Hoodline



On Friday morning, a caravan of over 300 cars and 50 cyclists gathered at the Port of Oakland for a socially distanced protest. The group included a variety of activists, including housing-rights advocates, prison abolitionists and essential workers in the health-care and grocery industries.

But one group was especially vocal: Oakland public school educators, who say their students are facing compounding social pressures that make learning under lockdown impossible.

Theres an expectation in school that kids should be able to achieve, regardless of their conditions," said Nick Palmquist, a humanities teacher and family guidance counselor at MetWest High School. "But students do not leave their living conditions at the door."

Nick Palmquist, a teacher and guidance counselor at MetWest High School.

From their perspective educating the city's children, Oakland educators see nearly every failing of society  and all of them have been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, they say.

Theres a student at our school whose dad was picked up by ICE, just as this crisis was starting, said Palmquist. With their mother unable to work, the student, a ninth-grader, is now the familys main breadwinner.

When youre bringing that in, school is just not your focus," Palmquist said. "Youre thinking about all these other things so much more."

Many students are the children of the incarcerated, who face high risks of infection in prisons and jails that don't allow for social distancing.

Keeping people locked up in completely squalid conditions is a death sentence, said Adi Hoang, a special education resource teacher at East Oakland Pride Elementary.

For the protest, she outfitted her car with signs calling for the release of ICE detainees, and for universal COVID-19 testing at all prisons and detention centers.

Adi Hoang, a special education resource teacher at East Oakland Pride Elementary, decorated her car with protest signs.

The children of essential workers are also under pressure, Palmquist said. Many of the Oakland Unified School District's families are low-wage workers in jobs that don't provide health insurance. A sizable number are undocumented.

Story continues

So many of our students' families are the ones who do the essential work in the Bay Area, said Palmquist. When those folks are getting sick, it directly affects our students.

Protester Mona Trevino, who has a child currently enrolled in Oakland schools and another who graduated from them, says that protesters are increasingly becoming aware of how all these issues overlap.

We all see the need to prioritize life and living over this economy, she said.

The May Day protest caravan for workers rights just made its way past my apartment in Uptown Oakland. Police blocked off Telegraph and Grand to let the demonstrators in cars and on motorcycles and bikes through. #MayDay pic.twitter.com/Jpk3RsEkbH  Kellie Hwang (@KellieHwang) May 1, 2020

Oakland teachers say that one of their biggest frustrations surrounds internet and computer access. While OUSD has shifted to online distance learning, kids without internet at home are out of luck.

Over 410 Oakland educators signed a recent open letter to OUSD Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, the Oakland school board, Mayor Libby Schaaf and Oaklands city council, calling for the city to provide universal internet. Theyve yet to hear a response.

I have a couple of students who have been asking for internet access since the start of this crisis, said Palmquist. Theres been zero progress.

In addition to a lack of digital learning tools, Hoang noted the crisis in housing, with high rents forcing many families into crowded homes where it's easy for young students to get distracted.

I try to teach online, and I have maybe a fifth of my students that have been able to access online learning, she said.

Mike Hutchinson, who helped organize the caravan, has been working for nearly a decade to stop school closures and expand community control of schools through the Oakland Public Education Network (OPEN).

He says parents, teachers and school staff want community control over how schools are reopened.

The community needs to have a list of requirements that OUSD needs to meet in order to reopen our schools, like full testing, protocols in place, and some kind of plan to bridge the lost class time we had," said Hutchinson, whos currently running for the District 5 seat on the school board.

The May Day on the Bay car caravan has since grown to several hundred vehicles, all headed up Broadway to the Oakland Police Station on 6th St. #MayDay2020 #GeneralStrike2020 #StrikeForOurLives #NoRent #CoronaStrike pic.twitter.com/KZCXjUf0jo  Sarah Belle Lin (@SarahBelleLin) May 1, 2020

Last spring, teachers walked off the job in Oakland for seven days, winning an 11 percent pay raise and a promise to hire more counseling support staff and school nurses. If schools aren't reopened in a way that educators approve, Hoang said, another teachers' strike could be a possibility.

A lot of it is going to fall on teachers to say 'Were not going back,'" Hoang said. "Were not going back without protections for ourselves, protections for our communities, and assurance that our schools and our students' lives will not continue to be ravaged by this in ways that are completely unnecessary."

The people who decide how we reopen schools, how we make sure kids get access to learning, should be teachers.
Provinces Must Give Emotional Support to Returning Students

VANCOUVERBored and isolated students are spending too many hours online and some have started using more substances, but all students will need extra emotional support when classes resume, says a psychiatrist who specializes in youth mental health.

Dr. Shimi Kang said that while teens typically question authority and act impulsively some are now self-medicating with substances or ignoring physical distancing measures as a way to deal with anxiety resulting from the pandemic.

I would encourage schools to start with social emotional programming and talk about things like coping skills right in that first week going back, talk about what coping skills people used at home, what they can do now as theyre reintegrating, said Kang, a clinical assistant professor at the University of British Columbias department of psychiatry.

Phoenix Crawford does school work on a laptop while being home-schooled by his mum Donna Eddy in Sydney, Australia, on April 9, 2020. (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

She said academics will have to take a back seat to allowing students to express their thoughts and emotions as part of so-called social emotional learning that is already part of many curriculums across the country as a way to teach students to manage their emotions, learn empathy and compassion and to build resilience as part of a life-long practice.

That type of learning, which is separate from providing mental health supports, may involve students response to whats happening in their community or around the world and being aware of how they would cope with certain situations, Kang said.

If theres anything that this pandemic has shown, it is that life skills get us through. It is the adaptability, the resiliency, the communication skills, the emotional regulation skills, the ability to problem solve and have optimism in the face of difficulty. Thats where we need to put our focus.

Its no longer good enough for schools to jam in a lesson on social emotional learning to meet the criteria, she said, advising that it should be incorporated into the overall kindergarten-to-Grade 12 curriculum.

Bilingual teacher Maria Sanislo (R) explains a Google Chromebook to a family at KT Murphy Elementary School in Stamford, Ct., on March 17, 2020. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Chris Markham, executive director of the non-profit Ontario Physical and Health Education Association, said part of the response to COVID-19 should involve a plan for all provinces to strengthen the social emotional learning components of their curriculums.

The broader conversation pre-COVID was still on strengthening this curriculumB.C.s, Albertas, Ontarios, theyve all got it somewhere, he said of most jurisdictions across the country.

At this point in time maybe the shiny coin in all of this is how important all those skills are to enabling kids to be resilient and for them to thrive, sometimes in situations that are completely out of their control. This should be a wake-up call to us, Markham said.

Right now, were trying to facilitate a conversation with the province about doing that, Markham said of Ontario, adding he recently discussed the importance of students well-being with Education Minister Stephen Lecce.

Lecce said in a tweet on April 30 that hed spoken with Markham about our strong commitment to supporting the health and well-being of every Ontario student through COVID-19.

Students leave the Thurgood Marshal Elementary school after the Seattle Public School system was abruptly closed due to CCP virus fears in Seattle, Wash., on March 11, 2020. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Ontarios Ministry of Education said in an email it has heard from parents and various groups who have told us to prioritize well-being and mental health of our students. In collaboration with our education sector partners, we will continue to prioritize well-being and mental health when discussing the transition back to school.

Shelley Morse, president of the Canadian Teachers Federation, said teachers should be prepared to provide trauma-informed practices in response to students needs, especially those who may be living in fear from having witnessed domestic violence or experienced food shortages during the pandemic.

We have to make sure that when they come back, were ready to debrief and deal with those situations and worry about the content at a later time, she said. We know were going to have students with trauma, even trauma from going back into the classroom with all the unknowns.

So far, only Quebec has announced plans to reopen schools in mid-May for primary students.

Signs outside Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, Calif., show that the school is closed because of COVID-19 on March 31, 2020. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Morse said its hard to know how younger children will react to seeing teachers in personal protective equipment, if they choose to wear it, as well as not being permitted to get close to the classmates they havent seen in two months.

Im a little concerned about Quebec, she said. Im not sure that theyve had proper time for that return to school.

The Ministry of Education in Quebec said in a statement that teachers would be vigilant in providing support to students who need it.

This increased vigilance will also help detect students who have experienced trauma and those who will develop symptoms after returning to class, it said.

British Columbias ministry said in an email that its social emotional learning program, called Core Competencies, is a central foundation of the curriculum.

By Camille Bains
The stockpile was already well supplied with smallpox vaccine in 2018, according to a senior official then involved in the process. The CDC said on its website in June 2019  and continues to say  that it had enough smallpox vaccine for every American. The doses must be replenished as they expire.
Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin voted against entering into official government formation talks with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

The Greens yesterday made the historic decision to begin formal negotiations with the two parties on how to form the next government.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan will meet Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tomorrow morning to begin negotiations.

However, it has emerged Mr Ryan's deputy leader was among a group of Green TDs who voiced objections to the move and voted against the proposal during a teleconference call yesterday.

Last week, Ms Martin was highly critical of comments by Tanaiste Simon Coveney, who said he would not agree to a 7pc per year cut in carbon emissions if it impacted negatively on rural Ireland.

Ms Martin said the Tanaiste's comments were "quite disturbing" and said she shared the views of those in her party who were concerned about going into government with Fine Gael.

A Green Party spokesperson said: "Catherine was against going into talks now because she felt greater clarity was needed on the issues raised with the two parties previously, as she expressed on the Sean O'Rourke show on Friday, but she respects the democratic votes of the party and is happy to participate in talks in good faith."

The party's 12 TDs held a vote on starting government negotiations with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael as they could not reach a consensus.

Those in favour of talks reached the two-thirds majority needed for the decision to be passed.

If the Greens' parliamentary party members agree a programme for government, it will also have to be passed by two-thirds of the party membership before it can enter into a coalition.

The party has been racked with internal turmoil over the decision to enter into talks and members have been meeting every day via video link to debate Fianna Fail and Fine Gael's policy framework document.

They sent the two parties a list of 17 questions relating to climate change and other key Green issues, such as ending direct provision.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael agreed with the majority of their demands but were reluctant to sign up to a 7pc per year reduction in carbon emissions.

Over the weekend, the Greens sought more information from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael before agreeing to talks.

In a statement published after the vote, the Green Party said it was "conscious of the huge challenges" facing the next government in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

"The party will now work with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to develop a deal that respects our mandate with a view to presenting that agreement to Green Party members for approval," it said.

"Any proposal must be transformative on climate action and commit to strong progress towards a more sustainable and fairer society.

"If this is not the case, Green Party representatives will withdraw from negotiations and pursue their mandate in opposition and work to hold the government to account," it added.

Mr Martin welcomed the Green Party's announcement and said he was confident the three parties could agree a programme for government.

"There is important legislation that needs to be passed to allow Irish businesses to access finance and there needs to be a government in place to do this," said the Fianna Fail leader.

"I am also confident that together, with an agreed progressive programme for government, we will have the opportunity to tackle in a fundamental way the biggest issues that are facing our people - Covid-19, the housing emergency, access to health services, childcare and climate change.

"We must also not forget that a hard Brexit in six months is still looming," he warned.

Mr Varadkar said he was looking forward to "constructive" negotiations in the coming days.

"This is a very welcome decision by the Green Party. Ireland needs a stable government to manage the remainder of the Covid emergency and to rebuild and renew our society and economy over the next five years," he said.

Mr Varadkar said the parties will work to deal with the challenges facing the country.

He also warned a hard Brexit within six months was a "distinct possibility" which would bring more challenges.
A tax credit crafted to encourage angel investors to sink their money into South Carolina technology startups phased out last year, and supporters say efforts to bring it back are being delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The break allows startup backers to write off a portion of their investments as a credit on their state income tax. Many states have their own versions of the incentive. But South Carolina's, originally passed in 2013, hit its sunset date on Dec. 31.

Nearly 300 companies have applied and qualified for the credit, according to VentureSouth, a venture capital firm that works with companies around the Southeast. Last year, investors shelled out nearly $31 million on those businesses, which, among other requirements, must be less than 5 years old and maintain their headquarters in South Carolina in order to qualify under the now-expired tax credit program.

Charlie Banks, a VentureSouth managing director, said raising capital is hard enough during a pandemic. The firm and other interested organizations have been lobbying in the Statehouse to restore the credit.

He added that the proposal had near-unanimous support before the General Assembly took a recess because of the virus. Legislators will be back this spring with the directive to pass a budget.

The credits can't exceed $5 million in value in a calendar year. For financial backers, the goal is to give them an incentive to put some of their money toward the development of home-grown tech industry rather than real estate and other common asset classes.

A study conducted by the University of South Carolina in 2013 found that more companies in the state were being acquired compared to the number that were acquiring other businesses, a sign that many startups choose to cash out rather than try to grow to scale by themselves.

Jason Zacher, senior vice president of business advocacy for the Greenville Chamber of Commerce, said the expired tax credit has been vital to helping startups gain footing.

"It's a little hard for these companies to go get venture capital in New York or Silicon Valley," Zacher said.

Virtual decision

The event doesn't take place until October, but Daniel Island-based Blackbaud Inc. has already decided to move its annual bbcon summit to the web.

It made the move in part because of the possibility that cases of coronavirus disease could re-emerge in the fall, and partly because many possible attendees may not be able to make it to the event in person.

"We understand that risks associated with large-scale live events this year remain unknown, and we also recognize that many organizations face tough budget decisions, especially related to travel and professional development opportunities," Blackbaud announced on its website.

The software company develops tech products for the philanthropic industry and employs 3,400 workers worldwide. Its in-person conference was to be held in Seattle this year.
A New York police officer has been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on desk duty after shocking video emerged showing him beating up a man over an alleged social distancing violation.

On Saturday, several plainclothes NYPD cops broke up a group of people ignoring social distancing orders and dragged a man to the ground and arrested him in the East Village on Avenue D and 9th Street around 5pm.

Two minutes after the arrest bystanders began to shout and decry the force used by police , prompting Officer Francisco Garcia to threaten the crowd with a stun gun and shout 'Get back. Get the f**k back', according to the New York Post.

Donni Wright, 33, was a part of that crowd and shouted 'He didn't even do nothing' in shock over the cops' earlier arrest.

'What you flexing for? Don't flex,' Garcia, wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, Yankees cap and a belt showing his officer's badge, replied before punching Wright in the head.

On Saturday around 5pm NYPD plainclothes officers broke up a group of people violating social distancing orders in Manhattan's East Village. The outrage and protest of bystanders led to the arrest of 33-year-old Donni Wright

In that social distancing arrest officers were seen bringing a man to the ground and arresting him

Two minutes after that arrest bystanders began to shout and decry the police's use of force, prompting Officer Francisco Garcia (above) to threaten the crowd with a stun gun and shout 'Get back. Get the f**k back'

Donni Wright, 33, was a part of that crowd and shouted 'He didn't even do nothing' in shock over the cops' earlier arrest, leading Garcia to punch him and knock him to the ground

The cop punched Wright repeatedly and forced him to the ground. He dragged him onto the sidewalk where he was placed in handcuffs by another officer.

The sudden beatdown led distressed people in the area to scream and shout even more, but Garcia yelled back 'That's right!'

Some of these officers at the scene, including Garcia, were notably not wearing protective masks, which is required to be worn by law enforcement.

Wright was arrested on charges of assault on a police officer and resisting arrest. The charges have been deferred pending further investigation, a Manhattan District Attorneys Office spokesperson said.

Video footage of the confrontation was shared on NYC Scanner's Twitter page where it racked up more than 72,000 views and sparked outrage over excessive police force.

'The behavior I saw in that video is simply not acceptable,' Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted Sunday.

'Saw the video from the Lower East Side and was really disturbed by it. The officer involved has been placed on modified duty and an investigation has begun,' he said.

Garcia hit Wright several times and dragged him onto the sidewalk and distressed onlookers screamed for him to stop

Garcia was seen putting his knees on Wright's head and neck during the brutal arrest. Wright was arrested for assault on a police officer and resisting arrest but the charges have been deferred pending further investigation

The incident is being investigated by the department's Internal Affairs Bureau and Garcia has been placed on modified duty

'It started out as a social distancing enforcement,' Commissioner Dermot Shea on Sunday. 'I am aware of the video thats out there.'

Police spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Frances ODonnell said Wright 'took a fighting stance against the officer' when ordered to disperse.

The incident is being investigated by the department's Internal Affairs Bureau and Garcia has been placed on desk duty.

The manner of Wrights arrest appeared to echo that of 20-year-old Fitzroy Gayle, who was seen on bystander video pleading for help as several officers wrestled him into submission on a Brooklyn sidewalk in early March.

Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned the incident saying: 'Saw the video from the Lower East Side and was really disturbed by it. The officer involved has been placed on modified duty and an investigation has begun'

De Blasio assigned 1,000 officers to social distancing patrols over the weekend as temperatures reached the high 70s

Under the instructions of Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYPD officers set out on foot, bicycles and in cars to break up crowds and remind those enjoying the weather of public health restrictions requiring they keep 6 feet away from others

Jennvine Wong, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Societys Cop Accountability Project, said footage of the arrests Saturday stood in sharp contrast to photos and video  including some tweeted out by the police department  showing officers in crowded city parks handing out face masks and gently reminding people to stay 6 feet apart.

'This certainly isnt the first time and this isnt even the first time in this pandemic that weve seen evidence of discriminatory policing by the NYPD,' Wong said.

The police department assigned 1,000 officers to social distancing patrols over the weekend as temperatures reached the high 70s.

On Saturday, they issued 51 summonses, including 43 in city parks. At a news conference Sunday, Shea said he was aware of just three arrests.
(Philadelphia, PA) - Heart disease is a leading cause of death worldwide. But significant disparities exist in the incidence and severity of heart disease, particularly between men and women, and major barriers remain for the successful long-term care of heart disease patients. Now, thanks to a $12-million Program Project Grant (PPG) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) are set to break down these barriers by exploring molecular mechanisms of heart injury and repair. Ultimately, they hope to identify new paths to the development of innovative heart therapies.

The Principal Investigator on the new award is Walter J. Koch, PhD, W.W. Smith Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, and Director of the Center for Translational Medicine at LKSOM. "We are very excited about the new PPG," Dr. Koch said. "It gives us an exciting opportunity to discover more about the molecular basis of heart disease and, more specifically, heart failure, which affects more than six million people in the United States alone."

Advances in treatments for heart disease over the course of the last decade have significantly improved patient survival. But mortality from heart failure, a major form of heart disease, remains high - about 40 percent of heart failure patients die within five years of diagnosis. In addition, little is known about why men experience more rapid heart failure progression than women.

"The persistently high rate of mortality in heart failure has created a significant need to learn more about mechanisms underlying tissue injury and tissue repair processes in the heart," Dr. Koch said.

To explore these aspects of heart disease, Dr. Koch and Center for Translational Medicine colleagues Raj Kishore, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Medicine and Director of the Center's Stem Cell Therapy Program; Douglas Tilley, PhD, Associate Professor of Pharmacology; and John Elrod, PhD, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Associate Professor at the Alzheimer's Center at Temple, designed four distinct yet complementary and highly collaborative projects.

Dr. Koch's team will examine the role of molecules known as G protein-coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) in heart function and disease. Part of this project is aimed at identifying the role specifically of GRK5 in heart failure. The team will also investigate whether limiting GRK5 activity can reduce tissue remodeling that occurs in the failing heart.

Dr. Kishore's portion of the research is focused on understanding the influence of gender on the ability of bone marrow stem cells to repair heart tissue. In particular, his team will test the hypothesis that female-derived stem cells possess superior reparative properties compared to their male counterparts and that functional superiority of female stem cells involves both hormone-dependent and hormone-independent mechanisms.

"Whether there is a gender basis for differences in stem cell function in the repair of the injured heart - particularly a molecular basis for superior functionality of female-derived stem cells - is not known," Dr. Kishore said.

The third project, headed by Dr. Tilley, will explore the development of renal dysfunction during heart failure. "Renal dysfunction, in the form of cardiorenal syndrome (CRS), is a predictor for poor prognosis in heart failure patients," Dr. Tilley said. "A key indicator of CRS is renal fibrosis, which impairs proper kidney function, and prevention of which may help ameliorate heart failure."

Dr. Tilley and colleagues aim to define the role of immune cells known as leukocytes in mediating renal fibrosis in heart failure. Leukocytes regulate tissue fibrosis and are recruited to the kidney in various disease states. Working with co-investigator Meredith Brisco-Bacik, MD, MSCE, FACC, Associate Professor of Medicine and Clinical Sciences at LKSOM, Dr. Tilley's team will further examine molecular profiles of leukocytes collected from the blood of patients with or without CRS.

"We are excited to work with Drs. Koch, Kishore, and Elrod to examine facets of leukocyte biology, including alterations in leukocyte-specific GRK expression and signaling, sex-based differences in leukocyte behavior, and alterations in leukocyte bioenergetics, to determine their impact on CRS progression and outcomes," Dr. Tilley added.

Dr. Elrod will lead the fourth project, which follows on his laboratory's discovery that targeting the process of calcium exchange in mitochondria (the energy-supplying powerhouses of cells) is an effective strategy to reduce tissue injury associated with heart attack. His team is especially interested in understanding the role of a molecule known as MCUB in the regulation of mitochondrial calcium transport in heart failure. These studies could uncover ways to therapeutically reduce mitochondrial dysfunction in heart tissue.

The new award, completely housed in the Center for Translational Medicine at Temple, also funds one administrative and two scientific cores, one directed by Dr. Koch and the others led by Erhe Gao, MD, PhD, Professor in the Center for Translational Medicine and Sudarsan Rajan, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Center.

"This award is a testament to what we have built here at Temple and the Center for Translational Medicine under Dr. Koch's impeccable leadership," Dr. Kishore noted. "The scientific depth of these multi-component studies is quite exciting and is likely to open up new understanding of and potentially new therapeutic avenues for heart disease."

"Historically, a department or center that is funded by the PPG mechanism has been viewed as preeminent in their field and highly successful," Dr. Elrod added. "The fact that this is the second currently funded PPG emanating from the Center for Translational Medicine speaks volumes to the collaborative nature and scientific impact of our group as a whole."

###

Editor's Note: The content above is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

About Temple Health

Temple University Health System (TUHS) is a $2.2 billion academic health system dedicated to providing access to quality patient care and supporting excellence in medical education and research. The Health System consists of Temple University Hospital (TUH); TUH-Episcopal Campus; TUH-Jeanes Campus; TUH-Northeastern Campus; The Hospital of Fox Chase Cancer Center and Affiliates, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center; Temple Transport Team, a ground and air-ambulance company; Temple Physicians, Inc., a network of community-based specialty and primary-care physician practices; and Temple Faculty Practice Plan, Inc., TUHS's physician practice plan comprised of more than 500 full-time and part-time academic physicians in 20 clinical departments. TUHS is affiliated with the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.

Temple Health refers to the health, education and research activities carried out by the affiliates of Temple University Health System (TUHS) and by the Katz School of Medicine. TUHS neither provides nor controls the provision of health care. All health care is provided by its member organizations or independent health care providers affiliated with TUHS member organizations. Each TUHS member organization is owned and operated pursuant to its governing documents.

It is the policy of Temple University Health System that there shall be no exclusion from, or participation in, and no one denied the benefits of, the delivery of quality medical care on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, disability, age, ancestry, color, national origin, physical ability, level of education, or source of payment.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Sydney, Australia  Mon, May 4, 2020 11:47 624 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd5bee4d 2 Business coronavirus,Asia,virus-corona,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,pandemic,factory-activity,global-crisis,financial-crisis,economic-impact Free

Asia's factory activity was ravaged in April, business surveys showed on Monday, and the outlook dimmed further as government restrictions on movement to contain the coronavirus outbreak froze global production and slashed demand.

A series of Purchasing Managers' Indexes (PMIs) from IHS Markit fell deeper into contraction from March, with some diving to all-time lows and others hitting levels last seen during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

Similar gauges out of Europe's largest economies due on Monday and later in the week are also expected to show dire global industry conditions.

The PMI for South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy and a global manufacturing powerhouse, skidded to 41.6 in April, the lowest reading since January 2009. Japan's PMI released last week similarly fell to an 11-year low.

"The bad news is that the hit to industry in many places is unlikely to be passed the worst," Alex Holmes, Asia Economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note.

"Global demand has slumped and we dont think it has bottomed out yet. The latest incoming data for the U.S. and Western Europe point to an unprecedented slump in demand. And while China's economy has started to recover, demand there remains very weak."

Last week, China's official PMI showed factory activity still growing in April, albeit more slowly than March, while the private-sector Caixin PMI showed a dip into contraction, although at a much gentler pace than the rest of the world. Significantly, exporters in both surveys were jolted by steep falls in orders.

While China appears to be ahead of others in emerging from the economic paralysis inflicted by the pandemic, any recovery is expected to be gradual and unlikely to fire up an immediate resurgence in global demand.

The PMI for Taiwan, a major producer of high-end technology components, fell to 42.2, its lowest since 2009 and down from an expansionary 50.4 in March.

The declines in South Korea's and Taiwan's PMIs showed contractions that were less severe than those seen in other economies in the region, with indicators in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam all reporting plunges to record lows.

Capital Economics' Holmes said while South Korea and Taiwan held up better than their Southeast Asian counterparts, thanks mostly to effective government policies to contain the virus, conditions have nonetheless worsened.

Official data released last week showed the coronavirus sent South Korean exports plunging in April at their sharpest pace since the global financial crisis.

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd last week said it expected profits to decline in the current quarter due to a slump in sales.

It said that while work-from-home orders and growth in online learning would underpin demand for memory chips, the outlook for smartphones and TVs was bleak as consumers put off discretionary spending.

The production slump is of particular concern to policymakers, who are worried about the socially destabilizing effects of massive unemployment as firms in both factory and service sectors slash headcount.

A private-sector survey in Australia on Monday showed job advertisements plunging a record 53.1% in April, a decline that was almost five times larger than the previous record of 11.3% in January 2009.
Some attendees at the burial of late Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, have tested negative to COVID-19 after completing their 14 days of isolation.

The Acting Secretary, FCT Health Secretariat, Mohammed Kawu, made this known in a brief statement on Sunday.

The Health and Human Services Secretariat of the FCT Administration, is happy to announce that the individuals exposed during the burial of late Chief of staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari, have completed their 14 days of isolation.

Tests were conducted on them and they have all tested negative to COVID19. They have been reunited with their families, he said.

He however, did not disclose the number of participants who were isolated and tested.

His statement comes about two weeks after the death of Mr Kyari.

The late chief of staff died at a private hospital in Lagos, about four weeks after he was confirmed positive for COVID-19 after he returned from an official trip to Germany.

He was buried at the military cemetery in Abujas Gudu neighbourhood, an event which triggered outrage over disregard for social distancing and other health advisories.

Many Nigerians have asked the Task Force to arrest and prosecute those who violated the protocols and guidelines of the NCDC at the funeral. Some Nigerians have also faulted the teams method of prosecuting defaulters of the lockdown order accusing it of targeting the vulnerable in the society.

After the funeral, Mr Kawu had announced that 11 attendees were identified and isolated.

Some presidential aides present at the burial were also barred from the villa by Nigerian Ruler, Muhammadu Buhari. The president had ordered that they self-isolate.

It is, however, not clear if they are part of those who have tested negative to the disease.
FORSYTH COUNTY, GA  Patch wants to provide a way to share the achievements of our high school graduates, even if it's in a small way. With in-person instruction canceled through the rest of the 2019-20 school year due to the coronavirus in Georgia public schools, seniors are missing out on the last moments of what should be a celebratory time.

We know many high school seniors are missing milestone high school events, and we hope that this will give the community a way to share their pride in our class of 2020 high school graduates.

Pamela Couch said, "don't know a graduate but want to congratulate all seniors in Forsyth County schools. You will never forget this year but will teach you big time about life and you all will be very successful at what ever you do."



If you'd like to add your graduate, fill out the form here.

Here are the class of 2020 high school graduates our readers wanted to recognize:

Graduating from Denmark High School

Cole Hansen, attending Georgia Southern majoring in finance

From the family: "Congratulations Cole, Mom & Dad are so proud of you! Follow your dreams and rise above with hope and eagerness in pursuing your passions. Stay true to yourself and spread that contagious smile and warm heart! Looking forward to your next chapter with gratefulness..."

Lilly Hansen, attending Kennesaw State University



From the family: "Congratulations Lilly, Mom and Dad are so proud of you and all your accomplishments! You are so kind and funny with a beautiful spirit! May you find your passion in whatever inspires you. Be you always as youve always been! Reach for the stars & stay shining..."

Graduating from Lambert High School

Jason Resnick



From the family: "Jason, your family and friends are so incredibly proud of you. You worked so hard to get to your graduation! You are a funny, kind, sweet, friendly, loving member of Lambert HS. I couldn't be more proud of the man you are! Your Uncle, Grandpa and I are so lucky you are in our lives. Can't wait to see where the future takes you!"

Story continues





Hari Rajan, attending Georgia State University



From the family: "Bravo Hari! You are awesome! Kudos on your feat--Graduate 2020"

Frankie Fontana, studying health sciences at Troy University



From the family: "Congratulations Frankie! We know you will continue to achieve great things at Troy. You be You. Be Awesome!"



Graduating from North Forsyth High School

Joseph Frank, attending college



From the family: "Congratulations Joe! Work hard in college. Grandma and Grandpa Frank"

Graduating from South Forsyth High School

Isabel Hui, attending Cornell University majoring in government



From the family: "We are so proud of you Isabel! From the softball diamonds to the DECA diamond, your spirit, talent, enthusiasm and character shinned during four wonderful years at South. Cant wait to see all youll do at college! God bless. All our love, Mom, Dad and Audrey"





Graduating from West Forsyth High School

Bianca Cattani, attending the University of North Georgia studying political science



From the family: "Bianca - You are an amazing person who is beautiful, courageous, kind and generous. You are blessed and will accomplish amazing things that will make this world a better place. We are so proud of you, and love you with all of our hearts - Mom, Dad, Ethan & Aiden"





Malyssa Lynn Waldrop, attending college to study health education



From the family: "Our family is so proud of you and all that you have accomplished. You have had issues and challenges due to health and family but faced each with determination to succeed. Congratulations and Best wishes for a job well done!"





William Guastella, attending the University of Georgia studying finance



From the family: "We are so very proud of you, your accomplishments and the man you have become! Go do great things! Love always, Mom and Dad."





Ross Hicks, attending the Project Life Program



From the family: "We are so proud of you and all of your accomplishments! We cant wait to see what your future holds! We love you, Mom, Dad, and Sam"





Chase Presley, attending Kennesaw State University



From the family: "Chase- we are so proud of you and of the amazing young man you are! Keep on reaching towards your dreams and success will be yours. Lots of Love- Mom and Dad"

Did we miss your grad? Fill out the form here. Patch will be updating this post until May 31.



See also: Join Georgia Patch In Honoring The High School Class Of 2020

This article originally appeared on the Cumming Patch
Jaipur, May 4 : A large number of people were seen queuing up outside liquor shops in different parts of Rajasthan on Monday from early morning as the state excise department announced the opening of liquor and wine shops in all three zones (red, green and orange - except the containment and curfew zones) in the state in lockdown-3.

The long queues started appearing around 8 a.m. although the scheduled time to open these shops was 10 a.m.

At some places, people were seen maintaining social distancing while in other places, social distancing went for a toss with people eagerly jumping the queue.

Liquor shops across the country were shut down with the first lockdown that was announced on March 24.

However, the state excise department ordered a few relaxations in the lockdown-3 phase starting from Monday and liquor shops have re-opened across the state but with guidelines of social distancing.

Police personnel were deployed at every shop in the urban areas to ensure customers were given sanitisers. Also, the excise department ordered that the mobile numbers of these customers be taken for any future action if required.

Excise commissioner Bishnu Charan Mallick had said earlier that more than five people are not allowed in the shop at one time. To maintain social distancing, circles need to be marked at every one metre stretch outside the shop.

In many parts of Jaipur, Kota and Ajmer people stood in disciplined queues and stuck to the circles which were made to ensure they maintain social distancing. Police personnel intervened at places where the people tried to break the queues.

Overall, over 6000 country liquor and over 1000 IMFL shops are there in Rajasthan.

Bharat Mittal, standing outside a wine shop, said, "It's been 42 days we have been seeing dry days. Can't wait for this shop to open."
WOOD RIVER  Madison County will host a public forum May 14 to update its Multi-Jurisdictional All Hazards Mitigation Plan.

This plan describes how the county and the participating jurisdictions are impacted by severe weather and other natural hazards, said Mary Kate Brown deputy director of Madison County Emergency Management Agency. It identifies specific mitigation actions that can be taken to reduce damages to life and health, infrastructure, and property before events occur.

The public forum is planned for 2 p.m., Thursday, May 14. People interested in participating should contact Brown, at 618-296-5907 or ema@co.madison.il.us

The Madison County All Hazards Mitigation Planning Committee prepared this draft plan with technical assistance from state and federal agencies as well as a consultant specializing in emergency management planning. The Committee is comprised of representatives from various county departments in addition to Alhambra, Alton, Bethalto, Collinsville, East Alton, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Godfrey, Granite City, Grant Fork, Hamel, Highland, Livingston, Madison, Marine, Maryville, Pontoon Beach, Troy, Venice, Wood River and Worden.

The committee began meeting last fall to prepare the plan update. Federal law requires plans to be updated every five years.

Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the public forum changed format.

In order for us to maintain social distancing practices weve had to move everything to online and over the phone, Brown said. Its a first for us, but the county has been doing meetings via teleconference for a while now so we are confident that this will go smoothly.

Individuals can review the plan update and comment without participating in the public forum. The plan is available for public review May 14 to May 21.

The plan update, along with a summary sheet and a comment survey, can be viewed on the EMA page of the countys website. Anyone unable to access the plan online can contact the EMA office to schedule an appointment to view a paper copy.

The comment period will remain open through May 21. Public comments will be used to make any revisions needed before the plan is submitted to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and FEMA.
Plans to introduce post-lockdown social distancing at airports 'won't work' and will lead to queues snaking for up to half a mile to board each large plane, Heathrow's boss warned today.

Heathrow's Chief Executive John Holland-Kaye has warned that there simply isn't enough space in airports to keep each passenger two metres apart.

Mr Holland-Kaye instead has called on the Prime Minister to agree an 'international standard' with other world leaders which would include passenger health checks on departure.

Mandatory health checks for passengers including taking temperatures, increased levels of hygiene and compulsory facemasks are among the options floated by Mr Holland-Kaye in order to open the nation's airports as soon as possible and avoid 'massive job losses in our sector... (and) many other sectors that depend on us'.

'The Prime Minister has talked about restarting the engines of the British economy. We are ready to play our part, but first we need his help to restart the engines of the British aviation fleet,' he wrote.

It came as air passengers slammed airlines for lack of social distancing after they were crammed in 'like sardines' on to rescue flights back to UK

MailOnline has calculated what the queue for one jumbo jet could look like at Heathrow as the airport's boss warned that social distancing would be impossible if Britain wants a healthy aviation industry

Heathrow's Chief Executive John Holland-Kaye has warned that there simply isn't enough space in airports to keep each passenger two metres apart

Mr Holland-Kaye instead has called on the Prime Minister to agree an 'international standard' with other world leaders which would include passenger health checks on departure

Aircrafts have been full - including this British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Barcelona this week - despite the growing uncertainty over the short-term future of air travel

How coronavirus has affected airlines in the UK over the past month Flybe: Europe's largest regional airline collapsed on March 5 after months on the brink, triggering 2,400 job losses and left around 15,000 passengers stranded across the UK and Europe. Flybe's owners, a consortium including Virgin Atlantic, the Stobart Group and hedge fund firm Cyrus Capital, blamed coronavirus for hastening the ailing airline's collapse. Flybe operated up to 50 UK routes, accounting for 40 per cent of all domestic flights, and was used by 9.5million passengers a year. British Airways: The International Airlines Group, which also includes Iberia and Aer Lingus, said on March 16 that there would be a 75 per cent reduction in passenger capacity for two months, with boss Willie Walsh admitting there was 'no guarantee that many European airlines would survive'. The company has since said it wants to reduce the number of staff by 12,000. easyJet: The airline with 9,000 UK-based staff including 4,000 cabin crew grounded its entire fleet of 344 planes on March 30. The Luton-based carrier said parking all of its planes 'removes significant cost' as the aviation industry struggles to cope with a collapse in demand. Loganair: The Scottish regional airline said on March 30 that it expects to ask the Government for a bailout to cope with the impact of the pandemic. Loganair will go to the government despite being told by Finance Minister Rishi Sunak last week that airlines should exhaust all other options for funding, before asking for help. Jet2: The budget holiday airline has suspended all of its flights departing from Britain until April 30. A number of Jet2 flights turned around mid-air last month while travelling to Spain when a lockdown was announced in the country. Virgin Atlantic: The airline said on March 16 that it would have reduced its lights by 80 per cent by March 26, and this will go up to 85 per cent by April. It has also urged the Government to offer carriers emergency credit facilities worth up to 7.5billion. Ryanair: More than 90 per cent of the Irish-based airline's planes are now grounded, with the rest of the aircraft providing repatriation and rescue flights. Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said his airline would be forced to shed 3,000 jobs while seeking pay reductions of up to 20 per cent by those who remain. Advertisement

It came days after Mr Holland-Kaye told the PA news agency that it is 'just physically impossible to socially distance with any volume of passengers in an airport'.

He added that social distancing on planes would reduce capacities by more than 50 per cent and mean 'prices would shoot up'.

Severity of the crisis facing the aviation industry was laid bare last night as British Airways announced plans to lay off a quarter of its pilots.

The nation's flag carrier told staff it planned to axe 1,130 captain and co-pilot jobs and may even abandon operations at Gatwick, Britain's second biggest airport.

It came as the boss of Heathrow Airport revealed it could be the case that only young, fit and healthy people will be able to fly in the immediate future, and all passengers might have to wear face masks as part of a strategy to restore confidence in mass air travel.

The dramatic developments underline the severity of the catastrophe facing Britain's aviation industry.

Passenger numbers have flatlined in recent weeks due to global travel restrictions and industry leaders now accept it could take several years for passenger numbers to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

Earlier this week, BA boss Alex Cruz announced that up to a quarter of the airline's 42,000 staff would be laid off as the airline fights for survival.

He had previously warned staff that coronavirus marks the biggest threat in the airline's history, worse than 9/11 or the SARS outbreak

The airline has informed the pilots' union Balpa that the cuts could include a quarter of the airline's plots.

The letter, written on April 28, reads: 'In a short space of time the situation has significantly deteriorated.'

In a separate announcement, the head of BA's Gatwick operations yesterday [THU] told staff it is possible that BA could suspend operations from the West Sussex hub, where it has had a presence since 1950.

In normal times, around six million BA passengers a year fly to and from Gatwick to more than 60 destinations. The airport relies heavily on seasonal holiday traffic.

Insiders say that BA is preparing to dramatically downsize as part of an extreme cost-cutting strategy. This could soon include the total suspension of the few BA flights that are continuing to run. It is also likely BA will pull operations from Terminal 3 at Heathrow. It is currently based at Terminal 5.

The intervention follows mounting criticism over the Government's inaction on airport screening.

Airplane passengers says they are being crammed upon aircraft 'like sardines' and say this makes a mockery of the current social distancing guidelines

Critics say the total lack of checks on passengers entering the UK makes a mockery of the lockdown and threatens the health of the nation.

Ministers estimate around 15,000 people are arriving into the UK every day - including many from virus-ravaged countries such as Italy, Iran and China.

There are no proper checks but passengers are handed leaflets about symptoms.

Airport bosses are concerned the lack of screening measures makes our airports appear more dangerous than others, and could lead to plummeting passenger numbers when flying does resume.

Last week, Mr Holland-Kaye revealed to the Mail that Heathrow has requested Public Health England (PHE) release scientific evidence proving their claims that temperature screening is 'ineffective'.

PHE have long insisted that such measures are futile against a virus that has an incubation period of 14 days.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said the airport screening policy is 'under review', and could change in the future.

The point was reiterated in a letter to all MPs from aviation minister Kelly Tolhurst earlier this week.

Passenger travelling to Britain could face mandatory quarantining to control the spread of coronavirus, the Transport Secretary has said.

Grant Shapps revealed he is 'actively looking at' beefed up border controls following weeks of criticism over a lack of screening at UK airports.

It came as shocking pictures emerged showing packed flights, including a BA service from Heathrow to Barcelona and a Government-organised rescue flight from Turkey to Stansted.

Travellers in facemasks described being crammed 'like sardines' on Wednesday's BA flight, and said the lack of distancing measures 'makes a complete mockery of the lockdown rules'.

A passenger on the flight said: 'There was no requirement to wear masks but some did choose to do so. The cabin crew are not required to wear masks but some chose to do so. You will see there is no attempt at any kind of social distancing - everyone is sitting within inches of their fellow passengers.'

EasyJet is considering stripping out middle seats to enable social distancing, although industry leaders fear this could make flights unprofitable and lead to higher air fares.

British Airways has reportedly asked staff to sign the contracts as it operates less than five per cent of its normal schedule. BA planes are pictured parked in Bournemouth, Dorset

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Mr Shapps said he is 'actively looking at' quarantine requirements for foreign visitors, mirroring similar schemes that have been in place for weeks in dozens of other countries.

He said: 'I think it is important that as we are seeing the numbers decrease and the R rate we hope decrease... that we do ensure that the sacrifices in a sense - social distancing - that we are asking the British people to make are matched by anybody who comes to this country.

'I am actively looking at these issues right now so that when we have infection rates within the country under control we are not importing.'

The uncertainty over the future of air travel is one of the main reasons why BA are warning of drastic cuts in the months to come.

Bosses are planning to lay off a quarter of the airline's staff - up to 12,000 workers, including one in four pilots - and the airline may even suspend operations at Gatwick.

Senior BA managers were due to be questioned on the crisis in a hearing before the Commons transport committee on Wednesday.

MPs had hoped to grill Willie Walsh, the boss of BA's parent company IAG, on issues relating to redundancies and delays in issuing customer refunds.

However, it emerged last night that Walsh has refused to attend and no other BA senior manager will take his place. Committee chair Huw Merriman MP accused the airline of 'seeking to avoid scrutiny'.

IAG declined to comment.

On the issue of crowded flights a spokesman for BA said: 'Like other forms of transport we are keeping vital links open - repatriating customers and ensuring key supplies like medicines and food are flown in.

'We continue to follow all the guidance from the UK Government and global health authorities, including Public Health England and the World Health Organisation. We have taken several steps to reduce contact between customers and crew, and personal protective equipment is available to them.'

Airlines UK, the trade body representing airlines,warned a 14-day quarantine requirement 'would effectively kill air travel'.

Chief executive Tim Alderslade said it would 'completely shut off the UK from the rest of the world when other countries are opening up their economies'.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at his daily news briefing at the Governor's Office of Emergency Services in Rancho Cordova, Calif., on April 9, 2020. (Rich Pedroncelli, Pool/AP Photo)

Newsom Under Fire for Secretly Making $1B Mask Deal With Chinese Company

California Governor Gavin Newsoms $1 billion deal with a Chinese company to produce protective N95 masks during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic has been viewed with bipartisan skepticism.

State Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) told The Epoch Times on May 2 that the lucrative contract was handed to the Chinese company, Build Your Dreams (BYD) Auto Co. Ltd., without bidding and shrouded in secrecy; both Democrats and Republicans are asking Newsom for answers.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the first shipment of 3 million surgical masks arrived April 25 and were received into the state warehouse on the next day.

I dont know what to expect because the governors office refuses to give us any information. What we do know is that he did something very unusual, which was to wire $500 million up front. Thats not the way it usually works for a state contract, Kiley said.

So not only did he hide these negotiations from the Legislature, he actually then on his own, unilaterally, took the very unusual step of sending them $500 million before we had received a single mask in return, he said.

BYDs Ethics Questioned

Kiley called BYD disreputable. It made headlines in 2018 when the electric buses it sold to Los Angeles failed and many officials deemed them low-quality.

BYD President Stella Li responded at the time in an interview with Clean Technica: As with any groundbreaking technology, issues do arise in manufacturing and performance and BYD aggressively responds and manages these issues.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Sacramento), who helped draft legislation last year banning the purchase of BYD electric buses, spoke to Vice about the PPE purchase: What is our government doing? They may very well flood the market with substandard devices and people will be relying on them as though they are of satisfactory quality, and that is bizarre.

Newsom said at his daily press conference on April 13 that all PPE delivered by BYD will be required to meet federal standards. The FDA announced an emergency authorization in April to allow the company to import its masks.

Robotic arms paint a car at the BYD Automobile Company Limited Xian plant, in Shaanxi Province, China, on Dec. 25, 2019. (China Daily via Reuters)

Kiley remains concerned. This company has a lot of problems. There are the ties to the Chinese Communist government. There are ties to forced labor practices.

Vice reported on April 11 that BYD has used the forced labor of Uyghurs, a religious minority group, at alleged state-run re-education camps in China. BYD has denied the claims and, on April 27, it filed a defamation lawsuit against Vice Media.

In an April 27 media release, BYD stated: BYD is one of the worlds largest producers and suppliers of electric vehicles including electric cars, buses, trucks and forklifts as well as protective masks, and many other important and useful products. The company will supply the State of California with $1 billion worth of masks to protect its nurses, doctors, caregivers, first responders and others during and after the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Billionaire Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway owns 25 percent of BYD.

Ke Li, the president of BYDs California subsidiary, is listed as a Newsom campaign donor, according to a recent CalMatters article.

He donated $40,000 when Newsom was running for governor, so that adds a whole other level of questionability here, because the governor is awarding this massive no-bid contract secretly to a company with ties to one of his major political campaign supporters, Kiley said.

Newsom Scrutinized for How He Announced Deal

Newsom announced the deal on MSNBCs Rachel Maddow Show on April 7, to the dismay of some state legislators.

Thats how we all learned about this dealnot from him telling the Legislature about it, Kiley said. And when he went on Rachel Maddow, he actually made it seem like this was a California company.

Newsom initially introduced the deal as occurring through a consortia of non-profits and a manufacturer here in the State of California.

When Maddow asked Newsom to confirm if the masks were going to be manufactured in California, Newsom told her: No, they will be manufactured overseas, but they were sourced through a California manufacturer and a consortium of non-profits.

As the conversation continued, he said the manufacturer is in Asia.

He tried to slip it in saying that he secured the masks through a manufacturer in California when actually it was just a subsidiary that provided the reference to the company in China, Kiley said. So, it just shows the lack of candor with which the governor has approached this whole situation.

If he [Newsom] was really concerned about just doing what was in the best interest of our state or healthcare workers, he would have had a process that was more traditional. But instead, he seemed to keep it all very guarded so that he could try to make a big announcement on the Rachel Maddow Show, and get himself in the national news, Kiley said.

Two days later, Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the Joint Legislative Budget Committee wrote a letter to Newsoms Director of Finance Keely Martin Bosler requesting details of the deal. Bosler had sent a letter to Mitchell and other budget committee members on April 7 outlining the deal, but without the specifics of the contract.

Mitchell conveyed her support of the deal but requested transparency from the Newsom Administration.

I understand the Administration feels the need to act quickly due to the worldwide demand for masks and other PPE, Mitchell wrote in her April 9 letter.

However, I request that the Administration provide the [committee] the full details of the contract including the performance standards required of the vendor and the manufacturer, the price per mask, the quality standards the masks are required to meet (such as those established by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), the production and delivery timelines, and the efficacy of the technology utilized to clean the masks that will be reused.

In light of the massive spending commitments, Mitchell asked the administration to establish within days a webpage listing the states inventory of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical equipment, and showing where these items have been distributed.

Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), vice chair of the committee has also raised questions about the deal, Kiley said.

[They] have both raised some very big questions about the deal and are not at all happy with it. [They] complained that they were not told about it; they learned about it on national TV, Kiley said. And so theres been a lot of skepticism.

The governors office did not reply as of press deadline to The Epoch Times inquiry regarding details of the contract.

Cost Per Mask

Newsom has said the $1 billion deal is for 200 million masks per month150 million N95 masks and 50 million surgical masksin a contract that runs until the end of June. But he has not revealed the precise cost per mask.

The prices of the N95 masks and the surgical masks would presumably differ, but if we ignore that price difference and divide $1 billion across some total 500 million masks (a very rough estimate for the approximate timelines given), each would cost about $2.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced April 28 that U.S.-based company Honeywell Corporation will provide the city with 24 million N95 masks for $0.79 each. He noted in his press briefing that such masks can sell for up to $13 each with the current demand.

Boxes of N95 protective masks for use by medical field personnel are seen at a New York State emergency operations incident command center during the CCP virus outbreak in New Rochelle, N.Y., on March 17, 2020. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Kiley said, Thats one of the many questions Phil Ting and Holly Mitchell  raised in their letter to Newsom: What are we paying? And again, we dont know because we havent seen the contract.

Newsom emphasized in the Maddow interview that he used Californias purchasing power to get a good price. He said he hopes to have enough to meet Californias needs and even export some to other Western states.

Why Chinese-Made?

Marc Ang, president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance (CACA), Orange County lodge, blasted Newsom over the deal.

Ang said preference should have been given to an American company at a time when trade relations with China are strained and foreign supply lines are unreliable.

Going with a preferred dealer without bidding it and without going through the [state] Assembly and the state Senate to approve this is really bad optics. Why would you push a specific vendor? Why would he push something thats not made in America? I have a real issue with that, Ang told The Epoch Times. It reeks of profiteering. These are bad optics in times when were looking for leadership.

Newsoms choice to act alone without informing state legislators is almost dictatorial, he said. He blamed politicians from former presidents Bill Clinton to Barack Obama for making deals with China that he said have sold out our interests.

His lodge has been strongly critical of the Chinese Communist Partys (CCPs) role in the pandemic. A statement released by senior member, Betty Tom Chu, on March 31 encourages Americans to acknowledge the truth about the PRC [Peoples Republic of Chinas] unacceptable actions against its own people (including the arrest of doctors and scientists who were warning about the dangers of the Wuhan virus).

Ang said of the mask deal, I certainly believe that it should be America first.

Even if companies, such as 3M, cant keep up with the demand for N95 masks, other American companies could step in and start producing them, Ang said.

If a car manufacturer can easily start making masks, can any of our idle businesses here in California start making masks? Why not them? Ang pondered. I would rather see that account go to an American company, actually a Californian company. Why does the deal have to go through China?

Kiley said, There certainly seems to be a lot of options, and none of those were available for us to consider because the governor did this secretly and unilaterally.

Senate Budget Hearing

At a Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Special Budget Subcommittee on COVID-19 Response meeting on April 16, Mitchell said the state is essentially working on a new budget for the May Revision, which is slated for May 14.

Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) asked about the BYD deal at the hearing: With more than 90 percent of pharmaceuticals being manufactured now in China, Im just curious, why would we want to also buy facemasks from China? Why cant we find a producer and encourage them in the state of California to make the masks?

We have been working on that as well, said Tina Curry, chief deputy director for the Governors Office of Emergency Services. She said local solutions were not available soon enough.

We needed to find a more rapid solution, she said at the budget hearing.

Curry said there is such high demand for the masks, that the state wanted to make sure it had a dedicated supply line.

Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Tehama) expressed doubts the masks would be delivered at all.

I must emphasize thats a big deal, and many of us are going to be very insistent at seeing the terms of that contract. I must confess, I have not much confidence in it being delivered as suggested for a whole lot of reasons, Nielsen said at the hearing.

Ensuring timely delivery of the masks is really, really important, he said.

At the least we cannot be throwing out a false hope to people. But theres a lot of money involved in this, too. So, please do understand there is not an expectation, but a demand, that that contract become available.
The Vivaad se Vishwas Tak scheme will be one area where some much-needed revenue can be collected by the government. The scheme can be more successful if some specific steps are taken, says investment advisor Harsh Roongta.

The COVID-19 crisis is yet to play out completely.

However, the focus will soon shift to the governments revenue collection efforts.

And the Vivaad se Vishwas Tak scheme will be one area where some much-needed revenue can be collected by the government.

The scheme can be more successful if some specific steps are taken.

But first, we need to understand the nature of the astronomical tax arrears figure of Rs 9 trillion.

Typically, an income tax officer makes a high pitched assessment order based on some weird interpretation of the existing law.

This results in a very high tax demand (say Rs 2 crore).

The taxpayer has to pay Rs 40 lakh (20 per cent) immediately, and the balance 80 per cent is kept on hold till the appeal is decided.

The officers only interest in issuing the assessment order is to meet the unrealistic collection targets.

By collecting 20 per cent tax amount, some portion of the target is met.

All tax appeals are decided by Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) who are career income tax officials.

Somehow, they are expected to magically rid themselves of their department leanings and maintain a judicially-neutral approach while deciding appeals.

In practice, the CIT(A) routinely endorses the ITOs assessment order.

The taxpayer, then, has to file a second appeal before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.

In the ITAT, the taxpayer gets justice for the first time.

In most cases, they are thrown out. And the taxpayer gets his 20 per cent back as a refund, and the balance 80 per cent demand is extinguished.

The tax department routinely goes in for appeal to the high court against such ITAT decisions without bothering about the winnability of such appeals.

Nobody in the tax department wants to take responsibility for not filing appeals where a large tax demand is at stake.

The appeal at the high court (and Supreme Court later) takes years or decades to be decided.

Mostly, the tax department loses the case since it was weak in the first place.

However, if the taxpayer loses the case at ITAT, he would need to pay the balance 80 per cent tax.

Consequently, taxpayers rarely appeal to the high court due to the high cost, time involved and because the balance demand of 80 per cent has to be paid anyway.

The tax arrears figure of Rs 9 trillion will comprise most of the cases where the 80 per cent tax demand has been kept in abeyance.

However, the fresh additions every year are significantly higher.

Hence, tax arrears keep climbing every year.

Recognising that the departments appeals mostly have a very weak case, the Vivaad se Vishwas scheme allows the taxpayer to pay only 50 per cent of the tax due where the departments pending appeal is settled under the scheme.

However, it is unlikely to cut too much ice as most such tax demands, barring a few, are completely unjustified.

The department would be well advised to set up a panel consisting retired ITAT members/retired judges.

They can decide whether the department should settle on some points and let go of others.

This will allow the government to collect some arrears.

Harsh Roongta is a Sebi-registered investment advisor.
The Dearborn Heights Police Department is looking for information in connection with the theft of a dealer license plate that occurred on the afternoon of May 1 at Go 2 Motor City dealership, 2955 S. Beech Daly.

According to a statement released by the department, a full-size white Chevrolet van, described as having a canopy top, pulled into the parking lot of Go 2 Motor City at about 1 p.m..

A man exited the van and approached a Lincoln MKC that was parked in the dealerships lot. The man proceeded to remove the dealer license plate from the MKC and then returned to the van and drove off with the plate.

Anyone with information about the case should contact Dearborn Heights police Sgt. Gene Derwick at 313-277-7388 or gderwick@ci.dearborn-heights.mi.us.
Fencing border with Iran a strategic priority for Pakistan

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, May 3, IRNA -- Pakistan's Ministry of Defence has sought US $ 188 million from the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for the second phase of fencing of border with Iran saying the project has become a strategic priority to be initiated at the earliest, report said.

Daily 'Business Recorder' on Sunday reported that for the first phase, the ECC has approved allocation of US $18.6 million as technical supplementary grant (non-lapsable) during 2019-20.

The Ministry of Defence informed the ECC that efficient border management is an important cardinal of improving bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran. Porous nature of border and wider gaps in development are being exploited by terrorists, Baloch sub-nationals, smugglers, narco and human traffickers which create security problems besides causing serious economic losses to the country.

Moreover, trade also needs to be streamlined using formal crossing on Pak-Iran border which can only be optimally utilized if the border is properly fenced. Therefore, fencing the Pak-Iran border has become a strategic priority to be initiated at the earliest.

Meanwhile Pakistan army headquarters has stated that ongoing fencing including construction of border forts along Pakistan-Afghan border has proved to be a success and yielded positive results.

This arrangement, if put in place, will mitigate effects of illegal smuggling causing loss of revenue, recent surge in terrorist incidents and sub-nationals' activities in southern Balochistan. In this backup, the need for fencing Pakistan-Iran border becomes strategic priority, and the Prime Minister's office has desired that the Ministry of Defence initiate a summary through Foreign Affairs and Finance Division.

Iran-Pakistan share 959 km long border which separates Sistan and Baluchestan and Balochistan provinces of the two countries.

It begins at the Koh-i-Malik Salih mountains and ends at Gwadar Bay in the Gulf of Oman. It passes through a diverse landscape of mountain ridges, seasonal streams and rivers.

272**1416

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






BEIJING, May 3 (Xinhua) -- China's cultural industry reported falling revenue in the first quarter of the year as the COVID-19 epidemic hurt business activities, official data showed.

The sector's combined revenue amounted to 1.69 trillion yuan (about 239 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three months, down 13.9 percent year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The bureau tracks around 59,000 cultural companies across sectors including cultural services and cultural manufacturing with annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan or those meeting other standards listed by the NBS.

In a bright note, sectors with emerging models led by "Internet Plus" cultural businesses saw revenue rise by 15.5 percent to 523.6 billion yuan during the period.

The country's more developed eastern region continued to lead cultural consumption, contributing 75.4 percent of the sector's total revenue.

China is planning to develop its cultural industry into a pillar of the national economy by upgrading its industrial structure, fostering major brands and boosting consumption.
A large hailstorm battered Rapid City, South Dakota, on May 3 as several areas across the state braced for hail larger than one inch in diameter and wind gusts of up to 58 miles per hour.

The hailstones poured down amid a severe thunderstorm warning.

This footage shows hail hammering down outside Sargent Garage, a Rapid City auto-shop.

That thunder scared the crap out of me, the uploader wrote in a post on Instagram.

Other social media users in the area recorded hail as large as marbles. Credit: Sargent Garage via Storyful
New Delhi, May 4 : The Supreme Court on Monday was informed that the migrants are being made to pay "exorbitant fees" as train fares in order to go back to their homes.

The petitioners, Jagdeep S. Chhokar, former Director in-charge of IIM-Ahmedabad and lawyer Gaurav Jain, had earlier urged the top court to direct authorities to allow migrant workers across the country to return home after having them tested for coronavirus.

The petitioners filed a supplementary affidavit, claiming it must be made clear that the railways and the states would not be charging the migrant workers for the train and bus travel being arranged for them.

"Migrants are being required to pay around Rs 800 as train fares and the same is highly unjustified. It has been reported that the Indian Railways is actually hiking its fare by 50 rupees per passenger," said the affidavit.

The affidavit also claimed the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in a letter to Chief Secretaries/Administrators clarified about the movement of distressed stranded persons. "But shockingly, the MHA has given a very narrow definition of stranded migrants by including only those who had moved from their native places just before the lockdown period but could not return to their native places on account of restrictions placed on movement of persons and vehicles as part of lockdown measures.

"It is common knowledge that a very large number of migrants, including labourers, street vendors, maids, factory workers etc., stay in their cities of migration for months and thus, such a narrow definition would exclude millions who have lost all income and savings and wish to go back to their native villages," said the plea.

The petitioners claimed that migrants have been stranded for no fault of their own, with zero earnings and no financial support. "Therefore, it must be made clear that the Railways and the states would not be charging the migrant workers for the train and bus travel being arranged for them," contended the petitioners.

"All the migrant workers who wish to go back to their hometown/villages, including those who are living in shelter homes/relief camps as well as those who might be stuck in rented accommodations, must be treated as 'stranded' for the purpose of Home Ministry's order dated 29.04.2020 and their travel by trains or buses should consequently be facilitated free of cost by the Central government," they argued.

The affidavit also cited media reports that some states have already started sending the migrants to their native places and the April 29 order by MHA has left it upon the states to allow the travel of migrants to/from other states after both the states agree.
None of the 38 districts of Bihar has been classified as a green zone, Director General of Police Gupteshwar Pandey said Monday, urging residents to remain indoors and not mistake movement of people for essential or government services as a relaxation in lockdown curbs.

"All 38 districts are either in the red zone, where the restrictions will be in place in the most stringent form, or in the orange zone, where local administration may allow some activities," Pandey said.

The DGP said the coming few days are going to be crucial as "a large number of our brethren" are returning home and many of them may be carrying the coronavirus without necessarily being aware about it.

"If we save ourselves, we will save Bihar," he said, replying to queries from journalists about what concessions could be expected in the wake of the Centre allowing resumption of some economic activities in the green zone, and to a lesser degree in the orange zone.

The state home department on Sunday notified all the districts in orange and red zones even though six districts -- Muzaffarpur, Khagaria, Kishanganj, Saharsa, Supaul and Jamui -- have not reported any COVID-19 case. The decision was likely prompted by a rapid spread of the virus in new areas and the return of migrants.

During the past fortnight, the total number of cases has shot up from just over 100 to more than 500 and many districts, including Samastipur, have reported their first cases only last week.

"Hence, all citizens are urged to not get mistaken by vehicles parked outside offices that may have been allowed to function with skeletal staff. If they are found loitering, they will be punished like before," Pandey said.

"There must be no visits to temples, mosques, churches and places of recreation. No social gathering is allowed. Inter-district travel will still require passes issued by the administration and nobody should be seen on the streets after 7pm and before 7am," said the DGP.

Senior citizens and those in poor health must not venture out unless necessitated by emergencies, he said.

"Our men in uniform are risking their lives to enforce the lockdown in public interest. Even we are ensuring no police personnel in his late 50s or with medical condition is given any hazardous assignment," he added.

According to official sources, five districts -- Munger, Patna, Buxar, Rohtas and Gaya -- have been categorized under the red zone.

This has, nonetheless, piqued many as Gaya has reported only six cases of which just one is active. None of the four fatalities in the state has taken place in the central Bihar district either.

On the other hand, many other districts which have reported a much higher number of cases like Nalanda (35), Siwan (31) and Kaimur (28) have been categorised as orange zones.

The sources attribute this to Gaya's higher risk profile which is on account of it being a Buddhist and Hindu pilgrimage visited by people from far-off parts of the country as well as abroad and the town being home to ANMCH hospital, where a large number of COVID-19 patients from adjoining districts like Rohtas and Kaimur are undergoing treatment.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
When news broke that Michigan congressman Justin Amash, an Independent, might suit up for the U.S. presidential race this year, a Never Trump Republican pundit, Tim Miller, fired off a dispirited tweet: "They are popping champagne in Trump Tower."

A former Republican campaign operative, Miller says he loves Amash and would happily cheer his run for the presidency some other time, but not now.

Miller is all in for Democrat Joe Biden, the former vice-president and presumptive nominee in November.

Miller summed up his thoughts in a post on the conservative Donald Trump resistance site The Bulwark co-authored with publisher Sarah Longwell. They asked Amash to stand down.

"Could we be certain that a third-party campaign from a Constitutional conservative would not get Trump re-elected?" they asked. "The answer, unfortunately, is no."

One can imagine Democrats all over the U.S. greeted the Amash news with similar trepidation  heavy sighs, anxious bites of the lower lip  believing they already suffered through one third-party nightmare in the 2016 presidential election and don't need another.

Suspicion of third-party runs

A big reason Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, goes a popular theory, is that she bled support to third-party candidates  mainly, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein  in the three states that Donald Trump took by a whisker (a combined 77,000 votes) to win the electoral college and the presidency, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

There's some evidence to back the theory but not enough to prove it. The last election was not an outstanding year for "also-rans," but they still won more than five per cent of the popular vote in an election with a razor-thin result.

If Amash can repeat that, and the race is narrow, he might be the spoiler who helps Trump to squeak back into the White House for another four years.

But that's an enormous "if" in a political environment where since 2017, waves of anti-Trump voters have shown a single-minded determination to vote against Republicans in state and congressional elections.

Story continues

Amash was elected to Congress in 2010 as a small-government Tea Party Republican from Michigan and re-elected four times after that.

But he only began seeing his name in lights after he started publicly criticizing President Trump.

Amash once called him a "childish bully." He quit the Republican Party in 2019 to sit as an Independent and eventually cast a vote in favour of Trump's impeachment.

A Libertarian candidate

Last week, Amash announced that he's switching again, from Independent to Libertarian this time, and will seek that party's nomination for president in a few weeks.

It's not a perfect fit. For example, Amash is steadfastly anti-abortion while the Libertarian platform says it's none of their business.

Carly Geraci/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP

But he knows if he's the Libertarian nominee, that's likely to get him registered for the ballot in all 50 states  a milestone qualification for any third-party candidate.

What's in it for the Libertarians is that Amash is light-years closer to something like a household name than anyone else who is interested in leading them.

Still, Amash will remain a long shot with no realistic chance of winning the White House, and that's what annoys the Democrats and anti-Trumpers like Miller. They see Amash diverting votes from Biden, with no real benefit to anyone but Trump.

Miller posted some statistics in the Bulwark column that showed the combined votes of conservative third-party presidential candidates in 2016 for Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan  votes that Miller believes could have gone to Clinton. In each state, the totals of those third-party votes vastly outnumbered Trump's margin of victory. In other words, they were decisive then and could be again in 2020  or so it seems to Miller.

Reliable scapegoats

The inconvenient truth is that both Democrats and Republicans routinely blame third parties for upending close elections whenever they lose one they think they should have won.

In 1992, businessman Ross Perot ran one of the most successful third-party campaigns in U.S. history. He got 19 per cent of the popular vote, but nothing in the electoral college, and Republican George H. W. Bush lost the election to Democrat Bill Clinton.

Bush's deputy campaign manager, Mary Matalin, has said she "will go to my grave" believing that Perot's campaign cost Bush the presidency.

Her husband, James Carville, who was coincidentally Clinton's 1992 campaign consultant, has dismissed his wife's argument as "supported by everything but evidence." Indeed, subsequent investigations show Perot drew votes from both Bush and Clinton, with no impact on the final result.

Rick Bowner/Associated Press

Former vice-president Al Gore lost the 2000 election, which was settled after a historically messed-up ballot-counting battle in Florida that Republican George W. Bush won by a measly 537 votes.

There were half a dozen also-rans on the ballot in Florida who racked up more votes than Bush's winning margin, including Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who got nearly 100,000 of them.

Nader has pushed back against allegations that his campaign effectively elected Bush, saying that Gore wouldn't have needed to win Florida if he'd just carried the state he was born in, Tennessee  which, embarrassingly for Gore, is true.

The hometown advantage

A presidential candidate losing on his home turf isn't really all that rare  Donald Trump did it most recently. But the perceived hometown advantage is also part of the calculus that's shaking the knees of those fretting over Amash's candidacy this year.

Here's why: Amash is from Michigan, and would normally be expected to do well there. Michigan is likely to be a must-win state for both presidential candidates this year, so some Democrats reckon the biggest danger of Amash on the ballot is that he will cut into their crucial Michigan vote.

He won't, or at least not by much, according to Richard Czuba, a nonpartisan Michigan pollster. He said there are more powerful forces at work in 2020 than there were in 2016.

"The big question to ask: 'Does Amash make any difference if Democratic motivation is as high as it appears to be?" Czuba told the New York Times. "I don't think it does."

WATCH | Hillary Clinton to Joe Biden: 'I wish you were president right now'

As Biden rolled over Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign in the Democratic primaries this spring, evidence piled up that Sanders had benefited significantly in the 2016 primaries from antipathy toward Hillary Clinton. Trump, presumably, had the same anti-Clinton advantage in the general election.

Without Clinton on the ballot this year, Trump no longer wins what Republicans in 2016 wryly dubbed the "double hater" vote  a small but important slice of the public that dislikes both presidential candidates, but grudgingly settled for Trump as the lesser evil.

At the moment, deep data from a recent NBC poll reportedly has Biden sweeping the double haters by a hefty 50 points.

It seems likely, then, that what matters in 2020 is less whether Justin Amash is on the presidential ballot as a Libertarian than the fact that Hillary Clinton isn't on the ballot at all.
Police officials declined to comment on details of the case but are still looking for the suspect, who fled. The family of the victim held a vigil on Sunday night with cars lining up around the store where the shooting took place. A news conference was planned for Monday.

In Stillwater, Okla., an emergency proclamation mandating face coverings led to so much verbal abuse in its first three hours on Friday  and a threat involving a gun  that officials swiftly amended it. Masks became encouraged, not required.

The City of Stillwater has attempted to keep people safe by the simple requirement to wear a face covering to protect others, Norman McNickle, Stillwaters city manager, said in a statement posted on the citys website. It is unfortunate and distressing that those who refuse and threaten violence are so self-absorbed as to not follow what is a simple show of respect and kindness to others.

The decision not to wear a mask has, for some, become a rebellion against what they regard as an incursion on their personal liberties. For many others, the choice is a casual one more about convenience than politics. The choice can also be a reflection of vanity, or of not understanding when or where to wear one. Some people said they found masks uncomfortable, and thus a nuisance they were unwilling to tolerate. Others were skeptical how much difference they made outside on a sunny day.

I hate it, groused Ammiel Richards, 27, who said that he had twice been ejected from New York City buses for not wearing a mask.
Washington

U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak  and how contagious the disease is  to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.

Chinese leaders "intentionally concealed the severity" of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that the country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.

The sharper rhetoric coincides with administration critics saying the government's response to the virus was slow and inadequate. President Donald Trump's political opponents have accused him of lashing out at China, a geopolitical foe but critical U.S. trade partner, in an attempt to deflect criticism at home.

Not classified but marked "for official use only," the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by "denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data," the analysis states.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus "was a contagion" for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad  and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

Those conclusions are based on the 95% probability that China's changes in imports and export behavior were not within normal range, according to the report.

In a tweet on Sunday, the president appeared to blame U.S. intelligence officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential coronavirus outbreak could be. Trump has been defensive over whether he failed to act after receiving early warnings from intelligence officials and others about the coronavirus and its potential impact.

"Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S.," Trump wrote without citing specifics. "Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner."

Trump had previously speculated that China may have unleashed the coronavirus due to some kind of horrible "mistake." His intelligence agencies say they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.

Speaking Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Pompeo said he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, "Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories."

"These are not the first times that we've had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab," Pompeo said. "And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan."

The secretary of state appeared to be referring to previous outbreaks of respiratory viruses, like SARS, which started in China. His remark may be seen as offensive in China. Still, Pompeo repeated the same assertion hours later, via a tweet Sunday afternoon.

Speaking Sunday on Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, echoed that sentiment, saying he believes China "is the most significant geopolitical threat to the United States for the next century."

"The communist government in China bears enormous responsibility, enormous direct culpability for this pandemic. We know they covered it up," Cruz said. "Had they behaved responsibly and sent in health professionals and quarantined those infected, there's a real possibility this could have been a regional outbreak, and not a global pandemic. And the hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide are in a very real sense the direct responsibility of the communist Chinese government's lies."
BRISTOL, Tenn., May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Contura Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CTRA), a leading U.S. coal supplier, plans to announce its first quarter 2020 financial results before the market opens on Monday, May 11, 2020.

The company also expects to hold a conference call to discuss its first quarter 2020 results at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time the morning of May 11. Participating on the call will be Contura's chairman and chief executive officer, David Stetson, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Andy Eidson, and other members of management.

The conference call will be available live on the investor section of the company's website at http://investors.conturaenergy.com/investors. Analysts who would like to participate in the conference call should dial 866-270-1533 (domestic toll-free) or 412-317-0797 (international) approximately 10 minutes prior to the start of the call.



ABOUT CONTURA ENERGY

Contura Energy (NYSE: CTRA) is a Tennessee-based coal supplier with affiliate mining operations across major coal basins in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. With customers across the globe, high-quality reserves and significant port capacity, Contura Energy reliably supplies both metallurgical coal to produce steel and thermal coal to generate power. For more information, visit www.conturaenergy.com .



FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Contura's expectations and beliefs concerning future events and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. These factors are difficult to predict accurately and may be beyond Contura's control. Forward-looking statements in this news release or elsewhere speak only as of the date made. New uncertainties and risks arise from time to time, and it is impossible for Contura to predict these events or how they may affect Contura. Except as required by law, Contura has no duty to, and does not intend to, update or revise the forward-looking statements in this news release or elsewhere after the date this release is issued. In light of these risks and uncertainties, investors should keep in mind that results, events or developments discussed in any forward-looking statement made in this news release may not occur.



INVESTOR CONTACT

[email protected]

Alex Rotonen, CFA

423.956.6882

MEDIA CONTACT

[email protected]

Emily O'Quinn

423.573.0369

SOURCE Contura Energy, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.conturaenergy.com


Even though 2,553 new cases of COVID-19 showed up in India over the last 24 hours, the nations recovery rate has actually increased to 27.52%.

The latest press briefing by the Union Health Ministry revealed that even though 2,553 new cases of COVID-19 showed up in India over the last 24 hours, the nations recovery rate has actually increased to 27.52%. Joint Secretary Lav Agrawal mentioned that 1,074 people have recovered during the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of recoveries so far to 11,706.

Liquor stores reopen, a complete breakdown of social distancing norms in Delhi

As liquor shops opened across the nation this morning, crowds descended to purchase alcohol but did not follow proper hygiene and social distancing norms in Delhi. The Union Home Ministry decided to allow standalone liquor stores to open in all areas except containment zones from 4 May 2020, and also mandated that a minimum distance of six feet should be maintained and no more than five people be allowed inside the shop at a time. In Delhi  where 100 liquor shops were opened today  these norms were flouted and the police had to resort to force to contain the crowds. Liquor shops in four Delhi districts were shut down soon after and the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) of the city have asked the government to review arrangements.

COVID-19 antibody tests to be available by end of May

Global healthcare company Abbott has announced that its lab-based serology blood tests to check for COVID-19 antibodies has been approved and that these tests will be made available to India by the end of May. Antibody tests can not only reveal if a person has COVID-19 antibodies and potential immunity to the disease but can also help the development of treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.

COVID-positive Indians with mild symptoms still in Singapore

The Indian High Commissioner in Singapore has revealed that nearly 4,800 Indians  mostly students and foreign workers  have tested positive for COVID-19 by April end, but have mild symptoms. The Indian nationals are thankfully recovering and the embassy is currently working on their repatriation.

ICMR to use IBMs Watson to speed up COVID-19 response

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is collaborating with IBM to install its virtual tool, Watson Assistant, to speed up and simplify testing, sample collection, diagnostics and data entry to provide a more accurate picture of the COVID-19 situation in India. The ICMR hopes to use the data to increase Indias detection and treatment protocols.

West Bengal has the highest COVID-19 mortality rate: IMCT

The Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) deployed to West Bengal has revealed that the state has the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the country. At 12.8%, this mortality rate indicates extremely low testing rates, weak surveillance and ineffective contact tracing, the IMCTs leader Apoorva Chandra has reportedly revealed after a two-week stay in Kolkata.

Police forces need a second line of defence due to rising infections, MHA advises

As more and more police forces are being found to have been infected by COVID-19, the Ministry of Home Affairs has advised state governments to come up with a second line of defence to make up for the deficit of policemen and women. With the easing of lockdown regulations in Green and Orange zones in the country, additional police forces will be required to maintain hygiene and social distancing norms.

For more information, read our article on COVID-19 tips on maintaining hygiene and social distancing while shopping for essentials.

Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, Indias first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health.
The pub experience will be dramatically different after reopening according to pub representatives as they have published a new set of social distancing strict guidelines which may allow for pubs to reopen sooner.

Pub representatives will urge Government officials to allow bars to reopen at the same time as restaurants and cafes, with a series of strict social distancing guidelines in place.

According to the Governments roadmap to reopening the country, pubs are to reopen in phase five on August 10.

However, cafes and restaurants will reopen under phase three, commencing June 29.

Pub representatives Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) and the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) have now joined forces to urge the Government to put forward pub reopening dates if publicans follow strict measures.

The measures are:

dispense-only bars, with no sitting, standing, ordering, payment or drinking at the bar itself

customers must be seated at tables at all times, with table service provided

no more than four people per every 10 sqm

a maximum of six people allowed at one table

customers using hand sanitiser before entry

staff to be trained to maintain a safe distance from customers when taking orders and washing hands every half hour

outdoor spaces must enhance social distancing

no live music or DJs

safe use of toilets, which may include limits on the number of customers using toilets at any one time

Gardai or the HSE will have the power to close any business who is flouting the public health guidelines.

The LVA and the VFI believe that under these strict guidelines, pubs should be allowed to reopen on June 29 instead of August 10.

We dont believe it is in any way appropriate that the Government should apply one rule for some hospitality businesses and another rule for others, said Donall OKeeffe, Chief Executive of the LVA.

He said that trading will be extremely difficult under these new guidelines and that the pub experience will drastically change.

We are making a series of radical proposals to how bars should operate for the reopening scenario. Trading will be extremely difficult under these circumstances. There is no doubt that the pub experience as we know it will have to change dramatically.

However, for those who want to trade, these measures will have the essential impact of protecting the health and wellbeing of staff and customers alike, Mr OKeeffe said.

Chief Executive of the VFI Padraig Cribben said that the roadmap as it stands is not tenable.

The public health restrictions will present real challenges to all hospitality venues, it doesnt matter if they are a pub, a restaurant, a cafe or a hotel. There is no denying that and there is no getting around it. Addressing those public health requirements will be necessary for all hospitality businesses whenever they reopen.

Pubs across Ireland are up to that challenge and will do what is required for maintaining a safe and healthy place of business, he added.

Meanwhile, construction trade union Unite said that construction companies cannot be left to regulate themselves and called for the provision of PPE for all workers.

Unite Regional Officer Tom Fitzgerald called for "strict compliance monitoring" as opposed to guidelines which were published by the Construction Industry Federation (CIF).

The Standard Operating Procedures published by the CIF last month only constitute guidelines. Without strict compliance monitoring, our members fear that the employers will treat these procedures as an optional extra, putting profit above the health of workers. It is clear that employers cannot be left to regulate themselves," he said.

With just two weeks to build Covid-safe sites, a number of steps need to be taken to ensure that construction workers feel confident returning to work."

He said that PPE must be available at all times ans well as sanitary facilities.

These include enforced social distancing, all necessary PPE available on an ongoing basis and all necessary sanitary facilities provided. Workers temperatures must be monitored on arrival at sites, and provision made for testing of all workers in the construction sector," he said.

He also called for the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) to be given access to sites to ensure all health and safety standards are being adhered to.
The New Orleans mayor and three neighboring parish presidents all joined together in praising Gov. John Bel Edwards decision to extend statewide stay-at-home orders aimed at combating coronavirus, a move thats drawn criticism from some state Republicans who wanted restrictions lifted faster in some areas.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng, Plaquemines Parish President Kirk Lepine and St. Bernard Parish President Guy McInnis called Edwards move to extend the order through May 15 critical to protect the health of our people in a letter to the governor on Saturday.

Those four parishes make up the Louisiana Department of Healths Region 1, which has been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic. Orleans and Jefferson parishes saw the states first confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 in March and continue to have the highest death tolls from the pandemic in the state.

New coronavirus cases and deaths continue to slow down through the New Orleans metro area from several weeks ago. But state figures do show the virus has nonetheless continued to infect new people despite stay-at-home orders that have been in effect for more than six weeks.

According to the daily numbers released Sunday, only four of the 19 deaths reported statewide in the previous 24 hours were in Orleans or Jefferson, and the two parishes combined for 40 of the 200 new cases statewide during the same period.

The steady decline in new cases and deaths in Region 1 has been accompanied by a steady uptick in new cases in other areas of the state, including southwest and central Louisiana.

Vaccine news in your inbox Once a week we'll update you on the progress of COVID-19 vaccinations. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

(W)e understand the frustration and uncertainty for our business community during these stressful times, the leaders wrote in the letter. We also understand that easing restrictions too soon could result in a second shut down with far deeper economic consequences, or a rise in cases and deaths. For us to have a strong economy, we need a healthy public to thrive and patronize our businesses.

The letter comes as partisan rancor in Louisiana over the governors stay-at-home order has mounted, with many conservative politicians demanding a parish-by-parish lifting of restrictions while lobbing increasingly sharp criticism at Edwards.

A group of GOP House lawmakers have floated the idea of overturning the governors emergency order altogether, a proposal GOP legislative leaders have so far dismissed.

Cantrell, like Edwards, is a Democrat. Lee Sheng and Lepine are both Republicans while McInnis is not a member of a political party.

The letter is also another sign of regional cooperation across the New Orleans metro area, where many residents regularly commute across parish lines to work, shop or dine. Despite some disagreements, regional business leaders have also urged close cooperation across parish lines as cases drop and officials begin contemplating dropping some restrictions.
The URL has been copied to your clipboard

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

The venerable Russian newspaper Vedomosti is under threat, and media outlets are facing pressure as the coronavirus makes for a great deal of bad news, compounding the difficulties for independent journalists and publications in Russia. RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson joins host Steve Gutterman to discuss the precarious situation.
 Flash

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on Libyan authorities to remain vigilant against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Now is not the time to lower our guard. The low numbers being reported must not lull us into a false sense of security. Libya is in the early stages of the pandemic and has not yet reached the peak of infection," Elizabeth Hoff, WHO representative in Libya, said in a statement released Sunday.

The WHO also recommended health authorities in Libya to increase testing capacity by establishing an additional laboratory in southern Libya and expand testing range to patients with influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infections.

"Adequate, regular supplies of testing kits will be essential. Improved disease surveillance and investigation -- including in migrant populations -- and contact tracing are also important tools to inform and drive the outbreak response," the agency said.

Ahmed Al-Marghani, awareness programs official of the Libyan National Center for Disease Control, said on Saturday that home quarantines and curfews in Libya are aiming to control the coronavirus, explaining that the country is still faced with risks in the spread of the pandemic.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Libya so far is 63, including 22 recoveries and three deaths, according to the center.

Libyan authorities have imposed a curfew, banned public gatherings and travel between cities, and closed borders in order to fight the pandemic.
The Nigerian government has received $311,797,866.11 recovered assets of General Sani Abacha repatriated from the United States and the Bailiwick of Jersey.

The Attorney-General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, confirmed this on Monday in a statement by the Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations at his office, Dr Umar Gwandu.

According to Malami, the amount increased significantly from over $308 million mentioned in an earlier statement in February to over $311million as a result of the interest that accrued from February 3 to April 28, when the fund was transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

He noted that the litigation process for the return of the assets titled Abacha III commenced in 2014 while the diplomatic process that culminated in the signing of the Asset Return Agreement commenced in 2018.

The agreement was signed on February 3 by the governments of Nigeria, the United States, and the Bailiwick of Jersey.

This Agreement is based on international law and cooperation measures, that sets out the procedures for the repatriation, transfer, disposition, and management of the assets, he said.

According to the statement, the recovery effort consolidates on the record of the Muhammadu Buhari administration which has a history of recovery of $322m from Switzerland in 2018.

It added that the recovered loots were transparently and judiciously deployed in supporting indigent Nigerians as specified in the agreement signed with Switzerland and the World Bank.

Malami, who led the negotiation team, noted that the tripartite agreement and the process towards the implementation represented a major watershed in International Asset Recovery and Repatriation as it sought to provide benefit to the victims of corruption.

He said, In line with the 2020 Asset Return Agreement, the fund has been transferred to a Central Bank of Nigeria Asset Recovery designated account and would be paid to the National Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) within the next fourteen days.

The NSIA is responsible for the management and execution of the projects to which the funds will be applied.

The minister insisted that the latest recovery would support and assist in expediting the construction of three major infrastructure projects across Nigeria  Lagos  Ibadan Expressway, Abuja  Kano Road, and the Second Niger Bridge.

He revealed that the government was in the process of establishing a Project Monitoring Team to oversee the implementation of the projects and report regularly on progress made to the public.

In order to ensure transparent management of the returned assets, Malami said the government would engage a Civil Society Organisation who has combined expertise in substantial infrastructure projects, civil engineering, anti-corruption compliance, anti-human trafficking compliance, and procurement to provide additional monitoring and oversight.

He noted that the process for the engagement of the CSO monitor has already commenced with the adverts placed in two local newspapers.

The recovered funds, according to the minister, were laundered through the U.S. banking system and then held in bank accounts in the Bailiwick of Jersey.
Rebutting the Congress' criticism, the BJP said on Monday that some opposition-ruled states had made migrants pay their train fare to travel to their native places even though the railways had subsidised 85 per cent of the ticket cost, leaving only 15 per cent for the state governments.

The ruling party also accused the Congress of promoting indiscriminate movement of people which, it said, would lead to "faster spread" of coronavirus infection "just like we saw in Italy", and asked if this is what Sonia Gandhi wants.

The counter-charge from the BJP came after Congress president Sonia Gandhi hit out at the central government for "making migrants pay" their train fare and asked her party's state units to pick the tab.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also took a swipe at the railways, saying on one hand it is seeking ticket fare from people stranded in various states while on the other it is donating Rs 151 crore to the PM-CARES Fund.

In a series of tweets, BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh said only Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Kerala governments made migrant labourers pay Rs 1000 for journey.

"The Congress which runs the first, is partner in second, is promoter of the third wakes up early in the morning & issues a statement telling the party will pay for it," he said, taking a dig at the rival party.

Tripura, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand governments have paid train fare either for their state residents or for trains starting from their state, he said.

Do states where these migrant labourers have toiled hard for days, months and years have no responsibility, he questioned and asked people to "wake up before jumping to conclusions".

Hitting out at Rahul Gandhi, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra tweeted, "Rahul Gandhi ji, I have attached guidelines of MHA which clearly state that 'No tickets to be sold at any station'. Railways has subsidised 85% & state govt to pay 15%. The state govt can pay for the tickets (Madhya Pradesh's BJP govt is paying). Ask Cong state govts to follow suit."



The BJP leader further clarified that for each 'Shramik Express', special trains being run for migrants to take them back to their native places during the lockdown, about 1,200 tickets to the destination are handed by the railways to the state government concerned.

State governments are supposed to clear the ticket price and hand over the tickets to workers, he said.

He said the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh is doing so and asked Rahul Gandhi to tell the Congress-ruled states to follow suit.

Targeting Sonia Gandhi, BJP's information technology department in-charge Amit Malviya tweeted, "Congress is obviously upset at how well India has handled Covid.

"They would have ideally wanted a lot more people to suffer and die. Promoting indiscriminate movement of people would lead to faster spread of infection, just like we saw in Italy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Luxembourg is home to 501 hair and 280 beauty salons. The sector boasts around 3,300 employees.

The representatives of the hairdresser and beauty salon federation had a meeting with health officials and the Minister of the Middle Classes earlier this Monday to discuss the measures that would have to be taken in order to allow reopenings.

According to information obtained by RTL, hairdressers will be able to return to work on 11 May. A representative of the sector, Michel Sanna, expressed his hope that the government will extend short-time work schemes as salons will be likely to operate at reduced capacity.

According to Sanna, officials will provide the federation with further details later this Monday.
New Delhi: Two floors of the Border Security Force (BSF) headquarters in Delhi was sealed on Monday (May 4) after a staff member was tested positive for coronavirus COVID-19. "All drills for sanitisation are being undertaken," BSF officials told PTI.

The eight-storeyed BSF head office is located in the CGOs complex on Lodhi road that also houses the CRPF headquarters which was placed under similar sealing on May 3 after two of its staff tested positive.

Contact tracing is also underway and only a bare minimum staff is working, the officials added.

On May 3, 25 more BSF personnel, all from the company of 126 Battalion deployed with the Delhi Police in Jama Masjid area, had tested positive of coronavirus. A total of 56 BSF jawans have so far been tested coronavirus positive across India which includes 14 from Tripura and 43 from Delhi.

On the other hand, there are 137 positive cases in CRPF apart from one death; and nine cases in Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
3D illustration of coronavirus on a colored background. Leonello Calvetti | Stocktrek Images | Getty Images

Since the world might wait years for a coronavirus vaccine, drugs that can mitigate its effects are now in the spotlight. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Gilead Sciences' antiviral drug remdesivir as an emergency treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. While remdesivir is intended for the most severe cases, reducing recovery time, U.S. doctors are also testing an influenza drug made by a Japanese photography company amid hopes that it may help a wider range of patients.

U.S. trial under way

Favipiravir works by preventing the virus from replicating in cells. It's marketed under the brand Avigan and was developed in 2014 by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, a unit of Fujifilm Holdings. As he extended the nationwide state of emergency until May 31, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday he wants favipiravir approved for Covid-19 in May, as Japan moves to fast-track approval for remdesivir as well. In April the government said it will triple the country's stockpile to enough doses for 2 million people. Fujifilm Toyama Chemical is working to increase its monthly production by July to 100,000 treatment courses, defined as doses for a 14-day period, and 300,000 courses by September. The price of the drug has not been set in Japan, where the government decides medicine prices. Japan is expected to ship the drug to 43 countries for clinical studies on its effectiveness against Covid-19. The shipment is being sent through the United Nations Office for Project Services, and each country will receive enough to treat between 20 and 100 people, Japan Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said last week. Fujifilm began a phase 2 clinical trial in Massachusetts in April. The trial called for about 50 patients and is taking place in collaboration with Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Avigan influenza tablets, produced by Fujifilm Holdings Corp., are arranged for a photograph at the company's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. Akio Kon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

"We expect the drug will enhance clearance of virus and shorten the duration of Covid-19 illness," says Robert Finberg, chair of the school's Department of Medicine. "Previous studies with this drug have indicated that it enhances clearance of influenza. We expect results in approximately one to two months."

Early boost in China

Health centers in China and Japan have been studying favipiravir as a Covid-19 treatment for months. It also has been tested in Italy, and a trial is set to begin in India. In one clinical trial in China, patients taking the drug tested negative for coronavirus after a median of four days, less than half the 11 days it took for patients in a control group, the China National Center for Biotechnology Development said in March. It also found that 8.2% of favipiravir patients needed respiratory aid compared to 17.1% of the patients in the control group. Center director Zhang Xinmin called the drug "very safe and clearly effective" and without obvious side effects, Nikkei news reported. Japan approved favipiravir in 2014, but not for seasonal flu. It was given the OK for novel or reemerging influenza viruses when other antiviral drugs don't work, and the government has to approve each case. There were no such cases in the past six years, but favipiravir was studied in a Japanese trial for ixodid tick-borne infectious disease and serious fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome. The government of Guinea also approved the drug as a standard treatment for patients with Ebola Virus Disease following a clinical trial in the West African country. "Avigan is a viral RNA polymerase inhibitor, with a new mechanism of action that inhibits viral gene replication within infected cells," says Kana Matsumoto, a spokesperson for Fujifilm. "Due to this characteristic, the drug may potentially have an antiviral effect on the viruses classified into the same type (single-stranded RNA virus) as influenza virus."

Japanese researchers began administering favipiravir to Covid-19 patients around the end of February. Fujifilm itself began a phase 3 clinical trial in Japan in March with about 100 patients, targeting those with mild and moderate symptoms. But it's not the only effort. More than 2,000 people in Japan had been treated with favipiravir as part of clinical trials as of April 26, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. An official at Fujita Health University Hospital in Aichi Prefecture, where a trial is under way, said staff would finish analyzing test data by the end of August.

We expect the drug will enhance clearance of virus and shorten the duration of Covid-19 illness. Robert Finberg University of Massachusetts Medical School

"I'm not sure what effect Avigan had, but it gave me an added feeling of security," says a 42-year-old Tokyo resident with Covid-19 who didn't want his name used. He was hospitalized with mild symptoms in April and was given favipiravir for about a week. After testing positive multiple times, he finally got a negative result on Monday and was discharged.

Sources of concern
LONDON, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Levine Leichtman Capital Partners Europe ("LLCP") announces that it has acquired SiPM (the "Company") in partnership with management and its founding partners. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in Belgium, SiPM is a pioneer in high-impact e-learning solutions for blue-chip corporations worldwide. The Company has changed the way their clients train their procurement, supply chain and sales professionals by providing role-specific curriculum and the latest e-learning methods, resulting in maximum impact for employees and organizations. Since its founding, SiPM has rapidly expanded its platform to over 50,000 individuals employed by over 200 blue-chip corporations in over 100 countries worldwide.

David Rajakovich, Managing Director Operations, commented, "We welcome LLCP's extensive experience in corporate education and training, along with its proven track record of supporting entrepreneurs. We are very excited about this next step in the development of our Company and look forward to continuing our mission to provide clients with best-in-class, personalized training programs."

Thomas Schmitt, Managing Director Sales, added, "We are excited to join LLCP's global network and believe their local presence in our core markets will be a critical driver of future growth."

Regarding their re-investment, Raf Verheyden, co-founder, commented on behalf of the founders, "Peter Leyten and I joined forces in 2011 with a vision to radically change the traditional way of upskilling procurement, supply chain and sales professionals: faster, better and more cost-effective. We are both proud to see the progress we have made since then. With LLCP on board, we are more than confident that the Company has the support it needs to create a further step-change in the growth profile of the business."

According to Wouter Snoeijers, Managing Director of LLCP, "We are thrilled to partner with SiPM. We believe that SiPM is uniquely positioned to support the professional development needs of its global client base and look forward to supporting its continued growth and success."

LLCP was advised by KPMG (commercial), NautaDutilh (legal) and Deloitte (financial and tax).

The sellers were advised by Lincoln International (M&A), Stibbe (legal) and PwC (financial and tax).

About Levine Leichtman Capital Partners

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, LLC is a middle-market private equity firm with a 36-year track record of successfully investing across various targeted sectors, including franchising, professional services, education and engineered products. LLCP utilizes a differentiated Structured Equity investment strategy, combining debt and equity capital investments in portfolio companies. This unique structure provides a less dilutive solution for management teams and entrepreneurs, while delivering growth and income with a significantly lower risk profile.

LLCP's global team of dedicated investment professionals is led by seven partners who have worked together for an average of 21 years. Since inception, LLCP has managed over $10.8 billion of institutional capital across 14 investment funds and has invested in over 85 portfolio companies. LLCP currently manages $6.9 billion of assets  including its most recent flagship fund, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners VI, L.P., which closed in 2018 with $2.5 billion of committed capital  and has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, London, Stockholm and The Hague.

Media Contact:

Mark Semer or Ross Lovern

Kekst CNC

[email protected], [email protected]

(212) 521-4800

SOURCE Levine Leichtman Capital Partners
As of May 1, New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Centerturnedmakeshift COVID-19 hospital has stopped treating patients. Military healthcare providers will continue to support staff at various NYC hospitals, and the state will determine if or when the Javits Center will be needed again as a medical facility. In the last month, 1,095 patients received care at the facility. Here's a look at how it operated.

As the chief nurse at the Javits Center, Leslie Curtis, 59, started her day at 4 a.m. For the next 17 hours, she prepped hundreds of military and civilian nursing staff as they geared up to treat the facilitys coronavirus patients, which often involved seeing over 100 new cases per day. This isnt a job; its a mission, Curtis told InStyle. I call it MacGyver nursing. You have to think out of the box to function within the limitations that were in and still do the actual job, which is taking care of patients in a way thats safe for us as well as for them.

Curtis has been caring for patients long before the pandemic. She worked as a civilian nurse in her hometown of Philadelphia for a decade before joining the Army in 2001 at age 40. Since then she has been deployed three times: first to Al Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004 during the height of the war; then to Baghdad in 2010; and now to New York City from Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where she led nurses who were treating more than 1,000 patients per month at Brooke Army Medical Centers cardiac unit.

RELATED: Princess Sofia Joined Frontline Efforts As a Medical Assistant

A historic collaboration among medical personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force, reserves, and civilian sector came together to transform the Javits Center from what Curtis calls a cold, gigantic warehouse into a working 2.1 million-square-foot hospital in just 36 hours. Ive never seen anything like it before, she said of the overhaul, which supported up to 2,500 beds. Initially, I think everybody had fear; the unknown is very powerful. But at this point in my life, Im going to fight for whats right, and nobodys going to stop me. Thats what makes a true badass: not being afraid to go into the storm.

Story continues

Creating a lasting sense of security, preparedness, and purpose for her team is a top priority for Curtis, especially in chaotic times. I try to build a sense of unity and caring, said the mom of three and grandmother of four. When youre in combat, all you have is each other. And the only way you get home is by helping one another. Curtis could not predict how long she would be at the Javits Center or how long the field hospital would be up and running. But she insisted that she and her team would be ready to face whatever challenges came their way as long as they continued to spread compassion. My job is to make sure that I give my nurses everything they need to do their job, including all the correct PPE [personal protective equipment], she said. But they also need to know that someone cares about them in an environment like this. What theyre doing is amazing and important, and they are not alone.

RELATED: What Labor & Delivery Nurses Want You to Know About Childbirth During Coronavirus

The most striking thing about Curtiss current mission has been the overwhelming displays of support, both from within the Javits Center and beyond. This is probably the friendliest Ive ever seen the world, she said. People thank you in the streets  they beep their horns, they cheer  and you realize that what youre doing is bigger than you. That gives you courage. It also gives Curtis hope. I think this is changing the way health care is going to be done in the future, she said. Were creating a new model together  a humanitarian effort, a global effort  to fight a pandemic that affects the entire world. This is the most important thing we are ever going to do in our lifetime.

For more stories like this, pick up the June issue of InStyle, available on newsstands, on Amazon, and for digital download May 22.
Liquor shops will open across the country today for the first time since the lockdown which started on March 25. Home Ministry in its guidelines for the third phase of the lockdown permitted the sale of liquor. Alcohol sale was not allowed in the previous two phases. However, according to several liquor making-firms, the cheers around the decision could be temporary. According to the companies, the existing stock at distributors will soon get exhausted and that replenishment could take a month or so, The Economic Times reported.

Deepak Roy, who is the maker of Officers Choice whiskey and chairman of the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC), said the pipelines were dried as distilleries were shut for a month and restoring the supply would take three-six weeks.

As per the Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines, retail sale of liquor, paan, and tobacco is permitted in the green zone, orange zone as well as non-containment areas in red zones. Besides, liquor shops have also been asked to follow certain guidelines of social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus. There must be a minimum six-feet distance between consumers and not more than five persons must be present at a time to buy liquor.

Also read: Coronavirus India live updates: People queue up outside liquor shops amid lockdown 3.0; 42,533 total cases

There are about 70,000 liquor outlets in the country. Companies expect states such as Punjab, Haryana, Assam, and Karanataka to start retailing before other states like Maharashtra, where coronavirus epidemic is at peak. Around 150 liquor shops located in non-containment zones in Delhi will open from Monday. Four government-run agencies, which are responsible for the sale of liquor in Delhi, had submitted the list of the liquor shops which can be allowed to open following coronavirus guidelines.

In Andhra Pradesh, the state government has introduced 'prohibition tax' on liquor to discourage people from consuming. On the other hand, Rajasthan has hiked excise duty on Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) to 35 per cent, other categories to 45 per cent.

Meanwhile, breweries are also trying to determine the demand level as leftover stock in the market has been impacted due to black-market trading during the lockdown.

Many state governments made multiple request to the centre to lift the ban on the sale of liquor as they were running out of money.

Also read: Lockdown 3.0: Know what's allowed & what's not in Gautam Buddha Nagar from Monday

Also read: Liquor shops to open in Delhi, other cities: What to keep in mind when you go to buy alcohol
U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Sunday that a potential coronavirus vaccine could be ready as early as by the end of the year.

"I think we'll have a vaccine by the end of the year and we are pushing very hard," Trump said at the Fox News virtual town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Sunday, adding that he was "very confident" a vaccine would be available in December. "We're building supply lines, we even have the final vaccine."

Following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, public and private sector experts have estimated that the roll-out of a vaccine could take up to 18 months, if not longer.

The doctors would say, well, you shouldn't say that. I'll say what I think, Trump said. I met with the heads of the big companies, these are great companies. I think we're going to have a vaccine much sooner than later. Trump asserted that a string of pharmaceutical companies are close to vaccine development, mentioning Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) in particular.

On April 23, J&J announced a collaboration between the its Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies and Emergent BioSolutions, Inc. to ramp up the manufacturing of its lead investigational COVID-19 vaccine candidate. J&J goal is to supply more than one billion doses of the vaccine globally. For now, J&J has started preparations for clinical vaccine production at its facility in Leiden, the Netherlands, with the target of initiating Phase 1 human clinical studies in September 2020.

At the end of last month, Merrill Lynch analyst Bob Hopkins raised J&Js stock to Buy from Hold saying that in turbulent market environment it has historically shown to be a defensive name and as such has the potential of outperforming the broader stock market during the pandemic. Shares in the healthcare giant have surged 25% from their low on March 23, trading at $148.29 as of Friday.

Overall Wall Street analysts are cautiously optimistic on the outlook for the shares with 9 Buys and 4 Hold adding up to a Moderate Buy consensus rating. The $163.42 average price target predicts the stock will add 10% in the coming 12 months. (See JNJ stock analysis on TipRanks).

Story continues

Related News:

Gileads Remdesivir Receives Emergency FDA Approval; Heres What This Five-Star Analyst Has To Say

Gilead Down 5% As Q1 Earnings Spark Street Downgrades

Vaxart Shows Strong Progress in Its COVID-19 Program; 5-Star Analyst Boosts Price Target




Scottish Terriers are back from the brink of disappearing altogether, with the Kennel Club revealing puppy registrations for the breed have boomed by 92 per cent.

Last year numbers for the historic Scottie dog fell dangerously low and experts feared they would be wiped out in favour of designer breeds.

However, the Kennel Club have announced that puppy registrations for the breed have increased by 92 per cent in the first months of 2020.

It now leads the organisation's top five registration 'risers' for the year.

Scottish Terriers (pictured) are back from the brink of disappearing altogether, with the Kennel Club revealing puppy registrations for the breed have boomed by 92 per cent

It now leads the organisation's top five registration 'risers' for the year. In second place was the Japanese hunting dog Shiba Inu (pictured) which saw a 77 per cent rise in registrations

The Kennel Club's data reveals its top five 'fastest risers' in new puppy registrations for the first three months of this year, compared to the same period in 2019.

In second place was the Japanese hunting dog Shiba Inu which saw a 77 per cent rise in registrations.

THE FASTEST PUPPY REGISTRATION RISERS AND BIGGEST FALLERS IN 2020 Registration risers: Scottish Terrier - 92 per cent Japanese Shiba Inu - 77 per cent Jack Russell Terrier - 75 per cent Weimaraner - 71 per cent Parson Russell Terrier - 64 per cent Registration fallers Bearded Collie - 61 per cent Havanese - 60 per cent Shar Pei - 52 per cent Old English Sheepdog - 46 per cent Basset Hound - 44 per cent Advertisement

The Jack Russell Terrier - the breed favoured by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds - claimed the third place with a 75 per cent increase.

Other terrier breeds making the list included the Weimaraner with a 71 per cent rise, and the Parson Russell Terrier with 64 per cent.

Til Tovey, chairman of the Scottish Terrier Club of England, told the Daily Express: 'Scottish Terriers are affectionate, loyal and intelligent, so we are delighted this heritage breed seems to be bouncing back from historically low numbers.

'Scottish Terriers may be small but they certainly have big personalities and are simply iconic in this country - so they would be sorely missed if they were do dwindle as a breed. We hope this revival means the future is bright for Scotties.'

The Kennel Club's Health & Breeder Services Manager, Bill Lambert said he was pleased to see the revival of the Scottish Terrier.

The Parson Russell Terrier saw a registration increase of 64 per cent (stock photo, pictured)

The Jack Russell Terrier (pictured left) - the breed favoured by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds - claimed the third place with a 75 per cent increase. Other terrier breeds making the list included the Weimaraner (right) with a 71 per cent rise

However, it was bad news for the Bearded Collie as it's fell out of favour so far this year, suffering a 61 per cent drop in registrations.

Also falling behind was the Havanese with a 60 per cent decrease, as well as the Shar-Pei which is 52 per cent down.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

An automotive defroster assumes an important role in commercial and passenger vehicles alike, functioning in cold climate conditions. The requirement for having a superior permeability while driving in foggy, cold climate conditions is one of the foremost driving aspects for the expanding demand of automotive defrosters.

The types of automotive defroster present in the market globally are secondary automotive defrosters and primary automotive defrosters. Of these, the primary automotive defrosters category is likely to make a more prominent requirement when contrasted with secondary automotive defrosters, since the primary defrosters are majorly utilized on the front windshields. By the sales channel, the worldwide market is categorized as aftermarket and OEM. The aftermarket category will be remarkably high because of their higher replacement rate and henceforth, this category is likely to direct the automotive defrosters market. By vehicle type, the worldwide market includes heavy motor vehicles, light motor vehicles, and passenger cars. Of these, the passenger car category is likely to make a huge demand for automotive defrosters because of the developing number of individual vehicles worldwide.

Request for Report Sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/13450

On a worldwide scale, regions inclined to severe cold climate conditions are evaluated to make huge demand. Amid cold inclined regions, North America is likely to have a noteworthy market share of the overall market amid the conjecture time frame because of the developing automotive market in the region and the incredible clod conditions in the northern part of the U.S. & all of Canada. The Europe region is likely to trail North America in market share terms, because of the high number of automotive sales in the region combined with a huge aftermarket.

China drives the market share in automotive sales terms and given the severe cold conditions the nation foresees amid winter, the region is likely to lead the market share in the automotive defroster market amid the conjecture time frame. Developing economies like India, are likely to help the market development in the Asia-Pacific region because of the expanding year-on-year sales of automotive vehicles in the region. Subsequently, the Asia-Pacific market is evaluated to enroll a high development rate over the figured time frame in the overall market. Japan is likewise expected to significantly affect the development of automotive defroster demand because of the high number of automotive sales and severe cold conditions in the region. The MEA market is likely to possess a remarkably smaller market share of the overall market when contrasted with different regions, given the extremely humid and hot climate in the region.

The foremost market players in the worldwide Automotive Defroster market include Thermo King, Proair, LLC, Red Dot Corp., Bergstrom, Inc., Valad Electric Heating Corp., SGM Co., Inc., Full Vision, Inc., AGC, Boryszew Group and Interdynamics Research & Development.

Get Request for Table of Contents: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/requesttoc/13450

Company Overview

we are a UK-based market intelligence company that operates out of its passion to help brands grow, discover, and transform. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined - we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.

Our Team

we are a multidisciplinary team of dedicated research specialists who work with a fine-tooth comb approach to deliver you the insights that you need in order to have a firm grasp of your industry. We have the expertise, experience, and commercial acumen across a wide range of research areas. We build our reports using only the reliable sources to arm our clients with relevant, quality, and actionable facts

More Info of Impact Covid19@ link: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/13450
The opposition Yukon Party says the territory's Liberal government is walking back a promise it made to extend continuous glucose monitoring to adults.

Continuous glucose monitors (CGM) are devices people with diabetes can wear to get their blood sugar data.

The Liberals made the pledge back in March to secure Yukon Party support for passing the budget. The Yukon Party insists leader Stacey Hassard had a verbal promise from Premier Sandy Silver to extend continuous glucose monitoring to adults.

"That was our condition that we wanted to see for us to adjourn the legislature and get to a vote on the budget, " said Yukon Party MLA Scott Kent.

A March letter from Silver to Hassard promises permanent funding for continuous glucose monitoring for Yukoners up to age 18. But it does not promise CGM for all Type 1 Diabetics.

Under a pilot project, the health department had provided the devices to Type 1 diabetics up to age 25. The government says the adults who participated in that program will continue to be covered, until a glucose monitoring is developed for adults.

But Marney Paradis, president of the Type 1 Diabetes Support Network, said continuous monitoring should be available to everyone who needs it. Paradis said the continuous glucose monitoring costs around $4,000 per person per year in the Yukon.

"We're not talking about a lot of money, but to those individuals that this would affect, we're talking about night-and-day things that make their life that much easier," she said.

Devices not covered by most public health insurance plans

According to Diabetes Canada, CGM is not covered by any provincial or territorial public health insurance plans. The devices are covered for some Ontario residents and for Indigenous people covered by the federal Non-Insured Health Benefits program.

In a letter to the Type 1 Diabetes Support Network in April, Health Minister Pauline Frost wrote the government would design a glucose monitoring program for adults based on published studies, what's offered by other jurisdictions in Canada, and on the advice of a third-party evaluator.

Story continues

Steve Silva/CBC

"I understand your disappointment with some of the recommendations," Frost wrote, "however, I assure you that your perspectives and feedback will continue to be considered."

Paradis said that's not good enough.

"We're not stopping until these things are covered for everybody with Type 1 Diabetes in the Yukon," she said. "We have a moral imperative to ensure that people can adequately control their blood glucose level."
At least one Alabama group of seniors will graduate on time, though the ceremony might be stretched over a half dozen hours to make sure there is never too large a crowd.

Saraland City Schools in south Alabama announced this morning it will hold a graduation ceremony on May 21 for the 270 high school seniors attending the districts high school.

This is believed to be the first public school in Alabama to announce a graduation ceremony on campus in May.

Students will report to the citys performing arts center in groups of 20, over a six-hour period, 30 minutes apart, from 1:30 p.m to 7:30 p.m., the announcement read.

Related: Alabama Class of 2020: Share your story

To maintain appropriate social distance, students and their families will be guided in phases through the school halls to the Performing Arts Center, according to the announcement.

The ceremony will be broadcast live on Facebook, and up to seven family members can accompany the high school senior.

Saraland High School Graduation 2020 Plans Announced Posted by Saraland City Schools on Monday, May 4, 2020

Alabama State Superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey told AL.com that as long as school officials follow the states health order, they are allowed to hold graduation ceremonies.

Alabamas current state of emergency expires May 15. Schools have been closed since mid-March to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

There are approximately 50,000 Alabama high school seniors set to graduate at the end of this school year.

Related: Coronavirus in Alabama: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Related: Alabama schools could reopen in June for some students

Read all of AL.coms coverage of the coronavirus at this link: https://www.al.com/coronavirus/
Amanda Harrington, 40, founded her sunless tanning brand in 2019. She lives in Oxfordshire with her dog, Spider.

After a degree at the University of the Arts London, I studied performance make-up at the London College of Fashion, before working on films such as Tomb Raider and touring with The Rolling Stones.

A few years later, I founded InParlour, a mobile beauty service that offered a range of home treatments, including tanning.

Amanda Harrington says she remembers when she knew tan technology had to change

I remember the moment I decided that tanning technology had to change.

It was 2002 and I was spray-tanning a wealthy client at her penthouse in Park Lane, London.

I wasn't a fan of spray guns as they didn't give me the control I wanted, and the alcohol-heavy formulations not only dried the skin, but were unpleasant to inhale.

The session was a nightmare  the tan was going everywhere and the client got increasingly annoyed. I burst into tears out of frustration. To compound matters, although both of us were wearing masks to prevent us inhaling the tan fumes, I had an asthma attack.

There had to be a better method. It was important to create a safe, sunless option that meant people could easily get a golden tan, without any risk to their health.

Handy: The Small Body Brush, 32, harveynichols.com

I decided to go back to my roots. My father, an artist, taught me to paint from the age of six, so brushes had been part of my life.

Using them to apply tan made perfect sense. It's much easier to control the amount you're applying, and you can brush, buff, blend and stipple tint into the skin in a way that contours and enhances the bone structure. My background in art also helped when it came to creating the shades.

I wanted more than just light, medium and dark, so I made shades that enhance your natural skin tone. This way, you end up with a colour that reflects how your skin would tan naturally.

Rather than using alcohol, I used skincare ingredients, such as vitamin A, hyaluronic acid and coenzyme Q10.

I started out just making the product for my clients, who include models Cara and Poppy Delevingne and actress Sienna Miller, but now my sunless tans and brushes are stocked in Harvey Nichols and Space NK.

It turns out that disastrous tanning session on Park Lane wasn't such a disaster after all.
Check out the companies making headlines after the bell.

Shake Shack  The burger chain's stock whipsawed in extended trading after the company provided its first-quarter earnings. Shake Shack said it had earnings of 2 cents per share excluding some items on revenue of $143.2 million, while analysts did not expect any earnings and estimated revenue at $145.1 million, according to Refinitiv. The company reported a 12.8% year-to-date decrease in same-store sales and said in a statement that it expects to incur additional costs and investments in supplies necessary to keep its employees and customers safe amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Hertz Global  The car rental company's stock plunged 23% in extended trading after The Wall Street Journal reported that Hertz secured an additional advisor to help with bankruptcy proceedings.

L Brands  The Victoria's Secret parent company's stock spiraled 13% in extended trading after the company announced that it had terminated its deal with private equity firm Sycamore partners and gave a new strategy for moving forward. The strategy includes allowing Victoria's Secret to operate as a separate, standalone company.

AIG  Shares of the insurance company whipsawed in extended trading after AIG reported its financial results for the first quarter. AIG said it had earnings of 11 cents per share excluding some items on revenue of $14.44 billion, while analysts polled by Refinitiv anticipated earnings of 72 cents per share on revenue of $11.45 billion.

Chegg  The textbook rental and education company's shares soared 16% in extended trading after the company released its first-quarter earnings. Chegg said it had earnings of 22 cents per share excluding some items and revenue of $131.6 million, while analysts expected earnings of 15 cents per share on revenue of $122.7 million, according to Refinitiv. The company also offered strong second-quarter guidance and said it expects revenue of $135 million to $137 million, while Refinitiv analysts estimated revenue of $124 million. Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig said in a statement that the company saw "a substantial increase in new subscribers" as more students were required to learn from home amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Texas Roadhouse  The steak restaurant chain's stock tumbled 5% in extended trading after the company released its first-quarter earnings. Texas Roadhouse reported earnings of 23 cents per share on revenue of $653 million, while analysts expected earnings of 58 cents per share on revenue of $709 million, according to Refinitiv. Comparable restaurant sales fell 47% in April and the company went through approximately $30 million in cash that month, according to a company statement.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts  The hotel developer's stock was up 2% in extended trading after the company reported its first-quarter earnings. The company said it had earnings of 50 cents per share excluding some items on revenue of $410 million, while analysts estimated earnings of 36 cents per share on revenue of $387.2 million, according to Refinitiv.

Skyworks Solutions  Shares of the semiconductor company whipsawed in extended trading after Skyworks gave its second-quarter financial results. The company said it had earnings of $1.34 per share excluding some items on revenue of $766 million. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected earnings of $1.33 per share on revenue of $758 million. The company also gave weak third-quarter guidance and said it expects between $670 million and $710 million in revenue, while analysts estimated revenue of $727 million, according to Refinitiv. "Given the supply chain and demand disruptions associated with Covid-19, visibility is limited for the June quarter, resulting in a wider revenue range compared to prior quarters," said Kris Sennesael, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Skyworks, in a statement.

Walgreens  The pharmacy chain's stock was up 2% in extended trading after Reuters reported that drug distributor AmerisourceBergen approached Walgreen's concerning a $6 billion deal for its pharmaceutical wholesaling division.

SAP  The software company's stock fell 2% during extended trading after news from German regulatory release that said SAP found some of its products did not meet company standards.
Building on a relationship that began in 2016, 5G leader SK Telecom has revealed that it has been in conversation with German peer Deutsche Telekom to deepen the two companies cooperation to alleviate challenges caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.





Among the areas discussed by the two firms were collaboration in ICT including 5G, mobile edge computing (MEC) and artificial intelligence.On 29 April 2020, the two companies signed a term sheet for a technology joint venture that will launch within this year. Through this joint venture, SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom will collaborate to expand the global 5G ecosystem by accelerating 5G deployment in Europe. SK Telecom has already provided its 5G repeaters to Deutsche Telekom to support its customer trial for 5G indoor coverage in Germany and plans to promote the adoption of its 5G repeaters in Europe. To date SK has been one of the worlds leaders in 5G broadcasting. Through a Network Engineer Exchange Programme, SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have agreed to exchange their technological expertise once the situation improves. This will see SK Telecoms network engineers dispatched to Germany to share their knowhow in 5G network commercialisation and operation, as well as their experience in handling data traffic surges caused by a dramatic increase in the number of people at home using services such as high-bandwidth video services.The two companies have also decided to increase Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners investment in Korean 5G start-ups as well as global ventures with competitive online solutions such as video platforms.
NEW YORKThey did not treat patients, but Wayne Edwards, Derik Braswell and Priscilla Carrow held some of the most vital jobs at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens.

As the coronavirus tore through the surrounding neighbourhood, their department managed the masks, gloves and other protective gear inside Elmhurst, a public hospital at the center of the citys outbreak. They ordered the inventory, replenished the stockroom and handed out supplies, keeping a close count as the number of available masks began to dwindle.

By April 12, they were all dead.

The pandemic has taken an undisputed toll on doctors, nurses and other front-line health care workers. But it has also ravaged the often-invisible army of nonmedical workers in hospitals, many of whom have fallen ill or died with little public recognition of their roles.

The victims included the security guards watching over emergency rooms. They were the chefs who cooked food for patients and other hospital workers. They assigned hospital beds and checked patients medical records. They greeted visitors and answered phones. They mopped the hallways and took out the garbage.

You know how people clap for health workers at 7 oclock? Its mainly for the nurses and doctors. I get it. But people are not seeing the other parts of the hospital, said Eneida Becote, whose husband died last month after working for two decades as a patient transporter. I feel like those other employees are not focused upon as much.

Her husband, Edward Becote, made about $45,000 a year moving patients around the Brooklyn Hospital Center on stretchers and wheelchairs. He was among at least 32 nonmedical hospital workers in New York City who have died during the pandemic, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

These workers make some of the lowest wages in hospitals, and they are more likely than medical staff members to be black or Latino. In New York Citys public hospitals, 79 per cent of the workers who assist doctors and nurses are black or Hispanic, compared with 44 per cent of the medical staff, according to the most recent city data.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, when even emergency room nurses had to reuse N95 masks for days at a time, nonmedical workers were often given less protective gear than their colleagues who treated patients  or none at all  according to union leaders and hospital employees.

If you work in a hospital, you are exposed to the same kind of virus as the doctors and nurses, said Carmen Charles, president of the union that represents 8,500 nonmedical staff members at New York City hospitals. I understand management wanting to ration the supplies, but at what cost?

Charles, who leads Local 420, part of the umbrella union for city workers, said some of her members had been denied the N95 masks that were reserved for doctors and nurses. At least 11 members have died, she said.

A spokesman for Health and Hospitals, the citys public hospital system, acknowledged that it saved N95 masks for clinical employees who treated COVID-19 patients and other employees in hot zones, such as the emergency department. Early in the pandemic, the spokesman said, most government guidance on masks focused on clinical employees. He said the agency offered surgical masks to its nonclinical workers.

Elmhurst did not require every employee to wear at least a surgical mask until April 15, the same day Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an order mandating New Yorkers to wear face coverings in public, according to emails viewed by The Times.

In March, Carrow, Edwards and Braswell handed out supplies in the materials management department, in the hospitals sub-basement. Their deaths have shaken other nonclinical employees at Elmhurst who hoped that their distance from patients offered some protection against contracting the virus.

Carrow, 65, died on March 30 after working at Elmhurst for 25 years. Edwards, 61, died two days later, after a friend found him on the floor of his apartment, gasping for air. Both of them had expected to retire within the next year.

Braswell, Edwards supervisor, died on April 12. He was 57.

As you start mending your heart for one, then the next one came, said Gary Johnson, who previously worked in their department and discovered Edwards in his apartment. You wonder when the pain stops.

Hospitals generally have not released the names of employees who have died, leading workers to collect the names through word-of-mouth and organize their own memorials. The Times compiled its list through obituaries and interviews with hospital employees and relatives.

(

At the Brooklyn Hospital Center in Fort Greene, at least five employees have died in recent weeks, according to interviews.

Rafael Cargill handled medical records at the hospital, including sometimes retrieving them from floors with virus patients, said his sister, Lillian Cargill. She said that he was concerned about a colleague who showed up to work despite testing positive for the virus, and that he had not received any protective gear when he developed a dry cough in late March.

Rafael Cargill, 60, died at home on March 30.

We ran over there and had to stand outside, his sister said. The paramedics wouldnt allow us to go in. They came out and said they couldnt save him.

Kim C. Flodin, a spokeswoman for the Brooklyn Hospital Center, said the hospital was following state and federal protocols to protect our staff, clinical and nonclinical, from the transmission of this virus.

It is difficult to pinpoint how any hospital employee contracted the virus; many commute by public transit and live with family members who are also unable to work from home. But anyone working in hospitals inundated with patients was potentially exposed.

In a lawsuit filed April 20, the largest nurses union in New York accused the states Department of Health of enacting policies that turned hospitals into petri dishes where the virus can fester and then spread to other health-care workers.

Nurses and other health-care workers were denied testing even though they exhibited symptoms, the lawsuit said.

In response, a Health Department spokesman said the state was taking every step to ensure health workers have the support and supplies they need.

That support may have come too late for Adiel Montgomery, who worked as a security guard in the emergency department of Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn.

He spoke out in March about lacking the protective suits that he saw doctors wearing around COVID-19 patients, according to a colleague who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. After Montgomery and other security guards complained, the colleague said, more protective gear arrived.

In late March, Montgomery lost his sense of taste and smell and experienced flu-like symptoms, according to his brother.

Montgomery, 39, was hospitalized at Kingsbrook a week later with chest pains. While waiting hours for the results of his blood work, he began coughing up blood.

He died on April 5. The hospital told his family that he died of a heart attack, but his family believes he had the virus.

I just feel that being an employee of the same hospital, he was neglected, his mother, Griselda Bubb-Johnson, said. I feel they should have done more.

After the deaths of at least five Kingsbrook employees, nurses there protested outside the hospital about the shortage of protective gear. A spokeswoman for Kingsbrook did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Many hospital employees worked as long as they could after they felt sick, driven by financial necessity and a desire to help their overstretched colleagues.

The last day Gary Washington reported to work at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in northern Manhattan was March 29. His body was aching, and a colleague saw him lying down in the cafeteria.

Rosalyn Washington, his wife, thought he was growing too old to keep working as a housekeeping employee there. He cleaned the rooms of virus patients after they were discharged, and his brother thought he should stop going to work, she said.

So many housekeepers called out sick that the hospital began bringing in temporary workers, one of his colleagues said. But Gary Washington was the familys primary breadwinner.

He was not going to quit his job and not take care of his family, Rosalyn Washington said.

Gary Washington, 56, died from the virus on April 8, the day before his wedding anniversary.

Before his death, he texted his wife from his hospital bed: I cant explain how much I truly love you. I didnt want to tell you how I cried like a baby thinking about how good youve been to me.

His wife had his urn engraved with Boop P Doop, the pet name they called each other.

I had 25 years with this man. Im so empty. Now Im getting calls about widows benefits, she said, her voice breaking. Hes trying to take care of me still.
Six soldiers in the Middle East have been presented with Purple Hearts after suffering traumatic brain injuries when Iran launched missiles at their base in Iraq in January -- and nearly two dozen more medals are in the works, officials have confirmed.

Army Lt. Gen. Pat White, commander of Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve, approved 29 Purple Hearts to be awarded to soldiers injured at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on Jan. 8. Iran carried out the ballistic missile attack in response to a Jan. 3 U.S. drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds force.

The first six Purple Hearts were presented to soldiers in Iraq on Sunday and in Kuwait on Monday, Cmdr. Zachary Harrell, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said. The remaining 23 soldiers whose Purple Hearts were approved by White are expected to receive their awards this week, he added.

Related: US Troops Who Suffered TBIs in Missile Attack Recommended for Purple Hearts

White's decision to award the more than two dozen medals was first reported by CNN.

Individual units were responsible for submitting Purple Heart award packages for troops who'd been injured in the ballistic missile attack. Officials initially reported no one had been injured in the attack, but at least 110 were later diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.

Harrell said 80 award packages were received by and individually evaluated by a review board. That board submitted their recommendations on the 29 soldiers' Purple Hearts to White.

Two Purple Heart submissions for airmen were reviewed by White, who recommended "against approval," Harrell said.

"It is important to note that a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) diagnosis does not automatically qualify a Service Member for Purple Heart eligibility or awarding," Harrell said. "The ... process was designed to be a fair and impartial proceeding that evaluated each case in accordance with applicable regulations."

White's recommendation on those awards has since been sent to Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, head of Air Forces Central Command, as he's the final approval authority for airmen, Harrell added.

Airmen at Al Asad and other locations Iran targeted recently recalled the attacks in a series of eyewitness reports released by the Air Force. They described commanders making life-or-death decisions, chaos and lots of emotions.

Bomb after bomb shook the bases for what felt like all night, as one airman described it.

"I had fully accepted that I would die in that shelter with my team," the airman said. "I have never been so happy to see the sunrise."

-- Oriana Pawlyk contributed to this report.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: Emotions and Chaos': Air Force Releases Eyewitness Accounts of Al Asad Missile Attack
After months of a deep and harrowing slide, fuel demand across the world is finally starting to sputter back to life. Traffic data, pipeline flows, and sales at gas stations in the Texas City of San Antonio, Beijing, and Barcelona all suggest that the oil demand slump may have already bottomed out. But dont rush to pop the champagne corks just yet. Indications so far are that the road to full recovery is going to be harder than climbing out of a subterranean pit, with many oil traders predicting that it might be a year or more before demand returns to pre-crisis levels.

A growing minority are even less sanguine and speculate that it may never get back there again.

Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) belongs to the latter camp: Company CFO Jessica Uhl warned investors of  ...major demand destruction that we dont even know will come back, during the companys latest earnings call.

The Anglo-Dutch supermajor, a deepwater operator and leading natural gas trader, stunned investors after announcing the first dividend cut since the 1940s, saying it deemed it necessary to preserve liquidity given the uncertainty regarding when the pandemic will finally be contained.

Shell declared a $0.32/ADS quarterly dividend from a prior dividend of $0.94, good for a 66% cut. It also announced revenue of $60.03B (-28.3% Y/Y), $9.58B below Wall Streets consensus; non-GAAP EPS of $0.37 beat by $0.09 while GAAP EPS of $0.00 missed by $0.18. The dividend reduction alone is set to free up around $10 billion for the bottom line. Shells dividend reduction will set free ~$10 billion for the bottom line.

Related: Oil Jumps On Expectations Of Slowing Inventory Builds

The dividend reset has taken many analysts by surprise, given that oil majors Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX) and ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) have both announced deep capex cuts, but left the dividend intact.

Maybe its just a matter of time before they also follow suit.

Source: NaturalGasIntel

Analysts are warning that a V-shaped recovery is highly unlikely, with the sheer scale of the demand destruction--estimated at a staggering 30 million barrels a day in April--making for a long and tough road back to the pre-crisis global demand of ~100 million barrels per day.

Shell says its bracing itself for a worst-case scenario: Demand to never fully recover.

I think a crisis like this has the potential to capitalize society into a different way of thinking, much as the Paris Agreement has had, company CEO Ben van Beurden has told investors.

Url says the company expects an L-shaped recovery, implying that oil demand will stay at ~9% below last year rather than rebounding sharply or even slowly in a U-shaped trajectory.

Related: Oil Price Crash Hits Latin American Drillers Hard



Citigroup does not see a full recovery in jet fuel demand until well into 2022, while Boeings CEO expects passenger traffic to remain depressed for three more years.

The IEA is a bit more optimistic, though.

The energy analyst has estimated that May consumption will be 25.8 million barrels below that level, while June consumption is expected to be about 14.6 million barrels below normal. However, it sees December consumption clocking in at just 2.7 million barrels below 2019 levels.

Peak Oil Demand

With oil and gas companies set to lose $1 trillion in revenues in the current year--or 40% lower than 2019 revenue of $2.47 trillion--its not hard to see where these gloomy outlooks are coming from.

But the notion that we might have crossed peak oil demand is not all that far-fetched.

Just last year, the IEA predicted that global oil demand would peak in the mid-2020s and plateau around 2030.

The IEA had predicted that global oil demand would expand by about 1% annually to hit 105.4 million bpd by 2025, after which growth would shrink substantially with consumption peaking at 106.4 million bpd.

The silver lining, however, was that natural depletion would shrink oil supply and lead to higher prices, averaging $90 a barrel in 2030 and $103 in 2040, according to the agency.

The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically altered the market dynamics, and nobody seems sure how the energy sector will look like when its all over. Just dont be surprised if consumers and global investors decide to, once and for all, vote with their wallets and give the sector a wide berth as Shell has predicted.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Were stepping up and doing our part by providing strong support and infrastructure to solution providers, businesses, and others to help remote hospitals, workers, and students manage connectivity and security, Darren Sadana says

As COVID-19 and social distancing force businesses around the world to work from home, many challenges ariseespecially as related to healthcare, business sectors and educationabout connectivity, security, and technology needs. Thats the word from wireless and IoT company Choice IoT Inc.'s CEO Darren Sadana, whose vast expertise in such areas shows why those having solutions ready will adapt while others risk suffering from loss and greater disruption. Temporary hospitals, telehealth, distance learning, and work-from-home all rely on making the right choices about wireless connectivity, data security, and technology needs, Sadana says. Without the right solutions, approaches, planning, and implementation, lives, businesses, and socioeconomic stability are all at stake.

Amidst the pandemic, 88% of organizations have either encouraged or required employees to work from home. How companies handle this sudden and major transition into working remotely will determine their survival in what is increasingly becoming the new normal.(1)

While its currently estimated that 75 million U.S. employees (56% of the non-self-employed workforce) hold jobs that are compatible with remote work, the wireless needs in terms of connectivity, bandwidth, and security present enormous hurdles.(2) Furthermore, studies show that 34% of employees think their companies are unprepared to implement work-from-home protocols.(3)

There are two major challenges related to this: broadband accesses and speeds have variable availability; and the surge in those online is taking a toll on download speeds from major providers. Internet traffic has increased by 40% in the U.S. while download speeds have decreased by anywhere between 5 to 31%with dramatic increases following school closures across the country.(4)

School closures due to coronavirus crisis have impacted at least 124,000 U.S. public and private schools, affecting at least 55.1 million students.(5) Thats putting a tremendous strain on home networks, with families now working and learning from home with bandwidth limits not meant for that load.

As the tip of the spear fighting COVID-19, healthcare is struggling to meet the wireless connectivity needs of temporary hospitals and the tremendous surge in telehealth services. The volume of telehealth consults have gone up several hundred percent since the pandemic struckwith some health systems reporting a staggering 500% increase in telehealth visits within the first weeks of the outbreak.(6)

Healthcare and business sectors are also being challenged by connectivity and data security in transit. A recent joint alert from U.S. and U.K. government security notes of a dramatic rise in cybersecurity attacks related to COVID-19.(7) Schools are bypassing privacy and security controls in a rush to offer online learning at the same time that the FBI issued warnings regarding increased attacker vulnerabilities to teleconferencing and online classrooms platforms.(8)(9)

Despite these and other challenges to the new normal of telehealth and remote work/education, Sadana says that home and business planning coupled with corporate, connectivity provider, and government support can head off major challenges. This includes:



Ensuring home Wi-Fi networks are using the faster 5GHz network versus the standard 2.4GHz network.(10)

Organizations determining if they need to supply their employees with additional bandwidth to meet application and file-sharing needs.

Over 390 companies and trade associations signing the FCCs Keep Americans Connected pledge to forego service termination for residential or small business customers unable to pay bills due to the COVID-19 crisis as well as open Wi-Fi hotspots to Americans that need them. The FCC has also granted special temporary authority to T-Mobile, US Cellular, and Verizon to borrow additional wireless spectrum to support increased broadband usage.(11)

Implementing cloud-based collaboration services for employee access to company applications, private databases, communications, and even email systems since these do not need to rely on physical, on-premise infrastructure.

Organizations ensuring all employees use a virtual private network (VPN) on remote digital devices to keep communications/data secure.

According to Sadana, the glue that will hold all of this together is essential from solution providerslike Choice IoT:

Were stepping up and doing our part by providing strong support and infrastructure to solution providers, businesses, and others to help remote hospitals, workers, and students manage connectivity and security, Sadana says. By offering a variety of wireless plans that fit these varied needs for continuity and increased demand for broadband high speed 4GLTE, 5G, and IoT connectivity, we can reduce the load on landline broadband and also reach places that landline broadband doesnt cover.

About Choice IoT:

Choice IoT Inc. provides a wireless connectivity and management platform for IoT-based solutions providers in the consumer-facing, public, industrial, and infrastructural sectors. The company was awarded Top 50 Smartest Companies of 2018 by the Silicon Review and Channel Visions Visionary Spotlight Awards for Top Innovation, Service Provider Enablement, and Enterprise Technology in 2019. With a business model based on ease of use and transparency, Choice IoT is dedicated to helping its customers deploy the companys solutions with maximum control and the lowest possible connectivity cost. For more information, visit http://www.choiceiot.com.

1. Gartner HR Survey Reveals 88% of Organizations Have Encouraged or Required Employees to Work From Home Due to Coronavirus, Gartner, March 19, 2020, gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-03-19-gartner-hr-survey-reveals-88--of-organizations-have-e

2. How Many People Could Work-From-Home, Global Workplace Analytics, 2020, globalworkplaceanalytics.com/how-many-people-could-work-from-home

3. Rebecca Corliss. Are Companies Prepared to Work From Home? OWLLabs, | March 12, 2020, owllabs.com/blog/coronavirus-work-from-home-statistics

4. Artur Bergman, Jana Iyengar. How COVID-19 is affecting internet performance, Fastly.com Blog, April 8, 2020, fastly.com/blog/how-covid-19-is-affecting-internet-performance

5. Map: Coronavirus and School Closures, Education Week, April 16, 2020, edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/map-coronavirus-and-school-closures.html

6. Paddy Padmanabhan, How the COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping healthcare with technology, CIO March 17, 2020, cio.com/article/3534499/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-is-reshaping-healthcare-with-technology.html

7. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), April 8, 2020, uscert.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-099a

8. Bradley Barth. Rush to adopt online learning under COVID-19 exposes schools to cyberattacks, SC Media, April 6, 2020, scmagazine.com/home/security-news/news-archive/coronavirus/race-to-adopt-online-learning-under-covid-19-exposes-schools-to-cyberattacks/

9. Kristin Setera. FBI Warns of Teleconferencing and Online Classroom Hijacking During COVID-19 Pandemic, FBI Boston, March 30, 2020, fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/boston/news/press-releases/fbi-warns-of-teleconferencing-and-online-classroom-hijacking-during-covid-19-pandemic

10. TJ Donegan. Heres how to fix slow internet while your family is quarantined , USA Today, March 19, 2020, usatoday.com/story/tech/reviewedcom/2020/03/19/heres-how-fix-slow-internet-while-your-family-quarantined/2879081001/

11. Keep Americans Connected pledge, FCC, April 2020, fcc.gov/keep-americans-connected
Representative Image

After Congress president Sonia Gandhi said that her party will bear the cost of rail travel for needy migrants, the Centre clarified that Railways will be bearing 85 percent of the fare, while the remaining will be borne by the respective state governments.

In a press conference, the Centre said that it has "never talked of charging train fare from migrant workers."

Last week, the Ministry of Home Affairs had allowed special trains, called 'Shramik Special' to carry stranded migrants, daily wagers, students, pilgrims and tourists to their native hometowns amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Thousands of migrants have been stranded in places across the country since the lockdown was first enforced on March 25, many even attempting to walk hundreds of kilometres to reach home.

The move came after many states, including Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Telangana, requested the Centre for special trains to ferry migrant workers back to their home states.

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

As the decision was rolled out by the Home Ministry, it was decided that the state governments will pay the ticket fare for the stranded.

Many Opposition leaders castigated the move, with Sonia Gandhi accusing the Centre of shirking its responsibility, saying , "If it (Centre) can bring back free of cost citizens stranded abroad by air, why can't the same responsibility be shown towards the poor migrants who are considered ambassadors of the nation's growth."
Amid the coronavirus crisis,



sanitation workers in Madhya Pradesh's Indore district are not only doing their cleaning job in hospitals, but have also come forward to perform the last rites of COVID-19 victims whose family members are unable to bid them a final adieu.

In the wake of guidelines to check the spread of coronavirus, only a few family members of the victims are being allowed to attend their last rites.

At such a difficult time, the sanitation workers are helping these families by performing the last rites of the deceased.

Indore, which is one of the worst hit by COVID-19,till Sunday reported 1,568 cases and 76 deaths, as per official figures.

"Irrespective of whether a Hindu, Muslim or person of some other religion dies of coronavirus, we are helping their families in bidding a final goodbye to the deceased. We don't have blood relations with them, but this is a case of humanity," Sohanlal Khatwa (50), head of a four-member team of sanitation workers at the morgue of Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences told PTI.

"There have been instances where we have ourselves lit the funeral pyre of the deceased as their family members were scared to come forward due to infection concerns. We have also laid to rest some of the deceased in graveyards, just like their family members would have done," he said.

He said as a precaution for protection against the virus, family members have to maintain a distance from the body during the last rites and have to leave immediately after performing the rituals.

"We understand their helplessness," Khatwa said.

"We also have families and children, so it is obvious that we also feel a little scared. But, now we have got into the habit of taking part in the last rites of coronavirus victims," he said.

Khatwa said they pray to Lord Mahakal (Lord Shiva) that the coronavirus may get eradicated from the world soon.

At the morgue, special chemicals are sprayed from a distance with the help of a pump on the body to prevent the hospital staff and those attending the last rites from contracting the infection, he informed.

After this, the body is wrapped in two layers of a plastic cover and cloth and then sealed in a special bag, he said.

"Before taking the body for last rites, we show the face of the deceased to their near and dear ones from a distance. This way the family members also pay their last respects to the deceased," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vessels that are used for towing oil rigs in the North Sea are moored up at William Wright docks in Hull, Britain November 2, 2017. REUTERS/Russell Boyce



South Korea should sign a free trade deal with North Korea to accelerate reform in the communist nation and to help it integrate into the international market, a state-run think tank said Monday.



The Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) made the suggestion in a report on inter-Korean economic cooperation, saying such an accord will create an environment for stable cross-border economic cooperation amid international sanctions on Pyongyang.



"The new inter-Korean economic cooperation should be aimed at supporting North Korea to normalize its foreign relations and enter the international regime," the report said. "It will be necessary to conclude an inter-Korean CEPA in order to create a stable inter-Korean economic cooperation environment."



A Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) is equivalent to a free trade agreement.



The think tank also noted that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has seen some progress in his policy of reform and opening up since he took power, such as incorporating marketplaces into its economy.



But the country's economy has faced challenges since a set of harsh sanctions were imposed on the North in 2016 to punish the regime for its nuclear and missile programs, it added.



KIEP stressed the need for the North to normalize foreign relations first, saying the success of the open-door policy in countries like Vietnam and Myanmar depended on whether or not they could attract foreign capital.



North Korea's economy is unlikely to achieve reform and openness without the lifting of sanctions and normalization of foreign relations, it added.



It also called on South Korea to help create and improve conditions for foreigners to participate in inter-Korean economic cooperation, and to play a leading role in donor conferences for international organizations on providing assistance to North Korea. (Yonhap)


The indigenous Maya towns are currently despising returned migrants, along with a threat to some, of lynching or burning their homes as fear spread about over 100 deportees from the United States found positive for COVID-19.

In one of the cities in the highlands of Guatemala, home to a large population of indigenous people, residents attempted to burn down the shelter of a migrant.

Then, in some villages, residents rejected those who recently returned and threatened the deportees' relatives with eviction from their respective homes.

Presently, the health officials of Guatemala have said that almost one-fifth of the 585 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Central American nation can be detected in those who deported from the US, with most of them, two flights in one day.

A Migrant's Story

19-year-old Carlos Cumes, whose so-called "American dream" ended several weeks back with his deportation recently, saw his luck sour once more when he went back to the Santa Catarina Palopo village, with a hope of reuniting with his family.

As he walked the final stretch to his parents' home, an angry group of residents confronted the young migrant. The said locals saw the televised footage of Cumes being transported to the village via an ambulance earlier that day.

He received insults, not to mention, accused of bringing infection with him even if he had undergone medical observation for four days in the capital and carried a document from the health ministry declaring him symptom-free of COVID-19.

However, none of that alleviated the locals' worst fears. Cumes said, they even threatened to set his family on fire, adding, he was "really afraid and I could only think about leaving the villages" in order for him not to bring any other trouble.

Some Migrants Tested Positive for COVID-19 Confirmed

President Alejandro Giammattei confirmed that more than 100 Guatemalans deported from the US have tested positive for COVID-19, and this, he added, has raised popular concern and hot-blooded mood in the underprivileged highlands, most migrants' home.

Until recently, Guatemalans had always looked up to migrants due, partly to the essential remittances they send to many families here. Fear of them, though, has considerably grown in just a short period.

Just a few months back, according to President Giammattei, most Guatemalans were so happy with migrants because of the remittance checks they bring in. But now, he continued, they are treated like criminals.

Incidentally, the US Immigration and Enforcement Agency or ICE recently said, deportees were screened before the flights for symptoms and high temperatures linked to COVID-19.

Nonetheless, migrants returned by the US to Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia, and Haiti have also tested positive for the virus in the previous weeks, fostering broader worries over the deportation programs.

Meanwhile, the US has sent three "humanitarian" flights that carried children since Guatemala implemented its ban as the countries of Central America are under pressure from the Trump administration to continue receiving flights.

Specifically, a flight with 89 Guatemalans, with a dozen of them minors, returned to Guatemala on April 30, the Guatemalan government said.

Also, a spokesman from ICE said all passengers had undergone the COVID-19 test before their removal, and all test results went negative.

Check these out:
According to a report published in a medical journal, a patient's Apple Watch successfully detected a serious anomaly missed by diagnostic hospital equipment. However, when the individual pointed out ECGs matching the health issue in question generated by her wearable to doctors, it was apparent treatment was in order.

Working For Notebookcheck Are you a techie who knows how to write? Then join our Team! English native speakers welcome! News Writer (AUS/NZL based) - Details here

The Apple Watch and its built-in heart-rate monitor has already reportedly detected a potentially fatal cardiovascular incident in 1 case; now, it seems the same wearable has done it again. A recent European Heart Journal report describes an incident in which an 80-year-old woman presented to a medical center in Mainz, Germany with chest pains.

However, her standard ECG and lab tests detected nothing out of the ordinary, and that may have been the end of the case - had the patient not had her Apple Watch and its own ECG records on her.

The patient (who had had a working life in engineering) highlighted these recordings and the fact that they exhibited a specific pattern of changes whenever she was having the pains she had come into the center with. These signs, as it turned out, were "marked ST-segment depressions" commonly associated with the condition of coronary artery ischemia.

Therefore, the patient was sent for a procedure to scan this vital artery in more detail on the strength of these readings. It resulted in a clear image of stenosis (or narrowing) in the left main stem of the vessel, with an additional obstruction in another part of it leading off from there.

These potentially dangerous anomalies were promptly treated with a coronary stent, and the patient was able to leave the center the next day. This case, then, may be yet another point in favor of wearables in real-world, clinical-grade diagnosis. Some analysts believe that this prospect is yet to become apparent; however, it sometimes seems that vision of the future is already here.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-04 14:26:12|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

ULAN BATOR, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's National Center for Communicable Disease (NCCD) confirmed on Monday one more case of COVID-19, raising the total number of the confirmed cases to 40 in the country.

The latest case is one of more than 260 Mongolian nationals who returned to their homeland on a chartered flight from COVID-19-hit European countries on Sunday morning, NCCD Chief Dulmaa Nyamkhuu said at a daily press conference.

In addition, two people have recovered from the disease, bringing the total number of recoveries to 12, according to the official.

All confirmed cases, including four foreign nationals, are imported, said the NCCD. No local transmissions have been reported in Mongolia so far. Enditem
Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, as studies increase to find a cure or a vaccine for the deadly disease, new and creative hypotheses are surfacing on the internet. Case in point, an Indian-American Doctor in Kansas City has initiated a study to infer if 'remote intercessory prayer' can heal those infected by the Coronavirus.

 iStock

Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy launched the study involving 1,000 patients in the ICU. During the course of the study, there will be no change in standard care. There shall be 2 groups of 500 each with prayers offered for one of the groups. Neither group will know about these prayers.



The study is going to focus on "the role of remote intercessory multi-denominational prayer on clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients," according to a description provided to the National Institute of Health, as per a PTI report.

 iStock

These patients will be apparently receiving a "universal" prayer offered in five denominational forms -- Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism.



"We all believe in science, and we also believe in faith," Lakkireddy said.

 iStock

"If there is a supernatural power, which a lot of us believe, would that power of prayer and divine intervention change the outcomes in a concerted fashion? That was our question," he further added.



He admitted that even he was clueless as to how the study was going to proceed. "But it's not like we're putting anyone at risk. A miracle could happen. There's always hope, right?" he went on to say.

Lakkireddy, who describes himself as a born Hindu, later attended a Catholic school and also spent time at synagogues, monasteries, and mosques. He believes that the purpose of the study is to question: "If there is a supernatural power, which a lot of us believe, would that power of prayer and divine intervention change the outcomes in a concerted fashion?

 iStock

The study, however, will also put full focus on giving the COVID-19 patients the same treatments as protocol. He admits to having received mixed reactions from his colleagues for this study.



However, it's not likely that the findings from his study will make a significant impact in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the Serum Institute Of India claims that they'll have a vaccine ready for COVID-19 soon.
The CCP virus has killed over 240,000 people across the globe, and paralyzed economies.

Beijing has been slapped with around 10 lawsuits, from Missouri and Mississipi, to private companies in Europe, to UK Leader Boris Johnson.

According to experts, China has violated articles Six and Seven of the International Health Regulations. The IHR is a Treaty that China signed and is legally obliged to uphold.

In France, members of parliament want to bring the regime to justice. Guillaume Peltier, vice president of a conservative parliament group, is one of them.

CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus.
Passengers arriving at Vienna International Airport will be offered an on-site coronavirus test, a report said.

Passengers arriving at the airport have been required to present a health certificate showing a negative Covid-19 result which is no older than four days, or go into quarantine, said a report in eTurboNews

Starting May 5, passengers can opt for the on-site express test and get the result in two to three hours, it said.

Austrian health officials require everyone arriving in the country by air to provide a health certificate ensuring they are not carrying Covid-19 virus.

The express test, which costs 190 ($208.4), will also be available to people leaving Austria who may need a certificate to travel to another country with similar entry requirements, the report said.